ove_" (the earth?), and higher the further back in time she
went; in describing present events she appears to have felt herself _on_
(the earth); while, as regards the future, she invariably declared that
"_us_" were so many miles "within" (the earth).

To her excursions in this last direction, however, there seemed to exist
certain fixed limits: I say seemed, for I cannot be sure, and only mean
that, in spite of my efforts, she never, in fact, went far in this
direction. Three, four thousand "miles" were common figures on her lips
in describing her distance "above"; but her distance "within" never got
beyond sixty-three. Usually, she would say twenty, twenty-five. She
appeared, in relation to the future, to resemble a diver in the deep
sea, who, the deeper he strives, finds a more resistant pressure, till,
at no great depth, resistance becomes prohibition, and he can no further
strive.

'I am afraid I can't go on: though I had a good deal to tell you about
this lady. During fifteen years, off and on, I sat listening by her dim
bed-side to her murmuring trances! At last my expert ear could detect
the sense of her faintest sigh. I heard the "Decline and Fall" from
beginning to end. Some of her reports were the most frivolous nonsense:
over others I have hung in a horror of interest. Certainly, my friend, I
have heard some amazing words proceed from those wan lips of Mary
Wilson. Sometimes I could hitch her repeatedly to any scene or subject
that I chose by the mere exercise of my will; at others, the flighty
waywardness of her spirit eluded and baffled me: she resisted--she
disobeyed: otherwise I might have sent you, not four note-books, but
twenty, or forty. About the fifth year it struck me that it would be
well to jot down her more connected utterances, since I knew shorthand.

The note-book marked "I.," [1] which seems to me the most curious,
belongs to the seventh year. Its history, like those of the other three,
is this: I heard her one afternoon murmuring in the intonation used when
_reading_; the matter interested me; I asked her where she was. She
replied: "Us are forty-five miles within: us read, and another writes";
from which I concluded that she was some fifteen to thirty years in the
future, perusing an as yet unpublished work. After that, during some
weeks, I managed to keep her to the same subject, and finally, I fancy,
won pretty well the whole work. I believe you would find it striking,
and hope you w