I was comforted, however, on finding that I could
control the motion of my fingers at pleasure; but my imagination was too
active to stop there. What if I should forget how to direct my hands?
What if they should refuse to obey me? What if my knees, which were just
as still as the hymn-books in the rack before me, should cease to bend,
and I should sit there forever? These very questions seemed to produce a
temporary paralysis of the will. As my right hand lay quietly on my
knee, and I asked myself, with a stupid wonder, "Now, can I move it?" it
lay as still as before. I had only questioned, not willed. "No I cannot
move it," I said, in real doubt I was conscious of a blind sense of
exertion, wherein there was yet no proper exertion, but which seemed to
exhaust me. Fascinated by this new mystery, I contemplated my hand as
something apart from myself,--something subordinate to, but not
identical with, me. The rising of the congregation for the hymn broke
the spell, like the snapping of a thread.
The reader will readily understand that I carried these experiences much
farther. I gradually learned to suspend (perhaps in imagination only,
but therefore none the less really) the action of my will upon the
muscles of my arms and legs; and I did it with the greater impunity,
from knowing that the stir consequent upon the conclusion of the
services would bring me to myself.
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