A LITTLE BOARD BRIDGES THE GREAT GULF.
Even here the soul of man is a member of the immaterial world; present
and future, life and death, make one continuous whole in the order of
spiritual nature.
--_Kant._
Cartice Doring was one of those blessed beings who intermeddle not
with the affairs of another. She asked no questions and was free from
the vulgar vice of curiosity. She listened with sympathetic interest
to all confidences that came to her, but solicited none. This made her
a charming and lovable friend. Speaking once of the pernicious habit
some well-meaning but ill-taught persons have of asking where you were
born, if your parents are living, what religion you adhere to and the
thousand other catechetical shots which compose their list of topics of
conversation, she said:
“There may be a reason why the simplest and apparently most inoffensive
question may give pain, so I never ask any. I have no wish to, for I
have no curiosity. When I make a new acquaintance I am not concerned
with the locality of his birth, the residence of his parents, or any
part of his personal history. What he _is_ individually, not the
accidents of his life, interests me, and that reveals itself as I
become acquainted with him, without any probing on my part. Neither do
I wish to bore into the sacred recesses of a friend’s heart. What she
tells me I shall listen to lovingly; what she does not tell me I do not
even wish to know.”
Hence it was that when the Butterfly fell into a meditative mood one
evening when they were together, Cartice did not disturb her. By and by
Chrissalyn said:
“I dreamed of Prescott last night. At least I suppose it was a dream,
though it seemed extremely real. I was walking on the street and
met him, and he held in his hand that queer little heart-shaped toy
somebody sent you once--a thing with a French name that I don’t recall
now, but you said it meant ‘little board.’--It has three legs, and one
of them is a pencil.”
“A planchette,” suggested Mrs. Doring.
“Yes; that’s it. Well, Prescott held that up before me and said, ‘Try
it, Butterfly! Try it!’”
Cartice’s eyes widened with interest.
“You remember we did try to write with it once long ago,” said the
Butterfly, “but it only wrote foolishness, so we flung it aside and
never tried again. I have been thinking about it all day, and should
like to try it again, for I can’t get Prescott’s face, as I saw it last
night, out of my mind.”
The planchette was brought forth, and its history retold. The donor was
a man from whom Death had taken every member of his family. For years
the desire of his heart had been to know if the dead are dead, or if
they still live though unseen of men. After he went to another city,
he wrote Mrs. Doring that he had received some startling revelations
through Planchette, and sent her one, that she might experiment for
herself. Having some ability with the brush and palette, he had painted
an allegory on the under side of the tiny walnut board. Psyche in the
celestial robes was passing upward out of sight. Cupid in fashionable
modern attire, had thrown aside his bow and arrows, and held his right
hand on a Planchette, upon which he concentrated all his attention,
saying to it:
“Tell me hopeful messages
To beguile earth’s sorrow;
But of evil things, Oh! keep
Silence till to-morrow.
Then, perchance, I’ll be asleep.”
“A pretty thought,” said Cartice, displaying the picture, and reading
the text aloud. “Love is always anxious to know the fate of the soul.
He hopes, but seeks for something to keep hope alive. Benson wrote me
extraordinary things about Planchette, but I tried it several times and
got nothing.”
“But I got something when I tried,” said Mrs. Layton, with an air of
interest. “To be sure it was rank nonsense, but it was something, and
_I_ didn’t do it myself, whatever it was.”
“No; you said it was the work of the devil, and flung the planchette
aside in disgust. What a convenience the devil is, anyway! How could
the world get on without him? Everything the veriest dunce doesn’t
understand is laid at his door. If he had never been invented, who
would shoulder all the mysteries? Poor devil! Without being to blame he
has been a terrific stumbling-block to the enlightenment of mankind.
Wherever a persevering and heroic mind clipped out a crevice in the
wall of ignorance, some dense-minded being was on hand to seize the
devil and put him into it, to obscure whatever light might filter
through. And so, though innocent himself, he has kept mankind in
darkness through the centuries.”
