The Child of the Dawn | Page 8

was because he was too much indulged in childhood--and
we attach great importance to the impressions of youth."
"That is quite right," said Amroth, "because the impressions of youth
are swift and keen; but of course, here, age is not a question of years or
failing powers. The old, here, are the wise and gracious and patient and
gentle; the youth of the spirit is stupidity and unimaginativeness. On
the one hand are the stolid and placid, and on the other are the brutal
and cruel and selfish and unrestrained."
"You confuse me greatly," I said; "surely you do not mean that spiritual
life and progress are a matter of intellectual energy?"
"No, not at all," said he; "the so-called intellectual people are often the
most stupid and youngest of all. The intellect counts for nothing: that is
only a kind of dexterity, a pretty game. The imagination is what
matters."

"Worse and worse!" I said. "Does salvation belong to poets and
novelists?"
"No, no," said Amroth, "that is a game too! The imagination I speak of
is the power of entering into other people's minds and hearts, of putting
yourself in their place--of loving them, in fact. The more you know of
people, the better chance there is of loving them; and you can only find
your way into their minds by imaginative sympathy. I will tell you a
story which will show you what I mean. There was once a famous
writer on earth, of whose wisdom people spoke with bated breath. Men
went to see him with fear and reverence, and came away, saying, 'How
wonderful!' And this man, in his age, was waited upon by a little maid,
an ugly, tired, tiny creature. People used to say that they wondered he
had not a better servant. But she knew all that he liked and wanted,
where his books and papers were, what was good for him to do. She did
not understand a word of what he said, but she knew both when he had
talked too much, and when he had not talked enough, so that his mind
was pent up in itself, and he became cross and fractious. Now, in reality,
the little maid was one of the oldest and most beautiful of spirits. She
had lived many lives, each apparently humbler than the last. She never
grumbled about her work, or wanted to amuse herself. She loved the
silly flies that darted about her kitchen, or brushed their black heads on
the ceiling; she loved the ivy tendrils that tapped on her window in the
breeze. She did not go to church, she had no time for that; or if she had
gone, she would not have understood what was said, though she would
have loved all the people there, and noticed how they looked and sang.
But the wise man himself was one of the youngest and stupidest of
spirits, so young and stupid that he had to have a very old and wise
spirit to look after him. He was eaten up with ideas and vanity, so that
he had no time to look at any one or think of anybody, unless they
praised him. He has a very long pilgrimage before him, though he
wrote pretty songs enough, and his mortal body, or one of them, lies in
the Poets' Corner of the Abbey, and people come and put wreaths there
with tears in their eyes."
"It is very bewildering," I said, "but I see a little more than I did. It is
all a matter of feeling, then? But it seems hard on people that they

should be so dull and stupid about it all,--that the truth should lie so
close to their hand and yet be so carefully concealed."
"Oh, they grow out of dulness!" he said, with a movement of his hand;
"that is what experience does for us--it is always going on; we get
widened and deepened. Why," he added, "I have seen a great man, as
they called him, clever and alert, who held a high position in the State.
He was laid aside by a long and painful illness, so that all his work was
put away. He was brave about it, too, I remember; but he used to think
to himself how sad and wasteful it was, that when he was most
energetic and capable he should be put on the shelf--all the fine work
he might have done interrupted; all the great speeches he would have
made unuttered. But as a matter of fact, he was then for the first time
growing fast, because he had to look into the minds and hearts of all
sorrowful and disappointed people, and to learn that what we do
matters so little, and that what we are