Let him who reads forgive the intrusion of a dream into a history of
fact. But it came so home to me--I saw it all so clear in a moment,
as it were; and, besides, who shall say what proportion of fact, past,
present, or to come, may lie in the imagination? What is imagination?
Perhaps it is the shadow of the intangible truth, perhaps it is the
soul's thought.
In an instant the whole thing had passed through my brain, and _She_ was
addressing me.
"Behold the lot of man," said the veiled Ayesha, as she drew the winding
sheets back over the dead lovers, speaking in a solemn, thrilling voice,
which accorded well with the dream that I had dreamed: "to the tomb, and
to the forgetfulness that hides the tomb, must we all come at last! Ay,
even I who live so long. Even for me, oh Holly, thousands upon thousands
of years hence; thousands of years after you hast gone through the gate
and been lost in the mists, a day will dawn whereon I shall die, and be
even as thou art and these are.
Pages:
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354