Lilith ,  A Romance  By George Macdonald  1895  " Off , Lilith !  " — The Kabala  I took a walk on Spaulding 'sFarm the other afternoon . I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood . Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall . I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord , unknown to me , — to whom the sun was servant , — who had not gone into society in the village , --who had not been called on . I saw their park , their pleasure-ground , beyond through the wood , in Spaulding 'scranberry-meadow . The pines furnished them with gables as they grew . Their house was not obvious to vision ; their trees grew through it . I do not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not . They seemed to recline on the sunbeams . They have sons and daughters . They are quite well . The farmer 'scart-path , which leads directly through their hall , does not in the least put them out , — as the muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies . They never heard of Spaulding , and do not know that he is their neighbor , — notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team through the house . Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives . Their coat of arms is simply a lichen . I saw it painted on the pines and oaks . Their attics were in the tops of the trees . They are of no politics . There was no noise of labor . I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning . Yet I did detect , when the wind lulled and hearing was done away , the finest imaginable sweet musical hum , — as of a distant hive in May , which perchance was the sound of their thinking . They had no idle thoughts , and no one without could see their work , for their industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed . But I find it difficult to remember them . They fade irrevocably out of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them , and recollect myself . It is only after a long and serious effort to recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their cohabitancy . If it were not for such families as this , I think I should move out of Concord .  Thoreau : " Walking . "  chapter i  THE LIBRARY  I HAD just finished my studies at Oxford , and was taking a brief holiday from work before assuming definitely the management of the estate .  My father died when I was yet a child ; my mother followed him within a year ; and I was nearly as much alone in the world as a man might find himself .  I had made little acquaintance with the history of my ancestors .  Almost the only thing I knew concerning them was , that a notable number of them had been given to study .  I had myself so far inherited the tendency as to devote a good deal of my time , though , I confess , after a somewhat desultory fashion , to the physical sciences .  It was chiefly the wonder they woke that drew me .  I was constantly seeing , and on the outlook to see , strange analogies , not only between the facts of different sciences of the same order , or between physical and metaphysical facts , but between physical hypotheses and suggestions glimmering out of the metaphysical dreams into which I was in the habit of falling .  I was at the same time much given to a premature indulgence of the impulse to turn hypothesis into theory .  Of my mental peculiarities there is no occasion to say more .  The house as well as the family was of some antiquity , but no description of it is necessary to the understanding of my narrative .  It contained a fine library , whose growth began before the invention of printing , and had continued to my own time , greatly influenced , of course , by changes of taste and pursuit .  Nothing surely can more impress upon a man the transitory nature of possession than his succeeding to an ancient property !  Like a moving panorama mine has passed from before many eyes , and is now slowly flitting from before my own .  The library , although duly considered in many alterations of the house and additions to it , had nevertheless , like an encroaching state , absorbed one room after another until it occupied the greater part of the ground floor .  Its chief room was large , and the walls of it were covered with books almost to the ceiling ; the rooms into which it overflowed were of various sizes and shapes , and communicated in modes as various — by doors , by open arches , by short passages , by steps up and steps down .  In the great room I mainly spent my time , reading books of science , old as well as new ; for the history of the human mind in relation to supposed knowledge was what most of all interested me .  Ptolemy , Dante , the two Bacons , and Boyle were even more to me than Darwin or Maxwell , as so much nearer the vanished van breaking into the dark of ignorance .  In the evening of a gloomy day of August I was sitting in my usual place , my back to one of the windows , reading .  It had rained the greater part of the morning and afternoon , but just as the sun was setting , the clouds parted in front of him , and he shone into the room .  I rose and looked out of the window .  In the centre of the great lawn the feathering top of the fountain column was filled with his red glory .  I turned to resume my seat , when my eye was caught by the same glory on the one picture in the room — a portrait , in a sort of niche or little shrine sunk for it in the expanse of book-filled shelves .  I knew it as the likeness of one of my ancestors , but had never even wondered why it hung there alone , and not in the gallery , or one of the great rooms , among the other family portraits .  The direct sunlight brought out the painting wonderfully ; for the first time I seemed to see it , and for the first time it seemed to respond to my look .  With my eyes full of the light reflected from it , something , I cannot tell what , made me turn and cast a glance to the farther end of the room , when I saw , or seemed to see , a tall figure reaching up a hand to a bookshelf .  The next instant , my vision apparently rectified by the comparative dusk , I saw no one , and concluded that my optic nerves had been momentarily affected from within .  I resumed my reading , and would doubtless have forgotten the vague , evanescent impression , had it not been that , having occasion a moment after to consult a certain volume , I found but a gap in the row where it ought to have stood , and the same instant remembered that just there I had seen , or fancied I saw , the old man in search of a book .  I looked all about the spot but in vain .  The next morning , however , there it was , just where I had thought to find it !  I knew of no one in the house likely to be interested in such a book .  Three days after , another and yet odder thing took place .  In one of the walls was the low , narrow door of a closet , containing some of the oldest and rarest of the books .  It was a very thick door , with a projecting frame , and it had been the fancy of some ancestor to cross it with shallow shelves , filled with book-backs only .  The harmless trick may be excused by the fact that the titles on the sham backs were either humorously original , or those of books lost beyond hope of recovery .  I had a great liking for the masked door .  To complete the illusion of it , some inventive workman apparently had shoved in , on the top of one of the rows , a part of a volume thin enough to lie between it and the bottom of the next shelf : he had cut away diagonally a considerable portion , and fixed the remnant with one of its open corners projecting beyond the book-backs .  The binding of the mutilated volume was limp vellum , and one could open the corner far enough to see that it was manuscript upon parchment .  Happening , as I sat reading , to raise my eyes from the page , my glance fell upon this door , and at once I saw that the book described , if book it may be called , was gone .  Angrier than any worth I knew in it justified , I rang the bell , and the butler appeared .  When I asked him if he knew what had befallen it , he turned pale , and assured me he did not .  I could less easily doubt his word than my own eyes , for he had been all his life in the family , and a more faithful servant never lived .  He left on me the impression , nevertheless , that he could have said something more .  In the afternoon I was again reading in the library , and coming to a point which demanded reflection , I lowered the book and let my eyes go wandering .  The same moment I saw the back of a slender old man , in a long , dark coat , shiny as from much wear , in the act of disappearing through the masked door into the closet beyond .  I darted across the room , found the door shut , pulled it open , looked into the closet , which had no other issue , and , seeing nobody , concluded , not without uneasiness , that I had had a recurrence of my former illusion , and sat down again to my reading .  