not worth one moment, such as he had spent, watching the breast of old
_God-Mother_ whiten, with the consciousness of God walking in the
mountain-winds, the scent of camphor, lotos, sandal and wild-honey in
His garments. A passion, indeed, grew within him to make his people see
that real life has no concern with wrestlings in fetid valleys, but up,
up the rising roads--poised with faith, and laughing with power--until
through a rift in the mountains, they are struck by the light of God's
face, and shine back--like the peaks of Kashmir to the moon.

And another night it came to him that he had something to say to the
women of his people. This thought emerged clean-cut from the deeps of
abstraction, and he trembled before it, for his recent life had kept
him far apart from women. And now, the thought occurred that he was
better prepared to inspire women--because of this separateness. He had
preserved the boyish ideal of their glowing mystery, their lovely
cosmic magnetism. India had stimulated it. All the lights of his mind
had fallen upon this ideal, all the colors of the spectrum and many
from heaven--certain swift flashes of glory, such as are brought, in
queer angles of light, from a butterfly's wing. He had been mercifully
spared from moving among the infinitudes of small men who hold such a
large estimate of the incapacity and commonness of women.... Even among
the Sikh mothers (Bedient did not dream how his spirit prospered during
these Indian years) his ideal was strengthened. He found among the
mothers of the Punjab a finer courage than ever the wars had shown
him--the courage that bends and bears--and an answering sweetness for
all the good that men brought to their feet....

So one night at last he found himself thanking God in the great
silence--that he could see the natural greatness of women; that he was
alive to help them; that he could pity those who knew only the toiling,