, there is the sudden coming
of that which they have sought--the "possession," the "afflatus," which
for ever after marks them out as those whose correspondences reach
beyond mortal ken. All devotees have not received this awful baptism,
but in this part of India many have.

We were visiting in a high-caste house. The walls were decorated with
mythological devices, and even the old wood-carvings were full of
idolatrous symbols. The women were listening well, asking questions and
arguing, until one, an old lady, came in. Then they were silent. She sat
down and discussed us. We thought we would change the subject, and we
began to sing. She listened, as they always do, interrupting only to
say, "That's true! that's true!" Till suddenly--I cannot describe
what--something seemed to come over her, and she burst into a frenzy,
exclaiming, "Let me sing! let me sing!" And then she sang as I never
heard anyone sing before--the wildest, weirdest wail of a song all about
idolatry, its uselessness and folly, its sorrow and sin.

So far I followed her, for I knew the poem well, but she soon turned off
into regions of language and thought unreached as yet by me. Here she
got madly excited, and, swaying herself to and fro, seemed lashing
herself into fury. Nearer and nearer she drew to us (we were on the
floor beside her); then she stretched out her arm with its clenched
fist, and swung it straight for my eye. Within a hair's-breadth she drew
back, and struck out for Victory's; but God helped her not to flinch.

Then I cannot tell what happened, only her form dilated, and she seemed
as if she would spring upon us, but as if she were somehow held back. We
dare not move for fear of exciting her more. There we sat for I know not
how long, with this awful old woman's clenched fist circling round our
heads, or all but striking into our eyes, while without intermission she
crooned her song in that hollow hum that works upon the listener till
the nerve of the soul is drawn out, as it were, to its very farthest
stretch. It was quite dark by this time; only the yellow flicker of the
wind-blown flame of the lamp made uncertain lights and shadows round the
place where we were sitting, and an eerie influence fell on us all,
almost mesmeric in effect. I did not need the awestruck whispers round
me to tell me what it was. But oh! I felt, as I never felt before, the
reality of the presence of unseen powers, and I knew that the Actual
itself was in