ns was
at once obeyed, and Mr. Gaskell was with him before he had finished
breakfast. My brother was still much agitated, and at once told him what
had happened the night before, detailing the various circumstances with
minuteness, and not even concealing from him the sentiments which he
entertained towards Miss Constance Temple. In narrating the appearance
which he had seen in the chair, his agitation was still so excessive
that he had difficulty in controlling his voice.

Mr. Gaskell heard him with much attention, and did not at once reply
when John had finished his narration. At length he said, "I suppose many
friends would think it right to affect, even if they did not feel, an
incredulity as to what you have just told me. They might consider it
more prudent to attempt to allay your distress by persuading you that
what you have seen has no objective reality, but is merely the phantasm
of an excited imagination; that if you had not been in love, had not sat
up all night, and had not thus overtaxed your physical powers, you would
have seen no vision. I shall not argue thus, for I am as certainly
convinced as of the fact that we sit here, that on all the nights when
we have played this suite called the 'Areopagita,' there has been some
one listening to us, and that you have at length been fortunate or
unfortunate enough to see him."

"Do not say fortunate," said my brother; "for I feel as though I shall
never recover from last night's shock."

"That is likely enough," Mr. Gaskell answered, coolly; "for as in the
history of the race or individual, increased culture and a finer mental
susceptibility necessarily impair the brute courage and powers of
endurance which we note in savages, so any supernatural vision such
as you have seen must be purchased at the cost of physical reaction.
From the first evening that we played this music, and heard the noises
mimicking so closely the sitting down and rising up of some person, I
have felt convinced that causes other than those which we usually call
natural were at work, and that we were very near the manifestation of
some extraordinary phenomenon."

"I do not quite apprehend your meaning."

"I mean this," he continued, "that this man or spirit of a man has been
sitting here night after night, and that we have not been able to see
him, because our minds are dull and obtuse. Last night the elevating
force of a strong passion, such as that which you have confided to me,
comb