is bounded by
battlements of living sapphire, and towers of opal. In the midst is
situated a Mount, the dwelling place of the Most High, surrounded by
golden lamps, which diffuse night and day alternately--for without
twilight and dawn, his dearest memories, Heaven would have been no Heaven
to Milton. On a mountain far to the north of this great plain, Satan
erects his pyramids and towers of diamond and gold, and establishes his
empire, which lasts exactly three days. At his final overthrow the
crystal wall of Heaven rolls back, disclosing a gap into the abyss; the
rebels, tortured with plagues and thunder, fling themselves in
desperation over the verge. They fall for nine days, through Chaos. Chaos
is the realm of a king of the same name, who reigns over it with his
consort Night. It is of immeasurable extent, quite dark, and turbulent
with the raw material of the Cosmos. Just as Milton, for the purposes of
his poem, followed the older astronomy, and gave to it a new lease of
life in the popular imagination, so also he abides by the older physics.
The orderly created World, or Cosmos, is conceived as compounded of four
elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. None of these four is to be found
in Chaos, for each of them is composed of the simpler atoms of Hot, Cold,
Moist, and Dry, symmetrically arranged in pairs. Thus Air is Hot and
Moist, Fire is Hot and Dry, Water is Cold and Moist, Earth is Cold and
Dry. Before they are separated and blended by Divine command, the four
rudimentary constituents of creation are crowded in repulsive contiguity;
they bubble and welter, fight and jostle in the dark, with hideous
noises. In its upper strata Chaos is calmer, and is faintly lighted by
the effulgence from the partially transparent walls of Heaven.

Below is Hell, newly prepared for the rebels. Like Heaven it is a vast
plain; a bituminous lake, played over by livid flames, is one of its
principal features; and hard by stands a volcanic mountain, at the foot
of which the devils build their palace, and hold their assembly. The
nine-fold gates of Hell, far distant, are guarded by Sin and Death, the
paramour and the son of Satan. No one has plausibly explained how they
came by their office. It was intended to be a perfect sinecure; there was
no one to be let in and no one to be let out. The single occasion that
presented itself for a neglect of their duty was by them eagerly seized.

During the nine days while the rebels lay on the