Naturally , however , I could not help feeling a little nervous , and presently glancing up to assure myself that I was indeed alone , started again to my feet , and ran to the masked door — for there was the mutilated volume in its place !  I laid hold of it and pulled : it was firmly fixed as usual !  I was now utterly bewildered .  I rang the bell ; the butler came ; I told him all I had seen , and he told me all he knew .  He had hoped , he said , that the old gentleman was going to be forgotten ; it was well no one but myself had seen him .  He had heard a good deal about him when first he served in the house , but by degrees he had ceased to be mentioned , and he had been very careful not to allude to him .  " The place was haunted by an old gentleman , was it ?  " I said .  He answered that at one time everybody believed it , but the fact that I had never heard of it seemed to imply that the thing had come to an end and was forgotten .  I questioned him as to what he had seen of the old gentleman .  He had never seen him , he said , although he had been in the house from the day my father was eight years old .  My grandfather would never hear a word on the matter , declaring that whoever alluded to it should be dismissed without a moment 'swarning : it was nothing but a pretext of the maids , he said , for running into the arms of the men !  but old Sir Ralph believed in nothing he could not see or lay hold of .  Not one of the maids ever said she had seen the apparition , but a footman had left the place because of it .  An ancient woman in the village had told him a legend concerning a Mr. Raven , long time librarian to " that Sir Upward whose portrait hangs there among the books .  " Sir Upward was a great reader , she said — not of such books only as were wholesome for men to read , but of strange , forbidden , and evil books ; and in so doing , Mr. Raven , who was probably the devil himself , encouraged him .  Suddenly they both disappeared , and Sir Upward was never after seen or heard of , but Mr. Raven continued to show himself at uncertain intervals in the library .  There were some who believed he was not dead ; but both he and the old woman held it easier to believe that a dead man might revisit the world he had left , than that one who went on living for hundreds of years should be a man at all .  He had never heard that Mr. Raven meddled with anything in the house , but he might perhaps consider himself privileged in regard to the books .  How the old woman had learned so much about him he could not tell ; but the description she gave of him corresponded exactly with the figure I had just seen .  " I hope it was but a friendly call on the part of the old gentleman !  " he concluded , with a troubled smile .  I told him I had no objection to any number of visits from Mr. Raven , but it would be well he should keep to his resolution of saying nothing about him to the servants .  Then I asked him if he had ever seen the mutilated volume out of its place ; he answered that he never had , and had always thought it a fixture .  With that he went to it , and gave it a pull : it seemed immovable .  chapter ii  THE MIRROR  NOTHING more happened for some days .  I think it was about a week after , when what I have now to tell took place .  I had often thought of the manuscript fragment , and repeatedly tried to discover some way of releasing it , but in vain : I could not find what held it fast .  But I had for some time intended a thorough overhauling of the books in the closet , its atmosphere causing me uneasiness as to their condition .  One day the intention suddenly became a resolve , and I was in the act of rising from my chair to make a beginning , when I saw the old librarian moving from the door of the closet toward the farther end of the room .  I ought rather to say only that I caught sight of something shadowy from which I received the impression of a slight , stooping man , in a shabby dress-coat reaching almost to his heels , the tails of which , disparting a little as he walked , revealed thin legs in black stockings , and large feet in wide , slipper-like shoes .  At once I followed him : I might be following a shadow , but I never doubted I was following something .  He went out of the library into the hall , and across to the foot of the great staircase , then up the stairs to the first floor , where lay the chief rooms .  Past these rooms , I following close , he continued his way , through a wide corridor , to the foot of a narrower stair leading to the second floor .  Up that he went also , and when I reached the top , strange as it may seem , I found myself in a region almost unknown to me .  I never had brother or sister to incite to such romps as make children familiar with nook and cranny ; I was a mere child when my guardian took me away ; and I had never seen the house again until , about a month before , I returned to take possession .  Through passage after passage we came to a door at the bottom of a winding wooden stair , which we ascended .  Every step creaked under my foot , but I heard no sound from that of my guide .  Somewhere in the middle of the stair I lost sight of him , and from the top of it the shadowy shape was nowhere visible .  I could not even imagine I saw him .  The place was full of shadows , but he was not one of them .  I was in the main garret , with huge beams and rafters over my head , great spaces around me , a door here and there in sight , and long vistas whose gloom was thinned by a few lurking cobwebbed windows and small dusky skylights .  I gazed with a strange mingling of awe and pleasure : the wide expanse of garret was my own , and unexplored !  In the middle of it stood an unpainted inclosure of rough planks , the door of which was ajar .  Thinking Mr. Raven might be there , I pushed the door , and entered .  The small chamber was full of light , but such as dwells in places deserted : it had a dull , disconsolate look , as if it found itself of no use , and regretted having come .  A few rather dim sunrays , marking their track through the cloud of motes that had just been stirred up , fell upon a tall mirror with a dusty face , old-fashioned and rather narrow — in appearance an ordinary glass .  It had an ebony frame , on the top of which stood a black eagle , with outstretched wings , in his beak a golden chain , from whose end hung a black ball .  I had been looking at rather than into the mirror , when suddenly I became aware that it reflected neither the chamber nor my own person .  I have an impression of having seen the wall melt away , but what followed is enough to account for any uncertainty : — could I have mistaken for a mirror the glass that protected a wonderful picture ?  I saw before me a wild country , broken and heathy .  Desolate hills of no great height , but somehow of strange appearance , occupied the middle distance ; along the horizon stretched the tops of a far-off mountain range ; nearest me lay a tract of moorland , flat and melancholy .  Being short-sighted , I stepped closer to examine the texture of a stone in the immediate foreground , and in the act espied , hopping toward me with solemnity , a large and ancient raven , whose purply black was here and there softened with gray .  He seemed looking for worms as he came .  Nowise astonished at the appearance of a live creature in a picture , I took another step forward to see him better , stumbled over something — doubtless the frame of the mirror — and stood nose to beak with the bird : I was in the open air , on a houseless heath !  chapter iii  THE RAVEN  I TURNED and looked behind me : all was vague and uncertain , as when one cannot distinguish between fog and field , between cloud and mountain-side .  One fact only was plain — that I saw nothing I knew .  Imagining myself involved in a visual illusion , and that touch would correct sight , I stretched my arms and felt about me , walking in this direction and that , if haply , where I could see nothing , I might yet come in contact with something ; but my search was vain .  Instinctively then , as to the only living thing near me , I turned to the raven , which stood a little way off , regarding me with an expression at once respectful and quizzical .  Then the absurdity of seeking counsel from such a one struck me , and I turned again , overwhelmed with bewilderment , not unmingled with fear .  Had I wandered into a region where both the material and psychical relations of our world had ceased to hold ?  Might a man at any moment step beyond the realm of order , and become the sport of the lawless ?  Yet I saw the raven , felt the ground under my feet , and heard a sound as of wind in the lowly plants around me !  " How did I get here ?  " I said — apparently aloud , for the question was immediately answered .  " You came through the door , " replied an odd , rather harsh voice .  I looked behind , then all about me , but saw no human shape .  