THE “SECRET CONCLAVE.”
The Editor finds that here the connected narrative of Etherial Softdown
breaks off. Though there are many fragmentary notes, which he found
in Yieger’s Cabinet, which bear a clear, yet somewhat disconnected
relation, to the past and future of the scenes and actors already
described; these he has thought proper to collate, and throw together
into something as nearly approaching order as their desultory character
will permit.
This man Yieger seems to have been an enthusiast of a very unusual
stamp. He has, however, left so little concerning himself, that we can
only say, he appears to have made it his business to follow up, in a
quiet and unsuspected way, a certain series of investigations, the
purport and tendency of which was to unveil a class of crimes, which,
from being secret, were enabled to work and worm their way nearest to
the core of the social state.
Thus, in addition to the monstrous and unimagined vices described by
him in the preceding chapters, he seems to have discovered secret
combinations, the possibilities of which have probably never entered
before into human brains, but the results of which were as prodigious
as the causes were unsuspected. These were composed of no mystic
demagogues of humanitarianism, who sheltered mere partisan and personal
designs, under the broad curtain of secret rituals symbolising
philanthropic aims; no bald enthusiasts, who softly sunk their
individualities in an Order, and sold their god-like birthrights of
universal benevolence, of world-wide charity, for the golden shackles
of a pretentious benevolence, the selfish code of which was, mutual
protection first, and—nobody else afterwards!
These were wise, bold, hardened men—hardened in the rough contests
by the highways of life—who had seen all, felt all, and known all,
that life could give or take. They were prepared for any of its
extremes, but had outlived its sympathies. They were incarnations
of pure intellection; the accomplishment of the object was their
conscience—they despised allegories, and they trampled upon symbols.
Nothing was mysterious to them, but an undigested purpose. For them
there was no law but that might be eluded—no sanctities, but as
they might be used—no religion but necessity, which was, to them,
achievement!
When such men organised, they merely came together,—ten or a dozen of
them,—they required no oaths, no pledges—they knew each other! “We
hold such and such opinions upon one point only; and that one point
is, mutual interest, and under that, 1st, that we can govern this
nation; 2d, that to govern it, we must subvert its institutions; and,
3d, subvert them we will! It is our interest; this is our only bond.
Capital must have expansion. This hybrid republicanism saps the power
of our great agent by its obstinate competition. We must demoralise
the republic. We must make public virtue a by-word and a mockery, and
private infamy to be honor. Beginning with the people, through our
agents, we shall corrupt the State.
“We must pamper superstition, and pension energetic fanaticism—as on
‘Change we degrade commercial honor, and make ‘success’ the idol.
We may fairly and reasonably calculate, that within a succeeding
generation, even our theoretical schemes of republican subversion may
be accomplished, and upon its ruins be erected that noble Oligarchy of
caste and wealth for which we all conspire, as affording the only true
protection to capital.
“Beside these general views, we may in a thousand other ways apply
our combined capital to immediate advantage. We may buy up, through
our agents, claims upon litigated estates, upon confiscated bonds,
mortgages upon embarrassed property, land-claims, Government contracts,
that have fallen into weak hands, and all those floating operations,
constantly within hail, in which ready-money is eagerly grasped as the
equivalent for enormous prospective gains.
“In addition, through our monopoly of the manufacturing interest,
by a rigorous and impartial system of discipline, we shall soon be
able to fill the masses of operators and producers with such distrust
of each other, and fear of us, as to disintegrate their radical
combinations, and bring them to our feet. Governing on ‘Change, we
rule in politics; governing in politics, we are the despots in trade;
ruling in trade, we subjugate production; production conquered, we
domineer over labor. This is the common-sense view of our interests—of
the interests of capital, which we represent. In the promotion of this
object, we appoint and pension our secret agents, who are everywhere
on the lookout for our interests. We arrange correspondence, in
cipher, throughout the civilized world; we pension our editors and our
reporters; we bribe our legislators, and, last of all, we establish and
pay our secret police, local, and travelling, whose business it is, not
alone to report to us the conduct of agents already employed, but to
find and report to us others, who may be useful in such capacity.
