This woman was of actual form and weight.

How could I doubt that, at all events--I, who had held her in my arms?
Might it not be that she was not quite dead, and that it had been given to me to restore her to life again?
Ah! that would be, indeed, a privilege well worth the giving my life to accomplish.

That such a thing may be is possible.

Surely the old myths were not absolute inventions; they must have had a basis somewhere in fact.

May not the world-old story of Orpheus and Eurydice have been based on some deep-lying principle or power of human nature?
There is not one of us but has wished at some time to bring back the dead.