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Russell, George William
The hero in man.
CO
PR
6035-
1 90S
e Orpheus Series.
No. I.
THE
HERO IN MAN
BY
A. E.
6 d -
Published by
D. N. Dunlop, Ashdale, Warwick Drive, Hale, Cheshire,
and
Clifford Bax, Ivy Bank, Hampstead, London, N.W.
fcs:
THE HERO IN MAN
PRELUDE.
A.a/A7ra8ta 'c^oires SmSaxroi'O'tv 'aA.A.TjAoi?. PLATO.
E who live in the great cities
could not altogether avoid,
even if we would, a certain
association with the interests
of our time. Wherever we
go the minds of men are
feverishly debating some new political measure
or some new scheme for the reconstruction of
society. Now, as in olden times, the rumours
of an impending war will engulf the subtler
interests of men, and unless we are willing to
forego all intercourse we find ourselves in-
volved in a hundred sympathies. A friendly
group will gather one evening and open their
thoughts concerning the experiences of the
soul ; they will often declare that only these
matters are of profound interest, and yet on
the morrow the most of them regard the
enthusiasms of the mind as far away, unprac-
tical, not of immediate account. But even at
noon the stars are above us and because a
man in material difficulties cannot evoke the
highest experiences that he has known they
have not become less real. They pertain to
his immortal nature and if in the circumstance
of life he loses memory of them it is because
he is likewise mortal. In the measure that
we develop our interior selves philosophy be-
comes the most permanent of our interests
and it may well be that the whole aim of Man
is to acquire an unbroken and ever-broadening
realisation of the Supreme Spirit so that in a
far-off day he may become the master of all
imaginable conditions. He, therefore, who
brings us back to our central selves and shows
us that however far we may wander it is
these high thoughts which are truly the most
real he is of all men our greatest benefactor.
Now those who thus care for the spiritual
aspect of life are of two kinds, the intel-
lectual and the imaginative. There are men
of keen intellect who comprehend some
philosophic system, who will defend it with
elaborate reasonings and proclaim themselves
its adherents, but the earth at their feet, the
stars in the firmament, man himself and their
own souls have undergone no transfiguration.
Their philosophies are lifeless, for imagination
is to the intellect what breath is to the body.
Thoughts that never glow with imagination,
that are never applied to all that the sense
perceives or the mind remembers thoughts
that remain quite abstract, are as empty husks
of no value.
But there are those who have studied by
the light of imagination and these know well
that the inner life of thought, of experiment,
and of wonder, though it may often be over-
clouded, is the only life which can henceforth
give them content. They know that it was
not when they were most immersed in the
affairs of the day but rather when the whole
world appeared for a little while to be pulsating
with an almost uncontainable splendour, that
they were most alive. For the best mood
we have ever known, though it be lost for
long, is yet the clearest revelation of our true
selves, and it is then that we learn most
nearly what marvels life may hold.
If we read with imagination the Dialogues
of Plato we dwell for a while among those
ardent Greeks for whom the universe was
changed by the words of the poet-philoso-
pher. So too when we read the letter that
was written by Plotinus to Flaccus, perhaps
the serenest height the human soul has ever
attained, we become ourselves the recipients.
In either case we feel that we have lived in
the presence of a princely soul. It is an in-
spiration to realise that we are of the one
race with these and may look out on the
same beauty of earth and heaven.
Yet the magic of the mind is not enduring
and to dream overlong of a bygone beauty
is to make sorrowful the present. What
imaginative reader of Plato but has desired
with a fruitless ardour that he might in truth
have been numbered with those who walked
on the daisied lawns of the Academy, might
in truth have heard the voice of the hardly
human initiate, have seen him face to face,
have responded to the influence of his
presence ? who but would willingly translate
his life to another century if he could but hear
Plotinus endeavouring to describe in human
language an ecstasy which makes of man a
god?
