Ayesha by H. Rider Haggard

Hard on twenty years have gone by since that night of Leo's vision -- the most awful years, perhaps, which were ever endured by men -- twenty years of search and hardship ending in soul-shaking wonder and amazement.

My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do. I desire to learn the beginning and the end of the spiritual drama of which it has been my strange lot to read some pages upon earth.