Drygull.  May I ask why you deem it impossible that our experience can be extended?

Germsell.  Because it has itself defined its limits.  The combined experience of humanity, so far as its earliest records go, has been limited by laws, the nature of which have been ascertained:  it is impossible that it should be transcended without violation of the conclusions arrived at by positive science.

Drygull.  I can more easily understand that the conclusions arrived at by men of science should be limited, than that the experience of humanity should be confined by those conclusions; but I fail to perceive why those philosophers should deny the existence of certain human faculties, because they don’t happen to possess them themselves.  I think I know a Rishi who can produce experiences which would scatter all their conclusions to the winds, when the whole system which is built upon them would collapse.

Mrs Gloring [aside to Lord Fondleton].  Pray, Lord Fondleton, can you tell me what a Rishi is?

Lord Fondleton.  A man who has got into higher states, you know—­what I heard Mr Drygull call a transcendentalist the other day, whatever that may be.  I don’t understand much about these matters myself, but I take it he is a sort of evolved codger.

Mrs Allmash.  Oh, how awfully interesting!  Dear Mr Drygull, do tell us some of the extraordinary things the Rishi can do.

Drygull.  If you will only all of you listen attentively, and if Mr Germsell will have the goodness to modify to some degree the prejudiced attitude of mind common to all men of science, you will hear him as plainly as I can at this moment beating a tom-tom in his cottage in the Himalayas.

[Mr Germsell gets up impatiently, and walks to the other end of the back drawing-room.

Drygull [casting a compassionate glance after him].  Perhaps it is better so.  Now please, Lady Fritterly, I must request a few moments of the most profound silence on the part of all.  You will not hear the sound as though coming from a distance, but it will seem rather like a muffled drumming taking place inside your head, scarcely perceptible at first, when its volume will gradually increase.

Lord Fondleton [aside to Mrs Gloring].  Some bad champagne produced the same phenomenon in my head last night.

Lady Fritterly [severely].  Hush!  Lord Fondleton.

[There is a dead silence for some minutes.

Mrs Gloring [excitedly].  Oh, I hear it!  It is something like a woodpecker inside of one.

Drygull.  Not a word, my dear madam, if you please.

Lady Fritterly [after a long pause].  I imagine I hear a very faint something; there it goes—­boom, boom, boom—­at the back of my tympanum.

Lord Fondleton.  That’s not like a woodpecker.