“Well—am I likely to meet Uncle Sims, or Aunt Emily, or Tom Rumbold here? You remember them, Elizabeth?” “Oh, yes, I remember. They’d be almost certain to be sent back. They couldn’t stand eternal things. There’s nothing eternal about meanness and stupidity and nastiness.” “What’ll happen to them, do you suppose?” “What should you say, Paul?” “I should say they’d suffer damnably till they’d got some bigness and intelligence and decency knocked into them.” “It’ll be a sell for Aunt Emily. She was brought up to believe that stupidity was no drawback to getting into heaven.” “Lots of people,” said Jeffreson, “will be sold. Like my father, the Dean of Eastminster; he was cocksure he’d get in; but they won’t let him. And why, do you suppose? Because the poor old boy couldn’t see that my poems were beautiful. “But even that wouldn’t have dished him, if he’d had a passion for anybody; or if he’d cared two straws about metaphysical truth. Your truth, Spalding.” “Bless me, all our preconceived ideas seem to have been wrong.” “Yes. Even I wasn’t prepared for that. By the way, that’s what you got in on, your passion for truth. It’s like my passion for beauty.” “But—aren’t you distressed about your father, Jeffreson?” “Oh, no. He’ll get into some heaven or other some day. He’ll find out that he cares for somebody, perhaps. Then he’ll be all right— But don’t you want to look about a bit?” “I don’t see very much to look at. It strikes me as a bit bare, your heaven.” “Oh, that’s because you’re only at the landing-state.” “The landing _what_?” “State. What we used to call landing place. Times and spaces here, you know, are states. States of mind.” Mr. Spalding sat up, excited. “But—but that’s what I always said they were. I and Kant.” “Well, you’d better talk to him about it.” “Talk to _him_? Shall I see Kant?” “Look at him, Elizabeth. _Now_ he’s coming alive— Of course you’ll see him when you get into your own place—state, I mean. You’d better get up and come along with me and Elizabeth. We’ll show you round.” [Illustration: “_Now_ he’s coming alive—”] He rose, they steadied him, and he made his way between them through the grey immensity, over a half-seen yet perfectly solid tract of something that he thought of, absurdly, as condensed space. As yet there were no objects in sight but the figures of Elizabeth and Jeffreson; the half-seen, yet tangible floor he went on seemed to create itself out of nothing, under his feet, as the desire to walk arose in him. And as yet he had felt no interest or curiosity; but as he went on he was aware of a desire to see things that became more and more urgent. He would see. He must see. He felt that before him and around him there were endless things to be seen. His mind strained forwards towards vision. And then, suddenly, he saw.