If we believe that our present selves are distinct persons from our past selves, it is manifestly improper to use the first person in speaking of our past selves.

Either the third person must be used, or some new grammatical form invented." "Yes," said Paul.

"If entire accuracy is sought the first person cannot be properly employed by any one in referring either to his past or his future selves, to what has been done or to what will be done by them." At this moment the carriage drew up before the house, and Paul helped the ladies out.
Miss Ludington greeted Dr.Hull cordially, and stopped upon the piazza in hat and shawl to talk with him.

But Ida merely bowed stiffly, with lowered eyes, and passed within.
Before they were called to tea Paul found an opportunity to tell the doctor how sensitive Ida was to any discussion of the mystery connected with her, and to suggest that at table any direct reference to the subject should be avoided.
The expression of disappointment on Dr.Hull's countenance seemed to indicate that he had anticipated thoroughly cross-questioning her in the interest of spiritual science; but he said that he would regard Paul's suggestion, and even admitted that it was, perhaps, natural she should feel as she did, although he had not anticipated it.
At the table, therefore, Ida was spared any direct reference to herself as a phenomenon, and although Dr.Hull talked of nothing but spiritualism and the immortality of past selves, it was in their broad and general aspects that the subjects were discussed.
"Your nephew," he said to Miss Ludington, "has evidently given much time and profound thought to these matters; and although I am an old man, and have been more interested in the spiritual than the material universe for these many years, I was glad of an opportunity to sit at his feet this afternoon." Turning to Paul, he added, "What you were saying about the possibility that souls, or, at least, spiritual impressions, destined to eternity, are given forth by us constantly, as if at every breath, is wonderfully borne out in a passage from a communication I had from Mrs.Legrand yesterday, to which I meant to have alluded at the time you were speaking.

She said that those who supposed that the spirit-land contained only one soul for every individual that had ever lived had no conception of its vastness, and that the stream of souls constantly ascending is like a thick mist rising from all the earth.