I
March 24. The spring is fairly with us now. Outside my laboratory
window the great chestnut-tree is all covered with the big, glutinous,
gummy buds, some of which have already begun to break into little green
shuttlecocks. As you walk down the lanes you are conscious of the
rich, silent forces of nature working all around you. The wet earth
smells fruitful and luscious. Green shoots are peeping out everywhere.
The twigs are stiff with their sap; and the moist, heavy English air is
laden with a faintly resinous perfume. Buds in the hedges, lambs
beneath them--everywhere the work of reproduction going forward!
I can see it without, and I can feel it within. We also have our
spring when the little arterioles dilate, the lymph flows in a brisker
stream, the glands work harder, winnowing and straining. Every year
nature readjusts the whole machine. I can feel the ferment in my blood
at this very moment, and as the cool sunshine pours through my window I
could dance about in it like a gnat. So I should, only that Charles
Sadler would rush upstairs to know what was the matter. Besides, I
must remember that I am Professor Gilroy. An old professor may afford
to be natural, but when fortune has given one of the first chairs in
the university to a man of four-and-thirty he must try and act the part
consistently.
What a fellow Wilson is! If I could only throw the same enthusiasm
into physiology that he does into psychology, I should become a Claude
Bernard at the least. His whole life and soul and energy work to one
end. He drops to sleep collating his results of the past day, and he
wakes to plan his researches for the coming one. And yet, outside the
narrow circle who follow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for
it. Physiology is a recognized science. If I add even a brick to the
edifice, every one sees and applauds it. But Wilson is trying to dig
the foundations for a science of the future. His work is underground
and does not show. Yet he goes on uncomplainingly, corresponding with
a hundred semi-maniacs in the hope of finding one reliable witness,
sifting a hundred lies on the chance of gaining one little speck of
truth, collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting,
lecturing, trying to light up in others the fiery interest which is
consuming him. I am filled with wonder and admiration when I think of
him, and yet, when he asks me to associate myself with his researches,
I am compelled to tell him that, in their present state, they offer
little attraction to a man who is devoted to exact science. If he
could show me something positive and objective, I might then be tempted
to approach the question from its physiological side. So long as half
his subjects are tainted with charlatanerie and the other half with
hysteria we physiologists must content ourselves with the body and
leave the mind to our descendants.
No doubt I am a materialist. Agatha says that I am a rank one. I tell
her that is an excellent reason for shortening our engagement, since I
am in such urgent need of her spirituality. And yet I may claim to be
a curious example of the effect of education upon temperament, for by
nature I am, unless I deceive myself, a highly psychic man. I was a
nervous, sensitive boy, a dreamer, a somnambulist, full of impressions
and intuitions. My black hair, my dark eyes, my thin, olive face, my
tapering fingers, are all characteristic of my real temperament, and
cause experts like Wilson to claim me as their own. But my brain is
soaked with exact knowledge. I have trained myself to deal only with
fact and with proof. Surmise and fancy have no place in my scheme of
thought. Show me what I can see with my microscope, cut with my
scalpel, weigh in my balance, and I will devote a lifetime to its
investigation. But when you ask me to study feelings, impressions,
suggestions, you ask me to do what is distasteful and even
demoralizing. A departure from pure reason affects me like an evil
smell or a musical discord.
Which is a very sufficient reason why I am a little loath to go to
Professor Wilson's tonight. Still I feel that I could hardly get out
of the invitation without positive rudeness; and, now that Mrs. Marden
and Agatha are going, of course I would not if I could. But I had
rather meet them anywhere else. I know that Wilson would draw me into
this nebulous semi-science of his if he could. In his enthusiasm he is
perfectly impervious to hints or remonstrances. Nothing short of a
positive quarrel will make him realize my aversion to the whole
business. I have no doubt that he has some new mesmerist or
clairvoyant or medium or trickster of some sort whom he is going to
exhibit to us, for even his entertainments bear upon his hobby. Well,
it will be a treat for Agatha, at any rate. She is interested in it,
as woman usually is in whatever is vague and mystical and indefinite.
