“He will never attain it!”

“Ah, the Beautiful Bird, his plumage is stained!”

“His glory will drag him down!”

“Only in invisible whiteness can he pass!”

“How he floats upwards, the Beautiful Bird!”

“These voices of universal compassion did not reach him, rapt in aspiration and imperious will.  For an instant—­an eternity—­the infinitudes thrilled him, those infinitudes which in that instant he knew he could never enter but as one with all on the days of the great return.  All that longed, all that aspired and dared, all but the immortal were in that movement destroyed, and hurled downwards from the highest heaven of life, the pilgrim spark began once more as a child to live over again the round of human days.”

“The spirit of the place o’ermastered you,” said the child.  “Here may come and dream; and their dream of joy ended, out of each dreaming sphere comes forth again in pain the infant spirit of man.”

“But beyond this illusive light and these ever-changing vistas—­ what lies?  I am weary of their vanishing glories.  I would not wish to mount up through dreams to behold the true and fall away powerlessly, but would rather return to earth, though in pain, still eager to take up and renew the cyclic labours.”

“I belong to the gardens,” said the child; “I do not know what lies beyond.  But there are many paths leading far away.”

Before them where they stood branched out paths of rich flowers.  Here a region of pinks lured on to vistas of delicate glory; there ideal violet hues led to a more solemn beauty; here the eyes were dazzled by avenues of rich, radiant, and sunny green; another in beautiful golden colours seemed to invite to the land of the sun, and yet another winded away through soft and shadowy blues to remote spiritual distances.  There was one, a path of white flowers ending in light no eye could pierce.

“I will choose this—­the path of white flower,” he said, waving farewell to the child.  I watched the antique hero in my vision as he passed into the light; he seemed to shine, to grow larger; as he vanished from my eyes he was transfigured, entering as a god the region of gods.”

“Did you really dream all that?” said Willie.  “How jolly it must be!  It is like stepping from sphere to sphere.  Before the night of one day you are in the morning of another.  I suppose you have some theory about it all—­as wonderful as your gardens?”

“Yes!” said our sceptic, “I had an uneasy consciousness it was not all pure story.  I felt an allegory hiding its leanness somewhere beneath the glow and colour.”

“What I want to know is how these things enter the imagination at all!”