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Page 13
March 31. Mesmerized by Miss P.
April 1. Mesmerized by Miss P. (Note-book A.)
April 2. Mesmerized by Miss P. (Sphygmographic chart
taken by Professor Wilson.)
April 3. It is possible that this course of mesmerism
may be a little trying to the general constitution.
Agatha says that I am thinner and darker under the
eyes. I am conscious of a nervous irritability which I
had not observed in myself before. The least noise,
for example, makes me start, and the stupidity of a
student causes me exasperation instead of amusement.
Agatha wishes me to stop, but I tell her that every
course of study is trying, and that one can never
attain a result with out paying some price for it.
When she sees the sensation which my forthcoming paper
on "The Relation between Mind and Matter" may make, she
will understand that it is worth a little nervous wear
and tear. I should not be surprised if I got my F. R.
S. over it.
Mesmerized again in the evening. The effect is
produced more rapidly now, and the subjective visions
are less marked. I keep full notes of each sitting.
Wilson is leaving for town for a week or ten days, but
we shall not interrupt the experiments, which depend
for their value as much upon my sensations as on his
observations.
April 4. I must be carefully on my guard. A
complication has crept into our experiments which I had
not reckoned upon. In my eagerness for scientific
facts I have been foolishly blind to the human
relations between Miss Penclosa and myself. I can
write here what I would not breathe to a living soul.
The unhappy woman appears to have formed an attachment
for me.
I should not say such a thing, even in the privacy of
my own intimate journal, if it had not come to such a
pass that it is impossible to ignore it. For some
time,--that is, for the last week,--there have been
signs which I have brushed aside and refused to think
of. Her brightness when I come, her dejection when I
go, her eagerness that I should come often, the
expression of her eyes, the tone of her voice--I tried
to think that they meant nothing, and were, perhaps,
only her ardent West Indian manner. But last night, as
I awoke from the mesmeric sleep, I put out my hand,
unconsciously, involuntarily, and clasped hers. When I
came fully to myself, we were sitting with them locked,
she looking up at me with an expectant smile. And the
horrible thing was that I felt impelled to say what she
expected me to say. What a false wretch I should have
been! How I should have loathed myself to-day had I
yielded to the temptation of that moment! But, thank
God, I was strong enough to spring up and hurry from
the room. I was rude, I fear, but I could not, no, I
COULD not, trust myself another moment. I, a
gentleman, a man of honor, engaged to one of the
sweetest girls in England--and yet in a moment of
reasonless passion I nearly professed love for this
woman whom I hardly know. She is far older than myself
and a cripple. It is monstrous, odious; and yet the
impulse was so strong that, had I stayed another minute
in her presence, I should have committed myself. What
was it? I have to teach others the workings of our
organism, and what do I know of it myself? Was it the
sudden upcropping of some lower stratum in my nature--a
brutal primitive instinct suddenly asserting itself? I
could almost believe the tales of obsession by evil
spirits, so overmastering was the feeling.
Well, the incident places me in a most unfortunate
position. On the one hand, I am very loath to abandon
a series of experiments which have already gone so far,
and which promise such brilliant results. On the
other, if this unhappy woman has conceived a passion
for me---- But surely even now I must have made some
hideous mistake. She, with her age and her deformity!
It is impossible. And then she knew about Agatha. She
understood how I was placed. She only smiled out of
amusement, perhaps, when in my dazed state I seized her
hand. It was my half-mesmerized brain which gave it a
meaning, and sprang with such bestial swiftness to meet
it. I wish I could persuade myself that it was indeed
so. On the whole, perhaps, my wisest plan would be to
postpone our other experiments until Wilson's return.
I have written a note to Miss Penclosa, therefore,
making no allusion to last night, but saying that a
press of work would cause me to interrupt our sittings
for a few days. She has answered, formally enough, to
say that if I should change my mind I should find her
at home at the usual hour.
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