o on the Continent, to work the rugged road.

"Employment of this kind awakens the very propensities which should be
subdued. The composing, softening influences induced by tilling the soil
would go far toward converting your evil men into good citizens."

I was struck with the truthfulness of his suggestions, and put them down
in my note-book for the benefit of humanity, and now hand them over to my
readers for consideration.

After leaving this place we paid a visit to Edgar A. Poe, whose
unfortunate life on earth you are all familiar with. His brilliant
imagination we found as active as of old. He welcomed us
enthusiastically, and eagerly led us into a small theatre which he had
constructed and filled with most marvellous creations from his own fancy.
He inherited from his father and mother, who were actors, a love for
dramatic effect, and in theatrical impersonations he found some vent for
his exuberant imagination.

"Stand here," said he, placing us near the entrance; "I have something
curious to show you." He then suspended upon the stage a curtain, whose
peculiarity was its pure, soft blue color, like an Italian sky.

"Watch," said he, pointing his uplifted finger to the hanging. Presently
appeared upon it figures like shadows on a phantasmagoria.

One form was that of a female sitting upon a low chair, apparently
reading a book.

"That," said Poe, "is Miss D. I can control her and will her to reflect
her figure upon the curtain; and that man is T.L. Harris. It is my own
invention," said he; "I studied it out and applied chemicals to my canvas
till it produced this sensitive surface. All I have to do is to send my
thoughts to them, and will them to appear, and there they are. Coleridge
has a similar curtain, and some few others. But it requires a peculiar
spirit brain to magnetize the subject sufficiently." He offered to show
me in the same manner any friend of mine with whom he could come in
rapport.

This proposition delighted Morris and I, and we spent an agreeable
evening in seeing certain of our friends on earth thus revealed.

Some were busy eating at the time, the _gourmands_! Others, more
studious, were poring over books and papers, and one, whose name I shall
not mention, was reproduced in the very act of making love!

The, dear old faces awakened such sad memories, and the occupations in
which they were engaged were in the main so ludicrous, that we were held
between tears and laughter till