Shadow.

When the thought of the blessedness I experienced, after my death in
Fairy Land, is too high for me to lay hold upon it and hope in it,
I often think of the wise woman in the cottage, and of her solemn
assurance that she knew something too good to be told. When I am
oppressed by any sorrow or real perplexity, I often feel as if I had
only left her cottage for a time, and would soon return out of the
vision, into it again. Sometimes, on such occasions, I find myself,
unconsciously almost, looking about for the mystic mark of red, with
the vague hope of entering her door, and being comforted by her wise
tenderness. I then console myself by saying: "I have come through the
door of Dismay; and the way back from the world into which that has led
me, is through my tomb. Upon that the red sign lies, and I shall find it
one day, and be glad."

I will end my story with the relation of an incident which befell me a
few days ago. I had been with my reapers, and, when they ceased their
work at noon, I had lain down under the shadow of a great, ancient
beech-tree, that stood on the edge of the field. As I lay, with my eyes
closed, I began to listen to the sound of the leaves overhead. At first,
they made sweet inarticulate music alone; but, by-and-by, the sound
seemed to begin to take shape, and to be gradually moulding itself into
words; till, at last, I seemed able to distinguish these, half-dissolved
in a little ocean of circumfluent tones: "A great good is coming--is
coming--is coming to thee, Anodos;" and so over and over again. I
fancied that the sound reminded me of the voice of the ancient woman, in
the cottage that was four-square. I opened my eyes, and, for a moment,
almost believed that I saw her face, with its many wrinkles and its
young eyes, looking at me from between two hoary branches of the beech
overhead. But when I looked more keenly, I saw only twigs and leaves,
and the infinite sky, in tiny spots, gazing through between. Yet I know
that good is coming to me--that good is always coming; though few have
at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. What we
call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his
condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good. And so,
FAREWELL.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Phantastes, by George MacDonald

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