We might have been travelling for about ten minutes at the rate of what I should judge to have been about ten miles an hour, the princess literally acting as my guiding star, when the fog seemed to retreat on both sides, and in the open space I saw at a short distance a lot of other luminous balls, and in the midst of each there was a human-like form with a star upon the forehead, from which issued the light that formed the luminous spheres in which these beings lived and moved, each having its own peculiar light. Directly we entered, and were in the midst of the gnomes. They were of various sizes and colours. Some were nearly as tall as I, others like dwarfs. They were not all of the same brightness; some were more luminous than others and their stars more radiant. They had all some sort of an occupation. Some were quarrying marble, from which they made works of art and curious implements; others were engaged in mining. By some means, which I afterwards found to be the application of a substantial energy, which might be called liquid electricity, they rendered fluid the gold that glittered in yellow veins within the snow-white quartz, and after letting it run into moulds the gold became again solid and hard. There was no other light than what emanated from the gnomes themselves, and I saw that the amount of light in each individual indicated the amount of his or her spiritual energy and intelligence. Those that were luminous seemed to be very clever; others, emitting only a faint glow, looked dull and stupid, and between these two extremes there were luminous spheres and radiating stars of different degrees of brightness, exhibiting various tints and hues; but in the majority of them a tint of green could be perceived. They were what may be called “spirits,” in spite of all that may be said to the contrary by Professor Cracker, and their bodies were of a substantial kind. Their forms were not permanent, nor were they, as spirits, dependent upon the existence of their forms. In their normal and spiritual condition they were like individual currents of air, that blow here and there, having no particular shape; but they assumed or projected corporeal and organised bodies whenever it was necessary for them to do so for the purpose of accomplishing some labour requiring a form; and in such cases each spirit assumed the same form again which he had before he dissolved, and which corresponded to his individual character; and he did this, not as a matter of choice, but of necessity, for such is the law of their nature, that to each character belongs a certain form of expression. A good gnome always assumes the same beautiful shape which he had in his previous embodiment, and whenever a wicked gnome dissolved and again took form, he acquired again the same distorted shape, the same features and clothing as before. But this is a digression, and I must continue my account.