Dreams and Dream Stories
by Anna Bonus Kingsford · English · Gutenberg #5651 · 470,499 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dreams and Dream Stories
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Dreams and Dream Stories
Author: Anna Bonus Kingsford
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5651]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5651
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS AND DREAM STORIES ***
Digital Transcription--M.R.J.
Dreams and Dream Stories
By Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
Contents
Preface
Part I
Dreams
I. The Doomed Train
II. The Wonderful Spectacles
III. The Counsel of Perfection
IV. The City of Blood
V. The Bird and the Cat
VI. The Treasure in the Lighted House
VII. The Forest Cathedral
VIII. The Enchanted Woman
IX. The Banquet of the Gods
X. The Difficult Path
XI. A Lion in the Way
XII. A Dream of Disembodiment
XIII. The Perfect Way with Animals
XIV. The Laboratory Underground
XV. The Old Young Man
XVI. The Metempsychosis
XVII. The Three Kings
XVIII. The Armed Goddess
XIX. The Game of Cards
XX. The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse
XXI. The Haunted Inn
XXII. An Eastern Apologue
XXIII. A Haunted House Indeed!
XXIV. The Square in the Hand
Dream Verses
I. "Through the Ages"
II. A Fragment
III. A Fragment
IV. Signs of the Times
V. With the Gods
Part II
Dream Stories
I. A Village of Seers
II. Steepside; A Ghost Story
III. Beyond the Sunset
IV. A Turn of Luck
V. Noemi
VI. The Little Old Man's Story
VII. The Nightshade
VIII. St. George the Chevalier
Preface*
The chronicles which I am about to present to the reader are not
the result of any conscious effort of the imagination. They are,
as the title-page indicates, records of dreams, occurring at intervals
during the last ten years, and transcribed, pretty nearly in the
order of their occurrence, from my Diary. Written down as soon as
possible after awaking from the slumber during which they presented
themselves, these narratives, necessarily unstudied in style and
wanting in elegance of diction, have at least the merit of fresh
and vivid color, for they were committed to paper at a moment when
the effect and impress of each successive vision were strong and
forceful in the mind, and before the illusion of reality conveyed
by the scenes witnessed and the sounds heard in sleep had had time
to pass away.
I do not know whether these experiences of mine are unique. So far,
I have not yet met with any one in whom the dreaming faculty appears
to be either so strongly or so strangely developed as in myself.
Most dreams, even when of unusual vividness and lucidity, betray
a want of coherence in their action, and an incongruity of detail
and dramatis personae, that stamp
---------------
* Written in 1886. Some of the experiences in this volume were
subsequent to that date. This publication is made in accordance
with the author's last wishes. (Ed.)
--------------
them as the product of incomplete and disjointed cerebral function.
But the most remarkable features of the experiences I am about to
record are the methodical consecutiveness of their sequences, and
the intelligent purpose disclosed alike in the events witnessed and
in the words heard or read. Some of these last, indeed, resemble,
for point and profundity, the apologues of Eastern scriptures; and,
on more than one occasion, the scenery of the dream has accurately
portrayed characteristics of remote regions, city, forest and mountain,
which in this existence at least I have never beheld, nor, so far
as I can remember, even heard described, and yet, every feature
of these unfamiliar climes has revealed itself to my sleeping vision
with a splendour of coloring and distinctness of outline which made
the waking life seem duller and less real by contrast. I know of
no parallel to this phenomenon unless in the pages of Bulwer Lytton's
romance entitled--"The Pilgrims of the Rhine," in which is related
the story of a German student endowed with so marvellous a faculty
of dreaming, that for him the normal conditions of sleeping and
waking became reversed, his true life was that which he lived in
his slumbers, and his hours of wakefulness appeared to him as so
many uneventful and inactive intervals of arrest occurring in an
existence of intense and vivid interest which was wholly passed
in the hypnotic state. Not that to me there is any such inversion
of natural conditions. On the contrary, the priceless insights
and illuminations I have acquired by means of my dreams have gone
far to elucidate for me many difficulties and enigmas of life, and
even of religion, which might otherwise have remained dark to me,
and to throw upon the events and vicissitudes of a career filled
with bewildering situations, a light which, like sunshine, has
penetrated to the very causes and springs of circumstance, and has
given meaning and fitness to much in my life that would else have
appeared to me incoherent or inconsistent.
I have no theory to offer the reader in explanation of my faculty,
--at least in so far as its physiological aspect is concerned.
Of course, having received a medical education, I have speculated
about the modus operandi of the phenomenon, but my speculations
are not of such a character as to entitle them to presentation in
the form even of an hypothesis. I am tolerably well acquainted
with most of the propositions regarding unconscious cerebration,
which have been put forward by men of science, but none of these
propositions can, by any process of reasonable expansion or
modification, be made to fit my case. Hysteria, to the multiform
and manifold categories of which, medical experts are wont to refer
the majority of the abnormal experiences encountered by them, is
plainly inadequate to explain or account for mine. The singular
coherence and sustained dramatic unity observable in these dreams,
as well as the poetic beauty and tender subtlety of the instructions
and suggestions conveyed in them do not comport with the conditions
characteristic of nervous disease. Moreover, during the whole period
covered by these dreams, I have been busily and almost continuously
engrossed with scientific and literary pursuits demanding accurate
judgment and complete self-possession and rectitude of mind. At
the time when many of the most vivid and remarkable visions occurred,
I was following my course as a student at the Paris Faculty of
Medicine, preparing for examinations, daily visiting hospital wards
as dresser, and attending lectures. Later, when I had taken my
degree, I was engaged in the duties of my profession and in writing
for the press on scientific subjects. Neither have I ever taken
opium, hashish or other dream-producing agent. A cup of tea or
coffee represents the extent of my indulgences in this direction.
I mention these details in order to guard against inferences which
otherwise might be drawn as to the genesis of my faculty.
With regard to the interpretation and application of particular
dreams, I think it best to say nothing. The majority are obviously
allegorical, and although obscure in parts, they are invariably
harmonious, and tolerably clear in meaning to persons acquainted
with the method of Greek and Oriental myth. I shall not, therefore,
venture on any explanation of my own, but shall simply record the
dreams as they passed before me, and the impressions left upon my
mind when I awoke.
Unfortunately, in some instances, which are not, therefore, here
transcribed, my waking memory failed to recall accurately, or
completely, certain discourses heard or written words seen in the
course of the vision, which in these cases left but a fragmentary
impression on the brain and baffled all waking endeavor to recall
their missing passages.
These imperfect experiences have not, however, been numerous; on
the contrary, it is a perpetual marvel to me to find with what ease
and certainty I can, as a rule, on recovering ordinary consciousness,
recall the picture witnessed in my sleep, and reproduce the words
I have heard spoken or seen written.
Sometimes several interims of months occur during which none of these
exceptional visions visit me, but only ordinary dreams, incongruous
and insignificant after their kind. Observation, based on an
experience of considerable length, justifies me, I think, in saying
that climate, altitude, and electrical conditions are not without
their influence in the production of the cerebral state necessary
to the exercise of the faculty I have described. Dry air, high
levels, and a crisp, calm, exhilarating atmosphere favor its activity;
while, on the other hand, moisture, proximity to rivers, cloudy
skies, and a depressing, heavy climate, will, for an indefinite
period, suffice to repress it altogether. It is not, therefore,
surprising that the greater number of these dreams, and, especially,
the most vivid, detailed and idyllic, have occurred to me while
on the continent. At my own residence on the banks of the Severn,
in a humid, low-lying tract of country, I very seldom experience
such manifestations, and sometimes, after a prolonged sojourn at
home, am tempted to fancy that the dreaming gift has left me never
to return. But the results of a visit to Paris or to Switzerland
always speedily reassure me; the necessary magnetic or psychic
tension never fails to reassert itself; and before many weeks have
elapsed my Diary is once more rich with the record of my
nightly visions.
Some of these phantasmagoria have furnished me with the framework, and
even details, of stories which from time to time I have contributed
to various magazines. A ghost story,* published some years ago in
a London magazine, and much commented on because of its peculiarly
weird and startling character, had this origin; so had a fairy tale,**
which appeared in a Christmas Annual last year, and which has recently
been re-issued in German by the editor of a foreign periodical. Many
of my more
---------------
* "Steepside"
** "Beyond the Sunset"
----------------
serious contributions to literature have been similarly initiated;
and, more than once, fragments of poems, both in English and other
languages, have been heard or read by me in dreams. I regret much
that I have not yet been able to recover any one entire poem. My
memory always failed before I could finish writing out the lines,
no matter how luminous and recent the impressions made by them on
my mind.* However, even as regards verses, my experience has been
far richer and more successful than that of Coleridge, the only
product of whose faculty in this direction was the poetical fragment
Kubla Khan, and there was no scenic dreaming on the occasion, only
the verses were thus obtained; and I am not without hope that at
some future time, under more favorable conditions than those I now
enjoy, the broken threads may be resumed and these chapters of dream
verse perfected and made complete.
It may, perhaps, be worthy of remark that by far the larger number
of the dreams set down in this volume, occurred towards dawn;
sometimes even, after sunrise, during a "second sleep." A condition
of fasting, united possibly, with some subtle magnetic or other
atmospheric state, seems therefore to be that most open to impressions
of the kind. And, in this connection, I think it right to add that
for the past fifteen years I have been an abstainer from flesh-meats;
not a "Vegetarian," because during the whole of that period I have
used such
-----------
* The poem entitled "A Discourse on the Communion of Souls; or, the
Uses of Love between Creature and Creature, Being a part of the
Golden Book of Venus," which forms one of the appendices to "The
Perfect Way," would be an exception to this rule but that it was
necessary for the dream to be repeated before the whole poem could
be recalled. (Ed.)
--------------
animal produce as butter, cheese, eggs, and milk. That the influence
of fasting and of sober fare upon the perspicacity of the sleeping
brain was known to the ancients in times when dreams were far more
highly esteemed than they now are, appears evident from various
passages in the records of theurgy and mysticism. Philostratus,
in his "Life of Apollonius Tyaneus," represents the latter as informing
King Phraotes that "the Oneiropolists, or Interpreters of Visions,
are wont never to interpret any vision till they have first inquired
the time at which it befell; for, if it were early, and of the
morning sleep, they then thought that they might make a good
interpretation thereof (that is, that it might be worth the
interpreting), in that the soul was then fitted for divination,
and disencumbered. But if in the first sleep, or near midnight,
while the soul was as yet clouded and drowned in libations, they,
being wise, refused to give any interpretation. Moreover, the gods
themselves are of this opinion, and send their oracles only into
abstinent minds. For the priests, taking him who doth so consult,
keep him one day from meat and three days from wine, that he may
in a clear soul receive the oracles." And again, Iamblichus, writing
to Agathocles, says:--"There is nothing unworthy of belief in what
you have been told concerning the sacred sleep, and seeing by means
of dreams. I explain it thus:--The soul has a twofold life, a lower
and a higher. In sleep the soul is liberated from the constraint
of the body, and enters, as an emancipated being, on its divine
life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds
objects that truly are--the objects in the world of intelligence--
stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can be astonished that
the mind which contains in itself the principles of all events,
should, in this its state of liberation, discern the future in those
antecedent principles which will constitute that future? The nobler
part of the mind is thus united by abstraction to higher natures,
and becomes a participant in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the
gods . . . . The night-time of the body is the day-time of the soul."
But I have no desire to multiply citations, nor to vex the reader
with hypotheses inappropriate to the design of this little work.
Having, therefore, briefly recounted the facts and circumstances
of my experience so far as they are known to myself, I proceed,
without further commentary, to unroll my chart of dream-pictures,
and leave them to tell their own tale.
--A.B.K.
I. The Doomed Train*
I was visited last night by a dream of so strange and vivid a kind
that I feel impelled to communicate it to you, not only to relieve
my own mind of the impression which the recollection of it causes me,
but also to give you an opportunity of finding the meaning, which
I am sill far too much shaken and terrified to seek for myself.
It seemed to me that you and I were two of a vast company of men
and women, upon all of whom, with the exception of myself--for I
was there voluntarily--sentence of death had been passed. I was
sensible of the knowledge--how obtained I know not--that this terrible
doom had been pronounced by the official agents of some new reign
of terror. Certain I was that none of the party had really been
guilty of any crime deserving of death; but that the penalty had
been incurred through
------------------
* This narrative was addressed to the friend particularly referred
to in it. The dream occurred near the close of 1876, and on the
eve, therefore, of the Russo-Turkish war, and was regarded by us
both as having relation to a national crisis, of a moral and spiritual
character, our interest in which was so profound as to be destined
to dominate all our subsequent lives and work. (Author's Note.)
---------------
their connection with some regime, political, social or religious,
which was doomed to utter destruction. It became known among us
that the sentence was about to be carried out on a colossal scale;
but we remained in absolute ignorance as to the place and method
of the intended execution. Thus far my dream gave me no intimation
of the horrible scene which next burst on me,--a scene which strained
to their utmost tension every sense of sight, hearing and touch,
in a manner unprecedented in any dream I have previously had.
It was night, dark and starless, and I found myself, together with
the whole company of doomed men and women who knew that they were
soon to die, but not how or where, in a railway train hurrying
through the darkness to some unknown destination. I sat in a
carriage quite at the rear end of the train, in a corner seat, and
was leaning out of the open window, peering into the darkness, when,
suddenly, a voice, which seemed to speak out of the air, said to
me in a low, distinct, in-tense tone, the mere recollection of which
makes me shudder,--"The sentence is being carried out even now.
You are all of you lost. Ahead of the train is a frightful precipice
of monstrous height, and at its base beats a fathomless sea. The
railway ends only with the abyss, Over that will the train hurl
itself into annihilation, There Is No One On The Engine!"
At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and looked round at the
faces of the persons in the carriage with me. No one of them had
spoken, or had heard those awful words. The lamplight from the
dome of the carriage flickered on the forms, about me. I looked
from one to the other, but saw no sign of alarm given by any of them.
Then again the voice out of the air spoke to me,--"There is but
one way to be saved. You must leap out of the train!"
In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage door and stepped out
on the footboard. The train was going at a terrific pace, swaying
to and fro as with the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind
of its passage beat my hair about my face and tore at my garments.
Until this moment I had not thought of you, or even seemed conscious
of your presence in the train. Holding tightly on to the rail by
the carriage door, I began to creep along the footboard towards the
engine, hoping to find a chance of dropping safely down on the line.
Hand over hand I passed along in this way from one carriage to another;
and as I did so I saw by the light within each carriage that the
passengers had no idea of the fate upon which they were being hurried.
At length, in one of the compartments, I saw you. "Come out!" I cried;
"come out! Save yourself! In another minute we shall be dashed
to pieces!"
You rose instantly, wrenched open the door, and stood beside me
outside on the footboard. The rapidity at which we were going was
now more fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled onwards.
The wind shrieked as we were carried through it. "Leap down," I
cried to you; "save yourself! It is certain death to stay here.
Before us is an abyss; and there is no one on the engine!"
At this you turned your face full upon me with a look of intense
earnestness, and said, "No, we will not leap down. We will stop
the train."
With these words you left me, and crept along the foot-board towards
the front of the train. Full of half angry anxiety at what seemed
to me a Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages we
passed I saw my mother and eldest brother, unconscious as the rest.
Presently we reached the last carriage, and saw by the lurid light
of the furnace that the voice had spoken truly, and that there was
no one on the engine.
You continued to move onwards. "Impossible! Impossible!" I cried;
"It cannot be done. O, pray, come away."
Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said,--"You are right. It
cannot be done in that way; but we can save the train. Help me
to get these irons asunder."
The engine was connected with the train by two great iron hooks
and staples. By a tremendous effort, in making which I almost lost
my balance, we unhooked the irons and detached the train; when,
with a mighty leap as of some mad supernatural monster, the engine
sped on its way alone, shooting back as it went a great flaming
trail of sparks, and was lost in the darkness. We stood together
on the footboard, watching in silence the gradual slackening of
the speed. When at length the train had come to a standstill, we
cried to the passengers, "Saved! Saved!" and then amid the confusion
of opening the doors and descending and eager talking, my dream
ended, leaving me shattered and palpitating with the horror of it.
--London, Nov. 1876.
II. The Wonderful Spectacles*
I was walking alone on the seashore. The day was singularly clear
and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape ever seen;
and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks of which
were white with glittering snows. Along the sands by the sea came
towards me a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter.
It was from you. It ran thus:--
"I have got hold of the earliest and most precious book extant.
It was written before the world began. The text is easy enough
to read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are
in such minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them out.
I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used to
wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian
Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid.
I think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-glass
maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you
can get them for me."
When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman
hastening away across the sands, and I cried out to him, "Stop!
how am I to send the answer? Will you not wait for it?"
He looked round, stopped, and came back to me.
"I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter-bag, "and I
shall deliver it immediately."
-------------
* From another letter to the friend mentioned in the note appended
to the "Doomed Train."--(Author's Note.)
-------------
"How can you have the answer before I have written it?" I asked.
"You are making a mistake."
"No," he said." In the city from which I come, the replies are
all written at the office, and sent out with the letters themselves.
Your reply is in my bag."
"Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from his wallet
and gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my own handwriting,
this answer, addressed to you:--
"The spectacles you want can be bought in London. But you will
not be able to use them at once, for they have not been worn for
many years, and they sadly want cleaning. This you will not be
able to do yourself in London, because it is too dark there to see
well, and because your fingers are not small enough to clean them
properly. Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you."
I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and nodded at me;
and I then perceived to my astonishment that he wore a camel's-hair
tunic round his waist. I had been on the point of addressing him--
I know not why--as Hermes. But I now saw that he must be John the
Baptist; and in my fright at having spoken with so great a saint,
I awoke!
--London, Jan. 31, 1877
------------------------
* The dreamer knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was quite
unaware that he was an optician. Subsequent experience made it clear
that the spectacles in question were intended to represent her own
remarkable faculty of intuitional and interpretative perception. (Ed.)
-------------------
III. The Counsel of Perfection
I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in it seven
persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and each of them had
before him a scroll, some having books also; and all were greyheaded
and bent with age save one, and this was a youth of about twenty
without hair on his face. One of the aged men, who had his finger
on a place in a book open before him, said:
"This spirit, who is of our order, writes in this book,--'Be ye
perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.' How shall
we understand this word `perfection'?" And another, of the old
men, looking up, answered, "It must mean wisdom, for wisdom is the
sum of perfection." And another old man said, "That cannot be;
for no creature can be wise as God is wise. Where is he among us
who could attain to such a state? That which is part only, cannot
comprehend the whole. To bid a creature to be wise as God is wise
would be mockery."
Then a fourth old man said:--"It must be Truth that is intended.
For truth only is perfection." But he who sat next the last speaker
answered, "Truth also is partial; for where is he among us who
shall be able to see as God sees?"
And the sixth said, "It must surely be justice; for this is the
whole of righteousness." And the old man who had spoken first,
answered him: "Not so; for justice comprehends vengeance, and
it is written that vengeance is the Lord's alone."
Then the young man stood up with an open book in his hand and said:
--"I have here another record of one who likewise heard these words.
Let us see whether his rendering of them can help us to the knowledge
we seek." And he found a place in the book and read aloud:--
"Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful."
And all of them closed their books and fixed their eyes upon me.
--London, April 9, 1877
IV. The City of Blood
I dreamed that I was wandering along a narrow street of vast length,
upon either hand of which was an unbroken line of high straight
houses, their walls and doors resembling those of a prison. The
atmosphere was dense and obscure, and the time seemed that of twilight;
in the narrow line of sky visible far overhead between the two rows
of house-roofs, I could not discern sun, moon, or stars, or color
of any kind. All was grey, impenetrable, and dim. Underfoot, between
the paving-stones of the street, grass was springing. Nowhere was
the least sign of life: the place seemed utterly deserted. I stood
alone in the midst of profound silence and desolation. Silence?
