Part 20

I was on a vast, an illimitable plain, where the dark blue horizons were sharp as the edges of hills. It was the world, but there was nothing in the world. There was not a blade of grass nor the hum of an insect, nor the shadow of a bird's wing. The mountains had sunk like waves in the sea when there is no wind; the barren hills had become dust. Forests had become the fallen leaf; and the leaf had passed. I was aware of one who stood beside me, though that knowledge was of the spirit only; and my eyes were filled with the same nothingness as I beheld above and beneath and beyond. I would have thought I was in the last empty glens of Death, were it not for a strange and terrible sound that I took to be the voice of the wind coming out of nothing, travelling over nothingness and moving onward into nothing.

"There is only the wind," I said to myself in a whisper.

Then the voice of the dark Power beside me, whom in my heart I knew to be Dalua, the Master of Illusions, said: "Verily, this is your last illusion."

I answered: "It is the wind."

And the voice answered: "That is not the wind that you hear, for the wind is dead. It is the empty, hollow echo of my laughter."

Then, suddenly, he who was beside me lifted up a small stone, smooth as a pebble of the sea. It was grey and flat, and yet to me had a terrible beauty because it was the last vestige of the life of the world.

The Presence beside me lifted up the stone and said: "It is the end."

And the horizons of the world came in upon me like a rippling shadow. And I leaned over darkness and saw whirling stars. These were gathered up like leaves blown from a tree, and in a moment their lights were quenched, and they were further from me than grains of sand blown on a whirlwind of a thousand years.

Then he, that terrible one, Master of Illusions, let fall the stone, and it sank into the abyss and fell immeasurably into the infinite. And under my feet the world was as a falling wave, and was not. And I fell, though without sound, without motion. And for years and years I fell below the dim waning of light; and for years and years I fell through universes of dusk; and for years and years and years I fell through the enclosing deeps of darkness. It was to me as though I fell for centuries, for æons, for unimaginable time. I knew I had fallen beyond time, and that I inhabited eternity, where were neither height, nor depth, nor width, nor space.

But, suddenly, without sound, without motion, I stood steadfast upon a vast ledge. Before me, on that ledge of darkness become rock, I saw this stone which had been lifted from the world of which I was a shadow, after shadow itself had died away. And as I looked, this stone became fire and rose in flame. Then the flame was not. And when I looked the stone was water; it was as a pool that did not overflow, a wave that did not rise or fall, a shaken mirror wherein nothing was troubled.

Then, as dew is gathered in silence, the water was without form or colour or motion. And the stone seemed to me like a handful of earth held idly in the poise of unseen worlds. What I thought was a green flame rose from it, and I saw that it had the greenness of grass, and had the mystery of life. The green herb passed as green grass in a drought; and I saw the waving of wings. And I saw shape upon shape, and image upon image, and symbol upon symbol. Then I saw a man, and he, too, passed; and I saw a woman, and she, too, passed; and I saw a child, and the child passed. Then the stone was a Spirit. And it shone there like a lamp. And I fell backward through deeps of darkness, through unimaginable time.

And when I stood upon the world again it was like a glory. And I saw the stone lying at my feet.

And One said: "Do you not know me, brother?"

And I said: "Speak, Lord."

And Christ stooped and kissed me upon the brow.

NOTES

_Unity does not lie in the emotional life of expression which we call Art, which discerns it; it does not lie in nature, but in the Soul of man._--F. M.

Notes to First Edition

THE DIVINE ADVENTURE

When "The Divine Adventure" appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ in November and December last, I received many comments and letters. From these I infer that my present readers will also be of two sections, those who understand at once why, in this symbolical presentment, I ignore the allegorical method--and those who, accustomed to the artificial method of allegory, would rather see this "story of a soul" told in that method, without actuality, or as an ordinary essay stript of narrative.

But each can have only his own way of travelling towards a desired goal. I chose my way, because in no other, as it seemed to me, could I convey what I wanted to convey. Is it so great an effort of the imagination to conceive of the Mind and Soul actual as the Body is actual? And is there any tragic issue so momentous, among all the tragic issues of life, as the problem of the Spirit, the Mind--the Will as I call it; that problem as to whether it has to share the assured destiny of the Body, or the desired and possible destiny of the Soul? There is no spiritual tragedy so poignant as this uncertainty of the Will, the Spirit, what we call the thinking part of us, before the occult word of the Soul, inhabiting here but as an impatient exile, and the inevitable end of that Body to which it is so intimately allied, with which are its immediate, and in a sense its most vital interests, and in whose mortality it would seem to have a dreadful share.

