They wait for no introduction; they
are no Englishmen; ask no leave of age or rank; they respect neither
poverty nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but
intrude, and come again, and go through and through you, in a moment of
time. What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul
into another through them! The glance is natural magic. The mysterious
communication established across a house between two entire strangers
moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in
the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the
bodily symbol of identity of nature. We look into the eyes to know if
this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a
faithful confession what inhabitant is there. The revelations are
sometimes terrific. The confession of a low, usurping devil is there
made, and the observer shall seem to feel the stirring of owls, and
bats, and horned hoofs, where he looked for innocence and simplicity.
'Tis remarkable, too, that the spirit that appears at the windows of the
house does at once invest himself in a new form of his own to the mind
of the beholder.
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