No! As I listened, there came to my ears from all sides, dully
at first and almost imperceptibly, a low creeping sound like subdued
moaning; a sound that never ceased, and that was so native to the
place, I had at first been unaware of it. But now I clearly gathered
in the sound and recognised it as expressive of the intensest physical
suffering. Looking steadfastly towards one of the houses from which
the most distinct of these sounds issued, I perceived a stream of
blood slowly oozing out from beneath the door and trickling down
into the street, staining the tufts of grass red here and there,
as it wound its way towards me. I glanced up and saw that the glass
in the closed and barred windows of the house was flecked and splashed
with the same horrible dye.
"Some one has been murdered in this place!" I cried, and flew towards
the door. Then, for the first time, I perceived that the door had
neither lock nor handle on the outside, but could be opened only
from within. It had, indeed, the form and appearance of a door,
but in every other respect it was solid and impassable as the walls
themselves. In vain I searched for bell or knocker, or for some
means of making entry into the house. I found only a scroll fastened
with nails upon a crossbeam over the door, and upon it I read the
words:--"This is the Laboratory of a Vivisector." As I read, the
wailing sound redoubled in intensity, and a noise as of struggling
made itself audible within, as though some new victim had been added
to the first. I beat madly against the door with my hands and
shrieked for help; but in vain. My dress was reddened with the
blood upon the door step. In horror I looked down upon it, then
turned and fled. As I passed along the street, the sounds around
me grew and gathered volume, formulating themselves into distinct
cries and bursts of frenzied sobbing. Upon the door of every house
some scroll was attached, similar to that I had already seen. Upon
one was inscribed:--"Here is a husband murdering his wife:" upon
another:--"Here is a mother beating her child to death:" upon a
third: "This is a slaughter-house."
Every door was impassable; every window was barred. The idea of
interference from without was futile. Vainly I lifted my voice
and cried for aid. The street was desolate as a graveyard; the
only thing that moved about me was the stealthy blood that came
creeping out from beneath the doors of these awful dwellings. Wild
with horror I fled along the street, seeking some outlet, the cries
and moans pursuing me as I ran. At length the street abruptly ended
in a high dead wall, the top of which was not discernible; it seemed,
indeed, to be limitless in height. Upon this wall was written in
great black letters-- "There is no way out."
Overwhelmed with despair and anguish, I fell upon the stones of
the street, repeating aloud "There is no way out."
- Hinton, Jan. 1877
V. The Bird and the Cat *
I dreamt that I had a beautiful bird in a cage, and that the cage
was placed on a table in a room where there was a cat. I took the
bird out of the cage and put him on the table. Instantly the cat
sprang upon
-----------------
* This dream and the next occurred at a moment when it had almost
been decided to relax the rule of privacy until then observed in
regard to our psychological experiences, among other ways, by
submitting them to some of the savants of the Paris Faculty,--a
project of which these dreams at once caused the abandonment. This
was not the only occasion on which a dream bore a twofold aspect,
being a warning or a prediction, according to the heed given to it. (Ed.)
------------------
him and seized him in her mouth. I threw myself upon her and strove
to wrest away her prey, loading her with reproaches and bewailing
the fate of my beautiful bird. Then suddenly some one said to me,
"You have only yourself to blame for this misfortune. While the
bird remained in his cage he was safe. Why should you have taken
him out before the eyes of the cat?"
VI. The Treasure in the Lighted House
A second time I dreamt, and saw a house built in the midst of a
forest. It was night, and all the rooms of the house were brilliantly
illuminated by lamps. But the strange thing was that the windows
were without shutters, and reached to the ground. In one of the
rooms sat an old man counting money and jewels on a table before him.
I stood in the spirit beside him, and presently heard outside the
windows a sound of footsteps and of men's voices talking together
in hushed tones. Then a face peered in at the lighted room, and
I became aware that there were many persons assembled without in
the darkness, watching the old man and his treasure. He also heard
them, and rose from his seat in alarm, clutching his gold and gems
and endeavoring to hide them.
"Who are they?" I asked him. He answered, his face white with terror;
"They are robbers and assassins. This forest is their haunt. They
will murder me, and seize my treasure." "If this be so," said I,
"why did you build your house in the midst of this forest, and why
are there no shutters to the windows? Are you mad, or a fool, that
you do not know every one can see from without into your lighted
rooms?" He looked at me with stupid despair. "I never thought
of the shutters," said he.
As we stood talking, the robbers outside congregated in great numbers,
and the old man fled from the room with his treasure bags into another
apartment. But this also was brilliantly illuminated within, and
the windows were shutterless. The robbers followed his movements
easily, and so pursued him from room to room all round the house.
Nowhere had he any shelter. Then came the sound of gouge and mallet
and saw, and I knew the assassins were breaking into the house,
and that before long, the owner would have met the death his folly
had invited, and his treasure would pass into the hands of the robbers.
--Paris, Aug. 3, 1877
VII. The Forest Cathedral
I found myself--accompanied by a guide, a young man of Oriental
aspect and habit--passing through long vistas of trees which, as
we advanced, continually changed in character. Thus we threaded
avenues of English oaks and elms, the foliage of which gave way
as we proceeded to that of warmer and moister climes, and we saw
overhead the hanging masses of broad-leaved palms, and enormous trees
whose names I do not know, spreading their fingered leaves over
us like great green hands in a manner that frightened me. Here also
I saw huge grasses which rose over my shoulders, and through which
I had at times to beat my way as through a sea; and ferns of colossal
proportions; with every possible variety and mode of tree-life
and every conceivable shade of green, from the faintest and clearest
yellow to the densest blue-green. One wood in particular I stopped
to admire. It seemed as though every leaf of its trees were of gold,
so intensely yellow was the tint of the foliage.
In these forests and thickets were numerous shrines of gods such
as the Hindus worship. Every now and then we came upon them in
open spaces. They were uncouth and rudely painted; but they all
were profusely adorned with gems, chiefly turquoises, and they all
had many arms and hands, in which they held lotus flowers, sprays
of palms, and colored berries.
Passing by these strange figures, we came to a darker part of our
course, where the character of the trees changed and the air felt
colder. I perceived that a shadow had fallen on the way; and
looking upwards I found we were passing beneath a massive roof of
dark indigo-colored pines, which here and there were positively
black in their intensity and depth. Intermingled with them were firs,
whose great, straight stems were covered with lichen and mosses of
beautiful variety, and some looking strangely like green ice-crystals.
Presently we came to a little broken-down rude kind of chapel in
the midst of the wood. It was built of stone; and masses of stone,
shapeless and moss-grown, were lying scattered about on the ground
around it. At a little rough-hewn altar within it stood a Christian
priest, blessing the elements. Overhead, the great dark sprays of
the larches and cone-laden firs swept its roof. I sat down to rest
on one of the stones, and looked upwards a while at the foliage.
Then turning my gaze again towards the earth, I saw a vast circle
of stones, moss-grown like that on which I sat, and ranged in a
circle such as that of Stonehenge. It occupied an open space in
the midst of the forest; and the grasses and climbing plants of
the place had fastened on the crevices of the stones.
One stone, larger and taller than the rest, stood at the junction
of the circle, in a place of honor, as though it had stood for a
symbol of divinity. I looked at my guide, and said, " Here, at
least, is an idol whose semblance belongs to another type than that
of the Hindus." He smiled, and turning from me to the Christian
priest at the altar, said aloud, "Priest, why do your people receive
from sacerdotal hands the bread only, while you yourselves receive
both bread and wine?" And the priest answered, "We receive no more
than they. Yes, though under another form, the people are partakers
with us of the sacred wine with its particle. The blood is the
life of the flesh, and of it the flesh is formed, and without it
the flesh could not consist. The communion is the same."
Then the young man my guide turned again to me and waved his hand
towards the stone before me. And as I looked the stone opened from
its summit to its base; and I saw that the strata within had the
form of a tree, and that every minute crystal of which it was formed,
--particles so fine that grains of sand would have been coarse in
comparison with, them,--and every atom composing its mass, were
stamped with this same tree-image, and bore the shape of the
ice-crystals, of the ferns and of the colossal palm-leaves I had
seen. And my guide said, "Before these stones were, the Tree of
Life stood in the midst of the Universe."
And again we passed on, leaving behind us the chapel and the circle
of stones, the pines and the firs: and as we went the foliage
around us grew more and more stunted and like that at home. We
traveled quickly; but now and then, through breaks and openings
in the woods, I saw solitary oaks standing in the midst of green
spaces, and beneath them kings giving judgment to their peoples,
and magistrates administering laws.
At last we came to a forest of trees so enormous that they made
me tremble to look at them. The hugeness of their stems gave them
an unearthly appearance; for they rose hundreds of feet from the
ground before they burst out far, far above us, into colossal
masses of vast-leaved foliage. I cannot sufficiently convey the
impressions of awe with which the sight of these monster trees
inspired me. There seemed to me something pitiless and phantom-like
in the severity of their enormous bare trunks, stretching on without
break or branch into the distance--overhead, and there at length
giving birth to a sea of dark waving plumes, the rustle of which
reached my ears as the sound of tossing waves.
Passing beneath these vast trees we came to others of smaller growth,
but still of the same type,--straight-stemmed, with branching foliage
at their summit. Here we stood to rest, and as we paused I became
aware that the trees around me were losing their color, and turning
by imperceptible degrees into stone. In nothing was their form
or position altered; only a cold, grey hue overspread them, and
the intervening spaces between their stems became filled up, as
though by a cloud which gradually grew substantial. Presently I
raised my eyes, and lo! overhead were the arches of a vast cathedral,
spanning the sky and hiding it from my sight. The tree stems had
become tall columns of grey stone; and their plumed tops, the carven
architraves and branching spines of Gothic sculpture. The incense
rolled in great dense clouds to their outstretching arms, and,
breaking against them, hung in floating, fragrant wreaths about
their carven sprays. Looking downwards to the altar, I found it
covered with flowers and plants and garlands, in the midst of which
stood a great golden crucifix, and I turned to my guide wishing
to question him, but he had disappeared, and I could not find him.
Then a vast crowd of worshipers surrounded me, a priest before the
altar raised the pyx and the patten in his hands. The people fell
on their knees, and bent their heads, as a great field of corn over
which a strong wind passes. I knelt with the rest, and adored with
them in silence.
--Paris, July 1877
VIII. The Enchanted Woman*
The first consciousness which broke my sleep last night was one
of floating, of being carried swiftly by some invisible force through
a vast space; then, of being gently lowered; then of light, until,
gradually, I found myself on
---------------
* On the night previous to this dream, Mrs Kingsford was awoke by
a bright light, and beheld a hand holding out towards her a glass
of foaming ale, the action being accompanied by the words, spoken
with strong emphasis,--" You must not drink this." It was not her
usual beverage, but she occasionally yielded to pressure and took
it when at home. In consequence of the above prohibition she
abstained for that day, and on the following night received this
vision, in order to fit her for which the prohibition had apparently
been imposed. It was originally entitled a Vision of the World's
Fall, on the supposition that it represented the loss of the Intuition,
mystically called the "Fall of the Woman," through the sorceries
of priestcraft. (Ed.)
------------------
my feet in a broad noon-day brightness, and before me an open country.
Hills, hills, as far as the eye could reach,--hills with snow on
their tops, and mists around their gorges. This was the first thing
I saw distinctly. Then, casting my eyes towards the ground, I
perceived that all about me lay huge masses of grey material which,
at first, I took for blocks of stone, having the form of lions;
but as I looked at them more intently, my sight grew clearer, and
I saw, to my horror, that they were really alive. A panic seized me,
and I tried to run away; but on turning, I became suddenly aware
that the whole country was filled with these awful shapes; and
the faces of those nearest to me were most dreadful, for their eyes,
and something in the expression, though not in the form, of their
faces, were human. I was absolutely alone in a terrible world peopled
with lions, too, of a monstrous kind. Recovering myself with an
effort, I resumed my flight, but, as I passed through the midst of
this concourse of monsters, it suddenly struck me that they were
perfectly unconscious of my presence. I even laid my hands, in
passing, on the heads and manes of several, but they gave no sign
of seeing me or of knowing that I touched them. At last I gained
the threshold of a great pavilion, not, apparently, built by hands,
but formed by Nature. The walls were solid, yet they were composed
of huge trees standing close together, like columns; and the roof
of the pavilion was formed by their massive foliage, through which
not a ray of outer light penetrated. Such light as there was seemed
nebulous, and appeared to rise out of the ground. In the centre
of this pavilion I stood alone, happy to have got clear away from
those terrible beasts and the gaze of their steadfast eyes.
As I stood there, I became conscious of the fact that the nebulous
light of the place was concentrating itself into a focus on the
columned wall opposite to me. It grew there, became intenser, and
then spread, revealing, as it spread, a series of moving pictures
that appeared to be scenes actually enacted before me. For the
figures in the pictures were living, and they moved before my eyes,
though I heard neither word nor sound. And this is what I saw.
First there came a writing on the wall of the pavilion:--" This
is the History of our World." These words, as I looked at them,
appeared to sink into the wall as they had risen out of it, and
to yield place to the pictures which then began to come out in
succession, dimly at first, then strong and clear as actual scenes.
First I beheld a beautiful woman, with the sweetest face and most
perfect form conceivable. She was dwelling in a cave among the
hills with her husband, and he, too, was beautiful, more like an
angel than a man. They seemed perfectly happy together; and their
dwelling was like Paradise. On every side was beauty, sunlight,
and repose. This picture sank into the wall as the writing had done.
And then came out another; the same man and woman driving together
in a sleigh drawn by reindeer over fields of ice; with all about
them glaciers and snow, and great mountains veiled in wreaths of
slowly moving mist. The sleigh went at a rapid pace, and its
occupants talked gaily to each other, so far as I could judge by
their smiles and the movement of their lips. But, what caused me
much surprise was that they carried between them, and actually in
their hands, a glowing flame, the fervor of which I felt reflected
from the picture upon my own cheeks. The ice around shone with
its brightness. The mists upon the snow mountains caught its gleam.
Yet, strong as were its light and heat, neither the man nor the
woman seemed to be burned or dazzled by it. This picture, too,
the beauty and brilliancy of which greatly impressed me, sank and
disappeared as the former.
Next, I saw a terrible looking man clad in an enchanter's robe,
standing alone upon an ice-crag. In the air above him, poised like
a dragonfly, was an evil spirit, having a head and face like that
of a human being. The rest of it resembled the tail of a comet,
and seemed made of a green fire, which flickered in and out as though
swayed by a wind. And as I looked, suddenly, through an opening
among the hills, I saw the sleigh pass, carrying the beautiful woman
and her husband; and in the same instant the enchanter also saw
it, and his face contracted, and the evil spirit lowered itself
and came between me and him. Then this picture sank and vanished.
I next beheld the same cave in the mountains which I had before seen;
and the beautiful couple together in it. Then a shadow darkened
the door of the cave; and the enchanter was there, asking admittance;
cheerfully they bade him enter, and, as he came forward with his
snake-like eyes fixed on the fair woman, I understood that he wished
to have her for his own, and was even then devising how to bear
her away. And the spirit in the air beside him seemed busy suggesting
schemes to this end. Then this picture melted and became confused,
giving place for but a brief moment to another, in which I saw the
enchanter carrying the woman away in his arms, she struggling and
lamenting, her long bright hair streaming behind her. This scene
passed from the wall as though a wind had swept over it, and there
rose up in its place a picture, which impressed me with a more vivid
sense of reality than all the rest.
It represented a market place, in the midst of which was a pile
of faggots and a stake, such as were used formerly for the burning
of heretics and witches. The market place, round which were rows
of seats as though for a concourse of spectators, yet appeared quite
deserted. I saw only three living beings present,--the beautiful
woman, the enchanter, and the evil spirit. Nevertheless, I thought
that the seats were really occupied by invisible tenants, for every
now and then there seemed to be a stir in the atmosphere as of a
great multitude; and I had, moreover, a strange sense of facing
many witnesses. The enchanter led the woman to the stake, fastened
her there with iron chains, lit the faggots about her feet and
withdrew to a short distance, where he stood with his arms folded,
looking on as the flames rose about her. I understood that she
had refused his love, and that in his fury he had denounced her as
a sorceress. Then in the fire, above the pile, I saw the evil spirit
poising itself like a fly, and rising and sinking and fluttering
in the thick smoke. While I wondered what this meant, the flames
which had concealed the beautiful woman, parted in their midst,
and disclosed a sight so horrible and unexpected as to thrill me
from head to foot, and curdle my blood. Chained to the stake there
stood, not the fair woman I had seen there a moment before, but a
hideous monster,--a woman still, but a woman with three heads, and
three bodies linked in one. Each of her long arms ended, not in
a hand, but in a claw like that of a bird of rapine. Her hair
resembled the locks of the classic Medusa, and her faces were
inexpressibly loathsome. She seemed, with all her dreadful heads
and limbs, to writhe in the flames and yet not to be consumed by them.
She gathered them in to herself; her claws caught them and drew
them down; her triple body appeared to suck the fire into itself,
as though a blast drove it. The sight appalled me. I covered my
face and dared look no more.
When at length I again turned my eyes upon the wall, the picture
that had so terrified me was gone, and instead of it, I saw the
enchanter flying through the world, pursued by the evil spirit and
that dreadful woman. Through all the world they seemed to go.
The scenes changed with marvellous rapidity. Now the picture glowed
with the wealth and gorgeousness of the torrid zone; now the
ice-fields of the North rose into view; anon a pine-forest; then
a wild seashore; but always the same three flying figures; always
the horrible three-formed harpy pursuing the enchanter, and beside
her the evil spirit with the dragonfly wings.
At last this succession of images ceased, and I beheld a desolate
region, in the midst of which sat the woman with the enchanter beside
her, his head reposing in her lap. Either the sight of her must
have become familiar to him and, so, less horrible, or she had
subjugated him by some spell. At all events, they were mated at
last, and their offspring lay around them on the stony ground, or
moved to and fro. These were lions,--monsters with human faces,
such as I had seen in the beginning of my dream. Their jaws dripped
blood; they paced backwards and forwards, lashing their tails.
Then too, this picture faded and sank into the wall as the others
had done. And through its melting outlines came out again the words
I had first seen: "This is the History of our World," only they
seemed to me in some way changed, but how; I cannot tell. The
horror of the whole thing was too strong upon me to let me dare
look longer at the wall. And I awoke, repeating to myself the
question, "How could one woman become three?"
--Hinton, Feb. 1877
IX. The Banquet of the Gods
I saw in my sleep a great table spread upon a beautiful mountain,
the distant peaks of which were covered with snow, and brilliant
with a bright light. Around the table reclined, twelve persons,
six male, six female, some of whom I recognised at once, the others
afterwards. Those whom I recognised at once were Zeus, Hera, Pallas
Athena, Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis. I knew them by the symbols
they wore. The table was covered with all kinds of fruit, of great
size, including nuts, almonds, and olives, with flat cakes of bread,
and cups of gold into which, before drinking, each divinity poured
two sorts of liquid, one of which was wine, the other water. As
I was looking on, standing on a step a little below the top of the
flight which led to the table, I was startled by seeing Hera suddenly
fix her eyes on me and say, "What seest thou at the lower end of
the table?" And I looked and answered, "I see two vacant seats."
Then she spoke again and said, "When you are able to eat of our
food and to drink of our cup, you also shall sit and feast with us."
Scarcely had she uttered these words, when Athena, who sat facing me,
added, "When you are able to eat of our food and to drink of our cup,
then you shall know as you are known." And immediately Artemis,
whom I knew by the moon upon her head; continued, "When you are
able to eat of our food and to drink of our cup, all things shall
become pure to you, and ye shall be made virgins."
Then I said, "O Immortals, what is your food and your drink, and
how does your banquet differ from ours, seeing that we also eat
no flesh, and blood has no place in our repasts?"
Then one of the Gods, whom at the time I did not know, but have
since recognised as Hermes, rose from the table, and coming to me
put into my hands a branch of a fig tree bearing upon it ripe fruit,
and said, "If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do all
things, quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm and comfort
you externally: it is heaven's gift. But do not wrest it from its
rightful purpose, as did that betrayer of your race, to fill the
veins of humanity with its contagion, and to consume your interior
being with its breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the image
which Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen fire, and it
consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good gifts, none
is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your hot foods and
drinks have consumed and dried up the magnetic power of your nerves,
sealed your senses, and cut short your lives. Now, you neither
see nor hear; for the fire in your organs consumes your senses.
