SOME SPIRITUALISTIC REMINISCENCES.
Having often been asked to put on record my few and far-between
experiences of spiritualism, as on several occasions I have verbally
related them, I have hitherto neglected or declined to do so, on account
of having really seen little, whereas many others have seen far more.
And on the whole it is to me rather an unwelcome task from several
considerations; first, because I have never wished to add, by my
apparent testimony, to the rising tide of unwholesome superstition in
that or any other direction; secondly, because I had always a crowd of
more important matters to look after, and, perhaps, was inclined to
indolence in the "_dolce far niente_" respecting things of less
consequence to myself; and thirdly, in chief, because, albeit I have
seen and heard a few of the petty miracles (avouched for otherwise by
thousands of better witnesses) inexplicable to my own reason, I yet
entirely abjure and renounce this so-called spiritualism as any part of
my personal belief. In particular, it seems to me quite an inconclusion
to give to the spirits of the dead, or to any other existences, good or
evil (unless, indeed, by possibility to ourselves as magnetically and
sympathetically influenced by some metaphysical potencies whereof we
know next to nothing), the seemingly miraculous powers exhibited,
however weakly and childishly, in numberless _séances_, privileged to
possess among the company an ecstatic medium between (as is assumed)
themselves and beings immaterial.
The little I have seen and heard shall, however, now, upon a reasonable
call, be related simply and honestly, without any theory beyond what is
parenthetically alluded to in my last sentence, and with no attempt at
explanation, but only the expression of this truth, viz., that no
collusion apparently was possible (according to my judgment) in any of
the following manifestations, and that I promise only to state plain
facts, however, others may seek to expound them. Of course, where
cunning and dishonesty may contrive conjuring tricks it is not worth
while to treat such "manifestations" seriously, but I speak of what
seemed to be genuine, if trifling, marvels.
To begin, then, with my earliest experience, written down the same
evening, and sent to the _Brighton Gazette_, from which I give an
extract. The date is Thursday, January 25th, 1849; the host, the late
Mr. Howell, of Hove; the performer, Alexis, pupil of M. Marcillet, who
accompanied him. After clairvoyance, induced by passes, Alexis is
blindfolded carefully, and then, with the host's own pack of cards, wins
blindfolded at games of écarté with myself. Next, a French book, brought
by an incredulous physician, was placed open upon the forehead of
Alexis, who read aloud some lines of it. This experiment, with
variations, was several times repeated. The third was my own test. I had
sealed up something unknown to all the world but myself in twelve
envelopes of white paper. Alexis, placing the parcel on his forehead, in
broken and difficult enunciation, said "it was writing, two names, both
commencing with M; one of them an English name, the other French, or
some language not English; that the first contained four letters, the
second six (being really nine)," but he failed to give the names, which
were Mary Magdalene. It was suggested that if they had been written in
French his mind might have more easily discerned them. After this,
several locks of hair and sealed-up parcels, watches, and lockets, were
(with some unsuccessful attempts) guessed at, seemingly to the
satisfaction of the ladies and gentlemen who had respectively brought
them for explanation. The last experiment regarded a large bon-bon box
covered up, in which the host himself had concealed a mystery. Alexis
described it as wrapped in several folds, graven all round, oval, a
portrait of a young person of eighteen, but done a long time ago, set in
gold, "femme habillée en blanc; elle est morte, la tête au droit." In
all these respects the object was faithfully described, in particular to
the "long time ago," which, by a date on the portrait, was found to be
1769. And there were some other experiments, but Alexis, as appearing to
be well-nigh worn out with mental exertion, was then mercifully
unmesmerised.
I may mention, by the way, that the said host at whose house Alexis
attended was a firm believer in the power of the human will, and as
connected therewith, in mesmerism, whereby he used to cure people of
headaches and other infirmities; and, at length, through his
philanthropic and energetic attraction to himself of other folks'
disorders (for he fancied he imbibed for his own behoof the pains he
drained _ab extrâ_), he unhappily became a paralytic, dying not long
after. One of his less perilous attempts at the miraculous, I remember
was this: he brought a street Arab into his drawing-room, and put a
half-crown down on the carpet for him to pick up if he could, and keep
for himself; however, this the boy found, to his wonderment, to be
practically impossible, seeing that Mr. Howell had secretly willed that
he could not and should not pick up the prize. But such efforts of a
man's strong will are well evidenced in numerous other instances, and
serve to prove that no spiritual interferences beyond our noble selves
are essential to such mysteries.
