Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/311

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INTO THE DARK

it this way. Do you think that dark glasses could ever make that change?'

"Once again, Doctor, there ran through me the little chill which I had felt on hearing Dalton emphasize the detail of his dinner. Burton was right; he no longer was the same man, and as I realized this and was able to look with clear sight far into his future I felt for the moment as if I had tampered with the man's soul. We are what we are by virtue of our senses, Doctor, for it is through them that we give and receive and translate and modify and perform the various functions and evolve the phenomena, the sum of which is known as life. Of these senses sight is perhaps the one through which we receive the most and must keep on receiving, to fulfil the constant demand of the dependencies of this sense, and just as the nature of a man is rounded and made fuller and finer and greater by that which he sees, so must it shrivel and wane when this tributary of the soul is cut off.

"It is, of course, unnecessary to state that

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