Can Such Things Be‪?‬

"One dark night in midsummer a man waking from a dreamless sleep in a
forest lifted his head from the earth, and staring a few moments into the
blackness, said: "Catherine Larue." He said nothing more; no reason was known to
him why he should have said so much.

The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives
now is uncertain, for he is dead. One who practices sleeping in the woods with
nothing under him but the dry leaves and the damp earth, and nothing over him
but the branches from which the leaves have fallen and the sky from which the
earth has fallen, cannot hope for great longevity, and Frayser had already
attained the age of thirty-two. There are persons in this world, millions of
persons, and far and away the best persons, who regard that as a very advanced
age. They are the children. To those who view the voyage of life from the port
of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears
already in close approach to the farther shore. However, it is not certain that
Halpin Frayser came to his death by exposure."

 - Excerpted from "Can Such Things Be?"