‘Quite right, sir, quite right; it’ll do for a makeshift, I’m bound to
say. But wait till you see what we’ll get up for you on your own
measure. Come, Tod, book and pen; get at it. Length of leg, 32’—and so
on. Before I could get in a word he had measured me, and was giving
orders for dress-suits, morning suits, shirts, and all sorts of things.
When I got a chance I said:
‘But, my dear sir, I _can’t_ give these orders, unless you can wait
indefinitely, or change the bill.’
‘Indefinitely! It’s a weak word, sir, a weak word. Eternally—_that’s_
the word, sir. Tod, rush these things through, and send them to the
gentleman’s address without any waste of time. Let the minor customers
wait. Set down the gentleman’s address and——’
‘I’m changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the new address.’
‘Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment—let me show you out, sir.
There—good day, sir, good day.’
Well, don’t you see what was bound to happen? I drifted naturally into
buying whatever I wanted, and asking for change. Within a week I was
sumptuously equipped with all needful comforts and luxuries, and was
housed in an expensive private hotel in Hanover Square. I took my
dinners there, but for breakfast I stuck by Harris’s humble
feeding-house, where I had got my first meal on my million-pound bill. I
was the making of Harris. The fact had gone all abroad that the foreign
crank who carried million-pound bills in his vest-pocket was the patron
saint of the place. That was enough. From being a poor, struggling,
little hand-to-mouth enterprise, it had become celebrated, and
overcrowded with customers. Harris was so grateful that he forced loans
upon me, and would not be denied; and so, pauper as I was, I had money
to spend, and was living like the rich and the great. I judged that
there was going to be a crash by and by, but I was in, now, and must
swim across or drown. You see there was just that element of impending
disaster to give a serious side, a sober side, yes, a tragic side, to a
state of things which would otherwise have been purely ridiculous. In
the night, in the dark, the tragedy part was always to the front, and
always warning, always threatening; and so I moaned and tossed, and
sleep was hard to find. But in the cheerful daylight the tragedy element
faded out and disappeared, and I walked on air, and was happy to
giddiness, to intoxication, you may say.
And it was natural; for I had become one of the notorieties of the
metropolis of the world, and it turned my head, not just a little, but a
good deal. You could not take up a newspaper, English, Scotch, or Irish,
without finding in it one or more references to the ‘vest-pocket
million-pounder’ and his latest doings and sayings. At first, in these
mentions, I was at the bottom of the personal gossip column; next, I was
listed above the knights, next above the baronets, next above the
barons, and so on, and so on, climbing steadily, as my notoriety
augmented, until I reached the highest altitude possible, and there I
remained, taking precedence of all dukes not royal, and of all
ecclesiastics except the Primate of all England. But, mind, this was not
fame; as yet I had achieved only notoriety. Then came the climaxing
stroke—the accolade, so to speak—which in a single instance transmuted
the perishable dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of fame:
‘Punch’ caricatured me! Yes, I was a made man, now: my place was
established. I might be joked about still, but reverently, not
hilariously, not rudely; I could be smiled at, but not laughed at. The
time for that had gone by. ‘Punch’ pictured me all a-flutter with rags,
dickering with a beefeater for the Tower of London. Well, you can
imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been taken notice
of before, and now all of a sudden couldn’t say a thing that wasn’t
taken up and repeated everywhere; couldn’t stir abroad without
constantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, ‘There he
goes; that’s him!’ couldn’t take his breakfast without a crowd to look
on; couldn’t appear in an opera-box without concentrating there the fire
of a thousand lorgnettes. Why, I just swam in glory all day long—that is
the amount of it.
You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and every now and then
appeared in them, so as to have the old pleasure of buying trifles, and
being insulted, and then shooting the scoffer dead with the
million-pound bill. But I couldn’t keep that up. The illustrated papers
made the outfit so familiar that when I went out in it I was at once
recognised and followed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase the
man would offer me his whole shop on credit before I could pull my note
on him.
About the tenth day of my fame I went to fulfil my duty to my flag by
paying my respects to the American minister. He received me with the
enthusiasm proper in my case, upbraided me for being so tardy in my
duty, and said that there was only one way to get his forgiveness, and
that was to take the seat at his dinner-party that night made vacant by
the illness of one of his guests. I said I would, and we got to talking.
It turned out that he and my father had been schoolmates in boyhood,
Yale students together later, and always warm friends up to my father’s
death. So then he required me to put in at his house all the odd time I
might have to spare, and I was very willing, of course.
In fact I was more than willing; I was glad. When the crash should come,
he might somehow be able to save me from total destruction; I didn’t
know how, but he might think of a way, maybe. I couldn’t venture to
unbosom myself to him at this late date, a thing which I would have been
quick to do in the beginning of this awful career of mine in London. No,
I couldn’t venture it now; I was in too deep; that is, too deep for me
to be risking revelations to so new a friend, though not clear beyond my
depth, as _I_ looked at it. Because, you see, with all my borrowing, I
was carefully keeping within my means—I mean within my salary. Of course
I couldn’t _know_ what my salary was going to be, but I had a good
enough basis for an estimate in the fact that, if I won the bet, I was
to have _choice_ of any situation in that rich old gentleman’s gift
provided I was competent—and I should certainly prove competent; I
hadn’t any doubt about that. And as to the bet, I wasn’t worrying about
that; I had always been lucky. Now, my estimate of the salary was six
hundred to a thousand a year; say, six hundred for the first year, and
so on up year by year, till I struck the upper figure by proved merit.
At present I was only in debt for my first year’s salary. Everybody had
been trying to lend me money, but I had fought off the most of them on
one pretext or another; so this indebtedness represented only £300
borrowed money, the other £300 represented my keep and my purchases. I
believed my second year’s salary would carry me through the rest of the
month if I went on being cautious and economical, and I intended to look
sharply out for that. My month ended, my employer back from his journey,
I should be all right once more, for I should at once divide the two
years’ salary among my creditors by assignment, and get right down to my
work.
