Chapter XIV: Part 14

Listen to this contrast, between some orient sects, along the eastern shores of Hindostan. The daughters of Guzzerat fold their infants to their bosoms drugged with opium; and when the babe is thus poisoned, the Hindu girl will answer with a languid and seeming innocent smile, “It is not difficult to blast a flower-bud.”

Then the Kurrada Brahmins (as we read in the “Rudhiradhyaya”), believing themselves the agents of Vishara Boot, the spirit of poison, sacrifice the pundits to their vampire goddess, Maha-Lackshmi.

Equally blind, yet more happy in the _nature_ of their superstition, are the Shravuch Banians, or the proselytes of Jena. The Yati, or officiating priest of _this_ order, in purifying the temples, sweeps the floor with the Raju-hurrun, a broom of cotton-threads, lest hapless one little insect may be destroyed. And this we may believe, from the creed of transmigration being influential among these people. Sir Paul Rycaut also, in his oriental history, informs us of parallel incidents among the devout Mahomedans, who, believing that in the body of a brute may reside the soul of a departed relative, ransom, with their gold, many a bird that would otherwise flutter away its captivity in a cage.

CAST. I will not flout your praises, Ida; but, in our own island, this illusion has rather led _to_ captivity. I remember the story of a lady, living in Worcestershire, who, under the innocent delusion that her daughters were changed into singing-birds, hung her pew in the cathedral with cages of goldfinches and linnets. And Lord Orford, in his “Reminiscences,” thus records the monomania of the Duchess of Kendal:

“In a tender mood, he (King George) promised the duchess that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The duchess, on his death, so _much expected_ the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa, at Isleworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the royal bird, or she, took the last flight.”

ASTR. You spoke of the absolute _senselessness_ of trance; and yet there were some hints of the awakening power of fear. Is this consistent?

EV. I expected your objection. In the cases of perfect catalepsy, the brain is not conscious of its mind, or if the mind be active, there is no _assurance of its activity_. But, as its faculties are awakened, it usually begins to work exactly where it left off;—one of the most imposing proofs, both of a separate existence during life, and of our bodies’ _unconsciousness_ of this transient disunion.

ASTR. I may own, Evelyn, that your illustrations of our questions, in despite of some _straining_ at explanation, carry, on _many_ points, conviction to my own mind, but not on _all_. There is another question equally interesting with the former. _How is vitality preserved during this protracted abstinence?_

EV. Remember, dear Astrophel, my confession, that there _are_ inexplicable mysteries. But, to the point of your last question. We are aware of the long period during which the body may fast after shipwreck, or beneath a fallen cliff, or even on the incarceration of animals for the purpose of experiment. Thus Captain Bligh, and seventeen persons, sailed four thousand miles in an open boat, with a small bird occasionally for the food of all. The Juno’s crew, wrecked off Aracan, existed twenty-three days without food; and the wreck of the Medusa is fresh in our memories. Here the body _feeds on its own fat, shrinking_ until that supply is lost, and then it dies.

I might relate to you the very impressive stories of Anne Moore, of Tutbury; of Janet M’Cleod, told by Dr. Mackenzie; and many strange facts related by Dr. Willan, Sir William Hamilton, and others.

I might refer you to legends, of which I can scarcely press for your belief. As the strange but authenticated story of Anna Garbero, of Racconiggi, forty miles from Turin, who existed without nutrition for two years, becoming like a shrivelled mummy. And that of Eve Hergen, who existed thirteen years upon the odour of flowers! But even with that incredulous frown of Astrophel’s, and that faint smile of thine, fair Castaly, let me at once to my explanations.

In _natural_ sleep the functions of the body are impeded. One of these is digestion. As there is little waste of the system there is little necessity for repletion, and life can be supported by a _very slight_ action of the heart, a minute current of blood; like the slender vitality of infants, who, even in a state of health, seem frequently scarcely to breathe. The circulation is materially influenced in sleep, the pulse being slower and more feeble than during waking; the relaxation of the _cutaneous_ vessels inducing frequent perspiration, especially in debilitated systems, and in the last stages of _adynamic_ fevers.

The body of the cataleptic patient descends to the condition of less complex animal life, in which there appears a much greater simplicity of organization; and we well know, as we descend in the scale of creation, towards the cold-blooded single-hearted animals, and especially if we reach the _zoophyte_, in how exact a proportion to this simplicity of structure is the tenacity of life increased. “Fish,” says Sir John Franklin, “were taken out of the nets frozen, and became a solid mass of ice, being by a blow of a hatchet easily split open; they, however, recovered their vitality on being thawed.”

A course of _systematic_ abstinence will enable us, if we wished it, to endure extreme privations, which a high feeder would soon sink under; and this is probably the discipline adopted by the fakirs of India, who fast so long under the influence of superstitious devotion.

Vaillant’s spider lived without food nearly one year; John Hunter’s toad fourteen months; land tortoises eighteen months; a beetle three years; and two serpents, according to Shaw, five years; an antelope has survived twenty days without food; some dogs forty days; an eagle 23 days.

Now all animals fall asleep at certain temperatures, which they cannot resist, but the common effect of _extreme_ cold is death. Dr. Solander was yielding to the influence of intense cold in _Terra del Fuego_, but was saved by the firmness of Sir Joseph Banks. Richmond, the black, lay down on the snow to sleep, and died.

There is a close analogy between this state and the _hybernation_ of animals, although the causes are not similar. _Animalculæ_ often become torpid for lack of moisture, and, even after the lapse of twenty-seven years, have been revivified by water. The small _furcularia anastobea_ will repeatedly become animated and lively by a single drop of water, its previous condition being completely quiescent. The snail, the alligator, indeed most of the _ophidian_ and _saurian_ reptiles, assume the torpid state in a period of extreme drought; and Humboldt states this also of the _centenes solosus_, a Madagascar hedgehog.

