* * * * *
Thus, from that point of space and time where we were placed in that celestial region of the constellation of Andromeda, we have seen arise before us, like a mummy awakening from a long sleep, the history of the dead Earth, while we saw life shaping itself in a world which, in our twentieth century, was not yet in existence. Thence, reascending through the ages, we watched the slow secular evolution of our humanity, until sunlit days became night and we lived in a new present which, in its turn, seemed unique and eternal.
The world to come is there, in the future eternity, just as the world of long ago is there, in the eternity of the past, and all is present in the Absolute.
God does not look either forward or backward. He does not remember, he does not foresee: he sees. We can write our verbs in the different times, past, present, and future. In transporting ourselves by means of thought beyond even the distant era of which we have sketched an episode, we could describe even this episode as an ancient event.
* * * * *
The history which we have written took place—a hundred million years after to-day!
IV. VENUS THE BEAUTIFUL
CHAPTER IV
VENUS THE BEAUTIFUL
Eσπερος ος кἀλλιστος έν ούρανω ιρταται ἁστηρ.
(Hesperus, most beautiful of stars in the sky.)