“We punish treachery by death!”
Such is a partial schedule of the terms of one of these terrible
confederacies, as furnished in a detached note by Yieger, which held
its secret sessions in New York city. He seems to have obtained a
sight of some of their records, but by what means, the most daring
could only conjecture. He appears to have regarded this particular
organisation as the most formidable of all, and to have traced many of
its ramifications, in their covert results, with a singularly dogged
tenacity.
Among the extraordinary papers contained in the Cabinet he has left,
are to be found short notes, containing what are clearly reports and
proceedings of this formidable conclave. Its mysterious signature,
Regulus, seems to have been known throughout the world; and even he,
though clearly a fierce and relentless foe, never writes it, but with
the involuntary concession of respect, which large, clear letters,
underscored, would seem to convey.
Having now presented such an outline of the character and designs of
this secret conclave, as the means of information furnished him have
enabled him to do, the Editor will proceed with the promised extracts
from its proceedings, such as relate to those in regard to whom the
reader may be supposed to have some curiosity.
First, we have here
“A NOTE CONCERNING ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN.
“This woman, whose patronymic was Softdown, first married a Quaker,
named Orne; which name, after her separation, and until after her
divorce, she continued to bear, with the _alias_ of Marie. She
began her public career, soon after her marriage, as a Quaker
preacher; but the straitness of this sect not conforming at all to
her latitudinarian principles, she recanted in disgust, and left
the society. She now plunged at once into Physiology, and, after a
miraculously short gestation, produced a few lectures, with which she
went the rounds of two or three New England States, accompanied by her
husband, whom she, _sans ceremonie_, dubbed M. D., without putting him
to the trouble of reading, or ever having read, a book on any subject.
He officiated as her doorkeeper, and received the ‘shillings;’ but,
refusing to render any account of the proceeds, a furious feud grew up
between them, and soon the war waxed hot and fierce.
“Finding this to be poor business on the whole, she deserted him,
taking her child with her. The next occupation in which we find her
versatile genius engaged, was that of teaching French; a more humble
employment, surely, but one for which she was equally well fitted.
This, however, soon disgusted her, as her unreasonable patrons would
insist upon the vulgar necessity of her being able to speak French,
as well as teach it. It was at best but a tame avocation, and one
entirely unsuited to her ambitious temper.
“Having now fairly assayed her wings for flight, she soared aloft at
once, in full career, through mid-air. She became first a preacher
of Universalism; but meeting, about this time, with the celebrated
Boanerges Phospher, she, in a few weeks, turned out full-plumed,
as a lecturer on Elocution. To this she soon added a knowledge of
Phrenology, which, in her active zeal, she took care to impart to the
world, as fast as acquired, and in the same public manner.
“Then, as a natural consequence, came Mesmerism; then Neurology. Of
all these sciences she became the prompt expounder, after a few days’
investigation.
“From this point she immediately ascended a step higher, and announced
herself as a revelator in Clairvoyance; and, by an inevitable
progression, she at once found admission, along with Andrew Jackson
Davis and a host of other seers, into the Swedenborgian Arcana, and
held herself on terms of frequent intercourse and positive intimacy
with the angel Gabriel, and, indeed, the whole heavenly host.
“They revealed to her that the great and unpardonable sins of humanity
were, first, eating pork; second, using tobacco, whether snuffing,
smoking, or chewing; and, third, wine-drinking in all its forms. They
accordingly commissioned her, formally, to go forth into the world
as a missionary, to warn mankind against the fearful consequences of
these vices, and to ‘save’ them therefrom.
