Spirit

His soul, overflowing with rapture, was craving for freedom and unlimited space. The vault of heaven, stuffed with softly shining stars, stretched wide and vast over him. From the zenith of the horizon the Milky Way stretched its two arms dimly across the sky. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedrals gleamed against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers in the beds near the house went to sleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of the earth came into contact with the mystery of the stars. Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly he threw himself down upon the earth. He did not know why he was embracing it. He could not have explained to himself why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all, but h kissed it weeping, sobbing, and drenching it with his tears and vowed frenziedly to love it, to love it forever and ever. “Water the earth with the tears of your gladness and love those tears,” it rang in his soul. What was he weeping over? Oh, he was weeping in a rapture even more over those stars which were shining for him from the abyss of space and he was not ashamed of that ecstasy. It was as though the threads from all those innumerable worlds of God met all at once in his soul and was trembling all over as it came in contact with other worlds.
~the brothers karamazov