This hybernation of animals, as of the marmot and the dormouse, resembles the deep sleep arising from cold of a _certain_ degree; for if this be _intense_, they will sometimes be momentarily roused from it. They may be constantly kept awake by heat and powerful light.

Thus hybernation and the _sleep of plants_ take place from the withdrawal of _stimuli_; _heat_ being the _animal_—_light_ the _vegetable_ stimulus.

CAST. The sleep of plants? a fiction surely!

EV. Nay, a truth. The _irritability_ of plants is excited by their peculiar stimulus; when this is withdrawn, they fall to sleep. Most of the _discous_ flowers turn to the sun in his course, as the sun-flower, the _helianthus_, and the _croton_. The acacia leaves at noon point towards the zenith. The tamarind, the _oxalis_, and the trefoil, fold their leaves on the exclusion of light. The evening primrose shuts its blossom at sunset, while that minion of the moon, the night-blowing _cactus, then only_ begins to bloom; perhaps like the owl, and goat-sucker, and bat, who find _the sun too powerful an excitant_.

Vegetables may be put asleep by the withdrawal of proper stimulus,—the exclusion of this light. But this is a law of nature, and ordained for a special purpose. It is chiefly _during fructification_; the leaves at night folding round the flowers and seed-vessels, to protect them from the chilling blight of the night cold, which would congeal their juices. In this condition of the plant its irritability ceases, but the circulation of its sap-vessels is not suspended. Its vitality continues, but if the exercise of its _peculiar phenomena_ be long discontinued, it will fade and die. Now the _vis insita_ of the muscle resembles vegetable irritability; and, as this is lost and sensibility suspended, the body is indeed in a condition of vegetable sleep; for vegetables have not of course sensation, although the Darwinian romance would endow the _dionæa_, the _hedysarum_, and the _mimosa_ with sensibility, and all the blossom-beauties of Flora with the fervour of sexual passion. Trance then is caused by _the removal of a stimulus_. As somnambulism may result from a _redundancy_ of nervous energy, trance and catalepsy, as well as _incubus_, seem to arise from an _inefficient_ secretion or supply of this quality, in whatever it may consist, or an impediment to its transmission from the _sensorium_ or brain to the expansion of a nerve. Thus the motive power of a muscle is in these diseases _suspended_, which in _paralysis_ may be _permanently_ impaired or destroyed.

To describe this state, I must abound in negatives. The brain is not conscious: there is no sensation. Even the marrow by its _reflex faculty_ does not excite a muscle: there is no action: the mind has no cognizance: the body is for a time paralyzed. What is there then which may be termed life? merely involuntary circulation and gentle breathing. In this condition also there is a congestion of dark blood about the brain and in the right side of the heart; the circulation being reduced to an extreme _lentor_ or sluggishness, while in real _asphyxia_ there is a total stagnation.

I have done with minute pathology: as there are however two diseases, _epilepsy_ and _insanity_, which may be the _result_ of catalepsy, I may offer a precept on the point. The propensity to trance cannot suddenly be averted, but the state of the body and mind are important studies for our treatment. Melancholy and apathy are the features of the mind of the cataleptic, and languor and faulty secretions the symptoms of the body. Cheerful society, sympathy with suffering, but firmness in resisting sloth and erroneous fancies, and the direction of the patient’s mind to moral recreations, comprehend the sum of our _mental_ treatment.

It is equally essential to ensure regulation of the secretions, especially those of the liver. We should employ _cupping_ from the nape of the neck, if there be pain, or heat, or fulness of the head, and constant but gentle exercise. The head should not be low during sleep, nor should food be taken within two hours of retiring to rest. I believe obedience to these slight precepts will frequently mitigate, perhaps in the end avert the attacks, especially if they have arisen from diseased conditions of the body, or gloomy or depraved studies, and deep contemplation.

The most simple or unconnected form of catalepsy, is that most likely to end in madness. Perhaps, too, in deep and gloomy subjects, which begin by absorbing mind and sense, the end is thus; so that cataleptic abstraction is but the reverie or foretaste of mania.

As to suspected cases of still existing vitality: where there is _plethora_, I would employ bleeding, or cupping, _insufflation_, _Galvanism_; and I should not in extreme cases fear _acupuncture of the heart_, and galvanic shocks then transmitted through the needle. Beclard, in “La Pitié,” in Paris, allows the needle to remain three or four minutes and then withdraws it, and I have learned from my oriental friends, that the Chinese practice this mode extensively.

MESMERISM.

“Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
Not as Death’s dart, being laugh’d at.”
CYMBELINE.

“By some illusion see thou bring her here,
I’ll charm his eyes against she doth appear.”

“Such tricks hath strong imagination.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.

IDA. You are very formidable creatures, Evelyn, if you can touch and wound the heart of a sensitive girl so easily; we must be wary, dear Castaly. It must be a desperate case that justifies so desperate a remedy; yet, with all this danger, the magi of our day will, as I have heard, induce by their art this very state of trance.

ASTR. Magnetic sleep. If the phenomena of this animal magnetism be not a _mystery_, it is at least a curiosity. And yet Evelyn will tell us that they, too, obey the _common_ laws of our nature. I believe, however, there are stories of most strange and _novel_ interest, beyond the scope even of _his_ philosophy.

