I gave the _somnambule_ my hand, and the examination was commenced, forthwith. I was first physically inspected, and the report was highly favourable to the condition of the animal. I had the satisfaction of hearing from this high authority, that the whole machinery of the mere material man was in perfect order, everything working well and in its proper place. This was a little contrary to my own experience, it is true, but as I had no means of seeing the interior clock-work of my own frame, like the _somnambule_, had I ventured to raise a doubt, it would have been overturned by the evidence of one who had ocular proofs of what she said, and should, beyond question, have incurred the ridicule of being accounted a _malade imaginaire_. Modesty must prevent my recording all that this obliging _somnambule_ testified to, on the subject of my _morale_. Her account of the matter was highly satisfactory, and I must have been made of stone, not to credit her and her mysticisms. M. C---- looked at me again and again, with an air of triumph, as much as to say, "What do you think of all that now?--are you not _really_ the noble, honest, virtuous, disinterested, brave creature, she has described you to be?" I can assure you, it required no little self-denial to abstain from becoming a convert to the whole system. As it is very unusual to find a man with a good head, who has not a secret inclination to believe in phrenology, so does he, who is thus purified by the scrutiny of animal magnetism, feel disposed to credit its mysterious influence. Certainly, I might have gaped, in my turn, and commenced the moral and physical dissection of the _somnambule_, whose hand I held, and no one could have given me the lie, for nothing is easier than to speak _ex cathedra_, when one has a monopoly of knowledge.