The symbolist, unlike the allegorist, cannot disregard the actual, the reality as it seems: he must, indeed, be supremely heedful of this reality as it seems. The symbolist or the mystic (properly they are one) abhors the vague, what is called the "mystical": he is supremely a realist, but his realism is of the spirit and the imagination, and not of externals, or rather not of these merely, for there, too, he will not disregard actuality, but make it his base, as the lark touches the solid earth before it rises where it can see both Earth and Heaven and sing a song that partakes of each and belongs to both. "In the kingdom of the imagination the ideal must ever be faithful to the general laws of nature," wrote one of the wisest of mystics. Art is pellucid mystery, and the only spiritually logical interpretation of life; and her inevitable language is Symbol--by which (whether in colour, or form, or sound, or word, or however the symbol be translated) a spiritual image illumines a reality that the material fact narrows or obscures.

For the rest, "The Divine Adventure" is an effort to solve, or obtain light upon, the profoundest human problem. It is by looking inward that we shall find the way outward. The gods--and what we mean by the gods--the gods seeking God have ever penetrated the soul by two roads, that of nature and that of art. Edward Calvert put it supremely well when he said "I go inward to God: outward to the gods." It was Calvert also who wrote:--

"To charm the truthfulness of eternal law into a guise which it has not had before, and clothe the invention with expression, this is the magic with which the poet would lead the listener into a world of his own, and make him sit down in the charmed circle of his own gods."

_Page 96. The Félire na Naomh Nerennach_ (so spelt, more phonetically than correctly) is an invaluable early "Chronicle of Irish Saints." Uladh--or Ulla--is the Gaelic for Ulster, though the ancient boundaries were not the same as those of the modern province; and at periods Uladh stood for all North Ireland. Tara in the south was first the capital of a kingdom, and later the federal capital. Thus, at the beginning of the Christian era, Concobar mac Nessa was both King of the Ultonians (the clans of Uladh) and Ard-Righ or High-King of Ireland, a nominal suzerainty.

The name of Mochaoi's abbacy, _n' Aondruim_, was in time anglicised to Antrim.

The characteristic Gaelic passage quoted in English at p. 98 is not from the _Félire na Naomh Nerennach_, but from a Hebridean source: excerpted from one of the many treasures-troves rescued from extant or recently extant Gaelic lore by Mr. Alexander Carmichael, all soon to be published (the outcome of a long life of unselfish devotion) under the title _Or agus Ob_, though we may be sure that there will be little "dross" and much "gold."

_Page 101._ The allusion is to the story or sketch called "The Book of the Opal" in _The Dominion of Dreams_: a sketch true in essentials, but having at its close an arbitrary interpolation of external symbolism which I now regret as superfluous. I have since realised that the only living and convincing symbol is that which is conceived of the spirit and not imagined by the mind. My friend's life, and end, were strange enough--and significant enough--without the effort to bring home to other minds by an arbitrary formula what should have been implicit.

_Page 102._ I have again and again, directly or indirectly, since my first book _Pharais_ to the repeated record in this book, alluded to Seumas Macleod; and as I have shown in "Barabal," here, and in the dedication to this book, it is to the old islander and to my Hebridean nurse, Barabal, that I owe more than to any other early influences. For those who do not understand the character of the Island-Gael, or do not realise that all Scotland is not Presbyterian, it may be as well to add that many of the islesmen are of the Catholic faith (broadly, the Southern Hebrides are wholly Catholic), and that therefore the brooding imagination of an old islander--who spoke Gaelic only, and had never visited the mainland--might the more readily dwell upon Mary the Mother: Mary of the Lamb, Mary the Shepherdess, as she is lovingly called. I do not, for private reasons, name the island where he lived: but I have written of him, or of what he said, nothing but what was so, or was thus said. He had suffered much, and was lonely: but was, I think, the happiest, and, I am sure, the wisest human being I have known. What I cannot now recall is whether his belief in Mary's Advent was based on an old prophecy, or upon a faith of his own dreams and visions, coloured by the visions and dreams of a like mind and longing: perhaps, and likeliest, upon both. I was not more than seven years old when that happened of which I have written on p. 102, and so recall with surety only that which I saw and heard.

