DEAR M.,--Prince Emil Wittgenstein and his wife have a pretty villa at
Walhuf, directly on the Rhine, and they invited Helen and me to dine and
spend the night there. Prince Wittgenstein promised to show us some
wonderful manifestations from spiritland. Helen is not a believer, neither
am I, but the Prince thinks I am, and, as Helen could not leave her
guests, I went alone.
The Prince wrote that he had induced, with great difficulty (and probably
with a great deal of expense), the much-talked-of Miss Cook to come with
her sister to pay them a visit at their villa. Miss Cook is the medium
through whom the Empress Josephine and Katie King (a lady unknown to the
world, except as being the daughter of a certain old sea-captain, called
John King, who roamed the seas a hundred years ago and pirated) manifest
themselves.
I was delighted to have this chance of seeing Miss Cook, because I had
read in the English papers that she had lately been shown up as a gigantic
fraud. At one of her séances in London, just as she was in the act of
materializing in conjunction with the Empress Josephine, a gentleman,
disregarding all rules of etiquette, sprang from the audience and seized
her in his arms; but instead of melting, as a proper spirit would have
done, the incensed Empress screamed and scratched and tore herself away,
actually leaving bits of her raiment in his hands. This rude gentleman
swears that the imperial nails seemed wholly of earthly texture, and that
the scratches were as thorough and lasted as well as if made by any common
mortal.
Since this incident Miss Cook had thought it wiser to retire into private
life, and has secured a husband calling himself Corner. Prince
Wittgenstein found her, and, wishing to convert his wife, could think of
no better way than to let her see Miss Cook materialize. The wife and her
friend, Princess Croy, are avowed disbelievers.
Our dinner was dull beyond words. There were the Prince Nicholas-Nassau
and his wife; the Duke Esslingen, who is nearly blind, without a wife but
with convictions; Count and Countess de Vay, and the two English ladies
already mentioned. Miss Cook, _alias_ Mrs. Corner, is a washed-out blond,
rather barmaidish-looking English girl of medium (oh dear! I really did
not mean to) height and apparently very anemic.
After dinner we were led into the room in which the séance was to take
place, and were seated round a large table, and told to hold our tongues
and one another's hands; the gas was turned down to the lowest point, the
lamps screwed down, and there we sat and waited and waited.
The poor host was chagrined beyond utterance; something was the matter
with the magnetic current. Sometimes he would tap on the table to attract
the attention of the spirit underneath, but nothing helped; the spirits
were obstinate and remained silent.
I ventured to ask the Duke, by the side of whom I sat and held on to, in
what manner the spirits made known their answers. He said that one knock
meant "yes," no knock meant "no," and two knocks meant "doubtful." At last
we heard a timid knock in the direction of Mrs. Corner. Then every one was
alert. Prince Wittgenstein addressed the spot and whispered in his most
seductive tones, "Dear spirit, will you not manifest yourself?" Two knocks
(doubtful).
"Is the company seated right?" (Silence, meaning "no.")
"Is the company congenial?" (Silence.)
To find out who the uncongenial person was, every one asked, in turn, "Is
it I?" until Princess Wittgenstein put the question, upon which came a
vigorous single knock.
"My dear," said the Prince, "I am sorry to say it, but you must go."
So she left, nothing loath. We all thought for sure something would happen
now, but nothing did.
Prince Wittgenstein commenced the same inquiries, whether the company was
now congenial; but it seemed that Princess de Croy was _de trop_, and
she was also obliged to leave the room. (You see, the spirits did not like
to single out the hostess alone.) Now we were reduced to nine believers
with moist hands.
Would the Empress not now appear? We waited long enough for her to make up
her mind; but it seemed that neither her mind nor anything else was ready
to be made up. The spirits were perhaps willing, but the flesh was too
weak. Then Mrs. Corner remembered that at the last sitting the Empress had
declared that she would never appear on German soil (her feelings having
been wounded during the Franco-German War).
There still remained Katie King. We had not heard from her yet. Prince
Wittgenstein addressed the table under his fingers: "Oh, dear spirits, do
do something! Anything would be acceptable!" How could he or she resist
such humble pleadings?