EV. The hand of a magnetiser _seems_, I confess, to effect a wonder; but your challenge will be fatal to you, Astrophel. In this same question of animal magnetism we may discover _the spring of all your mysteries_. The close analogies between the _natural_ and _imparted_ phenomena of trance and magnetic sleep and somnambulism, and somnambulic blindness, and magnetic ecstacy; even the frauds of lucid vision and clairvoyance, and the vaunted gift of prophetic divination, with the explanation of some, and the refutation of others, will dispel the most subtle arguments in proof of divine influence; seeing that the process is conducted by men of mortal mould, who claim no merit even for the possession of occult learning.

CAST. Mercy, dearest Evelyn, mercy. No more philosophy to-night. The smile of yon planet Venus, that was twinkling from out its cerulean blue, is veiled in a cloud; for our cold discourse is treason to its influence. Be ready with your stories, Astrophel.

EV. The history of Mesmerism is a romance in itself, dear Castaly. If I invade not the province of Astrophel, I will, as some apology for my dull prosing, sketch its progress by way of episode.

You must know, then, that it was Maximilian Holl who first, from the influence of his magnets on the body, imparted the practical idea of animal _magnetism_ to Mesmer, who had already written his inaugural thesis, at Vienna, on “Planetary Influence,” and had laid down this unblushing aphorism: “There is one health, one disease, one remedy, and one physician, and that physician am I.” His immediate proselytes were Deslon at Paris, and Gmelin at Heilbronne, and Reicke at Stutgard, and Klugé at Berlin. Encouraged by the Swedenborgian tenets, this magic brought immense revenue into the purses of Mainanduc in England, and the rest of its revivers; so that one hundred guineas were given for a course of lectures and experiments, and fifteen guineas for a consultation and the imparting of its influence.

In after times Miss Prescott, among others, gained great fame in the art: but De Lauterbourg was one of its most popular professors. Three thousand patients, it is said, were often waiting for the magnetic influence about his house at Hammersmith.

In 1784 an ordonnance of the French king confirmed Mesmer in his working of these apparent miracles. By tractions on the body, either with the hand or by substances magnetized with his “imponderable fluid,” by _champooing_, and the accompaniment of sweet music, a state of enchantment of the senses was induced. Convulsions and mania were often excited in the “Hall of Crisis,” which was lined by soft cushions to protect the convulsionaries. These paroxysms and tempests of the brain Mesmer seemed to control, like a second Prospero, with his wand of enchantment, gliding, in robes of silk, among the multitude of devotees, whom novelty and voluptuousness had attracted to his shrine.

To study and report on these mysteries, commissioners were appointed by the “Faculty of Medicine,” by the “Academy of Sciences,” and by the “Royal Society of Medicine.” These _savans_ referred all to the influence of imagination, or of emotion in sensitive systems; and that there must be this sensitive predisposition is often proved, for idiots, and those who have been blindfold, and unconscious children, _remain uninfluenced_, although it is declared by one that he magnetized an _idiot baby_!

I must observe, that before the commissions in Paris, especially that of which Franklin was a member, not the slightest influence was observed; and the experiments of Monsieur Berner, who was the chief manipulator, were a perfect failure, especially in regard to the _clairvoyance_.

Astrophel reminds me by his frown——

ASTR. That magnetic power is not granted to all; that all possess not the essential qualities of mind and body. It was affirmed that the operator must have his mind abstracted, and teeming with affection and benevolence towards his patients; must believe himself a very _magnet_, and feel a desire of benefiting mankind. Thus a sympathy, or incorporation of atmospheres, was induced, by which disease was influenced; and even in persons distant from each other, by an intensity of thought the patient tasted, smelt, or heard, the flavours, odours, or sounds which at that moment affected the senses of the _operator_. The magnetizer must thus be confident that, by his will, he can pass his whole nervous energy into his patient. It is essential, also, that the _mind of the patient_ should have a corresponding willingness _to be_ magnetized.

EV. And this congenial platonism is sometimes so intense, that offers of _magnetic marriage_ are made by the ecstatic ladies to their magnetizers, even though it may not be _leap-year_, on the plea that the loneliness of magnetic widowhood distressed them, and that the possession of a _sleeping_ partner was better than _sleeping_ alone.

Under this interesting disposition for magnetic union, the eyes of the maiden being fixed on the magnetizer intensely, _his_ hands were passed before her body, his fingers thus forming natural conductors, by which the magnetic fluid was conveyed from the positive to the negative magnetic body. Then came the wonders of this influence. The patient was warmed by the benevolence of the magnetizer, who felt an _aura_ or tingling in the part corresponding to any painful part of the patient’s body which was relieved or cured. Indeed, Bertrand assures us that many told him they saw a _blue fluid streaming from his fingers_ when he magnetized them.

The secret of this is closely analogous to the effect of brooding over sorrow: the mind of the patient is _concentrated_ on the spot to which the passes are directed; and, as we know that _disease_ can be excited thus by imagination (especially in the hypochondriac), so it is a truth that this concentration may _remove_ disease and pain, especially by the superaddition of faith.