I am glad to know that another is hardly less indebted to old Seumas Macleod. I am not permitted to mention his name, but a friend and kinsman allows me to tell this: that when he was about sixteen he was on the remote island where Seumas lived, and on the morrow of his visit came at sunrise upon the old man, standing looking seaward with his bonnet removed from his long white locks; and upon his speaking to Seumas (when he saw he was not "at his prayers") was answered, in Gaelic of course, "Every morning like this I take off my hat to the beauty of the world."

The untaught islander who could say this had learned an ancient wisdom, of more account than wise books, than many philosophies.

Let me tell one other story of him, which I have meant often to tell, but have as often forgotten. He had gone once to the Long Island, with three fishermen, in their herring-coble. The fish had been sold, and the boat had sailed southward to a Lews haven where Seumas had a relative. The younger men had "hanselled" their good bargain overwell, and were laughing and talking freely, as they walked up the white road from the haven. Something was said that displeased Seumas greatly, and he might have spoken swiftly in reproof; but just then a little naked child ran laughing from a cottage, chased by his smiling mother. Seumas caught up the child, who was but an infant, and set him in their midst, and then kneeled and said the few words of a Hebridean hymn beginning:--

"Even as a little child Most holy, pure...."

No more was said, but the young men understood; and he who long afterward told me of this episode added that though he had often since acted weakly and spoken foolishly, he had never, since that day, uttered foul words. Another like characteristic anecdote of Seumas (as the skipper who made his men cease mocking a "fool") I have told in the tale called "The Amadan" in the _The Dominion of Dreams_.

I could write much of this revered friend--so shrewd and genial and worldly-wise, for all his lonely life; so blithe in spirit and swiftly humorous; himself a poet, and remembering countless songs and tales of old; strong and daring, on occasion; good with the pipes, as with the nets; seldom angered, but then with a fierce anger, barbaric in its vehemence; a loyal clansman; in all things, good and not so good, a Gael of the Isles.

But since I have not done so, not gathered into one place, I add this note.

_Page 113._ The kingdom of the Suderöer (_i.e._ Southern Isles) was the Norse name for the realm of the Hebrides and Inner Hebrides when the Isles were under Scandinavian dominion.

_Page 118._ The ignorance or supineness which characterises so many English writers on Celtic history is to be found even among Highland and Irish clerics and others who have not taken the trouble to study or even become acquainted with their own ancient literature, but fallen into the foolish and discreditable conventionalism which maintains that before Columban or in pre-Christian days the Celtic race consisted of wholly uncivilised and broken tribes, rivals only in savagery.

How little true that is; as wide of truth as the statements that the far influences of Iona ceased with the death of Columba. Not only was the island for two centuries thereafter (in the words of an eminent historian) "the nursery of bishops, the centre of education, the asylum of religious knowledge, the place of union, the capital and necropolis of the Celtic race," but the spiritual colonies of Iona had everywhere leavened western Europe. Charlemagne knew and reverenced "this little people of Iona," who from a remote island in the wild seas beyond the almost as remote countries of Scotland and England had spread the Gospel everywhere. Not only were many monasteries founded by monks from Iona in the narrower France of that day, but also in Lorraine, Alsatia, in Switzerland, and in the German states; in distant Bavaria even, no fewer than sixteen were thus founded. In the very year the Danes made their first descent on the doomed island, a monk of Iona was Bishop of Tarento in Italy. In a word, in that day, Iona was the brightest gem in the spiritual crown of Rome.

_Page 128._ The "little-known namesake of my own" alluded to is Fiona, or Fionaghal Macleod, known (in common with her more famous sister Mary) by the appellation _Nighean Alasdair Ruadh_, "Daughter of Alasdair the Red," was born _circa_ 1575.