However, devil or no devil, they covered a table with a big sheet of
white paper, of the kind used by the _Register_, and put Planchette
upon it. The Butterfly put her tiny hand thereon, and they awaited
its pleasure. As they were ignorant of the particular methods of its
operation, they could but grope tentatively till they found the true
way, just as the human race has groped upward through countless vain
experiments and innumerable grievous blunders into such light as it now
enjoys.
The occasion was in no way tinged with solemnity. They built no hopes
on its outcome, nor gave it serious thought. It was the Butterfly’s
inspiration, born of her dream. So little importance did they attach
to it, that they fell to chatting of other things at once, leaving
Planchette to its own devices, Mrs. Layton’s hand still resting on it,
however.
Suddenly their chatter ceased. Planchette began to move across the
paper, not aimlessly, as they expected, but deliberately and precisely,
with intelligence and force. As suddenly as it had begun it stopped.
They lifted it up and looked at its trail, and there was a word plainly
and evenly written--the word “Gaily.”
“More of its nonsense, just as I feared,” sighed the Butterfly, in
disgust.
“Well, try it again, dear,” pleaded her friend. “It’s worth studying,
even if it does write nonsense. It’s extraordinary that it writes at
all.”
With polite alacrity it wrote again with more ease and speed than
before: “Do you not remember Gaily--Gaily, the Troubadour?”
This had no meaning for the Butterfly, and she was about to express her
displeasure, when she glanced at her friend. Cartice was leaning far
back in the chair, her face white and drawn, her mouth slightly open,
her eyes startled and staring, and her breath coming in gasps.
“O Cartice, dearest! Don’t look like that! Don’t!” Chrissalyn cried
in a terrified voice, jumping up and seizing her friend in her arms,
alternately shaking and embracing her. “What is it? What do you see?
What has happened?”
Mrs. Doring tried to speak, but her mouth was parched and dry, her
tongue leaden. She could only point with her finger at the writing.
“Yes, yes; but it’s only foolishness--a line out of one of Moore’s old
songs. Don’t be frightened at the silly thing. It must have come from
my mind somehow, though I wasn’t thinking of it.”
“It means everything to me,” Cartice gasped at last. “I understand it.
Try again, dear. Try again. I will explain presently.”
Rather rebelliously Chrissalyn straightened Planchette and put her
tiny hand again upon it, growling; “I feel more like smashing the
mischievous thing than humoring it, since it gave you such a fright.”
“It was not fright, dear. It was astonishment, awe, wonder--many
emotions blended, but fear was not among them.”
Several minutes passed but Planchette moved not. The operator’s
patience would have been exhausted, had not her friend kept her
faithful to the work with cheering speeches. Presently the weird little
instrument began to walk off again, leaving this line in big, bold
letters:
“_Gaily, the Troubadour, offers his love once more to the tall, young
pine._”
Cartice read it aloud, then threw up her hands and burst into
weeping--a weeping that was half-laughing, an ebullition of pent-up
emotion like that which comes at the fortunate ending of a long strain
of anxiety.
“He lives! He lives!” she cried, in passionate joy. “All live--all, all
who have gone out of our sight into the silence. Not one is dead. Not
one has ever died. The greatest of questions is answered.”
Picking up Planchette she touched her lips to it reverently. Then
putting her arms around her dazed friend, she kissed her again and
again, saying:
“Chrissalyn, dear Chrissalyn, you have always been a blessing and a
comfort to me; but now you have opened the whole universe to me; you
have given me light--the brightest light that can come to any one.
That scrawling line tells me more than any volume ever printed could.
It is from an old-time friend, who died soon after I last saw him, one
who loved me well. His name was Westfield, but because of his fondness
for quoting from Moore in political speeches, and what the slang of
newspaper offices calls ‘fine writing,’ his chums dubbed him, ‘Gaily,
the Troubadour,’ and by this affectionate nickname one of his old
comrades frequently addressed him in my presence. And he named me a
tall young pine. You knew none of this, for I am sure I never told you
about him. Therefore it cannot have been taken from your mind, neither
can it have been drawn from mine, for I never thought of _him_. If
I had any one in mind, it was Prescott, because you had dreamed of
Prescott in connection with Planchette, and because I have wondered
so much about him since he went away--wondered in what part of the
universe his dauntless spirit has found action, or if he _is_ at all.
