There is a man here who has found peace. I made a pilgrimage to his house. A boy from the village went with me part of the way up the mountain. The Pacific was presently visible upon the right hand, and a spacious verdant valley on the left. I lingered a moment on the trail, rejoicing in the quiet splendour, and then noticed a vine-clad hut still farther up the slope. "That's Mr. Dreve's cabin," the boy said. I learned from him that this man Dreve was well-loved in the village and in the big city beyond; that he was a very different man now from the one who had come here a few years ago; that he was torn and maddened then, cursing God, but too stubborn to kill himself. "What helped him?" said I, because the boy had paused. "Well, it wasn't the climate," he answered. I saw he was wondering if I were worth risking the truth upon. "Did he fight it out with himself?" I asked carelessly. "Yes," said the boy, and I now met a fine straight pair of eyes.... There was an old sharp wedge to the story. Dreve's sweetheart had died—the loss twisting him to the point almost of insanity. He had climbed this mountain, it was said, and remained for three days, until the town began to search. The marshal had found him sitting up there, where the shack is now. Dreve was quiet and normal, but confessed himself hungry. He had returned to the mountain soon afterward, and built his cabin. In six months, Dreve was all changed over. He seemed to have a new body and new mind. "You said he's here four days a week," I suggested. "Yes, he goes to the city. He has a good business, but has mastered it to the point that several younger men can run it. Dreve only gives two or three days a week to business affairs, though he has been a great worker——" "He's up there now?" I asked. "Yes." "Does he mind strangers?" "Not your kind." I thanked him, and added, "Tell me—he means a lot to you, doesn't he?" "All a man could," said the boy. "I'm going back now." Dreve was middle-aged, clean-shaven, deep-eyed. Time had been driven to truce in his case. His face showed many battles, but when he spoke, a kind of new day dawned and you looked into the face of a boy. I remained with him three days. We talked of the new magic in the training of children. We talked of the New Age and the great song of joy and peace that would break across the world when troops turned home. Dreve had something. He seemed to breathe something out of the air that other men's lungs aren't trained for. He seemed to have within everything necessary for a human being, including vision and humour and a firm grasp of the world. He was at peace about God and the world; at peace also about death. Slowly it dawned upon me that this man had walked arm in arm with life to the last abyss, and that life had been forced to confess that she had nothing worse to offer, whereupon the two had become fast friends. When a man can sit tight and lose everything he formerly wanted in the sense of world possessions; when he has winnowed the last shams out We stood together in the noon sun. Dreve did not even wear a hat. "I came here in great shadow and could not bear the light," he said. "But one day I found my heart lifting a little as the sun came out. Then I found that it was really true—that sunlight helped me. The more I thought about it, the more I needed it; the more I loved it, the more its particular excellence for me unfolded. Take anything to the light, and it ceases to be formidable. Sickness is a confession. The time is at hand when schools will teach that. Sickness is a confession of ignorance which is a lack of light. If one is weak he cannot stand the light. Transplanted things must be protected from the light. St. Paul on the road to Damascus did not have enough inner light to endure the great flash from without. Light works upon evil like quicklime—that's why sunlight hurts the sick ones. It is also hostile to the utterly stupid idea of what clothing is for—clothing that thwarts and stran The sun had not only redeemed the physical shadows of Dreve's life, but symbolised the spiritual light which had come to him with the calm and power of the greater noon-day. He did not speak in exact statements of the one who was gone, but that romance, too, was like light about his head. I thought of the wonderful thing that Beatrice said which helped to heal the forlorn heart of her great lover: "I will make you forever, with me, a citizen of that Rome whereof Christ is a Roman——" And I thought of the Blessed Damosel leaning over the barrier of heaven with sweet and immortal messages for him who waited below in the very core of earth's agony. In passing, the great lovewomen bridge the Unseen for their lovers, who in their turn give to the world the mighty documents of the human heart. In passing, this woman had become everything to Dreve, so that I, a stranger, felt that he was not alone but twice-powered. All his life was a prayer to her. He brought to her spirit now the greatest gift that man can bring to his mate—the love of the world through her heart. We had walked down to the ocean. Many young people were bathing in the surf or playing on the strand. It was the presence of Dreve perhaps, but I confess that human beings never be "It's a kind of challenge to a war-stricken world, isn't it?" he asked quietly. "Aren't they splendid together—the big boys and girls of California?... Don't misunderstand me. I know the world. I'm not lost in dreams. I know well the darkness of the world. But there are great ones among the boys and girls playing together here. All are on the road, but the great ones of the Reconstruction are already here in the world—playing. "Great ones play," he repeated. "First we are labourers, then artisans, then artists, then workers—at last we learn to play. That means that we dare to be ourselves, wherein lies our real value to others—when we dare to become as little children.... Hear them laugh.... You wouldn't think this was the saddest little planet in the universe.... Look at that tall young pair of sunburnt giants! She's a Diana, conquesting again. Look at the wonder in his eyes! Perhaps it is just dawning upon him that the man who walks with this girl must walk to God. "... Oh, yes, I know," he added laughingly, "there is flippancy and a touch of the uncouth here and there—but we have all played clumsily at first." I continually marvelled at Dreve's remarkable health. His stride up the mountain-side was actually buoyant. "Did you ever feel that you could live as long as you pleased?" he asked. "No." "I think one does not learn this until after one has wanted to die. One must live above the body and not in it—in order to make it serve indefinitely—quite the same as you would climb above a street to watch a parade go by." I put that thought away for contemplation, knowing that it belonged to a certain mystery of Dreve's regeneration. "You know," he added, "one has to