I know that one may easily injure what-
ever one most loves by speaking of it in
superlative praise to those who as yet remain
aloof with interest unaroused, but for me it
is hard to refrain from an expression of that
admiration, and I would fain say also that
affection, which burns up within me when I
read the writings of A. E. For they cause
me to think of him as one of those rare spirits
who bring to men the realisation of their own
divinity, who make the spiritual life seem
adventurous, attractive, and vivid, so that we
go forth into the world with a new interest
and a new joy at heart. That, as I have
sought to show in the opening of this note,
is the greatest of all things that anyone can
do. The life of such a man makes beautiful
the generation with which it coincides. If
we penetrate the human words and inhabit,
so far as we are able, the mood which was
passing in the soul as it shaped them, we may
learn from the reveries that are here reprinted
how to the mystic of this material age the
world remains equally wonderful and human
life equally holy as either seemed in the far-
off days when beauty was more greatly
desired. For of deeper value at all times
than any particular thought is the pervading
mood. Perhaps the reader will remember
here the following passage by Robert Louis
Stevenson : " Such are the best teachers ; a
dogma learned is only a new error the old
one was perhaps as good ; but a spirit com-
municated is a perpetual possession. These
best teachers climb beyond teaching to the
plane of art ; it is themselves, and what is
best in themselves, that they communicate."
To read the essays that follow, or the three
volumes of poetry that A. E. has published,
is to recognise one who has endeavoured
always to communicate the " best in himself,"
and the mood which they induce is a mood
from which we may see the world once more
in its primal beauty, may recover a sense
of the long- forgotten and inextinguishable
grandeur of the soul.
CLIFFORD BAX.
April, 1909.
THE HERO IN MAN.
I.
HERE sometimes comes on
us a mood of strange rever-
ence for people and things
which in less contemplative
hours we hold to be un-
worthy; and in such mo-
ments we may set side by side the head of
Christ and the head of an outcast, and there
is an equal radiance around each, which
makes of the darker face a shadow and is
itself a shadow around the head of light.
We feel a fundamental unity of purpose in
their presence here, and would as willingly
pay homage to the one who has fallen as to
him who has become a master of life. I
know that immemorial order decrees that the
10
laurel and the crown be given only to the
victor, but in these moments 1 speak of a
profound intuition changes the decree and
sets the aureole on both alike.
We feel such deep pity for the fallen that
there must needs be a justice in it, for these
diviner feelings are wise in themselves and
do not vaguely arise. They are lights from
the Father. A justice lies in uttermost pity
and forgiveness, even when we seem to our-
selves to be most deeply wronged ; or why
is it that the awakening of resentment or
hate brings such swift contrition ? We are
ever self-condemned ; and the dark thought
which went forth in us brooding revenge, when
suddenly smitten by the light, withdraws and
hides within itself in awful penitence. In
asking myself why it is that the meanest are
safe from our condemnation when we sit on
the true seat of judgment in the heart, it
seemed to me that their shield was the sense
we have of a nobility hidden in them under
the cover of ignoble things ; that their present
darkness was the result of some too weighty
heroic labour undertaken long ago by the
human spirit ; that it was the consecration of
past purpose which played with such a tender
light about their ruined lives, and it was more
pathetic because this nobleness was all un-
ii
known to the fallen and the heroic cause of
so much pain was forgotten in life's prison-
house.
While feeling the service to us of the great
ethical ideals which have been formulated
by men, I think that the idea of justice intel-
lectually conceived tends to beget a certain
hardness of the heart. It is true that men
have done wrong hence their pain : but back
of all this there is something infinitely soothing,
a light which does not wound, which says no
harsh thing, even although the darkest of
spirits turns to it in its agony, for the darkest
of human spirits has still around him this first
glory which shines from a deeper being within,
whose history may be told as the legend of the
Hero in Man.
