That idea came to me as I wandered from heaven to earth, from beauty to ugliness, with my angelic companion. I wish I could explain the influence of the Beautiful Being. It is unlike anything else in the universe. It is elusive as a moonbeam, yet more sympathetic than a mother. It is daintier than a rose, yet it looks upon ugly things with a smile. It is purer than the breath of the sea, yet it seems to have no horror of impurity. It is artless as a child, yet wiser than the ancient gods, a marvel of paradoxes, a celestial vagabond, the darling of the unseen. LETTER XLII A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT THE other day I met an acquaintance, a woman whom I had known for a number of years, and who came out about the time I did. Old acquaintances when they meet here greet each other about as they did on earth. Though we are, as a rule, less conventional than you, still we cling more or less to our former habits. I asked Mrs. ---- how she was enjoying herself, and she said that she was not having a very pleasant time. She found that everybody was interested in something else, and did not want to talk with her. This was the first time I had met with such a complaint, and I was struck by its peculiarity. I asked her to what cause she attributed this unsociability, and she replied that she did not know the cause, that it had puzzled her. “What do you talk to them about?” I asked. “Why, I tell them my troubles, as one friend tells another; but they do not seem to be interested. How selfish people are!” Poor soul! She did not realise here, any more than she had on earth, that our troubles are not interesting to anybody but ourselves. “Suppose,” I said, “that you unburden yourself to me. Tell me your troubles. I will promise not to run away.” “Why, I hardly know where to begin!” she answered. “I have found so many unpleasant things.” “What, for instance?” “Why, horrid people. I remember that when I lived in ---- I sometimes told myself that in the other world I would not be bothered with boarding-house landladies and their careless hired girls; but they are just as bad here--even worse.” “Do you mean to tell me that you live in a boarding-house here?” “Where should I live? You know that I am not rich.” Of all the astonishing things I had heard in this land of changes, this was the most astonishing. A boarding-house in the “invisible” world! Surely, I told myself, my observations had been limited. Here was a new discovery. “Is the table good in your boarding-house?” I asked. “No, it is worse than at the last one.” “Are the meals scanty?” “Yes, scanty and bad, especially the coffee.” “Will you tell me,” I said, my wonder growing, “if you really eat three meals a day here, as you used to do on earth?”