The Ninth Vibration [17]
already that in a very few days I should be on my way.
Mrs. Ingmar was more than kind. She laid a frail hand on mine.
"We shall miss you indeed. If it is possible to send us word of your adventures in those wild solitudes I hope you will do it. Of course aviation will soon lay bare their secrets and leave them no mysteries, so you don't go too soon. One may worship science and yet feel it injures the beauty of the world. But what is beauty compared with knowledge?"
"Do you never regret it?" I asked.
"Never, dear Mr. Ormond. I am a worshipper of hard facts and however hideous they may be I prefer them to the prismatic colours of romance."
Brynhild, smiling, quoted;
"Their science roamed from star to star And than itself found nothing greater. What wonder? In a Leyden jar They bottled the Creator?"
"There is nothing greater than science," said Mrs. Ingmar with soft reverence. "The mind of man is the foot-rule of the universe."
She meditated for a moment and then added that my kind interests in their plans decided her to tell me that she would be returning to Europe and then to Canada in a few months with a favourite niece as her companion while Brynhild would remain in India with friends in Mooltan for a time. I looked eagerly at her but she was lost in her own thoughts and it was evidently not the time to say more.
If I had hoped for a vision before I left the neighbourhood of that strange House of Beauty where a spirit imprisoned appeared to await the day of enlightenment I was disappointed. These things do not happen as one expects or would choose. The wind bloweth where it listeth until the laws which govern the inner life are understood, and then we would not choose if we could for we know that all is better than well. In this world, either in the blinded sight of daily life or in the clarity of the true sight I have not since seen it, but that has mattered little, for having heard an authentic word within its walls I have passed on my way elsewhere.
Next day a letter from Olesen reached me.
"Dear Ormond, I hope you have had a good time at the House in the Woods. I saw Rup Singh a few days ago and he wrote the odd message I enclose. You know what these natives are, even the most sensible of them, and you will humour the old fellow for he ages very fast and I think is breaking up. But this was not what I wanted to say. I had a letter from a man I had not seen for years - a fellow called Stephen Clifden, who lives in Kashmir. As a matter of fact I had forgotten his existence but evidently he has not repaid the compliment for he writes as follows - No, I had better send you the note and you can do as you please. I am rushed off my legs with work and the heat is hell with the lid off. And-"
But the rest was of no interest except to a friend of years' standing. I read Rup Singh's message first. It was written in his own tongue.
"To the Honoured One who has attained to the favour of the Favourable.
"You have with open eyes seen what this humble one has dreamed but has not known. If the thing be possible, write me this word that I may depart in peace. 'With that one who in a former birth you loved all is well. Fear nothing for him. The way is long but at the end the lamps of love are lit and the Unstruck music is sounded. He lies at the feet of Mercy and there awaits his hour.' And if it be not possible to write these words, write nothing, 0 Honoured, for though it be in the hells my soul shall find my King, and again I shall serve him as once I served."
I understood, and wrote those words as he had written them. Strange mystery of life - that I who had not known should see, and that this man whose fidelity had not deserted his broken King in his utter downfall should have sought with passion for one sight of the beloved face across the waters of death and sought in vain. I thought of those Buddhist words of Seneca - "The soul may be and is in the mass of men drugged and silenced by the seductions of sense and the deceptions of the world. But if, in some moment of detachment
Mrs. Ingmar was more than kind. She laid a frail hand on mine.
"We shall miss you indeed. If it is possible to send us word of your adventures in those wild solitudes I hope you will do it. Of course aviation will soon lay bare their secrets and leave them no mysteries, so you don't go too soon. One may worship science and yet feel it injures the beauty of the world. But what is beauty compared with knowledge?"
"Do you never regret it?" I asked.
"Never, dear Mr. Ormond. I am a worshipper of hard facts and however hideous they may be I prefer them to the prismatic colours of romance."
Brynhild, smiling, quoted;
"Their science roamed from star to star And than itself found nothing greater. What wonder? In a Leyden jar They bottled the Creator?"
"There is nothing greater than science," said Mrs. Ingmar with soft reverence. "The mind of man is the foot-rule of the universe."
She meditated for a moment and then added that my kind interests in their plans decided her to tell me that she would be returning to Europe and then to Canada in a few months with a favourite niece as her companion while Brynhild would remain in India with friends in Mooltan for a time. I looked eagerly at her but she was lost in her own thoughts and it was evidently not the time to say more.
If I had hoped for a vision before I left the neighbourhood of that strange House of Beauty where a spirit imprisoned appeared to await the day of enlightenment I was disappointed. These things do not happen as one expects or would choose. The wind bloweth where it listeth until the laws which govern the inner life are understood, and then we would not choose if we could for we know that all is better than well. In this world, either in the blinded sight of daily life or in the clarity of the true sight I have not since seen it, but that has mattered little, for having heard an authentic word within its walls I have passed on my way elsewhere.
Next day a letter from Olesen reached me.
"Dear Ormond, I hope you have had a good time at the House in the Woods. I saw Rup Singh a few days ago and he wrote the odd message I enclose. You know what these natives are, even the most sensible of them, and you will humour the old fellow for he ages very fast and I think is breaking up. But this was not what I wanted to say. I had a letter from a man I had not seen for years - a fellow called Stephen Clifden, who lives in Kashmir. As a matter of fact I had forgotten his existence but evidently he has not repaid the compliment for he writes as follows - No, I had better send you the note and you can do as you please. I am rushed off my legs with work and the heat is hell with the lid off. And-"
But the rest was of no interest except to a friend of years' standing. I read Rup Singh's message first. It was written in his own tongue.
"To the Honoured One who has attained to the favour of the Favourable.
"You have with open eyes seen what this humble one has dreamed but has not known. If the thing be possible, write me this word that I may depart in peace. 'With that one who in a former birth you loved all is well. Fear nothing for him. The way is long but at the end the lamps of love are lit and the Unstruck music is sounded. He lies at the feet of Mercy and there awaits his hour.' And if it be not possible to write these words, write nothing, 0 Honoured, for though it be in the hells my soul shall find my King, and again I shall serve him as once I served."
I understood, and wrote those words as he had written them. Strange mystery of life - that I who had not known should see, and that this man whose fidelity had not deserted his broken King in his utter downfall should have sought with passion for one sight of the beloved face across the waters of death and sought in vain. I thought of those Buddhist words of Seneca - "The soul may be and is in the mass of men drugged and silenced by the seductions of sense and the deceptions of the world. But if, in some moment of detachment