SIR.—I read with much interest Dr. Geiringer's articles on The
Con- quest of Death. Having nearly lost my life by drowning during the late war, I can attest further, if it were necessary, that dying is very much like falling into a deep sleep. Contrary to what had sometimes been said, my past experiences did not come back to me in a flash; indeed, it seems that memory was all too ready to forsake me altogether. This is, I think, just as well; because, as the poet who described Ossian's journek to the land of youth has said, " a fedd gof a fydd gaeth." (Memory is a band.) Dr. Geiringer seems bent on refusing to drink of the waters of Lethe, and even tells us that when Elixir Vitae is found at last the soul shall be confined inside a borrowed body " with an extra set of memories and reactions." How very different did the final destiny of the soul appear to Sir Thomas Browne and Henry Vaughan ! But then, possibly, these two physicians, who knew " the miseries of this sinful life " in the Commonwealth period, may have had a clearer notion of the meaning of soul than we, in the confusion of our psychologies, may have today.—Yours faithfully, J. JONES-DAVIES.
Llywel Vicarage, Trecastle, Breconshire.
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