made
glorious. None were old, and except the children, none seemed very
young; it was as though they had grown backwards or forwards to middle
life and rested there at their very best.

Now came the marvel; all these uncounted people were known to me, though
so far as my knowledge went I had never set eyes on most of them before.
Yet I was aware that in some forgotten life or epoch I had been intimate
with every one of them; also that it was the fact of my presence and
the call of my sub-conscious mind which drew them to this spot. Yet
that presence and that call were not visible or audible to them, who,
I suppose, flowed down some stream of sympathy, why or whither they did
not know. Had I been as they were perchance they would have seen me,
as it was they saw nothing and I could not speak and tell them of my
presence.

Some of this multitude, however, I knew well enough even when they had
departed years and years ago. But about these I noted this, that every
one of them was a man or a woman or a child for whom I had felt love or
sympathy or friendship. Not one was a person whom I had disliked or whom
I had no wish to see again. If they spoke at all I could not hear--or
read--their speech, yet to a certain extent I could hear their thoughts.

Many of these were beyond the power of my appreciation on subjects which
I had no knowledge, or that were too high for me, but some were of quite
simple things such as concern us upon the earth, such as of friendship,
or learning, or journeys made or to be made, or art, or literature, or
the wonders of Nature, or of the fruits of the earth, as they knew them
in this region.

This I noted too, that each separate thought seemed to be hallowed and
enclosed in an atmosphere of prayer or heavenly aspiration, as a seed is
enclosed in the heart of a flower, or a fruit in its odorous rind, and
that this prayer or aspiration presently appeared to bear the thought
away, whither I knew not. Moreover, all these thoughts, even of the
humblest things, were beauteous and spiritual, nothing cruel or impure
or even coarse was to be found among them: they radiated charity, purity
and goodness.

Among them I perceived were none that had to do with our earth; this and
its affairs seemed to be left far behind these thinkers, a truth that
chilled my soul was alien to their company. Worse still, so far as I
could discover, although I knew that all these bright ones had been near
to me at some hour