and the poet into a prophet: herein we find a key
to the mysteries of Horeb, Kedron, Ombos; to the intoxication of
Castilian laurels, the revelations of the month Busion. Hence, too, we
have Peleia at Dodona, Phemonoe at Delphos, Trophonius in Lebadea,
Ezekiel on the Chebar, and Jerome in the Thetais.

More frequently this visionary state overwhelms and stupefies its
victim. There is such a thing as a divine besottedness. The Hindoo fakir
bears about with him the burden of his vision, as the Cretin his goitre.
Luther holding converse with devils in his garret at Wittenburg; Pascal
shutting out the view of the infernal regions with the screen of his
cabinet; the African Obi conversing with the white-faced god Bossum; are
each and all the same phenomenon, diversely interpreted by the minds in
which they manifest themselves, according to their capacity and power.
Luther and Pascal were grand, and are grand still; the Obi is simply a
poor half-witted creature.

Gilliatt was neither so exalted nor so low. He was a dreamer: nothing
more.

Nature presented itself to him under a somewhat strange aspect.

Just as he had often found in the perfectly limpid water of the sea
strange creatures of considerable size and of various shapes, of the
Medusa genus, which out of the water bore a resemblance to soft crystal,
and which, cast again into the sea, became lost to sight in that medium
by reason of their identity in transparency and colour, so he imagined
that other transparencies, similar to these almost invisible denizens of
the ocean, might probably inhabit the air around us. The birds are
scarcely inhabitants of the air, but rather amphibious creatures passing
much of their lives upon the earth. Gilliatt could not believe the air a
mere desert. He used to say, "Since the water is filled with life, why
not the atmosphere?" Creatures colourless and transparent like the air
would escape from our observation. What proof have we that there are no
such creatures? Analogy indicates that the liquid fields of air must
have their swimming habitants, even as the waters of the deep. These
aerial fish would, of course, be diaphanous; a provision of their wise
Creator for our sakes as well as their own. Allowing the light to pass
through their forms, casting no shadow, having no defined outline, they
would necessarily remain unknown to us, and beyond the grasp of human
sense. Gilliatt indulged the wild fancy that if it were possible to
e