Dives. Would it ever be bridged over? This
thought took possession of the doctor’s mind,
and he imagined all sorts of ways of effecting some
experimental approximation between Maurice and Euthymia.
From this delicate subject he glanced off to certain
general considerations suggested by the extraordinary
history he had been reading. He began by speculating
as to the possibility of the personal presence of
an individual making itself perceived by some channel
other than any of the five senses. The study
of the natural sciences teaches those who are devoted
to them that the most insignificant facts may lead
the way to the discovery of the most important, all-pervading
laws of the universe. From the kick of a frog’s
hind leg to the amazing triumphs which began with
that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very long
stride if Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health,
which was the occasion of her having some frog-broth
prepared for her, the world of to-day might not be
in possession of the electric telegraph and the light
which blazes like the sun at high noon. A common-looking
occurrence, one seemingly unimportant, which had hitherto
passed unnoticed with the ordinary course of things,
was the means of introducing us to a new and vast
realm of closely related phenomena. It was like
a key that we might have picked up, looking so simple
that it could hardly fit any lock but one of like
simplicity, but which should all at once throw back
the bolts of the one lock which had defied the most
ingenious of our complex implements and open our way
into a hitherto unexplored territory.
It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice
felt the paralyzing influence. He could contemplate
Euthymia from a distance, as he did on the day of
the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance.
A certain proximity was necessary for the influence
to be felt, as in the case of magnetism and electricity.
An atmosphere of danger surrounded every woman he
approached during the period when her sex exercises
its most powerful attractions. How far did that
atmosphere extend, and through what channel did it
act?
The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed,
was to be found in a fact as humble as that which
gave birth to the science of galvanism and its practical
applications. The circumstances connected with
the very common antipathy to cats were as remarkable
in many points of view as the similar circumstances
in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects
of that antipathy could not tell what it was which
disturbed their nervous system. All they knew
was that a sense of uneasiness, restlessness, oppression,
came over them in the presence of one of these animals.
He remembered the fact already mentioned, that persons
sensitive to this impression can tell by their feelings
if a cat is concealed in the apartment in which they
may happen to be. It may be through some emanation.
It may be through the medium of some electrical disturbance.