36587	----	memory of Steven Gibbs (1938-2009). [Transcriber's Note: This e-book, a pamphlet by Daniel Defoe, was originally published in 1706. Archaic spellings have been retained as they appear in the original. This e-book was prepared from _The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe_ (Oxford: D.A. Talboys, 1840). "To the Reader" was written by an unidentified editor of that collection.] A TRUE RELATION OF THE APPARITION OF ONE MRS. VEAL, THE NEXT DAY AFTER HER DEATH, TO ONE MRS. BARGRAVE, AT CANTERBURY, THE 8TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1705; Which Apparition recommends the perusal of Drelincourt's Book of Consolations against the Fears of Death. THE PREFACE. This relation is matter of fact, and attended with such circumstances, as may induce any reasonable man to believe it. It was sent by a gentleman, a justice of peace, at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very intelligent person, to his friend in London, as it is here worded; which discourse is attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman, a kinswoman of the said gentleman's, who lives in Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs. Bargrave lives; who believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy; and who positively assured him that the whole matter, as it is related and laid down, is really true; and what she herself had in the same words, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent and publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety. The use which we ought to make of it, is to consider, that there is a life to come after this, and a just God, who will retribute to every one according to the deeds done in the body; and therefore to reflect upon our past course of life we have led in the world; that our time is short and uncertain; and that if we would escape the punishment of the ungodly, and receive the reward of the righteous, which is the laying hold of eternal life, we ought, for the time to come, to return to God by a speedy repentance, ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well: to seek after God early, if happily he may be found of us, and lead such lives for the future, as may be well pleasing in his sight. A RELATION OF THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL. This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation has not given me anything like it: it is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation, for these last fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can confirm the good character she had from her youth, to the time of my acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some people, that are friends to the brother of this Mrs. Veal, who appeared; who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and endeavour what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave's reputation, and to laugh the story out of countenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and the cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill-usage of a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection in her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity; which I have been witness to, and several other persons of undoubted reputation. Now you must know, Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty years of age, and for some years last past had been troubled with fits; which were perceived coming on her, by her going off from her discourse very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he can to null or quash the story. Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal's circumstances were then mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that they were exposed to hardships; and Mrs. Bargrave, in those days, had as unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing, whilst Mrs. Veal wanted for both; insomuch that she would often say, Mrs. Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world, and no circumstance of life shall ever dissolve my friendship. They would often condole each other's adverse fortunes, and read together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two Christian friends, they comforted each other under their sorrow. Some time after, Mr. Veal's friends got him a place in the custom-house at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. Veal, by little and little, to fall off from her intimacy with Mrs. Bargrave, though there was never any such thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half; though above a twelvemonth of the time Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and this last half year has been in Canterbury about two months of the time, dwelling in a house of her own. In this house, on the 8th of September, 1705, she was sitting alone in the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and arguing herself into a due resignation to providence, though her condition seemed hard. And, said she, I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not but I shall be still; and am well satisfied that my afflictions shall end when it is most fit for me: and then took up her sewing-work, which she had no sooner done, but she hears a knocking at the door. She went to see who was there, and this proved to be Mrs. Veal, her old friend, who was in a riding-habit. At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at noon. Madam, says Mrs. Bargrave, I am surprised to see you, you have been so long a stranger; but told her, she was glad to see her, and offered to salute her; which Mrs. Veal complied with, till their lips almost touched; and then Mrs. Veal drew her hand across her own eyes, and said, I am not very well; and so waived it. She told Mrs. Bargrave, she was going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first. But, says Mrs. Bargrave, how came you to take a journey alone? I am amazed at it, because I know you have a fond brother. Oh! says Mrs. Veal, I gave my brother the slip, and came away because I had so great a desire to see you before I took my journey. So Mrs. Bargrave went in with her, into another room within the first, and Mrs. Veal sat her down in an elbow-chair, in which Mrs. Bargrave was sitting when she heard Mrs. Veal knock. Then says Mrs. Veal, My dear friend, I am come to renew our old friendship again, and beg your pardon for my breach of it; and if you can forgive me, you are the best of women. O, says Mrs. Bargrave, do not mention such a thing; I have not had an uneasy thought about it; I can easily forgive it. What did you think of me? said Mrs. Veal. Says Mrs. Bargrave, I thought you were like the rest of the world, and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me. Then Mrs. Veal reminded Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did her in former days, and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort, in particular, they received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, which was the best, she said, on that subject ever written. She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, the two Dutch books which were translated, written upon death, and several others. But Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death, and of the future state, of any who had handled that subject. Then she asked Mrs. Bargrave, whether she had Drelincourt. She said, Yes. Says Mrs. Veal, Fetch it. And so Mrs. Bargrave goes up stairs and brings it down. Says Mrs. Veal, Dear Mrs. Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard. The notions we have of heaven now, are nothing like what it is, as Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your afflictions, and believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to you; and that your afflictions are marks of God's favour; and when they have done the business they are sent for, they shall be removed from you. And, believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to you, one minute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your sufferings. For, I can never believe, (and claps her hand upon her knee with great earnestness, which indeed ran through most of her discourse,) that ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted state; but be assured, that your afflictions shall leave you, or you them, in a short time. She spake in that pathetical and heavenly manner, that Mrs. Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply affected with it. Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Dr. Kenrick's Ascetick, at the end of which he gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern she recommended to our imitation, and said, their conversation was not like this of our age: For now, says she, there is nothing but frothy, vain discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to edification, and to build one another up in faith; so that they were not as we are, nor are we as they were: but, says she, we ought to do as they did. There was an hearty friendship among them; but where is it now to be found? Says Mrs. Bargrave, It is hard indeed to find a true friend in these days. Says Mrs. Veal, Mr. Norris has a fine copy of verses, called Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. Have you seen the book? says Mrs. Veal. No, says Mrs. Bargrave, but I have the verses of my own writing out. Have you? says Mrs. Veal, then fetch them. Which she did from above stairs, and offered them to Mrs. Veal to read, who refused, and waived the thing, saying, holding down her head would make it ache; and then desired Mrs. Bargrave to read them to her, which she did. As they were admiring friendship, Mrs. Veal said, Dear Mrs. Bargrave, I shall love you for ever. In these verses there is twice used the word Elysian, Ah! says Mrs. Veal, these poets have such names for heaven. She would often draw her hand across her own eyes, and say, Mrs. Bargrave, do not you think I am mightily impaired by my fits? No, says Mrs. Bargrave, I think you look as well as ever I knew you. After all this discourse, which the apparition put in much finer words than Mrs. Bargrave said she could pretend to, and as much more than she can remember, (for it cannot be thought, that an hour and three quarters' conversation could all be retained, though the main of it she thinks she does,) she said to Mrs. Bargrave, she would have her write a letter to her brother, and tell him, she would have him give rings to such and such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson. Talking at this rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a fit was coming upon her, and so placed herself in a chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it: for the elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side. And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown-sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her, it was a scowered silk, and newly made up. But for all this, Mrs. Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave, she must not deny her: and she would have her tell her brother all their conversation, when she had opportunity. Dear Mrs. Veal, says Mrs. Bargrave, this seems so impertinent, that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman? Why, says Mrs. Bargrave, it is much better, methinks to do it yourself. No, says Mrs. Veal, though it seems impertinent to you now, you will see more reason for it hereafter. Mrs. Bargrave then, to satisfy her importunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink; but Mrs. Veal said, Let it alone now, but do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do it: which was one of the last things she enjoined her at parting; and so she promised her. Then Mrs. Veal asked for Mrs. Bargrave's daughter; she said, she was not at home: But if you have a mind to see her, says Mrs. Bargrave, I'll send for her. Do, says Mrs. Veal. On which she left her, and went to a neighbour's to see for her; and by the time Mrs. Bargrave was returning, Mrs. Veal was got without the door in the street, in the face of the beast-market, on a Saturday, which is market-day, and stood ready to part, as soon as Mrs. Bargrave came to her. She asked her, why she was in such haste. She said she must be going, though perhaps she might not go her journey till Monday; and told Mrs. Bargrave, she hoped she should see her again at her cousin Watson's, before she went whither she was going. Then she said, she would take her leave of her, and walked from Mrs. Bargrave in her view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her, which was three quarters after one in the afternoon. Mrs. Veal died the 7th of September, at twelve o'clock at noon, of her fits, and had not above four hours' senses before her death, in which time she received the sacrament. The next day after Mrs. Veal's appearing, being Sunday, Mrs. Bargrave was mightily indisposed with a cold, and a sore throat, that she could not go out that day; but on Monday morning she sent a person to captain Watson's, to know if Mrs. Veal was there. They wondered at Mrs. Bargrave's inquiry; and sent her word, that she was not there, nor was expected. At this answer Mrs. Bargrave told the maid she had certainly mistook the name, or made some blunder. And though she was ill, she put on her hood, and went herself to captain Watson's though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs. Veal was there or not. They said, they wondered at her asking, for that she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have been there. Says Mrs. Bargrave, I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours. They said, it was impossible; for they must have seen her if she had. In comes Capt. Watson, while they were in dispute, and said, that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, and her escutcheons were making. This strangely surprised Mrs. Bargrave, when she sent to the person immediately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then she related the whole story to captain Watson's family, and what gown she had on, and how striped; and that Mrs. Veal told her, it was scowered. Then Mrs. Watson cried out, You have seen her indeed, for none knew, but Mrs. Veal and myself, that the gown was scowered. And Mrs. Watson owned, that she described the gown exactly: For, said she, I helped her to make it up. This Mrs. Watson blazed all about the town, and avouched the demonstration of the truth of Mrs. Bargrave's seeing Mrs. Veal's apparition. And captain Watson carried two gentlemen immediately to Mrs. Bargrave's house, to hear the relation of her own mouth. And when it spread so fast, that gentlemen and persons of quality, the judicious and sceptical part of the world, flocked in upon her, it at last became such a task, that she was forced to go out of the way. For they were, in general, extremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly saw that Mrs. Bargrave was no hypocondriac; for she always appears with such a cheerful air, and pleasing mien, that she has gained the favour and esteem of all the gentry; and it is thought a great favour, if they can but get the relation from her own mouth. I should have told you before, that Mrs. Veal told Mrs. Bargrave, that her sister and brother-in-law were just come down from London to see her. Says Mrs. Bargrave, How came you to order matters so strangely? It could not be helped, says Mrs. Veal. And her brother and sister did come to see her, and entered the town of Dover just as Mrs. Veal was expiring. Mrs. Bargrave, asked her, whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs. Veal, I do not care if I do; but I'll warrant you, this mad fellow, (meaning Mrs. Bargrave's husband,) has broke all your trinkets. But, says Mrs. Bargrave, I'll get something to drink in for all that; but Mrs. Veal waived it, and said, It is no matter, let it alone; and so it passed. All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was some hours, she recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. And one material thing more she told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Breton allowed Mrs. Veal ten pounds a year; which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave, till Mrs. Veal told it her. Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story; which puzzles those who doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the neighbour's yard, adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house, heard her talking to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave went out to her next neighbour's the very moment she parted with Mrs. Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had with an old friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed, that notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore can have no interest in telling the story. But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said, he would see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has been at captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never went near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a liar, and that she knew of Mr. Breton's ten pounds a year. But the person who pretends to say so, has the reputation of a notorious liar, among persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now Mr. Veal is more of a gentleman than to say she lies; but says, a bad husband has crazed her. But she needs only present herself, and it will effectually confute that pretence. Mr. Veal says, he asked his sister on her death-bed, whether she had a mind to dispose of anything? And she said, No. Now, the things which Mrs. Veal's apparition would have disposed of, were so trifling, and nothing of justice aimed at in their disposal, that the design of it appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs. Bargrave so to demonstrate the truth of her appearance, as to satisfy the world of the reality thereof, as to what she had seen and heard; and to secure her reputation among the reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And then again, Mr. Veal owns, that there was a purse of gold; but it was not found in her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for that Mrs. Watson owned, that Mrs. Veal was so very careful of the key of the cabinet, that she would trust nobody with it. And if so, no doubt she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs. Veal's often drawing her hand over her eyes, and asking Mrs. Bargrave whether her fits had not impaired her, looks to me as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs. Bargrave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange that she should put her upon writing to her brother to dispose of rings and gold, which looked so much like a dying person's request; and it took accordingly with Mrs. Bargrave, as the effects of her fits coming upon her; and was one of the many instances of her wonderful love to her, and care of her, that she should not be affrighted; which indeed appears in her whole management, particularly in her coming to her in the day-time, waiving the salutation, and when she was alone; and then the manner of her parting, to prevent a second attempt to salute her. Now, why Mr. Veal should think this relation a reflection, as it is plain he does, by his endeavouring to stifle it, I cannot imagine; because the generality believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse was so heavenly. Her two great errands were to comfort Mrs. Bargrave in her affliction, and to ask her forgiveness for the breach of friendship, and with a pious discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to suppose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from Friday noon till Saturday noon, supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's death the very first moment, without jumbling circumstances, and without any interest too; she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked too, than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs. Bargrave several times, if she was sure she felt the gown? She answered modestly, If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it. I asked her, if she heard a sound when she clapped her hand upon her knee? She said, she did not remember she did; but said she appeared to be as much a substance as I did, who talked with her. And I may, said she, be as soon persuaded, that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I did not really see her: for I was under no manner of fear, and received her as a friend, and parted with her as such. I would not, says she, give one farthing to make any one believe it: I have no interest in it; nothing but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know; and had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made public. But now, she says, she will make her own private use of it, and keep herself out of the way as much as she can; and so she has done since. She says, She had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to hear the relation; and that she had told it to a room full of people at a time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth. This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied, as I am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me. Mrs. Bargrave's authority and sincerity alone, would have been undoubted in any other case. TO THE READER. The origin of the foregoing curious story seems to have been as follows:-- An adventurous bookseller had ventured to print a considerable edition of a work by the Reverend Charles Drelincourt, minister of the Calvinist church in Paris, and translated by M. D'Assigny, under the title of "The Christian's Defence against the Fear of Death, with several directions how to prepare ourselves to die well." But however certain the prospect of death, it is not so agreeable (unfortunately) as to invite the eager contemplation of the public; and Drelincourt's book, being neglected, lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency, he applied to De Foe to assist him, (by dint of such means as were then, as well as now, pretty well understood in the literary world,) in rescuing the unfortunate book from the literary death to which general neglect seemed about to consign it. De Foe's genius and audacity devised a plan which, for assurance and ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the _Critic_: for who but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to bear witness in favour of a halting body of divinity? There is a matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a _Justice of Peace_ at Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the discourse is attested by a very sober gentlewoman, who lives in Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave lives." The Justice believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy--and the kinswoman positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is related and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent or publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of so much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety." Scepticism itself could not resist this triple court of evidence so artfully combined, the Justice attesting for the discerning spirit of the sober and understanding gentlewoman his kinswoman, and his kinswoman becoming bail for the veracity of Mrs. Bargrave. And here, gentle reader, admire the simplicity of those days. Had Mrs. Veal's visit to her friend happened in our time, the conductors of the daily press would have given the word, and seven gentlemen unto the said press belonging, would, with an obedient start, have made off for Kingston, for Canterbury, for Dover,--for Kamtschatka if necessary,--to pose the Justice, cross-examine Mrs. Bargrave, confront the sober and understanding kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up from her grave, rather than not get to the bottom of the story. But in our time we doubt and scrutinize; our ancestors wondered and believed. Before the story is commenced, the understanding gentlewoman, (not the Justice of Peace,) who is the reporter, takes some pains to repel the objections made against the story by some of the friends of Mrs. Veal's brother, who consider the marvel as an aspersion on their family, and do what they can to laugh it out of countenance. Indeed, it is allowed, with admirable impartiality, that Mr. Veal is too much of a gentleman to suppose Mrs. Bargrave invented the story--scandal itself could scarce have supposed that--although one notorious liar, who is chastised towards the conclusion of the story, ventures to throw out such an insinuation. No reasonable or respectable person, however, could be found to countenance the suspicion, and Mr. Veal himself opined that Mrs. Bargrave had been driven crazy by a cruel husband, and dreamed the whole story of the apparition. Now all this is sufficiently artful. To have vouched the fact as universally known, and believed by every one, _nem. con._, would not have been half so satisfactory to a sceptic as to allow fairly that the narrative had been impugned, and hint at the character of one of those sceptics, and the motives of another, as sufficient to account for their want of belief. Now to the fact itself. Mrs. Bargrave and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, and had protested their attachment should last as long as they lived; but when Mrs. Veal's brother obtained an office in the customs at Dover, some cessation of their intimacy ensued, "though without any positive quarrel." Mrs. Bargrave had removed to Canterbury, and was residing in a house of her own, when she was suddenly interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Veal, as she was sitting in deep contemplation of certain distresses of her own. The visitor was in a riding-habit, and announced herself as prepared for a distant journey, (which seems to intimate that spirits have a considerable distance to go before they arrive at their appointed station, and that the females at least put on a _habit_ for the occasion.) The spirit, for such was the seeming Mrs. Veal, continued to waive the ceremony of salutation, both in going and coming, which will remind the reader of a ghostly lover's reply to his mistress in the fine old Scottish ballad:-- Why should I come within thy bower? I am no earthly man; And should I kiss thy rosy lips, Thy days would not be lang. They then began to talk in the homely style of middle-aged ladies, and Mrs. Veal proses concerning the conversations they had formerly held, and the books they had read together. Her very recent experience probably led Mrs. Veal to talk of death, and the books written on the subject, and she pronounced, _ex cathedrâ_, as a dead person was best entitled to do, that "Drelincourt's book on Death was the best book on the subject ever written." She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, two Dutch books which had been translated, and several others; but Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death and the future state of any who had handled that subject. She then asked for the work [we marvel the edition and impress had not been mentioned,] and lectured on it with great eloquence and affection. Dr. Kenrick's _Ascetick_ was also mentioned with approbation by this critical spectre, [the Doctor's work was no doubt a tenant of the shelf in some favourite publisher's shop]; and Mr. Norris's _Poem on Friendship_, a work, which I doubt, though honoured with a ghost's approbation, we may now seek for as vainly as Correlli tormented his memory to recover the sonata which the devil played to him in a dream. Presently after, from former habits we may suppose, the guest desires a cup of tea; but, bethinking herself of her new character, escapes from her own proposal by recollecting that Mr. Bargrave was in the habit of breaking his wife's china. It would have been indeed strangely out of character if the spirit had lunched, or breakfasted upon tea and toast. Such a consummation would have sounded as ridiculous as if the statue of the commander in _Don Juan_ had not only accepted of the invitation of the libertine to supper, but had also committed a beef-steak to his flinty jaws and stomach of adamant. A little more conversation ensued of a less serious nature, and tending to show that even the passage from life to death leaves the female anxiety about person and dress somewhat alive. The ghost asked Mrs. Bargrave whether she did not think her very much altered, and Mrs. Bargrave of course complimented her on her good looks. Mrs. Bargrave also admired the gown which Mrs. Veal wore, and as a mark of her perfectly restored confidence, the spirit let her into the important secret, that it was a _scoured silk_, and lately made up. She informed her also of another secret, namely, that one Mr. Bretton had allowed her ten pounds a year; and, lastly, she requested that Mrs. Bargrave would write to her brother, and tell him how to distribute her mourning rings, and mentioned there was a purse of gold in her cabinet. She expressed some wish to see Mrs. Bargrave's daughter; but when that good lady went to the next door to seek her, she found on her return the guest leaving the house. She had got without the door, in the street, in the face of the beast market, on a Saturday, which is market day, and stood ready to part. She said she must be going, as she had to call upon her cousin Watson, (this appears to be a _gratis dictum_ on the part of the ghost,) and, maintaining the character of mortality to the last, she quietly turned the corner, and walked out of sight. Then came the news of Mrs. Veal's having died the day before at noon. Says Mrs. Bargrave, "I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours." And in comes captain Watson, and says Mrs. Veal was certainly dead. And then come all the pieces of evidence, and especially the striped silk gown. Then Mrs. Watson cried out, "You have seen her indeed, for none knew but Mrs. Veal and I that that gown was scoured;" and she cried that the gown was described exactly, for, said she, "I helped her to make it up." And next we have the silly attempts made to discredit the history. Even Mr. Veal, her brother, was obliged to allow that the gold was found, but with a difference, and pretended it was not found in a cabinet, but elsewhere; and, in short, we have all the gossip of _says I_, and _thinks I_, and _says she_, and _thinks she_, which disputed matters usually excite in a country town. When we have thus turned the tale, the seam without, it may be thought too ridiculous to have attracted notice. But whoever will read it as told by De Foe himself, will agree that, could the thing have happened in reality, so it would have been told. The sobering the whole supernatural visit into the language of middle or low life, gives it an air of probability even in its absurdity. The ghost of an exciseman's housekeeper, and a seamstress, were not to converse like Brutus with his Evil Genius. And the circumstances of scoured silks, broken tea-china, and such like, while they are the natural topics of such persons' conversation, would, one might have thought, be the last which an inventor would have introduced into a pretended narrative betwixt the dead and living. In short, the whole is so distinctly circumstantial, that, were it not for the impossibility, or extreme improbability at least, of such an occurrence, the evidence could not but support the story. The effect was most wonderful. _Drelincourt upon Death_, attested by one who could speak from experience, took an unequalled run. The copies had hung on the bookseller's hands as heavy as a pile of lead bullets. They now traversed the town in every direction, like the same balls discharged from a field-piece. In short, the object of Mrs. Veal's apparition was perfectly attained.--See The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. vol. iv. p. 305. ed. 1827. 
34475	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Materialized Apparitions _If Not Beings from Another Life What Are They_ BY EDWARD A. BRACKETT AUTHOR OF "THE WORLD WE LIVE IN", "MY HOUSE," ETC. [Illustration: ARTI et VERITATI] BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER The Gorham Press 1908 _Copyright_ 1885, _by E. A. Brackett_ _All Rights Reserved_ _The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A._ To abandon these spiritual phenomena to credulity, is to commit a treason against human reason. Nevertheless, we see them always rejected and always reappearing. They date not their advent from yesterday. VICTOR HUGO. PREFACE. Written at intervals from the pressure of business, and at times that should have been devoted to recreation, these pages make no claim to artistic arrangement or literary merit. If they enable any one to arrive at a clearer and better appreciation of the wonderful phenomena of which they treat, they will have accomplished all that was intended. WINCHESTER, MASS. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, PAGE 9 Part I. MATERIALIZATION AND DEMATERIALIZATION OF FORMS AND OBJECTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. I. MY FIRST SÉANCE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 17 II. PERSONIFICATION BY THE MEDIUM, OR MATERIALIZED FORMS 30 III. MATERIALIZATION AND DEMATERIALIZATION OF OBJECTS 36 IV. MATERIALIZATION AND DEMATERIALIZATION UNDER TEST CONDITIONS 51 V. AN UNEXPECTED SÉANCE 60 VI. SÉANCE WITH MRS. CARRIE M. SAWYER 68 VII. SÉANCES WITH MRS. FAIRCHILD 79 VIII. SÉANCE WITH MISS HELEN BERRY AT ONSET 88 IX. SÉANCE AT THE BERRY SISTERS' IN BOSTON 99 X. MATERIALIZED FORMS--HOW SHALL WE MEET THEM? 109 Part II. OPINIONS AND THEORIES. I. A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN 123 II. EXPOSURES OF MEDIUMS 131 III. PUBLIC SÉANCES 140 IV. THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENTISTS 146 V. PUBLIC OPINION 153 VI. CONCLUSION 164 ILLUSTRATIONS. DIAGRAM OF MRS. FAY'S SÉANCE-ROOM 29 DIAGRAM OF THE MISSES BERRY'S SÉANCE-ROOM 100 INTRODUCTION. In 1840 I became acquainted with Dr. Colyer, then lecturing on Mesmerism, at Peel's Museum, New York, and fully believed, at that time, that he was a humbug, and Mesmerism a fraud. Soon after this, while visiting some friends, with Mr. Pendleton, formerly from Boston, this subject was pretty thoroughly discussed,--Mr. Pendleton insisting that there was truth in it, and that I was not treating it fairly; and he proposed, as a matter of amusement, that I should try the experiment on some one of the party present. Willing to turn the discussion into a less serious form, I consented to take the part assigned me; and soon found, to my astonishment, that I had before me a most excellent clairvoyant subject. What had been started as amusement became a very interesting entertainment, resulting in the meeting of the parties once a week for the purpose of studying Mesmerism. In the following spring I removed to Boston, where in my leisure hours I continued my investigations, part of the time with Dr. William F. Channing, the inventor of the Fire Alarm, and at the time a student with Dr. Jackson. I was indebted to him for many interesting suggestions, and especially for the use of a very delicate galvanometer, for the purpose of detecting, if possible, any magnetic or electric currents passing between the magnetizer and his subject. No such currents were discovered, and when we found that our subject could be controlled and thrown into a trance when more than a mile away, by the action of the will alone, the idea of testing currents was abandoned. All that has since been made public under the names of Mind-Reading and Telepathy, and much more, was familiar to us. When trance-mediumship became known, believing that it was only a form of Mesmerism, I gave considerable attention to it. There were few mediums of note that I did not have more or less sittings with, but the most satisfactory communications I received came through a member of my own family. While the evidence was such as would have convinced most persons that these messages came from the other side of life, I was by no means sure of it. In this state of mind, in consequence of some statements made to me by Mr. Thomas Appleton, of what he had seen in Europe, I decided to investigate what is known as "Materialization," that is, the alleged production of visible and tangible apparitions out of seeming nothingness. I felt, whether right or wrong, that my experience in Mesmerism, and the long training of my perceptive faculties as a sculptor, which enabled me to detect the slightest differences between objects, was as good a preparation as one could have for studying this class of phenomena. I had no sectarian prejudices to overcome, and no lack of courage in stating my convictions, no matter which way the evidence might lead. That I prejudged the case in the beginning, I freely admit, and, like thousands of others, formed an opinion without giving to it that attention which is necessary in dealing fairly with any subject. I have a thorough abhorrence of fraud, whether in the séance-room or in the pulpit, regarding any one who would trifle with the most sacred feelings of our nature as deserving the severest punishment. In briefly detailing some of the facts that have come under my own observation, it is a matter of no consequence to me what may be said about them, since it is impossible for any one to give the subject the same careful study without arriving at similar results. PART I. MATERIALIZATION AND DEMATERIALIZATION OF FORMS AND OBJECTS. Man is what he feels. He may dazzle the world for a while with the splendor of his acquirements, but, like an iceberg that glistens in the frosty air and disappears in a more genial clime, the pride of his intellect is lost in the warmth of his affections. What Swedenborg aptly terms his "loves," alone indicate man's true character. They determine his relation to superior as well as to inferior beings. There is no other way through which he can advance to a higher life, or commune with those exalted spirits who are ever ready to welcome him, than by the elevation of his affections. Through every phase of his spiritual progress, whether in this or the other life, forever arches over him in letters of gold the divine commandment, "That ye love one another." MATERIALIZED APPARITIONS. CHAPTER I. MY FIRST SÉANCE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. Not being acquainted with any "materializing medium," so termed, I obtained from Mr. Luther Colby, of Boston, a letter of introduction to Mrs. H. B. Fay, of that city, stating that I was desirous of visiting her séances. I called upon the lady and presented the letter, but found that she was out of health, and, for the present, had discontinued her sittings. I, however, left my address, with the request that she would inform me when she resumed her séances. More than a year passed without hearing from her, and, finding that she was giving sittings, I made free to call at the house and ask admittance, which was granted. As she did not recognize me, I felt confident that she had forgotten the circumstance of the letter, and, as I preferred to remain as far as possible _incog._, I made no allusion to it. Curiosity led me to scan the audience. There were about thirty persons present, and, as far as I could judge, they were of more than ordinary intelligence. At the beginning of the séance, the light was lowered, but not so low that we could not discern clearly the features of those around us. I do not propose now to deal with the experience of others, although I have from the beginning made that a part of my study, but shall confine myself to what came to me. Near the close of the séance, the lady who sat next the cabinet said there was a form present who gave the name of "Maggie Brackett." She would not be certain about the first name, as the form was very weak and spoke in a whisper. Here was a chance to come in contact with one of these beings, supposed to belong to another life. Although I knew of no one, in or out of my family, by that name, I assumed that it was for me, and stepped up to the cabinet. As I did so, the curtain parted, and a very beautiful female, apparently about sixteen years old, stood before me. I looked at her very closely, but could trace no resemblance to the medium, nor to any one I had known. I said, "I do not remember you; did I ever see you before?" She shook her head, and tried to speak, but I could not make out what she intended to say. Finding that I did not understand, she held out her hand, about three feet from the floor; but I did not know what that meant, and, seeing that she was greatly disappointed, shook hands with her, saying, "Never mind; we will find out about this some other time;" then bade her Good-bye, and she stepped behind the curtain. As I turned to my seat, a hoarse voice inside the cabinet somewhat startled me by saying, "Your wife is here!" I answered, "Very well, I shall be glad to see her." If I was disappointed in the first form, I was doubly so in this. It was a much smaller person than my deceased wife, and had a tired, careworn expression, while the features strongly resembled the medium. She greeted me warmly. Holding her at arms' length, in order to better study her form, I said, "You are not tall or stout enough for my wife." "Wait," she said; and, stepping behind the curtain, returned in a few moments, fuller, and near a head taller. The height and general build of the form were now very good, but the face was a medley. I saw, or fancied, some resemblance to my wife, but still more to the medium. She appeared overjoyed at meeting me; so much so that I felt it would be heartless on my part to repel it. Laying her head upon my shoulder, she talked freely with me, saying things that it seemed impossible that any one but my wife could know. I knew what Mesmerism and clairvoyance meant. Was this another phase of them? Was it mind-reading? If so, it was a very clever performance. I could not realize that I had my wife before me, and yet here was a being who had penetrated the inmost secrets of my domestic life; had dragged from the past the well-worn pages of memory and read them anew. She remained out much longer than most of the forms had done, when I noticed that she appeared to be growing weaker, and, in spite of her efforts to sustain herself, was sinking downward. Bidding her Good-night, I let go her hand. As I did so, she went down directly in front of me, within a foot of where I stood, her head and shoulders being the last part visible. On the carpet, where she disappeared, there was a glow of phosphorescent light, which gradually faded away. For the first and only time during my investigations, I was unduly excited. It came so suddenly and unexpectedly upon me that I was confused. I brushed my hand across my forehead and eyes to make sure of my bearings, and slowly returned to my seat, fully conscious of the importance of what had passed before me. If real,--if the form had thus dematerialized,--then the reality of materialization followed as a matter of course. While turning these thoughts over in my mind, the séance closed; and as I stepped out into the full light of the autumnal moon, everything seemed changed. The sound of feet on the brick pavement grated harshly on my ears; before me rose the tall spire of the stone church, throwing its ghostly shadow across the way; behind me was the séance-room, and a dreamy consciousness of the strange phenomena I had witnessed surged through my brain. Was it possible that I had stood face to face and been in communication with one from another life? As I pondered over this, a reaction came, and before I reached my home the probability, or the possibility even, that I had been deceived, vexed and annoyed me, and aroused a determination to know whether or not there was truth in materialization. I was not over-pleased with what I had seen, and, but for this last incident, my investigations might have ended here. Materialization was either a great truth or a stupendous humbug. Thousands of intelligent persons believed in it, on what appeared to me uncertain evidence. Was it not a disgrace to science that this had been allowed to go on so long without any honest attempt to investigate it? If I could only get the inside track, how easy it would be to expose it! The whole thing lay in a nutshell: either the forms appearing were confederates, or personations by the medium; perhaps both. I would if possible adopt a system of investigation so thorough that nothing should escape me. To go to séances as an ordinary visitor was, to me, to throw time away. If the manifestations were genuine, and my personal relations with the medium not objectionable, I saw no reason why I should not obtain privileges without which, to my skeptical mind, it would be useless to pursue the subject. I therefore continued my visits, having this object constantly in view. Otherwise I remained perfectly passive, neither demanding nor asking anything. Several times I was surprised by finding thoughts to which I had given no outward expression anticipated by what claimed to be "the control," that is, the spirit alleged to hold possession of the entranced medium. I had not asked, although greatly desirous, to be taken into the cabinet during the séance. While thinking this, "Auntie," Mrs. Fay's "control," said, "You shall come in." The forms were coming quite freely to me, and one said, "You may go in with me." As I entered, the control greeted me in a friendly way, saying that she liked me; that I was a skeptic, but an honest one. While talking with her, I had my left arm around the waist of the form that took me into the cabinet. With my right hand I reached out and satisfied myself that the medium was sitting in her chair, entranced. There could be no mistake; there were four of us in the cabinet,--the two forms that appeared to be materialized, the medium, and myself! I know how two got in, but where did the other two come from? Taking advantage of the expressions of kindness on the part of the control, I sought an early opportunity to express to the medium what I desired. To my surprise, she made no objections, saying that she was entranced, and did not know what the forms were, nor was she conscious of taking any part in what came before the audience; that she was simply the instrument, not the operator. I thanked her, saying I trusted that I should do nothing which would be distasteful to her or the control; that the first step would be a thorough investigation of the cabinet. On my first visit to Mrs. Fay's, the cabinet consisted simply of a curtain drawn across the corner of the room. It was soon after changed to a light, portable structure, which could be easily moved to any part of the room. I had this cabinet moved out, the floor, wall, and everything connected with it thoroughly examined. There was no chance for confederates to be used here. I have since assisted in moving it out for the satisfaction of others, and have seen it placed in the opposite corner of the room, where it remained for weeks without in the least affecting the manifestations. Whatever may be the cause of these phenomena, they are certainly not due to confederates. I herewith submit a carefully drawn plan of the cabinet and its surroundings, made by a competent architect, who has never seen any of the manifestations, and consequently is not a believer in them. There could be no doubt; it was impossible for any one to enter the cabinet except through the door of the séance-room, in the presence of the whole audience. To be perfectly sure on this point, I sought and obtained permission to sit next the cabinet, which place I occupied for more than forty sittings. I know that it is impossible to use a confederate in this cabinet without its being instantly detected. Having settled this so thoroughly that it could not come up as an element of doubt in any future investigations I might make, the next step seemed to be a plain one. [Illustration: Diagram of Mrs. Fay's Séance-Room.] CHAPTER II. PERSONIFICATION BY THE MEDIUM, OR MATERIALIZED FORMS? The forms that came from the cabinet were either personations by the medium, or they were what they purported to be--materializations. I had, during this time, allowed nothing to pass unnoticed. From forty to sixty forms would often manifest at a séance, apparently of both sexes, and of all ages and sizes, from a little child to extreme old age, each form individualized and complete in itself. What claimed to be my wife came to me quite often, and so many times disappeared in the way heretofore described, that I was no longer startled by the occurrence, for I had become so familiar with it that I had come to regard it as a natural consequence of her appearance. She not only grew stronger, but the likeness was much improved, and the resemblance to the medium, at times, entirely disappeared. In my first visits to these séances, I was led, like many others, to attach great importance to the resemblance which these forms might bear to what they claimed to have been when in earth-life. I was constantly looking for it, and have seen many instances where the likeness was so marked that it would have been impossible to mistake it; yet I have learned not to regard it as positive evidence of identity. Whatever they may be, whether from this or the other side of life, there can be no question that they possess the wonderful power of changing their forms at pleasure, as any one at all familiar with them can testify. I have seen a tall young man, wearing a full beard, claiming to be a brother of the lady with me, while standing before her, one hand on her waist, the other in mine--upon her saying, "I have not seen you since you were a lad; how do you suppose I should know you now?"--stoop, kiss her on the cheek, and raise his roguish face without the beard; at the same time diminishing in size until he was more nearly like the boy she knew. I have witnessed similar changes outside of the cabinet, in the presence of the audience, quite often. The mental and moral tone of the audience has more to do with the character of the séance than the medium has. I have, several times, by the action of a strong will, caused the forms to recede from the position which they at first assumed. Persons, without being fully aware of it, find themselves more or less reflected in these séances. They reap what they sow. Their condition of mind prevents the forms from approaching them. I have known persons to visit séances many times without receiving any attention; and, on the other hand, I have seen entire strangers, coming from distant parts of the country, who had never before been in a séance-room, receive the most tender demonstrations of affection and recognition. Sometimes these forms have treated me to little jokes, that illustrated better than words the information I was seeking; enjoying heartily anything that for a moment seemed to disconcert me. What claimed to be my niece came to me in a very beautiful illuminated dress. I asked her to appear to me at the next séance dressed in the same way. I took a friend with me to that séance, expecting to astonish him with the wonderful illumination. But, instead of keeping her promise, she came out in a dark dress, such as I had never seen her wear. As my friend had gone up to the cabinet with me, I was greatly disappointed in the way she came, and said, "Bertha, why do you come in this dress?" Placing her right elbow in the palm of her left hand and her index finger on her lip, in a bashful, coquettish way, she said, "I'm in mourning." I said, "For what?" She replied, "I expect I have lost my friend." I said to my companion, "This is something new; I don't understand it." While we were both looking at her, instantly the dark dress disappeared, and she stood before us radiant in her beautiful garments. With a girlish laugh she threw her arms around my neck, kissed me and said, "It is all right now, uncle." The disappearance of the dark dress was quite as marvellous to my friend as the illumination. I have never been able to detect any fraud, or any indication of it, on the part of Mrs. Fay at these séances; and in the absence of any information which would lead to any other conclusion, I shall hereafter call these forms spirits. That they are not beings belonging to this side of life, I feel certain. What they are, each one must determine for himself. CHAPTER III. MATERIALIZATION AND DEMATERIALIZATION OF OBJECTS. The severest tests which I could apply to these manifestations convinced me that not only the forms which surrounded these spirits, but the garments which they wore were "materialized" (that is, made visible and tangible out of previously invisible substances) inside of the cabinet. How this is done we may not comprehend. Emerson says, "The whole world is the flux of matter over the wires of thought to the points or poles where it would build." We only know that here, as in Nature, there must be a germ or starting-point around which the particles aggregate. This is seen in the materialization of objects, which is important as being the only materializations outside the cabinet, and the only ones that we can study. I have spoken of a beautiful spirit claiming to be my niece, Bertha, that came to me at Mrs. Fay's. In all my attendance there she has never failed to meet me. This did not arise from any understanding or agreement, but seemed to grow up as a natural consequence of the magnetic relations between us. Simple and childlike in her bearing, I have found her remarkably conscientious, intelligent, and affectionate. She comes freely, and in all my intercourse with her I have never found her judgment at fault. I do not care to discuss the question as to who or what Bertha is; I know she is not the medium, nor a confederate, and that her materialization of objects is genuine. In my long and delightful association with her, extending over more than two years, I have never been able to detect the slightest thing that would lead me to doubt that she is what she claims to be. No parent ever watched the unfolding of a young life with more interest than I have studied the apparent growth or development of this delightful spirit. It may be that what I have considered her progress arises from the increasing strength gained through her long association with me, enabling her to more freely express herself; for during my acquaintance with her she has seemingly passed from a commonplace person into a remarkable embodiment of intelligence and affection. If I have refrained from expressing the many inspired thoughts and feelings which in her exalted moments she has freely given forth, it is because they are sacred to my own domestic circle. They belong to that centralization of the affections without which life loses its force, and all investigations or attempts to reach these beings are only time thrown away. As I never saw her before she passed to the other life, I have no means of proving her identity except by what she has told me. Owing to the fact that her family live many hundred miles away, and that I am very forgetful of names, I did not recall, until reminded by others, the existence of any one of that name. She came, at first, very weak, not being able to come out from the cabinet, and spoke in a whisper. She either gave a wrong name, or, what is quite as likely from the difficulty she then had in expressing herself, was misunderstood. This, with my limited experience, led me to regard her appearance, so far as it related to me, a mistake, and I am quite conscious that I treated her coldly. That she felt this indifference on my part was evinced more than once by the expression of her face. She, however, continued to come whenever I was present, growing stronger each time, apparently demanding recognition, and showing plainly that she did not mean to be put aside for any one. At length I said, "Will you tell me who you are?" She replied, "I am Bertha; you are my uncle; I am your niece;" at the same time holding out her hand about three feet from the floor. As I did not understand this, she subsequently explained it by coming out as a child about four years old, that being the age, as I afterward learned, when she passed to the other life. As I was a stranger to the medium and all present (except one, and that one knew nothing of my relatives), it does not seem probable that the medium could have known anything about her. The individuality of Bertha is very striking, bearing little or no resemblance to any other materialized form which I have seen. She never comes shrouded in a profusion of drapery; on the contrary, she appears scantily but richly dressed, wearing a short skirt and close-fitting waist, with short sleeves, leaving her finely-rounded arms bare. She never wears a head-dress; her long silken hair floats freely round her shoulders. In form and feature she is the embodiment of girlhood, with a playful disposition which leads her to make amusing remarks, at times, about those who come within her mental atmosphere. Her figure is compactly built, and well proportioned, with a remarkably fine face, the expression of which, at times, surpasses anything I have ever seen. She is much shorter than the medium, as the following measurements will show:-- Mrs. H. B. Fay, medium, height, 5 ft. 4 in. Bertha, materialized form, height, 4 ft. 9¼ in. Male form (to Mr. Tallman), height, 5 ft. 9¼ in. Difference between Mrs. Fay and Bertha, 6¾ in. Difference between Mrs. Fay and male form, 5¼ in. Difference between Bertha and male form, 12 in. These measurements were taken by means of an upright staff with a cross piece at right angles, and I was assisted by a gentleman who is a thorough skeptic. Care was taken to have the forms stand perfectly upright, so that there could be no mistake as to accuracy. I have given this brief sketch of Bertha as I shall have occasion to allude to her hereafter, for I am greatly indebted to her for much that I have learned about materialization. She has taught me that the ability to communicate intelligently depends upon the use these beings can make of our aromal emanations, or magnetism; that frequent association with us is necessary to enable them to gain control of material elements, and that where the relations are harmonious they gather strength every time they come in contact with us. From a feeble and almost unintelligible whisper, Bertha now speaks in clear tones, with little or none of the German accent of the medium, and very often, no matter where I am placed, comes across the room, and pulls me up with both hands; or, if there is a vacant chair beside me, sits down and begins to talk, apparently not noticing those around her. At a Thursday afternoon séance, held last spring, she came out very lively; and after a cordial greeting I said, "You are feeling strong to-day; can you not do something to interest us?" She hesitated a moment; then leading me into the middle of the room, looked up laughingly into my face and said, "I will show you how we dress the forms in the cabinet."[A] Stretching out her bare arms, turning them that every one could see that there was nothing in them, she brought the palms of her hands together, rubbing them as if rolling something between them. Very soon there descended from her hands a substance which looked like very white lace. [A] The control had stated to me, only a few minutes before, that the forms were first materialized and then draped. She continued this until several yards of it lay upon the carpet, and then asked me to kneel down, saying I was too tall for her to work easily. She then took the fabric and made a robe around me, which appeared seamless. On being reminded that there were no sleeves, she took each arm in turn and materialized sleeves. Putting her hand on my head she said, "You have not hair enough," and, rubbing her hand over my head, materialized a wig. This I could not see, but put my hand up and felt of it, and those who were near me said it was in keeping with my own hair and quite an improvement. Removing the garment, she rolled it into a compact mass, manipulated it a few moments, and it was gone! In materializing and dematerializing this fabric, her arms, which were bare to the shoulders, were stretched out at full length, precluding the possibility of any deception. Thursday afternoon, Oct. 2, I visited Mrs. Fay's séance with some friends from New Bedford and Cincinnati. When Bertha came out I introduced her to my friends, and asked if she would be kind enough to show them how to make lace. She stepped forward and asked for my handkerchief, which she placed between her hands, manipulating it much after the manner of starching fine fabrics. It was easy to see that the material in her hands was rapidly increasing in volume, and soon the lace began to descend; but instead of being only one piece, there were two, one dark red, and one white, both falling at the same time, each piece about three quarters of a yard wide. When she had completed it, she held one end, while I took the other and walked across the room, stretching it out to its full length, between three and four yards, so that all could see it; and while it was so held, the controlling spirit shut off the light, showing that the lace was brilliantly illuminated. Bertha then gathered it in, rolled it up and dematerialized it on my shoulder, the light remaining on my coat for nearly a minute after the lace had entirely disappeared. These things are not new; they are as old as the history of man, and are of common occurrence in India at the present time. They have no possible connection with what is known as sleight-of-hand, or legerdemain. Louis Jacolliot, Chief Justice of Chandenagur, French East Indies, in his able work on Occult Science in India, thus points out the difference:-- "Every European has heard of the extraordinary skill of the Hindoo Fakirs, who are popularly designated under the name of Charmers or Jugglers. They claim to be invested with supernatural powers. Such is the belief of all Asiatic people. When our countrymen are told of their performances, they usually answer, 'Go to the regular magicians; they will show you the same things.' "To enable the reader to appreciate the grounds of this opinion, it seems necessary to show how the Fakirs operate. The following are facts which no traveller has ventured to contradict:-- "_First._--They never give public representations in places where the presence of several hundred persons makes it impossible to exercise the proper scrutiny. "_Second._--They are accompanied by no assistant, or confederate, as they are usually termed. "_Third._--They present themselves in the interior of the house, completely naked, except that they wear, for modesty's sake, a small piece of linen about as large as the hand. "_Fourth._--They are not acquainted with goblets, or magic bags, or double-bottomed boxes, or prepared tables, or any of the thousand and one things which our European conjurers find necessary. "_Fifth._--They have absolutely nothing in their possession save a small wand of seven knots of bamboo, as big as the handle of a pen-holder, which they hold in their right hand, and a small whistle, about three inches long, which they fasten to one of the locks of their long, straight hair; for, having no clothes, and consequently no pockets, they would otherwise be obliged to hold it constantly in the hand. "_Sixth._--They operate, as desired by the person whom they are visiting, either in a sitting or standing posture, or, as the case may require, upon the marble, granite, or stucco pavement of the veranda, or upon the bare ground in the garden. "_Seventh._--When they need a subject for the exhibition of magnetic or somnambulistic phenomena, they take any of your servants whom you may designate, no matter whom, and they act with the same facility upon a European in case he is willing to serve. "_Eighth._--If they need any article, such as a musical instrument, a cane, a piece of paper, a pencil, etc., they ask you to furnish it. "_Ninth._--They will repeat any experiments in your presence as many times as you require, and will submit to any test you may apply. "_Tenth._--They never ask any pay, merely accepting, as alms for the temple to which they are attached, whatever you choose to offer them. "I have travelled through India in every direction for many years, and I can truthfully state that I have never seen a single Fakir who was not willing to comply with any of these conditions. "It only remains for us to ask whether our more popular magicians would ever consent to dispense with any of their numerous accompaniments, and perform under the same conditions. There is no doubt what the answer would be." Whether the forms or articles exhibited are considered as objects invisibly brought into the room, or created from the atmosphere, they are alike astonishing manifestations of an occult power. It does not simplify or explain these singular phenomena to deny their relation to beings of another life, and refer them to a supposed power in man, the laws of which are unknown to us. We have to deal with them as we would with any of the natural manifestations of life. To assume that these things are not honest,--that these beings, who come to us claiming to be our friends and relatives, are deceiving us, playing on our credulity,--is to decide the question without evidence. CHAPTER IV. MATERIALIZATION AND DEMATERIALIZATION UNDER TEST CONDITIONS. At Mrs. Fay's, on Thursday, Oct. 6, 1885, previous to the séance, Mrs. Fay came into the room under the control of "Auntie," and requested that four ladies should be selected by the audience to go with the medium to her dressing-room. The request was complied with, and the ladies returned with Mrs. Fay, still under control, and stated that they had dressed her entirely in dark clothes; that there was not one particle of white fabric about her, except the little collar around her neck. The control then asked me to take a light into the cabinet, and all were requested to examine it and see that there was no possible chance for a confederate, or the concealment of drapery. This was done to the entire satisfaction of all present. Mrs. Fay was not allowed to leave the room, but, as soon as the audience was seated, went directly into the cabinet. She had not time to take her seat before a form, dressed in white, came out into the room. This was followed by several others similarly dressed. Then the light was lowered, and a tall female form came out, dressed in brilliantly illuminated garments. A white handkerchief held against this drapery had the appearance of a dark object. This figure walked about the room for a few minutes, and vanished within three feet from where I sat, and at least eight feet from the cabinet. Then, in the middle of the room, on the carpet, appeared a small light, not larger than the palm of my hand. It gradually grew larger, until it assumed the tall, angular form of "Auntie," the control, who, in her hoarse voice, greeted us with, "Good afternoon, all: I thought I would see what I could do." She then addressed the audience in one of the most forcible speeches I ever listened to, stating her reasons for putting her medium under test conditions, ending by saying that she respected an honest skeptic, but had no patience with those who accept anything without good, substantial evidence. She returned to the cabinet, and many forms came out and were recognized. Bertha came, and, stretching out her arms at full length, that all could see there was no chance for deception, she materialized between her hands a piece of cambric, about three yards long and one wide, brilliantly illuminated. After all who desired to do so had examined it, she gathered it up, and, passing over to where the light was the strongest, held it up, laughingly remarking that there was enough to make a dress, proceeded to make it up, materializing sleeves, and then put it on and walked round the room. Taking it off, she dematerialized it in the presence of all. Returning for a moment to the cabinet, she came back, and, kneeling on the floor, with the fingers of the right hand made circular movements on the carpet, with each of which it was plain to be seen that the light was increasing. She continued this until she had materialized another large piece of fabric. This gave great satisfaction to all, except one visitor, who, from some cause, was a little disturbed, and had the kindness to ask me if I had been in the habit of practising sleight-of-hand. His intimate friend, who came with him, had the good fortune to be close to Bertha, and had witnessed all that had occurred. He rose, of his own free will, and stated to the audience that he had been investigating the subject for thirty years, and that this was the most wonderful and convincing thing he had ever seen. On Thursday, Oct. 13, Mrs. Fay was again put under test conditions. The audience was large, crowding the room and making it so warm as to materially interfere with the manifestations, especially with those spirits who had not been accustomed to materialize. The illuminated forms and drapery were well shown. In the light séance, Bertha came and pulled me up from my chair. She complained of the closeness of the room, saying that she could not do much. She materialized a carnation in my hand, and I called Mr. Whitlock to witness it, whereupon she took both of his hands and made a flower in each. Emma, one of the controls, soon came out, dressed in a rich white figured satin dress, which all in the front row were allowed to inspect. Mr. Whitlock obtained a pair of scissors, and, with Emma's consent, cut quite a piece out of her dress. The damage seemed to be soon repaired. Mr. Whitlock, in searching for the place where he had cut the piece out, lifted the skirt, which gave Emma a chance to play the coquette, and this created considerable amusement. Mr. Whitlock persevered, and I think is able to state whether he succeeded in spoiling the dress. A fine-looking form, claiming to be a German chemist, and the control of Dr. Thomas, came out, and magnetized or medicated a tumbler of water, sparks of light flashing freely from his fingers into the water, which was then given to a lady from New Haven, Conn.,--with what effect I cannot say, except that she complained that it tasted bitter. I saw this manifestation for the first time several weeks before, and, I confess, was rather amused with it. While speaking somewhat skeptically of it to a friend who sat beside me, I was surprised when the form came across the room and asked me to take the magnetized water. I had been suffering for some weeks, and, to do the Doctor justice, I must say I was almost entirely relieved. Mr. Whitlock's father came to him,--a fine, robust form, with a strong individuality that could not well be mistaken. Mr. Whitlock and his wife testified to the likeness. This was followed by the appearance of Dr. J. R. Newton, the widely-known healer, some time deceased. Mr. Whitlock and I went up and greeted him. I shook hands with him, and had time to study his face well: there could be no mistake; it was a wonderful likeness of the Doctor. The séance, although held under unfavorable circumstances, was full of strong, convincing points. To the above statement, Mr. L. L. Whitlock, Editor of _Facts_, appends the following:-- "At the above-named séance, held on Nov. 13th, the following-named ladies were asked by Mrs. Fay to examine her clothing before she entered the cabinet, viz.:--Mrs. Joseph Harris, of Dorchester, Mass.; Mrs. A. Smith, of Lynn, Mass.; Mrs. J. D. Lillie, Boston; Mrs. M. A. Estee, East Boston; and Mrs. L. L. Whitlock, Providence, R. I. "They stated that she had nothing white about her person, except a piece of ruche around her neck, worn as a collar. The cabinet was also thoroughly examined by all who desired. "My father, Rev. Geo. C. Whitlock, LL.D., who passed to the spirit-life about twenty years ago, was very perfectly materialized, so much so that Mrs. Whitlock, who often sees him clairvoyantly, but never saw him in earth-life, recognized him before I saw him, my attention at the moment being attracted by conversation in another direction. "We will not attempt a description of this séance, as Mr. Brackett's report is substantially what we would have written. Our experience with the dress above mentioned was wonderful, and to us as incomprehensible as was our lace experience at Mrs. Fay's séance at Onset Bay last summer, a description of which we published in the September number of _Facts_. "One thing is certain: I had in my hand a piece of brocaded white satin, which I know I had cut from the dress of which Mr. Brackett speaks, and that, while I was kneeling before the form, the hole which I had made in the dress did disappear, and that I used my senses, of both sight and feeling, to convince myself of the facts. "Over sixty forms appeared, most of whom were recognized by friends." CHAPTER V. AN UNEXPECTED SÉANCE. At an interview with Mr. W. C. Tallman, Mr. W. A. Hovey, and Rev. M. J. Savage, the question of obtaining private séances, in the interest of the Committee on Psychical Research, was discussed, and it was considered desirable to make arrangements with Mrs. H. B. Fay for that purpose. I was selected to consult with her, and, if possible, obtain her consent. As several gentlemen who intended to join us were not present, Mr. Savage was requested to see and inform them of the conditions agreed upon; the result of his interview to be forwarded to me by letter at Mrs. Fay's, on Thursday, before the séance held on that day. These conditions were very simple, and ought to have been satisfactory to any reasonable person. They were the result of the long experience of Mr. Tallman, Mr. Hovey, and myself, made heartily in the interest of the Committee. There was no difference of opinion, Mr. Savage fully endorsing them. The letter was duly received, and, without stopping to read it, I informed Mrs. Fay that I was ready to talk with her. She replied that she should leave the matter entirely with her control, and if I would lay the letter on the mantel, near the cabinet, Auntie, the control, would probably speak about it. This letter was a long one,--some four pages, written by a member of the Psychological Society, in reply to Mr. Savage. I placed it under a heavy music-box, within a few inches of my head, where I am certain it remained undisturbed until I took it away. Its contents, which reversed the arrangements agreed upon, were not made known to Mrs. Fay until after the decision of her control. As I did not then know what it contained, and in my subsequent interview with Mrs. F. made no allusion to it, Auntie's knowledge of it seemed very remarkable. As the séance drew near the end, a spirit to whom I am greatly attached called me up to the cabinet; and while I was conversing with her, Auntie's voice broke in, saying, "Mr. Brackett?" I said, "What is it, Auntie?" She replied, "I will see you to-morrow." I called on Mrs. Fay the next day, and, after talking with her on other matters, and finding that she did not seem disposed to allude to the appointment, I reminded her that I came on business. She asked, "What is it?" I replied that Auntie had requested me to meet her. She rose without a moment's hesitation, saying, "We will go to the cabinet." This was a surprise to me, for I fully expected that Auntie would take control of her medium, and talk to me through her, as she had often done before. As Mrs. Fay stepped behind the curtain, Auntie came out, fully materialized, greeting me cordially, shaking hands with me, and expressing pleasure at meeting me; then, in a clear and forcible manner, discussed the question of the proposed séance, going freely into detail, showing conclusively that she understood both sides, and closed by saying that she did not propose to submit her medium to such conditions as were required by the letter, at the same time expressing a willingness to do all she could for Mr. Savage personally. Bidding me Good-bye, she dematerialized directly in front of me, so near that I could have laid my hand upon her as she went down. The curtains were apart, and I could see Mrs. Fay standing just beside the cabinet; but, in order to make me more certain, if possible, of that fact, she reached out her right hand, which I took in my left, preventing the curtains from closing; and while thus standing, no less than six fully materialized forms came out and greeted me. During all this time Mrs. Fay may have been under partial control, but was not entranced, and talked freely with me about the forms, often describing them before they were visible to me. These forms were substantial, varying in height and shape, and distinct from each other. Most of them conversed freely, showing quite as much individuality and intelligence as some of my acquaintances to whom forms sometimes appear,--persons who think they are wise in treating these forms with coldness and distrust, all of which is reflected back to them. It is easy to understand why such persons are disappointed in what comes to them; but it is not easy to understand how any intelligent investigator, who has given the subject any considerable attention, should come to the conclusion that the forms are automatons, and that our friends from the other side never take possession, or control them, as they would a trance-medium; that they are merely effigies,[B] or lay figures, built up to mock us, and play with the most sacred feelings of our natures; and, what is more diabolical, that our spirit-friends are near by, enjoying the base deception! If this view is correct, what a fearful amount of lying there must be in every séance! Such a conclusion would be impossible from what passed before me at this sitting. [B] In an essay written by "Shadows," intended to enlighten the public on this subject, he puts forth the theory of effigies. In the same article he relates a séance with the Berry Sisters, in which he says that "a young female spirit came to him." The word spirit must have been a slip of the pen; he should have said, a young female effigy. It was possibly in anticipation of his theory that the young effigy called him "father!" As I gazed with delight upon this sudden and unexpected manifestation, bathed in a mellow light which made all the surroundings perfectly visible, I could not help feeling a regret that my Psychical friends had shut themselves out from such evidence by requiring arrangements to which no intelligent control would submit. Here, under strictly test conditions, which precluded any possible doubt, was crowded into a small space just the information which I am sure that some of them are honestly endeavoring to obtain. These things may be nothing but a mere phantasy of the mind; what is claimed as exact science, a humbug; and life itself only a delusion; but those whose lives are rounded into a full consciousness of an individual existence may prefer to consider them in a different light. The same perception which enables us to recognize one must be conceded to the other. If, in the search after facts relating to the more subtle forms of life, the testimonies of thousands of honest and intelligent persons are to be disregarded, we might as well abolish our courts. Judge, jury, and witness become nothing but ridiculous actors in a farce played in the name of Justice. CHAPTER VI. SÉANCE WITH MRS. CARRIE M. SAWYER. Among the strong points in evidence of the genuineness of these manifestations are the marked individuality and constant variations that appear. The séances with the same medium will be found to differ widely; no two of them are exactly alike. Sometimes they will be exceedingly good, and at other times almost an entire failure. If they were in any way due to confederates, or to personation by the medium, such variations would not be likely to occur. Again, the séances with one medium differ essentially from those with another; so much so that each medium may be said to have a phase of mediumship distinct in itself. The forms may appear quite different in outward shape, when coming through one medium from what they do in coming through another. The mental characteristics will, however, as I have found, be retained in both instances. This has often led to confusion and distrust with those who visit different séances. The tendency is very strong to give precedence to mere outward appearance, without reference to character. In no case is the old adage, "A little learning is a dangerous thing," more applicable than to the study of this subject. The shallow investigators, the touch-and-go people, will, in most cases, find themselves left in bewilderment and doubt. These things are not to be settled by witnessing one or two séances. Nor is the character of the manifestations, as expressed through any medium, to be determined without considerable experience. From statements, and especially from the impression I received on my first interview with Mrs. Sawyer, I was led to expect much from her séance. My first séance with her was a disappointment, there being nothing except the delightful interview with little Maud, one of the "cabinet spirits,"[C] to attract the attention of any one familiar with these things. It is due her to say, in explanation, that it was her first séance in Boston, and held under unfavorable conditions. [C] This term is applied to spirits who appear to be constant attendants or assistants in the cabinets of mediums for materialization. On the 11th of August, I again visited her séance, in company with Mrs. Fay. The day was very hot, with a close, moist atmosphere, rendering the séance-room very uncomfortable. The only wonder was that, under such conditions, there could have been any manifestations whatever. I was seated on one side of Mrs. Fay, and a friend of hers on the other. This trio, so to speak, drew the fire of the whole séance; the only strong and decided manifestations appearing on that side of the circle. Auntie, Mrs. Fay's control, stood behind us, invisible to all except her medium, occasionally making remarks in her hoarse, unmistakable voice. Coming, as the voice did, out of space, with no organized being in sight to produce it, the effect was at times startling. A very sprightly spirit came briskly up to Mrs. Fay, extending her hands, and leading her up to the cabinet, where they conversed for some time. This was followed by what claimed to be Bertha. She came very lively, greeting me cordially. The form was very like, and the expression of character assuring, but, owing to the unusually poor light and hasty interview, I prefer to withhold conclusions for the present. More decided in its character was another spirit that followed soon after. There was a centre-table between me and the cabinet. This spirit, instead of coming into the middle of the room, passed to the left, moving the table out, and coming directly to me. This brought her more in the light, where I had a better opportunity of seeing her. Both of these spirits appeared to be the exact counterparts of those who had come to me so often at Mrs. Fay's, but who at other places exhibited a great deal of variation. Was the close resemblance due to the fact that Mrs. Fay was sitting by my side? The question is an interesting one, suggesting further experience. It may be well to state here that every opportunity was granted for examining the cabinet, which I did to my entire satisfaction. I also obtained from the builder a certified statement that it was constructed of kiln-dried lumber, tongued and grooved, nailed, screwed, and glued together in such a way as to render it impossible to remove the boards, or for a confederate to enter it except through the door in the audience-room, in the presence of the visitors. All were permitted to inspect it before the medium took her seat. There could be no question but that the cabinet and its surroundings were above suspicion. This left me free to study the manifestations purely as materializations, or personations by the medium. I know that the forms that came to me were distinct individual beings, and in no instance was I able to discover any indications that would lead me to suppose that the medium personated any of the forms. At the next séance which I visited, on Sept. 15, the weather was again oppressive, so much so that the séance would have been abandoned had it not been that some of the visitors, who had come from another State, were unwilling to give it up. Notwithstanding the excessive heat, the séance proved a very interesting one. While little Maud was standing at the curtain talking, there was a remarkable show of hands and arms above her head. Sometimes six of them would be moving back and forth outside the curtain at once. About eight feet from the cabinet, and directly in front of me, so near that I could have touched it without moving from my seat, appeared a very delicate little hand and arm. Like a bird that hovers around some object that it dare not approach too closely, this hand and arm dallied and played before me for several minutes, visible to all present. On the left side of the room, more than six feet from the cabinet door, a form materialized in full view, and came forward and shook hands with a lady on my right. While engrossed in these things, I had almost forgotten that my principal object in being there was to study the form of Bertha as compared with her appearance at other places. I was aroused from my meditations by an involuntary shock that almost always warns me of what is coming. Turning quickly around, I saw what appeared to be Bertha, gliding from the cabinet. She passed rapidly to the left side of the room, moving the centre-table and coming directly to me. Throwing her arms around my neck, she greeted me with, "I love you," and then, with a frightened expression and half hysterical laugh, she retreated to the cabinet. This was totally unlike Bertha, who, in her perfectly confiding and childlike bearing toward me, never felt it necessary to express her feelings in any such bold declaration. Knowing that there are phantoms that can take on almost any form they choose, the outward resemblance of these beings has no weight with me, in the absence of mental characteristics. At a séance held by Mrs. Sawyer, Sept. 29, there were present twenty-five persons, most of whom received more or less attention from the spirits. Little Maud was very lively and full of witty, playful remarks. Near the close of the séance, she asked me to come into the cabinet and try to quiet the medium, who was exhausted in consequence of having watched with a sick friend the previous night. On entering the cabinet, I found that Mrs. Sawyer was not entranced, and took hold of both her hands, endeavoring to give her all the mesmeric strength I could. While thus situated, conversing freely with the medium and little Maud (who was evidently pleased to have me there), a spirit materialized and went out among the audience. After it returned, another materialized, and taking my left hand while Mrs. Sawyer held my right, we all three walked out into the room, some distance from the cabinet, in full view of all present. This was a new experience for me. To suppose that the twenty-five honest, intelligent persons who witnessed this were deceived, or that the appearance of the form was due to a confederate, is simply absurd. I know it materialized in the cabinet, within reach of where I sat. What was claimed by the manager to be Bertha came out, and I gave her a test to be used by her at another séance. In following the rôle of strict investigation, and in honestly relating what has come to me at these séances, I am forced to state that the form that appeared on this occasion was not Bertha, and that there was, as subsequent events proved, an attempt to deceive me. Mrs. Sawyer is a gentlewoman and a strong medium, but she is surrounded by a coarse magnetism, the baleful influence of which she seems powerless to resist. CHAPTER VII. SÉANCES WITH MRS. FAIRCHILD. The mediumship of Mrs. Fairchild differs from that of others inasmuch as she stands outside of the cabinet, under the influence of one of her controls, managing the séance with great skill and judgment, thus eliminating from her séances all chance of transfiguration or personation by the medium, forcing the skeptic or investigator to the conclusion that the forms are either genuine materializations or confederates. The position of her cabinet, placed as it is between two rooms, is certainly open to criticism. A thorough examination of it, however, revealed no possible chance for the concealment of draperies or the entrance of a confederate. In order to meet the objections which have been made to this arrangement, she has drawn a light curtain across the corner of the room. Backed as it is by solid walls, the forms that come from this temporary cabinet cannot be confederates, and the skeptic may answer as best he can the question, What are they? This cabinet, however, is only used occasionally, and the average visitor sees only what comes from the main cabinet. If this temporary arrangement is so successful, and I know it is, there is some force in the objection made against using the other. Every medium is in justice bound to give to visitors the best conditions possible. Mr. Whitlock thus describes séances held with Mrs. Fairchild, Sept. 12 and 19:-- "The medium was controlled in a few moments by 'Cadaleene,' a very interesting spirit, who managed the séance with perfect nonchalance, selecting with ease and correctness the persons whom the spirits desired to come to the cabinet, thereby fulfilling the double office, with Mrs. Fairchild, of medium and manager. "During this séance the medium was outside, and in view of the audience, except on one or two occasions, when she went into the cabinet for a moment; and at the last, when her control, Cadaleene, who had promised to materialize, came out so perfect in action and voice that I shall never forget her grateful attentions as she knelt at my side. Time after time more than one form was out of the cabinet at the same moment, and in one case five persons, including a child. "One of the most convincing proofs of materialization was the following: A lady, whom we understood to be a relative of Col. Bailey, called him up to the cabinet and kissed him; and while he was standing with both arms around her, talking, she dematerialized. This occurred fully three feet from the cabinet, in sight of the audience, a dozen of whom must have been within six feet of the form, and some of them as near the cabinet. "The following Saturday, Sept. 19, we again attended her afternoon séance. At this séance we found Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, of Hartford, Conn.; Mr. Thomas Hazard, of Providence, R. I.; Mr. John Wetherbee, of Boston, and many other well known persons, were present. "What we have already written in reference to Cadaleene and her control of the medium, is equally applicable to this séance; also the expressions of confidence in reference to the cabinet. I had expressed to a friend, whom I met in the office of the _Banner of Light_, that while, to the best of my knowledge, after an examination, I believed Mrs. Fairchild's cabinet to be all right, still I would like to see the same results in a cabinet made by hanging a curtain across the corner of the room. Judge of my surprise when, after the séance had commenced, Cadaleene said, 'Mr. Facts-man, I heard what you told the brave, and you see we have the curtain across the corner, to show you what we can do.' "The séance continued in the regular cabinet, as usual, for about an hour and a half. The light was good, and many spirits manifested their presence, among which the following interesting experience occurred: A gentleman, who does not choose to have his name mentioned, had a communication the day before from a spirit-friend, in writing, through his own hand, promising to materialize at this séance. He told me that this spirit had not only fulfilled this promise, but had told him things that no other person knew but himself, and that he recognized her fully. "Then came the crowning glory of the séance. The control, Cadaleene, still holding the medium, directed that the gas be lit and the hall door opened. She then closed the sliding door in front of the cabinet, and fastened back the curtains which hung over it to form the front of the regular cabinet when in use, so that all might know if it was opened. "The audience was then seated facing the corner where the curtains had been hung for a temporary cabinet, some near and in front of the door just mentioned, which could be seen by all present. The medium, still under control, passed behind the curtain, but came out in a moment, followed almost immediately by a form dressed entirely in white. After this form returned to the cabinet, two others came out,--one a lady, the other a gentleman,--and it was said a third was seen in the cabinet. "All this time the medium was controlled by Cadaleene, who was finding the friends of the spirits with remarkable dexterity. Several others followed, and we might give names and personal experiences, but feel that our readers will appreciate most these special points of interest." Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, Mr. Thomas Hazard, and Mr. John Wetherbee have given graphic descriptions of these séances. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, in company with William D. Brewer, I attended a private séance with Mrs. Fairchild. I examined the cabinet without being able to discover anything that would lead me to suppose that there was any chance for a confederate to be used. The séance lasted about two hours, during which time scarcely a minute passed that there were not forms out in the room, either to Mr. Brewer or myself; sometimes three or four at once. More than half the time the extemporized cabinet in the corner of the room was used. There appeared to be no difference between the workings of the two; the manifestations came as freely from one as from the other. As I examined the walls and everything connected with the temporary cabinet, I have no hesitation in saying that the forms that came from or appeared in it were materialized beings. I was in this cabinet several times during the séance, often with two forms at the same time. Once I sat between them, an arm around each, satisfying myself of their objective reality as well as if I had been walking with them outside in the room. While thus holding them, the one encircled by my left arm, and whose right arm was around my neck, instantly disappeared, without the slightest indication of any movement;--she was there, and she was not there. Still holding the one encircled by my right arm, I rose and with my left hand drew the curtain aside, so that I could see everything behind it. There was not the faintest trace of the beautiful being that, a moment before, I had so firmly held, and with whom I had been talking. Similar things have occurred to me in various ways, so often that they produce no surprise, only an earnest desire to discover how or where the forms go, or possibly gain some knowledge of the laws governing these strange phenomena. The force at Mrs. Fairchild's séances is mainly expended in materialization, and for that reason they are valuable to skeptics; but to the experienced investigator they offer nothing new. Many of the forms come heavily veiled, and there is an absence of that social and mental character which is ever the surest evidence of recognition. CHAPTER VIII. SÉANCE WITH MISS HELEN BEERY AT ONSET. "Spirits are never finely touched But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of the creditor, Both thanks and use." At one of Miss Helen Berry's séances at Onset in the summer of 1885, there came a young female spirit, apparently about sixteen years old. She took me by both hands and led me up to the cabinet, where she greeted me very warmly. As she could bear more light than most of the forms, I had no difficulty in studying her face and figure. She was a little below the average height, lithe and graceful in all her movements. A cloud of dark golden hair drifted around her neck and shoulders, falling far below her waist. Her dress was pure white, of a rich fabric, so thin that it revealed a form beautiful as the finest Greek statue. She appeared more like a dream of ideal life, than a creature who had ever walked the earth. There are moments of exultation in the life of every artist, when his soul reaches out to visions of great beauty. No canvas or marble can record these visions. In his associations with the world, he may, at times, catch glimpses that remind him of what he has seen, but nowhere does he realize, as a whole, the perfection of those forms that have allured him from his ordinary surroundings. Was this charming creature one of those beings who had haunted my dreams?--who, in the still hours of the night, had sometimes dispelled the darkness by the glow of her presence? If I hesitated a moment in recognizing her, it was because she had never before appeared clothed in so beautiful a form, or if so I had failed to appreciate it. Perhaps it was due, in part, to the negative condition I was in, which allowed a freer and more perfect development, undisturbed by any mental action on my part; and this idea is strengthened by the fact that, in all my connection with these séances, what I most desired to obtain seldom came until after I had become more or less indifferent about it. As I stood beside this form, I passed my fingers through her long silken tresses, and put my hand upon her finely formed head. As she laid her face to mine, she said in the most earnest yet tender tones, "You did not think I would come." This was true; tired with my journey and the sultry heat, I was indifferent to taking an active part in the séance. I was, however, in a listless way, interested in what came to others, and had given up expecting that anything would come to me; and yet, had I reflected for a moment, I should have known that at any true séance, where I was present and the conditions favorable, it would have been hardly possible for her to keep away. The consciousness of her presence at other times than in the séance-room is no uncommon occurrence with me. In the séance-room, where she comes so strong and substantial, I have often put forth little playful, but somewhat provocative remarks, in order to draw out, as far as possible, an expression of her character. Sometimes these things excited her, but never, except for the moment, disturbed the harmony between us. At this interview I was not in a condition of mind likely to attract spirits, whether in or out of the flesh. In the course of conversation, I dropped a remark that disturbed her. She grasped my hand nervously, her chest rose and fell with increased respiration, and without making any reply she retreated to the cabinet. Thinking it possible that I might have displeased her, and that she would not return, I went to my seat. A moment afterward, I was surprised by her rushing out and kneeling down in front of me. Throwing her bare arms around my neck and pulling my head down to her, that others might not listen to what was said, she poured forth, in the most earnest and impassioned strain, her thoughts; talking as only a woman can talk under the highest inspiration. I had long since abandoned all doubts of the existence of these beings, and had been, in a quiet and affectionate way, studying the different phases of character manifested by them. Like many others who have investigated this subject, I had met with things which I could not understand or harmonize with my experience. This was leading me to conclusions that I intuitively felt were not true, and yet I could not extricate myself from the network of apparent evidence that surrounded me. That she understood my mental condition, was evinced by the fact that her whole force and energy were directed to this one subject. Her form trembled and vibrated with emotion as she uttered sentence after sentence in clear explanation of what had perplexed me. Raising her head, and tossing back her long hair, she grasped both my hands, and, with a face beaming with light, said: "It seems strange to you, but what can I do? We are subject to conditions; and if I come at all, it must be in harmony with them. There are spheres and circles we cannot penetrate, if the controlling influence is against us. We are still human, still yearning for affection,--that love which is the silken cord that binds us all. What would you not do to reach those dear to your heart? You understand me now." There was a remarkably childlike simplicity in the way she unburdened her mind, giving free expression to her feelings, bearing me mentally along with her, until I was lost to everything else. That is all. There are thoughts and feelings which no language can express. Like the silvery notes of a sweet song that echo in the distance, they revel in their freedom from restraint, and forever elude our grasp. I know the breath that fans my cheek, The thoughts, the words I cannot speak, The arms that round me twine. What need of words when thoughts are told In light that gleams like burnished gold, With pulse that throbs to mine? Never before had I listened to such eloquence. Every word, with its rich intonation, is indelibly stamped upon my memory, and I regret that, for personal reasons, it cannot be recorded here. Exhausted by her long effort, as she rose and led me to the cabinet, I noticed that her form was rapidly changing. Suddenly, like the extinguishing of a light, she passed into that invisible space whence she came. There were no "test conditions" here; and there might have been a dozen confederates, for aught I can prove. It is barely possible that this delightful being belonged on this side of life; but whether on this side or the other, in the fulness of my artistic nature, I thanked God that such beauty could exist anywhere. The evidence of truthfulness in what came to me at this séance rests on something stronger than barred windows and locked doors;--it was in the complete embodiment of the character, both mentally and physically. The séance closed, and I returned to Glen Cove by the road that skirts the shore. The south wind played with the blue waters of the bay, throwing up myriads of little waves that danced in the moonlight. As I stood gazing upon the sea, baring my feverish brow to the cooling breeze, I felt that my whole nature was flowing out into a vast circle of being. Thoughts, words, feelings, all blended with the mellow light which flooded the scene. If I was not supremely happy, it was not from lack of harmony with everything around me. There is ever a tinge of sadness in the background of life. With the beauty of the waves comes the low moan as they break upon the shore. With the warmth of friendship, comes the pain of parting, and, sadder still, that relentless fate that hurries us from those we love into the dim, uncertain future. The sands of life are golden only where thought diffuses itself without shadows, and the light that charms us flows from the object of our affections. It was late, and I retired for the night--closed my eyes, but not to sleep. The walls of my room disappeared, and my vision swept over an undefined and illimitable space. Before me like a mist, but perfectly outlined, glided the beautiful being who only a few minutes before had come so close to me. Soon she was joined by others, lightly drifting, floating through the air. As round the mountain's craggy steep The trailing vapors curve and sweep, So, hand in hand and side by side, Through space unmeasured, soft they glide. Now there, now here--so far, so near-- With outstretched arms they beckoned me, And, like the murmur of the sea, Their voices broke upon my ear. As they passed near me, a hand was laid upon my face; I started, sprang up, looked around; there was no one in the room. All was still save the low surging of the tide that swept the beach below. CHAPTER IX. SÉANCE AT THE BERRY SISTERS' IN BOSTON. In looking over my notes, my attention is strongly drawn to the many remarkable things I have witnessed at the Berry Sisters'. As I have given a drawing of Mrs. Fay's cabinet, and its surroundings, which I know to be honest, I give a carefully drawn plan of the séance-room here (see next page). It will be seen that this is one of the most simple and truthful arrangements possible, and the thanks of every investigator are due to the able manager and controls for placing the cabinet in a way that every one can see at a glance that a confederate is out of the question. I have attended several séances at this place since this arrangement has been adopted; and, so far from injuring the manifestations, they are, if anything, improved. [Illustration: Diagram of the Misses Berry's Séance-Room.] At these séances, when I have been present, Bertha has materialized outside of the cabinet, more than three feet from it, and at least six feet from the entrance, and on one occasion so close to me that she brushed me with her garments as she rose. On Saturday, Nov. 7, 1885, I attended in company with my wife and little daughter--Mrs. A. E. Newton, of Arlington, also making one of the party. Although the atmosphere was unfavorable, the manifestations were good, there often being two forms out at once, talking with their friends. My seat was on the right, facing the cabinet, and very near to it. Before the séance commenced, by the request of Mr. Albro, the manager, I locked the door at the farther end of the room; and when this was done, he offered me the privilege of sitting beside it. I declined, preferring to take part in the séance. I will state, however, for the benefit of those who have any doubt about this arrangement, that the seat I occupied commanded a full view of this door, and that I unlocked it after the séance, and can state positively that it was impossible for the door to have been opened without my knowing it. Again, the cabinet is so constructed that if a confederate had entered, he would have been obliged to go around to the front, in full view of the audience, before he could have passed into the cabinet. Those persons whose fertile brains are always leading them into absurd conclusions, will have to seek for some other explanation than that of a confederate here. In the course of the séance, I had warning of Bertha's presence, and requested Mrs. Newton, who sat beside me, to watch the left-hand corner, near the cabinet. In a few minutes there appeared a soft light on the carpet, near the wall, and almost instantly Bertha came up in full view of all. Springing forward and taking my little daughter by both hands, she came briskly across the room to where I sat. After our usual greeting, I introduced her to Mrs. Newton, who detained her for some time, my wife coming forward and joining in the conversation. I have described this beautiful spirit so fully in the preceding chapter that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. Many persons will find it desirable to make themselves familiar with the different phases of materialization as expressed through different mediums; but nowhere else will they find more strength combined with delicacy and refinement, as shown both in the beauty of the forms and their affectionate bearing. Neither in the controls, the forms, nor the surroundings, is there anything here to offend the most fastidious taste. These séances appear to have advanced beyond the mere fact of materialization, offering to those whose magnetic relations are in accord with conditions, a more attractive expression of social and mental character than is frequently met with. As Mrs. Newton seemed quite interested in Bertha, I felt desirous to know what impression was made upon one so well prepared to form a just opinion on such matters. To my expressed wish she kindly responded with the following statement:-- "ARLINGTON, MASS., NOV. 11, 1885. "MY DEAR MR. BRACKETT,-- "In accordance with your request that I would give you my observations and impressions in regard to the materialized apparition claiming to be your spirit-niece, Bertha, I will state that I think her the most intelligent and sprightly re-embodiment of a spirit that I ever saw,--and I have seen a great many within the last ten years. At all events, I am confident no one who sees her can imagine her to be either a made-up figure, a lifeless effigy, or the medium in disguise. "At Mrs. Fay's séance, where I first saw her, she showed, on meeting you, that spiritual illumination in the face which joy and gladness give to us when we meet those we love, after an absence. She had also those fine intonations of the voice that can spring only from the affections. Can it be, said I to myself, that this beautiful girl, so charming and graceful, so full of life and intelligence, is truly a spirit? Just as the thought had formed itself in my mind, she had turned toward the cabinet and vanished before the curtain. But hardly a minute had elapsed before she sprang out again from the cabinet, like a new-born seraph, and, opening her hands before all the company present, her arms being entirely bare to the shoulder, she extended them above her head, began to manipulate something apparently in the air, and soon handed me a most exquisite rose, with the moisture oozing from the stem where it had apparently been twisted off from the stock. "When at Miss Helen Berry's séance, a few days later, I had the assurance made doubly sure that she was not a being of earth, by seeing, about three feet from the cabinet, a small, white, cloud-like substance expand until it was four or five feet high, when suddenly from it the full, round, sylph-like form of Bertha stepped forward. Seeing her little cousin and namesake (Bertha Brackett, nine years old), she took both the child's hands in hers, drew her from her chair, and, after greeting her affectionately, led her playfully across the room to where we were sitting. There I studied every lineament of her face. Her hair had all the warmth and glossiness of that of a healthy girl of eighteen. She said to me, 'Don't you think I am very strong to-day?' and, putting both hands in mine, allowed me to caress and converse with her freely. 'Do you remember you materialized a rose for me last week?' I asked. 'Yes,' she replied, 'and you have it now at home.' This was true. "Mrs. Brackett called my attention to the length and beauty of Bertha's hair, and asked her if she could not make it longer if she wished to. 'Yes,' she laughingly replied; 'but it will grow shorter if I don't get to the cabinet soon!' and, with a graceful adieu, she tripped across the room, leading her little cousin into the cabinet with her, where she dematerialized in the child's presence. "Since witnessing the foregoing, I have re-read your account of the séance with Miss Berry at Onset, and I feel quite safe in saying your description of Bertha is not overdrawn. She certainly exhibits an individuality intensely human, and yet not of ordinary flesh-and-blood, as shown by her sudden appearance and disappearance. She proves beyond a doubt that, given the same conditions and opportunities to other spirits that you have afforded her, they may come with the same fulness of life and strength. "I cannot refrain from expressing the hope that some of the members of the Seybert Commission will come to Boston and study Bertha--see her materialize three feet from the cabinet, as we did--hear her converse intelligently--see the divinely moulded form--and then witness, as we did, her sudden change to another sphere of being, doubtless to engage in pleasant duties among that deathless throng who are ever learning, and who will unfold to us, if we will become receptive, the laws of entrancement and of materialization. It seems scarcely possible that these gentlemen would fail to be convinced that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of' in materialistic 'philosophy.' "Very truly yours, "S. J. NEWTON." CHAPTER X. MATERIALIZED FORMS--HOW SHALL WE MEET THEM? Years ago I had a friend who was generous to a fault. He freely gave wherever he thought there was need. With all his liberality, he was singularly successful in business, and when he passed to the other life left a large fortune, which was mainly distributed to charitable institutions. Walking with him one day, we passed some beggars sitting on the sidewalk,--pitiful specimens of humanity, with large placards in front of them, detailing the misfortunes that had befallen them. One, not over thirty years old, had lost a leg in the battle of Waterloo; another had lost his eyes by an eruption of Vesuvius which must have occurred twenty years before he was born. The cards must have been heirlooms, handed down at least one generation. These little discrepancies apparently made no impression on my friend, who emptied his pockets of his spare change, giving something to each of them. As we passed on, I said to him, "Do you know that these poor fellows were up before the police court a few days ago for being engaged in a drunken brawl?" I shall never forget the expression of his face as he turned to me and said, "It is my duty as well as my pleasure to give; the responsibility of using it is theirs, not mine." Many years had come and gone, and the memory of my friend had almost faded from my mind. I was engaged in studying materialization. As my custom is to take one thing at a time, I did not trouble myself about the quality. I did not even propose to myself what I might do afterward; but did propose, if there was any truth in it, to so clearly demonstrate it that no doubts should come up as a disturbing element in any subsequent investigations I might make. When I had finished my investigations on this point, I found that I stood on the shore of a boundless sea of speculation and uncertainty. I could not help asking myself the question, "What are these forms that, for a few minutes only, clothe themselves in objective reality, bearing the semblance of my friends, blended with the likeness of the medium? Are these my father, my mother, my wife, my brother? Is this the rollicking boy who made the hills echo with his laughter, now whispering in my ear so low that I can scarcely hear him?" In the midst of this perplexity, this whirl of unanswered questions, the voice of my old friend came to me: "Don't stare these sensitive beings out of countenance, but give to them all that you can of your better nature, and you shall have your reward. If there is a possibility of mistake as to identity, if you are in any way deceived, the responsibility is theirs, not yours. In all true séances, if the forms are not what they are supposed to be, they are, at least, beings from another life, seeking strength and comfort from association with you, else they would not come. Let not a shadow of doubt or distrust bar their approach. Have no awe, no reserve, no fear as to what they are, and they will blend into your soul, become a part of your life. In the true relations which you hold to them will be the fulness of what they bring to you." With a nature naturally skeptical, and a mind long trained to a close comparison of objects, it was not easy to accept this advice. What, then, was to be done? It was plain that I must move on, or abandon all that I had so successfully demonstrated. I could not launch out into the endless speculation of "psychical research;" I had not time for that; so I decided to follow the course which had been suggested to me. I would lay aside all reserve, and greet these forms as dear departed friends, who had come from afar, and had struggled hard to reach me. From that moment the forms, which had seemed to lack vitality, became animated with marvellous strength. They sprang forward to greet me; tender arms were clasped around me; forms that had been almost dumb during my investigations now talked freely; faces that had worn more the character of a mask than of real life now glowed with beauty. What claimed to be my niece, ever pleasant and earnest in aiding me to obtain the knowledge I was seeking, overwhelmed me with demonstrations of regard. Throwing her arms around me, and laying her head upon my shoulder, she looked up and said, "Now we can all come so near you!" Her wonderful spontaneity of character at once asserted itself, and has ever since been the delight of all who have come in contact with her. My association with these forms is of the most simple character; it is that of children with each other: we realize the full force of the Master's words, "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Science may wrangle over the supposed movements of molecules and atoms, and the correlation of forces; may dissect the bird to find its song; but love alone shall set the boundaries of knowledge. The key that unlocks the glories of another life is pure affection, simple and confiding as that which prompts the child to throw its arms around its mother's neck. To those who pride themselves upon their intellectual attainments, this may seem to be a surrender of the exercise of what they call the higher faculties. So far from this being the case, I can truly say that until I adopted this course, sincerely and without reservation, I learned nothing about these things. Instead of clouding my reason and judgment, it opened my mind to a clearer and more intelligent perception of what was passing before me. That spirit of gentleness, of loving kindness, which, more than anything else, crowns with eternal beauty the teachings of the Christ, should find its full expression in our association with these beings. PART II. OPINIONS AND THEORIES. The credulous have their weak points, but the belief of unbelievers surpasses all credulity. There is no position a man can assume so weak as that of extreme skepticism in the face of fair evidence. * * * * * Heat, light, electricity, and force are common things. We accept them as matters of everyday life; our familiarity with them prevents surprise. In our attempts to discover or learn what they are we have utterly failed. All that we have found is how they act under certain conditions. They are the elements necessary to the existence of physical life, and by cultivating their acquaintance we have made friends with them. They walk beside us, lending a helping hand in everything; still they are our masters--we know them not. For the moment we comprehend a thing we are greater than the thing we comprehend: it is behind us, not in front. Those who are seeking to know how these spirit-forms are created will seek in vain, for there is no language by which the process can be conveyed to our understanding. When it is said that they come out of invisible space, and depart in the same way, all is said that can be in explanation of their advent among us. OPINIONS AND THEORIES. CHAPTER I. A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. The nature of man is, to a certain extent, dual. The brain is divided into two parts; there are two sets of nerves crossing each other, so that an injury received on the left side of the brain affects the right side of the body, and _vice versa_. While the duplicated organs are capable of separate action, anatomically suggesting two distinct beings, they are united so as to form a complete union of both. There is, however, a preponderance of brain or will-force in the left side of the head, giving a more complete control over the right side of the body, and, in some instances, a manifestation of character, which would indicate that each side of the brain might act in alternation, and somewhat independently of the other. The force which the brain exerts over its own organism and that of others is not understood. Could it be explained, all the phenomena of the material and spiritual would, probably, lie within reach. A person with a strong will may possess a magnetic power enabling him to throw another, of a peculiar temperament, into a trance, in which that person is physically insensible to everything except what comes through the sensibility of the magnetizer. The material bodies are brought _en rapport_ with each other, or under the law of individual control, and the magnetizer can direct the physical movements of the other very much as he would his own, leaving the spirit of the entranced person free to act, for the time being, independently of its own body. If it has the strength or power to control other sensitives, it may manifest itself in remote places, either clairvoyantly or by materialization more or less tangible. It can, however, do this much more perfectly in close proximity to its own body. Such a materialization is a counterpart of the entranced person; is, in fact, the spirit of that person clothed in a body not strictly its own, but composed of material largely drawn from it. The existence of this phenomenon has been more or less known through all ages, and is probably the origin of that mythical story of the creation of woman, where the Lord is said to have caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. Among all nations, traditions of what is known as "the double" exist. Though often classed as a vulgar superstition, it nevertheless finds expression in the works of some of the best intellects. It plays an important part in the progress and development of all physical séances, since it is the first indication of true materialization. Furthermore, the substance composing this counterpart is, to a certain extent, the nucleus around which all spirits materializing are developed or clothed. The form appears to issue from the left side, but in reality it comes from the whole circumference of the body, in a rapidly-moving luminous vapor, which quickly consolidates into a separate individualized form, complete in its organization, and capable, for the time, of physical and mental action. Such manifestations are what is understood to be the production of living forms by means of living matter given off from the body of the medium. The process is more or less affected by the surroundings, and is ever the result of more intelligent beings coöperating with the spirit of the entranced person. The spirit occupying this temporary body can, when proper relations have been established with it, surrender it into the control of other spirits, the same as it surrendered its other body into the control of the magnetizer, and from its peculiar structure they can contract, expand, or change it to suit his or her requirements. So long as it remains in the possession of the spirit of the entranced person, the likeness to it is maintained; but the moment it passes into the possession of another, the resemblance will depend entirely upon the strength of the control, and the knowledge the spirit has in shaping the form like to that borne in earth-life. From these conditions materialization may broaden into more complex forms, always depending upon the currents of magnetic thought, and that central will-force that sweeps into its vortex all atoms necessary to its use. Until the spirits acquire more than ordinary strength by frequent manifestations, or by favorable surroundings, this will probably be found to be the usual way in which they make themselves visible to us. These conditions necessitate more or less resemblance to the medium, both in form and intonations of voice. I have seen hundreds and thousands of materialized forms; have seen, in a few instances, personation, where the medium was taken possession of, brought out, and controlled as in trance-mediumship; I have seen what appeared to be the double of the medium, so thoroughly like, that I should have testified that it was the medium had I not seen it dematerialize, or been taken into the cabinet by the form and found the entranced medium there; but I have never seen a single instance of transfiguration, unless the double of the medium be considered as such. The fact that Mrs. Fairchild stands outside, by the cabinet, during the séance, in full view of the audience; that at the Berry Sisters', and at Mrs. Sawyer's, the spirits lead the medium out of the cabinet; that at Mrs. Fay's the forms often take the visitors into the cabinet and show them not only the medium but the materialized control,--are things which the skeptic will find very hard to explain. If they are not evidence of the existence of these phenomena, it is difficult to understand what evidence is. To a sensitive person, with even a limited experience, the character of a séance is easily determined. There is always in the true materialized forms a decided lack of some of the elements that make up the magnetism of what we call real life; something not easily described, but readily perceived by a person thus constituted. To such a one, neither a confederate nor a personation by the medium can pass undetected. CHAPTER II. EXPOSURES OF MEDIUMS. There have often been sensational reports circulated claiming to be "exposures" of materialization, but when traced to their origin they have generally been found to be unreliable, and never the result of careful study or scientific investigation. The ungentlemanly and in some instances brutal conduct of the parties engaged in the "exposures" has been such as to discredit their statements, and in no case have they produced evidence that would be considered valid in any court. If it be true that the garments used to clothe the forms are materialized and dematerialized in the cabinet, any sudden disturbance of the magnetic conditions of the circle might arrest the process of dematerialization, leaving the draperies intact. Persons not understanding this would naturally charge fraud upon the medium, on rushing into the cabinet and finding them there. This has led some mediums to submit to a thorough examination of their clothes before entering the cabinet, going so far, at times, as to allow themselves to be dressed entirely in dark clothing, without a particle of white upon them, and giving every opportunity to prove that there were no concealed draperies in the room. These arrangements, while taking up valuable time that otherwise would have been devoted to the séance, have never interfered with the manifestations. The most serious and perhaps the most generally believed charges made against these séances is that confederates are used to personate the forms. Passing by the many knotty questions which cannot possibly be explained on the theory of confederates, and considering it in a business point of view, there are difficulties connected with such an arrangement that might in the end prove disastrous. A employs B to personate, at one dollar a séance. B finds that A is making money, and, being rascally enough to engage in such work, would have no scruples in demanding, under threats of exposure, the lion's share of the proceeds. A is completely in his power, and has no alternative but to submit. This, and the outside pressure which would be likely to be brought to bear upon B to make public the fraud, would render it almost impossible to carry on the deception for any great length of time. Again, there are often from fifty to sixty distinct individual forms appearing at each séance, requiring as many confederates to represent them. As the circle is rarely composed of more than twenty-five persons, would it pay to keep so many actors for so small an audience? If people who listen to these accusations would reflect for a moment, they would see that the theory of confederates is not a very plausible one, and it might do much toward relieving mediums from the unjust suspicions to which, through lack of understanding on the part of the public, they are more or less obliged to submit. All honest mediums will cheerfully do all they can to satisfy the public that there is no deception, and that the cabinet and its surroundings are such as to preclude the possibility of confederates. Any other arrangements are unnecessary, and, to say the least, suspicious. These things are new and strange to most people, and they very naturally expect strong evidence; and they are right, provided their desire is expressed in a kindly and gentlemanly manner. Any one at all familiar with these séances cannot help seeing that there are some mediums and their controls who are largely responsible for the feeling of distrust more or less manifested toward the subject. When the question of a confederate is fairly settled (and no one can be certain of his position until it is done), and two forms appear at the same time; or when you can be taken into the cabinet by a form, and shown the entranced medium, it is self-evident that one of them is a materialized form, and not a personation by the medium. It needs no argument to settle this, no matter how much it may conflict with pre-conceived notions. I have quoted from Chief Justice Jacolliot's work on Occult Science in India, to prove that there is no connection between these manifestations and what is called sleight-of-hand. There is, however, a more important fact conveyed in his statements, corroborated by other writers upon this subject, showing the perfect fairness with which these mediums, or Fakirs, submit to tests, courting the most thorough and exhaustive investigation, even trusting themselves, while in a trance, without any protection, to the honor and good faith of those around them, repeating at request the experiments, again and again, to satisfy that there is no deception about them. This is strangely in contrast with our mediums, who as a rule shrink from anything of the kind, and are disposed to regard any request of that nature as a direct imputation upon their honesty. If materialization means anything besides dollars and cents--if it has a mission to perform--it is to enlighten and educate the people upon one of the most important subjects that has ever engrossed the mind. The lack of openness and confidence on the part of many of the mediums, or their managers, creates a feeling of distrust which sometimes finds an expression in rudeness on the part of skeptics, and leads those who are confident of the genuineness of a part of the séance to be impressed with the idea that there are things connected with it that are dishonest. There is no difficulty in tracing the source of this feeling. Everywhere like begets like, and as long as this state of feeling exists there will be a lack of harmony in the circle, with more or less disturbance. It may be that these things are inseparable from the newness of the manifestations among us, and will disappear when mediums are more freely developed in our homes, and the séances assume less of a commercial character. While no apology should be made for fraud in these séances, we have no right to make charges that cannot be sustained. Every medium is bound, in justice to the audience, to see that the cabinet and its surroundings are so arranged that the appearance of fraud is, as far as possible, avoided. Lack of experience, want of perception, or ignorance of a subject, gives no authority to assume that it is a fraud. The eagerness with which the press circulates reports of imposture finds its excuse, not in a manly defence of the truth, but in a morbid disposition to cater to the whims and caprices of the public. Those who accept such statements without investigation may possibly become victims of a worse delusion than that which they fancy they are condemning in others--a delusion born of ignorance and self-conceit. CHAPTER III. PUBLIC SÉANCES. No comparison can justly be made between different mediums. All are excellent in their way. The preference that is given to one over others is mainly due to personal feeling, to likes and dislikes, which must always find an expression among individuals of different tastes. In some séances the strength of the manifestations is largely exhausted in the production of forms. In others, the social and affectionate element predominates. Where there are from fifty to sixty materialized forms appearing at a sitting, it is hardly to be expected that much time can be given to the interchange of thought or the expression of feeling. Such séances are, as a rule, mere touch-and-go occasions. The strength of the circle is often exhausted in combating the ignorance and prejudice of the audience, and the higher and more delicate phase of materialization is lost sight of. Many condemn public séances on account of the mixed audience and the conflicting elements that surround the medium. These things are, at present, a necessity, being the only means of educating the masses. The time has not yet come when, through a more general acceptance of the truth of materialization, it can be transferred to the domestic circle, where it properly belongs, and where its best results will be obtained. Not until the flush of excitement necessarily arising from the strangeness of the phenomena has subsided, and the investigator has settled in his mind the facts of materialization, is he capable of forming an intelligent opinion on the subject. Thousands of persons, through their experience, have reached that point. Whether they advance beyond this will depend upon the character of the séance, the strength of the manifestations, and the purely affectional bearing toward these beings. Séances should be classified: the first, for primary education, for facts and evidence to convince skeptics; the second, for the more advanced investigator. Into this latter class no skeptic should be admitted. Such an arrangement could not interfere with the patronage of mediums, but on the contrary would enhance it, for there comes a period in the progress of the investigator when, finding that he cannot advance, he will retreat or seek some other field for investigation. The public séance, as now constituted, must, from the nature of its surroundings, remain more or less stationary. There are séances that are pitched on so low a key that when the investigator passes from a state of doubt into a full knowledge of the truth of materialization, he will instinctively leave them for a more genial atmosphere; for it is in vain to expect that coarse, mercenary, untruthful mediums can avoid impressing more or less of their natures upon the spirits who come through their organisms, or that mainly spirits like themselves will be attracted to them. The more intelligent investigators are beginning to realize this, and those mediums who have lost the sense of their high calling, and degraded the séance to a mere show, will, under the inevitable law of progress, find themselves supplanted by a better element. Mediums are being developed everywhere, and in the near future there will be no lack of noble men and women who will gladly come to the front with their divine gifts. If we accept the idea that passing to the other life does not essentially change the character of the man, that his peculiarities remain the same, we can account for many things in the séance-room that appear to be simply acting,--performances which have no other object than to attract the audience, to show what power the spirits can acquire under conditions which seem impossible to us. Considering the state of feeling with which many persons enter the séance-room, it is not singular that they are sometimes treated to what seems to be deception. The spirits, perceiving the condition of the minds around them, act very much as they would if they were still on this side of life. Thoughts are things, which appear to them very much as solid substances do to us. If, instead of attempting to remove them, they can accomplish their object by going round them, they feel themselves justified in doing so. They act very much, at times, as children would under similar circumstances; and, until they obtain complete control over the form that encases them, they cannot express themselves with much force. They are as children learning to walk, to think, and talk through a medium that is new to them. A simple, childlike bearing, blended with the warmest affection, is the only element that enables them to progress and meet us upon the highest plane of thought. CHAPTER IV. THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENTISTS. The world is indebted to scientists for their clear arrangement of and deductions from what others have discovered; for, as a rule, they are not inventive. Hasty in condemning everything new, their timidity and lack of generous bearing toward what seems to conflict with their materialistic theories are conspicuous. Nothing can be more unscientific than the attitude of most of them toward this subject. Obliged in the past to antagonize the despotism of the old Theology, they have themselves become despotic. Condemning dogmatism, they assume a dogmatic bearing toward everything that does not square with their pre-conceived notions. Walking with faces toward the ground, they refuse to look up, or admit the existence of anything beyond matter; denying the possibility of spirit, and claiming that the earth contains within itself the "promise and potency" of everything that is or has been. Against this sweeping claim may be opposed the fact that, in the light of a purely scientific analysis, the earth gives no promise of the living beings that cover its surface; that it creates nothing, furnishes nothing except the environments or clothing of the beings that for the time find their abiding-place here. When scientists are confronted with materialization, they deny it without investigation, or refuse to examine it unless they can dictate their own conditions, and yet no class of men understand better than they do the necessity of adhering closely to the laws governing any operation in nature, if it is to be fairly studied. The course that has been and is now being pursued by the two scientific bodies supposed to be investigating this subject must necessarily lead to failure. Individual members may be more or less impressed with the reality of the phenomena, but no report worthy of the subject will ever be made by either society. The ridiculous farce enacted by the French Academy of Science in their report on Mesmerism, will probably be repeated here. It has been charged upon me that I am not a scientist, and that my methods are not scientific,--all of which, if their implied definition of science is correct, I admit. I have had the fairness, notwithstanding my skepticism, to lay aside my prejudices and study this subject purely in relation to itself, and not in connection with pre-conceived ideas. The facts which I have presented have been attested by competent witnesses; and until scientists have made themselves familiar with them, their allegations amount to nothing. The course which I have pursued in studying this subject is far more sensible and scientific than a denial without investigation. The editor of one of the ablest scientific journals has well said, "Science having no methods by which it can experimentally determine that man has a spiritual nature distinct from the material, it follows that it must be incompetent to throw light upon the nature of that which is unrecognized or unknown." The testimony of scientists in such matters cannot be considered of any more value than that of any other careful investigator; and if we take into consideration their materialistic views, it is dealing liberally with them to concede that much. Science accepts the theory of molecules and atoms, and declares matter to be indestructible. These little molecules set in motion produce the phenomena of life. When they get tired and refuse to climb one above another, like acrobats in a circus, then there is death. It is all very simple, and any one can understand it,--a little alkali thrown into some acid,--a rapid effervescence,--the atoms are disturbed and seek to hurriedly arrange themselves into a different position,--they have performed the fantastical dance of life, and all is over! Upon this theory scientists have endeavored to account for the creation of everything. If they have found anything else they have not declared it. The trinity of Molecules, Atoms, and Motion is the keystone of the whole structure which for centuries they have been trying to build up. As science takes nothing for granted, it would be interesting to learn when and where they found these little atoms, which no microscope, however powerful, has ever revealed. Before scientists insist upon the denial of the existence of that spiritual force which organizes and individualizes all forms of life, it might be as well for them to settle the question, What is matter? I do not assert positively that these beings are spirits; for it may be said, in a scientific point of view, I have no right to do so; but I do assert that the facts warrant beyond a question the conclusion that they do not belong to what we call the earth-side of life,--that they are not automatons, lay figures, or effigies, but are living, breathing, intelligent beings, with thoughts, feelings, and passions strictly human; that they come out of invisible space, and depart in the same way. In the language of Professor Crookes, "Nothing is more certain than the reality of these facts. I do not say that they are possible, but I say that they _are_." CHAPTER V. PUBLIC OPINION. When Mesmer appeared in Paris, exhibiting his claims to Magnetism, he was ridiculed, and treated as a humbug. The French Academy of Science, after due consideration, pronounced Mesmerism a fraud. This was the more remarkable from the fact that many of the experiments in Mesmerism are so simple that a child can demonstrate them to the entire satisfaction of an unprejudiced person. Many years afterward, in 1831, the French Academy of Medicine, through a report of its Committee, reversed this decision. So far as we know, these are the only efforts that have been made, until within a few years, by any scientific association, to investigate this class of phenomena. Both in Europe and this country it has been treated with contempt, and for more than a hundred years condemned by pseudo-Science as nothing more than a hallucination produced by a diseased condition of body or mind. I was present at the Massachusetts Hospital, many years ago, when the elder Warren, knife in hand, made mock passes over his patient, ridiculing to his students the idea that any one could be entranced or rendered insensible to pain by what was called Mesmerism; and yet the existence of the Mesmeric force or fluid is one of the most remarkable discoveries ever made. It has been known for thousands of years, by the Hindoo philosophers, as "the pure Agassa Fluid" that penetrates and permeates all objects, whether animate or inanimate. It controls the social relations; is the secret of that influence which one person exerts over another; and is the connecting link between the seen and the unseen worlds, enabling spirits, whether in or out of the flesh, to produce all the phenomena known as "spirit-manifestations." If we except the writings of Deleuze, Townshend, Gregory, Dr. Elliotson, and a few lesser lights, Mesmerism has been kept before the public mainly by a class of itinerant lecturers who, despairing of a more considerate hearing, have, in order to retain their hold on their audience, degraded it to a mere burlesque. The history of Mesmerism forms no exception to all discoveries that have marked the progress of man from a state of barbarism to the present time. The old stubble chokes and prevents the new crop of grain, unless it has been turned under. The acceptance of anything with which we are not familiar depends more upon the mental condition produced by pre-conceived ideas than upon any evidence necessary to sustain it. The progress of public opinion is like the march of a great army; it camps at night upon ground occupied by its videttes in the morning. When Spiritualism began to attract attention, the opponents of Mesmerism, not understanding its true character, abandoned their hostility to it, and accepted it as an explanation of the new phenomena. Mind-reading, Telepathy, everything possible, was brought forward to explain away this supposed evidence of another life. And, in a somewhat different form, the same thing is taking place in regard to Materialization. If we eliminate from it the idea of spirits, and attribute to man alone this wonderful power, we disarm scientific as well as sectarian opposition, and the possibilities of man, the influence of mind over matter, become a legitimate subject for study. But no matter how exhaustive your investigations of Materialization may have been, the moment you suggest that spirits may have something to do with it, it becomes unscientific, and, in the judgment of certain persons who have assumed the right to control public opinion, you are instantly transformed from an honest student into a "crank"! In view of the obstacles that Conservatism is always throwing in the way of Progress, one may be pardoned for a certain kind of admiration for cranks. They have, at least, the courage of their convictions, and in this respect, if for nothing more, may become popular, for the crowd always throw up their hats, whether right or wrong, to the plucky man. Is courage, then, so rare a thing that we are forced to applaud it even in the bulldog? Public opinion is the despotism of a republic. It is astonishing what cowards it makes of decent men; the fear of being laughed at is the terror of society; the assertion of manhood, the expression of an honest opinion, the love of truth,--everything goes down before it. My ministerial neighbor throws theological brickbats at me because I choose to study a subject which he has not the courage to face, and which, if not a reality, he lied about in his last funeral sermon, when he told the mourners that their "dear friend is not dead, but still living and hovering around them." Shall we allow these attacks, and not remind him that, if he knows anything, he must know that the Christian religion is an outgrowth of paganism; that there is not a cardinal point in his theology that is not as old as the Hindoo Pagodas; that the idea of another life, imperfectly outlined in the Bible, was taken from a religion founded upon occult manifestations; that He whom he calls Lord and Master not only taught healing by laying on of hands, but exemplified Materialization in the transfiguration on the Mount, and in his bodily appearance to his disciples, after his death, in a room with closed doors? At every séance there are more or less clandestine visitors, who shrink from letting their best friends know anything about it. At one, I met an old acquaintance, who was surprised to find me there, and begged me not to give him away. He had obtained a seat under an assumed name, partially as a test, he said, but mainly on account of his position in society; he did not care to be known to visit such places. In the course of the séance, a beautiful female form came briskly out into the middle of the room, and, stretching her arms toward him, said, "Father!" As he did not respond, the controlling spirit, calling him by name, said, "that lady is for you!" He stepped forward, and, to his astonishment, found that it was his daughter. He said afterward that the recognition was perfect. This was his first séance, and, unless Materialization becomes popular, it may be his last. That he told his wife about it there seems to be no doubt, as she has been a frequent visitor ever since. I fancy him in his dressing-gown and slippers, reclining in his armchair, smoking his cigarette, anxiously awaiting her return, that she may relate to him the touching manifestations of affection she has received. Traces of these phenomena have always, in one form or another, been present in the world. In India, for thousands of years, they have furnished the foundation of a religious belief, which, like all other religions, has been perverted and used as a means to blind and control the common people. The danger of its being accepted as authority through a blind reverence for what is supposed to be supernatural, instead of affectionate and intelligent companionship, is sufficient reason why its true import should be thoroughly understood. Whether it be a power in man, the laws of which are unknown, or a direct emanation from another life, it requires the most serious consideration. Shall it receive the attention it deserves, or shall we turn our backs on it, till, like a rising tide, it overwhelms us with a flood of ignorance and superstition? It will not do to ignore it; already its influence is sweeping far and wide. Scientists may sit supinely on the summit of their intellectual conceit, insisting that it "will not be much of a shower;" still it swells and rolls on, sapping and undermining the whole system of social and religious thought. Sects and creeds crumble in its pathway. All hopes of a scientific evidence of a life after death are centred in these manifestations. The issue is a plain one; there can be no middle ground. Either Spiritualism or Materialism triumphs. Deal with it as you may; if it is from the other side of life, it cannot be overthrown. In some form or other it must be met. Shall we not, in the interest of humanity and of what purports to be an important truth, lay aside our pre-conceived notions and prejudices, and treat this subject as we would any of the common things of life, earnestly endeavoring to get at its true meaning? Millions of honest people have witnessed these things in their own homes, by their own firesides. Against what they have seen and know there is no argument. Time will show whether the public have sufficiently advanced to grapple healthily with Materialization and its spiritual surroundings. CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION. It has been heretofore stated that everything known as Spiritualism is due to pure Magnetism. Magnetism may be classed under three heads: Terrestrial, Aerial, and Ethereal or Spiritual Magnetism. These are only different modes or grades of expression of the same thing; and may be compared, in their order, to earth, air and ether;--heat, force, and light;--or root, stock, and flower in plants. Ethereal Magnetism is the medium of thought, as is clearly proved by what is sometimes called telepathy, or mind-reading, and by well attested facts of communication between persons widely separated. It is also known to Mesmerizers that, when they have established magnetic relations between themselves and their subjects, they can often control them without reference to distance. Outside of the domain of this subtle fluid, there can be no connection between the seen and the unseen worlds, or between any of the individual forms of life. More attenuated than Electricity, it holds the same relation to life that Terrestrial Magnetism holds to the grosser particles of matter. It enables what we call intellectual force to command and control all forms. Through it, Thought, which is the Principle of everything, builds and unbuilds; clothing itself in material garments, and filling the earth with countless millions of individual beings, made visible to our outward senses. The process by which this is accomplished is the same, whether done instantaneously or extending through a series of years. Materialization, then, is only the manifestation of a law everywhere acknowledged, with this difference: the external forms, under a superior force and intelligence, are more quickly wrought. It is the question of time, more than anything else, that challenges our skepticism. That which we call progress, or evolution, is only so many steps by which mind exerts itself, with increasing force, over matter. We are in the habit of regarding matter as a solid substance; whereas, in its primitive state, it is invisible. It is only by different combinations, in its aerial form, that it becomes solid. In a fluidic state, it probably pervades all space. In this condition, spirits, it would seem, have power to condense it and shape it at pleasure. Existing as individual beings, complete in their organization, many of them are able, under certain conditions, to draw from their surroundings sufficient matter to clothe themselves in garments, for the time being, as substantial as any forms in life. I have witnessed the processes of materialization and of dematerialization in the middle of the room, several feet from the cabinet,--have taken hold of the hands of these beings, and gone down with them to the floor, until the last things that disappeared were the hands that were in mine. I have been taken into the cabinet by one of these forms, and, with my left arm around the form (to all appearance as solid as my own), have put my right hand on the entranced medium, and while in this position have seen a white, luminous cloud rise slowly from the side of the medium until it reached the height of nearly six feet. I could have passed my hand through it without resistance. In a few seconds it condensed into a human form that cordially greeted and shook hands with me, having a hand as substantial as my own. It was the form of "Auntie," the control, who greeted me with "How do you do? What do you think of this?" At the same time, there were many hands patting me on the head and shoulders. All this occurred in a cabinet where a confederate was impossible. Was I deceived,--laboring under a state of hallucination? Not if I now have or ever had any knowledge of myself. I have studied these things as quietly as I would have studied a statue or a picture; have not been satisfied with witnessing them once, but have had them repeated many times, that I might feel certain that I had given them a thorough investigation. If I have been mistaken, those who come after me will have small chance of better success. I have stated some things positively, because I know that they are true, and can be scientifically demonstrated. We may discover and accept the conditions that best enable these beings to reach and communicate with us, thereby extending our knowledge and our association with them, but neither our observation nor what they may tell us will enable us to comprehend what our experience has not fitted us to understand. At best we have only established our pickets on the other side of the river. The problem of life still remains unsolved. The erroneous ideas so generally entertained regarding beings of another life render it important that we should fully understand that no one, whether on this or the other side of life, can set aside the laws necessary to our individual growth. The assimilation of thought; the gestation of ideas, the mental digestion which is analogous to the process of physical growth, must ever remain the source of a healthy development. To abandon this to the dictation of authority, whether real or supposed, or to accept anything in violation of these laws, only leads to disorder and mental dyspepsia. What we most desire does not always come; but in its place, often, something unexpected and surprising. The power which operates suffers no dictation or control; and, like the reflection of an object in water, the phenomena become distorted the moment the magnetic currents are disturbed. Forced, by the accumulation of facts that cannot be set aside, to acknowledge the existence of these beings, they are, nevertheless, shrouded in mystery. That they are from the other life is more than probable; no other theory will, in the long run, be found tenable. Whether they are our departed friends and relatives must be determined by the exercise of those faculties which enable us to settle the relations of objects in this life. While they exhibit no feelings of selfishness or jealousy in their associations with us, the same cannot always be said of "the control." For some reason which we do not understand, but which may be a necessity, the controlling spirit of the séance exercises a more or less despotic power over the manifestations; sometimes denying the privilege of manifestation, and forcing back spirits who have been accustomed to appear at other séances. In other words, there seems to be a good deal of human nature in their make-up, and the likes and dislikes of the medium or manager, are often shared by "the control." While the theory is correct that the medium is nothing but the instrument through which the spirits are evoked, there can be no question that his or her mental and moral atmosphere affects the quality of the manifestations. Your personal relations with the medium are known to the controlling spirit, and if the medium is prejudiced against you, you are, in most cases, debarred from any satisfactory results. On the other hand, your relations to these beings are known to "the control," but not necessarily to the medium,--never unless the controlling spirit thinks best to communicate them. What you learn of the character of these beings depends upon your personality,--the magnetic atmosphere that surrounds you. Many of them, if they are able to penetrate your atmosphere, are so exhausted by the effort that they cannot talk much with you; while others, overcoming all obstacles, are able to throw themselves around you with all the abandon of childhood, talking freely, and often so fast that it requires the closest attention to follow them. In such cases, however strong the resemblance may be to the medium in the outward form, the mental characteristics are as different as it is possible to be between any two individuals. I have refrained from saying much about the quality of these manifestations. It is a matter upon which there must always be a wide difference of opinion. Every one will find _himself_ more or less reflected in them. It is the inevitable law of association. "You are a cheat and a scoundrel!" said an enraged man to my friend. "I know it," was the prompt reply; "it is the rascality and cussedness in you that have called it out. I never was conscious of it until I met you." No selfishness, deceit, or diplomacy avails with these beings; what you truly think and feel, your moral atmosphere, makes or mars your relations with them. Until you can learn to meet them in perfect confidence, you can know nothing of the beauty which emanates from them. Materialization is denounced by the learned and the ignorant, and in both cases the denial springs from the same cause. It is a fair illustration of high life with the bottom turned up; both classes meet on the same plane. It is also bitterly condemned by a class of Spiritualists whose brains are saturated with trance and inspirational communications. In their conceit, the little they know is the whole world to them. As a rule, all nations and tribes hold in some form or another to a belief in the continued existence of man after death. However desirable such a belief may be, it is generally admitted that it rests entirely on faith, there being no substantial evidence by which it can be scientifically demonstrated. In both the Old and New Testaments are records of occult manifestations similar to what has been related here, but the materialistic tendency of science has long since caused them to be regarded as Oriental fictions. In the materializing séance come, for the time being, living, breathing, intelligent, human forms, that are not confederates or personations by the medium. If not beings from another life, what are they? The probability, or even possibility, they offer of scientific evidence of the existence of man after death, commends them to the serious consideration of every intelligent person. It is not a difficult task, nor one requiring a great amount of labor, to determine that these forms are distinct embodiments. To settle this is, however, only the A B C of the matter. To learn what these beings are, and their relations to us, requires the most patient investigation and the most delicate and far-reaching exercise of the mind. Facts, in themselves, unless they suggest something higher, are of little consequence. They derive their importance solely from their connection with some general law around which they are grouped. While I have stated positively that at Mrs. Fay's no confederates are used, and that the forms that have come to me are not personations by the medium, yet, in the _legal_ definition of the word, I do not _know_ who or what they are. I have my convictions, based upon what is satisfactory evidence to me. I do not ask any one to accept my theories, but upon what have been stated as facts there need be no controversy, since any one who will give the matter the same attention can verify all that has been said. To deny the facts without an investigation, on the ground that they are impossible, can have no weight, for it has been truly said by Arago that "outside the domain of pure mathematics, the word impossible has no meaning." I have imperfectly related only a few of the many hundred strange things that have come under my observation, selecting them at random without any special regard to order. The same may be said of the thoughts expressed; their value, if they have any, will be found in the closeness with which I have pursued the investigation. My experience has extended over more than a hundred séances, and to have given them in detail would have exceeded my time. These things are open to any who will approach them honestly. Let us hope that some fair-minded specialist, whose brain is not lumbered with the debris of old ideas, will yet be able to lift the veil that surrounds them. I feel confident that I have exhausted almost every conceivable test necessary to establish the reality of these wonderful apparitions. Some of these tests, in the light of a more extended experience, now seem very absurd. Ridiculous as they must have appeared to these beings, they were never vexed, nor showed any impatience with my ignorant and unreasonable demands, but either met them squarely or playfully turned them aside. My investigations have been confined mostly to Mrs. Fay's séances, for the simple reason that here the cabinet and surroundings were known to me to be above suspicion, and from the beginning greater facilities for study were granted me than elsewhere. Such is the skeptical nature of my mind that if I had been obliged to conform to the rôle of an ordinary visitor, I should, in all probability, have never been fully convinced of the truth of materialization. In dealing with a subject so new to the mass of people, it is hardly to be expected that it will be accepted on the testimony of any one. Facts, however clearly stated, will have but little weight with those who have had no practical experience. Fortunately, the rapid increase in the number of mediums, both public and private, is bringing these things within the reach of every one. If what I have stated be true,--if the experience of others shall prove that I have not been deceived,--then the whole system of ethics must undergo a complete revolution. Man will no longer be regarded as an animal, confined to earth, but a direct emanation from a superior intelligence, holding in his nature a dual existence, connecting him at one and the same time with both the seen and unseen worlds. There is no estimating the influence which a realization of these things, rightly understood, would have upon the moral and social condition of society. What has been held in the past as a vague and uncertain belief, would be supplanted by knowledge; and the skeptical tendency of modern thought would be checked by a fuller sense of the inspirational and spiritual nature of man. The dread of death, throwing a gloom over the domestic circle, would glide away as the darkness of night disappears before the coming morn. The parting of friends and relatives would find its compensation in renewed companionship and the perfect consciousness that there is no real separation. For the fullness and tenderness with which these beings have overwhelmed me with demonstrations of regard, promptly responding to every reasonable request, I am under the deepest obligations. As I go back in my mind over the various séances which it has been my privilege to enjoy, I linger fondly over the stately form and affectionate bearing of what claimed to be my wife; the rich girlish nature of Bertha, with her marvellous beauty of expression; and the tender pleadings of one who must be nameless here, begging that I would bring those she loved nearer to her. All along the pathway of my investigations glow a thousand things never to be forgotten. Who shall say the gates are not ajar, and that our loved but not lost ones are not passing to and fro? Poor in spirit and weak in affection must they be who can meet these beings as I have met them, and not feel that there comes, from the association with them, a richer and fuller life. Transcriber's Note: Punctuation has been standardised. Changes to the original have been made as follows: Contents PERSONIFICATION BY THE MEDIUM OF MATERIALIZED FORMS _changed to_ PERSONIFICATION BY THE MEDIUM, OR MATERIALIZED FORMs SÉANCE AT THE BERRY SISTERS IN BOSTON _changed to_ SÉANCE AT THE BERRY SISTERS' IN BOSTON Page 98 With outstreched arms they beckoned me _changed to_ With outstretched arms they beckoned me Page 136 may conflict with preconceived _changed to_ may conflict with pre-conceived Page 170 ever remain the source of a a healthy development _changed to_ ever remain the source of a healthy development Page 171 exercises a more or less depotic power _changed to_ exercises a more or less despotic power Page 171 the magnetic atmostphere that surrounds _changed to_ the magnetic atmosphere that surrounds 
16099	----	AUSTIN AND HIS FRIENDS by FREDERIC H. BALFOUR Author Of "The Expiation of Eugene," etc. London Greening & Co., Ltd. 1906 [Illustration: DAPHNIS AT THE FOUNTAIN] * * * * * Advertisement The old-fashioned ghost-story was always terrifying and ghastly; something that made people afraid to go to bed, or to look over their shoulders, or to enter a room in the dark. It dealt with apparitions in a white sheet, and clanking chains, and dreadful faces that peered out from behind the window curtains in a haunted chamber. And the more blood-curdling it was, the more keenly people enjoyed it--until they were left alone, and then they were apt to wish that they had been reading Robinson Crusoe or Alison's History of Europe instead. Now the present book embodies an attempt to write a _cheerful_ ghost-story; a story in which the ghostly element is of a friendly and pleasant character, and sheds a sense of happiness and sunshine over the entire life of the ghost-seer. Whether the author has succeeded in doing so will be for his readers to decide. It is only necessary to add that he has not introduced a single supernormal incident that has not occurred and been authenticated in the recorded experiences of persons lately or still alive. * * * * * Austin and His Friends Chapter the First It was rather a beautiful old house--the house where Austin lived. That is, it was old-fashioned, low-browed, solid, and built of that peculiar sort of red brick which turns a rich rose-colour with age; and this warm rosy tint was set off to advantage by the thick mantle of dark green ivy in which it was partly encased, and by the row of tall white and purple irises which ran along the whole length of the sunniest side of the building. There was an ancient sun-dial just above the door, and all the windows were made of small, square panes--not a foot of plate-glass was there about the place; and if the rooms were nor particularly large or stately, they had that comfortable and settled look which tells of undisturbed occupancy by the same inmates for many years. But the principal charm of the place was the garden in which the house stood. In this case the frame was really more beautiful than the picture. On one side, the grounds were laid out in very formal style, with straight walks, clipped box hedges, an old stone fountain, and a perfect bowling-green of a lawn; while at right angles to this there was a plot of land in which all regularity was set at naught, and sweet-peas, tulips, hollyhocks, dahlias, gillyflowers, wall-flowers, sun-flowers, and a dozen others equally sweet and friendly shared the soil with gooseberry bushes and thriving apple-trees. Taking it all in all, it was a lovable and most reposeful home, and Austin, who had lived there ever since he could remember, was quite unable to imagine any lot in life that could be compared to his. Now this was curious, for Austin was a hopeless cripple. Up to the age of sixteen, he had been the most active, restless, healthy boy in all the countryside. He used to spend his days in boating, bicycling, climbing hills, and wandering at large through the woods and leafy lanes which stretched far and wide in all directions of the compass. One of his chief diversions had been sheep-chasing; nothing delighted him more than to start a whole flock of the astonished creatures careering madly round some broad green meadow, their fat woolly backs wobbling and jolting along in a compact mass of mild perplexity at this sudden interruption of their never-ending meal, while Austin scampered at their tails, as much excited with the sport as Don Quixote himself when he dispersed the legions of Alifanfaron. Let hare-coursers, otter-hunters, and pigeon-torturers blame him if they choose; the exercise probably did the sheep a vast amount of good, and Austin fully believed that they enjoyed it quite as much as he did. Then suddenly a great calamity befell him. A weakness made itself apparent in his right knee, accompanied by considerable pain. The family doctor looked anxious and puzzled; a great surgeon was called in, and the two shook their heads together in very portentous style. It was a case of caries, they said, and Austin mustn't hunt sheep any more. Soon he had to lie upon the sofa for several hours a day, and what made Aunt Charlotte more anxious than anything else was that he didn't seem to mind lying on the sofa, as he would have done if he had felt strong and well; on the contrary, he grew thin and listless, and instead of always jumping up and trying to evade the doctor's orders, appeared quite content to lie there, quiet and resigned, from one week's end to another. That, thought shrewd Aunt Charlotte, betokened mischief. Another consultation followed, and then a very terrible sentence was pronounced. It was necessary, in order to save his life, that Austin should lose his leg. What does a boy generally feel under such circumstances? What would you and I feel? Austin's first impulse was to burst into a passionate fit of weeping, and he yielded to it unreservedly. But, the fit once past, he smiled brilliantly through his tears. True, he would never again be able to enjoy those glorious ramps up hill and down dale that up till then had sent the warm life coursing through his veins. Never more would he go scorching along the level roads against the wind on his cherished bicycle. The open-air athletic days of stress and effort were gone, never to return. But there might be compensations; who could tell? Happiness, all said and done, need not depend upon a shin-bone more or less. He might lose a leg, but legs were, after all, a mere concomitant to life--life did not consist in legs. There would still be something left to live for, and who could tell whether that something might not be infinitely grander and nobler and more satisfying than even the rapture of flying ten miles an hour on his wheel, or chevying a flock of agitated sheep from one pasture to another? Where this sudden inspiration came from, he then had no idea; but come it did, in the very nick of time, and helped him to dry his tears. The day of destiny also came, and his courage was put to the test. He knew well enough, of course, that of the operation he would feel nothing. But the sight of the hard, white, narrow pallet on which he had to lie, the cold glint of the remorseless instruments, the neatly folded packages of lint and cotton-wool, and the faint, horrible smell of chloroform turned him rather sick for a minute. Then he glanced downwards, with a sense of almost affectionate yearning, at the limb he was about to lose. "Good-bye, dear old leg!" he murmured, with a little laugh which smothered a rising sob. "We've had some lovely ramps together, but the best of friends must part." Afterwards, during the long days of dreary convalescence, he began to feel an interest in what remained of it; and then he found himself taking a sort of æsthetic pleasure in the smooth, beautifully-rounded stump, which really was in its way quite an artistic piece of work. At last, when the flesh was properly healed, and the white skin growing healthily again around his abbreviated member, he grew eager to make acquaintance with his new leg; for of course it was never intended that he should perform the rest of his earthly pilgrimage with only a leg and a half--let the added half be of what material it might. And his excitement may be better imagined than described when, one afternoon, the surgeon came in with a most wonderful object in his arms--a lovely prop of bright, black, burnished wood, set off with steel couplings and the most fascinating straps you ever saw. And the best of all was the socket, in which his soft white stump fitted as comfortably as though they had been made for one another--as, in fact, one of them had been. It was a little difficult to walk just at first, for Austin was accustomed to begin by throwing out his foot, whereas now he had to begin by moving his thigh; this naturally made him stagger, and for some time he could only get along with the aid of a crutch. But to be able to walk again at all was a great achievement, and then, if you only looked at it in the proper light, it really was great fun. There was, however, one person who, probably from a defective sense of humour, was unable to see any fun in it at all. Aunt Charlotte would have given her very ears for Austin, but her affection was of a somewhat irritable sort, and generally took the form of scolding. She was not a stupid woman by any means, but there was one thing in the world she never could understand, and that was Austin himself. He wasn't like other boys one bit, she always said. He had such a queer, topsy-turvy way of looking at things; would express the most outrageous opinions with an innocent unconsciousness that made her long to box his ears, and support the most arrant absurdities by arguments that conveyed not the smallest meaning to her intellect. Look at him now, for instance; a cripple for life, and pretending to see nothing in it but a joke, and expressing as much admiration for his horrible wooden leg as though it had been a king's sceptre! In Aunt Charlotte's view, Austin ought to have pitied himself immensely, and expressed a hope that God would help him to bear his burden with orthodox resignation to the Divine will; instead of which, he seemed totally unconscious of having any burden at all--a state of mind that was nothing less than impious. Austin was now seventeen, and it was high time that he took more serious views of life. Ever since he was a baby he had been her special charge; for his mother had died in giving him birth, and his father had followed her about a twelvemonth later. She had always done her duty to the boy, and loved him as though he had been her own; but she reminded onlookers rather of a conscientious elderly cat with limited views of natural history condemned by circumstances to take care of a very irresponsible young eaglet. The eaglet, on his side, was entirely devoted to his protectress, but it was impossible for him not to feel a certain lenient and amused contempt for her very limited horizon. "Auntie," he said to her one day, "you're just like a frog at the bottom of a well. You think the speck of blue you see above you is the entire sky, and the water you paddle up and down in is the ocean. Why can't you take a rather more cosmic view of things?" This extraordinary remark occurred in the course of a wrangle between the two, because Austin insisted on his pet cat--a plump, white, matronly creature he had christened 'Gioconda,' because (so _he_ said) she always smiled so sweetly--sitting up at the dinner-table and being fed with tit-bits off his own fork; and Aunt Charlotte objected to this proceeding on the ground that the proper place for cats was in the kitchen. Austin, on his side, averred that cats were in many ways much superior to human beings; that they had been worshipped as gods by the philosophical Egyptians because they were so scornful and mysterious; and that Gioconda herself was not only the divinest cat alive, but entitled to respect, if only as an embodiment and representative of cat-hood in the abstract, which was a most important element in the economy of the universe. It was when Aunt Charlotte stigmatised these philosophical reflections as a pack of impertinent twaddle that Austin had had the audacity to say that she was like a frog. And now her eaglet had been maimed for life, and whatever he might feel about it himself her own responsibilities were certainly much increased. At this very moment, for instance, after having practised stumping about the room for half-an-hour he insisted on going downstairs. Of course the idea was ridiculous. Even the doctor shook his head, while old Martha, who had tubbed Austin when he was two years old, joined in the general protest. But Austin, disdaining to argue the point with any one of them, had already hobbled out of the room, and before they were well aware of it had begun to essay the descent perilous. Ominous bumps were heard, and then a dull thud as of a body falling. But a bend in the wall had caught the body, and the explorer was none the worse. Then Aunt Charlotte, rushing back into the bedroom, flung open the window wide. "Lubin!" she shouted lustily. A young gardener boy, tall, round-faced and curly-haired, glanced up astonished from his work among the sweet-peas. "Come up here directly and carry Master Austin downstairs. He's got a wooden leg and hasn't learnt how to use it." The consequence of which was that two minutes later Austin, panting and enraged at the failure of his first attempt at independence, found himself firmly encircled by a pair of strong young arms, lifted gently from the ground, and carried swiftly and safely downstairs and out at the garden door. "Now you just keep quiet, Master Austin," murmured Lubin, chuckling as Austin began to kick. "No use your starting to run before you know how to walk. Wooden legs must be humoured a bit, Sir; 'twon't do to expect too much of 'em just at first, you see. This one o' yours is mighty handsome to look at, I don't deny, but it's not accustomed to staircases and maybe it'll take some time before it is. Hold tight, Sir; only a few yards more now. There! Here we are on the lawn at last. Now you can try your paces at your leisure." "You're awfully nice to me, Lubin," gasped Austin, red with mortification, as he slipped from the lad's arms on to the grass, "but I felt just now as if I could have killed you, all the same." "Lor', Sir, I don't mind," said Lubin. "I doubt that was no more'n natural. Can you stand steady? Here--lay hold o' my arm. Slow and sure's the word. Look out for that flower-bed. Now, then, round you go--that's it. Ah!"--as Austin fell sprawling on the grass. "Now how are you going to get up again, I should like to know? Seems to me the first thing you've got to learn is not to lose your balance, 'cause once you're down 'tain't the easiest thing in creation to scramble up again. You'll have to stick to the crutch at first, I reckon. Up we come! Now let's see how you can fare along a bit all by yourself." Austin was thankful for the support of his crutch, with the aid of which he managed to stagger about for a few minutes at quite a respectable speed. It reminded him almost of the far-off days when he was learning to ride his bicycle. At last he thought he would like to rest a bit, and was much surprised when, on flinging himself down upon a garden seat, his leg flew up in the air. "Lively sort o' limb, this new leg o' yours, Sir," commented Lubin, as he bent it into a more decorous position. "You'll have to take care it don't carry you off with it one o' these fine days. Seems to me it wants taming, and learning how to behave itself in company. I heard tell of a cork leg once upon a time as was that nimble it started off running on its own account, and no earthly power could stop it. Wouldn't have mattered so much if it'd had nobody but itself to consider, but unluckily the gentleman it belonged to happened to be screwed on to the top end of it, and of course he had to follow. They do say as how he's following it still--poor beggar! Must be worn to a shadow by this time, I should think. But p'raps it ain't true after all. There are folks as'll say anything." "I expect it's true enough," replied Austin cheerfully. "If you want a thing to be true, all you've got to do is to believe it--believe it as hard as you can. That makes it true, you see. At least, that's what the new psychology teaches. Thought creates things, you understand--though how it works I confess I can't explain. But never mind. Oh, dear, how drunk I am!" "Drunk, Sir? No, no, only a bit giddy," said Lubin, as he stood watching Austin with his hands upon his hips. "You're not over strong yet, and that new leg of yours has been giving you too much exercise to begin with. You just keep quiet a few minutes, and you'll soon be as right as ninepence." Then Austin slid carefully off the seat, and stretched himself full length upon the grass. "I _am_ drunk," he murmured, closing his eyes, "drunk with the scent of the flowers. Don't you smell them, Lubin? The air's heavy with it, and it has got into my brain. And how sweet the grass smells too. I love it--it's like breathing the breath of Nature. What do legs matter? It's much nicer to roll over the grass wherever you want to go than to have the bother of walking. Don't worry about me any more, nice Lubin. Go on tying up your sweet-peas. I'll come and help you when I'm tired of rolling about. Just now I don't want anything; I'm drunk--I'm happy--I'm satisfied--I'm happier than I ever was before. Be kind to the flowers, Lubin; don't tie them too tight. They're my friends and my lovers. Aren't you a little fond of them too?" Then, left to his own reflections, he lay perfectly peaceful and content staring up into the sky. For months he had been fated to lead an entirely new life, and now it had actually begun. His entrance upon it was not bitter. He had flowers growing by his path, and books that he loved, and one or two friends who loved him. It was all right! And that was how he spent his first day of acknowledged cripplehood. Chapter the Second In a very short time Austin had overcome the initial difficulties of locomotion, and now began to take regular exercise out of doors. It would be too much to say that his gait was particularly elegant; but there really was something triumphal about the way in which he learnt to brandish his leg with every step he took, and the majestic swing with which he brought it round to its place in advance of the other. In fact, he soon found himself stumping along the highroads with wonderful speed and safety; though to clamber over stiles, and work a bicycle one-footed, of course took much more practice. Hitherto I have said nothing about the neighbourhood of Austin's home. Now when I say neighbourhood, I don't mean the topographical surroundings--I use the word in its correcter sense of neighbours; and these it is necessary to refer to in passing. Of course there were several people living round about. There was the MacTavish family, for instance, consisting of Mr and Mrs MacTavish, five daughters and two sons. Mrs MacTavish had a brother who had been knighted, and on the strength of such near relationship to Sir Titus and Lady Clandougal, considered herself one of the county. But her claim was not endorsed, even by the humbler gentry with whom she was forced to associate, while as for the county proper it is not too much to say that that august community had never even heard of her. The Miss MacTavishes, ranging in age from fifteen to five-and-twenty, were rather gawky young persons, with red hair and a perpetual giggle; in fact they could not speak without giggling, even if it was to tell you that somebody was dead. Every now and then Mrs MacTavish would proclaim, with portentous complacency, that Florrie, or Lizzie, or Aggie, was "out"--to the awe-struck admiration of her friends; which meant that the young person referred to had begun to do up her hair in a sort of bun at the back of her head, and had had her frock let down a couple of tucks. Austin couldn't bear them, though he was always scrupulously polite. And the boys were, if anything, less interesting than the girls. The elder of the two--a freckled young giant named Jock--was always asking him strange conundrums, such as whether he was going to put the pot on for the Metropolitan--which conveyed no more idea to Austin's mind than if he had said it in Chinese; while Sandy, the younger, used to terrify him out of his wits by shouting out that Yorkshire had got the hump, or that Jobson was 'not out' for a century, or that wickets were cheap at the Oval. In fact, the entire family bored him to extinction, though Aunt Charlotte, who had been an old school-friend of the mamma, sang their praises perseveringly, and said that the girls were dears. Then there was the inevitable vicar, with a wife who piqued herself on her smart bonnets; a curate, who preached Socialism, wore knickerbockers, and belonged to the Fabian Society; a few unattached elderly ladies who had long outlived the reproach of their virginity; and just two or three other families with nothing particular to distinguish them one way or another. It may readily be inferred, therefore, that Austin had not many associates. There was really no one in the place who interested him in the very least, and the consequence was that he was generally regarded as unsociable. And so he was--very unsociable. The companionship of his books, his bicycle, his flowers and his thoughts was far more precious to him than that of the silly people who bothered him to join in their vapid diversions and unseasonable talk, and he rightly acted upon his preference. His own resources were of such a nature that he never felt alone; and having but few comrades in the flesh, he wisely courted the society of those whom, though long since dead, he held in far higher esteem than all the elderly ladies and curates and MacTavishes who ever lived. His appetite in literature was keen, but fastidious. He devoured all the books he could procure about the Renaissance of art in Italy. The works of Mr Walter Pater were as a treasure-house of suggestion to him, and did much to form and guide his gradually developing mentality. He read Plato, being even more fascinated by the exquisite technique of the dialectic than by the ethical value of the teaching. And there was one small, slim book that he always carried about with him, and kept for special reading in the fields and woods. This was Virgil's Eclogues, the sylvan atmosphere of which penetrated the very depths of his being, and created in him a moral or spiritual atmosphere which was its counterpart. He seemed to live amid gracious pastoral scenes, where beautiful youths and maidens passed a perpetual springtime in a land of dewy lawns, and shady groves, and pools, and rippling streams. Daphnis and Mopsus, Corydon, Alexis, and Amyntas, were all to him real personages, who peopled his solitude, inspired his poetic fancy, and fostered in his imagination the elements of an ideal life where the beauty and purity and freshness of untainted Nature reigned supreme. The accident of his lameness, by incapacitating him for violent exercise out of doors, ministered to the development of this spiritual tendency, and threw him back upon the allurements of a refined idealism. Daphnis became to him the embodiment, the concrete image, of eternal youthhood, of adolescence in the abstract, the attribute of an idealised humanity. To lead the pure Daphnis life of simplicity, stainlessness, communion with beautiful souls, was to lead the highest life. To find one's bliss in sunshine, flowers, and the winds of heaven--in both the physical and moral spheres--was to find the highest bliss. Why should not he, Austin Trevor, cripple as he was, so live the Daphnis life as to be himself a Daphnis? No wonder a boy like this was voted unsociable. No wonder Sandy and Jock despised him as a muff, and the young ladies deplored his unaccountably elusive ways. The truth was that Austin simply had no use for any of them; his life was complete without them, it contained no niche into which they could ever fit. Lubin was a far more congenial comrade. Lubin never bothered him about football, or cricket, or horse-racing, never worried him with invitations to horrible picnics, never outraged his sensibilities in any way. On the contrary, Lubin rather contributed to his happiness by the care he took of the flowers, and the intelligence he showed in carrying out all Austin's elaborately conveyed instructions. Why, Lubin himself was a sort of Daphnis--in a humble way. But Sandy! No, Austin was not equal to putting up with Sandy. There was, however, one gentleman in the neighbourhood whom Master Austin was gracious enough to approve. This was a certain Mr Roger St Aubyn, a man of taste and culture, who possessed a very rare collection of fine pictures and old engravings which nobody had ever seen. St Aubyn was, in fact, something of a recluse, a student who seldom went beyond his park gates, and found his greatest pleasure in reading Greek and cultivating orchids. It was by the purest accident that the two came across each other. Austin was lying one afternoon on a bank of wild hyacinths just outside Combe Spinney, lazily admiring the effect of his bright black leg against the bright blue sky, and thinking of nothing in particular. Mr St Aubyn, who happened to be strolling in that direction, was attracted by the unwonted spectacle, and ventured on some good-humoured quizzical remark. This led to a conversation, in the course of which the scholar thought he discovered certain original traits in the modest observations of the youth. One topic drifted into another, and soon the two were engaged in an animated discussion about pursuits in life. It was in the course of this that Austin let drop the one word--Art. "What is Art?" queried St Aubyn. Austin hesitated for some moments. Then he said, very slowly: "That is a question to which a dozen answers might be given. A whole book would be required to deal with it." St Aubyn was delighted, both at the reply and at the hesitation that had preceded it. "And are you an artist?" he enquired. "I believe I am," replied Austin, very seriously. "Of course one doesn't like to be too confident, and I can't draw a single line, but still----" "Good again," approved the other. "Here as in everything else all depends upon the definition. What is an artist?" "An artist," exclaimed Austin, kindling, "is one who can see the beauty everywhere." "_The_ beauty?" repeated St Aubyn. "The beauty that exists everywhere, even in ugly things. The beauty that ordinary people don't see," returned Austin. "Anybody can see beauty in what are _called_ beautiful things--light, and colour, and grace. But it takes an artist to see beauty in a muddy road, and dripping branches, and drenching rain. How people cursed and grumbled on that rainy day we had last week; it made me sick to hear them. Now I saw the beauty _under_ the ugliness of it all--the wonderful soft greys and browns, the tiny glints of silver between the leaves, the flashes of pearl and orpiment behind the shifting clouds. Do you know, I even see beauty in this wooden leg of mine, great beauty, though everybody else thinks it perfectly hideous! So that is why I hope I am not wrong in imagining that perhaps I may, really, be in some sense an artist." For a moment St Aubyn did not speak. "The boy's a great artist," he muttered to himself. His interest was now excited in good earnest; here was no common mind. Of art Austin knew practically nothing, but the artistic instinct was evidently tingling in every vein of him. St Aubyn himself lived for art and literature, and was amazed to have come across so curiously exceptional a personality. He drew the boy out a little more, and then, in a moment of impulse, did a most unaccustomed thing: he invited Austin to lunch with him on the following Thursday, promising, in addition, that they should spend the afternoon together looking over his conservatories and picture-gallery. So great an honour, so undreamt-of a privilege, sent Austin's blood to the roots of his hair. He flourished his leg more proudly than ever as he stumped victoriously home and announced the great news to Aunt Charlotte. That estimable lady was fingering some notepaper on her writing-table as her excited nephew came bursting in upon her with his face radiant. "Auntie," he cried, "what do you think? You'll never guess. I'm going to lunch with Mr St Aubyn on Thursday!" Aunt Charlotte turned round, looking slightly dazed. "Going to lunch with whom?" she asked. "With Mr St Aubyn. You know--he lives at Moorcombe Court. I met him in the woods and had a long talk with him, and now he's going to show me all his pictures--_and_ his engravings--_and_ his wonderful orchids and things. I'm to spend all the afternoon with him. Isn't it splendid! I could never have hoped for such an opportunity. And he's so awfully nice--so cultured and clever, you know--" "Really!" said Aunt Charlotte, drawing herself up. "Well, you're vastly honoured, Austin, I must say. Mr St Aubyn is chary of his civilities. It is very kind of him to ask you, I'm sure, but I think it's rather a liberty all the same." "A liberty!" repeated Austin, aghast. "He has never called on me," returned Aunt Charlotte, statelily. "If he had wished to cultivate our acquaintance, that would have been at least the usual thing to do. However, of course I've no objection. On Thursday, you say. Well, now just give me your attention to something rather more important. I intend to invite some people here to tea next week, and you may as well write the invitations for me now." Austin's face lengthened. "Oh, why?" he sighed. "It isn't as though there was anybody worth asking--and really, the horrid creatures that infest this neighbourhood--. Whom do you want to ask?" "I'm astonished at you, speaking of our friends like that," replied his aunt, severely. "They're not horrid creatures; they're all very nice and kind. Of course we must have the MacTavishes----" "I knew it," groaned Austin, sinking into a chair. "Those dear MacTavishes! There are nineteen of them, aren't there? Or is it only nine?" "Don't be ridiculous, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte. "Then there are the Miss Minchins--that'll be eleven; the vicar and his wife, of _course_; and old Mr and Mrs Cobbledick. Now just come and sit here----" "The Cobbledicks--those old murderers!" cried Austin. "Do you want us to be all assassinated together?" "Murderers!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, horrified. "I think you've gone out of your mind. A dear kindly old couple like the Cobbledicks! Not very handsome, perhaps, but--murderers! What in the world will you say next?" "The most sinister-looking old pair of cut-throats in the parish," returned Austin. "I should be sorry to meet them on a lonely road on a dark night, I know that. But really, auntie, I do wish you'd think better of all this. We're quite happy alone; what do we want of all these horrible people coming to bore us for Heaven knows how many hours? Of course _I_ shall be told off to amuse the MacTavishes; just think of it! Seven red-haired, screaming, giggling monsters----" "Hold your tongue, do, you abominable boy!" cried Aunt Charlotte. "I'm inviting our friends for _my_ pleasure, not for yours, and I forbid you to speak of them in that wicked, slanderous, disrespectful way. Come now, sit down here and write me the invitations at once." "For the last time, auntie, I entreat you----" began Austin. "Not a word more!" replied his aunt. "Begin without more ado." "Well, if you insist," consented Austin, as he dragged himself into the seat. "Have you fixed upon a day?" "No--any day will do. Just choose one yourself," said Aunt Charlotte, as she dived after an errant ball of worsted. "What day will suit you best?" "Shall we say the 24th?" suggested Austin. "By all means," replied his aunt briskly. "If you're sure that that won't interfere with anything else. I've such a wretched memory for dates. To-day is the 19th. Yes, I should say the 24th will do very well indeed." "It will suit me admirably," said Austin, sitting down and beginning to write with great alacrity, while his aunt busied herself with her knitting. As soon as the envelopes were addressed, he slipped them into his coat pocket, and, rising, said he might as well go out and post them there and then. "Do," said Aunt Charlotte, well pleased at Austin's sudden capitulation. "That is, unless you're too tired with your walk. Martha can always give them to the milkman if you are." "Not a bit of it," said Austin hastily, as he swung himself out of the room. "I shall be back in time for dinner." "He certainly is the very oddest boy," soliloquised Aunt Charlotte, as she settled herself comfortably on the sofa and went on clicking her knitting-needles. "Why he dislikes the MacTavishes so I can't imagine; nice, cheerful young persons as anyone would wish to see. It really is very queer. And then the way he suddenly gave in at last! It only shows that I must be firm with him. As soon as he saw I was in earnest he yielded at once. He's got a sweet nature, but he requires a firm hand. He's different, too, since he lost his leg--more full of fancies, it seems to me, and a great deal too much wrapped up in those books of his. I suppose that when one's body is defective, one's mind feels the effects of it. I shall have to keep him up to the mark, and see that he has plenty of cheerful society. Nothing like nice companions for maintaining the brain in order." Thus did Aunt Charlotte decide to her own satisfaction what she thought would be best for Austin. Chapter the Third He stood leaning against the old stone fountain on the straight lawn under the noonday sun. The bees hummed slumberously around him, sailing from flower to flower, and the hot air, laden with the scents of the soil, seemed to penetrate his body at every pore, infusing a sense of vitality into him which pulsed through all his veins. Austin always said that high noon was the supreme moment of the day. To some folks the most beautiful time was dawn, to others sunset, but at noon Nature was like a flower at its full, a flower in the very zenith of its strength and glory. He had always loved the noon. "The world seems literally palpitating with life," he thought, as he rested his arm on the rim of the time-worn fountain. "I'm sure it's conscious, in some way or other. How it must enjoy itself! Look at the trees; so strong, and calm, and splendid. They know well enough how strong they are, and when there's a storm that tries to blow them down, how they do revel in battling with it! And then the hot air, embracing the earth so voluptuously--playing with the slender plants, and caressing the upstanding flowers. They stand up because they want to be caressed, the amorous creatures. How wonderful it is--the different characters that flowers have. Some are shrill and fierce and passionate, while others are meek and sly, and pretend to shrink when they are even noticed. Some are wicked--shamelessly, insolently, magnificently wicked--like those scarlet anthuriums, with their curling yellow tongues. That flower is the very incarnation of sin; no, not incarnation--what's the word? I can't think, but it doesn't matter. Incarnation will do, for the thing is exactly like recalcitrant human flesh. Lubin!" "Yes, Sir?" responded Lubin, who was digging near. "What are the wickedest flowers you know?" asked Austin. "Well, Sir, I should say them as had most thorns," said Lubin feelingly. "I wonder," mused Austin. Then he relapsed into his meditations. "How thick with life the air is. I'm sure it's populated, if we only had eyes to see. I feel it throbbing all round me--full of beings as much alive as I am, only invisible. People used to see them once upon a time--why can't we now? Naiads, and dryads, and fauns, and the great god Pan everywhere; oh, to think we may be actually surrounded by these wonders of beauty, and yet unable to talk to any of them! Nothing but wicked old women, and horrible young men in plaid knickerbockers and bowler hats, who worry one about odds and handicaps. It's all very sad and ugly." "Aren't you rather hot, standing there in the sun, Sir, all this time?" said Lubin, looking up. "Very hot," replied Austin. "I wonder what time it is?" Lubin glanced up at the sundial. "Just five minutes past the hour, or thereabouts, I make it." "Oh, Lubin, let's go and bathe!" cried Austin suddenly. "You must be far hotter than I am. There's plenty of time--we don't lunch till half-past one. How long would it take us to get to the bathing-pool just at the bend of the river?" "Well--not above ten minutes, I should say," was Lubin's answer. "I'd like a dip myself more'n a little, but I'm not quite sure if I ought to--you see the mistress wants all this finished up by the afternoon, and then----" "But you must!" insisted Austin. "You forget that I've only got one leg, so I can't swim as I used, and you've got to come and take care I don't get drowned. 'O weep for Adonais--he is dead!' How angry Aunt Charlotte would be. And then she'd cry, poor dear, and go into hideous mourning for her poor Austin. Come along, Lubin--but wait, I must just go and get a couple of towels. Oh, I'm simply mad for the water. I'll be back in less than a flash." Lubin drove his spade into the earth, turned down his sleeves, and rested--a fair-skinned, bronzed, wholesome object, good to look at--while Austin stumped away. In less than five minutes the two youths started off together, tramping through the long, lush meadow-grass which lay between the end of the garden and the river. The sun burned fiercely overhead, and the air quivered in the heat. "Isn't it wonderful!" cried Austin, when they reached the edge of the water, and were standing under the shade of some trees that overhung the towing-path. "Come, Lubin, strip--I'm half undressed already. Look at the white and purple lights in the water--aren't they marvellous? Now we're going right down into them. Oh the freedom of air, and colour, and body--how I do _hate_ clothes! I say, how funny my stump looks, doesn't it? Just like a great white rolling-pin. You must go in first, Lubin, and then you'll be prepared to catch me when I begin drowning." Lubin, standing nude and shapely, like a fair Greek statue, for a moment on the bank, took a silent header and disappeared. Then Austin prepared to follow. He tumbled rather than plunged into the water, and, unable to attain an erect position owing to his imperfect organism, would have fared badly if Lubin had not caught him in his arms and turned him deftly over on his back. "You just content yourself with floating face upwards, Sir," he said. "There's no sort of use in trying to strike out, you'd only sink to the bottom like a boat with a hole in it. There--let me hold you like this; one hand'll do it. Look out for the river-weeds. Now try and work your foot. Seems to be making you go round and round, somehow. But that don't matter. A bathe's a bathe, all said and done. How jolly cool it is!" "Isn't it exquisite?" murmured Austin, with closed eyes. "I do think that drowning must be a lovely death. We're like the minnows, Lubin, 'staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, to taste the luxury of sunny beams tempered with coolness.' That's what _our_ wavy bodies are doing now. Don't you like it? 'Now more than ever it seems rich to die----'" But the next moment, owing probably to Lubin having lost his equilibrium, the young rhapsodist found himself, spluttering and half-choked, nearer to the bed of the river than the surface, while his leg was held in chancery by a network of clinging water-weeds. Lubin had some slight difficulty in extricating him, and for the moment, at least, his poetic fantasies came to an abrupt and unromantic finish. "Here, get on my back, and I'll swim you out as far as them water-lilies," said Lubin, giving him a dexterous hoist. "I'm awfully keen on the yellow sort, and they look wonderful fine ones. That's better. Now, Sir, you can just imagine yourself any drownded heathen as comes into your head, only hold tight and don't stir. If you do you'll get drownded in good earnest, and I shall have to settle accounts with your aunt afterwards. Are you ready? Right, then. And now away we go." He struck out strongly and slowly, with Austin crouching on his shoulders. They arrived in safety at the point aimed at, and managed to tear away a grand cluster of the great, beautiful yellow flowers; but the process was a very ticklish one, and the struggle resulted, not unnaturally, in Austin becoming dislodged from his not very secure position, and floundering head foremost into the depths. Lubin caught him as he rose again, and, taking him firmly by one hand, helped him to swim alongside of him back to the shore. It was a difficult feat, and by the time they had accomplished the distance they were both pretty well exhausted. "You _have_ been good to me, Lubin," gasped Austin, as he flung himself sprawling on the grass. "I've had a lovely time--haven't you too? Was I very heavy? Perhaps it is rather a bore to have only one leg when one wants to swim. But now you can always say you've saved me from drowning, can't you. I should have gone under a dozen times if you hadn't held me up and lugged me about. Oh, dear, now we must put on our clothes again--what a barbarism clothes are! I do hate them so, don't you? But I suppose there's no help for it. "Rise, Lubin, rise, and twitch thy mantle blue; To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. "Oh, do help me to screw on my leg. That's it. I say, it's a quarter-past one! We must hurry up, or Aunt Charlotte will be cursing. What _does_ it matter if one eats at half-past one or at a quarter to two? I really am very fond of Aunt Charlotte, you know, though I find it awfully difficult to educate her. I sometimes despair of ever being able to bring her up properly at all, she is so hopelessly Early Victorian, poor thing. But, then, so many people are, aren't they? Now animals are never Early Victorian; that's why I respect them so. If you weren't a human being, Lubin--and a very nice one, as you are--what sort of an animal would you like to be?" "Well, I don't rightly know as I ever considered the point," said Lubin, passing his fingers through his drenched curls. "Perhaps I'd as lief be a squirrel as anything. I'm awfully fond o' nuts, and when I was a kid I used to spend half my time a-climbing trees. A squirrel must have rather a jolly life of it, when one comes to think." "What a splendid idea!" cried Austin, as they prepared to start. "You _are_ clever, Lubin. It would be lovely to live in a tree, curtained all round with thousands of quivering green leaves. I wish I knew what animals think about all day. It must be very dull for them never to have any thoughts, poor dears, and yet they seem happy enough somehow. Perhaps they have something else instead to make up for it--something that we've no idea of. I _say_--it's half-past one!" So Austin was late for lunch after all, and got a scolding from Aunt Charlotte, who told him that it was exceedingly ill-bred to inconvenience other people by habitual unpunctuality. Austin was very penitent, and promised he'd never be unpunctual again if he lived to be a hundred. Then Aunt Charlotte was mollified, and regaled him with an improving account of a most excellent book she had just been reading, upon the importance of instilling sound principles of political economy into the mind of the agricultural labourer. It was so essential, she explained, that people in that position should understand something about the laws which govern prices, the relations of capital and labour, the _metayer_ system, and the ratio which should exist between an increase of population and the exhaustion of the soil by too frequent crops of wheat; and she wound up by propounding a series of hypothetical problems based on the doctrines she had set forth, for Austin to solve offhand. Austin listened very dutifully for some time, but the subject bored him atrociously, and his attention began to wander. At last he made some rather vague and irrelevant replies, and then announced boldly that he thought all politicians were very silly old gentlemen, particularly economists; for his own part, he hated economy, especially when he wanted to buy something beautiful to look at; he further considered that political economists would be much better employed if they sat contemplating tulips instead of writing horrid books, and that Lubin was a great deal wiser than the whole pack of them put together. Then Aunt Charlotte got extremely angry, and a great wrangle ensued, in the course of which she said he was a foolish, ignorant boy, who talked nonsense for the sake of talking it. Austin replied by asking if she knew what a quincunx was, or what Virgil was really driving at when he composed the First Eclogue, and whether she had ever heard of Lycidas; and when she said that she had something better to do than stuff her head with quidnunxes and all such pagan rubbish, he remarked very politely that ignorance was evidently not all of the same sort. Which sent Aunt Charlotte bustling away in a huff to look after her household duties. "It's all very sad and very ugly, isn't it, Gioconda?" sighed Austin, as he lifted the large, white, fluffy animal upon his lap. "You're a great philosopher, my dear; I wish I were as wise as you. You're so scornful, so dignified, so divinely egoistic. But you don't mind being worshipped, do you, Gioconda? Because you know it's your right, of course. There--she's actually condescending to purr! Now we'll come and disport ourselves under the trees, and you shall watch the birds from a safe distance. I know your wicked ways, and I must teach you how to treat your inferiors with proper benignity and toleration." But Gioconda had plans of her own for the afternoon, and declined the proposed discipline; so Austin strolled off by himself, and lay down under the trees with a large book on Italian gardens to console him. His improvised exertions in the water had produced a certain fatigue, and he felt lazy and inert. Gradually he dropped off into a doze, which lasted more than an hour. And he had a curious dream. He thought he was in some strange land--a land like a garden seen through yellow glass--where everything was transparent, and people glided about as though they were skating, without any conscious effort. Then Aunt Charlotte appeared upon the scene, and he saw by her eyes that she was very angry because Lycidas had been drowned while bathing; but Austin assured her that it was Lubin who was drowned, and that it really was of no consequence, because Lubin was only a squirrel after all. At this point things got extremely mixed, and the sound of voices broke in upon his slumbers. He opened his eyes, and saw Aunt Charlotte herself in the act of walking away with a toss of her head that betokened a ruffled temper. Austin's interest was immediately aroused. "Lubin!" he called softly, motioning the lad to come nearer. "What was she rowing you about? Was she blowing you up about this morning?" "Well," confessed Lubin with a broad smile, "she didn't seem over-pleased. Said you might have lost your life, going out o' your depth with only one leg to stand on, and that if you'd been drownded I should have had to answer for it before a judge and jury." "What a wicked, abandoned old woman!" cried Austin. "Only one leg to stand on, indeed!--she hasn't a single leg to stand on when she says such things. She ought to have gone down on her knees and thanked you for taking such care of me. But I shall never make anything of her, I'm afraid. The more I try to educate her the worse she gets." "I shouldn't wonder," replied Lubin sagely. "The old hen feels herself badly off when the egg teaches her to cackle. That's human nature, that is. And then she was riled because she was afraid I shouldn't have time to get the garden-things in order by to-morrow, when it seems there's some sort o' company expected. I told her 'twould be all right." "Oh, those brutes! Of course, they're coming to-morrow. I'd nearly forgotten all about it. It's just like Aunt Charlotte to be so fond of all those hideous people. You hate the MacTavishes, don't you, Lubin? _Do_ hate the MacTavishes! Fancy--nine of them, no less, counting the old ones, and all of them coming together. What a family! I despise people who breed like rabbits, as though they thought they were so superlative that the rest of the world could never have enough of them." "Ay, fools grow without watering," assented Lubin. "Can't say I ever took to 'em myself--though it's not my place to say so. The young gents make a bit too free with one, and when they opens their mouths no one else may so much as sneeze. Think they know everything, they do. There's a saying as I've heard, that asses sing badly 'cause they pitch their voices too high. Maybe it's the same wi' them." "Well, I hope Aunt Charlotte will enjoy their conversation," said Austin comfortably. "I say, Lubin, do you know anything about a Mr St Aubyn, who lives not far from here?" "What, him at the Court?" replied Lubin. "I don't know him myself, but they say as _he's_ a gentleman, and no mistake. Keeps himself to himself, he does, and has always got a civil word for everybody. Fine old place, too, that of his." "Have you ever been inside?" asked Austin. "Lor' no, Sir," answered Lubin. "Don't know as I'm over anxious to, either. The garden's a sight, it's true--but it seems there's something queer about the house. Can't make out what it can be, unless the drains are a bit out of order. But it ain't that neither. Sort o' frightening--so folks say. But lor', some folks'll say anything. I never knew anybody as ever _saw_ anything there. It's only some old woman's yarn, I reckon." "Oh, is it haunted? Are there any ghosts?" cried Austin, in great excitement. "I'd give anything in this world to see a ghost!" "I don't know as I'd care to sleep in a haunted house myself," said Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. "Some folks don't mind that sort o' thing, I s'pose; must have got accustomed to it somehow. Then there's those as is born ghost-seers, and others as couldn't see one, not if it was to walk arm-in-arm with 'em to church. Let's hope Mr St Aubyn's one o' that sort, seeing as he's got to live there. It's poor work being a baker if your head's made of butter, I've heard say." "Then it _is_ haunted!" exclaimed Austin. "What a bit of luck. You see, Lubin, I know Mr St Aubyn just a little, and soon I'm going to lunch with him. How I shall be on the look-out! I wonder how it feels to see a ghost. You've never seen one, have you?" "Oh no, Sir," replied Lubin, shaking his head. "I doubt I'm not put together that way. A blind man may shoot a crow by mistake, but he ain't no judge o' colours. Though ghosts are mostly white, they say. Well, it may be different with you, and when you go to lunch at the Court, I'm sure I hope you'll see all the ghosts on the premises if you've a fancy for that kind of wild fowl. Let ghosts leave me alone and I'll leave them alone--that's all I've got to say. I never had no hankering after gentry as go flopping around without their bodies. 'Tain't commonly decent, to my thinking. Don't hold with such goings on myself." "Oh, but you must make allowances for their circumstances," answered Austin. "If they've got no bodies of course they can't put them on, you know. Besides, there are ghosts and ghosts. Some are mischievous, and some are very, very unhappy, and others come to do us good and help us to find wills, and treasures, and all sorts of pleasant things. I'd love to talk with one, and have it out with him. What wonderful things one might learn!" "Ay, there's more in the world than what's taught in the catechism," said Lubin. "Let's hope you'll have picked up a few crumbs when you've been to lunch at the Court. Every little helps, as the sow said when she swallowed the gnat. I confess I'm not curious myself." "Well, I'm awfully curious," replied Austin, as he began to get up. "But now I must stir about a bit. You know my wooden leg gets horribly lazy sometimes, and I've got to exercise it every now and then for its own good. I know Aunt Charlotte wants me to go into the town with her to buy provender for this bun-trouble of hers to-morrow. It's very curious what different ideas of pleasure different people have." "He's a rare sort o' boy, the young master," soliloquised Lubin as Austin went pegging along towards the house. "Game for no end of mischief when the fit takes him, for all he's only got one leg. One'd think he was half daft to hear him talk sometimes, too. Seems like as if it galled him a bit to rub along with the old auntie, and I shouldn't wonder if the old auntie herself felt about as snug as a bell-wether tied to a frisky colt. However, I s'pose the A'mighty knows what He's about, and it's always the old cow's notion as she never was a calf herself." With which philosophical reflection Lubin slipped on his green corduroy jacket, shouldered his broom, and trudged cheerfully home to tea. Chapter the Fourth The next day the great heat had moderated, and the sky was covered with a thin pearly veil of gossamer greyness which afforded a delightful relief after the glare of the past week. A smart shower had fallen during the night, and the parched earth, refreshed after its bath, appeared more fragrant and more beautiful than ever. Aunt Charlotte busied herself all the morning with various household diversions, while Austin, swaying lazily to and fro in a hammock under an old apple tree, read 'Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight.' At last he looked at his watch, and found that it was about time to go and dress. "Well, you _have_ made yourself smart," commented Aunt Charlotte complacently, as Austin, sprucely attired in a pale flannel suit, with a lilac tie and a dark-red rose in his button-hole, came into the morning-room to say good-bye. "But why need you have dressed so early? Our friends aren't coming till three o'clock at the very earliest, and it's not much more than twelve--at least, so says my watch. You needn't have changed till after lunch, at any rate." "My dear auntie, have you forgotten?" asked Austin, in innocent surprise. "To-day's Thursday, and I'm engaged to lunch and spend the afternoon with Mr St Aubyn. You know I told you all about it the very day he asked me." "Mr St Aubyn?--I don't understand," said Aunt Charlotte, with a bewildered air. "I have a recollection of your telling me a few days ago that you were lunching out some day or other, but----" "On Thursday, you know, I said." "Did you? Well, but--but our friends are coming _here_ to-day! You must have been dreaming, Austin," cried Aunt Charlotte, sitting bolt upright. "How can you have made such a blunder? Of course you can't possibly go!" "Do you really propose, auntie, that I should break my engagement with Mr St Aubyn for the sake of entertaining people like the MacTavishes and the Cobbledicks?" replied Austin, quite unmoved. "But why did you fix on the same day?" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte desperately. "I cannot understand it. I left the date to you, you know I did--I told you I didn't care what day it was, and said you might choose whichever suited yourself best. What on earth induced you to pitch on the very day when you were invited out?" "For the very reason you yourself assign--that you let me choose any day that suited me best. For the very reason that I _was_ invited out. You see, my dear auntie----" "Oh, you false, cunning boy!" cried Aunt Charlotte, who now saw how she had been trapped. "So you let me agree to the 24th, and took care not to tell me that the 24th was Thursday because you knew quite well I should never have consented if you had. What abominable deception! But you shall suffer for it, Austin. Of course you'll remain at home now, if only as a punishment for your deceit. I shouldn't dream of letting you go, after such disgraceful conduct. To think you could have tricked me so!" "My dear auntie, of course I shall go," said Austin, drawing on his gloves. "Why you should wish me to stay, I cannot imagine. What on earth makes you so insistent that I should meet these friends of yours?" "It's for your own good, you ungrateful little creature," replied Aunt Charlotte, quivering. "You know what I've always said. You require more companionship of your own age, you want to mix with other young people instead of wasting and dreaming your time away as you do, and it was for your sake, for your sake only, that I asked our friends----" "Oh, no, auntie, it wasn't. You told me so yourself," Austin reminded her. "You told me distinctly that it was for your own pleasure and not for mine that you were going to invite them. So that argument won't do. And you were perfectly right. If you find intellectual joy in the society of Mrs Cobbledick and Shock-headed Peter----" "Shock-headed Peter? Who in the name of fortune is that?" interrupted Aunt Charlotte, amazed. "One of the MacTavish enchantresses--Florrie, I think, or perhaps Aggie. How am I to know? Everybody calls her Shock-headed Peter. But as I was saying, if you find happiness in the society of such people, invite them by all means. I only ask you not to cram them down my throat. I wouldn't mind the others so much, but the MacTavishes I _bar_. I will not have them forced upon me. I detest them, and I've no doubt they despise me. We simply bore each other out of our lives. There! Let that suffice. I'm very fond of _you_, auntie, and I don't want anyone else. Do you perfectly understand?" "I shall evidently never understand _you_, Austin," replied Aunt Charlotte. "You have treated me shockingly, shockingly. And now you leave me in the most heartless way with all these people on my hands----" "Then why did you insist on inviting them?" put in Austin. "I entreated you not to. I'd have gone down on my knees to you, only unfortunately I've only one. And when I entreated you for the last time, you said you wouldn't listen to another word. I saw that further appeal was useless, so I was compelled by you yourself to play for my own safety. So now good-bye, dear auntie. It's time I was off. Cheer up--you'll all enjoy yourselves much more without an awkward unsympathetic creature like me among you, see if you don't. And you can make any excuse for me you like," he added with a smile as he left the room. Aunt Charlotte remained transfixed. "I suppose he must go his own gait," she muttered, as she picked up her knitting again. "There's no use in trying to force him this way or that; if he doesn't want to do a thing he won't do it. Of course what he says is true enough--I did let him choose the date, and I did ask these people because I thought it would be good for him, and I did insist on doing so when he begged me not to. Well, I'm hoist with my own petard this time, though I wouldn't confess as much to him if my life depended on it. But the trickery of the little wretch! It's that I can't get over." Meanwhile Austin meditated on the little episode on his side, as he made his way along the road. "I daresay dear old auntie was a bit put out," he thought, "but she brought it all upon herself. She doesn't see that everybody must live his own life, that it's a duty one owes to oneself to realise one's own individuality. Now it's _bad_ for me to associate with people I detest--bad for my soul's development; just as bad as it is for anyone's body to eat food that doesn't agree with him. Those MacTavishes poison my soul just as arsenic poisons the body, and I won't have my soul poisoned if I can help it. It's very sad to see how blind she is to the art and philosophy of life. But she'll have to learn it, and the sooner she begins the better." Here he left the high road, and turned into a long, narrow lane enclosed between high banks, which led into a pleasant meadow by the river side. This shortened the way considerably, and when he reached the stile at the further end of the meadow he found himself only some ten minutes' walk from the park gates. Then a subdued excitement fell upon him. He was going to see the beautiful picture-gallery and the great collection of engravings, and the gardens with conservatories full of lovely orchids. He was going to hold delightful converse with the cultured and agreeable man to whom all these things belonged. And--well, he might possibly even see a ghost! But now, in the genial daylight, with the prospect of luncheon immediately before him, the idea of ghosts seemed rather to retire into the background. Ghosts did not appear so attractive as they had done yesterday afternoon, when he had talked about them with Lubin. However--here he was. Mr St Aubyn, tall and middle-aged, with a refined face set in a short, pointed beard, received him with exquisite cordiality. How seldom does a man realise the positive idolatry he can inspire by treating a well-bred youth on equal terms, instead of assuming airs of patronage and condescension! The boy accepts such an attitude as natural, perhaps, but he resents it nevertheless, and never gives the man his confidence. The perfect manners of St Aubyn won Austin's heart at once, and he responded with a modest ardour that touched and gratified his host. The Court, too, exceeded his expectations. It was a grand old mansion dating from the reign of Elizabeth, with mullioned casements, and carved doorways, and cool, dim rooms oak-panelled, and broad fireplaces; and around it lay a shining garden enclosed by old monastic walls of red brick, with shaped beds of carnations glowing redly in the sunlight, and, beyond the straight lines of lawn, a wilderness of nut-trees, with a pool of yellow water-lilies, where wild hyacinths and pale jonquils rioted when it was spring. On one side of the garden, at right angles to the house, the wall shelved into a great grass terrace, and here stood a sort of wing, flanked by two glorious old towers, crumbling and ivy-draped, forming entrances to a vast room, tapestried, which had been a banqueting hall in the picturesque Tudor days. Meanwhile, Austin was ushered by his host into the library--a moderate-sized apartment, lined with countless books and adorned with etchings of great choiceness; whence, after a few minutes' chat on indifferent subjects, they adjourned to the dining-room, where a luncheon, equally choice and good, awaited them. At first they played a little at cross-purposes. St Aubyn, with the tact of an accomplished man entertaining a clever youth, tried to draw Austin out; while Austin, modest in the presence of one whom he recognised as infinitely his superior in everything he most valued, was far more anxious to hear St Aubyn talk than to talk himself. The result was that Austin won, and St Aubyn soon launched forth delightfully upon art, and books, and travel. He had been a great traveller in his day, and the boy listened with enraptured ears to his description of the magnificent gardens in the vicinity of Rome--the Lante, the Torlonia, the Aldobrandini, the Falconieri, and the Muti--architectural wonders that Austin had often read of, but of course had never seen; and then he talked of Viterbo and its fountains, Vicenza the city of Palladian palaces, every house a gem, and Sicily, with its hidden wonders, hidden from the track of tourists because far in the depths of the interior. He had travelled in Burma too, and inflamed the boy's imagination by telling him of the gorgeous temples of Rangoon and Mandalay; he had been--like everybody else--to Japan; and he had lived for six weeks up country in China, in a secluded Buddhist monastery perched on the edge of a precipice, like an eagle's nest, where his only associates were bonzes in yellow robes, and the stillness was only broken by the deep-toned temple bell, booming for vespers. Then, somehow, his thoughts turned back to Europe, and he began a disquisition upon the great old masters--Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Tiziano, and Peter Paul--with whose immortal works he seemed as familiar as he subsequently showed himself with the pictures in his own house. He described the Memlings at Bruges, the Botticellis at Florence and the Velasquezes in Spain--averring in humorous exaggeration that beside a Velasquez most other paintings were little better than chromolithographs. Austin put in a word now and then, asked a question or two as occasion served, and so suggested fresh and still more fascinating reminiscences; but he had no desire whatever to interrupt the illuminating stream of words by airing any opinions of his own. It was not until the meal was drawing to a close that the conversation took a more personal turn, and Austin was induced to say something about himself, his tastes, and his surroundings. Then St Aubyn began deftly and diplomatically to elicit something in the way of self-disclosure; and before long he was able to see exactly how things stood--the boy of ideals, of visionary and artistic tastes, of crude fresh theories and a queer philosophy of life, full of a passion for Nature and a contempt for facts, on one hand; and the excellent, commonplace, uncomprehending aunt, with her philistine friends and blundering notions as to what was good for him, upon the other. It was an amusing situation, and psychologically very interesting. St Aubyn listened attentively with a sympathetic smile as Austin stated his case. "I see, I see," he said nodding. "You feel it imperative to lead your own life and try to live up to your own ideals. That is good--quite good. And you are not in sympathy with your aunt's friends. Nothing more natural. Of course it is important to be sure that your ideals are the highest possible. Do you think they are?" "They seem so. They are the highest possible for _me_," replied Austin earnestly. "That implies a limitation," observed St Aubyn, emitting a stream of blue smoke from his lips. "Well, we all have our limitations. You appear to have a very strong sense that every man should realise his own individuality to the full; that that is his first duty to himself. Tell me then--does it never occur to you that we may also have duties to others?" "Why, yes--certainly," said Austin. "I only mean that we have _no right_ to sacrifice our own individualities to other people's ideas. For instance, my aunt, who has always been the best of friends to me, is for ever worrying me to associate with people who rasp every nerve in my body, because she thinks that it would do me good. Then I rebel. I simply will not do it." "What friends have you?" asked St Aubyn quietly. "I don't think I have any," said Austin, with great simplicity. "Except Lubin. My best companionship I find in books." "The best in the world--so long as the books are good," replied St Aubyn. "But who is Lubin?" "He's a gardener," said Austin. "About two years older than I am. But he's a gentleman, you understand. And if you could only see the sort of people my poor aunt tries to force upon me!" "I think you may add me to Lubin--as your friend," observed St Aubyn; at which Austin flushed with pleasure. "But now, one other word. You say you want to realise your highest self. Well, the way to do it is not to live for yourself alone; it is to live for others. To save oneself one must first lose oneself--forget oneself, when occasion arises--for the sake of other people. It is only by self-sacrifice for the sake of others that the supreme heights are to be attained." For the first time Austin's face fell. He tossed his long hair off his forehead, and toyed silently with his cigarette. "Is that a hard saying?" resumed St Aubyn, smiling. "It has high authority, however. Think it over at your leisure. Have you finished? Come, then, and let me show you the pictures. We have the whole afternoon before us." They explored the fine old house well-nigh from roof to basement, while St Aubyn recounted all the associations connected with the different rooms. Then they went into the picture-gallery. Austin, breathless with interest, hung upon St Aubyn's lips as he pointed out the peculiarities of each great master represented, and explained how, for instance, by a fold of the drapery or the crook of a finger, the characteristic mannerisms of the painter could be detected, and the school to which a given work belonged could approximately be determined; drew attention to the unifying and grouping of the different features of a composition; spoke learnedly of textures, qualities, and tactile values; and laid stress on the importance of colour, light, atmosphere, and the sense of motion, as contrasted with the undue preponderance too often attached by critics to mere outline. All this was new to Austin, who had really never seen any good pictures before, and his enthusiasm grew with what it fed on. St Aubyn was an admirable cicerone; he loved his pictures, and he knew them--knew everything that could be known about them--and, inspired by the intelligent appreciation of his guest, spared no pains to do them justice. A good half-hour was then spent over the engravings, which were kept in a quaint old room by themselves; and afterwards they adjourned to the garden. St Aubyn's conservatories were famous, and his orchids of great variety and beauty. Austin seemed transported into a world where everything was so arranged as to gratify his craving for harmony and fitness, and he moved almost silently beside his host in a dream of satisfaction and delight. "By the way, there's still one room you haven't seen," remarked St Aubyn, as they were strolling at their leisure through the grounds. "We call it the Banqueting Hall--in that wing between the two old towers. Queen Elizabeth was entertained there once, and it contains some rather beautiful tapestries. I should like to have them moved into the main building, only there's really no place where they'd fit, and perhaps it's better they should remain where they were originally intended for. Are you fond of tapestry?" "I've never seen any," said Austin, "but of course I've read about it--Gobelin, Bayeux, and so on. I should love to see what it looks like in reality." "Come, then," said St Aubyn, crossing the lawn. "I have the key in my pocket." He flung open the door. Austin found himself in the vast apartment, groined and vaulted, measuring about a hundred and twenty feet by fifty, and lighted by exquisite pointed windows enriched with coats-of-arms and other heraldic devices in jewel-like stained glass. The walls were completely hidden by tapestries of rare beauty, woven into the semblance of gardens, palaces, arcades and bowers of clipped hedges and pleached trees with slender fountains set meetly in green shade; while some again were crowded with swaying Gothic figures of saints and kings and warriors and angels, all far too beautiful, thought Austin, to have ever lived. Yet surely there must be some prototypes of all these wonderful conceptions somewhere. There must be a world--if we could only find it--where loveliness that we only know as pictured exists in actual reality. What a dream-like hall it was, on that still summer afternoon. Yet there was something uncanny about it too. St Aubyn had stepped out of sight, and Austin left by himself began to experience a very extraordinary sensation. He felt that he was not alone. The immense chamber seemed _full of presences_. He could see nothing, but he felt them all about him. The place was thickly populated, but the population was invisible. Everything looked as empty as it had looked when the door was first thrown open, and yet it was really full of ghostly palpitating life, crowded with the spirits of bygone men and women who had held stately revels there three hundred years before. He was not frightened, but a sense of awe crept over him, rooting him to the spot and imparting a rapt expression to his face. Did he hear anything? Wasn't there a faint rustling sound somewhere in the air behind him? No. It must have been his fancy. Everything was as silent as the grave. He turned and saw St Aubyn close beside him. "The place is haunted!" he exclaimed in a husky voice. "What makes you think so?" asked St Aubyn, without any intonation of surprise. "I feel it," he replied. "Come out," said the other abruptly. "It's curious you should say that. Other people seem to have felt the same. I'm not so sensitive myself. You're looking pale. Let's go into the library and have a cup of tea." The hot stimulant revived him, and he was soon talking at his ease again. But the curious impression remained. It seemed to him as if he had had an experience whose effects would not be easily shaken off. He had seen no ghosts, but he had felt them, and that was quite enough. The sensation he had undergone was unmistakable; the hall was full of ghosts, and he had been conscious of their presence. This, then, was apparently what Lubin had alluded to. Oh, it was all real enough--there was no room left for any doubt whatever. It was a quarter to five when he took leave of his entertainer, responding warmly to an injunction to look in again whenever he felt disposed. He walked very thoughtfully homewards, revolving many questions in his busy brain. How much he had seen and learnt since he left home that morning! Worlds of beauty, of art, of intellect had dawned upon his consciousness; a world of mystery too. Even now, tramping along the road, he felt a different being. Even now he imagined the presence of unseen entities--walking by his side, it might be, but anyhow close to him. Was it so? Could it be that he really was surrounded by intelligences that eluded his physical senses and yet in some mysterious fashion made their existence _known_? At last he arrived at the stile leading into the meadow, and prepared to clamber over. Then he hesitated. Why? He could not tell. A queer, invincible repugnance to cross that stile suddenly came over him. The meadow looked fresh and green, and the road--hot, dusty, and white--was certainly not alluring; besides, he longed to saunter along the grass by the river and think over his experiences. But something prevented him. With a sense of irritation he took a few steps along the road; then the thought of the cool field reasserted itself, and with a determined effort he retraced his steps and threw one leg over the top bar of the stile. It was no use. Gently, but unmistakably, something pushed him back. He _could_ not cross. He wanted to, and he was in full possession of both his physical and mental faculties, but he simply could not do it. In great perplexity, not unmixed with some natural sense of umbrage, Austin set off again along the ugly road. The sun had come out once more, and it was very hot. What could be the matter with him? Why had he been so silly as to take the highway, with its horrid dust and glare, when the field and the lane would have been so much more pleasant? He felt puzzled and annoyed. How Mr St Aubyn would have laughed at him could he but have known. This long tramp along the disagreeable road was the only jarring incident that had befallen him that day. Well, it would soon be over. And what a day it had been, after all. How marvellous the pictures were, and the gardens; what an acquisition to his life was the friendship--not only the acquaintanceship--of St Aubyn; and then the tapestries, the great mysterious hall, and the strange revelations that had come upon him in the hall itself! At last his thoughts reverted, half in self-reproach, to Aunt Charlotte. How had she fared, meanwhile? Had she enjoyed her Cobbledicks and her MacTavishes as much as he had enjoyed his experiences at the Court? For all his theories about living his own life and developing his own individuality, Austin was not a selfish boy. Egoistic he might be, but selfish he was not. His impulses were always generous and kindly, and he was full of thought for others. He was for ever contriving delicate little gifts for those in want, planning pleasant little surprises for people whom he loved. And now he hoped most ardently that dear Aunt Charlotte had not been very dull, and for the moment felt quite kindly towards the Cobbledicks and the MacTavishes as he reflected that, no doubt, they had helped to make his auntie happy on that afternoon. At last he came to the entrance of the lane through which he had passed in the morning. At that moment a crowd of men and boys, most of them armed with heavy sticks and all looking terribly excited, rushed past him, and precipitated themselves into the narrow opening. He asked one of them what was the matter, but the man took no notice and ran panting after the others. So Austin pursued his way, and in a few minutes arrived at the garden gate, where to his great surprise he found Aunt Charlotte waiting for him--the picture of anxiety and terror. "Well, auntie!--why, what's the matter?" he exclaimed, as Aunt Charlotte with a cry of relief threw herself into his arms. "Oh, my dear boy!" she uttered in trembling agitation. "How thankful I am to see you! Which way did you come back?" "Which way? Along the road," said Austin, much astonished. "Why?" "Thank God!" ejaculated Aunt Charlotte. "Then you're really safe. I've been out of my mind with fear. A most dreadful thing has happened. Let us sit down a minute till I get my breath, and I'll tell you all about it." Austin led her to a garden seat which stood near, and sat down beside her. "Well, what is it all about?" he asked. "My dear, it was like this," began Aunt Charlotte, as she gradually recovered her composure. "Our friends were just going away--oh, I forgot to tell you that of course they came; we had a most delightful time, and dear Lottie--no, Lizzie--I always do forget which is which--I can't remember, but it doesn't matter--was the life and soul of the party; however, as I was saying, they were just going away, and I was there at the gate seeing them off, when the butcher's boy came running up and warned them on no account to venture into the road, as Hunt's dog--that's the butcher, you know--I mean Hunt is--had gone raving mad, and was loose upon the streets. Of course we were all most horribly alarmed, and wanted to know whether anybody had been bitten; but the boy was off like a shot, and two minutes afterwards the wretched dog itself came tearing past, as mad as a dog could be, its jaws a mass of foam, and snapping right and left. As soon as ever it was safe our friends took the opportunity of escaping--of course in the opposite direction; and then a crowd of villagers came along in pursuit, but not knowing which turning to take till some man or other told them that the dog had gone up the lane. Then imagine my terror! For I felt perfectly convinced that you'd be coming home that way, as the road was hot and dusty, and I know how fond you are of lanes and fields. Oh, my dear, I can't get over it even now. How was it you chose the road?" For a moment Austin did not speak. Then he said very slowly: "I don't know how to tell you. Of course I _could_ tell you easily enough, but I don't think you'd understand. Auntie, I intended to come home by the lane. Twice or three times I tried to cross the stile into the meadows, and each time I was prevented. Something stopped me. Something pushed me back. Naturally I wanted to come by the meadow--the road was horrid--and I wanted to stroll along on the grass and enjoy myself by the river. But there it was--I couldn't do it. So I gave up trying, and came by the road after all." "What _do_ you mean, Austin?" asked Aunt Charlotte. "I never heard such a thing in my life. What was it that pushed you back?" "I don't know," replied the boy deliberately. "I only know that something did. And as the lane is very narrow, and enclosed by excessively steep banks, the chances are that I should have met the dog in it, and that the dog would have bitten me and given me hydrophobia. And now you know as much as I do myself." "I can't tell what to think, I'm sure," said Aunt Charlotte. "Anyhow, it's most providential that you escaped, but as for your being prevented, as you say--as for anything pushing you back--why, my dear, of course that was only your fancy. What else could it have been? I'm far too practical to believe in presentiments, and warnings, and nonsense of that sort. I'd as soon believe in table-rapping. No, my dear; I thank God you've come back safe and sound, but don't go hinting at anything supernatural, because I simply don't believe in it." "Then why do you thank God?" asked Austin, "Isn't He supernatural? Why, He's the only really supernatural Being possible, it seems to me." That was a poser. Aunt Charlotte, having recovered her equanimity, began to feel argumentative. It was incumbent on her to prove that she was not inconsistent in attributing Austin's preservation to the intervention of God, while disclaiming any belief in what she called the supernatural. And for the moment she did not know how to do it. "By the supernatural, Austin," she said at last, in a very oracular tone, "I mean superstition. And I call that story of yours a piece of superstition and nothing else." "Auntie, you do talk the most delightful nonsense of any elderly lady of my acquaintance," cried Austin, as he laughingly patted her on the back. "It's no use arguing with you, because you never can see that two and two make four. It's very sad, isn't it? However, the thing to be thankful for is that I've got back safe and sound, and that we've both had a delightful afternoon. And now tell me all your adventures. I'm dying to hear about the vicar, and the Cobbledicks, and the ingenious Jock and Sandy. Did all your friends turn up?" "Indeed they did, and a most charming time we had," replied Aunt Charlotte briskly. "Of course they were astonished to find that you weren't here to welcome them, and I was obliged to say how unfortunate it was, but a most stupid mistake had arisen, and that you were dreadfully sorry, and all the rest of it. Ah, you don't know what you missed, Austin. The boys were full of fun as usual, and dear Lizzie--or was it Florrie? well, it doesn't matter--said she was sure you'd gone to the Court in preference because you were expecting to meet a lot of girls there who were much prettier than she was. Of course she was joking, but----" "The vulgar, disgusting brute!" cried Austin, in sudden anger. "And these are the creatures you torment me to associate with. Well----" "Austin, you've no right to call a young lady a brute; it's abominably rude of you," said Aunt Charlotte severely. "There was nothing vulgar in what she said; it was just a playful sally, such as any sprightly girl might indulge in. I assured her you were going to meet nobody but Mr St Aubyn himself, and then she said it was a shame that you should have been inveigled away to be bored by----" "I don't want to hear what the woman said," interrupted Austin, with a gesture of contempt. "Such people have no right to exist. They're not worthy for a man like St Aubyn to tread upon. It's a pity you know nothing of him yourself, auntie. You wouldn't appreciate your Lotties and your Florries quite so much as you do now, if you did." "Then you enjoyed yourself?" returned Aunt Charlotte, waiving the point. "Oh, I've no doubt he's an agreeable person in his way. And the gardens are quite pretty, I'm told. Hasn't he got a few rather nice pictures in his rooms? I'm very fond of pictures myself. Well, now, tell me all about it. How did you amuse yourself all the afternoon, and what did you talk to him about?" But before Austin could frame a fitting answer the butcher's boy looked over the gate to tell them that the rabid dog had been found in the lane and killed. Chapter the Fifth It will readily be understood that Austin was in no hurry to confide anything about his experiences in the Banqueting Hall to his Aunt Charlotte. The way in which she had received his straightforward, simple account of the curious impressions which had determined his choice of a route in coming home was enough, and more than enough, to seal his tongue. He was sensitive in the extreme, and any lack of sympathy or comprehension made him retire immediately into his shell. His aunt's demeanour imparted an air of reserve even to the description he gave her of the attractions of Moorcombe Court. Perhaps the good lady was a trifle sore at never having been invited there herself. One never knows. At any rate, her attitude was chilling. So as regarded the incident in the Banqueting Hall he preserved entire silence. Her scepticism was too complacent to be attacked. He was aroused next morning by the sweetest of country sounds--the sound of a scythe upon the lawn. Then there came the distant call of the street flower-seller, "All a-growing, all a-blowing," which he remembered as long as he could remember anything. The world was waking up, but it was yet early--not more than half-past six at the very latest. So he lay quietly and contentedly in his white bed, lazily wondering how it would feel in the Banqueting Hall at that early hour, and what it would be like there in the dead of night, and how soon it would be proper for him to go and leave a card on Mr St Aubyn, and what Lubin would think of it all, and how it was he had never before noticed that great crack in the ceiling just above his head. At last he slipped carefully out of bed without waiting for Martha to bring him his hot water, and hopped as best he could to the open window and looked out. There was Lubin, mowing vigorously away, and the air was full of sweet garden scents and the early twittering of birds. He could not go back to bed after that, but proceeded forthwith to dress. After a hurried toilet, he bumped his way downstairs; intercepted the dairyman, from whom he extorted a great draught of milk, and then went into the garden. How sweet it was, that breath of morning air! Lubin had just finished mowing the lawn, and the perfume of the cool grass, damp with the night's dew, seemed to pervade the world. No one else was stirring; there was nothing to jar his nerves; everything was harmonious, fresh, beautiful, and young. And the harmony of it all consisted in this, that Austin was fresh, and beautiful, and young himself. "Well, and how did ye fare at the Court?" asked Lubin, as Austin joined him. "Was it as fine a place as you reckoned it would be?" "Oh, Lubin, it was lovely!" cried Austin, enthusiastically. "I do wish you could see it. And the garden! Of course this one's lovely too, and I love it, but the garden at the Court is simply divine. It's on a great scale, you know, and there are huge orchid-houses, and flaming carnations, and stained tulips, and gilded lilies, and a wonderful grass terrace, and--" "Ay, ay, I've heard tell of all that," interrupted Lubin. "But how about the ghosts? Did you see any o' them, as you was so anxious about?" "No--I didn't see any; but they're there all the same," returned Austin. "I felt them, you know. But only in one place; that great room, they say, was a Banqueting Hall once upon a time. You know, Lubin, I'm going back there before long. Mr St Aubyn asked me to come again, and I intend to go into that room again to see if I feel anything more. It was the very queerest thing! I never felt so strange in my life. The place seemed actually full of them. I could feel them all round me, though I couldn't see a thing. And the strangest part of it is that I've never felt quite the same since." "How d'ye mean?" asked Lubin, looking up. "I don't know--but I fancy I may still be surrounded by them in some sort of way," replied Austin. "It's possibly nothing but imagination after all. However, we shall see. Now this morning I want to go a long ramp into the country--as far as the Beacon, if I can. It's going to be a splendid day, I'm sure." "I'm not," said Lubin. "The old goose was dancing for rain on the green last night, and that's a sure sign of a change." "Dancing for rain! What old goose?" asked Austin, astonished. "The geese always dance when they want rain," replied Lubin, "and what the goose asks for God sends. Did you never hear that before? It's a sure fact, that is. It'll rain within four-and-twenty hours, you mark my words." "I hope it won't," said Austin. "And so your mother keeps geese?" "Ay, that she does, and breeds 'em, and fattens 'em up against Michaelmas. And we've a fine noise o' ducks on the pond, too. They pays their way too, I reckon." "A noise o' ducks? What, do they quack so loud?" "Lor' bless you, Master Austin, where was you brought up? Everybody hereabouts know what a noise o' ducks is. Same as a flock o' geese, only one quacks and the other cackles. Well, now I'm off home, for its peckish work mowing on an empty belly, and the mother'll be looking out for me. Geese for me, ghosts for you, and in the end we'll see which pans out the best." So Lubin trudged away to his breakfast and left Austin to his reflections. The predicted rain held off in spite of the terpsichorean importunity of Lubin's geese, and Austin passed a lovely morning on the moors; but next day it came down with a vengeance, and for six hours there was a regular deluge. However, Austin didn't mind. When it was fine he spent his days in the fields and woods; if it rained, he sat at a window where he could watch the grey mists, and the driving clouds, and the straight arrows of water falling wonderfully through the air. His books, too, were a resource that never failed, and if he was unable personally to participate in beautiful scenes, he could always read about them, which was the next best thing after all. The weather continued unsettled for some days, and then it cleared up gloriously, so that Austin was able to lead what he called his Daphnis life once more. The rains had had rather a depressing effect upon his general health, and once or twice he had fancied that something was troubling him in his stump; but with the return of the sun all such symptoms disappeared as though by magic, and he felt younger and lighter than ever as he stepped forth again into the glittering air. More than a week had elapsed since his day at the Court, and he began to think that now he really might venture to go and call. So off he set one sunny afternoon, and with rather a beating heart presented himself at the park gates. Here, however, a disappointment awaited him. The lodge-keeper shook his head, and announced that Mr St Aubyn was away and wouldn't be back till night. Austin could do nothing but leave a card, and hope that he might be lucky enough to meet him by accident before long. So he turned back and made for the meadow by the river side, feeling sure that he would be safe from rabid dogs that time at any rate. And certainly no mysterious influences intervened to prevent him sitting on the stile for a rest, and indulging in pleasant thoughts. Then he pulled out his pocket-volume of the beloved Eclogues, and read the musical contest between Menalcas and Damætas with great enjoyment. Why, he wondered, were there no delightful shepherd-boys now-a-days, who spent their time in lying under trees and singing one against the other? Lubin was much nicer than most country lads, but even Lubin was not equal to improvising songs about Phyllis, and Delia, and the Muses. Then he looked up, and saw a stranger approaching him across the field. He was a big, stoutish man, with a fat face, a frock-coat tightly buttoned up, a large umbrella, and a rather shabby hat of the shape called chimney-pot. A somewhat incongruous object, amid that rural scene, and not a very prepossessing one; but apparently a gentleman, though scarcely of the stamp of St Aubyn. At last he came quite near, and Austin moved as though to let him pass. "Don't trouble yourself, young gentleman," said the newcomer, in a good-humoured, offhand way. "Can you tell me whether I'm anywhere near a place called Moorcombe Court?" "Yes--it's not far off," replied Austin, immediately interested. "I've just come from there myself." "Really, now!" was the gentleman's rejoinder. "And how's me friend St Aubyn?" So he was Mr St Aubyn's friend--or claimed to be. "I really suspected," said Austin to himself, "that he must be a bailiff." From which it may be inferred that the youth's acquaintance with bailiffs was somewhat limited. Then he said, aloud: "I believe he's quite well, thank you, but I'm afraid you'll not be able to see him. He's gone out somewhere for the day." "Dear me, now, that's a pity!" exclaimed the stranger, taking off his hat and wiping his hot, bald head. "Dear old Roger--it's years since we met, and I was quite looking forward to enjoying a chat with him about old times. Well, well, another day will do, no doubt. You don't live at the Court, do you?" "I? Oh, no," said Austin. "I only visit there. It is such a charming place!" "Shouldn't wonder," remarked the other, nodding. "Our friend's a rich man, and can afford to gratify his tastes--which are rather expensive ones, or used to be when I knew him years ago. I must squeeze an hour to go and see him some time or other while I'm here, if I can only manage it." "Then you are not here for long?" asked Austin, wondering who the man could be. "Depends upon business, young gentleman," replied the stranger. "Depends upon how we draw. We shall have a week for certain, but after that----" "How you draw?" repeated Austin, politely mystified. "Yes, draw--what houses we draw, to be sure," explained the stranger. "What, haven't you seen the bills? I'm on tour with 'Sardanapalus'!" A ray of light flashed upon Austin's memory. "Oh! I think I understand," he ventured hesitatingly. "Are you--can you perhaps be--er--Mr Buckskin?" "For Buckskin read Buskin, and you may boast of having hazarded a particularly shrewd guess," replied the gentleman. "Bucephalus Buskin, at your service; and, of course, the public's." "Ah, now I know," exclaimed Austin. "The greatest actor in Europe, on or off the stage." "Oh come, now, come; spare my blushes, young gentleman, draw it a _little_ milder!" cried the delighted manager, almost bursting with mock modesty. "Greatest actor in Europe--oh, very funny, very good indeed! Off the stage, too! Oh dear, dear, dear, what wags there are in the world! And pray, young gentleman, from whom did you pick up that?" "I think it must have been the milkman," replied Austin simply. "The milkman, eh? A most discriminating milkman, 'pon my word. Well, it's always encouraging to find appreciation of high art, even among milkmen," observed Mr Buskin. "Only shows how much we owe the growing education of the masses to the drama. Talk of the press, the pulpit, the schoolroom----" "I believe he was quoting an advertisement," interpolated Austin. "An ad., eh?" said the mummer, somewhat disconcerted. "Oh, well, I shouldn't be surprised. Of course _I_ have nothing to do with such things. That's the business of the advance-agent. And did he really put in that? I positively must speak to him about it. A good fellow, you know, but rather inclined to let his zeal outrun his discretion. It's not good business to raise too great expectations, is it, now?" Austin, in his innocence, scarcely took in the meaning of all this. But it was clear enough that Mr Buskin was a great personage in his way, and extremely modest into the bargain. His interest was now very much excited, and he awaited eagerly what the communicative gentleman would say next. "I should think it would take," continued Mr Buskin, warming to his subject. "It's a most magnificent spectacle when it's properly done--as we do it. There's a scene in the third act--the Banquet in the Royal Palace--that's something you won't forget as long as you live. A gorgeous hall, brilliantly illuminated--the whole Court in glittering costumes--the tables covered with gold and silver plate. Peals of thunder, and a frightful tempest raging outside. In the midst of the revels a conspiracy breaks out--enter Pania, bloody--Sardanapalus assumes a suit of armour, and admires himself in a looking-glass--and then the rival armies burst in, and a terrific battle ensues----" "What, in the dining-room?" asked the astonished Austin. "Well, well, the poet allows himself a bit of licence there, I admit; but that only gives us an opportunity of showing what fine stage-management can do," said Mr Buskin complacently. "It's a magnificent situation. You'll say you never saw anything like it since you were born, you just mark my words." "It certainly must be very wonderful," remarked Austin. "But I'm afraid I'm rather ignorant of such matters. What _is_ 'Sardanapalus,' may I ask?" "What, never heard of Byron's 'Sardanapalus'?" exclaimed the actor, throwing up his hands. "Why, it's one of the finest things ever put upon the boards. Full of telling effects, and not too many bothering lengths, you know. The Poet Laureate, dear good man, worried my life out a year ago to let him write a play upon the subject especially for me. The part of Sardanapalus was to be devised so as to bring out all my particular--er--capabilities, and any little hints that might occur to me were to be acted upon and embodied in the text. But I wouldn't hear of it. 