A slight tremor fled through his
frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint
smile of recognition brightened his features.
"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery
of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a
mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can
touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not
necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,--which in this case
are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,--as if our
entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in
absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it,
in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the
barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the
individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We
are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other
hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring
the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being,
infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and
imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then,
those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though
they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why
may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more
subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness
in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of
spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence.
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