Among the many immortals with whom
ancient myth peopled the spiritual sphere of
humanity are some figures which draw to
themselves a more profound tenderness than
the rest. Not Aphrodite rising in beauty
from the faery foam of the first seas, not
Apollo with sweetest singing, laughter, and
youth, not the wielder of the lightning, could
exact the reverence accorded to the lonely
Titan chained on the mountain, or to that
bowed figure heavy with the burden of the
sins of the world ; for the brighter divinities
12
had no part in the labour of man, no such
intimate relation with the wherefore of his
own existence so full of struggle. The more
radiant figures are prophecies to him of his
destiny, but the Titan and the Christ are a
revelation of his more immediate state ; their
giant sorrows companion his own, and in con-
templating them he awakens what is noblest
in his own nature ; or, in other words, in
understanding their divine heroism he under-
stands himself. For this in truth it seems
to me to mean : all knowledge is a revelation
of the self to the self, and our* deepest compre-
hension of the seemingly apart divine is
also our furthest inroad to self-knowledge ;
Prometheus, Christ, are in every heart ; the
story of one is the story of all ; the Titan
and the Crucified are humanity.
If, then, we consider them as representing
the human spirit and disentangle from the
myths their meaning, we shall find that
whatever reverence is due to that heroic love
which descended from heaven for the redeem-
ing of a lower nature, must be paid to every
human being. Christ is incarnate in all
humanity. Prometheus is bound for ever
within us. They are the same. They are a
host, and the divine incarnation was not spoken
of one, but of all those who descending into
the lower world tried to change it into the
divine image and to wrest out of chaos a
kingdom for the empire of light. The angels
saw below them in chaos a senseless rout blind
with elemental passion for ever warring with
discordant cries which broke in upon the world
of divine beauty ; and that the pain might
depart, they grew rebellious in the Master's
peace, and descending to earth the angelic
lights were crucified in men ; leaving so
radiant worlds, such a light of beauty, for
earth's grey twilight filled with tears, that
through this elemental life might breathe the
starry music brought from Him. If the
"Foreseer" be a true name for the Titan, it
follows that in the host which he represents
was a light which well foreknew all the dark
paths of its journey ; foreseeing the bitter
struggle with a hostile nature, but foreseeing
perhaps a gain, a distant glory o'er the hills
of sorrow, and that chaos, divine and trans-
formed, with only gentle breathing, lit up by
the Christ-soul of the universe. There is a
transforming power in the thought itself: we
can no longer condemn the fallen, they who
laid aside their thrones of ancient power, their
spirit ecstasy and beauty, on such a mission.
Perhaps those who sank lowest did so to raise
a greater burden, and of these most fallen it
14
may in the hour of their resurrection be said,
" The last shall be first."
So, placing side by side the head of the
outcast with the head of Christ, it has this
equal beauty with as bright a glory it sped
from the Father in ages past on its redeeming
labour. Of his present darkness what shall
we say? "He is altogether dead in sin?"
Nay, rather with tenderness forbear, and think
that the foreseeing spirit has taken its own
dread path to mastery ; that that which fore-
saw the sorrow foresaw also beyond it a
greater joy and a mightier existence, when it
would rise again in a new robe, woven out of
the treasure hidden in the deep of its sub-
mergence, and shine at last like the stars of the
morning triumphant among the Sons of God.
II.
OUR deepest life is when we are alone.
We think most truly, love best, when isolated
from the outer world in that mystic abyss
we call soul. Nothing external can equal
the fulness of these moments. We may sit
in the blue twilight with a friend, or bend
together by the hearth, half whispering, or
in a silence populous with loving thoughts
mutually understood ; then we may feel happy
15
and at peace, but it is only because we are
lulled by a semblance to deeper intimacies.
When we think of a friend, and the loved one
draws nigh, we sometimes feel half-pained, for
we touched something in our solitude which
the living presence shut out ; we seem more
apart, and would fain wave them away and
cry, " Call me not forth from this ; I am no
more a spirit if I leave my throne." But
these moods, though lit up by intuitions of
the true, are too partial, they belong too
much to the twilight of the heart, they have
too dreamy a temper to serve us well in life.
We should wish rather for our thoughts a
directness such as belongs to the messengers
of the gods, swift, beautiful, flashing presences
bent on purposes well understood.
