And then the Duchess of Towers! She had been not only visible and
audible like the rest, but tangible as well, to the fullest extent of
the sensibility that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands held hers
I felt as though I were drawing all her life into mine.
With the exception of that one figure, all had evidently been as it
_had_ been in _reality_ a few years ago, to the very droning of an
insect, to the very fall of a blossom!
Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed the past, as I had longed
to do a few hours before.
What are sight and hearing and touch and the rest?
Five senses in all.
The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions of miles away, what are
they for us but mere shiny specks on a net-work of nerves behind the
eye? How does one _feel_ them there?
The sound of my friend's voice, what is it? The clasp of his hand, the
pleasant sight of his face, the scent of his pipe and mine, the taste of
the bread and cheese and beer we eat and drink together, what are they
but figments (stray figments, perhaps) of the brain--little thrills
through nerves made on purpose, and without which there would be no
stars, no pipe, no bread and cheese and beer, no voice, no friend,
no me?
And is there, perchance, some sixth sense embedded somewhere in the
thickness of the flesh--some survival of the past, of the race, of our
own childhood even, etiolated by disuse? or some rudiment, some effort
to begin, some priceless hidden faculty to be developed into a future
source of bliss and consolation for our descendants? some nerve that now
can only be made to thrill and vibrate in a dream, too delicate as yet
to ply its function in the light of common day?
And was I, of all people in the world--I, Peter Ibbetson, architect and
surveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville--most futile, desultory, and
uneducated dreamer of dreams--destined to make some great psychical
discovery?
Pondering deeply over these solemn things, I sent myself to sleep again,
as was natural enough--but no more to dream.
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