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There is No Death

by Florence Marryat · English · Gutenberg #39212 · 598,851 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: There is No Death

Author: Florence Marryat


        
Release date: March 20, 2012 [eBook #39212]

Language: English

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  THERE IS NO DEATH

  Works by Florence Marryat

  PUBLISHED IN THE INTERNATIONAL SERIES.


     NO.                                 CTS.

     85. Blindfold,                       50

    135. Brave Heart and True,            50

     42. Mount Eden,                      30

     13. On Circumstantial Evidence,      30

    148. Risen Dead, The,                 50

     77. Scarlet Sin, A,                  50

    159. There Is No Death,               50




   THERE IS NO DEATH

   BY
   FLORENCE MARRYAT

   AUTHOR OF
   "LOVE'S CONFLICT," "VERONIQUE," ETC., ETC.

     "There is no Death--what seems so is transition.
     This life of mortal breath
     Is but a suburb of the Life Elysian
     Whose portal we call----Death."--Longfellow.


   NEW YORK
   NATIONAL BOOK COMPANY
   3, 4, 5 AND 6 MISSION PLACE


   Copyright, 1891,
   by
   United States Book Company




THERE IS NO DEATH.




CHAPTER I.

FAMILY GHOSTS.


It has been strongly impressed upon me for some years past to write an
account of the wonderful experiences I have passed through in my
investigation of the science of Spiritualism. In doing so I intend to
confine myself to recording facts. I will describe the scenes I have
witnessed with my own eyes, and repeat the words I have heard with my
own ears, leaving the deduction to be drawn from them wholly to my
readers. I have no ambition to start a theory nor to promulgate a
doctrine; above all things I have no desire to provoke an argument. I
have had more than enough of arguments, philosophical, scientific,
religious, and purely aggressive, to last a lifetime; and were I called
upon for my definition of the rest promised to the weary, I should
reply--a place where every man may hold his own opinion, and no one is
permitted to dispute it.

But though I am about to record a great many incidents that are so
marvellous as to be almost incredible, I do not expect to be
disbelieved, except by such as are capable of deception themselves.
They--conscious of their own infirmity--invariably believe that other
people must be telling lies. Byron wrote, "He is a fool who denies that
which he cannot disprove;" and though Carlyle gives us the comforting
assurance that the population of Great Britain consists "chiefly of
fools," I pin my faith upon receiving credence from the few who are not
so.

Why should I be disbelieved? When the late Lady Brassey published the
"Cruise of the _Sunbeam_," and Sir Samuel and Lady Baker related their
experiences in Central Africa, and Livingstone wrote his account of the
wonders he met with whilst engaged in the investigation of the source of
the Nile, and Henry Stanley followed up the story and added thereto, did
they anticipate the public turning up its nose at their narrations, and
declaring it did not believe a word they had written? Yet their readers
had to accept the facts they offered for credence, on their authority
alone. Very few of them had even _heard_ of the places described before;
scarcely one in a thousand could, either from personal experience or
acquired knowledge, attest the truth of the description. What was
there--for the benefit of the general public--to _prove_ that the
_Sunbeam_ had sailed round the world, or that Sir Samuel Baker had met
with the rare beasts, birds, and flowers he wrote of, or that
Livingstone and Stanley met and spoke with those curious, unknown tribes
that never saw white men till they set eyes on them? Yet had any one of
those writers affirmed that in his wanderings he had encountered a gold
field of undoubted excellence, thousands of fortune-seekers would have
left their native land on his word alone, and rushed to secure some of
the glittering treasure.

Why? Because the authors of those books were persons well known in
society, who had a reputation for veracity to maintain, and who would
have been quickly found out had they dared to deceive. I claim the same
grounds for obtaining belief. I have a well-known name and a public
reputation, a tolerable brain, and two sharp eyes. What I have
witnessed, others, with equal assiduity and perseverance, may witness
for themselves. It would demand a voyage round the world to see all that
the owners of the _Sunbeam_ saw. It would demand time and trouble and
money to see what I have seen, and to some people, perhaps, it would not
be worth the outlay. But if I have journeyed into the Debateable Land
(which so few really believe in, and most are terribly afraid of), and
come forward now to tell what I have seen there, the world has no more
right to disbelieve me than it had to disbelieve Lady Brassey. Because
the general public has not penetrated Central Africa, is no reason that
Livingstone did not do so; because the general public has not seen (and
does not care to see) what I have seen, is no argument against the truth
of what I write. To those who _do_ believe in the possibility of
communion with disembodied spirits, my story will be interesting
perhaps, on account of its dealing throughout in a remarkable degree
with the vexed question of identity and recognition. To the
materialistic portion of creation who may credit me with not being a
bigger fool than the remainder of the thirty-eight millions of Great
Britain, it may prove a new source of speculation and research. And for
those of my fellow-creatures who possess no curiosity, nor imagination,
nor desire to prove for themselves what they cannot accept on the
testimony of others, I never had, and never shall have, anything in
common. They are the sort of people who ask you with a pleasing smile if
Irving wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and say they like
Byron's "Sardanapalus" very well, but it is not so funny as "Our Boys."

Now, before going to work in right earnest, I do not think it is
generally known that my father, the late Captain Marryat, was not only a
believer in ghosts, but himself a ghost-seer. I am delighted to be able
to record this fact as an introduction to my own experiences. Perhaps
the ease with which such manifestations have come to me is a gift which
I inherit from him, anyway I am glad he shared the belief and the power
of spiritual sight with me. If there were no other reason to make me
bold to repeat what I have witnessed, the circumstance would give me
courage. My father was not like his intimate friends, Charles Dickens,
Lord Lytton, and many other men of genius, highly strung, nervous, and
imaginative. I do not believe my father had any "nerves," and I think he
had very little imagination. Almost all his works are founded on his
personal experiences. His _forte_ lay in a humorous description of what
he had seen. He possessed a marvellous power of putting his
recollections into graphic and forcible language, and the very reason
that his books are almost as popular to-day as when they were written,
is because they are true histories of their time. There is scarcely a
line of fiction in them. His body was as powerful and muscular as his
brain. His courage was indomitable--his moral courage as well as his
physical (as many people remember to their cost to this day), and his
hardness of belief on many subjects is no secret. What I am about to
relate therefore did not happen to some excitable, nervous, sickly
sentimentalist, and I repeat that I am proud to have inherited his
constitutional tendencies, and quite willing to stand judgment after
him.

I have heard that my father had a number of stories to relate of
supernatural (as they are usually termed) incidents that had occurred to
him, but I will content myself with relating such as were proved to be
(at the least) very remarkable coincidences. In my work, "The Life and
Letters of Captain Marryat," I relate an anecdote of him that was
entered in his private "log," and found amongst his papers. He had a
younger brother, Samuel, to whom he was very much attached, and who died
unexpectedly in England whilst my father, in command of H. M. S.
_Larne_, was engaged in the first Burmese war. His men broke out with
scurvy and he was ordered to take his vessel over to Pulu Pinang for a
few weeks in order to get the sailors fresh fruit and vegetables. As my
father was lying in his berth one night, anchored off the island, with
the brilliant tropical moonlight making everything as bright as day, he
saw the door of his cabin open, and his brother Samuel entered and
walked quietly up to his side. He looked just the same as when they had
parted, and uttered in a perfectly distinct voice, "Fred! I have come to
tell you that I am dead!" When the figure entered the cabin my father
jumped up in his berth, thinking it was some one coming to rob him, and
when he saw who it was and heard it speak, he leaped out of bed with the
intention of detaining it, but it was gone. So vivid was the impression
made upon him by the apparition that he drew out his log at once and
wrote down all particulars concerning it, with the hour and day of its
appearance. On reaching England after the war was over, the first
dispatches put into his hand were to announce the death of his brother,
who had passed away at the very hour when he had seen him in the cabin.

But the story that interests me most is one of an incident which
occurred to my father during my lifetime, and which we have always
called "The Brown Lady of Rainham." I am aware that this narrative has
reached the public through other sources, and I have made it the
foundation of a Christmas story myself. But it is too well authenticated
to be omitted here. The last fifteen years of my father's life were
passed on his own estate of Langham, in Norfolk, and amongst his county
friends were Sir Charles and Lady Townshend of Rainham Hall. At the time
I speak of, the title and property had lately changed hands, and the new
baronet had re-papered, painted, and furnished the Hall throughout, and
come down with his wife and a large party of friends to take possession.
But to their annoyance, soon after their arrival, rumors arose that the
house was haunted, and their guests began, one and all (like those in
the parable), to make excuses to go home again. Sir Charles and Lady
Townshend might have sung, "Friend after friend departs," with due
effect, but it would have had none on the general exodus that took place
from Rainham. And it was all on account of a Brown Lady, whose portrait
hung in one of the bedrooms, and in which she was represented as wearing
a brown satin dress with yellow trimmings, and a ruff around her
throat--a very harmless, innocent-looking young woman. But they all
declared they had seen her walking about the house--some in the
corridor, some in their bedrooms, others in the lower premises, and
neither guests nor servants would remain in the Hall. The baronet was
naturally very much annoyed about it, and confided his trouble to my
father, and my father was indignant at the trick he believed had been
played upon him. There was a great deal of smuggling and poaching in
Norfolk at that period, as he knew well, being a magistrate of the
county, and he felt sure that some of these depredators were trying to
frighten the Townshends away from the Hall again. The last baronet had
been a solitary sort of being, and lead a retired life, and my father
imagined some of the tenantry had their own reasons for not liking the
introduction of revelries and "high jinks" at Rainham. So he asked his
friends to let him stay with them and sleep in the haunted chamber, and
he felt sure he could rid them of the nuisance. They accepted his offer,
and he took possession of the room in which the portrait of the
apparition hung, and in which she had been often seen, and slept each
night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. For two days, however, he
saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. On the
third night, however, two young men (nephews of the baronet) knocked at
his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over
to their room (which was at the other end of the corridor), and give
them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in
his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had
retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he
was. As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, "in case
we meet the Brown Lady," he said, laughing. When the inspection of the
gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would
accompany my father back again, "in case you meet the Brown Lady," they
repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in
company.

The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished,
but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp
coming towards them from the other end. "One of the ladies going to
visit the nurseries," whispered the young Townshends to my father. Now
the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a
double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned
country houses. My father (as I have said) was in a shirt and trousers
only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped
within one of the _outer_ doors (his friends following his example), in
order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I have
heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer,
through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to
distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the
figure as the facsimile of the portrait of "The Brown Lady." He had his
finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to
stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted
of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and holding the
lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and
diabolical manner at him. This act so infuriated my father, who was
anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor
with a bound, and discharged the revolver right in her face. The figure
instantly disappeared--the figure at which for the space of several
minutes _three_ men had been looking together--and the bullet passed
through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor,
and lodged in the panel of the inner one. My father never attempted
again to interfere with "The Brown Lady of Rainham," and I have heard
that she haunts the premises to this day. That she did so at that time,
however, there is no shadow of doubt.

But Captain Marryat not only held these views and believed in them from
personal experience--he promulgated them in his writings. There are many
passages in his works which, read by the light of my assertion, prove
that he had faith in the possibility of the departed returning to visit
this earth, and in the theory of re-incarnation or living more than one
life upon it, but nowhere does he speak more plainly than in the
following extract from the "Phantom Ship":--

"Think you, Philip," (says Amine to her husband), "that this world is
solely peopled by such dross as we are?--things of clay, perishable and
corruptible, lords over beasts and ourselves, but little better? Have
you not, from your own sacred writings, repeated acknowledgments and
proofs of higher intelligences, mixing up with mankind, and acting here
below? Why should what was _then_ not be _now_, and what more harm is
there to apply for their aid now than a few thousand years ago? Why
should you suppose that they were permitted on the earth then and not
permitted now? What has become of them? Have they perished? Have they
been ordered back? to where?--to heaven? If to heaven, the world and
mankind have been left to the mercy of the devil and his agents. Do you
suppose that we poor mortals have been thus abandoned? I tell you
plainly, I think not. We no longer have the communication with those
intelligences that we once had, because as we become more enlightened we
become more proud and seek them not, but that they still exist a host of
good against a host of evil, invisibly opposing each other, is my
conviction."

One testimony to such a belief, from the lips of my father, is
sufficient. He would not have written it unless he had been prepared to
maintain it. He was not one of those wretched literary cowards who we
meet but too often now-a-days, who are too much afraid of the world to
confess with their mouths the opinions they hold in their hearts. Had he
lived to this time I believe he would have been one of the most
energetic and outspoken believers in Spiritualism that we possess. So
much, however, for his testimony to the possibility of spirits, good and
evil, revisiting this earth. I think few will be found to gainsay the
assertion that where _he_ trod, his daughter need not be ashamed to
follow.

Before the question of Spiritualism, however, arose in modern times, I
had had my own little private experiences on the subject. From an early
age I was accustomed to see, and to be very much alarmed at seeing,
certain forms that appeared to me at night. One in particular, I
remember, was that of a very short or deformed old woman, who was very
constant to me. She used to stand on tiptoe to look at me as I lay in
bed, and however dark the room might be, I could always see every
article in it, as if illuminated, whilst she remained there.

I was in the habit of communicating these visions to my mother and
sisters (my father had passed from us by that time), and always got well
ridiculed for my pains. "Another of Flo's optical illusions," they would
cry, until I really came to think that the appearances I saw were due to
some defect in my eye-sight. I have heard my first husband say, that
when he married me he thought he should never rest for an entire night
in his bed, so often did I wake him with the description of some man or
woman I had seen in the room. I recall these figures distinctly. They
were always dressed in white, from which circumstance I imagined that
they were natives who had stolen in to rob us, until, from repeated
observation, I discovered they only formed part of another and more
enlarged series of my "optical illusions." All this time I was very much
afraid of seeing what I termed "ghosts." No love of occult science led
me to investigate the cause of my alarm. I only wished never to see the
"illusions" again, and was too frightened to remain by myself lest they
should appear to me.

When I had been married for about two years, the head-quarters of my
husband's regiment, the 12th Madras Native Infantry, was ordered to
Rangoon, whilst the left wing, commanded by a Major Cooper, was sent to
assist in the bombardment of Canton. Major Cooper had only been married
a short time, and by rights his wife had no claim to sail with the
head-quarters for Burmah, but as she had no friends in Madras, and was
moreover expecting her confinement, our colonel permitted her to do so,
and she accompanied us to Rangoon, settling herself in a house not far
from our own. One morning, early in July, I was startled by receiving a
hurried scrawl from her, containing only these words, "Come! come!
come!" I set off at once, thinking she had been taken ill, but on my
arrival I found Mrs. Cooper sitting up in bed with only her usual
servants about her. "What is the matter?" I exclaimed. "Mark is dead,"
she answered me; "he sat in that chair" (pointing to one by the bedside)
"all last night. I noticed every detail of his face and figure. He was
in undress, and he never raised his eyes, but sat with the peak of his
forage cap pulled down over his face. But I could see the back of his
head and his hair, and I know it was he. I spoke to him but he did not
answer me, and I am _sure_ he is dead."

Naturally, I imagined this vision to have been dictated solely by fear
and the state of her health. I laughed at her for a simpleton, and told
her it was nothing but fancy, and reminded her that by the last accounts
received from the seat of war, Major Cooper was perfectly well and
anticipating a speedy reunion with her. Laugh as I would, however, I
could not laugh her out of her belief, and seeing how low-spirited she
was, I offered to pass the night with her. It was a very nice night
indeed. As soon as ever we had retired to bed, although a lamp burned in
the room, Mrs. Cooper declared that her husband was sitting in the same
chair as the night before, and accused me of deception when I declared
that I saw nothing at all. I sat up in bed and strained my eyes, but I
could discern nothing but an empty arm-chair, and told her so. She
persisted that Major Cooper sat there, and described his personal
appearance and actions. I got out of bed and sat in the chair, when she
cried out, "Don't, don't! _You are sitting right on him!_" It was
evident that the apparition was as real to her as if it had been flesh
and blood. I jumped up again fast enough, not feeling very comfortable
myself, and lay by her side for the remainder of the night, listening to
her asseverations that Major Cooper was either dying or dead. She would
not part with me, and on the third night I had to endure the same ordeal
as on the second. After the third night the apparition ceased to appear
to her, and I was permitted to return home. But before I did so, Mrs.
Cooper showed me her pocket-book, in which she had written down against
the 8th, 9th, and 10th of July this sentence: "Mark sat by my bedside
all night."

The time passed on, and no bad news arrived from China, but the mails
had been intercepted and postal communication suspended. Occasionally,
however, we received letters by a sailing vessel. At last came
September, and on the third of that month Mrs. Cooper's baby was born
and died. She was naturally in great distress about it, and I was doubly
horrified when I was called from her bedside to receive the news of her
husband's death, which had taken place from a sudden attack of fever at
Macao. We did not intend to let Mrs. Cooper hear of this until she was
convalescent, but as soon as I re-entered her room she broached the
subject.

"Are there any letters from China?" she asked. (Now this question was
remarkable in itself, because the mails having been cut off, there was
no particular date when letters might be expected to arrive from the
seat of war.) Fearing she would insist upon hearing the news, I
temporized and answered her, "We have received none." "But there is a
letter for me," she continued: "a letter with the intelligence of Mark's
death. It is useless denying it. I know he is dead. He died on the 10th
of July." And on reference to the official memorandum, this was found to
be true. Major Cooper had been taken ill on the first day he had
appeared to his wife, and died on the third. And this incident was the
more remarkable, because they were neither of them young nor sentimental
people, neither had they lived long enough together to form any very
strong sympathy or accord between them. But as I have related it, so it
occurred.




CHAPTER II.

MY FIRST SEANCE.


I had returned from India and spent several years in England before the
subject of Modern Spiritualism was brought under my immediate notice.
Cursorily I had heard it mentioned by some people as a dreadfully wicked
thing, diabolical to the last degree, by others as a most amusing
pastime for evening parties, or when one wanted to get some "fun out of
the table." But neither description charmed me, nor tempted me to pursue
the occupation. I had already lost too many friends. Spiritualism (so it
seemed to me) must either be humbug or a very solemn thing, and I
neither wished to trifle with it or to be trifled with by it. And after
twenty years' continued experience I hold the same opinion. I have
proved Spiritualism _not_ to be humbug, therefore I regard it in a
sacred light. For, _from whatever cause_ it may proceed, it opens a vast
area for thought to any speculative mind, and it is a matter of constant
surprise to me to see the indifference with which the world regards it.
That it _exists_ is an undeniable fact. Men of science have acknowledged
it, and the churches cannot deny it. The only question appears to be,
"_What_ is it, and _whence_ does the power proceed?" If (as many clever
people assert) from ourselves, then must these bodies and minds of ours
possess faculties hitherto undreamed of, and which we have allowed to
lie culpably fallow. If our bodies contain magnetic forces sufficient to
raise substantial and apparently living forms from the bare earth, which
our eyes are clairvoyant enough to see, and which can articulate words
which our ears are clairaudient enough to hear--if, in addition to this,
our minds can read each other's inmost thoughts, can see what is passing
at a distance, and foretell what will happen in the future, then are our
human powers greater than we have ever imagined, and we ought to do a
great deal more with them than we do. And even regarding Spiritualism
from _that_ point of view, I cannot understand the lack of interest
displayed in the discovery, to turn these marvellous powers of the human
mind to greater account.

