He advanced; he knew that he advanced, that the gross wall of sense was wearing thin beneath the attacks of his out-thrown soul; that even if they were not drawn, from time to time the black curtains swung aside in the swift, pure breath of his continual prayers. Moreover, the dead drew near to him at moments, or he drew near the dead. Even in his earthly brain he could feel their awful presence as wave by wave soft, sweet pulses of impression beat upon him and passed through him. Through and through him they passed till his brow ached, and every nerve of his body tingled, as though it had become the receiver of some mysterious current that stirred his blood with what was not akin to it, and summoned to his mind strange memories and foresights. Visions came also that he could not define, to slip from his frantic grasp like wet sand through the fingers of a drowning man. More and more frequently, and with an ever increasing completeness, did this unearthly air, blowing from a shore no human foot has trod, breathe through his being and possess him, much as some faint wind which we cannot feel may be seen to possess an aspen tree so that it turns white and shivers when every other natural thing is still. And as that aspen turns white and shivers in this thin, impalpable air, so did his spirit blanch and quiver with joy and dread mingled mysteriously in the cup of his expectant soul. Again and again those sweet, yet sickening waves flowed over him, to leave him shaken and unnerved. At first they were rare visitors, single clouds floating across his calm, coming he knew not whence and vanishing he knew not whither. Now they drove in upon him like some scud, ample yet broken, before the wind, till at whiles, as it were, he could not see the face of the friendly, human sun. Then he was like a traveller lost in the mist upon a mountain top, sure of nothing, feeling precipices about him, hearing voices calling him, seeing white arms stretched out to lead him, yet running forward gladly because amid so many perils a fate was in his feet. Now, too, they came with an actual sense of wind. He would wake up at night even by his wife’s side and feel this unholy breath blowing ice-cold on his brow and upon the backs of his outstretched hands. Yet if he lit a candle it had no power to stir its flame; yes, while it still blew sharp upon him the flame of the candle did not move. Then the wind would cease, and within him the intangible, imponderable power would arise, and the voices would speak like the far, far murmur of a stream, and the thoughts which he could not weigh or interpret would soak into his being like some strange dew, and, soft, soft as falling snow, invisible feet would tread the air about him, till of a sudden a door in his brain seemed to shut, and he woke to the world again.