manifest themselves in space and time,
and further, aiming at a sort of reaction, can take refuge in the mass
of clay, which we call a body. I do not reproach you, captain, for not
having read, and for being ignorant of every thing that cannot be
learned at a review or on parade, but this I will tell you, that if you
had peeped now and then into clever books, and knew Cardanus, Justin
Martyr, Lactantius, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, Macrobius,
Trismegistus, Nollius, Dorneus, Theophrastus, Fludd, William Postel,
Mirandola; nay, even the cabalistic Jews, Josephus and Philo, you might
have had an inkling of things which are at present above your horizon,
and of which you therefore have no right to talk.'

"With these words O'Malley sprang up, and walked up and down with heavy
steps, so that the windows and glasses vibrated.

"The captain, somewhat astonished, assured the major, that although he
had the highest esteem for his learning, and did not wish to deny that
there were, nay, must be, higher spiritual natures, he was firmly
convinced that any communication with an unknown spiritual world was
contrary to the very conditions of humanity, and therefore impossible,
and that any thing advanced as a proof of the contrary, was based on
self-delusion or imposture.

"After the captain had been silent for a few seconds, O'Malley suddenly
stood still, and began, 'Captain, or,'--turning to me,--'lieutenant, do
me the favour to sit down and write an epic as noble and as
superhumanly great as the Iliad.'

"We both answered, that neither of us would succeed, as neither of us
had the Homeric genius. 'Ha! ha!' cried the major, 'mark that,
captain! Because your mind is incapable of conceiving and bringing
forth the divine; nay, because your nature is not so constituted, that
it can even kindle into the knowledge of it, you presume to deny that
such things are possible with any one. I tell you, the intercourse
with higher spiritual natures depends on a particular _psychic_
organisation. That organisation, like the creative power of poetry, is
a gift which the spirit of the universe bestows upon its favourites.'

"I read in the captain's face, that he was on the point of making some
satirical reply to the major. To stop this, I took up the conversation
myself, and remarked to the major that, as far as I had any knowledge
of the subject, the cabalists prescribed certain rules and forms, that
intercourse with unknown spiritua