"Why, you are a young philosopher!" exclaimed Mr. Delancy, looking
in wonder at his fair companion.
"No," she answered, with simplicity, "I talk with my father about
these things, and it all seems very plain to me. I cannot see how
any one can question what appears to me so plain. That the mind is
substantial we see from this fact alone--it retains impressions
longer than the body."
"You think so?"
"Take an instance," said Rose. "A boy is punished unjustly by a
passionate teacher, who uses taunting words as well as smarting
blows. Now the pain of these blows is gone in less than an hour, but
the word-strokes received on his spirit hurt him, maybe, to the end
of his mortal life. Is it not so? And if so, why? There must be
substance to hold impressions so long."
"You silence, if you do not fully convince," replied Mr. Delancy. "I
must dream over what you have said. And so your explanation is, that
my thought of Irene has turned her thought to me, and thus we became
really present?"
"Yes."
"And that I saw her just now by an inner, and not by an outer,
sight?"
"Yes."
"But why was the appearance an outward manifestation, so to speak?"
"Sight is in the mind, even natural sight. The eye does not go out
to a tree, but the image of the tree comes to the eye, and thence is
presented, in a wonderful and mysterious way, to the mind, which
takes note of its form. The appearance is, that the soul looks out
at the tree; but the fact is, the image of the tree comes to the
brain, and is there seen. Now the brain may be impressed, and
respond by natural vision, from an internal as well as from an
external communication. We see this in cases of visual aberrations,
the instances of which given in books, and clearly authenticated,
are innumerable. Things are distinctly seen in a room which have no
existence in nature; and the illusion is so perfect that it seems
impossible for eyes to be mistaken."
"Well, well, child," said Mr. Delancy, "this is curious, and a
little bewildering. Perhaps it is all just as you say about Irene;
but I feel very heavy here;" and he laid his hand on his breast and
sighed deeply.
At this moment the library door was pushed gently open, and the form
of a woman stood in the presence of Mr. Delancy and Rose. She was
dressed in a dark silk, but had on neither bonnet nor shawl. Both
started; Mr. Delancy raised his hands and bent forward, gazing at
her eagerly, his lips apart. The face of the woman was pale and
haggard, yet familiar as the face of an old friend; but in it was
something so strange and unnatural that for a moment or two it was
not recognized.