Lilith

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"That I go through it is an incontrovertible acknowledgement of space," returned the old librarian. "Please do not quibble, Mr. Raven," I rejoined. "Please to take my question as you know I mean it." "There is in your house a door, one step through which carries me into a world very much another than this." "A better?" "Not throughout; but so much another that most of its physical, and many of its mental laws are different from those of this world. As for moral laws, they must everywhere be fundamentally the same." "You try my power of belief!" I said. "You take me for a madman, probably?" "You do not look like one." "A liar then?" "You give me no ground to think you such." "Only you do not believe me?" Lilith "I will go out of that door with you if you like: I believe in you enough to risk the attempt." "The blunder all my children make!" he murmured. "The only door out is the door in!" I began to think he must be crazy. He sat silent for a moment, his head resting on his hand, his elbow on the table, and his eyes on the books before him. "A book," he said louder, "is a door in, and therefore a door out.−−I see old Sir Up'ard," he went on, closing his eyes, "and my heart swells with love to him:−−what world is he in?" "The world of your heart!" I replied; "−−that is, the idea of him is there." "There is one world then at least on which your hall−door does not open?" "I grant you so much; but the things in that world are not things to have and to hold." "Think a little farther," he rejoined: "did anything ever become yours, except by getting into that world?−−The thought is beyond you, however, at present!−−I tell you there are more worlds, and more doors to them, than you will think of in many years!" He rose, left the library, crossed the hall, and went straight up to the garret, familiar evidently with every turn. I followed, studying his back. His hair hung down long and dark, straight and glossy. His coat was wide and reached to his heels. His shoes seemed too large for him. In the garret a light came through at the edges of the great roofing slabs, and showed us parts where was no flooring, and we must step from joist to joist: in the middle of one of these spaces rose a partition, with a door: through it I followed Mr. Raven into a small, obscure chamber, whose top contracted as it rose, and went slanting through the roof. Lilith 26
"That is the door I spoke of," he said, pointing to an oblong mirror that stood on the floor and leaned against the wall. I went in front of it, and saw our figures dimly reflected in its dusty face. There was something about it that made me uneasy. It looked old−fashioned and neglected, but, notwithstanding its ordinary seeming, the eagle, perched with outstretched wings on the top, appeared threatful. "As a mirror," said the librarian, "it has grown dingy with age; but that is no matter: its doorness depends on the light." "Light!" I rejoined; "there is no light here!" He did not answer me, but began to pull at a little chain on the opposite wall. I heard a creaking: the top of the chamber was turning slowly round. He ceased pulling, looked at his watch, and began to pull again. "We arrive almost to the moment!" he said; "it is on the very stroke of noon!" The top went creaking and revolving for a minute or so. Then he pulled two other chains, now this, now that, and returned to the first. A moment more and the chamber grew much clearer: a patch of sunlight had fallen upon a mirror on the wall opposite that against which the other leaned, and on the dust I saw the path of the reflected rays to the mirror on the ground. But from the latter none were returned; they seemed to go clean through; there was nowhere in the chamber a second patch of light! "Where are the sunrays gone?" I cried. "That I cannot tell," returned Mr. Raven; "−−back, perhaps, to where they came from first. They now belong, I fancy, to a sense not yet developed in us." He then talked of the relations of mind to matter, and of senses to qualities, in a way I could only a little understand, whence he went on to yet stranger things which I could not at all comprehend. He spoke much about dimensions, telling me that there were many more than three, some of them concerned with powers which were indeed in us, but of which as yet we knew absolutely nothing. His words, however, I confess, took little more hold of me than the light did of the mirror, for I thought he hardly knew what he was saying. Suddenly I was aware that our forms had gone from the mirror, which seemed full of a white mist. As I gazed I saw, growing gradually visible beyond the mist, the tops of a range of mountains, which became clearer and clearer. Soon the mist vanished entirely, uncovering the face of a wide heath, on which, at some distance, was the figure of a man moving swiftly away. I turned to address my companion; he was no longer by my side. I looked again at the form in the mirror, and recognised the wide coat flying, the black hair lifting in a wind that did not touch me. I rushed in terror from the place. CHAPTER IX. I REPENT I laid the manuscript down, consoled to find that my father had had a peep into that mysterious world, and that he knew Mr. Raven. Lilith Then I remembered that I had never heard the cause or any circumstance of my father's death, and began to believe that he must at last have followed Mr. Raven, and not come back; whereupon I speedily grew ashamed of my flight. What wondrous facts might I not by this time have gathered concerning life and death, and wide regions beyond ordinary perception! Assuredly the Ravens were good people, and a night in their house would nowise have hurt me! They were doubtless strange, but it was faculty in which the one was peculiar, and beauty in which the other was marvellous! And I had not believed in them! had treated them as unworthy of my confidence, as harbouring a design against me! The more I thought of my behaviour to them, Lilith 27
Page 1 and 2: Lilith George MacDonald
Page 3 and 4: Lilith George MacDonald • CHAPTER
Page 5 and 6: Lilith The library, although duly c
Page 7 and 8: CHAPTER II. THE MIRROR Nothing more
Page 9 and 10: "I saw you come through it!−−sa
Page 11 and 12: Lilith was the mirror, on whose top
Page 13 and 14: "I do not want to go," I said. "Tha
Page 15 and 16: "Ten minutes ago you did not see it
Page 17 and 18: CHAPTER V. THE OLD CHURCH I followe
Page 19 and 20: "Here we are at last!" said the rav
Page 21 and 22: "I never saw one do it!" "You saw m
Page 23 and 24: helmet" gleaming like a moonstone.
