“Yes, and neither mortal nor spirit could make me think otherwise. But tell me where I shall look for her.”
The young man lifted the black hand to his white forehead and pressed the palm there for a moment, and then, with a sigh, laid it gently on the table, and said: “It is of no use. I get confused impressions,—nothing clear and forcible. Why have you not consulted me before about your wife?”
“Because, first, I wished to leave it to you to find out what I wanted; and this you have done at last. Secondly, I did not think I could trust you, or rather the intelligences that might speak through you. But you have been more candid than I expected. You have not pretended, as you often do, to more knowledge than you really possess.”
“The reason is, that I am now admitted into a state where I can look down on myself as from a higher plane; so that I feel like a different being from myself, and must distinguish between me, as I now am, and him as he usually is. Do you know what is truly the hell of evil-doers? It is to see themselves as they are, and God as he is.[[40]] These tame preachers rave about hell-fire and lakes of sulphur. What poor, feeble, halting imaginations they have. Better beds of brimstone than a couch of down on which one lies seeing what he might have been, but isn’t,—then seeing what he is! But pardon me; your mind is preoccupied with the business on which you came. You are anxious and impatient.”
“Can you tell me,” asked Peek, “what it is about?”
The clairvoyant folded his arms, and, bending down his head, seemed for a minute lost in contemplation. Then looking up (if that can be said of him while his external eyes were closed), he remarked: “The bloodhound will put you through. Only persevere.”
“And is that all you can tell me?” inquired Peek.
“Yes. Why do you seem disappointed?”
“Because you merely give me the reflection of what is in my own mind. You offer me no information which may not have come straight from your own power of thought-reading. You show me no proof that your promise may not be simply the product of my own sanguine calculations.”
“I cannot tell you how it is,” replied the clairvoyant; “I say what I am impressed to say. I cannot argue the point with you, for I have no reasons to give.”