The Voice began to echo at once. It was the same Voice of old. The difference was that when he was a child he thought he knew what it was, and that h… - Halldór Laxness

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The Voice began to echo at once. It was the same Voice of old. The difference was that when he was a child he thought he knew what it was, and that he understood it, and he gave it a name; but the older and wiser he became, the more difficult he found it to say what it was, or to understand it, except that he felt it called him away from other people and the responsibilities of life to the place where it alone reigned . . . Ah, sweet Voice, he said, and filled his lungs with the cool evening breeze of the north, but he did not dare open his arms to it for fear that people might think he was mad.

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About Halldór Laxness

Halldór Kiljan Laxness (23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998), born Halldór Guðjónsson, was a 20th century Icelandic author who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Halldór Kiljan Laxness Halldor Laxness Halldor Kiljan Laxness

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He was not quite nine years old, in fact, when he began to have spiritual experiences . . . he felt he saw God's image open before him. He felt the deity reveal itself in Nature in an inexpressible music, the sonic revelation of the deity; and before he knew it, he himself had become a trembling voice in a celestial chorus of glory. His soul seemed to be rising out of his body like frothing milk brimming over the edge of a basin; it was as if his soul were flowing into an unfathomable ocean of higher life, beyond words, beyond all perception, his body suffused by some surging light that was beyond all light. Sighing, he became aware of his own insignificance in the midst of this infinite chorus glory and radiance; his whole consciousness dissolved into one sacred, tearful yearning to be allowed to be one with the Highest and be no longer any part of himself. He lay for a long time on the sand or on the grass, and wept tears of deep and fervent happiness, face to face with the inexpressible. "God, God, God!" he cried, trembling with love and reverence, and kissed the ground and dug his fingers into the turf.

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Tonight when I listen to our voices in this strange calm which is touched with the presence of death, even though the breeze is rustling so innocently at the door and the roof, I feel as if we were two gods on the clouds of heaven, with mankind dying between us.

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