material--the polluting burthen which divided her divine and spiritual
part from the celestia fount whence it was derived; to set her soul free
from its earthly shroud--free to gaze on the god that was its father. She
had already more than once nearly attained to this state by long fasting
and resolute abstraction and once, in a moment she could never forget,
had enjoyed the dizzy ecstasy of feeling herself float, as it were
through infinite space, like a cloud, bathed in glorious radiance. The
fatigue that had been gradually over powering her now seconded her
efforts; she soon felt slight tremor; a cold sweat broke out all over
her; she lost all consciousness of her limbs, and all sense of sighs and
hearing; a fresher and cooler air seemed to revive not her lungs only,
but every part of her body, while undulating rays of red and violet light
danced before her eyes. Was not their strange radiance an emanation from
the eternal glory that she sought? Was not some mysterious power
uplifting her, bearing her towards the highest goal? Was her soul already
free from the bondage of the flesh? Had she indeed become one with God
and had her earnest seeking for the Divinity ended in glorification? No;
her arms which she had thrown up as if to fly, fell by her side it was
all in vain. A pain--a trifling pain in her foot, had brought her down
again to the base world of sense which she so ardently strove to soar
away from.

Several times she took up the mirror, looked in it fixedly as before, and
then gazed upwards; but each time that she lost consciousness of the
material world and that her liberated soul began to move its unfettered
pinions, some little noise, the twitch of a muscle, a fly settling on her
hand, a drop of perspiration falling from her brow on to her cheek,
roused her senses to reassert themselves.

Why--why was it so difficult to shake off this burthen of mortal clay?
She thought of herself as of a sculptor who chisels away all superfluous
material froth his block of marble, to reveal the image of the god
within; but it was easier to remove the enclosing stone than to release
the soul from the body to which it was so closely knit. Still, she did
not give up the struggle to attain the object which others had achieved
before her; but she got no nearer to it--indeed, less and less near, for,
between her and that hoped-for climax, rose up a series of memories and
strange faces which she could not get rid of. The chisel