Once indeed my friend emitted a flash of scorn, which was when I mentioned the religious commonplace that the desire of men’s hearts to be assured of the continuity of identity was a proof that such a craving must find its fulfilment.  “A pleasant dream!” he said.  “One might as well affirm that the universal desire for wealth and health was a proof that all would be ultimately healthy and wealthy.”

But though I understood little, and remembered less, I felt somehow that it did me good to be brought face to face with these austere problems.  It had a bracing effect to have my comfortable intuitions plucked from me, and to be bidden to walk alone.  It was vaguely inspiring to look into the misty world that lies behind history and religion and science, the world where one can perhaps be sure of nothing except of one’s own consciousness, and not too sure of that.  Bracing I say, because of its bareness and precariousness, its sense of ultimate insecurity.  I came back to earth not discouraged or dismayed, but more conscious than ever of the urgency of practical problems and the actuality of life.  And so, as I say, out of my breathless ramble among ultimate causes and conceptions, I came back to the world with a great sense of zest and relief, as the diver of whom I spoke sees the water grow paler and greener before his swimming eyes, and next moment feels the sunlight about him and sees the willows and the river-bank.  I came back filled with a sense of far-off possibilities, and yet more sure than ever that we must neither idle nor despair, but walk swiftly and patiently and help each other along.  Not only did I feel my duty to my fellows to be more clear and sure; but my own need of help, my own insignificance, to be more pleasantly insistent.  Out of the world where I was only sure of my own consciousness I came down into the world where I am no less practically sure of the presence of millions of similar souls, very blind and weak, perhaps, but very real and dear.  On those cloudy hills I had gone astray as a sheep that is lost; and then suddenly there was the sense of the shepherd walking near me—­the shepherd himself!—­for the philosopher was only a lesser kind of angel bearing a vial in his hands; the blessed sense of being searched for and guided and tenderly chidden and included in the welcome fold.  I hope that my philosopher may yet walk on the hills with me, if only for the sake of the love I bear the green valleys; and when I see the great stream passing silently from translucent pool to pool, overhung by rowans and sun-warmed rocks, I shall be glad to think that I have walked on the heights where it was gathered and drawn, and that I have heard it talk hoarsely to itself, cold and uncomforted, among the bleak and dripping stones.

XLII

I have just returned from a few days in town, feeling that it is good to have been there, if only for the sake of the return to the cool silence of these solitary fields.  I am not ungrateful for all the kindness which I have received, but I cannot help thinking of the atmosphere which I have left with a kind of horror.