Indeed, it was more than beautiful Youth.

With that wonderful clarity of the spirit which in rare moments comes over man and lifts him to the loftiest peaks of meditation, Werner suddenly perceived both life and death, and he was awed by the splendor of the unprecedented spectacle.

It seemed to him that he was walking along the highest mountain-ridge, which was narrow like the blade of a knife, and on one side he saw Life, on the other side--Death,--like two sparkling, deep, beautiful seas, blending in one boundless, broad surface at the horizon.
"What is this?
What a divine spectacle!" he said slowly, rising involuntarily and straightening himself, as if in the presence of a supreme being.

And destroying the walls, space and time with the impetuosity of his all-penetrating look, he cast a wide glance somewhere into the depth of the life he was to forsake.
And life appeared to him in a new light.

He did not strive, as before, to clothe in words that which he had seen; nor were there such words in the still poor, meager human language.