Part 11

They will do little according to their immediate predecessors, and much by an inner light of their own. Being wise and simple and not destructive, they will gratefully accept all that has proven true for earlier peoples. But they will instinctively have nothing at all to do with the traditions based on three-score-and-ten, or any other of the unfortunately solid viewpoints that frost the world to-day.

They love the world, have come to claim it whole, to reclaim it from deluded ancestors who were solemnly, from birth, bent upon deeding and selling and stealing and fencing in bits of the planet's surface. Forerunners of this happier race have shown themselves to be masters of materials, true workmen in the solid stuffs; but by their sense of humour they are saved from any impulse to seize and sit upon fragments of earth.

These new ones are born with an urge towards unity. Their task, to set the world in order. Their means, not so much a rearrangement of objects as a very intense activity along the roads of Beauty and Truth, in a co-operation unstudied and normal with the rest of mankind and with the Igniting Principle.

It may be observed that Beauty and Truth are too vague to produce effective action in a solid world. This is invariably a saying of the material-minded, however virtuous they may be. It is they who loudly demand a dull utility over and above Beauty, and apart from it. It is they who have agglomerated the chaos that is in this hour threshing about in dust and blood. Their sober iniquities are the fertiliser to force the seed of the New Race.

It is not a cosmic blunder that the great minds of the world are found in art, including the supreme art of mystic religion--and seldom in the arena of statecraft. The world was never managed from a senate chamber; the cosmos is not guided by a king. When rulers of the past have become great figures, that greatness usually rested upon their gift of poetry, their love of art or wisdom, or some religious quality.

Poems of twenty words have outlived the might of forty wars. A great book is a higher achievement than a sweeping political move. The dullest changeling with an obsession may set his seal upon a war to the death of ten million men, but in the few lines of a true poem are stored the honey of millenniums of human life. A genuine work of art is more potent and practical than any blood-bought wall of tribal separation, more vital and immediate than the doings of armies. To judge of this properly, one need only know both kings and poets.

Of the early kings of Rome, it is Numa who is remembered--and he was in harmony with Celestial Order. Of countless other Roman figures, the average mind turns first to Cæsar, who was a literary man, and whose passion to write outlasted every march of his legions. Greece had kings and statesmen and great generals, yet it is her wise men who stand foremost. The conquering Alexander is famed chiefly because he was the unwitting distributor of Grecian beauty. In fact, Greek history began with Homer, the poet, and American history with Columbus, the dreamer who is still our creditor. The mystics of old China reached for the Torch of Light, and they might have attained a true dominion over the planet, had not their fear-inspired kings built a Wall and gelded the Empire once for all. Gautama Buddha gave up kingcraft in order to gain a higher mastery. Mohammed lived on the Road. Jesus the Christ set free an energy in the world that is only gaining its real momentum after two thousand years--and he firmly refused a material crown.

... A hopeful dream, the poem of an autumn afternoon, the building of a sphinx or a pyramid--these are not subject to time or conditions. They remain.

So the Children who are the hope of the world are not dismayed at the medley of illusions emanating from the so-called ruling class. Emperors and premiers do not get very much done either way; they themselves abandon their own works over night. They are deserving of profound sympathy. They only spread out more manful chaos to be set straight by the master craftsmen--the artists, humorists, vitalists, mystics.... Beauty is the sun-bright flash of the Infinite.

With duty raised to a joy, and pain forgot, the Singers come, the Builders, the Quickeners of man. The Unforgettables of the so-called past were of this stock. Their leisure is deep--of a sort that sustains the finitudes.

All the good goals of yesterday are to be counted as mile-posts. Direction is more important than any imaginable goal; unvarying tendency is more direct and splendid than any creed; the white path of the quester is more precious than a stationary heaven.

The modern children cannot stop on this side of the horizon because they are creators. Life is their religion. Their rites are broad and deep as man, as ancient and reverent as time, as new as dawn.

They do not reject the Vedas. They re-fashion the Upanishads in their own hearts. They study the travels and hopes of Jesus, listen for the divine songs of Orpheus, penetrate the glitter of numbers with Pythagoras, find satisfaction in the Mohammedan thinkers who connected Aristotle with Moses. These names do not belong to the past. The many Buddhas are perpetually modern. Kabir lives to-day in Tagore. Heracleitus and Plato are still living springs.

In just the same sense, the children of the New Race are old as the Pelasgian Zeus, though in point of time they are here for work and play in 1920. But their vitality, reality, beauty, power and achievement--these are affairs of all time.

