Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/19

 and with aching heart and tearful eye, we, the left-behind and myself, took our way toward the ground where lay the sacred form of her we loved so deeply, so fully; and there I wept, and the great salt tears bedewed the sod—for, indeed, my heart, poor, weary, troubled heart, was almost breaking. Soon we returned to the house upon the hill, and I lay me down upon the sofa, near the window—the very sofa whereon her sainted form was wont to recline in the days now, alas! fled, with her, "forever and forevermore—that same little sofa whereon she used to sit and converse with us, with her sister Clarinda, the gentle and the good John Hart, and her well-beloved Jonathan, with my humble self, and a few select and soberminded lovers of the good and true; used to sit and converse upon the mysteries of the Great Beyond, and touching the realities of that other world, to which Disease was remorselessly, and with relentless purpose, fast urging her life-car. * * * And I threw myself upon the sofa; and as I lay there, with closed eyes, I beheld the flitting ghosts of many a dead day, with all its troops of glad and bitter memories, when suddenly it seemed that I was no longer myself—for so deep and perfect was the blending, that I had not merely an insurmountable assurance that my body contained, for the time being, two complete souls, but even the very thoughts, modes of expression, and memory of the departed one was mine; and yet this possession did not, for an instant, subvert my own individuality. I was there, and so was she. For the time being, we two were not merely as, but to all intents and purposes, we actually were, one. Arising from the recumbent position, my body assumed certain singularities of movement peculiar to her before she flew up to her home in the bright empyrean, and these words were spoken: "The experiences and history of a Soul must be written, for the benefit of the people. I, we, intend to write it. A