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Inquiries into Human Faculty
where previously there had been vacant space. Then a well-known
rectory, fish-ponds, walls, etc., all covered with snow, came into view
most vividly and clearly defined. This somehow suggested another view,
impressed on his mind in childhood, of a spring morning, brilliant sun,
and a bed of red tulips: the tulips gradually vanished except one, which
appeared now to be isolated and to stand in ‘the usual point of sight. It
was a single tulip, but became double. The petals then fell off rapidly in a
continuous series until there was nothing left but: the pistil (3), but (as is
almost invariably the case with his objects) that part was greatly
exaggerated. The stigmas then changed into three branching brown horns
(4); then into a knob (5), while the stalk changed into a stick. A slight
bend in it seems to have suggested a centre-bit (6); this passed into a sort
of
pin passing through a metal plate (7), this again into a lock (8), and
afterwards into a nondescript shape (9), distantly suggestive of the
original cross-bow. Here Mr. Henslow endeavoured to force his will upon
the visions, and to reproduce the cross-bow, but the first attempt was an
utter failure. The figure changed into a leather strap with loops (10), but
while he still endeavoured to change it into a bow the strap broke, the two
ends were separated, but it happened that an imaginary string connected
them (11). This was the first concession of his automatic chain of thoughts
to his will. By a continued effort the bow came (12), and then no
difficulty was felt in converting it into the cross-bow, and thus returning
to the starting-point.
Fig. 71. Mr. Henslow writes
“Though I can usually summon up any object thought of; it not only is somewhat
different from the real thing, but it rapidly changes. The changes are in many cases clearly
due to a suggestiveness in the article of something else, but not always so, as in some cases
hereafter described. It is not at all necessary to think of any particular object at first, as
something is sure to come spontaneously within a minute or two. Some object having once
appeared, the automatism of the brain will rapidly induce the series of changes. The
images are sometimes very numerous, and very rapid in succession: very frequently of
great beauty and highly brilliant: Cut glass (far more elaborate than I am conscious of ever
having seen), highly chased gold
