I seemed
to live more keenly, to reach to a higher joy, and sip the goblet of a
subtler thought than ever it had been my lot to do before. I was another
and most glorified self, and all the avenues of the Possible were for a
space laid open to the footsteps of the Real.
Then, suddenly, whilst I rejoiced in this splendid vigour of a new-found
self, from far, far away there came a dreadful muttering noise, that
grew and grew to a crash and a roar, which combined in itself all that
is terrible and yet splendid in the possibilities of sound. Nearer it
came, and nearer yet, till it was close upon us, rolling down like all
the thunder-wheels of heaven behind the horses of the lightning. On
it came, and with it came the glorious blinding cloud of many-coloured
light, and stood before us for a space, turning, as it seemed to us,
slowly round and round, and then, accompanied by its attendant pomp of
sound, passed away I know not whither.
So astonishing was the wondrous sight that one and all of us, save
_She_, who stood up and stretched her hands towards the fire, sank down
before it, and hid our faces in the sand.
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