the devil, or to produce the philosopher's stone, or the _elixir vitae_.
Now, these precious possessions have not been more in men's minds than a
system of conveniently suspended animation. There is scarcely a
peasantry in Europe that does not sing the ballad of the dead bride. This
lady, in the legends, always loves the cavalier not selected by her
parents, the detrimental cavalier. To avoid the wedding which is thrust
on her, she gets an old witch to do what the Australian romancer
professes to do--to suspend her animation, and so she is carried on an
open bier to a chapel on the border of her lover's lands. There he
rides, the right lover, with his men-at-arms, the bride revives just in
time, is lifted on to his saddle-bow, and "they need swift steeds that
follow" the fugitive pair. The sleeping beauty, who is thrown into so
long a swoon by the prick of the fairy thorn, is another very old
example, while "Snow-white," in her glass coffin, in the German nursery
tale, is a third instance.

It is not only the early fancy of the ballad-mongers and fairy
tale-tellers that has dwelt longingly on the idea of suspended animation.
All the mystics, who all follow the same dim track that leads to nothing,
have believed in various forms of the imaginary Australian experiment.
The seers of most tribes, from Kamschatka to Zululand, and thence to
Australia, are feigned to be able to send their souls away, while their
bodies lie passive in the magical tent. The soul wanders over the
earthly world, and even to the home of the dead, and returns, in the
shape of a butterfly or of a serpent, to the body which has been lying
motionless, but uncorruptible, in apparent death. The Indian Yogis can
attain that third state of being, all three being unknown to Brahma,
which is neither sleeping nor waking, but trance. To produce this
ecstasy, to do for themselves what some people at the Antipodes pretend
to do to sheep and cattle, is the ideal aim of the existence of the Yogi.