t. I was too much overwhelmed with joy. The whole thing
seemed so infinitely little and far away. So for a time I floated on the
moving crystal of the translucent sea, over the glimmering deeps, the
dawn above me, the scenes of the old life growing and shaping themselves
and fading without any will of my own, nothing within or without me but
ineffable peace and perfect joy.

II

I knew quite well what had happened to me; that I had passed through
what mortals call Death: and two thoughts came to me; one was this.
There had been times on earth when one had felt sure with a sort of deep
instinct that one could not really ever die; yet there had been hours of
weariness and despair when one had wondered whether death would not mean
a silent blankness. That thought had troubled me most, when I had
followed to the grave some friend or some beloved. The mouldering form,
shut into the narrow box, was thrust with a sense of shame and disgrace
into the clay, and no word or sign returned to show that the spirit
lived on, or that one would ever find that dear proximity again. How
foolish it seemed now ever to have doubted, ever to have been troubled!
Of course it was all eternal and everlasting. And then, too, came a
second thought. One had learned in life, alas, so often to separate what
was holy and sacred from daily life; there were prayers, liturgies,
religious exercises, solemnities, Sabbaths--an oppressive strain, too
often, and a banishing of active life. Brought up as one had been, there
had been a mournful overshadowing of thought, that after death, and with
God, it would be all grave and constrained and serious, a perpetual
liturgy, an unending Sabbath. But now all was deliciously merged
together. All of beautiful and gracious that there had been in religion,
all of joyful and animated and eager that there had been in secular
life, everything that amused, interested, excited, all fine pictures,
great poems, lovely scenes, intrepid thoughts, exercise, work, jests,
laughter, perceptions, fancies--they were all one now; only sorrow and
weariness and dulness and ugliness and greediness were gone. The
thought was fresh, pure, delicate, full of a great and mirthful content.

There were no divisions of time in my great peace; past, present, and
future were alike all merged. How can I explain that? It seems so
impossible, having once seen it, that it should be otherwise. The day
did not broaden to the noon, nor fade to