“Say, rather,” he answered, “that they have escaped to the sorrows of life. The essence of life is sorrow.” “It does not seem so, from your picture,” I said. “That is simple because my picture is not understood. Every one of these beings of whom I speak bears in his bosom a pain for which there are no words; every one of them—there are countless numbers of them, living each in my consciousness as the voice of one instrument lives in a symphony—each one is a Titan spirit, wrestling day and night without end, without possibility of respite, and bearing on his shoulders a universal load of woe. In no way could you imagine one better than as a soldier in the crisis of the battle, panting, and blind with pain, dying amid the glory of his achievement.” “And such a life!” I cried “Why do they live it?” “They lived it because it demands with the voice of all their being to be lived; because the presence of it is rapture and unutterable holiness; because it will allow no questions, because it is instant, imperative, and final—_it will be lived!_” I sat in silence. “Do I gather from your words,” I asked, “that immortality is not one of the privileges of this race?” He smiled again. “The spiritual life,” he said, “does not begin until the thought of immortality is flung away. A man’s duty looms up before him—and in his weakness he will not do it, but puts the fruition of his life into another world, where the terms are not so hard!” “This people,” I asked—“what do they know about God?” “They know no more than men do,” was the answer, “except that they know they know nothing. They know that the veil is not lifted. It is not that for which they seek—life is their task, and life only; to behold its endless fruition; to dwell in the beauty of it, to wield power of it; to toil at its whirling loom, to build up palaces of music from it. Ah, my brother, why have you never lived a symphony?” “These people have no physical life?” I asked. “Assuredly, they have,” was his answer, “it is a life which does not enter their consciousness—any more than, for instance, the beating of your heart and the renewing of your tissues. They have attained to mastery over the world of matter. They temper the seasons to their wish; disease and ill-health they have banished entirely; and understanding the ways of Nature, they create their food at will.” “And their society knows no rich and no poor? Their government?” “They have no government,” he said, “their law is their inspiration.” Until far into the night we sat talking; and then, early in the morning, as I went out upon the beach—I saw a ship standing in towards the shore! I recall, as if it were yesterday, how my heart leaped up, and with what an agony of uncertainty I stood waving a signal. And then I rushed to see my brother, shouting the news aloud. Startled with his own thoughts, he gazed at me in perplexity. “A ship has come!” I cried. “A ship!”