secrets which men of science often fail to discern through tortuous
devices. I was assured that this trance was merely the result of a
concentrative energy of the will, which riveted the faculties upon a
single purpose or idea, and held every nerve and sense in absolute
abeyance. We are so little accustomed to test the potency of the will
out of the ordinary plane of its operation, that we have little
conception how mighty a lever it may be made, or to what new exercise
it may be directed; and yet we are all conscious of periods in our
lives when, like a vast rock in ocean, it has suddenly loomed up firm
and defiant amid our petty purposes and fretful indecisions, waxing
grander and stronger under opposition, a something apart from, yet a
conscious portion of ourselves,--a master, though a slave,--another
revelation of the divinity within.

"I will confess that curiosity led me long ago to slight experiments in
the direction in which you say the diabolic lies, but my mind was
never concentrated on any one idea of sufficient interest to command
success, until, in some periods of mingled peril and excitement, the
memory of Blanche, and the conscious, even startling nearness of that
sweet presence, have lent to my will unwonted energy and inspiration.

"Twenty years passed slowly away. It is common to speak of the
_flight_ of time. For me, time has no wings. The days and years
are faltering and tardy-footed, laden with the experiences of the
outer and the problems of the inner world, which seem perpetually
multiplied by reflection, like figures in a room mirrored on all
sides. Meanwhile, my wife had died. I have never since sought women
beyond the formal pale of the drawing-room: not from insensibility to
loveliness, but because the memory, 'dearer far than bliss,' of one
irretrievable affection shut out all inferior approach,--like a