It was night. I lay upon a bank of sweet-smelling gra.s.ses, and about me were the great oaks. The organ, or the waves, spoke on.
I looked up, up, into the great circle of the sky, so far, so blue, so kind in its bending over, so pitying it seemed to me, yet so high in its up-reaching. I looked upon the glorious pageant of the stars.
"That star," thought I, "shone over the grave of some ancestor of mine; back, back in the unmirrored past, some father of some father of mine. He is gone, like a fly. He is dust. I may be lying on his grave. Soon, like a fly, I, too, shall be dead, gone, turned into dust. But the star will still shine on. Small as that father"s dust may be, that dust still lives. It is about me. This gra.s.s, these trees, may hold it. He has lived again in the cycle of natural forces. My dust, when I am dead, will in turn make part of this world, one of an unknown sea of stars.
Small then, as I am, I am kin to that star. The stars go on.
Nature goes on. Then shall man--shall I--"
"Ah," said the Singing Mouse, its voice sounding I knew not whence; "from this place can you see?"
So now I thought I began to see what I had not seen before. And since this was in the land of the Singing Mouse, I sought to find no name for what I saw, nor tried to measure it. What one man sees is not what another sees. Shall one claim wisdom beyond his neighbor? Are not the stars his also, and the trees his, to talk with him? Are not the doors always open? Does not the music of the organ ever roll, do not the voices always rise?
Had it not been for the Singing Mouse I should not have thought these things.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Where the City Went]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
WHERE THE CITY WENT
One day there was a white frost that fell upon the city, lasting for many hours, so that a strange thing happened, at which men wondered very much. The city put aside its colors of black and brown and gray, and dressed itself in silvery white. No stone nor brick was seen except in this silvern frosty color. All the spires were glittering in silver, and all the columns bore traceries as though the hands of spirits had labored long and delicately and had seen their tender fretwork frozen softly but for ever into silver. The gross city had put aside corporeal things, and for once its spirit shone fair and radiant; so that men said no such thing had ever been before.
That evening the frost still remained, and as the night came on a mist fell upon the city. From the windows men looked out, and lo! the beautiful city so made spiritual was vanishing. One by one the great buildings, the tall spires, the lofty columns had faded into a white dream, dimmer, fainter, less and less perceptible, seen through a gentle envelope of whitening haze.
This thing was of a sort almost to make one tremble as he looked upon it, for the city which had been silver had turned to mist, and the mist seemed fair to turn into a dream. There are those who say it did become a dream, and afterward descended. For wanderers in desert countries tell that at times they have seen some far city of dreams, alluringly beautiful, but evanescent, intangible, unattainable, trembling and floating upon the wavering air.
Now when I saw the city thus fade away and disappear, I sat down at my table, and, as many men did that night, I wondered much at what I had seen. For surely the soul of the city had arisen.
Then the Singing Mouse came and gazed into my face.
"What you have seen is true," said the Singing Mouse. "There is no city now. It has gone. You have seen it disappear. Its soul has arisen. This does not often happen, yet it can be, for even the city has a soul if you can find it.
"But if I say the city has gone, I mean only that it has left the place where once it was. That which once was, is always, corporate or not corporate. We err only when we ask to see all with our eyes, to balance all within our hands. Come with me, and I will show you where the city went."
So now the Singing Mouse waved its hands, and I saw, though I knew not where I looked.
I saw a country where the trees grew big and where the wild-fowl came. It was where the trees had never been felled, nor had the stones ever been hewn. The sky was blue, and the water was blue, except where it played and laughed, and there it was white.
There was a small house, of a sort one has never seen, for none in the cities is like it. The blue smoke curling from the chimney named it none the less a home. I hardly knew what time or place we had come upon, for the Singing Mouse, whose voice seemed high and exalted, spoke as though much was in the past.
"This is a Home," said the Singing Mouse. "Once there were no homes. In those days there was only one fire, and it was red.
By this man sat. He sought not to see.
"Once a man sat at night and looked up at the heavens, seeking to know what the stars were saying. He besought the stars, praying to them and asking them to listen to the voice of the water, and to the voice of the oaks and to the whispers of the gra.s.ses, and to tell him why the fire of earth was red, while the fire of the stars was white.
"Now, while this man besought the stars, to him a strange thing happened. As he looked up he saw falling from the heavens above him a ray of the white light of the stars. It fell near to him and lay shining like a jewel in the gra.s.s. To this the man ran at once, gladly, and took up the white light, and put it in his bosom, that the winds might not harm it. Always this man kept the white light in his bosom after that. And by its light he saw many things which till that time men had never known. This man found that this new light, with the red light that had been known, filled all his house with a great radiance, so that small strifes were not so many, and so that life became plain and sweet. This then that you see is that Home.
"This that you see around you," it continued slowly, "the large trees and the green gra.s.s, and the blue sky and the smiling waters, all this is wealth; wealth not corporate, wealth valuable, wealth that belongs to every man ever born upon the earth, and which can not of right ever be taken away from him.
Shorn of that, he is poor indeed, though not so poor as he who sh.o.r.e him. Unshorn of this, he is rich. In our land our hearts ache to see these terms misused, and that called wealth which is so far from worth the having. But here, where I have brought you, you shall see humanity undwarfed, and you shall see peace and largeness in the life which you once thought small and sordid."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Then as I looked, there stepped from the house a man, or one whom I took to be a man. This man stood in the cool, fresh morning, and gazed at the sun, now rising above the tops of the great trees. He smiled gently, and taking in each hand a little water from a tiny stream that flowed near by, he raised his hands, and still smiling, offered tribute of the water to the sun. I saw the water falling down from his hands in a small stream of silver drops, shining brightly. It was the way of the land, the Singing Mouse said; for they thought that as the water came from the sky and returned to it, so did man and the thoughts of man, and the fruits of his progress; never to be destroyed.
