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Title: The Philosophy of Mystery
Author: Dendy, Walter Cooper
Language: English
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THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
MYSTERY.
[Illustration]
“We so intreateth this serious and terrible matter of Spirites,
that now and then insertyng some strange stories of
counterfeyts, doth both very lybely display their falsehood, and
also not a little recreate his reader: and yet in the ende he so
aptly concludeth to the purpose, that his hystories seeme not
idle tales, or impertinent vagaries, but very truethes,
naturally falling under the compasse of his matter.”
* * * * *
THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
MYSTERY.
BY
WALTER COOPER DENDY,
FELLOW AND HONORARY LIBRARIAN OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON;
SENIOR SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY FOR CHILDREN, &c. &c.
* * * * *
LONDON:
LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
———
1841.
* * * * *
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
St. John’s Square, London.
* * * * *
TO HIS COUSINS,
STEPHEN DENDY, ESQ.
OF PARIS,
AND
CHARLES COOK DENDY, ESQ.
OF SOUTHGATE HOUSE, CHICHESTER;
AND TO HIS BROTHER,
EDWARD STEPHEN DENDY,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED,
IN TOKEN OF THE AFFECTIONATE REGARD
OF THE AUTHOR.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE CHALLENGE.
Scenery on the Wye—A Ghost Seer—Tintern 1-5
Abbey—Faith and Scepticism in the reality of
Phantoms
NATURE AND MOTIVES OF GHOSTS.
Notions of the Ancients regarding the nature of 6-17
Ghosts—Confidence of the Ancients in their
appearance—Modern Incidents in illustration of
real appearance—Qualities of Ghosts—Motives of
Apparitions—Ancient and modern Stories
PROPHECY OF SPECTRES.
Ancient spectral Prophecy—Modern Stories in 18-33
illustration of prophetic Spectres—Philosophy
and Poesy of Shakspere—Holy influence of
Spectral Visitations—Stories of apparently
special influence of the Deity
ILLUSION OF SPECTRES.
Reasons for early faith in Phantoms—Modern errors 34-51
regarding classic Superstitions—Shallowness and
Fallacy of modern Incidents—Explanation of Ghost
Stories by Coincidence—Incidents in proof of
Coincidence—Proneness of intellectual Minds to
credulity and exaggeration—Innocent invention of
an incident at Bowood
PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
Influence of interesting localities—Definition of 52-66
a Phantom—An intense idea—Demonomania—Stings of
Conscience—Curious effect of peculiar study or
intense thought—Darkness and Obscurity—Romance
of reality—A mysterious incident
PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT.
Second Sight—National propensity to the 67-79
Sight—Romance and Poetry of the
Mountains—_Morbid_ predisposition to Second
Sight—Unearthly Visions on the eve of
Dissolution—Glimpses of Reason in dying Maniacs
PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION.
Phantoms of intellectual Minds—Illusion of 80-88
Opium—Illustrations of Narcotic Influence
POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY.
Inspiration of Poesy and 89-100
Painting—Shakspere—Fuseli—Blake—Philosophy and
Madness—Illusion of Tasso—Truth of
Poesy—Splendid illusions at the onset of
Mania—Melancholy constitution and decay of
Poetic Minds—Letter of a
Cheromaniac—Sensibility—Unhappy consequences of
cherishing Romance—Fragment of John Keats
PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE BRAIN.
Philosophy of Moral Causes—Effect of thought and 101-112
of the function of the Stomach in producing
physical changes in the Brain—Stories in proof
of this influence—Illusions from Derangements of
Vision—Curious cases of ocular Spectra from
peculiar conditions of the Eye
MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS.
Stories of Supernatural Appearances 113-122
ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION.
Credulity—Arrangement of Causes of Spectral 123-140
Illusion—Illustration of Atmospheric
Illusions—Natural Phenomena—Fata
Morgana—Schattenman of the Brocken—Romance of
unlettered minds
ILLUSIONS OF ART.
Monkish Impostures—Optical Toys—Spontaneous 141-146
Combustion
ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS.
Elemental Causes—Impositions at 147-154
Woodstock—Tedworth—Cock Lane—Subterranean
Sounds—Currents of Air—Memnon—Phonic
Instruments—Vocal curiosity in young Richmond
FAIRY MYTHOLOGY.
Origin of Faëry—Legends of the Mythology of 155-165
various Climes—Cauld Lad of Hilton
DEMONOLOGY.
Classic and Indian Mythology—Embodying of a 166-177
Demon—Stories illustrative of the Superstitions
of Ireland and Cornwall—Legend of the
Changelings—Poetry of Nature—Preadamite Beings
NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND.
Psychology of the Greeks and of the 178-192
Moderns—Essence of Phrenology—Lord
Brougham—Priestley—Paley—Johnson—Modes of
Sepulture—Paradise—Atheism—Deity—Hindu
Mythology—Senile Intellect
NATURE OF SLEEP.
Unconsciousness of Sleep—Necessity of 193-204
Slumber—Malady of Collins—Somnolency of the
Brute and of Savages—Periods of
Sleep—Sleeplessness and its Antidotes
SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING.
Unconsciousness of the Dream—Arguments on this 205-213
question—Episode of a dreaming Life
PROPHECY OF DREAMS.
Ancient Prophetic Dreams—Stories of modern 214-222
Prophecies in Dreaming
MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING.
Associations of Dreaming—Incongruous 223-235
Combinations—Source of Ideas in Dreams—Innate
Idea—Undreaming Minds—Flitting of the
Spirit—Fallacy of Mental Energy in the
Dream—Illusion of Dreams—Marmontel
ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF DREAMS.
Celerity of Ideas in the Dream—Sacred Records of 236-256
Dreams—Danger of profane Discussion of
Scripture—Fallacy of Dreams—Consequences of
Credulity in Dreams
MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS.
Blending of Metaphysics and Philosophy—Confusion 257-269
of ancient and modern Classifications of
Dreams—Curious Cases of suspended
Memory—Anecdotes of Tenacity of
Memory—Physiology of Memory—Ghost of an
amputated Limb
INTENSE IMPRESSION.—MEMORY.
Curious Cases of Associations—Deranged 270-280
Memory—Dreams of Animals—Poetic Illustrations
INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD IN THE BRAIN.
Conditions of the Brain—Analogy of Dreaming and 281-294
Mania—Sympathetic Causes of
Dreaming—Repletion—Effects of Posture in
inducing Dreams—Phrenological Illustrations
INCUBUS OR NIGHT-MARE.
Illustrative Incidents—Night-mare of the Mind 295-303
SOMNILOQUENCE.—SOMNAMBULISM.
Stories of Sleep-talking—Stories of 304-328
Sleep-walking—Changes of disposition in
Somnambulism—Abeyance of Memory during the
Interval—Exactness and Energy during
Somnambulism—Concentration of
Power—Unconsciousness—Analysis of
Sleep-walking—Theory of _Reflex Action_ of the
Nervous System—Irresistibility—Disease of the
Brain in Somnambulists
IMITATIVE MONOMANIA.
Dance of the Middle Ages—Tarantulism—Saint Vitus’ 329-340
Dance—Tigretier—Lycanthropy—Fanaticism during
the Commonwealth—Moravians—The Kent
Tragedy—Stories of Imitative Suicide—Effects of
Stramonium, and of Gaseous Inhalation
REVERIE.
Abstraction of Idiocy—Cretinism—Wandering of the 341-352
Mind—Concentrativeness—Anecdotes illustrative of
Illusive Abstraction
ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT.
Anecdotes in illustration—Brown 353-366
Study—Apathy—Heroism—Reverie of
Philosophy—Sonata di Diavolo—Reverie at
Caerphilly—Intense Impression—Abstraction of
Deep Study—Reverie of the Dying
SOMNOLENCE.—TRANCE.—CATALEPSY.
Description of Trance—Legends of Deep 367-377
Sleepers—Stories of Modern Trances—Analogies
from Intense Impression—Periodical Catalepsy
PREMATURE INTERMENT.—RESUSCITATION.
Stories in Illustration—Romance, Life in 378-392
Death—Causes of Resuscitation—Disunion of Mind
and Body—Insensibility of the Decollated
Head—Sensations during Hanging and Drowning—Case
of Dr. Adam Clarke
TRANSMIGRATION.—ANALYSIS OF TRANCE.
State of the Spirit after Death—Fables of 393-404
Transmigration—Superstition in India and
England—Tenacity of Life—Hybernation—Sleep of
Plants—Physiology of Trance
MESMERISM.
Its origin—Commissions for its 405-430
investigation—Caspar Hauser—Sensations of
Magnetism—Magnetized Trees—Operations during
Magnetic Trance—Transference of Senses—Mineral
Traction—Clairvoyance—Trance of Santa
Theresa—Prophetess of Prevorst—Magnetic
Aura—Personal Sympathy—Socrates—Fascino—Prince
Hohenlohe
SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE.
Occult Science—A Gipsy—Spells and 431-443
Charms—Relics—Ordeals—Philosophy of Prophetic
Fulfilment—Melancholy effects of
Prophecy—Astrology—Conclusion
* * * * *
THE
PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERY.
THE CHALLENGE.
“There are more things in heav’n and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”—HAMLET.
THERE was a shallop floating on the Wye, among the gray rocks and leafy
woods of Chepstow. Within it were two fair girls reclining: the one
blending the romantic wildness of a maid of Italy with the exquisite
purity of English nature; the other illuming, with the devotion of a
vestal, the classic beauty of a Greek.
There was a young and learned bachelor sitting at the helm. Study had
stamped an air of thoughtfulness on his brow; yet a smile was ever
playing on his lips, as his heart felt the truth and influence of the
beautiful life around him.
Listen, gentle reader, we pray thy courtesy and thy patience, as a rude
unskilful pen traces the breathed thoughts of these wanderers of the
Wye.
* * * * *
CASTALY. We have roamed, dear Ida, among the classic lands of the
far-off Mediterranean: we have looked, from her pinnacles of snow, on
the silvery gleaminess of Switzerland, and from purple sierras on the
sunny splendour of Spain; yet these English meadows, with their fringes
of wild bloom, come o’er the heart with all the freshness of an infant’s
dream. Yon majestic crag of Wyndcliff is flinging its purple shadows
athwart the water, and floods of golden glory are streaming through the
beech-woods of Piercefield: and see, our little sail, white as the wing
of a swan, is wafting us towards Abbey Tintern, along this beautiful
valley, where the river almost doubles on itself; meandering among its
mead-flowers and its mosses, as loth to leave its luxuriant bed. Listen!
the breath of evening is among the trees that dip in the ripple of the
Wye their leaves of shivering gold. What a scene for minions of the moon
to revel in! Say, shall we charm the lingering hours of this midsummer
night among the ivied cloisters of the abbey? But where is Astrophel,
our moon-struck student, who, like Chaucer’s scholar, keeps
——“at his bed’s head,
A twenty books clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophy?”——
They have not taught him courtesy, or he would not steal away from the
light of our eyes to commune with owls and ivy-bushes.
Yet we promise him our smile for _your_ sake, Evelyn. Indeed, I am
thinking his mysteries will chime in admirably with the solemnity of
this lone abbey. We appoint him master of our revels.
EVELYN. Let your smile be in pity, fair Castaly, on the illusions of
Astrophel. Ensconced in his dark closet, within a charmed ring of
black-letter folios, he has wofully warped his studies, and has read
himself into the belief that he is a GIFTED SEER. Yet love him, lady,
for his virtues; for his history is a very paradox. His heart is melting
with charity for the beings of earth, yet his mind is half-weaned from
their fellowship. At his imminent peril, he leaps into the Isis to save
a drowning boy, and the world calls him misanthrope, withal. It is the
fate indeed of many a cloistered scholar, whose
——“desires are dolphin like,
And soar above the element they live in.”
Such is Astrophel.
IDA. He looks his part to perfection. There is a shadowy expression in
his dark eye, as it were poring over the volume of his own thoughts.
Beneath the slender shaft of yon eastern window, behold this proselyte
to the sublime science of shadows. He approaches.
EV. The _hour_ is on him yet.—Astrophel!
ASTROPHEL. Whisper, and tread lightly, Evelyn, for this is haunted
ground. Underneath this velvet turf rest the mouldering bones of a
noble. I have held communion in my slumber with the spirit by which they
were once animated and moved; and the mysteries of the tomb have been
unfolded to me. The _eidōlon_ of Roger Bigod has thrice come across my
sight.
CAST. A ghost!
EV. And Astrophel believes the truth of this vision! Such phantasy might
well become the Cistercian monks, who once stalked along these gloomy
cloisters, but not an Oxford scholar.
ASTR. And why not an Oxford scholar, Evelyn? I _do_ believe in the
existence of beings out of the common course of nature; and, indeed, the
history of the world has ever proved the _general_ leaning to this
belief, and my own mind feels that this universal adoption is a proof of
_reality_ of existence. Smile at, or reason with me, you will not shake
my faith, for I believe it true; and even Johnson confessed, that
“although all argument might be against it, yet all belief is for it.”
EV. The diffusion of this fallacy, Astrophel, proves only the universal
sameness of the constitution of mind. You may, indeed, cite the high
authority of Johnson, that “a belief in the apparitions of the dead
could become universal only by its truth.” Yet, if this one word,
_apparition_, be rightly interpreted, it will not imply the _existence_
of real phantoms, however ethereal, _before_ the eye, for the notion so
construed would have been a grand error of Imlac; no, he adopts an
_indefinite_ expression, conscious that mere metaphysics were not
illustrative of this subtle question.
There was one Theophilus Insulanus, who, I think, calls all those who
have not faith in phantoms, _irreligious_, because, forsooth, “these
ghosts are never employed on subjects of frivolous concern.” I may be
under the ban of this flimsy enthusiast, but you will not gain me as a
proselyte, Astrophel, for, like our great poet, I have seen too many
ghosts myself.
Yet I know some few self-created wizards, who have solved to their
hearts’ content those two grand mysteries, the _real_ existence and the
_purpose_ of ghostly visitations; who, like Owain Glyndwr, “can call
spirits from the vasty deep,” and even expect that they will “come when
they do call for them.” Others have laboured under self-glamourie, and
believed themselves magicians, until put _to the proof_. I remember the
painter, Richard Cosway, was under this illusion; and, when the old
cynic Northcote desired him to raise Sir Joshua Reynolds, the
pseudo-magus confessed himself foiled, by advancing this simple excuse,
“I would, were it not _sinful_!”
It were well if these monomaniacs were laid in the famous bed of St.
Hilary at Poitiers; for there, with the muttering of a prayer or two, as
the legend tells us, madmen may be cured.
But, in truth, the light of divine reason has so far dispelled these
fancies for the supernatural, that very few of _us_, I presume, are
confident in the hope of raising a ghost when we want one; or of laying
it in the Red Sea for a hundred years, by two clergymen, with “bell,
book, and candle,” and scraps of mystic Latin, when it becomes rude or
troublesome.
IDA. Will you not concede that many visionaries have _believed_, and
written from pure and even holy motives?
EV. There is no doubt of this, lady; yet while it has fanned the flame
of superstition in minds of lower intellect, with many, the endeavour to
_prove too much_ has marred these motives, and weakened faith, even in
the credulous; so that we may hope the wild romances of Beaumont, and
Burthogge, and Baxter, and Aubrey, and Glanville, and that
arch-mystagogue Moreton (whose book is half full of prolix dialogues
between ghosts and ghost-seers), will soon be mere objects of interest
and curiosity to the black-letter bibliomaniac and the more erudite
legend-hunter.
CAST. We will not submit to your anathema, Evelyn. This learned clerk
has challenged our faith. What a treasury of secrets might he unfold to
us from the mystic tomes of antiquity, the wonders of profane
psychology; from the tales of Arabia to Vatheck and the Epicurean—from
the classic mythology of Homer to the wild romances of his humble
prototype Ossian.
Let it be a match: we will listen, Astrophel, while you “unsphere the
spirit of Plato;” and here we sit in judgment, on the velvet throne of
this our court of Tintern.
NATURE AND MOTIVES OF GHOSTS.
“In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.”
HAMLET, 4to. B.
ASTR. It is not from the sources of _mythology_ alone, that I adduce my
illustrations of the reality of ghosts, but from the myriads of
_incidents_ which ancient and modern _history_ record. Yet may I well
crave your courtesy for the scraps of fable, and perchance of imposture,
that may unwittingly creep into my discourse. Listen to me.
It was believed by the ancients that each body possessed three
ghosts—to be released on its dissolution. The _manes_ at once emigrated
to the region of Pluto: the _spiritus_ ascended to the skies: the
_umbra_ or shade still wandered on the earth. Or, as the poet has more
comprehensively sung,
“Bis duo sunt homini, manes, caro, spiritus, umbra;
Quatuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt:
Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,
Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.”
Meaning that there are four principles in man, and this is their
destiny:—the _flesh_ to earth; the _ghost_ to the tomb; the _soul_ to
Hades; and the _spirit_ to heaven.
The queen of Carthage, confiding in this creed, threatens Æneas that her
umbra will haunt him upon earth, while her manes will rejoice in his
torments.
The notions of other mystic scholars are thus recorded by old Burton, in
his “Anatomy of Melancholy:” as those of Surius—“that there be certain
monsters of hell and places appointed for the punishment of men’s souls,
as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly
seen, and sometimes talk with the living. Saint Gregory, Durand, and the
rest of the schoolmen, derive as much from Ætna in Sicily, Lipara,
Hiera—and those volcanoes in America, and that fearful mount Heckleberg
in Norway, where lamentable screeches and howlings are continually
heard, which strike a terror to the auditors: fiery chariots are
continually seen to bring in the souls of men in the likeness of crows,
and devils ordinarily goe in and out.” And then, to bring this phantasy
to a climax by a pandemonium of ghosts, listen to Bredenbachius, in his
“Perigranions in the Holy Land,” where “once a yeare dead bodies arise
about March, and walk, and after awhile hide themselves again: thousands
of people come yearly to see them.” And this reminds me of the phantom
of old Booty, who at the hour of his death in England was seen by the
crew of a ship running into the crater of Stromboli in the remote
Mediterranean,—a story which even in the present century was made the
subject of discussion in a justice court.
Now, you must know, the ancients believed that only those who died of
the sword possessed this privilege.
These are the words of Flavius Josephus: “What man of virtue is there
that does not know that those souls which are severed from their fleshly
bodies in battles by the sword are received by the ether, that purest of
elements, and joined to that company which are placed among the
stars:—that they become good demons and propitious heroes, and shew
themselves as such to their posterity afterwards; while upon those souls
that wear away in and with their distempered bodies, comes a
subterranean night to dissolve them to nothing, and a deep oblivion to
take away all the remembrance of them? And this, notwithstanding they be
clean from all spots and defilements of this world; so that in this case
the soul at the same time comes to the utmost bounds of its life, and of
its body, and of its memorial also.”
The mystery of the nature of these ghosts I may not presume to define;
but there are many learned writers of antiquity who believed in their
_materiality_, and broached the intricate question of their quality and
formation.
The alchymist Paracelsus writes of the _astral element_ or _spirit_—one
of the two bodies which compose our nature: being more ethereal, it
survived some time after the death of the more substantial form, and
sometimes became the familiar spirit of the magician. And what writes
Lucretius the Epicurean to illustrate his credence in apparitions? That
the surfaces of bodies are constantly thrown off by a sort of
centrifugal force; that an exact image is often presented to us by this
surface coming off as it were entire, like the cast skin of the
rattle-snake or the shell of the chrysalis; and thus the ideas of our
absent or departed friends _strike_ on the mind.
The olden chymists, in the age of Louis XIV. accounted for spectral
forms by the saline atoms of a putrid corpse being set free, and
combining again in their pristine form. Listen, I pray you, to this
grave philosophy of an abstruse essay, writ in 1794.
“The apparitions of souls departed do, by the virtue of their formative
plastic power, frame unto themselves the vehicles in which they appear
out of the moisture of their bodies. So ghosts do often appear in
church-yards, and that but for a short time, to wit, before the moisture
is wholly dried up.”
“Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave.”
And we read in the chronicles, that “during the time the ancients
_burned_, not _buried_ their dead, there was no such appearance of
ghosts as is now.”
Why waves the coarse grass ranker over the grave? It is touched by the
larva of the rotting carcase, which, ascending from its putrid
chrysalis, a butterfly, or Psyche, flits awhile like an ephemera, and
drops again into the vault.
A sentiment something like this, I believe, was the grand cause of the
enrolment of the mummies by the Egyptians; for they thought while the
body remained entire, the soul was flitting about it: and the early
Christians even believed that a portion at least of the soul remained,
uncorrupted by the body.
Evelyn will grant that among the Romans there was a devout wish to be
buried near venerated beings and saints, an _emanation_ from whose
bodies, they believed, would inspire the hearts of the believers.
And here I will relate a story from the Dinan Journal of 1840, and also
the fragment of a very mysterious tale told with all the solemnity of a
faithful chronicle.
“We had the curious spectacle of a long procession of girls from
Pleudiheus, passing through our streets to the chapel of Saint Anne, to
offer up prayers for the repose of the soul of the mother of one of
them, who has been dead twenty-two years, and who every five years has
appeared to her daughter, urging her to have masses said for her. This
time the troubled spirit prescribed the day, hour, and place of the
service, and even the precise dresses she would have the votaries wear.
Consequently, they were all lightly clothed in white, although the rain
fell and the streets were full of mud.—Some of the inhabitants of Dinan
affirm that they saw the ghost of the deceased, marching at the head of
the procession to the door of the chapel, where it remained till the
mass was finished, and then suddenly vanished.”
Returning from the harbour to Cadiz with some Spanish doñas, the Baron
Geramb heard a voice in French, crying, “Save me! Help, help!” but at
the time he took little or no heed of the matter. On the morrow was seen
on the shore of the harbour a body on a black board, with lighted tapers
by its side, which was covered by the Baron’s direction. During a
tempest in the evening, some secret impulse directed him again to the
shore. Before his bewildered sight arose from the spot a shapeless
phantom wrapped in the black winding-sheet which he had provided.
The phantom moved along with gigantic strides, assuming a globular form,
and then, whirling in spiral circles, bounded off, and appeared at a
distance like a giant. The spectre led the Baron to the streets of
Cadiz, its course being accompanied by a noise as of the tinkling of
autumnal leaves. In Cadiz a door suddenly opened with force, and the
spectre rushed like lightning into the house, and plunged into the
cellar. There was the sound of deep groaning, and the Baron descended
into the vault: there lay the corpse naked and livid, and on it was
prostrated an aged man, uttering the deep sighs of abject misery and
despair. In a gloomy corner of this cave of death leaned the phantom,
revolving in its spiral whirls, and then changing to a floating cloud of
light; and then there beamed forth the pale features of a youth,
undulating as if on the bosom of a wave, which murmured in the ear. Then
came the chaunting of anthems and prayers for the dead, and a glittering
young girl in white robes glided into the cellar, and knelt in devotion
by the body.
The phantom—and so the legend proceeds.
There is a wondrous mystery, I grant, enveloping this story; but if
there be any truth in that alchymic re-animation, _Palingenesy_—
“If chemists from a rose’s ashes,
Can raise the rose itself in glasses;”
nay, if the sparkling diamond shines forth from a mass of charcoal, why
may not the ashes of a body be made into a ghost, illustrative of the
philosophy of substantial apparitions, adopted by Kircher,—a body
_rebuilt_, after being resolved, for a time, into its constituent
elements? The Parisian alchymists of the seventeenth century, indeed,
demonstrated this mystery, and raised a phœnix from its ashes. They
submitted to the process of distillation some earth from the cemetery of
the Innocents; during which ceremony, they were scared by the appearance
of perfect human shapes, struggling in the glass vessels they were
employing. And, lastly, Dr. Ferriar thus deposes:—A ruffian was
executed, his body dissected, and his skull pulverised by an anatomist.
The student, who slept in the chamber of experiment, saw, in the
night-time, a progressive getting together of the fragments, until the
criminal became perfect, and glided out at the door.
And here is a legend of deeper mystery still.
There was a merry party collected in a town in France, and amongst all
the gay lords and ladies there assembled, there was none who caused so
great a sensation as a beautiful young lady, who danced, played, and
sang in the most exquisite style. There were only two unaccountable
circumstances belonging to her: one was, that she never went to church
or attended family prayers; the other, that she always wore a slender,
black velvet band or girdle round her waist. She was often asked about
these peculiarities, but she always evaded the interrogatories; and
still, by her amiable manners and beauty won all hearts. One evening, in
a dance, her partner saw an opportunity of pulling the loop of her
little black girdle behind: it fell to the ground, and immediately the
lady became pale as a sheet; then, gradually shrunk and shrunk, till at
length nothing was to be seen in her place but a small heap of grey
ashes.
And what think you now, Evelyn?
EV. I think your candle burned very blue, Astrophel, when you were
poring over these midnight legends; yet, I believe, I may, by and by,
explain the story of your Lady of the Ashes;—all, excepting the mystery
of the sable girdle. But, methinks, you should not have stopped short of
the qualities by which we may recognise the _genus_ of these phantoms.
There was once, as I have heard, a ghost near Cirencester, which
vanished in a very nice perfume, and a melodious twang; and Master
Lilly, therefore, concluded it to be a fairy: and Propertius, I know,
writes of another; and he decided, that the scent diffused on her
disappearance, proclaimed her to be a goddess! Glanville has set himself
to argue upon, nay, demonstrate, all questions regarding materiality and
immateriality, and the nature of spirits; puzzling us with mathematical
diagrams, and occupying fifteen chapters on the nature of the witch of
Endor: and Andrew Moreton, too, in his “Secrets,” comments, with
pedantic profanation, on the “infernal _paw-wawing_ of this condemned
creature.” Coleridge, and even Sir Walter, who had a mighty love of
legends, propose a question, whether she was a ventriloquist or an
aristocratic fortune-teller, or an astrologer or a gipsy, imposing on
the credulity of Saul. And yet that same Sir Walter very shrewdly
suggested to Sir William Gell the _manufacture_ of a ghost, with a thin
sheet of tin, painted white, so that by half a turn the spectre would
instantly vanish.
CAST. A ghost, I believe, according to the rules of phantasy, ought to
be without matter or form, or indeed any sensible properties. Yet are
very serious tales related of guns bursting when fired at them, and
swords broken by their contact, and of loud voices issuing from filmy
phantoms through which the moonbeams are seen to glimmer. A spirit
ought, of course, to communicate with us in another way than that which
we know, and possess those ethereal faculties of creeping through chinks
or keyholes, and of resuming its airy form, like the sylph of Belinda,
when the “glittering forfex” had cut it in twain. An exquisite morceau
of such a phantom just now flits across my memory. It is of two old
ladies dwelling in two border castles in Scotland. One of these dames
was visited by the spectre _bust_ of a man; and the other by the _lower
half_ of him. Which had the better bargain, I know not, but I believe—
ASTR. Nay, it were not difficult, lady, to overwhelm me with tales like
yours—the idle and unmeaning gossip of a winter’s night: but there are
many spectral visitations so intimately associated with events, that the
faculty even of prophecy cannot be doubted. Bodine, as Burton writes, is
fully satisfied that “these souls of men departed, _if_ corporeal, are
of some shape, and that absolutely round, like sun and moone, because
that is the most perfect form: that they can assume other aërial bodies,
all manner of shapes at their pleasure, appear in what likeness they
will themselves: that they are most swift in motion, can pass many miles
in an instant, and so likewise transform bodies of others into what form
they please, and, with admirable celerity, remove them from place to
place: that they can represent castles in the ayre, armies, spectrums,
prodigies, and such strange objects to mortal men’s eyes; cause smells,
savors, deceive all the senses; foretel future events, and do many
strange miracles.”
Then the eccentric Francis Grose has thus summed up many of their
wondrous attributes:—
“The spirit of a person deceased is either commissioned to return for
some especial errand, such as the discovery of a murder, to procure
restitution of lands, or money unjustly withheld from an orphan or
widow: or, having committed some injustice whilst living, cannot rest
till that is redressed. Sometimes the occasion of spirits revisiting
this world is to inform their heir in what secret place or private
drawer in an old trunk they had hid the title-deeds of the estate, or
where, in troublesome times, they had buried the money and plate. Some
ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been secretly buried,
cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up and deposited in
sacred ground, with all the rites of Christian burial.” The ghost of
Hamlet’s father walked on the platform at Elsineur, to incite his son to
revenge his murder; and many modern phantoms have enlivened the legends
of our local histories, bent on the same mysterious errand.
The mythology of the ancients, and the fairy superstition of our own
land, are also replete with legends of these apparitions. The rites of
sepulture were essential for the repose of the manes. If the body was
not quietly entombed, the soul was wandering on the banks of Styx for
one hundred years, ere it was permitted Charon to ferry it across the
river. Thus spoke the shade of Patroclus to Achilles, in his dream:
“Thou sleep’st, Achilles, and Patroclus, erst
Thy best belov’d, in death forgotten lies.
Haste, give me burial: I would pass the gates
Of Hades, for the shadows of the dead
Now drive me from their fellowship afar.”
And this is a prevailing sentiment among the North American Indians:
“The bones of our countrymen lie uncovered, their bloody bed has not
been washed clean, their spirits cry against us,—they must be
appeased.”
In the letter of Pliny the Consul, to Sura, we learn that there was at
Athens a house haunted by a chain-rattling ghost. Athenodorus, the
philosopher, hired the house, determined to quiet the restless spirit.
“When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him
in the fore part of the house, and, after calling for a light, together
with his pencil and tablets, he directed all his people to retire. The
first part of the night passed in usual silence, when at length the
chains began to rattle. However he neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid
down his pencil, but diverted his observation by pursuing his studies
with greater earnestness. The noise increased, and advanced nearer, till
it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked up and saw
the ghost exactly in the manner it had been described to him—it stood
before him beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his
hand that it should wait a little, and threw his eyes again upon his
papers; but the ghost, still rattling his chains in his ears, he looked
up and saw him beckoning him as before. Upon this he immediately arose,
and, with the light in his hand, followed it. The spectre slowly stalked
along as if encumbered with his chains, and, turning into the area of
the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus deserted, made a
mark with some grass and leaves where the spirit left him. The next day
he gave information to the magistrates, and advised them to order that
spot to be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man
in chains was there found; for the body having lain a considerable time
in the ground, was putrified, and had mouldered away from the fetters.
The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried; and thus,
after the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies, the house was
haunted no more.”
Yet, not only to entreat the rites of sepulture, the phantom will walk
according to some law of those beings remote from the fellowship of
human nature,—it may be to obtain readmission to that earth from which
it was, by some fairy spell, in exile.
In the wilds of Rob Roy’s country, there is many a Highlander believing
still the traditions of the Daoine Shi, or Men of Peace: and among the
legends of Aberfoyle there is one phantom tale that is apropos to my
illustrations.
There was one Master Robert Kirke. He was one evening taking his night
walk on a fairy hill, or dunshi, in the vicinity of his manse. On a
sudden he fell to the ground, struck, as it appeared to many, by
apoplexy: the seers, however, believed it to be a trance inflicted on
him by the fairy people for thus invading the sacred bounds of their
kingdom. After the interment, the phantom of the minister appeared to
one of his relatives, and desired him to go to Grahame of Duchray, his
cousin, and assure him that he was not dead, but was at that time a
prisoner in elf land, and the only moment in which the fairy charm could
be dissolved, was at the christening of his posthumous child. The
counter-spell was this: that Grahame should be present at the baptism,
holding a dish in his hand, and that when the infant was brought, he
should throw the dish over the phantom; the appearance of which at that
moment was faithfully promised.
When the child was at the font, and while the guests were seated, the
apparition sat with them at the table; but fear came upon the Græme at
this strange glamourie: he forgot the solemn injunction, and it is
believed that Mr. Kirke, to this day, “drees his weird in fairy land.”
PROPHECY OF SPECTRES.
“I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound.”
HAMLET.
EV. These are very meagre spectres, Astrophel, or accomplices, as the
lawyer would say, _after_ the fact.
ASTR. I have reserved Prophecies for this evening. In the earliest
profane records of our globe, we read of the frequent visitations of
prophetic phantoms. Listen, Evelyn, to a story of your own Pliny;—the
legend of Curtius Rufus. When he was in low circumstances, and unknown
in the world, he attended the governor of Africa into that province. One
evening, as he was walking in the public portico, he was extremely
surprised with the apparition of a woman, whose figure and beauty were
more than human. She told him she was the tutelar power who presided
over Africa, and was come to inform him of the future events of his
life: that he should go back to Rome, where he should be raised to the
highest honours, should return to that province invested with the
proconsular dignity, and there should die. Upon his arrival at Carthage,
as he was coming out of the ship, the same figure accosted him upon the
shore. It is certain, at least, that being seized with a fit of illness,
though there were no symptoms in his case that led his attendants to
despair, he instantly gave up all hope of recovery, and this prediction
was in all its points accomplished.
The shade of Romulus appeared to Julius Proculus, a patrician,
foretelling the splendour of Rome. The fate of the battle of Philippi
was shown to Brutus in his tent, by the evil spirit of Cæsar; and
Cassius also saw the phantom of Julius on his horse, prepared to strike
him, shortly before his suicide. In the Talmud we read of the
announcement of the Rabbi Samuel’s death to two of his friends, six
hundred miles off. Then, the host of legends in that ‘treasure-booke’ of
mystery, “Wanley’s Wonders;” the visions of Dion; of Alexander; of
Crescentius; of the Pope’s legate at the Council of Trent; of Cassius
Severus of Parma; and myriads of analogies to these; nay, may we not
believe that the Grecian bards wrote fragments of real history, when
Patroclus foretels the death of Hector, Hector that of Achilles, and
Mezentius of Orodes, or when Œdipus predicts the lofty fate of his
family to Theseus?
But leave we the olden classics for the proofs of later ages. In the
pine-forests of Germany, and in wild Caledonia, the legends of spirits
and shadows abound in the gossip of the old crones, both in the hut of
the jager and the sheiling of the Highland peasant.
The _Taisch_ (like the _Bodach Glas_ of Fergus Mac Ivor,) murmurs the
prophecy of death, in the voice of the _Taishtar_, to one about to die;
and the _Wraith_, _Swarth_, _Waft_, or _Death-Fetch_, appears in the
_Eidōlon_, or likeness, of the person so early doomed, to some loved
friend of the party, or sounds of wailing and prophetic voices scream
and murmur in the mountain-blast. The wild romances of Ossian, and the
shadowy mysteries so brightly illustrated in the poesy of the “Lay,” the
“Lady of the Lake,” and “Marmion,” prove how deeply the common mind of
Scotland leans to her mysteries; how devoutly her seers foretell a doom.
The evidence of Martin, the historian of the Western Isles, is clear and
decisive testimony of the possession of a faculty of foresight; and in
the reflecting minds of many sages, who seek not to explain it by the
term _coincidence_, or to impute the vision to mere national
superstition. Indeed, in their records we have rules noted down, by
which the seer may overcome the imperfections of his vision. If this be
filmy or indistinct, the cloak or plaid must be turned, and the sight is
clear; but then the fated seer is often presented with _his own_ wraith.
In Aubrey’s “Miscellanies” we read how Sir Richard Napier, immediately
before his death, was journeying from Bedfordshire to Berks, and saw his
own apparition lying stark and stiff on the bed; how Lady Diana Rich,
the Earl of Holland’s daughter, was met by her death-fetch in the garden
at Kensington, a month ere she died of small-pox;—and listen to this
legend of Aventine.
“The emperor Henry went down through the Strudel: in another vessel was
Bruno, bishop of Wurtzberg, the emperor’s kinsman. There sat upon a
rock, that projected out of the water, a man blacker than a Moor, of a
horrible aspect, terrible to all who beheld it, who cried out, and said
to Bishop Bruno, ‘Hear! hear! Bishop: I am thine evil spirit; thou art
mine own; go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine: yet, now will I do
nought to thee, but soon shalt thou see me again.’ The bishop crossed
and blessed himself; but the holy sign was powerless. At Posenbeis,
where dwelt the Lady Richlita of Ebersberg, the floor of the
banqueting-room fell, in the evening: it was the death-fall of the
bishop.”
As the protector Seymour was walking with his duchess, at their country
seat, they perceived a spectral bloody hand thrust forth from a wall;
and he was soon after beheaded.
It is recorded, that, like Julius Cæsar, James of Scotland had three
warnings. The saintly man in Lithgow palace, and another phantom, in
Jedburgh, warned King James of his fate: the latter wrote a Latin
couplet on the mantel-piece in the hall: had he read it wisely, he had
not died at Flodden.
The demon, or the guardian angel of Socrates, was also a prophetic
mentor—not only to the sage himself, but even to his companions in his
presence; and the slighting of its counsel often brought regret to those
who were the subjects of its warning.
In the minds of Xenophon and Plato its influence was devoutly believed,
and from the hive of the Attic bee I steal this honied morsel:—“One
Timarchus, a noble Athenian, being at dinner in company with Socrates,
he rose up to go away, which Socrates observing, bade him sit down
again, for, said he, the demon has just now given me the accustomed
sign. Some little time after, Timarchus offered again to be gone, and
Socrates once more stopped him, saying, he had the same sign repeated to
him. At length, when Socrates was earnest in discourse, and did not mind
him, Timarchus stole away; and, in a few minutes after, committed a
murder, for which, being carried to execution, his last words were,
‘That he had come to that untimely end for not obeying the demon of
Socrates.’”
When Ben Jonson was sojourning at Hawthornden, he told Mr. Drummond of
his own prophetic vision, that, “about the time of the plague in London,
being in the country at Sir Robert Cotton’s house, with old Camden, he
saw, in a vision, his eldest son, then a young child, and at London,
appear unto him, with the mark of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if
it had been cut with a sword; at which, amazed, he prayed unto God; and
in the morning, he came to Mr. Camden’s chamber, to tell him, who
persuaded him it was but an apprehension, at which he should not be
dejected. In the mean time, there came letters from his wife, of the
death of that boy in the plague. He appeared to him of a manly shape,
and of that growth he thinks he shall be at the resurrection.”
From Walton’s Lives I select the following fragment: it is a vision of
Doctor Donne, the metaphysician, whose wife died after the birth of a
dead child. “Sir Robert (Drury) returned about an hour afterwards. He
found his friend in a state of extasy, and so altered in his
countenance, that he could not look upon him without amazement. The
doctor was not able for some time to answer the question, what had
befallen him; but, after a long and perplexed pause, at last said, ‘I
have seen a dreadful vision since I last saw you. I have seen my dear
wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her
shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this I have seen since I saw
you.’ To which Sir Robert answered, ‘Sure, Sir, you have slept since I
went out, and this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I
desire you to forget, for you are now awake.’ Donne replied, ‘I cannot
be more sure that I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw
you; and am as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopped, looked
me in the face, and vanished.’”
There was a _promise_ by Lord Tyrone to Lady Beresford of a visitation
from the tomb. Even when the phantom appeared to her in the night, the
lady expressed her diffidence in its reality, but it placed a mark upon
her wrist, and adjusted her bed-curtains in some supernatural fashion,
and even wrote something in her pocket-book: so that with earnestness
she related to her husband in the morning this impressive vision; and it
was not long ere missives came, which by announcing the death of Lord
Tyrone proved the spectre prophetic.
The tragedian John Palmer died on the stage at Liverpool. At the same
hour and minute, a shopman in London, sleeping under a counter, saw
distinctly his shade glide through the shop, open the door, and pop into
the street. This, an hour or two after, he mentioned very coolly, as if
Mr. Palmer himself had been there.
Cardan saw, on the ring-finger of his right hand, the mark of a bloody
sword, and heard at the same time a voice which bade him go directly to
Milan. The redness progressively increased until midnight: the mark then
faded gradually, and disappeared. At that midnight hour his son was
beheaded at Milan.
It was told by Knowles, the governor of Lord Roscommon when a boy, that
young Wentworth Dillon was one day seized with a mood of the wildest
eccentricity, contrary to his usual disposition. On a sudden he
exclaimed, “My father is dead!” And soon after missives came from
Ireland to announce the fact.
The father of Doctor Blomberg, clerk of the closet to George IV., was
captain in an army serving in America. We are told by Doctor Rudge, that
six officers, three hundred miles from his position, were visited after
dinner by this modern Banquo, who sat down in a vacant chair. One said
to him, “Blomberg, are you mad?” He rose in silence, and slowly glided
out at the door. He was slain on that day and hour.
In the “Diary of a Physician” (an embellished record of facts), we read
the story of the spectre-smitten Mr. M——, whose leisure hours were
passed in the perusal of legends of diablerie and witchcraft. One
evening, when his brain was excited by champagne, he returned to his
rooms, and saw a dear friend in his chair; and this friend had died
suddenly, and was at that moment _laid out_ in his chamber;—a
combination of horrors so unexpected and intense, that monomania was the
result.
May I also recount to you this vision from Moore’s Life of Byron? “Lord
Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story which the commander of
the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. This officer
stated, that being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the
pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light
in the room, could see as he thought distinctly the figure of his
brother, who was at that time in the same service in the East Indies,
dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to
be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to
sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still as often as he
ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying across him in the
same position. To add to the wonder, on pulling his hand forth to touch
this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed,
_dripping wet_. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom
he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months
after, he received the startling intelligence, that on that night his
brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural
character of this appearance Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have
the slightest doubt.”
From Dr. Pritchard, I quote this fragment:—“A maid-servant, who lived
in the house of an elderly lady, some years since deceased, had risen,
early on a winter’s morning, and was employed in washing by candle-light
the entry of the house; when she was greatly surprised at seeing her
mistress, who was then in a precarious state of health, coming down
stairs in her night dress. The passage being narrow, she rose up to let
her mistress pass, which the latter did with a hasty step, and walked
into the street, appearing, to the terrified imagination of the girl, to
pass through the door without opening it. The servant related the
circumstance to the son and daughter of the lady, as soon as they came
down stairs, who desired her to conceal it from their mother, and
anxiously waited for her appearance. The old lady entered the room,
while they were talking of the incident, but appeared languid and
unwell, and complained of having been disturbed by an alarming dream.
She had dreamed that a dog had pursued her from her chamber _down the
staircase, and along the entry, and that she was obliged to take refuge
in the streets_.”
In the manuscripts of Lady Fanshawe, how evident is the fact of spectral
prophecy! Sir Richard Fanshawe and his lady were sleeping in a baronial
castle in Ireland, surrounded by a moat. At midnight she was awoke by a
ghostly and fearful screaming; and, gleaming before the window in the
pale moonlight, a female spectre hovered, her light auburn hair
dishevelled over her shoulders. While the lady looked in mute
astonishment, the spectre vanished, uttering two distinct shrieks. Her
terrific story was told in the morning to her host, who evinced no
wonder at the mystery, “Indeed,” quoth he, “I expected this. This was
the prophetic phantom of our house, the spectre of a lady wedded to an
ancestor, and drowned by him in the moat from false notions of dignity,
because she was not of noble blood. Since this expiation, the phantom
appears before every death of my near relations, and one of these died
last night in my castle.”—Here may be the prototype of the “White Lady
of Avenel.”
Among the most exalted families we have other confident records of the
recurrence of prophetic phantoms, antecedent to great events. A spectre
of this kind formed a part of the household establishment of the
Macleans. During the peninsular war, at the moment that the head of the
clan died at Lisbon, this wraith was seen to ride screaming along the
shore in Scotland.
Arise Evans, in a 12mo. tract, “sold at his house in Long Alley in
Blackfriars in 1653,” entitled “An Echo from Heaven,” foretold the
restoration of Charles II.; and his true prophecy was based on the
vision of a young face with a crown on, appearing after the shades of
Fairfax and of Cromwell.
There is an incident in Roman history so impressive in its catastrophe,
so exact in its periods, that few, I think, will deny the inspiration.
At the moment that Stephanus stabbed Domitian in his palace at Rome, the
philosopher Apollonius Tyaneus, in his school at Ephesus, exclaimed:
“Courage, Stephanus! strike the tyrant home!” and a minute after, _when
Parthenius completed this homicide_, he added, “he suffers for his
crimes—he dies.”
I have slightly sketched these illustrations, and I presume to term them
prophecies. There are others so complex, yet so complete in every part,
as to convert, I might hope, even the unbelief of Evelyn. To the
relations of Sir Walter and Dr. Abercrombie, I will add one from
Moreton, in his “Essay on Apparitions:” “The Reverend D. Scott, of Broad
Street, was sitting alone in his study. On a sudden the phantom of an
old gentleman, dressed in a black velvet gown, and full bottom wig,
entered, and sat himself down in a chair opposite to the doctor. The
visitor informed him of a dilemma in which his grandson, who lived in
the west country, was placed, by the suit of his nephew for the recovery
of an estate. This suit would be successful, unless a deed of conveyance
was found, which had been hidden in an old chest in a loft of the house.
On his arrival at this house, he learned that his grandson had dreamed
of this visit, and that his grandfather was coming to aid him in the
search. The deed was found in a false bottom of the old chest, as the
vision had promised.”
In a letter of Philip, the second Earl of Chesterfield, is told the
following strange story, which, although not a prophecy, cannot be
within the pale of our philosophy. “On a morning in 1652, the earl saw a
thing in white, like a standing sheet, within a yard of his bedside. He
attempted to catch it, but it slid to the foot of the bed, and he saw it
no more. His thoughts turned to his lady, who was then at Networth, with
her father, the Earl of Northumberland. On his arrival at Networth, a
footman met him on the stairs, with a packet directed to him from his
wife, whom he found with Lady Essex her sister, and Mrs. Ramsey. He was
asked why he returned so suddenly. He told his motive; and on perusing
the letters in the packet, he found that his lady had written to him
requesting his return, for she had seen a thing in white, with a black
face, by her bedside. These apparitions were seen by the earl and
countess, _at the same moment_, when they were forty miles asunder.”
The miraculous spirit which the influence of Joan of Arc infused into
the desponding hearts of the French army, is writ on the page of
history. Before her proposition for the inauguration of Charles VII. at
Rheims, she heard a celestial voice in her prayer, “Fille, va, va! je
seray à ton ayde—va!” and her revelation of secrets to the king, which
he thought were locked within his own bosom, raised in the court
implicit belief in her inspiration.
And now, Evelyn, I ask you,
“Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder?”——
Ere you smile at my phantasie, and overwhelm me with doubts and
solutions, I pr’ythee let me counsel your philosophy. Dig to a certain
depth in the field of science, and you may find the roots and the gold
dust of knowledge: penetrate deeper, and you will strike against the
granite rock, on which rest the cold and profitless reasonings of the
sceptic.
CAST. You look on me, Astrophel, as on a bending proselyte. Yet, sooth
to tell, it may be difficult to convert me, although I am half won to
romance already by the witch-thoughts of him who gilded the science of
the heart and mind, with all the iridescent charm of poesy; an
_unprofessing_ philosopher, yet with marvellous insight of human
hearts,—my own loved Shakspere. And you listen to my Lord Lyttelton, he
will tell you, in his “Dialogues of the Dead,” that “in the annihilation
of our globe, were Shakspere’s works preserved, the whole science of
man’s nature might still be read therein.” And so beautifully are his
sketches of the heart and the fancy blended withal, that we hang with
equal delight on the mystic philosophy of Hamlet, the witchcraft of Mab,
and Ariel, and Oberon, with their golden wreaths of gay blossoms, as on
the dying visions of Katherine, as pure and holy as the
vesper-breathings of a novice. Yet the shade of superstition never
darkened the brow of Shakspere. Therefore, plume not yourself on your
hope of conquest, Astrophel: Evelyn may win me yet. Philosophy may frown
on the visions of an enthusiast, while she doth grace her pages with a
poet’s dream. But you will not wear the willow, Astrophel: there is a
beam of pity for you in the eyes of yon pensive Ida.
IDA. You are a witch, Castaly. Yet _I_ have as little faith in the
quaint stories of Astrophel. A mystery must be purified and chastened by
sacred solemnity, ere it may be blended with the contemplation of holy
study. And yet there is an arch voluptuary, Boccacio, the coryphæus of a
loose band of novelists, who has stained a volume by his profane union
of holiness and passion. The scenes of his Decameron are played amidst
the raging of the plague, by flaunting youths and maidens, but that
moment arisen from the solemnity of a cathedral prayer!
ASTR. You will call up the shade of Valdarfar, Ida, that idol of the
Roxburghe club, and printer of the Decameron——
IDA. If he appear, he shall vanish at a word, Astrophel. Yet we may not
lightly yield the influence of special visitations, even in our own
days, when solemn belief is _chastened by holy motives_, and becomes the
spring of living waters. Even the taint of superstition may be almost
sanctified on such a plea; and Baxter may be forgiven half his credulity
when he wrote his “Saints’ Rest,” and the “Essay on Apparitions,” to
convert the sceptics of London, who, in the dearth of signs and wonders,
expressed their willingness to believe the soul’s immortality, _if_ they
had proofs of ghostly visitations.
_I_ will myself even quote a mystery, (I believe recorded in Sandys’s
Ovid,) for the sake of the moral which it bears. It is the legend of
“The Room of the Ladyes Figure:” whether it be a tale of Bavaria, or a
mere paraphrase from the Saxon Sabinus, I know not.
This is the story of Otto, a Bavarian gentleman, of passionate nature,
mourning for his wife. On one of his visits to her tomb, a mournful
voice, which murmured, “A blessed evening, sir!” came o’er his ear; and
while his eyes fell on the form of a young chorister, he placed a letter
in his hands, and vanished. His wonder was extreme, while he read this
mysterious despatch, which was addressed “To my dear husband, who
sorrows for his wife,” and signed, “This, with a warm hand, from the
living Bertha,” and appointing an interview in the public walk. Thither,
on a beautiful evening, sped the Bavarian, and there, among the crowd,
sat a lady covered by a veil. With a trembling voice he whispered
“Bertha,” when she arose, and, with her warm and living arm on his,
returned to his once desolate home. There were odd thoughts, surmises,
and wonderings, passing among the friends of Otto, and suspicions of a
mock funeral and a solemn cheat; but all subsided as time stole over,
and their wedded life was without a cloud: until a paroxysm of his rage
one fatal day was vented on the lady, who cried, “This to me! what if
the world knew all!”—with this broken sentence she vanished from the
room. In her chamber, whither the search led, erect, as it were gazing
on the fire, her form stood; but when they looked on it in front, there
was a headless hood, and the clothes were standing as if enveloping a
form, but no _body_ was there! Need I say, that a thrill of horror crept
through all at the mystery, and a fear at the approach of Otto, who,
though deeply penitent, was deserted by all but a graceless reprobate,
his companion, and his almoner to many a stranger, who knew not the
unhallowed source of bounty?
_That_ belief cannot be an error, which associates divine thoughts with
the events of human life. I remember, as I was roaming over the wild
region of Snowdonia, we sat above the valley and the lakes of Nant
Gwinant, on which the red ridge of Clwd Coch threw a broad and purple
shadow, while over Moel Elion and Myneth Mawr, the sun was bathed in a
flood of crimson light. The Welsh guide was looking down in deep thought
on Llyn Gwinant; and, with a tear in his eye, he told us a pathetic
story of two young pedestrians, who were benighted among the mountains,
on their ascent from Beddgelert. They had parted company in the gloom of
the evening, and each was alone in a desert. On a sudden, the voice of
one of them was distinctly heard by the other, in the direction of the
gorge which bounds the pass of Llanberis, as if encouraging him to
proceed. The wanderer followed its sound, and at length escaped from
this labyrinth of rocks, and arrived safely at Capel Currig. In the
morning, his friend’s body was found lying far behind the spot where the
phantom voice was first heard, and _away from the course of their
route_. Was this a special spirit, a solemn instance of friendship after
death, as if the phantom had been endowed with supernatural power, and
become the guardian angel of his friend; or the special whisper of the
Deity in the ear of the living? A belief in this spiritual visitation is
often the consolation of pure Christianity, for “the shadow of God is
light!” With some the hope of heaven rests on it; and holy men have
thought, that the presence of a spirit may even sanctify the being which
it approaches with an emanation of its own holiness. Nay, do we not
witness a blessing like this in the common walks of life; as in that
beautiful story (told by the Bishop of Gloucester) of the vision of her
dead mother, by the daughter of Sir James Lee, in 1662?
Is not the effect of these visitations, to a chastened mind, ever
fraught with good? It may be merely a wisdom or a virtue in decision; as
when my Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, prayed to God to declare whether he
should publish his book “De Veritate;” he heard a gentle voice from
heaven, which answered his prayer, with a solemn approval of his design.
It may be the checking of our pride of life, or our self-glory for
success; a divine lesson that may counsel us against worldly wisdom, in
this golden precept, “Seek to be admired by angels rather than by men.”
So that complete _conversion_ may follow the vision of a spirit.
Doddridge has given us the stories of Colonel Gardiner and the Rev.
Vincent Perronet; and in the “Baronii Annales” we read of Ticinus, a
departed friend of Michael Mercator, then a profane student in
philosophy, who, according to a preconcerted promise, appeared to him at
the moment that he died, afar off in Florence. The vision so alarmed his
conscience, that he at once became a devout student in divinity.
In the city of Nantes, as we see it written by William of Malmsbury, in
the twelfth century, dwelt two young ecclesiastics. Between them was a
solemn compact, that within thirty days after the death of either, his
shade should appear, sleeping or waking, to the survivor, to declare if
the true psychology was the doctrine of Plato, or of the Epicureans; if
the soul survived the body, or vanished into air. The shade appeared
like one dying, while the spirit passeth away; and discoursing, like the
ghost of Hamlet’s father, of the pains of infernal punishments,
stretched forth his ulcerous arm, and asked if “it seemed as light;”
then, dropping the caustic humour from his arm on the temples of the
living witness, which were corroded by the drop, he warned him of the
same penalties if he entered not into holy orders, in the city of
Rennes. This solemn warning worked his conversion, and he became a pious
and exemplary devotee, under the holy wings of Saint Melanius.
In these instances, is not the special influence of the Deity evident?
and why will our profane wisdom still draw us from our leaning to this
holy creed, causing us to “forsake the fountains of living water, and
hew out unto ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water?”
How awfully beautiful is the Mosaic picture of the first mortal
communion with the Creator, when the vision of God was heard by Adam and
Eve, walking in the garden in the cool of the day; or, when the Deity
appeared to Abraham and to Moses, and his word came to Manoah, and to
Noah, with the blessings of a promise; or, when his angels of light
descended to console, and to relieve from chains and from fire; or, when
the angel of the Lord first appears in the vision to Cornelius; and the
trance, or rather the counterpart of the vision, comes over St. Peter,
at Joppa; and the arrival of the men, sent by the centurion, confirms
the miracle: and then, the last sublime revealings of the Apocalypse.
You will not call it presumption, Evelyn, that I adduce these holy
records to confirm our modern faith; and ask you, why philosophy will
yet chain our thoughts to earth, and affirm our visions to be a
meaningless phantasy?
ILLUSION OF SPECTRES.
“More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
EV. Your holy thoughts, fair Ida, are but an echo of my own. The grand
causes and awful judgments of the inspired æras of the world prove the
truth by the _necessity_ of the miracles, not only in answer to the
Pharisees and Sadducees, who _required a sign_, but even before the eyes
of the early disciples, whose apathetic hearts soon forgot the miracles,
and their divine Master himself; for, as he was walking on the sea, “at
the fourth watch, they thought he was a spirit.”
I would fain, however, adopt the precept of Lord Bacon, to waive
theology in my discussions and my illustrations, because I am unwilling
to blend the sacred truths of spiritual futurity with arguments on the
imperfection of material existence.
In the abstract spiritual evidence of all modern superstition, I have
little faith. These records are scarcely more to be confided in than
fairy tales, or fictions like those of many antique sages: as the
rabbins, that “the cherubim are the wisest, the seraphim the most
amiable, of angels;” or of the visionary Jew of Burgundy, whom, in 1641,
John Evelyn spoke with in Holland,—“He told me that, when the Messias
came, all the ships, barkes, and vessels of Holland should, by the
powere of certaine strange whirle winds, be loosed from their ankers, to
convey their brethren and tribes to the holy citty.” Or even that of
Melancthon, that his sable majesty once appeared to his own aunt in the
shape of her husband, and grasping her hand, so scorched and shrivelled
it, that it remained black ever after. These are fair samples of
credulity.
You will call me presumptuous, but, believe me, Astrophel, it is
superstition which is presumptuous and positive, and not philosophy; for
credulity believes on profane tradition, or the mere assertion of a
mortal. But the glory of philosophy is humility; for they who, like
Newton, and Playfair, and Wollaston, and Davy, look deeply into the
wonder and beauty of creation, will be ever humbled by the contemplation
of their own being,—an atom of the universe. A philosopher cannot be
proud; for, like Socrates, he confesses his ignorance, because he is
ever searching for truth. He cannot be a sceptic; for when he has dived
into the deeps of science, his thoughts will ascend the more toward the
Deity: he has grasped all that science can afford him, and there is
nothing left for his mighty mind but divine things and holy hopes.
Philosophy is not confident either, because she ever waits for more
experience and more weight of testimony.
How often, Astrophel, must we be deceived, like children, by distance,
until experience teaches us truth. By this we know that the turrets of
distant towers are _high_, yet they dwindle in our sight to the mere
vanishing point, _as the child believes them_. Such is the power of
demonstration.
The ancient polytheists could not be other than idolaters and believers
in prophecy. The rabbins were schooled, in addition to the books of
Moses, in those of Zoroaster, in the Talmud, which was the magic volume
of the Jews, and the Takurni, or Persian Almanac, the annual expositor
of natural and judicial astrology in the clime of the sun.
The sages who lived immediately after the light of Christianity had been
shed over the Holy Land, had not forgotten the miracles wrought in the
holy city; but they profaned Omnipotence by making them purposeless.
Superstition then formed a part of the national creed: even a mere word,
as “Epidamnum,” they dreaded to pronounce, as it was of such awful
import; and credulity and blind faith in the prophetic truth of omens
and oracles prevailed. We read in Montfaucon, that twelve hundred
believed in this miracle of Virgil:
“Captus a Romanis _invisibiliter_ exiit, ivitque Neapolim:”
that he rendered himself _invisible_ to the Romans and escaped to
Naples. The influence of this blind infatuation was the spring of many
actions, which, like the daring of the Indian fatalist in battle, were
vaunted as deeds of heroic self-martyrdom.
Marcus Curtius, the trembling of the earth having opened a chasm in the
Roman forum, leaped into it on horseback, when the soothsayers declared
it would not close until the most valuable thing in the city was flung
into it. And the two Decii offered themselves as the willing sacrifice,
to ensure a victory for their country,—one in the war with the Latins,
the other in that of the Etrurians and Umbrians.
Aristotle and Galen were exceptions. It is true, that Socrates believed
himself under the influence of a demon, a sort of delegate from the
Deity,—indeed, that God willed his death; for when his friend pressed
him on his trial to compose his defence, he answered thus:—“The truth
is, I was twice going about to make my apology, but was twice withheld
by my demon.” But remember, Astrophel, the Greek word which the
philosopher employed, τò δαιμóνιον, and you will rather confess that it
implies the _Deity_, as if some divine inspiration taught him; or
perchance, as some of his commentators believe, this invisible monitor
was merely the impersonation of the faculty of judgment, and of that
deep knowledge and forethought with which his mind was fraught.
Cicero, too, is said to have written arguments to prove the divine
origin of the oracle of Delphi; but it is well believed by classics,
that Addison has, in his letter in the Spectator, mistaken Cicero for
Cato.
Recollect, Astrophel, this is an old point with us, when we were reading
the subject of _Auguries_, in his book, “De Divinatione,” in which he
wonders “that one soothsayer can look another in the face without
laughing;” and you remember Lucian ridicules ghost-seeing as the whim of
imagination. You have cited Pliny. True,—Pliny is an interesting
story-teller; although he warps somewhat the phantoms of his dreams. But
what is the first sentence of his letter to Sura?—“I am very desirous
to know your opinion concerning spectres; whether you believe them to
have a real existence, and are a sort of divinities, or are only the
visionary impressions of a terrified imagination.”
And what did Johnson confess?—That “this is a question, which, after
five thousand years, is still undecided; a question, whether in theology
or philosophy, one of the most important that can come before the human
understanding.” So you see the vaunted creed of Johnson was at least
like the coffin of Mahomet, poised between the affirmative and negative
of the proposition. The sage was a strict spiritualist, and, as Boswell
says, “wished for more evidence of spirit in opposition to materialism.”
On some points he was also mighty superstitious, and constantly affirmed
his conviction that he should himself run mad. This augury failed, and
therefore the prophetic nature of second sight needs more convincing
proof than the creed of Johnson.—In his own words, “Foresight is not
prescience.”
As to the second sight of Caledon, he confesses that, although in his
journey he searched diligently, he saw but one seer, and he was grossly
ignorant, as indeed they usually are. “He came away only _willing_ to
believe;” the learned and literary even in the far Hebrides, especially
the clergy, being altogether sceptics.
In the consideration of this question in the study of psychology, it has
been an error to conclude that, because in some certain works arguments
are adduced by imaginary characters, in support of the appearance of
departed spirits: such was the positive belief of their authors. If
then, for instance, the arguments of Imlac, in Rasselas, which aim at
the proof of spectral reality, or rather the appearance of departed
beings, be adduced as an evidence of Johnson’s _own_ belief, I might
observe that it were equally rational to identify the minds or
dispositions of Massinger and Sir Giles Overreach,—of Shakspere and
Iago.
Like the Catholic priesthood, who rule the ignorant by the force of
superstition, leaders have been induced to profess the possession of
this faculty, to overawe their proselytes by their own deeper knowledge;
as Numa vaunted his intimacy with the nymph Egeria at her fountain.
For this purpose, even the Corsican general, Pascal Paoli, assumed the
profession of a seer, and the mystery of his prescience was on the lips
of every Corsican. When Boswell asked, if the fulfilments of his
prophecies were frequent, a Corsican grasped a bundle of his hair, and
whispered, “Tante, tante, signore!”
But I will not play the dullard, Astrophel, while you, with your
legendary romance, charm the listening ears of ladyes fayre. I will have
my turn of story-telling, (avoiding the myriads of queer tales, told by
superstitious and unlettered visionaries, on the look out for marvels,
by servant maids and rustics, and silly people, the chief actors in
ghost stories). And therefore, in the face of these negative
conclusions, even of Johnson, hear one unparalleled story, culled from
the rich treasury of Master Aubrey’s “Miscellanies.” It was of an earl
of Caithness, who, desirous of ascertaining the distance of a vessel
which was laden with wine for his cellars, proposed a question to a
seer. The answer was, “At the distance of four hour’s sail.” It may be
some doubt was expressed of the truth of this oracle; for, to prove his
gift of clairvoyance, he laid before the earl the cap of a seaman in the
ship, which he had that moment taken off his head. The vessel duly
arrived, and lo! a sailor claimed the cap in the seer’s hand, affirming
that, four hours before, it had been blown from his head by the gale. Is
not this the very acme of effrontery?
Carolan, the inspired bard of Erin, confessed he could not compose a
planxty for a certain lady of Sligo, even when he made an effort to
celebrate her wondrous beauty; and one day in despair he threw away his
harp and fell into a lament, that some evil genius was hovering over
him: from his harp strings, (in contrast with those of Anacreon,) he
could sweep only a mournful music, and he thence _prophesied_, and that
truly, the death of the lady within the year.