What we need is that thrs interior tender-
ness shall be elevated into seership, that what
in most is only yearning or blind love shall
see clearly its way and hope. To this end we
have to observe more intently the nature of
the interior life. We find, indeed, that it is
not a solitude at all, but dense with multitu-
dinous being : instead of being alone we are in
the thronged highways of existence. For our
guidance when entering here many words of
warning have been uttered, laws have been
outlined, and beings full of wonder, terror, and
16
beauty described. Yet there is a spirit in us
deeper than our intellectual being which I
think of as the Hero in man, who feels the
nobility of its place in the midst of all this, and
who would fain equal the greatness of percep-
tion with deeds as great. The weariness and
sense of futility which often falls upon the
mystic after much thought is due to this, that
he has not recognised that he must be worker
as well as seer, that here he has duties demand-
ing a more sustained endurance just as the
inner life is so much vaster and more intense
than the life he has left behind.
Now the duties which can be taken up by
the soul are exactly those which it feels most
inadequate to perform when acting as an
embodied being. What shall be done to quiet
the heart-cry of the world : how answer the
dumb appeal for help we so often divine below
eyes that laugh ? It is the saddest of all
sorrows to think that pity with no hands to
heal, that love without a voice to speak,
should helplessly heap their pain upon pain
while earth shall endure. But there is a
truth about sorrow which I think may make it
seem not so hopeless. There are fewer barriers
than we think : there is, in truth, an inner
alliance between the soul who would fain give
and the soul who is in need. Nature has well
provided that not one golden ray of all our
thoughts is sped ineffective through the dark ;
not one drop of the magical elixirs love distils
is wasted. Let us consider how this may be.
There is a habit we nearly all have indulged
in. We weave little stones in our minds,
expending love and pity upon the imaginary
beings we have created, and I have been led
to think that many of these are not imaginary,
that somewhere in the world beings are livin{
just in that way, and we merely reform an<
live over again in our life the story of another
life. Sometimes these faraway intimates
assume so vivid a shape, they come so near
with their appeal for sympathy that the pic-
tures are unforgettable ; and the more I ponder
over them the more it seems to me that they
often convey the actual need of some soul
whose cry for comfort has gone out into the
vast, perhaps to meet with an answer, perhaps
to hear only silence. I will supply an instance.
I see a child, a curious, delicate little thing,
seated on the doorstep of a house. It is an
alley in some great city, and there is a gloom
of evening and vapour over the sky. I see
the child is bending over the path ; he is pick-
ing cinders and arranging them, and as I
ponder, I become aware that he is laying
down in gritty lines the walls of a house, the
18
mansion of his dream. Here spread along
the pavement are large rooms, these for his
friends, and a tiny room in the centre, that is
his own. So his thought plays. Just then I
catch a glimpse of the corduroy trousers of
a passing workman, and a heavy boot crushes
through the cinders. I feel the pain in the
child's heart as he shrinks back, his little love-
lit house of dreams all rudely shattered. Ah,
poor child, building the City Beautiful out of
a few cinders, yet nigher, truer in intent than
many a stately, gold-rich palace reared by
princes, thou wert not forgotten by that mighty
spirit who lives through the falling of empires,
whose home has been in many a ruined heart.
Surely it was to bring comfort to hearts like
thine that that most noble of all meditations
was ordained by the Buddha. "He Ids his
mind pervade one quarter of the world with
thoughts of Love, and so the second, and so the
third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole
wide world, above, below, around, and every-
where, does he continue to pervade with heart of
Love far-reaching, grown great and beyond
measure"
That love, though the very fairy breath of
life, should by itself and so imparted have a
sustaining power some may question, not
those who have felt the sunlight fall from
19
distant friends who think of them ; but, to
make clearer how it seems to me to act, I
say that love, Eros, is a being. It is more
than a power of the soul, though it is that
also ; it has a universal life of its own, and
just as the dark heaving waters do not know
what jewel lights they reflect with blinding
radiance, so the soul, partially absorbing and
feeling the ray of Eros within it, does not
know that often a part of its nature nearer to
the sun of love shines with a brilliant light to
other eyes than its own. Many people move
unconscious of their own charm, unknowing of
the beauty and power they seem to others to
impart. It is some past attainment of the
soul, a jewel won in some old battle which it
may have forgotten, but none the less this
gleams on its tiara and the star-flame inspires
others to hope and victory.
