as I said this, a glimpse of the dark trees swaying outside.

"But the man in the cloak took me up. 'This shows,' he said, 'how
superficial your view is—how little you look below the surface
of things. This laughter and light talk are but the signs and
symbols of qualities of which your bitter character knows
nothing—goodfellowship, kindliness, brave hopefulness, and many
things beside.'

"Then he turned to me impressively, and said, 'What you want is
_deepening_.'

"I woke with the word ringing in my ears."


Besides this, there was a curious little peculiarity in him that I
have never heard of in anyone else: a capacity for seeing little
waking visions with strange distinctness.

His description of this is as follows:

"I have the power, or rather something in me is able (for I can not
resist it), of suddenly producing a picture on the retina, of such
vividness as to blot out everything around me. I have it generally
when I am a little tired with exercise or brain-work or people: it is
prefaced by seeing a bright blue spot, which moves, or rather rushes,
across my field of vision, and is immediately succeeded by the
picture.

"A crumbling sandstone temple, among fields of blue flowers—an