Dubuison, a dentist of Edinburgh, on the day preceding the death of
President Blair, met him in the street, and was addressed by the
president with a _peculiar_ expression. On the day before the death of
Lord Melville, the dentist was met by him exactly on the same spot, and
accosted by my lord in the very same words. On the death of Lord
Melville, Dubuison exclaimed that he should be the third. He became
immediately indisposed, and died within an hour.
In the “Miscellanies” of Aubrey, we read, that John Evelyn related to
the Royal Society the case of the curate of Deptford, Mr. Smith, who, in
November, 1679, was sick of an ague. To this reverend clerk appeared the
phantom of a master of arts, with a white wand in his hand, who promised
that if he lay on his back three hours, from ten to one, his ague would
leave him. And this prophecy was also to the very letter fulfilled.
Napoleon, when he was marching upon Acre, had a djerme, or Nile boat,
with some of his troops, destroyed; the boat’s name was _L’Italie_; and
from this he said, “Italy is lost to France.” And so it was.
During the siege of Jerusalem, for seven days a man paraded round the
walls, exclaiming with a solemn voice, “Woe to Jerusalem!” and on the
seventh day he added, “Woe to Jerusalem, and _myself_!” When, at the
moment of this anathema, a missile from the enemy destroyed him.
Do you wonder that the prophecy of Monsieur Cazotte of his own
decapitation, recorded in his “Œuvres de M. de la Harpe,” should have
been fulfilled? for in 1788, when this prophecy was uttered, the
guillotine was daily reeking with patrician blood; and the Duchess of
Grammont, Vicq d’Azyr, Condorcet, and Cazotte himself, among a host of
others, were dragged to the scaffold.
When dark events were overclouding Poland, to Sorvenski the warrior, a
convert to magnetism, it was imparted in a vision, that Warsaw should be
deluged in blood, and that he should fall in battle. In two years these
forebodings were fulfilled.
It is known that Lord Falkland and Archbishop Williams both warned
Charles I. of his fate; but it required no ghost to tell him that. And I
have known many deeply interested in the fate of absent friends; and
knowing their circumstances and locality, so prophesy, that they seemed
to have all the faculty of clairvoyance. The young ladies of Britain,
during the Peninsular war, were often dreaming of the apparitions of
their lovers, _perhaps_ at the hour of their expiring on the field of
battle: coincidences that must make a deep impression on sensitive
minds. Were I justified in divulging secrets and confessions, I might
relate some curious stories of these inauspicious dreams.
At the moment of the duel between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Tierney, on Wimbledon
Common, a lady of fashion in London exclaimed, “This is the important
moment!”
Oliver Cromwell had reclined on his couch, and extreme fatigue forbad
the coming on of sleep. On a sudden his curtains opened, and a gigantic
female form imparted to him, that he should be the greatest man in
England. The puritanical faith and ambition of Cromwell might have
raised, during the distracted state of the kingdom, something even
beyond this; and who may decide, if the spectre had whispered, “Thou
shalt be king hereafter,” that the protector would have refused the
crown, as, on the feast of Lupercal, it had been refused by Cæsar?
“General Oglethorpe,” writes Boswell, “told us that Prendergast, an
officer in the Duke of Marlborough’s army, had mentioned to many of his
friends, that he should die on a particular day. Upon that day a battle
took place with the French; and after it was over, and Prendergast was
still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field,
jestingly asked him, where was his prophecy now? Prendergast gravely
answered, ‘I shall die, notwithstanding what you see.’ Soon afterwards
there came a shot from a French battery, to which the orders for a
cessation of arms had not yet reached, and he was killed upon the spot!”
But can these shallow stories be cited as _prophecies_? The links in the
chain of causation are evident, and the veriest sceptic cannot doubt
their sequence, where there was so strong a probability. It is merely by
reflecting on the past and judging the future by analogy. Natural events
of human actions have laws to govern them, and there is seldom foresight
without the reflection _on_ these laws. Lord Mansfield, when asked how
the French revolution would end, replied, “It is an event without a
precedent, and therefore without a prophecy.”
ASTR. Then you do not believe, where you cannot develop the _causes_ of
events. Like all _rational_ philosophers, you must have demonstrative
proof. In which class of sceptics shall I enrol you, Evelyn?—As a
proselyte of Aristotle, who will deny not only the existence of spirits,
but affirm heaven and hell to be a fable, and that the world is
self-existent: or with the Epicureans, who believed the impious doctrine
of blind chance,—that the sun and stars were vapours, and the soul
perishable; or with the modern lights of reason,—Sir Isaac Newton, who
confessed the Paradise Lost to be a fine poem, though it proved nothing;
or the Abbé Lauguerne, who, for the self-same reason, despised the
brilliancy of Racine and Corneille; or with the Sadducees themselves,
who denied both prophecy and spirit?
EV. Perhaps the Sadducees might have referred visions to the _right_
cause, for phantoms differ little from Locke’s “substance which thinks.”
But the mere metaphysician blinks the question (as Lord Bacon does that
of experimental chemistry,—“Vix unum experimentum adduci potest quod ad
hominum statum levandum et juvandum spectat”); thus wofully depreciating
the progress of chemical science, as if the discoveries of Wollaston, of
Davy, of Dalton, and of Faraday were fruitless. Remember, modern
philosophers are not like Xenophon, who (says Socrates) called all
_fools_ who differed from his opinion.
Even Baxter confesses the frequency of imposture in ghost stories, yet
leans to the belief of all which he _cannot account for_.
Now if philosophy had not doubted, science would be stationary. We might
still believe, with Heraclitus, that the sun was only a foot in breadth;
or, with Copernicus, that it revolved in its orbit, while the earth was
at rest. Remember, Astrophel, the way to the temple of Science is
through the portals of doubt: it is a mark of weakness, “jurare in verba
magistri.” Even the prince philosopher of Denmark doubted the prophetic
truth of his father’s ghost on its mere appearance—(“The spirit I have
seen may be a devil,”)—until the scene of the play, and the stricken
conscience of the king, and _then only_, he believed that “it was an
honest ghost.”
“It is true,” as Lord Chesterfield wrote in 1653, “I know that God can
make any such things to appear, but because he _can_, therefore to
conclude that he _doth_, is ill argued: and though divers books are full
of such stories, yet the soberest sort of men in all ages have doubted
the truth of them.” I might add to these the visions which have been so
strangely warped to interpret a subsequent event. Those of William
Rufus, and Innocent the Fourth, and Henry the Second of France, and a
thousand others from ancient history, between the assumed prophecy and
fulfilment of which, there is about as much truth as when Lady Seymour
dreamt of having found a nest of nine finches, and soon after was
married to Finch, Earl of Winchelsea, and was blessed with a brood of
nine children.
With the coincidences of life we have all been struck; the ignorant and
timid and superstitious among us with wonder: but how comparatively
trivial are these tiny drops in the wide ocean of events, and what
myriads of dreams and visions from which there are no results!
A simple incident occurred to me in the autumn of last year, which was
so complete in its association as to be for a moment startling to
myself.
Influenced by a sort of veneration for the memory of the good Gilbert
White of Selborne, I made a pilgrimage to that calm and rustic village,
so exquisitely embosomed among green meads, and beech-crowned chalk
hills, and forests embrowned with heath and fern.
On my entrance to the village, I was reflecting on the “idiot boy” who
fed on honey which he pressed from the bees he caught, when lo! at the
first door a figure, which grinned at me, and mowed and muttered, but
without the slightest _verbal_ utterance. He was an idiot, but not
White’s idiot; yet a visionary mind might readily for a moment believe
it to be a phantom of the foolish boy, immortalized, as it were, in the
“Natural History of Selborne.”
There was an imposing occurrence also, during the funeral procession of
Sir Walter Scott to Dryburgh. A halt took place for many minutes (in
consequence of an accident) precisely on the summit of the hill at
Bemerside, where a beautiful prospect opens, to contemplate which, Sir
Walter was ever wont to rein up his horse.
“In 1811,” writes Lord Byron in a letter to Mr. Murray, “my old school
and form fellow Peel, the Irish secretary, told me he saw me in St.
James’s Street; I was then in Turkey. A day or two afterwards he pointed
out to his brother a person across the way, and said, ‘There is the man
I took for Byron:’ his brother answered, ‘Why, it is Byron, and no one
else.’ I was at this time _seen_ to write my name in the Palace Book. I
was then ill of a malaria fever. If I had died, here would have been a
ghost story.”
While Lord Byron was at Colonna, his dervish Tahiri, as we read in his
notes to the “Giaour,” who professed the faculty of _second hearing_,
prophesied an attack of the Mainotes as they passed a certain perilous
defile, but _nothing came of it_: the attack was not made; and it is
probable that some ringing in the ears of the dervish, and a knowledge
that the defile was a haunt of brigands, were the springs of this
notion.
And there are events, too, which have all the intensity of romance and
seem involved in the deepest mystery, and which, like Washington
Irving’s tale of the “Spectre Bridegroom,” assume all the air of the
supernatural, until the enigma is solved, and then we cry, “How clear
the solution!”
Among the myriads of _explained_ mysteries in the north, I will cite
that of the farmer of Teviotdale, who, in the gloom of evening, saw on
the wall of a cemetery a pale form throwing about her arms, and mowing
and chattering to the moon. With not a little terror he spurred his
horse, but as he passed the phantom it dropped from its perch, and, like
Tam o’ Shanter’s Nannie, fixing itself on the croup, clasped him tightly
round the waist with arms of icy coldness. He arrived at home; with a
thrill of horror exclaimed, “Tak aff the ghaist!” and was carried
shivering to bed. And what was the phantom? A maniac widow, on her
distracted pilgrimage to the grave of her husband, for whom she had
indeed mistaken the ill-fated farmer.
The president of a literary club at Plymouth being very ill during its
session, the chair out of respect was left vacant. While they were
sitting, his apparition, in a white dress, glided in and took formal
possession of the chair. His face was “wan like the cauliflower;” he
bowed in silence to the company, carried his empty glass to his lips,
and solemnly retired. They went to his house, and learned that he had
just expired! The strange event was kept a profound secret, until the
nurse confessed on her death-bed that she had fallen asleep, that the
patient had stolen out, and, having the pass-key of the garden, had
returned to his bed by a short path before the deputation, and had died
a few seconds after.
In the records of his life, by Taylor, we read of a trick of the great
actor, who, like Brinsley Sheridan, had an inkling for practical jokes.
It was on a professional visit of Dr. Moncey. “Garrick was announced for
King Lear on that night, and when Moncey saw him in bed he expressed his
surprise, and asked him if the play was to be changed. Garrick was
dressed, but had his night-cap on, and the quilt was drawn over him to
give him the appearance of being too ill to rise. Dr. M. expressed his
surprise, as it was time for Garrick to be at the theatre to dress for
King Lear. Garrick, in a languid and whining tone, told him that he was
too much indisposed to perform himself, but that there was an actor
named Marr, so like him in figure, face, and voice, and so admirable a
mimic, that he had ventured to trust the part to him, and was sure the
audience would not perceive the difference. Pretending that he began to
feel worse, he requested Moncey to leave the room in order that he might
get a little sleep, but desired him to attend the theatre, and let him
know the result. As soon as the Doctor quitted the room, Garrick jumped
out of bed and hastened to the theatre. Moncey attended the performance.
Having left Garrick in bed, he was bewildered by the scene before him,
sometimes doubting and sometimes being astonished at the resemblance
between Garrick and Marr. At length, finding that the audience were
convinced of Garrick’s identity, Moncey began to suspect a trick had
been practised upon him, and instantly hurried to Garrick’s house at the
end of the play; but Garrick was too quick for him, and was found by
Moncey in the same state of illness.” These are truths which are indeed
stranger than fiction.
Were a miracle once authenticated, our scepticism might cease, but we
cannot be convinced of supernatural agency till something be done or
known which could not be so by common means, or which through the medium
of deception or contrivance _imposes_ on the mind such belief; of which
impression Alston the painter once told Coleridge a melancholy story.
’Twas of a youth at Cambridge, who dressed himself up in white as a
ghost to frighten his companion, having first drawn the bullets from
pistols which he kept at the head of his bed. As the apparition glided
by his bed, the youth laughed and cried out, “Vanish! I fear you not.”
The ghost did not obey him, and at length he reached a pistol and fired
at it, when, seeing the ghost immoveable and invulnerable as he
supposed, a belief in a spirit instantly came over his mind, and
convulsion succeeding, his extreme terror was soon followed by his
death.
I have read (I believe in Clarendon), that the decapitation of Charles
I. was augured (_after death_) from his coronation robes being of white
velvet instead of purple; and this it was remembered was the colour of a
victim’s death-garment; and in Blennerhasset’s history of James II.,
that the crown at his coronation tottered on his head, and at the same
moment the royal arms fell from the altar of some London church. All
this is too childish to be spoken of seriously, and reminds me of the
General Montecuculi, who on some saint’s day had ordered bacon in his
omelette. At the moment it was served, a peal of thunder shook his
house, when he exclaimed, “Voilà bien du bruit pour une omelette!”
We wonder not to find Lily, into whose moth-eaten tomes I have sometimes
peeped for amusement, prating thus of consequences. There is an old
paper of his graced with “the effigies of Master Praise God Barebone,”
where, among other _judgments_, the blindness of Milton is recorded as a
penal infliction of the Deity, for “that he writ two books against the
kings, and Salmasius his defence of kings.” But we do wonder at such a
weakness in Sir Walter Raleigh, that he should thus write in his History
of the World,—“The strangest thing I have read of in this kind being
certainly true, was, that the night before the battle of Novara, all the
dogs which followed the French army ran from them to the Switzers; and
lo! next morning the Switzers were beaten by the French.”
And yet a greater wonder is, that so many solemn stories should have
crept into our national legends, in which there is _no truth_: in which
philosophers and divines have very innocently combined to bewilder us.
There is an _assumed_ incident associated with a melancholy event in the
noble family of Lansdowne, most illustrative of my observation. In the
“Literary Recollections” of the Rev. Richard Warner, is recorded the
interesting story of the apparition of Lord William Petty, at Bowood,
related to Mr. Warner by the Rev. Joseph Townsend, rector of Pewsey in
Wiltshire, and “confirmed by the dying declaration of Dr. Alsop, of
Calne.”
It is affirmed that Lord William Petty, who was under the care of Dr.
Priestley, the librarian, and the Rev. Mr. Jervis, his tutor, was
attacked, at the age of seven, with inflammation of the lungs, for which
Mr. Alsop was summoned to Bowood. After a few days, the young nobleman
seemed to be out of danger; but, on a sudden relapse, the surgeon was
again sent for in the evening.
“It was night before this gentleman reached Bowood but an unclouded moon
showed every object in unequivocal distinctness. Mr. Alsop had passed
through the lodge-gate, and was proceeding to the house, when, to his
astonishment, he saw Lord William coming towards him, in all the
buoyancy of childhood, restored apparently to health and vigour. ‘I am
delighted, my dear lord,’ he exclaimed, ‘to see you, but, for Heaven’s
sake, go immediately within doors,—it is death to you to be here at
this time of night.’ The child made no reply, but, turning round, was
quickly out of sight. Mr. Alsop, unspeakably surprised, hurried to the
house. Here all was distress and confusion, for _Lord William, had
expired a few minutes before he reached the portico_.
“This sad event being with all speed announced to the Marquis of
Lansdowne, in London, orders were soon received at Bowood, for the
interment of the corpse, and the arrangement of the funeral procession.
The former was directed to take place at High Wickham, in the vault
which contained the remains of _Lord William’s mother_; the latter was
appointed to halt at two specified places, during the two nights on
which it would be on the road. Mr. Jervis and Dr. Priestley attended the
body. On the first day of the melancholy journey, the latter gentleman,
who had hitherto said little on the subject of the appearance to Mr.
Alsop, suddenly addressed his companion with considerable emotion in
nearly these words: ‘There are some very singular circumstances
connected with this event, Mr. Jervis, and a most remarkable coincidence
between a dream of the late Lord William and our present mournful
engagement. A few weeks ago, as I was passing by his room door one
morning, he called me to his bedside,—‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘what is your
Christian name?’ ‘Surely,’ said I, ‘you know it is Joseph.’ ‘Well,
then,’ replied he, in a lively manner, ‘if you are a _Joseph_, you can
interpret a _dream_ for me, which I had last night. I dreamed, Doctor,
that I set out upon a long journey; that I stopped the first night at
_Hungerford_, whither I went without touching the ground; that I flew
from thence to _Salt Hill_, where I remained the next night; and arrived
at High Wickham on the third day, where my dear mamma, beautiful as an
angel, stretched out her arms and caught me within them.’ ‘Now,’
continued the Doctor, ‘these are precisely the places where the dear
child’s corpse will remain on this and the succeeding night, before we
reach his mother’s vault, which is finally to receive it.’”
Now here is a tissue of events, as strange as they are circumstantial;
and I might set myself to illustrate the apparition by the agitated
state of Mr. Alsop’s mind, were it not for the _utter fallacy_ of this
mysterious story, on which the late Rev. Mr. Jervis, of Brompton, whom I
knew and esteemed, deemed it essential to publish “Remarks,” in the year
1831. From these, you will learn that Mr. Warner is in error regarding
the “address, designation, and age of the Hon. William Granville Petty,
the nature and duration of his disorder, and the name of the place of
interment.” And then it comes out that neither Dr. Priestley nor Mr.
Jervis attended the funeral, nor conversed at any time on the
circumstance. And, regarding Mr. Alsop’s death-bed declaration, Mr.
Jervis, who was in his intimate confidence, never heard of such a thing
until Mr. Warner’s volume was pointed out to him.
This strange story, believed by good and wise men, involved a seeming
mystery, until we read in Mr. Jervis’s “Remarks,” one simple sentence in
reference to the gentleman by whom it was first told,—that “the
enthusiasm of his nature predisposed him to entertain some visionary and
romantic notions of supernatural appearances.”
PHANTASY FROM MENTAL ASSOCIATION.
“This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation, ecstacy
Is very cunning in.”
HAMLET.
CAST. How delightful to wander thus among the reliques of that age, when
her citizens, the colonists of Britain, migrated from imperial Rome, and
built their Venta Silurum, or Caerwent, from the ruins of which these
now mouldering walls were formed. As we trod those pictured pavements of
Caerwent beneath the blue sky of yesternoon, I felt all the inspiration
of Astrophel, and a pageantry of Roman patricians seemed to sweep along
the fragments of those painted tesselæ.
“Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are link’d by many a hidden chain;
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise,
Each stamps his image as the other flies.”
There is a happy combination of antiquity and simplicity in this land of
Gwent. Almost within the shadow of the Roman Caerleon, the Monmouthshire
peasants, at Easter and Whitsuntide, assemble to plant fresh flowers on
the graves of their relatives. How I love these old customs! the
chanting of the carol at Christmas; its very homeliness so redolent of
love and friendship: and that quaint old Moresco dance which was
introduced to England by the noble Katherine of Arragon. Then the
pastimes of Halloween and Hogmanay in Scotland, and the Walpurgis night
of Germany, and the May-day in Ireland, the festival of their patron
saint, and the Midsummer night when the bealfires cast an universal
lumination over the fells of the green isle, and the still more sacred
fire, lighted up in November in worship of their social deity, Samhuin,
whose potent influence charms the warm hearts of all the maids of Erin
around the winter hearth of their homes. I listen unto these pleasures
as if they were mine own: as children associate all the legends of their
school histories with themselves and their own time.
In every spot of this land of Wales the very names of the olden time are
before us: the romaunt of Prince Arthur and his knights is ever present
to our fancy, for he hath, as on the crag that towers over Edinburgh, a
seat on many a mountain rock in Wales; as the Cadair Arthur over
Crickhowel, and the semicircle on Little Doward, and Maen Arthur on the
moors of Cardigan.
ASTR. I never look on scenes like this without the echo of that
beautiful apostrophe of Johnson, among the ruins of Iona, whispering in
my ear.
Inspired by such an influence, I have roamed over the Isle of Elephanta,
and gazed on its gorgeous pagoda hewn from the rock, and adorned by
gigantic statues and mysterious symbols of the same eternal granite: on
the beauteous excavations of Salsette: on the wonders of Elora, and on
the classic reliques of Persepolis: on the beautiful columns of Palmyra,
the Tadmor in the wilderness, where Solomon built his “fenced city;” as
well as those arabesque and gothic temples, the abbeys and cathedrals of
our own island. I too have almost dared to think that superstition and
idolatry might be forgiven for the splendours of its architecture, even
for the elevation of those giant blocks of Stonehenge and Avebury, the
mouldering altars of the druidical priesthood, in the city consecrated
to their god.
So do I feel in this court-yard of Chepstow Castle, whilom the
Est-brig-hoel of Doomsdaye Booke, and in later times so blended with
English history. See you not the Conqueror and his knights in panoply on
prancing steeds before you? See you not Fitz Osborne and Warren, its
former lords, loom out upon your sight? And, lo! the portal opens, and
the dungeon of Henry Martin, the regicide, yawns like a bottomless pit
before us. The shade of Charles Stewart rises; and again the phantom of
Cromwell, uttering his epithets of scorn, as if the wanton puritan were
about to dash the ink in the face of his colleague as he signed the
death-warrant of the king. And now the scene changes, and behold the
doomed one is chained to those massive rings of iron, and there with
groaning dies.
EV. I am most willing that you should thus indulge in your wild
rhapsody, Astrophel, for it is the happy illustration of one potent
cause of spectral illusion—_association_. There are few whose minds are
not excited in some degree when they tread the localities of interesting
events. By memory and its combinations something like an inspired vision
may often seem to come over us—a day-dream. Or, if we have been
brooding over a subject or gazing on the relics of departed or absent
love and friendship: or while we stand on a spot consecrated by genius,
or when we have passed the scene of a murder, still will association
fling around us its visionary shadows.
Shortly after the death of Maupertuis, the president of the Academy of
Berlin, Mr. Gleditsch, the curator of natural history, was traversing
the hall in solitude, when he saw the phantom of the president standing
in an angle of the room with his eyes intensely fixed on him: an effect
perfectly explicable by the association of intense impression of memory
in the very arena of the president’s former dignity.
You will remember the story of a rich libertine, told by Sir Walter
Scott. Whenever he was alone in his drawing-room, he was so haunted by a
spectral _corps de ballet_, that the very furniture was, as it were,
converted into phantoms. To release himself from this unwelcome
intrusion he retired to his country house, and here, for a while, he
obtained the quiet which he sought. But it chanced that the furniture of
his town house was sent to him in the country, and on the instant that
his eyes fell on his drawing-room chairs and tables, the illusion came
afresh on his mind. By the influence of association the green figurantes
came frisking and capering into his room, shouting in his unwilling
ears, “Here we are! here we are!”
It is not, however, essential that there be substance at all to excite
these spectres. _Idea_ alone is sufficient.
Do you think it strange that a ghost should appear fleshless and shadowy
without some supernatural influence? Be assured that the only influence
exists in the sublime and intricate workings of that mind which in its
pure state was itself an emanation from the Deity; which is only
shadowed by illusion while in its earthly union with the brain, and
which, on the dissolution of that brain, will again live uncombined, a
changeless and eternal spirit.
It is as easy to believe the power of mind in conjuring up a spectre as
in entertaining a simple thought: it is not strange that this thought
may appear _embodied_, especially if the external senses be shut: if we
think of a distant friend, do we not _see_ a form in our mind’s eye, and
if this idea be intensely defined, does it not become a phantom?
“Phantasma est sentiendi actus, neque differt a sensione aliter quam
fieri differt a factum esse.”
“A phantom is an act of thinking,” &c.
You have dipped deeply into Hobbes, Astrophel, and will correct me if I
misquote this philosopher of Malmsbury.
It was in Paris, at the soirée of Mons. Bellart, and a few days after
the death of Marshal Ney, the servant, ushering in the Mareschal _Aîné_,
announced Mons. Le Mareschal _Ney_. We were startled; and may I confess
to you, that the _eidōlon_ of the Prince of Moskwa was for a moment as
perfect to my sight as reality?
Now it is as easy to imagine a fairy infinitely small as a giant
infinitely large. Between an idea and a phantom, then, there is only a
difference in degree; their essence is the same as between the simple
and transient thought of a child, and the intense and beautiful ideas of
a Shakspere, a Milton, or a Dante.
“Consider your own conceptions,” said Imlac, “you will find substance
without extension. An ideal form is no less _real_ than material, but
yet it has no extension.”
You hear I adopt the word _idea_, as referring to the organ of _vision_,
but sight is not the only sense subject to illusion. Hearing, taste,
smell, touch, may be thus perverted, because the original impression was
on the focus of all the senses, _the brain_.
Indeed, two of these illusions are often _synchronous_: as when a deep
sepulchral voice is uttered by a thin filmy spectre, like the ghosts of
Ossian, through which the moonbeams and the stars were seen to glimmer.
But the illusion of the eye _is_ by far the most common, and hence our
adopted terms refer chiefly to the sight: as spectre, phantom, phantasm,
apparition, _eidōlon_, ghost, shadow, shade.
The ghost then is nothing more than an _intense idea_. And as I have
caught the mood of story-telling, listen to some analogies of those deep
impressions on the mind which are the spring of all this phantasy.
That destructive brainworm, Demonomania, is often excited in the mind of
a proselyte by designing religious fanatics. Let the life of the
selected person be ever so virtuous and exemplary, she (for it is
usually on the softer sex that these impostures are practised) becomes
convinced of the influence of the demon over her, and she is thus
criminally taught the necessity of conversion—is won over to the
erroneous doctrine of capricious and unqualified election.
These miseries do not always spring from self-interested impostors. The
parent and the nurse, in addition to the nursery tales of fairies and of
genii, too often inspire the minds of children with these diabolical
phantoms. The effect is always detrimental,—too often permanently
destructive. I will quote one case from the fourth volume of the
Psychological Magazine, related by a student of the university of
Jena.—“A young girl, about nine or ten years old, had spent her
birth-day with several companions of her own age, in all the gaiety of
youthful amusement. Her parents were of a rigorous devout sect, and had
filled the child’s head with a number of strange and horrid notions
about the devil, hell, and eternal damnation. In the evening, as she was
retiring to rest, the devil appeared to her, and threatened to devour
her. She gave a loud shriek, fled to the apartment where her parents
were, and fell down apparently dead at their feet. A physician was
called in, and she began to recover herself in a few hours. She then
related what had happened, adding, that she was sure she was to be
damned. This accident was immediately followed by a severe and tedious
nervous complaint.”
The ghost will not appear to tell us what _will_ happen, but it _may_
rise, and with awful solemnity too, to tell us that which _has_
happened. Such is the phantom of remorse,—the shadow of
conscience,—which is indeed a natural penalty: a crime that carries
with it its own consecutive punishment. Were the lattice of Momus fixed
in the bosom, that window through which the springs of passion could be
seen, there would be, I fear, a dark spot on almost every heart,—as
there is, to quote the Italian proverb, “a skeleton in every house.” Of
these pangs of memory, the pages both of history and fiction are
teeming. Not in the visions of sleep alone, but in the glare of noonday,
the apparition of a victim comes upon the guilty mind,—
“As when a gryphon through the wilderness,
With winged course, o’er hill and moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who, by stealth,
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold.”
Brutus, and Richard Plantagenet, and Clarence, and Macbeth, and Manfred,
and Lorenzo, and Wallace, and Marmion, are but the archetypes of a very
numerous family in real life,—for Shakspere, and Byron, and Schiller,
and Scott, have painted in high relief these portraits _from_ the life.
Many a real Manfred has trembled as he called up the phantom of Astarte;
many a modern Brutus has gazed at midnight on the evil spirit of his
Cæsar; many a modern Macbeth points to the vacant chair of his Banquo,
the ghost in his seat, and he mentally exclaims,—“Hence, horrible
shadow! unreal mockery, hence!”
IDA. Aye, and many a false heart, like Marmion, hears, as his life ebbs
on the battle-field, the phantom voice of Constance Beverly:
“The monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the church’s prayers.
Ever he said, that, close and near,
A lady’s voice was in his ear,
And that the priest he could not hear,
For that she ever sung:
‘In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war’s rattle with groans of the dying’—
So the notes rung.”
We read in Moreton an exquisite story of the trial of a murderer, who
had with firmness pleaded—“not guilty.” On a sudden, casting his eyes
on the witness-box, he exclaimed, “This is not fair; no one is allowed
to be witness in his own case.” The box was empty, as you may suppose;
but the eye of his conscience saw his bleeding victim glaring on him,
and ready to swear to his murder. He felt that his fate was sealed, and
pleaded guilty to the crime.
“——Deeds are done on earth,
Which have their punishment ere the earth closes
Upon the perpetrators. Be it the working
Of the remorse-stained fancy, or the vision
Distinct and real of unearthly being:
All ages witness that, beside the couch
Of the fell homicide, oft stalks the ghost
Of him he slew, or shows his shadowy wound.”
It is this utter humiliation of the spirit, and the conviction of our
polluted nature, that rankle so intensely in the wounded heart; and
thence the repentant sinner feels so deeply that awful truth, that there
is a Being infinitely more pure and godlike than himself.
EV. A very fertile source of spectral illusion is the devotion to
peculiar studies and deep reflection on interesting subjects. Mons.
Esquirol records the hallucination of a lady, who had been reading a
terrific account of the execution of a criminal. Ever after, in all her
waking hours, and in every place, she saw above her left eye the phantom
of a bloody head, wrapped in black crape,—a thing so horrible to her,
that she repeatedly attempted the commission of suicide. And of another
lady, who had dipped so deeply into a history of witches, that she
became convinced of her having, like Tam O’Shanter’s lady of the “cutty
sark,” been initiated into their mysteries, and officiated at their
“sabbath” ceremonies.
Monsieur Andral, in his youth, saw in La Pitié the putrid body of a
child covered with _larvæ_, and during the next morning, the spectre of
this corpse lying on his table was as perfect as reality.
We have known mathematicians whose ghosts even appeared in the shape of
coloured circles and squares, and Justus Martyr was haunted by the
phantoms of flowers. Nay, our own Sir Joshua, after he had been painting
portraits, sometimes believed the trees, and flowers, and posts to be
men and women.
I knew myself a bombardier, whose brain had been wounded in a battle. To
this man a post was an enemy, and he would, when a sudden frenzy came on
him, attack it in the street with his cane, and not leave it until he
believed that his foeman was beaten or lay prostrate at his feet.
Intense feeling, especially if combined with apprehension, often raises
a phantom. The unhappy Sir R—— C——, on being summoned to attend the
Princess Charlotte of Wales, saw her form robed in white distinctly
glide along before him as he sat in his carriage: a parallel, nay, an
_explanation_, to the interesting stories of Astrophel.
Then the sting of conscience may warp a _common_ object thus. Theodric,
the Gothic king, unjustly condemned and put to death Boëthius and
Symmachus. It chanced at that time, that a large fish was served to him
at dinner, when his imagination directly changed the fish’s head into
the ghastly face of Symmachus, upbraiding him with the murder of
innocence; and such was the effect of the phantom, that in a few days he
died. But these spectral forms were seen, like the dagger of Macbeth,
and the hand-writing on the wall, by none but the _conscience-stricken_,
a proof of their being ideal and not real.
Not long after the death of Byron, Sir Walter Scott was engaged in his
study during the darkening twilight of an autumnal evening, in reading a
sketch of his form and habits, his manners and opinions. On a sudden he
saw as he laid down his book, and passed into his hall, the _eidōlon_ of
his departed friend before him. He remained for some time impressed by
the intensity of the illusion, which had thus created a phantom out of
skins, and scarfs, and plaids, hanging on a screen in the gothic hall of
Abbotsford.
I learn from Doctor T. that a certain lady was on the eve of her
marriage, but her lover was killed as he was on his way to join her. An
acute fever immediately followed this impression; and on each subsequent
day, when the same hour struck on the clock, she fell into a state of
ecstacy, and believed that the phantom of her lover wafted her to the
skies; then followed a swoon of two or three hours’ duration, and her
diurnal recovery ensued.
CAST. I know not if it will make me happier, Evelyn, but I have learned
from your lips to believe that many of those legends which I held as
poetic fictions, may be the stories of minds, in which, under the
influence of devoted affection, the slightest semblance to an object so
beloved may work up the phantom of far distant or departed forms. You
may have read the romantic devotion of Henry Howard to the fair
Geraldine, the flower of England’s court, and the chivalrous challenge
of her beauty to the knights of France. During his travels on the
continent, he fell in with the alchymist Cornelius Agrippa, who by his
sleight cunning showed in a magic mirror (as he said) to the doting mind
of the earl, his absent beauty reclining on a couch, and reading by the
light of a waxen taper the homage of his pen to her exquisite beauty.
Then there was an archbishop of the Euchaites, a professor of magic in
the ninth century. The Emperor Basil besought this pseudo-magus
Santabaran, for a sight of his long lost and beloved son. He appeared
before the emperor in a costume of splendour and mounted on a charger,
and sinking into his arms, instantly vanished. This phantasy, and the
glamourie of the witch of Falsehope over Michael Scott, and the vision
of the wondrous tale of Vatheck, and the legend of the Duke of Anjou in
Froissart, might be the rude shadows of some slight phantasmagoria
working on a sensitive or impassioned mind; may they not?
EV. I am proud of my proselyte, lady.
IDA. I presume these illusions may be wrought without the outlines of
_distinct shapes_. I have ever thought the vision of Eliphaz the
Temanite more solemn, because an _undefined_ shadow: “A vision is before
our face, but we cannot discern the form thereof.” And where the
_profane_ poets have written thus mystically, they have risen in
sublimity. Such is Milton’s portraiture of death:
“——the other shape,
If shape it could be called, which shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
For each seemed neither.”
And in the splendid vision of Manfred, whose thoughts were, alas! so
polluted by passion—
“I see
The steady aspect of a clear large star,
But nothing more.
SPIRIT. We have _no form_ beyond the elements,
Of which we are the mind and principle.”
And the idolaters profanely adopted this mystic metaphor when they
inscribed their Temple of Isis, at Sais—
“I am whatever has been, is, and shall be, and no one hath taken
off my veil.”
EV. The phantom is often described as destitute of form. When Johnson
was asked to define the ghost which appeared to old Cave, he answered:
“Why, sir, something of a _shadowy_ being.” And there is a sublimity and
a mystery in that which is indefinite. Two very deep philosophers have
however differed in opinion regarding the effect of darkness and
obscurity on the mind. Burke alludes to darkness as a cause of the
sublime and terrific: (and he is supported by Tacitus—“Omne ignotum pro
magnifico est:”) Locke, as not naturally a cause of terror, but as it is
associated by nurses and old crones with ghosts and goblins.
I will not split this difference, but I believe Burke is in the right.
Obscurity is doubtless deeply influential in raising phantoms; that
which is indefinable becomes almost of necessity a ghost. If the ghosts
of Shakspere did not appear, the illusion would be more impressive. In
darkness and night, therefore, the ghosts burst their cerements, the
spirits walk abroad, and the ghost seers revel in all their
superstitious glory. The druids, those arch impostors, acted their
mysteries in the depth of shadowy groves: and the heathen idols are half
hidden both in the hut of the American Indian and the temples of
Indostan. It is true children shut their eyes when frightened, but this
is _instinctive_, and because they think it real; but, in truth, they
ever dread the notion of darkness. By the fancy of a timid mind, in the
deepening gloom of twilight, a withered oak has been fashioned into a
living monster; and I might occupy our evening in recounting the tales
of terror to which a decayed trunk once gave birth, among some village
gossips in the weald of Sussex.
There are few who “revisit the glimpses of the moon,” whose romantic
humour leads them abroad about nightfall, who have not sometimes been
influenced by feeling somewhat like phantasy, during the indistinct
vision of twilight; the dim emanations of the crescent, or the more
deceptive illusion of an artificial luminous point irradiating a
circumambient vapour. Through the magnifying power of this floating
medium, the image may be fashioned into all the fancied forms of
poetical creation.
At the midnight hour, by a blue taper light, and in a ruined castle, a
simple tale will become a romance of terror.
I have spoken thus, to introduce an incident which occurred years ago,
and yet my mind’s eye shows it to me as if it were of yesterday.
It was in the year ——, on the eve of my presenting myself at the
college for my diploma. I had been deeply engaged during the day, in
tracing, with some fellow students, the distribution of the _nervous
ganglia_. The shades of evening had closed over us as our studies were
nearly completed, and one by one my companions gave me good night,
until, about ten o’clock, I was left alone, still poring over the
subject of my study, by the dim light of a solitary taper. On a sudden I
was startled by the loud pealing of a clock, which, striking twelve,
warned me most unexpectedly of the solemn hour of midnight; for I was
not otherwise conscious of this lapse of time. For a moment I seemed in
utter darkness, until straining my eyes, a blue and lurid glimmer
floated around me. A chilliness crept over me, and I had a strange
indefinable consciousness of utter desolation—of being immured in some
Tartarean cavern, or pent among icy rocks, for the cold night-wind was
sweeping in hollow murmurs through the vaults. In the blue half-twilight
I was at length sensible that I was not alone, but in the presence of
indistinct shadowy forms, silent and motionless as the grave; and by
that awful sensation of the sublime which springs from obscurity, I
conceived that I had suffered transmigration, or had glided
unconsciously through the gates of Hades, and that these were the
embodied spirits—the manes of the departed, in sleep; and then I
thought the sounds were not those of the wind, but the hollow moaning of
those restless spirits that could _not_ sleep. By some species of
glamourie which I could not comprehend, the gloom appeared to brighten
by slow degrees, and the forms became more distinct. When we are
involved in mystery, the sense of touch is instinctively brought to its
analysis. I put forth my hand, and found that my eyes were not mocked
with a mere vision; for it came in contact with something icy cold and
death-like—it was an arm clammy and cadaverous that fell across my own;
and as the smell of death came over me, a corpse rolled into my lap.
The moaning of the breeze increased, and the screech-owl shrieked as she
flitted unseen around me. At this moment a scream of agony was heard in
the distance, as of some mortal frame writhing in indescribable anguish,
while a hoarse and wizard voice cried, “Endure! endure!” It ceased; and
then I heard a pattering and flutter, and then a shrill squeaking, as of
some tiny creatures that were playing their gambols in the darkness
which again came around me. On a sudden all was hushed, and there was a
glimmer of cold twilight, as when a horn of the moon, as Astrophel would
say, comes out from an eclipse; and then a brighter gleam of bluer light
burst through the gloom, at which I confess I started, and my hand
dropped into a pool of blood. Like the astonished Tam O’Shanter, it
seemed that I was alone in the chamber of death, or the solitary
spectator of some demon incantation or of some wholesale murder. There
were some forms blue and livid, some cadaverous, of “span-long, wee,
unchristened bairns,” and others deluged in blood and impurity lay
around me: one pale and attenuated form, that more than mocked the
delicate beauty of the Medicean Venus, lay naked on the ground. On the
athletic form of another the moonbeam fell in a glory, as if the fabled
legend of Endymion was realized before my eyes.
ASTR. And——
EV. Ay, now for the secret—the _materiel_ of this wild vision. The
truth was, I had dropped asleep in the dissecting-room—the candle had
burned out; and thus, with a copious supply of dead bodies, the howling
of a tempest, the purple storm-clouds, the blue gleams of moonshine, and
bats, and screech-owls, and the screams of patients in the surgical
wards, and withal the hoarse voices of those croaking comforters, the
night-nurses,—I have placed before you a harmony of horrors, that might
not shame a legend of Lewis, or a Radcliffian romance.
Simple as this will be the explanation of many and many a tale of
mystery, although fraught with accumulated horrors, like those of the
“Castle of Udolpho;” and if, putting aside that ultraromantic appetite
for the marvellous, we have courage to attempt their analysis, the pages
of demonology will be shorn of half their terrors, the gulph of
superstition will be illumined by the light of philosophy, and creation
stand forth in all its harmonious and beautiful nature.
PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT.
——“A false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.”
MACBETH.
ASTR. I will grant the influence of all these inspiring causes, Evelyn,
but it is not under adventitious circumstances _alone_ that the gifted
seer is presented with his visions, but also in the clear daylight, in
the desert, or in a mountain hut; surrounded, too, by those who are
content with the common faculties of man.
Among many of the Gothic nations especially, women were the peculiar
professors of divination and magic. The Volva-Seidkona, the Fiolkyngi,
the Visindakona, and the Nornir, were the oracular priestesses, the
chief of whom was the Hexa. These had the faculty of insight into
skulda, or the future, and foreknew the doom of mortals: either to the
niflheimr, or hell, over which presided the half blue and half
flesh-tinted Hela, the goddess of death, who, as the Cimbric peasants
believed, diffused pestilence and plague as she rode over the earth on
her three-footed horse Hellhest; or to the Valhalla, or paradise of
Odin. And this we read in the “Edda.”
EV. Gramercy, Astrophel, you run up the catalogue of these weird women
as you were involved in their unholy league. Have a care, or we must
have you caged. There was once a Dr. Fordage, a divine of Berkshire, (as
it is recorded in a strange book, “Demonium Meridianum, or Satan at
Noon-day,”) accused of seeing spectres, such as “dragons with tails
eight yards long, with four formidable tusks, and spouting fire from
their nostrils.” Remember the peril, and beware.
ASTR. Oh, sir, you must impeach by wholesale, for clairvoyance or second
sight prevails in some regions as a _national_ faculty.
The courses of my travel have shown to me this inspiration, especially
among the elevated parts of the globe. The Hartz and other forests in
Germany, the Alps and Pyrenees, the Highlands of Scotland, the hills of
Ireland, the mountains of the Isle of Man, and the frozen fields of
Iceland and Norway, abound in ghostly legends. Among the passes of the
Spanish Sierras, also, it is believed that the Saludadores and the
Covenanters saw angels on the hill-side during their wanderings and
persecutions.
EV. And how clear is the _natural_ reason of this. As in the wide
desert, so on the mountain, nature assumes her wildest form. Of the
awful sublimity of clouds, and vapours, and lightnings, among the gorges
of the giant rocks, of the Alps, and the Appenines, and the deep and
dreadful howling of a storm in the icy bosom of a glacier, or bellowing
among the crumbling walls of ruined castles, the lowlander can form no
idea.
The mind both of the Bedouin Arab, and especially of the mountaineer, is
thus cradled in romance. If that mind be rude and uncultivated,
credulity and superstition are its inmates; ignorance being the common
stamp of the seers, except in rare instances of deep reflectors or
melancholy bookworms, whose abstractions, like those of Allan Bane and
Brian and Mac Aulay, assume the prophetic faculty; the seer by its power
perceiving, as he declares, things distant or future as if they were
before his eye.
The superstitious legends of Martin, the historian of the Western Isles,
and the precepts for the practice and governance of this clairvoyance,
prove a deep interest and impression, but not a mystery. Among the
defiles of Snæfel, in Man, the belief is prevalent: “A Manksman amid his
lonely mountains reclines by some romantic stream, the murmurings of
which lull him into a pleasing torpor; half-slumbering, he sees a
variety of imaginary beings, which he believes to be real. Sometimes
they resemble his traditionary idea of fairies, and sometimes they
assume the appearance of his friends and neighbours. Presuming on these
dreams, the Manks enthusiast predicts some future event.” Here is a
local reason, as among the icy mountains of the north. Cheffer writes,
that thus influenced, the melancholy of the Laplanders renders them
ghost-seers, and the dream and the vision are ever believed by them to
be prophetic.
CAST. It is the contemplation of these alpine glories, that gilds with
so bright a splendour of imagery the romances of mountain poets,—the
wild legends of Ossian, and those which spangle, as with sparkling
jewels, the pages of the “Lay,” the “Lady of the Lake,” and “Marmion.”
It may excite the jealousy of a classic, but the ghosts and heroes of
Ossian, as very acute critics decide, are cast in a finer mould than the
gods of Homer.
You smile at me, most learned clerks of Oxenford, yet I believe the
critics are correct. When I was prowling in the king’s private library,
in Paris, M. Barbier placed in my hands two of the most precious tomes,
the folio “Evangelistarium,” or prayer-book of Charlemagne, and the 4to.
edition of Ossian. The one is sanctified by its subject, and rich beyond
compare in illuminations of gold and colours, and priceless in the eyes
of the bibliomaniac. The other was _the favourite book of Napoleon_.
Fancy that you hear him in the solitude of St. Cloud, poring in deep
admiration over passages like this:
“Fingal drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path
of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless
into air, like a column of smoke as it rises from the half-extinguished
furnace. The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he rose
on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound. The waves heard it on the
deep, and stopped in their course with fear.”
And yet these beauties, like the pictures of Turner, are looked upon
with a smile of wondering pity or of scorn, simply because these
home-keeping critics have never scaled the mountain, or breasted the
storm for its wild and purple glory.
Among the mountains of Wales it was my fortune to light on many a wild
spot, where the poetry of nature fell like the sun-light on the heart of
the peasant. In the beautiful vale of Neath there is the tiny hamlet of
Pont-Neath-Vechan. I shall ever remember how fair and beautiful it
seemed as I descended from the mountain rocks of Pen y Craig, the
loftiest of the Alps of Glamorgan, which inclose Ystrad-Vodwg, the
“village of the green valley.” Around its humble cottages is spread the
most romantic scenery of Brecknockshire. The tributaries of its rolling
river there blend their waters—those torrent streams which Drayton has
impersonated in the Polyolbion, as
“Her handmaids Meltè sweet, clear Hepstè, and Tragath.”
On the Meltè is the wondrous cavern of Porth-Mawr, through which, in
Stygian darkness, flows this Acherontic river. And on the clear Hepstè
is that glittering waterfall which in the midst of leafy woods and bosky
glens, throws itself, like a miniature Niagara, from the rock, forming
an arch of crystal, beneath which the traveller and the peasant cross
the river’s bed on the moss-green and slippery limestone. Oh! for the
pencil of a Salvator, the pen of Torquato, to picture the wild vision
which was before my eyes when I sought shelter beneath this crystal
canopy from the deluge of a thunder-cloud. The lightning flash gleamed
through the waterfall, forming a prismatic rainbow of transcendent
beauty, while the deep peal swept through the echoing dingles, and the
crimson-spotted trout leaped in sportive summersaults over the
water-ousel that was walking quietly on the gravel, deep in the water.
In this wilderness of nature, no wonder that legends should prevail:
that fairies are seen sporting in the Hepstè cascades, and that in the
dark cavern of Cwm-Rhyd y Rhesg, the ghosts of headless ladies so often
affright the romantic girls of these wild valleys. No wonder that they
believe the giant Idris, enthroned on his mountain chair, shook the
three pebbles from his shoe into that pool which bears the name of the
Lake of Three Grains; or that the shrieks of Prince Idwal are to this
day heard by the peasants of Snowdonia, amid the storm which bursts over
the purple crag of the Twll-dhu, and thunder-clouds cast a deeper and a
darker shade over the black water of Lyn Idwal. Nay, I myself may
confess, that as I have stood on the peaks of Y Wyddfa, while the white
and crimson clouds rolled beneath me in fleecy masses, whirling around
the cone of Snowdon, I have for a moment believed that I was something
more than earthly. And when enveloped in the mysterious cloud which
rests on the head of Mount Pilate in Lucern, I gave half my faith to the
legend of the guide, that storm and human trouble, and the perils of
flocks in the vicinity of its triple peak, were the result of the
self-immersion of Pontius Pilate in its lake, an act of remorse at his
impious adjudication. This unhallowed water was regarded with dismay,
and not a pebble might be cast to make a ripple on its surface and
disturb the quiet of the traitor. But, lo! in the sixteenth century the
spell was proved to be a fable by an assemblage of bold Switzers, who
hurled rocks into the lake, and swam across its water without the
slightest indication of displeasure from this kelpie of the Brundeln
Alp.
EV. The truth is sweeter on your lips than fiction, Castaly. Whisper
again in the ear of Astrophel the penalties entailed on the _indulgence_
of second sight. Dr. Abercrombie knew a gentleman who _could_, by his
will, call up spirits, and seers have assured me that the sight is to a
certain degree voluntary:—by fixing the attention on a subject during
the dark hour, the power of divination may be increased, but it cannot
be controlled. But those who indulge in those illusions are often driven
on to a degree of frenzy equal to the agonizing penalty of Frankenstein;
even as the witch of Endor trembled when she raised before Saul the
spirit of Samuel, or the Iberian princess Pyrene, who, like Sin, fled
from the child-serpent which was born from her dalliance with Hercules.
The effort of the seers, nay, the mysterious ordeal to which they submit
themselves, are often so painful, that they gaze with strained eyeballs,
and fainting occurs as the vision appears. When the dark hour is o’er,
they will exclaim with Mac Aulay, “Thank God, the mist hath passed from
my spirit!” Indeed, Sir Walter Scott observed in those who presumed to
this faculty, “shades of mental aberration which caused him to feel
alarmed for those who assumed the sight.” Archibald, Duke of Argyle, was
a seer, and it is written that he was haunted by _blue_ phantoms, the
origin, I believe, of our epithet for melancholy—“blue devils.”
At the foot of yonder purple mountains in Morgany, once lived Colonel
Bowen, a doer of evil works, whose spectral visitations fill so many
pages of Baxter’s “Essay on the Reality of Apparitions.” This deep
historian of the realm of shadows tells that the wizard was worn down by
the phantoms of his evil conscience; that he imprisoned himself and his
boy, who was, I presume, a sort of _famulus_, in a small castle; that he
walked and talked of diablerie, and I know not what miseries, in his
sleep.
I have myself known those who see spectres when they shut their eyes,
before an attack of delirium, which vanish on the re-admission of light;
and in imaginative minds, under peculiar conditions, intense reading may
so shut out the real world, that an effort is required to re-establish
vision. In Polydori’s “Vampyre” it is recorded that they had been
reading phantasmagoria, and ghost stories in Germany, thereby highly
exciting the sensitive mind of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Anon, on Byron’s
reading some lines of Christabel, Shelley ran from the room, and was
found leaning on a mantel-piece bedewed with cold and clammy
perspiration; and it is enough to read of the gloom which marked the
minds of those geister-sehers, the proselytes of Swedenborg (among whom
he ranked the King of Prussia), to reclaim all the converts to his
strange religion.
ASTR. There is a bright side, Evelyn. In Germany, those children which
are born on a Sunday are termed “Sontag’s kind,” and are believed to be
endowed with the faculty of seeing spirits; these are gifted with a life
of _happiness_.
EV. And you believe it. Well, for a moment I grant its truth; but it is
the reverse in Scotland; the vision is almost ever cheerless, and
prophetic of woe. “Does the sight come gloomy o’er your spirit?” asks
Mac Aulay. “As dark as the shadow of the moon when she is darkened in
her course in heaven, and prophets foretell of future times.” And the
anathema of Roderich Dhu’s prophet Brian is dark and gloomy as the
legend of his mysterious birth, or its prototype, the impure fable of
Atys, and the loves of Jupiter and Sangaris.
CAST. If I am the sylph to charm this moody gentleman from his reveries,
I will warn him in the words of a canzonet, even of the 17th century:
“Yet, rash astrologer, refrain;
Too dearly would be won
The prescience of another’s pain,
If purchased by thine own.”
And I will tell him what Collins writes on the perils of the seer, in
his “Ode on Highland Superstition,”—
“How they whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own vision oft astonished droop,
When o’er the wat’ry strath or quaggy moss
They see the gliding ghosts embodied troop.—
They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
And, heartless, oft like moody madness stare
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.”
He listens not to me. Nay, then, I will try the virtue of a _spell_ that
has oft shed a ray of light over the dark hour of the ghost-seer. I will
whisper music in thine ear, Astrophel. The fiend of Saul was chased away
by the harp of David; the gloomy shadows of Allan Mac Aulay were
brightened by the melody of Annot Lyle; and the illusion of Philip of
Spain, that he was dead and in his grave, was dispelled by the exquisite
lute of the Rose of the Alhambra.
ASTR. My thanks, fair Castaly; yet wherefore should I claim your syren
spells. _My_ visions are delightful as the inspiration of the
improvisatore, and carry not the penalty of the monomaniac. But say, if
there _be_ (in vulgar words) a crack in this cranium of mine, may not
this crack, as saith the learned Samuel Parr, “_let in the light_?”
If prophetic visions in the _early ages_ came over the dying, why not in
ours?
The last solemn speech of Jacob was an inspired prophecy of the
miraculous advent:—“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a
lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and to him shall the
gathering of the people be.” And is it profanation to ask, why may not
the departing spirit of holiness, even now, prophecy to _us_?
As we see the stars from the deep well, so may such spirits look into
futurity from the dark abyss of dissolution. In some cases of little
children, I have learned that this unearthly feeling has caused them to
anticipate their dying. How pathetically does John Evelyn, in his Diary,
allude to the anticipation of his little boy,—“an angel in body and in
mind, who died of a quartan ague, in his fifth year. The day before he
died, he called to me and told me that, for all I loved him so dearly, I
should give my house, lands, and all my fine things, to his brother.”
The dying seem indeed themselves to feel that they are scarcely of this
world. Holcroft, a short time before his death, hearing his children on
the stairs, said to his wife, “Are those _your_ children, Louisa?”—as
if he were already in another existence. As if the human mind itself
were perusing the celestial volume of the recording angel,—the awful
book of fate.
When the Northern Indian is stretched on the torture, even amidst his
agonies, an inspired combination of belief and hope presents him with
vivid pictures of the blessed regions of the Kitchi Manitou. The
faithful Mussulman, in the agonies of death, feels assured that his
enchanted sight is blessed by the beautiful houris in Mahomet’s
paradise. The Runic warriors also, as the Icelandic chronicles record in
their epitaphs, when mortally wounded in battle, “fall, laugh, and
expire;” and in this expiration, like the dying warriors of Homer,
predict the fate of their enemies.
As the venom of the serpent curdled the blood in the veins of Regner
Lodbrog, the Danish king, he exclaimed with ecstasy,—“What new joys
arise within me! I am dying! I hear Odin’s voice; the gates of his
palace are already opened, and half-naked maidens advance to meet me. A
blue scarf heightens the dazzling whiteness of their bosoms; they
approach and present me with the soul-exhilarating beverage in the
bloody skulls of my enemies.”
EV. In that awful moment, when the spirit is
“Soon from his cell of clay
To burst a seraph in the blaze of day,”
the mind is prone to yield to those feelings which it might perhaps in
the turmoil of the busy world and at another period deem superstition.
There is something in the approach of death of so holy and so solemn a
nature, something so unlike life in the feeling of the dying, that in
this transition, although we cannot compass the mystery, some vision of
another world may steal over the retiring spirit, imparting to it a
proof of its immortality. I do not fear to yield for once my approval of
this devout passage of Sir Thomas Brown:—“It is observed that men
sometimes upon the hour of their departure do speak and reason above
themselves, for then the soul begins to be freed from the ligaments of
the body, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.” It is on the
verge of eternity, and the laws and principles of vitality may be
already repealed by the Being who conferred them.—The arguments, then,
regarding the phenomena of life may fail, when life has all but ceased.
With this admission, I may counsel Astrophel as to the danger of
adducing heathen history or fiction in proof of this solemn question.
CAST. And yet Shakspere, for one, with a poet’s license, brings before
us, as you do, the dying hour, as the _cause_ of prophetic vision. John
of Gaunt, on his death-bed, mutters,—
“Methinks I am a prophet new inspired,
And thus expiring do foretell of him,”
and then predicts the fate of Richard.
And remember, the dying Hotspur says,—
——“now could I prophecy,
_But that_ the icy hand of death,” &c.
EV. Well, I will not controvert your creed, Astrophel; rather let me
illustrate some of your apparent mysteries by simple analogy.
As in these extreme moments of life, so in the hour of extreme danger,
when an awful fate is impending, and the world and our sacred
friendships are about to be lost to us, a vision of our absent friends
will pass before us with all the light of reality. We read in the
writings of Dr. Conolly of a person who, in danger of being swamped on
the Eddystone rock, saw the phantoms of his family passing distinctly
before him; and these are the words of the English Opium-Eater:—“I was
once told by a near relative of mine that, having in her childhood
fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death but for the
critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a _moment_ her whole
life in its minutest incidents arrayed before her simultaneously, as in
a mirror, and she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending
the whole and every part.”
Now, although the coming on of death is often attended by that slight
delirium indicated by the babbling of green fields, and the playing with
flowers, and the picking of the bedclothes, and the smiling on the
fingers’ ends, yet in others some oppressive or morbid _cause of
insanity_ may be removed by the moribund condition. In the words of
Aretæus,—“the system has thrown off many of its impurities, and the
soul, left naked, was free to exercise such energies as it still
possessed.”
I will glance in illustration at these interesting cases:—from
Zimmerman, of an insane woman of Zurich, who, “a few hours before her
death, became perfectly sensible and wonderfully eloquent;”—from Dr.
Perceval, of a female idiot, who, as she was dying of consumption,
evinced the highest powers of intellect;—from Dr. Marshall, of the
maniac, who became completely rational some hours previous to his
dissolution;—and from Dr. Hancock, of the Quaker, who, from the
condition of a drivelling idiot, became shortly before his death so
completely rational, as to call his family together, and, as his spirit
was passing from him, bestow on them with pathetic solemnity his last
benediction.
Thus your impressive records are clearly explained by pathology; and,
perhaps unconscious of this, Mrs. Opie has a fine illustration in her
“Father and Daughter:”—the mind of the maniac parent being illumined
before his death by a beam of reason.
But in the languid brain of an idiot excitement may even produce
rationality.
Samuel Tuke tells us of a domestic servant, who lapsed into a state of
complete idiocy. Some time after, she fell into typhus fever, and as
this progressed, there was a real development of mental power. At that
stage when delirium lighted up the minds of others, _she_ was rational,
because the excitement merely brought up the nervous energy to its
proper point. As the fever abated, however, she sunk into her idiot
apathy, and thus continued until she died. It was but the _transient
gleam_ of reason.
PHANTASY FROM CEREBRAL CONGESTION.—OPIUM.
——“Have we eaten of the insane root,
That takes the reason prisoner?”
MACBETH.
EV. The contrasts to these phantoms of blind superstition, are those of
the _overstrained_ condition of the mind. The Creator has ordained the
brain to be the soil in which the mind is implanted or developed. This
brain, like the corn-field, must have its fallow, or it is exhausted and
reduced in the degree of its high qualities. In our intellectual
government, therefore, we should ever adopt that happy medium, equally
remote from the bigotry of the untutored, and the ultra refinement of
the too highly cultivated mind.
It is not essential that I should now offer you more than a hint, that
the essence of the gloomy ghosts of deep study, like the melancholy
phantoms and oppressive demons of the night-mare, consists in the
accumulation of black blood about the brain and the heart; and a glance
at phrenology would explain to you how the influence of that blood on
the various divisions of the brain will call up in the mind these
“Hydras and Gorgons, and Chimeras dire.”
The learned Pascal constantly saw a gulph yawning at his side, but he
was _aware_ of his illusion. He was, however, always strapped in his
chair, lest he should fall into this gulph, especially while he was
working the celebrated problem of the cycloidal curve.
A distinguished nobleman, who but lately guided the helm of state in
England, was often annoyed by the spectre of a bloody head;—a strange
coincidence with the phantom of the Count Duke d’Olivarez, the minister
of Philip of Spain.
From Dr. Conolly we learn the curious illusion of a student of anatomy,
who, during his ardent devotion to his study, confidently believed that
there was a town in his _deltoid_ muscle.
And, from Dr. Abercrombie, the case of a gentleman of high literary
attainments, who, when closely reading in his study, was repeatedly
annoyed by the intrusive visits of a little old woman in a black bonnet
and mantle, with a basket on her arm. So _filmy_, however, was this
phantom, that the door-lock was seen through her. Supposing she had
mistaken her way, he politely showed her the door, and she instantly
vanished. It was the change of posture which effected this
disappearance, by altering the circulation of the brain-blood, then in a
state of partial stagnation.
My friend, Dr. Johnson, has told me of a gentleman of great science, who
conceived that he was honoured by the frequent visits of spectres. They
were at first refined and elegant both in manners and in conversation,
which, on one occasion, assumed a witty turn, and quips, and puns, and
satire, were the order of the evening; so that he was charmed with his
ghostly visitors, and sought no relief. On a sudden, however, they
changed into demoniac fiends, uttering expressions of the most degraded
and unholy nature. He became alarmed, and depletion soon cured him of
his phantasy.
A Scotch lawyer had long laboured under this kind of monomania, which at
length proved fatal. His physician had long seen that some secret grief
was gnawing the heart and sucking the life-blood of his patient, and he
at last extorted the confession, that a skeleton was ever watching him
from the foot of his bed. The physician tried various modes to dispel
the illusion, and once placed himself in the field of the vision, and
was not a little terrified when the patient exclaimed, that he saw the
skull peering at him over his left shoulder.
The “Martyr Philosopher,” too, in the “Diary of a Physician,” saw,
shortly preceding his death, a figure in black deliberately putting away
the books in his study, throwing his pens and ink into the fire, and
folding up his telescope, as if they were now useless. The truth is _he
himself_ had been engaged in that occupation, but it was his own
disordered imagination that raised the spectre.
You will believe from these illustrations, Astrophel, that Seneca is
right in his aphorism,—
“Nullum fit magnum ingenium sine misturâ dementiæ.”
And Pope also in his unconscious imitation,—
“Great wits to madness nearly are allied.”
Lord Castlereagh, when commanding in early life a militia regiment in
Ireland, was stationed one night in a large desolate country house, and
his bed was at one end of a long dilapidated room, while, at the other
extremity, a great fire of wood and turf had been prepared within a huge
gaping old-fashioned chimney. Waking in the middle of the night, he lay
watching from his pillow the gradual darkening of the embers on the
hearth, when suddenly they blazed up, and a naked child stepped from
among them upon the floor. The figure advanced slowly towards Lord
Castlereagh, rising in stature at every step, until, on coming within
two or three paces of his bed, it had assumed the appearance of a
ghastly giant, pale as death, with a bleeding wound on the brow, and
eyes glaring with rage and despair. Lord Castlereagh leaped from his
bed, and confronted the figure in an attitude of defiance. It retreated
before him, diminishing as it withdrew in the same manner that it had
previously shot up and expanded; he followed it, pace by pace, until the
original child-like form disappeared among the embers. He then went back
to his bed, and was disturbed no more.
The melancholy story of the Requiem of Mozart is an apt and sublime
illustration of this influence. It was written by desire of a solemn
personage, who repeatedly, he affirmed, called on him during its
composition, and disappeared on its completion. The requiem was soon
chanted over _his own_ grave; and the man in black was, I believe, but a
phantom of his own creation.
A step beyond this, and we have the spectres of the delirium of fever:
the wanderings of typhus, in which the victim either revels with delight
in the regions of fancy, a midsummer madness, or is influenced by gloom
and despair, in which, with a consciousness of right and wrong, he is
driven headlong to acts of ruin and devastation.
IDA. In this illusive condition of the intellect consists even the
monomania of suicide; and the phrenologist will declare that torpor or
excitement of the “organ of the love of life,” will incite or deter from
such an act. But surely this is error: it is certain that there was a
_fashion_ among the Stoics for this crime; and even in the early history
of Marseilles, suicide was sanctioned, not only by custom, but by
authority.
