"Like an electric shock, a sensation pervaded my whole frame, which,
although I can never forget, I must most imperfectly describe. I was
in a trance--the blood overcharged my brain--a murmuring sound, as of
an Aeolian, filled my ears-drops, like rain, oozed from my face--my
hat, first elevated to the very tips of the hairs, worked backwards
and fell to the ground--in brief, I was regularly, and for the first
and last time in my life, in a state of fascination.

"No sensation of languor troubled me, for although I felt no
inclination to go forward, yet I seemed to myself perfectly able and
willing to stay where I was, so long as the world lasted. I was
perfectly happy in spite of my bodily excitement. A bright halo of
changeable colors, for all the world like the changeable lights I have
seen displayed in front of the American Museum, New York, filled all
my vision, in the very focus of which gleamed two keen points, like
sparks from the blacksmith's anvil, and they were so vivid that they
seemed to pierce me through and through.

"How long this continued I cannot say, but I suppose only for a
minute. So far as my own perception of time's flight is concerned,
however, it might have been an age.

"I was awakened by the harsh crackling of some dry sticks upon which
the boy had stepped as he continued to shuffle forward. The recovery
was as sudden as the attack. In an instant I was disenchanted. The
bush looked familiar, and I heard the fall of water in the stream, but
a thought of imminent danger now possessed my mind; so shouting with a
voice that made the woods ring, I seized the lad around the waist, and
heavy as he was, ran with him quite a quarter of a mile without
stopping. I confess it most frankly that I didn't stop until I fell