INTERVIEWING AN ASTROLOGER.
For several years--in fact ever since my first acquaintance with these
"occult" matters whereinto I am now such a veteran investigator--my
great wish has been to become practically acquainted with some Professor
of Astral Science. One friend, indeed, I had who had devoted a long
lifetime to this and kindred subjects, and of whom I shall have to speak
anon; but he had never utilized his knowledge so as to become the guide,
philosopher, and friend of amorous housemaids on the subject of their
matrimonial alliances, or set himself to discover petty larcenies for a
fee of half-a-crown. He assured me, however, that the practice of
astrology was as rife as ever in London at this moment, and that
businesses in that line were bought and sold for sterling coin of the
realm, just as though they had been "corner" publics, or "snug concerns"
in the cheesemongery line. All this whetted my appetite for inquiry, and
seeing one Professor Wilson advertise persistently in the _Medium_ to
the effect that "the celebrated Astrologer may be consulted on the
events of life" from two to nine P.M., I wrote to Professor Wilson
asking for an interview; but the celebrated astrologer did not favour
me with a reply.
Foiled in my first attempt I waited patiently for about a year, and then
broke ground again--I will not say whether with Professor Wilson, or
some other practitioner of astral science. I will call my Archimago
Professor Smith, of Newington Causeway, principally for the reason that
this is neither the real name nor the correct address. I have no wish to
advertise any wizard gratuitously; nor would it be fair to him, since,
as will be seen from the sequel, his reception of me was such as to make
it probable that he would have an inconvenient number of applicants on
the conditions observed at my visit.
Availing myself, then, of the services of my friend above-mentioned, I
arranged that we should together pay a visit to Professor Smith, of
Newington Causeway, quite "permiscuous," as Mrs. Gamp would say. My
companion would go with his own horoscope already constructed, as he
happened to know the exact hour and minute of his birth--particulars as
to which I only possessed the vaguest information, which is all I fancy
most of us have; though there was one circumstance connected with my own
natal day which went a long way towards "fixing" it.
It was on a Monday evening that I visited this modern Delphic oracle;
and, strangely enough, as is often the case, other events seemed to lead
up to this one. The very lesson on Sunday evening was full of
astrology. It was, I may mention, the story of the handwriting on the
wall and the triumph of Daniel over the magicians. Then I took up my
Chaucer on Monday morning; and instead of the "Canterbury Tales," opened
it at the "Treatise on the Astrolabe," which I had never read before,
but devoured then as greedily as no doubt did "Little Lowis," to whom it
is addressed. All this tended to put me in a proper frame of mind for my
visit to Newington; so, after an early tea, we took my friend's figure
of his nativity with us, and went.
Professor Smith, we found, lived in a cosy house in the main road, the
parlours whereof he devoted to the purposes of a medical magnetist,
which was his calling, as inscribed upon the wire blinds of the ground
floor front. We were ushered at once into the professor's presence by a
woman who, I presume, was his wife--a quiet respectable body with
nothing uncanny about her. The front parlour was comfortably furnished
and scrupulously clean, and the celebrated Professor himself, a pleasant
elderly gentleman, was sitting over a manuscript which he read by the
light of a Queen's reading lamp. There was not, on the one hand, any
charlatan assumption in his get-up, nor, on the other, was there that
squalor and neglect of the decencies of life which I have heard
sometimes attaches to the practitioners in occult science. Clad in a
light over-coat, with spectacles on nose, and bending over his MS.,
Professor Smith might have been a dissenting parson en déshabille
"getting off" his Sunday discourse, or a village schoolmaster correcting
the "themes" of his pupils. He was neither; he was a nineteenth century
astrologer, calculating the probabilities of success for a commercial
scheme, the draft prospectus of which was the document over which he
pored. As he rose to receive us I was almost disappointed to find that
he held no wand, wore no robe, and had no volume of mystic lore by his
side. The very cat that emerged from underneath his table, and rubbed
itself against my legs was not of the orthodox sable hue, but simple
tabby and white.
