Let us try to make the matter clear, by remarking, in the first place, that the prevailing sensation was such as is experienced by those who go up into the great deep in balloons, during their novitiate in the business of cloud-climbing.
Among other questions that arose, and which I put to myself, was this:" Do I as a spirit, for the time being, actually ascend? Am I really here, on the breast of earth's great cushion—the atmosphere? or is all this an experience of the soul—an episode of dream-life? Am I really here, or is this, that so resembles me, only an alter ego—a second self—the result of a pushing forth of faculty? Is it a mere phantom, which my soul has shaped, and sent forth, and then lodged its intelligence in, for a time, by way of experiment and freak? If so, how is it done?
"In either case, the question is a grave one; for if it be not myself, here in the air, but only a soul-created phasma, of what sort of materials is this appearance made, and whence comes the wierd and mighty power that can call these images into being, and endow them with all the resemblance of reality?"
These and similar queries suggested themselves to me; and while the last one was still fresh in my mind, I noticed that the earth beneath me was smiling in glad freshness;—for the storm had not passed over that part of the land, although even then and there it was raining—a soft, gentle, sweet and sunshiny summer rain, such as happens when the "Devil whips his wife"—I beg pardon—wed to whip her; for, according to modern philosophers, of the "Harmonial" order, he has deceased these eleven years, and, of course, cannot thus chastise her any more. Be that as it may,