The terror that madness might be at hand laid hold upon me : must I henceforth place no confidence either in my senses or my consciousness ?  The same instant I knew it was the raven that had spoken , for he stood looking up at me with an air of waiting .  The sun was not shining , yet the bird seemed to cast a shadow , and the shadow seemed part of himself .  I beg my reader to aid me in the endeavour to make myself intelligible — if here understanding be indeed possible between us .  I was in a world , or call it a state of things , an economy of conditions , an idea of existence , so little correspondent with the ways and modes of this world — which we are apt to think the only world , that the best choice I can make of word or phrase is but an adumbration of what I would convey .  I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken an impossibility , undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind .  Already I have set down statements I would gladly change did I know how to substitute a truer utterance ; but as often as I try to fit the reality with nearer words , I find myself in danger of losing the things themselves , and feel like one in process of awaking from a dream , with the thing that seemed familiar gradually yet swiftly changing through a succession of forms until its very nature is no longer recognisable .  I bethought me that a bird capable of addressing a man must have the right of a man to a civil answer ; perhaps , as a bird , even a greater claim .  A tendency to croak caused a certain roughness in his speech , but his voice was not disagreeable , and what he said , although conveying little enlightenment , did not sound rude .  " I did not come through any door , " I rejoined .  " I saw you come through it !  — saw you with my own ancient eyes !  " asserted the raven , positively but not disrespectfully .  " I never saw any door !  " I persisted .  " Of course not !  " he returned ; " all the doors you had yet seen — and you have n't seen many — were doors in ; here you came upon a door out !  The strange thing to you , " he went on thoughtfully , " will be , that the more doors you go out of , the farther you get in !  "  " Oblige me by telling me where I am .  "  " That is impossible .  You know nothing about whereness .  The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home .  "  " How am I to begin that where everything is so strange ?  "  " By doing something .  "  " What ?  "  " Anything ; and the sooner you begin the better !  for until you are at home , you will find it as difficult to get out as it is to get in .  "  " I have , unfortunately , found it too easy to get in ; once out I shall not try again !  "  " You have stumbled in , and may , possibly , stumble out again .  Whether you have got in unfortunately remains to be seen .  "  " Do you never go out , sir ?  "  " When I please I do , but not often , or for long .  Your world is such a half-baked sort of place , it is at once so childish and so self-satisfied — in fact , it is not sufficiently developed for an old raven — at your service !  "  " Am I wrong , then , in presuming that a man is superior to a bird ?  "  " That is as it may be .  We do not waste our intellects in generalising , but take man or bird as we find him .  — I think it is now my turn to ask you a question !  "  " You have the best of rights , " I replied , " in the fact that you can do so !  "  " Well answered !  " he rejoined .  " Tell me , then , who you are — if you happen to know .  "  " How should I help knowing ?  I am myself , and must know !  "  " If you know you are yourself , you know that you are not somebody else ; but do you know that you are yourself ?  Are you sure you are not your own father ?  — or , excuse me , your own fool ?  — Who are you , pray ?  "  I became at once aware that I could give him no notion of who I was .  Indeed , who was I ?  It would be no answer to say I was who !  Then I understood that I did not know myself , did not know what I was , had no grounds on which to determine that I was one and not another .  As for the name I went by in my own world , I had forgotten it , and did not care to recall it , for it meant nothing , and what it might be was plainly of no consequence here .  I had indeed almost forgotten that there it was a custom for everybody to have a name !  So I held my peace , and it was my wisdom ; for what should I say to a creature such as this raven , who saw through accident into entity ?  " Look at me , " he said , " and tell me who I am .  "  As he spoke , he turned his back , and instantly I knew him .  He was no longer a raven , but a man above the middle height with a stoop , very thin , and wearing a long black tail-coat .  Again he turned , and I saw him a raven .  " I have seen you before , sir , " I said , feeling foolish rather than surprised .  " How can you say so from seeing me behind ?  " he rejoined .  " Did you ever see yourself behind ?  You have never seen yourself at all !  — Tell me now , then , who I am .  "  " I humbly beg your pardon , " I answered : " I believe you were once the librarian of our house , but more who I do not know .  "  " Why do you beg my pardon ?  "  " Because I took you for a raven , " I said — seeing him before me as plainly a raven as bird or man could look .  " You did me no wrong , " he returned .  " Calling me a raven , or thinking me one , you allowed me existence , which is the sum of what one can demand of his fellow-beings .  Therefore , in return , I will give you a lesson : — No one can say he is himself , until first he knows that he is , and then what himself is .  In fact , nobody is himself , and himself is nobody .  There is more in it than you can see now , but not more than you need to see .  You have , I fear , got into this region too soon , but none the less you must get to be at home in it ; for home , as you may or may not know , is the only place where you can go out and in .  There are places you can go into , and places you can go out of ; but the one place , if you do but find it , where you may go out and in both , is home .  "  He turned to walk away , and again I saw the librarian .  He did not appear to have changed , only to have taken up his shadow .  I know this seems nonsense , but I cannot help it .  I gazed after him until I saw him no more ; but whether distance hid him , or he disappeared among the heather , I cannot tell .  Could it be that I was dead , I thought , and did not know it ?  Was I in what we used to call the world beyond the grave ?  and must I wander about seeking my place in it ?  How was I to find myself at home ?  The raven said I must do something : what could I do here ?  — And would that make me somebody ?  for now , alas , I was nobody !  I took the way Mr. Raven had gone , and went slowly after him .  Presently I saw a wood of tall slender pine-trees , and turned toward it .  The odour of it met me on my way , and I made haste to bury myself in it .  Plunged at length in its twilight glooms , I spied before me something with a shine , standing between two of the stems .  It had no colour , but was like the translucent trembling of the hot air that rises , in a radiant summer noon , from the sun-baked ground , vibrant like the smitten chords of a musical instrument .  What it was grew no plainer as I went nearer , and when I came close up , I ceased to see it , only the form and colour of the trees beyond seemed strangely uncertain .  I would have passed between the stems , but received a slight shock , stumbled , and fell .  When I rose , I saw before me the wooden wall of the garret chamber .  I turned , and there was the mirror , on whose top the black eagle seemed but that moment to have perched .  Terror seized me , and I fled .  Outside the chamber the wide garret spaces had an uncanny look .  They seemed to have long been waiting for something ; it had come , and they were waiting again !  A shudder went through me on the winding stair : the house had grown strange to me !  something was about to leap upon me from behind !  I darted down the spiral , struck against the wall and fell , rose and ran .  On the next floor I lost my way , and had gone through several passages a second time ere I found the head of the stair .  At the top of the great stair I had come to myself a little , and in a few moments I sat recovering my breath in the library .  Nothing should ever again make me go up that last terrible stair !  The garret at the top of it pervaded the whole house !  It sat upon it , threatening to crush me out of it !  The brooding brain of the building , it was full of mysterious dwellers , one or other of whom might any moment appear in the library where I sat !  I was nowhere safe !  I would let , I would sell the dreadful place , in which an aërial portal stood ever open to creatures whose life was other than human !  