Absolutely the concept of the new Democracy demands the coming of a great Unifier—a focal point for all world movements and interests and aspirations. The story of a Master's coming is the ultimate Romance—the finest story in the world—for that in itself is the story of Regeneration.
The work of this particular volume seems to be ended. Much that is prepared need not be used. Right here is the breathing-space that always comes in a life or a book.... Not to stay.... Some of our boys are off to the trenches; others may go. Part of the original group has been unable yet to follow the centre to the West. Our good Gobind[20] who belonged to the pith of things, arose from one breakfast and went off to join the cavalry. There's a group in Chicago that we see all too little of—a diffusion time truly, but only to make more certain the time of integration again.
There is one who came, changing all. We thought we knew much about the world. We thought mainly that things were settled for us. It was not words she brought, but a subtler quickening. I cannot tell it exactly. There was a day in which I was bored, not satisfied, and another when I was a child again—breathless, questing, listening for some one to tell me stories of another and better country. All that I had done and been and lived was diminished; more, all behind was utterly done, leaving scarcely any criteria for that which was to be.... No inland lake would do after that; we wanted a continental headland, the sweep of the earth and sky—sidereal time, sidereal space. We could only tolerate the quest of the Impossible after she came.
... She came and wrote her book through the summer days and then she went away.... Somehow after that we knew what rains and sunlight meant—what all nature was saying and doing. At least, we knew better.... Not to stay. We could not follow continually, but at last out of loneliness, the big new laughing wonder of life came to us ... and when we told her, she seemed to have known all the time....
We teach by making pictures. She brought new pigments and freshened all the oils. We loved the tints and half-tones before she came, but she restored us to the virgin beauty of the primal rays. We liked the blends before she came—the blend of rose and gold, but she brought us length of vision and redemption of taste to know the meaning of the Ultimate Red, the red of the Pomegranate, the red of the Inspired Mary, to whose knees at the last all artists and little children find their way—the passionate red of the Quest and the Cross and the Son. She was not surprised when we told her what her gifts mean to us.
An artist gives himself full-heartedly to the emotions. Keen and poignant afterward, is the battle to straighten them out, to comb them down. The mind holds the truth about it all, the spirit sings all around, but the heart holds fast to its agonising play of passion settings.
Desire is like an old King, sitting in the midst of his dogs, a King by the fire in his tower. The Shining Heir is born, but the old King is slow to die. He sits thinking of his old hunts, his rides to kill, old wars and faces at the window.... He rode well; he thought he loved very well; a great name, he was, in the hunts, and in all the games of getting. He meditates now upon his one-time conquests, and forgets his pain. It is his memories that hold him fast to life a little while. But at last the head of old King Desire sinks to his breast, the fire fades from his last memory. The door of the tower room opens, the Shining Prince is standing there, and the criers run through the palace crying aloud, "The King is dead. Long live the King!" Desire has ended; the Bestower takes the throne.
When we told her of this new breath of life which she had brought, our Mary seemed to know all about that, too. She smiled and looked away when we showed her this book (and the inscription to her), so many pages of which she had read before—our dreams for the New Race unfolded in letters to her.