ARTIFICIAL SOMNAMBULISM. 191 



Put him on his knees and clasp his hands, and the saints 

 and devotees of the artists will pale before the trueness of 

 his devout actings. Raise his head while in prayer, and 

 his lips pour forth exulting glorifications, as he sees heaven 

 opened, and the majesty of God raising him to his place ; 

 then in a moment depress the head, and he is in dust and 

 ashes, an unworthy sinner, with the pit of hell yawning at 

 his feet. Or compress the forehead, so as to wrinkle it 

 vertically, and thorny-toothed clouds contract in from the 

 very horizon ' (in the subject's imagination, it will be under- 

 stood) ( and what is remarkable, the smallest pinch and 

 wrinkle, such as will lie between your nipping nails, is sufficient 

 nucleus to crystallise the man into that shape, and to make him 

 all foreboding, as, again, the smallest expansion in a moment 

 brings the opposite state, with a full breathing of delight.' 



Some will perhaps think the next instance the most 

 remarkable of all, perfectly natural though one half of the 

 performance may have been. The subject being a young 

 lady, the operator asks whether she or another is the 

 prettier, raising her head as he puts the question. * Ob- 

 serve,' says Dr. Wilkinson, the inexpressible hauteur, and 

 the puff sneers let off from the lips ' (see Darwin's treatise 

 on the ' Expression of the Emotions,' plate IV. i, and plate 

 V. i) ' which indicate a conclusion too certain to need utter- 

 ance. Depress the head, and repeat the question, and mark 

 the self-abasement with which she now says " She ts" as 

 hardly worthy to make the comparison.' 



In this state, in fact, ' whatever posture of any passion 

 is induced, the passion comes into it at once, and dramatises 

 the body accordingly.' 



It might seem that there must of necessity be some 

 degree of exaggeration in this description, simply because 

 the power of adequately expressing any given emotion is 

 not possessed by all. Some can in a moment bring any 

 expression into the face, or even simulate at once the ex- 

 pression and the aspect of another person, while many 

 persons, probably most, possess scarcely any power of the 



