This I have
observed myself in the perturbing effect which a sudden death, a
grievous accident, or in recent years the declaration of war, has
exercised upon all except the most lethargic or the most determined
minds. Secondly, he experienced the profound self-abasement or mental
annihilation caused by the near conception of a being of a superior
order. In the presence of an existence wearing, indeed, the human form,
but of attributes widely different from and superior to his own, he felt
the combined reverence and revulsion which even the noblest wild animals
exhibit when brought for the first time face to face with man. The shock
was so great that I feel persuaded it exerted an effect on him from
which he never wholly recovered. After an interval which seemed to him interminable, though it was only
of a second's duration, he turned his eyes again to the occupant of the
wicker chair. His faculties had so far recovered from the first shock
as to enable him to see that the figure was that of a man perhaps
thirty-five years of age and still youthful in appearance. The face was
long and oval, the hair brown, and brushed straight off an exceptionally
high forehead. His complexion was very pale or bloodless. He was clean
shaven, and his finely cut mouth, with compressed lips, wore something
of a sneering smile. His general expression was unpleasing, and from the
first my brother felt as by intuition that there was present some malign
and wicked influence. His eyes were not visible, as he kept them cast
down, resting his head on his hand in the attitude of one listening. His
face and even his dress were impressed so vividly upon John's mind, that
he never had any difficulty in recalling them to his imagination; and he
and I had afterwards an opportunity of verifying them in a remarkable
manner. He wore a long cut-away coat of green cloth with an edge of gold
embroidery, and a white satin waistcoat figured with rose-sprigs, a
full cravat of rich lace, knee-breeches of buff silk, and stockings of
the same. His shoes were of polished black leather with heavy silver
buckles, and his costume in general recalled that worn a century ago. As my brother gazed at him, he got up, putting his hands on the arms
of the chair to raise himself, and causing the creaking so often heard
before. The hands forced themselves on my brother's notice: they were
very white, with the long delicate fingers of a musician. He showed a
considerable height; and still keeping his eyes on the floor, walked
with an ordinary gait towards the end of the bookcase at the side of the
room farthest from the window. He reached the bookcase, and then John
suddenly lost sight of him. The figure did not fade gradually, but went
out, as it were, like the flame of a suddenly extinguished candle. The room was now filled with the clear light of the summer morning: the
whole vision had lasted but a few seconds, but my brother knew that
there was no possibility of his having been mistaken, that the mystery
of the creaking chair was solved, that he had seen the man who had come
evening by evening for a month past to listen to the rhythm of the
_Gagliarda_. Terribly disturbed, he sat for some time half dreading and
half expecting a return of the figure; but all remained unchanged: he
saw nothing, nor did he dare to challenge its reappearance by playing
again the _Gagliarda_, which seemed to have so strange an attraction for
it. At last, in the full sunlight of a late June morning at Oxford, he
heard the steps of early pedestrians on the pavement below his windows,
the cry of a milkman, and other sounds which showed the world was awake. It was after six o'clock, and going to his bedroom he flung himself on
the outside of the bed for an hour's troubled slumber. CHAPTER IV


When his servant called him about eight o'clock my brother sent a note
to Mr. Gaskell at New College, begging him to come round to Magdalen
Hall as soon as might be in the course of the morning. His summons was
at once obeyed, and Mr. Gaskell was with him before he had finished
breakfast. My brother was still much agitated, and at once told him what
had happened the night before, detailing the various circumstances with
minuteness, and not even concealing from him the sentiments which he
entertained towards Miss Constance Temple. In narrating the appearance
which he had seen in the chair, his agitation was still so excessive
that he had difficulty in controlling his voice. Mr. Gaskell heard him with much attention, and did not at once reply
when John had finished his narration. At length he said, "I suppose many
friends would think it right to affect, even if they did not feel, an
incredulity as to what you have just told me. They might consider it
more prudent to attempt to allay your distress by persuading you that
what you have seen has no objective reality, but is merely the phantasm
of an excited imagination; that if you had not been in love, had not sat
up all night, and had not thus overtaxed your physical powers, you would
have seen no vision. I shall not argue thus, for I am as certainly
convinced as of the fact that we sit here, that on all the nights when
we have played this suite called the 'Areopagita,' there has been some
one listening to us, and that you have at length been fortunate or
unfortunate enough to see him." "Do not say fortunate," said my brother; "for I feel as though I shall
never recover from last night's shock." "That is likely enough," Mr. Gaskell answered, coolly; "for as in the
history of the race or individual, increased culture and a finer mental
susceptibility necessarily impair the brute courage and powers of
endurance which we note in savages, so any supernatural vision such
as you have seen must be purchased at the cost of physical reaction. From the first evening that we played this music, and heard the noises
mimicking so closely the sitting down and rising up of some person, I
have felt convinced that causes other than those which we usually call
natural were at work, and that we were very near the manifestation of
some extraordinary phenomenon." "I do not quite apprehend your meaning." "I mean this," he continued, "that this man or spirit of a man has been
sitting here night after night, and that we have not been able to see
him, because our minds are dull and obtuse. Last night the elevating
force of a strong passion, such as that which you have confided to me,
combined with the power of fine music, so exalted your mind that you
became endowed, as it were, with a sixth sense, and suddenly were
enabled to see that which had previously been invisible. To this sixth
sense music gives, I believe, the key. We are at present only on the
threshold of such a knowledge of that art as will enable us to use it
eventually as the greatest of all humanising and educational agents.