get very tired to want to die. Those young people down on the shore—they want to live. They are not tired. They want to cross all the rivers. They mean to miss nothing down here. They can't see through it all. It challenges them. But the time comes when everything on earth seems to betray. Then you have to turn to the Unseen for the big gamble. The world is learning it rapidly to-day. Look——" We had reached his hill-cabin. He turned from the sea to the valley. Night was falling. There was a big moss-rose plant that smelled like a harvest apple, and filled all the slope with sweet dry fragrance. There was "... It is like England," he said. "There was a development of detail in English country-life as nowhere else. I think of cherries and cattle, of strawberries with clotted cream, of sheep-dogs and sheep-tended downs and lawns, of authoritative cookery, natural service and Elizabethan inns.... Everything was regular and comfortable. One forgot to-morrow and yesterday in England before the war. I heard a dog-trainer, speaking of a pup, say, 'He's a fine indiwidual, but his breeding isn't exactly reglar.' ... With a rush it came to me that nothing in the world is regular now. England isn't a soothing pastorale any more—everything changed, demoralised—but only for the present." The dusk was stealing down from the far ridges. Our eyes were lost in the California valley which seemed to be growing deeper in the thickness of night. Almost as Dreve spoke, I expected to "Country roads and sheep upon the lawns, vine-finished stone-work, doves in the towers and under the eaves, evening bells and honest goods.... I think of the ships going forth from England, boys from the inland countries answering the call of the sea and finding their fore-and-afters and men-of-war in Plymouth or Bristol.... You know it is the things that make the romance of a country that endure? All these will come again. All the good and perfect things of the spirit of old England will come again.... Our hearts burn within to think of the yearning in the world for a peaceful valley like this.... Think, if I could take your hand now and watch the sun go down upon a peaceful world ... hear the cattle coming home and sheep in the perfumed mist of evening ... doves under the eaves and the sleepy voices of children.... I think Europe would fall to screaming and tears, and then lose its madness for strife—if the big picture of our valley at evening were placed before the battle-lines as we see it now." Dreve stared a moment longer. I fancied I saw a bone-white line under the tan, running from chin to jaw. "A woman was leaving her lover," he added. "It had to be so. Each knew that. Just as she was going, the woman said, 'I forget—I forget I wanted to get closer to Dreve's secret of peace and power. I wanted to tell it. Apparently Dreve wanted me to. Now, there's a price to pay for these big things, but many are willing to pay the price if the way is clear. Dreve had suffered all he could; then something had turned within him, and he found himself in Day again instead of Death. "It must be told differently," he began. "For instance, if I should tell you that the way is to love your neighbour as yourself, you wouldn't have anything. Whitman said, 'Happiness is the efflux of soul,' which is exactly true, but it didn't help me until I had experience. Happiness is the loss of the sense of self. You can see that clearly. All pleasure-seeking is to forget self. We loosen something inside that sets us free for a moment, and we say we've had a good time. "There are great powers within. The greater the man, the more he uses this fact. We thought of steam as a finished power until the big straight-line force of electricity was released. We can't explain it, but we have touched certain of the laws which it obeys. The materialist is inclined, as "Men have died to tell the story that happiness is radiation, not reflection—that we have it all inside, if we could only turn it loose—that all pain and fear and anger and self-illusion disappear the instant we enter the larger dimension of life, exactly as the moon goes out of sight in the presence of the incandescent sun. "I was emptied of all that life meant in the world—but something new flooded in. I saw that all was not lost, but that all was greater than I could dream; that all was waiting for fuller and finer expression. I saw that what I could do for you, or for any man or woman or child, brought me a living force of the love I was dying for. It became clear that I needed only to clear away the choking evil of self, in order to feel that I was a part of the tender and mighty Plan,—to touch the rhythm of the Source, from which all songs and heroisms and martyrdoms come. "It has all been said again and again. There comes a moment usually after much pain when the human mind realises that it is invincible when "A cold monster indeed is this electricity compared to the odic force, the dynamo of which is the human will. But the magic of it all lies in the reverse of the whole system of use. This force destroys when used for self, but constructs when it is turned outward. Here we touch the law again that happiness is in radiation—in the loss of the sense of self—in incandescence—" Dreve smiled at me with sudden revealing charm. "I would say that it was all in loving one's neighbour," he added, "except that it has been said so much.... It is true. You seemed to know it to-day on the shore. You seemed to see the great ones passing there. If the world could only know the joy of seeing the sons of God in the eyes of passing men!" Night had come. We sat at the doorway of his cabin, a waver of firelight within, stars clearing above the misty sea. "It's all play when one gets into the Plan—all pain while one resists the Plan," Dreve added slowly. "I used to think that I had a strong will; that I had good will-force, as men go. It was the will of an invalid child. If men could only "It isn't you and I who matter," he said abruptly, after a pause. "These things are for all. I know what comes afterward—to a man or to a nation—when driven to the last ditch of pain. A new dimension of power comes. That's what happens. That's what the New Age is all about. That's what the war means. We shall learn our new chastity. We shall emerge as a race into a more serene and splendid consciousness.... The price—the dead.... I could tell you something about that. One must have prayed for death to know about that. Don't think of that now—only take it from me, or from your own soul, that the big Plan is all right—that They haven't made any mistakes yet—that the loved one is only away for a time—busy—quite right—about the Father's business. Another time for that. "I can't forget them down on the Shore," Dreve finished. "That was play. It was all a laugh down there. The big forces and the big people |
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