To discuss it, however, from the usual meaning given to the word,
namely, as a means of communication with the departed, leaves me as
puzzled as before. All Christians acknowledge they have spirits
independent of their bodies, and that when their bodies die, their
spirits will continue to live on. Wherein, then, lies the terror of the
idea that these liberated spirits will have the privilege of roaming the
universe as they will? And if they argue the _impossibility_ of their
return, they deny the records which form the only basis of their
religion. No greater proof can be brought forward of the truth of
Spiritualism than the truth of the Bible, which teems and bristles with
accounts of it from beginning to end. From the period when the Lord God
walked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and the angels came to
Abram's tent, and pulled Lot out of the doomed city; when the witch of
Endor raised up Samuel, and Balaam's ass spoke, and Ezekiel wrote that
the hair of his head stood up because "a spirit" passed before him, to
the presence of Satan with Jesus in the desert, and the reappearance of
Moses and Elias, the resurrection of Christ Himself, and His talking and
eating with His disciples, and the final account of John being caught up
to Heaven to receive the Revelations--_all is Spiritualism, and nothing
else_. The Protestant Church that pins its faith upon the Bible, and
nothing but the Bible, cannot deny that the spirits of mortal men have
reappeared and been recognized upon this earth, as when the graves
opened at the time of the Christ's crucifixion, and "many bodies of
those that were dead arose and went into the city, and were seen of
many." The Catholic Church does not attempt to deny it. All her legends
and miracles (which are disbelieved and ridiculed by the Protestants
aforesaid) are founded on the same truth--the miraculous or supernatural
return (as it is styled) of those who are gone, though I hope to make my
readers believe, as I do, that there is nothing miraculous in it, and
far from being _super_natural it is only a continuation of Nature.
Putting the churches and the Bible, however, on one side, the History of
Nations proves it to be possible. There is not a people on the face of
the globe that has not its (so-called) superstitions, nor a family
hardly, which has not experienced some proofs of spiritual communion
with earth. Where learning and science have thrust all belief out of
sight, it is only natural that the man who does not believe in a God nor
a Hereafter should not credit the existence of spirits, nor the
possibility of communicating with them. But the lower we go in the scale
of society, the more simple and childlike the mind, the more readily
does such a faith gain credence, and the more stories you will hear to
justify belief. It is just the same with religion, which is hid from the
wise and prudent, and revealed to babes.

If I am met here with the objection that the term "Spiritualism" has
been at times mixed up with so much that is evil as to become an
offence, I have no better answer to make than by turning to the
irrefragable testimony of the Past and Present to prove that in all
ages, and of all religions, there have been corrupt and demoralized
exponents whose vices have threatened to pull down the fabric they lived
to raise. Christianity itself would have been overthrown before now, had
we been unable to separate its doctrine from its practice.

I held these views in the month of February, 1873, when I made one of a
party of friends assembled at the house of Miss Elizabeth Philip, in
Gloucester Crescent, and was introduced to Mr. Henry Dunphy of the
_Morning Post_, both of them since gone to join the great majority. Mr.
Dunphy soon got astride of his favorite hobby of Spiritualism, and gave
me an interesting account of some of the _seances_ he had attended. I
had heard so many clever men and women discuss the subject before, that
I had begun to believe on their authority that there must be "something
in it," but I held the opinion that sittings in the dark must afford so
much liberty for deception, that I would engage in none where I was not
permitted the use of my eyesight.

I expressed myself somewhat after this fashion to Mr. Dunphy. He
replied, "Then the time has arrived for you to investigate Spiritualism,
for I can introduce you to a medium who will show you the faces of the
dead." This proposal exactly met my wishes, and I gladly accepted it.
Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender Cudlip,) the novelist, who is an intimate
friend of mine, was staying with me at the time and became as eager as I
was to investigate the phenomena. We took the address Mr. Dunphy gave us
of Mrs. Holmes, the American medium, then visiting London, and lodging
in Old Quebec Street, Portman Square, but we refused his introduction,
preferring to go _incognito_. Accordingly, the next evening, when she
held a public _seance_, we presented ourselves at Mrs. Holmes' door; and
having first removed our wedding-rings, and tried to look as virginal as
possible, sent up our names as Miss Taylor and Miss Turner. I am
perfectly aware that this medium was said afterwards to be
untrustworthy. So may a servant who was perfectly honest, whilst in my
service, leave me for a situation where she is detected in theft. That
does not alter the fact that she stole nothing from me. I do not think I
know _a single medium_ of whom I have not (at some time or other) heard
the same thing, and I do not think I know a single woman whom I have not
also, at some time or other, heard scandalized by her own sex, however
pure and chaste she may imagine the world holds her. The question
affects me in neither case. I value my acquaintances for what they are
_to me_, not for what they may be to others; and I have placed trust in
my media from what I individually have seen and heard, and proved to be
genuine in their presence, and not from what others may imagine they
have found out about them. It is no detriment to my witness that the
media I sat with cheated somebody else, either before or after. My
business was only to take care that _I_ was not cheated, and I have
never, in Spiritualism, accepted anything at the hands of others that I
could not prove for myself.

Mrs. Holmes did not receive us very graciously on the present occasion.
We were strangers to her--probably sceptics, and she eyed us rather
coldly. It was a bitter night, and the snow lay so thick upon the ground
that we had some difficulty in procuring a hansom to take us from
Bayswater to Old Quebec Street. No other visitors arrived, and after a
little while Mrs. Holmes offered to return our money (ten shillings), as
she said if she did sit with us, there would probably be no
manifestations on account of the inclemency of the weather. (Often since
then I have proved her assertion to be true, and found that any extreme
of heat or cold is liable to make a _seance_ a dead failure).

But Annie Thomas had to return to her home in Torquay on the following
day, and so we begged the medium to try at least to show us something,
as we were very curious on the subject. I am not quite sure what I
expected or hoped for on this occasion. I was full of curiosity and
anticipation, but I am sure that I never thought I should see any face
which I could recognize as having been on earth. We waited till nine
o'clock in hopes that a circle would be formed, but as no one else came,
Mrs. Holmes consented to sit with us alone, warning us, however, several
times to prepare for a disappointment. The lights were therefore
extinguished, and we sat for the usual preliminary dark _seance_, which
was good, perhaps, but has nothing to do with a narrative of facts,
proved to be so. When it concluded, the gas was re-lit and we sat for
"Spirit Faces."

There were two small rooms connected by folding doors. Annie Thomas and
I, were asked to go into the back room--to lock the door communicating
with the landings, and secure it with our own seal, stamped upon a piece
of tape stretched across the opening--to examine the window and bar the
shutter inside--to search the room thoroughly, in fact, to see that no
one was concealed in it--and we did all this as a matter of business.
When we had satisfied ourselves that no one could enter from the back,
Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, Annie Thomas, and I were seated on four chairs in
the front room, arranged in a row before the folding doors, which were
opened, and a square of black calico fastened across the aperture from
one wall to the other. In this piece of calico was cut a square hole
about the size of an ordinary window, at which we were told the spirit
faces (if any) would appear. There was no singing, nor noise of any sort
made to drown the sounds of preparation, and we could have heard even a
rustle in the next room. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes talked to us of their
various experiences, until, we were almost tired of waiting, when
something white and indistinct like a cloud of tobacco smoke, or a
bundle of gossamer, appeared and disappeared again.

"They are coming! I _am_ glad!" said Mrs. Holmes. "I didn't think we
should get anything to-night,"--and my friend and I were immediately on
the tiptoe of expectation. The white mass advanced and retreated several
times, and finally settled before the aperture and opened in the
middle, when a female face was distinctly to be seen above the black
calico. What was our amazement to recognize the features of Mrs. Thomas,
Annie Thomas' mother. Here I should tell my readers that Annie's father,
who was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and captain of the coastguard at
Morston in Norfolk, had been a near neighbor and great friend of my
father, Captain Marryat, and their children had associated like brothers
and sisters. I had therefore known Mrs. Thomas well, and recognized her
at once, as, of course, did her daughter. The witness of two people is
considered sufficient in law. It ought to be accepted by society. Poor
Annie was very much affected, and talked to her mother in the most
incoherent manner. The spirit did not appear able to answer in words,
but she bowed her head or shook it, according as she wished to say "yes"
or "no." I could not help feeling awed at the appearance of the dear old
lady, but the only thing that puzzled me was the cap she wore, which was
made of white net, quilled closely round her face, and unlike any I had
ever seen her wear in life. I whispered this to Annie, and she replied
at once, "It is the cap she was buried in," which settled the question.
Mrs. Thomas had possessed a very pleasant but very uncommon looking
face, with bright black eyes, and a complexion of pink and white like
that of a child. It was some time before Annie could be persuaded to let
her mother go, but the next face that presented itself astonished her
quite as much, for she recognized it as that of Captain Gordon, a
gentleman whom she had known intimately and for a length of time. I had
never seen Captain Gordon in the flesh, but I had heard of him, and knew
he had died from a sudden accident. All I saw was the head of a
good-looking, fair, young man, and not feeling any personal interest in
his appearance, I occupied the time during which my friend conversed
with him about olden days, by minutely examining the working of the
muscles of his throat, which undeniably stretched when his head moved.
As I was doing so, he leaned forward, and I saw a dark stain, which
looked like a clot of blood, on his fair hair, on the left side of the
forehead.

"Annie! what did Captain Gordon die of?" I asked. "He fell from a
railway carriage," she replied, "and struck his head upon the line." I
then pointed out to her the blood upon his hair. Several other faces
appeared, which we could not recognize. At last came one of a gentleman,
apparently moulded like a bust in plaster of Paris. He had a kind of
smoking cap upon the head, curly hair, and a beard, but from being
perfectly colorless, he looked so unlike nature, that I could not trace
a resemblance to any friend of mine, though he kept on bowing in my
direction, to indicate that I knew, or had known him. I examined this
face again and again in vain. Nothing in it struck me as familiar, until
the mouth broke into a grave, amused smile at my perplexity. In a moment
I recognized it as that of my dear old friend, John Powles, whose
history I shall relate _in extenso_ further on. I exclaimed "Powles,"
and sprang towards it, but with my hasty action the figure disappeared.
I was terribly vexed at my imprudence, for this was the friend of all
others I desired to see, and sat there, hoping and praying the spirit
would return, but it did not. Annie Thomas' mother and friend both came
back several times; indeed, Annie recalled Captain Gordon so often, that
on his last appearance the power was so exhausted, his face looked like
a faded sketch in water-colors, but "Powles" had vanished altogether.
The last face we saw that night was that of a little girl, and only her
eyes and nose were visible, the rest of her head and face being
enveloped in some white flimsy material like muslin. Mrs. Holmes asked
her for whom she came, and she intimated that it was for me. I said she
must be mistaken, and that I had known no one in life like her. The
medium questioned her very closely, and tried to put her "out of court,"
as it were. Still, the child persisted that she came for me. Mrs. Holmes
said to me, "Cannot you remember _anyone_ of that age connected with you
in the spirit world? No cousin, nor niece, nor sister, nor the child of
a friend?" I tried to remember, but I could not, and answered, "No! no
child of that age." She then addressed the little spirit. "You have made
a mistake. There is no one here who knows you. You had better move on."
So the child did move on, but very slowly and reluctantly. I could read
her disappointment in her eyes, and after she had disappeared, she
peeped round the corner again and looked at me, longingly. This was
"Florence," my dear _lost_ child (as I then called her), who had left me
as a little infant of ten days old, and whom I could not at first
recognize as a young girl of ten years. Her identity, however, has been
proved to me since, beyond all doubt, as will be seen in the chapter
which relates my reunion with her, and is headed "My Spirit Child." Thus
ended the first _seance_ at which I ever assisted, and it made a
powerful impression upon my mind. Mrs. Holmes, in bidding us good-night,
said, "You two ladies must be very powerful mediums. I never held so
successful a _seance_ with strangers in my life before." This news
elated us--we were eager to pursue our investigations, and were
enchanted to think we could have _seances_ at home, and as soon as Annie
Thomas took up her residence in London, we agreed to hold regular
meetings for the purpose. This was the _seance_ that made me a student
of the psychological phenomena, which the men of the nineteenth century
term Spiritualism. Had it turned out a failure, I might now have been as
most men are. _Quien sabe?_ As it was, it incited me to go on and on,
until I have seen and heard things which at that moment would have
seemed utterly impossible to me. And I would not have missed the
experience I have passed through for all the good this world could offer
me.




CHAPTER III.

CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.


Before I proceed to write down the results of my private and
premeditated investigations, I am reminded to say a word respecting the
permission I received for the pursuit of Spiritualism. As soon as I
expressed my curiosity on the subject, I was met on all sides with the
objection that, as I am a Catholic, I could not possibly have anything
to do with the matter, and it is a fact that the Church strictly forbids
all meddling with necromancy, or communion with the departed. Necromancy
is a terrible word, is it not? especially to such people as do not
understand its meaning, and only associate it with the dead of night and
charmed circles, and seething caldrons, and the arch fiend, in _propria
persona_, with two horns and a tail. Yet it seems strange to me that the
Catholic Church, whose very doctrine is overlaid with Spiritualism, and
who makes it a matter of belief that the Saints hear and help us in our
prayers and the daily actions of our lives, and recommends our kissing
the ground every morning at the feet of our guardian angel, should
consider it unlawful for us to communicate with our departed relatives.
I cannot see the difference in iniquity between speaking to John Powles,
who was and is a dear and trusted friend of mine, and Saint Peter of
Alcantara, who is an old man whom I never saw in this life. They were
both men, both mortal, and are both spirits. Again, surely my mother who
was a pious woman all her life, and is now in the other world, would be
just as likely to take an interest in my welfare, and to try and promote
the prospect of our future meeting, as Saint Veronica Guiliani, who is
my patron. Yet were I to spend half my time in prayer before Saint
Veronica's altar, asking her help and guidance, I should be doing right
(according to the Church), but if I did the same thing at my mother's
grave, or spoke to her at a _seance_, I should be doing wrong. These
distinctions without a difference were hard nuts to crack, and I was
bound to settle the matter with my conscience before I went on with my
investigations.

It is a fact that I have met quite as many Catholics as Protestants
(especially of the higher classes) amongst the investigators of
Spiritualism, and I have not been surprised at it, for who could better
understand and appreciate the beauty of communications from the spirit
world than members of that Church which instructs us to believe in the
communion of saints, as an ever-present, though invisible mystery.
Whether my Catholic acquaintances had received permission to attend
_seances_ or not, was no concern of mine, but I took good care to
procure it for myself, and I record it here, because rumors have
constantly reached me of people having said behind my back that I can be
"no Catholic" because I am a spiritualist.

My director at that time was Father Dalgairn, of the Oratory at
Brompton, and it was to him I took my difficulty. I was a very constant
press writer and reviewer, and to be unable to attend and report on
spiritualistic meetings would have seriously militated against my
professional interests. I represented this to the Father, and (although
under protest) I received his permission to pursue the research in the
cause of science. He did more than ease my conscience. He became
interested in what I had to tell him on the subject, and we had many
conversations concerning it. He also lent me from his own library the
lives of such saints as had heard voices and seen visions, of those in
fact who (like myself) had been the victims of "Optical Illusions."
Amongst these I found the case of Saint Anne-Catherine of Emmerich, so
like my own, that I began to think that I too might turn out to be a
saint in disguise. It has not come to pass yet, but there is no knowing
what may happen.

She used to see the spirits floating beside her as she walked to mass,
and heard them asking her to pray for them as they pointed to "les
taches sur leurs robes." The musical instruments used to play without
hands in her presence, and voices from invisible throats sound in her
ears, as they have done in mine. I have only inserted this clause,
however, for the satisfaction of those Catholic acquaintances with whom
I have sat at _seances_, and who will probably be the first to exclaim
against the publication of _our_ joint experiences. I trust they will
acknowledge, after reading it, that I am not worse than themselves,
though I may be a little bolder in avowing my opinions.

Before I began this chapter, I had an argument with that friend of mine
called Self (who has but too often worsted me in the Battle of Life), as
to whether I should say anything about table-rapping or tilting. The
very fact of so common an article of furniture as a table, as an agent
of communication with the unseen world, has excited so much ridicule and
opens so wide a field for chicanery, that I thought it would be wiser to
drop the subject, and confine myself to those phases of the science or
art, or religion, or whatever the reader may like to call it, that can
be explained or described on paper. The philosophers of the nineteenth
century have invented so many names for the cause that makes a table
turn round--tilt--or rap--that I feel quite unable (not being a
philosopher) to cope with them. It is "magnetic force" or "psychic
force,"--it is "unconscious cerebration" or "brain-reading"--and it is
exceedingly difficult to tell the outside world of the private reasons
that convince individuals that the answers they receive are _not_
emanations from their own brains. I shall not attempt to refute their
reasonings from their own standpoint. I see the difficulties in the way,
so much so that I have persistently refused for many years past to sit
at the table with strangers, for it is only a lengthened study of the
matter that can possibly convince a person of its truth. I cannot,
however, see the extreme folly myself of holding communication (under
the circumstances) through the raps or tilts of a table, or any other
object. These tiny indications of an influence ulterior to our own are
not necessarily confined to a table. I have received them through a
cardboard box, a gentleman's hat, a footstool, the strings of a guitar,
and on the back of my chair, even on the pillow of my bed. And which,
amongst the philosophers I have alluded to, could suggest a simpler mode
of communication?

I have put the question to clever men thus: "Suppose yourself, after
having been able to write and talk to me, suddenly deprived of the
powers of speech and touch, and made invisible, so that we could not
understand each other by signs, what better means than by taps or tilts
on any article, when the right word or letter is named, could you think
of by which to communicate with me?"

And my clever men have never been able to propose an easier or more
sensible plan, and if anybody can suggest one, I should very much like
to hear of it. The following incidents all took place through the
much-ridiculed tipping of the table, but managed to knock some sense out
of it nevertheless. On looking over the note book which I faithfully
kept when we first held _seances_ at home, I find many tests of identity
which took place through my own mediumship, and which could not possibly
have been the effects of thought-reading. I devote this chapter to their
relation. I hope it will be observed with what admirable caution I have
headed it. I have a few drops of Scotch blood in me by the mother's
side, and I think they must have aided me here. "Curious coincidences."
Why, not the most captious and unbelieving critic of them all can find
fault with so modest and unpretending a title. Everyone believes in the
occasional possibility of "curious coincidences."

It was not until the month of June, 1873, that we formed a home circle,
and commenced regularly to sit together. We became so interested in the
pursuit, that we used to sit every evening, and sometimes till three and
four o'clock in the morning, greatly to our detriment, both mental and
physical. We seldom sat alone, being generally joined by two or three
friends from outside, and the results were sometimes very startling, as
we were a strong circle. The memoranda of these sittings, sometimes with
one party and sometimes with another, extend over a period of years, but
I shall restrict myself to relating a few incidents that were verified
by subsequent events.

The means by which we communicated with the influences around us was the
usual one. We sat round the table and laid our hands upon it, and I (or
anyone who might be selected for the purpose) spelled over the alphabet,
and raps or tilts occurred when the desired letter was reached. This in
reality is not so tedious a process as it may appear, and once used to
it, one may get through a vast amount of conversation in an hour by this
means. A medium is soon able to guess the word intended to be spelt, for
there are not so many after all in use in general conversation.

Some one had come to our table on several occasions, giving the name of
"Valerie," but refusing to say any more, so we thought she was an idle
or frivolous spirit, and had been in the habit of driving her away. One
evening, on the 1st of July, however, our circle was augmented by Mr.
Henry Stacke, when "Valerie" was immediately spelled out, and the
following conversation ensued. Mr. Stacke said to me, "Who is this?" and
I replied carelessly, "O! she's a little devil! She never has anything
to say." The table rocked violently at this, and the taps spelled out.

"Je ne suis pas diable."

"Hullo! Valerie, so you can talk now! For whom do you come?"

"Monsieur Stacke."

"Where did you meet him?"

"On the Continent."

"Whereabouts?"

"Between Dijon and Macon."

"How did you meet him?"

"In a railway carriage."

"What where you doing there?"

Here she relapsed into French, and said,

"Ce m'est impossible de dire."

At this juncture Mr. Stacke observed that he had never been in a train
between Dijon and Macon but once in his life, and if the spirit was with
him then, she must remember what was the matter with their
fellow-passenger.

"Mais oui, oui--il etait fou," she replied, which proved to be perfectly
correct. Mr. Stacke also remembered that two ladies in the same carriage
had been terribly frightened, and he had assisted them to get into
another. "Valerie" continued, "Priez pour moi."

"Pourquoi, Valerie?"