_Page 130._ Columba, whose house-name was Crimthan, "Wolf"--surviving in our Scoto-Gaelic MacCrimmon--who was of royal Irish blood and, through his mother of royal Scottish (Pictish) blood also, came to Iona in A.D. 563, when he was in his forty-second year. At that date, St. Augustine, "the English Columba," had not yet landed in Kent--that more famous event occurring thirty-four years later. In this year of 563, the East had not yet awakened to its wonderful dream that to-day has in number more dreamers than the Cross of Christ; for it was not till six years later, when Columba was on a perilous mission of conversion among the Picts, that Mahomet was born. In 563, when Colum landed on Iona, the young Italian priest who was afterwards to be called the Architect of the Church and to become famous as Pope Gregory the Great, was dreaming his ambitious dreams; and farther East, in Constantinople, then the capital of the Western World, the great Roman Emperor Justinian was laying the foundation of modern law.

With the advent of Charlemagne, two hundred years later, "the old world" passed. When the ninth century opened, the great Gregory's dearest hopes were in the dust where his bones lay; Justinian's metropolis was fallen from her pride; and, on Iona, the heathen Danes drank to Odin.

_Page 136._ The _Mor-Rigân_. This euphemerised Celtic queen is called by many names: even those resembling that just given vary much--_Morrigû_, _Mor Reega_, _Morrigan_, _Morgane_, _Mur-ree (Mor Ree)_, etc. The old word _Mor-Rigan_ means "the great queen." She is the mother of the Gaelic Gods, as _Bona Dea_ of the Romans. "_Anu_ is her name," says an ancient writer. Anu suckled the elder gods. Her name survives in _Tuatha-De-Danann_, in _Dânu_, _Ana_, and perhaps in that mysterious Scoto-Gaelic name, Teampull _Anait_--the temple of Anait--whom some writers collate with an ancient Asiatic goddess, Anait (see p. 171). It has been suggested that the Celts gave _Bona Dea_ to the Romans, for these considered her Hyperborean. A less likely derivation of the popular "_Morrigû_" is that _Mor Reega_ is _Mor Reagh_ (wealth). Keating, it may be added, speaks of Monagan, Badha, and Macha as the three chief goddesses of the Divine Race of Ana (the Tuatha De Danann). Students of Celtic mythology and legend, and of the Táin-bó-Cuailgne in particular, will remember that her white bull "Find-Bennach" was "antagonist" to the famous brown bull of Cuailgne. The Mor Rigan has been identified with Cybele--as the Goddess of Prosperity: but only speculatively. Another name of the Mother of all Gods is _Aine (Anu?)_. Prof. Rhys says _Ri_ or _Roi_ was the Mother of the gods of the non-Celtic races. It is suggestive that _Ana_ is a Phoenician word: that people had a (virgin?) goddess named _Ana-Perema_.

_Page 156._ _Finn_--_Oisìn_--_Oscur_--_Gaul_--_Diarmid_--_Cuchullin_. These names as they stand exhibit the uncertainty of Gaelic name-spelling. In the case of the first named there is constant variation. The oldest writing is Find (also Fend), or Fin. Some Gaelic writers prefer, in modern use, Fionn. Through a misapprehension, Macpherson popularised the name in Scotland as Fingal, and the _Féin_ and _Fianna_ (for they are not the same, as commonly supposed, the former being the Clan or People of Finn, and the latter a kind of militia raised for the defence of Uladh), as the Fingalians. Some Irish critics have been severe upon Macpherson's "impossible nomenclature"; but _Fingal_ is not "impossible," though it is certainly not old Gaelic for Finn--for the word can quite well stand for Fair Stranger, and might well have been a name given to a Norse (or for that matter a Gaelic) champion.

_Fin MacCumhal_ (Fin MacCooal or MacCool) is now commonly rendered as Finn or Fionn. The latter is good Gaelic and the finer word, but the other is older. Fionn obtains more in Gaelic Scotland. _Fingal_ and the _Fingalians_ are modern, and due solely to the great vogue given by Macpherson--though many writers and even Gaelic speakers have adopted them.

Fionn's famous son, again, is almost universally (outside Gaelic Scotland and Ireland) known as Ossian, because of Macpherson's spelling of the name. Neither the Highland nor Irish Gaels pronounce it so--but Oshshen, and the like--best represented by the Gaelic _Oisìn_ or Oisein. Personally I prefer Oisìn to any other spelling; but perhaps it would be best if the word were uniformly spelt in the manner in which it is universally familiar. Obviously, too, "Ossianic" is the only suitable use of the name in adjective form. _Oscur_ is probably merely a Gaelic spelling of the Norse Oscar; though I recollect a student of ancient Gaelic names telling me that the name was Gaelic and only resembled the familiar Scandinavian word. _Gaul_ is commonly so spelt; but Goll is probably more correct. _Diarmid_ has many variations, from Diarmuid to Dermid; but Diarmid is the best English equivalent both in sound and correctness.