Page 25 and 26: "That also you will know when you w
Page 27: "Where was that?" "In this very roo
Page 31 and 32: "I would have lain down at once had
Page 33 and 34: Lilith larger, and at length gave m
Page 35 and 36: The moon went below, and the world
Page 37 and 38: molten music sang me into a dreamle
Page 39 and 40: I lay on the floor that night hardl
Page 41 and 42: I had found that to ask precisely t
Page 43 and 44: had never seen any before they saw
Page 45 and 46: A long pause followed. "Then you do
Page 47 and 48: "I will," I replied−−and sat do
Page 49 and 50: "There is no hurt in the air," she
Page 51 and 52: their princess and her power, and d
Page 53 and 54: I learned afterward that there were
Page 55 and 56: Lilith to grow dark. At my feet lay
Page 57 and 58: I was lying on my withered leaves i
Page 59 and 60: "Have you hurt yourself, my lord?"
Page 61 and 62: "Granted!−−but in which or what
Page 63 and 64: they are pretty steadily growing mo
Page 65 and 66: To do for her all I could, I spread
Page 67 and 68: She was lying as I had left her. Th
Page 69 and 70: other from her shoulders. With the
Page 71 and 72: "Doubtless you pitied me!" "Never h
Page 73 and 74: Despair restored my volition; the s
Page 75 and 76: night. I ran the faster, though I c
Page 77 and 78: Lilith CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA I had l
Page 79 and 80:
"Thank you!" she murmured. "Have yo
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As I lay sleepless, I began to hear
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"Take me to the princess," I said.
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The princess stood waiting me, in a
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CHAPTER XXVI. A BATTLE ROYAL I thre
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I turned and followed the spotted l
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in a stormy water, I was flung abou
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"Indeed you almost taught the noble
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"A song that had no sound into his
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Then at last I understood that Mr.
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"But," I returned, hard to persuade
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do. The librarian walked on in sile
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"Mr. Vane," croaked the raven, "thi
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All day I worked hard. When the dar
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Lilith I lay down by a tree, and on
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Now arose in the mind of the woman
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Little Ones, from a crowd of childr
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them as for those other animals, bu
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Lilith myself learned to obey! Untr
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For she must think! Now what she ca
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CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SHADOW A murmur
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In the morning we set out, and made
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"He will kill me!" she moaned. "At
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"Will the cat−woman−−I mean t
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terrible, something they were not t
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"Such a compulsion would be without
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embrace of a friend whom her soul h
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een timelessly, spacelessly, absolu
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"It is the biggest room in all this
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Almost under our feet, shot up the
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"This food will help thee to die,"
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"You will soon begin to find comfor
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She gave the candle to her husband,
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With measured tread along the path,
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And as I sat, there grew in me such
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and I thought I had heard the song
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me, as to him that made me, all in
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"Then remember, and recall. Trials
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He embraced Lona his child, put an
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"The black bat is flown!" said Mara
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tumid bulges, glaring orbs of sepia
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I had seen the lightning, but heard
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"But whence first into thy dark sel
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Lilith

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