“We clove the air; passed systems, suns, and moons: what seem from Mardi’s isles, the glow-worm stars. “By distant fleets of worlds we sped, as voyagers pass far sails at sea, and hail them not. Foam played before them as they darted on; wild music was their wake; and many tracks of sound we crossed, where worlds had sailed before. “Soon, we gained a point, where a new heaven was seen; whence all our firmament seemed one nebula. Its glories burned like thousand steadfast-flaming lights. “Here hived the worlds in swarms: and gave forth sweets ineffable. “We lighted on a ring, circling a space, where mornings seemed forever dawning over worlds unlike. “‘Here,’ I heard, ‘thou viewest thy Mardi’s Heaven. Herein each world is portioned.’ “As he who climbs to mountain tops pants hard for breath; so panted I for Mardi’s grosser air. But that which caused my flesh to faint, was new vitality to my soul. My eyes swept over all before me. The spheres were plain as villages that dot a landscape. I saw most beauteous forms, yet like our own. Strange sounds I heard of gladness that seemed mixed with sadness:—a low, sweet harmony of both. Else, I know not how to phrase what never man but me e’er heard. “‘In these blest souls are blent,’ my guide discoursed, ‘far higher thoughts, and sweeter plaints than thine. Rude joy were discord here. And as a sudden shout in thy hushed mountain-passes brings down the awful avalanche; so one note of laughter here, might start some white and silent world.’ “Then low I murmured:—‘Is their’s, oh guide! no happiness supreme? their state still mixed? Sigh these yet to know? Can these sin?’ “Then I heard:—‘No mind but Oro’s can know all; no mind that knows not all can be content; content alone approximates to happiness. Holiness comes by wisdom; and it is because great Oro is supremely wise, that He’s supremely holy. But as perfect wisdom can be only Oro’s; so, perfect holiness is his alone. And whoso is otherwise than perfect in his holiness, is liable to sin. “‘And though death gave these beings knowledge, it also opened other mysteries, which they pant to know, and yet may learn. And still they fear the thing of evil; though for them, ’tis hard to fall. Thus hoping and thus fearing, then, their’s is no state complete. And since Oro is past finding out, and mysteries ever open into mysteries beyond; so, though these beings will for aye progress in wisdom and in good; yet, will they never gain a fixed beatitude. Know, then, oh mortal Mardian! that when translated hither, thou wilt but put off lowly temporal pinings, for angel and eternal aspirations. Start not: thy human joy hath here no place: no name. “Still, I mournful mused; then said:—‘Many Mardians live, who have no aptitude for Mardian lives of thought: how then endure more earnest, everlasting, meditations?’ “‘Such have their place,’ I heard.