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Originally Posted by davem
'Breaking the veil' seems like an apt title for the painting I linked to. Tolkien, one could say, 'broke the veil' & showed us what lies beyond - or at least gave us a glimpse of it. There is an awesome realm beyond, & our own smallness is revealed to us by what we are shown. Yet, as Lewis states, it is not a place that is forever denied to us - we are given that glimpse because whatever it is that lies beyond is somewhere we have a right to be - if I understand him. The original glimpse is brief - we may even miss it, but if we are open to what we see the next glimpse may be longer & clearer.
Managed to find a better pic of the painting ('Breaking the Veil' as I shall call it from now on) Hope it works
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Another Lewis tie-in: the whole story of his Pilgrim's Regress centers on a boy drawn by ineffable longing to a beautiful Island that he glimpses far in the West. He abandons his native Puritania, with the frowning Landlord's Castle overlooking it from across the river to the east, and travels westward in search of the Island. When he finally stands on the far sea-shore and can see the Island clearly across the waters, he realizes it is the Landlord's Castle seen from the other side, and he travels back around the world to cross the river to get there. A rather Chestertonian conceit grafted onto something like the Breaking-The-Veil vision. (With a lot of undoubtedly clever but often esoteric and obscure allegory and satire grafted onto that. Quite unlike Lewis' other writings.)
(Lewis & Tolkien, I'm pretty sure, would say not that we have a right to be there, but that through the Mercy we may be given that right.)