A Presentiment by William Dean Howells

Over our coffee in the Turkish room Minver was usually a censor of our / several foibles rather than a sharer in our philosophic speculations / and metaphysical conjectures. He liked to disable me as one / professionally vowed to the fabulous, and he had unfailing fun with / the romantic sentimentality of Rulledge, which was in fact so little / in keeping with the gross super-abundance of his person, his habitual / gluttony, and his ridiculous indolence. Minver knew very well that / Rulledge was a good fellow withal, and would willingly do any kind / action that did not seriously interfere with his comfort, or make too / heavy a draft upon his pocket. His self-indulgence, which was quite / blameless, unless surfeit is a fault, was the basis of an interest in / occult themes, which was the means of even higher diversion to Minver. / He liked to have Rulledge approach Wanhope from this side, in the / invincible persuasion that the psychologist would be interested in / these themes by the law of his science, though he had been assured / again and again that in spite of its misleading name psychology did / not deal with the soul as Rulledge supposed the soul; and Minver's / eyes lighted up with a prescience of uncommon pleasure when, late one / night, after we had vainly tried to hit it off in talk, now of this, / now of that, Rulledge asked Wanhope, abruptly as if it followed from / something before:

"Wasn't there a great deal more said about presentiments forty or / fifty years ago than there is now?"