How could it?
I had been much too eager to commence my work, and of a certainty, this
my first attempt could but end in one way--in absolute failure, and
that from three causes.
1st. The brain of a deceased Egyptian was removed through the nostrils
when the embalming took place.
2nd. Even if the brain-ether still tenanted the cranium the lips could
form no answer to my query, as they were so dry and parched as to have
no power of movement.
3rd. If the conditions of brain and lips were favourable, and I really
obtained a sound, it would certainly be in the dead Egyptian tongue,
which to me would be quite unintelligible. What should I do?
My defunct monarch, or whoever he might be, was suddenly transformed
into a useless incumbrance, instead of a scientific help.
Instead of hugging him for joy I could now have beaten him as a
scientific fraud.
There was nothing for it but to take a day or two and think the matter
out in an intelligent and calm manner.
I did think it out; and on the third day had so far perfected my
primal theory, that I resolved to give the mummy one more chance of
communicating with a nineteenth-century scientist.
Starting with the assumption that the subject would have been dead
from a few hours to a couple of days before the embalmers would
commence their process, and that the brain being lifeless and cold, the
spirit-ether might have escaped into its bony case and have remained in
the skull after the actual brain-matter was abstracted by the cunning
embalmer and his assistants,--I argued that it would be possible for
me to communicate with this spirit-ether, which would still retain in
an ethereal form the vast store of knowledge which the deceased had
accumulated when on earth. In that spirit-ether would be indelibly
written, as it were, a record of the whole life of the deceased, with
all his cares and pleasures, knowledge of contemporary events, and the
haunting memory of his sins.
Assuming, I say, that this record was present in an invisible, subtle
form, how, even if I could communicate with the brain-ether, would it
be possible to obtain a reply?
As I have said, I am a thought-reader, and my hope was that, if my
query were understood by the soul (or brain-ether) of the mummy, I
could, by the exercise of my peculiar function of reading thought,
obtain a reply.
All seemed correct in theory, and to put it to the test, I, that very
evening, opened communication with my ebony subject. One wire was
inserted through the cranium and the other, instead of being attached
to a sound receiver, I coiled several times around my own head!
Again I put the question “Do you hear me?”
Nothing at first transpired; but, on repeating the question several
times, my brain became aware of the power of thought working in the
dead skull, and this thought-voice gradually became coherent, until
I could actually detect the vibration of certain words being formed,
which were, however, not sufficiently distinct for me to understand.
My brain was quickly tired with the intense strain of sustained
thought, and, lying down on the couch, I fell fast asleep, to dream of
the land of the Pharaohs.
In my dream I seemed to hear people speaking to each other, and to see
them going about their usual avocations. I appeared in my dream to be
inside the shop of an Eastern hairdresser, where an Egyptian fop was
having his hair curled and dressed for some evening function, possibly
a ball or supper. The hairdresser and his young patron appeared to be
cracking jokes in their native tongue, of which I could not understand
a word, but still I laughed at their jokes as heartily as if I fathomed
every quip they uttered. At length I laughed so loudly in my sleep at
one of the barber’s witticisms, that I awoke to find tears of merriment
streaming from my eyes.
My dream had solved part of the problem!
Of course the thought-words I had read, by means of the wire round
my head, were in the _Egyptian_ tongue, hence the reason for my not
understanding them.
Here was a dilemma!
However, I did not give up my mummy; for, although I could neither ask
intelligible questions nor receive answers that I could understand, I
obtained Egyptian _thoughts_ whenever I had a mind.
I kept the royal corpse for the allotted month, and then returned it in
its deal case, with a letter of thanks to my friend in Gordon Square.
A dead subject was all very well, but a _dead language_ was beyond me.
So far my success was very encouraging. I had learnt, among other
things, that the soul, or brain-ether, still tenants the skull after
the substance of the brain is entirely dissipated--provided it has not
been removed from the cavity before decay set in.
With strong hopes of better success, I now resolved to obtain an
English skull and try my skill upon it.
During my peregrinations in the South of England the following week, I
found myself in the neighbourhood of X---- Cathedral, and strolling,
almost unthinkingly, into its grand interior, admired its decorations
and memorials. It was late in the day, and as in the gathering gloaming
I wandered round the solemn building, I found myself gazing upon some
curious painted coffins containing the remains of certain of our Saxon
kings. Gazing upon them I became fascinated, for they suggested
another step towards the realization of my grand scheme.
As I stood before these sepulchres of the long dead, I am sorry to
say the longing came into my mind to possess a skull from one of the
decorated coffins; and presently the longing became so intense, that,
like some villainous body-snatcher, I hid myself behind a stack of
chairs in the nave, remaining there seated comfortably on a hassock
till the great bell tolled forth the noon of night, when, coming forth
from my hiding-place, I effected my ghoulish purpose, and secreted
under my cape the cranium of a Saxon monarch.