"Parce que j'ai beaucoup peche."

There was an influence who frequented our society at that time and
called himself "Charlie."

He stated that his full name had been "Stephen Charles Bernard
Abbot,"--that he had been a monk of great literary attainments--that he
had embraced the monastic life in the reign of Queen Mary, and
apostatized for political reasons in that of Elizabeth, and been "earth
bound" in consequence ever since.

"Charlie" asked us to sing one night, and we struck up the very vulgar
refrain of "Champagne Charlie," to which he greatly objected, asking for
something more serious.

I began, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon."

"Why, that's as bad as the other," said Charlie. "It was a ribald and
obscene song in the reign of Elizabeth. The drunken roysterers used to
sing it in the street as they rolled home at night."

"You must be mistaken, Charlie! It's a well-known Scotch air."

"It's no more Scotch than I am," he replied. "The Scotch say they
invented everything. It's a tune of the time of Elizabeth. Ask Brinley
Richards."

Having the pleasure of the acquaintance of that gentleman, who was the
great authority on the origin of National Ballads, I applied to him for
the information, and received an answer to say that "Charlie" was right,
but that Mr. Richards had not been aware of the fact himself until he
had searched some old MSS. in the British Museum for the purpose of
ascertaining the truth.

I was giving a sitting once to an officer from Aldershot, a cousin of my
own, who was quite prepared to ridicule every thing that took place.
After having teased me into giving him a _seance_, he began by cheating
himself, and then accused me of cheating him, and altogether tired out
my patience. At last I proposed a test, though with little hope of
success.

"Let us ask John Powles to go down to Aldershot," I said, "and bring us
word what your brother officers are doing."

"O, yes! by Jove! Capital idea! Here! you fellow Powles, cut off to the
camp, will you, and go to the barracks of the 84th, and let us know what
Major R---- is doing." The message came back in about three minutes.
"Major R---- has just come in from duty," spelt out Powles. "He is
sitting on the side of his bed, changing his uniform trousers for a pair
of grey tweed."

"I'm sure that's wrong," said my cousin, "because the men are never
called out at this time of the day."

It was then four o'clock, as we had been careful to ascertain. My cousin
returned to camp the same evening, and the next day I received a note
from him to say, "That fellow Powles is a brick. It was quite right.
R---- was unexpectedly ordered to turn out his company yesterday
afternoon, and he returned to barracks and changed his things for the
grey tweed suit exactly at four o'clock."

But I have always found my friend Powles (when he _will_ condescend to
do anything for strangers, which is seldom) remarkably correct in
detailing the thoughts and actions of absentees, sometimes on the other
side of the globe.

I went one afternoon to pay an ordinary social call on a lady named Mrs.
W----, and found her engaged in an earnest conversation on Spiritualism
with a stout woman and a commonplace man--two as material looking
individuals as ever I saw, and who appeared all the more so under a
sultry August sun. As soon as Mrs. W---- saw me, she exclaimed, "O! here
is Mrs. Ross-Church. She will tell you all about the spirits. Do, Mrs.
Ross-Church, sit down at the table and let us have a _seance_."

A _seance_ on a burning, blazing afternoon in August, with two stolid
and uninteresting, and worse still, _uninterested_ looking strangers,
who appeared to think Mrs. W---- had a "bee in her bonnet." I
protested--I reasoned--I pleaded--all in vain. My hostess continued to
urge, and society places the guest at the mercy of her hostess. So, in
an evil temper, I pulled off my gloves, and placed my hands
indifferently on the table. The following words were at once rapped
out--

"I am Edward G----. Did you ever pay Johnson the seventeen pounds twelve
you received for my saddlery?"

The gentleman opposite to me turned all sorts of colors, and began to
stammer out a reply, whilst his wife looked very confused. I asked the
influence, "Who are you?" It replied, "_He_ knows! His late colonel! Why
hasn't Johnson received that money?" This is what I call an "awkward"
coincidence, and I have had many such occur through me--some that have
driven acquaintances away from the table, vowing vengeance against me,
and racking their brains to discover _who_ had told me of their secret
peccadilloes. The gentleman in question (whose name even I do not
remember) confessed that the identity and main points of the message
were true, but he did _not_ confide to us whether Johnson had ever
received that seventeen pounds twelve.

I had a beautiful English greyhound, called "Clytie," a gift from Annie
Thomas to me, and this dog was given to straying from my house in
Colville Road, Bayswater, which runs parallel to Portobello Road, a
rather objectionable quarter, composed of inferior shops, one of which,
a fried fish shop, was an intolerable nuisance, and used to fill the
air around with its rich perfume. On one occasion "Clytie" stayed away
from home so much longer than usual, that I was afraid she was lost in
good earnest, and posted bills offering a reward for her. "Charlie" came
to the table that evening and said, "Don't offer a reward for the dog.
Send for her."

"Where am I to send?" I asked.

"She is tied up at the fried fish shop in Portobello Road. Send the cook
to see."

I told the servant in question that I had heard the greyhound was
detained at the fish shop, and sent her to inquire. She returned with
"Clytie." Her account was, that on making inquiries, the man in the shop
had been very insolent to her, and she had raised her voice in reply;
that she had then heard and recognized the sharp, peculiar bark of the
greyhound from an upper storey, and, running up before the man could
prevent her, she had found "Clytie" tied up to a bedstead with a piece
of rope, and had called in a policeman to enable her to take the dog
away. I have often heard the assertion that Spiritualism is of no
practical good, and, doubtless, it was never intended to be so, but this
incident was, at least, an exception to the rule.

When abroad, on one occasion, I was asked by a Catholic Abbe to sit with
him. He had never seen any manifestations before, and he did not believe
in them, but he was curious on the subject. I knew nothing of him
further than that he was a priest, and a Jesuit, and a great friend of
my sister's, at whose house I was staying. He spoke English, and the
conversation was carried on in that language. He had told me beforehand
that if he could receive a perfectly private test, that he should never
doubt the truth of the manifestations again. I left him, therefore, to
conduct the investigation entirely by himself, I acting only as the
medium between him and the influence. As soon as the table moved he put
his question direct, without asking who was there to answer it.

"Where is my chasuble?"

Now a priest's chasuble, _I_ should have said, must be either hanging in
the sacristy or packed away at home, or been sent away to be altered or
mended. But the answer was wide of all my speculations.

"At the bottom of the Red Sea."

The priest started, but continued--

"Who put it there?"

"Elias Dodo."

"What was his object in doing so?"

"He found the parcel a burthen, and did not expect any reward for
delivering it."

The Abbe really looked as if he had encountered the devil. He wiped the
perspiration from his forehead, and put one more question.

"Of what was my chasuble made?"

"Your sister's wedding dress."

The priest then explained to me that his sister had made him a chasuble
out of her wedding dress--one of the forms of returning thanks in the
Church, but that after a while it became old fashioned, and the Bishop,
going his rounds, ordered him to get another. He did not like to throw
away his sister's gift, so he decided to send the old chasuble to a
priest in India, where they are very poor, and not so particular as to
fashion. He confided the packet to a man called Elias Dodo, a
sufficiently singular name, but neither he nor the priest he sent it to
had ever heard anything more of the chasuble, or the man who promised to
deliver it.

A young artist of the name of Courtney was a visitor at my house. He
asked me to sit with him alone, when the table began rapping out a
number of consonants--a farrago of nonsense, it appeared to me, and I
stopped and said so. But Mr. Courtney, who appeared much interested,
begged me to proceed. When the communication was finished, he said to
me, "This is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard. My father has
been at the table talking to me in Welsh. He has told me our family
motto, and all about my birth-place and relations in Wales." I said, "I
never heard you were a Welshman." "Yes! I am," he replied, "my real name
is Powell. I have only adopted the name of Courtney for professional
purposes."

This was all news to me, but had it not been, _I cannot speak Welsh_.

I could multiply such cases by the dozen, but that I fear to tire my
readers, added to which the majority of them were of so strictly private
a nature that it would be impossible to put them into print. This is
perhaps the greatest drawback that one encounters in trying to prove
the truth of Spiritualism. The best tests we receive are when the very
secrets of our hearts, which we have not confided to our nearest
friends, are revealed to us. I could relate (had I the permission of the
persons most interested) the particulars of a well-known law suit, in
which the requisite evidence, and names and addresses of witnesses, were
all given though my mediumship, and were the cause of the case being
gained by the side that came to me for "information." Some of the
coincidences I have related in this chapter might, however, be ascribed
by the sceptical to the mysterious and unknown power of brain reading,
whatever that may be, and however it may come, apart from mediumship,
but how is one to account for the facts I shall tell you in my next
chapter.




CHAPTER IV.

EMBODIED SPIRITS.


I was having a sitting one day in my own house with a lady friend, named
Miss Clark, when a female spirit came to the table and spelt out the
name "Tiny."

"Who are you?" I asked, "and for whom do you come?"

"I am a friend of Major M----" (mentioning the full name), "and I want
your help."

"Are you any relation to Major M----?"

"I am the mother of his child."

"What do you wish me to do for you?"

"Tell him he must go down to Portsmouth and look after my daughter. He
has not seen her for years. The old woman is dead, and the man is a
drunkard. She is falling into evil courses. He must save her from them."

"What is your real name?"

"I will not give it. There is no need. He always called me 'Tiny.'"

"How old is your daughter."

"Nineteen! Her name is Emily! I want her to be married. Tell him to
promise her a wedding trousseau. It may induce her to marry."

The influence divulged a great deal more on the subject which I cannot
write down here. It was an account of one of those cruel acts of
seduction by which a young girl had been led into trouble in order to
gratify a man's selfish lust, and astonished both Miss Clark and myself,
who had never heard of such a person as "Tiny" before. It was too
delicate a matter for me to broach to Major M---- (who was a married
man, and an intimate friend of mine), but the spirit came so many times
and implored me so earnestly to save her daughter, that at last I
ventured to repeat the communication to him. He was rather taken aback,
but confessed it was true, and that the child, being left to his care,
had been given over to the charge of some common people at Portsmouth,
and he had not enquired after it for some time past. Neither had he ever
heard of the death of the mother, who had subsequently married, and had
a family. He instituted inquiries, however, at once, and found the
statement to be quite true, and that the girl Emily, being left with no
better protection than that of the drunken old man, had actually gone
astray, and not long after she was had up at the police court for
stabbing a soldier in a public-house--a fit ending for the unfortunate
offspring of a man's selfish passions. But the strangest part of the
story to the uninitiated will lie in the fact that the woman whose
spirit thus manifested itself to two utter strangers, who knew neither
her history nor her name, was at the time _alive_, and living with her
husband and family, as Major M---- took pains to ascertain.

And now I have something to say on the subject of communicating with the
spirits of persons still in the flesh. This will doubtless appear the
most incomprehensible and fanatical assertion of all, that we wear our
earthly garb so loosely, that the spirits of people still living in this
world can leave the body and manifest themselves either visibly or
orally to others in their normal condition. And yet it is a fact that
spirits have so visited myself (as in the case I have just recorded),
and given me information of which I had not the slightest previous idea.
The matter has been explained to me after this fashion--that it is not
really the spirit of the living person who communicates, but the spirit,
or "control," that is nearest to him: in effect what the Church calls
his "guardian angel," and that this guardian angel, who knows his inmost
thoughts and desires better even than he knows them himself, is equally
capable of speaking in his name. This idea of the matter may shift the
marvel from one pair of shoulders to another, but it does not do away
with it. If I can receive information of events before they occur (as I
will prove that I have), I present a nut for the consideration of the
public jaw, which even the scientists will find difficult to crack. It
was at one time my annual custom to take my children to the sea-side,
and one summer, being anxious to ascertain how far the table could be
made to act without the aid of "unconscious cerebration," I arranged
with my friends, Mr. Helmore and Mrs. Colnaghi, who had been in the
habit of sitting with us at home, that _we_ should continue to sit at
the sea-side on Tuesday evenings as theretofore, and _they_ should sit
in London on the Thursdays, when I would try to send them messages
through "Charlie," the spirit I have already mentioned as being
constantly with us.

The first Tuesday my message was, "Ask them how they are getting on
without us," which was faithfully delivered at their table on the
following Thursday. The return message from them which "Charlie" spelled
out for us on the second Tuesday, was: "Tell her London is a desert
without her," to which I emphatically, if not elegantly, answered,
"Fiddle-de-dee!" A few days afterwards I received a letter from Mr.
Helmore, in which he said, "I am afraid 'Charlie' is already tired of
playing at postman, for to all our questions about you last Thursday, he
would only rap out, 'Fiddle-de-dee.'"

The circumstance to which this little episode is but an introduction
happened a few days later. Mr. Colnaghi and Mr. Helmore, sitting
together as usual on Thursday evening, were discussing the possibility
of summoning the spirits of _living persons_ to the table, when
"Charlie" rapped three times to intimate they could.

"Will you fetch some one for us, Charlie?"

"Yes."

"Whom will you bring?"

"Mrs. Ross-Church."

"How long will it take you to do so?"

"Fifteen minutes."

It was in the middle of the night when I must have been fast asleep, and
the two young men told me afterwards that they waited the results of
their experiment with much trepidation, wondering (I suppose) if I
should be conveyed bodily into their presence and box their ears well
for their impertinence. Exactly fifteen minutes afterwards, however, the
table was violently shaken and the words were spelt out. "I am Mrs.
Ross-Church. How _dared_ you send for me?" They were very penitent (or
they said they were), but they described my manner as most arbitrary,
and said I went on repeating, "Let me go back! Let me go back! There is
a great danger hanging over my children! I must go back to my children!"
(And here I would remark _par parenthese_, and in contradiction of the
guardian angel theory, that I have always found that whilst the spirits
of the departed come and go as they feel inclined, the spirits of the
living invariably _beg_ to be sent back again or permitted to go, as if
they were chained by the will of the medium.) On this occasion I was so
positive that I made a great impression on my two friends, and the next
day Mr. Helmore sent me a cautiously worded letter to find out if all
was well with us at Charmouth, but without disclosing the reason for his
curiosity.

The _facts_ are, that on the morning of _Friday_, the day _after_ the
_seance_ in London, my seven children and two nurses were all sitting in
a small lodging-house room, when my brother-in-law, Dr. Henry Norris,
came in from ball practice with the volunteers, and whilst exhibiting
his rifle to my son, accidentally discharged it in the midst of them,
the ball passing through the wall within two inches of my eldest
daughter's head. When I wrote the account of this to Mr. Helmore, he
told me of my visit to London and the words I had spelt out on the
occasion. But how did I know of the occurrence the _night before_ it
took place? And if I--being asleep and unconscious--did _not_ know of
it, "Charlie" must have done so.

My aerial visits to my friends, however, whilst my body was in quite
another place, have been made still more palpable than this. Once, when
living in the Regent's Park, I passed a very terrible and painful night.
Grief and fear kept me awake most of the time, and the morning found me
exhausted with the emotion I had gone through. About eleven o'clock
there walked in, to my surprise, Mrs. Fitzgerald (better known as a
medium under her maiden name of Bessie Williams), who lived in the
Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush. "I couldn't help coming to you," she
commenced, "for I shall not be easy until I know how you are after the
terrible scene you have passed through." I stared at her. "Whom have you
seen?" I asked. "Who has told you of it?" "Yourself," she replied. "I
was waked up this morning between two and three o'clock by the sound of
sobbing and crying in the front garden. I got out of bed and opened the
window, and then I saw you standing on the grass plat in your
night-dress and crying bitterly. I asked you what was the matter, and
you told me so and so, and so and so." And here followed a detailed
account of all that had happened in my own house on the other side of
London, with the _very words_ that had been used, and every action that
had happened. I had seen no one and spoken to no one between the
occurrence and the time Mrs. Fitzgerald called upon me. If her story was
untrue, _who_ had so minutely informed her of a circumstance which it
was to the interest of all concerned to keep to themselves?

When I first joined Mr. d'Oyley Carte's "Patience" Company in the
provinces, to play the part of "Lady Jane," I understood I was to have
four days' rehearsal. However, the lady whom I succeeded, hearing I had
arrived, took herself off, and the manager requested I would appear the
same night of my arrival. This was rather an ordeal to an artist who had
never sung on the operatic stage before, and who was not note perfect.
However, as a matter of obligation, I consented to do my best, but I was
very nervous. At the end of the second act, during the balloting scene,
Lady Jane has to appear suddenly on the stage, with the word "Away!" I
forget at this distance of time whether I made a mistake in pitching the
note a third higher or lower. I know it was not out of harmony, but it
was sufficiently wrong to send the chorus astray, and bring my heart up
into my mouth. It never occurred after the first night, but I never
stood at the wings again waiting for that particular entrance but I
"girded my loins together," as it were, with a kind of dread lest I
should repeat the error. After a while I perceived a good deal of
whispering about me in the company, and I asked poor Federici (who
played the colonel) the reason of it, particularly as he had previously
asked me to stand as far from him as I could upon the stage, as I
magnetized him so strongly that he couldn't sing if I was near him.
"Well! do you know," he said to me in answer, "that a very strange thing
occurs occasionally with reference to you, Miss Marryat. While you are
standing on the stage sometimes, you appear seated in the stalls.
Several people have seen it beside myself. I assure you it is true."

"But _when_ do you see me?" I enquired with amazement.

"It's always at the same time," he answered, "just before you run on at
the end of the second act. Of course it's only an appearance, but it's
very queer." I told him then of the strange feelings of distrust of
myself I experienced each night at that very moment, when my spirit
seems to have preceded myself upon the stage.

I had a friend many years ago in India, who (like many other friends)
had permitted time and separation to come between us, and alienate us
from each other. I had not seen him nor heard from him for eleven years,
and to all appearance our friendship was at an end. One evening the
medium I have alluded to above, Mrs. Fitzgerald, who was a personal
friend of mine, was at my house, and after dinner she put her feet up on
the sofa--a very unusual thing for her--and closed her eyes. She and I
were quite alone in the drawing-room, and after a little while I
whispered softly, "Bessie, are you asleep?" The answer came from her
control "Dewdrop," a wonderfully sharp Red Indian girl. "No! she's in a
trance. There's somebody coming to speak to you! I don't want him to
come. He'll make the medium ill. But it's no use. I see him creeping
round the corner now."

"But why should it make her ill?" I argued, believing we were about to
hold an ordinary _seance_.

"Because he's a _live_ one, he hasn't passed over yet," replied Dewdrop,
"and live ones always make my medium feel sick. But it's no use. I can't
keep him out. He may as well come. But don't let him stay long."

"Who is he, Dewdrop?" I demanded curiously.

"_I_ don't know! Guess _you_ will! He's an old friend of yours, and his
name is George." Whereupon Bessie Fitzgerald laid back on the sofa
cushions, and Dewdrop ceased to speak. It was some time before there was
any result. The medium tossed and turned, and wiped the perspiration
from her forehead, and pushed back her hair, and beat up the cushions
and threw herself back upon them with a sigh, and went through all the
pantomime of a man trying to court sleep in a hot climate. Presently she
opened her eyes and glanced languidly around her. Her unmistakable
actions and the name "George" (which was that of my friend, then
resident in India) had naturally aroused my suspicions as to the
identity of the influence, and when Bessie opened her eyes, I asked
softly, "George, is that you?" At the sound of my voice the medium
started violently and sprung into a sitting posture, and then, looking
all round the room in a scared manner, she exclaimed, "Where am I? Who
brought me here?" Then catching sight of me, she continued, "Mrs.
Ross-Church!--Florence! Is this _your_ room? O! let me go! _Do_ let me
go!"

This was not complimentary, to say the least of it, from a friend whom I
had not met for eleven years, but now that I had got him I had no
intention of letting him go, until I was convinced of his identity. But
the terror of the spirit at finding himself in a strange place seemed so
real and uncontrollable that I had the greatest difficulty in persuading
him to stay, even for a few minutes. He kept on reiterating, "Who
brought me here? I did not wish to come. Do let me go back. I am so very
cold" (shivering convulsively), "so very, _very_ cold."

