ry glen; his canopy the heavens.

I cannot give the substance of this address, or any portion of it,
verbatim as on former occasions, for I have not the manuscript. I doubt
if Brande wrote out his last speech. Methodical as were his habits it is
probable that his final words were not premeditated. They burst from him
in a delirium that could hardly have been studied. His fine frenzy could
not well have originated from considered sentences, although his
language, regarded as mere oratory, was magnificent. It was appalling in
the light through which I read it.

He stood alone upon the rock which overtopped the dell. We arranged
ourselves in such groups as suited our inclinations, upon some rising
ground below. The great trees waved overhead, low murmuring. The
waterfall splashed drearily. Below, not a whisper was exchanged. Above,
the man poured out his triumphant death-song in sonorous periods.
Below, great fear was upon all. Above, the madman exulted wildly.

At first his voice was weak. As he went on it gained strength and depth.
He alluded to his first address, in which he had hinted that the
material Universe was not quite a success; to his second, in which he
had boldly declared it was an absolute failure. This, his third
declaration, was to tell us that the remedy as far as he, a mortal man,
could apply it, was ready. The end was at hand. That night should see
the consummation of his life-work. To-morrow's sun would rise--if it
rose at all--on the earth restored to space.

A shiver passed perceptibly over the people, prepared as they were for
this long foreseen announcement. Edith Metford, who stood by me on my
left, slipped her hand into mine and pressed my fingers hard. Natalie
Brande, on my right, did not move. Her eyes were dilated and fixed on
the speaker. The old clairvoyante look was on her face. Her dark pupils
were blinded save to their inward light. She was either unconscious or
only partly conscious. Now that the hour had come, they who had believed
their courage secure felt it wither. They, the people with us, begged
for a little longer time to brace themselves for the great crisis--the
plunge into an eternity from which there would be no resurrection,
neither of matter nor of mind.

Brande heeded them not.

"This night," said he, with culminating enthusiasm, "the cloud-capped
towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, shall dissolve. To
this great globe itself--this paltry speck of less ac