"ANYTUS and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me," said Socrates; and Governor Sancho, with all the itch of newly-acquired authority, could not make the young weaver of steel-heads for lances sleep in prison.In the Vision of Er the souls passed straight forward under the throne of necessity, and out into the plains of forgetfulness, where they must severally drink of the river of unmindfulness whose waters cannot be held in any vessel.
The throne, the plain, and the river are still here, but in the distance rise the great lone heavenward hills, and the wise among us no longer ask of the gods Lethe, but rather remembrance.
Necessity can set me helpless on my back, but she cannot keep me there; nor can four walls limit my vision.I pass out from under her throne into the garden of God a free man, to my ultimate beatitude or my exceeding shame.All day long this world lies open to me; ay, and other worlds also, if I will but have it so; and when night comes I pass into the kingdom and power of the dark.
I lie through the long hours and watch my bridge, which is set with lights across the gloom; watch the traffic which is for me but so many passing lamps telling their tale by varying height and brightness.I hear under my window the sprint of over-tired horses, the rattle of uncertain wheels as the street-sellers hasten south; the jangle of cab bells as the theatre-goers take their homeward way; the gruff altercation of weary men, the unmelodious song and clamorous laugh of women whose merriment is wearier still.
Then comes a time of stillness when the light in the sky waxes and wanes, when the cloud-drifts obscure the stars, and I gaze out into blackness set with watching eyes.No sound comes from without but the voice of the night-wind and the cry of the hour.The clock on the mantelpiece ticks imperatively, for a check has fallen on the familiarity which breeds a disregard of common things, and a reason has to be sought for each sound which claims a hearing.The pause is wonderful while it lasts, but it is not for long.The working world awakes, the poorer brethren take up the burden of service;the dawn lights the sky; remembrance cries an end to forgetting.
Sometimes in the country on a night in early summer you may shut the cottage door to step out into an immense darkness which palls heaven and earth.Going forward into the embrace of the great gloom, you are as a babe swaddled by the hands of night into helpless quiescence.Your feet tread an unseen path, your hands grasp at a void, or shrink from the contact they cannot realise;your eyes are holden; your voice would die in your throat did you seek to rend the veil of that impenetrable silence.
Shut in by the intangible dark, we are brought up against those worlds within worlds blotted out by our concrete daily life.The working of the great microcosm at which we peer dimly through the little window of science; the wonderful, breathing earth; the pulsing, throbbing sap; the growing fragrance shut in the calyx of to-morrow's flower; the heart-beat of a sleeping world that we dream that we know; and around, above, and interpenetrating all, the world of dreams, of angels and of spirits.
It was this world which Jacob saw on the first night of his exile, and again when he wrestled in Peniel until the break of day.It was this world which Elisha saw with open eyes; which Job knew when darkness fell on him; which Ezekiel gazed into from his place among the captives; which Daniel beheld as he stood alone by the great river, the river Hiddekel.