The weary hours of the night lagged in their monotonous round, for I
dared not sleep, fearing I might not awaken before the opening of the
south door for the eight o’clock service; but my vigil was ended at
last by the arrival of a gaping old man, who came to ring the bell
calling early worshippers to the holy fane. The entry of several
persons to the building gave me an opportunity of walking quickly out
without attracting attention, but I can scarcely describe my feelings
of shame, nor is there perhaps any need of doing so. Necessity,
the noble mother of invention, had made a very criminal of me; but
whatever loathing I had for myself was condoned by the fact, that what
I was doing was for the sake of mankind at large; and although I had
purloined the principal part of a royal personage, I could not look
upon it as a theft, but merely as a loan from one who had no further
use for his ancient head.
A few hours brought me again to the mighty metropolis, and I quickly
set to work with my elaborate apparatus, but, alas! only to be the
victim of another disappointment.
Although I could obtain certain mental sounds (if I may so term them),
and could, by the aid of my thought-reading power, understand that
words were being thought by the brain-ether in the monarch’s cranium,
yet, unfortunately, to fathom their meaning was beyond me.
Pure Saxon was a language with which I was totally unacquainted!
Here was another stupid mistake of mine, of precisely the same nature
as the one I made in my first experiment.
What could I do?
Very little.
I copied down, phonetically, a number of the words which the monarch
was _thinking_, and showed them to a professor of Anglo-Saxon, but
all he could do was to translate some of them into modern English, so
giving a series of words without any sequence or connection whatever.
Angry with myself, and angry with the skull simply for being Saxon,
and therefore not understandable, I took it in my hand, and, in my
disappointment and rage, should doubtless have shattered it into
fragments against the wall, but for the sudden ringing of my door bell,
warning me of the arrival of a gentleman with whom I had an appointment.
When the interview was over my anger had ceased also, and that
afternoon, with the skull in a bag, I took train for X----, and
repaired to my stack of chairs in the cathedral. I hid myself again,
like a felon, till the doors were closed, then restoring the skull
uninjured to its resting-place, crept back to my hassock seat, and
awaited the dawning.
I fell asleep, and I suppose snored, for, to my astonishment, I
was awakened next morning by the verger, who, not believing my
cock-and-bull story of having been shut in the cathedral while absorbed
in the contemplation of the ancient structure and its interesting
relics, haled me before a magistrate.
It was with difficulty I proved my identity, and doing so cost me all
the loose cash I had about me in telegraphing to my friends, before the
worthy magistrate would release me, although I had been twice searched
to see if anything of value was secreted about my person.
Oh, science! what miseries thou hast for ages brought upon thy noblest
sons! What sorrows; what disappointments; what troubles and trials, and
alas, what terms of vile durance! I, being one of thy sons, have shared
all these evils, though perhaps in a minor degree!
My failures, however, were not unmitigated: I had established the
fact that brain-ether and brain-thought were present in skulls,
whatever their nationality, and to whatever period they might belong;
my failures were attributable principally to my lack of linguistic
knowledge, a lack that might easily be remedied.
My business now became to seek a skull of a more modern period. I
applied at a number of likely places, and at last was successful
in obtaining a fine, large specimen, which had a clean and refined
appearance. I paid but a small sum for it, and carried it home to my
study in triumph. Surely at last I was on the road to the development
of my pet project.
After dinner, all being quiet, I commenced experiments upon the skull,
and having placed my apparatus in order, I asked my usual question:
“Who are you?”
“Sidney Smith,” came the reply.
Good gracious, I thought, can this be the great wit?
“You do not mean to say,” I asked, “that you are the great Sidney
Smith?”
“I reckon you have just hit the right nail on the head,” was the
immediate thought-reply.
What a piece of luck.
“Well, Mr. Smith, such men as you the world sees but too rarely; your
name is still a household word among us, being constantly quoted as
that of the brightest star of wit of your day.”
“Whip you mean?” came from the skull.
“No; I said _wit_; a jocular person, you know.”
“I ain’t no wit nor jocular person,” was the response, “not as I knows
what ‘jocular’ is exactly, but if it is anything to do with a jockey
it’s nothing to do with me, for I stood six feet four, and weighed
seventeen stone. If you calls me a ‘whip’ instead of a ‘wit,’ there you
are right, for I drove the York and Manchester coach for over twenty
years.”
I found my subject very garrulous, very thick-headed, and very
quarrelsome--a man of high stature but low breeding; one who knew
nothing of any subjects but those of a horsey nature. One day our
conversation became so warm, and such a string of bad language flooded
the fellow’s brain-ether, that I had to disconnect my battery. I left
the cranium for some days, thinking that the man’s temper would have
cooled down, for I supposed that when I disconnected the electric
wires the current of thought ceased; but when I applied the wires to
my head, I found that the old store of abuse was still at work in the
brain-ether of my giant subject, and the end of the matter was, that I
smashed the beautiful skull into a thousand fragments against my study
wall, thus dissipating the soul or brain-ether into space.
