to account for Mozart's precocity save by supposing his
pre-existence? He brought with him the musical skill acquired in
a previous life. In general, the souls of musical children come
from nightingales, while the souls of great architects have
passed into them from beavers (p. 247). We do not remember these
past existences, it is true; but when we become ether-folk, we
shall be able to look back in recollection over the whole series.

Amid these sublime inquiries, M. Figuier is sometimes notably
oblivious of humbler truths, as might indeed be expected. Thus he
repeatedly alludes to Locke as the author of the doctrine of
innate ideas (!!),[14] and he informs us that Kepler never
quitted Protestant England (p. 336), though we believe that the
nearest Kepler ever came to living in England was the refusing of
Sir Henry Wotton's request that he should move thither.

[14] Pages 251, 252, 287. So in the twenty-first century some
avatar of M. Figuier will perhaps describe the late professor
Agassiz as the author of the Darwinian theory.


And lastly, we are treated to a real dialogue, with quite a
dramatic mise en scene. The author's imaginary friend,
Theophilus, enters, "seats himself in a comfortable chair, places
an ottoman under his feet, a book under his elbow to support it,
and a cigarette of Turkish tobacco between his lips, and sets
himself to the task of listening with a grave air of
collectedness, relieved by a certain touch of suspicious
severity, as becomes the arbiter in a literary and philosophic
matter." "And so," begins our author, "you wish to know, my dear