We were even instructed in the elements of mind-culture, though it must be confessed our success was meagre. Clairvoyance and soul-projection were utterly beyond us, and even as hypnotic subjects we were both highly unsatisfactory. The professors complained of the difficulty of putting us asleep, though it's true they never entirely failed to do this, even at the first--that is, the most difficult trial, of which I retain a most agonising recollection. I think the difficulty of reducing me on that occasion was really responsible for the awful sense of mental strangulation I felt: it was like being surrounded by clouds of intense darkness, which seemed to _drench_ my brain and bring all thought to a frozen standstill. Poyning was hypnotised at the same time, and on comparing notes afterwards I found his symptoms had been pretty similar to my own. This the professors attributed, unflatteringly enough, not to the strength of our will power, but to the sluggishness of our wits: so unresponsive were we, they said, that they had to resort, as it were, to a sort of mental bludgeoning by sheer force. One consolation we had, however, and that was the rapid progress we made in the art of flight. And thereby hangs an episode which was to turn the whole stream of our fortunes. We had been learning to fly for some weeks now. Our great difficulty at first, I need hardly say, was to overcome our amazement at finding we actually could rise from the ground on wings, and even when we had got the better of this it was some time before we could bring ourselves to ascend to any height. There must have been always lurking at the back of our heads the notion that if we lost control, we should stand a better chance of escape by being at a low altitude. In point of fact, quite the reverse was really the case: greater experience would have told us, as the tutors did tell us, that a few hundred feet between us and earth would afford a breathing space in which to recover wing-purchase, whereas twenty feet would certainly not; but it must be remembered the art was utterly strange to us, and that we started handicapped with all the pedestrian prejudices of the biped without feathers. After a few days we gained confidence, and with this growing proficiency came to me at least a tremendous keenness for the sport. I wouldn't have missed my morning fly for all the rest of the day, for over and above its mere fascination it took us up into the bracing air of the higher levels, and by dint of the magnificent exercise it afforded, kept us in the very cream of condition and muscular strength. One morning, when we were beginning to manage our wings with some pretensions to skill, we were flying together over the school at about three hundred feet from the plain, when Poyning suddenly headed off towards the city. 'Where are you going?' I shouted. 'Home,' he yelled back. 'I want to see what our house looks like from up here.'