“But,” he went on, “those who are soon to be mothers are often vaguely conscious of the souls they harbour. Even when they do not grasp the full significance of the miracle that is being performed through them, they have strange dreams and visions, which are mostly glimpses into the past incarnations of the unborn child. They see dream countries where the entity within has dwelt in the past; they feel desires which they cannot explain--reflected desires which are merely the latent yearnings of the unborn one; they experience groundless fears which are its former dreads and terrors. The mother who nourishes a truly great soul, during this period of formation may herself grow spiritually beyond her own unaided possibility; while the mother of an unborn criminal often develops strange perversities, quite unlike her normal state of mind. “If a woman were sufficiently intelligent and informed, she could judge from her own feelings and ideas what sort of soul was to be her child some day, and prepare to guide it accordingly. More knowledge is needed, here as elsewhere.” So, as in all my experiences, I learned something through the passing out of Lionel. LETTER XXXV THE BEAUTIFUL BEING YES, I have seen angels, if by angels you mean spiritual beings who have never dwelt as men upon the earth. As a man is to a rock, so is an angel to a man in vividness of life. If we ever experienced that state of etheric joy, we have lost it through long association with matter. Can we ever regain it? Perhaps. The event is in our hand. Shall I tell you of one whom I call the Beautiful Being? If it has a name in heaven, I have not heard it. Is the Beautiful Being man or woman? Sometimes it seems to be one, sometimes the other. There is a mystery here which I cannot fathom. One night I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam, which means that the poet which dwells in all men was awake in me. I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam, and ecstasy filled my heart. For the moment I had escaped the clutches of Time, and was living in that etheric quietude which is merely the activity of rapture raised to the last degree. I must have been enjoying a foretaste of that paradoxical state which the wise ones of the East call Nirvana. I was vividly conscious of the moonbeam and of myself, and _in_ myself seemed to be everything else in the universe. It was the nearest I ever came to a realisation of that supreme declaration, “_I am_.” The past and the future seemed equally present in the moment. Had a voice whispered that it was yesterday, I should have acquiesced in the assertion; had I been told that it was a million years hence, I should have been also assentive. But whether it was really yesterday or a million years hence mattered not in the least. Perhaps the Beautiful Being only comes to those for whom the moment and eternity are one. I heard a voice say: “Brother, it is I.”