great joy to me to perceive now what was
happening, and how the sad, bewildered hours of pain and misery leave
their blessed marks upon the soul, like the tools of the graver on the
gem. If only we could learn to plan a little less and to believe a
little more, how much simpler it would all be!"

These two became very dear to me, and I learnt much heavenly wisdom from
them in long, quiet conferences, where we spoke frankly of all we had
felt and known.

XIX

It was at this time, I think, that a great change came over my thoughts,
or rather that I realised that a great change had gradually taken place.
Till now, I had been dominated and haunted by memories of my latest life
upon earth; but at intervals there had visited me a sense of older and
purer recollections. I cannot describe exactly how it came about--and,
indeed, the memory of what my heavenly progress had hitherto been, as
opposed to my earthly experience, was never very clear to me; but I
became aware that my life in heaven--I will call it heaven for want of a
better name--was my real continuous life, my home-life, so to speak,
while my earthly lives had been, to pursue the metaphor, like terms
which a boy spends at school, in which he is aware that he not only
learns definite and tangible things, but that his character is hardened
and consolidated by coming into contact with the rougher facts of
life--duty, responsibility, friendships, angers, treacheries,
temptations, routine. The boy returns with gladness to the serener and
sweeter atmosphere of home; and just in the same way I felt I had
returned to the larger and purer life of heaven. But, as I say, the
recollection of my earlier life in heaven, my occupations and
experience, was never clear to me, but rather as a luminous and haunting
mist. I questioned Amroth about this once, and he said that this was the
universal experience, and that the earthly lives one lived were like
deep trenches cut across a path, and seemed to interrupt the heavenly
sequence; but that as the spirit grew more pure and wise, the
consciousness of the heavenly life became more distinct and secure. But
he added, what I did not quite understand, that there was little need of
memory in the life of heaven, and that it was to a great extent the
inheritance of the body. Memory, he said, was to a great extent an
interruption to life; the thought of past failures and mistakes, and
especially of unkindnesses and misunderstandings