“The material of which this building is composed, though seemingly so fragile, is a non-conductor of thought, and while detained within it the inmates gradually free themselves from their old influences and disorderly desires.

“Cultivating the fruits of the earth calls into action only their most harmonious organs.  A great mistake made by the legislators of earth is in employing criminals in stone-cutting, or placing them in gangs, as they do on the Continent, to work the rugged road.

“Employment of this kind awakens the very propensities which should be subdued.  The composing, softening influences induced by tilling the soil would go far toward converting your evil men into good citizens.”

I was struck with the truthfulness of his suggestions, and put them down in my note-book for the benefit of humanity, and now hand them over to my readers for consideration.

After leaving this place we paid a visit to Edgar A. Poe, whose unfortunate life on earth you are all familiar with.  His brilliant imagination we found as active as of old.  He welcomed us enthusiastically, and eagerly led us into a small theatre which he had constructed and filled with most marvellous creations from his own fancy.  He inherited from his father and mother, who were actors, a love for dramatic effect, and in theatrical impersonations he found some vent for his exuberant imagination.

“Stand here,” said he, placing us near the entrance; “I have something curious to show you.”  He then suspended upon the stage a curtain, whose peculiarity was its pure, soft blue color, like an Italian sky.

“Watch,” said he, pointing his uplifted finger to the hanging.  Presently appeared upon it figures like shadows on a phantasmagoria.

One form was that of a female sitting upon a low chair, apparently reading a book.

“That,” said Poe, “is Miss D. I can control her and will her to reflect her figure upon the curtain; and that man is T.L.  Harris.  It is my own invention,” said he; “I studied it out and applied chemicals to my canvas till it produced this sensitive surface.  All I have to do is to send my thoughts to them, and will them to appear, and there they are.  Coleridge has a similar curtain, and some few others.  But it requires a peculiar spirit brain to magnetize the subject sufficiently.”  He offered to show me in the same manner any friend of mine with whom he could come in rapport.

This proposition delighted Morris and I, and we spent an agreeable evening in seeing certain of our friends on earth thus revealed.

Some were busy eating at the time, the gourmands!  Others, more studious, were poring over books and papers, and one, whose name I shall not mention, was reproduced in the very act of making love!

The, dear old faces awakened such sad memories, and the occupations in which they were engaged were in the main so ludicrous, that we were held between tears and laughter till after midnight.  But that is an Irish bull—­for you must know that we have no night in the spirit world.  Our diurnal revolutions are so rapid, and the atmosphere so magnetically luminous, that it is never dark here.  But, however, according to earth’s parlance, it was midnight before we got through.