that my city was only granite and fir-trees, and
my music only the wind in the tree-tops. The reaction was sickening; the
sunshine seemed dull and cold after the lost glory of that enchantment.
The Blue Mountain was reached, its destiny fulfilled for me, and I
returned to my camp, sick at heart, as one who has had a dear illusion
dispelled.

The next day my mind was unusually calm and clear. I asked my daemon what
was the meaning of the enchantment of yesterday.

"It was a freak of your imagination," it replied.

"But what is this imagination, then, which, being a faculty of my own,
yet masters my reason?"

"Not at all a faculty, but your very highest self, your own life in
creative activity. Your reason _is_ a faculty, and is subordinate to the
purposes of your imagination. If, instead of regarding imagination as a
pendant to your mental organization, you take it for what it is, a
function, and the noblest one your mind knows, you will see at once why
it is that it works unconsciously, just as you live unconsciously and
involuntarily. Men set their reason and feeling to subdue what they
consider a treacherous element in themselves; they succeed only in
dwarfing their natures, and imagination is inert while reason controls;
but when reason rests in sleep, and you cease to live to the external
world, imagination resumes its normal power. You dream;--it is only the
revival of that which you smother when you are awake. You consider the
sights and sounds of yesterday follies; you reason;--imagination
demonstrates its power by overturning your reason and deceiving your
very senses."

"You speak of its creations; I understand this in a certain sense; but
if these were such, should not they have permanence? and can anything
created perish?"

"Nonsense! what will these trees be tomorrow? and the rocks you sit on,
are they not changing to vegetation under you? The only creation is that
of ideas; things are thin shadows. If man is not creative, he is still
undeveloped."

"But is not such an assumption trenching on the supremacy of God?" I
asked.

"What do you understand by 'God?'"

"An infinitely wise and loving Controller of events, of course," I
replied.

"Did you ever find any one whose ideas on the subject agreed with
yours?"

"Not entirely."

"Then your God is not the same as the God of other men; from the
Fee-Jeean to the Christian there is a wide range. Of course there is a
first great principle of life;