The Valley of Vision | Page 2

a son of the soil, a primitive"
The Finding of Christ in the Temple

A REMEMBERED DREAM

This is the story of a dream that came to me some five-and-twenty
years ago. It is as vivid in memory as anything that I have ever seen in
the outward world, as distinct as any experience through which I have
ever passed. Not all dreams are thus remembered. But some are. In the
records of the mind, where the inner chronicle of life is written, they
are intensely clear and veridical. I shall try to tell the story of this
dream with an absolute faithfulness, adding nothing and leaving
nothing out, but writing the narrative just as if the thing were real.
Perhaps it was. Who can say?
In the course of a journey, of the beginning and end of which I know
nothing, I had come to a great city, whose name, if it was ever told me,
I cannot recall.
It was evidently a very ancient place. The dwelling-houses and larger
buildings were gray and beautiful with age, and the streets wound in
and out among them wonderfully, like a maze.
This city lay beside a river or estuary--though that was something that I
did not find out until later, as you will see--and the newer part of the
town extended mainly on a wide, bare street running along a kind of
low cliff or embankment, where the basements of the small houses on
the water-side went down, below the level of the street, to the shore.
But the older part of the town was closely and intricately built, with
gabled roofs and heavy carved facades hanging over the narrow
stone-paved ways, which here and there led out suddenly into open
squares.
It was in what appeared to be the largest and most important of these
squares that I was standing, a little before midnight. I had left my wife

and our little girl in the lodging which we had found, and walked out
alone to visit the sleeping town.
The night sky was clear, save for a few filmy clouds, which floated
over the face of the full moon, obscuring it for an instant, but never
completely hiding it--like veils in a shadow dance. The spire of the
great cathedral was silver filigree on the moonlit side, and on the other
side, black lace. The square was empty. But on the broad, shallow steps
in front of the main entrance of the cathedral two heroic figures were
seated. At first I thought they were statues. Then I perceived they were
alive, and talking earnestly together.
They were like Greek gods, very strong and beautiful, and naked but
for some slight drapery that fell snow-white around them. They
glistened in the moonlight. I could not hear what they were saying; yet
I could see that they were in a dispute which went to the very roots of
life.
They resembled each other strangely in form and feature--like twin
brothers. But the face of one was noble, lofty, calm, full of a vast regret
and compassion. The face of the other was proud, resentful, drawn with
passion. He appeared to be accusing and renouncing his companion,
breaking away from an ancient friendship in a swift, implacable hatred.
But the companion seemed to plead with him, and lean toward him, and
try to draw him closer.
A strange fear and sorrow shook my heart. I felt that this mysterious
contest was something of immense importance; a secret, ominous strife;
a menace to the world.
Then the two figures stood up, marvellously alike in strength and
beauty, yet absolutely different in expression and bearing, the one
serene and benignant, the other fierce and threatening. The quiet one
was still pleading, with a hand laid upon the other's shoulder. But he
shook it off, and thrust his companion away with a proud, impatient
gesture.
At last I heard him speak.
"I have done with you," he cried. "I do not believe in you. I have no
more need of you. I renounce you. I will live without you. Away
forever out of my life!"
At this a look of ineffable sorrow and pity came upon the great
companion's face.

"You are free," he answered. "I have only besought you, never
constrained you. Since you will have it so, I must leave you, now, to
yourself."
He rose into the air, still looking downward with wise eyes full of grief
and warning, until he vanished in silence beyond the thin clouds.
The other did not look up, but lifting his head with a defiant laugh,
shook his shoulders as if they were free of a burden. He strode swiftly
around the corner of the cathedral and disappeared among the deep
shadows.
A sense of intolerable