In the first, I saw a magnificent palace, a little world of gardens
and buildings, a city in itself. All was enclosed within a high wall,
so that from outside you could see nothing of it except the fairy
white minarets, pencilled delicately against the blue sky, some lofty
battlemented watch-towers, and several graceful campaniles, with the
tops of a few of the highest trees. But a delicious blending of the
fragrance of a thousand flowers came thence in summer evenings; and
every night, bell-tower, watch-tower, spire, and dome, and minaret were
illuminated with innumerable starry lamps, as if every day within the
palace were a festival.
Around the palace were the lanes and alleys of the city—scenes of
poverty and squalor—which contrasted strangely with it; and wretched,
half-starved-looking creatures, with tattered garments and faces worn
with deep marks of want and woe, lingered round the gates. Outside the
gates!—and this was one strange incongruity of my dream, for on the
gates were emblazoned in golden letters, which were illuminated into
transparencies at night, the words—
"KNOCK, AND IT SHALL BE OPENED UNTO YOU."
The gates were solid, and enormously massive, like blocks of black
marble. No violence could have forced them. There was no crevice at
which any one could get a glimpse of what was within. But the golden
knocker, underneath those golden words, was so low as to be within
reach of the youngest children. Indeed, I noticed that none tried it so
often as little children; and whenever any one knocked with the very
feeblest sound, in time, and often immediately, the stately portals
opened from within, turning on their massive hinges with a sound like
the music of many choirs, and the applicant was quietly drawn inside.
Then I saw that the inside of the gates was of translucent pearl. A
stream of light and fragrance for a moment came through, and induced
others afterwards to knock. But immediately the gates were closed, and
stood a wall of impenetrable marble as before.