If it is true here that many exert a spiritual
influence they are unconscious of, it is still
truer of the spheres within. Once the soul
has attained to any possession like love, or
persistent will, or faith, or a power of thought,
it comes into spiritual contact with others
who are struggling for these very powers.
The attainment of any of these means that
the soul is able to absorb and radiate some of
the diviner elements of being. The soul may
20
or may not be aware of the position it is
placed in or its new duties, but yet that Living
Light, having found a way into the being of
any one person, does not rest there, but sends
its rays and extends its influence on and on to
illumine the darkness of another nature. So
it comes that there are ties which bind us to
people other than those whom we meet in our
everyday life. I think they are most real
ties, most important to understand, for if we
let our lamp go out some far away who had
reached out in the dark and felt a steady will,
a persistent hope, a compassionate love, may
reach out once again in an hour of need, and
finding no support may give way and fold the
hands in despair. Often we allow gloom to
overcome us and so hinder the bright rays
in their passage ; but would we do it so often
if we thought that perhaps a sadness which
besets us, we do not know why, was caused by
someone drawing nigh to us for comfort, whom
our lethargy might make feel still more his
helplessness, while our courage, our faith,
might cause " our light to shine in some other
heart which as yet has no light of its own " ?
III.
THE night was wet : and, as I was moving
down the streets, my mind was also journeying
21
on a way of its own, and the things which
were bodily present before me were no less
with me in my unseen travelling. Every now
and then a transfer would take place, and
some of the moving shadows in the street
would begin walking about in the clear interior
light. The children of the city, crouched in
the doorways, or racing through the hurrying
multitude and flashing lights, began their elfin
play again in my heart ; and that was because
I had heard these tiny outcasts shouting with
glee. I wondered if the glitter and shadow
of such sordid things were thronged with
magnificence and mystery for those who were
unaware of a greater light and deeper shade
which made up the romance and fascination
of my own life. In imagination I narrowed
myself to their ignorance, littleness and youth,
and seemed for a moment to flit amid great
uncomprehended beings and a dim wonderful
city of palaces.
Then another transfer took place and I
was pondering anew, for a face I had seen
flickering through the warm wet mist haunted
me ; it entered into the realm of the inter-
preter, and I was made aware by the pale
cheeks, and by the close-shut lips of pain, and
by some inward knowledge, that there the
Tree of Life was beginning to grow, and I
22
wondered why it is that it always springs up
through a heart in ashes : I wondered also if
that which springs up, which in itself is an
immortal joy, has knowledge that its shoots
are piercing through such anguish ; or again,
if it was the piercing of the shoots which
caused the pain, and if every throb of the
beautiful flame darting upward to blossom
meant the perishing of some more earthly
growth which had kept the heart in shadow.
