a great deal of pain and
misery which I endured in my cure, I was disabled for upwards of three
months.

"Soon after my recovery I had contracted an amour with a young
woman whose parents lived near the garrison, and were in much better
circumstances than I had reason to expect should give their consent to
the match. However, as she was extremely fond of me (as I was indeed
distractedly enamored of her), they were prevailed on to comply with her
desires, and the day was fixed for our marriage.

"On the evening preceding, while I was exulting with the eager
expectation of the happiness I was the next day to enjoy, I received
orders to march early in the morning towards Windsor, where a large army
was to be formed, at the head of which the king intended to march into
the west. Any person who hath ever been in love may easily imagine what
I felt in my mind on receiving those orders; and what still heightened
my torments was, that the commanding officer would not permit any one
to go out of the garrison that evening; so that I had not even an
opportunity of taking leave of my beloved.

"The morning came which was to have put me in the possession of my
wishes; but, alas! the scene was now changed, and all the hopes which I
had raised were now so many ghosts to haunt, and furies to torment me.

"It was now the midst of winter, and very severe weather for the season;
when we were obliged to make very long and fatiguing marches, in which
we suffered all the inconveniences of cold and hunger. The night in
which I expected to riot in the arms of my beloved mistress I was
obliged to take up with a lodging on the ground, exposed to the
inclemencies of a rigid frost; nor could I obtain the least comfort of
sleep, which shunned me as its enemy.

"In short, the horrors of that night are not to be described, or perhaps
imagined. They made such an impression on my soul, that I was forced to
be dipped three times in the river Lethe to prevent my remembering it in
the characters which I afterwards performed in the flesh."

Here I interrupted Julian for the first time, and told him no such
dipping had happened to me in my voyage from one world to the other:
but he satisfied me by saying "that this only happened to those spirits
which returned into the flesh, in order to prevent that reminiscence
which Plato mentions, and which would otherwise cause great confusion in
the other world."

He then proceeded as follows: "We continued a