ASTR. But the magnetizer, as they said, was not always _in a state_ to operate, and required a certain _training_. So it was observed that Casper Hauser’s _cat_ did not follow him after he had eaten meat; his magnetic and somnambulant qualities were destroyed by animal food, although they were so abundant in his _wilder_ state,—as his history will thus illustrate to those who believe it:

“As I came into the room, and the door of the deceased person was opened, which I did not know, I felt a sudden dragging on both sides of my breast, as if any one wished to pull me into the room. As I went on and proceeded towards the sick person, a very strong breath blew on me from behind, and the pulling which I felt before in my breast I now felt in my shoulders. I went towards the window; the sick person followed me. At the time that I wished to ask a question of Mr. Von Gutter, I felt a trembling in my left foot, and it became unwell. She went back again, and that trembling left me. She seated herself under the canopy and said, ‘Will not the gentleman sit down?’ Hereupon Mr. Professor Hensler said to her, she should see me. So as she drew nigh to me, within two or three steps, I was still more unwell than before, and I felt pains in all my limbs. Mr. Professor Hensler told her that I was the man who had been wounded (that is, by the attempt which had been made to assassinate him); at the same time she noticed my scar, and pointed towards it; then came the air strong upon my forehead, and I felt pain in it, also my left foot began to tremble greatly. The sick person seated herself under the canopy, and said that she was ill; and I also said that I was so unwell that I must sit down. I sat down in the other room: now the other foot began to twitter. Although Mr. Von Gutter held my knees, I could not keep them still. Now a violent beating of my heart came on me, and there was a heat in all my body: that beating of the heart left me afterwards; and I had a twittering in my left arm, which ceased after some minutes, and I was again something better. This condition lasted until the next morning, then I had a headache again and a twittering in all my limbs, still not so violent. In the afternoon, about three o’clock, it came again something less, and left me earlier: then I was quite well again.”

“The Somnambulist was greatly affected by the _presence_ of Hauser. I heard that, afterwards, when she was asleep, she had said these words,—‘That was a hard struggle for me.’ She felt indisposition from this process even on the next day.”

EV. The first sensation from magnetism is usually that of slight _vertigo_,—a state of musing or reverie succeeding, the mind being lulled into abstraction, as it is by the rippling of water, the busy hum of bees, or the murmuring of the Æolian-harp. I would explain this feeling by the term, _confusion of the senses_; for a certain period must elapse ere an external object make an impression on the mind. When, therefore, objects or sounds become _extremely rapid_, the perception is confused, and the mind, left as it were to itself, cannot follow the impressions _so as to associate them_, and thus the magnetic ecstacy ensues.

ASTR. But Monsieur de Paysegur, who first excited _magnetic somnambulism_, magnetized trees and ropes, by which he converted those who clung to them into sleep-walkers. Dr. Elliotson, also, mesmerized a _sovereign_, by _merely looking on it_; and a girl, who intuitively _selected_ it from a heap of others, was instantly struck with _coma_.

EV. The last is a very frail experiment. Paysegur often failed in his illustrations, and then the cunning juggler explained this, by affirming that the trees counter-magnetized each other. Now, whatever may be the influence imparted by this _traction_, the phenomena of _excited_ somnambulism are similar precisely to those _spontaneously_ occurring. Magnetic sleep, or ecstasis, is its precursor; and there is a total unconsciousness of it when awake. Here is one of those close analogies that are the most potent arguments on which the question of magnetism rests. For, in all the states alluded to, the interval of _ecstacy_ is _a blank_. And, as in the cases of intense alarm, as you remember, the mesmeric ecstacy will cause a sensitive girl to _forget the present_, while the scenes of youth and infancy pass vividly before her memory.

Now the effects of the passes of magnetism are referred to _six_ degrees,—the chief conditions being those of sleep, somnambulism, and clairvoyance. The essence of the last, it seems, is combined with a blending of one’s own feeling and nature with those of others;—a reuniting, in fact, of body and soul once separated from that individual whole, which some philosophers, as Hecker, believed the whole human race to be. You observe my fidelity, Astrophel.

It must be confessed, that some of the experiments at which I have myself assisted exhibit very strange results. In some, there is the propensity to chatter nonsense,—a system of one form of _hysteria_, of which the analogy is perfect. One little jade created much amusement, by inserting supernumerary syllables, thus—oppor_way_tuni_whats_ty.

The insensibility of the nostril to the most powerful _ammonia_ is a very imposing fact; one which must strike us more than that of insensibility of the eye to light, or the ear to sounds. For the faculty of perception may be often suspended in either of those organs of sense, if attention be powerfully diverted to another point, or, as it is by the abstraction of magnetic ecstacy, not directed _to any_.

So that I do not wonder when thoughtless proselytes believe these effects to be _miraculous_, or credit the assertions of Pereaud, in his “_Antidæmon of Mascon_,” that,—“The devil causeth witches to fall into ecstacies, so that a man would say their souls were out of their body.” Or those of Bodin, in his “_Theatre of Universal Nature_,” that “those that are rapt of the devil feel neither stripes nor cuttings.”

So that the honour of the magnetic monomania must at last be conceded to the fallen angel.

IDA. And are all these wonders worked only to excite curiosity?

ASTR. I believe there is some good in it. Is it not certain, that during this state of magnetic sleep, operations have been performed without creating pain? The lady on whom Mons. Chopelain operated, talked coolly and unconsciously during its performance. And Jules Cloquet, in Paris, amputated the breast of a lady who had been put into an ecstacy or state of apathetic trance by a mesmerizer.

EV. It is, I believe, quite true that she was perfectly unconscious of the operation. But even this is not _safe_. Pain is given us as a warning against extreme injury; that by our complaint or suffering, the surgeon’s mind may be _on its guard_. For the body is so far in disorder when it is chilled by this apathetic spell, that it may sink under fatal injuries, although they may be endured by the mind unconscious of its peril or its state. As a very curious antitype to these cases, it is stated in a medical gazette, that a young lady fell down in an hysterical fit and was insensible for two days. As a puffy swelling arose, she was _trephined_, but there was no disease of the brain. In two days after this, she awoke and expressed all the steps of the operation, of which she had been _painlessly sensible_.

ASTR. And in this state of _ecstasis_, is there not strange havoc played with the senses, by their seeming displacement or transference?