'Me dear Alfred,' I said, 'it isn't that I underrate your very well-known talents, but Byron's good enough for _me_. Hang it all, you know, an artist owes something to the classics of his country.' So now, if that uneasy spirit ever looks this way from the land of the eternal shades, he'll see something at least to comfort him. He'll see that one actor, at least, not unknown to Europe, has vindicated his reputation as a playwright in the face of the British public." Austin felt immensely flattered at such confidences being vouchsafed to him by the eminent exponent of Lord Byron, and said he was certain that the theatre would be crammed. Mr Buskin shrugged his shoulders, and replied he was sure he hoped so. "And now," he added, "I think I'll be walking back. And look you here, young gentleman. We've had a pleasant meeting, and I'd like to see you again. Just take this card"--scribbling a few words on it in pencil--"and the night you favour us with your presence in the house, come round and see me in me dressing-room between the acts. You've only to show that, and they'll let you in at once. I'd like your impressions of the thing while it's going on." Austin accepted the card with becoming courtesy, and offered his own in exchange. Mr Buskin shook hands in a very cordial manner, and the next moment was making his way rapidly in the direction of the town. "What a very singular gentleman," thought Austin, when he was once more alone. "I wonder whether all actors are like that. Scarcely, I suppose. Well, now I'm to have a glimpse of another new world. Mr St Aubyn has shown me one or two; what will Mr Buskin's be like? It's all extremely interesting, anyhow." Then he stumped along to the river side, giving a majestic twirl to his wooden leg with every step he took through the long grass. How he would have loved a bathe! The pool where he had so enjoyed himself with Lubin was not far off--the pool of Daphnis, as he had christened it; but he hesitated to venture in alone. So he lay down on the bank and watched the yellow water-lilies from afar, dreaming of many things. How clever Lubin was, and what a lot he knew! Why geese should dance for rain he couldn't even imagine; but the rain had actually come, and it was all a most suggestive mystery. How many other curious connections there must be among natural occurrences that nobody ever dreamt of! It was in the country one learnt about such things; in the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers. Nature was the great school, after all. History and geography were all very well in their way, but what food for the soul was there in knowing whether Norway was an island or a peninsula, or on what date some silly king had had his crown put on? What did it matter, after all? Those were the facts he despised; facts that had no significance for him whatever, that left him exactly as they found him first. The sky and the birds and the flowers taught him lessons that were worth more than all the histories and geographies that were ever written. The schoolroom was a desert, arid and unsatisfying; whereas the garden, the enclosed space which held stained cups of beauty and purple gold-eyed bells, that was a jewelled sanctuary. Lubin was nearer the heart of things than Freeman and Macaulay, though they would have disdained him as a clod. Virgil and Theocritus were greater philosophers than either Comte or Hegel. Daphnis and Corydon represented the finest flower, the purest type of human evolution, and Herbert Spencer was nothing better than a particularly silly old man. Having disposed of the education question thus conclusively, it occurred to Austin that it must be about time for tea; so he struggled to his legs and turned his footsteps homeward. Just as he arrived at the house he met Lubin outside the gate with a wheelbarrow. "Off already?" he asked. "Ay," said Lubin. "I say, Master Austin, there's something I want to tell you. I see a magpie not an hour ago!" "A magpie? I don't think I ever saw one in my life. What was it like?" enquired Austin. "Don't matter what it was like," replied Lubin, sententiously. "But it was just outside your bedroom window. You'd better be on the look-out." "What for?" asked Austin. "Did it say it was coming back?" "'Tain't nothing to laugh at," said Lubin, nodding his head. "A magpie bodes ill-luck. That's well known, that is. So you just keep your eye open, that's all I've got to say. It's a warning, you see. Did ye never hear that before?" Austin's first impulse was to laugh; then he remembered the dancing goose, and the rain which followed in due course. "All right, Lubin," he said cheerfully. "I'm not afraid of magpies; I don't think they're very dangerous. But I _have_ heard that they've a fancy for silver spoons, so I'll tell Aunt Charlotte to lock the plate up safely before she goes to bed." As he had expected, Aunt Charlotte was much pleased at hearing of his encounter with Mr Buskin, who, she thought, must be a most delightful person. It would be so good, too, for Austin to see something of the gay world instead of always mooning about alone; and then he would be sure to meet other young people at the performance, friends from the neighbouring town, with whom he could talk and be sociable. Austin, on his side, was quite willing to go and be amused, though he felt, perhaps, more interested in what promised to be an entirely new experience than excited at the prospect of a treat. He wanted to see and to study, and then he would be able to judge. "By the way, Austin," said his aunt, as they were separating for the night a few hours later, "I want you to go into the town to-morrow and tell Snewin to send a man up at once to look at the roof. I'm afraid it's been in rather a bad state for some time past, and those heavy rains we had last week seem to have damaged it still more. Be sure you don't forget. It won't do to have a leaky roof over our heads; it might come tumbling down, and cost a mint of money to put right again." Austin gave the required promise, and thought no more about it. He also forgot entirely to tell his aunt she had better lock up the spoons with particular care that night because Lubin had seen a magpie in suspicious proximity to his window. He went straight up to his room, feeling rather sleepy, and bent on getting between the sheets as soon as possible. But just as he was putting on his nightgown, a light pattering sound attracted his attention, and he immediately became all ears. "Rain?" he exclaimed. "Why, there wasn't a sign of it an hour ago!" He drew up the blind and looked out. The sky was perfectly clear, and a brilliant moon was shining. "That's queer!" he murmured. "I could have sworn I heard it raining. What in the world could it have been?" He turned away and put out the candle. As he approached the bed a curious disinclination to get into it came over him. Then he heard the same pattering noise again. He stopped short, and listened more attentively. It seemed to come from the walls. A shower of raps, rather like tiny explosions, now sounded all around him. He leant his head against the wall, and the sound became distincter. This time there was no mistake about it. He had never heard anything like it in his life. He was quite cool, not in the least frightened, and very much on the alert. The raps continued at intervals for about five minutes. Then, seeing that it was impossible to solve the mystery, he suddenly jumped into bed. At that moment the raps ceased. For nearly an hour he lay awake, wondering. Certainly he had not been the victim of hallucination. He was in perfect health, and in full possession of all his faculties. Indeed his faculties were particularly alive; he had been thinking of something else altogether when the raps first forced themselves upon his consciousness, and afterwards he had listened to them for several minutes with close and critical attention. No explanation of the strange phenomenon suggested itself in spite of endless theories and speculations. Could it be mice? But mice only gnawed and scuttled about; they did not rap. It was more like crackling than anything else; the noise produced by thousands of faint discharges. No, it was inexplicable, and he wondered more and more. Gradually he fell asleep. How long he slept he didn't know, but he awoke with a sensation of cold. Instinctively he put out his hand to pull the coverings closer over him, and found that they seemed to have slipped down somehow, leaving his chest exposed. Then, warm again, he dozed off once more and dreamt that he was at the pool of Daphnis with Lubin. How cool and blue the water looked, and how lovely the plunge would be! But when he was stripped the weather suddenly changed; a chill wind sprang up which made his teeth chatter; and then Lubin--who somehow wasn't Lubin but had unaccountably turned into Mr Buskin--insisted on throwing him into the water, which now looked cold and black. He struggled furiously, and awoke shivering. There was not a rag upon him. Again he stretched out his hand to feel for the clothes, but they had disappeared. Instinctively he threw himself out of bed and flung open the shutters. The moon had set, and the first faint gleams of approaching dawn filtered into the room, showing, to his amazement, the bedclothes drawn completely away from the mattress and hanging over the rail at the foot, so as to be quite out of the reach of his hand as he had lain there. What on earth was the matter with the bed? Was it bewitched? Who had uncovered him in that unceremonious way, leaving him perished with cold? No wonder he had dreamt of that chilly wind, numbing his body as he stood naked by the pool. Had he by any chance kicked the coverlet off in his sleep, as he engaged in that dream-struggle with the absurdly impossible Buskin-Lubin who had attempted to pitch him into the dark water? Clearly not; for that would not account for the sheet and blanket being dragged so carefully out of the range of his hands, and hung over the foot-rail so that they touched the floor. Such were the thoughts that flashed through his mind as he stood motionless by the window, with wide open eyes, in the chill morning light. Suddenly a rending, bursting noise was heard in the ceiling. The crack widened into a chasm, and then, with a heavy thud, down fell a confused mass of old bricks, crumbling mortar, and rotten, worm-eaten wood full on the mattress he had just relinquished, scattering pulverised rubble in all directions, and covering the bed with a layer of horrible dust and _débris_. Chapter the Sixth Had her very life depended on it, old Martha would have been totally unable to give any coherent account of what she felt, said, or did, when she came into Master Austin's room that morning at half-past seven with his hot water. She thought she must have screamed, but such was her bewilderment and terror she really could not remember whether she did or no. But she never had any doubt as to what she saw. Instead of a fair white bed with Austin lying in it, she was confronted by the sight of a gaping hole in the roof, something that looked like a rubbish heap in a brickfield immediately underneath, and the long slender form of Austin himself wrapped in a comfortable wadded dressing-gown fast asleep upon the sofa. "Bless us and save us!" she ejaculated under her breath. "And to think that the boy's lived through it!" Austin, roused by her entrance, yawned, stretched himself, and lazily opened his eyes. "Is that you already, Martha?" he said. "Oh, how sleepy I am. Is it really half-past seven?" "But what does it all mean--how it is you're not killed?" cried Martha, putting down the jug, and finding her voice at last. "The good Lord preserve us--here's the house tumbling down about our ears and never a one of us the wiser. And the man was to 'ave come this very day to see to that blessed roof. Come, wake up, do, Master Austin, and tell me how it happened." "Is Aunt Charlotte up yet?" asked Austin turning over on his side. "Ay, that she be, and making it lively for the maids downstairs. Whatever will she say when she hears about this to-do?" exclaimed Martha, with her hands upon her hips as she gazed at the desolation round her. "Well, please go down and ask her to come up here at once," said Austin. "I see I shall have to say something, and it really will be too much bother to go over it to everybody in turn. I've had rather a disturbed night, and feel most awfully tired. So just run down and bring her up as soon as ever you can, and then we'll get it over." "A pretty business--and me with forty-eleven things to do already to-day," muttered the old servant as she hurried out. "True it is that except the Lord builds the house they labour in vain as builds it. He didn't have no hand in building this one, that's as plain as I am--as never was a beauty at my best. Well, the child's safe, that's one mercy. Though what he was doing out of his bed when the roof came down's a mystery to _me_. Talking to the moon, I shouldn't wonder. The good Lord's got 'is own ways o' doing things, and it ain't for the likes of us to pick holes when they turn out better than the worst." Meanwhile Austin lay quietly and drowsily on his couch piecing things together. Seen from the distance of a few hours, now that he had leisure to reflect, how wonderfully they fitted in! First of all, there had been that sudden outburst of raps just as he was stepping into bed. That, evidently, was intended as a warning. It was as much as to say, "Don't! don't!" But of course he couldn't be expected to know this, and so he could only wonder where the raps came from, and get into bed as usual. Then, the instant he did so the raps ceased. That was because it wasn't any use to go on. The rappers, he supposed, had benevolently tried to frighten him away, and induce him to go and sleep on the sofa at the other end of the room where he was now; but the attempt had failed. So there was nothing for them to do, as he was actually in bed, but to get him out again; and this they had succeeded in doing by dragging all his clothes off. Now he saw it all. Nothing, it seemed to him, could possibly be clearer. But who were the unseen friends who had thus interposed to save his life? Ah, that was a secret still. Then footsteps were heard outside, and in bustled Aunt Charlotte, with Martha chattering in her wake. Austin raised himself upon his cushions, and then sank back again. "Lord save us!" cried Aunt Charlotte, coming to a dead stop, as she surveyed the ruins. "It's rather a mess, isn't it?" remarked Austin, folding a red table-cover round his single leg by way of counterpane. "A mess!" repeated Aunt Charlotte. "I should think it _was_ a mess. How in the world, Austin, did you manage to escape?" "Well--I happened to get out of bed a minute or two before the ceiling broke," said Austin, "and it's just as well I did. Otherwise my artless countenance would have got rather disfigured, and I might even have been hurt. You see all that raw material isn't composed of gossamer----" "What time did it occur?" asked Aunt Charlotte, shortly. "The dawn was just breaking. I suppose it must have been about four o'clock, but I didn't look at my watch," replied Austin. "I was too cold and sleepy." "Cold and sleepy!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "And the house collapsing over your head. You seem to have had time to pull the bedclothes away, though. That's very curious. What did you do that for?" "I didn't," replied Austin. "Then who did?" asked Aunt Charlotte, getting more and more excited. "I do wish you'd be a little more communicative, Austin; I have to drag every word out of you as though you were trying to hide something. Who hung the bedclothes over the footrail if you didn't?" "I can't tell you. I don't know. All I know is that I found them where they are now when I woke up, and I woke up because I was so cold. Then I got out of bed, and a minute afterwards down came all the bricks." "Do you mean to tell me----" began Aunt Charlotte, in her most scathing tones. "Certainly I do. Exactly what I _have_ told you. Why?" "Do you expect me to believe," resumed his aunt, "that somebody came into the room when you were asleep, and deliberately pulled off all your bedclothes for the fun of doing it? Am I to understand----" "My dear auntie, I am not an idiot, nor am I in the habit of perjuring myself," interrupted Austin. "I saw nobody come into the room, and I saw nobody pull off the clothes. If you really want to know what I 'expect you to believe,' I've already told you. I might tell you a little more, but then I shouldn't expect you to believe it, so what would be the good? It seems to me the best thing to do now is to send for Snewin to take away all this mess, move the furniture, and mend the hole in the ceiling. If once it begins to rain----" "Oh! You might tell me a little more, might you?" said Aunt Charlotte, bristling. "So you haven't told me everything after all. Now, then, never mind whether I believe it or not, that's my affair. What is there more to tell?" "Nothing," replied Austin. "Because it isn't only your affair whether you believe me or not; it's my affair as well. Why, you don't even believe what I've told you already! So I won't tax your credulity any further." Aunt Charlotte now began to get rather angry, "Look here, Austin," she said, "I intend to get to the bottom of this business, so it's not the slightest use trying to beat about the bush. I insist on your telling me how it was you happened to get out of bed just before the accident occurred, and how the bedclothes came to be pulled away and hung where they are now. There's a mystery about the whole thing, and I hate mysteries, so you'd better make a clean breast of it at once." "Had I?" said Austin, pretending to reflect. "I wonder whether it would be wise. You see, dear auntie, you're such a sensitive creature; your nerves are so highly strung, you're so easily frightened out of your dear old wits--" "Be done with all this nonsense!" snapped Aunt Charlotte brusquely. "Come, I can't stand here all day. Just tell me exactly what took place--why you woke up, and what you saw, and everything about it you remember." "Dear auntie, I don't want you to stand there all day; in fact I'd much rather you didn't stand there a minute longer, because I want to get up," Austin assured her earnestly. "I awoke because I had a horrid dream, caused by the cold which in its turn was produced by my being left with nothing on. And I didn't see anything, for the simple reason that the room was as dark as pitch. Is there anything else you want to know?" "Yes, there is. Everything that you haven't told me," said the uncompromising aunt. "Very well, then," said Austin, leaning upon his elbow and looking her full in the face. "But on one condition only--that you believe every word I say." "Of course, Austin, I should never dream of doubting your good faith," replied Aunt Charlotte. "But don't romance. Now then." "It's very simple, after all," began Austin. "Just as I was getting into bed a strange noise, like a shower of little raps, broke out all around me. It went on for nearly five minutes, and I was listening all the time and trying to find out what it was and where it came from. At the moment I had no clue, but now I fancy I can guess. Those raps were warnings. They--the rappers--were trying to prevent me getting into bed. They didn't succeed, of course, and so, just as the ceiling was on the point of giving way, they compelled me to get out of bed by pulling all the clothes off. If they hadn't, I should have been half killed. Now, what do you make of that?" "I knew it must be some nonsense of the sort!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, in her most vigorous tones. "Raps, indeed! I never heard such twaddle. Of course I don't doubt your word, but it's clear enough that you dreamt the whole thing. You always were a dreamer, Austin, and you're getting worse than ever. I don't believe you know half the time whether you're asleep or awake." "Did I dream _that_?" asked Austin, pointing to the bedclothes as they hung. "You dragged them there in your sleep, of course," retorted Aunt Charlotte triumphantly. "I see the whole thing now. You had a dream, you kicked the clothes off in your sleep, and then you got out of bed, still in your sleep----" "I didn't do anything of the sort," interrupted Austin. "I was wide awake the whole time. You see, auntie, I was here and you weren't, so I ought to know something about it." "It's no use arguing with you," replied Aunt Charlotte, loftily. "It's a clear case of sleep-walking--as clear as any case I ever heard of. And then all that nonsense about raps! Of course, if you heard anything at all--which I only half believe--it was something beginning to give way in the roof. There! It only requires a little common-sense, you see, to explain the whole affair. And now, my dear----" "Hush!" whispered Austin suddenly. "What's the matter?" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, not liking to be interrupted. "Listen!" said Austin, under his breath. A torrent of raps burst out in the wall immediately behind him, plainly audible in the silence. Then they stopped, as suddenly as they had begun. "Did you hear them?" said Austin. "Those were the raps I told you of. Hark! There they are again. I wish they would sound a little louder." A distinct increase in the sound was noticeable. "Oh, isn't it perfectly wonderful? Now, what have you to say?" Aunt Charlotte stood agape. It was no use pretending she didn't hear them. They were as unmistakable as knocks at a front door. "What jugglery is this?" she demanded, in an angry tone. "Really, dear auntie, I am not a conjurer," replied Austin, as he sank back upon his cushions. "That was what I heard last night. But of course _you_ don't believe in such absurdities. It's only your fancy after all, you know." "'Tain't _my_ fancy, anyhow," put in old Martha, speaking for the first time. "I heard 'em plain enough. 'Tis the 'good people,' for sure." "Hold your tongue, do!" cried Aunt Charlotte in sore perplexity. "Good people, indeed!--the devil himself, more likely. I tell you what it is, Austin----" "Why, I thought you weren't superstitious!" observed Austin, in a tone of most exasperating surprise. Three gentle knocks, running off into a ripple of pattering explosions, were then heard in a farther corner of the room. "There, don't you hear them laughing at you? Thank you, dear people, whoever you are, that was very kind. And it was awfully sweet of you to save me from those bricks last night. It _was_ good of them, wasn't it, auntie dear?" "If all this devilry goes on I shall take serious measures to stop it," gasped Aunt Charlotte, who was almost frightened to death. "I cannot and will not live in a haunted house. It's you who are haunted, Austin, and I shall go and see the vicar about it this very day. It's an awful state of things, positively awful. To think that you are actually holding communication with familiar spirits! The vicar shall come here at once, and I'll get him to hold a service of exorcism. I believe there is such a service, and----" "Oh, do, do, _do_!" screamed Austin, clapping his hands with delight. "What fun it would be! Fancy dear Mr Sheepshanks, in all his tippets and toggery, ambling and capering round poor me, and trying to drive the devil out of me with a broomful of holy water! That's a lovely idea of yours, auntie. Lubin shall come and be an acolyte, and we'll get Mr Buskin to be stage-manager, and you shall be the pew-opener. And then I'll empty the holy-water pot over dear Mr Sheepshanks' head when he's looking the other way. You _are_ a genius, auntie, though you're too modest to be conscious of it. But you're very ungrateful all the same, for if it hadn't been for----" "There, stop your ribaldry, Austin, and get up," said Aunt Charlotte, impatiently. "The sooner we're all out of this dreadful room the better. And let me tell you that you'd be better employed in thanking God for your deliverance than in turning sacred subjects into ridicule." "Thanking God? Why, not a moment ago you said it was the devil!" exclaimed Austin. "How you do chop and change about, auntie. You can't possibly expect me to be orthodox when you go on contradicting yourself at such a rate. However, if you really must go, I think I _will_ get up. It must be long past eight, and I want my breakfast awfully." The day so excitingly ushered in turned out a busy one. As soon as he had finished his meal, Austin pounded off to invoke the immediate presence of Mr Snewin the builder, and before long there was a mighty bustle in the house. The furniture had all to be removed from the scene of the disaster, the bed cleared of the _débris_, preparations made for the erection of light scaffolding for repairing the roof, and Austin himself installed, with all his books and treasures, in another bedroom overlooking a different part of the garden. It was all a most enjoyable adventure, and even Aunt Charlotte forgot her terrors in the more practical necessities of the occasion. Just before lunch Austin snatched a few minutes to run out and gossip with Lubin on the lawn. Lubin listened with keen interest to the boy's picturesque account of his experiences, and then remarked, sagely nodding his head: "I told you to be on the look-out, you know, Master Austin. Magpies don't perch on folks' window-sills for nothing. You'll believe me a little quicker next time, maybe." For once in his life Austin could think of nothing to say in reply. To ask Lubin to explain the connection between magpies and misadventures would have been useless; it evidently sufficed for him that such was the order of Nature, and only a magpie would have been able to clear up the mystery. Besides, there are many such mysteries in the world. Why do cats occasionally wash their heads behind the ear? Clearly, to tell us that we may expect bad weather; for the bad weather invariably follows. These are all providential arrangements intended for our personal convenience, and are not to be accounted for on any cut-and-dried scientific theory. Lubin's erudition was certainly very great, but there was something exasperating about it too. So Austin went in to lunch thoughtful and dispirited, wondering why there were so many absurdities in life that he could neither elucidate nor controvert. He decided not to say anything to Aunt Charlotte about Lubin's magpie sciolisms, lest he should provoke a further outburst of the discussion they had held in the morning; he had had the best of that, anyhow, and did not care to compromise his victory by dragging in extraneous considerations in which he did not feel sure of his ground. Aunt Charlotte, on her side, was inclined to be talkative, taking refuge in the excitement of having work-men in the house from the uneasy feelings which still oppressed her in consequence of those frightening raps. But now that the haunted room was to be invaded by friendly, commonplace artisans from the village, and turned inside out, and almost pulled to pieces, there was a chance that the ghosts would be got rid of without invoking the aid of Mr Sheepshanks; a reflection that inspired her with hope, and comforted her greatly. "You know you're a great anxiety to me, Austin," she said, as, refreshed by food and wine, she took up her knitting after lunch. "I wish you were more like other boys, indeed I do. I never could understand you, and I suppose I never shall." "But what does that matter, auntie?" asked Austin. "I don't understand _you_ sometimes, but that doesn't make me anxious in the very least. Why you should worry yourself about me I can't conceive. What do I do to make you anxious? I don't get tipsy, I don't gamble away vast fortunes at a sitting, and although I'm getting on for eighteen I haven't had a single action for breach of promise brought against me by anybody. Now _I_ think that's rather a creditable record. It isn't everybody who can say as much." "I want you to be more _serious_, Austin," replied his aunt, "and not to talk such nonsense as you're talking now. I want you to be sensible, practical, and alive to the sober facts of life. You're too dreamy a great deal. Soon you won't know the difference between dreams and realities----" "I don't even now. No more do you. No more does anybody," interrupted Austin, lighting a cigarette. "There you are again!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, clicking her needles energetically. "Did one ever hear such rubbish? It all comes from those outlandish books you're always poring over. If you'd only take _my_ advice, you'd read something solid, and sensible, and improving, like 'Self Help,' by Dr Smiles. That would be of some use to you, but these others----" "I read a whole chapter of it once," said Austin. "I can scarcely believe it myself, but I did. It's the most immoral, sordid, selfish book that was ever printed. It deifies Success--success in money-making--success of the coarsest and most materialistic kind. It is absolutely unspiritual and degrading. It nearly made me sick." "Be silent!" cried Aunt Charlotte, horrified. "How dare you talk like that? I will not sit still and hear you say such things. Few books have had a greater influence upon the age. Degrading? Why, it's been the making of thousands!" "Thousands of soulless money-grubbers," retorted Austin. "That's what it has made. Men without an idea or an aspiration above their horrible spinning-jennies and account-books. I hate your successful stockbrokers and shipowners and manufacturers. They are an odious race. Wasn't it a stockjobber who thought Botticelli was a cheese? Everyone knows the story, and I believe the hero of it was either a stockjobber or a man who made screws in Birmingham." Aunt Charlotte let her knitting fall on her lap in despair. "Austin," she said, in her most solemn tones, "I never regretted your poor mother's death as I regret it at this moment." "Why, auntie?" he asked, surprised. "Perhaps she would have understood you better; perhaps she might even have been able to manage you," replied the poor lady. "I confess that you're beyond me altogether. Do you know what it was she said to me upon her death-bed? 'Charlotte,' she said, 'my only sorrow in dying is that I shall never be able to bring up my boy. Who will ever take such care of him as I should?' You were then two days old, and the very next day she died. I've never forgotten it. She passed away with that sorrow, that terrible anxiety, tearing at her heart. I took her place, as you know, but of course I was only a makeshift. I often wonder whether she is still as anxious about you as she was then." "My dearest auntie, you've been an angel in a lace cap to me all my life, and I'm sure my mother isn't worrying herself about me one bit. Why should she?" argued Austin. "I'm leading a lovely life, I'm as happy as the days are long, and if my tastes don't run in the direction of selling screws or posting ledgers, nothing that anybody can say will change them. And I tell you candidly that if they were so changed they would certainly be changed for the worse. I hate ugly things as intensely as I love beautiful ones, and I'm very thankful that I'm not ugly myself. Now don't look at me like that; it's so conventional! Of course I know I'm not ugly, but rather the reverse (that's a modest way of putting it), and I pray to beloved Pan that he will give me beauty in the inward soul so that the inward and the outward man may be at one. That's out of the 'Phædrus,' you know--a very much superior composition to 'Self Help.' So cheer up, auntie, and don't look on me as a doomed soul because we're not both turned out of the same melting-pot. Now I'm just going upstairs to see to the arrangement of my new room, and then I shall go and help Lubin in the garden." So saying, he strolled out. But poor Aunt Charlotte only shook her head. She could not forget how Austin's mother had grieved at not living to bring up her boy, and wished more earnestly than ever that the responsibility had fallen into other hands than hers. There was something so dreadfully uncanny about Austin. His ignorance about the common facts of life was as extraordinary as his perfect familiarity with matters known only to great scholars. His views and tastes were strange to her, so strange as to be beyond her comprehension altogether. She found herself unable to argue with him because their minds were set on different planes, and her representations did not seem to touch him in the very least. And yet, after all, he was a very good boy, full of pure thoughts and kindly impulses and spiritual intuitions and intellectual proclivities which certainly no moralist would condemn. If only he were more practical, even more commonplace, and wouldn't talk such nonsense! Then there would not be such a gulf between them as there was at present; then she might have some influence over him for good, at any rate. Her thoughts recurred, uneasily, to the strange experiences of that morning. The mystery of the raps distracted her, puzzled her, frightened her; whereas Austin was not frightened at all--on the contrary, he accepted the whole thing with the serenest cheerfulness and _sang-froid_, finding it apparently quite natural that these unseen agencies, coming from nobody knew where, should take him under their protection and make friends with him. What could it all portend? Of course it was very foolish of the good lady to fret like this because Austin was so different from what she thought he should be. She did not see that his nature was infinitely finer and subtler than her own, and that it was no use in the world attempting to stifle his intellectual growth and drag him down to her own level. A burly, muscular boy, who played football and read 'Tom Brown,' would have been far more to her taste, for such a one she would at least have understood. But Austin, with his queer notions and audacious paradoxes, was utterly beyond her. Unluckily, too, she had no sense of humour, and instead of laughing at his occasionally preposterous sallies, she allowed them to irritate and worry her. A person with no sense of humour is handicapped from start to finish, and is as much to be pitied as one born blind or deaf. But Austin had his limitations too, and among them was a most deplorable want of tact. Otherwise he would never have said, as he was going to bed that night: "By the way, auntie, what day have you arranged for the vicar to come and cast all those devils out of me?" He might as well have let sleeping dogs lie. Aunt Charlotte turned round upon him in almost a rage, and solemnly forbade him, in any circumstances and under whatsoever provocation, ever to mention the subject in her presence again. Chapter the Seventh But by one of those curious coincidences that occur every now and then, who should happen to drop in the very next afternoon but the vicar himself, just as Austin and his aunt were having tea upon the lawn. Now Aunt Charlotte and the vicar were great friends. They had many interests in common--the same theological opinions, for example; and then Aunt Charlotte was indefatigable in all sorts of parish work, such as district-visiting, and the organisation of school teas, village clubs, and those rather formidable entertainments known as "treats"; so that the two had always something to talk about, and were very fond of meeting. Besides all this, there was another bond of union between them which scarcely anybody would have guessed. Mr Sheepshanks, though as unworldly a man as any in the county, considered himself unusually shrewd in business matters; and Aunt Charlotte, like many middle-aged ladies in her position, found it a great comfort to have a gentleman at her beck and call with whom she could talk confidentially about her investments, and who could be relied upon to give her much disinterested advice that he often acted on himself. On this particular afternoon the vicar hinted that he had something of special importance to communicate, and Aunt Charlotte was unusually gracious. He was a short gentleman, with a sloping forehead, a prominent nose, a clean-shaven, High-Church face, narrow, dogmatic views, and small, twinkling eyes; not the sort of person whom one would naturally associate with financial acumen, but endowed with an air of self-confidence, and a pretension to private information, which would have done credit to any stockbroker on 'Change. "I've been thinking over that little matter of yours that you mentioned to me the other day," he began, when he had finished his third cup, and Austin had strolled away. "You say your mortgage at Southport has just been paid off, and you want a new investment for your money. Well, I think I know the very thing to suit you." "Do you really? How kind of you!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "What is it--shares or bonds?" "Shares," replied Mr Sheepshanks; "shares. Of course I know that very prudent people will tell you that bonds are safer. And no doubt, as a rule they are. If a concern fails, the bond-holder is a creditor, while the shareholder is a debtor--besides having lost his capital. But in this case there is no fear of failure." "Dear me," said Aunt Charlotte, beginning to feel impressed. "Is it an industrial undertaking?" "I suppose it might be so described," answered her adviser, cautiously. "But it is mainly scientific. It is the outcome of a great chemical analysis." "Oh, pray tell me all about it; I am so interested!" urged Aunt Charlotte, eagerly. "You know what confidence I have in your judgment. Has it anything to do with raw material? It isn't a plantation anywhere, is it?" "It's gold!" said Mr Sheepshanks. "Gold?" repeated Aunt Charlotte, rather taken aback. "A gold mine, I suppose you mean?" "The hugest gold-mine in the world," replied the vicar, enjoying her evident perplexity. "An inexhaustible gold mine. A gold mine without limits." "But where--whereabouts is it?" cried Aunt Charlotte. "All around you," said the vicar, waving his hands vaguely in the air. "Not in any country at all, but everywhere else. In the ocean." "Gold in the ocean!" ejaculated the puzzled lady, dropping her knitting on her lap, and gazing helplessly at her financial mentor. "Gold in the ocean--precisely," affirmed that gentleman in an impressive voice. "It has been discovered that sea-water holds a large quantity of gold in solution, and that by some most interesting process of precipitation any amount of it can be procured ready for coining. I got a prospectus of the scheme this morning from Shark, Picaroon & Co., Fleece Court, London, and I've brought it for you to read. A most enterprising firm they seem to be. You'll see that it's full of very elaborate scientific details--the results of the analyses that have been made, the cost of production, estimates for machinery, and I don't know what all. I can't say I follow it very clearly myself, for the clerical mind, as everybody knows, is not very well adapted to grasping scientific terminology, but I can understand the general tenor of it well enough. It seems to me that the enterprise is promising in a very high degree." "How very remarkable!" observed Aunt Charlotte, as she gazed at the tabulated figures and enumeration of chemical properties in bewildered awe. "And you think it a safe investment?" "_I_ do," replied Mr Sheepshanks, "but don't act on my opinion--judge for yourself. What's the amount you have to invest--two thousand pounds, isn't it? Well, I believe that you'd stand to get an income to that very amount by investing just that sum in the undertaking. Look what they say overleaf about the cost of working and the estimated returns. It all sounds fabulous, I admit, but there are the figures, my dear lady, in black and white, and figures cannot lie." "I'll write to my bankers about it this very night," said Aunt Charlotte, folding up the prospectus and putting it carefully into her pocket. "It's evidently not a chance to be missed, and I'm most grateful to you, dear Mr Sheepshanks, for putting it in my way." "Always delighted to be of service to you--as far as my poor judgment can avail," the vicar assured her with becoming modesty. "Ah, it's wonderful when one thinks of the teeming riches that lie around us, only waiting to be utilised. There _was_ another scheme I thought of for you--a scheme for raising the sunken galleons in the Spanish main, and recovering the immense treasures that are now lying, safe and sound, at the bottom of the sea. Curious that both enterprises should be connected with salt water, eh? And the prospectus was headed with a most appropriate text--'The Sea shall give up her Dead.' That rather appealed to me, do you know. It cast an air of solemnity over the undertaking, and seemed to sanctify it somehow. However, I think the other will be the best. Well, Austin, and what are you reading now?" "Aunt Charlotte's face," laughed Austin, sauntering up. "She looks as though you had been giving her absolution, Mr Sheepshanks--so beaming and refreshed. Why, what's it all about?" "I expect you want more absolution than your aunt," said the vicar, humorously. "A sad useless fellow you are, I'm afraid. You and I must have a little serious talk together some day, Austin. I really want you to do something--for your own sake, you know. Now, how would you like to take a class in the Sunday-school, for instance? I shall have a vacancy in a week or two." "Austin teach in the Sunday-school! He'd be more in his place if he went there as a scholar than as a teacher," said Aunt Charlotte, derisively. "I don't know why you should say that," remarked Austin, with perfect gravity. "I think it would be delightful. I should make a beautiful Sunday-school teacher, I'm convinced." "There, now!" exclaimed the vicar, approvingly. Austin was standing under an apple-tree, and over him stretched a horizontal branch laden with ripening fruit. He raised his hands on either side of his head and clasped it, and then began swinging his wooden leg round and round in a way that bade fair to get on Aunt Charlotte's nerves. He was so proud of that leg of his, while his aunt abhorred the very sight of it. "No doubt they're all very charming boys, and I should love to tell them things," he went on. "I think I'd begin with 'The Gods of Greece'--Louis Dyer, you know--and then I'd read them a few carefully-selected passages from the 'Phædrus.' Then, by way of something lighter, and more appropriate to their circumstances, I'd give them a course of Virgil--the 'Georgics', because, I suppose, most of them are connected with farming, and the 'Eclogues,' to initiate them into the poetical side of country life. When once I'd brought out all their latent sense of the Beautiful--for I'm afraid it _is_ latent----" "But it's a _Sunday_-school!" interrupted the vicar, horrified. "Virgil and the Phædrus indeed! My dear boy, have you taken leave of your senses? What in the world can you be thinking of?" "Then what would you suggest?" enquired Austin, mildly. "You'd have to teach them the Bible and the Catechism, of course," said Mr Sheepshanks, with an air of slight bewilderment. "H'm--that seems to me rather a limited curriculum," replied Austin, dubiously. "I only remember one passage in the Catechism, beginning, 'My good child, know this.' I forget what it was he had to know, but it was something very dull. The Bible, of course, has more possibilities. There is some ravishing poetry in the Bible. Well, I can begin with the Bible, if you really prefer it, of course. The Song of Solomon, for instance. Oh, yes, that would be lovely! I'll divide it up into characters, and make each boy learn his part--the shepherd, the Shulamite, King Solomon, and all the rest of them. The Spring Song might even be set to music. And then all those lovely metaphors, about the two roes that were twins, and something else that was like a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Though, to be sure, I never could see any very striking resemblance between the objects typified and----" "Hold your tongue, do, Austin!" cried Aunt Charlotte, scandalised. "And for mercy's sake, keep that leg of yours quiet, if you can. You are fidgeting me out of my wits." Mr Sheepshanks, his mouth pursed up in a deprecating and uneasy smile, sat gazing vaguely in front of him. "I think it might be wise to defer the Song of Solomon," he suggested. "A few simple stories from the Book of Genesis, perhaps, would be better suited to the minds of your young pupils. And then the sublime opening chapters----" "Oh, dear Mr Sheepshanks! Those stories in Genesis are some of them too _risqués_ altogether," protested Austin. "One must draw the line somewhere, you see. We should be sure to come upon something improper, and just think how I should blush. Really, you can't expect me to read such things to boys actually younger than myself, and probably be asked to explain them into the bargain. There's the Creation part, it's true, but surely when one considers how occult all that is one wants to be familiar with the Kabbala and all sorts of mystical works to discover the hidden meaning. Now I should propose 'The Art of Creation'--do you know it? It shows that the only possible creator is Thought, and explains how everything exists in idea before it takes tangible shape. This applies to the universe at large, as well as to everything we make ourselves. I'd tell the boys that whenever they _think_, they are really _creating_, so that----" "I should vastly like to know where you pick up all these extraordinary notions!" interrupted the vicar, who could not for the life of him make out whether Austin was in jest or earnest. "They're most dangerous notions, let me tell you, and entirely opposed to sound orthodox Church teaching. It's clear to me that your reading wants to be supervised, Austin, by some judicious friend. There's an excellent little work I got a few days ago that I think you would like to see. It's called 'The Mission-field in Africa.' There you'll find a most remarkable account of all those heathen superstitions----" "Where is Africa?" asked Austin, munching a leaf. "There!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "That's Austin all over. He'll talk by the hour together about a lot of outlandish nonsense that no sensible person ever heard of, and all the time he doesn't even know where Africa is upon the map. What is to be done with such a boy?" "Well, I think we'll postpone the question of his teaching in the Sunday-school, at all events," remarked the vicar, who began to feel rather sorry that he had ever suggested it. "It's more than probable that his ideas would be over the children's heads, and come into collision with what they heard in church. Well, now I must be going. You'll think over that little matter we were speaking of?" he said, as he took a neighbourly leave of his parishioner and ally. "Indeed I will, and I'll write to my bankers to-night," replied that lady cordially. Then the vicar ambled across the lawn, and Austin accompanied him, as in duty bound, to the garden gate. Meanwhile, Aunt Charlotte leant comfortably back in her wicker chair, absorbed in pleasant meditation. The repairs to the roof would, no doubt, run into a little money, but the vicar's tip about this wonderful company for extracting gold from sea-water made up for any anxiety she might otherwise have experienced upon that score. What a kind, good man he was--and _so_ clever in business matters, which, of course, were out of her range altogether. She took the prospectus out of her pocket, and ran her eyes over it again. Capital, £500,000, in shares of £100 each. Solicitors, Messrs Somebody Something & Co., Fetter Lane, E.C. Bankers, The Shoreditch & Houndsditch Amalgamated Banking Corporation, St Mary Axe. Acquisition of machinery, so much. Cost of working, so much. Estimated returns--something perfectly enormous. It all looked wonderful, quite wonderful. She again determined to write to her bankers that very evening before dinner. "You're going to the theatre to-night, aren't you, Austin?" she said, as he returned from seeing Mr Sheepshanks courteously off the premises. "I want you to post a letter for me on your way. Post it at the Central Office, so as to be sure it catches the night mail. It's a business letter of importance." "All right, auntie," he replied, arranging his trouser so that it should fall gracefully over his wooden leg. "And I do wish, Austin, that you'd behave rather more like other people when Mr Sheepshanks comes to see us. There really is no necessity for talking to him in the way you do. Of course it was a great compliment, his asking you to take a class in the Sunday-school, though I could have told him that he couldn't possibly have made an absurder choice, and you might very well have contented yourself with regretting your utter unfitness for such a post without exposing your ignorance in the way you did. The idea of telling a clergyman, too, that the Book of Genesis was too improper for boys to read, when he had just been recommending it! I thought you'd have had more respect for his position, whatever silly notions you may have yourself." "I do respect the vicar; he's quite a nice little thing," replied Austin, in a conciliatory tone. "And of course he thinks just what a vicar ought to think, and I suppose what all vicars do think. But as I'm not a vicar myself I don't see that I am bound to think as they do." "You a vicar, indeed!" sniffed Aunt Charlotte. "A remarkable sort of vicar you'd make, and pretty sermons you'd preach if you had the chance. What time does this performance of yours begin to-night?" "At eight, I believe." "Well, then, I'll just go in and tell cook to let us have dinner a quarter of an hour earlier than usual," said Aunt Charlotte, as she folded up her work. "The omnibus from the 'Peacock' will get you into town in plenty of time, and the walk back afterwards will do you good." * * * * * The town in question was about a couple of miles from the village where Austin lived--a clean, cheerful, prosperous little borough, with plenty of good shops, a commodious theatre, several churches and chapels, and a fine market. Dinner was soon disposed of, and as the omnibus which plied between the two places clattered and rattled along at a good speed--having to meet the seven-fifty down-train at the railway station--he was able to post his aunt's precious letter and slip into his stall in the dress-circle before the curtain rose. The orchestra was rioting through a composition called 'The Clang o' the Wooden Shoon,' as an appropriate introduction to a tragedy the scene of which was laid in Nineveh; the house seemed fairly full, and the air was heavy with that peculiar smell, a sort of doubtfully aromatic stuffiness, which is so grateful to the nostrils of playgoers. Austin gazed around him with keen interest. He had not been inside a theatre for years, and the vivid description that Mr Buskin had given him of the show he was about to witness filled him with pleasurable anticipation. To all intents and purposes, the experience that awaited him was something entirely new; how, he wondered, would it fit into his scheme of life? What room would there be, in his idealistic philosophy, for the stage? Then the music came to an end in a series of defiant bangs, the curtain rolled itself out of sight, and a brilliant spectacle appeared. The only occupant of the scene at first was a gentleman in a thick black beard and fantastic garb who seemed to have acquired the habit of talking very loudly to himself. In this way the audience discovered that the gentleman, who was no less a personage than the Queen's brother, was seriously dissatisfied with his royal brother-in-law, whose habits were of a nature which did not make for the harmony of his domestic circle. Then soft music was heard, and in lounged Sardanapalus himself--a glittering figure in flowing robes of silver and pale blue, garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by a crowd of slaves and women all very elegantly dressed; and it really was quite wonderful to notice how his Majesty lolled and languished about the stage, how beautifully affected all his gestures were, and with what a high-bred supercilious drawl he rolled out his behests that a supper should be served at midnight in the pavilion that commanded a view of the Euphrates. And this magnificent, absurd creature--this mouthing, grimacing, attitudinising popinjay, thought Austin, was no other than Mr Bucephalus Buskin, with whom he had chatted on easy terms in a common field only a few days previously! The memory of the umbrella, the tight frock-coat, the bald head, the fat, reddish face, and the rather rusty "chimney-pot" here recurred to him, and he nearly giggled out loud in thinking how irresistibly funny Mr Buskin would look if he were now going through all these fanciful gesticulations in his walking dress. The fact was that the man himself was perfectly unrecognisable, and Austin was mightily impressed by what was really a signal triumph in the art of making up. The play went on, and Sardanapalus showed no signs of moral improvement. In fact, it soon became evident that his code of ethics was deplorable, and Austin could only console himself with the thought that the real Mr Buskin was, no doubt, a most virtuous and respectable person who never gave Mrs Buskin--if there was one--any grounds for jealousy. Then the first act came to an end, the lights went up, and a subdued buzz of conversation broke out all over the theatre. The second act was even more exciting, as Sardanapalus, having previously confessed himself unable to go on multiplying empires, was forced to interfere in a scuffle between his brother-in-law and Arbaces--who was by way of being a traitor; but the most sensational scene of all was the banquet in act the third, of which so glowing an account had been given to Austin by the great tragedian himself. That, indeed, was something to remember. "Guests, to my pledge! Down on your knees, and drink a measure to The safety of the King--the monarch, say I? The god Sardanapalus! mightier than His father Baal, the god Sardanapalus!" [_Thunder. Confusion._] Ah, that was thrilling, if you like, in spite of the halting rhythm. And yet, even at that supreme moment, the vision of the umbrella and the rather shabby hat would crop up again, and Austin didn't quite know whether to let himself be thrilled or to lean back and roar. The conspiracy burst out a few minutes afterwards, and then there ensued a most terrifying and portentous battle, rioters and loyalists furiously attempting to kill each other by the singular expedient of clattering their swords together so as to make as much noise as possible, and then passing them under their antagonists' armpits, till the stage was heaped with corpses; and all this bloody work entirely irrespective of the valuable glass and china on the supper-table, and the costly hearthrugs strewn about the floor. Even Sardanapalus, having first looked in the glass to make sure that his helmet was straight, performed prodigies of valour, and the curtain descended to his insatiable shouting for fresh weapons and a torrent of tumultuous applause from the gallery. "Now for it!" said Austin to himself, when another act had been got through, in the course of which Sardanapalus had suffered from a distressing nightmare. He took Mr Buskin's card out of his pocket, and, hurrying out as fast as he could manage, stumped his way round to the stage door. Cerberus would fain have stopped him, but Austin flourished his card in passing, and enquired of the first civil-looking man he met where the manager was to be found. He was piloted through devious ways and under strange scaffoldings, to the foot of a steep and very dirty flight of steps--luckily there were only seven--at the top of which was dimly visible a door; and at this, having screwed his courage to the sticking-place, he knocked. "Come in!" cried a voice inside. He found himself on the threshold of a room such as he had never seen before. There was no carpet, and the little furniture it contained was heaped with masses of heterogeneous clothes. Two looking-glasses were fixed against the walls, and in front of one of them was a sort of shelf, or dresser, covered with small pots of some ungodly looking materials of a pasty appearance--rouge, grease-paint, cocoa-butter, and heaven knows what beside--with black stuff, white stuff, yellow stuff, paint-brushes, gum-pots, powder-puffs, and discoloured rags spread about in not very picturesque confusion. In a corner of this engaging boudoir, sitting in an armchair with a glass of liquor beside him and smoking a strong cigar, was the most extraordinary and repulsive object he had ever clapped his eyes on. The face, daubed and glistening with an unsightly coating of red, white, and yellow-ochre paint, and adorned with protuberant bristles by way of eyebrows, appeared twice its natural dimensions. The throat was bare to the collar-bones. A huge wig covered the head, falling over the shoulders; while the whole was encircled by a great wreath of pink calico roses, the back of which, just under the nape of the neck, was fastened by a glittering pinchbeck tassel. The arms were nude, their natural growth of dark hair being plastered over with white chalk, which had a singularly ghastly effect; a short-skirted, low-necked gold frock, cut like a little girl's, partly covered the body, and over this were draped coarse folds of scarlet, purple, and white, with tinsel stars along the seams, and so disposed as to display to fullest advantage the brawny calves of the tragedian. "Great Scott, if it isn't young Dot-and-carry-One!" exclaimed Mr Sardanapalus Buskin, as the slim figure of Austin, in his simple evening-dress, appeared at the entrance. "Come in, young gentleman, come in. So you've come to beard the lion in his den, have you? Well, it's kind of you not to have forgotten. You're welcome, very welcome. That was a very pleasant little meeting we had the other day, over there in the fields. And what do you think of the performance? Been in front?" "Oh, yes--thank you so very much," said Austin, hesitatingly. "It is awfully kind of you to let me come and see you like this. I've never seen anything of the sort in all my life." "Ah, I daresay it's a sort of revelation to you," said Sardanapalus, with good-humoured condescension. "Have a drop of whiskey-and-water? Well, well, I won't press you. And so you've enjoyed the play?" "The whole thing has interested me enormously," replied Austin. "It has given me any amount to think of." "Ah, that's good; that's very good, indeed," said the actor, nodding sagely. "Do you remember what I was saying to you the other day about the educative power of the stage? That's what it is, you see; the greatest educative power in the land. How did that last scene go? Made the people in the stalls sit up a bit, I reckon. Ah, it's a great life, this. Talk of art! I tell you, young gentleman, acting's the only art worthy of the name. The actor's all the artists in creation rolled into one. Every art that exists conspires to produce him and to perfect him. Painting, for instance; did you ever see anything to compare with that Banqueting Scene in the Palace? Why, it's a triumph of pictorial art, and, by Jove, of architecture too. And the actor doesn't only paint scenes--or get them painted for him, it comes to the same thing--he paints himself. Look at me, for instance. Why, I could paint you, young gentleman, so that your own mother wouldn't know you. With a few strokes of the brush I could transform you into a beautiful young girl, or a wrinkled old Jew, or an Artful Dodger, or anything else you had a fancy for. Music, again--think of the effect of that slow music in the first act. There was pathos for you, if you like. Oratory--talk of Demosthenes or Cicero, Mr Gladstone or John Bright! Why, they're nowhere, my dear young friend, literally nowhere. Didn't my description of the dream just _fetch_ you? Be honest now; by George, Sir, it thrilled the house. Look here, young man"--and Sardanapalus began to speak very slowly, with tremendous emphasis and solemnity--"and remember what I'm going to say until your dying day. If I were to drink too much of this, I should be intoxicated; but what is the intoxication produced by whiskey compared with the intoxication of applause? Just think of it, as soberly and calmly as you can--hundreds of people, all in their right minds, stamping and shouting and yelling for you to come and show yourself before the curtain; the entire house at your feet. Why, it's worship, Sir, sheer worship; and worship is a very sacred thing. Show me the man who's superior to _that_, and I'll show you a man who's either above or below the level of human nature. Whatever he may be, I don't envy him. To-morrow morning I shall be an ordinary citizen in a frock-coat and a tall hat. To-night I'm a king, a god. What other artist can say as much?" So saying, Sardanapalus puffed up his cigar and swallowed another half-glass of liquor. The pungent smoke made Austin cough and blink. "It must indeed be an exciting life," he ventured; "quite delirious, to judge from what you say." "It requires a cool head," replied Sardanapalus, with a stoical shrug. "Ah! there's the bell," he added, as a loud ting was heard outside. "The curtain's going up. Now hurry away to the front, and see the last act. The scene where I'm burnt on the top of all my treasures isn't to be missed. It's the grandest and most moving scene in any play upon the stage. And watch the expression of my face," said Mr Buskin, as he applied the powder-puff to his cheeks and nose. "Gestures are all very well--any fool can be taught to act with his arms and legs. But expression! That's where the heaven-born genius comes in. However, I must be off. Good-night, young gentleman, good-night." He shook Austin warmly by the hand, and precipitated himself down the wooden steps. Austin followed, regained the stage-door, and was soon back in the dress-circle. But he felt that really he had seen almost enough. The last act seemed to drag, and it was only for the sake of witnessing the holocaust at the end that he sat it out. Even the varying "expressions" assumed by Sardanapalus failed to arouse his enthusiasm. He reproached himself for this, for poor Buskin rolled his eyes and twisted his mouth and pulled such lugubrious faces that Austin felt how pathetic it all was, and how hard the man was trying to work upon the feelings of the audience. But the flare-up at the end was really very creditable. Blue fire, red fire, and clouds of smoke filled the entire stage, and when Myrrha clambered up the burning pile to share the fate of her paramour the enthusiasm of the spectators knew no bounds. Calls for Sardanapalus and all his company resounded from every part of the house, and it was a tremendous moment when the curtain was drawn aside, and the great actor, apparently not a penny the worse for having just been burnt alive, advanced majestically to the footlights. Then all the other performers were generously permitted to approach and share in the ovation, bowing again and again in acknowledgment of the approbation of their patrons, and looking, thought Austin rather cruelly, exactly like a row of lacqueys in masquerade. This marked the close of the proceedings, and Austin, with a sigh of relief, soon found himself once more in the cool streets, walking briskly in the direction of the country. Well, he had had his experience, and now his curiosity was satisfied. What was the net result? He began sifting his sensations, and trying to discover what effect the things he had seen and heard had really had upon him. It was all very brilliant, very interesting; in a certain way, very exciting. He began to understand what it was that made so many people fond of theatre-going. But he felt at the same time that he himself was not one of them. For some reason or other he had escaped the spell. He was more inclined to criticise than to enjoy. There was something wanting in it all. What could that something be? The sound of footsteps behind him, echoing in the quiet street, just then reached his ears. The steps came nearer, and the next moment a well-known voice exclaimed: "Well, Austin! I hoped I should catch you up!" "Oh, Mr St Aubyn, is that you? How glad I am to see you!" cried the boy, grasping the other's hand. "This is a delightful surprise. Have you been to the theatre, too?" "I have," replied St Aubyn. "You didn't notice me, I daresay, but I was watching you most of the time. It amused me to speculate what impression the thing was making on you. Were you very much carried away?" "I certainly was not," said Austin, "though I was immensely interested. It gave me a lot to think about, as I told Mr Buskin himself when I went to see him for a few minutes behind the scenes. You know I happened to meet him a few days ago, and he asked me to--it really was most kind of him. By the way, he was just on his way to call upon you at the Court." "Well--and now tell me what you thought of it all. What impressed you most about the whole affair?" "I think," said Austin, speaking very slowly, as though weighing every word, "that the general impression made upon me was that of utter unreality. I cannot conceive of anything more essentially artificial. The music was pretty, the scenery was very fine, and the costumes were dazzling enough--from a distance; but when you've said that you've said everything. The situations were impossible and absurd. The speeches were bombast. The sentiment was silly and untrue. And Sardanapalus himself was none so distraught by his unpleasant dream and all his other troubles but that he was looking forward to his glass of whiskey-and-water between the acts. No, he didn't impose on me one bit. I didn't believe in Sardanapalus for a moment, even before I had the privilege of seeing and hearing him as Mr Buskin in his dressing-room. The entire business was a sham." "But surely it doesn't pretend to be anything else?" suggested St Aubyn, surprised. "Be it so. I don't like shams, I suppose," returned the boy. "Still, you shouldn't generalise too widely," urged the other. "There are plays where one's sensibilities are really touched, where the situations are not forced, where the performers move and speak like living, ordinary human beings, and, in the case of great actors, work upon the feelings of the audience to such an extent----" "And there the artificiality is all the greater!" chipped in Austin, tersely. "The more perfect the illusion, the hollower the artificiality. Of course, no one could take Sardanapalus seriously, any more than if he were a marionette pulled by strings instead of the sort of live marionette he really is. But where the acting and the situations are so perfect, as you say, as to cause real emotion, the unreality of the whole business is more flagrantly conspicuous than ever. The emotions pourtrayed are not real, and nobody pretends they are. The art, therefore, of making them appear real, and even communicating them to the audience, must of necessity involve greater artificiality than where the acting is bad and the situations ridiculous. There's a person I know, near where I live--you never heard of him, of course, but he's called Jock MacTavish--and he told me he once went to see a really very great actress do some part or other in which she had to die a most pathetic death. It was said to be simply heart-rending, and everybody used to cry. Well, the night Jock MacTavish was there something went wrong--a sofa was out of its place, or a bolster had been forgotten, or a rope wouldn't work, I don't know what it was--and the language that woman indulged in while she was in the act of dying would have disgraced a bargee. Jock was in a stage-box and heard every filthy word of it. Of course _he_ told me the story as a joke, and I was rather disgusted, but I'm glad he did so now. That was an extreme case, I know--such things don't occur one time in ten thousand, no doubt--but it's an illustration of what I mean when I say that the finer the illusion produced the hollower the sham that produces it." "You're a mighty subtle-minded young person for your age," exclaimed St Aubyn, with a good-humoured laugh. "I confess that your theory is new to me; it had never occurred to me before. For one who has only been inside a theatre two or three times in his life you seem to have elaborated your conclusions pretty quickly. I may infer, then, that you're not exactly hankering to go on the stage yourself?" "_I_?" said Austin, drawing himself up. "I, disguise myself in paint and feathers to be a public gazing-stock? Of course you mean it as a joke." "And yet there _are_ gentlemen upon the stage," observed St Aubyn, in order to draw him on. "So much the better for the stage, perhaps; so much the worse for the gentlemen," replied Austin haughtily. A pause. They were now well out in the open country, with the moonlit road stretching far in front of them. Then St Aubyn said, in a different tone altogether: "You surprise me beyond measure by what you say. I should have thought that a boy of your poetical and artistic temperament would have had his imagination somewhat fired, even by the efforts of the poor showman whom we've seen to-night. Now I will make you a confession. At the bottom of my heart I agree with every word you've said. I may be one-sided, prejudiced, what you will, but I cannot help looking upon a public performer as I look upon no other human being. And I pity the performer, too; he takes himself so seriously, he fails so completely to realise what he really is. And the danger of going on the stage is that, once an actor, always an actor. Let a man once get bitten by the craze, and there's no hope for him. Only the very finest natures can escape. The fascination is too strong. He's ruined for any other career, however honourable and brilliant." "Is that so, really?" asked Austin. "I cannot see where all this wonderful fascination comes in. I should think it must be a dreadful trade myself." "So it is. Because they don't know it. Because of the very fascination which exists, although you can't understand it. Let me tell you a story. I knew a man once upon a time--he was a great friend of mine--in the navy. Although he was quite young, not more than twenty-six, he was already a distinguished officer; he had seen active service, been mentioned in despatches, and all the rest of it. He was also, curiously enough, a most accomplished botanist, and had written papers on the flora of Cambodia and Yucatan that had been accepted with marked appreciation by the Linnæan Society. Well--that man, who had a brilliant career before him, and would probably have been an admiral and a K.C.B. if he had stuck to it, got attacked by the theatrical microbe. He chucked everything, and devoted his whole life to acting. He is acting still. He cares for nothing else. It is the one and only thing in the universe he lives for. The service of his country, the pure fame of scientific research and authorship, are as nothing to him, the merest dust in the balance, as compared with the cheap notoriety of the footlights." "He must be mad. And is he a success?" asked Austin. "Judge for yourself--you've just been seeing him," replied St Aubyn. "Though, of course, his name is no more Buskin than yours or mine." "Good Heavens!" cried the boy. "And Mr Buskin was--all that?" "He was all that," responded the other. "It was rather painful for me to see him this evening in his present state, as you may imagine. As to his being successful in a monetary sense, I really cannot tell you. But, to do him justice, I don't think he cares for money in the very least. So long as he makes two ends meet he's quite satisfied. All he cares about is painting his face, and dressing himself up, and ranting, and getting rounds of applause. And, so far, he certainly has his reward. His highest ambition, it is true, he has not yet attained. If he could only get his portrait published in a halfpenny paper wearing some new-shaped stock or collar that the hosiers were anxious to bring into fashion, he would feel that there was little left to live for. But that is a distinction reserved for actors who stand at the tip-top of their profession, and I'm afraid that poor Buskin has but little chance of ever realising his aspiration." "Are you serious?" said Austin, open-eyed. "Absolutely," replied St Aubyn. "I know it for a fact." "Well," exclaimed Austin, fetching a deep breath, "of course if a man has to do this sort of thing for a living--if it's his only way of making money--I don't think I despise him so much. But if he does it because he loves it, loves it better than any other earthly thing, then I despise him with all my heart and soul. I cannot conceive a more utterly unworthy existence." "And to such an existence our friend Buskin has sacrificed his whole career," replied St Aubyn, gravely. "What a tragedy," observed the boy. "Yes; a tragedy," agreed the other. "A truer tragedy than the imitation one that he's been acting in, if he could only see it. Well, here is my turning. Good-night! I'm very glad we met. Come and see me soon. I'm not going away again." Then Austin, left alone, stumped thoughtfully along the country road. The sweet smell of the flowery hedges pervaded the night air, and from the fields on either side was heard ever and anon the bleating of some wakeful sheep. How peaceful, how reposeful, everything was! How strong and solemn the great trees looked, standing here and there in the wide meadows under the moonlight and the stars! And what a contrast--oh, _what_ a contrast--was the beauty of these calm pastoral scenes to the tawdry gorgeousness of those other "scenes" he had been witnessing, with their false effects, and coloured fires, and painted, spouting occupants! There was no need for him to argue the question any more, even with himself. It was as clear as the moon in the steel-blue sky above him that the associations of the theatre were totally, hopelessly, and radically incompatible with the ideals of the Daphnis life. Chapter the Eighth It is scarcely necessary to say that Austin knew nothing whatever about his aunt's preoccupation, and that even if she had taken him into her confidence, he would have paid little or no attention to the matter. I am afraid that his ideas about finance were crude in the extreme, being limited to a sort of vague impression that capital was what you put into a bank, and interest was what you took out; while the difference between the par value of a security and the price you could get for it on the market, would have been to him a hopelessly unfathomable mystery. Aunt Charlotte, therefore, was very wise in abstaining from any reference, in conversation, to the great enterprise for extracting gold from sea-water, in which she hoped to purchase shares; for one could never have told what foolish remark he might have made, though it was quite certain that he would have said something foolish, and probably very exasperating. So she kept her secret locked up in her own breast, and silently counted the hours till she could get a reply from her bankers. Of course Austin had to give his aunt an account, at breakfast-time next morning, of the pageant of the previous night; and as he confined himself to saying that the scenery and dresses were very fine, and that Mr Buskin was quite unrecognisable, and that all the performers knew their parts, and that he had walked part of the way home with Roger St Aubyn afterwards, the impression left on the good lady's mind was that he had enjoyed himself very much. This inevitable duty accomplished, Austin straightway banished the whole subject from his memory and gave himself up more unreservedly than ever to his garden and his thoughts. How fresh and sweet and welcoming the garden looked on that calm, lovely summer day! How brightly the morning dewdrops twinkled on the leaves, like a sprinkling of liquid diamonds! Every flower seemed to greet him with silent laughter: "Aha, you've been playing truant, have you? Straying into alien precincts, roving in search of something newer and gaudier than anything you have here? Sunlight palls on you; gas is so much more festive! The scents of the fields are vulgar; finer the hot smells of the playhouse, more meet for a cultured nostril!" Of course Austin made all this nonsense up himself, but he felt so happy that it amused him to attribute the words to the dear flower-friends who were all around him, and to whom he could never be really faithless. Faugh! that playhouse! He would never enter one again. Be an actor! Lubin was a cleaner gentleman than any painted Buskin on the stage. Here, in the clear, pure splendour of the sunlit air, the place where he had been last night loomed up in his consciousness as something meretricious and unwholesome. Yet he was glad he had been, for it made everything so much purer and sweeter by contrast. Never had the garden looked more meetly set, never had the sun shone more genially, and the air impelled the blood and sent it coursing more joyously through his veins, than on that morning of the rejuvenescence of all his high ideals. Then he drew a small blue volume out of his pocket, and lay down on the grass with his back against the trunk of an apple-tree. Austin's theory--or one of his theories, for he had hundreds--was that one's literature should always be in harmony with one's surroundings; and so, intending to pass his morning in the garden, he had chosen 'The Garden of Cyrus' as an appropriate study. He opened it reverently, for it was compact of jewelled thoughts that had been set to words by one of the princes of prose. He, the young garden-lover, sat at the feet of the great garden-mystic, and began to pore wonderingly over the inscrutable secrets of the quincunx. His fine ear was charmed by the rhythm of the sumptuous and stately sentences, and his pulses throbbed in response to every measured phrase in which the lore of garden symmetry and the principles of garden science were set forth. He read of the hanging gardens of Babylon, first made by Queen Semiramis, third or fourth from Nimrod, and magnificently renewed by Nabuchodonosor, according to Josephus: "_from whence, overlooking Babylon, and all the region about it, he found no circumscription to the eye of his ambition; till, over-delighted with the bravery of this Paradise, in his melancholy metamorphosis he found the folly of that delight, and a proper punishment in the contrary habitation--in wild plantations and wanderings of the fields_." Austin shook his head over this; he did not think it possible to love a garden too much, and demurred to the idea that such a love deserved any punishment at all. But that was theology, and he had no taste for theological dissertations. So he dipped into the pages where the quincunx is "naturally" considered, and here he admired the encyclopædic learning of the author, which appeared to have been as wide as that attributed to Solomon; then glanced at the "mystic" part, which he reserved for later study. But one paragraph riveted his attention, as he turned over the leaves. Here was a mine of gold, a treasure-house of suggestiveness and wisdom. _"Light, that makes things seen, makes some things invisible; were it not for darkness and the shadow of the earth, the noblest part of the creation had remained unseen, and the stars in heaven as invisible as on the fourth day, when they were created above the horizon with the sun, or there was not an eye to behold them. The greatest mystery of religion is expressed by adumbration, and in the noblest part of Jewish types, we find the cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat. Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living. All things fall under this name. The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and light but the shadow of God."_ Austin delighted in symbolism, and these apparent paradoxes fascinated him. But was it all true? He loved to think that life was the shadow, and death--what we call death--the substance; he had always felt that the reality of everything was to be sought for on the other side. But he could not see why departed souls should be regarded as the shadows of living men. Rather it was we who lived in a vain show, and would continue to do so until the spirit, the true substance of us, should be set free. Well, whatever the truth of it might be, it was all a charming puzzle, and we should learn all about it some day, and meantime he had been furnished with an entirely new idea--the revealing power of darkness. He loved the light because it was beautiful, and now he loved the darkness because it was mysterious, and held such wondrous secrets in its folds. He had never been afraid of the dark even when a child. It had always been associated in his mind with sleep and dreams, and he was very fond of both. Of course it would have been no use attempting to instruct Lubin in the cryptic properties of the quincunx, or any other theories of garden arrangement propounded by Sir Thomas Browne. And Aunt Charlotte would have proved a still more hopeless subject. She had no head for mysticism, poor dear, and Austin often told her she was one of the greatest sceptics he had ever known. "You believe in nothing but your dinner, your bank-book, and your Bible, auntie; I declare it's perfectly shocking," he said to her one day. "And a very good creed too," she replied; "it wouldn't be a bad thing for you either, if you had a little more sound religion and practical common-sense." Just now it was the bank-book phase that was uppermost, and when a letter was brought in to her at breakfast-time next morning bearing the London postmark, she clutched it eagerly and opened it with evident anticipation. But as she read the contents her brow clouded and her face fell. Clearly she was disappointed and surprised, but made no remark to Austin. A couple of days passed without anything of importance happening, except that she wrote again to her bankers and looked out anxiously for their reply. But none came, and she grew irritable and disturbed. It really was most extraordinary; she had always thought that bankers were so shrewd, and prompt, and business-like, and yet here they were, treating her as though she were of no account whatever, and actually leaving her second letter without an answer. The affair was pressing, too. There was certain to be a perfect rush for shares in so exceptional an undertaking, and when once they were all allotted, of course up they'd go to an enormous premium, and all her chances of investing would be lost. It was too exasperating for words. What were the men thinking of? Why were they so neglectful of her interests? She had always been an excellent customer, and had never overdrawn her account--never. And now they were leaving her in the lurch. However, she determined she would not submit. She fumed in silence for yet another day, and then, at dinner in the evening, came out with a most unexpected declaration. "Austin," she said suddenly, after a long pause, "I'm going to town to-morrow by the 10.27 train." Austin was peeling an apple, intent on seeing how long a strip he could pare off without breaking it. "Won't it be very hot?" he asked absently. "Hot? Well, perhaps it will," said Aunt Charlotte, rather nettled at his indifference. "But I can't help that. The fact is that my bankers are giving me a great deal of annoyance just now, and I'm going up to London to have it out with them." "Really?" replied Austin, politely interested. "I hope they haven't been embezzling your money?" "Do, for goodness sake, pull yourself together and try not to talk nonsense for once in your life," retorted Aunt Charlotte, tartly. "Embezzling my money, indeed!--I should just like to catch them at it. Of course it's nothing of the kind. But I've lately given them certain instructions which they virtually refuse to carry out, and in a case of that sort it's always better to discuss the affair in person." "I see," said Austin, beginning to munch his apple. "I wonder why they won't do what you want them to. Isn't it very rude of them?" "Rude? Well--I can't say they've been exactly rude," acknowledged Aunt Charlotte. "But they're making all sorts of difficulties, and hint that they know better than I do----" "Which is absurd, of course," put in Austin, with his very simplest air. Aunt Charlotte glanced sharply at him, but there was not the faintest trace of irony in his expression. "I fancy they don't quite understand the question," she said, "so I intend to run up and explain it to them. One can do these things so much better in conversation than by writing. I shall get lunch in town, and then there'll be time for me to do a little shopping, perhaps, before catching the 4.40 back. That will get me here in ample time for dinner at half-past seven." "And what train do you go by in the morning?" enquired Austin. "The 10.27," replied his aunt. "I shall take the omnibus from the Peacock that starts at a quarter to ten." It cannot be said that Aunt Charlotte's projected trip to town interested Austin much. Business of any sort was a profound mystery to him, and with regard to speculations, investments, and such-like matters his mind was a perfect blank. He had a vague notion that perhaps Aunt Charlotte wanted some money, and that the bankers had refused to give her any; though whether she had a right to demand it, or they a right to withhold it, he had no more idea than the man in the moon. So he dismissed the whole affair from his mind as something with which he had nothing whatever to do, and spent the evening in the company of Sir Thomas Browne. At ten o'clock he went forth into the garden, and became absorbed in an attempt to identify the different colours of the flowers in the moonlight. It proved a fascinating occupation, for the pale, cold brightness imparted hues to the flowers that were strange and weird, so that it was a matter of real difficulty to say what the colours actually were. Then he wondered how it was he had never before discovered what an inspiring thing it was to wander all alone at night about a garden illuminated by a brilliant moon. The shadows were so black and secret, the radiance so spiritual, the shapes so startlingly fantastic, it was like being in another world. And then the silence. That was the most compelling charm of all. It helped him to feel. And he felt that he was not alone, though he heard nothing and saw nobody. The garden was full of flower-fairies, invisible elves and sprites whose mission it was to guard the flowers, and who loved the moonlight more than they loved the day; dainty, diaphanous creatures who were wafted across the smooth lawns on summer breezes, and washed the thirsty petals and drooping leaves in the dew which the clear blue air of night diffuses so abundantly. He had a sense--almost a knowledge--that the garden he was in was a dream-garden, a sort of panoramic phantasm, and that the real garden lay _behind_ it somehow, hidden from material eyesight, eluding material touch, but there all the same, unearthly and elysian, more beautiful a great deal than the one in which he was standing, and teeming with gracious presences. It seemed a revelation to him, this sudden perception of a real world underlying the apparent one; and for nearly half-an-hour he sauntered to and fro in a reverie, leaning sometimes against the old stone fountain, and sometimes watching the pale clouds as they began flitting together as though to keep a rendezvous in space, until they concealed the face of the moon entirely from view and left the garden dark. * * * * * Whether Austin had strange dreams that night or no, certain it is that when he came down to breakfast in the morning his face was set and there was a look of unusual preoccupation in his eyes. Aunt Charlotte, being considerably preoccupied with her own affairs, noticed nothing, and busied herself with the teapot as was her wont. Austin chipped his egg in silence, while his auntie, helping herself generously to fried bacon, made some remark about the desirability of laying a good foundation in view of her journey up to town. Thereupon Austin said: "Is it absolutely necessary for you to go to town this morning, auntie?" "Of course it is," replied Aunt Charlotte, munching heartily. "I told you so last night." "Why can't you go to-morrow instead?" asked Austin, tentatively. "Would it be too late?" "I've arranged to go _to-day_," said Aunt Charlotte, with decision. "The sooner this business is settled the better. What should I gain by waiting?" "I don't see any particular hurry," said Austin. "It's only giving yourself trouble for nothing. If I were you I'd write what you want to say, and then go up to see these people if their answer was still unsatisfactory." "But you see you don't know anything about the matter," retorted Aunt Charlotte, beginning to wonder at the boy's persistency. "What in the world makes you want me not to go?" "Oh--I only thought it might prove unnecessary," replied he, rather lamely. "It's going to be very hot, and after all----" "It'll be quite as hot to-morrow," said Aunt Charlotte, as she stirred her tea. "Well, why not go by a later train, then?" suggested Austin. "Look here; go by the 4.20 this afternoon, and take me with you. We'll go to a nice quiet hotel, and have a beautiful dinner, and see some of the sights, and then you'd have all to-morrow morning to do your business with these horrid old gentlemen at the bank. Now don't you think that's rather a good idea?" "I--dare--_say_!" cried Aunt Charlotte, in her highest key. "So that's what you're aiming at, is it? Oh, you're a cunning boy, my dear, if ever there was one. But your little project would cost at least four times as much as I propose to spend to-day, and for that reason alone it's not to be thought of for a moment. What in creation ever put such an idea into your head?" "I don't want to come with you in the very least, really--especially as you don't want to have me," replied Austin. "But I do wish you'd give up your idea of going to London by the 10.27 this morning. If you'll only do that I don't care for anything else. Take the same train to-morrow, if you like, but not to-day. That's all I have to ask you." "But why--why--why?" demanded Aunt Charlotte, in not unnatural amazement. "I can't tell you why," said Austin. "It wouldn't be any use." "You are the very absurdest child I ever came across!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "I've often had to put up with your fancies, but never with any so outrageously unreasonable as this. Now not another word. I'm going to travel by the 10.27 this morning, and if you like to come and see me off, you're at perfect liberty to do so." Austin made no reply, and breakfast proceeded in silence. Then he glanced at the clock, and saw that it was ten minutes to nine. As soon as the meal was finished, he rose from his chair and moved slowly towards the door. "You still intend to go by the----" "Hold your tongue!" snapped his aunt. Whereupon Austin left the room without another word. Then he stumped his way upstairs and was not seen again. Aunt Charlotte, meanwhile, began preparations for her journey. It was now close on nine o'clock, and she had to order the dinner, see that she had sufficient money for her expenses, choose a bonnet for travelling in, and look after half-a-dozen other important trifles before setting out to catch the railway omnibus at the Peacock. At last Austin, waiting behind a door, heard her enter her room to dress. Very gently he stole out with something in his pocket, and two minutes afterwards was standing on the lawn with his straw hat tilted over his eyes, chattering with Lubin about tubers, corms, and bulbs, potting and bedding-out, and other pleasant mysteries of garden-craft. It was not very long, however, before a singular bustle was heard on the first floor. Maids ran scuttling up and down stairs, voices resounded through the open windows, and then came the sound of thumps, as of somebody vigorously battering at a door. Austin turned round, and began walking towards the house. He was met by old Martha, who seemed to be in a tremendous fluster about something. "Master Austin! Master Austin! Oh, here you are. What in the world is to be done? Your aunt's locked up in her bedroom, and nobody can find the key!" "Is that all?" answered Austin calmly. "Then she'll have to stay there till it turns up, evidently." "But the mistress says she's sure you know all about it," panted Martha, in great distress, "and she's in a most terrible taking. Now, Master Austin, I do beseech you--'tain't no laughing matter, for the omnibus starts in a few minutes, and your aunt----" A terrific banging was now heard from the locked-up room, accompanied by shouts and cries from the imprisoned lady. Austin advanced to the foot of the staircase, looking rather white, and listened. "Austin! Austin! Where are you? What have you done with the key?" shrieked Aunt Charlotte, in a tempest of despair and rage. "Let me out, I say, let me out at once! It's you who have done this, I know it is. Open the door, or I shall lose the train!" A fresh bombardment from the lady's fists here followed. "Where _is_ Austin, Martha? Can't you find him anywhere?" "He's here, ma'am," cried back Martha, in quavering tones, "but he don't seem as if----" "Call Lubin with a ladder!" interrupted the desperate lady. "I must catch the omnibus, if I break all my bones in getting out of the window. Where's Lubin? Isn't there a ladder tall enough? Austin! Austin! Where _is_ Austin, and why doesn't he open the door?" "He was here not a moment ago," replied Martha, tremulously, "but where he's got to now, or where he's put the key, the Lord only knows. Perhaps he's gone to see about a ladder. Lubin! have you seen Master Austin anywhere?" But Austin, unobserved in the confusion, having stealthily glanced at his watch, had slipped out at the garden gate, and now stood looking down the road. The omnibus had just started, and for about thirty seconds he remained watching it as it lumbered and clattered along in a cloud of dust until it was lost to view. Then he went back to the house, and handed the key to Martha. "There's the key," he said. "Tell Aunt Charlotte I'm going for a walk, and I'll let her know all about it when I come back to lunch." He was out of the house in a twinkling, stumping along as hard as he could go until he reached the moors. He had played a daring game, but felt quite satisfied with the result so far, as he knew that there were no cabs to be had in the village, and that, even if his aunt were mad enough to brave a two-mile tramp along the broiling road, she could not possibly reach the station in time to catch the train. Now that the deed was done, a sensation of fatigue stole over him, and with a sigh of relief he flung himself down on the soft tussocks of purple heather, and covered his eyes with his straw hat. For half-an-hour he lay there motionless and deep in thought. No suspicion that he had acted wrongly disturbed him for a moment. Of course it was a pity that poor Aunt Charlotte should have been disappointed, and certainly that locking of her up in her bedroom had been a very painful duty; but if it was necessary--as it was--what else could he have done? No doubt she would forgive him when she understood his reasons; and, after all, it was really her own fault for having been so obstinate. It was now half-past ten, and Austin had no intention of getting home before it was time for lunch. He had thus the whole morning before him, and he spent it rambling about the moors, struggling up hills, revelling in the heat tempered by cool grass, and wondering how Daphnis would have behaved if he had had an unreasonable old aunt to take care of; for Aunt Charlotte was really a great responsibility, and dreadfully difficult to manage. Then, coming on a deep, clear rivulet which ran between two meadows, he yielded to a sudden impulse, and, stripping himself to the skin, plunged into it, wooden leg and all. There he floated luxuriously for a while, the sun blazing fiercely overhead, and the cool waters playing over his white body. When he emerged, covered with sparkling drops, he remembered that he had no towel; so there was nothing to be done but to stagger about and disport himself like a naked faun among the buttercups and bulrushes, until the sun had dried him. As soon as he was dressed, he looked at his watch, and found that it was nearly twelve. Then he consulted a little time-table, and made a rapid calculation. It would take him just half-an-hour to reach the station from where he was, and therefore it was high time to start. Off he set, and arrived there, as it seemed, at a moment of great excitement. The station-master was on the platform, in the act of posting up a telegram, around which a number of people--travellers, porters, and errand-boys--were crowding eagerly. Austin joined the group, and read the message carefully and deliberately twice through. He asked no questions, but listened to the remarks he heard around him. Then he passed rapidly through the booking-office, and struck out on his way home. Meantime Aunt Charlotte had passed the hours fuming. To her, Austin's extraordinary behaviour was absolutely unaccountable, except on the hypothesis that he was not responsible for his actions. Her rage was beyond control. That the boy should have had the unheard-of audacity to lock her up in her own bedroom in order to gratify some mad whim, and so have upset her plans for the entire day, was an outrage impossible to forgive. If he was not out of his mind he ought to be, for there was no other excuse for him that she could think of. What _was_ to be done with such a boy? He was too old to be whipped, too young to be sent to college, too delicate to be placed under restraint. But she would let him feel the full force of her indignation when he returned. He should apologise, he should eat his fill of humble pie, he should beg for mercy on his knees. She had put up with a good deal, but this last escapade was not to be overlooked. Even Martha, when she came in to lay the cloth for lunch, could think of nothing to say in extenuation of his offence. It was certainly two hours before her excitement allowed her to sit down and begin to knit. Even then--and naturally enough--while she was musing the fire burned. It never occurred to her to reflect that there must have been some _reason_ for Austin's extraordinary prank, and that the first thing to be done was to discover what that was. She was too angry to take this obvious fact into consideration, and so, when Austin at last appeared, his eyes full of suppressed excitement and his forehead bathed in sweat, her pent-up wrath found vent and she flamed out at him in a rage. For some minutes Austin stood quite silent while she stormed. If it made her feel better to storm, well, let her do it. Half-a-dozen times she demanded what he meant by his behaviour, and how he dared, and whether he had suddenly gone crazy, and then went on storming without waiting for his reply. Once, when he opened his mouth to speak, she sharply told him to shut it again. It was clear, even to Martha, that if Austin's conduct had been inexplicable, his aunt's was utterly absurd. "You've asked me several times what made me lock you up this morning," he said at last, when she paused for breath, "and each time you've refused to let me answer you. That's not very reasonable, you know. Now I've got something to tell you, but if you want to do any more raving please do it at once and get it over, and then I'll have my turn." "Will you go to your room this instant and stay there?" cried Aunt Charlotte, pointing to the door. "Certainly not," replied Austin. "And now I'll ask you to listen to me for a minute, for you must be tired with all that shouting." Aunt Charlotte took up her work with trembling hands, ostentatiously pretending that Austin was no longer in the room. "You wanted to go to town by the 10.27 train, and I took forcible measures to prevent you. It may therefore interest you to know what became of that train, and what you have escaped. There's been a frightful collision. The down express ran into it at the curve just beyond the signal station at Colebridge Junction, owing to some mistake of the signalman, I believe. Anyhow, in the train you wanted to go by there were five people killed outright, and fourteen others crunched up and mangled in a most inartistic style. And if I hadn't locked you up as I did you'd probably be in the County Hospital at this moment in an exceedingly unpleasant predicament." Dead silence. Then, "The Lord preserve us!" ejaculated Martha, who stood by, in awe-struck tones. Aunt Charlotte slowly raised her eyes from her knitting, and fixed them on Austin's face. "A collision!" she exclaimed. "Why, what do you know about it?" "I called at the station and read the telegram myself. There was a crowd of people on the platform all discussing it," returned Austin, briefly. "Your life has been saved by a miracle, ma'am, and it's Master Austin as you've got to thank for it," cried Martha, her eyes full of tears, "though how it came about, the good Lord only knows," she added, turning as though for enlightenment to the boy himself. Then Aunt Charlotte sank back in her chair, looking very white. "I don't understand it, Austin," she said tremulously. "It's terrible to think of such a catastrophe, and all those poor creatures being killed--and it's most providential, of course, that--that--I was kept from going. But all that doesn't explain what share _you_ had in it. You don't expect me to believe that you knew what was going to happen and kept me at home on purpose? The very idea is ridiculous. It was a coincidence, of course, though a most remarkable one, I must admit. A collision! Thank God for all His mercies!" "If it was only a coincidence I don't exactly see what there is to thank God for," remarked Austin, very drily. "'Twarn't no coincidence," averred old Martha, solemnly. "On that I'll stake my soul." "What was it, then?" retorted Aunt Charlotte. "Anyhow, Austin, there seems no doubt that, under God, it was what you did that saved my life to-day. But what made you do it? How could you possibly tell that you were preventing me from getting killed?" "I should have told you all that long ago if you weren't so hopelessly illogical, auntie," he replied. "But you never can see the connection between cause and effect. That was the reason I couldn't explain why I didn't want you to go, even before I locked you up. It wouldn't have been any use. You'd have simply laughed in my face, and have gone to London all the same." "I don't know what you mean. Don't beat about the bush, Austin, and worry my head with all this vague talk about cause and effect and such like. What has my being illogical got to do with it?" "Well--if you want me to explain, of course I'll do so; but I don't suppose it'll make any difference," said Austin. "Some time ago, I told you that just as I was going to get over a stile, I felt something push me back, and so I came home another way. You'll recollect that if I _had_ got over that stile I should have come across a rabid dog where there was no possibility of escape, and no doubt have got frightfully bitten. But when I told you how I was prevented, you scoffed at the whole story, and said that I was superstitious.--Stop a minute! I haven't finished yet.--Then, only the other day, my life was saved from all those bricks tumbling on me when I was asleep by just the same sort of interposition. Again you jeered at me, and when I told you I had heard raps in the wall you ridiculed the idea, and--do you remember?--the words were scarcely out of your mouth when you heard the raps yourself, and then you got nearly beside yourself with fright and anger, and said it was the devil. And now for the third time the same sort of thing has happened. What is the good of telling you about it? You'd only scoff and jeer as you did before, although on this occasion it is your own life that has been saved, not mine." Certainly Master Austin was having his revenge on Aunt Charlotte for the torrent of abuse she had poured upon him a few minutes previously. For a short time she sat quite still, the picture of perplexity and irritation. The facts as Austin stated them were incontrovertible, and yet--probably because she lacked the instinct of causality--she could not accept his explanation of them. There are some people in the world who are constituted like this. They create a mental atmosphere around them which is as impenetrable to conviction in certain matters as a brick wall is to a parched pea. They will fall back on any loophole of a theory, however imbecile and far-fetched, rather than accept some simple and self-evident solution that they start out by regarding as impossible. And Aunt Charlotte was a very apposite specimen of the class. "I'll not scoff, at anyrate, Austin," she said at last. "I cannot forget--and I never will forget--that it's to you I owe it that I am sitting here this moment. Tell me what moved you to act as you did this morning. I may not share your belief, but I will not ridicule it. Of that you may rest assured." "It is all simple enough," he said. "I had a horrid dream just before I woke--nothing circumstantial, but a general sense of the most awful confusion, and disaster, and terror. I fancy it was that that woke me. And as I was opening my eyes, a voice said to me quite distinctly, as distinctly as I am speaking now, '_Keep auntie at home this morning._' The words dinned themselves into my ears all the time I was dressing, and then I acted upon them as you know. But what would have been the good of telling you? None whatever. So I tried persuasion, and when that failed I simply locked you in." Now there are two sorts of superstition, each of which is the very antithesis of the other. The victim of one believes all kinds of absurdities blindfold, oblivious of evidence or causality. The upsetting of a salt-cellar or the fall of a mirror is to him a harbinger of disaster, entirely irrespective of any possible connection between the cause and the effect. A bit of stalk floating on his tea presages an unlooked-for visitor, and the guttering of a candle is a sign of impending death. All this he believes firmly, and acts upon, although he would candidly acknowledge his inability to explain the principle supposed to underlie the sequence between the omen and its fulfilment. It is the irrationality of the belief that constitutes its superstitious character, the contented acquiescence in some inconceivable and impossible law, whether physical or metaphysical, in virtue of which the predicted event is expected to follow the wholly unrelated augury. The other sort of superstition is that of which, as we have seen, Aunt Charlotte was an exemplification. Here, again, there is a splendid disregard of evidence, testimony, and causal laws. But it takes the form of scepticism, and a scepticism so blindly partial as to sink into the most abject credulity. The wildest sophistries are dragged in to account for an unfamiliar happening, and scientific students are accused, now of idiocy, now of fraud, rather than the fact should be confessed that our knowledge of the universe is limited. If Aunt Charlotte, for instance, had seen a table rise into the air of itself in broad daylight she would have said, "I certainly saw it happen, and as an honest woman I can't deny it; but I don't believe it for all that." The succession of abnormal occurrences, however, of which Austin had been the subject, had begun to undermine her dogmatism; and this last event, the interposition of something, she knew not what, to save her from a horrible accident, appealed to her very strongly. There was a pathos, too, about the part played in it by Austin which touched her to the quick, and she reproached herself keenly for the injustice with which she had treated him in her unreasoning anger. She felt a great lump come in her throat as he ceased speaking, and for a moment or two found it impossible to answer. "A voice!" she uttered at last. "What sort of a voice, Austin?" "It sounded like a woman's," he replied. Chapter the Ninth From this time forward Austin seemed to live a double life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he inhabited two worlds. Around him the flowers bloomed in the garden, Lubin worked and whistled, Aunt Charlotte bustled about her duties, and everything went on as usual. But beyond and behind all this there was something else. The dreams and reveries that had hitherto invaded him became felt realities; he no longer had any doubt that he was encircled by beings whom he could not see, but who were none the less actual for that. And the curious feature of the case was that it all seemed perfectly natural to him, and so far from feeling frightened, or suffering from any sense of being haunted, he experienced a sort of pleasure in it, a grateful consciousness of friendly though unseen companionship that heightened his joy in life. Who these invisible guardians could be, of course he had no idea; it was enough for him just then to know that they were there, and that, by their timely intervention on no fewer than three ocasions, they had given ample proof that they both loved and trusted him. Aunt Charlotte, on her side, could not but acknowledge that there must be "something in it," as she said; it could not all be nothing but Austin's fancy. She remembered that people who wrote hymns and poems talked sometimes of guardian angels, and it was possible that a belief in guardian angels might be orthodox. It was even conceivable that it was a benevolent functionary of this class who had let St Peter out of prison; and if the institution had existed then, why, there was nothing unreasonable in the conclusion that it might possibly exist now. She revolved these questionings in her mind during her journey up to town the day after Austin's escapade, when, as she told herself, she would be perfectly safe from accident; for it was not in the nature of things that two collisions should happen so close together. And she had reason to be glad she went, seeing that her bankers received her with perfect cordiality, and convinced her that she would certainly lose all her money if she insisted on investing it in any such wild-cat scheme as the one she had set her heart upon. They suggested, instead, certain foreign bonds on which she would receive a perfectly safe four-and-a-half per cent.; and so pleased was she at having been preserved from risking her two thousand pounds that she not only indulged in a modest half-bottle of Beaune with her lunch, but bought a pretty pencil-case for Austin. She determined at the same time to let the vicar know what her bankers had said about the investment he had urged upon her, and promised herself that she would take the opportunity--of course without mentioning names--of consulting him about the orthodoxy of guardian angels. He might be expected to prove a safer guide in such a matter as that than in questions of high finance. A few days afterwards, Austin went to call upon his friend St Aubyn. He longed to see the beautiful gardens at the Court again, now that he had obtained a glimpse into the mystic side of garden-craft through the writings of Sir Thomas Browne; he felt intensely curious to pay another visit to the haunted Banqueting Hall, which had a special fascination for him since his own abnormal experiences; and he felt that a confidential talk with Mr St Aubyn himself would do him no end of good. _There_ was a man, at anyrate, to whom he could open his heart; a man of high culture, wide sympathies, and great knowledge of life. He was shown into the big, dim drawing-room, where a faint perfume of lavender seemed to hang about, imparting to him a sense of quiet and repose that was very soothing; through the half-closed shutters the colours of the garden again gleamed brilliantly in the sunshine, and there was heard a faint liquid sound, as of the plashing of an adjacent fountain. St Aubyn entered in a few minutes, and greeted him very cordially. "Well, and what have you been about?" he said, after a few preliminaries had been exchanged. "Reading and dreaming, I suppose, as usual?" "I'm afraid I've done both, and very little else to speak of," replied Austin, laughing. "I'm always reading, off and on, without much system, you know. But if I'm rather desultory I always enjoy reading, because books give me so many new ideas, and it's delightful to have always something fresh to think about." "Yes, yes," rejoined St Aubyn. "I don't know what you read, of course, but it's clear you don't read many novels." "Novels!" exclaimed Austin scornfully. "How _can_ people read novels, when there are so many other books in the world?" "Well, what have you been reading, then?" enquired St Aubyn, lighting a cigarette. "I've been dipping into one of the most puzzling, fascinating, bothering books I ever came across," replied Austin, following his example. "I mean 'The Garden of Cyrus,' by Sir Thomas Browne. I can't follow him a bit, and yet, somehow, he drags me along with him. All that about the quincunx is most baffling. He seems to begin with the arrangement of a garden, and then to lead one on through a maze of arithmetical progressions till one finds oneself landed in a mystical philosophy of life and creation, and I don't know what all. If I could only understand him better I should probably enjoy him more." St Aubyn smiled. "Well, of course, it all sounds very fanciful," he said. "One must read him as one reads all those curious old mediæval authors, who are full of pseudo-science and theories based on fables. His great charm to me is his style, which is singularly rich and chaste. But I've no doubt whatever, myself, that a great deal of this ancient lore, which we have been accustomed to regard as so much sciolism, not to say pure nonsense, had a germ of truth in it, and that truth I believe we are gradually beginning to re-discover. You see, one mustn't always take the formulas employed by these old writers in their literal sense. Many were purely symbolic, and concealed occult meanings. Now the philosopher's stone, to take a familiar example, was not a stone at all. The word was no more than a symbol, and covered a search for one of the great secrets--the origin of life, or the nature of matter, or the attainment of immortality. They seem to us to have taken a very roundabout route in their investigations, but their object was often very much the same as that of every chemist and biologist of the present day. Take alchemy, again, which is supposed by people generally to have been nothing but an attempt to turn the baser metals into gold. According to the Rosicrucians, who may be supposed to have known something about it, alchemy was the science of guiding the invisible processes of life for the purpose of attaining certain results in both the physical and spiritual spheres. Chemistry deals with inanimate substances, alchemy with the principle of life itself. The highest aim of the alchemist was the evolution of a divine and immortal being out of a mortal and semi-animal man; the development, in short, of all those hidden properties which lie latent in man's nature." "That is a very valuable thing to know," observed Austin, greatly interested. "Every day I live, the more I realise the truth that everything we see is on the surface, and that there's a whole world of machinery--I can't think of a better term--working at the back of it. It's like a clock. The face and the hands are all we see, but it's the works inside that we can't see that make it go." "Excellently put," returned St Aubyn. "There are influences and forces all round us of which we only notice the effects, and how far these forces are intelligent is a very curious question. I see nothing unscientific myself in the hypothesis that they may be." "I wonder!" exclaimed Austin. "Do you know--I have had some very funny experiences myself lately, that can't be explained on any other ground that I can think of. The first occurred the very day that I was here first. Would you mind if I told you about them? Would it bother you very much?" "On the contrary! I shall listen with the greatest interest, I assure you," replied St Aubyn, with a smile. So Austin began at the beginning, and gave his friend a clear, full, circumstantial account of the three occurrences which had made so deep an impression on his mind. The story of the bricks riveted the attention of his hearer, who questioned him closely about a number of significant details; then he went on to the incident of Aunt Charlotte's proposed journey, the mysterious warning he had received, and the desperate measures to which he had been driven to keep her from going out. St Aubyn shouted with laughter as Austin gravely described how he had locked her up in her bedroom, and how lustily she had banged and screamed to be released before it was too late to catch the train. The sequel seemed to astonish him, and he fell into a musing silence. "You tell your story remarkably well," he said at last, "and I don't mind confessing that the abnormal character of the whole thing strikes me as beyond question. Any attempt to explain such sequences by the worn-out old theory of imagination or coincidence would be manifestly futile. Such coincidences, like miracles, do not happen. Many things have happened that people call miracles, by which they mean a sort of divine conjuring-trick that is performed or brought about by violating or annihilating natural laws. That, of course, is absurd. Nothing happens but in virtue of natural laws, laws just as natural and inherent in the universal scheme of things as gravitation or the precession of the equinoxes, _only_ outside our extremely limited knowledge of the universe. That, under certain conditions, such interpositions affecting physical organisms may be produced by invisible agencies is, in my view, eminently conceivable. It is purely a question of evidence." "I am so glad you think so," replied Austin. "It makes things so much easier. And then it's so pleasant to think that one is really surrounded by unseen friends who are looking after one. I was never a bit afraid of ghosts, and _my_ ghosts are apparently a charming set of people. I wonder who they are?" "Ah, that is more than I can tell you," answered the other, laughing. "I'm not so favoured as you appear to be. But come, let's have a stroll round the garden. You don't mind the sun, I know." "And the Banqueting Hall! I insist on the Banqueting Hall," added Austin, who now began to feel quite at home with his genial host. "I long to be in there again. I'm sure it's full of wonders, if one only had eyes to see." "By all means," smiled St Aubyn, as they went out. "You shall take your fill of them, never fear. Don't forget your hat--the sun's pretty powerful to-day. Doesn't the lawn look well?" "Lovely," assented Austin, admiringly. "Like a great green velvet carpet. How do you manage to keep it in such good condition?" "By plenty of rolling and watering. That's the only secret. Let's walk this way, down to the pool where the lilies are. There'll be plenty of shade under the trees. Do you see that old statue, just over there by the wall? That's a great favourite of mine. It always looks to me like a petrified youth, a being that will never grow old in soul although its form has existed for centuries, and the stone it's made of for thousands of thousands of years. That's an illustration of the saying that whom the gods love die young. Not that they die in youth, but that they never really grow old, let them live for eighty years or more, as we count time. They remain always young in soul, however long their bodies last. Perhaps that's what Isaiah had in his mind when he talked about a child dying at a hundred. _You'll_ never grow old, you know." "Shan't I? How nice," exclaimed Austin, brightly. "I certainly can't fancy myself old a bit. How funny it would be if one always preserved one's youthful shape and features, while one's skin got all cracked and rough and wrinkled like that old youth over there! The effect would be rather ghastly. But I don't want to grow old in any sense. I should like to remain a boy all my life. I suppose that in the other world people may live a thousand years and always remain eighteen. I'm nearly eighteen myself." St Aubyn could not help casting a glance of keen interest at the boy as he said this. A presentiment shot through him that that might actually be the destiny of the pure-souled, enthusiastic young creature who had just uttered the suggestive words. Austin's long, pale face, slender form, and bright, far-away expression carried with them the idea that perhaps he might not stay very long where he was. A sudden pang made itself felt as the possibility occurred to him, and he rapidly changed the subject. "I don't think I'd let my thoughts run too much on mystical questions if I were you, Austin," he said. "I mean in connection with these curious experiences you've been having. You have enough joy in life, joy from the world around you, to dispense with speculations about the unseen. All that sort of thing is premature, and if it takes too great a hold upon you its tendency will be to make you morbid." "It hasn't done so yet," replied Austin. "As far as I can judge of the other world, it seems quite as joyous and lively as this one, and in reality I expect it's a good deal more so. I don't hanker after experiences, as you call them, but hitherto whenever they've come they've always been helpful and agreeable--never terrifying or ghastly in the very least. And I don't lay myself out for them, you know. I just feel that there _is_ something near me that I can't see, and that it's pleasant and friendly. The thought is a happy one, and makes me enjoy the world I live in all the more." "Well, then, let us enjoy it together, and talk about orchids and tulips, and things we can see and handle," said St Aubyn, cheerfully. "How's Aunt Charlotte, for instance? Has she quite forgiven you for having saved her life?" "Oh, quite, I think," replied Austin, his eyes twinkling. "I believe she's almost grateful, for when she came back from town she presented me with a gold pencil-case. She doesn't often do that sort of thing, poor dear, and I'm sure she meant it as a sign of reconciliation. It's pretty, isn't it?" he added, taking it out of his pocket. "Charming," assented St Aubyn. "That bit of lapis lazuli at the top, with a curious design upon it, is by way of being an amulet, I suppose?" "H'm! I don't believe in amulets, you know," said Austin, nodding sagely. "I consider that all nonsense." "Yet there's no doubt that some amulets have influence," remarked St Aubyn. "If a piece of amber, for example, has been highly magnetised by a 'sensitive,' as very psychic persons are called, it is quite possible that, worn next the skin, a certain amount of magnetic fluid may be transmitted to the wearer, producing a distinct effect upon his vitality. There's nothing occult about that. The most thoroughgoing materialist might acknowledge it. But when it comes to spells, and all that gibberish, there, of course, I part company. The magical power of certain precious stones may be a fact of nature, but I see no proof of its truth, and therefore I don't believe in it." "And now may we go and look at the flowers?" suggested Austin. "Come along," returned St Aubyn. "What a boy you are for flowers! Do you know much of botany?" "No--yes, a little--but not nearly as much as I ought," said Austin, as they strolled through the blaze of colour. "I love flowers for their beauty and suggestiveness, irrespective of the classifications to which they may happen to belong. A garden is to me the most beautiful thing in the world. There's something sacred about it. Everything that's beautiful is good, and if it isn't beautiful it can't be good, and when one realises beauty one is happy. That's why I feel so much happier in gardens than in church." "Why, aren't you fond of church?" asked St Aubyn, amused. "A garden makes me happier," said Austin. "Religion seems to encourage pain, and ugliness, and mourning. I don't know why it should, but nearly all the very religious people I know are solemn and melancholy, as though they hadn't wits enough to be anything else. They only understand what is uncomfortable, just as beasts of burden only understand threats and beatings. I suppose it's a question of culture. Now I learn more of what _I_ call religion from fields, and trees, and flowers than from anything else. I don't believe that if the world had consisted of nothing but cities any real religion would ever have been evolved at all." "Crude, my dear Austin, very crude!" remarked St Aubyn, patting his shoulder as they walked. "There's more in religion than that, a great deal. Beware of generalising too widely, and don't forget the personal equation. Now, come and have a look at the orchids. I've got one or two rather fine ones that you haven't seen." He led the way towards the orchid-houses. Here they spent a delightful quarter of an hour, and it was only the thought of his visit to the Banqueting Hall that reconciled Austin to tearing himself away. St Aubyn seemed much diverted at his insistence, and asked him whether he expected to find the figures on the tapestry endowed with life and disporting themselves about the room for his entertainment. "I wish they would!" laughed Austin. "What fun it would be. I'm sure they'd enjoy it too. How old is the tapestry, by the way?" "It's fifteenth century work, I believe," replied St Aubyn. "Here we are. It really is very good of its kind, and the colours are wonderfully preserved." "It's lovely!" sighed Austin, as he walked slowly up the hall, feasting his eyes once more on the beautiful fabrics. "What a thing to live with! Just think of having all these charming people as one's daily companions. I shouldn't want them to come to life, I like them just as they are. If they moved or spoke the charm would be broken. Why don't you spend hours every day in this wonderful place?" "My dear boy, I haven't such an imagination as you have," answered St Aubyn, laughing. "But as a mere artist, of course I appreciate them as much as anyone, just as I appreciate statuary or pictures. And I prize them for their historical value too." Austin made no reply. He began to look abstracted, as though listening to something else. The sun had begun to sink on the other side of the house, leaving the hall itself in comparative shadow. "Don't you feel anything?" he said at last, in an undertone. "Nothing whatever," replied St Aubyn. "Do you?" "Yes. Hush! No--it was nothing. But I feel it--all round me. The most curious sensation. The room's full. Some of them are behind me. Don't you feel a wind?" "Indeed I don't," said St Aubyn. "There's not a breath stirring anywhere." They were standing side by side. Austin gently put out his right hand and grasped St Aubyn's left. "_Now_ don't you feel anything?" he asked. "Yes--a sort of thrill. A tingling in my arm," replied St Aubyn. "That's rather strange. But it comes from you, not from----" He paused. "It comes _through_ me," said Austin. They stood for a few seconds in unbroken silence. Then St Aubyn suddenly withdrew his hand. "This is unhealthy!" he said, with a touch of abruptness. "You must be highly magnetic. Your organism is 'sensitive,' and that's why you experience things that I don't." "Oh, why did you break the spell?" cried Austin, regretfully. "What harm could it have done you? You said yourself just now that nothing happens that isn't natural. And this is natural enough, if one could only understand the way it works." "Many things are natural that are not desirable," returned St Aubyn, walking up and down. "It's quite natural for people to go to sea, but it makes some of them sea-sick, nevertheless, and they had better stay on shore. It's all a matter of temperament, I suppose, and what is pleasant for you is something that my own instincts warn me very carefully to avoid." Austin drew his handkerchief across his eyes, as though beginning to come back to the realities of life. "I daresay," he said, vaguely. "But it's very restful here. The air seems to make me sleepy. I almost think--" At this point a servant appeared at the other end of the hall, and St Aubyn went to see what he wanted. The next moment he returned, with quickened steps. "Come away with you--you and your spooks!" he cried, cheerfully, taking Austin by the arm. "Here's an old aunt of mine suddenly dropped from the skies, and clamouring for a cup of tea. We must go in and entertain her. She's all by herself in the library." "I shall be very glad," said Austin. "You go on first, and I'll be with you in two minutes." So St Aubyn strode off to welcome his elderly relative, and when Austin came into the room he found his friend stooping over a very small, very dowdy old lady dressed in rusty black silk, with a large bonnet rather on one side, who was standing on tiptoe, the better to peck at St Aubyn's cheek by way of a salute. She had small, twinkling eyes, a wrinkled face, and the very honestest wig that Austin had ever seen; and yet there was an air and a style about the old body which somehow belied her quaint appearance, and suggested the idea that she was something more than the insignificant little creature that she looked at first sight. And so in fact she was, being no less a personage than the Dowager-Countess of Merthyr Tydvil, and a very great lady indeed. "But, my dear aunt, why did you never let me know that I might expect you?" St Aubyn was saying as Austin entered. "I might have been miles away, and you'd have had all your journey for nothing." "My dear, I'm staying with the people at Cleeve Castle, and I thought I'd just give 'em the slip for an hour or two and take you by surprise," answered the old lady as she sat down. "No, you needn't ring--I ordered tea as soon as I came in. They just bore me out of my life, you see, and they've got a pack o' riffraff staying with 'em that I don't know how to sit in the same room with. But who's your young friend over there? Why don't you introduce him?" "I beg your pardon!" said St Aubyn. "Mr Austin Trevor, a near neighbour of mine. Austin, my aunt, Lady Merthyr Tydvil." "Why, of course I know now," said the old lady, nodding briskly. "So you're Austin, are you? Roger was telling me about you not three weeks ago. Well, Austin, I like the looks of you, and that's more than I can say of most people, I can tell you. How long have you been living hereabouts?" "Ever since I can remember," Austin said. "Roger, do touch the bell, there's a good creature," said Lady Merthyr Tydvil. "That man of yours must be growing the tea-plants, I should think. Ah, here he is. I'm gasping for something to drink. Did the water boil, Richards? You're sure? How many spoonfuls of tea did you put in? H'm! Well, never mind now. I shall be better directly. What are those? Oh--Nebuchadnezzar sandwiches. Very good. That's all we want, I think." She dismissed the man with a gesture as though the house belonged to her, while St Aubyn looked on, amused. "I thought I should never get here," she continued. "The driver was a perfect imbecile, my dear--didn't know the country a bit. And it's not more than seven miles, you know, if it's as much. I was sure the wretch was going wrong, and if I hadn't insisted on pulling him up and asking a respectable-looking body where the house was I believe we should have been wandering about the next shire at this moment. I've no patience with such fools." "And how long are you staying at Cleeve?" asked St Aubyn, supplying her with sandwiches. "I've been there nearly a week already, and the trouble lasts three days more," replied his aunt, as she munched away. "The Duke's a fool, and she's worse. Haven't the ghost of an idea, either of 'em, how to mix people, you know. And what with their horrible charades, and their nonsensical round games, and their everlasting bridge, I'm pretty well at the end of my tether. Never was among such a beef-witted set of addlepates since I was born. The only man among 'em who isn't a hopeless booby's a Socialist, and he's been twice in gaol for inciting honest folks not to pay their taxes. Oh, they're a precious lot, I promise you. I don't know what we're coming to, I'm sure." "But it's so easy not to do things," observed St Aubyn, lazily. "Why on earth do you go there? I wouldn't, I know that." "Why does anybody do anything?" retorted the old lady. "We can't all stay at home and write books that nobody reads, as you do." Austin looked up enquiringly. He had no idea that St Aubyn was an author, and said so. "What, you didn't know that Roger wrote books?" said the old lady, turning to him. "Oh yes, he does, my dear, and very fine books too--only they're miles above the comprehension of stupid old women like me. Probably you've not a notion what a learned person he really is. I don't even know the names of the things he writes of." "And you never told me!" said Austin to his friend. "But you'll have to lend me some of your books now, you know. I'm dying to know what they're all about." "They're chiefly about antiquities," responded St Aubyn; "early Peruvian, Mexican, Egyptian, and so on. You're perfectly welcome to read them all if you care to. They're not at all deep, whatever my aunt may say." During this brief interchange of remarks, Lady Merthyr Tydvil had been gazing rather fixedly at Austin, with her head on one side like an enquiring old bird, and a puzzled expression on her face. "The most curious likeness!" she exclaimed. "Now, how is it that your face seems so familiar to me, I wonder? I've certainly never seen you anywhere before, and yet--and yet--who _is_ it you remind me of, for goodness' sake?" "I wish I could tell you," replied Austin, laughing. "Likenesses are often quite accidental, and it may be----" "Stuff and nonsense, my dear," interrupted the old lady, brusquely. "There's nothing accidental about this. You're the living image of somebody, but who it is I can't for the life of me imagine. What do you say your name is?" "My surname, you mean?--Trevor," replied Austin, beginning to be rather interested. "Trevor!" cried Lady Merthyr Tydvil, her voice rising almost to a squeak. "No relation to Geoffrey Trevor who was in the 16th Lancers?" "He was my father," said Austin, much surprised. "Why, my dear, my dear, he was a _great_ friend of mine!" exclaimed the old lady, raising both her hands. "I knew him twenty years ago and more, and was fonder of him than I ever let out to anybody. Of course it doesn't matter a bit now, but I always told him that if I'd been a single woman, and a quarter of a century younger, I'd have married him out of hand. That was a standing joke between us, for I was old enough to be his mother, and he was already engaged--ah, and a sweet pretty creature she was, too, and I don't wonder he fell in love with her. So you are Geoffrey's son! I can scarcely believe it, even now. But it's your mother you take after, not Geoffrey. She was a Miss--Miss----" "Her maiden name was Waterfield," interpolated Austin. "So it was, so it was!" assented the old lady, eagerly. "What a memory you've got, to be sure. One of Sir Philip Waterfield's daughters, down in Leicestershire. And her other name was Dorothea. Why, I remember it all now as though it had happened yesterday. Your father made me his confidante all through; such a state as he was in you never saw, wondering whether she'd have him, never able to screw up his courage to ask her, now all down in the dumps and the next day halfway up to the moon. Well, of course they were married at last, and then I somehow lost sight of them. They went abroad, I think, and when they came back they settled in some place on the other side of nowhere and I never saw them again. And you are their son Austin!" Interested as he was in these reminiscences, Austin could not help being struck with the wonderful grace of this curious old lady's gestures. In spite of her skimpy dress and antiquated bonnet, she was, he thought, the most exquisitely-bred old woman he had ever seen. Every movement was a charm, and he watched her, as she spoke, with growing fascination and delight. "It is quite marvellous to think you knew my parents," he said in reply, "while I have no recollection of either of them. My mother died when I was born, and my father a year or two later. What was my mother like? Did you know her well?" "She was a delicate-looking creature, with a pale face and dark-grey eyes," answered the old lady, "and you put me in mind of her very strongly. I didn't know her very well, but I remember your father bringing her to call on me when they were first engaged, and a wonderfully handsome couple they were. No doubt they were very happy, but their lives were cut short, as so often happens, leaving a lot of stupid people alive that the world could well dispense with. But I see you've lost one of your legs! How did that come about, I should like to know?" "Oh--something went wrong with the bone, and it had to be cut off," said Austin, rather vaguely. "Dear, dear, what a pity," was the old lady's comment. "And are you very sorry for yourself?" "Not in the least," said Austin, smiling brightly. "I've got quite fond of my new one." "You're quite a philosopher, I see," said the old lady, nodding; "as great a philosopher as the fox who couldn't reach the grapes, and he was one of the wisest who ever lived. And now I think I'll have another cup of tea, Roger, if there's any left. Give me two lumps of sugar, and just enough cream to swear by." The conversation now became more general, and Austin, thinking that the countess would like to be alone with her nephew for a few minutes before returning to the Castle, watched for an opportunity of taking leave. He soon rose, and said he must be going home. The old lady shook hands with him in the most cordial manner, telling him that in no case must he ever forget his mother--oblivious, apparently, of the fact that by no earthly possibility could he remember her; and St Aubyn accompanied him to the door. "You've quite won her heart," he said, laughingly, as he bade the boy farewell. "If she was ever in love with your father, she seems to have transferred her affections to you. Good-bye--and don't let it be too long before you come again." Austin brandished his leg with more than usual haughtiness as he thudded his way home along the road. He always gave it a sort of additional swing when he was excited or pleased, and on this particular occasion his gait was almost defiant. It must be confessed that, never having known either of his parents, he had not hitherto thought much about them. There was one small and much-faded photograph of his father, which Aunt Charlotte kept locked up in a drawer, but of his mother there was no likeness at all, and he had no idea whatever of her appearance. But now he began to feel more interest in them, and a sense of longing, not unmixed with curiosity, took possession of him. What sort of a woman, he wondered, could that unknown mother have been? Well, physically he was himself like her--so Lady Merthyr Tydvil had said; and so much like her that it was through that very resemblance that all these interesting discoveries had been made. Then his thoughts reverted to what Aunt Charlotte had told him about his mother's dying words, and how bitterly she had grieved at not living to bring him up herself. And yet she was still alive--somewhere--though in a world removed. Of course he couldn't remember her, having never seen her, _but she had not forgotten him_--of that he felt convinced. That was a curious reflection. His mother was alive, and mindful of him. He could not prove it, naturally, but he knew it all the same. He realised it as though by instinct. And who could tell how near she might be to him? Distance, after all, is not necessarily a matter of miles. One may be only a few inches from another person, and yet if those inches are occupied by an impenetrable wall of solid steel, the two will be as much separated as though an ocean rolled between them. On the other hand, Austin had read of cases in which two friends were actually on the opposite sides of an ocean, and yet, through some mysterious channel, were sometimes conscious, in a sub-conscious way, of each other's thoughts and circumstances. Perhaps his mother could even see him, although he could not see her. It was all a very fascinating puzzle, but there was some truth underlying it somewhere, if he could only find it out. Chapter the Tenth Austin returned in plenty of time to spend a few minutes loitering in the garden after he had dressed for dinner. It was a favourite habit of his, and he said it gave him an appetite; but the truth was that he always loved to be in the open air to the very last moment of the day, watching the colours of the sky as they changed and melted into twilight. On this particular evening the heavens were streaked with primrose, and pale iris, and delicate limpid green; and so absorbed was he in gazing at this splendour of dissolving beauty that he forgot all about his appetite, and had to be called twice over before he could drag himself away. "Well, and did you have an interesting visit?" asked Aunt Charlotte, when dinner was halfway through. "You found Mr St Aubyn at home?" Austin had been unusually silent up till then, being somewhat preoccupied with the experiences of the afternoon. He wanted to ask his aunt all manner of questions, but scarcely liked to do so as long as the servant was waiting. But now he could hold out no longer. "Yes--even more interesting than I hoped," he answered. "I had plenty of delightful chat with St Aubyn, and then a visitor came in. It's that that I want to talk about." "A visitor, eh?" said Aunt Charlotte, her attention quickening. "What sort of a visitor? A lady?" "Yes, an old lady," replied Austin, "who----" "Did she come in an open fly?" pursued Aunt Charlotte, helping herself to sauce. "Why, how did you know? I believe she did," said Austin. "She had driven over from Cleeve." "Well, then, I must have seen her," said Aunt Charlotte. "A queer-looking old person in a great bonnet. I happened to be walking through the village, and she stopped the fly to ask me the way to the Court, and I remember wondering who she could possibly be. I suppose it was she whom you met there." "What, was it _you_ she asked?" exclaimed Austin, opening his eyes. "She told us the driver didn't know the way, and that she'd enquired--oh dear, oh dear, how funny!" "What's funny?" demanded Aunt Charlotte, abruptly. "Oh, never mind, I can't tell you, and it doesn't matter in the least," said Austin, beginning to giggle. "Only I shouldn't have known it was you from her description." "Why, what did she say?" Aunt Charlotte was getting suspicious. "My dear auntie, she didn't know who you were, of course," replied Austin, "and she bore high testimony to the respectability of your appearance, that's all. Only it's so funny to think it was you. It never occurred to me for a moment." "What did she _say_, Austin?" repeated Aunt Charlotte, sternly. "I insist upon knowing her exact words. Of course it doesn't really matter what a poor old thing like that may have said, but I always like to be precise, and it's just as well to know how one strikes a stranger. It wasn't anything rude, I hope, for I'm sure I answered her quite kindly." The servant was out of the room. "No, auntie, I don't think it was rude, but it was so comic----" "Do stop giggling, and tell me what it was," interrupted Aunt Charlotte, impatiently. "Well, she only said you were a respectable-looking body," replied Austin, as gravely as he could. "And so you are, you know, auntie, though, perhaps, if I had to describe you I should put it in rather different words. I'm sure she meant it as a compliment." "Upon my word, I feel extremely flattered!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, reddening. "A respectable-looking body, indeed! Well, it's something to know I look respectable. And who was this very patronising old person, pray? Some old nurse or other, I should say, to judge by her appearance." "She was the Countess of Merthyr Tydvil, St Aubyn's aunt," said Austin, enjoying the joke. "The Countess of Merthyr Tydvil!" echoed Aunt Charlotte, amazed. "And she's staying with the Duke at Cleeve Castle," added Austin. "But that's not the point. Just fancy, auntie, she actually knew my father! She knew him before he was married, and they were tremendous friends. It all came out because she said I was so like somebody, and she couldn't think who it could be, and then she asked what my surname was, and so on, till we found out all about it. Wasn't it curious? Did you ever hear of her before?" "Indeed I never knew of her existence till this moment," answered Aunt Charlotte, beginning to get interested. "Your father had any number of friends, and of course we didn't know them all. Well, it is curious, I must say. But she didn't say you were like your father, did she?" "No--my mother," replied Austin. "She didn't know her much, but she remembers her very well. She said she was a very lovely person, too." "Your father was good-looking in a way," said Aunt Charlotte, falling into a reminiscent mood, "but not in the least like you. He used to go a great deal into society, and no doubt it was there he met this Lady Merthyr Tydvil, and any number of others. Did she tell you anything about him--anything, I mean, that you didn't know before?" "No, I don't think she did, except that she was very fond of him and would like to have married him herself. But as she was married already, and he was engaged to somebody else, of course it was too late." "What! She told you that?" cried Aunt Charlotte, scandalized. "What a shameless old hussy she must be!" "Not a bit of it," retorted Austin. "She's a sweet old woman, and I love her very much. Besides, she only meant it in fun." "Fun, indeed!" sniffed Aunt Charlotte, primly. "She may call me a respectable-looking body as much as she likes now. It's more than I can say for her." "Auntie, you _are_ an old goose!" exclaimed Austin, with a burst of laughter. "You never could see a joke. She called you a respectable-looking body, and you called her a queer old woman like a nurse. Now you say she's a shameless old hussy, and so, on the whole, I think you've won the match." Aunt Charlotte relapsed into silence, and did not speak again until the dessert had been brought in. Austin helped himself to a plateful of black cherries, while his aunt toyed with a peach. At last she said, in rather a hesitating tone: "Well, you've told me your adventures, so there's an end of that. But I've had a little adventure of my own this afternoon; though whether it would interest you to hear it----" "Oh, do tell me!" said Austin, eagerly. "An adventure--you?" "I'm not sure whether adventure is quite the correct expression," replied Aunt Charlotte, "and I don't quite know how to begin. You see, my dear Austin, that you are very young." "It isn't anything improper, is it?" asked Austin, innocently. "If you say such things as that I won't utter another word," rejoined his aunt. "I simply state the fact--that you are very young." "And I hope I shall always remain so," Austin said. "That being the case," resumed his aunt, impressively, "a great many things happened long before you were born." "I've never doubted that for a moment, even in my most sceptical moods," Austin assured her seriously. "Well, I once knew a gentleman," continued Aunt Charlotte, "of whom I used to see a great deal. Indeed I had reasons for believing that--the gentleman--rather appreciated my--conversation. Perhaps I was a little more sprightly in those days than I am now. Anyhow, he paid me considerable attention----" "Oh!" cried Austin, opening his eyes as wide as they would go. "Oh, auntie!" "Of course things never went any further," said Aunt Charlotte, "though I don't know what might have happened had it not been that I gave him no encouragement whatever." "But why didn't you? What was he like? Tell me all about him!" interrupted Austin, excitedly. "Was he a soldier, like father? I'm sure he was--a beautiful soldier in the Blues, whatever the Blues may be, with a grand uniform and clanking spurs. That's the sort of man that would have captivated you, auntie. Was he wounded? Had he a wooden leg? Oh, go on, go on! I'm dying to hear all about it." "That he had a uniform is possible, though I never saw him wear one, and it may have been blue for anything I know; but that wouldn't imply that he was in the Blues," replied his aunt, sedately. "No; the strange thing was that he suddenly went abroad, and for five-and-twenty years I never heard of him. And now he has written me a letter." "A letter!" cried Austin. "This _is_ an adventure, and no mistake. But go on, go on." "I never was more astounded in my life," resumed his aunt. "A letter came from him this afternoon. He recalls himself to my remembrance, and says--this is the most singular part--that he was actually staying quite close to here only a short time ago, but had no idea that I was living here. Had he known it he would most certainly have called, but as he has only just discovered it, quite accidentally, he says he shall make a point of coming down again, when he hopes he may be permitted to renew our old acquaintance." "Now look here, auntie," said Austin, sitting bolt upright. "Let him call, by all means, and see how well you look after being deserted for five-and-twenty years; but I don't want a step-uncle, and you are not to give me one. Fancy me with an Uncle Charlotte! That wouldn't do, you know. You won't give me a step-uncle, will you? Please!" "Don't be absurd, my dear; and do, for goodness' sake, keep that dreadful leg of yours quiet if you can. It always gives me the jumps when you go on jerking it about like that. Of course I should never dream of marrying now; but I confess I do feel a little curious to see what my old friend looks like after all these years----" "Your old admirer, you mean," interpolated Austin. "To think of your having had a romance! You can't throw stones at Lady Merthyr Tydvil now, you know. I believe you're a regular flirt, auntie, I do indeed. This poor young man now; you say he disappeared, but _I_ believe you simply drove him away in despair by your cruelty. Were you a 'cruel maid' like the young women one reads about in poetry-books? Oh, auntie, auntie, I shall never have faith in you again." "You're a very disrespectful boy, that's what _you_ are," retorted Aunt Charlotte, turning as pink as her ribbons. "The gentleman we're speaking of must be quite elderly, several years older than I am, and, for all I know, he may have a wife and half-a-dozen grown-up children by this time. You let your tongue wag a very great deal too fast, I can tell you, Austin." "But what's his name?" asked Austin, not in the least abashed. "We can't go on for ever referring to him as 'the gentleman,' as though there were no other gentlemen in the world, can we now?" "His name is Ogilvie--Mr Granville Ogilvie," replied his aunt. "He belongs to a very fine old family in the north. There have been Ogilvies distinguished in many ways--in literature, in the services, and in politics. But there was always a mystery about Granville, somehow. However, I expect he'll be calling here in a few days, and then, no doubt, your curiosity will be gratified." "Oh, I know what he'll be like," said Austin. "A lean, brown traveller, with his face tanned by tropic suns and Arctic snows to the colour of an old saddle-bag. His hair, of course, prematurely grey. On his right cheek there'll be a lovely bright-blue scar, where a charming tiger scratched him just before he killed it with unerring aim. I know the sort of person exactly. And now he comes to say that he lays his battered, weather-worn old carcase at the feet of the cruel maid who spurned it when it was young and strong and beautiful. And the cruel maid, now in the full bloom of placid maternity--I mean maturity----" "Hold your tongue or I'll pull your ears!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, scarlet with confusion. "You'll make me sorry I ever said anything to you on the subject. Mr Ogilvie, as far as I can judge from his letter, is a most polished gentleman. There's a quaint, old-world courtesy about him which one scarcely ever meets with at the present day. Just remember, if you please, that we're simply two old friends, who are going to meet again after having lost sight of each other for five-and-twenty years; and what there is to laugh about in that I entirely fail to see." "Dear auntie, I won't laugh any more, I promise you," said Austin. "I'm sure he'll turn out a most courtly old personage, and perhaps he'll have an enormous fortune that he made by shaking pagoda-trees in India. How do pagodas grow on trees, I wonder? I always thought a pagoda was a sort of odalisque--isn't that right? Oh, I mean obelisk--with beautiful flounces all the way up to the top. It seems a funny way of making money, doesn't it. Where is India, by the bye? Anywhere near Peru?" "Your ignorance is positively disgraceful, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, with great severity. "I only hope you won't talk like that in the presence of Mr Ogilvie. I expect you're right in surmising that he's been a great traveller, for he says himself that he has led a very wandering, restless life, and he would be shocked to think I had a nephew who didn't know how to find India upon the map. There, you've had quite as many cherries as are good for you, I'm sure. Let us go and see if it's dry enough to have our coffee on the lawn, while Martha clears away." Now although Austin was intensely tickled at the idea of Aunt Charlotte having had a love-affair, and a love-affair that appeared to threaten renewal, the fact was that he really felt just a little anxious. Not that he believed for a moment that she would be such a goose as to marry, at her age; that, he assured himself, was impossible. But it is often the very things we tell ourselves are impossible that we fear the most, and Austin, in spite of his curiosity to see his aunt's old flame, looked forward to his arrival with just a little apprehension. For some reason or other, he considered himself partly responsible for Aunt Charlotte. The poor lady had so many limitations, she was so hopelessly impervious to a joke, her views were so stereotyped and conventional--in a word, she was so terribly Early Victorian, that there was no knowing how she might be taken in and done for if he did not look after her a bit. But how to do it was the difficulty. Certainly he could not prevent the elderly swain from calling, and, of course, it would be only proper that he himself should be absent when the two first came together. A _tête-à-tête_ between them was inevitable, and was not likely to be decisive. But, this once over, he would appear upon the scene, take stock of the aspirant, and shape his policy accordingly. What sort of a man, he wondered, could Mr Ogilvie be? He had actually passed through the town not so very long ago; but then so had hundreds of strangers, and Austin had never noticed anyone in particular--certainly no one who was in the least likely to be the gentleman in question. There was nothing to be done, meanwhile, then, but to wait and watch. Perhaps the gentleman would not want to marry Aunt Charlotte after all. Perhaps, as she herself had suggested, he had a wife and family already. Neither of them knew anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined--Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, rather than submit to be saddled with a step-uncle. As for Aunt Charlotte, she, too, deemed it beyond the dreams of possibility that she would ever marry. In fact, it was only Austin's nonsense that had put so ridiculous a notion into her head. It was true that, in the years gone by, the attentions of young Granville Ogilvie had occasioned her heart a flutter. Perhaps some faint, far-off reverberation of that flutter was making itself felt in her heart now. It is so, no doubt, with many maiden ladies when they look back upon the past. But if she had ever felt a little sore at her sudden abandonment by the mercurial young man who had once touched her fancy, the tiny scratch had healed and been forgotten long ago. At the same time, although the idea of marriage after five-and-twenty years was too absurd to be dwelt on for a moment, the worthy lady could not help feeling how delightful it would be to be _asked_. Of course, that would involve the extremely painful process of refusing; and Aunt Charlotte, in spite of her rough tongue, was a merciful woman, and never willingly inflicted suffering upon anybody. Even blackbeetles, as she often told herself, were God's creatures, and Mr Ogilvie, although he had deserted her, no doubt had finer sensibilities than a blackbeetle. So she did not wish to hurt him if she could avoid it; still, a proposal of marriage at the age of forty-seven would be rather a feather in her cap, and she was too true a woman to be indifferent to that coveted decoration. But then, once more, it was quite possible that he would not propose at all. The next morning Austin put on his straw hat, and went and sat down by the old stone fountain in the full blaze of the sun, as was his custom. Lubin was somewhere in the shrubbery, and, unaware that anyone was within hearing, was warbling lustily to himself. Austin immediately pricked up his ears, for he had had no idea that Lubin was a vocalist. Away he carolled blithely enough, in a rough but not unmusical voice, and Austin was just able to catch some of the words of the quaint old west-country ballad that he was singing. "Welcome to town, Tom Dove, Tom Dove, The merriest man alive, Thy company still we love, we love, God grant thee still to thrive. And never will we, depart from thee, For better or worse, my joy! For thou shalt still, have our good will, God's blessing on my sweet boy." "Bravo, Lubin!" cried Austin, clapping his hands. "You do sing beautifully. And what a delightful old song! Where did you pick it up?" "Eh, Master Austin," said Lubin, emerging from among the rhododendrons, "if I'd known you was a-listening I'd 'a faked up something from a French opera for you. Why, that's an old song as I've known ever since I was that high--'Tom of Exeter' they calls it. It's a rare favourite wi' the maids down in the parts I come from." "Shows their good taste," said Austin. "It's awfully pretty. Who was Tom Dove, and why did he come to town?" "Nay, I can't tell," replied Lubin. "Tis some made-up tale, I doubt. They do say as how he was a tailor. But there is folks as'll say anything, you know." "A tailor!" exclaimed Austin, scornfully, "That I'm sure he wasn't. But oh, Lubin, there _is_ somebody coming to town in a day or two--somebody I want to find out about. Do you often go into the town?" "Eh, well, just o' times; when there's anything to take me there," answered Lubin, vaguely. "On market-days, every now and again." "Oh yes, I know, when you go and sell ducks," put in Austin. "Now what I want to know is this. Have you, within the last three or four weeks, seen a stranger anywhere about?" "A stranger?" repeated Lubin. "Ay, that I certainly have. Any amount o' strangers." "Oh well, yes, of course, how stupid of me!" exclaimed Austin, impatiently. "There must have been scores and scores. But I mean a particular stranger--a certain person in particular, if you understand me. Anybody whose appearance struck you in any way." "Well, but what sort of a stranger?" asked Lubin. "Can't you tell me anything about him? What'd he look like, now?" "That's just what I want to find out," replied Austin. "If I could describe him I shouldn't want you to. All I know is that he's a sort of elderly gentleman, rather more than fifty. He may be fifty-five, or getting on for sixty. Now, isn't that near enough? Oh--and I'm almost sure that he's a traveller." "H'm," pondered Lubin, leaning on his broom reflectively. "Well, yes, I did see a sort of elderly gentleman some three or four weeks ago, standing at the bar o' the 'Coach-and-Horses.' What his age might be I couldn't exactly say, 'cause he was having a drink with his back turned to the door. But he was a traveller, that I know." "A traveller? I wonder whether that was the one!" exclaimed Austin. "Had he a dark-brown face? Or a wooden leg? Or a scar down one of his cheeks?" "Not as I see," answered Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. "But a traveller he was, because the barmaid told me so. Travelled all over the country in bonnets." "Travelled in bonnets?" cried Austin. "What _do_ you mean, Lubin? How can a man go travelling about the country in a bonnet? Had he a bonnet on when you saw him drinking in the bar?" "Lor', Master Austin, wherever was you brought up?" exclaimed Lubin, in grave amazement at the youth's ignorance. "When a gentleman 'travels' in anything, it means he goes about getting orders for it. Now this here gentleman was agent, I take it, for some big millinery shop in London, and come down here wi' boxes an' boxes o' bonnets, an' tokes, and all sorts o' female headgear as women goes about in----" "In short, he was a commercial traveller," said Austin, very mildly. "You see, my dear Lubin, we have been talking of different things. I wasn't thinking of a gentleman who hawks haberdashery. When I said traveller, I meant a man who goes tramping across Africa, and shoots elephants, and gets snowed up at the North Pole, and has all sorts of uncomfortable and quite incredible adventures. They always have faces as brown as an old trunk, and generally limp when they walk. That's the sort of person I'm looking out for. You haven't seen anyone like that, have you?" "Nay--nary a one," said Lubin, shaking his head. "Would he have been putting up at one o' the inns, now, or staying long wi' some o' the gentry?" "I haven't the slightest idea," acknowledged Austin. "Might as well go about looking for a ram wi' five feet," remarked Lubin. "Some things you can't find 'cause they don't exist, and other things you can't find 'cause there's too many of 'em. And as you don't know nothing about this gentleman, and wouldn't know him if you met him in the street permiscuous, I take it you'll have to wait to see what he looks like till he turns up again of his own accord. 'Tain't in reason as you can go up to every old gentleman with a brown face as you never see before an' ask him if he's ever been snowed up at the North Pole and why he hasn't got a wooden leg. He'd think, as likely as not, as you was trying to get a rise out of him. Don't you know what the name may be, neither?" "Oh yes, I do, of course," responded Austin. "He's a Mr Ogilvie." "Never heard of 'im," said Lubin. "Might find out at one o' the inns if any party o' that name's been staying there, but I doubt they wouldn't remember. Folks don't generally stay more'n one night, you see, just to have a look at the old market-place and the church, and then off they go next morning and don't leave no addresses. Th' only sort as stays a day or two are the artists, and they'll stay painting here for more'n a week at a time. It may 'a been one o' them." "I wonder!" exclaimed Austin, struck by the idea. "Perhaps he's an artist, after all; artists do travel, I know. I never thought of that. However, it doesn't matter. It's only some old friend of Aunt Charlotte's, and he's coming to call on her soon, so it isn't worth bothering about meanwhile." He therefore dismissed the matter from his mind, and set about the far more profitable employment of fortifying himself by a morning's devotion to garden-craft, both manual and mental, against the martyrdom (as he called it) that he was to undergo that afternoon. For Aunt Charlotte had insisted on his accompanying her to tea at the vicarage, and this was a function he detested with all his heart. He never knew whom he might meet there, and always went in fear of Cobbledicks, MacTavishes, and others of the same sort. The vicar himself he did not mind so much--the vicar was not a bad little thing in his way; but Mrs Sheepshanks, with her patronising disapproval and affected airs of smartness, he couldn't endure, while the Socialistic curate was his aversion. The reason he hated the curate was partly because he always wore black knickerbockers, and partly because he was such chums with the MacTavish boys. How any self-respecting individual could put up with such savages as Jock and Sandy was a problem that Austin was wholly unable to solve, until it was suggested to him by somebody that the real attraction was neither Jock nor Sandy, but one of their screaming sisters--a Florrie, or a Lottie, or an Aggie--it really did not matter which, since they were all alike. When this once dawned upon him, Austin despised the knickerbockered curate more than ever. On the present occasion, however, the MacTavishes were happily not there; the only other guest (for of course the curate didn't count) being a friend of the curate's, who had come to spend a few days with him in the country. The friend was a harsh-featured, swarthy young man, belonging to what may be called the muscular variety of high Ritualism; much given to a sort of aggressive slang--he had been known to refer to the bishop of his diocese as "the sporting old jester that bosses our show"--and representing militant sacerdotalism in its most blusterous and rampant form. He was also in the habit of informing people that he was "nuts" on the Athanasian Creed, and expressing the somewhat arbitrary opinion that if the Rev. John Wesley had had his deserts he would have been exhibited in a pillory and used as a target for stale eggs. There are a few such interesting youths in Holy Orders, and the curate's friend was one of them. The party were assembled in the garden, where Mrs Sheepshanks's best tea-service was laid out. To say that the conversation was brilliant would be an exaggeration; but it was pleasant and decorous, as conversations at a vicarage ought to be. The two ladies compared notes about the weather and the parish; the curate asked Austin what he had been doing with himself lately; the friend kept silence, even from good words, while the vicar, one of the mildest of his cloth, sat blinking in furtive contemplation of the friend. Certainly it was not a very exhilarating entertainment, and Austin felt that if it went on much longer he should scream. What possible pleasure, he marvelled, could Aunt Charlotte find in such a vapid form of dissipation? Even the garden irritated him, for it was laid out in the silly Early Victorian style, with wriggling paths, and ribbon borders, and shrubs planted meaninglessly here and there about the lawn, and a dreadful piece of sham rockwork in one corner. Of course the vicar's wife thought it quite perfect, and always snubbed Austin in a very lofty way if he ever ventured to express his own views as to how a garden should be fitly ordered. Then his eye happened to fall upon the curate's friend; and he caught the curate's friend in the act of staring at him with a most offensive expression of undisguised contempt. Now, Austin was courteous to everyone; but to anybody he disliked his politeness was simply deadly. Of course he took no notice of the young parson's tacit insolence; he only longed, as fervently as he knew how to long, for an opportunity of being polite to him. And the occasion was soon forthcoming. The conversation growing more general by degrees, a reference was made by the vicar, in passing, to a certain clergyman of profound scholarship and enlightened views, whose recently published book upon the prophet Daniel had been painfully exercising the minds of the editor and readers of the _Church Times_; and it was then that the curate's friend, without moving a muscle of his face, suddenly leaned forward and said, in a rasping voice: "The man's an impostor and a heretic. He ought to be burned. I would gladly walk in the procession, singing the 'Te Deum,' and set fire to the faggots myself."[A] And there was no doubt he meant it. A dead silence fell upon the party. The curate looked horribly annoyed. The ladies exclaimed "Oh!" with a little shudder of dismay. The vicar started, fidgeted, and blinked more nervously than ever. Then Austin, with the most charming manner in the world, broke the spell. "Really!" he exclaimed, turning towards the speaker, a bright smile of interest upon his face. "That's a most delightfully original suggestion. May I ask what religion you belong to?" "What religion!" scowled the curate's friend, astounded at the enquiry. "Yes--it must be one I never heard of," replied Austin, sweetly. "I am so awfully ignorant, you know; I know nothing of geography, and scarcely anything about the religions of savage countries. Are you a Thug?" "Oh, Austin!" breathed Aunt Charlotte, faintly. "I always do make such mistakes," continued Austin, with his most engaging air; "I'm so sorry, please forgive me if I'm stupid. I forgot, of course Thugs don't burn people alive, they only strangle them. Perhaps I'm thinking of the Bosjesmans, or the Andaman Islanders, or the aborigines of New Guinea. I do get so mixed up! But I've often thought how lovely it would be to meet a cannibal. You aren't a cannibal, are you?" he added wistfully. "I'm a priest of the Church of England," replied the curate's friend, with crushing scorn, though his face was livid. "When you're a little older you'll probably understand all that that implies." "Fancy!" exclaimed Austin, with an air of innocent amazement. "I've heard of the Church of England, but I quite thought you must belong to one of those curious persuasions in Africa, isn't it--or is it Borneo?--where the services consist in skinning people alive and then roasting them for dinner. It occurred to me that you might have gone there as a missionary, and that the savages had converted you instead of you converting the savages. I'm sure I beg your pardon. And have you ever set fire to a bishop?" "Austin! Austin!" came still more faintly from Aunt Charlotte. The vicar, scandalised at first, was now in convulsions of silent laughter. Mrs Sheepshanks's parasol was lowered in a most suspicious manner, so as completely to hide her face; while the unfortunate curate, with his head almost between his knees, was working havoc in the vicarage lawn with the point of a heavy walking-stick. The only person who seemed perfectly at his ease was Austin, and he was enjoying himself hugely. Then the vicar, feeling it incumbent upon him, as host, to say something to relieve the strain, attempted to pull himself together. "My dear boy," he said, in rather a quavering voice, "you may be perfectly sure that our valued guest has no sympathy with any of the barbarous religions you allude to, but is a most loyal member of the Church of England; and that when he said he would like to 'burn' a brother clergyman--one of the greatest Talmudists and Hebrew scholars now alive--it was only his humorous way of intimating that he was inclined to differ from him on one or two obscure points of historical or verbal criticism which----" "It was not," said the curate's friend. Mrs Sheepshanks immediately turned to Aunt Charlotte, and remarked that feather boas were likely to be more than ever in fashion when the weather changed; and Aunt Charlotte said she had heard from a most authoritative source that pleated corselets were to be the rage that autumn. Both ladies then agreed that the days were certainly beginning to draw in, and asked the curate if he didn't think so too. The curate fumbled in his pocket, and offered Austin a cigarette, and Austin, noticing the unconcealed annoyance of the unfortunate young man, who was really not a bad fellow in the main, felt kindly towards him, and accepted the cigarette with effusion. The vicar relapsed into silence, making no attempt to complete his unfinished sentence; then he stole a glance at the saturnine face of the stranger, and from that moment became an almost liberal-minded theologian; He had had an object-lesson that was to last him all his life, and he never forgot it. "Well, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, when they were walking home, a few minutes later, "of course you _ought_ to have a severe scolding for your behaviour this afternoon; but the fact is, my dear, that on this occasion I do not feel inclined to give you one. That man was perfectly horrible, and deserved everything he got. I only hope it may have done him good. I couldn't have believed such people existed at the present day. The most charitable view to take of him is that he can scarcely be in his right mind." "What, because he wanted to burn somebody alive?" said Austin. "Oh, that was natural enough. I thought it rather an amusing idea, to tell the truth. The reason I went for him was that I caught him making faces at me when he thought I wasn't looking. I saw at once that he was a beast, so the instant he gave me an opportunity of settling accounts with him I took it. Oh, what a blessing it is to be at home again! Dear auntie, let's make a virtuous resolution. We'll neither of us go to the vicarage again as long as we both shall live." He strolled into the garden--the good garden, with straight walks, and clipped hedges, and fair formal shape--and threw himself down upon a long chair. He had already begun to forget the incidents of the afternoon. Here was rest, and peace, and beauty. How tired he was! Why did he feel so tired? He could not tell. A deep sense of satisfaction and repose stole over him. Lubin was there, tidying up, but he did not feel any inclination to talk to Lubin or anybody else. He liked watching Lubin, however, for Lubin was part of the garden, and all his associations with him were pleasant. The scent of the flowers and the grass possessed him. The sun was far from setting, and a young crescent moon was hovering high in the heavens, looking like a silver sickle against the blue. From the distant church came the sound of bells ringing for even-song, faint as horns of elf-land, through the still air. He felt that he would like to lie there always--just resting, and drinking in the beauty of the world. Suddenly he half-rose. "Lubin!" he called out quickly, in an undertone. "Sir," responded Lubin, turning round. "Who was that lady looking over the garden-gate just now?" "Lady?" repeated Lubin. "I never saw no lady. Whereabouts was she?" "On the path of course, outside. A second ago. She stood looking at me over the gate, and then went on. Run to the gate and see how far she's got--quick!" Lubin did as he was bidden without delay, looking up and down the road. Then he returned, and soberly picked up his broom. "There ain't no lady there," he said. "No one in sight either way. Must 'a been your fancy, Master Austin, I expect." "Fancy, indeed!" retorted Austin, excitedly. "You'll tell me next it's my fancy that I'm looking at you now. A lady in a large hat and a sort of light-coloured dress. She _must_ be there. There's nowhere else for her to be, unless the earth has swallowed her up. I'll go and look myself." He struggled up and staggered as fast as he could go to the gate. Then he pushed it open and went out as far as the middle of the road from which he could see at least a hundred yards each way. But not a living creature was in sight. "It's enough to make one's hair stand on end!" he exclaimed, as he came slowly back. "Where can she have got to? She was here--here, by the gate--not twenty seconds ago, only a few yards from where I was sitting. Don't talk to me about fancy; that's sheer nonsense. I saw her as distinctly as I see you now, and I should know her again directly if I saw her a year hence. Of all inexplicable things!" There was no more lying down. He was too much puzzled and excited to keep still. Up and down he paced, cudgelling his brains in search of an explanation, wondering what it could all mean, and longing for another glimpse of the mysterious visitor. For one brief moment he had had a full, clear view of her face, and in that moment he had been struck by her unmistakable resemblance to himself. FOOTNOTES: [A] A fact. Said in the writer's presence by a young clergyman of the same breed as the one here described. Chapter the Eleventh The repairs to the ceiling in Austin's room were now finished, and it was with great satisfaction that he resumed possession of his old quarters. The mysterious events that had befallen him when he slept there last, some weeks before, recurred very vividly to his mind as he found himself once more amid the familiar surroundings, and although he heard no more raps or anything else of an abnormal nature, he felt that, whatever dangers might threaten him in the future, he would always be protected by those he thought of as his unseen friends. Aunt Charlotte, meanwhile, had taken an opportunity of consulting the vicar as to the orthodoxy of a belief in guardian angels, and the vicar had reassured her at once by referring her to the Collect for St Michael and All Angels, in which we are invited to pray that they may succour and defend us upon earth; so that there really was nothing superstitious in the conclusion that, as Austin had undoubtedly been succoured and defended in a very remarkable manner on more than one occasion, some benevolent entity from a better world might have had a hand in it. The worthy lady, of course, could not resist the temptation of informing Mr Sheepshanks of what her bankers had said about the investment he had so earnestly urged upon her, and the vicar seemed greatly surprised. He had not put any money into it himself, it was true, but was being sorely tempted by another prospectus he had just received of an enterprise for recovering the baggage which King John lost some centuries ago in the Wash. The only consideration that made him hesitate was the uncertainty whether, in view of the perishable nature of the things themselves, they would be worth very much to anybody if ever they were fished up. "Austin," said Aunt Charlotte, two days afterwards at breakfast, "I have had another letter from Mr Ogilvie. Of course I wrote to him when I heard first, saying how pleased I should be to see him whenever he was in the neighbourhood again; and now I have his reply. He proposes to call here to-morrow afternoon, and have a cup of tea with us." "So the fateful day has come at last," remarked Austin. "Very well, auntie, I'll make myself scarce while you're talking over old times together, but I insist on coming in before he goes, remember. I'm awfully curious to see what he's like. Do you think he wears a wig?" "I really haven't thought about it," replied his aunt. "It's nothing to me whether he does or not--or to you either, for the matter of that. Of course you must present yourself to him some time or other; it would be most discourteous not to. And do, if you can, try and behave rather more like other people. Don't parade your terrible ignorance of geography, for instance, as you do sometimes. He would think that I had neglected your education disgracefully, and seeing what a traveller he's been himself--" "All right, auntie, I won't give you away," Austin assured her. "You'd better tell him what a horrid dunce I am before I come in, and then he won't be so surprised if I do put my foot in it. After all, we're not sure that he's been a traveller. He may be a painter. Lubin says that lots of painters come down here sometimes. My own idea is that he'll turn out to be nothing but a bank manager, or perhaps a stockbroker. I expect he's rolling in money." Austin had said nothing to his aunt about the lady who had looked over the gate for one brief moment and then so unaccountably disappeared. What would have been the use? He felt baffled and perplexed, but it was not likely that Aunt Charlotte would be able to throw any light upon the mystery. She would probably say that he had been dreaming, or that he only imagined it, or that it was an old gipsy woman, or one of the MacTavish girls playing a trick, or something equally fatuous and absurd. But the more he thought of it the more he was convinced of the reality of the whole thing, and of the existence of some great marvel. That he had seen the lady was beyond question. That she had vanished the next moment was also beyond question. That she had hidden behind a tree or gone crouching in a ditch was inconceivable, to say the least of it; so fair and gracious a person would scarcely descend to such undignified manoeuvres, worthy only of a hoydenish peasant girl. And yet, what could possibly have become of her? The enigma was quite unsolvable. The next morning brought with it a surprise. Aunt Charlotte had some very important documents that she wanted to deposit with her bankers--so important, indeed, that she did not like to entrust them to the post; so Austin, half in jest, proposed that he should go to town himself by an early train, and leave them at the bank in person. To his no small astonishment, Aunt Charlotte took him at his word, though not without some misgivings; instructed him to send her a telegram as soon as ever the papers were in safe custody, and assured him that she would not have a moment's peace until she got it. Austin, much excited at the prospect of a change, packed the documents away in the pistol-pocket of his trousers, and started off immediately after breakfast in high spirits. The journey was a great delight to him, as he had not travelled by railway for nearly a couple of years, and he derived immense amusement from watching his fellow-passengers and listening to their conversation. There was a party of very serious-minded American tourists, with an accent reverberant enough to have cracked the windows of the carriage had they not, luckily, been open; and from the talk of these good people he learnt that they came from a place called New Jerusalem, that they intended to do London in two days, and that they answered to the names of Mr Thwing, Mr Moment, and Mr and Mrs Skull. The gentlemen were arrayed in shiny broad-cloth, with narrow black ties, tied in a careless bow; the lady wore long curls all down her back and a brown alpaca gown; and they all seemed under the impression that the most important sights which awaited them were the Metropolitan Tabernacle and some tunnel under the Thames. The only other passenger was a rather smart-looking gentleman with a flower in his buttonhole, who made himself very pleasant; engaged Austin in conversation, gave him hints as to how best to enjoy himself in London, asked him a number of questions about where he lived and how he spent his time, and finished up by inviting him to lunch. But Austin, never having seen the man before, declined; and no amount of persuasion availed to make him alter his decision. On arrival in London, he got into an omnibus--not daring to call a cab, lest he should pay the cabman a great deal too much or a great deal too little--and in a short time was set down near Waterloo Place, where the bank was situated. His first care was to relieve himself of the precious documents, and this he did at once; but he thought the clerk looked at him in a disagreeably sharp and suspicious manner, and wondered whether it was possible he might be accused of forgery and given in charge to a policeman. The papers consisted of some dividend-warrants payable to bearer, and an endorsed cheque, and the clerk examined them with a most formidable and inquisitorial frown. Then he asked Austin what his name was, and where he lived; and Austin blushed and stammered to such an extent and made such confused replies that the clerk looked more suspiciously at him than ever, and Austin had it on the tip of his tongue to assure him that he really had not stolen the documents, or forged Aunt Charlotte's name, or infringed the laws in any way whatever that he could think of. But just then the clerk, who had been holding a muttered consultation with another gentleman of equally threatening aspect, turned to him again with a less aggressive expression, as much as to say that he'd let him off this time if he promised never to do it any more, and intimated, with a sort of grudging nod, that he was free to go if he liked. Which Austin, much relieved, forthwith proceeded to do. Then he stumped off as hard as he could go to the Post-Office near by, to despatch the telegram which should set Aunt Charlotte's mind at ease; and by dint of carefully observing what all the other people did managed to get hold of a telegraph-form and write his message. "Documents all safe in the Bank.--Your affectionate Austin." That would do beautifully, he thought. Then he offered it to a proud-looking young lady who lived behind a barricade of brass palings, and the young lady, having read it through (rather to his indignation) and rapidly counted the words, gave him a couple of stamps. But he explained, with great politeness, that he did not wish it to go by post, as it was most important that it should reach its destination before lunch-time; whereupon the young lady burst into a hearty laugh, and asked him how soon he was going back to school. Austin coloured furiously, rectified his mistake, and bolted. In Piccadilly Circus his attention was immediately attracted by a number of stout, florid, elderly ladies who were selling some most lovely bouquets for the buttonhole. This was a temptation impossible to resist, and he lost no time in choosing one. It cost fourpence, and Austin was so charmed at the skilful way in which the florid lady he had patronised pinned it into the lapel of his jacket that he raised his hat to her on parting with as much ceremony as though she had been a duchess at the very least. Then, observing that his shoe was dusty, he submitted it to a merry-looking shoeblack, who not only cleaned it and creamed it to perfection but polished up his wooden leg as well; Austin, in his usual absent-minded way, humming to himself the while. During the operation there suddenly rushed up a drove of very ungainly-looking objects, who, in point of fact, were persons lately arrived from Lancashire to play a football match at the Alexandra Palace--though Austin, of course, could not be expected to know that; and two of these, staring at him as though he were a wild animal that they had never seen before, enquired with much solicitude how his mother was, and whether he was having a happy day. Austin took no more notice of them than if they had been flies, but as soon as the shoeblack had finished, and been generously rewarded, he presented them each with a penny. "Wot's this for?" growled the foremost. "We ain't beggars, we ain't. Wot d'ye mean by it?" "Aren't you? I thought you were," said Austin. "However, you can keep the pennies. They will buy you bread, you know." The fellows edged off, muttering resentfully, and Austin prepared to cross the road to Piccadilly. The next moment he received a violent blow on the shoulder from an advancing horse, and was knocked clean off his legs. He was in the act of half-consciously taking off his hat and begging the horse's pardon when a stout policeman, coming to the rescue, lifted him bodily up in one arm, and, carrying him over the crossing, deposited him safely on the pavement. He recovered his breath in a minute or two, and then began to walk down Piccadilly towards the Park. The streets were gay and crowded, partly with black and grey people who seemed to be going about some business or other, but starred beautifully here and there with bright-eyed, clear-skinned, slender youths in straw hats, something like Austin himself, enjoying their release from school. Phalanxes of smartly-dressed ladies impeded the traffic outside the windows of all the millinery shops, omnibuses rattled up and down in a never-ending procession, and strident urchins with little pink newspapers under their arms yelled for all they were worth. Austin, absorbed in the cheerful spectacle, sauntered hither and thither, now attracted by the fresh verdure of the Green Park, now gazing with vivid interest at the ever-varying types of humanity that surged around him; blissfully unconscious that every one was staring at him, as though wondering who the pale-faced boy with eager eyes and a shiny black wooden leg could be, and why he went zigzagging to and fro and peering so excitedly about as though he had never seen any shops or people in his life before. At last he arrived at the Corner, and, turning into the Park, spent a quarter of an hour watching the riders in Rotten Row; then he crossed to the Marble Arch, passing a vast array of gorgeous flowers in full bloom, listened wonderingly to an untidy orator demolishing Christianity for the benefit of a little knot of errand-boys and nursemaids, took another omnibus along Oxford Street to the Circus, and, after an enchanting walk down Regent Street, entered a bright little Italian restaurant in the Quadrant, where he had a delightful lunch. This disposed of, he found that he could afford a full hour to have a look at the National Gallery without danger of losing his train, and off he plodded towards Trafalgar Square to make the most of his opportunity. Meanwhile Aunt Charlotte received her telegram, and, greatly relieved by its contents, spent an agreeable day. It was not to be wondered at if she felt a little fluttering excitement at the prospect of seeing her old suitor, and was more than usually fastidious in the arrangement of her modest toilet. Lubin had been requisitioned to provide a special supply of the freshest and finest flowers for the drawing-room, and she had herself gone to the pastrycook's to order the cheese-cakes and cream-tarts on which the expected visitor was to be regaled. Of course she kept on telling herself all the time what a foolish old woman she was, and how silly Mr Ogilvie would think her if he only knew of all her little fussy preparations; men who had knocked about the world hated to be fidgeted over and made much of, and no doubt it was quite natural they should. And then she went bustling off to impress on Martha the expediency of giving the silver tea-service an extra polish, and to be sure and see that the toast was crisp and fresh. When at last she sat down with a book in front of her in order to pass the time she found her attention wandering, and her thoughts recurring to the last occasion on which she had seen Granville Ogilvie. He had been rather a fine-looking young man in those days--tall, straight, and well set up; and well she remembered the whimsical way he had of speaking, the humorous glance of his eye, and those baffling intonations of voice that made it so difficult for her to be sure whether he were in jest or earnest. That he had confessedly been attracted by her was a matter of common knowledge. Why had she given him no encouragement? Perhaps it was because she had never understood him; because she had never been able to feel any real rapport between them, because their minds moved on different planes, and never seemed to meet. She had no sense of humour, and no insight; he was elusive, difficult to get into touch with; all she knew of him was his exterior, and that, for her, was no guide to the man beneath. Then he had dropped out of her life, and for five and twenty years she had never heard of him. Whatever chance she may have had was gone, and gone for ever. Did she regret it, now that she was able to look back upon the past so calmly? She thought not. And yet, as she meditated on those far-off days when she was young and pretty, the intervening years seemed to be annihilated, and she felt herself once more a girl of twenty-two, with a young man hovering around her, always on the verge of a proposal that she herself staved off. She was not agitated, but she was very curious to see what he would look like, and just a little anxious lest there should be any awkwardness about their meeting. But eventually it came about in the most natural manner in the world, and if anybody had peeped into the shady drawing-room just at the time when Austin's train was steaming into the station, there would certainly have been nothing in the scene to suggest any tragedy or romance whatever. Aunt Charlotte, in a pretty white lace _fichu_ set off with rose-coloured bows, was dispensing tea with hospitable smiles, while Martha handed cakes and poured a fresh supply of hot water into the teapot. Opposite, sat the long expected visitor; no lean, brown adventurer, no Indian nabob, and certainly no artist, but a tallish, large-featured, and somewhat portly gentleman, with a ruddy complexion, good teeth, and a general air of prosperity. His fashionable pale-grey frock-coat, evidently the work of a good tailor, fitted him like a glove; he wore, also, a white waistcoat, a gold eye-glass, and patent leather shoes. His appearance, in short, was that of a thoroughly well-groomed, though slightly over-dressed, London man; and he impressed both Martha and Aunt Charlotte with being a very fine gentleman indeed, for his manners were simply perfect, if perhaps a little studied. He dropped his gloves into his hat with a graceful gesture as he accepted a cup of tea, and then, turning to his hostess, said---- "It is indeed delightful to meet you after all these years; it seems to bring back old times so vividly. And the years have dealt very gently with you, my dear friend. I should have known you anywhere." It was not quite certain to Aunt Charlotte whether she could truthfully have returned the compliment. There are some elderly people in whom it is the easiest thing in the world to recognise the features of their youth. Allow for a little accentuation of facial lines, a little roughening of the skin, a little modification in the arrangement of the hair, and the face is virtually the same. Aunt Charlotte herself was one of these, but Granville Ogilvie was not. She might even have passed him in the street. That he was the man she had known was beyond question, but there was a puffiness under the eyes and a fulness about the cheeks that altered the general effect of his appearance, and in spite of his modish dress and elaborate manners he seemed to have grown just a little coarse. Still, remembering what a bird of passage he had been, and the many experiences he must have had by land and sea, all that was not to be wondered at. It was really remarkable, everything considered, that he had managed to preserve himself so well. "Oh, I'm an old woman now," replied Aunt Charlotte with an almost youthful blush. "But I've had a peaceful life if rather a monotonous one, and I've nothing to complain of. It is very good of you to have remembered me, and I'm more glad than I can say to see you again. It's a quarter of a century since we met!" "It seems like yesterday," Mr Ogilvie assured her. "And yet how many things have happened in the meantime! This charming house of yours is a perfect haven of rest. Why do people knock about the world as they do, when they might stay quietly at home?" "Nay, it is rather I who should ask you that," laughed Aunt Charlotte. "It is you who have been knocking about, you know, not I. Men are so fond of adventures, while we women have to content ourselves with a very humdrum sort of life. You've been a great traveller, have you not?" This was a mild attempt at pumping on the part of Aunt Charlotte, for Mr Ogilvie certainly did not give one the idea of an explorer. But she was consumed with curiosity to knew where he had spent the years since she had seen him last, and now brought all her artless ingenuity into play in order to find out. "Yes, I was always a roving, restless sort of fellow," said Mr Ogilvie. "Never could stay long in the same place, you know. I often wonder how long it will be before I settle down for good." "Well, I almost envy you," confessed Aunt Charlotte, nibbling a cheese-cake. "I love travels and adventures; in books, of course, I mean. I've been reading Captain Burnaby's 'Ride to Khiva' lately, and that wonderful 'Life of Sir Richard Burton.' What marvellous nerve such men must have! To think of the disguises, for instance, they were forced to adopt, when detection would have cost them their lives! You should write your travels too, you know; I'm sure they'd be most exciting. Were you ever compelled to disguise yourself when you were travelling?" "I should rather think so," replied Mr Ogilvie, nodding his head impressively. "And that, my dear lady, under circumstances in which disguise was absolutely imperative. The most serious results would have followed if I hadn't done so; not death, perhaps, but utter and irretrievable ruin. However, here I am, you see, safe and sound, and none the worse for it after all. What delicious cream-tarts these are, to be sure! They remind one of the Arabian Nights. In Persia, by the way, they put pepper in them." "Oh dear! I don't think I should like that at all," exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, naïvely. "And have you really been in Persia? You must have enjoyed that very much. I suppose you saw some magnificent scenery in your wanderings?" "Oh, magnificent, magnificent," assented the great traveller. "Mountains, forests, castles, glaciers, and everything you can think of. But I've never got quite as far as Persia, you understand, and just at present I feel more interested in England. I sometimes think that I shall never leave English shores again." "And you are not married?" ventured the lady, with a tremor of hesitation in her voice. She had rushed on her destruction unawares. "No--no," replied the man who had once wanted to marry her. "And at this moment I'm very glad I'm not." "Oh, are you? Why?" exclaimed the foolish woman. "Don't you believe in marriage?" "In the abstract--oh, yes," said Mr Ogilvie, with meaning. "But my chance of married happiness escaped me years ago." Aunt Charlotte blushed hotly. She felt angry with herself for having given him an opening for such a remark, and annoyed with him for taking advantage of it. "Let me give you some more tea," she said. "Thank you so much, but I never exceed two cups," replied Mr Ogilvie, who did not particularly care for tea. "And yet there comes a time, you know, when the sight of so peaceful and attractive a home as this makes one wish that one had one like it of one's own. Of course a man has his tastes, his hobbies, his ambitions--every man, I mean, of character. And I am a man of character. But indulgence in a hobby is not incompatible with the love of a fireside, and the blessings of _dulce domum_, to say nothing of the _placens uxor_, who is the only true goddess of the hearth. Yes, dear friend, I confess that I should like--that I positively long--to marry. That is why, paradoxical as it may appear, I congratulate myself on not being married already. But, of course, in all such cases, the man himself is not the only factor to be reckoned with. The lady must be found, and the lady's consent obtained. And there we have the rub." "Dear me! how very unfortunate!" was all Aunt Charlotte could think of to remark. "And can't you find the lady?" "I thought I had found her once," said Mr Ogilvie. Then he deliberately rose from his chair, brushed a few crumbs from his coat, and took a few steps up and down the room. "Listen to me, dear friend," he began, in low, earnest tones. "There was a time--far be it from me to take undue advantage of these reminiscences--when you and I were thrown considerably together. At that time, that far-off, happy, and yet most tantalising time, I was bold enough to cherish certain aspirations." Here he took up his position behind a chair, resting his hands lightly on the back of it. "That those aspirations were not wholly unsuspected by you I had reason to believe. I may, of course, have been mistaken; love, or vanity if you prefer it, may blind the wisest of us. In any case, if I was vain, my pride came to the rescue, and sooner than incur the humiliation of a refusal--possibly a scornful refusal--I kept my secret locked in the inmost sanctuary of my heart, and went away." Mr Ogilvie illustrated his disappearance into vacancy by a slight but most expressive gesture of his arms. "I simply went away. And now I have come back. I have unburdened myself before you. In the years that are past, I was silent. Now I have spoken. And I am here to know what answer you have in your heart to give me." It had actually come. She remembered how she had told herself that, though she could never dream of marrying, it really would be very pleasant to be asked. But now that the proposal had been made she felt most horribly embarrassed. What in the world was she to say to the man? She knew him not one bit better than she had done when she saw him last. He puzzled her more than ever. He did not look like a despairing lover, but a singularly plump and prosperous gentleman; and certainly the silver-grey frock-coat, and gold eye-glass, and varnished shoes struck her as singularly out of harmony with the extraordinary speech he had just delivered. Yet it was evidently impromptu, and possibly would never have been delivered at all had not she herself so blunderingly led up to it. And it was not a bad speech in its way. There was something really effective about it--or perhaps it was in the manner of its delivery. So she sat in silence, most dreadfully ill at ease, and not finding a single word wherewith to answer him. "Charlotte," said Mr Ogilvie in a low voice, bending over her, "Charlotte." "Mr Ogilvie!" gasped the unhappy lady, almost frightened out of her wits. "You _once_ called me Granville," he murmured, trying to take her hand. "But I can't do it again!" cried Aunt Charlotte, shaking her head vigorously. "It wouldn't be proper. We are just two old people, you see, and--and----" "H'm!" Mr Ogilvie straightened himself again. "It is true I am no longer in my first youth, and time has certainly left its mark upon my lineaments; but you, dear friend, are one of those whose charms intensify with years." Here he took out a white pocket-handkerchief, and passed it lightly across his eyes. "But I have startled you, and I am sorry. I have sprung upon you, suddenly and thoughtlessly, what I ought to have only hinted at. I have erred from lack of delicacy. Forgive me my impulsiveness, my ardour. I was ever a blunt man, little versed in the arts of diplomacy and _finesse_. For years I have looked forward to this moment; in my dreams, in my waking hours, in----" "Pardon me one moment," said Aunt Charlotte, starting to her feet. "I know I'm sadly rude to interrupt you, but I hear my nephew in the hall, and I must just say a word to him before he comes in. I'll be back immediately. You will forgive me--won't you?" She floundered to the door, leaving Mr Ogilvie no little disconcerted at his appeal being thus cut short. Austin had just come in, and was in the act of hanging up his hat when his aunt appeared. "Well, auntie!" he said. "And has the gentleman arrived?" "Hush!" breathed Aunt Charlotte, as she pointed a warning finger to the door. "He's in the drawing-room. Austin, you've come back in the very nick of time. Don't ask me any questions. My dear, you were right after all." "Ah!" was all Austin said. "Well?" "Come in with me at once, we can't keep him waiting," said Aunt Charlotte hastily. "I'll explain everything to you afterwards. Never mind your hair--you look quite nice enough. And mind--your very prettiest manners, for my sake." What in the world she meant by this Austin couldn't imagine, but instantly took up the cue. The two entered the room together. Mr Ogilvie was standing a little distance off in an attitude of expectancy, his eyes turned towards the door. Aunt Charlotte took a step forward, and prepared to introduce her nephew. Austin suddenly paused; gazed at the visitor for one instant with an expression that no one had ever seen upon his face before; and then, falling flop upon the nearest easy-chair, went straightway into a paroxysm of hysterical and frantic laughter. "Austin! Austin! Have you gone out of your mind?" cried his aunt, almost beside herself with stupefaction. "Is this your good behaviour? What in the world's the matter with the boy now?" "It's _Mr Buskin!_" shrieked Austin, hammering his leg upon the floor in a perfect ecstasy of delight. "The step-uncle! Oh, do slap me, auntie, or I shall go on laughing till I die!" "_Who's_ Mr Buskin?" gasped his aunt, bewildered. "This is Mr Granville Ogilvie. What Buskin are you raving about, for Heaven's sake?" "It's Mr Buskin the actor," panted Austin breathlessly, as he began to recover himself. "He was at the theatre here, some time ago. How do you do, Mr Buskin? Oh, please forgive me for being so rude. I hope you're pretty well?" Mr Ogilvie had not budged an inch. But when Austin came in he had started violently. "Great Scott! Young Dot-and-carry-One!" he muttered, but so low that no one heard him. He now advanced a pace or two, and cleared his throat. "I have certainly had the honour of meeting this young gentleman before," he said, in his most stately manner. "He was even kind enough to present me with his card, but I fear I did not pay as much attention to the name as it deserved. It is true, my dear lady, that I am known to Europe under the designation he ascribes to me; but to you I am what I have always been and always shall be--Granville Ogilvie, and your most humble slave." "Is it possible?" ejaculated Aunt Charlotte faintly. "You will, no doubt, attribute to its true source the concealment I have exercised towards you respecting my life for the last five-and-twenty years," resumed Mr Ogilvie, with a candid air. "I was ever the most modest of men, and the modesty which, from a gross and worldly point of view, has always been the most formidable obstacle in my path, prohibited my avowing to you the secret of my profession. Still, I practised no deceit; indeed, I confessed in the most artless fashion that, in my wanderings--in other words, on tour--I was compelled to assume disguises, and that some of my scenery was magnificent. But why should I defend myself? _Qui s'excuse s'accuse_; and now that this very engaging young gentleman has saved me the trouble of revealing the position in life that I am proud to occupy, there is nothing more to be said. We were interrupted, you remember, at a crisis of our conversation. I crave your permission to add, at a crisis of our lives. Far be it from me to----" "I am afraid I am scarcely equal to renewing the conversation at the point where we broke off," said Aunt Charlotte, who now felt her wits getting more under control. "Indeed, Mr Ogilvie, I have nothing to reproach you with. I had no right to enquire what your profession was, and still less have I a right to criticise it. But of course you will understand that the subject we were speaking of must never be mentioned again." The lover sighed. It was not a bad situation, and his long experience enabled him to make it quite effective. Silently he took his gloves out of his hat, paused, and then dropped them in again, with the very faintest and most dramatic gesture of despair. The action was trifling in the extreme, but it was performed by a play-actor who knew his business, and Aunt Charlotte felt as though cold water were running down her back. Then he turned, quite beautifully, to Austin. "And you, young gentleman. And what have _you_ to say?" he asked in a carefully choking voice. "That I like you even better in your present part than as Sardanapalus," replied Austin, cordially. "The tribute is two-edged," observed the actor with a shrug. And certainly he had acted well, and dressed the character to perfection. But the takings of the performance, alas, had not paid expenses. He really had a sentiment for the lady he had been wooing, and the prospect of a solid additional income--for it was clear she was in very easy circumstances--had smiled upon him not unpleasantly. And why should she not have married him? He was her equal in birth, they had been possible lovers in their youth, he had made a name for himself meanwhile, and, after all, there was no stain upon his honour. But she had now definitely refused. The little comedy had been played out. There was nothing for him to do but to make a graceful exit, and this he did in a way that brought tears to the lady's eyes. "Oh, need you go?" she urged with fatuous politeness. Austin was more friendly still; he reminded Mr Ogilvie that having returned so late he had had no opportunity of enjoying a renewal of their acquaintance, and begged him to remain a little longer for a chat and a cigarette. But Mr Ogilvie was too much of an artist to permit an anti-climax. The catastrophe had come off, and the curtain must be run down quick. So he wrenched himself away with what dignity he might, and, relapsing into his natural or Buskin phase as soon as he got outside, comforted himself with a glass of stiff whiskey and water at the refreshment bar of the railway station before getting into the train for London. Chapter the Twelfth As the weeks rolled on the days began perceptibly to draw in, and the leaves turned gradually from green to golden brown. It was the fall of the year, when the wind acquires an edge, and blue sky disappears behind purple clouds, and the world is reminded that ere very long all nature will be wrapped in a shroud of grey and silver. Rain fell with greater frequency, the uplands were often veiled in a damp mist, the hours of basking in noontide suns by the old stone fountain were gone, and Austin was fain to relinquish, one by one, those summer fantasies that for so many happy months had made the gladness of his life. There is always something sad about the autumn. It is associated, undeniably, with golden harvests and purple vintages, the crimson and yellow magnificence of foliage, and a few gorgeous blooms; but these, after all, are no more than indications that the glory of the year has reached its zenith, that its labours have attained fruition, and that the death of winter must be passed through before the resurrection-time of spring. "Ihr Matten lebt wohl, Ihr sonnigen Waiden, Der Senne muss scheiden, Die Sommer ist bin." And yet the summer did not carry everything away with it. As the year ripened and decayed, other fantasies arose to take the place of those he was losing--or rather, he grew more and more under the obsession of ideas not wholly of this world, ideas and phases of consciousness that, as we have seen, had for some time past been gradually gaining an entrance into his soul. As the beauties of the material world faded, the wonders of a higher world superseded them. He still lived much in the open air, drinking in all the influences of the scenery in earth and sky, and marvelling at the loveliness of the year's decadence; but, as though in subtle sympathy with nature's phases, it seemed to him as though his own body had less vitality, and that, while his mind was as keen and vigorous as ever, he felt less and less inclined to explore his beloved, fields and woods. Aunt Charlotte looked first critically and then anxiously at his face, which appeared to her paler and thinner than before. His stump began to trouble him again, and once or twice he confessed, in a reluctant sort of way, that his back did not feel quite comfortable. Of course he thought it was very silly of his back, and was annoyed that it did not behave more sensibly. But he didn't let it trouble him over-much, for he was always very philosophical about pain. Once, when he had a toothache, somebody expressed surprise that he bore it with such stoicism, and asked him jokingly for the secret. "Oh," he replied, "I just fix my attention on my great toe, or any other part of my body, and think how nice it is that I haven't got a toothache there." Aunt Charlotte had meanwhile grown to have much more respect for Austin than she had ever felt previously. He was now nearly eighteen, and his character and mental force had developed very rapidly of late. In spite of his inconceivable ignorance in some respects--geography, for instance--he had shown a shrewdness for which she had been totally unprepared, and a quiet persistence in matters where he felt that he was right and she was wrong that had begun to impress her very seriously. Many instances had arisen in which there had been a struggle for the mastery between them, and in every case not only had Austin had his own way but she had been compelled to acknowledge to herself that the wisdom had been on his side and not on hers. It was not so much that his reasoning powers were exceptionally acute as that he seemed to have a mysterious instinct, a sort of sub-conscious intuition, that never led him astray. And then there were those baffling, inexplicable premonitions that on three occasions had intervened to prevent some great disaster. The thought of these made her very pensive, and now that the vicar had set her mind at rest upon the abstract theory of invisible protectors she felt that she could harbour speculations about them without danger to her soul's welfare. That the power at work could scarcely emanate from the devil was now clear even to her, timid and narrow-minded as she was. Still, with that illogical shrinking from any tangible proof that her creed was true that is so characteristic of the orthodox, the whole thing gave her rather an uncomfortable sensation, and she would vastly have preferred to believe in spiritual or angelic ministrations as a pious opinion or casual article of faith than to have it brought home to her in the guise of knocks and raps. There are millions like her in the world to-day. Her religion, like everything else about her, was conventional, though not a whit the less sincere for that. And so it came about that she felt very much more dependent upon Austin than Austin did on her, although neither of them was conscious of the fact. The chief result was that, now they had fallen into their proper positions, they got on together much better than they had done before. Austin had really accomplished something towards "educating" his aunt, as he used humorously to say, and as he represented the newer and fresher thought it was well that it should be so. I do not know that he troubled himself very much about the future. In spite of his delicate health he was full of the joy of life, and he accepted it as a matter of course that wherever his future might be spent it would be a happy and a joyous one. What was the use of worrying about a matter over which he had absolutely no control? The universe was very beautiful, and he was a part of it. And as the universe would certainly endure, so would he endure. Why, then, should he concern himself about what might be in store for him? "You must take care of yourself, Austin," said Aunt Charlotte to him one day. "I'm afraid you've been overtaxing your strength, you know. You never would remain quiet even on the hottest days, and we've had rather a trying summer, you must remember." "It's been a lovely summer," replied Austin, who was lying down. "And how are you feeling, my dear?" asked Aunt Charlotte, anxiously. "Splendid!" he assured her. "I never felt better in my life." "But those little pains you spoke of; that weakness in your back----" "Oh, _that_!" said Austin, slightingly. "I wasn't thinking of my body. What does one's body matter? I meant _myself_. I'm all right. I daresay my bones may be doing something silly, but really I'm not responsible for their vagaries, am I now?" Aunt Charlotte sighed, and dropped the subject for the time being. But she was not quite easy in her mind. One day a great joy came to Austin. He was hobbling about the garden with his aunt, when all of a sudden he saw Roger St Aubyn approaching them across the lawn. It was with immense pride that he presented his friend to Aunt Charlotte, who, as may be remembered, had been just a little huffy that St Aubyn had never called on her before; but now that he had actually come the small grievance was forgotten in a moment, and she welcomed him with charming cordiality. "It is all the pleasanter to meet you," she said, "as I have now an opportunity of thanking you for all your kindness to Austin. He is never tired of telling me how much he has enjoyed himself with you." "The pleasure has been divided; he certainly has given me quite as much as ever I have been fortunate enough to give him," replied St Aubyn, smiling, "What a very dear old garden you have here; I don't wonder that he's so fond of it. It seems a place one might spend one's life in without ever growing old." "That's what I mean to do," said Austin, laughing. "But yours is magnificent, I'm told," observed Aunt Charlotte. "A little place like this is nothing in comparison, of course. Still, you are right; we are both extremely fond of it, and have spent many happy hours in it during the years that we've lived here." "And is that Lubin?" asked St Aubyn, noticing the young gardener a little distance off. "Yes, that's Lubin," replied Austin, delighted that St Aubyn should have remembered him. Then Lubin looked up with a respectful smile, and bashfully touched his cap. "Lubin's awfully clever," he continued, as they sauntered out of hearing, "and _so_ nice every way. He's what I call a real gentleman, and knows all sorts of curious things. It's perfectly wonderful how much more country people know than townsfolk. Of course I mean about _real_ things--nature, and all that--not silly stuff you find in history-books, which is of no consequence to anybody in the world." "Now, Austin," began Aunt Charlotte, warningly. "Oh, you needn't be afraid," laughed St Aubyn; "Austin's heresies are no novelty to me. And a heresy, you must recollect, has always some forgotten truth at the bottom of it." "I'm sure I hope so," replied Aunt Charlotte. "But the wind's getting a trifle chilly, and I think it's about time for tea. Austin isn't very strong just now, and mustn't run any risks." So they went indoors and had their tea in the drawing-room, when St Aubyn let fall the information that he was starting in a few days for a short tour in Italy. It would not be long, however, before he was back, and then of course he should look forward to seeing a great deal of Austin at the Court. Then Aunt Charlotte had to promise that she would honour the Court with a visit too; whereupon Austin launched out into a most glowing and picturesque description of the orchid-houses, and the pool of water-lilies, and the tapestry in the Banqueting Hall, being extremely curious to know whether his prosaic relative would experience any of those queer sensations that had so greatly impressed himself. This suggested a reference to Lady Merthyr Tydvil, who had taken so great an interest in Austin when last he had been at the Court; and here Aunt Charlotte chimed in, being naturally anxious to hear all about the wonderful old lady who had known Austin's father so well in years gone by, and remembered his mother too. Of course St Aubyn said, as in duty bound, that he hoped the countess would have the pleasure of meeting Austin's aunt some day under his own roof, and Aunt Charlotte acknowledged the courtesy in fitting terms. So the visit was quite a success, and Austin felt much more at his ease now that he could talk to his aunt about St Aubyn as one whom they both knew. She, on her side, was delighted with her new acquaintance, particularly as he seemed quite familiar with Austin's ethical and intellectual eccentricities, and did not seem horrified at them in the very least. The only thing that disturbed her just a little was the state of the boy's health. His spirits were as good as ever, and he seemed quite indifferent to the fact that he was not robust and hale; but there could be no doubt that he was paler and more fragile than he ought to have been, and the uneasiness he was fain to acknowledge in his hip and back worried her not a little--more, in fact, a great deal than it worried Austin himself. The truth was that his attention was taken up with something wholly different. The allusions to his unknown mother that had been made by Lady Merthyr Tydvil, and the cropping-up of the same subject during St Aubyn's visit, had somehow connected themselves in his mind with the mysterious appearance of the strange lady at the garden gate on the evening of the tea-party at the vicarage. Lady Merthyr Tydvil had recognised a strong resemblance between his mother as she had known her and himself, and he had noticed the very same thing in the strange lady. There were the same dark eyes, the same long, pale face, even (as far as he could judge) the same shade in colour of the hair. He would have thought little or nothing of this had it not been for the inexplicable and almost miraculous vanishing of the figure when there was absolutely nowhere for it to vanish to. Austin knew nothing of such happenings; with all his reading he had never chanced to open a single book that dealt with phenomena of this class, much less any written by scientific and sober investigators, so that the entire subject was an undiscovered country to him. Had he done so, his perplexity would not have been nearly so great, and very probably he might have recognised the fact of his own remarkable psychic powers. Still, in spite of this disadvantage, the conviction was slowly but surely forcing itself upon his mind that the lady he had seen was no one but his own mother. From this to a belief that it was she who had intervened to save both himself and his Aunt Charlotte from serious disasters was but a single step; and like Mary of old, in the presence of an even greater mystery, he revolved all these things silently in his heart. It was during the period when he was occupied with this train of thought that another strange thing occurred. One evening he strolled into the garden just as the sun was setting. It was one of those lurid sunsets peculiar to autumn, which look like a distant conflagration obscured by a veil of smoke. The western sky was aglow with a dull, murky crimson flecked by clouds of the deepest indigo, from behind which there seemed to shoot up luminous pulsations like the reflection of unseen flames. The effect of this red, throbbing light upon the garden in which he stood was almost unearthly, something resembling that of an eclipse viewed through warm-coloured glass; beautiful in itself, yet abnormal, fantastic, suggestive of weird imaginings. Austin, absorbed in contemplation, moved slowly through the shrubbery until he reached the lawn; then came to a dead stop. An astounding vision appeared before him. Standing by the old stone fountain, scarcely ten yards away, he saw the figure of a youth. The slender form was partly draped in a loose tunic of some dim, pale, reddish hue, descending halfway to his knees; on his feet were sandals of the old classic type; his golden hair was bound by a narrow fillet, and in his right hand he held a round, shallow cup, apparently of gold, towards which he was bending his head as though to drink from it. Austin stood transfixed. So exquisite a being he had never dreamt of or conceived. The contour of the limbs, the fall of the tunic, the pose of the head and throat, the ruddy lips, ever so slightly parted to meet the edge of the vessel he was in the act of raising to them, were something more than human. The whole thing stood out with stereoscopic clearness, and seemed as though self-luminous, although it shed no light on its surroundings. At that moment the youth turned his head, and met Austin's eyes with an expression that was not a smile, but something far more subtle, something that bore the same relation to a smile that a smile does to a laugh--thrilling, penetrating, indescribable. Austin flung out his hands in rapture. "Daphnis!" he ejaculated, with a flash of intuition. He threw himself forward impulsively, in a mad attempt to approach the wonderful phantasm. As he did so, the colours lost their sheen, and the figure faded into transparency. By the time he was near enough to touch it, it was no longer there, and the next instant he found himself clinging to the cold stone margin of the old fountain, all alone upon the lawn in the fast gathering twilight, shivering, panting, marvelling, but exultant in the consciousness of having been vouchsafed just one glimpse of the being who, so long unseen, had constituted for many years his cherished ideal of physical and spiritual beauty. He leant upon the fountain, in the spot that the vision had occupied. "And I believe he's always been here--all these many years," mused the boy, coming gradually to himself again. "He has stood beside me, often and often, inspiring me with beautiful ideas, though I never guessed it, never suspected it for a single moment. And now he has shown himself to me at last. The fountain is haunted, haunted by the beautiful earth-spirit that has been my guide, that I've dreamt of all my life without ever having seen him. It's a sacred fountain now--like the fountains of old Hellas, sacred with the hauntings of the gods. And he actually drank of the water--or was going to, if I hadn't frightened him away. Perhaps he's still here, although I can't see him any more. I wonder whether he knows my mother. It may be that they're great friends, and keep watch over me together. How wonderful it all is!" Then he walked slowly and rather painfully back to the house. He was in great spirits that night at dinner, though he ate no more than would have satisfied a bird, greatly to his aunt's disturbance. With much tact he abstained from saying anything to her about the extraordinary experience he had just gone through, feeling very justly that, though she seemed more or less reconciled to the ministry of angels, Daphnis was frankly a pagan spirit, and would, as such, be open to grave suspicion from the standpoint of his aunt's orthodoxy. But it didn't matter much, after all. He was happy in the consciousness that every day he was getting into nearer touch with a beautiful world that he could not see as yet, but in the existence of which he now believed as firmly as in that of his own garden. The spirit-land was fast becoming a reality to him, and although he had never beheld the glories of its scenery he had actually had a visit from two of its inhabitants. That, he thought, constituted the difference between Aunt Charlotte and himself. She believed in some place she called heaven, and had a vague notion that it was like a sort of religious transformation-scene, millions of miles away, up somewhere in the sky. He, on the contrary, knew that the spirit-world was all around him, because he had had ocular as well as intuitive demonstration of its proximity. It must not be supposed, however, that he sank into a state of mystic contemplation that unfitted him for every-day life. On the contrary, he took more interest in his physical surroundings than ever. It was now October, and he threw himself with almost feverish energy into the garden-work belonging to that month. There were potted carnations to be removed into warmth and shelter, hyacinths and tulips for the spring bloom to be planted in different beds, roses and honeysuckles to be carefully and scientifically pruned, and dead leaves to be plucked off everywhere. His fragile health prevented him from helping in the more onerous tasks, but he followed Lubin about indefatigably, watching everything he did with eager vigilance, whether he was planting ranunculuses and anemones, or clipping hedges, or trimming evergreens; while he himself was fain to be content with pruning and budding, and directing how the plants should be most fitly set. He said he wanted the show of flowers next year to be a triumph of gardencraft. The garden was a sort of holy of holies to him, and he tended it, and planned for it, and worked in it more enthusiastically than he had ever done before. This interest in common things was gratifying to Aunt Charlotte, who distrusted and discouraged his dwelling on what she called the uncanny side of life; but she was anxious, at the same time, that he should not overtax his strength, and gave secret orders to Lubin to see that the young master did not allow his ardour to outrun the dictates of discretion. One afternoon, Austin, who was feeling unusually tired, was lying in an easy-chair in the drawing-room with a book. He had been all the morning standing about in the garden, and after lunch Aunt Charlotte had put her foot down, and peremptorily forbidden him to go out any more that day. Austin had tried to get up a small rebellion, protesting that there were a lot of jonquils to be planted, and that Lubin would be sure to stick them too close together if he were not there to look after him; but his aunt was firm, and Austin was compelled on this occasion to submit. So there he lay, very calm and comfortable, while Aunt Charlotte knitted industriously, close by. "You see, my dear, you're not strong--not nearly so strong as you ought to be," she said, as she glanced at his drawn face. "I intend to take extra care of you this winter, and if you're not good about it I shall have to call in the doctor. I feel I have a great responsibility, you know, Austin. Oh, if only your poor mother were here, and could look after you herself!" "How do you know she doesn't?" asked Austin. "My dear!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, rather shocked. "Well, you can't be sure," retorted Austin, "and I believe myself she does. I'm sure of one thing, anyhow--and that is that if she came into the room at this moment I should recognise her at once." "You? Why, you never saw her in your life!" said Aunt Charlotte. "You shouldn't indulge such fancies, Austin. You could only think it might possibly be your mother, from the descriptions you've heard of her. Of course you could never be certain." "How is it she never had her likeness taken?" enquired Austin, laying his book aside. "She did have her likeness taken once; but she didn't care for it, and I don't think she kept any copies," replied Aunt Charlotte. "It was just a common cabinet photograph, you know, done by some man or other in a country town. There may be one or two in existence, but I've never come across any. I've often wished I could." "There are a lot of old trunks up in the attic, full of all sorts of rubbish," suggested Austin. "It might be amusing to go up and grub about among them some day. One might find wonderful heirlooms, and jewels, and forgotten wills. I should like to hunt there awfully. I'm sure they haven't been touched for a century." "In that case it isn't likely we should find your mother's photograph among them," retorted Aunt Charlotte briskly. Austin laughed. "But may I?" he persisted. "My dear, of course you may if you like," replied Aunt Charlotte. "I don't suppose there are any treasures or secrets to be unearthed; probably you'll find nothing but a lot of old bills, and school-books, and such-like useless lumber. There _may_ be some forgotten photographs--I couldn't swear there aren't; but if you do find anything of interest I shall be much surprised." Austin was on his legs in a moment. "Just the thing for an afternoon like this!" he cried impulsively. "I'll go up now, and have a look round. Don't worry, auntie; I won't fatigue myself, I promise you. I only want to see if there's anything that looks as though it might be worth examining." He hopped out of the room in some excitement, full of this new project. Aunt Charlotte, less enthusiastic, continued knitting placidly, her only anxiety being lest Austin should strain his back in leaning over the boxes. In about twenty minutes or so he returned, followed by Martha, the two carrying between them a battered green chest full of odds and ends, which she had carefully dusted before bringing into the drawing-room. "There!" he said, triumphantly; "here's treasure-trove, if you like. Put it on the chair, Martha, close by me, and then I can empty it at my leisure. Now for a plunge into the past. Isn't it going to be fun, auntie?" "I hope, my dear, that the entertainment will come up to your expectations," observed Aunt Charlotte, equably. "Sure to," said Austin, beginning to rummage about. "What are these? Old exercise-books, as I live! Oh, do look here; isn't this wonderful? Here's a translation: 'Horace, Liber I, Satire 5.' How brown the ink is. _Aricia a little town on the way to Appia received me coming from the magnificent city of Rome with poor accommodation. Heliodorus by far the most learned orator of the Greeks accompanied me. We came to the market-place of Appius filled with sailors and insolent brokers._--Were they stockbrokers, I wonder? Oh, auntie, these are exercises done by my grandfather when he was a little boy. Poor little grandfather; what pains he seems to have taken over it, and how beautifully it's written. I hope he got a lot of marks; do you think he did? _The sailor, soaked in poor wine, and the passenger, earnestly celebrate their absent mistresses._ Poor things! They don't seem to have had a very enjoyable excursion. However, I can't read it all through. Oh--here are a lot of letters. Not very interesting. All about contracts and sales, and silly things like that. Here's a funny book, though. Do look, auntie. It must have been printed centuries ago by the look of it. I wonder what it's all about. _A Sequel to the Antidote to the Miseries of Human Life, containing a Further Account of Mrs Placid and her daughter Rachel. By the Author of the Antidote._ What _does_ it all mean? 'Squire Bustle'--'Miss Finakin'--'Uncle Jeremiah'--used people to read books like this when grandfather was a little boy? It looks quite charming, but I think we'll put it by for the present. What's this? Oh, a daguerreotype, I suppose--an extraordinary-looking, smirking old person in a great bonnet with large roses all round her face, and tied with huge ribbons under her chin. Dear auntie, why don't you wear bonnets like that? You _would_ look so sweet! Pamphlets--tracts--oh dear, these are all dreadfully dry. What a mixture it all is, to be sure. The things seem to have been shot in anyhow. Hullo--an album. _Now_ we shall see. This is evidently of much later date than the other treasures, though it is at the bottom of them all." He dragged out an old, soiled, photographic album bound in purple morocco, and all falling to pieces. It proved to contain family portraits, none of them particularly attractive in themselves, but interesting enough to Austin. He turned over the pages one by one, slowly. Aunt Charlotte glanced curiously at them over her spectacles from where she sat. "I don't think I remember ever seeing that album," she said. "I wonder whom it can have belonged to. Ah! I expect it must have been your father's. Yes--there's a photograph of your Uncle Ernest, when he was just of age. You never saw him, he went to Australia before you were born. Those ladies I don't know. What a string of them there are, to be sure. I suppose they were----" "There she is!" cried Austin, suddenly bringing his hand down upon the page. "That's my mother. I told you I should know her, didn't I?" Aunt Charlotte jumped. "The very photograph!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea there was a copy in existence. But how in the wide world did you recognise it?" Austin continued examining it for some seconds without replying. "I don't think it quite does her justice," he said at last, thoughtfully. "The position isn't well arranged. It makes the chin too small." "Quite true!" assented Aunt Charlotte. "It's the way she's holding her head." Then, with another start: "But how can you know that?" "Because I saw her only the other day," said Austin. For a moment Aunt Charlotte thought he was wool-gathering. He spoke in such a perfectly calm, natural tone, that he might have been referring to someone who lived in the next street. But a glance at his face convinced her that he meant exactly what he said. "Austin!" she exclaimed. "What can you be thinking about?" "It's perfectly true," he assured her. "I saw her a few weeks ago in the garden. She stood and looked at me over the gate, and then suddenly disappeared." "And you really believe it?" cried Aunt Charlotte in amaze. "I don't believe it, I know it," he answered, laying down the photograph. "I saw her as distinctly as I see you now. It was that day we had been having tea at the vicarage, when we met the man who wanted to set fire to some bishop or other. Ask Lubin; he'll remember it fast enough." This time Aunt Charlotte fairly collapsed. It was no longer any use flouting Austin's statements; they were too calm, too collected, to be disposed of by mere derision. There could be no doubt that he firmly believed he had seen something or somebody, and whatever might be the explanation of that belief it had enabled him not only to recognise his mother's photograph but to criticise, and criticise correctly, a certain defect in the portrait. She could not deny that what he said was true. "Can such things really be?" she uttered under her breath. "Dear auntie, they _are_," said Austin. "I've been conscious of it for months, and lately I've had the proof. Indeed, I've had more than one. There are people all round us, only it isn't given to everybody to see them. And it isn't really very astonishing that it should be so, when one comes to think of it." From that day forward Aunt Charlotte watched Austin with a sense of something akin to awe. Certainly he was different from other folk. With all his love of life, his keen interest in his surroundings, and his wealth of boyish spirits, he seemed a being apart--a being who lived not only in this world but on the boundary between this world and another. As an orthodox Christian woman of course she believed in that other--"another and a better world," as she was accustomed to call it. But that that world was actually around her, hemming her in, within reach of her fingertips so to speak, that was quite a new idea. It gave her the creeps, and she strove to put it out of her head as much as possible. But ere many weeks elapsed, it was forced upon her in a very painful way, and she could no longer ignore the feeling which stole over her from time to time that not only was the boundary between the two worlds a very narrow one, but that her poor Austin would not be long before he crossed it altogether. For there was no doubt that he was beginning to fade. He got paler and thinner by degrees, and one day she found him in a dead faint upon the floor. The slight uneasiness in his hip had increased to actual pain, and the pain had spread to his back. In an agony of apprehension she summoned the doctor, and the doctor with hollow professional cheerfulness said that that sort of thing wouldn't do at all, and that Master Austin must make up his mind to lie up a bit. And so he was put to bed, and people smiled ghastly smiles which were far more heartrending than sobs, and talked about taking him away to some beautiful warm southern climate where he would soon grow strong and well again. Austin only said that he was very comfortable where he was, and that he wouldn't think of being taken away, because he knew how dreadfully poor Aunt Charlotte suffered at sea, and travelling was a sad nuisance after all. And indeed it would have been impossible to move him, for his sufferings were occasionally very great. Sometimes he would writhe in strange agonies all night long, till they used to wonder how he would live through it; but when morning came he scarcely ever remembered anything at all, and in answer to enquiries always said that he had had a very good night indeed, thank you. Once or twice he seemed to have a dim recollection of something--some "bustle and fluff," as he expressed it--during his troubled sleep; and then he would ask anxiously whether he really had been giving them any bother, and assure them that he was so very sorry, and hoped they would forgive him for having been so stupid. At which Aunt Charlotte had to smile and joke as heroically as she knew how. There were some days, however, when he was quite free from pain, and then he was as bright and cheerful as ever. He lay in his white bed surrounded by the books he loved, which he read intermittently; and every now and then, when Aunt Charlotte thought he was strong enough, a visitor would be admitted. Roger St Aubyn, now back from Italy, often dropped in to sit with him, and these were golden hours to Austin, who listened delightedly to his friend's absorbing descriptions of the beautiful places he had been to and the wonderful old legends that were attached to them. Then nothing would content him but that Lubin must come up occasionally and tell him how the garden was looking, and what he thought of the prospects for next summer, and answer all sorts of searching questions as to the operations in which he had been engaged since Austin had been a prisoner. Austin enjoyed these colloquies with Lubin; the very sight of him, he said, was like having a glimpse of the garden. But somehow Lubin's eyes always looked rather red and misty when he came out of the room, and it was noticed that he went about his work in a very half-hearted and listless manner. One day, however, a visitor called whose presence was not so sympathetic. This was Mr Sheepshanks, the vicar. Of course he was quite right to call--indeed it would have been an unpardonable omission had he not done so; at the same time his little furtive movements and professional air of solemnity got on Austin's nerves, and produced a sense of irritation that was certainly not conducive to his well-being. At last the point was reached to which the vicar had been gradually leading up, and he suggested that, now that it had pleased Providence to stretch Austin on a couch of pain, it was advisable that he should think about making his peace with God. "Make my peace with God?" repeated Austin, opening his eyes. "What about? We haven't quarrelled!" "My dear young friend, that is scarcely the way for a creature to speak of its relations with its Creator," said the vicar, gravely shocked. "Isn't it?" said Austin. "I'm very sorry; I thought you were hinting that I had some grudge against the Creator, and that I ought to make it up. Because I haven't, not in the very least. I've had a lovely life, and I'm more obliged to Him for it than I can say." "Ahem," coughed the vicar dubiously. "One scarcely speaks of being _obliged_ to the Almighty, my dear Austin. We owe Him our everlasting gratitude for His mercies to us, and when we think how utterly unworthy the best of us are of the very least attention on His part----" "I don't see that at all," interrupted Austin. "On the contrary, seeing that God brought us all into existence without consulting any one of us I think we have a right to expect a great deal of attention on His part. Surely He has more responsibility towards somebody He has made than that somebody has towards Him. That's only common sense, it seems to me." The vicar thought he had never had such an unmanageable penitent to deal with since he took orders. "But how about sin?" he suggested, shifting his ground. "Have you no sense of sin?" "I'm almost afraid not," acknowledged Austin, with well-bred concern. "Ought I to have?" "We all ought to have," replied the vicar sternly. "We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God." "I don't see how we could have done otherwise," remarked Austin, who was getting rather bored. "Little people like us can't be expected to come up to a standard which I suppose implies divine perfection. I dare say I've done lots of sins, but for the life of me I've no idea what they were. I don't think I ever thought about it." "It's time you thought about it now, then," said the vicar, getting up. "I won't worry you any more to-day, because I see you're tired. But I shall pray for you, and when next I come I hope you'll understand my meaning more clearly than you do at present." "That is very kind of you," said Austin, putting out his almost transparent hand. "I'm awfully sorry to give you so much trouble. You'll see Aunt Charlotte before you go away? I know she'll expect you to go in for a cup of tea." So the vicar escaped, almost as glad to do so as Austin was to be left in peace. And the worst of it was that, though he cudgelled his brains for many hours that night, he could not think of any sins in particular that Austin had been in the habit of committing. He was kind, he was pure, and he was unselfish. His exaggerated abuse of people he didn't like was more than half humorous, and was rather a fault than a sin. Yet he must be a sinner somehow, because everybody was. Perhaps his sin consisted in his not being pious in the evangelical sense of the word. Yet he loved goodness, and the vicar had once heard a great Roman Catholic divine say that loving goodness was the same thing as loving God. But Austin had never said that he loved God; he had only said that he was much obliged to Him. The poor vicar worried himself about all this until he fell asleep, taking refuge in the reflection that if he couldn't understand the state of Austin's soul there was always the probability that God did. Aunt Charlotte, on her side, was too much absorbed in her anxiety and sorrow to trouble herself with such misgivings. The light of her life was burning very low, and bade fair to be extinguished altogether. What were theological conundrums to her now? It would be positively wicked to fear that anything dreadful could happen to Austin because he had forgotten his catechism and was not impressed by the vicar's prosy discourses in church. Face to face with the possibility of losing him, all her conventionality collapsed. The boy had been everything in the world to her, and now he was going elsewhere. The house was a very mournful place just then, and the servants moved noiselessly about as though in the presence of some strange mystery. The only person in it who seemed really happy was Austin himself. A great London surgeon came to see him once, and then there was talk of hiring a trained nurse. But Austin combatted this project with all the vigour at his command, protesting that trained nurses always scented themselves with chloroform and put him in mind of a hospital; he really could not have one in the room. Some assistance, however, was necessary, for the disease was making such rapid progress that he could no longer turn himself in bed; and Austin, recognising the fact, insisted that Lubin and no other should tend him. So Lubin, tearfully overjoyed at the distinction, exchanged the garden for the sick-chamber, into which, as Austin said, he seemed to bring the very scent of grass and flowers; and there he passed his time, day after day, raising the helpless boy in his strong arms, shifting his position, anticipating his slightest wish, and even sleeping in a low truckle-bed in a corner of the room at night. Sometimes Austin would lie, silent and motionless, for hours, with a perfectly calm and happy look upon his face. This was when the pain relaxed its grip upon him. At other times he would talk almost incessantly, apparently holding a conversation with people whom Lubin could not see. One would have thought that someone very dear to him had come to pay him a visit, and that he and this mysterious someone were deeply attached to each other, so bright and playful were the smiles that rippled upon his lips. He spoke in a low, rapid undertone, so that Lubin could only catch a word or two here and there; then there would be a pause, as though to allow for some unheard reply, to which Austin appeared to be listening intently; and then off he would go again as fast as ever. His eyes had a wistful, far-off look in them, and every now and then he seemed puzzled at Lubin's presence, not being quite able to reconcile the actual surroundings of the sick-room with those other scenes that were now dawning upon his sight, scenes in which Lubin had no place. There was a little confusion in his mind in consequence; but as the days went on things gradually became much clearer. Now Austin, in spite of his utter indifference to, or indeed aversion from, theological religion, had always loved his Sundays. To him they were as days of heaven upon earth, and in them he appeared to take an instinctive delight, as though the very atmosphere of the day filled him with spiritual aspirations, and thoughts which belonged not to this world. Above all, he loved Sunday evenings, which appeared to him a season hallowed in some special way, when all high and pure influences were felt in their greatest intensity. And now another Sunday came round, and, as had been the case all through his illness, he felt and knew by instinct what day it was. He lay quite still, as the distant chime of the church bells was wafted through the air, faint but just audible in the silent room. Aunt Charlotte smiled tenderly at him through her tears; she was going to church, poor soul, to pray for his recovery, though knowing quite well that what she called his recovery was beyond hope. Austin shot a brilliant smile at her in return, and Aunt Charlotte rushed out of the room choking. The day drew to its close, the darkness gathered, and Austin, who had been suffering considerably during the afternoon, was now easier. At about seven o'clock his aunt stole softly in, unable to keep away, and looked at him. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be asleep. "How has he been this afternoon?" she asked of Lubin in an undertone. "Seemed to be sufferin' a bit about two hour ago, but nothing more 'n usual," said Lubin. "Then he got easier and sank asleep, quite quiet-like. He's breathin' regular enough." "He doesn't look worse--there's even a little colour in his cheeks," observed Aunt Charlotte, as she watched the sleeping boy. "He's in quite a nice, natural slumber. If nursing could only bring him round!" "I'd nurse him all my life for that matter," replied Lubin huskily, standing on the other side of the bed. "I know you would, Lubin," cried Aunt Charlotte. "You've been goodness itself to my poor darling. What wouldn't I do--what wouldn't we all do--to save his precious life!" "Is he waking up?" whispered Lubin, bending over. "Nay--just turning his head a bit to one side. He's comfortable enough for the time being. If it wasn't for them crooel pains as seizes him----" "Ah, but they're only the symptoms of the disease!" sighed Aunt Charlotte, mournfully. "And the doctor says that if they were to leave him suddenly, it--wouldn't--be a good--sign." Here she began to sob under her breath. "It might mean that his poor body was no longer capable of feeling. Well, God knows what's best for all of us. Aren't you getting nearly worn out yourself, Lubin?" "I? Laws no, ma'am," answered Lubin almost scornfully. "I get a sort o' dog's snooze every now and again, and when Martha was here this morning I slept for four hour on end. No fear o' me caving in. Ah, would ye now?" observing some feeble attempt on Austin's part to shift his position. "There!" as he deftly slipped his hands under him, and turned him a little to one side. "That eases him a bit. It's stiff work, lying half the day with one's back in the same place." Then Martha appeared at the door, and insisted on Aunt Charlotte going downstairs and trying to take some nourishment. In the sick-room all was silent. Austin continued sleeping peacefully, an expression of absolute contentment and happiness upon his face, while Lubin sat by the bedside watching. But Austin did not go on sleeping all the night. There came a time when his deep unconsciousness was invaded by a very strange and wonderful sensation. He no longer felt himself lying motionless in bed, as he had been doing for so long. He seemed rather to be floating, as one might float along the current of a strong, swift stream. He felt no bed under him, though what it was that held him up he couldn't guess, and it never occurred to him to wonder. All he knew was that his pains had vanished, that his body was scarcely palpable, and that the smooth, gliding motion--if motion it could be called--was the most exquisite sensation he had ever felt. What _could_ be happening? Austin, his mind now wide awake, and thoroughly on the alert, lay for some time in rapt enjoyment of this new experience. Then he opened his eyes, and found that he was in bed after all; the nightlight was burning on a table by the window, the bookcase stood where it did, and he could even discern Lubin, who seemed to have dropped asleep, in an armchair three or four yards away. That made the mystery all the greater, and Austin waited in expectant silence to see what would happen next. Suddenly, as in a flash, the whole of his past life unrolled itself before his consciousness. He saw himself a toddling baby, a growing child, a schoolboy, a happy young rascal chasing sheep; then came a period of pain, a gradual convalescence, a joyful life in the country air, a life of reading, a life of pleasant dreams, a life into which entered his friendship with St Aubyn, his days with Lubin in the garden, his encounters with Mr Buskin, and those strange experiences that had reached him from another world. That other world was coming very near to him now, and he was coming very near to it! And all these recollections formed one marvellous panorama, one great simultaneous whole, with no appearance of succession, but just as though it had happened all at once. Austin seemed to be past reasoning; he had advanced to a stage where thinking and speculating were things gone by for ever, and his perceptions were wholly passive. There was his life, spread out in consciousness before him; and meanwhile he was undergoing a change. He looked up, and saw a dim, violet cloud hanging horizontally over him. It was in shape like a human form; his own form. At that moment a great tremor, a sort of convulsive thrill, passed through him as he lay, jarring every nerve, and awaking him, at that supreme crisis, to the existence of his body. A sense of confusion followed; and then he seemed to pass out of his own head, and found himself poised in the air immediately over the place where he had just been lying. He saw the violet cloud no more, though whether he had coalesced with it, or the cloud itself had become disintegrated, he could not tell; then, by a sort of instinct, he assumed an erect position, and saw that he was balanced, somehow, a little distance from the bed, looking down upon it. And on the bed, connected with him by a faintly luminous cord, lay the white, still, beautiful form of a dead boy. "And that was my body!" he cried, in awestruck wonder, though his words caused no vibration in the air. He looked at himself, and saw that he was glorious, encircled by a radiant fire-mist. And he was throbbing and pulsating with life, able to move hither and thither without effort, free from lameness, free from weight, strong, vigorous, full of energy, poised like a bird in the pure air of heaven, ready to take his flight in any conceivable direction at the faintest motion of his own will. Then the resplendence that enveloped him extended, until the whole room was full of it; and in the midst of it there stood a very sweet and gracious figure, robed in white drapery, and with eyes of intensest love, more beautiful to look at than anything that Austin had ever dreamed of. "Mother!" he whispered, as he glided swiftly towards her. The walls and ceiling of the room dissolved, and a wonderful landscape, the pageantry and splendour of the Spirit Land, revealed itself. It was bathed in a light that never was on land or sea, and there were sunny slopes, and jewelled meadows, and silvery streams, and flowers that only grow in Paradise. Austin was dazzled with its glory; here at last was the realisation of all he had dimly fancied, all he had ever longed for. And yet as he floated outwards and upwards into the heavenly realms, the crown and climax of his happiness lay in the thought that he could always, by the mere impulse of desire, revisit the sweet old garden he had loved, and watch Lubin at his work among the flowers, and stand, though all unseen, beside the old stone fountain where he had passed such happy times in the earth-life he was leaving. Edinburgh M'laren and Co., Limited Printers 
