I seemed
to float in the pure ether, or to be merged in a universal ocean. But
the inward joy which inundated my soul was far more infinite, radiant,
and incommensurate, than the atmosphere with which I seemed to mingle.
I could not have defined my joy, or rather my inward serenity. It was
as some unfathomable secret revealed to me by feelings instead of
words,--as the sensation of the eye passing from darkness into light,
or as the rapture of some mystical soul, secure in the possession of
its God. It was dazzling light, intoxication without giddiness, repose
without heaviness, or immobility. I could have lived on thus during as
many thousand years as there were ripples on the lake, or sands upon
its shores, without perceiving that more seconds had elapsed than were
required for a single respiration. When the immortal dwellers in heaven
first lose the consciousness of the duration of time, they must feel
thus; it was an immutable thought, in the eternity of an instant.
XVI.
These sensations were not precise, or definable.
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