It is still a moot point as to whether in narration, Gaelic names should be given as they are, or be anglicised--or Gaelic exclamations to phrases in their original spelling, or more phonetically to an English ear. I think it should depend on circumstances, and within the writer's tact. I have myself been taken to task again and again, by critics eager with the eagerness of little knowledge, for partial anglicisation of names and presumed mistakes in Gaelic spelling, when, surely, the intention was obvious that a compromise was being attempted. Let me give an example. How would the English reader like a story of, say, a Donald Macintyre and a Grace Maclean and an Ivor Mackay if these names were given in their Gaelic form, as Domnhuil Mac-an-t-Saoir and Giorsal nic Illeathain and Imhir Mac Aodh--or even if simple names, like, say, Meave and Malvina, were given as Medb or Malmhin?

It is a pity there is not one recognised way of spelling the legendary name of Setanta, the chief hero of the Gaelic chivalry. Probably the best rendering is Cuchulain. The old form is Cuculaind. But colloquially the name in Gaelic is called Coohoolin or Coohullun; and so Cuculaind would mislead the ordinary reader. The Scottish version is generally Cuchullin--the _ch_ soft: a more correct rendering of the Macphersonian Cuthullin, a misnomer responsible no doubt for the common mistake that the Coolin (Cuthullin) mountains in Skye have any connection with the great Gaelic hero (see p. 155). Setanta, a prince of Uladh, was taught for a time in the art of weaponry by one Culain or Culaind, and after a certain famous act of prowess became known as The Hound of Culain--_Cu_ being a hound, whence Cuculain, or with the sign of the genitive, Cuchulain. Every variation of the name, and all the legends of the Cuchullin cycle, will be found in Miss Eleanor Hull's excellent redaction, published by Mr. Nutt. The interested reader should see also the classical work of O'Curry: the vivid and romantic chronicle of Mr. Standish O'Grady; and the fascinating and scholarly edition of _The Feast of Bricrin_, recently published as the second volume of the Irish Texts Society, by Dr. George Henderson, the most scholarly of Highland specialists.

_Page 162 seq._ No one has collected so much material on the subject of St. Michael as Mr. Alexander Carmichael has done. Some of his lore, in sheiling-hymns and fishing-hymns, he has already made widely known, directly and indirectly: but in his forthcoming _Or agus Ob_, already alluded to, there will be found a long and invaluable section devoted to St. Micheil, as also, I understand, one of like length and interest on St. Bride or Briget, the most beloved of Hebridean saints, and herself probably a Christian successor of a much more ancient Brighde, a Celtic deity, it is said, of Song and Beauty.

_Page 181. Be'al._ I do not think there is any evidence to prove that the Be'al or Bêl often spelt Baal--whose name and worship survive to this day in _Bealltainn_ (Beltane), May-day--of Gaelic mythology, is identical with the Phoenician god Baal, though probably of a like significance. The Gaelic name, which may be anglicised into Be'al, signifies "Source of All."

I am inclined to believe that the Be'al or Bêl of the Gaels has his analogue in the Gaulish mythology in _Hesus_ (also _Esua_, _Aesus_, and _Heus_), a mysterious (supreme?) god of ancient Gaul, surviving still in Armorican legend. If so, Hesus or Aesus may be identical with the "lost" Gaelic god _Aesar_ or _Aes_. _Aesar_ means "fire-kindler," whence the Creator. (In this connection I would ask if _Aed_, an ancient Gaelic god of fire, also of death, be identical with (as averred) a still more ancient Greek name of Fire, or God of Fire = _Aed_?). Be'al, the Source of All, may take us back to the Phoenician _Baal_: but the Gaelic _Aes_ and the Gaulish _Aesus (Hesus)_ take us, with the Scandinavian _Aesir_, further still: to the Persian _Aser_, the Hindoo _Aeswar_, the Egyptian _Asi_ (the Sun-bull), and the Etruscan _Aesar_. The _Bhagavat-Gita_ says of Aeswar that "he resides in every mortal."