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There was the vision that returned to me.

I was in the midst of it, I was almost present, I had forgotten the streets of the treacherous and evil town, when suddenly, I know not what, a cry, or some sharp movement near me, brought me back from such a place and day, from such an experience, such a parallel and such a security.

With that return to the common business of living the thought on which my mind had begun its travel also returned, but in spite of the mood I had so recently enjoyed my doubts were not resolved.

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IT was in the year 1888 (“O noctes coenasque deum!”—a tag) that, upon one of the southern hills of England, I came quite unexpectedly across a little old man who sat upon a bench that was there and looked out to sea.

Now you will ask me why a bench was there, since benches are not commonly found upon the high slopes of our southern hills, of which the poet has well said, the writer has well written, and the singer has well sung:—

The Southern Hills and the South Sea