"Answer me a few questions," I said, "and then you shall go. Do you know
who I am?"

"Yes, yes, you are Florence."

"And what is your name?" He gave it at full length. "And do you care for
me still?"

"Very much. But let me go."

"In a minute. Why do you never write to me?"

"There are reasons. I am not a free agent. It is better as it is."

"I don't think so. I miss your letters very much. Shall I ever hear from
you again?"

"Yes!"

"And see you?"

"Yes; but not yet. Let me go now. I don't wish to stay. You are making
me very unhappy."

If I could describe the fearful manner in which, during this
conversation, he glanced every moment at the door, like a man who is
afraid of being discovered in a guilty action, it would carry with it to
my readers, as it did to me, the most convincing proof that the medium's
body was animated by a totally different influence from her own. I kept
the spirit under control until I had fully convinced myself that he knew
everything about our former friendship and his own present surroundings;
and then I let him fly back to India, and wondered if he would wake up
the next morning and imagine he had been laboring under nightmare.

These experiences with the spirits of the living are certainly amongst
the most curious I have obtained. On more than one occasion, when I
have been unable to extract the truth of a matter from my acquaintances
I have sat down alone, as soon as I believed them to be asleep, and
summoned their spirits to the table and compelled them to speak out.
Little have they imagined sometimes how I came to know things which they
had scrupulously tried to hide from me. I have heard that the power to
summons the spirits of the living is not given to all media, but I have
always possessed it. I can do so when they are awake as well as when
they are asleep, though it is not so easy. A gentleman once _dared_ me
to do this with him, and I only conceal his name because I made him look
ridiculous. I waited till I knew he was engaged at a dinner-party, and
then about nine o'clock in the evening I sat down and summoned him to
come to me. It was some little time before he obeyed, and when he did
come, he was eminently sulky. I got a piece of paper and pencil, and
from his dictation I wrote down the number and names of the guests at
the dinner-table, also the dishes of which he had partaken, and then in
pity for his earnest entreaties I let him go again. "You are making me
ridiculous," he said, "everyone is laughing at me."

"But why? What are you doing?" I urged.

"I am standing by the mantel-piece, and I have fallen fast asleep," he
answered. The next morning he came pell-mell into my presence.

"What did you do to me last night?" he demanded. "I was at the Watts
Philips, and after dinner I went fast asleep with my head upon my hand,
standing by the mantel-piece, and they were all trying to wake me and
couldn't. Have you been playing any of your tricks upon me?"

"I only made you do what you declared I couldn't," I replied. "How did
you like the white soup and the turbot, and the sweetbreads, etc., etc."

He opened his eyes at my nefariously obtained knowledge, and still more
when I produced the paper written from his dictation. This is not a
usual custom of mine--it would not be interesting enough to pursue as a
custom--but I am a dangerous person to _dare_ to do anything.

The old friend whose spirit visited me through Mrs. Fitzgerald had lost
a sister to whom he was very tenderly attached before he made my
acquaintance, and I knew little of her beyond her name. One evening,
not many months after the interview with him which I have recorded, a
spirit came to me, giving the name of my friend's sister, with this
message, "My brother has returned to England, and would like to know
your address. Write to him to the Club, Leamington, and tell him where
to find you." I replied, "Your brother has not written to me, nor
inquired after me for the last eleven years. He has lost all interest in
me, and I cannot be the first to write to him, unless I am sure that he
wishes it."

"He has _not_ lost all interest in you," said the spirit; "he thinks of
you constantly, and I hear him pray for you. He wishes to hear from
you."

"That may be true," I replied, "but I cannot accept it on your
authority. If your brother really wishes to renew our acquaintance, let
him write and tell me so."

"He does not know your address, and I cannot get near enough to him to
influence him."

"Then things must remain as they are," I replied somewhat testily. "I am
a public person. He can find out my address, if he chooses to do so."

The spirit seemed to reflect for a moment; then she rapped out, "Wait,
and I will fetch my brother. He shall come here himself and tell you
what he thinks about it." In a short time there was a different movement
of the table, and the name of my old friend was given. After we had
exchanged a few words, and I had told him I required a test of his
identity, he asked me to get a pencil and paper, and write from his
dictation. I did as he requested, and he dictated the following
sentence, "Long time, indeed, has passed since the days you call to
mind, but time, however long, does not efface the past. It has never
made me cease to think of and pray for you as I felt you, too, did think
of and pray for me. Write to the address my sister gave you. I want to
hear from you."

Notwithstanding the perspicuity and apparent genuineness of this
message, it was some time before I could make up my mind to follow the
directions it gave me. My pride stood in the way to prevent it. _Ten
days afterwards_, however, having received several more visits from the
sister, I did as she desired me, and sent a note to her brother to the
Leamington Club. The answer came by return of post, and contained
(amongst others) _the identical words_ he had told me to write down.
Will Mr. Stuart Cumberland, or any other clever man, explain to me
_what_ or _who_ it was that had visited me ten days beforehand, and
dictated words which could hardly have been in my correspondent's brain
before he received my letter? I am ready to accept any reasonable
explanation of the matter from the scientists, philosophers, chemists,
or arguists of the world, and I am open to conviction, when my sense
convinces me, that their reasoning is true. But my present belief is,
that not a single man or woman will be found able to account on any
ordinary grounds for such an extraordinary instance of "unconscious
cerebration."

Being subject to "optical illusions," I naturally had several with
regard to my spirit child, "Florence," and she always came to me clothed
in a white dress. One night, however, when I was living alone in the
Regent's Park, I saw "Florence" (as I imagined) standing in the centre
of the room, dressed in a green riding habit slashed with orange color,
with a cavalier hat of grey felt on her head, ornamented with a long
green feather and a gold buckle. She stood with her back to me, but I
could see her profile as she looked over her shoulder, with the skirt of
her habit in her hand. This being a most extraordinary attire in which
to see "Florence," I felt curious on the subject, and the next day I
questioned her about it.

"Florence!" I said, "why did you come to me last night in a green riding
habit?"

"I did not come to you last night, mother! It was my sister Eva."

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "is anything wrong with her?"

"No! she is quite well."

"How could she come to me then?"

"She did not come in reality, but her thoughts were much with you, and
so you saw her spirit clairvoyantly."

My daughter Eva, who was on the stage, was at that time fulfilling a
stock engagement in Glasgow, and very much employed. I had not heard
from her for a fortnight, which was a most unusual occurrence, and I had
begun to feel uneasy. This vision made me more so, and I wrote at once
to ask her if all was as it should be. Her answer was to this effect: "I
am so sorry I have had no time to write to you this week, but I have
been so awfully busy. We play 'The Colleen Bawn' here next week, and I
have had to get my dress ready for 'Anne Chute.' It's so effective. I
wish you could see it. _A green habit slashed with orange, and a grey
felt hat with a long green feather and a big gold buckle._ I tried it on
the other night, and it looked so nice, etc., etc."

Well, my darling girl had had her wish, and I _had_ seen it.




CHAPTER V.

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS.


As I have alluded to what my family termed my "optical illusions," I
think it as well to describe a few of them, which appeared by the
context to be something more than a mere temporary disturbance of my
visual organs. I will pass over such as might be traced, truly or
otherwise, to physical causes, and confine myself to those which were
subsequently proved to be the reflection of something that, unknown to
me, had gone before. In 1875 I was much engaged in giving dramatic
readings in different parts of the country, and I visited Dublin for the
first time in my life, for that purpose, and put up at the largest and
best-frequented hotel there. Through the hospitality of the residents
and the duties of my professional business, I was engaged both day and
night, and when I _did_ get to bed, I had every disposition to sleep, as
the saying is, like a "top." But there was something in the hotel that
would not let me do so. I had a charming bedroom, cheerful, bright and
pretty, and replete with every comfort, and I would retire to rest "dead
beat," and fall off to sleep at once, to be waked perhaps half-a-dozen
times a night by that inexplicable something (or nothing) that rouses me
whenever I am about to enjoy an "optical illusion," and to see figures,
sometimes one, sometimes two or three, sometimes a whole group standing
by my bedside and gazing at me with looks of the greatest astonishment,
as much as to ask what right I had to be there. But the most remarkable
part of the matter to me was, that all the figures were those of men,
and military men, to whom I was too well accustomed to be able to
mistake. Some were officers and others soldiers, some were in uniform,
others in undress, but they all belonged to the army, and they all
seemed to labor under the same feeling of intense surprise at seeing
_me_ in the hotel. These apparitions were so life-like and appeared so
frequently, that I grew quite uncomfortable about them, for however
much one may be used to see "optical illusions," it is not pleasant to
fancy there are about twenty strangers gazing at one every night as one
lies asleep. Spiritualism is, or was, a tabooed subject in Dublin, and I
had been expressly cautioned not to mention it before my new
acquaintances. However, I could not keep entire silence on this subject,
and dining _en famille_ one day, with a hospitable family of the name of
Robinson, I related to them my nightly experiences at the hotel. Father,
mother, and son exclaimed simultaneously. "Good gracious," they said,
"don't you know that that hotel was built on the site of the old
barracks? The house immediately behind it, which formed part of the old
building, was vacated by its last tenants on account of its being
haunted. Every evening at the hour the soldiers used to be marched up to
bed, they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of the feet ascending the
staircase."

"That may be," I replied, "but they _knew_ their house stood on the site
of the barracks, and _I didn't_."

My eldest daughter was spending a holiday with me once after my second
marriage, and during the month of August. She had been very much
overworked, and I made her lie in bed till noon. One morning I had been
to her room at that hour to wake her, and on turning to leave it (in the
broad daylight, remember), I encountered a man on the landing outside
her door. He was dressed in a white shirt with black studs down the
front, and a pair of black cloth trousers. He had dark hair and eyes,
and small features; altogether, he struck me as having rather a sinister
and unpleasant appearance. I stood still, with the open door in my hand,
and gazed at him. He looked at me also for a minute, and then turned and
walked upstairs to an upper storey where the nursery was situated,
beckoning me, with a jerk of his hand, to follow him. My daughter
(remarking a peculiar expression in my eyes, which I am told they assume
on such occasions) said, "Mother! what do you see?"

"Only a spirit," I answered, "and he has gone upstairs."

"Now, what _is_ the good of seeing them in that way," said Eva, rather
impatiently (for this dear child always disliked and avoided
Spiritualism), and I was fain to confess that I really did _not_ know
the especial good of encountering a sinister-looking gentleman in shirt
and trousers, on a blazing noon in August. After which the circumstance
passed from my mind, until recalled again.

A few months later I had occasion to change the children's nurse, and
the woman who took her place was an Icelandic girl named Margaret
Thommassen, who had only been in England for three weeks. I found that
she had been educated far above the average run of domestic servants,
and was well acquainted with the writings of Swedenborg and other
authors. One day as I walked up the nursery stairs to visit the children
in bed, I encountered the same man I had seen outside my daughter's
room, standing on the upper landing, as though waiting my approach. He
was dressed as before, but this time his arms were folded across his
breast and his face downcast, as though he were unhappy about something.
He disappeared as I reached the landing, and I mentioned the
circumstance to no one. A few days later, Margaret Thommassen asked me
timidly if I believed in the possibility of the spirits of the departed
returning to this earth. When I replied that I did, she appeared
overjoyed, and said she had never hoped to find anyone in England to
whom she could speak about it. She then gave me a mass of evidence on
the subject which forms a large part of the religion of the Icelanders.
She told me that she felt uneasy about her eldest brother, to whom she
was strongly attached. He had left Iceland a year before to become a
waiter in Germany, and had promised faithfully that so long as he lived
she should hear from him every month, and when he failed to write she
must conclude he was dead. Margaret told me she had heard nothing from
him now for three months, and each night when the nursery light was put
out, someone came and sat at the foot of her bed and sighed. She then
produced his photograph, and to my astonishment I recognized at once the
man who had appeared to me some months before I knew that such a woman
as Margaret Thommassen existed. He was taken in a shirt and trousers,
just as I had seen him, and wore the same repulsive (to me) and sinister
expression. I then told his sister that I had already seen him twice in
that house, and she grew very excited and anxious to learn the truth. In
consequence I sat with her in hopes of obtaining some news of her
brother, who immediately came to the table, and told her that he was
dead, with the circumstances under which he had died, and the address
where she was to write to obtain particulars. And on Margaret Thommassen
writing as she was directed, she obtained the practical proofs of her
brother's death, without which this story would be worthless.

My sister Cecil lives with her family in Somerset, and many years ago I
went down there to visit her for the first time since she had moved into
a new house which I had never seen before. She put me to sleep in the
guest chamber, a large, handsome room, just newly furnished by Oetzmann.
But I could not sleep in it. The very first night some one walked up and
down the room, groaning and sighing close to my ears, and he, she, or it
especially annoyed me by continually touching the new stiff counterpane
with a "scrooping" sound that set my teeth on edge, and sent my heart up
into my mouth. I kept on saying, "Go away! Don't come near me!" for its
proximity inspired me with a horror and repugnance which I have seldom
felt under similar circumstances. I did not say anything at first to my
sister, who is rather nervous on the subject of "bogies," but on the
third night I could stand it no longer, and told her plainly the room
was haunted, and I wished she would put me in her dressing-room, or with
her servants, sooner than let me remain there, as I could get no rest.
Then the truth came out, and she confessed that the last owner of the
house had committed suicide in that very room, and showed me the place
on the boards, underneath the carpet, where the stain of his blood still
remained. A lively sort of room to sleep all alone in.

Another sister of mine, Blanche, used to live in a haunted house in
Bruges, of which a description will be found in the chapter headed, "The
Story of the Monk." Long, however, before the monk was heard of, I could
not sleep in her house on account of the disturbances in my room, for
which my sister used to laugh at me. But even when my husband, Colonel
Lean, and I stayed there together, it was much the same. One night I
waked him to see the figure of a woman, who had often visited me,
standing at the foot of the bed. She was quaintly attired in a sort of
leathern boddice or jerkin, laced up the front over a woollen petticoat
of some dark color. She wore a cap of Mechlin lace, with the large flaps
at the side, adopted by Flemish women to this day; her hair was combed
tightly off her forehead, and she wore a profusion of gold ornaments.

My husband could describe her as vividly as I did, which proves how
plainly the apparition must have shown itself. I waked on several
occasions to see this woman busy (apparently) with the contents of an
old carved oak armoir which stood in a corner of the room, and which, I
suppose, must have had something to do with herself. My eldest son
joined me at Bruges on this occasion. He was a young fellow of twenty,
who had never practised, nor even enquired into Spiritualism--fresh from
sea, and about as free from fear or superstitious fancies as a mortal
could be. He was put to sleep in a room on the other side of the house,
and I saw from the first that he was grave about it, but I did not ask
him the reason, though I felt sure, from personal experience, that he
would hear or see something before long. In a few days he came to me and
said--

"Mother! I'm going to take my mattress into the colonel's dressing-room
to-night and sleep there." I asked him why. He replied, "It's impossible
to stay in that room any longer. I wouldn't mind if they'd let me sleep,
but they won't. There's something walks about half the night, whispering
and muttering, and touching the bed-clothes, and though I don't believe
in any of your rubbishy spirits, I'll be 'jiggered' if I sleep there any
longer." So he was not "jiggered" (whatever that may be), as he refused
to enter the room again.

I cannot end this chapter more appropriately than by relating a very
remarkable case of "optical illusion" which was seen by myself alone. It
was in the month of July, 1880, and I had gone down alone to Brighton
for a week's quiet. I had some important literary work to finish, and
the exigencies of the London season made too many demands upon my time.
So I packed up my writing materials, and took a lodging all to myself,
and set hard to work. I used to write all day and walk in the evening.
It was light then till eight or nine o'clock, and the Esplanade used to
be crowded till a late hour. I was pushing my way, on the evening of the
9th of July, through the crowd, thinking of my work more than anything
else, when I saw, as I fully thought, my step-son, Francis Lean, leaning
with his back against the palings at the edge of the cliff and smiling
at me. He was a handsome lad of eighteen who was supposed to have sailed
in his ship for the Brazils five months before. But he had been a wild
young fellow, causing his father much trouble and anxiety, and my first
impression was one of great annoyance, thinking naturally that, since I
saw him there, he had never sailed at all, but run away from his ship at
the last moment. I hastened up to him, therefore, but as I reached his
side, he turned round quite methodically, and walked quickly down a
flight of steps that led to the beach. I followed him, and found myself
amongst a group of ordinary seamen mending their nets, but I could see
Francis nowhere. I did not know what to make of the occurrence, but it
never struck me that it was not either the lad himself or some one
remarkably like him. The same night, however, after I had retired to bed
in a room that was unpleasantly brilliant with the moonlight streaming
in at the window, I was roused from my sleep by someone turning the
handle of my door, and there stood Francis in his naval uniform, with
the peaked cap on his head, smiling at me as he had done upon the cliff.
I started up in bed intending to speak to him, when he laid his finger
on his lips and faded away. This second vision made me think something
must have happened to the boy, but I determined not to say anything to
my husband about it until it was verified. Shortly after my return to
London, we were going, in company with my own son (also a sailor), to
see his ship which was lying in the docks, when, as we were driving
through Poplar, I again saw my stepson Francis standing on the pavement,
and smiling at me. That time I spoke. I said to Colonel Lean, "I am sure
I saw Francis standing there. Do you think it is possible he may not
have sailed after all?" But Colonel Lean laughed at the idea. He
believed it to be a chance likeness I had seen. Only the lad was too
good-looking to have many duplicates in this world. We visited the
seaside after that, and in September, whilst we were staying at
Folkestone, Colonel Lean received a letter to say that his son Francis
had been drowned by the upsetting of a boat in the surf of the Bay of
Callao, in the Brazils, _on the 9th of July_--the day I had seen him
twice in Brighton, two months before we heard that he was gone.




CHAPTER VI.

ON SCEPTICISM.


There are two classes of people who have done more harm to the cause of
Spiritualism than the testimony of all the scientists has done good, and
those are the enthusiasts and the sceptics. The first believe everything
they see or hear. Without giving themselves the trouble to obtain proofs
of the genuineness of the manifestations, they rush impetuously from one
acquaintance to the other, detailing their experience with so much
exaggeration and such unbounded faith, that they make the absurdity of
it patent to all. They are generally people of low intellect, credulous
dispositions, and weak nerves. They bow down before the influences as if
they were so many little gods descended from heaven, instead of being,
as in the majority of instances, spirits a shade less holy than our own,
who, for their very shortcomings, are unable to rise above the
atmosphere that surrounds this gross and material world. These are the
sort of spiritualists whom _Punch_ and other comic papers have very
justly ridiculed. Who does not remember the picture of the afflicted
widow, for whom the medium has just called up the departed Jones?

"Jones," she falters, "are you happy?"

"Much happier than I was down here," growls Jones.

"O! then you _must_ be in heaven!"

"On the contrary, quite the reverse," is the reply.

Who also has not sat a _seance_ where such people have not made
themselves so ridiculous as to bring the cause they profess to adore
into contempt and ignominy. Yet to allow the words and deeds of fools to
affect one's inward and private conviction of a matter would be
tantamount to giving up the pursuit of everything in which one's fellow
creatures can take a part.

The second class to which I alluded--the sceptics--have not done so much
injury to Spiritualism as the enthusiasts, because they are as a rule,
so intensely bigoted and hard-headed, and narrow-minded, that they
overdo their protestations, and render them harmless. The sceptic
refuses to believe _anything_, because he has found out _one_ thing to
be a fraud. If one medium deceives, all the mediums must deceive. If one
_seance_ is a failure, none can be successful. If he gains no
satisfactory test of the presence of the spirits of the departed, no one
has ever gained such a test. Now, such reason is neither just nor
logical. Again, a sceptic fully expects _his_ testimony to be accepted
and believed, yet he will never believe any truth on the testimony of
another person. And if he is told that, given certain conditions, he can
see this or hear the other, he says, "No! I will see it and hear it
without any conditions, or else I will proclaim it all a fraud." In like
manner, we might say to a savage, on showing him a watch, "If you will
keep your eye on those hands, you will see them move round to tell the
hours and minutes," and he should reply, "I must put the watch into
boiling water--those are my conditions--and if it won't go then, I will
not believe it can go at all."

