As the dinner drew towards the end, a deputation from his students presented Delapine with a beautifully carved silver casket containing an illuminated address. After the health of the hero of the hour had been drunk amid ringing cheers from every part of the room, the professor got up to reply. "Mes honorables collegues et mes amis," said Delapine, quite overcome by the enthusiasm and affection displayed by his pupils. "I thank you from my heart for these signs of your affection and esteem for my poor efforts on your behalf (cries of 'no, no,' on all sides) and also for your expressions of sympathy with me during my prolonged state of trance, and the pleasure you have shown at my restoration to health. I have, like Ulysses, returned from my wanderings, and I rejoice to be with you once more. (Great applause and shouts of 'hurrah for Delapine!') "I have not," he continued as soon as silence had been restored, "I have not altogether wasted my time since I left you last if I have been able to prove that a new era is dawning, and that wonders upon wonders are looming up in the horizon of our view. The spirit world is approaching nearer and nearer. Things which were inconceivable to our fathers are becoming commonplace to-day. Our great-grandfathers communicated with each other at a distance by means of beacons and flags; our grandfathers by means of mirrors and the semaphore; our fathers by the telegraph, while we communicate by means of the more convenient telephone and wireless ether waves; but mark me, our children or at least our grandchildren, will communicate their inmost thoughts by the infinitely more rapid psychic waves of the soul. (Deafening cheers followed). Writing and speech will be largely replaced by telepathy and thought transference. Both the past and the future will become unfolded to our mental gaze like a scroll. "If we follow nature's laws and search into its hidden mysteries with an open mind, we shall march on from victory to victory (shouts of 'Vive la France!') we shall form a compact army of students who will refuse to acknowledge defeat. We shall be able to converse with the spirits of those who have gone before, and passed over to the other side. As my illustrious colleague, Sir Oliver Lodge, so eloquently puts it, 'The boundary between the two states--the known and the unknown--is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in places; and like excavators engaged in boring a tunnel from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we are beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pick-axes of our comrades on the other side.' Gentlemen, it is our solemn duty to search out the 'raison d'etre' of our existence on this planet, and to ascertain whither we are drifting. "We must find an answer to the questions put by the immortal Heine: "Sagt mir was bedeutet der Mensch? Wohin ist er gekommen? Wo geht er her? Wer wohnt dort oben auf goldenen Sternen?[22]