The Fredösphere

It happened to me about two years ago, on the day when my bed was first pushed out of doors to the open gallery of the hospital.  I was recovering from a surgical operation.  I had undergone a certain amount of physical pain, and had suffered for a short time the most acute mental depression which it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.  I suppose that this depression was due to physical causes, but at the time it seemed to me that somewhere down there under the anesthetic, in the black abyss of unconsciousness, I had discovered a terrible secret, and the secret was that there was no God; or if there was one, He was indifferent to all human suffering.

...[I]t was an ordinary commonplace day.  Yet here, in this everyday setting, and entirely unexpectedly (for I had never dreamed of such a thing), my eyes were opened, and for the first time in all my life I caught a glimpse of the ecstatic beauty of reality.

I cannot now recall whether the revelation came suddenly or gradually; I only remember finding myself in the very midst of those wonderful moments, beholding life for the first time in all its young intoxication of loveliness, in its unspeakable joy, beauty, and importance.  I cannot say exactly what the mysterious change was.  I saw no new thing, but I saw all the usual things in a miraculous new light -- in what I believe is their true light.  I saw for the first time how wildly beautiful and joyous, beyond any words of mine to describe, is the whole of life.  Every human being moving across that porch, every sparrow that flew, every branch tossing in the wind, was caught in and was a part of the whole mad ecstasy of loveliness, of joy, of importance., of intoxication of life.

It was not that for a few keyed-up moments I imagined all existence as beautiful, but that my inner vision was cleared to the truth so that I saw the actual loveliness which is always there, but which we so rarely perceive; and I knew that every man, woman, bird, and tree, every living thing before me, was extravagantly beautiful, and extravagantly important.  And, as I beheld, my heart melted out of me in a rapture of love and delight.  A nurse was walking past; the wind caught a strand of her hair and blew it out in a momentary gleam of sunshine, and never in my life before had I seen how beautiful beyond all belief is a woman's hair.  Nor had I ever guessed how marvelous it is for a human being to walk.  As for  the internes in their white suits, I had never realized before the whiteness of white linen; but much more than that, I had never so much as dreamed of the mad beauty of young manhood.  A little sparrow chirped and flew to a nearby branch, and I honestly believe that only "the morning start singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy" can in the least express the ecstasy of a bird's flight.  I cannot express it, but I have seen it.