powers of mesmerizing, by throwing a young friend into a magnetic
sleep. I succeeded with considerable difficulty, and the next day
experienced great nervous exhaustion, which, I think, was the
consequence of her having, as she assured me she had, resisted with
the utmost effort of her will my endeavor to put her to sleep. As I
disapproved, however, of all such experiments, this is the only one
I ever tried.
My belief in the reality of the influence was a good deal derived
from my own experience, which was that of an invariable tendency to
sleep in the proximity of certain persons of whom I was particularly
fond. I used to sit at Mrs. Harry Siddons's feet, and she had hardly
laid her hand upon my head before it fell upon her knees, and I was
in a profound slumber. My friend Miss ----'s neighborhood had the
same effect upon me, and when we were not engaged in furious
discussion, I was very apt to be fast asleep whenever I was near
her. E---- S---- relieved me of an intense toothache once by putting
me to sleep with a few mesmeric passes, and I have, moreover, more
than once, immediately after violent nervous excitement, been so
overcome with drowsiness as to be unable to move. I remember a most
ludicrous instance of this occurring to me in the church of
Stratford-upon-Avon, when, standing before Shakespeare's tomb, and
looking intensely at his monument, I became so overpowered with
sleep that I could hardly rouse myself enough to leave the church,
and I begged very hard to be allowed to sleep out my sleep, then and
there, upon the stones under which he lay.
After extreme distress of mind, I have sometimes slept a whole day
and night without waking; and once, when overcome with anguish,
slept, with hardly an hour's interval at a time, the greater part of
a week. The drowsiness inspired in me by some of my friends I
attribute entirely to physical sympathy; others, of whom I was
nearly as fond, never affected me in this manner in the slightest
degree. I have often congratulated myself upon the fact that I had
by no means an equal tendency to physical antipathy, though, in
common with most other people, I have had some experience of that
also. My very dear and excellent friend ---- always _m'agacait les
nerfs_, as French people say, though I was deeply attached to her
and very fond of her society. Mrs. ----, of whose excellence I had
the most profound conviction, and who was generally esteemed
perfectly charming by her intimates, affected me with such a curious
intuitive revulsion that the first time she came and sat down by me
I was obliged to get up and leave the room--indeed, the house. Two
men of our acquaintance, remarkable for their general attractiveness
and powers of pleasing, ---- and ----, were never in the same room
ten minutes with me without my becoming perfectly chilled through,
as though I had suddenly had the door of an ice-house opened upon
me. They were entirely dissimilar men in every respect....
Of the spiritualistic performances of Messrs. Hume, Foster, etc.,
etc., I never was a witness. An intimate acquaintance of mine, who
knew Hume well, assured me that she knew him to be an impostor,
adding at the same time, "But I also know him to be clairvoyant,"
which seemed to me mere tautology.
My sister and Charles Greville, having had their curiosity excited
by some of the reports of Mr. Foster's performances, agreed to go
together to visit him, and having received an appointment for a
_seance_, went to his house. Certainly, if Mr. Foster had taken in
either of those two customers of his, it would have gone near
converting me. Charles Greville, who was deaf, and spoke rather loud
in consequence of that infirmity, said, as he entered, to my sister,
"I shall ask him about my mother." Adelaide, quite determined to
test the magician's powers to the utmost, replied, with an air of
concern, as if shocked at the idea, "Oh, no, don't do that; it is
too dreadful." However, this suggestion of course not being thrown
away upon Mr. Foster, Charles Greville desired to be put in
communication with the spirit of his mother, which was accordingly
duly done by the operator, and various messages were delivered, as
purporting to come from the spirit of Lady Charlotte Greville to her
son. After this farce had gone on for a little while, Charles
Greville turned to my sister with perfect composure, and said,
"Well, now perhaps you had better ask him to tell you something
about your mother, because, you know, mine is not dead." The
_seance_ of course proceeded no further. At an earlier period of it,
as they were sitting round a table, Mr. Foster desired that written
names might be furnished him of the persons with whose spirits
communication might be desired. Among the names written down for
this purpose by my sister were several foreign, Italian and German,
names, with which she felt very sure Mr. Foster could not possibly
have any acquaintance; indeed, it was beyond all question that he
never could have heard of them. Adelaide was sitting next to him,
watching his operations with extreme attention, and presently
observed him very dexterously convey several of these foreign names
into his sleeve, and from thence to the ground under the table.
