WILLIE WHISPER 15 



my home ; but, thank God, in this favoured 

 corner of the world man wants but little shelter, 

 and for nine months out of the twelve the woods 

 are my real home and the sky my roof. Well, I 

 was sitting outside the house one evening watching, 

 in a perfectly normal state of mind and body, the 

 blessed sun go down, when suddenly a most 

 appalling sensation engulfed me. The house, the 

 lake, the forest, the firmament, and — oh, the horror 

 of it! I myself — became utter nothingness. It 

 was indescribably awful. But instantaneously 

 that nothingness became every thingness. In a 

 flash I saw myself, all past, present, and future, 

 all created or to be created things as one point 

 without dimensions, position in time or space, or 

 anything. In a flash it came. In a flash it was 

 gone, and I was there a solitary man, brooding in 

 the dusk, my back against a tree. It passed abso- 

 lutely, but it left an indelible impression impos- 

 sible to convey in words. Language is based on 

 phenomena and conceptions of time, space, and 

 dimensions, and language cannot deal with some- 

 thing outside of limitations. I can only describe 

 the impression as one of completion, of perfec- 

 tion, of flawless oneness. I knew myself to be 

 an imperishable atom in one great whole and 