I don't mind a man being a sceptic in Spiritualism. I don't see how he
can help (considering the belief in which we are reared) being a
sceptic, until he has proved so strange a matter for himself. But I _do_
object to a man or a woman taking part in a _seance_ with the sole
intention of detecting deceit, not _when_ it has happened, but before it
has happened--of bringing an argumentative, disputatious mind, full of
the idea that it is going to be tricked and humbugged into (perhaps) a
private circle who are sitting (like Rosa Dartle) "simply for
information," and scattering all the harmony and good-will about him
broadcast. He couldn't do it to a human assembly without breaking up the
party. Why should he expect to be more kindly welcomed by a spiritual
one? I have seen an immense deal of courtesy shown under such
circumstances to men whom I should have liked to see kicked downstairs.
I have seen them enter a lady's private drawing-room, by invitation, to
witness manifestations which were never, under any circumstances, made a
means of gain, and have heard them argue, and doubt, and contradict,
until they have given their hostess and her friends the lie to their
faces. And the world in general would be quite ready to side with these
(so-called) gentlemen, not because their word or their wisdom was
better worth than that of their fellow guests, but because they
protested against the truth of a thing which it had made up its mind to
be impossible. I don't mind a sceptic myself, as I said before, but he
must be unbiassed, which few sceptics are. As a rule, they have decided
the question at issue for themselves before they commence to investigate
it.

I find that few people outside the pale of Spiritualism have heard of
the Dialectical Society, which was a scientific society assembled a few
years ago for the sole purpose of enquiring into the truth of the
matter. It was composed of forty members,--ten lawyers, ten scientists,
ten clergymen, and ten chemists (I think that was the arrangement), and
they held forty _seances_, and the published report at the close of them
was, that not one of these men of learning and repute could find any
natural cause for the wonders he had witnessed. I know that there are a
thousand obstacles in the way of belief. The extraordinarily
contradictory manner in which Protestants are brought up, to believe in
one and the same breath that spirits were common visitants to earth at
the periods of which the Bible treats, but that it is impossible they
can return to it now, although the Lord is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever. The conditions of darkness for the creation of
materialized spirits, and the resemblance they sometimes bear to the
medium, are two fearful stumbling-blocks. Yet one must know that _all_
things are created in the dark, and that even a seed cannot sprout if
you let the light in upon it, while as for the resemblance between the
spirit and the medium, from whom it takes the material being that
enables it to appear, if investigators would only persevere with their
enquiries, they would find, as I have, that that is a disappointment
which has its remedy in Time. When people call on me to explain such
things, I can only say that I know no more how they come than they do,
or that I know how _I_ came, a living, sentient creature, into the
world. Besides (as I have said before), I write these pages to tell only
_what I have seen_, and not to argue how it came to pass that I saw it.

I have a little story to tell here which powerfully illustrates the
foregoing remarks. The lines,

    "A woman convinced against her will
    Is of the same opinion still,"

might have been penned with as much truth of sceptics. Men who are
sceptical, _i.e._, so thoroughly wrapt up in conceit of their powers of
judgment and determination that it becomes impossible for them to
believe themselves mistaken, will deny the evidence of all their senses
sooner than confess they may be in the wrong. Such an one may be a
clever scientist or a shrewd man of business, but he can never be a
genius. For genius is invariably humble of its own powers, and,
therefore, open to conviction. But the lesser minds, who are only equal
to grasping such details as may have been drummed into them by sheer
force of study, appear to have no capability of stretching beyond a
certain limit. They are hedged in and cramped by the opinions in which
they have been reared, or that they have built up for themselves out of
the petty material their brain affords them, and have lost their powers
of elasticity. "Thus far shalt thou go and no further," seems to be the
fiat pronounced on too many men's reasoning faculties. Instead of
believing the power of God and the resources of nature to be
illimitable, they want to keep them within the little circle that
encompasses their own brains. "I can't see it, and therefore it cannot
be." There was a time when I used to take the trouble to try and
convince such men, but I have long ceased to do so. It is quite
indifferent to me what they believe or don't believe. And with such
minds, even if they _were_ convinced of its possibility, they would
probably make no good use of spiritual intercourse. For there is no
doubt it can be turned to evil uses as well as to good.

Some years ago I was on friendly terms with a man of this sort. He was a
doctor, accounted clever in his profession, and I knew him to be an able
arguist, and thought he had common sense enough not to eat his own
words, but the sequel proved that I was mistaken. We had several
conversations together on Spiritualism, and as Dr. H---- was a complete
disbeliever in the existence of a God and a future life, I was naturally
not surprised to find that he did not place any credence in the account
I gave him of my spiritualistic experiences. Many medical men attribute
such experiences entirely to a diseased condition of mind or body.

But when I asked Dr. H---- what he should think if he saw them with his
own eyes, I confess I was startled to hear him answer that he should
say his eyes deceived him. "But if you heard them speak?" I continued.

"I should disbelieve my ears."

"And if you touched and handled them?"

"I should mistrust my sense of feeling."

"Then by what means," I argued, "do you know that I am Florence Marryat?
You can only see me and hear me and touch me! What is there to prevent
your senses misleading you at the present moment?"

But to this argument Dr. H---- only returned a pitying smile, professing
to think me, on this point at least, too feeble-minded to be worthy of
reply, but in reality not knowing what on earth to say. He often,
however, recurred to the subject of Spiritualism, and on several
occasions told me that if I could procure him the opportunity of
submitting a test which he might himself suggest, he should be very much
obliged to me. It was about this time that a young medium named William
Haxby, now passed away, went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Olive in Ainger
Terrace, and we were invited to attend a _seance_ given by him. Mrs.
Olive, when giving the invitation, informed me that Mr. Haxby had been
very successful in procuring direct writing in sealed boxes, and she
asked me, if I wished to try the experiment, to take a secured box, with
writing materials in it, to the _seance_, and see what would happen to
it.

Here was, I thought, an excellent opportunity for Dr. H----'s test, and
I sent for him and told him what had been proposed. I urged him to
prepare the test entirely by himself, and to accompany me to the
_seance_ and see what occurred,--to all of which he readily consented.
Indeed, he became quite excited on the subject, being certain it would
prove a failure; and in my presence he made the following
preparations:--

I. Half a sheet of ordinary cream-laid note-paper and half a cedar-wood
black lead pencil were placed in a jeweller's cardwood box.

II. The lid of the box was carefully glued down all round to the bottom
part.

III. The box was wrapt in white writing paper, which was gummed over it.

IV. It was tied eight times with a peculiar kind of silk made for tying
up arteries, and the eight knots were knots known to (as Dr. H----
informed me) medical men only.

V. Each of the eight knots was sealed with sealing-wax, and impressed
with Dr. H----'s crest seal, which he always wore on his watch-chain.

VI. The packet was again folded in brown paper, and sealed and tied to
preserve the inside from injury.

When Dr. H---- had finished it, he said to me, "If the spirits (or
anybody) can write on that paper without cutting the silk, _I will
believe whatever you wish_." I asked, "Are you _quite_ sure that the
packet could not be undone without your detecting it?" His answer
was--"That silk is not to be procured except from a medical man; it is
manufactured expressly for the tying of arteries; and the knots I have
made are known only to medical men. They are the knots we use in tying
arteries. The seal is my own crest, which never leaves my watch-chain,
and I defy anyone to undo those knots without cutting them, or to tie
them again, if cut. I repeat--if your friends can make, or cause to be
made, the smallest mark on that paper, and return me the box in the
condition it now is, _I will believe anything you choose_." And I
confess I was very dubious of the result myself, and almost sorry that I
had subjected the doctor's incredulity to so severe a test.

On the evening appointed we attended the _seance_, Dr. H---- taking the
prepared packet with him. He was directed to place it under his chair,
but he tied a string to it and put it under his foot, retaining the
other end of the string in his hand. The meeting was not one for
favorably impressing an unbeliever in Spiritualism. There were too many
people present, and too many strangers. The ordinary manifestations, to
my mind, are worse than useless, unless they have been preceded by
extraordinary ones; so that the doctor returned home more sceptical than
before, and I repented that I had taken him there. One thing had
occurred, however, that he could not account for. The packet which he
had kept, as he thought, under his foot the whole time, was found, at
the close of the meeting, to have disappeared. Another gentleman had
brought a sealed box, with paper and pencil in it, to the _seance_; and
at the close it was opened in the presence of all assembled, and found
to contain a closely written letter from his deceased wife. But the
doctor's box had evaporated, and was nowhere to be found. The door of
the room had been locked all the time, and we searched the room
thoroughly, but without success. Dr. H---- was naturally triumphant.

"They couldn't undo _my_ knots and _my_ seals," he said, exulting over
me, "and so they wisely did not return the packet. Both packets were of
course taken from the room during the sitting by some confederate of the
medium. The other one was easily managed, and put back again--_mine_
proved unmanageable, and so they have retained it. I _knew_ it would be
so!"

And he twinkled his eyes at me as much as to say, "I have shut _you_ up.
You will not venture to describe any of the marvels you have seen to me
after this." Of course the failure did not discompose me, nor shake my
belief. I never believed spiritual beings to be omnipotent, omnipresent,
nor omniscient. They had failed before, and doubtless they would fail
again. But if an acrobatic performer fails to turn a double somersault
on to another man's head two or three times, it does not falsify the
fact that he succeeds on the fourth occasion. I was sorry that the test
had been a failure, for Dr. H----'s sake, but I did not despair of
seeing the box again. And at the end of a fortnight it was left at my
house by Mr. Olive, with a note to say that it had been found that
morning on the mantel-piece in Mr. Haxby's bedroom, and he lost no time
in returning it to me. It was wrapt in the brown paper, tied and sealed,
apparently just as we had carried it to the _seance_ in Ainger Terrace;
and I wrote at once to Dr. H---- announcing its return, and asking him
to come over and open it in my presence. He came, took the packet in his
hand, and having stripped off the outer wrapper, examined it carefully.
There were four tests, it may be remembered, applied to the packet.

I. The arterial silk, procurable only from a medical man.

II. The knots to be tied only by medical men.

III. Dr. H----'s own crest, always kept on his watch chain, as a seal.

IV. The lid of the cardboard box, glued all round to the bottom part.

As the doctor scrutinized the silk, the knots, and the seals, I watched
him narrowly.

"Are you _quite sure_," I asked, "that it is the same paper in which you
wrapt it?"

"I am _quite sure_."

"And the same silk?"

"Quite sure."

"Your knots have not been untied?"

"I am positive that they have not."

"Nor your seal been tampered with?"

"Certainly not! It is just as I sealed it."

"Be careful, Dr. H----," I continued. "Remember I shall write down all
you say."

"I am willing to swear to it in a court of justice," he replied.

"Then will you open the packet?"

Dr. H---- took the scissors and cut the silk at each seal and knot, then
tore off the gummed white writing paper (which was as fresh as when he
had put it on), and tried to pull open the card-board box. But as he
could not do this in consequence of the lid being glued down, he took
out his penknife and cut it all round. As he did so, he looked at me and
said, "Mark my words. There will be nothing written on the paper. It is
impossible!"

He lifted the lid, and behold _the box was empty_! The half sheet of
notepaper and the half cedar wood pencil had both _entirely
disappeared_. Not a crumb of lead, nor a shred of paper remained behind.
I looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked completely bewildered.

"_Well!_" I said, interrogatively.

He shifted about--grew red--and began to bluster.

"What do you make of it?" I asked. "How do you account for it?"

"In the easiest way in the world," he replied, trying to brave it out.
"It's the most transparent deception I ever saw. They've kept the thing
a fortnight and had time to do anything with it. A child could see
through this. Surely your bright wits can want no help to an
explanation."

"I am not so bright as you give me credit for," I answered. "Will you
explain your meaning to me?"

"With pleasure. They have evidently made an invisible slit in the
joining of the box cover, and with a pair of fine forceps drawn the
paper through it, bit by bit. For the pencil, they drew that by the same
means to the slit and then pared it, little by little, with a lancet,
till they could shake out the fragments."

"That must have required very careful manipulation," I observed.

"Naturally. But they've taken a fortnight to do it in."

"But how about the arterial silk?" I said.

"They must have procured some from a surgeon."

"And your famous knots?"

"They got some surgeon to tie them!"

"But your crest and seal?"

"Oh! they must have taken a facsimile of that in order to reproduce it.
It is very cleverly done, but quite explicable!"

"But you told me before you opened the packet that you would take your
oath in a court of justice it had not been tampered with."

"I was evidently deceived."

"And you really believe, then, that an uneducated lad like Mr. Haxby
would take the trouble to take impressions of seals and to procure
arterial silk and the services of a surgeon, in order, not to mystify or
convert _you_, but to gratify _me_, whose box he believes it to be."

"I am sure he has done so!"

"But just now you were equally sure he had _not_ done so. Why should you
trust your senses in one case more than in the other? And if Mr. Haxby
has played a trick on me, as you suppose, why did you not discover the
slit when you examined the box, before opening?"

"Because my eyes misled me!"

"Then after all," I concluded, "the best thing you can say of yourself
is that you--a man of reputed science, skill, and sense, and with a
strong belief in your own powers--are unable to devise a test in which
you shall not be outwitted by a person so inferior to yourself in age,
intellect and education as young Haxby. But I will give you another
chance. Make up another packet in any way you like. Apply to it the
severest tests which your ingenuity can devise, or other men of genius
can suggest to you, and let me give it to Haxby and see if the contents
can be extracted, or tampered with a second time."

"It would be useless," said Dr. H----. "If they were extracted through
the iron panels of a fireproof safe, I would not believe it was done by
any but natural means."

"Because you do not _wish_ to believe," I argued.

"You are right," he confessed, "I do _not_ wish to believe. If you
convinced me of the truth of Spiritualism, you would upset all the
theories I have held for the best part of my life. I don't believe in a
God, nor a soul, nor a future existence, and I would rather not believe
in them. We have quite enough trouble, in my opinion, in this life,
without looking forward to another, and I would rather cling to my
belief that when we die we have done with it once and for ever."

So there ended my attempt to convince Dr. H----, and I have often
thought since that he was but a type of the genus sceptic. In this
world, we mostly believe what we want to believe, and the thought of a
future troubles us in proportion to the lives we lead here. It must
often strike spiritualists (who mostly look forward to the day of their
departure for another world, as a schoolboy looks forward to the
commencement of the holidays) as a very strange thing, that people, as a
rule, evince so little curiosity on the subject of Spiritualism. The
idea of the spirits of the departed returning to this world to hold
communication with their friends may be a new and startling one to them,
but the very wonder of it would make one expect to see them evince a
little interest in a matter which concerns us all. Yet the generality of
Carlyle's British millions either pooh-pooh the notion as too utterly
ridiculous for their exalted minds to entertain, or inform you, with
superior wisdom, that if Spiritualism is true, they cannot see the use
of it, and have no craving for any further knowledge. If these same
people expected to go to Canada or Australia in a few months' time, how
eagerly they would ask questions concerning their future home, and
procure the best information on what to do, whilst they remained in
England, in order to fit themselves for the journey and the change.

But a journey to the other world--to the many worlds which perhaps await
us--a certain proof that we shall live again (or rather, that we shall
never die but need only time and patience and well-living here to
reunite us to the dear one gone before)--_that_ is a subject not worthy
of our trying to believe--of not sufficient importance for us to take
the trouble of ascertaining. I pity from my soul the men and women who
have no dead darling buried in their hearts whom they _know_ they shall
meet in a home of God's own choosing when this life ends.

The old, cold faiths have melted away beneath the sun of Progress. We
can no longer be made to believe, like little children, in a shadowy
indefinite Heaven where the saints sit on damp clouds with harps in
their hands forever singing psalms and hymns and heavenly songs. That
sort of existence could be a Heaven to none, and to most it would be a
Hell. We do not accept it now, any more than we do the other place, with
its typical fire and brimstone, and pitch-forking devils with horns and
tails. But what has Religion given us instead? Those whose common-sense
will not permit them to believe in the parson's Heaven and Hell
generally believe (like Dr. H----) in nothing at all. But Spiritualism,
earnestly and faithfully followed, leaves us in no doubt. Spiritualists
know where they are going to. The spheres are almost as familiar to them
as this earth--it is not too much to say that many live in them as much
as they do here, and often they seem the more real, as they are the more
lasting of the two. Spiritualists are in no manner of doubt _who_ their
eyes will see when opening on another phase of life. _They_ do not
expect to be carried straight up into Abraham's bosom, and lie snugly
there, whilst revengeful demons are torturing those who were, perhaps,
nearest and dearest to them down below. They have a better and more
substantial religion than that--a revelation that teaches them that the
works we do in the flesh must bear their fruit in the spirit, and that
no tardy deathbed repentance, no crying out for mercy because Justice is
upon us, like an unruly child howling as soon as the stick is produced
for chastisement--will avail to wipe off the sins we have indulged in
upon earth. They know their expiation will be a bitter one, yet not
without Hope, and that they will be helped, as well as help others, in
the upward path that leads to ultimate perfection. The teaching of
Spiritualism is such as largely to increase belief in our Divine
Father's love, our Saviour's pity, and the angels' ministering help. But
it does more than this, more than any religion has done before. It
affords the _proof_--the only proof we have ever received, and our
finite natures can accept--of a future existence. The majority of
Christians _hope_ and _trust_, and say they _believe_. It is the
Spiritualist only that _knows_.

I think that the marvellous indifference displayed by the crowd to
ascertain these truths for themselves must be due, in a large number of
instances, to the unnatural but universal fear which is entertained of
Death and all things connected with it. The same people who loudly
declaim again the possibility of seeing a "ghost," shudder at the idea
of doing so. The creature whom they have adored and waited on with
tenderest devotion passes away, and they are afraid to enter the room
where his body lies. That which they clung to and wept over yesterday,
they fear to look at or touch to-day, and the idea that he would return
and speak to them would inspire them with horror. But why afraid of an
impossibility? Their very fears should teach them that there is a cause.
From numerous notes made on the subject I have invariably found that
those who have had the opportunity of testing the reality of
Spiritualism, and either rejected or denied it, have been selfish,
worldly, and cold-hearted people who neither care, nor are cared for, by
those who have passed on to another sphere. Plenty of love is sure to
bring you plenty of proof. The mourners, who have lost sight of what is
dearest to them, and would give all they possess for one more look at
the face they loved so much, or one more tone of the voice that was
music to their ears, are only too eager and grateful to hear of a way by
which their longings may be gratified, and would take any trouble and go
to any expense to accomplish what they desire.

It is this intense yearning to speak again with those that have left us,
on the part of the bereaved, that has led to chicanery on the part of
media in order to gratify it. Wherever money is to be made,
unfortunately cheating will step in; but because some tradesmen will
sell you brass for gold is no reason to vote all jewellers thieves. The
account of the raising of Samuel by the witch of Endor is an instance
that my argument is correct. The witch was evidently an impostor, for
she had no expectation of seeing Samuel, and was frightened by the
apparition she had evoked; but Spiritualism must be a truth, because it
was Samuel himself who appeared and rebuked Saul for calling him back to
this earth. What becomes, in the face of this story, of the impassable
gulf between the earthly and spiritual spheres? That atheists who
believe in nothing should not believe in Spiritualism is credible,
natural, and consistent. But that Christians should reject the theory is
tantamount to acknowledging that they found their hopes of salvation
upon a lie. There is no way of getting out of it. If it be _impossible_
that the spirits of the departed can communicate with men, the Bible
must be simply a collection of fabulous statements; if it be _wrong_ to
speak with spirits, all the men whose histories are therein related were
sinners, and the Almighty helped them to sin; and if all the spirits who
have been heard and seen and touched in modern times are devils sent on
earth to lure us to our destruction, how are we to distinguish between
them and the Greatest Spirit of all, who walked with mortal Adam and Eve
in the garden of Eden. "O! yes!" I think I hear somebody cry, "but that
was in the Bible;" as if the Bible were a period or a place. And did it
ever strike you that there is something else recorded in the Bible? "And
He did not many miracles there because of their _unbelief_." And yet
Christ came to call "not the righteous but the sinners to repentance."
Surely, then, the unbelieving required the conviction of the miracles
more than those who knew Him to be God. Yet there He did them not,
_because_ of their unbelief, because their _scepticism_ produced a
condition in which miracles could not be wrought. And yet the nineteenth
century is surprised because a sceptic, whose jarring element upsets all
union and harmony, is not an acceptable addition to a spiritual meeting,
and that the miracles of the present--gross and feeble, compared to
those of the past, because worked by grosser material though grosser
agents--ceased to be manifested when his unbelief intrudes itself upon
them.