10.50 P. M. This diary-keeping of mine is, I fancy, the outcome of
that scientific habit of mind about which I wrote this morning. I like
to register impressions while they are fresh. Once a day at least I
endeavor to define my own mental position. It is a useful piece of
self-analysis, and has, I fancy, a steadying effect upon the character.
Frankly, I must confess that my own needs what stiffening I can give
it. I fear that, after all, much of my neurotic temperament survives,
and that I am far from that cool, calm precision which characterizes
Murdoch or Pratt-Haldane. Otherwise, why should the tomfoolery which I
have witnessed this evening have set my nerves thrilling so that even
now I am all unstrung? My only comfort is that neither Wilson nor Miss
Penclosa nor even Agatha could have possibly known my weakness.
And what in the world was there to excite me? Nothing, or so little
that it will seem ludicrous when I set it down.
The Mardens got to Wilson's before me. In fact, I was one of the last
to arrive and found the room crowded. I had hardly time to say a word
to Mrs. Marden and to Agatha, who was looking charming in white and
pink, with glittering wheat-ears in her hair, when Wilson came
twitching at my sleeve.
"You want something positive, Gilroy," said he, drawing me apart into a
corner. "My dear fellow, I have a phenomenon--a phenomenon!"
I should have been more impressed had I not heard the same before. His
sanguine spirit turns every fire-fly into a star.
"No possible question about the bona fides this time," said he, in
answer, perhaps, to some little gleam of amusement in my eyes. "My
wife has known her for many years. They both come from Trinidad, you
know. Miss Penclosa has only been in England a month or two, and knows
no one outside the university circle, but I assure you that the things
she has told us suffice in themselves to establish clairvoyance upon an
absolutely scientific basis. There is nothing like her, amateur or
professional. Come and be introduced!"
I like none of these mystery-mongers, but the amateur least of all.
With the paid performer you may pounce upon him and expose him the
instant that you have seen through his trick. He is there to deceive
you, and you are there to find him out. But what are you to do with
the friend of your host's wife? Are you to turn on a light suddenly
and expose her slapping a surreptitious banjo? Or are you to hurl
cochineal over her evening frock when she steals round with her
phosphorus bottle and her supernatural platitude? There would be a
scene, and you would be looked upon as a brute. So you have your
choice of being that or a dupe. I was in no very good humor as I
followed Wilson to the lady.
Any one less like my idea of a West Indian could not be imagined. She
was a small, frail creature, well over forty, I should say, with a
pale, peaky face, and hair of a very light shade of chestnut. Her
presence was insignificant and her manner retiring. In any group of
ten women she would have been the last whom one would have picked out.
Her eyes were perhaps her most remarkable, and also, I am compelled to
say, her least pleasant, feature. They were gray in color,--gray with
a shade of green,--and their expression struck me as being decidedly
furtive. I wonder if furtive is the word, or should I have said
fierce? On second thoughts, feline would have expressed it better. A
crutch leaning against the wall told me what was painfully evident when
she rose: that one of her legs was crippled.
So I was introduced to Miss Penclosa, and it did not escape me that as
my name was mentioned she glanced across at Agatha. Wilson had
evidently been talking. And presently, no doubt, thought I, she will
inform me by occult means that I am engaged to a young lady with
wheat-ears in her hair. I wondered how much more Wilson had been
telling her about me.
"Professor Gilroy is a terrible sceptic," said he; "I hope, Miss
Penclosa, that you will be able to convert him."
She looked keenly up at me.
"Professor Gilroy is quite right to be sceptical if he has not seen any
thing convincing," said she. "I should have thought," she added, "that
you would yourself have been an excellent subject."
"For what, may I ask?" said I.
"Well, for mesmerism, for example."
"My experience has been that mesmerists go for their subjects to those
who are mentally unsound. All their results are vitiated, as it seems
to me, by the fact that they are dealing with abnormal organisms."
