"As I told you they would be," replied Ah Ben, turning his chair and
looking at his pupil with a kindly expression; and then, with his
usual earnestness, he added: "But they will not be so always."

"And you tell me that these things are actually as real as the
furniture in Guir House?" inquired Henley.

"Quite!" answered the guide. "Test them for yourself. Do you not see
this magnificent dome above our heads, supported upon these wonderful
pillars? Try them, touch them, strike them with your hand. Are they
not solid? Apply every test in your power to their reality; they will
not fail you in one--and, let me ask, what further evidence have you
of the furniture of which you speak? Thought is real; and the man who
can hold to his thought long enough endows it with objectivity."

"It is a mystery involving mysteries," sighed Paul; "and I could
never even ask the questions that are crowding into my mind."

"So it is with all life," the old man replied thoughtfully, pressing
his hand against his forehead as he gazed into the brilliant scene
without seeming to look at anything especial; "and so it is with all
life," he repeated in a minute; "it is a mystery involving mysteries!
What are dreams? Give them a little more intensity, as in the case of
the somnambule or clairvoyant, and they are real. The trouble is, Mr.
Henley, that few of us ever come to realize that life itself is a
dream; and when science recognizes that fact, many of the
difficulties she now encounters will vanish. Let me repeat a few
lines from the Song Celestial, or _Bhagavad Gita_.