It was a lovely dinner party of fourteen. The Duke and Duchess
of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady
Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl
and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite,
some untitled people of both sexes, the minister and his wife and
daughter, and his daughter’s visiting friend, an English girl of
twenty-two, named Portia Langham, whom I fell in love with in two
minutes, and she with me—I could see it without glasses. There was still
another guest, an American—but I am a little ahead of my story. While
the people were still in the drawing-room, whetting up for dinner, and
coldly inspecting the late comers, the servant announced:
‘Mr. Lloyd Hastings.’
The moment the usual civilities were over, Hastings caught sight of me,
and came straight with cordially outstretched hand; then stopped short
when about to shake, and said with an embarrassed look:
‘I beg your pardon, sir, I thought I knew you.’
‘Why, you do know me, old fellow.’
‘No! Are _you_ the—the——?’
‘Vest-pocket monster? I am, indeed. Don’t be afraid to call me by my
nickname; I’m used to it.’
‘Well, well, well, this is a surprise. Once or twice I’ve seen your own
name coupled with the nickname, but it never occurred to me that _you_
could be the Henry Adams referred to. Why, it isn’t six months since you
were clerking away for Blake Hopkins in Frisco on a salary, and sitting
up nights on an extra allowance, helping me arrange and verify the Gould
and Curry Extension papers and statistics. The idea of your being in
London, and a vast millionaire, and a colossal celebrity! Why, it’s the
Arabian Nights come again. Man, I can’t take it in at all; can’t realise
it; give me time to settle the whirl in my head.’
‘The fact is, Lloyd, you are no worse off than I am. I can’t realise it
myself.’
‘Dear me, it _is_ stunning, now, isn’t it? Why, it’s just three months
to-day since we went to the Miners’ restaurant——’
‘No; the What Cheer.’
‘Right, it _was_ the What Cheer; went there at two in the morning, and
had a chop and coffee after a hard six hours’ grind over those Extension
papers, and I tried to persuade you to come to London with me, and
offered to get leave of absence for you and pay all your expenses, and
give you something over if I succeeded in making the sale; and you would
not listen to me, said I wouldn’t succeed, and you couldn’t afford to
lose the run of business and be no end of time getting the hang of
things again when you got back home. And yet here you are. How odd it
all is! How did you happen to come, and whatever _did_ give you this
incredible start?’
‘Oh, just an accident. It’s a long story—a romance, a body may say. I’ll
tell you all about it, but not now.
‘When?’
‘The end of this month.’
‘That’s more than a fortnight yet. It’s too much of a strain on a
person’s curiosity. Make it a week.’
‘I can’t. You’ll know why, by and by. But how’s the trade getting
along?’
His cheerfulness vanished like a breath, and he said with a sigh:
‘You were a true prophet, Hal, a true prophet. I wish I hadn’t come. I
don’t want to talk about it.’
‘But you must. You must come and stop with me to-night, when we leave
here, and tell me all about it.’
‘Oh, may I? Are you in earnest?’ and the water showed in his eyes.
‘Yes; I want to hear the whole story, every word.’
‘I’m so grateful! Just to find a human interest once more, in some voice
and in some eye, in me and affairs of mine, after what I’ve been through
here—lord! I could go down on my knees for it!’
He gripped my hand hard, and braced up, and was all right and lively
after that for the dinner—which didn’t come off. No; the usual thing
happened, the thing that is always happening under that vicious and
aggravating English system—the matter of precedence couldn’t be settled,
and so there was no dinner. Englishmen always eat dinner before they go
out to dinner, because _they_ know the risks they are running; but
nobody ever warns the stranger, and so he walks placidly into the trap.
Of course nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner,
none of us being novices except Hastings, and he having been informed by
the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the
English custom he had not provided any dinner. Everybody took a lady and
processioned down to the dining-room, because it is usual to go through
the motions; but there the dispute began. The Duke of Shoreditch wanted
to take precedence, and sit at the head of the table, holding that he
outranked a minister who represented merely a nation and not a monarch;
but I stood for my rights, and refused to yield. In the gossip column I
ranked all dukes not royal, and said so, and claimed precedence of this
one. It couldn’t be settled, of course, struggle as we might and did, he
finally (and injudiciously) trying to play birth and antiquity, and I
‘seeing’ his Conqueror and ‘raising’ him with Adam, whose direct
posterity I was, as shown by my name, while _he_ was of a collateral
branch, as shown by _his_, and by his recent Norman origin; so we all
processioned back to the drawing-room again and had a perpendicular
lunch—plate of sardines and a strawberry, and you group yourself and
stand up and eat it. Here the religion of precedence is not so
strenuous; the two persons of highest rank chuck up a shilling, the one
that wins has first go at his strawberry, and the loser gets the
shilling. The next two chuck up, then the next two, and so on. After
refreshment, tables were brought, and we all played cribbage, sixpence a
game. The English never play any game for amusement. If they can’t make
something or lose something—they don’t care which—they won’t play.
We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was
so bewitched with her that I couldn’t count my hands if they went above
a double sequence; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and
started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every
time, only the girl did the same, she being in just my condition, you
see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why
we didn’t; we only just knew we were happy, and didn’t wish to know
anything else, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And I _told_ her—I did
indeed—told her I loved her; and she—well, she blushed till her hair
turned red, but she liked it; she _said_ she did. Oh, there was never
such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript; every time
she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same.
Why, I couldn’t even say, ‘Two for his heels,’ without adding, ‘_My_,
how sweet you do look!’ And she would say, ‘Fifteen two, fifteen four,
fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen—_do_ you think
so?’ peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and
cunning. Oh, it was just _too_-too!
Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her I hadn’t a
cent in the world but just the million-pound note she’d heard so much
talk about, and _it_ didn’t belong to me; and that started her
curiosity, and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right
from the start, and it nearly killed her, laughing. What in the nation
she could find to laugh about, _I_ couldn’t see, but there it was; every
half minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as
much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again.
Why, she laughed herself lame, she did indeed; I never saw anything like
it. I mean I never saw a painful story—a story of a person’s troubles
and worries and fears—produce just _that_ kind of effect before. So I
loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there
wasn’t anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind of
wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course I told her we should
have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but
she didn’t mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible
in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of
trenching on our third year’s pay. Then she began to get a little
worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the
salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was
good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been
feeling before; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it
frankly out.
‘Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when I confront
those old gentlemen?’
She shrank a little, but said:
‘N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But—would it be quite
proper, do you think?’
‘No, I don’t know that it would; in fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t; but,
you see, there’s so _much_ dependent upon it that——’
‘Then I’ll go anyway, proper or improper,’ she said, with a beautiful
and generous enthusiasm. ‘Oh, I shall be so happy to think I’m helping.’
‘Helping, dear? Why, you’ll be doing it all. You’re so beautiful, and so
lovely, and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up
till I break those good old fellows, and they’ll never have the heart to
struggle.’
Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes
shine!
‘You wicked flatterer! There isn’t a word of truth in what you say, but
still I’ll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other
people to look with your eyes.’
Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by
this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year
on the spot. But I didn’t tell her; I saved it for a surprise.
All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a
word. When he and I entered my parlour he brought me to myself with his
fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries.
‘Let me just stand here a little and look my fill! Dear me, it’s a
palace; it’s just a palace! And in it everything a body _could_ desire,
including cozy coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn’t
merely make me realise how rich you are; it makes me realise to the
bone, to the marrow, how poor I am—how poor I am—and how miserable, how
defeated, routed, annihilated!’
Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me
broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a half-inch
crust, with a crater underneath. _I_ didn’t know I had been
dreaming—that is, I hadn’t been allowing myself to know it for a while
back; but _now_—oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a
lovely girl’s happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me
but a salary which might never—oh, _would_ never—materialise! Oh, oh,
oh, I am ruined past hope; nothing can save me!
‘Henry, the mere unconsidered drippings of your daily income would——’
‘Oh, my daily income! Here, down with this hot Scotch, and cheer up your
soul. Here’s with you! Or, no—you’re hungry; sit down and——’
‘Not a bite for me; I’m past it. I can’t eat, these days; but I’ll drink
with you till I drop. Come!’
‘Barrel for barrel, I’m with you! Ready! Here we go! Now, then, Lloyd,
unreel your story while I brew.’
‘Unreel it? What, again?’
‘Again? What do you mean by that?’
‘Why, I mean do you want to hear it _over_ again?’
‘Do I want to hear it _over_ again? This _is_ a puzzler. Wait; don’t
take any more of that liquid. You don’t need it.’
‘Look here, Henry, you alarm me. Didn’t I tell you the whole story on
the way here?’
‘You?’
‘Yes, I.’
‘I’ll be hanged if I heard a word of it.’
‘Henry, this is a serious thing. It troubles me. What did you take up
yonder at the minister’s?’
Then it all flashed on me, and I owned up, like a man.
‘I took the dearest girl in this world—prisoner!’
So then he came with a rush, and we shook, and shook, and shook till our
hands ached; and he didn’t blame me for not having heard a word of a
story which had lasted while we walked three miles. He just sat down
then, like the patient, good fellow he was, and told it all over again.
Synopsised, it amounted to this: He had come to England with what he
thought was a grand opportunity; he had an ‘option’ to sell the Gould
and Curry Extension for the ‘locators’ of it, and keep all he could get
over a million dollars. He had worked hard, had pulled every wire he
knew of, had left no honest expedient untried, had spent nearly all the
money he had in the world, had not been able to get a solitary
capitalist to listen to him, and his option would run out at the end of
the month. In a word, he was ruined. Then he jumped up and cried out:
‘Henry, you can save me! You can save me, and you’re the only man in the
universe that can. Will you do it? _Won’t_ you do it?’
‘Tell me how. Speak out, my boy.’
‘Give me a million and my passage home for my ‘option’! Don’t, _don’t_
refuse!’
I was in a kind of agony. I was right on the point of coming out with
the words, ‘Lloyd, I’m a pauper myself—absolutely penniless, and in
_debt_!’ But a white-hot idea came flaming through my head, and I
gripped my jaws together, and calmed myself down till I was as cold as a
capitalist. Then I said, in a commercial and self-possessed way:
‘I will save you, Lloyd——’
‘Then I’m already saved! God be merciful to you for ever! If ever I——’
‘Let me finish, Lloyd. I will save you, but not in that way; for that
would not be fair to you, after your hard work, and the risks you’ve
run. I don’t need to buy mines; I can keep my capital moving, in a
commercial centre like London, without that; it’s what I’m at, all the
time; but here is what I’ll do. I know all about that mine, of course; I
know its immense value, and can swear to it if anybody wishes it. You
shall sell out inside of the fortnight for three millions cash, using my
name freely, and we’ll divide, share and share alike.’
Do you know, he would have danced the furniture to kindling-wood, in his
insane joy, and broken everything on the place, if I hadn’t tripped him
up and tied him.
Then he lay there, perfectly happy, saying:
‘I may use your name! Your name—think of it! Man, they’ll flock in
droves, these rich Londoners; they’ll _fight_ for that stock! I’m a made
man, I’m a made man for ever, and I’ll never forget you as long as I
live!’
In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn’t anything to
do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers:
‘Yes; I told him to refer to me. I know the man and I know the mine. His
character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks
for it.’
Meantime I spent all my evenings at the minister’s with Portia. I didn’t
say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked
salary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes love, sometimes
salary, sometimes love and salary together. And my! the interest the
minister’s wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless
ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the
minister in the dark and unsuspicious—well, it was just lovely of them!
