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THE VALLEY OF VISION

A Book Of Romance

And Some Half-Told Tales


By Henry Van <DW18>


   _"Your old men shall dream dreams,
    Your young men shall see visions."_






TO MY CHILDREN

AND CHILDREN'S CHILDREN

WHO MAY REMEMBER THESE TROUBLOUS TIMES WHEN WE ARE GONE ON NEW ADVENTURE




PREFACE


"Why do you choose such a title as _The Valley of Vision_ for
your book," said my friend; "do you mean that one can see farther
from the valley than from the mountain-top?"

This question set me thinking, as every honest question ought to
do. Here is the result of my thoughts, which you will take for what
it is worth, if you care to read the book.

The mountain-top is the place of outlook over the earth and the sea.
But it is in the valley of suffering, endurance, and self-sacrifice
that the deepest visions of the meaning of life come to us.

I take the outcome of this Twentieth Century War as a victory over
the mad illusion of  world-dominion which the Germans saw from
the peak of their military power in 1914. The united force of the
Allies has grown, through valley-visions of right and justice and
human kindness, into an irresistible might before which the German
"will to power" has gone down in ruin.

There are some Half-Told Tales in the volume--fables, fantasies--mere
sketches, grave and gay, on the margin of the book of life,


    "Where more is meant than meets the ear."


Dreams have a part in most of the longer stories.  That is because
I believe dreams have a part in real life. Some of them we remember
as vividly as any actual experience. These belong to the imperfect
sleep. But others we do not remember, because they are given to
us in that perfect sleep in which the soul is liberated, and goes
visiting. Yet sometimes we get a trace of them, by a happy chance,
and often their influence remains with us in that spiritual refreshment
with which we awake from profound slumber. This is the meaning of
that verse in the old psalm: "He giveth to His beloved in sleep."

The final story in the book was written before the War of 1914
began, and it has to do with the Light of the World, leading us
through conflict and suffering towards Peace.

AVALON, November 24, 1918.




CONTENTS

     A Remembered Dream
     Antwerp Road
     A City of Refuge
     A Sanctuary of Trees
     The King's High Way
     HALF-TOLD TALES
         The Traitor in the House
         Justice of the Elements
         Ashes of Vengeance
     The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France
     The Hearing Ear
     Sketches of Quebec
     A Classic Instance
     HALF-TOLD TALES
         The New Era and Carry On
         The Primitive and His Sandals
         Diana and the Lions
     The Hero and Tin Soldiers
     Salvage Point
     The Boy of Nazareth Dreams




ILLUSTRATIONS

The sails and smoke-stacks of great shift were visible, all passing
out to sea

The cathedral spire... was swaying and rocking in the air like the
mast of a ship at sea

All were fugitives, anxious to be gone... and making no more speed
than a creeping snail's pace of unutterable fatigue

"I will ask you to choose between your old home and your new home
now"

"I'm going to carry you in,'spite of hell"

"I was a lumberjack"

"I am going to become a virtuous peasant, a son of the soil, a
primitive"

The Finding of Christ in the Temple





A REMEMBERED DREAM


This is the story of a dream that came to me some five-and-twenty
years ago. It is as vivid in memory as anything that I have ever
seen in the outward world, as distinct as any experience through
which I have ever passed. Not all dreams are thus remembered. But
some are. In the records of the mind, where the inner chronicle of
life is written, they are intensely clear and veridical. I shall
try to tell the story of this dream with an absolute faithfulness,
adding nothing and leaving nothing out, but writing the narrative
just as if the thing were real.

Perhaps it was. Who can say?

In the course of a journey, of the beginning and end of which
I know nothing, I had come to a great city, whose name, if it was
ever told me, I cannot recall.

It was evidently a very ancient place. The dwelling-houses and
larger buildings were gray and beautiful with age, and the streets
wound in and out among them wonderfully, like a maze.

This city lay beside a river or estuary--though that was something
that I did not find out until later, as you will see--and the newer
part of the town extended mainly on a wide, bare street running
along a kind of low cliff or embankment, where the basements of
the small houses on the water-side  went down, below the level of
the street, to the shore. But the older part of the town was closely
and intricately built, with gabled roofs and heavy carved facades
hanging over the narrow stone-paved  ways, which here and there
led out suddenly into open squares.

It was in what appeared to be the largest and most important of
these squares that I was standing,  a little before midnight. I
had left my wife and our little girl in the lodging which we had
found, and walked out alone to visit the sleeping town.

The night sky was clear, save for a few filmy clouds, which floated
over the face of the full moon, obscuring it for an instant, but
never completely hiding it--like veils in a shadow dance. The spire
of the great cathedral was silver filigree on the moonlit side, and
on the other side, black lace.  The square was empty. But on the
broad, shallow steps in front of the main entrance of the cathedral
two heroic figures were seated. At first I thought they were statues.
Then I perceived they were alive, and talking earnestly together.

They were like Greek gods, very strong and beautiful, and naked
but for some slight drapery that fell snow-white around them. They
glistened in the moonlight. I could not hear what they were saying;
yet I could see that they were in a dispute which went to the very
roots of life.

They resembled each other strangely in form and feature--like twin
brothers. But the face of one was noble, lofty, calm, full of a vast
regret and compassion. The face of the other was proud, resentful,
drawn with passion. He appeared to be accusing and renouncing his
companion, breaking away from an ancient friendship in a swift,
implacable  hatred. But the companion seemed to plead with him,
and lean toward him, and try to draw him closer.

A strange fear and sorrow shook my heart. I felt that this
mysterious contest was something of immense importance; a secret,
ominous strife; a menace to the world.

Then the two figures stood up, marvellously alike in strength and
beauty, yet absolutely different in  expression and bearing, the
one serene and benignant,  the other fierce and threatening. The
quiet one was still pleading, with a hand laid upon the other's
shoulder. But he shook it off, and thrust his companion away with
a proud, impatient gesture.

At last I heard him speak.

"I have done with you," he cried. "I do not believe in you. I have
no more need of you. I renounce  you. I will live without you. Away
forever  out of my life!"

At this a look of ineffable sorrow and pity came upon the great
companion's face.

"You are free," he answered. "I have only besought  you, never
constrained you. Since you will have it so, I must leave you, now,
to yourself."

He rose into the air, still looking downward with wise eyes full
of grief and warning, until he vanished  in silence beyond the thin
clouds.

The other did not look up, but lifting his head with a defiant
laugh, shook his shoulders as if they were free of a burden. He
strode swiftly around the corner of the cathedral and disappeared
among the deep shadows.

A sense of intolerable calamity fell upon me. I said to myself:

"That was Man! And the other was God!  And they have parted!"

Then the multitude of bells hidden in the lace-work of the high
tower began to sound. It was not the aerial fluttering music of
the carillon that I remembered hearing long ago from the belfries
of the Low Countries. This was a confused and strident  ringing,
jangled and broken, full of sudden tumults and discords, as if the
tower were shaken and the bells gave out their notes at hazard, in
surprise  and trepidation.

It stopped as suddenly as it began. The great bell of the hours
struck twelve. The windows of the cathedral glowed faintly with a
light from within.

"It is New Year's