At all this I looked almost in fear, for the thought came that perhaps this was not Man as we knew him, but the successor of Man. "Where is this land," I asked of the Singing Mouse, "and what is this time upon which we have come?"
The Singing Mouse looked at the green trees, and at the kind sun, and at the blue sky and the pleasant waters, and it said to me slowly: "There was once a city where these trees now stand."
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bell and the Shadows]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
THE BELL AND THE SHADOWS
Melody unformulate, music immaterial, such was the voice of the Singing Mouse; faint, small and clear, a piping of fifes so fine, a touching of strings so delicate, that it seemed to come from instruments of beryl and of diamond, a phantom music, impossible to fetter with staff or bar, and past the hope of compa.s.sing in words.
It was the last night of the year, and the bell upon the church near by had made many strokes the last time it had been heard; many heavy strokes which throbbed sullenly, mournfully on the air. The presence of pa.s.sing Time was at hand. The year soon would join the years gone by. Regret, remorse, despair, abandonment, the hopelessness of humanity--was it the breath of these which arose and burdened heavily the note of the chronicling bell? Where were the chimes of joy?
"These shadows that you see are not upon the wall," said the Singing Mouse. "They are very much beyond the windows. If only we will look out from our windows, there are always great pictures waiting for us--pictures in pearl and opal, in liquid argent, in crimson and gold. But always there must be the shadows. Without these, there can be no picture anywhere.
"Have you not seen what the shadows do? Have you not seen them trooping through the oak forest in the evening, through the pine forest in open day, across the prairies under the moon at night, legions of them, armies of them? Have you never seen them march across the gra.s.s-lands in the daytime, cohort after cohort, hurrying to the call of the unseen trumpets? In the woods, have you never heard strange sounds, when you put your ear to the ground--sounds untraceable to any animate life? Have you never heard vague voices in the trees? Have you not heard distant, mysterious noises in the forest, whose cause you could never learn, seek no matter how you might? These were the voices of the shadows, the people who live there. Who else should it be to whisper and sing to you and make you happy when you are there?
Without these people, what would be the woods, the prairies, the waters, the sky, the world?
"Without the shadows, too, what would be our lives? Thoughts, thoughts and remembrances, what have we that is sweeter than these? Have you never seen the smile upon the lips of those who have died? They say they are looking upon the Future. Perhaps they look also upon the Past, and therefore smile in happiness, seeing again Youth, and Hope, and Faith, and Trust; which are tender and beautiful things. Life has no actuality of its own, and in material sense is only a continual change. But the shadows of thought and of remembrance do not change. It is only the shadows that are real."
As I pondered upon this, there pa.s.sed by many pleasant pictures upon the wall, after the way the Singing Mouse had; many pictures of days gone by, which made me think that perhaps what the Singing Mouse had said was true.
I could see the boy, sitting idle and a-dream, watching the shadows drifting across the clover fields where the big bees came. I saw the youth wandering in the woods where the squirrels lived, loitering and looking, peering into corners full of the secrets of the wild creatures, unraveling the delicious mysteries which Nature ever offers to those not yet grown old.
It was a comfortable picture, full of the brilliant greens of springtime, the mellow tints of summer, the red and russet of autumn days, the blue and white of winter. I could hear, also, sounds intimately a.s.sociated with the scenes before me; the bleat of little lambs, the low of cattle, the neighing of a distant horse.
And then both sound and scene progressed, and once more as the woods and hills grew bolder and more wild, I could hear clearly the rifle"s thin report, could note the whisper of the secret-loving paddle, the slipping of the snow-shoe on the snow, the clatter of the hoofs of horses, the baying of the bell-mouthed hounds. The delights of it all came back again, and in this varied phantom chase among the keen joys of the past, I saw as plainly and exultantly as ever in my life, the panorama of the brown woods, and the gray plains, and the purple hills--saw it distinctly, with all the old vibrant joy of youth--line for line, sound for sound, shadow for shadow, joy for joy!
And then the Singing Mouse, without wish of mine, caused these scenes to change into others of more quiet sort, which told not of the fields, but of the home. In the shadows of evening, I seemed to see a pleasant place, well surrounded by trees and flowers, the leaves of which were stirred softly in the breath of a faint summer breeze, strong enough only to carry aloft in its hands the odor of the blooming rose. This picture faded slowly. There were shadows in the s.p.a.ces between the trees.
There were shadows in the dark-growing vine which draped a column. One could only guess if he caught sight of garb or of the outline of a form among the shadows. He could only guess, too, whether he heard music, faint as the breeze, faint as the incense of the flowers. He could only guess if he had seen the image of the House Beautiful, that temple known as Home.
"Thoughts," said the Singing Mouse softly. "Thoughts and remembrances. These are the things that live for ever. It is only the shadows that are real!"
The solemn note of the bell struck in. It counted twelve. The new year had come. The chimes of joy arose. But still the faint music from the Past had not died away, and still the shadows waved and beckoned on the wall, strong and beautiful, and enduring, and not like the fading of a dream. So then I knew that what the Singing Mouse had said was true, and that it is, indeed, only the shadows that are real.