Yet I scarcely dared hope even for him, for there was the possibility
that death was the end of everything. I had no proof to the contrary.”
The Butterfly was a trifle dazed by the emotion of her friend, who
was usually so self-possessed. Even by the light of her explanation
she could scarcely take it in. The subject of death, no matter how
treated, was repugnant to her. Even proof that death was not death had
but little interest for her. Of course there was something afterward.
Everybody knew that. Wasn’t it all set down in the books somewhere,
straight enough? But what was the use of dwelling on a subject that
had so many unpleasant features in it? Or why delve after the facts in
regard to it? That was her manner of dealing with this mighty question.
What attracted her was life--yes, life, poor, cramped, hard and ugly
as some of it had been for her, still she loved it, found joy in it,
craved it and its material pleasures and never wanted to be reminded
that it had an end. A new gown could arouse her enthusiasm, and a
flashing jewel give her supreme pleasure; but death, ugh! who wanted to
talk of so gruesome an event? Dead people lived somewhere, as a matter
of course, but wasn’t it best to let them alone in their own place
wherever it is, and have nothing to do with them?
This is a curious attitude of mind toward a subject of more importance
to us than any other, yet thousands of presumably intelligent people
think the same. They want the dead treated like dangerous criminals,
although their nearest and dearest may be of them. They shut them away
with relentless cruelty, doing their best to put them out of their
very thoughts. In this way they slay them more effectually than Death
himself has slain them. Resistlessly they move on to the same end
themselves, yet zealously refuse to learn aught of what that end may
be. Astonishing mental darkness and indolence, but alas! not uncommon.
It was some time before Cartice recovered self-possession and induced
her friend to go on with the experiment. But the chain was broken,
Planchette refused to move again.
Still, Mrs. Doring had enough to dwell upon. Late into the night she
lay awake, thinking of it, marveling at it and rejoicing in the new
light that had come to her. True, it was a little thing, perhaps, or
might appear so to those who are ever ready to make havoc of whatever
differs from the usual and accepted, but its possibilities might be
limitless, and already it had expanded her world into infinity.
Whatever the intelligence that acted through Planchette might be, it
was subject to a law in its manifestations, of which as yet she knew
next to nothing. For more light thereon she must study by experiment.
Simple as this law appeared to be in its operations, it was mighty in
its results, since it annihilated space and destroyed death, the last
and greatest enemy whose destruction has long been foretold. But are
not all nature’s laws astonishingly simple, when understood? So simple
that the searcher after knowledge, filled with delusion that it was
afar off on inaccessible heights, for ages passed them by, trod them
under foot, touched them at every turn, yet found them not.
A few evenings later the two friends were ready to begin the
fascinating work of experimenting with Planchette, the Butterfly’s
tiny hand resting on its heart-shaped back, inviting it to action. Was
ever priestess of the occult so emphatically a creature of worldly
attributes as she? Her pretty face, soft, fair hair, slight, graceful
figure modishly attired, and gentle bearing conveyed no suggestion of
power to reveal hidden mysteries.
In silence they waited a little while, Planchette as still as could
be. Then, unexpectedly it whirled away at a startling pace, with a
force well-nigh resistless. When it reached the end of the paper, which
completely covered the table, they picked it up and carried it back to
the place of beginning, the hand of the pretty priestess was replaced,
and it went on at tearing speed, until its message was finished. Then
they looked and saw this in big, firm chirography:
“_Love laughs at Death as well as at locksmiths--Pagan._”
Cartice read it aloud with a whitening face and staring eyes.
“Prescott!” she whispered, with a husky voice, motioning to Chrissalyn
to put her hand again on Planchette. Pagan was a name she had given
him and which he delighted in, though unknown to any but her. The
little board whirled away again with the same determined swing. Its
very movements were characteristic of him, who had ever a trace of
savageness and fierceness in all he did and much that he said. These
were its words:
“_Butterfly, tell her what I told you as we went home that last night._”
Now Chrissalyn began to tremble and tears gushed from her shining eyes.
