Mrs. Oliphant

“ The air of the earth is in my eyes, I cannot see. Oh what pain it is, what misery! Was it because they loved him too much, and that he drew their hearts away?’
The Sage only shook his head at her, smiling. ‘Can one love too much?’ he said.
‘O brother, it is very hard to live and to see another—— I am confused in my mind,’ said the little Pilgrim, putting her hand to her eyes. ‘The tears of those that weep have got into my soul. To live and see another die—that was what I was saying; but the child lives like you and me. ”

“ All the little earth can do in colour and mists, and travelling shadows fleet as the breath,{183} and the sweet steadfast shining of the sun, was there, but with a tenfold splendour. They rose up into the sky, every peak and jagged rock all touched with the light and the smile of God, and every little blossom on the turf rejoicing in the warmth and freedom and peace. The heart of the little pilgrim swelled, and she cried out, ‘There is nothing so glorious as the everlasting hills. Though the valleys and the plains are sweet, they are not like them. ”

“ And where hope is not, there Thy pity goes.’ She sat and sang to herself like a happy child, for her heart had fathomed the awful gloom which baffles angels and men, and she had learned that though hope comes to an end and light fails, and the feet of the ambassadors are stayed on the mountains, and the voice of the pleaders is silenced, and darkness swallows up the world, yet Love never fails. ”

“ The little Pilgrim hung her head and cried, ‘I do not understand. Will not the Lord interfere? Will not the Father make it clear to him? Is he the judge between good and evil? Is it all in his own hand?’
The Sage spoke softly as if with awe. He said ‘This is the burden of our nature, which is not like the angels. There is none in heaven or on earth that can take from him what is his right and great honour among the creatures of God. The Father respects that which He has made. He will force no child of His. ”

“ Here and there a whiteness like a film of air rounded out over a peak, and she recognised that it was{184} one of those angels who travel far and wide with God’s commissions, going to the other worlds that are in the firmament as in a sea. The softness of these films of white was like the summer clouds that she used to watch in the blue of the summer sky in the little world which none of its children can cease to love: and she wondered now whether it might not sometimes have been the same dear angels whose flight she had watched unknowing, higher than thought could soar or knowledge penetrate. ”

“ The little Pilgrim went on her way in silence, knowing that the longing in her heart which was to compel them to come in, like that king who sent to gather his guests from the highways and the hedges, could not be right since it was not the Father’s way, yet confused in her soul, and full of an eager desire to go back and wake that man and tell him all that had been in her heart while she watched him sitting on his judgment-seat. ”

“ They will see us like a lamp, and it will cheer them though they know not why we are here. Listen!’ she cried. And the little pilgrim, holding fast the hand of the watcher, listened and looked down upon the awful way; and underneath the sweep of the icy wind was a small sharp sound as of a stone rolling or a needle of rock that broke and fell, like the sounds that are in a wood when some creature moves, though too far off for footstep to sound. ”

“ As she sang, the pity in her heart grew so strong, and her desire to help the lost, that she rose up and stepped forth into the awful gloom, and, had it been permitted, in her gentleness and weakness would have gone forth to the deeps and had no fear.
The ground gave way under her feet, so dreadful was the precipice; but though her heart beat with the horror of it, and the whirl of the descent and the darkness which blinded her eyes, yet had she no hurt ”

“ If words had been possible, they would have been as His also, who said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ For those who had wounded her were those whom in all the world she loved most dear: and the quivering of anguish was in her as she walked, seeking the darkness and the silence, and to hide herself, if that might be, from her own thoughts. She went along the lonely path with the stinging of her wounds so keen and sharp that all her{152} body and soul were as one pain. Greater grief hath no man than this, to be slain and tortured by those whom he loves. ”

“ And she learned now what she had not understood, though her companion warned her, how sharp are those thorns of earth that pierce the wayfarer’s foot, and that those who come back cannot help but suffer because of love and fellow-feeling. And she learned that though she could smile and give thanks to the Father in the recollection of her own griefs that were past, yet those that are present are too poignant, and to look upon others in their hour of darkness makes His ways more hard to comprehend than even when the sorrow is your own. ”

“ Whether it is order or whether it is licence, it is according to their own will. They try all things, ever looking for something which the soul may endure. And new cities are founded from time to time, and a new endeavour ever and ever to live, only to live. For even when happiness fails and content, and work is vanity and effort is naught, it is something if a man can but endure to live.’
The little pilgrim looked at him with wistful eyes, for what he said was beyond her understanding. ‘For us,’ she said, ‘life is nothing but joy. ”

“ When I recovered my faculties a little, it was to find myself once more in the great vacant plain which surrounded that accursed home of pleasure—a great and{115} desolate waste upon which I could see no track, which my heart fainted to look at, which no longer roused any hope in me, as if it might lead to another beginning, or any place in which yet at the last it might be possible to live. As I lay in that horrible giddiness and faintness, I loathed life and this continuance which brought me through one misery after another, and forbade me to die. ”

“ He turned to her with a smile, though his ear too was intent, and his heart fixed upon the traveller in the darkness, and began to tell her his tale to beguile the time of waiting, and to hold within bounds the pity that filled her heart. He told her that he was one of many who came from the pleasant earth together, out of many countries and tongues; and how they had gone here and there each man to a different city, and how they had crossed each{195} other’s paths coming and going, yet never found rest for their feet. ”

“ She remained not there long, because there were many who sought that place that they might be the first to see if one beloved was among the travellers by that terrible way, and to welcome the brother or sister who was the most dear to them of all the children of the Father. But it was thus that she learned the last lesson of all that is in heaven and that is in earth, and in the heights above and in the depths below, which the great angels desire to look into, and all the princes and powers. And it is this: that there is that which is beyond hope yet not beyond love. ”

“ The little pilgrim was so startled by these unexpected sensations that she caught the arm of her guide in her sudden alarm, and clung to him, lest she should fall into the terrible darkness and the deep abyss below.
‘There is nothing to fear,’ he said, ‘there is a way. To us who are above there is no danger at all—and it is{186} the way of life to those who are below.’
‘I see nothing,’ she cried, ‘save a few points of rock, and the precipice—the pit which is below. ”