Nor
did grasp what was in his mind when he made me look out my 'ghost
journal,' as we called my record of each apparition reported in the
mullion chamber or the lawn, with marks to those about which we had
no reasonable doubt. Separately there might be explanation, but
conjointly and in connection with the date they had a remarkable
force.
'I am resolved,' said Clarence, 'to see whether that figure can have
a purpose. I have thought of it all those years. It has hitherto
had no fair play. I was too much upset by the sight, and beaten by
the utter incredulity of everybody else; but now I am determined to
look into it.'
There was both awe and resolution in his countenance, and I only
stipulated that he should not be alone, or with no more locomotive
companion than myself. Martyn was as old as I had been at our
former vigil, and a person to be relied on.
A few months ago he would have treated the matter as a curious
adventurous enterprise--a concession to superstition or imagination;
but now he took it up with much grave earnestness. He had been
discussing the evidence for such phenomena with friends at Oxford,
and the conclusion had been that they were at times permitted,
sometimes as warnings, sometimes to accomplish the redress of a
wrong, sometimes to teach us the reality of the spiritual world
about us; and, likewise, that some constitutions were more
susceptible than others to these influences.
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