“They have passed entirely beyond anything which those words can mean to me.” “And you know them?” “Yes.” “And personally?” “More than personally.” “How do you mean?” “I know them directly. I live in their lives. I know them as I know the symphony I hear—as one drop of water knows the sea.” I was dazed; I could hardly think. “And their name?” I asked. “They have no name,” said my brother, “they have no words. They have passed the need of language—they communicate with each other by immediate spiritual union. Their life is upon a higher plane than ours; they do not deal in ideas, but in imaginative intuitions.” “And then, Daniel, when you—when you pass into that trance—it is that!” “It is that,” said he. “By an effort of my will I lift myself into their consciousness; but because my physical and mental faculties have not been prepared by long ages of development, my time with them is limited, and I fall back to recruit my strength.” “And this has been going on for years?” “For ten or twelve years,” was his reply. It will, perhaps, be best for me to give the substance of what he told me in the long conversation which ensued. “I do not know where these people are,” he told me. “I only know that throughout universal space they are the race which is nearest in its development to our own. I do not know what they look like. I have never seen nor heard them. I only live their lives. I do not ask them any questions; our relation is nothing of that sort. It is as if they were playing music which I heard; but also as if their music was their whole life, so that I know all they have and do. Their presence comes to me as the inwelling of universal joy; of love and worship and rapture, unending and unthinkable. Their life is infinite variety—immediate and perpetual expansion—spiritual insight developing in a ratio determined by the will of the individuals. It is as if a man were to witness the springtime arising of Nature, but taking place in an hour instead of three months; and he comprehending it, not from the outside, but living it, as a bursting forth of song.” “And to this song there is no limit?” I asked him. “When you speak of the soul as being infinite,” said Daniel, “you do not mean that it extends merely beyond your thoughts, but you mean that you may heap quantity upon quantity, and multiply quantity by quantity, in any ratio and at any speed you please, and still have infinity before you.” “You mean that these beings understand what is going on in each other’s mind?” “They understand all minds as you understand your own. It is of the nature of spiritual passion to mingle at a certain stage of intensity, like electricity in the lightning flash. This race has developed a new sense, just as man has developed senses which are not possessed by lower animals.” “And these people were once men?” “Presumably.” “And then they have escaped altogether from the sorrows of life?”