“Something beautiful,” he answered, “something beautiful and pure.” “Would you care to witness a dance of elves?” I asked, smiling. “A dance of elves? Are there really such things?” “The universe contains innumerable forms of life and consciousness,” I said. “And you who believe in devils from experience can surely believe in elves.” They came toward us as I spoke, lithe, tenuous forms, dancing with joy across the flowery spaces of the Elysian Fields. They swayed and circled around us, those beings pure as the air in which they moved, light as the happiness they exhaled, enduring as hope and lovelier than mortal dreams. The shadows had all gone from my friend’s face, and he too seemed to taste joy, he too was light as air, and pure. He joined their dance and circled with them around me. I tell you in a burst of confidence that I also have danced with elves. This companion and friend of the Beautiful Being has swum in the sea of universal life and floated on the wings of irresponsibility. He who knows too much of the world’s sorrow must sometimes lighten the load by knowing nothing but joy. When the sylphs had gone to their more inviolable retreat, another shape came toward us. “What would you like to see now?” I asked him. “Can I see a person who still lives in England?” he asked, half shyly, yet with the winning confidence of souls who trust their own desires--the higher wisdom which comes with the purification of desire. “Perhaps,” I said. The form that came toward us was unfamiliar to me, but my friend recognized and welcomed it. A woman of intense and vital personality, yet with that purity of atmosphere without which no communion is possible in the region where we then were, was standing beside my friend. “Let us sit together a little,” I said. “It will seem more homelike.” The two beside me seemed happy in each other’s presence. “Sisterly-sweet hand in hand,” they sat together; and though I knew that one of them was only the simulacrum of a living woman, yet she also seemed real to me for the moment, for the kind sentiments of the heart are real, and in the region to which I had conducted my friend all sentiments are kind. No enemies are found there, and the woman he liked also liked him, or she could not have been there. Soon I left them in each other’s company and went back to the labors of the battlefield; for there were others who needed me, and my friend was safe for the time. After a while I shall help him onward to an experience still less restricted. We take an interest in those whom we have helped, and wish to help them further. Why did I choose this man for my friendly ministrations, you are wondering; for as I described him in the beginning of this letter he was not an attractive character.