snatch from that miserable clay? He will tell me that though the
bloom of life has been nipped with a frost, yet the soul must not
sit shivering in its cell, but bestir itself manfully, and kindle a
genial warmth from its own exercise against; the autumnal and the
wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will bid him be of good cheer,
nor take it amiss that I must blanch his locks and wrinkle him up
like a wilted apple, since it shall be my endeavor so to beautify
his face with intellect and mild benevolence that he shall profit
immensely by the change. But here a smile will glimmer somewhat
sadly over Monsieur du Miroir's visage.

When this subject shall have been sufficiently discussed we may take
up others as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me
to the remotest regions and into the deepest privacy, I will compare
the attempt to escape him to the hopeless race that men sometimes
run with memory, or their own hearts, or their moral selves, which,
though burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant, will never
be one step behind. I will be self-contemplative, as nature bids
me, and make him the picture or visible type of what I muse upon,
that my mind may not wander so vaguely as heretofore, chasing its
own shadow through a chaos and catching only the monsters that abide
there. Then will we turn our thoughts to the spiritual world, of
the reality of which my companions shall furnish me an illustration,
if not an argument; for, as we have only the testimony of the eye to
Monsieur du Miroir's existence, while all the other senses would
fail to inform us that such a figure stands within arm's-length,
wherefore should there not be beings innumerable close beside us,
and filling heaven and earth with their multitude, yet of whom no
corporeal perception can take cognizance? A blind man might as
reasonably deny that Monsieur du Miroir exists, as we, because the