"Which of these ladies would you say possessed a normal organism?" she
asked. "I should like you to select the one who seems to you to have
the best balanced mind. Should we say the girl in pink and
white?--Miss Agatha Marden, I think the name is."
"Yes, I should attach weight to any results from her."
"I have never tried how far she is impressionable. Of course some
people respond much more rapidly than others. May I ask how far your
scepticism extends? I suppose that you admit the mesmeric sleep and
the power of suggestion."
"I admit nothing, Miss Penclosa."
"Dear me, I thought science had got further than that. Of course I
know nothing about the scientific side of it. I only know what I can
do. You see the girl in red, for example, over near the Japanese jar.
I shall will that she come across to us."
She bent forward as she spoke and dropped her fan upon the floor. The
girl whisked round and came straight toward us, with an enquiring look
upon her face, as if some one had called her.
"What do you think of that, Gilroy?" cried Wilson, in a kind of ecstasy.
I did not dare to tell him what I thought of it. To me it was the most
barefaced, shameless piece of imposture that I had ever witnessed. The
collusion and the signal had really been too obvious.
"Professor Gilroy is not satisfied," said she, glancing up at me with
her strange little eyes. "My poor fan is to get the credit of that
experiment. Well, we must try something else. Miss Marden, would you
have any objection to my putting you off?"
"Oh, I should love it!" cried Agatha.
By this time all the company had gathered round us in a circle, the
shirt-fronted men, and the white-throated women, some awed, some
critical, as though it were something between a religious ceremony and
a conjurer's entertainment. A red velvet arm-chair had been pushed
into the centre, and Agatha lay back in it, a little flushed and
trembling slightly from excitement. I could see it from the vibration
of the wheat-ears. Miss Penclosa rose from her seat and stood over
her, leaning upon her crutch.
And there was a change in the woman. She no longer seemed small or
insignificant. Twenty years were gone from her age. Her eyes were
shining, a tinge of color had come into her sallow cheeks, her whole
figure had expanded. So I have seen a dull-eyed, listless lad change
in an instant into briskness and life when given a task of which he
felt himself master. She looked down at Agatha with an expression
which I resented from the bottom of my soul--the expression with which
a Roman empress might have looked at her kneeling slave. Then with a
quick, commanding gesture she tossed up her arms and swept them slowly
down in front of her.
I was watching Agatha narrowly. During three passes she seemed to be
simply amused. At the fourth I observed a slight glazing of her eyes,
accompanied by some dilation of her pupils. At the sixth there was a
momentary rigor. At the seventh her lids began to droop. At the tenth
her eyes were closed, and her breathing was slower and fuller than
usual. I tried as I watched to preserve my scientific calm, but a
foolish, causeless agitation convulsed me. I trust that I hid it, but
I felt as a child feels in the dark. I could not have believed that I
was still open to such weakness.
"She is in the trance," said Miss Penclosa.
"She is sleeping!" I cried.
"Wake her, then!"
I pulled her by the arm and shouted in her ear. She might have been
dead for all the impression that I could make. Her body was there on
the velvet chair. Her organs were acting--her heart, her lungs. But
her soul! It had slipped from beyond our ken. Whither had it gone?
What power had dispossessed it? I was puzzled and disconcerted.
"So much for the mesmeric sleep," said Miss Penclosa. "As regards
suggestion, whatever I may suggest Miss Marden will infallibly do,
whether it be now or after she has awakened from her trance. Do you
demand proof of it?"
"Certainly," said I.
"You shall have it." I saw a smile pass over her face, as though an
amusing thought had struck her. She stooped and whispered earnestly
into her subject's ear. Agatha, who had been so deaf to me, nodded her
head as she listened.
"Awake!" cried Miss Penclosa, with a sharp tap of her crutch upon the
floor. The eyes opened, the glazing cleared slowly away, and the soul
looked out once more after its strange eclipse.
We went away early. Agatha was none the worse for her strange
excursion, but I was nervous and unstrung, unable to listen to or
answer the stream of comments which Wilson was pouring out for my
benefit. As I bade her good-night Miss Penclosa slipped a piece of
paper into my hand.
