'
I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or
to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood."
"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the
later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of
modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind
to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical
impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and
perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of
the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by
fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but
which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical
clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and
generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both
assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the
soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the
jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through
the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs
of hope and gladness."
His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a
pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the
starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the
battle-field twenty years before.
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