I saw myself, in dream, a youth, almost a boy, in a low-pitched wooden church. The slim wax candles gleamed, spots of red, before the old pictures of the saints. A ring of coloured light encircled each tiny flame. Dark and dim it was in the church.... But there stood before me many people. All fair-haired, peasant heads. From time to time they began swaying, falling, rising again, like the ripe ears of wheat, when the wind of summer passes in slow undulation over them. All at once some man came up from behind and stood beside me. I did not turn towards him; but at once I felt that this man was Christ. Emotion, curiosity, awe overmastered me suddenly. I made an effort ... and looked at my neighbour. A face like every one’s, a face like all men’s faces. The eyes looked a little upwards, quietly and intently. The lips closed, but not compressed; the upper lip, as it were, resting on the lower; a small beard parted in two. The hands folded and still. And the clothes on him like every one’s. ‘What sort of Christ is this?’ I thought. ‘Such an ordinary, ordinary man! It can’t be!’ I turned away. But I had hardly turned my eyes away from this ordinary man when I felt again that it really was none other than Christ standing beside me. Again I made an effort over myself.... And again the same face, like all men’s faces, the same everyday though unknown features. And suddenly my heart sank, and I came to myself. Only then I realised that just such a face--a face like all men’s faces--is the face of Christ. _Dec. 1878._ THE STONE [1879-1882] Have you seen an old grey stone on the seashore, when at high tide, on a sunny day of spring, the living waves break upon it on all sides--break and frolic and caress it--and sprinkle over its sea-mossed head the scattered pearls of sparkling foam? The stone is still the same stone; but its sullen surface blossoms out into bright colours. They tell of those far-off days when the molten granite had but begun to harden, and was all aglow with the hues of fire. Even so of late was my old heart surrounded, broken in upon by a rush of fresh girls’ souls ... and under their caressing touch it flushed with long-faded colours, the traces of burnt-out fires! The waves have ebbed back ... but the colours are not yet dull, though a cutting wind is drying them. _May 1879._ THE DOVES I stood on the top of a sloping hillside; before me, a gold and silver sea of shifting colour, stretched the ripe rye. But no little wavelets ran over that sea; no stir of wind was in the stifling air; a great storm was gathering. Near me the sun still shone with dusky fire; but beyond the rye, not very far away, a dark-blue storm-cloud lay, a menacing mass over full half of the horizon. All was hushed ... all things were faint under the malignant glare of the last sun rays. No sound, no sight of a bird; even the sparrows hid themselves. Only somewhere close by, persistently a great burdock leaf flapped and whispered.