The philosophers will tell us that the _ganglia_ in the abdomen become as it were _little brains_, and the plexusses and the nerves of the skin become, like those of the senses, capable of imparting the idea of visible objects to those ganglia and of rendering a slight whisper distinctly audible. This is all very fine, and very _material_; but this straining at explanation is itself a proof of mystery. Van Ghest records the case of Mademoiselle B——, a young lady who was magnetized: she assured him that while she was intently looked upon, she felt her eyes and brain leave her head, and become fixed in her stomach, in which situation she saw acutely; but if she was in the slightest degree disturbed, the eyes and their sense seemed to return to her head.

The stories recorded in the book of the Rev. Chauncey Townsend are not less curious than this.

EV. Although I take the _metaphysics of a divine_ with reservation, his _facts_ may not be doubted. For there are _other_ powerful impressions that will produce phenomena as curious. The arm of a young man in the “Ospidale della Vitta,” at Bologna, in 1832, was grasped by a convulsive patient. Violent spasms succeeded, and he lost the senses of taste, smell, and sensibility of the skin, but he could hear _if the voice was applied on the stomach_; and could, at that spot, discriminate between different substances.

Another patient in the same hospital was subject every third day to violent convulsions, during the continuance of which, he lost entirely the use of all his senses, and could neither hear, see, nor smell. His hands also became so firmly clenched, that it would be impossible to open them without breaking the fingers. Nevertheless, Dr. Ciri, the physician under whose charge he was placed, discovered that the _epigastric region_, at about two fingers breadth above the navel, received all the impressions of the senses, so as to replace them completely. If the patient was spoken to whilst the finger was placed on this spot, he gave answers, and even, when desired, opened his hands of his own accord. If any substance or matter was placed there, he could describe its form and quality, its colour and smell. As long as the finger was kept on the stomach, the convulsion gradually diminished until it entirely disappeared; but if the finger were placed on the heart, the convulsion returned with increased violence, and continued as long as the finger was kept in that position. If a flute was played while the finger was kept on the stomach, the patient heard the music; but if the finger was taken away, and placed on the heart, and then taken back again to its former position, the man asked _why they played by intervals_; yet the flute had never ceased. These experiments were all made in the presence of the professors and students of the hospital.

I will not counsel you, Astrophel, as to the _extent_ of your belief in these strange tales, but extreme exaggeration often lessens the interest which scientific minds would take in these curiosities.

These pictures are correct in their _outline_, but the artists _have not spared their colours_. They will remind _us_, who are learned in legends, of that illusive monomania among the monks of Mount Athos, who believed that they could at pleasure attain a celestial vision by communing devoutly with the Deity, _while their attention or their sight were directed to the umbilicus_! And they were therefore called “Omphalopsychians.” We discover also very close analogies to this mental concentration, in the acuteness with which _one_ sense is endowed on the failure of _another_. The delicacy of touch in the blind is often _extreme_; I knew a blind lady who played an excellent rubber, passing her finger lightly over the card spots; and more curious still are the cases of Miss M’Avoy, of Stanley the organist, and of Professor Saunderson. De Luc tells us of a lady, who read distinctly by passing her fingers over the page, even of a strange book. In Laura Bridgman, an American girl, an inmate of the Institution of Boston since 1837, the _whole faculty of perception_ was concentrated in the one sense of touch. At the age of two, sight, and hearing, and smelling, and almost taste, deserted her. To this interesting creature, through the acuteness of her sense of touch in tracing letters, has been imparted so much knowledge, that the _moral sentiments_ and the congenial affections of the heart are now beautifully displayed in her character. If by the dumb alphabet, or finger-talking, conversation is commenced with her, she follows the fingers with her arm with extreme rapidity, so that scarce a letter escapes her. Such are the wonders of this child’s intelligence, that her mind has been cited as illustrative of _innate sentiment_; but the very _facility_ is enough to explain her actions.

Le Cat writes of a blind sculptor at Voltera, who modelled features most faithfully by the touch.

A French gentleman lost the integrity of _every sense_, but _sensation_ remained in half of his face, on which he received the correspondence of his friends by their tracing on it letters or forms.

In Mr. Eschke’s establishment at Berlin, conversation was carried on by tracing letters on the _clothes of the back_.

A Bolognese, on witnessing a woman in acute _hysteria_, became occasionally convulsed, and impenetrably deaf; if, however, the slightest whisper was breathed to the _pit of the stomach_, he heard distinctly.

From Andral’s Lectures, to please you, Astrophel, I will select this fragment:

“I saw yesterday a young lady who has been frequently magnetized, and who, on my visit, presented some very remarkable circumstances. After a fit of indigestion she fell into the ecstatic state, in which she continued when I saw her. Her skin was perfectly insensible, and her eyes were open like animals’ in whom the _fifth pair_ of nerves has been divided. She could perceive light, knew the difference between day and night for instance, but she could see and distinguish nothing else. She could not speak, but by signs expressed that her intellect was unusually active. But the most remarkable of the phenomena she presented was a singular _exaltation of the sense of hearing_. So extraordinarily delicate had this become, that she distinctly perceived sounds inaudible to myself and several other persons.”

Carus, unmindful of the existence of a state of abstract reverie resembling sleep, records the case of a young ecclesiastic, who composed sermons in a state of slumber, correcting and adding to them with _peculiar care_. And this is the deduction: that the sense of vision seemed to be _transferred to the fingers_, as the eyes were perfectly blinded to the writing paper. His eyes, when he sat for his portrait, should have been painted at the tips of his fingers.

