"True!" he said softly, almost humbly, "I will tell you everything
while I remember it,--though it is not likely I shall ever forget!
I believe there must be some truth after all in what you say
concerning the Soul, ... at any rate, I do not at present feel
inclined to call your theories in question. To begin with, I find
myself unable altogether to explain what it was that happened to
me during my conversation with you last night. It was a very
strange sensation! I recollect that I had expressed a wish to be
placed under your magnetic or electric influence, and that you had
refused my request. Then an odd idea suggested itself to me--
namely, that I could if I chose COMPEL your assent,--and, filled
with this notion, I think I addressed you, or was about to address
you, in a rather peremptory manner, when--all at once--a flash of
blinding light struck me fiercely across the eyes like a scourge!
Stung with the hot pain, and dazzled by the glare, I turned away
from you and fled ... or so it seemed--fled on my own instinctive
impulse ... into DARKNESS!"

He paused and drew a long, shuddering breath, like one who has
narrowly escaped imminent destruction.

"Darkness!" he went on in low accents that thrilled with the
memory of a past feat--"dense, horrible, frightful darkness!--
darkness that palpitated heavily with the labored motion of unseen
things!--darkness that clung and closed about me in masses of
clammy, tangible thickness,--its advancing and resistless weight
rolled over me like a huge waveless ocean--and, absorbed within
it, I was drawn down--down--down toward some hidden, impalpable
but All Supreme Agony, the dull unceasing throbs of which I felt,
yet could not name. 'O GOD!' I cried aloud, abandoning myself to