I give but my recollection of my brother’s words. He paused again and sat gazing before him. “I do not know,” he said, “how much these metaphors convey to you. A long time had passed—some eight years, I imagine, though I kept no count of the time. I was coming bit by bit to a new and strange experience—one which is not of this life, and one which would seem to you, I imagine, as altogether supernatural. “So,” said Daniel, “you must believe me as you can. I have spoken of strange bursts of vision, sudden gleams of insight which shake one’s being to its depth. Such experiences are not unusual—poets have sung of them; but now there came to be something which, strange as it may sound, seemed to be not of a kind with my own soul—something which affected me with an indescribable _fear_. I fought against the thought, for I had no belief in the unseen. I strive to put into words something that cannot be put into words—but I was like a man groping in utter darkness, and touching something _alive_. I had fought my way into this unknown land, and everywhere I had gone, so far, the things that I achieved were of my own power, the impulses were those of my own will. But now, day by day, I was haunted by the unthinkable suspicion that into my life was coming something that was not myself. I was a bird mounting upon the air—and the air had a will of its own! It was something that repelled me—something that drew me. I wrestled with the thought day and night, comparing it with anything of which I had ever heard or known. But in vain—it was new to me. “These things of which I speak you must understand as happening in the midst of a tempest of emotions; I sat in a state which there is no imagining—I ate nothing for days, I sat for days without moving, until at last there came the climax, a desperate resolve, a mounting up, a battling with unseen forces, a knocking upon unseen doors—and then a sudden rending away of barriers, and the inpouring of a sea of life. I can only use metaphors. I was a traveller, and I had toiled towards the sunrise, climbing peak upon peak, and suddenly I had stepped out upon the summit, and stood transfixed with the glory of an endless vision of dawn.” My brother’s voice had sunk to a whisper, and his hand lay upon my arm. I cannot tell how his words had affected me. “And this—this thing——” I ventured. “It is real?” “It is real,” he said; “there is nothing else so real.” “And it—it is a heaven?” “No,” he said, “it is another earth.” I started. “As a scientist,” he said—“what do you believe about the universe? Is there life throughout it?” “I do not know, it is a possibility.” “Yes,” said Daniel; “but for me it is a certainty. It is a fact in which I live, day after day.” I had caught him by the arm. “Daniel!” I cried. “It is just so,” he said. “Another planet?” “I do not know,” was the answer. “Another race of beings, is all that I can tell you.” “And are they human beings?”