It had dwelt there all his life, and had slowly shone forth with
clearer and clearer light, and he began to see that though his earthly
steps might be in the ways of the ancient town that was beset by the
Enchanters, and resounded with their songs and their processions, yet he
dwelt also in that serene and secure world of brightness, and from a
great and unutterable height looked on the confusion of the mortal
pageant, beholding mysteries in which he was no true actor, hearing
magic songs that could by no means draw him down from the battlements of
the high and holy city. His heart was filled with a great joy and a great peace as he lay down
beside his wife and fell asleep, and in the morning, when he woke up, he
was glad. IV

In a haze as of a dream Darnell's thoughts seemed to move through the
opening days of the next week. Perhaps nature had not intended that he
should be practical or much given to that which is usually called 'sound
common sense,' but his training had made him desirous of good, plain
qualities of the mind, and he uneasily strove to account to himself for
his strange mood of the Sunday night, as he had often endeavoured to
interpret the fancies of his boyhood and early manhood. At first he was
annoyed by his want of success; the morning paper, which he always
secured as the 'bus delayed at Uxbridge Road Station, fell from his
hands unread, while he vainly reasoned, assuring himself that the
threatened incursion of a whimsical old woman, though tiresome enough,
was no rational excuse for those curious hours of meditation in which
his thoughts seemed to have dressed themselves in unfamiliar, fantastic
habits, and to parley with him in a strange speech, and yet a speech
that he had understood. With such arguments he perplexed his mind on the long, accustomed ride
up the steep ascent of Holland Park, past the incongruous hustle of
Notting Hill Gate, where in one direction a road shows the way to the
snug, somewhat faded bowers and retreats of Bayswater, and in another
one sees the portal of the murky region of the slums. The customary
companions of his morning's journey were in the seats about him; he
heard the hum of their talk, as they disputed concerning politics, and
the man next to him, who came from Acton, asked him what he thought of
the Government now. There was a discussion, and a loud and excited one,
just in front, as to whether rhubarb was a fruit or vegetable, and in
his ear he heard Redman, who was a near neighbour, praising the economy
of 'the wife.' 'I don't know how she does it. Look here; what do you think we had
yesterday? Breakfast: fish-cakes, beautifully fried--rich, you know,
lots of herbs, it's a receipt of her aunt's; you should just taste 'em. Coffee, bread, butter, marmalade, and, of course, all the usual
etceteras. Dinner: roast beef, Yorkshire, potatoes, greens, and
horse-radish sauce, plum tart, cheese. And where will you get a better
dinner than that? Well, I call it wonderful, I really do.' But in spite of these distractions he fell into a dream as the 'bus
rolled and tossed on its way Citywards, and still he strove to solve the
enigma of his vigil of the night before, and as the shapes of trees and
green lawns and houses passed before his eyes, and as he saw the
procession moving on the pavement, and while the murmur of the streets
sounded in his ears, all was to him strange and unaccustomed, as if he
moved through the avenues of some city in a foreign land. It was,
perhaps, on these mornings, as he rode to his mechanical work, that
vague and floating fancies that must have long haunted his brain began
to shape themselves, and to put on the form of definite conclusions,
from which he could no longer escape, even if he had wished it. Darnell
had received what is called a sound commercial education, and would
therefore have found very great difficulty in putting into articulate
speech any thought that was worth thinking; but he grew certain on these
mornings that the 'common sense' which he had always heard exalted as
man's supremest faculty was, in all probability, the smallest and
least-considered item in the equipment of an ant of average
intelligence. And with this, as an almost necessary corollary, came a
firm belief that the whole fabric of life in which he moved was sunken,
past all thinking, in the grossest absurdity; that he and all his
friends and acquaintances and fellow-workers were interested in matters
in which men were never meant to be interested, were pursuing aims which
they were never meant to pursue, were, indeed, much like fair stones of
an altar serving as a pigsty wall. Life, it seemed to him, was a great
search for--he knew not what; and in the process of the ages one by one
the true marks upon the ways had been shattered, or buried, or the
meaning of the words had been slowly forgotten; one by one the signs had
been turned awry, the true entrances had been thickly overgrown, the
very way itself had been diverted from the heights to the depths, till
at last the race of pilgrims had become hereditary stone-breakers and
ditch-scourers on a track that led to destruction--if it led anywhere at
all. Darnell's heart thrilled with a strange and trembling joy, with a
sense that was all new, when it came to his mind that this great loss
might not be a hopeless one, that perhaps the difficulties were by no
means insuperable. It might be, he considered, that the stone-breaker
had merely to throw down his hammer and set out, and the way would be
plain before him; and a single step would free the delver in rubbish
from the foul slime of the ditch. It was, of course, with difficulty and slowly that these things became
clear to him. He was an English City clerk, 'flourishing' towards the
end of the nineteenth century, and the rubbish heap that had been
accumulating for some centuries could not be cleared away in an instant. Again and again the spirit of nonsense that had been implanted in him as
in his fellows assured him that the true world was the visible and
tangible world, the world in which good and faithful letter-copying was
exchangeable for a certain quantum of bread, beef, and house-room, and
that the man who copied letters well, did not beat his wife, nor lose
money foolishly, was a good man, fulfilling the end for which he had
been made. But in spite of these arguments, in spite of their acceptance
by all who were about him, he had the grace to perceive the utter
falsity and absurdity of the whole position. He was fortunate in his
entire ignorance of sixpenny 'science,' but if the whole library had
been projected into his brain it would not have moved him to 'deny in
the darkness that which he had known in the light.' Darnell knew by
experience that man is made a mystery for mysteries and visions, for the
realization in his consciousness of ineffable bliss, for a great joy
that transmutes the whole world, for a joy that surpasses all joys and
overcomes all sorrows.