EV. It is a truth of history, but the _essence_ of the crime is the
predisposition in the brain. You will think to confute my position,
Astrophel, by adducing Brutus and Cassius, and Antony and Cato, and a
host of Roman heroes, in proof of the sanity of these suicides; but even
in the case of Cato, if we read Plutarch and not Addison, who with
Rousseau, Montaigne, and Shaftesbury, leaned toward a _sanction_, we
shall believe that Cato was indeed a monomaniac. I speak this in
charity.
And to all these morbid states we may still offer analogies. Such are
the effects of opium.
The brilliancy of thought may be artificially induced, also, by various
other narcotics, such as the juice of the American manioc, the fumes of
tobacco, or the yupa of the Othomacoes on the Orinoco. To this end we
learn from a learned lord, that even ladies of quality are wont to
“light up their minds with opium as they do their houses with wax or
oil.”
Indeed a kind of inspiration seems for a time to follow the use of these
narcotics. The Cumean sybil swallowed the juice of the cherry laurel ere
she sat on the divining tripod; and from this may have arisen those
superstitious fancies of the ancients regarding the virtues of the
laurel, and the influence of other trees, of which I remember an
allusion of the excellent author of the “Sylva.”
“Here we may not omit what learned men have observed concerning the
custom of _prophets_ and persons inspired of _old_ to _sleep_ upon the
boughs and branches of _trees_, on _mattresses_ and _beds_ made of
leaves, _ad consulendum_, to ask advice of God. Naturalists tell us that
the _Laurus_ and _Agnus Castus_ were trees which greatly composed the
_phrensy_, and did facilitate true _vision_, and that the _first_ was
specifically efficacious, προς τους ενθυσιασμους, to inspire a
_poetical_ fury: and _Cardan_, I remember, in his book _de Fato_,
insists very much on the dreams of _trees_ for portents and presages,
and that the use of some of them do dispose men to visions.”
During the reverie of the opium eater (not the deep sleep of a full
dose, but the first and second stage ere coma be induced), he is indeed
a poet, so far as brilliant imagination is concerned, but his scribbling
is mere “midsummer madness,” the phantoms of which are as wild as those
of intoxication, dreaming, or insanity. But the philosophy, the
metaphysics of poetry, are not the product of mere excitement: “Poeta
nascitur, non fit.” A poet’s genius is born with him. The influence of
opium on the philosopher or the orator is the same, but in them it does
not usually elevate the force of imagination beyond that of judgment.
The power of the faculties has been in fact exhausted by thought or
study; the stimulus of opium, then, restores that depressed energy to
its proper level, leaving the judgment perfect, and not overbalanced.
The celebrated Thomas Brown, during the composition of his Essay on the
Mind, kept his intellect on the stretch by opium for several successive
nights. Sir James Mackintosh (one of his favourite pupils) informed us,
that on entering the doctor’s library one morning somewhat abruptly, he
overheard the following command addressed to his daughter: “Effie, bring
me the _moderate_ stimulus of a hundred drops of laudanum.” So that the
excitement be obtained, it matters not how, whether by the use of opium,
or other “drowsy syrups of the East, poppy or mandragora,” as in the
case of some of our modern statesmen; or the free libation of brandy in
certain orators, who were wont to stagger down to the House from White’s
or Brookes’s, with those clubhouse laurels, wet towels, round their
brows, and overwhelm Saint Stephen’s by the thunders of their eloquence.
Unless, indeed, this be carried to excess, and then we have two very
interesting states of vision, as you may gather from the following
witticism on two of these departed legislators, which was founded on a
truth:
“I cannot see the Speaker, Bill, can you?
Not see him, Harry, d——e, I see two!”
For the effects of alcohol and opium are alike: the first degree is
excitement; the second, reverie; the third, sleep, or stupor. “Ben
Jonson,” writes Aubrey, “would many times exceede in drink; Canarie was
his beloved liquor: then he would tumble home to bed, and when he had
thoroughly perspired, then to studie.”
The _second_ visions of that moral delinquent, the practised
opium-eater, like the cordial julep of Comus,
“Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight,
Beyond the bliss of dreams.”
The phantoms of the _third_ stage are often of unutterable anguish:
visions of bright forms dabbled in blood, and scenes of crime and horror
which are at once loathed and revelled in. The awful curse of Lord
Byron’s infidel—a vampyre—who, haunting the graveyard with gouls and
afrits, sucks the blood of his race:
“’Till they with horror shrink away
From spectre more accurs’d than they.”
Thus for a moment of delirious joy, he yields up his mind to the agonies
of remorse, his body to a slow poison, perhaps to a sinful dissolution.
IDA. The scenes which I gazed on among the opium-houses of
Constantinople, ever excited my wonder and my pity. These slaves of
pleasure, when they assemble and take their seats, are the perfect
pictures of either apathetic melancholy or despair. As the potent poison
creeps through the blood, they are lighted with unholy fires, until,
these being exhausted, the vulture of Prometheus again gnaws their
vitals, although the fire is not stolen from heaven.
Listen to the confessions of such a slave:—
“At last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the
features that were all the world to me, and clasped hands, and
heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells, and with a sigh
such as the caves of hell sighed, when the incestuous mother uttered the
abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated—Everlasting
farewells.”
“Whatsoever things capable of being visually represented I did but think
of in the darkness, immediately shaped themselves into phantoms of the
eye; and, by a process no less inevitable, when thus once traced in
faint and visionary colours, they were drawn out by the fierce chemistry
of my dreams, with insufferable splendour that fretted my heart.”
Is there any earthly pleasure which will compensate the victim of this
voluntary condemnation?
EV. And yet a visionary once thought of renting the Hummums in Covent
Garden, and purchasing a large stock of opium, for the purpose of
supplying us with visions. He would have succeeded, perhaps, if he had
hired a second Helen to serve up this nepenthe to the guests.
The intense effect of opium is insensibility or death. Thus the Natches
give narcotics to their victims, and the Brahmins to the suttee women,
ere they ascend the pile, for the purpose of producing insensibility.
Its mildest effects will be, if long continued, especially in early
life, idiocy; and Oppenheim states that it is sometimes administered to
adults by design, to substantiate a statute of lunacy.
ASTR. I cannot disprove your facts, Evelyn, nor do _they_ yet disprove
the rationality of my own faith. And is there not one illusion from
opium-eating which seems to reverse your laws? From the tales of the
Opium-Eater we learn, that the healthy thoughts of the mind seem to be
frozen up in the brain, like the notes in the frozen horn of Munchausen,
or the Irish echo which was so long in giving its answers, that if you
had a concert, you should play and sing the airs _the day before_ the
assemblage of your company. And then, when the effect was wearing off,
these thoughts followed so copiously and fast, as that not one in a
hundred could be recorded. Is this true?
EV. It is a slight fact embellished. The action of opium, however, is
not uniform: it may produce deep sleep, or insensible stupor; or it may
quiet some of the faculties; and when it does so, it excites a dream of
irregular associations.
The salts of morphia exert an especial influence over the organ of
language; so that the orator in the fluency of his power of speech finds
it difficult to stop. The _muriate_ is the best preparation to induce
fluency and confidence in speaking, or the mind to luxuriate throughout
a night in delightful reverie: and in the morning, after this phantasy,
the body will even rise _refreshed_.
In some cases, however, morphia will create a very strange illusion, _a
spectral language_: so that, in reading or listening, we may feel or
think that the words have lost their true meaning. This effect is, I am
told, attended with severe headache.
The poem of “Kubla Khan,” which Coleridge has termed a psychological
curiosity, had its origin in the excitement of opium, a spinning out of
a theme in “Purchas’ Pilgrim,” which he had been reading: it is an
effort of the poet in recording the wild images which had been before
presented to the mind’s eye of the enthusiast,—the impression, indeed,
of the pleasures and the pains of memory.
POETIC PHANTASY, OR FRENZY.
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth—from earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation, and a name.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
ASTR. Is there so potent a charm in poppies, Evelyn? You will make us
believe, soon, that opium can make a Shakspere, that genius can be
imparted by a drug.
The ghosts of fairyland, those bright emanations of a poet’s fancy,
which are wafted through the air on the thistle-down, or swing to and
fro on the filmy thread of the gossamer, sprang from a deeper source
than this. The fairy mythology of Shakspere, the beautiful creations of
the “Tempest” and the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” are the very offspring
of that _innate_ genius, that “exhausted worlds, and then _imagined
new_.”
Those exquisite and tricksy spirits, the mischievous Puck and the
delicate Ariel, indeed, the whole train of ghosts which appeared to
Macbeth, and Richard, and Clarence, and Brutus, and Hamlet, and the
spirits of the “Midsummer Night,” the “Tempest,” and “Macbeth,” of
Bolingbroke and Joan of Arc, could not have been so painted, unless they
had stood before the mind of Shakspere as palpable as reality.
Look, too, on those splendid illustrations of the Gothic poets by the
eccentric, or, as Evelyn would call him, the half-mad Fuseli. Look on
the wild pencillings of Blake, another poet painter, and you will be
assured that they were ghost-seers. An intimate friend of Blake, himself
a reader of the stars, has told me the strangest tales of his visions.
In one of his reveries he witnessed the whole ceremony of a fairy’s
funeral, which he peopled with mourners and mutes, and described with
high poetic beauty. He was engaged, in one of these moods, in painting
King Edward I., who was sitting to him for his picture. While they were
conversing, Wallace suddenly presented himself on the field, and by this
uncourteous intrusion marred the studies of the painter for that day.
EV. A most unhappy comparison, Astrophel. The difference between
Shakspere and Blake is _antipodean_. Blake was a visionary, and thought
his fancies real—he was mad. Shakspere was a philosopher, and knew all
his fancy was but imagination, however real might be the facts he
wrought from. Ben Jonson told Drummond that he lay awake one whole
night, gazing in mute admiration on his great toe; surrounding which, in
miniature, appeared the inhabitants of Rome, and Carthage, and Tartary,
and Turkey; but he also was aware of the illusion.
CAST. My most gracious smile is yours, Evelyn, for this honour to my
sweet Shakspere. I pray you accord the same to the spectral visions of a
poet, in whose beautiful Aminta each line is a breath of
inspiration—the day-dreams of the elegant Tasso. Listen.
“At Bisaccio, Manso had an opportunity to examine the singular effects
of Tasso’s melancholy; and often disputed with him concerning a familiar
spirit which he pretended to converse with. Manso endeavoured in vain to
persuade his friend that the whole was the illusion of a disturbed
imagination; but the latter was strenuous in maintaining the reality of
what he asserted; and, to convince Manso, desired him to be present at
one of these mysterious conversations. Manso had the complaisance to
meet him the next day, and while they were engaged in discourse, on a
sudden he observed that Tasso kept his eyes fixed upon a window, and
remained in a manner immoveable; he called him by his name several
times, but received no answer. At last Tasso cried out, ‘There is the
friendly spirit who is come to converse with me: look, and you will be
convinced of the truth of all that I have said.’ Manso heard him with
surprise: he looked, but saw nothing except the sunbeams darting through
the window; he cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive
nothing, and was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, when
he heard Tasso speak with great earnestness, sometimes putting questions
to the spirit, and sometimes giving answers, delivering the whole in
such a pleasing manner, and with such elevated expressions, that he
listened with admiration, and had not the least inclination to interrupt
him. At last this uncommon conversation ended with the departure of the
spirit, as appeared by Tasso’s words, who, turning towards Manso, asked
him if his doubts were removed. Manso was more amazed than ever; he
scarce knew what to think of his friend’s situation, and waived any
further conversation on the subject.”
EV. I shall forfeit your smile, sweet Castaly, or change it, alas! for a
frown. I have ever thought Tasso a monomaniac, for he yielded to his
illusion. I can give you in a fragment from Lorry, the counterpart of
Tasso’s phantasy in a far different mind. “During these paroxysms she
would talk, and was accustomed to address herself to some one individual
present, with whom she conversed at first in an obscure voice, but
afterwards in a distinct and audible manner. She evidently perceived
him, and observed all his gestures; but all she said to him bore a
reference to one idea, on which she was intent. In the mean time she
appeared not to see or hear any other person, even if he exerted his
voice to the utmost to make himself heard. This fact I witnessed with
the greatest astonishment, but many other persons are living who can
attest it. The mother of this female died unexpectedly, after which the
daughter used to hold conversations with her as if she was present. She
would answer questions as if interrogated by her mother; would entreat
her to take care of her health, and recommend some physician as more
able to restore her than others. Moreover, she would talk to her mother
of her destined marriage, although it had already been some time
completed, in a manner perfectly like that of a sane and modest young
woman, making some objections to it, and replying to others, and
appeared to be revealing all her secret wishes; in a word, she seemed
perfectly collected and rational, excepting the error respecting time,
and the supposed presence of her mother. This woman had in other
respects good health, but was afraid of the smallest noise, and was
easily affected by any thing she saw or heard. At length she fell into a
consumption.”
In other cases, especially in accomplished minds, the phantasy is
usually combined with _derangement of health_. A very ingenuous and
elegant young lady, about the age of seventeen, was suddenly seized with
catalepsy. It commenced with violent convulsions of almost every muscle
of her body, and the most distressing hiccoughs. In about an hour came
on a fixed spasm, one hand being placed against her head, and the other
to support it. In about half an hour more, the spasm subsided, and then
began the reverie in a moment, her eyes and expression indicating a
fixed attention. She then conversed with imaginary persons, her eyes
being wide open, and during this _ecstasy_ she was completely insensible
to the most irritating, and indeed most violent _stimuli_.
Sir Henry Halford related to us, that on a visit to a person of exalted
rank in his chamber, he heard him with great energy request Garrick to
play a scene in “Hamlet,” reminding him of the lines in Horace’s
Epistles:
“Haud ignobilis Argis,
Qui se credebat miros audire tragœdos,
In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro.”
In Dr. Darwin, too, we read of an epileptic girl, who during a fit of
reverie, when insensible to all external _stimuli_, conversed fluently
with imaginary people, and was surprised to hear of her illusions when
fully awake.
And, in Andral, of a gentleman of distinguished ability, who believed
that an absent friend was sitting among his guests, welcoming him to his
table, and, with great courtesy, handing him a chair. You remember how
pathetically Crabbe has illustrated this illusion in his poem of “Sir
Eustace Gray.”
CAST. Hark to the profane philosopher who associates poetry with
madness! Tell me, Master Evelyn, while you wandered in the Water walks
of Magdalene, with the balmy breezes of heaven around your brow, and the
mellow sunbeam streaming through the green leaves upon your cheek, with
the inspired volumes of Virgil, and Theocritus, and Bion, and Moschus,
breathing nature in all the lines of their beautiful idylls—while
Astrophel, perchance, was musing among cobwebs in Friar Bacon’s
study—tell me, felt you not the sublimity and truth of poesy? You
remind me of the quaint tradition among the shepherds of Snowdonia, that
if two persons lie down, on midsummer eve, to sleep upon a certain rock
on Snowdon, one will wake a poet, the other a maniac. I pr’ythee, think
otherwise of Tasso, whose reveries were an ecstasy of bright thoughts.
Even when the light of day is eclipsed, as when the senseless orbs of
Homer and Milton were merged in “ever-during dark,” the thoughts of a
poet may be deeper and clearer for the gloom.
IDA. And so pure and holy withal. In the “Defensio Secunda,” I remember
this gem of sentiments:—“Involved in darkness, not so much from the
imperfection of our optic powers, as from the shadow of the Creator’s
wings,—a darkness which he frequently irradiates with an inner and far
superior light.”
Never did poet feel more intensely than Milton the truth of that divine
thought, that “the shadow of God is light.”
CAST. And call up that glory of the Elizabethan age, Philip Sidney,
whose life, in the words of Campbell, was “a poetry in action,” and who
more than embodied the brightest pictures of Tasso and Ariosto, and
eclipsed the glory of that Chevalier Bayard, like himself, “sans peur et
sans reproche.”
EV. I cry you mercy, fairest ladies, I speak not of the light of poetry,
but of its shadows. _Cheromania_ is the first form of _monomania_, or
the madness of one idea; and this is marked by cheerfulness and splendid
ideas, which indeed often tend to mitigate the melancholy scenes of
derangement, as if “the light that led astray was light from heaven.” I
will illustrate this by repeating to you the letter to his brother, of a
young officer, whose progressive changes of mind, from excitement to
confirmed mania, it was my duty to watch over.
_December 4th, 1832._
“To ——, Esq.
“I am Lord President of the Counsil, a most honorable situation,
and the richest gift of the Crown, which brings me in seven
thousand pounds every year. The Counsil consists of Three
Secretaries of State, of which I am one; and the Paymaster of
the Forces. When the King William the forth shall die, then
shall I be crowned King of England, and be crowned in
Westermister Abbey, By The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. I
shall on the occasion of my coronation have placed in the
different street of London one thousand pipes of wine for my
people, and at night in the Hyde Park a magnificent display of
Fireworks, and one hundred pieces of Artillery shall fire three
rounds for the amusement of my people and subjects. I have only
now to give you a list of my titles and honors:
“King of England.
First Heir Presumptive to the Crown.
Major General and Field Martial.
Duke of Leitzep.
Prince of Denmark.
Lord President of the Counsil.
Knight Banneret.
Lord Treasurer of the Exchequer.
Lieutenant Colonel ——, Lord and Baronet.
Aid de Camp to the King.
Champion of England.
“Dear ——, I wish to acquaint you that Windsor Castle belongs
to me, that the palace of Brighton also belongs to me, also I
purchased from the Duke of Wellington the splendid park and
Palace of Stratfieldsea, wherein there are very extensive
Forests of Oak and of Pines trees, together with a magnificent
sheet of Water containing Ells and Salmon Trout.
“Dear ——, I have to beg that you give my love and duty to your
wife—and give this letter to read, I pray you, according to my
desire and wish.”
I may tell you that the very onset of frenzy is often but an elevated
spirit of poesy, in which brilliancy and judgment shall be companions;
but, like Æsop’s bow, the mind shall be warped and wrung by being
constantly bent on its subject; and thus the source of brilliancy and
wit may be the source of madness. A change of subject will often do much
to unbend such a mind, as a change of posture will relieve muscular
fatigue, or as a sudden impression of fear or fright has thwarted a
suicide on the moment of his self-attempt. Indeed mania will often
appear to induce an almost inspired talent, which, I may hint to you,
may be explained by the _oxygenizing_ of the blood in the brain.
In Van Swiéten, we read of a working female who, during fits of
insanity, displayed the faculty of rhyming, or poetic talent; and (as I
am fond of analogy) in Pinel, of one who, during his insane moments,
argued (as if from concentrated memory) in an acute and intelligent
manner, on the events of the Revolution.
Then Haller tells us of an idiot, who was wounded on the head, and,
during its healing, the intellect became lucid (and this on the
principle of a counteraction); but, on the healing being completed,
again the creature was an idiot.
When we are roaming over the flowery fields of poesy, we are seldom
inclined to reflect on the mental labour by which they are embellished.
We may suppose that, whatever is born of the brain is ushered in by an
easy birth; but poesy is often attended by a pang of parturition, and
one single line may rankle in the brain for hours ere it struggle into
light; and, perhaps, require a frontal blow, as violent as that which
cleft the skull of Jupiter and gave birth to Pallas.
There are some minds which can support the effort of composition with
impunity; but when we recollect the diseases which are entailed on
genius—the melancholy of Cowper, and the distraction of the amiable
Collins, who
“passed in madd’ning pain life’s feverish dream,
While rays of genius only served to show
The thick’ning horror, and exalt his woe;”
when we remember the gloomy setting of the brilliant sun of Scott,
during the period of his apoplectic tendency, when his letter “filled
the minds of his publishers with dismay,” and he sunk into the delusive
hope that his debts were liquidated to the full; when we are told that
Ariosto was never seen to laugh, and rarely to smile; that Rousseau was
ever restless, and on the verge of mania; when we reflect on the
premature decay of unhappy White—
“When science self destroyed her fav’rite son;”
on the painful conflicts of Byron, when his dark hour was on him; on
Chatterton, “the sleepless boy who perish’d in his pride:” are incited,
almost unconsciously to echo the apostrophe of Wordsworth:—
“We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.”
IDA. The laurel, then, contains more poison than that of prussic acid in
its leaf. The perils of romance are not _ever_ in these extremes; yet
the mere indulgence of poetic thoughts may so raise the beau-ideal of
beauty in the sensitive and youthful mind, as to unfit it for the common
duties of life. Like Narcissus, the heart perishes for love of its own
shadow. It becomes so acutely sensitive, as to “die of a rose in
aromatic pain:” or like the Sybarite, it cannot sleep, because a
crumpled rose-leaf lay beneath the pillow.
I have often thought that the secret of happiness may lie in this
precept: “Take the _good_ of life as it is, a divine gift, and not _an
agreeable deception_;” when _evil_ is in your path, search its cause,
analyze its nature, and if you discover not that you have yourself to
thank for it, at least you may prove that the evil _itself_ is made up
of mere trifles, and thus you will learn to be resigned.
And with the beauty and treasures of earth: if _you_ possess them, enjoy
them with a prudent and a grateful heart. If they belong to _others_,
sigh not—pine not for them, but analyze them also, and you may find
that the hope of their enjoyment was a phantom; for aggregated beauties
are often made up of deformed or unlovely atoms.
I might illustrate my remarks by relating to you an episode of the life
of my young friend Stanmore; from which I learned, with sorrow, that the
heart may droop beneath its own excess of sensibility, (a mystery to
those who were strangers to its secret,) and that the blossom of love
may be _self-blighted_:
“His existence was a withered hope, that, like the icicle in the cup of
the early flower, freezes the life-spring in which it is so deeply
embosomed. In his mind was lighted a vision of Elysium, beyond what
earth with all its virtue and beauty could give him: a spectral Utopia.
His life was a blank. He found not happiness, _because_ he knew not
contentment. He was the leader of many a forlorn hope in Spain, and fell
in a midnight enterprise among the guerillas in the Sierra Morena.”
EV. And had the sword spared him, he would have died a moral suicide.
What folly, thus to chase a butterfly, instead of yielding to the
virtuous influence of woman, which, beyond aught else, softens and
ennobles man’s heart; entrancing it in floods of human passion, which,
with all its pains, yields happiness a thousand-fold more than the
maudlin sentiments of Rousseau, that, reducing love to a mere phantom,
leave the lone heart to prey on its own sensibility.
Such was the romantic poet of Endymion, who for the phantom of his
waking dreams, gave up the study of that science, which might have
nursed and fortified a mind, so soon chilled to death by the icy finger
of criticism. Erato was the mistress of John Keats; but while he wooed,
he perished: like the Rosicrucian, who, to save the life of his lady,
took the oath of celibacy, and thus lost her love for ever. Even in the
lecture-room of Saint Thomas’s, I have seen Keats in a deep poetic
dream: his mind was on Parnassus with the muses. And here is a quaint
fragment which he one evening scribbled in our presence, while the
precepts of Sir Astley Cooper fell unheeded on his ear:—
“Whenne Alexandre the Conqueroure was wayfayringe in y^{e} londe of
Inde, there mette hym a damoselle of marveillouse beautie slepynge
uponne the herbys and flourys. He colde ne loke uponne her withouten
grete plesance, and he was welle nighe loste in wondrement. Her forme
was everyche whytte lyke y^{e} fayrest carvynge of Quene Cythere, onlie
thatte y^{t} was swellyd and blushyd wyth warmthe and lyffe wythalle.
“Her forhed was as whytte as ys the snowe whyche y^{e} talle hed of a
Norwegian pyne stelythe from y^{e} northerne wynde. One of her fayre
hondes was yplaced thereonne, and thus whytte wyth whytte was ymyngld as
y^{e} gode Arthure saythe, lyke whytest lylys yspredde on whyttest
snowe; and her bryghte eyne whenne she them oped, sparklyd lyke Hesperus
through an evenynge cloude.
“Theye were yclosyd yn slepe, save that two slauntynge raies shotte to
her mouthe, and were theyre bathyd yn swetenesse, as whenne bye chaunce
y^{e} moone fyndeth a banke of violettes and droppethe thereonne y^{e}
sylverie dewe.
“The authoure was goynge onne withouthen descrybynge y^{e} ladye’s
breste, whenne lo, a genyus appearyd—‘Cuthberte,’ sayeth he, ‘an thou
canst not descrybe y^{e} ladye’s breste, and fynde a simile thereunto, I
forbyde thee to proceede yn thy romaunt.’ Thys, I kennd fulle welle, far
surpassyd my feble powres, and forthwythe I was fayne to droppe my
quille.”
PHANTASY FROM SYMPATHY WITH THE BRAIN.
“My eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses.”
MACBETH.
ASTR. I marvel not, lady, that those pencilled brows do frown upon the
ruthless scholar, who thus dares to dismantle the fair realm of poesy,
and bind the poppy, and the cypress, and the deadly nightshade, with the
myrtle and the laurel.
We shall have, ere long, a statute of lunacy against the poet and the
seer; or hapless, he will imprison thee, fair creature, within a cloven
pine: and like Prospero, I must break my wand and bury it certain
fathoms in the earth; and, deeper than ever plummet sounded, drown my
books. The pages of Ptolemy, and Haly, and Agrippa, and Lily, will be
but bygone fables: and the metaphysics of the mighty mind will be
controverted by the slicing of the brain and marrow with the knife of
these anatomists. Nay, we must devoutly believe what they so learnedly
give out, that frontal headaches in the locality of _form_, _colour_,
and _number_, and forsooth in the _organ of wonder_ too, often accompany
spectral illusions, and that white or grey ghosts result from excited
form and deficient colour!!
Martin Luther, who was a believer in special influence, quarrelled with
the physician, who referred its mystic signs to natural causes. I am not
so uncourteous, yet express my wonder, Evelyn, at the confidence with
which you presume to the discovery of a _material_ reason and a cause,
for all the phenomena of our mysterious intellect.
EV. And why should I not, dear Astrophel, if I search for and discover
it in the studies of that sublime science, the meditation on which
inspired Galen with this pious sentiment: “Compono hic profecto canticum
in Creatoris nostri laudem.”
Is it more profane to think that the Deity should speak to us through
the medium of our senses, than by the agency of a spirit? Recollect, I
have presumed neither to enter deeply into metaphysical reasoning, nor
to describe, minutely, the condition of the brain; and I have alluded
but slightly to the supposed function of its varied structures. Lord
Bacon has observed: “He who would philosophize in a due and proper
manner must _dissect_ nature, but not _abstract_ her, as they are
obliged to do who will not dissect her.” Dissection, however, in its
_anatomical_ sense, has not, perhaps cannot, elucidate the coincidence
of symptom and pathology in cases which so seldom prove fatal, and the
causes of which may be so evanescent. Still, it is only by a combination
of metaphysical argument and anatomical research, with the essential aid
of _analogy_, that the phenomena and disease of mind can be fairly
investigated.
In the important question of insanity, there is an error among the mere
metaphysicians that is fraught with extreme danger—the abstract notion
of _moral_ causes being the chief excitement of mania. This error has
led to that melancholy abuse of the coercive treatment and excitement of
fear in a maniac; as if a savage keeper possessed the wondrous power of
frightening him _into_ his wits. Hear what the magniloquent Reil writes
on this point: “The reception of a lunatic should be amid the thunder of
cannon; he should be introduced by night, over a drawbridge, be laid
hold of by Moors, thrust into a subterranean dungeon, and put into a
bath with eels and other beasts!”
And Lichtenberg, another _moral_ philanthropist, sanctioned by the
divine axiom—“the rod helps God,” urges the employment of coercion and
cruelty for this sublime psychological reason: that under the infliction
of the lash and the cane, “the soul is forced to knit itself once more
to that world, from which the _cudgels_ come!” Think ye that these
moralists, if not hood-winked by false metaphysics, would have so
closely copied the malevolence of an inquisitor or a devil?
We must believe that each illusive representation is marked by _some_
change in some certain portion of the brain, the function of which bears
a reference to the subject or nature of the illusion: it may be so
minute as not to be recognized by our vision. Indeed, if the bodily
sensations of every human passion be faithfully analyzed, it will be
proved that there is an _unusual feeling_ in some part, when even a
thought passes through the mind, under these definitions:—_a thrill_,
_a creeping_, _a glow_, _a flush_, _a chill_, _a tremor_,—nay, even
fainting, convulsion, death.
Now the brain feels, and thinks, and wills; but the blood is also
essential to these faculties. If part of the brain is changed, or its
circulation deranged, in that instant an _effect unlike health_ is
produced: and such is the illusion of the ghost-seer. Or if the
substance of the organ of sense, as the eye, be altered, its function is
deranged, and an illusive spectrum appears to float before it. Nay, we
are assured by Tiedeman and Gall, (opinions of high value,) that they
have known patients who (smile as you please) were mad only on _one
side_ of the brain, and perceived their madness with _the other_; and
_I_ may assure you, too, that there have been persons who really thought
with half the brain only.
I will again claim the courtesy of these fair dames, while I offer
another glimpse of the dull cold region of physiology.
Recollect the illustrations I have adduced in allusion to those classes,
on whose privacy the ghost has the privilege of intrusion. I will now
offer illustrations of those _remote influences_ which work these
seeming mysteries in the sensitive or diseased brain.
A patient of Dr. Gregory, at the hour of six, _one hour after dinner_,
was daily visited by a hag, or incubus, which confronted him, and
appeared to strike him with a crutch. Immediately on this he would fall
from his chair in a swoon. This gentleman was relieved by bleeding and
abstinence.
The Abbé Pilori, in Florence, invariably saw the phantom of scorpions
around him, after he had partaken of luncheon.
There was a gentleman in Edinburgh, learned in fourteen languages, of
the age of seventy-six. In 1819, he began to see strange faces, in old
dresses, like paintings, and his own face changing from young to old;
and these phantoms came at his call. Wine drinking increased especially
these spectres, during the twelve years that the illusion continued; yet
his mental faculties were not much impaired. When eighty years old, he
came to London to dine with the Knights of the Bath, and went back at
the rate of a hundred miles a-day. His language latterly was a _patois_
of fourteen. One night he saw his dead wife’s shadow, and jumped after
her out of the window, and ran after her through the conservatory; yet
he remembered, when told that his wife was dead, and was then quiet.
Disordered digestion aggravated his case extremely. Mr. Gragg’s opinion
was, that “his thinking was correct, but the _expression_ of thought
wrong.” On examination, the _dura mater_ was found adherent to the
skull: in parts there was a thick effusion and vascularity over the
brain, and the _carotids_ were partially ossified.
In a mind excited or exhausted, the natural sympathy between the _brain_
and the _stomach_ is wrought up to an extreme. And in the two most
interesting cases of spectral illusion on record, this instance is
beautifully illustrated. The bookseller of Berlin, Nicolai (whose
phantasms are become so hackneyed a tale in the records of Psychology),
had been thus mentally excited. It were long to repeat the
circumstantial and scientific detail of his waking visions: of his
ghosts of departed friends, and of strangers to him, and of the groups
of shadowy figures which glided through his chamber at these spectral
levees; and how his philosophic mind distinguished the intrusion of the
spectre at the door and the real friend to whom its opening gave
admittance; and how they disappeared when he shut his eyes, and came
again as he opened his lids; or how he was at last amused by his
analysis of all these illusive spectra. But the sympathy to which I have
alluded will be efficiently proved by one quotation from the Prussian’s
recital. During the time leeches were applied to his temples, his
chamber was crowded with phantoms. “This continued uninterruptedly till
about half-past four o’clock, when my digestion commenced. I then
fancied that they began to move more slowly: soon after, their colour
began to fade, and at seven o’clock they were entirely white: then they
seemed to dissolve in the air, while fragments of some of them continued
visible a considerable time.” On other occasions, they attempted to
re-appear, and changed to white, more and more faintly as his health
improved.
There is equal interest, both for science and curiosity, in the illusion
of Mrs. A. (as told by Brewster, in his “Natural Magic”), and which
sprung from the like causes. The sympathetic sensitiveness of this lady
was so acute, that an expression of pain in another produced it in the
_corresponding_ part of herself. And she, too, was intruded on by
spectres of men and women, and cats and carriages, and by corpses in
shrouds peering over her shoulder at her toilet-glass, and ghastly
likenesses of gentlemen in grave-clothes, sitting unceremoniously in arm
chairs in her drawing-room. And yet the perfect restoration of the
lady’s health was coincident with her _complete_ freedom from these
spectral visitations.
You will read in the Anatomie of Melancholy, that “Eremites and
anchorites have frequently such absurd visions and revelations, by
reason of much fasting.” In exhaustion, too, or on the approach of
vertigo, if we shut our eyes, we seem as if turning round ourselves, and
if we open them, then this whimsical movement is referred to the chairs
and tables in our chamber.
These, then, are the remote sympathies with the organs of digestion; and
this chiefly by the derangement of the circulation of the blood, between
the brain and the heart.
In the case of an enlarged heart, Dr. Kelly discovered that a dark
spectrum was perceived _synchronous_ with the _systole_, or contraction
of _its ventricles_; so that the patient could count his pulse merely by
watching the motion of this illusive shade on the white ceiling of his
room.
The study of these false perceptions, which result from derangement or
disease of the eye, are replete with interest. You are aware that the
function of a nerve of sensation is so deranged by disease, that in some
cases of paralysis cold bodies will appear heated. So, by analogy, is
the function of a nerve of _sense_ deranged, if its _fibrillæ_ be
disordered.
We have _Myopia_, or short sight; _Presbyopia_, or long sight;
_Chrupsia_, or coloured vision. We have night-blindness, or dim vision,
and day-blindness, or intolerance of light,—as in the albino, or owl. I
had, and I have now, a second relative, whose vision is insensible to
certain colours; and the chemist, Dalton, we know, could not distinguish
blue from pink.
In a Glasgow Medical Journal, I read this statement by a patient:—“No
colour contrasts to me so forcibly with black as azure blue, and as you
know that the shadows of all objects are composed of black, the forms or
objects which have acquired more or less of this blue hue, from being
distant, become defined and marked by the possession of shadows, which
are invisible to me in the high-coloured objects in a foreground, and
which are thus left comparatively confined and shapeless masses of
colour.”
The eye may be curtailed of half its object. Mr. Abernethy and Dr.
Wollaston were both often in this dilemma of a sense, so that only
one-half of a person or a name, on which they were looking, was visible
to them. Mr. Abernethy, in his facetious way, referring to his own name,
told us he could see as far as the _ne_, but could not see a bit of the
_thy_. This illusion is at once explained by anatomy. The optic nerve,
at one point, interlaces some, and crosses other of its fibres: thus
_one_ nerve chiefly supplies _one-half of both eyes_. Disease of nerve
may thus paralyse _one-half_ of each _retina_: the _other_ half only
perceiving half the object or word.
In many cases of disordered sensibility of the retina, it is influenced
by the minute _villi_ or vessels in the _tunics_ of the eye. In the case
of exhausted energy of this retina, usually accompanied by
night-blindness, where there is no vision but in a strong light,
floating specks termed _muscæ volitantes_ often become so numerous, as
to impart a notion of films floating in the watery humour of the eye, or
before the _cornea_. It is a curious question, in what portion of the
retina the _spectra_ of _muscæ volitantes_ are excited. They appear in
or near the axis of vision; but as they do not interrupt the _visual
rays_ from _material objects_, it is possible they may arise on that
spot considered to be destitute of vision, with regard to _external_
impression. Or they may be produced by detached parts only of the
objects, which impinge on the retina, reaching the brain. If the
integrity of certain of its fibres, which by converging form the optic
nerve, be destroyed, distorted or imperfect objects will be presented.
This speck may be a _musca volitans_.
ASTR. The original impressions in all cases are, I presume, from
_without_: how is the _internally_ excited idea presented as a prominent
image _before_ the eye?
EV. That form of disordered vision to which I allude, occurring so often
in nervous persons, or resulting from close application to study, does
not often appear to depend on a _turgid_ condition of the vessels of the
_choroïd coat_ or _retina_. It is usually relieved more by _tonics_ than
by depletion; and very strange illusions of sight will sometimes be
produced merely by depressing medicines, especially the preparations of
antimony. Yet these dark specks appear to be floating _before_, and
often at some distance _withoutside_ the eye. Therefore we may believe
that excited images or _more perfect forms_ may also appear before the
retina, _palpable_. Between the first impression and its recurrence, a
long period may have passed (memory being unlimited); and it is
sufficient that one sole idea be excited to produce a succession; as a
_spark_ of fire will ignite a _train_ of gunpowder; or as an electric
spark will discharge a whole battery.
In the curious case of _photopsia_, or _suffusio scintillans_, we have a
series of illusive spectra, in the forms of “lucid points,” and “yellow
flames,” and “fiery veils,” and “rings of light.” In some cases of
ophthalmia, and in acute inflammation of the brain, the candles and
other bright objects in the chamber will look like blood. Beguelin, as
we read in the “Berlin Memoirs,” by straining his eyes on a book, always
saw the letters red.
There is a story in Voltaire, that the Duke of Florence threw the dice
with a field-officer of his enemy. The spots on the dice seemed, to his
_excited brain_, like drops of blood: he instantly ordered a retreat of
his army. And this is not wonderful; it is but excited sensibility, of
which many analogies indeed may be artificially produced, as the flash
of light from the pricking of the retina with a fine needle, and the
beautiful _iris_ which is formed by pressure on the globe of the eye. In
the very interesting history of the prisoner in the dungeon of the
Chatelet at Paris, the _phosphorescence_ of the eye was itself the
source of light, in this instance so powerful as to enable the prisoner
to discern the mice that came around him to pick up the crumbs, although
the cell was pitchy dark to others.
There are many curious illusions resulting from over-straining or
over-excitement of the eye.
Dr. Brewster, in the Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. iii. says, “If
in a fine dark night we unexpectedly obtain a glimpse of any object,
either in motion or at rest, we are naturally anxious to ascertain what
it is, and our curiosity calls forth all our powers of vision. Excited
by a feeble illumination, the retina is not capable of affording a
permanent vision of the object; and while we are straining our eye to
discover its nature, it will entirely disappear, and afterwards
_re-appear_ and _vanish_ alternately.”
A friend of Buffon had been watching the progress of an eclipse through
a very minute aperture. For three weeks after this there was a perfect
spectrum of the lucid spot marked on every object on which he fixed his
eyes.
Dr. Brewster had been making protracted experiments on some brilliant
object, and for several hours after this a dark spectrum, associated
with intense pain, floated constantly before his eye.
In the third volume of his Physiology, Dr. Bostock thus concludes the
account of his own ocular spectra: “It appeared as if a number of
objects, principally human faces or figures, on a small scale, were
placed before me, and gradually removed, like a succession of
medallions. They were all of the same size, and appeared to be all
situated at the same distance from the face. After one had been seen for
a few minutes, it became fainter, and then another which was more vivid
seemed to be laid upon it, or substituted in its place, which in its
turn was superseded by a new appearance.”
Coloured vision may arise from permanent defect or from acute disorder:
from some peculiar refraction of a ray of light on the lens of the eye,
or by the optical laws of the _accidental_ colours.
The ray of white light consists of the three prismatic or primitive
colours. Now, if the eye is fatigued by one of these colours, or it be
lost, mechanically or physiologically, the impression of _two_ only will
remain, and this accidental or complementary colour is composed of the
two remaining constituents of the white ray. Thus, if the eye has been
strained on a _red_ colour, it is insensible to this, but perceives the
_blue_ and the _yellow_, the combination of which is _green_. So, if we
look long on a _green_ spot, and then fix the eye on _white_ paper, the
spectrum will be of light _red_. A _violet_ spot will become _yellow_; a
_blue_ spot _orange-red_: a black spot will entirely disappear on a
_white_ ground, for it has _no_ complementary colour; but it appears
_white_ on a _dark_ ground, as a white spot will change to black.
By this law I may explain the impression made by black letters on the
red ground of a play-bill, which appear _blue_. The accidental colour of
orange-red is blue; that of black is white. By looking on this, the
black letter first becomes white, and the accidental colour of the
red—_blue_, is transferred to the white ground of the letters.
ASTR. Then, as D’Agessau recommended the parliament of Paris to leave
the demoniac of our times to the physician and not the divine, you would
delegate the management of all those, to whom the mysterious world of
shadows is unfolded, to the sapient leech with his phials and his
lancet.
EV. Nay, I presume not to so potent a faculty. Many of the slight
imperfections of vision are, as I have confessed, merely exaggerations
of romantic ideas floating in the memory; and this is not a novel
notion, for Plato and other philosophers held it long before our time.
_Muscæ volitantes_ are usually, though not always, _substantial_: i.e.
depending on _points_ or _fibres_ in the axis of vision, on
_congestions_, or _varicose_ states of the vessels of the _choroïd_ or
_retina_, or of atoms floating in the _humours_. These specks, which do
not appear alike in the eyes of all, and the brilliant beams in the
_suffusio scintillans_, so varied and so whimsical, might be readily
moulded into human form, by the imagination of an enthusiast, or the
feelings of the ghost-seer, who is usually morose and melancholy, in a
state of _longing_ for a ghost or a mystery.
But when many of the more confirmed illusions are depending on
structural disease in the membranes and humours of the eye, I am
confident in the resources of our science to relieve, if not to remove.
Coleridge indeed has expressed his belief, that by some convulsion of
the eye, it may see projected before it part of its own body, easily
magnified into the whole by slight imagination. If this be true, the
whole mystery of the Death-fetch is unravelled.
The nerves and their _ganglia_ are often diseased, when we least
suspect: and _calcareous_ and _scrofulous_ tumours, pressing on the
_optic axis_, in the brain, or on the _pneumogastric_ nerve above its
_recurrent_ branch, and disease in the bronchial glands around the
cardiac plexus, may exist, with the very slightest sensations of pain.
Even in extreme _disorganization_ of the brain, there may be
_remissions_ of painless repose; and in other cases, where _pain_ is
_synchronous_ with illusion, the illusion may subside although the pain
remains; an indication, or proof, indeed, of _structural_ cause for the
phantasy. And this discrimination, Astrophel, of the line of distinction
between sanity and derangement, is often of a hair’s breadth; and the
law confesses here the high value of pathology, seeing that, in cases of
suicide or of idiocy, and other states which involve the rites of
sepulture, the conveyance of entailed estates, or personal
responsibility, the judgment of the physician is held to be _oracular_.
MYSTERIOUS FORMS AND SIGNS.
“Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:
The noise of battle hurtled in the air.”
JULIUS CÆSAR.
ASTR. Methinks you claim too much homage from our courtesy to your
philosophy, Evelyn. Can we believe that all these wondrous forms and
shadows are but an illusion of the eye, or of the mind’s eye? And, if I
grant this truth in regard to the eye of _one_ mind, can we so easily
libel the evidence of a multitude, to whom the world of shadows is
unlocked?
We are now wandering in the very land of omens; and will this cold
philosophy of thine presume to draw aside the veil of mystery, which
hangs over the mountain and the cataract of yon wild principality?
E’en now the legends of many climes crowd on my memory; and, while this
purple cloud is o’er the sun, listen, I pr’ythee, to the traditions
which I have gathered; muse on the _sequences_ of these strange
appearances, and you will at length confess, with the Benedictine
Calmet—“Realité des apparitions est prouvée par l’événement des choses
prédites.”
The Tan-we or Tan-wed are streams of lucid fire, rolling along the lands
of a freeholder, who, warned of his coming fate, immediately makes his
will, and shortly after _dies_.
Among the gloomy gorges of Preselle, in Pembrokeshire, comes dancing on
that blue wild-fire the “Canwyl y Cyrph,” or “Corpse-candle.” As the
shades of evening are approaching, the spectre of the doomed comes
flitting before us, with a lighted taper in its hand, and with a solemn
step halts not until it rests on its destined grave, in the church-yard
ground. If dignities and fortune have been the earthly lot of this
doomed mortal, then is there shadowed forth an awful pageantry of hearse
and ghostly steeds, and mute mourners, all gliding away to the place of
the tomb, and, like the phantoms of the Aensprecker, in Holland, (a
funeral procession of no less fatality,) they foretell the doom of some
ill-fated friend.
Among the dingles of the Bachwy, in Radnorshire, amid scenery of wild
and lonely beauty, a few rugged stones denote the site of an ancient
castle of a Welsh prince; it is the ruin of the “Black Rock.” The
opposing masses of this eternal rock, tapestried with deep green moss
and lichen, fold in upon the stream directly over its matchless
cataract, which falls abruptly from the upper to the lower valley into
this gloomy gorge; the sunbeam playing on the upper ledge of the
waterfall, while its deep basin is shrouded in Stygian darkness. Into
this gulph it was the pleasure of the prince to hurl from his castle
walls, those whom fate had made his prisoners. Often since the era of
these cruelties, (as I learned from the oral legends of the peasants,)
before a death, a strange unearthly groaning is heard, the “Kyhirraeth,”
becoming fainter and fainter until the last gasp of the mortal whose
doom it forebodes.
There is the dead-bell, which the Scottish peasants believe to foretell
the death of a friend; and the death-cart of Lancashire, which is heard
rattling along the streets like a whirlwind; and the Owke Mouraske, a
demon of Norway, which never enters a house but some one of the family
dies within the year. We are assured also by the Saxon, Cranmer, that
ere one of the electoral house of Brandenburgh dies, a woman in white
appears to many throughout the dominions of Prussia.
The wild mountains that surround us are prolific in the “Anderyn y
Corff,” or “Corpse-bird,” and the “Cwm Amon,” or “Dogs of Hell,” which
are believed to be demons of death, in the shape of hounds, and, like
the mongrel of Faust, marked by a train of fire. These howl forth their
awful warning, while the death-peal rings in the ears of the nearest kin
of one about to die.
There is the legend of the “Ellyllon,” a prototype of the Scotch and
Irish “Banshie,” which appears as an old crone, with streaming hair and
a coat of blue, with her boding scream of death. The “Gwrach y Rhibyn,”
or “Hag of the Dribble,” whose pastime is to carry stones in her apron
across the mountains, and then to loosen her apron-string, and by the
shower of stones to make a “dribble.” This hag, at twilight, flaps her
raven wing against the chamber window of a doomed creature, and, with a
howl, cries out, “A a a ui ui Anni.”
In the wilderness of Zin, which stretches between Palestine and the Red
Sea, both the Bedouin Arab and the traveller are greeted by the sound of
_matin_ bells, like the convent peal which calls the nuns to their
devotion; and this, according to tradition, has been heard ever since
the crusades.
Then there is a fatal spirit of the desert, which, like an ignis fatuus,
lures men to destruction, by
“Airy tongues that syllable men’s names.”
The Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, writes of those who, wandering
unwarily from the track of the caravans in Tartary, hear the phantom
voice of some dear friend (who indeed sometimes appears in person),
which entices them from the route, and they perish in the desert.
And Lord Lindsay, in his travels through Egypt and the defiles of Edom,
tells us one circumstantial story from Vincent de Blanc, of a man
decoyed away from the caravan of an Arabian merchant by the entreaties
of a phantom voice.
Before an heir of Clifton sleeps in death, a sturgeon is always, it is
affirmed, taken in the river Trent. This incident, like many others,
becomes important from its consequence.
The park of Chartley is a wild and romantic spot, in its primitive
state, untouched by the hand of the agriculturist, and was formerly
attached to the royal forest of Needwood, and the honour of Tutbury, of
the whole of which the ancient family of De Ferrars were once the
puissant lords. Their immense possessions, now forming part of the duchy
of Lancaster, were forfeited by the attainder of Earl Ferrars, after his
defeat at Burton Bridge, where he led the rebellious barons against
Henry III. The Chartley estate, being settled in dower, was alone
reserved, and handed down to its present possessor. In the park is
preserved, in its primitive purity, the indigenous Staffordshire cow,
small in stature, of a sand-white colour, with black ears, muzzle, and
tips at the hoofs. In the year of the battle of Burton Bridge, a black
calf was born, and the downfall of the great house of Ferrars happening
at the same period, gave rise to the tradition, which to this day has
been held in veneration by the common people, that the birth of a
party-coloured calf from the wild breed in Chartley Park, is a sure omen
of death within the same year to a member of the lord’s family. A calf
of this description has been born whenever a death has happened in the
family of late years. The decease of the last earl and his countess, of
his son Lord Tamworth, of his daughter, Mrs. William Jolliffe, as well
as the deaths of the son and heir of the present nobleman and his
daughter, Lady Frances Shirley, have each been forewarned by the ominous
birth of a spotted calf. In the spring of a late year, an animal
perfectly black was calved by one of this weird tribe, in the park of
Chartley, and this birth also has been followed by the death of the
countess.
In the beautiful chapel of Rosslinne, founded by William Saint Clair,
prince of Orkney, there is a legend of the spectral light, which
illumined its gothic beauty, on the eve of a death among his
descendants. And my sweet Castaly will remember how pathetically Harold
sings the fate of Rosabelle Saint Clair.
In other districts, on the coming of such an event, these lights are
seen of various colours, and are termed “Dr’ Eug,”—“the Death of the
Druid;” and _they_ also marshal the funeral procession to the very verge
of the grave.
Dr. Caldicot solemnly writes, that when a Christian is drowned in the
Dee, a light appears over the spot, by which the body is easily
discovered; and hence the river is called “Holy” Dee.
The mysteries of the “Skibbereen Lights” are recorded by an honourable
gentleman of Ireland, and ladies and philosophers journeyed far to
behold them, and _believed_.—In a cottage in a marshy flat near Bantry
lived a man named Harrington, a perfect _anatomie vivante_, and
bedridden,—his heart devout,—his books all of a religious kind. In his
chamber, strange lights soon appeared, at first like the dim moonlight
on the wall, deepening often into _yellow_ light, and flickering round
the room. There was often a group of literati and fashion assembled
there, on whom the light danced and displayed all the various emotions
of the parties. Once at noon, but mostly at midnight, the light
appeared; and on all occasions Harrington seemed to anticipate before
others beheld them. Science has searched for causes; but neither in the
arts of an impostor, or the natural exhalation of luminous gases, has
been yet discovered a solution of this mystery.
In the wild country around Dolgelly, where Cader Idris frowns upon the
floods and fells of Merioneth,—where the Mawddach, after its
magnificent fall, rolls its waters through the brown and purple valley
to join the Wonion, and then expand into the mountain estuary of
Abermaw,—the wanderer will hear from many lips this current story.
On a dark evening, a few winters ago, some persons were returning to
Barmouth, on the south or opposite side of the river. As they approached
the ferry-house at Penthryn, which is directly opposite Barmouth, they
observed a light near the house, which they conjectured to be produced
by a bonfire; and greatly puzzled they were to discover the reason why
it should have been lighted. As they came nearer, however, it vanished;
and when they inquired at the house respecting it, they were surprised
to learn, that not only had the people there displayed no light, but
they had not even seen one, nor could they perceive any signs of it on
the sands. On reaching Barmouth, the circumstance was mentioned, and the
fact corroborated by some of the people there, who had also plainly and
distinctly seen the light. It was settled, therefore, by some of the old
fishermen, that this was a “death token;” and sure enough the man who
kept the ferry at that time was drowned at high water a few nights
afterwards, on the very spot where the light was seen. He was landing
from the boat, when he fell into the water, and so perished.
The same winter the Barmouth people, as well as the inhabitants of the
opposite banks, were struck by the appearance of a number of small
lights, which were seen dancing in the air at a place called Borthwyn,
about half a mile from the town. A great number of people came out to
see these lights, and after a while they all but one disappeared, and
this one proceeded slowly towards the water’s edge, to a little bay
where some boats were moored. The men in a sloop which was anchored near
the spot saw the light advancing; they saw it also hover for a few
seconds over one particular boat, and then totally disappear. Two or
three days afterwards the man to whom that particular boat belonged was
drowned in the river, while he was sailing about Barmouth harbour in
that very boat.
On a lofty mountain, rising over Marbach in Austria, stands the church
of Maria-Taferl; and miracles on miracles are related of this sacred
spot, since the time when the “Vesperbild,” an image of the Virgin, was
fixed on its oak. Even angels have visited the shrine. In the 17th
century these angelic visitants appeared in processions bearing a red
cross, while stars shone around the head of the Virgin. On one occasion
a red cross was borne along and a taper was lighted, _by no mortal
hand_, at the feet of the Vesperbild; and this is recorded and attested
by the crowd who gazed in wonder on the miracle.
The trials of the two divines, John Huss and Wickliffe, were marked by
awful and impressive phenomena. While the tribunal was sitting in
judgment on Wickliffe, the monastery in which the English monks had
assembled was nearly overwhelmed by an earthquake. And it chanced, that
while the council were in high assembly at Constance, which condemned
Huss to the stake, the eclipse, which over that city was nearly total,
occurred, and the consternation of the people, at that time prone to the
belief of miracles, was extreme.
“The night had wan’d; but darkness and dismay
Rose with the dawn, and blotted out the day.
The council’s warder, struck with sudden fear,
Dropt from his palsied hand th’ uplifted spear.
Aghast each gazer saw the mystic power,
That rob’d in midnight’s pall the matin hour;
While hurrying feet, and wailings to and fro,
Spread the wild panic of impending woe.
The prince and prelates shudder’d at the sign:
The monk stood dumb before the darken’d shrine:
With faltering hand uprais’d the cross on high,
To chase that dismal omen from the sky.”
The wonders told me by one of my reverend ancestors of the “Aurora,”
years ago, are so circumstantial, and withal so prophetic, that well
might she, like the Lady of Branxholme, believe that “spirits were
riding the northern blast.”
Speed repeats a record in the “Ypodigma Neustriæ” of “Walsingham,” that
the rebellion of the Percies was preceded by spectral battles in
Bedfordshire, “sundry monsters of divers colours and shapes issuing from
woods,” &c.
Remember, it is a matter of history, that phantasms were seen by numbers
in Whitehall during the Commonwealth. And the wondrous narrative of _The
Just Devil of Woodstock_, which was writ in 1649, by Master Widows, the
learned clerk of Woodstock, “who each day put in writing what he heard
from the mouths of the commissioners, and such things as they told to
have befallen them the night before; therein keeping to their own
words:”—the coney-stealers were so alarmed that they left their ferrets
beyond Rosamond’s well. And this he saith also, that “At Saint James’s
the Devil so joaled the centinals against the sides of the Queen’s
Chappell doors, that some of them fell sick upon it, and others, not
taking warning by it, killed one outright; and all other such dreadful
things those that inhabited the royal houses have been affrighted with.”
I remember not the source from which I gleaned some mysteries of “The
Lyffe of Virgilius,” a professor of the occult sciences, alluded to, I
believe, in Gower’s “Confessio Amantis,” and identified with the Mantuan
poet,—a magus, who “dyd many marvayles in hys lyfe tyme by whychcrafte
and nygramancye thorowgh the helpe of the devyls of hell.” One of these
marvels I well recollect. This Virgil was cut up, salted and pickled, at
his own request, in a barrel; and when the emperor discovered him, he
slew Virgilius’ man, and “then sawe the emperoure and all his folke a
nakyd chylde, three tymes rennynge aboute the barell, sayinge the
wordes, ‘Cursed be the tyme that ye cam ever here;’ and with those
wordes vanyshed the chylde away.”
Then in the associations of lucky days and influential colours, is there
not often a striking truth?
Sir Kenelm Digby, writes Master Aubrey, among other wonders of his
“Miscellanies,” was born, fought, and conquered at Scanderoon, and
died,—on the 11th day of June.
In a book, printed in 1687, we learn that the fourteenth of October was
a lucky day for the princes of England. On it William the Conqueror won
the crown: Edward III. landed: and James II. was born.
In the eventful life of Napoleon, the number _eighteen_ was associated
with so many important events, that you will scarce deny something more
than casualty. Such were, the engagement from which he assumed the
consulate: that of Torlina on the river Beresina: the battles of Leipsic
and of Waterloo: which were all fought on the 18th of the month. On that
day also his corpse was landed on St. Helena: and on the 18th also the
“Belle Poule” sailed with his remains for France.
As of the Emir of the East, green was the favourite colour of the
“Daoine Shi,” or men of peace, in Scotland; and the Druids waved a green
standard, as we read in the Scandana, when they fought with the
Fingallians. From some cause, perchance from _their_ adoption of it,
this colour was fatal to the clan “Grahame.” The Highlanders believe to
this day that the field of Killicrankie was lost because Dundee was
habited in green uniform; and an old Græme, when his horse stumbled at a
fox-chace, referred his disaster to his _green_ whip-cord.
Do not so many _sequences_ prove a consequence?
EV. You do not mince the matter, Astrophel; indeed, from the boldness of
your display, I might think you had kissed the _blarney-stone_, by which
charm, the Irish believe you will ever after be free from bashfulness.
But coincidence, and the natural leaning of the mind to superstition,
will unfold all your mysteries: and these your illustrations (I cannot
term them arguments,) are even weaker than the former. Remember, that
the mind of some beings is impressible as the yielding wax, and
especially, if under the constant influence of other minds; which, as
continual dropping will wear away a stone, first tends to bewilder, and,
at length, to convince. And as to the special trifles to which you
allude, although it is certain a sparrow falls not to the ground without
a Providence, and the hairs of our head are all numbered, I cannot
believe that the Creator will thus _alter a gigantic law_ for an atom.
ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPECTRAL ILLUSION.
“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.”
MACBETH.
EV. You are a most industrious gleaner among the sheaves of history,
Astrophel. But why, in all these seeming prophecies, seek to thwart the
harmonious course of nature? Leave superstition to the heathen and the
savage: be assured, in the words of Principal Robertson, that a vain
desire of prying into futurity is the error of the infancy of a people,
and a proof of its weakness.
From this weakness proceeded the faith of the Americans in dreams, their
observation of omens, their attention to the chirping of birds and the
cries of animals, all which they supposed to be indications of future
events. And if any one of these prognostics was deemed unfavourable,
they instantly abandoned the pursuit of those measures on which they
were most eagerly bent.
I wonder you brought not some _classic_ proofs of this credulity, for
such were all-prevalent in Judæa and the Eternal City.
Thus, on February the thirteenth, the Romans were conquered by the
Gauls: henceforward important acts were never undertaken on its
anniversary: nor on August the tenth by the Jews, because their first
temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the other by Titus, long
afterwards, on that day of the month.
I am not, however, without some curious stories of very modern date; one
anecdote may be recognised on the Stock Exchange. A wealthy Hebrew, who
was wont to fling his gold even into the lap of kings, was once standing
on a certain stone, at the Post Office, when he received a letter, on
which he speculated, and lost 20,000_l._ On this he cautioned his
friends never to stand on that stone, lest a similar ill-fortune should
attend _them_.
The mind of this man was a storehouse of superstition—an omen was his
leading star. A drove of pigs would check the completion of a mighty
bargain, and a flock of sheep would prompt him to sign his name to a
million.
The three brothers of his great house were once on their way to Lord
Liverpool, in order to the completion of a loan to the Treasury; when,
lo! an army of swine met them on their way. There was no more progress
to Downing Street that day; but they retired to Stamford Hill, and the
Lord Treasurer waited twenty-four hours for the Hebrews’ gold.
With Brinsley Sheridan, _Friday_ was a sort of holiday; neither journeys
were undertaken, nor new plays allowed to be produced, on that day.
I presume you were ashamed to adduce ornithoscopy, or the divination by
birds, as an illustration. Do you forget the mystic influence of three
crows on man’s destiny? But I will tell you an oriental fable; how an
accomplished Jew, named Mosollam, puzzled an augur, by shooting a
beautiful bird, from which the augur was about to prophecy on the fate
of an expedition. “Why,” said Mosollam, “did not the bird foreknow the
fate which awaited it? why did it not fly away—or why come at all?”
ASTR. I believe the augur did or might answer, that “a prophet may be
ordained to tell the fate of nations, but _not his own_.”
EV. Another vague supposition, Astrophel: there is much virtue in these
_may be’s_.
I have listened to your legends, and you will now listen to me, while I
presume to illustrate my own proofs, searching for my causes in the
beautiful eccentricities of nature alone; and a scholar like yourself,
Astrophel, with whom I have so often chopped Oxford logic, will grant it
is a precept in philosophy not to seek for more causes, than the
explanation of the fact requires.
* * * * *
On this scroll I have sketched an arrangement of phantoms or ghosts, in
two grand classes.
GHOSTS OF THE MIND’S EYE,
or
PHANTASMA.
Illusive _per_ception, or ocular { _Conversion_ of natural objects
spectra. into phantoms.
Illusive _con_ception, or spectral { _Creation_ of phantoms.
illusion.
GHOSTS OF THE EYE,
or
OPTICAL ILLUSION.
Atmospheric. { Refraction.
{ Reflection.
Gases.
Lenses and mirrors.
Disease of the eye.
In the first class there is no real or palpable object, or, if there be,
it is not what it appears; the illusion is but the reality of romance,
depending altogether on excited or disordered conditions of the mind:
the source, therefore, either of bright or gloomy phantoms, as the mood
may be.
On this scroll I have recorded those _moods of mind_, which, excited by
memory or association, or influenced by such casualties as solitude,
moonlight darkness, or localities of interest, or the poring over tales
of horror at midnight, may be considered the _predisposing causes_ of
illusion. Such are:—
Temperament Credulity,
Enthusiasm,
Superstition,
Timidity,
Imagination,
Poetic frenzy.
Excitement Sympathy,
Exalted joy,
Deep grief,
Love,
Hatred,
Protracted anxiety,
Delirium of fever,
Delirium of alcohol,
Delirium of narcotics,
Exhaustion,
Disease of the brain.
The second class, which are spectres or ghosts of the eye, may be
scientifically explained by the laws which govern the _material world_.
These are the only substantial ghosts which I can grant to my friend.
The objects themselves exist, and are exactly as they appear. The
philosopher regards them as interesting exceptions to general rules,
from _peculiar_ combinations of _natural_ causes. The unlearned will
term them preternatural _phenomena_, simply because they are of uncommon
occurrence. But which among the works of divine creation is not a
phenomenon? We may think we know a law of nature, but can we analyse it?
Novelty and magnitude astonish, but that which is familiar excites not
our surprise. We gaze with delight on the progress of an eclipse; we
watch with wonder the eccentric course of the comet; but we look on the
sun in its meridian glory with a cold and apathetic indifference. Yet do
they all alike display Divine Omnipotence, and the expansion of a
vegetable germ, the bursting of a flower, is as great a miracle as the
overwhelming of a deluge, the annihilation of a mighty world.
To discriminate between these classes is not difficult: we may prove
their nature by simple experiment. _Optical illusions_ will be _doubled_
by a straining or altering of the axes of the eyes; and, by turning
round, as they are removed from the axis of vision, they will disappear.
So, indeed, will those of the second class, which are _real_ objects
converted into phantoms by mental excitement or disorder.
But in the purely _metaphysical ghost_ or phantom, the change of
position or locality will not essentially dispel the illusion, (the
spectrum following, as it were, the motion of the eye;) because it
exists in the mind itself, either as a faint or transient idea, or a
mere outline, fading perhaps in a brighter light, or as the more
permanent and confirmed impression of insanity, (unchanged even by
“brilliant glare,”) or from the day-dream of the castle-builder, to the
deep and dreadful delusion of the maniac.
Among the mute productions of nature, there are eccentricities and
rarities, which, in default of analysis or explanation, would not fail
of being referred to some supernatural agency: as Leo Afer, according to
Burton, accounts for the swarms of locusts once descending at Fez, in
Barbary, and at Arles, in France, in 1553. “It could not be from natural
causes; they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven. Are these
and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c. lifted
up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as Baracellus the physician
disputes, and thence let fall with showers, or there engendered?
Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by
celestial influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or
prodigies raised by arts and illusions of spirits which are princes of
the ayre.”
Over Languedoc there once burst an awful and supernatural cloud, from
which fell immense snow-flakes like glittering stars. There is nothing
strange in this, for the shape of the snow-flake is ever that of an
_asteroïd_. But then there came pouring down gigantic hail-stones, with
their glassy surface impressed with the figures of helmets, and swords,
and scutcheons. This too may be the effect of very sudden and irregular
congelation; but this law was not known, and therefore its result was a
mystery.
Among the wonders seen by the great traveller, Pietro della Valla, was
the _bleeding_ cypress-tree, which shadows the tomb of Cyrus, in Italy.
Under the hollow of its boughs, in his day, it was lighted with lamps
and was consecrated as an oratory. To this shrine resorted many a devout
pilgrim, impressed with a holy belief in the _miracle_. And what was
this but the glutinous crimson fluid, exuding from the diseased alburnum
of a tree, which the woodmen indeed term _bleeding_, but which the
ancient Turks affirmed, or believed, to be converted on every Friday
into drops of real blood?
The red snow, which is not uncommon in the arctic regions, is thus
tinted by very minute cryptogamic plants; and the fairy ring is but a
circle of herbage poisoned by a fungus.
In Denbighshire (I may add) the prevalent belief is, that the
_shivering_ of the aspen is from _sympathy_ with that tree in Palestine,
which was hewn into the true cross.
The simple stratification of vapours, especially during sudden
transitions of temperature, may produce very interesting optical
phenomena; not by refraction or reflection, but merely by partial
obscuration of an object. We have examples of these illusive spectra in
the gigantic icebergs seen by Captain Scoresby, and other arctic
voyagers, which assumed the shape of towers, and spires, and cathedrals,
and obelisks, that were constantly displacing each other in whimsical
confusion and endless variety, like the figures of a kaleidoscope.
Phipps thus describes their majestic beauty: “The ice that had parted
from the main body, they had now time to admire, as it no longer
obstructed their course; the various shapes in which the broken
fragments appeared were indeed very curious and amusing. One remarkable
piece described a magnificent arch, so large and completely formed, that
a sloop of considerable burden might have sailed through it without
lowering her masts. Another represented a church, with windows, pillars,
and domes.”
We may scarcely wonder at the mystifications of nature, when she assumes
these gorgeous eccentricities, as have been witnessed also in the barren
steppes of the Caraccas, on the Orinoko, where the palm-groves appear to
be cut asunder; in the Llanos, where chains of hills appear suspended in
the air, and rivers and lakes to flow on arid sand; in the lake of the
Gazelles, seen by the Arabs and the African traveller; and the lakes
seen by Captain Munday, during his tour in India.
The very clearness of the atmosphere, like that which floats around the
Rhine, renders distance especially distinct; but mountainous regions,
from the attraction of electric clouds, afford the highest examples of
atmospheric beauty and effect. London and other cities, however crowded
with lofty buildings, are not deficient in these aërial illusions. Even
from the bridge of Blackfriars I have seen a cumulo stratus cloud so
strangely intersect the steeples and the giant chimneys of London, as
distinctly to represent a sea-port, with its vessels and distant
mountains.
We have among us several minor illusions, which are only less imposing
because more familiar; and though often occurring, few are recorded with
scientific accuracy. The phosphorescence of the marshes, the ignis
fatuus, Will o’Wisp, Jack o’ the Lanthorn, or Friar Rush, and the
corpse-candles, are mere luminous exhalations, strained into the
marvellous by the vulgar, and thus set down as heralds of mortality. The
dancing-light of luminous flies has been termed the _green light of
death_; and, if you wish for more, Astrophel, read the “Armorican
Magazine” of John Wesley, or the quaint volume of Burton, and
thereabouts where he writes in this fashion: “The thickness of the aire
may cause such effects, or any object not well discerned in the dark,
fear and phantasie will suspect to be a ghost or devil. Glowwormes,
firedrakes, meteors, ignis fatuus, which Plinius calls Castor and
Pollux, with many such that appear in moorish grounds, about
church-yards, moist valleys, or where battles have been fought, the
causes of which read in Goclenius, Velcurius, Finkius, &c.”
The Parhelia, or mock suns, are produced by the reflection of the sun’s
light on a frozen cloud. How readily these phenomena are magnified you
may learn from ancient and modern records. In 1223 four suns were seen
of crimson, inclosed in a wide circle of crystal colour. This is
natural: but then comes the miracle. In the same year two giant dragons
were seen in the air, flapping their monstrous wings and engaging in
single combat, until they both fell into the sea and were drowned! Then,
in 1104, there were seen four white circles rolled around the sun: and
in 1688, two suns and a reversed rainbow appeared at Bishop’s Lavington,
in Wiltshire: and in February, 1647, there is an account and sketch of
three suns, and an inverted rainbow, which Baxter terms “Binorum
Pareliorum Φαινομενον.” And because there were two lunar and one solar
eclipses in 1652, it was called, as Lily records, “Annus tenebrum,” or
“the dark year.”
The Corona, or halo around the sun, moon, and stars, is easily
illustrated by the zone formed by placing, during a frost, a lighted
candle in a cloud of steam or vapour.
The Aurora Borealis is _arctic electricity_, and is beautifully imitated
by the passage of an electric flash through an exhausted glass cylinder.
The rainbow is a combination of _natural prisms_ breaking the light into
colours; and it may be seen in the cloud, or in the spray of the ocean,
or in the beautiful cascades of Schaffhausen, Niagara, or Terni, or
indeed in any foaming spray on which the _meridian_ sunbeams fall, or
even in the dewy grass, lying, as it were, on the ground.
When the sun shines on a cloud, there is always a bow produced visible
to all who are placed at the proper angle. The lunar rainbow is
achromatic, or destitute of colour, because reflected light is not
easily refracted into colour. In a brilliant sunset the floods of light
around him often indicate the gradation of prismatic colouring.
CAST. In some waterfalls I have seen the Iris form a complete circle; as
in the Velino at Terni, and in others, especially in Ionia and Italy. A
perfect illusion is produced, for the bow seems to approach the
spectator and then recede, as if Juno were sending her messenger on some
special mission. There are many minds which would yield with delight to
this conviction, and such probably was the illusion of Benvenuto
Cellini—was it not? “This resplendent light is to be seen over my
shadow till two o’clock in the afternoon, and it appears to the greatest
advantage when the grass is moist with dew. It is likewise visible in
the evening at sunset. This phenomenon I took notice of when I was at
Paris, because the air is exceedingly clear in that climate, so that I
could distinguish it there much plainer than in Italy, where the moists
are much more frequent, &c.” A consciousness of superior talent, and
probably the homage which was paid him even by the members of the holy
conclave, were the springs of this flattering vision.
IDA. The beauty of these must light up even the fancy of a child, yet a
holier feeling will ever inspire a Christian philosopher, when the bow
is seen in the cloud, for it was the sign of the covenant. There is,
indeed, something in the glories of the firmament which never fails to
elevate my own thoughts, and I can readily sympathise with the Spanish
religionists of the fifteenth century, and with the North Americans, who
gaze upon the beautiful constellation of the “Southern Cross,” insulated
as it is from all other stars in its own dark space; in solemn belief
that it is the great symbolical banner held out by the Deity in approval
of their faith.
EV. The “Fata Morgana,” in the straits of Reggio, presents a perfect
scene of enchantment; when the shouts of “Morgana, Morgana,” echo from
rock and mountain, as the wondering people flock in crowds to the shore.
During this splendid illusion, gigantic columns, and cloud-capt towers,
and gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples, are floating on the verge of
the horizon, and sometimes beneath this picture of a city, on the very
bosom of the water, a _fainter_ spectrum may be seen, which is a
reflected image of the other. These spectra are usually _colourless_,
but if certain watery vapours are floating in the air, they are
beautifully fringed with the three primitive colours of the prism. Such
also is the illusion of the Calenture, or _sylvan scenes_ of the ocean.
CAST. Let us seek these wonders of the waters, Astrophel; perchance we
might, in some enchanted hour, see even beneath yon Severn flood the
grotto of Sabrina, with its green and silver weeds, its purple shells
and arborescent corallines; and, if we dive into the depths of the sea,
might we not light on the palace of Amphitrite, and, while the Nereids
and Tritons were mourning over the desolation of a shipwreck, hear the
echo of some Ariel’s song “full fathom five,” undulating through the
water; or realise the overwhelming of Maha-Velipoor, in the curse of
Kehama:
“Their golden summits in the noontide ray,
Shone o’er the dark green deep, that roll’d between;
For domes, and pinnacles, and spires were seen
Peering above the sea.”
Or the legend of _Thierna Na Oge_, in Lough Neagh, in Ireland; for Moore
has sung—
“On Lough Neagh’s banks, when the fisherman strays,
He sees the round towers of other days;”
and why may not _we_?
Who that has wandered among the dark mountains of Brecon, remembers not
the blue pool of Lynsavaddon, and has not listened to the tales of the
mountaineers, of the city over which to this day its waves are rolling?
and in the beautiful vale of Eidournion, in Merioneth—but listen to a
fragment of a romance of this valley, which from memory I quote:—
There was a proud and wealthy prince in Gwyneth, when the beautiful isle
was under the rule of the Cymri. At his palace gate a voice was once
heard echoing among the mountains these words: ‘Edivar a
ddau’—Repentance will come. The prince demanded ‘When?’ and in the
rolling thunder the voice was again heard, ‘At the third generation.’
Nothing daunted, the wicked lord lived on, committing plunder and all
evil excesses, and laughing to scorn the holy hymns in the churches. A
son and heir was born to him, and there was a gorgeous assemblage in the
hall of beautiful ladies and high-born nobles, to celebrate the festival
of his birth.
It was midnight, when in the ear of an old harper, a shrill voice
whispered, ‘Edivar, Edivar;’ and a little bird hovered over him, and
flew out of the palace in the pale moonshine: and the harper and the
little bird went together into the mountains. The bird flitted before
him in the centre of the moon’s disc, and warbled its mournful cry of
‘Edivar’ so plaintively, that the old man thought of the shriek of his
little child Gwenhwyvar, as she sunk beneath the waters of Glaslyn.
On the top of the mountain he sank down with weariness, and the little
bird was not with him; all was silent, save the cataract and the
sheep-bells on the mountain side. In alarm at the wild solitude around
him, he turned towards the castle, but its lordly towers had vanished,
and in the place of its woods and turrets there was a waste of rolling
waters—with his lone harp floating on their surface.
EV. I am unwilling to check your flight, fair Castaly, but my
illustrations are not yet exhausted.
The “Spectre of the Brocken” is a mere shadow of the spectator on a
gigantic scale. This phantom, the “Schattenmann,” according to vulgar
tradition, haunts the lofty range of the Hartz mountains, in Hanover. It
is usually observed when the sun’s rays are thrown horizontally on thin
fleecy clouds, or vapour of highly reflective power, assuming the shape
of a gigantic shade on the cloud.
The romantic region of the Hartz was the grand temple of Saxon idolatry,
the very hot-bed of terrible shadows; the first of May especially being
the grand annual rendezvous of unearthly forms. Even now, it is
affirmed, Woden, known in Brunswick as the Hunter of Hackelburgh, (whose
sepulchre, an immense rough stone, is shown to the traveller,) is still
influential in the Oden Wald and among the ruins of Rodenstein: even as
in our own Lancashire, a dark gigantic horseman rushes on a giant steed
in stormy nights, over “Horrock Moor;” indeed, a spot or tomb is still
shown where he used to disappear.
Thus are the “Spectres of the Brocken” invested with supernatural
dignity, in the minds of credulity and ignorance. And no wonder, for,
although the discoverer of this gigantic illusion, Mr. Jordan, might
convince the Germans of the nature of this shadow, how could the
credulous believe, when they beheld a _second figure_, a faint refracted
spectrum of the shadow, that it was any other than the shadow king of
the Brocken himself, frowning defiance on intruders.
And this reminds me of the confession of Gaffarel, in his “Unheard of
Curiosities” of the seventeenth century; in his quaint chapter on the
“readynge of the cloudes and whatever else is seene in the air, and of
hieroglyphicks in the cloudes.”
Among other miraculous illusions, as recorded by Cardanus, “An angel
once wafted on the cloudes above Millane, and great was the
consternation at its appearance, until Pellicanus, a philosopher, made
it plainly appear, that this angel was nothing else but the reflection
of an image of stone, that was on the top of the church of Saint Godart,
which was represented in the thick cloudes as in a looking-glasse.”
While I was in South Wales, in 1836, I conversed with a labourer in the
Cyfarthfa works at Merthyr Tydvil, an illiterate seer, who saw, three
times appearing before him, an unsubstantial tram-road; and on it a
train drawn by a horse, and in this, the dead body of a man. Twice this
_shadow_ emerged from the earth, and on the third ascent he looked on
it, and recognized the well-known face of a comrade. The man was horror
struck, but his friend lived to laugh _at him_.
When my friend, Mr. David Taylor, ascended the mountain that rises over
Chamouni, on the opposite side of the valley to Mont Blanc, his
magnified shadow was distinctly seen by him on the vapoury cloud that
floated between these giant rocks.
In February 1837, two gentlemen, on whom I confidently trust, were
standing on Calton Hill while a murky cloud hung over Edinburgh. Above
this veil Arthur’s Seat peeped out like a rocky island beneath two white
arches, like the lunar bows; and on the cloud itself, each gentleman saw
the shadow of his companion magnified to gigantic proportions.
The aeronaut, among other glories of his ascent, may by chance be
gratified by the shadow of his balloon on the face of a cumulus cloud;
thus did the Duke of Brunswick, who ascended with Mrs. Graham, in August
1836. And this is the analogous recital of Prince Puckler Muskau, in his
“Tutti Frutti.”
“We dipped insensibly into the sea of clouds which enveloped us like a
thick veil, and through which the sun appeared like the moon in Ossian.
This illumination produced a singular effect, and continued for some
time, till the clouds separated, and we remained swimming about beneath
the once more clear azure heavens. Shortly after we beheld, to our great
astonishment, a species of ‘Fata Morgana,’ seated upon an immense
mountain of clouds the colossal picture of the balloon and ourselves
surrounded by myriads of variegated rainbow tints. A full half hour the
spectral reflected picture hovered constantly by our side. Each slender
thread of the network appeared distended to the size of a ship’s cable,
and we ourselves two tremendous giants enthroned on the clouds.”
The phantom, which rode side by side with Turpin, might be a mere
reflected shadow in the mist; indeed, Burton writes that “Vitellio hath
such another instance of a familiar acquaintance of his, that after the
want of three or four nights’ sleep, as he was riding by a river-side,
saw another riding with him, and using all such gestures as he did, but
when _more light appeared, it vanished_.”
The principles of refraction are the sources of many an illusion, which
is startling even to those who are aware of them. The sea, the vessels
floating on its surface, the rocks and buildings on its shores, often
appear elevated far beyond their usual position: things are thus
presented to the eye which, in the direct course of the rays, would be
completely out of sight; and the praises bestowed on the Irish telescope
may not have been a bull, although we are assured that we may _see
through it round the corner_.
Baron Humboldt, Mr. Huddart, Professor Vince, Captain Scoresby and
others, will entertain you with these natural eccentricities, if you
read the learned letter of Sir David Brewster, on “Natural Magic;” and
he will teach you how easy is the solution of all these marvels, on the
principles of atmospheric reflection. Yet how many are there who are not
contented with the light of our philosophy, though it may fall like a
sunbeam on the mind. Like the recorder of the “Unheard-of Curiosities,”
they, at one time, confess the _optical illusion_, as when the Romans
“saw their navy in the clouds;” at another, as when Constantine
professed to see the “Crosse shining most gloriously in the aire,”
marked with the motto, “In hoc signo vinces,”—philosophy was silent,
and they believed it _might_ be divine.
But a mind in its _state of nature_ cannot know all this. If a savage
looked on the two white horses cut on the chalk hills of Berkshire and
of Wiltshire, on the white cross of the Saxons on the Bledlow Ridge in
Buckinghamshire, and on the white-leaf cross near Princes
Risboro’,—would he not deem them deities, or the work of a magician or
a devil?
When the sailors of Lord Nelson saw the bloated corpse of the murdered
Prince Caraccioli floating erect in the water directly towards their
ship, can we wonder they should deem it a _supernatural_ visitation?
When Franklin set his bells a ringing, by drawing down the electric
fluid from the thunder-cloud, and when Columbus foretold to the hour the
sun’s eclipse;—can we wonder that the transatlantic Indians listened,
as to one endued with preternatural knowledge, or that the other might
be thought superhuman? And when the king of Siam was assured that water
could be congealed into ice, on which the sounding skate could
glide,—can we wonder that he smiled in absolute disbelief of such a
change, and called the tale a lie.
Thus, when the peasants of Cardigan, who were not versed in Pontine
architecture, looked on the bridge which the monks of _Yspitty C’en
Vaen_ had thrown across the torrent of the _Monach_, they could not
believe it a work of human, but of _infernal_, hands, and called it the
“Devil’s Bridge.”
On my ascent of the Vann mountain in Brecon, there often came a mass of
limestone rolling down the precipice. “Ah sure,” said the old shepherd,
who was watching his fold on the mountain-side, “the fairies are at
their gambols, master, for they sometimes do play at bowls with these
chalk stones.” Such was his explanation; but, on my gaining another
ridge of the Brecon Beacon, I startled a whole herd of these fairies,
who scudded off as fast as their legs could carry them, having first
changed themselves into a flock of sheep.
There was once a caravan journeying from Nubia to Cairo, which met the
Savans attending on the expedition of Napoleon into Egypt, among whom
was Rigo, the painter. Struck with the deep character of expression in
the face of one of the Nubians, Rigo induced him, with gold, to sit for
his portrait. The African sat calmly perusing its progress until the
laying on of the _colours_, when, with a cry of terror, he rushed from
the house, and, to his awe-struck companions, affirmed that his head and
half his body had been cut off by an enchanter. And this impression was
not solitary, for an assemblage of the Nubians were equally
terror-struck, and (somewhat like those _monomaniacs_ who refuse to
drink water which reflects their faces, believing that they are
_swallowing their friends_,) could never be dispossessed of the notion
that the picture was formed of the loppings and toppings of the human
frame.
We believe these influences the more, because we see that, even to some
few men wiser than they, a leaning to superstition will warp a simple
fact into a wonder; and that mere sensitiveness of mind may work as
great a fear.
Suetonius tells us that Caligula and Augustus were the most abject
cowards in a thunder-storm; and the bishop of Langres D’Escaro fell in a
fainting-fit whenever an eclipse took place,—a weakness which at length
proved his death.
There was an old house in Angoulême, the “Chateau du Diable,” on the
spot where the sable fiend was wont to repair to enjoy his moonlight
walk. The house was never finished, for the devil, jealous of this
usurpation, like Michael Scott’s spirit, destroyed every night the walls
which had been erected during the day. At length the men abandoned their
work in despair. On the twenty-fifth night in May (1840), the ruined
windows seemed on an instant in brilliant illumination, which struck the
inhabitants of the little village of “Petit-Rochford” with wonder and
dismay. Some dauntless heroes, however, sallied forth with weapons to
storm the enchanted castle. In an upper room, lighted by eight blood-red
wax candles, they discovered a man of a strange and melancholy aspect,
tracing cabalistic figures on the sanded floor. He was conveyed to the
maire, and was proved to be a poor sawyer, named Favreau, who, bound by
a superstitious oath, self-administered, had thus created a sensation of
terror throughout a whole community.
In the records of the Harleian Miscellany, the curious reader may
discover one which might impress his mind with some terrific ideas of
the natural history of the south of England in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. It is styled, “The True and Wonderful.” The
portion of the MSS. to which I allude is the “Legend of the Serpent of
St. Leonard’s Forest.” This terrific legend of my own native town was a
favourite of my boyish days; it has moulted some feather of its once
awful interest, and is now but the shadow of a memory; and those who
were once converts to its reality, now laugh the legend to scorn.
ILLUSIONS OF ART.
“If in Naples
I should report this now, would they believe me?”
TEMPEST.
EV. The science of chemistry has unfolded most of the secrets of
_material_ miracles, as Psychology those of the intellect and senses.
Not that I would attempt thus to _explain_ your wonders of Palingenesy,
Astrophel; I will rather favour you with another batch, for I was once
fond of unkennelling these sly foxes.
It is solemnly attested by the noble secretary of a Duke of Guise, that,
in company with many scientific men, he saw the face of a person in his
blood, which had been given by a bishop, for experiment, to La Pierre,
the chemist, of Le Temple, near Paris.
There is an old book of one Dr. Garmann, “De Miraculis Mortuorum,” and
thus _he_ writes:—“When human salt, extracted and depurated from the
skull of a man, was placed in a water dish, there appeared next morning
in the mass, figures of men fixed to a cross;” and “when human skulls,
on which mosses had vegetated, were pounded, the family of the
apothecary who pounded them were alarmed in the night by strange and
terrific noises from the chamber.”
The body of the Cid, Ruy Diaz, as we read in Heywood’s “Hierarchie,” sat
in state at the altar of the cathedral at Toledo for ten years. A Jew
one day attempted, in derision, to pull him by the beard; but on the
first touch, the Cid started up, and in high resentment scared the
Israelite away by the unsheathing of his mighty sword. And Master
Planche has brought you legends from the church of Maria Taferl, in
Lower Austria, and other noted spots on the Danube.
When Bernini’s bust of Charles I. was being conveyed in a barge on the
Thames, from a strange bird there descended a drop of blood on the bust,
_which could never be effaced_.
This is nothing but a fact in nature _mystified_, and (like the growth
of the Christmas flowering thorn of Glastonbury, from the
_walking-staff_ of Joseph of Arimathæa) is too glaring to be
misconstrued.
Other of these blood miracles are still more easy of solution. The blood
spots from David Rizzio are _shown_ to this day in Holyrood: and it was
believed, that after the Irish massacre the blood of the victims then
slain on Portnedown Bridge, has indelibly stained its battlements. But
these spots are nothing but the brown vegetative stains which geology
has discovered on many fossils.
Now listen to Father Gregory of Tours. “A thief was committing sacrilege
at the tomb of Saint Helius, when the saint caught him by the skirt, and
held him fast.” Probably his garment hitched on a nail. Another old man,
while removing a stone from the grave of a saint, was in a moment struck
blind, dumb, and deaf. Probably the mephitic gases exhaling from the
tomb were the source of all this mystery.
Then, as to the impositions of the priesthood. In Naples was the blood
of Saint Januarius concealed in a phial, and on certain solemn days this
so called blood really became liquified; but it was effected secretly,
by chemical means; and I remember, the archbishop who confessed the
secret to the French general Championet, was exiled by the Vatican.
In the reign of Henry VIII. too (I quote from Hume), other bloody
secrets of this sort were unfolded. “At Hales, in the county of
Gloucester, there had been shown during several ages the blood of Christ
brought from Jerusalem; and it is easy to imagine the veneration with
which such a relic was regarded. A miraculous circumstance also attended
this relic. The sacred blood was not visible to any one in mortal sin,
even when set before him; and, till he had performed good works
sufficient for his absolution, it would not deign to discover itself to
him. At the dissolution of the monastery the whole contrivance was
detected. Two of the monks, who were let into the secret, had taken the
blood of a duck, which they renewed every week; they put it in a vial,
one side of which consisted of thin and transparent crystal, the other
of thick and opaque. When any rich pilgrim arrived, they were sure to
show him the dark side of the vial till masses and offerings had
expiated his offences, and then, finding his money, or patience, or
faith, nearly exhausted, they made him happy by turning the vial.”
But there is no end to relics in Italy. Even two hundred years ago, John
Evelyn makes out this catalogue of those he saw in St. Mark’s, at
Venice.
“Divers heads of saints, inchased in gold; a small ampulla, or glass,
with our Saviour’s blood; a great morsel of the real cross; one of the
nails; a thorn; a fragment of the column to which our Lord was bound
when scourged; a piece of St. Luke’s arm; a rib of St. Stephen; and a
finger of Mary Magdalene!”
Among the more innocent illusions of art, I may remind you of concave
and cylindrical mirrors and lenses, the magic lanthorn, “les ombres
chinoises,”and the phantasmagoria of Cagliastro, by which daggers appear
to strike the breast of the spectator, and images of objects in other
rooms are thrown on the walls of that in which we are sitting. A mirror,
thus accidentally placed, has afforded the evidence of murder within our
own time.
The duration of impressions on the eye, is another source of illusion.
An image remains on the retina, I believe, about the eighth of a second;
as it departs, if another object supplies its place in quick succession,
the two images form, as it were, a union, and become blended. A
knowledge of this law, in the ages of blind superstition, would have
placed an overwhelming weapon in the hands of priestcraft; in our day,
it is the source of rational and innocent pleasure, by the invention of
optical toys.
The whisking of an ignited stick produces a fiery circle—why? Because
from _excessive rapidity_ the rays from one point remain impressed on
the retina, until the revolution completes the circle.
The _Thaumatrope_, or wonder-turner, and the Phantasmascope, are
ingenious illustrations of this law of impression; so also is the
_whirling machine_, which so beautifully evinces the fact of white being
compounded of all the prismatic colours, blended in certain proportions.
The prismatic Iris is painted on a revolving circle; by excessive
rapidity of revolution, the colours are actually blended (as if mixed in
a vessel) on the retina, and the surface of the machine is white to the
eye.
To these may be added the combustion of phosphorus and other substances,
in oxygen: red, green, and blue lights, which change the angel face of
beauty into the visage of a demon; and the inhalation of noxious fumes
and gases, creating altogether a new train of phantoms in the world of
experimental magic, and developing the formerly occult mysteries of the
art of incantation.
Chance may also involve a seeming mystery of very awful import. Some
years ago the town of Reading was thus bewildered. On the loaves were
seen the most mysterious signs. On one, a skeleton’s head and
cross-bones; on another, the word “resurgam;” on another, a date of
death was marked in deep impressions. The loaves of course were, by some
mysterious influence, the vehicles of solemn warning from the Deity.
The baker was _churchwarden_ of St. Giles’s; his oven needed flooring,
and, winking at the sacrilege, he stole the flat inscribed tombstones
from the church-yard, and therewith floored his oven. From the
inscriptions of these stones the loaves took their mystic impressions.
In the reign of Edward the Martyr, during one of the synods assembled by
Dunstan, the floor of the chamber suddenly gave way, involving the death
of many of its members. It chanced that Dunstan had on that day warned
the king not to attend the synod, and the only beam which did not give
way was that on which his own chair was placed. This might be
coincidence merely, although I believe it was discovered that it was a
concerted trick; but the preservation of the king and the priest were,
of course, attributed to special interference of the Deity.
But there is one phenomenon in animal chemistry so rare, and indeed so
wonderful, that there are few even among philosophers who can give it
credence. This is “spontaneous combustion,” the result of an evolution
of phosphorated hydrogen from the blood; the remote cause of which may
be traced in some cases to the free use of alcohol. The records of these
cases are very circumstantial, especially the two most remarkable—that
of the Contessa Cornelia Bandi, of Cerena; and of Don Bertholi, an
ecclesiastic of Mount Valerius. But I check my wanderings into this maze
of mystery, in pity to your patience, fair ladies; for I perceive
Astrophel is again out of our sphere, and, enveloped in the cloud of his
own mystic meditations, will not know that this spontaneous combustion
is almost as wondrous a tale as his “Lady of the Ashes.”
ILLUSTRATION OF MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS.
“The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears: and sometimes voices.”
TEMPEST.
EV. So, you see, the effect of novelty is never more powerfully
displayed than by unusual impressions on the finer senses; that
appearances which the eye perceives, and which the mind cannot explain,
become phantoms, involving some special motive of wonder or dismay.
So eccentric impressions on the mechanism of the internal _ear_ may be
equally illusive. We have ghosts of the ear as well as of the eye.
As ignorance has often warped the optical phenomena which certain
atmospheric changes may produce, so peculiar and unusual sounds may be
accounted for on equally erroneous principles, especially if they chance
to resemble sounds which are the effects of daily or common causes.
As the Hebrew bards hung their harps by the waters of Babylon, the Irish
were wont, during their mourning for the death of a chief, to loosen
their harp-strings, and hang them on the trees; and while the wind swept
the strings, they ever believed that the harp itself sympathized in
their sorrow.
Thus, when the lament, or “ullaloo,” of these wild Milesians boomed
along the mountain glens, mingled with the coione, or funeral song, and
the poetical cadence blended with the winds, how easy to impart to it a
more than human source; and thus the dismal coronach among the Scottish
Highlands may be mystified into the “boding scream of the Banshee.”
It is a classical question whether the rebel giant, Typhœus, was crushed
by Jupiter beneath the island of Inarime, or Mount Ætna; but it might
readily be believed by the Sicilian, who had read this mythological
tale, that the volcanic convulsions arose from the vain struggles for
freedom of this monster, who sent forth flames from his mouth and eyes.
Within a mountain of Stony Arabia, to the north of Tor, very strange
noises are often heard as of the striking of an harmonic hammer, or the
sound of a humming-top, which completely infuriate the camels on the
mountain when they hear it. The Arabs believe these sounds to proceed
from a subterranean convent of monks, the priest of which, to assemble
them to prayer, strikes with a hammer on the nakous, a metallic rod
suspended in the air. M. Teetzen, who visited the spot, assures us that
the cause of all this is the mere rolling of volumes of sand from the
summit and sides of the mountain.
In the last century, I remember there was a legend current in the west
of England, of the “Bucca,” a demon whose howling was heard amid the
blast which swept along the shore. It was a sure foreboding of
shipwreck. The _prophecy_ was often but too fully verified, but the
voice of the demon was merely the premonitory gale from one certain
quarter, which is always the _avant-courier_ of a tempest.
I remember, when I was a child, the prevalent belief in Horsham, that,
at a certain hour of the night, the ghost of Mrs. Hamel was heard
groaning in her vault, beneath the great eastern window, and it required
some self-possession to walk, at midnight, around this haunted tomb; for
few would believe that the noises were nothing more than the wind
sweeping along the vaulted aisles of the church.
Those very extraordinary impositions on the sense of hearing at
Woodstock, in the truth of which, Astrophel, your faith was so firm,
were resorted to to create terror, and effect a political purpose. In
“the genuine History of the good Devil of Woodstock,” written in 1649,
we are told of the pealing of cannon, the barking of dogs, and neighing
of horses, and other mysterious sounds, which certainly created the
greatest wonder and anxiety, until “funny Joe Collins” explained and
demonstrated all the mechanical process of this imposture. You will find
also the account of these gems of marvellous history in Sinclair and
Plott, and the chronicles of those days, which eclipse the haunted house
of Athenodorus in Pliny.
In the 16th century, Master Samuel Stryck discussed the whole question
regarding these haunted houses, and warnings of ghosts, and belief in
the reality of apparitions, in his work published at Francofurt, “De
Jure Spectrorum,” and thus he runs up the question of damages: “If the
house be haunted, the tenant might bring in a set-off against his rent,
thus—‘Deduct for spectres in bed and bed-room, and elsewhere, 5_l._
10_s._’”
The drama of the Drummer, by Addison, I believe was founded on the
mystery of the “Demon of Tedworth,” which beat the drum in the house of
Mr. Mompesson. This also was the source of extreme wonder, until the
drummer was tried, and convicted, and Mr. Mompesson confessed that the
mystery was the effect of contrivance.
The author of the Pandemonium, or Devils’ Cloyster, garnished his book
with tales of this nature. In 1667, when he slept in “my Lady chamber,”
in the house of a nobleman, he was waited on by a succession of spectral
visitors; the explanation of which Ferriar and Hibbert, and others, have
wrought for you, if you deign to turn over the leaves of their natural
philosophy.
The impostures of the Stockwell miracles of 1772 are recorded, with
other curiosities, in the “Every-day Book” of Hone, the skilful and
unwearied collector of our ancient mysteries.
The Cock-lane ghost is another instance of illusion in the ears of the
credulous. Although Dr. Johnson, the Bishop of Salisbury, and other
learned Thebans, sat in solemn judgment to develop its mystery, I
believe many were so in love with the marvellous, that they regretted
the unravelling of the plot, and still believed; as Commodore Trunnion,
in despite of evidence as to the fluttering in his chimney, swore that
he knew a devil from a jackdaw, as well as any man in the kingdom.
ASTR. I wonder, Evelyn, at your veneration for the classics; for are
they not replete with stories, which, if true, (and I believe them so,)
will undermine all your philosophy? When Pausanias writes of the ghosts
at Marathon, of horses and men who were heard rushing on to battle four
hundred years after they were slain; and Plutarch of the spectres and
supernatural sounds in the baths at Chæronea, the scene of bloodshed and
murder;—what may be their motives, but the record of acknowledged
incidents?
EV. The classics, if they might rise up and listen, would believe me,
dear Astrophel, so clear and simple is the source of these illusions.
Of the credulity of the Romans I have spoken; but even in minds not
prone to superstition, deep mental impression, or constant dwelling on a
subject of interest, will effect this illusion of a sense.
In Holy Island, near the ruins of the convent (in the dungeons of which
romance has decided the fate of Constance Beverley), was a small
fortress of invalid soldiers. One of them once conducted a visitor to a
steep rock, under which, he said, there must be a profound cavern, as
the sound of a bell was distinctly heard every night at twelve o’clock,
deep in the bowels of the earth. The traveller soon discovered that the
mysterious sound had _never been heard_ by the oldest inmates, _until_
the poem of “Marmion” appeared, in which the condemnation and the death
of Constance in the dungeons of the cathedral are so forcibly described.
This is, however, a _metaphysical_ source of mystery.
In volcanic regions, as in that of the Solfatara, near Naples, these
strange and subterranean sounds are not unfrequently heard; and in the
rocky and caverned coasts of our own island also, where dwell the
unlettered and the superstitious, by whose wild and romantic fancy these
noises are readily magnified into the supernatural.
Camden, in his “Britannia,” informs us,—“In a rock in the island of
Barry, in Glamorganshire, there is a narrow chink, or cleft, to which if
you put your ear you shall perceive all such sorts of noises as you may
fancy smiths at work under ground, strokes of hammers, blowing of
bellows, grinding of tools.” At Worm’s Head, in the peninsula of Gower
in Glamorganshire, these sounds are, even now, often heard; and it
requires but a moderate stretch of imagination to create all this
cyclopean imagery, when the sea is rolling in cavities under our feet,
and the tone of its voice is magnified by confinement and repercussion.
From some such source probably sprung the fable of “the Syrens,” two
solitary maidens, who, by their dulcet voices, so enchanted the
navigators who sailed by their rocks, that they forgot home and the
purpose of their voyage, and died of starvation. Ulysses, instructed by
his mother Circe, broke the spell, and the ladies threw themselves into
the sea with vexation. This fable, like many of the classic mysteries,
may be thus topographically explained.
In the grand duchy of Baden, near Friburg, is a very curious example of
an Æolian lyre, constructed, as the traditions of the mountains will
have it, by the very _genius loci_ himself.
In a romantic chasm of these mountains, most melodious sounds are
sometimes heard from the top of fir-trees overhanging a waterfall. The
current of air, ascending and descending through the chasm, receives a
counter impulse from an abrupt angle of the rock, and, acting on the
tops of the string-like branches of the trees, produces the soft tones
of the Æolian harp, the effect of which is much enhanced by the gushing
of the waterfall.
There may be in these natural sounds the source of many fables of the
ancients: the moaning of the wind among the branches of a pine-grove
might be the wailing of a hamadryad.
Among the granite rocks on the Orinoco, Baron Humboldt heard the
strangest subterranean sounds; and at the palace of Carnac, some of
Napoleon’s _savans_ heard noises exactly resembling the breaking of a
string. It is curious that Pausanias applies exactly this expression to
the sounds of the Memnonian granite,—the colossal head of Memnon, which
was believed to speak at sunrise. He writes,—“It emits sounds every
morning at sunrise, which can be compared only to that of the breaking
of the string of a lyre.”
Juvenal has the same notion, but he has multiplied the sounds.
The mystery of Memnon may be readily explained, by the temperature and
density of the _external_ air differing from that _within_ the crevices,
and the effort of the current to promote an equilibrium; yet these
simple sounds were in course of time warped into articulate syllables,
and at length obtained the dignity of an oracular voice. And in these
illustrations, fair Castaly, you have the clue to all the mysteries of
demonia and fairyland.
To these natural illusions, let me add the triumphs of phonic mechanism
and the peculiar faculty of the ventriloquist, the secrets of which the
science of Sir David Brewster has so clearly developed. The wondrous
heads of Memnon, and Orpheus, and Æsculapius, the machines of Albertus
Magnus, and Sylvester, are now held but as curious specimens of art, and
are indeed eclipsed by the speaking toys of Kratzenstein, and Kempelin,
and Willis, and Savart, and the ingenious instruments of Wheatstone.
Of ventriloquism, it is not my purpose to speak; but there is a wonder
of our time in the person of young Richmond, which, with many
distinguished physiologists, I examined at the _conversazione_ of Dr.
E——, in C—— Street.
When Richmond sat himself to _perform_, we heard a subdued murmur in his
throat for about half-a-minute, when suddenly a sound issued of the most
exquisite and perfect melody, closely resembling, but exceeding in
delicacy, the finest musical box. The mouth was widely open, and the
performance was one of considerable effort. The sounds were a mystery to
us at the time, for they were perfectly unique, and are yet not
satisfactorily explained. It is decided, however, by some, that the
upper opening of the windpipe may be considered as a Jew’s-harp, or
Æolina, of very exquisite power, _behind_ the cavity of the mouth,
instead of being placed _between the teeth_.
ASTR. And thus concludes our lecture on special mechanics.
EV. I professed no more, Astrophel. It may be the privilege of the
_sacred poet_ to soar beyond the confines of our own planetary system:
“Into the heav’n of heav’ns he has presum’d,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air.”
But the study of philosophy is nature and nature’s _known laws_. If we
lean, for one moment, to the credence of a _modern_ miracle, there is an
end to our philosophy. Revealed truth, and the immaterial nature of the
mystical essence within us, we may not lightly discourse on. The sacred
histories of Holy Writ, and the miracles recorded in its pages—the
hand-writing in the hall of Belshazzar, the budding of Aaron’s rod, the
standing still of the sun upon Gibeon, and, above all, the miracles of
the Redeemer, are of too holy a nature to be submitted to the test of
philosophical speculation: they rest on the _conviction_ of conscience
and the heart; a proof far more sublime than may ever be elicited by the
ingenuity of man, or the workings of his sovereign reason.
FAIRY MYTHOLOGY.
“I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
ASTR. Why so thoughtful, fair Castaly? I fear Evelyn has clipped your
sylphid wings, and made a mortal of you.
CAST. Your finger on your lips, Astrophel; for the world, not a syllable
of confession to Evelyn.
I could think I heard the murmurs of a host of fairies streaming up to
earth from elf-land, in fear of libels on their own imperial sovereignty
by this matter-of-fact scholar.
ASTR. Why did we listen to his philosophy? why not still believe the
volumes of our antique legends; that those which tell the influence of
fairies and demons on man’s life, have their source in the real history
of a little world of creatures more ethereal than ourselves? Perhaps
even the bright thoughts of a poet’s fancy are not his own creation.
CAST. We must hear no more, although Evelyn will still convert syrens
into rocks and trees, and make a monster out of a mist or a
thunder-cloud. The sunlight is sleeping on Wyndcliff, and the breeze,
creeping among the leaves, seems to me a symphony meet to conjure the
phantoms of romantic creatures. Evelyn is far away among the rocks; let
us steal the moment to revel in our dreams of faëry. Even now, are we
not in a realm of Peristan? Yon mossy carpet of emerald velvet, strewed
with pearls and gold, may be the presence-chamber of Titania; and fays
are dancing within their ring, which the silvery beech o’ercanopies so
shadily; and the chaunting of their _viralays_, or green-songs, comes
like the humming of a zephyr’s wing flitting o’er the mouth of a lily.
Ariel is lying asleep in her cinque-spotted cowslip bell, and the fays
are feeding on their fairy-bread, made of the pollen of the jasmine; and
Oberon quaffs to his queen the drops that hang on the purple lip of the
violet, or glitter in the honied bell of the hyacinth, or that purest
crystal of the lotus, that brings life to the fainting Indian in the
desert, or the liquid treasure of the _nepenthe_.
We pray you, Astrophel, recount to us, now we are in the humour, the
infancy of bright and dark spirits; for you have dipped deep, I know,
into the Samothracian mysteries.
ASTR. Know, then, that the birth-time of mythology and romance was in
the primeval ages of man. The ancient heathens believed in the legends
of their deities, as we have credence in modern history and biography;
indeed, the _romance_ of the moderns was with the ancients _truth_. They
had implicit faith in the presence of their gods, and that they might
perchance meet them in the groves and hills, which were consecrated to
their worship, and adorned with sculpture and idols in honour of the
deities. Hence the profusion of their names and nature, recorded in the
pages of the olden time, when the scribe traced his reed letter on the
papyrus.
From the climes of the sun came the orient tales of genie, and deeves,
and peris; and of naiad, and nereid, and dryad, and hamadryad, from
Greece and Rome. In the Koran shone forth the promised houris of
Mahomet’s paradise; and its mysteries were echoed to us from the lips
and tables of pilgrims and crusaders, who had blazoned their red cross
in the holy wars. Thus was romance cradled and bosomed in religion.
From the legends of the East, spring the fairy romances of our own days.
The _Peri_ of Persia was the denizen of Peristan, as the _Ginn_ of
Arabia was of Ginnistan, and the _Fairy_ of England of Fairyland; and we
have their synonyms in the _Fata_ of Italy and the _Duerga_ of northern
Europe.
These spirits of romance are almost innumerable; for thus saith the
“Golden Legend:” that “the air is full of sprites as the sonnebeams ben
full of small motes, which is small dust or poudre.”
The alchemyst Paracelsus asserts that the elements were peopled with
life; the air with _sylphs_ and _sylvains_, the water with _ondines_,
the earth with _gnomes_, and the fire with _salamanders_. And Martin
Luther coincides with these assertions; nay, hath not Master Cross of
Bristol illustrated the creed, and shown, by his galvanic power, an
animated atom starting forth, as if by magic, from a flint, a seeming
inorganic mass?
The sagas, or historical records of Scandinavia, of the Celtic, Scaldic,
and Runic mythology, assert that the duergas or dwarfs, which are the
Runic fairies, sprang from the worms in the body of the giant Ymor,
slain, according to the Edda, by Odin and his brother; and Spenser has
left a very interesting genealogical record of the faëry brood, in that
romantic allegory of the Elizabethan age, the “Faëry Queen.” Elf, the
man fashioned and inspired by Prometheus, was wandering over the earth
alone, and in the bosky groves of Adonis he discovered a lady of
marvellous beauty—Fay. From this romantic pair sprang the mighty race
of the fairies, and we have wondrous tales of the prowess of their
heroic princes. Elfiline threw a golden wall round the city of
Cleopolis; Elfine conquered the Gobbelines; Elfant built Panthea, of
purest crystal; Elfan slew the giant twins; and Elfinor spanned the sea
with a bridge of glass.
CAST. Spenser, I presume, borrowed _his_ romance from Italy. We read
that the rage and party spirit of the potent Guelphs and Ghibellines
rankled even in their nurseries. The nurses were wont to frighten the
children into obedience with these hated names, which, corrupted to the
epithets of elf and goblin, were hence-forth applied to fairies and
phantoms.
ASTR. This story is itself a mere fiction. Ere the period of these feuds
of party, the term _Elfen_ (and Dance identifies this with the Teutonic
_Helfen_,) was a common epithet of the Saxon spirits: Weld-elfen were
their dryads; Zeld-elfen their field-fairies, &c.
The American Indians to this day have faith in the presidencies of
spirits over those lakes, trees, and mountains, and even fishes, birds,
and beasts, which excel in magnitude. The orient Indian, too, at this
hour, peoples the forests with his gods; and peacocks, and squirrels,
and other wild creatures, are thus profanely deified.
The legends of later days have quaintly blended the classic with the
fairy mythology. Hassenet tells us that Mercurius was called the Prince
of Fairies; and Chaucer sings of Pluto, the King of Fayrie; and, in the
romance of the Nine Champions, Proserpine sits crowned among the
fairies. The great zoologist, Pliny, writes in his Natural History, that
“you often encounter fairies that vanish away like phantasies.” And
Baxter believed that “fairies and goblins might be as common in the air,
as fishes in the sea.”
As the Peri could not enter Paradise in consequence of the errors of her
“recreant race,” so the elves could not enjoy eternity without marrying
a Christian; and on this plea they came up to the daughters of men. And
we read, in the tenets of the Cabala, that, by these earthly weddings,
they could enjoy the privileges and happiness of each other’s nature.
But these unnatural unions were not always happy. There is, in our old
chronicles, a tradition of a marriage between one of the counts of Anjou
and a fair demonia, which entailed misery and commission of crime on the
noble house of Plantagenet.
Now there are appointed times when the influence of the spirit fades for
a season. It was the moment of the eclipse, among the American Indians
and the African blacks; in Ireland, it is the feast of the Beltane; in
Scotland, this immunity came over the mortal life on Hogmanay, or
New-year’s Eve, and during the _general assemblies_ of these mystic
spirits of the world.
In Britain, it was on the eve of the first of May, the second of
November, and on All Souls’ Day. At these times, indeed, they might be
induced to divulge the secrets of their mysterious freemasonry.
In Germany, on May-day, when the unearthly rendezvous was on the dark
mountain of the Hartz, and on Halloween, in Caledonia, even the secrets
of time and futurity were unfolded by the spirits to a mortal, if one
were found so bold as to repair on these festivals to their unhallowed
haunts.
If a mortal enters the secret abodes of the Daoine Shi, in Scotland, and
anoints his eyes with their charmed ointment, the gift of seeing that
which is to all others invisible is imparted; but this must be kept
secret, for the Men of Peace will blind the second-sighted eye, if once
they are recognized on earth by a mortal.
In the gloomy forests of Germany rose the legends of _Kobolds_, and
_Umbriels_, and _Wehrwolves_, the _Holts Konig_, the _Waldebach_, the
_Reiberzahl_, and the _Schattenman_, the _Hudekin_, the _Erl Konig_, and
the beautiful naiad, the _Nixa_. The devil himself was believed to be a
gnome king; for when the Elector of Saxony offered Martin Luther the
profit of a mine, he refused it, “lest by accepting it he should tempt
the devil, who is lord of those subterraneous treasures, to tempt
_him_.”
Then we have the _Putseet_, or Puck of the Samogitæ, on the Baltic; the
_Biergen Trold_, or _Skow_, of Iceland; and those mermaids which gambol
around the Faroe Islands. We read in the _Danske Folksaga_, that these
“merrows” cast their skins like the boa, and in that condition are
changed into human beings, till their scales are restored to them. And
the Shetlanders implicitly believe that awful storms instantly arise on
the murder of one of these sea-maids.
There was the Norse goddess, Freya, which, like the Dragon of Wantley,
and the Caliban of the “still vexed Bermoothes,” blasted the fair face
of nature, and far eclipsed the giant-serpent off Cape Saint Anne, or
the _kraken_ of Norway; and even that monstrous sea-snake, the
_jormungandz_ (so conspicuous among the wild romances of the Edda),
whose coils entwined the globe. Thor angled for this snake with a bull’s
head, but it was not to be caught, being reserved for some splendid
achievement in the grand conflict which is to herald the
_Ragnarockr_,—the twilight of the gods.
Among the mountains of our own island we have a profuse legion. In
Wales, the _Tylwth Tag_ and the Pooka; and many a hollow in the mountain
where these strange animals resort, is called _Cwm Pooka_; and the
wondrous cavern of the Meltè, in Breconshire, was believed to be haunted
by this little pony.
In Ireland, they have a _Merrow_, the Runic sea, or oigh-maid; the
_Banshee_, or fairy prophet; the _Fear-Dearg_, the Irish Puck; the
_Clurricane_, a sottish pigmy; and the _Pooke_, the wild pony.
CAST. These must have been a prolific as well as a wandering brood, for
I also have seen many caverns in the rocky districts, called _Poola
Phouka_, in which these mischievous little creatures concealed
themselves.
ASTR. In Man there is a hill called the “Fairy Hill,” a tumulus of the
Danes, which is thought to be a nocturnal revel-place for the Man
fairies which preside over their fisheries.
Scotland was a fertile mother of monsters: the _Ourisks_ or _Uriskin_,
the goblin-satyrs or shaggy men; the _Brownies_; the _Kelpies_, or
river-demons; the _Bargheists_; the _Red-cap_; the _Daoine Shi_, or Men
of Peace; the _Glaslic_, or noontide hag, which haunted the district of
Knoidart; and the _Lham-Dearg_, or red-hand, in the forests of Glenmore,
and Rothiemurchus; the _Bodach-Glas_; and the _Pixies_, or small grey
men.
CAST. There is an islet among the Scottish Hebrides, which is called the
Isle of Pigmies; and I remember a chapel there, in which very minute
human bones were some time ago discovered. Think you, Astrophel, that
these were the skeletons of pixies?
ASTR. I cannot think the notion irrational; there are dwarfs and giants
even in our days. The _Bosgis-men_ of the Cape, and the Patagonians of
South America, prove the existence of beings of another stature; and
perchance of another _nature_, in days long agone. The Laplander and
Bushman of the Cape are little more than three feet high; and that there
were giants _too_, is proved by the fossil bones which have been found
in the strata of our earth.
CAST. Then we have really dwindled in our growth, and Adam was really a
hundred and twenty-three feet nine inches high, and Eve a hundred and
eighteen feet nine inches and three quarters, as we are solemnly
informed by our profane chronicles? Nay, even the story may be true of
the Pict, who bit off the end of the mattock, with which some slave of
science was opening his coffin, and thundered forth this exclamation: “I
see the degeneracy of your race by the smallness of your little finger.”
IDA. If Evelyn were here, he would ask why we have no skeletons of
giants as of lizards in our secondary rocks; and he would tell this
learned Theban, Castaly, that Cuvier decided these fossils, which seemed
to be the _débris_ of a giant race, to be the bones of elephants. The
legends of Athenæus are probably a fable, and the fossils of the pigmies
were, I dare say, the petrified skeletons of “span-long, wee
unchristen’d bairns.”
Your allusion to the brownies, reminds me of the monstrous errors which
have crept into our legends from the mingling of _two stories_, or the
warping of plain facts in natural history. And indeed I interrupt you to
recount, in proof of this, some fragments from “Surtees’ Durham.”
“Every castle, tower, or manor-house has its visionary inhabitants. ‘The
Cauld Lad of Hilton’ belongs to a very common and numerous class, the
brownie or domestic spirit, and seems to have possessed no very
distinctive attributes. He was seldom seen, but was heard nightly by the
servants _who slept in the great hall_. If the kitchen had been left in
perfect order, they heard him amusing himself by breaking plates and
dishes, hurling the pewter in all directions, and throwing every thing
into confusion. If, on the contrary, the apartment had been left in
disarray, (a practice which the servants found it most prudent to
adopt,) the indefatigable goblin arranged every thing with the greatest
precision. This poor _esprit folet_, whose pranks were at all times
perfectly harmless, was at length banished from his haunts by the usual
expedient of presenting him with a suit of clothes. A green cloak and
hood were laid before the kitchen fire, and the domestics sat up
watching at a prudent distance. At twelve o’clock the spirit glided
gently in, stood by the glowing embers, and surveyed the garments
provided for him very attentively, tried them on, and seemed delighted
with his appearance, frisking about for some time, and cutting several
summersets and gambados, till on hearing the first cock, he twitched his
mantle tight about him and disappeared with the usual valediction:
“‘Here’s a cloak, and here’s a hood,
The cauld lad of Hilton will do no more good.’”
The genuine Brownie, however, is supposed to be, _ab origine_, an
unembodied spirit; but the boy of Hilton has, with an admixture of
English superstition, been identified with the apparition of an
unfortunate domestic, whom one of the old chiefs of Hilton slew at some
very distant period, in a moment of wrath or intemperance. The baron
had, it seems, on an important occasion, ordered his horse, which was
not brought out so soon as he expected. He went to the stable, found the
boy loitering, and seizing a hay-fork, struck him, though not
intentionally, a mortal blow. The story adds, that he covered his victim
with straw till night, and then threw him into a pond, where the
skeleton of a boy was (in confirmation of the tale) discovered in the
last baron’s time.
I am by no means clear that the story may not have its foundation in the
fact recorded in the following inquest:
“Coram Johannem King, coron., Wardæ de Chestræ, apud Hilton, 3 Jul. 7 Jac.
1609.”
(And here follows a report in Latin.)
Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that the unhousel’d spirit of Roger
Skelton, whom in the hay-field the good Hilton ghosted, took the liberty
of playing a few of those pranks which are said by writers of grave
authority to be the peculiar privilege of those spirits only who are
shouldered untimely by violence from their mortal tenements.
“Ling’ring in anguish o’er his mangled clay,
The melancholy shadow turn’d away,
And follow’d through the twilight grey.”
A free pardon for the above manslaughter appears on the rolls of Bishop
James, dated 6th September, 1609.
I will only add that, among the Harleian MSS., the same legend is told
with some variations, in which this “cauld lad” is termed the “_Pale
Boy_ of Hilton.”
This confusion of _our_ mythology is as conclusive of the fiction of all
the mysterious legends of the moderns, as the jumble which the classic
poets have made of _their_ monsters. If we read Lempriere, the genealogy
of the classic monster is involved in a maze of impious confusion; and
the mythology of _Chimera_, and _Echidna_, and _Typhon_, _Geryon_, and
_Cerberus_, and the _Hydra_ and _Bellerophon_, and _Ortha_ and the
_Sphynx_, and the _Nemæan Lion_, and the _Minotaur_, and the demoniac
records of their origin, it is almost profanation even to reflect on.
But when Martianus Capella tells us that devils have aërial bodies, that
they live and die, and yet, if cut asunder, soon re-unite; and when
Bodine asserts, in his “Solution of Natural Theology,” that spirits and
angels are _globular_, as being of the most perfect shape, I confess I
feel more disposed to smile at their imposture than to frown, were it
not for their utter worthlessness.
Yet all the allegories which adorn our legends are not so remote from
truth or nature. The vampires are said to have gloated over the
sacrifices of human life, while the gouls and afrits, the hyenas in
human shape, not only fed on dead carcases, but, by a special
transmigration, took possession of a corpse. On this fable is founded
the monstrous legend of “Assuet and Ajut.” I confess it monstrous; but
indeed there is little exaggeration even in these tales of horror, if we
may believe, for once, Master Edmund Spenser, in that part of his record
of the rebellion of Desmond, in Ireland, which treats of the Munster
massacre:—“Out of every corner of the woodes and glennes, they came
creeping forth upon their handes, for their legges could not bear them;
they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghostes, crying out
of their graves: they eat the dead carrions—happy were they could they
find them—yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very
carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves.” That episode
also, in the “Inferno” of Dante, in which Count Ugolino wears out days
and nights in gnawing the skull of an enemy, may well seem a fiction;
but even this hellish repast is but a prototype of the savage rage for
scalping and cannibalism among the Indian hordes of America.
DEMONOLOGY.
“Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape—”
HAMLET.
ASTR. Now from the holy records, from the creed of the Magus Zoroaster,
from the Greek, and Roman, and other legends, how clear is the influence
of ethereal beings, of angels and demons, on man’s life; and of the
imparted power of _exorcism_! In allusion to this divine gift to
Solomon, Josephus has the following story:—“God also enabled him to
learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and
sanative to men. And this method is of great force unto this day, for I
have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazer,
releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and
his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The
manner of the cure was this. He put a ring, that had a root of one of
those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after
which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the man fell
down immediately, he adjured him to return into him no more, making
still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he
composed. And when Eleazer would persuade and demonstrate to the
spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way off a cup or
bason full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man,
to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left
the man.”
The gods of the Greeks and the Latins, the _lares_ and _lemures_, or
hearth-spirits, the pagan and the Christian elves, were ever held as
delegated agents of the Deity, who worked, not by a fiat, but by an
instrument. Such were the _Cemies_ of the American islanders, and the
_Kitchi_ and _Matchi Manitou_ of the Indians; and, if we consult Father
Borri, we shall learn that in Cochin China _Lucifer_ himself promenaded
the streets in _human_ shape.
Psellus records six kinds of devils; and the arrangements of Agrippa,
and other theologians, enumerate nine sorts of evil spirits, as you may
read in one of old Burton’s eccentric chapters.
The mythology of the _Baghvat Geeta_, the sacred record of the Hindoo
theists, is based on the notion of good and evil spirits, the emblems of
virtue and of vice under the will and power of Brahma. Indeed, the
Hindoo mythology is but that of the classic in other words. _Agnee_, the
god of fire, _Varoon_, the god of the ocean, _Vayoo_, the god of the
wind, and _Cama_, the god of love, are but other names for Jupiter, and
Neptune, and Œolus, and Cupid.
The creed of Zoroaster asserts a perpetual conflict between the good and
evil deity, the types of religious knowledge and ignorance. The southern
Asiatics are people of _good_ principle, and the northern nations people
of _evil_ principle. And why may not the Persian thus coincide with
Bacon himself, who in his book “De Dignitate,” confesses his belief in
good and bad spirits, in charms, and prophecies, and the varieties of
natural magic. Or is it inconsistent that the Hindoos should incarnate
the malignant disease, small pox, in the person of the deity
_Mah-ry-umma_, of whose lethal influence they lived in abject fear.
IDA. In the holy records, it is true, we read that demons were even
permitted to enter the bodies of other beings, and that when they had so
established a possession, by divine command they went out of those
possessed, as, for sacred example, into the herd of the Gadarenes; that
they were also commissioned, for the fulfilment of the inscrutable will
of the Creator, to try the endurance of Job, and even to tempt the
divinity of the Saviour, and that they were the immediate cause of
madness and other sad afflictions.
I do fear, Astrophel, that there is much danger, _now_, in this
_embodying_ of a demon; and that we too often model our modern
principles, on the proud presumption of still possessing that miraculous
power of exorcism. With sorrow may I confess, that the holy truths of
Scripture, so clearly evincing a _special_ purpose, should have been
ever warped, by worse than inquisitorial bigotry, into the motive for
cruelties unparalleled. From the Scripture histories of demoniac
possession have arisen the coercion and cruelties, which once marked
with an indelible stain the records of our own madhouses; where chains
and lashes, inflicted by the demons of science, have driven the moody
wretch into a raving maniac, when a light hand and a smile would have
brought back the angel reason to the mind.
Impersonation is the grand source of many similar errors. The demon,
which, since the light of the Christian dispensation has brooded in
man’s heart and mind, is his own base passion, which incites him to shut
his eyes to this holy light, and follow deeds of evil; to be a slavish
worshipper in the hall of _Arimanes_. With this profane homage, we court
our evil passions, to betray and destroy the soul. And this is the
interpretation of an allegory in the profane legends of the Talmud—that
Lilis, the wife of Adam, ere the creation of Eve, brought forth none but
demons; the origin, indeed, of moral evil.
There are many popular stories which bear a moral to this end: that the
evil spirit is powerless over the heart, if it be not encouraged and
invited; and, alas! the alluring masque under which evil looks on us, is
often but too certain to charm us to its influence, or we are too
thoughtless to beware the danger. Thus the disguised enchanter enters
into the palace of the Sultan Mesnar, (in “The Tales of the Genii,”) and
thus the gentle Christabel of Coleridge leads the false Geraldine over
that threshold, which she could not cross without the help of confiding
and unsuspecting innocence.
CAST. The crones of retired villages have not yet yielded their belief
in fairy influence.
Among the low Irish it is believed that (as the _nympholepts_ of old who
had looked upon Pan, sealed an early doom), the paralytic is
_fairy-struck_; and superstition has inspired them with a belief in the
influence of the _evil eye_ or _glamourie_, especially in the vicinity
of Blackwater.
I remember, when our wanderings among the Wicklow mountains led us
through the dark glen of the Dargle, the implicit faith of the Irish
women in the charm of amulets and talismans. Like the fabled glance of
the basilisk, the evil eye is bestowed on some unhappy beings from their
very birth; nay, the spell infests the cabin in which they herd. To
avert this fatal influence from the children, a charm is suspended
around their necks, which when blessed by the priest is called a
“gospel.”
When a happy or evil star shines at a birth, it is the eye of a cherub
or a demon, smiling or frowning on the destiny of the babe; and when
happiness or misery predominates in a life, it is a minister of good or
ill that blesses or inflicts. There is one beautiful scrap of this
mythology—the thrill of holy joy which the Irish mother feels when her
infant smiles in its sleep; for she _knows_ it is a holy angel
whispering in its ear.
In our own island they are often celebrated as the very pinks of
hospitality.
In Cornish history, we read how Anne Jeffries was fed for six months by
the small green people. And in yonder forest of Dean, (as writeth
Gervase, the Imperial Chancellor, in his “Otia Imperialia,”) “In a grovy
lawn there is a little mount, rising in a point to the height of a man,
on which knights and other hunters are used to ascend, when fatigued
with heat and thirst, to seek some relief for their wants. The nature of
the place and of the business is, however, such, that whoever ascends
the mount must leave his companions and go quite alone. When alone, he
was to say, as if speaking to some other person, ‘I thirst,’ and
immediately there would appear a cup-bearer in an elegant dress, with a
cheerful countenance, bearing in his outstretched hand a large horn,
adorned with gold and gems, as was the custom among the most ancient
English. In the cup, nectar of an unknown but most delicious flavour was
presented; and when it was drunk, all heat and weariness fled from the
glowing body, so that one would be thought ready to undertake toil,
instead of having toiled. Moreover, when the nectar was taken, the
servant presented a towel to the drinker to wipe his mouth with, and
then, having performed his office, he waited neither for recompense for
his services, nor for questions, nor inquiry.”
This frequent and daily action had, for a very long period, of old times
taken place among the ancient people, till one day a knight of that
city, when out hunting, went thither, and having called for drink, and
gotten the horn, did not, as was the custom, and as in good manners he
should have done, return it to the cup-bearer, but kept it for his own
use. But the illustrious Earl of Gloucester, when he learned the truth
of the matter, condemned the robber to death, and presented the horn to
the most excellent king, Henry the Elder; lest he should be thought to
have approved of such wickedness, if he had added the rapine of another
to the store of his private property.
But the fairies might rue their kindness, if you frowned so darkly on
them, Astrophel. They would fear the influence of your spells, for there
is blight and mildew in that glance. At the banquet of the fairies, if
the eye of the _seer_ but look on them, the romance is instantly at an
end: the nymphs of beauty are changed into withered carles and crones,
and the splendour of Elfin-land is turned to dust and ashes.
IDA. As a set-off against the _virtues_ of your fairies, Castaly, you
forget there was a propensity to _mischief_. They were rather fond, like
the Daoine Shi, of stealing unchristened babes, and of chopping and
changing these innocents, thence called _changelings_. On this fable
your own Shakspere has wrought the quarrel of Oberon and Titania:—
“A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling.”
