"Once that marvelous 'Dream upon the Universe' fascinated me as completely as it now does you."
Memories of earlier days clustered about him, parting the somber clouds with their rosy fingers. His features began to soften.
"Sir, can you read it now without feeling your soul kindle?"
"Yes, child; it has lost its interest for me. I read it as indifferently as I do one of my medical books. So will you one day."
"Never! It shall be a guide-book to my soul, telling of the pathway, arched with galaxies and paved with suns, through which that soul shall pass in triumph to its final rest!"
"And who shall remain in that 'illimitable dungeon of pure, pure darkness, which imprisons creation? That dead sea of nothing, in whose unfathomable zone of blackness the jewel of the glittering universe is set and buried forever?' Child, is not that, too a dwelling-place?" He passed his fingers through his hair, sweeping it all back from his ample forehead. Beulah opened the book, and read aloud:
"Immediately my eyes were opened, and I saw, as it were, an interminable sea of light; all spaces between all heavens were filled with happiest light, for the deserts and wastes of the creation were now filled with the sea of light, and in this sea the suns floated like ash-gray blossoms, and the planets like black grains of seed. Then my heart comprehended that immortality dwelled in the spaces between the worlds, and Death only among the worlds; and the murky planets I perceived were but cradles for the infant spirits of the universe of light! In the Zaarahs of the creation I saw, I heard, I felt—the glittering, the echoing, the breathing of life and creative power!"
She closed the volume, and, while her lips trembled with deep feeling, added earnestly:
"Oh, sir, it makes me long, like Jean Paul, 'for some narrow cell or quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe.' It is an infinite conception and painting of infinity, which my soul endeavors to grasp, but wearies in thinking of!"
Dr. Hartwell smiled, and, pointing to a row of books, said with some eagerness: