en, she looking anxiously at me. Our talk had broken down all
possible reserve between us; but what was strange to me was that I felt,
not like a lover with any need to woo, but as though we two had long
since been wedded, and had just come to a knowledge of each other's
hearts. At last we rose; and strange and bewildering as it all was, I
think I was perhaps happier at this time than at any other time in the
land of light, before or after.

And let me here say a word about these strange unions of soul that take
place in that other land. There is there a whole range of affections,
from courteous tolerance to intense passion. But there is a peculiar
bond which springs up between pairs of people, not always of different
sex, in that country. My relation with Amroth had nothing of that
emotion about it. That was simply like a transcendental essence of
perfect friendship; but there was a peculiar relation, between pairs of
souls, which seems to imply some curious duality of nature, of which
earthly passion is but a symbol. It is accompanied by an absolute
clearness of vision into the inmost soul and being of the other.
Cynthia's mind was as clear to me in those days as a crystal globe might
be which one could hold in one's hand, and my mind was as clear to her.
There is a sense accompanying it almost of identity, as if the other
nature was the exact and perfect complement of one's own; I can explain
this best by an image. Think of a sphere, let us say, of alabaster,
broken into two pieces by a blow, and one piece put away or mislaid. The
first piece, let us suppose, stands in its accustomed place, and the
owner often thinks in a trivial way of having it restored. One day,
turning over some lumber, he finds the other piece, and wonders if it
is not the lost fragment. He takes it with him, and sees on applying it
that the fractures correspond exactly, and that joined together the
pieces complete the sphere.

Even so did Cynthia's soul fit into mine. But I grew to understand later
the words of the Gospel--"they neither marry nor are given in marriage."
These unions are not permanent, any more than they are really permanent
on earth. On earth, owing to material considerations such as children
and property, a marriage is looked upon as indissoluble. But this takes
no account of the development of souls; and indeed many of the unions of
earth, the passion once over, do grow into a very noble and beautiful
friendship. But sometim