'Even the doctrines of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings which were dear to them during the body's existence, though it has been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is awfully solemn and sublime.... Raise it above the frivolous purposes to which it has been applied; strip it of the gloom and horror with which it has been surrounded; and there is none of the whole circle of visionary creeds that could more delightfully elevate the imagination or more tenderly affect the heart.... What could be more consoling than the idea that the souls of those we once loved were permitted to return and watch over our welfare?--that affectionate and guardian spirits sat by our pillows while we slept, keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours?--that beauty and innocence which had languished in the tomb yet smiled unseen around us, revealing themselves in those blest dreams wherein they live over again the hours of past endearments?.... There are departed beings that I have loved as I never shall love again in this world--that have loved me as I never again shall be loved. If such beings do ever retain in their blessed spheres the attachments they felt on earth; if they take an interest in the poor concerns of transient mortality, and are permitted to hold communion with those they have loved on earth, I feel as if now, at this deep hour of night, in this silence and solitude, I could receive their visitation with the most solemn but unalloyed delight.' The use of the plural in the above extract obviated that publicity of his especial bereavement which would have arisen from a reference to _one_, and it is to be explained by the deaths of three persons to whom he sustained the most endearing though varied relations of which man is capable: his mother, his sister Nancy, and his betrothed. The first two had become sacred memories, and were enshrined in the sanctuary of his soul; but the latter was a thing of life, whose existence had become identified with his own, and was made sure beyond the power of disease and mortality. Who, indeed, would have been so welcome to the solitary tourist on that weird midnight as she whose Bible and Prayer-Book accompanied his wanderings, whose miniature was his treasure, and of whom he could say: 'She died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory she will ever be young and beautiful.' That a reünion with all the beloved of earth was a controlling thought in his mind, and one bearing an especial reference to this supreme bereavement, is manifest from the following, from the same sketch: