V. This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic conception of the term “substance” itself.  We must not regard it as a quality, but as a sentiment:  — it is the perception, in thinking beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization.  There are many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants of Venus — many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could not be brought to appreciate as existing at all.  But to the inorganic beings — to the angels — the whole of the unparticled matter is substance — that is to say, the whole of what we term “space” is to them the truest substantiality; — the stars, meantime, through what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic sense, just in proportion as the unparticled matter, through what we consider its immateriality, eludes the organic.

As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter words, in a feeble tone, I observed on his countenance a singular expression, which somewhat alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once.  No sooner had I done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features, he fell back upon his pillow and expired.  I noticed that in less than a minute afterward his corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone.  His brow was of the coldness of ice.  Thus, ordinarily, should it have appeared, only after long pressure from Azrael’s hand.  Had the sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his discourse, been addressing me from out the region of the shadows?

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THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

OF course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion.  It would have been a miracle had it not-especially under the circumstances.  Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had farther opportunities for investigation —­ through our endeavors to effect this —­ a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations, and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.

It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts —­ as far as I comprehend them myself.  They are, succinctly, these: 

My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission:  —­ no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis.  It remained to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly, whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process.  There were other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity —­ the last in especial, from the immensely important character of its consequences.