The Land of Darkness: Along with Some Further Chapters in the Experiences of the Little PilgrimOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
The Land of Darkness: Along with Some Further Chapters in the Experiences of the Little Pilgrim
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Future life -- Fiction; Purgatory -- Fiction
The little pilgrim cried aloud, so that she thought the rocks must be
rent by the vehemence of her cry, calling like the other, Father,
Father, Father! as if her heart would burst; and it was like despair to
think that she made no sound, and that the brother could not hear her
who lay thus fainting at her feet. Yet she could not stop, but went on
crying like a child that has lost its way; for to whom could a child
call but to her father, and all the more when she cannot understand? And
she called out and said that God was not His name save to strangers, if
there are any strangers, but that His name was Father, and it was to Him
that all must go. And all her being thrilled like a bird with its song,
so that the very air stirred, yet no voice came. And she lifted up her
face to the watcher above, and beheld, where she stood holding up her
hands, a little whiteness in the great dark. But though these two were
calling and calling, the silence was dumb. And neither of them could
take him by the hand nor lift him up, nor show him, far, far above the
little diamond of the light, but were constrained to stand still and
watch, seeing that he was one of those who are beyond hope.
After she had waited a long time, he stirred again in the dark, and
murmured to himself once more, saying low, ‘I have slept and am strong.
And while I was sleeping He has come again: He has looked at me again.
And somewhere I will find Him. I will arise and go--I will arise and
go----’
And she heard him move at her feet, and grope over the rock with his
hands. But it was smooth as snow with no holding, and slippery as ice.
And the watcher stood above and the pilgrim below, but could not help
him. He groped and groped, and murmured to himself, ever saying, ‘I
will arise and go.’ And their hearts were wrung that they could not
speak to him, nor touch him, nor help him. But at last in the dark there
burst forth a great cry, ‘Who said it?’ and then a sound of weeping, and
amid the weeping, words. ‘As when I was a child, as when hope was---- I
will arise and I will go--to my Father, to my Father! for now I
remember, and I know.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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