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in obedience to my own theory—pretend to be a dupe , and pretend to assist her by exclamations of se Wonderful ! " " I never heard the like ! " " It is incredible ! " and while so doing contrived to put such questions as would , I thought , if my theory were correct , infallibly make her say not only what was absolutely false , but precisely the thing I chose she should say . I will give an example . On the first landing there is a glass door , which leads to a servant ' s bedroom . This was our conversation . "Is there anything peculiar about this landing ? " "Yes ( a pause ) . What a delicious smell !" " Of what ? " " Like flowers . " Here I saw she was on the verge of a grand
mistake , and I determined to see if by a little care on my part she could not be induced to describe a conservatory ; I therefore exclaimed , " Wonderful !" then added " And what do you see besides flowers ? " " Green stands , and , oh ! a quantity of glass . " " Is it a conservatory ? " " Yes . " As we mounted to the drawing-room floor I became very curious to see how she would escape the trap which circumstances had laid for her . My drawing-room is not on the first floor , as is usual , but the room which generally serves for a drawingroom is with us a best bedroom . She described it furnished as a drawingroom , with ottomans , knick-knacks , card-tables , &c , without one hint as to the great peculiarity—a bed ! I then asked her if she saw my portrait ,
" Yes . " " Is it a large or small picture ? " " Large . " " Oil painting or chalk drawing . " " Oil ; but it is younger than you are . " ( It really is a small pencil sketch ; a meerschaum pipe is in one hand ; books are lying around . ) "Do you observe anything peculiar about the face ? " " Yes , there is hair about the mouth—military looking ! " Nothing can be less martial ; it has the appearance of a German student without his beard and moustaches ; but the word military suggested to me that I would entrap her , so I said , " And is there anything in the general dress to bear out that
appearance ! " " Yes , there is a sort of ... oh ! it ' s regimentals ! " " Well , I am astounded ! " and astounded I was at the impudence and humbug of the exhibition . At this moment Dr . M . came in and said to her , " Eh bien I chere Elise , are you successful ? " "It is incredible , " said I . " Yes , " said the girl , " I travel very well with this gentleman ; I see very clearly with him . " As a final question I asked about my family , which consists of four boys and a human Rose in the shape of their mother . Elise saw them distinctly : they were two girls and a tall , pale , dark , thin woman !
The upshot of that seance was simply my thorough conviction that the girl was a cheat ; but I was not illiberal enough to believe that all the clairvoyants were cheats , and therefore was—as I am still—eager to see any genuine case . My first experience had merely shown me what every one knows , viz ., the amount of delusion which exists on the subject , and the vulgar artifices by which it is kept up . This girl , instead of playing upon me , allowed me to play upon her , and make her say just what I pleased , and at other times when I did not ensnare her by any questions or exclamations she was hopelessly , ludicrously wrong , except in such particulars as apply to all houses and all people .
My next experience was in London . Count P ., an Italian gentleman with great mesmeric power , happened to say at an evening party , that a certain lady of high literary reputation , wad a good subject for mesmerism , and that he was sure she would be clairvoyante . After some difficulty it was arranged that a very small party should meet at the house of the lady ' s medical adviser , and that the Count should make the experiment . There were only six present . The Count was not only a perfect stranger to the patient , but to the rest of us . From our knowledge of the lady the exhibition was extremely interesting : the idea of deceit could find no acceptance in this case , and the experiments bade fair to be decisive .
Her clairvoyance was a signal failure . She did , indeed , answer questions , but they were such as a person talking in sleep might answer . Some written paper was placed in her hands . She was told to read it . She could not . The Count insisted , and his insistance made her painfully eager , but she was forced to reply that not a letter could she see . He then asked her , " Who came into the room just now ? " She answered , " Mr . Lewes . " " Ah ! " said some one , " she knew Mr . Lewes was the only person expected . " " I beg your pardon , " observed another , " there is Jim Brown still to come . " I record this for an especial reason , as will be seen . The seance proceeded ; various experiments of her clairvoyance were tried , but all failed . At last a loud knock at the street door made the Count say ,
" Now , miss , tell me who is at the door ?"— " I don't know . " " But I insist upon your telling me . " — "I can't . " " Don ' t you see him ?" — " No . " " Look . I command you to see him . "— " Indeed I can see no one . Stop , yes , it * s Jim Brown I " This , to the Count , was a triumphant example . It staggered me at first . But her absolute inability to see any one whatever , though writhing under the commands of the Count , recurred again and again to me ; and , at last , I remembered the fragment of conversation given above , in which it was said aloud that Jim Brown ( the name , of course , is disguised ) was still expected . This explanation then occurred to me : She
hears distinctly everything that is said , and she heard , therefore the words " Jim Brown has still to come . " When first she was ordered to tell who knocked at the door , she could see no one ; but , in the uncomfort of his insistance , the words Jim Brown suddenly came back upon her , and she exclaimed that she saw him . To make this explanation more convincing , 1 observe , first , that the lady in question would never , under any circumstances of familiarity , have spoken of Mr . Brown as " Jim Brown , " who to her was a stranger ; secondly , that the phrase , Jim Brown , was that which caught her ear , and hence her use of it , though so contrary to all her habits . With the cheat , therefore , and with the genuine woman I found my
experience of clairvoyance equally opposed to its claims . In the one case , I saw how dupes were made by charlatans ; in the other , how , with the help of a little credulity and some coincidences , honest and " respectable" examples might be cited , which , when nearly scrutinized , would turn out to be deceptions . If any mesmerist chooses to accept my conditions—if he will suffer me to eliminate all those circumstances which I may deem necessary before a
conclusive experiment can be made—I am open to conviction , and will gladly record the success as plainly as I have recorded the failures . It is not the marvellous nature of the phenomena which makes me slow of belief ; there are marvels enough in accredited science to rival all that mesmerists adduce ; but the great stumbling-block has been , and is , the want of any conclusive experiments made with perfect openness and desire to get at the truth . G . H . L .
