Well, I had embarked, like Virgil, or Dante, on my perilous tour through Hades. There was, at once, a crowding about my pathway (only a bridle path) of ostensible, estimable deceased relatives, who, after imparting a variety of priceless information, started off in the usual style, magnifying mine office. According as their influence over my rational faculties became more complete, the proportions of their Munchausenisms increased. Unfortunately for the duration of the fantasy, their jumble of Scripture prophecies concerning me--which was then made to appear nearly coherent--was so plainly writ, that as soon as the blockade of my faculties was raised, the illusion, never more than half complete, was dispelled. My 'great mission' was not fully developed at the first session; but when I had become perfectly clairaudient (I never became clairvoyant), and could dispense with the pencil, a queer mixture of metempsychosis and Parseeism was poured into my ear. It ran somewhat as follows: The two beings first created were, a Lucifer predominant in love, and a Lucifer predominant in intellect; whom we may call the Love Lucifer and the Intellectual Lucifer. The latter was the individual who fell, who played the copperhead in Eden, and has been kicking up such a bobbery ever since. The story ran, that these two persons--the original Ahriman and Ormozd--have been tilting against each other all through earth's career--appearing in the forms of the principal good and bad men. Thus their quarrels gave the outline and the skeleton to the whole story of Adam's race. According to this new 'philosophy of history,' these spirits of light and darkness have been, from the beginning, striving for the mastery; on the one hand, in the persons of the most eminent saints, from Abraham to Augustine, and others not yet canonized; on the other hand, in the persons of the world conquerors noted for heartless intellectuality, from Nimrod to Napoleon (shall we add Jeff. Davis?). Well, I, great I, was to enjoy the distinguished honor of finishing the list of Love Lucifers; and, after winding up the small affairs of earth, was to lock up the other big dog--after he had appeared in his last great role--and then inaugurate the millennium--a new latter-day Jacob's ladder having been established in the centre of Africa to forward the work.