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031 - Change · Whats Mines Mine

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  Speaker 1: Volume two, chapter fourteen of What's Mine's Mine by George
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  Speaker 1: mac donald. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Change Christina walked home without difficulty, but the next day
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  Speaker 1: did not leave her bed, and it was a fortnight
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  Speaker 1: before she was able to be out of doors. When
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  Speaker 1: Ian and she met, her manner was not quite the
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  Speaker 1: same as before. She seemed a little timid. As she
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  Speaker 1: shook hands with him, her eyes fell, and when they
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  Speaker 1: looked up again, as if ashamed of their involuntary retreat,
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  Speaker 1: Her face was rosy, but the slight embarrassment disappeared as
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  Speaker 1: soon as they began to talk. No affectation or formality, however,
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  Speaker 1: took its place in respect of Ian. Her falseness was gone.
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  Speaker 1: The danger she had been in, and her deliverance through
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  Speaker 1: the voluntary sharing of it by Ian, had awaked this simpler.
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  Speaker 1: The real nature of the girl hitherto buried in impressions
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  Speaker 1: and their responses. She had lived, but as a mirror
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  Speaker 1: meant only to reflect the outer world. Something of an
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  Speaker 1: operative existence was at length beginning to appear in her.
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  Speaker 1: She was growing a woman, and the first stage in
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  Speaker 1: that growth is to become as a little child. The
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  Speaker 1: child however, did not for some time show her face
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  Speaker 1: to any but Ian. In his presence, Christina had no
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  Speaker 1: longer self assertion, or while without seeking his notice, she
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  Speaker 1: would yet manifest an almost childish willingness to please him.
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  Speaker 1: It was no sudden change. She had ever since their adventure,
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  Speaker 1: been haunted, both awake and asleep by his presence, and
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  Speaker 1: it had helped her to some discoveries regarding herself. And
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  Speaker 1: the more she grew real the nearer that is, that
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  Speaker 1: she came to being a person, the more she came
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  Speaker 1: under the influence of his truth, his reality. It is
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  Speaker 1: only through live relation to others that any individuality crystallizes.
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  Speaker 1: You saved my life, Ian, she said one evening, for
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  Speaker 1: the tenth time. It pleased God. You should live, answered Ian.
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  Speaker 1: Then you really think, she returned, that God interfered to
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  Speaker 1: save us. No, I do not. I don't think he
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  Speaker 1: ever interferes. Mister Circum says everything goes by law, and
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  Speaker 1: God never interferes. My father says he does interfere sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: would you say a woman interfered in the management of
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  Speaker 1: her own house? Can one be said to interfere? Where
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  Speaker 1: he is always at work? He is the necessity of
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  Speaker 1: the universe ever and always doing the best that can
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  Speaker 1: be done, and especially for the individual, for whose sake
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  Speaker 1: alone the cosmos exists. If we had been drowned, we
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  Speaker 1: should have given God thanks for saving us. I do
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  Speaker 1: not understand you. Should we not have given things to
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  Speaker 1: find ourselves lifted out of the cold, rushing waters in
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  Speaker 1: which we felt our strength slowly sinking. But you said drowned?
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  Speaker 1: How could we have thanked God for deliverance if we
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  Speaker 1: were drowned? What not? When we found ourselves above the water,
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  Speaker 1: safe and well and more alive than ever, would it
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  Speaker 1: not be a dreadful thing to lie tossed for centuries
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  Speaker 1: under the sea waves to which the torrent had borne us? Ah?
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  Speaker 1: How few believe in a life beyond, a larger life,
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  Speaker 1: more awake, more earnest, more joyous than this. Oh I do,
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  Speaker 1: But that is not what one means by life. That
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  Speaker 1: is quite a different thing. How do you make out
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  Speaker 1: that it is so different? If I am I and
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  Speaker 1: you are you? How can it be very different? The
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  Speaker 1: root of things is individuality, unity of idea, and persistence
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  Speaker 1: depends on it. God is the one perfect individual, And
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  Speaker 1: while this world is his and that world is his,
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  Speaker 1: there can be no inconsistency, no violent difference between there
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  Speaker 1: and here. Then you must thank God for everything, Thank
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  Speaker 1: Him if you are drowned, or burnt or anything. Now
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  Speaker 1: you understand me, that is precisely what I mean. Then
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  Speaker 1: I can never be good, for I could never bring
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  Speaker 1: myself to that. You cannot bring yourself to it, No
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  Speaker 1: one could. But we must come to it. I believe
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  Speaker 1: we shall all be brought to it. Never me. I
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  Speaker 1: should not wish it. You do not wish it, but
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  Speaker 1: you may be brought to wish it, And without it,
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  Speaker 1: the end of your being cannot be reached. No one,
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  Speaker 1: of course, could ever give thanks for what he did
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  Speaker 1: not know or feel as good. But what is good
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  Speaker 1: must come to be felt good. Can you suppose that
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  Speaker 1: Jesus at any time could not thank his father for
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  Speaker 1: sending him into the world. You speak as if we
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  Speaker 1: and he were of the same kind. He and we
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  Speaker 1: are so entirely of the same kind that there is
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  Speaker 1: no bliss for him, or for you or for me.
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  Speaker 1: But in being the loving, obedient child of the one Father,
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  Speaker 1: you frighten me. If I cannot get to Heaven any
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  Speaker 1: other way than that, I shall never get there. You
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  Speaker 1: will get there, and you will get there that way
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  Speaker 1: and no other. If you could get there any other way,
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  Speaker 1: it would be to be miserable. Something tells me you
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  Speaker 1: speak the truth, but it is terrible. I do not
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  Speaker 1: like it. Naturally, she was on the point of crying.