31341	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) APPARITIONS; OR, THE MYSTERY OF Ghosts, Hobgoblins, AND HAUNTED HOUSES, _DEVELOPED_. *** "Animum rege." "This Collection of Stories is well chosen, and affords a fund of amusement that is cheap at the price of five shillings. By putting such a book as this into the hands of children, parents will more effectually guard their minds against weak credulity, than by grave philosophic admonition." _Monthly Review, October 1814._ Printed by Macdonald and Son, Cloth Fair, Smithfield [Illustration: H Corbould _delint_ C Knight _sculpt_ 1814 _The Haunted Beach._] APPARITIONS; OR, THE MYSTERY OF Ghosts, _Hobgoblins_, _and Haunted Houses_, DEVELOPED. BEING A COLLECTION OF ENTERTAINING STORIES, _FOUNDED ON FACT_, And selected for the purpose of ERADICATING THOSE FEARS, WHICH THE IGNORANT, THE WEAK, AND THE SUPERSTITIOUS, ARE BUT TOO APT TO ENCOURAGE, FOR WANT OF PROPERLY EXAMINING INTO THE CAUSES OF SUCH ABSURD IMPOSITIONS. *** BY JOSEPH TAYLOR. [Illustration] _SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED._ *** London: PRINTED FOR LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO. FINSBURY SQUARE. *** 1815. INTRODUCTION. The subsequent little Work owes its rise and progress to very trifling circumstances. In the early part of my life, having read many books in favour of Ghosts and Spectral Appearances, the recollection remained so strong in my mind, that, for _years_ after, the dread of phantoms bore irresistible sway. This dread continued till about my twenty-third year, when the following simple affair fully convinced me, how necessary it was _thoroughly_ to investigate _every thing_ that tended to supernatural agency, lest idle fear should gain a total ascendancy over my mind. About this period, I had apartments in a large old-fashioned country mansion. From my bed-chamber was a secret door leading to a private staircase, which communicated with some of the lower rooms. This door was fastened both within and without; consequently all fear of intrusion from that quarter was entirely removed. However, at times, I could not help ruminating on the malpractices that _might_ have been committed by evil-disposed persons, through this communication; and "busy meddling fancy" was fertile in conjuring up imaginary horrors. Every thing, however, was quiet, and agreeable to my wishes, for some months after my arrival. One moonlight night, in the month of June, I retired to my bed, full of thought, but slept soundly till about one o'clock; when I awoke, and discovered, by the help of the moon which shone full in my room, a tall figure in white, with arms extended, at the foot of my bed. Fear and astonishment overpowered me for a few seconds; I gazed on it with terror, and was afraid to move. At length I had courage to take a _second_ peep at this disturber of my rest, and still continued much alarmed, and irresolute how to act. I hesitated whether to speak to the figure, or arouse the family. The first idea I considered as a dangerous act of heroism; the latter, as a risk of being laughed at, should the subject of my story not prove supernatural. Therefore, after taking a _third_ view of the phantom, I mustered up all my resolution, jumped out of bed, and boldly went up to the figure, grasped it round and round, and found it incorporeal. I then looked at it again, and felt it again; when, reader, judge of my astonishment--this ghostly spectre proved to be nothing more than a large new flannel dressing-gown which had been sent home to me in the course of the day, and which had been hung on some pegs against the wainscot at the foot of my bed. One arm accidentally crossed two or three of the adjoining pegs, and the other was nearly parallel by coming in contact with some article of furniture which stood near. Now the mystery was developed: this dreadful hobgoblin, which a few minutes before I began to think was an aërial being, or sprite, and which must have gained admission either through the key-hole, or under the door, turned out to be my own garment. I smiled at my groundless fears, was pleased with any resolution, returned light-hearted to my bed, and moralized nearly the whole of the night on the simplicity of a great part of mankind in being so credulous as to believe every idle tale, or conceive every noise to be a spectre, without first duly examining into causes. This very trifling accident was of great service to me as I travelled onward through life. Similar circumstances transpired. Screams, and shades, I encountered; which always, upon due investigation, ended in "trifles light as air." Nor did the good end here. My story circulated, and put other young men upon the alert, to guard against similar delusions. They likewise imparted to me their ghostly encounters, and those I thought deserving of record I always committed to writing; and, as many of them are well authenticated facts, and both instructive and amusing, they form a part of the volume now presented to the Public. The other stories are selected from history, and respectable publications; forming in the whole, I hope, an antidote against a too credulous belief in every village tale, or old gossip's story. Though I candidly acknowledge to have received great pleasure in forming this Collection, I would by no means wish it to be imagined, that I am sceptical in my opinions, or entirely disbelieve and set my face against all apparitional record. No; I do believe that, for certain purposes, and on certain and all-wise occasions, such things _are_, and _have been_ permitted by the Almighty; but by no means do I believe they are suffered to appear half so frequently as our modern ghost-mongers manufacture them. Among the various idle tales in circulation, nothing is more common than the prevalent opinion concerning what is generally called a _death-watch_, and which is vulgarly believed to foretel the death of some one in the family. "This is," observes a writer in the Philosophical Transactions, "a ridiculous fancy crept into vulgar heads, and employed to terrify and affright weak people as a monitor of approaching death." Therefore, to prevent such causeless fears, I shall take this opportunity to undeceive the world, by shewing what it is, and that no such thing is intended by it. It has obtained the name of death-watch, by making a little clinking noise like a watch; which having given some disturbance to a gentleman in his chamber, who was not to be affrighted with such vulgar errors, it tempted him to a diligent search after the true cause of this noise, which I shall relate in his own words. "I have been, some time since, accompanied with this little noise. One evening, I sat down by a table from whence the noise proceeded, and laid my watch upon the same, and perceived, to my admiration, that the sound made by this invisible automaton was louder than that of the artificial machine. Its vibrations would fall as regular, but much quicker. Upon a strict examination, it was found to be nothing but a little beetle, or spider, in the wood of a box." Sometimes they are found in the plastering of a wall, and at other times in a rotten post, or in some old chest or trunk; and the noise is made by beating its head on the subject that it finds fit for sound. "The little animal that I found," says the gentleman, "was about two lines and a half long, calling a line the eighth part of an inch. The colour was a dark brown, with spots somewhat lighter, and irregularly placed, which could not easily be rubbed off." It was sent to the publisher of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Some people, influenced by common report, have fancied this little animal a spirit sent to admonish them of their deaths; and, to uphold the fancy, tell you of other strange monitors altogether as ridiculous. Though, as I before observed, I do not deny but the Almighty may employ unusual methods to warn us at times of our approaching ends, yet in general, such common and unaccountable tales are mere nonsense, originating from want of a proper investigation, and kept alive by an infatuated delight in telling strange stories, rendered more ridiculous by recapitulation. How charmingly does our poet Thomson touch upon this subject-- "Meantime the village rouses up the fire; While, well attested, and as well believ'd, Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round; Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all." How cautious then ought parents and guardians to be over their children, and the young people committed to their charge. For, says an elegant writer, the superstitious impressions made upon their minds, by the tales of weak and ignorant people in their infancy; a time when the tender mind is most apt to receive the impressions of error and vice, as well as those of truth and virtue, and, having once received either the one or the other, is likely to retain them as long as it subsists in the body. All these deplorable follies proceed from wrong and unworthy apprehensions of God's providence, in his care of man, and government of the world. Surely no reasonable creature can ever imagine, that the all-wise God should inspire owls and ravens to hoot out the elegies of dying men; that he should have ordained a fatality in numbers, inflict punishment without an offence; and that being one amongst the fatal number at a table, should be a crime (though contrary to no command) not to be expiated but by death! Thus folly, like gunpowder, runs in a train from one generation to another, preserved and conveyed by the perpetual tradition of tattling gossips. I now conclude this Introduction; and, in the following pages, shall present my readers with some admirable Essays on the subject by eminent writers: and a Collection of Stories will follow, which, I trust, will not only entertain, but likewise convince the _thinking_ part of mankind of the absurdity in believing every silly tale without first tracing the promulgation to its original source; for "Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dangerous art, And pours it all upon the peccant part." J. TAYLOR. _London, March 20, 1815._ AN ESSAY ON GHOSTS AND APPARITIONS. There is no folly more predominant, in the country at least, than a ridiculous and superstitious fear of ghosts and apparitions. Servants, nurses, old women, and others of the same standard of wisdom, to pass away the tediousness of a winter's evening, please and terrify themselves, and the children who compose their audience, with strange relations of these things, till they are even afraid of removing their eyes from one another, for fear of seeing a _pale spectre_ entering the room. Frightful ideas raised in the minds of children take so strong a possession of the faculties, that they often remain for ever fixed, and all the arguments of reason are unable to remove them. Hence it is, that so many grown-up people still keep the ridiculous fears of their infancy. I know a lady, of very good sense in other things, who, if she is left by herself after ten o'clock at night, will faint away at the terror of thinking some horrid spectre, with eyes sunk, meagre countenance, and threatening aspect, is standing at her elbow. And an Officer in the Guards, of my acquaintance, who has often, abroad, shewn no concern in marching up to the mouth of a cannon, has not courage enough to be in the dark without company. As I take the fear of ghosts, like all other prejudices, to be imbibed in our infancy, I would recommend this advice to parents--to use the utmost care, that the minds of their children are not vitiated by their servants' tales of ghosts, hobgoblins, and bugbears; which, though told to please, or frighten them into good, seldom fail of producing the very worst effects. There are some who are ghost-mad, and terrify themselves, because the Scripture has mentioned the appearance of ghosts. I shall not dispute, but, by the power of God, an incorporeal being may be visible to human eyes; but then, an all-wise Power would not have recourse to a preternatural effect but on some important occasion. Therefore, my intention is only to laugh a ridiculous fear out of the world, by shewing on what absurd and improbable foundations the common nature of ghosts and apparitions are built. In the country, there are generally allowed to be two sorts of ghosts;--the vulgar ghost, and the ghost of dignity. The latter is always the spirit of some Lord of the Manor, or Justice of the Peace, who, still desirous to see how affairs go on in his parish, rattles through it in a coach and six, much about midnight. This ghost is, in every respect, the very same man that the person whom he represents was in his life-time. Nay, the spirit, though incorporeal, has on its body all the marks which the Squire had on his; the scar on the cheek, the dimple on the chin, and twenty other demonstrative signs, which are visible to any old woman in the parish, that can _see clearly in a dark night_! The ghost keeps up to the character of a good old grave gentleman, who is heartily sorry to think his son will not live upon his estate, but rambles up to London, and runs it out, perhaps, in extravagance. He therefore does nothing inconsistent with the gravity of his character; but, still retaining the generous heart of a true Briton, keeps up his equipage, and loves good living and hospitality; for, a little time after the coach and six has, with a solemn rumble, passed through the village into his own court-yard, there is a great noise heard in the house, of servants running up and down stairs, the jacks going, and a great clattering of plates and dishes. Thus he spends an hour or two every midnight, in living well, after he has been some years dead; but is complaisant enough to leave every thing, at his departure, in the same position that he found them. There is scarcely a little town in all England, but has an old female spirit appertaining to it, who, in her high-crown hat, nicely clean linen, and red petticoat, has been viewed by half the parish. This article of dress is of mighty concern among some ghosts; wherefore a skilful and learned apparition writer, in the Preface of Drelincourt on Death, makes a very pious ghost talk to a lady upon the important subject of scouring a mantua. Before I leave my ghost of dignity, I must take notice of some who delight to seem as formidable as possible, and who are not content with appearing without heads themselves, but their coachmen and horses must be without their's too, and the coach itself frequently all on fire. These spirits, I know not for what reason, are universally allowed to have been people of first quality, and courtiers. As for the vulgar ghost, it seldom appears in its own bodily likeness, unless it be with a throat cut from ear to ear, or a winding-sheet; but humbly contents itself with the body of a white horse, that gallops over the meadows without legs, and grazes without a head. On other occasions, it takes the appearance of a black shock dog, which, with great goggle, glaring eyes, stares you full in the face, but never hurts you more than unmannerly pushing you from the wall. Sometimes a friendly ghost surprises you with a hand as cold as clay; at other times, that same ghostly hand gives three solemn raps, with several particularities, according to the different dispositions of the ghost. The chief reason which calls them back again to visit the world by night, is their fondness for some old broad pieces, or a pot of money, they buried in their life-time; and they cannot rest to have it lie useless, therefore the gold raises them before the resurrection. Mr. Addison's charming Essay, in the _Spectator_, is so applicable and prefatory to a work of this nature, that we cannot resist inserting that inimitable production in his own words. "Going to dine," says he, "with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon asking him the occasion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a strange dream the night before, which they were afraid portended some misfortune to themselves or to their children. At her coming into the room, I observed a settled melancholy in her countenance, which I should have been troubled for, had I not heard from whence it proceeded. We were no sooner sat down, but, after having looked upon me a little while, 'My dear,' says she, turning to her husband, 'you may now see the stranger that was in the candle last night.' Soon after this, as they began to talk of family affairs, a little boy at the lower end of the table told her, that he was to go into join-hand on Thursday. 'Thursday!' says she; 'no, child; if it please God, you shall not begin upon Childermas-day; tell your writing-master, that Friday will be soon enough.' I was reflecting with myself on the oddness of her fancy, and wondering that any body would establish it as a rule to lose a day in every week. In the midst of these my musings, she desired me to reach her a little salt upon the point of my knife, which I did in such a trepidation and hurry of obedience, that I let it drop by the way; at which she immediately startled, and said it fell towards her. Upon this I looked very blank; and, observing the concern of the whole table, began to consider myself, with some confusion, as a person that had brought a disaster upon the family. The lady, however, recovering herself after a little space, said to her husband, with a sigh, 'My dear, misfortunes never come single.' My friend, I found, acted but an under part at his table; and, being a man of more good-nature than understanding, thinks himself obliged to fall in with all the passions and humours of his yoke-fellow. 'Do not you remember, child,' said she, 'that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?' 'Yes,' says he, 'my dear; and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza.' The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. I dispatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual taciturnity; when, to my utter confusion, the lady seeing me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them across one another upon the plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that figure, and place them side by side. What the absurdity was which I had committed, I did not know, but I suppose there was some traditionary superstition in it; and therefore, in obedience to the lady of the house, I disposed of my knife and fork in two parallel lines, which is the figure I shall always lay them in for the future, though I do not know any reason for it. "It is not difficult for a man to see that a person has conceived an aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the lady's looks, that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate aspect. For which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the evils that attend these superstitious follies of mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions and additional sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale, and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty nail, or a crooked pin, shoot up into prodigies. "I remember, I was once in a mixed assembly, that was full of noise and mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into several who were present, insomuch that one or two of the ladies were going to leave the room: but a friend of mine, taking notice that one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there were fourteen in the room; and that, instead of portending one of the company should die, it plainly foretold one of them should be born. Had not my friend found out this expedient to break the omen, I question not but half the women in the company would have fallen sick that very night. "An old maid, that is troubled with the vapours, produces infinite disturbances of this kind among her friends and neighbours. I once knew a maiden aunt, of a great family, who is one of these antiquated sybils, that forebodes and prophesies from one end of the year to the other. She is always seeing apparitions, and hearing death-watches; and was the other day almost frightened out of her wits by the great house-dog, that howled in the stable at a time when she lay ill of the tooth-ach. Such an extravagant cast of mind engages multitudes of people not only in impertinent terrors, but in supernumerary duties of life; and arises from that fear and ignorance which are natural to the soul of man. The horror with which we entertain the thoughts of death or indeed of any future evil, and the uncertainty of its approach, fill a melancholy mind with innumerable apprehensions and suspicions, and consequently dispose it to the observation of such groundless prodigies and predictions. For, as it is the chief concern of wise men to retrench the evils of life by the reasonings of philosophy, it is the employment of fools to multiply them by the sentiments of superstition. "For my own part, I should be very much troubled, were I endowed with this divining quality, though it should inform me truly of every thing that can befal me. I would not anticipate the relish of any happiness, nor feel the weight of any misery, before it actually arrives. "I know but one way of fortifying my soul against these gloomy presages and terrors of mind; and that is, by securing to myself the friendship and protection of that Being who disposes of events, and governs futurity. He sees at one view the whole thread of my existence; not only that part of it which I have already passed through, but that which runs forward into all the depths of eternity. When I lay me down to sleep, I recommend myself to his care; when I awake, I give myself up to his direction. Amidst all the evils that threaten me, I will look up to him for help and question not but he will either avert them, or turn them to my advantage. Though I know neither the time nor the manner of the death I am to die, I am not at all solicitous about it; because I am sure that he knows them both, and that he will not fail to comfort and support me under them." In another paper, the same gentleman thus expresses himself on the same subject:-- "I remember, last winter, there were several young girls of the neighbourhood sitting about the fire with my landlady's daughters, and telling stories of spirits and apparitions. Upon my opening the door, the young women broke off their discourse; but my landlady's daughters telling them it was nobody but the gentleman (for that is the name which I go by in the neighbourhood as well as in the family), they went on without minding me. I seated myself by the candle that stood on a table at one end of the room; and, pretending to read a book that I took out of my pocket, heard several dreadful stories of ghosts as pale as ashes, that stood at the feet of a bed, or walked over a church-yard by moonlight; and of others that had been conjured into the Red Sea, for disturbing people's rest, and drawing their curtains at midnight; with many other old women's fables of the like nature. As one spirit raised another, I observed that at the end of every story the whole company closed their ranks, and crowded about the fire. I took notice in particular of a little boy, who was so attentive to every story, that I am mistaken if he ventures to go to bed by himself this twelvemonth. Indeed, they talked so long, that the imaginations of the whole assembly were manifestly crazed, and, I am sure, will be the worse for it as long as they live. I heard one of the girls, that had looked upon me over her shoulder, asking the company how long I had been in the room, and whether I did not look paler than I used to do. This put me under some apprehensions that I should be forced to explain myself, if I did not retire; for which reason I took the candle in my hand, and went up into my chamber, not without wondering at this unaccountable weakness in reasonable creatures, that they should love to astonish and terrify one another. Were I a father, I should take particular care to preserve my children from those little horrors of imagination, which they are apt to contract when they are young, and are not able to shake off when they are in years. I have known a soldier, that has entered a breach, affrighted at his own shadow, and look pale upon a little scratching at his door, who the day before had marched up against a battery of cannon. There are instances of persons who have been terrified, even to distraction, at the figure of a tree, or the shaking of a bulrush. The truth of it is, I look upon a sound imagination as the greatest blessing of life, next to a clear judgment and a good conscience. In the mean time, since there are very few whose minds are not more or less subject to these dreadful thoughts and apprehensions, we ought to arm ourselves against them by the dictates of reason and religion, to _pull the old woman out of our hearts_ (as Persius expresses it), and extinguish those impertinent notions which we imbibed at a time that we were not able to judge of their absurdity. Or, if we believe, as many wise and good men have done, that there are such phantoms and apparitions as those I have been speaking of, let us endeavour to establish to ourselves an interest in Him who holds the reins of the whole creation in his hand, and moderates them after such a manner, that it is impossible for one being to break loose upon another without his knowledge and permission. "For my own part, I am apt to join in opinion with those who believe that all the regions of nature swarm with spirits; and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions, when we think ourselves most alone. But, instead of terrifying myself with such a notion, I am wonderfully pleased to think that I am always engaged with such an innumerable society, in searching out the wonders of the creation, and joining in the same concert of praise and adoration. "Milton has finely described this mixed communion of men and spirits in Paradise; and had, doubtless, his eye upon a verse in old Hesiod, which is almost, word for word, the same with his third line in the following passage:-- '----Nor think, though men were none, That Heav'n would want spectators, God want praise: Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep; All these with ceaseless praise his works behold, Both day and night. How often from the steep Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air, Sole, or responsive each to other's note, Singing their great Creator? Oft in bands, While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, With heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds, In full harmonic number join'd, their songs Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heav'n.'--" Another celebrated writer says--"Some are over credulous in these stories, others sceptical and distrustful, and a third sort perfectly infidel. "Mr. Locke assures us, we have as clear an idea of spirit as of body. But, if it be asked, how a spirit, that never was embodied, can form to itself a body, and come up into a world where it has no right of residence, and have all its organs perfected at once; or how a spirit, once embodied, but now in a separate state, can take up its carcase out of the grave, sufficiently repaired, and make many resurrections before the last; or how the dead can counterfeit their own bodies, and make to themselves an image of themselves; by what ways and means, since miracles ceased, this transformation can be effected; by whose leave and permission, or by what power and authority, or with what wise design, and for what great ends and purposes, all this is done, we cannot easily imagine; and the divine and philosopher together will find it very difficult to resolve such questions. "Before the Christian æra, some messages from the other world might be of use, if not necessary, in some cases, and on some extraordinary occasions; but since that time we want no new, nor can we have any surer, informations. "Conscience, indeed, is a frightful apparition itself; and I make no question but it oftentimes haunts an oppressing criminal into restitution, and is a ghost to him sleeping or waking: nor is it the least testimony of an invisible world, that there is such a drummer as that in the soul, that can beat an alarm when he pleases, and so loud, as no other noise can drown it, no music quiet it, no power silence it, no mirth allay it, and no bribe corrupt it." Inexhaustible are the opinions on this subject: therefore we shall conclude this Essay, and proceed to the more illustrative part of our work, without any further quotations; for various are the methods proposed by the learned for the laying of ghosts and apparitions. Artificial ones are easily quieted, if we only take them for real and substantial beings, and proceed accordingly. Thus, when a Friar, personating an apparition, haunted the apartment of the late Emperor Joseph, King Augustus, then at the Imperial court, flung him out of the window, and laid him upon the pavement so effectually, that he never rose or appeared again in this world. THE DOMINICAN FRIAR. _An Extraordinary Event that happened lately at Aix-la-Chapelle._ As the following story, which is averred to be authentic, and to have happened very lately, may serve to shew, that the stories of this kind, with which the public are, from time to time, every now and then alarmed, are nothing more than artful impostures, it is presumed, it will be useful as well as entertaining to our readers to give it a place. A person who kept a lodging-house near the springs at Aix-la-Chapelle, having lost his wife, committed the management of his family to his daughter, a sprightly, well-made, handsome girl, about twenty. There were, at that time, in the house, two ladies and their waiting-woman, two Dutch officers, and a Dominican Friar. It happened, that, as the young woman of the house was asleep one night in her bed, she was awakened by something that attempted to draw the clothes off the bed. She was at first frightened; but thinking, upon recollection, that it might be the house-dog, she called him by his name. The clothes, however, were still pulled from her; and she still imagining it was by the dog, took up a brush that lay in her reach, and attempted to strike him. At that moment she saw a flash of sudden light, that filled the whole room; upon which she shrieked out; all was again dark and silent, and the clothes were no longer drawn from her. In the morning, when she related this story, every one treated it as a dream; and the girl herself at last took it for granted, that it was no more than an illusion. The night following, she was again awakened by something that jogged her, and she thought she felt a hand in the bed; upon endeavouring to repress it, another flash of lightning threw her into a fit of terror: she shut her eyes, and crossed herself. When she ventured to open her eyes again, the light was vanished; but, in a short time, she felt what she supposed to be a hand again in the bed: she again endeavoured to repress it, and, looking towards the foot of the bed, saw a large luminous cross, on which was written distinctly, as with light, the words, "_Be Silent!_" She was now so terrified, that she had not power to break the injunction, but shrunk down into the bed, and covered herself over with the clothes. In this situation she continued a considerable time; but, being again molested, she ventured once more to peep out, when, to her unspeakable astonishment, she saw a phantasm stand by the side of her bed, almost as high as the ceiling: a kind of glory encircled its head, and the whole was in the form of a crucifix, except that it seemed to have several hands, one of which again approached the bed. Supposing the phenomenon to be some celestial vision, she exerted all her fortitude, and, leaping out of bed, threw herself upon her knees before it; but she instantly found herself assaulted in a manner which convinced her she was mistaken: she had not strength to disengage herself from something that embraced her, and therefore screamed out as loud as she could, to alarm the house, and bring somebody to her assistance. Her shrieks awakened the ladies who lay in an adjacent chamber, and they sent their woman to see what was the matter. The woman, upon opening the room, saw a luminous phantasm, which greatly terrified her, and heard, in a deep threatening tone, the words--"_At thy peril be gone!_" The woman instantly screamed out, and withdrew: the ladies rose in the utmost consternation and terror, but nobody came to their assistance: the old man, the father of the girl, was asleep in a remote part of the house; the Friar also rested in a room at the end of a long gallery in another story; and the two Dutch officers were absent on a visit, at a neighbouring village. No other violence, however, was offered to the girl that night. As soon as the morning dawned, she got up, ran down to her father, and told all that had happened: the two ladies were not long absent; they did not say much, but quitted the house. The Friar asked the girl several questions, and declared that he had heard other instances of the like nature, but said, the girl would do well to obey the commands of the vision, and that no harm would come of it. He said, he would remain to see the issue; and, in the mean time, ordered proper prayers and masses to be said at a neighbouring convent of his order, to which he most devoutly joined his own. The girl was comforted with this spiritual assistance; but, notwithstanding, took one of the maids to be her bedfellow the next night. In the dead of the night, the flaming cross was again visible, but no attempt was made on either of the women. They were, however, greatly terrified; and the servant said, she would rather leave her place, than lie in the room again. The Friar, the next morning, took the merit of the spirit's peaceable behaviour to himself. The prayers and masses were renewed, and application was made to the convents at Liege for auxiliary assistance. The good Friar, in the mean time, was by no means idle at home: he performed his devotions with great ardour, and towards evening bestowed a plentiful libation of holy water on the chamber and the bed. The girl not being able to persuade the servant to sleep with her again in the haunted room, and being encouraged by the Friar to abide the issue, having also great confidence herself in the prayers, masses, and sprinklings, that had been used on the occasion, she ventured once more to sleep in the same room by herself. In the night, after hearing some slight noises, she saw the room all in a blaze, and a great number of luminous crosses, with scraps of writing here and there very legible, among which the precept _to be silent_ was most conspicuous. In the middle of the room she saw something of a human appearance, which seemed covered only with a linen garment, like a shirt: it appeared to diffuse a radiance round it; and, at length, by a slow and silent pace, approached the bed. When it came up to the bed-side, it drew the curtain more open, and, lifting up the bed-clothes, was about to come in. The girl, now more terrified than ever, screamed out with all her power. As every body in the house was upon the watch, she was heard by them all; but the father only had courage to go to her assistance, and his bravery was probably owing to a considerable quantity of reliques, which he had procured from the convent, and which he brought in his hand. When he came, however, nothing was to be seen but some of the little crosses and inscriptions, several of which were now luminous only in part. Being himself greatly terrified at these appearances, he ran to the Friar's apartment, and with some difficulty prevailed upon him to go with him to the haunted room. The Friar at first excused himself upon account of the young woman's being there in bed. As soon as he entered, and saw the crosses, he prostrated himself on the ground, and uttered many prayers and incantations, to which the honest landlord most heartily said _Amen_. The poor girl, in the mean time, lay in a kind of trance; and her father, when the prayers were over, ran down stairs for some wine, a cordial being necessary to recover her: the Friar, at the same time, ordered him to light and bring with him a consecrated taper; for hitherto they had no light but that of the vision, which was still strong enough to discover every thing in the room. In a short time the old man entered with a taper in his hand; and in a moment all the luminous appearances vanished. The girl, soon after, recovered, and gave a very sensible account of all that had happened; and the landlord and the Friar spent the rest of the night together. The Friar, however, to shew the power of the dæmon, and the holy virtue of the taper, removed it several times from the chamber, before the day broke, and the crosses and inscriptions were again visible, and remained so till the taper was brought back, and then vanished as at first. When the sun arose, the Friar took his leave to go to matins, and did not return till noon. In the mean time the two Dutch officers came home, and soon learnt what had happened, though the landlord took all the pains he could to conceal it. The reports they heard were confirmed by the pale and terrified appearance of the girl; their curiosity was greatly excited, and they asked her innumerable questions. Her answers, instead of extinguishing, increased it. They assured the landlord, they would not leave his house, but, on the contrary, would afford him all the assistance in their power. As they were young gentlemen of a military profession, and Protestants, they were at once bold and incredulous. They pretended, however, to adopt the opinion of the landlord, that the appearances were supernatural; but it happened that, upon going into the room, they found the remainder of the taper, on the virtues of which the landlord had so largely expatiated, and immediately perceived that it was only a common candle of a large size, which he had brought by mistake in his fright. This discovery convinced them that there was a fraud, and that appearances that vanished at the approach of unconsecrated light must be produced by mere human artifice. They therefore consulted together, and at length agreed, that the masses should be continued; that the landlord should not say one word of the candle, or the suspicions it had produced; that his daughter, the next night, should sleep in the apartment which had been quitted by the ladies; and that one of the officers should lie in the girl's bed, while the other, with the landlord, should wait in the kitchen, to see the issue. This plan was accordingly, with great secrecy, carried into execution. For two hours after the officer had been in bed, all was silent and quiet, and he began to suspect that the girl had either been fanciful, or that their secret had transpired: when, all on a sudden, he heard the latch of the door gently raised; and, perceiving something approach the bed and attempt to take up the clothes, he resisted with sufficient strength to frustrate the attempt, and immediately the room appeared to be all in a flame; he saw many crosses, and inscriptions enjoining silence and a passive acquiescence in whatever should happen; he saw also, in the middle of the room, something of a human appearance, very tall, and very luminous. The officer was at first struck with terror, and the vision made a second approach to the bed-side; but the gentleman, recovering his fortitude with the first moment of reflection, dexterously threw a slip knot, which he had fastened to one of the bed-posts, over the phantom's neck: he instantly drew it close, which brought him to the ground, and then threw himself upon him. The fall and the struggle made so much noise, that the other officer and the landlord ran up with lights and weapons; and the goblin was found to be no other than the good Friar, who, having conceived something more than a spiritual affection for his landlord's pretty daughter, had played this infernal farce, to gratify his passion. Being now secured and detected, beyond hope of subterfuge or escape, he made a full confession of his guilt, and begged earnestly for mercy. It appeared that this fellow, who was near six feet high, had made himself appear still taller, by putting upon his head a kind of _tiara_ of embossed paper, and had also thrust a stick through the sleeves of his habit, which formed the appearance of a cross, and still left his hands at liberty; and that he had rendered himself and his apparatus visible in the dark by _phosphorus_. The landlord contented himself with giving his reverence a hearty drubbing, and then turning him out of doors, with a strict injunction to quit the territory of Liege for ever, upon pain of being much more severely treated. When it is considered, that it is but a few years ago, that a poor woman, within twenty miles of London, lost her life upon supposition that she was a witch; and that it is not many years since the Cock-lane ghost found advocates, even in the heart of London itself, among those who, before, were never accounted fools; it cannot but be useful to put down on record every imposition of this kind. THE SUPERSTITIOUS COUPLE. In the letters from a gentleman on his travels in Italy to his friend in England, is the following curious account of an experiment tried with the Bolognian stone, of which phosphorus is made. There was an English maid-servant in the house where we lodged, (observes this gentleman), and her bed-chamber was immediately over the one occupied by myself and friend. My companion having found his way into it, or, at least, supposing he had done so, wrote with some paste made merely with flour and water, the terrible words--"REMEMBER DEATH!" in great capitals, on the inside of the bed-curtains. Over the wet letters he strewed some of the crust prepared from this stone, which he had powdered for that purpose in a mortar; and, when he had so done, called me up, to see the words in letters of fire. We sat up for the discovery; but something very different from what we had expected, happened. The Italians are bigots, and consequently superstitious. It happened that the room, into which my friend had found his way, was not, as he imagined, that of the maid-servant, but of a couple of devout people, who accidentally slept in the house. We heard them undress; and followed our scheme, by getting on the upper stairs near the door of the room: we heard two voices, and we saw the candle on a table near the bed-side. The lady was first in bed; and the good man no sooner followed, than the candle was put out. On the instant of its extinction, appeared the terrible words. The lady screamed her prayers; the husband trembled over his Ave-Marias. The letters were absolutely fire, and the bed was not injured. The language was unintelligible to those who saw the words; and, perhaps, it was in that respect more terrifying, than if the admonition had been understood. The _Mene Tekel_ of the prophet came into both their minds at once. They jumped out of bed, and alarmed the whole house. We were first in the room. My friend took occasion, in their confusion, to scrape off the whole matter very cleanly with his pocket knife. The company brought candles--there was nothing to be seen. Both husband and wife pointed to the place where the writing had appeared; but nothing but some smeared dirt was visible there. My friend kept his counsel, and the miracle was blazed all over Bologna the next day; and we left a legion of wondering priests in the house at our departure! THE HAUNTED BED-ROOM. A young gentleman, going down from London to the west of England, to the house of a very worthy gentleman, to whom he had the honour to be related; it happened, that the gentleman's house was at that time full, by season of a kinswoman's wedding, that had lately been kept there. He therefore told the young gentleman, that he was very glad to see him, and that he was very welcome to him: "But," said he, "I know not how I shall do for a lodging for you; for my cousin's marriage has not left a room free, save one, and that is haunted; but if you will lie there, you shall have a very good bed, and all other accommodations." "Sir," replied the young gentleman, "you will very much oblige me by letting me lie there; for I have often coveted to be in a place that was haunted." The gentleman, very glad that his kinsman was so well pleased with his accommodations, ordered the chamber to be got ready, and a good fire to be made in it, it being winter-time. When bed-time came, the young gentleman was conducted up into his chamber, which, besides a good fire, was furnished with all suitable accommodations; and, having recommended himself to the Divine protection, went to bed. Lying some time awake, and finding no disturbance, he fell asleep; out of which, however, he was awaked about three o'clock in the morning, by the opening of the chamber-door, and the entrance of somebody in the appearance of a young woman, having a night-dress on her head, and only her shift on: but he had no perfect view of her, for his candle was burnt out; and though there was a fire in the room, yet it gave not light enough to see her distinctly. But this unknown visitant going to the chimney, took the poker, and stirred up the fire; by the flaming light whereof, he could discern the appearance of a young gentlewoman more distinctly; but whether it was flesh and blood, or an airy phantom, he knew not. This appearance having stood some time before the fire, as if to warm itself, at last walked two or three times about the room, and then came to the bed-side; where having stood a little while, she took up the bed-clothes, and went into bed, pulling the bed-clothes upon her again, and lying very quietly. The young gentleman was a little startled at this unknown bed-fellow; and, upon her approach, lay on the further side of the bed, not knowing whether he had best rise or not. At last, lying very still, he perceived his bed-fellow to breathe; by which guessing her to be flesh and blood, he drew nearer to her, and taking her by the hand, found it warm, and that it was no airy phantom, but substantial flesh and blood; and finding she had a ring on her finger, he took it off unperceived. The gentlewoman being all this while asleep, he let her lie without disturbing her, and patiently waited the result of this singular situation. He had not long remained in suspense, when his fair companion hastily flung off the bed-clothes again, and getting up, walked three or four times about the room; as she had done before; and then, standing awhile before the door, opened it, went out, and shut it after her. The young gentleman, perceiving by this in what manner the room was haunted, rose up, and locked the door on the inside; and then lay down again, and slept till morning; at which time the master of the house came to him, to know how he did, and whether he had seen any thing, or not? He told him, that an apparition had appeared to him, but begged the favour of him that he would not urge him to say any thing further, till the whole family were all together. The gentleman complied with his request, telling his young friend, that, having found him well, he was perfectly satisfied. The desire the whole family had to know the issue of this affair, made them dress with more expedition than usual, so that there was a general assembly of the gentlemen and ladies before eleven o'clock, not one of them being willing to appear in dishabille. When they were all got together in the great hall, the young gentleman told them, he had one favour to desire of the ladies before he would say any thing, and that was, to know whether either of them had lost a ring? The young gentlewoman, from whose finger it was taken, having missed it all the morning, and not knowing how she lost it, was glad to hear of it again, and readily owned she wanted a ring. The young gentleman asked her if that was it, giving it into her hand, which she acknowledging to be her's, and thanking him, he turned to his kinsman, the master of the house--"Now Sir," said he, "I can assure you," (taking the gentlewoman by the hand) "this is the lovely spirit by which your chamber is haunted."--And thereupon repeated what is related. I want words to express the confusion the young gentlewoman seemed to be in at this relation, who declared herself perfectly ignorant of all that he said; but believed it might be so, because of the ring, which she perfectly well remembered she had on when she went to bed, and knew not how she had lost it. This relation gave the whole company a great deal of diversion; for, after all, the father declared, that since his daughter had already gone to bed to his kinsman, it should be his fault if he did not go to bed to his daughter, he being willing to bestow her upon him, and give her a good portion. This generous offer was so advantageous to the young gentleman, that he could by no means refuse it; and his late bed-fellow, hearing what her father had said, was easily prevailed upon to accept him for her husband. REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF THE POWER OF IMAGINATION. It has been remarked, that when the royal vault is opened for the interment of any of the royal family, Westminster Abbey is a place of great resort: some flock thither out of curiosity, others to indulge their solemn meditations. By the former of these motives it was, when the royal vault was opened for the interment of her illustrious Majesty Queen Caroline, that five or six gentlemen who had dined together at a tavern were drawn to visit that famous repository of the titled dead. As they descended down the steep descent, one cried--"It's hellish dark;" another stopped his nostrils, and exclaimed against the nauseous vapour that ascended from it; all had their different sayings. But, as it is natural for such spectacles to excite some moral reflections, even with the most gay and giddy, they all returned with countenances more serious than those they had entered with. Having agreed to pass the evening together, they all went back to the place where they dined; and the conversation turned on a future state, apparitions, and some such topics. One among them was an infidel in those matters, especially as to spirits becoming visible, and took upon him to rally the others, who seemed rather inclinable to the contrary way of thinking. As it is easier to deny than to prove, especially where those that maintain the negative will not admit any testimonies which can be brought against their own opinion, he singly held out against all they had to alledge. To end the contest, they proposed to him a wager of twenty guineas, that, as great a hero as he pretended, or really imagined himself, he had not courage enough to go alone at midnight into the vault they had seen that day. This he readily accepted, and was very merry with the thoughts of getting so much money with such ease. The money on both sides was deposited in the hands of the master of the house; and one of the vergers was sent for, whom they engaged, for a piece of gold, to attend the adventurer to the gate of the cathedral, then shut him in, and wait his return. Every thing being thus settled, the clock no sooner struck twelve, than they all set out together; they who laid the wager being resolved not to be imposed on by his tampering with the verger. As they passed along, a scruple arose, which was, that though they saw him enter the church, how they should be convinced he went as far as the vault; but he instantly removed their doubts, by pulling out a pen-knife he had in his pocket, and saying, "This will I stick into the earth, and leave it there; and if you do not find it in the inside of the vault, I will own the wager lost." These words left them nothing to suspect; and they agreed to wait at the door his coming out, believing he had no less stock of resolution than he had pretended: it is possible, the opinion they had of him was no more than justice. But, whatever stock of courage he had, on his entrance into that antique and reverend pile, he no sooner found himself shut alone in it, than, as he afterwards confessed, he found a kind of shuddering all over him, which, he was sensible, proceeded from something more than the coldness of the night. Every step he took was echoed by the hollow ground; and, though it was not altogether dark, the verger having left a lamp burning just before the door that led to the chapel (otherwise it would have been impossible for him to have found the place), yet did the glimmering it gave, rather add to, than diminish, the solemn horror of every thing around. He passed on, however; but protested, had not the shame of being laughed at, prevented him, he would have forfeited more than twice the sum he had staked to have been safe out again. At length he reached the entrance of the vault: his inward terror increased; yet, determined not to be overpowered by fear, he descended; and being come to the last stair, stooped forwards, and struck the pen-knife with his whole force into the earth. But, as he was rising in order to quit so dreadful a place, he felt something pluck him forward; the apprehension he before was in, made an easy way for surprise and terror to seize on all his faculties: he lost in one instant every thing that could support him, and fell into a swoon, with his head in the vault, and part of his body on the stairs. Till after one o'clock his friends waited with some degree of patience, though they thought he paid the titled dead a much longer visit than a living man could choose. But, finding he did not come, they began to fear some accident: the verger, they found, though accustomed to the place, did not choose to go alone; they therefore went with him, preceded by a torch, which a footman belonging to one of the company had with him. They all went into the Abbey, calling, as they went, as loud as they could: no answer being made, they moved on till they came to the vault; where, looking down, they soon perceived what posture he was in. They immediately used every means they could devise for his recovery, which they soon effected. After they got him out of the Abbey to the fresh air, he fetched two or three deep groans; and, in the greatest agitation, cried, "Heaven help me! Lord have mercy upon me!" These exclamations very much surprised them; but, imagining he was not yet come perfectly to his senses, they forbore farther questions, till they had got him into the tavern, where, having placed him in a chair, they began to ask how he did, and how he came to be so indisposed. He gave them a faithful detail, and said, he should have come back with the same sentiments he went with, had not an unseen hand convinced him of the injustice of his unbelief. While he was making his narrative, one of the company saw the pen-knife sticking through the fore-lappet of his coat. He immediately conjectured the mistake; and, pulling out the pen-knife before them all, cried out, "Here is the mystery discovered: for, in the attitude of stooping to stick the knife in the ground, it happened, as you see, to go through the coat; and, on your attempting to rise, the terror you was in magnified this little obstruction into an imaginary impossibility of withdrawing yourself, and had an effect on your senses before reason had time to operate." This, which was evidently the case, set every one, except the gentleman who had suffered so much by it, into a roar of laughter. But it was not easy to draw a single smile from him: he ruminated on the affair, while his companions rallied and ridiculed this change in him: he well remembered the agitations he had been in. "Well," replied he; when he had sufficiently recovered, "there is certainly something after death, or these strange impulses could never be. What is there in a church more than in any other building? what in darkness more than light, which in themselves should have power to raise such ideas as I have now experienced? Yes," continued he, "I am convinced that I have been too presumptuous: and, whether spirits be or be not permitted to appear, that they exist, I ever shall believe." THE WESTMINSTER SCHOLARS. A few years since, some Westminster scholars received great insult from a hackney-coachman, who treated them with the greatest scurrility, because they would not comply with an overcharge in his fare. This behaviour the youths did not forget, and were resolved to punish him without danger of prosecution; upon which one of them devised the following whimsical turn of revenge. Four of these gentlemen, one dark evening, about nine o'clock, (having previously learned where his coach would be) called him from off the stand, and desired the coachman to drive over Westminster Bridge to Newington. They had not long been seated, when one of them, with a sportive tone of voice, said, "Come, boys, let us begin." They then instantly dressed themselves in black clothes, and every necessary befitting mourners at a funeral, (which articles they brought with them in small parcels.) And the night was particularly favourable for carrying their scheme into execution: for it was uncommonly dark, and _very still_. 'Twas such a night that Apollonius Rhodius thus describes-- "Night on the earth pour'd darkness; on the sea, The wakesome sailor to Orion's star And Helice turn'd heedful. Sunk to rest, The traveller forgot his toil; his charge, The centinel; her death-devoted babe, The mother's painless breast. The village dog Had ceas'd his troublous bay: each busy tumult Was hush'd at this dread hour; and darkness slept, Lock'd in the arms of silence." To terrify him the more, they wore linen hat-bands and scarfs, instead of crape. And when they had got into the loneliest part of St. George's Fields (for at that time they were not built over as at present), they called to him, and desired him to stop, as they wanted to get out. They marked the side the coachman came to open the door of; and he that sat next the other door, opened it at the same instant. What the coachman felt on seeing the first mourner move out with the greatest solemnity, can be better conceived than expressed: but what were his terrors when the second approached him, a majestic spare figure about six feet perpendicular, who passed him (as did the first) without speaking a word. As fast as one youth got out, he went round to the other side of the coach, stepped in, and came out a second time at the opposite door. In this manner they continued, till the coachman, if he had the power of counting, might have told forty. When they had thus passed out seemingly to the number of twenty, the poor devil of a coachman, frightened almost to death, fell upon his knees, and begged for mercy's sake the King of Terrors would not suffer any more of his apparitions to appear; for, though he had a multitude of sins to account for, he had a wife and a large family of children, who depended upon his earnings for support. The tallest of these young gentlemen then asked him, in a hoarse tone of voice, what was his heaviest sin? He replied, committing his lodger, a poor carver and gilder, to the Marshalsea, for rent due to him, which the badness of the times, and his business in particular, would not enable him to pay. He said, he would not have confined him so long, but in revenge for a severe beating he gave him one day when they fell to loggerheads and boxed. He further told them, the poor man had been six months in captivity; and that he understood from a friend of his, the other day, that he made out but a miserable living by making brewers' pegs, bungs for their barrels, and watchmakers' skewers. The young gentleman then told him, that if he did not instantly sign his discharge, which he would write, he might rest assured of no mitigation of the dreadful punishment he would go through in a few minutes; for those he had seen come out of his coach were his harpies in disguise, and were now in readiness to bear him to the infernal regions. The trembling villain, without the least hesitation, complied. One of the scholars fortunately having a pen and ink, the King of Terrors wrote the discharge in a fair leaf of his pocket-book, as well as he could in the dark, and then made the coachman sign it. Having so done, the scholars told him he might go for the present, and that he would find his coach in less than an hour in Piccadilly or Oxford Street. One of the youths then mounted the box, while the others got within, and away they drove to the Marshalsea, but in the way they stopped till they had taken off their disguise. The youth who had the discharge, after making a collection among the others, went into the prison, and gave the poor fellow what set him at liberty the next morning. The scholars then drove on to Oxford Street, congratulating themselves on the success of their adventure, and all happy to a degree of rapture at being instrumental in obtaining the captive's liberty. About a quarter of an hour after they quitted the coach, they observed the coachman arrive; who mounted the box, and drove home, muttering the bitterest execrations, and damning his father confessor for bilking him of half a guinea which he gave him that morning for an absolution, that was to have rubbed out the entire score of his transgressions. THE IDEOT'S FUNERAL. The following extraordinary affair happened about ten years since, at a village in the north of England. About midnight, the minister of the parish was not a little alarmed at hearing the church bell tolling. He immediately dispatched one of his servants for the beadle, to inquire into the cause of this wonderful event; who, when he came, appeared to be under more dreadful apprehensions than the clergyman himself. However, the result of their deliberations was, that, in order to be certainly informed of the truth and ground of the matter, they should go forward to the church: but, on their way, what served considerably to increase their fears, was their seeing a light within the church. The great bell gave over tolling, and was succeeded, in its turn, by the little, or handbell (commonly used in that country at funerals), which, in a short time, also became silent. On their near approach to the church, they discovered, by the help of the light within, the _mort-cloth_ moving up and down the area thereof. Though this last part of the dreadful scene might have been sufficient to intimidate persons possessed of no ordinary degree of courage; yet such was the bravery and resolution of the Reverend Doctor, that he even ventured to accost the nocturnal disturber of their repose: when, on lifting up the _mort-cloth_, to his inexpressible surprise, he discovered the terrible apparition to be only an unhappy young man belonging to the parish, who had for some time past been disordered in his senses, and who had got into the church by some secret means or other, and, as the good Doctor readily conjectured, was amusing himself in this manner, by the representation of a funeral: a case not at all unlikely, as ideots in general are remarkably fond of any thing relative to a funeral procession. THE VENTRILOQUIST. The following anecdote is related by Adrianus Turnibis, the greatest critic of the sixteenth century, and who was admired and respected by all the learned in Europe. "There was a crafty fellow," says he, "called Petrus Brabantius, who, as often as he pleased, would speak from his stomach, with his mouth indeed open, but his lips unmoved, of which I have been repeatedly an eye and ear witness. In this manner he put divers cheats on several persons: amongst others, the following was well known. "There was a merchant of Lyons, lately dead, who had acquired a great estate by unjust dealings. Brabantius happening to be at Lyons, and hearing of this, comes one day to Cornutus, the son and heir of this merchant, as he walked in a portico behind the church-yard, and tells him that he was sent to inform him of what was to be done by him; and that it was more requisite to think about the soul and reputation of his father, than thus wander about the church-yard, lamenting his death. In an instant, while they were thus discoursing, a voice was heard, as if it was that of the father, though, in reality, it proceeded from his own stomach. Brabantius seemed terribly affrighted. The voice informed the son the state his father was in by reason of his injustice, what tortures he endured in purgatory, both on his own, and his son's account, whom he had left heir of his ill-gotten goods: that no freedom was to be expected by him, till just expiation was made by giving alms to such as stood most in need, and that these were the Christians who were taken by the Turks: that he should put entire confidence in the man who was by special providence now come to him, and give him money, to be employed by religious persons for the ransom of so many as were captives at Constantinople. Cornutus, who was a good sort of a man, yet loth to part with his money, told Brabantius that he would advise upon it; and desired he would meet him in the same place the next day. In the mean time, he began to suspect there might be some fraud in the place, as it was shady, dark, and fit for echoes or other delusions. The next day, therefore, he takes him to an open plain, where there was neither bush nor briar; but there, notwithstanding all his precaution, he hears the same story, with this addition, that he should forthwith deliver Brabantius six thousand franks, and purchase three masses daily to be said for him, or else the miserable soul of his father could not be freed. Cornutus, though thus bound by conscience, duty, and religion, yet with reluctance delivered him the money, without taking any receipt, or having any witness to the payment of it. Having thus dismissed him, and hearing no more of his father, he became somewhat more pleasant than he had been since his father's death. One day this change in him was observed by some friends, who were at dinner at his house; upon which he told them what had befallen him: when his friends so derided him, one and all, for his credulity, in being so simply cheated of his money, that, for mere grief and vexation, within a few days after, he died." THE FEMALE FANATIC, AND _HEAVENLY VISITOR_. The following curious affair happened a few years since at Paris, and is well attested by a gentleman of the greatest respectability. A widow-lady, aged about sixty-two, who lodged in a two-pair-of-stairs floor, in the _Rue de la Ferronnerie_, with only a maid-servant, was accustomed to spend several hours every day at her devotions, before the altar dedicated to St. Paul, in a neighbouring church. Some villains observing her extreme bigotry, resolved (as she was known to be very rich) to share her wealth. Therefore one of them took the opportunity to conceal himself behind the carved work of the altar; and when no person but the old lady was in the church, in the dusk of the evening, he contrived to throw a letter just before her. She took it up, and not perceiving any one near her, supposed it came by a miracle; which she was the more confirmed in, when she saw it was signed, _Paul the Apostle_, and purported, "The satisfaction he received by her addressing her prayers to him, at a time when so many new-canonized saints engrossed the devotion of the world, and robbed the primitive saints of great part of their wonted adoration; and, to shew his regard for his devotee, said, he would come from Heaven, with the angel Gabriel, to sup with her, at eight in the evening." It is scarcely credible to think any one could be deceived by so gross a fraud: but to what length of credulity, will not superstition carry the weak mind! The infatuated lady believed it all; and rose from her knees in a transport, to prepare the entertainment for the heavenly guests she expected. When the supper was bespoke, and the sideboard set out to the best advantage, she thought that her own plate (which was worth near four hundred pounds sterling) did not make so elegant a shew as she desired; therefore sent to her brother (who was a Counsellor of the Parliament of Paris) to borrow all his plate; charging her maid not to tell the occasion, but only, that she had company to supper, and should be obliged to him if he would lend her his plate for that evening. The Counsellor was surprised at this message, as he knew the frugality of his sister's way of life; and suspected that she was enamoured with some fortune-hunter, who might marry her for her fortune, and thereby deprive the family of what he expected at his sister's death: therefore he absolutely refused to send the plate, unless the maid would tell him what guests she expected. The girl, alarmed for her mistress's honour, replied, that her pious lady had no thoughts of a husband; but that, as St. Paul had sent her a letter from heaven, saying, that he and the _Angel Gabriel_ would come to supper with her, her mistress wanted to make the entertainment as elegant as possible. The Counsellor, who knew the turn of his sister's mind, immediately suspected some villains had imposed on her; and sent the maid directly with the plate, while he went to the Commissary of the quarter, and gave him this information. The magistrate accompanied him to a house adjoining, from whence they saw, just before eight o'clock, a tall man, dressed in long vestments, with a white beard, and a young man in white, with large wings at his shoulders, alight from a hackney-coach, and go up to the widow's apartment. The Commissary immediately ordered twelve of the foot _guet_ (the guards of Paris) to post themselves on the stairs, while he himself knocked at the door, and desired admittance. The old lady replied, that she had company, and could speak to no one. But the Commissary answered, that he must come in: for that he was St. Peter, and had come to ask St. Paul and the Angel, how they came out of heaven without his knowledge. The divine visitors were astonished at this, not expecting any more Saints to join them: but the lady, overjoyed at having so great an apostle with her, ran eagerly to the door; when the Commissary, her brother, and the _guet_, rushing in, presented their musquets, and seized her guests, whom they immediately carried to the Chatelot. On searching the criminals, two cords, a razor, and a pistol, were found in St. Paul's pocket; and a gag in that of the feigned angel. Three days after, their trial came on: when, in their defence, they pleaded, that the one was a soldier of the French foot-guards, and the other a barber's apprentice; and that they had no other evil design, but to procure a good supper for themselves at the expence of the widow's folly; that, it being carnival time, they had borrowed the above dresses; that the soldier had found the two cords, and put them into his pocket; the razor was what he used to shave himself with; and the pistol was to defend himself from any insults so strange a habit might expose him to, in going home. The barber's apprentice said, his design also was only diversion; and that, as his master was a tooth-drawer, the gag was what they sometimes used in their business. These excuses, frivolous as they were, were of some avail to them; and, as they had not manifested any evil design by an overt act, they were acquitted. But the Counsellor, who had foreseen what would happen, through the insufficiency of evidence, had provided another stroke for them. No sooner were they discharged from the civil power, but the Apparitor of the Archbishop of Paris seized them, and conveyed them to the Ecclesiastical Prison; and, in three days more, they were tried and convicted of a scandalous profanation, by assuming to themselves the names, characters, and appearances, of an holy apostle and a blessed angel, with an intent to deceive a pious and well-meaning woman, and to the scandal of religion. On this they were condemned to be publicly whipped, burnt on the shoulder by a hot iron, with the letters G.A.L. and sent to the galleys for fourteen years. The sentence was executed on them the next day, on a scaffold in the _Place de Greve_, amidst an innumerable crowd of spectators: many of whom condemned the superstition of the lady, when perhaps they would have shewn the same on a like occasion; since, it may be supposed, that if many of _their_ stories of apparitions, of saints, and angels, had been judiciously examined, they would have been found, like the above, to be either a gross fraud, or the dreams of an over-heated, enthusiastic imagination. I shall make no reflections on the above fact; but leave it to the impartial consideration of the reader. THE FEMALE SPRITES. In September 1764, the following extraordinary incident happened in the family of a clergyman then living in Bartholomew Close. The gentleman and his wife returning home about eleven o'clock from a friend's house, where they had been to spend the evening, desired the maid to get them warm water to mix with some wine. There being no fire in the parlour, they went into the kitchen; and while the water was heating, the gentleman ordered the maid to get a pan of coals, and warm the bed. The servant had not long been gone up stairs, when the gentleman and his wife heard an uncommon noise over their heads, like persons walking without shoes: and, presently after, a woman enters the kitchen, without any other clothes on than her shift and cap. Their astonishment at such a sight so greatly frightened them, that they had neither of them power to speak a word: and while they were thus absorbed in amazement, another woman entered the room in like manner. Just at this time the maid came down from warming the bed; and, though greatly surprised at so unexpected an appearance, had the courage to ask them who they were? and what they wanted? To which they replied, that they were servants at their next-door neighbour's, and, being awakened out of their sleep by their master's calling out, Fire and thieves! ran up stairs, and entering the garret window, came down, to preserve themselves from danger, and procure assistance. Upon this, inquiry being made, the gentleman's daughter at the adjoining house was found in violent fits, which occasioned his calling the maids hastily to her assistance; and this caused an alarm that had nearly proved fatal to the clergyman's wife, who was, at that time, far gone with child. THE PRUSSIAN DOMINO, OR _FATAL EFFECTS OF JEALOUSY_. An officer of rank in the service of the late King of Prussia, having lost an amiable wife whom he tenderly loved, became quite inconsolable. Deeply wounded with his affliction, his mind was so absorbed in melancholy, that the transient pleasures of life were no longer a delight to him; he retired from the court and the field, and at once secluded himself from all society. Among the numerous friends who lamented his excessive sorrow, his Monarch was not the least, who endeavoured to soothe his distracted mind with sympathetic tenderness. Indeed, his Majesty considered him not only an agreeable companion, but a valuable friend; and was so much interested in his behalf, that he was determined, if possible, to divert his immoderate grief. But neither the promises of promotion, or the threats of disgrace, could draw him from his retirement. At length, after many zealous efforts had proved ineffectual, a plan was suggested by the King himself, which promised success. His Majesty resolved to give a masquerade, to which, by inviting Lindorf (for that was the officer's name), an opportunity might be again taken to entice him within that circle of gaiety, of which he was once the admiration. The invitation being accompanied with an affectionate and earnest solicitation from the King, Lindorf could not refuse accepting the offer; and, on the evening appointed, he was once more seen in the rooms of splendour and festivity. On his entrance he met the King, who, after greeting him with great kindness, began to rally him upon his late weakness. Lindorf thanked his Majesty for the honour he did him, and, after a short reply, they for some time walked up and down the saloon together; when at length it was agreed to part, that each might amuse himself according to his own liking, with the different characters exhibited that evening. But the King's intention was solely to watch the movements of Lindorf; for with heartfelt regret he beheld, as they parted, the fixed melancholy that still brooded on his countenance: and, when he beheld him pass, with downcast eyes, the saloon, where the dance and music reigned with such irresistible sway, all hope of reclaiming the unhappy widower disappeared. For some time he was witness of his melancholy deportment, and was much affected to find that, where every face beamed a smile, the countenance of Lindorf alone was sad and dejected. The King, despairing of his project being successful, was about to quit the rooms, when he beheld Lindorf suddenly stop and speak to a lady in a black domino. Rejoiced at this circumstance, hope again revived, and he stayed his departure, to watch the event. Lindorf, when he quitted the King, continued to walk up and down the rooms, nothing attracting his attention but the lady in the black domino, who, wherever he turned, always appeared before him. At first he imagined the character intended merely to amuse him, and that her strange deportment was instigated by his friends; but the unusual solemnity attending her appearance, after he had in vain desired her to desist, struck him with astonishment. He suddenly stopped, and demanded who she was? "I dare not tell you," answered the domino, in a deep and plaintive tone of voice. Lindorf startled--his blood ran cold; it was exactly the voice of his deceased wife. "Who are you? for heaven's sake, tell me, or I die!" exclaimed Lindorf. "You will be more wretched than you are, if I tell you," replied the mysterious unknown, in accents that doubly excited his curiosity. "Tell me," said he, "I conjure you; for I cannot be more wretched than I now am. Tell me all, and do not leave me in this state of inquietude." "Know then," answered the domino, "I am your wife." Lindorf started--every nerve was wrung with anguish. "Impossible," said he in a fright, "it cannot be; yet the voice appears the same." Here his tongue faltering, he ceased to speak. When he had somewhat recovered his recollection, he ejaculated, "In the name of God, do tell me who you are? Is it a trick, or do I dream?" "Neither," replied the unknown; and continued, in the same tone of voice, to describe several particulars relative to his family, and in what manner many things were placed in the drawers belonging to his deceased wife, which none but himself and the departed knew of. At length he was convinced the figure before him must be the apparition of his wife; and, in the voice of anguish and despair, requested she would unmask and let him see her face. That the figure refused to do, saying, that would be a sight he could not bear. "I can bear any thing," he replied, "but the pain your denial creates. I entreat you, let me see your face; do not refuse me!" Again she denied him; till at last, by repeated entreaties, and his promises not to be alarmed, she consented to unmask, and desired him to follow her into an anti-room, solemnly charging him not to give way to his feelings. They then proceeded to the adjoining room. The King, who was an eye-witness of the deep conversation they were engaged in, beheld, with rapture, their entrance into the anti-chamber, and saw the door closed. "He is certainly restored," said the Monarch to his confidential attendant; "Lindorf is most assuredly saved; he has made an appointment with some pretty woman, and has just retired to enjoy a private conversation. In her endearments he will, I hope, forget his sorrows. So we may now partake of the festivities of the evening." Saying which, he immediately joined the motley group with great cheerfulness. Lindorf felt his blood chill, as the door of the anti-chamber closed; but, the warmth of affection returning, he no sooner entered, than he claimed the dreadful promise. Again, in the most solemn manner, she advised him not to urge that which might tend to his misery, as she was certain he had not sufficient fortitude to endure a sight of her. With horror he heard the remonstrance; and the solemnity of her deportment only inspired his eager curiosity the more. At length, after many strict injunctions, she lifted up the mask; when the astonished Lindorf beheld the most horrid spectacle of a skeleton head. "Oh, God!" he exclaimed, and, groaning, fell senseless on the floor. In vain the mysterious domino attempted to recover him. Sorrow had for a long time preyed upon his existence, and terror had now for ever quieted the unhappy Lindorf. He breathed no more; he was a lifeless corpse. Instantly the domino quitted the room, and retired from the masquerade. The King had just returned to his post of observation, and saw the domino depart. In vain he waited for Lindorf to follow; an hour expired, and no Lindorf appeared. This raised the curiosity of the Monarch. The door was left partly open, and he resolved to enter; when, to his great surprise and sorrow, he beheld Lindorf stretched on the floor, a corpse. He instantly alarmed the company; but the mystery of his death in vain they attempted to develope. No marks of violence appeared on his body, which was the more astonishing; and, to add to the mystery, the masqued lady was not to be found in any of the rooms. Messengers were then dispatched, and advertisements distributed, all over the city of Berlin, offering large rewards for her apprehension; but no further information could be gained, than that deposed by two chairmen, who affirmed, they brought the domino to the rooms, which from their account only added to the mystery. Their declaration was as follows--"Having received a letter, enjoining secrecy, and desiring them to attend in the dusk of the evening, at a certain church porch, to carry a lady to the masquerade; they, thinking it was some person who intended to play the character of a hobgoblin, or sprite, did not hesitate, and made no farther inquiry, but proceeded, at the hour appointed, to the place mentioned; where they found a person waiting in a black domino, just as the advertisement described. On their arrival, without speaking a word, the domino placed the money for hire in their hands, and instantly entered the chair, which they immediately conveyed to the masquerade. On their arrival, without uttering a word, she darted from them into the crowd, and they saw no more of her until twelve o'clock, when, on passing the door, they discovered the domino again seated in the chair. They were much surprised at such strange conduct; but, without reflecting on the event, they conveyed her back again, as was agreed, to the same church porch, when they received a further gratuity, and departed." Such was the deposition of the two chairmen, at once mysterious and incomprehensible. This intelligence still more astonished the King, who in vain used every method to make further discovery in this extraordinary and unhappy affair. Several years elapsed, without any thing occurring that could lead to a developement of this dreadful catastrophe. All search after the lady was now given up, and nothing but the remembrance of the unhappy affair remained. At length the hour arrived, when this dreadful mystery was explained, which displayed one of the most diabolical and desperate transactions ever known. The particulars are as follow. A lady, then at the point of death, requested to see some confidential friend of the King's; which request was immediately complied with: to whom she made the following confession. In accents scarcely audible, she told them, she was the person who appeared in the black domino, in so mysterious a manner, to Lindorf, and which unhappily caused his death. That revenge for neglected love instigated her to play the part she did; but that she had no idea the consequence would have been so fatal: her intention being merely to assume the appearance of his deceased wife, in order that she might upbraid him, and gratify her revenge for having broke his vow in marrying her sister instead of herself; and also that she might effectually persuade him to desist from his melancholy intentions of remaining a widower, and prevail on him to marry her--for although he refused her request personally, yet she imagined the scheme must be successful, when played off under the appearance of a spirit of his deceased wife; and, to deceive his imagination, she had endeavoured to personify her; for which purpose she had procured the head of a skeleton, and assumed that character which had proved the death of the man she so ardently loved, and the source of endless misery to herself. She then related the conversation that had passed between them on that fatal evening, and fully described the whole particulars of that mysterious affair. She likewise acknowledged she endeavoured to imitate the voice of his deceased wife; and declared her intention for having the chair brought to the church porch was to render the proceeding the more mysterious and incomprehensible in case of a scrutiny. On concluding this melancholy tale, she fetched a deep sigh, and instantly expired. THE DEAD MAN AND _ANATOMICAL PROFESSOR_. Many, who were personally acquainted with Mr. Junker, have frequently heard him relate the following anecdote. Being Professor of Anatomy, he once procured, for dissection, the bodies of two criminals who had been hanged. The key of the dissecting room not being immediately at hand, when they were carried home to him, he ordered them to be laid down in a closet which opened into his own apartment. The evening came; and Junker, according to custom, proceeded to resume his literary labour before he retired to rest. It was now near midnight, and all his family were fast asleep, when he heard a rumbling noise in his closet. Thinking that, by some mistake, the cat had been shut up with the dead bodies, he arose, and, taking the candle, went to see what had happened. But what must have been his astonishment, or rather his panic, on perceiving that the sack which contained the two bodies was rent through the middle. He approached, and found that one of them was gone. The doors and windows were well secured, and he thought it impossible the bodies could have been stolen. He tremblingly looked round the closet, and observed the dead man seated in a corner. Junker stood for a moment motionless: the dead man seemed to look towards him; he moved both to the right and left, but the dead man still kept his eyes upon him. The Professor then retired, step by step, with his eyes still fixed upon the object of his alarm, and holding the candle in his hand, until he reached the door. The dead man instantly started up, and followed him. A figure of so hideous an appearance, naked, and in motion--the lateness of the hour--the deep silence which prevailed--every thing concurred to overwhelm him with confusion. He let fall the only candle which he had burning, and all was darkness. He made his escape to his bed-chamber, and threw himself on the bed: thither, however, he was pursued; and he soon felt the dead man embracing his legs, and loudly sobbing. Repeated cries of "Leave me! leave me!" released Junker from the grasp of the dead man; who now exclaimed, "Ah! good executioner! good executioner! have mercy upon me." Junker soon perceived the cause of what had happened, and resumed his fortitude. He informed the re-animated sufferer who he really was, and made a motion, in order to call up some of the family. "You wish then to destroy me," exclaimed the criminal. "If you call any one, my adventure will become public, and I shall be taken and executed a second time. In the name of humanity, I implore you to save my life." The physician struck a light, decorated his guest with an old night-gown, and, having made him take off a cordial, requested to know what had brought him to the gibbet. It would have been a truly singular exhibition, observed Junker, to have seen me, at that late hour, engaged in a _tête-à-tête_ with a dead man decked out in a night-gown. The poor wretch informed him, that he had enlisted as a soldier, but that, having no great attachment to the profession, he had determined to desert; that he had unfortunately entrusted his secret to a kind of crimp, a fellow of no principle, who recommended him to a woman, in whose house he was to remain concealed: that this woman had discovered his retreat to the officers of police, &c. Junker was extremely perplexed how to save the poor man. It was impossible to retain him in his own house, and keep the affair a secret; and to turn him out of doors, was to expose him to certain destruction. He therefore resolved to conduct him out of the city, in order that he might get into a foreign jurisdiction; but it was necessary to pass the gates of the city, which were strictly guarded. To accomplish this point, he dressed the man in some of his old clothes, covered him with a cloak, and, at an early hour, set out for the country, with his _protegé_ behind him. On arriving at the city gate, where he was well known, he said in a hurried tone, that he had been sent for to visit a sick person who was dying in the suburbs. He was permitted to pass. Having both got into the open fields, the deserter threw himself at the feet of his deliverer, to whom he vowed eternal gratitude; and, after receiving some pecuniary assistance, departed, offering up prayers for his happiness. Twelve years after, Junker, having occasion to go to Amsterdam, was accosted on the Exchange by a man well-dressed and of the best appearance, who, he had been informed, was one of the most respectable merchants in that city. The merchant, in a polite manner, inquired whether he was not Professor Junker of Halle; and, on being answered in the affirmative, he requested, in an earnest manner, his company to dinner. The Professor consented. Having reached the merchant's house, he was shewn into an elegant apartment, where he found a beautiful wife, and two fine healthy children: but he could scarcely suppress his astonishment at meeting with so cordial a reception from a family with whom, he thought he was entirely unacquainted. After dinner, the merchant, taking him into his counting-room, said, "You do not recollect me?"--"Not at all."--"But I well recollect you; and never shall your features be effaced from my remembrance. You are my benefactor. I am the person who came to life in your closet, and to whom you paid so much attention. On parting from you, I took the road to Holland. I wrote a good hand, was tolerably expert at accounts; my figure was somewhat interesting; and I soon obtained employment as a merchant's clerk. My good conduct, and my zeal for the interests of my patron, procured me his confidence, and his daughter's love. On his retiring from business, I succeeded him, and became his son-in-law. But for you, however, I should not have lived to experience all these enjoyments. Henceforth, look upon my house, my fortune, and myself, as at your disposal." Those who possess the smallest portion of sensibility can easily represent to themselves the feelings of Junker. THE DRUNKEN BUCKS, AND _CHIMNEY-SWEEP_. On March the 19th, 1765, four bucks assembled at an inn in Grantham, to drink a glass, and play a game of cards. The glass circulating very briskly, before midnight they became so intoxicated, that not one of them was able to determine how the game stood; and several disputes, interspersed with a considerable number of oaths, ensued, till they agreed to let the cards lie, and endeavour to drink themselves sober. Shortly after they resumed the game; and each man imagining himself capable of directing the rest, they soon came again to very high words; when the waiter, fearful that some bad consequences might ensue, let them know it was near three o'clock, and, if any gentleman pleased, he would wait on him home. Instead of complying with his request, the geniuses looked upon it as an indignity offered them, and declared, with the most horrid imprecations, that not one of them would depart till day-light. But, in the height of their anger, an uncommon noise in the chimney engaged their attention; when, on looking towards the fire-place, a black spectre made its appearance, and crying out in a hollow menacing tone--"_My father has sent me for you, infamous reprobates!_" They all, in the greatest fright, flew out of the room, without staying to take their hats, in broken accents confessing their sins, and begging for mercy. It appears, that the master of the inn, finding he could not get rid of his troublesome guests, and having a chimney-sweeper in his house sweeping other chimneys, he gave the boy directions to descend into the room as above related, whilst he stood at a distance, and enjoyed the droll scene of the bucks' flight. THE CRIPPLEGATE GHOST. The following story, well authenticated in the neighbourhood of Cripplegate, will convince the reader, that vicious intentions are sometimes productive of much good to the parties they intended to injure. A gentlewoman in that parish, having lain for some days in a trance, was at length laid out and buried for dead, with a gold ring on her finger. The sexton knowing thereof, he and his wife, with a lanthorn and candle, went privately the next night, and dug up the coffin, opened it, untied the winding sheet, and was going to cut off her finger for the sake of the valuable ring buried with her, they not being otherwise able to remove it; when, suddenly, the lady raised herself up (being just then supposed miraculously to come out of her trance). The sexton and his wife ran away in a horrible fright, leaving their lanthorn behind them; which the lady took up, and made haste home to her house. When knocking hard at the door, the maid-servant asked who was there? "'Tis I, your mistress," replied the lady; "and do, for God's sake, let me in immediately, as I am very cold." The maid, being much surprised and terrified at this reply, neglected to open the door, ran away to her master, and acquainted him with the circumstance; who would scarcely believe her tale, till he went himself to the door, and heard his wife relate the dreadful particulars. He immediately let her in, put her into a warm bed; and, by being well looked after, she soon perfectly recovered, and lived to have three children afterwards. This extraordinary resuscitation is conjectured, by the faculty, to have been occasioned by the sudden circulation of the blood on the villain's attempting to cut off the finger. A monument, with a curious inscription of this affair, is still to be seen in Cripplegate church. THE VENTRILOQUIST. The following anecdotes are related by the Abbé de la Chapelle, of the French Academy. This gentleman, having heard many surprising circumstances related concerning one Monsieur St. Gille, a grocer, at St. Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, whose astonishing powers as a ventriloquist had given occasion to many singular and diverting scenes, formed the resolution to see him. Struck by the many marvellous anecdotes related concerning him, the Abbé judged it necessary first to ascertain the truth by the testimony of his own senses, and then to inquire into the cause and manner in which the phenomena were produced. After some preparatory and necessary steps (for Monsieur St. Gille had been told he did not chuse to gratify the curiosity of every one), the Abbé waited upon him, informed him of his design, and was very cordially received. He was taken into a parlour on the ground floor; when Monsieur St. Gille and himself sat on the opposite sides of a small fire, with only a table between them, the Abbé keeping his eyes constantly fixed on Monsieur St. Gille all the time. Half an hour had passed, during which that gentleman diverted the Abbé with a relation of many comic scenes which he had given occasion to by this talent of his; when, all on a sudden, the Abbé heard himself called by his name and title, in a voice that seemed to come from the roof of a house at a distance. He was almost petrified with astonishment: on recollecting himself, however, he asked Monsieur St. Gille whether he had not just then given him a specimen of his art? He was answered only by a smile. But while the Abbé was pointing to the house from which the voice had appeared to him to proceed, his surprise was augmented on hearing himself answered, "It was not from that quarter," apparently in the same kind of voice as before, but which now seemed to issue from under the earth, at one of the corners of the room. In short, this factitious voice played, as it were, every where about him, and seemed to proceed from any quarter or distance from which the operator chose to transmit it to him. The illusion was so very strong, that, prepared as the Abbé was for this kind of conversation, his mere senses were absolutely incapable of undeceiving him. Though conscious that the voice proceeded from the mouth of Monsieur St. Gille, that gentleman appeared absolutely mute while he was exercising this talent; nor could the author perceive any change whatever in his countenance. He observed, however, at this first visit, that Monsieur St. Gille contrived, but without any affectation, to present only the profile of his face to him, while he was speaking as a ventriloquist. The next experiment made was no less curious than the former, and is related as follows-- Monsieur St. Gille, returning home from a place where his business had carried him, sought for shelter from an approaching thunder-storm, in a neighbouring convent. Finding the whole community in mourning, he inquires the cause, and is told, that one of their body had lately died, who was the ornament and delight of the whole society. To pass away the time, he walks into the church, attended by some of the religious, who shew him the tomb of their deceased brother, and speak feelingly of the scanty honours they had bestowed on his memory. Suddenly, a voice is heard, apparently proceeding from the roof of the choir, lamenting the situation of the deceased in purgatory, and reproaching the brotherhood with their lukewarmness and want of zeal on his account. The friars, as soon as their astonishment gave them power to speak, consult together, and agree to acquaint the rest of the community with this singular event, so interesting to the whole society. Monsieur St. Gille, who wished to carry on the deception still farther, dissuaded them from taking this step; telling them, that they will be treated by their absent brethren as a set of fools and visionaries. He recommended to them, however, the immediately calling the whole community into the church, when the ghost of their departed brother may, probably, reiterate his complaints. Accordingly, all the friars, novices, lay-brothers, and even the domestics of the convent, are immediately summoned and collected together. In a short time, the voice from the roof renewed its lamentations and reproaches; and the whole convent fell on their faces, and vowed a solemn reparation. As a first step, they chaunted a _De Profundis_ in full choir; during the intervals of which, the ghost occasionally expressed the comfort he received from their pious exercises and ejaculations on his behalf. When all was over, the Prior entered into a serious conversation with Monsieur St. Gille; and, on the strength of what had just passed, sagaciously inveighed against the absurd incredulity of our modern sceptics, and pretended philosophers, as to the existence of ghosts or apparitions. Monsieur St. Gille thought it now high time to undeceive the good fathers. This purpose, however, he found extremely difficult to effect, till he had prevailed upon them to return with him into the church, and there be witnesses of the manner in which he had conducted this ludicrous deception. In consequence of these memoirs, presented by the author to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in which he communicated to them the observations that he had collected on the subject of ventriloquism in general, and those he had made on Monsieur St. Gille in particular; that learned body deputed two of its members, M. de Fouchy and Le Roi, to accompany him to St. Germain-en-Laye, in order to verify the facts, and to make their observations on the nature and causes of this extraordinary faculty. In the course of this inquiry, a very singular plan was laid and executed, to put Monsieur St. Gille's powers of deception to the trial, by engaging him to exert them in the presence of a large party, consisting of the commissaries of the Academy, and some persons of the highest quality, who were to dine in the open forest near St. Germain-en-Laye on a particular day. All the members of this party were in the secret, except a certain lady, here designated by the title of the Countess de B. who was pitched upon as a proper person for Monsieur St. Gille's delusive powers, as she knew nothing either of him or of ventriloquism; and possibly for another reason, which the Abbé, through politeness, suppresses. She had been told in general, that this party had been formed in consequence of a report, that an aërial spirit had lately established itself in the forest of St. Germain-en-Laye; and that a grand deputation from the Academy of Sciences was to pass the day there, to inquire into the reality of the fact. Monsieur St. Gille was one of the first of this select party; and, previous to his joining the company in the forest, he completely deceived one of the Commissaries of the Academy, who was then walking apart from the rest, and whom he accidentally met. Just as he was abreast of him, prepared and guarded as the academician was against a deception of this kind, he verily believed that he heard his associate M. de Fouchy, who was then with the company at above an hundred yards distance, calling after him to return as expeditiously as possible. His valet, too, after repeating to his master the purport of M. de Fouchy's supposed acclamation, turned about towards the company, and, with the greatest simplicity imaginable, bawled out as loud as he could, in answer to him, "Yes, Sir." After this promising beginning, the party sat down to dinner; and the aërial spirit, who had been previously furnished with proper anecdotes respecting the company, soon began to address the Countess of B. particularly, in a voice that seemed to be in the air over their heads. Sometimes he spoke to her from the tops of the trees around them, or from the surface of the ground, but at a great distance; and at other times seemed to speak from a considerable depth under her feet. During the dinner, the spirit appeared to be absolutely inexhaustible in the gallantries he addressed to her; though he sometimes said civil things to the rest of the company. This kind of conversation lasted above two hours; and, in fine, the Countess was firmly persuaded, as the rest of the company affected to be, that this was the voice of an aërial spirit: nor would she, as the author affirms, have been undeceived, had not the rest of the company, by their unguarded behaviour, at length excited in her some suspicions. The little plot against her was then owned; and she acknowledged herself to be mortified only in being awakened from such a pleasing delusion. Several other instances of Monsieur St. Gille's talents are related. He is not, however, the only ventriloquist now in being. The author, in the course of his inquiries on this subject, was informed that the Baron de Mengin, a German nobleman, possessed this art in a very high degree. The Baron has also constructed a little puppet, or doll, (the lower jaw of which he moves by a particular contrivance), with which he holds a spirited kind of dialogue. In the course of it, the little virago is so impertinent, that at last he thrusts her into his pocket; from whence she seems, to those present, to grumble, and complain of her hard treatment. Some time ago, the Baron, who was then at the court of Bareith, being in company with the Prince de Deux Ponts, and other noblemen, amused them with this scene. An Irish officer, who was then present, was so firmly persuaded that the Baron's doll was a real living animal, previously taught by him to repeat these responses, that he watched his opportunity at the close of the dialogue, and suddenly made an attempt to snatch it from his pocket. The little doll, as if in danger of being suffocated, during the struggle occasioned by this attempt, called out for help, and screamed incessantly from the pocket till the officer desisted. She then became silent; and the Baron was obliged to take her out from thence, to convince him, by handling her, that she was a mere piece of wood. It should have been observed, at the beginning of the Abbé's anecdotes, that ventriloquism is the art of vocal deception. It is an art, or quality, possessed by certain persons, by means of which they are enabled to speak inwardly, having the power of forming speech by drawing the air into the lungs, and to modify the voice in such a manner as to make it seem to proceed from any distance, or in any direction whatever. There is no doubt but many of these deceptions have been magnified by weak people into those dreadful stories of apparitions and hobgoblins, which the credulous and enthusiastic are too apt implicitly to believe. THE SCHOOL-BOY APPARITION. A few years since, the inhabitants of Dorking, in Surrey, entertained a notion, that a ghost walked in a certain place in that neighbourhood; and that she (for it was an ancient lady, lately dead) was seen hovering about the mansion-house, which was left uninhabited for some time; that she would be up and down in the house very often in the day-time, making a rumbling and a clattering noise; and in the night-time she walked in the neighbouring fields, with a candle in her hand, and though the wind blew ever so hard, it would not blow the candle out; that sometimes she would appear in the open fields, sometimes up in the trees; and, in particular, there was a little heath near Dorking, called Cotman Dean, where, it was said, she was frequently seen. There was a boarding-school of boys in that town, some of whom were particularly roguish, and contrived all this walking, from the beginning to the end. First, they got a small rope; and, tying one end of it to an old chair which stood in an upper room of the house (for they had found the means to get in and out of the house at pleasure), they brought the other end of the rope down on the other side of the house, in a private place, where it could not easily be seen; and by this they pulled the old chair up, and then let it fall down again: this made a great noise in the house, and was heard distinctly by many of the neighbours. Then other boys of the same gang took care to call out the old women in the next houses, that now they might hear the old lady playing her pranks; and, accordingly, they would all assemble in the court-yard, where they could plainly hear the noises, but not one of them would venture to go up stairs. If any one offered to go a little way up, then all was quiet; but, as soon as ever they retired, the rumbling would begin again. This was the day's deception. In the night, one of these unlucky boys got a dark lanthorn, which was a thing, at that time, the country-people did not understand; and with this he walked about the orchard, and two or three closes near the house, shewing the light in different directions. His comrades would then call all the old women about them to see it. Then, on a sudden, the light would seem to go out, as the boy closed up the lanthorn. Then he would run swiftly across the whole field, and shew his light again on the other side. Now he would be up in a tree, then in the road, then upon the middle of the heath; so that the country-people made no more question, but that the old lady walked with a candle in her hand, and that they saw the light of it; in a word, it passed for an apparition, and was generally conceived as such by the neighbourhood, till the knavery was discovered, the boys punished, and the towns-people laughed at for their credulity. THE CREDULOUS PEASANTS. No longer ago than the year 1788, when the husbandmen of Paris suffered so severely by the devastation on the 13th of July in that year, many of the farmers were positively so superstitious at their own created fears, that, notwithstanding considerable sums were offered to indemnify them for their losses, and to encourage them to carry on with spirit the cultivation of their lands, with new seeds, new implements, &c. they peremptorily refused, on account of a foolish report that was then prevalent in some parts of the country where the storm happened. They said, that two giants were seen peeping out of the clouds, and threatening, with terrible countenances, gigantic frowns, and high-sounding words, that they would return next year on the same thirteenth day of July, with a greater scourge than they then felt. Terrified either at the imagined report, or at the fancied sight of the giants (which terror and a weak brain will often produce), many of the unhappy sufferers abandoned their houses, and commenced beggars, rather than return to the labours of the field: so great was their affright, in consequence of that tremendous storm. This story, though hardly credible, may be depended on as a fact, and may be seen in many of the public prints of that time. THE NOCTURNAL DISTURBERS. The following authentic story is related by Dr. Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire. Soon after the murder of King Charles the First, a commission was appointed to survey the King's house at Woodstock, with the manor, park, woods, and other demesnes thereunto belonging; and one Collins, under a feigned name, hired himself as Secretary to the Commissioners: who, upon the thirteenth of October 1849, met, and took up their residence in the King's own rooms. His Majesty's bed-chamber they made their kitchen; the council-hall, their pantry; and the presence-chamber was the place where they sat for the dispatch of business. His Majesty's dining room they made their wood-yard, and stored it with the wood of the famous royal oak, from the high park; which, that nothing might be left with the name of the King about it, they had dug up by the roots, and split, and bundled up into faggots for their firing. Things being thus prepared, they sat on the 16th of the same month for the dispatch of business; and in the midst of their first debate, there entered a large black dog, as they thought, which made a dreadful howling, overturned two or three of their chairs, and then crept under a bed, and vanished. This gave them the greater surprise, as the doors were kept constantly locked, so that no real dog could get in or out. The next day, their surprise was increased; when, sitting at dinner in a lower room, they heard plainly the noise of persons walking over their heads, though they well knew the doors were all locked, and there could be nobody there. Presently after, they heard also all the wood of the King's oak brought by parcels from the dining-room, and thrown with great violence into the chamber; as also the chairs, stools, tables, and other furniture, forcibly hurled about the room; their own papers of the minutes of their transactions torn; and the ink-glass broken. When this noise had some time ceased, Giles Sharp, their Secretary, proposed to enter first into these rooms; and, in presence of the Commissioners, of whom he received the key, he opened the doors, and found the wood spread about the room, the chairs tossed about, and broken, the papers torn, and the ink-glass broken (as has been said); but not the least track of any human creature, nor the least reason to suspect one, as the doors were all fast, and the keys in the custody of the Commissioners. It was therefore unanimously agreed, that the power who did this mischief must have entered the room at the key-hole. The night following, Sharp, the Secretary, with two of the Commissioners' servants, as they were in bed in the same room (which room was contiguous to that where the Commissioners lay), had their beds' feet lifted so much higher than their heads, that they expected to have their necks broken; and then they were let fall at once with so much violence, as shook the whole house, and more than ever terrified the Commissioners. On the night of the nineteenth, as all were in bed in the same room for greater safety, and lights burning by them, the candles in an instant went out with a sulphurous smell: and, that moment, many trenchers of wood were hurled about the room; which, next morning, were found to be the same their Honours had eaten off the day before, which were all removed from the pantry, though not a lock was found opened in the whole house. The next night, they fared still worse: the candles went out as before; the curtains of their Honours' beds were rattled to and fro with great violence; their Honours received many cruel blows and bruises by eight great pewter dishes, and a number of wooden trenchers, being thrown on their beds, which being heaved off were heard rolling about the room, though in the morning none of them were to be seen. The following night, likewise, they were alarmed with the tumbling down of oaken billets about their beds, and other frightful noises: but all was clear in the morning, as if no such thing had happened. The next night, the keeper of the King's house and his dog lay in the Commissioners' room; and then they had no disturbance. But, on the night of the twenty-second, though the dog lay in the room as before, yet the candles went out, a number of brickbats fell from the chimney into the room, the dog howled piteously, their bed-clothes were all stripped off, and their terror increased. On the twenty-fourth night, they thought all the wood of the King's oak was violently thrown down by their bed-sides; they counted sixty-four billets that fell, and some hit and shook the beds in which they lay: but in the morning none were found there, nor had the door been opened where the billet-wood was kept. The next night, the candles were put out, the curtains rattled, and a dreadful crack like thunder was heard; and one of the servants, running to see if his master was not killed, found three dozen of trenchers laid smoothly under the quilt by him. But all this was nothing to what succeeded afterwards. The twenty-ninth, about midnight, the candles went out; something walked majestically through the room, and opened and shut the windows; great stones were thrown violently into the room, some of which fell on the beds, others on the floor; and, about a quarter after one, a noise was heard, as of forty cannon discharged together, and again repeated at about eight minutes distance. This alarmed and raised all the neighbourhood; who, coming into their Honours' rooms, gathered up the great stones, fourscore in number, and laid them in the corner of a field, where, in Dr. Plot's time, who reported this story, they were to be seen. This noise, like the discharge of cannon, was heard through all the country for sixteen miles round. During these noises, which were heard in both rooms together, the Commissioners and their servants gave one another over for lost, and cried out for help; and Giles Sharp, snatching up a sword, had well nigh killed one of their Honours, mistaking him for the spirit, as he came in his shirt, from his own room to their's. While they were together, the noise was continued, and part of the tiling of the house was stripped off, and all the windows of an upper room were taken away with it. On the thirtieth at midnight, something walked into the chamber, treading like a bear; it walked many times about, then threw a warming-pan violently on the floor: at the same time a large quantity of broken glass, accompanied with great stones and horses' bones, came pouring into the room, with uncommon force; these were all found in the morning, to the astonishment and terror of the Commissioners, who were yet determined to go on with their business. But, on the first of November, the most dreadful scene of all ensued. Candles in every part of the house were lighted up, and a great fire made. At midnight, the candles all yet burning, a noise, like the burst of a cannon, was heard in the room, and the burning billets were tossed about by it even into their Honours' beds, who called Giles and his companions to their relief, otherwise the house had been burned to the ground. About an hour after, the candles went out as usual; the crack of as many cannon was heard; and many pailfuls of green stinking water were thrown upon their Honours' beds; great stones were thrown in, as before; the bed-curtains and bedsteads torn and broken; the windows shattered; and the whole neighbourhood alarmed with the most dreadful noises; nay, the very rabbit-stealers that were abroad that night in the warren, were so terrified, that they fled for fear, and left their ferrets behind them. One of their Honours, this night, spoke; and, in the name of God, asked what it was? and why it disturbed them so? No answer was given to this, but the noise ceased for a while; when the spirit came again, and, as they all agreed, brought with it seven devils worse than itself. One of the servants now lighted a large candle, and placed himself in the doorway between the two chambers, to see what passed; and, as he watched, he plainly saw a hoof striking the candle and candlestick into the middle of the room, and afterwards making three scrapes over the snuff, scraped it out. Upon this the same person was so bold as to draw a sword; but he had scarce got it out, when he felt an invisible hand had hold of it too, and pulled with him for it, and, at length prevailing, struck him so violently on the head with the hilt, that he fell down for dead with the blow. At this instant was heard another burst, like the discharge of the broadside of a ship of war; and, at about a minute or two's distance each, no less than nineteen more such. These shook the house so violently, that they expected every moment it would fall upon their heads. The neighbours, on this, as has been said, being all alarmed, flocked to the house in great numbers, and all joined in prayer and psalm-singing; during which the noise still continued in the other rooms, and the report of cannon was heard, as from without, though no visible agent was seen to discharge them. But what was the most alarming of all, and put an end to their proceedings effectually, happened the next day, as they were all at dinner; when a paper, in which they had signed a mutual agreement to reserve a part of the premises out of the general survey, and afterwards to share it equally amongst them, (which paper they had hid, for the present, under the earth, in a pot in one corner of the room, in which an orange-tree grew), was consumed in a wonderful manner, by the earth's taking fire, with which the pot was filled, and burning violently with a blue flame, and an intolerable stench, so that they were all driven out of the house, to which they could never again be prevailed upon to return. This wonderful contrivance was all the invention of the memorable Joseph Collins, of Oxford, otherwise called _Funny Joe_; who, having hired himself for their Secretary, under the name of Giles Sharp, by knowing the private traps belonging to the house, and the help of _pulvis fulminans_ and other chemical preparations, and letting his fellow-servants into the scheme, carried on the deceit, without discovery, to the very last, so dextrously, that the late Dr. Plot, in his Natural History, relates the whole for fact, in the gravest manner. MARESCHAL SAXE, AND _THE HAUNTED CASTLE_. The following very remarkable adventure, which befel the Mareschal de Saxe, whilst returning to his country-seat, near Dresden, in Saxony, has often been related by him to his friends and acquaintance; and, as the Mareschal was not less famed for his love of truth, than for his heroic courage as a warrior, none of them ever doubted the truth of his relation. "Returning," says the Mareschal, "from the fatigues of a very active campaign to my country-seat, in order to seek, in retirement, some relaxation during the remainder of the winter, I arrived on the third day at a small village, on the verge of an extensive forest. At about half a league from this village, stood an ancient castle, in which some of the country-people were usually wont to take up their abode, and from which they had of late been driven, according to their account, by the nightly appearance of a most terrific spectre, whose visit was announced by the most hideous groans. On conversing with some of the villagers," observes the Mareschal, "I found that an universal terror pervaded the whole neighbourhood; many of them declaring they had actually seen the dreadful ghost; whilst others, taking their declaration for granted, promulgated the story, according as their imaginations were more or less affected by their fears. "Willing, if possible, to comfort these poor people, and to convince them that their senses were deceived, I told them they were wrong to suffer their fears to get the better of their reason; and that, if any of them had the courage to examine more closely into the affair, they would find the whole was nothing more than some imposture, or the effusion of a superstitious brain, or, at most, a trick played upon them by some wicked people on purpose to amuse themselves by sporting with their feelings. But I was much disappointed to find that my arguments had but little effect. I therefore determined, if possible, to trace the affair to the bottom before I departed, in order to dispel their fears, and do away the unfavourable impression they had so generally entertained of the castle being haunted. "I now told them, I would pass a night in one of the apartments of the castle, provided I were furnished with a bed, and other necessaries requisite for such an undertaking. 'Moreover,' said I, 'if this ghostly personage should honour me with a visit, I shall not fail to propose articles of accommodation between you.' To this they readily assented, and seemed much pleased with my proposition. "In the evening, my bed, fire, and other requisites, being ready, I was conducted to my new abode; on entering which, I proposed to some of my conductors to pass the night with me, which they, one and all, declined, under various pretences. 'Well then, my good people,' said I, rallying their want of courage, 'the day is now closing apace, I would have you return immediately, lest this nightly intruder should intercept you in your retreat.' Whereupon my companions took leave, and hastened with all speed from the castle. "Being now alone, I thought it prudent to examine the castle with the most minute circumspection. After various researches to discover all the private avenues of the place, I returned to the apartment I proposed sleeping in, at the further end of which I perceived a door that till now I had not discovered. I essayed to open it, but in vain, as it was fastened on the other side. This naturally excited my suspicion. I again made the attempt, and again was unsuccessful. I then prepared to guard myself against a surprise; I therefore charged my pistols, and laid them together with my sword in a convenient place to seize them on the least alarm. I then took a slight repast, of such provisions as had been prepared for me; after which I amused myself, until my usual hour of going to rest, with examining the Gothic decorations of my apartment, and then laid me down on the bed, and, being rather overcome with the fatigue of the day, I soon sunk into a profound sleep. How long I continued in this state, I cannot exactly say; but I conjectured it to be about midnight, when I was alarmed with the most unaccountable noise I had ever heard. I listened a few seconds, to ascertain from whence the sound came, and soon found it proceeded from without the door I had fruitlessly attempted to open. I instantly jumped from the bed, seized my arms, and was in the act of advancing towards it, determined to find out the cause of this disturbance, let what would be the consequence; when, suddenly the door flew open, with the most tremendous crash. A hollow groan issued from the vaults below; and a tall figure of gigantic appearance, clad in complete armour, rose to my view. The figure's appearance was so sudden and terrific, that I could not in a moment collect myself sufficiently to call out and speak to it; but, a moment after, my courage returned, and, calling to mind, that I could only find safety in my own courageous efforts, and not doubting but the intruder was a mortal like myself, I instantly levelled one of my pistols, and fired. The ball struck the breast-plate of the figure, glided quickly off, and lodged in the wall. I levelled again, fired, and with the same effect. I then drew my sword, at the same time exclaiming, 'Know that I am the Mareschal de Saxe; that I am a stranger to fear, and that this sword shall quickly prove whether thou art mortal or not!' 'Be thou the Mareschal de Saxe, or the devil,' replied the figure; 'thy courage here can avail thee nought. I have the means to destroy thee, or an hundred such, in an instant. But, follow me; thy obedience only can insure thy safety.' I now saw that resistance would be vain, as several figures clad in armour like the first, and well armed, appeared at each door. 'Well then,' said I, 'since it is so, lead the way; but remember, that the first who dares touch me dies, if my own life is the immediate forfeiture.' "We then quitted the apartment, by the secret door already mentioned; and, descending by a circuitous flight of stairs, soon arrived at another door, which flew open on our approach. No sooner were we entered, than my guide gave a signal to those who followed, and the door was instantly shut. A number of Vulcan-like creatures now appeared, bearing lighted torches, and leading the way through a winding subterraneous passage. We soon came to a spacious arched vault, in which I beheld upwards of fifty persons very actively engaged in the various processes of coining. The whole mystery was now developed; and I discovered that, for the first time in my life, I had fallen into the hands of a most desperate gang of coiners. Escape was now utterly impossible; nor could I entertain the most distant hope of succour from without the castle, as my sudden disappearance would rather operate to confirm the terror of the villagers, than stimulate them to search after me. "The man in armour now turned to me, and addressed me in nearly the following words--'You now see for what purpose we are here arrived. I am the chief of this band; and it is principally to me you may attribute your preservation. We have but recently taken up our abode in this castle; and the plan we have fallen upon to terrify the villagers and country round, and thereby keep them from pursuing us, has hitherto succeeded beyond our most sanguine expectations; nor was it likely we should have been disturbed for years to come, had you not visited these parts. Of your resolute intention to sleep in the haunted apartment we were informed by our friends without; your name also was made known to us; upon which an universal consternation ensued. Many wished to fly, in order to avoid, what they conceived, inevitable destruction: others were of opinion, it would be better to suffer you to enter the castle quietly; and as, most likely you would be attended with but few persons, to dispatch you all in the night, and hide your bodies among the ruins in one of the vaults. This last proposition had the majority; as it was considered, that our own safety would not only be secured for the present by this act, but it would in all probability prevent others from making the like attempt hereafter. But this proceeding was happily over-ruled by me and a few others--I say, happily; for though we are considered, in the eye of the law, as co-brothers with assassins and midnight robbers, yet God forbid that we should add to our crimes by staining our hands with the blood of the innocent. To be brief, I promised that, with the aid of a few of my companions, I would drive you from the castle by the same stratagem I have before made use of to others, or, if that did not succeed, to secure and conduct you by force. Thus have I explained the cause of your present detention. The regaining your liberty must entirely depend on your acquiescence with our proposals; and there is a way I can point out, by which you may secure both your own safety and our's.' 'Name it not then,' said I, interrupting him, 'if it be dishonourable; for I had rather perish here by your hands, than owe my liberty to any connivance at your iniquities, or be the instrument of your future security!' 'Use your own pleasure,' continued he, in a determined tone of voice; 'but you certainly must not depart this place until you have bound yourself by your _honour_ not to divulge a secret, on which depend the lives of so many persons. That word, once pledged by the Mareschal de Saxe, will be a sufficient guarantee of our future safety. I could have wished our request had been more congenial to your feelings; but our situation is desperate, and consequently impels us to enforce, what we would, under all other circumstances, have solicited as the least of favours--your word of honour. "I paused for several minutes: a confused murmur now run throughout the whole place, and an universal disapprobation at the chief's forbearance began now to manifest itself. Add to which, I saw the utter impracticability of escape without complying with their demand; and I knew that their prepossession in my favour was but partial, and of course might soon give way to their former plan of assassinating me for their safety. If I continued inflexible, I perceived my death was inevitable. Therefore, as the majority were favourably inclined, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave them my word to keep the secret of the whole affair locked within my own breast. 'You are now at liberty,' said the chief, 'to return to your apartment, where you may rely on being perfectly safe until break of day, when you had better depart.' Whereupon the doors flew open, and I was conducted back to my old lodging, where I sat ruminating on the strangeness of the adventure. "Day now appearing, I quitted the castle, and hied me to the village, where I found most of the inhabitants already in waiting, eager to hear how I made out with the ghost. Numberless were their interrogatories, which I only answered by telling them I was not at liberty to disclose what I had seen and heard. Their old opinions were now more fully confirmed than ever; and, I believe, from that moment none have had courage to venture near the castle after dark; and it is probable that, to this day, the whole mystery has never been truly explained to their satisfaction. Shortly after, I set out on my journey, and soon arrived in safety at my own domain. "About four years after this, a person rode up to my gate, leading a couple of beautiful chargers, which he delivered, with a letter addressed to me, into the hands of my domestics; and, having so done, he clapped spurs to his horse, and disappeared in an instant. On opening the letter, I found it contained nearly the following words-- '_From the pretended Ghost of the Haunted Castle, to the Mareschal de Saxe._ 'Brave Mareschal--You are now at liberty to divulge the secret of our affair in the haunted castle. Our fortunes are now made; and, ere you receive this, we shall be far from hence. But remember, that whatever the world may say as to the propriety of keeping your word with men like us, know, that the honour of a prince[A], once pledged, should be kept inviolate, even though given in a bad cause. My companions desired me to beg your acceptance of the horses you will receive herewith, as a mark of their most grateful acknowledgments. Adieu! May you live long, and be happy.'--" FOOTNOTES: [A] The Mareschal was the son of a King. REMARKABLE RESUSCITATION. In the first volume of the _Causes Célèbres_, a popular French work, is the following extraordinary story, which occasioned a serious law-suit. Two men in trade, who lived in the street St. Honoré in Paris, nearly equal in circumstances, both following the same profession, and united in the closest friendship, had each of them a child, much about the same age. These children were brought up together, and conceived a mutual attachment, which, ripening with years into a stronger and more lively sentiment, was approved by the parents on both sides. This young couple was upon the point of being made happy, by a more solemn union, when a rich financier, conceiving a passion for the young maiden, unfortunately crossed their inclinations by demanding her in marriage. The allurements of a more brilliant fortune seduced her father and mother, notwithstanding their daughter's repugnance, to consent to the change. To their entreaties, however, she was obliged to yield, and sacrificed her affections by becoming the wife of the financier. Like a woman of virtue, she forbade her earlier lover the house. A fit of melancholy, the consequence of this violence done to her inclinations by entering into an engagement of interest, brought on her a malady, which so far benumbed her faculties, that at length she was given over by the faculty, apparently died, and was accordingly laid out for burial. Her former lover, who had once before beheld her in a similar situation, flattered himself that he might possibly again find her in a trance. This idea not only suspended his grief, but prompted him to bribe the grave-digger, by whose aid he dug up the body in the night-time, and conveyed it home. He then used every means in his power for recalling her to life, and was overjoyed on discovering that his endeavours were not ineffectual. It is not easy to conceive the surprise of the young woman on her resuscitation, when she found herself in a strange house, and, as it were, in the arms of her lover, who soon informed her of what had taken place on her account. She then comprehended the extent of her obligation to her deliverer; and love, more pathetic than all his persuasions to unite their destinies, determined her, on her recovery, to escape with him into England. This was effected; and they lived for some years in the closest union. At the end of ten years, they conceived the natural wish of revisiting their own country, and at length returned to Paris, where they took no precaution whatever of concealing themselves, being persuaded that no suspicion would attach to their arrival. It happened however, by chance, that the financier met his wife in one of the public walks. The sight of her made so strong an impression on him, that for some time he imagined it must be her apparition; and, being fully persuaded of her death, he could not for a long time efface that idea. However, he so contrived it as to join her; and, notwithstanding the language she made use of to impose upon him, he left her with the conviction that he was not deceived at finding her a living substance. The singularity of this event gave more charms to the woman in the eyes of her former husband than she before possessed. He therefore acted with such address, that he discovered her abode, notwithstanding all her precautions, and reclaimed her with all the regular formalities of justice. It was in vain that the lover maintained the right which his cares for his mistress gave him to the possession of her; that he represented her inevitable death but for him; that his adversary divested himself of all his own rights, by causing her to be buried; that he ought even to be accused of homicide, for want of having taken proper precautions to assure himself of her death; and a thousand other ingenious reasons, which love suggested to him. But, finding that the judicial ear was unfavourable, and not thinking it expedient to wait the result of a definitive judgment, he fled with his mistress into a foreign country; where they passed the remainder of their days without further molestation. THE CREDULOUS BISHOP. A few years since, a memorable conference took place between Dr. Fowler (then Bishop of Gloucester) and a Mr. Justice Powell: the former, a zealous defender of ghosts; and the latter, somewhat sceptical about them. They had several altercations upon the subject; and once, when the Bishop made a visit to the Justice, the latter, contracting the muscles of his face into an air of more than usual severity, assured the Bishop, that, since their last disputation, besides his Lordship's strong reasons, he had met with no less proof than ocular demonstration, to convince him of the real existence of ghosts. "How!" says the Bishop, "ocular demonstration! Well, I have preached, I have printed, upon the subject; but nothing will convince you sceptics but ocular demonstration. I am glad, Mr. Justice, you are become a convert. But pray, Sir, how went this affair? I beseech you, let me know the whole story." "My Lord," answered the Justice, "as I lay one night in my bed, and had gone through the better half of my first sleep, it being about twelve o'clock, on a sudden I was awakened by a very strange and uncommon noise, and heard something coming up stairs, and stalking directly towards my room. I had the courage to raise myself upon my pillow, and to draw the curtain, just as I heard my chamber-door open, and saw a glimmering light enter my chamber." "Of a blue colour, no doubt," says the Bishop. "Of a pale blue," answers the Justice. "But, permit me, my good Lord, to proceed. The light was followed by a tall, meagre, and stern personage, who seemed to be of the age of seventy, in a long dangling rug gown, bound round his loins with a broad leathern girdle; his beard was thick and grizzly; he had a large fur cap on his head, and a long staff in his hand; his face was full of wrinkles, and seemed to be of a dark and sable hue. I was struck with the appearance of so surprising a figure, and felt some shocks which I had never before been acquainted with. Soon after the spectre had entered my room, with a hasty, but somewhat stately pace, it drew near my bed, and stared me full in the face." "And did you not speak to it?" interrupted the Bishop, with a good deal of emotion. "With submission, my Lord," says the Justice, "please only to indulge me in a few words more." "But, Mr. Justice, Mr. Justice," replies the Bishop still more hastily, "you should have spoken to it; there was money hid, or a murder committed; and give me leave to observe that murder is a matter cognizable by law, and this came regularly into judgment before you." "Well, my Lord, you will have your way; but, in short, I did speak to it." "And what answer, Mr. Justice, I pray you--what answer did it make you?" "My Lord, the answer was, not without a thump with the staff, and a shake of the lanthorn, that he was the watch-man of the night, and came to give me notice, that he had found the street-door open, and that, unless I arose and shut it, I might chance to be robbed before break of day." The moment these words were out of the good Justice's mouth, the Bishop vanished with much more haste than did the supposed ghost, and in as great a surprise at the Justice's scepticism, as the Justice was at the Bishop's credulity. THE GHOSTLY ADVENTURER. About thirty years ago, some labouring mechanics met one Saturday evening, after receiving their wages, at a public-house, near Rippon, in Yorkshire, for the purpose of enjoying themselves convivially, after the cares and fatigues of the week. The glass circulated freely: every man told his story, or sung a song; and various were the subjects of conversation. At length that of courage was introduced; every man now considered himself a hero, as is generally the case when liquor begins to operate. One boasted his skill as a pugilist, and related how many battles he had fought, and came off victorious; another related a dreadful encounter he had lately had with a mad dog, whom he overpowered and left dead on the field; a third told a story of his sleeping in a haunted house, and his conversation with a dreadful ghost. In short, various and extravagant were the different tales they told; until one, who had hitherto remained silent, arose, and told them that, notwithstanding their boasted courage, he would wager a bet of five guineas, that not one of the company had resolution sufficient to go to the bone-house, in the parish church-yard (which was about a mile distant), and bring a skull from thence with him, and place it on the table before the guests. This wager was soon accepted by one of the party, who immediately set off on his expedition to the church-yard. The wag who had proposed the bet, and who knew a nearer by-way to the bone-house than his opponent had taken, requested of the landlady to lend him a white sheet, and that he would soon cool this heroic man's courage. The landlady, who enjoyed the joke, complied with his request, lent him the sheet, and off set our wag with the utmost speed. He arrived at the bone-house first, threw the sheet over him, and placed himself in one corner, waiting the arrival of his comrade. Presently after enters the first man, with slow deliberate pace; and observing a figure in white, he felt himself greatly alarmed (as he afterwards acknowledged). However, he resumed his courage, advanced, stooped down, and picked up a skull. Immediately the phantom exclaimed, in a deep and hollow tone, "_That's my father's skull!_" "Well then," replied the adventurer, "if it be thy father's skull, take it." So down he laid it, and took up another; when the figure replied, in the same hollow tone, "_That's my mother's skull!_" "Well then," the other again replied, "if it be thy mother's skull, take it." So down he laid it, and took up a third. The apparition now, in a tremendously awful manner, cried out, "_That's my skull!_" "If it be the devil's skull, I'll have it!" answered the hero; and off he ran with it in his hand, greatly terrified, and the spectre after him. In his flight through the church-yard, he stumbled over a tomb-stone, and fell; which occasioned the ghost likewise to fall upon him, which increased not a little his fright. However, he soon extricated himself, and again bent his flight towards the inn, which he soon reached; and, bolting suddenly into the room, exclaimed, with terrific countenance, his hair standing on end, "Here is the skull you sent me for: but, by George, the right owner's coming for it!" Saying which, down went the skull, and instantly appeared the figure with the white sheet on. This unexpected intrusion so much frightened all the company, that they ran out of the house as fast as possible, really believing it was an apparition from the tombs come to punish them for their sacrilegious theft. Such power has fear over the strongest mind when taken by surprise! The undaunted adventurer, however, won his wager; which was spent at the same house the Saturday following, when the joke was universally allowed to be a very good one. THE HEROIC MIDSHIPMAN; OR _CHURCH-YARD ENCOUNTER_. At a respectable inn, in a market-town, in the west of England, some few years since, a regular set of the inhabitants met every evening to smoke their pipes, and pass a convivial hour. The conversation, as is usual at those places, was generally desultory. One evening, the subject introduced was concerning ghosts and apparitions; and many were the dreadful stories then told. A young midshipman, having accidentally dropped in, sat a silent and an attentive hearer; and, among other tales, heard a dreadful one of a sprite or hobgoblin dressed in white, which every night was seen hovering over the graves, in a church-yard at no great distance from the inn, and through which was a foot-path to one of the principal streets in the town. Our young gentleman felt himself stimulated with an ardour of quixotism at this relation; and was determined in his own mind, whatever might be the consequence, to encounter this nightly spectre, which so much disturbed the courageous inhabitants of the place. His pride was, to perform this mighty achievement alone. Therefore, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, out he sallies, without making his intentions known to any one, and entered the church-yard. But, I should observe, that he had his hanger by his side. Having reached about the middle of the church-yard, he observed, sure enough, something in white moving backwards and forwards; but the haziness of the night prevented his strict discernment of the figure's shape. As it appeared advancing towards him, a momentary trepidation seized him. He retreated a few steps; but, soon recovering himself, he resolutely cried out, "_Who comes here?_" No answer being made, he again cried out, "_Who comes here?_" Still no reply was made. He then groped about for a stone or brick-bat, which having found, he threw with great violence at the figure; upon which it appeared to move much quicker than before. He again spoke to the figure; and, receiving no answer, drew his hanger, and made a desperate stroke at this dreadful spectre, which moving with still greater agility, now alarmed our adventurer, and caused him to run away greatly terrified, believing he had encountered some supernatural appearance, which had resisted all his blows. It was not long ere he reached home, and went to bed; but his fright was so great, that sleep could not gain any ascendancy over him. He therefore lay ruminating on this extraordinary affair the whole night. In the morning, while at breakfast, the bellman, or crier, came nearly under his window, and began his usual introductory address of "_O-yez! O-yez!_" These words immediately arrested the ears of our adventurer; and, to his very great astonishment, he heard him thus proceed--"This is to give notice, that whereas some evil-disposed person, or persons, did wantonly cut and maim the parson's white mare, which was grazing in the church-yard last night, a reward of ten guineas will be given to any person who will discover the offender, or offenders, so that they may be brought to justice! _God save the King!_" Our champion now thought it prudent to decamp without beat of drum. Thus ended this ghostly adventure; the particulars of which the inhabitants were informed of by letter, the moment the young gentleman had got safe on board his ship. THE COCK-LANE GHOST. About the middle of January 1762, a gentleman was sent for to the house of one Parsons, the officiating parish clerk of St. Sepulchre's, in Cock Lane, near West Smithfield, to be witness to the noises, and other extraordinary circumstances, attending the supposed presence of a spirit, that, for two years preceding, had been heard in the night, to the great terror of the family. This knocking and scratching was always heard under the bed where the children lay; the eldest was about twelve years of age. To find out the cause, Mr. Parsons, the parish-clerk, ordered the wainscot to be taken down; which was accordingly done: but the noise, instead of ceasing, as he hoped, became more violent than ever. The children were afterwards removed into the two-pair of stairs room, where the same noise followed, and was frequently heard all night. From these circumstances it was apprehended that the house was haunted; and the other child declared, that she, some time ago, had seen the apparition of a woman, surrounded, as it were, with a blazing light. About two years prior to which, a publican in the neighbourhood, bringing a pot of beer into the house, about eleven o'clock at night, was so frightened that he let the beer fall, upon seeing on the stairs, as he was looking up, a bright shining figure of a woman, by which he saw through a window into the charity-school, and saw the dial in the school. The figure passed by him, and beckoned him to follow; but he was too much terrified to obey its directions: he ran home, and was very sick. Soon after, Mr. Parsons himself, having occasion to go into another room, saw the same appearance. Both these happened within the space of an hour. To throw some light upon this very mysterious affair, we shall begin with the narrative of Mr. Brown, of Amen Corner, published January 23d, 1762; the substance of which is as follows-- That in 1759, one Mr. K---- employed an agent to carry a letter to a young gentlewoman of a reputable family in Norfolk, and to bring her up to London in a post-chaise, if she would be willing to come. That she did come; but Mr. K----being at Greenwich, she followed him there directly, and was received by him, after a journey of one hundred miles performed in one day, with much tenderness. After some short stay at Greenwich, where it was thought necessary that she should make a will in his favour, she was removed to a lodging near the Mansion-House; from thence to lodgings, behind St. Sepulchre's church; and, lastly, to a house in Bartlett Court, in the parish of Clerkenwell. Here, in 1760, she was taken ill of the small-pox; and, on or about the 31st of January, her sister, who lived reputably in Pall-Mall, was first made acquainted with her illness, and place of residence. Being greatly concerned thus to hear of her, she went immediately, and found her in a fair way of doing well; next day she sent, and received a favourable account of her; but, on the morning following, word was brought that her sister was dead. She died February 2d, 1760; and was buried, in two or three days after, at the church of St. John, Clerkenwell. Her sister, attending her funeral, was surprised at not seeing a plate upon the coffin, and expressed that surprise to Mr. Brown after the funeral was over; lamenting, at the same time, she had not been permitted to see her sister's corpse, the coffin being screwed down before she came. She added, that K---- had married one of her sisters, and had ruined the other, who was buried by the name of ----, as appears by the parish register. By the will already mentioned, K---- availed himself of her fortune, to the prejudice of her brother and sisters, who all lived in perfect harmony until this unhappy affair happened. Such is the account given by Mr. Brown, of Amen Corner. A worthy clergyman, however, who attended her several times, and who administered to her the last comforts of his function, declares, that the small-pox with which she was seized, was of the confluent sort; and that the gentleman of the faculty, who attended her, had pronounced her irrecoverable some days before her death. It was, however, the ghost of this person, that Parsons declared had taken possession of his girl, a child about twelve years old, who lay with the deceased in the absence of her supposed husband, when he was in the country at a wedding; and then it was, that the knocking was first heard, to the great terror of this child, she frequently crying out that she might not be taken away. Soon after, this woman died, whose apparition was now supposed to appear to this same child; and, in answer to the question put to her, What was the occasion of the first knocking, &c. before she died? answered, that it was the spirit of her sister, the first wife of Mr. K----, who was husband to them both. Having now sufficiently prepared the reader, we shall proceed in our narrative. The gentleman already said to have been sent for, attended, and found the child in bed; and, the spirit being at hand, several questions were put to it by the father, which, to avoid repetition, we shall relate hereafter. The gentleman not caring to pronounce too hastily upon what appeared to him extraordinary, got some friends together, among whom were two or three clergymen, about twenty other persons, and two negroes, who sat up another night. They first thoroughly examined the bed, bed-clothes, &c.; and, being satisfied that there was no visible appearance of deceit, the child with its sister was put into bed, which was found to shake extremely by the gentleman who had placed himself at the foot of it. Among others, the following questions were asked-- Whether her disturbance was occasioned by any ill-treatment from Mr. K----?--Yes. Whether she was brought to an untimely end by poison?--Yes. In what was the poison administered, beer or purl?--Purl. How long before her death?--Three hours. Is the person called Carrots, able to give information about the poison?--Yes. Whether she was K----'s wife's sister?--Yes. Whether she was married to K----?--No. Whether any other person than K---- was concerned in the poisoning?--No. Whether she could visibly appear to any one?--Yes. Whether she would do so?--Yes. Whether she could go out of that house?--Yes. Whether she would follow the child everywhere?--Yes. Whether she was pleased at being asked questions?--Yes. Whether it eased her mind?--Yes. (Here a mysterious noise, compared to the fluttering of wings round the room, was heard.) How long before her death had she told Carrots (her servant) that she was poisoned?--One hour. (Here Carrots, who was admitted to be one of the company on Tuesday night, asserted that the deceased had not told her so, she being at that time speechless.) How long did Carrots live with her?--Three or four days. (Carrots attested the truth of this.) Whether, if the accused should be taken up, he would confess?--Yes. Whether she should be at ease in her mind, if the man was hanged?--Yes. How long it would be before he would be executed?--Three years. How many clergymen were in the room?--Three. How many negroes?--Two. Whether she could distinguish the person of any one in the room?--Yes. Whether the colour of a watch held up by one of the clergymen was white, yellow, blue, or black?--Black. (The watch was in a black shagreen case.) At what time she would depart in the morning?--At four o'clock. Accordingly, at this hour the noise removed to the Wheat-sheaf, a public-house at the distance of a few doors, in the bed-chamber of the landlord and landlady, to the great affright and terror of them both. Such was the manner of interrogating the spirit: the answer was given by knocking or scratching. An affirmative was one knock; a negative, two. Displeasure was expressed by scratching. Nothing more occurred till the following morning, when the knocking began about seven o'clock. But, notwithstanding some extraordinary answers to the several questions proposed, it was still a matter of doubt whether the whole was not a piece of imposition; and it was resolved to remove the child elsewhere. Accordingly, instead of its being carried home, it was conveyed to a house in Crown-and-Cushion Court, at the upper end of Cow Lane, near Smithfield, where two clergymen, several gentlemen, and some ladies, assembled in the evening. About eleven o'clock the knocking began; when a gentleman in the room, speaking angrily to the girl, and hinting that he suspected it was some trick of her's, the child was uneasy, and cried: on which the knocking was heard louder, and much faster than before; but no answer could be obtained to any question while that gentleman staid in the room. After he was gone, the noise ceased: and nothing was heard till a little after twelve o'clock, when the child was seized with a trembling and shivering; in which manner she had always been affected, on the departure as well as the approach of the ghost. Upon this, one of the company asked, whether it would return again, and at what time? Answer was made in the usual manner by knocks, that it would return again before seven in the morning; and then a noise, like the fluttering of wings, was heard; after which all was quiet till between six and seven on Friday morning, when the knocking began again. A little before seven, two clergymen came, when the fluttering noise was repeated, which in this strange affair was considered as a mark of the spirit's being pleased. Then several questions, particularly one, by a gentlewoman who was an acquaintance of the deceased, who came out of mere curiosity, and had been to see her some time before she died: the question was, How many days it was before her death, that this gentlewoman came to see her? The answer given was three knocks, signifying three days; which was exactly right. Another question was, Whether some of the then company had not a relation that had been buried in the same vault where she lay? To which it replied by one knock, Yes. They asked, severally, if it was their relation? To all of which, except the last, she answered by two knocks, meaning No; but to the last person she gave one knock, which was right. These two circumstances greatly alarmed all the company. Near twenty persons sat up in the room: but it was not till about six o'clock in the morning that the first alarm was given, which coming spontaneously, as well as suddenly, a good deal struck the imagination of the auditors. The scratches were compared to that of a cat upon a cane chair. The child now appeared to be in a sound sleep, and nothing further could be obtained. It had been observed, in conversation, by a person who expressed himself pretty warmly on the subject, that the whole was an imposture, and more to the same purpose; which gave rise to some sharp altercation among the company--some believing, and others disbelieving the reality of the apparition. This dispute was no sooner begun, than the spirit was gone; and no more knocking and scratching was to be heard. About seven o'clock the girl seemed to awake in a violent fit of crying and tears. Upon being asked the occasion, and assured that nothing of harm should happen to her, she declared that her tears were the effect of her imagination at what would become of her daddy, who must needs be ruined and undone, if this matter should be supposed to be an imposture. She was told, that the company had looked upon her as in a sound sleep when the above dispute happened. To which she replied, "Aye, but not so sound but that I could hear all you said." On the Sunday night following, the girl lay at a house opposite the school-house in Cock Lane; at which place a person of distinction, two clergymen, and several other persons, were present. Between ten and eleven o'clock the knocking began: the principal questions and answers were the same as those already mentioned; but among some new ones of little consequence, was the following?--Will you attend the girl at any place whither she may be appointed to be carried, by authority? Answered in the affirmative. At eleven o'clock, eleven distinct knocks were heard; and at twelve, when being asked if it was going away, and when it would return again, seven knocks were given. Accordingly, when St. Sepulchre's clock struck seven, on Monday morning, this invisible agent knocked the same number of times. Some few questions were asked at this meeting, much to the same purport as those above inserted, and answered in the same manner. Every person was put out of the room, who could be supposed to have the least connexion with the girl: her hands were laid over the bed-clothes, and the bed narrowly looked under, &c. but no discovery was made. On the night of the 1st of February, many gentlemen, eminent for their rank and character, were, by the invitation of the Reverend Mr. Aldrich, of Clerkenwell, assembled at his house, for the examination of the noises supposed to be made by a departed spirit for the detection of some enormous crime. About ten at night, the gentlemen met in the chamber, in which the girl supposed to be disturbed by a spirit had, with proper caution, been put to bed by several ladies. They sat with her rather more than an hour; and, hearing nothing, went down stairs, when they interrogated the father of the girl, who denied, in the strongest terms, any knowledge or belief of fraud. The supposed spirit had before publicly promised, by an affirmative knock, that it would attend one of the gentlemen into the vault under the church of St. John, Clerkenwell, where the body was deposited; and give a token of her presence there, by a knock upon her coffin: it was, therefore, determined to make this trial of the existence or veracity of the supposed spirit. While they were inquiring and deliberating, they were summoned into the girl's chamber by the ladies who remained near her bed, and who heard knocks and scratches. When the gentlemen entered, the girl declared that she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her back, and was required to hold her hands out of bed. From that time, though the spirit was very solemnly required to manifest its existence, by appearance, by impression on the hand or body of any person present, by scratches, knocks, or any other agency, no evidence of any preternatural power was exhibited. The spirit was then very seriously advertised, that the person to whom the promise was made, of striking the coffin, was then about to visit the vault, and that the performance of the promise was then claimed. The company, at one o'clock, went into the church; and that gentleman, to whom the promise was made, went, with one more, into the vault. The spirit was very solemnly required to perform its promise, but nothing more than silence ensued: the person supposed to be accused by the spirit then went down, with several others, but no effect was perceived. Upon their return, they examined the girl, but could draw no confession from her. Between two and three, she desired, and was permitted, to go home with her father. No doubt now remained of the fallacy of this spirit. It was supposed that the girl was practised in the art of ventriloquism, an art better known now than formerly; but it was soon after discovered that there was not so much ingenuity in the fraud. A bed was slung like a hammock, in the middle of a room, at a gentleman's house, where the girl was sent. The servants were ordered to watch her narrowly; and, about a quarter of an hour before bed-time, she was observed to conceal something under her clothes. Information of this being given to the gentlemen attending, they were of opinion, that a connivance at the beginning of the scene would be the most likely means of leading them to a full discovery of the fact. In the morning, about six o'clock, the knockings came, and answered to questions as usual, but in so different a sound, that it was very apparent this method of operating was a fresh contrivance. When the knockings, which continued for near half an hour, were over, she was several times asked, if she had any wood or other thing in the bed, against which she could strike? which she obstinately denied. Two maid-servants being then ordered to take her out of bed, a piece of board was found in it, which, as was observed, she had conveyed there the night before. Soon after, a trial came on before Lord Mansfield, in the Court of King's Bench, Guildhall, by a special jury, on an indictment against Richard Parsons, and Elizabeth his wife, Mary Fraser, a clergyman, and a reputable tradesman, for a conspiracy in the Cock-Lane ghost affair, to injure the character, &c. of Mr. William Kent; when they were all found guilty. The trial lasted about twelve hours. THE HYPOCHONDRIAC GENTLEMAN AND _THE JACK-ASS_. A sober gentleman of very great respectability, who was low-spirited and hypochondriac to a degree, was at times so fanciful, that almost every rustling noise he heard was taken for an apparition or hobgoblin. It happened that he was abroad at a friend's house later than ordinary one night; but, it being moon-light, and having a servant with him, he seemed to be easy, and was observed to be cheerful, and even merry, with a great deal more of good-humour than had been observed in him for some time before. He knew his way perfectly well, for it was within three miles of the town where he lived, and he was very well mounted: but, though the moon was up, an accident, which a little disordered him, was, that a very thick black cloud appeared to him to come suddenly over his head, which made it very dark; and, to add to his discomfort, it began to rain violently. Upon this he resolved to ride for it, having not above two miles to the town; so, clapping spurs to his horse, he galloped away. His man (whose name was Jervais), not being so well mounted, was a considerable way behind. The darkness of the night, and the rain together, put him a little out of humour, and made him ride rather harder than his usual pace. In his way home, there was a small river for him to pass; but there was a good bridge over it, well walled on both sides, so that there was no more danger than in any other place. The gentleman kept on at a good pace, and was rather more than half over the bridge, when his horse stopped all on a sudden, and would not go on. He saw nothing at first, and was therefore not much discomposed at it, but spurred his horse to go forward. The horse then went two or three steps; then stopped again, snorted, and started; then attempted to turn short back. The gentleman, in endeavouring to see what frightened the horse, saw two broad staring eyes looking him full in the face. He was now most heartily frightened; but, by this time, he heard his man Jervais coming up. When he came near, the first thing he heard his master say, was, "Bless me, it is the devil!" at which exclamation the man was almost as much frightened as his master. However, the gentleman, a little encouraged to hear his man so near him, pressed his horse once more to go forward, and called aloud to his servant to follow; but Jervais, being much frightened, made no haste. At length, with great difficulty, he got over the bridge, and passed by the creature with the broad staring eyes, which he positively affirmed was the devil. Though Jervais was near enough, yet fearing his master would order him to go before, he kept as far off as he possibly could. When his master called, he answered, but proceeded very slowly, till he observed his master had gone past; when, being obliged to follow, he went on very softly till he came to the bridge, where he plainly saw what it was his master's horse snorted at, which the reader will be made acquainted with presently. The gentleman, having now past the difficulty, galloped home as fast as possible, and got into the house long before Jervais could get up with him. As soon as he alighted, he swooned away, such an effect the fright had on him; and with much difficulty they brought him to himself. When he recovered, he told the family a formal story, that at such a bridge he met with the devil, who was standing at the left-hand corner of the wall, and stared him full in the face; and he so fully expatiated on this subject, that all believed, at least, he had met with an apparition. Jervais soon after came home, and went directly to the stable to take care of the horses; where he told _his story_ in the following manner to his fellow-servants: "Finding," says he, "that my master was in danger of being thrown over the bridge, I fearlessly rode near him; when, to my very great surprise, I found that my master's horse (which was young and skittish) was frightened at an ass, which stood grazing near the corner of the wall." "Are you sure it was an ass, Jervais?" asked the servants, staring one at another, half frightened themselves. "Are you quite sure of it?" "Yes," replied the man; "for, as soon as my master had got by, I rode up to it; and, on discovering the cause of our fear, I thrashed it with my stick, on which it fell a braying; and I rode home after my master." "Why, Jervais," said the servants, "your master believes it was the devil." "I am sorry," said the man, "my master should have been so much deceived; but, really, it was nothing more nor less than an ass." The story now got vent; and the first part of it flew all over the town, that Mr. ---- (mentioning his name) had seen the devil, and was almost frightened to death. Shortly after, the man's tale was circulated, that Mr. ----'s strange and wonderful apparition of the devil was nothing more than an ass; which raised the laugh sufficiently against the master. However, poor Jervais lost his place for gossiping; and his master insists upon it to this day, that it was the devil, and that he knew him by his broad eyes and cloven feet. Such is the power of imagination over the weak and credulous! THE CASTLE APPARITION. _Translated by the Rev. Weeden Butler, Jun. from a Monkish Manuscript._ In the vicinity of Chamberry, a town in Savoy, stood the ancient mansion of the Albertini: round it were several little buildings, in which were deposited the cattle, poultry, &c. &c. belonging to the family. A young gentleman, by name Barbarosse, came to the chateau on a visit for a few days; he was cordially received, being of a pleasing lively disposition; and an elegant room in the east wing was prepared for his accommodation. The family, and their young guests, spent the day very agreeably; and, after supper, they sat round a comfortable large fire, and diverted themselves with songs and stories: the former, as is generally the case, were some of the sprightly, some of the tender and pathetic kind; but the latter were, for the most part, of the melancholy cast, particularly those which related to preternatural occurrences. The social party separated at half past twelve o'clock; and Barbarosse retired to his chamber. It was a handsome room on the first floor, having three doors; two of these belonged to two little closets, one on the right that overlooked a farm-yard, and another more to the left that presented a view through the window of a large romantic wood; the third door was that by which he entered his room, after traversing a long passage. Our youth had visited this room in the morning, and looked out of the window to enjoy the prospect for a great while. As he entered this apartment, with his mind full of the diversion just left, he set his candle down upon the table, and looked about him. There was an excellent fire in the chimney, with an iron grating before it, to prevent accidents; a large elbow-chair stood near it; and, not being at all sleepy, he sat down reflecting on the amusements of the day, and endeavoured to remember the tales he had heard. In some he thought he perceived strong traits of truth; and in others he discovered palpable fiction and absurdity. Whilst he was deliberating on the various incidents, the heavy watch-bell tolled two; but Barbarosse did not attend to it, being deeply engaged in his contemplations. He was suddenly awakened from his reveries by an uncommon rustling sound issuing from the closet on the right hand; and, listening attentively, he heard distinct taps upon the floor at short intervals. Alarmed at the circumstance, he walked slowly to his bed-side, and drew forth his pocket-pistols from under the pillow; these he carefully placed upon the table, and resumed the elbow-chair. All was again still as death; and nought but the winds, which whistled round the watch-tower and the adjacent buildings, could be heard. Barbarosse looked towards the door of the closet, which he then, and not till then, perceived was not shut, but found that it hung upon the jar; immediately a furious blast forced it wide open; the taper burnt blue, and the fire seemed almost extinct. Barbarosse arose, put forth a silent hasty ejaculation of prayer, and sat down again; again he heard the noise! He started up, seized the pistols, and stood motionless; whilst large cold drops of dew hung upon his face. Still his heart continued firm, and he grew more composed, when the rustling taps were renewed! Barbarosse desperately invoked the protection of Heaven, cocked one of the pistols, and was about to rush into the portentous apartment, when the noise increased and drew nearer: a loud peal of thunder, that seemed to rend the firmament, shook violently the solid battlements of the watch-tower; the deep-toned bell tolled three, and its hollow sound long vibrated on the ear of Barbarosse with fainter and fainter murmurs; when a tremendous cry thrilled him with terror and dismay; and, lo! the long-dreaded spectre stalked into the middle of the room: and Barbarosse, overcome with surprise and astonishment at the _unexpected_ apparition, sunk down _convulsed_[B] in his chair. The phantom was armed _de cap en pied_, and clad in a black garment. On his crest a black plume waved majestically; and, instead of a glove or any other sort of lady's favour, he wore a blood-red token. He bore no weapon of offence in his hand; but a gloomy shield, made of the feathers of some kind of bird, was cast over each shoulder. He was booted and spurred; and, looking upon Barbarosse with ardent eyes, raised his feathery arms, and struck them vehemently against his sides, making at the same time the most vociferous noise! Then it was, that Barbarosse found he had not shut down the window in the morning; from which neglect it happened, that a _black game-cock_ had flown into the closet, and created all this inexpressible confusion. FOOTNOTES: [B] Lest any of the faculty should wish, ineffectually, to be informed what species of convulsions affected Barbarosse, I think it proper (observes the translator) to satisfy their truly laudable curiosity by anticipation, and to assure them, _fois d'homme d'honneur_, that this disorder was a _convulsion of laughter_. THE TWINS, OR _GHOST OF THE FIELD_. Ye who delight in old traditions, And love to talk of apparitions, Whose chairs around are closely join'd, While no one dares to look behind, Thinking there's some hobgoblin near, Ready to whisper in his ear; Oh! listen, while I lay before ye My well-authenticated story. Two twins, of understanding good, Together liv'd, as brothers should: This was named Thomas, that was John; But all things else they had as one. At length, by industry in trade, They had a pretty fortune made, And had, like others in the city, A country cottage very pretty; Where they amused their leisure hours, In innocence, with plants and flowers, Till fate had cut Tom's thread across, And left poor John to wail his loss. John left alone, when now some weeks Had wip'd the tears from off his cheeks, To muse within himself began On what should be his future plan: "Ye woods, ye fields, my sweet domain, When shall I see your face again? When shall I pass the vacant hours, Rejoicing in my woodbine bowers; To smoke my pipe, and sing my song; Regardless how they pass along? When take my fill of pastime there, In sweet forgetfulness of care?" He said; and, on his purpose bent, Soon to his country cottage went, Swill'd home-brew'd ale and gooseberry fool: John never ate or drank by rule. His arms were folded now to rest, The night-mare sat upon his breast; From right to left, and left to right, He turn'd and toss'd, throughout the night: A thousand fears disturb'd his head, And phantoms danced around his bed; His lab'ring stomach, though he slept, The fancy wide awake had kept: His brother's ghost approach'd his side, And thus in feeble accents cried-- "Be not alarm'd, my brother dear, To see your buried partner here; I come to tell you where to find A treasure, which I left behind: I had not time to let you know it, But follow me, and now I'll shew it." John trembled at the awful sight, But hopes of gain suppress'd his fright; Oft will the parching thirst of gold, Make even errant cowards bold. John, rising up without delay, Went where the spectre led the way; Which, after many turnings past, Stopp'd in an open field at last, Where late the hind had sow'd his grain, And made the whole a level plain. The spectre pointed to the spot, Where he had hid the golden pot: "Deep in the earth," says he, "'tis laid." But John, alas! had got no spade; And, as the night was pretty dark, He felt around him for a mark, That he might know again the place, Soon as Aurora shew'd her face. In vain he stoop'd and felt around, No stick or stone was to be found; But nature now, before oppress'd, By change of posture sore distress'd, Gave an alarming crack; a hint Of what, as sure as stick or flint, To-morrow morn the place would tell, If he had either sight or smell. This done, he rose to go to bed; He wak'd, how chang'd! the night-mare fled; The ghost was vanish'd from his sight, And John himself in piteous plight. THE DOUBLE MISTAKE, OR _COLLEGE GHOST_. Mr. Samuel Foote, the celebrated comedian, played the following trick upon Doctor Gower, who was then provost of his college, a man of considerable learning, but rather of a grave pedantic turn of mind. The church belonging to the college fronted the side of a lane, where cattle were sometimes turned out to graze during the night; and from the steeple hung the bell-rope, very low in the middle of the outside porch. Foote saw in this an object likely to produce some fun, and immediately set about to accomplish his purpose. He accordingly, one night, slily tied a wisp of hay to the rope, as a bait for the cows in their peregrination to the grazing ground. The scheme succeeded to his wish. One of the cows soon after, smelling the hay as she passed by the church-door, instantly seized on it, and, by tugging at the rope, made the bell ring, to the astonishment of the sexton and the whole parish. This happened several nights successively; and the incident gave rise to various reports--such as, not only that the church was haunted by evil spirits, but that several spectres were seen walking about the church-yard, in all those hideous and frightful shapes, which fear, ignorance, and fancy, usually suggest on such occasions. An event of this kind, however, was to be explored, for the honour of philosophy, as well as for the quiet of the parish. Accordingly, the Doctor and the sexton agreed to sit up one night, and, on the first alarm, to run out, and drag the culprit to condign punishment. Their plan being arranged, they waited with the utmost impatience for the appointed signal: at last, the bell began to sound its usual alarm, and they both sallied out in the dark, determined on making a discovery. The sexton was the first in the attack: he seized the cow by the tail, and cried out it was a gentleman commoner, as he had him by the tail of his gown; while the Doctor, who had caught the cow by the horns at the same time, immediately replied, "No, no, you blockhead, 'tis the postman; and here I have hold of the rascal by his blowing-horn." Lights however were immediately brought, when the character of the real offender was discovered, and the laugh of the whole town was turned upon the Doctor. THE HAUNTED CASTLE. The castle of Ardivillers, near Breteuil, was reported to be haunted by evil spirits. Dreadful noises were heard; and flames were seen, by night, to issue from various apertures. The farmer who was entrusted with the care of the house, in the absence of its owner, the President d'Ardivillers, could alone live there. The spirit seemed to respect him; but any person who ventured to take up a night's lodging in the castle was sure to bear the marks of his audacity. Superstition is catching. The peasants in the neighbourhood at length began to see strange sights. Sometimes a dozen of ghosts would appear in the air above the castle dancing. At other times, a number of presidents and counsellors, in red robes, appeared in the adjacent meadow. There they sat in judgment on a gentleman of the country, who had been beheaded for some crime an hundred years before. In short, many had seen, and all had heard, the wonders of the castle of Ardivillers. This affair had continued four or five years, to the great loss of the President, who had been obliged to let the estate to the farmer at a very low rent. At length, suspecting some artifice, he resolved to visit and inspect the castle himself. Taking with him two gentlemen, his friends, they determined to pass the night in the same apartment; and if any noise or apparition disturbed them, to discharge their pistols at either ghost or sound. As spirits know all things, they were probably aware of these preparations, and not one appeared. But, in the chamber just above, a dreadful rattling of chains was heard; and the wife and children of the farmer ran to assist their lord. They threw themselves on their knees, begging that he would not visit that terrible room. "My lord," said they, "what can human force effect against people of t'other world? Monsieur de Ficancout attempted the same enterprise years ago, and he returned with a dislocated arm. M. D'Urselles tried too; he was overwhelmed with bundles of hay, and was ill for a long time after." In short, so many attempts were mentioned, that the President's friends advised _him_ to abandon the design. But still _they_ determined to encounter the danger. Proceeding up stairs to an extensive room, each having a candle in one hand, and a pistol in the other, they found it full of thick smoke, which increased more and more from some flames that were visible. Soon after, the ghost or spirit faintly appeared in the middle: he seemed quite black, and was amusing himself with cutting capers; but another eruption of flame and smoke hid him from their view. He had horns and a long tail; and was, in truth, a dreadful object. One of the gentlemen found his courage rather fail. "This is certainly supernatural," said he; "let us retire." The other, endued with more boldness, asserted that the smoke was that of gunpowder, which is no supernatural composition; "and if this same spirit," added he, "knew his own nature and trade, he should have extinguished our candles." With these words, he jumped amidst the smoke and flames, and pursued the spectre. He soon discharged the pistol at his back, and hit him exactly in the middle; but was himself seized with fear, when the spirit, far from falling, turned round and rushed upon him. Soon recovering himself, he resolved to grasp the ghost, to discover if it were indeed aërial and impassable. Mr. Spectre, disordered by this new manoeuvre, rushed to the tower, and descended a small staircase. The gentleman ran after, and, never losing sight of him, passed several courts and gardens, still turning as the spirit winded, till at length they entered into an open barn. Here the pursuer, certain, as he thought, of his prey, shut the door, but when he turned round, what was his amazement, to see the spirit totally disappear. In great confusion, he called to the servants for more lights. On examining the spot of the spirit's disappearance, he found a trap-door; upon raising which, several mattresses appeared, to break the fall of any headlong adventurer. Therefore, descending, he found the spirit to be no other than the _farmer_ himself. His dress, of a complete bull's hide, had secured him from the pistol-shot; and the horns and tail were not diabolic, but mere natural appendages of the original. The rogue confessed his tricks, and was pardoned, on paying the arrears due for five years, at the old rent of the land. THE HAMMERSMITH GHOST. In the year 1804, the inhabitants of Hammersmith were much alarmed by a nocturnal appearance; which, for a considerable time, eluded detection or discovery. In the course of this unfortunate affair, two innocent persons met with an untimely death; and as this transaction engaged the attention of the public in a high degree, we shall fully relate the particulars of it. An unknown person made it his diversion to alarm the inhabitants, in January 1804, by assuming the figure of a spectre. This sham ghost has certainly much to answer for. One poor woman, who was far advanced in her pregnancy of a second child, was so much shocked, that she took to her bed, and survived only two days. She had been crossing near the church-yard about ten o'clock at night, when she beheld something, as she described, rise from the tomb-stones. The figure was very tall, and very white! She attempted to run, but the supposed ghost soon overtook her, and, pressing her in his arms, she fainted; in which situation she remained some hours, till discovered by the neighbours, who kindly led her home, when she took to her bed, from which, alas! she never rose. A waggoner belonging to Mr. Russell was also so alarmed, while driving a team of eight horses, which had sixteen passengers at the time, that he took to his heels, and left the waggon, horses, and passengers, in the greatest danger. Neither man, woman, or child, would pass that way for some time; and the report was, that it was the apparition of a man who had cut his throat in that neighbourhood above a year before. Several lay in wait different nights for the ghost; but there were so many bye-lanes, and paths leading to Hammersmith, that he was always sure of being in that which was unguarded, and every night played off his tricks, to the terror of the passengers. One Francis Smith, doubtless incensed at the unknown person who was in the habit of assuming the supernatural character, and thus frightening the superstitious inhabitants of the village, rashly determined on watching for, and shooting the ghost; when, unfortunately, in Black-Lion Lane, he shot a poor innocent man, Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer, who was in a white dress, the usual habiliment of his occupation. This rash act, having been judged wilful murder by the coroner's inquest, Smith was accordingly committed to gaol, and took his trial at the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey, January 13th, 1804. The jury at first found him guilty of manslaughter; but the crime being deemed murder in the eye of the law, the judge could only receive a verdict of Guilty, or acquittal. He was then found guilty, and received sentence of death, but was afterwards pardoned on condition of being imprisoned one year. THE FRIGHTENED CARRIER. In October 1813, a little before midnight, as one of the carriers between Nottingham and Loughborough, was passing near the village of Rempstone, he was extremely surprised at meeting what he thought was a funeral procession, marching in a most solemn and steady order in the centre of the road. The carrier, with a becoming propriety and decorum, drew his cart to the side of the road, that the mournful cavalcade might pass without any interruption. Very active inquiry was immediately afterwards made in the neighbourhood, but not the least knowledge could be obtained as to where this solemn group had come from, or whither it was going; it was therefore concluded, that some ghostly apparition or other had thought proper to be then exercising its nocturnal avocation. Some days afterwards it was found out, that a person, who lived in the neighbouring village, had been endeavouring to construct a carriage upon such a principle as to go without horses; and, wishing to make his experiment as secret as possible, had chosen that dead hour of the night, for trying his apparatus on the turnpike road; but unluckily meeting with the carrier, he became alarmed for fear of an exposure, and therefore threw a large sheet over the machinery, and passed the cart as silently as possible, to avoid being detected. THE CLUB-ROOM GHOST. At a town in the west of England, was held a club of twenty-four persons, which assembled once a week, to drink punch, smoke tobacco, and talk politics. Like Rubens's Academy at Antwerp, each member had his peculiar chair, and the president's was more exalted than the rest. One of the members had been in a dying state for some time; of course, his chair, while he was absent, remained vacant. The club being met on their usual night, inquiries were naturally made after their associate. As he lived in the adjoining house, a particular friend went himself to inquire for him, and returned with the dismal tidings, that he could not possibly survive the night. This threw a gloom on the company, and all efforts to turn the conversation from the sad subject before them were ineffectual. About midnight (the time, by long prescription, appropriated for the walking of spectres), the door opened; and the form, in white, of the dying, or rather of the dead man, walked into the room, and took his seat in the accustomed chair: there he remained in silence, and in silence was he gazed at. The apparition continued a sufficient time in the chair to convince all present of the reality of the vision: at length, he arose, and stalked towards the door, which he opened as if living--went out, and then shut the door after him. After a long pause, some one, at last, had the resolution to say, "If only one of us had seen this, he would not have been believed; but it is impossible that so many persons can be deceived." The company, by degrees, recovered their speech; and the whole conversation, as may be imagined, was upon the dreadful object which had engaged their attention. They broke up, and went home. In the morning, inquiry was made after their sick friend; it was answered by an account of his death, which happened nearly at the time of his appearing in the club. There could be little doubt before, but now nothing could be more certain, than the reality of the apparition, which had been seen by so many persons together. It is needless to say, that such a story spread over the country, and found credit, even from infidels; for, in this case, all reasoning became superfluous, when opposed to a plain fact, attested by three-and-twenty witnesses. To assert the doctrine of the fixed laws of nature, was ridiculous, when there were so many people of credit to prove that they might be unfixed. Years rolled on; the story ceased to engage attention, and it was forgotten, unless when occasionally produced to silence an unbeliever. One of the club was an apothecary. In the course of his practice, he was called to an old woman, whose profession was attending on sick persons. She told him, that she could leave the world with a quiet conscience, but for one thing which lay on her mind. "Do not you remember Mr. ----, whose ghost has been so much talked of? I was his nurse. The night he died, I left the room for something that was wanted. I am sure I had not been absent long; but, at my return, I found the bed without my patient. He was delirious; and I feared that he had thrown himself out of the window. I was so frightened that I had no power to stir; but, after some time, to my great astonishment, he entered the room shivering, and his teeth chattering--laid down on the bed, and died. Considering myself as the cause of his death, I kept this a secret, for fear of what might be done to me. Though I could contradict all the story of the ghost, I dared not do it. I knew, by what had happened, that it was he himself who had been in the club-room (perhaps recollecting, in his delirium, that it was the night of meeting): but I hope God and the poor gentleman's friends will forgive me, and then I shall die contented." THE LUNATIC APPARITION. The celebrated historian De Thou had a very singular adventure at Saumer, in the year 1598. One night, having retired to rest, very much fatigued, while he was enjoying a sound sleep, he felt a very extraordinary weight upon his feet, which, having made him turn suddenly, fell down and awakened him. At first he imagined that it had been only a dream: but, hearing soon after some noise in the chamber, he drew aside the curtains, and saw, by the help of the moon (which at that time shone very bright), a large white figure walking up and down; and, at the same time, observed upon a chair some rags, which he thought belonged to thieves who had come to rob him. The figure then approaching his bed, he had the courage to ask it what it was. "I am," said it, "the _Queen of Heaven_." Had such a figure appeared to any credulous ignorant man in the dead of night, and made such a speech, would he not have trembled with fear, and have frightened the whole neighbourhood with a marvellous description of it? But De Thou had too much understanding to be so imposed upon. Upon hearing the words which dropped from the figure, he immediately concluded that it was some mad woman, got up, called his servants, and ordered them to turn her out of doors; after which he returned to bed, and fell asleep. Next morning he found that he had not been deceived in his conjecture; and that, having forgot to shut his door, this female figure had escaped from her keepers, and entered his apartment. The brave Schomberg, to whom De Thou related this adventure, some days after, confessed, that in such a case he should not have shewn so much courage. The King also, who was informed of it by Schomberg, made the same acknowledgment. SUPPOSED SUPERNATURAL APPEARANCE. Some few years since, before ghosts and spectres were commonly introduced among us by means of the pantomimes and novels of the day, a gentleman of a philosophical turn of mind, who was hardy enough to deny the existence of any thing supernatural, happened to pay a visit at an old house in Gloucestershire, whose unfortunate owner had just become a bankrupt, with a view to offer such assistance and consolation as he could bestow: when, in one rainy dull evening in the month of March, the family being seated by the kitchen fire-side, the conversation turned on supernatural appearances. The philosopher was endeavouring to convince his auditors of the folly and absurdity of such opinions, with rather an unbecoming levity, when the wife left the party and went up stairs; but had hardly quitted the kitchen three minutes, before a dreadful noise was heard, mingled with horrid screams. The poor maid changed countenance, and her red hair stood erect, in every direction; the husband trembled in his chair; and the philosopher began to look serious. At last, the husband rose from his seat, and ascended the stairs in search of his wife, when a second dreadful scream was heard: the maid mustered resolution to follow her master, and a third scream ensued. The philosopher, who was not quite at ease, now thought it high time for him to set out in search of a _cause_: when, arriving at the landing-place, he found the maid in a fit; the master lying flat, with his face upon the floor, which was stained with blood; and, on advancing a little farther, the mistress in nearly the same condition. To the latter the philosopher paid immediate attention; and, finding she had only swooned away, brought her in his arms down stairs, and placed her on the floor of the kitchen. The pump was at hand, and he had the presence of mind to run to it to get some water in a glass; but what was his astonishment, when he found that he pumped only copious streams of blood! which extraordinary appearance, joined to the other circumstances, made the unbeliever tremble in every limb: a sudden perspiration overspread the surface of his skin; and the supernatural possessed his imagination in all its true colours of dread and horror. Again and again he repeated his efforts; and, again and again, threw away the loathsome contents of the glass. Had the story stopped here, what would not superstition have made of it? But the philosopher, who was still pumping, now found the water grew paler; and, at last, pure water filled the vessel. Overjoyed at this observation, he threw the limpid stream in the face of the mistress, whose recovery was assisted by the appearance of her husband and Betty. The mystery, when explained, turned out to be simply this--The good housewife, when she knew that a docket had been struck against her husband, had taken care to conceal some of her choice cherry brandy, from the rapacious gripe of the messenger to the Commissioners of Bankrupts, on some shelves in a closet up stairs, which also contained, agreeably to the ancient architecture of the building, the trunk of the pump below; and, in trying to move the jars, to get at a drop for the party at the kitchen fire, the shelf gave way with a tremendous crash; the jars were broken into an hundred pieces; the rich juice descended in torrents down the trunk of the pump, and filled, with its ruby current, the sucker beneath; and this was the self-same fluid which the philosopher, in his fright, had so madly thrown away. The wife had swooned at the accident; the husband, in his haste, had fallen on his nose, which ran with blood; and the maid's legs, in her hurry, coming in contact with her fallen master's ribs, she, like "vaulting ambition," overleaped herself, and fell on the other side. Often has this story been told, by one who knew the philosopher, with great effect, till the last act, or _denouement_; when disappointment was mostly visible in the looks of his auditors, at finding there was actually nothing supernatural in the affair, and no ghost. THE APPARITION INVESTIGATED. In a village in one of the midland counties of Scotland, lived a widow, distinguished among her neighbours for decency of manners, integrity, and respect for religion. She affirmed that, for several nights together, she had heard a supernatural voice exclaiming aloud, _Murder! Murder!_ This was immediately reported through the neighbourhood: all were alarmed, and looked around them with solicitude for the detection of the murder which they supposed to have been committed; and it was not long till a discovery seemed actually to be made. It was reported, that a gentleman, who had relations at no great distance, and had been residing in the West Indies, had lately arrived with a considerable fortune; that he had lodged at an inn about three miles off; and that he had afterwards been seen entering a house in the village where the widow lived, from which he had never returned. It was next affirmed, that a tradesman, passing the church-yard about twelve at midnight, had seen four men carry a dead corpse into that cemetery. These three facts being joined together, seemed perfectly to agree, and to confirm one another; and all believed some horrible murder had been committed. The relations of the gentleman thought they were called upon to make inquiry into the truth of these allegations: they accordingly came first to the church-yard, where, in company with the sexton, they examined all the graves with great care, in order to discover whether any of them had lately been dug, or had the appearance of containing more than one coffin. But this search was to no purpose, for no alteration had been made upon the graves. It was next reported, that the murdered man had been buried in a plantation about a mile distant from the village. As the alarm was now very general, a number of the inhabitants proposed, of their own accord, to explore it. They accordingly spread themselves over the wood, and searched it with care; but no grave, or new-dug earth, was found. The matter did not rest here. The person who was said to have seen four men carry a dead corpse into the church-yard at midnight, was summoned to appear before a meeting of the justices of the peace. Upon examination, he denied any knowledge of the affair; but referred the court to another person, from whom he had received his information. This person was examined, and the result was the same as the former. In short, one person had heard it from another, who had received it from a third, who had heard it from a fourth; but it had received a little embellishment from every person who repeated it: it turned out to be the same with Smollett's story of the three black crows, which somebody was said to have vomited. Upon inquiry at the inn, where it was said the West-India gentleman had lodged, no such gentleman had been seen there; and it was found afterwards, he had never left the West Indies. Still, however, the veracity of the widow was not disputed; and some dark and secret transaction was suspected. But the whole affair was at length explained, by discovering that she was somewhat deranged by melancholy; and the cries which she at first imagined she had heard, were afterwards imitated by some roguish person, who was highly amused with spreading terror among the credulous. THE BENIGHTED TRAVELLER, AND _HAUNTED ROOM_. A gentleman was benighted, while travelling alone, in a remote part of the highlands of Scotland, and was compelled to ask shelter for the evening at a small lonely hut. When he was conducted to his bed-room, the landlady observed, with mysterious reluctance, that he would find the window very insecure. On examination, part of the wall appeared to have been broken down, to enlarge the opening. After some inquiry, he was told, that a pedlar, who had lodged in the room a short time before, had committed suicide, and was found hanging behind the door in the morning. According to the superstition of the country, it was deemed improper to remove the body through the door of the house; and to convey it through the window was impossible, without removing part of the wall. Some hints were dropped, that the room had been subsequently haunted by the poor man's spirit. The gentleman laid his arms, properly prepared against intrusion of any kind, by the bed-side, and retired to rest, not without some degree of apprehension. He was visited, in a dream, by a frightful apparition; and, awaking in agony, found himself sitting up in bed, with a pistol grasped in his right hand. On casting a fearful glance round the room, he discovered, by the moonlight, a corpse, dressed in a shroud, reared erect against the wall, close by the window. With much difficulty, he summoned up resolution to approach the dismal object, the features of which, and the minutest parts of its funereal apparel, he perceived distinctly: he passed one hand over it, felt nothing, and staggered back to the bed. After a long interval, and much reasoning with himself, he renewed his investigation, and at length discovered that the object of his terror was produced by the moonbeams forming a long bright image through the broken window, on which his fancy, impressed by his dream, had pictured, with mischievous accuracy, the lineaments of a body prepared for interment. Powerful associations of terror, in this instance, had excited the recollected images with uncommon force and effect. THE HAUNTED BEACH, OR _Power of Conscience on a Murderer_. BY MRS. ROBINSON. Upon a lonely desert beach, Where the white foam was scatter'd, A little shed uprear'd its head, Though lofty barks were shatter'd. The sea-weeds gath'ring near the door, A sombre path display'd; And, all around, the deaf'ning roar Re-echo'd on the chalky shore, By the green billows made. Above, a jutting cliff was seen, Where sea-birds hover'd craving; And, all around, the craggs were bound With weeds--for ever waving. And, here and there, a cavern wide Its shad'wy jaws display'd; And near the sands, at ebb of tide, A shiver'd mast was seen to ride, Where the green billows stray'd. And often, while the moaning wind Stole o'er the summer ocean, The moonlight scene was all serene, The waters scarce in motion; Then, while the smoothly slanting sand The tall cliff wrapp'd in shade, The Fisherman beheld a band Of spectres, gliding hand in hand, Where the green billows play'd. And pale their faces were as snow, And sullenly they wandered; And to the skies, with hollow eyes, They look'd, as though they ponder'd. And sometimes, from their hammock shroud, They dismal howlings made, And while the blast blew strong and loud The clear moon marked the ghastly crowd, Where the green billows play'd! And then, above the haunted hut, The curlews screaming hover'd; And the low door, with furious roar, The frothy breakers cover'd. For in the Fisherman's lone shed, _A murder'd man_ was laid, With ten wide gashes in his head; And deep was made his sandy bed, Where the green billows play'd. A shipwreck'd mariner was he, Doom'd from his home to sever, Who swore to be, thro' wind and sea, Firm and undaunted ever; And when the waves resistless roll'd, About his arm he made A packet rich of Spanish gold, And, like a British sailor bold, Plung'd where the billows play'd! The spectre band, his messmates brave, Sunk in the yawning ocean, While to the mast he lash'd him fast, And brav'd the storm's commotion: The winter moon upon the sand A silv'ry carpet made, And mark'd the sailor reach the land, And mark'd his murd'rer wash his hand, Where the green billows play'd. And, since that hour, the Fisherman Has toil'd and toil'd in vain; For all the night the moony light Gleams on the spectred main! And when the skies are veil'd in gloom, The murd'rer's liquid way Bounds o'er the deeply yawning tomb, And flashing fires the sands illume, Where the green billows play! Full thirty years his task has been, Day after day, more weary; For Heav'n design'd his guilty mind Should dwell on prospects dreary. Bound by a strong and mystic chain, He has not pow'r to stray; But, destin'd mis'ry to sustain, He wastes, in solitude and pain, A loathsome life away. THE SUBTERRANEAN TRAVELLER; OR _GHOST AND NO GHOST_. The following record is copied verbatim from an old newspaper--_The Weekly Journal, or British Gazetteer._ "_Bedlam, January 18, 1719._ "It is not long since one of the female inhabitants of these frantic territories gave the following occasion for a very pleasing entertainment. Some bricklayers happened to be at work here, to repair and clean the passage leading to the common sewer; who going to dinner, and leaving the ladder which descended to it, standing, the said unfortunate inhabitant had a sort of an odd notion, that the workmen had been prying into the secrets of the lower world, and therefore (nobody seeing her) she went down the ladder which led into the common sewer; and, in that subterraneous cavern, finding none to control or stop her passage, she travelled, with great pleasure and curiosity, till she came to _Tokenhouse Yard_, which is near half a mile. There it happened that a couple of young females, coming to the vault, heard a noise below, crying, '_Who the plague are ye? What d'ye make that noise for? What, is the devil in ye?_' Upon which, away flew the women, not staying to look behind them; and coming half-frightened into the house, said, the devil was in the vault. Accordingly, more company going, they still heard the same noise. Upon which they called out, and asked, '_Who's there? What are ye?_' '_The Devil_,' replied the traveller below. '_How came you there?_' said they. '_Nay, how the devil know I?_' answered the mad-woman. '_Why don't you bring me a candle, that I may find my way?_' Finding it certain to be a human voice, they feared somebody might accidentally have fallen in, and therefore they immediately went to work, to deliver the poor wretch from her suffocating thraldom, and found her a lamentable spectacle; so that they began to question her how she came there, and where she lived. She answered _that she was going to Hell, but had lost her way; that there were several in her company, who had got thither, and the gate was shut upon them; that she had lost her way, but should overtake them by and by_. These wild expressions made some of them fancy she was a mad-woman; and, after some consideration, they resolved to bring her hither; when she was presently owned, and the people that brought her let us into the story: but her head still runs on her journey, and she talks of little else." THE MILKMAN AND _CHURCH-YARD GHOST_. A man much addicted to the heinous sin of drunkenness, in coming home late one winter's night, had to cross Stepney church-yard; where, close to the foot path, a deep grave had been opened the day before. He, being very drunk, staggered into the grave; it was a great mercy he did not break his neck, or any of his limbs; but, as it rained hard all night, and the grave was so deep that he could not got out, he had but an uncomfortable bed. For some hours nobody passed by; till, shortly after the clock had struck four, a milkman, who had been to the cow-house for his milk, came by, and said to himself, "I wonder what o'clock it is." The man in the grave hallooed out, "Just gone four." The milkman seeing nobody, immediately conceived a ghost from one of the graves had answered him, and took to his heels with such rapidity, that when he reached an ale-house he was ready to faint; and, what added to his trouble, in running, he so jumbled his pails as to spill great part of his milk. The people who heard his relation, believed it must have been a ghost that had answered him. The tale went round, and would have been credited, perhaps, till now, had not the drunkard, sitting one day in the very alehouse the milkman had stopped at, on hearing the story repeated, with a hearty laugh acknowledged himself to be the ghost, and that he had much enjoyed the jumbling of the man's pails, as he ran away, and the loss which it occasioned him. THE FAKENHAM GHOST. The lawns were dry in Euston Park; (Here truth inspires my tale) The lonely footpath, still and dark, Led over hill and dale. Benighted was an ancient dame, And fearful haste she made To gain the vale of Fakenham, And hail its willow shade. Her footsteps knew no idle stops, But follow'd faster still; And echo'd to the darksome copse That whisper'd on the hill. Where clam'rous rooks, yet scarcely hush'd, Bespoke a peopled shade; And many a wing the foliage brush'd, And hov'ring circuits made. The dappled herd of grazing deer, That sought the shades by day, Now started from her path with fear, And gave the stranger way. Darker it grew; and darker fears Came o'er her troubled mind; When, now, a short quick step she hears Come patting close behind. She turn'd; it stopt!--nought could she see Upon the gloomy plain! But, as she strove the sprite to flee, She heard the same again. Now terror seiz'd her quaking frame: For, where the path was bare, The trotting ghost kept on the same! She mutter'd many a pray'r. Yet once again, amidst her fright She tried what sight could do; When through the cheating glooms of night, A monster stood in view. Regardless of whate'er she felt, It follow'd down the plain! She own'd her sins, and down she knelt, And said her pray'rs again. Then on she sped; and hope grew strong, The white park-gate in view, Which, pushing hard, so long it swung, That ghost and all past through. Loud fell the gate against the post, Her heart-strings like to crack, For much she fear'd the grisly ghost Would leap upon her back. Still on, pat, pat, the goblin went, As it had done before; Her strength and resolution spent, She fainted at the door. Out came her husband, much surpris'd, Out came her daughter dear; Good-natur'd souls, all unadvis'd Of what they had to fear. The candle's gleam pierc'd through the night, Some short space o'er the green; And there the little trotting sprite Distinctly might be seen. An _ass's foal_ had lost its dam Within the spacious park, And, simple as the playful lamb, Had follow'd in the dark. No goblin he, nor imp of sin, No crimes he'd ever known. They took the shaggy stranger in, And rear'd him as their own. His little hoofs would rattle round Upon the cottage floor; The matron learn'd to love the sound, That frighten'd her before. A favourite the ghost became, And 'twas his fate to thrive; And long he liv'd, and spread his fame, And kept the joke alive. For many a laugh went through the vale, And some conviction too; Each thought some other goblin tale Perhaps was just as true. THE UNFORTUNATE PRIEST, AND _DEAD BODY_. In a province of Prussia, a man being dead, was carried, as is customary, into the church, the evening previous to the day of his interment. It is usual to place the corpse in an open coffin; and a priest, attended only by a boy of the choir, remains all night praying by the side of the dead body, and on the following day the friends of the deceased come to close up the coffin, and inter the corpse. On this occasion, after the evening service had been performed, every one retired from the church: and the priest, with the young chorister, withdrew to supper; but soon returned, and the former commenced the usual prayers. What was his astonishment, when he beheld the dead body rise from the coffin, and advance towards him. Terrified in the extreme, the priest flew to the font; and, conjuring the corpse to return to its proper station, showered holy water on him in abundance. But the obstinate and evil-minded spirit, disregarding the power of holy water, seized the unfortunate priest, threw him to the ground, and soon, by repeated blows, left him extended, without life, on the pavement. Having committed this act of barbarity, he appeared to return quietly to his coffin. On the following morning, the persons who came to prepare for the funeral, found the priest murdered, and the corpse, as before, in the coffin. Nothing could throw any light on this extraordinary event but the testimony of the boy, who had concealed himself on the first movement of the dead body, and who persisted in declaring, that he saw from his hiding-place the priest killed by the corpse. Conjecture, and endeavours to discover the truth, were alike vain, tormenting, and fruitless. Many resources were tried; for it was not every one that submitted themselves to the belief of a dead body rising to kill a priest, and then quietly resigning itself to the place of its consignment. Many years afterwards, a malefactor, condemned to death for various crimes, and brought to the torture, confessed, that having (for some unknown reason) conceived an implacable hatred against the priest in question, he had formed the design of thus avenging himself. Having found means to remain in the church, he seized the moment of the priest's retiring to supper, withdrew the dead body from the coffin, and placed himself in its stead, in the shroud and other appurtenances. After executing the murder of the priest, he returned the corpse to its place, and got unperceived out of the church, when the friends of the deceased came in the morning to attend the funeral. THE VIGIL OF SAINT MARK, OR _FATAL SUPERSTITION_. Rebecca was the fairest maid That on the Danube's borders play'd; And many a handsome nobleman For her in tilt and tourney ran: While she, in secret, wished to see What youth her husband was to be. Rebecca heard the gossips say, "Alone, from dusk till midnight, stay Within the church-porch drear and dark, Upon the Vigil of St. Mark; And, lovely maiden, you shall see What youth your husband is to be." Rebecca, when the night grew dark, Upon the Vigil of St. Mark, Observ'd by Paul, a roguish scout, Who guess'd the task she went about, Stepp'd to St. Stephen's church to see What youth her husband was to be. Rebecca heard the screech-owl cry, And saw the black-bat round her fly; She sat till, wild with fear at last, Her blood grew cold, her pulse beat fast; And yet, rash maid, she stopp'd to see What youth her husband was to be. Rebecca heard the midnight chime Ring out the yawning peal of time, When shrouded Paul, unlucky knave! Rose, like a spectre from the grave, And cried--"_Fair maiden, come with me, For I your bridegroom am to be._" Rebecca turned her head aside, Sent forth a horrid shriek--and died; While Paul confess'd himself in vain Rebecca never spoke again. Ah! little, hapless girl, did she Think _Death_ her bridegroom was to be. Rebecca, may thy story long Instruct the giddy and the young! Fright not, fond youths, the timid fair: And you, too, gentle maids, beware; Nor seek, by dreadful arts, to see What youths your husbands are to be. THE FLOATING WONDER, OR _FEMALE SPECTRE_. The bridge over the river Usk, near Caerleon, in Wales, is formed of wood, and very curiously constructed, the tide rising occasionally to the almost incredible height of fifty or sixty feet. The boards which compose the flooring of this bridge being designedly loose, in order to float with the tide, when it exceeds a certain height, are prevented from escaping only by little pegs at the end of them; which mode of fastening does not afford a very safe footing for the traveller, and some awkward accidents have been known to arise from this cause. The following singular adventure occurred about twenty years since to a female of the neighbourhood, as she was passing it at night. The heroine in question was a Mrs. Williams, who had been to spend a cheerful evening at a neighbour's house on the eastern side of the river, and was returning home at a decent hour. The night being extremely dark, she had provided herself with a lanthorn and candle, by the assistance of which she found her way to the bridge, and had already passed part of the dangerous structure, when she unfortunately trod on a plank that had by some accident lost the tenons originally fixed to the ends of it, and had slipped from its proper situation; the faithless board yielded to the weight of the good lady, who was rather corpulent, and carried her through the flooring, with her candle and lanthorn, into the river. Fortunately, at the moment of falling, she was standing in such a position, as gave her a seat on the plank similar to that of a horseman on his nag. It may be easily imagined, that Mrs. Williams must have been dreadfully alarmed at this change of situation, as well as the difference of element. Blessed, however, with great presence of mind, and a patient endurance of evil, the good lady was not overwhelmed by her fall, but steadily maintained her seat on the board; taking care, at the same time, to preserve her candle lighted, rightly supposing it would serve as a guide to any one who might be able or willing to assist her. Thus bestriding the plank, our heroine was hurried down the river towards Newport, the bridge of which, she trusted, would stop her progress, or that she might alarm the inhabitants with her cries. In both her hopes, however, she was disappointed: the rapidity of a spring tide sent her through the arch with the velocity of an arrow discharged from a bow, and the good people of the town had long been wrapped in slumber. Thus situated, her prospect became each moment more desperate; her candle was nearly extinguished! and every limb so benumbed with cold, that she had the greatest difficulty in _keeping her saddle_. Already she had reached the mouth of the Usk, and was on the point of encountering the turbulent waves of the British Channel, when the master of a fishing-boat, who was returning from his nightly toils, discovered the gleaming of her taper, and bearing her calls for assistance, though he at first thought her a witch, yet ventured to approach this floating wonder, and happily succeeded in rescuing Mrs. Williams from a watery grave, and bringing her in safety to the shore in his boat. Thus was the life of a fellow-creature preserved by a poor fisherman's courage, in not being daunted by what he at first conceived a mysterious light proceeding from some sprite or hobgoblin; but, from duly examining into causes, proved himself both a hero and friend. POOR MARY, _THE MAID OF THE INN_. Who is she, the poor maniac, whose wildly fix'd eyes Seem a heart overcharg'd to express? She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs; She never complains, but her silence implies The composure of settled distress. No aid, no compassion, the maniac will seek; Cold and hunger awake not her care: Through her rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak On her poor wither'd bosom, half bare; and her cheek Has the deathly pale hue of despair. Yet cheerful and happy, nor distant the day, Poor Mary the maniac has been! The trav'ller remembers, who journey'd this way, No damsel so lovely, no damsel so gay, As Mary the Maid of the Inn. Her cheerful address fill'd the guests with delight, As she welcom'd them in with a smile: Her heart was a stranger to childish affright, And Mary would walk by the abbey at night, When the wind whistled down the dark aisle. She lov'd; and young Richard had settled the day, And she hoped to be happy for life: But Richard was idle and worthless; and they Who knew him would pity poor Mary, and say, That she was too good for his wife. 'Twas in autumn, and stormy and dark was the night, And fast were the windows and door; Two guests sat enjoying the fire that burnt bright, And, smoking in silence with tranquil delight, They listen'd to hear the wind roar. "'Tis pleasant," cried one, "seated by the fire-side, To hear the wind whistle without." "A fine night for the abbey!" his comrade replied, "Methinks, a man's courage would now be well tried, Who should wander the ruins about. "I myself, like a school-boy, should tremble to hear The hoarse ivy shake over my head; And could fancy I saw, half-persuaded by fear, Some ugly old abbot's white spirit appear, For this wind might awaken the dead!" "I'll wager a dinner," the other one cried, "That Mary would venture there now." "Then wager and lose!" with a sneer, he replied, "I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, And faint if she saw a white cow." "Will Mary this charge on her courage allow?" His companion exclaim'd with a smile; "I shall win, for I know she will venture there now, And earn a new bonnet by bringing a bough From the elder that glows in the aisle." With fearless good humour did Mary comply, And her way to the abbey she bent; The night it was dark, and the wind it was high, And as hollowly howling it swept through the sky, She shiver'd with cold as she went. O'er the path so well known still proceeded the maid, Where the abbey rose dim on the sight. Through the gate-way she entered, she felt not afraid, Yet the ruins were lonely and wild, and their shade Seem'd to deepen the gloom of the night. All around her was silent, save when the rude blast Howl'd dismally round the old pile; Over weed-cover'd fragments still fearless she past, And arriv'd in the innermost ruin at last, Where the elder-tree grew in the aisle. Well pleas'd did she reach it, and quickly drew near, And hastily gather'd the bough; When the sound of a voice seem'd to rise on her ear-- She paus'd, and she listen'd all eager to hear, And her heart panted fearfully now. The wind blew, the hoarse ivy shook over her head, She listen'd--nought else could she hear; The wind ceas'd; her heart sunk in her bosom with dread, For she heard in the ruins distinctly the tread Of footsteps approaching her near. Behind a white column, half breathless with fear, She crept to conceal herself there: That instant the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear, And she saw in the moon-light two ruffians appear, And between them a corpse did they bear. Then Mary could feel her heart-blood curdle cold! Again the rough wind hurried by-- It blew off the hat of the one,[C] and, behold, Even close to the foot of poor Mary it roll'd-- She felt, and expected to die. "Curse the hat!" he exclaims. "Nay, come on, and first hide The dead body," his comrade replies. She beheld them in safety pass on by her side, She seizes the hat, fear her courage supplied, And fast through the abbey she flies. She ran with wild speed, she rush'd in at the door, She gaz'd horribly eager around: Then her limbs could support their faint burden no more, And exhausted and breathless she sunk on the floor, Unable to utter a sound. Ere yet her cold lips could the story impart, For a moment the hat met her view--[D] Her eyes from that object convulsively start, For, oh! God! what cold horror then thrill'd through her heart, When the name of her Richard she knew. Where the old abbey stands on the common hard by, His gibbet is now to be seen: Not far from the road it engages the eye, The trav'ller beholds it, and thinks, with a sigh, Of poor Mary, the Maid of the Inn. SOUTHEY'S POEMS. FOOTNOTES: [C] The hat of one of the ruffians. [D] She knew it to be Richard's hat. GILES THE SHEPHERD, _AND SPECTRE_. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Giles, ere he sleeps, his little flock must tell. From the fire-side with many a shrug he hies, Glad if the full-orb'd moon salute his eyes. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * And down a narrow lane, well known by day, With all his speed pursues his sounding way, In thought still half absorb'd, and chill'd with cold, When, lo! an object frightful to behold, A grisly _spectre_, cloth'd in silver grey, Around whose feet the waving shadows play, Stands in his path! He stops, and not a breath Heaves from his heart, that sinks almost to death. Loud the owl hallooes o'er his head unseen; All else is silence, dismally serene: Some prompt ejaculation, whisper'd low, Yet bears him up against the threat'ning foe; And thus poor Giles, though half inclin'd to fly, Mutters his doubts, and strains his stedfast eye. "'Tis not my crimes thou com'st here to reprove; No murders stain my soul, no perjur'd love: If thou'rt indeed what here thou seem'st to be, Thy dreadful mission cannot reach to me. By parents taught still to mistrust mine eyes, Still to approach each object of surprise, Lest fancy's formful vision should deceive In moonlight paths, or glooms of falling eve, 'Tis then's the moment when my mind should try To scan the motionless deformity; But oh, the fearful task!--yet well I know An aged ash, with many a spreading bough, (Beneath whose leaves I've found a summer's bow'r, Beneath whose trunk I've weather'd many a show'r) Stands singly down this solitary way, But far beyond where now my footsteps stay. 'Tis true, thus far I've come with heedless haste; No reck'ning kept, no passing objects trac'd: And can I then have reach'd that very tree? Or is its rev'rend form assum'd by thee?" The happy thought alleviates his pain; He creeps another step; then stops again; Till slowly as his noiseless feet drew near, Its perfect lineaments at once appear; Its crown of shiv'ring ivy whispering peace, And its white bark that fronts the moon's pale face. Now, while his blood mounts upward, now he knows The solid gain that from conviction flows; And strengthen'd confidence shall hence fulfil (With conscious innocence, more valued still) The dreariest task that winter nights can bring, By church-yard dark, or grove, or fairy ring; Still buoying up the timid mind of youth, Till loit'ring reason hoists the scale of truth. With those blest guardians, Giles his course pursues, Till numbering his heavy-sided ewes, Surrounding stilness tranquillize his breast, And shape the dreams that wait his hours of rest. BLOOMFIELD'S _Farmer's Boy_. A MAN WITH HIS HEAD ON FIRE, AND COVERED WITH BLOOD. The following singular adventure is related by a military captain. "I was coming home one night on horseback, from a visit I had been making to a number of the neighbouring villages, where I had quartered my recruits. It happened there had fallen a deal of rain that day, since noon, and during all the evening, which had broken up the roads, and it was raining still with equal violence; but, being forced to join my company next morning, I set out, provided with a lanthorn, having to pass a strait defile between two mountains. I had cleared it, when a gust of wind took off my hat, and carried it so far, that I despaired of getting it again, and therefore gave the matter up. By great good fortune, I had with me my red cloak. I covered my head and shoulders with it, leaving nothing but a little hole to see my way, and breathe through; and, for fear the wind should take a fancy to my cloak, as well as my hat, I passed my right arm round my body to secure it: so that, riding on in this position, you may easily conceive my lanthorn, which I held in my right hand, was under my left shoulder. At the entrance of a village on a hill, I met three travellers, who no sooner saw me than they ran away as fast as possible. For my part, I went on upon the gallop; and when I came into the town, alighted at an inn, where I designed to rest myself a little. Soon after, who should enter, but my three poltroons, as pale as death itself. They told the landlord and his people, trembling as they spoke, that in the road they had encountered a great figure of a man all over blood, whose head was like a flame of fire, and to increase the wonder, placed beneath his shoulder. He was mounted on a dreadful horse, said they, quite black behind, and grey before; which, notwithstanding it was lame, he spurred and whipped right up the mountain with extraordinary swiftness. Here they ended their relation. They had taken care to spread the alarm as they were flying from this wondrous apparition, and the people had come with them to the inn in such a drove, that upwards of an hundred were all squeezed together, opening both their mouths and ears at this tremendous story. To make up in some sort for my dismal journey, I resolved to laugh a little, and be merry at their cost, intending to cure them of such fright, by shewing them their folly in the present instance. With this view, I got upon my horse again, behind the inn, and went round about till I had rode the distance of a mile or thereabouts; when, turning, I disposed of my accoutrements, that is to say, my cloak and lanthorn, as before, and on I came upon a gallop towards the inn. You should have seen the frighted mob of peasants, how they hid their faces at the sight, and got into the passage. There was no one but the host had courage to remain, and keep his eye upon me. I was now before the door, on which I shifted the position of my lanthorn, let my cloak drop down upon my shoulders, and appeared the figure he had seen me by his kitchen fire. It was not without real difficulty, we could bring the simple people who had crowded in for safety from their terror: the three travellers, in particular, as the first impression was still strong within them, they could not credit what they saw. We finished by a hearty laugh at their expence, and by drinking to the man whose head was like a flame of fire, and placed beneath his shoulder." THE INNOCENT DEVIL, OR _AGREEABLE DISAPPOINTMENT_. The following story is extracted from a letter I received, some time since, from a friend, on the subject of apparitions. "Returning, one evening in the summer, to my apartments, at a short distance from town, I was invited by my landlady, a brisk young widow, to partake of _un petit souper_, as she termed it. The invitation, of course, I accepted; and, after a pleasant repast, the cloth being removed, various conversation ensued, and the terminating subject was ghosts and hobgoblins. After my attention had been greatly excited by many dreadful recitals, I thought I perceived something black glide swiftly by my feet. My back at that time being towards the door, I instantly turned round; and, perceiving the same to be shut, I fancied my fear to be only a chimæra arising from the subject we had been conversing on. I therefore replenished my glass; and the subject of spectres was again renewed. In the midst of the discourse, when I was all attention to some dreadful tale, I felt something gently brush the bottom of my chair; when, on looking down, I beheld the most hideous black figure imagination can conceive. It was a monster on all fours, with cloven feet, horns on its head, and a long tail trailing after it as it moved along. My terror, I will acknowledge, was so great, that I instantly jumped up as high as the table, and loudly vociferated, 'Lord have mercy upon me! what is it?' My friendly hostess now begged me to sit down and be a little calm, and she would explain to me the cause of my alarm. The figure having again disappeared, the lady of the ceremonies thus addressed me--'I beg your pardon, Sir, for the fright I have thus occasioned you. It is only a little joke I have been playing off, merely to see whether you were proof against supernatural appearances. A friend of mine having been to a masqued ball in a domino, I prepared the stratagem, by making a head-piece to the dress, with horns, false legs, cloven feet, and a tail. I then instructed my servant, who was by agreement to be in the adjoining room, on hearing a certain part of my story, to open the door as softly as possible, and to make her _entré_, in this habiliment. This she attempted before the plot was sufficiently ripe, when you turned round towards the door, and she retreated. The second attempt too effectually succeeded; for which I again ask your pardon, and am extremely sorry, though luckily it has had no bad effect. But I will never, while I live, again be induced to act so foolishly.'--" THE SPECTRE OF THE BROKEN. The following observations on that singular phenomenon called the Spectre of the Broken, in Germany, is related by Monsieur J. L. Jordan, in the following words. "In the course of my repeated tours through the Harz (mountains in Germany), I ascended the Broken twelve times: but I had the good fortune only twice (both times about Whitsuntide) to see that atmospheric phenomenon called the Spectre of the Broken, which appears to me so worthy of particular attention, as it must, no doubt, be observed on other high mountains, which have a situation favourable for producing it. The first time I was deceived by this extraordinary phenomenon, I had clambered up to the summit of the Broken very early in the morning, in order to wait for the inexpressibly beautiful view of the sun rising in the east. The heavens were already streaked with red; the sun was just appearing above the horizon in full majesty; and the most perfect serenity prevailed throughout the surrounding country; when the other Harz mountains in the south-west, towards the Worm mountains, &c. lying under the Broken, began to be covered by thick clouds. Ascending at that moment the granite rocks called the Tempelskanzel, there appeared before me, though at a great distance, towards the Worm mountains and the Auchtermanshohe, the gigantic figure of a man, as if standing on a large pedestal. But scarcely had I discovered it, when it began to disappear; the clouds sunk down speedily, and expanded; and I saw the phenomenon no more. The second time, however, I saw this spectre somewhat more distinctly, a little below the summit of the Broken, and near the Heinnichshohe, as I was looking at the sun-rising, about four o'clock in the morning. The weather was rather tempestuous; the sky towards the level country was pretty clear; but the Harz mountains had attracted several thick clouds which had been hovering round them, and which, beginning on the Broken, confined the prospect. In these clouds, soon after the rising of the sun, I saw my own shadow, of a monstrous size, move itself, for a couple of seconds, in the clouds; and the phenomenon disappeared. It is impossible to see this phenomenon, except when the sun is at such an altitude as to throw his rays upon the body in an horizontal direction; for if he is higher, the shadow is thrown rather under the body than before it. "In the month of September, last year, as I was making a tour through the Harz with a very agreeable party, and ascended the Broken, I found an excellent account and explanation of this phenomenon, as seen by M. Haue on the 23d of May 1797, in his diary of an excursion to that mountain; I shall therefore take the liberty of transcribing it. "'After having been here for the thirtieth time,' says M. Haue; 'and, besides other objects of my attention, having procured information respecting the above-mentioned atmospheric phenomenon, I was at length so fortunate as to have the pleasure of seeing it; and, perhaps, my description may afford satisfaction to others who visit the Broken through curiosity. The sun rose about four o'clock; and, the atmosphere being quite serene towards the east, his rays could pass without any obstruction over the Heinnichshohe. In the south-west, however, towards the Auchtermaunshohe, a brisk west wind carried before it their transparent vapours, which were not yet condensed into thick heavy clouds. About a quarter past four I went towards the inn, and looked round to see whether the atmosphere would permit me to have a free prospect to the south-west; when I observed, at a very great distance, towards the Auchtermaunshohe, a human figure, of a monstrous size. A violent gust of wind having almost carried away my hat, I clapped my hand to it by moving my arm towards my head, and the colossal figure did the same. The pleasure which I felt on this discovery can hardly be described; for I had already walked many a weary step in the hope of seeing this shadowy image, without being able to satisfy my curiosity. I immediately made another movement by bending my body, and the colossal figure before me repeated it. I was desirous of doing the same thing once more; but my colossus had vanished. I remained in the same position, waiting to see whether it would return; and, in a few minutes, it again made its appearance in the Auchtermaunshohe. I paid my respects to it a second time, and it did the same to me. I then called the landlord of the Broken; and, having both taken the same position which I had taken alone, we looked towards the Auchtermaunshohe, but saw nothing. We had not, however, stood long, when two such colossal figures were formed over the above eminence, which repeated our compliment, by bending their bodies as we did; after which they vanished. We retained our position, kept our eyes fixed upon the same spot; and, in a little time, the two figures again stood before us, and were joined by a third. Every movement that we made by bending our bodies, these figures imitated; but with this difference, that the phenomenon was sometimes weak and faint, sometimes strong and well-defined. Having thus had an opportunity of discovering the whole secret of this phenomenon, I can give the following information to such of my readers as may be desirous of seeing it themselves. When the rising sun (and, according to analogy, the case will be the same at the setting sun) throws his rays over the Broken upon the body of a man standing opposite to fine light clouds floating around or hovering past him, he needs only fix his eye stedfastly upon them, and in all probability he will see the singular spectacle of his own shadow extending to the length of five or six hundred feet, at the distance of about two miles from him. This is one of the most agreeable phenomena I have ever had an opportunity of remarking on the great observations of Germany.'--" SIR HUGH ACKLAND. The following remarkable fact shews the necessity of minutely examining people after death, prior to interment, and of not giving way to ridiculous fears about supernatural appearances. The late Sir Hugh Ackland, of Devonshire, apparently died of a fever, and was laid out as dead. The nurse, with two of the footmen, sat up with the corpse; and Lady Ackland sent them a bottle of brandy to drink in the night. One of the servants, being an arch rogue, told the other, that his master dearly loved brandy when he was alive; "and," says he, "I am resolved he shall drink one glass with us now he is dead." The fellow, accordingly, poured out a bumper of brandy, and forced it down his throat. A gurgling immediately ensued, and a violent motion of the neck and upper part of the breast. The other footman and the nurse were so terrified, that they ran down stairs; and the brandy genius, hastening away with rather too much speed, tumbled down stairs head foremost. The noise of the fall, and his cries, alarmed a young gentleman who slept in the house that night; who got up, and went to the room where the corpse lay, and, to his great surprise, saw Sir Hugh sitting upright. He called the servants; Sir Hugh was put into a warm bed, and the physician and apothecary sent for. These gentlemen, in a few weeks, perfectly restored their patient to health, and he lived several years afterwards. The above story is well known to the Devonshire people; as in most companies Sir Hugh used to tell this strange circumstance, and talk of his resurrection by his brandy footman, to whom (when he really died) he left a handsome annuity. AN AGREEABLE EXPLANATION. A gentleman of undoubted veracity relates the following story. "When I was a young man, I took up my residence at a lodging-house, which was occupied by several families. On taking possession of my apartments, I agreed with the old lady of the house, who had two children, to accommodate me with a key to the street-door, to prevent unnecessary trouble to the servant or family, as I should very frequently stay out late in the evening. This was agreed to; and, by way of making things more agreeable, I had always a light left burning for me on the staircase, which was opposite to the outer door. This arrangement being made, things continued very comfortable for some months; till, one night, or rather morning, returning and opening the door as usual, I thought I heard a faint scream--I paused for a few seconds. The cry of 'Murder!' now feebly succeeded. I hesitated how to act, when the cry of 'Murder!' was again more loudly vociferated. This very much alarmed me; and, instead of going forward, I instantly re-opened the street-door, and was in the act of calling the watch, when a tall spare figure, at least six feet high, in a complete white dress, and pointed cap, with a candle in its hand, appeared before me. This unexpected encounter completed my astonishment, and I was about to speak, when the phantom (which proved to be my good old landlady) thus addressed me--'I hope, Sir, I have not alarmed you; but, just before you came to the door, I had a most frightful dream. I thought robbers had broken into my house, and, not content with plunder, had murdered my children, and were about to destroy me; when the noise you made on opening the door increased my agony of mind; and, before I was sufficiently sensible, I screamed out _Murder!_ as you must have heard.' This explanation having taken place, the poor woman retired, and was for several days after extremely ill; and I was not a little pleased myself at finding what I at first supposed a supernatural encounter thus terminate, without having recourse to a divine exorcist." THE SOMERSETSHIRE DEMONIAC. On the 13th of June 1788, George Lukins, of Yatton, in Somersetshire, was exorcised in the Temple Church at Bristol, and delivered from the possession of seven devils by the efforts of seven clergymen. Lukins was first attacked by a kind of epileptic fit, when he was going about acting Christmas plays, or mummeries: this he ascribed to a blow given by an invisible hand. He was afterwards seized by fits; during which he declared with a roaring voice that he was the devil, and sung different songs in a variety of keys. The fits always began and ended with a strong agitation of the right hand; he frequently uttered dreadful execrations during the fits: and the whole duration of this disorder was eighteen years. At length, _viz._ in June 1788, he declared, that he was possessed by seven devils, and could only be freed by the prayers, _in faith_, of seven clergymen. Accordingly, the requisite number was summoned, and the patient sung, swore, laughed, barked, and treated the company with a ludicrous parody on the _Te Deum_. These astonishing symptoms resisted both hymns and prayers, till a _small, faint voice_ admonished the ministers to adjure. The spirits, after some murmuring, yielded to the adjuration; and the happy patient returned thanks for his wonderful cure. It is remarkable, that, during this solemn mockery, the fiend swore, by his infernal den, that he would not quit his patient; an oath, I believe, no where to be found but in the Pilgrim's Progress, from whence Lukins probably got it. Very soon after, the first relation of this story was published, a person well acquainted with Lukins, took the trouble of undeceiving the public, with regard to his pretended disorder, in a plain, sensible, narrative of his conduct. He asserts, that Lukins's first seizure was nothing else than a fit of drunkenness; that he always foretold his fits, and remained sensible during their continuance. That he frequently saw Lukins in his fits; in every one of which, except in singing, he performed not more than most active young people can easily do. That he was detected in an imposture with respect to the clenching of his hands. That after money had been collected for him, he got very suddenly well. That he never had any fits while he was at St. George's Hospital, in London; nor when visitors were excluded from his lodgings by desire of the author of the narrative: and that he was particularly careful never to hurt himself by his exertions during the paroxysm. Is it for the credit of this philosophical age, that so bungling an imposture should deceive seven clergymen into a public act of exorcism? This would not have passed even on the authors of the _Malleus Maleficarum_; for they required signs of supernatural agency, such as the suspension of the possessed in the air without any visible support, or the use of different languages, unknown to the demoniac in his natural state. THE MANIAC, OR _FATAL EFFECTS OF WANTON MISCHIEF_. Some years ago, a very intelligent, handsome, and promising youth, whose names is Henry Pargeter Lewis, the son of a respectable attorney, in the town of Dudley, was placed for a probationary time, previously to an intended apprenticeship, with a surgeon and apothecary of the name of Powell, in the immediate neighbourhood of one of our great public schools. He had not been there long, before one of the scholars, who lodged at the surgeon's, in league with the servant-boy of the house, devised the following stratagem to frighten him. One night, during an absence of the master, the servant-boy concealed himself under the bed of Henry, before the latter retired to rest, and remained there till the hour of midnight; when, on a preconcerted signal of three raps at the chamber door, it suddenly opened, and in stalked the school-boy, habited in a white sheet, with his face horribly disguised, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand; the servant-boy, at the same moment, heaving up the bed under Henry with his back. How long this was acted is not known: it was done long enough, however, completely to dethrone the reason of the unfortunate youth; who, it is supposed, immediately covered himself with the bed-clothes, and so continued till the morning. On his not rising at the usual time, some one of the family went to call him; and, not answering, except by incoherent cries, was discovered in the state just described. The melancholy tidings of his situation were conveyed to his friends, on his removal to them; the facts having been disclosed, partly by the confession of the servant-boy, and partly by the unfortunate youth himself, during the few lucid intervals which occurred in the course of the first year after his misfortune. His father and mother were then living, but they are now both dead: and the little property they left to support him is now nearly exhausted, together with a small subscription which was also raised to furnish him with necessaries, and to remunerate a person to take care of him. He is perfectly harmless and gentle, being rather in a state of idiotcy than insanity; seldom betraying any symptoms of violent emotion, except occasionally about midnight (the time of his unhappy disaster), when, full of indescribable terror, he exclaims, "_Oh! they are coming! they are coming!_" All hope of recovery is at an end; more than twenty years having elapsed since the catastrophe happened. It is sincerely hoped that this pitiable case may prove a warning to inconsiderate youth; by showing them what dreadful effects may follow such wanton acts of mischief. EXTRAORDINARY DOUBLE DREAM, _Without any Corresponding Event_. The late Reverend Mr. Joseph Wilkins, a dissenting clergyman, at Weymouth, in Dorsetshire, had the following remarkable dream, which is copied verbatim from a short account of his life. "One night, soon after I was in bed, I fell asleep, and dreamed I was going to London. I thought it would not be much out of my way to go through Gloucestershire, and call upon my friends there. Accordingly, I set out; but remember nothing that happened by the way, till I came to my father's house, when I went to the fore door and tried to open it, but found it fast; then I went to our back door, which I opened and went in: but finding all the family were in bed, I went across the rooms only, and walked up stairs, entered the room where my father and mother were in bed, and as I passed by the side of the bed in which my father lay, I found him asleep, or thought he was so; then I went to the other side, and as I just turned the foot of the bed, I found my mother awake, to whom I said these words, 'Mother, I am going a long journey, and am come to bid you good-bye;' upon which she answered me in a fright--'_O! dear son, thee art dead!_' with which I awoke, and took no notice of it more than a common dream, only it appeared to me very perfect, as sometimes dreams will. But, in a few days after, as soon as a letter could reach me, I received one by the post from my father; upon the receipt of which I was a little surprised, and concluded something extraordinary must have happened, as it was but a little before I had had a letter from my friends, and all were well: but, upon opening it, I was still more surprised; for my father addressed me as though I was dead, desiring me, if alive, or whose ever hands the letter might fall into, to write immediately. But, if the letter found me living, they concluded I should not live long, and gave this as a reason for their fears--That on such a night (naming it), after they were in bed, my father asleep and my mother awake, she heard somebody try to open the fore door, but finding it fast, he went to the back door, which he opened, and came in, and went directly through the room up stairs, and she perfectly knew it to be my step, come to her bed-side, and spoke to her these words, 'Mother, I am going a long journey, and am come to bid you good-bye,' upon which she answered in a fright, '_O! dear son, thee art dead!_' (which were the very circumstances and words of _my_ dream); but she heard nothing more, she saw nothing (neither did I in my dream, as it was all dark). Upon this she awoke my father, and told him what had passed, but he endeavoured to appease her, persuading her it was only a dream; but she insisted on it, it was no dream, for that she was as perfectly awake as ever, and had not had the least inclination to sleep since she had been in bed (from which I am apt to think it was at the _very same instant_ with my dream, though the distance between us was about one hundred miles, but of this I cannot speak positively). This affair happened whilst I was at the academy at Ottery, in the county of Devon, and I believe in the year 1754; and at this distance every circumstance is very fresh in my mind. I have since had frequent opportunities of talking over the affair with my mother, and the whole circumstance was as fresh upon her mind as it was upon mine. I have often thought that her sensation as to this matter was stronger than mine; and, what some may think strange, I cannot remember any thing remarkable happened thereon; and that this is only a plain simple narrative of matter of fact." The above relation must convince credulous people how necessary it is, not to place implicit confidence in dreams, or suffer them to make too great an impression on the mind, as they are most frequently merely the result of our waking thoughts. REMARKABLE INSTANCES OF THE POWER OF VISION. A shepherd upon one of the mountains in Cumberland, was suddenly enveloped with a thick fog or mist, through which every object appeared so greatly increased in magnitude, that he no longer knew where he was. In this state of confusion he wandered in search of some unknown object, from which he might direct his future steps. Chance, at last, brought this lost shepherd within sight of what he supposed to be a very large mansion, which he did not remember ever to have seen before; but, on his entering this visionary castle, to inquire his way home, he found it inhabited by his own family. It was nothing more than his own cottage. But his organs of sight had so far misled his mental faculties, that some little time elapsed before he could be convinced that he saw real objects. Instances of the same kind of illusion, though not to the same degree, are not unfrequent in those mountainous regions. From these effects of vision, it is evident that the pupil and the picture of an object within the eye, increase at the same time. * * * * * The writer of the above account was passing the Frith of Forth, at Queensferry, near Edinburgh, one morning when it was extremely foggy. Though the water is only two miles broad, the boat did not get within sight of the southern shore till it approached very near it. He then saw, to his great surprise, a large perpendicular rock, where he knew the shore was low and almost flat. As the boat advanced a little nearer, the rock seemed to split perpendicularly into portions, which separated at a little distance from one another. He next saw these perpendicular divisions move; and, upon approaching a little nearer, found it was a number of people, standing on the beach, waiting the arrival of the ferry-boat. * * * * * The following extract of a letter, from a gentleman of undoubted veracity, is another curious instance of the property of vision:-- "When I was a young man, I was, like others, fond of sporting, and seldom liked to miss a day, if I could any way go out. From my own house I set out on foot, and pursued my diversion on a foggy day; and, after I had been out some time, the fog or mist increased to so great a degree, that, however familiar the hedges, trees, &c. were to me, I lost myself, insomuch that I did not know whether I was going to or from home. In a field where I then was, I suddenly discovered what I imagined was a well known hedge-row, interspersed with pollard trees, &c. under which I purposed to proceed homewards; but, to my great surprise, upon approaching this appearance, I discovered a row of the plants known by the name of _rag_, and by the vulgar, _canker weed_, growing on a mere balk, dividing ploughed fields: the whole height of both could not exceed three feet, or three feet and a half. It struck me so forcibly that I shall never forget it; this too in a field which I knew as well as any man, could know a field." THE PHILOSOPHER GASSENDI, AND THE _HAUNTED BED-ROOM_. In one of the letters of this celebrated philosopher, he says, that he was consulted by his friend and patron the Count d'Alais, governor of Provence, on a phenomenon that haunted his bed-chamber while he was at Marseilles on some business relative to his office. The Count tells Gassendi, that, for several successive nights, as soon as the candle was taken away, he and his Countess saw a luminous spectre, sometimes of an oval, and sometimes of a triangular form; that it always disappeared when light came into the room; that he had often struck at it, but could discover nothing solid. Gassendi, as a natural philosopher, endeavoured to account for it; sometimes attributing it to some defect of vision, or to some dampness of the room, insinuating that perhaps it might be sent from Heaven to him, to give him a warning in due time of something that should happen. The spectre still continued its visits all the time that he staid at Marseilles; and some years afterwards, on their return to Aix, the Countess d'Alais confessed to her husband, that she played him this trick, by means of one of her women placed under the bed with a phial of phosphorus, with an intention to frighten him away from Marseilles, a place in which she very much disliked to live. THE GHOST ON SHIP-BOARD. A gentleman of high respectability in the navy relates the following story. "When on a voyage to New York, we had not been four days at sea, before an occurrence of a very singular nature broke in upon our quiet. _It was a ghost!_ One night, when all was still and dark, and the ship rolling at sea before the wind, a man sprung suddenly upon deck in his shirt, his hair erect, his eyes starting from their sockets, and loudly vociferating he had seen a ghost. After his horror had a little subsided, we asked him what he had seen?--he said, the figure of a woman dressed in white, with eyes of flaming fire; that she came to his hammock, and stared him in the face. This we treated as an idle dream, and sent the frantic fellow to his bed. The story became the subject of every one; and the succeeding night produced half a dozen more terrified men to corroborate what had happened the first, and all agreed in the same story, that it was a woman. This rumour daily increasing, at length came to the ears of the captain and officers, who were all equally solicitous to discover the true cause of this terrific report. I placed myself night by night beneath the hammocks to watch its appearance, but all in vain; yet still the appearance was nightly, as usual, and the horrors and fears of the people rather daily increased than diminished. A phantom of this sort rather amused than perplexed my mind; and when I had given over every idea of discovering the cause of this strange circumstance, and the thing began to wear away, I was surprised, one very dark night, as seated under the boats, with a stately figure in white stalking along the deck! The singularity of the event struck my mind that this must be the very identical ghost which had of late so much disturbed the ship's company. I therefore instantly dropped down from the place I was in, to the deck on which it appeared, when it passed me immediately very quickly, turned round, and marched directly forwards. I followed it closely, through the gallery, and out at the head-doors, when the figure instantly disappeared, which very much astonished me. I then leaped upon the forecastle, and asked of the people who were walking there, if such a figure had passed them? They replied, No, with some emotion and pleasure, as I had ever ridiculed all their reports on this subject. However, this night-scene between me and the ghost became the theme of the ensuing day. Nothing particular transpired till twelve o'clock, when, as the people were pricking at the tub for their beef, it was discovered Jack Sutton was missing. The ship's company was directly mustered, and Jack was no where to be found. I then inquired of his messmates the character of the man; and, after a number of interrogatories, one of them said, that poor Sutton used to tell him a number of comical jokes about his walking in his sleep. Now the mystery was unravelled; and this terrific ghost, which had so much alarmed all the sailors, now proved to be the poor unfortunate Jack Sutton, who had walked overboard in his dream." The first fellow who spread this report, and who shewed such signs of horror, was found on inquiry to be a most flagitious villain, who had murdered a woman, who he believed always haunted him, and the appearance of this sleepwalker confirmed in his mind the ghost of the murdered fair one; for, in such cases, conscience is a busy monitor, and ever active to its own pain and disturbance. A REMARKABLE STORY OF A GHOST, _Thrice called for, as an Evidence, in a Court of Justice_. A farmer, on his return from the market at Southam, in the county of Warwick, was murdered. A man went the next morning to his house, and inquired of the mistress, if her husband came home the evening before; she replied, No, and that she was under the utmost anxiety and terror on that account. "Your terror," added he, "cannot equal mine; for, last night, as I lay in bed quite awake, the apparition of your husband appeared to me, shewed me several ghastly stabs in his body; told me that he had been murdered by such a person (naming the man), and his body thrown into such a marl-pit, which he then particularly described. The alarm was given, the pit searched, the body found, and the wounds answered the description given of them. The man whom the ghost had accused was apprehended, and committed, on a violent suspicion of murder. His trial came on at Warwick, before the Lord Chief Justice Raymond; when the jury would have convicted, as rashly as the magistrate had committed him, had not the judge checked them. He addressed himself to them in words to this purpose--"I think, Gentlemen, you seem inclined to lay more stress on the evidence of an apparition than it will bear. I cannot say that I give much credit to these kind of stories: but, be that as it will, we have no right to follow our own private opinions here. We are now in a court of law, and must determine according to it; and I know of no law now in being, which will admit of the testimony of an apparition: not yet, if it did, doth the ghost appear to give evidence. Crier," said he, "call the ghost." Which was _thrice_ done, to no manner of purpose: it appeared not. "Gentlemen of the Jury," continued the Judge, "the prisoner at the bar, as you have heard by undeniable witnesses, is a man of the most unblemished character; nor has it appeared in the course of the examination, that there was any manner of quarrel or grudge between him and the party deceased. I do believe him to be perfectly innocent; and, as there is no evidence against him, either positive or circumstantial, he must be acquitted. But, from many circumstances which have arisen during the trial, I do strongly suspect that the gentleman who saw the apparition was himself the murderer: in which case he might easily ascertain the pit, the wounds, &c. without any supernatural assistance; and on suspicion, I shall think myself justified in committing him to close custody, till the matter can be fairly inquired into. This was immediately done, and a warrant granted for searching his house; when such strong proofs of guilt appeared against him, that he confessed the murder: for which he was executed. THE LADY OF THE BLACK TOWER. BY MRS. ROBINSON. "Watch no more the twinkling stars; Watch no more the chalky bourne; Lady, from the holy wars Never will thy love return! Cease to watch, and cease to mourn; Thy lover never will return! "Watch no more the yellow moon, Peering o'er the mountain's head; Rosy day, returning soon, Will see thy lover pale and dead! Cease to weep, and cease to mourn: Thy lover will no more return. "Lady, in the holy wars, Fighting for the cross, he died; Low he lies, and many scars Mark his cold and mangled side; In his winding-sheet he lies. Lady, check those rending sighs. "Hark! the hollow-sounding gale Seems to sweep in murmurs by, Sinking slowly down the vale; Wherefore, gentle lady, sigh? Wherefore moan, and wherefore sigh? Lady, all that live must die. "Now the stars are fading fast, Swift their brilliant course are run: Soon shall dreary night be past, Soon shall rise the cheering sun! The sun will rise to gladden thee; Lady, lady, cheerful be." So spake a voice; while, sad and lone, Upon a lofty tow'r reclin'd, A lady sat: the pale moon shone, And sweetly blew the summer wind; Yet still, disconsolate in mind, The lovely lady sat reclin'd. The lofty tow'r was ivy-clad; And round a dreary forest rose; The midnight bell was tolling sad, 'Twas tolling for a soul's repose. The lady heard the gates unclose, And from her seat in terror rose. The summer moon shone bright and clear; She saw the castle gates unclose; And now she saw four monks appear, Loud chanting for a soul's repose. Forbear, O lady! look no more: They pass'd--a livid corpse they bore. They pass'd, and all was silent now; The breeze upon the forest slept; The moon stole o'er the mountain's brow; Again the lady sigh'd and wept. She watch'd the holy fathers go Along the forest path below. And now the dawn was bright; the dew Upon the yellow heath was seen; The clouds were of a rosy hue, The sunny lustre shone between: The lady to the chapel ran, While the slow matin pray'r began. And then, once more, the fathers grey She mark'd, employ'd in holy pray'r; Her heart was full, she could not pray, For love and fear were masters there! Ah, lady! thou wilt pray, ere long, To sleep those lonely aisles among! And now the matin pray'rs were o'er; The barefoot monks, of order grey, Were thronging to the chapel door: When there the lady stopp'd the way; "Tell me," she cried, "whose corpse so pale Last night ye bore along the vale?" "O lady! question us no more: No corpse did we bear down the dale." The lady sunk upon the floor, Her quiv'ring lip was deathly pale! The barefoot monks now whisper'd, sad, "God grant our lady be not mad!" The monks departing, one by one, The chapel gates in silence close, When from the altar steps of stone The trembling lady feebly goes; While morning sheds a ruby light, The painted windows glowing bright. And now she heard a hollow sound; It seem'd to come from graves below; And now again she look'd around, A voice came murm'ring sad and slow And now she heard it feebly cry, "Lady, all that live must die! "Watch no more from yonder tow'r, Watch no more the star of day! Watch no more the dawning hour, That chases sullen night away! Cease to watch, and cease to mourn; Thy lover will no more return!" She look'd around, and now she view'd, Clad in a doublet gold and green, A youthful knight: he frowning stood, And noble was his mournful mien; And now he said, with heaving sigh, "Lady, all that live must die." She rose to quit the altar's stone, She cast a look to heav'n, and sigh'd: When, lo! the youthful knight was gone; And, scowling by the lady's side, With sightless skull and bony hand, She saw a giant spectre stand! His flowing robe was long and clear, His ribs were white as drifted snow. The lady's heart was chill'd with fear; She rose, but scarce had power to go: The spectre grinn'd a dreadful smile, And walk'd beside her down the aisle. And now he wav'd his ratt'ling hand; And now they reach'd the chapel door, And there the spectre took his stand; While, rising from the marble floor, A hollow voice was heard to cry, "Lady, all that live must die. "Watch no more the evening star! Watch no more the glimpse of morn! Never from the holy war, Lady, will thy love return! See this bloody cross; and, see, His bloody scarf he sends to thee!" And now again the youthful knight Stood smiling by the lady's side! His helmet shone with crimson light, His sword with drops of blood was dy'd: And now a soft and mournful song Stole the chapel aisles among. Now from the spectre's paley cheek The flesh began to waste away; The vaulted doors were heard to creak, And dark became the summer day! The spectre's eyes were sunk, but he Seem'd with their sockets still to see; The second bell is heard to ring: Four barefoot monks, of orders grey, Again their holy service sing, And round their chapel altar pray: The lady counted o'er and o'er, And shudder'd while she counted _four_! "Oh! fathers, who was he, so gay, That stood beside the chapel door? Oh! tell me, fathers, tell me, pray," The monks replied, "We fathers four: Lady, _no other_ have we seen, Since in this holy place we've been!" _PART SECOND._ Now the merry bugle-horn Through the forest sounded far; When on the lofty tow'r, forlorn, The lady watch'd the evening star; The evening star that seemed to be Rising from the dark'ned sea. The summer sea was dark and still, The sky was streak'd with lines of gold, The mist rose grey above the hill, And low the clouds of amber roll'd: The lady on the lofty tow'r Watch'd the calm and silent hour. And while she watch'd, she saw advance A ship, with painted streamers gay: She saw it on the green wave dance, And plunge amid the silver spray; While from the forest's haunts forlorn, Again she heard the bugle horn. The sails were full; the breezes rose; The billows curl'd along the shore; And now the day began to close-- The bugle horn was heard no more. But, rising from the wat'ry way An airy voice was heard to say-- "Watch no more the evening star; Watch no more the billowy sea; Lady, from the holy war, Thy lover hastes to comfort thee: Lady, lady, cease to mourn; Soon thy lover will return." Now she hastens to the bay; Now the rising storm she hears: Now the sailors smiling say, "Lady, lady, check your fears: Trust us, lady; we will be Your pilots o'er the stormy sea." Now the little bark she view'd, Moor'd beside the flinty steep; And now, upon the foamy flood, The tranquil breezes seemed to sleep. The moon arose; her silver ray Seem'd on the silent deep to play. Now music stole across the main: It was a sweet but mournful tone; It came a slow and dulcet strain; It came from where the pale moon shone: And while it pass'd across the sea, More soft and soft it seem'd to be. Now on the deck the lady stands. The vessel steers across the main; It steers towards the Holy Land, Never to return again: Still the sailors cry, "We'll be Your pilots o'er the stormy sea." Now she hears a low voice say, "Deeper, deeper, deeper still; Hark! the black'ning billows play; Hark! the waves the vessel fill: Lower, lower, down we go; All is dark and still below." Now a flash of vivid light On the rolling deep was seen! And now the lady saw the knight, With doublet rich, of gold and green: From the sockets of his eyes, A pale and streaming light she spies. And now his form transparent stood, Smiling with a ghastly mien: And now the calm and boundless flood Was like the emerald, bright and green; And now 'twas of a troubled hue, While "Deeper, deeper," sang the crew. Slow advanced the morning light, Slow they plough'd the wavy tide; When, on a cliff of dreadful height, A castle's lofty tow'r they spied: The lady heard the sailor-band Cry, "Lady, this is Holy Land. "Watch no more the glitt'ring spray; Watch no more the weedy sand; Watch no more the star of day; Lady, this is Holy Land: This castle's lord shall welcome thee; Then, lady, lady, cheerful be!" Now the castle-gates they pass; Now across the spacious square, Cover'd high with dewy grass, Trembling steals the lady fair: And now _the castle's lord_ was seen, Clad in a doublet gold and green. He led her through the Gothic hall, With bones and skulls encircled round; "Oh, let not this thy soul appal!" He cried, "for this is holy ground." He led her through the chambers lone, 'Mid many a shriek and many a groan. Now to the banquet-room they came: Around a table of black stone, She mark'd a faint and vapoury flame; Upon the horrid feast it shone-- And there, to close the madd'ning sight, Unnumber'd spectres met the light. Their teeth were like the brilliant, bright; Their eyes were blue as sapphire clear; Their bones were of a polish'd white; Gigantic did their ribs appear! And now the knight the lady led, And placed her at the table's head! Just now the lady _woke_:--for she Had slept upon the lofty tow'r, And dreams of dreadful phantasie Had fill'd the lonely moonlight hour: Her pillow was the turret stone, And on her breast the pale moon shone. But now _a real_ voice she hears: It was her lover's voice; for he, To calm her bosom's rending fears, That night had cross'd the stormy sea: "I come," said he, "from Palestine, To prove myself, _sweet Lady, thine_." INDEX. Ackland, Sir Hugh, his Extraordinary Resuscitation, Page 208 Agreeable Explanation, 209 Aix-la-Chapelle, Extraordinary Event at, 29 Anatomical Professor, and the Dead Man, 75 Apparitions, Essay on, 13 Apparition, the Castle, 143 Apparition Investigated, 167 B. Bed-Room, the Haunted, 41 Benighted Traveller, and Haunted Room, 170 Bishop, the Credulous, 116 C. Carrier, the Frightened, 158 Castle Apparition, 143 Castle, Haunted, 152 Chimney-Sweep, and Drunken Bucks, 80 Church-Yard Encounter, or Heroic Midshipman, 122 Church-Yard Ghost, and Milkman, 178 Club-Room Ghost, 159 Cock-Lane Ghost, 125 College Ghost, or Double Mistake, 150 Couple, the Superstitious, 39 Credulous Bishop, 116 Credulous Peasants, 94 Cripplegate Ghost, 81 D. Dead Body, and Unfortunate Priest, 183 Dead Man, and Anatomical Professor, 75 Dominican Friar, 29 Double Mistake, or College Ghost, 150 Drunken Bucks, and Chimney Sweep, 80 E. Essay on Apparitions, &c., 13 Extraordinary Double Dream, 216 F. Fakenham Ghost, 179 Fatal Superstition, 185 Fatal Effects of Wanton Mischief, 214 Female Fanatic, and Heavenly Visitor, 59 Female Sprites, 64 Floating Wonder, or Female Spectre, 187 Friar, the Dominican, 29 Frightened Carrier, 158 Funeral, the Ideot's, 55 G. Gassendi, the Philosopher, and Haunted Bed-Room, 222 Giles the Shepherd, and Spectre, 195 Ghost of the Field, or the Twins, 147 Ghost, and no Ghost, 176 Ghost on Ship-Board, 223 Ghostly Adventurer, 119 Ghost, thrice called for, as an Evidence in a Court of Justice, 226 H. Hammersmith Ghost, 156 Haunted Beach, or Power of Conscience on a Murderer, 172 Haunted Bed-Room, 41 Haunted Bed-Room, and Benighted Traveller, 170 Haunted Castle, 152 Haunted Castle, and Mareschal Saxe, 103 Heavenly Visitor, and Female Fanatic, 59 Heroic Midshipman, or Church-Yard Encounter, 122 Hypochondriac Gentleman, and Jack Ass, 138 I. Ideot's Funeral, 55 Imagination, Remarkable Instance of the Power of, 45 Innocent Devil, or Agreeable Disappointment, 201 J. Jealousy, Fatal Effects of, or the Prussian Domino, 66 L. Lady of the Black Tower, 228 Lunatic Apparition, 162 M. Maniac; or, Fatal Effects of Wanton Mischief, 214 Man with his Head on Fire, and covered with Blood, 198 Mareschal Saxe, and the Haunted Castle, 103 Mary (Poor), the Maid of the Inn, 190 Midshipman, Heroic, and Church-Yard Encounter, 122 Milkman, and Church-Yard Ghost, 178 N. Nocturnal Disturber, 95 P. Peasants, the Credulous, 94 Poor Mary, the Maid of the Inn, 190 Power of Conscience on a Murderer, 172 Priest, the Unfortunate, and Dead Body, 183 Prussian Domino, or Fatal Effects of Jealousy, 66 R. Resuscitation, Remarkable, 113 Remarkable Effects of the Power of Vision, 219 S. School-Boy Apparition, 91 Sir Hugh Ackland, 208 Somersetshire Demoniac, 211 Sprites, the Female, 64 Spectre of the Broken, 203 Superstitious Couple, 39 Subterranean Traveller, or Ghost and No Ghost, 176 Supposed Supernatural Appearance, 164 Sweep, and Drunken Bucks, 80 T. Twin Brothers, or Ghost of the Field, 147 V. Ventriloquist, 57, 83 Vigil of St. Mark, or Fatal Superstition, 185 Vision, Remarkable Effects of the Power of, 219 W. Westminster Scholars, and Hackney Coachman, 51 FINIS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber's Note: The following errors have been corrected: p. xi: pecant to peccant (upon the peccant part) p. 15: ramble to rumble (solemn rumble) p. 23: adyantage to advantage (turn them to my advantage) p. 31: cieling to ceiling (as high as the ceiling) p. 36: missing "been" added (had been in bed) p. 51: instanly to instantly (They then instantly dressed) p. 53: mercy to mercy's (for mercy's sake) p. 59: Ferronerie to Ferronnerie (Rue de la Ferronnerie) p. 64: Bartholemew to Bartholomew (Bartholomew Close) p. 68: plantive to plaintive (plaintive tone of voice) p. 69: faultering to faltering (his tongue faltering) p. 104: announed to announced (whose visit was announced) p. 104: colon to period (their feelings. But I was) p. 113: Célébres to Célèbres (Causes Célèbres) p. 130: missing closing bracket added (was heard.)) p. 158: Remnstone to Rempstone (the village of Rempstone) p. 165: accended to ascended (ascended the stairs) p. 177: missing open quote added ('_Who's there? What are ye?_') p. 177: missing close quote added ('_How came you there?_') p. 187: extra "in" removed (Caerleon, in Wales) p. 191: comma to period (They listen'd to hear the wind roar.) p. 205: missing open quote added ("'After having been here for) p. 217: missing close quote added (thee art dead!_') p. 225: missing close quote added (in his dream.") p. 237: missing open quote added ("Deeper, deeper, deeper still;) p. 239: line indented to match others (Her pillow was the turret stone,) Archaic and inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have not been corrected. Inconsistencies between the Index and the rest of the text have also been left as in the original. As in the original, there are two different stories called "THE VENTRILOQUIST." Omitted lines of poetry on p. 195 are represented with a line of 23 asterisks in the plain text versions, as in the original. Short lines used as thought breaks on pp. 220 and 221 are represented with a line of 5 asterisks. In the plain text versions, two superscript t's with a dot below them in the caption of the Frontispiece are represented as plain letter t's, and oe-ligatures have been changed to oe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
35029	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Internet Archive. HALF-PAST BEDTIME _By the Same Author_ THE CORNER OF HARLEY STREET PITY THE POOR BLIND VAGABONDS IN PÉRIGORD SONGS OUT OF SCHOOL THE PLAIN GIRL'S TALE [Illustration: HALF-PAST BEDTIME] HALF-PAST BEDTIME _BY_ H. H. BASHFORD AUTHOR OF "THE CORNER OF HARLEY STREET" ETC. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR_ [Illustration] HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO TO JOE & ADA MAGGS AND THE CHILDREN THAT LOVE THEM When Farmer Sun with rosy wink Says good-bye all, and drives away, When safe in fold the sheep-bells clink, And hard-worked horses munch their hay, When brown and blue eyes sleepy grow, And Nurse downstairs clears up the crumbs, When God pulls down His blind, and so What people call the twilight comes, Then lazy Moon lifts up her arm, Shakes back her hair and smooths her beams, And softly over field and farm Scatters the milk-white seed of dreams. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. MR JUGG 13 II. GWENDOLEN 29 III. THE LITTLE ICE-MEN 45 IV. UNCLE JOE'S STORY 61 V. BEARDY NED 75 VI. THE MAGIC SONG 89 VII. THE IMAGINARY BOY 105 VIII. THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED 121 IX. ST UNCUS 137 X. OLD MOTHER HUBBARD 151 XI. MARIAN'S PARTY 167 XII. THE SORROWFUL PICTURE 183 XIII. THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND 199 XIV. THE CHRISTMAS TREE 215 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE HALF-PAST BEDTIME _Frontispiece_ MARIAN AND MR JUGG 12 MONKEY ISLAND 28 CUTHBERT AND DORIS 44 BELLA AT EDEN 60 BEARDY NED'S FIRE 74 THE MAGIC SONG 88 THE HAUNTED WOOD 104 CÆSAR'S CAMP 120 DORIS AND ST UNCUS 136 MOTHER HUBBARD'S 150 THE LITTLE TEMPLE 166 PORTO BLANCO 182 THE LAGOON 198 STILL TALKING 214 MR JUGG [Illustration: Marian and Mr. Jugg] I MR JUGG The name of the town doesn't really matter; but it was a big town in the middle of the country; and the first of these adventures happened to a little girl whose Christian name was Marian. She was only seven when it happened to her, so that it was rather a young sort of adventure; but the older ones happened later on, and this is the best, perhaps, to begin with. Marian's house was in a street called Peter Street, because there was a church in it called St Peter's Church; and some people liked this church, because it had a great spire soaring up into the sky. But Marian's daddy didn't like spires, because they were so sharp and so slippery. He liked towers better, because the old church towers, he said, were like little laps, ready to catch God's blessing. But Marian's daddy was a queer sort of man, and nobody took much notice of what he said. At the other end of Peter Street there was a field in which some people were beginning to build houses, and Marian used to love going into this field to watch the builders at work. But one afternoon she became tired of watching them, and so she climbed over a gate into the next field. Here the grass was so tall that it tickled Marian's chin. There were great daisies in it, taller than the grass, and they looked into Marian's eyes. They had calm faces like Marian's mummy's nurney's face, and they didn't mind a bit when Marian picked them. There were also buttercups, shiny and fat, like the man in the butcher's shop who was always smiling. This was such a big field that when Marian came to the middle of it the voices of the builders were quite faint, and the tinkle of their trowels on the edges of the bricks sounded like sheep-bells a long way off. When she turned round she could see the roofs of the houses, and the tops of the chimneys, and the spires of the churches all trembly because of the heat, as if they were tired and wanted to lie down. But they couldn't lie down, although they were so much older and bigger and stronger than Marian. "I'd rather be me," thought Marian, and when she had picked a bundle of flowers she lay down in the deep grass. It was so hot that, when once they had become used to her, the stalks of the grasses stood quite still. She could see hundreds and hundreds of them, like trees in a forest, or people in church waiting for the anthem. Up in the hills it was different. There the grasses were always moving--not running about, of course, but standing in the same place and bending to and fro, to and fro. Some of them would move, so her father had once told her, as much as four miles in a single day, just as far as it was from Marian's house to the top of Fairbarrow Down. But here in the valley they weren't moving at all. They weren't even whispering. They were holding their breath; and if they were listening to anything, it was to something that a little girl couldn't hear. She stared into the sky, but it was so blue that it made her eyes ache trying to see how blue it was; and when she closed them, to give them a rest, she could see little patterns on her eyelids. Then she opened them again, and the green of the grass, as she looked between the grass blades, was cool like an ointment. "And nobody in the world," she thought, "knows where I am." She felt a sort of tickle in the middle of her stomach. "How do you do?" said a voice. Marian gave a jump. She saw a little man looking up at her. He was not even as tall as an afternoon tea-table. "What's your name?" he asked. He was very polite. He held his hat in his right hand. Marian told him her name. She wasn't a bit frightened. "What's yours?" she asked. "I'm Mr Jugg," he said. "And who are you, Mr Jugg?" she inquired. "I'm the King of the Bumpies," he replied. When Marian was puzzled there came a little straight line, exactly in the middle, between her two eyebrows. "What are bumpies?" she said. "My hat!" he gasped. "Haven't you ever heard of bumpies?" Marian shook her head. "Oh dear, oh dear!" he sighed. "Have you ever heard of angels?" "Well, of course," said Marian. "Everybody's heard of angels." "Well then, bumpies," said Mr Jugg, "are baby angels. They're called bumpies till they've learned to fly." "I see," said Marian, "but why are they called bumpies?" "Because they bump," said Mr Jugg, "not knowing how." Marian laughed. "Where do you live?" she asked. "If you'd care to come with me," he said, "I could show you." "Oh, I should love to!" said Marian. "May I?" He put on his hat and gave her his hand, and helped her to stand up with her bunch of daisies. "Come along," he said, and he took her across the field, and through a hole in the hedge into the next one. This was a smaller field with some cows in it, and the grass in it was quite short. He led her across it, and helped her over a gate into the field beyond, where the grass was shorter still. "How old are you?" he asked. "I'm seven," said Marian. "That's very young," he replied. "I'm seven million." "Good gracious!" said Marian. "And how old is Mrs Jugg?" "She's as old as I am," he said, "but she looks younger." When they came to the middle of this field he stood still and stamped with his foot three and a half times--three big stamps and a little stamp--and then the field suddenly opened. Marian saw a hole at her feet with a lot of steps in it going down, down, down. "This is where I live," he said. "You needn't be frightened. It's quite safe. I'll lead the way." He was still holding her hand, and he went down before her, a step at a time, very carefully. "Isn't it rather dark?" said Marian. "Wait till I've shut the door," he said, "and then you'll get a surprise." When both their heads were well below the ground, he tapped twice on the wall; and then the hole was shut so that they couldn't see the sky, and a most wonderful thing happened. They were at the beginning of a long passage, almost a mile long, with a lovely slope in it; and on each side of it there were hundreds of little lights, all of different colours. There were blue lights, and green lights, and yellow lights, and crimson lights, and lights of all sorts of other colours that Marian had never seen or even imagined. Both the walls and the floor of the passage were quite smooth, and just where they stood there was a little cupboard. "This is where I keep my scooter," he said. "It saves time, and there's lots of room on it for two." He opened the cupboard door and took out a scooter. "Now put your hands," he said, "on my shoulders." "Oh, what fun!" said Marian, and she suddenly noticed that he seemed to have grown taller. She climbed on to the scooter behind him. He gave it a little push and they began to glide down the passage. At first they went quite slowly, because the slope was so gentle. But soon they were going faster and faster; and presently they went so fast that all the coloured lights became two streaks of light, one on each side of them. Marian could hardly breathe. "What's going to happen at the end?" she thought. But about half-way along the passage began to go uphill again. The coloured streaks became separate lights. The scooter went slower and slower. At last it stopped just in front of a closed door, and there, in the wall, was another little cupboard. "Here we are," said Mr Jugg, putting the scooter away. "I expect they're all having tea." Then he opened the door, and Marian almost lost her breath again, for what she saw was a great long room, with lots and lots of little tables in it, and bumpies sitting on chairs round every table. Hanging from the ceiling of this room were hundreds of coloured lights just like the lights that she had seen in the passage--blue lights, and green lights, and yellow lights, and crimson lights, and lights of all sorts of other colours of which she didn't even know the name. And there was such a clamour of talking and laughing, and spoon-clinking and plate-clinking, and chair-creaking and table-creaking, that Marian could hardly hear what Mr Jugg was saying, although he was shouting in her ear. "That's my wife," he said. "That's Mrs Jugg, that lady over there, just coming toward us." Marian looked where he was pointing, and saw a stout little lady with a smiling face. She was exactly as tall as Mr Jugg, but she weighed two and a half pounds more. As for the bumpies, they were of all sorts of sizes, but they all wore the same kind of clothes--little dark green jackets over little dark green vests, little dark green knickers, and little dark green socks. Fastened to each jacket were two little hooks, one behind each shoulder--these were for their wings. But they only wore wings when they were having their flying lessons. Suddenly they all stopped talking and stared at Marian. Some of them stood on their chairs in order to see her better. She felt very shy, and began to blush. Mrs Jugg came and gave her a kiss. "This is Marian," said Mr Jugg. "Can you give her some tea?" "Why, of course I can," said Mrs Jugg, giving Marian two more kisses. "Come with me, my dear. You shall have tea at my table." She introduced Marian to all the bumpies. They gave her three cheers, and then went on with their tea, and soon Marian was having tea herself--such a tea as she had never had before, not even at her Uncle Joe's. There was bread and butter with bumpy jam on it and bumpy Devonshire cream on the top of the jam, and there was bumpy cake with bumpy cherries in it, and there were bumpy meringues, and there was bumpy honey. "Why, it's just like a birthday tea!" said Marian. "That's because it is one," said Mr Jugg. "Every tea's a birthday tea down here. There are so many bumpies, you see, that it's always somebody's birthday." "Dear me!" said Marian; "but isn't that rather a bother--I mean for you and Mrs Jugg?" Mrs Jugg gave her another meringue. "There aren't any bothers," she said, "in Heaven." "But this isn't Heaven," said Marian, "is it?" "Well, of course it is," said Mrs Jugg--"part of it." "But it's under the ground," said Marian. "Well, never mind. Heaven's everywhere, only most people don't know it." Marian was surprised, but she felt all lovely and shivery. Fancy Heaven being so near home! What a thing to be able to tell Mummy! Mrs Jugg gave her some more cake. Some of the bumpies had finished now, and were getting impatient. Presently Mr Jugg clapped his hands. Then they all stood up, and Mrs Jugg said grace, and then they all rushed toward the door. This wasn't the door by which Marian had come in, but a door that opened into another room--a great big room with even more lights in it, and hundreds of swings and all sorts of rocking-horses. In less than a minute there were bumpies upon every one of them, and two of the bumpies took charge of Marian. She had a lovely swing and a ride on a rocking-horse, and then they all began to play games. They played ring-a-ring o' roses, and bumpy in the corner, and bumpy hide-and-seek, and angel's buff; and then Mr Jugg took her into the flying school to see some of the older bumpies fly. This was like a big gymnasium, with lots and lots of pegs in it, and a pair of wings hanging from each peg; and on the floor there were great soft mattresses so that the bumpies shouldn't hurt themselves if they fell down. But the bumpies that Marian saw had almost learned to fly. They would soon be proper angels and able to fly anywhere. "And then," said Mr Jugg, "they'll be going into the upper school to learn history and geography and all about dreams and things." "Where's the upper school?" asked Marian. "Oh, it's all over the place," said Mr Jugg; "there are ever so many class-rooms, you see. And then they go to college." "And what happens then?" asked Marian. "Well, then they're able to begin to work. There's always heaps for them to do." "I see," said Marian; "and now I really think that I ought to be going home." "Perhaps you ought," said Mr Jugg. He led her back into the playroom, and then into the room where they had all had tea. The tables had been cleared now, but Mrs Jugg came toward them with a big box of bumpy chocolates. Marian took one, and Mrs Jugg kissed her and told her that she must be sure to come again. "You haven't seen half the place," she said, "nor a quarter of it. There are miles and miles of it. Have another chocolate." Then Marian thanked her and gave her a kiss, and Mr Jugg opened the door and they went into the passage. When they had come this part of the passage had been uphill, but going back, of course, it was downhill. He opened the cupboard and took out the scooter, and Marian stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders. Just as before, they began to go quite slowly, but soon they were going as fast as ever. Just as before, the coloured lights became two streaks of light, one on each side of them. But Marian knew now what was going to happen, and presently the scooter went slower and slower. At last it stopped just at the foot of the steps, and Mr Jugg put it away in the cupboard. He hit the wall twice, and there, at the top of the steps, Marian saw the hole open, and the sky above it. "Goodness me!" she said. "How late it is!" The sky was quite dark, and the stars were shining. Mr Jugg blew his nose. "Poor Mummy!" she said; "she will be so frightened." "Where do you live?" asked Mr Jugg. Marian told him. "I'd better fly you there," he said. "Half a tick." He went down the steps again, and opened the little cupboard, and came back with a pair of wings. "Now, if you can get on my back," he said, "we'll be home in half a minute." She climbed on to his shoulders, just as if she were going to ride pick-a-back, and then he gave a little jump and they were up in the air. They skimmed across the fields and down Peter Street just as fast as an express train. At Marian's door he put her down. "Which is your bedroom window?" he asked. She told him. "Now I must be saying good-night," he said. "No, I won't come in. It's against the rules for the King of the Bumpies." So he took off his hat and made her a little bow, and before she could wink almost, he had gone. Then she knocked at the door, and next moment Mummy was hugging her as tight as tight. Then Daddy came and hugged her too, and Cuthbert, who had gone to bed, looked over the landing banisters. "Where have you been?" he asked. "Why, where _haven't_ I been?" said Marian, and then she told them all about it. Cuthbert didn't believe her. But Cuthbert didn't believe anything. He was nine years old, and was beginning to learn French. But Mummy believed her, and Daddy believed her; and I'll tell you another thing that happened. Late that night, when everybody was asleep, Mr Jugg flew to Marian's window. Marian's angel--everybody has a guardian angel--was smoking a quiet cigarette on the sill outside. "Hullo!" he said; "fancy seeing you here!" He had once been a bumpy, you see, and Mr Jugg had taught him to fly. "Good evening," said Mr Jugg; "what do you think of this?" It was a little dream that he had brought for Marian. "By George!" said the angel, "that's a beauty." He slipped it very softly under Marian's pillow. She must have dreamed it too, for next morning when Mummy made her bed it wasn't there. But, alas! the loveliest dreams of all are the ones that we never remember. Like the jungle he lives in, Tiger wears a dappled skin. Foxes on the plains of snow White as their surroundings go. So do fishes lose their sight, Buried in the ocean's night, Little knowing lovely day Lies but half a mile away. For the truth is plain to see, As our haunts are, so are we; And in cities you will find Busy blind men just as blind. Long ago they lost their eyes Under bags of merchandise; And they know not there are still Angels on the window-sill. GWENDOLEN [Illustration: Monkey Island] II GWENDOLEN Living in the same town as Marian there was a little girl called Gwendolen. Marian didn't know her very well, though they went to the same school and sometimes smiled at each other in church. Her father and mother were always climbing mountains and lecturing about them afterward, so Gwendolen had to live with her aunt, who was very rich and wore a lot of rings. In many ways Gwendolen was a nice girl, but she had an exceptionally large tummy. Some people said that it was her own fault, because she was always sitting about eating marzipan. But some people said that she couldn't help her tummy, and had to eat a lot to keep it full. There were also people who said that her aunt spoiled her, being so greedy herself and always eating buttered toast. Gwendolen's aunt had a pale, proud face, deeply lined by indigestion, and she lived in a big house on the right-hand side of Bellington Square. The colour of this house was a yellowish cream, and it had two pillars in front of the front door. There were eleven steps leading up to it, and there was a boy to open it who wore twelve brass buttons. In the middle of this Square there was a sort of garden with tall iron railings all round it, and each of the people living in the Square had a key to open the gate of it. It was the tidiest garden in the whole world, and all the flowers in it stood in rows; and the people in the Square paid for a gardener to shave the grass every day. One of the reasons why the people in the Square were so rich was that they had so few children; and the children that they did have had to be very careful not to make foot-marks on the grass. Gwendolen's aunt sometimes went there when she had a headache and wanted to throw it off; and Gwendolen went there to eat marzipan and read about Princes and Princesses. She generally sat on a painted iron seat in front of a flower-bed shaped like a lozenge, and once she was sick behind a bush called _B. stenophylla_ on a tin label. One day she was sitting on this seat when she heard a curious sort of sound. At first it was rather faint, so that she didn't take much notice of it, but gradually it became louder and louder. Her aunt was sitting on the same seat wondering which of her medicines to take before dinner, and Gwendolen noticed that she began to look annoyed, because the noise was the sound of a harmonium. Some people like harmoniums, and have them in their houses, and play hymns on them on Sunday afternoons. But this was a harmonium that went on wheels, with a man to push it, and a woman walking beside him. After he had pushed it for a few yards he would sit down and play a tune on it, while the woman walked up and down, looking at people's windows and trying to catch their eye. If she saw anybody she would say "Kind lady," or "Kind gentleman," as the case might be, and perhaps the kind lady or the kind gentleman would throw her some money, and then she would say "God bless you." But people like that, with travelling harmoniums, weren't allowed to come into Bellington Square, and Gwendolen's aunt said, "Dear me, just when I wanted a little peace and quiet!" If there had been anybody near, such as a policeman or a gardener, she would have told him to send the musicians away. But it was very hot, and there was nobody about, and so the people went on playing. Gwendolen watched them for a while through the railings, and the butler at Number Ten gave the woman a sixpence. Her aunt was very angry about it when Gwendolen told her, for what was the good of making rules, she said, if you encouraged people to break them? The people with the harmonium came a little nearer, and then Gwendolen could see what they looked like. The woman was stout, with a hard brown face and rolling eyes like dark-coloured pebbles. When she smiled it was as if she had pinned it on, and as if the smile didn't really belong to her. The man had pale eyes, like those of ferrets in a hutch, and he watched the woman all the time he was playing. Gwendolen noticed that there was a long string fastened to one of the handles of the harmonium. She heard a little voice close to her knees. "Oh, Gwendolen," it said, "save me." Gwendolen looked down and saw the unhappiest little face that she had ever seen in her life. It belonged to a small brown monkey wearing a red jacket and a blue sailor hat. He was staring up at her with timid dark eyes. "I heard your aunt speak to you," he said. "So I know your name." He looked over his shoulder at the man and the woman. But the woman was looking at the houses, and the man was watching her. "What's the matter?" said Gwendolen. He was holding on to the garden railings. "Lift up my jacket," he said, "and you'll see." Gwendolen stooped down and lifted up his jacket. There were three great wounds across his back. "Oh dear!" she cried; "how did you get those?" "They beat me," he said. "They're always beating me." Gwendolen may have been lazy, and she may have been greedy, but she had a soft heart, and the monkey had seen this. "Oh, how dreadful!" she said. "But when did you learn to talk?" The monkey shivered a little. "Hush, they don't know," he replied. "I've lived with them so long that I've learned their language." "But why don't you run away?" asked Gwendolen. "How can I? They keep me on this string and beat me every night." Gwendolen thought for a moment. "Oh, Gwendolen," he said, "do save me if you can!" From where she was kneeling Gwendolen could see the woman going up the steps to one of the houses. The man was watching her as usual. Gwendolen was half hidden from them by a bush. "But there's my aunt," she said. "I don't know what my aunt would say." "Listen," said the monkey. "I could take you to a lovely island." Gwendolen frowned a little. "But I don't know," she said, "that my aunt's very fond of islands." "She would be of this," said the monkey. "What's your aunt fondest of?" Gwendolen thought for a moment. "Buttered toast," she said. "Well, it's ever so much nicer," said the monkey, "than buttered toast." Gwendolen looked at her aunt and then at the monkey, with his sad eyes and shaking limbs. There wasn't much time. In another minute the man and the woman would be moving on. Close beside her, in a little green box, she could see the tops of the handles of the gardener's shears. She took a deep breath. Then she made up her mind. "All right," she said. "I'll see what I can do." She crept to the box and took out the shears. The monkey squeezed himself through the railings. With a beating heart Gwendolen cut the string, caught up the monkey, and ran to her aunt. Her aunt looked up. "Why, what have you got here?" she asked. "He belongs to those people," said Gwendolen, "with the harmonium." "Oh, save me!" said the monkey. "Save me!" "Look what they've done to him," said Gwendolen. She lifted the monkey's jacket. Gwendolen's aunt put on her spectacles. "Dear me!" she said; "but the monkey talks!" "Yes," said Gwendolen. "He's been learning for a long time." The monkey clasped his hands and looked into Gwendolen's aunt's face. He saw deep down into her, where her good nature was. "If you let me go back to them," he said, "they'll kill me. Oh, lady dear, please help me!" Gwendolen's aunt was rather disturbed. Nothing like this had happened to her before. If she took the monkey away, people would call her a thief. But if she let him go back, perhaps he would be beaten to death. "Where do you live?" she asked. "On Monkey Island; it's the loveliest island in the world." "But how did you come here?" she said. The monkey began to tremble again. "They stole me away," he said, "from my wife and children." "Oh, Auntie," said Gwendolen, "can't we take him back there? He says it's ever so much nicer than buttered toast." Her aunt stood up. "Oh, bother the buttered toast," she said. "It's his wife and babies that I'm thinking about." Then the harmonium suddenly stopped, and they heard the man cry out. "Why, where's that monkey?" he said. He began to swear. They saw the woman run down the steps. The monkey gave a little cry and jumped into Gwendolen's aunt's arms. Then they saw the man and the woman rush toward the railings. Both their faces were dark as night. "Come on," said Gwendolen's aunt. "We'll have to run for it. Make for the gate." Fortunately, the gate was on the opposite side of the garden, and their own house was opposite the gate. The man and the woman would have to run right round the Square. "We ought to beat them," said Gwendolen's aunt. Oh, how sorry Gwendolen was then that her tummy was so large! But she ran as fast as ever she could, and almost kept up with her aunt. The man and the woman had started to run too, shouting aloud at the tops of their voices. "We shan't be safe," said her aunt, "till we've got to the island; because we shall really be thieves till we've taken the monkey home." They dashed across the grass and through the gate, and, just as they were running up their own front steps, they saw the man and the woman coming into sight round the corner of the railings. They had found a policeman, and he was running with them. "Luckily the servants are out," said Gwendolen's aunt. She was quite excited, and her eyes were shining. Gwendolen had never seen her looking so young. As soon as they were safely in the house, she shut the front door and bolted it. "That'll give us another five minutes," she said. "Run upstairs and get your hat and overcoat." Gwendolen ran upstairs, panting and puffing, and fetched her hat and overcoat and her doll David. Meanwhile her aunt ran into the study, opened her cash-box, and took out a hundred pounds. A minute later there came a thunder of knocks and two or three peals of the front-door bell. "We'll get away," said her aunt, "through the back garden." She had packed up a knapsack and slipped into a rain-coat. The knocks were repeated--rat-a-tat-_tat_. They heard angry voices shouting through the letter-box. Gwendolen's aunt laughed and shook her fist at them. "Come along," she said; "now for the back garden." From the back garden there was a little door leading into a street behind. Here there was a cab-stand, and Gwendolen's aunt told the cab-driver to drive to the station. "We shall just be in time," she said, "to catch the 3.40 train." It was only a horse-cab, but the horse galloped, and they arrived at the station just as the train came in. There was hardly a moment to take their tickets in. But the guard waited for them, and they just managed it. The engine whistled, the porter slammed the door, and the next moment they were off. The monkey, who had been hiding under Gwendolen's aunt's coat, poked his head out, and looked about him. Fortunately they had the carriage all to themselves. "Oh dear!" said Gwendolen. "How splendid!" It was an express train, and it didn't stop for an hour, and then Gwendolen's aunt thought that they had better get out. "We'll hire a motor-car," she said, "and go to Lullington Bay and find my old friend Captain Jeremy. When I was young he wanted to marry me. But I was too proud and wouldn't let him." So they got out and hired a motor-car, and drove at full speed to Lullington Bay. It was a long drive, and when they arrived at the Captain's cottage the stars were shining and the Captain was in his garden. Deep below them they could see the ocean, dark as bronze and knocking at the shore. Captain Jeremy was looking through a telescope. A stout little sailing-ship was anchored in the bay. "Why, Josina," he said--that was Gwendolen's aunt's name--"fancy seeing you here after all these years!" He was a sunburnt man with blue eyes, and Gwendolen liked him because he looked so kind. They told him what had happened, and he looked very grave. "We must be off at once," he said. "I know that man and woman." "Why, who are they?" asked Gwendolen. "Smugglers," he said. "They're two of the most dangerous people I know. Luckily my ship is all ready to sail. We'll put off at once for Monkey Island." The Captain lived alone. He had never been married. So he had only to lock up his cottage and put the key in his pocket. "We ought to get there," he said, "in a couple of months' time if the wind holds fair." It was the first time that Gwendolen had been on the sea, and for two or three days she was rather sea-sick. But after that she began to enjoy the voyage and the smell of the spray and the sight of the waves. It was lovely weather, and as they drew near the equator a great yellow moon shone on them all night. It was so hot that she hardly wore any clothes, and used to go barefooted just like the sailors; and she grew so brown and so graceful that she scarcely looked like the same girl. As for her tummy--well, there was no marzipan on board, and she soon began to lose all her love for it. She would ever so much rather be up in the rigging with David her doll and Captain Jeremy's telescope. One day she suddenly noticed a sort of little cloud on the horizon. But it didn't move, and as the ship drew nearer she saw that the cloud was really an island. She called to the monkey, and he ran up the rigging beside her, and after one look he could hardly contain himself. "That's the island," he cried, "my beautiful island, with my wife on it and my children." Presently they came so close that they could see the golden sand and the tall trees with their clusters of fruit; and soon the ship was anchored, and Captain Jeremy gave orders for a boat to be lowered. Captain Jeremy himself, with two of his sailors, and Gwendolen, and Gwendolen's aunt all got into it; and in another five minutes they were standing on dry land again, with the happy monkey dancing beside them. Captain Jeremy and the sailors stayed by the boat, but Gwendolen and her aunt and the monkey began to explore the island. There were flowers everywhere, not planted in rows like the flowers in Bellington Square, but growing where they liked, and rejoicing in their freedom and praising God with their beautiful colours. Some of the trees were smooth, with curious flat leaves and knobbly brown berries that tasted like buttered toast. But Gwendolen's aunt had made a resolve to give up eating buttered toast. Since she had helped Gwendolen to rescue the monkey all her indigestion had disappeared; and she felt as fresh, and looked as pretty, as if she were only half her age. Some of the trees were different, with twisted trunks, and pale red blossoms dripping with juice; and this juice tasted like marzipan, but Gwendolen had resolved to give up marzipan. But it was a lovelier island than they had ever imagined, and soon the little monkey gave a cry of joy, and the next moment he was hugging in his arms another little monkey that had dashed to meet him. It was his wife, and just behind her there were two smaller monkeys waiting to be kissed; and Gwendolen and her aunt could almost have cried to see how happy they all were. For nearly a month they stayed at the island, sleeping on board, but landing every morning; and Gwendolen learned to swim almost as well as a fish and to climb trees almost as well as a monkey. But Captain Jeremy wasn't really happy until a big steamer happened to come by with news that the man and the woman had been drowned in a storm on their way to try and catch Gwendolen and her aunt. It was now October, and by the time that they arrived home Gwendolen would have been away from school for a term and a half. So they said good-bye to the monkey and his family, and set sail from the island. Gwendolen cried a little, and so did her aunt; but on the way home an odd thing happened, for Captain Jeremy asked her aunt to marry him, and they had to think a lot about the wedding. They decided to get married on Christmas Day, and when Gwendolen's school-friends saw her as a bridesmaid she had grown so tall and straight and happy-looking that they wondered what on earth could possibly have happened to her. "Sailor, sailor, What's the song That you sing The whole day long?" And the sailor Said to me: "Birth's the jetty, Time's the sea, "Death's the harbour, Life's the trip, Hope's the pilot, You're the ship." "Sailor, sailor, Tell me true, What's beyond Those waters blue?" But the sailor Shook his head; "That's a secret, Sir," he said. THE LITTLE ICE-MEN [Illustration: Cuthbert and Doris] III THE LITTLE ICE-MEN Marian's daddy was very glad when Captain Jeremy married Gwendolen's aunt, because he and Captain Jeremy had been boys at school together, and he had always been very fond of him; and he was gladder still when Captain Jeremy and Gwendolen's aunt left Bellington Square. This they did a week after the wedding, because Captain Jeremy hated Bellington Square; and they went to live in an old farmhouse, two miles out of the town. It was a beautiful old house, with a gabled roof and golden-red bricks like a winter sunset; and the hall and passages of it were dark and velvety, and the rooms upstairs smelt of lavender. Leading from the road to the front door was a cobbly path, with lawns on each side of it, and big trees standing on the lawns, with low-spreading branches that touched the grass. Behind the house was a kitchen-garden full of cucumber-frames and vegetables, and behind that was an orchard, with a gate leading into the fields. These were all hard and crinkly with frost, and the fruit-trees were bare, because it was the second of January, but that made the house seem all the snugger, with its low panelled walls and log fires. When they had been in this house a week, Gwendolen's aunt gave a children's party, and Marian and Cuthbert were asked to go, because their daddy was Captain Jeremy's friend. Marian was very pleased, because she had always liked Gwendolen, although she had never known her very well, but Cuthbert said that he didn't like her and that he'd rather stay at home. Marian told him how much she had improved since her voyage to Monkey Island, but Cuthbert said that he didn't care, and that she was a silly sort of girl anyhow. He was only pretending, however, because just after Christmas he had been in hospital having his tonsils out, and he had already missed two or three parties and didn't mean to miss another. So they went to the party, and Cuthbert was rather glad, because one of the girls there was a girl called Doris, who had been in hospital having her tonsils out just at the same time as he. She was rather a decent girl, ten years old, with dark-coloured eyes and brown hair, and one of her thumbs was double-jointed, and she had been eight times to the seaside. Just at present she was a little pale, and so was Cuthbert himself; and Gwendolen was so brown that, when they stood near her, they looked paler still. Captain Jeremy came and shook hands with them. "Hullo," he said, "what's the matter with you?" "It's their tonsils," said Marian. "They've just had them out, and of course they're a little pulled down." Captain Jeremy examined them thoughtfully. Cuthbert liked him, and so did Doris. "What you want," he said, "is a trip with me. That would soon set you up again." Gwendolen and Marian had gone off to play, so Cuthbert and Doris had him to themselves. "I should like it very much," said Cuthbert. "So should I," said Doris, "but I'm afraid Mummy wouldn't let me go." "I see," said the Captain. "Well, I'm off next week to Port Jacobson in the Arctic Circle. But you wouldn't be able to go to school next term if you came with me, because I shan't be back till the middle of May." Cuthbert put his hand up and pinched his throat. "It's still rather sore," he said. "So is mine," said Doris. Captain Jeremy laughed. "Well, there's nothing like the Arctic Circle," he said, "for people who've just had their tonsils out." Then he spoke to Doris. "Let me see," he said: "I know where Cuthbert lives, but where do you live?" Doris told him that she lived in John Street, which was the next street to Cuthbert's. Her father was dead, and her mummy was rather poor, as she had five other children besides Doris. Captain Jeremy nodded. "Then perhaps I shall be able to persuade her," he said, "to let me take you off her hands for a bit." Doris danced up and down. "Oh, I wish you would!" she cried. "I'd simply love to see the Arctic Circle!" "So should I," said Cuthbert, and they were both so excited that they could hardly eat any tea. When Marian heard about it, she wished that she was pale too, and she wished it ever so much more the next morning when Captain Jeremy called on her father and mother and persuaded them to let Cuthbert go. Then he went to John Street and talked to Doris's mother, and he looked so commanding and yet so gentle that Doris's mother said she would be very glad to let Doris go with him to Port Jacobson. "Of course, it'll be very cold," he said, "and they'll have to wear furs, but we can easily get those when we arrive, and all they'll want for the voyage is plenty of underclothing and their oldest clothes." For a voyage like that, all among the ice, Captain Jeremy's sailing-ship wasn't quite suitable, so he had hired a little steamer with very thick sides, and a trusty pilot. Port Jacobson was in a sort of bay just under the shelter of Cape Fury, and beyond Cape Fury the coast had hardly been explored, it was all so bare and bleak and rocky. The only people who lived there were a few fishermen, a clergyman called Mr Smith, and a couple of engineers, who had been there for a year and had just found a coal-mine. It was the engineers who had written to Captain Jeremy, because they wanted him to bring them some machinery, and also because they wanted him to take back some of the coal that they had already dug up. That was how Captain Jeremy made his living, fetching and carrying things across the sea. Neither Cuthbert nor Doris was the least bit sea-sick, and they loved to stand on the bridge beside Captain Jeremy and see the great billows rushing toward the steamer, one after another, in the bright sunshine. Sometimes they went below into the dark engine-room, where they had to shout to make themselves heard, and where the pistons of the engines slid to and fro like the arms of boxers that never got tired. How they loved the cabin, too, at meal-times, when the cook rolled in with the steaming dishes, and what meals they ate, in spite of the lurching table and the water slamming against the port-holes! In a couple of days' time they had forgotten all about their tonsils, and two days after that they had almost forgotten their homes, and a week later they saw something in the distance like the grey ghost of a cathedral. It was an iceberg--the first that they had seen; but soon they began to see them every day, sometimes pale, in mournful groups, like broken statues in a cemetery, and sometimes sparkling in the sun as though they were crusted with a million diamonds. One day they came on deck just after breakfast and saw miles and miles of ice, all jumbled together, and three hours later they saw a great cliff, covered with snow, standing out to sea. That was Cape Fury, and as they drew nearer they could see a little cluster of dark houses, with spires of smoke rising from their chimneys, and that was Port Jacobson. The pilot was on deck now, shouting all the time, and the steamer was going very slowly, with ice on each side of it, and they could see some men coming toward them, with rough-haired dogs pulling sledges. At last the steamer could get no farther, although it was still about a mile from the town, and they cast out anchors and a long cable that they began to carry toward the shore. It seemed very funny to Cuthbert and Doris to feel their feet again on something steady, even though this was only the rough surface of the frozen bay in front of the port. The days were so short here that the sun was already low, and the great cape stood dark and menacing, while far inland they could see the peaks of mountains slowly fading against the sky. Among the men who had come to meet them were the two engineers and Mr Smith, and they were very surprised to see Cuthbert and Doris running about on the ice and trying to make snowballs. Then they all set off toward the little town, with the lights shining in its windows, and Mr Smith said that they must stay with him, because he and Mrs Smith had no children. Captain Jeremy was to stay with the two engineers, who had built a little house of their own, but they all came in to supper with the Smiths, and Cuthbert and Doris were allowed to sit up. "To-morrow," said Mr Smith, "we'll get you some furs, and then you'll be able to go tobogganing with the other children," and Cuthbert and Doris said "Hooray!" because they had learned to toboggan on Fairbarrow Down. Just before they went to bed they saw a wonderful thing, for the whole of the sky began to quiver, and beautiful colours went dancing across it, melting away and then coming back again. These were the Northern Lights, or the Aurora Borealis, and Cuthbert and Doris could have watched them all night. But they soon fell asleep; and most of the next day they were out tobogganing with the other children, and they soon became so good at it that they could go as fast as any of them, and hardly ever had a spill. By the end of the week they had got into the habit of climbing on to the top of Cape Fury and tobogganing back again, more than a mile and a half, right down to Mr Smith's house. The first time they climbed up there the slope had looked so steep, and the roofs of the houses so far below them, that they had stood for nearly ten minutes before they could make up their minds to start. But some of the other children had done it, and at last Doris had said, "Well, come on, Cuthbert, we mustn't be afraid," and Cuthbert had told her to hold on tight, and so they had pushed off over the frozen snow. By the time they had got half-way, they were going so fast that the air was roaring in their ears, but the track was straight, and they had kept in the middle of it, and ran safely into the town. After that it didn't seem worth while to go tobogganing on any of the lower hills, and that was how it came about that the following Wednesday they found themselves as usual on the top of Cape Fury. It was a still, cold day, and the air was so clear that they could see the coast for miles and miles, and the tops of mountains far inland that they had never seen before. Below them in the bay, stuck in the ice, they could see the little steamer, with the sailors on the deck, and beyond the ice a strip of blue water, and beyond that again more ice still. That was on one side of them, and on the other they saw the farther slope of Cape Fury, slanting down and down and down to the unexplored regions toward the north. It was a gentler slope than the slope toward the town, and suddenly Cuthbert had a great idea. "I say," he said, "why shouldn't we toboggan down there? I don't suppose anybody has ever done it." What with the wind and the sun and the snow, the cheeks of both of them were like ripe chestnuts, and Doris's eyes began to sparkle as she listened to Cuthbert's great idea. When he was at home Cuthbert didn't get many ideas, and he generally used to laugh at other people's, so he was very pleased when he got this one and Doris said that she thought it ripping. "We won't go too fast," he said, "so that, if we see a precipice or anything, we shall be able to stop ourselves in time." They had a stout little toboggan, just big enough for two, and so they started off down this new slope, with the sun shining and the snow glittering. At first they moved quite slowly, but lower down the side of the hill became steeper, and soon they were going so fast that, even if they had wanted to, they would have found it pretty hard to stop themselves. And then an awful thing happened, for suddenly, just in front of them, they saw a deep cleft in the snow sliding down, at a terrific angle, into a sort of tunnel under the hillside. Almost before they could breathe, they had plunged into this, and now there was nothing to do but to hold on. They saw the tunnel's mouth leaping toward them, and the next moment they were in darkness. Neither Cuthbert nor Doris had ever been so frightened before. In the pitchy blackness they could see nothing. They could only feel themselves shooting deeper and deeper into the very heart of the frozen earth. Sometimes a bump on the floor of the tunnel would send them careering toward the roof, and then they would come down again with a thud that almost pitched them off the toboggan. Every moment they expected to be killed. There came another tremendous bump. And then they felt their toboggan springing through the air and dropping like a stone into some fearful well. They shut their eyes, waiting for death, and then went rolling over and over, with something strange and soft and feathery wrapping them round like a bedroom quilt. For a minute or two they could only gasp, and then Cuthbert sat up and called to Doris. "Hullo, Doris!" he said; "are you all right?" "Yes, I think so," said Doris. "Are you?" Cuthbert told her that he was; and now that they could look about, they saw that they were on the floor of an immense cave, and that they had pitched down from somewhere near the top of it on to a huge mass of feathers. These were evidently the feathers of thousands and thousands of sea-birds; but who could have plucked them and stored them here so carefully? Then they heard a strange sort of coughing and grunting and spluttering, and they saw the oddest of little men. He was about three feet high, with a red beard and a very cheerful sort of face, and he had evidently been asleep in among the feathers, for he was rubbing his eyes and staring at them in astonishment. Then they heard some more grunting and coughing, and at last they saw a dozen of these little men standing all round them, dressed in the skins of animals, and with feathers sticking to their beards. They were all looking rather disturbed, but when Cuthbert and Doris smiled they began to smile too and come toward them. Then they began to talk, and, though at first the sounds that they made seemed very queer, Cuthbert and Doris, rather to their surprise, found that they could understand them perfectly well. That was because the language in which the little men spoke was the oldest language in the world, the father and mother of all the other languages, and so of course the children soon understood it. They also found that in a very little while they could talk in this language themselves, and soon they were all chattering together about what had happened, as if they had known each other all their lives. Now that they had become used to the dim light, they could see that this great cave had walls of rock, with long icicles hanging from the roof and the sticking-out pieces of the walls. Most of the floor of it was of smooth ice, but in the middle there was a flat rock; and on this rock there was a little fire burning, a little fire made of coal. The leader of the men was a man called Marmaduke, and he told the children that they had all been asleep, and that they had lived in this cave for hundreds of thousands of years, and that the great pile of feathers was where they went to bed. "But it's day-time," said Cuthbert. "Why do you go to bed in day-time?" Marmaduke laughed, and so did all the other men. "Because at night," he said, "we go out and hunt to get our wolf-and seal-meat, when no one can see us." But they were all so excited at the appearance of Cuthbert and Doris that they led them to the fire, where they sat and talked to them, and presently they cooked a delicious meal for them of seal-soup and wolf-chops. The coal that they burnt they had found in a deep hole in one corner of the cave, and at the other corner there was a little crack, down which they presently led the children. This opened upon a ledge of ice, five or six feet above the shore, but now they could hardly see anything, because the air was full of snow, driving fiercely into their faces. The little ice-men looked grave. "It's a blizzard," they said, "and very likely it'll go on for a week. But luckily we've got plenty of meat, so that we shan't be in want of food." "But how shall we get back?" said Doris. "They won't know where we are, and they'll think that we're both dead." Marmaduke shook his head. "I don't exactly know," he replied, "how you'd get back in any case. You could never climb up the way you came, and it's very difficult to get round the coast." "But we'll have to get back somehow," said Cuthbert, "because of our relations at home." Marmaduke looked puzzled. "What are relations?" he said. "And why should you want to go back?" So Cuthbert had to tell them all about his father and mother and his Uncle Joe and his sister Marian; and Doris had to tell them all about her mummy and her five little brothers and her aunts and cousins. They were very interested, but it was quite clear that Cuthbert and Doris couldn't leave that night; and so presently they crept in among the feathers, and were soon very comfy and fast asleep. The next morning it was still snowing, but it was rather fun helping to cook the meals, and the little men showed them some lovely dances that were almost as old as the world itself. For a whole week they had to stay in the cave, with the blizzard raging outside, but one morning when they crept down the crack they found the sky clear and the sun shining. They could now see, towering straight above them, tremendous precipices of rock, and miles of boulders and broken ice, stretching out toward the horizon. "Our only hope," said Cuthbert, "is that Captain Jeremy and some of the fishermen will come exploring for us," and just as he said that far in the distance they heard the report of a gun. Then a long way off they saw some little figures and a tiny sledge drawn by dogs; and they stood on tiptoe and waved and waved, hoping that Captain Jeremy might see them through his telescope. The little ice-men never came out by daylight, and when they heard what the children had seen they made them promise on their dying oath not to tell anybody the way to the cave. Once before, they said, a learned man had discovered them, and he had tried to measure them with a pair of compasses, so they had had to kill him, as gently as they could, by putting him in the middle of the pile of feathers. Then they said good-bye, and all the little men kissed them and sent their love to everybody at home, and Cuthbert and Doris began to scramble over the ice toward the sledge-party that was now much nearer. When Captain Jeremy met them, you can guess how pleased he was, because he had made up his mind that they must have been killed; and good Mr Smith had tears in his eyes, but they were tears of joy. Everybody at Port Jacobson, too, was so pleased that they made a big bonfire to celebrate the occasion, and they all drank the healths of the little ice-men and ate a lot of sweets in their honour. When the children arrived home, however, early in May, and Cuthbert told Marian all about them, she said at first that she wouldn't believe in them, because Cuthbert hadn't believed in Mr Jugg. But Cuthbert had grown wiser and less conceited, and he told Marian that he had changed his mind. So Marian believed in them, and her daddy was rather pleased, because there were more things under the earth, he said, than most people imagined. Not a twig that learned to climb In the babyhood of time, Not a bud that broke the air In the days before men were, Not a bird that tossed in flight Ere the first man walked upright, Nor a bee with craftier cell Than a Roman citadel, But, with all its pride and pain, Into dust crept back again. Oh, what wisdom there must be Hidden in the earth and me! UNCLE JOE'S STORY [Illustration: Bella at Eden] IV UNCLE JOE'S STORY Marian's mummy used to read the Bible to her, so that she knew all about Adam and Eve; but she never knew that Eve had a little daughter until Uncle Joe told her this story. Next to her mummy and daddy, Marian loved Uncle Joe better than anybody in the whole world. He lived in a little house tucked into a sort of dimple on the side of Fairbarrow Down, and a man called Mr Parker lived with him and helped to keep the place tidy. Uncle Joe had been a soldier in a lot of queer countries a long way off; and when Marian and Cuthbert asked him what he had fought for, he generally used to tell them that it was for lost causes. In between wars he had done lots of other things, such as trying to find out what caused diseases, or whether plants that grew in some places could be made to grow in others. Mr Parker had been a soldier too--a soldier of misfortune, he used to say--and he had saved Uncle Joe's life three times, and Uncle Joe had saved his life twice. Uncle Joe's face was yellowish brown, because he had been in the sun so much and had fever; but Mr Parker's face was red, and one of his eyes was made of glass. Mr Parker used to call himself a lone, lorn orphan, though he was much fatter than Uncle Joe, and afterward he used to spit and say that it was rough weather in the Baltic. It was about a fortnight after Cuthbert and Doris had come back from the Arctic Circle that Uncle Joe told Marian this story, while they were sitting under one of his apple-trees. Some of the apple-petals had begun to drop, leaving the tiny, weeny, baby apples behind them, and the only really ripe apples in Uncle Joe's garden were the two apples in Marian's cheeks. "But those aren't real apples," said Marian. "Well, it all depends," said Uncle Joe, "on what you mean by real." "You see," said Mr Parker, who had just come out to mow the lawn, "there's more kinds of apples than a few. There's eating apples and cooking apples and pineapples and crab-apples; and there's oak-apples and Adam's apples and the apples what you sees in little girls' cheeks." "Kissing apples," said Uncle Joe. "They're one of the most important kinds." He began to fill his pipe. "And now that I come to think of it," he said, "they're one of the oldest kinds too." "As old as Mr Jugg," asked Marian, "or the little ice-men?" "Well," said Uncle Joe, "I don't know about that. But they're certainly as old as Eve's little girl," and then he began to tell Marian all about her. "I'm not quite sure," he said, "what her name was. It might have been Gretchen or Olga, or it might have been Seraphine or Marie-Louise, but I rather think that it was Bella. Of course you remember what happened in the Garden of Eden, and how Adam and Eve had to leave it, not because the good Lord God wanted to turn them out, but because He knew that they could never be happy there any more. Every hour that they stayed they would have become more and more miserable; and if they had come back it would have broken their hearts, so He had to put two angels to guard the gate. You see, He had wanted them to be sort of grown-up babies in the loveliest nursery ever imagined, and to be able to go there and play games with them whenever He was tired of ruling the universe. But when once they had heard about growing up, and choosing for themselves, and things of that sort, they could never have been babies any more, and it would have been cruel to keep them in the nursery. "Of course, they didn't understand that, and they thought it very hard, and very often they used to grumble; and when they had learned to write they used to send Him angry letters and say bad things about Him in books. That was chiefly because they had to work and learn to look after themselves; but that was the only way, as the good Lord God saw, in which they could ever be happy again. 'They weren't content,' He thought, 'just to be My playthings, so now they must learn to be My comrades; and perhaps in the end that'll be the best for everybody, though it'll be a long, long time before they've learnt how.' And then He sighed as He saw the empty nursery and all the animals that they used to play with, just as fathers and mothers sigh now when their babies grow up and have to go to school. So Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden, and just outside it there was a big town, full of houses and factories and chimneys, and men and women who worked all day long. Who were those men and women, and where did they come from? Well, it's rather hard to explain. You see, Adam and Eve, through never having grown up, had been in the Garden for thousands and thousands of years. But outside the Garden there were seas and deserts and thick, hot jungles full of wild animals. Some of these animals had looked through the railings and been very struck with Adam and Eve, and sort of wished in the bottoms of their hearts that they could have children just like them. Some of them wished so hard that their next lot of children actually did become a little like them, and their grandchildren became liker still, and at last their great-great-grandchildren became real men and women. Of course they weren't Garden men and women, like Adam and Eve; they were just jungle men and women, running wild. "Well, after thousands of years these jungle men and women became so clever that they cleared away the jungle, and then they dug fields and planted hedges and sowed corn and built towns; and those were the people that Adam and Eve found when they left the Garden and began to look for work. Later on Adam and Eve's children married the children of the jungle people; so that now all the people in the world are half Garden and half jungle." "Even clergymen?" asked Marian. Uncle Joe nodded. "Yes, and policemen and postmen too." "And lone, lorn orphans," said Mr Parker, "and the man what comes to mend the bath." "But that's jumping forward," said Uncle Joe, "a long time, for when Adam and Eve left the Garden they didn't even know what children were, and their hearts were full of bitterness against the good Lord God. That was one of the reasons why He thought it would be so nice for them to have a little girl of their own, because then in time they might begin to guess, He thought, something of what He felt toward themselves. "So about a year after they had left the Garden little Bella was born, and they both thought that she was the loveliest baby that had ever been seen since the world began. Poor Adam and Eve were then living in a dark street on the outskirts of the town, and all that they could afford was one room on the top floor at the back. "Adam had got work at one of the factories where they made boots and shoes, but he was only a beginner, of course, and hadn't learnt much, and so his wages were very small. Sometimes Eve took in a little washing, or got a job from somebody of darning socks, but she did her best to keep their home tidy and some fresh flowers on the mantelpiece. Every day, too, she put crumbs on the window-sill, and soon she had made friends with the birds that came and ate them, and sometimes a bird would fly from the Garden, and feed from her hand, and tell her the news. Both Adam and Eve, you see, knew the birds' language through having lived with them for so long. But they were never able to teach it to their children, and since they died no one has ever learnt it. "Soon after Bella was born Adam got a rise in wages, but soon after that Eve had another baby; and then she had some more, and though they rented another room or two they were always poor and often hungry. But after a while they began to think less often of their old life in the Garden of Eden, and sometimes they would even wonder whether they would go back there if the good Lord God gave them the chance. You see, in spite of their poverty and their hard work and the noise and smells of the great town, they had learnt what it meant to have children, and to bend over their cots and kiss them good-night. "When Bella was eight she was rather a fat little girl, with dark eyes and an impudent mouth, and she wore her hair in a long pigtail, and her nose was ever so slightly turned up. Adam and Eve thought that she was very beautiful, but everybody else thought her quite ordinary, and she spent most of her time in the streets, though she was always punctual for meals. She had lots of friends, most of them boys, but every now and then she would get tired of them all; and those were the times when she would go exploring and generally end up by hurting herself. Eve was too busy ever to bother much about what Bella did or where she went, and the Garden of Eden was the only place that she had strictly forbidden her to go near. It was one of the rules, of course, that nobody was to go near it, and there were angels at the gate with swords of flame; and this was a rule, Eve thought, that it would be very much worse for one of _her_ children to break than for anybody else. "So she had always told Bella never even to go up the street that led into the fields just outside the Garden; and if Bella hadn't been feeling bored on this particular day--it was just a week after her birthday--and if it hadn't been so hot, and the sun so scorching, and the streets so dusty, and everybody so cross, and if Bella hadn't been inquisitive just like her mother used to be, and if she hadn't sort of happened to be walking up that street, and if the fields at the end of it hadn't seemed so cool and so inviting, and if Bobby Gee, who was a great friend of hers, hadn't dared her to do it--well, there's no saying, but perhaps after all Bella wouldn't have stood looking at those dreadful gates. "There was now only a strip of grass between her and the Garden, and she could see it stretched there beyond the railings. It was the middle of the afternoon, and so heavy was the sunshine that the leaves of the trees were all pressed down by it. None of them stirred. There was no sound. The lawns beneath them looked like wax. And where were the angels? Bella held her breath. There were none to be seen. There were only the sentry-boxes. "Very cautiously she took a step or two forward. Her bare feet made no noise. The bars of the gate quivered in the heat. Then she stopped again and listened. At first she heard nothing, but then, very, very faint, there came to her ears the ghost of a sound. It came and died, and came and died, like the waves of a sea hundreds of miles off. She crept nearer and listened again, and now there were two sounds, rising and falling. They came from the sentry-boxes, one on each side of the gate. The angels inside were fast asleep. Bella bit her lip and crept forward. She could feel her heart jumping like a mouse in a cage. The scents of the Garden came to meet her. She could see its curved and vanishing pathways. "But what caught her eyes and made them grow round was a bending tree just inside the gate. With her hands on the bars she stood looking at it, and presently her mouth began to water. For from every branch of it there hung such apples as she had never seen in all her life, and from the lowest bough there hung an apple that was the biggest and most beautiful of them all. And then another thing happened, for as she pressed against the bars the great gate began to move. Very slowly it swung open, and still the angels were fast asleep. Her heart was beating now like two clocks at once--what an apple it would be to eat! A bright-coloured bird hopped across the grass, and stood looking up at her with an inquiring eye. She glanced round about her and over her shoulder, but there was nobody in sight. Dared she go in? She thought about the rules, and what her mother had said, and then she remembered Bobby Gee. The angels were still breathing lightly and regularly. The bright-coloured bird had flown away. "Then she took a bold step and went into the Garden and tiptoed softly up to the tree. The apple was so ripe that it was nearly ready to drop, and it was just on a level with the tip of her nose. It smelt like honey, and when she touched it it was as cool as marble. Then she touched it again, and caught hold of it, and somehow or other it came off the tree. She lifted it to her lips, and it felt like a kiss; and then a Voice behind her said-- "'Well?' "She jumped round, almost dropping the apple. It was the good Lord God who stood looking at her. "'What are you doing?' "She hid the apple behind her, but His eyes shone through her, like light through a window. She hung her head. "'Are you Eve's little girl?' He asked. "Bella nodded. She couldn't say a word. "'I thought you must be,' He said. He put His finger under her chin. There came a sound like the rushing of a great wind. The two angels had heard His voice, and drawn their swords, and leapt into the Garden. In another moment, Bella thought, they would have killed her. But the good Lord God held up His hand. The two angels stood one on each side of Him, leaning on their swords and looking rather downcast. Bella held out her hand. The good Lord God bent forward and took the apple away from her. "'Well, what excuse have you,' He said, 'for stealing My apples?' "Bella considered for a moment. Then she thought of one. "'Please, sir, mother did it. She told me so.' "'But you knew the rules,' said the good Lord God. "Bella hung her head again. She knew them quite well. "'And the rules must be obeyed,' He said. "Bella began to tremble. "There was a moment's silence. The two angels stood like statues, still leaning on their swords. Then the good Lord God spoke again. "'Look at Me,' He said. "Bella lifted her eyes and saw the World without End. He gave her back the apple. "'Well, you may keep it,' He went on, 'on condition that you give half of it to Bobby Gee.' "Bella said, 'Thank you, sir.' "'But that's not all,' He continued. "He bent forward and touched her cheeks. "'For I hereby ordain,' He said, 'that now and for ever every little girl and every little boy shall wear apples in their cheeks in remembrance of what you have done. They shall be known as the brand of Eden--the brand of Eden for little thieves--and their parents must see to it, on pain of My displeasure, that they shall never be allowed to fade away.' "Then He bent still lower and gave Bella a kiss, and the tall angels led her outside the gate; and that's why it is that the apples in little girls' cheeks are almost the oldest kind in the world." Uncle Joe lit his pipe. From where they were sitting they could see the country for miles and miles. Down below them the town looked quite small, and the spire of St Peter's Church just like a toy spire. Far behind it, beyond the level cornlands, the sun was dropping into the evening mists. It grew rosier and rosier, until it almost looked like an apple itself. Mr Parker winked at Marian. "Rough weather," he said, "in the Baltic." Then he spat in his hands and rubbed them together. "Well, I must be getting along," he said, "with this here lawn-mowing." Eden had an apple-tree, Eve a little daughter, Tried to do as mother did, But the Good Lord caught her. "Wherefore 'tis ordained," He said, "Here and in all places, Children shall henceforward wear Apples in their faces." BEARDY NED [Illustration: Beardy Ned's Fire] V BEARDY NED Near Uncle Joe's house there was a small pool which was really the beginning of a river; and this river ran into a bigger one that flowed through the town in which Marian and Cuthbert lived. The big river was rather muddy, but the little one was nearly always clear, and it was quite easy to paddle across it, though there were some pools in it six feet deep. Up in the downs, where it began, it was hardly more than a bubbly trickle, but lower down it grew wider and wider, and ran between the reeds at the edges of the meadows. Close to Captain Jeremy's farmhouse, where it joined the big river that flowed through the town, it ran for almost a quarter of a mile through the middle of a sort of wood. It was under the roots of some of these trees, as they pushed through the water into the soil beneath, that the biggest of the trout had their nests, where fishermen with flies couldn't reach them. But there were some big trout, too, that lived under the meadow banks, and used to put up their noses in the summer evenings, and suck down the flies that fell on the water when they were tired of dancing in the air. Cuthbert and Marian and Doris and Gwendolen were all very fond of this river, and when they had finished paddling or bathing in the pools (for they had all learnt to swim) they used to lie on the bank and keep very still and watch the trout having their evening meal. They would see an orange-coloured fly or a blue fly or a fly with pale wings like a distant rain-cloud floating down on the top of the water and probably wondering where it had got to; and then they would hear a little noise like grown-up people make with the tips of their tongues against the roofs of their mouths; and then the fly would be gone, and there would be a tiny wave on the water, shaped like a ring, and growing bigger and bigger. That meant that a trout had been lying in wait, with his eye cocked on the surface of the stream, and had seen the fly, and liked the look of him, and suddenly decided to swallow him up. Sometimes a fisherman would come quietly along and kneel down on one knee, and, after he had seen a trout rise, would open a little box and take out a fly like the one that the trout had eaten. But this would be a sham fly, made of feathers and silk, cunningly tied round a sharp hook, and he would thread it on to a piece of gut so thin that they could hardly see it. Then he would tie the gut to a sort of string that was hanging down from the point of his fishing-rod; and then he would swish his rod until the fly flew out straight and fell upon the stream, just as the real one had done. Sometimes they could see a trout come up and look at this fly and shake his head, and go down again; but once or twice they had seen a big trout rise and swallow it just as if it had been a real one. Then the trout had found himself caught, and they had seen the fisherman's rod bent almost double as the trout dashed to and fro; and at last they had seen the fisherman slip a net into the water, and lift the trout on to the bank, all curved and shining. But very often there would be no fishermen at all, and they would see nobody for hours and hours, and hear nothing but the cries of the river-birds and the suck, suck, of the feeding trout. The man that they saw most often was a man called Beardy Ned, because, though he was only a youngish man, he had a sandy-coloured beard; and they were always very sorry for him, because he had lost his wife in a terrible railway accident soon after he had married her. She had left him with a little girl only ten months old, and that was why Ned had let his beard grow. He hadn't time, he said, to look after the little girl and shave his face every day as well. When he had married, Ned had been a postman, but after his wife had been killed he had given that up; and he had wandered about ever since, doing all sorts of odd jobs. Sometimes he helped the farmers get their hay in, or the gamekeepers trap stoats, and sometimes he would chop wood, and sometimes he would go far away and not come back for weeks and weeks. But wherever he went he would take his little girl, whom he had called Liz after her mother; and sooner or later he would always come back to this river, because that was where he had first met his dead wife. He had lived so much in the open air that his skin was as dark as a Red Indian's, and when he laughed his teeth were like snow, and his eyes like the sea on a sunny day. People like clergymen and large employers often used to tell him that he ought to settle down. But why should he settle down, he asked, so long as there was only Liz, and she could sleep in his arms as snug as snug? Liz was four years old now, and as brown as her father, and her hair was short and curly like a boy's; and Cuthbert and Marian and Doris and Gwendolen loved her almost as much as they loved Beardy Ned. For Beardy Ned, in spite of his great trouble, was always full of a secret happiness, and he had made this little song out of his own head that he used to sing every two or three hours: The wickedest girl there was, The wickedest girl there is, The wickedest girl there ever will be Is my young daughter Liz. He only meant it in fun, of course, and when Liz was running about he would shout it at the top of his voice, but when she was sleepy he would only croon it until her eyelids began to drop. Of course Cuthbert couldn't always be bothered to go up the river with the girls, and on the same evening that Uncle Joe told Marian about the apples he went by himself to have a bathe in a big pool called Kingfisher Pool. It was still only May, so that the water was cold, but the air above it was warm and still, and he was lying on the bank without anything on, when he suddenly heard a splash and a gurgling cry. He sat bolt upright, and then, looking across the pool, he saw a little form struggling in the deep water, and rolling over in it, head downward, and then beginning to slip out of sight. It was Liz, with all her clothes on. She had evidently slipped down the steep bank, and if Cuthbert couldn't save her she would be sure to drown, because Beardy Ned was nowhere in sight. It was so awful to see her that at first Cuthbert couldn't move; but a moment later he was in the water and swimming across the pool as fast as he could, and faster than he had ever swum before. He prayed to God that he might be in time. The pool had never looked so wide. But at last he had swum across it and made a grab at a piece of Liz's frock just under the surface. He pulled this hard, and tried to go on swimming with his other arm and both legs; and then it was only a second or two before his toes touched the bottom of the river, and he was able to stand up and lift her out of the pool. She was quite pale, and the water was pouring from her mouth, and her eyes were staring as if they couldn't see anything. He scrambled up the bank, grazing his knees, and then she began to choke and take deep breaths. Just then, too, Beardy Ned came crashing through the reeds with great strides, for Cuthbert had shouted as loud as he could just before he plunged into the pool. Ned's face had turned grey, and there was a look in his eyes that made Cuthbert feel almost frightened. But when he saw Liz sitting up and crying he gave a shout and caught her in his arms. Then he gripped Cuthbert by the wrist, and Cuthbert could feel that he was shaking all over; and then Beardy Ned began to cry too, so that Cuthbert had to look the other way. But next moment both he and Liz were laughing, and Cuthbert swam back again to put on his clothes; and then he crossed the river upon a plank lower down, where he found Beardy Ned and Liz waiting for him. Beardy Ned took him by the shoulder. "Come along," he said, "and have supper with us." He was carrying Liz, and sticking out of one of his pockets Cuthbert could see the tails of a brace of trout; and presently they came to a bend of the stream, where the bank was high and there was a little beach. From the top of the bank a great tree had fallen, with its roots sticking up in the air, and under the trunk there was just room enough for Beardy Ned and Liz to sleep. He had put a couple of blankets there and an old waterproof, and standing on the beach were a cup and kettle; and soon he had made a fire with some dry sticks, and was showing Cuthbert how to cook trout. It was beginning to get dark now, and the stars were shining, and the flames of the fire made the river look like ink. But they were so sheltered under the high bank that they might almost have been at home. They had trout for supper, and drank tea, and Liz, who was almost asleep, had a cup of milk; and then they ate biscuits, and jam out of a pot, and Beardy Ned filled his pipe. He had made Liz take off her wet clothes, of course, and these were hanging from sticks on either side of the fire, and he had wrapped her in a blanket, and soon she was fast asleep, lying on his knees as he sat and smoked. He seemed to be thinking a lot, but at last he looked at Cuthbert. "You've saved my little girl's life," he said, "and I can never pay you back. But I'll show you a secret that no one else in the whole world knows." Cuthbert liked secrets, so he was rather pleased. But Beardy Ned changed the subject. "It was just here," he said, "just where we're sitting, that I first saw my Liz--I mean her mother. Perhaps, in a manner of speaking, it was where I first saw this one too, but that's neither here nor there. She was just nineteen. She'd been paddling in the stream. I called out to her, and she turned and looked at me. She was in an old frock, but she looked quite the lady. Her eyes was dark, and she was smiling." He moved his head a little. "There goes a fox," he said. He sucked his pipe for a moment in silence. The sound of the fire was like somebody talking to them. But the sound of the river was like something talking to itself. Then Beardy Ned felt in his pocket and pulled out the end of a candle. It looked like an ordinary candle, with an ordinary wick, and it was just about an inch long. "This was give me," he said, "by an old feller--James Parkins, that was his name--and there's not another like it in the whole world, and there never won't be again." Beardy Ned held it in the palm of his hand, as though he were weighing it, while he looked at Cuthbert. "Have you ever wondered," he said, "where candles goes to--where they goes to when they goes out?" "No, I don't think so," said Cuthbert. "Where _do_ they go to?" Liz stirred a little, and Beardy Ned bent over her. "Well, I'll tell you," he said. "They goes into the In-between Land--the place as is in between everything you can see. How do I know? Because I've been there. Because James Parkins showed me how." "That's very interesting," said Cuthbert politely, but Beardy Ned didn't seem to hear. "The trouble is, you see," Beardy Ned continued, "that candles, when they goes out, can't take people with them. But James Parkins, he'd found a candle that could take a person with it, and this is the candle. When he first gave it me, two year ago, it was about eight inches long. But I've used it a lot, and after you've blowed it out, and it's taken you with it, it goes on burning. When you come back, it's an inch shorter--an inch shorter every time. And this here bit is the last bit as'll ever take anyone to In-between Land." He gave it to Cuthbert. "Do you want to go there?" he said. "You've saved my little girl's life, and you've only to say the word." "But it's the last bit," said Cuthbert. "Never mind. I know what's there. That's the chief thing." "Is it quite safe?" asked Cuthbert. "It seems rather queer." "I'll tell you what it's like," said Beardy Ned. "It's like a dream. Or rather it's not like a dream so much as waking up from a dream. You sees the trees and things, all kind of misty, and the houses in the towns, and the people in the houses. And you sees 'em quarrelling and the like, and grieving, and you wants to tell 'em as it's only a dream. You wants to tell 'em they're just going to wake up. That's what it seems like in In-between Land." Liz stirred again, and he shifted her on his knees a little. "You see, in a manner of speaking," he went on, "there ain't no time there, not as we reckons time. But once you've been there--well, you'll see for yourself if you'd like to go." Cuthbert held out the candle. "Yes, I'd like to," he said. "It would be rather exciting." Beardy Ned bent forward and took a stick from the fire. He lit the end of the candle between Cuthbert's fingers. "Now blow it out," he said, "and you'll go out with it. It'll be all right. You'll be back in a tick." Cuthbert's hand was shaking a little, but he blew out the candle, and then, for a moment, he saw nothing at all. But he felt something. He felt as if he'd been asleep for ever and ever and had suddenly opened his eyes. He felt as if he could do anything, he was so strong. He felt as if he could jump over the highest star. Toothache, and school, and taking medicine--they all seemed too stupid even to bother about. He felt like a prisoner just set free. He knew that he was really free, and that nothing could ever hurt him. Then he began to see things--the fire of sticks, the stream beyond, and the dusky meadows. But they looked just like dream-sticks, and a dream-fire, and there were real things beyond them whose names he didn't know. Then he looked round and saw Beardy Ned with little Liz upon his knees; and it was just then that he saw something else that was perhaps the most wonderful thing of all. For beside Beardy Ned stood a girl of nineteen, who had been paddling in the stream. She was in an old frock, but she looked quite the lady, and her eyes were dark, and she was smiling. Then she was gone. The candle had burnt away. Cuthbert was back again in the ordinary world. He saw Beardy Ned looking at him gravely. "Now you know," he said, "why I'm happy." Cuthbert rose to his feet. "I must be going home," he said. "They'll be wondering where I've been." Beardy Ned nodded. "Well, good night," he said. "Good night," said Cuthbert. He climbed the bank. But on the top of the bank he turned round for a moment and looked down again at Beardy Ned. He was still sitting there with Liz on his knees, and Cuthbert saw him stoop and give her a kiss. Then he began to sing very softly the queer song that he had made up: The wickedest girl there was, The wickedest girl there is, The wickedest girl there ever will be Is my young daughter Liz. In between the things we know, Touch and handle, taste and see, Lies the land where lovers go At their life's end quietly. There, in that untroubled place, There, with eyes amused, they scan, Cradled still in time and space, This, the infant world of man. THE MAGIC SONG [Illustration: The Magic Song] VI THE MAGIC SONG About a month after Cuthbert had been lucky enough to save Beardy Ned's little girl, the weather grew so hot that all the people in the town became rather discontented. It is always easier for people in towns to become discontented than it is for other people, because instead of fields to walk on they have only pavements; and instead of hills to look at they have only chimneys; and instead of bean-flowers to smell they have only dust-bins and the stale air that trickles down the streets. So the men in the ironworks were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the ironworks didn't give them enough money; and the men in the cotton-mills were discontented because they thought that the men who owned the cotton-mills made them work too hard; and the girls in Mr Joseph's refreshment shops thought him a cruel old beast; and the policemen thought that nobody loved them. Also, the men who owned the ironworks thought that their men were greedy; and the men who owned the cotton-mills were afraid of becoming poor; and Mr Joseph was feeling depressed; and the policemen still thought that nobody loved them. Even dear Miss Plum, the head of the school, had a frown on her forehead, and the French mistress slapped Doris so hard that she left a red mark on Doris's cheek. Of course Doris was very angry about it, and her little brothers wanted to know exactly where the mark was. But it had faded away by the time she arrived home, and her mother only said that it had probably served her right. Doris was rather fond, you see, of cheeking the French mistress, and asking her silly questions to make the other girls laugh; and since she had had her hair bobbed the week before, she was even cheekier than usual. Doris, as you may remember, lived in John Street, which was the next street to Peter Street, where Marian and Cuthbert lived. But the houses in it were smaller than the houses in Peter Street, and most of the people in them were rather poor. Doris's mother was poor, because Doris's daddy was dead, and Doris had five little brothers--Teddy and George, who were the twins, and Jimmy and Jocko and Christopher Mark. They were much too poor to be able to have a maid, and so Doris's mother had to do most of the work. She had to be cook and housemaid and nurse and governess and Mummy darling all in one. Now that Doris was ten she was able to help her mother sometimes, and she used to take Christopher Mark out in his push-cart; and since she had been to the Arctic Circle with Cuthbert and Captain Jeremy her mother had begun to lean upon her a little more. But oh, it was hot! The people in the streets lagged along with pale faces. They talked about the trouble in the ironworks, and the trouble in the cotton-mills, and what would Mr Joseph do if his girls went on strike, and didn't the policemen look ill-tempered? And Miss Plum couldn't make her accounts come right; and the French mistress went home to her boarding-house; and there she told everybody that she was going to be ill, and that the ham was tepid and the milk-pudding sour. Even in John Street it was almost as bad, though it was a quiet street with a field at the other end of it. For the sun poured right into it, so that there wasn't any shade, and the stones of the pavement shone like martyrs, and the drains at Number Fifteen were out of order, and there was half a haddock lying in the middle of the road. So Doris went into the garden when they had all finished tea, but it was as hot in the garden as it was anywhere else; and the lady next door was grumbling to the lady beyond about one of her husband's collars that had been spoilt in the wash. Doris played about a bit and made Jocko cry, because he was silly and wanted to read a book; and then she went round to Peter Street to see Cuthbert and Marian, and found that they had gone into the country to see their Uncle Joe. So she came back and teased the twins, and at last it was time to go to bed; and it was almost as hot after the sun had gone down as it had been in the middle of the day. She slept in the same room with Jimmy and Jocko, and they all turned and twisted and kicked off their bedclothes; and as the daylight faded the moonlight grew, so that it was past ten before they fell asleep. That was when their mother came and kissed them, and she was so tired that she could hardly stand; and then she went to bed and fell asleep too, and the church clock struck eleven times. Happy was Beardy Ned then, sleeping by the stream, with little Liz and his beautiful secret; and happy was Gwendolen in her farmhouse bedroom smelling of lavender and last year's apples. But sorrowful and sticky were the people of the town, and troubled were their slumbers. Then Doris sat up suddenly, for out in the street was the biggest din that she had ever heard. She jumped from her bed and ran to the window, and there she saw nine of the strangest-looking people. There was a big sailor with a concertina, and a stout lady with a tambourine, and a soldier with a pair of cymbals, and an elderly greengrocer, who was very thin. They were standing in a row, and sitting on the ground behind them were five men, each with a drum. Doris leaned out, and when they saw her they all sang louder than ever; but the funny thing was that nobody else in the whole street seemed to hear them. The blinds were all down, the moonlight lay on the road, and there wasn't a head at anybody's window. When Doris first listened they had been singing about the lady, but now they began to sing about the sailor, and the sailor stepped forward, playing his concertina, and singing the loudest of them all. He had a tenor voice with a great smack in it, like the smack of a wave against a jetty, and when he sang softly without taking a breath it was like water running through seaweed. The soldier sang bass, like a motor-lorry in a hurry to get home over a rough road, and the stout lady sang soprano, and the elderly greengrocer only squeaked. This is what they sang: Here's a sailor come home from the Guineas, His face is as black as a leaf, His eyes are like forests of darkness, His heart is a hotbed of grief, His arms are like roots of the jungle, He has ladies tattooed on his skin, And his clothes smell of cinnamon--cardamom--tar. Oh, mother, must I let him in? Bang! Bang! [went the drums], Oh, mother, must I let him in? Then there was a chorus and the queerest sort of dance, and it all seemed somehow to be just wrong; and when they stopped and looked up at her window Doris really didn't know what to make of them. Then the sailor coughed, and scratched the back of his head, and said, "Beg pardon, miss, but are you ten years old?" Doris said that she was. "And have you five brothers younger than yourself?" Doris said that she had. "And have you five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot?" Doris laughed and said that they could come and count them if they didn't believe her word. They looked at one another with a peculiar expression, while the five drummers stared at the ground; and then the stout lady asked her if she would come downstairs and let them count her eyelashes. "Why do you want to count my eyelashes?" asked Doris. "It's most important," said the greengrocer. "If you'll come downstairs," said the soldier, "we shall be most happy to tell you why." Doris pulled her head in and glanced round the bedroom. Jimmy and Jocko were still fast asleep. She put on her dressing-gown, but not her slippers, in case they should want to count her toes. Then she opened the door and ran softly downstairs, and drew back the bolts, and went into the street. "Wouldn't it be better," said the stout lady, "if we went to a quieter place?" "Well, there's a field," said Doris, "at the end of the street. Of course, we might go along there." "You're sure you're not frightened?" asked the sailor. The five drummers still stared at the ground. "Not very much," said Doris. "You aren't going to hurt me, are you?" "God forbid!" said the elderly greengrocer. So they went up the street to the field at the end, and there they all crouched under the hedge; and the sailor, whose name was Lancelot, did most of the talking, because he was the biggest. "You see, we've all lost something," he said, "so we went to see an old man as lives in the middle of Brazil. He's the wisest old geezer as ever lived, and we all of us told him what we had lost. This here lady has lost her husband and has been trying to find him for years and years; and this here soldier has lost his character and can't find a general to give him a job; and this here greengrocer has lost his appetite and is getting thinner and thinner; and as for me, I've lost my temper and can't find a ship to sail in." "That's very sad," said Doris. "And what have these drummers lost?" "Their senses," said Lancelot. "Each of these here drummers has been and lost one of his senses. The first can't see, and the second can't hear, and the third can't smell, and the fourth can't taste, and the fifth can't feel." "I see," said Doris. "And what did the old man tell you?" "Well," said Lancelot, "that's just what I'm coming to. He told us he'd thought of a magic song. There was four verses to it, and the words didn't matter, he said, so long as they was each sung by somebody as had lost something. After each verse there was a chorus, and in between the verses there was a dance. When we'd told him our troubles, he made up some words for us, and then he lent us these here drummers. But what you've got to find, he said, is a little girl as can play this here flute, for until you've found her you can sing as loud as you like, but you won't sing right, and nobody won't hear you. But when you've found her--that's what the old man said--she'll be able to blow this here flute, for this here flute can play by itself if you find the right little girl to blow it. Well, of course we was interested, so we asked him to go on, and he said that it would play for just about an hour, and by the end of that time, he said, it would have settled all our troubles and all the troubles of the people as heard it. Only, first of all, he said, you must find the right little girl, and the time must be midnight, and the moon must be full." "Dear me!" said Doris, "that sounds rather odd." "That's what _we_ thought," said the stout lady. "Well," said Lancelot, "naturally we asked him where this here girl was to be found. But he shook his head, and he said as he didn't know, and that all we could do was to go and look for her. You must travel about, he said, and sing this here music, but the only people as'll be able to hear you will be little girls twice five years old, with five brothers younger than theirselves, and with five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot. And of them, he says, the only little girl as'll be able to play this here flute must have a hundred and five eyelashes on her right upper eyelid." He felt in his pocket and pulled out a magnifying glass. "So that's why we want to count your eyelashes." They looked at her anxiously, all except the drummers, and they were still looking at the ground. "All right," said Doris, "count away. I'm sure I don't know how many I've got." She closed her eyes, and they stared through the magnifying glass, and began to count her right upper eyelashes. She became quite excited as they went on. "A hundred and three," they said, "a hundred and four, a hundred and five," and then they gave a great shout. "You're the one," they cried, "you're the very one! You've exactly a hundred and five!" She opened her eyes again and saw them dancing about. "Where's the flute?" she asked. The soldier gave it to her. "And the moon's full," said the greengrocer, "and it's a quarter to twelve. Perhaps we shall soon find my appetite." "And my character," said the soldier. "And my husband," said the stout lady. "And my temper," said Lancelot. But the drummers had lost hope, and still stared at the ground. "Now," said Lancelot, "we'd better go to the market-place. This here little girl will show us the way. And when the clocks have struck twelve we'll sing our song and see what happens." So they went to the market-place, where the Town Hall was, and where all the tram-lines criss-crossed; and the policeman on duty outside the Bank stared at them sleepily, but didn't say anything. There were also two dustmen with a cart clearing up rubbish and bits of newspaper, and a water-man watering the asphalt, and some postmen outside the Post Office loading a mail-van. Then the deep bell in the old abbey tower began to toll the hour of midnight, and the moon looked down on them with her silver face, and they stood in a row and began their song. Doris's hands were shaky, as you can imagine, when she lifted the flute to her lips. But when she began to blow, the flute began to play; and oh, the difference it made to the song! For it was now a song with the maddest and sweetest and most beguiling melody that anybody in the world had ever imagined, or ever imagined that anybody could imagine. It began very softly, like a boy whistling, and the cracking of sticks in a deep wood, and then it sounded like birds singing, and water falling, and ripe fruit dropping from trees. Then it grew louder, until it sounded like thunder and sea-waves shattering on the beach; and then it grew softer again, like leaves rustling, and crickets chirping in the grass. Before the stout lady had sung half the first verse, Doris could hardly stand still enough to play the flute. She could scarcely believe that it was possible for anybody in the world to feel so happy. She saw the policeman running toward them, and the postmen, and the man from the water-cart; and she saw the windows above the shops in the market-place thrown up, and people looking out. Then came the chorus, like the pealing of great bells, and the policeman and the postmen began to join in, and people in their nightdresses and pyjamas came running out of their front doors, singing at the tops of their voices. Before the chorus was over there were nearly a hundred people singing and shouting and beating time, and the cymbals were clashing, and the concertina was groaning, and the five drummers were hitting like mad. But it was the flute, it was Doris's flute, that soared up and up and led the whole music; and when the dance came, it was the magic of Doris's flute that stole into the feet of all who heard it. Most of them were bare feet, like Doris's own, but some were in slippers and some in boots, and soon they were all whirling and twisting and hopping, as the people that they belonged to danced and sang. The news had spread abroad now, and by the end of the second verse the whole of the market-place was simply crammed, and by the end of the third verse all the streets that led into it were bubbling over with people dancing. There were the ironworks men dancing with their employers, and Mr Joseph dancing with his girls, and the heads of the cotton-mills dancing in their pyjamas, arm-in-arm with the people that worked for them. And there was the French mistress dancing with the two dustmen, and there was Miss Plum dancing with the chimney-sweep, and there was the policeman trying to dance with everybody, and everybody trying to dance with him. Then a little man with a carroty moustache pushed through the crowd and caught hold of the stout lady; and she nearly dropped her tambourine, because he was her long-lost husband. As for the greengrocer, he became so hungry that he danced into one of Mr Joseph's shops, and Mr Joseph gave him permission to eat everything that he could see. Funnily enough, too, both Uncle Joe and Captain Jeremy happened to be in town; and when Uncle Joe caught sight of the soldier he was so struck with his honest appearance that he gave him the names of three or four generals who would be only too glad to have him in their armies. It was the same, too, with Lancelot, for when Captain Jeremy spoke to him his face became so gentle that Captain Jeremy resolved at once to give him a job as bosun's mate. Then the French mistress came and kissed Doris, and then everybody cheered everybody else; and the five drummers shouted with joy, because each of them had found the sense that he had lost. The blind one could see; and the deaf one could hear; and the one that couldn't feel felt somebody squeezing him; and the one that couldn't smell suddenly smelt somebody's tooth powder; and the one that couldn't taste had the biggest surprise of all. For one of Mr Joseph's girls gave him a box of chocolates, and it was the loveliest thing that had ever happened to him; and after that, when she gave him some almond rock, he asked her if she would marry him, and she said that she would. For a whole hour Doris played her flute, and then it stopped, and everybody looked at everybody else; and everybody else looked so queer and funny that everybody began to shout with laughter. Even the moon laughed, and the end of it was that they all resolved to make up their quarrels, because after what had happened it seemed so silly to go on quarrelling about anything. But what the tune of the song was no one remembered; and next morning when Doris took the flute to school, none of the girls could make it play anything, not even Gwendolen, who had a flute at home. "_H'shh_," said the man in the moon, Full-faced and white, And I listened, I listened so hard that I heard through the night, Faint through a crack In the ice of the whiteness, I heard Somebody whisper my name With a magical word. And the moon and the stars and the sky, And the roofs of the street, Fell in fragments of darkness and silver That danced at my feet. And we danced, and we danced, and we danced, And oh! tired was I When, full-faced and white, the cold moon Shone again in the sky. THE IMAGINARY BOY [Illustration: The Haunted Wood] VII THE IMAGINARY BOY Soon after Doris's adventure with the flute, Marian and Gwendolen made a most solemn vow. Marian pricked her finger with a needle and made a tiny drop of blood come, and then she rubbed it into the palm of Gwendolen's hand and promised to be faithful to her for ever. Then Gwendolen pricked her own finger and rubbed it into the palm of Marian's hand, and took her dying oath that Marian should always be her greatest friend. Then they washed their hands under the nursery tap and cleaned the needle and put it back in the workbox, and Marian was very pleased, and so was Gwendolen, and when they told Cuthbert he said that he didn't mind much. Marian was pleased, because she knew that Gwendolen would ask her to tea pretty often at the old farmhouse; and Gwendolen was pleased, because that was the first time that she had ever had a greatest friend; and Cuthbert didn't mind much, because he had gone to a new school, where there was a boy called Edward Goldsmith, who was wonderfully strong, and could dive into the water backward from the top diving-board at the town baths. He was going to be a barrister like Mr Jenkins, who took the plate round at St Peter's Church, and after that he was going to be Lord Chief Justice, like the great Lord Barrington at Fairbarrow Park. Gwendolen's aunt was pleased too, and so was Captain Jeremy when Gwendolen told him, and so were her father and mother, who were climbing the Himalaya Mountains and writing a book called _Two Above the Snowline_. But Gwendolen didn't know, of course, about her father and mother being glad till she got a letter from them; and by then she had become quite used to having Marian for her greatest friend. This letter came during the first week of the holidays, while Marian was staying for a few days with Gwendolen. Both Gwendolen's aunt and Captain Jeremy were away on a short voyage, and Marian and Gwendolen had the house to themselves, except for Mrs Robertson, the cook, Amy and Agnes, the two maids, and Percy, the boot-and-garden boy. Percy was the boy that used to open the door when Gwendolen's aunt lived in Bellington Square, and his father was a gamekeeper, called Mr Williams, who worked for Lord Barrington at Fairbarrow Park. Percy was sixteen, and was going to marry Agnes as soon as he had saved enough money, and though he was rather proud, Marian and Gwendolen liked him, but not so much as they liked his father. They liked Mr Williams, because he knew all about rabbits, and used to take them through places marked PRIVATE; and they liked Mrs Williams, because she gave them peppermints and never minded how many questions they asked. Mr Williams was tall, with a grey moustache, and his clothes smelt of tobacco, and he wore gaiters; and Mrs Williams was short, and her arms smelt of soap, and she was always popping upstairs to change her apron. They lived in a little cottage near the Park gates, and they had six children besides Percy, but Mr Williams was nearly always out, setting traps or counting the young partridges. Fairbarrow Park was about three miles round, and was half-way to Fairbarrow Down; and in the middle of it was Lord Barrington's house, with its thirty bedrooms and all its gardens. There was an Italian garden and a Dutch garden and a rose-garden and a water-garden; and there were lawns as smooth as a ballroom floor, over which the peacocks cried and strutted. But besides all these, and the Park in which they nestled, most of the country round belonged to Lord Barrington; and it was in the woods and fields which he let to different farmers that the pheasants and partridges made their homes. When they had finished reading Gwendolen's letter, which came just after their middle-day dinner, Marian and Gwendolen thought that they would go and see Mr Williams, and watch the young partridges that he was bringing up by hand. So they set off, and presently they found him just at the farther edge of Lord Barrington's estate, where there was a little wood climbing up the side of Fairbarrow Down. There was a sort of grassy hollow near the wood, and here Mr Williams had placed half a dozen hen-coops; and in front of these he had built a little mound, made of lumps of turf dug from the Down. In among these lumps of turf there were thousands of ants and several ants' nests full of eggs; and a score of young partridges were scrambling over them, finding their afternoon meal. Usually Mr Williams was glad to see the girls, and to let them play with the young partridges, but this afternoon he only nodded to them and went on smoking in silence. They were a little surprised, because it was such a lovely afternoon, with the sky bluer than any ocean, and the fields all glittering with the leaves of the root crops, or hidden away under the golden wheat. Here and there the reapers were already at work cutting the first of the oats and barley, and about a mile away they could see the chimneys of the great house shining in groups between the tree-tops. The only dark spot was the thick and tangled pinewood, known as the Haunted Wood, into which Lord Barrington never allowed anybody besides himself to go. It was inside the Park, and round two sides of it ran the Park wall, with sharp iron spikes on the top; and round the other two sides there was a barbed-wire fence, with a small gate in it, heavily padlocked. For twenty years it had never been touched. When a tree fell over, it lay where it had fallen; between the trunks of the trees there had grown a jungle of undergrowth; and only Lord Barrington had the key of the gate. Mr Williams was still sitting down, staring moodily in front of him, when Marian asked him what was the matter, and was he angry with them for coming? "No, no, it's not that," he said, "but I've just got the push. His lordship has given me a month's notice. I'm got to quit and find a new job, after forty-two years here, man and boy." Marian and Gwendolen stared at him in astonishment. "Why, whatever have you been doing?" Gwendolen asked. He took his pipe from his mouth and pointed to the Haunted Wood. "See that wood there," he said, "the Haunted Wood? Well, last night one of these here dogs, he bolted into it, and I couldn't get him out, so I went in to hunt for him. I was only in there for about five minutes, but just as I was coming out I met his lordship. He stared at me as if I was a criminal in the dock, and give me a month's notice to leave his service. "'You know my rules,' he says, 'and you've broken them. It's no good arguing,' he says, 'you've got to go.'" Marian and Gwendolen felt very angry, angrier than they had ever felt before. "What a beast!" they said. "But p'raps he'll think better of it." Mr Williams shook his head. "Not he," he said. "I've seen him this morning. 'I'll give you a pension,' he says, 'and I'll give you a good character. But that wood's forbidden ground,' he says, 'and I'll have nobody going into it.'" Mr Williams rose and began to collect the young partridges, and put them away into the various hen-coops. "Well, I must be getting along," he said, "and next month you'll have to make friends with a new keeper." After he had gone, Marian and Gwendolen sat thinking of all the good times that they had had with him, and of poor Mrs Williams, who would have to turn out of her cottage--the gay little cottage that she was so proud of. Their cheeks were quite red, and there was a hot sort of prickly feeling at the backs of their noses, and they felt as if they would like to go to the great house and shoot Lord Barrington dead. "Dog in the manger," said Gwendolen, "that's what he is, with that great big house and no wife or children. And he's always going into his old wood himself. I know he is, because Percy told me." "Yes, I know," said Marian, "and half his time he never lives at the Park at all. He's judging people and sending them to prison, or travelling about and enjoying himself." "P'raps he doesn't know," said Gwendolen, "what a nice man Mr Williams really is." Then she suddenly thought of something. "Suppose we go and find him," she said, "and ask him to let Mr Williams off." Marian was a little frightened. She had never seen Lord Barrington, but she had once seen his picture in a magazine; and she remembered the grim look of his eyes and his high-bridged, hawk-like nose. But the thought of Mr Williams and his sad face soon gave her fresh courage; and as they drew near the Park wall she was much too excited to feel afraid. Gwendolen was excited too, but they both knew how important it was to keep cool; and before they climbed the wall they looked carefully round to see that nobody was watching them. Then they found a couple of niches to put their toes in, and they hoisted themselves up till they could see over the wall; and there they stopped for a moment, holding on to the spikes, and studying the lie of the land. Just to their right was the corner of the Haunted Wood, but spreading in front of them was the open park-land, with its great trees casting their blue shadows, and the delicate-limbed deer nibbling the grass tips. Beyond these were the gardens, and the broad terrace in front of the house; and the only person in sight was a distant gardener with a watering-can. Then they almost fell down, for round the corner of the wood came the tall figure of Lord Barrington himself. Marian recognized him at once, though he was not wearing a wig as he had been in the magazine picture, and was dressed in a grey flannel suit, carefully pressed, and russet-brown boots. Luckily he didn't see them, and they crouched behind the wall, holding on to the edge with their finger-tips; and when they next peeped over they could see him unlocking the padlock of the little gate that led into the wood. He went inside and locked it again behind him, and they saw him begin to push his way between the branches of the trees. "Come along," whispered Gwendolen, "let's follow him"; so they climbed over the wall and dropped into the park. Then they ran across the grass to the little gate, where they stooped down for a moment and listened. They could hear Lord Barrington still moving through the wood. And then very quietly they squeezed through the fence. They both tore their frocks on the barbed wire, and Marian scratched her arm, but she didn't mind. And then they began to glide, as softly as possible, deeper and deeper into the forbidden wood. Soon it was so dark, owing to the thick-spreading branches and the overgrown weeds and bushes, that they found themselves creeping through a sort of twilight, smelling of pine-resin and crushed herbage. But always, just in front of them, they could hear Lord Barrington's footsteps, and sometimes they caught a glimpse of his side or back. Tripping over roots, and stung by nettles, they followed in the track that he had beaten down; and presently the brushwood began to grow thinner and the trunks of the trees farther apart. He was walking more quickly now, and in another three or four minutes they saw him come out into a sort of clearing, where the ground was smooth, with a thin growth of grass, and the sun pouring down upon it as upon a little circus. Here he stopped, and they bent down, each behind the trunk of a great pine tree; and then, to their surprise, they saw him take his coat off and fold it carefully and put it on the ground. Then from under a bush he drew out three wickets, and set them up on the other side of the clearing, and put the bails on them, and laid down a bat beside them, and came back tossing a cricket-ball. They could see his face, still rather stern-looking, but not so stern as it had been before; and then they heard him say "Ready?" and saw him bowl the ball, which bounced over the wickets and hit a tree behind. They crept nearer, until they were almost on the edge of the clearing. "You ought to have stopped that one," they heard him say; and still the bat lay in front of the wickets, and there wasn't a sound but the murmur of the trees. For a long time--almost ten minutes, they thought--he went on bowling and fetching back the ball; and every now and then he spoke a few words as if there were somebody really batting. And then a strange thing happened, for slowly, as they watched, they saw the bat rise from the ground; and then they saw the figure of a little boy taking guard with it in front of the wickets. He was about fourteen, with short fair hair, and he was dressed in a flannel shirt and trousers; and the shirt was unbuttoned, showing the upper part of his chest, and its sleeves were rolled back over his sturdy arms. They looked at the judge and saw that his whole face had altered, as if the sun had come down and were shining through it; and the boy smiled at him, and then tucked his lips in, as the judge bowled him a difficult ball. "Well played," said the judge, and they saw the boy look up and begin to colour a little at the words of praise; and then Gwendolen got a cramp in her foot and couldn't help moving and making a sound. Lord Barrington turned sharply toward her. "Who's there?" he asked in a terrible voice. Gwendolen stood up, and so did Marian. It was no good hiding. They were both too frightened to speak. When he saw them, he stood quite still. A wood-pigeon flew across the clearing. The little boy was no longer there. "Come here," he said, and they had to obey him. He stood looking at them. His face was like marble, and his eyes searched them through and through. "Well," he said, "what have you got to say for yourselves?" They hung their heads and said nothing. Then Marian tried to speak, though her voice sounded funny. "Please, sir," she said, "we wanted to ask you something, but you were playing with the boy." "The boy?" he said: "did you see the boy?" They lifted their eyes to him. "Why, of course," they answered. For a moment he was silent. Then his voice changed a little. "Come and sit down," he said, "and tell me what you saw." When they had told him, he just nodded, and sat, as Mr Williams had done, staring in front of him. "Well, now you know," he said, "why this wood is private, and why I never allow anybody to come into it." "Because of the boy?" asked Marian. "Because of the boy," he said. "I'll try to explain to you, but I doubt if you'll understand. You see, I had a notion that if we human beings could only imagine anything hard enough, the thing that we imagined might become actually real, if only just for a minute or two." He moved his hand, with its heavy gold signet-ring. "This is the place," he said, "where I come to imagine." "I see," said Marian. "But why do you imagine the boy?" He reached for his coat and took something out of a pocket-book. "This is his photograph," he said. "He was my only son." The two children looked at it, and then gave it back to him. "He was fond of cricket," he said. "He died at school." Then he rose to his feet, and they followed him out of the wood. "Well, what was it," he said, "that you wanted to ask me?" They told him, and his face became stern again. "But he knew the rule," he said, "and he was older than you; and rules are made to be kept, you know. I can't have them broken." They were silent for a moment, and then Gwendolen had a rather awful and irreverent idea. "But p'raps if God hadn't broken one of His rules," she said, "you might never have seen the boy." He stood looking at her for a long time, or at least it seemed long, though it was only twelve seconds. Then he glanced at his watch. "What are your names?" he asked. They told him their names, and he held out his hand. "Well, good-bye, Marian and Gwendolen," he said; "and you can tell Mr Williams that I've changed my mind." Deep within the wood I know, There's a place where mourners go, Just as, in the twilight cool, Crept they to Siloam's pool. There, with one accord, they bring Sorrows for a healing wing; And each hushed and stooping leaf Lays its hand on their heart's grief. THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED [Illustration: Cæsar's Camp] VIII THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED Cuthbert's friend, Edward Goldsmith, was six months older than Cuthbert, but they were in the same form, which was the lowest but one, in Mr Pendring's school. Most of the other boys thought him conceited, and so did Cuthbert, and so he was. But Cuthbert had once been conceited himself, and so he was able to sympathize with him. Besides being strong too, and able to dive backward, Edward had given Cuthbert his second-best pocket-knife; and that was why Cuthbert resolved at last to introduce him to Tod the Gipsy. That was rather a special thing to do, because Tod was rather a special sort of gipsy; and Cuthbert had never introduced him to anybody, not even to Doris, although she had asked him to. It was in the hospital, just before he had had his tonsils out, that Cuthbert had first met Tod; and Tod had told him not to be frightened, because there was no need to be, and it wouldn't do any good. Tod himself was often in hospital, because he had consumption and had lost one of his lungs; and besides that he was always getting knocked down or run over, through being absent-minded. He was tall and thin, with a lot of black hair that kept tumbling over his eyes, and his eyes were brown, like a dog's eyes, only they were brighter and always laughing. When Cuthbert next met Tod, he had been living in his little tent on the other side of Fairbarrow Down; and Cuthbert had stayed there all night with him, and Tod had told him the names of the stars. Very early in the morning, when Cuthbert woke up, he had seen Tod kneeling in the dew, and a couple of wild rabbits nestling in his arms and smelling his clothes, just as if they had been tame ones. Then Tod had beckoned him with his head and whistled a peculiar sweet whistle, and a hare near by had pricked up her ears and come through the grass to have her back stroked. That whistle was one of Tod's secrets, and he knew lots more, and was always learning new ones; and when Cuthbert had told him about In-between Land he said that he had been there too, by another way. So it was rather a great thing for Cuthbert to promise Edward that he would introduce him to Tod the Gipsy; and Edward was naturally rather impatient to go and find him, and talk to him. But the difficulty was that Tod was always travelling about, and Cuthbert never knew where he was likely to be; and it wasn't until tea-time on the third Monday of October that at last they found him, quite by accident. Owing to one of Mr Pendring's boys having won a medal for helping to save somebody's life, the whole school had been given an extra half-holiday, and Cuthbert and Edward had gone for a country walk. Already in the town most of the leaves had fallen, and were lying in dirty heaps by the roadside, and the scraps of gardens in front of the houses were sodden and empty of flowers. But out in the country, where the harvest was stacked, and men were drilling seed into the moist-smelling earth, the oaks and elms were still glowing with coppery or rusty-red leaves. The cottage gardens, too, were full of flowers--clumps of starry Michaelmas daisies, and sheaves of dark-eyed golden sunflowers, like bumble-bees on fire. But there were real fires about also, as there always are when summer is over--fires of weeds at the ends of the plough-furrows, and fires of potato stems in the kitchen-gardens; and it was over a little fire of sticks and dead leaves that they suddenly came upon Tod the Gipsy. They were now about six miles from home, at the foot of the long range of hills, of which Fairbarrow Down, with its close-cropped turf, was the nearest to the town. Behind this the ground dipped a little, and then became a hill called Simon's Nob, and behind Simon's Nob rose the highest hill of all, known as Cæsar's Camp. From Cæsar's Camp, on a very clear day, it was just possible to see the sea; and battles had been fought on all these hills hundreds and thousands of years before. Sometimes they had been held by the ancient Britons when they were fighting against each other; and sometimes they had been held by the ancient Britons when they were fighting against the Romans. Sometimes the Romans had held them when they were attacked by the Britons, and once the Britons had held them against the Saxons; and then in their turn the Saxons had held them when they had been attacked by the Danes. After that they had slept for hundreds of years, with only the sheep to nibble their grass, and an occasional shepherd shouting across them to his shaggy and wise-eyed sheep-dog. The fiercest battle of all had been fought on Cæsar's Camp, from which the Romans had driven away the Britons, and there was a great mound on it, covered with grass, in which the dead soldiers had been buried. But that was nearly two thousand years ago, and it had never looked more peaceful than on this autumn afternoon, with the baby moon peeping above it and growing brighter as the daylight faded. It was a steep climb to the top of Cæsar's Camp, and the hill was guarded at the bottom by a fringe of elm trees; and in front of these elm trees there was a belt of bracken, reddening with decay, and reaching to the boys' shoulders. It had been rather fun to push their way through it, startling the rabbits, and listening to the rooks; and it was in a little quarry among the elms that Tod the Gipsy had made his fire. Close to the fire he had spread some branches and a heap of bracken to make a mattress, and over this he had thrown his blanket and the little tarpaulin that made his tent. When they first caught sight of him, he was humming a song and beating an accompaniment to himself on an empty biscuit-box: Where do the gipsies come from? The gipsies come from Egypt. The fiery sun begot them, Their dam was the desert dry. She lay there stripped and basking, And gave them suck for the asking, And an emperor's bone to play with, Whenever she heard them cry. Cuthbert introduced him to Edward Goldsmith, and Tod held out a bony hand. "Glad to meet you," he said. "You're just in time for tea. You'll have to share a mug, but there's lots of bread and jam." He was thinner than ever, but he had the same old trick of tossing his hair back from his eyes; and his eyes were as bright and gay and piercing as if they had just come back from some magic wash. While they were eating, he sipped his tea and filled his pipe and went on singing: What did the gipsies do there? They built a tomb for Pharaoh, They built a tomb for Pharaoh, So tall it touched the sky. They buried him deep inside it, Then let what would betide it, They saddled their lean-ribbed ponies And left him there to die. He nodded his head toward the sides of the quarry, the overhanging trees, and the hill beyond. "And this is where they've left me," he said. Cuthbert stared at him. "But you're not going to die, are you?" "Pretty soon," said Tod. He tapped his chest. "There's not much left, you know, in this old box of mine." "Well, you don't seem to mind much," said Edward. "I don't," said Tod, "and I'll tell you why. I've just found out something that I've been looking for very nearly all my life." He lit his pipe and leaned forward, with the fire shining in his eyes. The days were so short now that the dusk had already come, and the firelight cast strange shadows over the little quarry. The boys drew closer to him, and he took from his waistcoat pocket a small box, with a pinch of red powder in it. "For twenty years," he said, "I've been trying to make this powder; and at last I've succeeded--just in time." They bent over his hand and examined the powder. It was as light as thistle-down, and smelt like cloves. "Now look," he said. He threw some on the fire. But the boys could see nothing except the crumbling leaves. Tod laughed. "Look a little higher," he said; and then, in the smoke, they suddenly saw a bird hovering, and then another bird and another, and a couple of nests hanging faintly in the air. "Now listen," said Tod; and above the whisper of the flames they could hear the soft sharpening of tiny beaks, and the sound of wings, and the ghosts of cheepings and chirpings, as if they had been hundreds of miles away. Then they faded, and Tod leaned back, looking triumphantly at the two boys. "But what were they?" said Cuthbert. "They were memories," said Tod. "They were the memories of those dead leaves." "But do leaves remember?" asked Edward. "Everything remembers," said Tod, "only nobody's been able to prove it. The ground we're sitting on, the fields you've come across, the hills above us, they're crammed with memories. And when they die, if they ever do die, these memories come crowding back to them, just like they do to a dying man; and it's this powder that makes them visible." He rose to his feet and looked about him. "Of course, those leaves," he said, "were only a year old, and all that they remembered was just those birds. But look at this,"--he picked up a piece of wood--"this is the core of an old tree. This was a sapling three hundred years ago." He sprinkled the rest of the powder on it and threw it on the fire. For a minute or two nothing happened, and then, high up, they saw some more birds hovering; but presently, as they looked, they saw the figure of a man, with his hair in ringlets hanging down over his shoulders. He wore a plumed hat, and his sleeves were frilled, and there was a sword at his belt, and he wore knee-breeches and stockings and jewelled buckles upon his shoes. He stood in mid-air, looking about him, and then he was joined by the figure of a girl. He took her in his arms, and then they faded away; and there instead was a peasant in a smock. They saw him lean forward and carve something in the air, as though he were cutting somebody's name upon a tree-trunk; and then he too was gone, and there were two children playing hide-and-seek in the wreathing smoke. One was a little girl, and she wore a mob cap and a long skirt dropping almost to her ankles; and the other was a boy with a very short jacket and trousers that looked as if they had shrunk. Then they saw a fox, with his ears pricked, and one of his front paws lifted; and then there was nothing again but the sides of the quarry and the deepening shadows of the elms. "That's all," said Tod, "because I've no more powder. All the rest's up there." He jerked his thumb toward the top of the hill, hidden away from them by the trees. "Why is it up there?" asked Cuthbert. Tod stared at them as if he were trying to read their hearts. "Have you courage?" he asked. It was a difficult question. They told him that they hoped so, but that they weren't quite sure. "Well, if you have," he said, "and you'd like to come back here to-night, just about half-past twelve, you'll be able to see something that nobody alive has ever seen or will see again." Cuthbert and Edward looked at one another. It would be a six-mile walk, and they would have to start about eleven o'clock, and they would have to go to bed first and creep out of their houses without anybody knowing. The moon would have sunk, too, so that it would be quite dark. They both felt a little queer inside. But they promised to come, and agreed to meet at eleven o'clock near St Peter's Church. Cuthbert was there first, just before the clock struck. Everybody was in bed, and he had slipped out unnoticed. But his heart sank a little as he ran down the empty street and saw no Edward at the corner waiting for him. But Edward came just as the clock struck, and the night seemed less dark now that there were two of them, and soon they were out of the town and running close together between the hedges of the country road. Once a motor-car came travelling toward them, almost blinding them with the glare of its head-lamps; but after they had left the road and struck across the fields the night was so still that they could almost have heard a star drop. It was so still that they spoke in whispers, and so dark that they sometimes tripped; and once when they stopped for a moment to take breath, a star did drop, and they almost heard it. Presently, when their eyes became used to the darkness, they could see the dim outline of the hills, and the faint ribbon of the Milky Way rising like smoke from Cæsar's Camp. At the edge of the bracken they found Tod waiting for them. "Come along," he said, "only don't go too fast," and they began to climb through the belt of trees out on to the hillside beyond. The grass was short here and slippery with dew, with glimmers of chalk beneath it where the turf was broken; and it was so steep that half-way up Tod stopped to fight for his breath. "It's all right," he said. "I'll be better in a moment," and as they stood waiting for him and looking back, the country behind them seemed to have vanished into a lake of darkness. Then they began to climb again, their boots slipping, and suddenly as they climbed they smelt a new smell--a strange sort of acrid, sweet smell, as of turf-fires burning above them. "Yes," said Tod. "I was up there an hour ago. I've lit half a dozen fires." At the top of the hill he dropped down for a moment close to a large white stone. He lit a match and looked at his watch. "Ten minutes to one," he said. "We're just in time." They were now in a sort of trench or grassy moat that encircled the great mound, and they had climbed into this over a smaller mound that had once been a barricade. In this trench Tod had dug half a dozen holes, and in each of these holes there was a turf-fire smouldering; and now he turned and lifted the white stone, and took from under it a little bag. "This is the rest of the powder," he said, "all there is, and all there ever will be, for the secret will die with me." He rose to his feet and began to sprinkle it thickly over the burning turf in each of the little holes. Then he came back and spoke to the two boys. "There are great memories," he said, "stored in this hill, but they are fierce ones, and you'll need all your courage." Then he moved away from them toward the farthest of the fires, and Cuthbert felt a sort of change coming over the hill. He could see nothing, but it felt different, as if it were surrounded by a different sort of country--a savage country, with no railways in it, or roads, or parliaments, or policemen. Even the stars seemed to have grown younger, and nearer the earth, and more lawless; and then he heard voices filling the air about him, and a man shouting hoarse commands. He turned with a start and found himself among a crowd of naked and half-naked men--small men, with hair hanging over their shoulders, and bearded chins, and glittering eyes. Some of them were painted with curious patterns, shining in dull colours from their skins; and they were all pointing toward the darkness that lay like a sea round the sides of the hill. Then some of them spoke to him and asked him who he was, and he found that he understood them and could answer them; and the man who had been shouting, and who seemed to be their leader, came and looked into his eyes. He laid his hands on Cuthbert's shoulders. "Son of my sons," he said, "are you ready to fight with us?" And Cuthbert suddenly felt himself burning with anger, because he knew that they were going to be attacked. "Of course I am," he said, and then there was a great shout, and everybody rushed to the barricade; and there all round them, pricking out of the darkness, they could see helmets and the rims of shields. Cuthbert somehow knew that these belonged to the Romans, and that he hated them for invading his country; and he was so excited that he had forgotten to notice what had happened to Edward Goldsmith. He only knew that he had disappeared. As for Edward, he had forgotten all about Cuthbert. For he had suddenly noticed that there were now trees growing half-way up the hillside, and he had jumped over the barricade and run down to explore them. When he got there, he had found himself among an army of men marching up the hill behind locked shields, and a young centurion with merry eyes had stooped and gripped him by the arm. "Hullo!" he said; "son of my sons, are you going to fight with us against these barbarians?" And Edward tingled all over with pride, and said, "Rather, you bet I am." Then a great stone from the top of the barricade came leaping down the hillside and crushed one of the men in the front rank, but the others closed together and never stopped marching. When Cuthbert saw them he was blind with anger, but he knew in his heart that they were bound to win; and next moment they were over the parapet like a wave of hot and breathing iron. He heard groans and cries and the shouts of the British chief, and his eyes were full of tears as he beat at the Roman shields; and then he saw Edward and hit him in the face, and made his nose bleed, and knocked out two of his teeth. Edward struck back, and gave Cuthbert a black eye, and the night was full of hewings and the flashings of swords; and then everything was still again, and the hill was empty, and the stars were the same stars that they had always known. Squatting on the barricade, with his arms round his knees, they saw Tod the Gipsy laughing at them; and Cuthbert rubbed his eye, and Edward sniffed hard to try and stop the blood running from his nose. Tod rose and stretched himself. "Well, you've had it out," he said, "and so has the hill, and now you'd better be off home." So they said good-bye to him, and they never saw him again; and next morning when Edward came down to breakfast, his father scolded him for explaining that an ancient Briton had hit him on the nose. But Cuthbert's daddy only stroked his chin when he heard that the Romans had given Cuthbert a black eye, because that was just the sort of thing, he said, that the Romans sometimes did, though they had many good qualities. Down the dead centurions' way, Tod the Gipsy drives his shay. Roman, Briton, Saxon, Dane, Tod the Gipsy hears them plain. Faint beneath the noonday chalk, Tod can overhear them talk. Fiercer than the stars at night, Chin to chin, he sees them fight. ST UNCUS [Illustration: Doris and St Uncus] IX ST UNCUS It was now November, and even in the country the last of the leaves had fallen from the trees, and the bushy hollows between the roots of the downs were grey with old man's beard. Some people like November, because it is the quietest month of the year--as quiet as somebody tired, who has just fallen asleep--and they love to see the fields lying dark and still, and the empty branches against the sky. But some people hate it, especially people who live in towns, because of its fogs and falling rains, and they turn up their coat-collars, and blow their noses, and call it the worst month of the year. Doris hated it too, and she hated this particular November more than any other that she could recall, because it had rained and rained and rained, and because her mummy was so ill that she had had to go to hospital. She was also angry with Cuthbert, because she thought that it wasn't fair for him to have taken Edward to see Tod the Gipsy, and never even have offered to take her, although she had asked him to over and over again. So she hadn't spoken to him for nearly a month, not even after her mummy had been taken to the hospital; and she hated Auntie Kate, who had come to look after the home, because she kept asking her how her little boy-friend was. Auntie Kate had a face like a hen's, with a beaky nose and bobbly eyes, and she always counted people's pieces of bread and butter, and wondered what income their father and mother had. Her husband was a clergyman, so she went to church a lot, on week-days as well as on Sundays; and now she had gone to a bazaar at St Peter's Church, just when Doris had meant to go to tea with Gwendolen. So Doris was very angry, because she had to stay at home and take care of her five brothers; and the only happy thing that she had to think about was that Mummy would be home next week. But at half-past three on a wet Saturday afternoon next week seems a horribly long way off, and Jimmy and Jocko were being as naughty as ever they knew how. Jimmy was six and Jocko was five, and they were playing water games in the bathroom; and Doris knew that they would be soaking their clothes and making an awful mess, but she didn't care. "At any rate they're quiet," she thought to herself, "and I don't see why I should fight with them any more," and then she pressed her nose against the front-door glass and looked dismally into the street. But there was nothing to see except the falling rain, and the dirty brown fronts of the opposite houses, and a strip of mud-coloured sky, and the milkman's cart with its yellow pony. Behind her, in a dark cupboard under the stairs, Teddy and George, the twins, were playing at Hell; and every now and then she could hear a faint clicking sound, as they practised gnashing their teeth. As for Christopher Mark, who was three and a half, she had forgotten all about him; and by now, if it hadn't been for Auntie Kate, she might have been playing in Gwendolen's big barn. Then she thought of Cuthbert again and of his exciting adventure on the top of Cæsar's Camp, and she breathed on the glass, and drew a picture of Cuthbert, making him as ugly as she could. "I hate him," she thought, "and I hate Auntie Kate, and I hate the twins, and I hate everybody," and then she turned round, and her heart stood still--or at least she felt as if it did--and her cheeks became white. For there was Christopher Mark at the top of the stairs, with a rabbit under one arm and an engine under the other; and she suddenly saw him slip and begin to pitch head-long down, with a sickening thud, thud, thud. For a moment she was so frightened that she could hardly breathe, but just as she sprang forward an odd thing happened, for he stopped short, almost as if somebody had caught him, and didn't even begin to cry. "My goodness!" she said, and then she stopped short too, for squatting down on the topmost stair was the strangest little man that she had ever seen, hanging on to Christopher Mark. He was a little man with a bald head and a big mouth and a crooked back; and his right arm was only a stump, with a very long hook at the end of it. His left arm was odd too, almost as crooked as his back, and he had curled it round one of the banisters, while he hooked Christopher Mark up with the other. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see you have recognized me. That's very clever of you. Most people don't." Doris was too surprised at first to be able to answer him. But he didn't seem to mind, and went on smiling; while as for Christopher Mark, he climbed upstairs again, just as if the little man hadn't been there. "I'm afraid I don't recognize you," said Doris at last; "but I'm frightfully obliged to you for saving Christopher Mark." "Not at all," he said. "That's what I'm for. I'm St Uncus." Doris frowned a little. "St Uncus?" she asked. "Latin for hook," he said. "Excuse me half a moment." For a flicker of an eyelid he disappeared. "Just been to China," he said, "to hook another one." Doris opened her eyes. "But are you a _real_ saint?" she asked. The little man flushed. "Why, of course I am. I'm a patron saint. I'm the patron saint of staircases." "But I didn't know," said Doris, "that staircases had patron saints." "They don't," he said. "They have only one." "I mean," said Doris--"it's frightfully rude, I'm afraid--but I didn't know that they had even one." He smiled again. "Very likely not," he said. "Lots of people don't. But they have." He disappeared once more. "Baby in Jamaica," he said, "just beginning to fall from the top landing." Then he stroked his chin and looked at her thoughtfully. "I suppose you've been left here," he said, "to look after the children." Doris nodded. "Well, then, you ought to know," he said, "that there are two things that children love more than anything else. One of them's water and the other's staircases. And they're both a bit dangerous. So they each have a patron saint." "I see," said Doris. "And who's the patron saint of water?" "Fellow called Fat Bill," he said. "He's my younger brother." "That seems a queer name," said Doris, "for a saint." "Well, he's a queer fellow," said St Uncus, "but we've both been lucky." Doris couldn't help looking at his crooked back, and his deformed left arm, and his right stump. "Ah, yes," he said; "but you mustn't judge by those. That's the very mistake that I made. You see, I once fell down a staircase myself, two or three years after staircases were invented." He looked at Doris and nodded his head. "It was when I was a small boy," he said, "as small as your little brother; and that's why I grew up crooked and deformed. I was very unhappy about it. It was thousands of years ago. But I can still remember how unhappy I was. I used to watch the other children playing games, and when I grew up I watched the men go hunting. And I had to stay at home, and the women despised me; and at last I died, and then I saw how silly I had been." "Why had you been silly?" asked Doris. "Well, I'd wasted the whole of my life, you see, thinking about the staircase and how miserable I was; and so when the good Lord God asked me what I wanted to do next, there was hardly anything that I could turn my hand to. But I told you I was lucky, and so I was, for as it happened I had a great idea; and that was to try and save as many children as I could from being as miserable as I had been. Of course, I couldn't expect much of a job, seeing how I'd thrown away all my chances, so I asked the good Lord God if He would allow me to look after the world's staircases." He disappeared again. "Been to Port Jacobson," he said. "Well, the good Lord God thought that it was rather a fine idea; and so He laid His hand upon me and gave me a new name; and my new name was St Uncus." "Shall I have a new name too?" asked Doris. St Uncus beamed. "Why, of course," he said. "Everybody has a new name, only it generally depends, to a certain extent, upon what they did with their old ones." Doris thought for a moment. "But wouldn't you rather be in Heaven," she said, "than sitting about on these silly old staircases?" St Uncus laughed. "But Heaven's not a place, my dear. Heaven's being employed by the good Lord God." Then he looked at his watch. "And now I wonder," he said, "if you'd mind doing me a good turn?" "Oh, I should love to!" said Doris; "but how can I?" "Well, you see," he said, "the worst of my job is that I can never get a chance of seeing my brother Bill. He's always busy by the edges of ponds and things, and I'm always stuck on somebody's staircase; and I thought perhaps, if you wouldn't mind taking my hook for a bit, I could slip off for a moment and have a talk to him." Doris felt a little shy. "But should I be able to use it?" she asked. "And how could I tell whether somebody wanted me?" "Oh, that'll be all right," he said, "as soon as you catch hold of the hook; and perhaps you won't be wanted at all. The only trouble is when two children are falling at once, and then you have to decide which you'll go for. But that doesn't happen very often, considering how many children there are." So Doris went upstairs, and he unbuttoned the hook, and when she caught hold of it she felt a strange sort of thrill. She felt like Cuthbert had felt when he went into In-between Land; and indeed that was where she really was. St Uncus had vanished, and she saw Christopher Mark like a little fat ghost, with his soul shining inside him. Then she suddenly heard a cry in a strange foreign language, and she saw a dark-eyed mother at the bottom of some stone steps, and a small round baby, with an olive-coloured skin, tumbling down them one by one. She felt a hot wind, full of the odour of spices, blowing faintly against her cheek; and then she bent forward and hooked up the baby, and saw the look of terror die out of the mother's face. Never in her life had Doris felt so pleased. She felt as if she could shout and sing with joy. No wonder, she thought, that St Uncus looked so happy. She began to understand what being in Heaven meant. And then she heard a shout, and smelt a smell of herrings, and she saw a man in a blue jersey, and a curly-headed boy, about four years old, pitching head first down a dark staircase. Through a dirty window-pane she could see the mouth of a river, full of fishing-smacks floating side by side; and she saw a woman, with rolled-up sleeves, run out of a kitchen and stand beside the man. Then she hooked up the boy, and she heard the woman say "Thank God!" and the man say "You little rascal, you!" and then she was back again, and there was St Uncus sitting beside her and rubbing his hands. "Ever so many thanks," he said. "I haven't seen old Bill for nearly three hundred years. He says he'd like to meet you, but of course it's only now and again that anybody like you is able to see us." Then he said good-bye to her, and she never saw him again, but she knew that he was there, and once she actually heard him; and that was very late on this same evening, long after everyone had gone to bed. For soon after midnight, when Auntie Kate was dreaming about clergymen and bazaars, and when Teddy and George were dreaming about bears, and Jimmy and Jocko about bathrooms, and when Christopher Mark was dreaming about rabbits, and Doris wasn't dreaming at all--soon after midnight a little red-hot cinder suddenly popped out of the kitchen grate. It fell on a bit of matting, and burnt its way through to the floor-boards below; and presently a wisp of smoke, with a wicked pungent smell, began to twist upward and flatten against the ceiling. Fuller and fuller grew the kitchen of smoke, and Teddy and George began to dream of camp-fires, but Auntie Kate still dreamt of bazaars and pincushions marked tenpence halfpenny. Teddy and George were sleeping by themselves, and Christopher Mark slept in a little room turning out of Auntie Kate's. These rooms were above the sitting-room in the front of the house, and it was Teddy and George who slept over the kitchen; while Doris herself and Jimmy and Jocko shared a little room under the roof. The floor of the kitchen was now blazing fiercely, with the boards crackling in the flames, and Teddy and George began to dream about guns, but still they didn't wake up. They only moved a little uneasily, and it was somebody shouting that finally woke them, just as it was a neighbour banging at the front door that roused Auntie Kate from her dreams. "Hurry up!" cried the neighbour, "your house is on fire!" and Auntie Kate was so flustered that she quite forgot where she had put her clothes, and rushed downstairs in her nightdress. As for Teddy and George, their room was full of smoke, and they bolted out of it, coughing and spluttering, and met Doris coming down from the attic, pushing Jimmy and Jocko in front of her. The kitchen door had now swung open, and the flames were darting across the hall; and clouds of smoke were rolling upstairs like a sour and suffocating fog. "Never mind," said Doris. "Hold your breath, and run downstairs as quick as you can," and soon they were all standing together in the street, while some of the neighbours were running for the fire-engine. It had stopped raining, but the pavement felt all cold and clammy as they stood upon it with their bare feet, and it seemed funny to be out in the dark with nothing on but their nightgowns. Auntie Kate had fled into an opposite house, because she couldn't bear that so many people should see her; but Teddy and George were rather enjoying themselves, though Jimmy and Jocko had begun to cry. Then Doris looked round, "Where's Christopher Mark?" she cried, and everybody looked at everybody else, and Doris knew that he must be still asleep in his little dressing-room upstairs. She rushed into the house, but the leaping flames had already begun to curl round the banisters; and the lady next door caught hold of her arm and told her that it would be madness to try and rescue him. But Doris shook her off and ran across the hall, and dashed blindly up the burning staircase. "Oh, St Uncus!" she said, "come and help me; come and help me to save Christopher Mark." The sound of the flames was like the roar of an engine, and the smoke was thicker than the blackest night. But at the top of the stairs she suddenly heard a whisper, "It's all right, my dear, I'm here." And then she laughed, and found Christopher Mark fast asleep, hugging his white rabbit; and in another few seconds she was out in the street again, with Christopher Mark safe in her arms. Some of the people cheered her and patted her on the back, and began to tell her how brave she had been; and she was rather pleased, of course, especially when she thought of Mummy, who would be sure to hear about it in hospital. But she wasn't conceited, because she knew that she had been helped by a little saint with a crooked back, who served God by keeping an eye on all the staircases in the world. Never a babe in Port of Spain, Peabody Buildings, Portland Maine, Limerick, Lima, Boston, York, Nottingham, Naples, Cairo, Cork, Milton of Campsie, Moscow, Mull, Halifax, Hampstead, Hobart, Hull, Never a baby climbs a stair But little St Hook is waiting there. OLD MOTHER HUBBARD [Illustration: Mother Hubbard's] X OLD MOTHER HUBBARD Cuthbert was very sorry when he heard about the fire at Doris's house, and when he next saw her in the street, he almost crossed the road to speak to her. But she hadn't spoken to him for so long that he had resolved not to talk to her unless she spoke to him first. Doris and Jimmy and Jocko were now staying with some people called Brown; and Doris's mother and the twins and Christopher Mark were staying with Gwendolen's aunt and Captain Jeremy. It was rather fun staying with the Browns, but on the whole Doris was rather sad, because it would be two months, so the builders said, before they could all be at home together again. Cuthbert knew about this, because Marian had told him; and that was why he nearly crossed the road. But he decided not to, and he didn't see Doris again until the second day of the holidays. That was the Thursday before Christmas, and it was a grey day and very cold, with a strong wind blowing out of the north-east, and all the houses looking huddled and shrunken. It was early in the afternoon, and he had just been to call for Edward, but Edward had gone out to sit by the railway. He was collecting the numbers on engines, and had already got thirty-seven. Cuthbert was collecting too, but he was collecting the dates on pennies, so he didn't feel inclined to go and sit with Edward; and it was just as he was wondering what to do that he saw Doris turn the corner. For a moment he thought that he would pretend not to see her, but she was all alone, and it suddenly occurred to him that it would be rather a good idea to take her out to tea at Uncle Joe's. So he stopped and asked her, and she was very glad, because she had nothing particular to do; and she told him all about St Uncus and the fire and what it was like being nearly burnt to death. "Let's cut across the fields," she said, "past old Mother Hubbard's. It's jolly cold. I think it's going to snow." "I hope it is," said Cuthbert. "But it's not so cold as the day on which we found the ice-men." But it was quite cold enough, with the horses in the fields standing dismally under the naked hedges, and the black north-easter crumbling the ridges of the plough-lands until they looked like pale-coloured powdered chocolate. "I shall be jolly glad," said Cuthbert, "when we get to Uncle Joe's," and just then they passed Mother Hubbard's--a melancholy house standing by itself, with all its blinds and curtains drawn. It was always like that, and behind it were some ruined stables, with a tin roof that flapped up and down; and a big yellow dog on a long chain ran out and yelped at them as they passed. This was called Mother Hubbard's house, because it belonged to a Miss Hubbard who lived there all by herself, and who had allowed nobody to enter the door since her father had died fifty years ago. He had been a proud old general with a bad temper; and some people said that he had driven Miss Hubbard mad, but other people said that she was only queer, and hated everybody except her dog. Occasionally she could be seen peering round one of the blinds, or feeding her dog in the ruined stables; and once a week she went into the town with a big bag to do her shopping. The shop-people said that she was very polite, and so did the postman, who sometimes took her a letter. But she always kept her own counsel, and nobody could ever make her talk. Why she lived like that, nobody knew. Some people said that it was because she was so poor, and because her father had made her promise never to let people know how poor she was. But other people said that she was really rather rich, and that she must have had some great trouble. She was very old--nearly eighty--although her eyes were clear and so were her cheeks; but there were still a few people who remembered her as a girl galloping on horseback over the fields. "Silly old thing," said Doris, as they left her house behind them. "I shouldn't be surprised if she was a witch." But Cuthbert said that there weren't any such things, and perhaps she had killed somebody and had a guilty conscience. Then they crossed a road, and climbed over a stile, and skirted a great field pricked with tiny wheat-blades; and then they slipped down a rather steep bank into a sheltered lane still wet with mud. They had already forgotten old Mother Hubbard, and the next moment they forgot her still more; for just then there came clattering down the lane a young man on horseback, splashed to his eyes. His bowler hat was crammed down on his head, and he shouted at them as he galloped by. "Which way have they gone?" he cried, but he never stopped for an answer, and soon there came some more riders, both men and women. They had evidently come down the lane to avoid a big ploughed field that lay between high hedges on the other side of it, for Cuthbert and Doris presently saw them turn sharply to the right into a grass meadow where it was easier to gallop. "It's the hunt," said Doris. "Let's run after them," so they turned and ran down the lane, and saw the riders, one by one, jumping over a gate on the far side of the meadow. Then they crossed the meadow and scrambled over the gate just in time to see the last of the horsemen disappearing over another hedge a couple of hundred yards away. "We shall never catch them," said Cuthbert, but just then they heard a horn blowing. "It's the fox," cried Doris. "They've seen the fox," and half a minute later, from a little rise in the ground, they saw the whole hunt streaming away from them. They were so hot now that they had forgotten all about the wind and the grey clouds gathering over the downs, and their only thought was to be up among the horses and their jolly, red-cheeked riders. So they ran down the rise and across another road and over some more fields and past a wood, until they came at last to a stream, running rather sluggishly between some pollarded willows. On one of these there was a man standing, and he waved his hand to them as they came up. "They're coming back," he said. "Keep along the stream, and I'll lay a dollar you'll see some fun." It was now nearly four, and the light was beginning to fade, and they were ever so far from Uncle Joe's; but they pushed their way through the tangled grass until they came to a plank across the stream. This led them out beside a hazel copse, and just as they were wondering which way to go they heard the horn again, not very far away, and the clear, deep calling of the hounds. Something cold fell on Cuthbert's cheek. "Hullo!" he said, "it's beginning to snow." And then a burly man on a big grey mare came crashing through the undergrowth on the other side of the stream. He gave a shout, and they jumped aside as his horse rose to clear the water; but the next moment he was sprawling on the ground in front of them, with his scarlet coat about his ears. They heard him swear, but as he picked himself up and helped his horse out of the stream he began to laugh, and soon he was in the saddle again and vanishing into the dusk. For a minute or two they waited, but nobody else came. An old cock pheasant rattled out of the hazel copse. The horn blew once more, and then all was still. Their breath stood like smoke upon the air. Then Doris suddenly stooped and picked up a coin that had been half trampled into the bank. "Hullo!" she said, "he's dropped a penny. You'd better add the date of it to your collection." Cuthbert took it from her, but the penny was an old one, and the date was difficult to see. The snow began to fall upon them in heavy flakes. Cuthbert took out his handkerchief and polished the coin. And then an odd thing happened, for suddenly, as he polished, the stream and the hazel copse seemed to fade away; and it was another girl--a grown-up girl--who had just given him the penny. "A penny for your thoughts," she said, and Cuthbert knew that she wasn't speaking to him, but to somebody else; and the thoughts that came into his head weren't his own, but a grown-up man's. He knew that they were somebody else's thoughts, because he was thinking his own thoughts too; and the other person's thoughts were of two kinds--the weak thoughts that he decided to tell the girl, and the strong thoughts that went into the penny. The thoughts that he told the girl were that, when he got to South America, he was going to spend his spare time studying the birds there. He was going to write a book about them, and perhaps, when he had written his book, he would get a job looking after a museum. But his strong thoughts, that he didn't tell her, were "I love you and want to marry you; but I mustn't tell you that, because I'm only a carpenter, and you're a lady, and ever so far above me." "What's the matter?" said Doris. Cuthbert gave her the penny. "It's a queer sort of penny," he said. "Catch hold of it." Doris took it. "I don't see anything queer in it," she said. So Cuthbert polished it once more. This time he polished it harder, so that when he gave it to Doris again it was quite warm from the polishing; and Doris seemed to be standing in a strange sort of room, full of old-fashioned furniture and heavy ornaments. The same girl said, "A penny for your thoughts," and the same thoughts came to her as had come to Cuthbert. The day drew in. It was almost dark now, and the snow was glistening on their shoulders. "I know what's happened," she said. "His real thoughts were so strong that they all went into the penny." Cuthbert nodded. "That's what I thought," he said. "And when you rub the penny they all come out." "Did you notice the girl's dress?" asked Doris, "and the way her hair was done, and the blue china dog on the mantelpiece?" Cuthbert shook his head. "Let's have another go," he said, and he rubbed the penny again as hard as he could. This time he noticed the room, with its queer high-backed piano, and a picture of people hunting hanging on the wall, and the blue china dog, and the girl's dress, and the curious way in which she had done her hair. It was pulled back from her forehead into a smooth sort of bundle behind her head; and her dress was all in terraces, like a wedding-cake, or a theatre turned upside down. "It must have been a good long time," said Cuthbert, "since she gave him the penny. Do you think he was the man who fell off the horse?" "Oh, he couldn't have been," said Doris. "He was much too young; and besides I'm sure that he was never a carpenter." She shivered a little. "We ought to be getting home," she said, but Cuthbert lingered for a moment, looking at the penny. "I expect hundreds of people," he said, "have had it in their pockets and never known what was inside it." "I daresay," said Doris, "but I know I'm jolly hungry, and we must be miles away from anywhere." Nor were they quite sure where anywhere was, but they crossed the plank again and started for home, with the snow driving past their ears and piling up in front of their feet. Grey-capped hedges loomed up before them, rising unexpectedly out of the darkness; and so thick lay the snow that they were never able to tell whether the next field was a ploughed one. But they passed the tree--or they thought that they did--on which the man had been standing; and they crossed the road--or they thought that they did--that they had crossed after running down the rise. But the hours went by, and they felt emptier and emptier, and several times they stumbled into snow-filled ditches; and the snow roared past them in angry whiteness, and melted upon their necks and trickled down their backs. Longingly they thought then of Uncle Joe's and of plates of hot muffins before the fire, and even more longingly of supper at home, with bowls of steaming bread and milk. But every field seemed endlesser than the last, and the snow grew deeper and ever more deep; and the night closed down upon them like a lid, and their feet felt heavier than ten-pound weights. "I believe we're lost," said Cuthbert, but Doris didn't seem to hear, and so they toiled on with sinking hearts, and then at last, just as they were almost spent, they suddenly knocked their knees against a little gate. It was the sort of gate that leads into a garden path; and though they could see no sign of this, or even of a light, they pushed it open with a great effort, and went plunging into the snow beyond. Sometimes people have been frozen close to a house, but in a little while they saw a great dark shadow; and then to their joy they found themselves in front of a door, with a gleam of light shining through the letter-box. For a long time they knocked, but nobody came; and several times they shouted through the letter-box. But still nobody came, and then from behind the house they heard the barking of a dog. Doris gripped Cuthbert's arm. "It's old Mother Hubbard's," she said. "That's her dog. I know it's bark." "Then we'll never get in," said Cuthbert, but just as he said that they heard footsteps coming down the hall. "Who's there?" said a voice. It had an odd sort of creak in it, like the creak of a drawer that is seldom opened. Cuthbert told her; and then, after a long pause, the door moved a little on its hinges. An eddy of snow whirled in in front of them, and the door swung back an inch or two more. "You'd better come inside," said Miss Hubbard, and they went into the hall, her first guests for fifty years. She stood looking at them over a flickering candle. Her eyes were frostier than the wind outside. The air of the house smelt like a tomb. They could hear the ticking of several clocks. "You'd better come into the scullery," she said, "and shake the snow off," and she led them in silence to the back of the house, where she left them alone for nearly twenty minutes before she came back to ask them in to tea. "It's in the drawing-room," she said, "and I hope you won't talk. I'm very strong and I have a big dog." So they followed her into the drawing-room, and then a second, and even more wonderful, thing happened. Cuthbert stopped short, and so did Doris, and old Miss Hubbard switched round and stared at them. "What's the matter?" she asked. "What are you gaping at?" "Why, it's the penny room!" said Cuthbert; and so it was. For there was the queer high-backed piano; and there was the picture of people hunting; and there were the old-fashioned heavy ornaments. "But where's the dog," said Doris, "the blue china dog that used to stand on the mantelpiece?" Old Miss Hubbard had turned quite white. "The blue china dog?" she asked. "What do you know about that? It was broken thirty years ago." "But it's the same room," said Cuthbert, "and there was a girl in it, and she gave a man a penny for his thoughts." Old Miss Hubbard began to tremble. She sat down heavily, and her eyes looked frightened. "But how do you know?" she asked. "You're only children; and that was more than fifty years ago." Cuthbert felt in his pocket and pulled out the penny. "This is the penny," he said, "that the girl gave him. We've just found it, quite by accident. And he didn't tell her all of his thoughts. He only told her some of them. The rest are in here, and we made them come out." He began to polish it again with his handkerchief; and then he gave it to her, and they stood watching her. For about five minutes she sat quite still; and then she looked up, and her voice had changed a little. "If I tell you a story," she said, "will you let me keep it?" Cuthbert looked at Doris, and Doris nodded her head. "Why, of course," said Cuthbert. "We should be very pleased." So while they were having tea she told them that long ago a girl had lived in that house, and that she fell in love with a young man, who was a carpenter by trade. But he was also a naturalist, and especially fond of birds, and he wanted to discover all sorts of things about them; and one day he told the girl that he was just going away to work on a railway in South America. Then he hesitated, as if he wanted to tell her something else, and she gave him a penny for his thoughts; and then he left the house, and was drowned at sea, and the girl never knew whether he had loved her or not. "It was very silly of him," said Miss Hubbard, "not to have told her. But perhaps the girl was sillier still. For she was so sad that she wasted her whole life; and now it seems that he loved her after all." Then she went to the window and pulled up the blind. The storm had died down, and it had stopped snowing. Brighter than eyes at a Christmas party, the stars in their thousands shone in the sky. Cuthbert and Doris said that they must be going; and old Miss Hubbard took them to the front door. "You must come and see me again," she said. "Come as often as you like; and perhaps next time you'll bring some of your friends." "But she never told us," said Cuthbert, "who the girl was." "Why, you silly," said Doris, "it was Miss Hubbard herself." Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard To fetch her poor dog a bone, But this Mother Hubbard in her heart's cupboard Lives in the dark alone. Sorrow's grey dust on the chandelier Never a sun-ray sees, Never a finger stirs the blind, Nor the harpsichord's yellow keys. Dumb is the clock with the china face, The carpet moulds on the floor; Oh, won't you come down to her house with me And open Miss Hubbard's door? MARIAN'S PARTY [Illustration: The Little Temple] XI MARIAN'S PARTY For a whole month after Cuthbert and Doris had had tea with old Miss Hubbard the snow lay white upon the ground, and the ice grew thick over the ponds. Day after day during the Christmas holidays the children went skating or tobogganing; and Cuthbert and Doris learnt to waltz on skates, and even Marian learnt to cut threes. And then the frost broke, and it rained all through February, and then came March with its blustering winds. Sometimes it was an east wind, drying the wet fields or powdering them over with tiny snowflakes; and sometimes it was a west wind, shouting in the tree-tops, with its arms full of sunshine and golden clouds; and the week before Marian's birthday, which was on the 27th, was the windiest week of all, chasing people's hats across the tram-lines, and blowing the chimney-smoke down into their sitting-rooms. Marian always had a party on her birthday, and this year it was going to be a specially nice one. Twelve of her friends were coming, and so was Uncle Joe, and so were Captain Jeremy and Gwendolen's aunt. So was Mr Parker, who lived with Uncle Joe, and so was Lancelot, the bosun's mate; and the most wonderful thing of all, so was old Miss Hubbard. It had been Cuthbert's idea to ask Miss Hubbard, and she had promised to come on one condition--that she might be allowed to bring the birthday-cake and the nine candles to stick into it. For Marian was going to be nine, and it was nearly two years since she had met Mr Jugg; and she sometimes wondered--it seemed so long ago--if she had ever seen him at all. Cuthbert used to tease her by pretending that she hadn't, and that Mr Jugg was only a dream, just as he used to tease her by telling her that the 27th of March was a silly sort of day on which to have a birthday. That was because his own birthday came in April, so that it was always in the holidays; but Uncle Joe, who knew a lot about birthdays, used to take Marian's side. March was the soldier's month, he said, full of bugles, and one of the best months to be born in; while, as for Cuthbert, anyone could tell by listening to him that he had come in April with all the other cuckoos. So Marian was naturally rather excited; and then, on the very morning of her birthday, Cuthbert woke up with a strawberry-coloured tongue and a chest as red as a cooked lobster. That was just the sort of thing, Marian thought, that Cuthbert would do, although she knew that she ought to feel sorry for him; and then the doctor came and said that he had scarlet fever, and that was the end of Marian's party. For Mummy had to put on an overall and begin to nurse Cuthbert, and a big sheet was hung across the bedroom door, and Mummy had to sprinkle it with carbolic acid, and of course Marian wasn't allowed to go to school. But she could go for walks, said the doctor, as long as she went by herself and didn't go near anybody, or travel in trams and things; and so she spent the morning in taking notes to her friends, telling them that there wasn't to be a party after all. As for Uncle Joe, Mummy sent him a message by a carrier who passed near his house. "And the first thing in the afternoon," she said to Marian, "you must slip across the fields to old Miss Hubbard's." Now a little girl whose only brother has just been silly enough to get scarlet fever is one of the loneliest people in the world; and that was just how Marian felt. Even her mummy tried to keep away from her, because she was nursing Cuthbert, who was so infectious; and she had had strict orders when she arrived at Mother Hubbard's not to go inside her house. "Everybody's happy," said Marian, "except me," as she saw the people laughing in the country roads, and the horses biting at each other's manes, and the birds circling together in the soft air. For, as if Somebody had known that it was going to be her birthday and waved a wand during the night, the wind had dropped and the clouds vanished, and the air was full of a thousand scents. There were earth-scents, warm and wet, and hedge-scents of primroses and growing weeds, and the scents of small animals, and cow-scents and lamb-scents, and tree-scents of bark and cracking buds. Invisibly they rose and spread and mingled, like children flocking upstairs in their party frocks; and the sun beamed down on them like some gay old admiral who had just spied summer on the horizon. But Marian was still unhappy and disappointed, and when she had given her message to old Miss Hubbard she wandered across the fields, not very much caring where she went or what might happen to her. That was how she was feeling when she came at last to a small wood, called the Pirate's Wood because it was shaped rather like a ship, with a lot of masts in it, easy to climb. It was Cuthbert who had christened this wood, because he had climbed higher than the others--almost to the top of the tallest tree. But Doris had climbed nearly as high, and they both laughed at Marian, because she would only climb half-way up. It occurred to her this afternoon, however, that she would climb higher than either of them; and she didn't care, she said, if she fell from the top. So she swung herself up on to the lowest branch of the big elm-tree near the middle of the wood; and presently she saw above her the fork between two boughs that Cuthbert had christened the crow's-nest. Level with her nose, cut in the bark of the trunk, was a big D, standing for Doris, so that already she had climbed as high as Doris had climbed, and was able to look out over the other trees. But now she had come to the hardest part of the climb, for in order to reach the crow's-nest she would have to swarm up a piece of the elm-trunk from which there were no branches sticking out to help her. There were only roughnesses in the bark, into which she would have to dig her fingers, and first of all she had to pull up her skirt and tuck it down inside her knickers. For a moment or two she began to be frightened. But then she told herself that she didn't care; and soon she had swarmed high enough to reach one of the forking boughs, and had swung herself up into the crow's-nest. She was now as high as Cuthbert had climbed, and rippling away below her she could see the fields and farm-lands stretching into the distance. Two or three miles to her right lay the spires and chimneys and crinkled roof-tops of the town, and two or three miles to her left, golden in the sunlight, the hills lay strung along the sky. Then she saw yet another fork between two slender boughs, just about a foot above her head, and in a minute or two she had climbed higher even than Cuthbert had done, and was safely perched in the top of the tree. If only the others had been there she could have sighted imaginary ships for them sooner than any of them had done before; and then she remembered again how sad and lonely she was, and that nothing really mattered after all. So she stuffed her handkerchief into a crack in the tree just to prove that she had really climbed there; and it was just then that she saw a young man swinging across the fields toward the wood. He was wearing an old shooting-jacket and grey flannel trousers; and he was singing a song, of which she couldn't hear the words. She saw him climb a gate--rather cautiously, she thought; she had expected from his general air that he would vault it; and then he disappeared under the trees just as she began to climb down. But climbing down anything is often more difficult than climbing up, as Marian found; and half-way down she suddenly discovered that she had somehow worked herself to the wrong side of the tree. Below her were two or three branches that she thought would bear her, but there were long gaps yawning between them; and the main trunk was growing broader and broader, so that she could no longer span it with her arms. Once a piece of bark broke in her fingers, and she slithered down a yard or more and nearly fell; and she could feel her heart jumping against her ribs, as she stood with both feet on a bending bough. Then she heard the young man singing again in a cheerful voice, and she thought of shouting to him, but she felt too shy; and then she began to lower herself very carefully until she touched the branch below her with the tips of her toes. The young man stopped singing. "Steady on," he cried. "You're touching a rotten branch." Marian pulled herself up again. "But it's the only one there is," she said. "I can't reach any other." She heard him whistle. "Hold on," he said. "I'm trying to find you--half a tick." He came to the bottom of the tree and looked up. "Where are you now?" he asked. Marian thought it a silly question. "Why, just here," she said. "Well, why don't you come down," he asked, "the same way that you got up?" "I don't know," she said. "I wish I could. But I've got wrong somehow. I'm stuck." She saw him touching the elm-trunk with his hands, running his fingers lightly and quickly over it. Then he swung himself up on to the lowest bough, and soon he was near enough to touch her hand. "Now catch hold," he said, "and jump toward me. Don't be frightened. I'm as firm as a rock." Marian jumped, and he caught and steadied her. "Now you're all right," he said. "You'd better go down first." In another moment or two he was on the ground beside her, looking down at her with a smile. He was about six feet high, she thought, with queer-looking eyes and curly brown hair and a skin like a gipsy's. "Well, what are you doing here," he asked, "climbing all alone?" Marian told him about her party, and how she had had to put it off. "And it'll be seven or eight weeks," she said, "before Cuthbert's well again, so that I shan't have one at all." "Yes, I see," he said. "That's jolly bad luck. What about having some tea with me?" Marian looked at him a little doubtfully. "But where do you live?" she asked. "Do you live near here?" "Well, just at present," he said, "I'm staying with Lord Barrington. But I have a flask in my pocket full of hot tea, and I stole some cakes before I came out." So they sat down together between the roots of the elm-tree, and the sun poured down upon them, almost as if it had been summer. "But why did you come here," said Marian--"to this wood I mean?" "Oh, just by accident," he said, "if there's any such thing." Marian looked him up and down again. She wondered what he was. Perhaps it was rude, but she ventured to ask him. "Well, I used to be a painter," he said, "once upon a time. I was rather a successful one. So I saved a little money." "But you're quite young," she said. "Why aren't you one now?" "Because I had a disappointment," he said, "just like you have had." Marian began to like him. "Was it a bad one?" she asked. "Pretty bad," he said. "I became blind." For a moment Marian was so surprised that she couldn't say anything at all; and then she felt such a pig that she didn't want to say anything. For what was a silly little disappointment like hers beside so dreadful a thing as becoming blind? But he looked so contented and was humming so cheerfully as he counted out the cakes and began to divide them that her curiosity got the better of her, and she spoke to him once more. "But how did you know," she asked, "that I was up the tree?" "Quite simple," he said. "I heard you." "And how could you tell that that was a rotten branch?" "Because I heard the sound of it when your toes touched it." Marian was silent for a moment. "You must have awfully good hearing," she said. "But I suppose you've practised rather a lot." "Well, a good deal," he admitted. "You see, I was in the middle of Asia when I first lost my sight. I was camping out, and painting pictures, and shooting an occasional buck for my breakfast and dinner. Then a gun went off while somebody was cleaning it, and the next moment I was blind; and for a couple of months there was only one thing I wanted, and that was to die as soon as I could." He poured out some tea for her and dropped a lump of sugar into it. "And then one day," he said, "there came a man to see me, and he told me that I oughtn't to be discouraged. He was an old priest of some queer sort of religion that the people of those parts believed in; and he was sorry for me, and took me to stay with him in a little temple up in the mountains. I never knew his name, we were just father and son to each other, and I suppose that most people would have called him a heathen. But he had lived all his life up among the mountains, studying nature and praying to God. Well, I stayed with him for more than a year, and he used to talk to me about the things he knew. I was a bad pupil, I'm afraid, but he was infinitely patient; and after a time I began to learn a little. 'You are blind, my son,' he used to tell me, 'but only a little less blind than other people. And you have ears that are still almost deaf. Why not stay with me and learn to hear?' I told him that I _could_ hear, but he only smiled--it's a lovely thing to hear people smile--and then he began to teach me, just as he would have taught a child, the ABC of hearing." He finished his cake and filled his pipe. "Did you know," he went on, "that everything has a sound, just as it has a shape and colour of its own? Well, it has; and presently I seemed to be living in a strange new world, all full of music. Of course it wasn't really new. It was the same old world. Only, like most people, I had been almost deaf to it; and when I first heard it, up in that little temple, I nearly went mad with joy. Day after day and night after night I went out by myself and listened, and gradually I began to distinguish the separate sounds of things, like the notes of instruments in an orchestra." He stopped for a moment. "Just behind us, for instance, there's a clump of anemones singing next to some primroses." Marian turned and saw them, just as he had said. "Oh, I wish," she cried, "that I could hear them too." The painter smiled. "Wait for a moment," he said. "Well, then once more I began to grow miserable. For I was an artist, you see, and every artist wants to make other people see what he sees. That was why I had painted my pictures. But how could I make people hear what I heard? So I told the old priest about it, and he said that, if I were a real artist, the power would come back to me somehow. 'Wait a little,' he said, 'Stay a little longer. You've hardly begun yet to hear for yourself.'" He paused again and lit his pipe. "And at last it came to me," he said. "Hold my hand." Marian slipped her hand into his. "Now close your eyes," he told her, "and listen." For a moment she could hear nothing but a ploughman shouting to his horses and the tap-tapping of a woodpecker; but slowly as she listened sounds began to come to her, as of a hidden band far in the distance. Presently they drew nearer, and at first they were confused, like hundreds of people gently humming through closed lips; but at last she began to recognize different notes, like tiny drums and flutes and fifes. All the time, too, close at hand, there was a faint persistent ringing of bells; and these were the anemones swaying on their stems; and the little trumpet-sounds came from the primroses. Then there was a rough sort of scraping sound; and that was a mole, he said, burrowing in the earth two or three yards away. And there was a sound like a chant on one full note from a big field of grass just in front of the wood. Those were the distincter notes; but there was a continuous sharp undertone, like millions of finger-tips tapping on stretched parchment; and those were the buds opening all along the hedges and upon the leaf-twigs up above them. But deeper than all, deeper and softer than the softest organ, there was a great sound; and that was the sap, he told her, rising like a flood in all things living for miles around them. Then she opened her eyes and dropped his hand, and it was as if she had suddenly become almost deaf. She lifted her fingers and put them in her ears. "It's as if they were stopped up," she said. "Hold my hand again." But he turned and smiled at her. "Are you still unhappy?" he asked. Marian shook her head. "No, not now," she answered. "That's right," he said. "The world's much too good a place for a little girl like you to be unhappy in." Then he held her hand again, and as the sounds of the world came back to her there happened the oddest thing of all. For now there came other sounds, clearer and nearer, lighter than breath and closer than her heart. They said "Marian" to her, "Marian, Marian"; and the strange thing was that she seemed to remember them--just as if their names were on the tip of her tongue, like the names of old friends, stupidly forgotten. "That's what they are," he said. "They're the voices of the friends that we left behind us when we were born. Whenever we go back, and whenever we have a birthday, they come flocking down to greet us." He stood up and stretched himself, and Marian rose to her feet. "So you've had a party," he said, "after all." Could we, down the road to school, Run but with undeafened ears, Then what joy in this sweet spring Just to hear the gardens sing, Scilla with her drooping bells Playing her enchanted peal, Primrose with his golden throat Shouting his triumphant note. THE SORROWFUL PICTURE [Illustration: Porto Blanco] XII THE SORROWFUL PICTURE Marian never told anybody, not even Gwendolen, about that strange party of hers under the elm-tree; and the blind painter faithfully promised that he would keep it a secret too. But a fortnight later, when the doctor said that it was quite safe, she introduced him to Gwendolen; and Gwendolen was rather excited, because he was the very man who had painted her favourite picture. This was a picture, only half finished, that her aunt had bought when Gwendolen was quite little and when she used to play games all by herself in the big house in Bellington Square. One of these games was a queer sort of game, in which she would shut herself up in a room, and imagine herself climbing into the pictures on the wall and having adventures with the people inside them. If the picture had a tower in it, she would climb up the tower and peep down over the other side; or if there were ships in it she would go on board and talk to the sailors down below. But her favourite picture she called the "sorrowful picture," because though she loved it, it made her feel sad. It was really little more than a sketch, rapidly painted in a few strokes, and Gwendolen's aunt had only bought it because she had been told that the artist was famous. But it was full of sunlight, of a hot, foreign sunlight, through which an old house had stared at the painter, a yellow-walled house with latticed windows and violet shadows under its broken roof. In a crooked pot near the front door a dead palm stretched its withered fingers; and the front door itself was a cave of darkness, with a jutting eave above it like a frowning eyebrow. But what made it so sorrowful, at any rate to Gwendolen, was a little window up in the right-hand corner--an unlatticed window, as dark as the front door, but with a different sort of darkness. For the darkness of the front door was an angry darkness. When Gwendolen was little, it had made her feel frightened. But the darkness of the window was like a wound. She wanted to kiss it and make it well. After she had played with the other pictures, and climbed the mountains in them, and gone paddling in the streams, she always came to this one and stood on its threshold and wondered why it was so different from the others. She never played with it. It seemed too real. "I believe there's something sad," she said, "that the window wants to tell me." But she loved it too, better than all the other pictures, because nobody else seemed to understand it; and when her aunt had married Captain Jeremy, and they had left Bellington Square, and most of the other pictures had been sold, her aunt had allowed her to take this one with her and hang it in her bedroom in the old farmhouse. So she was rather excited when Marian introduced her to the blind painter; and when he came to tea with them in the middle of April she took him upstairs and told him all about it, because, of course, he could no longer see it. But he couldn't remember it, or even where he had painted it, though there was a date on it which showed that it was six years old, because that was a year, he said, in which he was travelling all over the world and making little sketches almost every day. But he didn't laugh at her as her nurse had done, because pictures, he said, were queer things; and nothing was more likely than that there should be something in this one that only Gwendolen could feel. "You see, a picture," he said, "if you look at it properly, is just like a conversation painted on canvas; and you can see what the artist said to his subject as well as what his subject said to him. Of course, in most pictures, just as in most conversations, all that happened is something like this: 'Good morning,' said the artist, 'fine weather we're having,' and whatever he was painting just nodded its head. That's because he was really thinking about something else--his indigestion or the money that he hoped to make; and nobody ever tells their inmost thoughts to people who talk to them like that. But if he has tried to be a real artist, loving and understanding, and not thinking about himself at all, the hills and the trees, or whatever he was painting, have begun to tell him all about themselves. They've swopped secrets with him just like old friends; and there they are for you to see. Sometimes they have even told him things that he didn't understand himself. But he has painted them so faithfully that other people have; and that's the most wonderful thing that can happen to an artist--better than finding a hundred pounds." He lit a cigarette. "And I shouldn't be surprised," he said, "if that little window wasn't giving me a message. Only it was a message that I never understood; and perhaps Gwendolen does." But Gwendolen shook her head. "Not very well," she said. "I only know that it makes me feel sad." And then Gwendolen's aunt came to tell them that tea was ready, and in a couple of minutes they had forgotten all about the picture; and a quarter of an hour later they forgot it still more, for in came Captain Jeremy and Lancelot, the bosun's mate. They were both in high spirits, because they had had an order to put to sea again for Porto Blanco, to fetch a cargo of fruit from the Gulf of Oranges, on the shores of which Porto Blanco was the principal town. "A matter of three months," said Captain Jeremy, "out and home." He gave Marian a kiss and pulled Gwendolen's pigtail. "You'd better come with us. What do you say, Lancelot? Or do you think they'd bring us bad luck?" But Lancelot only grinned and made a husky noise--not because he was naturally shy, but because he was always afraid of having tea in the drawing-room, in case he should spill something on the carpet. He would much have preferred, in fact, to have tea in the kitchen with Mrs Robertson, the housekeeper, because he was very fond of Mrs Robertson, and wanted to marry her, and had told her so several times. But Mrs Robertson couldn't make up her mind. Her first husband had been rather a nuisance; and though he had been dead for nine and a half years, she was still a little doubtful about taking a second one. But Marian and Gwendolen couldn't help jumping up and down, and the blind painter said that they ought to go, and Captain Jeremy promised to go round to Peter Street and see what Marian's mother had to say about it. "But you'll have to talk to her," said Marian, "through the window, because she's still nursing Cuthbert." "Then that's all the more reason," said Captain Jeremy, "why she'll be glad to let you go." Then he asked the blind painter if he would like to come as well, but he shook his head and said that he would be unable to, though he had several times visited the Gulf of Oranges, and would much have liked to go there once more. But after a little persuasion Marian's mother said that Marian could go if Gwendolen went; and a week later they were climbing on board the schooner as she lay at anchor in Lullington Bay. That was the first time that Marian had been aboard her, and everything seemed strange to her, smelling so fresh and salt. But of course Gwendolen knew all about the ship, and soon she was busy taking Marian round. She showed her the big hold, dark and empty, in which they would bring back the cases of fruit, and the cook's galley, and the sailors' bunks, and Captain Jeremy's neat little cabin. And then, just after tea, the anchor was pulled up, and the sails were shaken out, and the wind began to fill them; and presently there were little waves slapping against the bow, and the land was fading into the dusk behind them. Both of them were sea-sick during the night, and felt rather queer most of the next day. But the day after that they were as hungry as they could be, and were soon on deck talking to the sailors. Most of these were the same sailors that had been to Monkey Island, and so Gwendolen knew them already; and she introduced Marian to them, who very soon felt as if they had been friends of hers all her life. But Lancelot was her favourite, just as he was Gwendolen's, and when he was off duty and smoking his pipe, they would sit on either side of him and listen to his stories as the deck beneath them rose and fell. As for Porto Blanco and the Gulf of Oranges, he had been there more times, he said, than he could remember; and once he had been stranded there for such a long time that he had learned to talk the language as well as any of the inhabitants. "But it's a queer place," he said, "and they're queer people, sort of half-way between black and white, and the sun's in the bones of them, and half the time they're fighting, and the other half they're snoozing in the shadders." But for the most part, he said, they were kindly people and very indulgent to each other's faults; and the women all went barefooted and smoked cigarettes, and the men sang love-songs together when they weren't quarrelling. "And up in the hills," said Lancelot, "back of the town, you can see such flowers as you never saw anywhere, and great big oranges hanging off of the trees, and corn-cobs taller than your head. And back of the orange-trees there's great big forests, full of little Injuns with long beards, and nasty yeller snakes, and birds of paradise, and parrots and monkeys and inji-rubber trees," and sometimes he would go on talking till they forgot all about supper-time, and the stars would open above their heads, and far away, perhaps, like a little chain of beads, they would see the port-lights of some great liner. The wind held so fair that by the end of a month they were nearly four thousand miles from home, and a week later when they came on deck they found the sea dotted with little islands. So lovely were they in their wet colours that they might have been enamelled there during the night, and Marian and Gwendolen almost gasped with joy as the ship slid past them in the early morning. For a long time now the weather had been so hot that awnings had been stretched over the deck; and Marian and Gwendolen wore as little as they could--the thinnest of white jerseys and the shortest of skirts. For nearly three weeks they had worn no shoes or stockings, and their feet and legs were the colour of copper; and for two or three hours in the middle of the day Captain Jeremy had made them go to sleep. But to-day they were much too excited to stay in their hammocks; and presently, as they hung over the schooner's bow, they could see the horizon beginning to creep closer, and the hill-tops and forests of the mainland. The wind had dropped now, and the sea was like glass, and sometimes the ship scarcely seemed to move, but early in the afternoon they began to see the roofs of the town and the tower of the cathedral and the white-walled quay. Slowly they drew nearer until they could see the people on the shore or lounging in the other ships at anchor in the harbour; and just before sunset they had come to their moorings and were lying securely against the quay. Down in the cabin, Captain Jeremy was talking business with two of the fruit-merchants--dark-skinned men in white linen suits, smoking pale-coloured long cigars. But Marian and Gwendolen stayed up on deck, watching the night coming down like a shutter, and the lamps beginning to shine in the crooked streets and behind the windows of the houses. Now that it was cooler the people were taking the air, and gaily-dressed women sauntered up and down; and in front of a cafe, where there were a lot of little tables, some men were singing and playing guitars. It was all so strange, it was like being in a theatre, and the air was full of spice-scents and the scent of oranges; and it was hard to believe that they were even in the same world with school and Peter Street and Fairbarrow Down. But next morning it all seemed more real again, and Captain Jeremy took them round the town; and they had lunch with one of the fruit-merchants in a low-walled house built round a courtyard. After lunch they slept in long armchairs, and when they woke up queer sorts of drinks were brought to them; and then it was time to go back to the ship again and watch the cases of fruit being packed in the hold. After a day or two, when they had learned their way about, Captain Jeremy let them go ashore alone; and by the end of the week they had explored every corner of the town, and even gone for walks along the country roads. Some of these were broad roads leading to other towns, but most of them became mule-tracks after a mile or two; and they seldom went very far up these because of the heat, which was greater then even the inhabitants had ever known. Day after day, through the still air, the great sun emptied itself into the town; and the streets cracked, and the barometer fell, and Captain Jeremy looked anxiously at the weather; and it was upon the hottest day of all--the day before they were leaving--that Gwendolen suddenly gripped Marian's arm. It was early in the morning, before the sun was at its steepest, and they had wandered past the cathedral into the outskirts of the town, where a little track between two high garden walls had tempted them to explore it. It had led them into a sort of garden, untidy and deserted, and on the other side of this there stood a house--a yellow-walled house with latticed windows and violet shadows under its broken roof. Beside the front door stood a crooked pot, and the front door itself was a cave of darkness, and up in the right-hand corner, under the roof, was a little window standing open. Gwendolen found herself shaking all over. "Why, it's the very house," she said, "of the sorrowful picture." And so it was, and as they stood looking up at it, it seemed more sorrowful to Gwendolen than ever. For there was the little window almost beseeching her in actual words to go and comfort it; and she even had a feeling that for all these years it had been crying in vain to her across half the world. But there was the front door too, dark with anger, and before they could move a man came out of it. He was a big man with a fat face, and he stood blinking for a moment in the sunshine; and then they saw him frown as he caught sight of them; and he shouted words at them that they didn't understand. But it was evident that he wanted them to go away, and they saw him touch a knife that he wore in his belt; and so they ran back again up the little track, and there in the street they met Lancelot. He was grinning as usual, and he looked so big and strong that they could almost have hugged him on the spot; but his face grew serious when they told him what had happened, and he stroked his chin and became thoughtful. "Well, it's a good thing," he said, "that you come away. In this here town you have to be careful. But I'll have a turn round and see if I can find anything out about this here house and the feller as lives in it." Then he mopped his face and looked at the sky and told them to go back again to the ship; and a couple of hours later he came aboard and beckoned them to talk to him while he smoked his pipe. Everything was ready now for the ship to sail next morning, and most of the other sailors were asleep, and Captain Jeremy had gone to lunch again with the fruit-merchant in the town. "Well, this here feller," said Lancelot, "seems a queer sort of cove, with a bad name, and he lives all alone; and his wife ran away from him six years ago, taking their only little girl along with her. But there's some folks believe that he went after her and killed her--anyway, she was found dead in the forest--but what happened to Pepita, who was three years old at the time, nobody knows, for she's never been seen." Then he smoked his pipe for a minute. "But I tell you what," he said. "He's pretty sure to be asleep just now. And if you like I'll go and have a look at the house, and see what there is to it, and come and tell you." "But I must come too," said Gwendolen. "I really must." "And so must I," said Marian. "We must both come," and after a while they persuaded him to take them, and they set off again through the town. It was now so hot that it seemed as if the very earth must begin to melt and crumble away; and when they came to the house there were no signs of life--there was only that little window, dark and aching. For a moment they stood listening at the front door, and then they cautiously stepped inside; and there, in a lower room, asleep on the floor, they saw the big man with the fat face. Then they stole upstairs until they came to the little room under the roof to which the window belonged; and then, as they pushed the door open, the tears sprang to their eyes, and Lancelot swore a great oath. For there they saw, tied to a staple in the wall, a little girl of about nine years old, ragged and scarred, with timid dark eyes and cheeks like a flower that has never seen the sun. Tied across her mouth was a dirty cloth, and when she first saw them she shrank away; but as Gwendolen went up to her with outstretched arms, her eyes widened in sheer astonishment. Then Lancelot stooped and cut the rope that bound her, and pulled away the cloth that was gagging her mouth; and then he jumped round just as the little girl's father came stumbling fiercely into the room. Gwendolen heard him shouting something and using the word Pepita; and as she clasped the little girl in her arms she knew why it was that all these years the sorrowful picture seemed to have been calling to her. It was because the little girl's pain and longing for freedom had somehow stolen into the painter's brush. Then she saw Lancelot's fist shoot out like a bullet, and Pepita's father tumble to the floor; and then Lancelot shouted to them to hurry away, and picking up Pepita, he ran down the stairs. In less than a minute they were in the little track between the high garden walls; and in a few seconds more they were out in the street, and then a most strange and awful thing happened. For Marian stopped short and pointed with her finger. "Why, what's the matter," she cried, "with the cathedral tower?" They all stared at it, and saw it rock to and fro; and then Lancelot swung round toward the open country. "Run for your lives," he said, and then, as they followed him, they felt the ground beneath them rise and fall. Then they heard a crash, and people shouting, and then all was still again, and they stopped running. Lancelot wiped his forehead. "Well, now you know," he said, "what an earthquake's like. Lucky it wasn't a worse one." And there was the cathedral tower still standing on its foundations, but when they looked for Pepita's house it had fallen down like a pack of cards, a fitting grave for Pepita's father. For they heard in the evening that he had been killed; and Pepita afterward told them how he had killed her mother, and how he had kept her for all those years tied to the wall in that dark upper room. As for Captain Jeremy, he was so rejoiced at seeing Marian and Gwendolen safe that he told Lancelot he would have forgiven him if he had brought fifty Pepitas on board. Lancelot was very pleased about that, because, in his heart of hearts, he knew that he ought never to have let them come with him. But, as he told Gwendolen, all was well that ended well, and he hoped that she would allow him to take care of Pepita. Gwendolen wasn't quite sure at first, but when they arrived home her aunt and Mrs Robertson thought it a good idea. For Mrs Robertson had made up her mind to marry Lancelot, and Pepita was just the little girl, she said, that she had always wanted. We're going the way that Drake went, We shall see what Drake's men saw, A coppery curly cobra-snake, And a scarlet-cloaked macaw. For we're going the way that Drake went, We're taking the jungle trail, And we'll bring you a dark-eyed damsel home, And a cock with a golden tail. THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND [Illustration: The Lagoon] XIII THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND It was about a week after Marian and Gwendolen had arrived home from Porto Blanco that Uncle Joe suddenly asked Cuthbert and Doris to spend a fortnight with him at Redington-on-Sea. It was not the sort of town that Uncle Joe liked, because it was full of big houses and glittering hotels; and most of the people in it wore expensive clothes, and it had a long pier, with a theatre at the end. But he always went there in the first week of August, when Mr Parker took his annual holiday, so that he could visit an old friend of his, who had lodgings on the Marine Parade. This old friend was called Colonel Stookley, and he had lost both his legs as the result of wounds; and Uncle Joe generally took rooms next door and played chess with him every evening. He had been very brave, but was now rather wheezy, besides having something wrong with his liver; and as he had lost most of his friends he was always glad to see Uncle Joe. Generally Uncle Joe went to see him alone, so that he could be with him most of the day; but this year he thought that Cuthbert needed a change, and he asked Doris, because Marian had just had a voyage. At first they were afraid that they would have to take their best clothes, but Uncle Joe said that he didn't mind. So long as they brushed their teeth every day they could wear what they liked, he said, and they could paddle and swim as much as they pleased. So they met Uncle Joe at the station at eleven o'clock on the 3rd of August, and a couple of hours later they were having lunch with him in the big dining-car of the express. Through the windows, as they rocked along, trying their best not to spill their soup, they could see the harvesters at work in the fields, and ribbons of flowers as they crashed through the little stations; and a couple of hours after that, where some hills had broken apart, Doris was the first of them to see a stitch of blue; and by half-past four they were talking to the landlady of number 70 Marine Parade. This was next door to where Colonel Stookley lodged, and the landlady's name was Mrs Bodkin; and she gave Doris a kiss, and said that she was tall for her age and that Cuthbert's cheeks would soon have some roses in them. Then she showed them their bedrooms, which were at the top of the house, looking out to sea over the esplanade; and they found that they could talk to each other out of the windows and watch the people in the gardens below. These were very trim gardens, like the garden in Bellington Square, separated by railings from the flagged esplanade; and beyond the esplanade there were terraces of pebbles, crumbling into a stretch of hard, wet sand. As it was tea-time there were not many people about; but by six o'clock there were people everywhere--people in the gardens, listening to the band, and looking sideways at each other's clothes; people on the esplanade, sauntering up and down, and saying how-do-you-do to their friends; people on the pier staring through telescopes, and people on the beach reading magazines, and people on the sands building castles or paddling with their children on the fringe of the sea. The tide was so low that nobody was bathing, and weed-capped rocks stood out of the water; and after they had paddled a little Doris suggested that they should go and listen to the pierrots. This was the hour--just before the children's bedtime, and before the grown-up people went home to dinner--when the pierrots and beach-entertainers were all at their busiest, trying to earn money. Upon a wooden platform, with three chairs and a piano, two men and two girls were singing and dancing; and a hundred yards away from them, on a similar sort of stand, there were three banjo-players with blackened faces. But there were such crowds round each of these platforms that Cuthbert and Doris couldn't get near them; and there was a conjurer, a little farther on, who seemed to be even more popular. They watched him for a minute or two, and saw the people raining pennies on him, but they were too far away to be able to see his tricks; and then they saw a clown, farther along still, turning somersaults on the sand. There were a few children round him, some of them with nurses, but the people on the esplanade were taking very little notice of him; and by the time that Cuthbert and Doris reached him, he had stopped somersaulting and was wiping his forehead. Standing near him, dressed like a gipsy, was a woman, who was evidently his wife, and sitting on the sand was a queer-looking boy about fourteen who seemed to be their son. The clown was dressed in a baggy sort of smock, tied round his ankles with pink ribbon, and his face was white, with a crimson diamond painted on the middle of each cheek. His lips had been coloured to make them seem smiling, and he wore a wig of carroty hair, but his eyes were tired, and underneath his wig they could see some of his own hair, which was quite grey. Then his wife brought a little box round, but none of the children seemed to have any pennies, and the two or three grown-up people who had been watching the performance turned aside without giving anything. Cuthbert and Doris heard one of them say that it was a rotten show and not worth a farthing; and then the old clown began to sing a song about a cheese that climbed out of the window. Some of the nurses laughed a little, but the children didn't understand it, and Cuthbert and Doris thought it rather stupid, but the woman had noticed them and brought them the box, and they each put a penny in it, though they didn't much want to. Then the old clown and his wife pretended to have a quarrel, and she kept knocking him down with an umbrella; but what interested them most was the queer-looking boy, who kept laughing to himself and playing with his fingers. Once or twice he got up and went straying among the audience, and they could see his mother watching him rather anxiously; and presently he came and talked to them and told them that he was a moon-boy and that his name was Albert Hezekiah. It was now nearly seven, and the tide was coming in, and there was nobody left to watch the old clown, so his wife stopped hitting him with the umbrella and helped him on with a shabby blue overcoat. Then they emptied the pennies out of the box, and the old clown counted them in the palm of his hand. "Ten and a half," he said, "not much of a catch, old lady," and then they looked round for Albert Hezekiah. He was still talking to Cuthbert and Doris, and the old clown and his wife came up to them. The woman spoke to Doris. "Don't you be frightened," she said, and the old clown tapped his forehead. "He's a little bit touched," he said, "that's all, my dear. But he's a good lad and he's quite harmless." Then they said good-night, and the moon-boy shook hands with them and told them that he liked them, because they had nice faces; and two or three times during the next few days they saw him playing about near his father and mother. Then one day they saw him alone, and he told them that his father was ill in bed, and that his mother had sent for the doctor, and that they had no money to pay the rent with. It seemed rather funny to think of a clown being ill, but Doris and Cuthbert each gave him sixpence, and he ran off singing, and they didn't see him again till the last day of their holiday. This was a bright hot day, and they had bathed in the morning, and then Mrs Bodkin had cut them some sandwiches, and they had had their lunch on the top of Capstan Beacon, which was a high hill about five miles away. Then they had walked inland and had tea at a little village; and it was toward dusk, just as they were reaching the town, that they saw the moon-boy in the middle of a group of boys on a piece of waste land near the gas-works. He was waving his arms and looking rather bewildered, and the other boys were mocking him and singing a sort of song, "Loony, loony, moon-boy; loony, loony, loo"; and when they came nearer they saw that he was crying, and that one of the bigger boys was throwing stones at him. Doris was so angry that she could hardly speak, but she caught hold of the boy who was throwing stones, and when he tried to hit her she slapped his face and told him that he was the biggest coward that she had ever seen. Then he tried to hit her again, but Cuthbert jumped in front of her, and after a minute or two Cuthbert knocked him down; and then the other boys ran away, after throwing stones at them and calling them names. "Little beasts," said Doris, "look what they've done," and Cuthbert saw that they had cut the moon-boy's cheek. So Doris took out her handkerchief and stopped the bleeding, and then they both took the moon-boy home. He was so excited at first that he lost the way, but at last he stopped in front of a little house; and in a back room they found the old clown, sitting up in bed and trying to shave himself. His wife was at the fireplace, frying some fish; and when they heard what had happened to their son, they shook hands with Cuthbert and Doris and thanked them over and over again. "Luck's against us, you see," said the old clown. "We're getting past work, and the people won't laugh at us. And this here boy of ours is all that we have, and there's nobody else to look after him." "Excepting one," said the moon-boy, and the old clown began to laugh. "That's one of his crazes," he said. "He says that he has a friend who comes and talks to him once a week." "Out of the sea," said the boy. "He comes out of the sea. I never see him except by the sea." "Nor there either," said his mother, "if the truth was known." But when Cuthbert and Doris said good-bye the moon-boy followed them into the street and began speaking to them in a whisper. "I tell you what," he said. "If you'll meet me to-night at ten o'clock just by the lighthouse I'll show him to you, if you'll promise not to laugh. Because if you laugh, he won't come." For a moment they hesitated because they were pretty sure that Uncle Joe wouldn't allow it; but then they decided that they needn't ask him, as he would be sure to be playing chess with Colonel Stookley. So they promised to be there, though they thought it very likely that the moon-boy wouldn't come; and just before ten they were on the little path that led from the town toward the lighthouse. This was about a mile from the end of the esplanade, under a great cliff called Gannet Head, and at low tide it was possible to reach the lighthouse by climbing over some fifty yards of rocks. But the tide was high to-night, and the little path that slanted down across the face of the cliff came to an end upon a slab of rock not more than a foot above the water. There was no moon, but the stars were so bright that the air was full of a sort of sparkle; and the sea was so still that the water beneath them hardly seemed to rise and fall. _Clup, clup_ it went, with a lazy sort of sticky sound, like a piece of gum-paper flapping against a post, and then slowly becoming unstuck again before doing it all once more. At first they could see nobody, but as they stood looking about them they heard a soft whistle a little farther on; and there was the moon-boy, with his arms round his knees, squatting on another ledge of rock. This was broader and flatter than the one at the bottom of the path, and a little higher above the water; and Cuthbert and Doris were soon sitting beside him and wondering what was going to happen. "Where's your friend?" asked Cuthbert. The moon-boy touched his lips. "_H'shh_," he said. "He'll be here in a minute. He was here half an hour ago, and I told him all about you." "But where's he gone?" said Doris. The moon-boy shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "He might be anywhere. He spends his life pulling children out of the water. But nobody ever sees him except me." Doris suddenly felt her heart beginning to beat quicker. "Why, I believe I know him!" she said. "Is he a saint?" The moon-boy nodded. "Yes, he's a patron saint," he said. "He's the patron saint of water." "Then I do know him," said Doris. "At least, I've heard of him, and I've met his brother, St Uncus." "This one's St William," said the moon-boy, "but he's generally known as Fat Bill." And then they heard a pant, and there, sitting beside them, was an enormous man with a red face. Like his brother, he was nearly bald, but he was about seven times as large, and he had blue eyes and a double chin, and there was a big landing-net in his right hand. "Good evening," he said, "pleased to meet you. I've heard about the girl of you from my brother Uncus. And the boy of you I saw last year, pulling a little nipper out of a stream." Cuthbert blushed. "That was young Liz," he said, "Beardy Ned's kid, but it was quite easy." "Maybe it was," said Fat Bill, "but, as it happened, you really helped to save two nippers. You see, there was a kid, just at the same moment, fell into a lagoon off Hotoneeta." "What's Hotoneeta?" asked Cuthbert. "Bit of an island," he said, "a hundred miles south of the equator." He cleared his throat. "Well, I couldn't save 'em both, because I was pulling a boy out of Lake Windermere; and I was just going for Liz when I saw that you were after her, so that I was able to land Blossom-blossom just in time." "Was that her name?" asked Doris. Fat Bill nodded. "That's the English of it," he said. "But her people are savages." Then he disappeared for a moment, and there was nothing but the starlight and the _clup, clup_ of the water; and it was while he was gone that there came into Doris's mind a wild but just possible idea. She turned to Cuthbert. "I tell you what," she said. "Why shouldn't he take us to Hotoneeta? I expect he could somehow, if he really wanted to; and you _did_ help to save Blossom-blossom." Cuthbert considered. "Well, of course he _might_," he said, and then Fat Bill was sitting beside them again. "Just been to Ohio," he said, "to a place called Columbus--kid fell into a lake there--nobody by." He laid down his landing-net and rubbed his hands. "It's a hard life," he said, "being a saint." But he looked so comfortable, sitting on the rock, with his fat thighs spread out beneath him, that Doris was almost sure that he wouldn't mind, and so she asked him if he would take them. He stroked his chin for a moment and looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, of course I _could_," he said, "though it would be rather irregular. But Albert Hezekiah here would have to look after my landing-net, because I've only got two hands." So they all three of them looked at the moon-boy, and he promised to take care of the landing-net; and then Fat Bill held out his hands, and Cuthbert and Doris each took one of them. The moment they did so they were, of course, in In-between Land, because that was where Fat Bill and his brother lived; and the rocks looked ghostly, just like dream-rocks, and they could see the moon-boy's soul, like a tiny flame. But the next moment they were alone on a shore of the whitest sand that they had ever seen, and the dawn was coming up over an enormous sea, stiller than stillness and breathlessly blue. At their feet lay a shallow lagoon--or at least it looked shallow--trembling with colour; and strange-petalled weeds swung to and fro in it, and the silver-scaled fishes slid between them. It was so hot that they wanted to throw their clothes away, and the jungle behind them was full of odours--sleepy odours, like the odours of a medicine-chest--and nodding, red-lipped flowers. Leading from the shore, between the walls of the jungle, was a narrow path of grass and sand; and standing in the middle of it, still as an idol, was a little dark-brown naked girl. Fat Bill had gone, but they knew that it was Blossom-blossom, and then she gave a yell and fled from sight; and Cuthbert and Doris couldn't help laughing as they began to explore the rim of the lagoon. But a minute or two later, as they were kneeling on the shore and peering down into that wonderful water, something happened that made them think of Blossom-blossom in rather a different sort of way. For just as Doris had made up her mind to take off her shoes and stockings, they heard a little sound, and the next moment a spear was quivering in the sand between them. They sprang to their feet just in time to avoid another one and to see a man crouching at the edge of the jungle; and then they were snatched up, and there they were on the rock again, with Gannet Head towering above them. The moon-boy was laughing, but Fat Bill looked serious. "Narrow squeak," he said. "That was Blossom-blossom's father. I thought he was asleep in his hut." Then he shook hands with them and said good-bye, and they climbed up the path again and went home to bed; and when Uncle Joe came up to look at them, they confessed to him what they had been doing. He was rather angry, of course, but he didn't laugh at them, and as for Fat Bill, he said that he had heard of him; and as for the old clown, he promised to see what he could do for him before they left the town next morning. "But don't you think it was rough," said Cuthbert, "after I had helped to save Blossom-blossom, to have her father throwing spears at me?" But that was just the sort of thing, said Uncle Joe, that saviours had to be prepared for. The candle's finger shakes. My story's done. "No more," says Father Time, "or shall we say Just one?" THE CHRISTMAS TREE [Illustration: Still Talking] XIV THE CHRISTMAS TREE The worst of discovering anybody like Fat Bill at the very beginning of the summer holidays is that it makes the rest of the holidays seem a little dull; and that was just what Cuthbert and Doris felt. So they were really rather glad when the winter term at school began; and so were Gwendolen and Marian, who hadn't been to school since the spring. It was an important term, too, for they were all moved up; and Marian had to buy her first hockey-stick; and Doris and Gwendolen began to learn Latin; and Cuthbert's homework became really unbearable. But he managed to survive, and they were all so busy that the term was over almost before it had begun; and here was Christmas close at hand again, and everybody rushing about buying presents. As for Cuthbert and Marian, they had so much to do in the three or four days before Christmas that they were half afraid they would never be able to do it, because on Christmas Eve they were going to have a party. It was to be rather a special party, because neither Cuthbert nor Marian had been able that year to have a birthday party; and all the people that they had invited had sent replies saying that they were coming. Old Miss Hubbard was coming, and so was Uncle Joe, and Mr Parker was coming with him; and Doris's mummy was coming with Doris and her five brothers; and Beardy Ned was bringing little Liz. Then there was Gwendolen, of course, who was coming too, with her aunt and Captain Jeremy; and Lancelot and Mrs Robertson were bringing Pepita; and Percy the gamekeeper's son was bringing Agnes. Just at the last minute, too, they had a letter from the blind painter saying that he was bringing Lord Barrington. And Mr and Mrs Williams were coming, and so was Mummy's nurney, and so was Edward Goldsmith. "Goodness knows," said Mummy, "where we shall put them all. I hope they won't mind sitting on the floor." But Cuthbert and Marian said that it would be all right, and that they would have the Christmas tree in the hall. "Then we can have the doors open," said Cuthbert, "and people can sit on the stairs; and Marian and I will make the paper festoons." So Mummy and Mummy's nurney and the cook spent hours and hours making cakes and pastries; and just as it seemed as if they would never be ready, they suddenly found that there was nothing to do except to keep a lookout for old Jacob Parsley, who came every year selling Christmas trees. That was on the morning of the 23rd of December, with a fine rain falling outside; and as they sat at the window both Cuthbert and Marian felt a little stale and out of temper. In spite of all the excitements of the term and the preparations for the party, it suddenly seemed to them a very long time since they had had a real proper adventure. "I shouldn't be surprised," said Marian, "if we never have another." "Perhaps we shan't," said Cuthbert, "but it'll be an awful bore," and then, at that very moment, they heard a familiar voice; and there was Jacob Parsley in the street below. Where he came from nobody knew; but every year on the 23rd of December he limped into the town with his old white horse and a ramshackle cart full of Christmas trees. There they were, year after year, shining and crisp and neatly potted; and people used to say that he had dug them up at night from rich men's plantations in other parts of the country. As for himself, he was a red-faced old man, with a stubbly grey beard and a scar on his chin, and a pair of bright eyes that used to work separately, so that nobody could tell which he was looking with. "Ker-rismus trees," he would shout, "all in per-hots. All in per-hots, Ker-rismus-trees," and whenever he sold one he would spit in the road, and wish the buyer the compliments of the season. Also, if there were any change he would generally try to keep it, to buy some cough mixture, he would explain, for his bronchial tubes; and most people let him, because they were afraid that he would slue one of his eyes round and pierce their hearts with a reproachful glance. But to-day for the first time his cart seemed empty, though he was still shouting; and when they ran downstairs and opened the front door they saw that he had only one tree left. It was a queer little tree with silvery-grey leaves; and that was the reason, he said, why nobody had bought it. All the others he had sold at once--almost as soon as he had entered the town. "Wish I'd 'ad more," he said, "but this here tree, it ain't folk's notion of a Ker-rismus tree. Not but what it ain't a good tree, though it's a little 'un, and the feller I bought it off a queer sort of feller." He stood looking at it, or as nearly looking at it as he ever seemed to look at anything; and then he coughed for rather a long time and hit himself on the chest and wished them a happy Christmas. "It's this here rain," he said. "It gets into the bronchial tubes. Five shillings--that's all I'll ask you for it. And it's a good tree. You can take my word for it. And them as buys it won't regret it." Cuthbert and Marian touched its leaves. Just behind them stood their guardian angels. Even more intently than Cuthbert and Marian they bent their gaze on the little tree. "But what kind of a tree is it?" asked Cuthbert. Jacob spat in the road. "Well, they tell me," he said, "as it's a olive. And they tell me as it's the seedling of the great-great-grandson of the first Ker-rismus tree of all." He spat in the road again. "Aye, of the very tree," he said, "as held Love's Innocence atween two thieves." "I like the leaves of it," said Marian. "It's got wonderful leaves." The two angels drew a little closer. The old horse began to shake his blinkers. So they bought the tree and carried it indoors. Round the pot they bound some scarlet paper, and round the paper they twined a wreath of holly; and they placed the tree on a little table near the foot of the stairs in the front hall. Said Cuthbert's angel, "This is a queer go." Marian's angel smiled as he lit his evening pipe. "And they were just grumbling," he said, "because they never had any adventures. What do you suppose will happen when the guests have assembled?" But Cuthbert's angel shook his head. "That's hard to tell," he said. "There's no precedent. Not since the Great Day has a tree of that line ever been used as a children's Christmas tree." The rain had stopped by then and the moon was shining, and soon after midnight the thermometer fell. A hoar frost crept over the roof-tops. The sun's rim rose out of a well of vapour. At eleven o'clock Cuthbert went to play football, and Marian and Doris went to see Gwendolen. The sun had climbed free by then, but the wind was in the north, and as the day went on the frost deepened. During the afternoon the children went to some friends' houses to borrow chairs for the party. When they came back Mummy was stooping over the Christmas-tree, fixing candles to its slender twigs. In her eyes there was a curious look. Cuthbert kissed her and asked her what was the matter. "Nothing," said Mummy, "but wouldn't it be wonderful if what Jacob said about this tree were true?" Marian bent her lips to one of the leaves. "I believe it is," she said. "It makes me feel funny." Old Mother Hubbard was the first guest to come, and she brought a hamper with her full of presents. Some of them were new, but some of them were trinkets that she had kept ever since she was a girl. "And now I want to give them away," she said, "because for fifty years I have never known what giving was like." Soon after that came Uncle Joe, driving in his little pony-cart with Mr Parker; and Mr Parker took the pony-cart to the stables at the end of the street. Uncle Joe was wearing an overcoat, with poacher's pockets in its lining; and the pockets were bulging with middling-sized parcels to be placed on the floor round the Christmas tree. Then came Captain Jeremy and Gwendolen and Gwendolen's aunt, with the frosty air still in their faces; and Lancelot and Mrs Robertson brought Pepita, well wrapped up and a little shy. Then a great car hummed down the street bringing Lord Barrington and the blind painter, with Mr and Mrs Williams in their Sunday clothes, and a big round cheese that they had brought for a present. Percy, their son, and his sweetheart Agnes were the next to knock at the front door; and they had hardly stepped inside before Doris and her mummy arrived with the five boys. Then came Edward, looking very smart, with a hot-house flower in his button-hole; and the last to appear was Beardy Ned, as shabby as usual, with Liz on his shoulder. Most of the others were having tea by now round the dining-room table, or in the drawing-room, or sitting on the stairs, or standing in the hall, or leaning against the banisters. And there, in the middle of them, still unlit and waiting till the feasting should be over, stood the little olive tree, hushed and inconspicuous, with the scarlet paper round its pot. Mr Parker came back from the stables. "Rough weather," he said, "in the Baltic. That's a rum-looking tree you've got for a Christmas tree," and the blind painter heard him and turned round. "Where is it?" he asked. "Will you take me to it?" And Marian led him to the little table. He bent his head for a moment, and there crept into his eyes the same odd look that Marian had seen in Mummy's. Said Cuthbert's angel, "He's beginning to hear something. What do you suppose will happen when they have lit the candles?" But Marian's angel shook his head. "The others will hear nothing," he said. "But will they see?" Said Doris's angel, "Can they see and live?" "Look," said Gwendolen's angel. "They're lighting the candles." And it was just at that moment that a young man, shabbier even than Beardy Ned, turned into Peter Street. But for his presence the street was empty. Doris's angel was the first to see him. He lifted his head and spoke a Name, and slowly the others filed out after him. Down the front steps and along the pavement they made a lane of angels. But the door was shut, and deep in their hearts was the dreadful fear that it mightn't be opened. Then Uncle Joe struck another match and lit the last candle on the tree, and Marian's daddy picked up one of the parcels and turned it over to find the name on it. Smiling in her chair, old Miss Hubbard envied the luckier women who had had children. Half in shadow, between Marian and Gwendolen, stood Lord Barrington with his hawk-like face. There came a knock at the front door. Cuthbert, who was nearest to it, turned and opened it. He saw a young man in shabby clothes, and there was no beauty in him that he should desire him. He stood there smiling in the outside darkness. "May I come in?" he asked, and Cuthbert changed his mind. Everything beautiful that he had ever seen shone into his heart from the young man's eyes. "Yes, rather," said Cuthbert. "We're having a party." His eyes sought his mother's. "Mummy, here's somebody else." Everybody turned round as the young man entered. The candles on the olive tree shed their light upon him. All but the blind painter looked into his eyes. Each saw the thing in them that he wanted most. Marian and Gwendolen and Cuthbert and Doris, not wanting anything in particular, only saw vaguely all that they hoped to be when they should have become grown-up men and women. So did Edward and so did Pepita; but Christopher Mark saw a celestial rabbit; and Percy and Agnes, holding each other's hand, saw the darlingest of babies. What Beardy Ned saw you can guess, and what Lord Barrington saw was Truth; and the blind painter heard the angels singing the song that explains every other song. Then the young man stooped for a moment over the little olive-tree. "Make them happy," he said, and then he was gone; and though nobody saw them, of course, the guardian angels came and stood again in their accustomed places. Marian turned impulsively to Lord Barrington. "Oh, who was he?" she said. "Tell me his name." Lord Barrington kissed her. "The loveliest present," he said, "that ever hung upon a tree." 
