'Yes; but in that sleep, Harleigh, that mere mechanical repose of the animal, we still breathe; we are capable, therefore, of being restored to all our sensibilities, by a single touch, by a single start; 'tis but a separation that parts us from ourselves, as absence parts us from our friends. We yet live,--we yet, therefore, may meet again.' 'And why, when we live no longer, may we not also, Elinor, meet again?' 'Why?--Do you ask why?--Look round the old church-yards! See you not there the dispersion of our poor mouldered beings? Is not every bone the prey,--or the disgust,--of every animal? How, when scattered, commixed, broken, battered, how shall they ever again be collected, united, arranged, covered and coloured so as to appear regenerated?' 'But what, Elinor, is the fragility, or the dispersion of the body, to the solidity and the durability of the soul? Why are we to decide, that to see ourselves again, and again to view each other, such as we seem here, substance, or what we understand by it, is essential to our re-union hereafter? Do we not meet, act, talk, move, think with one another in our dreams? What is it which, then, embodies our ideas? which gives to our sight, in perfect form and likeness, those with whom we converse? which makes us conceive that we move, act, speak, and look, ourselves, with the same gesture, mien, and voice as when awake?' 'Dreams? pho!--they are but the nocturnal vagaries of the imagination.' 'And what, Elinor, is imagination? You will not call it a part of your body?' 'No; but the blood which still circulates in our veins, Harleigh, gives imagination its power.' 'But does the blood circulate in the veins of our parents, of our friends? of our acquaintances? and of strangers whom we equally meet? yet we see them all; we converse with them all; we utter opinions; we listen to their answers. And how ably we sometimes argue! how characteristically those with whom we dispute reply! yet we do not imagine we guide them. We wait their opinions and decisions, in the same uncertainty and suspense, that we await them in our waking intercourse. We have the same fears of ill fortune; the same horrour of ill usage; the same ardour for success; the same feelings of sorrow, of joy, of hope, or of remorse, that animate or that torture us, in our daily occurrences. What new countries we visit! what strange sights we see! what delight, what anguish, what alarms, what pleasures, and what pains we experience! Yet in all this variety of incident, conversation, motion, feeling,--we seem, to those who look at us, but unintelligent and senseless, though still breathing clay.' 'Ay; but after all those scenes, we awake, Albert, we awake! But when do we awake from death? Death, the same experience tells us, is sleep eternal!'