The second sight

"It was fascinating to study those varied faces, and speculate on the histories written in mysterious hieroglyphics over them. They had all their inner, secret lives, those men and women, known to no one but themselves and God. Others could only guess at them, and Emily loved this game of guessing. At times it seemed veritably to her that it was more than guessing - that in some intense moments she could pass into their souls and read therein hidden motives and passions that were, perhaps, a mystery even to their possessors. It was never easy for Emily to resist the temptation to do this when the power came, although she never yielded to it without an uneasy feeling she was committing trespass. It was quite a different thing from soaring on the wings of fancy into an ideal world of creation - quite different from the exquisite, unearthly beauty of "the flash"; neither of these gave her any moments of pause or doubt. But to slip on tiptoe through some momentarily unlatched door, as it were, and catch a glimpse of masked, unuttered, unutterable things in the hearts and souls of others, was something that always brought, along with its sense of power, a sense of the forbidden - a sense even of sacrilege. Yet Emily did not know if she would ever be able to resist the allure of it - she had always peered through the door and seen the things before she realized that she was doing it. They were nearly always terrible things. Secrets are generally terrible. Beauty is not often hidden - only ugliness and deformity." 


L.M. Montgomery, "Emily Climbs," pp. 39-40