When the month was up, at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in
the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way.
Dressed at my level best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged
by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on towards the
minister’s and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with
all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just
intolerably beautiful. I said:
‘Dearie, the way you’re looking it’s a crime to strike for a salary a
single penny under three thousand a year.’
‘Henry, Henry, you’ll ruin us!’
‘Don’t you be afraid. Just keep up those looks, and trust to me. It’ll
all come out right.’
So, as it turned out, I had to keep bolstering up _her_ courage all the
way. She kept pleading with me, and saying:
‘Oh, please remember that if we ask for too much we may get no salary at
all; and then what will become of us, with no way in the world to earn
our living?’
We were ushered in by that same servant, and there they were, the two
old gentlemen. Of course they were surprised to see that wonderful
creature with me, but I said:
‘It’s all right, gentlemen; she is my future stay and helpmate.’
And I introduced them to her, and called them by name. It didn’t
surprise them; they knew I would know enough to consult the directory.
They seated us, and were very polite to me, and very solicitous to
relieve her from embarrassment, and put her as much at her ease as they
could. Then I said:
‘Gentlemen, I am ready to report.’
‘We are glad to hear it,’ said _my_ man, ‘for now we can decide the bet
which my brother Abel and I made. If you have won for me, you shall have
any situation in my gift. Have you the million-pound note?’
‘Here it is, sir,’ and I handed it to him.
‘I’ve won!’ he shouted, and slapped Abel on the back. ‘_Now_ what do you
say, brother?’
‘I say he _did_ survive, and I’ve lost twenty thousand pounds. I never
would have believed it.’
‘I’ve a further report to make,’ I said, ‘and a pretty long one. I want
you to let me come soon, and detail my whole month’s history; and I
promise you it’s worth hearing. Meantime, take a look at that.’
‘What, man! Certificate of deposit for £200,000? Is it yours?’
‘Mine! I earned it by thirty days’ judicious use of that little loan you
let me have. And the only use I made of it was to buy trifles and offer
the bill in change.’
‘Come, this is astonishing! It’s incredible, man!’
‘Never mind, I’ll prove it. Don’t take my word unsupported.’
But now Portia’s turn was come to be surprised. Her eyes were spread
wide, and she said:
‘Henry, is that really your money? Have you been fibbing to me?’
‘I have indeed, dearie. But you’ll forgive me, _I_ know.’
She put up an arch pout, and said:
‘Don’t you be so sure. You are a naughty thing to deceive me so!’
‘Oh, you’ll get over it, sweetheart, you’ll get over it; it was only
fun, you know. Come, let’s be going.’
‘But wait, wait! The situation, you know. I want to give you the
situation,’ said my man.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m just as grateful as I can be, but really I don’t
want one.’
‘But you can have the very choicest one in my gift.’
‘Thanks again, with all my heart; but I don’t even want _that_ one.’
‘Henry, I’m ashamed of you. You don’t half thank the good gentleman. May
I do it for you?’
‘Indeed you shall, dear, if you can improve it. Let us see you try.’
She walked to my man, got up in his lap, put her arm round his neck, and
kissed him right on the mouth. Then the two old gentlemen shouted with
laughter, but I was dumfounded, just petrified, as you may say. Portia
said:
‘Papa, he has said you haven’t a situation in your gift that he’d take;
and I feel just as hurt as——’
‘My darling! is that your papa?’
‘Yes; he’s my step-papa, and the dearest one that ever was. You
understand now, don’t you, why I was able to laugh when you told me at
the minister’s, not knowing my relationships, what trouble and worry
papa’s and Uncle Abel’s scheme was giving you?’
Of course I spoke right up, now, without any fooling, and went straight
to the point.
‘Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said. You _have_
got a situation open that I want.’
‘Name it.’
‘Son-in-law.’
‘Well, well, well! But you know, if you haven’t ever served in that
capacity, you of course can’t furnish recommendations of a sort to
satisfy the conditions of the contract, and so——’
‘Try me—oh, do, I beg of you! Only just try me thirty or forty years,
and if——’
‘Oh, well, all right; it’s but a little thing to ask. Take her along.’
Happy, we too? There are not words enough in the unabridged to describe
it. And when London got the whole history, a day or two later, of my
month’s adventures with that bank-note, and how they ended, did London
talk, and have a good time? Yes.
My Portia’s papa took that friendly and hospitable bill back to the Bank
of England and cashed it; then the Bank cancelled it and made him a
present of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has always
hung in its frame in the sacredest place in our home, ever since. For it
gave me my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London, would
not have appeared at the minister’s, never should have met her. And so I
always say, ‘Yes, it’s a million-pounder, as you see; but it never made
but one purchase in its life, and _then_ got the article for only about
a tenth part of its value.’
_MENTAL TELEGRAPHY_
_A MANUSCRIPT WITH A HISTORY_
NOTE TO THE EDITOR.—By glancing over the enclosed bundle of rusty
old manuscript, you will perceive that I once made a great
discovery: the discovery that certain sorts of things which, from
the beginning of the world, had always been regarded as merely
‘curious coincidences’—that is to say, accidents—were no more
accidental than is the sending and receiving of a telegram an
accident. I made this discovery sixteen or seventeen years ago, and
gave it a name—‘Mental Telegraphy.’ It is the same thing around the
outer edges of which the Psychical Society of England began to grope
(and play with) four or five years ago, and which they named
‘Telepathy.’ Within the last two or three years they have penetrated
towards the heart of the matter, however, and have found out that
mind can act upon mind in a quite detailed and elaborate way over
vast stretches of land and water. And they have succeeded in doing,
by their great credit and influence, what I could never have
done—they have convinced the world that mental telegraphy is not a
jest, but a fact, and that it is a thing not rare, but exceedingly
common. They have done our age a service—and a very great service, I
think.