“The exposition of Grahamism and Bran-bread was now added to the
enlarged circle of her enlightened Professorships; and, by this
aid, and that of her spiritual commission, she wrought wonders, in
assailing the camps of the great foes of humanity—Pork, Tobacco, and
Wine!
“Many were the brands plucked by her from the burning, or rather
‘saved’—preachers, lawyers, editors, artists, and watery-eyed young
gentlemen, in particular. It was on this grand tour that she
first assumed her most distinguished attribute, the Patroness of
Art—particularly of the Artists.
“Returning to civilization once more, she again assumed her cast-off
Professorship of Physiology, and began lecturing to classes of
her own sex. Now, with the first gleam of light from Græfenberg,
she pronounced herself as having been, for many years before,
a practitioner of the system; and at once proceeded to combine
Grahamism, Mesmerism, Water-cure, and Physiology.
“While in the vein of Physiology, she also lectured on the benefits
of Amalgamation, Abolitionism, and Non-resistance. About this
time, having met with one of the chief expounders of Fourierism,
whom she also undertook to ‘save,’ she turned out in a few weeks a
Phalanxsterian lecturer. That bubble had barely exploded, when she
came forth a Communist. Shortly afterwards, having one or two editors
separately undergoing the process of being ‘saved,’ she became
authoress! She produced several physiological novels, a number of
essays, poems, volumes of lectures, &c., &c.
“The police which obey the mandates of the formidable Regulus, have
kept the changes of this feminine Proteus for now upward of forty
years, steadily in view; and the Council of Disorganisation report,
through their committee, that they have ample reason to be pleased
with this Etherial Softdown, as the most indefatigable, active,
unscrupulous, and energetic of the agents of Demoralisation in the
employment of the Secret Conclave.
“They congratulate themselves in the belief that, with an hundred
such employées devoted to their service, they could corrupt the
private faith and public virtue of the whole Union so effectually, in
a single generation, as to enable them to utterly destroy its social
organisation and subvert its Constitution.
“This would, of course, secure the desired Oligarchy of caste and
wealth, and reduce the nation to serfdom.
“She is to be encouraged, and placed upon the pension-list of the
‘Secret Conclave.’
“Since this report, the latest transformations of Etherial Softdown
have been, first, into rabid Bloomerism; in the height of which
madness, she possessed a sufficiency of the martyr-spirit to parade
herself, on all public occasions, though nearly fifty years of age, in
full costume.
“By a necessary transition, the next step was into an apostleship of
the new school of ‘Woman’s Rights’ and Abolitionism; which openly
rejoices in the repudiation of the Bible from among the sacred books
of the world—accepting it merely as the text-book of popular cant, to
be used in working upon the passions and superstitions of the mob.
“This last metamorphosis of Etherial Softdown seems to be the most
promising of all those through which the police of the ‘Conclave’
have, thus far, been able to trace her.”[4]
[4] The following note was received, in answer to one addressed to a
distinguished surgeon of Philadelphia, in relation to the phenomenon
of voluntary bleeding, so frequently illustrated in the History of
Etherial Softdown.—EDITOR.