* * * * *

19

IMAGINATION

Many mystics have lost touch entirely with the deep sunken abutments of the spiritual edifice--the footings in matter. They are deeply wise in the mysteries and unfoldments of contemplation, but lose their way like mindless lambs in the world. We idealise a practical mysticism which dares to walk the earth in the heat of the day, dares to contemplate the stars as outposts of the heavenly kingdom, launching the vision at last, not only to the Holy City, but to the Throne of Itself....

Talks with Shuk at Stonestudy had a tendency to make us see the big Unseen politics and diplomacies and rulerships of the planet. Here are a few paragraphs from one of his letters which show the quality:

... Kings and presidents are the most hampered of men. Great generals are silly without their armies. To remove externals from us, to rid our minds of the illusive and the inessential, is simply to clear us for action. Even a gunner, in taking aim, regards the object or enemy as an abstraction, and focuses his whole attention upon his own instrument, his sights. If he actually looks at the enemy, he will not hit him. The billiardist first glances over the entire table, then, to make a true shot, concentrates his full attention upon the tip of his own cue. Perhaps the great leader of armies does not regard individuals or see them as men, but as extensions of his own body, and in time of stress, he has forgotten them completely save as abstract power for his use, and that use he determines interiorly. Even the most material-minded of men, in the crux of worldly and four-square events, sinks into deep and effective cerebration. Can we, who realise this as a conscious and direct principle, do any less?

I think the Guardians are sitting together a little way off, watching with grand interest, to see just how much of a mess mankind can make. Man is always given lavish supplies with which to create works of art that may prove equal in beauty and wonder to the universe itself. Man does not yet see art in these materials.

He must open his eyes before the Powers are able to help him. The Guardians cannot operate against man's will, because their will and his will, including yours and mine right now, are of one piece. The will of the Guardians is better trained and cleaner, because more experienced.... When men cease to shout for different things from the same Father, they stand a chance of getting the Father's attention.

* * * * *

We have had many astonishing hours in Chapel talking about these "Guardians," the arrangements above, as below, one Plan governing all. We do not care to bandy about the name of God a great deal, for we realise that He is most unseen when embodied in matter; that He is apt to be far from the mind that makes familiar with Him in words. Yet all stands for Him, all reveals Him. The farther we can see beyond mere eyesight, the more we realise that He is _not_ standing exactly in person, just outside of the boundaries of matter.

There are hierarchies, so to speak. There are messengers and couriers and charioteers, saints, pilgrims, angels, courtiers, priests and politicians, grades and authorities represented there, such as we find in Matter and Romance here.... Shuk and Steve and I used to hypothecate the existence of a White Council back of all the religious movements of the world. By humour and analogy and romantic speculation, we arrived at the point of view that the world religions are one at the top, and that initiates, illuminati, masters are stationed at intervals to help humanity up the slopes. We conceived the White Council as a centre of wisdom love and power, holding up the cup continually for revelation, guiding and guarding humanity's soul. We glimpsed the fact that the leaders of the White Council might be beyond embodiment--at least in avoirdupois--the holy of all holy men. Only a most pure and potent messenger, we thought, would be permitted to reach this Inner Temple, this Shamballah, compared to which the Vatican is a salon open to the public and the monasteries of Thibet a concourse for pilgrims.

After religion, we realised that there must be an upper centre for all that is represented here below so diversely in politics and nationalism. It couldn't be God Himself back of the dumas and senates, reichstags, diets and parliaments. One does not pass from elevator-boy to editor in chief in a great commercial office. If there were a White Council back of all the religious movements of the world, there must be a Big Mill back of all world-politics--a gathering of directors, venturing to judge the problems of men because they had risen above them.... These men could want nothing material. We perceived them behind armies and thrones, manipulating kings and diplomats and secret centres, in ways that even the closest agents did not understand.

We concluded there must be another centre made up of the master-artists, bringing through into matter (as the world can stand it and as the little human instruments reach up for them), the great delivering beauties of song and story, paint and verse and tale. And this we called the Shop Itself. Sometimes we fancied that it was all too much, even to dream of going there sometime to see the forms, the marbles, the canvases, the manuscripts--the Artists themselves.... And then we realised that, just as all the arts and all the religions and all the political movements were one at the top, that Politics and Art and Religion were one at the next eminence; that the Inner Council and the Big Mill and the Shop Itself were one at the top, just as Wisdom, Love and Power are; as Goodness, Beauty and Truth are; as Father, Son and Holy Spirit are--three in one at the Top, and that was Himself....

And then we would rise from Chapel and go out and look at the lake--Steve and Shuk and I.

