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Page 4
No doubt I am a materialist. Agatha says that I am a
rank one. I tell her that is an excellent reason for
shortening our engagement, since I am in such urgent
need of her spirituality. And yet I may claim to be a
curious example of the effect of education upon
temperament, for by nature I am, unless I deceive
myself, a highly psychic man. I was a nervous,
sensitive boy, a dreamer, a somnambulist, full of
impressions and intuitions. My black hair, my dark
eyes, my thin, olive face, my tapering fingers, are all
characteristic of my real temperament, and cause
experts like Wilson to claim me as their own. But my
brain is soaked with exact knowledge. I have trained
myself to deal only with fact and with proof. Surmise
and fancy have no place in my scheme of thought. Show
me what I can see with my microscope, cut with my
scalpel, weigh in my balance, and I will devote a
lifetime to its investigation. But when you ask me to
study feelings, impressions, suggestions, you ask me to
do what is distasteful and even demoralizing. A
departure from pure reason affects me like an evil
smell or a musical discord.
Which is a very sufficient reason why I am a little
loath to go to Professor Wilson's tonight. Still I
feel that I could hardly get out of the invitation
without positive rudeness; and, now that Mrs. Marden
and Agatha are going, of course I would not if I could.
But I had rather meet them anywhere else. I know that
Wilson would draw me into this nebulous semi-science of
his if he could. In his enthusiasm he is perfectly
impervious to hints or remonstrances. Nothing short of
a positive quarrel will make him realize my aversion to
the whole business. I have no doubt that he has some
new mesmerist or clairvoyant or medium or trickster of
some sort whom he is going to exhibit to us, for even
his entertainments bear upon his hobby. Well, it will
be a treat for Agatha, at any rate. She is interested
in it, as woman usually is in whatever is vague and
mystical and indefinite.
10.50 P. M. This diary-keeping of mine is, I fancy,
the outcome of that scientific habit of mind about
which I wrote this morning. I like to register
impressions while they are fresh. Once a day at least
I endeavor to define my own mental position. It is a
useful piece of self-analysis, and has, I fancy, a
steadying effect upon the character. Frankly, I must
confess that my own needs what stiffening I can give
it. I fear that, after all, much of my neurotic
temperament survives, and that I am far from that cool,
calm precision which characterizes Murdoch or Pratt-
Haldane. Otherwise, why should the tomfoolery which I
have witnessed this evening have set my nerves
thrilling so that even now I am all unstrung? My only
comfort is that neither Wilson nor Miss Penclosa nor
even Agatha could have possibly known my weakness.
And what in the world was there to excite me? Nothing,
or so little that it will seem ludicrous when I set it
down.
The Mardens got to Wilson's before me. In fact, I was
one of the last to arrive and found the room crowded.
I had hardly time to say a word to Mrs. Marden and to
Agatha, who was looking charming in white and pink,
with glittering wheat-ears in her hair, when Wilson
came twitching at my sleeve.
"You want something positive, Gilroy," said he, drawing
me apart into a corner. "My dear fellow, I have a
phenomenon--a phenomenon!"
I should have been more impressed had I not heard the
same before. His sanguine spirit turns every fire-fly
into a star.
"No possible question about the bona fides this time,"
said he, in answer, perhaps, to some little gleam of
amusement in my eyes. "My wife has known her for many
years. They both come from Trinidad, you know. Miss
Penclosa has only been in England a month or two, and
knows no one outside the university circle, but I
assure you that the things she has told us suffice in
themselves to establish clairvoyance upon an absolutely
scientific basis. There is nothing like her, amateur
or professional. Come and be introduced!"
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