"'What abysmal realms of space we passed I know not, for I was as one bewildered by the swiftness of our flight and by the rushing beat of the angel's pinions. I remember that ever and anon there swam up in the darkness a gleam of light that was at first no bigger than a single star, but which, as I looked, loomed out ever larger and larger, and each moment seemed to double in magnitude, until I trembled lest it should break the bounds of the heavens; but even as I trembled, it swept whirling by with a sound like that of infinite thunders, and, receding again, lessened before my eyes as visibly as it had increased, and finally dwindling to a mere point of light, died away into darkness. Ere long, however, there appeared a flush in the distant east, and as we drew nearer I saw that, below me and afar, there lay a land in which the sun shone with such exceeding splendour, that the atmosphere, light-filled and luminous unto sparkling, was in colour like unto the colour of a rainbow. And I saw also that the rays neither dazzled nor scorched, as do the rays of the earthly sun. And far as the eye could reach stretched shining hills, seen through soft vistas of purple and gold, and sunny meadows wherein bloomed flowers beautiful as the blush of a maiden, and pure as an angel's thought. And winding in and out among the meadows ran many a rippling river; and fountains also I saw, the waters of which, as they rose and fell scintillating like a shower of starbeams or spray of diamonds, discoursed music sweeter than the sighing of Æolian harps. Then as I looked yet closer, I saw, wandering hand in hand among the meadows, many white-clad figures, whereat my soul wept for gladness; and I turned to the angel saying, "Surely this is that Heaven whereof we read and wherein I would rest for ever? for I am sore wearied with the toil and the labour of earth." But he answered me, "Mortal, thou knowest not what thou askest. Lift up thine eyes, and see if thou beholdest aught else." "'And I looked to the right hand and to the left, yet saw I only the sunny meadows and rivers of the land of flowers, and the blue distance of the bordering hills. Then I turned me round and gazed whence we came, but could nothing discern save remote plains of darkness, athwart the gloom of which I saw flash ever and anon (as one sees flash the eyes of a beast at midnight) the glimmer of a moving world. Then the angel stretched forth his hand, pointing me yet again to the distant east, and far away beyond the beauteous realm I beheld a vast plain of desolation, and beyond that a land whereof I could nothing see, save that a darkness, as of a twilight in which there is no moon, brooded above it like a cloud.