Ye are all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent you a
book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall be opened."
Then, not yet recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name, Lord."
At this he laughed and answered, "I have been about you from the
beginning. I am the white cloud on the noonday sky." "Do you, then,"
I asked, "desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire in
preparing food and drink?"
Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show you the excellent
way. Two places only are vacant at our table. We have told you
all that can be shown you on the level on which you stand. But
our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your
reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified and
have come up higher. The conditions are God's; the will is with you."
These last words seemed to be repeated from the sky overhead, and
again from beneath my feet. And at the instant I fell, as if shot
down like a meteor from a vast height; and with the swiftness and
shock of the fall I awoke.
--Hinton, Sept. 1877
-----------------
* The book referred to was a volume entitled Fruit and Bread, which
had been sent anonymously on the previous morning. The fig-tree,
which both with the Hebrews and the Greeks was the type of intuitional
perception, was an especial symbol of Hermes, called by the Hebrews
Raphael. The plural used by the seer included myself as the partner
of her literary and other studies. The term virgin in its mystical
sense signifies a soul pure from admixture of matter.--(Ed.)
-----------------------
X. The Difficult Path
Having fallen asleep last night while in a state of great perplexity
about the care and education of my daughter, I dreamt as follows.
I was walking with the child along the border of a high cliff, at
the foot of which was the sea. The path was exceedingly narrow,
and on the inner side was flanked by a line of rocks and stones.
The outer side was so close to the edge of the cliff that she was
compelled to walk either before or behind me, or else on the stones.
And, as it was unsafe to let go her hand, it was on the stones that
she had to walk, much to her distress. I was in male attire, and
carried a staff in my hand. She wore skirts and had no staff;
and every moment she stumbled or her dress caught and was torn by
some jutting crag or bramble. In this way our progress was being
continually interrupted and rendered almost impossible, when suddenly
we came upon a sharp declivity leading to a steep path which wound
down the side of the precipice to the beach below. Looking down,
I saw on the shore beneath the cliff a collection of fishermen's huts,
and groups of men and women on the shingle, mending nets, hauling
up boats, and sorting fish of various kinds. In the midst of the
little village stood a great crucifix of lead, so cast in a mould
as to allow me from the elevated position I occupied behind it,
to see that though in front it looked solid, it was in reality hollow.
As I was noting this, a voice of some one close at hand suddenly
addressed me; and on turning my head I found standing before me
a man in the garb of a fisherman, who evidently had just scaled
the steep path leading from the beach. He stretched out his hand
to take the child, saying he bad come to fetch her, for that in
the path I was following there was room only for one. "Let her
come to us," he added; "she will do very well as a fisherman's
daughter." Being reluctant to part with her, and not perceiving
then the significance of his garb and vocation, I objected that
the calling was a dirty and unsavoury one, and would soil her hands
and dress. Whereupon the man became severe, and seemed to insist
with a kind of authority upon my acceptance of his proposition.
The child, too, was taken with him, and was moreover anxious to
leave the rough and dangerous path; and she accordingly went to
him of her own will and, placing her hand in his, left me without
any sign of regret, and I went on my way alone. Then lifting my
eyes to see whither my path led, I beheld it winding along the edge
of the cliff to an apparently endless distance, until, as I gazed
steadily on the extreme limit of my view, I saw the grey mist from
the sea here and there break and roll up into great masses of
slow-drifting cloud, in the intervals of which I caught the white
gleam of sunlit snow. And these intervals continually closed up
to open again in fresh places higher up, disclosing peak upon peak
of a range of mountains of enormous altitude.*
By a curious coincidence, the very morning after this dream, a friend,
who knew of my perplexity, called to
----------
* Always the symbol of high mystical insight and spiritual attainment--
Biblically called "the Hill of the Lord" and "Mount of God. " (Ed.)
----------
recommend a school in a certain convent as one suitable for my child.
There were, however, insuperable objections to the scheme.
--Paris, Nov. 3, 1877
XI. A Lion In the Way
Owing to the many and great difficulties thrown in my way, I had
been seriously considering the advisability of withdrawing, if only
for a time, from my course of medical study, when I received the
following dream, which determined me to persevere:--
I found myself on the same narrow, rugged, and precipitous path
described in my last dream, and confronted by a lion. Afraid to
pass him I turned and fled. On this the beast gave chase, when,
finding escape by flight hopeless, I turned and boldly faced him.
Whereupon the lion at once stopped and slunk to the side of the path,
and suffered me to pass unmolested, though I was so close to him
that I could not avoid touching him with my garments in passing.
--Paris, Nov. 15, 1877
------------
* The prognostic was fully justified by the event.--(Ed.)
-------------
XII. A Dream of Disembodiment
I dreamt that I was dead, and wanted to take form and appear to C.
in order to converse with him. And it was suggested by those about me--
spirits like myself I suppose--that I might materialise myself through
the medium of some man whom they indicated to me. Coming to the
place where he was, I was directed to throw myself out forward towards
him by an intense concentration of will; which I accordingly tried
to do, but without success, though the effort I made was enormous.
I can only compare it to the attempt made by a person unable to
swim, to fling himself off a platform into deep water. Do all I
would, I could not gather myself up for it; and although encouraged
and stimulated, and assured I had only to let myself go, my attempts
were ineffectual. Even when I had sufficiently collected and prepared
myself in one part of my system, the other part failed me.
At length it was suggested to me that I should find it easier if
I first took on me the form of the medium. This I at length succeeded
in doing, and, to my annoyance, so completely that I materialised
myself into the shape not only of his features, but of his clothing
also. The effort requisite for this exhausted me to the utmost,
so that I was unable to keep up the apparition for more than a few
minutes, when I had no choice but to yield to the strain and let
myself go again, only in the opposite way. So I went out, and mounted
like a sudden flame, and saw myself for a moment like a thin streak
of white mist rising in the air; while the comfort and relief I
experienced by regaining my light spirit-condition, were indescribable.
It was because I had, for want of skill, dematerialised myself without
sufficient deliberation, that I had thus rapidly mounted in the air.
After an interval I dreamt that, wishing to see what A. would do
in case I appeared to him after my death, I went to him as a spirit
and called him by his name. Upon hearing my voice he rose and went
to the window and looked out uneasily. On my going close to him
and speaking in his ear, he was much disturbed, and ran his hand
through his hair and rubbed his head in a puzzled and by no means
pleased manner. At the third attempt to attract his attention he
rushed to the door, and, calling for a glass, poured out some wine,
which he drank. On seeing this, and finding him inaccessible,
I desisted, thinking it must often happen to the departed to be
distressed by the inability or unwillingness of those they love to
receive and recognise them.
--Paris, Jan. 1878
XIII. The Perfect Way with Animals
I saw in my sleep a cart-horse who, coming to me, conversed with
me in what seemed a perfectly simple and natural manner, for it
caused me no surprise that he should speak. And this is what he said:--
"Kindness to animals of the gentler orders is the very foundation
of civilisation. For it is the cruelty and harshness of men towards
the animals under their protection which is the cause of the present
low standard of humanity itself. Brutal usage creates brutes;
and the ranks of mankind are constantly recruited from spirits
already hardened and depraved by a long course of ill-treatment.
Nothing developes the spirit so much as sympathy. Nothing cultivates,
refines, and aids it in its progress towards perfection so much as
kind and gentle treatment. On the contrary, the brutal usage and
want of sympathy with which we meet at the hands of men, stunt our
development and reverse all the currents of a our nature. We grow
coarse with coarseness, vile with reviling, and brutal with the
brutality of those who surround us. And when we pass out of this
stage we enter on the next depraved and hardened, and with the bent
of our dispositions such that we are ready by our nature to do in
our turn that which has been done to us. The greater number of us,
indeed, know no other or better way. For the spirit learns by
experience and imitation, and inclines necessarily to do those
things which it has been in the habit of seeing done. Humanity
will never become perfected until this doctrine is understood and
received and made the rule of conduct."
--Paris, Oct. 28, 1879
XIV. The Laboratory Underground
I dreamed that I found myself underground in a vault artificially
lighted. Tables were ranged along the walls of the vault, and upon
these tables were bound down the living bodies of half-dissected
and mutilated animals. Scientific experts were busy at work on
their victims with scalpel, hot iron and forceps. But, as I looked
at the creatures lying bound before them, they no longer appeared
to be mere rabbits, or hounds, for in each I saw a human shape,
the shape of a man, with limbs and lineaments resembling those of
their torturers, hidden within the outward form. And when they
led into the place an old worn-out horse, crippled with age and
long toil in the service of man, and bound him down, and lacerated
his flesh with their knives, I saw the human form within him stir
and writhe as though it were an unborn babe moving in its mother's
womb. And I cried aloud--"Wretches! you are tormenting an unborn man!"
But they heard not, nor could they see what I saw. Then they brought
in a white rabbit, and thrust its eyes through with heated irons.
And as I gazed, the rabbit seemed to me like a tiny infant, with
human face, and hands which stretched themselves towards me in
appeal, and lips which sought to cry for help in human accents.
And I could bear no more, but broke forth into a bitter rain of
tears, exclaiming--"O blind! blind! not to see that you torture a
child, the youngest of your own flesh and blood!"
And with that I woke, sobbing vehemently.
--Paris, Feb. 2, 1880
XV. The Old Young Man
I dreamed that I was in Rome with C., and a friend of his called
on us there, and asked leave to introduce to us a young man, a student
of art, whose history and condition were singular. They came together
in the evening. In the room where we sat was a kind of telephonic
tube, through which, at intervals, a voice spoke to me. When the
young man entered, these words were spoken in my ear through the tube:--
"You have made a good many diagnoses lately of cases of physical
disease; here is a curious and interesting type of spiritual pathology,
the like of which is rarely met with. Question this young man."
Accordingly I did so, and drew from him that about a year ago he
had been seriously ill of Roman fever; but as he hesitated, and
seemed unwilling to speak on the subject, I questioned the friend.
From him I learnt that the young man had formerly been a very
proficient pupil in one of the best-known studios in Rome, but that
a year ago he had suffered from a most terrible attack of malaria,
in consequence of his remaining in Rome to work after others had
found it necessary to go into the country, and that the malady had
so affected the nervous system that since his recovery he had been
wholly unlike his former self. His great aptitude for artistic work,
from which so much had been expected, seemed to have entirely left him;
he was no longer master of his pencil; his former faculty and
promise of excellence had vanished. The physician who had attended
him during his illness affirmed that all this was readily accounted
for by the assumption that the malaria had affected the cerebral
centres, and in particular, the nerve-cells of the memory; that
such consequences of severe continuous fever were by no means uncommon,
and might last for an indefinite period. Meanwhile the young man
was now, by slow and painful application, doing his utmost to recover
his lost power and skill. Naturally, the subject was distasteful
to him, and he shrank from discussing it. Here the voice again spoke
to me through the tube, telling me to observe the young man, and
especially his face. On this I scanned his countenance with attention,
and remarked that it wore a singularly odd look,--the look of a
man advanced in years and experience. But that I surmised to be
a not unusual effect of severe fever.
"How old do you suppose the patient to be?" asked the interrogative voice.
"About twenty years old, I suppose," said I.
"He is a year old," rejoined the voice.
"A year! How can that be?"
"If you will not allow that he is only a year old, then you must admit
that he is sixty-five, for he is certainly either one or the other."
This enigma so perplexed me, that I begged my invisible informant
for a solution of the difficulty, which was at once vouchsafed in
the following terms:--
"Here is the history of your patient. The youth who was the proficient
and gifted student, who astonished his masters, and gave such brilliant
indications of future greatness, is dead. The malaria killed him.
But he had a father, who, while alive, had loved his son as the
apple of his eye, and whose whole being and desire centred in the boy.
This father died some six years ago, about the age of sixty. After
his death his devotion to the youth continued, and as a "spirit,"
he followed him everywhere, never quitting his side. So entirely
was he absorbed in the lad and in his career, that he made no advance
in his own spiritual life, nor, indeed, was he fully aware of the
fact that he had himself quitted the earthly plane. For there are
souls which, having been obtuse and dull in their apprehension of
spiritual things during their existence in the flesh, and having
neither hopes nor aims beyond the body, are very slow to realise
the fact of their dissolution, and remain, therefore, chained to
the earth by earthly affections and interests, haunting the places
or persons they have most affected. But the young artist was not of
this order. Idealist and genius, he was already highly spiritualised
and vitalised even upon earth, and when death rent the bond between
him and his body, he passed at once from the atmosphere of carnal
things into a loftier sphere. But at the moment of his death, the
phantom father was watching beside the son's sick-bed, and filled
with agony at beholding the wreck of all the brilliant hopes he
had cherished for the boy, thought only of preserving the physical
life of that dear body, since the death of the outward form was
still for him the death of all he had loved. He would cling to it,
preserve it, re-animate it at any cost. The spirit had quitted it;
it lay before him a corpse. What, then, did the father do? With
a supreme effort of desire, ineffectual indeed to recall the departed
ghost, but potent in its reaction upon himself, he projected his
own vitality into his son's dead body, re-animated it with his own
soul, and thus effected the resuscitation for which he had so
ardently longed. So the body you now behold is, indeed, the son's
body, but the soul which animates it is that of the father. And
it is a year since this event occurred. Such is the real solution
of the problem, whose natural effects the physician attributes to
the result of disease. The spirit which now tenants this young man's
form had no knowledge of art when he was so strangely reborn into
the world, beyond the mere rudiments of drawing which he had learned
while watching his son at work during the previous six years. What,
therefore, seems to the physician to be a painful recovery of
previous aptitude, is, in fact, the imperfect endeavour of a novice
entering a new and unsuitable career.
"For the father the experience is by no means an unprofitable one.
He would certainly, sooner or later, have resumed existence upon
earth in the flesh, and it is as well that his return should be
under the actual circumstances. The study of art upon which he
has thus entered is likely to prove to him an excellent means of
spiritual education. By means of it his soul may ascend as it has
never yet done; while the habits of the body he now possesses,
trained as it is to refined and gentle modes of life, may do much
to accomplish the purgation and redemption of its new tenant.
It is far better for the father that this strange event should
have occurred, than that he should have remained an earth-bound
phantom, unable to realise his own position, or to rise above the
affection which chained him to merely worldly things."
--Paris, Feb. 21, 1880
XVI. The Metempsychosis
I was visited last night in my sleep by one whom I presently
recognised as the famous Adept and Mystic of the first century of
our era, Apollonius of Tyana, called the " Pagan Christ." He was
clad in a grey linen robe with a hood, like that of a monk, and
had a smooth, beardless face, and seemed to be between forty and
fifty years of age. He made himself known to me by asking if I
had heard of his lion.* He commenced by speaking of Metempsychosis,
concerning which he informed
---------
* This was a tame captive lion, in whom Apollonius is said to have
recognised the soul of the Egyptian King Amasis, who had lived 500
years previously. The lion burst into tears at the recognition,
and showed much misery. (Author's Note.)
----------
me as follows:--"There are two streams or currents, an upward and
a downward one, by which souls are continually passing and repassing
as on a ladder. The carnivorous animals are souls undergoing penance
by being imprisoned for a time in such forms on account of their
misdeeds. Have you not heard the story of my lion?" I said yes,
but that I did not understand it, because I thought it impossible
for a human soul to suffer the degradation of returning into the
body of a lower creature after once attaining humanity. At this
he laughed out, and said that the real degradation was not in the
penance but in the sin. "It is not by the penance, but by incurring
the need of the penance, that the soul is degraded. The man who
sullies his humanity by cruelty or lust, is already degraded thereby
below humanity; and the form which his soul afterwards assumes
is the mere natural consequence of that degradation. He may again
recover humanity, but only by means of passing through another
form than that of the carnivora. When you were told * that certain
creatures were redeemable or not redeemable, the meaning was this:
They who are redeemable may, on leaving their present form, return
directly into humanity. Their penance is accomplished in that form,
and in it, therefore, they are redeemed. But they who are not
redeemable, are they whose sin has been too deep or too ingrained
to suffer them to return until they have passed through other lower
forms. They are not redeemable therein, but will be on ascending
again. Others, altogether vile and past redemption, sink continually
lower and lower down the stream, until at length they burn out.
They shall neither be redeemed in the form they now occupy, nor in
any other."
--Paris, May 11, 1880
----------
* The reference is to an instruction received by her four years
previously, but not in sleep, and not from Apollonius, though from
a source no less transcendental. (Ed.)
*** Remembering, on being told this dream, that "Eliphas Levi,"
in his Haute Magic, had described an interview with the phantom
of Apollonius, which he had evoked, I referred to the book, and
found that he also saw him with a smooth-shaven face, but wearing
a shroud (linceul). (Ed.)
XVII. The Three Kings
The time was drawing towards dawn in a wild and desolate region.
And I stood with my genius at the foot of a mountain the summit
of which was hidden in mist. At a few paces from me stood three
persons, clad in splendid robes and wearing crowns on their heads.
Each personage carried a casket and a key: the three caskets
differed from one another, but the keys were all alike. And my
genius said to me, "These are the three kings of the East, and
they journey hither over the river that is dried up, to go up into
the mountain of Sion and rebuild the Temple of the Lord God."
Then I looked more closely at the three royalties, and I saw that
the one who stood nearest to me on the left hand was a man, and
the color of his skin was dark like that of an Indian. And the
second was in form like a woman, and her complexion was fair: and
the third had the wings of an Angel, and carried a staff of gold.
And I heard them say one to another, "Brother, what hast thou in
thy casket?" And the first answered, " I am the Stonelayer, and I
carry the implements of my craft; also a bundle of myrrh for thee
and for me." And the king who bore the aspect of a woman, answered,
"I am the Carpenter, and I bear the instruments of my craft; also
a box of frankincense for thee and for me." And the Angel-king
answered, "I am the Measurer, and I carry the secrets of the living
God, and the rod of gold to measure your work withal." Then the
first said, "Therefore let us go up into the hill of the Lord and
build the walls of Jerusalem. And they turned to ascend the mountain.
But they had not taken the first step when the king, whose name
was Stonelayer, said to him who was called the Carpenter, "Give
me first the implements of thy craft, and the plan of thy building,
that I may know after what sort thou buildest, and may fashion
thereto my masonry." And the other asked him, "What buildest thou,
brother?" And he answered, "I build the Outer Court." Then the
Carpenter unlocked his casket and gave him a scroll written over
in silver, and a crystal rule, and a carpenter's plane and a saw.
And the other took them and put them into his casket. Then the
Carpenter said to the Stonelayer, "Brother, give me also the plan
of thy building, and the tools of thy craft. For I build the Inner
Place, and must needs fit my designing to thy foundation." But
the other answered, "Nay, my brother, for I have promised the
laborers. Build thou alone. It is enough that I know thy secrets;
ask not mine of me." And the Carpenter answered, "How then shall
the Temple of the Lord be builded? Are we not of three Ages, and
is the temple yet perfected?" Then the Angel spoke, and said to
the Stonelayer, "Fear not, brother: freely hast thou received;
freely give. For except thine elder brother had been first a
Stonelayer, he could not now be a Carpenter. Art thou not of
Solomon, and he of Christ? Therefore he hath already handled thy
tools, and is of thy craft. And I also, the Measurer, I know the
work of both. But now is that time when the end cometh, and that
which hath been spoken in the ear in closets, the same shall be
proclaimed on the housetops." Then the first king unlocked his
casket, and gave to the Carpenter a scroll written in red, and a
compass and a trowel. But the Carpenter answered him: "It is enough.
I have seen, and I remember. For this is the writing King Solomon
gave into my hands when I also was a Stonelayer, and when thou wert
of the company of them that labor. For I also am thy Brother, and
that thou knowest I know also." Then the third king, the Angel,
spoke again and said, "Now is the knowledge perfected and the bond
fulfilled. For neither can the Stonelayer build alone, nor the
Carpenter construct apart. Therefore, until this day, is the Temple
of the Lord unbuilt. But now is the time come, and Salem shall
have her habitation on the Hill of the Lord."
And there came down a mist from the mountain, and out of the mist
a star. And my Genius said, "Thou shalt yet see more on this wise."
But I saw then only the mist, which filled the valley, and moistened
my hair and my dress; and so I awoke.
