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224 accompanied by several of the youths, whose present duty was to help him and educate him in his spiritual powers. He promised to meet his friends again after he had satisfied his curiosity concerning his earthly partner.

"He will find her well, doubtless, and all unconscious of his presence and change of destiny, and that will be his first disappointment and grief—to look at her and hear her speaking, yet to be unable to make his presence known. By and by, when the loss of the ship is reported, he will be grieved when he cannot comfort her, if she really mourns for him, or if she only feigns to do so, it will be worse for him to bear for a time; but he will get over all his grief and mortification, and be able to regard the inevitable with serenity, for this is a portion of his new training. He will learn to use his locomotive powers sooner than he will acquire the philosophy strictly necessary for earth supervision."

It was Hesperia who spoke, as she so often did on all subjects, to these devoted spirit-fledglings, and they listened to her respectfully, for she was an experienced and wise woman, who had watched the fevers and frailties of humanity age after age, and race after race, as each individual, filled with the consciousness of being, wriggled, like the newly egg-hatched snake, thinking that all creation must be concerned about its agile motions. She had watched, like the moon, the same scenes of pathos and passion, the same tricks of selfishness and treason, the devotion and faith outraged with the oppressions and wrongs, the suffering and sorrow, which humanity must experience, and which goes on with the sameness and regularity of school routine. Man, the libertine, sowing his wild oats with laughter,