My friend opened the proceedings by producing the figure of his
nativity, and saying he had come to ask a question in horary astrology
relative to a certain scheme about which he was anxious, such anxiety
constituting what he termed a "birth of the mind." Of course this was
Dutch to me, and I watched to see whether the Professor would be taken
off his guard by finding he was in presence of one thoroughly posted up
in astral science. Not in the least; he greeted him as a brother chip,
and straightway the two fell to discussing the figure. The Professor
worked a new one, which he found to differ in some slight particulars
from the one my friend had brought. Each, however, had worked it by
logarithms, and there was much talk of "trines" and "squares" and
"houses," which I could not understand; but eventually the coveted
advice was given by the Professor and accepted by my friend as devoutly
as though it had been a response of the Delphic oracle itself. The
business would succeed, but not without trouble, and possibly litigation
on my friend's part. He was to make a call on a certain day and "push
the matter" a month afterwards; all of which he booked in a
business-like manner. This took a long time, for the Professor was
perpetually making pencil signs on the figure he had constructed, and
the two also discussed Zadkiel, Raphael, and other astrologers they had
mutually known. Continual reference had to be made to the "Nautical
Almanack;" but by-and-by my friend's innings was over and mine
commenced. I have said that I did not know the exact hour and minute of
my birth, and when, with appropriate hesitation, I named the 1st of
April as the eventful day, the Professor looked at me for a moment with
a roguish twinkle of the eye as though to ascertain that I was not
poking fun at him. I assured him, however, that such was the
inauspicious era of my nativity, and moreover that I was born so closely
on the confines of March 31--I do not feel it necessary to specify the
year--as to make it almost dubious whether I could claim the honours of
April-Fooldom. This seemed enough for him--though he warned me that the
absence of the exact time might lead to some vagueness in his
communications--and he proceeded forthwith to erect my figure; which,
by the way, looked to me very much like making a "figure" in Euclid;
and I peered anxiously to see whether mine bore any resemblance to the
Pons Asinorum!
I feared I had led my philosopher astray altogether when the first item
of information he gave me was that, at about the age of twenty-one, I
had met with some accident to my arm, a circumstance which I could not
recall to memory. Several years later I broke my leg, but I did not tell
him that. Going further back, he informed me that about the age of
fourteen, if I happened to be apprenticed, or in any way placed under
authority, I kicked violently over the traces, which was quite true,
inasmuch as I ran away from school twice at that precise age, so that my
astrologer scored one. At twenty-eight I married (true), and at
thirty-two things were particularly prosperous with me--a fact which I
was also constrained to acknowledge correct. Then came a dreadful
mistake. If ever I had anything to do with building or minerals, I
should be very successful. I never had to do with building save once in
my life, and then Mr. Briggs's loose tile was nothing to the
difficulties in which I became involved. Minerals I had never dabbled in
beyond the necessary consumption of coals for domestic purposes. I had
an uncle who interested himself in my welfare some years ago--this was
correct--and something was going to happen to my father's sister at
Midsummer, 1876. This, of course, I cannot check; but I trust, for the
sake of my venerable relation, it may be nothing prejudicial. I was also
to suffer from a slight cold about the period of my birthday in that
same year, and was especially to beware of damp feet. My eldest brother,
if I had one, he said, had probably died, which was again correct; and
if my wife caught cold she suffered in her throat, which piece of
information, if not very startling, I am also constrained to confess is
quite true. Then followed a most delicate piece of information which I
blush as I commit to paper. I wished to marry when I was twenty-one, but
circumstances prevented. Then it was that memories of a certain
golden-haired first love came back through the vista of memory. I was
then a Fellow of my College, impecunious except as regarded my
academical stipend, so the young lady took advice and paired off with a
well-to-do cousin. Sic transit gloria mundi! We are each of us stout,
unromantic family people now; but the reminiscence made me feel quite
romantic for the moment in that ground floor front in Newington
Causeway; and I was inclined to say, "A Daniel come to judgment!" but I
checked myself and remarked, sotto voce, in the vernacular, "Right
again, Mr. Smith!"
Before passing on to analyse me personally he remarked that my wife's
sister and myself were not on the best of terms. I owned that words had
passed between us; and then he told me that in my cerebral development
there was a satisfactory fusion of caution and combativeness. I was not
easily knocked over, or, if so, had energy to get up again. This energy
was to tell in the future. This, I believe, is a very usual feature of
horoscopic revelation. Next year was to be particularly prosperous. I
should travel a good deal--had travelled somewhat this year, and was
just now going to take a short journey; but I should travel a great deal
more next year. I own to asking myself whether this could bear any
reference to the Pontigny Pilgrimage in which I shared this year, and
the possible pilgrimage to Rome next summer, and also a projected
journey to Scotland by the Limited Mail next Tuesday evening! On the
whole, my astrologer had scored a good many points.
The most marvellous revelation of all yet remains to be made, however.
When we rose to go we each of us endeavoured to force a fee on Professor
Smith, but nothing would induce him to receive a farthing! I had got all
my revelations, my "golden" memories of the past, my bright promises of
the future free, gratis, for nothing! It will be evident, then, why I do
not give this good wizard's address lest I inundate him with gratuitous
applicants, and why I therefore veil his personality under the
misleading title of Professor Smith of Newington Causeway.