Man is in one, angel and animal, and ever as the angel strives for ascendency, the animal snarls and shows its teeth, and you may believe me that, were it not that Spirits of highest Realms control illumined minds of Earth, who serve as restraining influences in the consciousness of the masses, a chaotic state of society quickly would ensue. Apparently, it is a provision of Divine Law that the wise and strong shall aid the unwise and weak; that the higher shall reach down to uplift the lowly, and those who fail to fulfill this righteous law thereby so lessen their Spiritual estate that, in the world of equitable adjustments, they find themselves in a state of poverty undreamed of by mortal man.
Yes, even as the peoples of Earth agonize in the throes of evolution, so in past ages have the Entoans agonized; so, to a degree, do they yet agonize, for though they are more highly evolved than are the peoples of our planet, they, as I have once said, are yet in their swaddling clothes.
Yes, ages elapsed ere they evolved from savagery to a civilization which made it possible for their ideals to assume form and expression in the construction of this wonderful and beautiful city. Wonderful not only in its architecture, but in its many fine expressions of science, of art, of social amenities and usages, and other admirable features of an advanced evolution, which has carried from the past into the living present such lessons of wisdom as have been learned in the school of experience. The school whose pupils never play truant and who ever are learning their lessons well or ill, and who, perforce of natural law, must advance onward toward clearer, higher views of the meaning of life, of love, of God in humanity.
Now again look southward. Is not it a vision to enrapture the soul of an artist or a lover of the beautiful? See how temples, domes and light towers lose themselves in the cloudlike, luminous haze which the slanting sun rays glorify into an indescribable loveliness. Toward the lovely valley Insa̤lû the shadows of declining day are falling over the whiteness of the city and over domed temples and light towers. Afar, gray and empurpled mist wreaths are rising and veiling the pallid beauty of fountain groups, whose silvery treasures, thrown high into the quiet air, are tinted by the glory of the setting sun, which gleams athwart Ta̤imon, over which, like dream phantoms, vessels great and small are noiselessly gliding. Lower, lower sinks the red disk of the solar king, and fleecy clouds, catching the reflection of his last beams, put on their robes of crimson and gold, and like angels in flight, drift across the deepening azure of the sky.
George, we now will ascend, but not to a great height, for soon the light towers will be ablaze, and you, Gentola̤ and Bernard, will witness a spectacle you will not soon forget.
Look downward now. Shadows are brooding over the great city, and save for the musical tones of the temple bells every sound is hushed, but wait a little and the scene will change.
Ah, you are startled, as well you may be. Is not the transformation marvellous? Is not the scene grandly, weirdly beautiful? Below us is the wide-spreading city, whose lofty electric light towers suddenly have turned night into day, and southward, where the terraced plateau attains its greatest elevation, is the great light tower on whose summit is an immense golden and crimson crystal Symbol of Andûmana̤'s abode, and as the afterglow of its radiance fades from the sky, suddenly the Sacred Symbol will blaze into the splendor of its amazing beauty. Now, from every temple, the music of chiming bells floats upward and the atmosphere is vibrant with their rhythmic notes. With expectant gaze, all eyes are turned toward the Symbol of their Religion, and now flashing upon the bosom of night behold the glowing, scintillating, radiant wonder. Simultaneously from every lip bursts forth a prayer, which I will translate into your language.
Andûmana̤, Creator and Preserver, even as the shadows of night wrap us about, so may Thy Love infold us while we sleep, and may Thy Messengers, who read our inmost thoughts, bear to Thee the fervent adoration of Thy loving but ever sorrowful children. Oirah, oirah, oirah. (So be it.)
In low, plaintive tones the chiming bells accompany the intoned prayer, and every face is uplifted toward the great glowing Sun, whose dazzling radiance penetrates the dense fog enveloping the city as with a snowy mantle.
Gentola—Ever since you promised me that some time I should at night behold some portion of Ento, I have tried to imagine how it might appear, but never have I imagined a scene so grand, so beautiful, so marvellously strange as this.