In this old manuscript you will find mention of an extraordinary
experience of mine in the mental telegraphic line, of date about the
year 1874 or 1875—the one concerning the Great Bonanza book. It was
this experience that called my attention to the matter under
consideration. I began to keep a record, after that, of such
experiences of mine as seemed explicable by the theory that minds
telegraph thoughts to each other. In 1878 I went to Germany and
began to write the book called _A Tramp Abroad_. The bulk of this
old batch of manuscript was written at that time and for that book.
But I removed it when I came to revise the volume for the press; for
I feared that the public would treat the thing as a joke and throw
it aside, whereas I was in earnest.
At home, eight or ten years ago, I tried to creep in under shelter
of an authority grave enough to protect the article from
ridicule—the _North American Review_. But Mr. Metcalf was too wary
for me. He said that to treat these mere ‘coincidences’ seriously
was a thing which the _Review_ couldn’t dare to do; that I must put
either my name or my _nom de plume_ to the article, and thus save
the _Review_ from harm. But I couldn’t consent to that; it would be
the surest possible way to defeat my desire that the public should
receive the thing seriously, and be willing to stop and give it some
fair degree of attention. So I pigeon-holed the MS., because I could
not get it published anonymously.
Now see how the world has moved since then. These small experiences
of mine, which were too formidable at that time for admission to a
grave magazine—if the magazine must allow them to appear as
something above and beyond ‘accidents’ and ‘coincidences’—are
trifling and commonplace now, since the flood of light recently cast
upon mental telegraphy by the intelligent labours of the Psychical
Society. But I think they are worth publishing, just to show what
harmless and ordinary matters were considered dangerous and
incredible eight or ten years ago.
As I have said, the bulk of this old manuscript was written in 1878;
a later part was written from time to time, two, three, and four
years afterwards. The ‘Postscript’ I add to-day.
May, ‘78.—Another of those apparently trifling things has happened to me
which puzzle and perplex all men every now and then, keep them thinking
an hour or two, and leave their minds barren of explanation or solution
at last. Here it is—and it looks inconsequential enough, I am obliged to
say. A few days ago I said: ‘It must be that Frank Millet doesn’t know
we are in Germany, or he would have written long before this. I have
been on the point of dropping him a line at least a dozen times during
the past six weeks, but I always decided to wait a day or two longer,
and see if we shouldn’t hear from him. But now I _will_ write.’ And so I
did. I directed the letter to Paris, and thought, ‘_Now_ we shall hear
from him before this letter is fifty miles from Heidelberg—it always
happens so.’
True enough; but _why_ should it? That is the puzzling part of it. We
are always talking about letters ‘crossing’ each other, for that is one
of the very commonest accidents of this life. We call it ‘accident,’ but
perhaps we misname it. We have the instinct a dozen times a year that
the letter we are writing is going to ‘cross’ the other person’s letter;
and if the reader will rack his memory a little he will recall the fact
that this presentiment had strength enough to it to make him cut his
letter down to a decided briefness, because it would be a waste of time
to write a letter which was going to ‘cross,’ and hence be a useless
letter. I think that in my experience this instinct has generally come
to me in cases where I had put off my letter a good while in the hope
that the other person would write.
Yes, as I was saying, I had waited five or six weeks; then I wrote but
three lines, because I felt and seemed to know that a letter from Millet
would cross mine. And so it did. He wrote the same day that I wrote. The
letters crossed each other. His letter went to Berlin, care of the
American minister, who sent it to me. In this letter Millet said he had
been trying for six weeks to stumble upon somebody who knew my German
address, and at last the idea had occurred to him that a letter sent to
the care of the embassy at Berlin might possibly find me.
Maybe it was an ‘accident’ that he finally determined to write me at the
same moment that I finally determined to write him, but I think not.
With me the most irritating thing has been to wait a tedious time in a
purely business matter, hoping that the other party will do the writing,
and then sit down and do it myself, perfectly satisfied that that other
man is sitting down at the same moment to write a letter which will
‘cross’ mine. And yet one must go on writing, just the same; because if
you get up from your table and postpone, that other man will do the same
thing, exactly as if you two were harnessed together like the Siamese
twins, and must duplicate each other’s movements.
Several months before I left home a New York firm did some work about
the house for me, and did not make a success of it, as it seemed to me.
When the bill came, I wrote and said I wanted the work perfected before
I paid. They replied that they were very busy, but that as soon as they
could spare the proper man the thing should be done. I waited more than
two months, enduring as patiently as possible the companionship of bells
which would fire away of their own accord sometimes when nobody was
touching them, and at other times wouldn’t ring though you struck the
button with a sledgehammer. Many a time I got ready to write and then
postponed it; but at last I sat down one evening and poured out my grief
to the extent of a page or so, and then cut my letter suddenly short,
because a strong instinct told me that the firm had begun to move in the
matter. When I came down to breakfast next morning the postman had not
yet taken my letter away, but the electrical man had been there, done
his work, and was gone again! He had received his orders the previous
evening from his employers, and had come up by the night train.
If that was an ‘accident,’ it took about three months to get it up in
good shape.
One evening last summer I arrived in Washington, registered at the
Arlington Hotel, and went to my room. I read and smoked until ten
o’clock; then, finding I was not yet sleepy, I thought I would take a
breath of fresh air. So I went forth in the rain, and tramped through
one street after another in an aimless and enjoyable way. I knew that
Mr. O——, a friend of mine, was in town, and I wished I might run across
him; but I did not propose to hunt for him at midnight, especially as I
did not know where he was stopping. Towards twelve o’clock the streets
had become so deserted that I felt lonesome; so I stepped into a cigar
shop far up the Avenue, and remained there fifteen minutes listening to
some bummers discussing national politics. Suddenly the spirit of
prophecy came upon me, and I said to myself, “Now I will go out at this
door, turn to the left, walk ten steps, and meet Mr. O—— face to face.’