Then some one felt a cold wind pass over his face. Surely something was
happening now!
"It must be Katie King about to materialize," said the hopeful Prince.
Then we saw a dim light. We strained our eyes to the utmost to discover
what it was. I should have said, if I had been truthful, that to me it
looked like a carefully shaded candle; but I held my tongue. The hand of
my neighbor was fast becoming jelly in mine, and I would have given worlds
to have got my hand out of the current; but I did not dare to interfere
with it, and I continued to hold on to the jelly. Whoever was being
materialized was doing it so slowly, and without any kind of system, that
we hardly had the patience to sit it out. Then a tambourine walked up some
one's arm, Prince Nassau's spectacles were pulled off his august nose by
invisible hands (of course, who else would have dared?), thus making him
more near-sighted than ever. His wife's necklace of turquoises was
unclasped from her neck and hooked on to the neck of the acolyte sister;
but on anxious and repeated demands to have it returned, it was replaced,
much to the owner's relief. Prince Wittgenstein thought it silly of her to
have so little confidence. Suddenly, while necklaces were changing necks,
we saw what looked like a cloud of gauze. We held our breaths, the raps
under the table redoubled, and there were all sorts of by-play, such as
hair-pulling and arm-pinching, but no Katie. The gauze which was going to
be her gave up trying and disappeared altogether. "Never mind," said the
Prince. "It does not matter [I thought so, too.] She will come to-morrow
night."
This was very depressing; even Prince Wittgenstein was utterly discouraged
and decided to break up the séance, and, groping his way to the nearest
lamp, turned it up. We went into the other salon, where we found the two
discarded ladies sitting peacefully before a samovar and playing a game of
two-handed poker.
Miss Cook told Prince Wittgenstein that Katie King would probably
materialize if she had the promise of getting a sapphire ring which he
wore (a beautiful sapphire). Miss Cook suggested that if this ring could
be hung up on a certain tree in the garden Katie King would come and get
it, and would certainly materialize the next evening. Prince Wittgenstein
was credulous enough to pander to this modest wish, and hung up the
desired ring, hoping Katie King would return it when she was in the flesh.
But Miss Cook had a succession of fainting fits which necessitated her
sudden departure for England, so we never saw Katie King, neither did
Prince Wittgenstein ever get his ring back, as far as I know.
_September, 1874._
Last Tuesday we three--Count and Countess Westphal and I--left Wiesbaden,
slept at Frankfort, and starting the next morning at eleven o'clock, we
arrived at our destination at 5.00 P.M. We found three carriages; one for
us and two for the maids and luggage. Halfway to the castle we met,
driving the lightest and prettiest of basket-wagons, our host and hostess,
Count and Countess W--; the latter got into the carriage with us and one
of us took her place by the side of the host. We passed through the
village, which had but one street, irregular and narrow, and we were in
constant danger of running over the shoals of little children who stood
stupidly in the middle of it, gazing at us with open eyes and mouth.
The Schloss is a very large, square building, with rounded towers in the
four corners. It has been remodeled, added to, and adorned so many times
that it is difficult to tell to which style of architecture it belongs.
The chapel is in an angle and opens on to the paved courtyard.
Our first evening was spent quietly making acquaintance with the other
guests. The next morning we lunched at eleven o'clock, the gentlemen in
knickerbockers and shooting attire, the ladies in sensible gowns of light
material over silk petticoats. Simplicity is the order of the day. Our
lunch consists of many courses, and we might have lingered for hours if
the sight of the postman coming up the avenue had not given us the excuse
to leave the table and devote ourselves to our correspondence, which had
to be done in double-quick time, as the postman only waited a short
fifteen minutes, long enough to imbibe the welcome cup of coffee or the
glass of beer which he found waiting him in the kitchen. The Countess,
although the mother of a young man twenty-four years of age, has a pink-
and-white complexion and a fine, statuesque figure. She is a Russian lady
by birth, and does a lot of kissing, as seems to be the custom in Russia.
She told me that when a gentleman of a certain position kisses your hand
you must kiss his forehead.