James Mitchell, congenitally deaf and blind, discriminated his friends from strangers, and even formed a fair estimate of character, by the smell of the parties. And there was a deaf woman (writes Le Cat) who could read, and even tell the difference of languages, from the _silent_ motion of the _lip_.

From these very curious illustrations we may confess that these lines in Hudibras are no fiction:

——“Communities of senses
To chop and change intelligences,
As Rosicrucian virtuosis
Can see with ears and hear with noses.”

For so strange are the synonymes of the senses, that the blind will express their notion of _colour_ by _sound_; the tint of scarlet is like the sound of a trumpet. From this hint, probably, St. Amand, in the “Pilgrims of the Rhine,” speaks of a _visible music_.

IDA. Do we not perceive, also, something of this acuteness in the sense of touch under certain other conditions? In the story of Caspar Hauser, whether it be romance or reality, we read the following illustration of the effect of _mineral_ traction:

“Once, when the physician, Dr. Osterhausen, and the royal crown fiscal, Brunner, from Munich, happened to be present, Daumer led Caspar, in order to try him, to a table covered with an oil cloth, upon which lay a sheet of paper, and desired him to say whether any metal was under it. He moved his finger over it, and then said, ‘There it draws.’ ‘But this time,’ replied Daumer, ‘you are nevertheless mistaken, for,’ withdrawing the paper, ‘nothing lies under it.’ Caspar seemed at first to be somewhat embarrassed, but he put his finger again to the place where he thought he had felt the drawing, and assured them repeatedly that he _there_ felt a drawing. The oil cloth was then removed, a stricter search was made, and a needle was actually found there.”

Caspar Hauser might have felt this, or a cunning youth might have palmed on us his _idea_ for a truth. Yet I confess Parkinson also relates the case of a woman who fainted on the touch of a _stethoscope_, exclaiming that it was “_drawing_ her too strongly.”

CAST. And of clairvoyance. Have you no incidents, Astrophel?

ASTR. Many. Listen to the following fragments. One from Andral’s Lectures:

“M. Feruss was present at the experiment. A watch was held behind the individual’s head. ‘I see,’ said he, ‘something that shines.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘A watch.’ He was asked the hour, and _replied exactly_. Two different watches were tried. He was equally precise. The watches were taken out of the room, and the hands altered. He still told the hours and minutes expressed on the dials.”

Another from an English newspaper, in 1833:

“Mr. Barnaby (’twas at Bow-street) took his watch from his pocket, and said, ‘What have I got in my hand?’ ‘A watch,’ was the reply.—‘What is it made of?’ ‘Gold.’—‘What chain is attached to it?’ ‘None at all,’ said the boy: ‘there is a riband to it.’—‘Can you tell at what hour the hand stands?’ ‘Yes, at twelve.’ Mr. B. showed his watch, and the hands were at twelve precisely. Mr. B. then produced his purse from his pocket, and asked the boy the colour of it, and what it contained, and his answers were, without having the least opportunity of turning round towards the bench, that one end of the purse was brown, and the other yellow, and that the brown end contained sovereigns, and the yellow end silver. Mr. B. admitted the correctness of the description, and, taking some silver from his pocket, asked the boy to describe the different pieces. ‘What is this?’ ‘Sixpence,’ said the boy, ‘and of the date 1819.’—‘What is the next?’ ‘A shilling, and dated 1816,’ was the reply. And when the clerk brought forth another coin, and asked similar questions, the boy said, ‘That is a sixpence of the date of 1817;’ and all these guesses proved to be correct.”

Townsend and Wood, at Antwerp and Paris, produced this second sight in several instances. E. A., with eyes bandaged, read two hundred pages of print, and even written music.

EV. A little more sifting of these cases, Astrophel, and they would resemble that of the cataleptic female of Amiens, related by Petelin; who also professed to tell the spots of a card, _unseen_ by her. But it was discovered that the physician _glided it beneath the bedclothes_. Or that told by Bertrand, of another _ecstatic female_:—“While lying entranced in a chamber illuminated by a candle, her ring was removed from her finger by Monsieur Bertrand, and given to a person standing near him. She was asked who had her ring,—‘Mr. Eyre has it in his trowsers pocket.’ Mr. Bertrand exclaimed that she was wrong, for it was _not_ to Mr. Eyre the ring was given. The lady persisted in her statement, and, on immediate inquiry, it was found that the person who first was given the ring had secretly conveyed it to Mr. Eyre.”

The pages of history are not deficient in these pretensions to miracle. From Ulrick Zwingle we learn that Thomas Aquinas, the evangelical doctor, professed, by intense thought, to throw himself into ecstacy; in which, strange visions and mysteries of another existence passed before him.

Matthew Paris writes of a monk of Evesham, and of a certain _Sir Owen_, that, in one of these ecstacies, was favoured with an introduction into Saint Patrick’s purgatory. So the mad visionary, Jacob Bœhm, fell into many strange trances, and at last were revealed to him,—“The origin of nature; the formation of all things; and even divine principles and intelligent natures!”

But the case of Santa Theresa, if we can but believe the testimony of so accomplished an hypocrite, presents phenomena far more remarkable than all these. “Her frame was naturally delicate, her imagination lively, and her mind, incapable of being fixed by trivial objects, turned with avidity to those which religion offered, the moment they were presented to her view. But, unfortunately, meeting with the writings of Saint Jerome, she became enamoured of the monastic life, and, quitting the line for which nature designed her, she renounced the most endearing ties, and bound herself by the irrevocable vow. Deep melancholy then seized on her, and increased to such a degree, that for many days she lay both motionless and senseless, like one who is in a trance. Her tender frame, thus shaken, prepared her for ecstacies and visions, such as it might appear invidious to repeat, were they not related by herself and by her greatest admirers. She tells us that, in the fervour of her devotion, she not only became insensible to every thing around her, but that her body was often _lifted up from the earth_, although she endeavoured to resist the motion. And Bishop Yessen relates in particular, that, when she was going to receive the _Eucharist_ at Avila, she was raised in a rapture higher than the grate, through which, as is usual in nunneries, it was presented to her. She often heard the voice of God, when she was recovered from a trance; but sometimes the devil, by imitation, endeavoured to deceive her, yet she was always able to detect the fraud.”

