Standing there, it was as though one were vouchsafed, for a moment, a vision of the Heavenly City which enshrines the glory of God. One caught one’s breath and shivered, as at the sound of violins quivering under inspired fingers, or the voices of boys singing in a cathedral choir.
All this while a solitary, ragged-edged cloud-kite hung, almost motionless, in middle distance, over the glittering waters of the river mouth. This cloud gathered blackness and motion, spread itself out, like a dark thick veil, and, as the mist, now grey and cold, closed in, the last sparks of the dying sunset were extinguished in the distant sea.
And then I was stumbling down the path in the darkness, my eyes blinded by the glory of the vision; and as I groped through the gloom, and heard the wail of the night-wind rushing from those far-away mountains, across this lonely peak, I began to wonder whether I had not been dreaming dreams conjured up by the sadly-sweet associations of the place.
The darkness deepened, and, as I reached the dividing saddle and began to mount the opposite hill, I heard the faint jingle of a dangling coin striking metal, and I said to myself that such associations, acting on the physical weariness resulting from days of intolerable strain, followed by nights of worse regret, were enough to account for far stranger journeys in the land which lies beyond the Gates of Ivory and Horn.
II
OF WORSHIP
“THIS life—good as it can be—is horribly difficult and complicated. I feel as though I were walking in the dark, just stumbling along and groping my way—there seems to be no light to guide me—you are so far away, and there is ever that wall between us,—no higher than before, but quite as impenetrable—I wonder,—I wonder,—I wonder what the future will bring to you,—to me.”
“I think of you up there, among the soft white clouds, watching the sun setting into the sea, while the great blue hills are melting through twilight into night. Oh! there’s nothing like that beauty here,—in the West,—and I am sick for the East and all her hot, passionate loveliness; all her colour and light; all her breadth and grandeur; for her magnificent storms and life,—life on a big scale. Here everything is so small, so petty, so trivial. I want,—I want,—I want,—that’s how I feel; I am lovesick and heartsick and sick for the sun. Well, this life is nearly done, and in the next I shall at least be worshipped.”