obscure sounds of which I could not tell the origin; but the tinkling of
sheep-bells was the clearest, and the barking of the shepherd-dog. My
own dog sat beside me, watching my face, impatient to be gone. But at
the barking he pricked up his ears, put his head on one side, and
wondered, I saw, where that companionable sound came from. What he made
of the scene I do not know; the sight of the fruitful earth, the homes
of men, the fields and waters, filled me with an inexpressible emotion,
a wide-flung hope, a sense of the immensity and intricacy of life. But
to my dog it meant nothing at all, though he saw just what I did. To him
it was nothing but a great excavation in the earth, patched and streaked
with green. It was not then the scene itself that I loved; that was only
a symbol of emotions and ideas within me. It touched the spring of a
host of beautiful thoughts; but the beauty and the sweetness were the
contribution of my own heart and mind.

Now in the new world in which I found myself, I approached the thoughts
of beauty and loveliness direct, without any intervening symbols at all.
The emotions which beautiful things had aroused in me upon earth were
all there, in the new life, but not confused or blurred, as they had
been in the old life, by the intruding symbols of ugly, painful, evil
things. That was all gone like a mist. I could not think an evil or an
ugly thought.

For a period it was so with me. For a long time--I will use the words
of earth henceforth without any explanation--I abode in the same calm,
untroubled peace, partly in memory of the old days, partly in the new
visions. My senses seemed all blended in one sense; it was not sight or
hearing or touch--it was but an instant apprehension of the essence of
things. All that time I was absolutely alone, though I had a sense of
being watched and tended in a sort of helpless and happy infancy. It was