ing, only the shadows. I did not want to discover more;
my very soul shrank within me at the bare idea of what there might be,
what there was. But, as is always the case, the superphysical gave me no
choice; my hand, moving involuntarily forward, rested on something flat,
round, grotesque, horrid, something I took for a face, but a face which
I knew could not be human. Then I understood the shadows. Uniting, they
formed the outline of something lithe and tall, the outline of a
monstrosity with a growth even as I had felt it--flat, round, grotesque,
and horrid. Was it the phantasm of one of those poor waifs and strays,
having all their bestialities and diseases magnified; or was it the
spirit of a tree of some unusually noxious nature?

I could not divine, and so I came away unsatisfied. But I believe the
shadow is still there, for I saw it only the last time I was in the
Park.

CHAPTER III

OBSESSION, POSSESSION

_Clocks, Chests and Mummies_

As I have already remarked, spirit or unknown brains are frequently
present at births. The brains of infants are very susceptible to
impressions, and, in them, the thought-germs of the occult brains find
snug billets. As time goes on, these germs develop and become generally
known as "tastes," "cranks," and "manias."

It is an error to think that men of genius are especially prone to
manias. On the contrary, the occult brains have the greatest difficulty
in selecting thought-germs sufficiently subtle to lodge in the
brain-cells of a child of genius. Practically, any germ of carnal
thought will be sure of reception in the protoplasmic brain-cells of a
child, who is destined to become a doctor, solicitor, soldier,
shopkeeper, labourer, or worker in any ordinary occupation; but the
thought-germ that will find entrance to the brain-cells of a future
painter, writer, actor, or musician, must represent some propensity of a
more or less extraordinary nature.

We all harbour these occult missiles, we are all to a certain extent
mad: the proud mamma who puts her only son into the Church or makes a
lawyer of him, and placidly watches him develop a scarlet face, double
chin, and prodigious paunch, would flounce out a hundred and one
indignant denials if anyone suggested he had a mania, but it would be
true; gluttony would be his mania, and one every whit as prohibitive to
his chances of reaching the spiritual plane, as drink, or sexual
passion. Love of eating is, indeed, quit