nd or its absence; but something there was, analogous to
silence in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight
(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such,
distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it
flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from
the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently,
as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping,
rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or
pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that
they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but
that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them
I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which they
passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out again was
the sequence of their lives and deaths.

"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was
something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and
disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or whatever
may have been my mode of cognition--'Of course! That is it, and that
is all! Souls are indeed immortal--why should we ever have imagined
otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it? I see the death-side
now as I saw the life-side then; and one has as little meaning as the
other. As it has been, so it will be, now, henceforth, and for ever,
in and out, in and out, without pause or stint, futile, trivial,
silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and vain!' The long pre-occupation
of men with religion, philosophy, and art, seemed to me now as
incomprehensible as it was ridiculous. There was nothing after all to
be interested about! There was simply this! The dreariness of my mood
was indescribable, and corresponded so closely to the scene before
me that I found myself wondering which was effect, which cause. The
silence, the tracts of unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the
ceaseless vibration along its surface of infinite moving points,
all this was a reflex of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was
Intolerable; to escape became my only object; and with this in view I
rose and began to move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.

"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high towers
standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked like
towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them; for