"That the light wherewith I had been amazed was nothing fearful, but that it appeared almost every evening when he went his rounds, seeing that to avoid sudden attack from the Evil Spirits, which may enter secretly at any place, he was constrained mightily to swing his Flaming Sword in circles, all about the bounds of the Earthly Paradise; and that the light I had seen was the lightnings which the steel of it gave forth. 'Those also which you perceive from your Earth,' he added, 'are of my creation. And if sometimes you see them at a great distance, it is because the clouds of some distant region hold themselves in such disposition as to receive an impression of these unbodied fires, and reflect them to your eyes; just as clouds otherwise disposed may prove themselves fit to make the Rainbow.' "I will not instruct you further in these matters, since to be sure the Apple of Knowledge is not far from hence; whereof as soon as you have eaten, you will know all things even as I. But see you make no mistake, for most of the Fruits that hang from that Plant are encased in a Rind, whose taste will abase you even below man; while the part within will make you mount up to be even as the Angels." Elijah had come to this point of the teachings of the Seraph, when a little short man came up with us; "This is that Enoch of whom I told you," said my guide to me apart; and even while he finished the words, Enoch offered us a basketful of I know not what fruits, like to Pomegranates, which he had but discovered that same day in a distant coppice. I took some and put in my pockets, as Elijah bade me. Here-upon Enoch asked him who I might be. "That is a matter," answered my guide, "to entertain us at more leisure; this evening when we have withdrawn he shall tell us himself of the miraculous particulars of his journey." With these words we arrived beneath a sort of Hermitage, made of palm-branches skilfully interlaced with myrtle and orange-branches. There I saw, in a little nook, great piles of a kind of floss-silk, so white and so delicate that one might take it for the virgin Soul of the snow; and I saw distaffs lying here and there; whereupon I asked my guide what use they served. "To spin," he answered me; "when the good Enoch would relax his mind from meditation, he applies himself sometimes to dressing this Lady-distaff, sometimes to weaving the cloth from which they make Shifts for the eleven thousand Virgins. Surely in your world you have met with that something white, which flutters on the winds in Autumn about the season of the Winter-sowings. Your peasant-folk call it Our Lady's Cotton, but it is no other than the Flock that Enoch purges his Linen of, when he cards it." We made little delay there, and but barely took leave of Enoch, whom this cabin served for his Cell; in truth what made us leave him so soon was this: that he said some prayer there every six hours; and it was at least that time since he had finished the last one.