The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World

But one thing I forgot all this while, which is, That although thoughts are the natural language of Souls; yet by reason Souls cannot travel without Vehicles, they use such language as the nature and propriety of their Vehicles require, and the Vehicles of those two souls being made of the purest and finest sort of air, and of a human shape: This purity and fineness was the cause that they could neither be seen nor heard by any human Creature; when as, had they been of some grosser sort of Air, the sound of the Air's language would have been as perceptible as the blowing of Zephyrus. And now to return to my former Story; when the Empress's and Duchess's Soul were travelling into Nottinghamshire, (for that was the place where the Duke did reside) passing through the Forrest of sherewood, the Empress's Soul was very much delighted with it, as being a dry, plain and woody place, very pleasant to travel in, both in Winter and Summer; for it is neither much dirty nor dusty at no time: At last they arrived at Welbeck, a House where the Duke dwell'd, surrounded all with Wood, so close and full, that the Empress took great pleasure and delight therein, and told the Duchess she never had observed more Wood in so little compass in any part of the Kingdom she had passed through. The truth is, said she, there seems to be more Wood on the Seas (she meaning the Ships) than on the Land. The Duchess told her, The reason was, that there had been a long Civil Warr in that Kingdom, in which most of the best Timber-trees and Principal Palaces were ruined and destroyed; and my dear Lord and Husband, said she, has lost by it half his Woods, besides many Houses, Land, and movable Goods; so that all the loss out of his particular Estate, did amount to above Half a Million of Pounds. I wish, said the Empress, he had some of the Gold that is in the Blazing-World, to repair his losses.