The conviction that it was Prescott who thus silently spoke to them
came to her with overwhelming force.
“Cartice, it is Prescott, I am sure. He loved you with all his heart,
and you know how intense that heart was in everything. I saw it from
the very day I introduced him to you at the market house, when we went
to hear Gabriel Norris preach. He adored you, but never spoke of it,
and you were too blind and had too little vanity to see it. But that
last night before his death, when he and I were walking home together
after we had spent the evening with you, he told me about it. You
remember he spoke of having a presentiment that happiness was near
him, and he looked almost transfigured that night. He said he believed
that somehow you would soon be free from your husband, and then he
would take you whether or no. He swore to that. But the next morning he
was dead. That’s what he wants me to tell--that’s what he means when
he says ‘Love laughs at death as well as at locksmiths.’ He is the
same--just the same kind, fierce old savage. He loves you still.”
“Why, Butterfly, this is astonishing,” said Cartice, in amazement. “I
thought you and he loved each other, and that you were made for each
other.”
“_I_ loved him; but he loved you, not me.”
This touched Mrs. Doring beyond her power to express. She tried to
speak, but could say nothing, for a great lump, like a live coal, had
closed her throat.
“I was never jealous,” continued Chrissalyn, “no, never; but a trifle
melancholy at times, wishing he loved me instead of you, because I saw
that you didn’t love him, only as a good comrade, and didn’t know that
he loved you. If you had loved him I don’t think I should have been
jealous, because I love you so much.”
Both pairs of eyes were moist now. Cartice rearranged Planchette, and
after kissing her friend’s dainty hand placed it thereon again.
“Yes; it is true, I love you, Cartice, and did from the beginning,”
wrote the little board, with the same impetuous dash.
“I thank you for telling me,” said Cartice, humbly. “But how are we to
be sure that you are Prescott. Give us a proof if you can, though it be
only to write your name in the old way.”
“Gordon Prescott,” was instantly and rapidly written in the firm,
sharp-pointed handwriting characteristic of the man--a good fac-simile
of the original signature, even without making allowance for the
clumsiness of the implement. Then came “Good-night” in the same hand,
and nothing could induce Planchette to further movement.
They talked it over. Even Chrissalyn was interested. Prescott writing
through Planchette did not seem like dead people coming back in the
gruesome way she dreaded. Rather was it as though he had never died,
but only become invisible. There was nothing about this to inspire
terror. After the first surprise of it, it even seemed natural; and it
was a pleasure to have a word from him, though it were of his love for
another. What matter? She loved him,--that was enough. And it was a
comfort to know that he was sometimes near, in spite of the fact that
she had believed dead people ought to keep to themselves. However, with
Prescott it was different. Somehow he was not dead people.
Then, too, the priestess had her vanity--a streak of the kind that
wants appreciation for her ability as well as her beauty. Cartice’s
gifts of pen and pencil she had craved, if not envied. Now that she
knew she had a power her friend had not--one which Cartice thought of
inestimable value--she saw that this gave her additional importance in
Mrs. Doring’s eyes, hence she secretly plumed herself a little.
She consented to continuing their experiments with Planchette on
condition that no one else should ever be told. Were it known, she
would be called a “spirit medium,” and that would be disgraceful,
unendurable. They might say almost anything else of her and she
wouldn’t mind; but to have that name fastened upon her would be a
calamity.
A “medium!” To her the word was beyond words in its despicable
significance. Were not mediums a disreputable order of human buzzards,
who preyed upon the credulity and holiest emotions of honest folk?
Were they not despised, abhorred, shunned and feared by the better
class of society? Were they not ignorant, frowsy, ugly and generally
dirty? Did they not invariably say “sect” when they meant “sex,”
and talk mind-weakening twaddle about “controls,” “influences,”
“impressions” and so on, in English that was in open warfare with all
grammatical rules? And were they not frequently chummy with invisible
Indians,--going about boasting that they were constantly attended by
some “Blackhawk,” “Fire-eye,” “Thunder-Tongue,” “Yellow Feather,” or
“Crow-on-the-head,” who made them the mouthpieces of idiotic gibbering?
