inhabitants were friends of the gods, a sort of heaven upon earth." And
then she quoted:

The languid sunset, mother of roses,
Lingers, a light on the magic seas;
The wide fire flames as a flower uncloses;
Heavy with odour and loose to the breeze.

* * * * *

The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing,
Heard afar over moonlit seas;
The siren's song, grown faint with winging,
Falls in scent on the cedar trees.

"Those lines were the first to make me grasp the possibility of having
new faculties added to our old ones in another state of existence,"
she said, "faculties which should give us a deeper insight into the
nature of things, and enable us to discover new pleasures in the unity
which may be expected to underlie beauty and excellence in all their
manifestations, as Mr. Norman Pearson puts it. Did you ever read that
paper of his, 'After Death,' in the _Nineteenth Century_? It embodies
what I had long felt, but could never grasp before I found his
admirable expression of it. 'I can see no reason,' he says, in one
passage in particular which I remember word for word, I think, it
gives me such pleasure to recall it--'I can see no reason for
supposing that _some such_ insight would be impossible to the
quickened faculties of a higher development. With a nature material so
far as the existence of those faculties might require, but spiritual
to the highest degree in their exercise and enjoyment: under physical