tiny spray of sea-weed floating on an infinite sea, with the
brightness of the morning overhead. I felt that I was indeed set where
I found myself to be, and that if now my little heart and brain are too
small to hold the truth, yet I thanked God for making even the
conception of the mystery, the width, the depth, possible to me; and I
prayed to him that he would give me as much of the truth as I could
bear. And I do not doubt that he gave me that; for I felt for an
instant that whatever befell me, I was indeed a part of Himself; not a
thing outside and separate; not even his son and his child: but Himself.

XL

After Death

I had so strange a dream or vision the other night, that I cannot
refrain from setting it down; because the strangeness and the wonder of
it seem to make it impossible for me to have conceived of it myself; it
was suggested by nothing, originated by nothing that I can trace; it
merely came to me out of the void.

After confused and troubled dreams of terror and bewilderment, enacted
in blind passages and stifling glooms, with crowds of unknown figures
passing rapidly to and fro, I seemed to grow suddenly light-hearted and
joyful. I next appeared to myself to be sitting or reclining on the
grassy top of a cliff, in bright sunlight. The ground fell
precipitously in front of me, and I saw to left and right the sharp
crags and horns of the rock-face below me; behind me was a wide space
of grassy down, with a fresh wind racing over it. The sky was
cloudless. Far below I could see yellow sands, on which a blue sea
broke in crisp waves. To the left a river flowed through a little
hamlet, clustered round a church; I looked down on the roofs of the
small houses, and saw people passing to and fro, like ants. The river
spread itself out in shallow shining channels over the sand, to join
the sea. Further to the left rose shadowy headland after headland, and
to the right lay a broad well-watered plain, full of trees and
villages, bounded by a range of blue hills. On the sea moved ships,
the wind filling their sails, and the sun shining on them with a
peculiar brightness. The only sound in my ears was that of the whisper
of the wind in the grass and stone crags.

But I soon became aware with a shock of pleasant surprise that my
perception of the whole scene was of a different quality to any
perception I had before experienced. I have spoken of seeing and
hearing: but I became aware that I