ear at the key-hole of Nature's workshop, trying with vulgar curiosity
to steal the secrets of her trade. The interests of science are as
little to me as mine seem to have been to science.

Doubtless the phenomena in question are simple enough, and in no way
transcend our powers of comprehension if only we could find the clew;
but for my part I prefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly
romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than
from knowledge. It was commonly remarked of me when I was a child
that my big blue eyes appeared to have been made rather to look into
than look out of--such was their dreamful beauty, and in my frequent
periods of abstraction, their indifference to what was going on. In
those peculiarities they resembled, I venture to think, the soul which
lies behind them, always more intent upon some lovely conception which
it has created in its own image than concerned about the laws of
nature and the material frame of things. All this, irrelevant and
egotistic as it may seem, is related by way of accounting for the
meagreness of the light that I am able to throw upon a subject that
has engaged so much of my attention, and concerning which there is so
keen and general a curiosity. With my powers and opportunities,
another person might doubtless have an explanation for much of what I
present simply as narrative.

My first knowledge that I possessed unusual powers came to me in my
fourteenth year, when at school. Happening one day to have forgotten
to bring my noon-day luncheon, I gazed longingly at that of a small
girl who was preparing to eat hers. Looking up, her eyes met mine and
she seemed unable to withdraw them. After a moment of hesitancy she
came forward in an absent kind of way and without a word surrendered
her little basket with its tempting contents and walked away.