ertainly do exist in nature phenomena
such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden
purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those
who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of
their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our
judgment on such matters; but in this instance the subsequent course of
events is very difficult to explain, except on the supposition that
there was then presented to my brother's view the actual bodily form of
one long deceased. The dread which took possession of him was due, he
has more than once told me when analysing his feelings long afterwards,
to two predominant causes. Firstly, he felt that mental dislocation
which accompanies the sudden subversion of preconceived theories,
the sudden alteration of long habit, or even the occurrence of any
circumstance beyond the walk of our daily experience. This I have
observed myself in the perturbing effect which a sudden death, a
grievous accident, or in recent years the declaration of war, has
exercised upon all except the most lethargic or the most determined
minds. Secondly, he experienced the profound self-abasement or mental
annihilation caused by the near conception of a being of a superior
order. In the presence of an existence wearing, indeed, the human form,
but of attributes widely different from and superior to his own, he felt
the combined reverence and revulsion which even the noblest wild animals
exhibit when brought for the first time face to face with man. The shock
was so great that I feel persuaded it exerted an effect on him from
which he never wholly recovered.

After an interval which seemed to him interminable, though it was only
of a second's duration, he turned his eyes again to the occupant of the
wicker chair. His faculties had so far recovered from the first shock
as to enable him to see that the figure was that of a man perhaps
thirty-five years of age and still youthful in appearance. The face was
long and oval, the hair brown, and brushed straight off an exceptionally
high forehead. His complexion was very pale or bloodless. He was clean
shaven, and his finely cut mouth, with compressed lips, wore something
of a sneering smile. His general expression was unpleasing, and from the
first my brother felt as by intuition that there was present some malign
and wicked influence. His eyes were not visible, as he kept them cast
down, restin