1902.




A VISIONARY


A young man came to see me at my lodgings the other night, and began
to talk of the making of the earth and the heavens and much else. I
questioned him about his life and his doings. He had written many poems
and painted many mystical designs since we met last, but latterly had
neither written nor painted, for his whole heart was set upon making
his mind strong, vigorous, and calm, and the emotional life of the
artist was bad for him, he feared. He recited his poems readily,
however. He had them all in his memory. Some indeed had never been
written down. They, with their wild music as of winds blowing in the
reeds,[FN#1] seemed to me the very inmost voice of Celtic sadness, and
of Celtic longing for infinite things the world has never seen.
Suddenly it seemed to me that he was peering about him a little
eagerly. "Do you see anything, X-----?" I said. "A shining, winged
woman, covered by her long hair, is standing near the doorway," he
answered, or some such words. "Is it the influence of some living
person who thinks of us, and whose thoughts appear to us in that
symbolic form?" I said; for I am well instructed in the ways of the
visionaries and in the fashion of their speech. "No," he replied; "for
if it were the thoughts of a person who is alive I should feel the
living influence in my living body, and my heart would beat and my