After a little while, Mr. Foster observed that, singularly enough,
several of the names he had received were now missing, and by some
extraordinary means had disappeared entirely from among the rest.
"Oh yes," said my sister very quietly, "but they are only under the
table, just where you put them a little while ago." With such
subjects of course Mr. Foster performed no miracles.
Some years ago a new form of these objectionable practices came into
vogue, and one summer, going up into Massachusetts, I found the two
little mountain villages of Lenox and Stockbridge possessed, in the
proper sense of the term, by a devil of their own making, called
"Planchette." A little heart-shaped piece of wood, running upon
castors, and that could almost be moved with a breath, and carrying
along a sheet of paper, over which it was placed, a pencil was
supposed to write, on its own inspiration, communications in reply
to the person's thoughts whose finger-tips were to rest above,
without giving any impulse to the board. Of course a hand held in
this constrained attitude is presently compelled to rest itself by
some slight pressure; the effort to steady it, and the nervous
effort not to press upon the machine, producing inevitably in the
wrist aching weariness, and in the fingers every conceivable
tendency to nervous twitching. Add to this the intense conviction of
the foolish folk, half of them hysterical women, that their
concentrated effort of will was, in combination with a mysterious
supernatural agency, to move the board; and the board naturally not
only moved but, carrying the pencil along with it, wrote the answers
required and desired by the credulous consulters of the wooden
oracle.
The thing would have been indescribably ludicrous but for the
terrible effect it was having upon the poor people who were
practising upon themselves with it. Excitable young girls of fifteen
and sixteen, half hysterical with their wonderment; ignorant,
afflicted women, who had lost dear relations and friends by death;
superstitious lads, and men too incapable of consecutive reasoning
to perceive the necessary connection between cause and effect; the
whole community, in short, seemed to me catching the credulous
infection one from another, and to be in a state bordering upon
insanity or idiocy.
A young lady-friend of mine, a miserable invalid, was so possessed
with faith in this wooden demon that, after resisting repeated
entreaties on her part to witness some of its performances, I at
length, at her earnest request, saw her operate upon it. The writing
was almost unintelligible, and undoubtedly produced by the vibrating
impulse given to the machine by her nervous, feeble, diaphanous
hands. Finding my scepticism invincible by these means, my friend
implored me to think in my own mind a question, and see if
Planchette would not answer it. I yielded at last to her all but
hysterical importunity, and thought of an heraldic question
concerning the crest on a ring which I wore, which I felt was quite
beyond Planchette's penetration; but while we sat in quiet
expectation of the reply, which of course did not come, my friend's
mother--a sober, middle-aged lady, habitually behaving herself with
perfect reasonableness, and, moreover, without a spark of
imagination (but that, indeed, was rather of course; belief in such
supernatural agencies betokening, in my opinion, an absence of
poetical imagination, as well as of spiritual faith), practical,
sensible, commonplace, without a touch of nonsense of any kind about
her, as I had always supposed--sat opposite the _machine infernale_,
over which her daughter's fingers hung suspended, and as the answer
did not come, broke out for all the world like one of Baal's
prophets of old: "Now, Planchette, now, Planchette, behave; do your
duty. Now, Planchette, write at once," etc.; and I felt as if I were
in Bedlam. One thing is certain, that if Planchette's answer had
approached in the remotest degree the answer to the question of my
thought, I would then and there have broken Planchette in half, and
left my friends in the possession of their remaining brains until
they had procured another.
