Often, in the retirement of a small closet, I spent hours in total darkness, lying prostrate on the floor, beating the waves of the mysterious Infinite that rolled in a stormy flood over me, and with prayers and tears beseeching deliverance from my blindness and seeming unbelief. Then, when by my earnestness the spirit had become stronger than the flesh, I would gradually fall into a deep trance, from which I would arise strengthened and consoled by the assurance--from whence I could not tell--that somewhere in the future I should find all the life, and light, and freedom that my soul desired. The only evidence or knowledge which those around me received of such visitations was occasionally a poem--some of them written so early in life, that the childish chirography rendered them almost illegible. Because of these early productions, it has been asserted that my claim to any individual spirit-influence was either a falsehood or delusion. I will only say in reply, that there is no need of entering upon any argument on the subject. I claim both a general and particular inspiration. They do not, by any means, conflict; and what I do not receive from one, comes from the other. For the very reason that I have natural poetic tendencies, I attract influences of a kindred nature; and when I desire it, or they will to do so, they cast their characteristic inspirations upon me, and I give them utterance according to my ability. It is often as difficult to decide what is the action of one’s own intellect and what is spirit-influence, as it is in our ordinary associations to determine what is original with ourselves and what we have received from circumstances or contact with the mind of others. Yet, nevertheless, there are cases where the distinction is so evident that it is not to be doubted. Only one or two such well-attested instances is sufficient to establish the theory. I am not willing to ignore one faculty or power of my being for the sake of proving a favorite idea; and, on the contrary, I cannot conscientiously deny that, in the mysteries of my inner life, I have been acted upon decidedly and directly by disembodied intelligences, and this, sometimes, by an inspiration characteristic of the individual, or by a psychological influence similar to that whereby mind acts upon mind in the body. Under such influences I have not necessarily lost my individuality, or become wholly unconscious. I was, for the time being, like a harp in the hands of superior powers, and just in proportion as my entire nature was attuned to thrill responsive to their touch, did I give voice and expression to their unwritten music. They furnished the inspiration, but it was of necessity modified by the nature and character of the instrument upon which they played, for the most skilful musician cannot change the tone of a harp to the sound of a trumpet, though he may give a characteristic expression of himself through either.