The vision grew in extent, in
multiplicity of detail; presently I was regarding scenes of ancient
life--thronged streets, processions triumphal or religious, halls
of feasting, fields of battle. What most impressed me at the time
was the marvellously bright yet delicate colouring of everything I
saw. I can give no idea in words of the pure radiance which shone
from every object, which illumined every scene. More remarkable,
when I thought of it next day, was the minute finish of these
pictures, the definiteness of every point on which my eye fell.
Things which I could not know, which my imagination, working in the
service of the will, could never have bodied forth, were before me
as in life itself. I consciously wondered at peculiarities of
costume such as I had never read of; at features of architecture
entirely new to me; at insignificant characteristics of that by-gone
world, which by no possibility could have been gathered from books.
I recall a succession of faces, the loveliest conceivable; and I
remember, I feel to this moment the pang of regret with which I lost
sight of each when it faded into darkness.
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