The strangest experience, however, that I met with in connection
with this absurd delusion occurred during a visit that I received
from Mrs. B---- S----. That lady was staying with her daughter in
Stockbridge, and did me the honor to call on me at Lenox with that
young lady. Among other things spoken of I asked my distinguished
visitor some questions about this superstitious folly, Planchette,
nothing doubting that I should hear from her an eloquent
condemnation of all the absurd proceedings going on in the two
villages. The lady's face assumed a decided expression of grave
disapprobation, certainly, and she spoke to this effect:
"Planchette! Oh dear, yes, we are perfectly familiar with
Planchette, and, indeed, have been in the habit of consulting it
quite often." "Oh, indeed," quoth I, and I felt my own face growing
longer with amazement as I spoke. "Yes," continued my celebrated
visitor, with much deliberation, "we have; but I think it will no
longer be possible for us to do so. No, we must certainly give up
having anything to do with it." "Dear me!" said I, almost
breathless, and with a queer quaver in my voice, that I could hardly
command, "may I ask why, pray?" "The language it uses----"
"It!--the language _it_ uses!" ejaculated I. "Yes," she pursued,
with increasing solemnity, "the language it uses is so reprehensible
that it will be quite impossible for us to consult or have anything
further to do with it." "Really," said I, hardly able to utter for
suppressed laughter; "and may I ask, may I inquire what language it
does use?" "Why," returned Mrs. S----, with some decorous hesitation
and reluctance to utter the words that followed, "the last time we
consulted it, it told us we were all a pack of damned fools." "Oh!"
exploded I, "I believe in Planchette, I believe in Planchette!" Mrs.
S---- drew herself up with an air of such offended surprise at my
burst of irrepressible merriment that I suddenly stopped, and
letting what was boiling below my laughter come to the surface, I
exclaimed, in language far more shocking to ears polite than
Planchette's own: "And do you really think that Satan, the great
devil of hell, in whom you believe, is amusing himself with telling
you such truths as those, through a bit of board on wheels?"
"Really," replied the woman of genius, in a tone of lofty dignity,
"I cannot pretend to say whether or not it is _the_ devil; of one
thing I am very certain, the influence by which it speaks is
undoubtedly devilish." I turned in boundless amazement to the
younger lady, whose mischievous countenance, with a broad grin upon
it, at once settled all my doubts as to the devilish influence under
which Planchette had spoken such home truths to her family circle,
and I let the subject drop, remaining much astonished, as I often
am, at the degree to which _les gens d'esprit sont betes_.
I once attended some young friends to a lecture, as it called
itself, upon electro-biology. It was tedious, stupid, and
ridiculous; the only thing that struck me was the curious condition
of bewildered imbecility into which two or three young men, who
presented themselves to be operated upon, fell, under the influence
of the lecturer. I had reason to believe that there was no collusion
in the case, and therefore was surprised at the evident state of
stupor and mental confusion (even to the not being able to pronounce
their own name) which they exhibited when, after looking intently
and without moving at a coin placed in their hand for some time,
their faculties appeared entirely bewildered, and though they were
not asleep, they seemed hardly conscious, and opposed not the
slightest resistance to the orders they received to sit down, stand
up, to try to remember their names,--which they were assured they
could not, and did not,--and their general submission, of course in
very trifling matters, to the sort of bullying directions addressed
to them in a loud peremptory tone; to which they replied with the
sort of stupefied languor of persons half asleep or under the
influence of opium. I did not quite understand how they were thrown
into this curious condition by the mere assumption of an immovable
attitude and fixed gazing at a piece of coin; an experience of my
own, however, subsequently enlightened me as to the possible nervous
effect of such immobility and strained attention.
