words, big with prescience, he seemed to soar more boldly than ever
above the landscape, and his forehead seemed ready to burst with the
afflatus of genius. His powers--mental powers we must call them till
some new term is found--seemed to flash from the organs intended to
express them. His eyes shot out thoughts; his uplifted hand, his
silent but tremulous lips were eloquent; his burning glance was
radiant; at last his head, as though too heavy, or exhausted by too
eager a flight, fell on his breast. This boy--this giant--bent his
head, took my hand and clasped it in his own, which was damp, so
fevered was he for the search for truth; then, after a pause, he said:

"I shall be famous!--And you, too," he added after a pause. "We will
both study the Chemistry of the Will."

Noble soul! I recognized his superiority, though he took great care
never to make me feel it. He shared with me all the treasures of his
mind, and regarded me as instrumental in his discoveries, leaving me
the credit of my insignificant contributions. He was always as
gracious as a woman in love; he had all the bashful feeling, the
delicacy of soul which make life happy and pleasant to endure.



On the following day he began writing what he called a _Treatise on
the Will_; his subsequent reflections led to many changes in its plan
and method; but the incident of that day was certainly the germ of the
work, just as the electric shock always felt by Mesmer at the approach
of a particular manservant was the starting-point of his discoveries
in magnetism, a science till then interred under the mysteries of
Isis, of Delphi, of the cave of Trophonius, and rediscovered by that