He had caught a glimpse of the apparently illimitable vistas of knowledge.

What he saw took on tangibility.

His abnormal power of vision made abstractions take on concrete form.

In the alchemy of his brain, trigonometry and mathematics and the whole field of knowledge which they betokened were transmuted into so much landscape.
The vistas he saw were vistas of green foliage and forest glades, all softly luminous or shot through with flashing lights.

In the distance, detail was veiled and blurred by a purple haze, but behind this purple haze, he knew, was the glamour of the unknown, the lure of romance.