t would not have been
wonderful.

Ananda, still half entranced, turned homeward. As he threaded the dim
alleys he noticed not the flaming eyes which regarded him from the
gloom; the serpents rustling amid the undergrowth; the lizards,
fireflies, insects, and the innumerable lives of which the Indian forest
was rumorous; they also were but shadows. He paused near the village
hearing the sound of human voices, of children at play. He felt a pity
for these tiny beings, who struggled and shouted, rolling over each
other in ecstasies of joy. The great illusion had indeed devoured them,
before whose spirits the Devas themselves once were worshippers. Then,
close beside him, he heard a voice, whose low tone of reverence soothed
him; it was akin to his own nature, and it awakened him fully. A little
crowd of five or six people were listening silently to an old man who
read from a palm-leaf manuscript. Ananda knew, by the orange-colored
robes of the old man that here was a brother of the new faith, and he
paused with the others. What was his illusion? The old man lifted his
head for a moment as the ascetic came closer, and then continued as
before. He was reading "The Legend of the Great King of Glory," and
Ananda listened while the story was told of the Wonderful Wheel, the
Elephant Treasure, the Lake and Palace of Righteousness, and of the
meditation, how the Great King of Glory entered the golden chamber, and
set himself down on the silver couch, and he let his mind pervade one
quarter of the world with thoughts of love; and so the second quarter,
and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world,
above, below, around, and everywhere, did he continue to pervade with
heart of Love, far reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.

When the old man had ended Ananda went back into the forest. He had
found the secret of the true, how the Vision could be left behind and
the Being entered. Another legend rose in his mind, a faery legend of
righteousness expanding and filling the universe, a vision beautiful
and full of old enchantment, and his heart sang within him. He seated
himself again under the banyan tree. He rose up in soul. He saw before
him images long forgotten of those who suffer in the sorrowful earth.
He saw the desolation and loneliness of old age, the insults of the
captive, the misery of the leper and outcast, the chill horror and
darkness of life in a dungeon. He drank in all their sorrow. From his