I am willing, dearest, that the _poet_ shall make a good market of these
fictions; but superstitious ignorance may make a sad and cruel work of
it, even among your romantic Irish peasantry.
A few months since, on the demesne of Heywood (as we learn from the
“Tipperary Constitution”), the death of a child, six years old, was
accomplished with a wantonness of purpose almost incredible. Little
Mahony was afflicted with spinal disease, and, like many other deformed
children, possessed the gift,—in this case the _fatal_ gift,—of acute
intellect. For this quality, it was decided that he was not the son of
his reputed father, but a fairy changeling. After a solemn convocation,
it was decreed that the elfin should be scared away: and the mode of
effecting this was, by holding the child on a hot shovel, and then
pumping cold water on his head! This had the effect of extorting a
confession of his imposture, and a promise to send back the _real_
Johnny Mahony; but ere he could return to elfland and perform this
promise, _he died_. But who is he sitting at your ear, Castaly?
CAST. Sir, is this fair? You have played the eaves-dropper. Why come you
here?
EV. To counsel you to silence on these mysteries, sweetest Castaly:
remember the fate of Master Kirke, of Aberfoyle, for his dabbling in
elfin matters, which you may read in Sir Walter’s “Demonology.” Yet I
will not flout all your fayrie legends; there may be _innocent_
illusions, that carry with them somewhat of morality and
retribution,—seeing that there are good and bad spirits, which reward
and punish mortality. But, in sooth, I never think of fairyland, without
remembering that good Sir Walter, as sheriff of Selkirkshire, once took
the deposition of a shepherd, who affirmed that he saw the good
neighbours sitting under a hill-side: when, lo! it was proved that these
were the _puppets of a showman_, stolen and left there by some Scotch
mechanics. And, better still, the story of the Mermaid of Caithness, as
related to Sir Humphrey Davy, and recorded in his “Salmonia;”—the
mermaids, as I take it, being nearly allied to the _Nereid_, or
Sea-fairy, and the reality of one about as true as that of the other.
Nature is wild and beautiful enough, without these false creations. Read
her _truth_, fair lady, and leave the _fables_ to the fairies. There is
not a ripple or a stone that is not replete with scientific interest,
and yields not a study that both ennobles and delights the mind.
The doublings, or _horse-shoes_, of this Wye, or _Vaga_ as the Romans
named it, within its circle of rocks, so exquisitely fringed with green
and purple lichens (like the Danube, round the castle of Hayenbach in
the gloomy gorge of Schlagen, or the Crook of Lune, in Westmoreland, and
many others), illustrate at once the nature of the stratification on the
earth’s surface; even the varied tints of these mountain streams may
read the student a practic lesson in geology.
From the lime-rock springs the azure-blue, as the Glaslyn stream, at
Beddgelert, the Rhone, and the Traun in Styria; from the chalk ripples
the grey water of the Dee and the Arve; from the clay hills the stream
comes down yellow, as “the Derwent’s amber wave;” and where the
peat-mosses abound, especially in the autumnal flood, the stream is of a
rich and dark sienna brown, as the Conway, and the Mawddach, in
Merioneth; or even of transparent black, as the Elain, which flows down
through the white schist rocks of Cardiganshire.
CAST. And is there wisdom, Evelyn, in thus
“Flying from Nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight by exploring the cause?”
I do fear that this analytic study of nature destroys the romance of
life which flings around us its rainbow beauty.
Oh, for those halcyon days of infancy, when every thought was a promise;
when hope, the _dream_ of waking men, was lost in its fulfilment; and
even fear itself was a thrill of romance!
Behold yon silver moon! it is, to the _poet’s eye_, an orb of unsullied
beauty, and the planets and their satellites glitter like diamond studs
in the firmament. Yet shift but the lens of the star-gazer, and lo! dark
and murky spots instantly shadow o’er its purity; nay, have I not read
that one deep astronomer, Fraüenhofer, has discovered mountains and
cities; and another, Sir John Herschell, the laying down of rail-roads
in the moon? So the optics of Gulliver magnified the court beauties of
Brobdignag into monsters, and the auburn tresses of a maid of honour
into a coil of dusty ropes!
EV. A truce, fair Castaly. If science discovers defects, does it not
unfold new beauties, a new world of animated atoms, endowed with
faculties and passions as influential as our own? Nay, science has
thrown even a _poetry_ around the blue mould of a cheese-crust; and in
the bloom of the peach the microscope has shown forth a treasury of
flowers, and gigantic forests, in the depths of which the roving
animalcule finds as secure an ambush as the lion and the tiger within
the gloomy jungles of Hindostan. In a drop of liquid crystal the
water-wolf chases his wounded victim, till it is changed to crimson with
its blood. Ehrenberg has seen monads in fluid the 24,000th part of an
inch in size; and in one drop of water 500,000,000 creatures—the
population of the globe! I hope, Castaly, you will not, like the
Brahmin, break your microscope, because it unfolds to you these wonders
of the water.
Then, by the power of the telescope, we roam into other systems—
“World beyond world in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered o’er the blue expanse,”
and orbs so remote as to reduce to a mere span the distance between us
and the Georgium Sidus; and revel in all the gorgeous splendour of
rings, and moons, and nebulæ, the poetry of heaven.
Is there not an exquisite romance in the closing of the barometrical
blossoms; of the white convolvulus, and the _anagallis_ or scarlet
pimpernel; of the sun-flower, and the leaves of the _Dionæa_ and
_mimosa_?
Is there not poetry in the delicate nautilus, with its arms dropped for
oars; in the _velella_ and purple _physalia_ expanding their membranous
sails; and the beautiful fish-lizard, the _Proteus_ of transparent
alabaster, found in the wondrous cavern of Maddalena, among the Styrian
mountains; and even in the _Stalactytes_ of Antiparos, as glittering as
the gems and crystal pillars of Aladdin’s palace? Are not these more
beautiful because they are _true_, and better to be read than all the
impersonations of mythology, or that voluptuous romance which would
endow a flower with the fervour of sense and passion?
IDA. I have ever wondered that a scholar, like Darwin, should have so
wasted time with his “Loves of the Plants.” For the study of nature and
the discoveries of science are ever vain, if they lift not the heart in
adoration. The insect, that fans the sunbeam with its golden wing, or
even the flower that opes its dewy eyes to the light, are unconscious
worshippers of the Divine Being.
The Epicurean, who weeps for a decaying body, but mourns not for a lost
soul, will enjoy these beauties of nature with a heart faithful to his
creed, that pleasure is the only good; but the Christian feels that,
when he chips a stone, or culls a flower, he touches that which comes
fresh from the hand of its Creator.
How full is nature, too, of mute instruction! the simplest incident is a
lesson, if we will but learn it. You see that fading blossom floating on
the surface of the stream. That inanimate type of decaying beauty shows,
to the reflective mind, that even in the summer of life the flower of
existence will lose its youthful lustre, and float down the stream of
time into the depths of eternity.
But tell me, Evelyn, may not the influence of that science that
magnifies the lights of heaven (created to _rule day and night_) into
habitable worlds, weaken the influence of faith in holy writ?
May we not fear that, like the Promethean Preadamites of Shelley, the
Cain of Byron, the fabled beings of Ovid, and the mythology of Milton,
will be the vaunted discoveries of the geologist, in controversion of
the Mosaic records, of the creation and the deluge; proving the wisdom
of Bacon, that to associate natural philosophy with sacred cosmogony,
will lead to heretical opinions? Indeed, I remember in the _Zendavesta_
of Zoroaster, the chronicle of the Magian religion (supposed to be a
piracy from the book of Genesis), the sun IS created _before light_.
EV. Fear not this, fair Ida. Rather believe with Bouget, that philosophy
and _natural_ theology mutually _confirm_ each other. The latter teaches
us that which it is our duty to believe; the former to believe more
firmly. And Lord Bacon himself, in his “Cogitata et Visa,” deems natural
philosophy “the surest antidote of superstition, and the food of
religious faith.”
The belief in existence of a preadamite world, presumes not to
controvert the Mosaic record of the development of the globe, the
creation of Adam, or the fall of man. Modern geology has peopled this
preadamite world with _saurians_, or lizards, a race of beings _not
concerned in the punishment of that delinquency_. Of the existence of
these creatures there is no doubt; the discovery of their fossil
remains, without a vestige of the human skeleton, marks the period of
their destruction, and that the crust of the globe enveloping these
relics, might have been reduced to that chaos when “the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;” and
from which our beautiful world was fashioned by a fiat.
The truth of holy Scripture is too clear even to be disturbed by a
sophist. You may recollect that Julian, the apostate, contemplated the
reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, in order to confute the
prophecies; but Julian failed, and misfortune was the lot of all who
were leagued in the impiety.
As to natural laws, think me not so profane as to cite such as the
superstitious alchemyst, Paracelsus, in proof of their use in the
working of a miracle; who says that “devils and witches raise storms by
throwing up alum and saltpetre into the air, which comes down as
rain-drops!”
And it were reversing this solemn argument were I to confess the
doctrines of the Illuminaten, who, taught by Jacob Boehmen, and the
mysticisms of his “Theosophia Revelata,” explained all nature’s laws by
warping texts of Scripture to their purpose. Yet it is clear that even
the miracles of the prophets may have been sometimes influenced by
established laws. Elisha raised the Shunamite’s son by placing mouth to
mouth, as if by inhalation.
Believe not then, fair Ida, that philosophy is set in array against
religion, when the student of nature endeavours to explain her phenomena
by physical laws, _for those laws the great Creator himself hath made_.
NATURE OF SOUL AND MIND.
“And for my soul, what can it do for that,
Being a thing immortal?”
HAMLET.
CAST. We have risen with the lark to salute you, Astrophel. And you have
really slept in Tintern Abbey? Yet not alone; “I see queen Mab hath been
with you,” and brushed you with her wing as you lay asleep.
ASTR. Throughout the live-long night, sweet Castaly, I have revelled in
a world of dreams. My couch and pillow were the green grass turf. No
wonder that tales of the times of old should crowd on my memory, that
elfin lips should whisper in my ear—
CAST. “The soft exquisite music of a dream.”
IDA. Talk not of dreams so lightly, dear Castaly; the visions of sleep
are among the most divine mysteries of our nature: these transient
flights of the spirit in a dream, unfettered as they seem by the will,
are, to my own mind, among the most exalted proofs of its immortality.
Is it not so, Evelyn?
EV. The mystery which you have glanced at, Ida, is the most sublime
subject in metaphysics. Yet in our analysis of the phenomena of
intellect, it is our duty to discard, with reverential awe, many of the
notions of the _pseudo psychologists_ in allusion to that self-evident
truth, that requires not the support of such arguments.
In tracing the mystery of a dream to its association with our immortal
essence, reason will at length be involved in a maze of conjecture. True
philosophy will never presume to _explain_ the mystical union of spirit
and of flesh; she would be bewildered even in their _definitions_, and
would incur some peril of forming unhallowed conclusions. Even the
_nature_ of the rational soul will involve him in endless conjecture,
whether it be _fire_, as Zeno believed; or _number_, according to
Xenocrates; or _harmony_, according to Aristoxenus; or the lucid
fire—the Creator of all things, of the Chaldean astrologers.
He who aspires to a solution of the mystery, may wear out his brain in
the struggle, as Philetas worked himself to death in a vain attempt to
solve the celebrated “Pseudomenos,” the paradox of the stoics; or, like
the gloomy students of the German school, he might conclude his
researches with a question like this rhapsody—unanswerable.
“But thou, my spirit, thou that knowest this, that speakest to thyself,
what art thou? what wast thou ere this clay coat was cut for thee? and
what wilt thou be when this rain-coat, this sleeping-frock, fall off
thee like a garment torn to pieces? Whence comest thou? where goest
thou? Ah! where from and to, where darkness is before and behind thee?
Oh ye unclothed, ye naked spirits, hear this soliloquy—this
soul-speech. Know ye that ye be? Know ye that ye were, that ye are as we
are or otherwise, in eternity? Do ye work within us, when a holy
thrilling darts through us like lightning, where not the skin trembles
but the soul within us? Tell us, oh tell us, what then is death?”
Now, if we reflect on the psychology of the Greeks, can we discern their
distinctions of νους, πνευμα, ψυχη, σωμα, of soul or spirit—of
spiritual body, or of idol and of earthly body; or of θυμος, ψυχη, and
νους, ψυχη, and so forth?
This fine distinction may be reduced to one simple proposition:—that
soul and mind are the same, under different combinations: mind is soul
evinced through the medium of the brain; soul is mind emancipated from
matter. This principle, if established, might associate the anomalies of
many sophists; the existence of two minds, the sensitive and
intellectual, taught by the Alexandrian philosophers, or the tenets of
Bishop Horsley, in his sermon before the Humane Society, the separation
of the life of _intellect_ from _animal_ life; and it might reconcile
the abstract reasoning of medical philosophy, with the pure but
misdirected arguments of the theological critic.
We believe the spirit to be the essence of life and immortality; and it
signifies not whether our words are those of Stahl—that it presided
over the animal body; or those of Galen and Aristotle—that it directed
the function of life. It is enough that we recognize the πνοη ξωης, or
that _breath of life_, which the Creator breathed into none _but_ man;
and the εικων θεου, the _image of God_, in which he was created. In this
one proposition all the points of this awful question are comprehended.
And it is on this _combined_ nature that we must reason, ere we
discourse on _sleep_ and _dreams_.
CAST. I condole with you, Astrophel; you must forget the splendour of
your dreams, and listen to their dull philosophy.
ASTR. We may indeed sympathize with each other, Castaly; we are
threatened with another abstruse exposition of the mind, although we are
already sated with the contrasted hypotheses of our deepest
philosophers: the _cogitation_ or self-reasoning of Descartes, (the
essence of whose “Principia” was “_Cogito, ergo sum_;” and it is an
adoption of Milton’s Adam, “That I _am_, I know, because _I think_:”
forgetting that the very _ego_ which thinks, is a proof of prior
existence;) and of Malebranche, who believed they existed because they
thought; the abstract _spiritualism_ of Berkley, who believed he existed
merely because others thought of him; the _consciousness_ of Locke; the
_idealism_ of Hume; the _material psychology_ of Paley; the _mental
corporeality_ of Priestley; and the absolute _nonentity_ of Pyrrho.
EV. I leave these hypotheses to speak for themselves, Astrophel; my own
discourse will be wearying enough without them.
Over the intricate philosophy of mind, Creative Wisdom has thrown a
veil, which we can never hope to draw aside. True, the beautiful
mechanism of its _organ_, the brain, is apparent; and we can draw some
analogies from inspection of the brain of a brute, and its progressive
development in _fœtal_ life, in reference to comparative simplicity and
complexity; but its phenomena are not, like most of the organic
functions of the body, _demonstrable_.
Now, although we know not the _mode_ of this mutual influence, the
_seat_ of mind is a subject of almost universal belief; not that
Aristotle, and Ætius, and John Locke, are our oracles on this point,
although they have even identified the _spot_, terming the _ventricles_
the mind’s presence-chamber, while Descartes decided on the _pineal
gland_. It is, however, into the _brain_ that the nerves of all the
senses enter, or from which they emanate: the senses constitute the
_media_ by which the mind gains its knowledge of the world, and
therefore we regard the brain as its seat.
We believe that the mind may possess _five_ faculties; perception,
association, memory, imagination, and judgment, and their focus or
concentration is in the brain. We may argue long on the _earthly_ nature
of mind, contrasted with that of matter; yet, in the end, we commonly
thus define it: _a combination of faculties, and their sympathy with the
senses_.
That to different parts of this organ are allotted different functions
cannot be doubted, when we look at its varied structure, its intricate
divisions, its eccentric yet uniform cavities, its delicate and almost
invisible membranes; and, indeed, physiological experiments are proof of
it.
ASTR. Then there is some truth in the whimsical localities in the
“Anatomy of Melancholy,” and the pictures of the tenants and apartments
of the brain in the ingenious romance of the “Purple Island” of
Fletcher.
EV. Although I grant that these eccentric writers evince much reading, I
am not sure that their impersonations (like the “Polyolbion” of
Drayton,) do not tend to confuse, rather than elucidate, a natural
subject.
Of a plurality of organs in the brain, I have been convinced, even from
my own knowledge and dissections. I have seen that very considerable
portions of the _cerebrum_ may be removed, the individual still
existing. The _vital_ functions may continue, the _animal_ functions are
deranged or lost. The most extensive injuries of the brain, too, are
often discovered, which were not even suspected; and the converse of
this is often observed,—the diseases of the brain being commonly found
in an _inverse ratio_ to the severity of the symptoms. When chronic
tumours and _cysts_ of water are _gradually_ formed, the extreme danger
is averted by the balancing power of the circulation of the brain’s
blood; without which its incompressibility would subject it to constant
injury.
In _tubercles_ of the brain, it is curious that _memory_ is the faculty
chiefly influenced; it is sometimes rendered dull, while the fancy is
vivid,—often more perfect and retentive.
Brain, however, can no more be considered as mind itself, than _retina_
sight, or than the sealing-wax can be identical with the electricity
residing in it. For if we look at the brain of a brute, we see how
closely it resembles our own; then, if we reflect on human intellect and
brute instinct, we must all believe at once that there is some diviner
thing breathed into us than the _anima brutorum_ of Aristotle, something
more than the mere vitality,—
“Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem.”
Brain is therefore the _habitat_ of mind, the workings of which cannot
be indicated without it; for, as the material world would be intact
without a sense, so there can be no mortal evidence of mind without a
brain, which is indeed the sense of the spirit. Thus, without adopting
the creed of the _Hyloist_, the _moderate_ materialist,—that the mind
cannot have, during the life of the body, even a momentary existence
independent of matter,—I believe, that when this matter is in a state
of repose, mind is perfectly passive to _our cognizance_.
IDA. It is with diffidence, Evelyn, that I enter this arena with a
physician, learned in the body; but is there no danger in this doctrine?
does it not imply the office of a _gland_,—that brain is the _origin_
of soul, and that its function was the _secretion of thought_.
EV. Such is the timid error of the mere metaphysician, Ida. There is no
such danger; for, remember, if there _be_ secretion, it is the _soul_
which _directs_. Many a thought is referred to things which we cannot
bring into contact with our consciousness,—_except by the brain_.
Dr. Gall writes of a gentleman, whose forehead was far more elevated on
the right side than the left; and he deeply regretted that with this
left side he could never think. And Spurzheim, of an Irish gentleman,
who has the left side of the forehead the least developed by four
lines,—he also could not think with that side, as indeed I have before
hinted.
I may tell you the brain is _double_, and _one_ healthy _hemisphere_ is
sufficient, as the organ of mind, if pain or encroachment of the
opposite, when diseased, does not destroy life, and this especially when
it is a _chronic_ change, or exists from birth; so that I have often
seen one hemisphere of the brain a pulpy bag of water, and yet vitality
and many signs of intellect may still exist; nay, even if the _whole_
brain be reduced to one _medullary_ bag, _animal_ life shall for some
time be preserved.
To oppose this blending of mind and matter, Lord Brougham (in his
Natural Theology) likens the marble statue hewn into beauty, to the
perfect arrangement of organization in a being. While I admire the idea,
I may observe that he forgets this truth,—that the maker of the one was
a mere _statuary_, without even the fabulous power of Prometheus, or
Pygmalion, or Frankenstein; the other, the _Creator_ of all things, who
_breathed a breath of life into the shape he had made fitted to receive
it_. My lord thus halts at the threshold of discovery: mind is not the
_product_ of organization, but it works _by_ and _through_ it; and
therefore, for its _earthly_ uses, cannot be independent of the
qualities of matter. We may as well agree with Plato, in endowing the
soul with “a plastic power, to fashion a body for itself, to enter a
shape and make it a body living.” I remember Plutarch (in his Quæst.
Platon.) makes him say, that the soul is older than the body, and the
source of its existence, and that the intellect is in this soul. But
where is the sacred evidence of this? for, even in our _antenatal_
state, we live, and yet there is probably no consciousness; there is
vitality, at least, without the _consciousness_ of an intellect.
ASTR. As the creation of light was _before_ that of the sun, its
reservoir, so the creation of the soul might be before the brain, in
which the Creator _subsequently_ placed it.
EV. For this there _is_ sacred evidence, Astrophel. There _was_ light,
ere the sun was created as its reservoir; but the soul was breathed into
the body, which was already then created.
ASTR. This is a specimen of your special pleading, Evelyn, allied to
that perilous error of Priestley, that supposed function and structure
to be identical, because they are influenced by the same disease, and
seem to live and die, flourish and decay, _together_. Democritus also
has written his belief that, “as the smell of a rose exists in the
bloom, and fades as that dies, so the soul of an animal is born with its
birth, and dies with its death.” You have conceded to me (and we must
all be conscious of) the great difficulty of conceiving the _nature_ of
_spirit_; but, if we are required to prove its existence, we may answer,
by analogy, that we cannot always palpably prove the existence of
_matter_, although we _know it_ to exist. The _electric fluid_ may
remain for an indefinite period invisible, nay, may never meet the
sight,—it may even traverse a space without any evidence but that of
its wonderful influence, and at length be collected in a jar.
As light, existing in remote stars, has not yet reached our earth, so
the electricity is now residing in myriads of bodies, which will never
be elicited; and thus (if I may extend the simile) the principle of
life, whatever it be, may have an independent existence during life, may
leave the body and yet not perish. Is not this a fine illustration of
the living of the soul without the body; for here even a grosser matter,
yet invisible, is evinced by its passage from one thing to another,
although it is inert when involved in the substance?
IDA. May I not fear that the errors of philosophy, grounded on the
difficulty of conceiving the nature of a self-existent spirit, will not
stop until they lapse into the belief of annihilation?
For there are many suspicious sentiments even in the pages of
well-meaning writers; such are the dangerous sentiments which Boswell
has ascribed to Miss Seward: “There is one mode of the fear of death
which is certainly absurd, and that is the dread of annihilation, which
is only a pleasing sleep without a dream.”
There may be nothing terrible in the condition of annihilation, yet the
moral effect is deplorable; indeed, to doubt the eternal existence is to
argue that man’s life is but a plaything of the Deity. The notion of
annihilation is so abhorrent, that he who believes it dooms himself
indeed to a miserable existence; for the crowning solace of a Christian
life is holy hope, and belief in the priceless gift of immortality.
“Know’st thou th’ importance of a soul immortal?
Behold this midnight glory—worlds on worlds!
Amazing pomp: redouble this amaze!
Ten thousand add; and twice ten thousand more;
Then weigh the whole; one soul outweighs them all,
And calls th’ astonishing magnificence
Of unintelligent creation poor.”
Would that Priestley had read wisely that prophetic truth in
Ecclesiastes: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and
the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
EV. I do not approve his latitude of thought, yet it were severe to
think this, even of Priestley, merely because he disbelieved _separate_
spiritual existence; for Aristotle also asserts, that “the soul could
not exist _without the body_, and yet that it was not the body, but a
part of it.” Zeno, and the Stoics, termed that which was called a spirit
_material_; and not only Ray and Derham, but even Paley, and Johnson,
disbelieved the separate existence. The archdeacon’s opinion, that we
should have a _substantial_ resurrection, is founded on New-Testament
evidence, and expressed in his discourse on a future state. The
apostle’s simile of the wheat implies a _death_ of the grain: it dies,
but there is no _remodelling_, for it is the _germ_ that lives and
grows; so, although the body may not be restored, there is a development
of _its_ germ in the transit or resurrection of _its_ spirit. The sage
thought also the simile of St. Paul should be taken _literally_, and not
_figuratively_: and yet he qualifies it thus: “We see that it is not to
be the same body, for the Scripture uses the illustration of grain sown
(which in its exact sense implies an offspring, and not a resurrection),
and we know that the grain which grows is not the same with what is
sown. You cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body; it is
enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish identity of
person.”
Blumenbach believed that when the soul revived, after death, the brain
would equally revive; and there is, indeed, nothing very irrational in
all this, for death is, even to our senses, not an annihilation, but
only a new combination of matter. The Greek sceptics thought that the
teeth would remain perfect, if all else was decomposed and lost; and the
rabbins conferred this perpetuity on _one_ bone of the _spinal column_,
which they called LUZ. These strange notions of the mystic union may
explain to us that diversity of custom, in various nations, as to the
disposal of the dead. While the Irish papists, with a superstitious
reverence for inanimate clay, celebrate their wakes with rites often as
licentious as they are profane; the cannibal _Calatiæ_ thought it more
respectful to _eat_ the bodies of _their_ departed friends, at least so
writes Herodotus; and the filial love of other Indian tribes invites the
children to strangle their aged parents, as they sit in their fresh-made
graves.
It is certainly more consolatory to associate our thoughts with the
_immortal_ part of a lost friend; to believe the _spirit_ to be in
celestial keeping, and that it still hovers around us. The collapse and
change of features prove that the _body_ is then but as the dust from
which it was first formed. I would not wish, like Socrates, to have my
limbs scattered over the earth, because
“Cœlo tegitur qui non habet urnam;”
but, as the body _must_ be consumed, were it not better and safer, as
the Greeks did, to _burn_ the dead, to resolve the corpse, as soon as
possible, into its constituent elements. I shall ever remember with
horror the scenes which I witnessed in Naples, when a _pile of bodies_,
collected from the chapels by the dead carts, which go round the city at
night, was thrown by irreverent hands into the public cemetery of the
Campo Santo.
The fiat of the Creator MAY at once produce a reconstruction of the
body, however widely scattered its particles, and the return of the soul
to the brain, from which it had once departed; but is it not somewhat
irrational to think that we should again be endowed with organs, without
the functions and passions to which they are subservient?
IDA. It may be a bliss to gaze even on the _shadows_ of those we love.
There is a beautiful allegory of this solemn question told in the
“Spectator,” which, as Addison approves, it cannot be profanation to
admire. It is the Indian legend of “Marraton and Yaratilda,” in which
the devoted husband comes unawares on Paradise, and sees the shadowy
_forms_ of his wife and children, without their _substance_. The story
exquisitely blends the fond wish of Marraton to die, that he may be
again admitted to the holy communion of those so fondly loved; for
Paradise is painted in the mind’s eye even of the heathen, although, in
his dearth of revelation, he associates the joys of his elysium with the
sensual pleasures of terrestrial life. The Indian dreams of his dogs,
believing that the greatest hunters shall be in the highest favour with
Brahma; the proselytes of the prophet die in a vision of their houri’s
beauty; and the warriors of Odin already drink the honey-water from the
skulls of their enemies, served up to them by the beautiful “Valkhas” of
the “Valhalla.” Thus even the creed of infidels is not atheism. What
thinks Evelyn?
EV. As you do, Ida. As to the atheist, one, perchance, may have _lived_,
if we rightly interpret the sentiments of Diogenes, and Bion, and
Lucian, and Voltaire; but, I believe, one never _died_. My solemn duty
has summoned me to the death-bed of more than one reputed infidel, who
have in health reasoned with fluency and splendour, and have penned
abstruse theses on life and the world’s creation. But, when danger lay
in their path of life, their stoic heroism fled, and left them abject
cowards. They looked not even on the lightning’s flash without
trembling, and the vision of death was a sting to the conscience. I have
seen many a death-bed like that of Beaufort, who made “no signal of his
hope,” not because he disbelieved a God, but because a conviction of his
sin left him without a hope and faith in the promises.
Of course there cannot be an _Euthanasia_ where irreligion has marked a
life, but, believe me, there would be no _fear_ of death in an atheist.
ASTR. The mythologist and pagan may cite their tables, and worship their
idols in the recesses of their pagodas and choultries; but some idea of
the Deity has been unfolded to the mind of all. Even the eastern princes
have had some glimpses of the true faith, and shahs and caliphs were
once engaged in building their Nestorine or Christian churches.
The profane Chinese has, it is true, called his realm the _celestial
empire_; Fohi, who is believed to have reigned three thousand years
before Christ, established his “Iconolatria” or “idolatry,” and Si Lao
Kiun struck at the establishment of _polytheism_, but the purer theology
of Confucius prevailed over his rival.
The Deity, indeed, is the essence of every creed, for all believe in a
great spirit as well as an immortal mind and a paradise. Like the
reasonings of natural philosophy, our notions and epithets of the great
Creator certainly differ, but in all there is faith in his perfection.
Xam Ti is the great spirit of the Chinese, as Woden is the god of the
Gothic races, and Brahma, or Alla, or the Kitchi Manitou, or even the
sun, the source of light, and heat, and joy to the creation, are the
deities of other nations. Nor may we wonder more that the Ghebir, and
the Peruvian, and the Natches should worship their orb of fire, than
that the Irish should, on the morning of their _Beltane_, light their
peat fires to the sun.
The doctrines of the Brahmins all attest their creed of _theism_, if we
interpret aright the evidence of the learned _Pundits_ of Benares,
especially in the Gentoo code; and the records of Abul Fazel in the
“Baghvat Geeta,” an episode in the poem of the “Mahabarat,” written to
prove the unity. The devout Christian will deem this creed a woful
error, but he will confess his admiration of their sublime notion of the
divine attribute, which Colonel Dow has thus imparted to us: “As God is
immaterial, he is above all conception; as he is invisible, he can have
no form; but from what we behold of his works, we may conclude that he
is eternal, omnipotent, knowing all things, and present everywhere.”
I will grant that the oriental notions of cosmogony, or the creation of
the world, are a blot on their scripture page: because the pagan
theologians were shorn of the light of Christianity, they were prone to
refer creation to natural causes within their own comprehension, and
their ideas were fabulous and impure. Thus, among the Hindoos and
Egyptians, there is a mass of obscenity adduced to account for the
development of the globe, in the associations of _Vishnu_ and _Siva_,
and _Osiris_ and _Isis_; and the temples of Elephanta and Elora are
adorned with symbolic paintings of this incarnation of Vishnu. Yet, with
all this error, there is in the “Vedas” or Hindoo scriptures, a not
remote analogy to the Bible itself; and, granting that the cosmogony of
Phœnicia is little more than a mysterious romance; yet, whether the
great cause be the _demiurgic spirit_ uniting with desire, or the being
“That” of the Hindoos, the essence of all these mysteries still combines
the grand scheme of the creation,—the formation of a beautiful world
from a chaos of wide and dark waters.
IDA. You are wandering very far eastward, Astrophel: I will propose this
question to Evelyn.
If it is so evident that the brain and mind, although not identical,
exist in a most intimate union, may we not undervalue their relative
influence by adducing the energy of intellect and brilliancy of
conception possessed by many in advanced life? Remember the green old
age of Plato, and Cicero, and Newton, and Johnson, and, above all,
Goëthe, whose last work was brilliant as his first. And all this,
coincident with that love of Infinite Wisdom that exists, (as we read in
the “Consolations of a Philosopher,”) “even in the imperfect life which
belongs to the earth, _increases with age_, outlives the perfection of
the corporeal faculties, and, at the moment of death is felt by the
conscious being.” Does this imply decay?
EV. The retentive powers of old age, are the _exception_ to a rule,
which the ultra spiritualist assumes as a _general_ rule, in attempting
to disprove the growth and decay of mind, according to the age of the
body. But as _lives_ are of different duration and _constitutions_ vary,
so may _mental powers_ indicate different degrees of vigour. If mind
_in_creases, no doubt it _de_creases; and I have known many, who retain
every faculty but _memory_, which is the first to decay and indicate
failing power; and so also is it with idiots, in whose _memory_,
usually, the greatest defects appear; the faculty of counting numbers
reaches only to three, and of letters to C, the third letter in the
alphabet.
Ida will grant that there is no more impressive lesson of humility than
the dwindling and decay of genius, when, in the words of the Athenian
misanthrope—
“Nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.”
Reflect on the painful end of Sheridan and other brilliant wits of their
day; that
“From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show;”
and we may almost wish that biography should begin at each end, and
finish in the middle, or zenith of a life.
IDA. If the fact be so, I grant the lesson to our pride, Evelyn; and we
may dwell with fervent admiration on the divinity of that mind, which
can ennoble and consecrate our body, so fraught as it is with basest
passions, and so decayable withal.
NATURE OF SLEEP.
“——Sleep, gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse.”
HENRY IV. Part ii.
IDA. I begin to perceive the importance of this digression on the nature
of mind. You wish us to believe, there is a temporary desertion of the
spirit from the body, and _therefore_ the body sleeps?
EV. Not absolute desertion, but a limit to its influence. Many have
thought in conformity to your question; and indeed, Ida, it is a belief
so holy, that I may feel it to be almost an impiety to differ.
From the time of Aristotle to Haller, the term “Sleep” expresses that
condition which is marked by a cessation of certain mental
manifestations, coincident with the degree of oppression; for it is an
error to say that the _body_ sleeps,—it is the _brain_ only, perhaps I
may say, the _cerebrum_, or the _fore_ lobes; for I believe the lower
part of it (that which imparts an energy to the process of breathing and
of blood circulation) is never in a complete sleep, but merely in a
state of languor, or rather of repose, sufficient for its
restoration,—if it were to sleep, _death_ would be the result.
This repose is in contrast with a state of _waking_, that activity of
mind in which ideas are constantly chasing each other like the waves of
ocean; the mode of displacing one idea being by the excitement of
another in its place.
In that state of sound sleep which overcomes children, whose tender
brains are soon tired, or old persons whose brains are _worn_, and in
persons of little reflection,—the mind is perfectly passive, and its
manifestations cease.
So writes Professor Stewart,—that there was a total suspension of
volition during sleep, as regards its influence over mental or corporeal
faculties; and I may even adduce a scrap from Burton, although I am an
admirer of the quaint old compiler for little else than his measureless
industry:—
“Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common
sense, for the preservation of body and soul. Illigation of senses
proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which
they should come; this stopping is caused by vapours arising out of the
stomach, filling the nerves by which the spirits should be conveyed.
When these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits
perform their accustomed duties: so that _waking_ is the _action_ and
_motion_ of the senses, which the spirits, dispersed over all parts,
cause.”
ASTR. But is volition always suspended even in sound sleep? Was it not
the opinion of Berkley, that the mind even then was _percipient_? How
else can we account for the waking exactly at one predetermined hour? If
we retire to sleep at the latest hour, or oppressed with fatigue, so
strong an impression is produced in our mind, that the breaking of our
sleep is almost at the given moment.
EV. I will answer you at present, Astrophel, only by analysis; it is not
yet time to _explain_.
I may grant that there is some _latent_ effect,—_passive_ memory, if
you will,—for we do not _count_ the hours in sleep, and calculate our
time _by the clock_; but we wake, and soon the bell strikes.
We have on record some very curious instances of the periodical
recurrence of ideas in a waking state, the measurement of time being
referrible to mental impression, mechanically established by constant
habit.
There was an idiot once, who was in the habit of amusing himself
constantly by counting the hours as they were struck on the clock. It
chanced, after some time, that the works of the clock were injured, so
that the striking for a time had ceased. The idiot, notwithstanding,
continued to measure the day with perfect correctness, by counting and
beating the hour. This is a story of Dr. Plott’s, in his History of
Staffordshire.
There is one of more modern date, somewhat analogous to this.
I may quote Holy Writ in support of this passive condition of true
sleep; nay, even its similitude to death. How often do we find allusions
to sleep and death as synonymous! Sir Thomas Brown was impressed so
deeply with this _likeness_, that he “did not dare to trust it without
his prayers.” And the Macedonian, who wished for more worlds to conquer,
confessed his sleep proved to him his mortality. I may quote ancient
poetry also in my support. Homer and Virgil describe sleep as the
“Brother of Death;” and, among the profane poets of later times, the
same sublime association is traced of this
“Mortis imago—et simulacrum.”
Among the ancient allegories, sleep is portrayed as a female, with black
unfolded wings,—in her left hand, a white child, the image of Sleep; in
her right, a black child, the image of Death.
On the tomb of Cypselus, according to Pausanias, _night_ is thus
personified.
CAST. How true, then, was the thought of the first deep sleeper, on the
sensation of slumber:—
“——There gentle sleep
First found me, and with soft oppression seiz’d
My drownéd sense, untroubled; tho’ I thought
I then was passing to my former state,
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve.”
But how fearful is this resemblance which changes “tir’d nature’s sweet
restorer” into a type of death! Pr’ythee, Evelyn, do not affright me
thus, by clothing sleep with terror, as if it were disease and danger.
EV. Why tremble for the mortal sleep of the just and good, who will
feel, with William Hunter, on their death-bed, “how _pleasant_ and easy
it is to die;” and with another moralist,—
“Oh what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
Night following night!”
Fear not, Castaly; I do not term _slumber_ and _gentle_ sleep disease,
but signs of health. Not so, however, many a _profound_ sleep, and its
advances towards _coma_; those results of exhaustion from excess, or
from intense and direct narcotics, as opium sleep, and the paralyzing
senselessness from extreme cold, as in the story of Sir Joseph Banks and
Dr. Solander in the antarctic regions.
You are aware that many _remedies_ in medicine may be so intense as to
cause fatality: inflammation, too, is the restorative process of wounds,
but if in _excess_ it is fatal. Appetite also, to a certain degree, is
healthy; but craving and thirst, its extremes, are proved, by
_suffering_, to be morbid.
If the mind is composed to perfect rest, it is lulled to senselessness;
then metaphysically we are said to sleep: the mind is not excited by
thought, and, in consequence, its supply of _arterial_ blood is less,
the more _rapid_ flow of which would be the cause of waking.
Within certain limits sleep is a _remedy_; but it becomes perilous when
intense, or too much indulged. One eccentric physician, as we read in
the learned Boërhave, even fancied sleep the _natural_ condition of man,
and was wont to yield to its influence during eighteen of the
twenty-four hours; but apoplexy soon finished his experiment.
This _negative_ quiescence (for sleep is not a _positive_ state) allows
the restoration of energy, and then we wake. Even the senses accumulate
their power in sleep; the eye is dazzled by the light when we wake, from
the sensitiveness imparted by this accumulation.
The conceits regarding the cause of sleep are so various, that if I were
to discuss their merits I should only weary your patience, as I perceive
I have already done.
Some have thought that sleep arose from certain conditions of the blood
in the vessels and nerves of the brain; its congestion in the _sinuses_;
or a _reflux_ of a great portion of it towards the heart: the result of
depressed nervous energy—exhaustion, fatigue, cold, and the influence
of powerful narcotics, or the combustion of charcoal. Others, that sleep
arises from the deposition of fresh matter on the brain, and its sudden
pressure. Then we have the cerebral collapse of Cullen, and of
Richerand; the deficiency of animal spirits of Haller; the diminished
afflux of blood to the brain of Blumenbach; and the exhausted
irritability of the Brunonian theory adopted by Darwin.
Where the truth lies I presume not to decide, but it is clear there is a
necessity for the occasional repose of the mental organ:
“Non semper arcum
Tendit Apollo.”
Watchfulness invariably reduces, even in the brute: the wild elephant is
tamed by the perseverance of the hunter in keeping it constantly awake.
The mind, then, as it is manifested to us (for deeply important is it
that we confound not the perfect and pure, because unembodied essence of
the soul, with its _combined_ existence in the brain—that union from
which a _thought is born_), the mind cannot exert itself beyond a
certain period without a sensation of fatigue in the brain, as palpable
as the exhaustion from excessive muscular exertion. And this depends on
a natural law, that organs after acting a certain given period, flag and
lose their energy. Thus the first harbinger of sleep is the _closing of
the lids_ from languor, and relaxation of the muscles. Muscular fibre
will, however, regain its expenditure by simple rest, requiring a
certain period for this re-accumulation, like the charging of an
electrical jar. Sleep, however, is not always a sequence of exhausted
irritability of muscle; we may be _too tired_ to sleep; and thought and
memory also will keep the mind awake, and prevent nervous energy from
renewing corporeal vigour.
The excitement of thought beyond certain limits is both painful and
destructive, evincing its effects by various grades of mental disorder,
from simple headache to confirmed mania. Our first ray of hope, in
fever, is often the coming on of a quiet sleep, and in the sad cases of
_delirium tremens_ we must either _sleep or die_; the effort of
philosophical determination to overcome the depression only adding to
its intensity, as in the case of a person worn out by labour, in
attempting to labour on. This conflict cannot be more pertinently
exemplified than by some passages in the life of Collins, by one who
knew him well:—
“He languished some years under that depression of mind which unchains
the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge
of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he
perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by
travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield
to his malady, and returned. His disorder was no alienation of mind, but
general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than
intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit,
but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the
couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able
to talk with his former vigour.”
I believe that sensibility and fatigue of mind, by inducing
sleeplessness, may often be the source even of mania.
The sleep of animals is usually _light_, especially that of birds, and
they are easily startled when at roost. The cackling of the geese on
their awaking, you know, saved the Roman capitol. Yet sleep is
altogether very nearly balanced with waking. Some animals sleep often,
like the cats, but they are long awake, and prowling in the night. The
python and the boa are also long awake, and then sleep for many days
during the process of digestion. Indeed, all the _feræ_ fall into sound
sleep after feeding; while the ruminants scarcely sleep at all; nor do
they crouch like the _feræ_, with the head between the legs: but then
their whole life is one scene of quiet; rumination is a mindless
reverie. The West Indian slaves and the Hottentots, or woolly bipeds,
resemble the brute animal in this, that they fall asleep as soon as
their labour is concluded.
That activity of mind in excess may induce even mania, I may offer two
impressive, although negative, proofs, from the records of Dr.
Rush.—“In despotic countries, and where the public passions are torpid,
and where life and property are secured only by the extinction of
domestic affections, madness is a rare disease. Dr. Scott informed me
that he heard of but one single instance of madness in China.”
“After much inquiry, I have not been able to find a single instance of
fatuity among the Indians, and but few instances of melancholy and
madness.”
I may add, that Baron Humboldt assures us of this immunity among the
wild Indians of South America.
IDA. And may not this melancholy effect be averted by caution and rule?
We have a saying in Herefordshire, that “Six hours are enough for a man,
seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.”
EV. There cannot be a fixed rule on that point, except the prevailing
law of nature,—the feeling of necessity; but this may often lead
astray.
It is calculated that one half of a child’s life is passed in sleep, and
one quarter to one sixth of the adult existence; but for old age there
is no essential period or limit. Old Parr slept almost constantly about
the close of his life; while Dr. Gooch records the case of one whose
period of sleep was only one quarter of an hour in the twenty-four. It
is well to inure an infant to a _gradual_ diminution of its time of
sleep, so that at ten years old its period should be about eight hours.
The strength or energy of brain will, when aided by custom, modify the
faculty of controlling the disposition to slumber. Frederick the Great,
and our own Hunter, slept only five hours in the twenty-four; while
Napoleon seemed to exert a despotic power over sleep and waking, even
amid the roaring of artillery. Sir J. Sinclair slept eight hours, and
Jeremy Taylor three. As a general precept, however, for the regulation
of sleep in energetic constitutions, I might propose the wise
distribution which Alfred made of his own time into three equal
periods,—one being passed in sleep, diet, and exercise, one in despatch
of business, and one in study and devotion. Careful habit will often
produce sleep at regular and stated periods, as it will render the
sleeper insensible or undisturbed by loud noises; the gunner will fall
asleep on the carriage amid the incessant discharge of the cannon; and,
if I remember right, the slumbers of the bell-ringer of Notre Dame were
not broken by the striking of the quarters and the hour close to his
ear.
IDA. And at what seasons should we wake and sleep? It seems to me, that
the Creator himself has written his precepts in the diurnal changes of
this world, that are still so healthfully observed by the peasant, but
so strangely perverted by the capricious laws of fashion, and even by
the romantic
“sons of night,
And maids that love the moon;”
always excepting Astrophel and Castaly. It moves my wonder that they who
have looked upon the beauty of a sunrise from the mountain, or the main,
can be caught sleeping, when such a flood of glory, beyond all the glare
of peace-rejoicings and birth-lights, bursts upon the world.
EV. The wisest have thought with you, Ida, although there was one idle
poet, even Thomson, who confessed he had “noe motive for rising early.”
It was the custom of Jewel and Burnet to rise at four; and Buffon, we
are told, rewarded his valet with a crown, if he succeeded in getting
him up before six.
It is to slight the creation, not to enjoy the beauties of daylight; and
it is the _natural_ time for sleep, when the dews of night are on the
earth. The proof of this:—There were two French colonels who were
marching their troops, one by day, the other by night; and the loss in
men and horses was very far greater among the night marchers.
CAST. I believe it was Panza, who “never desired a second sleep, because
the first lasted from night till morning,”—that immortal Sancho Panza,
whose quaint rhapsody we must all echo so gratefully,—“Blessed is he
that first _invented_ sleep.” The eulogies of this blissful state, and
the wailings of a sleepless spirit, have ever been a favourite theme of
the poet, and our own ancient dramatists,—as Beaumont and Fletcher, in
the play of “Valentinian,” and Shakspere, from the lips of Henry IV. in
his beautiful invocation, and Young, and many others.
EV. Sleeplessness is one of the severest penalties of our nature. In the
darkness and silence of night the wakeful mind preys on itself; the
pulse is rapid, it is a throb of anguish,—to the wearied thought there
is no conclusion, and the parched tongue prays in vain for the morning
light. In the curse of Kehama, I think the sleepless lid is one of the
most cruel inflictions; and in the severe disorder which we term
_hemicrania_, this curse is to a degree realized.
The sleeplessness of Caligula is related by Suetonius. In Bartholinus,
we read of one who slept not for three months, and he became a
melancholy hypochondriac. And Boërhave, from intense study, was
constantly awake during six weeks.
IDA. We are happy in our quiet minds, are we not, dear Castaly? Yet, if
we are ever summoned to the couch of one wearied by night watching,
Evelyn will tell us how we may soothe the pillow of a sleepless mind, to
which the secret of inducing slumber would be a priceless treasure.
EV. Study the causes of _insomnia_, or sleeplessness, Ida; as those
which excite nervous irritability,—coffee, green tea, _small_ doses of
opium, the protracted use of antimony, &c.; and believe not in the
virtues of vulgar remedies, often as dangerous as they are ridiculous.
There is a batch of these which Burton has gleaned from various authors;
as a sample,—nutmegs, mandrakes, wormwood; and from Cardan and
Miraldus,—the anointing the soles of the feet with the fat of a
dormouse, and the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog, swine’s galls, hares’
ears, &c.
I might offer to you many plain precepts for the alleviation of the
_light_ causes of sleeplessness; and while I dole them out to you in
very dullness, you will fancy my gold-headed cane to my chin, and other
essential symbols of an Esculapius of the olden time. Adopt, then, a
free ventilation in summer, and airing in winter, of the chamber. This
should never be a mere closet, always above the ground floor, neither
very light nor dark, the window not being close to the bed, and, above
all, not in the vicinity of stoves, ovens, and large kitchen fires. Do
not allow the windows to be open throughout the night, to admit the cold
dew or air; and, in winter, the basket-fire should be placed there for
an hour before you enter your chamber. A slight acceleration of the
circulation may be produced by gentle exercise before rest; and two or
three wafer biscuits or spring water, to prevent the wakeful effects of
both chilliness and hunger. A light woollen sock may be worn, which is
unconsciously displaced when sleep comes on, and the night-cap should be
little more than a net, except during the very cold months. The position
of the body should be that which is the easiest, except the supine,
which induces congestion and often “night mare;” and if there be much
sensitiveness of the surface, the hydrostatic bed should be employed,
but that not too long, as it will become heated by protracted pressure.
Children should not be enveloped in clothes, nor crowded in bed; nor
should infants be shaken, or tossed, or patted, as foolish nurses too
often do.
There are many simple modes of inducing slumber: I allude not to poppy
and henbane, nor to the pillow of hops, which, in the case of the third
George, was the charm that sealed up the lids of the king; but to other
modes, such as a tedious recital, (something like my own dull prosing,)
the gentle motion of a swing, a cot or cradle, the ripple of a stream,
and the dashing of a waterfall, the waving of a fan, the caw of rooks,
the hum of bees, the murmur of an Æolian harp—
CAST. So gracefully wound up in that quaint _morceau_, the “Fairy
Queen,” when Archimago sends the spirit to fetch a dream from Morpheus—
“Cynthia still doth steepe
In silver dew his ever-drooping head,
Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred.
And more to lull him in his slumber soft,
A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe,
And ever dringling rain upon the loft,
Mix’d with a murmuring winde, much like the soune
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune.”
SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING.
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep.”
TEMPEST.
EV. In the transition _to_ and _from_ the repose of sleep, the mind is
sinking into oblivion, and thought is fading, and the senses and
sensation are overshadowed in their regress to insensibility: even
instinct is well nigh a blank. This is the state of _slumber_. Then, I
believe, and only then, are we ever wandering in the ideal labyrinth of
DREAMS.
There is a curious calculation of Cabanis, that certain organs or senses
of the body fall asleep at regular progressive periods; some, therefore,
may be _active_ while others are _passive_, and in this interesting
state, I may hint to you, consists the essence of a dream. It seems that
in _dreamless_ sleep, the senses fall asleep altogether, as in the case
of Plutarch’s friends, Thrasymenes and Cleon, and others who _never
dreamed_.
ASTR. So there is some truth in the fanciful conceit of Cardanus, that
“Sleep is the rest of the spirits,—waking their vehement motion, and
dreaming their tremulous motion.”
CAST. And philosophy plumes herself on her wonderous intuition for this
_discovery_. Let her blush, and kneel before the shrine of poesy. The
poets, even of a ruder age than ours, have thought and written before
you, Evelyn, and have unfolded these _arcana_. How doth Chaucer usher in
his “Dreme?”—
“Halfe in dede sclepe, not fully revyved;”
and again:
“For on this wyse upon a night
As ye have herd withouten light,
Not all wakyng ne full on slepe,
About such hour as lovirs wepe;”
and in “La Belle Dame sans Mercy,” there is the same thought:
“Halfe in a dreme, not fully well awaked;”
and in Sir Walter’s “Antiquary:” “Eh, sirs, sic weary dreams as folk hae
between sleeping and waking, before they win to the long sleep and the
sound.” So will your philosophy dwindle somewhat in its consequence, Sir
Clerke.
EV. We are not jealous of these _glimpses_ of a poet, Castaly; they
impart a value to their rhymes: we enrol _such_ poets in the rank of
philosophers.
IDA. Solve me this question, Evelyn: is there any relative difference
between the subjects of dreams _before_ and _after_ sleep?
EV. It has been thought that there is more reference to reality in the
_first_, and more confusion and wandering of imagination in the
_second_; but as nature is often _excited_ rather than exhausted at
night, there may be equal brightness with the morning dream, occurring
after the recreation and refreshment of sleep.
CAST. We may concede, then, some wisdom to the Sybarites, who destroyed
their morning heralds, the cocks, that they might enjoy their matin
dreams undisturbed. And I remember one of Pope’s allusions to the
virtues of this _υπαρ_, or morning dream:
“What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings.”
ASTR. We have often discoursed on the psychology of Locke, Evelyn, and
we are now involved in one of its most interesting points—_innate
idea_. Is the dreamer _conscious_ of his dream? It has been asserted,
especially by two profound metaphysicians, Beattie and Reid, that they
_persuaded_ themselves in their dreams that they _were_ dreaming, and
would then attempt to throw themselves off a precipice; this awoke them,
and proved the impression a fiction. Were there not present in this,
volition and consciousness; and is it not an evidence of an innate idea
without sensation?
EV. No. A train of thought and passive memory may take place without
volition, even in a waking mind; a train of _reasoning_ cannot. So
feeling and _passive_ thought may in the mere dream, but not a
_conscious acting_ on it. The phenomena, and the expressions used to
describe these impressions, are precisely illustrative of another
condition of sleep, to which we have not yet pointed. This notion of
Beattie was but an echo of Aristotle. The Stagyrite himself was subject
to dreams of danger, and, after a while, he used to whisper to himself:
“Don’t be frightened,—this is only a dream:” the glaring proof that it
was _not_; and yet psychologists still talk of the _management_ of a
dream.
The fairest explanation is, that there has been a predetermination on
some point, and _unconscious_ ideas on the same point are elicited, or
may be the first to present themselves to the mind in the morning, _at
the moment_ we awaken, and thus it is the first which the judgment acts
on in its reverie; that is, the line between dreaming and being awake.
If there be many organs asleep, there is still some _clouding_ of this
judgment; but if that be asleep also, there is an absolute dream.
If we _know_ that we are dreaming, the faculty of judgment _cannot_ be
inert, and the dream would be _known_ to be a _fallacy_. We might, by
thinking, render our dream what we pleased, and be sure we should never
wish for devils or dangers. The essence of the dream is that it is
_uncontrolled_: other states are not dreaming. Above all, if judgment
influenced the dream of Beattie, who was not a madman, would he have
_wished_ to have toppled down headlong from a rock? Listen to Johnson on
this point. “He related that he had once, in a dream, a contest of wit
with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining
that his opponent had the better of him. Now.” said he, “one may mark
here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had
not my judgment failed me, I should have seen that the wit of this
supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was
as much furnished by me as that which I thought I had been uttering in
my own character.”
Nay, in the words of Beattie himself, in his “Essay on Truth,”—
“Sleep has a wonderful power over all our faculties. Sometimes we seem
to have lost our moral faculty; as when we dream of doing that without
scruple or remorse, which, when awake, we could not bear to think of.
Sometimes memory is extinguished; as when we dream of conversing with
our departed friends, without remembering any thing of their death,
though it was, perhaps, one of the most striking incidents we had ever
experienced, and is seldom or never out of our thoughts when we are
awake.”
Even the most sensitive and amiable girls will dream of committing
murder, or the most awful crimes, without any sense of compunction. We
feel no surprise at the working of our own miracles; and we know not how
to avoid danger. I have myself dreamed of occurrences long past, as if
they were of to-day; have fretted in my sleep, on ideal events, and on
waking was for a moment wretched. But I have reflected, _awake_, on
these very events, and have not only felt resigned, but deemed them
benefits.
There was in the university of Gottingen the physician Walderstein. He
was a constant dreamer, and this is his account of one of these
illusions. “I dreamt that I was condemned to the stake, and during my
execution I was perfectly composed, and indeed _reasoned_ calmly on the
mode in which it was conducted;—whispering to myself, ‘Now I am
burning, and presently I shall be converted into a cinder.’” It seems
that he was dissatisfied with his dream, on account of this apathetic
calmness; and he concludes: “I was fearful I should become all thought,
and no feeling.” _I_ would say, he was all illusion and no judgment.
It is but lately that I dreamed I was reciting a metaphysical poem,
which my vanity whispered me possessed a deal of merit. During the
recitation I thought there was a turning up of noses, and of tongues
into cheeks—a very expressive sign of incredulity and satire. At length
a general murmur ran through the assembly that it was a complete
“boggle.” Nothing daunted, I assured them that it was a very abstruse
passage, and the fault was in the shallow comprehension of my audience.
Need I add, that I should blush at such an evasion in my waking
judgment?
How different also is our dream from a waking thought, in which we can
control the fancy!
If in the dream the chain be abruptly broken, the waking mind does not
then carry on the train, and if any thing occur in waking, associating
with the dream, to join the broken link, the dream is not completed, but
the ideas _revert_, or are retraced, to their source; and if any idea at
the origin of the dream be _re-excited_, there will be no consistent
continuance of it beyond the dream itself, or, if there be, it will bear
the stamp of reasoning, losing all connexion with the illusion. On the
contrary, if we read as we are falling asleep, we continue _in the
dream_ the subject of our study, but _erroneously_; and if we then start
and wake, we shall find that at the moment of slumber we had _changed
the integrity_ of our thinking. Be assured, then, that Virgil is correct
in this—
“She seems alone
To wander in her sleep, through ways unknown,
_Guideless_ and _dark_.”
CAST. And now, Sir Knight, deign to look on the other side of the
shield. Answer me with sincerity,—if your words be true, is not this a
high privilege of imaginative minds, to lift themselves out of the
gloomy atmosphere of this world of woe; to soar with fancy, not to
drudge with fact? How do I envy a romantic dreamer, like him of whom
Master Edmund Spenser writes,—
“——at length, some wonted slepe doth crowne
His new falne lids, dreames straight, tenne pound to one,
Out steps some faëry with quick motion,
And tells him wonders of some flourie vale.”
Sleep is indeed the reality of another existence.
ASTR. So breathed the thought of Heraclitus, in words like these,—that
“all men, whilst they are awake, are in one common world; but that each,
when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.” The fairies are his boon
and chosen compeers, and the sylphs are as much his handmaidens, as
those around the toilet of Belinda. We are indeed the happy children,
and, like them, our existence is a dream of felicity,—one long and
happy thought of the _present_, with no reflection or forethought to mar
its blisses.
Then the shades and memory of departed friends and lovers, are they not
around us as true and as beautiful as when they lived? The common
sentiment of enamoured dreamers is—
“I hear thy voice in dreams upon me softly call;
I see thy form as when thou wert a living thing.”
In the dream, ambition is lifted to the loftiest pinnacle of her high
aspirings; and power and riches are showered in profusion in the path of
their votaries from the cornucopia of fancy; and all this with a depth
and intensity that gilds for a time the moments of waking life. And I
agree with Saint Augustine, that if we sleep and dream in Paradise, our
existence will be perfectly felicitous.
But then, alas! the cruel waking from this world of pleasure. I have
breathed many a sigh of sympathy with Milton’s dream of his dead wife,
and with Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams.”
You remember, Evelyn, how oft you have wondered at my absence from our
college cœna. You thought not that I was then deeply studying how I
might gain a victory over my thoughts in sleep. As my waking memory
would, from some indefinite cause, be re-excited after it had seemed to
fade and die, so the subject of my dreams has been resumed after many
months, without any chain of relative thoughts in the interval. I
believed then that this might be a dream; that I had dreamt the same
before; but on the morning of the _second_ dream, reflection assured me
that on the morning of the _first_ I had known and thought on it. I was
waiting for a golden hour of inspiration, and it was granted me. One
night came o’er my slumber a dream of beauty: there was an innocent
happiness, a sense of purest pleasure, that might be the beatitude of a
peri ere she lost her place in Eden. In the morning, the dream was a
part of my being; I nursed it throughout the live-long day, and at night
lay me down to slumber, and again with the sleep came the dream. I was
thus the monarch of an ideal world: the dream was my life, so long as my
thoughts were on it concentrated, and even study was a _Rembrandt_
shadow on its brightness.
In a moment of rapture, I cried,—
“We forget how superior, to mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth which they know.”
I opened the leaf of a volume, in which an accomplished pen had traced
an episode so like my own, as to make me wonder at its truth.
It was of a visionary German, who, like myself, commanded the phantasie
of sleep’s own world, bringing one night thus in connexion with another.
He fashioned, like Pygmalion, his idol, Love, and nightly met and wooed,
till he won her to his heart, and then he cried,—“What if this glorious
sleep be a real life, and this dull waking the true repose?” At length
his ideal of beauty, his _dream_, died, stung by a serpent. And then the
order of the vision was reversed; the dream lay again before him, dead
and withered; he saw his idol only when he was awake, and this was to
him a dream. He pined in thought, and died,—sleeping.
Was not the sleep of this man his real life, and a scene of happiness?
Could _he_ wish for reality who had enjoyed such a dream? For if in life
there were equal sleep and waking, and the sleep were all a happy dream,
this would indeed be a happy life.
May I tell you, Evelyn, that I enjoyed a deep sublimity of feeling, a
consciousness of that mental emancipation which devout philosophers have
more than glanced at?
IDA. Although you have again rather run wild, Astrophel, I agree with
you in thinking that, under this influence, the dream may be an
illustration of Plato’s notion, regarding the existence of eternal
forms, independent of matter,—an emanation of the divine mind imparted
to that of human beings; that _innate idea_, if you will, by which the
mind views at large—
“The uncreated images of things.”
And I therefore revere the opinion of Sir Thomas Brown, the ingenious
author of the “Religio Medici,” (with whom believed Sir Henry Wotton,
Bossuet, and other good men,) “That we are somewhat more than ourselves
in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of
the soul. It is the legation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and
our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps.” And also
the sentiment of Addison, that “there seems something in this
consideration, that intimates to us a natural grandeur and perfection of
the soul.”
CAST. In your temple of transcendental philosophy you will leave a niche
for Shakspere, dearest Ida, who, even in one of his lightest characters,
forgets not this perfection of our emancipated spirit. Lorenzo whispers
to the fair Jewess, in the garden at Belmont—
“Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heav’n
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st,
But in his motion, like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubims.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
PROPHECY OF DREAMS.
“I have heard, the spirits of the dead
May walk again: if such things be, thy mother
Appeared to me last night; for ne’er was dream
So like a waking.”
WINTER’S TALE.
ASTR. Evelyn, you have argued fluently on the _nature_ of mind
contrasted with that of matter; but, if desired to _define_ it, how will
you answer?
EV. That it is a _combination of faculties_, and their _sympathy with
the senses_. But this definition presumes not to decide in what intimate
part or texture of the brain is seated the essence itself, as we may
imagine, of the mind—the principle of _consciousness_; whether this be
the “elementary principle” of Stewart, or the “momentary impression of
sense or sensation” of Brown, or the “something differing from
sensation” of Reid, or the “power of feeling that we differ from the
matter around us” of some one else.
ASTR. Yet on this point, (if, indeed, such point be more than
imaginary,) the whole phenomena of intellect must turn. But even if you
can ever hope to determine this locality, it will be long, very long,
ere the student of psychology will rise from his studies, with the
triumphant exclamation, “Τελος!” ere he conclude his deepest researches,
without the humiliating confession that his philosophy wears fetters.
Yet you consider our visions as one tissue of morbid phenomena; although
there are myriads even of profane visions and warning legends, which
bear the certain impress of a prophecy. I never listen to those who
laugh at our interpretations, without remembering that melancholy story
of a youth of Brescia, by Boccaccio, where Andreana, I think, is
relating to her betrothed Gabriello, an ominous dream of the stars, and
of a shadowy demon, which had made her sad and spiritless, and for which
she had exiled her lover for a whole night from her bosom. The youth
smiled in scorn of such a presage; but, in relating a dream of his own
to illustrate their fallacy, fell dead from her enfolding arms.
For once I will grant you, merely for the sake of argument, that there
may be exaggeration in many a legend. I will even yield to your
immolation the host of specious dreams in “Wanley’s Wonders;” you may
pass your anathema on the volumes of Glanville, and Moreton, and Aubrey,
and Mather, and Berthogge, and Beaumont, as a tissue of imposture; call
them, if you will—
“A prophet’s or a poet’s dream,
The priestcraft of a lying world.”
_I_ will ensconce myself snugly behind the _classic_ shields, and ask
you if the pages of Pliny, of Cicero, of Socrates, are mere legends of
fiction or credulity; nay, if the books of mythology and oriental
legends are not many of them founded on real events?
It is clear that there was ever implicit and extensive faith in the
East; the definition of ον ειρω, _I speak the truth_, implies faith in a
dream. The office of the oneirocritic was a profession. Amphyction was
the first (according to Pliny) of the profane expositors, Hieronymus the
most profuse interpreter, and Lysimachus, the grandson of Aristides,
expounded dreams, for money, at the corners of the streets of Athens.
The doors of Junianus Majus, the tutor of Sanagorius, and Alexander ab
Alexandro, were besieged with dreamers in quest of expositions.
The Romans worshipped with divine honours Brizo, the goddess of dreams;
and the Galeotæ, so named from Galei, a Hebrew word signifying to
reveal, flourished in Sicily. So impressed were the Jews with the
importance of the dream, that they convoked a tryad of friends, and went
through certain ceremonies, (as writes Josephus in his twelfth book,)
which they called the benefaction of a dream.