I would purchase a crag in Switzerland , and thereon build a wooden nest of one story with never a garret above it , guarded by some grand old peak that would send down nothing worse than a few tons of whelming rock !  I knew all the time that my thinking was foolish , and was even aware of a certain undertone of contemptuous humour in it ; but suddenly it was checked , and I seemed again to hear the croak of the raven .  " If I know nothing of my own garret , " I thought , " what is there to secure me against my own brain ?  Can I tell what it is even now generating ?  — what thought it may present me the next moment , the next month , or a year away ?  What is at the heart of my brain ?  What is behind my think ?  Am I there at all ?  — Who , what am I ?  "  I could no more answer the question now than when the raven put it to me in — at — " Where in ?  — where at ?  " I said , and gave myself up as knowing anything of myself or the universe .  I started to my feet , hurried across the room to the masked door , where the mutilated volume , sticking out from the flat of soulless , bodiless , non-existent books , appeared to beckon me , went down on my knees , and opened it as far as its position would permit , but could see nothing .  I got up again , lighted a taper , and peeping as into a pair of reluctant jaws , perceived that the manuscript was verse .  Further I could not carry discovery .  Beginnings of lines were visible on the left-hand page , and ends of lines on the other ; but I could not , of course , get at the beginning and end of a single line , and was unable , in what I could read , to make any guess at the sense .  The mere words , however , woke in me feelings which to describe was , from their strangeness , impossible .  Some dreams , some poems , some musical phrases , some pictures , wake feelings such as one never had before , new in colour and form — spiritual sensations , as it were , hitherto unproved : here , some of the phrases , some of the senseless half-lines , some even of the individual words affected me in similar fashion — as with the aroma of an idea , rousing in me a great longing to know what the poem or poems might , even yet in their mutilation , hold or suggest .  I copied out a few of the larger shreds attainable , and tried hard to complete some of the lines , but without the least success .  The only thing I gained in the effort was so much weariness that , when I went to bed , I fell asleep at once and slept soundly .  In the morning all that horror of the empty garret spaces had left me .  chapter iv  SOMEWHERE OR NOWHERE ?  THE sun was very bright , but I doubted if the day would long be fine , and looked into the milky sapphire I wore , to see whether the star in it was clear .  It was even less defined than I had expected .  I rose from the breakfast-table , and went to the window to glance at the stone again .  There had been heavy rain in the night , and on the lawn was a thrush breaking his way into the shell of a snail .  As I was turning my ring about to catch the response of the star to the sun , I spied a keen black eye gazing at me out of the milky misty blue .  The sight startled me so that I dropped the ring , and when I picked it up the eye was gone from it .  The same moment the sun was obscured ; a dark vapour covered him , and in a minute or two the whole sky was clouded .  The air had grown sultry , and a gust of wind came suddenly .  A moment more and there was a flash of lightning , with a single sharp thunder-clap .  Then the rain fell in torrents .  I had opened the window , and stood there looking out at the precipitous rain , when I descried a raven walking toward me over the grass , with solemn gait , and utter disregard of the falling deluge .  Suspecting who he was , I congratulated myself that I was safe on the ground-floor .  At the same time I had a conviction that , if I were not careful , something would happen .  He came nearer and nearer , made a profound bow , and with a sudden winged leap stood on the window-sill .  Then he stepped over the ledge , jumped down into the room , and walked to the door .  I thought he was on his way to the library , and followed him , determined , if he went up the stair , not to take one step after him .  He turned , however , neither toward the library nor the stair , but to a little door that gave upon a grass-patch in a nook between two portions of the rambling old house .  I made haste to open it for him .  He stepped out into its creeper-covered porch , and stood looking at the rain , which fell like a huge thin cataract ; I stood in the door behind him .  The second flash came , and was followed by a lengthened roll of more distant thunder .  He turned his head over his shoulder and looked at me , as much as to say , " You hear that ?  " then swivelled it round again , and anew contemplated the weather , apparently with approbation .  So human were his pose and carriage and the way he kept turning his head , that I remarked almost involuntarily , " Fine weather for the worms , Mr. Raven !  "  " Yes , " he answered , in the rather croaky voice I had learned to know , " the ground will be nice for them to get out and in !  — It must be a grand time on the steppes of Uranus !  " he added , with a glance upward ; " I believe it is raining there too ; it was , all the last week !  "  " Why should that make it a grand time ?  " I asked .  " Because the animals there are all burrowers , " he answered , " — like the field-mice and the moles here .  — They will be , for ages to come .  "  " How do you know that , if I may be so bold ?  " I rejoined .  " As any one would who had been there to see , " he replied .  " It is a great sight , until you get used to it , when the earth gives a heave , and out comes a beast .  You might think it a hairy elephant or a deinotherium — but none of the animals are the same as we have ever had here .  I was almost frightened myself the first time I saw the dry-bog-serpent come wallowing out — such a head and mane !  and such eyes !  — But the shower is nearly over .  It will stop directly after the next thunder-clap .  There it is !  "  A flash came with the words , and in about half a minute the thunder .  Then the rain ceased .  " Now we should be going !  " said the raven , and stepped to the front of the porch .  " Going where ?  " I asked .  " Going where we have to go , " he answered .  " You did not surely think you had got home ?  I told you there was no going out and in at pleasure until you were at home !  "  " I do not want to go , " I said .  " That does not make any difference — at least not much , " he answered .  " This is the way !  "  " I am quite content where I am .  "  " You think so , but you are not .  Come along .  "  He hopped from the porch onto the grass , and turned , waiting .  " I will not leave the house to-day , " I said with obstinacy .  " You will come into the garden !  " rejoined the raven .  " I give in so far , " I replied , and stepped from the porch .  The sun broke through the clouds , and the rain-drops flashed and sparkled on the grass .  The raven was walking over it .  " You will wet your feet !  " I cried .  " And mire my beak , " he answered , immediately plunging it deep in the sod , and drawing out a great wriggling red worm .  He threw back his head , and tossed it in the air .  It spread great wings , gorgeous in red and black , and soared aloft .  " Tut !  tut !  " I exclaimed ; " you mistake , Mr. Raven : worms are not the larvæ of butterflies !  "  " Never mind , " he croaked ; " it will do for once !  I 'mnot a reading man at present , but sexton at the — at a certain graveyard — cemetery , more properly — in — at — no matter where !  "  " I see !  you ca n't keep your spade still : and when you have nothing to bury , you must dig something up !  Only you should mind what it is before you make it fly !  No creature should be allowed to forget what and where it came from !  "  " Why ?  " said the raven .  " Because it will grow proud , and cease to recognise its superiors .  "  No man knows it when he is making an idiot of himself .  " Where do the worms come from ?  " said the raven , as if suddenly grown curious to know .  " Why , from the earth , as you have just seen !  " I answered .  " Yes , last !  " he replied .  " But they ca n't have come from it first — for that will never go back to it !  " he added , looking up .  I looked up also , but could see nothing save a little dark cloud , the edges of which were red , as if with the light of the sunset .  " Surely the sun is not going down !  " I exclaimed , struck with amazement .  " Oh , no !  " returned the raven .  " That red belongs to the worm .  "  " You see what comes of making creatures forget their origin !  " I cried with some warmth .  " It is well , surely , if it be to rise higher and grow larger !  " he returned .  " But indeed I only teach them to find it !  "  " Would you have the air full of worms ?  "  " That is the business of a sexton .  If only the rest of the clergy understood it as well !  "  In went his beak again through the soft turf , and out came the wriggling worm .  He tossed it in the air , and away it flew .  I looked behind me , and gave a cry of dismay : I had but that moment declared I would not leave the house , and already I was a stranger in the strange land !  " What right have you to treat me so , Mr. Raven ?  " I said with deep offence .  " Am I , or am I not , a free agent ?  "  " A man is as free as he chooses to make himself , never an atom freer , " answered the raven .  " You have no right to make me do things against my will !  "  " When you have a will , you will find that no one can .  "  " You wrong me in the very essence of my individuality !  " I persisted .  " If you were an individual I could not , therefore now I do not .  You are but beginning to become an individual .  "  All about me was a pine-forest , in which my eyes were already searching deep , in the hope of discovering an unaccountable glimmer , and so finding my way home .  But , alas !  how could I any longer call that house home , where every door , every window opened into Out , and even the garden I could not keep inside !  I suppose I looked discomfited .  " Perhaps it may comfort you , " said the raven , " to be told that you have not yet left your house , neither has your house left you .  At the same time it cannot contain you , or you inhabit it !  "  " I do not understand you , " I replied .  " Where am I ?  "  " In the region of the seven dimensions , " he answered , with a curious noise in his throat , and a flutter of his tail .  " You had better follow me carefully now for a moment , lest you should hurt some one !  "  " There is nobody to hurt but yourself , Mr. Raven !  I confess I should rather like to hurt you !  "  " That you see nobody is where the danger lies .  But you see that large tree to your left , about thirty yards away ?  "  " Of course I do : why should I not ?  " I answered testily .  " Ten minutes ago you did not see it , and now you do not know where it stands !  "  " I do .  "  " Where do you think it stands ?  "  " Why there , where you know it is !  "  " Where is there ?  "  " You bother me with your silly questions !  " I cried .  " I am growing tired of you !  "  " That tree stands on the hearth of your kitchen , and grows nearly straight up its chimney , " he said .  " Now I know you are making game of me !  " I answered , with a laugh of scorn .  " Was I making game of you when you discovered me looking out of your star-sapphire yesterday ?  "  " That was this morning — not an hour ago !  "  " I have been widening your horizon longer than that , Mr. Vane ; but never mind !  "  " You mean you have been making a fool of me !  " I said , turning from him .  " Excuse me : no one can do that but yourself !  "  " And I decline to do it .  "  " You mistake .  "  " How ?  "  " In declining to acknowledge yourself one already .  You make yourself such by refusing what is true , and for that you will sorely punish yourself .  "  " How , again ?  "  " By believing what is not true .  "  " Then , if I walk to the other side of that tree , I shall walk through the kitchen fire ?  "  " Certainly .  You would first , however , walk through the lady at the piano in the breakfast-room .  That rosebush is close by her .  You would give her a terrible start !  "  " There is no lady in the house !  "  " Indeed !  Is not your housekeeper a lady ?  She is counted such in a certain country where all are servants , and the liveries one and multitudinous !  "  " She cannot use the piano , anyhow !  "  " Her niece can : she is there — a well-educated girl and a capital musician .  "  " Excuse me ; I cannot help it : you seem to me to be talking sheer nonsense !  "  " If you could but hear the music !  Those great long heads of wild hyacinth are inside the piano , among the strings of it , and give that peculiar sweetness to her playing !  — Pardon me : I forgot your deafness !  "  " Two objects , " I said , " cannot exist in the same place at the same time !  "  " Can they not ?  I did not know !  — I remember now they do teach that with you .  It is a great mistake — one of the greatest ever wiseacre made !  No man of the universe , only a man of the world could have said so !  "  " You a librarian , and talk such rubbish !  " I cried .  " Plainly , you did not read many of the books in your charge !  "  " Oh , yes !  I went through all in your library — at the time , and came out at the other side not much the wiser .  I was a bookworm then , but when I came to know it , I woke among the butterflies .  To be sure I have given up reading for a good many years — ever since I was made sexton .  — There !  I smell Grieg 'sWedding March in the quiver of those rose-petals !  "  I went to the rose-bush and listened hard , but could not hear the thinnest ghost of a sound ; I only smelt something I had never before smelt in any rose .  It was still rose-odour , but with a difference , caused , I suppose , by the Wedding March .  When I looked up , there was the bird by my side .  " Mr. Raven , " I said , " forgive me for being so rude : I was irritated .  Will you kindly show me my way home ?  I must go , for I have an appointment with my bailiff .  One must not break faith with one 'sservants !  "  " You cannot break what was broken days ago !  " he answered .  " Do show me the way , " I pleaded .  " I cannot , " he returned .  " To go back , you must go through yourself , and that way no man can show another .  "  Entreaty was vain .  I must accept my fate !  But how was life to be lived in a world of which I had all the laws to learn ?  There would , however , be adventure !  that held consolation ; and whether I found my way home or not , I should at least have the rare advantage of knowing two worlds !  I had never yet done anything to justify my existence ; my former world was nothing the better for my sojourn in it : here , however , I must earn , or in some way find , my bread !  But I reasoned that , as I was not to blame in being here , I might expect to be taken care of here as well as there !  I had had nothing to do with getting into the world I had just left , and in it I had found myself heir to a large property !  If that world , as I now saw , had a claim upon me because I had eaten , and could eat again , upon this world I had a claim because I must eat — when it would in return have a claim on me !  " There is no hurry , " said the raven , who stood regarding me ; " we do not go much by the clock here .  Still , the sooner one begins to do what has to be done , the better !  I will take you to my wife .  "  " Thank you .  Let us go !  " I answered , and immediately he led the way .  chapter v  THE OLD CHURCH  I FOLLOWED him deep into the pine-forest .  Neither of us said much while yet the sacred gloom of it closed us round .  We came to larger and yet larger trees — older , and more individual , some of them grotesque with age .  Then the forest grew thinner .  " You see that hawthorn ?  " said my guide at length , pointing with his beak .  I looked where the wood melted away on the edge of an open heath .  " I see a gnarled old man , with a great white head , " I answered .  " Look again , " he rejoined : " it is a hawthorn .  "  " It seems indeed an ancient hawthorn ; but this is not the season for the hawthorn to blossom !  " I objected .  " The season for the hawthorn to blossom , " he replied , " is when the hawthorn blossoms .  That tree is in the ruins of the church on your home-farm .  You were going to give some directions to the bailiff about its churchyard , were you not , the morning of the thunder ?  "  " I was going to tell him I wanted it turned into a wilderness of rose- trees , and that the plough must never come within three yards of it .  "  " Listen !  " said the raven , seeming to hold his breath .  I listened , and heard — was it the sighing of a far-off musical wind — or the ghost of a music that had once been glad ?  Or did I indeed hear anything ?  " They go there still , " said the raven .  " Who goes there ?  and where do they go ?  " I asked .  " Some of the people who used to pray there , go to the ruins still , " he replied .  " But they will not go much longer , I think .  "  " What makes them go now ?  "  " They need help from each other to get their thinking done , and their feelings hatched , so they talk and sing together ; and then , they say , the big thought floats out of their hearts like a great ship out of the river at high water .  "  " Do they not pray as well as sing ?  "  " No ; they have found that each can best pray in his own silent heart .  — Some people are always at their prayers .  — Look !  look !  There goes one !  "  He pointed right up into the air .  A snow-white pigeon was mounting , with quick and yet quicker wing-flap , the unseen spiral of an ethereal stair .  