As I had not for a very considerable time to set foot beyond the narrow walls of my cell, and my mental faculties were thoroughly engrossed with study, my system required but slight stimulant. A cup of milk and a roll in the morning and a leek in the evening was all I required to keep soul and body together. Nay, latterly I confined myself to a slice of bread and a glass of water, and this lasted me all day for more than a fortnight. This scanty food was brought me by an orphan boy, who was deaf and dumb, whom I had engaged as my servant, as being better able to keep silence as to the nature of my studies. Each day I fancied brought me nearer and nearer towards the discovery of the grand secret, when Nature, long trampled upon, rebelled, and positively refused to hold out any longer. My form was reduced to that of a skeleton, objects swam before my eyes, my brain reeled, and I repeatedly fainted for want of nourishment. My hand trembled, my mind lost its energy, and I was no longer fit for study. I found that I had overtaxed my strength, and saw the necessity of taking more food. One morning when I felt so debilitated that I really thought my last hour was come, I ordered my servant to make me some broth. He had scarcely left my laboratory to obey my orders when a peculiar sensation came over me. I am as certain as I am of my own existence at the present moment that I was then in a waking state, though what I am about to relate to you now may appear to some like a dream. I felt--if I may so describe my feelings--that I did not belong to myself, or, as if my spirit were entirely free and independent of my body. It was a feeling as of a bounding elasticity, as if neither the walls of my cell nor any other material objects were impediments to me, and that I was capable at will of soaring into realms of space, and of conversing with intelligences of an immeasurably higher order than those of our mundane sphere, and of perfectly understanding discourses that in the body I was perfectly sure would be beyond my comprehension. I remember that on this very morning I was seated in a high-backed arm-chair of carved oak, in a reflective mood. My crucibles and retorts strewed the laboratory in the greatest disorder. I was too weak to study or even to rise from my chair, when suddenly upon raising my eyes towards the opposite wall of my laboratory, the scene seemed changed, and instead of the bare wall before me I saw the mouth of a large cave, through the innumerable arches of which I could see to a great distance, for the interior seemed lighted up as with fire. Now, I know that I was perfectly unable to rise from my chair, yet it appeared to me that I rose, and with firm step entered the cave.