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  Speaker 1: They were alone in the drawing room of the cottage,
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  Speaker 1: but his mother might enter any moment, and Ian said
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  Speaker 1: no more. It was not a drawing towards the things
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  Speaker 1: of peace that was at work in Christina. It was
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  Speaker 1: an urging, painful sense of separation from Ian. She had
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  Speaker 1: been conscious of some antipathy even toward him. So unlike
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  Speaker 1: were her feelings, thoughts, judgments to his. This feeling had
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  Speaker 1: changed to its opposite. A meeting with Ian was now
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  Speaker 1: to Christina the great event of day or week. But Ian,
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  Speaker 1: in love with the dead, never thought of danger to either.
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  Speaker 1: One morning, she woke from a sound and dreamless sleep, and,
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  Speaker 1: getting out of bed, drew aside the curtains, looked out,
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  Speaker 1: and then opened her window. It was a lovely spring morning.
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  Speaker 1: The birds were singing loud in the fast greening shrubbery.
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  Speaker 1: A soft wind was blowing. It came to her and
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  Speaker 1: whispered something of which she understood only that it was
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  Speaker 1: both lovely and sad. The sun, but a little way up,
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  Speaker 1: was shining over hills and cone shaped peaks, whose shadows,
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  Speaker 1: stretching eagerly westward, were yet ever shortening eastward. His light
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  Speaker 1: was gentle, warm and humid, as if a little sorrowful.
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  Speaker 1: She thought over his many dead children, that he must
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  Speaker 1: call forth so many more to the new life of
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  Speaker 1: the reviving year. Suddenly, as she gazed, the little clump
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  Speaker 1: of trees against the hillside stood as she had never
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  Speaker 1: seen it stand before, as if the sap in them
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  Speaker 1: were no longer colorless but red with human life. Nature
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  Speaker 1: was alive, with a presence she had never seen before.
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  Speaker 1: It was instinct, with a meaning and intent, a soul.
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  Speaker 1: The mountain stood against the sky, as if reaching upward
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  Speaker 1: knowing something, waiting for something. Over All was a glory.
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  Speaker 1: The change was far more wondrous than from winter to summer.
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  Speaker 1: It was not as if a dead body, but a
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  Speaker 1: dead soul had come alive. What could it mean? Had
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  Speaker 1: the new aspect come forth to answer this glow in
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  Speaker 1: her heart? Or was the glow in her heart the
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  Speaker 1: reflection of this new aspect of the world. She was
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  Speaker 1: ready to cry aloud, not with joy, not from her
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  Speaker 1: feeling of the beauty, but with a sensation almost hitherto unknown,
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  Speaker 1: therefore nameless. It was a new and marvelous interest in
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  Speaker 1: the world, a new sense of life in herself, of
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  Speaker 1: life in everything, a recognition of brother existence, a life
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  Speaker 1: contact with the universe, a conscious flash of the divine
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  Speaker 1: in her soul, a throb of the pure joy of being.
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  Speaker 1: She was nearer God than she had ever been before.
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  Speaker 1: But she did not know this, might never in this
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  Speaker 1: world know it. She understood nothing of what was going
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  Speaker 1: on in her, only felt it go on. It was
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  Speaker 1: not love of God that was moving in her. Yet
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  Speaker 1: she stood in her white dress, like one risen from
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  Speaker 1: the grave, looking in sweet bliss on a new heaven
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  Speaker 1: and a new earth, made new by the new opening
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  Speaker 1: of her eyes. To save man or woman. The next
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  Speaker 1: thing to the love of God is the love of
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  Speaker 1: man or woman. Only let no man or woman mistake
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  Speaker 1: the love of love. For love. She started grew white,
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  Speaker 1: stood straight up, grew red as a sunset. Was it?
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  Speaker 1: Could it be? Is this love? She said to herself,
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  Speaker 1: And for minutes she hardly moved. It was love. Whether
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  Speaker 1: love was in her or not, she was in love,
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  Speaker 1: and it might get inside her. She hid her face
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  Speaker 1: in her hands and wept. With what opportunities I have
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  Speaker 1: had of studying I do not say understanding the human heart.
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  Speaker 1: I should not have expected such feeling from Christina. And
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  Speaker 1: she wondered at it herself. Till a child is awake,
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  Speaker 1: how tell his mood? Until a woman is awaked? How
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  Speaker 1: tell her nature? Who knows himself? And how then shall
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  Speaker 1: he know his neighbor? For who can know anything except
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  Speaker 1: on the supposition of its remaining the same? And the
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  Speaker 1: greatest change of all, next to being born again, is
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  Speaker 1: beginning to love. The very faculty of loving had been
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  Speaker 1: hitherto repressed in the soul of Christina by poor education,
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  Speaker 1: by low family and social influences, by familiarity with the
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  Speaker 1: worship of riches, by vanity, and consequent hunger after the
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  Speaker 1: attentions of men. But now at length she was in love.
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  Speaker 1: At breakfast, though she was silent, she looked so well
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  Speaker 1: that her mother complimented her on her loveliness. Had she
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  Speaker 1: been more of a mother, she might have seen cause
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  Speaker 1: for anxiety in this fresh burgeoning of her beauty and
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  Speaker 1: of Volume two, Chapter fourteen, recording by Hannah Mary