My friend Sir Frederick Leighton, despairing of finding a model to
assume a sufficiently dramatic expression of wickedness for a
picture he was painting of Jezebel, was deploring his difficulty one
day, when Henry Greville, who was standing by, said to him, "Why
don't you ask her"--pointing to me--"to do it for you?" Leighton
expressed some kindly reluctance to put my countenance to such a
use; but I had not the slightest objection to stand for Jezebel, if
by so doing I could help him out of his dilemma. So to his studio I
went, ascended his platform, and having been duly placed in the
attitude required, and instructed on what precise point of the wall
opposite to me to fix my eyes, I fell to thinking of the scene the
picture represented, of the meeting between Ahab and his wicked
queen with Elijah on the threshold of Naboth's vineyard,
endeavoring, after my old stage fashion, to assume as thoroughly as
possible the character which I was representing. Before I had
retained the constrained attitude and fixed immovable gaze for more
than a short time, my eyes grew dim, the wall I was glaring at
seemed to waver about before me, I turned sick, a cold perspiration
broke out on my forehead, my ears buzzed, my knees trembled, my
heart throbbed, and I suppose I was not far from a fainting fit. I
sat abruptly down on the platform, and called my friendly artist to
my assistance, describing to him my sensations, and asking if he
could explain what had occasioned them. He expressed remorseful
distress at having subjected me to such annoyance, saying, however,
that my condition was not an uncommon one for painters' models to be
thrown into by the nervous strain of the fixed look and attention,
and rigid immobility of position, required of them; that he had
known men succumb to it on a first experiment, but had thought me so
strong, and so little liable to any purely nervous affection, that
it had never occurred to him for a moment that there was any danger
of my being thus overcome.
I recovered almost immediately, the nervous strain being taken off,
and resumed my duty as a model, taking care to vary my expression
and attitude whenever I felt at all weary, and resting myself by
sitting down and lending another aspect of my face to my friend for
his Elijah.
I found, after this experience, no difficulty in understanding the
state of bewildered stupefaction into which the lecturer on
electro-biology had thrown his patients by demanding of them a fixed
attention of mind, look, and attitude to a given point of
contemplation. I think, just before I quite broke down, I could
neither have said where I was, nor who I was, nor contradicted Sir
Frederick Leighton if he had assured me that my name was Polly and
that I was putting the kettle on.]
CLARGES STREET, June, 1844.
DEAREST HARRIET,
I have not a morsel of letter-paper in my writing-book; do not,
therefore, let your first glance take offence at the poor narrow
note-paper, on which our dear friend Emily is forever writing to me, and
which throws me into a small fury every time I get an affectionate
communication from her on it. Our drawing-room has only this instant
emptied itself of a throng of morning visitors, among whom my brother
John and his wife, Mary Anne Thackeray, Dick Pigott, Sydney Smith, and
A---- C----....
My letter has suffered an interruption, dear Harriet; I had to go out
and return all manner of visits, took a walk with Adelaide in Kensington
Gardens, went and dined quietly with M---- M----, and came back at
half-past ten, to find Mr. C---- very quietly established here with my
father and sister....
This is to-morrow, my dear Harriet, and we are all engaged sitting to
Lane, who is making medallion likenesses of us all. John and his wife
together in one sphere, their two little children in another, ---- and I
in one eternity, and our chicks in another, their two little profiles
looking so funny and so pretty, one just behind the other; my father,
my sister, and Henry have each their world to themselves in single
blessedness. The likenesses are all good, and charmingly executed. I
should like to be able to send you mine and my children's, but as he
will accept no remuneration for them, and as time and trouble are the
daily bread of an artist----
Here I was interrupted again, and obliged to put by my letter, which was
begun last Thursday, and it is now Sunday afternoon. Our drawing-room
has just emptied itself of A---- M---- and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Grote,
Mr. H----, young Mr. K---- of Frankfort, and Chorley. Mrs. Grote brought
with her Fanny Ellsler's little girl, a lovely child about seven years
old....
I must tell you something of our event of yesterday. A concert was given
for the benefit of the Poles, the Duchess of Sutherland condescending to
lend Stafford House, provided the assemblage was quite select and
limited to four hundred people; to accomplish which desirable point, and
at the same time make the thing answer its charitable purpose, the
tickets were sold at first at two guineas apiece, and on the morning
itself of the concert at five guineas. Rachel was to recite, Liszt to
play, and my sister was requested to sing, which she agreed to do, the
occasion being semi-public and private, so to speak. A large assembly of
our finest (and bluntest) people was not a bad audience, in a worldly
sense, for her _debut_. She sang beautifully, and looked beautiful, and
was extremely admired and praised and petted.
