The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Medical Student’s Love. ; 159 step to the cemetery and the vault. I believe now that I must have been in some kind of a cataleptic state at the time, but I did not realize it then. “The whole funeral passed before me in as vivid a manner as if | were witnessing it again. “But I was not entirely discouraged with the experi- ment, for I thought perhaps to find the spirit of Edith, it might not be amiss to follow her dear body. “For, who knows? It might be true, as ancient legends tell us, that the soul lingers around its cast-off tenement fora time. You know this belief was the origin of drap- ing public buildings for thirty days, the length of time the Jews used to believe the spirit remained near its earthly home before taking its flight into the great un- known world of space. ‘There is also another Jewish legend to the effect that the soul hovers near the grave in which its body is in- terred for a space of three days. “I was conversant with all these old legends, and as no effort to turn my mind in another direction was ef- fective, I let it go. “If Edith were out somewhere in the wide universe, away from earth, but would in time prove susceptible to my call, it made no difference how far or how near she might be. If I kept my mind fixed on her I would find her. And if this should prove impossible, what was bet- ter than remaining in thought close to all that was left of her on the earth? “T had been in this condition for several hours when Connicloool SS (C©@)