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DESPAIR . In the darkest hour of the blackest midnight there is a glimmer of light travelling round from the absent sun , or sent perhaps from some etar so veiled or so remote that it cannot be described . So in the deepest hour of despair there is the reflex of memory or hope , if your eyes are but accustomed enough to the dark . At first , coming from the sunlight of happiness to the black blank of
despair , the heart is struck with horror , and a cowardly weakness vainly strives to recoil , or to crave help even where it cannot be given . To face an evil that is perfect in its misery demands more courage than men can possess at once ; you slink back , hoping , even when the black cloud is all but upon you , that something may happen before it actually wraps you in its pall . You strain your eyes in the desire to find some opening of escape through the cloud itself : and , when its unbroken blackness tells you that verily your
hour has come , you are prostrate with cold hopelessness . You grasp at some solace to sustain you in the hour of danger , and affection whispers to you that others suffer as much . Does that really console you ? Or does it not rather add a pang where the misery already seemed f ull ? Yet , truly , even in that profoundest gloom , there is solace , possibly more than one . Unless despair deprives the mind of its memory , there is the warm light shining from the past—for the past cannot be taken from you ; you possess it quite . Though the face of Heaven may be dark to you now , the sunshine of yesterday is in your heart .
Then if you are suffering , others enjoy ; and that which brings pain to you may bring joy to those who are better capable of life . And this is the true consolation in despair , that if you are oppressed with agony , it is under the decree of some great law which is working in the world for good . The power which crushes you is the same that sustains happiness elsewhere . If you are pining in sickness it is so because the laws of organic life are vindicating their unchangeableness . Estrangement is the sickness of love : it may be mortal ; but it belongs to the same laws of love which give life its joys . Even if you do not understand the calamity which overwhelms you , rest assured that the laws of the universe do not fail because you cannot see them
at the moment ; and if your hour has come , bow to your fate in trust that the sun is shining elsewhere . It is want of love in your own heart that makes the true desolation ; do but love enough , and as in the deepest dark you see the light that abides in your own eyes , so in the blackest despair you shall see the light in your own heart . Even if death itself cannot win back the averted look of affection , and a glimpse of the parting sun is denied to your closing eyes , your mouldering flesh will be taken back by Earth , and perchance it may feed the flowers that shall receive the lost smile of love .
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INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM . It might be a good plan , were it practicable , to get nations reciprocally to review each other A very admirable collection of reports , we imagine , might be published under the title of " The Nations of the World mutually Criticised . " Or , to take a more restricted case : fancy a Blue Book , one half of which should consist of » England and the English , by an American , " and the other half , of •' America and her Institutions , bv an Englishman . " Would not the first , by the very necessity of the case , contain a great many severe truths calculated rather to benefit Mr . Bull than to please him ; and would not the second probably offer , in return , some wholesome , if harsh , advices to Brother Jonathan ? In fact , were such a plan of international cnticiam fully
carried out , should we not see the various nations o the world gradually attaining smoothness by their mutual friction , and the world itself slowly polished up to the ideal of its collective wishes ? Nor from this great work of mutual improvement and castigation would we exclude any portion of our race , however humble . Gladly in the General collection of reports should we see a few pages occupied with " France and ft . People , from the Esquimaux Point of View , " or •< The State and Prospects of Eastern Europe as they appear to a Reflecting Canb . "
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SCllAPS OF THOUGHT . XXXIV Tiresias was struck with blindness as he looked on Minerva bathin * Here Minerva is the symbol of Supreme and Divine Wisdom , while Tiresias represents Jc anilctm i mortal who , morbidly inaui . itjve , ranhly lift , the veil of mysteries wh . oh enarites the infinite conscious ^ ss of God from the limited thought ol num . I he JumIpJ eve loses from the moment of that guilty gase the capacity to see the natural relation * of thinus , which in equivalent to he-inn blind . XXXV The marriage of UereulcH after his glorious cat cor on earth ih ended , and I , is entrance into hmveii amonj * the gods with Hebe , the goddess of jouih , imiti . b Uie immortal fame which is the reward of heroic deeds . XXXVI Nature in her rudest shapes is holier than men's divinest ideas of God . XXXVII . The link between the finite and the infinite i . not divine necessity but human caprice .
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June 15 , 1850 . ] &t > e & * ftfr * tV 285
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 15, 1850, page 285, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1842/page/21/
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