lition, were possible in the short time
consumed by the phenomenon.

The emotion consisted wholly of glee and admiration; glee at the
vividness which such an abstract idea or verbal term as "earthquake"
could put on when translated into sensible reality and verified
concretely; and admiration at the way in which the frail little wooden
house could hold itself together in spite of such a shaking. I felt no
trace whatever of fear; it was pure delight and welcome.

"_Go_ it," I almost cried aloud, "and go it _stronger_!"

I ran into my wife's room, and found that she, although awakened from
sound sleep, had felt no fear, either. Of all the persons whom I later
interrogated, very few had felt any fear while the shaking lasted,
although many had had a "turn," as they realized their narrow escapes
from bookcases or bricks from chimney-breasts falling on their beds and
pillows an instant after they had left them.

As soon as I could think, I discerned retrospectively certain peculiar
ways in which my consciousness had taken in the phenomenon. These ways
were quite spontaneous, and, so to speak, inevitable and irresistible.

First, I personified the earthquake as a permanent individual entity.
It was _the_ earthquake of my friend B's augury, which had been lying
low and holding itself back during all the intervening months, in
order, on that lustrous April morning, to invade my room, and energize
the more intensely and triumphantly. It came, moreover, directly to
_me_. It stole in behind my back, and once inside the room, had me all
to itself, and could manifest itself convincingly. Animus and intent
were never more present in any human action, nor did any human activity
ever more definitely point back to a living agent as its source and
origin.

All whom I consulted on the point agreed as to this feature in their
experience. "It expressed intention," "It was vicious," "It was bent
on destruction," "It wanted to show its power," or what not. To me, it
wanted simply to manifest the full meaning of its name. But what was
this "It"? To some, apparently, a vague demonic power; to me an
individualized being, B's earthquake, namely.

One informant interpreted it as the end of the world and the beginning
of the final judgment. This was a lady in a San Francisco hotel, who
did not think of its being an earthquake till after she had got into
the street and some one had explained it to her. She told me that the
theolo