--London, April 30, 1882
----------
** For the full comprehension of the above dream, it is necessary
to be profoundly versed at once in the esoteric signification of
the Scriptures and in the mysteries of Freemasonry. It was the
dreamer's great regret that she neither knew, nor could know, the
latter, women being excluded from initiation. (Ed.)
XVIII. The Armed Goddess
I dreamed that I sat reading in my study, with books lying about
all round me. Suddenly a voice, marvellously clear and silvery,
called me by name. Starting up and turning, I saw behind me a long
vista of white marble columns, Greek in architecture, flanking on
either side a gallery of white marble. At the end of this gallery
stood a shape of exceeding brilliancy, the shape of a woman above
mortal height, clad from head to foot in shining mail armour. In
her right hand was a spear, on her left arm a shield. Her brow
was hidden by a helmet, and the aspect of her face was stern,--
severe even, I thought. I approached her, and as I went, my body
was lifted up from the earth, and I was aware of that strange
sensation of floating above the surface of the ground, which is so
common with me in sleep that at times I can scarce persuade myself
after waking that it has not been a real experience. When I alighted
at the end of the long gallery before the armed woman, she said to me:
"Take off the night-dress thou wearest."
I looked at my attire and was about to answer-- "This is not a
night-dress," when she added, as though perceiving my thought:--
"The woman's garb is a night-dress; it is a garment made to sleep in.
The man's garb is the dress for the day. Look eastward!"
I raised my eyes and, behind the mail-clad shape, I saw the dawn
breaking, blood-red, and with great clouds like pillars of smoke
rolling up on either side of the place where the sun was about to rise.
But as yet the sun was not visible. And as I looked, she cried aloud,
and her voice rang through the air like the clash of steel:--
"Listen!"
And she struck her spear on the marble pavement. At the same moment
there came from afar off, a confused sound of battle. Cries, and
human voices in conflict, and the stir as of a vast multitude, the
distant clang of arms and a noise of the galloping of many horses
rushing furiously over the ground. And then, sudden silence.
Again she smote the pavement, and again the sounds arose, nearer
now, and more tumultuous. Once more they ceased, and a third time
she struck the marble with her spear. Then the noises arose all
about and around the very spot where we stood, and the clang of
the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns
beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud
of their ponderous hoofs flying over the earth made, as it were,
a wind in my ears, so that it seemed as though a furious battle
were raging all around us. But I could see nothing. Only the
sounds increased, and became so violent that they awoke me, and
even after waking I still seemed to catch the commotion of them
in the air. *
--Paris, February 15, 1883.
----------
* This dream was shortly followed by Mrs Kingsford's antivivisection
expedition to Switzerland, the fierce conflict of which amply
fulfilled any predictive significance it may have had.
-----------
XIX. The Game of Cards: A Parable
I dreamed I was playing at cards with three persons, the two opposed
to me being a man and a woman with hoods pulled over their heads,
and cloaks covering their persons. I did not particularly observe
them. My partner was an old man without hood or cloak, and there
was about him this peculiarity, that he did not from one minute
to another appear to remain the same. Sometimes he looked like a
very young man, the features not appearing to change in order to
produce this effect, but an aspect of youth and even of mirth coming
into the face as though the features were lighted up from within.
Behind me stood a personage whom I could not see, for his hand and
arm only appeared, handing me a pack of cards. So far as I discerned,
it was a man's figure, habited in black. Shortly after the dream
began, my partner addressed me, saying,
"Do you play by luck or by skill?"
I answered: "I play by luck chiefly; I don't know how to play
by skill. But I have generally been lucky." In fact, I had already,
lying by me, several "tricks" I had taken. He answered me:--
"To play by luck is to trust to without; to play by skill is to
trust to within. In this game, Within goes further than Without."
"What are trumps?" I asked.
"Diamonds are trumps," he answered.
I looked at the cards in my hand and said to him:--"I have more
clubs than anything else."
At this he laughed, and seemed all at once quite a youth. "Clubs
are strong cards, after all," he said. "Don't despise the black
suits. I have known some of the best games ever played won by
players holding more clubs than you have."
I examined the cards and found something very odd about them. There
were the four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades. But the
picture cards in my hand seemed different altogether from any I
had ever seen before. One was queen of Clubs, and her face altered
as I looked at it. First it was dark,--almost dusky,--with the
imperial crown on the head; then it seemed quite fair, the crown
changing to a smaller one of English aspect, and the dress also
transforming itself. There was a queen of Hearts, too, in an antique
peasant's gown, with brown hair, and presently this melted into a
suit of armor which shone as if reflecting firelight in its burnished
scales. The other cards seemed alive likewise, even the ordinary
ones, just like the court-cards. There seemed to be pictures moving
inside the emblems on their faces. The clubs in my hand ran into
higher figures than the spades; these came next in number, and
diamonds next. I had no picture-cards of diamonds, but I had the Ace.
And this was so bright I could not look at it. Except the two queens
of Clubs and Hearts I think I had no picture-cards in my hand, and
very few red cards of any kind. There were high figures in the spades.
It was the personage behind my chair who dealt the cards always.
I said to my partner:--"It is difficult to play at all, whether
by luck or by skill, for I get such a bad hand dealt me each time."
"That is your fault," he said. "Play your best with what you have,
and next time you will get better cards."
"How can that be?" I asked.
"Because after each game, the `tricks' you take are added to the
bottom of the pack which the dealer holds, and you get the `honors'
you have taken up from the table. Play well and take all you can.
But you must put more head into it. You trust too much to fortune.
Don't blame the dealer; he can't see."
"I shall lose this game," I said presently, for the two persons
playing against us seemed to be taking up all the cards quickly,
and the "lead" never came to my turn.
"It is because you don't count your points before putting down a card,"
my partner said. "If they play high numbers, you must play higher."
"But they have all the trumps," I said.
"No," he answered, "you have the highest trump of all in your own
hand. It is the first and the last. You may take every card they
have with that, for it is the chief of the whole series. But you
have spades too, and high ones." (He seemed to know what I had.)
"Diamonds are better than spades," I answered. "And nearly all
my cards are black ones. Besides, I can't count, it wants so much
thinking. Can't you come over here and play for me?"
He shook his head, and I thought that again he laughed." No," he
replied, "that is against the law of the game. You must play for
yourself. Think it out."
He uttered these words very emphatically and with so strange an
intonation that they dissipated the rest of the dream, and I remember
no more of it. But I did "think it out;" and I found it was a parable;
of Karma.
--Atcham, Dec. 7, 1883
XX. The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse
Out of a veil of palpitating mist there arose before me in my sleep
the image of a colossal and precipitous cliff; standing sheer up
against a sky of cloud and sea-mist, the tops of the granite peaks
being merged and hidden in the vapor. At the foot of the precipice
beat a wild sea, tossing and flecked with foam; and out of the
flying spray rose sharp splinters of granite, standing like spearheads
about the base of the solid rock. As I looked, something stirred
far off in the distance, like a fly crawling over the smooth crag.
Fixing my gaze upon it I became aware that there was at a great
height above the sea, midway between sky and water, a narrow
unprotected footpath winding up and down irregularly along the side
of the mighty cliff;--a slender, sloping path, horrible to look at,
like a rope or a thread stretched mid-air, hanging between heaven
and the hungry foam. One by one, came towards me along this awful
path a procession of horses, drawing tall narrow carts filled with
bales of merchandise. The horses moved along the edge of the crag
as though they clung to it, their bodies aslant towards the wall
of granite on their right, their legs moving with the precision of
creatures feeling and grasping every step. Like deer they moved,--
not like horses, and as they advanced, the carts they drew swayed
behind them, and I thought every jolt would hurl them over the
precipice. Fascinated I watched,--I could not choose but watch.
At length came a grey horse, not drawing a cart, but carrying
something on his back,--on a pack-saddle apparently. Like the
rest he came on stealthily, sniffing every inch of the terrible way,
until, just at the worst and giddiest point he paused, hesitated,
and seemed about to turn.---I saw him back himself in a crouching
attitude against the wall of rock behind him, lowering his haunches,
and rearing his head in a strange manner. The idea flashed on me
that he would certainly turn, and then--what could happen? More
horses were advancing, and two beasts could not possibly pass each
other on that narrow ledge! But I was totally unprepared for the
ghastly thing that actually did happen. The miserable horse had
been seized with the awful mountain-madness that sometimes overtakes
men on stupendous heights,--the madness of suicide. With a frightful
scream, that sounded partly like a cry of supreme desperation, partly
like one of furious and frenzied joy, the horse reared himself to
his full height on the horrible ledge, shook his head wildly, and--
leaped with a frantic spring into the air, sheer over the precipice,
and into the foam beneath. His eyes glared as he shot into the void,
a great dark living mass against the white mist. Was he speared
on those terrible shafts of rock below, or was his life dashed out
in horrible crimson splashes against the cliffside? Or did he sink
into the reeling swirl of the foaming waters, and die more mercifully
in their steel-dark depths? I could not see. I saw only the flying
form dart through the mist like an arrow from a bow. I heard only
the appalling cry, like nothing earthly ever heard before; and I
woke in a panic, with hands tightly clasped, and my body damp with
moisture. It was but a dream--this awful picture; it was gone
as an image from a mirror, and I was awake, and gazing only upon
blank darkness.
--Atcham, Sept. 15, 1884
XXI. The Haunted Inn
I seemed in my vision to be on a long and wearisome journey, and to
have arrived at an Inn, in which I was offered shelter and rest. The
apartment given me consisted of a bedroom and parlour, communicating,
and furnished in an antique manner, everything in the rooms appearing
to be worm-eaten, dusty and out of date. The walls were bare and
dingy; there was not a picture or an ornament in the apartment.
An extremely dim light prevailed in the scene; indeed, I do not
clearly remember, whether, with the exception of the fire and a
nightlamp, the rooms were illumined at all. I seated myself in a
chair, by the hearth; it was late, and I thought only of rest.
But, presently, I became aware of strange things going on about me.
On a table in a corner lay some papers and a pencil. With a feeling
of indescribable horror I saw this pencil assume an erect position
and begin of itself to write on the paper, precisely as though an
invisible hand held and guided it. At the same time, small detonations
sounded in different parts of the room; tiny bright sparks appeared,
burst, and immediately expired in smoke. The pencil having ceased
to write, laid itself gently down, and taking the paper in my hand
I found on it a quantity of writing which at first appeared to me
to be in cipher, but I presently perceived that the words composing
it were written backwards, from right to left, exactly as one sees
writing reflected on a looking glass. What was written made a
considerable impression on me at the time, but I cannot now recall it.
I know, however, that the dominant feeling I experienced was one
of horror.
I called the owners of the inn and related to them what had taken
place. They received my statement with perfect equanimity, and
told me that in their house this was the normal state of things,
of which, in fact, they were extremely proud; and they ended by
congratulating me as a visitor much favored by the invisible agencies
of the place.
"We call them our Lights," they said.
"It is true," I observed, "that I saw lights in the air about the
room, but they went out instantaneously, and left only smoke behind
them. And why do they write backwards? Who are They?"
As I asked this last question, the pencil on the table rose again,
and wrote thus on the paper:--
".ksatonoD"
Again horror seized on me, and the air becoming full of smoke I
found it impossible to breathe. "Let me out!" I cried, "I am stifled
here,--the air is full of smoke!"
"Outside," the people of the house answered, "you will lose your way;
it is quite dark, and we have no other rooms to let. And, besides,
it is the same in all the other apartments of the inn."
"But the place is haunted!" I cried; and I pushed past them, and
burst out of the house.
Before the doorway stood a tall veiled figure, like translucent silver.
A sense of reverence overcame me. The night was balmy, and bright
almost as day with resplendent starlight. The stars seemed to lean
out of heaven; they looked down on me like living eyes, full of a
strange immeasurable sympathy. I crossed the threshold, and stood
in the open plain, breathing with rapture and relief the pure warm
air of that delicious night. How restful, calm, and glorious was
the dark landscape, outlined in purple against the luminous sky!
And what a consciousness of vastness and immensity above and around me!
"Where am I?" I cried. The silver figure stood beside me, and lifted
its veil. It was Pallas Athena.
"Under the Stars of the East," she answered me, "the true eternal
Lights of the World."
After I was awake, a text in the Gospels was vividly brought to my
mind:--"There was no room for then in the Inn." What is this Inn,
I wondered, all the rooms of which are haunted, and in which the
Christ cannot be born? And this open country under the eastern
night,--is it not the same in which they were "abiding," to whom
that Birth was first angelically announced?
--Atcham, Nov. 5, 1885
----------
** The solution of the enigma was afterwards recognised in an
instruction, also imparted in sleep, in which it was said, "If
Occultism were all, and held the key of heaven, there would be no
need of Christ." (Ed.)
XXII. An Eastern Apologue
The following was read by me during sleep, in an old book printed
in archaic type. As with many other things similarly read by me,
I do not know whether it is to be found in any book:--
"After Buddha had been ten years in retirement, certain sages sent
their disciples to him, asking him,--'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama?'
"Buddha answered them, 'I claim to be nothing.'
"Ten years afterwards they sent again to him, asking the same question,
and again Buddha answered:--'I claim to be nothing.'
"Then after yet another ten years had passed, they sent a third
time, asking, 'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama?'
"And Buddha replied, 'I claim to be the utterance of the most high God.'
"Then they said to him: 'How is this, that hitherto thou hast
proclaimed thyself to be nothing, and now thou declarest thyself
to be the very utterance of God?'
"Buddha answered: `Either I am nothing, or I am the very utterance
of God, for between these two all is silence."'
--Atcham, March 5, 1885
XXIII. A Haunted House Indeed!
I dreamt that during a tour on the Continent with my friend C. we
stayed in a town wherein there was an ancient house of horrible
reputation, concerning which we received the following account.
At the top of the house was a suite of rooms, from which no one
who entered at night ever again emerged. No corpse was ever found;
but it was said by some that the victims were absorbed bodily by
the walls; by others that there were in the rooms a number of
pictures in frames, one frame, however, containing a blank canvas,
which had the dreadful power, first, of fascinating the beholder,
and next of drawing him towards it, so that he was compelled to
approach and gaze at it. Then, by the same hideous enchantment,
he was forced to touch it, and the touch was fatal. For the canvas
seized him as a devil-fish seizes its prey, and sucked him in, so
that he perished without leaving a trace of himself, or of the
manner of his death. The legend said further that if any person
could succeed in passing a night in these rooms and in resisting
their deadly influence, the spell would for ever be broken, and
no one would thenceforth be sacrificed.
Hearing all this, and being somewhat of the knight-errant order,
C. and I determined to face the danger, and, if possible, deliver
the town from the enchantment. We were assured that the attempt
would be vain, for that it had already been many times made, and
the Devils of the place were always triumphant. They had the power,
we were told, of hallucinating the senses of their victims; we
should be subjected to some illusion, and be fatally deceived.
Nevertheless, we were resolved to try what we could do, and in order
to acquaint ourselves with the scene of the ordeal, we visited the
place in the daytime. It was a gloomy-looking building, consisting
of several vast rooms, filled with lumber of old furniture, worm-eaten
and decaying; scaffoldings, which seemed to have been erected for the
sake of making repairs and then left; the windows were curtainless,
the floors bare, and rats ran hither and thither among the rubbish
accumulated in the corners. Nothing could possibly look more desolate
and gruesome. We saw no pictures; but as we did not explore every
part of the rooms, they may have been there without our seeing them.
We were further informed by the people of the town that in order
to visit the rooms at night it was necessary to wear a special costume,
and that without it we should have no chance whatever of issuing
from them alive. This costume was of black and white, and each
of us was to carry a black stave. So we put on this attire,--which
somewhat resembled the garb of an ecclesiastical order,--and when
the appointed time came, repaired to the haunted house, where,
after toiling up the great staircase in the darkness, we reached
the door of the haunted apartments to find it closed. But light
was plainly visible beneath it, and within was the sound of voices.
This greatly surprised us; but after a short conference we knocked.
The door was presently opened by a servant, dressed as a modern
indoor footman usually is, who civilly asked us to walk in. On
entering we found the place altogether different from what we expected
to find, and had found on our daylight visit. It was brightly lighted,
had decorated walls, pretty ornaments, carpets, and every kind of
modern garnishment, and, in short, bore all the appearance of an
ordinary well-appointed private "flat." While we stood in the corridor,
astonished, a gentleman in evening dress advanced towards us from
one of the reception rooms. As he looked interrogatively at us,
we thought it best to explain the intrusion, adding that we presumed
we had either entered the wrong house, or stopped at the wrong apartment.
He laughed pleasantly at our tale, and said, "I don't know anything
about haunted rooms, and, in fact, don't believe in anything of the
kind. As for these rooms, they have for a long time been let for
two or three nights every week to our Society for the purpose of
social reunion. We are members of a musical and literary association,
and are in the habit of holding conversaziones in these rooms on
certain evenings, during which we entertain ourselves with dancing,
singing, charades, and literary gossip. The rooms are spacious and
lofty, and exactly adapted to our requirements. As you are here,
I may say, in the name of the rest of the members, that we shall
be happy if you will join us." At this I glanced at our dresses
in some confusion, which being observed by the gentleman, he hastened
to say: "You need be under no anxiety about your appearance, for
this is a costume night, and the greater number of our guests are
in travesty." As he spoke he threw open the door of a large
drawing-room and invited us in. On entering we found a company of
men and women, well-dressed, some in ordinary evening attire and
some costumed. The room was brilliantly lighted and beautifully
furnished and decorated. At one end was a grand piano, round which
several persons were grouped; others were seated on ottomans taking
tea or coffee; and others strolled about, talking. Our host, who
appeared to be master of the ceremonies, introduced us to several
persons, and we soon became deeply interested in a conversation
on literary subjects. So the evening wore on pleasantly, but I
never ceased to wonder how we could have mistaken the house or the
staircase after the precaution we had taken of visiting it in the
daytime in order to avoid the possibility of error.
Presently, being tired of conversation, I wandered away from the
group with which C. was still engaged, to look at the beautiful
decorations of the great salon, the walls of which were covered
with artistic designs in fresco. Between each couple of panels,
the whole length of the salon, was a beautiful painting, representing
a landscape or a sea-piece. I passed from one to the other, admiring
each, till I had reached the extreme end, and was far away from
the rest of the company, where the lights were not so many or so
bright as in the centre. The last fresco in the series then caught
my attention. At first it appeared to me to be unfinished; and
then I observed that there was upon its background no picture at all,
but only a background of merging tints which seemed to change, and
to be now sky, now sea, now green grass. This empty picture had,
moreover, an odd metallic coloring which fascinated me; and saying
to myself "Is there really any painting on it?" I mechanically
put out my hand and touched it. On this I was instantly seized
by a frightful sensation, a shock that ran from the tips of my
fingers to my brain, and steeped my whole being. Simultaneously
I was aware of an overwhelming sense of sucking and dragging, which,
from my hand and arm, and, as it were, through them, seemed to
possess and envelop my whole person. Face, hair, eyes, bosom, limbs,
every portion of my body was locked in an awful embrace which, like
the vortex of a whirlpool, drew me irresistibly towards the picture.
I felt the hideous impulse clinging over me and sucking me forwards
into the wall. I strove in vain to resist it. My efforts were
more futile than the flutter of gossamer wings. And then there
rushed upon my mind the consciousness that all we had been told
about the haunted rooms was true; that a strong delusion had been
cast over us; that all this brilliant throng of modern ladies and
gentlemen were fiends masquerading, prepared beforehand for our coming;
that all the beauty and splendor of our surroundings were mere glamor;
and that in reality the rooms were those we had seen in the daytime,
filled with lumber and rot and vermin. As I realised all this,
and was thrilled with the certainty of it, a sudden access of strength
came to me, and I was impelled, as a last desperate effort, to turn
my back on the awful fresco, and at least to save my face from coming
into contact with it and being glued to its surface. With a shriek
of anguish I wrenched myself round and fell prostrate on the ground,
face downwards, with my back to the wall, feeling as though the
flesh had been torn from my hand and arm. Whether I was saved or
not I knew not. My whole being was over-powered by the realisation
of the deception to which I had succumbed. I had looked for something
so different,--darkness, vacant, deserted rooms, and perhaps a tall,
white, empty canvas in a frame, against which I should have been
on my guard. Who could have anticipated or suspected this cheerful
welcome, these entertaining literati, these innocent-looking frescoes?