"Isn't this rather cruel toward the ladies?" I said.
"Why," she asked, "do you think it is cruel?"
"Ladies sometimes have on gloves when they give their hands to be kissed,
whereas there are some foreheads which ought to have gloves on before they
are kissed."
The young Count, when he returned from the races at Wiesbaden, brought
with him a young American who had been presented to him by a friend of
his, who said that Mr. Brent, of Colorado (that was his name), was very
"original" and _ausserordenlich charmant_. And he was both charming and
(especially) original; but not the type one meets in society.
He was a big, tall, splendidly built fellow with the sweetest face and the
liquidest blue eyes one can imagine. He had a soft, melodious voice and
the most fascinating manner, in spite of his far-Western language. Every
one liked him; my American heart warmed to him instantly, and even the
austere _grande dame_, our hostess, was visibly captivated, and the prim
German governess drank in every word he said, intending, no doubt, to
improve her English, which otherwise she never got a chance to speak.
The two young men arrived yesterday just in time for tea. When the
Countess asked him, in her most velvety tones, "Do you take sugar, Mr.
Brent?" "Yes, ma'am, I do--three lumps, and if it's beety I take four." (I
trembled! What would he say next?) "I've got a real sweet tooth," he said,
with an alluring smile, to which we all succumbed. The governess,
remembering what hers had been before acquiring her expensive false set,
probably wondered how teeth could ever be sweet.
While dressing for dinner I shuddered at the thought of what his dinner
toilet might be; but I cannot say how relieved I was when I saw him appear
(he was the last to appear) dressed in perfect evening dress, in the
latest fashion, except his tie, which was of white satin and very badly
tied. The salon in which we met before dinner is a real museum of rare
pictures, old furniture, and curiosities. The walls are hung with old
Italian faïences and porcelains. A huge buffet, reaching to the ceiling,
is filled with Venetian goblets and majolica vases.
A vast chimneypiece, under which one can stand with ease, is ornamented
with a fine iron bas-relief of the family arms, and a ponderous pair of
andirons which support a heavy iron bar big enough to roast a wild boar
on. Count G---- called Mr. Brent's attention to it, and Mr. Brent said,
pleasantly, "I suppose this is where the ancestors toasted their
patriarchal toes."
At dinner he sat next to the governess, and I could see her trying to
digest his "original" language; and I was near enough to overhear some of
their conversation. For instance, she asked him what his occupation was in
his native land. "Oh," he said, "I do a little of everything, mostly
farming. I've paddled my own canoe since I was a small kid."
"Is there much water in your country-place?" she inquired.
"Don't you mean country? Well, yes, we have quite a few pailfuls over
there, and we don't have to pull a string to let our waterfalls down."
My neighbor must have thought me very inattentive; but I felt that I could
not lose a word of Mr. Brent's conversation. The vestibule (or "Halle," as
they called it), where we went after dinner, used to be occupied by the
_Corps du Garde._ It had vaulted ceilings and great oak beams, and was
filled with hunting implements of all ages arranged in groups on the
walls very artistically; there were cross-bows, fencing-swords, masks,
guns (old and new), pistols, etc. Mr. Brent was very much impressed by
this collection, gazed at the specimens with sparkling admiration, and
remarked to the governess, who was always at his elbow, "I never saw such
a lot of things [meaning the weapons] outside of a shindy."
"What is a shindy?" inquired the governess, always anxious to improve her
knowledge of the language.
"Why, don't you know what a shindy is? No? Well, it's a free fight, where
you kill promiscuous."
"Gott im Himmel!" almost screamed the terrified damsel. "Do you mean to
say that you have killed any one otherwise than in a duel?"
"I can't deny that I have killed a few," Mr. Brent said, cordially, "but
never in cold blood."
"How dreadful!" his listener cried.
"But you see, over there," pointing with his cigar into the vague (toward
Colorado), "if a man insults you, you must kill him then and there, and
you must always be heeled."
"Heeled!" she repeated, puzzled. "Do they always get well?"
Neither understood.
Probably she thinks to this day that a shindy is an exceptionally good
hospital.