A Glimpse Beyond the Thin Curtain

And then, for one glorious, supreme moment, came "the flash."

Emily called it that, although she felt that the name didn't exactly describe it.  It couldn't be described - not even to Father, who always seemed a little puzzled by it.  Emily never spoke of it to any one else.

It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty.  Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside - but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond - only a glimpse - and heard a note of unearthly music.

This moment came rarely - went swiftly, leaving her breathless with the inexpressible delight of it.  She could never recall it - never summon it - never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days.  It never came twice with the same thing.  To-night the dark boughs against that far-off sky had given it.  It had come with a high, wild note of wind in the night, with a shadow wave over a ripe field, with a greybird lighting on her window-sill in a storm, with the singing of "Holy, holy, holy" in church, with a glimpse of the autumn night, with the spirit-like blue of ice palms on a twilit pane, with the felicitous new word when she was writing down a "description" of something.  And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.

-- L. M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon