oodness,
and received such a shout of applause as I never remember to have
heard equaled. He was gone a little way when a spirit limped after him,
swearing he would fetch him back.

This spirit, I was presently informed, was one who had drawn the lot of
his prime minister.

CHAPTER VI

An account of the wheel of fortune, with a method of
preparing a spirit for this world.

We now proceeded on our journey, without staying to see whether he
fulfilled his word or no; and without encountering anything worth
mentioning, came to the place where the spirits on their passage to the
other world were obliged to decide by lot the station in which every
one was to act there. Here was a monstrous wheel, infinitely larger than
those in which I had formerly seen lottery-tickets deposited. This was
called the WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

The goddess herself was present. She was one of the most deformed
females I ever beheld; nor could I help observing the frowns she
expressed when any beautiful spirit of her own sex passed by her, nor
the affability which smiled in her countenance on the approach of any
handsome male spirits. Hence I accounted for the truth of an observation
I had often made on earth, that nothing is more fortunate than handsome
men, nor more unfortunate than handsome women. The reader may be perhaps
pleased with an account of the whole method of equipping a spirit for
his entrance into the flesh.

First, then, he receives from a very sage person, whose look much
resembled that of an apothecary (his warehouse likewise bearing an
affinity to an apothecary's shop), a small phial inscribed, THE PATHETIC
POTION, to be taken just before you are born. This potion is a mixture
of all the passions, but in no exact proportion, so that sometimes one
predominates, and sometimes another; nay, often in the hurry of making
up, one particular ingredient is, as we were informed, left out. The
spirit receiveth at the same time another medicine called the NOUSPHORIC
DECOCTION, of which he is to drink ad libitum. This decoction is an
extract from the faculties of the mind, sometimes extremely strong and
spirituous, and sometimes altogether as weak; for very little care is
taken in the preparation. This decoction is so extremely bitter and
unpleasant, that, notwithstanding its wholesomeness, several spirits
will not be persuaded to swallow a drop of it, but throw it away, or
give it to any other who will receive it; by which