fashioned it, but among
them I saw the prototypes of all the gems I had loved on earth--far more
beautiful than they, for these were living stones--such in which I saw,
not the intent alone, but the intender too; not the idea alone, but the
imbodier present, the operant outsender: nothing in this kingdom was
dead; nothing was mere; nothing only a thing.

We went up through the city and passed out. There was no wall on the
upper side, but a huge pile of broken rocks, upsloping like the moraine
of an eternal glacier; and through the openings between the rocks, the
river came billowing out. On their top I could dimly discern what seemed
three or four great steps of a stair, disappearing in a cloud white as
snow; and above the steps I saw, but with my mind's eye only, as it were
a grand old chair, the throne of the Ancient of Days. Over and under and
between those steps issued, plenteously, unceasingly new-born, the river
of the water of life.

The great angel could guide us no farther: those rocks we must ascend
alone!

My heart beating with hope and desire, I held faster the hand of my
Lona, and we began to climb; but soon we let each other go, to use hands
as well as feet in the toilsome ascent of the huge stones. At length
we drew near the cloud, which hung down the steps like the borders of a
garment, passed through the fringe, and entered the deep folds. A hand,
warm and strong, laid hold of mine, and drew me to a little door with a
golden lock. The door opened; the hand let mine go, and pushed me gently
through. I turned quickly, and saw the board of a large book in the act
of closing behind me. I stood alone in my library.

CHAPTER XLVII. THE "ENDLESS ENDING"

As yet I have not found Lona, but Mara is much with me. She has taught
me many things, and is teaching me more.

Can it be that that last waking also was in the dream? that I am still
in the chamber of death, asleep and dreaming, not yet ripe enough to
wake? Or can it be that I did not go to sleep outright and heartily,
and so have come awake too soon? If that waking was itself but a dream,
surely it was a dream of a better waking yet to come, and I have not
been the sport of a false vision! Such a dream must have yet lovelier
truth at the heart of its dreaming!

In moments of doubt I cry,

"Could God Himself create such lovely things as I dreamed?"

"Whence then came thy dream?" answers Hope.

"Out of my dark self, into the light of my consc