CHAPTER VII.

THE STORY OF JOHN POWLES.


On the 4th of April, 1860, there died in India a young officer in the
12th Regiment M.N.I., of the name of John Powles. He was an intimate
friend of my first husband for several years before his death, and had
consequently become intimate with me; indeed, on several occasions he
shared our house and lived with us on the terms of a brother. I was very
young at that time and susceptible to influence of all sorts--extremely
nervous, moreover, on the subject of "ghosts," and yet burning with
curiosity to learn something of the other world--a topic which it is
most difficult to induce anybody to discuss with you. People will talk
of dress, or dinner, or their friend's private affairs--of anything, in
fact, sooner than Death and Immortality and the world to come which we
must all inevitably enter. Even parsons--the legalized exponents of what
lies beyond the grave--are no exceptions to the rule. When the bereaved
sufferer goes to them for comfort, they shake their heads and "hope" and
"trust," and say "God's mercy has no limits," but they cannot give him
one reasonable proof to rest upon that Death is but a name. John Powles,
however, though a careless and irreligious man, liked to discuss the
Unseen. We talked continually on the subject, even when he was
apparently in perfect health, and he often ended our conversation by
assuring me that should he die first (and he always prophesied truly
that he should not reach the age of thirty) he would (were such a thing
possible) come back to me. I used to laugh at the absurdity of the idea,
and remind him how many friends had made the same promise to each other
and never fulfilled it. For though I firmly believed that such things
_had_ been, I could not realize that they would ever happen to me, or
that I should survive the shock if they did. John Powles' death at the
last was very sudden, although the disease he died of was of long
standing. He had been under the doctor's hands for a few days when he
took an unexpected turn for the worse, and my husband and myself, with
other friends, were summoned to his bedside to say good-bye to him. When
I entered the room he said to me, "So you see it has come at last. Don't
forget what I said to you about it." They were his last intelligible
words to me, though for several hours he grasped my dress with his hand
to prevent my leaving him, and became violent and unmanageable if I
attempted to quit his side. During this time, in the intervals of his
delirium, he kept on entreating me to sing a certain old ballad, which
had always been a great favorite with him, entitled "Thou art gone from
my gaze." I am sure if I sung that song once during that miserable day,
I must have sung it a dozen times. At last our poor friend fell into
convulsions which recurred with little intermission until his death,
which took place the same evening.

His death and the manner of it caused me a great shock. He had been a
true friend to my husband and myself for years, and we both mourned his
loss very sincerely. That, and other troubles combined, had a serious
effect upon my health, and the doctors advised my immediate return to
England. When an officer dies in India, it is the custom to sell all his
minor effects by auction. Before this took place, my husband asked me if
there was anything belonging to John Powles that I should like to keep
in remembrance of him. The choice I made was a curious one. He had
possessed a dark green silk necktie, which was a favorite of his, and
when it became soiled I offered to turn it for him, when it looked as
good as new. Whereupon he had worn it so long that it was twice as dirty
as before, so I turned it for him the second time, much to the amusement
of the regiment. When I was asked to choose a keepsake of him, I said,
"Give me the green tie," and I brought it to England with me.

The voyage home was a terrible affair. I was suffering mentally and
physically, to such a degree that I cannot think of the time without a
shudder. John Powles' death, of course, added to my distress, and during
the many months that occupied a voyage "by long sea," I hoped and
expected that his spirit would appear to me. With the very strong belief
in the possibility of the return to earth of the departed--or rather, I
should say, with my strong belief _in_ my belief--I lay awake night
after night, thinking to see my lost friend, who had so often promised
to come back to me. I even cried aloud to him to appear and tell me
where he was, or what he was doing, but I never heard or saw a single
thing. There was silence on every side of me. Ten days only after I
landed in England I was delivered of a daughter, and when I had somewhat
recovered my health and spirits--when I had lost the physical weakness
and nervous excitability, to which most medical men would have
attributed any mysterious sights or sounds I might have experienced
before--then I commenced to _know_ and to _feel_ that John Powles was
with me again. I did not see him, but I felt his presence. I used to lie
awake at night, trembling under the consciousness that he was sitting at
my bedside, and I had no means of penetrating the silence between us.
Often I entreated him to speak, but when a low, hissing sound came close
to my ear, I would scream with terror and rush from my room. All my
desire to see or communicate with my lost friend had deserted me. The
very idea was a terror. I was horror-struck to think he had returned,
and I would neither sleep alone nor remain alone. I was advised to try a
livelier place than Winchester (where I then resided), and a house was
taken for me at Sydenham. But there, the sense of the presence of John
Powles was as keen as before, and so, at intervals, I continued to feel
it for the space of several years--until, indeed, I became an inquirer
into Spiritualism as a science.

I have related in the chapter that contains an account of my first
_seance_, that the only face I recognized as belonging to me was that of
my friend John Powles, and how excited I became on seeing it. It was
that recognition that brought back all my old longing and curiosity to
communicate with the inhabitants of the Unseen World. As soon as I
commenced investigations in my home circle, John Powles was the very
first spirit who spoke to me through the table, and from that time until
the present I have never ceased to hold communion with him. He is very
shy, however, (as he was, whilst with us) of conversing before
strangers, and seldom intimates his presence except I am alone. At such
times, however, he will talk by the hour of all such topics as
interested him during his earth life.

Soon after it became generally known that I was attending _seances_, I
was introduced to Miss Showers, the daughter of General Showers of the
Bombay Army. This young lady, besides being little more than a child--I
think she was about sixteen when we met--was not a professional medium.
The _seances_ to which her friends were invited to witness the
extraordinary manifestations that took place in her presence were
strictly private. They offered therefore an enormous advantage to
investigators, as the occurrences were all above suspicion, whilst Miss
Showers was good enough to allow herself to be tested in every possible
way. I shall have occasion to refer more particularly to Miss Showers'
mediumship further on--at present, therefore, I will confine myself to
those occasions which afforded proofs of John Powles' presence.

Mrs. and Miss Showers were living in apartments when I visited them, and
there was no means nor opportunity of deceiving their friends, even had
they had any object in doing so. I must add also, that they knew nothing
of my Indian life nor experiences, which were things of the past long
before I met them. At the first sitting Miss Showers gave me for "spirit
faces," she merely sat on a chair behind the window curtains, which were
pinned together half-way up, so as to leave a V-shaped opening at the
top. The voice of "Peter" (Miss Showers' principal control) kept talking
to us and the medium from behind the curtains all the time, and making
remarks on the faces as they appeared at the opening. Presently he said
to me, "Mrs. Ross-Church, here's a fellow says his name is Powles, and
he wants to speak to you, only he doesn't like to show himself because
he's not a bit like what he used to be." "Tell him not to mind that," I
answered, "I shall know him under any circumstances." "Well! if he was
anything like that, he was a beauty," exclaimed Peter; and presently a
face appeared which I could not, by any stretch of imagination, decide
to resemble in the slightest degree my old friend. It was hard, stiff
and unlifelike. After it had disappeared, Peter said, "Powles says if
you'll come and sit with Rosie (Miss Showers) often, he'll look quite
like himself by-and-by," and of course I was only too anxious to accept
the invitation.

As I was setting out another evening to sit with Miss Showers, the
thought suddenly occurred to me to put the green necktie in my pocket.
My two daughters accompanied me on that occasion, but I said nothing to
them about the necktie. As soon as we had commenced, however, Peter
called out, "Now, Mrs. Ross-Church, hand over that necktie. Powles is
coming." "What necktie?" I asked, and he answered, "Why Powles' necktie,
of course, that you've got in your pocket. He wants you to put it round
his neck." The assembled party looked at me inquisitively as I produced
the tie. The face of John Powles appeared, very different from the time
before, as he had his own features and complexion, but his hair and
beard (which were auburn during life) appeared phosphoric, as though
made of living fire. I mounted on a chair and tied the necktie round his
throat, and asked him if he would kiss me. He shook his head. Peter
called out, "Give him your hand." I did so, and as he kissed it, his
moustaches _burned_ me. I cannot account for it. I can only relate the
fact. After which he disappeared with the necktie, which I have never
seen since, though we searched the little room for it thoroughly.

The next thing I have to relate about John Powles is so startling that I
dread the criticism it will evoke; but if I had not startling stories to
tell, I should not consider them worth writing down. I left my house in
Bayswater one Sunday evening to dine with Mr. and Mrs. George Neville in
Regent's Park Terrace, to have a _seance_ afterwards with Miss Showers.
There was a large company present, and I was placed next to Miss Showers
at table. During dinner she told me complainingly that her mother had
gone to Norwood to spend the night, and she (Rosie) was afraid of
sleeping alone, as the spirits worried her so. In a moment it flashed
across me to ask her to return to Bayswater and sleep with me, for I was
most desirous of testing her powers when we were alone together. Miss
Showers accepted my invitation, and we arranged that she should go home
with me. After dinner, the guests sat for a _seance_, but to everybody's
surprise and disappointment, nothing occurred. It was one o'clock in the
morning when Miss Showers and I entered a cab to return to Bayswater. We
had hardly started when we were greeted with a loud peal of laughter
close to our ears. "What's the matter, Peter?" demanded Miss Showers.
"I can't help laughing," he replied, "to think of their faces when no
one appeared! Did you suppose I was going to let you waste all your
power with them, when I knew I was going home with you and Mrs.
Ross-Church? I mean to show you what a real good _seance_ is to-night."

When we reached home I let myself in with a latchkey. The house was
full, for I had seven children, four servants, and a married sister
staying with me; but they were all in bed and asleep. It was cold
weather, and when I took Miss Showers into my bedroom a fire was burning
in the grate. My sister was occupying a room which opened into mine; but
I locked her door and my own, and put the keys under my pillow. Miss
Showers and I then undressed and got into bed. When we had extinguished
the gas, we found the room was, comparatively speaking, light, for I had
stirred the fire into a blaze, and a street lamp just opposite the
window threw bars of light through the venetian blinds, right across the
ceiling. As soon as Miss Showers had settled herself in bed, she said,
"I wonder what Peter is going to do," and I replied, "I hope he won't
strip off the bed-clothes." We were lying under four blankets, a
counterpane, and an eider-down _duvet_, and as I spoke, the whole mass
rose in the air, and fell over the end of the bed, leaving us quite
unprotected. We got up, lit a candle, and made the bed again, tucking
the clothes well in all round, but the minute we laid down the same
thing was repeated. We were rather cross the second time, and abused
Peter for being so disagreeable, upon which the voice declared he
wouldn't do it any more, but we shouldn't have provoked him to try. I
said, "You had much better shew yourself to us, Peter. That is what I
want you to do." He replied, "Here I am, my dear, close to you!" I
turned my head, and there stood a dark figure beside the bed, whilst
another could be plainly distinguished walking about the room. I said,
"I can't see your face," and he replied, "I'll come nearer to you!" Upon
this the figure rose in the air until it hung suspended, face downward,
over the bed. In this position it looked like a huge bat with outspread
wings. It was still indistinct, except as to substance, but Peter said
we had exhausted all the phosphorus in our bodies by the long evening we
had spent, and left him nothing to light himself up with. After a while
he lowered himself on to the bed, and lay between Miss Showers and
myself on the outside of the _duvet_. To this we greatly objected, as he
was very heavy and took up a great deal of room; but it was some time
before he would go away.

During this manifestation, the other spirit, whom Peter called the
"Pope," kept walking about and touching everything in the room, which
was full of ornaments; and Peter called out several times, "Take care,
Pope! take care! Don't break Mrs. Ross-Church's things." The two made so
much noise that they waked my sister in the adjoining room, and she
knocked at the door, asking in an alarmed voice, "Florence! _whom_ have
you there? You will wake the whole house." When I replied, "Never mind,
it's only spirits," she gave one fell shriek and dived under her
bed-clothes. She maintains to this day that she fully believed the steps
and voices to be human. At last the manifestations became so rapid, as
many as eight and ten hands touching us at once, that I asked Miss
Showers if she would mind my tying hers together. She was very amiable
and consented willingly. I therefore got out of bed again, and having
securely fastened her hands in the sleeves of the nightdress she wore, I
sewed them with needle and thread to the mattress. Miss Showers then
said she felt sleepy, and with her back to me--a position she was
obliged to maintain on account of her hands being sewn down--she
apparently dropt off to sleep, though I knew subsequently she was in a
trance.

For some time afterwards nothing occurred, the figures had disappeared,
the voices ceased, and I thought the _seance_ was over. Presently,
however, I felt a hand laid on my head and the fingers began to gently
stroke and pull the short curls upon my forehead. I whispered, "Who is
this?" and the answer came back, "Don't you know me? I am Powles! At
last--at last--after a silence of ten years I see you and speak with you
again, face to face." "How can I tell this is _your_ hand?" I said.
"Peter might be materializing a hand in order to deceive me." The hand
immediately left my head and the _back_ of it passed over my mouth, when
I felt it was covered with short hair. I then remembered how hairy John
Powles' hands had become from exposure to the Indian sun whilst
shooting, and how I had nicknamed him "Esau" in consequence. I
recollected also that he had dislocated the left wrist with a cricket
ball. "Let me feel your wrist," I said, and my hand was at once placed
on the enlarged bone. "I want to trace your hand to where it springs
from," I next suggested; and on receiving permission I felt from the
fingers and wrist to the elbow and shoulder, where it terminated _in the
middle of Miss Showers' back_. Still I was not quite satisfied, for I
used to find it very hard to believe in the identity of a person I had
cared for. I was so terribly afraid of being deceived. "I want to see
your face," I continued. "I cannot show you my face to-night," the voice
replied, "but you shall feel it;" and the face, with beard and
moustaches, was laid for a moment against my own. Then the hand was
replaced on my hair, and whilst it kept on pulling and stroking my
curls, John Powles' own voice spoke to me of everything that had
occurred of importance when he and I were friends on earth. Fancy, two
people who were intimately associated for years, meeting alone after a
long and painful separation, think of all the private things they would
talk about together, and you will understand why I cannot write down the
conversation that took place between us that night here. In order to
convince me of his identity, John Powles spoke of all the troubles I had
passed through and was then enduring--he mentioned scenes, both sad and
merry, which we had witnessed together; he recalled incidents which had
slipped my memory, and named places and people known only to ourselves.
Had I been a disbeliever in Spiritualism, that night must have made a
convert of me. Whilst the voice, in the well-remembered tones of my old
friend, was speaking, and his hand wandered through my hair, Miss
Showers continued to sleep, or to appear to sleep, with her back towards
me, and her hands sewn into her nightdress sleeves, and the sleeves sewn
down to the bed. But had she been wide awake and with both hands free,
she could not have spoken to me in John Powles' unforgotten voice of
things that had occurred when she was an infant and thousands of miles
away. And I affirm that the voice spoke to me of things that no one but
John Powles could possibly have known. He did not fail to remind me of
the promise he had made, and the many times he had tried to fulfil it
before, and he assured me he should be constantly with me from that
time. It was daylight before the voice ceased speaking, and then both
Miss Showers and I were so exhausted, we could hardly raise our heads
from the pillows. I must not forget to add that when we _did_ open our
eyes again upon this work-a-day world, we found there was hardly an
article in the room that had not changed places. The pictures were all
turned with their faces to the wall--the crockery from the washstand was
piled in the fender--the ornaments from the mantel-piece were on the
dressing-table--in fact, the whole room was topsy-turvy.

When Mr. William Fletcher gave his first lecture in England, in the
Steinway Hall, my husband, Colonel Lean, and I, went to hear him. We had
never seen Mr. Fletcher before, nor any of his family, nor did he know
we were amongst the audience. Our first view of him was when he stepped
upon the platform, and we were seated quite in the body of the hall,
which was full. It was Mr. Fletcher's custom, after his lecture was
concluded, to describe such visions as were presented to him, and he
only asked in return that if the people and places were recognized,
those who recognized them would be brave enough to say so, for the sake
of the audience and himself. I can understand that strangers who went
there and heard nothing that concerned themselves would be very apt to
imagine it was all humbug, and that those who claimed a knowledge of the
visions were simply confederates of Mr. Fletcher. But there is nothing
more true than that circumstances alter cases. I entered Steinway Hall
as a perfect stranger, and as a press-writer, quite prepared to expose
trickery if I detected it. And this is what I heard. After Mr. Fletcher
had described several persons and scenes unknown to me, he took out a
handkerchief and began to wipe his face, as though he were very warm.

"I am no longer in England, now," he said. "The scene has quite changed,
and I am taken over the sea, thousands of miles away, and I am in a
chamber with all the doors and windows open. Oh! how hot it is! I think
I am somewhere in the tropics. O! I see why I have been brought here! It
is to see a young man die! This is a death chamber. He is lying on a
bed. He looks very pale, and he is very near death, but he has only been
ill a short time. His hair is a kind of golden chestnut color, and he
has blue eyes. He is an Englishman, and I can see the letter 'P' above
his head. He has not been happy on earth, and he is quite content to
die. He pushes all the influences that are round his bed away from him.
Now I see a lady come and sit down beside him. He holds her hand, and
appears to ask her to do something, and I hear a strain of sweet music.
It is a song he has heard in happier times, and on the breath of it his
spirit passes away. It is to this lady he seems to come now. She is
sitting on my left about half way down the hall. A little girl, with her
hands full of blue flowers, points her out to me. The little girl holds
up the flowers, and I see they are woven into a resemblance of the
letter F. She tells me that is the initial letter of her mother's name
and her own. And I see this message written.

"'To my dearest friend, for such you ever were to me from the beginning.
I have been with you through all your time of trial and sorrow, and I am
rejoiced to see that a happier era is beginning for you. I am always
near you. The darkness is fast rolling away, and happiness will succeed
it. Pray for me, and I shall be near you in your prayers. I pray God to
bless you and to bless me, and to bring us together again in the summer
land.'

"And I see the spirit pointing with his hand far away, as though to
intimate that the happiness he speaks of is only the beginning of some
that will extend to a long distance of time. I see this scene more
plainly than any I have ever seen before."

These words were written down at the time they were spoken. Colonel Lean
and I were sitting in the very spot indicated by Mr. Fletcher, and the
little girl with the blue flowers was my spirit child, "Florence," whose
history I shall give in the next chapter. But my communications with
John Powles, though very extraordinary, were not satisfactory to me. I
am the "Thomas, surnamed Didymus," of the spiritualistic world, who
wants to see and touch and handle before I can altogether believe. I
wanted to meet John Powles and talk with him face to face, and it seemed
such an impossibility for him to materialize in the light that, after
his two failures with Miss Showers, he refused to try. I was always
worrying him to tell me if we should meet in the body before I left this
world, and his answer was always, "Yes! but not just yet!" I had no idea
then that I should have to cross the Atlantic before I saw my dear old
friend again.




CHAPTER VIII.

MY SPIRIT CHILD.