Seeing too how many thoughts spring up
from such a simple thing, I questioned whether
that which started the impulse had any share
in the outcome, and if these musings of mine
in any way affected their subject. I then
began thinking about those secret ties on
which I have speculated before, and in the
darkness my heart grew suddenly warm and
glowing, for I had chanced upon one of those
shining imaginations which are the wealth of
those who travel upon the hidden ways. In
describing that which comes to us all at once,
there is a difficulty in choosing between what
is first and what is last to say : but, interpret-
ing as best I can, I seemed to behold the
onward movement of a Light, one among
many Lights, all living, throbbing, now dim
with perturbations, and now again clear, and
all subtly woven together, outwardly in some
23
more shadowy shining, and inwardly in a
greater fire, which, though it was invisible, I
knew to be the Lamp of the World. This
Light which I beheld I felt to be a human
soul, and these perturbations which dimmed
it were its struggles and passionate longings
for something, and that was for a more
brilliant shining of the light within itself. It
was in love with its own beauty, enraptured
by its own lucidity ; and I saw that as these
things were more beloved they grew paler,
for this light is the love which the Mighty
Mother has in her heart for her children, and
she means that it shall go through each one
unto all, and whoever restrains it in himself
is himself shut out ; not that the great heart
has ceased in its love for that soul, but that
the soul has shut itself off from influx, for
every imagination of man is the opening or
the closing of a door to the divine world : now
he is solitary, cut off, and, seemingly to him-
self, on the desert and distant verge of things :
and then his thought throws open the swift
portals ; he hears the chant of the seraphs in
his heart, and he is made luminous by the
lighting of a sudden aureole. This soul which
I watched seemed to have learned at last the
secret love : for, in the anguish begotten by
its loss, it followed the departing glory in
24
penitence to the inmost shrine where it ceased
altogether ; and because it seemed utterly lost
and hopeless of attainment and capriciously
denied to the seeker, a profound pity arose in
the soul for those who, like it were seeking,
but still in hope, for they had not come to the
vain end of their endeavours. I understood
that such pity is the last of the precious
essences which make up the elixir of immor-
tality, and when it is poured into the cup it is
ready for drinking. And so it was with this
soul which grew brilliant with the passage of
the eternal light through its new purity of self-
oblivion, and joyful in the comprehension of
the mystery of the secret love, which, though
it has been declared many times by the
greatest of teachers among men, is yet never
known truly unless the Mighty Mother has
herself breathed it in the heart.
And now that the soul had divined this
secret, the shadowy shining which was woven
in bonds of union between it and its fellow-
lights grew clearer ; and a multitude of these
strands were, so it seemed, strengthened and
placed in its keeping : along these it was to
send the message of the wisdom and the love
which were the secret sweetness of its own
being. Then a spiritual tragedy began, in-
finitely more pathetic than the old desolation,
because it was brought about by the very
nobility of the spirit. This soul, shedding its
love like rays of glory, seemed itself the centre
of a ring of wounding spears : it sent forth
love and the arrowy response came hate-
impelled : it whispered peace and was answered
by the clash of rebellion : and to all this for
defence it could only bare more openly its
heart that a profounder love from the Mother
Nature might pass through upon the rest. I
knew this was what a teacher, who wrote long
ago, meant when he said : " Put on the whole
armour of God," which is love and endurance,
for the truly divine children of the Flame are
not armed otherwise : and of those protests,
sent up in ignorance or rebellion against the
whisper of the wisdom, I saw that some melted
in the fierce and tender heat of the heart, and
there came in their stead a golden response
which made closer the ties, and drew these
souls upward to an understanding and to share
in the overshadowing nature. And this is
part of the plan of the Great Alchemist,
whereby the red ruby of the heart is trans-
muted into the tenderer light of the opal ; for
the beholding of love made bare acts like the
flame of the furnace : and the dissolving pas-
sions, through an anguish of remorse, the
lightnings of pain, and through an adoring
26
pity, are changed into the image they con-
template, and melt in the ecstasy of self-
forgetful love, the spirit which lit the thorn-
crowned brows, which perceived only in its
last agony the retribution due to its tormentors,
and cried out, " Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do."
Now although the love of the few may
alleviate the hurt due to the ignorance of
the mass, it is not in the power of anyone to
withstand for ever this warfare ; for by the
perpetual wounding of the inner nature it is
so wearied that the spirit must withdraw from
a tabernacle grown too frail to support the
increase of light within and the jarring of the
demoniac nature without; and at length comes
the call which means, for a while, release, and
a deep rest in regions beyond the paradise of
lesser souls. So, withdrawn into the Divine
Darkness, vanished the Light of my dream.