Finally one day we were told that we had done some right good dreaming--that it was all true. We were advised that it was no affair of ours if other people didn't get it right away; that they would get it.... So we began to put these things in stories. They mean Romance to us. Queerly enough the stories are coming through--one long one especially, called _Archer_, that shows the downhere activities of the Big Mill and the White Council and the Shop Itself.

* * * * *

I have said it often in this book--that our culture consists of the quantity of properties that we have tallied off--the within with the without. The Kingdom is within, also the King; the Sky and the Nest are one; one are the heavens and the homing heart that finds its peace in the deep vales where the adorable humanities come to be. The inmost and the uppermost are one.

We are where the torch of consciousness is.

We are in the body, or in the mind, or in the soul; we are in time or eternity, or we pass back and forth.... First we tally off the far outposts of the kingdoms without and within; first we are mere sentries learning to become clear-eyed and brave to stand alone--almost outsiders, having scarcely heard of the Kingdom, dimly conscious, but learning to become steady-eyed. Then we are called in a little--called in to become couriers on foot, running to and from among the outer provinces of the kingdom; then messengers to the Middle Countries; then Charioteers to the gates of the City; then ministers to the court of the King....

The day comes at last when we have audience with Him--when we rule with Him, when we become united with Him. From the throne Itself, then we perceive the outsiders, the sentries, the couriers, messengers, charioteers, the winged riders and the deep-down men of the dungeons.... With the fine tranquillity of power, we measure forth to all, reverence, justice and grace.

* * * * *

20

BOYS AND DOGS

Children of the new social order love strange creatures; they are passionate about the care and protection of animals, but until they are made to suffer, they are apt to be sceptical about the infallibility of their elders. They are usually forced into silence early. I have noted that their ideas are intrinsically at variance with parental ideas--about purity, sunlight, dancing, foods, religion, odours.... It takes a good man to break a horse or a dog. In a sense _break_ is the word, although I would accomplish it with enchantment rather than a gad.... This is invariable: "When the pupil is ready--the Master appears----" an old occult saying, and another: "The first thing the Master does, is to break the back of his disciple----"

Stiffness of opinion, rigidity of holding to that which one has, preconception, deep-rutted habits of mind--all these are fatal to that swift and splendid growth of the disciple when he first finds his teacher. For days the child is in a bewildering series of changes--made over new each fortnight--reviewing lives of experience--razing the old structures to the very footings for new temples of mind and soul. The child must be ready to give himself--must give himself utterly. The essential reverence is first required; the self is broken for all births; one gives one's self to gain all. I would not try to quicken a child who doubted what I was saying; and yet I have never sought to make myself unerring or infallible. I like to have the young ones make humour of my frailties, and at the same time believe there is something priceless in our better moments together. There is no possibility of front or acting.

I seek to make them practise the presence of the Divine in themselves. I tell them never to do anything alone that they would not do before me. I take away all sense of sin from them. I sometimes congratulate them on being especially close to us, because of mistakes. I seek to set them free in all their ways, stripping the last attraction from evil, jockeying them higher from a humorous and artistic point of view. I show them the banality of many popular and obvious evils, the dulness of paying the price for something _off_ form and of questionable taste.

* * * * *

There is a lot of humour and nobility about a good dog and a good boy together. John has been sleeping for a few nights in a bit of a cabin with an open door. He picked up a friend down on the beach somewhere, the same that he described as "World Man Dog" in one of his letters. I liked the tone of his voice as he talked with this old loafer named Seaweed.... One evening I was sitting on the hill above the cabin, so still that even a bird would have mistaken me for a part of the landscape.

World Man Dog came up the cabin grade. His head was down--thinking. His tail was straight out behind him, as a dog's tail is when very much engaged with his own thoughts. You could see that he was going to keep an appointment; it was evident that he was afraid he might be late. He did not see me, so completely was he engrossed in his own affairs. He went right on up to John's door, entered, gave a look round the shack, first eagerly, then to make sure. His face fell, his body sagged--down he slumped in the middle of the floor--utterly dejected. As plain as day:

"Hell,--he ain't here!"

* * * * *

A real dog trainer is a wise man. I used to raise collies and was around the benches some--watching the champions come and go. One old trainer talked to me:

"Styles change in dogs," he said, "but a good dog doesn't change. He goes on and on. You don't get the good collies here on the benches any more. This year they want the collie so fine that we have to pinch the brain out of his head and break his lung-room in two. Last year we bred for hair, not for body and brain. Look at that one----"

He pointed to an old sire that had three seasons of the bench and blue, a sweeper of prizes. I remember the time when such a head would have started a stealer anywhere. The old collie had not lost form, but styles had changed. A most stupid dog with a straight, narrow head had won--not the shepherd type at all, but the head of a Russian wolf-hound--a bit of the monster left in it, a drugged look in the small black eyes; hysteria there, and not fealty--madness and not soul.