The orientals, the Greeks, and the Romans, then, were all confident in
the truth of these omens. When Nestor urges his army to battle because
Agamemnon had dreamed of such a course, it is but a picture of the
common mind of Greece. Indeed, on great emergencies, it was the custom
to solicit the inspiration of the dream, by first performing religious
rites, and then in the temple, (it may be of Esculapius or Serapis,) to
lie down on the reeking skins of oxen or goats, sacrificed by the
priests.
I may not hope, Evelyn, to convert or alarm you, or I would warn you of
the penalty incurred by the slighting of a vision. You may read in Livy,
that Jupiter imparted his displeasure at the punishment of a slave,
during a solemn procession in the forum to Titus Antinius. But Titus
scorned the vision; when, lo! his son was struck dead at his feet, and
his own limbs were at once paralyzed. In a mood of penitence, he was
borne on a couch to the senate, and after a public confession of his
crime, his limbs immediately began to recover their energy, and he
walked to his house unassisted, amidst the wonder of the people.
In Cicero’s essay on “Divination,” we read the story of two Arcadian
travellers. On their arrival at Megara, these two friends slept in
different houses. In the night a dream came to one of them: the phantom
of his companion appeared to him, and imparted to him that his landlord
was _about_ to murder him. He awoke, and feeling assured that the idea
was but a dream, fell quietly again to sleep; but then came over him a
second dream, and again the phantom _was_ in his chamber, and told him
that the deed of blood was committed, that he was murdered: and in the
morning he learned that the vision was prophetic, and told him truth.
But the records of antiquity teem with tales of fatal prognostics to
heroes, kings, and emperors, whose deaths, indeed, seldom took place
without a prophecy. From Aristotle we learn that the death of Alexander
was foretold in a dream of Eudemius, and that of Cæsar by his wife
Calphurnia. The emperor Marius dreamed that he saw Attila’s bow broken,
and the Hun king died on the same night. And Sylla (according to Appian)
died on the night succeeding that on which he dreamed of such a fate.
Valerius Maximus records the death of Caius Gracchus, immediately after
a dream of it by his mother.
Caracalla (as we learn from Dion Cassius) foretold his own assassination
in a dream.
Cyrus (writes Xenophon) dreamed of the exact moment in which he died.
And the death of Socrates was foretold to him in a dream, by a white
lady, who quoted to him the 363rd line of Homer, in the ninth book.
Of remarkable events there are many strange forebodings; as the dream of
Judas Maccabeus when about to engage the Syrian army; of Sylla before
his engagement with Marius; of Germanicus on the night before his
victory over Arminius (as Tacitus records); and of Masilienus, the
general sent by the emperor Honorius to oppose Gildo, and regain the
possession of Africa. To him St. Ambrose, the late bishop of Milan,
appeared in a dream, and striking the ground at the scene of the vision
thrice with his crozier, said, “Here and in this place;” and on the same
spot, the following morning, Gildo was conquered by Masilienus. Such are
a few of the _fatal_ prophecies of old.
There are others of illustrious _births_ in the olden time, of which I
will recount a few.
Plutarch writes of the dream of Agariste, announcing the birth of her
son Pericles.
Sabellus, of the dream of Accia, the mother of Augustus.
The splendid impostures, as I confess them, of Mahomet, were ushered in
by a dream of Cadiga, that the sun entered her house, and that his beams
illumined every building in Mecca.
In later days, the mother of Joan of Arc dreamed that she brought forth
a thunderbolt; and Arlotte, the mother of the Conqueror, that her
intestines covered the whole land of Normandy.
But I waive a host of ancient dreams, as those of Astyages, the last
king of Media; Ertercules, and Antigonus, and Simonides, and others, for
I study to be brief, and pass to the professors of more modern belief.
Of Pascal Paoli, Boswell, in his account of Corsica, thus writes:
“Having asked him one day, when some of his nobles were present, whether
a mind so active as his was employed even in sleep, and if he used to
dream much; Signor Casa Bianca said, with an air and tone which implied
something of importance, ‘Si, si sogna,’ Yes, he dreams. And upon my
asking him to explain his meaning, he told me that the general had often
seen in his dreams what afterwards came to pass. Paoli confirmed this by
several instances. Said he, ‘I can give you no clear explanation of
it,—I only tell you facts. Sometimes I have been mistaken, but in
general these visions have proved true. I cannot say what may be the
agency of invisible spirits; they certainly must know more than we do;
and there is nothing absurd in supposing that God should permit them to
communicate their knowledge to us.’”
In Walton’s life of Sir Henry Wotton, we read that his kinsmen, Nicholas
and Thomas Wotton (whose family, by the by, were celebrated for their
dreamings) had foretold their death most accurately.
In the beginning of the 18th century, a person in the west of England
dreamed that his friend was on a journey with two men, whose persons
were strongly pictured in his dream, and that he was robbed and murdered
by these companions. It chanced that in a short time he was about to
journey with two men, the _very prototypes_ of his friend’s dream. His
earnest caution against this expedition so planned was slighted, and, on
the spot marked in the dream, was this traveller robbed and murdered,
and by the vivid description of the dreamer, the two men were identified
and executed.
In other cases, the dream has been the means of retribution; for
instance, by the discovery of a murderer. In “Baker’s Chronicle” we read
of the conviction of Anne Waters, for the murder of her husband, through
the circumstantial dream of a friend.
I believe the fate of Corder was decided by a dream; and I may add, that
Archbishop Laud dreamed himself that in his greatest pomp he should sink
down to h—ll.
There is a chain of impressive visions, prophetic of the death of
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as if some little spirit were flitting to
and fro on a special mission from the realm of shadows.
The sister of the duke, the Countess of Denbigh, dreamed she was with
him in his coach, when the people gave a loud shout, and she was told it
was a cry of joy at the dangerous illness of the duke. She had scarcely
related her dream to one of her ladies, when the bishop of Ely came to
tell her, her brother was murdered by the dagger of Felton. Shortly
before this, a Scotch nobleman asked a seer from the Highlands what he
thought of this Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, then the court favourite:
“He will come to naught,” said he, “for I see a dagger in his heart.”
But the most impressive presage were the visions of an officer of the
wardrobe to the king, as related by the Earl of Clarendon and others.
Parker had been an old _protegé_ of Sir George Villiers, the duke’s
father. On a certain night, in Windsor Castle, he saw, or dreamed of, an
apparition of Sir George Villiers, who entreated him to warn his son not
to follow the counsels of such and such persons, and to avert in every
way the enmity of the people, as he valued his life. A second and a
third night this vision was repeated, and at the last, the phantom drew
a dagger from his gown, and said, “This will end my son, and do you,
Parker, prepare for death.” On a hunting morning this vision was
imparted to Buckingham, at Lambeth Bridge, and, after the chase, the
duke was seen to ride, in a pensive mood, to his mother’s in Whitehall.
The lady, at his departure, was found in an agony of tears, and when the
story of the murder was told, she listened with an apathetic calmness,
as if the brooding over the prophecy had half dulled her heart to the
reality. Well, _the duke was murdered, and Parker soon after died_.
On that night when the Treasury of Oxford was broken open, Sir Thomas
Wotton, then in Kent, dreamed circumstantially of the event, and, I
believe, named and described the burglars.
A clergyman, whose name I forget, was once travelling far from his home,
when he dreamed his house was on fire. He returned, and found his house
a smoking ruin.
I may here cite a very curious dreaming, which, though not exactly
fulfilled, displayed at least a strange coincidence in three minds. The
mother of Mr. Joseph Taylor dreamed of the apparition of her son, who
came to take leave as he was going a long journey. She started, and
said, “Dear son, thou art dead.” On the morrow, a letter came from his
father, expressive of anxiety on account of this dream. The son
instantly remembered his own dream, at the same hour, of having gone to
his mother’s room to bid farewell.
There are many warning visions, which, being happily regarded, were
blessed by the preservation of human life.
When our own Harvey was passing through Dover, on his continental
travels, he was unexpectedly detained for a night by the order of the
governor. On the next day, news came that the packet, in which Harvey
was to have sailed, was lost in a storm; and then it came out, that his
excellency had, on the night before his arrival, a phantom of the doctor
passing before him, which besought him to detain _his substance_ in
Dover for a day.
Alderman Clay, of Newark, dreamed twice that his house was on fire. From
the second dream, he was induced to quit with his family; and, soon
afterwards, it was burned by the engines of Cromwell, which were
bombarding the town. For this providential salvation, an annual sermon
is preached, and bread given to the poor, in Newark.
The lady of Major Griffiths dreamed thrice of her nephew, Mr. D. The
first vision imparted his intention of joining a party of his companions
on a fishing excursion; the second, that his boat was sinking; the
third, that it was actually sunk. At her entreaty, this gentleman was
induced to remain on land; and, in the evening, it was learned, that his
ill-fated friends had been all drowned, by the swamping of the boat.
CAST. I pr’ythee, Astrophel, draw not too largely on our faith; reserve
yourself for a struggle, for I see in the glance of Evelyn’s eye, that
he has taken up your glove.
MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING.
“I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it
was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.”
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
EV. Listen,—it is my turn to speak.
Like confirmed insanity, the essence of the dream is usually _a want of
balance between the representative faculty and the judgment_; being
produced, directly or indirectly, by the excitement of a chain of ideas,
rational or probable in parts, but rendered in different degrees
extravagant, or illusive, by imperfect association,—as in the dream of
the “Opium Eater:”—“The ladies of Charles I.’s age danced and looked as
lovely as the court of George IV.; yet I knew, even in my dream, that
they had been in the grave for nearly two centuries.”
The relative complexity of these combinations includes the two divisions
of dreams,—the _plain_, θεωρηματικοι; and the _allegorical_, or images
presented in their own form, or by similitude.
If we grant that certain faculties or functions of the mind are the
result of nervous influence, we can as readily allow that an
_imperfection_ of these manifestations shall be the result of
derangement of equilibrium in this influence, as the _material_ function
of muscle shall be disturbed by primary or secondary disease about the
brain; of which we have daily examples among the spasmodic and nervous
diseases of the body.
Referring to the calculation of Cabanis, on the falling to sleep of the
senses, I can readily carry on this analogy to the faculties of mind. We
may suppose that the faculty of judgment, as being the most important,
is the first to feel fatigue, and to be influenced in the mode which I
have alluded to by slumber. It is evident, then, that the other
faculties, which are still awake, will be uncontrolled, and an
_imperfect association_ will be the result.
Thus the ideas of a dream may be considered as a species of delirium;
for the figures and situations of both are often of the most
heterogeneous description, and both are ever illusive, being believed to
be realities, and not being subject to the control of our intellect.
Yet, if the most absurd dream be _analyzed_, its constituent parts may
consist either of ideas, in themselves not irrational, or of sensations
or incidents which have been individually felt or witnessed.
So the remembered faces and forms of our absent friends, faithful though
a part of the likeness may be, are associated with the grossest
absurdity.
“Velut ægri somnia, vanæ
Fingentur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni
Reddatur formæ.”
Or, as Dryden has written,—
“Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes:
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings.
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad,
Both are the reasonable soul run mad;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e’er can be.”
The little variations in the tissue of a dream are not _rectified_ by
judgment. So the vision may have led us to the very consummation of the
highest hopes with love and beauty, and then, if an object even of
degradation or deformity shall cross the dream, an association shall be
formed imparting a feeling of loathing and horror.
You may take Hobbes’ illustration, Astrophel, which you will probably
prefer to mine. Hobbes says of the compositions of phantoms, “Water when
moved at once by divers movements, receiveth one motion compounded of
them all; so it is in the brain, or spirits stirred by divers objects;
there is composed an imagination of divers conceptions that appeared
single to the sense; as sense at one time showeth the figure of a
mountain, at another of gold, and the imagination afterwards composes
them into a golden mountain.”
I believe Parkhurst also will tell you, that the Hebrew word for dream,
refers to things _erroneously viewed_ by the senses; for each may
assume, individually, an intimate accordance with another, although the
first and last appear perfectly incongruous, as the Chinese puzzle will
be a chaos, if its pieces be wrongly placed; a _faulty rejoining_, in
fact, of scenes and objects reduced to their constituent elements.
“I dreamed once,” said Professor Maass, of Halle, “that the pope visited
me. He commanded me to open my desk, and he carefully examined all the
papers it contained. While he was thus employed, a very sparkling
diamond fell out of his triple crown into my desk, of which, however,
neither of us took any notice. As soon as the pope had withdrawn, I
retired to bed, but was soon obliged to rise on account of a thick
smoke, the cause of which I had yet to learn. Upon examination, I
discovered that the diamond had set fire to the papers in my desk, and
burnt them to ashes.”
This dream deserves a short analysis, on account of the peculiar
circumstances which occasioned it. “On the preceding evening,” continues
Professor Maass, “I was visited by a friend, with whom I had a lively
conversation upon Joseph II.’s suppression of monasteries and convents.
With this idea, though I did not become conscious of it in the dream,
was associated the visit which the pope publicly paid the emperor Joseph
at Vienna, in consequence of the measures taken against the clergy; and,
with this again was combined, however faintly, the representation of the
visit which had been paid me by my friend. These two events were by the
subreasoning faculty compounded into one, according to the established
rule—that things which agree in their parts, also correspond as to the
whole; hence the pope’s visit was changed into a visit paid to me. The
subreasoning faculty, then, in order to account for this extraordinary
visit, fixed upon that which was the most important object in my room,
namely, the desk, or rather the papers it contained. That a diamond fell
out of the triple crown, was a collateral association, which was owing
merely to the representation of the desk. Some days before, when opening
the desk, I had broken the glass of my watch, which I held in my hand,
and the fragments fell among the papers; hence no farther attention was
paid to the diamond, being a representation of a collateral series of
things. But afterwards, the representation of the sparkling stone was
again excited, and became the prevailing idea; hence it determined the
succeeding association. On account of its similarity, it excited the
representation of fire, with which it was confounded; hence arose fire
and smoke. But, in the event, the writings only were burnt, not the desk
itself, to which, being of comparatively less value, the attention was
not at all directed.”
Impressions of memory may not perhaps appear consistent with
imagination, but, on the principle I have advanced, it will be found
that, although the idea excited by memory be consistent, these ideas
may, by fanciful association, become imagination; appearing, on
superficial view, to illustrate the doctrine of innate idea. But is this
doctrine proved? We may seem to imagine that which we do not remember,
_as a whole_; but, as a curve is made up of right lines,—as a mass is
composed of an infinity of atoms,—so may it follow, that what is termed
“innate idea,” if minutely divided, may be _proved_ to arise from
memory; made up of things, however minute, which we have _seen or heard
of_. Analysis may thus unravel many a “strange mysterious dream.”
IDA. I have ever believed that there were incidents recorded, which left
no doubt of the truth of innate idealism. Dr. Beattie has observed: “Men
born blind, or who have lost all remembrance of light and colours, are
as capable of invention, and dream as frequently, as those who see.”
EV. These, fair lady, are surely very imperfect data. If a person loses
remembrance of _individual_ colour, he does not lose the power of
comparing or of judging _variety_ of colour. And, again, although he may
be congenitally blind, yet if there be any _other sense_ but sight,
through which the mind can perceive or receive external impression, the
objection must fail.
There are very strange communities of the senses, which you may smile
at, yet are they perfectly true.
Dr. Blacklock, (who was very early in life struck blind,) expressed his
ideas of colour, by referring to a peculiar sound, the two being as it
were _synonymous_ to him. And he fancied also, in his dreaming, that he
was connected to other bodies by myriads of threads or rays of feeling.
I may assure you, too, that on the loss of any one sense, the subsequent
dreams, after a lapse of time, will not be referred to _that_ sense.
Dr. Darwin will supply you with very illustrative instances of this;
from which you will learn, that after blindness had afflicted certain
persons, they never dreamed that they _saw_ objects in their sleep: and
a deaf gentleman, who had talked with his fingers for thirty years,
invariably dreamed also of _finger-speaking_, and never alluded to any
dreaming of friends having _orally_ conversed with him.
ASTR. I believe that a black colour was disagreeable to Cheselden’s
blind boy, _from the moment he saw it_.
EV. Because, from certain laws of refraction, the effect was instantly
_painful_ to his eye.
ASTR. I remember, Sir Walter Scott, in his “Letters on Demonology and
Witchcraft,” informs us that “those experienced in the education of the
deaf and dumb find that their pupils, even _cut off from all
instruction_ by ordinary means, have been able to form, out of their own
_unassisted_ conjectures, some ideas of the existence of a Deity, and of
the distinction between the soul and body.”
EV. And do you not see, dear Astrophel, the dilemma of this argument?
Before the deaf and dumb pupil can adopt a language, by which to make
his preceptor sensible of his thoughts or sentiments, he must have had
certain facts or knowledge imparted to _him_, by _signs_ or other modes
of instruction. The modes of mutual understanding must first emanate
from the tutor, and with these ideas may be excited, which, at first
sight, may seem to be innate or _unassisted_.
Believe not that I deny a moral consciousness of the existence of the
Deity and of our immortality; but how can we _prove_ it, in those who
have no sense to explain it?
If it were possible to find a creature so wretched as to be endued with
no external sense from his birth, such a being would neither dream nor
think; he would lead the life almost of a zoophyte, ceasing, of course,
to be a responsible agent!
Caspar Hauser never dreamed, till he slept at Professor Daunay’s, and
had been introduced to intellectual society, and been _taught_; and
then, even, he could not comprehend the _nature_ of his dreams.
The arguments in the “Phædo” of Plato point to this truth, that the
_germ_ of all ideas is _sown_ in the mind by the _senses_. So, also, the
metaphysics of Kant teach that the senses are feelers or conductors, by
which we obtain materials of our knowledge; and indeed that matter and
sensation are synonymous; that matter exists _à priori_ in the mind.
This was the belief of Coleridge, that there can be nothing fancied in
our dreams, without an _antecedent quasi cause_, a Roman having written,
before him, the same sentiment:—
“Nihil in _intellectu_, quod non prius in _sensu_.”
Remember still that this philosophy is apart from revelation.
I am aware that among the deaf and dumb high moral sentiments may exist.
But if they can read essays, these sentiments may be imbibed in their
reading. And yet a very learned lord has asserted, that a being, doomed
to absolute solitude and estrangement from his very birth, could
discover the principles of algebra! At this sophism, oh shade of
Epictetus! thou mightest rise, to vindicate the importance of our
beautiful senses; of the eye, beyond all, that achromatic globe of
brightest crystal, the contemplation of which first convinced thee of
_design_ in the Creator, and prompted thee to pen the first “Bridgewater
Treatise.”
On the opening, or even the restoration of a sense, in this forlorn
“plant animal,” all his associations would be erroneous. He would, at
first, _see double_; he would, like children, consider all bodies,
however distant, within his grasp; and, like the idiot, draw all his
figures _topsy-turvy_, as they are really painted on the retina, until
judgment and practice rectified his error.
I do not reason hypothetically, for these truths were illustrated in the
youth whose pupils were opened by the operation of Cheselden.
There are romantic stories, not foreign to this subject, in which the
creation of a Caliban is almost a truth; and which exemplify to us the
accordance of nature with habit and circumstance, and the dearth of mind
when deprived of the light of instruction.
I allude to those unhappy creatures who, with the form and organs of
man, have run wild in the woods, and fed on husks, and berries, and
herded with the brute. We have some very curious histories of these
beings, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. Two were discovered
in the Forest of Lithuania; one in the Forest of Yuary, in the Pyrenees,
by M. Le Roy; two wild girls by a nobleman, near Chalons, in Champagne;
and Peter the wild boy, found by the escort of George I. in the woods of
Hertswold, in Hanover. In these cases disease _might have been_
discovered; yet the effect of partial civilization, even in minute
points, indicates some power of _acquiring_ ideas not congenital.
But as to these dreaming flights of the spirit of good Sir Thomas Brown,
I may confess, Astrophel, that you have some poets and metaphysicians,
and even a few philosophers, on your side. You may read in Plato’s
“Phædo,” that “the body is the prison of the soul; that the soul, when
it came from God, knew all; but, inclosed in the body, it forgets and
learns anew.” And in Seneca:
“Corpus hoc animi pondus est.”
And in Petronius:
“——Cum prostrata sopore,
Urget membra quies, et mens sine pondere ludit.”
This sentiment Addison has very readily adopted; prating about “the
amusements of the soul when she is disencumbered of her machine,” and so
forth. And yet Addison, I remember, thus qualifies his creed:—“I do not
suppose that the soul, in these instances, is entirely loose and
unfettered from the body; it is sufficient if she is not so far sunk and
immersed in matter, nor entangled and perplexed in her operations, with
such motions of blood and spirits, as when she actuates the machine in
its waking hours. The corporeal union is slackened enough to give the
mind more play,” &c.
In this conceit, deficient both in philosophy and psychology, you
perceive the speculator draws in his horns, and concludes with that
which _means nothing_. It is, indeed, a mere compromise; an endeavour to
extricate from their perilous dilemma the metaphysical pathologists who
talk so fluently of the _diseases_ of the immaterial mind, forgetful, it
would seem, of this truth—_that_ which is diseased may die; a
consummation which would undermine the Christian faith, and blight the
holiest hope of man—the prospect of immortality.
And yet my Astrophel will lean to the vagaries of our
pseudo-psychologists, who believed the dream to be the flight of the
soul on a visit to other regions; and its observation of their nature
and systems from _actual survey_. Of the fruits of this ethereal voyage
the dreamer, I presume, is made conscious when the soul returns to the
brain, its earthly pabulum or home. Were this so, it should enjoy
visions of unalloyed beatitude; and even were there a limit to its
excursions, a thing so pure and perfect would select angelic communion
only. I do not aver that such things _are not_, but that we _cannot_
_know it here_. We have no satisfactory remembrance of cities and
temples thus surveyed, more gorgeous than the waking conceptions of the
thousand and one nights; or the legends of the genii; no wonders or
eccentricities which eclipse the exploits of Gulliver, Peter Wilkins,
Friar Bacon, or Baron Munchausen.
Lavater carries out this caprice, by a very fine metaphysical thought,
to illustrate the night-apparition. That it is their “transportive or
imaginative faculty that causes others to appear to us in our dreams.”
And I myself was once gravely told by a visionary, that he dreamed, one
night, of a certain old woman; and _she_ afterwards told _him_, that she
dreamed she was, on that very night, _in his chamber_. So, you perceive,
her imago, or material thought, entered into his mind, and caused his
dream.
Is not this sublime?
Now it is clear that these illusions cannot tend to advance the dignity
of mind. Nothing can be more convincing to prove a suspension of
judgment. Remember that during this life,—the incorporation of the
soul,—we are conscious of it _only through the brain_. It is not yet
emancipated; and it is an error to think, because sometimes we have a
brilliant vision, that _therefore_, if the body were more inactive, the
soul would be more ethereal.
ASTR. And yet we are assured that Alexander, and Voltaire, and La
Fontaine, and Condillac, and Tartini, and Franklin, and Mackenzie, and
Coleridge, were wont to compose plans of battles, and problems, and
poems, in their _dreams_, with a degree of vigour and facility, far
exceeding their waking studies.
EV. This very facility proves that there was association from memory,
without volition or effort; the mind being in a state of _reverie_, and
the senses quiescent. In this consists the vivid and delightful visions
lighted up by our memory in slumber, especially when there is darkness
and silence, so that there is no perception; or when the mind is
concentrated, and has been reposing, so that its fancy is a novelty.
But this identifying, by Sir Thomas Brown, of reason and fancy, is
itself a proof of error. The energy of the first is exercised on _data_
or _facts_; that of the second, in mere _hypothetic_ amusement.
It were indeed much better that we established either the material
hypothesis of Priestley, or his antipodes, Berkeley,—that nature was
but a compound of spirits, ideas unfettered by matter; or the visionary
scheme of Hume (borrowed indeed from the Hindoo philosopher, Abul
Fazel), that there is nought but impression and idea in nature; or even
the absolute scepticism of Pyrrho;—than that we should favour the
rhapsody of Brown, that the consciousness of _waking_ moments should
thus deteriorate reason, and render the mind incompatible with sublunary
duties.
CAST. Coleridge, I believe, was so impressed with his own dreaming
compositions, that he said, “the dullest wight might be a Shakspere in
his dreams.” What may he deserve for such presumption?
EV. Coleridge was an opium-eater, and the whole intellectual life of
this mighty metaphysician was a dream. And you may forget that Coleridge
was _already_ a poet, and reasons thus from impressions in his _own_
visions, during the elysium of his anodyne. But the _contrasted_
feelings of Coleridge’s nights at once confirm the monomania of his
dreaming; and if you read his “Pains of Sleep,” Castaly, you will not
deem them a _slight_ penalty, even for his libel on your sweet
Shakspere.
But the conclusions of three sage grave men on this subject will impress
your belief more than mine. The mentor of Rasselas, Johnson himself,
speaks by the lips of Imlac.—
“All power of Fancy over Reason is a degree of insanity. By degrees, the
reign of Fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time
despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions
fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture, or of
anguish.”
And so convinced was the learned Boërhave of this, that he even held
imagination and judgment to have different localities, because _this_
influenced the mind _asleep_, and _that, awake_.
And _why_, Astrophel, dream we of strange things? Because we cannot
_compare_ illusion with reality. So we may reverse the doctrine of
Pyrrho (who doubted his own existence), and imagine ourselves possessed
of ubiquity. We may fancy we are both old and young at the same moment,
nay, that we _are_ and _are not_; possess the hundred eyes of Argus, or
the hundred arms of Briareus; that Zoroaster, and Virgil, and Shakspere,
and ourselves, are co-existent. Indeed, our thoughts and actions are all
modelled on a principle of paradox,—as wild even as the visions in the
“Confessions of an Opium-Eater.”
Then turn to the words of Marmontel, which identify the wanderings of a
dream with the flitting fancies of a mind prostrate from the effect of
disorder. These words were written under _extreme indisposition_:—
“I was reduced so low, that I could read nothing but the Arabian Nights’
Entertainments; and it is extraordinary that often, while every other
faculty, judgment, the will, association, perfection, even the memory
itself, is in a state of almost total re-action, this volatile thing,
imagination, should be the most robust and active; it seems to rejoice
at the release from companionship with its fellows, and darts off on
seraph-wings, rambles through all space, visits all places, turning, and
tossing, and jostling all things in its progress, or conjoining them in
the most grotesque shapes. The imagination in _madmen_ is often of this
description; and there may be
“A pleasure in madness, that none but madmen know.”
Then we may dream _ourselves_ to be _others_,—an ideal transmigration;
this is error. We wake to a sense of our own reality; this is truth.
CAST. Yet this truth may be often withheld by potent impression, as in
the illusion of Rip Van Winkle, and the trances of Nourjahad. I believe
the waking mind of Caspar Hauser knew not the difference between dream
and reality; he related his dream as _fact_.
EV. If there were ever such a being as Caspar Hauser, his _life_ was a
_dream_; for, without the culture of his mind, he would be reasonless.
ANACHRONISM AND COINCIDENCE OF DREAMS.
“_Rom._ I dreamt a dream to night.
_Merc._ And so did I.
_Rom._ Well, what was yours?
_Merc._ That dreamers often lie.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ASTR. Then we are to learn that the mind is ever _imperfect_ in a dream.
But, Evelyn, is not that rather perfection, which magnifies space and
time a million-fold, completing the labours of years in a second? The
time occupied with the dream must be limited, often far short of the
seeming duration of a scene. Like the wonderful velocity of atoms of
light, the crude and heterogeneous ideas succeed each other with
incalculable rapidity. We appear to have travelled over a series of
miles, or to have existed for a series of years, during a very minute
portion of the night,—how minute it is perhaps impossible to determine.
I believe it is the Opium-Eater, still, who thus confesses:—“I
sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or a hundred years, in one
night; nay, sometimes, had feelings representative of a millennium
passed in that time, or however of a duration far beyond the limits of
any human experience.”
This may be, as your smile implies, the dream of opium madness; but let
this dream of Lavalette, also, prove some truth in my illustration.
The count, during his confinement, had a frightful dream, which he thus
relates: “One night, while I was asleep, the clock of the Palais de
Justice struck twelve, and awoke me. I heard the gate open to relieve
the sentry, but I fell asleep again immediately. In this sleep I dreamed
that I was standing in the Rue St. Honoré, at the corner of the Rue de
l’Echelle. A melancholy darkness spread around me; all was still.
Nevertheless a low and uncertain sound soon arose. All of a sudden I
perceived, at the bottom of the street, and advancing towards me, a
troop of cavalry; the men and horses, however, all flayed. The men held
torches in their hands, the flames of which illumined faces without
skin, and with bloody muscles. Their hollow eyes rolled fearfully in
their large sockets; their mouths opened from ear to ear, and helmets of
hanging flesh covered their hideous heads. The horses dragged along
their own skins in the kennels, which overflowed with blood on both
sides. Pale and dishevelled women appeared and disappeared alternately
at the windows in dismal silence; low inarticulate groans filled the
air, and I remained in the street alone, petrified with horror and
deprived of strength sufficient to seek my safety by flight. This
horrible troop continued passing in rapid gallop, and casting frightful
looks on me. Their march, I thought, continued for five hours, and they
were followed by an immense number of artillery waggons, full of
bleeding corpses, whose limbs still quivered. A disgusting smell of
blood and bitumen almost choked me. At length the iron gate of the
prison, shutting with great force, awoke me again. I made my repeater
strike,—it was no more than midnight, so that the horrible
phantasmagoria had lasted no more than _ten minutes_; that is to say,
the time necessary for relieving the sentry and shutting the gate. The
cold was severe and the watchword short. The next day the turnkey
confirmed my calculations. I nevertheless do not remember one single
event in my life, the duration of which I have been able more exactly to
calculate.”
CAST. You are modest, Astrophel. Think of the wonders of fairyland. Our
dainty Ariel will “place a girdle round the world in forty minutes.”
And, even more wonderful still, I have read, in the “Arabian Tales,” of
a monarch who immersed his head in a water bucket, and imagined he had
in one minute traversed a space of infinite extent; and (though
perchance I should crave pardon for any thing Evelyn may term an imputed
miracle, or imposture, yet) for a moment listen to that exquisite
passage in the “Spectator,” which Addison pretends to have gathered from
the Koran, although I believe there is in that book no such story. “The
angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give him a
sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell,
which the prophet took a distinct view of, and after having held ninety
thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All
this was transacted in so small a space of time that Mahomet, at his
return, found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen pitcher, which
was thrown down at the very instant that the angel Gabriel carried him
away, _before the water was all spilt_.”
EV. If all the circumstances of these dreams were rational, I might
agree with you, Astrophel; but the ideas are irrational which _so far_
outstrip the facts of our experience; except in _their_ estimation who,
like the Hibernian, would value their watch because it went _faster than
the sun_. Now the extent of velocity in the ideas of _insane_ minds is
equally extreme; and, when these anachronisms occur in dreams, the ideas
are, I believe, ever false. Deeply interesting, however, are tales of
such curiosities of dreaming, as those which the two Scottish
physicians, Abercrombie and Gregory, have recorded.
“A gentleman dreamed that he had enlisted as a soldier; that he had
joined his regiment; that he had deserted; was apprehended and carried
back to his regiment: that he was tried by the court-martial, condemned
to be shot, and was led out for execution. At the moment of the
completion of these ceremonies, the guns of the platoon were fired, and
at the report he awoke. It was clear that a loud noise, in the adjoining
room, had both produced the dream and, almost at the moment, awoke the
dreamer.”
There was another gentleman who for some time, after sleeping in the
damp, suffered a sense of suffocation when slumbering in a recumbent
position; and a dream would then come over him, as of a skeleton which
grasped him firmly by the throat. This dream became at length so
distressing, that sleep was to him no blessing, but a state of torture;
and he had a centinel posted by his couch, with orders to awake his
master when slumber seemed to be stealing o’er him. One night, ere he
was awakened, he was attacked by the skeleton, and a long and severe
conflict ensued. When fully awake, he remonstrated with the watcher for
allowing him to remain _so long_ in his dream, and, to his astonishment,
learned that his dream had been _momentary_, and that he was awoke _on
the instant_ that he had begun to slumber.
But granting your notions of dreaming perfections, Astrophel, there are,
to a certain extent, even here, _analogies_. You forget that in our
waking moments our ideas are often so fleet as to be profitless to our
judgment; and why not in a dream? In the estimation of distance, with
what velocity the train of reasoning passes through the mind! Ere we
have formed our notions of an object, how instantaneous our reflections
on all its qualities—its brilliancy of colour, its apparent magnitude,
its form, &c., and the angle of inclination in regard to the axis of the
eye; and our conclusions (for judgment is awake) are echoes of the
truth. But _in the dream_ is it so? No. We get the idea (as Mr. Locke
has written) of time or duration by reflecting on that train of ideas
which succeed each other in the mind. In waking hours the judgment
clearly regulates this; but in dreams this course of reflection is
_impeded_, and the measurement of time is imperfect and erroneous, so
that it is the common characteristic of a dream, that there is _no idea
of time_; the past and the future are equally present.
Start not, if to strengthen this my illustration, I lead you again into
the mad-house; again unconsciously combine a dream with insanity, in
quoting these expressions of the Rev. Robert Hall (from “Green’s
Reminiscences”), in allusion to his first attack of mania. “All my
imagination has been overstretched. You, with the rest of my friends,
tell me that I was only seven _weeks_ in confinement, and the date of
the year corresponds, so that I am bound to believe you, but they have
appeared to me like seven _years_. My mind was so excited, and my
imagination so lively and active, that more ideas passed through my mind
during those seven weeks than in any seven years of my life. Whatever I
had obtained from reading or reflection was _present to me_.”
IDA. The apparent anachronism of such dreams, Evelyn, refers to
_imperfect_ function. Yet he will remember we are reasoning as _finite
beings_. True, Malebranche has asserted, that “it is possible some
creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years, or
look upon that space of duration which we call a minute, as an hour, a
week, a month, or a whole age. But in regard to the prospect of
futurity, of a more perfect state, who of us can decide that this
seeming illusion is not one evidence of the divine nature of mind; a
remote resemblance, if I may presume so to say, of one attribute of the
Creator, to whom a thousand years are as one day?”
I have learned from your own theory, Evelyn, that mind is either
imperfect or passive in the dream. Does not this passive condition
itself imply inspiration? For is not that, in which are produced
_results_, while itself is _inactive_, under the special influence of
some high power, as were the visions of the holy records?
Although I may not yield my entire belief in the fallacy of modern
inspiration because it is not _proved_, yet I have not listened to your
learning, Evelyn, without some leaning to the apparent truth of your
dissertations. I might hesitate to confess myself your pupil; still, the
incidents you have adduced will make me pause, ere I again blend profane
arguments with the truths of holy writ. Yet I cannot yield the feeling,
that the dream is an _emblem_, at least, of immortality.
As a beautiful illustration of such philosophy, I remember (in
Fulgosius) a legend told by Saint Austin to Enodius:—
There was a physician of Carthage, who was a sceptic regarding
immortality and the soul’s separate existence. It chanced one night that
Genadius dreamt of a beautiful city. On the second night, the youth who
had been his guide reappeared, and asked if Genadius remembered him; he
answered, yes, and also his dream. ‘And where,’ said the apparition,
‘were you then lying?’ ‘In my bed, sleeping.’ ‘And if your mind’s eye,
Genadius, surveyed a city, even while your body slept, may not this pure
and active spirit still live, and observe, and remember, even though the
body may be shapeless or decayed within its sepulchre?’
The dreams of Scripture, those “thoughts from the visions of night, when
deep sleep came upon men,” were associated with the mission of an angel,
or immediate communion with the Deity. For He has said, in the twelfth
of Numbers, that he would “speak to his prophets in a dream:” from the
first and self-interpreting dream of Abimelech, the visions interpreted
by the inspired propounder Joseph, the first dream of the New Testament,
the fulfilment of the Annunciation, the impressive trance of Peter, in
coincidence with the visions of the centurion, even to the holy visions
of the Apocalypse.
Indeed, the surpassing evidence and truth in all, but especially in the
inspired interpretation of Joseph of the dream of Pharaoh, and those of
the still _more_ inspired oneirocritic, Daniel, cannot be compared with
aught profane.
The prophet not only _expounded_, but _reminded_ Nebuchadnezzar of his
dream, when he himself had forgotten it. This was the result of special
prayer to the Deity; and, remember, without this, the Chaldeans failed
in their efforts. Even Josephus informs us, that Daniel “foretold good
things and pleased, so that he was deemed divine.” And you have read,
that Saul also prayed for a dream, but HE _dreamt not_, because he was
not holy. And there are holy precepts regarding dreams, which are
recorded to curb our superstitious reliance on _all_. We have assurances
of true dreamers in the first chapter of Matthew, the second of the
Acts, in Deuteronomy, and the thirty-fourth of Ecclesiasticus; the
language of the son of Sirach was, that “_common_ dreams only serve to
lift up fools.” With these reservations, I do believe that the real
inspiration of a spirit is the gift only of the holy and the good; so
that the presumption of divination and prophecy by _profane_ dreamers is
an illusion; yet, I acknowledge with John Wesley, that many have been
converted by a dreaming conscience; as we read of impressive dreams,
which have effected the conversion of others by the mere recital.
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was a sceptic; but, as we are informed by
Burnet in his “Life and Death,” his mind was first led to the conviction
of an immaterial spirit, by the prophetic dream of his mother, the Lady
de la Warre, foreboding truly his own death.
And I must ever admire the moral wisdom of Zeno, which (according to
Plutarch) induced him to regard a dream as the test of virtue; for, if
in his dream his heart did not _recoil_ from vicious suggestions, there
was an immediate necessity of self-examination and repentance. I cannot
forbear adding, that there is much wisdom in the estimation of his
vision, by one of the shepherd kings of Egypt, Sabaco. He dreamed that
the tutelary deity of Thebes enjoined him to kill the priests of Egypt,
and, for this unmerciful injunction from the gods, that _they deemed him
unfit for the throne_, he went into self-exile, to Æthiopia.
EV. The conclusions of these moralists from dreaming impressions were
somewhat straightlaced: yet _your_ reflections, Ida, point to the safest
mode by which we may reconcile the conflict of the divine and the
physiologist, and, above all, evince our devotion to the Creator;
namely, to argue on creation as we _see it_, and on revelation as we
_see it recorded_.
Yet, with a mock solemnity, dreams and apparitions have been first
adduced as proofs of the soul’s immortality; and then, in the same
argument, are themselves proved _by_ this immortality; the points of the
syllogism are reversed, and we have _petitio principii_, a begging of
the question.
This hypothesis of dreaming has formed the basis of certain religious
impostures. Among others, of Dubricius and Comedius; and, above all, the
fanatical visions of Emanuel Swedenborg, who founded his especial sect,
by the declaration of having visited Paradise.
In our analysis of revelation, the conflict of two powerful minds might,
on doctrinal points, attack, and in the end annihilate, the faith of
each, in their struggle for the victory; which may remind you of the
murders both of Protestants and Papists, especially in Ireland,
resulting from the wild excitement of fanaticism and bigotry; and the
persecutions which have, as history records, sprung from debates on holy
subjects. Remember the martyrdom of the amiable and beautiful Anne
Ascue, who was burnt at the stake for dissenting from the theological
tenets of Henry VIII., regarding the real presence. On the rack, her
silence was a model of heroism, for she might have impeached the queen
and her ladies; and Wriothesly, the chancellor, it is said, in his rage
to extort the secret, _himself_ stretched the wheel, so as almost to
tear her body asunder.
And then the blasphemy of that convocation, summoned in the reign of
Mary Tudor, to renew the discussion on that sacred point of
transubstantiation, between the Protestants and the Romanists;—but I
leave this topic to the mild theologian, who will confess it would have
withheld a stain from the page of history, had these mock religionists
acknowledged, with the pious Pascal, that “the sublime truths of our
religion and the essence of the immortal spirit are inexplicable by the
deepest research of wisdom, and are unfolded only by the inspired light
of revelation.”
Now it was clear that the dreams of the classic poets were not _all_
truly prophetic; and in accordance with this are their delineations of
the house of sleep. Indeed we may almost fancy, for a moment, that there
might be some reality in these poetical surveyors, until we reflect that
the Roman notions were plagiaries from the Greeks.
It is true, the locality of this Palace of Somnus, like the site of
Troy, is not a little diversified by Homer and the rest; but, whether it
be Lemnos, or Æthiopia, or Cimmeria, these are its descriptions:
First, of Homer,—
“Immur’d within the silent bower of sleep,
Two portals firm the various phantoms keep:
Of iv’ry one, whence flit, to mock the brain,
Of winged lies a light fantastic train.
The gate oppos’d, pellucid valves adorn,
And columns fair incased with polish’d horn;
Where images of truth for passage wait,
With visions manifest of future fate.”
And Virgil’s is a close copy.
In the “City of Dreams,” of Lucian, the blasphemer (whose beauties are
stained by their impieties), these eternal gates are again alluded to.
But the dreams in this city are all deceivers; for when a mortal enters
the gates, a circle of domestic dreams in a moment unfold to him a
budget of intelligence, which proves to be a tissue of lies.
Tertullian, and many others, have argued the notion of a _special
purpose_ of the Deity in _every dream_. And the “New Moral World” of the
visionary Owen, asserts, that “one chief source of our knowledge is
dreams and omens.”
In the eras of inspiration, few will be sceptical enough to doubt the
occurrence of divine mediations; or not to believe, with Socrates, and
other sages, in the divine origin of dreams and omens.
The evidence of Holy Scripture again proves the _occasion_, indeed the
_necessity_, for such communication; but, in our own time, I deem it
little less than profaneness, to imagine that the Deity should indicate
the future occurrence of common-place and trivial incidents through the
medium of an organ, confessedly in a state of _imperfection_, at the
moment when the faculties of mind are returning from a state of
temporary suspension,—a death-like sleep.
Even John Wesley believed dreams to be “_doubtful_ and _disputable_;”
and adds, with a half-profanation,—“they _might_ be from God, or might
not.”
The Emperor Constantine, you know, denounced death to all who dared to
look seriously into the secrets of futurity.
When we reflect that the proportion of events, seemingly the fulfilment
of a dream, is to the myriads of forebodings which never come to pass
(as the dreams recorded with some solemnity by Herodotus, of Alcibiades;
of Crœsus, regarding his son Atys; of Astyages and the vine; of
Cambyses, respecting Smerdis; and of Hamilcar, at the siege of
Syracusa;) as a drop in the ocean, the fallacy of the doctrine must be
evident. I marvel much that credulity, in this reflecting age, can gain
a single proselyte.
The magi of Persia and the soothsayers of Greece and Rome were
_constantly in error_; and Artemidorus Miraldus, who in the reign of
Antoninus wrote his voluminous book “Oneirocriticus,” has given us the
most ridiculous interpretations.
When the pagan priesthood of old lay down on the reeking skins of their
victims to rouse the inspiration of their dreams, it was to cheat their
proselytes. Such were the mummeries in the Temple of Æsculapius. The
devotees were first purified by the “lustral water;” and then divine
visions came over them, and priestesses in snowy robes, and a venerable
priest in the habit of Æsculapius, paraded round the altar, and the
charm was complete.
You may learn from Martin something about the modern influence of such a
charm.
“Mr. Alexander Cooper, present minister of North-uist, told me that one
John Erach, in the Isle of Lewis, assured him that it was his fate to
have been led by his curiosity to some who consulted this oracle, and
that he was a night within the hide as above mentioned, during which
time he felt and heard such terrible things that he could not express
them; the impression it made on him was such as could never go off, and
he said for a thousand worlds he would never again be concerned in the
like performance, for this had disordered him to a high degree. He
confessed it ingenuously and with an air of great remorse, and seemed to
be very penitent under a just sense of so great a crime: he declared
this about five years since, and is still living in the Lewis for any
thing I know.”
In imitation of this spell for the divine inspiration of a dream, the
modern Franciscans, after the ceremony of mass, throw themselves on mats
already consecrated by the slumber of some holy visionary, and with all
this foolery, they vaunt the divine inspiration of _their_ dream.
Cicero, and Theophrastus, and many other sages, were sceptical of these
special visitations, and explained _rationally_ dreams and divinations,
as Cicero his dream at Ætina, on his flight from Rome.
Then there is this anathema of Ennius:—
“Augurs, and soothsayers, astrologers, diviners, and interpreters of
dreams I never consult, and despise their vain pretence to more than
human skill.” And also this caution bequeathed to you by Epictetus:
“Never tell thy dream; for though thou thyself mayest take a pleasure in
telling thy dream, another will take no pleasure in hearing it.”
ASTR. Epictetus was himself a dreamer in this; for the story of a dream
is ever listened to with interest. And what would Epictetus think, were
I to tell him that broad lands and mitres have been gained before now by
the shrewd _putting of a dream_?
EV. I confess, as in the illusion of phantoms, there are records of very
strange coincidences in dreaming, which may be startling to many
superficial minds.
Pereskius, the friend of Gassiendi, after a severe fever, in 1609, was
engaged in the study of ancient coins, weights, and measures. One night,
he dreamed he met a goldsmith at Nismes, who offered him a coin of
Julius Cæsar for four _cardecues_. The next day this incident was
repeated to him _in reality_. But _he_ was a philosopher, and deemed it,
as it was, but a rare coincidence.
There were two sisters, who (as a learned physician has recorded) were
sleeping together during the illness of their brother. One of these
ladies dreamed that her watch, an old family relic, had stopped, and, on
waking her sister to tell of this, she was answered by her thus: “Alas!
I have worse to tell you: _our brother’s breath is also stopped_.” On
the following night, the same dream was repeated to the young lady. On
the morning after this second dream, the lady, on taking out the watch,
which had been perfect in its movement, observed that it had indeed
stopped, and at the same moment she heard her sister screaming; the
brother, who had been till then apparently recovering, had just
_breathed his last_.
These are sequences, and not _con_sequences: and I might adduce a mass
of these mere coincidences, which have been stretched and warped, to
make up a prophecy. Such as the following legend of Sergius Galba, told
by Fulgosius: “Galba had coquetted with two marble ladies,—the Fortune,
at Tusculum, and the Capitoline Venus; and, to adorn the neck of the
first, he had purchased a brilliant diamond necklace. But the charms of
the Venus of the Capitol prevailed over her rival, and the necklace was
at length presented to the goddess of beauty. At night, the form of
Fortune appeared to him in his sleep, upbraiding him with his falsehood,
and telling him that he should be deprived of all the gifts she had
lavished on him, and Galba, as the story goes, soon after died.”
But, if dreams are essentially prophetic, why are they not _all_
fulfilled? and if _one_ is not fulfilled, how know we if _all_ will not
be equally fallacious? The argument for the prophetic nature is merely
_à posteriori_, the shallow “post _hoc_, _ergo_ propter _hoc_,” of the
sophist. On the occurrence of any important event, all the auguries and
dreams which bear the slightest semblance to a prophecy are immediately
adduced, and stretched and warped _to suit_ the superstition; as the
whimsical mother will account for the marks on her child by frights and
longings. When we know that myriads of enthusiasts and hypochondriacs
have, by the failure of their predictions, deserved the stigma of false
prophets, we may surely class these phantasies among the popular
_errors_ of the time.
Yet the fulfilment of a prophecy _may be_ consequence; and that without
the imputation of falsehood or imposition, or of any special
interference. (I am not recanting my opinions, Astrophel.)
1st. Through the effect of an _imparted impetus_.
2nd. _Foresight_, from the study of events and character.
3rd. Constant _thinking_ on one subject.
4th. _Impressions_ of terror or alarm, from spectres, sybils, &c.
As there are dreams from impressions on the body during sleep, so are
there diseased tissues in the brain, which light up phantoms of terror
and death perfectly prophetic. But wherefore so? Merely because they are
_induced_ by that disease which usually terminates _in_ death. Such were
the dreams during the nightmare which preceded, and, I believe, still
precede, the epidemic fevers in Rome, and in those of Leyden, in 1669,
when the patient fell asleep, and was attacked by _incubus_ before each
exacerbation. The _impersonation of death_ was the prevailing phantom of
their dream, and in reality death soon followed.
Among those heathen tribes, where superstition and ignorance form part
of a national creed, there is a degree of blindness and inconsistency
that may truly be termed _mania_. It is the doctrine, not of prophecy,
but of debased and absolute fatalism. The North American Indians not
only regard the dream as prophetic, but often receive it as a solemn
injunction, and are themselves the active agents in its fulfilment. “In
whatever manner,” says Charlevoix, “the dream is conceived, it is always
looked upon as a thing sacred, and as the most ordinary way in which the
gods make known their will to men. Filled with this idea, they cannot
conceive how we should pay no regard to them. For the most part they
look upon them either as a desire of the soul, inspired by some genius,
or an order from him, and, in consequence of this principle, they hold
it a religious duty to obey them. An Indian, having dreamt of the
amputation of his finger, had it really cut off as soon as he awoke,
first preparing himself for this important action by a feast!”
Among more enlightened people there may be an inducement to action from
the impression of a dream; here, also, the consequence is the fulfilment
of the prophecy. Such, Astrophel, were the dreams of Arlotte and Cadiga;
of Judas Maccabæus; of Sylla; of Germanicus; and of Masulenius; and the
dream of the priestess of Proserpine, on the eve of Timoleon’s
expedition from Corinth to Syracuse, that Ceres volunteered to be his
travelling companion into Sicily. The dream of Olympia, that she was
with child of a dragon, might both have suggested the mode of education,
and incited the warlike spirit of Alexander.
We know that the city of Carthage was rebuilt by Augustus Cæsar, in
consequence of the dream of his uncle Julius.
And we read in the travels of Herbert, that Cangius, the blacksmith of
Mount Taurus, aspired to, and gained dominion over the Tartars from a
similar influence, and from his name has the title of “Chan” been since
conferred on some of the most warlike monarchs of the East.
There was a dream of Ertercules that was warped, by Edebales, into the
interpretation, that Oman should be born to him, and become a great
conqueror.
I have known the dreams of young ladies often prove the inducement to
their marriage.
I may remind you, too, that even a simple waking incident will impart
this power of action. It is a record of history, that Robert Bruce
slept, during his wandering, in the barn of a cottage. As he was lying,
he saw a spider attempt to climb to the roof; twelve times the insect
failed ere it gained its point. This potent lesson of perseverance
instantly flashed across his mind, and in a few days was won the field
of Bannockburn. Be sure the _seers_ termed this an _omen_.
The seduction of Helen was the result of a dream of high promise, made
to Paris by the phantom of Venus.
Scott (who was executed at Jedburgh, in 1823, for murder) confessed that
he had dreamed of such a crime for many years ere its committal.
Of the result of _constant dwelling on an interesting subject_, I may
add these illustrations.
Antigonusa, King of Macedonia, anticipated (according to Plutarch) the
flight of his prisoner Mithridates to the Euxine.
Of such a nature were the dreams of the Emperor Julian and of
Calphurnia, if indeed these were more than fable; and such was the dream
of Cromwell,—that he should be the greatest man in England. In all
these, and a thousand more, the mere constant thinking excited the
dream. The ambitious thought of Cromwell was constantly haunting his
waking moments, pointing to personal aggrandisement, and, of
consequence, imparted a like character to the dream of his slumbers.
Could we have penetrated the privacy of Ireton, and Lambert, and other
Presbyterian leaders, we should discover that such ambitious
prepossessions were not confined to the bosom of the Protector.
The grandfather of the poet Goëthe, on the death of an old counsellor at
Frankfort, assured his wife of his confident belief, that the golden
ball, which elected the vacant counsellor, would be _drawn for him_. And
this belief arose from a dream; in which he went in full costume to
court, when the deceased counsellor rose from his seat and begged him to
occupy the chair, and then went out of the door. Goëthe _was_ elected.
And yet divines especially are determined to look beyond nature for
causes, and refer all this to _divine foreknowledge_, imparted to the
mind of man. There is a solemn letter, written in 1512, by Cardinal
Bembo, to one of the Medici, recounting how he was opposed in a suit
against one Simon Goro, by Giusto, and how his mother dreamed that
Giusto wounded him in the right hand, and besought him not to have
altercation with him. It chanced that Giusto, who, it seems, was
somewhat deranged, snatched Bembo’s papers from his hand, and
afterwards, by the Rialto, wounded him in the second finger of the right
hand. Now is not this a very shallow incident? and yet the sapient
cardinal deems it essential to _confirm his tale_ by a solemn
attestation, thus: “The dream of my mother I look upon as a revelation;
and I declare to you, magnificent lord, by that veneration which we owe
to God himself, that this recital is the pure and single truth.”
The proofs of an apparent prophecy from foresight may be seen in those,
who by reflection have attained either a worldly or a _weather_ wisdom.
The sea captain, who has looked out upon the sky at night, and has
learned the foreboding signs of a storm, will often dream of shipwreck;
and the politician will dream of events, as well as predicate
consequences, from an _enlightened reflection_ on the motives of the
human mind, and the general laws which indeed influence its actions. So
that, with a little latitude, it were easy enough for us all to
construct an almanac column, especially if there be granted to us a
liberal allowance of “more or less about this time.”
Above all, it is our duty to _avert the impressions of evil_ from the
superstitious mind. The _apprehension_ of a misfortune or fatality may
prove its _cause_. Ay, and if the intellect were really gifted with
prescience, how oft would the happiness of life be blighted?
The allegory of the tree of knowledge is a practic precept for our
lives.
ASTR. And yet Virgil has thus alluded to the delight of peeping into
futurity:
“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.”
EV. _I_ would rather echo the benevolent precept of Horace, to ensure
the bliss of ignorance on this point:
“Tu ne quæsieris, scire (nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi,
Finem Dii dederint.”
in other words: “Seek not to know the destiny that awaits us.”
And Milton’s wisdom, too:
“Let no man seek
Henceforth, to be foretold what shall befall
Him or his children: evil, he may be sure,
Which, neither his foreknowing can prevent;
And he the future evil shall, as less
In apprehension than as substance, feel
Grievous to bear.”
Listen to the melancholy influence of the dream and death of Glaphyra,
as told by Josephus:
“She was married when she was a virgin to Alexander, the son of Herod,
and brother of Archelaus, but since it fell out so that Alexander was
slain by his father, she was married to Juba, the King of Lydia; and
when he was dead, and she lived in widowhood in Cappadocia with her
father, Archelaus divorced his former wife Mariamne, and married her, so
great was his affection for this Glaphyra, who during her marriage to
him saw the following dream:—she thought she saw Alexander standing by
her, at which she rejoiced and embraced him with great affection, but
that he complained of her, and said to Glaphyra: ‘Thou provest that
saying to be true, which assures us that women are not to be trusted.
Didst not thou pledge thy faith to me? and wast thou not married to me
when thou wast a virgin? and had we not children between us? Yet hast
thou forgotten the affection I bare to thee out of a desire for a second
husband. Nor hast thou been satisfied with that injury thou didst me,
but thou hast been so bold as to procure thee a third husband, and hast
been married to Archelaus—thy husband and my brother. However, I will
not forget my former affection for thee, but will set thee free from
every such reproachful action, and cause thee to be mine again as thou
once wast.’ When she had related this to her female companions, in a few
days’ time she departed this life.”
The fatality which coincided with the prophetic warning of Lord
Lyttelton, might well be adduced as another illustration, were it not
for some imputation of suicidal disposition in that nobleman, which
would more forcibly invalidate the prophetic dignity of his dream.
I may relate another story, not remotely illustrative of this influence,
from Brand’s “Popular Antiquities.”—“My friend, the late Captain Mott,
R. N., used frequently to repeat an anecdote of a seaman under his
command. This individual, who was a good sailor and a brave man,
suffered much trouble and anxiety from his superstitious fears. When on
the night watch, he would see sights and hear noises, in the rigging and
the deep, which kept him in a perpetual fever of alarm. One day the poor
fellow reported upon deck, that the devil, whom he knew by his horns and
cloven feet, stood by the side of his hammock on the preceding night,
and told him that he had only three days to live. His messmates
endeavoured to remove his despondency by ridicule, but without effect.
And the next morning he told the tale to Captain Mott, with this
addition, that the fiend had paid him a second nocturnal visit,
announcing a repetition of the melancholy tidings. The captain in vain
expostulated with him on the folly of indulging such groundless
apprehensions. And the morning of the fatal day being exceedingly
stormy, the man, with many others, was ordered to the topmast to perform
some duty among the rigging. Before he ascended, he bade his messmates
farewell, telling them that he had received a third warning from the
devil, and that he was confident he should be dead before night. He went
aloft with the foreboding of evil on his mind, and in less than five
minutes he lost his hold, fell upon the deck, and was killed upon the
spot.”
Were an aversion to these gloomy fancies inculcated, it might avert many
a fatal foreboding, which, even in our own enlightened era, has closely
resembled the fate of the African victims of Obi; that magic
fascination, which its Syriac namesake, Obh, works by spell, until the
doomed one pines to death, with the deep conviction that he is under the
ban of an enchanter.
MATERIAL CAUSES OF DREAMS.
“_Iago._ Nay, this was but his dream.
_Othello._ But this denoted a _foregone conclusion_;
’Tis a shrewd doubt, tho’ it be but a dream.”
OTHELLO.
ASTR. We looked for more from you, Evelyn, than these _proofs of a
negative_.
I presume still to think your philosophy is very weak in controversion
of the _inspiration_ of a dream, and its supernatural causes. _I_ cannot
but believe, with Baxter, that dreams may be “spirits in communion with
us.”
EV. And you will define these shadowless ministers in the fashion of
Master Richard Burthogge, Medicinæ Doctor, (in his book, printed by
Raven, in the Poultry, in 1694.) I have a smack, you see, of medical
bibliomania, Astrophel. Burthogge, although one of the most rational
interpreters of dreams and spectres, thinks their internal causes
_purely metaphysical_; and then refutes his own opinion point blank by
this sophistry,—that “there are things _incorporated_, but _invisible_,
which we call spirits;” as who should say, with Shakspere’s fairies, “We
have the gift of fern seed; we are invisible.”
No; we will account for the causes of dreams, Astrophel, without the
ministry of spirits.
Analyzing, then, the notions of all, it is clear that the essence of the
dream is _recurrence of ideas_. In the words of Walpole,—“The memory
retains the colouring of the day.”
Now memory is the first faculty to fail in age, and you know old people
seldom dream: the same objects are applied, but there is little or no
association, for the brain is dull and feeble; imbecility, indeed, is
_mad memory_.
The two common periods associated with the dream, are the past and the
future, involving memory and prognostication; the latter being but the
_memory of an intention_,—an image excited in the mind by analogy. Even
when _present_ sensations excite the dream, it is ever associated, as
you remember, with something _before seen or felt_.
The waking thought will thus again modify the dream; and Dr. Abercrombie
has a curious illustration of this combining of two minds,—one waking
subject, one dream, and one disturbing cause.
The French invasion was the universal topic in Edinburgh; and the city
was, indeed, one company of volunteers. It was decided that the tocsin
of alarm on the approach of the enemy, was to be the firing of the
castle guns, followed by a chain of signals. At two, an officer was
awoke from a vivid dream of guns and signals, and reviews of troops, by
his lady, who herself was affrighted by a similar dream, with a few
associations of a _different_ nature. And whence all this alarm?—_the
falling of a pair of tongs on the hearth_, the noise of which was quite
sufficient for the production of their dreaming associations.
ASTR. It would seem to me that Evelyn was too anxious to find employment
for the brain, in thus imputing so much to _substantial_ causes.
There is a funny scrap, I remember to have read, and of which I may
shrewdly suspect my friend to be the scribbler. “Whence we may compare
the powers of mind to a court of judicature:—the outward senses being
as the solicitors that bring the causes; the common sense, as the master
of requests, who receives all their informations; and phantasy (or
imagination), like the lawyers and advocates that bandy the business to
and fro in several forms, with a deal of noise and bustle; reason, as
the judge, that having calmly heard each party’s pretensions, pronounces
an upright sentence; and memory, as the clerk, records the whole
proceedings.” But say, if the dream is but the memory of an impression,
are metaphysics to be counted as a _cypher_, in our discussion of the
nature of intellect?
EV. Nay, the psychologist must ever call metaphysics to his aid,
especially when speaking of the health or disorder of mind: there is an
intimate blending of metaphysics and philosophy. But believe not,
Astrophel, that I presume to develope that mysterious influence which is
going on between mind and matter, so essential to the manifestation of
the former, _during its earthly condition_. The mystery will ever be a
sealed letter to the intellect. It is enough that we have evidence of
its existence without yearning for deeper insight of _final causes_. I
have assured you that I do not believe thought or reflection, or any act
of mind to be _material_, and speak even with all due courtesy to the
abstract metaphysician, and the divine who, doubtless from pure and holy
motives, would seek to cut the Gordian knot of this sublime enigma.
Even Dr. Abercrombie is content with observing that the correction of
illusions by the sane mind is by the comparing power of reason, but he
leaves the _illusion itself unexplained_. Indeed, the most luminous of
pathologists have ever feared to touch organization; Sir Humphrey Davy
leaves his beautiful imaginings vague and inconclusive, because he stops
short of the brain.
The mere psychologist will ever persevere in placing even the _palpable_
causes of illusion beyond the reach of our inquiries.
Thus the rhapsodies of Lucretius were a series of professed fables, and
the theories of Macrobius a tissue of capricious distinctions, as you
may learn from his classification.
1st. ονειρος, _somnium_, dream. A figurative vision to be interpreted.
2nd. οραμα, _vision_. A vision which has afterwards been exactly
fulfilled.
3rd. χρηματισμος, _oraculum_. An intimation in sleep of what we ought to
do.
(I suppose as the shade of Hector appeared to Æneas, warning him, the
night before, to escape from the flames of Troy.)
4th. ενυπνιον, _insomnium_. A sort of night-mare.
5th. φαντασμα, _visus_ and _incubus_.
Here is a perfect jumble of classification, the first three only being
vaunted as prophetic, or inspired; the fourth a night-mare; and the
fifth, if it be any thing, a spectral illusion.
Others have deemed themselves mighty wise in discovering dreams to be
the “action of intellect on itself.”
Abercrombie, the most learned analyst of the mind since Reid and
Stewart, has four varieties of the dream:
1st. From wrong association of new events.
2nd. Trains of thought from bodily association.
3rd. Revival of old associations.
4th. Casual fulfilment of a dream!
You perceive the first and third are merely memory, with right and wrong
arrangements; the second, excitement of ideas from present sensations;
the fourth, if it be not a mere coincidence, is the result, as I have
explained, of imparted impetus, or deep thinking on _subjects presented
to the mind_. The eccentricities of dreaming are not more curious than
those of the reminiscent faculty when _awake_; indeed, memory itself may
seem to be sometimes dreaming, and at others even _fast asleep_. Those
who survived the plague in Athens (as we read in Thucydides), lost for a
time the recollection of names, their own and those of their friends,
and did not regain it until their health was re-established.
Mori, during his frequent moods of excitement, quite lost his memory of
music, so that, for many minutes, he could neither read a note nor play
from memory.
There have been persons who have very suddenly forgotten their own
names, which they were about to announce on a visit to a friend.