I did it, too! I could not see his face, because he had an umbrella
before it, and it was pretty dark, anyhow, but he interrupted the man he
was walking and talking with, and I recognised his voice and stopped
him.
That I should step out there and stumble upon Mr. O—— was nothing, but
that I should know beforehand that I was going to do it was a good deal.
It is a very curious thing when you come to look at it. I stood far
within the cigar shop when I delivered my prophecy; I walked about five
steps to the door, opened it, closed it after me, walked down a flight
of three steps to the sidewalk, then turned to the left and walked four
or five more, and found my man. I repeat that in itself the thing was
nothing; but to know it would happen so beforehand, wasn’t that really
curious ?
I have criticised absent people so often, and then discovered, to my
humiliation, that I was talking with their relatives, that I have grown
superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it. How like an idiot
one feels after a blunder like that!
We are always mentioning people, and in that very instant they appear
before us. We laugh, and say, ‘Speak of the devil,’ and so forth, and
there we drop it, considering it an ‘accident.’ It is a cheap and
convenient way of disposing of a grave and very puzzling mystery. The
fact is, it does seem to happen too often to be an accident.
Now I come to the oddest thing that ever happened to me. Two or three
years ago I was lying in bed, idly musing, one morning—it was the 2nd of
March—when suddenly a red-hot new idea came whistling down into my camp,
and exploded with such comprehensive effectiveness as to sweep the
vicinity clean of rubbishy reflections, and fill the air with their dust
and flying fragments. This idea, stated in simple phrase, was that the
time was ripe and the market ready for a certain book; a book which
ought to be written at once; a book which must command attention and be
of peculiar interest—to wit, a book about the Nevada silver mines. The
‘Great Bonanza’ was a new wonder then, and everybody was talking about
it. It seemed to me that the person best qualified to write this book
was Mr. William H. Wright, a journalist of Virginia, Nevada, by whose
side I had scribbled many months when I was a reporter there ten or
twelve years before. He might be alive still; he might be dead; I could
not tell; but I would write him, anyway. I began by merely and modestly
suggesting that he make such a book; but my interest grew as I went on,
and I ventured to map out what I thought ought to be the plan of the
work, he being an old friend, and not given to taking good intentions
for ill. I even dealt with details, and suggested the order and sequence
which they should follow. I was about to put the manuscript in an
envelope, when the thought occurred to me that if this book should be
written at my suggestion, and then no publisher happened to want it, I
should feel uncomfortable; so I concluded to keep my letter back until I
should have secured a publisher. I pigeon-holed my document, and dropped
a note to my own publisher, asking him to name a day for a business
consultation. He was out of town on a far journey. My note remained
unanswered, and at the end of three or four days the whole matter had
passed out of my mind. On the 9th of March the postman brought three or
four letters, and among them a thick one whose superscription was in a
hand which seemed dimly familiar to me. I could not ‘place’ it at first,
but presently I succeeded. Then I said to a visiting relative who was
present:
‘Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you everything this letter
contains—date, signature, and all—without breaking the seal. It is from
a Mr. Wright, of Virginia, Nevada, and is dated March 2,—seven days ago.
Mr. Wright proposes to make a book about the silver mines and the Great
Bonanza, and asks what I, as a friend, think of the idea. He says his
subjects are to be so-and-so, their order and sequence so-and-so, and he
will close with a history of the chief feature of the book, the Great
Bonanza.’
I opened the letter, and showed that I had stated the date and the
contents correctly. Mr. Wright’s letter simply contained what my own
letter, written on the same date, contained, and mine still lay in its
pigeon-hole, where it had been lying during the seven days since it was
written.
There was no clairvoyance about this, if I rightly comprehend what
clairvoyance is. I think the clairvoyant professes to actually see
concealed writing, and read it off word for word. This was not my case.
I only seemed to know, and to know absolutely the contents of the letter
in detail and due order, but I had to _word_ them myself. I translated
them, so to speak, out of Wright’s language into my own.
Wright’s letter and the one which I had written to him but never sent
were in substance the same.
Necessarily this could not come by accident; such elaborate accidents
cannot happen. Chance might have duplicated one or two of the details,
but she would have broken down on the rest. I could not doubt—there was
no tenable reason for doubting—that Mr. Wright’s mind and mine had been
in close and crystal-clear communication with each other across three
thousand miles of mountain and desert on the morning of March 2. I did
not consider that both minds _originated_ that succession of ideas, but
that one mind originated them, and simply telegraphed them to the other.
I was curious to know which brain was the telegrapher and which the
receiver, so I wrote and asked for particulars. Mr. Wright’s reply
showed that his mind had done the originating and telegraphing and mine
the receiving. Mark that significant thing, now; consider for a moment
how many a splendid ‘original’ idea has been unconsciously stolen from a
man three thousand miles away! If one should question that this is so,
let him look into the Cyclopædia, and con once more that curious thing
in the history of inventions which has puzzled everyone so much—that is,
the frequency with which the same machine or other contrivance has been
invented at the same time by several persons in different quarters of
the globe. The world was without an electric telegraph for several
thousand years; then Professor Henry, the American, Wheatstone in
England, Morse on the sea, and a German in Munich, all invented it at
the same time. The discovery of certain ways of applying steam was made
in two or three countries in the same year. Is it not possible that
inventors are constantly and unwittingly stealing each other’s ideas
whilst they stand thousands of miles asunder?
Last spring a literary friend of mine,[1] who lived a hundred miles
away, paid me a visit, and in the course of our talk he said he had made
a discovery—conceived an entirely new idea—one which certainly had never
been used in literature. He told me what it was. I handed him a
manuscript, and said he would find substantially the same idea in that—a
manuscript which I had written a week before. The idea had been in my
mind since the previous November; it had only entered his while I was
putting it on paper, a week gone by. He had not yet written his; so he
left it unwritten, and gracefully made over all his right and title in
the idea to me.