Do they not come out of cabinets, wearing trailing robes and tin
crowns, trying to palm themselves off as dead and gone kings and
queens? Have they not an uncanny affinity for tables? And do they not
talk through trumpets, ring bells and play other stupid pranks and
lay the blame of it all on the defenceless dead? Had they not thrown
discredit upon Noah Webster himself, accusing him of a written message
which said, “It is tite times”?
Truly their sins were as scarlet. Cartice admitted their iniquities
without argument, and promised her friend that never, never, even in
her most secret thoughts would she call her a medium, much less breathe
the opprobrious epithet to others.
They went patiently on with their investigation, devoting two evenings
a week to Planchette and telling no one. It was by no means all fair
weather work either. They soon found that the only thing they could
be sure of was that they could depend on nothing; that with the
intelligence which manipulated Planchette no contract could be made.
They came, or they came not, just as it suited their good pleasure, and
were obedient to no mandate or appeal. They were arbitrary always, and,
as in most affairs of life, it was the unexpected that happened. From
what the investigators could learn, it would seem, as Mr. W. T. Stead
says, that although this world is queer the next appears to be queerer.
As they went on, they held more and more to the belief that they were
actually communicating with persons who had lived in flesh-and-blood
bodies like our own, and who still lived, retaining the same
characteristics that distinguished them here, but invisible to our
eyes--inhabitants perhaps of the much discussed Fourth Dimension of
Space. At least, one and all represented themselves as the persons whom
we call dead, but who live--live in a freer, larger life.
Occasionally they gave proofs of their identity so convincing that all
doubt vanished. They made it clear that the spark of divinity we call
individuality is a persistent, indestructible, deathless thing. Again,
messages were written which were not only trifling and valueless, but
also unsettling.
However, Cartice and the pretty priestess went on, feeling their way
through laws as yet scarcely discernible, but stupendous. It was soon
evident that each spirit could manifest its individuality through
Planchette as forcibly and unmistakably as is done here by means of
epistolary correspondence--more clearly, perhaps, since when the little
board writes, its movements and general behavior betray the mannerisms
of the unseen writer. When a woman spoke through it the feminine touch
was unmistakable, and the writing itself showed the finer element of
femininity. It must be remembered that the Butterfly, as the visible
operator, was simply part of the implement. The real writers were
inhabitants of the unseen world. These the two investigators sometimes
spoke of as spirits, though they realized that assuredly they were
people like ourselves, though existing under different conditions.
They were spirits, without doubt; yet so are we, though most of us are
unaware of our true being.
But few women came. Cartice was surprised at this, and asked one the
reason why. She said the men were stronger, and were so eager to write
that they crowded women out and took possession of the opportunity.
Hence it may be supposed that masculine selfishness is not eliminated
from the character by dropping the body, and that what we call brute
strength, (which is in reality, strength of the spirit) is still
formidable where bodies, as we know them, are not.
It was noticeable that these invisible folk seldom spoke of themselves
as dead. They had almost no use for the word. They spoke of those we
call living as “people still with you,” and of those whom we call dead
as “with us.” When asked if they knew such and such a person, they
sometimes met the question with the inquiry, “Is he with you or with
us?”
At times they readily wrote during a whole evening, first one, then
another, and so on, each writer showing a different personality by
means of manner, chirography, style of speech and character of thought.
At such times page after page as large as the table top would be
covered. Again, evenings would pass with but trifling results, and now
and then no communication whatever would be received. Nor could the
investigators learn the reason of this. Simply, so it was, and the fact
had to be accepted without explanation.
The revelations were not always serious. Occasionally they were of
clown-like jollity, evidently proceeding from clownish intellects.
Frequently the writers refused to give any clue to their identity, and
as for names there was a palpable avoidance of them that was puzzling.
Occasionally a name would be given as readily as when its owner was
here, but usually friends and acquaintances revealed themselves by
their peculiar characteristics and references to past events, and this,
of course, was the better method, as any mischievous spirit could
pretend to be somebody else, if names were the sole reliance.
Prescott came often, and was always unmistakably Prescott. Transition
had not changed him. His individuality, so original, distinct and
strong, was as conspicuous and recognizable, revealed through the
little board, as when he had mingled with men, uttering himself boldly,
without fear or favor.
