Mysticism -- Fiction; Supernatural -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
Marget--Richard! Certainly they were where she had been wont to call
"within her." But certainly she felt them, was aware of them, presently
saw them, as never had she done before in that "within," though often in
memory, thought, and imagination she, like others, had been with Marget
and Richard there "within." She had used those words as a matter of
course. Even then that "within" had, when you examined it, its own space
and time, its own mechanics, warmth, color, and sound. That "within" and
this "within" were of a piece, but where that had been faintly real this
was vividly real. She had no doubt of its reality. It was so, but
reality of another, of a farther on, order. Marget that afternoon had
talked of another order. It seemed that one might rise or deepen into
it. She was consciously there now, though in the order below it she
rested at Sweet Rocket. It was not the plane of tremendous power and
illumination, but it was a state of developed powers. It was as far as
just then she could go.
The boy Stuart--Stuart Black. How many a time had she wished that she
could give this boy travel! "If I might take him and let him see!" As he
had longed, as he had imagined himself traveling with Mr. and Mrs. Dane.
"If I could travel with you!" And now to-night they had somehow caught
and held to the ether and were seeing what they wished to see. The
influence, the individuality that was Marget and Richard strongly aided.
She was in Rome with Marget and Richard and Stuart Black. She did not
question them nor him, and the boy did not question. They were there,
and it was sunny weather, and they were strong and happy. They stayed in
no hotel, they depended on no cab nor car, they needed no food of the
old sort. When they looked at one another they saw body, since where is
still multiplicity must still be body. There was something of old bodies
in these bodies, but also there was difference, and all to the good. Old
defect had vanished. Stuart Black was no cripple; she herself had lost
fatigue. There was translucence, a golden appearance, and where they
wished to go they were. She wished for Robert, and immediately felt that
in wishing she had said to the others, "I wish." They strengthened her
wish with theirs. Here, then, was Robert with them, though
intermittently, not on the whole so strongly, but coming as he could
answer, sleeping there at Sweet Rocket. And now and then another joined
them, though somewhat dimly, and that was the boy's father, whom he
loved and wished to include in his joy.
The body of Rome, too, was like and not like the old body of Rome. Rome
had a Self to match this Self of theirs. Spirit and body and mind and
soul, Rome understood itself better. There rose a Rome richer, purer;
nothing of fair and wonderful lost, all such quality strengthened; the
unfair, unwise, unstrong of old, everywhere tending to drop the prefix.
Yet to the new self Rome was herself, singing, enchanted, of the past
and present and future.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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