"One of the children seems to have had a genius scarcely inferior to that
of Master Burke himself; there was no part nor passion she could not
enact. She would complain that the old Irish woman had tied an invisible
noose round her neck, and was choking her; and her complexion and features
would instantly assume the various hues and violent distortions natural to
a person in such a predicament. She would declare that an invisible chain
was fastened to one of her limbs, and would limp about precisely as though
it were really the case. She would say that she was in an oven; the
perspiration would drop from her face, and she would produce every
appearance of being roasted; then she would cry out that cold water was
being thrown upon her, and her whole frame would shiver and shake. She
pretended that the evil spirit came to her in the shape of an invisible
horse; and she would canter, gallop, trot, and amble round the rooms and
entries in such admirable imitation, that an observer could hardly believe
that a horse was not beneath her, and bearing her about. She would go up
stairs with exactly such a toss and bound as a person on horseback would
exhibit."
Such is a general summary of her feats as presented by this historian.
Does he believe that such things were actually performed either by or
through her? Does he believe that such were the literal facts even in
appearance? He nowhere, so far as we notice, till he sums up the case,
_distinctly_ charges fraud on the one side, or such credulity on the
other, as made witnesses falsify as to appearances. He seems to admit the
facts as _appearances_, and charge them all to the girl's extra cunning
and skillful acting. "She _pretended_ that the evil [?] spirit came to
her." Was it only her _pretense_? Who knows? Why say _pretended_? Was she
so generous as to give credit to another, and that other an "evil
spirit," for help which she did not receive? Are expert tricksters
accustomed to disown their own powers to astonish? Especially do they ever
spontaneously avow that the devil or any _evil spirit_ is helping them? We
think not. And yet it is stated that Martha Goodwin's own lips declared
that some invisible spirit was acting through her, or was helping her
perform her marvelous feats. Why call that a _pretense_, and make her a
liar? Why not put some confidence in the words of this religiously
educated girl?
The historian says that while she was residing with Mather, "the cunning
and ingenious child"--please mark the adjectives of the modern expounder,
applied by him to one whom the earlier records put among those who "had
been religiously educated and thought _to be without guile_"--"the cunning
and ingenious child," he says, "seems to have taken great delight in
perplexing and playing off her tricks upon the learned man. Once he wished
to say something in her presence to a third person, which he did not
intend she should understand. She had penetration enough to _conjecture_"
(why say _conjecture_?) "what he had said. He was amazed. He then tried
Greek; she was equally successful. He next spoke in Hebrew; she instantly
detected his meaning. He resorted to the Indian language, and that she
pretended not to know." Such are facts as deduced from Mather's account by
Upham and put forth by the latter, and which he attempts to account for by
supposition that the girl's own _conjectures_ enabled her to get at the
meaning of sentences put forth in languages of which she had no knowledge.
No doubt she was bright, but not competent to all that. Fancy and
imagination ply their wings needlessly when they rise from the ground of
fact and fly off to the lands of conjecture and pretense, thinking to
bring thence true solution of such a marvel. The girl avowed the presence
of a spirit with herself, and that he helped her. That explains the whole
transaction. Upon full separation from the body, each human mind loses all
knowledge of earth language, having no further use for it, because the
mind then enters conditions in which the thoughts of any other spirit,
whatsoever its native language, may be read at a glance. Whatever language
Mather might have spoken in, he would have been intelligible by any
disembodied spirit. For not words, but the thought, irrespective of its
dress, could be read. The Indian language she _pretended_ not to know.
Perhaps so; but probably that was no _pretense_. It is not probable that
the girl herself, as such, had much acquaintance with any other language
than English; any departed spirit who controlled her would have no
knowledge of any earth language whatsoever, nor need he have, for
unclothed thought was perceptible by him. A roguish mind behind the
scenes--and such a one may have played many a trick at the
parsonage--would be likely, at his own pleasure, to bother, astonish, or
confound the Rev. Polyglot by seeming either to comprehend or not, just
according to his own whims or varying moods as the play went on from step
to step. Mather's attempt to conceal his meaning from the girl might very
naturally be amusing to the thought-reading intellect then lurking in and
controlling the girl's organs, and quite as naturally would incite him to
play the wag a while. Martha neither _conjectured_ nor _pretended_ at all;
she was then quiescent, while other eyes looked through hers and saw what
was inside the mill-stone.
We have stated essentially that each mortal upon departing from this life
enters into conditions where human language is not only not needed, but is
unusable; therefore we may be asked how returning spirits can possibly
speak to us in our language, which is no longer at their command. They
measurably rechange or change back their conditions when they reconnect
themselves with a mortal form; they then come back to where earth language
is needful, and where fitting instrumentality for revival of knowledge and
use of such language exist. They, however, do not reconnect themselves
with their own former forms, nor often with forms which they can use as
well as they formerly did their own; in many, very many instances, those
who, in their own forms, were eminent for polished diction and fervid
eloquence, either get such slight control or get hold of such rickety or
such rigid vocal apparatus, that they can make no perceptible
approximation to their former productions. The reincarnated spirit is a
somewhat mystical being, half spirit, half man, and as a spirit can read
the thoughts of man, and as man can use human language.
Flattery was sometimes poured over the minister through the lips of
Martha, with a lavishness indicative of its flowing from some ensconsed
waggish spirit, amusing himself by tickling the vanity of the egotistical
black coat, much more than from a guileless miss speaking to her
consequential minister.