Sometimes he burst upon his two faithful friends like a tornado,
making Planchette fly fiercely. They could almost see him sweep others
aside and take possession. His speech was crisp, keen and sparkling,
as in the old days, but, if possible, he was less communicative about
himself than ever. When they questioned him on that point, he made neat
evasions; but they gathered the impression that he was not entirely
satisfied. Though he did not say so, they could not help feeling that
the activities of life here still attracted him, and that he was not
content at being unable to take part in them.
Remembering his sneers and jeers at all belief in the extension of
life beyond death, in whatever form, Cartice reminded him of them, and
asked what he thought now of his previous errors. With his customary
frankness he answered:
“I was a fool then; but I confess now that I always believed far more
than I would have acknowledged. I was afraid you would think me weak if
I admitted all I thought possible. I was a coward, you see, though I
showed precious little mercy to other cowards.”
Then she asked about his presentiment of happiness on his last evening
on earth, and he answered: “I suppose it was given me so I might know
that the end of trouble and turmoil was at hand; but I was blind, as
you all are, and did not understand.”
She begged him to relate his experiences in the new life from his first
moment of consciousness. To this entreaty he replied:
“I will try to do so sometime when I am better instructed than now. As
yet I am too new here to tell you what you wish to know. I have much to
learn before I can be a safe teacher for anybody.”
To many questions he made neither answer nor apology for his failure to
answer. It was plain that he could not, would not or dare not tell much
about the life he was now living. Once in response to a particularly
direct question bearing on that, he said, with a shade of sadness in
the words:
“Wait in patience, and be as happy as you can till your time comes.”
And again: “Could you but see how things are carried on here you would
know how foolish some of your questions are.”
From this they gathered that conditions in the unseen world are vastly
different from those we are familiar with here, but in what respect
they could form no idea.
He had been a strong advocate of cremation. When asked if he still held
to his former opinions on that subject, he said:
“To us it makes no difference what is done with the carcass. To you it
is important that it does not endanger the public health.”
Once when Cartice remarked to her friend, as they sat together awaiting
Planchette’s pleasure, that perhaps the disembodied people suffer
because of the destruction of their bodies, Prescott sprang upon them
in a kind of fury, writing with savage haste:
“Do you suffer when you cut your finger-nails and throw away the
cuttings? Or when you clip your hair and burn the clippings? The body
is of the same character, mere waste material--cast-off clothes.”
When asked why he did not always come when they called him and awaited
him, he said:
“I wish you understood. I come when possible, but I cannot always
control the matter.”
Sometimes Cartice and Chrissalyn devoted an afternoon to Planchette,
but generally with less satisfactory results than when they
experimented in the evening. The reason of this they could not fix
upon until Prescott gave them a clue. On one such occasion, he said
with petulance: “Why do you call us in the broad day, when we can give
you more satisfaction at night? Day is your time for action, but night
is ours. Life here is the antithesis of life with you. Conditions are
reversed.”
“May we inquire why you cannot do so well for us in the daytime when
you do come?” Mrs. Doring asked, humbly.
“Because the vibrations of light are destructive to the power we make
use of for purposes of communication with you.”
This, then, is a rational explanation of the dark séances so much
condemned by persons unacquainted with psychic law, and which,
unhappily afford such fine opportunities for knavish deception.
“You speak of our calling you. Does it really call you when we sit with
the Planchette and ask for you?”
“Yes; through a law it would be difficult for you to understand,
however carefully I might try to explain it. Even I as yet comprehend
it but dimly. Your thought reaches us, for thought is omnipotent in
all the universe, and is the finest form of electricity which travels
with incredible speed. Your desire is a great force going forth to draw
to you what you desire. The law of demand is met by the law of supply
throughout all worlds, when it is properly set in motion. Your sitting
expectantly, with Planchette as the instrument of communication, makes
a magnetic centre, a veritable telegraph office to which we can come
and through which we can transmit messages. It is all done under law,
and so is everything in the universe. Find out the laws that govern
your own being and there is no limit to your powers.”