The night before I left home was to me a memorable one.  Nothing of any outward or apparent interest happened, and I was quite alone, yet I was conscious of a singular elation of both mind and body as though I were surrounded by a vibrating atmosphere of light and joy.  It was an impression that came upon me suddenly, seeming to have little or nothing to do with my own identity, yet withal it was still so personal that I felt eager to praise for such a rich inflow of happiness.  The impression was purely psychic I knew,—­but it was worth a thousand gifts of material good.  Nothing seemed sad,—­ nothing seemed difficult in the whole Universe—­every shadow of trouble seemed swept away from a shining sky of peace.  I threw open the lattice window of my study and stepping out on the balcony which overhung the garden, I stood there dreamily looking out upon the night.  There was no moon; only a million quivering points of light flashing from the crowded stars in a heaven of dusky blue.  The air was warm, and fragrant with the sweet scent of stocks and heliotrope,—­there was a great silence, for it was fully midnight, and not even the drowsy twitter of a bird broke the intense quiet.  The world was asleep—­or seemed so—­although for fifty living organisms in Nature that sleep there are a thousand that wake, to whom night is the working day.  I listened,—­and fancied I could hear the delicate murmuring of voices hidden among the leaves and behind the trees, and the thrill of soft music flowing towards me on the sound-waves of the air.  It was one of those supreme moments when I almost thought I had made some marked progress towards the attainment of my highest aims,—­when the time I had spent and the patience I had exercised in cultivating and training what may be called the inward powers of sight and hearing were about to be rewarded by a full opening to my striving spirit of the gates which had till now been only set ajar.  I knew,—­for I had studied and proved the truth,—­that every bodily sense we possess is simply an imperfect outcome of its original and existent faculty in the Soul,- -that our bodily ears are only the material expressions of that spiritual hearing which is fine and keen enough to catch the lightest angel whisper,—­that our eyes are but the outward semblance of those brilliant inner orbs of vision which are made to look upon the supernal glories of Heaven itself without fear or flinching,—­ and that our very sense of touch is but a rough and uncertain handling of perishable things as compared with that sure and delicate contact of the Soul’s personal being with the etheric substances pertaining to itself.  Despite my eager expectation, however, nothing more was granted to me then but just that exquisite sensation of pure joy, which like a rain of light bathed every fibre of my being.  It was enough, I told myself—­surely enough!—­and yet it seemed to me there should be something more.  It was a promise with the fulfilment close at hand,