Amongst other reminiscences of the marvellous, I may refer to a private
exhibition in the Berners Street Hotel, to which I was invited by Mrs.
Washington Phillips (of whom more anon), to investigate Mr. Vernon's
influence over a little girl some twelve years old. The child's
specialty was an alleged capability of reading without eyesight, the
back of her head low down on the nape doing duty in the way of vision.
To omit numerous other successful examples (some failing, which I
thought so far evidences of the absence of collusion), I will detail my
own conclusive experiment. But let me anticipate an objection relating
to the exhibitor himself. Some of our party, a very distinguished one,
and known to each other, kept Mr. Vernon in conversation at a distance,
while the child was reading our thoughts, or the actual words of print
unknown to ourselves, quite independently of his manipulations; he
having first comatised her into a mesmeric state of trance. The invited
guests were told, as in the Alexis case, that we might bring our own
tests; and I had put into my pocket a small volume of Milton, from which
she might read on the nape of her neck, if she could. We had previously
bandaged her eyes, even to plaistering them up; and were only bidden to
be careful not to let the handkerchief cover the place of reverted
seeing on her neck. I stood behind the child, and, without knowing where
I opened my little Milton, placed the expanded volume on the back of her
head; and forthwith, slowly and with difficulty, as a child might, she
read two lines of blank verse, which I and all immediately verified!
Now, I state a fact which I cannot explain; for I myself had not seen
the lines, so my own brain was not read: neither could Mr. Vernon nor
any one else have been concerned in the matter. I believe this sort of
thing to be well-known to spiritualists, and they may, for aught I know,
refer it to angelic or necromantic interposition: whereas, what
physicians tell us of hypochondria is, perhaps, a mysterious explanation
nearer the mark.
The same child, refreshed into an abnormal ecstasy, taking the hands of
several of our party professed to read their thoughts, with admitted
success in some instances. With me she failed, but then I was not
considered _en rapport_. Female believers are always much more
susceptible than masculine sceptics. However, I certainly had proof of
the child's marvellous power in this slight matter following. Two young
ladies had successfully brought her in spirit, into their mother's
drawing-room in Berkeley Square, the child graphically explaining all
she saw as she was mentally led along, and on being asked if she noticed
anything new and pretty on the mantel-piece, she got up and placed
herself in an attitude of dancing, and she said there was a figure and
it was clothed in lace. This was true; it was a bisque statuette of
Taglioni. On being led round the room, still in spirit and
clairvoyante, the child strangely described wax-flowers under a glass,
and laughed heartily at "Taffy riding his goat,"--a china ornament which
she could have known nothing of.
With respect to the lady who invited us, I can relate a strange story
wherewith the Brighton doctors in 1848 were familiar. Mrs. P. had an
invalid daughter subject to violent headaches, and as she had read of
the remedial powers of mesmerism from Chauncey Townsend's book,
privately resolved to try and cure her, and soon set her to sleep by the
usual "passes." However, when after twelve and even eighteen hours the
girl could not be awakened, Mrs. P. and her husband (a clergyman, who
knew nothing of the cause) were alarmed and summoned doctor after
doctor, to wake her, if they could. But all was in vain, until some one
turning to the peccant and magical volume found that by the simple
process of reversing the passes the abnormal slumber might be made to
cease. This was done at once, and all came more than right, for the girl
woke up without her usual headache, and was cured from that hour. At
this time of day, after thirty years and more, society having become
wiser, and bur medical men more physiologically hygienic, we all now wot
of mesmerism, and innumerable cases of cure through that mysterious form
of catalepsy.