Who could have foreseen so deadly a horror in such a guise? Was
I doomed? Should I, too, be sucked in and absorbed, and perhaps
C. after me, knowing nothing of my fate? I had no voice; I could
not warn him; all my force seemed to have been spent on the single
shriek I had uttered as I turned my back on the wall. I lay prone
upon the floor, and knew that I had swooned.
And thus, on seeking me, C. would doubtless have found me, lying
insensible among the rubbish, with the rooms restored to the condition
in which we had seen them by day, my success in withdrawing myself
having dissolved the spell and destroyed the enchantment. But as
it was, I awoke from my swoon only to find that I had been dreaming.
XXIV. The Square in the Hand
The foregoing dream was almost immediately succeeded by another,
in which I dreamt that I was concerned in a very prominent way in
a political struggle in France for liberty and the people's rights.
My part in this struggle was, indeed, the leading one, but my friend
C. had been drawn into it at my instance, and was implicated in a
secondary manner only. The government sought our arrest, and, for
a time, we evaded all attempts to take us, but at last we were
surprised and driven under escort in a private carriage to a military
station, where we were to be detained for examination. With us
was arrested a man popularly known as "Fou," a poor weakling whom I
much pitied. When we arrived at the station which was our destination,
"Fou" gave some trouble to the officials. I think he fainted, but
at all events his conveyance from the carriage to the caserne needed
the conjoined efforts of our escort, and some commotion was caused
by his appearance among the crowd assembled to see us. Clearly
the crowd was sympathetic with us and hostile to the military.
I particularly noticed one woman who pressed forward as "Fou" was
being carried into the station, and who loudly called on all present
to note his feeble condition and the barbarity of arresting a witless
creature such as he. At that moment C. laid his hand on my arm and
whispered: "Now is our time; the guards are all occupied with 'Fou;'
we are left alone for a minute; let us jump out of the carriage
and run!" As he said this he opened the carriage door on the side
opposite to the caserne and alighted in the street. I instantly
followed, and the people favoring us, we pressed through them and
fled at the top of our speed down the road. As we ran I espied a
pathway winding up a hillside away from the town, and cried, "Let
us go up there; let us get away from the street!" C. answered,
"No, no; they would see us there immediately at that height, the
path is too conspicuous. Our best safety is to lose ourselves in
the town. We may throw them off our track by winding in and out
of the streets." Just then a little child, playing in the road,
got in our way, and nearly threw us down as we ran. We had to pause
a moment to recover ourselves. "That child may have cost us our
lives," whispered C., breathlessly. A second afterwards we reached
the bottom of the street which branched off right and left. I
hesitated a moment; then we both turned to the right. As we did so--
in the twinkling of an eye--we found ourselves in the midst of a
group of soldiers coming round the corner. I ran straight into
the arms of one of them, who the same instant knew me and seized
me by throat and waist with a grip of iron. This was a horrible
moment! The iron grasp was sudden and solid as the grip of a vice;
the man's arm held my waist like a bar of steel. "I arrest you!"
he cried, and the soldiers immediately closed round us. At once
I realised the hopelessness of the situation,--the utter futility
of resistance. "Vous n'avez pas besoin de me tenir ainsi," I said
to the officer; "j irai tranquillement" He loosened his hold and
we were then marched off to another military station, in a different
part of the town from that whence we had escaped. The man who had
arrested me was a sergeant or some officer in petty command. He
took me alone with him into the guardroom, and placed before me
on a wooden table some papers which he told me to fill in and sign.
Then he sat down opposite to me and I looked through the papers.
They were forms, with blanks left for descriptions specifying the
name, occupation, age, address and so forth of arrested persons.
I signed these, and pushing them across the table to the man, asked
him what was to be done with us. "You will be shot," he replied,
quickly and decisively. "Both of us?" I asked. "Both," he replied.
"But," said I, "my companion has done nothing to deserve death.
He was drawn into this struggle entirely by me. Consider, too,
his advanced age. His hair is white; he stoops, and, had it not
been for the difficulty with which he moves his limbs, both of us
would probably be at this moment in a place of safety. What can
you gain by shooting an old man such as he?" The officer was silent.
He neither favored nor discouraged me by his manner. While I sat
awaiting his reply, I glanced at the hand with which I had just
signed the papers, and a sudden idea flashed into my mind. "At
least," I said, "grant me one request. If my companion must die,
let me die first." Now I made this request for the following reason.
In my right hand, the line of life broke abruptly halfway in its
length, indicating a sudden and violent death. But the point at
which it broke was terminated by a perfectly marked square,
extraordinarily clear-cut and distinct. Such a square, occurring
at the end of a broken line means rescue, salvation. I had long
been aware of this strange figuration in my hand, and had often
wondered what it presaged. But now, as once more I looked at it,
it came upon me with sudden conviction that in some way I was
destined to be delivered from death at the last moment, and I thought
that if this be so it would be horrible should C. have been killed
first. If I were to be saved I should certainly save him also,
for my pardon would involve the pardon of both, or my rescue the
rescue of both. Therefore it was important to provide for his safety
until after my fate was decided. The officer seemed to take this
last request into more serious consideration than the first. He
said shortly: "I may be able to manage that for you," and then
at once rose and took up the papers I had signed. "When are we to
be shot?" I asked him. "Tomorrow morning," he replied, as promptly
as before. Then he went out, turning the key of the guardroom upon me.
The dawn of the next day broke darkly. It was a terribly stormy day;
great black lurid thunderclouds lay piled along the horizon, and
came up slowly and awfully against the wind. I looked upon them
with terror; they seemed so near the earth, and so like living,
watching things. They hung out of the sky, extending long ghostly
arms downwards, and their gloom and density seemed supernatural.
The soldiers took us out, our hands bound behind us, into a quadrangle
at the back of their barracks. The scene is sharply impressed on
my mind. A palisade of two sides of a square, made of wooden planks,
ran round the quadrangle. Behind this palisade, and pressed up
close against it, was a mob of men and women--the people of the
town--come to see the execution. But their faces were sympathetic;
an unmistakable look of mingled grief and rage, not unmixed with
desperation--for they were a down-trodden folk--shone in the hundreds
of eyes turned towards us. I was the only woman among the condemned.
C. was there, and poor "Fou," looking bewildered, and one or two
other prisoners. On the third and fourth sides of the quadrangle
was a high wall, and in a certain place was a niche partly enclosing
the trunk of a tree, cut off at the top. An iron ring was driven
into the trunk midway, evidently for the purpose of securing condemned
persons for execution. I guessed it would be used for that now.
In the centre of the square piece of ground stood a file of soldiers,
armed with carbines, and an officer with a drawn sabre. The palisade
was guarded by a row of soldiers somewhat sparsely distributed,
ertainly not more than a dozen in all. A Catholic priest in a black
cassock walked beside me, and as we were conducted into the enclosure,
he turned to me and offered religious consolation. I declined his
ministrations, but asked him anxiously if he knew which of us was
to die first. "You," he replied; "the officer in charge of you
said you wished it, and he has been able to accede to your request."
Even then I felt a singular joy at hearing this, though I had no
longer any expectation of release. Death was, I thought, far too
near at hand for that. Just then a soldier approached us, and led me,
bare-headed, to the tree trunk, where he placed me with my back
against it, and made fast my hands behind me with a rope to the
iron ring. No bandage was put over my eyes. I stood thus, facing
the file of soldiers in the middle of the quadrangle, and noticed
that the officer with the drawn sabre placed himself at the extremity
of the line, composed of six men. In that supreme moment I also
noticed that their uniform was bright with steel accoutrements.
Their helmets were of steel, and their carbines, as they raised
them and pointed them at me, ready cocked, glittered in a fitful
gleam of sunlight with the same burnished metal. There was an
instant's stillness and hush while the men took aim; then I saw
the officer raise his bared sabre as the signal to fire. It flashed
in the air; then, with a suddenness impossible to convey, the
whole quadrangle blazed with an awful light,--a light so vivid,
so intense, so blinding, so indescribable that everything was blotted
out and devoured by it. It crossed my brain with instantaneous
conviction that this amazing glare was the physical effect of being
shot, and that the bullets had pierced my brain or heart, and caused
this frightful sense of all-pervading flame. Vaguely I remembered
having read or having been told that such was the result produced
on the nervous system of a victim to death from firearms. "It is
over," I said, "that was the bullets." But presently there forced
itself on my dazed senses a sound--a confusion of sounds--darkness
succeeding the white flash--then steadying itself into gloomy daylight;
a tumult; a heap of stricken, tumbled men lying stone-still before me;
a fearful horror upon every living face; and then . . . it all
burst on me with distinct conviction. The storm which had been
gathering all the morning had culminated in its blackest and most
electric point immediately overhead. The file of soldiers appointed
to shoot us stood exactly under it. Sparkling with bright steel
on head and breast and carbines, they stood shoulder to shoulder,
a complete lightning conductor, and at the end of the chain they
formed, their officer, at the critical moment, raised his shining,
naked blade towards the sky. Instantaneously heaven opened, and
the lightning fell, attracted by the burnished steel. From blade
to carbine, from helmet to breastplate it ran, smiting every man
dead as he stood.
They fell like a row of ninepins, blackened in face and hand in
an instant,--in the twinkling of an eye. Dead. The electric flame
licked the life out of seven men in that second; not one moved a
muscle or a finger again. Then followed a wild scene. The crowd,
stupefied for a minute by the thunderbolt and the horror of the
devastation it had wrought, presently recovered sense, and with
a mighty shout hurled itself against the palisade, burst it, leapt
over it and swarmed into the quadrangle, easily overpowering the
unnerved guards. I was surrounded; eager hands unbound mine;
arms were thrown about me; the people roared, and wept, and triumphed,
and fell about me on their knees praising Heaven. I think rain fell,
my face was wet with drops, and my hair,--but I knew no more, for
I swooned and lay unconscious in the arms of the crowd. My rescue
had indeed come, and from the very Heavens!
--Rome, April 12, 1887
Dream-Verses
"Through the Ages"
Wake, thou that sleepest! Soul, awake!
Thy light is come, arise and shine!
For darkness melts, and dawn divine
Doth from the holy Orient break;
Swift-darting down the shadowy ways
And misty deeps of unborn Time,
God's Light, God's Day, whose perfect prime
Is as the light of seven days.
Wake, prophet-soul, the time draws near,
"The God who knows" within thee stirs
And speaks, for His thou art, and Hers
Who bears the mystic shield and spear.
The hidden secrets of their shrine
Where thou, initiate, didst adore,
Their quickening finger shall restore
And make its glories newly thine.
A touch divine shall thrill thy brain,
Thy soul shall leap to life, and lo!
What she has known, again shall know;
What she has seen, shall see again;
The ancient Past through which she came,--
A cloud across a sunset sky,--
A cactus flower of scarlet dye,--
A bird with throat and wings of flame;--
A red wild roe, whose mountain bed
Nor ever hound or hunter knew,
Whose flying footprint dashed the dew
In nameless forests, long since dead.
And ever thus in ceaseless roll
The wheels of Destiny and Time
Through changing form and age and clime
Bear onward the undying Soul:
Till now a Sense, confused and dim,
Dawns in a shape of nobler mould,
Less beast, scarce human; uncontrolled,
With free fierce life in every limb;
A savage youth, in painted gear,
Foot fleeter than the summer wind;
Scant speech for scanty needs designed,
Content with sweetheart, spoil and spear
And, passing thence, with burning breath,
A fiery Soul that knows no fear,
The armed hosts of Odin hear
Her voice amid the ranks of death;
There, where the sounds of war are shrill,
And clarion shrieks, and battle roars,
Once more set free, she leaps and soars
A Soul of flame, aspiring still!
Till last, in fairer shape she stands
Where lotus-scented waters glide,
A Theban Priestess, dusky-eyed,
Barefooted on the golden sands;
Or, prostrate, in the Temple-halls,
When Spirits wake, and mortals sleep,
She hears what mighty Voices sweep
Like winds along the columned walls.
A Princess then beneath the palms
Which wave o'er Afric's burning plains,
The blood of Afric in thy veins,
A golden circlet on thine arms.
By sacred Ganges' sultry tide,
With dreamy gaze and clasped hands
Thou walkst a Seeress in the lands
Where holy Buddha lived and died.
Anon, a sea-bleached mountain cave
Makes shelter for thee, grave and wan,
Thou solemn, solitary Man,
Who, nightly, by the star-lit wave
Invokest with illumined eyes
The steadfast Lords who rule and wait
Beyond the heavens and Time and fate,
Until the perfect Dawn shall rise,
And oracles, through ages dumb,
Shall wake, and holy forms shall shine
On mountain peaks in light divine,
When mortals bid God's kingdom come
So turns the wheel of thy [keen] soul;
From birth to birth her ruling stars,
Swift Mercury and fiery Mars,
In ever changing orbits roll!
--Paris, May, 1880
Fragment
A jarring note, a chord amiss--
The music's sweeter after,
Like wrangling ended with a kiss,
Or tears, with silver laughter.
The high gods have no joys like these,
So sweet in human story;
No tempest rends their tranquil seas
Beyond the sunset glory.
The whirling wheels of Time and Fate
Fragment*
I thank Thee, Lord, who hast through devious ways
Led me to know Thy Praise,
And to this Wildernesse
Hast brought me out, Thine Israel to blesse.
If I should faint with Thirst, or weary, sink,
To these my Soule is Drink,
To these the Majick Rod
Is Life, and mine is hid with Christ in God.
----------
* These are not properly dream-verses, having been suddenly presented
to the waking vision one day in Paris while gazing at the bright
sky. (Ed.)
Signs of the Times
Eyes of the dawning in heaven?
Sparks from the opening of hell?
Gleams from the altar-lamps seven?
Can you tell?
Is it the glare of a fire?
Is it the breaking of day?
Birth lights, or funeral pyre?
Who shall say?
--April 19, 1886.
With the Gods
Sweet lengths of shore with sea between,
Sweet gleams of tender blue and green,
Sweet wind caressive and unseen,
Soft breathing from the deep;
What joy have I in all sweet things;
How clear and bright my spirit sings;
Rising aloft on mystic wings;
While sense and body sleep.
In some such dream of grace and light,
My soul shall pass into the sight
Of the dear Gods who in the height
Of inward being dwell;
And joyful at Her perfect feet
Whom most of all I long to greet,
My soul shall lie in meadow sweet
All white with asphodel.
--August 31, 1887.
Part II. Dream-Stories
I. A Village of Seers--
A Christmas Story
A day or two before Christmas, a few years since, I found myself
compelled by business to leave England for the Continent.
I am an American, junior partner in a London mercantile house having
a large Swiss connection; and a transaction--needless to specify
her--required immediate and personal supervision abroad, at a season
of the year when I would gladly have kept festival in London with
my friends. But my journey was destined to bring me an adventure
of a very remarkable character, which made me full amends for the
loss of Christmas cheer at home.
I crossed the Channel at night from Dover to Calais. The passage
was bleak and snowy, and the passengers were very few. On board
the steamboat I remarked one traveler whose appearance and manner
struck me as altogether unusual and interesting, and I deemed it
by no means a disagreeable circumstance that, on arriving at Calais,
this man entered the compartment of the railway carriage in which
I had already seated myself.
So far as the dim light permitted me a glimpse of the stranger's
face, I judged him to be about fifty years of age. The features
were delicate and refined in type, the eyes dark and deep-sunken,
but full of intelligence and thought, and the whole aspect of the
man denoted good birth, a nature given to study and meditation,
and a life of much sorrowful experience.
Two other travelers occupied our carriage until Amiens was reached.
They then left us, and the interesting stranger and I remained
alone together.
"A bitter night," I said to him, as I drew up the window, "and the
worst of it is yet to come! The early hours of dawn are always
the coldest."
"I suppose so," he answered in a grave voice.
The voice impressed me as strongly as the face; it was subdued
and restrained, the voice of a man undergoing great mental suffering.
"You will find Paris bleak at this season of the year," I continued,
longing to make him talk. "It was colder there last winter than
in London."
"I do not stay in Paris," he replied, "save to breakfast."
"Indeed; that is my case. I am going on to Bale."
"And I also," he said, "and further yet."
Then he turned his face to the window, and would say no more. My
speculations regarding him multiplied with his taciturnity. I felt
convinced that he was a man with a romance, and a desire to know
its nature became strong in me. We breakfasted apart at Paris,
but I watched him into his compartment for Bale, and sprang in after
him. During the first part of our journey we slept; but, as we
neared the Swiss frontier, a spirit of wakefulness took hold of us,
and fitful sentences were exchanged. My companion, it appeared,
intended to rest but a single day at Bale. He was bound for far-away
Alpine regions, ordinarily visited by tourists during the summer
months only, and, one would think, impassable at this season of the year.
"And you go alone?" I asked him. "You will have no companions to
join you?"
"I shall have guides," he answered, and relapsed into meditative silence.
Presently I ventured another question: "You go on business, perhaps--
not on pleasure?"
He turned his melancholy eyes on mine. "Do I look as if I were
traveling for pleasure's sake?" he asked gently.
I felt rebuked, and hastened to apologise. "Pardon me; I ought
not to have said that. But you interest me greatly, and I wish,
if possible, to be of service to you. If you are going into Alpine
districts on business and alone, at this time of the year--"
There I hesitated and paused. How could I tell him that he interested
me so much as to make me long to know the romance which, I felt
convinced, attached to his expedition? Perhaps he perceived what
was in my mind, for he questioned me in his turn. "And you--have
you business in Bale?"
"Yes, and in other places. My accent may have told you my nationality.
I travel in the interests of the American firm, Fletcher Bros.,
Roy, & Co., whose London house, no doubt, you know. But I need
remain only twenty-four hours in Bale. Afterwards I go to Berne,
then to Geneva. I must, however, wait for letters from England
after doing my business at Bale, and I shall have some days free."
"How many?"
"From the 21st to the 26th."
He was silent for a minute, meditating. Then he took from his
traveling-bag a porte-feuille, and from the porte-feuille a visiting-
card, which he handed to me.
"That is my name," he said briefly.
I took the hint, and returned the compliment in kind. On his
card I read:
MR CHARLES DENIS ST AUBYN,
Grosvenor Square, London. St Aubyn's Court, Shrewsbury.
And mine bore the legend:
MR FRANK ROY,
Merchants' Club, W. C.
"Now that we are no longer unknown to each other," said I, "may I
ask, without committing an indiscretion, if I can use the free time
at my disposal in your interests?"
"You are very good, Mr Roy. It is the characteristic of your nation
to be kind-hearted and readily interested in strangers." Was this
sarcastic? I wondered. Perhaps; but he said it quite courteously.
"I am a solitary and unfortunate man. Before I accept your kindness,
will you permit me to tell you the nature of the journey I am making?
It is a strange one."
He spoke huskily, and with evident effort. I assented eagerly.
The following, recounted in broken sentences, and with many abrupt
pauses, is the story to which I listened:
Mr St Aubyn was a widower. His only child, a boy twelve years of age,
had been for a year past afflicted with loss of speech and hearing,
the result of a severe typhoid fever, from which he barely escaped
with life. Last summer, his father, following medical advice, brought
him to Switzerland, in the hope that Alpine air, change of scene,
exercise, and the pleasure of the trip, would restore him to his
normal condition. One day father and son, led by a guide, were
ascending a mountain pathway, not ordinarily regarded as dangerous,
when the boy, stepping aside to view the snowy ranges above and
around, slipped on a treacherous fragment of half-detached rock,
and went sliding into the ravine beneath. The height of the fall
was by no means great, and the level ground on which the boy would
necessarily alight was overgrown with soft herbage and long grass,
so that neither the father nor the guide at first conceived any
serious apprehensions for the safety of the boy's life or limbs.