"Pray forgive me," said she, "if I take means to overcome your
scepticism. Open this note at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. It is a
little private test."
I can't imagine what she means, but there is the note, and it shall be
opened as she directs. My head is aching, and I have written enough
for to-night. To-morrow I dare say that what seems so inexplicable
will take quite another complexion. I shall not surrender my
convictions without a struggle.
March 25. I am amazed, confounded. It is clear that I must reconsider
my opinion upon this matter. But first let me place on record what has
occurred.
I had finished breakfast, and was looking over some diagrams with which
my lecture is to be illustrated, when my housekeeper entered to tell me
that Agatha was in my study and wished to see me immediately. I
glanced at the clock and saw with sun rise that it was only half-past
nine.
When I entered the room, she was standing on the hearth-rug facing me.
Something in her pose chilled me and checked the words which were
rising to my lips. Her veil was half down, but I could see that she
was pale and that her expression was constrained.
"Austin," she said, "I have come to tell you that our engagement is at
an end."
I staggered. I believe that I literally did stagger. I know that I
found myself leaning against the bookcase for support.
"But--but----" I stammered. "This is very sudden, Agatha."
"Yes, Austin, I have come here to tell you that our engagement is at an
end."
"But surely," I cried, "you will give me some reason! This is unlike
you, Agatha. Tell me how I have been unfortunate enough to offend you."
"It is all over, Austin."
"But why? You must be under some delusion, Agatha. Perhaps you have
been told some falsehood about me. Or you may have misunderstood
something that I have said to you. Only let me know what it is, and a
word may set it all right."
"We must consider it all at an end."
"But you left me last night without a hint at any disagreement. What
could have occurred in the interval to change you so? It must have
been something that happened last night. You have been thinking it
over and you have disapproved of my conduct. Was it the mesmerism?
Did you blame me for letting that woman exercise her power over you?
You know that at the least sign I should have interfered."
"It is useless, Austin. All is over:"
Her voice was cold and measured; her manner strangely formal and hard.
It seemed to me that she was absolutely resolved not to be drawn into
any argument or explanation. As for me, I was shaking with agitation,
and I turned my face aside, so ashamed was I that she should see my
want of control.
"You must know what this means to me!" I cried. "It is the blasting of
all my hopes and the ruin of my life! You surely will not inflict such
a punishment upon me unheard. You will let me know what is the matter.
Consider how impossible it would be for me, under any circumstances, to
treat you so. For God's sake, Agatha, let me know what I have done!"
She walked past me without a word and opened the door.
"It is quite useless, Austin," said she. "You must consider our
engagement at an end." An instant later she was gone, and, before I
could recover myself sufficiently to follow her, I heard the hall-door
close behind her.
I rushed into my room to change my coat, with the idea of hurrying
round to Mrs. Marden's to learn from her what the cause of my
misfortune might be. So shaken was I that I could hardly lace my
boots. Never shall I forget those horrible ten minutes. I had just
pulled on my overcoat when the clock upon the mantel-piece struck ten.
Ten! I associated the idea with Miss Penclosa's note. It was lying
before me on the table, and I tore it open. It was scribbled in pencil
in a peculiarly angular handwriting.
"MY DEAR PROFESSOR GILROY [it said]: Pray excuse the personal nature
of the test which I am giving you. Professor Wilson happened to
mention the relations between you and my subject of this evening, and
it struck me that nothing could be more convincing to you than if I
were to suggest to Miss Marden that she should call upon you at
half-past nine to-morrow morning and suspend your engagement for half
an hour or so. Science is so exacting that it is difficult to give a
satisfying test, but I am convinced that this at least will be an
action which she would be most unlikely to do of her own free will.
Forget any thing that she may have said, as she has really nothing
whatever to do with it, and will certainly not recollect any thing
about it. I write this note to shorten your anxiety, and to beg you to
forgive me for the momentary unhappiness which my suggestion must have
caused you.
