Algernon Blackwood

“ This was his attitude: “The supernatural may exist. Why not? We cannot know. But we can watch.” His eyes and brain, at any rate, were proved in good condition.
He watched. No change of focus, no magnifying or diminishing, came again. For some weeks he noticed nothing unusual of any kind, except that his mind often filled now with Eastern pictures. Their sudden irruption caught his attention, but no more than that; they were sometimes blurred and sometimes vivid; he had never been in the East; he attributed them to his constant thinking of his brother, missing in Mesopotamia these six months. ”

“ It seemed foolish suddenly as he told it. “How very odd,” observed the oculist vaguely, “dear me, yes, curious indeed. But that’s nothing. H’m, h’m!” Either it was no concern of his, or he deemed it negligible.⁠ ⁠... His only other confidant was a friend of psychological tendencies who was interested and eager to explain. It is on the instant plausible explanation of anything and everything that the reputation of such folk depends; this one was true to type: “A spontaneous invention, my dear fellow⁠—a pictorial rendering of your thought. You are a painter, aren’t you? ”

“ The fly was of normal size once more. He hastily flicked it out of the window.
An hour later he was talking with the famous oculist in Harley Street⁠ ⁠... about the advisability of starting reading-glasses. He found it difficult to relate the rest. A curious shyness restrained him.
“Your optic nerves might belong to a man of twenty,” was the verdict. “Both are perfect. But at your age it is wise to save the sight as much as possible. ”

“ Your painter’s psychology saw the child ‘disappopping.’ That’s all.”
“And the fly?” but the fly was easily explained, since it was merely the process reversed. “Once a process has established itself in your mind, you see, it may act in either direction. When a madman says ‘I’m afraid Smith will do me an injury,’ it means, ‘I will do an injury to Smith,’ ” And he repeated with finality, “That’s it.” ”

“ Love, hate and fear experienced sudden intensification, or abrupt dwindling into nothing; the familiar everyday emotions, commonplace daily acts, suffered exaggerated enlargement, or reduction into insignificance, that threatened the stability of his personality. ”

“ Twice this happened to him, once with an individual, his brother’s child, and once with a landscape, an Eastern stage scene. Both occurrences were within the week, during which time he had been considering a visit to the oculist, though without putting his decision into execution. He was the kind of man that dreaded doctors, dentists, oculists, always postponing, always finding reasons for delay. He found reasons now, the chief among them being an unwelcome one⁠—that it was perhaps a brain specialist, rather than an oculist, he ought to consult. ”