138 



LIFE OF GEORGE WILSON. 



CHAP. VI. 



losopher's soul wanders yet a pale ghost on the wrong side 

 of the Styx, while lone has long ago been safely ferried 

 over. 



" I have been enquiring of a person lately come from 

 Greece if he had fallen in with the recipe for disembodi- 

 ment, as, having no wife to be afraid of, I might, without 

 apprehension, put it in practice. 



" I should explain to my body, that it was a hard case it 

 must go wrong and require cuttings, and burnings, which 

 made me (the soul) agonize, while it was indifferent, feeling 

 none of them ; explain my intention of being an absentee 

 till it saw fit to mend matters ; and then, escaping through 

 a pore in the skull, come whizzing south, and alight upon 

 the bridge of your spectacles, perched astride of which I 

 could peer into your eyes and commune with your spirit. 

 If you should feel any uneasy sensation about your nose, 

 rub gently; souls are fragile things. Meanwhile, I have 

 exchanged such communion with you as I can, and sign 

 myself, soul and body, your loving brother, 



GEORGE." 



"July 2, 1842. 



" MY DEAR DANIEL, If I could only sit upon a chair, 

 which, like the disembodied spirit I spoke of in my last, 

 though not for the same reason, I cannot do, I should 

 write you longer letters. But I have to lie in a twisted 

 position, which I cannot occupy long, and last night I took 

 a holiday, there being no post to carry you a letter. We 

 are making preparations for removal to the seaside on 

 Monday; we all go down. Sean" eld is no very inviting 

 place, and there are no walks near it, but I am obliged 

 to take a lodging near enough Edinburgh to admit of 

 the doctors being within call. Moreover, I shall not be 



