SIGNOR DAVELLI.
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will the other way, and my lust of knowledge turned the scale.
So I said, "Send me where you will then."
The words were scarce out of my mouth when he raised his hand, and in a moment I lost all power of active motion, and could neither see nor hear, although my consciousness not only remained but became abnormally distinct.
Of course I had never experienced exactly such a state, but I remember once, in my college days, I had mastered a very abstract philosophical discussion, and I lay down on the hearthrug and thought it over until my power of thought seemed to merge into something clearer and fuller, and once later in life I stood on the deck of a ship gazing on the ocean—
"Until the sea and sky
Seemed one, and I seemed one with them and all
Seemed one, and there was only one, and time
And space and thought were one eternity."[1]
On both of these occasions I experienced something not unlike the intensely vivid consciousness which I experienced now.
It was mainly a consciousness of expectancy. The events of the last few days seemed to hang before my
- ↑ "Nay, then God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse."—J.W.