29412	----	THE PHANTOM WORLD: THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITS, APPARITIONS, &c. &c. FROM THE FRENCH OF AUGUSTINE CALMET. WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES BY THE REV. HENRY CHRISTMAS, M.A., F.R.S., F.S.A., LIBRARIAN AND SECRETARY OF SION COLLEGE. Quemadmodùm multa fieri non posse, priusquam facta sunt, judicantur; ita multa quoque, quæ antiquitùs facta, quia nos ea non vidimus, neque ratione assequimur, ex iis esse, quæ fieri non potuerunt, judicamus. Quæ certè summa insipientia est.--PLIN. _Hist. Nat._ lib. vii. c. 1. TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. PHILADELPHIA: A. HART, LATE CAREY & HART. 1850. PHILADELPHIA: T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. TO HENRY JAMES SLACK, ESQ., F.G.S. &c. &c. &c. MY DEAR HENRY-- I inscribe these volumes with your name to record a friendship which has lasted from our infancy, tain____________ suspicion, and darkened by no shadow. So long as eminent talents can challenge admiration, varied and extensive acquirements command respect, and unfeigned virtues ensure esteem and regard, so long will you have no common claim to them all; and none will pay the tribute more gladly than your affectionate Friend and Cousin, HENRY CHRISTMAS. SION COLLEGE, _March, 1850._ INTRODUCTION. Among the many phases presented by human credulity, few are more interesting than those which regard the realities of the invisible world. If the opinions which have been held on this subject were written and gathered together they would form hundreds of volumes--if they were arranged and digested they would form a few, but most important. It is not merely because there is in almost every human error a substratum of truth, and that the more important the subject the more important the substratum, but because the investigation will give almost a history of human aberrations, that this otherwise unpromising topic assumes so high an interest. The superstitions of every age, for no age is free from them, will present the popular modes of thinking in an intelligible and easily accessible form, and may be taken as a means of gauging (if the expression be permitted) the philosophical and metaphysical capacities of the period. In this light, the volumes here presented to the reader will be found of great value, for they give a picture of the popular mind at a time or great interest, and furnish a clue to many difficulties in the ecclesiastical affairs of that era. In the time of Calmet, cases of demoniacal possession, and instances of returns from the world of spirits, were reputed to be of no uncommon occurrence. The church was continually called on to exert her powers of exorcism; and the instances gathered by Calmet, and related in this work, may be taken as fair specimens of the rest. It is then, first, as a storehouse of facts, or reputed facts, that Calmet compiled the work now in the reader's hands--as the foundation on which to rear what superstructure of system they pleased; and secondly, as a means of giving his own opinions, in a detached and desultory way, as the subjects came under his notice. The value of the first will consist in their _evidence_--and of this the reader will be as capable of judging as the compiler; that of the second will depend on their truth--and of this, too, we are as well, and in some respects better, able to judge than Calmet himself. Those accustomed to require rigid evidence will be but ill satisfied with the greater part of that which will be found in this work; simple assertion for the most part suffices--often first made long after the facts, or supposed facts, related, and not unfrequently far off from the places where they were alleged to have taken place. But these cases are often the _best_ authenticated, for in the more modern ones there is frequently such an evident mistake in the whole nature of the case, that all the spiritual deductions made from it fall to the ground. Not a few instances of so-called demoniacal possession are capable of being resolved into cataleptic trance, a state not unlike that produced by mesmerism, and in which many of the same phenomena seem naturally to display themselves; the well-known instance of the young servant girl, related by Coleridge, who, though ignorant and uneducated, could during her sleep-walking discourse learnedly in rabbinical Hebrew, would furnish a case in point. The circumstance of her old master having been in the habit of walking about the house at night, reading from rabbinical books aloud and in a declamatory manner; the impression made by the strange sounds upon her youthful imagination; their accurate retention by a memory, which, however, could only reproduce them in an abnormal condition--all teach us many most interesting psychological facts, which, had this young girl fallen into other hands, would have been useless in a philosophical point of view, and would have been only used to establish the doctrine of diabolical possession and ecclesiastical exorcism. We should have been told how skilled was the fallen angel in rabbinical traditions, and how wholesome a terror he entertained of the Jesuits, the Capuchins, or the _Fratres Minimi_, as the case might be. Not a few of the most remarkable cases of supposed _modern_ possession are to be accounted for by involuntary or natural mesmerism. Indeed the same view seems to be taken by a popular minister of the church (Mr. Mac Niel), in our own day, viz., that mesmerism and diabolical possession are frequently identical. Our difference with him is that we should consider the cases called by the two names as all natural, and he would consider them as all supernatural. And here, to avoid misconception, or rather misinterpretation, let me at once observe, that I speak thus of _modern_ and _recorded_ cases only, accepting _literally_ all related in the New Testament, and not presuming to say that similar cases _might_ not occur now. Calmet, however, may be supposed to have collected all the most remarkable of modern times, and I am compelled to say I believe not one of them. But when we pass from the evidence of truth, in which they are so wanting, to the evidence of fraud and collusion by which many are so characterized, we shall have less wonder at the general spread of infidelity in times somewhat later, on all subjects not susceptible of ocular demonstration. Where a system claimed to be received as a whole, or not at all, it is hardly to be wondered at that when some portion was manifestly wrong, its own requirements should be complied with, and the whole rejected. The system which required an implicit belief in such absurdities as those related in these volumes, and placed them on a level with the most awful verities of religion, might indeed make some interested use of them in an age of comparative darkness, but certainly contained within itself the seeds of destruction, and which could not fail to germinate as soon as light fell upon them. The state of Calmet's own mind, as revealed in this book, is curious and interesting. The belief _of the intellect_ in much which he relates is evidently gone, the belief _of the will_ but partially remains. There is a painful sense of uncertainty as to whether certain things _ought_ not to be received more fully than he felt himself able to receive them, and he gladly follows in many cases the example of Herodotus of old, merely relating stories without comment, save by stating that they had not fallen under his own observation. The time, indeed, had hardly come to assert freedom of belief on subjects such as these. Theology embraced philosophy, and the Holy Inquisition defended the orthodoxy of both; and if the investigators of Calmet's day were permitted to hold, with some limitation, the Copernican theory, it was far otherwise with regard to the world of spirits, and its connection with our own. The rotundity of the earth affected neither shrines nor exorcisms; metaphysical truth might do both one and the other; and the cry of "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," was not raised in the capital of Asia Minor, till the "craft by which we get our wealth" was proved to be in danger. Reflections such as these are painfully forced on us by the evident fraud exhibited by many of the actors in the scenes of exorcism narrated by Calmet, the vile purposes to which the services of the church were turned, and the recklessness with which the supposed or pretended evil, and equally pretended remedy, were used for political intrigue or state oppression. Independent of these conclusions, there is something lamentable in a state of the public mind, which was so little prone to examination as to receive such a mass of superstition without sifting the wheat, for such there undoubtedly is, from the chaff. Calmet's work contains enough, had we the minor circumstances in each case preserved, to set at rest many philosophic doubts, and to illustrate many physical facts; and to those who desire to know what was believed by our Christian forefathers, and why it was believed, the compilation is absolutely invaluable. Calmet was a man of naturally cool, calm judgment, possessed of singular learning, and was pious and truthful. A short sketch of his life will not, perhaps, be unacceptable to the reader. Augustine Calmet was born in the year 1672, at a village near Commerci, in Lorraine. He early gave proofs of aptitude for study, and an opportunity was speedily offered of devoting himself to a life of learning. In his sixteenth year he became a Benedictine of the Congregation of St. Vannes, and prosecuted his theological and such philosophical studies as the time allowed with great success. He was soon appointed to teach the younger portion of the community, and gave in this employment such decided satisfaction to his superiors, that he was soon marked for preferment. His chief study was the Scriptures; and in the twenty-second year of his age, a period unusually early, in an age when all benefices and beneficial employments were matters of sale, he was appointed to be sub-prior of the monastery of Munster, in Alsace, where he presided over an academy. This academy consisted of ten or twelve monks, and its object was the investigation of Scripture. Calmet was not idle in his new position; besides communicating so much valuable information as to make his pupils the best biblical scholars of the country, he made extensive collections for his Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, and for his still more celebrated work, the History of the Bible. These materials he subsequently digested and arranged. The Commentary, a work of immense value, was published in separate volumes from 1707 to 1716. His labors attracted renewed and increased attention, and the offer of a bishopric was made to him, which he unhesitatingly declined. In 1718, he was elected to the abbacy of St. Leopold, in Nancy; and ten years afterwards, to that of Senones, where he spent the remainder of his days. His writings are numerous--two have been already mentioned--and so great was the popularity attained by his Commentaries, that they have been translated into no fewer than six languages within ten years. It exhibits a favorable aspect of the author's mind, and gives a very high idea of his erudition. One cause which tended greatly to its universal acceptability, was its singular freedom from sectarian bitterness. Protestants as well as Romanists may use it with equal satisfaction; and accordingly, it is considered a work of standard authority in England as much as on the continent. In addition to these Commentaries, and his History of the Bible, and Fragments, (the best edition of which latter work in English, is by Isaac Taylor,) he wrote the "Ecclesiastical and Civil History of Lorraine;" "A Catalogue of the Writers of Lorraine;" "Universal History, Sacred and Profane;" a small collection of Reveries; and a work entitled, "A Literal, Moral, and Historical Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict," a work which is full of curious information on ancient customs, particularly ecclesiastical. He is among the few, also, who have written on ancient music. He lived to a good old age; and died regretted and much respected in 1757. Of all his works, the one presented here to the reader, is perhaps the most popular; it went rapidly through many editions, and received from the author's hand continual corrections and additions. To say that it is characterized by uniform judgment, would be to give it a praise somewhat different as well as somewhat greater than that which it merits. It is a vast repertory of legends, more or less probable; some of which have very little foundation--and some which Calmet himself would have done well to omit, though _now_, as a picture of the belief entertained in that day, they greatly add to the value of the book. For the same reasons which have caused the retention of these passages, no alterations have been made in the citations from Scripture, which being translations from the Vulgate, necessarily differ in phraseology from the version in use among ourselves. The apocryphal books too are quoted, and the story of Bel and the Dragon referred to as a part of the prophecy of Daniel; but what is of consequence to observe, is, that _doctrines_ are founded on these translations, and on those very points in which they differ from our own. If the history of popery, and especially that form and development of it exhibited in the monastic orders, be ever written, this work will be of the greatest importance:--it will show the means by which dominion was obtained over the minds of the ignorant; how the most sacred mysteries were perverted; and frauds, which can hardly be termed pious, used to support institutions which can scarcely be called religious. That the spirits of the dead should be permitted to return to earth, under circumstances the most grotesque, to support the doctrines of masses for the dead, purgatory and propitiatory penance; that demons should be exorcised to give testimony to the merits of rival orders of monks and friars; that relics, many of them supposititious, and many of the most disgusting and blasphemous character, should have power to affect the eternal state of the departed; and that _all_ saints, angels, demons, and the ghosts of the departed, should support, with great variations indeed, the corrupt dealings of a corrupt priesthood--form a creed worthy of the darkest and most unworthy days of heathenism. There is, however, one excuse, or rather palliation, for the superstition of that time. In periods of great public depravity--and few epochs have been more depraved than that in which Calmet lived--Satan has great power. With a ruler like the regent Duke of Orleans, with a Church governor like Cardinal Dubois, it would appear that the civil and ecclesiastical authority of France had sold itself, like Ahab of old, to work wickedness; or, as the apostle says, "to work all uncleanness with greediness." In an age so characterized, it does not seem at all improbable that portentous events should from time to time occur; that the servants of the devil should be strengthened together with their master; that many should be given over to strong delusions and to believe a lie; and that the evil part of the invisible world should be permitted to ally itself more closely with the men of an age so congenial. Real cases of demoniacal possession might, perhaps, be met with, and though scarcely amenable to the exorcisms of a clergy so corrupt as that of France in that day, they would yet justify a belief in the reality of those cases got up for the sake of filthy lucre, personal ambition, or private revenge. If the public mind was prepared for a belief in such cases, there were not wanting men to turn it to profitable account; and the quiet student who believed the efficacy of the means used, and was scarcely aware of the wickedness of the age in which he lived, might easily be induced to credit the tales told him of demons expelled by the power of a church, to which in the beginning an authority to do so had undoubtedly been given, and whose awful corruptions were to him at least greatly veiled. Calmet was a man of great integrity and considerable acumen, but he passed an innocent and exemplary life in studious seclusion; he mixed little with the world at large, resided remote "from courts, and camps, and strife of war or peace;" and there appears occasionally in his writings a kind of nervous apprehension lest the dogmas of the church to which he was pledged should be less capable than he could wish of satisfactory investigation. When he meets with tales like those of the vampires or vroucolacas, which concern only what he considered a heretical church, and with which, therefore, he might deal according to his own will--apply to them the ordinary rules of evidence, and treat them as mundane affairs--there he is clear-sighted, critical and acute, and accordingly he discusses the matter philosophically and logically, and concludes without fear of sinning against the church, that the whole is delusion. When, on the other hand, he has to deal with cases of demoniacal possession, in countries under the rule of the Roman hierarchy, he contents himself with the decisions of the scholastic divines and the opinions of the fathers, and makes frequent references to the decrees of various provincial parliaments. The effects of such a state of mind upon scientific and especially metaphysical investigation, may be easily imagined, and are to be traced more or less distinctly in every page of the work before us. To conclude: books like this--the "Disquisitiones Magicæ" of Delrio, the "Demonomanie" of Bodin, the "Malleus Maleficarum" of Sprengel, and the like, are at no time to be regarded merely as subjects of amusement; they have their philosophical value; they have a still greater historical value; and they show how far even upright minds may be warped by imperfect education, and slavish deference to authority. The edition here followed is that of 1751, which contains the latest corrections of the author, and several additional pieces, which are all included in the present volumes. SION COLLEGE, LONDON WALL, _April, 1850._ CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE xv CHAPTER I. The Appearance of Good Angels proved by the Books of the Old Testament 37 II. The Appearance of Good Angels proved by the Books of the New Testament 38 III. Under what form have Good Angels appeared? 41 IV. Opinions of the Jews, Christians, Mahometans, and Oriental Nations, concerning the Apparitions of Good Angels 44 V. Opinion of the Greeks and Romans on the Apparitions of Good Genii 47 VI. The Apparition of Bad Angels proved by the Holy Scriptures--Under what Form they have appeared 50 VII. Of Magic 57 VIII. Objections to the Reality of Magic 61 IX. Reply to the Objections 63 X. Examination of the Affair of Hocque, Magician 67 XI. Magic of the Egyptians and Chaldeans 70 XII. Magic among the Greeks and Romans 73 XIII. Examples which prove the Reality of Magic 75 XIV. Effects of Magic according to the Poets 81 XV. Of the Pagan Oracles 83 XVI. The Certainty of the Event predicted, is not always a proof that the Prediction comes from God 86 XVII. Reasons which lead us to believe that the greater part of the Ancient Oracles were only Impositions of the Priests and Priestesses, who feigned that they were inspired by God 89 XVIII. On Sorcerers and Sorceresses, or Witches 93 XIX. Instances of Sorcerers and Witches being, as they said, transported to the Sabbath 98 XX. Story of Louis Gaufredi and Magdalen de la Palud, owned by themselves to be a Sorcerer and Sorceress 102 XXI. Reasons which prove the Possibility of Sorcerers and Witches being transported to the Sabbath 106 XXII. Continuation of the same Subject 111 XXIII. Obsession and Possession of the Devil 114 XXIV. The Truth and Reality of Possession and Obsession by the Devil proved from Scripture 117 XXV. Examples of Real Possessions caused by the Devil 119 XXVI. Continuation of the same Subject 123 XXVII. Objections against the Obsessions and Possessions of the Demon--Reply to the Objections 128 XXVIII. Continuation of Objections against Possessions, and some Replies to those Objections 132 XXIX. Of Familiar Spirits 138 XXX. Some other Examples of Elves 142 XXXI. Spirits that keep Watch over Treasure 149 XXXII. Other instances of Hidden Treasures, which were guarded by Good or Bad Spirits 153 XXXIII. Spectres which appear, and predict things unknown and to come 156 XXXIV. Other Apparitions of Spectres 159 XXXV. Examination of the Apparition of a pretended Spectre 163 XXXVI. Of Spectres which haunt Houses 165 XXXVII. Other Instances of Spectres which haunt certain Houses 170 XXXVIII. Prodigious effects of Imagination in those Men or Women who believe they hold Intercourse with the Demon 172 XXXIX. Return and Apparitions of Souls after the Death of the Body, proved from Scripture 176 XL. Apparitions of Spirits proved from History 180 XLI. More Instances of Apparitions 185 XLII. On the Apparitions of Spirits who imprint their Hands on Clothes or on Wood 190 XLIII. Opinions of the Jews, Greeks, and Latins, concerning the Dead who are left unburied 195 XLIV. Examination of what is required or revealed to the Living by the Dead who return to Earth 201 XLV. Apparitions of Men still alive, to other living Men, absent, and very distant from each other 204 XLVI. Arguments concerning Apparitions 216 XLVII. Objections against Apparitions, and Replies to those Objections 221 XLVIII. Some other Objections and Replies 224 XLIX. The Secrets of Physics and Chemistry taken for supernatural things 229 L. Conclusion of the Treatise on Apparitions 232 LI. Way of explaining Apparitions 235 LII. The difficulty of explaining the manner in which Apparitions make their appearance, whatever system may be proposed on the subject 237 DISSERTATION ON THE GHOSTS WHO RETURN TO EARTH BODILY, THE EXCOMMUNICATED, THE OUPIRES OR VAMPIRES, VROUCOLACAS, ETC. 241 PREFACE 243 CHAPTER I. The Resurrection of a Dead Person is the Work of God only 247 II. Revival of Persons who were not really Dead 249 III. Resurrection of a Man who had been buried Three Years, resuscitated by St. Stanislaus 251 IV. Can a Man really Dead appear in his own Body? 253 V. Revival or Apparition of a Girl who had been Dead some Months 256 VI. A Woman taken Alive from her Tomb 259 VII. Revenans, or Vampires of Moravia 260 VIII. Dead Persons in Hungary who suck the Blood of the Living 262 IX. Narrative of a Vampire from the Jewish Letters, Letter 137 263 X. Other Instances of Revenans.--Continuation of the "Gleaner" 264 XI. Argument of the Author of the Jewish Letters, concerning Revenans 266 XII. Continuation of the argument of the Dutch Gleaner 270 XIII. Narrative from the "Mercure Gallant" of 1693 and 1694 on Revenans 272 XIV. Conjectures of the "Glaneur de Hollandais" 273 XV. Another Letter on Ghosts 276 XVI. Pretended Vestiges of Vampirism in Antiquity 278 XVII. Ghosts in Northern Countries 282 XVIII. Ghosts in England 283 XIX. Ghosts in Peru 284 XX. Ghosts in Lapland 285 XXI. Return of a Man who had been Dead some Months 285 XXII. Excommunicated Persons who went out of Churches 289 XXIII. Some Instances of the Excommunicated being rejected or cast out of Consecrated Ground 291 XXIV. Instance of an Excommunicated Martyr being cast out of the Ground 292 XXV. A Man cast out of the Church for having refused to pay Tithes 293 XXVI. Instances of Persons who have given Signs of Life after their Death, and have withdrawn themselves respectfully to make room for more worthy Persons 294 XXVII. People who perform Pilgrimage after Death 296 XXVIII. Reasoning upon the Excommunicated who go out of Churches 297 XXIX. Do the Excommunicated rot in the Earth? 300 XXX. Instances to show that the Excommunicated do not rot, and that they appear to the Living 301 XXXI. Instances of these Returns to Earth of the Excommunicated 302 XXXII. A Vroucolacan exhumed in the presence of M. de Tournefort 304 XXXIII. Has the Demon power to kill, and then to restore to Life? 308 XXXIV. Examination of the Opinion that the Demon can restore Animation to a Dead Body 310 XXXV. Instances of Phantoms which have appeared to the Living and given many Signs of Life 313 XXXVI. Devoting People to Death, practised by the Heathens 314 XXXVII. Instances of dooming to Death among Christians 317 XXXVIII. Instances of Persons who have promised to give each other News of themselves from the other World 321 XXXIX. Extracts from the Political Works of the Abbé de St. Pierre 325 XL. Divers Systems to explain Ghosts 331 XLI. Divers Instances of Persons being Buried Alive 333 XLII. Instances of Drowned Persons who have come back to Life and Health 335 XLIII. Instances of Women thought Dead who came to Life again 337 XLIV. Can these Instances be applied to the Hungarian Revenans? 339 XLV. Dead People who chew in their Graves and devour their own Flesh 340 XLVI. Singular Example of a Hungarian Revenant 341 XLVII. Argument on this matter 343 XLVIII. Are the Vampires or Revenans really Dead? 344 XLIX. Instance of a Man named Curma being sent back to this World 351 L. Instances of Persons who fall into Ecstatic Trances when they will, and remain senseless 354 LI. Application of such Instances to Vampires 356 LII. Examination of the Opinion that the Demon fascinates the Eyes of those to whom Vampires appear 360 LIII. Instances of Resuscitated Persons who relate what they saw in the other World 361 LIV. The Traditions of the Pagans on the other Life, are derived from the Hebrews and Egyptians 364 LV. Instances of Christians being Resuscitated and sent back to this World.--Vision of Vetinus, a Monk of Augia 366 LVI. Vision of Bertholdas, related by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims 368 LVII. Vision of St. Fursius 369 LVIII. Vision of a Protestant of York, and others 371 LIX. Conclusion of this Dissertation 374 LX. Moral Impossibility that Ghosts can come out of their Tombs 376 LXI. What is related of the Bodies of the Excommunicated who walk out of Churches, is subject to very great Difficulties (in Belief and Explanation) 378 LXII. Remarks on the Dissertation, concerning the Spirit which came to St. Maur des Fossés 380 LXIII. Dissertation of an Anonymous Writer on what should be thought of the Appearance of Spirits, on Occasion of the Adventure at St. Maur, in 1706 387 Letter of the Marquis Maffei on Magic 407 Letter of the Reverend Father Dom Calmet, to M. Debure 440 PREFACE. The great number of authors who have written upon the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls is not unknown to me; and I do not presume sufficiently on my own capacity to believe that I shall succeed better in it than they have done, and that I shall enhance their knowledge and their discoveries. I am perfectly sensible that I expose myself to criticism, and perhaps to the mockery of many readers, who regard this matter as done with, and decried in the minds of philosophers, learned men, and many theologians. I must not reckon either on the approbation of the people, whose want of discernment prevents their being competent judges of this same. My aim is not to foment superstition, nor to feed the vain curiosity of visionaries, and those who believe without examination everything that is related to them as soon as they find therein anything marvelous and supernatural. I write only for reasonable and unprejudiced minds, which examine things seriously and coolly; I speak only for those who assent even to known truth but after mature reflection, who know how to doubt of what is uncertain, to suspend their judgment on what is doubtful, and to deny what is manifestly false. As for pretended freethinkers, who reject everything to distinguish themselves, and to place themselves above the common herd, I leave them in their elevated sphere; they will think of this work as they may consider proper, and as it is not calculated for them, apparently they will not take the trouble to read it. I undertook it for my own information, and to form to myself a just idea of all that is said on the apparitions of angels, of the demon, and of disembodied souls. I wished to see how far that matter was certain or uncertain, true or false, known or unknown, clear or obscure. In this great number of facts which I have collected I have endeavored to make a choice, and not to heap together too great a multitude of them, for fear that in the too numerous examples the doubtful might not harm the certain, and in wishing to prove too much I might prove absolutely nothing. There will, even amongst those I have cited, be found some which will not easily be credited by many readers, and I allow them to regard them as not related. I beg those readers, nevertheless, to discern justly amongst these facts and instances; after which they can with me form their opinion--affirm, deny, or remain in doubt. From the respect which every man owes to truth, and the veneration which a Christian and a priest owes to religion, it appeared to me very important to undeceive people respecting the opinion which they have of apparitions, if they believe them all to be true; or to instruct them and show them the truth and reality of a great number, if they think them all false. It is always shameful to be deceived; _____________________and in regard to religion, to believe on light grounds, to remain wilfully in doubt, or to maintain oneself without any reason in superstition and illusion; it is already much to know how to doubt wisely, and not to form a decided opinion beyond what one really knows. I never had any idea of treating profoundly the matter of apparitions; I have treated of it, as it were, by chance, and occasionally. My first and principal object was to discourse of the vampires of Hungary. In collecting my materials on that subject, I found many things concerning apparitions; the great number of these embarrassed this treatise on vampires. I detached some of them, and thus have composed this treatise on apparitions: there still remains a large number of them, which I might have separated for the better arrangement of this treatise. Many persons here have taken the accessory for the principal, and have paid more attention to the first part than to the second, which was, however, the first and the principal in my design. For I own I have always been much struck with what was related of the vampires or ghosts of Hungary, Moravia, and Poland; of the vroucolacas of Greece; and of the excommunicated, who are said not to rot. I thought I ought to bestow on it all the attention in my power; and I have deemed it right to treat on this subject in a particular dissertation. After having deeply studied it, and obtaining as much information as I was able, I found little solidity and certainty on the subject; which, joined to the opinion of some prudent and respectable persons whom I consulted, had induced me to give up my design entirely, and to renounce laboring on a subject which is so contradictory, and embraces so much uncertainty. But looking at the matter in another point of view, I resumed my pen, decided upon undeceiving the public, if I found that what was said of it was absolutely false; showing that what is uttered on this subject is uncertain, and that one ought to be very reserved in pronouncing on these vampires, which have made so much noise in the world for a certain time, and still divide opinions at this day, even in the countries which are the scene of their pretended return, and where they appear; or to show that what has been said and written on this subject is not destitute of probability, and that the subject of the return of vampires is worthy the attention of the curious and the learned, and deserves to be seriously studied, to have the facts related of it examined, and the causes, circumstances, and means sounded deeply. I am then about to examine this question as a historian, philosopher, and theologian. As a historian, I shall endeavor to discover the truth of the facts; as a philosopher, I shall examine the causes and circumstances; lastly, the knowledge or light of theology will cause me to deduce consequences as relating to religion. Thus I do not write in the hope of convincing freethinkers and pyrrhonians, who will not allow the existence of ghosts or vampires, nor even of the apparitions of angels, demons, and spirits; nor to intimidate those weak and credulous, by relating to them extraordinary stories of apparitions. I do not reckon either on curing the superstitious of their errors, nor the people of their prepossessions; not even on correcting the abuses which arise from this unenlightened belief, nor of doing away all the doubts which may be formed on apparitions; still less do I pretend to erect myself as a judge and censor of the works and sentiments of others, nor to distinguish myself, make myself a name, or divert myself, by spreading abroad dangerous doubts upon a subject which concerns religion, and from which they might make wrong deductions against the certainty of the Scriptures, and against the unshaken dogmas of our creed. I shall treat it as solidly and gravely as it merits; and I pray God to give me that knowledge which is necessary to do it successfully. I exhort my reader to distinguish between the facts related, and the manner in which they happened. The fact may be certain, and the way in which it occurred unknown. Scripture relates certain apparitions of angels and disembodied souls; these instances are indubitable and found in the revelations of the holy books; but the manner in which God operated the resurrections, or in which he permitted these apparitions to take place, is hidden among his secrets. It is allowable for us to examine them, to seek out the circumstances, and propound some conjectures on the manner in which it all came to pass; but it would be rash to decide upon a matter which God has not thought proper to reveal to us. I say as much in proportion, concerning the stories related by sensible, contemporary, and judicious authors, who simply relate the facts without entering into the examination of the circumstances, of which, perhaps, they themselves were not well informed. It has already been objected to me, that I cited poets and authors of little credit, in support of a thing so grave and so disputed as the apparition of spirits: such authorities, they say, are more calculated to cast a doubt on apparitions, than to establish the truth of them. But I cite those authors as witnesses of the opinions of nations; and I count it not a small thing in the extreme license of opinions, which at this day predominates in the world, amongst those even who make a profession of Christianity, to be able to show that the ancient Greeks and Romans thought that souls were immortal, that they subsisted after the death of the body, and that there was another life, in which they received the reward of their good actions, or the chastisement of their crimes. Those sentiments which we read in the poets, are also repeated in the fathers of the church, and the pagan and Christian historians; but as they did not pretend to think them weighty, nor to approve them in repeating them, it must not be imputed to me either, that I have any intention of authorizing. For instance, what I have related of the manes, or lares; of the evocation of souls after the death of the body; of the avidity of these souls to suck the blood of the immolated animals, of the shape of the soul separated from the body, of the inquietude of souls which have no rest until their bodies are under ground; of those superstitious statues of wax which are devoted and consecrated under the name of certain persons whom the magicians pretended to kill by burning and stabbing their effigies of wax; of the transportation of wizards and witches through the air, and of their assemblies of the Sabbath; all those things are related both in the works of the philosophers and pagan historians, as well as in the poets. I know the value of one and the other, and I esteem them as they deserve; but I think that in treating this matter, it is important to make known to our readers the ancient superstitions, the vulgar or common opinions, and the prejudices of nations, to be able to refute them, and bring back the figures to truths, by freeing them from what poesy had added for the embellishment of the poem, and the amusement of the reader. Moreover, I generally repeat this kind of thing, only when it is apropos of certain facts avowed by historians, and by other grave and rational authors; and sometimes rather as an ornament of the discourse, or to enliven the matter, than to derive thence certain proofs and consequences necessary for the dogma, or to certify the facts and give weight to my recital. I know how little we must depend on what Lucian says on this subject; he only speaks of it to make game of it. Philostratus, Jamblicus, and some others, do not merit more consideration; therefore I quote them only to refute them, or to show how far idle and ridiculous credulity has been carried on these matters, which were laughed at by the most sensible among the heathens themselves. The consequences which I deduce from all these stories, and these poetical fictions, and the manner in which I speak of them in the course of this dissertation, sufficiently vouch that esteem, and give as true and certain only what is so in fact; and that I do not wish to impose on my reader, by relating many things which I myself regard as false, or as doubtful, or even as fabulous. But that ought to be prejudicial to the dogma of the immortality of the soul, and to that of another life, not to the truth of certain apparitions related in Scripture, or proved elsewhere by good testimony. The first edition of this work having been printed in my absence, and upon an incorrect copy, several misprints have occurred, and even expressions and phrases displeasing and interrupted. I have tried to remedy this in a second edition, and to cast light on those passages which they noticed as demanding explanation, and correcting what might offend scrupulous readers, and prevent the bad consequences which might be derived from what I had said. I have even done more in this third edition. I have retrenched several passages; others I have suppressed; I have profited by the advice which has been given me; and I have replied to the objections which have been made. People have complained that I took no part, and did not come to a decision on several difficulties which I propose, and that I leave my reader in uncertainty. I make but little defence against this reproach; I should require more justification if I decided without a perfect knowledge of causes, for one side of the question, at the risk of embracing an error, and of falling into a still greater impropriety. There is wisdom in suspending one's judgment till we have succeeded in finding the very truth. I have also been told, that certain persons have made a joke of some facts which I have related. If I have related them as certain, and they afford just cause for pleasantry, let the condemnation pass; but if I cited them as fabulous and false, they present no subject for pleasantry; _Falsum non est de ratione faceti._ There are certain persons who delight in jesting on the most serious things, and who spare nothing, either sacred or profane. The histories of the Old and New Testament, the most sacred ceremonies of our religion, the lives of the most respectable saints, are not safe from their dull, tasteless pleasantry. I have been reproached for having related several false histories, several doubtful facts, and several fabulous events. This is true; but I give them for what they are. I have declared several times, that I did not vouch for their truth, that I repeated them to show how false and ridiculous they were, and to deprive them of the credit they might have with the people; and if I had gone at length into their refutation, I thought it right to let my reader have the pleasure of refuting them, supposing him to possess enough good sense and self-sufficiency, to form his own judgment upon them, and feel the same contempt for such stories that I do myself. It is doing too much honor to certain things to refute them seriously. But another objection, and a much more serious one, is said to be, what I say of the illusions of the demon, leading some persons to doubt of the truth of the apparitions related in Scripture, as well as of the others suspected of falsehood. I answer, that the consequences deduced from principles are not right, except when things are equal, and the subjects and circumstances the same; without that there can be no application of principles. The facts to which my reasoning applies are related by authors of small authority, by ordinary or common-place historians, bearing no character which deserves a belief of anything superhuman. I can, without attacking their person or their merit, advance that they may have been badly informed, prepossessed, and mistaken; that the spirit of seduction may have been of the party; that the senses, the imagination, and superstition, may have made them take that for truth, which was only seeming. But, in regard to the apparitions related in the Holy Scriptures, they borrow their infallible authority from the sacred and inspired authors who wrote them; they are verified by the events which followed them, by the execution or fulfilment of predictions made many ages preceding; and which could neither be done, nor foreseen, nor performed, either by the human mind, or by the strength of man, not even by the angel of darkness. I am but little concerned at the opinion passed on myself and my intentions in the publication of this treatise. Some have thought that I did it to destroy the popular and common idea of apparitions, and to make it appear ridiculous; and I acknowledge that those who read this work attentively and without prejudice, will remark in it more arguments for doubting what the people believe on this point, than they will find to favor the contrary opinion. If I have treated this subject seriously, it is only in what regards those facts in which religion and the truth of Scripture is interested; those which are indifferent I have left to the censure of sensible people, and the criticism of the learned and of philosophical minds. I declare that I consider as true all the apparitions related in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament; without pretending, however, that it is not allowable to explain them, and reduce them to a natural and likely sense, by retrenching what is too marvelous about them, which might rebut enlightened persons. I think on that point I may apply the principle of St. Paul;[1] "the letter killeth, and the Spirit giveth life." As to the other apparitions and visions related in Christian, Jewish, or heathen authors, I do my best to discern amongst them, and I exhort my readers to do the same; but I blame and disapprove the outrageous criticism of those who deny everything, and make difficulties of everything, in order to distinguish themselves by their pretended strength of mind, and to authorize themselves to deny everything, and to dispute the most certain facts, and in general all that savors of the marvelous, and which appears above the ordinary laws of nature. St. Paul permits us to examine and prove everything: _Omnia probate_; but he desires us to hold fast that which is good and true: _quod bonum est tenete_.[2] Footnotes: [1] 2 Cor. iii. 16. [2] 1 Thess. v. 21. ADVERTISEMENT. Every body talks of apparitions of angels and demons, and of souls separated from the body. The reality of these apparitions is considered as certain by many persons, while others deride them and treat them as altogether visionary. I have determined to examine this matter, just to see what certitude there can be on this point; and I shall divide this Dissertation into four parts. In the first, I shall speak of good angels; in the second, of the appearance of bad angels; in the third, of the apparitions of souls of the dead; and in the fourth, of the appearance of living men to others living, absent, distant, and this unknown to those who appear. I shall occasionally add something on magic, wizards, and witches; on the Sabbath, oracles, and obsession and possession by demons. THE PHANTOM WORLD. CHAPTER I. THE APPEARANCE OF GOOD ANGELS PROVED BY THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. The apparitions or appearances of good angels are frequently mentioned in the books of the Old Testament. He who was stationed at the entrance of the terrestrial Paradise[3] was a cherub, armed with a flaming sword; those who appeared to Abraham, and who promised that he should have a son;[4] those who appeared to Lot, and predicted to him the ruin of Sodom, and other guilty cities;[5] he who spoke to Hagar in the desert,[6] and commanded her to return to the dwelling of Abraham, and to remain submissive to Sarah, her mistress; those who appeared to Jacob, on his journey into Mesopotamia, ascending and descending the mysterious ladder;[7] he who taught him how to cause his sheep to bring forth young differently marked;[8] he who wrestled with Jacob on his return from Mesopotamia,[9]--were angels of light, and benevolent ones; the same as he who spoke with Moses from the burning bush on Horeb,[10] and who gave him the tables of the law on Mount Sinai. That Angel who takes generally the name of GOD, and acts in his name, and with his authority;[11] who served as a guide to the Hebrews in the desert, hidden during the day in a dark cloud, and shining during the night; he who spoke to Balaam, and threatened to kill his she-ass;[12] he, lastly, who contended with Satan for the body of Moses;[13]--all these angels were without doubt good angels. We must think the same of him who presented himself armed to Joshua on the plain of Jericho,[14] and who declared himself head of the army of the Lord; it is believed, with reason, that it was the angel Michael. He who showed himself to the wife of Manoah,[15] the father of Samson, and afterwards to Manoah himself. He who announced to Gideon that he should deliver Israel from the power of the Midianites.[16] The angel Gabriel, who appeared to Daniel, at Babylon;[17] and Raphael who conducted the young Tobias to Rages, in Media.[18] The prophecy of the Prophet Zechariah is full of visions of angels.[19] In the books of the Old Testament the throne of the Lord is described as resting on cherubim; and the God of Israel is represented as having before his throne[20] seven principal angels, always ready to execute his orders, and four cherubim singing his praises, and adoring his sovereign holiness; the whole making a sort of allusion to what they saw in the court of the ancient Persian kings,[21] where there were seven principal officers who saw his face, approached his person, and were called the eyes and ears of the king. Footnotes: [3] Gen. iii. 24. [4] Gen. xviii. 1-3. [5] Gen. xix. [6] Gen. xxi. 17. [7] Gen. xxviii. 12. [8] Gen. xxxi. 10, 11. [9] Gen. xxxii. [10] Exod. iii. 6, 7. [11] Exod. iii. iv. [12] Numb. xxii. xxiii. [13] Jude 9. [14] Josh. v. 13. [15] Judges xiii. [16] Judges vi. vii. [17] Dan. viii. 16; ix. 21. [18] Tobit v. [19] Zech. v. 9, 10, 11, &c. [20] Psalm xvii. 10; lxxix. 2, &c. [21] Tobit xii. Zech. iv. 10. Rev. i. 4. CHAPTER II. THE APPEARANCE OF GOOD ANGELS PROVED BY THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. The books of the New Testament are in the same manner full of facts which prove the apparition of good angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, and predicted to him the future birth of the Forerunner.[22] The Jews, who saw Zachariah come out of the temple, after having remained within it a longer time than usual, having remarked that he was struck dumb, had no doubt but that he had seen some apparition of an angel. The same Gabriel announced to Mary the future birth of the Messiah.[23] When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds in the night,[24] and declared to them that the Saviour of the world was born at Bethlehem. There is every reason to believe that the star which appeared to the Magi in the East, and which led them straight to Jerusalem, and thence to Bethlehem, was directed by a good angel.[25] St. Joseph was warned by a celestial spirit to retire into Egypt, with the mother and the infant Christ, for fear that Jesus should fall into the hands of Herod, and be involved in the massacre of the Innocents. The same angel informed Joseph of the death of King Herod, and told him to return to the land of Israel. After the temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness, angels came and brought him food.[26] The demon tempter said to Jesus Christ that God had commanded his angels to lead him, and to prevent him from stumbling against a stone; which is taken from the 92d Psalm, and proves the belief of the Jews on the article of guardian angels. The Saviour confirms the same truth when he says that the angels of children constantly behold the face of the celestial Father.[27] At the last judgment, the good angels will separate the just,[28] and lead them to the kingdom of heaven, while they will precipitate the wicked into eternal fire. At the agony of Jesus Christ in the garden of Olives, an angel descended from heaven to console him.[29] After his resurrection, angels appeared to the holy women who had come to his tomb to embalm him.[30] In the Acts of the Apostles, they appeared to the apostles as soon as Jesus had ascended into heaven; and the angel of the Lord came and opened the doors of the prison where the apostles were confined, and set them at liberty.[31] In the same book, St. Stephen tells us that the law was given to Moses by the ministration of angels;[32] consequently, those were angels who appeared on Sinai and Horeb, and who spoke to him in the name of God, as his ambassadors, and as invested with his authority; also, the same Moses, speaking of the angel of the Lord, who was to introduce Israel into the Promised Land, says that "the name of God is in him."[33] St. Peter, being in prison, is delivered from thence by an angel,[34] who conducted him the length of a street, and disappeared. St. Peter, knocking at the door of the house in which his brethren were, they could not believe that it was he; they thought that it was his angel who knocked and spoke. St. Paul, instructed in the school of the Pharisees, thought as they did on the subject of angels; he believed in their existence, in opposition to the Sadducees,[35] and supposed that they could appear. When this apostle, having been arrested by the Romans, related to the people how he had been overthrown at Damascus, the Pharisees, who were present, replied to those who exclaimed against him--"How do we know, if an angel or a spirit hath not spoken to him?" St. Luke says that a Macedonian (apparently the angel of Macedonia) appeared to St. Paul, and begged him to come and announce the Gospel in that country. St. John, in the Apocalypse, speaks of the seven angels who presided over the churches in Asia. I know that these seven angels are the bishops of these churches, but the ecclesiastical tradition will have it that every church has its tutelary angel. In the same book, the Apocalypse, are related divers appearances of angels. All Christian antiquity has recognized them; the synagogue also has recognized them; so that it may be affirmed that nothing is more certain than the existence of good angels and their apparitions. I place in the number of apparitions, not only those of good or bad angels, and the spirits of the dead who show themselves to the living, but also those of the living who show themselves to the angels or souls of the dead; whether these apparitions are seen in dreams, or during sleep, or awaking; whether they manifest themselves to all those who are present, or only to the persons to whom God judges proper to manifest them. For instance, in the Apocalypse,[36] St. John saw the four animals, and the four-and-twenty elders, who were clothed in white garments and wore crowns of gold upon their heads, and were seated on thrones around that of the Almighty, who prostrated themselves before the throne of the Eternal, and cast their crowns at his feet. And, elsewhere: "I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the world,[37] who held back the four winds and prevented them from blowing on the earth; then I saw another angel, who rose on the side of the east, and who cried out to the four angels who had orders to hurt the earth, Do no harm to the earth, or the sea, or the trees, until we have impressed a sign on the foreheads of the servants of God. And I heard that the number of those who received this sign (or mark) was a hundred and forty-four thousand. Afterwards I saw an innumerable multitude of all nations, tribes, people, and languages, standing before the throne of the Most High, arrayed in white garments, and having palms in their hands." And in the same book[38] St. John says, after having described the majesty of the throne of God, and the adoration paid to him by the angels and saints prostrate before him, one of the elders said to him,--"Those whom you see covered with white robes, are those who have suffered great trials and afflictions, and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb; for which reason they stand before the throne of God, and will do so night and day in his temple; and He who is seated on the throne will reign over them, and the angel which is in the midst of the throne will conduct them to the fountains of living water." And, again,[39] "I saw under the altar of God the souls of those who have been put to death for defending the Word of God, and for the testimony which they have rendered; they cried with a loud voice, saying, When, O Lord, wilt thou not avenge our blood upon those who are on the earth?" &c. All these apparitions, and several others similar to them, which might be related as being derived from the holy books as well as from authentic histories, are true apparitions, although neither the angels nor the martyrs spoken of in the Apocalypse came and presented themselves to St. John; but, on the contrary, this apostle was transported in spirit to heaven, to see there what we have just related. These are apparitions which may be called passive on the part of the angels and holy martyrs, and active on the part of the holy apostle who saw them. Footnotes: [22] Luke i. 10-12, &c. [23] Luke i. 26, 27, &c. [24] Luke ii. 9, 10. [25] Matt. ii. 13, 14, 20. [26] Matt. iv. 6, 11. [27] Matt. xviii. 16. [28] Matt. xiii. 45, 46. [29] Luke xxii. 43. [30] Matt. xxviii. John. [31] Acts v. 19. [32] Acts vii. 30, 35. [33] Exod. xxiii. 21. [34] Acts xii. 8, 9. [35] Rom. i. 18. 1 Cor. iv. 9; vi. 3; xii. 7. Gal. iii. 19. Acts xvi. 9; xxiii. 9. Rev. i. 11. [36] Rev. iv. 4, 10. [37] Rev. vii. 1-3, 9, &c. [38] Rev. vii. 13, 14. [39] Rev. vi. 9, 10. CHAPTER III. UNDER WHAT FORM HAVE GOOD ANGELS APPEARED? The most usual form in which good angels appear, both in the Old Testament and the New, is the human form. It was in that shape they showed themselves to Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Manoah the father of Samson, to David, Tobit, the Prophets; and in the New Testament they appeared in the same form to the Holy Virgin, to Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, to Jesus Christ after his fast of forty days, and to him again in his agony in the Garden of Olives. They showed themselves in the same form to the holy women after the resurrection of the Saviour. The one who appeared to Joshua[40] on the plain of Jericho appeared apparently in the guise of a warrior, since Joshua asks him, "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" Sometimes they hide themselves under some form which has resemblance to the human shape, like him who appeared to Moses in the burning bush,[41] and who led the Israelites in the desert in the form of a cloud, dense and dark during the day, but luminous at night.[42] The Psalmist tells us that God makes his angels serve as a piercing wind and a burning fire, to execute his orders.[43] The cherubim, so often spoken of in the Scriptures, and who are described as serving for a throne to the majesty of God, were hieroglyphical figures, something like the sphinx of the Egyptians; those which are described in Ezekiel[44] are like animals composed of the figure of a man, having the wings of an eagle, the feet of an ox; their heads were composed of the face of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle, two of their wings were spread towards their fellows, and two others covered their body; they were brilliant as burning coals, as lighted lamps, as the fiery heavens when they send forth the lightning's flash--they were terrible to look upon. The one who appeared to Daniel[45] was different from those we have just described; he was in the shape of a man, covered with a linen garment, and round his loins a girdle of very fine gold; his body was shining as a chrysolite, his face as a flash of lightning; his eyes darted fire like a lamp; his arms and all the lower part of his body was like brass melted in the furnace; his voice was loud as that of a multitude of people. St. John, in the Apocalypse,[46] saw around the throne of the Most High four animals, which doubtless were four angels; they were covered with eyes before and behind. The first resembled a lion, the second an ox, the third had the form of a man, and the fourth was like an eagle with outspread wings; each of them had six wings, and they never ceased to cry night and day, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." The angel who was placed at the entrance of the terrestrial paradise was armed with a shining sword,[47] as well as the one who appeared to Balaam,[48] and who threatened, or was near killing both himself and his ass; and so, apparently, was the one who showed himself to Joshua in the plain of Jericho,[49] and the angel who appeared to David, ready to smite all Israel. The angel Raphael guided the young Tobias to Ragès under the human form of a traveler.[50] The angel who was seen by the holy woman at the sepulchre of the Saviour, who overthrew the large stone which closed the mouth of the tomb, and who was seated upon it, had a countenance which shone like lightning, and garments white as snow.[51] In the Acts of the Apostles,[52] the angel who extricated them from prison, and told them to go boldly and preach Jesus Christ in the temple, also appeared to them in a human form. The manner in which he delivered them from the dungeon is quite miraculous; for the chief priests having commanded that they should appear before them, those who were sent found the prison securely closed, the guards wide awake; but having caused the doors to be opened, they found the dungeon empty. How could an angel without opening, or any fracture of the doors, thus extricate men from prison without either the guards or the jailer perceiving anything of the matter? The thing is beyond any known powers of nature; but it is no more impossible than to see our Saviour, after his resurrection, invested with flesh and bones, as he himself says, come forth from his sepulchre, without opening it, and without breaking the seals,[53] enter the chamber wherein were the apostles without opening the doors,[54] and speak to the disciples going to Emmaus without making himself known to them; then, after having opened their eyes, disappear and become invisible.[55] During the forty days that he remained upon earth till his ascension, he drank and ate with them, he spoke to them, he appeared to them; but he showed himself only to those witnesses who were pre-ordained by the eternal Father to bear testimony to his resurrection. The angel who appeared to the centurion Cornelius, a pagan, but fearing God, answered his questions, and discovered to him unknown things, which things came to pass. Sometimes the angels, without assuming any visible shape, give proofs of their presence by intelligible voices, by inspirations, by sensible effects, by dreams, or by revelations of things unknown, whether future or past. Sometimes by striking with blindness, or infusing a spirit of uncertainty or stupidity in the minds of those whom God wills should feel the effects of his wrath; for instance, it is said in the Scriptures that the Israelites heard no distinct speech, and beheld no form on Horeb when God spoke to Moses and gave him the Law.[56] The angel who might have killed Balaam's ass was not at first perceived by the prophet;[57] Daniel was the only one who beheld the angel Gabriel, who revealed to him the mystery of the great empires which were to succeed each other.[58] When the Lord spoke for the first time to Samuel, and predicted to him the evils which he would inflict on the family of the high-priest Eli, the young prophet saw no visible form; he only heard a voice, which he at first mistook for that of the high-priest Eli, not being yet accustomed to distinguish the voice of God from that of a man. The angels who guided Lot and his family from Sodom and Gomorrah were at first perceived under a human form by the inhabitants of the city; but afterwards these same angels struck the men with blindness, and thus prevented them from finding the door of Lot's house, into which they would have entered by force. Thus, then, angels do not always appear under a visible or sensible form, nor in a figure uniformly the same; but they give proofs of their presence by an infinity of different ways--by inspirations, by voices, by prodigies, by miraculous effects, by predictions of the future, and other things hidden and impenetrable to the human mind. St. Cyprian relates that an African bishop, falling ill during the persecution, earnestly requested to have the viaticum administered to him; at the same time he saw, as it were, a young man, with a majestic air, and shining with such extraordinary lustre that the eyes of mortals could not have beheld him without terror; nevertheless, the bishop was not alarmed. This angel said to him, angrily, and in a menacing tone, "You fear to suffer. You do not wish to leave this world. What would you have me do for you?" (or "What can I do for you?") The good bishop comprehended that these words alike regarded him and the other Christians who feared persecution and death. The bishop talked to them, encouraged them, and exhorted them to arm themselves with patience to support the tortures with which they were threatened. He received the communion, and died in peace. We shall find in different histories an infinite number of other apparitions of angels under a human form. Footnotes: [40] Josh. v. 29. [41] Exod. iii. 3, 44. [42] Exod. xiii. xiv. [43] Psalm civ. 4. [44] Ezek. i. 4, 6. [45] Dan. x. 5. [46] Rev. iv. 7, 8. [47] Gen. iii. 24. [48] Numb. xxii. 22, 23. [49] 1 Chron. xxi. 16. [50] Tobit v. 5. [51] Matt. xxviii. 3. [52] Acts ii. [53] Matt. xxviii. 1, 2. [54] John xix. 20. [55] Luke xxiii. 15-17, &c. [56] Deut. iv. 15. [57] Numb. xii. 22, 23. [58] Dan. x. 7, 8. CHAPTER IV. OPINIONS OF THE JEWS, CHRISTIANS, MAHOMETANS, AND ORIENTAL NATIONS CONCERNING THE APPARITIONS OF GOOD ANGELS. After what we have just related from the books of the Old and New Testament, it cannot be disavowed that the Jews in general, the apostles, the Christians, and their disciples have commonly believed in the apparitions of good angels. The Sadducees, who denied the existence and the apparition of angels, were commonly considered by the Jews as heretics, and as supporting an erroneous doctrine. Jesus Christ refutes them in the Gospel. The Jews of our days believe literally what is related in the Old Testament, concerning the angels who appeared to Abraham, Lot, and other patriarchs. It was the belief of the Pharisees and of the apostles in the time of our Saviour, as may be seen by the writings of the apostles and by the whole of the Gospel. The Mahometans believe, as do the Jews and Christians, that good angels appear to men sometimes under a human form; that they appeared to Abraham and Lot; that they punished the inhabitants of Sodom; that the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mahomet, and revealed to him all that is laid down in his Koran: that the genii are of a middle nature, between man and angel;[59] that they eat, drink, beget children; that they die, and can foresee things to come. In consequence of this principle or idea, they believe that there are male and female genii; that the males, whom the Persians call by the name of _Dives_, are bad, very ugly, and mischievous, making war against the _Peris_, who are the females. The Rabbis will have it that these genii were born of Adam alone, without any concurrence of his wife Eve, or of any other woman, and that they are what we call _ignis fatuii_ (or wandering lights). The antiquity of these opinions touching the corporality of angels appears in several _old_ writers, who, deceived by the apocryphal book which passes under the name of the _Book of Enoch_, have explained of the angels what is said in Genesis,[60] "_That the children of God, having seen the daughters of men, fell in love with their beauty, wedded them, and begot giants of them._" Several of the ancient Fathers[61] have adopted this opinion, which is now given up by everybody, with the exception of some new writers, who desire to revive the idea of the corporality of angels, demons, and souls--an opinion which is absolutely incompatible with that of the Catholic church, which holds that angels are of a nature entirely distinct from matter. I acknowledge that, according to their system, the affair of apparitions could be more easily explained; it is easier to conceive that a corporeal substance should appear, and render itself visible to our eyes, than a substance purely spiritual; but this is not the place to reason on a philosophical question, on which different hypotheses could be freely grounded, and to choose that which should explain these appearances in the most plausible manner, even though it answer in the most satisfactory manner the question asked, and the objections formed against the facts, and against the proposed manner of stating them. The question is resolved, and the matter decided. The church and the Catholic schools hold that angels, demons, and reasonable souls, are disengaged from all matter; the same church and the same school hold it as certain that good and bad angels, and souls separated from the body, sometimes appear by the will and with the permission of God: there we must stop; as to the manner of explaining these apparitions, we must, without losing sight of the certain principle of the immateriality of these substances, explain them according to the analogy of the Christian and Catholic faith, acknowledged sincerely that in this matter there are certain depths which we cannot sound, and confine our mind and information within the limits of that obedience which we owe to the authority of the church, that can neither err nor deceive us. The apparitions of good angels and of guardian angels are frequently mentioned in the Old as in the New Testament. When the Apostle St. Peter had left the prison by the assistance of an angel, and went and knocked at the door where the brethren were, they believed that it was his angel and not himself who knocked.[62] And when Cornelius the Centurion prayed to God in his own house, an angel (apparently his good angel) appeared to him, and told him to send and fetch Peter, who was then at Joppa.[63] St. Paul desires that at church no woman should appear among them without her face being veiled, because of the angels;[64] doubtless from respect to the good angels who presided in these assemblies. The same St. Paul reassures those who were with him in danger of almost inevitable shipwreck, by telling them that his angel had appeared to him[65] and assured him that they should arrive safe at the end of their voyage. In the Old Testament, we likewise read of several apparitions of angels, which can hardly be explained but as of guardian angels; for instance, the one who appeared to Hagar in the wilderness, and commanded her to return and submit herself to Sarah her mistress;[66] and the angel who appeared to Abraham, as he was about to immolate Isaac his son, and told him that God was satisfied with his obedience;[67] and when the same Abraham sent his servant Eleazer into Mesopotamia, to ask for a wife for his son Isaac, he told him that the God of heaven, who had promised to give him the land of Canaan, would send his angel[68] to dispose all things according to his wishes. Examples of similar apparitions of tutelary angels, derived from the Old Testament, might here be multiplied, but the circumstance does not require a greater number of proofs. Under the new dispensation, the apparitions of good angels, of guardian spirits, are not less frequent in most authentic stories; there are few saints to whom God has not granted similar favors: we may cite, in particular, St. Frances, a Roman lady of the sixteenth century, who saw her guardian angel, and he talked to her, instructed her, and corrected her. Footnotes: [59] D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. _Perith. Dives_, 785. Idem, 243, p. 85. [60] Gen. vi. 2. [61] Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 4. Philo, De Gigantibus. Justin. Apol. Turtul. de Animâ. _Vide_ Commentatores in Gen. iv. [62] Acts xii. 15. [63] Acts x. 2, 3. [64] 1 Cor. xi. 10. [65] Acts xxvii. 21, 22. [66] Gen. xvi. 9. [67] Gen. xxii. 11, 17. [68] Gen. xxiv. 7. CHAPTER V. OPINION OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS ON THE APPARITIONS OF GOOD GENII. Jamblichus, a disciple of Porphyry,[69] has treated the matter of genii and their apparition more profoundly than any other author of antiquity. It would seem, to hear him discourse, that he knew both the genii and their qualities, and that he had with them the most intimate and continual converse. He affirms that our eyes are delighted by the appearance of the gods, that the apparitions of the archangels are terrible; those of angels are milder; but when demons and heroes appear, they inspire terror; the archontes, who preside over this world, cause at the same time an impression of grief and fear. The apparition of souls is not quite so disagreeable as that of heroes. In the appearance of the gods there is order and mildness, confusion and disorder in that of demons, and tumult in that of the archontes. When the gods show themselves, it seems as if the heavens, the sun and moon, were all about to be annihilated; one would think that the earth could not support their presence. On the appearance of an archangel, there is an earthquake in every part of the world; it is preceded by a stronger light than that which accompanies the apparition of the angels; at the appearance of a demon it is less strong, and diminishes still more when it is a hero who shows himself. The apparitions of the gods are very luminous; those of angels and archangels less so; those of demons are dark, but less dark than those of heroes. The archontes, who preside over the brightest things in this world, are luminous; but those which are occupied only with what is material, are dark. When souls appear, they resemble a shade. He continues his description of these apparitions, and enters into tiresome details on the subject; one would say, to hear him, that that there was a most intimate and habitual connection between the gods, the angels, the demons, and the souls separated from the body, and himself. But all this is only the work of his imagination; he knew no more than any other concerning a matter which is above the reach of man's understanding. He had never seen any apparitions of gods or heroes, or archontes; unless we say that there are veritable demons which sometimes appear to men. But to discern them one from the other, as Jamblichus pretends to do, is mere illusion. The Greeks and Romans, like the Hebrews and Christians, acknowledged two sorts of genii, some good and beneficent, the others bad, and causing evil. The ancients even believed that every one of us received at our birth a good and an evil genius; the former procured us happiness and prosperity, the latter engaged us in unfortunate enterprises, inspired us with unruly desires, and cast us into the worst misfortunes. They assigned genii, not only to every person, but also to every house, every city, and every province.[70] These genii are considered as good, beneficent,[71] and worthy of the worship of those who invoke them. They were represented sometimes under the form of a serpent, sometimes as a child or a youth. Flowers, incense, cakes, and wine were offered to them.[72] Men swore by the names of the genii.[73] It was a great crime to perjure one's self after having sworn by the genius of the emperor, says Tertullian;[74] _Citius apud vos per omnes Deos, quàm per unicum Genium Cæsaris perjuratur._ We often see on medals the inscription, GENIO POPULI ROMANI; and when the Romans landed in a country, they failed not to salute and adore its genius, and to offer him sacrifices.[75] In short, there was neither kingdom, nor province, nor town, nor house, nor door, nor edifice, whether public or private, which had not its genius.[76] We have seen above what Jamblichus informs us concerning apparitions of the gods, genii, good and bad angels, heroes, and the archontes who preside over the government of the world. Homer, the most ancient of Greek writers, and the most celebrated theologian of Paganism, relates several apparitions both of gods and heroes, and also of the dead. In the Odyssey,[77] he represents Ulysses going to consult the sorcerer Tiresias; and this diviner having prepared a grave or trench full of blood to evoke the manes, Ulysses draws his sword to prevent them from coming to drink this blood, for which they thirst; but which they were not allowed to taste before they had answered the questions put to them. They believed also that the souls of the dead could not rest, and that they wandered around their dead bodies so long as the corpse remained uninhumed. Even after they were interred, food was offered them; above everything honey was given, as if leaving their tomb they came to taste what was offered them.[78] They were persuaded that the demons loved the smoke of sacrifices, melody, the blood of victims, and intercourse with women; that they were attached for a time to certain spots and certain edifices which they infested. They believed that souls separated from the gross and terrestrial body, preserved after death one more subtile and elastic, having the form of that they had quitted; that these bodies were luminous, and like the stars; that they retained an inclination for those things which they had loved during their life on earth, and that often they appeared gliding around their tombs. To bring back all this to the matter here treated of, that is to say, to the appearance of good angels, we may note, that in the same manner that we attach to the apparitions of good angels the idea of tutelary spirits of kingdoms, provinces, and nations, and of each of us in particular--as, for instance, the Prince of the kingdom of Persia, or the angel of that nation, who resisted the archangel Gabriel during twenty-one days, as we read in Daniel;[79] the angel of Macedonia, who appeared to St. Paul,[80] and of whom we have spoken before; the archangel St. Michael, who is considered as the chief of the people of God and the armies of Israel;[81] and the guardian angels deputed by God to guide us and guard us all the days of our life--so we may say that the Greeks and Romans, being Gentiles, believed that certain sorts of spirits, which they imagined were good and beneficent, protected their kingdoms, provinces, towns, and private houses. They paid them a superstitious and idolatrous worship, as to domestic divinities; they invoked them, offered them a kind of sacrifice and offerings of incense, cakes, honey, and wine, &c.--but not bloody sacrifices.[82] The Platonicians taught that carnal and voluptuous men could not see their genii, because their mind was not sufficiently pure, nor enough disengaged from sensual things; but that men who were wise, moderate, and temperate, and who applied themselves to serious and sublime subjects, could see them; as Socrates, for instance, who had his familiar genius, whom he consulted, to whose advice he listened, and whom he beheld, at least with the eyes of the mind. If the oracles of Greece and other countries are reckoned in the number of apparitions of bad spirits, we may also recollect the good spirits who have announced things to come, and have assisted the prophets and inspired persons, whether in the Old Testament or the New. The angel Gabriel was sent to Daniel[83] to instruct him concerning the vision of the four great monarchies, and the accomplishment of the seventy weeks, which were to put an end to the captivity. The prophet Zechariah says expressly that _the angel who appeared unto him_[84] revealed to him what he must say--he repeats it in five or six places; St. John, in the Apocalypse,[85] says the same thing, that God had sent his angel to inspire him with what he was to say to the Churches. Elsewhere[86] he again makes mention of the angel who talked with him, and who took in his presence the dimensions of the heavenly Jerusalem. And again, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews,[87] "If what has been predicted by the angels may pass for certain." From all we have just said, it results that the apparitions of good angels are not only possible, but also very real; that they have often appeared, and under diverse forms; that the Hebrews, Christians, Mahometans, Greeks, and Romans have believed in them; that when they have not sensibly appeared, they have given proofs of their presence in several different ways. We shall examine elsewhere how we can explain the kind of apparition, whether of good or bad angels, or souls separated from the body. Footnotes: [69] Jamblic. lib. ii. cap. 3 & 5. [70] "Quod te per Genium, dextramque Deosque Penates, Obsecro et obtestor."--_Horat._ lib. i. Epist. 7. 94. ----"Dum cunctis supplex advolveris aris, Ei mitem Genium Domini præsentis adoras." _Stac._ lib. v. Syl. I. 73. [71] Antiquitée expliquée, tom. i. [72] Perseus, Satire ii. [73] Senec. Epist. 12. [74] Tertull. Apol. c. 23. [75] "Troja vale, rapimur, clamant; dant oscula terræ Troades."--_Ovid. Metam._, lib. xiii. 421. [76] "Quamquam cur Genium Romæ, mihi fingitis unum? Cùm portis, domibus; thermis, stabulis soleatis, Assignare suos Genios?"--_Prudent. contra Symmach._ [77] Odyss. XI. sub. fin. _Vid._ Horat. lib. i. Satire 7, &c. [78] Virgil. Æneid. I. 6. August. Serm. 15. de SS. et Quæst. 5. in Deut. i. 5 c. 43. _Vide_ Spencer, de Leg. Hebræor. Ritual. [79] Dan. x. 13. [80] Acts xvi. 9. [81] Josh. v. 13. Dan. x. 13, 21; xii. 1. Judg. v. 6. Rev. xii. 7 [82] _Forsitan quis quærat, quid causæ sit, ut merum fundendum sit genio_, non hostiam faciendam putaverint.... _Scilicet ut die natali munus_ annale genio solverent, manum à coede ac sanguine abstinerent.--Censorin. de Die Natali, c. 2. Vide Taffin de Anno Sæcul. [83] Dan. viii. 16; ix. 21. [84] Zech. i. 10, 13, 14, 19; ii. 3, 4; iv. 1, 4, 5; v. 5, 10. [85] Rev. i. 1. [86] Rev. x. 8, 9, &c.; xi. 1, 2, 3, &c. [87] Heb. ii. 2. CHAPTER VI. THE APPARITION OF BAD ANGELS PROVED BY THE HOLY SCRIPTURES--UNDER WHAT FORM THEY HAVE APPEARED. The books of the Old and New Testament, together with sacred and profane history, are full of relations of the apparition of bad spirits. The first, the most famous, and the most fatal apparition of Satan, is that of the appearance of this evil spirit to Eve, the first woman,[88] in the form of a serpent, which animal served as the instrument of that seducing demon in order to deceive her and induce her to sin. Since that time he has always chosen to appear under that form rather than any other; so in Scripture he is often termed _the Old Serpent_;[89] and it is said that the infernal dragon fought against the woman who figured or represented the church; that the archangel St. Michael vanquished him and cast him down from heaven. He has often appeared to the servants of God in the form of a dragon, and he has caused himself to be adored by unbelievers in this form, in a great number of places: at Babylon, for instance, they worshiped a living dragon,[90] which Daniel killed by making it swallow a ball or bolus, composed of ingredients of a mortally poisonous nature. The serpent was consecrated to Apollo, the god of physic and of oracles; and the pagans had a sort of divination by means of serpents, which they called _Ophiomantia_. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans worshiped serpents, and regarded them as divine.[91] They brought to Rome the serpent of Epidaurus, to which they paid divine honors. The Egyptians considered vipers as divinities.[92] The Israelites adored the brazen serpent elevated by Moses in the desert,[93] and which was in after times broken in pieces by the holy king Hezekiah.[94] St. Augustine[95] assures us that the Manichæans regarded the serpent as the Christ, and said that this animal had opened the eyes of Adam and Eve by the bad counsel which he gave them. We almost always see the form of the serpent in the magical figures[96] _Akraxas_ and _Abrachadabra_, which were held in veneration among the Basilidian heretics, who, like the Manichæans, acknowledge two principles in all things--the one good, the other bad; _Abraxas_ in Hebrew signifies _that bad principle_, or the father of evil; _ab-ra-achad-ab-ra_, _the father of evil_, _the sole father of evil_, or the only bad principle. St. Augustine[97] remarks that no animal has been more subject to the effects of enchantment and magic than the serpent, as if to punish him for having seduced the first woman by his imposture. However, the demon has usually assumed the human form when he would tempt mankind; it was thus that he appeared to Jesus Christ in the desert;[98] that he tempted him and told him to change the stones into bread that he might satisfy his hunger; that he transported him, the Saviour, to the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and offered him the enjoyment of them. The angel who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel,[99] on his return from his journey into Mesopotamia, was a bad angel, according to some ancient writers; others, as Severus Sulpicius[100] and some Rabbis, have thought that it was the angel of Esau, who had come to combat with Jacob; but the greater number believe that it was a good angel. And would Jacob have asked him for his blessing had he deemed him a bad angel? But however that fact may be taken, it is not doubtful that the demon has appeared in a human form. Several stories, both ancient and modern, are related which inform us that the demon has appeared to those whom he wished to seduce, or who have been so unhappy as to invoke his aid, or make a compact with him, as a man taller than the common stature, dressed in black, and with a rough ungracious manner; making a thousand fine promises to those to whom he appeared, but which promises were always deceitful, and never followed by a real effect. I can even believe that they beheld what existed only in their own confused and deranged ideas. At Molsheim,[101] in the chapel of St. Ignatius in the Jesuits' church, may be seen a celebrated inscription, which contains the history of a young German gentleman, named Michael Louis, of the house of Boubenhoren, who, having been sent by his parents when very young to the court of the Duke of Lorraine, to learn the French language, lost all his money at cards: reduced to despair, he resolved to give himself to the demon, if that bad spirit would or could give him some good money; for he doubted that he would only furnish him with counterfeit and bad coin. As he was meditating on this idea, suddenly he beheld before him a youth of his own age, well made, well dressed, who, having asked him the cause of his uneasiness, presented him with a handful of money, and told him to try if it was good. He desired him to meet him at that place the next day. Michael returned to his companions, who were still at play, and not only regained all the money he had lost, but won all that of his companions. Then he went in search of his demon, who asked as his reward three drops of his blood, which he received in an acorn-cup; after which, presenting a pen to Michael, he desired him to write what he should dictate. He then dictated some unknown words, which he made him write on two different bits of paper,[102] one of which remained in the possession of the demon, the other was inserted in Michael's arm, at the same place whence the demon had drawn the blood. And the demon said to him, "I engage myself to serve you during seven years, after which you will unreservedly belong to me." The young man consented to this, though with a feeling of horror; and the demon never failed to appear to him day and night under various forms, and taught him many unknown and curious things, but which always tended to evil. The fatal termination of the seven years was approaching, and the young man was then about twenty years old. He returned to his father's house, when the demon to whom he had given himself inspired him with the idea of poisoning his father and mother, of setting fire to their château, and then killing himself. He tried to commit all these crimes, but God did not allow him to succeed in these attempts. The gun with which he wished to kill himself missed fire twice, and the poison did not take effect on his father and mother. More and more uneasy, he revealed to some of his father's domestics the miserable state in which he found himself, and entreated them to procure him some succor. At the same time the demon seized him, and bent his body back, so that he was near breaking his bones. His mother, who had adopted the heresy of Suenfeld, and had induced her son to follow it also, not finding in her sect any help against the demon that possessed or obseded him, was constrained to place him in the hands of some monks. But he soon withdrew from them and retired to Islade, from whence he was brought back to Molsheim by his brother, a canon of Wurzburg, who put him again into the hands of fathers of the society. Then it was that the demon made still more violent efforts against him, appearing to him in the form of ferocious animals. One day, amongst others, the demon, wearing the form of a hairy savage, threw on the ground a schedule, or compact, different from the true one which he had extorted from the young man, to try by means of this false appearance to withdraw him from the hands of those who kept him, and prevent his making his general confession. At last they fixed on the 20th of October, 1603, as the day for being in the Chapel of St. Ignatius, and to cause to be brought the true schedule containing the compact made with the demon. The young man there made profession of the Catholic and orthodox faith, renounced the demon, and received the holy sacrament. Then, uttering horrible cries, he said he saw as it were two he-goats of immeasurable size, which, holding up their forefeet (standing on their hindlegs), held between their claws, each one separately, one of the schedules or agreements. But as soon as the exorcisms were begun, and the priests invoked the name of St. Ignatius, the two he-goats fled away, and there came from the left arm or hand of the young man, almost without pain, and without leaving any scar, the compact, which fell at the feet of the exorcist. There now wanted only the second compact, which had remained in the power of the demon. They recommenced their exorcisms, and invoked St. Ignatius, and promised to say a mass in honor of the saint; at the same moment there appeared a tall stork, deformed and badly made, who let fall the second schedule from his beak, and they found it on the altar. The pope, Paul V., caused information of the truth of these facts to be taken by the commissionary-deputies, M. Adam, Suffragan of Strasburg, and George, Abbot of Altorf, who were juridically interrogated, and who affirmed that the deliverance of this young man was principally due, after God, to the intercession of St. Ignatius. The same story is related rather more at length in Bartoli's Life of St. Ignatius Loyola. Melancthon owns[103] that he has seen several spectres, and conversed with them several times; and Jerome Cardan affirms that his father, Fassius Cardanus, saw demons whenever he pleased, apparently in a human form. Bad spirits sometimes appear also under the figure of a lion, a dog, or a cat, or some other animal--as a bull, a horse, or a raven; for the pretended sorcerers and sorceresses relate that at the (witches') Sabbath he is seen under several different forms of men, animals, and birds; whether he takes the shape of these animals, or whether he makes use of the animals themselves as instruments to deceive or harm, or whether he simply affects the senses and imagination of those whom he has fascinated and who give themselves to him; for in all the appearances of the demon we must always be on our guard, and mistrust his stratagems and malice. St. Peter[104] tells us that Satan is always roaming round about us, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And St. Paul, in more places than one,[105] warns us to mistrust the snares of the devil, and to hold ourselves on our guard against him. Sulpicius Severus,[106] in the life of St. Martin, relates a few examples of persons who were deceived by apparitions of the demon, who transformed himself into an angel of light. A young man of very high rank, and who was afterwards elevated to the priesthood, having devoted himself to God in a monastery, imagined that he held converse with angels; and as they would not believe him, he said that the following night God would give him a white robe, with which he would appear amongst them. In fact, at midnight the monastery was shaken as with an earthquake, the cell of the young man was all brilliant with light, and they heard a noise like that of many persons going to and fro, and speaking. After that, coming forth from his cell, he showed to the brothers (of the convent) the tunic with which he was clothed: it was made of a stuff of admirable whiteness, shining as purple, and so extraordinarily fine in texture that they had never seen anything like it, and could not tell from what substance it was woven. They passed the rest of the night in singing psalms of thanksgiving, and in the morning they wished to conduct him to St. Martin. He resisted as much as he could, saying that he had been expressly forbidden to appear in his presence. As they were pressing him to come, the tunic vanished, which led every one present to suppose that the whole thing was an illusion of the demon. Another solitary suffered himself to be persuaded that he was Eli; another that he was St. John the Evangelist. One day, the demon wished to mislead St. Martin himself, appearing to him, having on a royal robe, wearing on his head a rich diadem, ornamented with gold and precious stones, golden sandals, and all the apparel of a great prince. Addressing himself to Martin, he said to him, "Acknowledge me, Martin; I am Jesus Christ, who, wishing to descend to earth, have resolved to manifest myself to thee first of all." St. Martin remained silent at first, fearing some snare; and the phantom having repeated to him that he was the Christ, Martin replied: "My Lord Jesus Christ did not say that he should come clothed in purple and decked with diamonds. I shall not acknowledge him unless he appears in that same form in which he suffered death, and unless I see the marks of his cross and passion." At these words the demon disappeared; and Sulpicius Severus affirms that he relates this as he heard it from the mouth of St. Martin himself. A little before this, he says that Satan showed himself to him sometimes under the form of Jupiter, or Mercury, or Venus, or Minerva; and sometimes he was to reproach Martin greatly because, by baptism, he had converted and regenerated so many great sinners. But the saint despised him, drove him away by the sign of the cross, and answered him that baptism and repentance effaced all sins in those who were sincere converts. All this proves the malice, envy, and fraud of the devil against the saints, on the one side; and on the other, the weakness and uselessness of his efforts against the true servants of God, and that it is but too true he often appears in a visible form. In the histories of the saints we sometimes see that he hides himself under the form of a woman, to tempt pious hermits and lead them into evil; sometimes in the form of a traveler, a priest, a monk, or an _angel of light_,[107] to mislead simple minded people, and cause them to err; for everything suits his purpose, provided he can exercise his malice and hatred against men. When Satan appeared before the Lord in the midst of his holy angels, and asked permission of God to tempt Job,[108] and try his patience through everything that was dearest to that holy man, he doubtless presented himself in his natural state, simply as a spirit, but full of rage against the saints, and in all the deformity of his sin and rebellion. But when he says, in the Books of Kings, _that he will be a lying spirit in the mouth of false prophets_,[109] and that God allows him to put in force his ill-will, we must not imagine that he shows himself corporeally to the eyes of the false prophets of King Ahab; he only inspired the falsehood in their minds--they believed it, and persuaded the king of the same. Amongst the visible appearances of Satan may be placed mortalities, wars, tempests, public and private calamities, which God sends upon nations, provinces, cities, and families, whom the Almighty causes to feel the terrible effects of his wrath and just vengeance. Thus the exterminating angel kills the first-born of the Egyptians.[110] The same angel strikes with death the inhabitants of the guilty cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.[111] He does the same with Onan, who committed an abominable action.[112] _The wicked man seeks only division and quarrels_, says the sage; _and the cruel angel shall be sent against him_.[113] And the Psalmist, speaking of the plagues which the Lord inflicted upon Egypt, says that he sent evil angels among them. When David, in a spirit of vanity, caused his people to be numbered, God showed him an angel hovering over Jerusalem, ready to smite and destroy it. I do not say decidedly whether it was a good or a bad angel, since it is certain that sometimes the Lord employs good angels to execute his vengeance against the wicked. But it is thought that it was the devil who slew eighty-five thousand men of the army of Sennacherib. And in the Apocalypse, those are also evil angels who pour out on the earth the phials of wrath, and caused all the scourges set down in that holy book. We shall also place amongst the appearances and works of Satan false Christs, false prophets, Pagan oracles, magicians, sorcerers, and sorceresses, those who are inspired by the spirit of Python, the obsession and possession of demons, those who pretend to predict the future, and whose predictions are sometimes fulfilled; those who make compacts with the devil to discover treasures and enrich themselves; those who make use of charms; evocations by means of magic; enchantment; the being devoted to death by a vow; the deceptions of idolatrous priests, who feigned that their gods ate and drank and had commerce with women--all these can only be the work of Satan, and must be ranked with what the Scripture calls _the depths of Satan_.[114] We shall say something on this subject in the course of the treatise. Footnotes: [88] Gen. iii. 1, 23. [89] Rev. xii. 9. [90] Bel and the Dragon. [91] Wisd. xi. 16. [92] Elian. Hist. Animal. [93] Numb. xxi. 2 Kings xviii. 4. [94] On this subject, see a work of profound learning, and as interesting as profound, on "The Worship of the Serpent," by the Rev. John Bathurst Deane, M. A. F. S. A. [95] Aug. tom. viii. pp. 28, 284. [96] _Ab-racha_, pater _mali_, or pater _malus_. [97] August. de Gen. ad Lit. 1. ii. c. 18. [98] Matt. iv. 9, 10, &c. [99] Gen. xxxii. 24, 25. [100] Sever. Sulpit. Hist. Sac. [101] A small city or town of the Electorate of Cologne, situated on a river of the same name. [102] There were in all ten letters, the greater part of them Greek, but which formed no (apparent) sense. They were to be seen at Molsheim, in the tablet which bore a representation of this miracle. [103] Lib. de Anima. [104] 1 Pet. iii. 8. [105] Eph. vi. 11. 1 Tim. iii. 7. [106] Sulpit. Sever. Vit. St. Martin, b. xv. [107] 2 Cor. xi. 14. [108] Job i. 6-8. [109] 1 Kings xxii. 21. [110] Exod. ix. 6. [111] Gen. xviii. 13, 14. [112] Gen. xxxviii. [113] Prov. xvii. 11. [114] Rev. ii. 24. CHAPTER VII. OF MAGIC. Many persons regard magic, magicians, witchcraft, and charms as fables and illusions, the effects of imagination in weak minds, who, foolishly persuaded of the excessive power possessed by the devil, attribute to him a thousand things which are purely natural, but the physical reasons for which are unknown to them, or which are the effects of the art of certain charlatans, who make a trade of imposing on the simple and ignorant. These opinions are supported by the authority of the principal parliaments of the kingdom, who acknowledge neither magicians nor sorcerers, and who never punish those accused of magic, or sorcery, unless they are convicted also of some other crimes. As, in short, the more they punish and seek out magicians and sorcerers, the more they abound in a country; and, on the contrary, experience proves that in places where nobody believes in them, none are to be found, the most efficacious means of uprooting this fancy is to despise and neglect it. It is said that magicians and sorcerers themselves, when they fall into the hands of judges and inquisitors, are often the first to maintain that magic and sorcery are merely imaginary, and the effect of popular prejudices and errors. Upon that footing, Satan would destroy himself, and overthrow his own empire, if he were thus to decry magic, of which he is himself the author and support. If the magicians really, and of their own good will, independently of the demon, make this declaration, they betray themselves most lightly, and do not make their cause better; since the judges, notwithstanding their disavowal, prosecute them, and always punish them without mercy, being well persuaded that it is only the fear of execution and the hope of remaining unpunished which makes them say so. But would it not rather be a stratagem of the evil spirit,[115] who endeavors to render the reality of magic doubtful, to save from punishment those who are accused of it, and to impose on the judges, and make them believe that magicians are only madmen and hypochondriacs, worthy rather of compassion than chastisement? We must then return to the deep examination of the question, and prove that magic is not a chimera, neither has it aught to do with reason. We can neither rest on a sure foundation, nor derive any certain argument for or against the reality of magic, either from the opinion of pretended _esprits forts_, who deny because they think proper to do so, and because the proofs of the contrary do not appear to them sufficiently clear or demonstrative; nor from the declaration of the demon, of magicians and sorcerers, who maintain that magic and sorcery are only the effects of a disturbed imagination; nor from minds foolishly and vainly prejudiced on the subject, that these declarations are produced simply by the fear of punishment; nor by the subtilty of the malignant spirit, who wishes to mask his play, and cast dust in the eyes of the judges and witnesses, by making them believe that what they regard with so much horror, and what they so vigorously prosecute, is anything but a punishable crime, or at least a crime deserving of punishment. We must then prove the reality of magic by the Holy Scriptures, by the authority of the Church, and by the testimony of the most grave and sensible writers; and, lastly, show that it is not true that the most famous parliaments acknowledge neither sorcerers nor magicians. The teraphim which Rachael, the wife of Jacob, brought away secretly from the house of Laban, her father,[116] were doubtless superstitious figures, to which Laban's family paid a worship, very like that which the Romans rendered to their household gods, _Penates_ and _Lares_, and whom they consulted on future events. Joshua[117] says very distinctly that Terah, the father of Abraham, adored strange gods in Mesopotamia. And in the prophets Hosea and Zechariah,[118] the Seventy translate _teraphim_ by the word _oracles_. Zechariah and Ezekiel[119] show that the Chaldeans and the Hebrews consulted these _teraphim_ to learn future events. Others believe that they were talismans or preservatives; everybody agrees as to their being superstitious figures (or idols) which were consulted in order to find out things unknown, or that were to come to pass. The patriarch Joseph, speaking to his own brethren according to the idea which they had of him in Egypt, says to them:[120] "Know ye not that in all the land there is not a man who equals me in the art of divining and predicting things to come?" And the officer of the same Joseph, having found in Benjamin's sack Joseph's cup which he had purposely hidden in it, says to them:[121] "It is the cup of which my master makes use to discover hidden things." By the secret of their art, the magicians of Pharaoh imitated the true miracles of Moses; but not being able like him to produce gnats (English version _lice_), they were constrained to own that the finger of God was in what Moses had hitherto achieved.[122] After the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt, God expressly forbids his people to practice any sort of magic or divination.[123] He condemns to death magicians, and those who make use of charms. Balaam, the diviner, being invited by Balak, the king, to come and devote the Israelites to destruction, God put blessings into his mouth instead of curses;[124] and this bad prophet, amongst the blessings which he bestows on Israel, says there is among them neither augury, nor divination, nor magic. In the time of the Judges, the Idol of Micah was consulted as a kind of oracle.[125] Gideon made, in his house and his city, an Ephod, accompanied by a superstitious image, which was for his family, and to all the people, the occasion of scandal and ruin.[126] The Israelites went sometimes to consult Beelzebub, god of Ekron,[127] to know if they should recover from their sickness. The history of the evocation of Samuel by the witch of Endor[128] is well known. I am aware that some difficulties are raised concerning this history. I shall deduce nothing from it here, except that this woman passed for a witch, that Saul esteemed her such, and that this prince had exterminated the magicians in his own states, or, at least, that he did not permit them to exercise their art. Manasses, king of Judah,[129] is blamed for having introduced idolatry into his kingdom, and particularly for having allowed there diviners, aruspices, and those who predicted things to come. King Josiah, on the contrary, destroyed all these superstitions.[130] The prophet Isaiah, who lived at the same time, says that they wished to persuade the Jews then in captivity at Babylon to address themselves, as did other nations, to diviners and magicians; but they ought to reject these pernicious counsels, and leave those abominations to the Gentiles, who knew not the Lord. Daniel[131] speaks of the magicians, or workers of magic among the Chaldeans, and of those amongst them who interpreted dreams, and predicted things to come. In the New Testament, the Jews accused Jesus Christ of casting out devils in the name of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils;[132] but he refutes them by saying, that being come to destroy the empire of Beelzebub, it was not to be believed that Beelzebub would work miracles to destroy his own power or kingdom.[133] St. Luke speaks of Simon the sorcerer, who had for a long time bewitched the inhabitants of Samaria with his sorceries; and also of a certain Bar-Jesus of Paphos, who professed sorcery, and boasted he could predict future events.[134] St. Paul, when at Ephesus, caused a number of books of magic to be burned.[135] Lastly, the Psalmist,[136] and the author of the Book of Ecclesiasticus,[137] speak of charms with which they enchanted serpents. In the Acts of the Apostles,[138] the young girl of the town of Philippi, who was a Pythoness, for several successive days rendered testimony to Paul and Silas, saying that they were "_the servants of the Most High, and that they announced to men the way of salvation_." Was it the devil who inspired her with these words, to destroy the fruit of the preaching of the Apostles, by making the people believe that they acted in concert with the spirit of evil? Or was it the Spirit of God which put these words into the mouth of this young girl, as he put into the mouth of Balaam prophecies concerning the Messiah? There is reason to believe that she spoke through the inspiration of the evil spirit, since St. Paul imposed silence on her, and expelled the spirit of Python, by which she had been possessed, and which had inspired the predictions she uttered, and the knowledge of hidden things. In what way soever we may explain it, it will always follow that magic is not a chimera, that this maiden was possessed by an evil spirit, and that she predicted and revealed things hidden and to come, and brought her _masters considerable gain by soothsaying_; for those who consulted her would, doubtless, not have been so foolish as to pay for these predictions, had they not experienced the truth of them by their success and by the event. From all this united testimony, it results that magic, enchantments, sorcery, divination, the interpretation of dreams, auguries, oracles, and the magical figures which announced things to come, are very real, since they are so severely condemned by God, and that He wills that those who practice them should be punished with death. Footnotes: [115] _Vide_ Bodin Preface. [116] Gen. xxxi. 19. [117] Josh. xxiv. 2-4. [118] Hosea ii. 4, &c. Zech. v. 2. [119] Zech. x. 2. Ezek. xxi. 21. [120] Gen. xliv. 15. [121] Gen. xliv. 5. [122] Exod. vii. 10-12. Exod. viii. 19. [123] Exod. xxii. 18. [124] Numb. xxii., xxiii. [125] Judg. xvii. 1, 2. [126] Judg. viii. 27. [127] 2 Kings i. 2, 2. [128] 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, _et seq._ [129] 2 Kings xxi. 16. [130] 2 Kings xxii. 24. [131] Dan. iv. 6, 7. [132] Matt. x. 25; xii. 24, 25. [133] Luke xi. 15, 18, 19. [134] Acts viii. 11; xiii. 6. [135] Acts xix. 19. [136] Psalm lvii. [137] Ecclus. xii. 13. [138] Acts xvi. 16, 17. CHAPTER VIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE REALITY OF MAGIC. I shall not fail to be told that all these testimonies from Scripture do not prove the reality of magic, sorcery, divination, and the rest; but only that the Hebrews and Egyptians--I mean the common people among them--believe that there were people who had intercourse with the Divinity, or with good and bad angels, to predict the future, explain dreams, devote their enemies to the direst misfortunes, cause maladies, raise storms, and call forth the souls of the dead; if there was any reality in all this, it was not in the things themselves, but in their imaginations and prepossessions. Moses and Joseph were regarded by the Egyptians as great magicians. Rachel, it appears, believed that the teraphim of her father Laban were capable of giving her information concerning things hidden and to come. The Israelites might consult the idol of Micha, and Beelzebub the god of Ekron; but the sensible and enlightened people of those days, like similar persons in our own, considered all this as the sport and knavery of pretended magicians, who derived much emolument from maintaining these prejudices among the people. Moses most wisely ordained the penalty of death against those persons who abused the simplicity of the ignorant to enrich themselves at their expense, and turned away the people from the worship of the true God, in order to keep up among them such practices as were superstitious and contrary to true religion. Besides, it was necessary to good order, the interests of the commonwealth and of true piety, to repress those abuses which are in opposition to them, and to punish with extreme severity those who draw away the people from the true and legitimate worship due to God, lead them to worship the devil, and place their confidence in the creature, in prejudice to the right of the Creator; inspiring them with vain terrors where there is nothing to fear, and maintaining their minds in the most dangerous errors. If, amongst an infinite number of false predictions, or vain interpretations of dreams, some of them are fulfilled, either this is occasioned by chance or it is the work of the devil, who is often permitted by God to deceive those whose foolishness and impiety lead them to address themselves to him and place their confidence in him, all which the wise lawgiver, animated by the Divine Spirit, justly repressed by the most rigorous punishment. All histories and experience on this subject demonstrate that those who make use of the art of magic, charms, and spells, only employ their art, their secret, and their power to corrupt and mislead; for crime and vice; thus they cannot be too carefully sought out, or too severely punished. We may add that what is often taken for black or diabolical magic is nothing but natural magic, or art and cleverness on the part of those who perform things which appear above the force of nature. How many marvelous effects are related of the divining rod, sympathetic powder, phosphoric lights, and mathematical secrets! How much knavery is now well known in the priests of idols, and in those of Babylon, who made the people believe that the god Bel drank and ate; that a large living dragon was a divinity; that the god Anubis desired to have certain women, who were thus deceived by the priests; that the ox Apis gave out oracles, and that the serpent of Alexander of Abonotiche knew the sickness, and gave remedies to the patient without opening the billet which contained a description of the illness! We may possibly speak more fully on this subject hereafter. In short, the most judicious and most celebrated Parliaments have recognized neither magicians nor sorcerers; at least, they have not condemned them to death unless they were convicted of other crimes, such as theft, bad practices, poisoning, or criminal seduction--for instance, in the affair of Gofredi, a priest of Marseilles, who was condemned by the Parliament of Aix to be torn with hot pincers, and burnt alive. The heads of that company, in the account which they render to the chancellor of this their sentence, testify that this curé was in truth accused of sorcery, but that he had been condemned to the flames as guilty, and convicted of spiritual incest with his penitent, Madelaine de la Palu. From all this it is concluded that there is no reality in what is called magic. CHAPTER IX. REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS. In answer to these, I allow that there is indeed very often a great deal of illusion, prepossession, and imagination in all that is termed magic and sorcery; and sometimes the devil by false appearances combines with them to deceive the simple; but oftener, without the evil spirit being any otherwise a party to it, wicked, corrupt, and interested men, artful and deceptive, abuse the simplicity both of men and women, so far as to persuade them that they possess supernatural secrets for interpreting dreams and foretelling things to come, for curing maladies, and discovering secrets unknown to any one. I can easily agree to all that. All kinds of histories are full of facts which demonstrate what I have just said. The devil has a thousand things imputed to him in which he has no share; they give him the honor of predictions, revelations, secrets, and discoveries, which are by no means the effect of his power, or penetration; as in the same manner he is accused of having caused all sorts of evils, tempests, and maladies, which are purely the effect of natural but unknown causes. It is very true that there are really many persons who are persuaded of the power of the devil, of his influence over an infinite number of things, and of the effects which they attribute to him; that they have consulted him to learn future events, or to discover hidden things; that they have addressed themselves to him for success in their projects, for money, or favor, or to enjoy their criminal pleasures. All this is very real. Magic, then, is not a simple chimera, since so many persons are infatuated with the power of charms and convicted of holding commerce with the devil, to procure a number of effects which pass for supernatural. Now it is the folly, the vain credulity, the prepossession of such people that the law of God interdicts, that Moses condemns to death, and that the Christian Church punishes by its censures, and which the secular judges repress with the greatest rigor. If in all these things there was nothing but a diseased imagination, weakness of the brain, or popular prejudices, would they be treated with so much severity? Do we put to death hypochondriacs, maniacs, or those who imagine themselves ill? No; they are treated with compassion, and every effort is made to cure them. But in the other case it is impiety, or superstition, or vice in those who consult, or believe they consult, the devil, and place their confidence in him, against which the laws are put in force and ordain chastisement. Even if we could deny and contest the reality of augurs, diviners, and magicians, and look on all these kind of persons as seducers, who abuse the simplicity of those who betake themselves to them, could we deny the reality of the magicians of Pharaoh, that of Simon, of Bar-Jesus, of the Pythoness of the Acts of the Apostles? Did not the first-mentioned perform many wonders before Pharaoh? Did not Simon the magician rise into the air by means of the devil? Did not St. Paul impose silence on the Pythoness of the city of Philippi in Macedonia?[139] Will it be said that there was any collusion between St. Paul and the Pythoness? Nothing of the kind can be maintained by any reasonable argument. A small volume was published at Paris, in 1732, by a new author, who conceals himself under the two initials M. D.; it is entitled, _Treatise on Magic, Witchcraft, Possessions, Obsessions and Charms; in which their truth and reality are demonstrated_. He shows that he believes there are magicians; he shows by Scripture, both in the Old and New Testament, and by the authority of the ancient fathers, some passages from whose works are cited in that of Father Debrio, entitled _Disquisitiones Magicæ_. He proves it by the rituals of all the dioceses, and by the examinations which are found in the printed "Hours," wherein they suppose the existence of sorcerers and magicians. The civil laws of the emperors, whether pagan or Christian, those of the kings of France, both ancient and modern, jurisconsult, physicians, historians both sacred and profane, concur in maintaining this truth. In all kinds of writers we may remark an infinity of stories of magic, spells and sorcery. The Parliaments of France, and the tribunals of justice in other nations, have recognized magicians, the pernicious effects of their art, and condemned them personally to the most rigorous punishments. He relates at full length[140] the remonstrances made to King Louis XIV., in 1670, by the Parliament at Rouen, to prove to that monarch that it was not only the Parliament of Rouen, but also all the other Parliaments of the kingdom, which followed the same rules of jurisprudence in what concerns magic and sorcery; that they acknowledged the existence of such things and condemn them. This author cites several facts, and several sentences given on this matter in the Parliaments of Paris, Aix, Toulouse, Rennes, Dijon, &c. &c.; and it was upon these remonstrances that the same king, in 1682, made his declaration concerning the punishment of various crimes, and in particular of sorcery, diviners or soothsayers, magicians, and similar crimes. He also cites the treaty of M. de la Marre, commissary at the _châtelet_ of Paris, who speaks largely of magic, and proves its reality, origin, progress, and effects. Would it be possible that the sacred authors, laws divine and human, the greatest men of antiquity, jurisconsults, the most enlightened historians, bishops in their councils, the Church in her decisions, her practices and prayers, should have conspired to deceive us, and to condemn those who practice magic, sorcery, spells, and crimes of the same nature, to death, and the most rigorous punishments, if they were merely illusive, and the effect only of a diseased and prejudiced imagination? Father le Brun, of the Oratoire, who has written so well upon the subject of superstitions, substantiates the fact that the Parliament of Paris recognizes that there are sorcerers, and that it punishes them severely when they are convicted. He proves it by a decree issued in 1601 against some inhabitants of Campagne accused of witchcraft. The decree wills that they shall be sent to the Conciergerie by the subaltern judges on pain of being deprived of their charge. It supposes that they must be rigorously punished, but it desires that the proceedings against them for their discovery and punishment may be exact and regular. M. Servin, advocate-general and councillor of state, fully proves from the Old and New Testament, from tradition, laws and history, that there are diviners, enchanters, and sorcerers, and refutes those who would maintain the contrary. He shows that magicians and those who make use of charms, ought to be punished and held in execration; but he adds that no punishment must be inflicted till after certain and evident proofs have been obtained; and this is what must be strictly attended to by the Parliament of Paris, for fear of punishing madmen for guilty persons, and taking illusions for realities. The Parliament leaves it to the Church to inflict excommunication, both on men and women who have recourse to charms, and who believe they go in the night to nocturnal assemblies, there to pay homage to the devil. The Capitularies of the kings[141] recommend the pastors to instruct the faithful on the subject of what is termed the Sabbath; at any rate they do not command that these persons should receive corporeal punishment, but only that they should be undeceived and prevented from misleading others in the same manner. And there the Parliament stops, so long as the case goes no farther than simply misleading; but when it goes so far as to injure others, the kings have often commanded the judges to punish these persons with fines and banishment. The Ordonnances of Charles VIII. in 1490, and of Charles IX. in the States of Orleans in 1560, express themselves formally on this point, and they were renewed by King Louis XIV. in 1682. The third article of these Ordonnances bears, that if it should happen "_there were persons to be found wicked enough to add impiety and sacrilege to superstition, those who shall be convicted of these crimes shall be punished with death_." When, therefore, it is evident that some person has inflicted injury on his neighbor by malpractices, the Parliament punishes them rigorously, even to the pain of death, conformably to the ancient Capitularies of the kingdom,[142] and the royal Ordonnances. Bodin, who wrote in 1680, has collected a great number of decrees, to which may be added those which the reverend Father le Brun reports, given since that time. He afterwards relates a remarkable instance of a man named Hocque, who was condemned to the galleys, the 2d of September, 1687, by sentence of the High Court of Justice at Passy, for having made use of malpractices towards animals, and having thus killed a great number in Champagne. Hocque died suddenly, miserably, and in despair, after having discovered, when drunken with wine, to a person named Beatrice, the secret which he made use of to kill the cattle; he was not ignorant that the demon would cause his death to revenge the discovery which he had made of this spell. Some of the accomplices of this wretched man were condemned to the galleys by divers decrees; others were condemned to be hanged and burnt, by order of the Baillé of Passy, the 26th of October, 1691, which sentence was confirmed by decree of the Parliament of Paris, the 18th of December, 1691. From all which we deduce that the Parliament of Paris acknowledges that the spells by which people do injury to their neighbors ought to be rigorously punished; that the devil has very extensive power, which he too often exercises over men and animals, and that he would exercise it oftener, and with greater extension and fury, if he were not limited and hindered by the power of God, and that of good angels, who set bounds to his malice. St Paul warns us[143] to put on the armor of God, to be able to resist the snares of the devil: for, adds he, "we have not to war against flesh and blood: but against princes and powers, against the bad spirits who govern this dark world, against the spirits of malice who reign in the air." Footnotes: [139] Acts xvi. 10. [140] Page 31, _et seq._ [141] Capitular. R. xiii de Sortilegiis et Sorciariis, 2 col. 36. [142] Capitular. in 872, x. 2. col. 230. [143] Eph. vi. 12. CHAPTER X. EXAMINATION OF THE AFFAIR OF HOCQUE, MAGICIAN. Monsieur de St. André, consulting physician in ordinary to the king, in his sixth letter[144] against magic, maintains that in the affair of Hocque which has been mentioned, there was neither magic, nor sorcery, nor any operation of the demon; that the venomous drug which Hocque placed in the stables, and by means of which he caused the death of the cattle stalled therein, was nothing but a poisonous compound, which, by its smell and the diffusion of its particles, poisoned the animals and caused their death; it required only for these drugs to be taken away for the cattle to be safe, or else to keep the cattle from the stable in which the poison was placed. The difficulty laid in discovering where these poisonous drugs were hidden; the shepherds, who were the authors of the mischief, taking all sorts of precautions to conceal them, knowing that their lives were in danger if they should be discovered. He further remarks that these _gogues_ or poisoned drugs lose their effects after a certain time, unless they are renewed or watered with something to revive them and make them ferment again. If the devil had any share in this mischief, the drug would always possess the same virtue, and it would not be necessary to renew it and refresh it to restore it to its pristine power. In all this, M. de St. André supposes that if the demon had any power to deprive animals of their lives, or to cause them fatal maladies, he could do so independently of secondary causes; which will not be easily granted him by those who hold that God alone can give life and death by an absolute power, independently of all secondary causes and of any natural agent. The demon might have revealed to Hocque the composition of this fatal and poisonous drug--he might have taught him its dangerous effects, after which the venom acts in a natural way; it recovers and resumes its pristine strength when it is watered; it acts only at a certain distance, and according to the reach of the corpuscles which exhale from it. All these effects have nothing supernatural in them, nor which ought to be attributed to the demon; but it is credible enough that he inspired Hocque with the pernicious design to make use of a dangerous drug, which the wretched man knew how to make up, or the composition of which was revealed to him by the evil spirit. M. de St. André continues, and says that there is nothing in the death of Hocque which ought to be attributed to the demon; it is, says he, a purely natural effect, which can proceed from no other cause than the venomous effluvia which came from the poisonous drug when it was taken up, and which were carried towards the malefactor by those which proceeded from his own body while he was preparing it, and placing it in the ground, which remained there and were preserved in that spot, so that none of them had been dissipated. These effluvia proceeding from the person of Hocque, then finding themselves liberated, returned to whence they originated, and drew with them the most malignant and corrosive particles of the charge or drug, which acted on the body of this shepherd as they did on those of the animals who smelled them. He confirms what he has just said, by the example of sympathetic powder which acts upon the body of a wounded person, by the immersion of small particles of the blood, or the pus of the wounded man upon whom it is applied, which particles draw with them the spirit of the drugs of which it (the powder) is composed, and carry them to the wound. But the more I reflect on this pretended evaporation of the venomous effluvia emanating from the poisoned drug, hidden at Passy en Brie, six leagues from Paris, which are supposed to come straight to Hocque, shut up at la Tournelle, borne by the animal effluvia proceeding from this malefactor's body at the time he made up the poisonous drug and put it in the ground, so long before the dangerous composition was discovered; the more I reflect on the possibility of these evaporations the less I am persuaded of them. I could wish to have proofs of this system, and not instances of the very doubtful and very uncertain effects of sympathetic powder, which can have no place in the case in question. It is proving the obscure by the obscure, and the uncertain by the uncertain; and even were we to admit generally some effects of the sympathetic powder, they could not be applicable here; the distance between the places is too great, and the time too long; and what sympathy can be found between this shepherd's poisonous drug and his person for it to be able to return to him who is imprisoned at Paris, when the _gogue_ is discovered at Passy? The account composed and printed on this event bears, that the fumes of the wine which Hocque had drank having evaporated, and he reflecting on what Beatrice had made him do, began to agitate himself, howled, and complained most strangely, saying that Beatrice had taken him by surprise, that it would occasion his death, and that he must die the instant that _Bras-de-fer_--another shepherd, to whom Beatrice had persuaded Hocque to write word to take off the poisoned drug which he had scattered on the ground at Passy--should take away the dose. He attacked Beatrice, whom he wanted to strangle; and even excited the other felons who were with him in prison and condemned to the galleys, to maltreat her, through the pity they felt for the despair of Hocque, who, at the time the dose was taken off the land, had died in a moment, in strange convulsions, and agitating himself like one possessed. M. de St. André would again explain all this by supposing Hocque's imagination being struck with the idea of his dying, which he was persuaded would happen at the time they carried away the poison, had a great deal to do with his sufferings and death. How many people have been known to die at the time they had fancied they should, when struck with the idea of their approaching death. The despair and agitation of Hocque had disturbed the mass of his blood, altered the humors, deranged the motion of the effluvia, and rendered them much susceptible of the actions of the vapors proceeding from the poisonous composition. M. de St. André adds that, if the devil had any share in this kind of mischievous spell, it could only be in consequence of some compact, either expressed or tacit, that as soon as the poison should be taken up, he who had put it there should die immediately. Now, what likelihood is there that the person who should make this compact with the devil should have made use of such a stipulation, which would expose him to a cruel and inevitable death? 1. We may reply that fright can cause death; but that it is not possible for it to produce it at a given time, nor can he who falls into a paroxysm of grief say that he shall die at such a moment; the moment of death is not in the power of man in similar circumstances. 2. That so corrupt a character as Hocque, a man who, without provocation, and to gratify his ill-will, kills an infinite number of animals, and causes great damage to innocent persons, is capable of the greatest excess, may give himself up to the evil spirit, by implicated or explicit compacts, and engage, on pain of losing his life, never to take off the charge he had thrown upon a village. He believed he should risk nothing by this stipulation, since he was free to take it away or to leave it, and it was not probable that he should ever lightly thus expose himself to certain death. That the demon had some share in this virtue of the poisonous composition is very likely, when we consider the circumstances of its operations, and those of the death and despair of Hocque. This death is the just penalty of his crimes, and of his confidence in the exterminating angel to whom he had yielded himself. It is true that impostors, weak minds, heated imaginations, ignorant and superstitious persons have been found who have taken for black magic, and operations of the demon, what was quite natural, and the effect of some subtilty of philosophy or mathematics, or even an illusion of the senses, or a secret which deceives the eye and the senses. But to conclude from thence that there is no magic at all, and that all that is said about it is pure prejudice, ignorance, and superstition, is to conclude what is general from what is particular, and to deny what is true and certain, because it is not easy to distinguish what is true from what is false, and because men will not take the trouble to examine into causes. It is far easier to deny everything than to enter upon a serious examination of facts and circumstances. Footnotes: [144] M. de St. André, Letter VI. on the subject of Magic, &c. CHAPTER XI. MAGIC OF THE EGYPTIANS AND CHALDEANS. All pagan antiquity speaks of magic and magicians, of magical operations, and of superstitious, curious, and diabolical books. Historians, poets, and orators are full of things which relate to this matter: some believe in it, others deny it; some laugh at it, others remain in uncertainty and doubt. Are they bad spirits, or deceitful men, impostors and charlatans, who, by the subtilties of their art, make the ignorant believe that certain natural effects are produced by supernatural causes? That is the point on which men differ. But in general the name of magic and magician is now taken in these days in an odious sense, for an art which produces marvelous effects, that appear above the common course of nature, and that by the operation of the bad spirit. The author of the celebrated book of Enoch, which had so great a vogue, and has been cited by some ancient writers[145] as inspired Scripture, says that the eleventh of the watchers, or of those angels who were in love with women, was called Pharmacius, or Pharmachus; that he taught men, before the flood, enchantments, spells, magic arts, and remedies against enchantments. St. Clement, of Alexandria, in his recognitions, says that Ham, the son of Noah, received that art from heaven, and taught it to Misraim, his son, the father of the Egyptians. In the Scripture, the name of _Mage_ or _Magus_ is never used in a good sense as signifying philosophers who studied astronomy, and were versed in divine and supernatural things, except in speaking of the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ at Bethlehem.[146] Everywhere else the Scriptures condemn and abhor magic and magicians.[147] They severely forbid the Hebrews to consult such persons and things. They speak with abhorrence of _Simon and of Elymas_, well-known magicians, in the Acts of the Apostles;[148] and of the magicians of Pharaoh, who counterfeited by their illusions the true miracles of Moses. It seems likely that the Israelites had taken the habit in Egypt, where they then were, of consulting such persons, since Moses forbids them in so many different places, and so severely, either to listen to them or to place confidence in their predictions. The Chevalier Marsham shows very clearly that the school for magic among the Egyptians is the most ancient ever known in the world; that from thence it spread amongst the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, the Greeks and Persians. St. Paul informs us that Jannès and Jambrès, famous magicians of the time of Pharaoh, resisted Moses. Pliny remarks, that anciently, there was no science more renowned, or more in honor, than that of magic: _Summam litterarum claritatem gloriamque ex ea scientia antiquitùs et penè semper petitam._ Porphyry[149] says that King Darius, son of Hystaspes, had so high an idea of the art of magic that he caused to be engraved on the mausoleum of his father Hystaspes, "_That he had been the chief and the master of the Magi of Persia_." The embassy that Balak, King of the Moabites, sent to Balaam the son of Beor, who dwelt in the mountains of the East, towards Persia and Chaldea,[150] to entreat him to come and curse and devote to death the Israelites who threatened to invade his country, shows the antiquity of magic, and of the magical superstitions of that country. For will it be said that these maledictions and inflictions were the effect of the inspiration of the good Spirit, or the work of good angels? I acknowledge that Balaam was inspired by God in the blessings which he gave to the people of the Lord, and in the prediction which he made of the coming of the Messiah; but we must acknowledge, also, the extreme corruption of his heart, his avarice, and all that he would have been capable of doing, if God had permitted him to follow his bad inclination and the inspiration of the evil spirit. Diodorus of Sicily,[151] on the tradition of the Egyptians, says that the Chaldeans who dwelt at Babylon and in Babylonia were a kind of colony of the Egyptians, and that it was from these last that the sages, or Magi of Babylon, learned the astronomy which gave such celebrity. We see, in Ezekiel,[152] the King of Babylon, marching against his enemies at the head of his army, stop short where two roads meet, and mingle the darts, to know by magic art, and the flight of these arrows, which road he must take. In the ancients, this manner of consulting the demon by divining wands is known--the Greeks call it _Rhabdomanteia_. The prophet Daniel speaks more than once of the magicians of Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar, having been frightened in a dream, sent for the Magi, or magicians, diviners, aruspices, and Chaldeans, to interpret the dream he had had. King Belshazzar in the same manner convoked the magicians, Chaldeans, and aruspices of the country, to explain to him the meaning of these words which he saw written on the wall: _Mene_, _Tekel_, _Perez_. All this indicates the habit of the Babylonians to exercise magic art, and consult magicians, and that this pernicious art was held in high repute among them. We read in the same prophet of the trickery made use of by the priests to deceive the people, and make them believe that their gods lived, ate, drank, spoke, and revealed to them hidden things. I have already mentioned the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ; there is no doubt that they came from Chaldea or the neighboring country, but differing from those of whom we have just spoken, by their piety, and having studied the true religion. We read in books of travels that superstition, magic, and fascinations are still very common in the East, both among the fire-worshipers descended from the ancient Chaldeans, and among the Persians, sectaries of Mohammed. St. Chrysostom had sent into Persia a holy bishop, named Maruthas, to have the care of the Christians who were in that country; the King Isdegerde having discovered him, treated him with much consideration. The Magi, who adore and keep up the perpetual fire, which is regarded by the Persians as their principal divinity, were jealous at this, and concealed underground an apostate, who, knowing that the king was to come and pay his adoration to the (sacred) fire, was to cry out from the depth of his cavern that the king must be deprived of his throne because he esteemed the Christian priest as a friend of the gods. The king was alarmed at this, and wished to send Maruthas away; but the latter discovered to him the imposture of the priests; he caused the ground to be turned up where the man's voice had been heard, and there they found him from whom it proceeded. This example, and those of the Babylonish priests spoken of by Daniel, and that of some others, who, to satisfy their irregular passions, pretended that their God required the company of certain women, proved that what is usually taken for the effect of the black art is only produced by the knavishness of priests, magicians, diviners, and all kinds of persons who impose on the simplicity and credulity of the people; I do not deny that the devil sometimes takes part in it, but more rarely than is imagined. Footnotes: [145] Apud Syncell. [146] Matt. iii. 1, 7, 36. [147] Lev. xix. 31; xx. [148] Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8. [149] Porph. de Abstinent. lib. iv. § 16. Vid. et Ammian. Marcell. lib. xxiii. [150] Numb. xxiii. 1-3. [151] Diodor. Sicul. lib. i. p. 5. [152] Ezek. xxi. 21. CHAPTER XII. MAGIC AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. The Greeks have always boasted that they received the art of magic from the Persians, or the Bactrians. They affirm that Zoroaster communicated it to them; but when we wish to know the exact time at which Zoroaster lived, and when he taught them these pernicious secrets, they wander widely from the truth, and even from probability; some placing Zoroaster 600 years before the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, which happened in the year of the world 3523, and before Jesus Christ 477; others 500 years before the Trojan war; others 5000 years before that famous war; others 6000 years before that great event. Some believe that Zoroaster is the same as Ham, the son of Noah. Lastly, others maintain that there were several Zoroasters. What appears indubitably true is, that the worship of a plurality of gods, as also magic, superstition, and oracles, came from the Egyptians and Chaldeans, or Persians, to the Greeks, and from the Greeks to the Latins. From the time of Homer,[153] magic was quite common among the Greeks. That poet speaks of the cure of wounds, and of blood staunched by the secrets of magic, and by enchantment. St. Paul, when at Ephesus, caused to be burned there books of magic and curious secrets, the value of which amounted to the sum of 50,000 pieces of silver.[154] We have before said a few words concerning Simon the magician, and the magician Elymas, known in the Acts of the Apostles.[155] Pindar says[156] that the centaur Chiron cured several enchantments. When they say that Orpheus rescued from hell his wife Eurydice, who had died from the bite of a serpent, they simply mean that he cured her by the power of charms.[157] The poets have employed magic verses to make themselves beloved, and they have taught them to others for the same purpose; they may be seen in Theocritus, Catullus, and Virgil. Theophrastus affirms that there are magical verses which cure sciatica. Cato mentions (or repeats) some against luxations.[158] Varro admits that there are some powerful against the gout. The sacred books testify that enchanters have the secret of putting serpents to sleep, and of charming them, so that they can never either bite again or cause any more harm.[159] The crocodile, that terrible animal, fears even the smell and voice of the Tentyriens.[160] Job, speaking of the leviathan, which we believe to be the crocodile, says, "Shall the enchanter destroy it?"[161] And in Ecclesiasticus, "Who will pity the enchanter that has been bitten by the serpent?"[162] Everybody knows what is related of the Marsi, people of Italy, and of the Psyllæ, who possessed the secret of charming serpents. One would say, says St. Augustine,[163] that these animals understand the languages of the Marsi, so obedient are they to their orders; we see them come out of their caverns as soon as the Marsian has spoken. All this can only be done, says the same father, by the power of the malignant spirit, whom God permits to exercise this empire over venomous reptiles, above all, the serpent, as if to punish him for what he did to the first woman. In fact, it may be remarked that no animal is more exposed to charms, and the effects of magic art, than the serpent. The laws of the Twelve Tables forbid the charming of a neighbor's crops, _qui fruges excantâsset_. Valerius Flaccus quotes authors who affirm that when the Romans were about to besiege a town, they employed their priests to evoke the divinity who presided over it, promising him a temple in Rome, either like the one dedicated to him in the besieged place, or on a rather larger scale, and that the proper worship should be paid to him. Pliny says that the memory of these evocations is preserved among the priests. If that which we have just related, and what we read in ancient and modern writers, is at all real, and produces the effects attributed to it, it cannot be doubted that there is something supernatural in it, and that the devil has a great share in the matter. The Abbot Trithemius speaks of a sorceress who, by means of certain beverages, changed a young Burgundian into a beast. Everybody knows the fable of Circé, who changed the soldiers or companions of Ulysses into swine. We know also the fable of the Golden Ass, by Apuleius, which contains the account of a man metamorphosed into an ass. I bring forward these things merely as what they are, that is to say, simply poetic fictions. But it is very credible that these fictions are not destitute of some foundation, like many other fables, which contain not only a hidden and moral sense, but which have also some relation to an event really historical: for instance, what is said of the Golden Fleece carried away by Jason; of the Wooden Horse, made use of to surprise the city of Troy; the Twelve Labors of Hercules; the metamorphoses related by Ovid. All fabulous as those things appear in the poets, they have, nevertheless, their historical truth. And thus the pagan poets and historians have travestied and disguised the stories of the Old Testament, and have attributed to Bacchus, Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, and Hercules, what is related of Noah, Moses, Aaron, Samson, and Jonah, &c. Origen, writing against Celsus, supposes the reality of magic, and says that the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ at Bethlehem, wishing to perform their accustomed operations, not being able to succeed, a superior power preventing the effect and imposing silence on the demon, they sought out the cause, and beheld at the same time a divine sign in the heavens, whence they concluded that it was the Being spoken of by Balaam, and that the new King whose birth he had predicted, was born in Judea, and immediately they resolved to go and seek him. Origen believes that magicians, according to the rules of their art, often foretell the future, and that their predictions are followed by the event, unless the power of God, or that of the angels, prevents the effect of their conjurations, and puts them to silence.[164] Footnotes: [153] Homer, Iliad, IV. [154] Acts xix. 19. [155] Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8. [156] Pind. Od. iv. [157] Plin. I. 28. [158] Cato de Rerustic. c. 160. [159] Psalm lvii. Jer. vii. 17. Eccles. x. 11. [160] Plin. lib. viii. c. 50. [161] Job xl. 25. [162] Ecclus. xii. 13. "Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis."--_Virgil_, Ecl. viii. "Vipereas rumpo verbis et carmine fauces."--_Ovid._ [163] Plin. lib. xxviii. [164] The fables of Jason and many others of the same class are said by Fortuitus Comes to have a reference to alchemy. CHAPTER XIII. EXAMPLES WHICH PROVE THE REALITY OF MAGIC. St. Augustine[165] remarks that not only the poets, but the historians even, relate that Diomede, of whom the Greeks have made a divinity, had not the happiness to return to his country with the other princes who had been at the siege of Troy; that his companions were changed into birds, and that these birds have their dwelling in the environs of the Temple of Diomede, which is situated near Mount Garganos; that these birds caress the Greeks who come to visit this temple, but fly at and peck the strangers who arrive there. Varro, the most learned of Romans, to render this more credible, relates what everybody knows about Circé, who changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts; and what is said of the Arcadians, who, after having drawn lots, swam over a certain lake, after which they were metamorphosed into wolves, and ran about in the forests like other wolves. If during the time of their transmutation they did not eat human flesh, at the end of nine years they repassed the same lake, and resumed their former shape. The same Varro relates of a certain Demenotas that, having tasted the flesh of a child which the Arcadians had immolated to their god Lycæa, he had also been changed into a wolf, and ten years after he had resumed his natural form, had appeared at the Olympic games, and won the prize for pugilism. St. Augustine testifies that in his time many believed that these transformations still took place, and some persons even affirmed that they had experienced them in their own persons. He adds that, when in Italy, he was told that certain women gave cheese to strangers who lodged at their houses, when these strangers were immediately changed into beasts of burden, without losing their reason, and carried the loads which were placed upon them; after which they returned to their former state. He says, moreover, that a certain man, named Præstantius, related that his father, having eaten of this magic cheese, remained lying in bed, without any one being able to awaken him for several days, when he awoke, and said that he had been changed into a horse, and had carried victuals to the army; and the thing was found to be true, although it appeared to him to be only a dream. St. Augustine, reasoning on all this, says that either these things are false, or else so extraordinary that we cannot give faith to them. It is not to be doubted that God, by his almighty power, can do anything that he thinks proper, but that the devil, who is of a spiritual nature, can do nothing without the permission of God, whose decrees are always just; that the demon can neither change the nature of the spirit, or the body of a man, to transform him into a beast; but that he can only act upon the fancy or imagination of a man, and persuade him that he is what he is not, or that he appears to others different from what he is; or that he remains in a deep sleep, and believes during that slumber that he is bearing loads which the devil carries for him; or that he (the devil) fascinates the eyes of those who believe they see them borne by animals, or by men metamorphosed into animals. If we consider it only a change arising from fancy or imagination, as it happens in the disorder called lycanthropy, in which a man believes himself changed into a wolf, or into any other animal, as Nebuchadnezzar, who believed himself changed into an ox, and acted for seven years as if he had really been metamorphosed into that animal, there would be nothing in that more marvelous than what we see in hypochondriacs, who persuade themselves that they are kings, generals, popes, and cardinals; that they are snow, glass, pottery, &c. Like him who, being alone at the theatre, believed that he beheld there actors and admirable representations; or the man who imagined that all the vessels which arrived at the port of Pireus, near Athens, belonged to him; or, in short, what we see every day in dreams, and which appear to us very real during our sleep. In all this, it is needless to have recourse to the devil, or to magic, fascination, or illusion; there is nothing above the natural order of things. But that, by means of certain beverages, certain herbs, and certain kinds of food, a person may disturb the imagination, and persuade another that he is a wolf, a horse, or an ass, appears more difficult of explanation, although we are aware that plants, herbs, and medicaments possess great power over the bodies of men, and are capable of deranging the brain, constitution, and imagination. We have but too many examples of such things. Another circumstance which, if true, deserves much reflection, is that of Apollonius of Tyana, who, being at Ephesus during a great plague which desolated the city, promised the Ephesians to cause the pest to cease the very day on which he was speaking to them, and which was that of his second arrival in their town. He assembled them at the theatre, and ordered them to stone to death a poor old man, covered with rags, who asked alms. "Strike," cried he, "that enemy of the gods! heap stones upon him." They could not make up their minds to do so, for he excited their pity, and asked mercy in the most touching manner. But Apollonius pressed it so much, that at last they slew him, and amassed over him an immense heap of stones. A little while after he told them to take away these stones, and they would see what sort of an animal they had killed. They found only a great dog, and were convinced that this old man was only a phantom who had fascinated their eyes, and caused the pestilence in their town. We here see five remarkable things:--1st. The demon who causes the plague in Ephesus; 2d. This same demon, who, instead of a dog, causes the appearance of a man; 3d. The fascination of the senses of the Ephesians, who believe that they behold a man instead of a dog; 4th. The proof of the magic of Apollonius, who discovers the cause of this pestilence; 5th. And who makes it cease at the given time. Æneas Sylvius Picolomini, who was afterwards Pope by the name of Pius II., writes, in his History of Bohemia, that a woman predicted to a soldier of King Wratislaus, that the army of that prince would be cut in pieces by the Duke of Bohemia, and that, if this soldier wished to avoid death, he must kill the first person he should meet on the road, cut off their ears, and put them in his pocket; that with the sword he had used to pierce them he must trace on the ground a cross between his horse's legs; that he must kiss it, and then take flight. All this the young soldier performed. Wratislaus gave battle, lost it, and was killed. The young soldier escaped; but on entering his house, he found that it was his wife whom he had killed and run his sword through, and whose ears he had cut off. This woman was, then, strangely disguised and metamorphosed, since her husband could not recognize her, and she did not make herself known to him in such perilous circumstances, when her life was in danger. These two were, then, apparently magicians; both she who made the prediction, and the other on whom it was exercised. God permits, on this occasion, three great evils. The first magician counsels the murder of an innocent person; the young man commits it on his own wife without knowing her; and the latter dies in a state of condemnation, since by the secrets of magic she had rendered it impossible to recognize her. A butcher's wife of the town of Jena, in the duchy of Wiemar in Thuringia,[166] having refused to let an old woman have a calf's head for which she offered very little, the old woman went away grumbling and muttering. A little time after this the butcher's wife felt violent pains in her head. As the cause of this malady was unknown to the cleverest physicians, they could find no remedy for it; from time to time a substance like brains came from this woman's left ear, and at first it was supposed to be her own brain. But as she suspected that old woman of having cast a spell upon her on account of the calf's head, they examined the thing more minutely, and they saw that these were calf's brains; and what strengthened this opinion was that splinters of calf's-head bones came out with the brains. This disorder continued some time; at last the butcher's wife was perfectly cured. This happened in 1685. M. Hoffman, who relates this story in his dissertation _on the Power of the Demon over Bodies_, printed in 1736, says that the woman was perhaps still alive. One day they brought to St. Macarius the Egyptian, a virtuous woman who had been transformed into a mare by the pernicious arts of a magician. Her husband, and all those who saw her, thought that she really was changed into a mare. This woman remained three days and three nights without tasting any food, proper either for man or horse. They showed her to the priests of the place, who could apply no remedy. Then they led her to the cell of St. Macarius, to whom God had revealed that she was to come; his disciples wanted to send her back, thinking that it was a mare. They informed the saint of her arrival, and the subject of her journey. "He said to them, You are downright animals yourselves, thinking you see what is not; that woman is not changed, but your eyes are fascinated. At the same time he sprinkled holy water on the woman's head, and all present beheld her in her former state. He gave her something to eat, and sent her away safe and sound with her husband. As he sent her away the saint said to her, Do not keep from church, for this has happened to you for having been five weeks without taking the sacrament of our Lord, or attending divine service." St. Hilarion, much in the same manner, cured by virtue of holy water a young girl, whom a magician had rendered most violently amorous of a young man. The demon who possessed her cried aloud to St. Hilarion, "You make me endure the most cruel torments, for I cannot come out till the young man who caused me to enter shall unloose me, for I am enchained under the threshold of the door by a band of copper covered with magical characters, and by the tow which envelops it." Then St. Hilarion said to him, "Truly your power is very great, to suffer yourself to be bound by a bit of copper and a little thread;" at the same time, without permitting these things to be taken from under the threshold of the door, he chased away the demon and cured the girl. In the same place, St. Jerome relates that one Italicus, a citizen of Gaza and a Christian, who brought up horses for the games in the circus, had a pagan antagonist who hindered and held back the horses of Italicus in their course, and gave most extraordinary celerity to his own. Italicus came to St. Hilarion, and told him the subject he had for uneasiness. The saint laughed and said to him, "Would it not be better to give the value of your horses to the poor rather than employ them in such exercises?" "I cannot do as I please," said Italicus; "it is a public employment which I fill, because I cannot help it, and as a Christian I cannot employ malpractices against those used against me." The brothers, who were present, interceded for him; and St. Hilarion gave him the earthen vessel out of which he drank, filled it with water, and told him to sprinkle his horses with it. Italicus not only sprinkled his horses with this water, but likewise his stable and chariot all over; and the next day the horses and chariot of this rival were left far behind his own; which caused the people to shout in the theatre, "Marnas is vanished--Jesus Christ is victorious!" And this victory of Italicus produced the conversion of several persons at Gaza. Will it be said that this is only the effect of imagination, prepossession, or the trickery of a clever charlatan? How can you persuade fifty people that a woman who is present before their eyes can be changed into a mare, supposing that she has retained her own natural shape? How was it that the soldier mentioned by Æneas Sylvius did not recognize his wife, whom he pierced with his sword, and whose ears he cut off? How did Apollonius of Tyana persuade the Ephesians to kill a man, who really was only a dog? How did he know that this dog, or this man, was the cause of the pestilence which afflicted Ephesus? It is then very credible that the evil spirit often acts on bodies, on the air, the earth, and on animals, and produces effects which appear above the power of man. It is said that in Lapland they have a school for magic, and that fathers send their children to it, being persuaded that magic is necessary to them, that they may avoid falling into the snares of their enemies, who are themselves great magicians. They make the familiar demons, whose services they command, pass as an inheritance to their children, that they may make use of them to overcome the demons of other families who are adverse to their own. They often make use of a certain kind of drum for their magical operations; for instance, if they wish to know what is passing in a foreign country, one amongst them beats this drum, placing upon it at the part where the image of the sun is represented, a quantity of pewter rings attached together with a chain of the same metal; then they strike the drum with a forked hammer made of bone, so that these rings move; at the same time they sing distinctly a song, called by the Laplanders _Jonk_; and all those of their nation who are present, men and women, add their own songs, expressing from time to time the name of the place whence they desire to have news. The Laplander having beaten the drum for some time, places it on his head in a certain manner, and falls down directly motionless on the ground, and without any sign of life. All the men and all the women continue singing, till he revives; if they cease to sing, the man dies, which happens also if any one tries to awaken him by touching his hand or his foot. They even keep the flies from him, which by their humming might awaken him and bring him back to life. When he is recovered he replies to the questions they ask him concerning the place he has been at. Sometimes he does not awake for four-and-twenty hours, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the distance he has gone; and in confirmation of what he says, and of the distance he has been, he brings back from the place he has been sent to the token demanded of him, a knife, a ring, shoes, or some other object.[167] These same Laplanders make use also of this drum to learn the cause of any malady, or to deprive their enemies of their life or their strength. Moreover, amongst them are certain magicians, who keep in a kind of leathern game-bag magic flies, which they let loose from time to time against their enemies or against their cattle, or simply to raise tempests and hurricanes. They have also a sort of dart which they hurl into the air, and which causes the death of any one it falls upon. They have also a sort of little ball called _tyre_, almost round, which they send in the same way against their enemies to destroy them; and if by ill luck this ball should hit on its way some other person, or some animal, it will inevitably cause its death. Who can be persuaded that the Laplanders who sell fair winds, raise storms, relate what passes in distant places, where they go, as they say, in the spirit, and bring back things which they have found there--who can persuade themselves that all this is done without the aid of magic? It has been said that in the circumstance of Apollonius of Tyana, they contrived to send away the man all squalid and deformed, and put in his place a dog which was stoned, or else they substituted a dead dog. All which would require a vast deal of preparation, and would be very difficult to execute in sight of all the people: it would, perhaps, be better to deny the fact altogether, which certainly does appear very fabulous, than to have recourse to such explanations. Footnotes: [165] Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 16-18. [166] Frederici Hoffman, de Diaboli Potentia in Corpora, p. 382. [167] See John Schesser, _Laponia_, printed at Frankfort in 4to. an. 1673, chap. xi. entitled, _De sacris Magicis et Magia Laponia_, p. 119, and following. CHAPTER XIV. EFFECTS OF MAGIC ACCORDING TO THE POETS. Were we to believe what is said by the poets concerning the effects of magic, and what the magicians boast of being able to perform by their spells, nothing would be more marvelous than their art, and we should be obliged to acknowledge that the power of the demon was greatly shown thereby. Pliny[168] relates that Appian evoked the spirit of Homer, to learn from him which was his country, and who were his parents. Philostratus says[169] that Apollonius of Tyana went to the tomb of Achilles, evoked his manes, and implored them to cause the figure of that hero to appear to him; the tomb trembled, and afterwards he beheld a young man, who at first appeared about five cubits, or seven feet and a half high--after which, the phantom dilated to twelve cubits, and appeared of a singular beauty. Apollonius asked him some frivolous questions, and as the young man jested indecently with him, he comprehended that he was possessed by a demon; this demon he expelled, and cured the young man. But all this is fabulous. Lactantius,[170] refuting the philosophers Democritus, Epicurus, and Dicearchus, who denied the immortality of the soul, says they would not dare to maintain their opinion before a magician, who, by the power of his art, and by his spells, possessed the secret of bringing souls from Hades, of making them appear, speak, and foretell the future, and give certain signs of their presence. St. Augustine,[171] always circumspect in his decisions, dare not pronounce whether magicians possess the power of evoking the spirits of saints by the might of their enchantments. But Tertullian[172] is bolder, and maintains that no magical art has power to bring the souls of the saints from their rest; but that all the necromancers can do is to call forth some phantoms with a borrowed shape, which fascinate the eyes, and make those who are present believe that to be a reality which is only appearance. In the same place he quotes Heraclius, who says that the Nasamones, people of Africa, pass the night by the tombs of their near relations to receive oracles from the latter; and that the Celts, or Gauls, do the same thing in the mausoleums of great men, as related by Nicander. Lucan says[173] that the magicians, by their spells, cause thunder in the skies unknown to Jupiter; that they tear the moon from her sphere, and precipitate her to earth; that they disturb the course of nature, prolong the nights, and shorten the days; that the universe is obedient to their voice, and that the world is chilled as it were when they speak and command.[174] They were so well persuaded that the magicians possessed power to make the moon come down from the sky, and they so truly believed that she was evoked by magic art whenever she was eclipsed, that they made a great noise by striking on copper vessels, to prevent the voice which pronounced enchantments from reaching her.[175] These popular opinions and poetical fictions deserve no credit, but they show the force of prejudice.[176] It is affirmed that, even at this day, the Persians think they are assisting the moon when eclipsed by striking violently on brazen vessels, and making a great uproar. Ovid[177] attributes to the enchantments of magic the evocation of the infernal powers, and their dismissal back to hell; storms, tempests, and the return of fine weather. They attributed to it the power of changing men into beasts by means of certain herbs, the virtues of which are known to them.[178] Virgil[179] speaks of serpents put to sleep and enchanted by the magicians. And Tibullus says that he has seen the enchantress bring down the stars from heaven, and turn aside the thunderbolt ready to fall upon the earth--and that she has opened the ground and made the dead come forth from their tombs. As this matter allows of poetical ornaments, the poets have vied with each other in endeavoring to adorn their pages with them, not that they were convinced there was any truth in what they said; they were the first to laugh at it when an opportunity presented itself, as well as the gravest and wisest men of antiquity. But neither princes nor priests took much pains to undeceive the people, or to destroy their prejudices on those subjects. The Pagan religion allowed them, nay, authorized them, and part of its practices were founded on similar superstitions. Footnotes: [168] Plin. lib. iii. c. 2. [169] Philost. Vit. Apollon. [170] Lactant. lib. vi. Divin. Instit. c. 13. [171] Aug. ad Simplic. [172] Tertull. de Animâ, c. 57. [173] Lucan. Pharsal. lib. vi. 450, _et seq._ [174] "Cessavere vices rerum, dilataque longa, Hæsit nocte dies; legi non paruit æther; Torpuit et præceps audito carmine mundus; Et tonat ignaro coelum Jove." [175] "Cantat et e curro tentat deducere Lunam Et faceret, si non æra repulsa sonent." _Tibull._ lib. i. Eleg. ix. 21. [176] Pietro della Valle, Voyage. [177] ".... Obscurum verborum ambage nervorum Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore. Jam ciet infernas magico stridore catervas, Jam jubet aspersum lacte referre pedem. Cùm libet, hæc tristi depellit nubila coelo; Cùm libet, æstivo provocat orbe nives." _Ovid. Metamorph._ 14. [178] "Naïs nam ut cantu, nimiumque potentibus herbis Verterit in tacitos juvenilia corpora pisces." [179] "Vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris Spargere qui somnos cantuque manque solebat," CHAPTER XV. OF THE PAGAN ORACLES. If it were well proved that the oracles of pagan antiquity were the work of the evil spirit, we could give more real and palpable proofs of the apparition of the demon among men than these boasted oracles, which were given in almost every country in the world, among the nations which passed for the wisest and most enlightened, as the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Syrians, even the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. Even the most barbarous people were not without their oracles. In the pagan religion there was nothing esteemed more honorable, or more complacently boasted of. In all their great undertakings they had recourse to the oracle; by that was decided the most important affairs between town and town, or province and province. The manner in which the oracles were rendered was not everywhere the same. It is said[180] the bull Apis, whose worship was anciently established in Egypt, gave out his oracles on his receiving food from the hand of him who consulted. If he received it, say they, it was considered a good omen; if he refused it, this was a bad augury. When this animal appeared in public, he was accompanied by a troop of children, who sang hymns in his honor; after which these boys were filled with sacred enthusiasm, and began to predict future events. If the bull went quietly into his lodge, it was a happy sign;[181] if he came out, it was the contrary. Such was the blindness of the Egyptians. There were other oracles also in Egypt:[182] as those of Mercury, Apollo, Hercules, Diana, Minerva, Jupiter Ammon, &c., which last was consulted by Alexander the Great. But Herodotus remarks that in his time there were neither priests nor priestesses who uttered oracles. They were derived from certain presages, which they drew by chance, or from the movements of the statues of the gods, or from the first voice which they heard after having consulted. Pausanias says[183] that he who consults whispers in the ear of Mercury what he requires to know, then he stops his ears, goes out of the temple, and the first words which he hears from the first person he meets are held as the answer of the god. The Greeks acknowledge that they received from the Egyptians both the names of their gods and their most ancient oracles; amongst others that of Dodona, which was already much resorted to in the time of Homer,[184] and which came from the oracle of Jupiter of Thebes: for the Egyptian priests related that two priestesses of that god had been carried off by Phoenician merchants, who had sold them, one into Libya and the other into Greece.[185] Those of Dodona related that two black doves had flown from Thebes of Egypt--that the one which had stopped at Dodona had perched upon a beech-tree, and had declared in an articulate voice that the gods willed that an oracle of Jupiter should be established in this place; and that the other, having flown into Lybia, had there formed or founded the oracle of Jupiter Ammon. These origins are certainly very frivolous and very fabulous. The Oracle of Delphi is more recent and more celebrated. Phemonoé was the first priestess of Delphi, and began in the time of Acrisius, twenty-seven years before Orpheus, Musæus, and Linus. She is said to have been the inventress of hexameters. But I think I can remark vestiges of oracles in Egypt, from the time of the patriarch Joseph, and from the time of Moses. The Hebrews had dwelt for 215 years in Egypt, and having multiplied there exceedingly, had begun to form a separate people and a sort of republic. They had imbibed a taste for the ceremonies, the superstitions, the customs, and the idolatry of the Egyptians. Joseph was considered the cleverest diviner and the greatest expounder of dreams in Egypt. They believed that he derived his oracles from the inspection of the liquor which he poured into his cup. Moses, to cure the Hebrews of their leaning to the idolatry and superstitions of Egypt, prescribed to them laws and ceremonies which favored his design; the first, diametrically opposite to those of the Egyptians; the second, bearing some resemblance to theirs in appearance, but differing both in their aim and circumstances. For instance, the Egyptians were accustomed to consult diviners, magicians, interpreters of dreams, and augurs; all which things are forbidden to the Hebrews by Moses, on pain of rigorous punishment; but in order that they might have no room to complain that their religion did not furnish them with the means of discovering future events and hidden things, God, with condescension worthy of reverential admiration, granted them the _Urim and Thummim_, or the Doctrine and the Truth, with which the high-priest was invested according to the ritual in the principal ceremonies of religion, and by means of which he rendered oracles, and discovered the will of the Most High. When the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle were constructed, the Lord, consulted by Moses,[186] gave out his replies from between the two cherubim which were placed upon the mercy-seat above the ark. All which seems to insinuate that, from the time of the patriarch Joseph, there had been oracles and diviners in Egypt, and that the Hebrews consulted them. God promised his people to raise up a prophet[187] among them, who should declare to them his will: in fact, we see in almost all ages among them, prophets inspired by God; and the true prophets reproached them vehemently for their impiety, when instead of coming to the prophets of the Lord, they went to consult strange oracles,[188] and divinities equally powerless and unreal. We have spoken before of the teraphim of Laban, of the idols or pretended oracles of Micah and Gideon. King Saul, who, apparently by the advice of Samuel, had exterminated diviners and magicians from the land of Israel, desired in the last war to consult the Lord, who would not reply to him. He then afterwards addressed himself to a witch, who promised him she would evoke Samuel for him. She did, or feigned to do so, for the thing offers many difficulties, into which we shall not enter here. The same Saul having consulted the Lord on another occasion, to know whether he must pursue the Philistines whom he had just defeated, God refused also to reply to him,[189] because his son Jonathan had tasted some honey, not knowing that the king had forbidden his army to taste anything whatever before his enemies were entirely overthrown. The silence of the Lord on certain occasions, and his refusal to answer sometimes when He was consulted, are an evident proof that He usually replied, and that they were certain of receiving instructions from Him, unless they raised an obstacle to it by some action which was displeasing to Him. Footnotes: [180] Plin. lib. viii. c. 48. [181] Herodot. lib. ix. [182] _Vide_ Joan. Marsham, Sæc. iv. pp. 62, 63. [183] Pausan. lib. vii. p. 141. [184] Homer, Iliad, xii. 2, 235. [185] Herodot. lib. ii. c. 52, 55. [186] Exod. xxv. 22. [187] Deut. xviii. 13. [188] 2 Kings i. 2, 3, 16, &c. [189] 1 Sam. xiv. 24. CHAPTER XVI. THE CERTAINTY OF THE EVENT PREDICTED IS NOT ALWAYS A PROOF THAT THE PREDICTION COMES FROM GOD. Moses had foreseen that so untractable and superstitious a people as the Israelites would not rest satisfied with the reasonable, pious, and supernatural means which he had procured them for discovering future events, by giving them prophets and the oracle of the high-priest. He knew that there would arise among them false prophets and seducers, who would endeavor by their illusions and magical secrets to mislead them into error; whence it was that he said to them:[190] "If there should arise among you a prophet, or any one who boasts of having had a dream, and he foretells a wonder, or anything which surpasses the ordinary power of man, and what he predicts shall happen; and after that he shall say unto you, Come, let us go and serve the strange gods, which you have not known; you shall not hearken unto him, because the Lord your God will prove you, to see whether you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul." Certainly, nothing is more likely to mislead us than to see what has been foretold by any one come to pass. "Show the things that are to come," says Isaiah,[191] "that we may know that ye are gods. Let them come, let them foretell what is to happen, and what has been done of old, and we will believe in them," &c. _Idoneum testimonium divinationis_, says Turtullian,[192] _veritas divinationis_. And St. Jerome,[193] _Confitentur magi, confitentur arioli, et omnis scientia sæcularis litteraturæ, præescientiam futurorum non esse hominum, sed Dei_. Nevertheless, we have just seen that Moses acknowledges that false prophets can predict things which will happen. And the Saviour warns us in the Gospel that at the end of the world several false prophets will arise, who will seduce many[194]--"They shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive even the elect." It is not, then, precisely either the successful issue of the event which decides in favor of the false prophet--nor the default of the predictions made by true prophets which proves that they are not sent by God. Jonah was sent to foretell the destruction of Nineveh,[195] which did not come to pass; and many other threats of the prophets were not put into execution, because God, moved by the repentance of the sinful, revoked or commuted his former sentence. The repentance of the Ninevites guarantied them against the last misfortune. Isaiah had distinctly foretold to King Hezekiah[196] that he would not recover from his illness: "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live." Nevertheless, God, moved with the prayer of this prince, revoked the sentence of death; and before the prophet had left the court of the king's house, God commanded him to return and tell the king that God would add yet fifteen years to his life. Moses assigns the mark of a true prophet to be, when he leads us to God and his worship--and the mark of a false prophet is, when he withdraws us from the Lord, and inclines us to superstition and idolatry. Balaam was a true prophet, inspired by God, who foretold things which were followed up by the event; but his morals were very corrupt, and he was extremely self-interested. He did everything he could to deserve the recompense promised him by the king of Moab, and to curse and immolate Israel.[197] God did not permit him to do so; he put into his mouth blessings instead of curses; he did not induce the Israelites to forsake the Lord; but he advised the Moabites to seduce the people of God, and cause them to commit fornication, and to worship the idols of the country, and by that means to irritate God against them, and draw upon them the effects of his vengeance. Moses caused the chiefs among the people, who had consented to this crime, to be hung; and caused to perish the Midianites who had led the Hebrews into it. And lastly, Balaam, who was the first cause of this evil, was also punished with death.[198] In all the predictions of diviners or oracles, when they are followed by fulfilment, we can hardly disavow that the evil spirit intervenes, and discovers the future to those who consult him. St. Augustine, in his book _de Divinatione Dæmonum_,[199] or of predictions made by the evil spirit, when they are fulfilled, supposes that the demons are of an aërial nature, and much more subtile than bodies in general; insomuch that they surpass beyond comparison the lightness both of men and the swiftest animals, and even the flight of birds, which enables them to announce things that are passing in very distant places, and beyond the common reach of men. Moreover, as they are not subject to death as we are, they have acquired infinitely more experience than even those who possess the most among mankind, and are the most attentive to what happens in the world. By that means they can sometimes predict things to come, announce several things at a distance, and do some wonderful things; which has often led mortals to pay them divine honors, believing them to be of a nature much more excellent than their own. But when we reflect seriously on what the demons predict, we may remark that often they announce nothing but what they are to do themselves.[200] For God permits them, sometimes, to cause maladies, corrupt the air, and produce in it qualities of an infectious nature, and to incline the wicked to persecute the worthy. They perform these operations in a hidden manner, by resources unknown to mortals, and proportionate to the subtilty of their own nature. They can announce what they have foreseen must happen by certain natural tokens unknown to men, like as a physician foresees by the secret of his art the symptoms and the consequences of a malady which no one else can. Thus, the demon, who knows our constitution and the secret tendency of our humors, can foretell the maladies which are the consequences of them. He can also discover our thoughts and our secret wishes by certain external motions, and by certain expressions we let fall by chance, whence he infers that men would do or undertake certain things consequent upon these thoughts or inclinations. But his predictions are far from being comparable with those revealed to us by God, through his angels, or the prophets; these are always certain and infallible, because they have for their principle God, who is truth; while the predictions of the demons are often deceitful, because the arrangements on which they are founded can be changed and deranged, when they least expect it, by unforeseen and unexpected circumstances, or by the authority of superior powers overthrowing the first plans, or by a peculiar disposition of Providence, who sets bounds to the power of the prince of darkness. Sometimes, also, demons purposely deceive those who have the weakness to place confidence in them. But, usually, they throw the fault upon those who have taken on themselves to interpret their discourses and predictions. So says St. Augustine;[201] and although we do not quite agree with him, but hold the opinion that souls, angels and demons are disengaged from all matter or substance, still we can apply his reasoning to evil spirits, even upon the supposition that they are immaterial--and own that sometimes they can predict the future, and that their predictions may be fulfilled; but that is not a proof of their being sent by God, or inspired by his Spirit. Even were they to work miracles, we must anathematize them as soon as they turn us from the worship of the true God, or incline us to irregular lives. Footnotes: [190] Deut. xiii. 1, 2. [191] Isaiah xli. 22, 23. [192] Tertull. Apolog. c. 20. [193] Hieronym. in Dan. [194] Matt. xxiv. 11, 24. [195] Jonah i. 2. [196] Kings xx. 1. Isai. xxxviii. 1. [197] Numb. xxii. xxiii. xxiv. [198] Numb. xxxi. 8. [199] Aug. de Divinat. Dæmon. c. 3, pp. 507, 508, _et seq._ [200] Idem. c. 5. [201] S. August. in his Retract. lib. ii. c. 30, owns that he advanced this too lightly. CHAPTER XVII. REASONS WHICH LEAD US TO BELIEVE THAT THE GREATER PART OF THE ANCIENT ORACLES WERE ONLY IMPOSITIONS OF THE PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES, WHO FEIGNED THAT THEY WERE INSPIRED BY GOD. If it is true, as has been thought by many, both among the ancients and the moderns, that the oracles of pagan antiquity were only illusions and deceptions on the part of the priests and priestesses, who said that they were possessed by the spirit of Python, and filled with the inspiration of Apollo, who discovered to them internally things hidden and past, or present and future, I must not place them here in the rank of evil spirits. The devil has no other share in the matter than he has always in the crimes of men, and in that multitude of sins which cupidity, ambition, interest, and self-love produce in the world; the demon being always ready to seize an occasion to mislead us, and draw us into irregularity and error, employing all our passions to lead us into these snares. If what he has foretold is followed by fulfilment, either by chance, or because he has foreseen certain circumstances unknown to men, he takes to himself all the credit of it, and makes use of it to gain our confidence and conciliate credit for his predictions; if the thing is doubtful, and he knows not what the issue of it will be, the demon, the priest, or priestess will pronounce an equivocal oracle, in order that at all events they may appear to have spoken true. The ancient legislators of Greece, the most skillful politicians, and generals of armies, dexterously made use of the prepossession of the people in favor of oracles, to persuade them what they had concerted was approved of by the gods, and announced by the oracle. These things and these oracles were often followed by success, not because the oracle had predicted or ordained it, but because the enterprise being well concerted and well conducted, and the soldiers also perfectly persuaded that God was on their side, fought with more than ordinary valor. Sometimes they gained over the priestess by the aid of presents, and thus disposed her to give favorable replies. Demosthenes haranguing at Athens against Philip, King of Macedon, said that the priestess of Delphi _Philipized_, and only pronounced oracles conformable to the inclinations, advantage, and interest of that prince. Porphyry, the greatest enemy of the Christian name,[202] makes no difficulty of owning that these oracles were dictated by the spirit of falsehood, and that the demons are the true authors of enchantments, philtres, and spells; that they fascinate or deceive the eyes by the spectres and phantoms which they cause to appear; that they ambitiously desire to pass for gods; that their aërial and spiritual bodies are nourished by the smell and smoke of the blood and fat of the animals which are immolated to them; and that the office of uttering oracles replete with falsehood, equivocation, and deceit has devolved upon them. At the head of these demons he places _Hecate and Serapis_. Jamblichus, another pagan author, speaks of them in the same manner, and with as much contempt. The ancient fathers who lived so near the times when these oracles existed, several of whom had forsaken paganism and embraced Christianity, and who consequently knew more about the oracles than we can, speak of them as things invented, governed, and maintained by the demons. The most sensible among the heathens do not speak of them otherwise, but also they confess that often the malice, imposition, servility and interest of the priests had great share in the matter, and that they abused the simplicity, credulity and prepossessions of the people. Plutarch says,[203] that a governor of Cilicia having sent to consult the oracle of Mopsus, as he was going to Malle in the same country, the man who carried the billet fell asleep in the temple, where he saw in a dream a handsome looking man, who said to him the single word _black_. He carried this reply to the governor, whose mysterious question he knew nothing about. Those who heard this answer laughed at it, not knowing what was in the billet: but the governor having opened it showed them these words written in it; _shall I immolate to thee a black ox or a white one?_ and that the oracle had thus answered his question without opening the note. But who can answer for their not having deceived the bearer of the billet in this case, as did Alexander of Abonotiche, a town of Paphlagonia, in Asia Minor. This man had the art to persuade the people of his country that he had with him the god Esculapius, in the shape of a tame serpent, who pronounced oracles, and replied to the consultations addressed to him on divers diseases without opening the billets they placed on the altar of the temple of this pretended divinity; after which, without opening them, they found the next morning the reply written below. All the trick consisted in the seal being raised artfully by a heated needle, and then replaced after having written the reply at the bottom of the note, in an obscure and enigmatical style, after the manner of other oracles. At other times he used mastic, which being yet soft, took the impression of the seal, then when that was hardened he put on another seal with the same impression. He received about ten sols (five pence) per billet, and this game lasted all his life, which was a long one; for he died at the age of seventy, being struck by lightning, near the end of the second century of the Christian era: all which may be found more at length in the book of Lucian, entitled _Pseudo Manes_, or _the false Diviner_. The priest of the oracle of Mopsus could by the same secret open the billet of the governor who consulted him, and showing himself during the night to the messenger, declared to him the above-mentioned reply. Macrobius[204] relates that the Emperor Trajan, to prove the oracle of Heliopolis in Phoenicia, sent him a well-sealed letter in which nothing was written; the oracle commanded that a blank letter should also be sent to the emperor. The priests of the oracle were much surprised at this, not knowing the reason of it. Another time the same emperor sent to consult this same oracle to know whether he should return safe from his expedition against the Parthians. The oracle commanded that they should send him some branches of a knotted vine, which was sacred in his temple. Neither the emperor nor any one else could guess what that meant; but his body, or rather his bones, having been brought to Rome after his death, which happened during his journey, it was supposed that the oracle had intended to predict his death, and designate his fleshless bones, which somewhat resemble the branches of a vine. It is easy to explain this quite otherwise. If he had returned victorious, the vine being the source of wine which rejoices the heart of man, and is agreeable to both gods and men, would have typified his victory--and if the expedition had proved fruitless, the wood of the vine, which is useless for any kind of work, and only good for burning as firewood, might in that case signify the inutility of this expedition. It is allowed that the artifice, malice, and inventions of the heathen priests had much to do with the oracles; but are we to infer from this that the demon had no part in the matter? We must allow that as by degrees the light of the Gospel was spread in the world, the reign of the demon, ignorance, corruption of morals, and crime, diminished. The priests who pretended to predict, by the inspiration of the evil spirit, things concealed from mortal knowledge, or who misled the people by their illusions and impostures, were obliged to confess that the Christians imposed silence on them, either by the empire they exercised over the devil, or else by discovering the malice and knavishness of the priests, which the people had not dared to sound, from a blind respect which they had for this mystery of iniquity. If in our days any one would deny that in former times there were oracles which were rendered by the inspiration of the demon, we might convince him of it by what is still practiced in Lapland, and by what missionaries[205] relate, that in India the demon reveals things hidden and to come, not by the mouth of idols, but by that of the priests, who are present when they interrogate either the statues or the demon. And they remark that there the demon becomes mute and powerless, in proportion as the light of the Gospel is spread among these nations. Thus then the silence of the oracles may be attributed--1. To a superhuman cause, which is the power of Jesus Christ, and the publication of the Gospel. 2. Mankind are become less superstitious, and bolder in searching out the cause of these pretended revelations. 3. To their having become less credulous, as Cicero says.[206] 4. Because princes have imposed silence on the oracles, fearing that they might inspire the nation with rebellious principles. For which reason, Lucan says, that princes feared to discover the future.[207] Strabo[208] conjectures that the Romans neglected them because they had the Sibylline books, and their auspices (aruspices, or haruspices), which stood them instead of oracles. M. Vandale demonstrates that some remains of the oracles might yet be seen under the Christian emperors. It was then only in process of time that oracles were entirely abolished; and it may be boldly asserted that sometimes the evil spirit revealed the future, and inspired the ministers of false gods, by permission of the Almighty, who wished to punish the confidence of the infidels in their idols. It would be going too far, if we affirmed that all that was said of the oracles was only the effect of the artifices or the malice of the priests, who always imposed on the credulity of mankind. Read on this subject the learned reply of Father Balthus to the treatises of MM. Vandale and Fontenelle. Footnotes: [202] Porphr. apud Euseb. de Præpar. Evang. lib, iv. c. 5, 6. [203] Plutarch, de Defectu Oracul. p. 434. [204] Macrob. Saturnal. lib. i. c. 23. [205] Lettres édifiantes, tom. x. [206] Cicero, de Divinat. lib. ii. c. 57. [207] "Reges timent futura Et superos vetant loqui." _Lucan_, Pharsal. lib. v. p. 112. [208] Strabo, lib. xvii. CHAPTER XVIII. ON SORCERERS AND SORCERESSES, OR WITCHES. The empire of the devil nowhere shines forth with more lustre than in what is related of the Sabbath (witches' sabbath or assembly), where he receives the homage of those of both sexes who have abandoned themselves to him. It is there, the wizards and witches say, that he exercises the greatest authority, and appears in a visible form, but always hideous, misshapen, and terrible; always during the night in out-of-the-way places, and arrayed in a manner more gloomy than gay, rather sad and dull, than majestic and brilliant. If they pay their adoration in that place to the prince of darkness, he shows himself there in a despicable posture, and in a base, contemptible and hideous form; if people eat there, the viands of the feast are dirty, insipid, and destitute of solidity and substance--they neither satisfy the appetite, nor please the palate; if they dance there, it is without order, without skill, without propriety. To endeavor to give a description of the infernal sabbath, is to aim at describing what has no existence and never has existed, except in the craving and deluded imagination of sorcerers and sorceresses: the paintings we have of it are conceived after the reveries of those who fancy they have been transported through the air to the sabbath, both in body and soul. People are carried thither, say they, sitting on a broom-stick, sometimes on the clouds or on a he-goat. Neither the place, the time, nor the day when they assemble is fixed. It is sometimes in a lonely forest, sometimes in a desert, usually on the Wednesday or the Thursday night; the most solemn of all is that of the eve of St. John the Baptist: they there distribute to every sorcerer the ointment with which he must anoint himself when he desires to go to the sabbath, and the spell-powder he must make use of in his magic operations. They must all appear together in this general assembly, and he who is absent is severely ill-used both in word and deed. As to the private meetings, the demon is more indulgent to those who are absent for some particular reason. As to the ointment with which they anoint themselves, some authors, amongst others, John Baptista Porta, and John Wierius,[209] boast that they know the composition. Amongst other ingredients there are many narcotic drugs, which cause those who make use of it to fall into a profound slumber, during which they imagine that they are carried to the sabbath up the chimney, at the top of which they find a tall black man,[210] with horns, who transports them where they wish to go, and afterwards brings them back again by the same chimney. The accounts given by these people, and the description which they give of their assemblies, are wanting in unity and uniformity. The demon, their chief, appears there, either in the shape of a he-goat, or as a great black dog, or as an immense raven; he is seated on an elevated throne, and receives there the homage of those present in a way which decency does not allow us to describe. In this nocturnal assembly they sing, they dance, they abandon themselves to the most shameful disorder; they sit down to table, and indulge in good cheer; while at the same time they see on the table neither knife nor fork, salt nor oil; they find the viands devoid of savor, and quit the table without their hunger being satisfied. One would imagine that the attraction of a better fortune, and a wish to enrich themselves, drew thither men and women. The devil never fails to make them magnificent promises, at least the sorcerers say so, and believe it, deceived, without doubt, by their imagination; but experience shows us that these people are always ragged, despised, and wretched, and usually end their lives in a violent and dishonorable manner. When they are admitted for the first time to the sabbath, the demon inscribes their name and surname on his register, which he makes them sign; then he makes them forswear cream and baptism, makes them renounce Jesus Christ and his church; and, to give them a distinctive character and make them known for his own, he imprints on their bodies a certain mark with the nail of the little finger of one of his hands; this mark, or character, thus impressed, renders the part insensible to pain. They even pretend that he impresses this character in three different parts of the body, and at three different times. The demon does not impress these characters, say they, before the person has attained the age of twenty-five. But none of these things deserve the least attention. There may happen to be in the body of a man, or a woman, some benumbed part, either from illness, or the effect of remedies, or drugs, or even naturally; but that is no proof that the devil has anything to do with it. There are even persons accused of magic and sorcery, on whom no part thus characterized has been found, nor yet insensible to the touch, however exact the search. Others have declared that the devil has never made any such marks upon them. Consult on this matter the second letter of M. de St. André, Physician to the King, in which he well develops what has been said about these characters of sorcerers. The word sabbath, taken in the above sense, is not to be found in ancient writers; neither the Hebrews nor the Egyptians, the Greeks nor the Latins have known it. The thing itself, I mean the _sabbath_ taken in the sense of a nocturnal assembly of persons devoted to the devil, is not remarked in antiquity, although magicians, sorcerers, and witches are spoken of often enough--that is to say, people who boasted that they exercised a kind of power over the devil, and by his means, over animals, the air, the stars, and the lives and fortunes of men. Horace[211] makes use of the word _coticia_ to indicate the nocturnal meetings of the magicians--_Tu riseris coticia_; which he derives from _Cotys_, or _Cotto_, Goddess of Vice, who presided in the assemblies which were held at night, and where the Bacchantes gave themselves up to all sorts of dissolute pleasures; but this is very different from the witches' sabbath. Others derive this term from _Sabbatius_, which is an epithet given to the god Bacchus, whose nocturnal festivals were celebrated in debauchery. Arnobius and Julius Firmicus Maternus inform us that in these festivals they slipped a golden serpent into the bosoms of the initiated, and drew it downwards; but this etymology is too far-fetched: the people who gave the name of _sabbath_ to the assemblies of the sorcerers wished apparently to compare them in derision to those of the Jews, and to what they practiced in their synagogues on sabbath days. The most ancient monument in which I have been able to remark any express mention of the nocturnal assemblies of the sorcerers is in the Capitularies,[212] wherein it is said that women led away by the illusions of the demons, say that they go in the night with the goddess Diana and an infinite number of other women, borne through the air on different animals, that they go in a few hours a great distance, and obey Diana as their queen. It was, therefore, to the goddess Diana, or the Moon, and not to Lucifer, that they paid homage. The Germans call witches' dances what we call the sabbath. They say that these people assemble on Mount Bructere. The famous Agobard,[213] Archbishop of Lyons, who lived under the Emperor Louis the Debonair, wrote a treatise against certain superstitious persons in his time, who believed that storms, hail, and thunder were caused by certain sorcerers whom they called tempesters (_tempestarios_, or storm-brewers), who raised the rain in the air, caused storms and thunder, and brought sterility upon the earth. They called these extraordinary rains _aura lavatitia_, as if to indicate that they were raised by magic power. In this place the people still call these violent rains _alvace_. There were even persons sufficiently prejudiced to boast that they knew of _tempêtiers_, who had to conduct the tempests where they choose, and to turn them aside when they pleased. Agobard interrogated some of them, but they were obliged to own that they had not been present at the things they related. Agobard maintains that this is the work of God alone; that in truth, the saints, with the help of God, have often performed similar prodigies; but that neither the devil nor sorcerers can do anything like it. He remarks that there were among his people superstitious persons who would pay very punctually what they called _canonicum_, which was a sort of tribute which they offered to these tempest-brewers (_tempêtiers_), that they might not hurt them, while they refused the tithe to the priest and alms to the widow, orphan, and other indigent persons. He adds that he had of late found people sufficiently foolish enough to spread a report that Grimaldus, Duke of Benevento, had sent persons into France, carrying certain powders which they had scattered over the fields, mountains, meadows, and springs, and had thus caused the death of an immense number of animals. Several of these persons were taken up, and they owned that they carried such powders about with them and though they made them suffer various tortures, they could not force them to retract what they had said. Others affirmed that there was a certain country named Mangonia, where there were vessels which were borne through the air and took away the productions; that certain wizards had cut down trees to carry them to their country. He says, moreover, that one day three men and a woman were presented to him, who, they said, had fallen from these ships which floated in the air. They were kept some days in confinement, and at last having been confronted with their accusers, the latter were obliged, after contesting the matter, and making several depositions, to avow that they knew nothing certain concerning their being carried away, or of their pretended fall from the ship in the sky. Charlemagne[214] in his Capitularies, and the authors of his time, speak also of these wizard tempest-brewers, enchanters, &c., and commanded that they should be reprimanded and severely chastised. Pope Gregory IX.[215] in a letter addressed to the Archbishop of Mayence, the Bishop of Hildesheim, and Doctor Conrad, in 1234, thus relates the abominations of which they accused the heretic _Stadingians_. "When they receive," says he, "a novice, and when he enters their assemblies for the first time, he sees an enormous toad, as big as a goose, or bigger. Some kiss it on the mouth, some kiss it behind. Then the novice meets a pale man with very black eyes, and so thin that he is only skin and bones. He kisses him, and feels that he is cold as ice. After this kiss, the novice easily forgets the Catholic faith; afterwards they hold a feast together, after which a black cat comes down behind a statue, which usually stands in the room where they assemble. "The novice first of all kisses the cat on the back, then he who presides over the assembly, and the others who are worthy of it. The imperfect receive only a kiss from the master; they promise obedience; after which they extinguish the lights, and commit all sorts of disorders. They receive every year, at Easter, the Lord's Body, and carry it in their mouth to their own houses, when they cast it away. They believe in Lucifer, and say that the Master of Heaven has unjustly and fraudulently thrown him into hell. They believe also that Lucifer is the creator of celestial things, that will re-enter into glory after having thrown down his adversary, and that through him they will gain eternal bliss." This letter bears date the 13th of June, 1233. Footnotes: [209] Joan. Vier. lib. ii. c. 7. [210] A remarkably fine print on this subject was published at Paris some years ago; if we remember right, it was suppressed. [211] Horat. Epodon. xviii. 4. [212] "Quædam sceleratæ mulieres dæmonum illusionibus et phantasmatibus seductæ, credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Dianâ Paganorum deâ et innumerâ multitudine mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias et multa terrarum spalia intempestæ noctis silentio pertransire ejusque jussionibus veluti dominæ obedire."--Baluz. Capitular. fragment. c. 13. Vide et Capitul. Herardi, Episc. Turon. [213] Agobard de Grandine. [214] Vide Baluzii in Agobard. pp. 68, 69. [215] Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 53, ann. 1234. CHAPTER XIX. INSTANCES OF SORCERERS AND WITCHES BEING, AS THEY SAID, TRANSPORTED TO THE SABBATH. All that is said about witches going to the sabbath is treated as a fable, and we have several examples which prove that they do not stir from their bed or their chamber. It is true that some of them anoint themselves with a certain grease or unguent, which makes them sleepy, and renders them insensible; and during this swoon they fancy that they go to the sabbath, and there see and hear what every one says is there seen and heard. We read, in the book entitled _Malleus Maleficorum_, or the _Hammer of the Sorcerers_, that a woman who was in the hands of the Inquisitors assured them that she repaired really and bodily whither she would, and that even were she shut up in prison and strictly guarded, and let the place be ever so far off. The Inquisitors ordered her to go to a certain place, to speak to certain persons, and bring back news of them; she promised to obey, and was directly locked up in a chamber, where she lay down, extended as if dead; they went into the room, and moved her; but she remained motionless, and without the least sensation, so that when they put a lighted candle to her foot and burnt it she did not feel it. A little after, she came to herself, and gave an account of the commission they had given her, saying she had had a great deal of trouble to go that road. They asked her what was the matter with her foot; she said it hurt her very much since her return, and knew not whence it came. Then the Inquisitors declared to her what had happened; that she had not stirred from her place, and that the pain in her foot was caused by the application of a lighted candle during her pretended absence. The thing having been verified, she acknowledged her folly, asked pardon, and promised never to fall into it again. Other historians relate[216] that, by means of certain drugs with which both wizards and witches anoint themselves, they are really and corporally transported to the sabbath. Torquemada relates, on the authority of Paul Grilland, that a husband suspecting his wife of being a witch, desired to know if she went to the sabbath, and how she managed to transport herself thither. He watched her so narrowly, that he saw her one day anoint herself with a certain unguent, and then take the form of a bird and fly away, and he saw her no more till the next morning, when he found her by his side. He questioned her very much, without making her own anything; at last he told her what he had himself seen, and by dint of beating her with a stick, he constrained her to tell him her secret, and to take him with her to the sabbath. Arrived at this place, he sat down to table with the others; but as all the viands which were on the table were very insipid, he asked for some salt; they were some time before they brought any; at last, seeing a salt-cellar, he said--"God be praised, there is some salt at last!" At the same instant, he heard a very great noise, all the company disappeared, and he found himself alone and naked in a field among the mountains. He went forward and found some shepherds; he learned that he was more than three leagues from his dwelling. He returned thither as he could, and, having related the circumstance to the Inquisitors, they caused the woman and several others, her accomplices, to be taken up and chastised as they deserved. The same author relates that a woman, returning from the sabbath and being carried through the air by the evil spirit, heard in the morning the bell for the _Angelus_. The devil let her go immediately, and she fell into a quickset hedge on the bank of a river; her hair fell disheveled over her neck and shoulders. She perceived a young lad who after much entreaty came and took her out and conducted her to the next village, where her house was situated; it required most pressing and repeated questions on the part of the lad, before she would tell him truly what had happened to her; she made him presents, and begged him to say nothing about it, nevertheless the circumstance got spread abroad. If we could depend on the truth of these stories, and an infinite number of similar ones, which books are full of, we might believe that sometimes sorcerers are carried bodily to the sabbath; but on comparing these stories with others which prove that they go thither only in mind and imagination, we may say boldly, that what is related of wizards and witches who go or think they go to the sabbath, is usually only illusion on the part of the devil, and seduction on the part of those of both sexes who fancy they fly and travel, while they in reality do not stir from their places. The spirit of malice and falsehood being mixed up in this foolish prepossession, they confirm themselves in their follies and engage others in the same impiety; for Satan has a thousand ways of deceiving mankind and of retaining them in error. Magic, impiety, enchantments, are often the effects of a diseased imagination. It rarely happens that these kind of people do not fall into every excess of licentiousness, irreligion, and theft, and into the most outrageous consequences of hatred to their neighbors. Some have believed that demons took the form of the sorcerers and sorceresses who were supposed to be at the sabbath, and that they maintained the simple creatures in their foolish belief, by appearing to them sometimes in the shape of those persons who were reputed witches, while they themselves were quietly asleep in their beds. But this belief contains difficulties as great, or perhaps greater, than the opinion we would combat. It is far from easy to understand that the demon takes the form of pretended sorcerers and witches, that he appears under this shape, that he eats, drinks, and travels, and does other actions to make simpletons believe that sorcerers go to the sabbath. What advantage does the devil derive from making idiots believe these things, or maintaining them in such an error? Nevertheless it is related[217] that St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, traveling one day, and passing through a village in his diocese, after having taken some refreshment there, remarked that they were preparing a great supper, and laying out the table anew; he asked if they expected company, and they told him it was for those good women who go by night. St. Germain well understood what was meant, and resolved to watch to see the end of this adventure. Some time after he beheld a multitude of demons who came in the form of men and women, and sat down to table in his presence. St. Germain forbade them to withdraw, and calling the people of the house, he asked them if they knew those persons: they replied, that they were such and such among their neighbors: "Go," said he, "and see if they are in their houses:" they went, and found them asleep in their beds. The saint conjured the demons, and obliged them to declare that it is thus they mislead mortals, and make them believe that there are sorcerers and witches who go by night to the sabbath; they obeyed, and disappeared, greatly confused. This history may be read in old manuscripts, and is to be found in Jacques de Varasse, Pierre de Noëls, in St. Antonine, and in old Breviaries of Auxerre, as well printed, as manuscript. I by no means guarantee the truth of this story; I think it is absolutely apocryphal; but it proves that those who wrote and copied it believed that these nocturnal journeys of sorcerers and witches to the sabbath, were mere illusions of the demon. In fact, it is hardly possible to explain all that is said of sorcerers and witches going to the sabbath, without having recourse to the ministry of the demon; to which we must add a disturbed imagination, with a mind misled, and foolishly prepossessed, and, if you will, a few drugs which affect the brain, excite the humors, and produce dreams relative to impressions already in their minds. In John Baptist Porta Cardan, and elsewhere, may be found the composition of those ointments with which witches are said to anoint themselves, to be able to transport themselves to the sabbath; but the only real effect they produce is to send them to sleep, disturb their imagination, and make them believe they are going long journeys, while they remain profoundly sleeping in their beds. The fathers of the council of Paris, of the year 829, confess that magicians, wizards, and people of that kind, are the ministers and instruments of the demon in the exercise of their diabolical art; that they trouble the minds of certain persons by beverages calculated to inspire impure love; that they are persuaded they can disturb the sky, excite tempests, send hail, predict the future, ruin and destroy the fruit, and take away the milk of cattle belonging to one person, in order to give it to cattle the property of another. The bishops conclude that all the rigor of the laws enacted by princes against such persons ought to be put in force against them, and so much the more justly, that it is evident they yield themselves up to the service of the devil. Spranger, in the _Malleus Maleficorum_, relates, that in Suabia, a peasant who was walking in his fields with his little girl, a child about eight years of age, complained of the drought, saying, "Alas! when will God give us some rain?" Immediately the little girl told him that she could bring him some down whenever he wished it. He answered,--"And who has taught you that secret?" "My mother," said she, "who has strictly forbidden me to tell any body of it." "And what did she do to give you this power?" "She took me to a master, who comes to me as many times as I call him." "And have you seen this master?" "Yes," said she, "I have often seen men come to my mother's house; she has devoted me to one of them." After this dialogue, the father asked her how she could do to make it rain upon his field only. She asked but for a little water; he led her to a neighboring brook, and the girl having called the water in the name of him to whom she had been devoted by her mother, they beheld directly abundance of rain falling on the peasant's field. The father, convinced that his wife was a sorceress, accused her before the judges, who condemned her to be burnt. The daughter was baptized and vowed to God, but she then lost the power of making it rain at her will. Footnotes: [216] Alphons. à Castro ex Petro Grilland. Tract. de Hæresib. [217] Bolland, 5 Jul. p. 287. CHAPTER XX. STORY OF LOUIS GAUFREDI AND MAGDALEN DE LA PALUD, OWNED BY THEMSELVES TO BE A SORCERER AND SORCERESS. This is an unheard-of example; a man and woman who declared themselves to be a sorcerer and sorceress. Louis Gaufredi, Curé of the parish of Accouls, at Marseilles,[218] was accused of magic, and arrested at the beginning of the year 1611. Christopher Gaufredi, his uncle, of Pourrieres, in the neighborhood of Beauversas, sent him, six months before he (Christopher) died, a little paper book, in 16mo., with six leaves written upon; at the bottom of every leaf were two verses in French, and in the other parts were characters or ciphers, which contained magical mysteries. Louis Gaufredi at first thought very little of this book, and kept it for five years. At the end of that time, having read the French verses, the devil presented himself under a human shape, and by no means deformed, and told him that he was come to fulfil all his wishes, if he would give _him_ credit for all his good works. Gaufredi agreed to the condition. He asked of the demon that he might enjoy a great reputation for wisdom and virtue among persons of probity, and that he might inspire with love all the women and young girls he pleased, by simply breathing upon them. Lucifer promised him all this in writing, and Gaufredi very soon saw the perfect accomplishment of his designs. He inspired with love a young lady named Magdalen, the daughter of a gentleman whose name was Mandole de la Palud. This girl was only nine years old, when Gaufredi, on pretence of devotion and spirituality, gave her to understand that, as her spiritual father, he had a right to dispose of her, and persuaded her to give herself to the devil; and some years afterwards, he obliged her to give a schedule, signed with her own blood, to the devil, to deliver herself up to him still more. It is even said that he made her give from that time seven or eight other schedules. After that, he breathed upon her, inspired her with a violent passion for himself, and took advantage of her; he gave her a familiar demon, who served her and followed her everywhere. One day he transported her to the witches' sabbath, held on a high mountain near Marseilles; she saw there people of all nations, and in particular Gaufredi, who held there a distinguished rank, and who caused characters to be impressed or stamped on her head and in several other parts of her body. This girl afterwards became a nun of the order of St. Ursula, and passed for being possessed by the devil. Gaufredi also inspired several other women with an irregular passion, by breathing on them; and this diabolical power lasted for six years. For at last they found out that he was a sorcerer and magician; and Mademoiselle de Mandole having been arrested by the Inquisition, and interrogated by father Michael Jacobin, owned a great part of what we have just told, and during the exorcisms discovered several other things. She was then nineteen years of age. All this made Gaufredi known to the Parliament of Provence. They arrested him; and proceedings against him commenced February, 1611. They heard in particular the deposition of Magdalen de la Palud, who gave a complete history of the magic of Gaufredi, and the abominations he had committed with her. That for the last fourteen years he had been a magician, and head of the magicians; and if he had been taken by the justiciary power, the devil would have carried him body and soul to hell. Gaufredi had voluntarily gone to prison; and from the first examination which he underwent, he denied everything and represented himself as an upright man. But from the depositions made against him, it was shown that his heart was very corrupted, and that he had seduced Mademoiselle de Mandole, and other women whom he confessed. This young lady was heard juridically the 21st of February, and gave the history of her seduction, of Gaufredi's magic, and of the sabbath whither he had caused her to be transported several times. Some time after this, being confronted with Gaufredi, she owned that he was a worthy man, and that all which had been reported against him was imaginary, and retracted all she herself had avowed. Gaufredi on his part acknowledged his illicit connection with her, denied all the rest, and maintained that it was the devil, by whom she was possessed, that had suggested to her all she had said. He owned that, having resolved to reform his life, Lucifer had appeared to him, and threatened him with many misfortunes; that in fact he had experienced several; that he had burnt the magic book in which he had placed the schedules of Mademoiselle de la Palud and his own, which he had made with the devil; but that when he afterwards looked for them, he was much astonished not to find them. He spoke at length concerning the sabbath, and said there was, near the town of Nice, a magician, who had all sorts of garments ready for the use of the sorcerers; that on the day of the sabbath, there is a bell weighing a hundred pounds, four ells in width, and with a clapper of wood, which made the sound dull and lugubrious. He related several horrors, impieties, and abominations which were committed at the sabbath. He repeated the schedule which Lucifer had given him, by which he bound himself to cast a spell on those women who should be to his taste. After this exposition of the things related above, the attorney-general drew his conclusions: As the said Gaufredi had been convicted of having divers marks in several parts of his body, where if pricked he has felt no pain, neither has any blood come; that he has been illicitly connected with Magdalen de la Palud, both at church and in her own house, both by day and by night, by letters in which were amorous or love characters, invisible to any other but herself; that he had induced her to renounce her God and her Church--and that she had received on her body several diabolical characters; that he has owned himself to be a sorcerer and a magician; that he had kept by him a book of magic, and had made use of it to conjure and invoke the evil spirit; that he has been with the said Magdalen to the sabbath, where he had committed an infinite number of scandalous, impious and abominable actions, such as having worshiped Lucifer:--for these causes, the said attorney-general requires that the said Gaufredi be declared attainted and convicted of the circumstances imputed to him, and as reparation of them, that he be previously degraded from sacred orders by the Lord Bishop of Marseilles, his diocesan, and afterwards condemned to make honorable amends one audience day, having his head and feet bare, a cord about his neck, and holding a lighted taper in his hands--to ask pardon of God, the king, and the court of justice--then, to be delivered into the hands of the executioner of the high court of law, to be taken to all the chief places and cross-roads of this city of Aix, and torn with red-hot pincers in all parts of his body; and after that, in the _Place des Jacobins_, burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the wind; and before being executed, let the question be applied to him, and let him be tormented as grievously as can be devised, in order to extract from him the names of his other accomplices. Deliberated the 18th of April, 1611, and the decree in conformity given the 29th of April, 1611. The same Gaufredi having undergone the question ordinary and extraordinary, declared that he had seen at the sabbath no person of his acquaintance except Mademoiselle de Mandole; that he had seen there also certain monks of certain orders, which he did not name, neither did he know the names of the monks. That the devil anointed the heads of the sorcerers with certain unguents, which quite effaced every thing from their memory. Notwithstanding this decree of the Parliament of Provence, many people believed that Gaufredi was a sorcerer only in imagination; and the author from whom we derive this history says, that there are some parliaments, amongst others the Parliament of Paris, which do not punish sorcerers when no other crimes are combined with magic; and that experience has proved that, in not punishing sorcerers, but simply treating them as madmen, it has been seen in time that they were no longer sorcerers, because they no longer fed their imagination with these ideas; while in those places where sorcerers were burnt, they saw nothing else, because everybody was strengthened in this prejudice. That is what this writer says. But we cannot conclude from thence that God does not sometimes permit the demon to exercise his power over men, and lead them to the excess of malice and impiety, and shed darkness over their minds and corruption in their hearts, which hurry them into an abyss of disorder and misfortune. The demon tempted Job[219] by the permission of God. The messenger of Satan and the thorn in the flesh wearied St. Paul;[220] he asked to be delivered from them; but he was told that the grace of God would enable him to resist his enemies, and that virtue was strengthened by infirmities and trials. Satan took possession of the heart of Judas, and led him to betray Jesus Christ his Master to the Jews his enemies.[221] The Lord wishing to warn his disciples against the impostors who would appear after his ascension, says that, by God's permission, these impostors would work such miracles as might mislead the very elect themselves,[222] were it possible. He tells them elsewhere,[223] that Satan has asked permission of God to sift them as wheat, but that He has prayed for them that their faith may be steadfast. Thus then with permission from God, the devil can lead men to commit such excesses as we have just seen in Mademoiselle de la Palud and in the priest Louis Gaufredi, perhaps even so far as really to take them through the air to unknown spots, and to what is called the witches' sabbath; or, without really conducting them thither, so strike their imagination and mislead their senses, that they think they move, see, and hear, when they do not stir from their places, see no object and hear no sound. Observe, also, that the Parliament of Aix did not pass any sentence against even that young girl, it being their custom to inflict no other punishment on those who suffered themselves to be seduced and dishonored than the shame with which they were loaded ever after. In regard to the curé Gaufredi, in the account which they render to the chancellor of the sentence given by them, they say that this curé was in truth accused of sorcery; but that he had been condemned to the flames, as being arraigned and convicted of spiritual incest with Magdalen de la Palud, his penitent.[224] Footnotes: [218] Causes Célèbres, tom. vi. p. 192. [219] Job i. 12, 13, 22. [220] 2 Cor. xii. 7, 8. [221] John xiii. 2. [222] Matt. xxiv. 5. [223] Luke xxi. [224] The attentive reader of this horrible narrative will hardly fail to conclude that Gaufredi's fault was chiefly his seduction of Mademoiselle de la Palud, and that the rest was the effect of a heated imagination. The absurd proportions of the "_Sabbath_" bell will be sufficient to show this. If the bell were metallic, it would have weighed many tons, and a _wooden_ bell of such dimensions, even were it capable of sounding, would weigh many hundred weight. CHAPTER XXI. REASONS WHICH PROVE THE POSSIBILITY OF SORCERERS AND WITCHES BEING TRANSPORTED TO THE SABBATH. All that has just been said is more fitted to prove that the going of sorcerers and witches to the sabbath is only an illusion and a deranged imagination on the part of these persons, and malice and deceit on that of the devil, who misleads them, and persuades them to yield themselves to him, and renounce true religion, by the lure of vain promises that he will enrich them, load them with honors, pleasures, and prosperity, rather than to convince us of the reality of the corporeal transportation of these persons to what they call the sabbath. Here are some arguments and examples which seem to prove, at least, that the transportation of sorcerers to the sabbath is not impossible; for the impossibility of this transportation is one of the strongest objections which is made to the opinion that supposes it. There is no difficulty in believing that God may allow the demon to mislead men, and carry them on to every excess of irregularity, error, and impiety; and that he may also permit him to perform some things which to us appear astonishing, and even miraculous; whether the devil achieves them by natural power, or by the supernatural concurrence of God, who employs the evil spirit to punish his creature, who has willingly forsaken Him to yield himself up to his enemy. The prophet Ezekiel was transported through the air from Chaldea, where he was a captive, to Judea, and into the temple of the Lord, where he saw the abominations which the Israelites committed in that holy place; and thence he was brought back again to Chaldea by the ministration of angels, as we shall relate in another chapter. We know by the Gospel that the devil carried our Saviour to the highest point of the temple at Jerusalem.[225] We know also that the prophet Habakkuk[226] was transported from Judea to Babylon, to carry food to Daniel in the lion's den. St. Paul informs us that he was carried up to the third heaven, and that he heard ineffable things; but he owns that he does not know whether it was in the body or only in the spirit. He therefore doubted not the possibility of a man's being transported in body and soul through the air. The deacon St. Philip was transported from the road from Gaza to Azotus in a very little time by the Spirit of God.[227] We learn by ecclesiastical history, that Simon the magician was carried by the demon up into the air, whence he was precipitated, through the prayers of St. Peter. John the Deacon,[228] author of the life of St. Gregory the Great, relates that one Farold having introduced into the monastery of St. Andrew, at Rome, some women who led disorderly lives, in order to divert himself there with them, and offer insult to the monks, that same night Farold having occasion to go out, was suddenly seized and carried up into the air by demons, who held him there suspended by his hair, without his being able to open his mouth to utter a cry, till the hour of matins, when Pope St. Gregory, the founder and protector of that monastery, appeared to him, reproached him for his profanation of that holy place, and foretold that he would die within the year--which did happen. I have been told by a magistrate, as incapable of being deceived by illusions as of imposing any such on other people,[229] that on the 16th of October, 1716, a carpenter, who inhabited a village near Bar, in Alsace, called Heiligenstein, was found at five o'clock in the morning in the garret of a cooper at Bar. This cooper having gone up to fetch the wood for his trade that he might want to use during the day, and having opened the door, which was fastened with a bolt _on the outside_, perceived a man lying at full length upon his stomach, and fast asleep. He recognized him, and having asked him what he did there, the carpenter in the greatest surprise told him he knew neither by what means, nor by whom, he had been taken to that place. The cooper not believing this, told him that assuredly he was come thither to rob him, and had him taken before the magistrate of Bar, who having interrogated him concerning the circumstance just spoken of, he related to him with great simplicity, that, having set off about four o'clock in the morning to come from Heiligenstein to Bar--there being but a quarter of an hour's distance between those two places--he saw on a sudden, in a place covered with verdure and grass, a magnificent feast, brightly illuminated, where a number of persons were highly enjoying themselves with a sumptuous repast and by dancing; that two women of his acquaintance, inhabitants of Bar, having asked him to join the company, he sat down to table and partook of the good cheer, for a quarter of an hour at the most; after that, one of the guests having cried out "_Citò, Citò_," he found himself carried away gently to the cooper's garret, without knowing how he had been transported there. This is what he declared in presence of the magistrate. The most singular circumstance of this history is, that hardly had the carpenter deposed what we read, than those two women of Bar who had invited him to join their feast hung themselves, each in her own house. The superior magistrates, fearing to carry things so far as to compromise perhaps half the inhabitants of Bar, judged prudently that they had better not inquire further; they treated the carpenter as a visionary, and the two women who hung themselves were considered as lunatics; thus the thing was hushed up, and the matter ended. If this is what they call the witches' sabbath, neither the carpenter, nor the two women, nor apparently the other guests at the festival, had need to come mounted on a demon; they were too near their own dwellings to have recourse to superhuman means in order to have themselves transported to the place of meeting. We are not informed how these guests repaired to this feast, nor how they returned each one to their home; the spot was so near the town, that they could easily go and return without any extraneous assistance. But if secrecy was necessary, and they feared discovery, it is very probable that the demon transported them to their homes through the air before it was day, as he had transported the carpenter to the cooper's garret. Whatever turn may be given to this event, it is certainly difficult not to recognize a manifest work of the evil spirit in the transportation of the carpenter through the air, who finds himself, without being aware of it, in a well-fastened garret. The women who hung themselves, showed clearly that they feared something still worse from the law, had they been convicted of magic and witchcraft. And had not their accomplices also, whose names must have been declared, as much to fear? William de Neubridge relates another story, which bears some resemblance to the preceding. A peasant having heard, one night as he was passing near a tomb, a melodious concert of different voices, drew near, and finding the door open, put in his head, and saw in the middle a grand feast, well lighted, and a well-covered table, round which were men and women making merry. One of the attendants having perceived him, presented him with a cup filled with liquor; he took it, and having spilled the liquor, he fled with the cup to the first village, where he stopped. If our carpenter had done the same, instead of amusing himself at the feast of the witches of Bar, he would have spared himself much uneasiness. We have in history several instances of persons full of religion and piety, who, in the fervor of their orisons, have been taken up into the air, and remained there for some time. We have known a good monk, who rises sometimes from the ground, and remains suspended without wishing it, without seeking to do so, especially on seeing some devotional image, or on hearing some devout prayer, such as "_Gloria in excelsis Deo_." I know a nun to whom it has often happened in spite of herself to see herself thus raised up in the air to a certain distance from the earth; it was neither from choice, nor from any wish to distinguish herself, since she was truly confused at it. Was it by the ministration of angels, or by the artifice of the seducing spirit, who wished to inspire her with sentiments of vanity and pride? Or was it the natural effect of Divine love, or fervor of devotion in these persons? I do not observe that the ancient fathers of the desert, who were so spiritual, so fervent, and so great in prayer, experienced similar ecstasies. These risings up in the air are more common among our new saints, as we may see in the Life[230] of St. Philip of Neri, where they relate his ecstasies and his elevations from earth into the air, sometimes to the height of several yards, and almost to the ceiling of his room, and this quite involuntarily. He tried in vain to hide it from the knowledge of those present, for fear of attracting their admiration, and feeling in it some vain complacency. The writers who give us these particulars do not say what was the cause, whether these ecstatic elevations from the ground were produced by the fervor of the Holy Spirit, or by the ministry of good angels, or by a miraculous favor of God, who desired thus to do honor to his servants in the eyes of men. God had moreover favored the same St. Philip de Neri, by permitting him to see the celestial spirits and even the demons, and to discover the state of holy spirits, by supernatural knowledge. St. John Columbino, teacher of the Jesuits, made use of St. Catherine Columbine,[231] a maiden of extraordinary virtue, for the establishment of nuns of his order. It is related of her, that sometimes she remained in a trance, and raised up two yards from the ground, motionless, speechless, and insensible. The same thing is said of St. Ignatius de Loyola,[232] who remained entranced by God, and raised up from the ground to the height of two feet, while his body shone like light. He has been seen to remain in a trance insensible, and almost without respiration, for eight days together. St. Robert de Palentin[233] rose also from the ground, sometimes to the height of a foot and a half, to the great astonishment of his disciples and assistants. We see similar trances and elevations in the Life of St. Bernard Ptolomei, teacher of the congregation of Notre Dame of Mount Olivet;[234] of St. Philip Benitas, of the order of Servites; of St. Cajetanus, founder of the Théatins;[235] of St. Albert of Sicily, confessor, who, during his prayers, rose three cubits from the ground; and lastly of St. Dominic, the founder of the order of Preaching Brothers.[236] It is related of St. Christina,[237] Virgin at S. Tron, that being considered dead, and carried into the church in her coffin, as they were performing for her the usual service, she arose suddenly, and went as high as the beams of the church, as lightly as a bird. Being returned into the house with her sisters, she related to them that she had been led first to purgatory, and thence to hell, and lastly to paradise, where God had given her the choice of remaining there, or of returning to this world and doing penance for the souls she had seen in purgatory. She chose the latter, and was brought back to her body by the holy angels. From that time she could not bear the effluvia of the human body, and rose up into trees and on the highest towers with incredible lightness, there to watch and pray. She was so light in running that she outran the swiftest dogs. Her parents tried in vain all they could do to stop her, even to loading her with chains, but she always escaped from them. So many other almost incredible things are related of this saint, that I dare not repeat them here. M. Nicole, in his letters, speaks of a nun named Seraphina, who, in her ecstasies, rose from the ground with so much impetuosity that five or six of the sisters could hardly hold her down. This doctor, reasoning on the fact,[238] says, that it proves nothing at all for Sister Seraphina; but the thing well verified proves God and the devil--that is to say, the whole of religion; that the circumstance being proved, is of very great consequence to religion; that the world is full of certain persons who believe only what cannot be doubted; that the great heresy of the world is no longer Calvinism and Lutheranism, but atheism. There are all sorts of atheists--some real, others pretended; some determined, others vacillating, and others tempted to be so. We ought not to neglect this kind of people; the grace of God is all-powerful; we must not despair of bringing them back by good arguments, and by solid and convincing proofs. Now, if these facts are certain, we must conclude that there is a God, or bad angels who imitate the works of God, and perform by themselves or their subordinates works capable of deceiving even the elect. One of the oldest instances I remark of persons thus raised from the ground without any one touching them, is that of St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 988, and who, a little time before his death, as he was going up stairs to his apartment, accompanied by several persons, was observed to rise from the ground; and as all present were astonished at the circumstance, he took occasion to speak of his approaching death.[239] Trithemius, speaking of St. Elizabeth, Abbess of Schonau, in the diocese of Treves, says that sometimes she was in an ecstatic trance, so that she would remain motionless and breathless during a long time. In these intervals, she learned, by revelation and by the intercourse she had with blessed spirits, admirable things; and when she revived, she would discourse divinely, sometimes in German, her native language, sometimes in Latin, though she had no knowledge of that language. Trithemius did not doubt her sincerity and the truth of her discourse. She died in 1165. St. Richard, Abbot of S. Vanne de Verdun, appeared in 1036 elevated from the ground while he was saying mass in presence of the Duke Galizon, his sons, and a great number of lords and soldiers. In the last century, the reverend Father Dominic Carme Déchaux, was raised from the ground before the King of Spain, the queen, and all the court, so that they had only to blow upon his body to move it about like a soap-bubble.[240] Footnotes: [225] Matt. iv. 5. [226] Dan. xiv. 33, 34. Douay Version. [227] Acts viii. 40. [228] Joan. Diacon. Vit. Gregor. Mag. [229] Lettre de M. G. P. R., 5th October, 1746. [230] On the 26th of May, of the Bollandists, c. xx. n. 356, 357. [231] Acta S. J. Bolland. 3 Jul. p. 95. [232] Ibid. 31 Jul. pp. 432, 663. [233] Acta S. J. Bolland, 21 Aug. pp. 469, 481. [234] Ibid. 18 Aug. p. 503. [235] Ibid. 17 Aug. p. 255. [236] Ibid. 4 Aug. p. 405. [237] Vita S. Christina. 24 Jul. Bolland. pp. 652, 653. [238] Nicole, tom. i. Letters, pp. 203, 205. Letter xlv. [239] Vita Sancti Dunstani, xi. 42. [240] It is worthy of remark, that in the cases which Calmet refers to of persons in his own time, and of his own acquaintance, being thus raised from the ground, he in no instance states himself to have been a witness of the wonder. CHAPTER XXII. CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT. We cannot reasonably dispute the truth of these ecstatic trances, the elevations of the body of some saints to a certain distance from the ground, since these circumstances are supported by so many witnesses. To apply this to the matter we here treat of, might it not be said that sorcerers and witches, by the operation of the demon, and with God's permission, by the help of a lively and subtile temperament, are rendered light and rise into the air, where their heated imagination and prepossessed mind lead them to believe that they have done, seen, and heard, what has no reality except in their own brain? I shall be told that the parallel I make between the actions of saints, which can only be attributed to angels and the operation of the Holy Spirit, or to the fervor of their charity and devotion, with what happens to wizards and witches, is injurious and odious. I know how to make a proper distinction between them: do not the books of the Old and New Testament place in parallel lines the true miracles of Moses with those of the magicians of Pharaoh; those of antichrist and his subordinates with those of the saints and apostles; and does not St. Paul inform us that the angel of darkness often transforms himself into an angel of light? In the first edition of this work, we spoke very fully of certain persons, who boast of having what they call "the garter," and by that means are able to perform with extraordinary quickness, in a very few hours, what would naturally take them several days journeying. Almost incredible things are related on that subject; nevertheless, the details are so circumstantial, that it is hardly possible there should not be some foundation for them; and the demon may transport these people in a forced and violent manner which causes them a fatigue similar to what they would have suffered, had they really performed the journey with more than ordinary rapidity. For instance, the two circumstances related by Torquemada: the first of a poor scholar of his acquaintance, a clever man, who at last rose to be physician to Charles V.; when studying at Guadaloupe, was invited by a traveler who wore the garb of a monk, and to whom he had rendered some little service, to mount up behind him on his horse, which seemed a sorry animal and much tired; he got up and rode all night, without perceiving that he went at an extraordinary pace, but in the morning he found himself near the city of Granada; the young man went into the town, but the conductor passed onwards. Another time, the father of a young man, known to the same Torquemada, and the young man himself, were going together to Granada, and passing through the village of Almeda, met a man on horseback like themselves and going the same way; after having traveled two or three leagues together, they halted, and the cavalier spread his cloak on the grass, so that there was no crease in the mantle; they all placed what provisions they had with them on this extended cloak, and let their horses graze. They drank and ate very leisurely, and having told their servants to bring their horses, the cavalier said to them, "Gentlemen, do not hurry, you will reach the town early"--at the same time he showed them Granada, at not a quarter of an hour's distance from thence. Something equally marvelous is said of a canon of the cathedral of Beauvais. The chapter of that church had been charged for a long time to acquit itself of a certain personal duty to the Church of Rome; the canons having chosen one of their brethren to repair to Rome for this purpose, the canon deferred his departure from day to day, and set off after matins on Christmas day--arrived that same day at Rome, acquitted himself there of his commission, and came back from thence with the same dispatch, bringing with him the original of the bond, which obliged the canons to send one of their body to make this offering in person. However fabulous and incredible this story may appear, it is asserted that there are authentic proofs of it in the archives of the cathedral; and that upon the tomb of the canon in question may still be seen the figures of demons engraved at the four corners in memory of this event. They even affirm that the celebrated Father Mabillon saw the authentic voucher. Now, if this circumstance and the others like it are not absolutely fabulous, we cannot deny that they are the effects of magic, and the work of the evil spirit. Peter, the venerable Abbot of Cluny,[241] relates so extraordinary a thing which happened in his time, that I should not repeat it here, had it not been seen by the whole town of Mâcon. The count of that town, a very violent man, exercised a kind of tyranny over the ecclesiastics, and against whatever belonged to them, without troubling himself either to conceal his violence, or to find a pretext for it; he carried it on with a high hand and gloried in it. One day, when he was sitting in his palace in company with several nobles and others, they beheld an unknown person enter on horseback, who advanced to the count and desired him to follow him. The count rose and followed him, and having reached the door, he found there a horse ready caparisoned; he mounts it, and is immediately carried up into the air, crying out, in a terrible tone to those who were present, "Here, help me!" All the town ran out at the noise, but they soon lost sight of him; and no doubt was entertained that the devil had flown away with him to be the companion of his tortures, and to bear the pain of his excesses and his violence. It is, then, not absolutely impossible that a person may be raised into the air and transported to some very high and distant place, by order or by permission of God, by good or evil spirits; but we must own that the thing is of rare occurrence, and that in all that is related of sorcerers and witches, and their assemblings at the witches' sabbath, there is an infinity of stories, which are false, absurd, ridiculous, and even destitute of probability. M. Remi, attorney-general of Lorraine, author of a celebrated work entitled _Demonology_, who tried a great number of sorcerers and sorceresses, with which Lorraine was then infested, produces hardly any proof whence we can infer the truth and reality of witchcraft, and of wizards and witches being transported to the sabbath. Footnotes: [241] Petrus Venerab. lib. ii. de Miraculis, c. 1, p. 1299. CHAPTER XXIII. OBSESSION AND POSSESSION OF THE DEVIL. It is with reason that obsessions and possessions of the devil are placed in the rank of apparitions of the evil spirit among men. We call it _obsession_ when the demon acts externally against the person whom he besets, and _possession_ when he acts internally, agitates them, excites their ill humor, makes them utter blasphemy, speak tongues they have never learnt, discovers to them unknown secrets, and inspires them with the knowledge of the obscurest things in philosophy or theology. Saul was agitated and possessed by the evil spirit,[242] who at intervals excited his melancholy humor, and awakened his animosity and jealousy against David, or who, on occasion of the natural movement or impulsion of these dark moods, seized him, agitated him, and disturbed from his usual tenor of mind. Those whom the Gospel speaks of as being possessed,[243] and who cried aloud that Jesus was the Christ, and that he was come to torment them before the time, that he was the Son of God, are instances of possession. But the demon Asmodeus, who beset Sara, the daughter of Raguel,[244] and who killed her first seven husbands; those spoken of in the Gospel, who were simply struck with maladies or incommodities which were thought to be incurable; those whom the Scripture sometimes calls _lunatics_, who foamed at the mouth, who were convulsed, who fled the presence of mankind, who were violent and dangerous, so that they were obliged to be chained to prevent them from striking and maltreating other people; these kinds of persons were simply beset, or obseded by the devil. Opinions are much divided on the matter of obsessions and possessions of the devil. The hardened Jews, and the ancient enemies of the Christian religion, convinced by the evidence of the miracles which they saw worked by Jesus Christ, by his apostles, and by Christians, dared neither dispute their truth nor their reality; but they attributed them to magic, to the prince of the devils, or to the virtue of certain herbs, or of certain natural secrets. St. Justin,[245] Tertullian, Lactantius, St. Cyprian, Minutius, and the other fathers of the first ages of the church, speak of the power which the Christian exorcists exercised over the possessed, so confidently and so freely, that we can doubt neither the certainty nor the evidence of the thing. They call upon their adversaries to bear witness, and pique themselves on making the experiment in their presence, and of forcing to come out of the bodies of the possessed, to declare their names, and acknowledge that those they adore in the pagan temples are but devils. Some opposed to the true miracles of the Saviour those of their false gods, their magicians, and their heroes of paganism, such as those of Esculapius, and the famous Apollonius of Tyana. The pretended freethinkers dispute them in our days upon philosophical principles; they attribute them to a diseased imagination, the prejudices of education, and hidden springs of the constitution; they reduce the expressions of Scripture to hyperbole; they maintain that Jesus Christ condescended to the understanding of the people, and their prepossessions or prejudices; that demons being purely spiritual substances could not by themselves act immediately upon bodies; and that it is not at all probable God should work miracles to allow of their doing so. If we examine closely those who have passed for being possessed, we shall not perhaps find one amongst them, whose mind had not been deranged by some accident, or whose body was not attacked by some infirmity either known or hidden, which had caused some ferment in the blood or the brain, and which, joined to prejudice, or fear, had given rise to what was termed in their case obsession or possession. The possession of King Saul is easily explained by supposing that he was naturally an atrabilarian, and that in his fits of melancholy he appeared mad, or furious; therefore they sought no other remedy for his illness than music, and the sound of instruments proper to enliven or calm him. Several of the obsessions and possessions noted in the New Testament were simple maladies, or fantastic fancies, which made it believed that such persons were possessed by the devil. The ignorance of the people maintained this prejudice, and their being totally unacquainted with physics and medicine served to strengthen such ideas. In one it was a sombre and melancholy temper, in another the blood was too fevered and heated; here the bowels were burnt up with heat, there a concentration of diseased humor, which suffocated the patient, as it happens with those subject to epilepsy and hypochondria, who fancy themselves gods, kings, cats, dogs, and oxen. There were others, who, disturbed at the remembrance of their crimes, fell into a kind of despair, and into fits of remorse, which irritated their mind and constitution, and made them believe that the devil pursued and beset them. Such, apparently, were those women who followed Jesus Christ, and who had been delivered by him from the unclean spirits that possessed them, and partly so Mary Magdalen, from whom he expelled seven devils. The Scripture often speaks of the spirit of impurity, of the spirit of falsehood, of the spirit of jealousy; it is not necessary to have recourse to a particular demon to excite these passions in us; St. James[246] tells us that we are enough tempted by our own concupiscence, which leads us to evil, without seeking after external causes. The Jews attributed the greater part of their maladies to the demon: they were persuaded that they were a punishment for some crime either known or unrevealed. Jesus Christ and his apostles wisely supposed these prejudices, without wishing to attack them openly and reform the old opinions of the Jews; they cured the diseases, and chased away the evil spirits who caused them, or who were said to cause them. The real and essential effect was the cure of the patient; no other thing was required to confirm the mission of Jesus Christ, his divinity, and the truth of the doctrine which he preached. Whether he expelled the demon, or not, is not essentially necessary to his first design; it is certain that he cured the patient either by expelling the devil, if it be true that this evil spirit caused the malady, or by replacing the inward springs and humors in their regular and natural state, which is always miraculous, and proves the Divinity of the Saviour. Although the Jews were sufficiently credulous concerning the operations of the evil spirit, they at the same time believed that in general the demons who tormented certain persons were nothing else than the souls of some wretches, who, fearing to repair to the place destined for them, took possession of the body of some mortal whom they tormented and endeavored to deprive of life.[247] Josephus the historian[248] relates that Solomon composed some charms against maladies, and some formulæ of exorcism to expel evil spirits. He says, besides, that a Jew named Eleazar cured in the presence of Vespasian some possessed persons by applying under their nose a ring, in which was enchased a root, pointed out by that prince. They pronounced the name of Solomon with a certain prayer, and an exorcism; directly, the person possessed fell on the ground, and the devil left him. The generality of common people among the Jews had not the least doubt that Beelzebub, prince of the devils, had the power to expel other demons, for they said that Jesus Christ only expelled them in the name of Beelzebub.[249] We read in history that sometimes the pagans expelled demons; and the physicians boast of being able to cure some possessed persons, as they cure hypochondriacs, and imaginary disorders. These are the most plausible things that are said against the reality of the possessions and obsessions of the devil. Footnotes: [242] 1 Sam. xvi. 23. [243] Matt. viii. 16; x. 11; xviii. 28. [244] Tob. iii. 8. [245] Justin. Dialog. cum supplem. Tertull. de Corona Militis, c. 11; and Apolog. c. 23; Cyp. ad Demetriam, &c.; Minutius, in Octavio, &c. [246] James i. 14. [247] Joseph. Antiq. lib. vii. c. 25. [248] Ibid. lib. viii. c. 2. [249] Matt. xii. 24. CHAPTER XXIV. THE TRUTH AND REALITY OF POSSESSION AND OBSESSION BY THE DEVIL PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. But the possibility, the verity and reality of the obsessions and possessions of the devil are indubitable, and proved by the Scripture and by the authority of the Church, the Fathers, the Jews, and the pagans. Jesus Christ and the apostles believed this truth, and taught it publicly. The Saviour gives us a proof of his mission that he cures the possessed; he refutes the Pharisees, who asserted that he expelled the demons only in the name of Beelzebub; and maintains that he expels them by the virtue of God.[250] He speaks to the demons; he threatens them, and puts them to silence. Are these equivocal marks of the reality of obsessions? The apostles do the same, as did the early Christians their disciples. All this was done before the eyes of the heathen, who could not deny it, but who eluded the force and evidence of these things, by attributing this power to other demons, or to certain divinities, more powerful than ordinary demons; as if the kingdom of Satan were divided, and the evil spirit could act against himself, or as if there were any collusion between Jesus Christ and the demons whose empire he had just destroyed. The seventy disciples on their return from their mission came to Jesus Christ[251] to give him an account of it, and tell him that the demons themselves are obedient to them. After his resurrection,[252] the Saviour promises to his apostles that they shall work miracles in his name, _that they shall cast out devils_, and receive the gift of tongues. All which was literally fulfilled. The exorcisms used at all times in the Church against the demons are another proof of the reality of possessions; they show that at all times the Church and her ministers have believed them to be true and real, since they have always practiced these exorcisms. The ancient fathers defied the heathen to produce a demoniac before the Christians; they pride themselves on curing them, and expelling the demon. The Jewish exorcists employed even the name of Jesus Christ to cure demoniacs;[253] they found it efficacious in producing this effect; it is true that sometimes they employed the name of Solomon, and some charms said to have been invented by that prince, or roots and herbs to which they attributed the same virtues, like as a clever physician by the secret of his art can cure a hypochondriac or a maniac, or a man strongly persuaded that he is possessed by the devil, or as a wise confessor will restore the mind of a person disturbed by remorse, and agitated by the reflection of his sins, or the fear of hell. But we are speaking now of real possessions and obsessions which are cured only by the power of God, by the name of Jesus Christ, and by exorcisms. The son of Sceva, the Jewish priest,[254] having undertaken to expel a devil in the name of Jesus Christ, whom Paul preached, the demoniac threw himself upon him, and would have strangled him, saying that he knew Jesus Christ, and Paul, but that for him, he feared him not. We must then distinguish well between possessions and possessions, exorcists and exorcists. There may be found demoniacs who counterfeit the possessed, to excite compassion and obtain alms. There may even be exorcists who abuse the name and power of Jesus Christ to deceive the ignorant; and how do I know that there are not even impostors to be found, who would place pretended possessed persons in the way, in order to pretend to cure them, and thus gain a reputation? I do not enter into longer details on this matter; I have treated it formerly in a particular dissertation on the subject, printed apart with other dissertations on Scripture, and I have therein replied to the objections which were raised on this subject. Footnotes: [250] Luke viii. 21. [251] Luke x. 17. [252] Mark xvi. 27. [253] Mark ix. 36-38. Acts xi. 14. [254] Acts xix. 14. CHAPTER XXV. EXAMPLES OF REAL POSSESSIONS CAUSED BY THE DEVIL. We must now report some of the most famous instances of the possession and obsession of the demon. Every body is talking at this time of the possession (by the devil) of the nuns of Loudun, on which such different opinions were given, both at the time and since. Martha Broissier, daughter of a weaver of Romorantin,[255] made as much noise in her time; but Charles Miron, Bishop of Orleans, discovered the fraud, by making her drink holy water as common water; by making them present to her a key wrapped up in red silk, which was said to be a piece of the true cross; and in reciting some lines from Virgil, which Martha Broissier's demon took for exorcisms, agitating her very much at the approach of the hidden key, and at the recital of the verses from Virgil. Henri de Gondi, Cardinal Bishop of Paris, had her examined by five of the faculty; three were of opinion that there was a great deal of imposture and a little disease. The parliament took notice of the affair, and nominated eleven physicians, who reported unanimously that there was nothing demoniacal in this matter. In the reign of Charles IX.[256] or a little before, a young woman of the town of Vervins, fifteen or sixteen years of age, named Nicola Aubry, had different apparitions of a spectre, who called itself her grandfather, and asked her for masses and prayers for the repose of his soul.[257] Very soon after, she was transported to different places by this spectre, and sometimes even was carried out of sight, and from the midst of those who watched over her. Then, they had no longer any doubt that it was the devil, which they had a great deal of trouble to make her believe. The Bishop of Laon gave his power (of attorney) for conjuring the spirit, and commanded them to see that the proces-verbaux were exactly drawn up by the notaries nominated for that purpose. The exorcisms lasted more than three months, and only serve to prove more and more the fact of the possession. The poor sufferer was torn from the hands of nine or ten men, who could hardly retain their hold of her; and on the last day of the exorcisms sixteen could not succeed in so doing. She had been lying on the ground, when she stood upright and stiff as a statue, without those who held her being able to prevent it. She spoke divers languages, revealed the most secret things, announced others at the moment they were being done, although at a great distance; she discovered to many the secret of their conscience, uttered at once three different voices, or tones, and spoke with her tongue hanging half a foot out of her mouth. After some exorcisms had been made at Vervins, they took her to Laon, where the bishop undertook her. He had a scaffolding erected for this purpose in the cathedral. Such immense numbers of people went there, that they saw in the church ten or twelve thousand persons at a time; some even came from foreign countries. Consequently, France could not be less curious; so the princes and great people, and those who could not come there themselves, sent persons who might inform them of what passed. The Pope's nuncios, the parliamentary deputies, and those of the university were present. The devil, forced by the exorcisms, rendered such testimony to the truth of the Catholic religion, and, above all, to the reality of the holy eucharist, and at the same time to the falsity of Calvinism, that the irritated Calvinists no longer kept within bounds. From the time the exorcisms were made at Vervins, they wanted to kill the possessed, with the priest who exorcised her, in a journey they made her take to Nôtre Dame de Liesse. At Laon, it was still worse; as they were the strongest in numbers there, a revolt was more than once apprehended. They so intimidated the bishop and the magistrates, that they took down the scaffold, and did not have the general procession usually made before exorcisms. The devil became prouder thereupon, insulted the bishop, and laughed at him. On the other hand, the Calvinists having obtained the suppression of the procession, and that she should be put in prison to be more nearly examined, Carlier, a Calvinist doctor, suddenly drew from his pocket something which was averred to be a most violent poison, which he threw into her mouth, and she kept it on her stomach whilst the convulsion lasted, but she threw it up of herself when she came to her senses. All these experiments decided them on recommencing the processions, and the scaffold was replaced. Then the outraged Calvinists conceived the idea of a writing from M. de Montmorency, forbidding the continuation of the exorcisms, and enjoining the king's officers to be vigilant. Thus they abstained a second time from the procession, and again the devil triumphed at it. Nevertheless, he discovered to the bishop the trick of this suppositious writing, named those who had taken part in it, and declared that he had again gained time by this obedience of the bishop to the will of man rather than that of God. Besides that, the devil had already protested publicly that it was against his own will that he remained in the body of this woman; that he had entered there by the order of God; that it was to convert the Calvinists or to harden them, and that he was very unfortunate in being obliged to act and speak against himself. The chapter then represented to the bishop that it would be proper to make the processions and the conjurations twice a-day, to excite still more the devotion of the people. The prelate acquiesced in it, and everything was done with the greatest _éclât_, and in the most orthodox manner. The devil declared again more than once that he had gained time; once because the bishop had not confessed himself; another time because he was not fasting; and lastly, because it was requisite that the chapter and all the dignitaries should be present, as well as the court of justice and the king's officers, in order that there might be sufficient testimony; that he was forced to warn the bishop thus of his duty, and that accursed was the hour when he entered into the body of this person; at the same time, he uttered a thousand imprecations against the church, the bishop, and the clergy. Thus, at the last day of possession, everybody being assembled in the afternoon, the bishop began the last conjurations, when many extraordinary things took place; amongst others, the bishop desiring to put the holy eucharist near the lips of this poor woman, the devil in some way seized hold of his arm, and at the same moment raised this woman up, as it were, out of the hands of sixteen men who were holding her. But at last, after much resistance, he came out, and left her perfectly cured, and thoroughly sensible of the goodness of God. The _Te Deum_ was sung to the sound of all the bells in the town; nothing was heard among the Catholics but acclamations of joy, and many of the Calvinists were converted, whose descendants still dwell in the town. Florimond de Raimond, counselor of the parliament of Bordeaux, had the happiness to be of the number, and has written the history of it. For nine days they made the procession, to return thanks to God; and they founded a perpetual mass, which is celebrated every year on the 8th of February, and they represented this story in _bas-relief_ round the choir, where it may be seen at this day. In short, God, as if to put the finishing stroke to so important a work, permitted that the Prince of Condé, who had just left the Catholic religion, should be misled on this subject by those of his new communion. He sent for the poor woman, and also the Canon d'Espinois, who had never forsaken her during all the time of the exorcisms. He interrogated them separately, and at several different times, and made every effort, not to discover if they had practiced any artifice, but to find out if there was any in the whole affair. He went so far as to offer the canon very high situations if he would change his religion. But what can you obtain in favor of heresy from sensible and upright people, to whom God has thus manifested the power of his church? All the efforts of the prince were useless; the firmness of the canon, and the simplicity of the poor woman, only served to prove to him still more the certainty of the event which displeased him, and he sent them both home. Yet a return of ill-will caused him to have this woman again arrested, and he kept her in one of his prisons until her father and mother having entreated an inquiry into this injustice to King Charles IX., she was set at liberty by order of his majesty.[258] An event of such importance, and so carefully attested, both on the part of the bishop and the chapter, and on that of the magistrates, and even by the violence of the Calvinistic party, ought not to be buried in silence. King Charles IX., on making his entry into Laon some time after, desired to be informed about it by the dean of the cathedral, who had been an ocular witness of the affair. His majesty commanded him to give publicity to the story, and it was then printed, first in French, then in Latin, Spanish, Italian, and German, with the approbation of the Sorbonne, supported by the rescripts of Pope Pius V. and Gregory XIII. his successor. And they made after that a pretty exact abridgment of it, by order of the Bishop of Laon, printed under the title of _Le Triomphe du S. Sacrament sur le Diable_. These are facts which have all the authenticity that can be desired, and such as a man of honor cannot with any good-breeding affect to doubt, since he could not after that consider any facts as certain without being in shameful contradiction with himself.[259] Footnotes: [255] Jean de Lorres, sur l'an 1599. Thuan. Hist. l. xii. [256] Charles IX. died in 1574. [257] This story is taken from a book entitled "Examen et Discussion Critique de l'Histoire des Diables de Loudun, &c., par M. de la Ménardaye." A Paris, chez de Bure l'Ainé, 1749. [258] Trésor et entière Histoire de la Victime du Corps de Dieu, presentée au Pape, au Roi, au Chancelier de France, au Premier Président. A Paris, 4to. chez Chesnau. 1578. [259] This account is one of the many in which the theory of possession was made use of to impugn the Protestant faith. The simplicity and credulity of Calmet are very remarkable.--EDITOR. CHAPTER XXVI. CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT. There was in Lorraine, about the year 1620, a woman, possessed (by the devil), who made a great noise in the country, but whose case is much less known among foreigners. I mean Mademoiselle Elizabeth de Ranfaing, the story of whose possession was written and printed at Nancy, in 1622, by M. Pichard, a doctor of medicine, and physician in ordinary to their highnesses of Lorraine. Mademoiselle de Ranfaing was a very virtuous person, through whose agency God established a kind of order of nuns _of the Refuge_, the principal object of which is to withdraw from profligacy the girls or women who have fallen into libertinism. M. Pichard's work was approved by doctors of theology, and authorized by M. de Porcelets, Bishop of Toul, and in an assembly of learned men whom he sent for to examine the case, and the reality of the possession. It was ardently attacked and loudly denied by a monk of the Minimite order, named Claude Pithoy, who had the temerity to say that he would pray to God to send the devil into himself, in case the woman whom they were exorcising at Nancy was possessed; and again, that God was not God if he did not command the devil to seize his body, if the woman they exorcised at Nancy was really possessed. M. Pichard refutes him fully; but he remarks that persons who are weak minded, or of a dull and melancholy character, heavy, taciturn, stupid, and who are naturally disposed to frighten and disturb themselves, are apt to fancy that they see the devil, that they speak to him, and even that they are possessed by him; above all, if they are in places where others are possessed, whom they see, and with whom they converse. He adds that, thirteen or fourteen years ago, he remarked at Nancy a great number of this kind, and with the help of God he cured them. He says the same thing of atrabilarians, and women who suffer from _furor uterine_, who sometimes do such things and utter such cries, that any one would believe they were possessed. Mademoiselle Ranfaing having become a widow in 1617, was sought in marriage by a physician named Poviot. As she would not listen to his addresses, he first of all gave her philtres to make her love him, which occasioned strange derangements in her health. At last he gave her some magical medicaments (for he was afterwards known to be a magician, and burnt as such by a judicial sentence). The physicians could not relieve her, and were quite at fault with her extraordinary maladies. After having tried all sorts of remedies, they were obliged to have recourse to exorcisms. Now these are the principal symptoms which made it believed that Mademoiselle Ranfaing was really possessed. They began to exorcise her the 2d September, 1619, in the town of Remirémont, whence she was transferred to Nancy; there she was visited and interrogated by several clever physicians, who, after having minutely examined the symptoms of what happened to her, declared that the casualties they had remarked in her had no relation at all with the ordinary course of known maladies, and could only be the result of diabolical possession. After which, by order of M. de Porcelets, Bishop of Toul, they nominated for the exorcists M. Viardin, a doctor of divinity, counselor of state of the Duke of Lorraine, a Jesuit and Capuchin. Almost all the monks in Nancy, the said lord bishop, the Bishop of Tripoli, suffragan of Strasburg, M. de Sancy, formerly ambassador from the most Christian king at Constantinople, and then priest of the _Oratoire_, Charles de Lorraine, Bishop of Verdun; two doctors of the Sorbonne sent on purpose to be present at the exorcisms, often exorcised her in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and she always replied pertinently to them, she who could hardly read Latin. They report the certificate given by M. Nicolas de Harley, very well skilled in the Hebrew tongue, who avowed that Mademoiselle Ranfaing was really possessed, and had answered him from the movement of his lips alone, without his having pronounced any words, and had given several proofs of her possession. The Sieur Garnier, a doctor of the Sorbonne, having also given her several commands in Hebrew, she replied pertinently, but in French, saying that the compact was made that he should speak only in the usual tongue. The demon added, "Is it not enough that I show thee that I understand what thou sayest?" The same M. Garnier, speaking to him in Greek, inadvertently put one case for another; the possessed, or rather the devil, said to him, "_Thou hast committed an error._" The doctor said to him in Greek, "Point out my fault;" the devil replied, "_Let it suffice thee that I point out an error; I shall tell thee no more concerning it._" The doctor telling him in Greek to hold his tongue, he answered, "Thou commandest me to hold my tongue, and I will not do so." M. Midot Ecolâtre de Toul said to him in the same language, "Sit down;" he replied, "I will not sit down." M. Midot said to him moreover in Greek, "Sit down on the ground and obey;" but as the demon was going to throw the possessed by force on the ground, he said to him in the same tongue, "Do it gently;" he did so. He said in Greek, "Put out the right foot;" he extended it; he said also in the same language, "Cause her knees to be cold," the woman replied that she felt them very cold. The Sieur Mince, a doctor of the Sorbonne, holding a cross in his hand, the devil whispered to him in Greek, "Give me the cross," which was heard by some persons who were near him. M. Mince desired to make the devil repeat the same sentence; he answered, "I will not repeat it all in Greek;" but he simply said in French, "Give me," and in Greek, "the cross." The Reverend Father Albert, Capuchin, having ordered him in Greek to make the sign of the cross seven times with his tongue, in honor of the seven joys of the Virgin, he made the sign of the cross three times with his tongue, and then twice with his nose; but the holy man told him anew to make the sign of the cross seven times with his tongue; he did so; and having been commanded in the same language to kiss the feet of the Lord Bishop of Toul, he prostrated himself and kissed his feet. The same father having observed that the demon wished to overturn the _Bénitier_, or basin of holy water which was there, he ordered him to take the holy water and not spill it, and he obeyed. The Father commanded him to give marks of the possession; he answered, "The possession is sufficiently known;" he added in Greek, "I command thee to carry some holy water to the governor of the town." The demon replied, "It is not customary to exorcise in that tongue." The father answered in Latin, "It is not for thee to impose laws on us; but the church has power to command thee in whatever language she may think proper." Then the demon took the basin of holy water and carried it to the keeper of the Capuchins, to the Duke Eric of Lorraine, to the Counts of Brionne, Remonville, la Vaux, and other lords. The physician, M. Pichard, having told him in a sentence, partly Hebrew, and partly Greek, to cure the head and eyes of the possessed woman; hardly had he finished speaking the last words, when the demon replied: "Faith, we are not the cause of it; her brain is naturally moist: that proceeds from her natural constitution;" then M. Pichard said to the assembly, "Take notice, gentlemen, that he replies to Greek and Hebrew at the same time." "Yes," replied the demon, "you discover the pot of roses, and the secret; I will answer you no more." There were several questions and replies in foreign languages, which showed that he understood them very well. M. Viardin having asked him in Latin, "Ubi censebaris quandò mane oriebaris?" He replied, "Between the seraphim." They said to him, "Pro signo exhibe nobis patibulum fratris Cephæ;" the devil extended his arms in the form of a St. Andrew's cross. They said to him, "Applica carpum carpo;" he did so, placing the wrist of one hand over the other; then, "Admove tarsum tarso et metatarsum metatarso;" he crossed his feet and raised them one upon the other. Then afterwards he said, "Excita in calcaneo qualitatem congregantem heterogenea;" the possessed said she felt her heel cold; after which, "Repræsenta nobis labarum Venetorum;" he made the figure of the cross. Afterwards they said, "Exhibe nobis videntum Deum benè precantem nepotibus ex salvatore Egypti;" he crossed his arms as did Jacob on giving his blessing to the sons of Joseph; and then, "Exhibe crucem conterebrantem stipiti," he represented the cross of St. Peter. The exorcist having by mistake said, "Per eum qui adversus te præliavit," the demon did not give him time to correct himself; he said to him, "O the ass! instead of _præliatus est_." He was spoken to in Italian and German, and he always answered accordingly. They said to him one day, "Sume encolpium ejus qui hodiè functus est officio illius de quo cecinit Psaltes: pro patribus tuis nati sunt tibi filii;" he went directly and took the cross hanging round the neck and resting on the breast of the Prince Eric de Lorraine, who that same day had filled the office of bishop in giving orders, because the Bishop of Toul was indisposed. He discovered secret thoughts, and heard words that were said in the ear of some persons which he was not possibly near enough to overhear, and declared that he had known the mental prayer that a good priest had made before the holy sacrament. Here is a trait still more extraordinary. They said to the demon, speaking Latin and Italian in the same sentence: "Adi scholastrum seniorem et osculare ejus pedes, la cui scarpa ha più di sugaro;" that very moment he went and kissed the foot of the Sieur Juillet, ecolâtre of St. George, the Elder of M. Viardin, ecolâtre of the Primitiale. M. Juillet's right foot was shorter than the left, which obliged him to wear a shoe with a cork heel (or raised by a piece of cork, called in Italian _sugaro_). They proposed to him very difficult questions concerning the Trinity, the Incarnation, the holy sacrament of the altar, the grace of God, free will, the manner in which angels and demons know the thoughts of men, &c., and he replied with much clearness and precision. She discovered things unknown to everybody, and revealed to certain persons, but secretly and in private, some sins of which they had been guilty. The demon did not obey the voice only of the exorcists; he obeyed even when they simply moved their lips, or held their hand, or a handkerchief, or a book upon the mouth. A Calvinist having one day mingled secretly in the crowd, the exorcist, who was warned of it, commanded the demon to go and kiss his feet; he went immediately, rushing through the crowd. An Englishman having come from curiosity to the exorcist, the devil told him several particulars relating to his country and religion. He was a Puritan; and the Englishman owned that everything he had said was true. The same Englishman said to him in his language, "As a proof of thy possession, tell me the name of my master who formerly taught me embroidery;" he replied, "William." They commanded him to recite the _Ave Maria_; he said to a Huguenot gentleman who was present, "Do you say it, if you know it; for they don't say it amongst your people." M. Pichard relates several unknown and hidden things which the demon revealed, and that he performed several feats which it is not possible for any person, however agile and supple he may be, to achieve by natural strength or power; such as crawling on the ground without making use of hands or feet, appearing to have the hair standing erect like serpents. After all the details concerning the exorcisms, marks of possession, questions and answers of the possessed, M. Pichard reports the authentic testimony of the theologians, physicians, of the bishops Eric of Lorraine, and Charles of Lorraine, Bishop of Verdun, of several monks of every order, who attest the said possession to be real and veritable; and lastly, a letter from the Rev. Father Cotton, a Jesuit, who certifies the same thing. The said letter bears date the 5th of June, 1621, and is in reply to the one which the Prince Eric of Lorraine had written to him. I have omitted a great many particulars related in the recital of the exorcisms, and the proofs of the possession of Mademoiselle de Ranfaing. I think I have said enough to convince any persons who are sincere and unprejudiced that her possession is as certain as these things can be. The affair occurred at Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, in the presence of a great number of enlightened persons, two of whom were of the house of Lorraine, both bishops, and well informed; in presence and by the orders of my Lord de Porcelets, Bishop of Toul, a most enlightened man, and of distinguished merit; of two doctors of the Sorbonne, called thither expressly to judge of the reality of the possession; in presence of people of the so-called Reformed religion, and much on their guard against things of this kind. It has been seen how far Father Pithoy carried his temerity against the possession in question; he has been reprimanded by his diocesan and his superiors, who have imposed silence on him. Mademoiselle de Ranfaing is known to be personally a woman of extraordinary virtue, prudence, and merit. No reason can be imagined for her feigning a possession which has pained her in a thousand ways. The consequence of this terrible trial has been the establishment of a kind of religious order, from which the church has received much edification, and from which God has providentially derived glory. M. Nicolas de Harlay Sancy and M. Viardin are persons highly to be respected both for their personal merit, their talent, and the high offices they have filled; the first having been French ambassador at Constantinople, and the other resident of the good Duke Henry at the Court of Rome; so that I do not think I could have given an instance more fit to convince you of there being real and veritable possessions than this of Mademoiselle de Ranfaing. I do not relate that of the nuns of Loudun, on which such various opinions have been given, the reality of which was doubted at the very time, and is very problematical to this day. Those who are curious to know the history of that affair will find it very well detailed in a book I have already cited, entitled, "Examen et Discussion Critique de l'Histoire des Diables de Loudun, &c., par M. de la Ménardaye," à Paris, chez de Bure Ainé, 1749. CHAPTER XXVII. OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE OBSESSIONS AND POSSESSIONS OF THE DEMON--REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS. Several objections may be raised against the obsessions and possessions of demons; nothing is subject to greater difficulties than this matter, but Providence constantly and uniformly permits the clearest and most certain truths of religion to remain enveloped in some degree of obscurity; that facts the best averred and the most indubitable should be subject to doubts and contradictions; that the most evident miracles should be disputed by some incredulous persons on account of circumstances which appear to them doubtful and disputable. All religion has its lights and shadows; God has permitted it to be so in order that the just may have somewhat to exercise their faith in believing, and the impious and incredulous persist in their wilful impiety and incredulity. The greatest mysteries of Christianity are to the one subjects of scandal, and to the others means of salvation; the one regarding the mystery of the cross as folly, and the others as the work of sublimest wisdom, and of the most admirable power of God. Pharaoh hardened his heart when he saw the wonders wrought by Moses; but the magicians of Egypt were at last obliged to recognize in them the hand of God. The Hebrews on sight of these wonders take confidence in Moses and Aaron, and yield themselves to their guidance, without fearing the dangers to which they may be exposed. We have already remarked that the demon often seems to act against his own interest, and destroy his own empire, by saying that everything which is related of the return of spirits, the obsessions and possessions of the demon, of spells, magic, and sorcery, are only tales wherewith to frighten children; that they all have no existence except in weak and prejudiced minds. How can it serve the demon to maintain this, and destroy the general opinion of nations on all these things? If in all there is only falsehood and illusion, what does he gain by undeceiving people? and if there is any truth in them, why decry his own work, and take away the credit of his subordinates and his own operations? Jesus Christ in the Gospel refutes those who said that he expelled devils in the name of Beelzebub;[260] he maintains that the accusation is unfounded, because it was incredible that Satan should destroy his own work and his own empire. The reasoning is doubtless solid and conclusive, above all to the Jews, who thought that Jesus Christ did not differ from other exorcists who expelled demons, unless it was that he commanded the prince of devils, while the others commanded only the subaltern demons. Now, on this supposition, the prince of the demons could not expel his subalterns without destroying his own empire, without decrying himself, and without ruining the reputation of those who only acted by his orders. It may be objected to this argument, that Jesus Christ supposed, as did the Jews, that the demons whom he expelled really possessed those whom he cured, in whatever manner he might cure them; and consequently that the empire of the demons subsisted, both in Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, and in the other demons who were subordinate to him, and who obeyed his orders; thus, his empire was not entirely destroyed, supposing that Jesus Christ expelled them in the name of Beelzebub; that subordination, on the contrary, supposed that power or empire of the prince of the demons, and strengthened it. But Jesus Christ not only expelled demons by his own authority, without ever making mention of Beelzebub; he expelled them in spite of themselves, and sometimes they loudly complained that he was come to torment them before the time.