Were I now to assert that a sign had been given to me—­to me, as one out of the thousands who demand it—­such daring assurance on my part would meet with the most strenuous opposition from all who peruse the following pages; each person who reads having his own ideas on all subjects, and naturally considering them to be the best if not the only ideas worth anything.  Therefore I wish it to be plainly understood that in this book I personally advocate no new theory of either religion or philosophy; nor do I hold myself answerable for the opinions expressed by any of my characters.  My aim throughout is to let facts speak for themselves.  If they seem strange, unreal, even impossible, I can only say that the things of the invisible world must always appear so to those whose thoughts and desires are centred on this life only.

CHAPTER I.

An artist’s studio.

In the winter of 188—­, I was afflicted by a series of nervous ailments, brought on by overwork and overworry.  Chief among these was a protracted and terrible insomnia, accompanied by the utmost depression of spirits and anxiety of mind.  I became filled with the gloomiest anticipations of evil; and my system was strung up by slow degrees to such a high tension of physical and mental excitement, that the quietest and most soothing of friendly voices had no other effect upon me than to jar and irritate.  Work was impossible; music, my one passion, intolerable; books became wearisome to my sight; and even a short walk in the open air brought with it such lassitude and exhaustion, that I soon grew to dislike the very thought of moving out of doors.  In such a condition of health, medical aid became necessary; and a skilful and amiable physician, Dr. R——­, of great repute in nervous ailments, attended me for many weeks, with but slight success.  He was not to blame, poor man, for his failure to effect a cure.  He had only one way of treatment, and he applied it to all his patients with more or less happy results.  Some died, some recovered; it was a lottery on which my medical friend staked his reputation, and won.  The patients who died were never heard of more—­ those who recovered sang the praises of their physician everywhere, and sent him gifts of silver plate and hampers of wine, to testify their gratitude.  His popularity was very great; his skill considered marvellous; and his inability to do me any good arose, I must perforce imagine, out of some defect or hidden obstinacy in my constitution, which was to him a new experience, and for which he was unprepared.  Poor Dr. R——!  How many bottles of your tastily prepared and expensive medicines have I not swallowed, in blind confidence and blinder ignorance of the offences I thus committed against all the principles of that Nature within me, which, if left to itself, always heroically struggles to recover its own proper balance and effect its own cure; but which, if subjected