There was a darkness;
then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like seeing;
I saw a Line that was no Line; Space that was not Space:
I was myself, and not myself. When I could find voice,
I shrieked aloud in agony, "Either this is madness or it is Hell."
"It is neither," calmly replied the voice of the Sphere,
"it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again
and try to look steadily."
I looked, and, behold, a new world! There stood before me,
visibly incorporate, all that I had before inferred, conjectured,
dreamed, of perfect Circular beauty. What seemed the centre
of the Stranger's form lay open to my view: yet I could see no heart,
nor lungs, nor arteries, only a beautiful harmonious Something --
for which I had no words; but you, my Readers in Spaceland,
would call it the surface of the Sphere.
Prostrating myself mentally before my Guide, I cried, "How is it,
O divine ideal of consummate loveliness and wisdom that I see
thy inside, and yet cannot discern thy heart, thy lungs, thy arteries,
thy liver?" "What you think you see, you see not," he replied;
"it is not given to you, nor to any other Being to behold
my internal parts.
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