For another small experience, I have several times been among a crowd of
others at public exhibitions of those who speak off-hand in prose or
verse, "inspirationally" as they call it, but as the outer world prefer
to believe, improvisatorially, and certainly amid such gifted persons
Mrs. Cora Tappan stands out prominently in my memory. At the Brighton
Pavilion I gave her for a theme to be versified on the spot extempore
my own heraldic motto, "L'espoir est ma force," and to my astonishment,
in a burst of rhymed eloquence she rolled off at least a dozen four-line
stanzas on Hope and its spiritual power. Some one else among the
audience gave the subject of cremation, and forthwith the lady descanted
with terrific force on funeral pyres and the horrors of Gehenna; whilst
a male performer affected to personate sundry well-known dead orators of
past days (for as the inspirers were supposed to be disembodied spirits
no living orators were allowable), and he certainly imitated both voices
and topics with singular success. But everybody has heard of this sort
of thing, sufficiently remarkable as a mental effort; and we have all
similarly witnessed the more material marvels of Maskelyne and Cook,
known to be mechanical contrivances which are still riddles to the
world.
Again, there are those who draw and paint in a condition of spiritual
ecstasy; and I remember visiting a public exhibition in Bond Street,
exclusively of most curious and intricate pictures, asserted to have
been inspired by dead artists, some being elaborate flourishings of
scenes and figures, said to be thus depicted as with lightning speed. As
to living artists, there are in existence several excitable youths and
damsels who write and draw very rapidly in an ecstatic state; and I
myself possess a dreamy conglomerate of microscopic faces crowded
together, and stated to have been drawn thus instantaneously to prove to
us "the cloud of witnesses," "the innumerable company of angels," by
whom we are continually surrounded.
I pretermit with brief mention sundry inexplicable wonders, such as
those wherewith the spiritualistic papers are frequently full, only
stating that I was one of those who investigated the case of the Rev.
Mr. Vaughan's pew-opener, at St. James's, Brighton, whose daughter was
thought to be "bewitched." Certainly, strange knockings accompanied her
when she came in at my call, much like those I heard many years ago at
Rochester, U.S.; and her mother (a pious and credible widow) assured me,
with tears of unfeigned anxiety, that the chairs and stools followed her
about!--a statement only half credible, when we reflect that there is an
animal magnetism as well as a mineral one, and that we know nothing of
the reasons of either. Our ignorance on such matters is so profound that
we may fairly be credulous unless we obstinately refuse altogether our
belief in human testimony; but if we dare to do this, higher interests
are endangered than spiritualistics. Our religion is mainly based upon
credible evidence.
There is certainly much that is mysterious in the toy they call
"Planchette," a triangular thin slab of polished wood on a couple of
small wheels, with a pencil at the apex. Hands laids upon this by two
persons properly conditioned, will give apparent vitality and volition
to the small machine, and make the pencil seem to write of itself in
answer to expressed (or meditated) questions. At a wealthy mansion in
South Kensington, for instance, I saw two charming young Italian ladies,
sisters, covering rapidly sheet after sheet with the abstrusest essays
on occult subjects, given to them to write upon inspirationally; and the
chief wonder was (as a learned friend by me well observed) where the
knowledge came from, so seemingly infused into two unscientific young
girls. Afterwards the said learned friend tried Planchette with me, and
we were considerably startled to find that when I asked of the
so-called spirits, "What think ye of Christ?" the pencil under our
unconsciously-guided hands made answer, "With the utmost reverence!" I
need not assure mankind that neither my friend nor I (both incredulous
and unwilling witnesses) lent ourselves or one another to any deception,
and were mentally inclined, if at all, to the expectation that the
"spirits" might rather blaspheme than bless. It is right to mention
that, beyond the pair of young ladies and our two selves, only the host
and hostess were in the room; of whom I have this further wonder to
report, viz., that the host, whom I must not specify by name without his
leave, is afflicted with blindness, notwithstanding which and his
alleged incompetence towards poetry as an old naval officer, his wife
showed me several copybooks full of blank verse written by him in a hand
unlike his own, and supposed by them to be inspired by Young, as a
continuation of his "Night Thoughts." The captain and his lady also told
us how frequently flowers and sweetmeats (!) were showered on them from
the ceiling at their domestic dual _séances_: and on another occasion a
lady showed my wife and me a paper of seed pearls, alleged to have been
flung into her lap from the heavens--through the ceiling--by her
departed lord and master! Similarly, a lady well known in the
professedly spiritualistic circles, deposited round her chair, in the
dark, at Mr. S.C. Hall's, a profusion of bouquets--probably from Covent
Garden;--and that, notwithstanding the hostess had herself searched the
lady before the _séance_, as it was known that Mrs. G's special gift
from the spirits was the multitudinous creation of flowers! Really,
there must be a stand somewhere made to credulity; but, at all events,
the venerable host and hostess believed this, on what seemed to them
reasonable evidence, and quite forgave me for not believing it too.
