Atma - A Romance

Atma directed his steps on the morning following his interview with

Junda Kowr northward towards the confines of Kashmir. It was a lovely

morning. A humid mist veiled the distant mountains, towards which his

steps tended. Seen through its tender swaying folds, how vague and

beautiful their savage slopes appeared. Light and shade, ominous gloom

and shining crag were hid from view. How often thus the morn of life, "In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds."

A twilight not dispelled until the light dawns on a retrospect whose

bitterness could not be borne unless seen side by side with the other

picture of Paradise.

But he had no thoughts other than of glad anticipation. Past pain and

recent unrest were forgotten in the renewed joy of freedom. He cast care

to the breeze for he had not lived long enough to know that the

discontent which is the birthright of the children of Adam is not

dependent on circumstances, but often attains most baleful activity when

events seem least likely to harass the spirit. It was the morning of

life and of love, and the obscurity in which youth walks is no dull haze

but a golden glamour.

In one old form of the creation story is told the first utterance of

Nature, the cry of chaos, "Let love be!" Through what inspiration of

wisdom it comes to us out of the silence we do not know, but feel that

the earlier tale of a divine mandate, "Light be!" is not at variance

with it. The cry of chaos lingers in the heart of the race, and each new

man in the morning of his being utters it in no doubt of its fulfilment

in his own destiny. He loves mankind, and would be beloved; he loves

nature, and perceives no relentless purpose in her variable moods; and

perhaps most of all he loves his own soul with a love whose

disenchantment is to be the sorest agony that an eternity can afford.

The cry of chaos lingers, and the story of creation is repeated in each

life history. The cry meets with no response, but instead, relentlessly,

surely, aye, and most mercifully, the facts and events group themselves

about the cowering spirit, that before Love celestial Light may arise.

It is a terrible destiny, devised by a God, and only possible in its

severity for creatures to whom it has been declared, "Behold, ye are

gods!"

At noon Atma rested beside a pool. It was a sequestered spot surrounded

by thickets. The rushes grew rank and tall on the margin and in the

water. The soft cooing of the doves hidden in the wood broke the

stillness. He ate of the slender fare which he carried, and reclined on

a flower couch until sleep closed his eyes. The doves cooed on, and

bright lizards watched him.