So that Theresa’s life was an elysium on earth, and she might well have cried out in her ecstacy,—

“——sic sine vitâ,
Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori.”

Yet the modern proselytes to Mesmerism would scarcely believe this a fiction, but an illustration of that lucid vision which may, it is believed, be so highly excited, as to associate the being with universal nature: a creed grounded on the expansion or illimitable nature of thought or mind, by which it seems to leave the body, carrying with it its consciousness.

So the disciples of Mesmer asserted, that, when they thought or spoke warmly of absent persons, they would both appear in their _eidōlon_; and also that they were, at that exact time, speaking or thinking of _them_. This was Shelley’s conviction, that minds _sympathetically_ imparted ideas and thoughts,—particles, indeed, of the “mens divinior.” So that they might well see in the dark.

Brown would be in a flood of joy to hear the affirmations of these ecstatics, whose spirits, as they believe and avow, are for the time released from the chains of mortality. “Why,” exclaimed one of these half-spiritualized creatures,—“Why do you bring me again to life? Would you depart from me, my body would grow cold, my soul would not return to it, and I should be happy.”

ASTR. You are fond of caricature, Evelyn. I speak of sober truths only. I am told that the powers of acquirement may be so increased by magnetism, as to resemble _new_ faculties. A lady, during a sort of ecstacy, sung most scientifically church music; although, when awake, she entirely failed, and had forgotten all. And others will speak languages and sentiments, of which they are perfectly unconscious when awake.

There was a girl in the vicinity of Bedford Row, of whose case there are related similar wonders of this magnetically-imparted accomplishment; and her beauty was so enchanting, as to transcend the brightest visions of Michael Angelo or Correggio.

EV. Like that of the inspired somnambule, of whom Wolfart thus writes in his “Annals:” “An evil spirit ushered in her somnambulic sleep, and then a good spirit spread its wings around her; and when they had conversed, he flew with her to the Eternal City, through the sun and the moon; and while there, tranced scenes were around her, and her spirit was enjoying her beatitude: her face was like the face of a seraph, and no mortal painter might essay to trace its beauty.” So say those who _saw_ this mystery.

ASTR. Yet, as to the prophetic power imparted by magnetism,—cases are recorded by our enthusiastic proselytes, which throw the spells of the conjuror into an eclipse—

EV. And therefore forbid belief.—

ASTR.—Even those displayed before our learned bodies. Madame Celini Sauvage, you remember, in the presence of the committee, in Paris, was placed in somnambulism. Even while insensible to stimuli she formed, it is recorded, a correct judgment of the diseases of persons around her, especially in the person of M. Marc, one of the committee; and in that of a young lady, on whom M. Dupuytren had operated for dropsy, and had tried the effects of the milk of a goat which had been anointed with mercury. Madame, unconscious of this, _prescribed the very same remedy_. You remember the report, Evelyn.

EV. I remember, but believe it not.

CAST. And is it thus with _all_ our legends? have you no more faith in your own order? There is the learned physician, Justin Kerner. _You_ have not forgotten, Astrophel, his beautiful story of that most accomplished somnambule, the Prophetess of Prevorst, who seemed, as she said, to draw from the air a living principle, and whose _very vitality_, it was believed, was preserved by the magnetic influence. The body of this ethereal creature enfolded her spirit like a veil of film,—she was a very flower of light living on sun-beams. Her senses were lighted up by the minutest atom. A web of gossamer stung her waxen skin like a nettle. At the pale green light of a glow-worm, she fell into ecstatic sleep; and then, (as to my own Tasso,) came to her spectral visitants, with whom she conversed, and whose colourless forms were visible even to her earthly companions. This fair creature had, as the story goes, been some time dead, when her mother made passes over her cold face and lips; and lo! her eyes opened, and a tremor was on her lip. Were I Astrophel, methinks I would make a pilgrimage to Lowenstein, where her body lies. And now, Evelyn, if you will, reprove me for my wildness, but confess there must be a sort of truth in legends so circumstantial as these.

EV. A fair question, dearest Castaly. Yes, it is the crude or false interpretation of that _sort of truth_, a transient glimpse it may be, of some embryo principle, that leads to popular error. A baseless theory is raised on an _isolated_ fact; and infantile science, bursting from its leading-strings ere it can crawl, topples headlong down the precipice, and splits on the rock of hypothetical presumption.

And then the confusion into which the mind is thrown by the definitions and conclusions of magnetizers, would make a very Babel of the fair field of philosophy. The least perplexing, perhaps, is that of the French _savans_ who referred magnetism to the efforts of a fluid matter consisting of fire, air, and spirit, to preserve its equilibrium in certain bodies which were, as to their capacity for this fluid, in a state of plus and minus. There is nothing very unphilosophical in this; for the essence of magnetism is somewhat analogous to eccentric derangement of mind, a disturbance of that order or symmetry among the faculties and actions, by which one is highly excited and another is comparatively passive. In a word, Mesmerism is true in part: it _may_ induce catalepsy, somnambulism, exalted sensation, apathetic insensibility, suspended circulation, even death. Clairvoyance and prophecy alone are the impositions as regards its _effects_, as the “blue flame” at the finger tips is of its _nature_.

