A horrible fear has suddenly beset me. What if death were not what the scientists deem it,--suppose it were another form of life? Can it be that I am losing reason and courage together? ... or what is this terrible misgiving that is taking possession of me? ... I begin to falter ... a strange sense of horror is creeping over me ... I have no more physical pain, but something worse than pain oppresses me ... a feeling that I cannot define. I am dying ... dying!--I repeat this to myself for comfort, ... in a little while I shall be deaf and blind and unconscious, ... why then is the silence around me now broken through by sound? I listen,--and I hear distinctly the clamour of wild voices mingled with a sullen jar and roll as of distant thunder! ... My mother stands closer to me, ... she is stretching out her hand to touch mine! * * * * * Oh God! ... Let me write--write--while I can! Let me yet hold fast the thread which fastens me to earth,--give me time--time before I drift out, lost in yonder blackness and flame! Let me write for others the awful Truth, as I see it,--there is No death! None--none!--_I cannot die._ I am passing out of my body,--I am being wrenched away from it inch by inch in inexplicable mystic torture,--but I am not dying,--I am being carried forward into a new life, vague and vast! ... I see a new world full of dark forms, half shaped yet shapeless!--they float towards me, beckoning me on. I am actively conscious--I hear, I think, I know! Death is a mere human dream,--a comforting fancy; it has no real existence,--there is nothing in the Universe but life! O hideous misery!--_I cannot die!_ In my mortal body I can scarcely breathe,--the pen I try to hold writes of itself rather than through my shaking hand,--but these pangs are the throes of birth--not death! ... I hold back,--with all the force of my soul I strive not to plunge into that black abyss I see before me--but--_my mother drags me with her_,--I cannot shake her off! I hear her voice now;--she speaks distinctly, and laughs as though she wept; 'Come Sibyl! Soul of the child I bore, come and meet your lover! Come and see upon WHOM you fixed your faith! Soul of the woman I trained, return to that from whence you came!' Still I hold back,--nude and trembling I stare into a dark void--and now there are wings about me,--wings of fiery scarlet!--they fill the space,--they enfold me,--they propel me,--they rush past and whirl around me, stinging me as with flying arrows and showers of hail! * * * * *