Towards democracy

The Body Within the Body 493

auroral, shooting from one to another—so tender, so true, and life-long,

And longer than life—holding together the present and past generations ;

The currents of love and thought streaming in the watches of the night from far and near, from one to another,

(Streaming all the more powertully for the very hindrances and disasters which arrive or threaten,)

And building in the bustle of the day such likeness of their dreams as may be—

That these inner are after all more real in some sense than the outer things—that they surpass in actual vitality and significance even all this artillery of horrors.

I dream that these are the fibres and nerves of a body that lies within the outer body of society,

A network, an innumerable vast interlocked ramification, slowly being built up—all dear lovers and friends, all families, groups, all peoples, nations, all times, all worlds perhaps—

Of which the outer similitudes and shells, like the minute cells of an organism, are shed and die in endless multitudes with continual decay and corruption ;

But the real individuals persist and are members of a Body, archetypal, eterne,

lorious, the centre and perfection of life and organisation, And the source of all the Light in the universe.