ogues were collected, not at the close of
the seance, but at the moment, and under the dictation of the
table. They will some day be published, and will propound an
imperious problem to all intelligent minds thirsting for new
truths.

If now asked for my explanation of all this, I hesitate to
reply. I should not have hesitated in Jersey. I should have
unhesitatingly affirmed the presence of spirits. It is not the
opinion of Paris which now retards me. I know what respect is
due to the opinion of the Paris of to-day, of that Paris so
wise, so practical, and so positive, which believes in nothing
but dancing skirts and brokers' bulletins; but the capital's
shrugging shoulders would not compel me to lower my voice. I am
even happy to say, in the face of Paris, that as to the
existence of what are called _spirits_, I have no doubts. I have
never had that fatuous vanity as to our race, which declares
that the ascending ladder of being ends with man. I am persuaded
that we have at least as many rounds above us as there are
beneath our feet, and I believe as firmly in spirits above as I
do in donkeys beneath. The existence of spirits once admitted,
their intervention becomes merely a question of details. Why
could they not communicate with man by some means, and why may
not that means be a table? Because immaterial beings cannot move
a table? But who can say these beings _are_ immaterial? They
also may have bodies, but more subtile than ours,--bodies as
imperceptible to our sight, as light is to our touch. It is
fairly presumable that there are transitional states between the
human condition and the immaterial. Death comes after life, as
man supersedes the animal. The inferior animals are men, with
less soul. Man is an animal with more equipoise and
self-direction. Death brings a condition of less materiality,
but still with some matter left. I know therefore no reasonable
argument against the reality of the table phenomena.

Nine years, however, have passed away since all this occurred. I
gave up my daily interviews after a few months, for the sake of
a friend whose insufficient mind could not bear these breaths
from the unknown. I have never reperused the sheets whereon
sleep the words which moved me so profoundly. I am no longer in
Jersey, upon that rock lost among the wa