In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan
are certain interesting entries having, possibly,
a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest
upon his body the book was not put in evidence; possibly
the coroner thought it not worth while to confuse
the jury. The date of the first of the entries
mentioned can not be ascertained; the upper part of
the leaf is torn away; the part of the entry remaining
is as follows:
“... would run in a half circle,
keeping his head turned always toward the centre and
again he would stand still, barking furiously.
At last he ran away into the brush as fast as he could
go. I thought at first that he had gone mad,
but on returning to the house found no other alteration
in his manner than what was obviously due to fear of
punishment.
“Can a dog see with his nose?
Do odors impress some olfactory centre with images
of the thing emitting them? . . .
“Sept 2. Looking
at the stars last night as they rose above the crest
of the ridge east of the house, I observed them successively
disappear from left to right. Each
was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at the
same time, but along the entire length of the ridge
all that were within a degree or two of the crest were
blotted out. It was as if something had passed
along between me and them; but I could not see it,
and the stars were not thick enough to define its outline.
Ugh! I don’t like this. . . .”
Several weeks’ entries are missing,
three leaves being torn from the book.
“Sep. It has
been about here again I find evidences of
its presence every day. I watched again all of
last night in the same cover, gun in hand, double-charged
with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints
were there, as before. Yet I would have sworn
that I did not sleep indeed, I hardly sleep
at all. It is terrible, insupportable! If
these amazing experiences are real I shall go mad;
if they are fanciful I am mad already.
“Oc. I shall
not go it shall not drive me away.
No, this is my house, my land. God hates
a coward....
“Oc. I can stand
it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few
weeks with me he has a level head.
I can judge from his manner if he thinks me mad.
“Oc. I have the
solution of the problem; it came to me last night suddenly,
as by revelation. How simple how terribly
simple!
“There are sounds that we can
not hear. At either end of the scale are notes
that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the
human ear. They are too high or too grave.
I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an
entire treetop the tops of several trees and
all in full song. Suddenly in a moment at
absolutely the same instant all spring
into the air and fly away. How? They could
not all see one another whole treetops
intervened. At no point could a leader have been
visible to all. There must have been a signal
of warning or command, high and shrill above the din,
but by me unheard. I have observed, too, the
same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among
not only blackbirds, but other birds quail,
for example, widely separated by bushes even
on opposite sides of a hill.
“It is known to seamen that
a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface
of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the
earth between them, will sometimes dive at the same
instant all gone out of sight in a moment.
The signal has been sounded too grave for
the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his comrades
on the deck who nevertheless feel its vibrations
in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred
by the bass of the organ.
“As with sounds, so with colors.
At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist can
detect the presence of what are known as ‘actinic’
rays. They represent colors integral
colors in the composition of light which
we are unable to discern. The human eye is an
imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves
of the real ‘chromatic scale’ I am not
mad; there are colors that we can not see.
“And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such
a color!”