I had chosen the dead rather than the living, the thing thought rather than the thing thinking! "Any man," I said now, "is more than the greatest of books!" I had not cared for my live brothers and sisters, and now I was left without even the dead to comfort me! The wood thinned yet more, and the pines grew yet larger, sending up huge stems, like columns eager to support the heavens.

More trees of other kinds appeared; the forest was growing richer! The roses wore now trees, and their flowers of astonishing splendour.
Suddenly I spied what seemed a great house or castle; but its forms were so strangely indistinct, that I could not be certain it was more than a chance combination of tree-shapes.

As I drew nearer, its lines yet held together, but neither they nor the body of it grew at all more definite; and when at length I stood in front of it, I remained as doubtful of its nature as before.

House or castle habitable, it certainly was not; it might be a ruin overgrown with ivy and roses! Yet of building hid in the foliage, not the poorest wall-remnant could I discern.

Again and again I seemed to descry what must be building, but it always vanished before closer inspection.