Unseen

“ This sudden "becoming aware" in broad daylight of a living presence unseen is even more disquieting than that sensation which, in absolute darkness, makes one halt all breathlessly before great solid objects, whose proximity has been revealed by some mute blind emanation of force alone. ”

“ It rises so silently into the visible world from the unseen depths that one cannot but feel some illusion of sentiment thrown over it, some disclosure of truth escaping with it from the darkness beneath. ”

“ And thus, unless the minds of men are particularly directed to the impressions of sight, objects pass perpetually before the eyes without conveying any impression to the brain at all; and so pass actually unseen, not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense of the word, unseen. ”

“ The candle lighted, we again reconnoitred—nothing to be seen in dressing-room, bed-room, or the drawing-room beyond, the door of which was shut. But the curious sense of a presence near us—stronger than any feeling of the kind I had ever previously experienced—was gone. You have all felt the presence of another person unseen. ”

“ I've always had this curious difficulty in realising actual things, such as whether I have shut a door or not, or whether I have put a jewel away in its case properly. It has always been quite easy for me to realise unseen things—such as a death or a fire that has not yet occurred, or any sort of scene at which I have not been present. ”

“ Nobody can ever tell me again that there’s an instinct which feels the presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within arm’s-length of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate emotions. ”

“ The visions which come to him in his dreams, and the sounds which he fancies himself to hear, are those of the Unseen. And as he is always brooding upon his dreams and relating them to his friends, he necessarily dreams the more, until it becomes difficult for him to draw a line between the dream and the reality. ”

“ Of these problems and their connection with others in the unseen depths beyond, you are not yet in a position properly to judge, but before many years a new sense will be given you or a development of latent senses by the removal of those more gross, and a partial insight into an unsuspected unseen, into a realm to you at present unknown. ”

“ So we fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. ”

“ Everything exists in the unseen before it is manifested or realized in the seen, and in this sense it is true that the unseen things are the real, while the things that are seen are the unreal. The unseen things are cause ”

“ Such a world would not consist of ethers or gases or ghosts, but of purely psychical relations akin to such as constitute thoughts and feelings when our minds are least solicited by sense-perceptions. In thus marking off the "Unseen World" from the objective universe of which we have knowledge, our line of demarcation would at least be drawn in the right place. ”

“ Principal Caird, nevertheless, ascribes to this imaging of the Unseen a special value and significance, regarding it as furnishing an objective counterpart to religious emotion, permanent but plastic—capable of indefinite change and purification in response to the changing moods and aspirations of mankind. ”

“ Spirit photographs and spirit materialisations and abnormal visions or abnormal sounds amount to very little, if we look upon them as an end in themselves, and not as the symbols and the earnest of those greater things which "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." ”

“ They come and go, their eyes meet yours with a cold stare, for a moment their features are written on your mind, and then they are gone for ever. You will never see them again; they will never see you again; they come up out of the unknown, and presently they once more vanish into the unknown, taking their secrets with them. ”

“ But in reality each one was a dark, blind, eager wave urging blindly forward, dark with the same homogeneous desire. And all their talk and all their behaviour was sham, they were dressed-up creatures. She was reminded of the Invisible Man, who was a piece of darkness made visible only by his clothes. ”

“ Did I then see all, or might not other images in the same series emerge at some later time and the connection be lost? If I had written a tale and had imagined an inner room, an old mother, an absent son, a family trouble, might I not all the while be still adventuring in another's life? While we think we are imagining a character we may, so marvellous are the hidden ways, be really interpreting a being actually existing, brought into psychic contact with us by some affinity of sentiment or soul. ”

“ But what after all is the character of these pleasures upon which there is such a high estimate placed? They are all vain and empty as a bubble on the wave. They are like a dream which assumes all the appearance of reality, till we awake from our slumber and discover the deception. ”

“ No shadows! Nothing real! No assurance of reality! only the dark—unbroken, formless, fearful; the dark which like grief, and forgetfulness, and selfishness, fives for itself only, without regard for the pain or joy or suffering of others; all the world else shut out; a fearful, shadowless thing in which all the beautiful realities of life are lost and blotted out. ”

“ There are times and tones and moods of nature that make all the vulgar, daily real seem shadowy, vague, and supernatural, as if the outlines of this hard material present were fading into the invisible and unknown. ”

“ An invisible something was in the air,—a sense of that vast supernatural which is deeply centered at the core of the natural universe,—a grave mystery which seemed to envelop all visible things with a sudden shadow of premonitory fear. ”

“ We have to depend on the recollection of the observer's passing glimpse of spirit lights, of the hearing of the rustle of spirit garments, the touch, in the dark, of unknown bodies. Exquisite scents, strange draperies, human forms have appeared seemingly out of nothing, and have returned whence they came unrecorded by photography, unweighed, unanalysed. ”

“ No, but to be convicted and exposed, to be shamed out of our nonsense of all kinds, and made men of, instead of ghosts and phantoms. We are weary of gliding ghostlike through the world, which is itself so slight and unreal. We crave a sense of reality, though it come in strokes of pain. ”

“ Strange, certainly, that meeting in the woods, but not more strange than his own arrival in the nick of time. The world itself is strange, and the combinations, the possibilities, infinite. All is strange, mysterious, improbable. ”

“ Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair! ”

