But all these things are secrets of which I have perhaps no right to speak at present.  It is enough to say that Jorsen changed the current of my life on that night when he saved me from death.

For instance, from that day onwards to the present time I have never touched the drink which so nearly ruined me.  Also the darkness has rolled away, and with it every doubt and fear; I know the truth, and for that truth I live.  Considered from certain aspects such knowledge, I admit, is not altogether desirable.  Thus it has deprived me of my interest in earthly things.  Ambition has left me altogether; for years I have had no wish to succeed in the profession which I adopted in my youth, or in any other.  Indeed I doubt whether the elements of worldly success still remain in me; whether they are not entirely burnt away by that fire of wisdom in which I have bathed.  How can we strive to win a crown we have no longer any desire to wear?  Now I desire other crowns and at times I wear them, if only for a little while.  My spirit grows and grows.  It is dragging at its strings.

What am I to look at?  A small, white-haired man with a thin and rather plaintive face in which are set two large, dark eyes that continually seem to soften and develop.  That is my picture.  And what am I in the world?  I will tell you.  On certain days of the week I employ myself in editing a trade journal that has to do with haberdashery.  On another day I act as auctioneer to a firm which imports and sells cheap Italian statuary; modern, very modern copies of the antique, florid marble vases, and so forth.  Some of you who read may have passed such marts in different parts of the city, or even have dropped in and purchased a bust or a tazza for a surprisingly small sum.  Perhaps I knocked it down to you, only too pleased to find a bona fide bidder amongst my company.

As for the rest of my time—­well, I employ it in doing what good I can among the poor and those who need comfort or who are bereaved, especially among those who are bereaved, for to such I am sometimes able to bring the breath of hope that blows from another shore.

Occasionally also I amuse myself in my own fashion.  Thus sure knowledge has come to me about certain epochs in the past in which I lived in other shapes, and I study those epochs, hoping that one day I may find time to write of them and of the parts I played in them.  Some of these parts are extremely interesting, especially as I am of course able to contrast them with our modern modes of thought and action.

They do not all come back to me with equal clearness, the earlier lives being, as one might expect, the more difficult to recover and the comparatively recent ones the easiest.  Also they seem to range over a vast stretch of time, back indeed to the days of primeval, prehistoric man.  In short, I think the subconscious in some ways resembles the conscious and natural memory; that which is very far off to it grows dim and blurred, that which is comparatively close remains clear and sharp, although of course this rule is not invariable.  Moreover there is foresight as well as memory.  At least from time to time I seem to come in touch with future events and states of society in which I shall have my share.