[261] There was neither collusion between him and them, nor subordination similar to that which might be supposed to exist between Beelzebub and the other demons. The Lord pursued them, not only in expelling them from bodies, but also in overthrowing their bad maxims, by establishing doctrines and maxims quite contrary to their own; he made war upon every vice, error, and falsehood; he attacked the demon face to face, everywhere, unflinchingly; thus, it cannot be said that he spared him, or was in collusion with him. If the devil will sometimes pass off as chimeras and illusions all that is said of apparitions, obsessions and possessions, magic and sorcery; and if he appears so absolutely to overthrow his reign, even so far as to deny the most marked and palpable effects of his own power and presence, and impute them to the weakness of mind of men and their foolish prejudices; in all this he can only gain advantage for himself: for, if he can persuade people of the truth of what he advances, his power will only be more solidly confirmed by it, since it will no longer be attacked, and he will be left to enjoy his conquests in peace, and the ecclesiastical and secular powers interested in repressing the effects of his malice and cruelty will no longer take the trouble to make war upon him, and caution or put the nations on their guard against his stratagems and ambuscades. It will close the mouth of parliaments, and stay the hand of judges and powers; and the simple people will become the sport of the demon, who will not cease continuing to tempt, persecute, corrupt, deceive, and cause the perdition of those who shall no longer mistrust his snares and his malice. The world will relapse into the same state as when under paganism, given up to error, to the most shameful passions, and will even deny or doubt those truths which shall be the best attested, and the most necessary to our salvation. Moses in the Old Testament well foresaw that the evil spirit would set every spring to work, to lead the Israelites into error and unruly conduct; he foresaw that in the midst of the chosen people he would instigate seducers, who would predict to them the hidden future, which predictions would come true and be followed up. He always forbids their listening to any prophet or diviners who wished to mislead them to impiety or idolatry. Tertullian, speaking of the delusions performed by demons, and the foresight they have of certain events, says,[262] that being spiritual in their nature, they find themselves in a moment in any place they may wish, and announce at a distance what they have seen and heard. All this is attributed to the Divinity, because neither the cause nor the manner is known; often, also, they boast of causing events, which they do but announce; and it is true that often they are themselves the authors of the evils they predict, but never of any good. Sometimes they make use of the knowledge they have derived from the predictions of the prophets respecting the designs of God, and they utter them as coming from themselves. As they are spread abroad in the air, they see in the clouds what must happen, and thus foretell the rain which they were aware of before it had been felt upon earth. As to maladies, if they cure them, it is because they have occasioned them; they prescribe remedies which produce effect, and it is believed that they have cured maladies simply because they have not continued them. _Quia desinunt lædere, curasse credentur._ The demon can then foresee the future and what is hidden, and discover them by means of his votaries; he can also doubtlessly do wonderful things which surpass the usual and known powers of nature; but it is never done except to deceive us, and lead us into disorder and impiety. And even should he wear the semblance of leading to virtue and practising those things which are praiseworthy and useful to salvation, it would only be to win the confidence of such as would listen to his suggestions, to make them afterward fall into misfortune, and engage them in some sin of presumption or vanity: for as he is a spirit of malice and lies, it little imports to him by what means he surprises us, and establishes his reign among us. But he is very far from always foreseeing the future, or succeeding always in misleading us; God has set bounds to his malice. He often deceives himself, and often makes use of disguise and perversion, that he may not appear to be ignorant of what he is ignorant of, or he will appear unwilling to do what God will not allow him to do; his power is always bounded, and his knowledge limited. Often, also, he will mislead and deceive through malice, because he is the father of falsehood. He deceives men, and rejoices when he sees them doing wrong; but not to lose his credit amongst those who consult him directly or indirectly, he lays the fault on those who undertake to interpret his words, or the equivocal signs which he has given. For instance, if he is consulted whether to begin an enterprise, or give battle, or set off on a journey, if the thing succeeds, he takes all the glory and merit to himself; if it does not succeed, he imputes it to the men who have not well understood the sense of his oracle, or to the aruspices, who have made mistakes in consulting the entrails of the immolated animals, or the flight of birds, &c. We must not, then, be surprised to find so many contradictions, doubts, and difficulties, in the matter of apparitions, angels, demons, and spirits. Man naturally loves to distinguish himself from the common herd, and rise above the opinions of the people; it is a sort of fashion not to suffer one's self to be drawn along by the torrent, and to desire to sound and examine everything. We know that there is an infinity of prejudices, errors, vulgar opinions, false miracles, illusions, and seductions in the world; we know that many things are attributed to the devil which are purely natural, or that a thousand apocryphal stories are related. It is then right to hold one's self on one's guard, in order not to be deceived. It is very important for religion to distinguish between true and false miracles, certain or uncertain events, and works wrought by the hand of God, from those which are the work of the seducing spirit. In all that he does, the demon mixes up a great many illusions amid some truths, in order that the difficulty of discerning the true from the false may make mankind take the side which pleases them most, and that the incredulous may always have some points to maintain them in their incredulity. Although the apparitions of spirits, angels, and demons, and their operations, may not, perhaps, always be miraculous, nevertheless, as the greater part appear above the common course of nature, many of the persons of whom we have just spoken, without giving themselves the trouble to examine the things, and seek for the causes of them, the authors, and the circumstances, boldly take upon themselves to deny them all. It is the shortest way, but neither the most sensible nor the most rational; for in what is said on this subject, there are effects which can be reasonably attributed to the Almighty power of God alone, who acts immediately, or makes secondary causes act to his glory, for the advancement of religion, and the manifestation of the truth; and other effects there are, which bear visibly the character of illusion, impiety, and seduction, and in which it would seem that, instead of the finger of God, we can observe only the marks of the spirit of deceit and falsehood. Footnotes: [260] Matt. xii. 24-27. Luke xi. 15-18. [261] Matt. viii. 29. [262] Tertullian does not say so much in the passage cited; on the contrary, he affirms that we are ignorant of their nature: _substantia ignoratur_. CHAPTER XXVIII. CONTINUATION OF OBJECTIONS AGAINST POSSESSIONS, AND SOME REPLIES TO THOSE OBJECTIONS. We read in works, published and printed, composed by Catholic authors of our days,[263] that it is proved by reason, that possessions of the demon are naturally impossible, and that it is not true, in regard to ourselves and our ideas, that the demon can have any natural power over the corporeal world; that as soon as we admit in the created wills a power to act upon bodies, and to move them, it is impossible to set bounds to it, and that this power is truly infinite. They maintain that the demon can act upon our souls simply by means of suggestion; that it is impossible the demon should be the physical cause of the least external effect; that all the Scripture tells us of the snares and stratagems of Satan signifies nothing more than the temptations of the flesh and concupiscence; and that to seduce us, the demon requires only mental suggestions. His is a moral, not a physical power; in a word, _that the demon can do neither good nor harm; that his might is nought_; that we do not know if God has given to any other spirit than the soul of man the power to move the body; that, on the contrary, we ought to presume that the wisdom of God has willed that pure spirits should have no commerce with the body; they maintain moreover that the pagans never knew what we call bad angels and demons. All these propositions are certainly contrary to Scripture, to the opinions of the Fathers, and to the tradition of the Catholic Church. But these gentlemen do not trouble themselves about that; they affirm that the sacred writers have often expressed themselves according to the opinions of their time, whether because the necessity of making themselves understood forced them to conform to it, or that they themselves had adopted those opinions. There is, say they, more likelihood that several infirmities which the Scripture has ascribed to the demon had simply a natural cause; that in these places the sacred authors have spoken according to vulgar opinions; the error of this language is of no importance. The prophets of Saul, and Saul himself, were never what are properly termed Prophets; they might be attacked with those (fits) which the pagans call _sacred_. You must be asleep when you read, not to see that the temptation of Eve is only an allegory. It is the same with the permission given by God to Satan to tempt Job. Why wish to explain the whole book of Job literally, and as a true history, since its beginning is only a fiction? It is anything but certain that Jesus Christ was transported by the demon to the highest pinnacle of the temple. The Fathers were prepossessed on one side by the reigning ideas of the philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato on the influences of mean intelligences, and on the other hand by the language of the holy books, which to conform to popular opinions often ascribed to the demon effects which were purely natural. We must then return to the doctrine of reason to decide on the submission which we ought to pay to the authority of the Scriptures and the Fathers concerning the power of the demons. The uniform method of the Holy Fathers in the interpretations of the Old Testament is human opinion, whence one can appeal to the tribunal of reason. They go so far as to say that the sacred authors were informed of the Metempsychosis, as the author of the Book of Wisdom, chap. viii. 19, 20: "I was an innocent child, and I received a good spirit; and as I was already good, I entered into an uncorrupted body." Persons of this temper will certainly not read this work of ours, or, if they do read it, it will be with contempt or pity. I do not think it necessary to refute those paradoxes here; the Bishop of Senez has done it with his usual erudition and zeal, in a long letter printed at Utrecht in 1736. I do not deny that the sacred writers may sometimes have spoken in a popular manner, and in accordance with the prejudice of the people. But it is carrying things too far to reduce the power of the demon to being able to act upon us only by means of suggestion; and it is a presumption unworthy of a philosopher to decide on the power of spirits over bodies, having no knowledge, either by revelation or by reason, of the extent of the power of angels and demons over matter and human bodies. We may exceed due measure by granting them excessive power, as well as in not according them enough. But it is of infinite importance to Religion to discern justly between what is natural, or supernatural, in the operations of angels and demons, that the simple may not be left in error, nor the wicked triumph over the truth, and make a bad use of their own wit and knowledge, to render doubtful what is certain, and deceiving both themselves and others by ascribing to chance or illusion of the senses, or a vain prepossession of the mind, what is said of the apparitions of angels, demons, and deceased persons; since it is certain that several of these apparitions are quite true, although there may be a great number of others that are very uncertain, and even manifestly false. I shall therefore make no difficulty in owning that even miracles, at least things that appear such, the prediction of future events, movements of the body which appear beyond the usual powers of nature, to speak and understand foreign languages unknown before, to penetrate the thoughts, discover concealed things, to be raised up, and transported in a moment from one place to another, to announce truths, lead a good life externally, preach Jesus Christ, decry magic and sorcery, make an outward profession of virtue; I readily own that all these things may not prove invincibly that all who perform them are sent by God, or that these operations are real miracles; yet we cannot reasonably suppose the demon to be mixed up in them by God's permission, or that the demons or the angels do not act upon those persons who perform prodigies, and foretell things to come, or who can penetrate the thoughts of the heart, or that God himself does not produce these effects by the immediate action of his justice or his might. The examples which have been cited, or which may be cited hereafter, will never prove that man can of himself penetrate the sentiments of another, or discover his secret thoughts. The wonders worked by the magicians of Pharaoh were only illusion; they appeared, however, to be true miracles, and passed for such in the eyes of the King of Egypt and all his court. Balaam, the son of Beor, was a true Prophet, although a man whose morals were very corrupt. Pomponatius writes that the wife of Francis Maigret, savetier of Mantua, spoke divers languages, and was cured by Calderon, a physician, famous in his time, who gave her a potion of Hellebore. Erasmus says also[264] that he had seen an Italian, a native of Spoletta, who spoke German very well, although he had never been in Germany; they gave him a medicine which caused him to eject a quantity of worms, and he was cured so as not to speak German any more. Le Loyer, in his _Book of Spectres_,[265] avows that all those things appear to him much to be doubted. He rather believes Fernel, one of the gravest physicians of his age, who maintains[266] that there is not such power in medicine, and brings forward as an instance the history of a young gentleman, the son of a Knight of the Order, who being seized upon by the demon, could be cured neither by potions, by medicines, nor by diet (_i. e._ fasting), but who was cured by the conjurations and exorcisms of the church. As to the reality of the return of souls, or spirits, and their apparitions, the Sorbonne, the most celebrated school of theology in France, has always believed that the spirits of the defunct returned sometimes, either by the order and power of God, or by his permission. The Sorbonne confessed this in its decisions of the year 1518, and still more positively the 23d of January, 1724. _Nos respondemus vestræ petitioni animas defunctorum divinitus, seu divinâ virtute, ordinatione aut permissione interdum ad vivas redire exploratum esse._ Several jurisconsults and several sovereign companies have decreed that the apparition of a deceased person in a house could suffice to break up the lease. We may count it for much, to have proved to certain persons that there is a God whose providence extends over all things past, present, and to come; that there is another life, that there are good and bad spirits, rewards for good works, and punishments after this life for sins; that Jesus Christ has ruined the power of Satan; that he exercised in himself, in his apostles, and continues to exercise in the ministers of his church, an absolute empire over the infernal powers; that the devil is now chained; he may bark and threaten, but he can bite only those who approach him, and voluntarily give themselves up to him. We have seen in these parts a woman who followed a band of mountebanks and jugglers, who stretched out her legs in such an extraordinary manner, and raised up her feet to her head, before and behind, with as much suppleness as if she had neither nerves nor joints. There was nothing supernatural in all that; she had exercised herself from extreme youth in these movements, and had contracted the habit of performing them. St. Augustine[267] speaks of a soothsayer whom he had known at Carthage, an illiterate man, who could discover the secrets of the heart, and replied to those who consulted him on secret and unknown affairs. He had himself made an experiment on him, and took to witness St. Alypius, Licentius, and Trygnius, his interlocutors, in his dialogue against the Academicians. They, like him, had consulted Albicerius, and had admired the certainty of his replies. He gives us an instance--a spoon which had been lost. They told him that some one had lost something; and he instantly, without hesitation, replied that such a thing was lost, that such a one had taken it, and had hid it in such a place, which was found to be quite true. They sent him a certain quantity of pieces of silver; he who was charged to carry them had taken away some of them. He made the person return them, and perceived the theft before the money had been shown to him. St. Augustine was present. A learned and distinguished man, named Flaccianus, wishing to buy a field, consulted the soothsayer, who declared to him the name of the land, which was very extraordinary, and gave him all the details of the affair in question. A young student, wishing to prove Albicerius, begged of him to declare to him what he was thinking of; he told him he was thinking of a verse of Virgil; and, as he then asked him which verse it was, the diviner repeated it instantly, though he had never studied the Latin language. This Albicerius was a scoundrel, as St. Augustine says, who calls him _flagitiosum hominem_. The knowledge which he had of hidden things was not, doubtless, a gift of heaven, any more than the Pythonic spirit which animated that maid in the Acts of the Apostles whom St. Paul obliged to keep silence.[268] It was then the work of the evil spirit. The gift of tongues, the knowledge of the future, and power to divine the thoughts of others, are always adduced, and with reason, as solid proofs of the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; but if the demon can sometimes perform the same things, he does it to mislead and induce sin, or simply to render true prophecies doubtful; but never to lead to truth, the fear and love of God, and the edification of those around. God may allow such corrupt men as Balaam, and such rascals as Albicerius, to have some knowledge of the future, and secret things, and even of the hidden thoughts of men; but he never permits their criminality to remain unrevealed to the end, and so become a stumbling-block for simple or worthy people. The malice of these hypocritical and corrupt men will be made manifest sooner or later by some means; their malice and depravity will be found out, by which it will be judged, either that they are inspired only by the evil spirit, or that the Holy Spirit makes use of their agency to foretell some truth, as he prophesied by Balaam, and by Caïphas. Their morals and their conduct will throw discredit on them, and oblige us to be careful in discerning between their true predictions and their bad example. We have seen hypocrites who died with the reputation of being worthy people, and who at bottom were scoundrels--as for instance, that curé, the director of the nuns of Louviers, whose possession was so much talked of. Jesus Christ, in the Gospel, tells us to be on our guard against wolves in sheep's clothing; and, elsewhere, he tells us that there will be false Christs and false prophets, who will prophesy in his name, and perform wonders capable of deceiving the very elect themselves, were it possible. But he refers us to their works to distinguish them. To apply all these things to the possessed nuns of Loudun, and to Mademoiselle de Ranfaing, even to that girl whose hypocrisy was unmasked by Mademoiselle Acarie, I appeal to their works, and their conduct both before and after. * * * * * God will not allow those who sincerely seek the truth to be deceived. A juggler will guess which card you have touched, or even simply thought of; but it is known that there is nothing supernatural in that, and that it is done by the combination of the cards according to mathematical rules. We have seen a deaf man who understood what they wished to say to him by simply observing the motion of the lips of those who spoke. There is nothing more miraculous in this than in two persons conversing together by signs upon which they have agreed. Footnotes: [263] See the letter of the Bishop of Senez, printed at Utrecht, in 1736, and the works that he therein cites and refutes. [264] Erasm. Orat. de laudibus Medicinæ. [265] Le Loyer, lib. de Spec. cap. ii. p. 288. [266] Fernel, de abditis Rerum Causis, lib. ii. c. 26. [267] August. contra Academic. lib. ii. art. 17, 18. [268] Acts xvi. 16. CHAPTER XXIX. OF FAMILIAR SPIRITS. If all that is related of spirits which are perceived in houses, in the cavities of mountains, and in mines, is certain, we cannot disavow that they also must be placed in the rank of apparitions of the evil spirit; for, although they usually do neither wrong nor violence to any one, unless they are irritated or receive abusive words; nevertheless we do not read that they lead to the love or fear of God, to prayer, piety, or acts of devotion; it is known, on the contrary, that they show a distaste to those things, so that we shall place them in earnest among the spirits of darkness. I do not find that the ancient Hebrews knew anything of what we call _esprits follets_, or familiar spirits, which infest houses, or attach themselves to certain persons, to serve them, watch over and warn them, and guard them from danger; such as the demon of Socrates, who warned him to avoid certain misfortunes. Some other examples are also related of persons who said they had similar genii attached to their persons. The Jews and Christians confess that every one of us has his good angel, who guides him from his early youth.[269] Several of the ancients have thought that we have also our evil angel, who leads us into error. The Psalmist[270] says distinctly that God has commanded his angels to guide us in all our ways. But this is not what we understand here under the name of _esprits follets_. The prophets in some places speak of _fauns_, or _hairy men_, or _satyrs_, who have some resemblance to our elves. Isaiah,[271] speaking of the state to which Babylon shall be reduced after her destruction, says that the ostriches shall make it their dwelling, and that the hairy men, _pilosi_, the satyrs, and goats, shall dance there. And elsewhere the same prophet says,[272] _Occurrent dæmonia onocentauris et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum_, by which clever interpreters understand spectres which appear in the shape of goats. Jeremiah calls them _fauns_--the dragons with the fauns, which feed upon figs. But this is not the place for us to go more fully into the signification of the terms of the original; it suffices for us to show that in the Scripture, at least in the Vulgate, are found the names of _lamiæ_, _fauns_, and _satyrs_, which have some resemblance to _esprits follets_. Cassian,[273] who had studied deeply the lives of the fathers of the desert, and who had been much with the hermits or anchorites of Egypt, speaking of divers sorts of demons, mentions some which they commonly called _fauns_ or _satyrs_, which the pagans regard as kinds of divinities of the fields or groves, who delighted, not so much in tormenting or doing harm to mankind, as in deceiving and fatiguing them, diverting themselves at their expense, and sporting with their simplicity.[274] Pliny[275] the younger had a freed-man named Marcus, a man of letters, who slept in the same bed with his brother, who was younger than himself. It seemed to him that he saw a person sitting on the same bed, who was cutting off his hair from the crown of his head. When he awoke, he found his head shorn of hair, and his hair thrown on the ground in the middle of the chamber. A little time after, the same thing happened to a youth who slept with several others at a school. This one saw two men dressed in white come in at the window, who cut off his hair as he slept, and then went out by the same window: on awaking, he found his hair scattered about on the floor. To what can these things be attributed, if not to an elf? Plotinus,[276] a Platonic philosopher, had, it is said, a familiar demon, who obeyed him from the moment he called him, and was superior in his nature to the common genii; he was of the order of gods, and Plotinus paid continual attention to this divine guardian. This it was which led him to undertake a work on the demon which belongs to each of us in particular. He endeavors to explain the difference between the genii which watch over men. Trithemius, in his Chronicon Hirsauginse,[277] under the year 1130, relates that in the diocese of Hildesheim, in Saxony, they saw for some time a spirit which they called in German _heidekind_, as if they would say _rural genius_, _heide_ signifying vast country, _kind_, child (or boy). He appeared sometimes in one form, sometimes in another; and sometimes, without appearing at all, he did several things by which he proved both his presence and his power. He chose sometimes to give very important advice to those in power; and often he has been seen in the bishop's kitchen, helping the cooks and doing sundry jobs. A young scullion, who had grown familiar with him, having offered him some insults, he warned the head cook of it, who made light of it, or thought nothing about it; but the spirit avenged himself cruelly. This youth having fallen asleep in the kitchen, the spirit stifled him, tore him to pieces, and roasted him. He carried his fury still further against the officers of the kitchen, and the other officers of the prince. The thing went on to such a point that they were obliged to proceed against him by (ecclesiastical) censures, and to constrain him by exorcisms to go out of the country. I think I may put amongst the number of elves the spirits which are seen, they say, in mines and mountain caves. They appear clad like the miners, run here and there, appear in haste as if to work and seek the veins of mineral ore, lay it in heaps, draw it out, turning the wheel of the crane; they seem to be very busy helping the workmen, and at the same time they do nothing at all. These spirits are not mischievous, unless they are insulted and laughed at; for then they fall into an ill humor, and throw things at those who offend them. One of these genii, who had been addressed in injurious terms by a miner, twisted his neck and placed his head the hind part before. The miner did not die, but remained all his life with his neck twisted and awry. George Agricola,[278] who has treated very learnedly on mines, metals, and the manner of extracting them from the bowels of the earth, mentions two or three sorts of spirits which appear in mines. Some are very small, and resemble dwarfs or pygmies; the others are like old men dressed like miners, having their shirts tucked up, and a leathern apron round their loins; others perform, or seem to perform, what they see others do, are very gay, do no harm to any one, but from all their labors nothing real results. In other mines are seen dangerous spirits, who ill-use the workmen, hunt them away, and sometimes kill them, and thus constrain them to forsake mines which are very rich and abundant. For instance, at Anneberg, in a mine called Crown of Rose, a spirit in the shape of a spirited, snorting horse, killed twelve miners, and obliged those who worked the mine to abandon the undertaking, though it brought them in a great deal. In another mine, called St. Gregory, in Siveberg, there appeared a spirit whose head was covered with a black hood, and he seized a miner, raised him up to a considerable height, then let him fall, and hurt him extremely. Olaus Magnus[279] says that, in Sweden and other northern countries, they saw formerly familiar spirits, which, under the form of men or women, waited on certain persons. He speaks of certain nymphs dwelling in caverns and in the depths of the forest, who announce things to come; some are good, others bad; they appear and speak to those who consult them. Travelers and shepherds also often see during the night divers phantoms which burn the spot where they appear, so that henceforward neither grass nor verdure are seen there. He says that the people of Finland, before their conversion to Christianity, sold the winds to sailors, giving them a string with three knots, and warning them that by untying the first knot they would have a gentle and favorable wind, at the second knot a stronger wind, and at the third knot a violent and dangerous gale. He says, moreover, that the Bothnians, striking on an anvil hard blows with a hammer, upon a frog or a serpent of brass, fall down in a swoon, and during this swoon they learn what passes in very distant places. But all those things have more relation to magic than to familiar spirits; and if what is said about them be true, it must be ascribed to the evil spirit. The same Olaus Magnus[280] says that in mines, above all in silver mines, from which great profit may be expected, six sorts of demons may be seen, who under divers forms labor at breaking the rocks, drawing the buckets, and turning the wheels; who sometimes burst into laughter, and play different tricks; all of which are merely to deceive the miners, whom they crush under the rocks, or expose to the most imminent dangers, to make them utter blasphemy, and swear and curse. Several very rich mines have been obliged to be disused through fear of these dangerous spirits. Notwithstanding all that we have just related, I doubt very much if there are any spirits in mountain caves or in mines. I have interrogated on the subject people of the trade and miners by profession, of whom there is a great number in our mountains, the Vosges, who have assured me that all which is related on that point is fabulous; that if sometimes they see these elves or grotesque figures, it must be attributed to a heated and prepossessed imagination; or else that the circumstance is so rare that it ought not to be repeated as something usual or common. A new "Traveler in the Northern Countries," printed at Amsterdam, in 1708, says that the people of Iceland are almost all conjurers or sorcerers; that they have familiar demons, whom they call _troles_, who wait upon them as servants, and warn them of the accidents or illnesses which are to happen to them; they awake them to go a-fishing when the season is favorable, and if they go for that purpose without the advice of these genii, they do not succeed. There are some persons among these people who evoke the dead, and make them appear to those who wish to consult them: they also conjure up the appearance of the absent far from the spot where they dwell. Father Vadingue relates, after an old manuscript legend, that a lady named Lupa had had during thirteen years a familiar demon, who served her as a waiting-woman, and led her into many secret irregularities, and induced her to treat her servants with inhumanity. God gave her grace to see her fault, and to do penance for it, by the intercession of St. François d'Assise and St. Anthony of Padua, to whom she had always felt particular devotion. Cardan speaks of a bearded demon of Niphus, who gave him lessons of philosophy. Agrippa had a demon who waited upon him in the shape of a dog. This dog, says Paulus Jovius, seeing his master about to expire, threw himself into the Rhone. Much is said of certain spirits[281] which are kept confined in rings, that are bought, sold, or exchanged. They speak also of a crystal ring, in which the demon represented the objects desired to be seen. Some also speak highly of those enchanted mirrors,[282] in which children see the face of a robber who is sought for; others will see it in their nails; all which can only be diabolical illusions. Le Loyer relates[283] that when he was studying the law at Thoulouse, he was lodged near a house where an elf never ceased all the night to draw water from the well, making the pulley creak all the while; at other times, he seemed to drag something heavy up the stairs; but he very rarely entered the rooms, and then he made but little noise. Footnotes: [269] Matt. xviii. 10. [270] Psalm xc. 11. [271] Isai. xiii. 22. Pilosi saltabunt ibi. [272] Isai. xxxiv. 15. [273] Cassian, Collat. vii. c. 23. [274] "Quos seductores et joculatores esse manifestum est, cùm nequaquam tormentis eorum, quos prætereuntes potuerint decipere, oblectentur, sed de risu tantum modò et illusione contenti, fatigare potiùs, studeant, quám nocere." [275] Plin. i. 7. Epist. 27, suiv. [276] Life of Plotin. art. x. [277] Chron. Hirsaug. ad ann. 1130. [278] Geo. Agricola, de Mineral. Subterran. p. 504. [279] Olaus Mag. lib. iii. Hist. 5, 9-14. [280] Olaus Mag. lib. vi. c. 9. [281] Le Loyer, p. 474. [282] Ibid. liv. ii. p. 258. [283] Ibid, p. 550. CHAPTER XXX. SOME OTHER EXAMPLES OF ELVES. On the 25th of August, 1746, I received a letter from a very worthy man, the curé of the parish of Walsche, a village situated in the mountains of Vosges, in the county of Dabo, or Dasburg, in Lower Alsatia, Diocese of Metz. In this letter, he tells me that the 10th of June, 1740, at eight o'clock in the morning, he being in his kitchen, with his niece and the servant, he saw on a sudden an iron pot that was placed on the ground turn round three or four times, without its being set in motion by any one. A moment after, a stone, weighing about a pound, was thrown from the next room into the same kitchen, in presence of the same persons, without their seeing the hand which threw it. The next day, at nine o'clock in the morning, some panes of glass were broken, and through these panes were thrown some stones, with what appeared to them supernatural dexterity. The spirit never hurt anybody, and never did anything in the night time, but always during the day. The curé employed the prayers marked out in the ritual to bless his house, and thenceforth the genius broke no more panes of glass; but he continued to throw stones at the curé's people, without hurting them, however. If they fetched water from the fountain, he threw stones into the bucket; and afterwards he began to serve in the kitchen. One day, as the servant was planting some cabbages in the garden, he pulled them up as fast as she planted them, and laid them in a heap. It was in vain that she stormed, threatened, and swore in the German style; the genius continued to play his tricks. One day, when a bed in the garden had been dug and prepared, the spade was found thrust two feet deep into the ground, without any trace being seen of him who had thus stuck it in; but they observed that on the spade was a riband, and by the spade were two pieces of two soles, which the girl had locked up the evening before in a little box. Sometimes he took pleasure in displacing the earthenware and pewter, and putting it either all round the kitchen, or in the porch, or even in the cemetery, and always in broad daylight. One day he filled an iron pot with wild herbs, bran, and leaves of trees, and, having put some water in it, carried it to the ally or walk in the garden; another time he suspended it to the pot-hook over the fire. The servant having broken two eggs into a little dish for the curé's supper, the genius broke two more into it in his presence, the maid having merely turned to get some salt. The curé having gone to say mass, on his return found all his earthenware, furniture, linen, bread, milk, and other things scattered about over the house. Sometimes the spirit would form circles on the paved floor, at one time with stones, at another with corn or leaves, and in a moment, before the eyes of all present, all was overturned and deranged. Tired with these games, the curé sent for the mayor of the place, and told him he was resolved to quit the parsonage house. Whilst this was passing, the curé's niece came in, and told them that the genius had torn up the cabbages in the garden, and had put some money in a hole in the ground. They went there, and found things exactly as she had said. They picked up the money, which what the curé had put away in a place not locked up; and in a moment after they found it anew, with some liards, two by two, scattered about the kitchen. The agents of the Count de Linange being arrived at Walsche, went to the curé's house, and persuaded him that it was all the effect of a spell; they told him to take two pistols, and fire them off at the place where he might observe there were any movements. The genius at the same moment threw out of the pocket of one of these officers two pieces of silver; and from that time he was no longer perceived in the house. The circumstances of two pistols terminating the scenes with which the elf had disturbed the good curé, made him believe that this tormenting imp was no other than a certain bad parishioner, whom the curé had been obliged to send away from his parish, and who to revenge himself had done all that we have related. If that be the case, he had rendered himself invisible, or he had had credit enough to send in his stead a familiar genius who puzzled the curé for some weeks; for, if he were not bodily in this house, what had he to fear from any pistol shot which might have been fired at him? And if he was there bodily, how could he render himself invisible? I have been told several times that a monk of the Cistercian order had a familiar genius who attended upon him, arranged his chamber, and prepared everything ready for him when he was coming back from the country. They were so accustomed to this, that they expected him home by these signs, and he always arrived. It is affirmed of another monk of the same order that he had a familiar spirit, who warned him, not only of what passed in the house, but also of what happened out of it; and one day he was awakened three times, and warned that some monks were quarreling, and were ready to come to blows; he ran to the spot, and put an end to the dispute. St. Sulpicius Severus[284] relates that St. Martin often had conversations with the Holy Virgin, and other saints, and even with the demons and false gods of paganism; he talked with them, and learned from them many secret things. One day, when a council was being held at Nîmes, where he had not thought proper to be present, but the decisions of which he desired to know, being in a boat with St. Sulpicius, but apart from others, as usual with him, an angel appeared, and informed him what had passed in this assembly of bishops. Inquiry was made as to the day and hour when the council was held, and it was found to be at the same hour at which the angel had appeared to Martin. We have been told several times that a young ecclesiastic, in a seminary at Paris, had a genius who waited upon him, and arranged his room and his clothes. One day, when the superior was passing by the chamber of the seminarist, he heard him talking with some one; he entered, and asked who he was conversing with. The youth affirmed that there was no one in his room, and, in fact, the superior could neither see nor discover any one there. Nevertheless, as he had heard their conversation, the young man owned that for some years he had been attended by a familiar genius, who rendered him every service that a domestic could have done, and had promised him great advantages in the ecclesiastical profession. The superior pressed him to give some proofs of what he said. He ordered the genius to set a chair for the superior; the genius obeyed. Information of this was sent to the archbishop, who did not think proper to give it publicity. The young clerk was sent away, and this singular adventure was buried in silence. Bodin[285] speaks of a person of his acquaintance who was still living at the time he wrote, which was in 1588. This person had a familiar who from the age of thirty-seven had given him good advice respecting his conduct, sometimes to correct his faults, sometimes to make him practice virtue, or to assist him; resolving the difficulties which he might find in reading holy books, or giving him good counsel upon his own affairs. He usually rapped at his door at three or four o'clock in the morning to awaken him; and as that person mistrusted all these things, fearing that it might be an evil angel, the spirit showed himself in broad day, striking gently on a glass bowl, and then upon a bench. When he desired to do anything good and useful, the spirit touched his right ear; but if it was anything wrong and dangerous, he touched his left ear; so that from that time nothing occurred to him of which he was not warned beforehand. Sometimes he heard his voice; and one day, when he found his life in imminent danger, he saw his genius, under the form of a child of extraordinary beauty, who saved him from it. William, Bishop of Paris,[286] says that he knew a rope-dancer who had a familiar spirit which played and joked with him, and prevented him from sleeping, throwing something against the wall, dragging off the bed-clothes, or pulling him about when he was in bed. We know by the account of a very sensible person that it has happened to him in the open country, and in the day time, to feel his cloak and boots pulled at, and his hat thrown down; then he heard the bursts of laughter and the voice of a person deceased and well known to him, who seemed to rejoice at it. The discovery of things hidden or unknown, which is made in dreams, or otherwise, can hardly be ascribed to anything but to familiar spirits. A man who did not know a word of Greek came to M. de Saumaise, senior, a counselor of the Parliament of Dijon, and showed him these words, which he had heard in the night, as he slept, and which he wrote down in French characters on awaking: "_Apithi ouc osphraine tén sén apsychian_." He asked him what that meant. M. de Saumaise told him it meant, "Save yourself; do you not perceive the death with which you are threatened?" Upon this hint, the man removed, and left his house, which fell down the following night.[287] The same story is related, with a little difference, by another author, who says that the circumstance happened at Paris;[288] that the genius spoke in Syriac, and that M. de Saumaise being consulted, replied, "Go out of your house, for it will fall in ruins to-day, at nine o'clock in the evening." It is but too much the custom in reciting stories of this kind to add a few circumstances by way of embellishment. Gassendi, in the Life of M. Peiresch, relates that M. Peiresch, going one day to Nismes, with one of his friends, named M. Rainier, the latter, having heard Peiresch talking in his sleep in the night, waked him, and asked him what he said. Peiresch answered him, "I dreamed that, being at Nismes, a jeweler had offered me a medal of Julius Cæsar, for which he asked four crowns, and as I was going to count him down his money, you waked me, to my great regret." They arrived at Nismes, and going about the town, Peiresch recognized the goldsmith whom he had seen in his dream; and on his asking him if he had nothing curious, the goldsmith told him he had a gold medal, or coin, of Julius Cæsar. Peiresch asked him how much he esteemed it worth; he replied, four crowns. Peiresch paid them, and was delighted to see his dream so happily accomplished. Here is a dream much more singular than the preceding, although a little in the same style.[289] A learned man of Dijon, after having wearied himself all day with an important passage in a Greek poet, without being able to comprehend it at all, went to bed thinking of this difficulty. During his sleep, his genius transported him in spirit to Stockholm, introduced him into the palace of Queen Christina, conducted him into the library, and showed him a small volume, which was precisely what he sought. He opened it, read in it ten or twelve Greek verses, which absolutely cleared up the difficulty which had so long beset him; he awoke, and wrote down the verses he had seen at Stockholm. On the morrow, he wrote to M. Descartes, who was then in Sweden, and begged of him to look in such a place, and in such a _division_ of the library, if the book, of which he sent him the description, were there, and if the Greek verses which he sent him were to be read in it. M. Descartes replied that he had found the book in question; and also the verses he had sent were in the place he pointed out; that one of his friends had promised him a copy of that work, and he would send it him by the first opportunity. We have already said something of the spirit, or familiar genius of Socrates, which prevented him from doing certain things, but did not lead him to do others. It is asserted[290] that, after the defeat of the Athenian army, commanded by Laches, Socrates, flying like the others, with this Athenian general, and being arrived at a spot where several roads met, Socrates would not follow the road taken by the other fugitives; and when they asked him the reason, he replied, because his genius drew him away from it. The event justified his foresight. All those who had taken the other road were either killed or made prisoners by the enemy's cavalry. It is doubtful whether the elves, of which so many things are related, are good or bad spirits; for the faith of the church admits nothing between these two kinds of genii. Every genius is either good or bad; but as there are in heaven many mansions, as the Gospel says,[291] and as there are among the blessed, various degrees of glory, differing from each other, so we may believe that there are in hell various degrees of pain and punishment for the damned and the demons. But are they not rather magicians, who render themselves invisible, and divert themselves in disquieting the living? Why do they attach themselves to certain spots, and certain persons, rather than to others? Why do they make themselves perceptible only during a certain time, and that sometimes a short space? I could willingly conclude that what is said of them is mere fancy and prejudice; but their reality has been so often experienced by the discourse they have held, and the actions they have performed in the presence of many wise and enlightened persons, that I cannot persuade myself that among the great number of stories related of them there are not at least some of them true. It may be remarked that these elves never lead one to anything good, to prayer, or piety, to the love of God, or to godly and serious actions. If they do no other harm, they leave hurtful doubts about the punishments of the damned, on the efficacy of prayer and exorcisms; if they hurt not those men or animals which are found on the spot where they may be perceived, it is because God sets bounds to their malice and power. The demon has a thousand ways of deceiving us. All those to whom these genii attach themselves have a horror of them, mistrust and fear them; and it rarely happens that these familiar demons do not lead them to a dangerous end, unless they deliver themselves from them by grave acts of religion and penance. There is the story of a spirit, "which," says he who wrote it to me, "I no more doubt the truth of than if I had been a witness of it." Count Despilliers, the father, being a young man, and captain of cuirassiers, was in winter quarters in Flanders. One of his men came to him one day to beg that he would change his landlord, saying that every night there came into his bed-room a spirit, which would not allow him to sleep. The Count Despilliers sent him away, and laughed at his simplicity. Some days after, the same horseman came back and made the same request to him; the only reply of the captain would have been a volley of blows with a stick, had not the soldier avoided them by a prompt flight. At last, he returned a third time to the charge, and protested to his captain that he could bear it no longer, and should be obliged to desert if his lodgings were not changed. Despilliers, who knew the soldier to be brave and reasonable, said to him, with an oath, "I will go this night and sleep with you, and see what is the matter." At ten o'clock in the evening, the captain repaired to his soldier's lodging, and having laid his pistols ready primed upon the table, he lay down in his clothes, his sword by his side, with his soldier, in a bed without curtains. About midnight he heard something which came into the room, and in a moment turned the bed upside down, covering the captain and the soldier with the mattress and paillasse. Despilliers had great trouble to disengage himself and find again his sword and pistols, and he returned home much confounded. The horse-soldier had a new lodging the very next day, and slept quietly in the house of his new host. M. Despilliers related this adventure to any one who would listen to it. He was an intrepid man, who had never known what it was to fall back before danger. He died field-marshal of the armies of the Emperor Charles VI. and governor of the fortress of Ségedin. His son has confirmed this adventure to me within a short time, as having heard it from his father. The person who writes to me adds: "I doubt not that spirits sometimes return; but I have found myself in a great many places which it was said they haunted. I have even tried several times to see them, but I have never seen any. I found myself once with more than four thousand persons, who all said they saw the spirit; I was the only one in the assembly who saw nothing." So writes me a very worthy officer, this year, 1745, in the same letter wherein he relates the affair of M. Despilliers. Footnotes: [284] St. Sulpit. Sever. Dialog. ii. c. 14, 15. [285] Bodin Demonomania, lib. ii. c. 2. [286] Guillelm. Paris, 2 Part. quæst. 2, c. 8. [287] Grot. Epist. Part. ii. Ep. 405. [288] They affirm that it happened at Dijon, in the family of the MM. Surmin, in which a constant tradition has perpetuated the memory of the circumstance. [289] Continuation of the Count de Gabalis, at the Hague, 1708, p. 55. [290] Cicero, de Divinat. lib. i. [291] John xiv. 2. CHAPTER XXXI. SPIRITS THAT KEEP WATCH OVER TREASURE. Everybody acknowledges that there is an infinity of riches buried in the earth, or lost under the waters by shipwrecks; they fancy that the demon, whom they look upon as the god of riches, the god _Mammon_, the Pluto of the pagans, is the depositary, or at least the guardian, of these treasures. He said to Jesus Christ,[292] when he tempted him in the wilderness, showing to him all the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." We know also that the ancients very often interred vast treasures in the tombs of the dead; either that the dead might make use of them in the other world, or that their souls might keep guard over them in those gloomy places. Job seems to make allusion to this ancient custom, when he says,[293] "Would to God I had never been born: I should now sleep with the kings and great ones of the earth, who built themselves solitary places; like unto those who seek for treasure, and are rejoiced when they find a tomb;" doubtless because they hope to find great riches therein. There were very precious things in the tomb of Cyrus. Semiramis caused to be engraved on her own mausoleum that it contained great riches. Josephus[294] relates that Solomon placed great treasures in the tomb of David his father; and that the High-Priest Hyrcanus, being besieged in Jerusalem by King Antiochus, took thence three thousand talents. He says, moreover, that years after, Herod the Great having caused this tomb to be searched, took from it large sums. We see several laws against those who violate sepulchres to take out of them the precious things they contain. The Emperor Marcianus[295] forbade that riches should be hidden in tombs. If such things have been placed in the mausoleums of worthy and holy persons, and if they have been discovered through the revelation of the good spirits of persons who died in the faith and grace of God, we cannot conclude from those things that all hidden treasures are in the power of the demon, and that he alone knows anything of them; the good angels know of them; and the saints may be much more faithful guardians of them than the demons, who usually have no power to enrich, or to deliver from the horrors of poverty, from punishment and death itself, those who yield themselves to them in order to receive some reward from them. Melancthon relates[296] that the demon informed a priest where a treasure was hid; the priest, accompanied by one of his friends, went to the spot indicated; they saw there a black dog lying on a chest. The priest, having entered to take out the treasure, was crushed and smothered under the ruins of the cavern. M. Remy[297], in his Demonology, speaks of several persons whose causes he had heard in his quality of Lieutenant-General of Lorraine, at the time when that country swarmed with wizards and witches; those amongst them who believed they had received money from the demon, found nothing in their purses but bits of broken pots, coals, or leaves of trees, or other things equally vile and contemptible. The Reverend Father Abram, a Jesuit, in his manuscript History of the University of Pont à Mousson, reports that a youth of good family, but small fortune, placed himself at first to serve in the army among the valets and serving men: from thence his parents sent him to school, but not liking the subjection which study requires, he quitted the school and returned to his former kind of life. On his way he met a man dressed in a silk coat, but ill-looking, dark, and hideous, who asked him where he was going to, and why he looked so sad: "I am able to set you at your ease," said this man to him, "if you will give yourself to me." The young man, believing that he wished to engage him as a servant, asked for time to reflect upon it; but beginning to mistrust the magnificent promises which he made him, he looked at him more narrowly, and having remarked that his left foot was divided like that of an ox, he was seized with affright, made the sign of the cross, and called on the name of Jesus, when the spectre directly disappeared. Three days after, the same figure appeared to him again, and asked him if he had made up his mind; the young man replied that he did not want a master. The spectre said to him, "Where are you going?" "I am going to such a town," replied he. At that moment the demon threw at his feet a purse which chinked, and which he found filled with thirty or forty Flemish crowns, amongst which were about twelve which appeared to be gold, newly coined, and as if from the stamps of the coiner. In the same purse was a powder, which the spectre said was of a very subtile quality. At the same time, he gave him abominable counsels to satisfy the most shameful passions; and exhorted him to renounce the use of holy water, and the adoration of the host--which he called in derision that little cake. The boy was horrified at these proposals, and made the sign of the cross on his heart; and at the same time he felt himself thrown roughly down on the ground, where he remained for half an hour, half dead. Having got up again, he returned home to his mother, did penance, and changed his conduct. The pieces of money which looked like gold and newly coined, having been put in the fire, were found to be only of copper. I relate this instance to show that the demon seeks only to deceive and corrupt even those to whom he makes the most specious promises, and to whom he seems to give great riches. Some years ago, two monks, both of them well informed and prudent men, consulted me upon a circumstance which occurred at Orbé, a village of Alsatia, near the Abbey of Pairis. Two men of that place told them that they had seen come out of the ground a small box or casket, which they supposed was full of money, and having a wish to lay hold of it, it had retreated from them and hidden itself again under ground. This happened to them more than once. Theophanes, a celebrated and grave Greek historiographer, under the year of our era 408, relates that Cabades, King of Persia, being informed that between the Indian country and Persia there was a castle called Zubdadeyer, which contained a great quantity of gold, silver, and precious stones, resolved to make himself master of it; but these treasures were guarded by demons, who would not permit any one to approach it. He employed some of the magi and some Jews who were with him to conjure and exorcise them; but their efforts were useless. The king bethought himself of the God of the Christians--prayed to him, and sent for the bishop who was at the head of the Christian church in Persia, and begged of him to use his efforts to obtain for him these treasures, and to expel the demons by whom they were guarded. The prelate offered the holy sacrifice, participated in it, and going to the spot, drove away the demons who were guardians of these riches, and put the king in peaceable possession of the castle. Relating this story to a man of some rank,[298] he told me, that in the Isle of Malta, two knights having hired a slave, who boasted that he possessed the secret of evoking demons, and forcing them to discover the most hidden secrets, they led him into an old castle, where it was thought that treasures were concealed. The slave performed his evocations, and at last the demon opened a rock whence issued a coffer. The slave would have taken hold of it, but the coffer went back into the rock. This occurred more than once; and the slave, after vain efforts, came and told the knights what had happened to him; but he was so much exhausted that he had need of some restorative; they gave him refreshment, and when he had returned they after a while heard a noise. They went into the cave with a light, to see what had happened, and they found the slave lying dead, and all his flesh full of cuts as of a penknife, in form of a cross; he was so covered with them that there was not room to place a finger where he was not thus marked. The knights carried him to the shore, and threw him into the sea with a great stone hung round his neck. We could name these persons and note the dates, were it necessary. The same person related to us, at that same time, that about ninety years before, an old woman of Malta was warned by a genius that there was a great deal of treasure in her cellar, belonging to a knight of high consideration, and desired her to give him information of it; she went to his abode, but could not obtain an audience. The following night the same genius returned, and gave her the same command; and as she refused to obey, he abused her, and again sent her on the same errand. The next day she returned to seek this lord, and told the domestics that she would not go away until she had spoken to the master. She related what had happened to her; and the knight resolved to go to her dwelling, accompanied by people with the proper instruments for digging; they dug, and very shortly there sprung up such a quantity of water from the spot where they inserted their pickaxes that they were obliged to give up the undertaking. The knight confessed to the Inquisitor what he had done, and received absolution for it; but he was obliged to inscribe the fact we have recounted in the Registers of the Inquisition. About sixty years after, the canons of the Cathedral of Malta, wishing for a wider space before their church, bought some houses which it was necessary to pull down, and amongst others that which had belonged to that old woman. As they were digging there, they found the treasure, consisting of a good many gold pieces of the value of a ducat, bearing the effigy of the Emperor Justinian the First. The Grand Master of the Order of Malta affirmed that the treasure belonged to him as sovereign of the isle; the canons contested the point. The affair was carried to Rome; the grand master gained his suit, and the gold was brought to him, amounting in value to about sixty thousand ducats; but he gave them up to the cathedral. Some time afterwards, the knight of whom we have spoken, who was then very aged, remembered what had happened to himself, and asserted that the treasure ought to belong to him; he made them lead him to the spot, recognized the cellar where he had formerly been, and pointed out in the Register of the Inquisition what had been written therein sixty years before. They did not permit him to recover the treasure; but it was a proof that the demon knew of and kept watch over this money. The person who told me this story has in his possession three or four of these gold pieces, having bought them of the canons. Footnotes: [292] Matt. iv. 8. [293] Job iii. 13, 14, 22. [294] Joseph. Ant. lib. xiii. [295] Martian. lib. iv. [296] Le Loyer, liv. ii. p. 495. [297] Remy, Demonol. c. iv. Ann. 1605. [298] M. le Chevalier Guiot de Marre. CHAPTER XXXII. OTHER INSTANCES OF HIDDEN TREASURES WHICH WERE GUARDED BY GOOD OR BAD SPIRITS. We read in a new work that a man, Honoré Mirable, having found in a garden near Marseilles a treasure consisting of several Portuguese pieces of gold, from the indication given him by a spectre, which appeared to him at eleven o'clock at night, near the _Bastide_, or country house called _du Paret_, he made the discovery of it in presence of the woman who farmed the land of this _Bastide_, and the farm-servant named Bernard. When he first perceived the treasure buried in the earth, and wrapt up in a bundle of old linen, he was afraid to touch it, for fear it should be poisoned and cause his death. He raised it by means of a hook made of a branch of the almond tree, and carried it into his room, where he undid it without any witness, and found in it a great deal of gold; to satisfy the wishes of the spirit who had appeared to him, he caused some masses to be said for him. He revealed his good fortune to a countryman of his, named Anquier, who lent him forty livres, and gave him a note by which he acknowledged he owed him twenty thousand livres and receipted the payment of the forty livres lent; this note bore date the 27th September, 1726. Some time after, Mirable asked Anquier to pay the note. Anquier denied everything. A great lawsuit ensued; informations were taken and perquisitions held in Anquier's house; sentence was given on the 10th of September, 1727, importing that Anquier should be arrested, and have the question applied to him. An appeal was made to the Parliament of Aix. Anquier's note was declared a forgery. Bernard, who was said to have been present at the discovery of the treasure, was not cited at all; the other witnesses only deposed from hearsay; Magdalen Caillot alone, who was present, acknowledged having seen the packet wrapped round with linen, and had heard a ringing as of pieces of gold or silver, and had seen one of them, a piece about as large as a piece of two liards. The Parliament of Aix issued its decree the 17th of February, 1728, by which it ordained that Bernard, farming servant at the _Bastide du Paret_, should be heard; he was heard on different days, and deposed that he had seen neither treasure, nor rags, nor gold pieces. Then came another decree of the 2d of June, 1728, which ordered that the attorney-general should proceed by way of ecclesiastical censures on the facts resulting from these proceedings. The indictment was published, fifty-three witnesses were heard; another sentence of the 18th of February, 1729, discharged Anquier from the courts and the lawsuit; condemned Mirable to the galleys to perpetuity after having previously undergone the question; and Caillot was to pay a fine of ten francs. Such was the end of this grand lawsuit. If we examine narrowly these stories of spectres who watch over treasures, we shall doubtless find, as here, a great deal of superstition, deception, and fancy. Delrio relates some instances of people who have been put to death, or who have perished miserably as they searched for hidden treasures. In all this we may perceive the spirit of lying and seduction on the part of the demon, bounds set to his power, and his malice arrested by the will of God; the impiety of man, his avarice, his idle curiosity, the confidence which he places in the angel of darkness, by the loss of his wealth, his life, and his soul. John Wierus, in his work entitled "_De Præstigiis Dæmonum_," printed at Basle in 1577, relates that in his time, 1430, the demon revealed to a certain priest at Nuremberg some treasures hidden in a cavern near the town, and enclosed in a crystal vase. The priest took one of his friends with him as a companion; they began to dig up the ground in the spot designated, and they discovered in a subterranean cavern a kind of chest, near which a black dog was lying; the priest eagerly advanced to seize the treasure, but hardly had he entered the cavern, than it fell in, crushed the priest, and was filled up with earth as before. The following is extracted from a letter, written from Kirchheim, January 1st, 1747, to M. Schopfflein, Professor of History and Eloquence at Strasburg. "It is now more than a year ago that M. Cavallari, first musician of my serene master, and by birth a Venetian, desired to have the ground dug up at Rothenkirchen, a league from hence, and which was formerly a renowned abbey, and was destroyed in the time of the Reformation. The opportunity was afforded him by an apparition, which showed itself more than once at noonday to the wife of the Censier of Rothenkirchen, and above all, on the 7th of May for two succeeding years. She swears, and can make oath, that she has seen a venerable priest in pontifical garments embroidered with gold, who threw before her a great heap of stones; and although she is a Lutheran, and consequently not very credulous in things of that kind, she thinks nevertheless that if she had had the presence of mind to put down a handkerchief or an apron, all the stones would have become money. "M. Cavallari then asked leave to dig there, which was the more readily granted, because the tithe or tenth part of the treasure is due to the sovereign. He was treated as a visionary, and the matter of treasure was regarded as an unheard-of thing. In the mean time, he laughed at the anticipated ridicule, and asked me if I would go halves with him. I did not hesitate a moment to accept this offer; but I was much surprised to find there were some little earthen pots full of gold pieces, all these pieces finer than the ducats of the fourteenth and fifteenth century generally are. I have had for my share 666, found at three different times. There are some of the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, of the towns of Oppenheim, Baccarat, Bingen, and Coblentz; there are some also of the Palatine Rupert, of Frederic, Burgrave of Nuremberg, some few of Wenceslaus, and one of the Emperor Charles IV., &c." This shows that not only the demons, but also the saints, are sometimes guardians of treasure; unless you will say that the devil had taken the shape of the prelate. But what could it avail the demon to give the treasure to these gentlemen, who did not ask him for it, and scarcely troubled themselves about him? I have seen two of these pieces in the hands of M. Schopfflein. The story we have just related is repeated, with a little difference, in a printed paper, announcing a lottery of pieces found at Rothenkirchen, in the province of Nassau, not far from Donnersberg. They say in this, that the value of these pieces is twelve livres ten sols, French money. The lottery was to be publicly drawn the first of February, 1750. Every ticket cost six livres of French money. I repeat these details only to prove the truth of the circumstance. We may add to the preceding what is related by Bartholinus in his book on the cause of the contempt of death shown by the ancient Danes, (lib. ii. c. 2.) He relates that the riches concealed in the tombs of the great men of that country were guarded by the shades of those to whom they belonged, and that these shades or these demons spread terror in the souls of those who wished to take away those treasures, either by pouring forth a deluge of water, or by flames which they caused to appear around the monuments which enclosed those bodies and those treasures. CHAPTER XXXIII. SPECTRES WHICH APPEAR, AND PREDICT THINGS UNKNOWN AND TO COME. Both in ancient and modern writers, we find an infinite number of stories of spectres. We have not the least doubt that their apparitions are the work of the demon, if they are real. Now, it cannot be denied that there is a great deal of illusion and falsehood in all that is related by them. We shall distinguish two sorts of spectres: those which appear to mankind to hurt or deceive them, or to announce things to come, fortunate or unfortunate as circumstances may occur; the other spectres infest certain houses, of which they have made themselves masters, and where they are seen and heard. We shall treat of the latter in another chapter; and show that the greater number of these spectres and apparitions may be suspected of falsehood. Pliny the younger, writing to his friend Sura on the subject of apparitions, testifies that he is much inclined to believe them true; and the reason he gives, is what happened to Quintus Curtius Rufus, who, having gone into Africa in the train of the quæstor or treasurer for the Romans, walking one day towards evening under a portico, saw a woman of uncommon height and beauty, who told him that she was Africa, and assured him that he would one day return into that same country as proconsul. This promise inspired him with high hopes; and by his intrigues, and help of friends, whom he had bribed, he obtained the quæstorship, and afterwards was prætor, through the favor of the Emperor Tiberius. This dignity having veiled the obscurity and baseness of his birth, he was sent proconsul to Africa, where he died, after having obtained the honors of the triumph. It is said that, on his return to Africa, the same person who had predicted his future grandeur appeared to him again at the moment of his landing at Carthage. These predictions, so precise, and so exactly followed up, made Pliny the younger believe that predictions of this kind are never made in vain. The story of Curtius Rufus was written by Tacitus, long enough before Pliny's time, and he might have taken it from Tacitus. After the fatal death of Caligula, who was massacred in his palace, he was buried half burnt in his own gardens. The princesses, his sisters, on their return from exile, had his remains burnt with ceremony, and honorably inhumed; but it was averred that before this was done, those who had to watch over the gardens and the palace had every night been disturbed by phantoms and frightful noises. The following instance is so extraordinary that I should not repeat it if the account were not attested by more than one writer, and also preserved in the public monuments of a considerable town of Upper Saxony: this town is Hamelin, in the principality of Kalenberg, at the confluence of the rivers Hamel and Weser. In the year 1384, this town was infested by such a prodigious multitude of rats that they ravaged all the corn which was laid up in the granaries; everything was employed that art and experience could invent to chase them away, and whatever is usually employed against this kind of animals. At that time there came to the town an unknown person, of taller stature than ordinary, dressed in a robe of divers colors, who engaged to deliver them from that scourge for a certain recompense, which was agreed upon. Then he drew from his sleeve a flute, at the sound of which all the rats came out of their holes and followed him; he led them straight to the river, into which they ran and were drowned. On his return he asked for the promised reward, which was refused him, apparently on account of the facility with which he had exterminated the rats. The next day, which was a fête day, he chose the moment when the elder inhabitants of the burgh were at church, and by means of another flute which he began to play, all the boys in the town above the age of fourteen, to the number of a hundred and thirty, assembled around him: he led them to the neighboring mountain, named Kopfelberg, under which is a sewer for the town, and where criminals are executed; these boys disappeared and were never seen afterwards. A young girl, who had followed at a distance, was witness of the matter, and brought the news of it to the town. They still show a hollow in this mountain, where they say that he made the boys go in. At the corner of this opening is an inscription, which is so old that it cannot now be deciphered; but the story is represented on the panes of the church windows; and it is said, that in the public deeds of this town it is still the custom to put the dates in this manner--_Done in the year ----, after the disappearance of our children._[299] If this recital is not wholly fabulous, as it seems to be, we can only regard this man as a spectre and an evil genius, who, by God's permission, punished the bad faith of the burghers in the persons of their children, although innocent of their parents' fault. It might be, that a man could have some natural secret to draw the rats together and precipitate them into the river; but only diabolical malice would cause so many innocent children to perish, out of revenge on their fathers. Julius Cæsar[300] having entered Italy, and wishing to pass the Rubicon, perceived a man of more than ordinary stature, who began to whistle. Several soldiers having run to listen to him, this spectre seized the trumpet of one of them, and began to sound the alarm, and to pass the river. Cæsar at that moment, without further deliberation, said, "Let us go where the presages of the gods and the injustice of our enemies call upon us to advance." The Emperor Trajan[301] was extricated from the town of Antioch by a phantom, which made him go out at a widow, in the midst of that terrible earthquake which overthrew almost all the town. The philosopher Simonides[302] was warned by a spectre that his house was about to fall; he went out of it directly, and soon after it fell down. The Emperor Julian, the apostate, told his friends that at the time when his troops were pressing him to accept the empire, being at Paris, he saw during the night a spectre in the form of a woman, as the genius of an empire is depicted, who presented herself to remain with him; but she gave him notice that it would be only for a short time. The same emperor related, moreover, that writing in his tent a little before his death, his familiar genius appeared to him, leaving the tent with a sad and afflicted air. Shortly before the death of the Emperor Constans, the same Julian had a vision in the night, of a luminous phantom, who pronounced and repeated to him, more than once, four Greek verses, importing that when Jupiter should be in the sign of the water-pot, or Aquarius, and Saturn in the 25th degree of the Virgin, Constans would end his life in Asia in a shocking manner. The same Emperor Julian takes Jupiter[303] to witness that he has often seen Esculapius, who cured him of his sicknesses. Footnotes: [299] See Vagenseil _Opera liborum Juvenil._ tom. ii. p. 295, the Geography of Hubner, and the Geographical Dictionary of la Martinière, under the name Hamelen. [300] Sueton. in Jul. Cæsar. [301] Dio. Cassius. lib. lxviii. [302] Diogen. Laert. in Simon. Valer. Maxim. lib. xxiii. [303] Julian, apud Cyrill. Alex. CHAPTER XXXIV. OTHER APPARITIONS OF SPECTRES. Plutarch, whose gravity and wisdom are well known, often speaks of spectres and apparitions. He says, for instance, that at the famous battle of Marathon against the Persians, several soldiers saw the phantom of Thesus, who fought for the Greeks against the enemy. The same Plutarch, in the life of Sylla, says that that general saw in his sleep the goddess whom the Romans worshiped according to the rites of the Cappadocians (who were fire-worshipers), whether it might be Bellona or Minerva, or the moon. This divinity presented herself before Sylla, and put into his hand a kind of thunderbolt, telling him to launch it against his enemies, whom she named to him one after the other; at the same time that he struck them, he saw them fall and expire at his feet. There is reason to believe that this same goddess was Minerva, to whom, as to Jupiter Paganism attributes the right to hurl the thunderbolt; or rather that it was a demon. Pausanias, general of the Lacedemonians,[304] having inadvertently killed Cleonice, a daughter of one of the first families of Byzantium, was tormented night and day by the ghost of that maiden, who left him no repose, repeating to him angrily a heroic verse, the sense of which was, _Go before the tribunal of justice, which punishes crime and awaits thee. Insolence is in the end fatal to mortals_. Pausanias, always disturbed by this image, which followed him everywhere, retired to Heraclea in Elis, where there was a temple served by priests who were magicians, called _Psychagogues_, that is to say, who profess to evoke the souls of the dead. There Pausanias, after having offered the customary libations and funeral effusions, called upon the spirit of Cleonice, and conjured her to renounce her anger against him. Cleonice at last appeared, and told him that very soon, when he should be arrived at Sparta, he would be freed from his woes, wishing apparently by these mysterious words to indicate that death which awaited him there. We see there the custom of evocations of the dead distinctly pointed out, and solemnly practiced in a temple consecrated to these ceremonies; that demonstrates at least the belief and custom of the Greeks. And if Cleonice really appeared to Pausanias and announced his approaching death, can we deny that the evil spirit, or the spirit of Cleonice, is the author of this prediction, unless indeed it were a trick of the priests, which is likely enough, and as the ambiguous reply given to Pausanias seems to insinuate. Pausanias the historian[305] writes that, 400 years after the battle of Marathon, every night a noise was heard there of the neighing of horses, and cries like those of soldiers exciting themselves to combat. Plutarch speaks also of spectres which were seen, and frightful howlings that were heard in some public baths, where they had put to death several citizens of Chæronea, his native place; they had even been obliged to shut up these baths, which did not prevent those who lived near from continuing to hear great noises, and seeing from time to time spectres. Dion the philosopher, the disciple of Plato, and general of the Syracusans, being one day seated, towards the evening, very full of thought, in the portico of his house, heard a great noise, then perceived a terrible spectre of a woman of monstrous height, who resembled one of the furies, as they are depicted in tragedies; there was still daylight, and she began to sweep the house. Dion, quite alarmed, sent to beg his friends to come and see him, and stay with him all night; but this woman appeared no more. A short time afterwards, his son threw himself down from the top of the house, and he himself was assassinated by conspirators. Marcus Brutus, one of the murderers of Julius Cæsar, being in his tent during a night which was not very dark, towards the third hour of the night, beheld a monstrous and terrific figure enter. "Who art thou? a man or a God? and why comest thou here?" The spectre answered, "I am thine evil genius. Thou shalt see me at Philippi!" Brutus replied undauntedly, "I will meet thee there." And on going out, he went and related the circumstance to Cassius, who being of the sect of Epicurus, and a disbeliever in that kind of apparition, told him that it was mere imagination; that there were no genii or other kind of spirits which could appear unto men, and that even did they appear, they would have neither the human form nor the human voice, and could do nothing to harm us. Although Brutus was a little reassured by this reasoning, still it did not remove all his uneasiness. But the same Cassius, in the campaign of Philippi, and in the midst of the combat, saw Julius Cæsar, whom he had assassinated, who came up to him at full gallop: which frightened him so much that at last he threw himself upon his own sword. Cassius of Parma, a different person from him of whom we have spoken above, saw an evil genius, who came into his tent, and declared to him his approaching death. Drusus, when making war on the Germans (Allemani) during the time of Augustus, desiring to cross the Elbe, in order to penetrate farther into the country, was prevented from so doing by a woman of taller stature than common, who appeared to him and said, "Drusus, whither wilt thou go? wilt thou never be satisfied? Thy end is near--go back from hence." He retraced his steps, and died before he reached the Rhine, which he desired to recross. St. Gregory of Nicea, in the Life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, says that, during a great plague which ravaged the city of Neocesarea, spectres were seen in open day, who entered houses, into which they carried certain death. After the famous sedition which happened at Antioch, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius, they beheld a kind of fury running about the town, with a whip, which she lashed about like a coachman who hastens on his horses. St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, being at Trèves, entered a house, where he found a spectre which frightened him at first. Martin commanded him to leave the body which he possessed: instead of going out (of the place), he entered the body of another man who was in the same dwelling; and throwing himself upon those who were there, began to attack and bite them. Martin threw himself across his way, put his fingers in his mouth, and defied him to bite him. The demoniac retreated, as if a bar of red-hot iron had been placed in his mouth, and at last the demon went out of the body of the possessed, not by the mouth but behind. John, Bishop of Atria, who lived in the sixth century, in speaking of the great plague which happened under the Emperor Justinian, and which is mentioned by almost all the historians of that time, says that they saw boats of brass, containing black men without heads, which sailed upon the sea, and went towards the places where the plague was beginning its ravages; that this infection having depopulated a town of Egypt, so that there remained only seven men and a boy ten years of age, these persons, wishing to get away from the town with a great deal of money, fell down dead suddenly. The boy fled without carrying anything with him, but at the gate of the town he was stopped by a spectre, who dragged him, in spite of his resistance, into the house where the seven dead men were. Some time after, the steward of a rich man having entered therein, to take away some furniture belonging to his master, who had gone to reside in the country, was warned by the same boy to go away--but he died suddenly. The servants who had accompanied the steward ran away, and carried the news of all this to their master. The same Bishop John relates that he was at Constantinople during a very great plague, which carried off ten, twelve, fifteen, and sixteen thousand persons a-day, so that they reckon that two hundred thousand persons died of this malady--he says, that during this time demons were seen running from house to house, wearing the habits of ecclesiastics or monks, and who caused the death of those whom they met therein. The death of Carlostadt was accompanied by frightful circumstances, according to the ministers of Basle, his colleagues, who bore witness to it at the time. They[306] relate, that at the last sermon which Carlostadt preached in the temple of Basle, a tall black man came and seated himself near the consul. The preacher perceived him, and appeared disconcerted at it. When he left the pulpit, he asked who that stranger was who had taken his seat next to the chief magistrate; no one had seen him but himself. When he went home, he heard more news of the spectre. The black man had been there, and had caught up by the hair the youngest and most tenderly loved of his children. After he had thus raised the child from the ground, he appeared disposed to throw him down so as to break his head; but he contented himself with ordering the boy to warn his father that in three days he should return, and he must hold himself in readiness. The child having repeated to his father what had been said to him, Carlostadt was terrified. He went to bed in alarm, and in three days he expired. These apparitions of the demon's, by Luther's own avowal, were pretty frequent, in the case of the first reformers. These instances of the apparitions of spectres might be multiplied to infinity; but if we undertook to criticise them, there is hardly one of them very certain, or proof against a serious and profound examination. Here follows one, which I relate on purpose because it has some singular features, and its falsehood has at last been acknowledged.[307] Footnotes: [304] Plutarch in Cimone. [305] Pausanias, lib. i. c. 324. [306] Moshovius, p. 22. [307] See the following chapter. CHAPTER XXXV. EXAMINATION OF THE APPARITION OF A PRETENDED SPECTRE. Business[308] having led the Count d'Alais[309] to Marseilles, a most extraordinary adventure happened to him there: he desired Neuré to write to our philosopher (Gassendi) to know what he thought of it; which he did in these words: the count and countess being come to Marseilles, saw, as they were lying in bed, a luminous spectre; they were both wide awake. In order to be sure that it was not some illusion, they called their valets de chambre; but no sooner had these appeared with their flambeaux, than the spectre disappeared. They had all the openings and cracks which they found in the chamber stopped up, and then went to bed again; but hardly had the valets de chambre retired than it appeared again. Its light was less shining than that of the sun; but it was brighter than that of the moon. Sometimes this spectre was of an angular form, sometimes a circle, and sometimes an oval. It was easy to read a letter by the light it gave; it often changed its place, and sometimes appeared on the count's bed. It had, as it were, a kind of little bucklers, above which were characters imprinted. Nevertheless, nothing could be more agreeable to the sight; so that instead of alarming, it gave pleasure. It appeared every night whilst the count stayed at Marseilles. This prince, having once cast his hands upon it, to see if it was not something attached to the bed curtain, the spectre disappeared that night, and reappeared the next. Gassendi being consulted upon this circumstance, replied on the 13th of the same month. He says, in the first place, that he knows not what to think of this vision. He does not deny that this spectre might be sent from God to tell them something. What renders this idea probable is the great piety of them both, and that this spectre had nothing frightful in it, but quite the contrary. What deserves our attention still more is this, that if God had sent it, he would have made known why he sent it. God does not jest; and since it cannot be understood what is to be hoped or feared, followed up or avoided, it is clear that this spectre cannot come from him; otherwise his conduct would be less praiseworthy than that of a father, or a prince, or a worthy, or even a prudent man, who, being informed of somewhat which greatly concerned those in subjection to them, would not content themselves with warning them enigmatically. If this spectre is anything natural, nothing is more difficult than to discover it, or even to find any conjecture which may explain it. Although I am well persuaded of my ignorance, I will venture to give my idea. Might it not be advanced that this light has appeared because the eye of the count was internally affected, or because it was so externally? The eye may be so internally in two ways. First, if the eye was affected in the same manner as that of the Emperor Tiberius always was when he awoke in the night and opened his eyes; a light proceeded from them, by means of which he could discern objects in the dark by looking fixedly at them. I have known the same thing happen to a lady of rank. Secondly, if his eyes were disposed in a certain manner, as it happens to myself when I awake: if I open my eyes, they perceive rays of light though there has been none. No one can deny that some flash may dart from our eyes which represents objects to us--which objects are reflected in our eyes, and leave their traces there. It is known that animals which prowl by night have a piercing sight, to enable them to discern their prey and carry it off; that the animal spirit which is in the eye, and which may be shed from it, is of the nature of fire, and consequently lucid. It may happen that the eyes being closed during sleep, this spirit heated by the eyelids becomes inflamed, and sets some faculty in motion, as the imagination. For, does it not happen that wood of different kinds, and fish bones, produce some light when their heat is excited by putrefaction? Why then may not the heat excited in this confined spirit produce some light? He proves afterwards that imagination alone may do it. The Count d'Alais having returned to Marseilles, and being lodged in the same apartment, the same spectre appeared to him again. Neuré wrote to Gassendi that they had observed that this spectre penetrated into the chamber by the wainscot; which obliged Gassendi to write to the count to examine the thing more attentively; and notwithstanding this discovery, he dare not yet decide upon it. He contents himself with encouraging the count, and telling him that if this apparition is from God, he will not allow him to remain long in expectation, and will soon make known his will to him; and also, if this vision does not come from him, he will not permit it to continue, and will soon discover that it proceeds from a natural cause. Nothing more is said of this spectre any where. Three years afterwards, the Countess d'Alais avowed ingenuously to the count that she herself had caused this farce to be played by one of her women, because she did not like to reside at Marseilles; that her woman was under the bed, and that she from time to time caused a phosphoric light to appear. The Count d'Alais related this himself to M. Puger of Lyons, who told it, about thirty-five years ago, to M. Falconet, a medical doctor of the Royal Academy of Belle-Lettres, from whom I learnt it. Gassendi, when consulted seriously by the count, answered like a man who had no doubt of the truth of this apparition; so true it is that the greater number of these extraordinary facts require to be very carefully examined before any opinion can be passed upon them. Footnotes: [308] Vie de Gassendi, tom. i. p. 258. [309] Alais is a town in Lower Languedoc, the lords of which bear the title of prince, since this town has passed into the House of Angoulême and De Conty. CHAPTER XXXVI. OF SPECTRES WHICH HAUNT HOUSES. There are several kinds of spectres or ghosts which haunt certain houses, make noises, appear there, and disturb those who live in them: some are sprites, or elves, which divert themselves by troubling the quiet of those who dwell there; others are spectres or ghosts of the dead, who molest the living until they have received sepulture: some of them, as it is said, make the place their purgatory; others show themselves or make themselves heard, because they have been put to death in that place, and ask that their death may be avenged, or that their bodies may be buried. So many stories are related concerning those things that now they are not cared for, and nobody will believe any of them. In fact, when these pretended apparitions are thoroughly examined into, it is easy to discover their falsehood and illusion. Now, it is a tenant who wishes to decry the house in which he resides, to hinder others from coming who would like to take his place; then a band of coiners have taken possession of a dwelling, whose interest it is to keep their secret from being found out; or a farmer who desires to retain his farm, and wishes to prevent others from coming to offer more for it; in this place it will be cats or owls, or even rats, which by making a noise frighten the master and domestics, as it happened some years ago at Mosheim, where large rats amused themselves in the night by moving and setting in motion the machines with which the women bruise hemp and flax. An honest man who related it to me, desiring to behold the thing nearer, mounted up to the garret armed with two pistols, with his servant armed in the same manner. After a moment of silence, they saw the rats begin their game; they let fire upon them, killed two, and dispersed the rest. The circumstance was reported in the country and served as an excellent joke. I am about to relate some of these spectral apparitions upon which the reader will pronounce judgment for himself. Pliny[310] the younger says that there was a very handsome mansion at Athens which was forsaken on account of a spectre which haunted it. The philosopher Athenodorus, having arrived in the city, and seeing a board which informed the public that this house was to be sold at a very low price, bought it and went to sleep there with his people. As he was busy reading and writing during the night, he heard on a sudden a great noise, as if of chains being dragged along, and perceived at the same time something like a frightful old man loaded with iron chains, who drew near to him. Athenodorus continuing to write, the spectre made him a sign to follow him; the philosopher in his turn made signs to him to wait, and continued to write; at last he took his light and followed the spectre, who conducted him into the court of the house, then sank into the ground and disappeared. Athenodorus, without being frightened, tore up some of the grass to mark the spot, and on leaving it, went to rest in his room. The next day he informed the magistrates of what had happened; they came to the house and searched the spot he designated, and there found the bones of a human body loaded with chains. They caused him to be properly buried, and the dwelling house remained quiet. Lucian[311] relates a very similar story. There was, says he, a house at Corinth which had belonged to one Eubatides, in the quarter named Cranaüs: a man named Arignotes undertook to pass the night there, without troubling himself about a spectre which was said to haunt it. He furnished himself with certain magic books of the Egyptians to conjure the spectre. Having gone into the house at night with a light, he began to read quietly in the court. The spectre appeared in a little while, taking sometimes the shape of a dog, then that of a bull, and then that of a lion. Arignotes very composedly began to pronounce certain magical invocations, which he read in his books, and by their power forced the spectre into a corner of the court, where he sank into the earth and disappeared. The next day Arignotes sent for Eubatides, the master of the house, and having had the ground dug up where the phantom had disappeared, they found a skeleton, which they had properly interred, and from that time nothing more was seen or heard. It is Lucian, that is to say, the man in the world the least credulous concerning things of this kind, who makes Arignotes relate this event. In the same passage he says that Democritus, who believed in neither angels, nor demons, nor spirits, having shut himself up in a tomb without the city of Athens, where he was writing and studying, a party of young men, who wanted to frighten him, covered themselves with black garments, as the dead are represented, and having taken hideous disguises, came in the night, shrieking and jumping around the place where he was; he let them do what they liked, and without at all disturbing himself, coolly told them to have done with their jesting. I know not if the historian who wrote the life of St. Germain l'Auxerrois[312] had in his eye the stories we have just related, and if he did not wish to ornament the life of the saint by a recital very much like them. The saint traveling one day through his diocese, was obliged to pass the night with his clerks in a house forsaken long before on account of the spirits which haunted it. The clerk who read to him during the night saw on a sudden a spectre, which alarmed him at first; but having awakened the holy bishop, the latter commanded the spectre in the name of Jesus Christ to declare to him who he was, and what he wanted. The phantom told him that he and his companion had been guilty of several crimes; that having died and been interred in that house, they disturbed those who lodged there until the burial rites should have been accorded them. St. Germain commanded him to point out where their bodies were buried, and the spectre led him thither. The next day he assembled the people in the neighborhood; they sought amongst the ruins of the building where the brambles had been disturbed, and they found the bones of two men thrown in a heap together, and also loaded with chains; they were buried, prayers were said for them, and they returned no more. If these men were wretches dead in crime and impenitence, all this can be attributed only to the artifice of the devil, to show the living that the reprobate take pains to procure rest for their bodies by getting them interred, and to their souls by getting them prayed for. But if these two men were Christians who had expiated their crimes by repentance, and who died in communion with the church, God might permit them to appear, to ask for clerical sepulture and those prayers which the church is accustomed to say for the repose of defunct persons who die while yet some slight fault remains to be expiated. Here is a fact of the same kind as those which precede, but which is attended by circumstances which may render it more credible. It is related by Antonio Torquemada, in his work entitled _Flores Curiosas_, printed at Salamanca in 1570. He says that a little before his own time, a young man named Vasquez de Ayola, being gone to Bologna with two of his companions to study the law there, and not having found such a lodging in the town as they wished to have, lodged themselves in a large and handsome house, which was abandoned by everybody, because it was haunted by a spectre which frightened away all those who wished to live in it; they laughed at such discourse, and took up their abode there. At the end of a month, as Ayola was sitting up alone in his chamber, and his companions sleeping quietly in their beds, he heard at a distance a noise as of several chains dragged along upon the ground, and the noise advanced towards him by the great staircase; he recommended himself to God, made the sign of the cross, took a shield and sword, and having his taper in his hand, he saw the door opened by a terrific spectre that was nothing but bones, but loaded with chains. Ayola conjured him, and asked him what he wished for; the phantom signed to him to follow, and he did so; but as he went down the stairs, his light blew out; he went back to light it, and then followed the spirit, which led him along a court where there was a well. Ayola feared that he might throw him into it, and stopped short. The spectre beckoned to him to continue to follow him; they entered the garden, where the phantom disappeared. Ayola tore up some handfuls of grass upon the spot, and returning to the house, related to his companions what had happened. In the morning he gave notice of this circumstance to the Principals of Bologna. They came to reconnoitre the spot, and had it dug up; they found there a fleshless body, but loaded with chains. They inquired who it could be, but nothing certain could be discovered, and the bones were interred with suitable obsequies, and from that time the house was never disquieted by such visits. Torquemada asserts that in his time there were still living at Bologna and in Spain some who had been witnesses of the fact; and that on his return to his own country, Ayola was invested with a high office, and that his son, before this narration was written, was President in a good city of the kingdom (of Spain). Plautus, still more ancient than either Lucian or Pliny, composed a comedy entitled "Mostellaria," or "Monstellaria," a name derived from "Monstrum," or "Monstellum," from a monster, a spectre, which was said to appear in a certain house, and which on that account had been deserted. We agree that the foundation of this comedy is only a fable, but we may deduce from it the antiquity of this idea among the Greeks and Romans. The poet[313] makes this pretended spirit say that, having been assassinated about sixty years before by a perfidious comrade who had taken his money, he had been secretly interred in that house; that the god of Hades would not receive him on the other side of Acheron, as he had died prematurely; for which reason he was obliged to remain in that house of which he had taken possession. "Hæc mihi dedita habitatio; Nam me Acherontem recipere noluit, Quia præmaturè vitâ careo." The pagans, who had the simplicity to believe that the Lamiæ and evil spirits disquieted those who dwelt in certain houses and certain rooms, and who slept in certain beds, conjured them by magic verses, and pretended to drive them away by fumigations composed of sulphur and other stinking drugs, and certain herbs mixed with sea water. Ovid, speaking of Medea, that celebrated magician, says[314]-- "Terque senem flammâ, ter aquâ, ter sulphure lustrat." And elsewhere he adds eggs:-- "Adveniat quæ lustret anus lectumque locumque, Deferat et tremulâ sulphur et ova manu." In addition to this they adduce the instance of the archangel Raphael,[315] who drove away the devil Asmodeus from the chamber of Sarah by the smell of the liver of a fish which he burnt upon the fire. But the instance of Raphael ought not to be placed along with the superstitious ceremonies of magicians, which were laughed at by the pagans themselves; if they had any power, it could only be by the operation of the demon with the permission of God; whilst what is told of the archangel Raphael is certainly the work of a good spirit, sent by God to cure Sarah the daughter of Raguel, who was as much distinguished by her piety as the magicians are degraded by their malice and superstition. Footnotes: [310] Plin. junior, Epist. ad Suram. lib. vii. cap. 27. [311] In Philo pseud. p. 840. [312] Bolland, 31 Jul. p. 211. [313] Plaut. Mostell. act. ii. v. 67. [314] Vide Joan. Vier. de Curat. Malific. c. 215. [315] Tob. viii. CHAPTER XXXVII. OTHER INSTANCES OF SPECTRES WHICH HAUNT CERTAIN HOUSES. Father Pierre Thyree,[316] a Jesuit, relates an infinite number of anecdotes of houses haunted by ghosts, spirits, and demons; for instance, that of a tribune, named Hesperius, whose house was infested by a demon who tormented the domestics and animals, and who was driven away, says St. Augustin,[317] by a good priest of Hippo, who offered therein the divine sacrifice of the body of our Lord. St. Germain,[318] Bishop of Capua, taking a bath in one particular quarter of the town, found there Paschaus, a deacon of the Roman Church, who had been dead some time, and who began to wait upon him, telling him that he underwent his purgatory in that place for having favored the party of Laurentius the anti-pope, against Pope Symachus. St. Gregory of Nicea, in the life of St. Gregory of Neocæsarea, says that a deacon of this holy bishop, having gone into a bath where no one dared go after a certain hour in the evening, because all those who had entered there had been put to death, beheld spectres of all kinds, which threatened him in a thousand ways, but he got rid of them by crossing himself and invoking the name of Jesus. Alexander ab Alexandro,[319] a learned Neapolitan lawyer of the fifteenth century, says that all the world knows that there are a number of houses at Rome so much out of repute on account of the ghosts which appear in them every night that nobody dares to inhabit them. Nicholas Tuba, his friend, a man well known for his probity and veracity, who came once with some of his comrades to try if all that was said of those houses was true, would pass the night in one of them with Alexander. As they were together, wide awake, and with plenty of light, they beheld a horrible spectre, which frightened them so much by its terrific voice and the great noise which it made, that they hardly knew what they did, nor what they said; "and by degrees, as we approached," says he, "with the light, the phantom retreated; at last, after having thrown all the house into confusion, it disappeared entirely." I might also relate here the spectre noticed by Father Sinson the Jesuit, which he saw, and to which he spoke at Pont-à-Mousson, in the cloister belonging to those fathers; but I shall content myself with the instance which is reported in the _Causes Célèbres_,[320] and which may serve to undeceive those who too lightly give credit to stories of this kind. At the Château d' Arsillier, in Picardy, on certain days of the year, towards November, they saw flames and a horrible smoke proceeding thence. Cries and frightful howlings were heard. The bailiff, or farmer of the château, had got accustomed to this uproar, because he himself caused it. All the village talked of it, and everybody told his own story thereupon. The gentleman to whom the château belonged, mistrusting some contrivance, came there near All-saints' day with two gentlemen his friends, resolved to pursue the spirit, and fire upon it with a brace of good pistols. A few days after they arrived, they heard a great noise above the room where the owner of the château slept; his two friends went up thither, holding a pistol in one hand and a candle in the other; and a sort of black phantom with horns and a tail presented itself, and began to gambol about before them. One of them fired off his pistol; the spectre, instead of falling, turns and skips before him: the gentleman tries to seize it, but the spirit escapes by the back staircase; the gentleman follows it, but loses sight of it, and after several turnings, the spectre throws itself into a granary, and disappears at the moment its pursuer reckoned on seizing and stopping it. A light was brought, and it was remarked that where the spectre had disappeared there was a trapdoor, which had been bolted after it entered; they forced open the trap, and found the pretended spirit. He owned all his artifices, and that what had rendered him proof against the pistol shot was buffalo's hide tightly fitted to his body. Cardinal de Retz,[321] in his Memoirs, relates very agreeably the alarm which seized himself and those with him on meeting a company of black Augustine friars, who came to bathe in the river by night, and whom they took for a troop of quite another description. A physician, in a dissertation which he has given on spirits or ghosts, says that a maid servant in the Rue St. Victor, who had gone down into the cellar, came back very much frightened, saying she had seen a spectre standing upright between two barrels. Some persons who were bolder went down, and saw the same thing. It was a dead body, which had fallen from a cart coming from the Hôtel-Dieu. It had slid down by the cellar window (or grating), and had remained standing between two casks. All these collective facts, instead of confirming one another, and establishing the reality of those ghosts which appear in certain houses, and keep away those who would willingly dwell in them, are only calculated, on the contrary, to render such stories in general very doubtful; for on what account should those people who have been buried and turned to dust for a long time find themselves able to walk about with their chains? How do they drag them? How do they speak? What do they want? Is it sepulture? Are they not interred? If they are heathens and reprobates, they have nothing to do with prayers. If they are good people, who died in a state of grace, they may require prayers to take them out of purgatory; but can that be said of the spectres spoken of by Pliny and Lucian? It is the devil, who sports with the simplicity of men? Is it not ascribing to him most excessive power, by making him the author of all these apparitions, which we conceive he cannot cause without the permission of God? And we can still less imagine that God will concur in the deceptions and illusions of the demon. There is then reason to believe that all the apparitions of this kind, and all these stories, are false, and must be absolutely rejected, as more fit to keep up the superstition and idle credulity of the people than to edify and instruct them. Footnotes: [316] Thyræi Demoniaci cum locis infestis. [317] S. Aug. de Civ. lib. xxii. 8. [318] S. Greg. Mag. Dial. cap. 39. [319] Alexander ab Alexandro, lib. v. 23. [320] Causes Célèbres, tom. xi. p. 374. [321] Mém. de Cardinal de Retz, tom. i. pp. 43, 44 CHAPTER XXXVIII. PRODIGIOUS EFFECTS OF IMAGINATION IN THOSE MEN OR WOMEN WHO BELIEVE THEY HOLD INTERCOURSE WITH THE DEMON. As soon as we admit it as a principle that angels and demons are purely spiritual substances, we must consider, not only as chimerical but also as impossible, all personal intercourse between a demon and a man, or a woman, and consequently regard as the effect of a depraved or deranged imagination all that is related of demons, whether incubi or succubi, and of the _ephialtes_ of which such strange tales are told. The author of the Book of Enoch, which is cited by the fathers, and regarded as canonical Scripture by some ancient writers, has taken occasion, from these words of Moses,[322] "The children of God, seeing the daughters of men, who were of extraordinary beauty, took them for wives, and begat the giants of them," of setting forth that the angels, smitten with love for the daughters of men, wedded them, and had by them children, which are those giants so famous in antiquity.[323] Some of the ancient fathers have thought that this irregular love of the angels was the cause of their fall, and that till then they had remained in the just and due subordination which they owed to their Creator. It appears from Josephus that the Jews of his day seriously believed[324] that the angels were subject to these weaknesses like men. St. Justin Martyr[325] thought that the demons were the fruit of this commerce of the angels with the daughters of men. But these ideas are now almost entirely given up, especially since the belief in the spirituality of angels and demons has been adopted. Commentators and the fathers have generally explained the passage in Genesis which we have quoted as relating to the children of Seth, to whom the Scripture gives the name of _children of God_, to distinguish them from the sons of Cain, who were the fathers of those here called _the daughters of men_. The race of Seth having then formed alliances with the race of Cain, by means of those marriages before alluded to, there proceeded from these unions powerful, violent, and impious men, who drew down upon the earth the terrible effects of God's wrath, which burst forth at the universal deluge. Thus, then, these marriages between the _children of God_ and the _daughters of men_ have no relation to the question we are here treating; what we have to examine is--if the demon can have personal commerce with man or woman, and if what is said on that subject can be connected with the apparitions of evil spirits amongst mankind, which is the principal object of this dissertation. I will give some instances of those persons who have believed that they held such intercourse with the demon. Torquemada relates, in a detailed manner, what happened in his time, and to his knowledge, in the town of Cagliari, in Sardinia, to a young lady, who suffered herself to be corrupted by the demon; and having been arrested by the Inquisition, she suffered the penalty of the flames, in the mad hope that her pretended lover would come and deliver her. In the same place he speaks of a young girl who was sought in marriage by a gentleman of good family; when the devil assumed the form of this young man, associated with the young lady for several months, made her promises of marriage, and took advantage of her. She was only undeceived when the young lord who sought her in marriage informed her that he was absent from town, and more than fifty leagues off, the day that the promise in question had been given, and that he never had the slightest knowledge of it. The young girl, thus disabused, retired into a convent, and did penance for her double crime. We read in the life of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux,[326] that a woman of Nantes, in Brittany, saw, or thought she saw the demon every night, even when lying by her husband. She remained six years in this state; at the end of that period, having her disorderly life in horror, she confessed herself to a priest, and by his advice began to perform several acts of piety, as much to obtain pardon for her crime as to deliver herself from her abominable lover. But when the husband of this woman was informed of the circumstance, he left her, and would never see her again. This unhappy woman was informed by the devil himself that St. Bernard would soon come to Nantes, but she must mind not to speak to him, for this abbot could by no means assist her; and if she did speak to him, it would be a great misfortune to her; and that from being her lover, he who warned her of it would become her most ardent persecutor. The saint reassured this woman, and desired her to make the sign of the cross on herself on going to bed, and to place next her in the bed the staff which he gave her. "If the demon comes," said he, "let him do what he can." The demon came; but, without daring to approach the bed, he threatened the woman greatly, and told her that after the departure of St. Bernard he would come again to torment her. On the following Sunday, St. Bernard repaired to the Cathedral church, with the Bishop of Nantes and the Bishop of Chartres, and having caused lighted tapers to be given to all the people, who had assembled in a great crowd, the saint, after having publicly related the abominable action of the demon, exorcised and anathematized the evil spirit, and forbade him, by the authority of Jesus Christ, ever again to approach that woman, or any other. Everybody extinguished their tapers, and the power of the demon was annihilated. This example and the two preceding ones, related in so circumstantial a manner, might make us believe that there is some reality in what is said of demons incubi and succubi; but if we deeply examine the facts, we shall find that an imagination strongly possessed, and violent prejudice, may produce all that we have just repeated. St. Bernard begins by curing the woman's mind, by giving her a stick, which she was to place by her side in the bed. This staff sufficed for the first impression; but to dispose her for a complete cure, he exorcises the demon, and then anathematizes him, with all the _éclat_ he possibly could: the bishops are assembled in the cathedral, the people repair thither in crowds; the circumstance is recounted in pompous terms; the evil spirit is threatened; the tapers are extinguished--all of them striking ceremonies: the woman is moved by them, and her imagination is restored to a healthy tone. Jerome Cardan[327] relates two singular examples of the power of imagination in this way; he had them from Francis Pico de Mirandola. "I know," says the latter, "a priest, seventy-five years of age, who lived with a pretended woman, whom he called Hermeline, with whom he slept, conversed, and conducted in the streets as if she had been his wife. He alone saw her, or thought he saw her, so that he was looked upon as a man who had lost his senses. This priest was named Benedict Beïna. He had been arrested by the Inquisition, and punished for his crimes; for he owned that in the sacrifice of the mass he did not pronounce the sacramental words, that he had given the consecrated wafer to women to make use of in sorcery, and that he had sucked the blood of children. He avowed all this while undergoing the question. Another, named Pineto, held converse with a demon, whom he kept as his wife, and with whom he had intercourse for more than forty years. This man was still living in the time of Pico de Mirandola. Devotion and spirituality, when too contracted and carried to excess, have also their derangements of imagination. Persons so affected often believe they see, hear, and feel, what passes only in their brain, and which takes all its reality from their prejudices and self-love. This is less mistrusted, because the object of it is holy and pious; but error and excess, even in matters of devotion, are subject to very great inconveniences, and it is very important to undeceive all those who give way to this kind of mental derangement. For instance, we have seen persons eminent for their devotion, who believed they saw the Holy Virgin, St. Joseph, the Saviour, and their guardian angel, who spoke to them, conversed with them, touched the wounds of the Lord, and tasted the blood which flowed from his side and his wounds. Others thought they were in company with the Holy Virgin and the Infant Jesus, who spoke to them and conversed with them; in idea, however, and without reality. In order to cure the two ecclesiastics of whom we have spoken, gentler and perhaps more efficacious means might have been made use of than those employed by the tribunal of the Inquisition. Every day hypochondriacs, or maniacs, with fevered imaginations, diseased brains, or with the viscera too much heated, are cured by simple and natural remedies, either by cooling the blood, and creating a diversion in the humors thereof, or by striking the imagination through some new device, or by giving so much exercise of body and mind to those who are afflicted with such maladies of the brain that they may have something else to do or to think of, than to nourish such fancies, and strengthen them by reflections daily recurring, and having always the same end and object. Footnotes: [322] Gen. vi. 1, 2. [323] Athenagorus and Clem. Alex. lib. iii. & v. Strom. & lib. ii. Pedagog. [324] Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 4. [325] Justin. Apolog. utroque. [326] Vita St. Bernard, tom. i. lib. 20. [327] Cardan, de Variet. lib. xv. c. lxxx. p. 290. CHAPTER XXXIX. RETURN AND APPARITIONS OF SOULS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY, PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. The dogma of the immortality of the soul, and of its existence after its separation from the body which it once animated, being taken for indubitable, and Jesus Christ having invincibly established it against the Sadducees, the return of souls and their apparition to the living, by the command or permission of God, can no longer appear so incredible, nor even so difficult. It was a known and received truth among the Jews in the time of our Saviour; he assumed it as certain, and never pronounced a word which could give any one reason to think that he disapproved of, or condemned it; he only warned us that in common apparitions spirits have neither flesh nor bones, as he had himself after his resurrection. If St. Thomas doubted of the reality of the resurrection of his Master, and the truth of his appearance, it was because he was aware that those who suppose they see apparitions of spirits are subject to illusion; and that one strongly prepossessed will often believe he beholds what he does not see, and hear that which he hears not; and even had Jesus Christ appeared to his apostles, that would not prove that he was resuscitated, since a spirit can appear, while its body is in the tomb and even corrupted or reduced to dust and ashes. The apostles doubted not of the possibility of the apparition of spirits: when they saw the Saviour coming towards them, walking upon the waves of the Lake of Gennesareth,[328] they at first believed that it was a phantom. After St. Peter had left the prison by the aid of an angel, and came and knocked at the door of the house where the brethren were assembled, the servant whom they sent to open it, hearing Peter's voice, thought it was his spirit, or an angel[329] who had assumed his form and voice. The wicked rich man, being in the flames of hell, begged of Abraham to send Lazarus to earth, to warn his brothers[330] not to expose themselves to the danger of falling like him in the extreme of misery: he believed, without doubt, that souls could return to earth, make themselves visible, and speak to the living. In the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, Moses, who had been dead for ages, appeared on Mount Tabor with Elias, conversing with Jesus Christ then transfigured.[331] After the resurrection of the Saviour, several persons, who had long been dead, arose from their graves, went into Jerusalem and appeared unto many.[332] In the Old Testament, King Saul addresses himself to the witch of Endor, to beg of her to evoke for him the soul of Samuel;[333] that prophet appeared and spoke to Saul. I know that considerable difficulties and objections have been formed as to this evocation and this apparition of Samuel. But whether he appeared or not--whether the Pythoness did really evoke him, or only deluded Saul with a false appearance--I deduce from it that Saul and those with him were persuaded that the spirits of the dead could appear to the living, and reveal to them things unknown to men. St. Augustine, in reply to Simplicius, who had proposed to him his difficulties respecting the truth of this apparition, says at first,[334] that it is no more difficult to understand that the demon could evoke Samuel by the help of a witch than it is to comprehend how that Satan could speak to God, and tempt the holy man Job, and ask permission to tempt the apostles; or that he could transport Jesus Christ himself to the highest pinnacle of the Temple of Jerusalem. We may believe also that God, by a particular dispensation of his will, may have permitted the demon to evoke Samuel, and make him appear before Saul, to announce to him what was to happen to him, not by virtue of magic, not by the power of the demon alone, but solely because God willed it, and ordained it thus to be. He adds that it may be advanced that it is not Samuel who appears to Saul, but a phantom, formed by the illusive power of the demon, and by the force of magic; and that the Scripture, in giving the name of Samuel to this phantom, has made use of ordinary language, which gives the name of things themselves to that which is but their image or representation in painting or in sculpture. If it should be asked how this phantom could discover the future, and predict to Saul his approaching death, we may likewise ask how the demon could know Jesus Christ for God alone, while the Jews knew him not, and the girl possessed with a spirit of divination, spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles,[335] could bear witness to the apostles, and undertake to become their advocate in rendering good testimony to their mission. Lastly, St. Augustine concludes by saying that he does not think himself sufficiently enlightened to decide whether the demon can, or cannot, by means of magical enchantments, evoke a soul after the death of the body, so that it may appear and become visible in a corporeal form, which may be recognized, and capable of speaking and revealing the hidden future. And if this potency be not accorded to magic and the demon, we must conclude that all which is related of this apparition of Samuel to Saul is an illusion and a false apparition made by the demon to deceive men. In the books of the Maccabees,[336] the High-Priest Onias, who had been dead several years before that time, appeared to Judas Maccabæus, in the attitude of a man whose hands were outspread, and who was praying for the people of the Lord: at the same time the Prophet Jeremiah, long since dead, appeared to the same Maccabæus; and Onias said to him, "Behold that holy man, who is the protector and friend of his brethren; it is he who prays continually for the Lord's people, and for the holy city of Jerusalem." So saying, he put into the hands of Judas a golden sword, saying to him, "Receive this sword as a gift from heaven, by means of which you shall destroy the enemies of my people Israel." In the same second book of the Maccabees,[337] it is related that in the thickest of the battle fought by Timotheus, general of the armies of Syria, against Judas Maccabæus, they saw five men as if descended from heaven, mounted on horses with golden bridles, who were at the head of the army of the Jews, two of them on each side of Judas Maccabæus, the chief captain of the army of the Lord; they shielded him with their arms, and launched against the enemy such fiery darts and thunderbolts that they were blinded and mortally afraid and terrified. These five armed horsemen, these combatants for Israel, are apparently no other than Mattathias, the father of Judas Maccabæus,[338] and four of his sons, who were already dead; there yet remained of his seven sons but Judas Maccabæus, Jonathan, and Simon. We may also understand it as five angels, who were sent by God to the assistance of the Maccabees. In whatever way we regard it, these are not doubtful apparitions, both on account of the certainty of the book in which they are related, and the testimony of a whole army by which they were seen. Whence I conclude, that the Hebrews had no doubt that the spirits of the dead could return to earth, that they did return in fact, and that they discovered to the living things beyond our natural knowledge. Moses expressly forbids the Israelites to consult the dead.[339] But these apparitions did not show themselves in solid and material bodies; the Saviour assures us of it when he says, "Spirits have neither flesh nor bones." It was often only an aërial figure which struck the senses and the imagination, like the images which we see in sleep, or that we firmly believe we hear and see. The inhabitants of Sodom were struck with a species of blindness,[340] which prevented them from seeing the door of Lot's house, into which the angels had entered. The soldiers who sought for Elisha were in the same way blinded in some sort,[341] although they spoke to him they were seeking for, who led them into Samaria without their perceiving him. The two disciples who went on Easter-day to Emmaus, in company with Jesus Christ their Master, did not recognize him till the breaking of the bread.[342] Thus, the apparitions of spirits to mankind are not always in a corporeal form, palpable and real; but God, who ordains or permits them, often causes the persons to whom these apparitions appear, to behold, in a dream or otherwise, those spirits which speak to, warn, or threaten them; who makes them see things as if present, which in reality are not before their eyes, but only in their imagination; which does not prove these visions and warnings not to be sent from God, who, by himself, or by the ministration of his angels, or by souls disengaged from the body, inspired the minds of men with what he judges proper for them to know, whether in a dream, or by external signs, or by words, or else by certain impressions made on their senses, or in their imagination, in the absence of every external object. If the apparitions of the souls of the dead were things in nature and of their own choice, there would be few persons who would not come back to visit the things or the persons which have been dear to them during this life. St. Augustine says it of his mother, St. Monica,[343] who had so tender and constant an affection for him, and who, while she lived, followed him and sought him by sea and land. The bad rich man would not have failed, either, to come in person to his brethren and relations to inform them of the wretched condition in which he found himself in hell. It is a pure favor of the mercy or the power of God, and which he grants to very few persons, to make their appearance after death; for which reason we should be very much on our guard against all that is said, and all that we find written on the subject in books. Footnotes: [328] Matt. vi. 16. Mark vi. 43. [329] Acts xii. 13, 14. [330] Luke xxi. 14, 15. [331] Luke ix. 32. [332] Matt. xxvii. 34. [333] 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, ad finem. [334] Augustin de Diversis Quæst. ad Simplicium, Quæst. cxi. [335] Acts xxvi. 17. [336] Macc. x. 29. [337] 2 Macc. x. 29. [338] 1 Macc. xi. 1. [339] Deut. xviii. 11. [340] Gen. xix. 11. [341] 2 Kings vi. 19. [342] Luke xxvi. 16. [343] Aug. de Curâ gerendâ pro Mortuis, c. xiii. CHAPTER XL. APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS PROVED FROM HISTORY. St. Augustine[344] acknowledges that the dead have often appeared to the living, have revealed to them the spot where their body remained unburied, and have shown them that where they wished to be interred. He says, moreover, that a noise was often heard in churches where the dead were inhumed, and that dead persons have been seen often to enter the houses wherein they dwelt before their decease. We read that in the Council of Elvira,[345] which was held about the year 300, it was forbidden to light tapers in the cemeteries, that the souls of the saints might not be disturbed. The night after the death of Julian the Apostate, St. Basil[346] had a vision in which he fancied he saw the martyr, St. Mercurius, who received an order from God to go and kill Julian. A little time afterwards the same saint Mercurius returned and cried out, "Lord, Julian is pierced and wounded to death, as thou commandedst me." In the morning St. Basil announced this news to the people. St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in 107,[347] appeared to his disciples, embracing them, and standing near them; and as they persevered in praying with still greater fervor, they saw him crowned with glory, as if in perspiration, coming from a great combat, environed with light. After the death of St. Ambrose, which happened on Easter Eve, the same night in which they baptized neophytes, several newly baptized children saw the holy bishop,[348] and pointed him out to their parents, who could not see him because their eyes were not purified--at least says St. Paulinus, a disciple of the saint, and who wrote his life. He adds that on the day of his death the saint appeared to several holy persons dwelling in the East, praying with them and giving them the imposition of hands; they wrote to Milan, and it was found, on comparing the dates, that this occurred on the very day he died. These letters were still preserved in the time of Paulinus, who wrote all these things. This holy bishop was also seen several times after his death praying in the Ambrosian church at Milan, which he promised during his life that he would often visit. During the siege of Milan, St. Ambrose appeared to a man of that same city, and promised that the next day succor would arrive, which happened accordingly. A blind man having learnt in a vision that the bodies of the holy martyrs Sicineus and Alexander would come by sea to Milan, and that Bishop Ambrose was going to meet them, he prayed the same bishop to restore him to sight, in a dream. Ambrose replied; "Go to Milan; come and meet my brethren; they will arrive on such a day, and they will restore you to sight." The blind man went to Milan, where he had never been before, touched the shrine of the holy martyrs, and recovered his eyesight. He himself related the circumstance to Paulinus. The lives of the saints are full of apparitions of deceased persons; and if they were collected, large volumes might be filled. St. Ambrose, of whom we have just spoken, discovered after a miraculous fashion the bodies of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius,[349] and those of St. Nazairius and St. Celsus. Evodius, Bishop of Upsal in Africa,[350] a great friend of St. Augustine, was well persuaded of the reality of apparitions of the dead, from his own experience, and he relates several instances of such things which happened in his own time; as that of a good widow to whom a deacon appeared who had been dead for four years. He was accompanied by several of the servants of God, of both sexes, who were preparing a palace of extraordinary beauty. This widow asked him for whom they were making these preparations; he replied that it was for the youth who died the preceding day. At the same time, a venerable old man, who was in the same palace, commanded two young men, arrayed in white, to take the deceased young man out of his grave and conduct him to this place. As soon as he had left the grave, fresh roses and rose-beds sprang up; and the young man appeared to a monk, and told him that God had received him into the number of his elect, and had sent him to fetch his father, who in fact died four days after of slow fever. Evodius asks himself diverse questions on this recital: If the soul on quitting its (mortal) body does not retain a certain subtile body, with which it appears, and by means of which it is transported from one spot to another? If the angels even have not a certain kind of body?--for if they are incorporeal, how can they be counted? And if Samuel appeared to Saul, how could it take place if Samuel had no members? He adds, "I remember well that Profuturus, Privatus and Servitus, whom I had known in the monastery here, appeared to me, and talked with me after their decease; and what they told me, happened. Was it their soul which appeared to me, or was it some other spirit which assumed their form?" He concludes from this that the soul is not absolutely bodiless, since God alone is incorporeal.[351] St. Augustine, who was consulted on this matter by Evodius, does not think that the soul, after the death of the body, is clothed with any material substantial form; but he confesses that it is very difficult to explain how an infinite number of things are done, which pass in our minds, as well in our sleep as when we are awake, in which we seem to see, feel, and discourse, and do things which it would appear could be done only by the body, although it is certain that nothing bodily occurs. And how can we explain things so unknown, and so far beyond anything that we experience every day, since we cannot explain even what daily experience shows us.[352] Evodius adds that several persons after their decease have been going and coming in their houses as before, both day and night; and that in churches where the dead were buried, they often heard a noise in the night as of persons praying aloud. St. Augustine, to whom Evodius writes all this, acknowledges that there is a great distinction to be made between true and false visions, and that he could wish he had some sure means of discerning them correctly. The same saint relates on this occasion a remarkable story, which has much connection with the matter we are treating upon. A physician named Gennadius, a great friend of St. Augustine's, and well known at Carthage for his great talent and his kindness to the poor, doubted whether there was another life. One day he saw, in a dream, a young man who said to him, "Follow me;" he followed him in spirit, and found himself in a city, where, on his right hand, he heard most admirable melody; he did not remember what he heard on his left. Another time he saw the same young man, who said to him, "Do you know me?" "Very well," answered he. "And whence comes it that you know me?" He related to him what he had showed him in the city whither he had led him. The young man added, "Was it in a dream, or awake, that you saw all that?" "In a dream?" he replied. The young man then asked, "Where is your body now?" "In my bed," said he. "Do you know that now you see nothing with the eyes of your body?" "I know it," answered he. "Well, then, with what eyes do you behold me?" As he hesitated, and knew not what to reply, the young man said to him, "In the same way that you see and hear me now that your eyes are shut, and your senses asleep; thus after death you will live, you will see, you will hear, but with eyes of the spirit; so doubt not that there is another life after the present one." The great St. Anthony, one day when he was wide awake, saw the soul of the hermit St. Ammon being carried into heaven in the midst of choirs of angels. Now, St. Ammon died that same day, at five days' journey from thence, in the desert of Nitria. The same St. Anthony saw also the soul of St. Paul Hermitus ascending to heaven surrounded by choirs of angels and prophets. St. Benedict beheld the spirit of St. Germain, Bishop of Capua, at the moment of his decease, who was carried into heaven by angels. The same saint saw the soul of his sister, St. Scholastica, rising to heaven in the form of a dove. We might multiply such instances without end. They are true apparitions of souls separated from their bodies. St. Sulpicius Severus, being at some distance from the city of Tours, and ignorant of what was passing there, fell one morning into a light slumber; as he slept he beheld St. Martin, who appeared to him in a white garment, his countenance shining, his eyes sparkling, his hair of a purple color; it was, nevertheless, very easy to recognise him by his air and his face. St. Martin showed himself to him with a smiling countenance, and holding in his hand the book which St. Sulpicius Severus had composed upon his life. Sulpicius threw himself at his feet, embraced his knees, and implored his benediction, which the saint bestowed upon him. All this passed in a vision; and as St. Martin rose into the air, Sulpicius Severus saw still in the spirit the priest Clarus, a disciple of the saint, who went the same way and rose towards heaven. At that moment Sulpicius awoke, and a lad who served him, on entering, told him that two monks who were just arrived from Tours, had brought word that St. Martin was dead. The Baron de Coussey, an old and respectable magistrate, has related to me more than once that, being at more than sixty leagues from the town where his mother died the night she breathed her last, he was awakened by the barking of a dog which laid at the foot of his bed; and at the same moment he perceived the head of his mother environed by a great light, who, entering by the window into his chamber, spoke to him distinctly, and announced to him various things concerning the state of his affairs. St. Chrysostom, in his exile,[353] and the night preceding his death, saw the martyr St. Basilicus, who said to him--"Courage, brother John; to-morrow we shall be together." The same thing was foretold to a priest who lived in the same place. St. Basilicus said to him, "Prepare a place for my brother John; for, behold, he is coming." The discovery of the body of St. Stephen, the first martyr, is very celebrated in the Church; this occurred in the year 415. St. Gamaliel, who had been the master of St. Paul before his conversion, appeared to a priest named Lucius, who slept in the baptistery of the Church at Jerusalem to guard the sacred vases, and told him that his own body and that of St. Stephen the proto-martyr were interred at Caphargamala, in the suburb named Dilagabis; that the body of his son named Abibas, and that of Nicodemus, reposed in the same spot. Lucius had the same vision three times following, with an interval of a few days between. John, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was then at the Council of Dioscopolis, repaired to the spot, made the discovery and translation of the relics, which were transported to Jerusalem, and a great number of miracles were performed there. Licinius, being in his tent,[354] thinking of the battle he was to fight on the morrow, saw an angel, who dictated to him a form of prayer which he made his soldiers learn by heart, and by means of which he gained the victory over the Emperor Maximian. Mascezel, general of the Roman troops which Stilicho sent into Africa against Gildas, prepared himself for this war, in imitation of Theodosius the Great, by prayer and the intervention of the servants of God. He took with him in his vessel some monks, whose only occupation during the voyage was to pray, fast, and sing psalms. Gildas had an army of seventy thousand men; Mascezel had but five thousand, and did not think he could without rashness attempt to compete with an enemy so powerful and so far superior in the number of his forces. As he was pondering uneasily on these things, St. Ambrose, who died the year before, appeared to him by night, holding a staff in his hand, and struck the ground three times, crying, "Here, here, here!" Mascezel understood that the saint promised him the victory in that same spot three days after. In fact, the third day he marched upon the enemy, offering peace to the first whom he met; but an ensign having replied to him very arrogantly, he gave him a severe blow with his sword upon his arm, which made his standard swerve; those who were afar off thought that he was yielding, and that he lowered his standard in sign of submission, and they hastened to do the same. Paulinus, who wrote the life of St. Ambrose, assures us that he had these particulars from the lips of Mascezel himself; and Orosius heard them from those who had been eye-witnesses of the fact. The persecutors having inflicted martyrdom on seven Christian virgins,[355] one of them appeared the following night to St. Theodosius of Ancyra, and revealed to him the spot where herself and her companions had been thrown into the lake, each one with a stone tied around her neck. As Theodosius and his people were occupied in searching for their bodies, a voice from heaven warned Theodosius to be on his guard against the traitor, meaning to indicate Polycronius, who betrayed Theodosius, and was the occasion of his being arrested and martyred. St. Potamienna,[356] a Christian virgin who suffered martyrdom at Alexandria, appeared after her death to several persons, and was the cause of their conversion to Christianity. She appeared in particular to a soldier named Basilidus, who, as he was conducting her to the place of execution, had protected her from the insults of the populace. This soldier, encouraged by Potamienna, who in a vision placed a garland upon his head, was baptized, and received the crown of martyrdom. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocæsarea in Pontus, being greatly occupied with certain theological difficulties, raised by heretics concerning the mysteries of religion, and having passed great part of the night in studying those matters, saw a venerable old man enter his room, having by his side a lady of august and divine form; he comprehended that these were the Holy Virgin and St. John the Evangelist. The Virgin exhorted St. John to instruct the bishop, and dissipate his embarrassment, by explaining clearly to him the mystery of the Trinity and the Divinity of the Verb or Word. He did so, and St. Gregory wrote it down instantly. It is the doctrine which he left to his church, and which they have to this very day. Footnotes: [344] Aug. de Curâ gerend. pro Mortuis, c. x. [345] Concil. Eliber, auno circiter 300. [346] Amplilo. vita S. Basil. and Chronic. Alex. p. 692. [347] Acta sincera Mart. pp. 11, 22. Edit. 1713. [348] Paulin. vit. S. Ambros. n. 47, 48. [349] Ambros. Epist. 22, p. 874; vid. notes, ibid. [350] Evod. Upsal. apud Aug. Epist. clviii. Idem, Aug. Epist. clix. [351] "Animan igitur omni corpore carere omnino non posse, illud, ut puto, ostendit quia Deus solus omni corpore semper caret." [352] "Quid se præcipitat de rarissimis aut inexpertis quasi definitam ferre sententiam, cum quotidiana et continua non solvat?" [353] Palladius, Dialog, de Vita Chrysost. c. xi. [354] Lactant. de Mort. Persec. c. 46. [355] Acta sincera Martyr. passion. S. Theodos. M. pp. 343, 344. [356] Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 8. CHAPTER XLI. MORE INSTANCES OF APPARITIONS. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, relates that a good priest named Stephen, having received the confession of a lord named Guy, who was mortally wounded in a combat, this lord appeared to him completely armed some time after his death, and begged of him to tell his brother Anselm to restore an ox which he Guy had taken from a peasant, whom he named, and repair the damage which he had done to a village which did not belong to him, and which he had taxed with undue charges; that he had forgotten to declare these two sins in his last confession, and that he was cruelly tormented for it. "And as assurance of the truth of what I tell you," added he, "when you return home, you will find that you have been robbed of the money you intended for your expenses in going to St. Jacques." The curé, on his return to his house, found his money gone, but could not acquit himself of his commission, because Anselm was absent. A few days after, Guy appeared to him again, and reproached him for having neglected to perform what he had asked of him. The curé excused himself on account of the absence of Anselm; and at length went to him and told him what he was charged to do. Anselm answered him harshly that he was not obliged to do penance for his brother's sins. The dead man appeared a third time, and implored the curé to assist him in this extremity; he did so, and restored the value of the ox; but as the rest exceeded his power, he gave alms, and recommended Guy to the worthy people of his acquaintance; and he appeared no more. Richer, a monk of Senones,[357] speaks of a spirit which returned in his time, in the town of Epinal, about the year 1212, in the house of a burgess named Hugh de la Cour, and who, from Christmas to Midsummer, did a variety of things in that same house, in sight of everybody. They could hear him speak, they could see all he did, but nobody could see him. He said he belonged to Cléxenteine, a village seven leagues from Epinal; and what is also remarkable is that, during the six months he was heard about the house, he did no harm to any one. One day, Hugh having ordered his domestic to saddle his horse, and the valet being busy about something else, deferred doing it, when the spirit did his work, to the great astonishment of all the household. Another time, when Hugh was absent, the spirit asked Stephen, the son-in-law of Hugh, for a penny, to make an offering of it to St. Goëric, the patron saint of Epinal. Stephen presented him with an old denier of Provence; but the spirit refused it, saying he would have a good denier of Thoulouse. Stephen placed on the threshold of the door a Thoulousian denier, which disappeared immediately; and the following night, a noise, as of a man who was walking therein, was heard in the church of St. Goëric. Another time, Hugh having bought some fish to make his family a repast, the spirit transported the fish to the garden which was behind the house, put half of it on a tile (_scandula_), and the rest in a mortar, where it was found again. Another time, Hugh desiring to be bled, told his daughter to get ready some bandages. Immediately the spirit went into another room, and fetched a new shirt, which he tore up into several bandages, presented them to the master of the house, and told him to choose the best. Another day, the servant having spread out some linen in the garden to dry, the spirit carried it all up stairs, and folded them more neatly than the cleverest laundress could have done. A man named Guy de la Torre,[358] who died at Verona in 1306, at the end of eight days spoke to his wife and the neighbors of both sexes, to the prior of the Dominicians, and to the professor of theology, who asked him several questions in theology, to which he replied very pertinently. He declared that he was in purgatory for certain unexpatiated sins. They asked him how he possibly could speak, not having the organs of the voice; he replied that souls separated from the body have the faculty of forming for themselves instruments of the air capable of pronouncing words; he added that the fire of hell acted upon spirits, not by its natural virtue, but by the power of God, of which that fire is the instrument. Here follows another remarkable instance of an apparition, related by M. d'Aubigné. "I affirm upon the word of the king[359] the second prodigy, as being one of the three stories which he reiterated to us, his hair standing on end at the time, as we could perceive. This one is, that the queen having gone to bed at an earlier hour than usual, and there being present at her _coucher_, amongst other persons of note, the king of Navarre,[360] the Archbishop of Lyons, the Ladies de Retz, de Lignerolles, and de Sauve, two of whom have since confirmed this conversation. As she was hastening to bid them good night, she threw herself with a start upon her bolster, put her hands before her face, and crying out violently, she called to her assistance those who were present, wishing to show them, at the foot of the bed, the Cardinal (de Lorraine), who extended his hand towards her; she cried out several times, 'M. the Cardinal, I have nothing to do with you.' The King of Navarre at the same time sent out one of his gentlemen, who brought back word that he had expired at that same moment." I take from Sully's Memoirs,[361] which have just been reprinted in better order than they were before, another singular fact, which may be related with these. We still endeavor to find out what can be the nature of that illusion, seen so often and by the eyes of so many persons in the Forest of Fontainebleau; it was a phantom surrounded by a pack of hounds, whose cries were heard, while they might be seen at a distance, but all disappeared if any one approached. The note of M. d'Ecluse, editor of these Memoirs, enters into longer details. He observes that M. de Peréfixe makes mention of this phantom; and he makes him say, with a hoarse voice, one of these three sentences: Do you expect me? or, Do you hear me? or, Amend yourself. "And they believe," says he, "that these were sports of sorcerers, or of the malignant spirit." The Journal of Henry IV., and the Septenary Chronicle, speak of them also, and even assert that this phenomenon alarmed Henry IV. and his courtiers very much. And Peter Matthew says something of it in his History of France, tom. ii. p. 68. Bongars speaks of it as others do,[362] and asserts that it was a hunter who had been killed in this forest in the time of Francis I. But now we hear no more of this spectre, though there is still a road in this forest which retains the name of the _Grand Veneur_, in memory, it is said, of this visionary scene. A Chronicle of Metz,[363] under the date of the year 1330, relates the apparition of a spirit at Lagni sur Marne, six leagues from Paris. It was a good lady, who after her death spoke to more than twenty people--her father, sister, daughter, and son-in-law, and to her other friends--asking them to have said for her particular masses, as being more efficacious than the common mass. As they feared it might be an evil spirit, they read to it the beginning of the Gospel of St. John; and they made it say the _Pater_, _credo_, and _confiteor_. She said she had beside her two angels, one bad and one good; and that the good angel revealed to her what she ought to say. They asked her if they should go and fetch the Holy Sacrament from the altar. She replied it was with them, for her father, who was present, and several others among them, had received it on Christmas day, which was the Tuesday before. Father Taillepied, a Cordelier, and professor of theology at Rouen,[364] who composed a book expressly on the subject of apparitions, which was printed at Rouen in 1600, says that one of his fraternity with whom he was acquainted, named Brother Gabriel, appeared to several monks of the convent at Nice, and begged of them to satisfy the demand of a shopkeeper at Marseilles, of whom he had taken a coat he had not paid for. On being asked why he made so much noise, he replied that it was not himself, but a bad spirit who wished to appear instead of him, and prevent him from declaring the cause of his torment. I have been told by two canons of St. Diez, in our neighborhood, that three months after the death of M. Henri, canon of St. Diez, of their brotherhood, the canon to whom the house devolved, going with one of his brethren, at two o'clock in the afternoon, to look at the said house, and see what alterations it might suit him to make in it, they went into the kitchen, and both of them saw in the next room, which was large and very light, a tall ecclesiastic of the same height and figure as the defunct canon, who, turning towards them, looked them in the face for two minutes, then crossed the said room, and went up a little dark staircase which led to the garret. These two gentlemen, being much frightened, left the house instantly, and related the adventure to some of the brotherhood, who were of opinion that they ought to return and see if there was not some one hidden in the house; they went, they sought, they looked everywhere, without finding any one. We read in the History of the Bishops of Mans,[365] that in the time of Bishop Hugh, who lived in 1135, they heard, in the house of Provost Nicholas, a spirit who alarmed the neighbors and those who lived in the house, by uproar and frightful noises, as if he had thrown enormous stones against the walls, with a force which shook the roof, walls, and ceilings; he transported the dishes and the plates from one place to another, without their seeing the hand which moved them. This genius lighted a candle, though very far from the fire. Sometimes, when the meat was placed on the table, he would scatter bran, ashes, or soot, to prevent them from touching any of it. Amica, the wife of the Provost Nicholas, having prepared some thread to be made into cloth, the spirit twisted and raveled it in such a way that all who saw it could not sufficiently admire the manner in which it was done. Priests were called in, who sprinkled holy water everywhere, and desired all those who were there to make the sign of the cross. Towards the first and second night, they heard as it were the voice of a young girl, who, with sighs that seemed drawn from the bottom of her heart, said, in a lamentable and sobbing voice, that her name was Garnier; and addressing itself to the provost, said, "Alas! whence do I come? from what distant country, through how many storms, dangers, through snow, cold, fire, and bad weather, have I arrived at this place! I have not received power to harm any one--but prepare yourselves with the sign of the cross against a band of evil spirits, who are here only to do you harm; have a mass of the Holy Ghost said for me, and a mass for those defunct; and you, my dear sister-in-law, give some clothes to the poor, for me." They asked this spirit several questions on things past and to come, to which it replied very pertinently; it explained even the salvation and damnation of several persons; but it would not enter into any argument, nor yet into conference with learned men, who were sent by the Bishop of Mans; this last circumstance is very remarkable, and casts some suspicion on this apparition. Footnotes: [357] Richer Senon. in Chronic. m. (Hoc non exstat in impresso). [358] Herman Contraet. Chronic. p. 1006. [359] D'Aubigné, Hist. Univ. lib. ii. c. 12. Ap. 1574. [360] Henry IV. [361] Mém. de Sully, in 4to. tom. i. liv. x. p. 562, note 26. Or Edit. in 12mo. tom. iii. p. 321, note 26. [362] Bongars, Epist. ad Camerarium. [363] Chronic. Metens. Anno, 1330. [364] Taillepied, Traité de l'Apparition des Esprits, c. xv. p. 173. [365] Anecdote Mabill, p. 320. Edition in fol. CHAPTER XLII. ON THE APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS WHO IMPRINT THEIR HANDS ON CLOTHES OR ON WOOD. Within a short time, a work composed by a Father Prémontré, of the Abbey of Toussaints, in the Black Forest, has been communicated to me. His work is in manuscript, and entitled, "Umbra Humberti, hoc est historia memorabilis D. Humberti Birkii, mirâ post mortem apparitione, per A. G. N." This Humbert Birck was a burgess of note, in the town of Oppenheim, and master of a country house called Berenbach; he died in the month of November, 1620, a few days before the feast of St. Martin. On the Saturday which followed his funeral, they began to hear certain noises in the house where he had lived with his first wife; for at the time of his death he had married again. The master of this house, suspecting that it was his brother-in-law who haunted it, said to him, "If you are Humbert, my brother-in-law, strike three times against the wall." At the same time, they heard three strokes only, for ordinarily he struck several times. Sometimes, also, he was heard at the fountain where they went for water, and he frightened all the neighborhood; he did not always utter articulate sounds, but he would knock repeatedly, make a noise, or a groan, or a shrill whistle, or sounds as a person in lamentation; all this lasted for six months, and then it suddenly ceased. At the end of a year he made himself heard more loudly than ever. The master of the house, and his domestics, the boldest amongst them, at last asked him what he wished for, and in what they could help him? He replied, but in a hoarse, low tone, "Let the curé come here next Saturday with my children." The curé being indisposed, could not go thither on the appointed day; but he went on the Monday following, accompanied by a good many people. Humbert received notice of this, and he answered in a very intelligible manner. They asked him if he required any masses to be said? He asked for three. Then they wished to know if alms should be given in his name? He said, "I wish them to give eight measures of corn to the poor, and that my widow may give something to all my children." He afterwards ordered that what had been badly distributed in his succession, which amounted to about twenty florins, should be set aside. They asked why he infested that house rather than another? He answered that he was forced to it by conjuration and maledictions. Had he received the sacraments of the Church? "I received them from the curé, your predecessor." He was made to say the _Pater_ and the _Ave_; he recited them with difficulty, saying that he was prevented by an evil spirit, who would not let him tell the curé many other things. The curé, who was named Prémontré, of the abbey of Toussaints, came to the monastery on Tuesday the 12th of January, 1621, in order to take the opinion of the Superior on this singular affair; they let him have three monks to help him with their counsels. They all repaired to the house wherein Humbert continued his importunity; for nothing that he had requested had as yet been executed. A great number of those who lived near were assembled in the house. The master of it told Humbert to rap against the wall; he knocked very gently: then the master desired him to go and fetch a stone and knock louder; he deferred a little, as if he had been to pick up a stone, and gave a stronger blow upon the wall: the master whispered in his neighbor's ear as softly as he could that he should rap seven times, and directly he rapped seven times. He always showed great respect to the priests, and did not reply to them so boldly as to the laity; and when he was asked why--"It is," said he, "because they have with them the Holy Sacrament." However, they had it no otherwise than because they had said mass that day. The next day the three masses which he had required were said, and all was disposed for a pilgrimage, which he had specified in the last conversation they had with him; and they promised to give alms for him the first day possible. From that time Humbert haunted them no more. The same monk, Prémontré, relates that on the 9th of September, 1625, a man named John Steinlin died at a place called Altheim, in the diocese of Constance. Steinlin was a man in easy circumstances, and a common-councilman of his town. Some days after his death he appeared during the night to a tailor, named Simon Bauh, in the form of a man surrounded by a sombre flame, like that of lighted sulphur, going and coming in his own house, but without speaking. Bauh, who was disquieted by this sight, resolved to ask him what he could do to serve him. He found an opportunity to do so the 17th of November in the same year, 1625; for, as he was reposing at night near his stove, a little after eleven o'clock, he beheld this spectre environed by fire like sulphur, who came into his room, going and coming, shutting and opening the windows. The tailor asked him what he desired. He replied, in a hoarse, interrupted voice, that he could help very much, if he would; "but," added he, "do not promise me to do so, if you are not resolved to execute your promises." "I will execute them, if they are not beyond my power," replied he. "I wish, then," replied the spirit, "that you would cause a mass to be said in the chapel of the Virgin at Rotembourg; I made a vow to that intent during my life, and I have not acquitted myself of it. Moreover, you must have two masses said at Altheim, the one of the Defunct and the other of the Virgin; and as I did not always pay my servants exactly, I wish that a quarter of corn should be distributed to the poor." Simon promised to satisfy him on all these points. The spectre held out his hand, as if to ensure his promise; but Simon, fearing that some harm might happen to himself, tendered him the board which come to hand, and the spectre having touched it, left the print of his hand with the four fingers and thumb, as if fire had been there, and had left a pretty deep impression. After that, he vanished with so much noise that it was heard three houses off. I related in the first edition of this dissertation on the return of spirits, an adventure which happened at Fontenoy on the Moselle, where it was affirmed that a spirit had in the same manner made the impression of its hand on a handkerchief, and had left the impress of the hand and of the palm well marked. The handkerchief is in the hands of one Casmar, a constable living at Toul, who received it from his uncle, the curé of Fontenoy; but, on a careful investigation of the thing, it was found that a young blacksmith, who courted a young girl to whom the handkerchief belonged, had forged an iron hand to print it on the handkerchief, and persuade people of the reality of the apparition. At St. Avold, a town of German Lorraine, in the house of the curé, named M. Royer de Monelos, there was something very similar which appears to have been performed by a servant girl, sixteen years of age, who heard and saw, as she said, a woman who made a great noise in the house; but she was the only person who saw and heard her, although others heard also the noise which was made in the house. They saw also the young servant, as it were, pushed, dragged, and struck by the spirit, but never saw it, nor yet heard his voice. This contrivance began on the night of the 31st of January, 1694, and finished about the end of February the same year. The curé conjured the spirit in German and French. He made no reply to the exorcisms in French but sighs; and as they terminated the German exorcism, saying, "Let every spirit praise the Lord," the girl said that the spirit had said, "And me also;" but she alone heard it. Some monks of the abbey were requested to come also and exorcise the spirit. They came, and with them some burgesses of note of St. Avold; and neither before nor after the exorcisms did they see or hear anything, except that the servant girl seemed to be pushed violently, and the doors were roughly knocked at. By dint of exorcisms they forced the spirit, or rather the servant who alone heard and saw it, to declare that she was neither maid nor wife; that she was called Claire Margaret Henri; that a hundred and fifty years ago she had died at the age of twenty, after having lived servant at the curé of St. Avold's first of all for eight years, and that she had died at Guenviller of grief and regret for having killed her own child. At last, the servant maintaining that she was not a good spirit, she said to her, "Give me hold of your petticoat (or skirt)." She would do no such thing; at the same time the spirit said to her, "Look at your petticoat; my mark is upon it." She looked and saw upon her skirt the five fingers of the hand so distinctly that it did not appear possible for any living creature to have marked them better. This affair lasted about two months; and at this day, at St. Avold, as in all the country, they talk of the spirit of St. Avold as of a game played by that girl, in concert, doubtless, with some persons who wished to divert themselves by puzzling the good curé with his sisters, and all those who fell into the trap. They printed at Cusson's, at Nancy, in 1718, a relation of this event, which at first gained credence with a number of people, but who were quite undeceived in the end. I shall add to this story that which is related by Philip Melancthon,[366] whose testimony in this matter ought not to be doubted. He says that his aunt having lost her husband when she was enceinte and near her time, she saw one day, towards evening, two persons come into her house; one of them wore the form of her deceased husband, the other that of a tall Franciscan. At first she was frightened, but her husband reassured her, and told her that he had important things to communicate to her; at the same time he begged the Franciscan to pass into the next room, whilst he imparted his wishes to his wife. Then he begged of her to have some masses said for the relief of his soul, and tried to persuade her to give her hand without fear; as she was unwilling to give it, he assured her she would feel no pain. She gave him her hand, and her hand felt no pain when she withdrew it, but was so blackened that it remained discolored all her life. After that, the husband called in the Franciscan; they went out, and disappeared. Melancthon believes that these were two spectres; he adds that he knows several similar instances related by persons worthy of credit. If these two men were only spectres, having neither flesh nor bones, how could one of them imprint a black color on the hand of this widow? How could he who appeared to the tailor Bauh imprint his hand on the board which he presented to him? If they were evil genii, why did they ask for masses and order restitution? Does Satan destroy his own empire, and does he inspire the living with the idea of doing good actions and of fearing the pains which the sins of the wicked are punished by God? But on looking at the affair in another light, may not the demon in this kind of apparitions, by which he asks for masses and prayers, intend to foment superstition, by making the living believe that masses and prayers made for them after their death would free them from the pains of hell, even if they died in habitual crime and impenitence? Several instances are cited of rascals who have appeared after their death, asking for prayers like the bad rich man, and to whom prayers and masses can be of no avail from the unhappy state in which they died. Thus, in all this, Satan seeks to establish his kingdom, and not to destroy it or diminish it. We shall speak hereafter, in the Dissertation on Vampires, of apparitions of dead persons who have been seen, and acted like living ones in their own bodies. The same Melancthon relates that a monk came one day and rapped loudly at the door of Luther's dwelling, asking to speak to him; he entered and said, "I entertained some popish errors upon which I shall be very glad to confer with you." "Speak," said Luther. He at first proposed to him several syllogisms, to which he easily replied; he then proposed others, that were more difficult. Luther, being annoyed, answered him hastily, "Go, you embarrass me; I have something else to do just now besides answering you." However, he rose and replied to his arguments. At the same time, having remarked that the pretended monk had hands like the claws of a bird, he said to him, "Art not thou he of whom it is said, in Genesis, 'He who shall be born of woman shall break the head of the serpent?'" The demon added, "But _thou_ shalt engulf them all." At these words the confused demon retired angrily and with much fracas; he left the room infested with a very bad smell, which was perceptible for some days. Luther, who assumes so much the _esprit fort_, and inveighs with so much warmth against private masses wherein they pray for the souls of the defunct,[367] maintains boldly that all the apparitions of spirits which we read in the lives of the saints, and who ask for masses for the repose of their souls, are only illusions of Satan, who appears to deceive the simple, and inspire them with useless confidence in the sacrifice of the mass. Whence he concludes that it is better at once to deny absolutely that there is any purgatory. He, then, did not deny either apparitions or the operations of the devil; and he maintained that Ecolampadius died under the blows of the devil,[368] whose efforts he could not rebut; and, speaking of himself, he affirms that awaking once with a start in the middle of the night, the devil appeared, to argue against him, when he was seized with moral terror. The arguments of the demon were so pressing that they left him no repose of mind; the sound of his powerful voice, his overwhelming manner of disputing when the question and the reply were perceived at once, left him no breathing time. He says again that the devil can kill and strangle, and without doing all that, press a man so home by his arguments that it is enough to kill one; "as I," says he, "have experienced several times." After such avowals, what can we think of the doctrine of this chief of the innovators? Footnotes: [366] Philipp. Melancth. Theolog. c. i. Oper. fol. 326, 327. [367] Martin Luther, de Abroganda Missa Privata, part. ii. [368] Ibid. tom. vii. 226. CHAPTER XLIII. OPINIONS OF THE JEWS, GREEKS, AND LATINS CONCERNING THE DEAD WHO ARE LEFT UNBURIED. The ancient Hebrews, as well as the greater number of other nations, were very careful in burying their dead. That appears from all history; we see in the Scripture how much attention the patriarchs paid in that respect to themselves and those belonging to them; we know what praises are bestowed on the holy man Tobit, whose principal devotion consisted in giving sepulture to the dead. Josephus the historian[369] says that the Jews refused burial only to those who committed suicide. Moses commanded them[370] to give sepulture the same day and before sunset to any who were executed and hanged on a tree; "because," says he, "he who is hung upon the tree is accursed of God; you will take care not to pollute the land which the Lord your God has given you." That was practiced in regard to our Saviour, who was taken down from the cross the same day that he had been crucified, and a few hours after his death. Homer,[371] speaking of the inhumanity of Achilles, who dragged the body of Hector after his car, says that he dishonored and outraged the earth by this barbarous conduct. The Rabbis write that the soul is not received into heaven until the gross body is interred, and entirely consumed. They believe, moreover, that after death the souls of the wicked are clothed with a kind of covering with which they accustom themselves to suffer the torments which are their due; and that the souls of the just are invested with a resplendent body and a luminous garment, with which they accustom themselves to the glory which awaits them. Origen[372] acknowledges that Plato, in his Dialogue of the Soul, advances that the images and shades of the dead appeared sometimes near their tombs. Origen concludes from that, that those shades and those images must be produced by some cause; and that cause, according to him, can only be that the soul of the dead is invested with a subtile body like that of light, on which they are borne as in a car, where they appear to the living. Celsus maintained that the apparitions of Jesus Christ after his resurrection were only the effects of an imagination smitten and prepossessed, which formed to itself the object of its illusions according to its wishes. Origen refutes this solidly by the recital of the evangelists, of the appearance of our Saviour to Thomas, who would not believe it was truly our Saviour until he had seen and touched his wounds; it was not, then, purely the effect of his imagination. The same Origen,[373] and Theophylact after him, assert that the Jews and pagans believe that the soul remained for some time near the body it had formerly animated; and that it is to destroy that futile opinion that Jesus Christ, when he would resuscitate Lazarus, cries with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth;" as if he would call from a distance the soul of this man who had been dead three days. Tertullian places the angels in the category of extension,[374] in which he places God himself, and maintains that the soul is corporeal. Origen believes also that the soul is material, and has a form;[375] an opinion which he may have taken from Plato. Arnobius, Lactantius, St. Hilary, several of the ancient fathers, and some theologians, have been of the same opinion; and Grotius is displeased with those who have absolutely spiritualized the angels, demons and souls separated from the body. The Jews of our days[376] believe that after the body of a man is interred, his spirit goes and comes, and departs from the spot where it is destined to visit his body, and to know what passes around him; that it is wandering during a whole year after the death of the body, and that it was during that year of delay that the Pythoness of Endor evoked the soul of Samuel, after which time the evocation would have had no power over his spirit. The pagans thought much in the same manner upon it. Lucan introduces Pompey, who consults a witch, and commands her to evoke the soul of a dead man to reveal to him what success he would meet with in his war against Cæsar; the poet makes this woman say, "Shade, obey my spells, for I evoke not a soul from gloomy Tartarus, but one which hath gone down thither a little while since, and which is still at the gate of hell."[377] The Egyptians[378] believed that when the spirit of an animal is separated from its body by violence, it does not go to a distance, but remains near it. It is the same with the soul of a man who has died a violent death; it remains near the body--nothing can make it go away; it is retained there by sympathy; several have been seen sighing near their bodies which were interred. The magicians abuse their power over such in their incantations; they force them to obey, when they are masters of the dead body, or even part of it. Frequent experience taught them that there is a secret virtue in the body, which draws towards it the spirit which has once inhabited it; wherefore those who wish to receive or become the receptacles of the spirits of such animals as know the future, eat the principle parts of them, as the hearts of crows, moles, or hawks. The spirit of these creatures enters into them at the moment they eat this food, and makes them give out oracles like divinities. The Egyptians believed[379] that when the spirit of a beast is delivered from its body, it is rational and predicts the future, gives oracles, and is capable of all that the soul of man can do when disengaged from the body--for which reason they abstained from eating the flesh of animals, and worshiped the gods in the form of beasts. At Rome and at Metz there were colleges of priests consecrated to the service of the manes,[380] lares, images, shades, spectres, Erebus, Avernus or hell, under the protection of the god Sylvanus; which demonstrates that the Latins and the Gauls recognized the return of souls and their apparition, and considered them as divinities to whom sacrifices should be offered to appease them and prevent them from doing harm. Nicander confirms the same thing, when he says that the Celts or the Gauls watched near the tombs of their great men to derive from them knowledge concerning the future. The ancient northern nations were fully persuaded that the spectres which sometimes appear are no other than the souls of persons lately deceased, and in their country they knew no remedy so proper to put a stop to this kind of apparition as to cut off the head of the dead person, or to impale him, or pierce him through the body with a stake, or to burn it, as is now practiced at this day in Hungary and Moravia with regard to vampires. The Greeks, who had derived their religion and theology from the Egyptians and Orientals, and the Latins, who took it from the Greeks, believed that the souls of the dead sometimes appeared to the living; that the necromancers evoked them, and thus obtained answers concerning the future, and instructions relating to the time present. Homer, the greatest theologian, and perhaps the most curious of the Grecian writers, relates several apparitions, both of gods and heroes, and of men after their death. In the Odyssey,[381] Ulysses goes to consult the diviner Tyresias; and this sorcerer having prepared a grave full of blood to evoke the manes, Ulysses draws his sword, and prevents them from coming to drink this blood, for which they appear to thirst, and of which they would not permit them to taste before they had replied to what was asked of them; they (the Greeks and Latins) believed also that souls were not at rest, and that they wandered around the corpses, so long as they remained uninhumed.[382] When they gave burial to a body, they called that _animam condere_,[383] to cover the soul, put it under the earth and shelter it. They called it with a loud voice, and offered it libations of milk and blood. They also called that ceremony, hiding the shades,[384] sending them with their body under ground. The sybil, speaking to Æneas, shows him the manes or shades wandering on the banks of the Acheron; and tells him that they are souls of persons who have not received sepulture, and who wander about for a hundred years.[385] The philosopher Sallust[386] speaks of the apparitions of the dead around their tombs in dark bodies; he tries to prove thereby the dogma of the metempsychosis. Here is a singular instance of a dead man, who refuses the rite of burial, acknowledging himself unworthy of it. Agathias relates[387] that some pagan philosophers, not being able to relish the dogma of the unity of a God, resolved to go from Constantinople to the court of Chosroes, King of Persia, who was spoken of as a humane prince, and one who loved learning. Simplicius of Silicia, Eulamius the Phrygian, Protanus the Lydian, Hermenes and Philogenes of Phoenicia, and Isidorus of Gaza, repaired then to the court of Chosroes, and were well received there; but they soon perceived that that country was much more corrupt than Greece, and they resolved to return to Constantinople, where Justinian then reigned. As they were on their way, they found an unburied corpse, took pity on it, and had it put in the ground by their own servants. The following night this man appeared to one of them, and told him not to inter him, who was not worthy of receiving sepulture; for the earth abhorred one who had defiled his own mother. The next day they found the same corpse cast out of the ground, and they comprehended that it was defiled by incest, which rendered it unworthy of the honor of receiving burial, although such crimes were known in Persia, and did not excite the same horror there as in other countries. The Greeks and Latins believed that the souls of the dead came and tasted what was presented on their tombs, especially honey and wine; that the demons loved the smoke and odor of sacrifices, melody, the blood of victims, commerce with women; that they were attached for a time to certain spots or to certain edifices, which they haunted, and where they appeared; that souls separated from their terrestrial body, retained after death a subtile one, flexible, aërial, which preserved the form of that they once had animated during their life; that they haunted those who had done them wrong and whom they hated. Thus Virgil describes Dido, in a rage, threatening to haunt the perfidious Æneas.[388] When the spirit of Patroclus appeared to Achilles,[389] it had his voice, his shape, his eyes, his garments, but not his palpable body. When Ulysses went down to the infernal regions, he saw there the divine Hercules,[390] that is to say, says Homer, his likeness; for he himself is with the immortal gods, seated at their feast. Æneas recognized his wife Creüsa, who appeared to him in her usual form, only taller and more majestic.[391] We might cite a quantity of passages from the ancient poets, even from the fathers of the church, who believed that spirits often appeared to the living. Tertullian[392] believes that the soul is corporeal, and that it has a certain figure. He appeals to the experience of those to whom the ghosts of dead persons have appeared, and who have seen them sensibly, corporeally, and palpably, although of an aërial color and consistency. He defines the soul[393] a breath sent from God, immortal, and having body and form. Speaking of the fictions of the poets, who have asserted that souls were not at rest while their bodies remain uninterred, he says all this is invented only to inspire the living with that care which they ought to take for the burial of the dead, and to take away from the relations of the dead the sight of an object which would only uselessly augment their grief, if they kept it too long in their houses; _ut instantiâ funeris et honor corporum servetur et moeror affectuum temperetur_. St. Irenæus[394] teaches, as a doctrine received from the Lord, that souls not only subsist after the death of the body--without however passing from one body into another, as those will have it who admit the metempsychosis--but that they retain the form and remain near this body, as faithful guardians of it, and remember naught of what they have done or not done in this life. These fathers believed, then, in the return of souls, their apparition, and their attachment to their body; but we do not adopt their opinion on the corporeality of souls; we are persuaded that they can appear with God's permission, independently of all matter and of any corporeal substance which may belong to them. As to the opinion of the soul being in a state of unrest while its body is not interred, that it remains for some time near the tomb of the body, and appears there in a bodily form; those are opinions which have no solid foundation, either in Scripture or in the traditions of the Church, which teach us that directly after death the soul is presented before the judgment-seat of God, and is there destined to the place that its good or bad actions have deserved. Footnotes: [369] Joseph Bell. Jud. lib. iii c. 25. [370] Deut. xxi. 23. [371] Homer, Iliad, XXIV. [372] Origenes contra Celsum, p. 97. [373] Origenes in Joan. ix. &c. Theophylac. ibid. [374] Tertull. lib. de Anima. [375] Origenes contra Cels. lib. ii. [376] Bereseith Rabbæ. c. 22. Vide Menasse de Resurrect. Mort. [377] "Parete precanti Non in Tartareo latitantem poscimus antro, Assuetamque diù tenebris; modò luce fugatâ Descendentem animam primo pallentis hiatu Hæret adhuc orci." _Lucan, Pharsal._ 16. [378] Porphyr. de Abstin. lib. ii. art. 47. [379] Demet. lib. iv. art. 10. [380] Gruter, p. lxiii. Mauric. Hist. de Metz, preface, p. 15. [381] Homer, Odyss. sub finem. Horat. lib. i. satyr. 8. Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. vii. c. 35. Clem. Alex. Pædag. lib. ii. c. 1. Prudent. lib. iv. contra Symmach. Tertull. de Anim. Lactantius, lib. iii. [382] Virgil, Æn. iii. 150, _et seq._ "Proptereà jacet exanimum tibi corpus amici, Heu nescis! totamque incestat funere classem. Sedibus hunc refer ante suis et conde sepulcre." [383] "Animamque sepulchro Condimus, et magnâ supremum voce ciemus." [384] "Romulus ut tumulo fraternas condidit umbras, Et malè veloci justa soluta Remo." [385] "Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est. Centum errant annos, volitantque hæc littora circum." [386] Sallust. Philos. c. 19, 20. [387] Stolust. lib. ii. de Bella Persico, sub fin. [388] "Sequar atris ignibus absens; Et cum frigida mors animæ subduxerit artus, Omnibus umbra lecis adero: dubis, improbe, poenas." [389] Homer, Iliad, XXIII. [390] Ibid. Odyss. V. [391] "Infelix simulacrum etque ipsius umbra Creüsæ Visa mihi ante oculos, et notâ major imago." _Virgil, Æneid_ I. [392] Tertull. de Anim. [393] Ibid. [394] Iren. lib. ii. c. 34. CHAPTER XLIV. EXAMINATION OF WHAT IS REQUIRED OR REVEALED TO THE LIVING BY THE DEAD WHO RETURN TO EARTH. The apparitions which are seen are those of good angels, or of demons, or the spirits of the dead, or of living persons to others still living. Good angels usually bring only good news, and announce nothing but what is fortunate; or if they do announce any future misfortunes, it is to persuade men to prevent them, or turn them aside by repentance, or to profit by the evils which God sends them by exercising their patience, and showing submission to his orders. Bad angels generally foretell only misfortune; wars, the effect of the wrath of God on nations; and often even they execute the evils, and direct the wars and public calamities which desolate kingdoms, provinces, cities, and families. The spectres whose appearance to Brutus, Cassius, and Julian the Apostate we have related, are only bearers of the fatal orders of the wrath of God. If they sometimes promise any prosperity to those to whom they appear, it is only for the present time, never for eternity, nor for the glory of God, nor for the eternal salvation of those to whom they speak. It only extends to a temporal fortune, always of short duration, and very often deceitful. The souls of the defunct, if these be Christians, ask very often that the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ should be offered, according to the observation of St. Gregory the Great;[395] and, as experience shows, there is hardly any apparition of a Christian that does not ask for masses, pilgrimages, restitutions, or that alms should be distributed, or that they would satisfy those to whom the deceased died indebted. They also often give salutary advice for the salvation or correction of the morals, or good regulation of families. They reveal the state in which certain persons find themselves in the other world, in order to relieve their pain, or to put the living on their guard, that the like misfortune may not befall them. They talk of hell, paradise, purgatory, angels, demons, of the Supreme Judge, of the rigor of his judgments, of the goodness he exercises towards the just, and the rewards with which he crowns their good works. But we must greatly mistrust those apparitions which ask for masses, pilgrimages and restitution. St. Paul warns us that the demon often transforms himself into an angel of light;[396] and St. John[397] warns us to distrust the "depths of Satan," his illusions, and deceitful appearances; that spirit of malice and falsehood is found among the true prophets to put into the mouth of the false prophets falsehood and error. He makes a wrong use of the text of the Scriptures, of the most sacred ceremonies, even of the sacraments and prayers of the church, to seduce the simple, and win their confidence, to share as much as in him lies the glory which is due to the Almighty alone, and to appropriate it to himself. How many false miracles has he not wrought? How many times has he foretold future events? What cures has he not operated? How many holy actions has he not counseled? How many enterprises, praiseworthy in appearance, has he not inspired, in order to draw the faithful into his snare? Boden, in his Demonology,[398] cites more than one instance of demons who have requested prayers, and have even placed themselves in the posture of persons praying over a grave, to point out that the dead persons wanted prayers. Sometimes it will be the demon in the shape of a wretch dead in crime, who will come and ask for masses, to show that his soul is in purgatory, and has need of prayers, although it may be certain that he finally died impenitent, and that prayers are useless for his salvation. All this is only a stratagem of a demon, who seeks to inspire the wicked with foolish and dangerous confidence in their being saved, notwithstanding their criminal life and their impenitence; and that they can obtain salvation by means of a few prayers, and a few alms, which shall be made after their death; not regarding that these good works can be useful only to those who died in a state of grace, although stained by some venial fault, since the Scripture informs us[399] that nothing impure will enter the kingdom of heaven. It is believed that the reprobate can sometimes return to earth by permission, as persons dead in idolatry, and consequently in sin, and excluded from the kingdom of God, have been seen to come to life again, be converted, and receive baptism. St. Martin was as yet only the simple abbot of his monastery of Ligugé,[400] when, in his absence, a catechumen who had placed himself under his discipline to be instructed in the truths of the Christian religion died without having been baptized. He had been three days deceased when the saint arrived. He sent everybody away, prayed over the dead man, resuscitated him, and administered to him the baptismal rite. This catechumen related that he had been led before the tribunal of the Supreme Judge, who had condemned him to descend into the darkness with an infinity of other persons condemned like himself; but that two angels having represented to the Judge that it was this man for whom St. Martin interceded, God commanded the two angels to bring him back to earth, and restore him to Martin. This is an instance which proves what I have just said, that the reprobate can return to life, do penance, and receive baptism. But as to what some have affirmed of the salvation of Falconila, procured by St. Thecla, of that of Trajan, saved by the prayers of St. Gregory, pope, and of some others who died heathens, this is all entirely contrary to the faith of the church and to the holy Scripture, which teach us that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that he who believes not and has not received baptism is already judged and condemned. Thus the opinions of those who accord salvation to Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, &c., because it may appear to them that they lived in a praiseworthy manner, according to the rules of a merely human and philosophical morality, must be considered as rash, erroneous, false, and dangerous. Philip, Chancellor of the Church of Paris, maintained that it was permitted to one man to hold a plurality of benefices. Being on his death-bed, he was visited by William, Bishop of Paris, who died in 1248. This prelate urged the chancellor to give up all his benefices save one only; he refused, saying that he wished to try if the holding a plurality of livings was so wrong as it was said to be; and in this disposition of mind he died in 1237. Some days after his decease, Bishop William, or Guillaume, praying by night, after matins, in his cathedral, beheld before him the hideous and frightful figure of a man. He made the sign of the cross, and said to him, "If you are sent by God, speak." He spoke, and said: "I am that wretched chancellor, and have been condemned to eternal punishment." The bishop having asked him the cause, he replied, "I am condemned, first, for not having distributed the superfluity of my benefices; secondly, for having maintained that it was allowable to hold several at once; thirdly, for having remained for several days in the guilt of incontinence." The story was often preached by Bishop William to his clerks. It is related by the Bishop Albertus Magnus, who was a cotemporary, in his book on the sacraments; by William Durand, Bishop of Mande, in his book _De Modo celebrandi Concilia_; and in Thomas de Cantimpré, in his work _Des Abeilles_. He believed, then, that God sometimes permitted the reprobate to appear to the living. Here is an instance of the apparition of a man and woman who were in a state of reprobation. The Prince of Ratzivil,[401] in his Journey to Jerusalem, relates that when in Egypt he bought two mummies, had them packed up, and secretly as possible conveyed on board his vessel, so that only himself and his two servants were aware of it; the Turks making a great difficulty of allowing mummies to be carried away, because they fancy that the Christians make use of them for magical operations. When they were at sea, there arose at sundry times such a violent tempest that the pilot despaired of saving the vessel. A good Polish priest, of the suite of the Prince de Ratzivil, recited the prayers suitable to the circumstance; but he was tormented, he said, by two hideous black spectres, a man and a woman, who were on each side of him, and threatened to take away his life. It was thought at first that terror disturbed his mind. A calm coming on, he appeared tranquil; but very soon, the storm beginning again, he was more tormented than before, and was only delivered from these haunting spectres when the two mummies, which he had not seen, were thrown into the sea, and neither himself nor the pilot knew of their being in the ship. I will not deny the fact, which is related by a prince incapable of desiring to impose on any one. But how many reflections may we make on this event! Were they the souls of these two pagans, or two demons who assumed their form? What interest could the demon have in not permitting these bodies to come under the power of the Christians? Footnotes: [395] Greg. Mag. lib. iv. Dialog. c. 55. [396] Cor. xi. 14. [397] Rev. xxi. 14. [398] Bodin, Dæmon. tom. iii. c. 6. [399] Rev. xxi. 27. [400] Sulpit. Sever. Vita St. Martin. c. 5. [401] Ratzivil, Peregrin, Jerosol. p. 218. CHAPTER XLV. APPARITIONS OF MEN STILL ALIVE, TO OTHER LIVING MEN, ABSENT, AND VERY DISTANT FROM EACH OTHER. We find in all history, both sacred and profane, ancient and modern, an infinite number of examples of the apparition of persons alive to other living persons. The prophet Ezekiel says of himself,[402] "I was seated in my house, in the midst of the elders of my people, when on a sudden a hand, which came from a figure shining like fire, seized me by the hair; and the spirit transported me between heaven and earth, and took me to Jerusalem, where he placed me near the inner gate, which looks towards the north, where I saw the idol of jealousy" (apparently Adonis), "and I there remarked the majesty of the Lord, as I had seen it in the field; he showed me the idol of jealousy, to which the Israelites burned incense; and the angel of the Lord said to me: Thou seest the abominations which the children of Israel commit, in turning away from my sanctuary; thou shalt see still greater. "And having pierced the wall of the temple, I saw figures of reptiles and animals, the abominations and idols of the house of Israel, and seventy men of the elders of Israel, who were standing before these figures, each one bearing a censer in his hand; after that the angel said to me, Thou shalt see yet something yet more abominable; and he showed me women who were mourning for Adonis. Lastly, having introduced me into the inner court of the temple, I saw twenty men between the vestibule and the altar, who turned their back upon the temple of the Lord, and stood with their faces to the _east_, and paid adoration to the rising sun." Here we may remark two things; first, that Ezekiel is transported from Chaldæa to Jerusalem, through the air between heaven and earth by the hand of an angel; which proves the possibility of transporting a living man through the air to a very great distance from the place where he was. The second is, the vision or apparition of those prevaricators who commit even within the temple the greatest abominations, the most contrary to the majesty of God, the sanctity of the spot, and the law of the Lord. After all these things, the same angel brings back Ezekiel into Chaldæa; but it was not until after God had showed him the vengeance he intended to exercise upon the Israelites. It will, perhaps, be said that all this passed only in a vision; that Ezekiel thought that he was transported to Jerusalem and afterwards brought back again to Babylon; and that what he saw in the temple he saw only by revelation. I reply, that the text of this prophet indicates a real removal, and that he was transported by the hair of his head between heaven and earth. He was brought back from Jerusalem in the same way. I do not deny that the thing might have passed in a vision, and that Ezekiel might have seen in spirit what was passing in the temple of Jerusalem. But I shall still deduce from it a consequence which is favorable to my design, that is, the possibility of a living man being carried through the air to a very great distance from the place he was in, or at least that a living man can imagine strongly that he is being carried from one place to another, although this transportation may be only imaginary and in a dream or vision, as they pretend it happens in the transportation of sorcerers to the witches' sabbath. In short, there are true appearances of the living to others who are also alive. How is this done? The thing is not difficult to explain in following the recital of the prophet, who is transferred from Chaldæa into Judea in his own body by the ministration of angels; but the apparitions related in St. Augustine and in other authors are not of the same kind: the two persons who see and converse with each other go not from their places; and the one who appears knows nothing of what is passing in regard to him to whom he appears, and to whom he explains several things of which he did not even think at that moment. In the third book of Kings, Obadiah, steward of king Ahab, having met the prophet Elijah, who had for some time kept himself concealed, tells him that king Ahab had him sought for everywhere, and that not having been able to discover him anywhere, had gone himself to seek him out. Elijah desired him to go and tell the king that Elijah had appeared; but Obadiah replied, "See to what you expose me; for if I go and announce to Ahab that I have spoken to you, the spirit of God will transport you into some unknown place, and the king, not finding you, will put me to death." There again is an instance which proves the possibility of the transportation of a living man to a very distant spot. The same prophet, being on Mount Carmel, was seized by the Spirit of God, which transported him thence to Jezreel in very little time, not through the air, but by making him walk and run with a promptitude that was quite extraordinary. In the Gospel, Elias[403] appeared with Moses on Mount Tabor, at the transfiguration of the Saviour. Moses had long been dead; but the Church believes that Elijah (or Elias) is still living. In the Acts of the Apostles,[404] Annanias appeared to St. Paul, and put his hands on him in a vision before he arrived at his house in Damascus. Two men of the court of the Emperor Valens, wishing to discover by the aid of magical secrets who would succeed that emperor,[405] caused a table of laurel-wood to be made into a tripod, on which they placed a basin made of divers metals. On the border of this basin were engraved, at some distance from each other, the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet. A magician with certain ceremonies approached the basin, and holding in his hand a ring suspended by a thread, suffered it at intervals to fall upon the letters of the alphabet whilst they were rapidly turning the table; the ring falling on the different letters formed obscure and enigmatical verses like those pronounced by the oracle of Delphi. At last they asked what was the name of him who should succeed to the Emperor Valens? The ring touched the four letters [Greek: THEOD], which they interpreted of Theodosius, the second secretary of the Emperor Valens. Theodosius was arrested, interrogated, convicted, and put to death; and with him all the culprits or accomplices in this operation; search was made for all the books of magic, and a great number were burnt. The great Theodosius, of whom they thought not at all, and who was at a great distance from the court, was the person designated by these letters. In 379, he was declared Augustus by the Emperor Gratian, and in coming to Constantinople in 380, he had a dream, in which it seemed to him that Melitus, Bishop of Antioch, whom he had never seen, and knew only by reputation, invested him with the imperial mantle and placed the diadem on his head. They were then assembling the Eastern bishops to hold the Council of Constantinople. Theodosius begged that Melitus might not be pointed out to him, saying that he should recognize him by the signs he had seen in his dream. In fact, he distinguished him amongst all the other bishops, embraced him, kissed his hands, and looked upon him ever after as his father. This was a distinct apparition of a living man.[406] St. Augustine relates[407] that a certain man saw, in the night before he slept, a philosopher, who was known to him, enter his house, and who explained to him some of Plato's opinions which he would not explain to him before. This apparition of the Platonician was merely fantastic; for the person to whom he had appeared having asked him why he would not explain to him at his house what he had come to explain to him when at home, the philosopher replied, "I did not do so, but I dreamt I did so." Here, then, are two persons both alive, one of whom, in his sleep and dreaming, speaks to another who is wide awake, and sees him only in imagination. The same St. Augustine[408] acknowledges in the presence of his people that he had appeared to two persons who had never seen him, and knew him only by reputation, and that he advised them to come to Hippo, to be there cured by the merit of the martyr St. Stephen:--they came there, and recovered their health. Evodius, teaching rhetoric at Carthage,[409] and finding himself puzzled concerning the sense of a passage in the books of the Rhetoric of Cicero, which he was to explain the next day to his scholars, was much disquieted when he went to bed, and could hardly get to sleep. During his sleep he fancied he saw St. Augustine, who was then at Milan, a great way from Carthage, who was not thinking of him at all, and was apparently sleeping very quietly in his bed at Milan, who came to him and explained the passage in question. St. Augustine avows that he does not know how it happens; but in whatever way it may occur, it is very possible for us to see in a dream a dead person as we see a living one, without either one or the other knowing how, when, or where, these images are formed in our mind. It is also possible that a dead man may appear to the living without being aware of it, and discover to them secrets and hidden things, the result of which reveals their truth and reality. When a living man appears in a dream to another man, we do not say that his body or his spirit have appeared, but simply that such a one has appeared to him. Why can we not say that the dead appear without body and without soul, but simply that their form presents itself to the mind and imagination of the living person? St. Augustine, in the book which he has composed on the care which we ought to take of the dead,[410] says that a holy monk, named John, appeared to a pious woman, who ardently desired to see him. The saintly doctor reasons a great deal on this apparition;--whether this solitary foresaw what would happen to him; if he went in spirit to this woman; if it is his angel or his spirit in his bodily form which appeared to her in her sleep, as we behold in our dreams absent persons who are known to us. We should be able to speak to the monk himself, to know from himself how that occurred, if by the power of God, or by his permission; for there is little appearance that he did it by any natural power. It is said that St. Simeon Stylites[411] appeared to his disciple St. Daniel, who had undertaken the journey to Jerusalem, where he would have to suffer much for Jesus Christ's sake. St. Benedict[412] had promised to comply with the request of some architects, who had begged him to come and show them how he wished them to build a certain monastery; the saint did not go to them bodily, but he went thither in spirit, and gave them the plan and design of the house which they were to construct. These men did not comprehend that it was what he had promised them, and came to him again to ask what were his intentions relative to this edifice: he said to them, "I have explained it to you in a dream; you can follow the plan which you have seen." The Cæsar Bardas, who had so mightily contributed to the deposition of St. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, had a vision, which he thus related to Philothes his friend. "I thought I was that night going in procession to the high church with the Emperor Michael. When we had entered and were near the ambe, there appeared two eunuchs of the chamber, with a cruel and ferocious mien, one of whom, having bound the emperor, dragged him out of the choir on the right side; the other dragged me in the same manner to the left. Then I saw on a sudden an old man seated on the throne of the sanctuary. He resembled the image of St. Peter, and two terrific men were standing near him, who looked like provosts. I beheld, at the knees of St. Peter, St. Ignatius weeping, and crying aloud, 'You have the keys of the kingdom of heaven; if you know the injustice which has been done me, console my afflicted old age.' "St. Peter replied, 'Point out the man who has used you ill.' Ignatius, turning round, pointed to me, saying, 'That is he who has done me most wrong.' St. Peter made a sign to the one at his right, and placing in his hand a short sword, he said to him aloud, 'Take Bardas, the enemy of God, and cut him in pieces before the vestibule.' As they were leading me to death, I saw that he said to the emperor, holding up his hand in a threatening manner, 'Wait, unnatural son!' after which I saw them cut me absolutely in pieces." This took place in 866. The year following, in the month of April, the emperor having set out to attack the Isle of Crete, was made so suspicious of Bardas, that he resolved to get rid of him. He accompanied the Emperor Michael in this expedition. Bardas, seeing the murderers enter the emperor's tent, sword in hand, threw himself at his feet to ask his pardon; but they dragged him out, cut him in pieces, and in derision carried some of his members about at the end of a pike. This happened the 29th of April, 867. Roger, Count of Calabria and Sicily, besieging the town of Capua, one named Sergius, a Greek by birth, to whom he had given the command of 200 men, having suffered himself to be bribed, formed the design of betraying him, and of delivering the army of the count to the Prince of Capua, during the night. It was on the 1st of March that he was to execute his intention. St. Bruno, who then dwelt in the Desert of Squilantia, appeared to Count Roger, and told him to fly to arms promptly, if he would not be oppressed by his enemies. The count starts from his sleep, commands his people to mount their horses and see what is going on in the camp. They met the men belonging to Sergius, with the Prince of Capua, who having perceived them retired promptly into the town; those of Count Roger took 162 of them, from whom they learned all the secret of the treason. Roger went, on the 29th of July following, to Squilantia, and having related to Bruno what had happened to him, the saint said to him, "It was not I who warned you; it was the angel of God, who is near princes in time of war." Thus Count Roger relates the affair himself, in a privilege granted to St. Bruno. A monk[413] named Fidus, a disciple of St. Euthymius, a celebrated abbot in Palestine, having been sent by Martyrius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, on an important mission concerning the affairs of the church, embarked at Joppa, and was shipwrecked the following night; he supported himself above water for some time by clinging to a piece of wood, which he found by chance. Then he invoked the help of St. Euthymius, who appeared to him walking on the sea, and who said to him, "Know that this voyage is not pleasing to God, and will be of no utility to the mother of the Churches, that is to say, to Jerusalem. Return to him who sent you, and tell him from me not to be uneasy at the separation of the schismatics--union will take place ere long; for you, you must go to my laurel grove, and you must build there a monastery." Having said this, he enveloped Fidus in his mantle, and Fidus found himself immediately at Jerusalem, and in his house, without knowing how he came there; he related it all to the Patriarch Martyrius, who remembered the prediction of St. Euthymius concerning the building in the laurel grove a monastery. Queen Margaret, in her memoirs, asserts that God protects the great in a particular manner, and that he lets them know, either in dreams or otherwise, what is to happen to them. "As Queen Catherine de Medicis, my mother," says she, "who the night before that unhappy day dreamt she saw the king, Henry II., my father, wounded in the eye, as it really happened; when she awoke she several times implored the king not to tilt that day. "The same queen being dangerously ill at Metz, and having around her bed the king (Charles IX.), my sister, and brother of Lorraine, and many ladies and princesses, she cried out as if she had seen the battle of Jarnac fought: 'See how they fly! my son has the victory! Do you see the Prince of Condè dead in that hedge?' All those who were present fancied she was dreaming; but the night after, M. de Losse brought her the news. 'I knew it well,' said she; 'did I not behold it the day before yesterday?'" The Duchess Philippa, of Gueldres, wife of the Duke of Lorraine, René II., being a nun at St. Claire du Pont-à-Mousson, saw during her orisons the unfortunate battle of Pavia. She cried out suddenly, "Ah! my sisters, my dear sisters, for the love of God, say your prayers; my son De Lambesc is dead, and the king (Francis I.) my cousin is made prisoner." Some days after, news of this famous event, which happened the day on which the duchess had seen it, was received at Nancy. Certainly, neither the young Prince de Lambesc nor the king Francis I. had any knowledge of this revelation, and they took no part in it. It was, then, neither their spirit nor their phantoms which appeared to the princess; it was apparently their angel, or God himself, who by his power struck her imagination, and represented to her what was passing at that moment. Mezeray affirms that he had often heard people of quality relate that the duke (Charles the Third) of Lorraine, who was at Paris when King Henry II. was wounded with the splinter of a lance, of which he died, told the circumstance often of a lady who lodged in his hotel having seen in a dream, very distinctly, that the king had been struck and brought to the ground by a blow from a lance. To these instances of the apparition of living persons to other living persons in their sleep, we may add an infinite number of other instances of apparitions of angels and holy personages, or even of dead persons, to the living when asleep, to give them instructions, warn them of dangers which menace them, inspire them with salutary counsel relative to their salvation, or to give them aid; thick volumes might be composed on such matters. I shall content myself with relating here some examples of those apparitions drawn from profane authors. Xerxes, king of Persia, when deliberating in council whether he should carry the war into Greece, was strongly dissuaded from it by Artabanes, his paternal uncle. Xerxes took offence at this liberty, and uttered some very disobliging words to him. The following night he reflected seriously on the arguments of Artabanes, and changed his resolution. When he was asleep, he saw in a dream a man of extraordinary size and beauty, who said to him, "You have then renounced your intention of making war on the Greeks, although you have already given orders to the Persian chiefs to assemble your army. You have not done well to change your resolve, even should no one be of your opinion. Go forward; believe me. Follow your first design." Having said this, the vision disappeared. The next day he again assembled his council, and without speaking of his dream, he testified his regret for what he said in his rage the preceding day to his uncle Artabanes, and declared that he had renounced his design of making war upon the Greeks. Those who composed the council, transported with joy, prostrated themselves before him, and congratulated him upon it. The following night he had a second time the same vision, and the same phantom said to him, "Son of Darius, thou hast then abandoned thy design of declaring war against the Greeks, regardless of what I said to thee. Know that if thou dost not instantly undertake this expedition, thou wilt soon be reduced to a situation as low as that in which thou now findest thyself elevated." The king directly rose from his bed, and sent in all haste for Artabanes, to whom he related the two dreams which he had had two nights consecutively. He added, "I pray you to put on my royal ornaments, sit down on my throne, and then lie down in my bed. If the phantom which appeared to me appears to you also, I shall believe that the thing is ordained by the decrees of the gods, and I shall yield to their commands." Artabanes would in vain have excused himself from putting on the royal ornaments, sitting on the king's throne, and lying down in his bed, alleging that all those things would be useless if the gods had resolved to let him know their will; that it would even be more likely to exasperate the gods, as if he desired to deceive them by external appearances. As for the rest, dreams in themselves deserve no attention, and usually they are only the consequences and representations of what is most strongly in the mind when awake. Xerxes did not yield to his arguments, and Artabanes did what the king desired, persuaded that if the same thing should occur more than once, it would be a proof of the will of the gods, of the reality of the vision, and the truth of the dream. He then laid down in the king's bed, and the same phantom appeared to him, and said, "It is you, then, who prevent Xerxes from executing his resolve and accomplishing what is decreed by fate. I have already declared to the king what he has to fear if he disobeys my orders." At the same time it appeared to Artabanes that the spectre would burn his eyes with a red-hot iron. He directly sprang from the couch, and related to Xerxes what had appeared to him and what had been said to him, adding, "I now absolutely change my opinion, since it pleases the gods that we should make war, and that the Greeks be threatened with great misfortunes; give your orders and dispose everything for this war:"--which was executed immediately. The terrible consequences of this war, which was so fatal to Persia, and at last caused the overthrow of that famous monarchy, leads us to judge that this apparition, if a true one, was announced by an evil spirit, hostile to that monarchy, sent by God to dispose things for events predicted by the prophets, and the succession of great empires predestined by the decrees of the Almighty. Cicero remarks that two Arcadians, who were traveling together, arrived at Megara, a city of Greece, situated between Athens and Corinth. One of them, who could claim hospitality in the town, was lodged at a friend's, and the other at an inn. After supper, he who was at a friend's house retired to rest. In his sleep, it seemed to him that the man whom he had left at the inn appeared to him, and implored his help, because the innkeeper wanted to kill him. He arose directly, much alarmed at this dream, but having reassured himself, and fallen asleep again, the other again appeared to him, and told him that since he had not had the kindness to aid him, at least he must not leave his death unpunished; that the innkeeper, after having killed him, had hidden his body in a wagon, and covered it over with dung, and that he must not fail to be the next morning at the opening of the city gate, before the wagon went forth. Struck with this new dream, he went early in the morning to the city gate, saw the wagon, and asked the driver what he had got under the manure. The carter took flight directly, the body was extricated from the wagon, and the innkeeper arrested and punished. Cicero relates also some other instances of similar apparitions which occurred in sleep; one is of Sophocles, the other of Simonides. The former saw Hercules in a dream, who told him the name of a robber who had taken a golden patera from his temple. Sophocles neglected this notice, as an effect of disturbed sleep; but Hercules appeared to him a second time, and repeated to him the same thing, which induced Sophocles to denounce the robber, who was convicted by the Areopagus, and from that time the temple was dedicated to Hercules the Revealer. The dream or apparition of Simonides was more useful to himself personally. He was on the point of embarking, when he found on the shore the corpse of an unknown person, as yet without sepulture. Simonides had him interred, from humanity. The next night the dead man appeared to Simonides, and, through gratitude, counseled him not to embark in the vessel then riding in the harbor, because he would be shipwrecked if he did. Simonides believed him, and a few days after, he heard of the wreck of the vessel in which he was to have embarked. John Pico de la Mirandola assures us in his treatise, _De Auro_, that a man, who was not rich, finding himself reduced to the last extremity, and without any resources either to pay his debts or procure nourishment for a numerous family in a time of scarcity, overcome with grief and uneasiness, fell asleep. At the same time, one of the blessed appeared to him in a dream, taught him by some enigmatical words the means of making gold, and pointed out to him at the same moment the water he must make use of to succeed in it. On his awaking, he took some of that water, and made gold of it, in small quantity, indeed, but enough to maintain his family. He made some twice with iron, and three times with orpiment. "He has convinced me by my own eyes," says Pico de la Mirandola, "that the means of making gold artificially is not a falsehood, but a true art." Here is another sort of apparition of one living man to another, which is so much the more singular, because it proves at once the might of spells, and that a magician can render himself invisible to several persons, while he discovers himself to one man alone. The fact is taken from the Treatise on Superstitions, of the reverend father Le Brun,[414] and is characterized by all which can render it incontestible. On Friday, the first day of May, 1705, about five o'clock in the evening, Denis Misanger de la Richardière, eighteen years of age, was attacked with an extraordinary malady, which began by a sort of lethargy. They gave him every assistance that medicine and surgery could afford. He fell afterwards into a kind of furor or convulsion, and they were obliged to hold him, and have five or six persons to keep watch over him, for fear that he should throw himself out of the windows, or break his head against the wall. The emetic which they gave him made him throw up a quantity of bile, and for four or five days he remained pretty quiet. At the end of the month of May, they sent him into the country to take the air; and some other circumstances occurred, so unusual, that they judged he must be bewitched. And what confirmed this conjecture was that he never had any fever, and retained all his strength, notwithstanding all the pains and violent remedies which he had been made to take. They asked him if he had not had some dispute with a shepherd, or some other person suspected of sorcery or malpractices. He declared that on the 18th of April preceding, when he was going through the village of Noysi on horseback for a ride, his horse stopped short in the midst of the _Rue Feret_, opposite the chapel, and he could not make him go forward, though he touched him several times with the spur. There was a shepherd standing leaning against the chapel, with his crook in his hand, and two black dogs at his side. This man said to him, "Sir, I advise you to return home, for your horse will not go forward." The young La Richardière, continuing to spur his horse, said to the shepherd, "I do not understand what you say." The shepherd replied, in a low tone, "I will make you understand." In effect, the young man was obliged to get down from his horse, and lead it back by the bridle to his father's dwelling in the same village. Then the shepherd cast a spell upon him, which was to take effect on the 1st of May, as was afterwards known. During this malady, they caused several masses to be said in different places, especially at St. Maur des Fossés, at St. Amable, and at St. Esprit. Young La Richardière was present at some of these masses which were said at St. Maur; but he declared that he should not be cured till Friday, the 26th of June, on his return from St. Maur. On entering his chamber, the key of which he had in his pocket, he found there that shepherd, seated in his arm-chair, with his crook, and his two black dogs. He was the only person who saw him; none other in the house could perceive him. He said even that this man was called Damis, although he did not remember that any one had before this revealed his name to him. He beheld him all that day, and all the succeeding night. Towards six o'clock in the evening, as he felt his usual sufferings, he fell on the ground, exclaiming that the shepherd was upon him, and crushing him; at the same time he drew his knife, and aimed five blows at the shepherd's face, of which he retained the marks. The invalid told those who were watching over him that he was going to be very faint at five different times, and begged of them to help him, and move him violently. The thing happened as he had predicted. On Friday, the 26th of June, M. de la Richardière, having gone to the mass at St. Maur, asserted that he should be cured on that day. After mass, the priest put the stole upon his head and recited the Gospel of St. John, during which prayer the young man saw St. Maur standing, and the unhappy shepherd at his left, with his face bleeding from the five knife-wounds which he had given him. At that moment, the youth cried out, unintentionally, "A miracle! a miracle!" and asserted that he was cured, as in fact he was. On the 29th of June, the same M. de la Richardière returned to Noysi, and amused himself with shooting. As he was shooting in the vineyards, the shepherd presented himself before him; he hit him on the head with the butt-end of his gun. The shepherd cried out, "Sir, you are killing me!" and fled. The next day, this man presented himself again before him, and asked his pardon, saying, "I am called Damis; it was I who cast a spell over you which was to have lasted a year. By the aid of masses and prayers which have been said for you, you have been cured at the end of eight weeks. But the charm has fallen back upon myself, and I can be cured of it only by a miracle. I implore you then to pray for me." During all these reports, the _maré chausée_ had set off in pursuit of the shepherd; but he escaped them, having killed his two dogs and thrown away his crook. On Sunday, the 13th of September, he came to M. de la Richardière, and related to him his adventure; that after having passed twenty years without approaching the sacraments, God had given him grace to confess himself at Troyes; and that after divers delays he had been admitted to the holy communion. Eight days after, M. de la Richardière received a letter from a woman who said she was a relation of the shepherd's, informing him of his death, and begging him to cause a requiem mass to be said for him, which was done. How many difficulties may we make about this story! How could this wretched shepherd cast the spell without touching the person? How could he introduce himself into young M. de la Richardière's chamber without either opening or forcing the door? How could he render himself visible to him alone, whilst none other beheld him? Can one doubt of his corporeal presence, since he received five cuts from a knife in his face, of which he afterwards bore the marks, when, by the merit of the holy mass and the intercession of the saints, the spell was taken off? How could St. Maur appear to him in his Benedictine habit, having the wizard on his left hand? If the circumstance is certain, as it appears, who shall explain the manner in which all passed or took place? Footnotes: [402] Ezek. viii. 1, 2, &c. [403] Matt. xvii. 3. [404] Acts ix. 10. [405] Acts ix. 2. [406] Ammian. Marcell. lib. xix. Sozomen. lib. vi. c. 35. [407] Aug. lib. viii. de Civit. c. 18. [408] Aug. Serm. cxxiii. pp. 1277, 1278. [409] Aug. de curâ gerendâ pro Mortuis, c. 11, 12. [410] Aug. de curâ gerend. pro Mort. c. xxvii. p. 529. [411] Vita Daniel Stylit. xi. Decemb. [412] Gregor. lib. ii. Dialog. c. xxii. [413] Vita Sancti Euthym. pp. 86, 87. [414] Le Brun, Traité des Superstit. tom. i. pp. 281, 282, et seq. CHAPTER XLVI. ARGUMENTS CONCERNING APPARITIONS. After having spoken at some length upon apparitions, and after having established the truth of them, as far as it has been possible for us to do so, from the authority of the Scripture, from examples, and by arguments, we must now exercise our judgment on the causes, means, and reasons for these apparitions, and reply to the objections which may be made to destroy the reality of them, or at least to raise doubts on the subject. We have supposed that apparitions were the work of angels, demons, or souls of the defunct; we do not talk of the appearance of God himself; his will, his operations, his power, are above our reach; we acknowledge that he can do all that he wills to do, that his will is all-powerful, and that he places himself, when he chooses, above the laws which he has made. As to the apparitions of the living to others also living, they are of a different nature from what we propose to examine in this place; we shall not fail to speak of them hereafter. Whatever system we may follow on the nature of angels, or demons, or souls separated from the body; whether we consider them as purely spiritual substances, as the Christian church at this day holds; whether we give them an aërial body, subtile, and invisible, as many have taught; it appears almost as difficult to render palpable, perceptible, and thick a subtile and aërial body, as it is to condense the air, and make it seem like a solid and perceptible body; as, when the angels appeared to Abraham and Lot, the angel Raphael to Tobias, whom he conducted into Mesopotamia; or when the demon appeared to Jesus Christ, and led him to a high mountain, and on the pinnacle of the Temple at Jerusalem; or when Moses appeared with Elias on Mount Tabor: for those apparitions are certain from Scripture. If you will say that these apparitions were seen only in the imagination and mind of those who saw, or believed they saw angels, demons, or souls separated from the body, as it happens every day in our sleep, and sometimes when awake, if we are strongly occupied with certain objects, or struck with certain things which we desire ardently or fear exceedingly--as when Ajax, thinking he saw Ulysses and Agamemnon, or Menelaüs, threw himself upon some animals, which he killed, thinking he was killing those two men his enemies, and whom he was dying with the desire to wreak his vengeance upon--on this supposition, the apparition will not be less difficult to explain. There was neither prepossession nor disturbed imagination, nor any preceding emotion, which led Abraham to figure to himself that he saw three persons, to whom he gave hospitality, to whom he spoke, who promised him the birth of a son, of which he was scarcely thinking at that time. The three apostles who saw Moses conversing with Jesus Christ on Mount Tabor were not prepared for that appearance; there was no emotion of fear, love, revenge, ambition, or any other passion which struck their imagination, to dispose them to see Moses; as neither was there in Abraham, when he perceived the three angels who appeared to him. Often in our sleep we see, or we believe we see, what has struck our attention very much when awake; sometimes we represent to ourselves in sleep things of which we have never thought, which even are repugnant to us, and which present themselves to our mind in spite of ourselves. None bethink themselves of seeking the causes of these kinds of representations; they are attributed to chance, or to some disposition of the humors of the blood or of the brain, or even of the way in which the body is placed in bed; but nothing like that is applicable to the apparitions of angels, demons, or spirits, when these apparitions are accompanied and followed by converse, predictions and real effects preceded and predicted by those which appear. If we have recourse to a pretended fascination of the eyes or the other senses, which sometimes make us believe that we see and hear what we do not, or that we neither see nor hear what is passing before our eyes, or which strikes our ears; as when the soldiers sent to arrest Elisha spoke to him and saw him before they recognized him, or when the inhabitants of Sodom could not discover Lot's door, although it was before their eyes, or when the disciples of Emmaus knew not that it was Jesus Christ who accompanied them and expounded the Scriptures; they opened their eyes and knew him _only by the breaking of bread_. That fascination of the senses which makes us believe that we see what we do not see, or that suspension of the exercise and natural functions of our senses which prevents us from seeing and recognizing what is passing before our eyes, is all of it hardly less miraculous than to condense the air, or rarefy it, or give solidity and consistence to what is purely spiritual and disengaged from matter. From all this, it follows that no apparition can take place without a sort of miracle, and without a concurrence, both extraordinary and supernatural, of the power of God who commands, or causes, or permits an angel, or a demon, or a disembodied soul to appear, act, speak, walk, and perform other functions which belong only to an organized body. I shall be told that it is useless to recur to the miraculous and the supernatural, if we have acknowledged in spiritual substances a natural power of showing themselves, whether by condensing the air, or by producing a massive and palpable body, or in raising up some dead body, to which these spirits give life and motion for a certain time. I own it all; but I dare maintain that that is not possible either to angel or demon, nor to any spiritual substance whatsoever. The soul can produce in herself thoughts, will, and wishes; she can give her impulsion to the movements of her body, and repress its sallies and agitations; but how does she do that? Philosophy can hardly explain it, but by saying that by virtue of the union between herself and the body, God, by an effect of his wisdom, has given her power to act upon the humors, its organs, and impress them with certain movements; but there is reason to believe that the soul performs all that only as an occasional cause, and that it is God as the first, necessary, immediate, and essential cause, which produces all the movements of the body that are made in a natural way. Neither angel nor demon has more privilege in this respect over matter than the soul of man has over its own body. They can neither modify matter, change it, nor impress it with action and motion, save by the power of God, and with his concurrence both necessary and immediate; our knowledge does not permit us to judge otherwise; there is no physical proportion between the spirit and the body; those two substances cannot act mutually and immediately one upon the other; they can act only occasionally, by determining the first cause, in virtue of the laws which wisdom has judged it proper to prescribe to herself for the reciprocal action of the creatures upon each other, to give them being, to preserve it, and perpetuate movement in the mass of matter which composes the universe, in himself giving life to spiritual substances, and permitting them with his concurrence, as the First Cause, to act, the body on the soul, and the soul on the body, one on the other, as secondary causes. Porphyry, when consulted by Anebo, an Egyptian priest, if those who foretell the future and perform prodigies have more powerful souls, or whether they receive power from some strange spirit, replies that, according to appearance, all these things are done by means of certain evil spirits that are naturally knavish, and take all sorts of shapes, and do everything that one sees happen, whether good or evil; but that in the end they never lead men to what is truly good. St. Augustine,[415] who cites this passage of Porphyry, lays much stress on his testimony, and says that every extraordinary thing which is done by certain tones of the voice, by figures or phantoms, is usually the work of the demon, who sports with the credulity and blindness of men; that everything marvellous which is transacted in nature, and has no relation to the worship of the true God, ought to pass for an illusion of the devil. The most ancient Fathers of the Church, Minutius Felix, Arnobius, St. Cyprian, attribute equally all these kinds of extraordinary effects to the evil spirit. Tertullian[416] had no doubt that the apparitions which are produced by magic, and by the evocation of souls, which, forced by enchantments, come out, say they, from the depth of hell (or Hades), are but pure illusions of the demon, who causes to appear to those present a fantastical form, which fascinates the eyes of those who think they see what they see not; "which is not more difficult for the demon," says he, "than to seduce and blind the souls which he leads into sin. Pharaoh thought he saw real serpents produced by his magicians: it was mere illusion. The truth of Moses devoured the falsehood of these impostors." Is it more easy to cause the fascination of the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants than to produce serpents, and can it be done without God's concurring thereto? And how can we reconcile this concurrence with the wisdom, independence, and truth of God? Has the devil in this respect a greater power than an angel and a disembodied soul? And if once we open the door to this fascination, everything which appears supernatural and miraculous will become uncertain and doubtful. It will be said that the wonders related in the Old and New Testament are in this respect, in regard both to those who are witnesses of them, and those to whom they happened, only illusions and fascinations: and whither may not these premises lead? It leads us to doubt everything, to deny everything; to believe that God in concert with the devil leads us into error, and fascinates our eyes and other senses, to make us believe that we see, hear, and know what is neither present to our eyes, nor known to our mind, nor supported by our reasoning power, since by that the principles of reasoning are overthrown. We must, then, have recourse to the solid and unshaken principles of religion, which teach us-- 1. That angels, demons, and souls disembodied are pure spirit, free from all matter. 2. That it is only by the order or permission of God that spiritual substances can appear to men, and seem to them to be true and tangible bodies, in which and by which they perform what they are seen to do. 3. That to make these bodies appear, and make them act, speak, walk, eat, &c, they must produce tangible bodies, either by condensing the air or substituting other terrestrial, solid bodies, capable of performing the functions we speak of. 4. That the way in which this production and apparition of a perceptible body is achieved is absolutely unknown to us; that we have no proof that spiritual substances have a natural power of producing this kind of change when it pleases them, and that they cannot produce them independently of God. 5. That although there may be often a great deal of illusion, prepossession, and imagination in what is related of the operations and apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, there is still some reality in many of these things; and we cannot reasonably doubt of them all, and still less deny them all. 6. That there are apparitions which bear about them the character and proof of truth, from the quality of him who relates them; from the circumstances which accompany them; from the events following those apparitions that announce things to come; which perform things impossible to the natural strength of man, and too much in opposition to the interest of the demon, and his malicious and deceitful character, for us to be able to suspect him to be the author or contriver of them. In short, these apparitions are certified by the belief, the prayers, and the practice of the church, which recognizes them, and supposes their reality. 7. That although what appears miraculous is not so always, we must at least usually perceive in it _some_ illusion and operation of the demon; consequently, that the demon can, with the permission of God, do many things which surpass our knowledge, and the natural power which we suppose him to have. 8. That those who wish to explain them by fascination of the eyes and other senses, do not resolve the difficulty, and throw themselves into still greater embarrassment than those who admit simply that apparitions appear by the order or the permission of God. Footnotes: [415] Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. x. c. 11, 12. [416] Tertull. de Animâ, c. 57. CHAPTER XLVII. OBJECTIONS AGAINST APPARITIONS, AND REPLIES TO THOSE OBJECTIONS. The greatest objection that can be raised against the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, takes its rise in the nature of these substances, which being purely spiritual, cannot appear with evident, solid, and palpable bodies, nor perform those functions which belong only to matter, and living or animated bodies. For, either spiritual substances are united to the bodies which appear or not. If they are not united to them, how can they move them, and cause them to act, walk, speak, reason, and eat? If they are united to them, then they form but one individual; and how can they separate themselves from them, after being united to them? Do they take them and leave them at will, as we lay aside a habit or a mask? That would be to suppose that they are at liberty to appear or disappear, which is not the case, since all apparitions are solely by the order or permission of God. Are those bodies which appear only instruments which the angels, demons, or souls make use of to affright, warn, chastise, or instruct the person or persons to whom they appear? This is, in fact, the most rational thing that can be said concerning these apparitions; the exorcisms of the church fall directly on the agent and cause of these apparitions, and not on the phantom which appears, nor on the first author, which is God, who orders and permits it. Another objection, both very common and very striking, is that which is drawn from the multitude of false stories and ridiculous reports which are spread amongst the people, of the apparitions of spirits, demons, and elves, of possessions and obsessions. It must be owned that, out of a hundred of these pretended appearances, hardly two will be found to be true. The ancients are not more to be credited on that point than the moderns, since they were, at least, equally as credulous as people are in our own age, or rather they were more credulous than we are at this day. I grant that the foolish credulity of the people, and the love of everything that seems marvelous and extraordinary, have produced an infinite number of false histories on the subject we are now treating of. There are here two dangers to avoid: a too great credulity, and an excessive difficulty in believing what is above the ordinary course of nature; as likewise, we must not conclude what is general from what is particular, or make a general case of a particular one, nor say that all is false because some stories are so; also, we must not assert that such a particular history is a mere invention, because there are many stories of this latter kind. It is allowable to examine, prove, and select; we must never form our judgment but with knowledge of the case; a story may be false in many of its circumstances (as related), but true in its foundation. The history of the deluge, and that of the passage across the Red Sea, are certain in themselves, and in the simple and natural recital given of them by Moses. The profane historians, and some Hebrew writers, and even Christians, have added some embellishment which must militate against the story in itself. Josephus the historian has much embellished the history of Moses; Christian authors have added much to that of Josephus; the Mahometans have altered several points of the sacred history of the Old and New Testament. Must we, on this account, consider these histories as problematical? The life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus is full of miracles, as are also those of St. Martin and St. Bernard. St. Augustine relates several miraculous cures worked by the relics of St. Stephen. Many extraordinary things are related in the life of St. Ambrose. Why not give faith to them after the testimony of these great men, and that of their disciples, who had lived with them, and had been witnesses of a good part of what they relate? It is not permitted us to dispute the truth of the apparitions noted in the Old and New Testament; but we may be permitted to explain them. For instance, it is said that the Lord appeared to Abraham in the valley of Mamre;[417] that he entered Abraham's tent, and that he promised him the birth of a son; also, it is allowed that he received three angels, who went from thence to Sodom. St. Paul[418] notices it expressly in his Epistle to the Hebrews; _angelis hospitio receptis_. It is also said that the Lord appeared unto Moses, and gave him the law; and St. Stephen, in the Acts,[419] informs us that it was an angel who spoke to him from the burning bush, and on Mount Horeb; and St. Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, that the law was given by angels.[420] Sometimes, the name of angel of the Lord is taken for a prophet, a man filled with his Spirit, and deputed by him. It is certain that the Hebrew _malae_ and the Greek _angelos_ bear the same signification as our _envoy_. For instance, at the beginning of the Book of Judges,[421] it is said that there came an angel of the Lord from Gilgal to the place of tears (or Bochim), and that he there reproved the Israelites for their infidelity and ingratitude. The ablest commentators[422] think that this _angel of the Lord_ is no other than Phineas, or the then high priest, or rather a prophet, sent expressly to the people assembled at Gilgal. In the Scripture, the prophets are sometimes styled angels of the Lord.[423] "Here is what saith the envoy of the Lord, amongst the envoys of the Lord," says Haggai, speaking of himself. The prophet Malachi, the last of the lesser prophets, says that "the Lord will send his angel, who will prepare the way before his face."[424] This angel is St. John the Baptist, who prepares the way for Jesus Christ, who is himself styled the Angel of the Lord--"And soon the Lord whom ye demand, and the so much desired Angel of the Lord, will come into his temple." This same Saviour is designated by Moses under the name of a prophet:[425] "The Lord will raise up in the midst of your nation, a prophet like myself." The name of angel is given to the prophet Nathan, who reproved David for his sin. I do not pretend, by these testimonies, to deny that the angels have often appeared to men; but I infer from them that sometimes these angels were only prophets or other persons, raised up and sent by God to his people. As to apparitions of the demon, it is well to observe that in Scripture the greater part of public calamities and maladies are attributed to evil spirits; for example, it is said that Satan inspired David[426] with the idea of numbering his people; but in another place it is simply said that the anger of the Lord was inflamed[427] against Israel, and led David to cause his subjects to be numbered. There are several other passages in the Holy Books, where they relate what the demon said and what he did, in a popular manner, by the figure termed prosopopoeia; for instance, the conversation between Satan and the first woman,[428] and the discourse which the demon holds in company with the good angels before the Lord, when he talks to him of Job,[429] and obtains permission to tempt and afflict him. In the New Testament, it appears that the Jews attributed to the malice of the demon and to his possession almost all the maladies with which they were afflicted. In St. Luke,[430] the woman who was bent and could not raise herself up, and had suffered this for eighteen years, "had," says the evangelist, "a spirit of infirmity;" and Jesus Christ, after having healed her, says "that Satan held her bound for eighteen years;" and in another place, it is said that a lunatic or epileptic person was possessed by the demon. It is clear, from what is said by St. Matthew and St. Luke,[431] that he was attacked by epilepsy. The Saviour cured him of this evil malady, and by that means took from the demon the opportunity of tormenting him still more; as David, by dissipating with the sound of his harp the sombre melancholy of Saul, delivered him from the evil spirit, who abused the power of those inclinations which he found in him, to awaken his jealousy against David. All this means, that we often ascribed to the demon things of which he is not guilty, and that we must not lightly adopt all the prejudices of the people, nor take literally all that is related of the works of Satan. Footnotes: [417] Gen. xviii. 10. [418] Heb. xiii. 2. [419] Acts vii. 30, 33. [420] Gal. iii. [421] Judges ii. 1. [422] Vide commentar. in Judic. ii. [423] Hagg. i. 13. [424] Malac. iii. 1. [425] Deut. xviii. 18. [426] Chron. xxi. 1. [427] 2 Sam. xxiv. 1. [428] Gen. iii. 2, 3. [429] Job i. 7-9. [430] Luke xiii. 16. [431] Matt. xvii. 14. Luke ix. 37. CHAPTER XLVIII. SOME OTHER OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. In order to combat the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, we still bring forward the effects of a prepossessed fancy, struck with an idea, and of a weak and timid mind, which imagine they see and hear what subsists only in idea; we advert to the inventions of the malignant spirits, who like to make sport of and to delude us; we call to our assistance the artifices of the charlatans, who do so many things which pass for supernatural in the eyes of the ignorant. Philosophers, by means of certain glasses, and what are called magic lanterns, by optical secrets, sympathetic powders, by their phosphorus, and lately by means of the electrical machine, show us an infinite number of things which the simpletons take for magic, because they know not how they are produced. Eyes that are diseased do not see things as others see them, or else behold them differently. A drunken man will see objects double; to one who has the jaundice, they will appear yellow; in the obscurity, people fancy they see a spectre, when they see only the trunk of a tree. A mountebank will appear to eat a sword; another will vomit coals or pebbles; one will drink wine and send it out again at his forehead; another will cut off his companion's head, and put it on again. You will think you see a chicken dragging a beam. The mountebank will swallow fire and vomit it forth, he will draw blood from fruit, he will send from his mouth strings of iron nails, he will put a sword on his stomach and press it strongly, and instead of running into him, it will bend back to the hilt; another will run a sword through his body without wounding himself; you will sometimes see a child without a head, then a head without a child, and all of them alive. That appears very wonderful; nevertheless, if it were known how all those things are done, people would only laugh, and be surprised that they could wonder at and admire such things. What has not been said for and against the divining-rod of Jacques Aimar? Scripture proves to us the antiquity of divination by the divining-rod, in the instance of Nebuchadnezzar,[432] and in what is said of the prophet Hosea.[433] Fable speaks of the wonders wrought by the golden rod of Mercury. The Gauls and Germans also used the rod for divination; and there is reason to believe that often God permitted that the rods should make known by their movements what was to happen; for that reason they were consulted. Every body knows the secret of Circé's wand, which changed men into beasts. I do not compare it with the rod of Moses, by means of which God worked so many miracles in Egypt; but we may compare it with those of the magicians of Pharaoh, which produced so many marvelous effects. Albertus Magnus relates that there had been seen in Germany two brothers, one of whom passing near a door securely locked, and presenting his left side, would cause it to open of itself; the other brother had the same virtue in the right side. St. Augustine says that there are men[434] who move their two ears one after another, or both together, without moving their heads; others, without moving it also, make all the skin of their head with the hair thereon come down over their forehead, and put it back as it was before; some imitate so perfectly the voices of animals, that it is almost impossible not to mistake them. We have seen men speak from the hollow of the stomach, and make themselves heard as if speaking from a distance, although they were close by. Others swallow an incredible quantity of different things, and by tightening their stomachs ever so little, throw up whole, as from a bag, whatever they please. Last year, in Alsatia, there was seen and heard a German who played on two French horns at once, and gave airs in two parts, the first and the second, at the same time. Who can explain to us the secret of intermitting fevers, of the flux and reflux of the sea, and the cause of many effects which are certainly all natural? Galen relates[435] that a physician named Theophilus, having fallen ill, fancied that he saw near his bed a great number of musicians, whose noise split his head and augmented his illness. He cried out incessantly for them to send those people away. Having recovered his health and good sense, he perfectly well remembered all that had been said to him; but he could not get those players on musical instruments out of his head, and he affirmed that they tired him to death. In 1629, Desbordes, valet-de-chambre of Charles IV., Duke of Lorraine, was accused of having hastened the death of the Princess Christina of Salms, wife of Duke Francis II., and mother of the Duke Charles IV., and of having inflicted maladies on different persons, which maladies the doctors attribute to evil spells. Charles IV. had conceived violent suspicions against Desbordes, since one day when in a hunting-party this valet-de-chambre had served a grand dinner to the duke and his company, without any other preparation than having to open a box with three shelves; and to wind up the wonders, he had ordered three robbers, who were dead and hung to a gibbet, to come down from it, and come and make their bow to the duke, and then to go back and resume their place at the gallows. It was said, moreover, that on another occasion he had commanded the personages in a piece of tapestry to detach themselves from it, and to come and present themselves in the middle of the room. Charles IV. was not very credulous; nevertheless, he allowed Desbordes to be tried. He was, it is said, convicted of magic, and condemned to the flames; but I have since been assured[436] that he made his escape; and some years after, on presenting himself before the duke, and clearing himself, he demanded the restitution of his property, which had been confiscated; but he recovered only a very small part of it. Since the adventure of Desbordes, the partisans of Charles IV. wished to cast a doubt on the validity of the baptism of the Duchess Nichola, his wife, because she had been baptized by Lavallée, Chantre de St. George, a friend of Desbordes, and like him convicted of several crimes, which drew upon him similar condemnation. From a doubt of the baptism of the duchess, they wished to infer the invalidity of her marriage with Charles, which was then the grand business of Charles IV. Father Delrio, a Jesuit, says that the magician called Trois-Echelles, by his enchantments, detached in the presence of King Charles IX. the rings or links of a collar of the Order of the King, worn by some knights who were at a great distance from him; he made them come into his hand, and after that replaced them, without the collar appearing deranged. John Faust Cudlingen, a German, was requested, in a company of gay people, to perform in their presence some tricks of his trade; he promised to show them a vine loaded with grapes, ripe and ready to gather. They thought, as it was then the month of December, he could not execute his promise. He strongly recommended them not to stir from their places, and not to lift up their hands to cut the grapes, unless by his express order. The vine appeared directly, covered with leaves and loaded with grapes, to the great astonishment of all present; every one took up his knife, awaiting the order of Cudlingen to cut some grapes; but after having kept them for some time in that expectation, he suddenly caused the vine and the grapes to disappear: then every one found himself armed with his knife and holding his neighbor's nose with one hand, so that if they had cut off a bunch without the order of Cudlingen, they would have cut off one another's noses. We have seen in these parts a horse which appeared gifted with wit and discernment, and to understand what his master said. All the secret consisted in the horse's having been taught to observe certain motions of his master; and from these motions he was led to do certain things to which he was accustomed, and to go to certain persons, which he would never have done but for the sign or motion which he saw his master make. A hundred other similar facts might be cited, which might pass for magical operations, if we did not know that they are simple contrivances and tricks of art, performed by persons well exercised in such things. It may be that sometimes people have ascribed to magic and the evil spirit operations like those we have just related, and that what have been taken for the spirits of deceased persons were often arranged on purpose by young people to frighten passers-by. They will cover themselves with white or black, and show themselves in a cemetery in the posture of persons requesting prayers; after that they will be the first to exclaim that they have seen a spirit: at other times it will be pick-pockets, or young men, who will hide their amorous intrigues, or their thefts and knavish tricks, under this disguise. Sometimes a widow, or heirs, from interested motives, will publicly declare that the deceased husband appears in his house, and is in torment; that he has asked or commanded such and such things, or such and such restitutions. I own that this may happen, and does happen sometimes; but it does not follow that spirits never return. The return of souls is infinitely more rare than the common people believe; I say the same of pretended magical operations and apparitions of the demon. It is remarked that the greater the ignorance which prevails in a country, the more superstition reigns there; and that the spirit of darkness there exercises greater power, in proportion as the nations we plunged in irregularity, and into deeper moral darkness. Louis Vivez[437] testifies that, in the newly-discovered countries in America, nothing is more common than to see spirits which appear at noonday, not only in the country, but in towns and villages, speaking, commanding, sometimes even striking men. Olaüs Magnus, Archbishop of Upsal, who has written on the antiquities of the northern nations, observes that in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Finmark, and Lapland, they frequently see spectres or spirits, which do many wonderful things; that there are even some amongst them who serve as domestics to men, and take the horses and other cattle to pasture. The Laplanders, even at this day, as well those who have remained in idolatry as those who have embraced Christianity, believe the apparition of the manes or ghosts, and offer them a kind of sacrifice. I believe that prepossession, and the prejudices of childhood, have much more to do with this belief than reason and experience. In effect, among the Tartars, where barbarism and ignorance reign as much as in any country in the world, they talk neither of spirits nor of apparitions, no more than among the Mahometans, although they admit the apparitions of angels made to Abraham and the patriarchs, and that of the Archangel Gabriel to Mahomet himself. The Abyssinians, a very rude and ignorant people, believe neither in sorcerers, nor spells, nor magicians; they say that it is giving too much power to the demon, and by that they fall into the error of the Manichæans, who admit two principles, the one of good, which is God, and the other of evil, which is the devil. The Minister Becker, in his work entitled "The Enchanted World," (Le Monde Enchanté,) laughs at apparitions of spirits and evil angels, and ridicules all that is said of the effects of magic: he maintains that to believe in magic is contrary to Scripture and religion. But whence comes it, then, that the Scriptures forbid us to consult magicians, and that they make mention of Simon the magician, of Elymas, another magician, and of the works of Satan? What will become of the apparitions of angels, so well noted in the Old and New Testaments? What will become of the apparitions of Onias to Judas Maccabeus, and of the devil to Jesus Christ himself, after his fast of forty days? What will be said of the apparition of Moses at the transfiguration of the Saviour; and an infinity of other appearances made to all kinds of persons, and related by wise, grave, and enlightened authors? Are the apparitions of devils and spirits more difficult to explain and conceive than those of angels, which we cannot rationally dispute without overthrowing the entire Scriptures, and practices and belief of the churches? Does not the apostle tell us that the angel of darkness transforms himself into an angel of light? Is not the absolute renunciation of all belief in apparitions assaulting Christianity in its most sacred authority, in the belief of another life, of a church still subsisting in another world, of rewards for good actions, and of punishments for bad ones; the utility of prayers for the dead, and the efficacy of exorcisms? We must then in these matters keep the medium between excessive credulity and extreme incredulity; we must be prudent, moderate, and enlightened; we must, according to the advice of St. Paul, test everything, examine everything, yield only to evidence and known truth. Footnotes: [432] Ezek. xxi. 21. [433] Hosea iv. 12. [434] Aug. lib. xiv. de Civit. Dei, c. 24. [435] Galen. de Differ. Sympt. [436] By M. Fransquin Chanoine de Taul. [437] Ludov. Vives, lib. i. de Veritate Fidei, p. 540. CHAPTER XLIX. THE SECRETS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY TAKEN FOR SUPERNATURAL THINGS. It is possible to allege against my reasoning the secrets of physics and chemistry, which produce an infinity of wonderful effects, and appear beyond the power of natural agency. We have the composition of a phosphorus, with which they write; the characters do not appear by daylight, but in the dark we see them shine; with this phosphorus, figures can be traced which would surprise and even alarm during the night, as has been done more than once, apparently to cause maliciously useless fright. _La poudre ardente_ is another phosphorus, which, provided it is exposed to the air, sheds a light both by night and by day. How many people have been frightened by those little worms which are found in certain kinds of rotten wood, and which give a brilliant flame by night. We have the daily experience of an infinite number of things, all of them natural, which appear above the ordinary course of nature,[438] but which have nothing miraculous in them, and ought not to be attributed to angels or demons; for instance, teeth and noses taken from other persons, and applied to those who have lost similar parts; of this we find many instances in authors. These teeth and noses fall off directly when the person from whom they were taken dies, however great the distance between these two persons may be. The presentiments experienced by certain persons of what happens to their relations and friends, and even of their own death, are not at all miraculous. There are many instances of persons who are in the habit of feeling these presentiments, and who in the night, even when asleep, will say that such a thing has happened, or is about to happen; that such messengers are coming, and will announce to them such and such things. There are dogs that have the sense of smelling so keen that they scent from a good distance the approach of any person who has done them good or harm. This has been proved many times, and can only proceed from the diversity of organs in those animals, some of which have the scent much keener than others, and upon which the spirits which exhale from other bodies act more quickly and at a greater distance than in others. Certain persons have such an acute sense of hearing that they can hear what is whispered even in another chamber, of which the door is well closed. They cite as an example of this, a certain Marie Bucaille, to whom it was thought that her guardian angel discovered what was said at a great distance from her. Others have the smell so keen that they distinguish by the odor all the men and animals they have ever seen, and scent their approach a long way off. Blind persons pretty often possess this faculty, as well as that of discerning the color of different stuffs by the touch, from horse-hair to playing-cards. Others discern by the taste everything that composes a ragoût, better than the most expert cook could do. Others possess so piercing a sight that at the first glance they can distinguish the most confused and distant objects, and remark the least change which takes place in them. There are both men and women who, without intending to hurt, do a great deal of harm to children, and all the tender and delicate animals which they look at attentively, or which they touch. This happens particularly in hot countries; and many examples might be cited of it; from which arises what both ancients and moderns call fascination (or the evil eye); hence the precautions which were taken against these effects by amulets and preservatives, which were suspended to children's necks. There have been known to be men from whose eyes there proceeded such venomous spirits that they did harm to everybody or thing they looked at, even to the breast of nurses, which they caused to dry up--to plants, flowers, the leaves of trees, which were seen to wither and fall off. They dare not enter any place till they had warned the people beforehand to send away the children and nurses, new-born animals, and, generally speaking, everything which they could infect by their breath or their looks. We should laugh, and with reason, at those who, to explain all these singular effects, should have recourse to charms, spells, to the operations of demons, or of good angels. The evaporation of corpuscles, or atoms, or the insensible perspiration of the bodies which produce all these effects, suffice to account for it. We have recourse neither to miracles, nor to superior causes, above all when these effects are produced near, and at a short distance; but when the distance is great, the exhalation of the spirits, or essence, and of insensible corpuscles, does not equally satisfy us, no more than when we meet with things and effects which go beyond the known force of nature, such as foretelling future events, speaking unknown languages, _i. e._, languages unknown to the speaker, to be in such ecstasy that the person is beyond earthly feeling, to rise up from the ground, and remain so a long time. The chemists demonstrate that the ____________________ or a sort of restoration or resurrection of animals, insects, and plants, is possible and natural. When the ashes of a plant are placed in a phial, these ashes rise, and arrange themselves as much as they can in the form which was first impressed on them by the Author of Nature. Father Schol, a Jesuit, affirms that he has often seen a rose which was made to arise from its ashes every time they wished to see it done, by means of a little heat. The secret of a mineral water has been found by means of which a dead plant which has its root can be made green again, and brought to the same state as if it were growing in the ground. Digby asserts that he has drawn from dead animals, which were beaten and bruised in a mortar, the representation of these animals, or other animals of the same species. Duchesne, a famous chemist, relates that a physician of Cracow preserved in phials the ashes of almost every kind of plant, so that when any one from curiosity desired to see, for instance, a rose in these phials, he took that in which the ashes of the rose-bush were preserved, and placing it over a lighted candle, as soon as it felt a little warmth, they saw the ashes stir and rise like a little dark cloud, and, after some movements, they represented a rose as beautiful and fresh as if newly gathered from the rose-tree. Gaffard assures us that M. de Cleves, a celebrated chemist, showed every day plants drawn from their own ashes. David Vanderbroch affirms that the blood of animals contains the idea of their species as well as their seed; he relates on this subject the experiment of M. Borelli, who asserts that the human blood, when warm, is still full of its spirits or sulphurs, acid and volatile, and that, being excited in cemeteries and in places where great battles are fought by some heat in the ground, the phantoms or ideas of the persons who are there interred are seen to rise; that we should see them as well by day as by night, were it not for the excess of light which prevents us even from seeing the stars. He adds that by this means we might behold the idea, and represent by a lawful and natural necromancy the figure or phantom of all the great men of antiquity, our friends and our ancestors, provided we possess their ashes. These are the most plausible objections intended to destroy or obviate all that is said of the apparitions of spirits. Whence some conclude that these are either very natural phenomena and exhalations produced by the heat of the earth imbued with blood and the volatile spirit of the dead, above all, those dead by violence; or that they are the consequences of a stricken and prepossessed fancy, or simply illusions of the mind, or sports of persons who like to divert themselves by the panics into which they terrify others; or, lastly, movements produced naturally by men, rats, monkeys, and other animals; for it is true that the oftener we examine into what have been taken for apparitions, nothing is found that is real, extraordinary, or supernatural; but to conclude from thence that all the apparitions and operations attributed to angels, spirits or souls, and demons are chimerical, is carrying things to excess; it is to conclude that we mistake always, because we mistake often. Footnotes: [438] M. de S. André, Lett. iii. sur les Maléfices. CHAPTER L. CONCLUSION OF THE TREATISE ON APPARITIONS. After having made this exposition of my opinion concerning the apparitions of angels, demons, souls of the dead, and even of one living person to another, and having spoken of magic, of oracles, of obsessions and possessions of the demon; of sprites and familiar spirits; of sorcerers and witches; of spectres which predict the future; of those which haunt houses--after having stated the objections which are made against apparitions, and having replied to them in as weighty a manner as I possibly could, I think I may conclude that although this matter labors still under very great difficulties, as much respecting the foundation of the thing--I mean as regards the truth and reality of apparitions in general--as for the way in which they are made, still we cannot reasonably disallow that there may be true apparitions of all the kinds of which we have spoken, and that there may be also a great number very disputable, and some others which are manifestly the work of knavery, of maliciousness, of the art of charlatans, and flexibility of those who play sleight of hand tricks. I acknowledge, moreover, that imagination, prepossession, simplicity, superstition, excess of credulity, and weakness of mind have given rise to several stories which are related; that ignorance of pure philosophy has caused to be taken for miraculous effects, and black magic, what is the simple effect of white magic, and the secrets of a philosophy hidden from the ignorant and common herd of men. Moreover, I confess that I see insurmountable difficulties in explaining the manner or properties of apparitions, whether we admit with several ancients that angels, demons, and disembodied souls have a sort of subtile transparent body of the nature of air, whether we believe them purely spiritual and disengaged from all matter, visible, gross, or subtile. I lay down as a principle that to explain the affair of apparitions, and to give on this subject any certain rules, we should-- 1st. Know perfectly the nature of spirits, angels and souls, and demons. We should know whether souls by nature are so spiritualized that they have no longer any relation to matter; or if they have, again, any alliance with an aërial, subtile, invisible body, which they still govern after death; or whether they exert any power over the body they once animated, to impel it to certain movements, as the soul which animates us gives to our bodies such impulsions as she thinks proper; or whether the soul determines simply by its will, as occasional or secondary cause, the first cause, which is God, to put in motion the machine which it once animated. 