"Yours faithfully;
"HELEN PENCLOSA.
Really, when I had read the note, I was too relieved to be angry. It
was a liberty. Certainly it was a very great liberty indeed on the
part of a lady whom I had only met once. But, after all, I had
challenged her by my scepticism. It may have been, as she said, a
little difficult to devise a test which would satisfy me.
And she had done that. There could be no question at all upon the
point. For me hypnotic suggestion was finally established. It took
its place from now onward as one of the facts of life. That Agatha,
who of all women of my acquaintance has the best balanced mind, had
been reduced to a condition of automatism appeared to be certain. A
person at a distance had worked her as an engineer on the shore might
guide a Brennan torpedo. A second soul had stepped in, as it were, had
pushed her own aside, and had seized her nervous mechanism, saying: "I
will work this for half an hour." And Agatha must have been
unconscious as she came and as she returned. Could she make her way in
safety through the streets in such a state? I put on my hat and
hurried round to see if all was well with her.
Yes. She was at home. I was shown into the drawing-room and found her
sitting with a book upon her lap.
"You are an early visitor, Austin," said she, smiling.
"And you have been an even earlier one," I answered.
She looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"You have not been out to-day?"
"No, certainly not."
"Agatha," said I seriously, "would you mind telling me exactly what you
have done this morning?"
She laughed at my earnestness.
"You've got on your professional look, Austin. See what comes of being
engaged to a man of science. However, I will tell you, though I can't
imagine what you want to know for. I got up at eight. I breakfasted
at half-past. I came into this room at ten minutes past nine and began
to read the 'Memoirs of Mme. de Remusat.' In a few minutes I did the
French lady the bad compliment of dropping to sleep over her pages, and
I did you, sir, the very flattering one of dreaming about you. It is
only a few minutes since I woke up."
"And found yourself where you had been before?"
"Why, where else should I find myself?"
"Would you mind telling me, Agatha, what it was that you dreamed about
me? It really is not mere curiosity on my part."
"I merely had a vague impression that you came into it. I cannot
recall any thing definite."
"If you have not been out to-day, Agatha, how is it that your shoes are
dusty?"
A pained look came over her face.
"Really, Austin, I do not know what is the matter with you this
morning. One would almost think that you doubted my word. If my boots
are dusty, it must be, of course, that I have put on a pair which the
maid had not cleaned."
It was perfectly evident that she knew nothing whatever about the
matter, and I reflected that, after all, perhaps it was better that I
should not enlighten her. It might frighten her, and could serve no
good purpose that I could see. I said no more about it, therefore, and
left shortly afterward to give my lecture.
But I am immensely impressed. My horizon of scientific possibilities
has suddenly been enormously extended. I no longer wonder at Wilson's
demonic energy and enthusiasm. Who would not work hard who had a vast
virgin field ready to his hand? Why, I have known the novel shape of a
nucleolus, or a trifling peculiarity of striped muscular fibre seen
under a 300-diameter lens, fill me with exultation. How petty do such
researches seem when compared with this one which strikes at the very
roots of life and the nature of the soul! I had always looked upon
spirit as a product of matter. The brain, I thought, secreted the
mind, as the liver does the bile. But how can this be when I see mind
working from a distance and playing upon matter as a musician might
upon a violin? The body does not give rise to the soul, then, but is
rather the rough instrument by which the spirit manifests itself. The
windmill does not give rise to the wind, but only indicates it. It was
opposed to my whole habit of thought, and yet it was undeniably
possible and worthy of investigation.
And why should I not investigate it? I see that under yesterday's date
I said: "If I could see something positive and objective, I might be
tempted to approach it from the physiological aspect." Well, I have
got my test. I shall be as good as my word. The investigation would,
I am sure, be of immense interest. Some of my colleagues might look
askance at it, for science is full of unreasoning prejudices, but if
Wilson has the courage of his convictions, I can afford to have it
also. I shall go to him to-morrow morning--to him and to Miss
Penclosa. If she can show us so much, it is probable that she can show
us more.