Page:The Great Secret.djvu/142

126 "That may be," said Captain Nelson, in a slightly doubtful voice. "I certainly have got rid of all symptoms of gout and rheumatics since I had that heroic plunge. I also feel as young and fresh as when I was fourth mate, but I don't seem to have either the power or the inclination to fly; but perhaps it is like swimming, wants a little practice."

"That is it exactly, or rather what is practice on the world becomes will-power here, which is the all-potent factor of the spirit body. You will to be what you please and you are without an effort. For instance, I am taking you to a land which has been for long cycles buried under the ocean. Our civilisation and the works we created then, have long since vanished from human ken, or rather become merged into other substances. Some fossilised remains are still left in those sea-buried rocks, yet they are too obscure to be read even by the most astute of scientists. No hint remains to tell earthlings of to-day what we were, cycles before the date fixed as the creation of man.

"Yet from those dispersed atoms, which were once our cities, our gardens, and our forests, we are able to rebuild the land which was our own, and where we love to dwell still, with our customs and habits. We can create our own balmy atmosphere, spread over our land the same skies we used to have before the climates changed, for, as I have said before, what has been, cannot be lost.

"We are now leagues under the ocean's bed. Buried, as mortals might think, in the heart of the earth. Yet the gardens of the old world lie quite close at hand, and it is exactly the same now as it was myriads of ages ago. We grow no older in this world of ours; time signifies nothing to us. The earth is our playground, from