On the globe at which they had arrived, there was, as on Earth, all variety of its own kinds or peculiarities.
The disembodied American was soon thrown into social intercourse. The inhabitants appeared to have the human form glorified--called “the image of God.” Here there was ideal beauty, infinitely varied like the flowers of earth. The females were of heavenly and indescribable loveliness. Their countenances beamed with sublimated purity and affection. They thronged around him as “administering angels.” Their sweet voices accompanied the music of the spheres, and their swelling chorus joined the song of the morning stars, in the eternal anthem to the Most High.
_Heavenly Houri._--“Mortal! Know that thy thought is vain, that the passions of the body--of the earth--are here in some riper and heaven-ized existence, and that their indulgence is but enhanced in pleasurable degree. Here there is attraction--affinity--but it is of the soul.”
_Disembodied._--“Then there is no Love here! I mean the feeling peculiar to the sexes.”
_Houri._--“Yes. But there is no _material_ desire. _The sexes are essentially complements of each other_; but these complements may differ in their substance and proportions. When they are counterparts of each other, then affinity is perfect. This affinity is _heavenly Love_ and unalloyed happiness. Such a pair are the Bride and Bridegroom of Eternity. Their children are the heavenly _thoughts_ which spring from such affinity.”
The startled brain of the visionist caused him to awake into his dream, and he saw his Immortal companion bending over him with a smile.
The dream changes; the _voyageurs_ are flying over Greece. This small but wondrous nation, so remarkable in the annals of mankind, and so full of historic and classic associations, was seen by them as in one view of its ancient and modern times, and of its geographic and art attractions under the illumination of genius and heroism, or in the twilight of mental and moral decadence.
The Immortal remarked, as it faded in the rear from their sight, “This favored land, emerging as it is, again, from the contact and influence of barbarism and moral depression, and with the native talents and sprightliness of its race, throwing off their frivolity and supineness, under the stimulating agencies of civilization now in contact with it, is once more destined to appropriate distinction.”