"We breed them for the cities now--for porches and parlours," the trainer added. "Yes, those great collie strains that we have been nurturing for centuries to all that is brave and hard and useful--we are putting the hair of the lap-dog on them now--long silky stuff, not for snow and sleet. The collie walks by himself these days. No, we won't altogether ruin the strain. Many individuals are spoiled, but the race had come too far and too long to be broken down by a few years of fancyfying."

Of course, I was thinking of the children at every stage of the talk--of city people and children. As a race, the city-bred have become too fine. Life has worn them thin--given them the drugged look about the eyes. The race will never get far in the art of living until it comes home to the land and the restful distances and free flowing airs. This is so true that it seems to risk wearing the eye and the mind--to say it again....

It's good to see them--a boy and a dog together in the hills or down by the edges of the land. There was a piece of decent collie in a dog named Jack back on the lake shore. He was long in strength and courage, but a bit shy in obedience. As a work-dog, he was ruined by a man who knew less than he did, frequently the case in bringing up dogs and men--whipped at the wrong time, every forming endeavour in the pup-brain broken by that. He is seven or eight years old now ... a clean dog, a very wise and kind dog, with a sly and quiet humour that seldom is cruel and never falls into horse play--a lover of many children and confident of an open door in many homes.

I remember the dignity and beauty of his first appearance over the bank from the shore, almost timed to our arrival. We were tender to the collie in general, having passed years with them. Jack moved from one to another accepting embraces with a kindliness that mellowed that cloudy day. There was joy about it all. I stood back waiting my turn with much self-control. He submitted to the welcome--to the last detail, and a little later refused refreshments with perfect courtesy.

When we came back the second summer, we found that a bullet had broken Jack's right front leg. He had wintered out at times, had known much pain. It was not that he did not have good friends who would have taken him in, but I think Jack lost faith a bit in the pain and stress. There was grey about his muzzle. One day he sat in the centre of the little Chapel class.

"I'd like to be as good a man as Jack is a dog," one of the boys said.

"You'd be one more man," said another.

The fact is Jack has filled his circle rather well. This thought came to me presently with fuller meaning. I regarded him with knowledge of three seasons. A clean dog, a gentleman, a master of himself, very courageous and slow to anger, impossible for small children to anger--a dog among dogs, but more than dog among men.

"He _has_ filled his circle," I said aloud. "What makes a man look less in these very virtues that Jack has mastered, is that a man's circle is larger, and he has not reached the time of fulfilment as Jack has. If the dog's accomplishments were suddenly lifted from his circle and placed in a larger one, we would not be conscious of the fine integration of virtues that keep us interested now."

Men, lost in the complications of cities, yearn for the simplicity of their early days on the farms; and yet they could not go back. The simplicity they yearn for is ahead. That of the old country days is but a symbol of the cosmic simplicity in store for us. Tolstoi turned back to the peasants, yet the simplicity he craved was not there.

The peasants are merely potential of what the New Race will be; the peasants themselves must suffer the transition--must have their circle widened and feel their little laws and their little sense of order suddenly diffused over broad, strange surfaces. Their cosmic simplicity will appear when the larger dimension is put in order. That which is lovely in any plane of being, is that which is in flower--when it has about filled its present circle. We are not less, intrinsically, because our values are placed in a larger vessel, though we have a renovating sense of our own insignificance. There is an order of small men, so obviously a part of their very narrowness, that it becomes instantly repulsive to larger souls. Many of the latter have flashed off to the end of their tether for the time, preferring chaos, to the two by two neatness of small-templed men.

A secret of growth lies in these observations. We fill a certain circle, restoring a kind of order in the chaos; and then the circle is suddenly widened and that which was our order and mastery is loose and diffused within the larger orbit. Herein are the pangs of transition. We lose our way for the time in the vaster area, like a man who is unfamiliar with an estate just purchased. There is but one thing to do--to begin to work upon the new dimension. As we work, courage and patience steal in. Presently comes the vision of the completed circle. When this comes, our labour is pinned to a fresh ideal, and we are safe.

In a hundred ways I have found it true that the vision comes in the labouring hours. One may move for weeks about his new estate (or manuscript), planning this and that, but the glimpse of the cohering whole is denied him, until he has actually begun upon the nearest or most pressing task. This is the miraculous benefit of action again. In giving ourselves forth in action, the replenishment comes. The sense of self ceases to clutter the faculties as we bend and toil.