2d. If after death the soul still retains that power over its own body, or over others; for instance, over the air and other elements. 3d. If angels and demons have respectively the same power over sublunary bodies--for instance, to thicken air, inflame it, produce in it clouds and storms; to make phantoms appear in it; to spoil or preserve fruits and crops; to cause animals to perish, produce maladies, excite tempests and shipwrecks at sea; or even to fascinate the eyes and deceive the other senses. 4th. If they can do all these things naturally, and by their own virtue, as often as they think proper; or if there must be a particular order, or at least permission from God, for them to do what we have just said. 5th. Lastly, we should know exactly what power is possessed by these substances which we suppose to be purely spiritual, and how far the power of the angels, demons, and souls separated from their gross bodies, extends, in regard to the apparitions, operations and movements attributed to them. For whilst we are ignorant of the power which the Creator has given or left to disembodied souls, or to demons, we can in no way define what is miraculous, or prescribe the just bound to which may extend, or within which may be limited, the natural operations of spirits, angels, and demons. If we accord the demon the faculty of fascinating our eyes when it pleases him, or of disposing the air so as to form the appearance of a phantom, or phenomenon; or of restoring movement to a body which is dead but not entirely corrupted; or of disturbing the living by ill dreams, or terrific representations, we should no longer admire many things which we admire at present, nor regard as miracles certain cures and certain apparitions, if they are only the natural effects of the power of souls, angels and demons. If a man invested with his body produced such effects of himself, we should say with reason that they are supernatural operations, because they exceed the known ordinary and natural power of the living man; but if a man held commerce with a spirit, an angel, or a demon, whom by virtue of some compact, explicit or implicit, he commanded to perform certain things which would be above his natural powers, but not beyond the powers of the spirit whom he commanded, would the effect resulting from it be miraculous or supernatural? No, without doubt, supposing that the spirit which produced the result did nothing that was above his natural powers and faculties. But would it be a miracle if a man had anything to do with an angel or a demon, and that he should make an explicit and implicit compact with them, to oblige them on certain conditions, and with certain ceremonies, to produce effects which would appear externally, and in our minds, to be beyond the power of man? For instance, in the operations of certain magicians who boast of having an explicit compact with the devil, and who by this means raise tempests, or go with extraordinary haste when they walk, or cause the death of animals, and to men incurable maladies; or who enchant arms; or in other operations, as in the use of the divining rod, and in certain remedies against the maladies of men and horses, which having no natural proportion to these maladies do not fail to cure them, although those who use these remedies protest that they have never thought of contracting any alliance with the devil. To reply to this question, the difficulty always recurs to know if there is between living and mortal man a proportion or natural relation, which renders him capable of contracting an alliance with the angel or the demon, by virtue of which these spirits obey him and exert, under his empire over them, by virtue of the preceding compact, a power which is natural to them; for if in all that there is nothing beyond the ordinary force of nature, either on the side of man, or on that of angels and demons, there is nothing miraculous in one or the other; neither is there either in God's permitting secondary causes to act according to their natural faculties, of which he is nevertheless always the principle, and the absolute master, to limit, stop, suspend, extend, or augment them, according to his good pleasure. But as we know not, and it seems even impossible that we should know by the light of reason, the nature and natural extent of the power of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, it seems that it would be rash to decide in this matter, as deriving consequences of causes by their effects, or effects by causes. For instance, to say that souls, demons, and angels have sometimes appeared to men--_then_ they have naturally the faculty of returning and appearing, is a bold and rash proposition. For it is very possible that angels and demons appear only by the particular will of God, and not in consequence of his general will, and by virtue of his natural and physical concurrence with his creatures. In the first case, these apparitions are miraculous, as being above the natural power of the agents in question; in the second case, there is nothing supernatural in them except the permission which God rarely grants to souls to return, to angels and demons to appear, and to produce the effects of which we have spoken. According to these principles we may advance without temerity-- 1st. That angels and demons have often appeared unto men, that souls separated from the body have often returned, and that both the one and the other may do the same thing again. 2d. That the manner of these apparitions, and of these returns to earth, is perfectly unknown, and given up by God to the discussions and researches of mankind. 3d. That there is some likelihood that these kinds of apparitions are not absolutely miraculous on the part of the good and evil angels, but that God allows them sometimes to take place, for reasons the knowledge of which is reserved to himself alone. 4th. That no certain rule on this point can be given, nor any demonstrative argument formed, for want of knowing perfectly the nature and extent of the power of the spiritual beings in question. 5th. That we should reason upon those apparitions which appear in dreams otherwise than upon those which appear when we are awake; differently also upon apparitions wearing solid bodies, speaking, walking, eating and drinking, and those which seem like a shade, or a nebulous and aërial body. 6th. Thus it would be rash to lay down principles, and raise uniform arguments, and all these things in common, every species of apparition demanding its own particular explanation. CHAPTER LI. WAY OF EXPLAINING APPARITIONS. Apparitions in dreams, for instance, that of the angel[439] who told St. Joseph to carry the infant Jesus into Egypt because King Herod wished to put him to death; there are two things appertaining to this apparition--the first is, the impression made on the mind of St. Joseph that an angel appeared to him; the second is, the prediction or revelation of the ill-will of Herod. Both these are above the ordinary powers of our nature, but we know not if they be above the power of angels; it is certain that it could not have been done except by the will and command of God. The apparitions of a spirit, or of an angel and a demon, which show themselves clothed in an apparent body, and only as a shadow or a phantom, as that of the angel who showed himself to Manoah the father of Samson, and vanished with the smoke of the sacrifice, and of him who extricated St. Peter from prison, and disappeared in the same way after having conducted him the length of a street; the bodies which these angels assumed, and which we suppose to have been only apparent and aërial, present great difficulties; for either those bodies were their own, or they were assumed or borrowed. If those forms were their own, and we suppose with several ancient and some new writers that angels, demons, and even human souls have a kind of subtile, transparent, and aërial body, the difficulty lies in knowing how they can condense the transparent body, and render it visible when it was before invisible; for if it was always and naturally evident to the senses and visible, there would be another kind of continual miracle to render it invisible, and hide it from our sight; and if of its nature it is invisible, what might can render it visible? On whatever side we regard this object it seems equally miraculous, whether to make evident to the senses that which is purely spiritual, or to render invisible that which in its nature is palpable and corporeal. The ancient fathers of the church, who gave to angels subtile bodies of an airy nature, explained, according to their principles, more easily the predictions made by the demons, and the wonderful operations which they cause in the air, in the elements, in our bodies, and which are far beyond what the cleverest and the most learned men can know, predict, and perform. They likewise conceived more easily that evil angels can cause maladies, render the air impure and contagious, that they inspire the wicked with wrong thoughts and unjust desires, that they can penetrate our thoughts and wishes, that they foresee tempests and changes in the air, and derangements in the seasons; all that can be explained with much more facility on the hypothesis that demons have bodies composed of very fine and subtile air. St. Augustine[440] had written that they could also discover what is passing in our mind, and at the bottom of our heart, not only by our words, but also by certain signs and movements, which escape from the most circumspect; but reflecting on what he had advanced in this passage, he retracted, and owned that he had spoken too affirmatively upon a subject but little known, and that the manner in which the evil angels penetrate our thoughts is a very hidden thing, and very difficult for men to discover and explain; thus he preferred suspending his judgment upon it, and remaining in doubt. Footnotes: [439] Matt. ii. 13,14. [440] S. Aug. lib. ii. retract. c. 30. CHAPTER LII. THE DIFFICULTY OF EXPLAINING THE MANNER IN WHICH APPARITIONS MAKE THEIR APPEARANCE, WHATEVER SYSTEM MAY BE PROPOSED ON THE SUBJECT. The difficulty is much greater, if we suppose that these spirits are absolutely disengaged from any kind of matter; for how can they assemble about them a certain quantity of matter, clothe themselves with it, give it a human form, which can be discerned; is capable of acting, speaking, conversing, eating and drinking, as did the angels who appeared to Abraham,[441] and the one who appeared to the young Tobias,[442] and conducted him to Ragés! Is all that accomplished by the natural power of these spirits? Has God bestowed on them this power in creating them, and has he engaged himself by virtue of his natural laws, and by a consequence of his acting intimately and essentially on the creature, in his quality of Creator, to impress on occasion at the will of these spirits certain motions in the air, and in the bodies which they would move, condense, and cause to act, in the same manner proportionally that he has willed by virtue of the union of the soul with a living body, that that soul should impress on that body motions proportioned to its own will, although, naturally, there is no natural proportion between matter and spirit, and, according to the laws of physics, the one cannot act upon the other, unless the first cause, the Creator, has chosen to subject himself to create this movement, and to produce these effects at the will of man, movements which without that would pass for superhuman (supernatural). Or shall we say, with some new philosophers,[443] that although we may have ideas of matter and thought, perhaps we shall never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not, because it is impossible for us to discover by the contemplative powers of our own minds without revelation, if God has not given to some collections of matter, disposed as he thinks proper, the power to perceive and to think, or whether he has joined and united to the matter thus arranged, an immaterial substance which thinks? Now in relation to our notions, it is not less easy for us to conceive that God can add to our idea of matter the faculty of thinking, since we know not in what thought consists, and to what species of substance that Almighty being has judged proper to grant this faculty, which could exist in no created being except by virtue of the goodness and the will of the Creator. This system certainly embraces great absurdities, and greater to my mind than those it would fain avoid. We conceive clearly that matter is divisible, and capable of motion; but we do not conceive that it is capable of thought, nor that thought can consist of a certain configuration or a certain motion of matter. And even could thought depend on an arrangement, or on a certain subtility, or on a certain motion of matter, as soon as that arrangement should be disturbed, or the motion interrupted, or this heap of subtile matter dispersed, thought would cease to be produced, and consequently that which constitutes man, or the reasoning animal, would no longer subsist; thus all the economy of our religion, all our hopes of a future life, all our fears of eternal punishment would vanish; even the principles of our philosophy would be overthrown. God forbid that we should wish to set bounds to the almighty power of God; but that all-powerful Being having given us as a rule of our knowledge the clearness of the ideas which we form of everything, and not being permitted to affirm that which we know but indistinctly, it follows that we ought not to assert that thought can be attributed to matter. If the thing were known to us through revelation, and taught by the authority of the Scriptures, then we might impose silence on human reason, and make captive our judgment in obedience to faith; but it is owned that the thing is not at all revealed; neither is it demonstrated, either by its cause, or by its effects. It must, then, be considered as a simple system, invented to do away certain difficulties which result from the opinion opposed to it. If the difficulty of explaining how the soul acts upon our bodies appears so great, how can we comprehend that the soul itself should be material and extended? In the latter case will it act upon itself, and give itself the impulsion to think, or will this movement or impulsion be thought itself, or will it produce thought? Will this thinking matter think on always, or only at times; and when it has ceased to think, who will make it think anew? Will it be God, will it be itself? Can so simple an agent as the soul act upon itself, and reproduce it in some sort by thinking, after it has ceased to think? My reader will say that I leave him here embarrassed, and that instead of giving him any light on the subject of the apparition of spirits, I cast doubt and uncertainty on the subject. I own it; but I better like to doubt prudently, than to affirm that which I know not. And if I hold by what my religion teaches me concerning the nature of souls, angels, and demons, I shall say that being purely spiritual, it is impossible that they should appear clothed with a body except through a miracle; always in the supposition that God has not created them naturally capable of these operations, with subordination to his sovereignly powerful will, which but rarely allows them to use this faculty of showing themselves corporeally to mortals. If sometimes angels have eaten, spoken, acted, walked, like men, it was not from any need they had to drink or eat to sustain themselves and to be able to live, but to execute the designs of God, whose will it was that they should appear to men acting, drinking, and eating, as the angel Raphael observes,[444]--"When I was staying with you, I was there by the will of God; I seemed to you to eat and drink, but for my part I make use of an invisible nourishment which is unknown to men." It is true that we know not what may be the food of angels who are substances which are purely spiritual, nor what became of that food which Raphael and the angels that Abraham entertained in his tent, took, or seemed to take, in the company of men. But there are so many other things in nature which are unknown and incomprehensible to us, that we may very well console ourselves for not knowing how it is that the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls are made to appear. Footnotes: [441] Gen. xviii. [442] Tob. xii. 19. [443] M. Lock. de Intellectu Human. lib. iv. c. 3. [444] Tob. xii. 18, 19. DISSERTATION ON THE GHOSTS WHO RETURN TO EARTH BODILY, THE EXCOMMUNICATED, THE OUPIRES OR VAMPIRES, VROUCOLACAS, ETC. PREFACE. Every age, every nation, every country has its prejudices, its maladies, its customs, its inclinations, which characterize them, and which pass away, and succeed to one another; often that which has appeared admirable at one time, becomes pitiful and ridiculous at another. We have seen that in some ages all was turned towards a certain kind of devotion, of studies and of exercises. It is known that, for more than one century, the prevailing taste of Europe was the journey to Jerusalem. Kings, princes, nobles, bishops, ecclesiastics, monks, all pressed thither in crowds. The pilgrimages to Rome were formerly very frequent and very famous. All that is fallen away. We have seen provinces over-run with flagellants, and now none of them remain except in the brotherhoods of penitents which are still found in several parts. We have seen in these countries jumpers and dancers, who every moment jumped and danced in the streets, squares or market-places, and even in the churches. The convulsionaries of our own days seem to have revived them; posterity will be surprised at them, as we laugh at them now. Towards the end of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, nothing was talked of in Lorraine but wizards and witches. For a long time we have heard nothing of them. When the philosophy of M. Descartes appeared, what a vogue it had! The ancient philosophy was despised; nothing was talked of but experiments in physics, new systems, new discoveries. M. Newton appears; all minds turn to him. The system of M. Law, bank notes, the rage of the Rue Quinquampoix, what movements did they not cause in the kingdom? A sort of convulsion had seized on the French. In this age, a new scene presents itself to our eyes, and has done for about sixty years in Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland: they see, it is said, men who have been dead for several months, come back to earth, talk, walk, infest villages, ill use both men and beasts, suck the blood of their near relations, make them ill, and finally cause their death; so that people can only save themselves from their dangerous visits and their hauntings by exhuming them, impaling them, cutting off their heads, tearing out the heart, or burning them. These _revenans_ are called by the name of oupires or vampires, that is to say, leeches; and such particulars are related of them, so singular, so detailed, and invested with such probable circumstances and such judicial information, that one can hardly refuse to credit the belief which is held in those countries, that these _revenans_ come out of their tombs and produce those effects which are proclaimed of them. Antiquity certainly neither saw nor knew anything like it. Let us read through the histories of the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Latins; nothing approaching to it will be met with. It is true that we remark in history, though rarely, that certain persons after having been some time in their tombs and considered as dead, have returned to life. We shall see even that the ancients believed that magic could cause death and evoke the souls of the dead. Several passages are cited, which prove that at certain times they fancied that sorcerers sucked the blood of men and children, and caused their death. They saw also in the twelfth century in England and Denmark, some _revenans_ similar to those of Hungary. But in no history do we read anything so usual or so pronounced, as what is related to us of the vampires of Poland, Hungary, and Moravia. Christian antiquity furnishes some instances of excommunicated persons who have visibly come out of their tombs and left the churches, when the deacon commanded the excommunicated, and those who did not partake of the communion, to retire. For several centuries nothing like this has been seen, although it is known that the bodies of several excommunicated persons who died while under sentence of excommunication and censure of the Church are buried in churches. The belief of the modern Greeks, who will have it that the bodies of the excommunicated do not decay in their tombs or graves, is an opinion which has no foundation, either in antiquity, in good theology, or even in history. This idea seems to have been invented by the modern Greek schismatics, only to authorize and confirm them in their separation from the church of Rome. Christian antiquity believed, on the contrary, that the incorruptibility of a body was rather a probable mark of the sanctity of the person and a proof of the particular protection of God, extended to a body which during its lifetime had been the temple of the Holy Spirit, and of one who had retained in justice and innocence the mark of Christianity. The vroucolacas of Greece and the Archipelago are again _revenans_ of a new kind. We can hardly persuade ourselves that a nation so witty as the Greeks could fall into so extraordinary an opinion. Ignorance or prejudice, must be extreme among them since neither an ecclesiastic nor any other writer has undertaken to undeceive them. The imagination of those who believe that the dead chew in their graves, with a noise similar to that made by hogs when they eat, is so ridiculous that it does not deserve to be seriously refuted. I undertake to treat here on the matter of the _revenans_ or vampires of Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland, at the risk of being criticised however I may discuss it; those who believe them to be true, will accuse me of rashness and presumption, for having raised a doubt on the subject, or even of having denied their existence and reality; others will blame me for having employed my time in discussing this matter which is considered as frivolous and useless by many sensible people. Whatever may be thought of it, I shall be pleased with myself for having sounded a question which appeared to me important in a religious point of view. For if the return of vampires is real, it is of import to defend it, and prove it; and if it is illusory, it is of consequence to the interests of religion to undeceive those who believe in its truth, and destroy an error which may produce dangerous effects. DISSERTATION ON THE GHOSTS WHO RETURN TO EARTH BODILY, THE EXCOMMUNICATED, THE OUPIRES OR VAMPIRES, VROUCOLACAS, ETC. CHAPTER I. THE RESURRECTION OF A DEAD PERSON IS THE WORK OF GOD ONLY. After having treated in a separate dissertation on the matter of the apparitions of angels, demons, and disembodied souls, the connection of the subject invites me to speak also of the ghosts and excommunicated persons, whom, it is said, the earth rejects from her bosom; of the vampires of Hungary, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland; and of the vroucolacas of Greece. I shall report first of all, what has been said and written of them; then I shall deduce some consequences, and bring forward the reasons or arguments that may be adduced for, and against, their existence and reality. The _revenans_ of Hungary, or vampires, which form the principal object of this dissertation, are men who have been dead a considerable time, sometimes more, sometimes less; who leave their tombs, and come and disturb the living, sucking their blood, appearing to them, making a racket at their doors, and in their houses, and lastly, often causing their death. They are named vampires, or oupires, which signifies, they say, in Sclavonic, a leech. The only way to be delivered from their haunting, is to disinter them, cut off their head, impale them, burn them, or pierce their heart. Several systems have been propounded to explain the return, and these apparitions of the vampires. Some persons have denied and rejected them as chimerical, and as an effect of the prepossession and ignorance of the people of those countries, where they are said to come back or return. Others have thought that these people were not really dead, but that they had been interred alive, and returned naturally to themselves, and came out of their tombs. Others believe that these people are very truly dead, but that God, by a particular permission, or command, permits or commands them to come back to earth, and resume for a time their own body; for when they are exhumed, their bodies are found entire, their blood vermilion and fluid, and their limbs supple and pliable. Others maintain that it is the demon who causes these _revenans_ to appear, and by their means does all the harm he occasions both men and animals. In the supposition that vampires veritably resuscitate, we may raise an infinity of difficulties on the subject. How is this resurrection accomplished? It is by the strength of the _revenant_, by the return of his soul into his body? Is it an angel, is it a demon who reanimates it? Is it by the order, or by the permission of God that he resuscitates? Is this resurrection voluntary on his part, and by his own choice? Is it for a long time, like that of the persons who were restored to life by Jesus Christ? or that of persons resuscitated by the Prophets and Apostles? Or is it only momentary, and for a few days and a few hours, like the resurrection operated by St. Stanislaus upon the lord who had sold him a field; or that spoken of in the life of St. Macarius of Egypt, and of St. Spiridion, who made the dead to speak, simply to bear testimony to the truth, and then left them to sleep in peace, awaiting the last, the judgment day. First of all, I lay it down as an undoubted principle, that the resurrection of a person really dead is effected by the power of God alone. No man can either resuscitate himself, or restore another man to life, without a visible miracle. Jesus Christ resuscitated himself, as he had promised he would; he did it by his own power; he did it with circumstances which were all miraculous. If he had returned to life as soon as he was taken down from the cross, it might have been thought that he was not quite dead, that there remained yet in him some remains of life, that they might have been revived by warming him, or by giving him cordials and something capable of bringing him back to his senses. But he revives only on the third day. He had, as it were, been killed after his death, by the opening made in his side with a lance, which pierced him to the heart, and would have put him to death, if he had not then been beyond receiving it. When he resuscitated Lazarus,[445] he waited until he had been four days in the tomb, and began to show corruption; which is the most certain mark that a man is really deceased, without a hope of returning to life, except by supernatural means. The resurrection which Job so firmly expected,[446] and that of the man who came to life, on touching the body of the prophet Elisha in his tomb;[447] and the child of the widow of Shunem, whom the same Elisha restored to life;[448] that army of skeletons, whose resurrection was predicted by Ezekiel,[449] and which in spirit he saw executed before his eyes, as a type and pledge as the return of the Hebrews from their captivity at Babylon;--in short, all the resurrections related in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament, are manifestly miraculous effects, and attributed solely to the Almighty power of God. Neither angels, nor demons, nor men, the holiest and most favored of God, could by their own power restore to life a person really dead. They can do it by the power of God alone, who when he thinks proper so to do, is free to grant this favor to their prayers and intercession. Footnotes: [445] John xi. 39. [446] Job xxi. 25. [447] 1 Kings xiii. 21, 22. [448] 2 Kings iv. [449] Ezek. xxxvii. 1, 2, 3. CHAPTER II. ON THE REVIVAL OF PERSONS WHO WERE NOT REALLY DEAD. The resuscitation of some persons who were believed to be dead, and who were not so, but simply asleep, or in a lethargy; and of those who were supposed to be dead, having been drowned, and who came to life again through the care taken of them, or by medical skill. Such persons must not pass for being really resuscitated; they were not dead, or were so only in appearance. We intend to speak in this place of another order of resuscitated persons, who had been buried sometimes for several months, or even several years; who ought to have been suffocated in their graves, had they been interred alive, and in whom are still found signs of life: the blood in a liquid state, the flesh entire, the complexion fine and florid, the limbs flexible and pliable. Those persons who return either by night or by day, disturb the living, suck their blood, kill them, appear in their clothes, in their families, sit down to table, and do a thousand other things; then return to their graves without any one seeing how they re-enter them. This is a kind of momentary resurrection, or revival; for whereas the other dead persons spoken of in Scripture have lived, drank, eaten and conversed with other men after their return to life, as Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha,[450] and the son of the widow of Shunem, resuscitated by Elisha.[451] These appeared during a certain time, in certain places, in certain circumstances; and appear no more as soon as they have been impaled, or burned, or have had their heads cut off. If this last order of resuscitated persons were not really dead, there is nothing wonderful in their revisiting the world, except the manner in which it is done, and the circumstances by which that return is accompanied. Do these _revenans_ simply awaken from their sleep, or do they recover themselves like those who fall down in syncope, in fainting fits, or in swoons, and who at the end of a certain time come naturally to themselves when the blood and animal spirits have resumed their natural course and motion. But how can they come out of their graves without opening the earth, and how re-enter them again without its appearing? Have we ever seen lethargies, or swoons, or syncopes last whole years together? If people insist on these resurrections being real ones, did we ever see dead persons resuscitate themselves, and by their own power? If they are not resuscitated by themselves, is it by the power of God that they have left their graves? What proof is there that God has anything to do with it? What is the object of these resurrections? Is it to show forth the works of God in these vampires? What glory does the Divinity derive from them? If it is not God who drags them from their graves, is it an angel? is it a demon? is it their own spirit? Can the soul when separated from the body re-enter it when it will, and give it new life, were it but for a quarter of an hour? Can an angel or a demon restore a dead man to life? Undoubtedly not, without the order, or at least the permission of God. This question of the natural power of angels and demons over human bodies has been examined in another place, and we have shown that neither revelation nor reason throws any certain light on the subject. Footnotes: [450] 1 John xii. 2. [451] 2 Kings viii. 5. CHAPTER III. REVIVAL OF A MAN WHO HAD BEEN INTERRED FOR THREE YEARS, AND WAS RESUSCITATED BY ST. STANISLAUS. All the lives of the saints are full of resurrections of the dead; thick volumes might be composed on the subject. These resurrections have a manifest relation to the matter which we are here treating of, since it relates to persons who are dead, or held to be so, who appear bodily and animated to the living, and who live after their return to life. I shall content myself with relating the history of St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow, who restored to life a man that had been dead for three years, attended by such singular circumstances, and in so public a manner, that the thing is beyond the severest criticism. If it is really true, it must be regarded as one of the most unheard of miracles which are read of in history. They assert that the life of this saint was written either at the time of martyrdom,[452] or a short time afterwards, by different well-informed authors; for the martyrdom of the saint, and, above all, the restoration to life of the dead man of whom we are about to speak, were seen and known by an infinite number of persons, by all the court of king Boleslaus. And this event having taken place in Poland, where vampires are frequently met with even in our days, it concerns, for that reason, more particularly the subject we are treating. The bishop, St. Stanislaus, having bought of a gentleman, named Pierre, an estate situated on the banks of the Vistula, in the territory of Lublin, for the profit of his church at Cracow, gave the price of it to the seller, in the presence of witnesses, and with the solemnities requisite in that country, but without written deeds, for they then wrote but seldom in Poland on the occasion of sales of this kind; they contented themselves with having witnesses. Stanislaus took possession of this estate by the king's authority, and his church enjoyed it peaceably for about three years. In the interim, Pierre, who had sold it, happened to die. The king of Poland, Boleslaus, who had conceived an implacable hatred against the holy bishop, because he had freely reproved him for his excesses, seeking occasion to cause him trouble, excited against him the three sons of Pierre, and his heirs, and told them to claim the estate which their father had sold, on pretence of its not having been paid for. He promised to support their demand, and to cause it to be restored to them. Thus these three gentlemen had the bishop cited to appear before the king, who was then at Solech, occupied in rendering justice under some tents in the country, according to the ancient custom of the land, in the general assembly of the nation. The bishop was cited before the king, and maintained that he had bought and paid for the estate in question. The day was beginning to close, and the bishop ran great risk of being condemned by the king and his counselors. Suddenly, as if inspired by the Divine Spirit, he promised the king to bring him in three days Pierre, of whom he had bought it, and the condition was accepted mockingly, as a thing impossible to be executed. The holy bishop repairs to Pictravin, remains in prayer, and keeps fast with his household for three days; on the third day he goes in his pontifical robes, accompanied by his clergy and a multitude of people, causes the grave-stone to be raised, and makes them dig until they found the corpse of the defunct all fleshless and corrupted. The saint commands him to come forth and bear witness to the truth before the king's tribunal. He rises; they cover him with a cloak; the saint takes him by the hand, and leads him alive to the feet of the king. No one had the boldness to interrogate him; but he took the word, and declared that he had in good faith sold the estate to the prelate, and that he had received the value of it; after which he severely reprimanded his sons, who had so maliciously accused the holy bishop. Stanislaus asked Pierre if he wished to remain alive to do penance. He thanked him, and said he would not anew expose himself to the danger of sinning. Stanislaus reconducted him to his tomb, and being arrived there, he again fell asleep in the Lord. It may be supposed that such a scene had an infinite number of witnesses, and that all Poland was quickly informed of it. The king was only the more irritated against the saint. He some time after killed him with his own hand, as he was coming from the altar, and had his body cut into seventy-two parts, in order that they might never more be collected together in order to pay them the worship which was due to them as the body of a martyr for the truth and for pastoral liberty. Now then let us come to that which is the principal subject of these researches, the vampires, or _revenans_, of Hungary, Moravia, and similar ones, which appear only for a little time in their natural bodies. Footnotes: [452] The reverend fathers the Bollandists, believed that the life of St. Stanislaus, which they had printed, was very old, and nearly of the time of the martyrdom of the saint; or at least that it was taken from a life by an author almost his cotemporary, and original. But since the first edition of this dissertation it has been observed to me that the thing was by no means certain; that M. Baillet, on the 7th of May, in the critical table of authors, asserts that the life of St. Stanislaus was only written 400 years after his death, from uncertain and mutilated memoirs. And in the life of the saint he owns that it is only the tradition of the writers of the country which can render credible the account of the resurrection of Pierre. The Abbé Fleuri, tom. xiii. of the Ecclesiastical History, l. 62, year 1079, does not agree either to what is written in that life or to what has followed it. At any rate, the miracle of the resurrection of Pierre is related as certain in a discourse of John de Polemac, delivered at the Council of Constance, 1433; tom. xii. Councils, p. 1397. CHAPTER IV. CAN A MAN WHO IS REALLY DEAD APPEAR IN HIS OWN BODY? If what is related of vampires were certainly true, the question here proposed would be frivolous and useless; they would reply to us directly--In Hungary, Moravia, and Poland, persons who were dead and interred a long time, have been seen to return, to appear, and torment men and animals, suck their blood, and cause their death. These persons come back to earth in their own bodies; people see them, know them, exhume them, try them, impale them, cut off their heads, burn them. It is then not only possible, but very true and very real, that they appear in their own bodies. It might be added in support of this belief, that the Scriptures themselves give instances of these apparitions: for example, at the Transfiguration of our Saviour, Elias and Moses appeared on Mount Tabor,[453] there conversing with Jesus Christ. We know that Elias is still alive. I do not cite him as an instance; but in regard to Moses, his death is not doubtful; and yet he appeared bodily talking with Jesus Christ. The dead who came out of their graves at the resurrection of the Saviour,[454] and who appeared to many persons in Jerusalem, had been in their sepulchres for several years; there was no doubt of their being dead; and nevertheless they appeared and bore testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour. When Jeremiah appeared to Judas Maccabæus,[455] and placed in his hand a golden sword, saying to him, "Receive this sword as a gift from God, with which you will vanquish the enemies of my people of Israel;" it was apparently this prophet in his own person who appeared to him and made him that present, since by his mien he was recognized as the prophet Jeremiah. I do not speak of those persons who were really restored to life by a miracle, as the son of the widow of Shunem resuscitated by Elijah; nor of the dead man who, on touching the coffin of the same prophet, rose upon his feet and revived; nor of Lazarus, to whom Jesus Christ restored life in a way so miraculous and striking. Those persons lived, drank, ate, and conversed with mankind, after, as before their death and resurrection. It is not of such persons that we now speak. I speak, for instance, of Pierre resuscitated by Stanislaus for a few hours; of those persons of whom I made mention in the treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits, who appeared, spoke, and revealed hidden things, and whose resurrection was but momentary, and only to manifest the power of God, in order to bear witness to truth and innocence, or to maintain the credit of the church against obstinate heretics, as we read in various instances. St. Martin, being newly made Archbishop of Tours, conceived some suspicions against an altar which the bishops his predecessors had erected to a pretended martyr, of whom they knew neither the name nor the history, and of whom none of the priests or ministers of the chapel could give any certain account. He abstained for some time from going to this spot, which was not far from the city; but one day he repaired thither accompanied by a few monks, and having prayed, he besought God to let him know who it was that was interred there. He then perceived on his left a hideous and dirty-looking apparition; and having commanded it to tell him who he was, the spectre declared his name, and confessed to him that he was a robber, who had been put to death for his crimes and acts of violence, and that he had nothing in common with the martyrs. Those who were present heard distinctly what he said, but saw no one. St. Martin had the tomb overthrown, and cured the ignorant people of their superstitions. The philosopher Celsus, writing against the Christians, maintained that the apparitions of Jesus Christ to his apostles were not real, but that they were simply shadowy forms which appeared. Origen, retorting his reasoning, tells him[456] that the pagans give an account of various apparitions of Æsculapius and Apollo, to which they attribute the power of predicting future events. If these appearances are admitted to be real, because they are attested by some, why not receive as true those of Jesus Christ, which are related by ocular witnesses, and believed by millions of persons? He afterwards relates this history. Aristeus, who belonged to one of the first families of Proconnesus, having one day entered a foulon shop, died there suddenly. The __________ having locked the door, ran directly to inform the relations of the deceased; but as the report was instantly spread in the town, a man of Cyzica, who came from Astacia, affirmed that it could not be, because he had met Aristeus on the road from Cyzica, and had spoken to him, which he loudly maintained before all the people of Proconnesus. Thereupon the relations arrive at the foulon's, with all the necessary apparatus for carrying away the body; but when they entered the house, they could not find Aristeus there, either dead or alive. Seven years after, he showed himself in the very town of Proconnesus; made there those verses which are termed Arimaspean, and then disappeared for the second time. Such is the story related of him in those places. Three hundred and forty years after that event, the same Aristeus showed himself in Metapontus, in Italy, and commanded the Metapontines to build an altar to Apollo, and afterwards to erect a statue in honor of Aristeus of Proconnesus, adding that they were the only people of Italy whom Apollo had honored with his presence; as for himself who spoke to them, he had accompanied that god in the form of a crow; and having thus spoken he disappeared. The Metapontines sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning this apparition; the Delphic oracle told them to follow the counsel which Aristeus had given them, and it would be well for them; in fact, they did erect a statue to Apollo, which was still to be seen there in the time of Herodotus;[457] and at the same time, another statue to Aristeus, which stood in a small plantation of laurels, in the midst of the public square of Metapontus. Celsus made no difficulty of believing all that on the word of Herodotus, though Pindar and he refused credence to what the Christians taught of the miracles wrought by Jesus Christ, related in the Gospel and sealed with the blood of martyrs. Origen adds, What could Providence have designed in performing for this Proconnesian the miracles we have just mentioned? What benefit could mankind derive from them? Whereas, what the Christians relate of Jesus Christ serves to confirm a doctrine which is beneficial to the human race. We must, then, either reject this story of Aristeus as fabulous, or ascribe all that is told of it as the work of the evil spirit. Footnotes: [453] Matt. ix. 34. [454] Matt. xxvii. 53. [455] Macc. xiv. 14, 15. [456] Origen. contra Celsum, lib. i. pp. 123, 124. [457] Herodot. lib. iv. CHAPTER V. REVIVAL OR APPARITION OF A GIRL WHO HAD BEEN DEAD SOME MONTHS. Phlegonus, freed-man of the Emperor Adrian,[458] in the fragment of the book which he wrote on wonderful things, says that at Tralla, in Asia, a certain man named Machates, an innkeeper, was connected with a girl named Philinium, the daughter of Demostrates and Chariton. This girl being dead, and placed in her grave, continued to come every night for six months to see her gallant, to drink, eat, and sleep with him. One day this girl was recognized by her nurse, when she was sitting by Machates. The nurse ran to give notice of this to Chariton, the girl's mother, who, after making many difficulties, came at last to the inn; but as it was very late, and everybody gone to bed, she could not satisfy her curiosity. However, she recognized her daughter's clothes, and thought she recognized the girl herself in bed with Machates. She returned the next morning, but having missed her way, she no longer found her daughter, who had already withdrawn. Machates related everything to her; how, since a certain time, she had come to him every night; and in proof of what he said, he opened his casket and showed her the gold ring which Philinium had given him, and the band with which she covered her bosom, and which she had left with him the preceding night. Chariton, who could no longer doubt the truth of the circumstance, now gave way to cries and tears; but as they promised to inform her the following night, when Philinium should return, she went away home. In the evening the girl came back as usual, and Machates sent directly to let her father and mother know, for he began to fear that some other girl might have taken Philinium's clothes from the sepulchre, in order to deceive him by the illusion. Demostrates and Chariton, on arriving, recognized their daughter and ran to embrace her; but she cried out, "Oh, father and mother, why have you grudged me my happiness, by preventing me from remaining three days longer with this innkeeper without injury to any one? for I did not come here without permission from the gods, that is to say, from the demon, since we cannot attribute to God, or to a good spirit, a thing like that. Your curiosity will cost you dear." At the same time, she fell down stiff and dead, and extended on the bed. Phlegon, who had some command in the town, stayed the crowd and prevented a tumult. The next day, the people being assembled at the theatre, they agreed to go and inspect the vault in which Philinium, who had died six months before, had been laid. They found there the corpses of her family arranged in their places, but they found not the body of Philinium. There was only an iron ring, which Machates had given her, with a gilded cup, which she had also received from him. Afterwards they went back to the dwelling of Machates, where the body of the girl remained lying on the ground. They consulted a diviner, who said that she must be interred beyond the limits of the town; they must appease the furies and terrestrial Mercury, make solemn funeral ceremonies to the god Manes, and sacrifice to Jupiter Hospitaller, to Mercury, and Mars. Phlegon adds, speaking to him to whom he was writing: "If you think proper to inform the emperor of it, write to me, that I may send you some of those persons who were eye-witnesses of all these things." Here is the fact circumstantially related, and invested with all the marks which can make it pass for true. Nevertheless, how numerous are the difficulties it presents! Was this young girl really dead, or only sleeping? Was her resurrection effected by her own strength and will, or was it a demon who restored her to life? It appears that it cannot be doubted that it was her own body; all the circumstances noted in the recital of Phlegon persuade us of it. If she was not dead, and all she did was merely a game and a play which she performed to satisfy her passion for Machates, there is nothing in all this recital very incredible. We know what illicit love is capable of, and how far it may lead any one who is devoured by a violent passion. The same Phlegon says that a Syrian soldier of the army of Antiochus, after having been killed at Thermopylæ, appeared in open day in the Roman camp, where he spoke to several persons. Haralde, or Harappe, a Dane, who caused himself to be buried at the entrance of his kitchen, appeared after his death, and was wounded by one Olaüs Pa, who left the iron of his lance in the wound. This Dane, then, appeared bodily. Was it his soul which moved his body, or a demon which made use of this corpse to disturb and frighten the living? Did he do this by his own strength, or by the permission of God? And what glory to God, what advantage to men, could accrue from these apparitions? Shall we deny all these facts, related in so circumstantial a manner by enlightened authors, who have no interest in deceiving us, nor any wish to do so? St. Augustine relates that, during his abode at Milan,[459] a young man had a suit instituted against him by a person who repeated his demand for a debt already paid the young man's father, but the receipt for which could not be found. The ghost of the father appeared to the son, and informed him where the receipt was which occasioned him so much trouble. St. Macarius, the Egyptian, made a dead man[460] speak who had been interred some time, in order to discover a deposit which he had received and hidden unknown to his wife. The dead man declared that the money was slipt down at the foot of his bed. The same St. Macarius, not being able to refute in any other way a heretic Eunomian, according to some, or Hieracitus, according to others, said to him, "Let us go to the grave of a dead man, and ask him to inform us of the truth which you will not agree to." The heretic dared not present himself at the grave; but St. Macarius went thither, accompanied by a multitude of persons. He interrogated the dead, who replied from the depth of the tomb, that if the heretic had appeared in the crowd he should have arisen to convince him, and to bear testimony to the truth. St. Macarius commanded him to fall asleep again in the Lord, till the time when Jesus Christ should awaken him in his place at the end of the world. The ancients, who have related the same fact, vary in some of the circumstances, as is usual enough when those things are related only from memory. St. Spiridion, Bishop of Trinitontis, in Egypt,[461] had a daughter named Irene, who lived in virginity till her death. After her decease, a person came to Spiridion and asked him for a deposit which he had confided to Irene unknown to her father. They sought in every part of the house, but could find nothing. At last Spiridion went to his daughter's tomb, and calling her by her name, asked her where the deposit was. She declared the same, and Spiridion restored it. A holy abbot named Erricles resuscitated for a moment a man who had been killed,[462] and of whose death they accused a monk who was perfectly innocent. The dead man did justice to the accused, and the Abbot Erricles said to him, "Sleep in peace, till the Lord shall come at the last day to resuscitate you to all eternity." All these momentary resurrections may serve to explain how the _revenans_ of Hungary come out of their graves, then return to them, after having caused themselves to be seen and felt for some time. But the difficulty will always be to know, 1st, If the thing be true; 2d, If they can resuscitate themselves; and, 3d, If they are really dead, or only asleep. In what way soever we regard this circumstance, it always appears equally impossible and incredible. Footnotes: [458] Phlegon. de Mirabilib. 18. Gronov. Antiq. Græc. p. 2694. [459] Aug. de Curâ pro Mortuis. [460] Rosweid. vit. P. P. lib. ii. p. 480. [461] Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 11. [462] Vit. P. P. lib. ii. p. 650. CHAPTER VI. A WOMAN TAKEN ALIVE FROM HER GRAVE. We read in a new work, a story which has some connection with this subject. A shopkeeper of the Rue St. Honoré, at Paris, had promised his daughter to one of his friends, a shopkeeper like himself, residing also in the same street. A financier having presented himself as a husband for this young girl, was accepted instead of the young man to whom she had been promised. The marriage was accomplished, and the young bride falling ill, was looked upon as dead, enshrouded and interred. The first lover having an idea that she had fallen into a lethargy or a trance, had her taken out of the ground during the night; they brought her to herself and he espoused her. They crossed the channel, and lived quietly in England for some years. At the end of ten years, they returned to Paris, where the first husband having recognized his wife in a public walk, claimed her in a court of justice; and this was the subject of a great law suit. The wife and her (second) husband defended themselves on the ground that death had broken the bonds of the first marriage. The first husband was even accused of having caused his wife to be too precipitately interred. The lovers foreseeing that they might be non-suited, again withdrew to a foreign land, where they ended their days. This circumstance is so singular that our readers will have some difficulty in giving credence to it. I only give it as it is told. It is for those who advance the fact to guarantee and prove it. Who can say that, in the story of Phlegon, the young Philinium was not thus placed in the vault without being dead, and that every night she came to see her lover Machates? That was much easier for her than would have been the return of the Parisian woman, who had been enshrouded, buried, and remained covered with earth, and enveloped in linen, during a pretty long time. The other example related in the same work, is of a girl who fell into a trance and was regarded as dead, and became enceinte during this interval, without knowing the author of her pregnancy. It was a monk, who, having made himself known, asserted that his vows should be annulled, he having been forced into the sacred profession. A great lawsuit ensued upon it, of which the documents are preserved to this day. The monk obtained a dispensation from his vows, and married the young girl. This instance may be adduced with that of Philinium, and the young woman of the Rue St. Honoré. It is possible that these persons might not be dead, and consequently not restored to life. CHAPTER VII. LET US NOW EXAMINE THE FACT OF THE REVENANS OR VAMPIRES OF MORAVIA. I have been told by the late Monsieur de Vassimont, counsellor of the Chamber of the Counts of Bar, that having been sent into Moravia by his late Royal Highness Leopold, first Duke of Lorraine, for the affairs of my Lord the Prince Charles his brother, Bishop of Olmutz and Osnaburgh, he was informed by public report that it was common enough in that country to see men who had died some time before, present themselves in a party, and sit down to table with persons of their acquaintance without saying anything; but that nodding to one of the party, he would infallibly die some days afterwards. This fact was confirmed by several persons, and amongst others by an old curé, who said he had seen more than one instance of it. The bishops and priests of the country consulted Rome on so extraordinary a fact; but they received no answer, because, apparently, all those things were regarded there as simple visions, or popular fancies. They afterwards bethought themselves of taking up the corpses of those who came back in that way, of burning them, or of destroying them in some other manner. Thus they delivered themselves from the importunity of these spectres, which are now much less frequently seen than before. So said that good priest. These apparitions have given rise to a little work, entitled _Magia Posthuma_, printed at Olmutz, in 1706, composed by Charles Ferdinand de Schertz, dedicated to Prince Charles, of Lorraine, Bishop of Olmutz and Osnaburgh. The author relates that, in a certain village, a woman being just dead, who had taken all her sacraments, she was buried in the usual way in the cemetery. Four days after her decease, the inhabitants of this village heard a great noise and extraordinary uproar, and saw a spectre, which appeared sometimes in the shape of a dog, sometimes in the form of a man, not to one person only, but to several, and caused them great pain, grasping their throats, and compressing their stomachs, so as to suffocate them. It bruised almost the whole body, and reduced them to extreme weakness, so that they became pale, lean and attenuated. The spectre attacked even the animals, and some cows were found debilitated and half dead. Sometimes it tied them together by their tails. These animals gave sufficient evidence by their bellowing of the pain they suffered. The horses seemed overcome with fatigue, all in a perspiration, principally on the back; heated, out of breath, covered with foam, as they are after a long and rough journey. These calamities lasted several months. The author whom I have mentioned examines the affair in a lawyer-like way, and reasons much on the fact and the law. He asks if, supposing that those disturbances, those noises and vexations proceeded from that person who is suspected of causing them, they can burn her, as is done to other ghosts who do harm to the living. He relates several instances of similar apparitions, and of the evils which ensued; as of a shepherd of the village of Blow, near the town of Kadam, in Bohemia, who appeared during some time, and called certain persons, who never failed to die within eight days after. The peasants of Blow took up the body of this shepherd, and fixed it in the ground with a stake which they drove through it. This man, when in that condition, derided them for what they made him suffer, and told them they were very good to give him thus a stick to defend himself from the dogs. The same night he got up again, and by his presence alarmed several persons, and strangled more amongst them than he had hitherto done. Afterwards, they delivered him into the hands of the executioner, who put him in a cart to carry him beyond the village and there burn him. This corpse howled like a madman, and moved his feet and hands as if alive. And when they again pierced him through with stakes he uttered very loud cries, and a great quantity of bright vermilion blood flowed from him. At last he was consumed, and this execution put an end to the appearance and hauntings of this spectre. The same has been practiced in other places, where similar ghosts have been seen; and when they have been taken out of the ground they have appeared red, with their limbs supple and pliable, without worms or decay; but not without a great stink. The author cites divers other writers, who attest what he says of these spectres, which still appear, he says, pretty often in the mountains of Silesia and Moravia. They are seen by night and by day; the things which once belonged to them are seen to move themselves and change their place without being touched by any one. The only remedy for these apparitions is to cut off the heads and burn the bodies of those who come back to haunt people. At any rate, they do not proceed to this without a form of justicial law. They call for and hear the witnesses; they examine the arguments; they look at the exhumed bodies, to see if they can find any of the usual marks which lead them to conjecture that they are the parties who molest the living, as the mobility and suppleness of the limbs, the fluidity of the blood, and the flesh remaining uncorrupted. If all these marks are found, then these bodies are given up to the executioner, who burns them. It sometimes happens that the spectres appear again for three or four days after the execution. Sometimes the interment of the bodies of suspicious persons is deferred for six or seven weeks. When they do not decay, and their limbs remain as supple and pliable as when they were alive, then they burn them. It is affirmed as certain that the clothes of these persons move without any one living touching them; and within a short time, continues our author, a spectre was seen at Olmutz, which threw stones, and gave great trouble to the inhabitants. CHAPTER VIII. DEAD PERSONS IN HUNGARY WHO SUCK THE BLOOD OF THE LIVING. About fifteen years ago, a soldier who was billeted at the house of a Haidamagne peasant, on the frontiers of Hungary, as he was one day sitting at table near his host, the master of the house saw a person he did not know come in and sit down to table also with them. The master of the house was strangely frightened at this, as were the rest of the company. The soldier knew not what to think of it, being ignorant of the matter in question. But the master of the house being dead the very next day, the soldier inquired what it meant. They told him that it was the body of the father of his host, who had been dead and buried for ten years, which had thus come to sit down next to him, and had announced and caused his death. The soldier informed the regiment of it in the first place, and the regiment gave notice of it to the general officers, who commissioned the Count de Cabreras, captain of the regiment of Alandetti infantry, to make information concerning this circumstance. Having gone to the place, with some other officers, a surgeon and an auditor, they heard the depositions of all the people belonging to the house, who attested unanimously that the ghost was the father of the master of the house, and that all the soldier had said and reported was the exact truth, which was confirmed by all the inhabitants of the village. In consequence of this, the corpse of this spectre was exhumed, and found to be like that of a man who has just expired, and his blood like that of a living man. The Count de Cabreras had his head cut off, and caused him to be laid again in his tomb. He also took information concerning other similar ghosts, amongst others, of a man dead more than thirty years, who had come back three times to his house at meal time. The first time he had sucked the blood from the neck of his own brother, the second time from one of his sons, and the third from one of the servants in the house; and all three died of it instantly and on the spot. Upon this deposition the commissary had this man taken out of his grave, and finding that, like the first, his blood was in a fluid state, like that of a living person, he ordered them to run a large nail into his temple, and then to lay him again in the grave. He caused a third to be burnt, who had been buried more than sixteen years, and had sucked the blood and caused the death of two of his sons. The commissary having made his report to the general officers, was deputed to the court of the emperor, who commanded that some officers, both of war and justice, some physicians and surgeons, and some learned men, should be sent to examine the causes of these extraordinary events. The person who related these particulars to us had heard them from Monsieur the Count de Cabreras, at Fribourg en Brigau, in 1730. CHAPTER IX. ACCOUNT OF A VAMPIRE, TAKEN FROM THE JEWISH LETTERS (LETTRES JUIVES); LETTER 137. This is what we read in the "Lettres Juives," new edition, 1738, Letter 137. We have just had in this part of Hungary a scene of vampirism, which is duly attested by two officers of the tribunal of Belgrade, who went down to the places specified; and by an officer of the emperor's troops at Graditz, who was an ocular witness of the proceedings. In the beginning of September there died in the village of Kivsiloa, three leagues from Graditz, an old man who was sixty-two years of age. Three days after he had been buried, he appeared in the night to his son, and asked him for something to eat; the son having given him something, he ate and disappeared. The next day the son recounted to his neighbors what had happened. That night the father did not appear; but the following night he showed himself, and asked for something to eat. They know not whether the son gave him anything or not; but the next day he was found dead in his bed. On the same day, five or six persons fell suddenly ill in the village, and died one after the other in a few days. The officer or bailiff of the place, when informed of what had happened, sent an account of it to the tribunal of Belgrade, which dispatched to the village two of these officers and an executioner to examine into this affair. The imperial officer from whom we have this account repaired thither from Graditz, to be witness of a circumstance which he had so often heard spoken of. They opened the graves of those who had been dead six weeks. When they came to that of the old man, they found him with his eyes open, having a fine color, with natural respiration, nevertheless motionless as the dead; whence they concluded that he was most evidently a vampire. The executioner drove a stake into his heart; they then raised a pile and reduced the corpse to ashes. No mark of vampirism was found either on the corpse of the son or on the others. Thanks be to God, we are by no means credulous. We avow that all the light which physics can throw on this fact discovers none of the causes of it. Nevertheless, we cannot refuse to believe that to be true which is juridically attested, and by persons of probity. We will here give a copy of what happened in 1732, and which we inserted in the Gleaner (_Glaneur_), No. XVIII. CHAPTER X. OTHER INSTANCES OF GHOSTS--CONTINUATION OF THE GLEANER. In a certain canton of Hungary, named in Latin _Oppida Heidanum_, beyond the Tibisk, _vulgo_ Teiss, that is to say, between that river which waters the fortunate territory of Tokay and Transylvania, the people known by the name of _Heyducqs_[463] believe that certain dead persons, whom they call vampires, suck all the blood from the living, so that these become visibly attenuated, whilst the corpses, like leeches, fill themselves with blood in such abundance that it is seen to come from them by the conduits, and even oozing through the pores. This opinion has just been confirmed by several facts which cannot be doubted, from the rank of the witnesses who have certified them. We will here relate some of the most remarkable. About five years ago, a certain Heyducq, inhabitant of Madreiga, named Arnald Paul, was crushed to death by the fall of a wagonload of hay. Thirty days after his death four persons died suddenly, and in the same manner in which according to the tradition of the country, those die who are molested by vampires. They then remembered that this Arnald Paul had often related that in the environs of Cassovia, and on the frontiers of Turkish Servia, he had often been tormented by a Turkish vampire; for they believe also that those who have been passive vampires during life become active ones after their death, that is to say, that those who have been sucked suck also in their turn; but that he had found means to cure himself by eating earth from the grave of the vampire, and smearing himself with his blood; a precaution which, however, did not prevent him from becoming so after his death, since, on being exhumed forty days after his interment, they found on his corpse all the indications of an arch-vampire. His body was red, his hair, nails, and beard had all grown again, and his veins were replete with fluid blood, which flowed from all parts of his body upon the winding-sheet which encompassed him. The hadnagi, or bailli of the village, in whose presence the exhumation took place, and who was skilled in vampirism, had, according to custom, a very sharp stake driven into the heart of the defunct Arnald Paul, and which pierced his body through and through, which made him, as they say, utter a frightful shriek, as if he had been alive: that done, they cut off his head, and burnt the whole body. After that they performed the same on the corpses of the four other persons who died of vampirism, fearing that they in their turn might cause the death of others. All these performances, however, could not prevent the recommencement of these fatal prodigies towards the end of last year, that is to say, five years after, when several inhabitants of the same village perished miserably. In the space of three months, seventeen persons of different sexes and different ages died of vampirism; some without being ill, and others after languishing two or three days. It is reported, amongst other things, that a girl named Stanoska, daughter of the Heyducq Jotiützo, who went to bed in perfect health, awoke in the middle of the night all in a tremble, uttering terrible shrieks, and saying that the son of the Heyducq Millo who had been dead nine weeks, had nearly strangled her in her sleep. She fell into a languid state from that moment, and at the end of three days she died. What this girl had said of Millo's son made him known at once for a vampire: he was exhumed, and found to be such. The principal people of the place, with the doctors and surgeons, examined how vampirism could have sprung up again after the precautions they had taken some years before. They discovered at last, after much search, that the defunct Arnald Paul had killed not only the four persons of whom we have spoken, but also several oxen, of which the new vampires had eaten, and amongst others the son of Millo. Upon these indications they resolved to disinter all those who had died within a certain time, &c. Amongst forty, seventeen were found with all the most evident signs of vampirism; so they transfixed their hearts and cut off their heads also, and then cast their ashes into the river. All the informations and executions we have just mentioned were made juridically, in proper form, and attested by several officers who were garrisoned in the country, by the chief surgeons of the regiments, and by the principal inhabitants of the place. The verbal process of it was sent towards the end of last January to the Imperial Counsel of War at Vienna, which had established a military commission to examine into the truth of all these circumstances. Such was the declaration of the Hadnagi Barriarar and the ancient Heyducqs; and it was signed by Battuer, first lieutenant of the regiment of Alexander of Wurtemburg, Clickstenger, surgeon-in-chief of the regiment of Frustemburch, three other surgeons of the company, and Guoichitz, captain at Stallach. Footnotes: [463] This story is apparently the same which we related before under the name of Haidamaque, and which happened in 1729 or 1730. CHAPTER XI. ARGUMENTS OF THE AUTHOR OF THE "LETTRES JUIVES," ON THE SUBJECT OF THESE PRETENDED GHOSTS. There are two different ways of effacing the opinion concerning these pretended ghosts, and showing the impossibility of the effects which are made to be produced by corpses entirely deprived of sensation. The first is, to explain by physical causes all the prodigies of vampirism; the second is, to deny totally the truth of these stories; and the latter means, without doubt, is the surest and the wisest. But as there are persons to whom the authority of a certificate given by people in a certain place appears a plain demonstration of the reality of the most absurd story, before I show how little they ought to rely on the formalities of the law in matters which relate solely to philosophy, I will for a moment suppose that several persons do really die of the disease which they term vampirism. I lay down at first this principle, that it may be that there are corpses which, although interred some days, shed fluid blood through the conduits of their body. I add, moreover, that it is very easy for certain people to fancy themselves sucked by vampires, and that the fear caused by that fancy should make a revolution in their frame sufficiently violent to deprive them of life. Being occupied all day with the terror inspired by these pretended ghosts or _revenans_, is it very extraordinary, that during their sleep the idea of these phantoms should present itself to their imagination and cause them such violent terror? that some of them die of it instantaneously, and others a short time afterwards? How many instances have we not seen of people who expired with fright in a moment? and has not joy itself sometimes produced an equally fatal effect? I have seen in the Leipsic journals[464] an account of a little work entitled, _Philosophicæ et Christianæ Cogitationes de Vampiriis, à Joanne Christophoro Herenbergio_; "Philosophical and Christian Thoughts upon Vampires, by John Christopher Herenberg," at Gerolferliste, in 1733, in 8vo. The author names a pretty large number of writers who have already discussed this matter; he speaks, _en passant_, of a spectre which appeared to him at noonday. He maintains that the vampires do not cause the death of the living, and that all that is said about them ought to be attributed only to the troubled fancy of the invalids; he proves by divers experiments that the imagination is capable of causing very great derangements in the body, and the humors of the body; he shows that in Sclavonia they impaled murderers, and drove a stake through the heart of the culprit; that they used the same chastisement for vampires, supposing them to be the authors of the death of those whose blood they were said to suck. He gives some examples of this punishment exercised upon them, the one in the year 1337, and the other in 1347. He speaks of the opinion of those who believe that the dead eat in their tombs; a sentiment of which he endeavors to prove the antiquity by the authority of Tertullian, at the beginning of his book on the Resurrection, and by that of St. Augustine, b. viii. c. 27, on the City of God, and in Sermon xv. on the Saints. Such are nearly the contents of the work of M. Herenberg on vampires. The passage of Tertullian[465] which he cites, proves very well that the pagans offered food to their dead, even to those whose bodies had been burned, believing that their spirits regaled themselves with it: _Defunctis parentant, et quidem impensissimo studio, pro moribus eorum pro temporibus esculentorum, ut quos sentire quicquam negant escam desiderare proesumant._ This concerns only the pagans. But St. Augustine, in several places, speaks of the custom of the Christians, above all those of Africa, of carrying to the tombs meats and wine, which they placed upon them as a repast of devotion, and to which the poor were invited, in whose favor these offerings were principally instituted. This practice is founded on the passage of the book of Tobit;--"Place your bread and wine on the sepulchre of the just, and be careful not to eat or drink of it with sinners." St. Monico, the mother of St. Augustine,[466] having desired to do at Milan what she had been accustomed to do in Africa, St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, testified that he did not approve of this practice, which was unknown in his church. The holy woman restrained herself to carrying thither a basket full of fruits and wine, of which she partook very soberly with the women who accompanied her, leaving the rest for the poor. St. Augustine remarks, in the same passage, that some intemperate Christians abused these offerings by drinking wine to excess: _Ne ulla occasio se ingurgitandi daretur ebriosis._ St. Augustine,[467] however, by his preaching and remonstrances, did so much good, that he entirely uprooted this custom, which was common throughout the African Church, and the abuse of which was too general. In his books on the City of God,[468] he avows that this usage is neither general nor approved in the Church, and that those who practice it content themselves with offering this food upon the tombs of the martyrs, in order that through their merits these offerings should be sanctified; after which they carry them away, and make use of them for their own nourishment and that of the poor: _Quicumque suas epulas eò deferant, quad quidem à melioribus Christianis non fit, et in plerisque terrarum nulla talis est consuetudo; tamen quicumque id faciunt, quas cùm appossuerint, orant, et auferunt, ut vescantur vel ex eis etiam indigentibus largiantur._ It appears, from two sermons which have been attributed to St. Augustine,[469] that in former times this custom had crept in at Rome, but did not subsist there any time, and was blamed and condemned. Now, if it were true that the dead could eat in their tombs, and that they had a wish or occasion to eat, as is believed by those of whom Tertullian speaks, and as it appears may be inferred from the custom of carrying fruit and wine to be placed on the graves of martyrs and other Christians, I think even that I have good proof that in certain places they placed near the bodies of the dead, whether buried in the cemeteries or the churches, meat, wine, and other liquors. I have in our study several vases of clay and glass, and even plates, where may be seen small bones of pig and fowls, all found deep underground in the church of the Abbey of St. Mansuy, near the town of Toul. It has been remarked to me that these vestiges found in the ground were plunged in virgin earth which had never been disturbed, and near certain vases or urns filled with ashes, and containing some small bones which the flames could not consume; and as it is known that the Christians did not burn their dead, and that these vases we are speaking of are placed beneath the disturbed earth, in which the graves of Christians are found, it has been inferred, with much semblance of probability, that these vases with the food and beverage buried near them, were intended not for Christians but for heathens. The latter, then, at least, believed that the dead ate in the other life. There is no doubt that the ancient Gauls[470] were persuaded of this; they are often represented on their tombs with bottles in their hands, and baskets and other comestibles, or drinking vessels and goblets;[471] they carried with them even the contracts and bonds for what was due to them, to have it paid to them in Hades. _Negotiorum ratio, etiam exactio crediti deferebatur ad inferos._ Now, if they believed that the dead ate in their tombs, that they could return to earth, visit, console, instruct, or disturb the living, and predict to them their approaching death, the return of vampires is neither impossible nor incredible in the opinion of these ancients. But as all that is said of dead men who eat in their graves and out of their graves is chimerical and beyond all likelihood, and the thing is even impossible and incredible, whatever may be the number and quality of those who have believed it, or appeared to believe it, I shall always say that the return (to earth) of the vampires is unmaintainable and impracticable. Footnotes: [464] Supplem. ad visu Erudit. Lips. an. 1738, tom. ii. [465] Tertull. de Resurrect. initio. [466] Aug. Confess. lib. vi. c. 2. [467] Aug. Epist. 22, ad Aurel. Carthag. et Epist. 29, ad Alipi. Item de Moribus Eccl. c. 34. [468] Aug. lib. viii. de Civit. Dei, c. 27. [469] Aug. Serm. 35, de Sanctis, nunc in Appendice, c. 5. Serm. cxc. cxci. p. 328. [470] Antiquité expliquée, tom. iv. p. 80. [471] Mela. lib. ii. c. 4. CHAPTER XII. CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT OF THE "DUTCH GLEANERS," OR "GLANEUR HOLLANDAIS." On examining the narrative of the death of the pretended martyrs of vampirism, I discover the symptoms of an epidemical fanaticism; and I see clearly that the impression made upon them by fear is the true cause of their being lost. A girl named Stanoska, say they, daughter of the Heyducq Sovitzo, who went to bed in perfect health, awoke in the middle of the night all in a tremble, and shrieking dreadfully, saying that the son of the Heyducq Millo, who had been dead for nine weeks, had nearly strangled her in her sleep. From that moment she fell into a languishing state, and at the end of three days died. For any one who has eyes, however little philosophical they may be, must not this recital alone clearly show him that this pretended vampirism is merely the result of a stricken imagination? There is a girl who awakes and says that some one wanted to strangle her, and who nevertheless has not been sucked, since her cries have prevented the vampire from making his repast. She apparently was not so served afterwards either, since, doubtlessly, they did not leave her by herself during the other nights; and if the vampire had wished to molest her, her moans would have warned those of it who were present. Nevertheless, she dies three days afterwards. Her fright and lowness, her sadness and languor, evidently show how strongly her imagination had been affected. Those persons who find themselves in cities afflicted with the plague, know by experience how many people lose their lives through fear. As soon as a man finds himself attacked with the least illness, he fancies that he is seized with the epidemical disease, which idea occasions him so great a sensation, that it is almost impossible for the system to resist such a revolution. The Chevalier de Maifin assured me, when I was at Paris, that being at Marseilles during the contagion which prevailed in that city, he had seen a woman die of the fear she felt at a slight illness of her servant, whom she believed attacked with the pestilence. This woman's daughter was sick and near dying. Other persons who were in the same house went to bed, sent for a doctor, and assured him they had the plague. The doctor, on arriving, visited the servant, and the other patients, and none of them had the epidemical disorder. He tried to calm their minds, and ordered them to rise, and live in their usual way; but his care was useless as regarded the mistress of the family, who died in two days of the fright alone. Reflect upon the second narrative of the death of a passive vampire, and you will see most evident proofs of the terrible effects of fear and prejudice. (See the preceding chapter.) This man, three days after he was buried, appears in the night to his son, asks for something to eat, eats, and disappears. On the morrow, the son relates to his neighbors what had happened to him. That night the father does not appear; but the following night they find the son dead in his bed. Who cannot perceive in these words the surest marks of prepossession and fear? The first time these act upon the imagination of the pretended victim of vampirism they do not produce their entire effect, and not only dispose his mind to be more vividly struck by them; that also does not fail to happen, and to produce the effect which would naturally follow. Notice well that the dead man did not return on the night of the day that his son communicated his dream to his friends, because, according to all appearances, these sat up with him, and prevented him from yielding to his fear. I now come to those corpses full of fluid blood, and whose beard, hair and nails had grown again. One may dispute three parts of these prodigies, and be very complaisant if we admit the truth of a few of them. All philosophers know well enough how much the people, and even certain historians, enlarge upon things which appear but a little extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to explain their cause physically. Experience teaches us that there are certain kinds of earth which will preserve dead bodies perfectly fresh. The reasons of this have been often explained, without my giving myself the trouble to make a particular recital of them. There is at Thoulouse a vault in a church belonging to some monks, where the bodies remain so entirely perfect that there are some which have been there nearly two centuries, and appear still living. They have been ranged in an upright posture against the wall, and are clothed in the dress they usually wore. What is very remarkable is, that the bodies which are placed on the other side of this same vault become in two or three days the food of worms. As to the growth of the nails, the hair and the beard, it is often perceived in many corpses. While there yet remains a great deal of moisture in the body, it is not surprising that during some time we see some augmentation in those parts which do not demand a vital spirit. The fluid blood flowing through the canals of the body seems to form a greater difficulty; but physical reasons may be given for this. It might very well happen that the heat of the sun warming the nitrous and sulphureous particles which are found in those earths that are proper for preserving the body, those particles having incorporated themselves in the newly interred corpses, ferment, decoagulate, and melt the curdled blood, render it liquid, and give it the power of flowing by degrees through all the channels. This opinion appears so much the more probable from its being confirmed by an experiment. If you boil in a glass or earthen vessel one part of chyle, or milk, mixed with two parts of cream of tartar, the liquor will turn from white to red, because the tartaric salt will have rarified and entirely dissolved the most oily part of the milk, and converted it into a kind of blood. That which is formed in the vessels of the body is a little redder, but it is not thicker; it is, then, not impossible that the heat may cause a fermentation which produces nearly the same effects as this experiment. And this will be found easier, if we consider that the juices of the flesh and bones resemble chyle very much, and that the fat and marrow are the most oily parts of the chyle. Now all these particles in fermenting must, by the rule of the experiment, be changed into a kind of blood. Thus, besides that which has been discoagulated and melted, the pretended vampires shed also that blood which must be formed from the melting of the fat and marrow. CHAPTER XIII. NARRATION EXTRACTED FROM THE "MERCURE GALENT" OF 1693 AND 1694, CONCERNING GHOSTS. The public memorials of the years 1693 and 1694 speak of _oupires_, vampires or ghosts, which are seen in Poland, and above all in Russia. They make their appearance from noon to midnight, and come and suck the blood of living men or animals in such abundance that sometimes it flows from them at the nose, and principally at the ears, and sometimes the corpse swims in its own blood oozed out in its coffin.[472] It is said that the vampire has a sort of hunger, which makes him eat the linen which envelops him. This reviving being, or _oupire_, comes out of his grave, or a demon in his likeness, goes by night to embrace and hug violently his near relations or his friends, and sucks their blood so much as to weaken and attenuate them, and at last cause their death. This persecution does not stop at one single person; it extends to the last person of the family, if the course be not interrupted by cutting off the head or opening the heart of the ghost, whose corpse is found in his coffin, yielding, flexible, swollen, and rubicund, although he may have been dead some time. There proceeds from his body a great quantity of blood, which some mix up with flour to make bread of; and that bread eaten in ordinary protects them from being tormented by the spirit, which returns no more. Footnotes: [472] V. Moréri on the word _stryges_. CHAPTER XIV. CONJECTURES OF THE "GLANEUR DE HOLLANDE," DUTCH GLEANER, IN 1733.--NO. IX. The Dutch Gleaner, who is by no means credulous, supposes the truth of these facts as certain, having no good reason for disputing them, and reasons upon them in a way which shows he thinks lightly of the matter; he asserts that the people, amongst whom vampires are seen, are very ignorant and very credulous, so that the apparitions we are speaking of are only the effects of a prejudiced fancy. The whole is occasioned and augmented by the bad nourishment of these people, who, the greater part of their time, eat only bread made of oats, roots, and the bark of trees--aliments which can only engender gross blood, which is consequently much disposed to corruption, and produces dark and bad ideas in the imagination. He compares this disease to the bite of a mad dog, which communicates its venom to the person who is bitten; thus, those who are infected by vampirism communicate this dangerous poison to those with whom they associate. Thence the wakefulness, dreams, and pretended apparitions of vampires. He conjectures that this poison is nothing else than a worm, which feeds upon the purest substance of man, constantly gnaws his heart, makes the body die away, and does not forsake it even in the depth of the grave. It is certain that the bodies of those who have been poisoned, or who die of contagion, do not become stiff after their death, because the blood does not congeal in the veins; on the contrary, it rarifies and bubbles much the same as in vampires, whose beard, hair, and nails grow, whose skin is rosy, who appear to have grown fat, on account of the blood which swells and abounds in them everywhere. As to the cry uttered by the vampires when the stake is driven through their heart, nothing is more natural; the air which is there confined, and thus expelled with violence, necessarily produces that noise in passing through the throat. Dead bodies often do as much without being touched. He concludes that it is only an imagination that is deranged by melancholy or superstition, which can fancy that the malady we have just spoken of can be produced by vampire corpses, which come and suck away, even to the last drop, all the blood in the body. A little before, he says that in 1732 they discovered again some vampires in Hungary, Moravia, and Turkish Servia; that this phenomenon is too well averred for it to be doubted; that several German physicians have composed pretty thick volumes in Latin and German on this matter; that the Germanic Academies and Universities still resound with the names of Arnald Paul, of Stanoska, daughter of Sovitzo, and of the Heyducq Millo, all famous vampires of the quarter of Médreiga, in Hungary. Here is a letter which has been written to one of my friends, to be communicated to me; it is on the subject of the ghosts of Hungary;[473] the writer thinks very differently from the Gleaner on the subject of vampires. "In reply to the questions of the Abbé dom Calmet concerning vampires, the undersigned has the honor to assure him that nothing is more true or more certain than what he will doubtless have read about it in the deeds or attestations which have been made public, and printed in all the Gazettes in Europe. But amongst all these public attestations which have appeared, the Abbé must fix his attention as a true and notorious fact on that of the deputation from Belgrade, ordered by his late Majesty Charles VI., of glorious memory, and executed by his Serene Highness the late Duke Charles Alexander of Wirtemberg, then Viceroy or Governor of the kingdom of Servia; but I cannot at present cite the year or the day, for want of papers which I have not now by me. "That prince sent off a deputation from Belgrade, half consisting of military officers and half of civil, with the auditor-general of the kingdom, to go to a village where a famous vampire, several years deceased, was making great havoc amongst his kin; for note well, that it is only in their family and amongst their own relations that these blood-suckers delight in destroying our species. This deputation was composed of men and persons well known for their morality and even their information, of irreproachable character; and there were even some learned men amongst the two orders: they were put to the oath, and accompanied by a lieutenant of the grenadiers of the regiment of Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg, and by twenty-four grenadiers of the said regiment. "All that were most respectable, and the duke himself, who was then at Belgrade, joined this deputation in order to be ocular spectators of the veracious proof about to be made. "When they arrived at the place, they found that in the space of a fortnight the vampire, uncle of five persons, nephews and nieces, had already dispatched three of them and one of his own brothers. He had begun with his fifth victim, the beautiful young daughter of his niece, and had already sucked her twice, when a stop was put to this sad tragedy by the following operations. "They repaired with the deputed commissaries to a village not far from Belgrade, and that publicly, at night-fall, and went to the vampire's grave. The gentleman could not tell me the time when those who had died had been sucked, nor the particulars of the subject. The persons whose blood had been sucked found themselves in a pitiable state of languor, weakness, and lassitude, so violent is the torment. He had been interred three years, and they saw on this grave a light resembling that of a lamp, but not so bright. "They opened the grave, and found there a man as whole and apparently as sound as any of us who were present; his hair, and the hairs on his body, the nails, teeth, and eyes as firmly fast as they now are in ourselves who exist, and his heart palpitating. "Next they proceeded to draw him out of his grave, the body in truth not being flexible, but wanting neither flesh nor bone; then they pierced his heart with a sort of round, pointed, iron lance; there came out a whitish and fluid matter mixed with blood, but the blood prevailing more than the matter, and all without any bad smell. After that they cut off his head with a hatchet, like what is used in England at executions; there came out also a matter and blood like what I have just described, but more abundantly in proportion to what had flowed from the heart. "And after all this they threw him back again into his grave, with quicklime to consume him promptly; and thenceforth his niece, who had been twice sucked, grew better. At the place where these persons are sucked a very blue spot is formed; the part whence the blood is drawn is not determinate, sometimes it is in one place and sometimes in another. It is a notorious fact, attested by the most authentic documents, and passed or executed in sight of more than 1,300 persons, all worthy of belief. "But I reserve, to satisfy more fully the curiosity of the learned Abbé dom Calmet, the pleasure of detailing to him more at length what I have seen with my own eyes on this subject, and will give it to the Chevalier de St. Urbain to send to him; too glad in that, as in everything else, to find an occasion of proving to him that no one is with such perfect veneration and respect as his very humble, and very obedient servant, L. de Beloz, ci-devant Captain in the regiment of his Serene Highness the late Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg, and his Aid-de-Camp, and at this time first Captain of grenadiers in the regiment of Monsieur the Baron Trenck." Footnotes: [473] There is reason to believe that this is only a repetition of what has already been said in Chapter X. CHAPTER XV. ANOTHER LETTER ON GHOSTS. In order to omit nothing which can throw light on this matter, I shall insert here the letter of a very honest man, who is well informed respecting ghosts. This letter was written to a relation. "You wish, my dear cousin, to be exactly informed of what takes place in Hungary concerning ghosts who cause the death of many people in that country. I can write to you learnedly upon it, for I have been several years in those quarters, and I am naturally curious. I have heard in my lifetime an infinite number of stories, true, or pretended to be such, concerning spirits and sorceries, but out of a thousand I have hardly believed a single one. We cannot be too circumspect on this point without running the risk of being duped. Nevertheless, there are certain facts so well attested that one cannot help believing them. As to the ghosts of Hungary, the thing takes place in this manner: A person finds himself attacked with languor, loses his appetite, grows visibly thinner, and, at the end of eight or ten days, sometimes a fortnight, dies, without fever, or any other symptom than thinness and drying up of the blood. "They say in that country that it is a ghost which attaches itself to such a person and sucks his blood. Of those who are attacked by this malady the greater part think they see a white spectre which follows them everywhere as the shadow follows the body. When we were quartered among the Wallachians, in the ban of Temeswar, two horsemen of the company in which I was cornet, died of this malady, and several others, who also were attacked by it, would have died in the same manner, if a corporal of our company had not put a stop to the disorder by employing the remedy used by the people of the country in such case. It is very remarkable, and although infallible, I never read it in any ritual. This is it:-- "They choose a boy young enough to be certain that he is innocent of any impurity; they place him on an unmutilated horse, which has never stumbled, and is absolutely black. They make him ride about the cemetery and pass over all the graves; that over which the animal refuses to pass, in spite of repeated blows from a switch that is delivered to his rider, is reputed to be filled by a vampire. They open this grave, and find therein a corpse as fat and handsome as if he were a man happily and quietly sleeping. They cut the throat of this corpse with the stroke of a spade, and there flows forth the finest vermilion blood in a great quantity. One might swear that it was a healthy living man whose throat they were cutting. That done, they fill up the grave, and we may reckon that the malady will cease, and that all those who had been attacked by it will recover their strength by degrees, like people recovering from a long illness, and who have been greatly extenuated. That happened precisely to our horsemen who had been seized with it. I was then commandant of the company, my captain and my lieutenant being absent. I was piqued at that corporal's having made the experiment without me, and I had all the trouble in the world to resist the inclination I felt to give him a severe caning--a merchandize which is very cheap in the emperor's troops. I would have given the world to be present at this operation; but I was obliged to make myself contented as it was." A relation of this same officer has written me word, the 17th of October, 1746, that his brother, who has served during twenty years in Hungary, and has very curiously examined into everything which is said there concerning ghosts, acknowledges that the people of that country are more credulous and superstitious than other nations, and they attribute the maladies which happen to them to spells. That as soon as they suspect a dead person of having sent them this illness, they inform the magistrate of it, who, on the deposition of some witnesses, causes the dead body to be exhumed. They cut off the head with a spade, and if a drop of blood comes from it, they conclude that it is the blood which he has sucked from the sick person. But the person who writes appears to me very far from believing what is thought of these things in that country. At Warsaw, a priest having ordered a saddler to make him a bridle for his horse, died before the bridle was made, and as he was one of those whom they call vampires in Poland, he came out of his grave dressed as the ecclesiastics usually are when inhumed, took his horse from the stable, mounted it, and went in the sight of all Warsaw to the saddler's shop, where at first he found only the saddler's wife, who was frightened, and called her husband; he came, and the priest having asked for his bridle, he replied, "But you are dead, Mr. Curé." To which he answered, "I am going to show you I am not," and at the same time struck him so hard that the poor saddler died a few days after, and the priest returned to his grave. The steward of Count Simon Labienski, starost of Posnania, being dead, the Countess Dowager de Labienski wished, from gratitude for his services, to have him inhumed in the vault of the lords of that family. This was done; and some time after, the sexton, who had the care of the vault, perceived that there was some derangement in the place, and gave notice of it to the ________, who desired, according to the received custom in Poland, that the steward's head might be cut off, which was done in the presence of several persons, and amongst others of the Sieur Jouvinski, a Polish officer, and governor of the young Count Simon Labienski, who saw that when the sexton took this corpse out of his tomb to cut off his head, he ground his teeth, and the blood came from him as fluidly as that of a person who died a violent death, which caused the hair of all those who were present to stand on end; and they dipped a white pocket-handkerchief in the blood of this corpse, and made all the family drink some of the blood, that they might not be tormented. CHAPTER XVI. PRETENDED VESTIGES OF VAMPIRISM IN ANTIQUITY. Some learned men have thought they discovered some vestiges of vampirism in the remotest antiquity; but all that they say of it does not come near what is related of the vampires. The lamiæ, the strigæ, the sorcerers whom they accused of sucking the blood of living persons, and of thus causing their death, the magicians who were said to cause the death of new-born children by charms and malignant spells, are nothing less than what we understand by the name of vampires; even were it to be owned that these lamiæ and strigæ have really existed, which we do not believe can ever be well proved. I own that these terms are found in the versions of Holy Scripture. For instance, Isaiah, describing the condition to which Babylon was to be reduced after her ruin, says that she shall become the abode of satyrs, lamiæ, and strigæ (in Hebrew, _lilith_). This last term, according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greeks express by _strix_ and _lamiæ_, which are sorceresses or magicians, who seek to put to death new-born children. Whence it comes that the Jews are accustomed to write in the four corners of the chamber of a woman just delivered, "Adam, Eve, begone from hence _lilith_." The ancient Greeks knew these dangerous sorceresses by the name of _lamiæ_, and they believed that they devoured children, or sucked away all their blood till they died.[474] The Seventy, in Isaiah, translate the Hebrew _lilith_ by _lamia_. Euripides and the Scholiast of Aristophanes also make mention of it as a fatal monster, the enemy of mortals. Ovid, speaking of the strigæ, describes them as dangerous birds, which fly by night, and seek for infants to devour them and nourish themselves with their blood.[475] These prejudices had taken such deep root in the minds of the barbarous people that they put to death persons suspected of being strigæ, or sorceresses, and of eating people alive. Charlemagne, in his Capitularies, which he composed for his new subjects,[476] the Saxons, condemns to death those who shall believe that a man or a woman are sorcerers (striges esse) and eat living men. He condemns in the same manner those who shall have them burnt, or give their flesh to be eaten, or shall eat of it themselves. Wherein it may be remarked, first of all, that they believed there were people who ate men alive; that they killed and burnt them; that sometimes their flesh was eaten, as we have seen that in Russia they eat bread kneaded with the blood of vampires; and that formerly their corpses were exposed to wild beasts, as is still done in countries where these ghosts are found, after having impaled them, or cut off their head. The laws of the Lombards, in the same way, forbid that the servant of another person should be put to death as a witch, _strix_, or _masca_. This last word, _masca_, whence _mask_, has the same signification as the Latin _larva_, a spirit, a phantom, a spectre. We may class in the number of ghosts the one spoken of in the Chronicle of Sigibert, in the year 858. Theodore de Gaza[477] had a little farm in Campania, which he had cultivated by a laborer. As he was busy digging up the ground, he discovered a round vase, in which were the ashes of a dead man; directly, a spectre appeared to him, who commanded him to put this vase back again in the ground, with what it contained, or if he did not do so he would kill his eldest son. The laborer gave no heed to these threats, and in a few days his eldest son was found dead in his bed. A little time after, the same spectre appeared to him again, reiterating the same order, and threatening to kill his second son. The laborer gave notice of all this to his master, Theodore de Gaza, who came himself to his farm, and had everything put back into its place. This spectre was apparently a demon, or the spirit of a pagan interred in that spot. Michael Glycas[478] relates that the emperor Basilius, having lost his beloved son, obtained by means of a black monk of Santabaren, power to behold his said son, who had died a little while before; he saw him, and held him embraced a pretty long time, until he vanished away in his arms. It was, then, only a phantom which appeared in his son's form. In the diocese of Mayence, there was a spirit that year which made itself manifest first of all by throwing stones, striking against the walls of a house, as if with strong blows of a mallet; then talking, and revealing unknown things; the authors of certain thefts, and other things fit to spread the spirit of discord among the neighbors. At last he directed his fury against one person in particular, whom he liked to persecute and render odious to all the neighborhood, proclaiming that he it was who excited the wrath of God against all the village. He pursued him in every place, without giving him the least moment of relaxation. He burnt all his harvest collected in his house, and set fire to all the places he entered. The priests exorcised, said their prayers, dashed holy water about. The spirit threw stones at them, and wounded several persons. After the priests had withdrawn, they heard him bemoaning himself, and saying that he had hidden himself under the hood of a priest, whom he named, and accused of having seduced the daughter of a lawyer of the place. He continued these troublesome hauntings for three years, and did not leave off till he had burnt all the houses in the village. Here follows an instance which bears connection with what is related of the ghosts of Hungary, who come to announce the death of their near relations. Evodius, Bishop of Upsala, in Africa, writes to St. Augustine, in 415,[479] that a young man whom he had with him, as a writer, or secretary, and who led a life of rare innocence and purity, having just died at the age of twenty-two, a virtuous widow saw in a dream a certain deacon who, with other servants of God, of both sexes, ornamented a palace which seemed to shine as if it were of silver. She asked who they were preparing it for, and they told her it was for a young man who died the day before. She afterwards beheld in the same palace an old man, clad in white, who commanded two persons to take this young man out of his tomb and lead him to heaven. In the same house where this young man died, an aged man, half asleep, saw a man with a branch of laurel in his hand, upon which something was written. Three days after the death of the young man, his father, who was a priest named Armenius, having retired to a monastery to console himself with the saintly old man, Theasus, Bishop of Manblosa, the deceased son appeared to a monk of this monastery, and told him that God had received him among the blessed, and that he had sent him to fetch his father. In effect, four days after, his father had a slight degree of fever, but it was so slight that the physician assured him there was nothing to fear. He nevertheless took to his bed, and at the same time, as he was yet speaking, he expired. It was not of fright that he died, for it does not appear that he knew anything of what the monk had seen in his dream. The same bishop, Evodius, relates that several persons had been seen after their death to go and come in their houses as during their lifetime, either in the night, or even in open day. "They say also," adds Evodius, "that in the places where bodies are interred, and especially in the churches, they often hear a noise at a certain hour of the night like persons praying aloud. I remember," continues Evodius, "having heard it said by several, and, amongst others, by a holy priest, who was witness to these apparitions, that they had seen coming out of the baptistry a great number of these spirits, with shining bodies of light, and had afterwards heard them pray in the middle of the church." The same Evodius says, moreover, that Profuturus, Privus, and Servilius, who had lived very piously in the monastery, had talked with himself since their death, and what they had told him had come to pass. St. Augustine, after having related what Evodius said, acknowledges that a great distinction is to be made between true and false visions, and testifies that he could wish to have some sure means of justly discerning between them. But who shall give us the knowledge necessary for such discerning, so difficult and yet so requisite, since we have not even any certain and demonstrative marks by which to discern infallibly between true and false miracles, or to distinguish the works of the Almighty from the illusions of the angel of darkness. Footnotes: [474] "Neu pransæ lamiæ vivum puerum ex trahat alvo." _Horat. Art. Poet._ 340. [475] "Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris, Et plenum poco sanguine guttur habent, Est illis strigibus nomen." [476] Capitul. Caroli Magni pro partibus Saxoniæ, i. 6:--"Si quis à Diabolo deceptus crediderit secundùm morem Paganorum, virum aliquem aut foeminam strigem esse, et homines comedere; et propter hoc ipsum incenderit, vel carnem ejus ad comedendum dederit, vel ipsam comederit capitis sententià puniatur." [477] Le Loyer, des Spectres, lib. ii. p. 427. [478] Mich. Glycas, part iv. Annal. [479] Aug. Epist. 658, and Epist. 258, p. 361. CHAPTER XVII. OF GHOSTS IN THE NORTHERN COUNTRIES. Thomas Bartholin, the son, in his treatise entitled "_Of the Causes of the contempt of Death felt by the Ancient Danes while yet Gentiles_," remarks[480] that a certain Hordus, an Icelander, saw spectres with his bodily eyes, fought against them and resisted them. These thoroughly believed that the spirits of the dead came back with their bodies, which they afterwards forsook and returned to their graves. Bartholinus relates in particular that a man named Asmond, son of Alfus, having had himself buried alive in the same sepulchre with his friend Asvitus, and having had victuals brought there, was taken out from thence some time after covered with blood, in consequence of a combat he had been obliged to maintain against Asvitus, who had haunted him and cruelly assaulted him. He reports after that what the poets teach concerning the vocation of spirits by the power of magic, and of their return into bodies which are not decayed although a long time dead. He shows that the Jews have believed the same--that the souls came back from time to time to revisit their dead bodies during the first year after their decease. He demonstrates that the ancient northern nations were persuaded that persons recently deceased often made their bodily appearance; and he relates some examples of it: he adds that they attacked these dangerous spectres, which haunted and maltreated all who had any fields in the neighborhood of their tombs; that they cut off the head of a man named Gretter, who also returned to earth. At other times they thrust a stake through the body and thus fixed them to the ground. "Nam ferro secui mox caput ejus, Perfodique nocens stipite corpus." Formerly, they took the corpse from the tomb and reduced it to ashes; they did thus towards a spectre named Gardus, which they believed the author of all the fatal apparitions that had appeared during the winter. Footnotes: [480] Thomas Bartolin, de Causis Contemptûs Mortis à Danis, lib. ii. c. 2. CHAPTER XVIII. GHOSTS IN ENGLAND. William of Malmsbury says[481] that in England they believed that the wicked came back to earth after their death, and were brought back in their own bodies by the devil, who governed them and caused them to act; _Nequam hominis cadaver post mortem dæmone agente discurrere._ William of Newbridge, who flourished after the middle of the twelfth century, relates that in his time was seen in England, in the county of Buckingham, a man who appeared bodily, as when alive, three succeeding nights to his wife, and after that to his nearest relatives. They only defended themselves from his frightful visits by watching and making a noise when they perceived him coming. He even showed himself to a few persons in the day time. Upon that, the Bishop of Lincoln assembled his council, who told him that similar things had often happened in England, and that the only known remedy against this evil was to burn the body of the ghost. The bishop was averse to this opinion, which appeared cruel to him: he first of all wrote a schedule of absolution, which was placed on the body of the defunct, which was found in the same state as if he had been buried that very day; and from that time they heard no more of him. The author of this narrative adds, that this sort of apparitions would appear incredible, if several instances had not occurred in his time, and if they did not know several persons who believed in them. The same Newbridge says, in the following chapter, that a man who had been interred at Berwick, came out of his grave every night and caused great confusion in all the neighborhood. It was even said that he had boasted that he should not cease to disturb the living till they had reduced him to ashes. Then they selected ten bold and vigorous young men, who took him up out of the ground, cut his body to pieces, and placed it on a pile, whereon it was burned to ashes; but beforehand, some one amongst them having said that he could not be consumed by fire until they had torn out his heart, his side was pierced with a stake, and when they had taken out his heart through the opening, they set fire to the pile; he was consumed by the flames and appeared no more. The pagans also believed that the bodies of the dead rested not, neither were they safe from magical evocations, so long as they remained unconsumed by fire, or undecayed underground. "Tali tua membra sepulchro, Talibus exuram Stygio cum carmine Sylvis, Ut nullos cantata Magos exaudiat umbra," said an enchantress, in Lucan, to a spirit she evoked. Footnotes: [481] William of Malms. lib. ii. c. 4. CHAPTER XIX. GHOSTS IN PERU. The instance we are about to relate occurred in Peru, in the country of the Ititans. A girl named Catharine died at the age of sixteen an unhappy death, and she had been guilty of several sacrilegious actions. Her body immediately after her decease was so putrid that they were obliged to put it out of the dwelling in the open air, to escape from the bad smell which exhaled from it. At the same time they heard as it were dogs howling; and a horse which before then was very gentle began to rear, to prance, strike the ground with its feet, and break its bonds; a young man who was in bed was pulled out of bed violently by the arm; a servant maid received a kick on the shoulder, of which she bore the marks for several days. All that happened before the body of Catharine was inhumed. Some time afterwards, several inhabitants of the place saw a great quantity of tiles and bricks thrown down with a great noise in the house where she died. The servant of the house was dragged about by the foot, without any one appearing to touch her, and that in the presence of her mistress and ten or twelve other women. The same servant, on entering a room to fetch some clothes, perceived Catharine, who rose up to seize hold of an earthen pot; the girl ran away directly, but the spectre took the vase, dashed it against the wall, and broke it into a thousand pieces. The mistress, who ran thither on hearing the noise, saw that a quantity of bricks were thrown against the wall. The next day an image of the crucifix fixed against the wall was all on a sudden torn from its place in the presence of them all, and broken into three pieces. CHAPTER XX. GHOSTS IN LAPLAND. Vestiges of these ghosts are still found in Lapland, where it is said they see a great number of spectres, who appear among those people, speak to them, and eat with them, without their being able to get rid of them; and as they are persuaded that these are the manes or shades of their relations who thus disturb them, they have no means of guarding against their intrusions more efficacious than to inter the bodies of their nearest relatives under the hearthstone, in order, apparently, that there they may be sooner consumed. In general, they believe that the manes, or spirits, which come out of bodies, or corpses, are usually malevolent till they have re-entered other bodies. They pay some respect to the spectres, or demons, which they believe roam about rocks, mountains, lakes, and rivers, much as in former times the Romans paid honor to the fauns, the gods of the woods, the nymphs, and the tritons. Andrew Alciat[482] says that he was consulted concerning certain women whom the Inquisition had caused to be burnt as witches for having occasioned the death of some children by their spells, and for having threatened the mothers of other children to kill these also; and in fact they did die the following night of disorders unknown to the physicians. Here we again see those strigæ, or witches, who delight in destroying children. But all this relates to our subject very indirectly. The vampires of which we are discoursing are very different from all those just mentioned. Footnotes: [482] Andr. Alciat. Parergon Juris, viii. c. 22. CHAPTER XXI. REAPPEARANCE OF A MAN WHO HAD BEEN DEAD FOR SOME MONTHS. Peter, the venerable[483] abbot of Clugni, relates the conversation which he had in the presence of the bishops of Oleron and of Osma, in Spain, together with several monks, with an old monk named Pierre d'Engelbert, who, after living a long time in his day in high reputation for valor and honor, had withdrawn from the world after the death of his wife, and entered the order of Clugni. Peter the Venerable having come to see him, Pierre d'Engelbert related to him that one day when in his bed and wide awake, he saw in his chamber, whilst the moon shone very brightly, a man named Sancho, whom he had several years before sent at his own expense to the assistance of Alphonso, king of Arragon, who was making war on Castile. Sancho had returned safe and sound from this expedition, but some time after he fell sick and died in his house. Four months after his death, Sancho showed himself to Pierre d'Engelbert, as we have said. Sancho was naked, with the exception of a rag for mere decency round him. He began to uncover the burning wood, as if to warm himself, or that he might be more distinguishable. Peter asked him who he was. "I am," replied he, in a broken and hoarse voice, "Sancho, your servant." "And what do you come here for?" "I am going," said he, "into Castile, with a number of others, in order to expiate the harm we did during the last war, on the same spot where it was committed: for my own part, I pillaged the ornaments of a church, and for that I am condemned to take this journey. You can assist me very much by your good works; and madame, your spouse, who owes me yet eight sols for the remainder of my salary, will oblige me infinitely if she will bestow them on the poor in my name." Peter then asked him news of one Pierre de Fais, his friend, who had been dead a short time. Sancho told him that he was saved. "And Bernier, our fellow-citizen, what is become of him?" "He is damned," said he, "for having badly performed his office of judge, and for having troubled and plundered the widow and the innocent." Peter added, "Could you tell me any news of Alphonso, king of Arragon, who died a few years ago?" Then another spectre, that Peter had not before seen, and which he now observed distinctly by the light of the moon, seated in the recess of the window, said to him--"Do not ask him for news of King Alphonso; he has not been with us long enough to know anything about him. I, who have been dead five years, can give you news of him. Alphonso was with us for some time, but the monks of Clugni extricated him from thence. I know not where he is now." Then, addressing himself to his companion, Sancho, "Come," said he, "let us follow our companions; it is time to set off." Sancho reiterated his entreaties to Peter, his lord, and went out of the house. Peter waked his wife who was lying by him, and who had neither seen nor heard anything of all this dialogue, and asked her the question, "Do not you owe something to Sancho, that domestic who was in our service, and died a little while ago?" She answered, "I owe him still eight sols." From this, Peter had no more doubt of the truth of what Sancho had said to him, gave these eight sols to the poor, adding a large sum of his own, and caused masses and prayers to be said for the soul of the defunct. Peter was then in the world and married; but when he related this to Peter the Venerable, he was a monk of Clugni. St. Augustine relates that Sylla,[484] on arriving at Tarentum, offered there sacrifices to the gods, that is to say, to the demons; and having observed on the upper part of the liver of the victim a sort of crown of gold, the aruspice assured him that this crown was the presage of a certain victory, and told him to eat alone that liver whereon he had seen the crown. Almost at the same moment, a servitor of Lucius Pontius came to him and said, "Sylla, I am come from the goddess Bellona. The victory is yours; and as a proof of my prediction, I announce to you that, ere long, the capitol will be reduced to ashes." At the same time, this man left the camp in great haste, and on the morrow he returned with still more eagerness, and affirmed that the capitol had been burnt, which was found to be true. St. Augustine had no doubt but that the demon who had caused the crown of gold to appear on the liver of the victim had inspired this diviner, and that the same bad spirit having foreseen the conflagration of the capitol had announced it after the event by that same man. The same holy doctor relates,[485] after Julius Obsequens, in his Book of Prodigies, that in the open country of Campania, where some time after the Roman armies fought with such animosity during the civil war, they heard at first loud noises like soldiers fighting; and afterwards several persons affirmed that they had seen for some days two armies, who joined battle; after which they remarked in the same part as it were vestiges of the combatants, and the marks of horses' feet, as if the combat had really taken place there. St. Augustine doubts not that all this was the work of the devil, who wished to reassure mankind against the horrors of civil warfare, by making them believe that their gods being at war amongst themselves, mankind need not be more moderate, nor more touched by the evils which war brings with it. The abbot of Ursperg, in his Chronicle, year 1123, says that in the territory of Worms they saw during many days a multitude of armed men, on foot and on horseback, going and coming with great noise, like people who are going to a solemn assembly. Every day they marched, towards the hour of noon, to a mountain, which appeared to be their place of rendezvous. Some one in the neighborhood bolder than the rest, having guarded himself with the sign of the cross, approached one of these armed men, conjuring him in the name of God to declare the meaning of this army, and their design. The soldier or phantom replied, "We are not what you imagine; we are neither vain phantoms, nor true soldiers; we are the spirits of those who were killed on this spot a long time ago. The arms and horses which you behold are the instruments of our punishment, as they were of our sins. We are all on fire, though you can see nothing about us which appears inflamed." It is said that they remarked in this company the Count Emico, who had been killed a few years before, and who declared that he might be extricated from that state by alms and prayers. Trithemius, in his _Annales Hirsauginses_, year 1013,[486] asserts that there was seen in broad day, on a certain day in the year, an army of cavalry and infantry, which came down from a mountain and ranged themselves on a neighboring plain. They were spoken to and conjured to speak, and they declared themselves to be the spirits of those who a few years before had been killed, with arms in their hands, in that same spot. The same Trithemius relates elsewhere[487] the apparition of the Count of Spanheim, deceased a little while before, who appeared in the fields with his pack of hounds. This count spoke to his curé, and asked his prayers. Vipert, Archdeacon of the Church of Toul, cotemporary author of the Life of the holy Pope Leo IX., who died 1059, relates[488] that, some years before the death of this holy pope, an infinite multitude of persons, habited in white, was seen to pass by the town of Narni, advancing from the eastern side. This troop defiled from the morning until three in the afternoon, but towards evening it notably diminished. At this sight all the population of the town of Narni mounted upon the walls, fearing they might be hostile troops, and saw them defile with extreme surprise. One burgher, more resolute than the others, went out of the town, and having observed in the crowd a man of his acquaintance, called to him by name, and asked him the meaning of this multitude of travelers: he replied, "We are spirits which not having yet expiated all our sins, and not being as yet sufficiently pure to enter the kingdom of heaven, we are going into holy places in a spirit of repentance; we are now coming from visiting the tomb of St. Martin, and we are going straight to Notre-Dame de Farse." The man was so frightened at this vision that he was ill for a twelvemonth--it was he who recounted the circumstance to Pope Leo IX. All the town of Narni was witness to this procession, which took place in broad day. The night preceding the battle which was fought in Egypt between Mark Antony and Cæsar,[489] whilst all the city of Alexandria was in extreme uneasiness in expectation of this action, they saw in the city what appeared a multitude of people, who shouted and howled like bacchanals, and they heard a confused sound of instruments in honor of Bacchus, as Mark Antony was accustomed to celebrate this kind of festivals. This troop, after having run through the greater part of the town, went out of it by the door leading to the enemy, and disappeared. That is all which has come to my knowledge concerning the vampires and ghosts of Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland, and of the other ghosts of France and Germany. We will explain our opinion after this on the reality, and other circumstances of these sorts of revived and resuscitated beings. Here follows another species, which is not less marvelous--I mean the excommunicated, who leave the church and their graves with their bodies, and do not re-enter till after the sacrifice is completed. Footnotes: [483] Betrus Venerab. Abb. Cluniac. de miracul. lib. i. c. 28. p. 1293. [484] Lib. ii. de Civ. Dei, cap. 24. [485] Aug. lib. ii. de Civ. Dei, c. 25. [486] Trith. Chron. Hirs. p. 155, ad an. 1013. [487] Idem, tom. ii. Chron. Hirs. p. 227. [488] Vita S. Leonis Papæ. [489] Plutarch, in Anton. CHAPTER XXII. EXCOMMUNICATED PERSONS WHO GO OUT OF THE CHURCHES. St. Gregory the Great relates[490] that St. Benedict having threatened to excommunicate two nuns, these nuns died in that state. Some time after, their nurse saw them go out of the church, as soon as the deacon had cried out, "Let all those who do not receive the communion withdraw." The nurse having informed St. Benedict of the circumstance, that saint sent an oblation, or a loaf, in order that it might be offered for them in token of reconciliation; and from that time the two nuns remained in quiet in their sepulchres. St. Augustine says[491] that the names of martyrs were recited in the diptychs not to pray for them, and the names of the virgin nuns deceased to pray for them. "Perhibet præclarissimum testimonium ecclesiastica auctoritas, in quâ fidelibus notum est quo loco martyres et que defunctæ sanctimoniales ad altaris sacramenta recitantur." It was then, perhaps, when they were named at the altar, that they left the church. But St. Gregory says expressly, that it was when the deacon cried aloud, "Let those who do not receive the communion retire." The same St. Gregory relates that a young priest of the same St. Benedict,[492] having gone out of his monastery without leave and without receiving the benediction of the abbot, died in his disobedience, and was interred in consecrated ground. The next day they found his body out of the grave: the relations gave notice of it to St. Benedict, who gave them a consecrated wafer, and told them to place it with proper respect on the breast of the young priest; it was placed there, and the earth no more rejected him from her bosom. This usage, or rather this abuse, of placing the holy wafer in the grave with the dead, is very singular; but it was not unknown to antiquity. The author of the Life of St. Basil[493] the Great, given under the name of St. Amphilochus, says that that saint reserved the third part of a consecrated wafer to be interred with him; he received it and expired while it was yet in his mouth; but some councils had already condemned this practice, and others have since then proscribed it, as contrary to the institutions of Jesus Christ.[494] Still, they did not omit in a few places putting holy wafers in the tombs or graves of some persons who were remarkable for their sanctity, as in the tomb of St. Othmar, abbot of St. Gal,[495] wherein were found under his head several round leaves, which were indubitably believed to be the Host. In the Life of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarn,[496] we read that a quantity of consecrated wafers were found on his breast. Amalarius cites of the Venerable Bede, that a holy wafer was placed on the breast of this saint before he was inhumed; "oblata super sanctum pectus positâ."[497] This particularity is not noted in Bede's History, but in the second Life of St. Cuthbert. Amalarius remarks that this custom proceeds doubtless from the Church of Rome, which had communicated it to the English; and the Reverend Father Menard[498] maintains that it is not this practice which is condemned by the above-mentioned Councils, but that of giving the communion to the dead by insinuating the holy wafer into their mouths. However it may be regarding this practice, we know that Cardinal Humbert,[499] in his reply to the ____________ of the patriarch Michael Cerularius, reproves the Greeks for burying the Host, when there remained any of it after the communion of the faithful. Footnotes: [490] Greg. Magn. lib. ii. Dialog. c. 23. [491] Aug. de St. Virgin. c. xlv. 364. [492] Greg. lib. ii. Dialog. c. 34. [493] Amphil. in Vit. S. Basilii. [494] Vide Balsamon. ad Canon. 83. Concil. in Trullo, et Concil. Carthagin. III. c. 6. Hippon. c. 5. Antissiod. c. 12. [495] Vit. S. Othmari, c. 3. [496] Vit. S. Cuthberti, lib. iv. c. 2. apud Bolland. 26 Martii. [497] Amalar. de Offic. Eccles. lib. iv. c. 41. [498] Menard. not. in Sacrament. S. Greg. Magn. pp. 484, 485. [499] Humbert. Card. Bibliot. P. P. lib. xviii. et tom. iv. Concil. CHAPTER XXIII. SOME OTHER INSTANCES OF EXCOMMUNICATED PERSONS BEING CAST OUT OF CONSECRATED GROUND. We see again in history, several other examples of the dead bodies of excommunicated persons being cast out of consecrated earth; for instance, in the life of St. Gothard, Bishop of Hildesheim,[500] it is related that this saint having excommunicated certain persons for their rebellion and their sins, they did not cease, in spite of his excommunications, to enter the church, and remain there though forbidden by the saint, whilst even the dead, who had been interred there years since, and had been placed there without their sentence of excommunication being removed, obeyed him, arose from their tombs, and left the church. After mass, the saint, addressing himself to these rebels, reproached them for their hardness of heart, and told them those dead people would rise against them in the day of judgment. At the same time, going out of the church, he gave absolution to the excommunicated dead, and allowed them to re-enter it, and repose in their graves as before. The Life of St. Gothard was written by one of his disciples, a canon of his cathedral; and this saint died on the 4th of May, 938. In the second Council, held at Limoges,[501] in 1031, at which a great many bishops, abbots, priests and deacons were present, they reported the instances which we had just cited from St. Benedict, to show the respect in which sentences of excommunication, pronounced by ecclesiastical superiors, were held. Then the Bishop of Cahors, who was present, related a circumstance which had happened to him a short time before. "A cavalier of my diocese, having been killed in excommunication, I would not accede to the prayers of his friends, who implored to grant him absolution; I desired to make an example of him, in order to inspire others with fear. But he was interred by soldiers or gentlemen (_milites_) without my permission, without the presence of the priests, in a church dedicated to St. Peter. The next morning his body was found out of the ground, and thrown naked far from the spot; his grave remaining entire, and without any sign of having been touched. The soldiers or gentlemen (_milites_) who had interred him, having opened the grave, found in it only the linen in which he had been wrapped; they buried him again, and covered him with an enormous quantity of earth and stones. The next day they found the corpse outside the tomb, without its appearing that any one had worked at it. The same thing happened five times; at last they buried him as they could, at a distance from the cemetery, in unconsecrated ground; which filled the neighboring seigneurs with so much terror that they all came to me to make their peace. That is a fact, invested with everything which can render it incontestable." Footnotes: [500] Vit. S. Gothardi, Sæcul. vi. Bened. parte c. p. 434. [501] Tom. ix. Concil. an 1031, p. 702. CHAPTER XXIV. AN INSTANCE OF AN EXCOMMUNICATED MARTYR BEING CAST OUT OF THE EARTH. We read in the _menées_ of the Greeks, on the 15th of October, that a monk of the Desert of Sheti, having been excommunicated by him who had the care of his conduct, for some act of disobedience, he left the desert, and came to Alexandria, where he was arrested by the governor of the city, despoiled of his conventual habit, and ardently solicited to sacrifice to false gods. The solitary resisted nobly, and was tormented in various ways, until at last they cut off his head, and threw his body outside of the city, to be devoured by dogs. The Christians took it away in the night, and having embalmed it and enveloped it in fine linen, they interred it in the church as a martyr, in an honorable place; but during the holy sacrifice, the deacon having cried aloud, as usual, that the catechumens and those who did not take the communion were to withdraw, they suddenly beheld the martyr's tomb open of itself, and his body retire into the vestibule of the church; after the mass, it returned to its sepulchre. A pious person having prayed for three days, learnt by the voice of an angel that this monk had incurred excommunication for having disobeyed his superior, and that he would remain bound until that same superior had given him absolution. Then they went to the desert directly, and brought the saintly old man, who caused the coffin of the martyr to be opened, and absolved him, after which he remained in peace in his tomb. This instance appears to me rather suspicious. 1. In the time that the Desert of Sheti was peopled with solitary monks, there were no longer any persecutors at Alexandria. They troubled no one there, either concerning the profession of Christianity, or on the religious profession--they would sooner have persecuted these idolators and pagans. The Christian religion was then dominant and respected throughout all Egypt, above all, in Alexandria. 2. The monks of Sheti were rather hermits than cenobites, and a monk had no authority there to excommunicate his brother. 3. It does not appear that the monk in question had deserved excommunication, at least major excommunication, which deprives the faithful of the entry of the church, and the participation of the holy mysteries. The bearing of the Greek text is simply, that he remained obedient for some time to his spiritual father, but that having afterwards fallen into disobedience, he withdrew from the hands of the old man without any legitimate cause, and went away to Alexandria. All that deserves doubtlessly even major excommunication, if this monk had quitted his profession and retired from the monastery to lead a secular life; but at that time the monks were not, as now, bound by vows of stability and obedience to their regular superiors, who had not a right to excommunicate them with grand excommunication. We will speak of this again by-and-by. CHAPTER XXV. A MAN REJECTED FROM THE CHURCH FOR HAVING REFUSED TO PAY TITHES. John Brompton, Abbot of Sornat in England,[502] says that we may read in very old histories that St. Augustin, the Apostle of England, wishing to persuade a gentleman to pay the tithes, God permitted that this saint having said before all the people, before the commencement of the mass, that no excommunicated person should assist at the holy sacrifice, they saw a man who had been interred for 150 years leave the church. After mass, St. Augustin, preceded by the cross, went to ask this dead man why he went out? The dead man replied that it was because he had died in a state of excommunication. The saint asked him, where was the sepulchre of the priest who had pronounced against him the sentence of excommunication? They went thither; St. Augustin commanded him to rise; he came to life, and avowed that he had excommunicated the man for his crimes, and particularly for his obstinacy in refusing to pay tithes; then, by order of St. Augustin, he gave him absolution, and the dead man returned to his tomb. The priest entreated the saint to permit him also to return to his sepulchre, which was granted him. This story appears to me still more suspicious than the preceding one. In the time of St. Augustin, the Apostle of England, there was no obligation as yet to pay tithes on pain of excommunication, and much less a hundred and fifty years before that time--above all in England. Footnotes: [502] John Brompton, Chronic. vide ex Bolland. 26 Maii, p. 396. CHAPTER XXVI. INSTANCES OF PERSONS WHO HAVE SHOWN SIGNS OF LIFE AFTER THEIR DEATH, AND WHO HAVE DRAWN BACK FROM RESPECT, TO MAKE ROOM OR GIVE PLACE TO SOME WHO WERE MORE WORTHY THAN THEMSELVES. Tertullian relates[503] an instance to which he had been witness--_de meo didici_. A woman who belonged to the church, to which she had been given as a slave, died in the prime of life, after being once married only, and that for a short time, was brought to the church. Before putting her in the ground, the priest offering the sacrifice and raising his hands in prayer, this woman, who had her hands extended at her side, raised them at the same time, and put them together as a supplicant; then, when the peace was given, she replaced herself in her former position. Tertullian adds that another body, dead, and buried in a cemetery, withdrew on one side to give place to another corpse which they were about to inter near it. He relates these instances as a suite to what was said by Plato and Democritus, that souls remained some time near the dead bodies they had inhabited, which they preserved sometimes from corruption, and often caused their hair, beard, and nails to grow in their graves. Tertullian does not approve of the opinion of these; he even refutes them pretty well; but he owns that the instances I have just spoken of are favorable enough to that opinion, which is also that of the Hebrews, as we have before seen. It is said that after the death of the celebrated Abelard,[504] who was interred at the Monastery of the Paraclete, the Abbess Heloisa, his spouse, being also deceased, and having requested to be buried in the same grave, at her approach Abelard extended his arms and received her into his bosom: _elevatis brachiis illam recepit, et ita eam amplexatus brachia sua strinxit_. This circumstance is certainly neither proved nor probable; the Chronicle whence it is extracted had probably taken it from some popular rumor. The author of the Life of St. John the Almoner,[505] which was written immediately after his death by Leontius, Bishop of Naples, a town in the Isle of Cyprus, relates that St. John the Almoner being dead at Amatunta, in the same island, his body was placed between that of two bishops, who drew back on each side respectfully to make room for him in sight of all present; _non unus, neque decem, neque centum viderunt, sed omnis turba, quæ convenit ad ejus sepulturam_, says the author cited. Metaphrastes, who had read the life of the saint in Greek, repeats the same fact. Evagrius de Pont[506] says, that a holy hermit named Thomas, and surnamed Salus, because he counterfeited madness, dying in the hospital of Daphné, near the city of Antioch, was buried in the strangers' cemetery, but every day he was found out of the ground at a distance from the other dead bodies, which he avoided. The inhabitants of the place informed Ephraim, Bishop of Antioch, of this, and he had him solemnly carried into the city and honorably buried in the cemetery, and from that time the people of Antioch keep the feast of his translation. John Mosch[507] reports the same story, only he says that it was some women who were buried near Thomas Salus, who left their graves through respect for the saint. The Hebrews ridiculously believe that the Jews who are buried without Judea will roll underground at the last day, to repair to the Promised Land, as they cannot come to life again elsewhere than in Judea. The Persians recognize also a transporting angel, whose care it is to assign to dead bodies the place and rank due to their merits: if a worthy man is buried in an infidel country, the transporting angel leads him underground to a spot near one of the faithful, while he casts into the sewer the body of any infidel interred in holy ground. Other Mahometans have the same notion; they believe that the transporting angel placed the body of Noah, and afterwards that of Ali, in the grave of Adam. I relate these fantastical ideas only to show their absurdity. As to the other stories related in this same chapter, they must not be accepted without examination, for they require confirmation. Footnotes: [503] Tertull. de Animo, c. 5. p. 597. Edit. Pamelii. [504] Chronic. Turon. inter opera Abælardi, p. 1195. [505] Bolland. tom. ii. p. 315, 13 Januar. [506] Evagrius Pont. lib. iv. c. 53. [507] Jean Mosch. pras. spirit. c. 88. CHAPTER XXVII. OF PERSONS WHO PERFORM A PILGRIMAGE AFTER THEIR DEATH. A scholar of the town of Saint Pons, near Narbonne,[508] having died in a state of excommunication, appeared to one of his friends, and begged of him to go to the city of Rhodes, and ask the bishop to grant him absolution. He set off in snowy weather; the spirit, who accompanied him without being seen by him showed him the road and cleared away the snow. On arriving at Rhodes, he asked and obtained for his friend the required absolution, when the spirit reconducted him to Saint Pons, gave him thanks for this service, and took leave, promising to testify to him his gratitude. Here follows a letter written to me on the 5th of April, 1745, and which somewhat relates to what we have just seen. "Something has occurred here within the last few days, relatively to your Dissertation upon Ghosts, which I think I ought to inform you of. A man of Letrage, a village a few miles from Remiremont, lost his wife at the beginning of February last, and married again the week before Lent. At eleven o'clock in the evening of his wedding-day, his wife appeared and spoke to his new spouse; the result of the conversation was to oblige the bride to perform seven pilgrimages for the defunct. From that day, and always at the same hour, the defunct appeared, and spoke in presence of the curé of the place and several other persons; on the 15th of March, at the moment that the bride was preparing to repair to St. Nicholas, she had a visit from the defunct, who told her to make haste, and not to be alarmed at any pain or trouble which she might undergo on her journey. This woman with her husband and her brother and sister-in-law, set off on their way, not expecting that the dead wife would be of the party; but she never left them until they were at the door of the Church of St. Nicholas. These good people, when they were arrived at two leagues' distance from St. Nicholas, were obliged to put up at a little inn called the Barracks. There the wife found herself so ill, that the two men were obliged to carry her to the burgh of St. Nicholas. Directly she was under the church porch, she walked easily, and felt no more pain. This fact has been reported to me by the sacristan and the four persons. The last thing that the defunct said to the bride was, that she should neither speak to nor appear to her again until half the pilgrimages should be accomplished. The simple and natural manner in which these good people related this fact to us makes me believe that it is certain. It is not said that this young woman had incurred excommunication, but apparently she was bound by a vow or promise which she had made, to accomplish these pilgrimages, which she imposed upon the other young wife who succeeded her. Also, we see that she did not enter the Church of St. Nicholas; she only accompanied the pilgrims to the church door. We may here add the instance of that crowd of pilgrims who, in the time of Pope Leo IX., passed at the foot of the wall of Narne, as I have before related, and who performed their purgatory by going from pilgrimage to pilgrimage. Footnotes: [508] Melchior. lib. de Statu Mortuorum. CHAPTER XXVIII. ARGUMENT CONCERNING THE EXCOMMUNICATED WHO QUIT CHURCHES. All that we have just reported concerning the bodies of persons who had been excommunicated leaving their tombs during mass, and returning into them after the service, deserves particular attention. It seems that a thing which passed before the eyes of a whole population in broad day, and in the midst of the most redoubtable mysteries, can be neither denied nor disputed. Nevertheless, it may be asked, How these bodies came out? Were they whole, or in a state of decay? naked, or clad in their own dress, or in the linen and bandages which had enveloped them in the tomb? Where, also, did they go? The cause of their forthcoming is well noted; it was the major excommunication. This penalty is decreed only to mortal sin.[509] Those persons had, then, died in the career of deadly sin, and were consequently condemned and in hell; for if there is naught in question but a minor excommunication, why should they go out of the church after death with such terrible and extraordinary circumstances, since that ecclesiastical excommunication does not deprive one absolutely of communion with the faithful, or of entrance to church? If it be said that the crime was remitted, but not the penalty of excommunication, and that these persons remained excluded from church communion until after their absolution, given by the ecclesiastical judge, we ask if a dead man can be absolved and be restored to communion with the church, unless there are unequivocal proofs of his repentance and conversion preceding his death. Moreover, the persons just cited as instances do not appear to have been released from crime or guilt, as might be supposed. The texts which we have cited sufficiently note that they died in their guilt and sins; and what St. Gregory the Great says in the part of his Dialogues there quoted, replying to his interlocutor, Peter, supposes that these nuns had died without doing penance. Besides, it is a constant rule of the church that we cannot communicate or have communion with a dead man, whom we have not had any communication with during his lifetime. "Quibus viventibus non communicavimus, mortuis, communicare non possumus," says Pope St. Leo.[510] At any rate, it is allowed that an excommunicated person who has given signs of sincere repentance, although there may not have been time for him to confess himself, can be reconciled to the church[511] and receive ecclesiastical sepulture after his death. But, in general, before receiving absolution from sin, they must have been absolved from the censures and excommunication, if such have been incurred: "Absolutio ab excommunicatione debet præcedere absolutionem à peccatis; quia quandiu aliquis est excommunicatus, non potest recipere aliquod Ecclesiæ Sacramentum," says St. Thomas.[512] Following this decision, it would have been necessary to absolve these persons from their excommunication, before they could receive absolution from the guilt of their sins. Here, on the contrary, they are supposed to be absolved from their sins as to their criminality, in order to be able to receive absolution from the censures of the church. I do not see how these difficulties can be resolved. 1. How can you absolve the dead? 2. How can you absolve him from excommunication before he has received absolution from sin? 3. How can he be absolved without asking for absolution, or its appearing that he hath requested it? 4. How can people be absolved who died in mortal sin, and without doing penance? 5. Why do these excommunicated persons return to their tombs after mass? 6. If they dared not stay in the church during the mass, when were they? It appears certain that the nuns and the young monk spoken of by St. Gregory died in their sins, and without having received absolution from them. St. Benedict, probably, was not a priest, and had not absolved them as regards their guilt. It may be said that the excommunication spoken of by St. Gregory was not major, and in that case the holy abbot could absolve them; but would this minor and regular excommunication deserve that they should quit the church in so miraculous and public a manner? The persons excommunicated by St. Gothard, and the gentleman mentioned at the Council of Limoges, in 1031, had died unrepentant, and under sentence of excommunication; consequently in mortal sin; and yet they are granted peace and absolution after their death, at the simple entreaty of their friends. The young solitary spoken of in the _acta sanctorum_ of the Greeks, who after having quitted his cell through incontinency and disobedience, had incurred excommunication, could he receive the crown of martyrdom in that state? And if he had received it, was he not at the same time reconciled to the church? Did he not wash away his fault with his blood? And if his excommunication was only regular and minor, would he deserve after his martyrdom to be excluded from the presence of the holy mysteries? I see no other way of explaining these facts, if they are as they are related, than by saying that the story has not preserved the circumstances which might have deserved the absolution of these persons, and we must presume that the saints--above all, the bishops who absolved them--knew the rules of the church, and did nothing in the matter but what was right and conformable to the canons. But it results from all that we have just said, that as the bodies of the wicked withdraw from the company of the holy through a principle of veneration and a feeling of their own unworthiness, so also the bodies of the holy separate themselves from the wicked, from opposite motives, that they may not appear to have any connection with them, even after death, or to approve of their bad life. In short, if what is just related be true, the righteous and the saints feel deference for one another, and honor each other ever in the other world; which is probable enough. We are about to see some instances which seem to render equivocal and uncertain, as a proof of sanctity, the uncorrupted state of the body of a just man, since it is maintained that the bodies of the excommunicated do not rot in the earth until the sentence of excommunication pronounced against them be taken off. Footnotes: [509] Concil. Meli. in Can. Nemo. 41, n. 43. D. Thom. iv. distinct. 18, 9. 2, art. 1. quæstiuncula in corpore, &c. [510] S. Leo canone Commun. 1. a. 4. 9. 2. See also Clemens III. in Capit. Sacris, 12. de Sepult. Eccl. [511] Eveillon, traité des Excommunicat. et Manitoires. [512] D. Thom. in iv. Sentent. dist. 1. qu. 1. art. 3. quæstiunc. 2. ad. 2. CHAPTER XXIX. DO THE EXCOMMUNICATED ROT IN THE GROUND? It is a very ancient opinion that the bodies of the excommunicated do not decompose; it appears in the Life of St Libentius, Archbishop of Bremen, who died on the 4th of January, 1013. That holy prelate having excommunicated some pirates, one of them died, and was buried in Norway; at the end of seventy years they found his body entire and without decay, nor did it fall to dust until after absolution received from Archbishop Alvaridius. The modern Greeks, to authorize their schism, and to prove that the gift of miracles, and the power of binding and unbinding, subsist in their church even more visibly and more certainly than in the Latin and Roman church, maintain that amongst themselves the bodies of those who are excommunicated do not decay, but become swollen extraordinarily, like drums, and can neither be corrupted nor reduced to ashes till after they have received absolution from their bishops or their priests. They relate divers instances of this kind of dead bodies, found uncorrupted in their graves, and which are afterwards reduced to ashes as soon as the excommunication is taken off. They do not deny, however, that the uncorrupted state of a body is sometimes a mark of sanctity,[513] but they require that a body thus preserved should exhale a good smell, be white or reddish, and not black, offensive and swollen. It is affirmed that persons who have been struck dead by lightning do not decay, and for that reason the ancients neither burnt them nor buried them. That is the opinion of the physician Zachias; but Paré, after Comines, thinks that the reason they are not subject to corruption is because they are, as it were, embalmed by the sulphur of the thunderbolt, which serves them instead of salt. In 1727, they discovered in the vault of an hospital near Quebec the unimpaired corpses of five nuns, who had been dead for more than twenty years; and these corpses, though covered with quicklime, still contained blood. Footnotes: [513] Goar, not. in Eucholog. p. 688. CHAPTER XXX. INSTANCES TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THE EXCOMMUNICATED DO NOT DECAY, AND THAT THEY APPEAR TO THE LIVING. The Greeks relate[514] that under the Patriarch of Constantinople Manuel, or Maximus, who lived in the fifteenth century, the Turkish Emperor of Constantinople wished to know the truth of what the Greeks asserted concerning the uncorrupted state of those who died under sentence of excommunication. The patriarch caused the tomb of a woman to be opened; she had had a criminal connection with an archbishop of Constantinople; her body was whole, black, and much swollen. The Turks shut it up in a coffin, sealed with the emperor's seal; the patriarch said his prayer, gave absolution to the dead woman, and at the end of three days the coffin or box being opened they found the body fallen to dust. I see no miracle in this: everybody knows that bodies which are sometimes found quite whole in their tombs fall to dust as soon as they are exposed to the air. I except those which have been well embalmed, as the mummies of Egypt, and bodies which are buried in extremely dry spots, or in an earth replete with nitre and salt, which dissipate in a short time all the moisture there may be in the dead bodies, either of men or animals; but I do not understand that the Archbishop of Constantinople could validly absolve after death a person who died in deadly sin and bound by excommunication. They believe also that the bodies of these excommunicated persons often appear to the living, whether by day or by night, speaking to them, calling them, and molesting them. Leon Allatius enters into long details on this subject; he says that in the Isle of Chio the inhabitants do not answer to the first voice that calls them, for fear that it should be a spirit or ghost; but if they are called twice, it is not a vroucolaca,[515] which is the name they give those spectres. If any one answers to them at the first sound, the spectre disappears; but he who has spoken to it infallibly dies. There is no other way of guarding against these bad genii than by taking up the corpse of the person who has appeared, and burning it after certain prayers have been recited over it; then the body is reduced to ashes, and appears no more. They have then no doubt that these are the bodies of criminal and malevolent men, which come out of their graves and cause the death of those who see and reply to them; or that it is the demon, who makes use of their bodies to frighten mortals, and cause their death. They know of no means more certain to deliver themselves from being infested by these dangerous apparitions than to burn and hack to pieces these bodies, which served as instruments of malice, or to tear out their hearts, or to let them putrefy before they are buried, or to cut off their heads, or to pierce their temples with a large nail. Footnotes: [514] Vide Malva. lib. i. Turco-græcia, pp. 26, 27. [515] Vide Bolland. mense Augusto, tom. ii. pp. 201-203, et Allat. Epist. ad Zachiam, p. 12. CHAPTER XXXI. INSTANCE OF THE REAPPEARANCES OF THE EXCOMMUNICATED. Ricaut, in the history he has given us of the present state of the Greek church, acknowledges that this opinion, that the bodies of excommunicated persons do not decay, is general, not only among the Greeks of the present day, but also among the Turks. He relates a fact which he heard from a Candiote caloyer, who had affirmed the thing to him on oath; his name was Sophronius, and he was well known and highly respected at Smyrna. A man who died in the Isle of Milo, had been excommunicated for some fault which he had committed in the Morea, and he was interred without any funeral ceremony in a spot apart, and not in consecrated ground. His relations and friends were deeply moved to see him in this plight; and the inhabitants of the isle were every night alarmed by baneful apparitions, which they attributed to this unfortunate man. They opened his grave, and found his body quite entire, with the veins swollen with blood. After having deliberated upon it, the caloyers were of opinion that they should dismember the body, hack it to pieces, and boil it in wine; for it is thus they treat the bodies of _revenans_. But the relations of the dead man, by dint of entreaties, succeeded in deferring this execution, and in the mean time sent in all haste to Constantinople, to obtain the absolution of the young man from the patriarch. Meanwhile, the body was placed in the church, and every day prayers were offered up for the repose of his soul. One day when the caloyer Sophronius, above mentioned, was performing divine service, all on a sudden a great noise was heard in the coffin; they opened it, and found his body decayed as if he had been dead seven years. They observed the moment when the noise was heard, and it was found to be precisely at that hour that his absolution had been signed by the patriarch. M. le Chevalier Ricaut, from whom we have this narrative, was neither a Greek, nor a Roman Catholic, but a staunch Anglican; he remarks on this occasion that the Greeks believe that an evil spirit enters the bodies of the excommunicated, and preserves them from putrefaction, by animating them, and causing them to act, nearly as the soul animates and inspires the body. They imagine, moreover, that these corpses eat during the night, walk about, digest what they have eaten, and really nourish themselves--that some have been found who were of a rosy hue, and had their veins still fully replete with the quantity of blood; and although they had been dead forty days, have ejected, when opened, a stream of blood as bubbling and fresh as that of a young man of sanguine temperament would be; and this belief so generally prevails that every one relates facts circumstantially concerning it. Father Theophilus Reynard, who has written a particular treatise on this subject, maintains that this return of the dead is an indubitable fact, and that there are very certain proofs and experience of the same; but that to pretend that those ghosts who come to disturb the living are always those of excommunicated persons, and that it is a privilege of the schismatic Greek church to preserve from decay those who incurred excommunication, and have died under censure of their church, is an untenable assumption; since it is certain that the bodies of the excommunicated decay like others, and there are some which have died in communion with the church, whether the Greek or the Latin, who remain uncorrupted. Such are found even among the Pagans, and amongst animals, of which the dead bodies are sometimes found in an uncorrupted state, both in the ground, and in the ruins of old buildings.[516] Footnotes: [516] See, concerning the bodies of the excommunicated which are affirmed to be exempt from decay, Father Goar, Ritual of the Greeks, pp. 687, 688; Matthew Paris, History of England, tom. ii. p. 687; Adam de Brême, c. lxxv.; Albert de Stade, on the year 1050, and Monsieur du Cange, Glossar. Latinit. at the word _imblocatus_. CHAPTER XXXII. VROUCOLACA EXHUMED IN PRESENCE OF MONSIEUR DE TOURNEFORT. Monsieur Pitton de Tournefort relates the manner in which they exhumed a pretended vroucolaca, in the Isle of Micon, where he was on the 1st of January, 1701. These are his own words: "We saw a very different scene, (in the same Isle of Micon,) on the occasion of one of those dead people, whom they believe to return to earth after their interment. This one, whose history we shall relate, was a peasant of Micon, naturally sullen and quarrelsome; which is a circumstance to be remarked relatively to such subjects; he was killed in the country, no one knows when, or by whom. Two days after he had been inhumed in a chapel in the town, it was rumored that he was seen by night walking very fast; that he came into the house, overturning the furniture, extinguishing the lamps, throwing his arms around persons from behind, and playing a thousand sly tricks. "At first people only laughed at it; but the affair began to be serious, when the most respectable people in the place began to complain: the priests even owned the fact, and doubtless they had their reasons. People did not fail to have masses said; nevertheless the peasant continued to lead the same life without correcting himself. After several assemblies of the principal men of the city, with priests and monks, it was concluded that they must, according to some ancient ceremonial, await the expiration of nine days after burial. "On the tenth day a mass was said in the chapel where the corpse lay, in order to expel the demon which they believed to have inclosed himself therein. This body was taken up after mass, and they began to set about tearing out his heart; the butcher of the town, who was old, and very awkward, began by opening the belly instead of the breast; he felt for a long time in the entrails without finding what he sought. At last some one told him that he must pierce the diaphragm; then the heart was torn out, to the admiration of all present. The corpse, however, gave out such a bad smell, that they were obliged to burn incense; but the vapor, mixed with the exhalations of the carrion, only augmented the stink, and began to heat the brain of these poor people. "Their imagination, struck with the spectacle, was full of visions; some one thought proper to say that a thick smoke came from this body. We dared not say that it was the vapor of the incense. They only exclaimed "Vroucolacas," in the chapel, and in the square before it. (This is the name which they give to these pretended _Revenans_.) The rumor spread and was bellowed in the street, and the noise seemed likely to shake the vaulted roof of the chapel. Several present affirmed that the blood of this wretched man was quite vermilion; the butcher swore that the body was still quite warm; whence it was concluded that the dead man was very wrong not to be quite dead, or, to express myself better, to suffer himself to be reanimated by the devil. This is precisely the idea of a vroucolaca; and they made this name resound in an astonishing manner. At this time there entered a crowd of people, who protested aloud that they clearly perceived this body was not stiff when they brought it from the country to the church to bury it, and that consequently it was a true vroucolaca; this was the chorus. "I have no doubt that they would have maintained it did not stink, if we had not been present; so stupefied were these poor people with the circumstance, and infatuated with the idea of the return of the dead. For ourselves, who got next to the corpse in order to make our observations exactly, we were ready to die from the offensive odor which proceeded from it. When they asked us what we thought of this dead man, we replied that we believed him thoroughly dead; but as we wished to cure, or at least not to irritate their stricken fancy, we represented to them that it was not surprising if the butcher had perceived some heat in searching amidst entrails which were decaying; neither was it extraordinary that some vapor had proceeded from them; since such will issue from a dunghill that is stirred up; as for this pretended red blood, it still might be seen on the butcher's hands that it was only a very foetid mud. "After all these arguments, they bethought themselves of going to the marine, and burning the heart of the dead man, who in spite of this execution was less docile, and made more noise than before. They accused him of beating people by night, of breaking open the doors and even terraces, of breaking windows, tearing clothes, and emptying jugs and bottles. He was a very thirsty dead man; I believe he only spared the consul's house, where I was lodged. In the mean time I never saw anything so pitiable as the state of this island. "Everybody seemed to have lost their senses. The most sensible people appeared as phrenzied as the others; it was a veritable brain fever, as dangerous as any mania or madness. Whole families were seen to forsake their houses, and coming from the ends of the town, bring their flock beds to the market-place to pass the night there. Every one complained of some new insult; you heard nothing but lamentations at night-fall; and the most sensible people went into the country. "Amidst such a general prepossession we made up our minds to say nothing; we should not only have been considered as absurd, but as infidels. How can you convince a whole people of error? Those who believed in their own minds that we had our doubts of the truth of the fact, came and reproached us for our incredulity, and pretended to prove that there were such things as vroucolacas, by some authority which they derived from Father Richard, a Jesuit missionary. It is Latin, said they, and consequently you ought to believe it. We should have done no good by denying this consequence. They every morning entertained us with the comedy of a faithful recital of all the new follies which had been committed by this bird of night; he was even accused of having committed the most abominable sins. "The citizens who were most zealous for the public good believed that they had missed the most essential point of the ceremony. They said that the mass ought not to be celebrated until after the heart of this wretched man had been torn out; they affirmed that with that precaution they could not have failed to surprise the devil, and doubtless he would have taken care not to come back again; instead of which had they begun by saying mass, he would have had, said they, plenty of time to take flight, and to return afterwards at his leisure. "After all these arguments they found themselves in the same embarrassment as the first day it began; they assembled night and morning; they reasoned upon it, made processions which lasted three days and three nights; they obliged the priests to fast; they were seen running about in the houses with the asperser or sprinkling brush in their hands, sprinkling holy water and washing the doors with it; they even filled the mouth of that poor vroucolaca with holy water. We so often told the administration of the town that in all Christendom people would not fail in such a case to watch by night, to observe all that was going forward in the town, that at last they arrested some vagabonds, who assuredly had a share in all these disturbances. Apparently they were not the principal authors of them, or they were too soon set at liberty; for two days after, to make themselves amends for the fast they had kept in prison, they began again to empty the stone bottles of wine belonging to those persons who were silly enough to forsake their houses at night. Thus, then, they were again obliged to have recourse to prayers. "One day as certain orisons were being recited, after having stuck I know not how many naked swords upon the grave of this corpse, which was disinterred three or four times a day, according to the caprice of the first comer, an Albanian, who chanced to be at Mico accidentally, bethought himself of saying in a sententious tone, that it was very ridiculous to make use of the swords of Christians in such a case. Do you not see, blind as ye are, said he, that the hilt of these swords, forming a cross with the handle, prevents the devil from coming out of that body? why do you not rather make use of the sabres of the Turks? The advice of this clever man was of no use; the vroucolaca did not appear more tractable, and everybody was in a strange consternation; they no longer knew to which saint to pay their vows; when, with one voice, as if the signal word had been given, they began to shout in all parts of the town that they had waited too long: that the vroucolaca ought to be burnt altogether; that after that, they would defy the devil to return and ensconce himself there; that it would be better to have recourse to that extremity than to let the island be deserted. In fact, there were whole families who were packing up in the intention of retiring to Sira or Tina. "So they carried the vroucolaca, by order of the administration, to the point of the Island of St. George, where they had prepared a great pile made up with a mixture of tow, for fear that wood, however dry it might be, would not burn quickly enough by itself. The remains of this unfortunate corpse were thrown upon it and consumed in a very little time; it was on the first day of January, 1701. We saw this fire as we returned from Delos: it might be called a real _feu de joie_; since then, there have been no more complaints against the vroucolaca. They contented themselves with saying that the devil had been properly caught that time, and they made up a song to turn him into ridicule. "Throughout the Archipelago, the people are persuaded that it is only the Greeks of the Greek church whose corpses are reanimated by the devil. The inhabitants of the Isle of Santorin have great apprehensions of these bugbears; those of Maco, after their visions were dissipated, felt an equal fear of being punished by the Turks and by the Bishop of Tina. None of the papas would be present at St. George when this body was burned, lest the bishop should exact a sum of money for having disinterred and burned the dead body without his permission. As for the Turks, it is certain that at their first visit they did not fail to make the community of Maco pay the price of the blood of this poor devil, who in every way became the abomination and horror of his country. After this, must we not own that the Greeks of to-day are not great Greeks, and that there is only ignorance and superstition among them?"[517] So says Monsieur de Tournefort. Footnotes: [517] This took place nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. CHAPTER XXXIII. HAS THE DEMON POWER TO CAUSE ANY ONE TO DIE AND THEN TO RESTORE THE DEAD TO LIFE? Supposing the principle which we established as indubitable at the commencement of this dissertation--that God alone is the sovereign arbitrator of life and death; that he alone can give life to men, and restore it to them after he has taken it from them--the question that we here propose appears unseasonable and absolutely frivolous, since it concerns a supposition notoriously impossible. Nevertheless, as some learned men have believed that the demon has power to restore life, and to preserve from corruption, for a time, certain bodies which he makes use of to delude mankind and frighten them, as it happens with the ghosts of Hungary, we shall treat of it in this place, and relate a remarkable instance furnished by Monsieur Nicholas Remy, procureur-general of Lorraine, and which occurred in his own time;[518] that is to say, in 1581, at Dalhem, a village situated between the Moselle and the Sare. A goatherd of this village, named Pierron, a married man and father of a boy, conceived a violent passion for a girl of the village. One day, when his thoughts were occupied with this young girl, she appeared to him in the fields, or the demon in her likeness. Pierron declared his love to her; she promised to reply to it on condition that he would give himself up to her, and obey her in all things. Pierron consented to this, and consummated his abominable passion with this spectre. Some time afterwards, Abrahel, which was the name assumed by the demon, asked of him as a pledge of his love, that he would sacrifice to her his only son, and gave him an apple for this boy to eat, who, on tasting it, fell down dead. The father and mother, in despair at this fatal and to both unexpected accident, uttered lamentations, and were inconsolable. Abrahel appeared again to the goatherd, and promised to restore the child to life if the father would ask this favor of him by paying him the kind of adoration due only to God. The peasant knelt down, worshiped Abrahel, and immediately the boy began to revive. He opened his eyes; they warmed him, chafed his limbs, and at last he began to walk and to speak. He was the same as before, only thinner, paler, and more languid; his eyes heavy and sunken, his movements slower and less free, his mind duller and more stupid. At the end of a year, the demon that had animated him quitted him with a great noise; the youth fell backwards, and his body, which was foetid and stunk insupportably, was dragged with a hook out of his father's house, and buried in a field without any ceremony. This event was reported at Nancy, and examined into by the magistrates, who informed themselves exactly of the circumstance, heard the witnesses, and found that the thing was such as has been related. For the rest, the story does not say how the peasant was punished, nor whether he was so at all. Perhaps his crime with the demon could not be proved; to that there was probably no witness. In regard to the death of his son, it was difficult to prove that he was the cause of it. Procopius, in his secret history of the Emperor Justinian, seriously asserts that he is persuaded, as well as several other persons, that that emperor was a demon incarnate. He says the same thing of the Empress Theodora his wife. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that the souls of the wicked enter the bodies of the possessed, whom they torment, and cause to act and speak. We see by St. Chrysostom that in his time many Christians believed that the spirits of persons who died a violent death were changed into demons, and that the magicians made use of the spirit of a child they had killed for their magical operations, and to discover the future. St. Philastrius places among heretics those persons who believed that the souls of worthless men were changed into demons. According to the system of these authors, the demon might have entered into the body of the child of the shepherd Pierron, moved it and maintained it in a kind of life whilst his body was uncorrupted and the organs underanged; it was not the soul of the boy which animated it, but the demon which replaced his spirit. Philo believed that as there are good and bad angels, there are also good and bad souls or spirits, and that the souls which descend into the bodies bring to them their own good or bad qualities. We see by the Gospel that the Jews of the time of our Saviour believed that one man could be animated by several souls. Herod imagined that the spirit of John the Baptist, whom he had beheaded, had entered into Jesus Christ,[519] and worked miracles in him. Others fancied that Jesus Christ was animated by the spirit of Elias,[520] or of Jeremiah, or some other of the ancient prophets. Footnotes: [518] Art. ii. p. 14. [519] Mark vi. 16, 17. [520] Matt. xvi. 14. CHAPTER XXXIV. EXAMINATION OF THE OPINION WHICH CONCLUDES THAT THE DEMON CAN RESTORE MOTION TO A DEAD BODY. We cannot approve these opinions of Jews which we have just shown. They are contrary to our holy religion, and to the dogmas of our schools. But we believe that the spirit which once inspired Elijah, for instance, rested on Elisha, his disciple; and that the Holy Spirit which inspired the first animated the second also, and even St. John the Baptist, who, according to the words of Jesus Christ, came in the power of Elijah to prepare a highway for the Messiah. Thus, in the prayers of the Church, we pray to God to fill his faithful servants with the spirit of the saints, and to inspire them with a love for that which they loved, and a detestation of that which they hated. That the demon, and even a good angel by the permission or commission of God, can take away the life of a man appears indubitable. The angel which appeared to Zipporah,[521] as Moses was returning from Midian to Egypt, and threatened to slay his two sons because they were not circumcised; as well as the one who slew the first-born of the Egyptians,[522] and the one who is termed in Scripture _the Destroying Angel_, and who slew the Hebrew murmurers in the wilderness;[523] and the angel who was near slaying Balaam and his ass;[524] the angel who killed the soldiers of Sennacherib, he who smote the first seven husbands of Sara, the daughter of Raguel;[525] and, finally, the one with whom the Psalmist menaces his enemies, all are instances in proof of this.[526] Does not St. Paul, speaking to the Corinthians of those who took the Communion unworthily,[527] say that the demon occasioned them dangerous maladies, of which many died? Will it be believed that those whom the same Apostle delivered over to Satan[528] suffered nothing bodily; and that Judas, having received from the Son of God a bit of bread dipped in the dish,[529] and Satan having entered into him, that bad spirit did not disturb his reason, his imagination, and his heart, until at last he led him to destroy himself, and to hang himself in despair? We may believe that all these angels were evil angels, although it cannot be denied that God employs sometimes the good angels also to exercise his vengeance against the wicked, as well as to chastise, correct, and punish those to whom God desires to be merciful; as he sends his Prophets to announce good and bad tidings, to threaten punishment, and excite to repentance. But nowhere do we read that either the good or the evil angels have of their own authority alone either given life to any person or restored it. This power is reserved to God alone.[530] The demon, according to the Gospel,[531] in the last days, and before the last Judgment, will perform, either by his own power or that of Antichrist and his subordinates, such wonders as would, were it possible, lead the elect themselves into error. From the time of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, Satan raised up false Christs and false Apostles, who performed many seeming miracles, and even resuscitated the dead. At least, it was maintained that they had resuscitated some: St. Clement of Alexandria and Hegesippus make mention of a few resurrections operated by Simon the magician;[532] it is also said that Apollonius of Thyana brought to life a girl they were carrying to be buried. If we may believe Apuleius,[533] Asclepiades, meeting a funeral convoy, resuscitated the body they were carrying to the pile. It is asserted that Æsculapius restored to life Hippolytus, the son of Theseus; also Glaucus, the son of Minos, and Campanes, killed at the assault of Thebes, and Admetus, King of Phera in Thessaly. Elian[534] attests that the same Æsculapius joined on again the head of a woman to her corpse, and restored her to life. But if we possessed the certainty of all these events which we have just cited--I mean to say, were they attested by ocular witnesses, well-informed and disinterested, which is not the case--we ought to know the circumstances attending these events, and then we should be better able to dispute or assent to them. For there is every appearance that the dead people resuscitated by Æsculapius were only persons who were dangerously ill, and restored to health by that skillful physician. The girl revived by Apollonius of Thyana was not really dead; even those who were carrying her to the funeral pile had their doubts if she were deceased. What is said of Simon the magician is anything but certain; and even if that impostor by his magical secrets could have performed some wonders on dead persons, it should be imputed to his delusions and to some artifice, which may have substituted living bodies or phantoms for the dead bodies which he boasted of having recalled to life. In a word, we hold it as indubitable that it is God only who can impart life to a person really dead, either by power proceeding immediately from himself, or by means of angels or of demons, who perform his behests. I own that the instance of that boy of Dalhem is perplexing. Whether it was the spirit of the child that returned into his body to animate it anew, or the demon who replaced his soul, the puzzle appears to me the same; in all this circumstance we behold only the work of the evil spirit. God does not seem to have had any share in it. Now, if the demon can take the place of a spirit in a body newly dead, or if he can make the soul by which it was animated before death return into it, we can no longer dispute his power to restore a kind of life to a dead person; which would be a terrible temptation for us, who might be led to believe that the demon has a power which religion does not permit us to think that God shares with any created being. I would then say, supposing the truth of the fact, of which I see no room to doubt, that God, to punish the abominable crime of the father, and to give an example of his just vengeance to mankind, permitted the demon to do on this occasion what he perhaps had never done, nor ever will again--to possess a body, and serve it in some sort as a soul, and give it action and motion whilst he could retain the body without its being too much corrupted. And this example applies admirably to the ghosts of Hungary and Moravia, whom the demon will move and animate--will cause to appear and disturb the living, so far as to occasion their death. I say all this under the supposition that what is said of the vampires is true; for if it all be false and fabulous, it is losing time to seek the means of explaining it. For the rest, several of the ancients, as Tertullian[535] and Lactantius, believed that the demons were the only authors of all the magicians do when they evoke the souls of the dead. They cause borrowed bodies or phantoms to appear, say they, and fascinate the eyes of those present, to make them believe that to be real which is only seeming. Footnotes: [521] Exod. iv. 24, 25. [522] Exod. xii. 12. [523] 1 Cor. x. 10; Judith viii. 25. [524] Numb. xxii. [525] Tob. iii. 7. [526] Psa. xxxiv. 7. [527] 1 Cor. xi. 30. [528] 1 Tim. i. 20. [529] John xiii. [530] 1 Sam. ii. 6. [531] Matt. xxiv. 24. [532] Clem. Alex. Itinerario; Hegesippus de Excidio Jerusalem, c. 2. [533] Apulei Flondo. lib. ii. [534] Ælian, de Animalib. lib. ix. c. 77. [535] Tertull. de Anim. c. 22. CHAPTER XXXV. INSTANCES OF PHANTOMS WHICH HAVE APPEARED TO BE ALIVE, AND HAVE GIVE MANY SIGNS OF LIFE. Le Loyer, in his book upon spectres, maintains[536] that the demon can cause the possessed to make extraordinary and involuntary movements. He can then, if allowed by God, give motion to a dead and insensible man. He relates the instance of Polycrites, a magistrate of Ætolia, who appeared to the people of Locria nine or ten months after his death, and told them to show him his child, which being born monstrous, they wished to burn with its mother. The Locrians, in spite of the remonstrance of the spectre of Polycrites, persisting in their determination, Polycrites took his child, tore it to pieces and devoured it, leaving only the head, while the people could neither send him away nor prevent him; after that, he disappeared. The Ætolians were desirous of sending to consult the Delphian oracle, but the head of the child began to speak, and foretold the misfortunes which were to happen to their country and to his own mother. After the battle between King Antiochus and the Romans, an officer named Buptages, left dead on the field of battle, with twelve mortal wounds, rose up suddenly, and began to threaten the Romans with the evils which were to happen to them through the foreign nations who were to destroy the Roman empire. He pointed out in particular, that armies would come from Asia, and desolate Europe, which may designate the irruption of the Turks upon the domains of the Roman empire. After that, Buptages climbed up an oak tree, and foretold that he was about to be devoured by a wolf, which happened. After the wolf had devoured the body, the head again spoke to the Romans, and forbade them to bury him. All that appears very incredible, and was not accomplished in fact. It was not the people of Asia, but those of the north, who overthrew the Roman empire. In the war of Augustus against Sextus Pompey, son of the great Pompey,[537] a soldier of Augustus, named Gabinius, had his head cut off by order of young Pompey, so that it only held on to the neck by a narrow strip of flesh. Towards evening they heard Gabinius lamenting; they ran to him, and he said that he had returned from hell to reveal very important things to Pompey. Pompey did not think proper to go to him, but he sent one of his men, to whom Gabinius declared that the gods on high had decreed the happy destiny of Pompey, and that he would succeed in all his designs. Directly Gabinius had thus spoken, he fell down dead and stiff. This pretended prediction was falsified by the facts. Pompey was vanquished, and Cæsar gained all the advantage in this war. A certain female juggler had died, but a magician of the band put a charm under her armpits, which gave her power to move; but another wizard having looked at her, cried out that it was only vile carrion, and immediately she fell down dead, and appeared what she was in fact. Nicole Aubri, a native of Vervius, being possessed by several devils, one of these devils, named Baltazo, took from the gibbet the body of a man who had been hanged near the plain of Arlon, and in this body went to the husband of Nicole Aubri, promising to deliver his wife from her possession if he would let him pass the night with her. The husband consulted the schoolmaster, who practiced exorcising, and who told him on no account to grant what was asked of him. The husband and Baltazo having entered the church, the woman who was possessed called him by his name, and immediately this Baltazo disappeared. The schoolmaster conjuring the possessed, Beelzebub, one of the demons, revealed what Baltazo had done, and that if the husband had granted what he asked, he would have flown away with Nicole Aubri, both body and soul. Le Loyer again relates[538] four other instances of persons whom the demon had seemed to restore to life, to satisfy the brutal passion of two lovers. Footnotes: [536] Le Loyer, des Spectres, lib. ii. pp. 376, 392, 393. [537] Pliny, lib. vii. c. 52. [538] Le Loyer, pp. 412-414. CHAPTER XXXVI. DEVOTING TO DEATH, A PRACTICE AMONG THE PAGANS. The ancient heathens, both Greeks and Romans, attributed to magic and to the demon the power of occasioning the destruction of any person by a manner of devoting them to death, which consisted in forming a waxen image as much as possible like the person whose life they wished to take. They devoted him or her to death by their magical secrets: then they burned the waxen statue, and as that by degrees was consumed, so the doomed person became languid and at last died. Theocritus[539] makes a woman transported with love speak thus: she invokes the image of the shepherd, and prays that the heart of Daphnis, her beloved, may melt like the image of wax which represents him. Horace[540] brings forward two enchantresses, who evoke the shades to make them announce the future. First of all, the witches tear a sheep with their teeth, shedding the blood into a grave, in order to bring those spirits from whom they expect an answer; then they place next to themselves two statues, one of wax, the other of wool; the latter is the largest, and mistress of the other. The waxen image is at its feet, as a suppliant, and awaiting only death. After divers magical ceremonies, the waxen image was inflamed and consumed. He speaks of this again elsewhere; and after having with a mocking laugh made his complaints to the enchantress Canidia, saying that he is ready to make her honorable reparation, he owns that he feels all the effects of her too-powerful art, as he himself has experienced it to give motion to waxen figures, and bring down the moon from the sky.[541] Virgil also speaks[542] of these diabolical operations, and these waxen images, devoted by magic art. There is reason to believe that these poets only repeat these things to show the absurdity of the pretended secrets of magic, and the vain and impotent ceremonies of sorcerers. But it cannot be denied that, idle as all these practices may be, they have been used in ancient times; that many have put faith in them, and foolishly dreaded those attempts. Lucian relates the effects[543] of the magic of a certain Hyperborean, who, having formed a Cupid with clay, infused life into it, and sent it to fetch a girl named Chryseïs, with whom a young man had fallen in love. The little Cupid brought her, and on the morrow, at dawn of day, the moon, which the magician had brought down from the sky, returned thither. Hecate, whom he had evoked from the bottom of hell, fled away, and all the rest of the scene disappeared. Lucian, with great reason, ridicules all this, and observes that these magicians, who boast of having so much power, ordinarily exercise it only upon contemptible people, and are such themselves. The oldest instances of this dooming are those which are set down in Scripture, in the Old Testament. God commands Moses to devote to anathema the Canaanites of the kingdom of Arad.[544] He devotes also to anathema all the nations of the land of Canaan.[545] Balac, King of Moab,[546] sends to the diviner Balaam to engage him to curse and devote the people of Israel. "Come," says he to him, by his messenger, "and curse me Israel; for I know that those whom you have cursed and doomed to destruction shall be cursed, and he whom you have blessed shall be crowned with blessings." We have in history instances of these devotings and maledictions, and evocations of the tutelary gods of cities by magic art. The ancients kept very secret the proper names of towns,[547] for fear that if they came to the knowledge of the enemy, they might make use of them in their invocations, which to their mind had no might unless the proper name of the town was expressed. The usual names of Rome, Tyre, and Carthage, were not their true and secret names. Rome, for instance, was called Valentia, a name known to very few persons, and Valerius Soranus was severely punished for having revealed it. Macrobius[548] has preserved for us the formula of a solemn devoting or dooming of a city, and of imprecations against her, by devoting her to some hurtful and dangerous demon. We find in the heathen poets a great number of these invocations and magical doomings, to inspire a dangerous passion, or to occasion maladies. It is surprising that these superstitious and abominable practices should have gained entrance among Christians, and have been dreaded by persons who ought to have known their vanity and impotency. Tacitus relates[549] that at the death of Germanicus, who was said to have been poisoned by Piso and Plautina, there were found in the ground and in the walls bones of human bodies, doomings, and charms, or magic verses, with the name of Germanicus engraved upon thin plates of lead steeped in corrupted blood, half-burnt ashes, and other charms, by virtue of which it was believed that spirits could be evoked. Footnotes: [539] Theocrit Idyl. ii. [540] "Lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea major Lanea, que poenis compesceret inferiorem. Cerea suppliciter stabat, servilibus ut quæ Jam peritura modis.... Et imagine cereâ Largior arserit ignis." [541] "An quæ movere cereas imagines, Ut ipse curiosus, et polo Deripere lunam." [542] "Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit. Uno eodemque igni; sic nostro Daphnis amore."--_Virgil, Eclog._ [543] Lucian in Philops. [544] Numb. xxi. 3. [545] Deut. vii. 2, 3; xii. 1-3, &c. [546] Numb. xxii. 5, &c. [547] Peir. lib. iii. c. 5; xxviii. c. 2. [548] Macrobius, lib. iii. c. 9. [549] Tacit. Ann. lib. ii. art. 69. CHAPTER XXXVII. INSTANCES OF DEVOTING OR DOOMING AMONGST CHRISTIANS. Hector Boëthius,[550] in his History of Scotland, relates that Duffus, king of that country, falling ill of a disorder unknown to the physicians, was consumed by a slow fever, passed his nights without sleep, and insensibly wasted away; his body melted in perspiration every night; he became weak, languid, and in a dying state, without, however, his pulse undergoing any alteration. Everything was done to relieve him, but uselessly. His life was despaired of, and those about him began to suspect some evil spell. In the mean time, the people of Moray, a county of Scotland, mutinied, supposing that the king must soon sink under his malady. It was whispered abroad that the king had been bewitched by some witches who lived at Forres, a little town in the north of Scotland. People were sent there to arrest them, and they were surprised in their dwellings, where one of them was basting an image of King Duffus, made of wax, turning on a wooden spit before a large fire, before which she was reciting certain magical prayers; and she affirmed that as the figure melted the king would lose his strength, and at last he would die when the figure should be entirely melted. These women declared that they had been hired to perform these evil spells by the principal men of the county of Moray, who only awaited the king's decease to burst into open revolt. These witches were immediately arrested and burnt at the stake. The king was much better, and in a few days he perfectly recovered his health. This account is found also in the History of Scotland by Buchanan, who says he heard it from his elders. He makes the King Duffus live in 960, and he who has added notes to the text of these historians, says that this custom of melting waxen images by magic art, to occasion the death of certain persons, was not unknown to the Romans, as appears from Virgil and Ovid; and of this we have related a sufficient number of instances. But it must be owned that all which is related concerning it is very doubtful; not that wizards and witches have not been found who have attempted to cause the death of persons of high rank by these means, and who attributed the effect to the demon, but there is little appearance that they ever succeeded in it. If magicians possessed the secret of thus occasioning the death of any one they pleased, where is the prince, prelate, or lord who would be safe? If they could thus roast them slowly to death, why not kill them at once, by throwing the waxen image in the fire? Who can have given such power to the devil? Is it the Almighty, to satisfy the revenge of an insignificant woman, or the jealousy of lovers of either sex? M. de St. André, physician to the king, in his Letters on Witchcraft, would explain the effects of these devotings, supposing them to be true, by the evaporation of animal spirits, which, proceeding from the bodies of the wizards or witches, and uniting with the atoms which fall from the wax, and the atoms of the fire, which render them still more pungent, should fly towards the person they desire to bewitch, and cause in him or her sensations of heat or pain, more or less violent according to the action of the fire. But I do not think that this clever man finds many to approve of his idea. The shortest way, in my opinion, would be, to deny the effects of these charms; for if these effects are real, they are inexplicable by physics, and can only be attributed to the devil. We read in the History of the Archbishops of Treves that Eberard, archbishop of that church, who died in 1067, having threatened to send away the Jews from his city, if they did not embrace Christianity, these unhappy people, being reduced to despair, suborned an ecclesiastic, who for money baptized for them, by the name of the bishop, a waxen image, to which they tied wicks or wax tapers, and lighted them on Holy Saturday (Easter Eve), as the prelate was going solemnly to administer the baptismal rite. Whilst he was occupied in this holy function, the statue being half consumed, Eberard felt himself extremely ill; he was led into the vestry, where he soon after expired. The Pope John XXII., in 1317, complained, in public letters, that some scoundrels had attempted his life by similar operations; and he appeared persuaded of their power, and that he had been preserved from death only by the particular protection of God. "We inform you," says he, "that some traitors have conspired against us, and against some of our brothers the cardinals, and have prepared beverages and images to take away our life, which they have sought to do on every occasion; but God has always preserved us." The letter is dated the 27th of July. From the 27th of February, the pope had issued a commission to inform against these poisoners; his letter is addressed to Bartholomew, Bishop of Fréjus, who had succeeded the pope in that see, and to Peter Tessier, doctor _en decret_, afterwards cardinal. The pope says therein, in substance--We have heard that John de Limoges, Jacques de Crabançon, Jean d'Arrant, physician, and some others, have applied themselves, through a damnable curiosity, to necromancy and other magical arts, on which they have books; that they have often made use of mirrors, and images consecrated in their manner; that, placing themselves within circles, they have often invoked the evil spirits to occasion the death of men by the might of their enchantments, or by sending maladies which abridge their days. Sometimes they have enclosed demons in mirrors, or circles, or rings, to interrogate them, not only on the past, but on the future, and made predictions. They pretend to have made many experiments in these matters, and fearlessly assert, that they can not only by means of certain beverages, or certain meats, but by simple words, abridge or prolong life, and cure all sorts of diseases. The pope gave a similar commission, April 22d, 1317, to the Bishop of Riés, to the same Pierre Tessier, to Pierre Després, and two others, to inquire into the conspiracy formed against him and against the cardinals; and in this commission he says:--"They have prepared beverages to poison us, and not having been able conveniently to make us take them, they have had waxen images, made with our names, to attack our lives, by pricking these images with magical enchantments, and innovations of demons; but God has preserved us, and caused three of these images to fall into our hands." We see a description of similar charms in a letter, written three years after, to the Inquisitor of Carcassone, by William de Godin, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, in which he says:--"The pope commands you to inquire and proceed against those who sacrifice to demons, worship them, or pay them homage, by giving them for a token a written paper, or something else, to bind the demon, or to work some charm by invoking him; who, abusing the sacrament of baptism, baptize images of wax, or of other matters with invocation of demons; who abuse the eucharist, or consecrated wafer, or other sacraments, by exercising their evil spells. You will proceed against them with the prelates, as you do in matters of heresy; for the pope gives you the power to do so." The letter is dated from Avignon, the 22d of August, 1320. At the trial of Enguerrand de Marigni, they brought forward a wizard whom they had surprised making waxen images, representing King Louis le Hutin and Charles de Valois, and meaning to kill them by pricking or melting these images. It is related also that Cosmo Rugieri, a Florentine, a great atheist and pretended magician, had a secret chamber, where he shut himself up alone, and pricked with a needle a wax image representing the king, after having loaded it with maledictions and devoted it to destruction by horrible enchantments, hoping thus to cause the prince to languish away and die. Whether these conjurations, these waxen images, these magical words, may have produced their effects or not, it proves at any rate the opinion that was entertained on the subject--the ill will of the wizards, and the fear in which they were held. Although their enchantments and imprecations might not be followed by any effect, it is apparently thought that experience on that point made them dreaded, whether with reason or not. The general ignorance of physics made people at that time take many things to be supernatural which were simply the effects of natural causes; and as it is certain, as our faith teaches us, that God has often permitted demons to deceive mankind by prodigies, and do them injury by extraordinary means, it was supposed without examining into the matter that there was an art of magic and sure rules for discovering certain secrets, or causing certain evils by means of demons; as if God had not always been the Supreme Master, to permit or to hinder them; or as if He would have ratified the compacts made with evil spirits. But on examining closely this pretended magic, we have found nothing but poisonings, attended by superstition and imposture. All that we have just related of the effects of magic, enchantments, and witchcraft, which were pretended to cause such terrible effects on the bodies and the possessions of mankind, and all that is recounted of doomings, evocations, and magic figures, which, being consumed by fire, occasioned the death of those who were destined or enchanted, relate but very imperfectly to the affair of vampires, which we are treating of in this volume; unless it may be said that those ghosts are raised and evoked by magic art, and that the persons who fancy themselves strangled and finally stricken with death by vampires, only suffer these miseries through the malice of the demon, who makes their deceased parents or relations appear to them, and produces all these effects upon them; or simply strikes the imagination of the persons to whom it happens, and makes them believe that it is their deceased relations, who come to torment and kill them; although in all this it is only an imagination strongly affected which acts upon them. We may also connect with the history of ghosts what is related of certain persons who have promised each other to return after their death, and to reveal what passes in the other world, and the state in which they find themselves. Footnotes: [550] Hector Boëthius, Hist. Scot. lib. xi. c. 216, 219. CHAPTER XXXVIII. INSTANCES OF PERSONS WHO HAVE PROMISED TO GIVE EACH OTHER NEWS OF THE OTHER WORLD AFTER THEIR DEATH. The story of the Marquis de Rambouillet, who appeared after his death to the Marquis de Précy, is very celebrated. These two lords, conversing on the subject of the other world, like people who were not very strongly persuaded of the truth of all that is said upon it, promised each other that the first of the two who died should bring the news of it to the other. The Marquis de Rambouillet set off for Flanders, where the war was then carried on; and the Marquis de Précy remained at Paris, detained by a low fever. Six weeks after, in broad day, he heard some one undraw his bed-curtains, and turning to see who it was, he perceived the Marquis de Rambouillet, in buff-leather jacket and boots. He sprang from his bed to embrace his friend; but Rambouillet, stepping back a few paces, told him that he was come to keep his word as he had promised--that all that was said of the next life was very certain--that he must change his conduct, and in the first action wherein he was engaged he would lose his life. Précy again attempted to embrace his friend, but he embraced only empty air. Then Rambouillet, seeing that his friend was incredulous as to what he said, showed him where he had received the wound in his side, whence the blood still seemed to flow. Précy soon after received, by the post, confirmation of the death of the Marquis de Rambouillet; and being himself some time after, during the civil wars, at the battle of the Faubourg of St. Antoine, he was there killed. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugni,[551] relates a very similar story. A gentleman named Humbert, son of a lord named Guichard de Belioc, in the diocese of Macon, having declared war against the other principal men in his neighborhood, a gentleman named Geoffrey d'Iden received in the mélée a wound of which he died immediately. About two months afterwards, this same Geoffrey appeared to a gentleman named Milo d'Ansa, and begged him to tell Humbert de Belioc, in whose service he had lost his life, that he was tormented for having assisted him in an unjust war, and for not having expiated his sins by penance before he died; that he begged him to have compassion on him, and on his own father, Guichard, who had left him great wealth, of which he made a bad use, and of which a part had been badly acquired. That in truth Guichard, the father of Humbert, had embraced a religious life at Clugni; but that he had not time to satisfy the justice of God for the sins of his past life; that he conjured him to have mass performed for him and for his father, to give alms, and to employ the prayers of good people, to procure them both a prompt deliverance from the pains they endured. He added, "Tell him, that if he will not mind what you say, I shall be obliged to go to him myself, and announce to him what I have just told you." Milo d'Ansa acquitted himself faithfully of his commission; Humbert was frightened at it, but it did not make him better. Still, fearing that Guichard, his father, or Geoffrey d'Iden might come and disturb him, above all during the night, he dare not remain alone, and would always have one of his people by him. One morning, then, as he was lying awake in his bed, he beheld in his presence Geoffrey, armed as in a day of battle, who showed him the mortal wound he had received, and which appeared yet quite fresh. He reproached him keenly for his want of pity towards his own father, who was groaning in torment. "Take care," added he, "that God does not treat you rigorously, and refuse to you that mercy which you refuse to us; and, above all, take care not to execute your intention of going to the wars with Count Amedeus. If you go, you will there lose both life and property." He said, and Humbert was about to reply, when the Squire Vichard de Maracy, Humbert's counselor, arrived from mass, and immediately the dead man disappeared. From that moment, Humbert endeavored seriously to relieve his father Geoffrey, and resolved to take a journey to Jerusalem to expiate his sins. Peter the Venerable had been well informed of all the details of this story, which occurred in the year he went into Spain, and made a great noise in the country. The Cardinal Baronius,[552] a very grave and respectable man, says that he had heard from several very sensible people, and who have often heard it preached to the people, and in particular from Michael Mercati, Prothonotary of the Holy See, a man of acknowledged probity and well informed, above all in the platonic philosophy, to which he applied himself unweariedly with Marsilius Ficin, his friend, as zealous as himself for the doctrine of Plato. One day, these two great philosophers were conversing on the immortality of the soul, and if it remained and existed after the death of the body. After having had much discourse on this matter, they promised each other, and shook hands upon it, that the first of them who quitted this world should come and tell the other somewhat of the state of the other life. Having thus separated, it happened some time afterwards that the same Michael Mercati, being wide awake and studying, one morning very early, the same philosophical matters, heard on a sudden a noise like a horseman who was coming hastily to his door, and at the same he heard the voice of his friend Marsilius Ficin, who cried out to him, "Michael, Michael, nothing is more true than what is said of the other life." At the same, Michael opened his window, and saw Marsilius mounted on a white horse, who was galloping away. Michael cried out to him to stop, but he continued his course till Michael could no longer see him. Marsilius Ficin was at that time dwelling at Florence, and died there at the same hour that he had appeared and spoken to his friend. The latter wrote directly to Florence, to inquire into the truth of the circumstance; and they replied to him that Marsilius had died at the same moment that Michael had heard his voice and the noise of his horse at his door. Ever after that adventure, Michael Mercati, although very regular in his conduct before then, became quite an altered man, and lived in so exemplary a manner that he became a perfect model of Christian life. We find a great many such instances in Henri Morus, and in Joshua Grandville, in his work entitled "Sadduceeism Combated." Here is one taken from the life of B. Joseph de Lionisse, a missionary capuchin.[553] One day, when he was conversing with his companion on the duties of religion, and the fidelity which God requires of those who have consecrated themselves to them, of the reward reserved for those who are perfectly religious, and the severe justice which he exercises against unfaithful servants, Brother Joseph said to him, "Let us promise each other mutually that the one who dies the first will appear to the other, if God allows him so to do, to inform him of what passes in the other world, and the condition in which he finds himself." "I am willing," replied the holy companion; "I give you my word upon it." "And I pledge you mine," replied Brother Joseph. Some days after this, the pious companion was attacked by a malady which brought him to the tomb. Brother Joseph felt this the more sensibly, because he knew better than the others all the virtues of this holy monk. He had no doubt of the fulfilment of their agreement, or that the deceased would appear to him, when he least thought of it, to acquit himself of his promise. In effect, one day when Brother Joseph had retired to his room, in the afternoon, he saw a young capuchin enter horribly haggard, with a pale thin face, who saluted him with a feeble, trembling voice. As, at the sight of this spectre, Joseph appeared a little disturbed, "Don't be alarmed," it said to him; "I am come here as permitted by God, to fulfill my promise, and to tell you that I have the happiness to be amongst the elect through the mercy of the Lord. But learn that it is even more difficult to be saved than is thought in this world; that God, whose wisdom can penetrate the most secret folds of the heart, weighs exactly the actions which we have done during life, the thoughts, wishes, and motives, which we propose to ourselves in acting; and as much as he is inexorable in regard to sinners, so much is he good, indulgent, and rich in mercy, towards those just souls who have served him in this life." At these words, the phantom dissappeared. Here follows an instance of a spirit which comes after death to visit his friend without having made an agreement with him to do so.[554] Peter Garmate, Bishop of Cracow, was translated to the archbishopric of Gnesnes, in 1548, and obtained a dispensation from Paul III. to retain still his bishopric of Cracow. This prelate, after having led a very irregular life during his youth, began towards the end of his life, to perform many charitable actions, feeding every day a hundred poor, to whom he sent food from his own table. And when he traveled, he was followed by two wagons, loaded with coats and shirts, which he distributed amongst the poor according as they needed them. One day, when he was preparing to go to church, towards evening, (it being the eve of a festival,) and he was alone in his closet, he suddenly beheld before him a gentleman named Curosius, who had been dead some time, with whom he had formerly been too intimately associated in evil doing. The Archbishop Gamrate was at first affrighted, but the defunct reassured him and told him that he was of the number of the blessed. "What!" said the prelate to him; "after such a life as you led! For you know the excesses which both you and myself committed in our youth." "I know it," replied the defunct; "but this is what saved me. One day, when in Germany, I found myself with a man who uttered blasphemous discourse, most injurious to the Holy Virgin. I was irritated at it, and gave him a blow; we drew our swords; I killed him; and for fear of being arrested and punished as a homicide, I took flight without reflecting much on the action I had committed. But at the hour of death, I found myself most terribly disturbed by remorse on my past life, and I only expected certain destruction; when the Holy Virgin came to my aid, and made such powerful intercession for me with her Son, that she obtained for me the pardon of my sins; and I have the happiness to enjoy beatitude. For yourself, who have only six months to live, I am sent to warn you, that in consideration of your alms, and your charity to the poor, God will show you mercy, and expects you to do penance. Profit while it is time, and expiate your past sins." After having said this, he disappeared; and the archbishop, bursting into tears, began to live in so Christianly a manner that he was the edification of all who knew him. He related the circumstance to his most intimate friends, and died in 1545, after having directed the Church of Gnesnes for about five years. The daughter of Dumoulin, a celebrated lawyer, having been inhumanly massacred in her dwelling,[555] appeared by night to her husband, who was wide awake, and declared to him the names of those who had killed herself and her children, conjuring him to revenge her death. Footnotes: [551] Biblioth. Cluniæ. de Miraculis, lib. i. c. 7, p. 1290. [552] Baronius ad an. Christi 401. Annal. tom. v. [553] Tom. i. p. 64, _et seq._ [554] Stephâni Damalevini Historia, p. 291. apud Ranald continuat Baronii, ad. an. 1545. tom. xxi art. 62. [555] Le Loyer, lib. iii. pp. 46, 47. CHAPTER XXXIX. EXTRACT FROM THE POLITICAL WORKS OF M. L'ABBE DE ST. PIERRE.[556] I was told lately at Valogne, that a good priest of the town who teaches the children to read, had had an apparition in broad day ten or twelve years ago. As that had made a great deal of noise at first on account of his reputation for probity and sincerity, I had the curiosity to hear him relate his adventure himself. A lady, one of my relations, who was acquainted with him, sent to invite him to dine with her yesterday, the 7th of January, 1708, and as on the one hand I showed a desire to learn the thing from himself, and on the other it was a kind of honorable distinction to have had by daylight an apparition of one of his comrades, he related it before dinner without requiring to be pressed, and in a very naïve manner. CIRCUMSTANCE. "In 1695," said M. Bezuel to us, "being a schoolboy of about fifteen years of age, I became acquainted with the two children of M. Abaquene, attorney, schoolboys like myself. The eldest was of my own age, the second was eighteen months younger; he was named Desfontaines; we took all our walks and all our parties of pleasure together, and whether it was that Desfontaines had more affection for me, or that he was more gay, obliging, and clever than his brother, I loved him the best. "In 1696, we were walking both of us in the cloister of the Capuchins. He told me that he had lately read a story of two friends who had promised each other that the first of them who died should come and bring news of his condition to the one still living; that the one who died came back to earth, and told his friend surprising things. Upon that, Desfontaines told me that he had a favor to ask of me; that he begged me to grant it instantly: it was to make him a similar promise, and on his part he would do the same. I told him that I would not. For several months he talked to me of it, often and seriously; I always resisted his wish. At last, towards the month of August, 1696, as he was to leave to go and study at Caen, he pressed me so much with tears in his eyes, that I consented to it. He drew out at that moment two little papers which he had ready written: one was signed with his blood, in which he promised me that in case of his death he would come and bring me news of his condition; in the other I promised him the same thing. I pricked my finger; a drop of blood came, with which I signed my name. He was delighted to have my billet, and embracing me, he thanked me a thousand times. "Some time after, he set off with his brother. Our separation caused us much grief, but we wrote to each other now and then, and it was but six weeks since I had had a letter from him, when what I am going to relate to you happened to me. "The 31st of July, 1697, one Thursday--I shall remember it all my life--the late M. Sortoville, with whom I lodged, and who had been very kind to me, begged of me to go to a meadow near the Cordeliers, and help his people, who were making hay, to make haste. I had not been there a quarter of an hour, when about half-past-two, I all of a sudden felt giddy and weak. In vain I leant upon my hay-fork; I was obliged to place myself on a little hay, where I was nearly half an hour recovering my senses. That passed off; but as nothing of the kind had ever occurred to me before, I was surprised at it and feared it might be the commencement of an illness. Nevertheless it did not make much impression upon me during the remainder of the day. It is true I did not sleep that night so well as usual. "The next day, at the same hour, as I was conducting to the meadow M. de St. Simon, the grandson of M. de Sortoville, who was then ten years old, I felt myself seized on the way with a similar faintness, and I sat down on a stone in the shade. That passed off, and we continued our way; nothing more happened to me that day, and at night I had hardly any sleep. "At last, on the morrow, the second day of August, being in the loft where they laid up the hay they brought from the meadow, I was taken with a similar giddiness and a similar faintness, but still more violent than the other. I fainted away completely; one of the men perceived it. I have been told that I was asked what was the matter with me, and that I replied, 'I have seen what I should never have believed;' but I have no recollection of either the question or the answer. That, however, accords with what I do remember to have seen just then; as it were some one naked to the middle, but whom, however, I did not recognize. They helped me down from the ladder. The faintness seized me again, my head swam as I was between two rounds of the ladder, and again I fainted. They took me down and placed me on a large beam which served for a seat in the large square of the capuchins. I sat down on it and then I no longer saw M. de Sortoville nor his domestics, although present; but perceiving Desfontaines near the foot of the ladder, who made me a sign to come to him, I moved on my seat as if to make room for him; and those who saw me and whom I did not see, although my eyes were open, remarked this movement. "As he did not come, I rose to go to him. He advanced towards me, took my left arm with his right arm, and led me about thirty paces from thence into a retired street, holding me still under the arm. The domestics, supposing that my giddiness had passed off, and that I had purposely retired, went every one to their work, except a little servant, who went and told M. de Sortoville that I was talking all alone. M. de Sortoville thought I was tipsy; he drew near, and heard me ask some questions, and make some answers, which he has told me since. "I was there nearly three-quarters of an hour, conversing with Desfontaines. 'I promised you,' said he to me, 'that if I died before you I would come and tell you of it. I was drowned the day before yesterday in the river of Caen, at nearly this same hour. I was out walking with such and such a one. It was very warm, and we had a wish to bathe; a faintness seized me in the water, and I fell to the bottom. The Abbé de Menil-Jean, my comrade, dived to bring me up. I seized hold of his foot; but whether he was afraid it might be a salmon, because I held him so fast, or that he wished to remount promptly to the surface of the water, he shook his leg so roughly, that he gave me a violent kick on the breast, which sent me to the bottom of the river, which is there very deep. "Desmoulins related to me afterwards all that had occurred to them in their walk, and the subjects they had conversed upon. It was in vain for me to ask him questions--whether he was saved, whether he was damned, if he was in purgatory, if I was in a state of grace, and if I should soon follow him; he continued to discourse as if he had not heard me, and as if he would not hear me. "I approached him several times to embrace him, but it seemed to me that I embraced nothing, and yet I felt very sensibly that he held me tightly by the arm, and that when I tried to turn away my head that I might not see him, because I could not look at him without feeling afflicted, he shook my arm as if to oblige me to look at and listen to him. "He always appeared to me taller than I had seen him, and taller even than he was at the time of his death, although he had grown during the eighteen months in which we had not met. I beheld him always naked to the middle of his body, his head uncovered, with his fine fair hair, and a white scroll twisted in his hair over his forehead, on which there was some writing, but I could only make out the word _in_, &c. "It was his same tone of voice. He appeared to me neither gay nor sad, but in a calm and tranquil state. He begged of me when his brother returned, to tell him certain things to say to his father and mother. He begged me to say the Seven Psalms which had been given him as a penance the preceding Sunday, which he had not yet recited; again he recommended me to speak to his brother, and then he bade me adieu, saying, as he left me, _Jusques_, _jusques_, (_till_, _till_,) which was the usual term he made use of when at the end of our walk we bade each other good-bye, to go home. "He told me that at the time he was drowned, his brother, who was writing a translation, regretted having let him go without accompanying him, fearing some accident. He described to me so well where he was drowned, and the tree in the avenue of Louvigni on which he had written a few words, that two years afterwards, being there with the late Chevalier de Gotol, one of those who were with him at the time he was drowned, I pointed out to him the very spot; and by counting the trees in a particular direction which Desfontaines had specified to me, I went straight up to the tree, and I found his writing. He (the Chevalier) told me also that the article of the Seven Psalms was true, and that on coming from confession they had told each other their penance; and since then his brother has told me that it was quite true that at that hour he was writing his exercise, and he reproached himself for not having accompanied his brother. As nearly a month passed by without my being able to do what Desfontaines had told me in regard to his brother, he appeared to me again twice before dinner at a country house whither I had gone to dine a league from hence. I was very faint. I told them not to mind me, that it was nothing, and that I should soon recover myself; and I went to a corner of the garden. Desfontaines having appeared to me, reproached me for not having yet spoken to his brother, and again conversed with me for a quarter of an hour without answering any of my questions. "As I was going in the morning to Notre-Dame de la Victoire, he appeared to me again, but for a shorter time, and pressed me always to speak to his brother, and left me, saying still, _Jusques_, _Jusques_, and without choosing to reply to my questions. "It is a remarkable thing that I always felt a pain in that part of my arm which he had held me by the first time, until I had spoken to his brother. I was three days without being able to sleep, from the astonishment and agitation I felt. At the end of the first conversation, I told M. de Varonville, my neighbor and schoolfellow, that Desfontaines had been drowned; that he himself had just appeared to me and told me so. He went away and ran to the parents' house to know if it was true; they had just received the news, but by a mistake he understood that it was the eldest. He assured me that he had read the letter of Desfontaines, and he believed it; but I maintained always that it could not be, and that Desfontaines himself had appeared to me. He returned, came back, and told me in tears that it was but too true. "Nothing has occurred to me since, and there is my adventure just as it happened. It has been related in various ways; but I have recounted it only as I have just told it to you. The Chevalier de Gotol told me that Desfontaines had appeared also to M. de Menil-Jean; but I am not acquainted with him; he lives twenty leagues from hence near Argentan, and I can say no more about it." This is a very singular and circumstantial narrative, related by M. l'Abbé de St. Pierre, who is by no means credulous, and sets his whole mind and all his philosophy to explain the most extraordinary events by physical reasonings, by the concurrence of atoms, corpuscles, insensible evaporation of spirit, and perspiration. But all that is so far-fetched, and does such palpable violence to the subjects and the attending circumstances, that the most credulous would not yield to such arguments. It is surprising that these gentlemen, who pique themselves on strength of mind, and so haughtily reject everything that appears supernatural, can so easily admit philosophical systems much more incredible than even the facts they oppose. They raise doubts which are often very ill-founded, and attack them upon principles still more uncertain. That may be called refuting one difficulty by another, and resolving a doubt by principles still more doubtful. But, it will be said, whence comes it that so many other persons who had engaged themselves to come and bring news of the immortality of the soul, after their death, have not come back. Seneca speaks of a Stoic philosopher named Julius Canus, who, having been condemned to death by Julius Cæsar, said aloud that he was about to learn the truth of that question on which they were divided; to wit, whether the soul was immortal or not. And we do not read that he revisited this world. La Motte de Vayer had agreed with his friend Baranzan Barnabite that the first of the two who died should warn the other of the state in which he found himself. Baranzan died, and returned not. Because the dead sometimes return to earth, it would be imprudent to conclude that they always do so. And it would be equally wrong reasoning to say that they never do return, because having promised to revisit this world they have not done so. For that, we should imagine that it is in the power of spirits to return and make their appearance when they will, and if they will; but it seems indubitable, that on the contrary, it is not in their power, and that it is only by the express permission of God that disembodied spirits sometimes appear to the living. We see, in the history of the bad rich man, that God would not grant him the favor which he asked, to send to earth some of those who were with him in hell. Similar reasons, derived from the hardness of heart or the incredulity of mortals, may have prevented, in the same manner, the return of Julius Canus or of Baranzan. The return of spirits and their apparition is neither a natural thing nor dependent on the choice of those who are dead. It is a supernatural effect, and allied to the miraculous. St. Augustine says on this subject[557] that if the dead interest themselves in what concerns the living, St. Monica, his mother, who loved him so tenderly, and went with him by sea and land everywhere during her life, would not have failed to visit him every night, and come to console him in his troubles; for we must not suppose that she was become less compassionate since she became one of the blest: _absit ut facta sit vitâ feliciore crudelis_. The return of spirits, their apparition, the execution of the promises which certain persons have made each other, to come and tell their friends what passes in the other world, is not in their own power. All that is in the hands of God. Footnotes: [556] Vol. iv. p. 57. [557] Aug. de Cura gerend. pro Mortuis, c. xiii. p. 526. CHAPTER XL. DIVERS SYSTEMS FOR EXPLAINING THE RETURN OF SPIRITS. The affair of ghosts having made so much noise in the world as it has done, it is not surprising that a diversity of systems should have been formed upon it, and that so many manners should have been proposed to explain their return to earth and their operations. Some have thought that it was a momentary resurrection caused by the soul of the defunct, which re-entered his body, or by the demon, who reanimated him, and caused him to act for a while, whilst his blood retained its consistency and fluidity, and his organic functions were not entirely corrupted and deranged. Others, struck with the consequence of such principles, and the arguments which might be deduced from them, have liked better to suppose that these vampires were not really dead; that they still retained certain seeds of life, and that their spirits could from time to time reanimate and bring them out of their tombs, to make their appearance amongst men, take refreshment, and renew the nourishing juices and animal spirits by sucking the blood of their near kindred. There has lately been printed a dissertation on the uncertainty of the signs of death, and the abuse of hasty interments, by M. Jacques Benigne Vinslow, Doctor, Regent of the Faculty at Paris, translated, with a commentary, by Jacques Jean Bruhier, physician, at Paris, 1742, in 8vo. This work may serve to explain how persons who have been believed to be dead, and have been buried as such, have nevertheless been found alive a pretty long time after their funeral obsequies had been performed. That will perhaps render vampirism less incredible. M. Vinslow, Doctor, and Regent of the Medical Faculty at Paris, maintained, in the month of April, 1740, a thesis, in which he asks if the experiments of surgery are fitter than all others to discover some less uncertain signs of doubtful death. He therein maintained that there are several occurrences in which the signs of death are very doubtful; and he adduces several instances of persons believed to be dead, and interred as such, who nevertheless were afterwards found to be alive. M. Bruhier, M.D., has translated this thesis into French, and has made some learned additions to it, which serve to strengthen the opinion of M. Vinslow. The work is very interesting, from the matter it treats upon, and very agreeable to read, from the manner in which it is written. I am about to make some extracts from it, which may be useful to my subject. I shall adhere principally to the most certain and singular facts; for to relate them all, we must transcribe the whole work. It is known that John Duns, surnamed Scot,[558] or the Subtile Doctor, had the misfortune to be interred alive at Cologne, and that when his tomb was opened some time afterwards, it was found that he had gnawn his arm.[559] The same thing is related of the Emperor Zeno, who made himself heard from the depth of his tomb by repeated cries to those who were watching over him. Lancisi, a celebrated physician of the Pope Clement XI., relates that at Rome he was witness to a person of distinction being still alive when he wrote, who resumed sense and motion whilst they were chanting his funeral service at church. Pierre Zacchias, another celebrated physician of Rome, says, that in the hospital of the Saint Esprit, a young man, who was attacked with the plague, fell into so complete a state of syncope, that he was believed to be really dead. Whilst they were carrying his corpse, along with a great many others, on the other side of the Tiber, the young man gave signs of life. He was brought back to the hospital and cured. Two days after, he fell into a similar syncope, and that time he was reputed to be dead beyond recovery. He was placed amongst others intended for burial, came to himself a second time, and was yet living when Zacchias wrote. It is related, that a man named William Foxley, when forty years of age,[560] falling asleep on the 27th of April, 1546, remained plunged in sleep for fourteen days and fourteen nights, without any preceding malady. He could not persuade himself that he had slept more than one night, and was convinced of his long sleep only by being shown a building begun some days before this drowsy attack, and which he beheld completed on his awaking. It is said that in the time of Pope Gregory II. a scholar of Lubec slept for seven years consecutively. Lilius Giraldus[561] relates that a peasant slept through the whole autumn and winter. Footnotes: [558] Duns Scotus. [559] This fact is more than doubtful. Bzovius, for having advanced it upon the authority of some others, was called _Bovius_, that is, "Great Ox." It is, therefore, better to stand by what Moreri thought of it. "The enemies of Scotus have proclaimed," says he, "that, having died of apoplexy, he was at first interred, and, some time after this accident having elapsed, he died in despair, gnawing his hands. But this calumny, which was authorized by Paulus Jovius, Latomias, and Bzovius, has been so well refuted that no one now will give credit to it." [560] Larrey, in Henri VIII. Roi d'Angleterre. [561] Lilius Giraldus, Hist. Poët. Dialog. CHAPTER XLI. VARIOUS INSTANCES OF PERSONS BEING BURIED ALIVE. Plutarch relates that a man who fell from a great height, having pitched upon his neck, was believed to be dead, without there being the appearance of any hurt. As they were carrying him to be buried, the day after, he all at once recovered his strength and his senses. Asclepiades[562] meeting a great funeral train of a person they were taking to be interred, obtained permission to look at and to touch the dead man; he found some signs of life in him, and by means of proper remedies, he immediately recalled him to life, and restored him in sound health to his parents and relations. There are several instances of persons who after being interred came to themselves, and lived a long time in perfect health. They relate in particular,[563] that a woman of Orleans was buried in a cemetery, with a ring on her finger, which they had not been able to draw off her finger when she was placed in her coffin. The following night, a domestic, attracted by the hope of gain, broke open the coffin, and as he could not tear the ring off her finger, was about to cut her finger off, when she uttered a loud shriek. The servant fled. The woman disengaged herself as she could from her winding sheet, returned home, and survived her husband. M. Bernard, a principal surgeon at Paris, attests that, being with his father at the parish of Réal, they took from the tombs, living and breathing, a monk of the order of St. Francis, who had been shut up in it three or four days, and who had gnawed his hands around the bands which confined them. But he died almost the moment that he was in the air. Several persons have made mention of that wife of a counselor of Cologne,[564] who having been interred with a valuable ring on her finger, in 1571, the grave-digger opened the grave the succeeding night to steal the ring. But the good lady caught hold of him, and forced him to take her out of the coffin. He, however, disengaged himself from her hands, and fled. The resuscitated lady went and rapped at the door of her house. At first they thought it was a phantom, and left her a long time at the door, waiting anxiously to be let in; but at last they opened it for her. They warmed her, and she recovered her health perfectly, and had after that three sons, who all belonged to the church. This event is represented on her sepulchre in a picture, or painting, in which the story is represented, and moreover, written, in German verses. It is added that the lady, in order to convince those of the house that it was herself, told the footman who came to the door that the horses had gone up to the hay-loft, which was true; and there are still to be seen at the windows of the _grenier_ of that house, horses' heads, carved in wood, as a sign of the truth of the matter. François de Civile, a Norman gentleman,[565] was the captain of a hundred men in the city of Rouen, when it was besieged by Charles IX., and he was then six-and-twenty. He was wounded to death at the end of an assault; and having fallen into the moat, some pioneers placed him in a grave with some other bodies, and covered them over with a little earth. He remained there from eleven in the morning till half-past six in the evening, when his servant went to disinter him. This domestic, having remarked some signs of life, put him in a bed, where he remained for five days and nights, without speaking, or giving any other sign of feeling, but as burning hot with fever as he had been cold in the grave. The city having been taken by storm, the servants of an officer of the victorious army, who was to lodge in the house wherein was Civile, threw the latter upon a paillasse in a back room, whence his brother's enemies tossed him out of the window upon a dunghill, where he remained for more than seventy-two hours in his shirt. At the end of that time, one of his relations, surprised to find him still alive, sent him to a league's distance from Rouen,[566] where he was attended to, and at last was perfectly cured. During a great plague, which attacked the city of Dijon in 1558, a lady, named Nicole Lentillet, being reputed dead of the epidemic, was thrown into a great pit, wherein they buried the dead. The day after her interment, in the morning, she came to herself again, and made vain efforts to get out, but her weakness, and the weight of the other bodies with which she was covered, prevented her doing so. She remained in this horrible situation for four days, when the burial men drew her out, and carried her back to her house, where she perfectly recovered her health. A young lady of Augsburg,[567] having fallen into a swoon, or trance, her body was placed under a deep vault, without being covered with earth; but the entrance to this subterranean vault was closely walled up. Some years after that time, some one of the same family died. The vault was opened, and the body of the young lady was found at the very entrance, without any fingers to her right hand, which she had devoured in despair. On the 25th of July, 1688, there died at Metz a hair-dresser's boy, of an apoplectic fit, in the evening, after supper. On the 28th of the same month, he was heard to moan again several times. They took him out of his grave, and he was attended by doctors and surgeons. The physician maintained, after he had been opened, that the young man had not been dead two hours. This is extracted from the manuscript of a bourgeois of Metz, who was cotemporary with him. Footnotes: [562] Cels. lib. ii. c. 6. [563] Le P. Le Clerc, _ci devant_ attorney of the boarders of the college of Louis le Grand. [564] Mísson, Voyage d'Italie, tom. i. Lettre 5. Goulart, des Histoires admirables; et mémorables printed at Geneva, in 1678. [565] Mísson, Voyage, tom. iii. [566] Goulart, loca cetata. [567] M. Graffe, Epit. à Guil. Frabi, Centurie 2, observ chirurg. 516. CHAPTER XLII. INSTANCES OF DROWNED PERSONS RECOVERING THEIR HEALTH. Here follow some instances of drowned persons[568] who came to themselves several days after they were believed to be dead. Peclin relates the story of a gardener of Troninghalm, in Sweden, who was still alive, and sixty-five years of age, when the author wrote. This man being on the ice to assist another man who had fallen into the water, the ice broke under him, and he sunk under water to the depth of eight ells, his feet sticking in the mud: he remained sixteen hours before they drew him out of the water. In this condition, he lost all sense, except that he thought he heard the bells ringing at Stockholm. He felt the water, which entered his body, not by his mouth, but his ears. After having sought for him during sixteen hours, they caught hold of his head with a hook, and drew him out of the water; they placed him between sheets, put him near the fire, rubbed him, shook him, and at last brought him to himself. The king and court would see him and hear his story, and gave him a pension. A woman of the same country, after having been three days in the water, was also revived by the same means as the gardener. Another person named Janas, having drowned himself at seventeen years of age, was taken out of the water seven weeks after; they warmed him, and brought him back to life. M. D'Egly, of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, at Paris, relates, that a Swiss, an expert diver, having plunged down into one of the hollows in the bed of the river, where he hoped to find fine fish, remained there about nine hours; they drew him out of the water after having hurt him in several places with their hooks. M. D'Egly, seeing that the water bubbled strongly from his mouth, maintained that he was not dead. They made him throw up as much water as he could for three quarters of an hour, wrapped him up in hot linen, put him to bed, bled him, and saved him. Some have been recovered after being seven weeks in the water, others after a less time; for instance, Gocellin, a nephew of the Archbishop of Cologne, having fallen into the Rhine, remained under water for fifteen hours before they could find him again; at the end of that time, they carried him to the tomb of St. Suitbert, and he recovered his health.[569] The same St. Suitbert resuscitated also another young man who had been drowned several hours. But the author who relates these miracles is of no great authority. Several instances are related of drowned persons who have remained under water for several days, and at last recovered and enjoyed good health. In the second part of the dissertation on the uncertainty of the signs of death, by M. Bruhier, physician, printed at Paris in 1744, pp. 102, 103, &c., it is shown that they have seen some who have been under water forty-eight hours, others during three days, and during eight days. He adds to this the example of the insect chrysalis, which passes all the winter without giving any signs of life, and the aquatic insects which remain all the winter motionless in the mud; which also happens to the frogs and toads; ants even, against the common opinion, are during the winter in a death-like state, which ceases only on the return of spring. Swallows, in the northern countries, bury themselves in heaps, in the lakes and ponds, in rivers even, in the sea, in the sand, in the holes of walls, and the hollows of trees, or at the bottom of caverns; whilst other kinds of swallows cross the sea to find warmer and more temperate climes. What has just been said of swallows being found at the bottom of lakes, ponds, and rivers, is commonly remarked in Silesia, Poland, Bohemia, and Moravia. Sometimes even storks are fished up as if dead, having their beaks fixed in the anus of one another; many of these have been seen in the environs of Geneva, and even in the environs of Metz, in the year 1467. To these may be added quails and herons. Sparrows and cuckoos have been found during the winter in hollow trees, torpid and without the least appearance of life, which being warmed recovered themselves and took flight. We know that hedgehogs, marmots, sloths, and serpents, live underground without breathing, and the circulation of the blood is very feeble in them during all the winter. It is even said that bears sleep during almost all that period. Footnotes: [568] Guill. Derham, Extrait. Peclin, c. x. de aëre et alim. def. [569] Vita S. Suitberti, apud Surium, I. Martii. CHAPTER XLIII. INSTANCES OF WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN BELIEVED TO BE DEAD, AND WHO HAVE COME TO LIFE AGAIN. Very clever physicians assert[570] that in cases of the suffocation of the womb, a woman may live thirty days without breathing. I know that a very excellent woman was six-and-thirty hours without giving any sign of life. Everybody thought she was dead, and they wanted to enshroud her, but her husband always opposed it. At the end of thirty-six hours she came to herself, and has lived a long time since then. She told them that she heard very well all that was said about her, and knew that they wanted to lay her out; but her torpor was such that she could not surmount it, and she should have let them do whatever they pleased without the least resistance. This applies to what St. Augustine says of the priest Pretextas, who in his trances and swoons heard, as if from afar off, what was said, and nevertheless would have let himself be burned, and his flesh cut, without opposing it or feeling it. Corneille le Bruyn,[571] in his Voyages, relates that he saw at Damietta, in Egypt, a Turk whom they called the Dead Child, because when his mother was with child with him, she fell ill, and as they believed she was dead, they buried her pretty quickly, according to the custom of the country, where they let the dead remain but a very short time unburied, above all during the plague. She was put into a vault which this Turk had for the sepulture of his family. Towards evening, some hours after the interment of this woman, it entered the mind of the Turk her husband, that the child she bore might still be alive; he then had the vault opened, and found that his wife had delivered herself, and that his child was alive, but the mother was dead. Some people said that the child had been heard to cry, and that it was on receiving intimation of this that the father had the tomb opened. This man, surnamed the Dead Child, was still living in 1677. Le Bruyn thinks that the woman was dead when her child was born; but being dead, it would not have been possible for her to bring him into the world. It must be remembered, that in Egypt, where this happened, the women have an extraordinary facility of delivery, as both ancients and moderns bear witness, and that this woman was simply shut up in a vault, without being covered with earth. A woman at Strasburg, who was with child, being reputed to be dead, was buried in a subterranean vault;[572] at the end of some time, this vault having been opened for another body to be placed in it, the woman was found out of the coffin lying on the ground, and having between her hands a child, of which she had delivered herself, and whose arm she held in her mouth, as if she would fain eat it. Another woman, a Spaniard,[573] the wife of Francisco Aravallos, of Suasso, being dead, or believed to be so, in the last months of her pregnancy, was put in the ground; her husband, whom they had sent for from the country, whither he had gone on business, would see his wife at the church, and had her exhumed: hardly had they opened the coffin, when they heard the cry of a child, who was making efforts to leave the bosom of its mother. He was taken away alive and lived a long time, being known by the name of the Child of the Earth; and since then he was lieutenant-general of the town of Héréz, on the frontier of Spain. These instances might be multiplied to infinity, of persons buried alive, and of others who have recovered as they were being carried to the grave, and others who have been taken out of it by fortuitous circumstances. Upon this subject you may consult the new work of Messrs. Vinslow and Bruyer, and those authors who have expressly treated on this subject.[574] These gentlemen, the doctors, derive from thence a very wise and very judicious conclusion, which is, that people should never be buried without the absolute certainty of their being dead, above all in times of pestilence, and in certain maladies in which those who are suffering under them lose on a sudden both sense and motion. Footnotes: [570] Le Clerc, Hist. de la Médecine. [571] Corneille le Bruyn, tom. i. p. 579. [572] Cronstand, Philos. veter. restit. [573] Gaspard Reïes, Campus Elysias jucund. [574] Page 167, des additions de M. Bruhier. CHAPTER XLIV. CAN THESE INSTANCES BE APPLIED TO THE HUNGARIAN GHOSTS? Some advantage of these instances and these arguments may be derived in favor of vampirism, by saying that the ghosts of Hungary, Moravia, and Poland are not really dead, that they continue to live in their graves, although without motion and without respiration; the blood which is found in them being fine and red, the flexibility of their limbs, the cries which they utter when their heart is pierced or their head being cut off, all prove that they still exist. That is not the principal difficulty which arrests my judgment; it is to know how they come out of their graves without any appearance of the earth having been removed, and how they have replaced it as it was; how they appear dressed in their clothes, go and come, and eat. If it is so, why do they return to their graves? why do they not remain amongst the living? why do they suck the blood of their relations? Why do they haunt and fatigue persons who ought to be dear to them, and who have done nothing to offend them? If all that is only imagination on the part of those who are molested, whence comes it that these vampires are found in their graves in an uncorrupted state, full of blood, supple, and pliable; that their feet are found to be in a muddy condition the day after they have run about and frightened the neighbors, and that nothing similar is remarked in the other corpses interred at the same time and in the same cemetery. Whence does it happen that they neither come back nor infest the place any more when they are burned or impaled? Would it be again the imagination of the living and their prejudices which reassure them after these executions? Whence comes it that these scenes recur so frequently in those countries, that the people are not cured of their prejudices, and daily experience, instead of destroying, only augments and strengthens them? CHAPTER XLV. DEAD PERSONS WHO CHEW IN THEIR GRAVES LIKE HOGS, AND DEVOUR THEIR OWN FLESH. It is an opinion widely spread in Germany, that certain dead persons chew in their graves, and devour whatever may be close to them; that they are even heard to eat like pigs, with a certain low cry, and as if growling and grunting. A German author,[575] named Michael Rauff, has composed a work, entitled _De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis_--"Of the Dead who Masticate in their Graves." He sets it down as a proved and sure thing, that there are certain dead persons who have devoured the linen and everything that was within reach of their mouth, and even their own flesh, in their graves. He remarks,[576] that in some parts of Germany, to prevent the dead from masticating, they place a motte of earth under their chin in the coffin; elsewhere they place a little piece of money and a stone in their mouth; elsewhere they tie a handkerchief tightly round their throat. The author cites some German writers who make mention of this ridiculous custom; he quotes several others who speak of dead people that have devoured their own flesh in their sepulchre. This work was printed at Leipsic in 1728. It speaks of an author named Philip Rehrius, who printed in 1679 a treatise with the same title--_De Masticatione Mortuorum_. He might have added to it the circumstance of Henry Count of Salm,[577] who, being supposed to be dead, was interred alive; they heard during the night, in the church of the Abbey of Haute-Seille, where he was buried, loud cries; and the next day, on his tomb being opened, they found him turned upon his face, whilst in fact he had been buried lying upon his back. Some years ago, at Bar-le-Duc, a man was buried in the cemetery, and a noise was heard in his grave; the next day they disinterred him, and found that he had gnawed the flesh of his arms; and this we learned from ocular witnesses. This man had drunk brandy, and had been buried as dead. Rauff speaks of a woman of Bohemia,[578] who, in 1355, had eaten in her grave half her shroud. In the time of Luther, a man who was dead and buried, and a woman the same, gnawed their own entrails. Another dead man in Moravia ate the linen clothes of a woman who was buried next to him. All that is very possible, but that those who are really dead move their jaws, and amuse themselves with masticating whatever may be near them, is a childish fancy--like what the ancient Romans said of their _Manducus_, which was a grotesque figure of a man with an enormous mouth, and teeth proportioned thereto, which they caused to move by springs, and grind his teeth together, as if this figure had wanted to eat. They frightened children with them, and threatened them with the Manducus.[579] Some remains of this old custom may be seen in certain processions, where they carry a sort of serpent, which at intervals opens and shuts a vast jaw, armed with teeth, into which they throw cakes, as if to gorge it, or satisfy its appetite. Footnotes: [575] Mich. Rauff, alterâ Dissert. Art. lvii. pp. 98, 99, et Art. lix. p. 100. [576] De Nummis in Ore Defunctorum repertis, Art. ix. à Beyermuller, &c. [577] Richer, Senon, tom. iii. Spicileg. Ducherii, p. 392. [578] Rauff, Art. xlii. p. 43. [579] "Tandemque venit ad pulpita nostrum Exodium, cum personæ pallentis hiatum In gremio matris fastidit rusticus infans." _Juvenal_, Sat. iii. 174. CHAPTER XLVI. SINGULAR INSTANCE OF A HUNGARIAN GHOST. The most remarkable instance cited by Rauff[580] is that of one Peter Plogojovitz, who had been buried ten weeks in a village of Hungary, called Kisolova. This man appeared by night to some of the inhabitants of the village while they were asleep, and grasped their throat so tightly that in four-and-twenty hours it caused their death. Nine persons, young and old, perished thus in the course of eight days. The widow of the same Plogojovitz declared that her husband since his death had come and asked her for his shoes, which frightened her so much that she left Kisolova to retire to some other spot. From these circumstances the inhabitants of the village determined upon disinterring the body of Plogojovitz and burning it, to deliver themselves from these visitations. They applied to the emperor's officer, who commanded in the territory of Gradiska, in Hungary, and even to the curé of the same place, for permission to exhume the body of Peter Plogojovitz. The officer and the curé made much demur in granting this permission, but the peasants declared that if they were refused permission to disinter the body of this man, whom they had no doubt was a true vampire (for so they called these revived corpses), they should be obliged to forsake the village, and go where they could. The emperor's officer, who wrote this account, seeing he could hinder them neither by threats nor promises, went with the curé of Gradiska to the village of Kisolova, and having caused Peter Plogojovitz to be exhumed, they found that his body exhaled no bad smell; that he looked as when alive, except the tip of the nose; that his hair and beard had grown, and instead of his nails, which had fallen off, new ones had come; that under his upper skin, which appeared whitish, there appeared a new one, which looked healthy, and of a natural color; his feet and hands were as whole as could be desired in a living man. They remarked also in his mouth some fresh blood, which these people believed that this vampire had sucked from the men whose death he had occasioned. The emperor's officer and the curé having diligently examined all these things, and the people who were present feeling their indignation awakened anew, and being more fully persuaded that he was the true cause of the death of their compatriots, ran directly for a sharp-pointed stake, which they thrust into his breast, whence there issued a quantity of fresh and crimson blood, and also from the nose and mouth; something also proceeded from that part of his body which decency does not allow us to mention. After this the peasants placed the body on a pile of wood and saw it reduced to ashes. M. Rauff,[581] from whom we have these particulars, cites several authors who have written on the same subject, and have related instances of dead people who have eaten in their tombs. He cites particularly Gabril Rzaczincki in his history of the Natural Curiosities of the Kingdom of Poland, printed at Sandomic in 1721. Footnotes: [580] Rauff, Art. xii. p. 15. [581] Rauff, Art. xxi. p. 14. CHAPTER XLVII. REASONINGS ON THIS MATTER. Those authors have reasoned a great deal on these events. 1. Some have believed them to be miraculous. 2. Others have looked upon them simply as the effect of a heated imagination, or a sort of prepossession. 3. Others again have believed that there was nothing in all that but what was very simple and very natural, these persons not being dead, and acting naturally upon other bodies. 