Passing yesterday along the line where the great French army stands before its powerful opponent, and marking the spirit of courage and aspiration which makes it seem like a long line of living light, I saw a familiar face in the regions outside the physical.
I paused, highly pleased at the encounter, and the sylph—for it was a sylph whom I met—paused also with a little smile of recognition.
Do you recall in my former book the story of a sylph, Meriline, who was the companion and familiar of a student of magic who lived in the rue de Vaugirard in Paris?
It was Meriline that I met above the line of light which shows to wanderers in the astral regions where the soldiers of la belle France fight and die for the same ideal which inspired Jeanne d'Arc—to drive the foreigner out of France.
"Where is your friend and master?" I asked the sylph, and she pointed below to a trench which spoke loud its determination to conquer.
"I am here, to be still with him," she said.
"And can you speak to him here?" I asked.
"I can always speak with him," she answered. "I have been very useful to him—and to France."
"To France?" I enquired, with growing interest.
"Oh, yes! When his commanding officer wants to know what is being plotted over there, he often asks my friend, and my friend asks me."