Mysticism -- Fiction; Supernatural -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
Curtin and Drew reached this place before sunset. The men were coming
in, dogs barked, the smell of coffee and bacon hung in the air. Randall
welcomed them, and presently Malcolm Smith appeared and shook hands.
They had supper in Hall's big double cabin, with Hall and Mrs. Hall and
half a dozen flaxen-haired young Halls, but after supper they went to a
neighboring cabin, for the time being their own. Pine knots blazed on
the hearth. Malcolm Smith and Cooper and Morris, Randall and Drew and
Martin Curtin stretched tired limbs and smoked and talked. Morris and
Cooper presently played checkers. Malcolm Smith read the newspaper, but
after a little put it down and talked. He talked of aviation, and
wireless, and of Einstein's notion of space, and of atomic energy. "I've
an idea that ideas, ideation generally, imagery, perhaps memory, are
simply that energy functioning! We imagine, and that energy has
constructed a form in ether. We use it blindly, weakly, unintelligently.
But if--"
"I see."
"But if we used it enormously more strongly--and wisely--we'd be
creators all night! It's getting very important to know what we do want
to create. If we don't look out, presently we may find that our
imaginations have life! We've got to choose, I suppose, what kind of
life we'll give; silly or monstrous life, or intelligent, kindly,
strong, beautiful life!"
Curtin enjoyed the evening on Rock. Flame and odor of burning pine, and
the pleasantly grotesque shadows on the cabin walls, made for rich
fancies. In one of the easy silences the men grouped in this brown and
flame-hued place seemed to him genii, gathered here before they drove
their roads over mountains or harnessed their plunging water steeds. He
thought: "We are genii! How wonderful it is to be what we are--and shall
be!"
Men at Hall's went to bed before ten. Curtin found in a small cabin a
hard couch and honest sleep. He slept without turning till five of the
morning, when he waked with a great sense of refreshment. "Where I have
been I don't know, but it was where vigor flows!" The stars shone in at
his window. He lay still for a few minutes, then rose. The air was not
too chill. He found when he was dressed that he was warm enough. Opening
the cabin door he went out, moving softly so as not to waken Drew and
Randall. The morning star hung in the east, and near it the moon in her
last quarter. The cold, first hyacinth of dawn streaked the sky. Drew
had pointed out the path to the top of the mountain. Curtin, finding it,
climbed it alone. Half an hour brought him to the summit. When he
reached it the earth was bathed in the cool and violet first light. He
found a great projecting rock, shaped like a chair, and took his seat
here. The planet, from gold, was become silver, and the moon hung like
a dream canoe. Here or there mist hid the vast expanse below, but for
the most part earth lay clear. The outthrust rock that was his seat gave
him two-thirds of the circle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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