Footnote 1:
W. D. Howells.
The following statement, which I have clipped from a newspaper, is true.
I had the facts from Mr. Howells’s lips when the episode was new:
‘A remarkable story of a literary coincidence is told of Mr. Howells’s
“Atlantic Monthly” serial, “Dr. Breen’s Practice.” A lady of Rochester,
New York, contributed to the magazine, after “Dr. Breen’s Practice” was
in type, a short story which so much resembled Mr. Howells’s that he
felt it necessary to call upon her and explain the situation of affairs
in order that no charge of plagiarism might be preferred against him. He
showed her the proof-sheets of his story, and satisfied her that the
similarity between her work and his was one of those strange
coincidences which have from time to time occurred in the literary
world.’
I had read portions of Mr. Howells’s story, both in manuscript and in
proof, before the lady offered her contribution to the magazine.
Here is another case. I clip it from a newspaper:
‘The republication of Miss Alcott’s novel “Moods” recalls to a writer in
the Boston Post a singular coincidence which was brought to light before
the book was first published: “Miss Anna M. Crane, of Baltimore,
published ‘Emily Chester,’ a novel which was pronounced a very striking
and strong story. A comparison of this book with ‘Moods’ showed that the
two writers, though entire strangers to each other, and living hundreds
of miles apart, had both chosen the same subject for their novels, had
followed almost the same line of treatment up to a certain point, where
the parallel ceased, and the dénouements were entirely opposite. And
even more curious, the leading characters in both books had identically
the same names, so that the names in Miss Alcott’s novel had to be
changed. Then the book was published by Loring.”’
Four or five times within my recollection there has been a lively
newspaper war in this country over poems whose authorship was claimed by
two or three different people at the same time. There was a war of this
kind over ‘Nothing to Wear,’ ‘Beautiful Snow,’ ‘Rock Me to Sleep,
Mother,’ and also over one of Mr. Will Carleton’s early ballads, I
think. These were all blameless cases of unintentional and unwitting
mental telegraphy, I judge.
A word more as to Mr. Wright. He had had his book in his mind some time;
consequently he, and not I, had originated the idea of it. The subject
was entirely foreign to my thoughts; I was wholly absorbed in other
things. Yet this friend, whom I had not seen and had hardly thought of
for eleven years, was able to shoot his thoughts at me across three
thousand miles of country, and fill my head with them, to the exclusion
of every other interest, in a single moment. He had begun his letter
after finishing his work on the morning paper—a little after three
o’clock, he said. When it was three in the morning in Nevada it was
about six in Hartford, where I lay awake thinking about nothing in
particular; and just about that time his ideas came pouring into my head
from across the continent, and I got up and put them on paper, under the
impression that they were my own original thoughts.
I have never seen any mesmeric or clairvoyant performances or spiritual
manifestations which were in the least degree convincing—a fact which is
not of consequence, since my opportunities have been meagre; but I am
forced to believe that one human mind (still inhabiting the flesh) can
communicate with another, over any sort of a distance, and without any
_artificial_ preparation of ‘sympathetic conditions’ to act as a
transmitting agent. I suppose that when the sympathetic conditions
happen to exist the two minds communicate with each other, and that
otherwise they don’t; and I suppose that if the sympathetic conditions
could be kept up right along, the two minds would continue to correspond
without limit as to time.
Now there is that curious thing which happens to everybody: suddenly a
succession of thoughts or sensations flock in upon you, which startles
you with the weird idea that you have ages ago experienced just this
succession of thoughts or sensations in a previous existence. The
previous existence is possible, no doubt, but I am persuaded that the
solution of this hoary mystery lies not there, but in the fact that some
far-off stranger has been telegraphing his thoughts and sensations into
your consciousness, and that he stopped because some counter-current or
other obstruction intruded and broke the line of communication. Perhaps
they seem repetitions to you because they _are_ repetitions got at
second hand from the other man. Possibly Mr. Brown, the ‘mind-reader,’
reads other people’s minds, possibly he does not; but I know of a surety
that I have read another man’s mind, and therefore I do not see why Mr.
Brown shouldn’t do the like also.
I wrote the foregoing about three years ago, in Heidelberg, and laid the
manuscript aside, purposing to add to it instances of mind-telegraphing
from time to time as they should fall under my experience. Meantime the
‘crossing’ of letters has been so frequent as to become monotonous.
However, I have managed to get something useful out of this hint; for
now, when I get tired of waiting upon a man whom I very much wish to
hear from, I sit down and _compel_ him to write, whether he wants to or
not; that is to say, I sit down and write him, and then tear my letter
up, satisfied that my act has forced him to write me at the same moment.
I do not need to mail my letter—the writing it is the only essential
thing.
Of course I have grown superstitious about this letter-crossing
business—this was natural. We stayed awhile in Venice after leaving
Heidelberg. One day I was going down the Grand Canal in a gondola, when
I heard a shout behind me, and looked around to see what the matter was;
a gondola was rapidly following, and the gondolier was making signs to
me to stop. I did so, and the pursuing boat ranged up alongside. There
was an American lady in it—a resident of Venice. She was in a good deal
of distress. She said:
‘There’s a New York gentleman and his wife at the Hotel Britannia who
arrived a week ago, expecting to find news of their son, whom they have
heard nothing about during eight months. There was no news. The lady is
down sick with despair; the gentleman can’t sleep or eat. Their son
arrived at San Francisco eight months ago, and announced the fact in a
letter to his parents the same day. That is the last trace of him. The
parents have been in Europe ever since; but their trip has been spoiled,
for they have occupied their time simply in drifting restlessly from
place to place, and writing letters everywhere and to everybody, begging
for news of their son; but the mystery remains as dense as ever. Now the
gentleman wants to stop writing and go to cabling. He wants to cable San
Francisco. He has never done it before, because he is afraid of—of he
doesn’t know what—death of his son, no doubt. But he wants somebody to
_advise_ him to cable—wants me to do it. Now I simply can’t; for if no
news came that mother yonder would die. So I have chased you up in order
to get you to support me in urging him to be patient, and put the thing
off a week or two longer; it may be the saving of this lady. Come along;
let’s not lose any time.’
