self-research many will succeed in reaching them--perhaps even more
easily and completely than we have done.

It is something like listening for the overtones of a musical note; we
do not hear them at first, though they are there, clamoring for
recognition; and when at last we hear them, we wonder at our former
obtuseness, so distinct are they.

Let a man with an average ear, however uncultivated, strike the C low
down on a good piano-forte, keeping his foot on the loud pedal. At first
he will hear nothing but the rich fundamental note C.

But let him become _expectant_ of certain other notes; for instance, of
the C in the octave immediately above, then the G immediately above
that, then the E higher still; he will hear them all in time as clearly
as the note originally struck; and, finally, a shrill little ghostly and
quite importunate B flat in the treble will pulsate so loudly in his ear
that he will never cease to hear it whenever that low C is sounded.

By just such a process, only with infinitely more pains (and in the end
with what pleasure and surprise), will he grow aware in time of a dim,
latent, antenatal experience that underlies his own personal experience
of this life.

We also found that we were able not only to assist as mere spectators at
such past scenes as I have described (and they were endless), but also
to identify ourselves occasionally with the actors, and cease for the
moment to be Mary Seraskier and Peter Ibbetson. Notably was this the
case with Gatienne. We could each be Gatienne for a space (though never
both of us together), and when we resumed our own personality again we