“Mr. Von B——, envoy to Madrid, and afterwards to Petersburg, a man of
a serious turn of mind, yet by no means hypochondriacal, went out one
morning to pay a number of visits. Among other houses at which he
called, there was one where he suspected the servants did not know him,
and where he consequently was under the necessity of giving in his name,
but this very name he had at that moment entirely forgotten. Turning
round immediately to a gentleman who accompanied him, he said, with much
earnestness, ‘For God’s sake, tell me who I am.’ The question excited
laughter, but as Mr. Von B—— insisted on being answered, adding that
he had entirely forgotten his own name, he was told it; upon which he
finished his visit.”
The eccentric impressions of this faculty will be often _intermittent_,
or marked by sudden yet regular remissions.
There is a very curious case on record, of a lady whose “memory was
capacious, and well stored with a copious stock of ideas. Unexpectedly,
and without any forewarning, she fell into a profound sleep, which
continued several hours beyond the ordinary term. On waking, she was
discovered to have lost every trait of acquired knowledge; her memory
was a blank. All vestiges, both of words and things, were obliterated
and gone; it was found necessary for her to learn every thing again. She
even acquired by new efforts the art of spelling, reading, writing, and
calculating, and gradually became acquainted with the persons and
objects around, like a being for the first time brought into the world.
In these exercises she made considerable proficiency; but, after a few
months, another fit of somnolency invaded her. On rousing from it, she
found herself restored to the state she was in _before the first
paroxysm_; but she was wholly ignorant of every event and occurrence
that had befallen her afterwards. The former condition of her existence
she now calls the _old_ state, and the latter the _new_ state; and she
is as unconscious of her double character as two distinct persons are of
their respective natures. For example, in her old state, she possesses
all her original knowledge; in her new state, only what she acquired
since. If a lady or gentleman be introduced to her in the old state, and
_vice versâ_ (so indeed of all other matters), to _know them_
satisfactorily she must learn them in both states. In the old state she
possesses fine powers of penmanship, while in the new she writes a poor
awkward hand, not having had time or means to become expert! During four
years and upwards, she has had periodical transitions from one of these
states to the other. The alterations are always consequent upon a long
and sound sleep. Both the lady and her family are now capable of
conducting the affair without embarrassment; by simply knowing whether
she is in the old or new state, they regulate the intercourse, and
govern themselves accordingly!”
Other instances are more protracted; the impressions _previous to a
certain moment_ only being capable of renewal.
Mrs. S——, an intelligent lady, belonging to a respectable family in
the state of New York, some years ago undertook a piece of fine
needle-work. She devoted her time to it almost constantly for a number
of days; but before she had completed it she became suddenly delirious.
In this state, without experiencing any material abatement of her
disease, she continued for about seven years, when her reason was
suddenly restored. One of the first questions which she asked on this
convalescence _related to her needle-work_. It is a remarkable fact
that, during the long continuance of her delirium, she said nothing, so
far as was recollected, about her needle-work, nor concerning any such
subjects as usually occupied her attention when in health.
We read in Dr. Abercrombie, of a lady reduced by disease, in whose mind
the _memory of ten years was lost_. “Her ideas were consistent with each
other, but they referred to things as they stood before her removal (to
Edinburgh).”
In these instances it is probable that the fault may be referred to the
_original_ impression, some disorder or state of the brain causing it to
be only _superficially_ impressed during these ten years of oblivion.
There is a curious story in the history of the Royal Academy of
Sciences, which Beattie has recorded in these words:—
“A nobleman of Lausanne, as he was giving orders to a servant, suddenly
lost his speech and all his senses. Different remedies were tried,
without effect, for six months; during all which time he appeared to be
in a deep sleep or deliquium, with various symptoms at different
periods, which are particularly specified in the narration. At last,
after some chirurgical operations, at the end of six months his speech
and senses were suddenly restored. When he recovered, the servant to
whom he had been giving orders when he was first seized with the
distemper, happening to be in the room, he asked whether he had executed
his commission; not being sensible, it seems, that any interval of time,
except, perhaps, a very short one, had elapsed during his illness.”
IDA. I have read two stories of melancholy romance, which are not
_mal-à-propos_ to your arguments, Evelyn, in which the memory of one
intense impression has “gone into a being,” influencing the current of
every after-thought, and the mind seeming ever after unconscious of all
past or present, _but the incident of one moment_.
A gentleman, on the point of marriage, left his intended bride for a
short time. He usually travelled in the stage-coach to the place of her
abode; but the last journey he took from her was the last of his life.
Anxiously expecting his return, she went to meet the vehicle, when an
old friend announced to her the death of her lover. She uttered an
involuntary scream, and one piteous exclamation, “He is dead!” From this
fatal moment, for _fifty years_, has this unfortunate female daily, in
all seasons, traversed the distance of a few miles to the spot where she
expected her future husband to alight from the coach, uttering, in a
plaintive tone, “He is not come yet; I will return to-morrow.”
A young clergyman, on the eve of marriage, received a severe injury.
During his future life of celibacy, which was protracted to the 80th
year, this one idea only possessed his mind, that his hour of happiness
was approaching, and to the last moment he talked of his marriage with
all the passion of a devoted lover.
EV. Thanks to your _own_ memory, Ida, for these incidents. That the
possession of the faculty of this _impression_ of memory can be
demonstrated, we might doubt, were _verbal_ description _only_ employed;
but when we see the artist trace the features of a person long lost to
us _from memory_, we know that such ideas existed, and were then
_re-excited_ in his mind.
The power of the intellect in retaining these impressions is wonderful.
Cyrus is said to have remembered the names of all his soldiers, and
Themistocles those of two thousand Athenians.
We have records from Seneca and others, that some will remember, after
one perusal or hearing, very long poems; and even have repeated, word
for word, the unconnected jumble of a newspaper. Pascal, as we are told
by Locke, _never forgot anything_. Almost equally retentive was the
memory of my excellent teacher, Sir Astley Cooper, and hence his nearly
unexampled accumulation of facts. The memory of Ben Jonson was retentive
to perfection, until the fortieth year of his age. In his youth, he
could repeat an entire volume after its perusal; nay, even the _whole_
of his own works, or as he quaintly writes, “All that ever I made.” We
know that Bloomfield composed his “Farmer’s Boy” in the bustle of a shoe
manufactory, and wrote from his memory.
ASTR. I have heard that the particles of the body are constantly
changing: if so, how can memory _exist_ in the brain?
EV. The answer is easy. Because particles of exact similarity are
deposited as others are removed. The parts thus regenerated, of whatever
_structure_ they may be, still being identical and unchanged in
function.
If the dream _be_ an inspiration, Astrophel, it is like “a spirit of the
past,” and does not “speak like sybils of the future.”
But ere I offer some analogies of _waking_ memory, in illustration of
the causes of the dream, I must again fatigue you by a glance at the
physiology of memory; the origin or mode of impression of a sense, and
the mode of recurrence of such impression, _i.e._ the _excitement of the
dream_.
Aristotle has asserted that senses cannot receive material objects, but
only their _species_, or ειδωλον; and Mr. Locke entertained the same
idea. For this effect, however, matter must have _touched a sense_, and
its impression, as Baron Haller thought, must have been mechanical. For
instance, the rays emanating from a body, and impinging on the retina,
or an undulation of sound on the labyrinth of the ear, _stamp an image
on the brain_, by which, (in accordance with a prior observation on
illusion,) some minute change is inevitably effected; some minute
_cerebral atoms_ are displaced.
If you propose to me that curious physiological question,—in what
consists the function of a nerve—in oscillation, or in undulation of a
fluid, in electricity, or in magnetism? or how the nerve carries this
impression to the brain? or if you desire me to meet the subtle
objection, which Dr. Reid advanced against the opinion of Aristotle and
of the more modern psychologists,—I might weary you with conjectures
like those of Newton and Hartley, that some ethereal fluid was, by the
impulse of peculiar stimulus to its nerve, the cause of the senses; or
that the mental phenomena are an imparting, or influence of the
immaterial soul by corporeal vibration; or that dreams are “_motions of
fibres_:” and at length, with humility confess this to be a mystery we
cannot yet fathom. And this I do the more willingly, as it may prove my
devotion to the _proper limits of our study_; moreover, the question
itself is not essential to my argument.
Yet it is certain that external impressions of every object or subject,
reach the brain through the medium of a nerve; and when the _same
fibrils_ of those nerves, or _that spot_ of brain on which the original
image rested, are _again_ irritated by their proper stimulus, or by the
same or a similar body, _an association is produced, and memory is the
result_.
For the insurance of this sense of touch, and feeling, and perception,
it is essential that the impression at the end of a nerve shall be
perfectly transmitted along its course to the brain, so that the brain
shall be _conscious_, or sensible of this impression. For if a nerve be
cut asunder, or a ligature be placed on any portion of it between the
skin and the brain, _the sensation instantly ceases_. It is not
essential, however, that the contact should take place at the moment of
the perception; and the explanation of this involves one of the most
curious phenomena of the body’s feeling; and, indeed, the metaphysical
mystery of the nature of memory, which is too abstruse a point to be
touched by us here. After amputation, the patient may still complain of
pain, and heat, and cold, _in the dissevered limb_; he experiences the
memory of a sensation; he feels, as it were, the ghost of his arm or
leg. On the night succeeding the operation, the groaning patient has
often cried out to me, with pain in the toe or finger of that limb; and
when he is moved or shifts his position, he will attempt to hold his
leg, or will beg his nurse to take care that she does not touch or run
against it. Nay, I have frequently, on asking a patient how he felt,
even after the lapse of many months from the operation, been answered,
that he was well, but had not lost the pain in his leg; or that his leg
or his arm were lying by his side, when perhaps the limb was undergoing
the process of maceration in the dissecting-room, or the bones were
bleached and dangling in the museum.
The pain, or common feeling of the limb, has stamped an image or
_eidōlon_ on the brain, which is not easily effaced; there remains an
_internal sensibility_ on this point of memory. If the subject be
subsequently presented to the mind by a touch at the end of the stump,
or even by a thought, the idea of the limb that had lain dormant, will
be re-excited by that wondrous sympathy of brain and nerve, and the
result will be a consciousness of having once possessed, or of having
experienced a pain in this leg.
And, on this principle of the force of memory, we may explain many of
our excited feelings: those which remain after we have been wafted in a
boat, or rolled along in a carriage, or whirled aloft in a swing; the
nervous impression in the brain is re-excited ere it was exhausted.
Now, an image may be stamped on the brain, _in a tumult_, without our
cognizance or perception, and then revived in slumber;—we wake in
wonder at having seen what we never saw or thought of before. Such is
the dream of Lovel, in the “Antiquary;” and such the _rationale_ of that
tale of mystery, respecting the £6. in the Glasgow bank, which a dream
seems certainly to have developed.
And it is evident that these impressions may recur the easier in
slumber, because there is no _fresh_ impression on the senses to produce
confusion. But then all these images may be presented at _one_ time; so
that we may have either a chaos, or a correct concatenation,—an
incident, which Hobbes and other early metaphysicians confess to be
inexplicable to _them_.
In the words of Spurzheim, “Memory is the reproduction of a perception;”
and Gall believed that “Remembrance is the faculty of recollecting _that
we have perceived_ impressions; and memory, the recollection of the
_impressions themselves_.”
I read, that Esquirol has drawn a distinction between hallucination and
illusion,—the first is from within, the second from without. The
argument I have adduced of memory and impression,—the one at the
beginning, the other at the end, of nerves,—will, I think, illustrate
this perfectly. Hallucination, being _internal_, is of the _past_;
illusion, _external_,—of the _present_.
Another metaphysician, Bayle, it is clear, was not ignorant of the basis
of phrenology, or of this difference, when he alludes to “certain places
on the brain, on which the image of an object, which has no real
existence _out of_ ourselves, might be excited.”
INTENSE IMPRESSION.—MEMORY.
“The dream’s here still: even when I wake, it is
Without me as within me; not imagined, felt.”
CYMBELINE.
EV. I believe, then, that waking and slumbering association is _memory_;
and I have interposed the glimpse of metaphysics to break the monotony
of my illustrations, for they are not yet exhausted.
A gentleman, as we read in Dr. Pritchard’s work, was confined, after a
severe accident, for several weeks, and the accident was not once during
this period remembered by him; but, on his convalescence, he rode again
over the same ground, and all the circumstances instantly flashed across
his mind.
In their youth, Dr. Rush escorted a lady, on a holiday, to see an
eagle’s nest. _Many years_ afterwards, he was called to attend her in
the acute stage of typhus; and, on his entrance into her chamber, she
instantly screamed out, “Eagle’s nest!” and it is said, from this
moment, the fever began to decline.
We ourselves have witnessed these flashes of memory more than once,
during the acuteness of brain fever, where journeys, and stories, and
studies, have been renewed after they had been long forgotten.
There are many romantic incidents in illustration which have been
beautifully wrought into a poem, or drama, as that play of Kotzebue,
written to illustrate the happy success of the Abbé de l’Epée in France,
in imparting knowledge and receiving sentiments from the deaf and dumb.
In this, the young Count Solar, by gestures, unfolds, step by step, his
birth-place, and at length screams with joy, as he stands before the
palace of his ancestors.
Then there is the story of little Montague, who was decoyed by the
chimney sweep. Some time after this, the child was engaged to clean the
chimney of a mansion, and, descending into a chamber, which had been
indeed his own nursery, lay down, in his sooty clothes, on the quilt,
and, by this happy memory, discovered his aristocratic birth. This is
the incident which still enlivens the pageantry of May-day.
These reminiscences will occur sometimes in the most sudden and
unexpected manner. In one of the American journals, we are told of a
clergyman, who, at the termination of some depressing malady, had
completely lost his memory. His mind was a blank, and he had, in fact,
to begin the world of literature again. Among other of his studies was
the Latin language. During his classical readings with his brother, he
one day suddenly struck his head with his hand, and stated that he had a
most _peculiar feeling_, and was convinced that he had _learned all this
before_.
Boërhave, in his “Prelectiones Academic. Institut. Med.,” relates the
case of a Spanish tragic writer, whose memory, subsequently to an acute
febrile disease, was so completely impaired, that not only the
literature of various languages he had studied was lost to him, but also
their elements, the alphabets. When even his own poetic compositions
were read to him, he denied himself to be the author. But the most
interesting feature of the case is this: that, on becoming _again_ a
votary of the Muse, his recent compositions so intimately resembled his
original productions in style and sentiment, that he no longer doubted
that both were the offspring of his own imagination.
Even Priestley’s master-mind was sometimes sleeping thus, being subject
(to quote his own words) “to humbling _failures of recollection_;” so
that he lost all ideas of things and persons, and had so forgotten his
own writings, that, on the perusal of a work, he sat himself to make
experiments on points which _he had already illustrated_, but on which
his mind was then a “_tabula rasa_.”
Above all, the superlative memory of Sir Walter lay in a deep sleep,
after a severe indisposition. It is recorded by Ballantyne, that when
“the Bride of Lammermoor, in its printed form, was submitted to his
perusal, he did not recognize, _as his own_, one single incident,
character, or conversation it contained; yet the original tradition was
perfect in his mind. When Mrs. Arkwright, too, sung some verses _of
his_, one evening, at Lord Francis Egerton’s, the same oblivion was o’er
his mind, and he whispered to Lockhart, ‘Capital words;—whose are they?
Byron’s, I suppose; but _I don’t remember them_.’”
My friend, Dr. Copland, informed me (in May, 1839) of a lady of fifteen,
Miss D——, who, in consequence of extreme exhaustion from disorder,
forgot all her accomplishments, and had to begin her education afresh.
The Countess of Laval had, in her childhood, been taught the Armorican
of Lower Brittany (which is a dialect of the Welch), but had, as she
believed, forgotten it. On attaining the adult period, this lady had an
acute fever, and, during her delirium, she ceased to speak in her native
language, and chattered fluently in the bastard Welch.
A foreign gentleman, as we were told by Mr. Abernethy, after an accident
on the head, spoke French only, and quite forgot the English, which he
had before this spoken very fluently.
A Welch patient, in St. Thomas’s Hospital, some years since, having
received an injury, began to speak in Welch, and ever after continued to
do so, although before his accident he constantly conversed in English.
On the contrary, we learn, from Dr. Pritchard, of a lady who, after a
fit of apoplexy, forgot her _original_ language (the English), and spoke
only in French, so that her nurses and servants conversed with her only
by interpreters.
There may be a _partial_ derangement of memory, _one set of impressions_
only being erased.
A friend of Dr. Beattie, in consequence of a blow on the head, lost only
his attainments in _Greek_; and Professor Scarpa (whose _corpus
striatum_ was disorganised) lost only the memory of proper names.
You may now comprehend how instantaneously material impressions derange
and destroy memory, and its converse, the production of memory _by_
material impressions, will be far less mysterious to you.
But creatures to which the gift of intellect is not granted, in which
_innate ideas_ cannot arise, still evince the faculty of memory. It is,
therefore, possible that fish and insects, _possessing memory_, dream.
Of course the doctrines of Pythagoras, and Simonides, and the story of
the interpretation of the language of birds by the vizier of Sultan
Mahmoud, are mere fables, and the cackling of the Roman geese was
_accidental_; yet the bird does possess the memory of language, and the
power of imparting ideas.
Nightingales’ notes (as Bechstein has beautifully recorded them) seem to
me like the Mexican language, and to express variety of sentiments of
adoration and love. The parrot, magpie, jackdaw, jay, starling, and
bullfinch, are prattlers; and the exquisite little canary, the pupil of
my friend, Mrs. H——, the pet, indeed, not only of its mistress, but of
statesmen and learned physiologists, warbled its words in purest melody.
From Sir William Temple we learn the faculty of the wonderful parrot of
Prince Maurice, of Nassau, at the Hague, that responsed almost
_rationally_ to promiscuous questions. Granting, then, this faculty of
memory, it is clear the bird may _dream_, and I may add one other
quotation from the “Domestic Habits of Birds,” in proof of this.
“We have, however, heard some of these night-songs which were manifestly
uttered while the bird was asleep, in the same way as we sometimes talk
during sleep—a circumstance remarked by Dryden, who says,
“‘The little birds in dreams their songs repeat.’
“We have even observed this in a wild bird. On the night of the 6th
April, 1811, about ten o’clock, a dunncock (_accentor modularis_) was
heard in a garden to go through its usual song more than a dozen times
very faintly, but distinctly enough for the species to be recognised.”
The night was cold and frosty, but might it not be that the little
musician was dreaming of summer and sunshine? Aristotle, indeed,
proposes the question whether animals hatched from eggs ever dream.
Marcgrave, in reply, expressly says, that his “parrot, Laura, often rose
in the night, and prattled while half asleep.”
Among quadrupeds, it is probable that those which, by their
half-reasoning instinct, approach nearest to the power of comparison,
and those which, in contrast to the _callous-hoofed_, possess an
acuteness of feeling, and therefore the nearest approximate
intelligence, are the most prone to dream.
Although we know nothing of the dreams of that very learned dog, which
Leibnitz assures us he saw, and which uttered an _articulate_ language,
and often enjoyed a chat with his master; yet, of the _slumbering
visions_ of the canines I have many illustrations. _Vic_, a fat terrier,
was a somniloquist. She would bark, and _laugh_, and run round the room,
or _against tables_; the surest proof of somnambulism. Indeed dogs are
celebrated by many poets for their dreaming propensities. Ennius
writes—
“Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.”
And Lucretius has left us a very comprehensive poetical account of the
dreams of brutes.
Even Chaucer refers to these dreams; and in the Hall of Branksome,
“The stag-hound, weary with the chace,
Urged in dreams the forest race.”
It is probable that the dreams of brutes are very _short_.
From simple, unassociated memory, too, springs the dream of the
_infant_; pure and innocent as the thought of a cherub. For delight is
the common feeling of a dreaming child; and when its lips are touched in
sleep, the memory of its mother’s bosom will excite its lips and tongue
to the congenial action of suction, though a fright of the previous day
will change its slumbers into moments of terror, and it will murmur and
cry in its dream.
I believe it is Sir H. Wotton who lays much stress on the adoption of
_plans of education_ for a child, grounded on the discovery of its
secret thoughts during its simple somniloquent dream.
CAST. It is wonderful how vividly are revived in our dream those scenes
of our early life, which our waking efforts could not recollect.
This did not escape Chaucer, as I remember in Dryden’s version of a
fable:
“Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse’s legends are for truths receiv’d,
And the man dreams but what the boy believ’d.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day.”
EV. Yet do not associate this brilliancy of infantine reminiscence with
_vigour_ of the thought. The brain in children is, as it were, like wax,
_easily impressible_. And remember, the _ideas_ of children are more
resembling the _imperfect_ associations of our dreams; the tutorage of
our advancing mind fills it with more serious and rational images
characterized by judgment.
The first impressions of childhood are bright as fancy; so that we think
in waking more of things present. But, in dreams of things long agone
there is, in fact, no complete oblivion, in a healthy mind, for any one
of our infantile impressions _may_ chance to be brought to us in our
dream.
But if impression be intense, it may assimilate that of childhood, and
become as permanent. My friend, Dr. Uwins, told me of a patient who, in
a joke, once amused himself by throwing stones at the gibbeted pirates
on the bank of the Thames. An epileptic tendency succeeded; and ever
after this, his dreams were of gibbets and chains, and to that degree,
that his judgment and philosophy were powerless in controlling his
fears.
And in the book of the Prussian, Greding, we read of J. C. V., a youth,
who, in his eighth year, had been attacked by a dog. His future, and,
indeed, nightly dreams, were of this creature, and these so intense, as
to reduce his health to a very low degree.
Now it is easy to believe the period of slumber so limited, that the
subject of reflection shall not have disappeared, that the thought had
scarcely time to cool:
“Lateat scintillula forsan.”
Thus Moses Mendelssohn had all the sounds, heard during the day,
reverberating in his slumbering mind.
Or we may suppose, that the idea last imprinted on the mind, or by which
it had been exclusively occupied, and the thoughts which are so much
modified by our temperament, study, and contemplation, would be the
_first to influence as the mind awakened_, ere the image of fresh
objects had been again perceived.
Sir Walter, in his diary, thus writes: “When I had in former times to
fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes
that the desired ideas thronged upon me. I am in the habit of relying
upon it, and saying to myself when I am at a loss, ‘Never mind, we shall
have it all at seven o’clock to-morrow morning.’”
Warton, the professor of poetry at Oxford, after partaking of a Sunday
dinner with a friend, repaired to his service at his Church. On his way,
he was powerfully saluted with a cry of “Live mackarel.” He slumbered in
his pulpit during the singing of the psalm, and, on the organ ceasing,
he arose, half awake, and instead of his solemn prayer, cried with a
loud voice, “All alive, all alive oh!”
I remember the storytellers in the coffee-houses at Aleppo, as if aware
of this _last impression_, used to run out when they perceived they had
_excited a deep interest_.
IDA. It is curious to hear, even by your own quotations, Evelyn, that
poets have so revelled in the luxury of dreams, from Homer to Pope,
chiefly employing them, however, as the _materiel_ of their poesy. Have
they condescended to glance at their causes?
EV. Lucretius, Claudian, George Stepney, Dryden, and a few others.
_Apropos_ as to causes.
In the “Anatomy of Melancholy” we have the following quaint summary: “As
Tully notes, for the most part our speeches in the daytime cause our
phantasy to work upon the like in our sleep, so do men dream on such
subjects they thought on last:
“‘Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,
Nec delubra deûm nec ab æthere numina mittunt,
Sed sibi quisque facit,’” &c.
For that cause, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the seventy
interpreters in order, and asked the nineteenth man what would make one
sleep quietly in the night, he told him “the best way was to have divine
and celestial meditations, and to use honest actions in the daytime.”
Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen could sleep quietly and were not
terrified in the night, they had such monstrous questions and thought of
such terrible matters all day long. They had need amongst the rest to
sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom Philostratus paints in a white and black
coat, with a horn, and ivory box full of dreams of the same colours, to
signify good and bad.
_Cast._ These are the manufacture, I presume, of two of those sons of
sleep, born to him by a beautiful but erring grace, “Phantasus,” or
Fancy, and “Phobetor,” or Terror. With the relations and illustrations
of these good and bad dreams, the pages of both fiction and authentic
history abound: another poetical batch of causes, Ida. Lucia exclaims:
“Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man,
Oh Marcia! I have seen thy godlike father—
A kind refreshing sleep is fallen upon him.
I saw him stretch’d at ease, his fancy lost
In pleasing dreams. As I drew near his couch,
He smil’d, and cried: ‘Cæsar, thou cans’t not hurt me.’”
Another poet writes thus:
“But most we mark the wonders of her reign,
When sleep has lock’d the senses in her chain:
When sober judgment has his throne resign’d,
She smiles away the chaos of the mind;
And, as warm fancy’s bright elysium glows,
From her each image springs, each colour flows.
She is the sacred guest, th’ immortal friend;
Oft seen o’er sleeping innocence to bend,
In that dead hour of night, to silence giv’n,
Whispering seraphic visions of her heav’n.”
Then Richmond exclaims: “My heart is very jocund in the remembrance of
so fair a dream.” While the coward conscience of Richard thus speaks:
“By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers.”
Aufidius thus recounts his slumbering memory of the prowess of
Coriolanus:
“This happy Roman, this proud Marcius, haunts me.
Each troubled night, when slaves and captives sleep,
Forgetful of their chains, I in my dreams
Anew am vanquish’d; and beneath his sword
With horror sinking, feel a tenfold death—
The death of honour.”
And yet another:
“Tho’ thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep.
There are shades that will not vanish;
There are thoughts thou canst not banish.”
And, lastly, Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams:”
“That female fiend, why is she there?
Alas! I know her. Oh, begone!
Why is that tainted bosom bare?
Why fixed on me that eye of stone?
Why have they left us thus alone?
I saw the deed——”
ASTR. You will drown us in a flood of Helicon, fair lady, if you thus
dole out the thoughts of these maudlin poets. The records of national
and domestic history, the dreams of the conqueror of thousands, and of
the midnight assassin, are replete with incidents, if we will search for
them, more impressive, ay, and more romantic, than all this rhyming; and
from the legends of history alone I could select a legion of dreaming
mysteries, which would dissolve all these fine-spun theories of Evelyn,
regarding the _essence_, as he terms it, of the dream. He must adopt a
clearer course, in showing us his _causes_, than by harping on this
favourite theme of _memory_; and we must listen through another
moonlight, ere we be made wiser, by the unfolding of this grand secret
of visions.
INFLUENCE OF DARK BLOOD IN THE BRAIN.
“I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.
EV. That I may explain to you the _predisposition_ of a dream,—in other
words, the state of _broken slumber_,—it is essential that I recur to
the physiology of the brain; and I must humble our pride, by combining
some of the debasing conditions of our nature, as influential on the
divine mind, through the medium of its _chambers of marrow_; for to the
intimate condition and function of the brain and its nerves, and its
_contained blood_, we must chiefly look for elucidation of the _physical
causes_ of a dream.
Yet I may even grant you, for an argument, Astrophel, the flight of an
immortal spirit, and all the amiable vagaries of Sir Thomas Brown;
reserving to myself to prove at what moment we become conscious of this
flight.
In natural actions, there are ever _three requisites_, like the points
of a syllogism:
1. A susceptibility of influence;
2. The influence itself;
3. The effect of this influence:
And these I call the _predisposing_, the _exciting_, and the _proximate_
causes.
1. The brain is brought to this susceptibility by excited
temperament, study, intense and undivided thought; in short, by
_any_ intense impression.
2. The influence or excitement is applied; congestion of blood
producing impression on extremities, or origin of a nerve, at
the period of departing or returning consciousness. At these
periods, the blood changes, and I believe, _as it changes_, the
phenomena of mind, as in the waking state, obey these
changes:—rational and light dreams being the effect of
circulation of _scarlet_ blood; dull and reasonless visions and
“night-mare,” that of crimson, or _black_ blood.
3. The effect of this influence is recurrence of idea,
_memory_,—more or less erroneously associated, as the blood
approximates to the black or scarlet state, or as the brain
itself is constituted.
Now it is essential to the perfect function of the brain, not only that
it shall have a due supply of blood, but that this blood shall be of
that quality we term _oxygenated_. If there be a simple _deficiency_ of
this scarlet blood, a state of sound undisturbed sleep will ensue
(slightly analogous to the condition of _syncope_, or fainting). This
may be the consequence of any _indirect_ impression, or the natural
indication of that _direct_ debility, which we witness in early infancy,
and in the “second childishness and mere oblivion” of old age. But this
deficiency of arterial blood may be depending on a more positive cause,
_venous congestion_, impeding its flow; for in sleep, the breathing
being slower, the blood becomes essentially darker. Even arterial blood
itself will become to a certain degree _carbonized_, by _lentor_, or
stagnation. Venous congestion and diminution of arterial circulation are
not incompatible; indeed, Dr. Abercrombie reasons very ably on their
relative nature, implying the necessity of some _remora_ of venous
circulation to supply that want or vacuum which the brain would
otherwise experience from the deficiency of the current in the arterial
system. Thus will the languid arterial circulation of the brain, which
causes sleep in the first instance, produce, secondarily, that
congestion of blood in the veins and sinuses, which shall reduce it to
disturbed slumber, and excite the dream. May we not account, on this
principle, for the difficulty which many persons experience in falling
into a _second_ slumber, when they have been disturbed in the _first_?
IDA. Combe, I believe, observed, through a hole in a fractured skull,
that the brain was elevated during an apparent dream.
EV. This is a matter of frequent observation with us. There was, in
1821, at Montpelier, a woman who had lost part of the skull, and the
brain and its membranes lay bare. When she was in deep sleep, the brain
lay in the skull almost _motionless_; when she was dreaming, it became
elevated; and when her dreams (proved by her relating them when awake)
were on vivid or animating subjects, but especially when she was awake,
the brain was _protruded through the cranial aperture_.
Blumenbach states that he, himself, witnessed in one person a sinking of
the brain, whenever he was asleep, and a swelling with blood when he
awoke. David Hartley, therefore, may be half right and half wrong when
he imputes dreams to an impediment to the flow of blood, a collapse of
the _ventricles_, and a diminished quantity of their contained _serum_.
We thus have not only a deficiency of _proper_ stimulus, but a
_deleterious_ condition of the blood, which acts as a poison to the
brain. In fatal cases of coma and delirium, we observe deep red points,
chiefly in the _cineritious_ part of the brain, from this congestion of
its vessels. Sound sleep is thus prevented, but the congestion of
carbonized blood acting as a sort of narcotic, depresses the energy of
the brain so far as to prevent waking, inducing that middle state,
drowsiness or slumber; so that sleep may thus depend on congestion _from
exhaustion_; and “spectral illusion” from congestion in that state
_short of slumber_; and insanity itself from congestion _still more
copious and permanent_.
From this results a disturbed condition of the brain; it is _irritated_,
not excited, by its healthy or proper stimulus; and it follows that such
derangement of the manifestations of mind ensues as we term a dream.
Waking, however, soon takes place, and the blood is more scarlet, and
the faculties themselves gradually awake. As this is more perfect, we
remember the dream, and are enabled to explain it, and know _that it was
a dream_. The mind is now _restored_, so that scarlet blood indicates
_healthy thought_, and black blood its _reverse_. Your pardon for this
prolixity and dulness. The healthy or unhealthy crisis of the blood is a
most important subject in our argument, and too constantly slighted in
the question of illusion.
Monsieur Denis records the story of a young man of Paris, in the 17th
century, who was cured of a stubborn and protracted lethargy, by the
transfusion of the _arterial blood of a lamb_; and another of a recovery
from madness, by that of the arterial blood of a calf, and these in
presence of men both of _science_ and _high quality_.
I do not affirm my implicit faith in this statement, of the effect of
_gentle_ blood, but I am certain of the poisonous influence of that of
_another quality_; and I will cite a passage from Hoffman, the German
poet, whom Monsieur Poupon, in his “Illustrations of Phrenology,”
adduces as a specimen of marvellousness, ere I offer my cases.
“Why do my thoughts, whether I am awake or asleep, always tend, in spite
of all my efforts, to the gloomy subject of insanity? It seems to me as
if I felt my disordered ideas escaping from my mind, like _hot blood
from a wounded vein_.”
This was figurative, but it was true; for of itself this black blood may
be suddenly the cause of furious and fatal mania. When Dionis, in his
“Cours d’Opérations de Chirurgie,” is referring to that operation that
has lately, by its revival, occupied so much of the attention of the
medical world (the process of _transfusion_) he says: “La fin funeste de
ces malheureuses victimes de la nouveauté, detruisit, en un jour, les
hautes idées qu’ils avoient conçues; ils devinrent foux, _furieux, et
moururent ensuite_.”
The relief of the brain, by the escape of this blood, is of deeper
interest to science than the mere romancer may imagine.
Sir Samuel Romilly was for a moment, I believe, in a state of sanity,
when blood had flowed from the divided vessels of his throat; for he
attempted, it appeared, to stop its flow by thrusting the towel with
some force into the wound.
So diseases of the heart, by keeping the black blood in the brain,
predispose to dreaming. During the age of terror in France, organic
diseases of the heart and _cases of mania_ were most prevalent.
I may for a moment indulge in analogies regarding this arrest of the
blood. Cases of inflammation of the ear are often seen in confirmed
maniacs (the _helix_ being usually the part most inflamed), and _black_
blood often oozes from the part.
M. Calmeil considers _chronic phlegmasia_ of the brain as the cause of
insanity, the derangement itself being, as it were, _the moral result_
or disease, and the organic changes or proximate cause the _physical_
disease; both being but the _sequelæ_, or consequence of inflammation.
A boy, the servant of a medical friend (Mr. A——), was, some years ago,
placed under my care for fever, with delirium. About the acme of his
disorder the impetuosity of the blood in the vessels of the head was
such as to project his ears prominently forwards, like those of a satyr,
or, as the gossips thought, rather of a demon. Yet all this subsided _as
the fever waned_.
Yet, believe me, I draw a decided distinction between mania and
dreaming; though the phenomena may sometimes bear resemblance. In one
essential point they differ; that the _transient_ illusion is not
manifested, except _during slumber_, or a state closely analogous to it,
when the senses are languid, or asleep. It is true, however, the maniac
will, on his recovery, often _dream of the subject of his insanity_, yet
insanity is more exemplified by _action_, the dream being usually
_passive_.
The predisposition to insanity is often, too, _hereditary_, so that the
slightest moral influence, imperceptible perhaps to the physician, may
incite such a mind to madness; for where there is _no_ predisposition,
that is, a perfect integrity of brain, a right judgment is evinced even
under the potent influence of the passions.
As the condition of insanity, so the illusive vision, does not always
primarily depend on _medullary_ disease; there are primary moral as well
as physical causes. But even the exertion of thought, which the ultra
spiritualist may term an immaterial faculty, is attended by increased
action on the matter of the brain. The organ of mind will, if diseased,
(though not always,) produce deranged actions. Yet it is equally true,
if even a sound brain be _badly instructed_, and its passion
uncontrolled, insanity may ensue; not however without quickly, I believe
_immediately_, inducing structural change.
On one point, the dream and insanity are often _alike_; they are _mental
fulfilments of a wish_: and the dreamer, during his slumber, and the
madman throughout his derangement, are presented with the spectra of
their desires, and their hopes and fears become, _for these periods,
reality_.
It was with a reference to the wanderings of the understanding in
dreams, that Sir James Mackintosh thus writes in a letter to Robert
Hall:
“These will familiarise your mind to consider its other aberrations as
only more rare than sleep and dreams, and, in process of time, they will
cease to appear to you much more horrible.”
ASTR. And pray, Evelyn, how doth all this profound prosing affect the
subject of dreams?
EV. By similitude. I may even remind you with devout veneration, of the
dreams of a prophet, to prove the brain highly sensitive when these
visions are before it. Listen to the words of Daniel, to whom “God gave
knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom.”
“I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit, in the midst of my body, and the
visions of my head troubled me.”
“And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick certain days.”
Even here, may we not believe, that the Creator did not alter his law?
It was Dr. Cullen who first drew a parallel between insanity and dreams.
As some proof of his insight, we read in Lode of a man who never dreamed
until he fell into a fever in the twenty-fifth year;—in Beattie, of a
young friend who never dreamt unless his health was deranged.
And Mr. Locke thus writes: “I once knew a man who was bred a scholar,
and had no bad memory, who told me that he had never dreamed in his life
until he had fever.”
This immunity from dreams is also most marked in savages, unless during
disorder or at the dying moment. Ulloa, Humboldt, and La Condamine, all
agree as to the character of indolence and absence of thought and fancy
in the native Americans, and it is as sure that they seldom dream.
Now whatever influence tends to arrest or derange the _upper
circulation_ of the blood in its return to the heart, or to detain it in
the vessels of the brain, or which presses on an important nerve, so as
to disturb the function of the brain or _spinal cord_, by _continuous
sympathy_, may be the _remote_ cause of the phenomena of dreaming.
Such are the results of repletion, _dyspepsia_, the supine position, &c.
&c.
And here, Astrophel, I meet your metaphysician.
Galen, and indeed the ancients generally, attributed dreams chiefly to
indigestion; but referred their immediate excitement to fumes and
vapours, instead of to nervous influence, or cerebral congestion from
interrupted circulation.
CAST. And here, Evelyn, courtesy might have prompted you to meet my
poets. Let me see, is it not Dryden who writes of—
“——rising fumes of undigested food,
And noxious humours that disturb the blood?”
And in a poem believed to have been written by Chaucer, there is this
passage: can I remember his quaintness?
“I supposed yt to have been some noxiall fantasy,
As fallyth in dremes, in parties of the nyght,
Which cometh of joy or grievous malady;
Or of robuste metes which causeth grete myght;
Overmoche replet obscuryth the syght
Of natural reasonne, and causyth idyll thowght,
Makyth the body hevy where hyt was lyght.”
And again, in the tale of the “Nonnes Preest:”
“Swevenes (dreams) engendren of repletions,
And oft of fume and of complexions,
When humours ben to habundant in a wight.
Of other humours cou’d I telle also,
That werken many a man in slepe moch wo,” &c.
EV. I sit reproved, fair lady. Herodotus also says, the Atlantes never
dream; which Montaigne refers to their never eating anything which has
died of itself. And Burton thus sums up his precepts of prevention:
“Against fearful and troublesome dreams, incubus, and inconveniences
wherewith melancholy men are molested, the best remedy is to eat a light
supper and of such meats as are easie of digestion, no hare, venison,
beef, &c.; not to lie on his back,” &c.
Dryden, to ensure his brilliant visions of poesy, ate raw flesh; and
Mrs. Radcliffe, I am told, adopted the same plan. We know that green tea
and coffee, if we _do_ sleep, induce dreaming; and Baptista Porta, for
procuring quiet rest and pleasing dreams, swallowed _horse-tongue_ after
supper.
Indigestion, and that condition which is termed a weak or irritable
stomach, constitute a most fruitful source of visions. The immediate or
direct influence of repletion, in totally altering the sensations and
the disposition in waking moments, is a proof of its power to derange
the circulation of the brain and the mental faculties in sleep.
“Somnus ut sit levis, sit tibi cœna brevis.”
The influence of the great sympathetic nerve in this respect is very
important. With many persons, a meal is usually followed by feelings of
depression, impaired memory, unusual timidity, despondency, and other
illusive characteristics of _hysteria_ and _hypochondriasis_. And events
will appear of the greatest moment, which, after the lapse of some
hours, will be considered mere trifles. So that, after all, there is
some truth in the idea of that _archæus_, or great spirit, asserted, by
Van Helmont, to sit at the _cardia_ of the stomach, and regulate almost
all the other organs.
The posture of _supination_ will unavoidably induce that increased flow
of blood to the brain which, under certain states of this fluid, is so
essential to the production of brilliant waking thoughts; an end,
indeed, attained so often by another mode—the swallowing of opium.
A gentleman of high attainment was constantly haunted by a spectre when
he retired to rest, which seemed to attempt his life. When he raised
himself in bed, _the phantom vanished, but reappeared as he resumed the
recumbent posture_.
Some persons always retire to bed when they wish to think; and it is
well known that Pope was often wont to ring for pens, ink, and paper, in
the night, at Lord Bolingbroke’s, that he might record, ere it was lost,
that most sublime or fanciful poesy which flashed through his brain as
he lay in bed. Such, also, was the propensity of Margaret, Duchess of
Newcastle, who (according to Cibber, or rather Sheil, the _real_ author
of the “Lives of the Poets”) “kept a great many young ladies about her
person, who occasionally wrote what she dictated. Some of them slept in
a room contiguous to that in which her grace lay, and were ready, at the
call of her bell, to rise any hour of the night to write down her
conceptions, lest they should escape her memory.”
Henricus ab Heeres (in his “Obs. Med.”) says, that when he was a
professor, he used to rise in the night, open his desk, compose much,
shut his desk, and again to bed. On his waking he was conscious of
nothing but the happy result of his compositions.
The engineer, Brindley, even retired to bed for a _day or two_, when he
was reflecting on a grand or scientific project.
I deny not that the darkness or stillness of night may have had some
influence during this inspiration. I may also allow that some few
individuals compose best while they are walking; but this _peripatetic_
exertion is calculated, itself, to produce what we term determination of
blood to the head. I have heard of a most remarkable instance of the
power of position in influencing mental energy, in a German student, who
was accustomed to study and compose with his head on the ground and his
feet elevated, and resting against the wall.
And this is the fragment of a passage from Tissot, on the subject of
monomania:
——“Nous avons vu étudier dans cette académie il n’y a pas long-temps,
un jeune homme de mérite, qui _s’étant mis dans la tête_, de découvrir
la quadrature du circle, est mort, fou, à l’hôtel Dieu, à Paris.”
You will smile when I tell you that the tints of the landscape are
brighter to our eyes if we _reverse the position of the head_.
And now, with your leave, gentle ladies, I will bring phrenology to my
aid.
If we assume that there may be distinct portions of the brain, organs of
comparison, individuality, causality, &c., we naturally regard _them_ as
the source of that combined faculty which we denominate _judgment_. We
might argue, that if these organs were _permanently_ deficient, fatuity,
or, at least, extreme folly, would be the result. By parity of reasoning
we might infer, that if the function of such organs were _for a time
suspended_, imagination, having lost its mentor, would, as it were, run
wild, and an extravagant dream, granting an excitement, would be the
result. If the organ of colour be excited, and form be asleep, we may
have an _eccentric drawing_. If language and imagination are both awake,
a poem or romance; so it _may_ chance, that if _all_ the proper organs
are awake, there may be a rational dream.
I yield not to the too finely-spun hypotheses of Gall, and his first
whimsical topography of the cranium; the incipient idea of which, by the
by, he owes to the Arabian phrenologists who, even in the olden time,
had glimpses, although they decided on a different location. Imagination
was in the _frontal_ region, reason in the _medial_, and memory in the
_occipital_.
In Dr. Spurzheim’s beautiful demonstration of the brain, he exhibits it
almost as one large convoluted web. While the ultra-phrenologist is
unravelling these convolutions, it is strange that he sees not the
inconsistency of his cranial divisions. Some of the boundary lines of
his organs _must be drawn across_ these convolutions. It will ever be
impossible to decide the exact course of these, but the lines should be
drawn in the direction of their fibres; for if the faculty be seated in
one convolution, that faculty would proceed _in the course_ of its
fibres, and not across the fissure from one lobule to another. Now the
most frequent coincidence of the possession of great mental power, with
full development of the frontal region of the skull, will naturally lead
us to believe that it may depend on _causation_. Indeed a skull, as well
as expression, may be phrenologically _changed_ by culture or thought.
The skull of William Godwin, in early life, indicated an _intellectual_
development; then it became _sensual_, the _occipital_ organs being in
excess; and again, as his mind was subject to more moral culture, the
intellectual or _frontal_ again prevailed. I am informed, also, by Miss
A——, that there was observed a progressive development of the
intellectual region in the head of her father, an acute and deep
thinker.
We have analogies to this in physiognomy. Caspar Hauser lost some of the
negro fulness about his mouth after he had been introduced to society.
Perhaps the contrasted beauty and deformity in the forehead and eye, and
in the mouth of Sheridan, was a faithful indication of that paradox of
mind which was never more perfectly displayed than in the intellectual
dignity and moral deficiency of this man. As no function, then, either
of brain or gland, can be carried on without a due supply of blood, it
will follow that _position_ may materially influence the integrity of
these functions. The seat of the organs I have alluded to, if cranial
development supports me, may be determined on the fore part of the head,
behind the _os frontis_, portions of the cerebral mass which, in the
_supine_ position, are usually most elevated above the centre of
circulation. “The more noble the faculties, the higher are the organs
situated.” These, consequently, may endure a deficiency of stimulus, in
comparison with other organs more favourably situated. The phrenologist,
then, will endeavour to prove, that the supine position generally
produces _vascular pressure_ on particular parts or organs of the
_encephalon_; and he will argue that dreams arise from individual organs
abstractedly or unconnectedly acting. There is one spot on the cranium,
indeed, identified by Dr. Spurzheim as a most important item in the
composition of a good dreamer. He tells us, that “persons who have the
part above and a little behind the organ of _ideality_ developed, are
much prone to mysticism, to see visions and ghosts, and to dream.”
It may not be difficult to believe in this _partial_ function of the
brain, when we recollect how often the loss of one faculty will be
connected with _paralytic_ disorders. The faculty of _perception_ may be
lost, unless the impression on the mind is made through a _particular_
sense. Thus patients may be unable to comprehend that name or subject
when it was _pronounced_, or related, which they will immediately do, if
_written_ down and presented to the sight,—_the optic nerve may
transmit while the auditory has lost its power_.
“Segnius irritant animos _demissa per aures_,
Quam quæ sunt _oculis subjecta_ fidelibus.”
Of this axiom there is an illustrative story, by Darwin, in his
“Zoonomia.”—A paralytic man could see and hear, but the _mind_ was
_conscious of vision only_. If the hour of breakfast were _named_ to
him, he repeated it and was passive; but if the hour were _pointed out_
on the watch, he comprehended at once, and called for breakfast.
On the contrary, there may be the same imperfection of _outward
transmission_; the _lingual nerves_, influencing the tongue to sound a
name _inapplicable to the idea_, the person often reversing the names of
articles which he is continually using.
These phenomena regarding nerves of sense, then, are strictly analogous
to those which we recognize in those parts of the brain which are
intimately connected with, or influenced by, these nerves of sense: thus
in analogy to waking illusions, we have the _imperfect_ associations of
a dream when the organs are irregularly acted on.
INCUBUS, OR NIGHT-MARE.
“O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.
“Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,
And weigh thee down.”
KING RICHARD III.
ASTR. I will no longer hesitate to grant that the dream occurs in the
moment of departing or returning consciousness. Still, are you not
_reversing_ the order of these phenomena? may not the excitement of
vague ideas in the mind be, itself, the cause of waking, and not the
consequence of slumber, or half-sleep?
EV. I believe not, except the sensibility of the body be influenced by
touch, or sound, or by oppressive congestions of blood in the brain,
causing that state of disturbance which reduces sound sleep to slumber;
as in the instance of “Night-mare,” which is to the mind what sensation
is to the body, restoring it to a state of _half-consciousness_,
essential to that sort of dreaming, in which we make a painful effort to
relieve, and at last awake.
CAST. Mara, by my fay! the night-spectre of Scandinavia; that evil
spirit of the Runic theology, who weighed upon the bosom, and bereaved
her victims of speech and motion: that oppressive dream, therefore,
termed _Hag-ridden_, or, in the Anglo-Saxon, _Elf-siderme_. Is it not
she, of whom it is written,—
“We seem to run, and destitute of force,
Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course.
In vain we heave for breath, in vain we cry;
The nerves unbraced, their usual strength deny,
And on the tongue the faltering accents die.”
EV. A very faithful picture.
Sound sleep will often be broken by pain or uneasiness occurring in a
particular part of the body; the dream will then often bear an
instructive reference to the seat and nature of such pain. If cramp has
attacked any of the limbs, or the head has been long confined back, the
dream may be enlivened by some analogous tortures in the dungeon of the
Inquisition; and it is curious, that a waking wish for some relief from
unpleasant sensations will be _re_-excited in the dream,—a _dreamy
fulfilment_. Captain Back, during one of the Arctic expeditions, when
nearly in a state of starvation, often dreamed of indulging in _a
delicious repast_. And Professor Stewart thus writes,—“I have been told
by a friend, that, having occasion to apply a bottle of hot water to his
feet, he dreamed that he was making a journey to the top of Mount Ætna,
and that he found the heat of the ground insupportable. Another, having
a blister applied to the head, dreamed that he was _scalped_ by a party
of Indians.”
If on these occasions we are warm in bed, our dreams will be often
pleasing, and the scenes in the tropics; if _cold_, or chilly, the
reverse, and we shall believe ourselves in Zembla.
Holcroft had been musing on the probabilities of life and death, and one
night went in pain to bed. He dreamed his body was severed above his
hips, and again joined in a surprising manner. He was astonished to
think he was alive, and afraid of being struck, lest the parts should be
dissevered.
Tempests heard in a slumber will be often associated with a dream of
shipwreck; and some persons will dream of their having given pain to, or
injured, others: they wake, and find some close analogy to _their own_
sensations.
It is recorded that Cornelius Rufus dreamed that he was blind, and _so_
indeed _he awoke_.
In other cases, we have the _double touch_, as it is termed; dreams of
forcible detention occur, and the sleeper has found that he had with one
hand tightly grasped the other. If this hand had been _moved in sleep_
unconsciously, the dream, no doubt, would have been essentially changed.
And thus we have all the phenomena realised, which Shakspere has
referred to in the visitations of his incorrigible Mab.
Elliston was always awaked by nightmare when sleeping in a strange bed.
As in some persons, by submitting the body to certain impressions during
sleep, associated dreams may be produced at pleasure; so if the body or
legs hang over the side of a bed, we may instantly dream of falling from
a precipice: and it is curious that, under these illusions, we awake
when we are past hope and our despair is at its height: in falling, at
the moment we are about to be dashed to atoms; and, in drowning, when
the last bubbles are gurgling in the throat.
When we read in the Bodleian, Astrophel, I will point you to other
curious experiments of this sort, by M. de Buzareingries.
Sounds also may be partly associated with the dream at waking, and with
reality, when awake. Under this illusive impression, even murder has
been _innocently_ committed, on one, who waked, and stabbed his brother
at the moment he was _dreaming_ of assassins.
CAST. And so may be explained, I suppose, this funny anecdote. A young
lover was drooping into a day-dream, while sitting with his brothers and
sisters, and his thought had turned on the cruelty of his mistress. He
was for a moment dreaming of her, when pussy, stretching her paws,
scratched his leg with a claw: there was an instant association, I
presume, of the wound with the lady’s cruelty, for he started and
exclaimed, “Oh Arabella, don’t!”
EV. Hippocrates quaintly alludes to the dreaming about seas and lakes as
an indication of _hydrothorax_; and to others, as symptomatic of
_effusion on the brain_: and it has been asserted, that gloomy dreams in
fevers indicate danger. But all this is hypothesis; indeed, the
delirious dreams of fever are often bright and cheerful.
The “Opium-Eater” has a strange fancy regarding his dreams of “silvery
expanses of water;” “these haunted me so much, that I feared that some
dropsical state or tendency of the brain, might thus be making itself
_objective_, and the sentient organ project itself as its own object.” I
hope you understand this, Astrophel—I do not.
In the morbid condition of _hypochondriasis_, which is a sort of
permanent _daymare_, similar fancies are excited. Esquirol’s patient at
Notre Dame thought the pope held council in her belly;—her intestines
were found _closely adherent_ together. Another monomaniac thought the
devil had stretched a cord across her stomach;—her heart was _adherent
to its bag_. Another believed that her body was stolen by the
devil;—she was in reality paralytic, and _insensible_ to blows or
pricking.
To explain some of these illusions, Jason Pratensis very gravely
asserts, that “the devil being a slender incomprehensible spirit, can
easily insinuate and wind himself into human bodies, and, cunningly
couched in our bowels, terrify our souls with fearful dreams.”
I may add that we see, in some, a delirious _transmigration of
sensation_. Parkinson relates these cases. One referred his own
sensation to others, telling his nurse that his visitors were hungry,
while his own voracity plainly indicated that the _hunger was in
himself_. Another, in a fit of intoxication, insisted on undressing all
his family, as they were drunk, and could not do it themselves.
Now we certainly move ourselves unconsciously in our sleep as a relief
from painful positions. If, however, these uneasy sensations are
increased from stagnant blood about the heart and lungs, the oppression
is extreme, and _loads_ the moving powers; producing a transient agony
and an intense effort. If this were unsuccessful on the limbs and
speech, the result would be often destructive.
The night-mare dreamers are usually lethargic, and their ideas are often
wild and visionary.
Polidori, the author of the “Vampire,” was a prey to night-mare; he died
with a laudanum bottle in his bed. And Coleridge might have thus left a
sad and pointed moral; blazoning his wretched suicide to that world,
which unconsciously has pored with a thrill of admiration over those
fruits of his delinquency, the romantic and unearthly stories of
Christabel and the Ancient Mariner.
The grand feature of night-mare, then, is _impediment_: but how can I
record all its varieties of miserable struggles; of attacks and
manglings from wild monsters: of the rolling of mountains on the heart:
or the unhallowed embraces of a witch?
The young lady who reads mythology, will fancy herself a syrinx, and
struggle to escape from the amorous clutches of Pan. If we have been
thinking of Chamouni and her giant peaks of snow, we may be overwhelmed
in our sleep by the fall of an avalanche; or we may be dashed off a
precipice, and feel ourselves falling into interminable space without a
hope of resting.
A lady whom I know, and who is a frequent subject of night-mare, is very
uniform in this dreamy occupation. She is shaken to and fro in her bed
by fiends, and the process seems to her to occupy considerable time. And
there are many who are tortured by the feeling that they are buried
alive, and attempt to cry out, and beat against their coffin-lid in
vain. Aurelian writes, that the epidemics in Rome were premonished by
_incubus_.
These, and thousands of a similar kind, might be cited; but a vivid
imagination, with a hint or two, will readily create them at its
pleasure.
“A battalion of French soldiers, during the toils and dangers of a
campaign, were marching on a certain point on a most oppressive day, and
at double the usual speed; their strength was eight hundred men, all
hardy, seasoned, and courageous; careless of danger, despising the
devil, and little occupied with the thoughts of ghosts and
phantasmagoria. On the night of the occurrence in question, the
battalion was forced to occupy a narrow and low building at Tropœa,
barely calculated to accommodate three hundred persons. Nevertheless,
they slept; but, at midnight, one and all were roused by frightful
screams issuing from all quarters of the house; and to the eyes of the
astonished and affrighted soldiers appeared the vision of a huge dog,
which bounded in through the window, and rushed with extraordinary
heaviness and speed over the breasts of the spectators. The soldiers
quitted the building in terror. Next night, by the solicitations of the
surgeon and _chef-de-bataillon_, who accompanied them, they again
resumed their previous quarters. ‘We saw,’ says the narrator, ‘that they
_slept_. We watched the arrival of the hour of the preceding panic, and
midnight had scarcely struck when the veteran soldiers, for the second
time, started to their feet. Again they had heard the supernatural
voices, again the visionary hound had bestrode them to suffocation. The
_chef-de-bataillon_ and myself heard or saw nothing of these events.’”
The superstitious thought this spectre to be the devil; but the heat and
_carbonic acid gas_ were, I believe, enough for the excitement of the
phantasm and the feeling.
There can scarcely be imagined a more terrific feeling than this sense
of extreme danger, or difficulty, this intense impediment, without a
power to avert it. The constant labour of Sisyphus, with his
rolling-down stone, and the punishment of Tantalus, would yield in
severity to the agony of night-mare, but for its _transient_ existence.
It seems to me, that this want of balance between will and power
influences human nature so much, that life itself may be termed one long
and painful _incubus_. The actions we perform seldom reach the
perfection which the will desires. Hence arises that constant
dissatisfaction, which even the close approach to perfection of some of
the most accomplished professors of art and science cannot avert.
We must confess, with Socrates, that the extent of our knowledge is
indeed but a conviction of our ignorance. The metaphor of Sir Isaac
Newton, on the insignificance of his own scientific attainments, is well
known. Sir Joshua Reynolds so highly appreciated perfection in his art,
that he was ever discontented with his own paintings; and frequently, as
I have heard, by repeated touches, destroyed the effect of a picture,
which had been in its early stages beautiful. And Dr. Johnson, after
astonishing the world with his perfect specimen of lexicographical
composition, confessed that he “had not satisfied his own expectations.”
May I add to these the frequent _discontent_ of the unrivalled Paganini?
IDA. The desire of the mind is, indeed, unlimited; and when this is
intense, it wishes to appropriate to itself all which it can
_comprehend_. But disappointment _must_ ensue; for all wish to be the
whole, when they form but a part. Thus will ever be proved the futility
of _worldly_ ambition,—it is never satisfied. But the desires of
religion are not a phantom, or an incubus. True devotion, which aspires
to heaven, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, will never fail.
Its fervent hopes and devout prayers, we believe, will be blessed by
their accomplishment.
CAST. Then the visitations of the incomparable Mab are nought but the
infliction of the night-mare? Gentle Master Evelyn, how should I be
aweary of your philosophy, but that I am half won over to believe it
true? In good faith,
“The Gordian knot of it you do unloose
Familiar as your garter.”
EV. Then, I pray you, let me counsel you not to court such visits, dear
Castaly. There is some peril in the touch both of Mab and Mara; for
although rare and transient cases of night-mare excite no alarm, yet its
repetition, in a severe form, is not to be slighted. It sometimes has
been the forerunner of _epilepsy_; its immediate cause being obstruction
to the course of the blood by which the brain especially is surcharged,
and the action of the lungs and heart impeded, as we prove by the
extreme labour of breathing at the time we awake.
I believe that there is usually a fulness of blood, also, in the vessels
of the spinal marrow; as, although nightmare may occur in the _sitting_,
it is far more frequent in the _recumbent_ position. Thus the marrow is
oppressed, and there is then no force transmitted by the nerves to put
the muscles into action.
Distention of the stomach should be prevented, as the _diaphragm_ is
thus pushed up against the lungs, and the gas is accumulated in the
cavity. All these conditions often occur in our waking moods, but _then_
our judgment tells us how to relieve them speedily; whereas, _in sleep_,
the load accumulates. All indigestible substances, therefore, should be
avoided, as nuts, cucumbers, shell-fish, &c.
Early and light suppers we advise to those whom Madame Mara so
unmercifully overlies. A mattress should be our couch, and we should
endeavour to compose ourselves _on one side_, having, previous to our
rest, taken _gentle exercise_.
SOMNILOQUENCE.—SOMNAMBULISM.
“It is a sleepy language; and thou _speak’st_
Out of thy sleep.”
TEMPEST.
“_Doct._ You see, her eyes are open.
_Gent._ Ay, but their _sense_ is shut.”
“_Doct._ A great perturbation in nature. To receive at once the benefit of
sleep, and do the effect of watching.”
MACBETH.
EV. In the common dream, ideas float through the _mind_, but the body is
passive. When the power of _expressing_ these ideas by _speech_ is
added, it is _somniloquence_. When there is the _conscious_, yet
_powerless_, will to move, it is _incubus_. When the _unconscious_ power
of _moving_ in accordance with the ideas or wishes of the dream exists,
it is _somnambulism_.
The common dreams of sleep are not unfolded to us until the waking
recollections of the dreamer relate them; but the matter of a dream may
be half developed during its existence, by the curious propensity to
unconscious talking and walking in the sleep.
Sleep-talking is the slightest of these phenomena, and, indeed, closely
resembles the speaking _reveries_ of some absent people, and the raving
of a maniac. The sleep is, at this time, little deeper than a reverie.
The voice of the somniloquist is usually _natural_, but as again, in the
cases of mania and of delirious excitement, a common voice may become
sweetly melodious, and there will be an imparted fluency allied to the
inspiration of the improvisatore.
Indeed, in some young ladies, subject to _hysteria_, I have known, at
certain periods as it were, a new accomplishment—a style of singing
which was far beyond their power in waking moments. Dr. Dewar relates a
case of a girl who, when awake, discovered no knowledge of astronomy or
the sciences in any way; but when she was _asleep_ she would define the
rotations of the seasons, using expressions the most apt to the subject,
such as “the globe is now set agee.” It is probable that this was the
memory in slumber of some geographical lesson which she had heard, but
did not remember while her _senses_ were active, that is, in her waking
moments. And an American lady, during a fever, commenced a course of
nocturnal prating, composing most eloquent sermons, chiefly made up,
however, of _remembered_ texts of Scripture.
I am informed, too, that a lady of Edinburgh, during her somnolent
attacks, recited somewhat lengthy poems; and it was curious to notice
that each line commenced with the final letter of the preceding.
These sleep-talkings are sometimes the mere lispings of an idiot;
although Astrophel, perchance, may contend that the following, written
down from the lips of a servant-maid, is a proof of special inspiration,
converting a rustic girl into an improvisatrice.
“You may go home and wash your hose,
And wipe the dew-drops from your nose,
And mock no maiden here.
For you tread down grass, and need not;
Wear your shoes, and speed not,
And clout leather’s very dear;
But I need not care, for my sweetheart
Is a cobbler.”
I have heard this trash cited as a proof of facility of composition in
slumber. You do not believe it such; like other specimens, it was a ruse
of a wanton girl to excite admiration. In the magnetic somnambulism of
Elizabeth Okey, that cunning little wench, who was the _prima buffa_ of
the magnetic farces enacted at the North London Hospital, would often
skip about and sing snatches of equal elegance:
“I went into a tailor’s shop
To buy a suit of clothes;
But where the money came from,
G—— Almighty knows.”
These are indeed the very burlesque of somniloquence. And yet Okey _was_
an invalid, and presumed on the credulity of those who ministered to
her.
True somniloquence is often preceded by a cataleptic state; and in girls
like this, the senses are often so dull, that the firing of a pistol
close to the ear does not rouse them, until the poetic fit is over.
CAST. Were sleep-talking more common, it would indeed be a very
dangerous propensity. If the confessor were to prate in his sleep of the
peccadilloes of the fair penitents that kneel at his confessional; if
the minister on his couch were to divulge his state secrets or his fine
political schemes; where would be the tranquillity of domestic or
national society? Yet the lips of the love-sick maiden have not seldom
whispered in sleep her bosom’s secret; and sometimes the unconscious
tongue has awfully betrayed even the blood-stain on the hand.
Thus did the ill-mated Parisina of Byron:
“Fever’d in her sleep she seems,
And red her cheek with troubled dreams;
And mutters she, in her unrest,
A name she dare not breathe by day.”
The fate of Eugene Aram, I believe, may be imputed to such an
unfortunate propensity; and in Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damned spot!” was
confessed her participation in the murder of Duncan and the grooms.
Somewhat like this, too, was the half-sleeping exclamation of Jarvis
Matcham, after he had committed the murder of the drummer boy. Starting
from his bed, when roused by the waiter, his first words were: “My God!
I did not kill him.”
EV. A dream will sometimes half wake even a child to a state of terror,
although children are with difficulty completely roused. I have known
instances in which children would sit up in bed, with their eyes open,
sobbing, and talking, and staring, in a sort of trance; nay, they will
sometimes start from bed, but still asleep, and, after a time becoming
calm, they have again composed themselves to slumber.
