“Soft sun shone down on a misty cathedral at the opposite end of a football-field length courtyard. The cathedral had a long pointed tower with beautiful rose and ivory stained glass windows. Pink-petal flowers and deep green ivy climbed the stones from the ground to it’s roof. A large fountain stood in the middle of the courtyard with water falling from several lion’s heads. Between the misty air and rolling slope of the earth, the grounds reminded me of a long lost fairy tale.”

“I returned to the courtyard and saw that the sun had grown weaker. Beautiful and clear as it had been, the morning (as the day approached the completion of its first half) was becoming damp and misty. Heavy clouds moved from the north and were invading the top of the mountain, covering it with a light brume. It seemed to be fog, and perhaps fog was also rising from the ground, but at that altitude it was difficult to distinguish the mists that rose from below and those that come down from above. It was becoming hard to discern the bulk of the more distant buildings.”

“For while directly we say that it [the length of human life] is ages long, we are reminded that it is briefer than the fall of a rose leaf to the ground.”

“She couldn't see him, but his voice was like light through a stained-glass window in a cathedral.”

“It seemed she was in a cathedral—if, that is, the earth itself were to dream a cathedral into being over thousands of years of water weeping through stone.”

“There is sweet music here that softer fallsThan petals from blown roses on the grass,Or night-dews on still waters between wallsOf shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.Here are cool mosses deep,And thro' the moss the ivies creep,And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.”