And this brings me, naturally enough, to give a detailed account of the
two best and last _séances_ I ever took the trouble to attend; for I
have, during many years, entirely avoided such exhibitions, as generally
childish, mentally unwholesome, and to some people dangerously
seductive. I had several times asked my worthy friends last alluded to,
to give me and a friend of mine, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, the
privilege of "assisting" at a _séance_ under their experienced guidance:
and accordingly we were invited to meet Mr. Home, the high priest of
spiritualism, a quiet, well-mannered gentlemanly person enough, known to
our host from his birth. The other guests were a countess, the widow of
a colonel, and a distinguished physician; in all we numbered eight. My
friend and I were requested privately, by our host, to conceal our
probable incredulity if we desired the favour of the "spirits" in the
way of manifestations; and as these were what we came for, besides our
own polite desire to do at Rome as the Romans do, we readily assented to
the reasonable request. After the usual greetings and small talk of the
day, and tea and coffee and so forth, we all took seats round the
drawing-room circular table, a very weighty one, as I proved afterwards,
on a gigantic central pillar, and covered with a heavy piece of velvet
tapestry; and before commencing the special business we came for, I was
pleased to hear our host propose that we should all kneel round the
table and offer up prayer: this he did, simply and beautifully, in some
words, extemporary, closing with a Church collect and the Lord's
Prayer. On my expressed approval of this course, when we rose, Mr. Home
said it was always his custom, as a precautionary measure against the
self-intrusion of evil spirits: admittedly a wisdom, even if it seemed
somewhat unwise and perilous to be more or less courting the company of
such unpleasant guests, if a _séance_ (as experienced afterwards) did
not happen to be made safe by exorcism. And now the gaslights bracketed
round the room were put as low as possible, making a dim, religious
semi-darkness; however, as there was a bright fire in the grate, and
some small scintillæ of gas, and one's eyesight soon gets accustomed to
any diminution of light, we could soon see nearly as well as usual. This
"gloaming" is a common condition in _séances_, and for aught any one
knows may be an electrical _sine quâ non_ as needed for animal
magnetism; albeit some paid professionals may possibly find darkness a
very useful veil for cheatery. While we were chatting round the
table,--and Mr. Home enjoined this as better than the silent sobriety I
looked for--suddenly the table shuddered, and a cold wind swept over our
hands laid upon it. "They are coming now," said Mr. Home, which
everybody seemed glad of, though that cold wind felt to me not a little
"uncanny," but I said nothing in disparagement, for fear of stopping a
"manifestation." Soon loud knocks were heard, apparently from the middle
of the table, and on sundry spirits being alleged to be present, Mr.
Home proceeded to question them through the ordinary clumsy fashion, of
the alphabet, and some unimportant answers were elicited, which I fail
to remember and in common honesty must not invent. We were soon to see
stranger things; and I suppose the _séance_ was exceptionally
successful, as I afterwards noticed some of it in print. For while we
were looking and expecting, suddenly the table began to tilt this way
and that, and then as if by an effort the ponderous mass, with all our
hands still upon the velvet pall, positively mounted slowly into the
air, insomuch that we were obliged to rise from our chairs and stand to
reach the surface. I could see it at least two feet from the carpet, and
Mr. Home invited me to take especial notice that none of the company
could possibly be lifting the table; indeed, the strength of all of us
combined would have been barely enough for such a heavy task. Of course,
every one else but myself and friend supposed that the "spirits" had
kindly done this miracle to please us; but I unfortunately said "Oh!