“ Thus it is whenever the mind begins, unconsciously, to admit the shadow of the Supernatural; the Obvious is lost to the eye that plunges its gaze into the Obscure. Almost immediately afterwards you become acquainted with a young stranger, whose traits of character interest and perplex, attract yet revolt you. All this time you are engaged in a physiological work which severely tasks the brain, and in which you examine the intricate question of soul distinct from mind. ”

“ If you look for a minute, not much caring whether you see anything or not, and then turn away, and get your eye dazzled with all those vulgar, crude, high colours round about you here on earth, it is very little that you will see of ‘the things that are not seen.’ Concentrated attention, and a steadfast look, are wanted to make the invisible visible. ”

“ If, indeed, the realities not reflected became unrealities, were annihilated, then there would be some sense in veiling those portions of the mirror in front of which certain features of our life are exposed. ”

“ Nor were we to imagine less of waking dreams, trances, visions, noises, hints, impulses, and all the waking testimonies of an invisible world, and of the communication that there is between us and them, which commonly entertain us with our open eyes. ”

“ Was it possible that the mere sight of a human face, never beheld before, could disturb the whole tenor of my life,—a stranger of whose mind and character I knew nothing, whose very voice I had never heard? ”

“ How trying are the moments when we wait in utter darkness, the explanation of some mystery which is inexplicable to us. What a thousand and one fancies rush through our brain, as we attempt to penetrate what is impenetrable! ”

“ And as I dressed and prepared once more to mingle with the people and the surroundings of bright reality, I made a vow never again to try and penetrate into that other world, remote, mysterious, beyond the grave! Never again to show even curiosity about the life of those spirits which inhabit that world ”

“ Then hanging upon image after image of those deploring strains, and appropriating all their melancholy, intensified through the lens of his own dark imagination, he would sink from one depth of wretchedness to another, till he seemed lost away, where no ray of light could ever penetrate, or plummet sound. ”

“ Something like a skin of horror almost perceptibly drew down in that moment over every face, and three pairs of eyes shone through it as though they saw across the frontiers of normal vision into the Unknown. ”

“ I saw it vividly, as though in our progress through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and the sudden revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flames within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had approached nearer to absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery. ”

“ With that clarity of vision that comes to a man perhaps once in a lifetime, he saw, even in the all-pervading darkness, the shadowy face that was pressed close to his own. The eyes that looked into his were dim pools of evil light, faintly phosphorescent like those of a cat, and the face that framed them was contorted into a malignant leer of triumph. ”

“ A new perception of the unperceived relationship of things; a new perception of the invisible splendours lying unnoticed around us, becomes for the moment almost startlingly visible. Such hours are the only really countable ones, the chief solace of existence, the one clear reason, one is tempted to say, of our poor encumbered, stunted little lives. ”

“ But it is not thus when the young imagination finds for the first time that things are not what they seem. When the veneering drops off, the sight is ugly in the extreme, and the sensation a chilling one. ”

“ He dropped into silence, puzzled and in a way awed by the mystery enveloping her—a mystery of aloofness and stoniness, of complete separation from the contact of the world—the mystery that incloses all whose real life is lived deep within themselves. ”

“ Then the illumination in my brain ceased, the picture vanished, and I was startled, for I had seen no hillside like that, no distant mountains, no giants in brazen armour in picture or theatre, and I began a speculation which soon ended because childhood keeps no prolonged meditation. I may take this as a type of vision common to most people. Either when they sit in darkness, or with closed eyes, or as they drift into sleep or awaken from sleep, they pass through strange cities, float in the air, roam through woods, have adventures with people who are not the people they meet every day. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, that no feeble vision, no half-visible ghost, not the momentary glance of an unbodied being, nor the half-audible voice of an invisible one, would be created by the continual workings of distress on a mind so depraved and flinty. ”

“ That is indeed the secret of the visitor's expectant feeling and disappointment—the vague vision of a vastness and grandeur and desolateness almost preternatural, conceived in childhood, which all the experience of a long life of disillusionment has been powerless to eradicate from the mind, or to replace with a mental picture more in accord with the reality. ”

“ The moment we look at matters in this light, the uncanniness and magical character of our impressions cease, especially when we remember that we can think over again at will any one of those alien thoughts. ”

“ The sounds of men and beasts carry over long distance, drifting in among the trees, and the loneliness of the vast, empty earth comes back to us,—what is forgotten in the rush of the sunshine,—the constant loom of the mystery. ”

“ My failing sight now only discerns vague and shadowy outlines. It is enough. Shadowy as they are, their beauty is ever present. What I fail to see, memory, those eyes of the brain, supplies. Rarely in my daily visits do I find any one here. Few people seem to understand or appreciate the beauty of these cloisters. They are like a hermit in the desert, living apart from the world. ”

“ But it wouldn't do to reckon much on anyone's not having seen you, because if there's one place in the world in which every man's ears and eyes are apt to be jolly well open it's out there in the slimy darkness of No Man's Land. ”

“ Those widely staring eyes, so lustreless and so glassy that he had better borne to see them than think upon them, appeared in the midst of the darkness: light in themselves, but giving light to nothing. ”

“ Somewhere, somehow, when and where you least expect, unconscious, perhaps, to its owner, unrecognized by the many, visible only to the clear vision, somewhere, somehow, the soul bursts asunder its bonds. ”