The Neoplatonists were no wiser, and Greek legend tells a well-known
story of a married mystic whose suspended animation began at last to bore
his wife. "Dear Hermotimus"--that was his name, if we have not forgotten
it--"is quite the most absent of men," his spouse would say, when her
husband's soul left his body and took its walks abroad. On one occasion
the philosopher's spiritual part remained abroad so long that his lady
ceased to expect its return. She therefore went through the usual
mourning, cut her hair, cried, and finally burned the body on the funeral-
pyre. "We can do no more for miserable mortals, when once the spirit has
left their bones," says Homer.

At that very moment the spirit returned, and found its uninsured tenement
of clay reduced to ashes. The sequel may be found in a poem of the late
Professor Aytoun's, and in the same volume occurs the wondrous tale of
Colonel Townsend, who could suspend his animation at pleasure.

There is certainly a good deal of risk, as well as of convenience, in
suspended animation. People do not always welcome Rip Van Winkle when he
returns to life, as we would all welcome Mr. Jefferson if he revisited
the glimpses of the footlights,

"The hard heir strides about the lands,
And will not yield them for a day."

There is the horrible chance of being buried alive, which was always
present to the mind of Edgar Poe. It occurs in one of his half-humorous
stories, where a cataleptic man, suddenly waking in a narrow bed, in the
smell of earthy mould, believes he has been interred, but finds himself
mistaken. In the "Fall of The House of Usher" the wretched brother, with
his nervous intensity of sensation, hears his sister for four days