“Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. “She must have had a very large family, Sir.” “And who are all these young men and women on each side?”

“Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.” “And who are these gigantic people.look! They're like emeralds.who are dancing and throwing flowers before here?” Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.” “She seems to be.well, a person of particular importance?” Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face. A robe or a crown is there as much one of the wearer's features as a lip or an eye.īut I have forgotten. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. “First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers.

Cs lewis the great divorce play