The Visions of Dom Francisco De Quevedo Villegas by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas

BEING one autumn at a friend's house in the country (which was indeed a most delicious retreat) I took a walk one moonlight night into the park, where all my past visions came fresh into my head again, and I was well enough pleased with the meditation. At length the humour took me to leave the path, and go further into the wood: what impulse carried me to this, I know not. Whether I was moved by my good angel, or some higher power, but so it was that in half a quarter of an hour, I found myself a great way from home, and in a place where 'twas no longer night; with the pleasantest prospect round about me that ever I saw since I was born. The air was calm and temperate; and it was no small advantage to the beauty of the place, that it was both innocent and silent. On the one hand, I was entertained with the murmurs of crystal rivulets; on the other, with the whispering of the trees; the birds singing all the while either in emulation, or requital of the other harmonies. And now, to show the instability of our affections and desires, I was grown weary even of tranquillity itself, and in this most agreeable solitude began to long for company.

When in the very instant (to my great wonder) I discovered two paths, issuing from one and the same beginning but dividing themselves forwards, more and more, by degrees, as if they liked not one another's company. That on the right hand was narrow, almost beyond imagination; and being very little frequented, it was so overgrown with thorns and brambles, and so stony withal, that a man had all the trouble in the world to get into't. One might see, however, the prints and marks of several passengers that had rubbed through, though with exceeding difficulty; for they had left pieces of heads, arms, legs, feet, and many of them their whole skins behind them. Some we saw yet upon the way, pressing forward, without ever so much as looking back; and these were all of them pale-faced, lean, thin, and miserably mortified. There was no passing for horsemen; and I was told that St. Paul himself left his horse, when he went into't. And indeed, there was not the footing of any beast to be seen. Neither horse nor mule, nor the track of any coach or chariot. Nor could I learn that any had passed that way in the memory of man.