But he had intellect, and
imagination which is simply intellect etherealised. Without these, with
his peculiar mental constitution, he would, for instance, probably have
been a religious sceptic; having them, he was nothing of the sort. So
in this matter of his experience of the previous night, and generally of
the strange and almost unnatural sympathy in which he found himself
with this lady, common sense and the results of his observation and
experience pointed to the whole thing being nonsense--the result of
"propinquity, Sir, propinquity," and a pretty face--and nothing more.
But here his intellect and his imagination stepped in, telling him
plainly that it was not nonsense, that he had not merely made a donkey
of himself over an hysterical, or possibly a love-sick girl. They told
him that because a thing is a mystery it is not necessarily a folly,
though mysteries are for the most part dealt in by fools. They suggested
that there may be many things and forces above us and around us,
invisible as an electric current, intangible as light, yet existent and
capable of manifestation under certain rare and favourable conditions.
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