The forests of the North would open their great gloomy eyes with
wonder, as though strange new wild-flowers had come among them in the
night. All across the world, indeed, wherever there were gardened
minds tender enough to grow fairy seed, these flakes of thought would
settle down in sleep, and blossom in due season into a crop of magic
beauty.
He read on and on.... The village listened too, the little shadowy
street, the familiar pine woods, the troubled Pension, each, as its
image was evoked in the story, knew its soul discovered, and stirred
in its sleep towards the little room to hear. And the desolate ridges
of La Tourne and Boudry, the clefts where the wild lily of the valley
grew unknown, high nooks and corners where the buzzards nested, these
also knew and answered to the trumpet summons of the Thought that made
them live. A fire of creation ran pulsing from this centre. All were
in the Pattern of the Story.
To the two human listeners it seemed as familiar as a tale read, in
childhood long ago, and only half forgotten. They always knew a little
of what was coming next. Yet it spread so much further than mere
childhood memories, for its golden atmosphere included all countries
and all times. It rose and sang and sparkled, lighting up strange deep
recesses of their unconscious and half-realised life, and almost
revealing the tiny silver links that joined them on to the universe at
large.
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