"It _seemed_ to me that I should experience no alarm; but of this in advance of actual experience, I could not be assured. Now I know just how far I can trust my self-possession. Awe I undoubtedly felt--awe and intense interest; but, in looking back on my feelings throughout that wonder-bringing hour, I feel certain that a physician might have placed his finger on my wrist, even at the moment when that dimly illuminated Presence first bent over me, with scarcely six inches intervening between its veiled face and mine--its hands placed on my head, its lips touching my shoulder--and not have found the beatings of my pulse unduly accelerated; or if he had detected acceleration, it could not, I am very sure, have been justly ascribed to any tremor or fear, but solely to the natural effect of solemn and riveted expectation. If a man, under such circumstances, may trust to his own recollections not twenty-four hours old, I can aver, on my honor, that I was not, at any time while these events were in progress, under other excitement (though it may be greater in degree) than a chemist might be supposed to experience while watching the issue of a long-projected and decisive experiment, or an astronomer when the culminating point of some important observation is about to be reached. "I beg it may not be supposed that I mention this as boasting or courage. There was, in truth, nothing of which to boast. The preceding and attendant circumstances were such as to preclude alarm. I was not alone, nor taken by surprise. I was expecting some phenomena and hoping that they would be of a phosphorescent nature. And though I had not any expectation of seeing an actual form, yet, as the allegation was that a deceased sister, beloved by one of the assistants, was present, and as all the demonstrations were gentle and seemingly arranged by friendly agencies to satisfy my desire for the strongest evidence in proof of Spiritual appearance, I was under very different circumstances to those which have often shaken the nerves even of the boldest, while encountering for the first time what is usually called a ghost. "I state the fact of my equanimity, then, merely as one of the attendant circumstances which may be fairly taken into account in judging the testimony here supplied in proof of the appearance, in visible and tangible form, of an alleged Spirit of a deceased person. It is often assumed that a man who believes he sees an apparition is (to use a common expression) frightened out of his senses, and so, is not entitled to credit as a witness.