What is it that shall explain the difference between our map of the world and that of Sesostris or Anaximander?  Geological deposits, the washing away of mountains, and the change of river-courses are certainly but trifling in such an account.  But an Argonautic expedition, a Trojan siege, a Jewish exodus, Nomadic invasions, and the names of Hanno, Caesar, William the Conqueror, and Columbus, suggest an explanation.  It is the flux of human life which must account for the flowing outline of the earth’s geography.  As with the terrestrial, so with the celestial.  The heavens change by a subtiler movement than the precession of the equinoxes.  In Job, “Behold the height of the stars, how high they are!” but to Homer they bathe in the Western seas; while to us, they are again removed to an incalculable distance,—­but at the same time so near, that, in our hopes, they are the many mansions of our Father’s house, the stepping-stones to our everlasting rest.

But there is also another map, reader, more shadowy in its outline, of an invisible region, neither of the heavens nor of the earth,—­but having vague relations to each, with a secret history of its own, of which now and then strange tales and traditions are softly whispered in our ear,—­where each of us has been, though no two ever tell the same story of their wanderings.  Strange to say, each one calls all other tales superstitions and old-wives’ fables; but observe, he always trembles when he tells his own.  But they are all true; there is not one old-wife’s fable on the list.  Necromancers have had private interviews with visitors who had no right to be seen this side the Styx.  The Witch of Endor and the raising of Samuel were literal facts.  Above all others, the Nemesis and Eumenides were facts not to be withstood.  And, philosophize as we may, ghosts have been seen at dead of night, and not always under the conduct of Mercury;[6] even the Salem witchcraft was very far from being a humbug.  They are all true,—­the gibbering ghost, the riding hag, the enchantment of wizards, and all the miracles of magic, none of which we have ever seen with the eye, but all of which we believe at heart.  But who is it that weirdly draws aside the dark curtain?  Who is this mystic lady, ever weaving at her loom,—­weaving long ago, and weaving yet,—­singing with unutterable sadness, as she interweaves with her web all the sorrows and shadowy fears that ever were or that ever shall be?  We know, indeed, that she weaves the web of Fate and the curtain of the Invisible; for we have seen her work.  We know, too, that she alone can show the many-colored web or draw aside the dark curtain; for we have seen her revelations.  But who is she?

Ay, reader, the Sphinx puts close questions now and then; but there is only one answer that can satisfy her or avert death.  This person,—­the only real mystery which can exist for you,—­of all things the most familiar, and at the same the most unfamiliar,—­is yourself!  You need not speak in whispers.  It is true, this lady has a golden quiver as well as a golden distaff; but her arrows are all for those who cannot solve her riddle.