“DEAR SIR:
“The case which you presented to me, for an explanation of the
causes which may have produced voluntary discharges of blood from
the mouth, is certainly a very remarkable one, though by no means
without parallel in the records of _feigned diseases_. The power of
the will, in persons of peculiar formation or constitution, is seen,
occasionally, to be extended to various organs designed by nature to
act without awakening consciousness and in a manner altogether beyond
the control of the individual. To say nothing of many muscles of the
scalp, the ears, the skin of the neck, &c., which are used to great
purpose by the inferior animals, but are totally inactive in man,
except in a few rare instances, it is well known that many persons
possess the power of voluntary vomiting. About forty years ago, a man
presented himself before a celebrated surgeon of London, and proved
that he possessed the ability to check completely the flow of blood
through the artery at the wrist, by violently contracting a muscle
of the arm above the elbow, which, in his case, happened to overlap
and press upon the main trunk of the vessel. I am acquainted with a
gentleman in this country, who can perform the same feat. There is
on record a well-authenticated history of a man who could completely
control, by will, the motions of his heart; and who, eventually,
committed accidental suicide, by arresting the circulation so long
that the heart never reacted. I am acquainted with a gentleman who
can voluntarily contract and dilate the pupil of the eye to a certain
extent; and have seen the same effect repeatedly, and in a far greater
degree, among the Hindoo jugglers. This action is natural in the
owl, but probably requires a peculiar nervous structure in man. Some
persons have a power of so completely simulating death, that neither
by respiration, the motion of the eye under light, nor the pulse,
could any unprofessional observer, or even an experienced physician,
detect the counterfeit. One of my servants in India, struck another
Hindoo with his open hand, for some impertinence. The man instantly
fell, apparently dead; and I happened to arrive just as the friends
were about to remove the body, no doubt for the purpose of extorting
money by concealment and false pretences. I could perceive no
respiration (the glass-test was not applied), no pulse at the wrist;
the pupil of the eye was fixed in all lights. There was, however, a
slight thrilling in the carotid artery, and I judged the case to be
one of admirable feigning. Severe pinching was borne without change
of expression, as was also the deep prick of a pin. For amusement, I
pronounced him dead, but assured the ignorant natives that I would
bring him to life. On my calling for a little pan of coals,—always
ready in a bachelor drawing-room in the East, for lighting
cigars,—there came over the countenance the slightest possible shade
of anxiety. I ordered the patient’s abdomen laid bare, and gently
toppled a bright coal from the pan upon it. The effect was magical.
Instantly, the fellow gave the most lively evidences of vitality;
and, as he crossed the _Compound_ and darted through the gateway, he
seemed solely bent upon rivalling the mysterious industry of the ‘man
with the cork-leg.’ “By strong contraction of all the muscles of the
chest, while those of the neck are rigid and the lungs fully inflated,
the vessels of the head and neck can be distended almost to bursting.
Actors sometimes use this power to produce voluntary blushing, or the
suffusion of anger, though the practice endangers apoplexy. I take
this to be the secret of the voluntary bleeding, in the case described
by you.
“The tonsils, and the membrane of the throat behind the nose and
mouth, are full of innumerable blood-vessels, forming a net-work; and
very slight causes often produce great enlargement of these vessels.
By frequent temporary distension, they are not only permanently
enlarged, but made more susceptible of additional expansion from
trivial accidents. In this condition, they may be brought to resemble,
in some degree, what is termed, by anatomists, _the erectile tissue_,
which structure has sufficient contractility to prevent the admission
of more than an ordinary amount of blood on common occasions, but when
excited in any way, it yields with great ease, and admits of enormous
dilatation. Erectile tumors are dangerous, from their tendency,
ultimately, to bleed spontaneously. They are sometimes formed in the
throat. The party referred to may have one, or she may have simply
enlarged the vessels by habitual mechanical distension, by compressing
the chest in the manner just described. There is such a natural
tendency, in all parts about the throat and nose, to bleed from slight
causes, particularly after repeated inflammation, that it strikes
me as by no means wonderful, that a designing person should, by
long-practised mechanical efforts, aided, perhaps, by the consequences
of former colds, reduce these parts to a condition such that they
would bleed from voluntary distension. The only wonder in the case
is the _quantity_ discharged, while this person does not appear to
be subject to involuntary hemorrhage also. This result will probably
occur hereafter, and the impostor may share the fate of the man who
arrested the motion of his heart.
“These cases of feigned diseases give great vexation to army surgeons
and almshouse physicians; and, in private life, are often resorted
to by the cunning and unprincipled, for the purpose of harrowing the
feelings of relatives, from some sinister intention. It might well be
wished, that the case you describe were one of the most difficult of
detection, but it is far from being so.
“Believe me, my dear sir,
“Very truly, yours,” &c.