There must be other things
besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres to ours; and when we
speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may be nearer the literal truth
than we dream. If mankind generally are the shipwrecked survivors of some
pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift in these little open boats of humanity
to make one more trial to reach the shore,--as some grave theologians have
maintained,--if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead devils who
have "died into life," (to borrow an expression from Keats,) and walk the
earth in a suit of living rags that lasts three or four score summers,--
why, there must have been a few good spirits sent to keep them company,
and these sweet voices I speak of must belong to them.
----I wish you could once hear my sister's voice,--said the
schoolmistress.
If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,--said I.
I never thought mine was anything,--said the schoolmistress.
How should you know?--said I.--People never hear their own voices,--any
more than they see their own faces. There is not even a looking-glass for
the voice. Of course, there is something audible to us when we speak; but
that something is not our own voice as it is known to all our
acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to us in our own tones, we
should not know them in the least.
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