So I went along, but I had a programme of my own. When I was introduced
to the gentleman I said: ‘I have some superstitions, but they are worthy
of respect. If you will cable San Francisco immediately, you will hear
news of your son inside of twenty-four hours. I don’t know that you will
get the news from San Francisco, but you will get it from somewhere. The
only necessary thing is to cable—that is all. The news will come within
twenty-four hours. Cable Pekin, if you prefer; there is no choice in
this matter. This delay is all occasioned by your not cabling long ago,
when you were first moved to do it.’
It seems absurd that this gentleman should have been cheered up by this
nonsense, but he was; he brightened up at once, and sent his cablegram;
and next day, at noon, when a long letter arrived from his lost son, the
man was as grateful to me as if I had really had something to do with
the hurrying up of that letter. The son had shipped from San Francisco
in a sailing vessel, and his letter was written from the first port he
touched at, months afterwards.
This incident argues nothing, and is valueless. I insert it only to show
how strong is the superstition which ‘letter-crossing’ has bred in me. I
was so sure that a cablegram sent to any place, no matter where, would
defeat itself by ‘crossing’ the incoming news, that my confidence was
able to raise up a hopeless man, and make him cheery and hopeful.
But here are two or three incidents which come strictly under the head
of mind-telegraphing. One Monday morning, about a year ago, the mail
came in, and I picked up one of the letters, and said to a friend:
‘Without opening this letter I will tell you what it says. It is from
Mrs. ——, and she says she was in New York last Saturday, and was
purposing to run up here in the afternoon train and surprise us, but at
the last moment changed her mind and returned westward to her home.’
I was right; my details were exactly correct. Yet we had had no
suspicion that Mrs. —— was coming to New York, or that she had even a
remote intention of visiting us.
I smoke a good deal—that is to say, all the time—so, during seven years,
I have tried to keep a box of matches handy, behind a picture on the
mantelpiece; but I have had to take it out in trying, because George
(coloured), who makes the fires and lights the gas, always uses my
matches and never replaces them. Commands and persuasions have gone for
nothing with him all these seven years. One day last summer, when our
family had been away from home several months, I said to a member of the
household:
‘Now, with all this long holiday, and nothing in the way to interrupt——’
‘I can finish the sentence for you,’ said the member of the household.
‘Do it, then,’ said I.
‘George ought to be able, by practising, to learn to let those matches
alone.’
It was correctly done. That was what I was going to say. Yet until that
moment George and the matches had not been in my mind for three months,
and it is plain that the part of the sentence which I uttered offers not
the least cue or suggestion of what I was purposing to follow it with.
My mother[2] is descended from the younger of two English brothers named
Lambton, who settled in this country a few generations ago. The
tradition goes that the elder of the two eventually fell heir to a
certain estate in England (now an earldom), and died right away. This
has always been the way with our family. They always die when they could
make anything by not doing it. The two Lambtons left plenty of Lambtons
behind them; and when at last, about fifty years ago, the English
baronetcy was exalted to an earldom, the great tribe of American
Lambtons began to bestir themselves—that is, those descended from the
elder branch. Ever since that day one or another of these has been
fretting his life uselessly away with schemes to get at his ‘rights.’
The present ‘rightful earl’—I mean the American one—used to write me
occasionally, and try to interest me in his projected raids upon the
title and estates by offering me a share in the latter portion of the
spoil; but I have always managed to resist his temptations.
Footnote 2:
She was still living when this was written.
Well, one day last summer I was lying under a tree, thinking about
nothing in particular, when an absurd idea flashed into my head, and I
said to a member of the household, ‘Suppose I should live to be
ninety-two, and dumb and blind and toothless, and just as I was gasping
out what was left of me on my death-bed——’
‘Wait, I will finish the sentence,’ said the member of the household.
‘Go on,’ said I.
‘Somebody should rush in with a document, and say, “All the other heirs
are dead, and you are the Earl of Durham!”’
That is truly what I was going to say. Yet until that moment the subject
had not entered my mind or been referred to in my hearing for months
before. A few years ago this thing would have astounded me, but the like
could not much surprise me now, though it happened every week; for I
think I _know_ now that mind can communicate accurately with mind
without the aid of the slow and clumsy vehicle of speech.
This age does seem to have exhausted invention nearly; still, it has one
important contract on its hands yet—the invention of the _phrenophone_;
that is to say, a method whereby the communicating of mind with mind may
be brought under command and reduced to certainty and system. The
telegraph and the telephone are going to become too slow and wordy for
our needs. We must have the _thought_ itself shot into our minds from a
distance; then, if we need to put it into words, we can do that tedious
work at our leisure. Doubtless the something which conveys our thoughts
through the air from brain to brain is a finer and subtler form of
electricity, and all we need do is to find out how to capture it and how
to force it to do its work, as we have had to do in the case of the
electric currents. Before the day of telegraphs neither one of these
marvels would have seemed any easier to achieve than the other.
While I am writing this, doubtless somebody on the other side of the
globe is writing it too. The question is, am I inspiring him or is he
inspiring me? I cannot answer that; but that these thoughts have been
passing through somebody else’s mind all the time I have been setting
them down I have no sort of doubt.
I will close this paper with a remark which I found some time ago in
Boswell’s ‘Johnson’:
‘Voltaire’s “Candide” is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to
Johnson’s “Rasselas”; insomuch that I have heard Johnson say that if
they had not been published so closely one after the other that there
was not time for imitation, _it would have been in vain to deny that the
scheme of that which came latest was taken from the other_.’
The two men were widely separated from each other at the time, and the
sea lay between.