I often argued with her about the supposed immortality of the soul, and it seemed to me that Adalga was not substantial enough to be more than an ideal, and could therefore not be an enduring reality, because ideals require substance for becoming realised. In other words, the princess often appeared to me like a thought, that may delight the present generation but be forgotten by the next. What she needed was “matter” or firmness, such as results from fixedness or stability of the spirit, and I came to the conclusion that I could supply her with the required material elements by her union with me. I know that I will be accused of making wild statements, unsupported by any well-authenticated scientific theory, but it will be seen that by means of my logical and inductive reasoning I arrived at the end at the same result, which Adalga seems to have perceived instinctively, and without any scientific training of her imagination, merely by her own direct perception. It may be inferred that Adalga had a soul, because she was alive and capable of having emotions, and in that soul seemed to be dormant a spark of a higher or spiritual life or consciousness, producing in her longings for the unknown, such as were expressed in her song in the cave; longings which she herself could not explain, be it that her mind was not sufficiently developed to understand her own nature, or that she was deficient in a scientific training of her imagination. The tribe to which Adalga belonged was that of the _Sagani_, the noblest of all the tribes among the gnomes, whose intellectual capacity was nearest to that of man. Being a Sagana, it was in her power to elongate her body, a circumstance which was at first terrifying, and afterwards somewhat annoying to me; for often while we were sitting side by side, with arms interlinked, and engaged in the sweet occupation of exchanging our sentiments, would she forget herself, and suddenly elongating her body shoot up some twenty-five feet high by sheer force of habit, upsetting me or carrying me up into space before I had time to let go of her arm or take it away from my waist. I begged her to restrain herself, and not to do so again in my presence; but self-restraint is a power entirely unknown among the gnomes. It is only possible for those beings who are in possession of a certain amount of spiritual self-consciousness, or, in other words, who feel or know that they are somehow superior to their own nature, as I am bound to say, even if I risk being accused of believing in the existence of something supernatural. The gnomes do not realise anything higher than their own elemental nature, and can therefore not restrain it. Only man can do or keep from doing certain things from a sense of duty and superiority. It is true that even animals seem to restrain themselves, but it is their fear or other instincts which restrains them, and not the experience of anything higher than their natural animal state; they