Mrs. Hall! it will crush your chandelier!" (one of Venice glass, very
precious)--at which unbelieving remark, probably, the spirits took
umbrage, for at once the table ceased ascending, and with a slow
oscillation descended very gently on to the carpet. This sort of petty
miracle is a frequent experience among the spiritualists, and how it is
effected I cannot imagine. There could be no contrivance or machinery in
our host's drawing-room, as must be the case imitatively at the Egyptian
Hall; none of the company could be conspiring to deceive, and more than
all, that huge, heavy table rising up against the law of gravitation was
enough to chase away all incredulity. One fact is stronger than fifty
theories; and one reliable success overweighs a thousand failures. I
testify to that which I have seen.
But more, and more wondrous, was to follow. All at once Mr. Home flung
himself back in his chair, looking wild and white; and then rising
slowly and solemnly, went to the still bright fire, into which he
thrust his unprotected hands, and taking out a double handful of live
coals, placed them--as a fire offering--upon Mr. Hall's snow-white head,
combing the hair over them with his fingers, all which our host appeared
to receive more than patiently--religiously. Thereafter Mr. Home placed
them in the Countess's blonde-lace cap, and carried them, as a favour
vouchsafed by the spirits, to each of us, to hold in our hands. When he
came to me, Mr. Hall said: "My friend, have faith." "Yes," I answered,
"and courage, too;" whereupon I was blest with a good handful of those
wonderful coals, still hot enough to burn any skin; but, somehow or
other, I felt no pain and had no mark. Here was another law of nature
put to shame, in the miraculous fact that fire was seemingly deprived of
the power of burning. How this could be, I cannot guess; but I record
manfully the fact as witnessed. After this, an accordion held under the
table by Mr. Home with one hand, the other being upon the table,
positively played a tune of itself--"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie
Doon"--requested by Dr. Chambers, "that being the tune his dead child
loved so." I was requested to look under the table to see the
"spirit-hand" operating near the carpet; but I saw nothing except the
vitalised accordion expanding and contracting of itself, being held
tightly at the upper handle by Mr. Home. Some of the company, however,
claimed to see and to shake hands with the child, and Mr. Home requested
me to ask for a similar favour by placing my hand open under the table;
this, accordingly, I ventured to do, with the result of feeling my thumb
sensibly touched and thrilled, which I was told was a good sign of
favour from the spirits--albeit in my own mind I remembered what our
omniscient Shakespeare sings at the mouth of one of the Macbeth
witches,
"By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes"--
and failed to feel quite comfortable. Soon, however, Mr. Home said: "The
accordion is leaving my hand;" and I saw the mysterious thing crawling
on the floor like a lame dog till it got into a corner. Of course, I
suspected a secret string; but all at once it moved out and came back,
moaning Æolianly as it went, and stood up beside the chair of Mrs.
Colonel N.S., who patted it lovingly; thence passing behind me it went
and stood beside the Countess, who also caressed it; and then Mr. Home
said: "Now ask the spirit to come to you;" whereto I acceded, and the
accordion crept near me, as if unwillingly, and stood up; but when I
touched it the thing shrank from my unsympathetic hand, and fell down
flop.
After this, I noticed that my naval friend was staring with all his eyes
at something over our military widow's head, and that his hair (it is
red, which colour is very spiritualistic) stood on end as with fear.
"What's the matter, P.?" I asked. "Don't you see it?" responded he.
"What?" "The grey figure behind Mrs. N.S., bearded like an Egyptian
Sphinx." "That's the Colonel!" exclaimed Mr. Hall, and the widow bowed
religiously, with a "Dear! is it you?" On this, as my friend was
terribly frightened, we soon took leave; and when we went home, I found
that he was so pursued by "spirits" rapping all about him, that he
actually vacated his own room and slept in mine, for protection against
the invisible, on two chairs till morning broke; when he feared the
spirits no longer. I may mention that this insight into an immaterial
world (he having been inclined before to pyrrhonism) quite altered his
career, and that soon after he took holy orders. In this connection I
may state, that according to a printed account I have seen, both Mr. and
Mrs. Hall were converted from avowed materialism by spirit
manifestation, and that when the question of "_Cui bono?_" is raised,
his experience and that of divers others (the aforesaid Dr. Chambers in
particular) will avouch for the practical usefulness of these
inexplicable marvels.
