before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven
listed colors, as from the trail of pencils!

And yet, on earth, these men were not happy,--not all happy, in
the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in
pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of
dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow
and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the
shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their
great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much;--and
then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid
themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death,--and the
world talks of them, while they sleep!

It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but
sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them
with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of
disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of
the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun's eclipse we can
behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life
eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity,
burning solemnly and forever!

This was Flemming's reverie. It was broken by the voice of the
Baron, suddenly exclaiming;

"An angel is flying over the house!--Here; in this goblet,
fragrant as the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the wild flowers in
the Angel's Meadow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams."