people,
or rather of those who have been people, always very much the same.

There, straight as the way of the Spirit and broad as the breast of
Death, is the Great White Road running I know not whence, up to those
Gates that gleam like moonlight and are higher than the Alps. There
beyond the Gates the radiant Presences move mysteriously. Thence at the
appointed time the Voice cries and they are opened with a sound like to
that of deepest thunder, or sometimes are burned away, while from the
Glory that lies beyond flow the sweet-faced welcomers to greet those for
whom they wait, bearing the cups from which they give to drink. I do
not know what is in the cups, whether it be a draught of Lethe or
some baptismal water of new birth, or both; but always the thirsting,
world-worn soul appears to change, and then as it were to be lost in the
Presence that gave the cup. At least they are lost to my sight. I see
them no more.

Why do I watch those Gates, in truth or in dream, before my time? Oh!
You can guess. That perchance I may behold those for whom my heart burns
with a quenchless, eating fire. And once I beheld--not the mother but
the child, my child, changed indeed, mysterious, wonderful, gleaming
like a star, with eyes so deep that in their depths my humanity seemed
to swoon.

She came forward; she knew me; she smiled and laid her finger on her
lips. She shook her hair about her and in it vanished as in a cloud. Yet
as she vanished a voice spoke in my heart, her voice, and the words it
said were--

"Wait, our Beloved! Wait!"

Mark well. "Our Beloved," not "My Beloved." So there are others by whom
I am beloved, or at least one other, and I know well who that one must
be.

*****

After this dream, perhaps I had better call it a dream, I was ill for a
long while, for the joy and the glory of it overpowered me and brought
me near to the death I had always sought. But I recovered, for my hour
is not yet. Moreover, for a long while as we reckon time, some years
indeed, I obeyed the injunction and sought the Great White Road no more.
At length the longing grew too strong for me and I returned thither, but
never again did the vision come. Its word was spoken, its mission was
fulfilled. Yet from time to time I, a mortal, seem to stand upon the
borders of that immortal Road and watch the newly dead who travel it
towards the glorious Gates.

Once or twice there have been among them people whom I have known. As
these pas