feelings, thought that other's thoughts, read that other's past, aspired with that other's aspirations and talked, spoke, and reasoned with and under that other's inspiration. For a time I attributed these exaltations of Soul to myself alone, and supposed that was not at all indebted to foreign aid for many of the thoughts to which at such moments, I frequently gave utterance; but much study of the matter has at length convinced me, not only that the inhabitants of the Soul-worlds have much to do in moulding the great worlds future, but that occasionally they so manage things that their thoughts are often spoken, and their behests, ends, and purposes fulfilled by us mortals, when we imagine that we alone are entitled to the sole credit of much that we say, think, and do, when the fact is, we doubtless are oftentimes merely the proxies of others, and act our allotted role in a drama whose origin is entirely super-natural, and the whole direction of which is conducted by personages beyond the veil.[1]
Well, one day, it so happened that I repaired to a beautiful village in one of the New England States, on a visit to some very kind and well-beloved friends—the brother and the sister of the rare maiden whose wondrous thoughts abound in the volume now before the reader; and while there, the conversation ran on topics wide apart from either Mesmerism or its great cognate, "Spiritualism." During the time that had elapsed since my last visit to the beautiful village, some two years, Death had been busily gathering his harvests in all the regions round about; nor had he kept aloof from the house on the hill. No! cruel Death had been over its threshold, and Azrael had carried two precious souls over the Dark River. These were Cynthia and her mother.
After partaking of a sorrow-seasoned meal, mournfully,
- ↑ That many of them are inhabitants of other spheres, beings who never lived on this earth, I am firmly convinced. My reasons will be given in the sequel to this present volume.
