“In the meantime, when he went on his way back, the seed had grown into a tree which reached up to the sky. Then thought the peasant, 'As thou hast the chance, thou must just see what the angels are doing up there above, and for once have them before thine eyes.' So he climbed up, and saw that the angels above were threshing oats, and he looked on.”

“After a RetreatWhat hast thou learnt today?Hast thou sounded awful mysteries,Hast pierced the veiled skies,Climbed to the feet of God,Trodden where saints have trod, Fathomed the heights above?Nay,This only have I learnt, that God is love. What hast thou heard today?Hast heard the Angel-trumpets cry,And rippling harps reply;Heard from the Throne of flameWhence God incarnate cameSome thund'rous message roll?Nay, This have I heard, His voice within my soul. What hast thou felt today?The pinions of the Angel guideThat standeth at thy sideIn rapturous ardours beatGlowing, from head to feet,In ecstasy divine?Nay, This only have felt, Christ's hand in mine.”

“...he raised his eyes above the black shapes of the trees and saw a small moon, the colour of a lemon, dragged by clouds across the sky. Moons, he thought, were so that men like himself would know they lived here on earth.”

“Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.”

“But what might be written in the book which had rounded its edges off in his pocket, she did not know. What he thought they none of them knew. But he was absorbed in it, so that when he looked up, as he did now for an instant, it was not to see anything; it was to pin down some thought more exactly. That done, his mind flew back again and he plunged into his reading. He read, she thought, as if he were guiding something, or wheedling a large flock of sheep, or pushing his way up and up a single narrow path; and sometimes he went fast and straight, and broke his way through the bramble, and sometimes it seemed a branch struck at him, a bramble blinded him, but he was not going to let himself be beaten by that; on he went, tossing over page after page.”

“The window opened in the same direction as the king's, and there, summer-bright and framed by the darkness of the stairwell, was the same view. Costis passed it, and then went back up the stairs to look again. There were only the roofs of the lower part of the palace and the town and the city walls. Beyond those were the hills on the far side of the Tustis Valley and the faded blue sky above them. It wasn't what the king saw that was important, it was what he couldn't see when he sat at the window with his face turned toward Eddis.”