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sountenance. One look! one sudden itart! one exclamation of agonized wonder! and I remained fixed, with eyes half start ing from their sockets speechless mo tionless seemingly transformed to stone my arms encircling merciful Heaven! the lovely form of Lilian Huntly!
CHAPTER XXVII.
INDESCRIBABLE FEELINGS QUESTIONS FOR
THE METAPHYSICIAN DIGRESSION PAIN FUL AFFLICTIONS OF MY FRIEND'S FAMILY
WESTERN FEVER CAUSES INDUCING
EMIGRATION AN IMAGINARY CITY A
MYSTERIOUS LADY AND DAUGHTER, ETC.
THERE are feelings that cannot be de scribed. There are emotions too deep for utterance. There are times when the mind has power to paralize the body. When racking thought forces us to live an age in a minute. When we see and know all that is going on around us, an'd yet seem to be separate from the world to exist in a world of ideality a spiritual state. When our whole life, like a map, seems laid before us, and we behold at a single glance, in a second of time, what has taken us years to enact. When, leaping over the past and the present, we seem to pierce the great vail of the future, and behold our destiny.
May not this be a foretaste of death? May we not so see, and feel, and know, when the spirit shall have become sepa rated from its frail tenement of mortality?
I have said there are such feelings and emotions; but they can only result from the most powerful causes. Neither do they effect all in the same manner. While a few experience the sensations just de scribed, to others the same or similar causes may be productive of death, insanity, or the death-like swoon of utler forgetfulness.
Of the former class, was I of the lat ter, Lilian. The same emotions which forced her to unconsciousness paralized tny physical powers, and forced me to a consciousness beyond the natural.
Bending over her my eyes seemingly glazed, and fixed upon her sweet face, now pale and death-like I remained spell bound all my animal faculties suspended.
I heard a trampling of feet, as several per sons hurried to our assistance. I heard voices expressive of alarm and dismay and, above all, the voice of the invalid calling Lilian by name. I was conscious of being removed of seeing the idol of my heart raised and borne away also. 1 felt my limbs chafed by half a dozen hands, and water dashed in my face. I saw thua, felt thus, comprehended all and yet my mind was wandering far away to other scenes.
Have we power to think of more than one thing at the same time? I contend that we have or else that thought, swift beyond comparison, sets before us differ ent scenes, with such rapidity, that we seem to behold two at once sometimes half-a- dozen and yet, each perhaps, as opposite and distant as the north and south poles.
While I comprehended what was going on around me, my mind flew back to youth to the time when I first felt a passion foe Lilian and traced every event of my. life up to the present moment. Even tioe dream wherein I had seen her bowvjfi down by poverty, and finally murdered ly my supposed rival was not overlooked; and it now recurred to me as a vision of prophecy. Something fearful had hap pened, and I had been warned of it in uiy sleep.
How is it that in our sleep events are made known to us, that really are, or are about taking place? Can it be that the spirit then roams at will, in all the freedom of disembodiment, and returns freighted with intelligence to communicate to the physical senses? Let the philospher and metaphysician answer! Enough for me the effect, without at present seeking the cause.
And here, to keep my narrative straight before the render, let me digress one mo ment, to place him in possession of facts which I gleanod afterward partly from Lilian partly from her companions of th journey.
It will be remembered, that in the open ing of this story, I mentioned my own father, and the father of my friend, as be ing wealthy merchants in the city of Bos ton. Shortly after our departure it migbi be on that very night of my singular drears news of the failure of three la
