erable for the opinions expressed
by any of my characters. My aim throughout is to let facts speak for
themselves. If they seem strange, unreal, even impossible, I can only
say that the things of the invisible world must always appear so to
those whose thoughts and desires are centred on this life only.

CHAPTER I.

AN ARTIST'S STUDIO.

In the winter of 188-, I was afflicted by a series of nervous ailments,
brought on by overwork and overworry. Chief among these was a
protracted and terrible insomnia, accompanied by the utmost depression
of spirits and anxiety of mind. I became filled with the gloomiest
anticipations of evil; and my system was strung up by slow degrees to
such a high tension of physical and mental excitement, that the
quietest and most soothing of friendly voices had no other effect upon
me than to jar and irritate. Work was impossible; music, my one
passion, intolerable; books became wearisome to my sight; and even a
short walk in the open air brought with it such lassitude and
exhaustion, that I soon grew to dislike the very thought of moving out
of doors. In such a condition of health, medical aid became necessary;
and a skilful and amiable physician, Dr. R----, of great repute in
nervous ailments, attended me for many weeks, with but slight success.
He was not to blame, poor man, for his failure to effect a cure. He had
only one way of treatment, and he applied it to all his patients with
more or less happy results. Some died, some recovered; it was a lottery
on which my medical friend staked his reputation, and won. The patients
who died were never heard of more--those who recovered sang the praises
of their physician everywhere, and sent him gifts of silver plate and
hampers of wine, to testify their gratitude. His popularity was very
great; his skill considered marvellous; and his inability to do ME any
good arose, I must perforce imagine, out of some defect or hidden
obstinacy in my constitution, which was to him a new experience, and
for which he was unprepared. Poor Dr. R----! How many bottles of your
tastily prepared and expensive medicines have I not swallowed, in blind
confidence and blinder ignorance of the offences I thus committed
against all the principles of that Nature within me, which, if left to
itself, always heroically struggles to recover its own proper balance
and effect its own cure; but which, if subjected to the experimental
tests of various poisons or drugs, o