One folly more. Mesmer himself vaunted to Dr. Von Ellikon, “twenty years ago I magnetized the sun;” &c. so that the miracle of Joshua was but a stroke of magnetism. Indeed, Richter, rector of the School of Dessau, affirms that all the miracles of the Testament were but the sequences of magnetic passes. And Kieser refers all to a “telluric spirit,” a sort of magic, of which the sun and moon are the grand reservoirs; nay, this influence is the real cause of sleep and waking.

IDA. So that we are mesmerized by the moon at night-fall, and unmesmerized by the sun at the opening of the dawn.

EV. Then there were some aphorisms of Wolfart about _fiddling_ to the viscera with his magnetic medicine, and working them up, as it were, to a jig or a bolero. These are the visions of a madman. But surely the illusion regarding this mysterious fluid is confessed in Dupotet’s own notion of _his own_ wondrous faculty, when he asserts his belief that animal magnetism is analogous to the royal touch, and the mysteries of Apollo, and Æsculapius, and Isis, the miracles of Vespasian, and the Sibylline prophecies.

ASTR. You sneer at this as you did at the blue flame; but Dupotet assures us that while he is magnetizing his patients, he feels a sensation at the points of his fingers resembling the _aura_ from diffused electricity. Now is it not fair to ask if electro-magnetism may not reside in the _animal_ as well as in the _mineral_, in _man_ as well as in the _torpedo_ and _gymnotus_. And why may there not be a condition of intercommunication or _en rapport_, a magnetic _aura_ creeping through the nerves of each body?

We should not, therefore, make any hasty decision against the presence of an _aura_ streaming from the fingers and directed by the will. Monsieur Deleuze said, in Paris, “I do not know if this be material or spiritual, nor to what distance it is impelled; but it is impelled and directed by my will, for if I cease to will, the influence instantly ceases.”

I remember Priestly opined that _phlogiston_ in our bodies _produced_ electricity, which was destined for our own purposes merely. But as the _silurus_ and the _torpedo_ possess the power of _imparting theirs_, although at the expense of their animal power, I presume to think that concentrated mind _may_ impart our own nervous influence to others.

EV. I admire the acuteness of your question, Astrophel; but you are now come down from your clouds; you are descending unawares to _physiology_. There are, doubtless, many peculiar states of the nervous system at present inexplicable. I grant it is _possible_ that the influence of the nervous energy may become so eccentric as to illustrate the phenomena of magnetism, if, as some believe, this influence depends on a subtle fluid analogous to light, heat, and electricity; the nerve conveying this fluid as the wire conducts the electric.

Thus an influence, which is apparently _physical_, may be, in reality, _mental_, for there is usually _consciousness_ of the contact. M. Bertrand believed that the mind alone of the patient was acted on, and this is strengthened by the experiments of the Abbé Faria, who produced many of these phenomena by merely exclaiming to his sensitive visitors, “_Dormez_.”

ASTR. Well, you are drawing the influences of mind and body very closely together, Evelyn. If animal magnetism be not the universal influence of sensitive beings, what is _personal sympathy_?

EV. It is not that mysterious freemasonry of the senses which may impart a superhuman knowledge, or confer a power of personal recognition. Yet we are required to believe such stories.

ASTR. And are there not many well attested? There was a Monsieur de la Tour Landrie, a nobleman of France, who so powerfully influenced a young shoemaker by whom he was measured, that the youth fell into a senseless syncope, and profuse hæmorrhage succeeded it. This influence was repeated, and excited so deep an interest in the mind of the noble, that he instituted an inquiry regarding his birth and fortunes. And the result was, that Monsieur de la Tour discovered in the humble mechanic the son of his sister, the Baronne de Vesines.

The thrill of feeling with which the lover touches the lip of his mistress, the intense delight with which the mother presses her infant to her bosom, are illustrations of that power to which I allude. It is the magnetic touch of beauty which sends the fires of passion not only through the bounding heart of youth, but even through the icy veins of the stoic. “He that would preserve the liberty of his soul,” said Socrates, “must abstain from kissing _handsome_ people.” “What, then,” said Charmides, “must I be afraid of coming near a handsome woman? Nevertheless, I remember very well, and I believe you do so too, Socrates, that being one day in company with Critobulus’s beautiful sister, who resembles him so much, as we were searching together for a passage in some author, you held your head close to that beautiful virgin, and I thought you seemed to take pleasure in touching her naked shoulder with yours.” “Good God!” replied Socrates, “I will tell you truly how I was punished for it for five days after. I thought I felt in my shoulder a certain tickling pain as if I had been bit by gnats, or pricked with nettles; and I must confess, too, that during all that time I felt a certain hitherto unknown pain at my heart.”

EV. So that “the crime,” like that of Sir Peter Teazle, “carried its punishment along with it.” But you must see that the mind of Socrates first _appreciated_ beauty, ere this influence was imparted to him. _Imagination_ is not certainly idle here, yet I grant, that if the charm of _substantial_ beauty or endearment be wanting, poesy will ever be but a cold and joyless sentiment.

ASTR. Then there is another mysterious sympathy, the fascination of the evil eye, or _fascino_. There were, both in Africa and in Illyria, writes Aulius Gellius, certain families believed to possess the power of destroying trees, flowers, and children, and this by merely praising them; and Plutarch and Pindar refer to the credence of the Greeks on this point, who were wont to invoke the Fate Nemesis against this fascination of an evil eye.

I think, too, traces of this credence may be found in Ovid, and Horace, and Pliny.