in a stronger dose, and this time I quitted the body instantly, and cannot remember any detail of what I saw and did; but the impression was as in the Oriental tale, where the man has his head in the water an instant only, but in his vision a thousand years seem to have passed.  I experienced that same sense of an immense length of time and succession of impressions; even, now, the moment my mind was in that state seems to me a far longer period in time than my life on earth does as I look back upon it.  Suddenly I seemed to see the old dentist, as I had for the moment before I inhaled the gas, amid his plants, in his nightcap and dressing-gown; in the twilight the figure had somewhat of a Faust-like, magical air, and he seemed to say, “C’est inutile.” Again I started up, fancying that once more he had not dared to extract the tooth, but it was gone.  What is worth, noticing is the mental translation I made of his words, which, my ear must have caught, for my companion tells me he said, “C’est le moment,” a phrase of just as many syllables, but conveying just the opposite sense.

Ah!  I how I wished then, that you had settled, there in the United States, who really brought this means of evading a portion of the misery of life into use.  But as it was, I remained at a loss whom to apostrophize with my benedictions, whether Dr. Jackson, Morton, or Wells, and somebody thus was robbed of his clue;—­neither does Europe know to whom to address her medals.

However, there is no evading the heavier part of these miseries.  You avoid the moment of suffering, and escape the effort of screwing up your courage for one of these moments, but not the jar to the whole system.  I found the effect of having taken the ether bad for me.  I seemed to taste it all the time, and neuralgic pain continued; this lasted three days.  For the evening of the third, I had taken a ticket to Don Giovanni, and could not bear to give up this opera, which I had always been longing to hear; still I was in much suffering, and, as it was the sixth day I had been so, much weakened.  However, I went, expecting to be obliged to come out; but the music soothed the nerves at once.  I hardly suffered at all during the opera; however, I supposed the pain would return as soon as I came out; but no! it left me from that time.  Ah! if physicians only understood the influence of the mind over the body, instead of treating, as they so often do, their patients like machines, and according to precedent!  But I must pause here for to-day.

LETTER XII.

ADIEU TO PARIS.—­ITS SCENES.—­THE PROCESSION OF THE FAT OX.—­DESTITUTION OF THE POORER CLASSES.—­NEED OF A REFORM.—­THE DOCTRINES OF FOURIER MAKING PROGRESS.—­REVIEW OF FOURIER’S LIFE AND CHARACTER.—­THE PARISIAN PRESS ON THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.—­GUIZOT’S POLICY.—­NAPOLEON.—­THE MANUSCRIPTS OF ROUSSEAU IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—­HIS CHARACTER.—­SPEECH OF M. BERRYER IN THE