Slight and
ethereal as it seems, the limitations of time and space have no
existence within its folds. This hall--these hundreds of faces,
encompassing her within so narrow an amphitheatre--are of thinner
substance, in her view, than the airiest vapor that the clouds are
made of. She beholds the Absolute!"
As preliminary to other and far more wonderful psychological
experiments, the exhibitor suggested that some of his auditors should
endeavor to make the Veiled Lady sensible of their presence by such
methods--provided only no touch were laid upon her person--as they
might deem best adapted to that end. Accordingly, several
deep-lunged country fellows, who looked as if they might have blown
the apparition away with a breath, ascended the platform. Mutually
encouraging one another, they shouted so close to her ear that the
veil stirred like a wreath of vanishing mist; they smote upon the
floor with bludgeons; they perpetrated so hideous a clamor, that
methought it might have reached, at least, a little way into the
eternal sphere. Finally, with the assent of the Professor, they laid
hold of the great chair, and were startled, apparently, to find it
soar upward, as if lighter than the air through which it rose. But
the Veiled Lady remained
seated and motionless, with a composure that was hardly less than
awful, because implying so immeasurable a distance betwixt her and
these rude persecutors.
"These efforts are wholly without avail," observed the Professor, who
had been looking on with an aspect of serene indifference.
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