4. Others have asserted[582] that it was the work of the devil himself; amongst these, some have advanced the opinion that there were certain benign demons, differing from those who are malevolent and hostile to mankind, to which (benign demons) they have attributed playful and harmless operations, in contradistinction to those bad demons who inspire the minds of men with crime and sin, ill use them, kill them, and occasion them an infinity of evils. But what greater evils can one have to fear from veritable demons and the most malignant spirits, than those which the ghouls of Hungary cause the persons whose blood they suck, and thus cause to die? 5. Others will have it that it is not the dead who eat their own flesh or clothes, but serpents, rats, moles, ferrets, or other voracious animals, or even what the peasants call _striges_,[583] which are birds that devour animals and men, and suck their blood. Some have said that these instances are principally remarked in women, and, above all, in a time of pestilence; but there are instances of ghouls of both sexes, and principally of men; although those who die of plague, poison, hydrophobia, drunkenness, and any epidemical malady, are more apt to return, apparently because their blood coagulates with more difficulty; and sometimes some are buried who are not quite dead, on account of the danger there is in leaving them long without sepulture, from fear of the infection they would cause. It is added that these vampires are known only to certain countries, as Hungary, Moravia, and Silesia, where those maladies are more common, and where the people, being badly fed, are subject to certain disorders caused or occasioned by the climate and the food, and augmented by prejudice, fancy, and fright, capable of producing or of increasing the most dangerous maladies, as daily experience proves too well. As to what some have asserted that the dead have been heard to eat and chew like pigs in their graves, it is manifestly fabulous, and such an idea can have its foundation only in ridiculous prepossessions of the mind. Footnotes: [582] Rudiga, Physio. Dur. lib. i. c. 4. Theophrast. Paracels. Georg. Agricola, de Anim. Subterran. p. 76. [583] Ovid, lib. vi. Vide Debrio, Disquisit. Magic. lib. i. p. 6, and lib. iii. p. 355. CHAPTER XLVIII. ARE THE VAMPIRES OR REVENANS REALLY DEAD? The opinion of those who hold that all that is related of vampires is the effect of imagination, fascination, or of that disorder which the Greeks term _phrenesis_ or _coribantism_, and who pretend by that means to explain all the phenomena of vampirism, will never persuade us that these maladies of the brain can produce such real effects as those we have just recounted. It is impossible that on a sudden, several persons should believe they see a thing which is not there, and that they should die in so short a time of a disorder purely imaginary. And who has revealed to them that such a vampire is undecayed in his grave, that he is full of blood, that he in some measure lives there after his death? Is there not to be found in the nation one sensible man who is exempt from this fancy, or who has soared above the effects of this fascination, these sympathies and antipathies--this natural magic? And besides, who can explain to us clearly and distinctly what these grand terms signify, and the manner of these operations so occult and so mysterious? It is trying to explain a thing which is obscure and doubtful, by another still more uncertain and incomprehensible. If these persons believe nothing of all that is related of the apparition, the return, and the actions of vampires, they lose their time very uselessly in proposing systems and forming arguments to explain what exists only in the imagination of certain prejudiced persons struck with an idea; but, if all that is related, or at least a part, is true, these systems and these arguments will not easily satisfy those minds which desire proofs far more weighty than those. Let us see, then, if the system which asserts that these vampires are not really dead is well founded. It is certain that death consists in the separation of the soul from the body, and that neither the one nor the other perishes, nor is annihilated by death; that the soul is immortal, and that the body destitute of its soul, still remains entire, and becomes only in part corrupt, sometimes in a few days, and sometimes in a longer space of time; sometimes even it remains uncorrupted during many years or even ages, either by reason of a good constitution, as in Hector[584] and Alexander the Great, whose bodies remained several days undecayed;[585] or by means of the art of embalming; or lastly, owing to the nature of the earth in which they are interred, which has the power of drying up the radical humidity and the principles of corruption. I do not stop to prove all these things, which besides are very well known. Sometimes the body, without being dead and forsaken by its reasonable soul, remains as if dead and motionless, or at least with so slow a motion and such feeble respiration, that it is almost imperceptible, as it happens in faintings, swoons, in certain disorders very common amongst women, in trances--as we remarked in the case of Pretextat, priest of Calame; we have also reported more than one instance, considered dead and buried as such; I may add that of the Abbé Salin, prior of St. Christopher,[586] who being in his coffin, and about to be interred, was resuscitated by some of his friends, who made him swallow a glass of champagne. Several instances of the same kind are related.[587] In the "Causes Célèbres," they make mention of a girl who became _enceinte_ during a long swoon; we have already noticed this. Pliny cites[588] a great number of instances of persons who have been thought dead, and who have come to life again, and lived for a long time. He mentions a young man, who having fallen asleep in a cavern, remained there forty years without waking. Our historians[589] speak of the seven sleepers, who slept for 150 years, from the year of Christ 253 to 403. It is said that the philosopher Epimenides slept in a cavern during fifty-seven years, or according to others, forty-seven, or only forty years; for the ancients do not agree concerning the number of years; they even affirm, that this philosopher had the power to detach his soul from his body, and recall it when he pleased. The same thing is related of Aristæus of Proconnesus. I am willing to allow that that is fabulous; but we cannot gainsay the truth of several other stories of persons who have come to life again, after having appeared dead for three, four, five, six, and seven days. Pliny acknowledges that there are several instances of dead people who have appeared after they were interred; but he will not mention them more particularly, because, he says, he relates only natural things and not prodigies--"Post sepulturam quoque visorum exempla sunt, nisi quod naturæ opera non prodigia sectamur." We believe that Enoch and Elijah are still living. Several have thought that St. John the Evangelist was not dead,[590] but that he is still alive in his tomb. Plato and St. Clement of Alexandria[591] relate, that the son of Zoroaster was resuscitated twelve days after his (supposed) death, and when his body had been laid upon the funeral pyre. Phlegon says,[592] that a Syrian soldier in the army of Antiochus, after having been killed at Thermopylæ, appeared in open day in the Roman camp, and spoke to several. And Plutarch relates,[593] that a man named Thespesius, who had fallen from the roof of a house, came to himself the third day after he died (or seemed to die) of his fall. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians,[594] seems to suppose that sometimes the soul transported itself without the body, to repair to the spot where it is in mind or thought; for instance, he says, that he has been transported to the third heaven; but he adds that he knows not whether in the body, or only in spirit--"Sive in corpora, sive extra corpus, nescio, Deus scit." We have already cited St. Augustine,[595] who mentions a priest of Calamus, named Pretextat, who, at the sound of the voices of some persons who lamented their sins, fell into such an ecstasy of delight, that he no longer breathed or felt anything; and they might have cut and burnt his flesh without his perceiving it; his soul was absent, or really so occupied with these lamentations, that he was insensible to pain. In swoons and syncope, the soul no longer performs her ordinary functions. She is nevertheless in the body, and continues to animate it, but she perceives not her own action. A curé of the Diocese of Constance, named Bayer, writes me word that in 1728, having been appointed to the curé of Rutheim, he was disturbed a month afterwards by a spectre, or an evil genius, in the form of a peasant, badly made, and ill-dressed, very ill-looking, and stinking insupportably, who came and knocked at the door in an insolent manner, and having entered his study told him that he had been sent by an official of the Prince of Constance, his bishop, upon a certain commission which was found to be absolutely false. He then asked for something to eat, and they placed before him meat, bread, and wine. He took up the meat with both hands, and devoured it bones and all, saying, "See how I eat both flesh and bone--do the same." Then he took up the wine-cup, and swallowed it at a draught, asking for another, which he drank off in the same fashion. After that he withdrew, without bidding the curé good-bye; and the servant who showed him to the door having asked his name, he replied, "I was born at Rutsingen, and my name is George Raulin," which was false. As he was going down stairs he said to the curé in German, in a menacing tone, "I will show you who I am." He passed all the rest of the day in the village, showing himself to everybody. Towards midnight he returned to the curé's door, crying out three times in a terrible voice, "Monsieur Bayer!" and adding, "I will let you know who I am." In fact, during three years he returned every day towards four o'clock in the afternoon, and every night till dawn of day. He appeared in different forms, sometimes like a water-dog, sometimes as a lion, or some other terrible animal; sometimes in the shape of a man, or a girl, when the curé was at table, or in bed, enticing him to lasciviousness. Sometimes he made an uproar in the house, like a cooper putting hoops on his casks; then again you might have thought he wanted to throw the house down by the noise he made in it. To have witnesses to all this, the curé often sent for the beadle and other personages of the village to bear testimony to it. The spectre emitted, wherever he showed himself, an insupportable stench. At last the curé had recourse to exorcisms, but they produced no effect. And as they despaired almost of being delivered from these vexations, he was advised, at the end of the third year, to provide himself with a holy branch on Palm Sunday, and also with a sword sprinkled with holy water, and to make use of it against the spectre. He did so once or twice, and from that time he was no more molested. This is attested by a Capuchin monk, witness of the greater part of these things, the 29th of August, 1749. I will not guarantee the truth of all these circumstances; the judicious reader will make what induction he pleases from them. If they are true, here is a real ghost, who eats, drinks, and speaks, and gives tokens of his presence for three whole years, without any appearance of religion. Here follows another instance of a ghost who manifested himself by actions alone. They write me word from Constance, the 8th of August, 1748, that towards the end of the year 1746 sighs were heard, which seemed to proceed from the corner of the printing-office of the Sieur Lahart, one of the common council men of the city of Constance. The printers only laughed at it at first, but in the following year, 1747, in the beginning of January, they heard more noise than before. There was a hard knocking near the same corner whence they had at first heard some sighs; things went so far that the printers received slaps, and their hats were thrown on the ground. They had recourse to the Capuchins, who came with the books proper for exorcising the spirit. The exorcism completed they returned home, and the noise ceased for three days. At the end of that time the noise recommenced more violently than before; the spirit threw the characters for printing, whether letters or figures, against the windows. They sent out of the city for a famous exorcist, who exorcised the spirit for a week. One day the spirit boxed the ears of a lad; and again the letters, &c., were thrown against the window-panes. The foreign exorcist, not having been able to effect anything by his exorcisms, returned to his own home. The spirit went on as usual, giving slaps in the face to one, and throwing stones and other things at another, so that the compositors were obliged to leave that corner of the printing-office and place themselves in the middle of the room, but they were not the quieter for that. They then sent for other exorcists, one of whom had a particle of the true cross, which he placed upon the table. The spirit did not, however, cease disturbing as usual the workmen belonging to the printing-office; and the Capuchin brother who accompanied the exorcist received such buffets that they were both obliged to withdraw to their convent. Then came others, who, having mixed a quantity of sand and ashes in a bucket of water, blessed the water, and sprinkled with it every part of the printing-office. They also scattered the sand and ashes all over the room upon the paved floor; and being provided with swords, the whole party began to strike at random right and left in every part of the room, to see if they could hit the ghost, and to observe if he left any foot-marks upon the sand or ashes which covered the floor. They perceived at last that he had perched himself on the top of the stove or furnace, and they remarked on the angles of it marks of his feet and hands impressed on the sand and ashes they had blessed. They succeeded in ousting him from there, and they very soon perceived that he had slid under the table, and left marks of his hands and feet on the pavement. The dust raised by all this movement in the office caused them to disperse, and they discontinued the pursuit. But the principal exorcist having taken out a screw from the angle where they had first heard the noise, found in a hole in the wall some feathers, three bones wrapped up in a dirty piece of linen, some bits of glass, and a hair-pin, or bodkin. He blessed a fire which they lighted, and had all that thrown into it. But this monk had hardly reached his convent when one of the printers came to tell him that the bodkin had come out of the flames three times of itself, and that a boy who was holding a pair of tongs, and who put this bodkin in the fire again, had been violently struck in the face. The rest of the things which had been found having been brought to the Capuchin convent, they were burnt without further resistance; but the lad who had carried them there saw a naked woman in the public market-place, and that and the following days groans were heard in the market-place of Constance. Some days after this the printer's house was again infested in this manner, the ghost giving slaps, throwing stones, and molesting the domestics in divers ways. The Sieur Lahart, the master of the house, received a great wound in his head, two boys who slept in the same bed were thrown on the ground, so that the house was entirely forsaken during the night. One Sunday a servant girl carrying away some linen from the house had stones thrown at her, and another time two boys were thrown down from a ladder. There was in the city of Constance an executioner who passed for a sorcerer. The monk who writes to me suspected him of having some part in this game; he began to exhort those who sat up with him in the house, to put their confidence in God, and to be strong in faith. He gave them to understand that the executioner was likely to be of the party. They passed the night thus in the house, and about ten o'clock in the evening, one of the companions of the exorcist threw himself at his feet in tears, and revealed to him, that that same night he and one of his companions had been sent to consult the executioner in Turgau, and that by order of the Sieur Lahart, printer, in whose house all this took place. This avowal strangely surprised the good father, and he declared that he would not continue to exorcise, if they did not assure him that they had not spoken to the executioners to put an end to the haunting. They protested that they had not spoken to them at all. The Capuchin father had everything picked up that was found about the house, wrapped up in packets, and had them carried to his convent. The following night, two domestics tried to pass the night in the house, but they were thrown out of their beds, and constrained to go and sleep elsewhere. After this, they sent for a peasant of the village of Annanstorf, who was considered a good exorcist. He passed the night in the haunted house, drinking, singing, and shouting. He received slaps and blows from a stick, and was obliged to own that he could not prevail against the spirit. The widow of an executioner presented herself then to perform the exorcisms; she began by using fumigations in all parts of the dwelling, to drive away the evil spirits. But before she had finished these fumigations, seeing that the master was struck in the face and on his body by the spirit, she ran away from the house, without asking for her pay. They next called in the Curé of Valburg, who passed for a clever exorcist. He came with four other secular curés, and continued the exorcisms for three days, without any success. He withdrew to his parish, imputing the inutility of his prayers to the want of faith of those who were present. During this time, one of the four priests was struck with a knife, then with a fork, but he was not hurt. The son of Sieur Lahart, master of the dwelling, received upon his jaw a blow from a pascal taper, which did him no harm. All that being of no service, they sent for the executioners of the neighborhood. Two of the persons who went to fetch them were well thrashed and pelted with stones. Another had his thigh so tightly pressed that he felt the pain for a long time. The executioners carefully collected all the packets they found wrapped up about the house, and put others in their room; but the spirit took them up and threw them into the market-place. After this, the executioners persuaded the Sieur Lahart that he might boldly return with his people to the house; he did so, but the first night, when they were at supper, one of his workmen named Solomon was wounded on the foot, and then followed a great effusion of blood. They then sent again for the executioner, who appeared much surprised that the house was not yet entirely freed, but at that moment he was himself attacked by a shower of stones, boxes on the ears, and other blows, which constrained him to run away quickly. Some heretics in the neighborhood, being informed of all these things, came one day to the bookseller's shop, and upon attempting to read in a Catholic Bible which was there, were well boxed and beaten; but having taken up a Calvinist Bible, they received no harm. Two men of Constance having entered the bookseller's shop from sheer curiosity, one of them was immediately thrown down upon the ground, and the other ran away as fast as he could. Another person, who had come in the same way from curiosity, was punished for his presumption, by having a quantity of water thrown upon him. A young girl of Ausburg, a relation of the Sieur Lahart, printer, was chased away with violent blows, and pursued even to the neighboring house, where she entered. At last the hauntings ceased, on the 8th of February. On that day the spectre opened the shop door, went in, deranged a few articles, went out, shut the door, and from that time nothing more was seen or heard of it. Footnotes: [584] Homer de Hectore, Iliad XXIV. 411. [585] Plutarch de Alexandro in ejus Vita. [586] About the year 1680; he died after the year 1694. [587] Causes Célèbres, tom. viii. p. 585. [588] Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. vii. c. 52. [589] St. Gregor. Turon. de Gloria Martyr. c. 95. [590] I have touched upon this matter in a particular Dissertation at the Head of the Gospel of St. John. [591] Plato, de Republ. lib. x.; Clemens Alexandr. lib. v. Stromat. [592] Phleg. de Mirabilis, c. 3. [593] Plutarch, de Serâ Numinis Vindicta. [594] 1 Cor. xiii. 2. [595] Aug. lib. xiv. de Civit. Dei, c. 24. CHAPTER XLIX. INSTANCE OF A MAN NAMED CURMA WHO WAS SENT BACK INTO THE WORLD. St. Augustine relates on this subject,[596] that a countryman named Curma, who held a small place in the village of Tullia, near Hippoma, having fallen sick, remained for some days senseless and speechless, having just respiration enough left to prevent their burying him. At the end of several days he began to open his eyes, and sent to ask what they were about in the house of another peasant of the same place, and like himself named Curma. They brought him back word, that he had just expired at the very moment that he himself had recovered and was resuscitated from his deep slumber. Then he began to talk, and related what he had seen and heard; that it was not Curma the _curial_,[597] but Curma the blacksmith, who ought to have been brought; he added, that among those whom he had seen treated in different ways, he had recognized some of his deceased acquaintance, and other ecclesiastics, who were still alive, who had advised him to come to Hippoma, and be baptized by the Bishop Augustine; that according to their advice he had received baptism in his vision; that afterwards he had been introduced into Paradise, but that he had not remained there long, and that they had told him that if he wished to dwell there, he must be baptized. He replied, "I am so;" but they told him, that he had been so only in a vision, and that he must go to Hippoma to receive that sacrament in reality. He came there as soon as he was cured, and received the rite of baptism with the other catechumens. St. Augustine was not informed of this adventure till about two years afterwards. He sent for Curma, and learnt from his own lips what I have just related. Now it is certain that Curma saw nothing with his bodily eyes of all that had been represented to him in his vision; neither the town of Hippoma, nor Bishop Augustine, nor the ecclesiastics who counseled him to be baptized, nor the persons living and deceased whom he saw and recognized. We may believe, then, that these things are effects of the power of God, who makes use of the ministry of angels to warn, console, or alarm mortals, according as his judgment sees best. St. Augustine inquires afterwards if the dead have any knowledge of what is passing in this world? He doubts the fact, and shows that at least they have no knowledge of it by ordinary and natural means. He remarks, that it is said God took Josiah, for instance, from this world,[598] that he might now witness the evil which was to befall his nation; and we say every day, Such-a-one is happy to have left the world, and so escaped feeling the miseries which have happened to his family or his country. But if the dead know not what is passing in this world, how can they be troubled about their bodies being interred or not? How do the saints hear our prayers? and why do we ask them for their intercession? It is then true that the dead can learn what is passing on the earth, either by the agency of angels, or by that of the dead who arrive in the other world, or by the revelation of the Spirit of God, who discovers to them what he judges proper, and what it is expedient that they should learn. God may also sometimes send men who have long been dead to living men, as he permitted Moses and Elias to appear at the Transfiguration of the Lord, and as an infinite number of the saints have appeared to the living. The invocation of saints has always been taught and practised in the Church; whence we may infer that they hear our prayers, are moved by our wants, and can help us by their intercession. But the way in which all that is done is not distinctly known; neither reason nor revelation furnishes us with anything certain, as to the means it pleases God to make use of to reveal our wants to them. Lucian, in his dialogue entitled _Philopseudes_, or the "Lover of Falsehood," relates[599] something similar. A man named Eucratés, having been taken down to hell, was presented to Pluto, who was angry with him who presented him, saying--"That man has not yet completed his course; his turn has not yet come. Bring hither Demilius, for the thread of his life is finished." Then they sent Eucratés back to this world, where he announced that Demilius would die soon. Demilius lived near him, and was already a little ill. But a moment after they heard the noise of those who were bewailing his death. Lucian makes a jest of all that was said on this subject, but he owns that it was the common opinion in his time. He says in the same part of his work, that a man has been seen to come to life again after having been looked upon as dead during twenty days. The story of Curma which we have just told, reminds me of another very like it, related by Plutarch in his Book on the Soul, of a certain man named Enarchus,[600] who, being dead, came to life again soon after, and related that the demons who had taken away his soul were severely reprimanded by their chief, who told them that they had made a mistake, and that it was Nicander, and not Enarchus whom they ought to bring. He sent them for Nicander, who was directly seized with a fever, and died during the day. Plutarch heard this from Enarchus himself, who to confirm what he had asserted said to him--"You will get well certainly, and that very soon, of the illness which has attacked you." St. Gregory the Great relates[601] something very similar to what we have just mentioned. An illustrious man of rank named Stephen well known to St. Gregory and Peter his interlocutor, was accustomed to relate to him, that going to Constantinople on business he died there; and as the doctor who was to embalm him was not in town that day, they were obliged to leave the body unburied that night. During this interval Stephen was led before the judge who presided in hell, where he saw many things which he had heard of, but did not believe. When they brought him to the judge, the latter refused to receive him, saying, "It is not that man whom I commanded you to bring here, but Stephen the blacksmith." In consequence of this order the soul of the dead man was directly brought back to his body, and at the same instant Stephen the blacksmith expired; which confirmed all that the former had said of the other life. The plague ravaging the city of Rome in the time that Narses was governor of Italy, a young Livonian, a shepherd by profession, and of a good and quiet disposition, was taken ill with the plague in the house of the advocate Valerian, his master. Just when they thought him all but dead, he suddenly came to himself, and related to them that he had been transported to heaven, where he had learnt the names of those who were to die of the plague in his master's house; having named them to him, he predicted to Valerian that he should survive him; and to convince him that he was saying the truth, he let him see that he had acquired by infusion the knowledge of several different languages; in effect he who had never known how to speak any but the Italian tongue, spoke Greek to his master, and other languages to those who knew them. After having lived in this state for two days, he had fits of madness, and having laid hold of his hands with his teeth, he died a second time, and was followed by those whom he had named. His master, who survived, fully justified his prediction. Men and women who fall into trances remain sometimes for several days without food, respiration, or pulsation of the heart, as if they were dead. Thauler, a famous contemplative (philosopher) maintains that a man may remain entranced during a week, a month, or even a year. We have seen an abbess, who when in a trance, into which she often fell, lost the use of her natural functions, and passed thirty days in that state without taking any nourishment, and without sensation. Instances of these trances are not rare in the lives of the saints, though they are not all of the same kind, or duration. Women in hysterical fits remain likewise many days as if dead, speechless, inert, pulseless. Galen mentions a woman who was six days in this state.[602] Some of them pass ten whole days motionless, senseless, without respiration and without food. Some persons who have seemed dead and motionless, had however the sense of hearing very strong, heard all that was said about themselves, made efforts to speak and show that they were not dead, but who could neither speak, nor give any signs of life.[603] I might here add an infinity of trances of saintly personages of both sexes, who in their delight in God, in prayer remained motionless, without sensation, almost breathless, and who felt nothing of what was done to them, or around them. Footnotes: [596] August. lib. de Curâ pro Mortuis, c. xii. p. 524. [597] _Curialis_--this word signifies a small employment in a village. [598] IV. Reg. 18, et. seq. [599] Lucian, in Phliopseud. p. 830. [600] Plutarch, de Animâ, apud Eusebius de Præp. Evang. lib. ii. c. 18. [601] Gregor. Dial. lib. iv. c. 36. [602] See the treatise on the Uncertainty of the Signs of Death, tom. ii. pp. 404, 407, _et seq._ [603] Ibid. lib. ii. pp. 504, 505, 506, 514. CHAPTER L. INSTANCES OF PERSONS WHO COULD FALL INTO A TRANCE WHEN THEY PLEASED, AND REMAINED PERFECTLY SENSELESS. Jerome Cardan says[604] that he fell into a trance when he liked; he owns that he does not know if, like the priest Pretextat, he should not feel great wounds or hurts, but he did not feel the pain of the gout, or the pulling him about. He adds, the priest of Calama heard the voices of those who spoke aloud near him, but as if from a distance. "For my part," says Cardan, "I hear the voice, though slightly, and without understanding what is said. And when I wish to entrance myself, I feel about my heart as it were a separation of the soul from the rest of my body, and that communicates as if by a little door with all the machine, principally by the head and brain. Then I have no sensation except that of being beside myself." We may report here what is related of the Laplanders,[605] who when they wish to learn something that is passing at a distance from the spot where they are, send their demon, or their souls, by means of certain magic ceremonies, and by the sound of a drum which they beat, or upon a shield painted in a certain manner; then on a sudden the Laplander falls into a trance, and remains as if lifeless and motionless sometimes during four-and-twenty hours. But all this time some one must remain near him to prevent him from being touched, or called; even the movement of a fly would wake him, and they say he would die directly or be carried away by the demon. We have already mentioned this subject in the Dissertation on Apparitions. We have also remarked that serpents, worms, flies, snails, marmots, sloths, &c., remain asleep during the winter, and in blocks of stone have been found toads, snakes, and oysters alive, which had been enclosed there for many years, and perhaps for more than a century. Cardinal de Retz relates in his Memoirs,[606] that being at Minorca, the governor of the island caused to be drawn up from the bottom of the sea by main force with cables, whole rocks, which on being broken with maces, enclosed living oysters, that were served up to him at table, and were found very good. On the coasts of Malta, Sardinia, Italy, &c., they find a fish called the Dactylus, or Date, or Dale, because it resembles the palm-date in form; this first insinuates itself into the stone by a hole not bigger than the hole made by a needle. When he has got in he feeds upon the stone, and grows so big that he cannot get out again, unless the stone is broken and he is extricated. Then they wash it, clean it, and dress it for the table. It has the shape of a date, or of a finger; whence its name of _Dactylus_, which in Greek signifies a finger. Again, I imagine that in many persons death is caused by the coagulation of the blood, which freezes and hardens in their veins, as it happens with those who have eaten hemlock, or who have been bitten by certain serpents; but there are others whose death is caused by too great an ebullition of blood, as in painful maladies, and in certain poisons, and even, they say, in certain kinds of plague, and when people die a violent death, or have been drowned. The first mentioned cannot return to life without an evident miracle; for that purpose the fluidity of the blood must be re-established, and the peristaltic motion must be restored to the heart. But in the second kind of death, people can sometimes be restored without a miracle, by taking away the obstacle which retards or suspends the palpitation of the heart, as we see in time-pieces, the action of which is restored by taking away anything foreign to the mechanism, as a hair, a bit of thread, an atom, some almost imperceptible body which stops them. Footnotes: [604] Hieron. Cardanus, lib. viii. de Varietate Verum, c. 34. [605] Olaus Magnus, lib. iii. Epitom. Hist. Septent. Perecer de Variis Divinat. Generib. p. 282. [606] Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, tom. iii. lib. iv. p. 297. CHAPTER LI. APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING INSTANCES TO VAMPIRES. Supposing these facts, which I believe to be incontestably true, may we not imagine that the vampires of Hungary, Silesia, and Moldavia, are some of those men who have died of maladies which heat the blood, and who have retained some remains of life in their graves, much like those animals which we have mentioned, and those birds which plunge themselves during the winter in the lakes and marshes of Poland, and in the northern countries? They are without respiration or motion, but still not destitute of vitality. They resume their motion and activity when, on the return of spring, the sun warms the waters, or when they are brought near a moderate fire, or laid in a room of temperate heat; then they are seen to revive, and perform their ordinary functions, which had been suspended by the cold. Thus, vampires in their graves returned to life after a certain time, and their soul does not forsake them absolutely until after the entire dissolution of their body, and when the organs of life, being absolutely broken, corrupted, and deranged, they can no longer by their agency perform any vital functions. Whence it happens, that the people of those countries impale them, cut off their heads, burn them, to deprive their spirit of all hope of animating them again, and of making use of them to molest the living. Pliny,[607] mentioning the soul of Hermotimes, of Lazomene, which absented itself from his body, and recounted various things that had been done afar off, which the spirit said it had seen, and which, in fact, could only be known to a person who had been present at them, says that the enemies of Hermotimes, named Cantandes, burned that body, which gave hardly any sign of life, and thus deprived the soul of the means of returning to lodge in its envelop; "donec cremato corpore interim semianimi, remeanti animæ vetut vaginam ademerint." Origen had doubtless derived from the ancients what he teaches,[608] that the souls which are of a spiritual nature take, on leaving their earthly body, another, more subtile, of a similar form to the grosser one they have just quitted, which serves them as a kind of sheath, or case, and that it is invested with this subtile body that they sometimes appear about their graves. He founds this opinion on what is said of Lazarus and the rich man in the Gospel,[609] who both of them have bodies, since they speak and see, and the wicked rich man asks for a drop of water to cool his tongue. I do not defend this reasoning of Origen; but what he says of a subtile body, which has the form of the earthly one which clothed the soul before death, quite resembles the opinion of which we spoke in Chapter IV. That bodies which have died of violent maladies, or which have been executed when full of health, or have simply swooned, should vegetate underground in their graves; that their beards, hair, and nails should grow; that they should emit blood, be supple and pliant; that they should have no bad smell, &c.--all these things do not embarrass us: the vegetation of the human body may produce all these effects. That they should even eat and devour what is about them, the madness with which a man interred alive must be transported when he awakes from his torpor, or his swoon, must naturally lead him to these violent excesses. But the grand difficulty is to explain how the vampires come out of their graves to haunt the living, and how they return to them again. For all the accounts that we see suppose the thing as certain, without informing us either of the way or the circumstances, which would, however, be the most interesting part of the narrative. How a body covered with four or five feet of earth, having no room to move about and disengage itself, wrapped up in linen, covered with pitch, can make its way out, and come back upon the earth, and there occasion such effects as are related of it; and how after that it returns to its former state, and re-enters underground, where it is found sound, whole, and full of blood, and in the same condition as a living body? Will it be said that these bodies evaporate through the ground without opening it, like the water and vapors which enter into the earth, or proceed from it, without sensibly deranging its particles? It were to be wished that the accounts which have been given us concerning the return of the vampires had been more minute in their explanations of this subject. Supposing that their bodies do not stir from their graves, that it is only their phantoms which appear to the living, what cause produces and animates these phantoms? Can it be the spirit of the defunct, which has not yet forsaken them, or some demon, which makes their apparition in a fantastic and borrowed body? And if these bodies are merely phantomic, how can they suck the blood of living people? We always find ourselves in a difficulty to know if these appearances are natural or miraculous. A sensible priest related to me, a little while ago, that, traveling in Moravia, he was invited by M. Jeanin, a canon of the cathedral at Olmutz, to accompany him to their village, called Liebava, where he had been appointed commissioner by the consistory of the bishopric, to take information concerning the fact of a certain famous vampire, which had caused much confusion in this village of Liebava some years before. The case proceeded. They heard the witnesses, they observed the usual forms of the law. The witnesses deposed that a certain notable inhabitant of Liebava had often disturbed the living in their beds at night, that he had come out of the cemetery, and had appeared in several houses three or four years ago; that his troublesome visits had ceased because a Hungarian stranger, passing through the village at the time of these reports, had boasted that he could put an end to them, and make the vampire disappear. To perform his promise, he mounted on the church steeple, and observed the moment when the vampire came out of his grave, leaving near it the linen clothes in which he had been enveloped, and then went to disturb the inhabitants of the village. The Hungarian, having seen him come out of his grave, went down quickly from the steeple, took up the linen envelops of the vampire, and carried them with him up the tower. The vampire having returned from his prowlings, cried loudly against the Hungarian, who made him a sign from the top of the tower that if he wished to have his clothes again he must fetch them; the vampire began to ascend the steeple, but the Hungarian threw him down backwards from the ladder, and cut his head off with a spade. Such was the end of this tragedy. The person who related this story to me saw nothing, neither did the noble who had been sent as commissioner; they only heard the report of the peasants of the place, people extremely ignorant, superstitious and credulous, and most exceedingly prejudiced on the subject of vampirism. But supposing that there be any reality in the fact of these apparitions of vampires, shall they be attributed to God, to angels, to the spirits of these ghosts, or to the devil? In this last case, will it be said that the devil will subtilize these bodies, and give them power to penetrate through the ground without disturbing, to glide through the cracks and joints of a door, to pass through a keyhole, to lengthen or shorten themselves, to reduce themselves to the nature of air, or water, to evaporate through the ground--in short, to put them in the same state in which we believe the bodies of the blessed will be after the resurrection, and in which was that of our Saviour after his resurrection, who showed himself only to those whom he thought proper, and who without opening the doors,[610] appeared suddenly in the midst of his disciples. But should it be allowed that the demon could reanimate these bodies, and give them the power of motion for a time, could he also lengthen, diminish, rarefy, subtilize the bodies of these ghosts, and give them the faculty of penetrating through the ground, the doors and windows? There is no appearance of his having received this power from God, and we cannot even conceive that an earthly body, material and gross, can be reduced to that state of subtility and spiritualization without destroying the configuration of its parts and spoiling the economy of its structure; which would be contrary to the intention of the demon, and render this body incapable of appearing, showing itself, acting and speaking, and, in short, of being cut to pieces and burned, as is commonly seen and practiced in Moravia, Poland, and Silesia. These difficulties exist in regard to those persons of whom we have made mention, who, being excommunicated, rose from their tombs, and left the church in sight of everybody. We must then keep silence on this article, since it has not pleased God to reveal to us either the extent of the demon's power, or the way in which these things can be done. There is even much appearance of illusion; and even if some reality were mixed up with it, we may easily console ourselves for our ignorance in that respect, since there are so many natural things which take place within us and around us, of which the cause and manner are unknown to us. Footnotes: [607] Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. vii. c. 52. [608] Orig. de Resurrect. Fragment. lib. i. p. 35. Nov. edit. Et contra Celsum, lib. vii. p. 679. [609] Luke xvi. 22, 23. [610] John xx. 26. CHAPTER LII. EXAMINATION OF THE OPINION THAT THE DEMON FASCINATES THE EYES OF THOSE TO WHOM VAMPIRES APPEAR. Those who have recourse to the fascination of the senses to explain what is related concerning the apparition of vampires, throw themselves into as great a perplexity as those who acknowledge sincerely the reality of these events; for fascination consists either in the suspension of the senses, which cannot see what is passing before their sight, like that with which the men of Sodom were struck[611] when they could not discover the door of Lot's house, though it was before their eyes; or that of the disciples at Emmaus, of whom it is said that "their eyes were holden, so that they might not recognize Jesus Christ, who was talking with them on the way, and whom they knew not again until the breaking of the bread revealed him to them;"[612]--or else it consists in an object being represented to the senses in a different form from that it wears in reality, as that of the Moabites,[613] who believed they saw the waters tinged with the blood of the Israelites, although nothing was there but the simple waters, on which the rays of the sun being reflected, gave them a reddish hue; or that of the Syrian soldiers sent to take Elisha,[614] who were led by this prophet into Samaria, without their recognising either the prophet or the city. This fascination, in what way soever it may be conceived, is certainly above the usual power known unto man, consequently man cannot naturally produce it; but is it above the natural powers of an angel or a demon? That is what is unknown to us, and obliges us to suspend our judgment on this question. There is another kind of fascination, which consists in this, that the sight of a person or a thing, the praise bestowed upon them, the envy felt towards them, produce in the object certain bad effects, against which the ancients took great care to guard themselves and their children, by making them wear round their necks preservatives, or amulets, or charms. A great number of passages on this subject might be cited from the Greek and Latin authors; and I find that at this day, in various parts of Christendom, people are persuaded of the efficacy of these fascinations. But we must own three things; first, that the effect of these pretended fascinations (or spells) is very doubtful; the second, that if it were certain, it is very difficult, not to say impossible, to explain it; and lastly, that it cannot be rationally applied to the matter of apparitions or of vampires. If the vampires or ghosts are not really resuscitated nor their bodies spiritualized and subtilized, as we believe we have proved, and if our senses are not deceived by fascination, as we have just seen it, I doubt if there be any other way to act on this question than to absolutely deny the return of these vampires, or to believe that they are only asleep or torpid; for if they truly are resuscitated, and if what is told of their return be true--if they speak, act, reason, if they suck the blood of the living, they must know what passes in the other world, and they ought to inform their relations and friends of it, and that is what they do not. On the contrary, they treat them as enemies; torment them, take away their life, suck their blood, cause them to die with lassitude. If they are predestinated and blessed, whence happens it that they disturb and torment the living, their nearest relations, their children, and all that for nothing, and simply for the sake of doing harm? If these are persons who have still something to expiate in purgatory, and who require the prayers of the living, why do they not explain their condition? If they are reprobate and condemned, what have they to do on this earth? Can we conceive that God allows them thus to come without reason or necessity and molest their families, and even cause their death? If these _revenans_ are really dead, whatever state they may be in in the other world, they play a very bad part here, and keep it up still worse. Footnotes: [611] Gen. xix. 2. [612] Luke xxiv. 16. [613] 2 Kings iii. 23. [614] 2 Kings iv. 19, 20. CHAPTER LIII. INSTANCES OF PERSONS RESUSCITATED, WHO RELATE WHAT THEY HAVE SEEN IN THE OTHER WORLD. We have just seen that the vampires never speak of the other world, nor ask for either masses or prayers, nor give any warning to the living to lead them to correct their morals, or bring them to a better life. It is surely very prejudicial to the reality of their return from the other world; but their silence on that head may favor the opinion which supposes that they are not really dead. It is true that we do not read either that Lazarus, resuscitated by Jesus Christ,[615] nor the son of the widow of Nain,[616] nor that of the woman of Shunam, brought to life by Elisha,[617] nor that Israelite who came to life by simply touching the body of the same prophet Elisha,[618] after their resurrection revealed anything to mankind of the state of souls in the other world. But we see in the Gospel[619] that the bad rich man, having begged of Abraham to permit him to send some one to this world to warn his brethren to lead a better life, and take care not to fall into the unhappy condition in which he found himself, was answered, "They have the law and the prophets, they can listen to them and follow their instructions." And as the rich man persisted, saying--"If some one went to them from the other world, they would be more impressed," Abraham replied, "If they will not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they attend the more though one should go to them from the dead." The dead man resuscitated by St. Stanislaus replied in the same manner to those who asked him to give them news of the other world--"You have the law, the prophets, and the Gospel--hear them!" The deceased Pagans who have returned to life, and some Christians who have likewise returned to the world by a kind of resurrection, and who have seen what passed beyond the bounds of this world, have not kept silence on the subject. They have related at length what they saw and heard on leaving their bodies. We have already touched upon the story of a man named Eros, of the country of Pamphilia,[620] who, having been wounded in battle, was found ten days after amongst the dead. They carried him senseless and motionless into the house. Two days afterwards, when they were about to place him on the funeral pile to burn his body, he revived, began to speak, and to relate in what manner people were lodged after their death, and how the good were rewarded and the wicked punished and tormented. He said that his soul, being separated from his body, went with a large company to a very agreeable place, where they saw as it were two great openings, which gave entrance to those who came from earth, and two others to go to heaven. He saw at this same place judges who examined those arrived from this world, and sent up to the right those who had lived well, and sent down to the left those who had been guilty of crimes. Each of them bore upon his back a label on which was written what he had done well or ill, the reason of his condemnation or his absolution. When it came to the turn of Eros, the judges told him that he must return to earth, to announce to men what passed in the other world, and that he must well observe everything, in order to be able to render a faithful account to the living. Thus he witnessed the miserable state of the wicked, which was to last a thousand years, and the delights enjoyed by the just; that both the good and the bad received the reward or the punishment of their good or bad deeds, ten times greater than the measure of their crimes or of all their virtues. He remarked amongst other things, that the judges inquired where was a certain man named Andæus, celebrated in all Pamphylia for his crimes and tyranny. They were answered that he was not yet come, and that he would not be there; in fact, having presented himself with much trouble, and by making great efforts, at the grand opening before mentioned, he was repulsed and sent back to go below with other scoundrels like himself, whom they tortured in a thousand different ways, and who were always violently repulsed, whenever they tried to reascend. He saw, moreover, the three Fates, daughters of Necessity or Destiny. These are, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos. Lachesis announced the past, Clotho the present, and Atropos the future. The souls were obliged to appear before these three goddesses. Lachesis cast the lots upwards, and every soul laid hold of the one which it could reach; which, however, did not prevent them still from sometimes missing the kind of life which was most conformable to justice and reason. Eros added that he had remarked some of the souls who sought to enter into animals; for instance, Orpheus, from hatred to the female sex, who had killed him (by tearing him to pieces), entered into a swan, and Thamaris into a nightingale. Ajax, the son of Telamon, chose the body of a lion, from detestation of the injustice of the Greeks, who had refused to let him have the arms of Hector, which he asserted were his due. Agamemnon, grieved at the crosses he had endured in this life, chose the form of the eagle. Atalanta chose the life of the athletics, delighted with the honors heaped upon them. Thersites, the ugliest of mortals, chose the form of an ape. Ulysses, weary of the miseries he had suffered upon earth, asked to live quietly as a private man. He had some trouble to find a lot for that kind of life; but he found it at last thrown down on the ground and neglected, and he joyfully snatched it up. Eros affirmed also that the souls of some animals entered into the bodies of men; and by the contrary rule, the souls of the wicked took possession of savage and cruel beasts, and the souls of just men of those animals which are gentle, tame, and domestic. After these various metempsychoses, Lachesis gave to each his guardian or defender, who guided and guarded him during the course of his life. Eros was then led to the river of oblivion (Lethe), which takes away all memory of the past, but he was prevented from drinking of its water. Lastly, he said he could not tell how he came back to life. Plato, after having related this fable, as he terms it, or this apologue, concludes from it that the soul is immortal, and that to gain a blessed life we must live uprightly, which will lead us to heaven, where we shall enjoy that beatitude of a thousand years which is promised us. We see by this, 1. That a man may live a good while without eating or breathing, or giving any sign or life. 2. That the Greeks believed in the metempsychosis, in a state of beatitude for the just, and pains of a thousand years duration for the wicked. 3. That destiny does not hinder a man from doing either good or evil. 4. That he had a genius, or an angel, who guided and protected him. They believed in judgment after death, and that the souls of the just were received into what they called the Elysian Fields. Footnotes: [615] John xi. 14. [616] Luke vii. 11, 12. [617] 2 Kings iv. 25. [618] 2 Kings xiii. 21. [619] Luke xvi. 24. [620] Plato, lib. x. de Rep. p. 614. CHAPTER LIV. THE TRADITIONS OF THE PAGANS CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE ARE DERIVED FROM THE HEBREWS AND EGYPTIANS. All these traditions are clearly to be found in Homer, Virgil, and other Greek and Latin authors; they were doubtless originally derived from the Hebrews, or rather the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks took their religion, which they arranged to their own taste. The Hebrews speak of the _Rephaims_,[621] of the impious giants "who groan under the waters." Solomon says[622] that the wicked shall go down to the abyss, or hell, with the Rephaims. Isaiah, describing the arrival of the King of Babylon in hell, says[623] that "the giants have raised themselves up to meet him with honor, and have said unto him, thou has been pierced with wounds even as we are; thy pride has been precipitated into hell. Thy bed shall be of rottenness, and thy covering of worms." Ezekiel describes[624] in the same manner the descent of the King of Assyria into hell--"In the day that Ahasuerus went down into hell, I commanded a general mourning; for him I closed up the abyss, and arrested the course of the waters. You are at last brought down to the bottom of the earth with the trees of Eden; you will rest there with all those who have been killed by the sword; there is Pharaoh with all his host," &c. In the Gospel,[625] there is a great gulf between the bosom of Abraham and the abode of the bad rich man, and of those who resemble him. The Egyptians called _Amenthés_, that is to say, "he who receives and gives," what the Greeks named Hades, or hell, or the kingdom of Hades, or Pluto. They believed that Amenthés received the souls of men when they died, and restored them to them when they returned to the world; that when a man died, his soul passed into the body of some other animal by metempsychosis; first of all into a terrestrial animal, then into one that was aquatic, afterwards into the body of a bird, and lastly, after having animated all sorts of animals, he returned at the end of three thousand years to the body of a man. It is from the Egyptians that Orpheus, Homer, and the other Greeks derived the idea of the immortality of the soul, as well as the cave of the Nymphs described by Homer, who says there are two gates, the one to the north, through which the soul enters the cavern, and the other to the south, by which they leave the nymphic abode. A certain Thespisius, a native of Soloe in Cilicia, well known to Plutarch,[626] having passed a great part of his life in debauchery, and ruined himself entirely, in order to gain a livelihood lent himself to everything that was bad, and contrived to amass money. Having sent to consult the oracle of Amphilochus, he received for answer, that his affairs would go on better after his death. A short time after, he fell from the top of his house, broke his neck, and died. Three days after, when they were about to perform the funeral obsequies, he came to life again, and changed his way of life so greatly that there was not in Cilicia a worthier or more pious man than himself. As they asked him the reason of such a change, he said that at the moment of his fall he felt the same as a pilot who is thrown back from the top of the helm into the sea; after which, his soul was sensible of being raised as high as the stars, of which he admired the immense size and admirable lustre; that the souls once out of the body rise into the air, and are enclosed in a kind of globe, or inflamed vortex, whence having escaped, some rise on high with incredible rapidity, while others whirl about the air, and are thrown in divers directions, sometimes up and sometimes down. The greater part appeared to him very much perplexed, and uttered groans and frightful wailings; others, but in a less number, rose and rejoiced with their fellows. At last he learnt that Adrastia, the daughter of Jupiter and Necessity, left nothing unpunished, and that she treated every one according to their merit. He then details all he saw at full length, and relates the various punishments with which the bad are tormented in the next world. He adds that a man of his acquaintance said to him, "You are not dead, but by God's permission your soul is come into this place, and has left your body with all its faculties." At last he was sent back into his body as through a channel, and urged on by an impetuous breeze. We may make two reflections on this recital; the first on this soul, which quits its body for three days and then comes back to reanimate it; the second, on the certainty of the oracle, which promised Thespisius a happier life when he should be dead. In the Sicilian war[627] between Cæsar and Pompey, Gabienus, commander of Cæsar's fleet, having been taken, was beheaded by order of Pompey. He remained all day on the sea-shore, his head only held on to his body by a fillet. Towards evening he begged that Pompey or some of his people might come to him, because he came from the shades, and he had things of consequence to impart to him. Pompey sent to him several of his friends, to whom Gabienus declared that the gods of the infernal regions favored the cause and the party of Pompey, and that he would succeed according to his wishes; that he was ordered to announce this, "and as a proof of the truth of what I say, I must die directly," which happened. But we do not see that Pompey's party succeeded; we know, on the contrary, that it fell, and Cæsar was victorious. But the God of the infernal regions, that is to say, the devil, found it very good for him, since it sent him so many unhappy victims of revenge and ambition.[628] Footnotes: [621] Job xxvi. 5. [622] Prov. ix. 18. [623] Isa. xix. 9, _et seq._ [624] Ezek. xxxi. 15. [625] Luke xvi. 26. [626] Plutarch, de his qui misero à Numine puniuntur. [627] Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. vii. c. 52. [628] This story is related before, and is here related on account of the bearing it has on the subject of this chapter. CHAPTER LV. INSTANCES OF CHRISTIANS WHO HAVE BEEN RESUSCITATED AND SENT BACK TO THE WORLD--VISION OF VETINUS, A MONK OF AUGIA. We read in an old work, written in the time of St. Augustine,[629] that a man having been crushed by a wall which fell upon him, his wife ran to the church to invoke St. Stephen whilst they were preparing to bury the man who was supposed to be dead. Suddenly they saw him open his eyes, and move his body; and after a time he sat up, and related that his soul, having quitted his body, had met a crowd of other souls of dead persons, some of whom he knew, and others he did not; that a young man, in a deacon's habit, having entered the room where he was, put aside all those souls, and said to them three times, "Return what you have received." He understood at last that he meant the creed, which he recited instantly; and also the Lord's Prayer; then the deacon (St. Stephen) made the sign of the cross upon his heart, and told him to rise in perfect health. A young man,[630] a catechumen, who had been dead for three days, and was brought back to life by the prayers of St. Martin, related that after his death he had been presented before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge, who had condemned him, and sent him with a crowd of others into a dark place; and then two angels, having represented to the Judge that he was a man for whom St. Martin had interceded, the Judge commanded the angels to send him back to earth, and restore him to St. Martin, which was done. He was baptized, and lived a long time afterwards. St. Salvius, Bishop of Albi,[631] having been seized with a violent fever, was thought to be dead. They washed him, clothed him, laid him on a bier, and passed the night in prayer by him: the next morning he was seen to move; he appeared to awake from a deep sleep, opened his eyes, and raising his hand towards heaven said, "Ah! Lord, why hast thou sent me back to this gloomy abode?" He rose completely cured, but would then reveal nothing. Some days after, he related how two angels had carried him to heaven, where he had seen the glory of Paradise, and had been sent back against his will to live some time longer on earth. St. Gregory of Tours takes God to witness that he heard this history from the mouth of St. Salvius himself. A monk of Augia, named Vetinus, or Guetinus, who was living in 824, was ill, and lying upon his couch with his eyes shut; but not being quite asleep, he saw a demon in the shape of a priest, most horribly deformed, who, showing him some instruments of torture which he held in his hand, threatened to make him soon feel the rigorous effects of them. At the same time he saw a multitude of evil spirits enter his chamber, carrying tools, as if to build him a tomb or a coffin, and enclose him in it. Immediately he saw appear some serious and grave-looking personages, wearing religious habits, who chased these demons away; and then Vetinus saw an angel, surrounded with a blaze of light, who came to the foot of the bed, and conducted him by a path between mountains of an extraordinary height, at the foot of which flowed a large river, in which he beheld a multitude of the damned, who were suffering diverse torments, according to the kind and enormity of their crimes. He saw amongst them many of his acquaintance; amongst others, some prelates and priests, guilty of incontinence, who were tied with their backs to stakes, and burned by a fire lighted under them; the women, their companions in crime, suffering the same torment opposite to them. He beheld there also, a monk who had given himself up to avarice, and possessed money of his own, who was to expiate his crime in a leaden coffin till the day of judgment. He remarked there abbots and bishops, and even the Emperor Charlemagne, who were expiating their faults by fire, but were to be released from it after a certain time. He remarked there also the abode of the blessed in heaven, each one in his place, and according to his merits. The Angel of the Lord after this revealed to him the crimes which were the most common, and the most odious in the eyes of God. He mentioned sodomy in particular, as the most abominable crime. After the service for the night, the abbot came to visit the sick man, who related this vision to him in full, and the abbot had it written down directly. Vetinus lived two days longer, and having predicted that he had only the third day to live, he recommended himself to the prayers of the monks, received the holy viaticum, and died in peace, the 31st of October, 824. Footnotes: [629] Lib. i. de Miracul. Sancti Stephani, cap. 4. p. 28. Lib. vii. Oper. St. Aug. in Appendice. [630] Sulpit. Sever. in Vitâ S. Martini, cap. 3. [631] Gregor. Turon. lib. vii. c. 1. CHAPTER LVI. THE VISION OF BERTHOLDUS, AS RELATED BY HINCMAR, ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS. The famous Hincmar,[632] Archbishop of Rheims, in a circular letter which he wrote to the bishops, his suffragans, and the faithful of his diocese, relates, that a man named Bertholdus, with whom he was acquainted, having fallen ill, and received all the sacraments, remained during four days without taking any food. On the fourth day he was so weak that there was hardly a feeble palpitation and respiration found in him. About midnight he called to his wife, and told her to send quickly for his confessor. The priest was as yet only in the court before the house, when Bertholdus said, "Place a seat here, for the priest is coming." He entered the room and said some prayers, to which Bertholdus uttered the responses, and then related to him the vision he had had. "On leaving this world," said he, "I saw forty-one bishops, amongst whom were Ebonius, Leopardellus, Eneas, who were clothed in coarse black garments, dirty, and singed by the flames. As for themselves, they were sometimes burned by the flames, and at others frozen with insupportable cold." Ebonius said to him, "Go to my clergy and my friends, and tell them to offer for us the holy sacrifice." Bertholdus obeyed, and returning to the place where he had seen the bishops, he found them well clothed, shaved, bathed, and rejoicing. A little farther on, he met King Charles,[633] who was as if eaten by worms. This prince begged him to go and tell Hincmar to relieve his misery. Hincmar said mass for him, and King Charles found relief. After that he saw Bishop Jessé, of Orleans, who was over a well, and four demons plunged him into boiling pitch, and then threw him into icy water. They prayed for him, and he was relieved. He then saw the Count Othaire, who was likewise in torment. Bertholdus begged the wife of Othaire, with his vassals and friends, to pray for him, and give alms, and he was delivered from his torments. Bertholdus after that received the holy communion, and began to find himself better, with the hope of living fourteen years longer, as he had been promised by his guide, who had shown him all that we have just related. Footnotes: [632] Hincmar, lib. ii. p. 805. [633] Apparently Charles the Bald, who died in 875. CHAPTER LVII. THE VISION OF SAINT FURSIUS. The Life of St. Fursius,[634] written a short time after his death, which happened about the year 653, reports several visions seen by this holy man. Being grievously ill, and unable to stir, he saw himself in the midst of the darkness raised up, as it were, by the hands of three angels, who carried him out of the world, then brought him back to it, and made his soul re-enter his body, to complete the destination assigned him by God. Then he found himself in the midst of several people, who wept for him as if he were dead, and told him how, the day before, he had fallen down in a swoon, so that they believed him to be dead. He could have wished to have some intelligent persons about him to relate to them what he had seen; but having no one near him but rustics, he asked for and received the communion of the body and blood of the Saviour, and continued three days longer awake. The following Tuesday, he fell into a similar swoon, in the middle of the night; his feet became cold, and raising his hands to pray, he received death with joy. Then he saw the same three angels descend who had already guided him. They raised him as the first time, but instead of the agreeable and melodious songs which he had then heard, he could now hear only the frightful howlings of the demons, who began to fight against him, and shoot inflamed darts at him. The Angel of the Lord received them on his buckler, and extinguished them. The devil reproached Fursius with some bad thoughts, and some human weaknesses, but the angels defended him, saying, "If he has not committed any capital sins, he shall not perish." As the devil could not reproach him with anything that was worthy of eternal death, he saw two saints from his own country--St. Béan and St. Medan, who comforted him and announced to him the evils with which God would punish mankind, principally because of the sins of the doctors or learned men of the church, and the princes who governed the people;--the doctors for neglecting to declare the word of God, and the princes for the bad examples they gave their people. After which, they sent him back into his body again. He returned into it with repugnance, and began to relate all that he had seen; they poured spring water upon his body, and he felt a great warmth between his shoulders. After this, he began to preach throughout Hibernia; and the Venerable Bede[635] says that there was in his monastery an aged monk who said that he had learned from a grave personage well worthy of belief, that he had heard these visions described by St. Fursius himself. This saint had not the least doubt that his soul was really separated from his body, when he was carried away in his trance. Footnotes: [634] Vita Sti. Fursci, apud Bolland. 16 Januarii, pp. 37, 38. Item, pp. 47, 48. Sæcul. xi. Bened. p. 299. [635] Bede, lib. iii. Hist. c. 19. CHAPTER LVIII. VISION OF A PROTESTANT OF YORK, AND OTHERS. Here is another instance, which happened in 1698 to one of the so-called reformed religion.[636] A minister of the county of York, at a place called Hipley, and whose name was Henry Vatz (Watts), being struck with apoplexy the 15th of August, was on the 17th placed in a coffin to be buried. But as they were about to put him in the grave, he uttered a loud cry, which frightened all the persons who had attended him to the grave; they took him quickly out of the coffin, and as soon as he had come to himself, he related several surprising things which he said had been revealed to him during his trance, which had lasted eight-and-forty hours. The 24th of the same month, he preached a very moving discourse to those who had accompanied him the day they were carrying him to the tomb. People may, if they please, treat all that we have related as dreams and tales, but it cannot be denied that we recognize in these resurrections, and in these narrations of men who have come to life again after their real or seeming death, the belief of the church concerning hell, paradise, purgatory, the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and the apparitions of angels and demons who torment the damned, and of the souls who have yet something to expiate in the other world. We see also, that which has a visible connection with the matter we are treating upon--persons really dead, and others regarded as such, who return to life in health and live a long time afterwards. Lastly, we may observe therein opinions on the state of souls after this life, which are nearly the same as among the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, barbarous nations, and Christians. If the Hungarian ghosts do not speak of what they have seen in the other world, it is either that they are not really dead, or more likely that all which is related of these _revenans_ is fabulous and chimerical. I will add some more instances which will serve to confirm the belief of the primitive church on the subject of apparitions. St. Perpetua, who suffered martyrdom in Africa in 202 or 203, being in prison for the faith, saw a brother named Dinocrates, who had died at the age of seven years of a cancer in the cheek; she saw him as if in a very large dungeon, so that they could not approach each other. He seemed to be placed in a reservoir of water, the sides of which were higher than himself, so that he could not reach the water, for which he appeared to thirst very much. Perpetua was much moved at this, and prayed to God with tears and groans for his relief. Some days after, she saw in spirit the same Dinocrates, well clothed, washed, and refreshed, and the water of the reservoir in which he was, only came up to his middle, and on the edge a cup, from which he drank, without the water diminishing, and the skin of the cancer in his cheek well healed, so that nothing now remained of the cancer but the scar. By these things she understood that Dinocrates was no longer in pain. Dinocrates was there apparently[637] to expiate some faults which he had committed since his baptism, for Perpetua says a little before this that only her father had remained in infidelity. The same St. Perpetua, being in prison some days before she suffered martyrdom[638] had a vision of the deacon Pomponius, who had suffered martyrdom some days before, and who said to her, "Come, we are waiting for you." He led her through a rugged and winding path into the arena of the amphitheatre, where she had to combat with a very ugly Egyptian, accompanied by some other men like him. Perpetua found herself changed into a man, and began to fight naked, assisted by some well-made youths who came to her service and assistance. Then she beheld a man of extraordinary size, who cried aloud, "If the Egyptian gains the victory over her, he will kill her with his sword; but if she conquers, she shall have this branch ornamented with golden apples for her reward." Perpetua began the combat, and having overthrown the Egyptian, trampled his head under her feet. The people shouted victory, and Perpetua approaching him who held the branch above mentioned, he put it in her hands, and said to her, "Peace be with you." Then she awoke, and understood that she would have to combat, not against wild beasts, but against the devil. Saturus, one of the companions of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, had also a vision, which he relates thus: "We had suffered martyrdom, and were disengaged from this mortal body. Four angels carried us towards the East without touching us. We arrived at a place shining with intense lustre; Perpetua was at my side, and I said unto her, 'Behold what the Lord promised us.' "We entered a large garden full of trees and flowers; the four angels who had borne us thither placed us in the hands of other angels, who conducted us by a wide road to a place where we found Jocondus, Saturninus, and Artazes, who had suffered with us, and invited us to come and salute the Lord. We followed them, and beheld in the midst of this place the Almighty, crowned with dazzling light, and we heard repeated incessantly by those around him, Holy! holy! holy! They raised us towards him, and we stopped before his throne. We gave him the kiss of peace, and he stroked our faces with his hand. "We came out, and we saw before the door the bishop Optatus and the priest Aspasius, who threw themselves at our feet. We raised and embraced them. We recognized in this place several of our brethren and some martyrs." Such was the vision of Saturus. There are visions of all sorts; of holy martyrs, and of holy angels. It is related of St. Exuperus, bishop of Thoulouse,[639] that having conceived the design of transporting the relics of St. Saturnus, a former bishop of that church, to place them in a new church built in his honor, he could with difficulty resolve to take this holy body from the tomb, fearing to displease the saint, or to diminish the honor which was due to him. But while in this doubt, he had a vision which gave him to understand that this translation would neither lessen the respect which was due to the ashes of the martyr, nor be prejudicial to his honor; but that on the contrary it would contribute to the salvation of the faithful, and to the greater glorification of God. Some days before[640] St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, suffered martyrdom, in 258, he had a vision, not being as yet quite asleep, in which a young man whose height was extraordinary, seemed to lead him to the Prætorium before the Proconsul, who was seated on his tribunal. This magistrate, having caught sight of Cyprian, began to write his sentence before he had interrogated him as was usual. Cyprian knew not what the sentence condemned him to; but the young man above mentioned, and who was behind the judge, made a sign by opening his hand and spreading in form of a sword, that he was condemned to have his head cut off. Cyprian easily understood what was meant by this sign, and having earnestly requested to be allowed a day's delay to put his affairs in order, the judge, having granted his request, again wrote upon his tablets, and the young man by a sign of his hand let him know that the delay was granted. These predictions were exactly fulfilled, and we see many similar ones in the works of St. Cyprian. St. Fructueux, Bishop of Tarragona,[641] who suffered martyrdom in 259, was seen after his death ascending to heaven with the deacons who had suffered with him; they appeared as if they were still attached to the stakes near which they had been burnt. They were seen by two Christians, who showed them to the wife and daughter of Emilian, who had condemned them. The saint appeared to Emilian himself and to the Christians, who had taken away their ashes, and desired that they might be all collected in one spot. We see similar apparitions[642] in the acts of St. James, of St. Marienus, martyrs, and some others who suffered in Numidia in 259. We may observe the like[643] in the acts of St. Montanus, St. Lucius, and other African martyrs in 259 or 260, and in those of St. Vincent, a martyr in Spain, in 304, and in the life of St. Theodore, martyr, in 306, of whose sufferings St. Gregory of Nicea has written an account. Everybody knows what happened at Sebastus, in Armenia, in the martyrdom of the famous forty martyrs, of whom St. Basil the Great has written the eulogium. One of the forty, overcome by the excess of cold, which was extreme, threw himself into a hot bath that was prepared just by. Then he who guarded them having perceived some angels who brought crowns to the thirty-nine who had persevered in their sufferings, despoiled himself of his garments, joined himself to the martyrs, and declared himself a Christian. All these instances invincibly prove that, at least in the first ages of the church, the greatest and most learned bishops, the holy martyrs, and the generality of the faithful, were well persuaded of the possibility and reality of apparitions. Footnotes: [636] Larrey, Hist. de Louis XIV. year 1698, p. 68. [637] Aug. lib. i. de Origine Animæ. [638] Ibid. p. 97. [639] Aug. lib. i. de Origine Animæ, p. 132. [640] Acta Martyr. Sincera, p. 212. Vita et Passio S. Cypriani, p. 268. [641] Acta Martyr. Sincera, pp. 219, 221. [642] Acta Martyr. Sincera, p. 226. [643] Ibid. pp. 231-233, 237. CHAPTER LIX. CONCLUSIONS OF THIS DISSERTATION. To resume, in a few words, all that we have related in this dissertation: we have therein shown that a resurrection, properly so called, of a person who has been dead for a considerable time, and whose body was either corrupted, or stinking, or ready to putrefy, like that of Pierre, who had been three years buried, and was resuscitated by St. Stanislaus, or that of Lazarus, who had been four days in the tomb, and already possessing a corpse-like smell--such a resurrection can be the work of the almighty power of God alone. That persons who have been drowned, fallen into syncope, into a lethargy or trance, or looked upon as dead, in any manner whatever, can be cured and brought back to life, even to their former state of life, without any miracle, but by the power of medicine alone, or by natural efforts, or by dint of patience; so that nature re-establishes herself in her former state, that the heart resumes its pulsation, and the blood circulates freely again in the arteries, and the vital and animal spirits in the nerves. That the oupires, or vampires, or _revenans_ of Moravia, Hungary, Poland, &c., of which such extraordinary things are related, so detailed, so circumstantial, invested with all the necessary formalities to make them believed, and to prove them even judicially before judges, and at the most exact and severe tribunals; that all which is said of their return to life; of their apparition, and the confusion which they cause in the towns and country places; of their killing people by sucking their blood, or in making a sign to them to follow them; that all those things are mere illusions, and the consequence of a heated and prejudiced imagination. They cannot cite any witness who is sensible, grave and unprejudiced, who can testify that he has seen, touched, interrogated these ghosts, who can affirm the reality of their return, and of the effects which are attributed to them. I shall not deny that some persons may have died of fright, imagining that their near relatives called them to the tomb; that others have thought they heard some one rap at their doors, worry them, disturb them, in a word, occasion them mortal maladies; and that these persons judicially interrogated, have replied that they had seen and heard what their panic-struck imagination had represented to them. But I require unprejudiced witnesses, free from terror and disinterested, quite calm, who can affirm upon serious reflection, that they have seen, heard, and interrogated these vampires, and who have been the witnesses of their operations; and I am persuaded that no such witness will be found. I have by me a letter, which has been sent me from Warsaw, the 3d of February, 1745, by M. Slivisk, visitor of the province of priests of the mission of Poland. He sends me word, that having studied with great care this matter, and having proposed to compose on this subject a theological and physical dissertation, he had collected some memoirs with that view; but that the occupations of visitor and superior in the house of his congregation of Warsaw, had not allowed of his putting his project in execution; that he has since sought in vain for these memoirs or notes, which have probably remained in the hands of some of those to whom he had communicated them; that amongst these notes were two resolutions of the Sorbonne, which both forbade cutting off the head and maiming the body of any of these pretended oupires or vampires. He adds, that these decisions may be found in the registers of the Sorbonne, from the year 1700 to 1710. I shall report by and by, a decision of the Sorbonne on this subject, dated in the year 1691. He says, moreover, that in Poland they are so persuaded of the existence of these oupires, that any one who thought otherwise would be regarded almost as a heretic. There are several facts concerning this matter, which are looked upon as incontestable, and many persons are named as witnesses of them. "I gave myself the trouble," says he, "to go to the fountain-head, and examine those who are cited as ocular witnesses." He found that no one dared to affirm that they had really seen the circumstances in question, and that it was all merely reveries and fancies, caused by fear and unfounded discourse. So writes to me this wise and judicious priest. I have also received since, another letter from Vienna in Austria, written the 3d of August, 1746, by a Lorraine baron,[644] who has always followed his prince. He tells me, that in 1742, his imperial majesty, then his royal highness of Lorraine, had several verbal acts drawn up concerning these cases, which happened in Moravia. I have them by me still; I have read them over and over again; and to be frank, I have not found in them the shadow of truth, nor even of probability, in what is advanced. They are, nevertheless, documents which in that country are looked upon as true as the Gospel. Footnotes: [644] M. le Baron Toussaint. CHAPTER LX. THE MORAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE REVENANS COMING OUT OF THEIR GRAVES. I have already proposed the objection formed upon the impossibility of these vampires coming out of their graves, and returning to them again, without its appearing that they have disturbed the earth, either in coming out or going in again. No one has ever replied to this difficulty, and never will. To say that the demon subtilizes and spiritualizes the bodies of vampires, is a thing asserted without proof or likelihood. The fluidity of the blood, the ruddiness, the suppleness of these vampires, ought not to surprise any one, any more than the growth of the nails and hair, and their bodies remaining undecayed. We see every day, bodies which remain uncorrupted, and retain a ruddy color after death. This ought not to appear strange in those who die without malady and a sudden death; or of certain maladies, known to our physicians, which do not deprive the blood of its fluidity, or the limbs of their suppleness. With regard to the growth of the hair and nails in bodies which are not yet decayed, the thing is quite natural. There remains in those bodies a certain slow and imperceptible circulation of the humors, which causes this growth of the nails and hair, in the same way that we every day see common bulbs grow and shoot, although without any nourishment derived from the earth. The same may be said of flowers, and in general of all that depends on vegetation in animals and plants. The belief of the common people of Greece in the return to earth of the vroucolacas, is not much better founded than that of vampires and ghosts. It is only the ignorance, the prejudice, the terror of the Greeks, which have given rise to this vain and ridiculous belief, and which they keep up even to this very day. The narrative which we have reported after M. Tournefort, an ocular witness and a good philosopher, may suffice to undeceive those who would maintain the contrary. The incorruption of the bodies of those who died in a state of excommunication, has still less foundation than the return of the vampires, and the vexations of the living caused by the vroucolacas; antiquity has had no similar belief. The schismatic Greeks, and the heretics separated from the Church of Rome, who certainly died excommunicated, ought, upon this principle, to remain uncorrupted; which is contrary to experience, and repugnant to good sense. And if the Greeks pretend to be the true Church, all the Roman Catholics, who have a separate communion from them, ought then also to remain undecayed. The instances cited by the Greeks either prove nothing, or prove too much. Those bodies which have not decayed, were really excommunicated, or not. If they were canonically and really excommunicated, then the question falls to the ground. If they were not really and canonically excommunicated, then it must be proved that there was no other cause of incorruption--which can never be proved. Moreover, anything so equivocal as incorruption, cannot be adduced as a proof in so serious a matter as this. It is owned, that often the bodies of saints are preserved from decay; that is looked upon as certain, among the Greeks as among the Latins--therefore, we cannot thence conclude that this same incorruption is a proof that a person is excommunicated. In short, this proof is universal and general, or only particular. I mean to say, either all excommunicated persons remain undecayed, or only a few of them. We cannot maintain that all those who die in a state of excommunication, are incorruptible. For then all the Greeks towards the Latins, and the Latins towards the Greeks, would be undecayed, which is not the case. That proof then is very frivolous, and nothing can be concluded from it. I mistrust, a great deal, all those stories which are related to prove this pretended incorruptibility of excommunicated persons. If well examined, many of them would doubtless be found to be false. CHAPTER LXI. WHAT IS RELATED CONCERNING THE BODIES OF THE EXCOMMUNICATED LEAVING THE CHURCH, IS SUBJECT TO VERY GREAT DIFFICULTIES. Whatever respect I may feel for St. Gregory the Great, who relates some instances of deceased persons who died in a state of excommunication going out of the church before the eyes of every one present; and whatever consideration may be due to other authors whom I have cited, and who relate other circumstances of a similar nature, and even still more incredible, I cannot believe that we have these legends with all the circumstances belonging to them; and after the reasons for doubt which I have recorded at the end of these stories, I believe I may again say, that God, to inspire the people with still greater fear of excommunication, and a greater regard for the sentences and censures of the church, has willed on these occasions, for reasons unknown to us, to show forth his power, and work a miracle in the sight of the faithful; for how can we explain all these things without having recourse to the miraculous? All that is said of persons who being dead chew under ground in their graves, is so pitiful, so puerile, that it is not worthy of being seriously refuted. Everybody owns that too often people are buried who are not quite dead. There are but too many instances of this in ancient and modern histories. The thesis of M. Vinslow, and the notes added thereto by M. Bruhier, serve to prove that there are few certain signs of real death except the putridity of a body being at least begun. We have an infinite number of instances of persons supposed to be dead, who have come to life again, even after they have been put in the ground. There are I know not how many maladies in which the patient remains for a long time speechless, motionless, and without sensible respiration. Some drowned persons who have been thought dead, have been revived by care and attention. All this is well known and may serve to explain how some vampires have been taken out of their graves, and have spoken, cried, howled, vomited blood, and all that because they were not yet dead. They have been killed by beheading them, piercing their heart, and burning them; in all which people were very wrong, for the pretext on which they acted, of their pretended reappearance to disturb the living, causing their death, and maltreating them, is not a sufficient reason for treating them thus. Besides, their pretended return has never been proved or attested in such a way as to authorize any one to show such inhumanity, nor to dishonor and put rigorously to death on vague, frivolous, unproved accusations, persons who were certainly innocent of the thing laid to their charge. For nothing is more ill-founded than what is said of the apparitions, vexations, and confusion caused by the pretended vampires and the vroucolacas. I am not surprised that the Sorbonne should have condemned the bloody and violent executions which are exercised on these kinds of dead bodies. But it is astonishing that the secular powers and the magistrates do not employ their authority and the severity of the laws to repress them. The magic devotions, the fascinations, the evocations of which we have spoken, are works of darkness, operations of Satan, if they have any reality, which I can with difficulty believe, especially in regard to magical devotions, and the evocations of the manes or souls of dead persons; for, as to fascinations of the sight, or illusions of the senses, it is foolish not to admit some of these, as when we think we see what is not, or do not behold what is present before our eyes; or when we think we hear a sound which in reality does not strike our ears, or the contrary. But to say that the demon can cause a person's death, because they have made a wax image of him, or given his name with some superstitious ceremonies, and have devoted him or her, so that the persons feel themselves dying as their image melts away, is ascribing to the demon too much power, and to magic too much might. God can, when he wills it, loosen the reign of the enemy of mankind, and permit him to do us the harm which he and his agents may seek to do us; but it would be ridiculous to believe that the Sovereign Master of nature can be determined by magical incantations to allow the demon to hurt us; or to imagine that the magician has the power to excite the demon against us, independently of God. The instance of that peasant who gave his child to the devil, and whose life the devil first took away and then restored, is one of those extraordinary and almost incredible circumstances which are sometimes to be met with in history, and which neither theology nor philosophy knows how to explain. Was it a demon who animated the body of the boy, or did his soul re-enter his body by the permission of God? By what authority did the demon take away this boy's life, and then restore it to him? God may have permitted it to punish the impiety of the wretched father, who had given himself to the devil to satisfy a shameful and criminal passion. And again, how could he satisfy it with a demon, who appeared to him in the form of a girl he loved? In all that I see only darkness and difficulties, which I leave to be resolved by those who are more learned or bolder than myself. CHAPTER LXII. REMARKS ON THE DISSERTATION CONCERNING THE SPIRIT WHICH REAPPEARED AT ST. MAUR DES FOSSES. The following Dissertation on the apparition which happened at St. Maur, near Paris, in 1706, was entirely unknown to me. A friend who took some part in my work on apparitions, had asked me by letter if I should have any objection to its being printed at the end of my work. I readily consented, on his testifying that it was from a worthy hand, and deserved to be saved from the oblivion into which it was fallen. I have since found that it was printed in the fourth volume of the Treatise on Superstitions, by the Reverend Father le Brun, of the Oratoire. After the impression, a learned monk[645] wrote to me from Amiens, in Picardy, that he had remarked in this dissertation five or six propositions which appeared to him to be false. 1st. That the author says, all the holy doctors agree that no means of deceiving us is left to the demons except suggestion, which has been left them by God to try our virtue. 2d. In respect to all those prodigies and spells which the common people attribute to sorcery and intercourse with the demon, it is proved that they can only be done by means of natural magic; this is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers of the church. 3d. All that demons have to do with the criminal practices of those who are commonly called sorcerers is suggestion, by which he invites them to the abominable research of all those natural causes which can hurt our neighbor. 4th. Although those who have desired to maintain the popular error of the return to earth of souls from purgatory, may have endeavored to support their opinion by different passages, taken from St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Thomas, &c., it is attested that all these fathers speak only of the return of the blessed to manifest the glory of God. 5th. Of what may we not believe the imagination capable after so strong a proof of its power? Can it be doubted that among all the pretended apparitions of which stories are related, the fancy alone works for all those which do not proceed from angels and the spirits of the blessed, and that the rest are the invention of men? 6th. After having sufficiently established the fact, that all apparitions which cannot be attributed to angels, or the spirits of the blessed, are produced only by one of these causes: the writer names them--first, the power of imagination; secondly, the extreme subtility of the senses; and thirdly, the derangement of the organs, as in madness and high fevers. The monk who writes to me maintains that the first proposition is false; that the ancient fathers of the church ascribe to the demon the greater number of those extraordinary effects produced by certain sounds of the voice, by figures, and by phantoms; that the exorcists in the primitive church expelled devils, even by the avowal of the heathen; that angels and demons have often appeared to men; that no one has spoken more strongly of apparitions, of hauntings, and the power of the demon, than the ancient fathers; that the church has always employed exorcism on children presented for baptism, and against those who were haunted and possessed by the demon. Add to which, the author of the dissertation cites not one of the fathers to support his general proposition.[646] The second proposition, again, is false; for if we must attribute to natural magic all that is ascribed to sorcerers, there are then no sorcerers, properly so called, and the church is mistaken in offering up prayers against their power. The third proposition is false for the same reason. The fourth is falser still, and absolutely contrary to St. Thomas, who, speaking of the dead in general who appear, says that this occurs either by a miracle, or by the particular permission of God, or by the operation of good or evil angels.[647] The fifth proposition, again, is false, and contrary to the fathers, to the opinion commonly received among the faithful, and to the customs of the church. If all the apparitions which do not proceed from the angels or the blessed, or the inventive malice of mankind, proceed only from fancy, what becomes of all the apparitions of demons related by the saints, and which occurred to the saints? What becomes, in particular, of all the stories of the holy solitaries, of St. Anthony, St. Hilarion, &c.?[648] What becomes of the prayers and ceremonies of the church against demons, who infest, possess, and haunt, and appear often in these disturbances, possessions, and hauntings? The sixth proposition is false for the same reasons, and many others which might be added. "These," adds the reverend father who writes to me, "are the causes of my doubting if the third dissertation was added to the two others with your knowledge. I suspected that the printer, of his own accord, or persuaded by evil intentioned persons, might have added it himself, and without your participation, although under your name. For I said to myself, either the reverend father approves this dissertation, or he does not approve of it. It appears that he approves of it, since he says that it is from a clever writer, and he would wish to preserve it from oblivion. "Now, how can he approve a dissertation false in itself and contrary to himself? If he approves it not, is it not too much to unite to his work a foolish composition full of falsehoods, disguises, false and weak arguments, opposed to the common belief, the customs, and prayers of the church; consequently dangerous, and quite favorable to the free and incredulous thinkers which this age is so full of? Ought he not rather to combat this writing, and show its weakness, falsehood, and dangerous tendency? There, my reverend father, lies all my difficulty." Others have sent me word that they could have wished that I had treated the subject of apparitions in the same way as the author of this dissertation, that is to say, simply as a philosopher, with the aim of destroying the credence and reality, rather than with any design of supporting the belief in apparitions which is so observable in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, in the fathers, and in the customs and prayers of the church. The author of whom we speak has cited the fathers, but in a general manner, and without marking the testimonies, and the express and formal passages. I do not know if he thinks much of them, and if he is well versed in them, but it would hardly appear so from his work. The grand principle on which this third dissertation turns is, that since the advent and the death of Jesus Christ, all the power of the devil is limited to enticing, inspiring, and persuading to evil; but for the rest, he is tied up like a lion or a dog in his prison. He may bark, he may menace, but he cannot bite unless he is too nearly approached and yielded to, as St. Augustine truly says:[649] "Mordere omnino non potest nisi volentem." But to pretend that Satan can do no harm, either to the health of mankind, or to the fruits of the earth; can neither attack us by his stratagems, his malice, and his fury against us, nor torment those whom he pursues or possesses; that magicians and wizards can make use of no spells and charms to cause both men and animals dreadful maladies, and even death, is a direct attack on the faith of the church, the Holy Scriptures, the most sacred practices, and the opinions of not only the holy fathers and the best theologians, but also on the laws and ordinances of princes, and the decrees of the most respectable parliaments. I will not here cite the instances taken from the Old Testament, the author having limited himself to what has passed since the death and resurrection of our Saviour; because, he says, Jesus Christ has destroyed the kingdom of Satan, and the prince of this world is already judged.[650] St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, and the Evangelists, who were well informed of the words of the Son of God, and the sense given to them, teach us that Satan asked to have power over the apostles of Jesus Christ, to sift them like wheat;[651] that is to say, to try them by persecutions and make them renounce the faith. Does not St. Paul complain of the _angel of Satan_ who buffeted him?[652] Did those whom he gave up to Satan for their crimes,[653] suffer nothing bodily? Those who took the communion unworthily, and were struck with sickness, or even with death, did they not undergo these chastisements by the operation of the demon?[654] The apostle warns the Corinthians not to suffer themselves to be surprised by Satan, who sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light.[655] The same apostle, speaking to the Thessalonians, says to them, that before the last day antichrist will appear,[656] according to the working of Satan, with extraordinary power, with wonders and deceitful signs. In the Apocalypse the demon is the instrument made use of by God, to punish mortals and make them drink of the cup of his wrath. Does not St. Peter[657] tell us that "the devil prowls about us like a roaring lion, always ready to devour us?" And St. Paul to the Ephesians,[658] "that we have to fight not against men of flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the princes of this world," that is to say, of this age of darkness, "against the spirits of malice spread about in the air?" The fathers of the first ages speak often of the power that the Christians exercised against the demons, against those who called themselves diviners, against magicians and other subalterns of the devil; principally against those who were possessed, who were then frequently seen, and are so still from time to time, both in the church and out of the church. Exorcisms and other prayers of the church have always been employed against these, and with success. Emperors and kings have employed their authority and the rigor of the laws against those who have devoted themselves to the service of the demon, and used spells, charms, and other methods which the demon employs, to entice and destroy both men and animals, or the fruits of the country. We might add to the remarks of the reverend Dominican father divers other propositions drawn from the same work; for instance, when the author says that "the angels know everything here below; for if it is by means of specialties, which God communicates to them every day, as St. Augustine thinks, there is no reason to believe that they do not know all the wants of mankind, and that they cannot console and strengthen them, render themselves visible to them by the permission of God, without always receiving from him an express order so to do." This proposition is rather rash: it is not certain that the angels know everything that passes here below. Jesus Christ, in St. Matthew xxiv. 36, says that the angels do not know the day of his coming. It is still more doubtful that the angels can appear without an express command from God, and that St. Augustine has so taught. He says, a little while after--"That demons often appeared before Jesus Christ in fantastic forms, which they assumed as the angels do," that is to say, in aërial bodies which they organized; "whilst at present, and since the coming of Jesus Christ, those wonders and spells have been so common that the people attributed them to sorcery and commerce with the devil, whereas it is attested that they can be operated only by natural magic, which is the knowledge of secret effects from natural causes, and many of them by the subtilty of the air alone. This is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers who have spoken of them." This proposition is false, and contrary to the doctrine and practice of the church; and it is not true that it is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers; he should have cited some of them.[659] He says that "the Book of Job and the song of Hezekiah are full of testimonies that the Holy Spirit seems to have taught us, that our souls cannot return to earth after our death, until God has made angels of them." It is true that the Holy Scriptures speak of the resurrection and return of souls into their bodies as of a thing that is impossible in the natural course. Man cannot raise up himself from the dead, neither can he raise up his fellow-man without an effort of the supreme might of God. Neither can the spirits of the deceased appear to the living without the command or permission of God. But it is false to say, "that God makes angels of our souls, and that then they can appear to the living." Our souls will never become angels; but Jesus Christ tells us that after our death our souls will be _as_ the angels of God, (Matt. xxii. 30); that is to say, spiritual, incorporeal, immortal, and exempt from all the wants and weaknesses of this present life; but he does not say that our souls must _become_ angels. He affirms "that what Jesus Christ said, 'that spirits have neither flesh nor bones,' far from leading us to believe that spirits can return to earth, proves, on the contrary, evidently that they cannot without a miracle render themselves visible to mankind; since it requires absolutely a corporeal substance and organs of speech to make ourselves heard, which does not agree with the spirits, who naturally cannot be subject to our senses." This is no more impossible than what he said beforehand of the apparitions of angels, since our souls, after the death of the body, are "like unto the angels," according to the Gospel. He acknowledges himself, with St. Jerome against Vigilantius, that the saints who are in heaven appear sometimes visibly to men. "Whence comes it that animals have, as well as ourselves, the faculty of memory, but not the reflection which accompanies it, which proceeds only from the soul, which they have not?" Is not memory itself the reflection of what we have seen, done, or heard; and in animals is not memory followed by reflection,[660] since they avenge themselves on those who hurt them, avoid that which has incommoded them, foreseeing what might happen to themselves from it if they fell again into the same mistake? After having spoken of natural palingenesis, he concludes--"And thus we see how little cause there is to attribute these appearances to the return of souls to earth, or to demons, as do some ignorant persons." If those who work the wonders of natural palingenesis, and admit the natural return of phantoms in the cemeteries, and fields of battle, which I do not think happens naturally, could show that these phantoms speak, act, move, foretell the future, and do what is related of returned souls or other apparitions, whether good angels or bad ones, we might conclude that there is no reason to attribute them to souls, angels, and demons; but, 1, they have never been able to cause the appearance of the phantom of a dead man, by any secret of art. 2. If it had been possible to raise his shade, they could never have inspired it with thought or reasoning powers, as we see in the angels and demons, who appear, reason, and act, as intelligent beings, and gifted with the knowledge of the past, the present, and sometimes of the future. He denies that the souls in purgatory return to earth; for if they could come back, "everybody would receive similar visits from their relations and friends, since all the souls would feel disposed to do the same. Apparently," says he, "God would grant them this permission, and if they had this permission, every person of good sense would be at a loss to comprehend why they should accompany all their appearances with all the follies so circumstantially related." We may reply, that the return of souls to earth may depend neither on their inclination nor their will, but on the will of God, who grants this permission to whom he pleases, when he will, and as he will. The wicked rich man asked that Lazarus[661] might be sent to this world to warn his brothers not to fall into the same misfortune as himself, but he could not obtain it. There are an infinity of souls in the same case and disposition, who cannot obtain leave to return themselves or to send others in their place. If certain narratives of the return of spirits to earth have been accompanied by circumstances somewhat comic, it does not militate against the truth of the thing; since for one recital imprudently embellished by uncertain circumstances, there are a thousand written sensibly and seriously, and in a manner very conformable to truth. He maintains that all the apparitions which cannot be attributed to angels or to blessed spirits, are produced only by one of these three causes:--the power of imagination; the extreme subtility of the senses; and the derangement of the organs, as in cases of madness and in high fevers. This proposition is rash, and has before been refuted by the Reverend Father Richard. The author recounts all that he has said of the spirit of St. Maur, in causing the motion of the bed in the presence of three persons who were wide awake, the repeated shrieks of a person whom they did not see, of a door well-bolted, of repeated blows upon the walls, of panes of glass struck with violence in the presence of three persons, without their being able to see the author of all this movement;--he reduces all this to a derangement of the imagination, the subtilty of the air, or the vapors casually arising in the brain of an invalid. Why did he not deny all these facts? Why did he give himself the trouble to compose so carefully a dissertation to explain a phenomenon, which, according to him, can boast neither truth nor reality? For my part, I am very glad to give the public notice that I neither adopt nor approve this anonymous dissertation, which I never saw before it was printed; that I know nothing of the author, take no part in it, and have no interest in defending him. If the subject of apparitions be purely philosophical, and it can without injury to religion be reduced to a problem, I should have taken a different method to destroy it, and I should have suffered my reasoning and my imagination to act more freely. Footnotes: [645] Letter of the Reverend Father Richard, a Dominican of Amiens, of the 29th of July, 1746. [646] See on this subject the letter of the Marquis Maffei, which follows. [647] St. Thomas, i. part 9, 89, art. 8, ad. 2. [648] The author had foreseen this objection from the beginning of his dissertation. [649] Aug. Serm. de Semp. 197. [650] John xvi. 11. [651] Luke xxii. 31. [652] 2 Cor. xi. 7. [653] 1 Tim. i. 2. [654] 1 Cor. xi. 30. [655] 2 Cor. ii. 11, and xi. 14. [656] 2 Thess. ii. [657] 1 Pet. v. 8. [658] Ephes. vi. 12. [659] They are cited in the letter of the Marquis Maffei. [660] The author, as we may see, is not a Cartesian, since he assigns reflection even to animals. But if they reflect, they choose; whence it consequently follows that they are free. [661] Luke xiii. 14. CHAPTER LXIII. DISSERTATION BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER. _Answer to a Letter on the subject of the Apparition of St. Maur._ "You have been before me, sir, respecting the spirit of St. Maur, which causes so much conversation at Paris; for I had resolved to send you a short detail of that event, in order that you might impart to me your reflections on a matter so delicate and so interesting to all Paris. But since you have read an account of it, I cannot understand why you have hesitated a moment to decide what you ought to think of it. What you do me the honor to tell me, that you have suspended your judgment of the case until I have informed you of mine, does me too much honor for me to be persuaded of it; and I think there is more probability in believing that it is a trick you are playing me, to see how I shall extricate myself from such slippery ground. Nevertheless, I cannot resist the entreaties, or rather the orders, with which your letter is filled; and I prefer to expose myself to the pleasantry of the free thinkers, or the reproaches of the credulous, than the anger of those with which I am threatened by yourself. "You ask if I believe that spirits come back, and if the circumstance which occurred at St. Maur can be attributed to one of those incorporeal substances? "To answer your two questions in the same order that you propose them to me, I must first tell you, that the ancient heathens acknowledge various kinds of spirits, which they called _lares_, _larvæ_, _lemures_, _genii_, _manes_. "For ourselves, without pausing at the folly of our cabalistic philosophers, who fancy spirits in every element, calling those sylphs which they pretend to inhabit the air; _gnomes_, those which they feign to be under the earth; _ondines_, those which dwell in the water; and _salamanders_, those of fire; we acknowledge but three sorts of created spirits, namely, angels, demons, and the souls which God has united to our bodies, and which are separated from them by death. "The Holy Scriptures speak in too many places of the apparitions of the angels to Abraham, Jacob, Tobit, and several other holy patriarchs and prophets, for us to doubt of it. Besides, as their name signifies their ministry, being created by God to be his messengers, and to execute his commands, it is easy to believe that they have often appeared visibly to men, to announce to them the will of the Almighty. Almost all the theologians agree that the angels appear in the aërial bodies with which they clothe themselves. "To make you understand in what manner they take and invest themselves with these bodies, in order to render themselves visible to men, and to make themselves heard by them, we must first of all explain what is vision, which is only the bringing of the _species_ within the compass of the organ of sight. This "_species_" is the ray of light broken and modified upon a body, on which, forming different angles, this light is converted into colors. For an angle of a certain kind makes red, another green, blue or yellow, and so on of all the colors, as we perceive in the prism, on which the reflected rays of the sun forms the different colors of the rainbow; the _species_ visible is then nothing else than the ray of light which returns from the object on which it breaks to the eyes. "Now, light falls only on three kinds of objects or bodies, of which some are diaphanous, others opake, and the others participate in these two qualities, being partly diaphanous and partly opake. When the light falls on a diaphanous body which is full of an infinity of little pores, as the air, it passes through without causing any reflection. When the light falls on a body entirely opake, as a flower, for instance, not being able to penetrate it, its ray is reflected from it, and returns from the flower to the eye, to which it carries the _species_, and renders the colors distinguishable, according to the angles formed by reflection. If the body on which the light falls is in part opake and in part diaphanous, like glass, it passes through the diaphanous part, that is to say, through the pores of the glass which it penetrates, and reflects itself on the opake particles, that is to say, which are not porous. Thus the air is invisible, because it is absolutely penetrated with light: the flower sends back a color to the eye, because, being impenetrable to the light, it obliges it to reflect itself; and the glass is visible only because it contains some opake particles, which, according to the diversity of angles formed upon it by the ray of light, reflect different colors. "That is the manner in which vision is formed, so that air being invisible, on account of its extreme transparency, an angel could not clothe himself with it and render himself visible, but by thickening the air so much, that from diaphanous it became opake, and capable of reflecting the ray of light to the eye of him who perceived him. Now, as the angels possess knowledge and power far beyond anything we can imagine, we need not be astonished if they can form aërial bodies, which are rendered visible by the opacity they impart to them. In respect to the organs necessary to these aërial bodies, to form sounds and make themselves heard, without having any recourse to the disposition of matter, we must attribute them entirely to a miracle. "It is thus that angels have appeared to the holy patriarchs. It is thus that the glorious souls that participate the angelic nature can assume an aërial body to render themselves visible, and that even demons, by thickening and condensing the air, can make to themselves a body of it, so as to become visible to men, by the particular permission of God, to accomplish the secrets of his providence, as they are said to have appeared to St. Anthony the Hermit, and to other saints, in order to tempt them. "Excuse, sir, this little physical digression, with which I could not dispense, in order to make you understand the manner in which angels, who are purely spiritual substances, can be perceived by our fleshly senses. "The only point on which the holy doctors do not agree on this subject is, to know if angels appear to men of their own accord, or whether they can do it only by an express command from God. It seems to me that nothing can better contribute to the decision of this difficulty, than to determine the way in which the angels know all things here below; for if it is by means of "_species_" which God communicates to them every day, as St. Augustine believes, there is no reason to doubt of their knowing all the wants of mankind, or that they can, in order to console and strengthen them, render their presence sensible to them, by God's permission, without receiving an express command from him on the subject; which may be concluded from what St. Ambrose says on the subject of the apparition of angels, who are by nature invisible to us, and whom their will renders visible. _Hujus naturæ est non videri, voluntatis, videri._[662] "On the subject of demons, it is certain that their power was very great before the coming of Jesus Christ, since he calls them himself, the powers of darkness, and the princes of this world. It cannot be doubted that they had for a long time deceived mankind, by the wonders which they caused to be performed by those who devoted themselves more particularly to their service; that several oracles have been the effect of their power and knowledge, although part of them must be ascribed to the subtlety of men; and that they may have appeared under fantastic forms, which they assumed in the same way as the angels, that is to say, in aërial bodies, which they organized. The Holy Scriptures assure us even, that they took possession of the bodies of living persons. But Jesus Christ says too precisely, that he has destroyed the kingdom of the demons, and delivered us from their tyranny, for us possibly to think rationally that they still possess that power over us which they had formerly, so far as to work wonderful things which appeared miraculous; such as they relate of the vestal virgin, who, to prove her virginity, carried water in a sieve; and of her who by means of her sash alone, towed up the Tiber a boat, which had been so completely stranded that no human power could move it. Almost all the holy doctors agree, that the only means they now have of deceiving us is by suggestion, which God has left in their power to try our virtue. "I shall not amuse myself by combating all the impositions which have been published concerning demons, incubi, and succubi, with which some authors have disfigured their works, any more than I shall reply to the pretended possession of the nuns of Loudun, and of Martha Brossier,[663] which made so much noise at Paris at the commencement of the last century; because several learned men who have favored us with their reflections on these adventures, have sufficiently shown that the demons had nothing to do with them; and the last, above all, is perfectly quashed by the report of Marescot, a celebrated physician, who was deputed by the Faculty of Theology to examine this girl who performed so many wonders. Here are his own words, which may serve as a general reply to all these kind of adventures:--_A naturâ multa plura ficta, à Dæmone nulla._ That is to say, that the constitution of Martha Brossier, who was apparently very melancholy and hypochondriacal, contributed greatly to her fits of enthusiasm; that she feigned still more, and that the devil had nothing to do with it. "If some of the fathers, as St. Thomas, believe that the demons sometimes produce sensible effects, they always add, that it can be only by the particular permission of God, for his glory and the salvation of mankind. "In regard to all those prodigies and those common spells, which the people ascribe to sorcery or commerce with the demon, it is proved that they can be performed only by natural magic, which is the knowledge of secret effects of natural causes, and several by the subtlety of art. It is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers of the church who have spoken of it; and without seeking testimony of it in Pagan authors, such as Xenophon, Athenæus, and Pliny, whose works are full of an infinity of wonders which are all natural, we see in our own time the surprising effects of nature, as those of the magnet, of steel, and mercury, which we should attribute to sorcery as did the ancients, had we not seen sensible demonstrations of their powers. We also see jugglers do such extraordinary things, which seem so contrary to nature, that we should look upon these charlatans as magicians, if we did not know by experience, that their address alone, joined to constant practice, makes them able to perform so many things which seem marvelous to us. "All the share that the demons have in the criminal practices of those who are commonly called sorcerers, is suggestion; by which means they invite them to the abominable research of every natural cause which can do injury to others. "I am now, sir, at the most delicate point of your question, which is, to know if our souls can return to earth after they are separated from our bodies. "As the ancient philosophers erred so strongly on the nature of the soul--some believing that it was but a fire which animated us, and others a subtile air, and others affirming that it was nothing else but the proper arrangement of all the machine of the body, a doctrine which could not be admitted any more as the cause of in men than in beasts; we cannot therefore be surprised that they had such gross ideas concerning their state after death. "The error of the Greeks, which they communicated to the Romans, and the latter to our ancestors was, that the souls whose bodies were not solemnly interred by the ministry of the priests of religion, wandered out of Hades without finding any repose, until their bodies had been burned and their ashes collected. Homer makes Patroclus, who was killed by Hector, appear to his friend Achilles in the night to ask him for burial, without which, he is deprived, he says, of the privilege of passing the river Acheron. There were only the souls of those who had been drowned, whom they believed unable to return to earth after death; for which we find a curious reason in Servius, the interpreter of Virgil, who says, the greater number of the learned in Virgil's time, and Virgil himself, believing that the soul was nothing but a fire, which animated and moved the body, were persuaded that the fire was entirely extinguished by the water--as if the material could act upon the spiritual. Virgil explains his opinions on the subject of souls very clearly in these verses:-- 'Igneus est ollis vigor, et celestis origo.' And a little after, 'totos infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et toto se corpore miscet;' to mark the universal soul of the world, which he believed with the greater part of the philosophers of his time. "Again, it was a common error amongst the pagans, to believe that the souls of those who died before they were of their proper age, which they placed at the end of their growth, wandered about until the time came when they ought naturally to be separated from their bodies. Plato, more penetrating and better informed than the others, although like them mistaken, said, that the souls of the just who had obeyed virtue ascended to the sky; and that those who had been guilty of impiety, retaining still the contagion of the earthly matter of the body, wandered incessantly around the tombs, appearing like shadows and phantoms. "For us, whom religion teaches that our souls are spiritual substances created by God, and united for a time to bodies, we know that there are three different states after death. "Those who enjoy eternal beatitude, absorbed, as the holy doctors say, in the contemplation of the glory of God, cease not to interest themselves in all that concerns mankind, whose miseries they have undergone; and as they have attained the happiness of angels, all the sacred writers ascribe to them the same privilege of possessing the power, as aërial bodies, of rendering themselves visible to their brethren who are still upon earth, to console them, and inform them of the Divine will; and they relate several apparitions, which always happened by the particular permission of God. "The souls whose abominable crimes have plunged them into that gulf of torment, which the Scripture terms hell, being condemned to be detained there forever, without being able to hope for any relief, care not to have permission to come and speak to mankind in fantastic forms. The Scripture clearly set forth the impossibility of this return, by the discourse which is put into the mouth of the wicked rich man in hell, introduced speaking to Abraham; he does not ask leave to go himself, to warn his brethren on earth to avoid the torments which he suffers, because he knows that it is not possible; but he implores Abraham to send thither Lazarus, who was in glory. And to observe _en passant_ how very rare are the apparitions of the blessed and of angels, Abraham replies to him, that it would be useless, since those who are upon earth have the Law and the Prophets, which they have but to follow. "The story of the canon of Rheims, in the eleventh century, who, in the midst of the solemn service which was being performed for the repose of his soul, spoke aloud and said, That he was sentenced and condemned,[664] has been refuted by so many of the learned, who have shown that this circumstance is clearly supposititious, since it is not found in any contemporaneous author; that I think no enlightened person can object it against me. But even were this story as incontestable as it is apocryphal, it would be easy for me to say in reply, that the conversion of St. Bruno, who has won so many souls to God, was motive enough for the Divine Providence to perform so striking a miracle. "It now remains for me to examine if the souls which are in purgatory, where they expiate the rest of their crimes before they pass to the abode of the blessed, can come and converse with men, and ask them to pray for their relief. "Although those who have desired to maintain this popular error, have done their endeavors to support it by different passages from St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Thomas, it is certain that all these fathers speak only of the return of the blessed to manifest the glory of God; and of St. Augustine says precisely, that if it were possible for the souls of the dead to appear to men, not a day would pass without his receiving a visit from Monica his mother. "Tertullian, in his Treatise on the Soul, laughs at those who in his time believed in apparitions. St. John Chrysostom, speaking on the subject of Lazarus, formally denies them; as well as the law glossographer, Canon John Andreas, who calls them phantoms of a sickly imagination, and all that is reported about spirits which people think they hear or see, vain apparitions. The 7th chapter of Job, and the song of King Hezekiah, reported in the 38th chapter of Isaiah, are all full of the witnesses which the Holy Spirit seems to have desired to give us of this truth, that our souls cannot return to earth after our death until God has made them angels. "But in order to establish this still better, we must reply to the strongest objections of those who combat it. They adduce the opinion of the Jews, which they pretend to prove by the testimony of Josephus and the rabbis; the words of Jesus Christ to his apostles, when he appeared to them after his resurrection; the authority of the council of Elvira;[665] some passages from St. Jerome, in his Treatise against Vigilantius; of decrees issued by different Parliaments, by which the leases of several houses had been broken on account of the spirits which haunted them daily, and tormented the lodgers or tenants; in short an infinite number of instances, which are scattered in every story. "To destroy all these authorities in a few words, I say first of all, that it cannot be concluded that the Jews believed in the return of spirits after death, because Josephus assures us that the spirit which the Pythoness caused to appear to Saul was the true spirit of Samuel; for, besides that the holiness of this prophet had placed him in the number of the blessed, there are circumstances attending this apparition which have caused most of the holy fathers[666] to doubt whether it really was the ghost of Samuel, believing that it might be an illusion with which the Pythoness deceived Saul, and made him believe that he saw that which he desired to see. "What several rabbis relate of patriarchs, prophets, and kings whom they saw on the mountain of Gerizim, does not prove either that the Jews believed that the spirits of the dead could come back, since it was only a vision proceeding from the spirit in ecstasy, which believed it saw what it saw not truly; all those who compose this appearance were persons of whose holiness the Jews were persuaded. What Jesus Christ says to his apostles, that the spirits have 'neither flesh nor bones,' far from making us believe that spirits can come back again, proves on the contrary evidently, that they cannot without a miracle make us sensible of their presence, since it requires absolutely a corporeal substance and bodily organs to utter sounds; the description does agree with souls, they being pure substances, exempt from matter, invisibles, and therefore cannot _naturally_ be subject to our senses. "The Provincial Council held in Spain during the pontificate of Sylvester I., which forbids us to light a taper by day in the cemeteries of martyrs, adding, as a reason, that we must not disturb the spirits of the saints, is of no consideration; because besides that these words are liable to different interpretations, and may even have been inserted by some copyist, as some learned men believe, they only relate to the martyrs, of whom we cannot doubt that their spirits are blessed. "I make the same reply to a passage of St. Jerome, because arguing against the heresiarch Vigilantius, who treated as illusions all the miracles which were worked at the tombs of the martyrs; he endeavors to prove to him that the saints who are in heaven always take part in the miseries of mankind, and sometimes even appear to them visibly to strengthen and console them. "As for the decrees which have annulled the leases of several houses on account of the inconvenience caused by ghosts to those who lodged therein, it suffices to examine the means and the reasons upon which they were obtained, to comprehend that either the judges were led into error by the prejudices of their childhood, or that they were obliged to yield to the proofs produced, often even against their own superior knowledge, or they have been deceived by imposture, or by the simplicity of the witnesses. "With respect to the apparitions, with which all such stories are filled, one of the strongest which can be objected against my argument, and to which I think myself the more obliged to reply, is that which is affirmed to have occurred at Paris in the last century, and of which five hundred witnesses are cited, who have examined into the truth of the matter with particular attention. Here is the adventure, as related by those who wrote at the time it took place.[667] "The Marquis de Rambouillet, eldest brother of the Duchess of Montauzier, and the Marquis de Précy, eldest son of the family of Nantouillet, both of them between twenty and thirty, were intimate friends, and went to the wars, as in France do all men of quality. As they were conversing one day together on the subject of the other world, after several speeches which sufficiently showed that they were not too well persuaded of the truth of all that is said concerning it, they promised each other that the first who died should come and bring the news to his companion. At the end of three months the Marquis de Rambouillet set off for Flanders, where the war was then being carried on; and de Précy, detained by a high fever, remained at Paris. Six weeks afterwards de Précy, at six in the morning, heard the curtains of his bed drawn, and turning to see who it was, he perceived the Marquis de Rambouillet in his buff vest and boots; he sprung out of bed to embrace him to show his joy at his return, but Rambouillet, retreating a few steps, told him that these caresses were no longer seasonable, for he only came to keep his word with him; that he had been killed the day before on such an occasion; that all that was said of the other world was certainly true; that he must think of leading a different life; and that he had no time to lose, as he would be killed the first action he was engaged in. "It is impossible to express the surprise of the Marquis de Précy at this discourse; as he could not believe what he heard, he made several efforts to embrace his friend, whom he thought desirous of deceiving him, but he embraced only air; and Rambouillet, seeing that he was incredulous, showed the wound he had received, which was in the side, whence the blood still appeared to flow. After that the phantom disappeared, and left de Précy in a state of alarm more easy to comprehend than describe; he called at the same time his valet-de-chambre, and awakened all the family with his cries. Several persons ran to his room, and he related to them what he had just seen. Every one attributed this vision to the violence of the fever, which might have deranged his imagination; they begged him to go to bed again, assuring him that he must have dreamed what he told them. "The Marquis in despair, on seeing that they took him for a visionary, related all the circumstances I have just recounted; but it was in vain for him to protest that he had seen and heard his friend, being wide awake; they persisted in the same idea until the arrival of the post from Flanders, which brought the news of the death of the Marquis de Rambouillet. "This first circumstance being found true, and in the same manner as de Précy had said, those to whom he had related the adventure began to think that there might be something in it, because Rambouillet having been killed precisely the eve of the day he had said it, it was impossible de Précy should have known of it in a natural way. This event having spread in Paris, they thought it was the effect of a disturbed imagination, or a made up story; and whatever might be said by the persons who examined the thing seriously, there remained in people's minds a suspicion, which time alone could disperse: this depended on what might happen to the Marquis de Précy, who was threatened that he should be slain in the first engagement; thus every one regarded his fate as the dénouement of the piece; but he soon confirmed everything they had doubted the truth of, for as soon as he recovered from his illness he would go to the combat of St. Antoine, although his father and mother, who were afraid of the prophecy, said all they could to prevent him; he was killed there, to the great regret of all his family. "Supposing all these circumstances to be true, this is what I should say to counteract the deductions that some wish to derive from them. "It is not difficult to understand that the imagination of the Marquis de Précy, heated by fever, and troubled by the recollection of the promise that the Marquis de Rambouillet and himself had exchanged, may have represented to itself the phantom of his friend, whom he knew to be fighting, and in danger every moment of being killed. The circumstances of the wound of the Marquis de Rambouillet, and the prediction of the death of de Précy, which was fulfilled, appears more serious: nevertheless, those who have experienced the power of presentiments, the effects of which are so common every day, will easily conceive that the Marquis de Précy, whose mind, agitated by a burning fever, followed his friend in all the chances of war, and expected continually to see announced to himself by the phantom of his friend what was to happen, may have imagined that the Marquis de Rambouillet had been killed by a musket-shot in the side, and that the ardor which he himself felt for war might prove fatal to him in the first action. We shall see by the words of St. Augustine, which I shall cite by-and-by, how fully that Doctor of the Church was persuaded of the power of imagination, to which he attributes the knowledge of things to come. I shall again establish the authority of presentiments by a most singular instance. "A lady of talent, whom I knew particularly well, being at Chartres, where she was residing, dreamt in the night that in her sleep she saw Paradise, which she fancied to herself was a magnificent hall, around which were in different ranks the angels and spirits of the blessed, and God, who presided in the midst, on a shining throne. She heard some one knock at the door of this delightful place; and St. Peter having opened it, she saw two pretty children, one of them clothed in a white robe, and the other quite naked. St. Peter took the first by the hand and led him to the foot of the throne, and left the other crying bitterly at the door. She awoke at that moment, and related her dream to several persons, who thought it very remarkable. A letter which she received from Paris in the afternoon informed her that one of her daughters was brought to bed with two children, who were dead, and only one of them had been baptized. "Of what may we not believe the imagination capable, after so strong a proof of its power? Can we doubt that amongst all the pretended apparitions that are related, imagination alone produces all those which do not proceed from angels and blessed spirits, or which are not the effect of fraudulent contrivance? "To explain more fully what has given rise to those phantoms, the apparition of which has been published in all ages, without availing myself of the ridiculous opinion of the skeptics, who doubt of everything, and assert that our senses, however sound they may be, can only imagine everything falsely, I shall remark that the wisest amongst the philosophers maintain that deep melancholy, anger, frenzy, fever, depraved or debilitated senses, whether naturally, or by accident, can make us see and hear many things which have no foundation. "Aristotle says[668] that in sleep the interior senses act by the local movement of the humors and the blood, and that this action descends sometimes to the sensitive organs, so that on awaking, the wisest persons think they see the images they have dreamt of. "Plutarch, in the Life of Brutus, relates that Cassius persuaded Brutus that a spectre which the latter declared he had seen on waking, was an effect of his imagination; and this is the argument which he puts in his mouth:-- "'The spirit of man being extremely active in its nature, and in continual motion, which produces always some fantasy; above all, melancholy persons, like you, Brutus, are more apt to form to themselves in the imagination ideal images, which sometimes pass to their external senses.' "Galen, so skilled in the knowledge of all the springs of the human body, attributes spectres to the extreme subtility of sight and hearing. "What I have read in Cardan seems to establish the opinion of Galen. He says that, being in the city of Milan, it was reported that there was an angel in the air, who appeared visibly, and having ran to the market-place, he, with two thousand others, saw the same. As even the most learned were in admiration at this wonder, a clever lawyer, who came to the spot, having observed the thing attentively, sensibly made them remark that what they saw was not an angel, but the figure of an angel, in stone, placed on the top of the belfry of St. Gothard, which being imprinted in a thick cloud by means of a sunbeam which fell upon it, was reflected to the eyes of those who possessed the most piercing vision. If this fact had not been cleared up on the spot by a man exempt from all prejudice, it would have passed for certain that it was a real angel, since it had been seen by the most enlightened persons in the town to the number of two thousand. "The celebrated du Laurent, in his treatise on Melancholy, attributes to it the most surprising effects; of which he gives an infinite number of instances, which seem to surpass the power of nature. "St. Augustine, when consulted by Evodius, Bishop of Upsal, on the subject I am treating of, answers him in these terms: 'In regard to visions, even of those by which we learn something of the future, it is not possible to explain how they are formed, unless we could first of all know how everything arises which passes through our minds when we think; for we see clearly that a number of images are excited in our minds, which images represent to us what has struck either our eyes or our other senses. We experience it every day and every hour.' And a little after, he adds: 'At the moment I dictate this letter, I see you with the eyes of my mind, without your being present, or your knowing anything about it; and I represent to myself, through my knowledge of your character, the impression that my words will make on your mind, without nevertheless knowing or being able to understand how all this passes within me.' "I think, sir, you will require nothing more precise than these words of St. Augustine to persuade you that we must attribute to the power of imagination the greater number of apparitions, even of those through which we learn things which it would seem could not be known naturally; and you will easily excuse my undertaking to explain to you how the imagination works all these wonders, since this holy doctor owns that he cannot himself comprehend it, though quite convinced of the fact. "I can tell you only that the blood which circulates incessantly in our arteries and veins, being purified and warmed in the heart, throws out thin vapors, which are its most subtile parts, and are called animal spirits; which, being carried into the cavities of the brain, set in motion the small gland which is, they say, the seat of the soul, and by this means awaken and resuscitate the species of the things that they have heard or seen formerly, which are, as it were, enveloped within it, and form the internal reasoning which we call thought. Whence comes it that beasts have memory as well as ourselves, but not the reflections which accompany it, which proceed from the soul, and that they have not. "If what Mr. Digby, a learned Englishman, and chancellor of Henrietta, Queen of England, Father Kircher, a celebrated Jesuit, Father Schort, of the same society, Gaffarelli and Vallemont, publish of the admirable secret of the palingenesis, or resurrection of plants, has any foundation, we might account for the shades and phantoms which many persons declare to have seen in cemeteries. "This is the way in which these curious researchers arrive at the marvelous operation of the palingenesis:-- "They take a flower, burn it, and collect all the ashes of it, from which they extract the salts by calcination. They put these salts into a glass phial, wherein having mixed certain compositions capable of setting them in motion when heated, all this matter forms a dust of a bluish hue; of this dust, excited by a gentle warmth, arises a stem, leaves, and a flower; in a word, they perceive the apparition of a plant springing from its ashes. As soon as the warmth ceases, all the spectacle vanishes, the matter deranges itself and falls to the bottom of the vessel, to form there a new chaos. The return of heat resuscitates this vegetable phoenix, hidden in its ashes. And as the presence of warmth gives it life, its absence causes its death. "Father Kircher, who tries to give a reason for this admirable phenomenon, says that the seminal virtue of every mixture is concentrated in the salts, and that as soon as warmth sets them in motion they rise directly and circulate like a whirlwind in this glass vessel. These salts, in this suspension, which gives them liberty to arrange themselves, take the same situation and form the same figure as nature had primitively bestowed on them; retaining the inclination to become what they had been, they return to their first destination, and form themselves into the same lines as they occupied in the living plant; each corpuscle of salt re-entering its original arrangement which it received from nature; those which were at the foot of the plant place themselves there; in the same manner, those which compose the top of the stem, the branches, the leaves, and the flowers, resume their former place, and thus form a perfect apparition of the whole plant. "It is affirmed that this operation has been performed upon a sparrow;[669] and the gentlemen of the Royal Society of England, who are making their experiments on this matter, hope to succeed in making them on human beings also.[670] "Now, according to the principle of Father Kircher and the most learned chemists, who assert that the substantial form of bodies resides in the salts, and that these salts, set in motion by warmth, form the same figure as that which had been given to them by nature, it is not difficult to comprehend that dead bodies being consumed away in the earth, the salts which exhale from them with the vapors, by means of the fermentations which so often occur in this element, may very well, in arranging themselves above ground, form those shadows and phantoms which have frightened so many people. Thus we may perceive how little reason there is to ascribe them to the return of spirits, or to demons, as some ignorant people have done. "To all the authorities by means of which I have combated the apparitions of spirits which are in purgatory, I shall still add some very natural reflections. If the souls which are in purgatory could return hither to ask for prayers to pass into the abode of glory, there would be no one who would not receive similar entreaties from his relations and friends, since all the spirits being disposed to do the same thing, apparently, God would grant them all the same permission. Besides, if they possessed this liberty, no sensible person could understand why they should accompany their appearance with all the follies so circumstantially related in those stories, as rolling up a bed, opening the curtains, pulling off a blanket, overturning the furniture, and making a frightful noise. In short, if there were any reality in these apparitions, it is morally impossible that in so many ages _one_ would not have been found so well authenticated that it could not be doubted. "After having sufficiently proved that all the apparitions which cannot be ascribed to angels or to the souls of the blessed are produced only by one of the three following causes--the extreme subtility of the senses; the derangement of the organs, as in madness and high fever; and the power of imagination--let us see what we must think of the circumstance which occurred at St. Maur. "Although you have already seen the account that has been given of it, I believe, sir, that you will not be displeased if I here give you the detail of the more particular circumstances. I shall endeavor to omit nothing that has been done to confirm the truth of the circumstance, and I shall even make use of the exact words of the author, as much as I can, that I may not be accused of detracting from the adventure. "Monsieur de S----, to whom it happened, is a young man, short in stature, well made for his height, between four and five-and-twenty years of age. Being in bed, he heard several loud knocks at his door without the maid servant, who ran thither directly, finding any one; and then the curtains of his bed were drawn, although there was only himself in the room. The 22d of last March, being, about eleven o'clock at night, busy looking over some lists of works in his study, with three lads who are his domestics, they all heard distinctly a rustling of the papers on the table; the cat was suspected of this performance, but M. de S. having taken a light and looked diligently about, found nothing. "A little after this he went to bed, and sent to bed also those who had been with him in his kitchen, which is next to his sleeping-room; he again heard the same noise in his study or closet; he rose to see what it was, and not having found anything more than he did the first time, he was going to shut the door, but he felt some resistance to his doing so; he then went in to see what this obstacle might be, and at the same time heard a noise above his head towards the corner of the room, like a great blow on the wall; at this he cried out, and his people ran to him; he tried to reassure them, though alarmed himself; and having found naught he went to bed again and fell asleep. Hardly had these lads extinguished the light, than M. de S. was suddenly awakened by a shake, like that of a boat striking against the arch of a bridge; he was so much alarmed at it that he called his domestics; and when they had brought the light, he was strangely surprised to find his bed at least four feet out of its place, and he was then aware that the shock he had felt was when his bedstead ran against the wall. His people having replaced the bed, saw, with as much astonishment as alarm, all the bed-curtains open at the same moment, and the bedstead set off running towards the fire-place. M. de S. immediately got up, and sat up the rest of the night by the fire-side. About six in the morning, having made another attempt to sleep, he was no sooner in bed than the bedstead made the same movement again, twice, in the presence of his servants, who held the bed-posts to prevent it from displacing itself. At last, being obliged to give up the game, he went out to walk till dinner time; after which, having tried to take some rest, and his bed having twice changed its place, he sent for a man who lodged in the same house, as much to reassure himself in his company, as to render him a witness of so surprising a circumstance. But the shock which took place before this man was so violent, that the left foot at the upper part of the bedstead was broken; which had such an effect upon him, that in reply to the offers that were made to him to stay and see a second, he replied that what he had seen, with the frightful noise he had heard all night, were quite sufficient to convince him of the fact. "It was thus that the affair, which till then had remained between M. de S. and his domestics, became public; and the report of it being immediately spread, and reaching the ears of a great prince who had just arrived at St. Maur, his highness was desirous of enlightening himself upon the matter, and took the trouble to examine carefully into the circumstances which were related to him. As this adventure became the subject of every conversation, very soon nothing was heard but stories of ghosts, related by the credulous, and laughed at and joked upon by the freethinkers. However, M. de S. tried to reassure himself, and go the following night into his bed, and become worthy of conversing with the spirit, which he doubted not had something to disclose to him. He slept till nine o'clock the next morning, without having felt anything but slight shakes, as the mattresses were raised up, which had only served to rock him and promote sleep. The next day passed off pretty quietly; but on the 26th, the spirit, who seemed to have become well-behaved, resumed its fantastic humor, and began the morning by making a great noise in the kitchen; they would have forgiven it for this sport if it had stopped there, but it was much worse in the afternoon. M. de S., who owns that he felt himself particularly attracted towards his study, though he felt a repugnance to enter it, having gone into it about six o'clock, went to the end of the room, and returning towards the door to go into his bed-room again, was much surprised to see it shut of itself and barricade itself with the two bolts. At the same time, the two doors of a large press opened behind him, and rather darkened his study, because the window, which was open, was behind these doors. "At this sight, the fright of M. de S. is more easy to imagine than to describe; however, he had sufficient calmness left, to hear at his left ear a distinct voice, which came from a corner of the closet, and seemed to him to be about a foot above his head. This voice spoke to him in very good terms during the space of half a _miserere_; and ordered him, _theeing_ and _thouing_ him to do some one particular thing, which he was recommended to keep secret. What he has made public is that the voice allowed him a fortnight to accomplish it in; and ordered him to go to a place, where he would find some persons who would inform him what he had to do; and that it would come back and torment him if he failed to obey. The conversation ended by an adieu. "After that, M. de S. remembers that he fainted and fell down on the edge of a box, which caused him a pain in his side. The loud noise and the cries which he afterwards uttered brought several people in haste to the door, and after useless efforts to open it, they were going to force it open with a hatchet, when they heard M. de S. dragging himself towards the door, which he with much difficulty opened. Disordered as he was, and unable to speak, they first of all carried him to the fire, and then they laid him on his bed, where he received all the compassion of the great prince, of whom I have already spoken, who hastened to the house the moment this event was noised abroad. His highness having caused all the recesses and corners of the house to be inspected, and no one being found therein, wished that M. de S. should be bled; but his surgeon finding he had a very feeble pulsation, thought he could not do so without danger. "When he recovered from his swoon, his highness, who wished to discover the truth, questioned him concerning his adventure; but he only heard the circumstances I have mentioned--M. de S. having protested to him that he could not, without risk to his life, tell him more. "The spirit was heard of no more for a fortnight; but when that term was expired--whether his orders had not been faithfully executed, or that he was glad to come and thank M. de S. for being so exact--as he was, during the night, lying in a little bed near the window of his bed-room, his mother in the great bed, and one of his friends in an arm-chair near the fire, they all three heard some one rap several times against the wall, and such a blow against the window, that they thought all the panes were broken. M. de S. got up that moment, and went into his closet to see if this troublesome spirit had something else to say to him; but when there, he could neither find nor hear anything. And thus ended this adventure, which has made so much noise and drawn so many inquisitive persons to St. Maur. "Now let us make some reflections on those circumstances which are the most striking, and most likely to make any impression. "The noise which was heard several times during the night by the master, the female servant, and the neighbors, is quite equivocal; and the most prejudiced persons cannot deny that it may have been produced by different causes which are all quite natural. "The same reply may be given as to the papers which were heard to rustle, since a breath of air or a mouse might have moved them. "The moving of the bed is something more serious, because it is reported to have been witnessed by several persons; but I hope that a little reflection will dispense us from having recourse to fantastic hands in order to explain it. "Let us imagine a bedstead upon castors; a person whose imagination is impressed, or who wishes to enliven himself by frightening his domestics, is lying upon it, and rolls about very much, complaining that he is tormented. Is it surprising that the bedstead should be seen to move, especially when the floor of the room is waxed and rubbed? But, you will say, some of the witnesses even made useless efforts to prevent this movement. Who are these witnesses? Two are youths in the service of the patient, who trembled all over with fright, and were not capable of examining the secret causes of this movement; and the other has since told several people that he would give ten pistoles not to have affirmed that he saw this bedstead remove itself without help. "In regard to the voice, whose secret has been so carefully kept, as there is no witness of it, we can only judge of it by the state in which he who had been favored with this pretended revelation was found. Repeated cries from the man who, hearing his closet door beaten in, draws back the bolts which he had apparently drawn himself, his eyes quite wild, and his whole person in extraordinary disorder, would have caused the ancient heathens to take him for a sibyl full of enthusiasm, and must appear to us rather the consequence of some convulsion than of a conversation with a spiritual being. "Lastly, the violent blows given upon the walls and panes of glass, in the night, in the presence of two witnesses, might make some impression, if we were sure that the patient, who was lying directly under the window in a small bed, had no part in the matter; for of the two witnesses who heard this noise, one was his mother, and the other an intimate friend, who, even reflecting on what he saw and heard, declares that it can only be the effect of a spell. "How much good soever you may wish for this place, I do not believe, sir, that what I have just remarked on the circumstances of the adventure, will lead you to believe that it has been honored with an angelic apparition; I should rather fear that, attributing it to a disordered imagination, you may accuse the subtility of the air which there predominates as having caused it. As I am somewhat interested in not doing the climate of St. Maur such an injury, I am compelled to add something else to what I have said of the person in question, in order that you may know his character. "You need not be very clever in the art of physiognomy to remark in his countenance the melancholy which prevails in his temperament. This sad disposition, joined to the fever which has tormented him for some time, carried some vapors to his brain, which might easily lead him to believe that he heard all he has publicly declared; besides which, the desire to divert himself by alarming his domestics may have induced him to feign several things, when he saw that the adventure had come to the ears of a prince who might not approve of such a joke, and be severe upon it. Thus then, sir, you will think as I do, that the report of the celebrated Marescot on the subject of the famous Margaret Brossier agrees perfectly with our melancholy man, and well explains his adventure: _à naturâ multa, plura ficta, à dæmone nulla_. His temperament has made him fancy he saw and heard many things; he feigned still more in support of what his wanderings or his sport had induced him to assert; and no kind of spirit has had any share in his adventure. Without stopping to relate several effects of his melancholy, I shall simply remark that an embarkation which he made on one of the last _jours gras_, setting off at ten o'clock at night to make the tour of the peninsula of St. Maur, in a boat where he covered himself up with straw on account of the cold, appeared so singular to the great prince before mentioned, that he took the trouble to question him as to his motives for making such a voyage at so late an hour. "I shall add that the discernment of his highness made him easily judge whence this adventure proceeded, and his behavior on this occasion has shown that he is not easily deceived. I do not think it is allowable for me to omit the opinion of his father, a man of distinguished merit, on this adventure of his son, when he learned all the circumstances by a letter from his wife, who was at St. Maur. He told several persons that he was certain that the spirit which acted on this occasion was that of his wife and son. The author of the relation was right in endeavoring to weaken such testimony; but I do not know if he flatters himself that he has succeeded, in saying that he who gave this opinion is an _esprit fort_, or freethinker who makes it a point of honor to be of the fashionable opinion concerning spirits. "Lastly, to fix your judgment and terminate agreeably this little dissertation in which you have engaged me, I know of nothing better than to repeat the words of a princess,[671] who is not less distinguished at court by the delicacy of her wit than by her high rank and personal charms. As they were conversing in her presence of the singularity of the adventure which here happened at St. Maur, 'Why are you so much astonished?' said she, with that gracious air which is so natural to her; 'Is it surprising that the son should have to do with spirits, since the mother sees the eternal Father three times every week? This woman is very happy,' added the witty princess; 'for my part, I should ask no other favor than to see him once in my life.' "Laugh with your friends at this agreeable reflection; but, above all, take care, sir, not to make my letter public: it is the only reward that I ask for the exactitude with which I have obeyed you on so delicate an occasion. "I am, sir, "Your very humble, &c. _St. Maur, May 8, 1706._" APPROBATION. "By order of the Lord Chancellor, this dissertation on what we must think of spirits in general, and of that of St. Maur in particular, has been read by me, and I have found nothing therein which ought to hinder its being printed. "Done at Paris, the 17th of October, 1706. (_Signed_) "LA MARQUE TILLADET. "The king's permission bears date the 21st November, 1706." Footnotes: [662] St. Ambrose, Com. on St. Luke, i. c. 1. [663] Martha Brossier, daughter of a weaver at Romorantin, was shown as a demoniac, in 1578. See De Thou on this subject, book cxxiii. and tom. v. of the Journal of Henry III., edition of 1744, p. 206, &c. The affair of Loudun took place in the reign of Louis XIII.; and Cardinal Richelieu is accused of having caused this tragedy to be enacted, in order to ruin Urban Grandier, the curé of Loudun, for having written a cutting satire against him. [664] M. de Lannoy has made a particular dissertation De Causà Secessionis S. Brunonis: he solidly refutes this fable. Nevertheless, this event is to be found painted in the fine pictures of the little monastery of the Chartreux at Paris. [665] Eliberitan Council, an. 305 or 313, in the kingdom of Grenada. Others have thought, but mistakenly, that it was Collioure in Roussillon. [666] Jesus, the son of Sirach, author of Ecclesiasticus, believes this apparition to be true. Ecclus. xlvi. 23. [667] This story has been related in the former part of the work, but more succinctly. [668] Arist. Treatise on Dreams and Vigils. [669] The Abbé de Vallemont, in his work on the Singularities of Vegetation. Paris, 1 vol. 12mo. [670] This was a century and a half ago; but the Philosophical Transactions record no account of any successful result to such experiments. [671] Madame the Duchess-mother, daughter of the late king, Louis XIV., and mother of the duke lately dead, of M. the Count de Charolois, and of M. the Count de Clermont. LETTER OF M. THE MARQUIS MAFFEI ON MAGIC; ADDRESSED TO THE REVEREND FATHER INNOCENT ANSALDI, OF THE ORDER OF ST. DOMINIC; TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF THE AUTHOR. LETTER OF M. THE MARQUIS MAFFEI ON MAGIC. MY REVEREND FATHER, It is to the goodness of your reverence, in regard to myself, that I must attribute the curiosity you appear to feel to know what I think concerning the book which the Sieur Jerome Tartarotti has just published on the _Nocturnal Assemblies of the Sorcerers_. I reply to you with the greatest pleasure; and I am going to tell my opinion fully and unreservedly, on condition that you will examine what I write to you with your usual acuteness, and that you will tell me frankly whatever you remark in it, whether good or bad, and that may appear to deserve either your approbation or your censure. I had already read this book, and passed an eulogium on it, both for the great erudition displayed therein by the author, as because he refutes, in a very sensible manner, some ridiculous opinions with which people are infatuated concerning sorcerers, and some other equally dangerous abuses. But, to tell the truth, with that exception, I am little disposed to approve it; if M. Muratori has done so in his letter, which has been seen by several persons, either he has not read the work through, or he and I on that point entertain very different sentiments. In regard to my opinion, your reverence will see, by what I shall say, that it is the same as your own on this subject, as you have done me the favor to show by your letter. I. In this work there is laid down, in the first place, as a certain and indubitable principle, the existence and reality of magic, and the truth of the effects produced by it--superior, they say, to all natural powers; he gives it the name of "diabolical magic," and defines it, "The knowledge of certain superstitious practices, such as words, verses, characters, images, signs (_qy._ moles), &c., by means of which magicians succeed in their designs." For my part, I am much inclined to believe that all the science of the pretended magicians had no other design than to deceive others, and ended sometimes in deceiving themselves; and that this magic, now so much vaunted, is only a chimera. Perhaps even it would be giving one's self superfluous trouble to undertake to show that everything related of those nocturnal hypogryphes,[672] of those pretended journeys through the air, of those assemblies and feasts of sorcerers, is only idle and imaginary; because those fables being done away with would not prevent that an infinite number of others would still remain, which have been repeated and spread on the same subject, and which, although more foolish and ridiculous than all the extravagances we read in romances, are so much the more dangerous, because they are more easily believed. It would, in the opinion of many, be doing these tales too much honor to attempt to refute them seriously, as there is no one at this day, in Italy, at least, even amongst the people, who has common sense, that does not laugh at all that is said of the witches' sabbath, and of those troops or bands of sorcerers who go through the air during the night to assemble in retired spots and dance. It is true, that notwithstanding, that if a man of any credit, whether amongst the learned or persons of high dignity, maintains an opinion, he will immediately find partisans; it will be useless to write or speak to the contrary, it will not be the less followed; and it is hardly possible that it can be otherwise, so many minds as there are, and so many different ways of thinking. But here the only question is, what is the common opinion, and what is most universally believed. It is not my intention to compose a work expressly on magic, nor to enter very lengthily on this matter; I shall only exhibit, in a few words, the reasons which oblige me to laugh at it, and which induce me to incline to the opinion of those who look upon it as a _pure_ illusion, and a _real_ chimera. I must, first of all, give notice that you must not be dazzled by the truth of the magical operations in the Old Testament, as if from thence we could derive a conclusive argument to prove the reality of the pretended magic of our own times. I shall demonstrate this clearly at the end of this discourse, in which I hope to show that my opinion on this subject is conformable to the Scripture, and founded on the tradition of the fathers. Now, then, let us speak of modern magicians. II. If there is any reality in this art, to which so many wonders are ascribed, it must be the effect of a knowledge acquired by study, or of the impiety of some one who renounces what he owes to God to give himself up to the demon, and invokes him. It seems, in fact, that they would sometimes attribute it to acquired knowledge, since in the book I am combating the author often speaks "of the true mysteries of the magic art;" and he asserts that few "are perfectly instructed in the secret and difficult principles of this science;" which is not surprising, he says, since "the life of man would hardly suffice" to read all the works which have treated of it. He calls it sometimes the "magical science," or "magical philosophy;" he carries back the origin of it to the philosopher Pythagoras; he regards "ignorance of the magic art as one of the reasons why we see so few magicians in our days." He speaks only of the mysterious scale enclosed by Orpheus in unity, in the numbers of two and twelve; of the harmony of nature, composed of proportionable parts, which are the octave, or the double, and the fifth, or one and a half; of strange and barbarous names which mean nothing, and to which he attributes supernatural virtues; of the concert or the agreement of the inferior and superior parts of this universe, when understood; makes us, by means of certain words or certain stones, hold intercourse with invisible substances; of numbers and signs, which answer to the spirits which preside over different days, or different parts of the body; of circles, triangles, and pentagons, which have power to bind spirits; and of several other secrets of the same kind, very ridiculous, to tell the truth, but very fit to impose on those who admire everything which they do not understand. III. But however thick may be the darkness with which nature is hidden from us, and although we may know but very imperfectly the essential principles and properties of things, who does not see, nevertheless, that there can be no proportion, no connection, between circles and triangles which we trace, or the long words which signify nothing, and immaterial spirits? Can people not conceive that it is a folly to believe that by means of a few herbs, certain stones, and certain signs or characters, we can make ourselves obeyed by invisible substances which are unknown to us? Let a man study as much as he will the pretended soul of the world, the harmony of nature, the agreement of the influence of all the parts it is composed of--is it not evident that all he will gain by his labor will be terms and words, and never any effects which are above the natural power of man? To be convinced of this truth, it suffices to observe that the pretended magicians are, and ever have been, anything but learned; on the contrary, they are very ignorant and illiterate men. Is it credible that so many celebrated persons, so many famous men, versed in all kinds of literature, should never have been able or willing to sound and penetrate the mysterious secrets of this art; and that of so many philosophers spoken of by Diogenes Laërtius, neither Plato, nor Aristotle, nor any other, should have left us some treatise? It would be useless to attack the opinions of the world at that time on this subject. Do we not know with how many errors it has been infatuated in all ages, and which, though shared in common, were not the less mistakes? Was it not generally believed in former times, that there were no antipodes? that according to whether the sacred fowls had eaten or not, it was permitted or forbidden to fight? that the statues of the gods had spoken or changed their place? Add to those things all the knavery and artifice which the charlatans put in practice to deceive and delude the people, and then can we be surprised that they succeeded in imposing on them and gaining their belief? But let it not be imagined, nevertheless, that everyone was their dupe, and that amongst so many blind and credulous people there were not always to be found some men sensible and clear-sighted enough to perceive the truth. IV. To be convinced of this, let us only consider what was thought of it by one of the most learned amongst the ancients, and we may say, one of the most curious and attentive observers of the wonders of nature--I speak of Pliny, who thus expresses himself at the beginning of his Thirtieth Book;[673] "Hitherto I have shown in this work, every time that it was necessary and the occasion presented itself, how very little reality there is in all that is said of magic; and I shall continue to do so as it goes on. But because during several centuries this art, the most deceptive of all, has enjoyed great credit among several nations, I think it is proper to speak of it more fully." "No men are more clever in hiding their knaveries than magicians;" and in seven or eight other places he endeavors to expose "their falsehoods, their deceptions, the uselessness of their art," and laughs at it. But one thing to which we should pay attention above all, is an invincible argument which he brings forward against this pretended art. For after having enumerated the diverse sorts of magic, which were employed with different kinds of instruments, and in several different ways, and from which they promised themselves effects that were "quite divine;" that is to say, superior to all the force of nature, even of "the power to converse with the shades and souls of the dead;" he adds, "But in our days the Emperor Nero has discovered that in all these things there is nothing but deceit and vanity." "Never prince," says he, a little lower down, "sought with more eagerness to render himself clever in any other art; and as he was the master of the world, it is certain that he wanted neither riches, nor power, nor wit, nor any other aid necessary to succeed therein. What stronger proof of the falsity of this art can we have than to see that Nero renounced it?" Suetonius informs us also, "That this prince uselessly employed magic sacrifices to evoke the shade of his mother, and speak to her." Again, Pliny says "that Tirdates the Mage (for it is thus it should be read, and not Tiridates the Great, as it is in the edition of P. Hardouin), having repaired to the court of Nero, and having brought several magi with him, initiated this prince in all the mysteries of magic. Nevertheless," he adds, "it was in vain for Nero to make him a present of a kingdom--he could not obtain from him the knowledge of this art; which ought to convince us that this detestable science is only vanity, or, if some shadow of truth is to be met within it, its real effects have less to do with the art of magic than the art of poisoning." Seneca, who also was very clever, after having repeated a law of the Twelve Tables, "which forbade the use of enchantments to destroy the fruits of the earth," makes this commentary upon it: "When our fathers were yet rude and ignorant, they imagined that by means of enchantments rain could be brought down upon the ground, or could be prevented from falling; but at this day it is so clear that both one and the other is impossible, that to be convinced of it it does not require to be a philosopher." It would be useless to collect in this place an infinity of passages from the ancients, which all prove the same thing; we can only __________ the book written by Hippocrates on Caducity, which usually passed for the effect of the vengeance of the gods, and which for that reason was called the "sacred malady." We shall there see how he laughs "at magicians and charlatans," who boasted of being able to cure it by their enchantments and expiations. He shows there that by the profession which they made of being able to darken the sun, bring down the moon to the earth, give fine or bad weather, procure abundance or sterility, they seemed to wish to attribute to man more power than to the Divinity itself, showing therein much less religion than "impiety, and proving that they did not believe in the gods." I do not speak of the fables and tales invented by Philostrates on the subject of Apollonius of Thyana, they have been sufficiently refuted by the best pens: but I must not omit to warn you that the name of magic has been used in a good sense for any uncommon science, and a sublimer sort of philosophy. It is in this sense that it must be understood where Pliny says,[674] although rather obscurely, "that Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato, traveled a great deal to acquire instruction in it." For the rest, people are naturally led to attribute to sorcery everything that appears new and marvelous. Have not we ourselves, with M. Leguier, passed for magicians in the minds of some persons, because in our experiments on electricity they have seen us easily extinguish lights by putting them near cold water, which then appeared an unheard-of thing, and which many still firmly maintain even now cannot be done without a tacit compact? It is true that in the effects of electricity there is something so extraordinary and so wonderful, that we should be more disposed to excuse those persons who could not easily believe them to be natural than those who have fancied tacit compacts for things which it would be much more easy to explain naturally. V. From what has just been said, it evidently results that it is folly to believe that by means of study and knowledge one can ever attain any of those marvelous effects attributed to magic; and it is profaning the name of science to give it an imposture so grossly imagined; it remains then that these effects might be produced by a diabolical power. In fact, we read in the work in question that all the effects of magic "must be attributed to the operation of the demon; that it is in virtue of the compact, express or tacit, that he has made with him that the magician works all these pretended prodigies; and that it is in regard to the different effects of this art, and the different ways in which they are produced, that authors have since divided it into several classes." But I beg, at first, that the reader will reflect seriously, if it is credible, that as soon as some miserable woman or unlucky knave have a fancy for it, God, whose wisdom and goodness are infinite, will ever permit the demon to appear to them, instruct them, obey them, and that they should make a compact with him. Is it credible that to please a scoundrel he would grant the demon power to raise storms, ravage all the country by hail, inflict the greatest pain on little innocent children, and even sometimes "to cause the death of a man by magic?" Does any one imagine that such things can be believed without offending God, and without showing a very injurious mistrust of his almighty power? It has several times happened to me, especially when I was in the army, to hear that some wretched creatures had given themselves to the devil, and had called upon him to appear to them with the most horrible blasphemies, without his appearing to them for all that, or their attempts being followed by any success. And, certainly, if to obtain what is promised by the art of magic it sufficed to renounce God and invoke the devil, how many people would soon perform the dreadful act? How many impious men do we see every day who for money, or to revenge themselves on some one, or to satisfy a criminal desire, rush without remorse into the greatest excesses! How many wretches who are suffering in prison, at the galleys, or otherwise, would have recourse to the demon to extricate them from their troubles! It would be very easy for me to relate here a great number of curious stories of persons generally believed to be bewitched, of haunted houses, or horses rubbed down by will-o'-the-wisp, which I have myself seen at different times and places, at last reduced to nothing. This I can affirm, that two monks, very sensible men, who had exercised the office of inquisitors, one for twenty-four years, and the other during twenty-eight, have assured me that of different accusations of sorcery which had been laid before them, and which appeared to be well proved, after having examined them carefully and maturely, they had not found one which was not mere knavery. How can any one imagine that the devil, who is the father of lies, should teach the magician the true secret of this art; and that this spirit, full of pride, of which he is the source, should teach an enchanter the means of forcing him to obey him? As soon as we rise above some old prejudices, which make us excuse those who in past ages gave credence to such follies, can we put faith in certain extravagant opinions, as what is related of demons, incubes, and seccubes, from a commerce with whom it is pretended children are born. Who will believe in our days that Ezzelin was the son of a will-o'-the-wisp? But can anything more strange be thought of than what is said of tacit compacts? They will have it, that when any one, of whatever country he may be, and however far he may be from wishing to make any compact with the devil, every time he shall say certain words, or make certain signs, a certain effect will follow; if I, who am perfectly ignorant of this convention, should happen to pronounce these same words, or make the same signs, the same effect ought to follow. They say that whoever makes a compact with the devil has a right to oblige him to produce a certain effect, not only when he shall make himself, for instance, certain figures, but also every time that they shall be made by any other person you please, at any time, or in any place whatever, and although the intention may be quite different. Certainly nothing is more proper to humble us than such ideas, and to show how very little man can count on the feeble light of his mind. Of all the extraordinary things said to have been performed by tacit compacts, many are absolutely false, and others have occurred quite differently than as they are related; some are true, and such as require no need of the demon's intervention to explain them. VI. The evidence of these reasons seems to suffice to prove that all which is said of magic in our days is merely chimerical; but because, in reply to the substantial difficulties which were proposed to him by the Count Rinaldi Carli, the author of the book pretends that to deny is a heretical opinion condemned by the laws, it is proper to examine this article again. For the first proof of its reality, is advanced the general consent of all mankind; the tradition of all nations; stories and witnesses _ad infinitum_ of theologians, philosophers, and jurisconsults; whence he concludes "that its existence cannot be denied, or even a doubt cast upon it, without sapping the foundations of what is called human belief." But the little I have said in No. IV. alone suffices to prove how false is this assertion concerning this pretended general consent. Horace, who passes for one of the wisest and most enlightened men amongst the ancients, reckons, on the contrary, among the virtues necessary to an honest man, the not putting faith in what is said concerning magic, and to laugh at it. His friend, believing himself very virtuous because he was not avaricious--"That is not sufficient," said he: "are you exempt from every other vice and every other fault; not ambitious, not passionate, fearless of death? Do you laugh at all that is told of dreams, magical operations, miracles, sorcerers, ghosts, and Thessalian wonders?"[675]--that is to say, in one word, of all kinds of magic. What is the aim of Lucian, in his Dialogue entitled "Philopseudis," but to turn into ridicule the magic art? and also is it not what he proposed to himself in the other, entitled "The Ass," whence Apuleius derived his "Golden Ass?" It is easy to perceive that in all this work, wherein he speaks so often, the power ascribed to magic of making rivers return to their source, staying the course of the sun, darkening the stars, and constraining the gods themselves to obey it, he had no other intention than to laugh at it, which he certainly would not have done if he had believed it able to produce, as they pretend, effects beyond those of nature. It is, then, jokingly and ironically that he says they see wonders worked "by the invincible power of magic,"[676] and by the blind necessity which imposes upon the gods themselves to be obedient to it. The poor man thinking he was to be changed into a bird, had had the grief to see himself metamorphosed into an ass, through the mistake of a woman who in a hurry had mistaken the box, and giving him one ointment for another. The most usual terms made use of by the ancients, in speaking of magic, were "play" and "badinage," which plainly shows that they saw nothing real in it. St. Cyprian, speaking of the mysteries of the magicians, calls them "hurtful and juggling operations." "If by their delusions and their jugglery," says Tertullian, "the charlatans seem to perform many wonders." And in his treatise on the soul, he exclaims, "What shall we say of magic? what almost all the world says of it--that it is mere knavery." Arnobius calls it, "the sports of the magic art;" and on these words of Minutius Felix, "all the marvels which they seem to work by their _jugglery_," his commentator remarks that the word _badinage_ is in this place the proper term. This manner of expressing himself shows what was then the common opinion of all wise persons. "Let the farmer," says Columella, "frequent with neither soothsayers nor witches, because by their foolish superstitions they all cause the ignorant to spend much money, and thence they lead them to be criminal." We learn from Suidas, "that those were called magicians who filled their heads with vain imaginations." Thus, when speaking of one of these imposters, Dante was right when he said[677] "he knew all the trickery and knavery of the magic art." Thus, then, it is not true that a general belief in the art of magic has ever prevailed; and if, in our days, any one would gather the voice and opinion of men of letters, and the most celebrated academies, I am persuaded that hardly would one or two in ten be found who were convinced of its existence. It would not be, at least, one of the learned friends of the author of the book in question, who having been consulted by the latter on this matter, answers him in these terms--"Magic is a ridiculous art, which has no reality but in the head of a madman, who fancies that he is able to lead the devil to satisfy all his wishes." I have read in some catalogues which come from Germany, that they are preparing to give the public a "Magic Library:" _oder grundliche nagrichen_, &c. It is a vast collection of different writings, all tending to prove the uselessness and insufficiency of magic. I must remark that the poets have greatly contributed to set all these imaginations in vogue. Without this fruitful source, what becomes of the most ingenious fictions of Homer? We may say as much of Ariosto and of our modern poets. For the rest, what I have before remarked concerning Pliny must not be forgotten--that in the ancient authors, the word magic is often equivocal. For in certain countries, they gave the name of magi, or magicians, to those who applied as a particular profession to the study of astronomy, philosophy, or medicine; in others, philosophers of a certain sect were thus called: for this, the preface of Diogenes Laërtius can be consulted. Plato writes that in Persia, by the name of magic was understood "the worship of the gods." "According to a great number of authors," says Apuleius, in his Apology, "the Persians called those magi to whom we give the name of priests." St. Jerome, writing against Jovinian, thus expresses himself--"Eubulus, who wrote the history of Mithras, in several volumes, relates that among the Persians they distinguish three kinds of magi, of whom the first are most learned and the most eloquent," &c. Notwithstanding that, there are still people to be found, who confound the chimera of pretended diabolical magic with philosophical magic, as Corneillus Agrippa has done in his books on "Secret Philosophy." VII. Another reason which is brought forward to prove the reality and the power of the magic art, is that the laws decree the penalty of death against enchanters. "What idea," says he, "could we have of the ancient legislators, if we believe them capable of having recourse to such rigorous penalties to repress a chimera, an art which produced no effect?" Upon which it is proper to observe that, supposing this error to be universally spread, it would not be impossible that even those who made the laws might suffer themselves to be prejudiced by them; in which case, we might make the same commentary on Seneca, applied, as we have seen, to the Twelve Tables. But I go further still. This is not the place to speak of the punishments decreed in the Scripture against the impiety of the Canaanites, who joined to idolatry the most extravagant magic. In regard to the Greek laws, of which authors have preserved for us so great a number, I do not remember that they anywhere make mention of this crime, or that they subject it to any penalty. I can say the same of the Roman laws, contained in the Digest. It is true that in the Code of Theodosius, and in that of Justinian, there is an entire title concerning _malefactors_, in which we find many laws which condemn to the most cruel death magicians of all kinds; but are we not forced to confess that this condemnation was very just? Those wretches boasted that they were able to occasion when they pleased public calamities and mortalities; with this aim, they kept their charms and dark plots as secret as it was possible, which led the Emperor Constans to say, "Let all the magicians, in whatever part of the empire they may be found, be looked upon as the public enemies of mankind." What does it matter, in fact, that they made false boastings, and that their attempts were useless? "In evil doings," says the law, "it is the will, and not the event, which makes the crime." Also, Constantine wills that those amongst them should be pardoned who professed to cure people by such means, and to preserve the products of the earth. But in general these kind of persons aimed only at doing harm; for which reason the laws ordain that they should be regarded as "public enemies." The least harm they could be accused of was deluding the people, misleading the simple, and causing by that means an infinity of trouble and disorder. Besides that, of how many crimes were they not guilty in the use of their spells? It was that which led the Emperor Valentinian to decree the pain of death "against whomsoever should work at night, by impious prayers and detestable sacrifices, at magic operations." Sometimes even they adroitly made use of some other way to procure the evil which they desired to cause; after which, they gave out that it must be attributed to the power of their art. But what is the use of so many arguments? Is it not certain that the first step taken by those who had recourse to magic was to renounce God and Jesus Christ, and to invoke the demon? Was not magic looked upon as a species of idolatry; and was not that sufficient to render this crime capital, should the punishment have depended on the result? Honorius commanded that these kind of people should be treated with all the rigor of the laws, "unless they would promise to conform for the future to what was required by the Catholic religion, after having themselves, in presence of the bishops, burned the pernicious writings which served to maintain their error." VIII. What is remarkable is, that if ever any one laughed at magic, it must certainly be the author in question--since all his book only tends to prove that there are no witches, and that all that is said of them is merely foolish and chimerical. But what appears surprising is, that at the same time he maintains that while in truth there are no witches, but that there are enchantresses or female magicians; that witchcraft is only a chimera, but that diabolical magic is very real. Is not that, as it appears to some, denying and affirming at the same time the same thing under different names? Tibullus took care not to make nothing of these distinctions, when he said: "As I was promised by a witch, whose magical operations never fail." While treating in this book of witchcraft and magic, it is affirmed that the demon intervenes on both, and that both work wonders." But if that is true, it is impossible to find any difference between them. If both perform wonders, and that by the intervention of the demon, they are then essentially the same. After that, is it not a contradiction to say that the magician acts and the witch has no power--that the former commands the devil and the latter obeys him--that magic is founded on compacts, expressed or tacit, while in witchcraft there is nothing but what is imaginary and chimerical? What reason is given for this? If the demon is always ready to appear to any one who invokes him, and is ready to enter into compact with him, why does he not show himself as directly to her whom the author terms a witch as to her to whom he is pleased to give the more respectable title of enchantress? If he is disposed to appear and take to himself the worship and adoration which are due to God alone, what matters it to him whether they proceed from a vile or a distinguished person, from an ignoramus or a learned man? The principal difference which the author admits between witchcraft and magic, is, that the latter "belongs properly to priests, doctors, and other persons who cultivate learning;" whilst witchcraft is purely fanaticism, "which only suits the vulgar and poor wretched women;" "also, it does not," says he, "derive its origin from philosophy or any other science, and has no foundation but in popular stories." For my part, I think it is very wrong that so much honor should here be paid to magic. I have proved above in a few words, by the authority of several ancient authors, that the most sensible men have always made a jest of it; that they have regarded it only as a play and a game; and that after having spared neither application nor expense, a Roman emperor could never succeed in beholding any effect. I have even remarked the equivocation of the name, which has often caused these popular opinions with philosophy and the sublimest sciences. But I think I can find in the book itself of the author, enough to prove that one cannot in fact make this distinction, since he says therein "that superstitious practices, such as figures, characters, conjurations, and enchantments, passing from one to the other, and coming to the knowledge of these unhappy women, operate in virtue of the tacit consent which they give to the operation of the demon." There then all distinction is taken away. He says again that, according to some, "nails, pins, bones, coals, packets of hair, or rags, found by the head, of children's beds, are indications of a compact express or tacit, because of the resemblance to the symbols made use of by true magicians." Thus, then, witches and those who are here styled _true magicians_ employ equally the same follies; they equally place confidence in imaginary compacts--and consequently they should both be classed in the same category. IX. It is proper to notice here that it is not so great a novelty as is generally believed, to make a distinction between witches and magicians. Nearly two hundred years ago James Wier, a doctor by profession, had already said the same thing. Never did an author write more at length upon this matter; you may consult the sixth edition of his book, _De Præstigiis Dæmonum et Incantationibus_, published at Basle. He there proves that witches ought not to be condemned to death, because they are women whose brain is disturbed; because all the crimes that are imputed to them are imaginary, having no reality but in their ill will, and none at all in the execution; lastly, because, according to the rules of the soundest jurisprudence, the confession of having done impossible things is of no weight, and cannot serve as the foundation of condemnation. He shows how these foolish old women come to believe that they have held intercourse with some evil spirit, or been carried through the air; so far nothing can be better; but otherwise, being persuaded that there are really magic wonders,[678] and thinking that he has himself experienced something of the kind, he will have magicians severely punished. He says,[679] "that very often they are learned men, who, to acquire this diabolical art, have traveled a great deal; and who, learned[680] in Goësy and Theurgy,[681] whether through the demon or through study,[682] make use of strange terms, characters, exorcisms, and imprecations;" employ "sacred words and divine names, and neglect nothing which can render them skillful in the black art;"[683] which makes them deserving of the punishment of death.[684] "But," according to him, "there is a great difference between magicians and witches, inasmuch as these latter[685] make use neither of books, nor exorcisms, nor characters, but have only their mind and imagination corrupted by the demon." He calls witches "those women who pass for doing a great deal of harm, either by virtue[686] of some imaginary compact, or by their own will, or some diabolical instinct;" and who, having their brain deranged, confess they have done many things, which they never have nor could have performed. "Magicians,"[687] he says, "are led of themselves, and by their own inclination, to learn this forbidden art, and seek masters who can instruct them in it; wizards, on the contrary, seek neither masters nor instructions; but the devil takes possession of those women," whom he thinks the most likely to be deceived, "on account of their old age, of their melancholy temperament, or their poverty and misery." Everybody must see, and I have sufficiently shown it already, to how many difficulties and contradictions all this doctrine is subject; what we must conclude from it is, that wizards as well as magicians have equally recourse to the demon, and place their hope in him, without either of them ever obtaining what they wish. The author sometimes believes he renders what he says of the power of magic, and in short reduces it to nothing, by saying, that all the wonderful effects attributed to it have no reality, and are but illusions and vain phantoms; but he does not remark that it is even miraculous to cause to appear that which is not. Whether the wands of Pharaoh's magicians were really metamorphosed into serpents, or that they appeared to be thus changed to the eyes of the beholders, would either of them equally surpass all the power and industry of men. I shall not amuse myself with discussing largely many inutilities which may be found in this work; for instance, he does not fail to relate the impertinent story of the pretended magic of Sylvester II., which, as Panvinius has shown, had no other foundation than this pope's being much given to the study of mathematics and philosophy. X. It is owned in the new book, that it is very likely some woman may be found "who, with the help of the demon, may be capable of performing a great many things even hurtful to mankind," and that by virtue "of a compact, express or tacit;" and it is added, that it cannot be denied that it may be, without absolutely denying the reality of magic. But when, so far from denying it, every effort on the contrary is made to establish it; when it is loudly maintained that persons may be found who, with the assistance of the demon, are able to produce real effects, even of doing harm to people; how, after that, can it be denied that there are witches, since, according to the common opinion, witchcraft is nothing else? Let them, if they will, regard as a fable what is said of their journeys through the air to repair to their nocturnal meetings; what will he gain by that, if, notwithstanding that, he believes that they possess the power to kill children by their spells, to send the devil into the body of the first person who presents himself, and a hundred other things of the same kind? He says, that "to render the presents which he makes more precious and estimable, and the more to be desired, the demon sells them very dear, as if he could not be excited to act otherwise than by employing powerful means, and making use of a most mysterious and very hidden art," which, doubtless, he would have witches ignorant of, and known only to magicians. But then they pretend that this art can be learned only from the devil, and to obtain it from him they say that he must be invoked and worshiped. Now, as there is hardly an impious character, who, having taken it into his head to operate something important by his charms or spells, would not be disposed to go to that shocking extreme, we cannot see why one should succeed in what he wishes, whilst the other does not succeed; nor what distinction can be made between rascals and madmen, who are precisely of a kind. I hold even, that if the reality and power of magic are granted, we could not without great difficulty refuse to those who profess it the power of entering places shut up, and of going through the air to their nocturnal assemblies. It will, doubtless, be said that that is impossible, and surpasses the power of man; but who can affirm it, since we know not how far the power of the rebel angels extends? I remember to have formerly heard some persons at Rome reason very sensibly on the difficulty there is sometimes of deciding upon the truth of a miracle, which difficulty is founded on our ignorance of the extent of the powers of nature. [[688] It is true that it would be dangerous to carry this principle too far; doubtless, we are not to deduce from it that nothing ever happens but what is natural, as if the Sovereign Author of all had in some measure bound his hands, and had not reserved unto himself the liberty to comply with the wishes and prayers of his servants--of sometimes according favors which manifestly surpass the powers he has granted to nature. It may often happen that we doubt whether an effect is natural or supernatural; but also how many effects do we see on which no sensible and rational person can form a doubt, good sense concurring with the soundest philosophy to teach us that certain wonders can only happen by a secret and divine virtue? One of the most certain proofs which can be had of this is the sudden and durable cure of certain long and cruel maladies. I know that simple and pious persons have sometimes attributed to a miracle cures which might very well be looked upon as purely natural; but what can be opposed to certain extraordinary facts which have sometimes happened to very wise and wide-awake persons, in the presence of sensible and judicious witnesses who have attested them, and confirmed by the report of the cleverest physicians, who have shown their astonishment at them? In this city of Verona, where I live, an event of this kind happened very recently, and it has excited the wonder of every one; but as the truth of it is not yet juridically attested I abstain from relating it. But such is not the case with a similar fact, verified, ten years ago, after the strictest examination. I speak of the miraculous cure of Dame Victoire Buri, of the monastery of St. Daniel, who after a chronic ague of nearly five years' duration, after having been tortured for several days with a stitch in her side, or acute pain, and with violent colics--having, in short, lost her voice, and fallen into a languid state, received the holy viaticum on the day of the fête of St. Louis de Gonzaga. In this condition, having fervently recommended herself to the intercession of the saint, she in one moment felt her strength return, her pains ceased, and she began to cry out that she was cured. At these cries the abbess and the nuns ran to her; she dressed herself, went up the stairs alone and without assistance, and repaired to the choir with the others to render thanks to God for her recovery. I had the curiosity to wish to inform myself personally of the fact and of these circumstances, and after having interrogated the lady herself, those who had witnessed her cure, and the physicians who had attended her, I remained fully convinced of the truth of the fact. I, I repeat, whose defect is not that of being too credulous, as it sufficiently appears by what I write here. Again, I may say, that finding myself fourteen years ago at Florence, I was in that city acquainted with a young girl, named Sister Catherine Biondi, of the third order of St. Francis; through her prayers a lady was cured in a moment and for ever of a very painful dislocation. This circumstance was known by everybody, and I have no doubt that it will one day be juridically attested. For myself, I believe I obtained several singular favors of God through the intercession of this holy maiden, to whose intercession I have recommended myself several times since her death. The wise and learned father Pellicioni, abbot of the order of St. Benedict, her confessor, said that if we knew the life and family arrangements of this inferior sister, we should soon be delivered from all sorts of temptations against faith. In effect, what things we are taught by these facts, which remain as if buried in oblivion! What subtile questions are cleared up by them in a very short time! Why do not the learned, who shine in other communions, give themselves the trouble to assure themselves of only one of these facts, as it would be very easy for them to do? One alone suffices to render evident the truth of the catholic dogmas. There is not one article of controversy for the defence of which it would not be necessary to compose a folio; whereas, only one of these facts decides them all instantly. We advance but little by disputation, because each one seeks only to show forth his own wit and erudition, and no one will give up a point; while by this method all becomes so evident that no reply remains in answer to it. And who could imagine that among so many miracles verified on the spot, in different places, and reported in the strictest examinations made for the canonization of saints, there would not be one which was true? To do so, we must refuse to believe anything at all, and to make use of one's reason. But when one of these facts becomes so notorious that there is no longer room to doubt it, if after that some difficulty presents itself to our feeble mind, which, so far from grasping the infinite, has only most confused knowledge of material bodies, will not any one who wishes to reason upon them be obliged to decide them suddenly by saying, "I do not understand it at all, but I believe the whole?" Those also, who, through the high opinion they have of their own knowledge, laugh at all which is above them; what can these men oppose to facts, in which Divine Providence shines forth in a manner so evident not only to the mind but to the eyes? In regard to those who, from the bad education which they have received, or from the idle and voluptuous life which they lead, stagnate in gross ignorance; with what facility would not one of these well-proved facts instruct them in what they most require to know, and enlighten them in a moment on every subject?] To return to my subject. If it is sometimes difficult to decide on the truth of a miracle, how much more difficulty would there be in observing all the qualities which suit the superior and spiritual nature, and prescribing limits to it. In regard to the penalties which the author would have them inflict on magicians and witches, pretending that the former are to be treated with rigor, while, on the contrary, we must be indulgent to the latter, I do not see any foundation for it. Charity would certainly have us begin by instructing an old fool, who, having her fancy distorted, or her heart perverted, from having read, or heard related, certain things, will condemn herself, by avowing crimes which she has not committed. But if we are told, for instance, that, after having made a little image, an ignoramus has pierced it several times, muttering some ridiculous words, how can we distinguish whether this charm is to be attributed to sorcery or magic? and consequently, how can we know whether it ought to be punished leniently or rigorously? However it may be done, no effect will follow it, as has often been proved; and whether the spell is the work of a magician or a wizard, the person aimed at by it will not be in worse health. We must only remark, that although ineffectual, the attempt of such wizards is not less a crime, since to arrive at that point, "they must have renounced all their duty to God, and have made themselves the slaves of the demon:" also do they avow that to cast their spells they must "give up Jesus Christ, and renounce the baptismal rite." It is commonly held that "the demons appear to them, and cause themselves to be worshiped by them." This is certainly not the case; but if it were so, why should witches have less power than magicians? and on what foundation can it be asserted that they are less criminal? XI. Now, then, let us come to the point, which has deceived many, and which still deludes some. Because in the Scripture, in the Old Testament, magic is often spoken of as it then was, they conclude that it still exists, and is on the same footing at this day. To that a reply is easy. Before the advent of the Saviour, the demon had that power; but he no longer possesses it, since Jesus Christ by his death consummated the great work of our redemption. It is what St. John clearly teaches in the Apocalypse, when he says[689]--"I saw an angel descend from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the well of the abyss, and a long chain with which he enchained the dragon, the old serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and he bound him for a thousand years." The Evangelist here makes use of the term "a thousand years" to designate a period both very long and indeterminate, since we read, a little lower down, that the demon shall be unbound at the coming of Antichrist.[2] And "after a thousand years," says St. John, "Satan shall be unbound, and shall come out of his prison." Whence it happens, that in the time of Antichrist all the wonders of magic shall be renewed, as the apostle tells us, when he says[691] that his arrival shall be marked with the greatest wonders that Satan is capable of working, and by all sorts of signs and lying prodigies. But till then, "the prince of this world," that is to say, the demon, "will be cast out." Which made St. Peter say, that in ascending to heaven, Jesus Christ has subjugated "the angels, the powers, and the virtues;" and St. Paul says, that "he has enriched himself with the spoils of principalities and powers;" and that "when he shall give up the kingdom to God even the Father, and destroyed all principalities, and powers, and rule." These various names indicate the different orders of reprobate spirits, as we learn from different parts of the New Testament. Now, to understand that the might and power which the demon has been deprived of by the Saviour, is precisely that which he had enjoyed until then of deceiving the world by magical practices, it is proper to observe, that until the coming of Jesus Christ there were three ways or means by which the reprobate spirits exercised their power and malice upon men:--1. By tempting them and leading them to do evil. 2. By entering into their bodies and possessing them. 3. By seconding magical operations, and sometimes working wonders, to wrest the worship which was due to Him. At this day, of these three kinds of power, the demon has certainly not lost the first by the coming of the Saviour, since we know with what determination he has continued since then, and daily does continue, to tempt us. Neither has he been deprived of the second, since we still find persons who are possessed; and it cannot be denied, that even since Jesus Christ, God has often permitted this kind of possession to chastise mankind, and serve as a warning. Thence it remains, that the demon has only been absolutely despoiled of the third; and that it is in this sense we must understand what St. Paul says, "that Satan has been enchained." Thence it comes, that since the death of our Saviour all these diabolical ______ having no longer the same success as before, those who until then had made a profession of them, brought their books to the apostles' feet, and burned them in their presence." For that these books treated principally of magic, we learn from St. Athanasius, who alludes to this part of the Scripture, when he says, that "those who had been celebrated for this art burned their books." It is not that, even in the most distant time, braggarts and impostors have been wanting who falsely boasted of what they could not perform. Thus we read in Ecclesiasticus--"Who will pity the enchanter that is bitten by the serpent?" In the time of St. Paul, some exorcists, who were Jews, ran about the country, vainly endeavoring to expel demons; this was the case with seven sons of one of the chief priests at Ephesus. It is this prejudice which made Josephus believe[692] that in the presence of Vespasian and all his court attendants, a Jew had expelled demons from the bodies of the possessed by piercing their nose with a ring, in which had been encased a root pointed out by Solomon. In his narrative of this event, we may see, in truth, that the demons were obliged to give some sign of their exit; but who does not perceive that what he relates can proceed only from one who has suffered himself to be deceived, or who seeks to deceive others? XII. From what I have said, it is obvious, that if in the Old Testament the magic power, and the prodigies worked by magic, are often spoken of, there is in return no mention made of it in the New. It is true, that as the world was never wanting in impostors, who sought to appropriate to themselves the name and reputation of magician, we find two of these seducers named in the Acts of the Apostles. The one is Elymas,[693] who, in the isle of Cyprus, wished to turn the attention of the Roman proconsul from listening to the preaching of the apostles, and for that was punished with blindness. The other is Simon, who for a long time preaching in Samaria that he was something great, had misled all the people of that city, so that he was generally regarded there as a sort of divine man, because "through the effect of his magic he had for a long time turned the heads of all the inhabitants;" that is to say, he had seduced and dazzled them by his knaveries, as has often happened in many other places. For it is evidently shown that he could never succeed in working any wonder, not only by the silence of the Scripture on that point, but also on seeing the miracles of St. Philip he was so surprised at them, and so filled with admiration, that he directly asked to be baptized, and never after quitted this apostle. But having offered some money to St. Peter, in order to obtain from him the apostolical gift, he was severely reprimanded by him, and threatened with the most terrible punishments, to which he made no other reply than to entreat the apostles to intercede for him themselves with Jesus Christ, that nothing of the kind might happen to him. This is all we have that is certain and authentic on the subject of Simon the magician. But in times nearer to the apostles, the authors of apocryphal books and stories invented at pleasure, profited well by the profession of magic, which Simon had for a long time skillfully practiced; and because the magic art is fruitful in wonders, which certainly render a narrative agreeable and amusing, they attributed endless prodigies to him; amongst others they imagined that, in a sort of public discussion between him and St. Peter, he raised himself into the air, and was precipitated from thence to the ground at the prayers of that apostle. Sigebert mentions this, and, if I mistake not, it has appeared in print at Florence. The most ancient apocryphal works which remain to us, are the Recognitions of St. Clement, and the Apostolical Constitutions. In the first, they make Simon say that he can render himself invisible, traverse the most frightful precipices, fall from a great height without hurting himself, bind with his own bonds those who enchained him, open fastened doors, animate statues, pass through fire without burning himself, change his form, metamorphose himself into a goat or a sheep, fly in the air, &c. In the second they make St. Peter say, that Simon being at Rome, and gone to the theatre about noon, he ordered the people to go back and make room for him, promising them that he would rise up into the air. It is added, that he did in effect rise up into the air, carried by the demons, saying he was ascending to heaven, at which all the people applauded; but at that moment St. Peter's prayers were successful, and Simon was hurled down, after he had spoken beforehand to him, as if they had been close to each other. You can read the whole story, which is evidently false and ill-imagined. It is true that these old writings, and a few others of the same kind, have served to deceive some of the fathers and ecclesiastical authors, who, without examining into the truth, have permitted themselves to go with the stream, and have followed the public opinion, upon which many things might be said did time allow. How, for instance, can any one unhesitatingly believe that St. Jerome could ever have written that St. Peter went to Rome, not to plant the faith in that capital, and establish therein the first seat of Christianity, but to expel from thence Simon the magician? Is there not, on the contrary, reason to suspect that these few words have passed in ancient times, from a note inadvertently placed in the margin, into the text itself? But to confine myself within the limits of my subject, I say that it suffices to pay attention to the impure source of so many doubtful books, published under feigned names, by the diversity and contradiction which predominate amongst them relatively to the circumstance in question, by the silence, in short, of the sovereign pontiffs and other writers upon the same, even of the profane authors who ought principally to speak of it, to remain convinced that all that is said of it, as well as all the other prodigies ascribed to the magic power of Simon, is but a fable founded solely on public report. Is there not even an ancient inscription, which is thought to be still in existence, and which, according to the copy that I formerly took of it at Rome, bears: "Sanco Sancto Semoni Deo Filio," which upon the equivoque of the name, has been applied to Simon the magician by St. Justin, and upon his authority by some other writers, which occasioned P. Pagi to say on the year 42, "That St. Justin was deceived either by a resemblance of name, or by some unfaithful relation;" but that which must above all decide this matter is the testimony of Origen, who says that indeed Simon could deceive some persons in his time by magic, but that soon after he lost his credit so much, that there were not in all the world thirty persons of his sect to be found, and that only in Palestine, his name never having been known elsewhere; so far was it from true that he had been to Rome, worked miracles there, and had statues raised to him in that capital of the world! Origen concludes by saying, that where the name of Simon was known, it was so only by the Acts of the Apostles, and that the truth of the circumstances evidently shows that there was nothing divine in this man, that is to say, nothing miraculous or extraordinary. In a word, the Acts of the Apostles relate no wonder of him, because the Saviour had destroyed all the power of magic. XIII. To render this principle more solid still, after having based it upon the Scripture, I am going to establish again with my usual frankness, upon tradition, and show that it is truly in this sense the passages in the fathers, and ancient ecclesiastical writers, must be understood. I begin with St. Ignatius the Martyr, bishop, and successor of the apostles in the pulpit of Antioch. This father, in the first of the Epistles which are really his, speaking of the birth of the Saviour, and of the star which then appeared, adds, "Because all the power of magic vanished, all the bonds of malice were broken, ignorance was abolished, and the old kingdom of Satan destroyed;" on which the learned Cotelerius makes this remark: "It was also at that time that all the illusions of magic ceased, as is attested by so many celebrated authors." Tertullian, in the book which he has written on Idolatry, says, "We know the strict union there is between magic and astrology. God permitted that science to reign on the earth till the time of the Gospel, in order that after the birth of Jesus Christ no one might be found who should undertake to read in the heavens the happiness or misfortunes of any person whomsoever." A little after, he adds: "It is thus that, till the time of the Gospel, God tolerated on the earth that other kind of magic which performs wonders, and dared even to enter into rivalry with Moses." Origen, in his books against Celsus, speaking of the three magi, and the star which appeared to them, says that then the power of magic extended so far, that there was no art more powerful and more divine; but at the birth of the Saviour hell was disconcerted, the demons lost their power, all their spells were destroyed, and their might passed away. The magi wishing them to perform their enchantments and their usual works, and not being able to succeed, sought the reason; and having seen that new star appear in the heavens, they conjectured that "He who was to command all spirits was born," which decided them to go and adore him. St. Athanasius, in his treatise on the Incarnation, teaches that the Saviour has delivered all creatures from the deceits and illusions of Satan, and that he has enriched himself, as St. Paul says, with the spoils of principalities and powers. "When is it," he says afterwards, "that the oracles have ceased to reply throughout all Greece, but since the advent of the Saviour on earth? When did they begin to despise the magic art? Is it not since mankind began to enjoy the divine presence of the Word? Formerly," he continues, "the demons deluded men by divers phantoms, and attaching themselves to rivers and fountains, stones and wood, they drew by their allusions the admiration of weak mortals; but since the advent of the Divine Word, all their stratagems have passed away." A little while after, he adds, "But what shall we say of that magic they held in such admiration? Before the incarnation of the Word, it was in honor among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Indians, and won the admiration of those nations by prodigies; but since the Truth has come down to earth, and the Word has shown himself amongst men, this power has been destroyed, and is itself fallen into oblivion." In another place, refuting the Gentiles, who ascribed the miracles of the Saviour to magic, "They call him a magician," says he, "but can they say that a magician would destroy all sorts of magic, instead of working to establish it?" In his Commentary on Isaiah, St. Jerome joins this interpretation to several passages in the prophet--"Since the advent of the Saviour, all that must be understood in an allegorical sense; for all the error of the waters of Egypt, and all the pernicious arts which deluded the nations who suffered themselves to be infatuated by them, have been destroyed by the coming of Jesus Christ." A little after, he adds--"That Memphis was also strongly addicted to magic, the vestiges which subsist at this day of her ancient superstitions allow us not to doubt." Now this informs us in a few words, or in the approach of the desolation of Babylon, that all the projects of the magicians, and of those who promise to unveil the future, are a pure folly, and dissolve like smoke at the presence of Jesus Christ. Again, he says elsewhere, that "Jesus Christ being come into the world, all kinds of divination, and all the deceits of idolatry, lost their efficacy; so that the Eastern magi understanding that a Son of God was born who had destroyed all the power of their art, came to Bethlehem." Theophilus of Alexandria, in his Paschal Letter addressed to the bishops of Egypt, and after him St. Jerome, who has given us a Latin translation of this letter, says that Jesus Christ by his coming has destroyed all the illusions of magic. They add, "Jesus Christ by his presence having destroyed idolatry, it follows that magic, which is its mother, has been destroyed likewise." They call magic the mother of idolatry, because it transfers to another the confidence and submission which are due to God alone. St. Ambrose says, "The magician perceives the inutility of his art, and you do not yet understand that the promised Redeemer is come." I could bring forward here many other passages from the fathers if I had the books at hand, or if time allowed me to select them. XIV. But why amuse ourselves with fruitless researches? What I have said will suffice to show that this opinion has been that of not only one or two of the fathers, which would prove nothing, but of the greater number of those among them who have discoursed of this matter, which constitutes the greater number. After that it is of little import if in after and darker ages a thousand stories were spread on the subject of witchcraft and enchantments, and that those tales may have gained credit with the people in proportion to their rudeness and ignorance. You may read, if you have any curiosity on the subject, a hundred stories of that kind, related by Saxo Grammaticus and Olaus Magnus. You will find also in Lucian and in Apuleius, how, even in their time, those who wished to be carried through the air, or to be metamorphosed into beasts, began by stripping themselves, and then anointing themselves with certain oils from head to foot; there were then found impostors, who promised as of old to perform by means of magic all kinds of prodigies, and still continued the same extravagances as ever. A great many persons feel a certain repugnance to refusing belief in all that is said of the prodigies of magic, as if it was denying the truth of miracles, and the existence of the devil; and on this subject they fail not to allege, that amongst the orders in the church is found that of exorcists, and that the rituals are full of prayers and blessings against the malice and the snares of Satan. But we must not here confound two very different things. So far from the miracles and wonders performed by Divine power leading us to believe the truth of those which are ascribed to the demon, they teach us on the contrary that God has reserved this power to himself alone. We experience but too often that there are truly evil spirits, who do not cease to tempt us. In respect to the order of Exorcists, we know that it was established in the church in the first ages of Christianity; the most ancient fathers make mention of them; but from none of them do we learn that their order was instituted against witchcraft and other knaveries of the same kind, but only as at this day, to deliver those possessed; "to expel demons from the bodies of the possessed;" says the Manual of the Ordination. It is not, then, denied, that for reasons which it belongs not to us to examine, God sometimes allows the demon to take hold of some one and to torment him; we only deny that the spirit of darkness can ever arrive at that to please a wretched woman of the dregs of the people. We do not deny that to punish the sins of mankind, the Almighty may not sometimes make use in different ways of the ministry of evil spirits; for, as St. Jerome says,[694] "God makes men feel his anger and fury by the ministry of rebel angels;" but we do deny that it ever happens by virtue of certain figures, certain words, and certain signs, made by ignoramuses or scoundrels, or some wretched females, or old mad women, or by any authority they have over the demon. The sovereign pontiff who at this day governs the church with so much glory, discourses very fully[695] in his excellent works on the wonders worked by the demon and related in the Old Testament, but he nowhere speaks of any effect produced by magic or by sorcery since the coming of Jesus Christ. In the Roman ritual we have prayers and orisons for all occasions; we find there conjurations and exorcisms against demons; but nowhere, if the text is not corrupted, is there mention made either of persons or things bewitched, and if they are mentioned therein, it is only in after additions made by private individuals. We know, on the contrary, that many books treating of this subject, and containing prayers newly composed by some individuals, have been prohibited. Thus they have forbidden the book entitled _Circulus Aureus_, in which are set down the conjurations necessary for "invoking demons of all kinds, of the sky, of hell, the earth, fire, air, and water," to destroy all sorts of "enchantments, charms, spells, and snares," in whatever place they may be hidden, and of whatever matter they may be composed, whether male or female, magician or witch, who may have made or given them, and notwithstanding "all compacts and all conventions made between them." Ought not the fact that the church forbids any one to read or to keep these kind of books, to be sufficient to convince us of the falsehood of what they imagine, and to teach us how contrary they are to true religion and sound devotion. Three years ago they printed in this town a little book, of which the author, however, was not of Verona, in which they promised to teach the way "to deliver the possessed, and to break all kinds of spells." We read in it that "those over whom a malignant spell has been cast, lead such a wretched life that it ought rather to be called a long death, like the corpse of a man who had just died," &c. That is not all, for "almost all die of it," and if they are children, "they hardly ever live." See now the power which simple people ascribe, not only to the devil, but to the vilest of men, whom they really believe to be connected with, and to hold commerce with him. They say afterwards in this same book[696] that the signs which denote a malignant spell are parings, herbs, feathers, bones, nails, and hairs; but they give notice that the feathers prove that there is witchcraft "only when they are intermingled in the form of a circle or nearly so." And, again, you must take care that some woman has not given you something to eat, some flowers to smell, or if she has touched the shoulder of the person on whom the spell is cast. We have an excellent preservative against these simplicities in the vast selection of Dom Martenus, entitled _De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus_, in which we see that amidst an infinity of prayers, orisons and exorcisms used at all times throughout Christendom, there is not a passage in which mention is made of spells, sorcery, or magic, or magical operations. They therein command the demon in the name of Jesus Christ to come out and go away--they therein implore the divine protection, to be delivered from his power, to which we are all born subject by the stain of original sin; they therein teach that holy water, salt, and incense sanctified by the prayers of the church may drive away the enemy; that we may not fall into his toils, and that we may have nothing to dread from the attacks of evil spirits; but in no part does it say that spells have power over them, neither do they anywhere pray God to deliver us from them, or to heal us. It is so far from being true that we ought to believe the fables spread abroad on this subject, that I perfectly well remember having read a long time ago in the old casuists, that we ought to class in the number of grievous sins the believing that magic can really work the wonders related of it. I shall remark, on this occasion, that I know not how the author of the book in question can have committed the oversight of twice citing a certain manuscript as to be found in any other cabinet than mine, when it is a well known fact that I formerly purchased it very dear, not knowing that the most important and curious part was wanting. What I have said of it may be seen in the Opuscules which I have joined to the "History of Theology."[697] For the present, it suffices to remember that in the famous canon _Episcopi_, related first by Réginon,[698] we read these remarkable words--"An infinite number of people, deceived by this false prejudice, believe all that to be true, and in believing it stray from the true faith into the superstition of the heathen, imagining that they can find elsewhere than in God any divinity, or any supernatural power." XV. From all I have hitherto said, it appears how far from truth is all that is commonly said of this pretended magic; how contrary to all the maxims of the church, and in opposition to the most venerated authority, and what harm might be done to sound doctrine and true piety by entertaining and favoring such extravagant opinions. We read, in the author I am combating, "What shall we say of the fairies, a prodigy so notorious and so common?" It is marvelous that it should be a _prodigy_ and at the same time _common_. He adds, "There is not a town, not to say a village, which cannot furnish several instances concerning them." For my part, I have seen a great many places; I am seventy-four years of age, and I have perhaps been only too curious on this head; and I own that I have never happened to meet with any prodigy of that kind. I may even add that several inquisitors, very sensible men, after having exercised that duty a long time, have assured me that they also never knew such a thing. It is not often that fairies of all kinds of shapes and different faces have passed through my hands, but I have always discovered and shown that this was nothing but fancy and reverie. On one side, it is affirmed that there is a malicious species among them, who were amorous of beautiful girls; and on the other, they will have it, on the contrary, that all witches are old and ugly. How desirable it would be, if the people could be once undeceived in respect to all these follies, which accord so little with sound doctrine and true piety! Are they not still, in our days, infatuated with what is said of charms which render invulnerable rings in which fairies are enclosed, billets which cure the quartan ague, words which lead you to guess the number to which the lot will fall; of the pas key, which is made to turn to find out a thief; of the cabala, which by means of certain verses and certain answers, which are falsely supposed to contain a certain number of words, unveils the most secret things? Are there not still to be found people who are so simple, or who have so little religion, as to buy these trifles very dear? For the world at this day is not wanting in those prophets spoken of by Micah,[699] whom money inspired and rendered learned. Have we not again calendars in which are marked the lucky and unlucky days, as has been done during a time, under the name of Egyptians? Do they not prevent people from inhabiting certain houses, under pretence of their being haunted? that is to say, that in the night spectres are seen in them, and a great noise of chains is heard, some saying that it is devils who cause all this, and others the spirits of the dead who make all this clang; which is surprising enough that it should be spirits or devils, and that they should only have the power to make themselves perceived in the night. And how many times have we seen the most fatal quarrels occur, principally amongst the peasants, because one amongst them has accused others of sorcery? But what shall we say of spirits incube and succube, of which, notwithstanding the impossibility of the thing, the existence and reality is maintained? M. Muratori, in that part where he treats of imagination, places the tales on this subject in the same line with what is said of the witches' sabbath; and he says[700] "that these extravagant opinions are at this day so discredited, that it is only the rudest and most ignorant who suffer themselves to be amused by them." One of my friends made me laugh the other day, when, speaking of the pretended incubuses, he said that those who believed in them were not wise to marry. Again, what shall we say of those tacit compacts so often mentioned by the author, and which he supposes to be real? Can we not see that such an opinion is making a god of the devil? For that any one, for example, living three or four hundred leagues off, may have made a compact with the devil, that every time a pendulum shall be suspended above a glass it shall mark the hour as regularly as the most exact clock. According to this idea, that same marvel will happen equally, and at the same moment, not only in this town where we are, but all over the earth, and will be repeated as often as they may wish to make the experiment. Now this is quite another thing from carrying a witch to the sabbath through the air, which the author asserts is beyond the power of the demon; it is attributing to this malicious spirit a kind of almightiness and immensity. But what would happen if some one, having made a compact with a demon for fine weather, another on his part shall have made a compact with the demon for bad weather? Good Father Le Brun wishes us to ascribe to tacit compacts all those effects which we cannot explain by natural causes. If it be so, what a number of tacit compacts there must be in the world! He believes in the stories about the divining rod, and the virtue ascribed to it of finding out robbers and murderers; although all France has since acknowledged that the first author of this fable was a knave, who having been summoned to Paris, could never show there any of those effects he had boasted of. Let any one have the least idea of the invisible atoms scattered abroad throughout the world, of their continually issuing from natural bodies, and the hidden and wonderful effects which they produce, one can never be astonished that at a moderate distance water and metals should operate on certain kinds of wood. The same author sincerely believes what was said, that the contagion and mortality spread amongst the cattle proceeded from a spell; like the man who affirmed that his father and mother remained impotent for seven years, and this ceased only when an old woman had broken the spell. On this subject, he cites a ritual of which Father Martenus does not speak at all, whence it follows that he did not recognize it for authentic. To give an idea of the credulity of this writer, it will suffice to read the story he relates of one Damis. But we find, above all, an incomparable abridgment of those extravagant wonders in a little book dedicated to the Cardinal Horace Maffei, entitled, "Compendium Melificarum," or the "Abridgment of Witches," printed at Milan in 1608. XVI. In a word, it is of no little importance to destroy the popular errors which attack the unalterable attributes of the Supreme Being, as if he had laid it down as a law to himself that he would condescend to all the impious and fantastic wishes of malignant spirits, and of the madman who had recourse to them, by seconding them, and permitting the wonderful effects that they desire to produce. Do reason and good sense allow us to imagine that the Sovereign Master of all things, who for reasons which we are not permitted to examine, refuses so often to grant our most ardent prayers for what we need, whether it be public or private, can be so prompt to lend an ear to the requests of the vilest and most wicked, by allowing that which they desire to happen? So long as they believe in the reality of magic, that it is able to work wonders, and that by means of it man can force the demon to obey, it will be in vain to preach against the superstition, impiety, and folly of wizards. There will always be found too many people who will try to succeed in it, and will even fancy they have succeeded in it in fact. To uproot this pest we must begin by making men clearly understand that it is useless in them to be guilty of this horrible crime; that in this way they never obtain anything they wish for, and that all that is said on this subject is fabulous and chimerical. It will not be difficult to persuade any sensible person of this truth, by only leading him to pay attention, and mark if it be possible that all these pretended miracles can be true, whilst it is proved that magic has never possessed the power to enrich those who professed it, which would be much more easy. How could this wonderful art send maladies to those who were in good health, render a married couple impotent, or make any one invisible or invulnerable, whilst it has never been able to bring a hundred crowns, which another would keep locked up in his strong box? And why do we not make any use of so wonderful an art in armies? Why is it so little sought after by princes and their ministers? The most efficacious means for dissipating all these vain fancies would be never to speak of them, and to bury them in silence and oblivion. In any place where for time immemorial no one has ever been suspected of witchcraft, let them only hear that a monk is arrived to take cognizance of this crime and punish it, and directly you will see troops of green-sick girls, and hypochondriacal men; crowds of children will be brought to him ill with unknown maladies; and it will not fail to be affirmed that these things are caused by spells cast over them, and even when and how the thing happened. It is certainly a wrong way of proceeding, whether in sermons, or in the works published against witches, to amuse themselves with giving the history of all these mad-headed people boast of, of the circumstances in which they have taken a part, and the way in which they happened. It is in vain then to declaim against them, for you may be assured that people are not wanting who suffer themselves to be dazzled by these pretended miracles, who become smitten with these effects, so extraordinary and so wonderful, and try by every means to succeed in them by the very method which has just been taught them, and forget nothing which can place them in the number of this imaginary society. It is then with reason that the author says in his book, that punishment even sometimes serves to render crime more common, and "that there are never more witches than in those places where they are most persecuted." I am delighted to be able to finish with this eulogium, in order that it may be the more clearly seen that if I have herein attacked magic, it is only with upright intentions. XVII. The eagerness with which I have written this letter has made me forget several things which might very well have a place in it. The greatest difficulty which can be opposed to my argument is that we sometimes find, even amongst people who possess a certain degree of knowledge and good sense, some persons who will say to you, "But I have seen this, or that; such and such things have happened to myself." Upon which it is proper, first of all, to pay attention to the wonderful tricks of certain jugglers, who, by practice and address, succeed in deceiving even the most clear-sighted and sensible persons. It must next be considered that the most natural effects may sometimes appear beyond the power of nature, when cleverly presented in the most favorable point of view. I formerly saw a charlatan who, having driven a nail or a large pin into the head of a chicken, with that nailed it to a table, so that it appeared dead, and was believed to be so by all present; after that, the charlatan having taken out the nail and played some apish tricks, the chicken came to life again and walked about the room. The secret of all this is that these birds have in the forepart of the head two bones, joined in such a way that if anything is driven through with address, though it causes them pain, yet they do not die of it. You may run large pins into a man's leg without wounding or hurting him, or but very slightly, just like a prick which is felt when the pin first enters; which has sometimes served as a pastime for jokers. In my garden, which, thanks to the care of M. Seguier, is become quite a botanic garden, I have a plant called the _onagra_,[701] which rises to the height of a man, and bears very beautiful flowers; but they remain closed all day, and only open towards sunset, and that not by degrees, as with all other night plants, but in budding all at once, and showing themselves in a moment in all their beauty. A little before their chalice bursts open, it swells and becomes a little inflated. Now, if any one, profiting by the last-named peculiarity, which is but little known, wished to persuade any simple persons that by the help of some magical words he could, when he would, cause a beautiful flower to bloom, is it not certain that he would find plenty of people disposed to believe him? The common people in our days leave nothing undone to find out the secret of making themselves invulnerable; by which they show that they ascribe to magic more power than was granted to it by the ancients, who believed it very capable of doing harm, but not of doing good. So, when the greater number of the Jews attributed the miracles wrought by the Saviour to the devil, some of the more sensible and reasonable among them asked, "Can the devil restore sight to the blind?"[702] At this day, there are more ways than ever of making simple and ignorant persons believe in magic. For instance, would it be very difficult for a man to pass himself off as a magician, if he said to those who were present, "I can, at my will, either send the bullet in this pistol through this board, or make it simply touch it and fall down at our feet without piercing it?" Nevertheless, nothing is easier; it only requires when the pistol is loaded, that instead of pressing the wadding immediately upon the bullet as is customary, to put it, on the contrary, at the mouth of the barrel. That being done, when they fire, if the end of the pistol is raised, the ball, which is not displaced, will produce the usual effect; but if, on the contrary, the pistol is lowered, so that the ball runs into the barrel and joins the wadding, it will fall on the ground from the board without having penetrated it. It seems to me that something like this may be found in the "Natural Experiments" of Redi, which I have not at hand just now. But on this subject, you can consult Jean Baptista, Porta, and others. We must not, however, place amongst the effects of this kind of magic, what a friend jokingly observed to me in a very polite letter which he wrote to me two months ago:--A noisy exhalation having ignited in a house, and not having been perceived by him who was in the spot adjoining, nor in any other place, he writes me word that those who, according to the vulgar prejudice, persisted in believing that these kinds of fire came from the sky and the clouds, were necessarily forced to attribute this effect to real magic. I shall again add, on the subject of electrical phenomena, that those who think to explain them by means of two electrical fluids, the one hidden in bodies, and the other circulating around them, would perhaps say something less strange and surprising, if they ascribed them to magic. I have endeavored, in the last letter which is joined to that I wrote upon the subject of exhalations, to give some explanation of these wonders; and I have done so, at least, without being obliged to invent from my own head, and without any foundation, to universal electrical matters which circulate within bodies and without them. Certainly, the ancient philosophers, who reasoned so much on the magnet, would have spared themselves a great deal of trouble, if they had believed it possible to attribute its admirable properties to a magnetic spirit which proceeded from it. But the pleasure I should find in arguing with them, might perhaps engage me in other matters; for which reason I now end my letter. Footnotes: [672] The author here alludes to the hypogryphe, a winged horse, invented by Ariosto, that carried the Paladins through the air. [673] Magicus Vanitates. [674] Plin. lib. xxx. c. 1. [675] "Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides?" HORAT. lib. ii. Ep. 2. [676] Inexpugnabili magicæ disciplinæ potestate, &c.--Lib. iii. [677] Delle magiche frodi seppe il Givoco.--Dante, _Inf._ c. 20. [678] Pp. 139 and 145. [679] P. 9. [680] P. 144. [681] _Goësy_, or _Goësia_, is said to be a kind of magic. It is asserted that those who profess it repair at night to the tombs, where they invoke the demon and evil genii by lamentations and complaints. In regard to _Theurgy_, the ancients gave this name to that part of magic which is called _white magic_. The word _Theurgy_ signifies the art of doing divine things, or such as God only can perform--the power of producing wonderful and supernatural effects by licit means, in invoking the aid of God and angels. _Theurgy_ differs from _natural magic_, which is performed by the powers of nature; and from _necromancy_, which is operated only by the invocation of the demons. [682] P. 170. [683] P. 654. [684] P. 749. [685] P. 9. [686] P. 30, de Lam. [687] P. 94. [688] What is enclosed between the brackets is a long addition sent by the author to the printer whilst they were working at a second edition of his letter. [689] Et vidi angelum descendentem de coelo habentem clavem abyssi et catenam magnam in manu suà; et appehendit draconem, serpentem, antiquum, qui est Diabolus et Satanas, et ligavit eum per annos mille.--_Apoc._ xx. 1. [690] Et cum consummati fuerint mille anni, solvetur Satanas de carcere suo.--_Apoc._ v. 7. [691] Cujus est adventus secundùm operationem Satanæ in omni virtute et signis et prodigiis mendacibus.--2 Thess. ii. 9. [692] Joseph. Antiq. lib. viii. c. 2. [693] Acts viii. 6. [694] Mittet siquidem Dominus in iram et furorem suum per angelos pessimos. Hier. ad Eph. i. 7. p. 574. [695] Vid. de Beatif. lib. iv. p. i. c. 3. [696] Pp. 67, 75. [697] P. 243. [698] Lib. ii. p. 364. [699] In pecunia divinabunt.--Mich. iii. 11. [700] P. 127. [701] Now well known as the evening primrose. [702] Numquid dæmonium potest coecorum oculos asperire? Joan. ix, 21. LETTER _From the_ REVEREND FATHER DOM. AUGUSTINE CALMET, _Abbot of Sénones, to_ M. DE BURE SENIOR, _Librarian at Paris._ SIR--I have received The Historical and Dogmatical Treatise on Apparitions, Visions, and particular Revelations, with Observations on the Dissertations of the Reverend Father Dom. Calmet, Abbot of Sénones, on Apparitions and Ghosts. At Avignon, 1751. By the Abbé Lenglet du Frenoy. I have looked over this work with pleasure. M. du Frenoy wished to turn to account therein what he wrote fifty-five years ago, as he says himself, on the subject of visions, and the life of Maria d'Agreda, of whom they spoke then, and of whom they still speak even now in so undecided a manner. M. du Frenoy had undertaken at that time to examine the affair thoroughly and to show the illusions of it; there is yet time for him to give his opinion upon it, since the Church has not declared herself upon the work, on the life and visions of that famous Spanish abbess. It is only accidentally that he composed his remarks on my Dissertations on Apparitions and Vampires. I have no reason to complain of him; he has observed towards me the rules of politeness and good breeding, and I shall try to imitate him in what I say in my own defence. But if he had read the second edition of my work, printed at Einsidlen in Switzerland, in 1749; the third, printed in Germany at Augsburg, in 1750; and the fourth, on which you are now actually engaged; he might have spared himself the trouble of censuring several passages which I have corrected, reformed, suppressed, or explained myself. If I had wished to swell my work, I could have added to it some rules, remarks, and reflections, with a vast number of circumstances. But by that means I should have fallen into the same error which he seems to have acknowledged himself, when he says that he has perhaps placed in his works too many such rules and remarks: and I am persuaded that it is, in fact, the part that will be least read and least used.[703] People will be much more struck with stories squeamishly extracted from Thomas de Cantimpré and Cesarius, whose works are everywhere decried, and that one dare no longer cite openly without exposing them to mockery. They will read, with only too much pleasure, what he relates of the apparitions of Jesus Christ to St. Francis d'Assis, on the Indulgence of the Partionculus, and the particularities of the establishment of the Carmelite Fathers, and of the Brotherhood of the Scapulary, by Simon Stock, to whom the Holy Virgin herself gave the Scapulary of the order. It will be seen in his work that there are few religious establishments or societies which are not founded on some vision or revelation. It seemed even as if it was necessary for the propagation of certain orders and certain congregations; _so that these kind of revelations were, as it were, taken by storm_; and there seems to have been a competition as to who should produce the greatest number of them, and the most extraordinary, to have them believed. I could not persuade myself that he related seriously the pretended apparition of St. Francis to Erasmus. It is easy to comprehend that it was a joke of Erasmus, who wished to divert himself at the expense of the Cordeliers. But one cannot help being pained at the way in which he treats several fathers of the church, as St. Gregory the Great, St. Gregory of Tours, St. Sulpicius Severus, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, St. Anselm, Cardinal Pierre Damien, St. Athanasius even, and St. Ambrose,[704] in regard to their credulity, and the account they have given us of several apparitions and visions, which are little thought of at this day. I say the same of what he relates of the visions of St. Elizabeth of Schonau, of St. Hildegrade, of St. Gertrude, of St. Mecthelda, of St. Bridget, of St. Catherine of Sienna, and hardly does he show any favor to those of St. Theresa. Would it not have been better to leave the world in this respect as it is,[705] rather than disturb the ashes of so many holy personages and saintly nuns, whose lives are held blessed by the church, and whose writings and revelations have so little influence over the salvation and the morals of the faithful in general. What service does it render the church to speak disparagingly of the works of the contemplatives, of the Thaulers, the Rushbrooks, the Bartholomews of Pisa, of St. Vincent Ferrier, of St. Bernardine of Sienna, of Henry Harphius, of Pierre de Natalibus, of Bernardine de Bustis, of Ludolf the Chartreux, and other authors of that kind, whose writings are so little read and so little known, whose sectaries are so few in number, and have so little weight in the world, and even in the church? The Abbé du Frenoy acknowledges the visions and revelations which are clearly marked in Scripture; but is there not reason to fear that certain persons may apply the rules of criticism which he employs against the visions of the male and female saints of whom he speaks in his work, and that they may say, for instance, that Jeremiah yielded to his melancholy humor, and Ezekiel to his caustic disposition, to predict sad and disagreeable things to the Jewish people?[706] We know how many vexations the prophets endured from the Jews, and that in particular[707] those of Anathoth had resolved to put their countryman Jeremiah to death, to prevent him from prophesying in the name of the Lord. To what persecutions were not himself and Baruch his disciple exposed for having spoken in the name of the Lord? Did not King Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, throw the book of Baruch into the fire,[708] after having hacked it with a penknife, in hatred of the truths which it announced to him? The Jews sometimes went so far as to insult them in their dwellings, and even to say to them,[709] _Ubi est verbum Domini? veniat_; and elsewhere, "Let us plot against Jeremiah; for the priests will not fail to cite the law, and the prophets will not fail to allege the words of the Lord: come, let us attack him with derision, and pay no regard to his discourse." Isaiah did not endure less vexation and insult, the libertine Jews having gone even into his house, and said to him insolently[710]--_Manda, remanda; expecta, re-expecta; modicum ibi, et modicum ibi_, as if to mock at his threats. But all that has not prevailed, nor ever will prevail, against the truth and word of God; the faithful and exact execution of the threats of the Lord has justified, and ever will justify, the predictions and visions of the prophets. The gates of hell will not prevail against the Christian church, and the word of God will triumph over the malice of hell, the artifice of corrupt men, of libertines, and over all the subtlety of pretended freethinkers. True and real visions, revelations, and apparitions will always bear in themselves a character of truth, and will serve to destroy those which are false, and proceed from the spirit of error and delusion. And coming now to what regards myself in particular, M. du Frenoy says, that the public have been surprised that instead of placing my proofs before the circumstances of my apparitions, I have given them afterwards, and that I have not entered fully enough into the subject of these proofs. I am going to give the public an account of my method and design. Having proposed to myself to prove the truth, the reality, and consequently the possibility of apparitions, I have related a great many authentic instances, derived from the Old and New Testament, which forms a complete proof of my opinion, for the certainty of the facts carries with it here the certainty of the dogma. After that I have related instances and opinions taken from the Hebrews, Mahometans, Greeks, and Latins, to assure the same truth. I have been careful not to draw any parallel between these testimonies and the scriptural ones which preceded. My object in this was to demonstrate that in every age, and in all civilized nations, the idea of the immortality of the soul, of its existence after death, of its return and appearance, is one of those truths which the length of ages has never been able to efface from the mind of nations. I draw the same inference from the instances which I have related, and of which I do not pretend to guarantee either the truth or the certainty. I willingly yield all the circumstances that are not revealed to censure and criticism; I only esteem as true that which is so in fact. M. du Frenoy finds that the proof of the immortality of the soul which I infer from the apparition of the spirit after death, is not sufficiently solid; but it is certainly one of the most palpable and most easy of comprehension to the generality of mankind; it would make more impression upon them than arguments drawn from philosophy and metaphysics. I do not intend for that reason to attack any other proofs of the same truth, or to weaken a dogma so essential to religion. He endeavors to prove, at great length,[711] that the salvation of the Emperor Trajan is not a thing which the Christian religion can confirm. I agree with him; and it was useless to take any trouble to demonstrate it.[712] He speaks of the young man of Delme,[713] who having fallen into a swoon remained in it some days; they brought him back to life, and a languor remained upon him which at last led to his death at the end of the year. It is thus he arranges that story. M. du Frenoy disguises the affair a little; and although I do not believe that the devil could restore the youth to life, nevertheless the original and cotemporaneous authors whom I have quoted maintain that the demon had much to do with this event.[714] What has principally prevented me from giving rules and prescribing a method for discerning true and false apparitions is, that I am quite persuaded that the way in which they occur is absolutely unknown to us; that it contains insurmountable difficulties; and that consulting only the rules of philosophy, I should be more disposed to believe them impossible than to affirm their truth and possibility. But I am restrained by respect for the Holy Scriptures, by the testimony of all antiquity and by the tradition of the Church. "I am, sir, Your very humble and very obedient servant, D. A. CALMET, Abbot of Sénones." Footnotes: [703] Dom. Calmet has a very bad opinion of the public, to believe that it values so little what is, perhaps, the best and most sensible part of the book. Wise people think quite differently from himself. [704] Neither Gregory of Tours, nor Sulpicius Severus, nor Peter the Venerable, nor Pierre Damien, have ever been placed in a parallel line with the fathers of the Church. In regard to the latter, it has always been allowable, without failing in the respect which is due to them, to remark certain weaknesses in their works, sometimes even errors, as the Church has done in condemning the Millenaries, &c. [705] An excellent maxim for fomenting credulity and nourishing superstition. [706] What a parallel! how could any one make it without renouncing common sense? [707] Jeremiah xxi. 21. [708] Jerem. xxxvi. [709] Jerem. xvii. 15. [710] Isai. xxviii. 10. [711] Tom. ii. p. 92 _et seq._ [712] It is true that what Dom. Calmet had said of this in his first edition, the only one M. Lenglet has seen, has been corrected in the following ones. [713] P. 155. [714] A bad foundation; credulous or interested authors. THE END. Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics indicated by underscore _italics_. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations set off by [Greek: ] tags. The original text includes several blank spaces. These are represented by _______________ in this text version. Footnote punctuation has been standardized for consistency. Misprints corrected: "Corpernican" corrected to "Copernican" (page vii) "destitue" corrected to "destitute" (page xvii) "superstit on" corrected to "superstition" (page xx) "Apocalapse" corrected to "Apocalypse" (page 40) "for" corrected to "fro" (page 55) "thousands" corrected to "thousand" (page 57) "predjudices" corrected to "prejudices" (page 61) "repentence" corrected to "repentance" (page 87) "sorcerors" corrected to "sorcerers" (page 100) "subtil" corrected to "subtile" (page 112) "Loudon" corrected to "Loudun" (page 128) "Gassendy" corrected to "Gassendi" (page 146) "statue" corrected to "stature" (page 161) "testiomony" corrected to "testimony" (page 179) "Ratzival" corrected to "Ratzivil" (page 204) "embarrasment" corrected to "embarrassment" (page 220) "Mohometans" corrected to "Mahometans" (page 222) "ancesters" corrected to "ancestors" (page 231) "cf" corrected to "of" (page 238) "Other" corrected to "Others" (page 248) "treaties" corrected to "treatise" (page 254) "Spiridon" corrected to "Spiridion" (page 258) "not not" corrected to "not" (page 262) "drangement" corrected to "derangement" (page 278) "neigborhood" corrected to "neighborhood" (page 282) "d'Englebert" corrected to "d'Engelbert" (page 286) "obervations" corrected to "observations" (page 305) "of" corrected to "off" (page 326) "corpuscules" corrected to "corpuscles" (page 329) "or" corrected to "for" (page 342) "our" corrected to "out" (page 349) "childen" corrected to "children" (page 360) "her her" corrected to "her" (page 372) "abe" corrected to "able" (page 386) "or" corrected to "on" (page 390) Missing text "III." added (page 411) "permittted" corrected to "permitted" (page 412) "One" corrected to "On" (page 434) Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have been left open. Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text. All other spelling and punctuation is presented as in the original.