An American correspondent going home from the field in Europe "the long way around," met an old Persian Master on the road to Damascus. With the sage was his nearest disciple, also a Persian; in fact, the young man was so loved that he had been changed from discipleship into sonship. This young Persian became very devoted to the American. They stood together for a moment in silence, when the time for parting came. The old Master drew near and said:
"It is good to see you place your hands together. To me it is a symbol of the marriage of the East and West, for the East and West must mate. Long ago the East went up to God and the West went down to men. The East has learned Vision and the West has learned Action. These two must meet and mate again for the glory of God and the splendour of earth. The East has lifted its soul to the hills and held fast to its memory of the Father's house. The West has descended into the folds of the valley, and won from agony and isolation its efficacy in material things. And now the mystic is looking down and the materialist is looking up. Soon their hands shall join—like your two hands in mine—and there shall be great joy in the Father's House."
9
STEVE
Steve and I were camping together for a few weeks on the Southern California strand. One morning he looked up from the pages of a book in his hands and remarked:
"This fellow is one of us."
The book was Youth, by Joseph Conrad.
"I haven't read a book for a long time," Steve added. "There are three stories in this. I've read only one—Heart of Darkness—in fact, I haven't finished that.... You have to fall into this Conrad and be his—to get him. You let your mind open into a cup, and presently after six or seven pages, you find it brimming. If you fall into him deep enough, you get almost what he sees—not quite though. No reader ever does. But you get something intense, fascinating, a restlessness, a terror. You find that all your somnolence and inertia has caught fire."