The same year that John Powles died, 1860, I passed through the greatest
trouble of my life. It is quite unnecessary to my narrative to relate
what that trouble was, nor how it affected me, but I suffered terribly
both in mind and body, and it was chiefly for this reason that the
medical men advised my return to England, which I reached on the 14th of
December, and on the 30th of the same month a daughter was born to me,
who survived her birth for only ten days. The child was born with a most
peculiar blemish, which it is necessary for the purpose of my argument
to describe. On the left side of the upper lip was a mark as though a
semi-circular piece of flesh had been cut out by a bullet-mould, which
exposed part of the gum. The swallow also had been submerged in the
gullet, so that she had for the short period of her earthly existence to
be fed by artificial means, and the jaw itself had been so twisted that
could she have lived to cut her teeth, the double ones would have been
in front. This blemish was considered to be of so remarkable a type that
Dr. Frederick Butler of Winchester, who attended me, invited several
other medical men, from Southampton and other places, to examine the
infant with him, and they all agreed that _a similar case had never come
under their notice before_. This is a very important factor in my
narrative. I was closely catechized as to whether I had suffered any
physical or mental shock, that should account for the injury to my
child, and it was decided that the trouble I had experienced was
sufficient to produce it. The case, under feigned names, was fully
reported in the _Lancet_ as something quite out of the common way. My
little child, who was baptized by the name of "Florence," lingered until
the 10th of January, 1861, and then passed quietly away, and when my
first natural disappointment was over I ceased to think of her except as
of something which "might have been," but never would be again. In this
world of misery, the loss of an infant is soon swallowed up in more
active trouble. Still I never quite forgot my poor baby, perhaps because
at that time she was happily the "one dead lamb" of my little flock. In
recounting the events of my first _seance_ with Mrs. Holmes, I have
mentioned how a young girl much muffled up about the mouth and chin
appeared, and intimated that she came for me, although I could not
recognize her. I was so ignorant of the life beyond the grave at that
period, that it never struck me that the baby who had left me at ten
days old had been growing since our separation, until she had reached
the age of ten years. I could not interpret Longfellow (whom I consider
one of the sublimest spiritualists of the age) as I can now.

    "Day after day we think what she is doing,
      In those bright realms of air:
    Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
      Behold her grown more fair.

               . . . . .

    "Not as a child shall we again behold her:
      For when, with rapture wild,
    In our embraces we again enfold her,
      She will not be a child;
    But a fair maiden in her father's mansion,
      Clothed with celestial grace.
    And beautiful with all the soul's expansion,
      Shall we behold her face!"

           *       *       *       *       *

The first _seance_ made such an impression on my mind that two nights
afterwards I again presented myself (this time alone) at Mrs. Holmes'
rooms to attend another. It was a very different circle on the second
occasion. There were about thirty people present, all strangers to each
other, and the manifestations were proportionately ordinary. Another
professional medium, a Mrs. Davenport, was present, as one of her
controls, whom she called "Bell," had promised, if possible, to show her
face to her. As soon, therefore, as the first spirit face appeared
(which was that of the same little girl that I had seen before), Mrs.
Davenport exclaimed, "There's 'Bell,'" "Why!" I said, "that's the little
nun we saw on Monday." "O! no! that's my 'Bell,'" persisted Mrs.
Davenport. But Mrs. Holmes took my side, and was positive the spirit
came for me. She told me she had been trying to communicate with her
since the previous _seance_. "I know she is nearly connected with you,"
she said. "Have you never lost a relation of her age?" "_Never!_" I
replied; and at that declaration the little spirit moved away,
sorrowfully as before.

A few weeks after I received an invitation from Mr. Henry Dunphy (the
gentleman who had introduced me to Mrs. Holmes) to attend a private
_seance_, given at his own house in Upper Gloucester Place, by the
well-known medium Florence Cook. The double drawing-rooms were divided
by velvet curtains, behind which Miss Cook was seated in an arm-chair,
the curtains being pinned together half-way up, leaving a large aperture
in the shape of a V. Being a complete stranger to Miss Cook, I was
surprised to hear the voice of her control direct that _I_ should stand
by the curtains and hold the lower parts together whilst the forms
appeared above, lest the pins should give way, and necessarily from my
position I could hear every word that passed between Miss Cook and her
guide. The first face that showed itself was that of a man unknown to
me; then ensued a kind of frightened colloquy between the medium and her
control. "Take it away. Go away! I don't like you. Don't touch me--you
frighten me! Go away!" I heard Miss Cook exclaim, and then her guide's
voice interposed itself, "Don't be silly, Florrie. Don't be unkind. It
won't hurt you," etc., and immediately afterwards the same little girl I
had seen at Mrs. Holmes' rose to view at the aperture of the curtains,
muffled up as before, but smiling with her eyes at me. I directed the
attention of the company to her, calling her again my "little nun." I
was surprised, however, at the evident distaste Miss Cook had displayed
towards the spirit, and when the _seance_ was concluded and she had
regained her normal condition, I asked her if she could recall the faces
she saw under trance. "Sometimes," she replied. I told her of the
"little nun," and demanded the reason of her apparent dread of her. "I
can hardly tell you," said Miss Cook; "I don't know anything about her.
She is quite a stranger to me, but her face is not fully developed, I
think. There is _something wrong about her mouth_. She frightens me."

This remark, though made with the utmost carelessness, set me thinking,
and after I had returned home, I wrote to Miss Cook, asking her to
inquire of her guides _who_ the little spirit was.

She replied as follows:

"Dear Mrs. Ross-Church, I have asked 'Katie King,' but she cannot tell
me anything further about the spirit that came through me the other
evening than that she is a young girl closely connected with yourself."

I was not, however, yet convinced of the spirit's identity, although
"John Powles" constantly assured me that it _was_ my child. I tried hard
to communicate with her at home, but without success. I find in the
memoranda I kept of our private _seances_ at that period several
messages from "Powles" referring to "Florence." In one he says, "Your
child's want of power to communicate with you is not because she is too
pure, but because she is too weak. She will speak to you some day. She
is _not_ in heaven." This last assertion, knowing so little as I did of
a future state, both puzzled and grieved me. I could not believe that an
innocent infant was not in the Beatific Presence--yet I could not
understand what motive my friend could have in leading me astray. I had
yet to learn that once received into Heaven no spirit could return to
earth, and that a spirit may have a training to undergo, even though it
has never committed a mortal sin. A further proof, however, that my dead
child had never died was to reach me from a quarter where I least
expected it. I was editor of the magazine _London Society_ at that time,
and amongst my contributors was Dr. Keningale Cook, who had married
Mabel Collins, the now well-known writer of spiritualistic novels. One
day Dr. Cook brought me an invitation from his wife (whom I had never
met) to spend Saturday to Monday with them in their cottage at Redhill,
and I accepted it, knowing nothing of the proclivities of either of
them, and they knowing as little of my private history as I did of
theirs. And I must take this opportunity to observe that, at this
period, I had never made my lost child the subject of conversation even
with my most intimate friends. The memory of her life and death, and the
troubles that caused it, was not a happy one, and of no interest to any
but myself. So little, therefore, had it been discussed amongst us that
until "Florence" reappeared to revive the topic, my _elder children were
ignorant_ that their sister had been marked in any way differently from
themselves. It may, therefore, be supposed how unlikely it was that
utter strangers and public media should have gained any inkling of the
matter. I went down to Redhill, and as I was sitting with the Keningale
Cooks after dinner, the subject of Spiritualism came on the _tapis_, and
I was informed that the wife was a powerful trance medium, which much
interested me, as I had not, at that period, had any experience of her
particular class of mediumship. In the evening we "sat" together, and
Mrs. Cook having become entranced, her husband took shorthand notes of
her utterances. Several old friends of their family spoke through her,
and I was listening to them in the listless manner in which we hear the
conversation of strangers, when my attention was aroused by the medium
suddenly leaving her seat, and falling on her knees before me, kissing
my hands and face, and sobbing violently the while. I waited in
expectation of hearing who this might be, when the manifestations as
suddenly ceased, the medium returned to her seat, and the voice of one
of her guides said that the spirit was unable to speak through excess of
emotion, but would try again later in the evening. I had almost
forgotten the circumstance in listening to other communications, when I
was startled by hearing the word "_Mother!_" sighed rather than spoken.
I was about to make some excited reply, when the medium raised her hand
to enjoin silence, and the following communication was taken down by Mr.
Cook as she pronounced the words. The sentences in parentheses are my
replies to her.

"Mother! I am 'Florence.' I must be very quiet. I want to feel I have a
mother still. I am so lonely. Why should I be so? I cannot speak well. I
want to be like one of you. I want to feel I have a mother and sisters.
I am so far away from you all now."

("But I always think of you, my dear dead baby.")

"That's just it--your _baby_. But I'm not a baby now. I shall get
nearer. They tell me I shall. I do not know if I can come when you are
alone. It's all so dark. I know you are there, but _so dimly_. I've
grown _all by myself_. I'm not really unhappy, but I want to get nearer
you. I know you think of me, but you think of me as a baby. You don't
know me as I _am_. You've seen me, because in my love I have forced
myself upon you. I've not been amongst the flowers yet, but I shall be,
very soon now; but I want _my mother_ to take me there. All has been
given me that can be given me, but I cannot receive it, except in so
far----"

Here she seemed unable to express herself.

("Did the trouble I had before your birth affect your spirit,
Florence?")

"Only as things cause each other. I was with you, mother, all through
that trouble. I should be nearer to you, _than any child you have_, if I
could only get close to you."

("I can't bear to hear you speak so sadly, dear. I have always believed
that _you_, at least, were happy in Heaven.")

"I am _not_ in Heaven! But there will come a day, mother--I can laugh
when I say it--when we shall go to heaven _together_ and pick blue
flowers--_blue flowers_. They are so good to me here, but if your eye
cannot bear the daylight you cannot see the buttercups and daisies."

I did not learn till afterwards that in the spiritual language blue
flowers are typical of happiness. The next question I asked her was if
she thought she could write through me.

"I don't seem able to write through you, but why, I know not."

("Do you know your sisters, Eva and Ethel?")

"No! no!" in a weary voice. "The link of sisterhood is only through the
mother. That kind of sisterhood does not last, because there is a
higher."

("Do you ever see your father?")

"No! he is far, far away. I went once, not more. Mother, dear, he'll
love me when he comes here. They've told me so, and they always tell
truth here! I am but a child, yet not so very little. I seem composed of
two things--a child in ignorance and a woman in years. Why can't I speak
at other places? I have wished and tried! I've come very near, but it
seems so easy to speak now. This medium seems so different."

("I wish you could come to me when I am alone, Florence.")

"You _shall_ know me! I _will_ come, mother, dear. I shall always be
able to come here. I _do_ come to you, but not in the same way."

She spoke in such a plaintive, melancholy voice that Mrs. Cook, thinking
she would depress my spirits, said, "Don't make your state out to be
sadder than it really is." Her reply was very remarkable.

"_I am, as I am!_ Friend! when you come here, if you find that sadness
_is_, you will not be able to alter it by plunging into material
pleasures. _Our sadness makes the world we live in._ It is not deeds
that make us wrong. It is the state in which _we were born_. Mother! you
say I died sinless. That is nothing. I was born _in a state_. Had I
lived, I should have caused you more pain than you can know. I am better
here. I was not fit to battle with the world, and they took me from it.
Mother! you won't let this make you sad. You must not."

("What can I do to bring you nearer to me?")

"I don't know what will bring me nearer, but I'm helped already by just
talking to you. There's a ladder of brightness--every step. I believe
I've gained just one step now. O! the Divine teachings are so
mysterious. Mother! does it seem strange to you to hear your 'baby' say
things as if she knew them? I'm going now. Good-bye!"

And so "Florence" went. The next voice that spoke was that of a guide of
the medium, and I asked her for a personal description of my daughter as
she then appeared. She replied, "Her face is downcast. We have tried to
cheer her, but she is very sad. It is the _state in which she was born_.
Every physical deformity is the mark of a condition. A weak body is not
necessarily the mark of a weak spirit, but the _prison_ of it, because
the spirit might be too passionate otherwise. You cannot judge in what
way the mind is deformed because the body is deformed. It does not
follow that a canker in the body is a canker in the mind. But the mind
may be too exuberant--may need a canker to restrain it."

I have copied this conversation, word for word, from the shorthand notes
taken at the time of utterance; and when it is remembered that neither
Mrs. Keningale Cook nor her husband knew that I had lost a child--that
they had never been in my house nor associated with any of my
friends--it will at least be acknowledged, even by the most sceptical,
that it was a very remarkable coincidence that I should receive such a
communication from the lips of a perfect stranger. Only once after this
did "Florence" communicate with me through the same source. She found
congenial media nearer home, and naturally availed herself of them. But
the second occasion was almost more convincing than the first. I went
one afternoon to consult my solicitor in the strictest confidence as to
how I should act under some very painful circumstances, and he gave me
his advice. The next morning as I sat at breakfast, Mrs. Cook, who was
still living at Redhill, ran into my room with an apology for the
unceremoniousness of her visit, on the score that she had received a
message for me the night before which "Florence" had begged her to
deliver without delay. The message was to this effect: "Tell my mother
that I was with her this afternoon at the lawyer's, and she is _not_ to
follow the advice given her, as it will do harm instead of good." Mrs.
Cook added, "I don't know to what 'Florence' alludes, of course, but I
thought it best, as I was coming to town, to let you know at once."

The force of this anecdote does not lie in the context. The mystery is
contained in the fact of a secret interview having been overheard and
commented upon. But the truth is, that having greater confidence in the
counsel of my visible guide than in that of my invisible one, I abided
by the former, and regretted it ever afterwards.

The first conversation I held with "Florence" had a great effect upon
me. I knew before that my uncontrolled grief had been the cause of the
untimely death of her body, but it had never struck me that her spirit
would carry the effects of it into the unseen world. It was a warning to
me (as it should be to all mothers) not to take the solemn
responsibility of maternity upon themselves without being prepared to
sacrifice their own feelings for the sake of their children. "Florence"
assured me, however, that communion with myself in my improved condition
of happiness would soon lift her spirit from its state of depression,
and consequently I seized every opportunity of seeing and speaking with
her. During the succeeding twelve months I attended numerous _seances_
with various media, and my spirit child (as she called herself) never
failed to manifest through the influence of any one of them, though, of
course, in different ways. Through some she touched me only, and always
with an infant's hand, that I might recognize it as hers, or laid her
mouth against mine that I might feel the scar upon her lip; through
others she spoke, or wrote, or showed her face, but I never attended a
_seance_ at which she omitted to notify her presence. Once at a dark
circle, held with Mr. Charles Williams, after having had my dress and
that of my next neighbor, Lady Archibald Campbell, pulled several times
as if to attract our attention, the darkness opened before us, and there
stood my child, smiling at us like a happy dream, her fair hair waving
about her temples, and her blue eyes fixed on me. She was clothed in
white, but we saw no more than her head and bust, about which her hands
held her drapery. Lady Archibald Campbell saw her as plainly as I did.
On another occasion Mr. William Eglinton proposed to me to try and
procure the spirit-writing on his arm. He directed me to go into another
room and write the name of the friend I loved best in the spirit world
upon a scrap of paper, which I was to twist up tightly and take back to
him. I did so, writing the name of "John Powles." When I returned to Mr.
Eglinton, he bared his arm, and holding the paper to the candle till it
was reduced to tinder, rubbed his flesh with the ashes. I knew what was
expected to ensue. The name written on the paper was to reappear in red
or white letters on the medium's arm. The sceptic would say it was a
trick of thought-reading, and that, the medium knowing what I had
written, had prepared the writing during my absence. But to his surprise
and mine, when at last he shook the ashes from his arm, we read, written
in a bold, clear hand, the words--"Florence is the dearest," as though
my spirit child had given me a gentle rebuke for writing any name but
her own. It seems curious to me now to look back and remember how
melancholy she used to be when she first came back to me, for as soon as
she had established an unbroken communication between us, she developed
into the merriest little spirit I have ever known, and though her
childhood has now passed away, and she is more dignified and thoughtful
and womanly, she always appears joyous and happy. She has manifested
largely to me through the mediumship of Mr. Arthur Colman. I had known
her, during a dark _seance_ with a very small private circle (the medium
being securely held and fastened the while) run about the room, like the
child she was, and speak to and kiss each sitter in turn, pulling off
the sofa and chair covers and piling them up in the middle of the table,
and changing the ornaments of everyone present--placing the gentlemen's
neckties round the throats of the ladies, and hanging the ladies'
earrings in the buttonholes of the gentlemen's coats--just as she might
have done had she been still with us, a happy, petted child, on earth. I
have known her come in the dark and sit on my lap and kiss my face and
hands, and let me feel the defect in her mouth with my own. One bright
evening on the 9th of July--my birthday--Arthur Colman walked in quite
unexpectedly to pay me a visit, and as I had some friends with me, we
agreed to have a _seance_. It was impossible to make the room dark, as
the windows were only shaded by venetian blinds, but we lowered them,
and sat in the twilight. The first thing we heard was the voice of
"Florence" whispering--"A present for dear mother's birthday," when
something was put into my hand. Then she crossed to the side of a lady
present and dropped something into her hand, saying, "And a present for
dear mother's friend!" I knew at once by the feel of it that what
"Florence" had given me was a chaplet of beads, and knowing how often,
under similar circumstances, articles are merely carried about a room, I
concluded it was one which lay upon my drawing-room mantel-piece, and
said as much. I was answered by the voice of "Aimee," the medium's
nearest control.

"You are mistaken," she said, "'Florence' has given you a chaplet you
have never seen before. She was exceedingly anxious to give you a
present on your birthday, so I gave her the beads which were buried with
me. They came from my coffin. I held them in my hand. All I ask is, that
you will not shew them to Arthur until I give you leave. He is not well
at present, and the sight of them will upset him."

I was greatly astonished, but, of course, I followed her instructions,
and when I had an opportunity to examine the beads, I found that they
really were strangers to me, and had not been in the house before. The
present my lady friend had received was a large, unset topaz. The
chaplet was made of carved wood and steel. It was not till months had
elapsed that I was given permission to show it to Arthur Colman. He
immediately recognized it as the one he had himself placed in the hands
of "Aimee" as she lay in her coffin, and when I saw how the sight
affected him, I regretted I had told him anything about it. I offered to
give the beads up to him, but he refused to receive them, and they
remain in my possession to this day.

But the great climax that was to prove beyond all question the personal
identity of the spirit who communicated with me, with the body I had
brought into the world, was yet to come. Mr. William Harrison, the
editor of the _Spiritualist_ (who, after seventeen years' patient
research into the science of Spiritualism, had never received a personal
proof of the return of his own friends, or relations) wrote me word that
he had received a message from his lately deceased friend, Mrs. Stewart,
to the effect that if he would sit with the medium, Florence Cook, and
one or two harmonious companions, she would do her best to appear to him
in her earthly likeness and afford him the test he had so long sought
after. Mr. Harrison asked me, therefore, if I would join him and Miss
Kidlingbury--the secretary to the British National Association of
Spiritualists--in holding a _seance_ with Miss Cook, to which I agreed,
and we met in one of the rooms of the Association for that purpose. It
was a very small room, about 8 feet by 16 feet, was uncarpeted and
contained no furniture, so we carried in three cane-bottomed chairs for
our accommodation. Across one corner of the room, about four feet from
the floor, we nailed an old black shawl, and placed a cushion behind it
for Miss Cook to lean her head against. Miss Florence Cook, who is a
brunette, of a small, slight figure, with dark eyes and hair which she
wore in a profusion of curls, was dressed in a high grey merino,
ornamented with crimson ribbons. She informed me previous to sitting,
that she had become restless during her trances lately, and in the habit
of walking out amongst the circle, and she asked me as a friend (for
such we had by that time become) to scold her well should such a thing
occur, and order her to go back into the cabinet as if she were "a child
or a dog;" and I promised her I would do so. After Florence Cook had sat
down on the floor, behind the black shawl (which left her grey merino
skirt exposed), and laid her head against the cushion, we lowered the
gas a little, and took our seats on the three cane chairs. The medium
appeared very uneasy at first, and we heard her remonstrating with the
influences for using her so roughly. In a few minutes, however, there
was a tremulous movement of the black shawl, and a large white hand was
several times thrust into view and withdrawn again. I had never seen
Mrs. Stewart (for whom we were expressly sitting) in this life, and
could not, therefore, recognize the hand; but we all remarked how large
and white it was. In another minute the shawl was lifted up, and a
female figure crawled on its hands and knees from behind it, and then
stood up and regarded us. It was impossible, in the dim light and at the
distance she stood from us, to identify the features, so Mr. Harrison
asked if she were Mrs. Stewart. The figure shook its head. I had lost a
sister a few months previously, and the thought flashed across me that
it might be her. "Is it you, Emily?" I asked; but the head was still
shaken to express a negative, and a similar question on the part of Miss
Kidlingbury, with respect to a friend of her own, met with the same
response. "Who _can_ it be?" I remarked curiously to Mr. Harrison.