But I must have done, with only one other reminiscence soon after that
at Ashley Place. This time the venue is Fitzroy Square, and the company
(to omit needless detail) was a polyglot one, consisting chiefly of a
German merchant, a Hebrew financier, a French governess, my naval friend
aforesaid, who was quick at Latin, and I, who more or less remembered my
Greek. Of course English was represented in the two only other guests;
and it will be seen how strangely philology enters into this my next and
concluding anecdote. After plenty of other rappings and noises (I
noticed by the way that all the metal things in the room, as castors and
cruets--it was a dining-room--and wine coolers and bronze chandelier,
were clicked and clanged), and after the usual stupid alphabet questions
and answers had been exhibited; after also the heavy mahogany table on
five substantial pillars had been miraculously moved about the room and
tilted, as we failed to effect at the _finale_ when we tried; all at
once a thundering knock quite shook the table and startled us, on which
Dr. Connell, our (unprofessional) medium for the nonce, as he had seen
more of spiritualistics than we had, called for the alphabetical test
to ascertain who it could be that knocked so furiously, for the blows
were often repeated. So then, by the slow method of letter by letter, he
made out the name "Jamblic," and then gave it up in despair, as he said
it was a mischievous imp that was sporting with us; but the knocks still
continued, and some one suggested that perhaps this strange name was
foreign, and that his own language would please the incensed spirit
better than English. Accordingly, he was addressed by the assembled
circle severally in French, German, Hebrew, and Latin, all in vain; when
I bethought me of Greek and the Pythagoreans and spoke out "_Ei su
Iamblicos_" (Art thou Iamblicus?)--on which, as if with joy at having
been discovered, there was a rush of noises and knocks all round the
room (my perfervid imagination fancied the flapping of wings), and
immediately after there ensued a dead silence! So we soon broke up and
went home. Opening my classical dictionary at Iamblicus, I read what I
certainly had not seen or thought of for more than thirty years, that he
was an author on "the mysteries of the Egyptians," and was bracketed
with Porphyry as a professor of the black art. Was then this unpleasant
visitor to Fitzroy Square no other than that magician redivivus? An
awkward possibility.
And now to bring these scattered reminiscences to a practical
conclusion. What can I, what can my readers decide, on a rational
consideration of the whole matter? It is, no doubt, very baffling to
judge how rightly to think about it. I have stated a few facts that have
come under my own personal knowledge; but there are thousands of others
similar and even more extraordinary, which numerous persons quite as
credible as I am can vouch for in like manner to be true facts while
remaining unexplained miracles. For myself, I must suspend judgment;
waiting to see what in these wonderful times--some further development
of electricity, for example, may haply produce for us. After recent
marvels of the telephone, microphone, photophone, and I know not what
others, why should not some Edison or Lane Fox stumble upon a form of
psychic force emanating from our personal nervous organisation, and
capable of operating physically on all things round us, the immaterial
conquering the material it pervades? Some such vague theory as to
spiritualistic manifestations may be a far more rational as well as
pleasing explanation of these modern marvels than to suppose that our
dead friends come at any medium's summons to move tables, talk bad
grammar, and play accordions; or that angels, good and evil, are allowed
to be employed in mystifying or terrifying the frivolous assisters at a
_séance_.
Beyond and after this, I might add, but for its too great length, the
indisputable testimony of certain friends of mine as to inexplicable
writings on locked slates and paper, the revelation of secrets, nay
visible apparitions, and both records of the secret past and revelations
of the still more secret future afterwards fulfilled,--to all which I
cannot, as an honest man and a believer in human evidence, refuse to
give a distinct testimony, even though conjurors perpetually baffle our
confused judgment.
