Paul as yet had but discovered the entrance, led by little children who dreamed not how wondrous was the journey; but the rest would follow. For it is a region mapped gradually out of a thousand impulses, out of ten thousand dreams, out of the eternal desires of the soul. It is not discovered in a day, nor do the ways of entrance always remain the same. A thousand joys contribute to its fashioning, a thousand frustrated hopes describe its boundaries, and ten thousand griefs bring slowly, piece by piece, the material for its construction, while every new experience of the soul, successful or disastrous, adds something to its uncharted geography. Slowly it gathers into existence, becoming with every sojourn more real and more satisfying, till at length from the pain of all possible disillusionment the way opens to the heart of relief, to the peaceful place of hopes renewed, of purposes made fruitful and complete. And from this deathless region, too, flow all the forces of the soul that make for hope, enthusiasm, courage, and delight. The children might call it ‘Between Yesterday and To-morrow,’ and find their little broken dreams brought back to life; but Paul understood that its rewards might vary immensely according to the courage and the need of the soul that sought it. CHAPTER XVI But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you. YEATS. Thus, led delicately by the animals and the children, and guided to a certain extent, too, by the curious poesy of his own soul, Paul Rivers came gradually into his own. Once made free of their world, he would learn next that the process automatically made him free of his own. This simple expedient of having found an audience did wonders for him, for it not only loosened his tongue and his pen, but set all the deeper parts of him running into speech, and the natural love and poetry of the man began to produce a delightful, if somewhat extraordinary, harvest. He understood—none better—that fantasy, unless rooted in reality, leads away from action and tends to weakness and insipidity; but that, grounded in the common facts of life, and content with idealising the actual, it might become an important factor for good, lending wings to the feet and lifting the soul over difficult places. His education advanced by leaps and bounds. And in some respects he showed himself possessed of a wisdom that could only have belonged to him because at heart he was still a child, and the ordinary ‘knowledge of the world’ had not come to spoil him in his life of solitude among the trees.