"Mother! don't you know me?" sounded in "Florence's" whispering voice. I
started up to approach her, exclaiming, "O! my darling child! I never
thought I should meet you here!" But she said, "Go back to your chair,
and I will come to you!" I reseated myself, and "Florence" crossed the
room and sat down _on my lap_. She was more unclothed on that occasion
than any materialized spirit I have ever seen. She wore nothing on her
head, only her hair, of which she appears to have an immense quantity,
fell down her back and covered her shoulders. Her arms were bare and her
feet and part of her legs, and the dress she wore had no shape or style,
but seemed like so many yards of soft thick muslin, wound round her body
from the bosom to below the knees. She was a heavy weight--perhaps ten
stone--and had well-covered limbs. In fact, she was then, and has
appeared for several years past, to be, in point of size and shape, so
like her eldest sister Eva, that I always observe the resemblance
between them. This _seance_ took place at a period when "Florence" must
have been about seventeen years old.

"Florence, my darling," I said, "is this _really_ you?" "Turn up the
gas," she answered, "and look at my mouth." Mr. Harrison did as she
desired, and we all saw distinctly _that peculiar defect on the lip_
with which she was born--a defect, be it remembered, which some of the
most experienced members of the profession had affirmed to be "_so rare
as never to have fallen under their notice before_." She also opened her
mouth that we might see she had no gullet. I promised at the
commencement of my book to confine myself to facts, and leave the
deduction to be drawn from them to my readers, so I will not interrupt
my narrative to make any remarks upon this incontrovertible proof of
identity. I know it struck me dumb, and melted me into tears. At this
juncture Miss Cook, who had been moaning and moving about a good deal
behind the black shawl, suddenly exclaimed, "I can't stand this any
longer," and walked out into the room. There she stood in her grey dress
and crimson ribbons whilst "Florence" sat on my lap in white drapery.
But only for a moment, for directly the medium was fully in view, the
spirit sprung up and darted behind the curtain. Recalling Miss Cook's
injunctions to me, I scolded her heartily for leaving her seat, until
she crept back, whimpering, to her former position. The shawl had
scarcely closed behind her before "Florence" reappeared and clung to me,
saying, "Don't let her do that again. She frightens me so." She was
actually trembling all over. "Why, Florence," I replied. "Do you mean to
tell me you are frightened of your medium? In this world it is we poor
mortals who are frightened of the spirits." "I am afraid she will send
me away, mother," she whispered. However, Miss Cook did not disturb us
again, and "Florence" stayed with us for some time longer. She clasped
her arms round my neck, and laid her head upon my bosom, and kissed me
dozens of times. She took my hand and spread it out, and said she felt
sure I should recognize her hand when she thrust it outside the curtain,
because it was so much like my own. I was suffering much trouble at that
time, and "Florence" told me the reason God had permitted her to show
herself to me in her earthly deformity was so that I might be sure that
she was herself, and that Spiritualism was a truth to comfort me.
"Sometimes you doubt, mother," she said, "and think your eyes and ears
have misled you; but after this you must never doubt again. Don't fancy
I am like this in the spirit land. The blemish left me long ago. But I
put it on to-night to make you certain. Don't fret, dear mother.
Remember _I_ am always near you. No one can take _me_ away. Your earthly
children may grow up and go out into the world and leave you, but you
will always have your spirit child close to you." I did not, and cannot,
calculate for how long "Florence" remained visible on that occasion.
Mr. Harrison told me afterwards that she had remained for nearly twenty
minutes. But her undoubted presence was such a stupendous fact to me,
that I could only think that _she was there_--that I actually held in my
arms the tiny infant I had laid with my own hands in her coffin--that
she was no more dead than I was myself, but had grown to be a woman. So
I sat, with my arms tight round her, and my heart beating against hers,
until the power decreased, and "Florence" was compelled to give me a
last kiss and leave me stupefied and bewildered by what had so
unexpectedly occurred. Two other spirits materialized and appeared after
she had left us, but as neither of them was Mrs. Stewart, the _seance_,
as far as Mr. Harrison was concerned, was a failure. I have seen and
heard "Florence" on numerous occasions since the one I have narrated,
but not with the mark upon her mouth, which she assures me will never
trouble either of us again. I could fill pages with accounts of her
pretty, caressing ways and her affectionate and sometimes solemn
messages; but I have told as much of her story as will interest the
general reader. It has been wonderful to me to mark how her ways and
mode of communication have changed with the passing years. It was a
simple child who did not know how to express itself that appeared to me
in 1873. It is a woman full of counsel and tender warning that comes to
me in 1890. But yet she is only nineteen. When she reached that age,
"Florence" told me she should never grow any older in years or
appearance, and that she had reached the climax of womanly perfection in
the spirit world. Only to-night--the night before Christmas Day--as I
write her story, she comes to me and says, "Mother! you must not give
way to sad thoughts. The Past is past. Let it be buried in the blessings
that remain to you."

And amongst the greatest of those blessings I reckon my belief in the
existence of my spirit-child.




CHAPTER IX.

THE STORY OF EMILY.


My sister Emily was the third daughter of my late father, and several
years older than myself. She was a handsome woman--strictly speaking,
perhaps, the handsomest of the family, and quite unlike the others. She
had black hair and eyes, a pale complexion, a well-shaped nose, and
small, narrow hands and feet. But her beauty had slight detractions--so
slight, indeed, as to be imperceptible to strangers, but well known to
her intimate friends. Her mouth was a little on one side, one shoulder
was half an inch higher than the other, her fingers were not quite
straight, nor her toes, and her hips corresponded with her shoulders.
She was clever, with a versatile, all-round talent, and of a very happy
and contented disposition. She married Dr. Henry Norris of Charmouth, in
Dorset, and lived there many years before her death. She was an
excellent wife and mother, a good friend, and a sincere Christian;
indeed, I do not believe that a more earnest, self-denying, better woman
ever lived in this world. But she had strong feelings, and in some
things she was very bigoted. One was Spiritualism. She vehemently
opposed even the mention of it, declared it to be diabolical, and never
failed to blame me for pursuing such a wicked and unholy occupation. She
was therefore about the last person whom I should have expected to take
advantage of it to communicate with her friends.

My sister Emily died on the 20th of April, 1875. Her death resulted from
a sudden attack of pleurisy, and was most unexpected. I was sitting at
an early dinner with my children on the same day when I received a
telegram from my brother-in-law to say, "Emily very ill; will telegraph
when change occurs," and I had just despatched an answer to ask if I
should go down to Charmouth, or could be of any use, when a second
message arrived, "All is over. She died quietly at two o'clock." Those
who have received similar shocks will understand what I felt. I was
quite stunned, and could not realize that my sister had passed away from
us, so completely unanticipated had been the news. I made the necessary
arrangements for going down to her funeral, but my head was filled with
nothing but thoughts of Emily the while, and conjectures of _how_ she
had died and of _what_ she had died (for that was, as yet, unknown to
me), and what she had thought and said; above all, what she was thinking
and feeling at that moment. I retired to rest with my brain in a whirl,
and lay half the night wide awake, staring into the darkness, and
wondering where my sister was. _Now_ was the time (if any) for my
cerebral organs to play me a trick, and conjure up a vision of the
person I was thinking of. But I saw nothing; no sound broke the
stillness; my eyes rested only on the darkness. I was quite
disappointed, and in the morning I told my children so. I loved my
sister Emily dearly, and I hoped she would have come to wish me
good-bye. On the following night I was exhausted by want of sleep and
the emotion I had passed through, and when I went to bed I was very
sleepy. I had not been long asleep, however, before I was waked up--I
can hardly say by what--and there at my bedside stood Emily, smiling at
me. When I lost my little "Florence," Emily had been unmarried, and she
had taken a great interest in my poor baby, and nursed her during her
short lifetime, and, I believe, really mourned her loss, for (although
she had children of her own) she always wore a little likeness of
"Florence" in a locket on her watch-chain. When Emily died I had of
course been for some time in communication with my spirit-child, and
when my sister appeared to me that night, "Florence" was in her arms,
with her head resting on her shoulder. I recognized them both at once,
and the only thing which looked strange to me was that Emily's long
black hair was combed right back in the Chinese fashion, giving her
forehead an unnaturally high appearance. This circumstance made the
greater impression on me, because we all have such high foreheads with
the hair growing off the temples that we have never been able to wear it
in the style I speak of. With this exception my sister looked beautiful
and most happy, and my little girl clung to her lovingly. Emily did not
speak aloud, but she kept on looking down at "Florence," and up at me,
whilst her lips formed the words, "Little Baby," which was the name by
which she had always mentioned my spirit-child. In the morning I
mentioned what I had seen to my elder girls, adding, "I hardly knew dear
Aunt Emily, with her hair scratched back in that fashion."

This apparition happened on the Wednesday night, and on the Friday
following I travelled down to Charmouth to be present at the funeral,
which was fixed for Saturday. I found my sister Cecil there before me.
As soon as we were alone, she said to me, "I am so glad you came to-day.
I want you to arrange dear Emily nicely in her coffin. The servants had
laid her out before my arrival, and she doesn't look a bit like herself.
But I haven't the nerve to touch her." It was late at night, but I took
a candle at once and accompanied Cecil to the death-chamber. Our sister
was lying, pale and calm, with a smile upon her lips, much as she had
appeared to me, and with _all her black hair combed back from her
forehead_. The servants had arranged it so, thinking it looked neater.
It was impossible to make any alteration till the morning, but when our
dear sister was carried to her grave, her hair framed her dead face in
the wavy curls in which it always fell when loose; a wreath of flowering
syringa was round her head, a cross of violets on her breast, and in her
waxen, beautifully-moulded hands, she held three tall, white lilies. I
mention this because she has come to me since with the semblance of
these very flowers to ensure her recognition. After the funeral, my
brother-in-law gave me the details of her last illness. He told me that
on the Monday afternoon, when her illness first took a serious turn and
she became (as he said) delirious, she talked continually to her father,
Captain Marryat (to whom she had been most reverentially attached), and
who, she affirmed, was sitting by the side of the bed. Her conversation
was perfectly rational, and only disjointed when she waited for a reply
to her own remarks. She spoke to him of Langham and all that had
happened there, and particularly expressed her surprise at his having _a
beard_, saying, "Does hair grow up there, father?" I was the more
impressed by this account, because Dr. Norris, like most medical men,
attributed the circumstance entirely to the distorted imagination of a
wandering brain. And yet my father (whom I have never seen since his
death) has been described to me by various clairvoyants, and always as
_wearing a beard_, a thing he never did during his lifetime, as it was
the fashion then for naval officers to wear only side whiskers. In all
his pictures he is represented as clean shorn, and as he was so well
known a man, one would think that (were they dissembling) the
clairvoyants, in describing his personal characteristics, would follow
the clue given by his portraits.

For some time after my sister Emily's death I heard nothing more of her,
and for the reasons I have given, I never expected to see her again
until we met in the spirit-world. About two years after her death,
however, my husband, Colonel Lean, bought two tickets for a series of
_seances_ to be held in the rooms of the British National Association of
Spiritualists under the mediumship of Mr. William Eglinton. This was
the first time we had ever seen or sat with Mr. Eglinton, but we had
heard a great deal of his powers, and were curious to test them. On the
first night, which was a Saturday, we assembled with a party of twelve,
all complete strangers, in the rooms I have mentioned, which were
comfortably lighted with gas. Mr. Eglinton, who is a young man inclined
to stoutness, went into the cabinet, which was placed in the centre of
us, with spectators all round it. The cabinet was like a large cupboard,
made of wood and divided into two parts, the partition being of
wire-work, so that the medium might be padlocked into it, and a curtain
drawn in front of both sides. After a while, a voice called out to us
not to be frightened, as the medium was coming out to get more power,
and Mr. Eglinton, in a state of trance and dressed in a suit of evening
clothes, walked out of the cabinet and commenced a tour of the circle.
He touched every one in turn, but did not stop until he reached Colonel
Lean, before whom he remained for some time, making magnetic passes down
his face and figure. He then turned to re-enter the cabinet, but as he
did so, some one moved the curtain from inside and Mr. Eglinton
_actually held the curtain to one side to permit the materialized form
to pass out_ before he went into the cabinet himself. The figure that
appeared was that of a woman clothed in loose white garments that fell
to her feet. Her eyes were black and her long black hair fell over her
shoulders. I suspected at the time who she was, but each one in the
circle was so certain she came for him or for her, that I said nothing,
and only mentally asked if it were my sister that I might receive a
proof of her identity. On the following evening (Sunday) Colonel Lean
and I were "sitting" together, when Emily came to the table to assure us
that it was she whom we had seen, and that she would appear again on
Monday and show herself more clearly. I asked her to think of some means
by which she could prove her identity with the spirit that then spoke to
us, and she said, "I will hold up my right hand." Colonel Lean cautioned
me not to mention this promise to any one, that we might be certain of
the correctness of the test. Accordingly, on the Monday evening we
assembled for our second _seance_ with Mr. Eglinton, and the same form
appeared, and walking out much closer to us, _held up the right hand_.
Colonel Lean, anxious not to be deceived by his own senses, asked the
company what the spirit was doing. "Cannot you see?" was the answer.
"She is holding up her hand." On this occasion Emily came with all her
old characteristics about her, and there would have been no possibility
of mistaking her (at least on my part) without the proof she had
promised to give us.

The next startling assurance we received of her proximity happened in a
much more unexpected manner. We were staying, in the autumn of the
following year, at a boarding-house in the Rue de Vienne at Brussels,
with a large party of English visitors, none of whom we had ever seen
till we entered the house. Amongst them were several girls, who had
never heard of Spiritualism before, and were much interested in
listening to the relation of our experiences on the subject. One evening
when I was not well, and keeping my own room, some of these young ladies
got hold of Colonel Lean and said, "Oh! do come and sit in the dark with
us and tell us ghost stories." Now sitting in the dark and telling ghost
stories to five or six nice looking girls is an occupation few men would
object to, and they were all soon ensconced in the dark and deserted
_salle-a-manger_. Amongst them was a young girl of sixteen, Miss Helen
Hill, who had never shown more interest than the rest in such matters.
After they had been seated in the dark for some minutes, she said to
Colonel Lean, "Do you know, I can see a lady on the opposite side of the
table quite distinctly, and she is nodding and smiling at you." The
colonel asked what the lady was like. "She is very nice looking,"
replied the girl, "with dark eyes and hair, but she seems to want me to
notice her ring. She wears a ring with a large blue stone in it, of such
a funny shape, and she keeps on twisting it round and round her finger,
and pointing to it. Oh! now she has got up and is walking round the
room. Only fancy! she is holding up her feet for me to see. They are
bare and very white, but her toes are crooked!" Then Miss Hill became
frightened and asked them to get a light. She declared that the figure
had come up, close to her, and torn the lace off her wrists. And when
the light was procured and her dress examined, a frill of lace that had
been tacked into her sleeve that morning had totally disappeared. The
young ladies grew nervous and left the room, and Colonel Lean, thinking
the description Helen Hill had given of the spirit tallied with that of
my sister Emily, came straight up to me and surprised me by an abrupt
question as to whether she had been in the habit of wearing any
particular ring (for he had not seen her for several years before her
death). I told him that her favorite ring was an uncut turquoise--so
large and uneven that she used to call it her "potato." "Had she any
peculiarity about her feet?" he went on, eagerly. "Why do you wish to
know?" I said. "She had crooked toes, that is all." "Good heavens!" he
exclaimed, "then she has been with us in the _salle-a-manger_." I have
never met Miss Hill since, and I am not in a position to say if she has
evinced any further possession of clairvoyant power; but she certainly
displayed it on that occasion to a remarkable degree; for she had never
even heard of the existence of my sister Emily, and was very much
disturbed and annoyed when told that the apparition she had described
was reality and not imagination.




CHAPTER X.

THE STORY OF THE GREEN LADY.


The story I have to tell now happened a very short time ago, and every
detail is as fresh in my mind as if I had heard and seen it yesterday.
Mrs. Guppy-Volckman has been long known to the spiritualistic world as a
very powerful medium, also as taking a great private interest in
Spiritualism, which all media do not. Her means justify her, too, in
gratifying her whims; and hearing that a certain house in Broadstairs
was haunted, she became eager to ascertain the truth. The house being
empty, she procured the keys from the landlord, and proceeded on a
voyage of discovery alone. She had barely recovered, at the time, from a
most dangerous illness, which had left a partial paralysis of the lower
limbs behind it; it was therefore with considerable difficulty that she
gained the drawing-room of the house, which was on the first floor, and
when there she abandoned her crutches, and sat down on the floor to
recover herself. Mrs. Volckman was now perfectly alone. She had closed
the front door after her, and she was moreover almost helpless, as it
was with great difficulty that she could rise without assistance. It was
on a summer's evening towards the dusky hour, and she sat on the bare
floor of the empty house waiting to see what might happen. After some
time (I tell this part of the story as I received it from her lips) she
heard a rustling or sweeping sound, as of a long silk train coming down
the uncarpeted stairs from the upper storey. The room in which she sat
communicated with another, which led out upon the passage, and it was
not long before the door between these two apartments opened and the
figure of a woman appeared. She entered the room in which Mrs. Volckman
sat, very cautiously, and commenced to walk round it, feeling her way
along the walls as though she were blind or tipsy. She was dressed in a
green satin robe that swept behind her--round the upper part of her body
was a kind of scarf of glistening white material, like silk gauze--and
on her head was a black velvet cap, or coif, from underneath which her
long black hair fell down her back. Mrs. Volckman, although used all her
life to manifestations and apparitions of all sorts, told me she had
never felt so frightened at the sight of one before. She attempted to
rise, but feeling her incapability of doing so quickly, she screamed
with fear. As soon as she did so, the woman turned round and ran out of
the room, apparently as frightened as herself. Mrs. Volckman got hold of
her crutches, scrambled to her feet, found her way downstairs, and
reached the outside of the house in safety. Most people would never have
entered it again. She, on the contrary, had an interview with the
landlord, and actually, then and there, purchased a lease of the house
and entered upon possession, and as soon as it was furnished and ready
for occupation, she invited a party of friends to go down and stay with
her at Broadstairs, and make the acquaintance of the "Green Lady," as we
had christened her. Colonel Lean and I were amongst the visitors, the
others consisting of Lady Archibald Campbell, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Olive,
Mrs. Bellew, Colonel Greck, Mr. Charles Williams, and Mr. and Mrs. Henry
Volckman, which, with our host and hostess, made up a circle of twelve.
We assembled there on a bright day in July, and the house, with its
large rooms and windows facing the sea, looked cheerful enough. The room
in which Mrs. Volckman had seen the apparition was furnished as a
drawing-room, and the room adjoining it, which was divided by a
_portiere_ only from the larger apartment, she had converted for
convenience sake into her bedroom. The first evening we sat it was about
seven o'clock, and so light that we let down all the venetians, which,
however, did little to remedy the evil. We had no cabinet, nor curtains,
nor darkness, for it was full moon at the time, and the dancing,
sparkling waves were quite visible through the interstices of the
venetians. We simply sat round the table, holding hands in an unbroken
circle and laughing and chatting with each other. In a few minutes Mrs.
Volckman said something was rising beside her from the carpet, and in a
few more the "Green Lady" was visible to us all standing between the
mediu

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