I was walking alone on the seashore. The day was singularly clear
and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape ever seen;
and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks of which
were white with glittering snows. Along the sands by the sea came
towards me a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter.
It was from you. It ran thus:--

"I have got hold of the earliest and most precious book extant.
It was written before the world began. The text is easy enough
to read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are
in such minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them out.
I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used to
wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian
Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid.
I think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-glass
maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you
can get them for me."

When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman
hastening away across the sands, and I cried out to him, "Stop!
how am I to send the answer? Will you not wait for it?"

He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.

"I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter-bag, "and I
shall deliver it immediately."

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