MESMERISM TO SPIRITUALISM 317 



The blaze upon the waters to the east; 



The blaze upon his island overhead; 



The blaze upon the waters to the west; 



Then the great stars that globed themselves in heaven, 



The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again 



The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail." 



Then he closed the book and asked me if that description 

 was in any way untrue to nature. I told him that so far as 

 I knew from the islands I had seen on the western borders 

 of the Pacific, it gave a strikingly true general description of 

 the vegetation and the aspects of nature among those islands, 

 at which he seemed pleased. Of course, it avoids much 

 detail, but the amount of detail it gives is correct, and it is 

 just about as much as a rather superior sailor would observe 

 and remember. 



We then bade him good-bye, went downstairs and had 

 tea with the ladies, and walked back to Haslemere station. 

 I was much pleased to have met and had friendly converse 

 with the most thoughtful, refined, broad-minded, and harmon- 

 ious of our poets of the nineteenth century. 