The whole scene was one of the gayest and most splendid possible, the
entertainment and assembly taking place in the great hall and staircase
of Stafford House, with its scarlet floor-cloths, and marble stairs and
balustrades, and pillars of scagliola, and fretted roof of gold and
white, and skylight surrounded and supported by gigantic gilt
caryatides.
The wide noble flights of steps and long broad galleries, filled with
brilliantly dressed groups; with the sunlight raining down in streams on
the panels and pillars of the magnificent hall, on the beautiful faces
of the women, and the soft sheen and brilliant varied coloring of their
clothes, and on perfect masses of flowers, piled in great pyramids of
every form and hue in every niche and corner, or single plants covered
with an exquisite profusion of perfect bloom, standing here and there in
great precious china vases stolen from the Arabian Nights; it really
was one of the grandest and gayest shows you can imagine, more beautiful
than Paul Veronese's most splendid pictures, which it reminded one of.
My sister's singing overcame me dreadfully....
I must close this letter, my dear; my head is in such a state of
confusion that I scarcely know what I write; and if I keep it longer,
you will never get it.
Yours ever truly----
(I don't know what I am saying; I love you affectionately, but I am
almost beside myself with--everything.)
Yours ever,
FANNY.
CLARGES STREET, Sunday, June 20th, 1841.
You know, dearest Harriet, my aversion to writing short letters; I have
something of the same feeling about that hateful little note-paper on
which I have lately written to you. The sight of these fair large
squares laid on my table, and of at least six unanswered letters of
yours, prompts me to use this quiet half-hour--quiet by comparison only,
for ----, Adelaide, and little F---- are shouting all round me, and a
distracting brass band, that I dote upon, is playing tunes to which I am
literally writing in time; nevertheless, in this house, this may be
called a moment of profoundest quiet.
I do not believe that you will have quarrelled much with the note-paper,
because I certainly filled it as well as I could; but I always feel
insulted when anybody that I really care for writes to me on those
frivolous, insufficient-looking sheets. I suppose, if you have missed
Emily's Boswellian records of our sayings and doings here, you have
received from her instead epistles redolent of the sweetness of the
country, whole nosegays of words, that have made me gasp again for the
grass and trees, and the natural enjoyments of life. Her affectionate
remembrance reaches me every day by penny post, a little envelope full
of delicious orange-blossoms, with which my clothes and everything about
me are perfumed for the rest of the day.
You have not said much to me about the daguerreotype, nor did you ask me
anything about the process; but that, I suppose, is because Emily
furnished you with so many more details than I probably should, and with
much more scientific knowledge to make her description clear. I found
it better looking than I had expected, but altogether different, which
surprised me, because I thought I knew my own face. It was less thick in
the outlines than I had thought it would be, but also older looking than
I fancied myself, and it gave me a heavy jaw, which I was not conscious
of possessing. The process was wonderfully rapid; I think certainly not
above two minutes. I have seen several of Charles Young, which are
admirable, and do not appear to me exaggerated in any respect....
My father and Adelaide dined with the Macdonalds on Sunday; and Sir
John, who, you know, is adjutant-general, made her a kind of half
promise that he would give Henry leave to come over from Ireland and see
her.
I believe the first time that S---- heard her aunt sing was one night
after she was in bed (she sleeps in my room, where one does not lose a
note of the music below). When I went up, I found her wide awake, and
she started up in her bed, exclaiming, "Well, how many angels have you
got down there, I should like to know?"
I wrote thus much this morning, dear Harriet; this evening I have
another quiet season in which to resume my pen.... I have been obliged
to give up my dinner engagement for to-day, and I sat down by the
failing light of half-past seven o'clock to eat a cold dinner alone,
with a book in my hand: which combination of circumstances reminded me
so forcibly of my American home, that I could hardly make out whether I
was here or there.
So far yesterday, Thursday evening; it is now Friday morning. Adelaide
has gone out with Mary Anne Thackeray to buy cheap gowns at a bankrupt
shop in Regent Street; the piano is silent, and I can hear myself think,
and have some consciousness of what I am writing about....