He might be bruised, perhaps even a few cuts or a sprained wrist
might disable him for a few days, but they feared nothing worse
than these. As quickly as the slippery ground would permit, they
descended the winding path leading to the meadow, but when they
reached it, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Hours passed in vain
and anxious quest; no track, no sound, no clue assisted the seekers,
and the shouts of the guide, if they reached, as doubtless they did,
the spot where the lost boy lay, fell on ears as dull and deadened
as those of a corpse. Nor could the boy, if crippled by his fall,
and unable to show himself, give evidence of his whereabouts by
so much as a single cry. Both tongue and ears were sealed by
infirmity, and any low sound such as that he might have been able
to utter would have been rendered inaudible by the torrent rushing
through the ravine hard by. At nightfall the search was suspended,
to be renewed before daybreak with fresh assistance from the nearest
village. Some of the new-comers spoke of a cave on the slope of
the meadow, into which the boy might have crept. This was easily
reached. It was apparently of but small extent; a few goats
reposed in it, but no trace of the child was discoverable. After
some days spent in futile endeavour, all hope was abandoned. The
father returned to England to mourn his lost boy, and another disaster
was added to the annual list of casualties in the Alps.
So far the story was sad enough, but hardly romantic. I clasped
the hand of the narrator, and assured him warmly of my sympathy,
adding, with as little appearance of curiosity as I could command:--
"And your object in coming back is only, then, to--to--be near the
scene of your great trouble?"
"No, Mr Roy; that is not the motive of my journey. I do not believe
either that my boy's corpse lies concealed among the grasses of the
plateau, or that it was swept away, as has been suggested, by the
mountain cataract. Neither hypothesis seems to me tenable. The
bed of the stream was followed and searched for miles; and though,
when he fell, he was carrying over his shoulder a flask and a thick
fur-lined cloak,--for we expected cold on the heights, and went
provided against it,---not a fragment of anything belonging to him
was found. Had he fallen into the torrent, it is impossible his
clothing should not have become detached from the body and caught
by the innumerable rocks in the shallow parts of the stream. But
that is not all. I have another reason for the belief I cherish."
He leaned forward, and added in firmer and slower tones: "I am
convinced that my boy still lives, for--I have seen him."
"You have seen him!" I cried.
"Yes; again and again--in dreams. And always in the same way,
and with the same look. He stands before me, beckoning to me, and
making signs that I should come and help him. Not once or twice
only, but many times, night after night I have seen the same thing!"
Poor father! Poor desolate man! Not the first driven distraught
by grief; not the first deluded by the shadows of love and longing!
"You think I am deceived by hallucinations," he said,
watching my face." It is you who are misled by the scientific idiots
of the day, the wiseacres who teach us to believe, whenever soul
speaks to soul, that the highest and holiest communion attainable
by man is the product of physical disease! Forgive me the energy
of my words; but had you loved and lost your beloved---wife and
child--as I have done, you would comprehend the contempt and anger
with which I regard those modern teachers whose cold and ghastly
doctrines give the lie, not only to all human hopes and aspirations
towards the higher life, but also to the possibility of that very
progress from lower to nobler forms which is the basis of their
own philosophy, and to the conception of which the idea of the soul
and of love are essential! Evolution presupposes possible perfecting,
and the conscious adaptation of means to ends in order to attain it.
And both the ideal itself and the endeavour to reach it are
incomprehensible without desire, which is love, and whose seat is
in the interior self, the living soul--the maker of the outward form!"
He was roused from his melancholy now, and spoke
connectedly and with enthusiasm. I was about to reassure him in
regard to my own philosophical convictions, the soundness of which he
seemed to question, when his voice sank again, and he added earnestly:--
"I tell you I have seen my boy, and that I know he lives,--not in
any far-off sphere beyond the grave, but here on earth, among living
men! Twice since his loss I have returned from England to seek
him, in obedience to the vision, but in vain, and I have gone back
home to dream the same dream. But--only last week--I heard a
wonderful story. It was told me by a friend who is a great traveler,
and who has but just returned from a lengthened tour in the south.
I met him at my club, `by accident,' as unthinking persons say.
He told me that there exists, buried away out of common sight and
knowledge, in the bosom of the Swiss Alps, a little village whose
inhabitants possess, in varying degrees, a marvellous and priceless
faculty. Almost all the dwellers in this village are mutually
related, either bearing the same ancestral name, or being branches
from one original stock. The founder of this community was a blind
man, who, by some unexplained good fortune, acquired or became
endowed with the psychic faculty called 'second sight,' or clairvoyance.
This faculty, it appears, is now the hereditary property of the
whole village, more developed in the blind man's immediate heirs
than in his remoter relatives; but, strange to say, it is a faculty
which, for a reason connected with the history of its acquirement,
they enjoy only once a year, and that is on Christmas Eve. I know
well," continued Mr. St. Aubyn, "all you have it in your mind to
say. Doubtless, you would hint to me that the narrator of the tale
was amusing himself with my credulity; or that these Alpine villagers,
if they exist, are not clairvoyants, but charlatans trading on the
folly of the curious, or even that the whole story is a chimera
of my own dreaming brain. I am willing that, if it please you,
you should accept any of these hypotheses. As for me, in my sorrow
and despair, I am resolved to leave no means untried to recover
my boy; and it happens that the village in question is not far
from the scene of the disaster which deprived me of him. A strange
hope--a confidence even--grows in my heart as I approach the end
of my journey. I believe I am about to verify the truth of my
friend's story, and that, through the wonderful faculty possessed
by these Alpine peasants, the promise of my visions will be realised."
His voice broke again, he ceased speaking, and turned his face away
from me. I was greatly moved, and anxious to impress him with a
belief in the sincerity of my sympathy, and in my readiness to accept
the truth of the tale he had repeated.
"Do not think," I said with some warmth, "that I am disposed to
make light of what you tell me, strange though it sounds. Out in
the West, where I come from, I heard, when a boy, many a story at
least as curious as yours. In our wild country, odd things chance
at times, and queer circumstances, they say, happen in out of the way
tracks in forest and prairie; aye, and there are strange creatures
that haunt the bush, some tell, in places where no human foot is
wont to tread. So that nothing of this sort comes upon me with
an air of newness, at least! I mayn't quite trust it, as you do,
but I am no scoffer. Look, now, Mr. St. Aubyn, I have a proposal
to make. You are alone, and purpose undertaking a bitter and, it
may be, a perilous journey in mountain ground at this season. What
say you to taking me along with you? May be, I shall prove of some use;
and at any rate, your adventure and your story interest me greatly!"
I was quite tremulous with apprehension lest he should refuse my
request, but he did not. He looked earnestly and even fixedly at
me for a minute, then silently held out his hand and grasped mine
with energy. It was a sealed compact. After that we considered
ourselves comrades, and continued our journey together.
Our day's rest at Bale being over, and the business which concerned
me there transacted, we followed the route indicated by Mr. St.
Aubyn, and on the evening of the 22nd of December arrived at a little
hill station, where we found a guide who promised to conduct us the
next morning to the village we sought. Sunrise found us on our way,
and a tramp of several weary hours, with occasional breaks for rest
and refreshment, brought us at last to the desired spot.
It was a quaint, picturesque little hamlet, embosomed in a mountain
recess, a sheltered oasis in the midst of a wind-swept, snow-covered
region. The usual Swiss trade of wood-carving appeared to be the
principal occupation of the community. The single narrow street
was thronged with goats, whose jingling many-toned bells made an
incessant and agreeable symphony. Under the projecting roofs of
the log-built chalets bundles of dried herbs swung in the frosty air;
stacks of fir-wood, handy for use, were piled about the doorways,
and here and there we noticed a huge dog of the St Bernard breed,
with solemn face, and massive paws that left tracks like a lion's
in the fresh-fallen snow. A rosy afternoon-radiance glorified the
surrounding mountains and warmed the aspect of the little village
as we entered it. It was not more than three o'clock, yet already
the sun drew near the hilltops, and in a short space he would sink
behind them and leave the valleys immersed in twilight. Inn or
hostelry proper there was none in this out of the world recess,
but the peasants were right willing to entertain us, and the owner
of the largest chalet in the place speedily made ready the necessary
board and lodging. Supper--of goat's milk cheese, coarse bread,
honey, and drink purporting to be coffee--being concluded, the
villagers began to drop in by twos and threes to have a look at us;
and presently, at the invitation of our host, we all drew our stools
around the pinewood fire, and partook of a strange beverage served
hot with sugar and toast, tasting not unlike elderberry wine.
Meanwhile my English friend, more conversant than myself with the
curiously mingled French and German patois of the district, plunged
into the narration of his trouble, and ended with a frank and
pathetic appeal to those present, that if there were any truth in
the tale he had heard regarding the annual clairvoyance of the
villagers, they would consent to use their powers in his service.
Probably they had never been so appealed to before. When my friend
had finished speaking, silence, broken only by a few half-audible
whispers, fell on the group. I began to fear that, after all, he
had been either misinformed or misunderstood, and was preparing
to help him out with an explanation to the best of my ability, when
a man sitting in the chimney-corner rose and said that, if we pleased,
he would fetch the grandsons of the original seer, who would give
us the fullest information possible on the subject of our inquiry.
This announcement was encouraging, and we assented with joy. He
left the chalet, and shortly afterwards returned with two stalwart
and intelligent-looking men of about thirty and thirty-five respectively,
accompanied by a couple of St Bernards, the most magnificent dogs I
had ever seen. I was reassured instantly, for the faces of these
two peasants were certainly not those of rogues or fools. They
advanced to the centre of the assembly, now numbering some twenty
persons, men and women, and were duly introduced to us by our host
as Theodor and Augustin Raoul. A wooden bench by the hearth was
accorded them, the great dogs couched at their feet, pipes were
lit here and there among the circle; and the scene, embellished
by the ruddy glow of the flaming pine-logs, the unfamiliar costume
of the peasantry, the quaint furniture of the chalet-kitchen in
which we sat, and enhanced by the strange circumstances of our
journey and the yet stranger story now recounted by the two Raouls,
became to my mind every moment more romantic and unworld-like.
But the intent and strained expression of St. Aubyn's features as
he bent eagerly forward, hanging as if for life or death on the
words which the brothers poured forth, reminded me that, in one
respect at least, the spectacle before me presented a painful reality,
and that for this desolate and lonely man every word of the Christmas
tale told that evening was pregnant with import of the deepest and
most serious kind. Here, in English guise, is the legend of the
Alpine seer, recounted with much gesticulation and rugged dramatic
force by his grandsons, the younger occasionally interpolating
details which the elder forgot, confirming the data, and echoing
with a sonorous interjection the exclamations of the listeners.
Augustin Franz Raoul, the grandfather of the men who addressed us,
originally differed in no respect, save that of blindness, from
ordinary people. One Christmas Eve, as the day drew towards twilight,
and a driving storm of frozen snow raged over the mountains, he,
his dog Hans, and his mule were fighting their way home up the pass
in the teeth of the tempest. At a turn of the road they came on
a priest carrying the Viaticum to a dying man who inhabited a solitary
but in the valley below. The priest was on foot, almost spent with
fatigue, and bewildered by the blinding snow which obscured the
pathway and grew every moment more impenetrable and harder to face.
The whirling flakes circled and danced before his sight, the winding
path was well-nigh obliterated, his brain grew dizzy and his feet
unsteady, and he felt that without assistance he should never reach
his destination in safety. Blind Raoul, though himself tired, and
longing for shelter, listened with sympathy to the priest's complaint,
and answered, "Father, you know well I am hardly a pious son of
the Church; but if the penitent dying down yonder needs spiritual
consolation from her, Heaven forbid that I should not do my utmost
to help you to him! Sightless though I am, I know my way over these
crags as no other man knows it, and the snowstorm which bewilders
your eyes so much cannot daze mine. Come, mount my mule, Hans will
go with us, and we three will take you to your journey's end safe
and sound."
"Son," answered the priest, "God will reward you for this act of
charity. The penitent to whom I go bears an evil reputation as a
sorcerer, and we all know his name well enough in these parts.
He may have some crime on his conscience which he desires to confess
before death. But for your timely help I should not be able to
fight my way through this tempest to his door, and he would certainly
perish unshriven."
The fury of the storm increased as darkness came on. Dense clouds
of snow obscured the whole landscape, and rendered sky and mountain
alike indistinguishable. Terror seized the priest; but for the
blind man, to whose sight day and night were indifferent, these
horrors had no great danger. He and his dumb friends plodded quietly
and slowly on in the accustomed path, and at length, close upon
midnight, the valley was safely reached, and the priest ushered
into the presence of his penitent. What the dying sorcerer's
confession was the blind man never knew; but after it was over,
and the Sacred Host had passed his lips, Raoul was summoned to his
bedside, where a strange and solemn voice greeted him by name and
thanked him for the service he had rendered.
"Friend," said the dying man, "you will never know how great a debt
I owe you. But before I pass out of the world, I would fain do
somewhat towards repayment. Sorcerer though I am by repute, I
cannot give you that which, were it possible, I would give with
all my heart,--the blessing of physical sight. But may God hear
the last earthly prayer of a dying penitent, and grant you a better
gift and a rarer one than even that of the sight of your outward
eyes, by opening those of your spirit! And may the faculty of that
interior vision be continued to you and yours so long as ye use
it in deeds of mercy and human kindness such as this!"
The speaker laid his hand a, moment on the blind man's forehead,
and his lips moved silently awhile, though Raoul saw it not. The
priest and he remained to the last with the penitent; and when
the grey Christmas morning broke over the whitened plain they left
the little but in which the corpse lay, to apprise the dwellers
in the valley hamlet of the death of the wizard, and to arrange
for his burial. And ever, since that Christmas Eve, said the two
Raouls, their grandfather found himself when the sacred time came
round again, year after year, possessed of a new and extraordinary
power, that of seeing with the inward senses of the spirit whatever
he desired to see, and this as plainly and distinctly, miles distant,
as at his own threshold. The power of interior vision came upon
him in sleep or in trance, precisely as with the prophets and sybils
of old, and in this condition, sometimes momentary only, whole scenes
were flashed before him, the faces of friends leagues away became
visible, and he seemed to touch their hands. At these times nothing
was hidden from him; it was necessary only that he should desire
fervently to see any particular person or place, and that the intent
of the wish should be innocent, and he became straightway clairvoyant.
To the blind man, deprived in early childhood of physical sight,
this miraculous power was an inestimable consolation, and Christmas
Eve became to him a festival of illumination whose annual reminiscences
and anticipations brightened the whole round of the year. And when
at length he died, the faculty remained a family heritage, of which
all his descendants partook in some degree, his two grandsons, as
his nearest kin, possessing the gift in its completest development.
And--most strange of all--the two hounds which lay couched before
us by the hearth, appeared to enjoy a share of the sorcerer's benison!
These dogs, Fritz and Bruno, directly descended from Hans, had often
displayed strong evidence of lucidity, and under its influence they
had been known to act with acumen and sagacity wholly beyond the
reach of ordinary dogs. Their immediate sire, Gluck, was the property
of a community of monks living fourteen miles distant in the Arblen
valley; and though the Raouls were not aware that he had yet
distinguished himself by any remarkable exploit of a clairvoyant
character, he was commonly credited with a goodly share of the
family gift.
"And the mule?" I asked thoughtlessly.
"The mule, monsieur," replied the younger Raoul, with a smile, "
has been dead many long years. Naturally he left no posterity."
Thus ended the tale, and for a brief space all remained silent,
while many glances stole furtively towards St. Aubyn. He sat
motionless, with bowed head and folded arms, absorbed in thought.
One by one the members of the group around us rose, knocked the
ashes from their pipes, and with a few brief words quitted the chalet.
In a few minutes there remained only our host, the two Raouls, with
their dogs, my friend, and myself. Then St. Aubyn found his voice.
He too rose, and in slow tremulous tones, addressing Theodor, asked,--
"You will have everything prepared for an expedition tomorrow, in
case--you should have anything to tell us?"
"All shall be in readiness, monsieur. Pierre (the host) will wake
you by sunrise, for with the dawn of Christmas Eve our lucid faculty
returns to us, and if we should have good news to give, the start
ought to be made early. We may have far to go, and the days are short."
He whistled to the great hounds, wished us goodnight, and the two
brothers left the house together, followed by Fritz and Bruno.
Pierre lighted a lantern, and mounting a ladder in the corner of
the room, invited us to accompany him. We clambered up this
primitive staircase with some difficulty, and presently found
ourselves in a bed-chamber not less quaint and picturesque than
the kitchen below. Our beds were both prepared in this room,
round the walls of which were piled goat's-milk cheeses, dried
herbs, sacks of meal, and other winter provender.
Outside it was a starlit night, clear, calm, and frosty, with
brilliant promise for the coming day. Long after I was in the land
of dreams, I fancy St. Aubyn lay awake, following with restless
eyes the stars in their courses, and wondering whether from some
far-off, unknown spot his lost boy might not be watching them also.
Dawn, grey and misty, enwrapped the little village when I was startled
from my sleep by a noisy chorus of voices and a busy hurrying of
footsteps. A moment later some one, heavily booted, ascended the
ladder leading to our bedroom, and a ponderous knock resounded on
our door. St. Aubyn sprang from his bed, lifted the latch, and
admitted the younger Raoul, whose beaming eyes and excited manner
betrayed, before he spoke, the good tidings in store.
"We have seen him!" he cried, throwing up his hands triumphantly
above his head. "Both of us have seen your son, monsieur! Not
half an hour ago, just as the dawn broke, we saw him in a vision,
alive and well in a mountain cave, separated from the valley by a
broad torrent. An Angel of the good Lord has ministered to him:
it is a miracle! Courage, he will be restored to you. Dress quickly,
and come down to breakfast. Everything is ready for the expedition,
and there is no time to lose!"
These broken ejaculations were interrupted by the voice of the elder
brother, calling from the foot of the ladder:
"Make haste, messieurs, if you please. The valley we have seen
in our dream is fully twelve miles away, and to reach it we shall
have to cut our way through the snow. It is bad at this time of
the year, and the passes may be blocked! Come, Augustin!"
Everything was now hurry and commotion. All the village was astir;
the excitement became intense. From the window we saw men running
eagerly towards our chalet with pickaxes, ropes, hatchets, and other
necessary adjuncts of Alpine adventure. The two great hounds, with
others of their breed, were bounding joyfully about in the snow,
and showing, I thought, by their intelligent glances and impatient
behavior, that they already understood the nature of the intended
day's work.
At sunrise we sat down to a hearty meal, and amid the clamor of
voices and rattling of platters, the elder Raoul unfolded to us
his plans for reaching the valley, which both he and his brother
had recognized as the higher level of the Arblen, several thousand
feet above our present altitude, and in mid-winter a perilous place
to visit.
"The spot is completely shut off from the valley by the cataract,"
said he, "and last year a landslip blocked up the only route to
it from the mountains. How the child got there is a mystery!"
"We must cut our way over the Thurgau Pass," cried Augustin.
"That is just my idea. Quick now, if you have finished eating,
call Georges and Albert, and take the ropes with you!"
Our little party was speedily equipped, and amid the lusty cheers
of the men and the sympathetic murmurs of the women, we passed
swiftly through the little snow-carpeted street and struck into
the mountain path. We were six in number, St. Aubyn and myself,
the two Raouls, and a couple of villagers carrying the requisite
implements of mountaineering, while the two dogs, Fritz and Bruno,
trotted on before us.
At the outset there was some rough ground to traverse, and
considerable work to be done with ropes and tools, for the
slippery edges of the highland path afforded scarce any foothold,
and in some parts the difficulties appeared well-nigh insurmountable.
But every fresh obstacle overcome added a new zest to our resolution,
and, cheered by the reiterated cry of the two seers, "Courage,
messieurs! Avanfons! The worst will soon be passed!" We pushed
forward with right good will, and at length found ourselves on a
broad rocky plateau.
All this time the two hounds had taken the lead, pioneering us with
amazing skill round precipitous corners, and springing from crag
to crag over the icy ravines with a daring and precision which
curdled my blood to witness. It was a relief to see them finally
descend the narrow pass in safety, and halt beside us panting and
exultant. All around lay glittering reaches of untrodden snow,
blinding to look at, scintillant as diamond dust. We sat down to
rest on some scattered boulders, and gazed with wonder at the
magnificent vistas of glowing peaks towering above us, and the
luminous expanse of purple gorge and valley, with the white, roaring
torrents below, over which wreaths of foam-like filmy mist hovered
and floated continually.
