But for myself, events had brought no solution of the problems of my past; and with the tenacity of a constant nature I was unable to see any for the future. I mused one evening, alone with these long thoughts. I was strolling upon a wide, bright field. Behind me lay the city, glittering and glad. Beyond, I saw the little sea which I had crossed. The familiar outline of the hills uprose behind. All Heaven seemed heavenly. I heard distant merry voices and music. Listening closely, I found that the Wedding March that had stirred so many human heart-beats was perfectly performed somewhere across the water, and that the wind bore the sounds towards me. I then remembered to have heard it said that Mendelssohn was himself a guest of some distinguished person in an adjacent town, and that certain music of his was to be given for the entertainment of a group of people who had been deaf-mutes in the lower life. As the immortal power of the old music filled the air, I stayed my steps to listen. The better to do this, I covered my eyes with my hands, and so stood blindfold and alone in the midst of the wide field. The passion of earth and the purity of Heaven--the passion of Heaven and the deferred hope of earth--what loss and what possession were in the throbbing strains! As never on earth, they called the glad to rapture. As never on earth, they stirred the sad to silence. Where, before, had soul or sense been called by such a clarion? What music was, we used to dream. What it is, we dare, at last, to know. And yet--I would have been spared this if I could, I think, just now. Give me a moment’s grace. I would draw breath, and so move on again, and turn me to my next duty quietly, since even Heaven denies me, after all. I would--what would I? Where am I? Who spoke, or stirred? WHO called me by a name unheard by me of any living lip for almost twenty years? In a transport of something not unlike terror, I could not remove my hands from my eyes, but still stood, blinded and dumb, in the middle of the shining field. Beneath my clasped fingers, I caught the radiance of the edges of the blades of grass that the low breeze swept against my garment’s hem; and strangely in that strange moment, there came to me, for the only articulate thought I could command, these two lines of an old hymn: “Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green.” “Take down your hands,” a voice said quietly. “Do not start or fear. It is the most natural thing in the world that I should find you. Be calm. Take courage. Look at me.” Obeying, as the tide obeys the moon, I gathered heart, and so, lifting my eyes, I saw him whom I remembered standing close beside me. We two were alone in the wide, bright field. All Heaven seemed to have withdrawn to leave us to ourselves for this one moment.