It isn't mere imagination: you
have real facts, of a kind; but what's the matter is that you choose
to take the facts in one way and not another. You select and arrange
until the thing is perfectly convincing. And yet, you know, in nine
cases out of ten it's simply a lie...! Oh! I can't explain all the
things, certainly. I can't explain, for instance, the pencil
affair--when it stood up on end before Laurie's eyes; that is, if it
did really stand up at all. He says himself that the whole thing seems
rather dim now, as if he had seen it in a very vivid dream. (Have one
of these sugar things?)
"Then there are the appearances Laurie saw; and the extraordinary
effect they finally had upon him. Oh! yes; at the time, on the night
of Easter Eve, I mean, I was absolutely certain that the thing was
real, that he was actually obsessed, that the thing--the Personality,
I mean--came at me instead, and that somehow I won. Mr. Cathcart tells
me I'm right--Well; I'll come to that presently. But if it didn't
happen, I certainly can't explain what did; but there are a good many
things one can't explain; and yet one doesn't instantly rush to the
conclusion that they're done by the devil.
Pages:
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362