As I stood there, I became conscious of the fact that the nebulous light of the place was concentrating itself into a focus on the columned wall opposite to me.  It grew there, became intenser, and then spread, revealing, as it spread, a series of moving pictures that appeared to be scenes actually enacted before me.  For the figures in the pictures were living, and they moved before my eyes, though I heard neither word nor sound.  And this is what I saw.  First there came a writing on the wall of the pavilion:—­” This is the History of our World.”  These words, as I looked at them, appeared to sink into the wall as they had risen out of it, and to yield place to the pictures which then began to come out in succession, dimly at first, then strong and clear as actual scenes.

First I beheld a beautiful woman, with the sweetest face and most perfect form conceivable.  She was dwelling in a cave among the hills with her husband, and he, too, was beautiful, more like an angel than a man.  They seemed perfectly happy together; and their dwelling was like Paradise.  On every side was beauty, sunlight, and repose.  This picture sank into the wall as the writing had done.  And then came out another; the same man and woman driving together in a sleigh drawn by reindeer over fields of ice; with all about them glaciers and snow, and great mountains veiled in wreaths of slowly moving mist.  The sleigh went at a rapid pace, and its occupants talked gaily to each other, so far as I could judge by their smiles and the movement of their lips.  But, what caused me much surprise was that they carried between them, and actually in their hands, a glowing flame, the fervor of which I felt reflected from the picture upon my own cheeks.  The ice around shone with its brightness.  The mists upon the snow mountains caught its gleam.  Yet, strong as were its light and heat, neither the man nor the woman seemed to be burned or dazzled by it.  This picture, too, the beauty and brilliancy of which greatly impressed me, sank and disappeared as the former.

Next, I saw a terrible looking man clad in an enchanter’s robe, standing alone upon an ice-crag.  In the air above him, poised like a dragonfly, was an evil spirit, having a head and face like that of a human being.  The rest of it resembled the tail of a comet, and seemed made of a green fire, which flickered in and out as though swayed by a wind.  And as I looked, suddenly, through an opening among the hills, I saw the sleigh pass, carrying the beautiful woman and her husband; and in the same instant the enchanter also saw it, and his face contracted, and the evil spirit lowered itself and came between me and him.  Then this picture sank and vanished.