“Did you not say yourself a little while ago that I was the fairy who made blind babies dream of daisy fields?” “I love you,” I said, “with an incomprehensible love.” “All love is incomprehensible,” the Beautiful Being answered. “But come, brother, let us climb the hill of vision. When you are out of breath, if you catch at my flying veil I will wait till you are rested.” Strange things we saw that night. I should weary you if I told you all of them. We stood on the crater of an active volcano and watched the dance of the fire-spirits. Did you fancy that salamanders were only seen by unabstemious poets? They are as real--to themselves and to those who see them--as are the omnibus-drivers in the streets of London. The real and the unreal! If I were writing an essay now, instead of the narrative of a traveller in a strange country, I should have much to say on the subject of the real and the unreal. The Beautiful Being has changed my ideas about the whole universe. I wonder if, when I come back to the earth again, I shall remember all the marvels I have seen. Perhaps, like most people, I shall have forgotten the details of my life before birth, and shall bring with me only vague yearnings after the inexpressible, and the deep unalterable conviction that there are more things in earth and heaven than are dreamed of in the philosophy of the world’s people. Perhaps if I almost remember, but not quite, I shall be a poet in my next life. Worse things might happen to me. What an adventure it is, this launching of one’s barque upon the sea of rebirth! But by my digressions one would say that I was in my second childhood. So I am--my second childhood in the so-called invisible. When, on my voyage that night with the Beautiful Being, I had feasted my eyes upon beauty until they were weary, my companion led me to scenes on the earth which, had I beheld them alone, would have made me very sad. But no one can be sad when the Beautiful Being is near. That is the charm of that marvellous entity: to be in its presence is to taste the joys of immortal life. We looked on at a midnight revel in what you on earth would call “a haunt of vice.” Was I shocked and horrified? Not at all. I watched the antics of those human animalculæ as a scientist might watch the motions of the smaller living creatures in a drop of water. It seemed to me that I saw it all from the viewpoint of the stars. I started to say from the viewpoint of God, to whom small and great are the same; but perhaps the stellar simile is the truer one, for how can we judge of what God sees--unless we mean the god in us? You who read what I have written, perhaps when you come out here you will have many surprises. The small things may seem larger and the large things smaller, and everything may take its proper place in the infinite plan, of which even your troubles and perplexities are parts, inevitable and beautiful.