athing, as it were, with an expression of pleasure animating
her features, in the brilliant light which surrounded her. She tossed
her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders with innocent coquetry. She
lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported
herself with ease, and gamboled with the enchanting grace that the nymph
Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest
Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of
reflection were developed. I lessened the lamplight considerably. By the
dim light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across
her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I
flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light,
and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some some
substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled and her lips moved.
Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and reduplicating
sounds, as it does rays of light, what carols of happiness would then
have entranced my ears! what jubilant hymns to Adonais would have
thrilled the illumined air!

I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Cabalis peopled his
mystic world with sylphs-beautiful beings whose breath of life was
lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
practically realized.

How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into the
night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I saw
no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my
meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of
any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form
strengthened my passion--a passion that was always overshadowed by the
maddening conviction that, although I could gaze on her at will, she
never, never could behold me!

At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest and continual
brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that I determined
to make some effort to wean myself from it. "Come," I said, "this is
at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms
which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society has
produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her with the beautiful
women