d perfected where my father is.

Pursuing these thoughts, I gradually fell into a slumber. In my dream
I imagined myself an old man; my limbs were heavy, my hair gray; the
thousand fine pores of the skin, by which the body imperceptibly
imbibes vitality, and is nourished by the elements, were dried up.
With the decreasing influx of life, the power of the muscles relaxed,
the delicate parts, which we call organs, gradually hardened and
closed. I heard no more of the world, and the light of my eyes was
also extinguished. While the senses, by which the spirit is rooted to
the earth were thus dying away, the feelings became weaker, the ideas
fainter, and all that was formerly communicated to the mind by the
active senses was lost. I was no longer master of my body, and had
forgotten the names of things and their use. Men fed me, dressed and
undressed me, and treated me as a child. I was still able to speak,
but often wanted words, and sometimes uttered phrases which no one
understood; thoughts still presented themselves, and I felt, though
without regret, that I no more belonged to the earth. Soon, however, I
was not able to give utterance to my thoughts; but had only an
unvarying, torpid consciousness of existence, such as we feel while
sleeping, when not even dreams present themselves. This state, always
the same, without any external change, was unaccompanied by pleasure or
pain; there was no variety of thought, therefore no succession or
notion of time. In short, I had been dead for a long period, and my
body had been buried and mouldering for centuries. Only on earth,
during the existence of the senses, where we count the change of
things, we can speak of ages, and the succession of events suggests to
us the notion of time. Abstracting from all idea of change, time no
longer exists.

A pleasing, indefinable sensation produced a change in me; my mind,
before isolated, was connected with new organs which opened to me a
larger sphere of action in the universe.

I began to feel more and more conscious, I heard a gentle rustling
around me, which invigorated me with its delightful freshness. Before
me floated dazzling golden rays, whilst silvery clouds sportively
passed along. I cast my wandering gaze on the bright transparent
verdure of the surrounding boughs, which waved in the crystal ether
like aerial forms, and between the boughs and the clouds shone
Clementine, motionless, in ineffable beauty, a wreath