The diamond eyes proved to him no fancy.
But for all this, we are afforded, by what subsequently occurred, some
means of explanation, which will be greedily laid hold of by minute
philosophers. Even then it was to have been feared that the seeds of
consumption had been deposited in favourable soil. In our difficulties
about explanations of mental phenomena, we readily flee to diseases of
the body, which, after all, only removes the mystery a step or two back
in the dark.
It remains for me to add some words of personal experience. A
considerable period after these occurrences, I had occasion--by a
connection with a medium through which Dewhurst received from his
father, whose fortunes had in the meantime failed, a petty allowance--to
be the bearer to him, now liberated, of a quarter's payment. I forget
the part of the town where I found him, but I have a distinct
remembrance of the room. It was a garret, almost entirely empty. He was
lying on a kind of bed spread upon the floor. There was a small grate,
with a handful of red cinders in it; only one chair, and a pot or pan or
two. There was a woman moving between him and the fireplace, as if she
had been preparing some warm drink or medicine of some kind for him. I
did not know then, but I knew afterwards, that that woman was she who
called upon him in prison, and deposited the small bottle of wine.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143