In place of them came--oh, God, I hate to say it, for
only nursery talk can get within a mile of it, and yet what I need is
something simpler even than the words that children use. Under one arm
I carried a whole forest breathing in the wind, and beneath the other
a hundred meadows full of singing streams with golden marigolds and
blue forget-me-nots along their banks. Upon my back and shoulders lay
the clouded hills with dew and moonlight in their brimmed, capacious
hollows. Thick in my hair hung the unaging powers that are stars and
sunlight; though the sun was far away, it sweetened the currents of
my blood with liquid gold. Breast and throat and face, as I advanced,
met all the rivers of the world and all the winds of heaven, their
strength and swiftness melting into me as light melts into everything
it touches. And into my eyes passed all the radiant colours that weave
the cloth of Nature as she takes the sun. And this "figure," pouring upon me like a burst of moonlight, spoke:

"They all are in you--air, and fire, and water...."

"And I--my feet stand--on the _Earth_," my own voice interrupted, deep
power lifting through the sound of it. "The Earth!" He laughed gigantically. He spread. He seemed everywhere
about me. He seemed a race of men. My life swam forth in waves of some
immense sensation that issued from the mountain and the forest, then
returned to them again. I reeled. I clutched at something in me that
was slipping beyond control, slipping down a bank towards a deep, dark
river flowing at my feet. A shadowy boat appeared, a still more shadowy
outline at the helm. I was in the act of stepping into it. For the tree
I caught at was only air. I couldn't stop myself. I tried to scream. "You have plucked asphodel," sang the voice beside me, "and you shall
pluck more...."

I slipped and slipped, the speed increasing horribly. Then something
caught, as though a cog held fast and stopped me. I remembered my
business in New York City. "Arthur!" I yelled. "Arthur!" I shouted again as hard as I could shout. There was frantic terror in me. I felt as though I should never get
back to myself again. Death! The answer came in his normal voice: "Keep close to me. I know the
way...."

The scenery dwindled suddenly; the trees came back. I was walking in
the forest beside my nephew, and the moonlight lay in patches and
little shafts of silver. The crests of the pines just murmured in a
wind that scarcely stirred, and through an opening on our right I saw
the deep valley clasped about the twinkling village lights. Towering
in splendour the spectral snowfields hung upon the sky, huge summits
guarding them. And Arthur took my arm--oh, solidly enough this time. Thank heaven, he asked no questions of me. "There's a smell of myrrh," he whispered, "and we are very near the
undying, ancient things." I said something about the resin from the trees, but he took no notice. "It enclosed its body in an egg of myrrh," he went on, smiling down
at me; "then, setting it on fire, rose from the ashes with its life
renewed. Once every five hundred years, you see----"

"What did?" I cried, feeling that loss of self stealing over me again. And his answer came like a blow between the eyes:

"The Phoenix. They called it a bird, but, of course, the true ..."

"But my life's insured in that," I cried, for he had named the company
that took large yearly premiums from me; "and I pay ..."

"Your life's insured in _this_," he said quietly, waving his arms to
indicate the Earth. "Your love of Nature and your sympathy with it make
you safe." He gazed at me. There was a marvellous expression in his
eyes. I understood why poets talked of stars and flowers in a human
face. But behind the face crept back another look as well. There grew
about his figure an indeterminate extension. The outline of Malahide
again stirred through his own. A pale, delicate hand reached out to
take my own. And something broke in me. I was conscious of two things--a burst of joy that meant losing myself
entirely, and a rush of terror that meant staying as I was, a small,
painful, struggling item of individual life. Another spray of that
awful asphodel fell fluttering through the air in front of my face. It
rested on the earth against my feet. And Arthur--this weirdly changing
Arthur--stooped to pick it for me. I kicked it with my foot beyond his
reach ... then turned and ran as though the Furies of that ancient
world were after me. I ran for my very life. How I escaped from that
thick wood without banging my body to bits against the trees I can't
explain. I ran from something I desired and yet feared. I leaped along
in a succession of flying bounds. Each tree I passed turned of its
own accord and flung after me until the entire forest followed. But
I got out. I reached the open. Upon the sloping field in the full,
clear light of the moon I collapsed in a panting heap. The Earth drew
back with a great shuddering sigh behind me. There was this strange,
tumultuous sound upon the night. I lay beneath the open heavens that
were full of moonlight. I was myself--but there were tears in me. Beauty too high for understanding had slipped between my fingers. I had
lost Malahide. I had lost the gods of Earth.... Yet I had seen ... and
felt. I had not lost all. Something remained that I could never lose
again.... I don't know how it happened exactly, but presently I heard Arthur
saying: "You'll catch your death of cold if you lie on that soaking
grass," and felt his hand seize mine to pull me to my feet. "I feel safer on earth," I believe I answered. And then he said: "Yes,
but it's such a stupid way to die--a chill!" 4

I got up then, and we went downhill together towards the village
lights. I danced--oh, I admit it--I sang as well. There was a flood
of joy and power about me that beat anything I'd ever felt before. I
didn't think or hesitate; there was no self-consciousness; I just let
it rip for all there was, and if there had been ten thousand people
there in front of me, I could have made them feel it too. That was the
kind of feeling--power and confidence and a sort of raging happiness. I think I know what it was too. I say this soberly, with reverence ...
all wool and no fading. There was a bit of God in me, God's power that
drives the Earth and pours through Nature--the imperishable Beauty
expressed in those old-world nature-deities! And the fear I'd felt was nothing but the little tickling point
of losing my ordinary two-cent self, the dread of letting go, the
shrinking before the plunge--what a fellow feels when he's falling in
love, and hesitates, and tries to think it out and hold back, and is
afraid to let the enormous tide flow in and drown him. Oh, yes, I began to think it over a bit as we raced down the
mountain-side that glorious night. I've read some in my day; my brain's
all right; I've heard of dual personality and subliminal uprush and
conversion--no new line of goods, all that.