In Oomalefa it was impossible to conceal the source of the degeneration. The specialised families of the medical council knew where to apply their investigatory instruments. Even with their own eyes and ears and electric sense they could often detect the exact nesting-place of the intrusive microbes; for though to my muddy senses their bodies were as opaque as my own, except for a certain pellucid light which illuminated the skin and made the complexion so beautiful, the processes of life seemed an open book to their acute observation. Their hearing could detect any change in the normal beat of the heart and even the passage of the blood in the veins, which, Thyriel has told me, sounded like the liquid rhythm of mountain-rills. Their eyes could see through the skin the delicate veinings underneath and detect every nervous or muscular effort. Their magnetic sense could tell them whether thought or emotion was developing in the centres or passing along the nerves. The very casing of the brain seemed to them to be semi-transparent, and they were conscious, though dimly, of the movements of even the finer tissues, non-existent to my senses except under the microscope. Hence it was that each Limanoran had an isolated dwelling-place for himself. It would have been impossible for him to find rest or sleep close to the living and unresting functions of another human system; and it was only the rhythm of the movements and sounds of all the organs and processes which made proximity to one another tolerable. I have often seen Thyriel in raptures over the noble harmony of a healthy and virtuous personality; to her ear the pulsations and other sounds were like a majestic piece of music; to her eye the rush and hurry of the vital processes were not unlike the motions of the starry system of night; whilst the exhilaration through the electric sense from the speeding thoughts and emotions of a sound mind in a sound body was at times ecstatic. The nobler the soul that she was conscious of in her neighbour, the keener was her enjoyment of proximity. It was this that made only the purest and greatest minds in the healthiest bodies admissible to the medical families or council. There was a curative power in their very presence.