But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home._"

There, you can know no more than that. But if I was you, I would believe
that. For then the great fairy Science, who is likely to be queen of
all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, and never
do you harm; and instead of fancying, with some people, that your body
makes your soul, as if a steam-engine could make its own coke; or, with
some people, that your soul has nothing to do with your body, but is
only stuck into it like a pin into a pin-cushion, to fall out with the
first shake;--you will believe the one true,

_orthodox_, _inductive_,
_rational_, _deductive_,
_philosophical_, _seductive_,
_logical_, _productive_,
_irrefragable_, _salutary_,
_nominalistic_, _comfortable_,
_realistic_,
_and on-all-accounts-to-be-received_

doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your soul makes
your body, just as a snail makes his shell. For the rest, it is enough
for us to be sure that whether or not we lived before, we shall live
again; though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom did. For he went
downward into the water: but we, I hope, shall go upward to a very
different place.

But Tom was very happy in the water. He had been sadly overworked in the
land-world; and so now, to make up for that, he had nothing but holidays
in the water-world for a long, long time to come. He had nothing to do
now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things which are to
be seen in the cool clear water-world, where the sun is never too hot,
and the frost is never too cold.

And what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; or perhaps water-gruel,
and water-milk; too many land-babies do so likewise. But we do not know
what one-tenth of the water-things eat; so we are not answerable for the
water-babies.

Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at the
crickets which ran in and out among the stones, as rabbits do on land;
or he climbed over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-pipes hanging in
thousands, with every one of them a pretty little head and legs peeping
out; or he went into a still corner, and watched the caddises eating
dead sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, and building
their houses with silk and glue. Very fanciful ladies they were; none of
them