Then my angel-guide spoke to me again, marking my sadness, and he said, "Hast thou well observed this sight?" and I answered, "Yes." Then he said, "And wouldst thou see more?" So when I had said "yes," methought we were once more flying through the air, until again he set me on my feet, and bid me look down. Now here, too, strange noises reached my ears; but as I listened to them, I found that there were mixed with them such sounds as I had not heard before. Sweet clear voices came up now from the din, speaking, as it were from one close by me, words of faith, and of hope, and of love; and they sounded to me like the happy talking which I had heard at the first between the glorious beings in the garden. So when my guide touched my eyes, I bent them eagerly down into the darkness below me. At first I thought that it was the same place I had seen last, for there was a busy multitude passing to and fro; and there was music and dancing, and sobbing and crying; there were pitfalls, too, and wild beasts. But as I looked closer, I saw that, in spite of all this, it was not the place that I had seen before. Even at a glance I could see that there were many more flowers here than there; and that many amongst the pilgrims were going straight on, with happy faces, by a road which passed safely by all the pitfalls. I could see, too, that at the end of the road was a dim shining of that happy light which had been so bright in the beautiful garden. Now, as I looked, I saw that there were but a few who kept to this straight safe road, and that many were scattered all over the plain. I saw many leave this path even as I looked upon it; and very few did I see come back to it: those who did, seemed to me to find it very hard to get into it again; whether it was that its sides were slippery, or its banks so steep, many fainted and gave up, after trying to climb into it again. But it seemed quite easy to leave it; for every one who left it went on at first lightly and pleasantly. Sometimes, indeed, they seemed greatly startled after taking their first step out of it, and some of them turned straight back, and after a few struggles, more or less, such always got into it again. But if once after this first check they set out for the plain, they seemed to go easily along, until their path lay straight by the den of some destroying beast, or led them into the midst of the pitfalls, where they wholly lost their reckoning, and knew not how to get on, or how to get back.