The sunshine flashed quivering from its wings .  " I see a pigeon !  " I said .  " Of course you see a pigeon , " rejoined the raven , " for there is the pigeon !  I see a prayer on its way .  — I wonder now what heart is that dove 'smother !  Some one may have come awake in my cemetery !  "  " How can a pigeon be a prayer ?  " I said .  " I understand , of course , how it should be a fit symbol or likeness for one ; but a live pigeon to come out of a heart !  "  " It must puzzle you !  It cannot fail to do so !  "  " A prayer is a thought , a thing spiritual !  " I pursued .  " Very true !  But if you understood any world besides your own , you would understand your own much better .  — When a heart is really alive , then it is able to think live things .  There is one heart all whose thoughts are strong , happy creatures , and whose very dreams are lives .  When some pray , they lift heavy thoughts from the ground , only to drop them on it again ; others send up their prayers in living shapes , this or that , the nearest likeness to each .  All live things were thoughts to begin with , and are fit therefore to be used by those that think .  When one says to the great Thinker : — " Here is one of thy thoughts : I am thinking it now !  " that is a prayer — a word to the big heart from one of its own little hearts .  — Look , there is another !  "  This time the raven pointed his beak downward — to something at the foot of a block of granite .  I looked , and saw a little flower .  I had never seen one like it before , and cannot utter the feeling it woke in me by its gracious , trusting form , its colour , and its odour as of a new world that was yet the old .  I can only say that it suggested an anemone , was of a pale rose-hue , and had a golden heart .  " That is a prayer-flower , " said the raven .  " I never saw such a flower before !  " I rejoined .  " There is no other such .  Not one prayer-flower is ever quite like another , " he returned .  " How do you know it a prayer-flower ?  " I asked .  " By the expression of it , " he answered .  " More than that I cannot tell you .  If you know it , you know it ; if you do not , you do not .  "  " Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it ?  " I said .  " I could not .  But if I could , what better would you be ?  you would not know it of your self and it self !  Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know ?  Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes ?  But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one , and so begin to be wise !  "  But I did see that the flower was different from any flower I had ever seen before ; therefore I knew that I must be seeing a shadow of the prayer in it ; and a great awe came over me to think of the heart listening to the flower .  chapter vi  THE SEXTON 'SCOTTAGE  WE had been for some time walking over a rocky moorland covered with dry plants and mosses , when I descried a little cottage in the farthest distance .  The sun was not yet down , but he was wrapt in a gray cloud .  The heath looked as if it had never been warm , and the wind blew strangely cold , as if from some region where it was always night .  " Here we are at last !  " said the raven .  " What a long way it is !  In half the time I could have gone to Paradise and seen my cousin — him , you remember , who never came back to Noah !  Dear !  dear !  it is almost winter !  "  " Winter !  " I cried ; " it seems but half a day since we left home !  "  " That is because we have travelled so fast , " answered the raven .  " In your world you cannot pull up the plumb-line you call gravitation , and let the world spin round under your feet !  But here is my wife 'shouse !  She is very good to let me live with her , and call it the sexton 'scottage !  "  " But where is your churchyard — your cemetery — where you make your graves , I mean ?  " said I , seeing nothing but the flat heath .  The raven stretched his neck , held out his beak horizontally , turned it slowly round to all the points of the compass , and said nothing .  I followed the beak with my eyes , and lo , without church or graves , all was a churchyard !  Wherever the dreary wind swept , there was the raven 'scemetery !  He was sexton of all he surveyed !  lord of all that was laid aside !  I stood in the burial-ground of the universe ; its compass the unenclosed heath , its wall the gray horizon , low and starless !  I had left spring and summer , autumn and sunshine behind me , and come to the winter that waited for me !  I had set out in the prime of my youth , and here I was already !  — But I mistook .  The day might well be long in that region , for it contained the seasons .  Winter slept there , the night through , in his winding-sheet of ice ; with childlike smile , Spring came awake in the dawn ; at noon , Summer blazed abroad in her gorgeous beauty ; with the slow-changing afternoon , old Autumn crept in , and died at the first breath of the vaporous , ghosty night .  As we drew near the cottage , the clouded sun was rushing down the steepest slope of the west , and he sank while we were yet a few yards from the door .  The same instant I was assailed by a cold that seemed almost a material presence , and I struggled across the threshold as if from the clutches of an icy death .  A wind swelled up on the moor , and rushed at the door as with difficulty I closed it behind me .  Then all was still , and I looked about me .  A candle burned on a deal table in the middle of the room , and the first thing I saw was the lid of a coffin , as I thought , set up against the wall ; but it opened , for it was a door , and a woman entered .  She was all in white — as white as new-fallen snow ; and her face was as white as her dress , but not like snow , for at once it suggested warmth .  I thought her features were perfect , but her eyes made me forget them .  The life of her face and her whole person was gathered and concentrated in her eyes , where it became light .  It might have been coming death that made her face luminous , but the eyes had life in them for a nation — large , and dark with a darkness ever deepening as I gazed .  A whole night-heaven lay condensed in each pupil ; all the stars were in its blackness , and flashed ; while round it for a horizon lay coiled an iris of the eternal twilight .  What any eye is , God only knows : her eyes must have been coming direct out of his own !  the still face might be a primeval perfection ; the live eyes were a continuous creation .  " Here is Mr. Vane , wife !  " said the raven .  " He is welcome , " she answered , in a low , rich , gentle voice .  Treasures of immortal sound seemed to he buried in it .  I gazed , and could not speak .  " I knew you would be glad to see him !  " added the raven .  She stood in front of the door by which she had entered , and did not come nearer .  " Will he sleep ?  " she asked .  " I fear not , " he replied ; " he is neither weary nor heavy laden .  "  " Why then have you brought him ?  "  " I have my fears it may prove precipitate .  "  " I do not quite understand you , " I said , with an uneasy foreboding as to what she meant , but a vague hope of some escape .  " Surely a man must do a day 'swork first !  "  I gazed into the white face of the woman , and my heart fluttered .  She returned my gaze in silence .  " Let me first go home , " I resumed , " and come again after I have found or made , invented , or at least discovered something !  "  " He has not yet learned that the day begins with sleep !  " said the woman , turning to her husband .  " Tell him he must rest before he can do anything !  "  " Men , " he answered , " think so much of having done , that they fall asleep upon it .  They cannot empty an egg but they turn into the shell , and lie down !  "  The words drew my eyes from the woman to the raven .  I saw no raven , but the librarian — the same slender elderly man , in a rusty black coat , large in the body and long in the tails .  I had seen only his back before ; now for the first time I saw his face .  It was so thin that it showed the shape of the bones under it , suggesting the skulls his last-claimed profession must have made him familiar with .  But in truth I had never before seen a face so alive , or a look so keen or so friendly as that in his pale blue eyes , which yet had a haze about them as if they had done much weeping .  " You knew I was not a raven !  " he said with a smile .  " I knew you were Mr. Raven , " I replied ; " but somehow I thought you a bird too !  "  " What made you think me a bird ?  "  " You looked a raven , and I saw you dig worms out of the earth with your beak .  "  " And then ?  "  " Toss them in the air .  "  " And then ?  "  " They grew butterflies , and flew away .  "  " Did you ever see a raven do that ?  I told you I was a sexton !  "  " Does a sexton toss worms in the air , and turn them into butterflies ?  "  " Yes .  "  " I never saw one do it !  "  " You saw me do it !  — But I am still librarian in your house , for I never was dismissed , and never gave up the office .  Now I am librarian here as well .  "  " But you have just told me you were sexton here !  "  " So I am .  It is much the same profession .  Except you are a true sexton , books are but dead bodies to you , and a library nothing but a catacomb !  "  " You bewilder me !  "  " That 'sall right !  "  A few moments he stood silent .  The woman , moveless as a statue , stood silent also by the coffin-door .  " Upon occasion , " said the sexton at length , " it is more convenient to put one 'sbird-self in front .  Every one , as you ought to know , has a beast-self — and a bird-self , and a stupid fish-self , ay , and a creeping serpent-self too — which it takes a deal of crushing to kill !  In truth he has also a tree-self and a crystal-self , and I do n't know how many selves more — all to get into harmony .  You can tell what sort a man is by his creature that comes oftenest to the front .  "  He turned to his wife , and I considered him more closely .  He was above the ordinary height , and stood more erect than when last I saw him .  His face was , like his wife 's, very pale ; its nose handsomely encased the beak that had retired within it ; its lips were very thin , and even they had no colour , but their curves were beautiful , and about them quivered a shadowy smile that had humour in it as well as love and pity .  " We are in want of something to eat and drink , wife , " he said ; " we have come a long way !  "  " You know , husband , " she answered , " we can give only to him that asks .  "  She turned her unchanging face and radiant eyes upon mine .  " Please give me something to eat , Mrs. Raven , " I said , " and something — what you will — to quench my thirst .  "  " Your thirst must be greater before you can have what will quench it , " she replied ; " but what I can give you , I will gladly .  "  She went to a cupboard in the wall , brought from it bread and wine , and set them on the table .  We sat down to the perfect meal ; and as I ate , the bread and wine seemed to go deeper than the hunger and thirst .  Anxiety and discomfort vanished ; expectation took their place .  I grew very sleepy , and now first felt weary .  " I have earned neither food nor sleep , Mrs. Raven , " I said , " but you have given me the one freely , and now I hope you will give me the other , for I sorely need it .  "  " Sleep is too fine a thing ever to be earned , " said the sexton ; " it must be given and accepted , for it is a necessity .  But it would be perilous to use this house as a half-way hostelry — for the repose of a night , that is , merely .  "  A wild-looking little black cat jumped on his knee as he spoke .  He patted it as one pats a child to make it go to sleep : he seemed to me patting down the sod upon a grave — patting it lovingly , with an inward lullaby .  " Here is one of Mara 'skittens !  " he said to his wife : " will you give it something and put it out ?  she may want it !  "  The woman took it from him gently , gave it a little piece of bread , and went out with it , closing the door behind her .  " How then am I to make use of your hospitality ?  " I asked .  " By accepting it to the full , " he answered .  " I do not understand .  "  " In this house no one wakes of himself .  "  " Why ?  "  " Because no one anywhere ever wakes of himself .  You can wake yourself no more than you can make yourself .  "  " Then perhaps you or Mrs. Raven would kindly call me !  " I said , still nowise understanding , but feeling afresh that vague foreboding .  " We cannot .  "  " How dare I then go to sleep ?  " I cried .  " If you would have the rest of this house , you must not trouble yourself about waking .  You must go to sleep heartily , altogether and outright .  "  My soul sank within me .  The sexton sat looking me in the face .  His eyes seemed to say , " Will you not trust me ?  " I returned his gaze , and answered , " I will .  "  " Then come , " he said ; " I will show you your couch .  "  As we rose , the woman came in .  She took up the candle , turned to the inner door , and led the way .  I went close behind her , and the sexton followed .  chapter vii  THE CEMETERY  THE air as of an ice-house met me crossing the threshold .  The door fell-to behind us .  The sexton said something to his wife that made her turn toward us .  — What a change had passed upon her !  It was as if the splendour of her eyes had grown too much for them to hold , and , sinking into her countenance , made it flash with a loveliness like that of Beatrice in the white rose of the redeemed .  Life itself , life eternal , immortal , streamed from it , an unbroken lightning .  Even her hands shone with a white radiance , every " pearl-shell helmet " gleaming like a moonstone .  Her beauty was overpowering ; I was glad when she turned it from me .  But the light of the candle reached such a little way , that at first I could see nothing of the place .  Presently , however , it fell on something that glimmered , a little raised from the floor .  Was it a bed ?  Could live thing sleep in such a mortal cold ?  Then surely it was no wonder it should not wake of itself !  Beyond that appeared a fainter shine ; and then I thought I descried uncertain gleams on every side .  A few paces brought us to the first ; it was a human form under a sheet , straight and still — whether of man or woman I could not tell , for the light seemed to avoid the face as we passed .  I soon perceived that we were walking along an aisle of couches , on almost every one of which , with its head to the passage , lay something asleep or dead , covered with a sheet white as snow .  My soul grew silent with dread .  Through aisle after aisle we went , among couches innumerable .  I could see only a few of them at once , but they were on all sides , vanishing , as it seemed , in the infinite .  — Was it here lay my choice of a bed ?  Must I go to sleep among the unwaking , with no one to rouse me ?  Was this the sexton 'slibrary ?  were these his books ?  Truly it was no half-way house , this chamber of the dead !  " One of the cellars I am placed to watch !  " remarked Mr. Raven — in a low voice , as if fearing to disturb his silent guests .  " Much wine is set here to ripen !  — But it is dark for a stranger !  " he added .  " The moon is rising ; she will soon be here , " said his wife , and her clear voice , low and sweet , sounded of ancient sorrow long bidden adieu .  Even as she spoke the moon looked in at an opening in the wall , and a thousand gleams of white responded to her shine .  But not yet could I descry beginning or end of the couches .  They stretched away and away , as if for all the disparted world to sleep upon .  For along the far receding narrow ways , every couch stood by itself , and on each slept a lonely sleeper .  I thought at first their sleep was death , but I soon saw it was something deeper still — a something I did not know .  The moon rose higher , and shone through other openings , but I could never see enough of the place at once to know its shape or character ; now it would resemble a long cathedral nave , now a huge barn made into a dwelling of tombs .  She looked colder than any moon in the frostiest night of the world , and where she shone direct upon them , cast a bluish , icy gleam on the white sheets and the pallid countenances — but it might be the faces that made the moon so cold !  Of such as I could see , all were alike in the brotherhood of death , all unlike in the character and history recorded upon them .  Here lay a man who had died — for although this was not death , I have no other name to give it — in the prime of manly strength ; his dark beard seemed to flow like a liberated stream from the glacier of his frozen countenance ; his forehead was smooth as polished marble ; a shadow of pain lingered about his lips , but only a shadow .  On the next couch lay the form of a girl , passing lovely to behold .  The sadness left on her face by parting was not yet absorbed in perfect peace , but absolute submission possessed the placid features , which bore no sign of wasting disease , of " killing care or grief of heart : " if pain had been there , it was long charmed asleep , never again to wake .  Many were the beautiful that there lay very still — some of them mere children ; but I did not see one infant .  The most beautiful of all was a lady whose white hair , and that alone , suggested her old when first she fell asleep .  On her stately countenance rested — not submission , but a right noble acquiescence , an assurance , firm as the foundations of the universe , that all was as it should be .  On some faces lingered the almost obliterated scars of strife , the marrings of hopeless loss , the fading shadows of sorrows that had seemed inconsolable : the aurora of the great morning had not yet quite melted them away ; but those faces were few , and every one that bore such brand of pain seemed to plead , " Pardon me : I died only yesterday !  " or , " Pardon me : I died but a century ago !  " That some had been dead for ages I knew , not merely by their unutterable repose , but by something for which I have neither word nor symbol .  We came at last to three empty couches , immediately beyond which lay the form of a beautiful woman , a little past the prime of life .  One of her arms was outside the sheet , and her hand lay with the palm upward , in its centre a dark spot .  Next to her was the stalwart figure of a man of middle age .  His arm too was outside the sheet , the strong hand almost closed , as if clenched on the grip of a sword .  I thought he must be a king who had died fighting for the truth .  " Will you hold the candle nearer , wife ?  " whispered the sexton , bending down to examine the woman 'shand .  " It heals well , " he murmured to himself ; " the nail found in her nothing to hurt !  "  At last I ventured to speak .  " Are they not dead ?  " I asked softly .  " I cannot answer you , " he replied in a subdued voice .  " I almost forget what they mean by dead in the old world .  If I said a person was dead , my wife would understand one thing , and you would imagine another .  — This is but one of my treasure vaults , " he went on , " and all my guests are not laid in vaults : out there on the moor they lie thick as the leaves of a forest after the first blast of your winter — thick , let me say rather , as if the great white rose of heaven had shed its petals over it .  All night the moon reads their faces , and smiles .  "  " But why leave them in the corrupting moonlight ?  " I asked .  " Our moon , " he answered , " is not like yours — the old cinder of a burnt-out world ; her beams embalm the dead , not corrupt them .  You observe that here the sexton lays his dead on the earth ; be buries very few under it !  In your world he lays huge stones on them , as if to keep them down ; I watch for the hour to ring the resurrection-bell , and wake those that are still asleep .  Your sexton looks at the clock to know when to ring the dead-alive to church ; I hearken for the cock on the spire to crow ; ` Awake , thou that sleepest , and arise from the dead ! ' "  I began to conclude that the self-styled sexton was in truth an insane parson : the whole thing was too mad !  But how was I to get away from it ?  I was helpless !  In this world of the dead , the raven and his wife were the only living I had yet seen : whither should I turn for help ?  I was lost in a space larger than imagination ; for if here two things , or any parts of them , could occupy the same space , why not twenty or ten thousand ?  — But I dared not think further in that direction .  " You seem in your dead to see differences beyond my perception !  " I ventured to remark .  " None of those you see , " he answered , " are in truth quite dead yet , and some have but just begun to come alive and die .  Others had begun to die , that is to come alive , long before they came to us ; and when such are indeed dead , that instant they will wake and leave us .  Almost every night some rise and go .  But I will not say more , for I find my words only mislead you !  — This is the couch that has been waiting for you , " he ended , pointing to one of the three .  " Why just this ?  " I said , beginning to tremble , and anxious by parley to delay .  " For reasons which one day you will be glad to know , " he answered .  " Why not know them now ?  "  " That also you will know when you wake .  "  " But these are all dead , and I am alive !  " I objected , shuddering .  " Not much , " rejoined the sexton with a smile , " — not nearly enough !  Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death !  "  " The place is too cold to let one sleep !  " I said .  " Do these find it so ?  " he returned .  " They sleep well — or will soon .  Of cold they feel not a breath : it heals their wounds .  — Do not be a coward , Mr. Vane .  Turn your back on fear , and your face to whatever may come .  Give yourself up to the night , and you will rest indeed .  Harm will not come to you , but a good you cannot foreknow .  "  The sexton and I stood by the side of the couch , his wife , with the candle in her hand , at the foot of it .  Her eyes were full of light , but her face was again of a still whiteness ; it was no longer radiant .  " Would they have me make of a charnel-house my bed-chamber ?  " I cried aloud .  " I will not .  I will lie abroad on the heath ; it cannot be colder there !  "  " I have just told you that the dead are there also ,  ` Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa , ' "  said the librarian .  " I will not , " I cried again ; and in the compassing dark , the two gleamed out like spectres that waited on the dead ; neither answered me ; each stood still and sad , and looked at the other .  " Be of good comfort ; we watch the flock of the great shepherd , " said the sexton to his wife .  Then he turned to me .  " Didst thou not find the air of the place pure and sweet when thou enteredst it ?  " he asked .  " Yes ; but oh , so cold !  " I answered .  " Then know , " he returned , and his voice was stern , " that thou who callest thyself alive , hast brought into this chamber the odours of death , and its air will not be wholesome for the sleepers until thou art gone from it !  "  They went farther into the great chamber , and I was left alone in the moonlight with the dead .  I turned to escape .  What a long way I found it back through the dead !  At first I was too angry to be afraid , but as I grew calm , the still shapes grew terrible .  At last , with loud offence to the gracious silence , I ran , I fled wildly , and , bursting out , flung-to the door behind me .  It closed with an awful silence .  I stood in pitch-darkness .  Feeling about me , I found a door , opened it , and was aware of the dim light of a lamp .  I stood in my library , with the handle of the masked door in my hand .  Had I come to myself out of a vision ?  — or lost myself by going back to one ?  Which was the real — what I now saw , or what I had just ceased to see ?  Could both be real , interpenetrating yet unmingling ?  I threw myself on a couch , and fell asleep .  In the library was one small window to the east , through which , at this time of the year , the first rays of the sun shone upon a mirror whence they were reflected on the masked door : when I woke , there they shone , and thither they drew my eyes .  With the feeling that behind it must lie the boundless chamber I had left by that door , I sprang to my feet , and opened it .  The light , like an eager hound , shot before me into the closet , and pounced upon the gilded edges of a large book .  " What idiot , " I cried , " has put that book in the shelf the wrong way ?  "  But the gilded edges , reflecting the light a second time , flung it on a nest of drawers in a dark corner , and I saw that one of them was half open .  " More meddling !  " I cried , and went to close the drawer .  It contained old papers , and seemed more than full , for it would not close .  Taking the topmost one out , I perceived that it was in my father 'swriting and of some length .  The words on which first my eyes fell , at once made me eager to learn what it contained .  I carried it to the library , sat down in one of the western windows , and read what follows .  chapter viii  MY FATHER 'SMANUSCRIPT  I AM filled with awe of what I have to write .  The sun is shining golden above me ; the sea lies blue beneath his gaze ; the same world sends its growing things up to the sun , and its flying things into the air which I have breathed from my infancy ; but I know the outspread splendour a passing show , and that at any moment it may , like the drop-scene of a stage , be lifted to reveal more wonderful things .  Shortly after my father 'sdeath , I was seated one morning in the library .  I had been , somewhat listlessly , regarding the portrait that hangs among the books , which I knew only as that of a distant ancestor , and wishing I could learn something of its original .  Then I had taken a book from the shelves and begun to read .  Glancing up from it , I saw coming toward me — not between me and the door , but between me and the portrait — a thin pale man in rusty black .  He looked sharp and eager , and had a notable nose , at once reminding me of a certain jug my sisters used to call Mr. Crow .  " Finding myself in your vicinity , Mr. Vane , I have given myself the pleasure of calling , " he said , in a peculiar but not disagreeable voice .  " Your honoured grandfather treated me — I may say it without presumption — as a friend , having known me from childhood as his father 'slibrarian .  "  It did not strike me at the time how old the man must be .  " May I ask where you live now , Mr. Crow ?  " I said .