egree of confidence in the
opinions from which the remedies had been educed. The Doctor, however,
like all enthusiasts, had struggled hard to make a thorough convert of
his pupil, and finally so far gained his point as to induce the sufferer
to submit to numerous experiments. By a frequent repetition of these, a
result had arisen, which of late days has become so common as to attract
little or no attention, but which, at the period of which I write, had
very rarely been known in America. I mean to say, that between Doctor
Templeton and Bedloe there had grown up, little by little, a very
distinct and strongly marked rapport, or magnetic relation. I am not
prepared to assert, however, that this rapport extended beyond the
limits of the simple sleep-producing power, but this power itself had
attained great intensity. At the first attempt to induce the magnetic
somnolency, the mesmerist entirely failed. In the fifth or sixth he
succeeded very partially, and after long continued effort. Only at the
twelfth was the triumph complete. After this the will of the patient
succumbed rapidly to that of the physician, so that, when I first became
acquainted with the two, sleep was brought about almost instantaneously
by the mere volition of the operator, even when the invalid was unaware
of his presence. It is only now, in the year 1845, when similar miracles
are witnessed daily by thousands, that I dare venture to record this
apparent impossibility as a matter of serious fact.

The temperature of Bedloe was, in the highest degree sensitive,
excitable, enthusiastic. His imagination was singularly vigorous and
creative; and no doubt it derived additional force from the habitual use
of morphine, which he swallowed in great quantity, and without which he
would have found it impossible to exist. It was his practice to take
a very large dose of it immediately after breakfast each morning--or,
rather, immediately after a cup of strong coffee, for he ate nothing in
the forenoon--and then set forth alone, or attended only by a dog, upon
a long ramble among the chain of wild and dreary hills that lie westward
and southward of Charlottesville, and are there dignified by the title
of the Ragged Mountains.

Upon a dim, warm, misty day, toward the close of November, and during
the strange interregnum of the seasons which in America is termed the
Indian Summer, Mr. Bedloe departed as usual for the hills. The day
passed, and still he did not retur