As I sat, lost in admiration, St. Aubyn touched my arm, and silently
pointed to Theodor Raoul. He had risen, and now stood at the edge
of the plateau over-hanging the lowland landscape, his head raised,
his eyes wide-opened, his whole appearance indicative of magnetic
trance. While we looked he turned slowly towards us, moved his
hands to and fro with a gesture of uncertainty, as though feeling
his way in the dark; and spoke with a slow dreamy utterance:
"I see the lad sitting in the entrance of the cavern, looking out
across the valley, as though expecting some one. He is pallid and
thin, and wears a dark-colored mantle--a large mantle--lined with
sable fur."
St. Aubyn sprang from his seat. "True!" he exclaimed. "It is the
mantle he was carrying on his arm when he slipped over the pass!
O, thank God for that; it may have saved his life!"
"The place in which I see your boy," continued the mountaineer,
"is fully three miles distant from the plateau on which we now stand.
But I do not know how to reach it. I cannot discern the track.
I am at fault!" He moved his hands impatiently to and fro, and
cried in tones which manifested the disappointment he felt: "I
can see no more! the vision passes from me. I can discover nothing
but confused shapes merged in ever-increasing darkness!"
We gathered round him in some dismay, and St. Aubyn urged the younger
Raoul to attempt an elucidation of the difficulty. But he too failed.
The scene in the cave appeared to him with perfect distinctness;
but when he strove to trace the path which should conduct us to it,
profound darkness obliterated the vision.
"It must be underground," he said, using the groping action we had
already observed on Theodor's part. "It is impossible to distinguish
anything, save a few vague outlines of rock. Now there is not a
glimmer of light; all is profound gloom!"
Suddenly, as we stood discussing the situation, one advising this,
another that, a sharp bark from one of the hounds startled us all,
and immediately arrested our consultation. It was Fritz who had
thus interrupted the debate. He was running excitedly to and fro,
sniffing about the edge of the plateau, and every now and then
turning himself with an abrupt jerk, as if seeking something which
eluded him. Presently Bruno joined in this mysterious quest, and the
next moment, to our admiration and amazement, both dogs simultaneously
lifted their heads, their eyes illumined with intelligence and delight,
and uttered a prolonged and joyous cry that reverberated chorus-like
from the mountain wall behind us.
"They know! They see! They have the clue!" cried the peasants,
as the two hounds leapt from the plateau down the steep declivity
leading to the valley, scattering the snowdrifts of the crevices
pell-mell in their headlong career. In frantic haste we resumed
our loads, and hurried after our flying guides with what speed we
could. When the dogs had reached the next level, they paused and
waited, standing with uplifted heads and dripping tongues while
we clambered down the gorge to join them. Again they took the lead;
but this time the way was more intricate, and their progress slower.
Single-file we followed them along a narrow winding track of broken
ground, over which every moment a tiny torrent foamed and tumbled;
and as we descended the air became less keen, the snow rarer, and
a few patches of gentian and hardy plants appeared on the craggy
sides of the mountain.
Suddenly a great agitation seized St. Aubyn. "Look look!" he cried,
clutching me by the arm; "here, where we stand, is the very spot
from which my boy fell! And below yonder is the valley!"
Even as he uttered the words, the dogs halted and came towards us,
looking wistfully into St. Aubyn's face, as though they fain would
speak to him. We stood still, and looked down into the green valley,
green even in mid-winter, where a score of goats were browsing in
the sunshine. Here my friend would have descended, but the Raouls
bade him trust the leadership of the dogs.
"Follow them, monsieur," said Theodor, impressively; "they can
see, and you cannot. It is the good God that conducts them.
Doubtless they have brought us to this spot to show you they know
it, and to inspire you with confidence in their skill and guidance.
See! they are advancing! On! do not let us remain behind!"
Thus urged, we hastened after our canine guides, who, impelled by
the mysterious influence of their strange faculty, were again pressing
forward. This time the track ascended. Soon we lost sight of the
valley, and an hour's upward scrambling over loose rocks and sharp
crags brought us to a chasm, the two edges of which were separated
by a precipitous gulf some twenty feet across. This chasm was
probably about eight or nine hundred feet deep, and its sides were
straight and sheer as those of a well. Our ladders were in requisition
now, and with the aid of these and the ropes, all the members of
our party, human and canine, were safely landed on the opposite
brink of the abyss.
We had covered about two miles of difficult ground beyond the chasm,
when once more, on the brow of a projecting eminence, the hounds
halted for the last time, and drew near St. Aubyn, gazing up at
him with eloquent exulting eyes, as though they would have said,
"He whom you seek is here!"
It was a wild and desolate spot, strewn with tempest-torn branches,
a spot hidden from the sun by dense masses of pine foliage, and
backed by sharp peaks of granite. St. Aubyn looked around him,
trembling with emotion.
"Shout," cried one of the peasants; "shout, the boy may hear you!"
"Alas," answered the father, " he cannot hear; you forget that
my child is deaf and dumb!"
At that instant, Theodor, who for a brief while had stood apart,
abstracted and silent, approached St. Aubyn and grasped his hand.
"Shout!" repeated he, with the earnestness of a command; "call
your boy by his name!"
St Aubyn looked at him with astonishment; then in a
clear piercing voice obeyed.
"Charlie!" he cried; "Charlie, my boy! where are you?"
We stood around him in dread silence and expectancy, a group for
a picture. St. Aubyn in the midst, with white quivering face and
clasped hands, the two Raouls on either side, listening intently,
the dogs motionless and eager, their ears erect, their hair bristling
round their stretched throats. You might have heard a pin drop
on the rock at our feet, as we stood and waited after that cry.
A minute passed thus, and then there was heard from below, at a
great depth, a faint uncertain sound. One word only--uttered in
the voice of a child,--tremulous, and intensely earnest: "Father!"
St Aubyn fell on his knees. "My God! my God!" he cried, sobbing;
"it is my boy! He is alive, and can hear and speak!"
With feverish haste we descended the crag, and speedily found
ourselves on a green sward, sheltered on three sides by high walls
of cliff, and bounded on the fourth, southward, by a rushing stream
some thirty feet from shore to shore. Beyond the stream was a wide
expanse of pasture stretching down into the Arblen valley.
Again St. Aubyn shouted, and again the childlike cry replied, guiding
us to a narrow gorge or fissure in the cliff almost hidden under
exuberant foliage. This passage brought us to a turfy knoll, upon
which opened a deep recess in the mountain rock; a picturesque cavern,
carpeted with moss, and showing, from some ancient, half obliterated
carvings which here and there adorned its walls, that it had once
served as a crypt or chapel, possibly in some time of ecclesiastical
persecution. At the mouth of this cave, with startled eyes and
pallid parted lips, stood a fair-haired lad, wrapped in the mantle
described by the elder Raoul. One instant only he stood there;
the next he darted forward, and fell with weeping and inarticulate
cries into his father's embrace.
We paused, and waited aloof in silence, respecting the supreme joy
and emotion of a greeting so sacred as this. The dogs only, bursting
into the cave, leapt and gambolled about, venting their satisfaction
in sonorous barks and turbulent demonstrations of delight. But
for them, as they seemed well to know, this marvellous discovery
would have never been achieved, and the drama which now ended with
so great happiness, might have terminated in a lifelong tragedy.
Therefore we were not surprised to see St. Aubyn, after the first
transport of the meeting, turn to the dogs, and clasping each huge
rough head in turn, kiss it fervently and with grateful tears.
It was their only guerdon for that day's priceless service: the
dumb beasts that love us do not work for gold!
And now came the history of the three long months which had elapsed
since the occurrence of the disaster which separated my friend from
his little son.
Seated on the soft moss of the cavern floor, St. Aubyn in the midst
and the boy beside him, we listened to the sequel of the strange
tale recounted the preceding evening by Theodor and Augustin Raoul.
And first we learnt that until the moment when his father's shout
broke upon his ear that day, Charlie St. Aubyn had remained as
insensible to sound and as mute of voice as he was when his accident
befell him. Even now that the powers of hearing and of speech were
restored, he articulated uncertainly and with great difficulty,
leaving many words unfinished, and helping out his phrases with
gesticulations and signs, his father suggesting and assisting as
the narrative proceeded. Was it the strong love in St. Aubyn's
cry that broke through the spell of disease and thrilled his child's
dulled nerves into life? Was it the shock of an emotion coming
unexpected and intense after all those dreary weeks of futile
watchfulness? or was the miracle an effect of the same Divine grace
which, by means of a mysterious gift, had enabled us to track and
to find this obscure and unknown spot?
It matters little; the spirit of man is master of all things,
and the miracles of love are myriad-fold. For, where love abounds
and is pure, the spirit of man is as the Spirit of God.
Little St. Aubyn had been saved from death, and sustained during
the past three months by a creature dumb like himself,--a large
dog exactly resembling Fritz and Bruno. This dog, he gave us to
understand, came from "over the torrent," indicating with a gesture
the Arblen Valley; and, from the beginning of his troubles, had
been to him like a human friend. The fall from the hillside had
not seriously injured, but only bruised and temporarily lamed the
lad, and after lying for a minute or two a little stunned and giddy,
he rose and with some difficulty made his way across the meadow
slope on which he found himself, expecting to meet his father
descending the path. But he miscalculated its direction, and
speedily discovered he had lost his way. After waiting a long
time in great suspense, and seeing no one but a few goatherds at
a distance, whose attention he failed to attract, the pain of a
twisted ankle, increased by continual movement, compelled him to
seek a night's shelter in the cave subsequently visited by his
father at the suggestion of the peasants who assisted in the search.
These peasants were not aware that the cave was but the mouth of
a vast and wandering labyrinth tunneled, partly by nature and partly
by art, through the rocky heart of the mountain. A little before
sunrise, on the morning after his accident, the boy, examining with
minute curiosity the picturesque grotto in which he had passed the
night, discovered in its darkest corner a moss-covered stone behind
which had accumulated a great quantity of weeds, ivy, and loose
rubbish. Boylike, he fell to clearing away these impedimenta and
excavating the stone, until, after some industrious labour thus
expended, he dismantled behind and a little above it a narrow passage,
into which he crept, partly to satisfy his love of "exploring,"
partly in the hope that it might afford him an egress in the direction
of the village. The aperture thus exposed had not, in fact, escaped
the eye of St. Aubyn, when about an hour afterwards the search for
the lost boy was renewed. But one of his guides, after a brief
inspection, declared the recess into which it opened empty, and
the party, satisfied with his report, left the spot, little thinking
that all their labor had been lost by a too hasty examination.
For, in fact, this narrow and apparently limited passage gradually
widened in its darkest part, and, as little St Aubyn found, became
by degrees a tolerably roomy corridor, in which he could just manage
to walk upright, and into which light from the outer world penetrated
dimly through artificial fissures hollowed out at intervals in the
rocky wall. Delighted at this discovery, but chilled by the vaultlike
coldness of the place, the lad hastened back to fetch the fur mantle
he had left in the cave, threw it over his shoulders, and returned
to continue his exploration. The cavern gallery beguiled him with
ever-new wonders at every step. Here rose a subterranean spring,
there a rudely carved gargoyle grinned from the granite roof;
curious and intricate windings enticed his eager steps, while all
the time the deathlike and horrible silence which might have deterred
an ordinary child from further advance, failed of its effect upon
ears unable to distinguish between the living sounds of the outer
world and the stillness of a sepulchre.
Thus he groped and wandered, until he became aware that the gloom
of the corridor had gradually deepened, and that the tiny opening
in the rock were now far less frequent than at the outset. Even
to his eyes, by this time accustomed to obscurity, the darkness
grew portentous, and at every step he stumbled against some unseen
projection, or bruised his hands in vain efforts to discover a
returning path. Too late he began to apprehend that he was nearly
lost in the heart of the mountain. Either the windings of the
labyrinth were hopelessly confusing, or some debris, dislodged by
the unaccustomed concussion of footsteps, had fallen from the roof
and choked the passage behind him. The account which the boy gave
of his adventure, and of his vain and long-continued efforts to
retrace his way, made the latter hypothesis appear to us the more
acceptable, the noise occasioned by such a fall having of course
passed unheeded by him. In the end, thoroughly baffled and exhausted,
the lad determined to work on through the Cimmerian darkness in
the hope of discovering a second terminus on the further side of
the mountain. This at length he did. A faint starlike outlet
finally presented itself to his delighted eyes; he groped painfully
towards it; gradually it widened and brightened, till at length
he emerged from the subterranean gulf which had so long imprisoned
him into the mountain cave wherein he bad ever since remained.
How long it had taken him to accomplish this passage he could not
guess, but from the sun's position it seemed to be about noon when
he again beheld day. He sat down, dazzled and fatigued, on the
mossy floor of the grotto, and watched the mountain torrent eddying
and sweeping furiously past in the gorge beneath his retreat.
After a while he slept, and awoke towards evening faint with hunger
and bitterly regretting the affliction which prevented him from
attracting help.
Suddenly, to his great amaze, a huge tawny head appeared above the
rocky edge of the plateau, and in another moment a St. Bernard hound
clambered up the steep bank and ran towards the cave. He was dripping
wet, and carried, strapped across his broad back, a double pannier,
the contents of which proved on inspection to consist of three
flasks of goat's milk, and some half dozen rye loaves packed in a
tin box.
The friendly expression and intelligent demeanour of his visitor
invited little St. Aubyn's confidence and reanimated his sinking
heart. Delighted at such evidence of human proximity, and eager
for food, he drank of the goat's milk and ate part of the bread,
afterwards emptying his pockets of the few sous he possessed and
enclosing them with the remaining loaves in the tin case, hoping
that the sight of the coins would inform the dog's owners of the
incident. The creature went as he came, plunging into the deepest
and least boisterous part of the torrent, which he crossed by swimming,
regained the opposite shore, and soon disappeared from view.
But next day, at about the same hour, the dog reappeared alone,
again bringing milk and bread, of which again the lad partook, this
time, however, having no sous to deposit in the basket. And when,
as on the previous day, his new friend rose to depart, Charlie
St. Aubyn left the cave with him, clambered down the bank with
difficulty, and essayed to cross the torrent ford. But the depth
and rapidity of the current dismayed him, and with sinking heart
the child returned to his abode. Every day the same thing happened,
and at length the strange life became familiar to him, the trees,
the birds, and the flowers became his friends, and the great hound
a mysterious protector whom he regarded with reverent affection
and trusted with entire confidence. At night he dreamed of home,
and constantly visited his father in visions, saying always the
same words, "Father, I am alive and well."
"And now," whispered the child, nestling closer in St. Aubyn's
embrace, "the wonderful thing is that today, for the first and
only time since I have been in this cave, my dog has not come to me!
It looks, does it not, as if in some strange and fairylike way he
really knew what was happening, and had known it all along from
the very beginning! O father! can he be--do you think--can he be
an Angel in disguise? And, to be sure, I patted him, and thought
he was only a dog!"
As the boy, an awed expression in his lifted blue eyes, gave utterance
to this naive idea, I glanced at St. Aubyn's face, and saw that,
though his lips smiled, his eyes were grave and full of grateful wonder.
He turned towards the peasants grouped around us, and in their own
language recited to them the child's story. They listened intently,
from time to time exchanging among themselves intelligent glances
and muttering interjections expressive of astonishment. When the
last word of the tale was spoken, the elder Raoul, who stood at
the entrance of the cave, gazing out over the sunlit valley of the
Arblen, removed his hat with a reverent gesture and crossed himself.
"God forgive us miserable sinners," he said humbly, "and pardon
us our human pride! The Angel of the Lord whom Augustin and I
beheld in our vision, ministering to the lad, is no other than the
dog Gluck who lives at the monastery out yonder! And while we men
are lucid only once a year, he has the seeing gift all the year
round, and the good God showed him the lad in this cave, when we,
forsooth, should have looked for him in vain. I know that every
day Gluck is sent from the monastery laden with food and drink to
a poor widow living up yonder over the ravine. She is infirm and
bedridden, and her little grand-daughter takes care of her.
Doubtless the poor soul took the sous in the basket to be the gift
of the brothers, and, as her portion is not always the same from
day to day, but depends on what they can spare from the store set
apart for almsgiving, she would not notice the diminished cakes
and milk, save perhaps to grumble a little at the increase of the
beggars who trespassed thus on her pension."
There was silence among us for a moment, then St Aubyn's boy spoke.
"Father," he asked, tremulously, "shall I not see that good Gluck
again and tell the monks how he saved me, and how Fritz and Bruno
brought you here?"
"Yes, my child," answered St Aubyn, rising, and drawing the boy's
hand into his own, "we will go and find Gluck, who knows, no doubt,
all that has passed today, and is waiting for us at the monastery."
"We must ford the torrent," said Augustin; "the bridge was carried
off by last year's avalanche, but with six of us and the dogs it
will be easy work."
Twilight was falling; and already the stars of Christmas Eve
climbed the frosty heavens and appeared above the snowy far-off peaks.
Filled with gratitude and wonder at all the strange events of the
day we betook ourselves to the ford, and by the help of ropes and
stocks our whole party landed safely on the valley side. Another
half-hour brought us into the warm glow of the monk's refectory
fire, where, while supper was prepared, the worthy brothers listened
to a tale at least as marvellous as any legend in their ecclesiastical
repertory. I fancy they must have felt a pang of regret that holy
Mother Church would find it impossible to bestow upon Gluck and
his two noble sons the dignity of canonisation.
II. Steepside
A Ghost Story
The strange things I am going to tell you, dear reader, did not
occur, as such things generally do, to my great-uncle, or to my
second cousin, or even to my grandfather, but to myself. It happened
that a few years ago I received an invitation from an old
schoolfellow to spend Christmas week with him in his country house
on the borders of North Wales, and, as I was then a happy bachelor,
and had not seen my friend for a considerable time, I accepted the
invitation, and turned my back upon London on the appointed day
with a light heart and anticipations of the pleasantest description.
Leaving my City haunts by a morning train, I was landed early in
the afternoon at the nearest station to my friend's house, although
in this case "nearest" was indeed, as it proved, by no means near.
When I reached the inn where I had fondly expected to find "flys,
omnibuses, and other vehicles obtainable on the shortest notice,"
I was met by the landlady of the establishment, who, with an
apologetic curtsey and a deprecating smile, informed me that she
was extremely sorry to say her last conveyance had just started
with a party, and would not return until late at night. I looked
at my watch; it was nearing four. Seven miles, and I had a large
traveling-bag to carry.
"Is it a good road from here to--?" I asked the landlady.
"Oh yes, sir; very fair."
"Well," I said, "I think I'll walk it. The railway journey has
rather numbed my feet, and a sharp walk will certainly improve
their temperature."
So I courageously lifted my bag and set out on the journey to my
friend's house. Ah, how little I guessed what was destined to
befall me before I reached that desired haven! I had gone, I
suppose, about two miles when I descried behind me a vast mass of
dark, surging cloud driving up rapidly with the wind. I was in
open country, and there was evidently going to be a very heavy
snowstorm. Presently it began. At first I made up my mind not
to heed it; but in about twenty minutes after the commencement
of the fall the snow became so thick and so blinding, that it was
absolutely impossible for me to find my way along a road which was
utterly new to me. Moreover, with the cloud came the twilight,
and a most disagreeably keen wind. The traveling-bag became unbearably
heavy. I shifted it from one hand to the other; I hung it over
my shoulder; I put it under my arm; I carried it in all sorts
of ways, but none afforded me any permanent relief. To add to my
misfortune, I strongly suspected that I had mistaken my way, for
by this time the snow was so deep that the footpath was altogether
obliterated. In this predicament I looked out wistfully across
the whitened landscape for signs of an inn or habitation of some
description where I might "put up" for the night, and by good fortune
(or was it bad?) I at last espied through the gathering gloom a
solitary and not very distant light twinkling from a lodge at the
entrance of a private road. I fought my way through the snow as
quickly as possible, and, presenting myself at the gate of the little
cottage, rang the bell complacently, and flattered myself that I
had at length discovered a resting-place. An old man with grey
hair answered my summons. Him I acquainted with my misfortune,
and to him I preferred my request that I might be allowed a night's
shelter in the lodge, or at least the temporary privilege of drying
myself and my habiliments at his fireside. The old fellow admitted
me cheerfully enough; but he seemed more than doubtful as to the
possibility of my passing the night beneath his roof.
