Observations placeholder
William - Lost in the silvery light
Identifier
005978
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Grouped under Ludlow for convenience.
A description of the experience
The Hasheesh Eater – Fitz Hugh Ludlow
The night was much darker than it should have been for a hasheesh eater’s walk, who, it will be remembered calls imperatively for light to tinge his visions……. We passed out into the street through the stone gateway at the end of the college terrace. The sky above us was obscured by clouds, but the moon, now at full, was about three breadths of her disk above the western horizon.
I pointed through the trees to her radiant shield, and called Bob’s attention to the peculiar beauty of the view.
He clapped his hands in ecstasy [it was he who had taken the hashish], exclaiming ‘Behold the eternal kingdom of the moonlight!’
From that moment until the moon set, in this kingdom he walked. A silvery deliciousness transfused all things to his sight; his emotions rose and fell like tides with the thrill of the lunar influence. All that in past imaginings he had ever enjoyed of moonlit river views, terraces, castles and slumberous gardens was melted into this one vision of rapture.