be through
a material fluid--call it Electric, call it Odic, call it what you
will--which has the power of traversing space and passing obstacles,
that the material effect is communicated from one to the other. Hence,
all that I had hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness, in this
strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some agency or
medium as mortal as myself; and this idea necessarily prevented the
awe with which those who regard as supernatural things that are not
within the ordinary operations of Nature, might have been impressed by
the adventures of that memorable night.

As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would
be presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted
by constitution with the power so to present them, and having some
motive so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way,
was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say
that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical
experimentalist could be in awaiting the effects of some rare, though
perhaps perilous, chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my
mind detached from fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation
would be obtained; and I therefore riveted eye and thought on the
strong daylight sense in the page of my Macaulay.

I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the
light,--the page was over-shadowed. I looked up, and I saw what I
shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.

It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined
outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more
resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else.
As it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light
around it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching
the ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An
iceberg before me could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold
of an iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it
was not the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I
thought--but this I cannot say with precision--that I distinguished
two eyes looking down on me from the height. One moment I fancied that
I distinguished them clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two
rays of a pale-blue light frequently shot through the darkness, as
from the height on which I half believ