I did not regret the occurrence, for the fellow was most vituperative
and impertinent whenever I wished to know anything of his family
secrets or earthly career.
Still, when I think of it, I have a deal for which to thank that
giant skull. It was during the fortnight that I possessed it that
I, to a great extent, perfected my apparatus for Soul-Reading,
Brain-Ether-Reviewing, Etherealized-Human-Record-Deciphering, or
whatever men may term my discovery, for I have not yet invented a title
for it myself.
I therefore thank that broken vase of humanity, though being broken, I
cannot convey my thanks as I would wish, for there is no brain-ether
left to convey it to.
Alas, poor giant!
Hundreds of skulls have come under my apparatus for examination during
the past decade, and I possess facts that would make many great English
families quake; facts asserted by ancestors’ souls--_and souls cannot
lie_--of how titles and estates have been wrongfully obtained, and
rightful heirs darkly put aside to favour other candidates.
I know of facts, suppressed in history, which, were I to reveal their
dark catalogue of murders, conspiracies and political intrigues, would
put a fresh interpretation upon the records of our country. But of what
avail would the disclosure be to our present generation? The heart
of man in the nineteenth century is, what it has been in all ages,
“desperately wicked.”
On the other hand, it has been my good fortune to converse with kings
and ambassadors, with men of learning, poets, statesmen, with artists
and men of science, even with the great Isaac Newton himself, and am
now in the position of being the best-informed man, upon past history
and events, of any person in the world. Men say there is but a thin
partition between a savant and a madman. I know better; I may be the
former, but between me and madness a vast gap yawns, although my
friends will have their little jibe at me. Great men ever had their
traducers, and I, naturally, am no exception.
Of all those with whom I have chatted--and by my experiments I can
converse with the spirit or soul of _any_ person, provided I have the
skull to which I can attach my apparatus--there has not been one equal
in intellectual capacity to Sir Isaac Newton, a most steady, solid man
of scientific sense.
Now Newton’s idea of the brain and my own precisely coincide, and if I
give _my_ notion upon the subject I give his also. Here it is.
The brain is an elaborate storehouse of knowledge of every kind. It
contains a record of _all_ one has learned during one’s lifetime; I say
_all_, because if a person has learned a thing and forgotten it, it
must not be supposed that that thing has vanished from the brain; not
so; it is faithfully recorded in the brain substance, though the mental
faculties may not be strong enough to _reproduce_ the particular thing
or theme when wanted.
Not only is everything once learnt retained by the brain, but it also
contains a record of every _action_ of one’s life. All these actions
and events are stored away in minute cells to the number of hundreds of
thousands, and yet to the human eye they are not as visible as a pin’s
point; in fact, they have no dimensions whatever.
Now, supposing this theory to be correct, can we not see (and I say it
with great reverence) how easy the task of the Recording Angel must
be; can we not imagine the celestial one reading the record of a man’s
brain as easily as we poor mundane mortals can scan a book?
Are not many biblical texts elucidated by this theory; for instance,
Ecclesiastes xii. 14; Matthew xii. 37; and Hebrews iv. 13?
But then the theory of the brain-ether, or the soul as some call
it, goes further. I am of opinion that the soul is not _spirit_ but
_matter_; matter of such infinitely minute particles as to be perfectly
invisible to even the most powerful microscope yet made.
Let me explain my meaning more fully.
Just as there are differences in the bulk and solidity of various
materials, so is there a vast difference in the tangibility, if I may
so term it, of various bodies and substances.
Take a cubic foot of steel--matter beyond all doubt--and of what
closely-compacted solidity and enormous density! Then take a cubic
foot of smoke, that again is matter, but what immeasurable difference
in density, tangibility, and even visibility there is in the two
substances!
Then go a step further, and imagine a cubic foot of gas: it is
invisible, intangible, and possesses but little density, yet it is
_matter_, it is not spirit.
Now, seeing the vast difference between various matters, can we not
believe that the brain, instead of being soul or spirit, may still
be matter of such a rare and subtle quality that there is even more
difference between it and gas, than between gas and a solid lump of
steel or granite?
If you can follow that suggestion you have my theory; but having spoken
of my theory I go no farther. Of what my apparatus consists I have
merely hinted, not mentioning one or two of its principal conditions.
My secret is of such vast importance that it would go a great way to
revolutionize science, history, and even religion, and I dare not
divulge it to the world at large. The more I think over the matter,
the more convinced I am that my experiments have so lifted the veil of
death, that I have stepped within the bounds of things which should be
unknown to man.