before entered this Higher Life; and later on came other greetings from further outside—from the Siriusites, from several of the nearer Centaurites, from the less remote of the Pleiadites, from the Orionsbeltites, and various others. Venus, who, of course, looked on us as her own child, gave us a number of introductions; and by thus tacking on to her ready-made lines, we saved, to a great extent, the heavy cost of opening independent lines of our own, Venus, however, debiting us, of course, a certain proportion of her first outlay. These ordinary and economizing ways related to the intercommunicating society which, in a comparative sense as to distance, lay immediately about us. But it was expected of each component world that it would extend the area of the higher-life society, and promote its intercourse, by some measure of independent action of its own; and as, in the ardour of our noviciate, we were resolved not to be behind in our new duties, we prepared to open up lines to far-off systems, in any of the heretofore less-explored directions, and vast energy contributions were levied accordingly.
The acquaintances we picked up in all these higher-life duties, and these missions of adventure, were occasionally very striking. The very first which we made, in the nearer society outside our system, and coming to us through Venus, was one of Sirius's worlds; and as this orb was in about the same position relatively, in its own system, as our earth was in ours, we took rather kindly to each other, albeit our new