"Ye see, sir," he said, "we've only one small room--me and the missis;
and I don't well see how we're to manage about you. All the same,
sir, I wouldn't advise ye to go on tonight, for if ye're bound for
Mr ---'s, ye've come a deal out of your way, and the storm's getting
worse and worse every minute. We shall have a nasty night of it,
sir, and it'll be a deal too stiff for travelling on foot."
Here the wife, a hospitable-looking old woman, interposed.
"Willum, don't ye think as the gentleman might be put to sleep in
the room up at the House, where George slept last time he was here
to see us? His bed's there still, ye know. It's a very good room,
sir," she argued, addressing me; "and I can give ye a pair of
blankets in no time."
"But," said I, "the master of the house doesn't know me. I am a
stranger here altogether."
"Lor' bless ye, sir!" answered my host, "there ain't nobody in the
place. The house has been to let these ten years at least to my
knowledge; for I've been here eight, and the house and the lodge
had both been empty no one knows how long when I come. I rents
this cottage of Mr Houghton, out yonder."
"Oh well," I rejoined, "if that is the case, and there is nobody's
leave save yours to ask, I'm willing enough to sleep at the house,
and thank you too for your kindness."
So it was arranged that I should pass the coming night within the
walls of the empty mansion; and, until it was time to retire thither,
I amused and edified myself by a friendly chat with the old man
and his spouse, both of whom were vastly communicative. At ten
o'clock I and my host adjourned to the house, which stood at a very
short distance from the lodge. I carried my bag, and my companion
bore the blankets already referred to, a candle, and some firewood
and matches. The chamber to which he conducted me was comfortable
enough, but by no means profusely furnished. It contained a small
truckle bedstead, two chairs, and a washstand, but no attempt at
pictures or ornaments of any description. Evidently it was an
impromptu bedroom.
My entertainer in a few minutes kindled a cheerful fire upon the
old-fashioned stone hearth. Then, after arranging my bed and
placing my candle on the mantelpiece, he wished me a respectful
goodnight and withdrew. When he was gone I dragged one of the
chairs towards the fireplace, and sat down to enjoy the pleasant
flicker of the blaze. I ruminated upon the occurrences of the day,
and the possible history of the old house, whose sole occupant I
had thus strangely become. Now, I am of an inquisitive turn of mind,
and perhaps less apt than most men to be troubled with that
uncomfortable sensation which those people who are its victims
describe as nervousness, and those who are not, as cowardice.
Another in my place might have shrunk from doing what I presently
resolved to do, and that was to explore, before going to rest, at
least some part of this empty old house. Accordingly, I took up
my candle and walked out into the passage, leaving the door of my
room widely open, so that the firelight streamed full into the
entrance of the dark gallery, and served to guide me on my way
along it. When I had thus progressed for some twenty yards, I was
brought to a standstill by encountering a large red baize door,
which evidently shut off the wing in which my room was situated
from the rest of the mansion, and completely closed all egress from
the corridor where I then stood. I paused a moment or two in
uncertainty, for the door was locked; but presently my glance
fell on an old rusty key hanging from a nail, likewise rusty, in
a niche of the wall. I abstracted this key from its resting-place,
destroying as I did so the residences of a dozen spiders, which,
to judge from appearances, seemed to have thrived excellently in
the atmosphere of desolation which surrounded them. It was some
time before I could get the clumsy old lock to act properly, or
summon sufficient strength to turn the key; but at length
perseverance met with its proverbial reward, and the door moved
slowly and noisily on its hinges. Still bearing my candle, I went
on my way into a second corridor, which was literally carpeted
with dust, the accumulation probably of the ten years to which my
host had referred.
All round was gloomy and silent as a sepulchre, save that every
now and then the loosened boards creaked beneath my tread, or some
little misanthropical animal, startled from his hermitage by the
unwonted sound of my steps, hurried across the passage, making as
he went a tiny trail in the thick furry dust. Several galleries
branched off from the mainway like tributary streams, but I preferred
to steer my course down the central corridor, which finally conducted
me to a large antique-looking apartment with carved wainscot and
curious old paintings on the panelled walls. I put the candle upon
a table which stood in the centre of the room, and standing beside
it, took a general survey. There was an old mouldy-looking bookcase
in one corner of the chamber, with some old mouldy books packed
closely together on a few of its shelves. This piece of furniture
was hollowed out, crescent-wise, at the base, and partially concealed
a carved oaken door, which had evidently in former times been the
means of communication with an adjoining apartment. Prompted by
curiosity, I took down and opened a few of the nearest books on
the shelves before me. They proved to be some of the very earliest
volumes of the "Spectator,"--books of considerable interest to me,--
and in ten minutes I was quite absorbed in an article by one of
our most noted masters of literature. I drew one of the queer
high-backed chairs scattered about the room, towards the table,
and sat down to enjoy a "feast of reason and a flow of soul." As
I turned the mildewed page, something suddenly fell with a dull
"flop" upon the paper. It was a drop of blood! I stared at it
with a strange sensation of mingled horror and astonishment. Could
it have been upon the page before I turned it? No; it was wet
and bright, and presented the uneven, broken disc which drops of
liquid always possess when they fall from a considerable height.
Besides I had heard and seen it fall. I put the book down on the
table and looked upward at the ceiling. There was nothing visible
there save the grey dirt of years. I looked closely at the hideous
blotch, and saw it rapidly soaking and widening its way into the
paper, already softened with age. As, of course, after this incident
I was not inclined to continue my studies of Addison and Steele,
I shut the volume and replaced it on the shelves. Turning back
towards the table to take up my candle, my eyes rested upon a full-
length portrait immediately facing the bookcase. It was that of
a young and handsome woman with glossy black hair coiled round her
head, but, I thought, with something repulsive in the proud, stony
face and shadowed eyes. I raised the light above my head to get
a better view of the painting. As I did this, it seemed to me that
the countenance of the figure changed, or rather that a Thing came
between me and it. It was a momentary distortion, as though a gust
of wind had passed across the portrait and disturbed the outline
of the features; the how and the why I know not, but the face changed;
nor shall I ever forget the sudden horror of the look it assumed.
It was like that face of phantom ghastliness that we see sometimes
in the delirium of fever,--the face that meets us and turns upon
us in the mazes of nightmare, with a look that wakes us in the
darkness, and drives the cold sweat out upon our forehead while
we lie still and hold our breath for fear. Man as I was, I shuddered
convulsively from head to foot, and fixed my eyes earnestly on the
terrible portrait. In a minute it was a mere picture again--an
inanimate colored canvas--wearing no expression upon its painted
features save that which the artist had given to it nearly a century
ago. I thought then that the strange appearance I had witnessed
was probably the effect of the fitful candlelight, or an illusion
of my own vision; but now I believe otherwise. Seeing nothing
further unusual in the picture, I turned my back upon it, and made
a few steps towards the door, intending to quit this mysterious
chamber of horrors, when a third and more hideous phenomenon riveted
me to the spot where I stood; for, as I looked towards the oaken
door in the corner, I became aware of something slowly filtering
from beneath it, and creeping towards me. O heaven! I had not
long to look to know what that something was:--it was blood-red,
thick, stealthy! On it came, winding its way in a frightful stream
into the room, soddening the rich carpet, and lying presently in
a black pool at my feet. It had trickled in from the adjoining
chamber, that chamber the entrance to which was closed by the bookcase.
There were some great volumes on the ground before the door,--volumes
which I had noticed when I entered the room, on account of the
thick dust with which they were surrounded. They were lying now
in a pool of stagnant blood. It would be utterly impossible for
me to attempt to describe my sensations at that minute. I was not
capable of feeling any distinct emotion. My brain seemed oppressed,
I could scarcely breathe--scarcely move. I watched the dreadful
stream oozing drowsily through the crevices of the mouldy, rotting
woodwork--bulging out in great beads like raindrops on the sides
of the door--trickling noiselessly down the knots of the carved oak.
Still I stood and watched it, and it crept on slowly, slowly, like
a living thing, and growing as it came, to my very feet. I cannot
say how long I might have stood there, fascinated by it, had not
something suddenly occurred to startle me into my senses again;
for full upon the back of my right hand fell, with a sullen, heavy
sound, a second drop of blood. It stung and burnt my flesh like
molten lead, and the sharp, sudden pain it gave me shot up my arm
and shoulder, and seemed in an instant to mount into my brain and
pervade my whole being. I turned and fled from the terrible place
with a shrill cry that rang through the empty corridors and ghostly
rooms like nothing human. I did not recognise it for my own voice,
so strange it was,--so totally unlike its accustomed sound; and
now, when I recall it, I am disposed to think it was surely not
the cry of living mortal, but of that unknown Thing that passed
before the portrait, and that stood beside me even then in the
lonely room. Certain I am that the echoes of that cry had in them
something inexpressibly fiendish, and through the deathly gloom
of the mansion they came back, reverberated and repeated from a
hundred invisible corners and galleries. Now, I had to pass, on
my return, a long, broad window that lighted the principal staircase.
This window had neither shutters nor blind, and was composed of
those small square panes that were in vogue a century ago. As I
went by it, I threw a hasty, appalled glance behind me, and
distinctly saw, even through the blurred and dirty glass, the
figures of two women, one pursuing the other over the thick white
snow outside. In the rapid view I had of them, I observed only
that the first carried something in her hand that looked like a
pistol, and her long black hair streamed behind her, showing darkly
against the dead whiteness of the landscape. The arms of her
pursuer were outstretched, as though she were calling to her
companion to stop; but perfect as was the silence of the night,
and close as the figures seemed to be, I heard no sound of a voice.
Next I came to a second and smaller window which had been once
boarded up, but with lapse of time the plank had loosened and partly
fallen, and here I paused a moment to look out. It still snowed
slightly, but there was a clear moon, sufficient to throw a ghastly
light upon the outside objects nearest to me. With the sleeve of
my coat I rubbed away the dust and cobwebs which overhung the glass,
and peered out. The two women were still hurrying onward, but the
distance between them was considerably lessened. And now for the
first time a peculiarity about them struck me. It was this, that
the figures were not substantial; they flickered and waved precisely
like flames, as they ran. As I gazed at them the foremost turned
her head to look at the woman behind her, and as she did so, stumbled,
fell, and disappeared. She seemed to have suddenly dropped down
a precipice, so quickly and so completely she vanished. The other
figure stopped, wrung its hands wildly, and presently turned and
fled in the direction of the park-gates, and was soon lost in the
obscurity of the distance. The sights I had just witnessed in the
panelled chamber had not been of a nature to inspire courage in
any one, and I must candidly confess that my knees actually shook
and my teeth rattled as I left the window and darted up the solitary
passage to the baize door at the top of it. Would I had never
unlocked that door! Would that the key had been lost, or that I
had never set foot in this abominable house! Hastily I refastened
the door, hung up the rusty key in its niche, and rushed into my
own room, where I dropped into a chair with a deadly faintness
creeping over me. I looked at my hand, where the clot of blood
had fallen. It seemed to have burnt its way into my flesh, for it
no longer appeared on the surface, but, where it had been was a round,
purple mark, with an outer ring, like the scar of a burn. That
scar is on my hand now, and I suppose will be there all my life.
I looked at my watch, which I had left behind on the mantelpiece.
It was five minutes past twelve. Should I go to bed? I stirred
the sinking fire into a blaze, and looked anxiously at my candle.
Neither fire nor candles, I perceived, would last much longer.
Before long both would be expended, and I should be in darkness.
In darkness, and alone in that house. The bare idea of a night
passed in such solitude was terrible to me. I tried to laugh at
my fears. And reproached myself with weakness and cowardice. I
reverted to the stereotyped method of consolation under circumstances
of this description, and strove to persuade myself that, being
guiltless, I had no cause to fear the powers of evil. But in vain.
Trembling from head to foot, I raked together the smouldering embers
in the stove for the last time, wrapped my railway rug around me--
for I dared not undress--and threw myself on the bed, where I lay
sleepless until the dawn. But oh, what I endured all those weary
hours no human creature can imagine. I watched the last sparks of
the fire die out, one by one, and heard the ashes slide and drop
slowly upon the hearth. I watched the flame of the candle flare
up and sink again a dozen times, and then at last expire, leaving
me in utter darkness and silence. I fancied, ever and anon, that
I could distinguish the sound of phantom feet coming down the
corridor towards my room, and that the mysterious Presence I had
encountered in the panelled chamber stood at my bedside looking at
me, or that a stealthy hand touched mine. I felt the sweat upon
my forehead, but I dared not move to wipe it away. I thought of
people whose hair had turned white through terror in a few brief
hours, and wondered what color mine would be in the morning. And
when at last--at last--the first grey glimmer of that morning peered
through the window-blind, I hailed its appearance with much the
same emotions as, no doubt, a traveler fainting with thirst in a
desert would experience upon descrying a watery oasis in the midst
of the burning sands. Long before the sun arose, I leapt from my
couch, and having made a hasty toilette, I sallied out into the bleak,
frosty air. It revived me at once, and brought new courage into my
heart. Looking at the whitened expanse of lawn where last night
I had seen the two women running, I could detect no sign of footmarks
in the snow. The whole lawn presented an unbroken surface of
sparkling crystals. I walked down the drive to the lodge. The
old man, evidently an early bird, was in the act of unbarring his
door as I appeared.
Halloa, sir, you're up betimes!" he exclaimed. "Will ye just step
in now and take somethin'? My ole woman's agoin' to get out the
breakfast. Slept well last night, sir?" he continued, as I entered
the little parlour; "the bed is rayther hard, I know; but, ye
see, it does well enow for my son George when he's up here, which
isna often. Ye look tired like, this morning; didna get much rest
p'raps? Ah! now then, Bess, gi' us another plate here, ole gal."
I ate my breakfast in comparative silence, wondering to myself
whether it would be well to say anything to my host of my recent
experiences, since he had clearly no suspicions on the subject;
and, anon, wishing I had comported myself in that terrible house
with as little curiosity as the "son George," who no doubt was
content to stay where he was put at night, and was not given to
nocturnal excursions in empty mansions.
"Have you any idea," said I, at last, "whether there's any story
connected with that place where I slept last night? I only ask,"
added I, with a feeble grin, like the ghost of a smile that had
been able-bodied once, "because I'm fond of hearing stories, and
because, as you know, there generally is a legend, or something
of that sort, related about old family mansions."
"Well, sir," answered the old man slowly, "I never heard nothin';
but then, you see, I never asked no questions. We came here eight
years agone, and then no one round remembered a tenant at the big
house. It's been empty somewhere nigh twenty years, I should say,--
to my own knowledge more than ten,--and what's more, nobody knows
exactly who it belongs to: and there's been lawsuits about it and
all manner o' things, but nothin' ever came of them."
"Did no one ever tell you anything about its history," I asked,
"or were you never asked any questions about it until now?"
"Not particularly as I remember," replied he musingly.
Then, after a moment's pause, he added more briskly, "Ay, ay, though,
now I come to think of it, there was a man up here more'n five months
back, a Frenchman, who came on purpose to see it and ask me one
or two questions, but I on'y jest told him nothin' as I've told you.
He was a popish priest, and seemed to take a sight of interest in
the place somehow. I think if you want to know about it, sir, you'd
better go and see him; he's staying down here in the village, about
a mile and a half off, at the Crown Inn."
"And a queer old fellow he is," broke in my host's wife, who was
clearing away the breakfast; "no one knows where he comes from,
'cept as he's a Frenchman. I see him about often, prowlin' along
with his stick and his snuff-box, always alone, and sometimes he
nods at me and says `good-morning' as I go by."
In consequence of this information I resolved to make my way
immediately to the old priest's dwelling, and having acquainted
myself with the direction in which the house lay, I took leave of
my host, shouldered my bag once more, and set out en route. The
air was clear and sharp, and the crisp snow crackled pleasantly
under my Hessian boots as I strode along the country lanes. All
traces of cloud had totally disappeared from the sky, the sun looked
cheerfully down on me, and my morning's walk thoroughly refreshed
and invigorated me. In due time I arrived at the inn which had
been named to me as the abode of the Rev. M. Pierre,--a pretty
homely little nest, with an antique gable and portico. Addressing
myself to the elderly woman who answered my summons at the housedoor,
I inquired if I could see M. Pierre, and, in reply, received a
civil invitation to "step inside and wait." My suspense did not
last long, for M. Pierre made his appearance very promptly. He
was a tall, thin individual with a fried-looking complexion, keen
sunken eyes, and sparse hair streaked with grey. He entered the
room with a courteous bow and inquiring look. Rising from the
chair in which I had rested myself by the fire, I advanced towards
him and addressed him by name in my suavest tones. He inclined
his head and looked at me more inquiringly than before." I have
taken the liberty to request an interview with you this morning,"
continued I, "because I have been told that you may probably be
able to give me some information of which I am in search, with
regard to an old mansion in this part of the county, called
`Steepside,' and in which I spent last night."
Scarcely had I uttered these last words when the expression of the
old priest's face changed from one of courteous indifference to
earnest interest:
"Do I understand you rightly, monsieur?" he said. "You say you
slept last night in Steepside mansion?"
"I did not say I slept there," I rejoined, with an emphasis; "I
said I passed the night there."
"Bien," said he dryly, "I comprehend. And you were not pleased
with your night's lodging. That is so, is it not, monsieur,--is
it not?" he repeated, eying my face curiously, as though he were
seeking to read the expression of my thoughts there.
"You may be sure," said I, "that if something very peculiar had
not occurred to me in that house, I should not thus have troubled
a gentleman to whom I am, unhappily, a stranger."
He bowed slightly and then stood silent, contemplating me, and,
as I think, considering whether or not he should afford me the
information I desired. Presently, his scrutiny having apparently
proved satisfactory, he withdrew his eyes from my face, and seated
himself beside me.
"Monsieur," said he, "before I begin to answer your inquiry, I will
ask you to tell me what you saw last night at Steepside."
He drew from his pocket a small, old-fashioned snuff-box and refreshed
his little yellow nose with a pinch of rappee, after which ceremonial
he leaned back at his ease, resting his chin in his hand and regarding
me fixedly during the whole of my strange recital. When I had finished
speaking he sat silent a few minutes, and then resumed, in his queer
broken manner:
"What I am going to tell you I would not tell to any man who had
not done what you have done, and seen what you saw last night.
Mon Dieu! it is strange you should have been at that house last
night of all nights in the year,--the 22nd of December!"
He seemed to make this reflection rather to himself than to me,
and presently continued, taking a small key from a pocket in his
vest as he spoke:
"Do you understand French well, monsieur?"
"Excellently well," returned I with alacrity; "a great part of
my business correspondence is conducted in French, and I speak and
hear it every day of my life."
He smiled pleasantly in reply, rose from his seat, and, unlocking
with the key he held a small drawer in a chest that stood beside
the chimney-piece, took out of it a roll of manuscript and a cigar.
"Monsieur," said he, offering me the latter, "let me recommend this,
if you care to smoke so early in the day. I always prefer rappee,
but you, doubtless, have younger tastes."
Having thus provided for my comfort, the old priest reseated himself,
unfolded the manuscript, and, without further apology, read the
following story in the French language:
Towards the latter part of the last century Steepside became the
property of a certain Sir Julian Lorrington. His family consisted
only of his wife, Lady Sarah, and their daughter Julia, a girl
remarkable alike for her beauty and her expectations.
For a long time Sir Julian had retained in his establishment an
old French maitre d'hotel and his wife, who both died in the baronet's
service, leaving one child, Virginie, whom Lady Sarah, out of regard
for the fidelity of her parents, engaged to educate and protect.
In due time this orphan, brought up in the household of Sir Julian,
became the chosen companion of his heiress; and when the family
took up their residence at Steepside, Virginie Giraud, who had been
associated in Julia's studies and recreations from early childhood,
was installed there as maid and confidant to the hope of the house.
Not long after the settlement at Steepside, Sir Julian, in the
summary fashion of those days with regard to matrimonial affairs,
announced his intention of bestowing his daughter upon a certain
Welsh squire of old ancestry and broad acres. Sir Julian was a
practical man, thoroughly incapable of regarding
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/5651