se phenomena from
inside--to have an organism which will respond, and at the same time a
brain which will appreciate and criticise--that is surely a unique
advantage. I am quite sure that Wilson would give five years of his
life to be as susceptible as I have proved myself to be.

There was no one present except Wilson and his wife. I was seated with
my head leaning back, and Miss Penclosa, standing in front and a little
to the left, used the same long, sweeping strokes as with Agatha. At
each of them a warm current of air seemed to strike me, and to suffuse
a thrill and glow all through me from head to foot. My eyes were fixed
upon Miss Penclosa's face, but as I gazed the features seemed to blur
and to fade away. I was conscious only of her own eyes looking down at
me, gray, deep, inscrutable. Larger they grew and larger, until they
changed suddenly into two mountain lakes toward which I seemed to be
falling with horrible rapidity. I shuddered, and as I did so some
deeper stratum of thought told me that the shudder represented the
rigor which I had observed in Agatha. An instant later I struck the
surface of the lakes, now joined into one, and down I went beneath the
water with a fulness in my head and a buzzing in my ears. Down I went,
down, down, and then with a swoop up again until I could see the light
streaming brightly through the green water. I was almost at the
surface when the word "Awake!" rang through my head, and, with a start,
I found myself back in the arm-chair, with Miss Penclosa leaning on her
crutch, and Wilson, his note book in his hand, peeping over her
shoulder. No heaviness or weariness was left behind. On the contrary,
though it is only an hour or so since the experiment, I feel so wakeful
that I am more inclined for my study than my bedroom. I see quite a
vista of interesting experiments extending before us, and am all
impatience to begin upon them.

March 27. A blank day, as Miss Penclosa goes with Wilson and his wife
to the Suttons'. Have begun Binet and Ferre's "Animal Magnetism."
What strange, deep waters these are! Results, results, results--and
the cause an absolute mystery. It is stimulating to the imagination,
but I must be on my guard against that. Let us have no inferences nor
deductions, and nothing but solid facts. I KNOW that the mesmeric
trance is true; I KNOW that mesmeric suggestion is true; I KNOW that I
am myself sensitive to this force. That is my present