1840-42. A TRAVELLING SOUL. 137 



separating his soul from his body, and sending the former 

 on errands of its own. As his soul, to which time and 

 space were nothing, was often absent for days together, he 

 gave strict injunctions to his wife to take care of his body 

 during its soulless condition, and not to be alarmed though 

 it should seem lifeless even for long periods. Secure in this 

 arrangement, he made many spiritual excursions in all safety, 

 but at last, lingering away too long, his wife thought his 

 body was fairly dead, and burned it. Truly it was a 

 dangerous power to put in the hands of a woman. We 

 know a wife or two who would be very glad their husbands 

 had the disembodying secret, and with help of a lucifer- 

 match would effectually secure against their revisiting the 

 glimpses of the moon. I accuse not, however, the old 

 Grecian matron, though hers may have been a Lucifer- 

 match, which she was thankful to burn to ashes as fast as 

 she could. But as a process for getting rid of a husband 

 it beats arsenic hollow. Your arsenic settles Mr. B.'s con- 

 nexion with this world, and once he's coffined, unless those 

 prying wretches the chemists dig him up to analyse him, 

 you are done with him. But there's another world, Mrs. B. 

 and what will you say when you have to face him there 1 

 Matron lone (please to observe it is lone, no relation of 

 either Jenny or widow Jones), however, had fired the match 

 at both ends, and philosopher Glaucus had l lost his vote ' 

 in both worlds. In vain did the shivering soul come back 

 for its body-coat ; it was dust and ashes. It could not 

 sit down in its own mansion, though empty seats, with soft 

 cushions, were there in abundance, for the same reason that 

 keep cherubs always on the wing. And then, poor soul, it 

 had no passport for the next world. Charon demands to 

 see a properly made-out discharge from the upper world, 

 and it did not get so much as a notice to quit. The phi- 