And now it seemed as if this wonderful weft
of souls intertwining as one being must come
to naught ; and all those who through the
gloom had nourished a longing for the light
would stretch out hands in vain for guidance :
but that I did not understand the love of the
Mother, and that although few, there is no
decaying of her heroic brood ; for, as the seer
of old caught at the mantle of him who went
27
up in the fiery chariot, so another took up the
burden and gathered the shining strands
together : and to this sequence of spiritual
guides there is no ending.
Here I may say that the love of the Mother,
which, acting through the burnished will of the
hero, is wrought to highest uses, is in reality
everywhere, and pervades with profoundest
tenderness the homeliest circumstance of
daily life ; and there is not lacking, even
among the humblest, an understanding of the
spiritual tragedy which follows upon every
effort of the divine nature bowing itself down
in pity to our shadowy sphere ; an under-
standing in which the nature of the love is
gauged through the extent of the sacrifice and
the pain which is overcome. I recall the
instance of an old Irish peasant, who, as he
lay in hospital wakeful from a grinding pain
in his leg, forgot himself in making drawings,
rude yet reverently done, of incidents in the
life of the Galilean teacher. One of these
which he showed me was a crucifixion, where,
amidst much grotesque symbolism, were some
tracings which indicated a purely beautiful
intuition ; the heart of this crucified figure, no
less than the brow, was wreathed about with
thorns and radiant with light : " For that,"
said he, " was where he really suffered."
28
When I think of this old man, bringing forget-
fulness of his own bodily pain through con-
templation of the spiritual suffering of his
Master, my memory of him shines with some-
thing of the transcendent light he himself
perceived ; for I feel that some suffering of
his own, nobly undergone, had given him
understanding, and he had laid his heart in
love against the Heart of Many Sorrows,
seeing it wounded by unnumbered spears yet
burning with undying love.
Though much may be learned by obser-
vance of the superficial life and actions of a
spiritual teacher, it is only in the deeper life
of meditation and imagination that it can
be truly realised ; for the soul is a midnight
blossom which opens its leaves in dream,
and its perfect bloom is unfolded only where
another sun shines in another heaven : there
it feels what celestial 'dews descend on it,
and what influences draw it up to its divine
archetype : here in the shadow of earth root
intercoms with root and the finer distinctions
of the blossom are not perceived. If we knew
also who they really are, who sometimes in
silence, and sometimes with the eyes of the
world at gaze, take upon them the mantle of
teacher, an unutterable awe would prevail
for underneath a bodily presence not in any
29
sense beautiful may burn the glory of some
ancient divinity, some hero who has laid aside
his sceptre in the enchanted land to rescue
old-time comrades fallen into oblivion : or
again, if we had the insight of the simple old
peasant into the nature of this enduring love,
out of the exquisite and poignant emotions
kindled would arise the flame of a passionate
love which would endure long aeons of anguish
that it might shield, though but for a little,
the kingly hearts who may not shield
themselves.
But I too, who write, have launched the
rebellious spear, or in lethargy have ofttimes
gone down the great drift numbering myself
among those who not being with must needs
be against : therefore I make no appeal ;
they only may call who stand upon the lofty
mountains ; but I reveal the thought which
arose like a star in my soul with such bright
and pathetic meaning, leaving it to you who
read to approve and apply it.
THE ORPHEUS SERIES, ETC.
This series of booklets will be issued in
connection with " Orpheus," a Quarterly
Magazine of Mystical Art, which may be
had for four shillings and sixpence a year.
It is hoped that some of the succeeding
numbers may also be composed of reprints
from the early writings of A. E. The
following is a list of the books that A. E.
has at present published :
VERSE:
" The Earth-Breath." John Lane
" Homeward Songs by the Way."
John Lane
" The Divine Vision." Macmillan
PROSE :
" The Mask of Apollo" (Dream-Stories).
Macmillan
" Some Irish Essays " (The Tower Press
Series, No. I.) Maunsell, Dublin
Women's Printing Society, Ltd., 31, 33 35, Brick Street, W
Russell, George William
The hero in man, by
A. E. c pseud. 3
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
