Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/868

860, it is too narrow for any mode of propulsion but poling or paddling.

I had worked several weary hours, and the sun had passed the meridian, when I emerged from the forest into a wild, swampy flat,—"wild meadow," the guides call it,—through which the stream wound, and around which was a growth of tall larches backed by pines. Where the brook seemed to reënter the wood on the opposite side, stood two immense pines, like sentinels, and such they became to me; and they looked grim and threatening, with their huge arms reaching over the gateway. I drew my boat up on the boggy shore at the foot of a solitary tamarack, into which I climbed as high as I could to look over the wood beyond.

Never shall I forget what I saw from that swaying look-out. Before me was the mountain, perhaps five miles away, covered with dense forest to within a few hundred feet of the summit, which showed bare rock with firs clinging in the clefts and on the tables, and which was crowned by a walled city, the parapet of whose walls cut with a sharp, straight line against the sky, and beyond showed spire and turret and the tops of tall trees. The walls must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet high, and I could see here and there between the group of firs traces of a road coming down the mountain-side. And I heard one of those mocking voices say, "The city of silence!"—nothing more. I felt strongly tempted to start on a flight through the air towards the city, and why I did not launch forth on the impulse I know not. My blood rushed through my veins with maddest energy, and my brain seemed to have been replaced by some ethereal substance, and to be capable of floating me off as if it were a balloon. Yet I clung and looked, my whole soul in my eyes, and had no thought of losing the spectacle for an instant, even were it to reach the city itself. The glorious glamour of that place and moment, who can comprehend it? The wind swung my tree-top to and fro, and I climbed up until the tree bent with my weight like a twig under a bird's.

Presently I heard bells and strains of music, as though all the military bands in the city were coming together on the walls; and the sounds rose and fell with the wind,—one moment entirely lost, another full and triumphant. Then I heard the sound of hunting-horns and the baying of a pack of hounds, deep-mouthed, as if a hunting-party were coming down the mountain-side. Nearer and nearer they came, and I heard merry laughing and shouting as they swept through the valley. I feared for a moment that they would find me there, and drive me, intruding, from the enchanted land.

But I must fathom the mystery, let what would come. I descended the tree, and when I had reached the boat again I found the whole thing changed. I understood 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 dæmon 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