In this connection I will extract from one of my Archive-books the
curious story of a mysterious key in which my family are still
interested: for the secret is not yet solved. In the fourteenth volume,
then, of my Archives occurs this long note, accompanied by the drawing
which I made years ago of the weird-looking key: with a loose ring
handle, a threefold staircase body, and a strangely ringed column.
"My father died in his sleep, December 8, 1844, at Southwick House, in
Windsor Park, on the same night after its owner, Lord Limerick, had also
died there in his arms, my father having been his medical friend for
thirty years. My father used to carry in his pocket a strange key,
whereof the figure was very unusual, as it folded up, and though large
he carried it in his pocket habitually: and he used to say in his
quietly humorous and reserved manner, 'under that key lies a fortune;'
my mother and I and others remember this well. When I came to be
executor, there was nearly nothing to guide me as to the amount of my
father's property,--and I certainly did not succeed in realising all
that he was supposed to have acquired. It was wonderful that with his
large income he left so little. So, we all thought that some hoard
locked by this key contained the missing treasure; my father's habitual
taciturnity, and secretiveness favouring this idea. But, nowhere could
the lock to fit it be found; nowhere either at banks or lawyers or
anywhere about our old house in Burlington Street or at Albury, appeared
the chest or cupboard containing the fancied accumulations; and to this
hour, June 12, 1873, nearly thirty years after my father's sudden death,
has the mystery not been cleared up. Once, on an occasion of a
spiritualistic _séance_ at Mr. Carter Hall's, I handed the said key to
Mr. Home when entranced, and he shuddered at it, and uttered the name
'Elizabeth Henderson,'--which I thought at the time a bad guess, as one
utterly unknown to me: but oddly enough it proved to be the name of the
Queen's housekeeper at Windsor. However, on inquiry nothing further came
of this, for she was not in office when my father died at the Park.
To-day I have taken the key to a Miss Hudson, a clairvoyante, who never
saw me before, nor was told my name, nor my errand, except that I laid
that key silently before her. She can tell me very little, except that
the mystery is soon to be cleared up, and that certain spirits (from
description possibly my mother and brother William) much wish it. I gave
no sort of clues, but the medium guessed at my father's character, and
at the long lapse of time since the loss of the chest, and at the hiding
of it in some 'bank,'--whether underground or at a banker's did not
appear. The medium's 'attendant spirit'--one 'Daisy, an Indian
papoose'--says it is 'in a dark place, like a vault, and mouldy.' I am
urged to inquire further. Miss Hudson, a common-looking but respectable
woman of about thirty,--living in a lodging near Bloomsbury
Square,--utterly ignorant who I was and all about me,--said (in her
spirit voice) that I was a writer of books, and did great good, and was
inspired by two spirits, one of the fair and lively sort all in white,
and the other an old philosopher--a strange guess at my mixed medley of
writings. Miss Hudson promised me that I should soon know the secret of
the key, because the spirits wished it, and because there was a blue
magnetic circle round the key."
* * * * *
_P.S._--It is only proper to state that up to this present writing,
January 13, 1886, I have heard nothing at all from the spirits
aforesaid, and that the family key is as mysterious as ever. My own
reasonable explanation of the medium's half true guesses is that she
might have read my own dim thoughts about the matter: naturally I would
think of my dead mother and brother and myself; and thought-reading is a
form of animal magnetism which some people possess more than others.
Of late, as we all know, Mr. Cumberland and others have exhibited their
mysterious powers of perceiving and expounding the secret thoughts of
those who chose to be thus mentally vivisected: and I myself have this
small experience to record. Asked in a drawing-room to think of
something, the hostess answered my thought by "I don't know what it
means, but there's a great deal of green with a white star going round
and round in it." "Quite true," was my reply, "I was thinking of Ewhurst
windmill."
In my anonymous prophetic ode, "Things to Come" (Bosworth, 1852, long
out of print), at its eleventh section, thought-reading and other like
metaphysicals are strangely anticipated, ending with--
"Into some other wicked man's mind
His foolish brother is peeping to find,
Caught in foul excitement's snare,
The Lying Future there!"