I have known sleep-talkers, who have not remembered one iota of their
wanderings when awake; and even the ecstatic somnambulist, who pretends
to prophecy wisdom, recollects nothing when the ecstacy is over. It is
clear also, that the mind _varies_ in sleep and waking, in regard to its
memory; for it has been proved that persons who often talk in their
sleep, have renewed the exact points of a subject which terminated their
last sleep-talking, although, in the waking interval, it was to them
oblivion.
Somnambulism is the most perfect paradox among the phenomena of sleep,
as it exhibits actions without a consciousness of them; indeed, so
complete a suspension of sensibility, that contact, nay, intense
inflictions, do not produce that mental consciousness which is
calculated to excite alarm, or even attention.
There is a somewhat remote analogy to this, in the want of balance
between the judgment and volition of ambitious minds. In the campaign of
Russia, Napoleon’s march was a sort of somnambulism, for he must have
been madly excited to action against his better judgment. In this he
forms a curious contrast with his royal predecessor; for in Louis XVI.
we observe a mind that might _conceive_ great things, but which volition
hesitated to accomplish.
The points of the _mystery_ of somnambulism were never more forcibly
illustrated, to my own mind, than in the following cases:
In 1833, a man was brought before Alderman Thorp, who had a parcel _cut
from his arm_, although he had strapped it tightly on to prevent this,
as he was often falling asleep, even during his walk. Yet, even then, he
usually took the parcels to their proper directions.
The crew of a revenue boat on the coast of Ireland, about two o’clock in
the morning, picked up a man swimming in the water. He had, it appeared,
left his house about twelve; and walked two miles over a most dangerous
path, and had swum about one mile. After he was taken into the boat, he
could not be persuaded that he was not still in his warm bed at home.
In 1834, Marie Pau was admitted into the hospital at Bordeaux, her left
hand and arm covered with deep and bleeding gashes, its tendons
projecting and the bones broken. She had, in her sleep, gone into a loft
to cut wood with a hedging bill. Thinking she was cutting the wood, she
had hacked her fore-arm and hand, until she fainted away, and fell
bathed in her blood. _She had felt no pain_, but merely had a sensation
as if the parts were pricked with pins.
Some time ago, (I believe in the year 1832,) a journal thus records a
case analogous in its nature, although less unhappy in its effects:
“Some fishermen at Le Conquest, near Brest, were surprised at finding,
at two o’clock in the morning, a boy about twelve years old, up to his
waist in the sea, fishing for flounders, of which he drew up five or
six. Their surprise however was increased to wonder, when, on
approaching him, they found that he was _fast asleep_. He was taken home
and put to bed, but was immediately afterwards attacked with a raging
fever.”
IDA. These walkers were of _low degree_; I presume philosophy is not
altogether exempt from the fault.
EV. Oh no: Galen was a somnambulist; and Franklin assures us, that in a
warm bath at Southampton, he floated on his back nearly an hour _in his
sleep_.
Now that there is an apathy of the senses during somnambulism is clear,
for the eyelids are unclosed, and if a candle be held to the eye of the
somnambulist, the _actions_ of the _iris_ are seen, but there is seldom
aversion of the head to avoid the glare. Was Mrs. Siddons aware of this,
when she _smelt_ to her bloody hand, but _did not look upon it_? In
sleep-walking, indeed, there is always _one_ at least of the five senses
asleep. The actions of somnambulists often appear almost automatic
without a reason for them; somewhat resembling instinct, as the beaver
will still build his dome for shelter, even under a roof; or as
monomaniacs will do a work in _three or four different places_,
forgetful of their previous labour. It is evident, too, that there is a
dulness of reflection when the progress is impeded. The somnambulist
will try to _move on in a straight line_, overturning things in his
course: thus Mathews, in _Somno_, overturned the tables, but had not the
judgment to _go round_ them. Under very great obstruction to their
progress, the somnambulists will sometimes burst into tears.
Gall relates the case of a miller, who every night got up and worked in
his mill, _asleep_; and Martinet, of a saddler, who also worked nightly
in his sleep; and Dr. Pritchard, of one who had been subject to
epileptic fits, thus: “They ceased entirely until the nineteenth year of
his age, when he became a somnambulist, working during the night at his
trade as a saddler, getting out on the roof of the house, going out to
walk, and occupying himself in a thousand various ways. Soon after this
the fits of epilepsy reappeared, occurring every five or six days,
increasing in duration, and commencing from that time only with a
sensation of heat, which from the _epigastrium_ rapidly extended to the
head, and produced complete insensibility. He was, at various times,
relieved by bleeding; and, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, being
then a soldier, he escaped three months without a return of his
epilepsy. In the following year, he was astonished to find himself one
night on the roof of the house, wet with rain; the impression which he
thence conceived, produced, some time afterwards, an attack of epilepsy,
followed by contraction of his fingers and toes.”
In many cases, however, there is some predeterminate motive for the
walk, which excites the memory in the sleep. The somnambulist has been
_thinking deeply, ere he retires to rest_, and the walk occurs early in
the night; so that we might believe a mood of musing had really
_prevented sleep_, and itself been the cause of the phenomena.
Thus may be explained the miracle recorded by Fulgosius. Marcus, the
freedman of Pliny, dreamed that a barber, sitting on his bed, had shaved
him, and awoke well trimmed;—Marcus had _unconsciously shaved himself_.
And also other cases related by Dr. Pritchard, of which I will offer you
a fragment.
“——He is just recovering from a singular state of reverie, in which he
has passed twenty-four hours. It began in the evening, with a _rigor_,
which continued more or less the whole night. From that time he remained
constantly in motion, walking up and down the room or about the house.
He kept his eyes open, but was unconscious of external impressions;
sometimes he muttered to himself, and by his gestures and the motions of
his hands it appeared that he fancied himself to be working in his usual
occupation. In this state he remained all the ensuing night and a part
of the following day. During that time, he never ate or drank any thing
in a natural manner; he sometimes caught hold of a piece of bread, and,
having bitten it hastily, threw it down, and drank in the same way,
immediately continuing his work. If he was spoken to, he was some time
without taking any notice, and then would reply hastily, as a person
does who is disturbed by a question when in a reverie.”
Our study of these curiosities of mind teaches us how intimately
combined in their essence are all the species of illusion.
Somnambulism is a very common feature in epileptic idiots. In confirmed
insanity also, we observe in an intense degree that fearless daring and
almost preternatural power which characterise somnambulism. A Highland
woman, in a state of _puerperal mania_, which was increased by a
terrific dream, escaped to the gorges of the mountain, and herded with
the deer. She became so fleet of foot that it was impossible to overtake
her. One day, an awful tempest drove her and her “velvet companions” to
the valleys, when she was secured. Providence, which “tempers the wind
to the shorn lamb,” had covered her body with hair.
The dreamer walks and talks with imaginary people,—spectral illusion.
The following is a perfect illustration of this night-fantasy. It is a
story told to Sir Walter Scott by a Lisbon trader:—
“Somnambulism and other nocturnal deceptions lend their aid to the
formation of such phantasmata as are formed in the middle state betwixt
sleeping and waking. A most respectable person, whose active life had
been spent as master and part-owner of a large merchant vessel in the
Lisbon trade, gave an account of such an instance, which came under his
observation. He was lying in the Tagus, when he was put to great anxiety
and alarm by the following incident and its consequences:—One of his
crew was murdered by a Portuguese assassin, and a report arose that the
ghost of the slain man haunted the vessel. Sailors are generally
superstitious, and those of my friend’s vessel became unwilling to
remain on board the ship; and it was probable they might desert, rather
than return to England with the ghost for a passenger. To prevent so
great a calamity, the captain determined to examine the story to the
bottom. He soon found that, though all pretended to have seen lights and
heard noises, and so forth, the weight of the evidence lay upon the
statement of one of his own mates, an Irishman and a catholic, which
might increase his tendency to superstition; but in other respects a
veracious, honest, and sensible person, whom Captain S. had no reason to
suspect would wilfully deceive him. He affirmed to Captain S., with the
deepest obtestations, that the spectre of the murdered man appeared to
him almost nightly, took him from his place in the vessel, and,
according to his own expression, worried his life out. He made these
communications with a degree of horror, which intimated the reality of
his distress and apprehensions. The captain, without any argument at the
time, privately resolved to watch the motions of the ghost-seer in the
night, whether alone, or with a witness, I have forgotten. As the
ship-bell struck twelve, the sleeper started up with a ghastly and
disturbed countenance, and lighting a candle proceeded to the galley, or
cock-room, of the vessel. He sat down with his eyes open, staring before
him, as on some terrible object which he beheld with horror, yet from
which he could not withhold his eyes. After a short space he arose, took
up a tin can or decanter, filled it with water, muttering to himself all
the while, mixed salt in the water, and sprinkled it about the galley.
Finally, he sighed deeply, like one relieved from a heavy burden, and,
returning to his hammock, slept soundly. In the next morning, the
haunted man told the usual precise story of his apparition, with the
additional circumstances that the ghost had led him to the galley; but
that he had fortunately, he knew not how, obtained possession of some
holy water, and succeeded in getting rid of his unwelcome visitor. The
visionary was then informed of the real transactions of the night, with
so many particulars as to satisfy him he had been the dupe of his
imagination. He acquiesced in his commander’s reasoning, and the dream,
as often happens in these cases, returned no more after its imposture
had been detected.”
The case I am about to relate occurred within my own experience.
A butcher’s boy, about sixteen years old, apparently in perfect health,
after dosing a few minutes in his chair, suddenly started up, and began
to employ himself about his usual avocations. He had saddled and mounted
his horse, and it was with the greatest difficulty that those around him
could remove him from the saddle and carry him within doors. While he
was held in the chair by force, he continued violently the actions of
kicking, whipping, and spurring. His observations regarding orders from
his master’s customers, the payment at the turnpike-gate, &c. were
seemingly rational. The eyes when opened were perfectly sensible to
light. It appears that flagellation even had no effect in restoring the
patient to a proper sense of his condition. The pulse in this case was
130, full and hard; on the abstraction of thirty ounces of blood it sunk
to 80, and _diaphoresis_ ensued. After labouring under this phrenzy for
the space of an hour, he became sensible; was astonished at what he was
told had happened, and stated that he recollected nothing subsequent to
his having fetched some water and moved from one chair to another, which
indeed he _had_ done immediately before his delirium came on.
CAST. In the monastery of ——, this story was told to a party of Alpine
travellers, to beguile our winter’s evening.
A melancholic nobleman of Italy, Signor Augustin, walked usually at the
waning of the moon. The walk was always preceded by his lying on his
back, with eyes fixed and open. At this time the beatings of his heart
were scarcely perceptible. During this state, he noticed none of his
companions around him; but if any noise was made by them, his steps were
hurried and agitated, and if the noise was increased, a sort of maniacal
state was induced. In his sleep he would saddle and mount his horse, he
would listen at a key-hole if he heard noises in another room, and, if
he entered his billiard-room, he would seem to be playing with the cue.
On returning to his bed, he usually slept for ten hours after his walk.
Tickling would always rouse him.
In a Gazette of Augsburg, I have read this sad story: “Dresden was the
theatre of a melancholy spectacle on the 20th ult. As early as seven in
the morning a female was seen walking on the roof of one of the loftiest
houses in the city, apparently occupied in preparing some ornaments as a
Christmas present. The house stood as it were alone, being much higher
than those adjoining it, and to draw her from her perilous situation was
impossible. Thousands of spectators had assembled in the streets. It was
discovered to be a handsome girl, nineteen years of age, the daughter of
a master baker, possessing a small independence bequeathed to her by her
mother. She continued her terrific promenade for hours, at times sitting
on the parapet and dressing her hair. The police came to the spot, and
various means of preservation were resorted to. In a few minutes the
street was thickly strewn with straw, and beds were called for from the
house, but the heartless father, influenced by the girl’s stepmother,
refused them. Nets were suspended from the balcony of the first floor,
and the neighbours fastened sheets to their windows. All this time the
poor girl was walking in perfect unconsciousness, sometimes gazing
toward the moon, and at others singing or talking to herself. Some
persons succeeded in getting on the roof, but dared not approach her for
fear of the consequences if they awoke her. Towards eleven o’clock she
approached the very verge of the parapet, leaned forwards, and gazed
upon the multitude beneath. Every one felt that the moment of the
catastrophe had arrived. She rose up, however, and returned calmly to
the window by which she had got out. When she saw there were lights in
the room she uttered a piercing shriek, which was reechoed by thousands
below, and fell dead into the street.”
Such would have been the result, according to poetical justice, in the
beautiful romance of “La Sonnambula.” Had Amina been awakened while she
was descending, she would probably have toppled down headlong!
EV. Custom would render these wakings less formidable perhaps. There was
a family alluded to by Dr. Willis, in which the father and many sons
jostled each other nightly in their sleep-walk. This was probably but a
cheerful recognition and to sleep again.
In Fraser’s Magazine is recorded a very curious story of this sort. If I
remember right, an individual had the mortification of discovering every
morning when he awoke, that the shirt in which he had slept was gone.
Some trick was supposed to have been played upon him by an inmate of the
house; and, thinking that the practical joke would soon be abandoned, he
went on day after day, till his stock of linen was completely exhausted.
The individuals of the family were now anxiously examined, but no
tidings of the stray linen could be obtained. It was at last suspected
that some depredator had entered the house and unswathed his sleeping
victim, and a strict watch was made on the following night. At a
suitable hour the somnambulist was seen to quit his bed, to pass through
a skylight window to the roof of the house, to enter by another window a
garret that was always locked, and to return _shirtless to his lair_.
The garret was examined, and the thousand and one shirts were found
carefully wrapped up and deposited in a pyramid.
Something like this is the story of the spectre of Tappington, in the
Ingoldsby legends.
The actions, therefore, unlike the ideas of a dream, are often neither
heterogeneous nor inconsistent, and it is astonishing to observe the
exactness with which the work is executed.
Dr. Pritchard tells the case of a farmer who arose, saddled his horse,
and rode to market in his sleep: the Archbishop of Bordeaux the case of
a student, who composed both theological essays and music thus
unconsciously.
Now if the dreamer be awakened, he will relate the circumstances of his
dream clearly; but the somnambulist, if roused, will generally express
himself unconscious of what he intended, or of what he had done. It is,
by the bye, often dangerous, on another account, to wake the
sleep-walker; indeed, we have recorded the case of a young lady who was
walking in a garden in her sleep; she was awoke, and almost instantly
died.
But in some future somnambulism the same actions will be again performed
unheeded. And if there be memory of the sleep-walk, the somnambulist, I
believe, always relates his actions as the mere _ideas of a dream_, and
is long a sceptic of the _fact_, even if there are visible signs of his
exertions.
CAST. _I_ can illustrate this question from the recollection and
knowledge of an ancestor of my own. Early on a morning, an immense
number of foot-prints were observed by the men about a gate (on a farm
in Sussex), which were not there _overnight_. On their return the
servant girl was relating her _dream_; that she was told the cows had
got into a wrong field, and that she had gone out, opened the gate, and
driven them back. And I remember reading that a young gentleman of
Brenstein was seen to rise, get out of his window on the roof, and take
a brood of young magpies from their nest, and wrap them in his cloak. He
then returned quietly to his bed, and in the morning _related his
dream_, to his two brothers. They had slept with him, and had witnessed
this feat, of which he would not be persuaded until they showed him the
birds in his cloak.
I interrupt you, Evelyn.
EV. It is evident, as in dreams, and in rare cases of disease, that the
mind of the somnambulist is often a contrast to its waking faculty. The
memory will leap over intervals. Dr. Dyce records an illustration of
this. A girl, _in a state of somnambulism_, was taken to church, and
wept at the subject of the sermon. She never adverted to this impression
when she awoke; nor could she be brought to recollect it until, in her
_next sleeping paroxysm_, she spoke of it distinctly.
In delirium, also, we see these intervals of thought. The patient will
commence a subject in the delirious state; when this has subsided, the
subject is dropped. In the _next attack_ of delirium it will again be
started, ay, and at the very point, even _the word itself_, at which it
was broken off.
We read, in an American journal, that a man, previous to an attack of
mania which lasted _several years_, had placed his work tools in the
hollow of a tree. To them no allusion was made during the period of his
disorder. When, however, this passed off, he directed his son to fetch
them, believing that he left them _only yesterday_.
In the same book, too, we learn of that lady who became maniacal as she
was engaged in needle-work. For seven years she thought not of this; but
directly she recovered, she asked for her needle-work and canvass. The
same may occur in intoxication also, which _is_ but another form of
delirium. In Mr. Combe’s work we are told of a drunken man who left a
parcel at a wrong house. When _sober_, he recollected nothing of the
circumstance; but when _again intoxicated_, he soon remembered his
error, and reclaimed the parcel.
ASTR. These cases form high contrasts with Hamlet’s proof of insanity:
——“Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword, which madness
Wou’d gambol from.”
EV. Yet if you analyze their nature you will find them even _proofs_ of
derangement; for you thus see that the faculty of memory is changed
according to the state of mind. In the following case, by Dr.
Abercrombie, we shall find the same variation in impression and taste. A
girl, in her early youth, expressed her abhorrence of tunes played on
the violin, which she termed a _discordant fiddle_. She was after this
introduced into more refined society, and became a somnambulist. During
her paroxysm she imitated the _beautiful airs_ which she said she had
formerly heard on this same violin.
Lieutenant C—— was once my patient, and died a maniac. The insanity
arose from thwarted ambition, and was confirmed by his notion that he
had seen his death-fetch. For some time he walked and talked in his
sleep; subsequently he would walk for an hour round the table
unconsciously. In him, too, was this change of feeling. He once talked
little, and cared less for his child; but now he would caress it fondly,
and expressed the deepest anxiety for it. It was difficult to decide, at
times, whether this gentleman was awake or not; indeed, these states of
mania, which have been termed “melancholia errabunda” by Bellini and
Montalti, are closely allied to somnambulism, for the walker is absorbed
in deep thought, and totally unconscious of his actions. And the analogy
appears to have been recognised by the law. It is well known that the
brother of Lord Colepeper, who was a great dreamer and somnambulist,
shot a guardsman and his horse. He was found guilty; but he was pardoned
on the ground of his complete _unconsciousness_ in his somnambulism.
We do not wonder more to see the perfection with which these unconscious
labours of the somnambulist are performed, than at the ease and power
which is evinced, and the very slight fatigue which ensues; although the
occupation might have been most laborious.
As in _chorea_ the most delicate girls will dance incessantly for
twenty-four hours, resting merely for one sole hour; and yet they will
sit down perfectly cool and free from fatigue.
IDA. Is it not wonderful that the somnambulist will incur great dangers
with complete _sang-froid_? They will walk over
——“Torrents roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear;”
or scale the gigantic precipice, the mere contemplation of which would
fright their mind from its propriety, when awake. I remember to have
read of a French Jew, who walked by chance across a dangerous pass over
a brook, _in the dark_, without the slightest fear or harm. The next
day, perceiving what danger he had incurred, he fell down dead.
EV. It is equally curious that a concentration of nervous energy, which
is here the result of unconsciousness, should also be produced _by_ fear
in some cases, which, in others, _paralyses_; but this is indeed a
slight degree of heroism, or energy of despair. Thus we leap far higher,
and run much faster, when danger threatens, than we could believe.
These are all very apt illustrations of somnambulism. I will check
myself in quotations of more, as the phenomena may closely resemble each
other.
But what is its philosophy, and how can I venture on its explanation,
which involves the most intricate pathology of the nervous system?
unless, with the self-complacency of quaint old Burton, I cut the
Gordian knot by this affirmation,—“There is nothing offends but a
concourse of bad humours, which trouble the phantasy. These vapours move
the phantasy, the phantasy the appetite, which, moving the animal
spirits, causeth the body to walk up and down, as if it were awake.”
Thus much I may expound to you, if I am again allowed to run up our
scientific scale. The philosophy of the dream and of incubus refers to
the activity of the brain with a _passive_ body; for somnambulism, we
require an _active_ body, with an _unconscious_ brain.
Now there are _four_ sources of nervous influence:—the brain and
_cerebellum_, within the skull; the marrow in the spinal canal; and the
nervous bundles in the large cavities, termed _ganglia_.
It is on the independent or unconscious function of the marrow, chiefly,
that those mysterious actions, which do not seem to be willed by a
conscious mind, depend.
In the day-dream, a thought or form shall present itself, even at a time
when the mind is employed on subjects of a contrasted nature. These
thoughts, or forms, are usually fraught with a high degree of pleasure
or of pain, or refer to events of vital importance, to the
dreamer;—such are the objects of the lover’s idolatry, the anticipation
of misfortune, or subjects of prospective felicity. Under this
excitement, the influence of external objects is often for a time lost;
the _retina_ may be struck by a ray, or the _membrana tympani_ by a
vibration, but the mind shall fail in its perception,—no _internal_
impression being made. This cannot arise from a point of the _retina_,
or the expansion of the auditory nerve being pre-occupied, as some have
supposed. The idea of material impression must fail in explanation; for,
on the instant that the mind is awakened, the external impression is
again perceived. The external sense, in this case, is not in fault; nor
is its direct influence on the _sensorium_ suspended; for we find that a
person will continue to read in this state, as it were _mechanically_;
but the attention is _diverted_ by deep thought, so that the reader, at
the end of his task, may have no remembrance of what he has been
reading.
Let me tell of a curious little episode of Dr. Darwin’s, which will aid
me in my illustration. A young lady was playing on the piano a very
elaborate piece of music. It was correctly and scientifically performed,
although she was agitated during her task; and when it was over, the
lady burst into tears. She had been watching all the time a favourite
canary in the fluttering of death; and with this catastrophe her _mind_
was almost wholly occupied, but her _fingers_ did not err in their
complicated and delicate motions, which they undoubtedly would have
done, if the will or mind alone had directed them.
In sanity of mind, and in mania, the most philosophical distinction is
based on the _health_ or _disease_ of memory. The ecstacy of madness may
not seem perhaps more irrational than an ecstatic vision, but the maniac
will not re-word the matter; whereas the mere visionary will repeat the
action of the trance as a dream.
ASTR. But there is a sort of somnambulism the reverse of this. In the
retreat to Corunna, many of the soldiers, although exhausted by a long
march, and having actually fallen asleep, continued to move forwards,
leaving their companions behind, who halted and laid down to repose.
EV. This is the _continued association_ of that excitement which has
produced muscular motion. The mind was exhausted and sleepy, the brain
was inert; but we believe that the spinal marrow does, of itself, effect
motion, while the will and consciousness sleep; and we may also _stand_
and sleep. These soldiers did not walk in their sleep, but slept in
their walk.
ASTR. I am informed, too, that Richard Turpin, in allusion to his famous
flight to York, asserted that Black Bess appeared to gallop
unconsciously.
EV. It is true; and when we reflect on this gigantic feat, we may
suppose that the mare gallopped the farther, because her _consciousness
of fatigue was not awake_, and her muscular energy was thus
concentrated.
Paralyzed muscles will often quiver when the sound limb is quiet; the
brain’s influence being, in this case too, inert, sensation is
diminished; but _involuntary_ motion continues from a habit in the
muscle, or the excitement of unexhausted irritability, as in _chorea_,
spasm, &c. And in some cases of _post mortem_ galvanism, Dr. Dunbar, of
Virginia, passed the _galvanic aura_ along the _ulnar_ nerve of an
executed negro, and the fingers instantly quivered, and assumed the
attitude and action of one playing on a flute or the strings of a
violin.
ASTR. It is possible, then, to move without our _willing_ to do so, or
being conscious of our act.
EV. There are believed to be, indeed it is almost a
demonstration,—_four sets of nerves_, traced along the spinal marrow.
Two to the brain, of _sensation_ and _volition_, by which the mind feels
what the body touches, and transmits its will to the muscles; two others
to the marrow, by which _it_ also is stimulated by outward touch, and by
which _it_ excites the muscles to motion.
Now when the brain’s influence is kept from muscle, that muscle will
still possess _irritability_, derived from the spinal marrow; nay, that
irritability will be greater, _because it has not been expended_ by the
acts of that volition, which resides solely in the brain, and which is
now cut off. Thus the _excito-motory_ function, and the influence of
volition, are in these cases _antagonists_. And this principle of the
_incident_ and _reflex spinal_ nerve is an explanation of the curious
dilemma, regarding the suspension of the will in sleep and dream, to
which Dr. Stewart alludes.—“Not a suspension of volition, but only of
_its influence_ over those organs, which it moves when we are awake.”
Decide for yourselves between the physical and metaphysical theories.
Yet, do you not see that all this does not essentially require the
direction of mind? If you tickle the palm of a sleeping child, it will
close its hand upon your finger; if you awake it, and _engage its
attention, it will often leave its hold_. This is a fact proved by the
_anencephalous_ or brainless children. Even the puppy, deprived of its
brain, and also the _mammary fœtuses_ of the kangaroo and opossum, fix
eagerly on the nipple when it touches their lips. There is a beautiful
mechanism in the foot of the roosting birds, adapted to this
physiological law. The tendon of the claws is tightened immediately they
are touched, by which action they contrive to grasp the bough or perch
even when asleep. In cases of _paralysis_ even, the foot will sometimes
be instantly drawn up, although it does not possess the least sensation;
we may assert, then, that irritability is in an _inverse ratio_ to
sensibility.
The _polype_, in which we trace no brain or nerve, exists and moves by
its irritability, and without sensation or consciousness. We know also
that the _vis insita_, or _vis nervosa_ of a muscle, that is, its
irritability, exists even after the animal life has ceased. The turtle
will live and move long after its brain has been removed. The heart
itself, an involuntary muscle, is stimulated also to action without
sensation. The heart of the assassin, Bellingham, beat long after he was
cut from the gallows.
If I have made these things clear, I am now prepared to explain, with
some anticipation, those two curious contrasts, somnambulism and
incubus. If the spinal or motive nerves be asleep, and the cerebral or
intellectual, or volition nerves, awake, we shall have night-mare; if,
on the contrary, the motive nerves are in excess, beyond the sensiferous
or volition nerves, we have sleep-walking.
ASTR. I believe the philosophy of Leibnitz affirms _two_ perceptions;
one with, and another without, consciousness. I do not recollect if he
distinguishes the _seat_ of these _perceptions_; but, if the brain be
that which perceives, I presume consciousness will follow that
perception sometimes in so slight a degree as not to excite judgment or
reflection. Am I correct?
EV. You have adopted the common error of metaphysicians. If, in the
abstraction of waking moments, some persons talk to themselves, as it
were unconsciously, so, from the _reflex_ influence, may volition and
motion occur, with as little self-feeling. That the _immediate_
impression, however, and a necessity of action, may combine, is
illustrated by Dr. Beattie’s case of the officer who could be thus
excited in his sleep. By a whisper in his ear, he was induced to go
through the whole ceremony of a duel, and did not completely wake until
the report of his pistol roused him. This gentleman was also told that
he had fallen overboard, and he began to imitate the motions of
swimming; then that a shark was following him, when he would dive off
his couch upon the floor; and when he was told that the battle was
raging around him, he proved himself an arrant coward by running away.
Somnambulism may be induced by congestion or irritation of _that point_
where the _incident_ nerve blends with the _grey matter_ of the spinal
marrow, producing internal irritation, as the tickling of the foot does
through the _cutaneous_ nerves of a senseless limb.
CAST. We are thankless creatures, dear Evelyn, but all this reiteration
bewilders me, does it not you, Ida? Yet, in my simplicity, I can but
think it unphilosophical entirely to disregard the _will_ as the spring
of our actions.
EV. If I must EXPLAIN, fair lady, I cannot avoid prolixity. But to your
question I will answer, no; for somnambulism _may be excited_ by the
_memory of an intention_. In the experiment made by the committee of the
physical society of Lausanne, on the Sieur Devaud, of Vevay, it was
proved that on the evening before the fit of somnambulism, his head was
heavy, and he had a sense of oppression on his eye-lids. If, at this
time, the mind was impressed by some legend, or story, or incident, the
actions of the sleep-walk were perfectly _coincident with such a
subject_. If a romantic tale of banditti were related, his alarm would
be apparent in his subsequent sleep. In this somnambulist was
beautifully illustrated the effect of permanent impression on the brain,
rendering, for a time, the sense of vision useless; for having once
perused his paper, it was so imprinted on his mind, that the _exact_
spot for each letter was _exactly_ fixed on _by the finger_. And we have
heard of one more interesting case, in which the somnambule, remembering
that he had made errors in his writing, traced, on a blank paper
substituted for that written on, the corrections, _in the very places
corresponding to the erroneous writing_. And that here was memory was
proved in this, that during the time his eyes were shut, the pen was
dropped on the _very spot_ where the inkstand stood; but this being
removed, no ink was obtained, and the writing was blank.
Now we believe that there are certain vessels which contribute to
nervous energy, perhaps by secreting a nervous fluid in the brain, or by
concentrating electricity, which Dr. Faraday believes may constitute the
_animal_ portion of the nervous system. This influence may be profusely
accumulated in a waking state; the resolution to act has been formed;
or, there may be a rapid production in sleep of this energy. Then, when
sleep occurs, _this impression becomes uncontrolled_. The third form of
insanity of Spurzheim, irresistibility, exists, and the night-walk takes
place. And indeed it may form an interesting analogy to that satiety of
the voluptuary, “Childe Harold,”
“Who e’en for change of scene wou’d seek the shades below,”
and to one unhallowed story related in “Salmonia.”
From this excess there is the stimulus of _pain to move_; one of the
most powerful motives of human action. Cardan, if we may believe in his
“Opera et Vita,” was at least a monomaniac; and he “was wont
instinctively, as it were, to relieve this tendency of his mind by the
excitement of bodily pain.” I may assure you that I have, during my
professional studies, often witnessed (and indeed have sometimes
suggested) a remedy on this knowledge: you may be aware, that a severe
and painful disorder will mitigate, if not entirely dissipate, that
apathetic misery which springs from a vacant or unoccupied mind.
In contrasting childhood and age, we witness these curiosities in the
restless activity of youth and early manhood, for at these periods we
are very constant somnambulists; not so in the passive state of old age,
in which sleep-walking is very rare. Something of this we see also in
the _growing pains_ and _fidgets_ of girls and those whose duties are
sedentary. Exercise is the relief for all this.
Now when the sleep-walk has exhausted this excess of irritability or
electricity (if it be so), the dreamer returns to bed and sleep. A hint
is here thrown out to us, that if powerful exertion be employed previous
to sleep, the night-walk might not ensue. Lethargy often terminates in
somnambulism.
If I may for another moment still prose over the intricate, but deeply
interesting question of the pathology of somnambulism, I will observe,
that we often find it one symptom of madness or idiocy, and we know that
somnambulism not seldom terminates in epilepsy.
In the brains of epileptic idiots, who are very determined
somnambulists, we discover changes the most various; _effusion_,
_congestion_, _ossification of membranes_, _ramollissement_,
_indurcissement_, bony _spiculæ_, or points pressing the brain,
_tubercles_, _cysts_. In some, the skull assumes the density of ivory.
Yet in those persons who have been known to be sleep-walkers, the
inspection is seldom satisfactory. _Plethora_ of the head has often,
however, preceded the sleep-walk. Signor Pozzi, physician to Benedict
XIV., if he submitted not to depletion each second month, became a
somnambulist; and we have known that in _chorea, previous to the dance_,
and in some cases of somnambulism also, pain has been felt from the
_occiput_ along the course of the _spinal marrow_. This is from
immediate excitement; but _dyspepsia_ and other _abdominal derangements_
may so influence the _ganglia_ and _nerves of organic life_, and through
them the brain and cord, as to excite sleep-walking by _remote_
sympathy.
That injuries of the nervous matter about the nape of the neck are of
the highest importance in our studies of these eccentric actions, is
certain. The experiments of Flourens show that the _progressive_ or
_forward_ motion of animals, is influenced by varied states of the
_cerebellum_. When Majendie cut through the _corpora striata_, the
animal darted forward; when the _pons Varolii_ was cut, the animal
rolled over sixty times in a minute.
When a soldier is struck by a ball about the _cervical vertebræ_, he
often springs from the ground and drops dead.
It is our duty, then, not to slight the condition of the somnambulist.
If _simple irritation_ be its exciting cause, much benefit may be
derived from _counter-action_ on the surface, and other remedial means.
Even if there be _diseased structure_, some palliation may be afforded.
As preventives of the fit, we may inculcate an abstinence from late
meals, exercise in the evening previous to retirement to rest, a high
pillow, &c.
If the propensity continue in spite of our efforts, it will be right to
have the windows fastened or locked, and the door of the chamber bolted
_without_; or to confine the ankle or wrist to the bed-post by a long
fillet, which may by its detention awake the sleeper on starting from
the bed.
IMITATIVE MONOMANIA.
“Men, wives, and children, stare, cry out, and run,
As it were doomsday.”
JULIUS CÆSAR.
There are other very curious analogies of somnambulism, which are marked
by a power of action that appears preternatural. And here again we
witness the irresistibility of motion, which seems to subvert the laws
of gravitation and the principles of mechanics. The involuntary
twitchings and contortions of _St. Vitus’s dance_ present the slighter
form of these eccentric actions, which, in the intense degree, become
like the fury of a raving maniac.
In young girls there often is a proneness to be excited by slight
causes,—to be startled by mere trifles.
Savarry tells us of a man who, at two o’clock each day, was irresistibly
impelled to rap at doors and make very odd noises, and felt intense
pleasure in doing this. If this had occurred in the night, it would have
been termed somnambulism.
Gall also relates of a young man at Berlin, who, after rolling about in
his bed for some time, and jumping out and in repeatedly in his sleep,
at last started up awake, astonished at the crowd around his bed. And
Dr. Darwin writes of a boy, nine years old, who went through a course of
gymnastics, with an occasional song between the acts. At length he
seemed bursting, and soon sank down in a stupor.
ASTR. I have read, (I think in Mezeray,) of an epidemic mania of this
sort, in which the creatures tore off their clothes, and ran naked
through the streets and churches, until they fell breathless on the
ground. Some of them swelled even to _bursting_, unless they were bound
down by cords. The disease was referred to the agency of demons, and
treated by exorcisms; they even tore their flesh to free themselves from
their possessing devils. I have seen also a confident story of some
nuns, who jumped so high during an hysteric ecstacy, that they were at
length seen to fly; in imitation, perhaps, of the Corybantes, the
priests of Cybele, who, in the celebration of their mysteries, leaped
and raved, like madmen in the midst of their shrieks and howlings.
EV. All these eccentricities amount to complete monomania for the time
they last, and they are marked often by a very violent _imitative_
propensity; like the delirium which came upon the Abderites, on
witnessing the performance of the “Andromeda” of Euripides, by
Archelaüs. Of such nature was the “_dancing mania_” of the middle ages;
the _tarantula_ of Apulia, in which melancholy was succeeded by madness;
the feats of the _Jumpers_ of Cornwall, and the _Convulsionnaires_ of
the Parisian miracles.
Yet with all this apparent violence, there might be a power of control
by management. On some sudden and extreme mental influence, there was in
the Maison de la Charité, at Haerlem, an infectious convulsion of this
nature, so that the troop of little scholars, girls and boys, were a
mere legion of dancing maniacs; and nothing appeared to relieve them,
until a ruse of the physician Boërhave put to flight the illusion. With
a solemn voice he pronounced, in the hearing of the little creatures,
his decision that each of them should be burned to the bone of the arm
with a red hot iron. From that moment the mania subsided.
Dr. Hecker, in his account of the _Dance_ of the middle ages, notices
two forms of this national monomania:—“_Tarantulism_,” and the “_Danse
de Saint Guy_.”
The first was marked by all sorts of illusions, demonomania, obscene
dancing, groaning, and falling down senseless.
The persons who believed themselves bitten by the tarantula became sad
and stupid. The flute or guitar alone could give them succour. At the
sound of its music they awoke, as if by enchantment; their eyes opened,
their movements, which at first slowly followed the music, gradually
became animated, until they merged into an impassioned dance. To
interrupt the music was disastrous:—the patients relapsed into their
stupidity, until they became exhausted by fatigue. During the attacks,
several singular idiosyncracies were manifested, contrary to what
occurred in Germany. Scarlet was a favourite colour, though some
preferred green or yellow. A no less remarkable phenomenon was their
ardent longing for the sea; they implored to be carried to its shores,
or to be surrounded by marine pictures; some even threw themselves into
the waves. But the dominant passion was for music, though they varied in
their particular tastes. Some sought the braying sound of the trumpet,
others the softer harmony of stringed instruments.
There was once a woman of Piedmont who was charmed by the “capriccio,”
played by the leader of an orchestra, into an ecstatic dance. In her,
the sensations, as she expressed them, were so “strangely mingled,” as
powerfully to illustrate the fine line of distinction between pleasure
and pain. She gradually became weaker, and the memory of the music was
so intense, that, while she was irresistibly impelled to this maniacal
dance, her expressions were those of acute pain, and her cries were
constantly of those “horrid sounds.” In six months, this unhappy
creature died exhausted.
The _Tigretier_, of Abyssinia, is believed in Africa to be the effect of
demoniac influence. Indeed there is in this strange state a complete
metamorphosis of features, and voice, and manner. In the hearts, even of
the women, the affections of nature and of attachment seem to be
annihilated, and they seem overwhelmed by some oppressive weight, which
is dissipated only by almost preternatural exertion, excited by the
charm of music; in which wild dance the female is dressed in ornaments
of silver, like the chiefs of battle. This maniac movement is often, I
believe, kept up from early morning until sunset, ere the accumulation
of energy is exhausted; and even then the woman will start off suddenly
and outrun the fleetest hunter, until she drops as if dead. But it seems
the climax of the cure is not complete, until she drops all her
ornaments, and a matchlock is fired over her, when she owns her name and
family, both having been previously denied. She is taken to the church
and sprinkled with holy water, and then the spell is broken.
There is another strange monomania, an incitement to suicide, evinced in
that loathsome disease of the Lombard and Venetian plains, _Pellagra_.
The prevailing fashion is _drowning_; so that Strambi has termed this
monomania, _water-madness_.
Others are driven on by still more horrible fancies. Thus _Grenier_
wrapped himself in a wolf-skin, and murdered young maids that he might
devour them. And, among ourselves, the desire to _change the infant into
a_ _cherub_, has led the wild fanatic to the murder of the innocents!
ASTR. This, I suppose, is _Lycanthropy_, or wolf-madness, on which old
Burton so funnily expatiates; and to which the author of the old play of
“Lingua” also points, alluding to the
“Thousand vain imaginations,
Making some think their heads as big as horses,
Some that they’re dead, some that they’re turned to wolves.”
In the woods of Limousin, in France, the belief in the power of changing
from men to wolves is still prevalent. The _Loup-garoux_, or
_Wehr-wolf_, was thought to have been in league with Satan.
In my wanderings through Poictou, these monsters seemed to me to confine
their unholy powers to midnight prowling, and the wolf-howl. Yet Marie,
in the “_Lai du Bisclavaret_,” endows them with the cannibalism of the
goul and the vampire:
“So Garwal roams in savage pride,
And hunts for blood, and feeds on men;
Spreads dire destruction, far and wide,
And makes the forests broad his den.”
EV. The extraordinary effects of the instinct of imitation in spreading
these epidemics, is but an example on the grand scale of what we see
daily instances of in yawning, hiccoughing, coughing, and other similar
acts, and in the propagation of _hysteria_ and _epilepsy_. Some persons,
again, possess an irresistible tendency to imitate others in mere
trifling things. Tissot relates a case of a female, who never could
avoid doing _every thing she saw any one else do_. She was obliged to
walk blindfolded in the streets; and, if you tied her hands, she
experienced intolerable anguish until they were loosened. There was
another girl, that was seen by Dr. Horn, at Salzburg, who sat
_cross-legged_, like a hog. She had been brought up in a sty.
Even during the Commonwealth, the religious fanaticism of the Quakers
carried the proselytes to such a pitch, that the preachers were thrown
into excessive convulsions, and _seemed_ possessed of demons. The
churches were broken into, and the ministers insulted and attacked in
the pulpits. Chains, and locks, and the pillory, which were inflicted on
these mad people, failed, as it might be expected, in restoring their
senses, although they bore them with the most astonishing fortitude. In
their worshipping, the same eccentricities were seen: after a deep and
long silence, a number of the devotees rose at once, and declaimed. The
presumptuous imitation of the Saviour was a favourite illusion; and the
forty-days’ fast sometimes terminated in death. Naylor, convinced of his
divine identity, rode in procession on a mule, while his deluded
proselytes spread their garments, and sang Hosannas to him. Nay, the
purity of the female mind was so grossly perverted, that a Quakeress
walked naked into a church, before Cromwell, _as a sign to the people_!
There was a letter in an “Aberdeen Herald,” dated Invergordon, Sept. 9,
1840, from which I quote this story:
“I had the curiosity to go to the church of Roskeen, last night, to
observe the _workings of a revival_. I was prepared for something
extraordinary, but certainly not for what I saw. The sobs, groans, loud
weeping, fainting, shrieking, mingled in the most wild and unearthly
discordance with the harsh cracked voice of the clergyman, who could
only at intervals be heard above the general weeping and wailing. I was
struck by the cries being all from _young_ voices; and on examining a
little more closely, I found that the performers were almost wholly
children—girls, varying from five to fourteen years of age; a few young
women, perhaps a dozen, but not a single man or lad. I stood for nearly
half an hour by three girls, the eldest about twelve years of age, who
were in the most utter distress, each vying with the other in despairing
cries. Their mother came to them, but made no exertion to check their
bursts of—I don’t know what to call it. In the church-yard there were
lots of children in various stages of fainting. One poor girl seemed
quite dead, and I insisted on one of the old crones, who was piously
looking on, to go for some water, or to attempt something to give her
relief, but was told, ‘It was no’ a case for water; it was the Lord, and
he would do as he liked with her. She was seeing something we didna see,
and hearing something we didna hear.’ She was lying on the ground,
supported by her father. Indeed the poor ignorant parents have been
worked upon until they believe they are highly honoured by the Lord, by
having such signs of the Spirit manifested in their families. The
service, if it may be called so, was in Gaelic.”
In the reign of the second George, Count Zinzendorf came from Germany
and established the principles of the Hernhutters, or Moravians. These
were debased by ceremonies, which they misnamed worship, of the most
licentious character.
Like Mahomet, Zinzendorf proclaimed himself a prophet and a king, and in
his presumption of an immediate appeal to, and answer from, the Saviour,
in all matters of doubt, made a host of proselytes.
IDA. In our own day, another delirious profanation of the holy name of
the Saviour has been exhibited, in the imitative monomania of _Sir
William Courtenay_ (as he was called), in Kent. In May, 1838, this wild
enthusiast (whose beauty of feature and expression closely resembled the
paintings of Christ by Guido and Carlo Dolce, and who, to heighten this
resemblance, wore his hair and beard in a peculiar form, and clothed
himself in a robe) gained by his art numerous disciples in Kent, who
implicitly believed his divine nature and mission. His career was,
however, soon closed in a very awful and bloody tragedy—the death of
himself, of many of his _followers_, and of the military who were called
out to secure him. His _disciples_, to the last, not only believed in
his divine nature, but even after his interment were watching _in
implicit belief of his approaching resurrection_!
The mania of the “unknown tongues” has almost equalled this delusion. If
we presume to analyse, on the principles of philosophy or reason, those
religious eccentricities, which seem, even in the mind of the fanatic,
to spring from sincerity or conviction, they must yet, I suppose, be
termed _maniacal_, and this without the slightest profanation of the
Divine will. Evil, doubtless, is permitted for a wise purpose, and while
we deplore its _immediate_ effects, we must not hope to reveal its
origin or its end.
At Brighton, some time ago, while at one of the Millennium chapels, the
wife of Caird, who was then preaching, uttered a dismal howling of this
_unknown_ language, which paralysed some, and threw into convulsions
many others of the congregation. A young French lady among them
instantly was struck with maniacal despondency, and, after some
infliction of self-torture, became delirious and died in a hospital.
We learn from Plutarch, that in Milesium there was once a prevalent
fashion among the young girls to hang themselves; while the same mania
once spread among the demoiselles of Lyons, to drown themselves in the
Rhone. The Convulsionists of Paris, in 1724, not only inflicted
self-torture, but in their wild delight solicited the bystanders to
stone them.
The commission of a great or extraordinary crime to this day produces,
not unfrequently, a kind of mania of imitation in the district in which
it happened. I have known incidents, falsely called religious, to
occasion similar events; and what is remarkable, the scene or place of
the _first_ event seemed to favour its repetition, by other persons
approaching it. Thus a supposed miracle having been performed before the
gate of the convent of St. Genevieve, such a number of similar
occurrences happened on the same spot in a few days, that the police was
compelled to post a peremptory notice on the gate, prohibiting any
individual from working miracles on the place in question. When the
locality was thus shut up, the _thaumaturgia_ ceased. It is not long
since we witnessed in Paris two events of a similar character. About
four years ago, at the Hotel des Invalides, a veteran hung himself on
the threshold of one of the doors of a corridor. No suicide had occurred
in the establishment for two years previously, but in the succeeding
fortnight five invalids hung themselves on the same cross-bar, and the
governor was obliged to shut up the passage. During the last days of the
empire, again, an individual ascended the column in the Place Vendome,
and threw himself down and was dashed to pieces. The event excited a
great sensation; and in the course of the ensuing week, _four persons_
imitated the example, and the police were obliged to proscribe the
entrance to the column. The same mania was almost induced by the suicide
of a foolish girl, who leaped from the balcony of our own city column on
Fish-street Hill. Indeed Monseigneur Mare, of Paris, alludes to a
society enrolled for the mere purpose of suicide; and there was an
annual ballot to decide which of these miserable creatures should be
immolated _as the suicide of the year_!!
Dr. Burrows, I remember also, relates cases analogous to these. They
occurred in the ranks of some army on the continent, in which there was
an epidemic propensity to suicide, until the general began to hang the
soldiers on trees as scarecrows. The mania, as you may believe, very
soon subsided.
EV. Your curiosities eclipse mine, Ida. But the natural _leaning to the
marvellous_, will, without mania or fanaticism, by the mere sympathy of
intercommunicating minds, spread wide these illusions, even in the most
simple instances. Some time since, a very large assemblage were watching
with intense interest the stone lion of the Percies, at Northumberland
House. They were unanimous in the conviction that he was swinging his
tail to and fro; a false impression, of course, which had gradually
accumulated from this solitary exclamation of a passenger: “By heaven,
he wags his tail!” Of this sort of illusion I was myself a witness.
Beneath the western portico of St. Paul’s, a crowd of gazers were
bending their eyes on the image of the saint, who was nodding at them
with a very gracious affability. Curiosity had risen to the pitch of
wonder at a miracle, when suddenly a sparrow-hawk flew from the ringlets
of the saint, and the illusion vanished.
These eccentricities, you will perceive, occurred _spontaneously_; and
it is a most interesting study to note the analogies between _these_
diseased actions, and _those_ resulting from the influence of certain
gases and vegetable juices.
I have known the seeds of _stramonium_, when swallowed by children,
produce a temporary delirium, and a state of _chorea_, singing, dancing,
laughing, and other mad frolics, which could not be controlled. And in
the “History of Virginia,” by Beverly, it is recorded, that during the
rebellion of Bacon, at James Town, some soldiers, after eating the young
leaves of _stramonium_ for spinach, enacted “a very pleasant comedy, for
they turned natural fools upon it for several days. One would blow up a
feather into the air, another would dart straws at it with much fury,
another, stark naked, was seen sitting up in a corner, like a monkey,
grinning and making mouths.” In this frantic condition they were
confined for safety. In eleven days they recovered, but had no memory of
the delirium. Such also is the effect of large quantities of black
henbane. Dr. Patouillet, of Toucy, in France, in 1737 witnessed a mania
of this sort in nine persons, who had eaten of that root. It was marked
by the strangest actions and expressions. In these also there was no
recollection of the illusion.
But the closest analogy, in point of concentrated energy, to eccentric
somnambulism, is the effect of the inhalation of the “gaseous oxide of
azote,” or “protoxide of nitrogen,” the _laughing-gas_. So intense is
its impression on the nerves and blood of the brain, that it effects a
perfect _metempsychosis_. This gas contains a greater relative
proportion of oxygen than common air, and it is inhaled through a tube
from a bladder or silk bag. After a little giddiness and headache, the
breather soon begins to feel a very delicious thrilling; the eyes are
dazzled by even common objects, so much are the senses excited. Pride
and _pugnacity_ are quickly developed: we think ourselves grand
seignors, and elevated far beyond the common class of mortals. We expect
from all a _salaam_, and, with all the proud dignity of papacy, wonder
that the people do not fall down and kiss our toe. We turn a deaf ear to
all which is addressed to us; in short, we are dissociated from all
around us. Sir Humphrey Davy, as the effect was wearing off, seemed to
have been charmed into the combined philosophy of Berkley and Hume. He
writes, “with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, I exclaimed:
‘Nothing exists but thoughts; the universe is composed of impressions,
ideas, pleasures, and pains.’”
This brilliancy is probably the effect of scarlet or highly _oxygenized_
blood, acting on the brain and nerves of the senses.
The duration of this gaseous influence is usually from five minutes to a
quarter of an hour. It is not, however, always so transient.
From the record of Professor Silliman, it seems to have converted an “Il
Penseroso” into a “L’Allegro.” A man of melancholy became a man of
mirth: and, although before his inhalation he had no sweet tooth in his
head, he began to eat little except _sugar and sweet cakes_, and to
swallow _molasses_ with his meat and potatoes.
Although _sparring_ is the grand amusement of the gas-breather, yet we
can often decide on the shades of character, however studiously they may
have been concealed from us in sane moments.
A gentleman among my fellow-students threw himself forcibly on his back,
by his attempts to spout Shakspere with dignity and effect.
Another threw himself prostrate in the snow, and rolling himself over
and back across the quadrangle at Guy’s, turned himself into an immense
cylindrical snowball.
Another snapped his fingers in defiance, and walked with a most pompous
strut, and without his hat, to the middle of London Bridge, ere he was
brought to his senses.
Indeed these experiments seem so replete with the ludicrous, that I
wonder Cruikshank and Hood have not often caught a fact, as a theme for
their brilliant fancy.
REVERIE.
“That fools should be so deep-contemplative.”
“In his brain
He hath strange places cramm’d
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms.”
AS YOU LIKE IT.
ASTR. I was dreaming last night, Evelyn, of your eccentric puppets; and
I cannot but wonder at the _contrasted_ influences of nitrous oxide on
the brain and marrow, as you say. In one, we see the wondrous phenomena
of somnambulism; in the other, a state of apathy, like the almost
senseless reverie of the idiot.
EV. You are shrewd, Astrophel, and have hit on these objective analogies
with the acuteness of a pathologist. Contrasts they truly are; and yet
there is a natural transition from one to the other.
Somnambulism is the most eccentric condition of sleep; and _Reverie_ is
that state which constitutes the nearest approximation to slumber. But
the French verb, _rêver_, is a comprehensive word, signifying all the
eccentricities of mind, from idiocy to divine philosophy; so that its
derivative, “Reverie,” may be construed into Dream, Delirium, Raving,
Thought, Fancy, Meditation, Abstraction.
You may wonder at this combination, but, however you may smile, the
existence of every one is marked by a certain degree of moral or
instinctive mania, modified by the peculiarity of habit, taste, or
sentiment; and, I may add, of intellectual _monomania_ (“monomanie
raisonnante”), in reference to some particular subject. There may indeed
be an _incubation_ of madness; and, if circumstances occur to _sit_ and
_hatch_, the germs will be developed. When these two, moral and
intellectual error (which may _separately_ pass current in the world for
eccentricity), unite, then the man is mad, and becomes an irresponsible
agent.
The term “Reverie,” then, will imply the varied conditions of that
faculty, which phrenology terms _concentrativeness_; the extremes of
which mark the idiot and the sage.
Idiocy is the most abject and imperfect condition of the waking mind,
resembling closely the first disposition to slumber, the sensation of
_doziness_. The creature will commit the most absurd acts, and utter the
most ridiculous or profane expressions, without the redeeming apology of
being engaged in abstract thought or abstruse calculation.
It is consolatory, however, to know that this weakness is usually
_connate_, or manifested at the very dawn of intellect; so that we have
not the painful study of contrasting, in one being, the light of mind
with its shadowy darkness.
The idiot, indeed, often appears so little more than a laughing or a
dancing vegetable, that pity yields to curiosity and mirth; and, instead
of mourning, we work into the plot and incidents of a novel or a stage
farce, either that strange mixture of weakness and cunning which is
delineated in Davie Gellatly, or the absolute imbecility of Audrey,
Slender, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
But this melancholy being is not always a _solitary_ curiosity. In many
districts, especially in the stream-fed valleys of Europe and Asia,
nature fails, by wholesale, in the development of that “paragon of
animals,” man.
Such are the _Capots_, or _Cretins_, of Chinese Tartary, as we learn
from Sir George Staunton; those of the Rhone and Tyrolese valleys; the
_Coliberts_ of Rochelle; the _Cagneux_ of Brittany; the _Gaffos_ of
Navarre; the _Gavachos_ of Spain; and the _Gezitani_ of the Pyrenees.
The condition of the lowest class of these wretched beings is indeed
that of idiocy; their intellectual power being little more than the
mental blank which would mark the _acephalous_, or brainless monsters,
could such abortions attain the age of maturity. It is mere _animal
life_, with the very faintest stamp of intelligence.
The _Cretin_ is from four to five feet high, cadaverous, flabby, the
head immensely out of proportion, the skin studded with livid eruptions,
the eyes blear and squinting, the lips slavering, the limbs weak and
crooked; and (like the _Stulbings_ of Swift) the senses are imperfect,
the hearing and speech often absolutely lost,—the expression being that
of a fool or a satyr. And dissection demonstrates the frequent causes of
all this; for, in the skull of these beings, we often find a _bluish
jelly_, instead of healthy brain. This diseased _pulp_ is thus the
source of both animal and intellectual apathy. The idiot will often seem
insensible to pain, while his flesh is burning; and objects or subjects
do not cause sufficient impression on this pulpy brain to produce their
_image_, so that the being may almost live without a sense.
CAST. This is a dreary, but, I suppose, a faithful picture, and shows us
one of those impressive contrasts which nature is fraught with. The
Cretin dwarf amidst the gigantic sublimity of the Alps; the lava stream
rolling over the chestnut groves of Valombrosa; the malaria that steams
up from the Pontine even to Albano; the murky sulphur cloud that floats
over Avernus, and the Solfaterra; and the poison-snake creeping among
the honied flowers and purple festoons which gild the prairies and
interlace the forests of Columbia, show us how intimately are blended
the lights and shadows of creation. Yet Evelyn will let me ask him if
there are not many beautiful stories, which we may have deemed the
creation of poesy, proving that idiotism is not always _definite_ and
_permanent_. I ought to blush while I recite them. The romance of Cymon
and Iphigenia is not a mere fable. I have heard a story of a youth who
was an idiot to his 17th year. At this time he saw a beautiful girl, and
instantly felt deep and devoted love for her; and became, from this
almost divine influence, as acute in intellect as his playmates.
ASTR. And what writeth the quaint Anatomist of Melancholy?—“We read in
the lives of the Fathers a story of a child that was brought up in the
wilderness from his infancy by an old hermite. Now come to man’s estate,
he saw by chance two comely women wandering in the woods. He asked the
old man what creatures they were. He told him fayries. After a while
talking _obiter_, the hermite demanded of him which was the pleasantest
sight that he ever saw in his life? He readily replied, the two fayries
he espied in the wilderness. So that without doubt there is some secret
loadstone in a beautiful woman, a magnetique power.”
IDA. We do not hold your gallantry lightly, Astrophel; there is some
hope of your conversion.
EV. That mind is termed _weak_, where there is a want of the power of
fixing the attention to one object, a _wandering of the imaginative
faculty_. A train of ideas arises, between the links of which there is
some remote relation; but its beginning and end may appear _so
dissonant_, that the absent person will fail to recognize the connexion,
until, by an effort to retrace the steps of thought, the mystery is
developed.
IDA. The subjects of this form of reverie are, I presume, the
_wool-gatherers_ of society, being “every thing by turns, and nothing
long;” and often, like the dog in the fable, losing the substance while
they grasp at the shadow; others employ their time by sitting
“Musing all alone,
Building castles in the air,”
forming plans and projecting schemes which shall fill men’s minds with
wonder, and their own pockets with gold.
But these castle-builders are, alas! but the dupes of their own mad
fancy. The card-house is nearly finished, and one imprudent touch of the
child topples it down headlong. One of the most salutary lessons on this
foible is the fable of the Persian visionary, the glassman Alnaschar,
who, by rehearsing one kick of the foot, that was to indicate his
despotic will, broke into ten thousand pieces the basket of merchandize,
which, by its accumulating profits, was to raise him to the highest
dignities. Such are the results of self-glamourie or castle-building.
EV. It is a moral lesson of great worth, dear Ida. But these wanderings
are often assimilating the true delirium of fever, of which the dreams
of Piranesi are examples. In his sketches of these illusions he figures
himself as ascending by steps so high that he at length vanishes into
the clouds.
Now there are many curious instances of forgetfulness, as there may be a
confusion of ideas from this deficiency of concentration, memory being,
as it were, deranged. From study, or intense thought, a jumble of
strange ideas will sometimes force themselves involuntarily on the mind,
displacing or confusing the subject of meditation.
Thus a German, of the name of Spalding, of high attainments, informs us,
that after great mental labour, he was intending to write this receipt:
“fifty dollars, being one half-year’s rate,” but quite unconsciously
concluded it thus: “fifty dollars through the salvation of Bra.” And the
author of the “Spiritual Treasury,” Mason, during his devotion to its
composition, had, as he believed, taken the address of a visitor on whom
he was to wait; but on referring to his note, he read, not the address,
but—“Acts ii. verse 8.”
Children have _naturally_ a want of power of concentration. I have told
you that if a new or more attractive object strikes their sight, they
will drop that which they were holding; and Foote would often, while
taking a pinch, let his snuff-box fall from his hand, if for a moment
his attention was diverted.
ASTR. The reverse of wandering, then, you term _concentrativeness_. You
would not stigmatize the passive or involuntary form of abstraction, as
the reverie of a _monomaniac_.
EV. No. As attention is concentration of a sense, abstraction is the
concentration or attention of the mind; therefore the power of fixing
the senses and forgetting the mind, is attention, that of fixing the
mind and forgetting the senses, is abstraction—philosophy, if you will.
The active form, the power of fixing the attention on one subject, or of
separating ideas and bringing them into association on one point, is the
great characteristic of the philosopher and the mathematician. That
inattention to _minutiæ_ during this abstraction, has, I grant, caused
the shafts of satire to be profusely flung at many a “learned pundit;”
for the jokes of Rabelais are eclipsed by the eccentricities of our
sages: Dominie Sampson is no caricature.
As I trace these forms of reverie from monomania to its curious
contrast, the _folie raisonnante_ of men of one idea, (in which there is
an aberration of intellect, or want of consciousness on _all subjects
but one_,) and so on to philosophical abstraction, we shall learn, not
without some humility, how close an alliance does really exist between
great wits and madness.
The records of history and fiction teem with the illusions of the
monomaniacs from intense impression. The madness of Ophelia and of Lear,
are true and faithful illustrations of the effects of _brooding over
sorrow_. In the monarch, indeed, that one momentary glimpse of reason
when the word “_king_” like an electric shock falls on his ear, and, for
an instant, lights up his intellect, which as suddenly darkness again
overshadows, beautifully shows forth by contrast this madness of one
idea.
Dr. Gooch relates the case of a lady, who in consequence of an alarm of
fire, believed that she was the Virgin Mary, and that her head was
constantly encircled by a brilliant halo or glory.
A gentleman, on narrowly escaping from the earthquake at Lisbon, fell
into a state of delirium whenever the word “earthquake” was pronounced
in his hearing.
In “Pechlin” we read of a lady, who gazed with painless interest on the
comet of 1681 until she observed it _through a telescope_ of high power;
the terror was so intense, that she was frightened to death even in a
few days.
Dr. Morrison relates the case of an insane gentleman who had consulted a
gypsy, and was instantly in a state of high excitement, whenever a
subject associated with her prophecies was alluded to.
My friend, Dr. Uwins, informed me of an intellectual young gentleman,
who from some morbid association with the idea of an elephant, was
struck by an horrific spasm whenever the word was named, _or even
written_ before him; and to such a pitch was this infatuation carried,
that elephant _paper_, if he were sensible it were such, produced the
same effect.
The Reverend John Mason, of Water Stratford, evinced in every thing
sound judgment, except that he believed that he was Elias, and foretold
the advent of Christ, who was to commence the millennium at Stratford.
Dr. Abercrombie writes of a young botanist who had gained a prize: he
thought he was in a boat sailing to Greenwich on a botanical excursion,
and conversed rationally on all points but that of the prize, which he
asserted another student had gained.
Hear, too, another rhapsody of the “Opium-Eater.” After a close and
intense study of the works of Livy, the words Consul Romanus seemed to
haunt his mind. “At a clapping of hands would be heard the heart-rending
sounds of ‘Consul Romanus;’ and immediately came sweeping by in gorgeous
paludaments, Paulus Marius girt round by a company of centurions, with
the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed by the alalagmos of
the Roman legions.”
There is a story (written in the seventeenth century) of a youth, who in
a playful frolic put a ring on the marriage finger of a marble Venus;
and a strange illusion came upon him that she had thus become his wife,
and, in obedience to the injunctions of the ceremony, came to his bed
when the sable canopy of night was spread around them. So intense was
this illusion, and so cold and loveless was his heart withal, that, as
the story goes, an _exorcist was employed_ to dissolve the spell which
had so firmly bound him.
IDA. I believe it was Mrs. Barry, who (as we read in the “Last Essays of
Elia,”) averred that when playing the child of Isabella, she felt the
burning tears of Mrs. Porter fall on her neck, as she was breathing o’er
her some pathetic sentence. Even the study of Lady Macbeth, in midnight
solitude, so intensely excited the imagination of Mrs. Siddons, that
Campbell says, as she was disrobing herself in her chamber, she trembled
with affright, even at the rustling of her own silk attire.
EV. I could add many stories to yours, Ida. This sensibility, if
protracted or in excess, becomes the _Panophobia_ of Esquirol. He
attended once a lady whom the slightest noise alarmed, and who was wont
to scream with affright at the simple moving of herself in bed.
From the journal of Esquirol I will quote other fragments, in which we
see that every object was associated with _one_ image.
“During our promenade he (a gallant general) interrupted me several
times, in the midst of a very connected conversation, saying, “Do you
hear how they repeat the words ‘_coward_, _jealous_?’ &c.” This illusion
was produced by the noise of the leaves and the whistling of the wind
among the branches of the trees, which _appeared to him well-articulated
sounds_; and, although I had each time combated it with success, the
illusion returned whenever the wind agitated the trees anew.
“A young married man was in a state of fury whenever he saw a woman
leaning on a man’s arm, being convinced that it was _his own wife_. I
took him to the theatre at the commencement of his convalescence, but as
soon as a lady entered the saloon accompanied by a gentleman, he became
agitated, and called out eagerly several times, ‘That is she, that is
she.’ I could hardly help laughing, and we were obliged to retire.
“A lady, twenty-three years of age, afflicted with hysterical madness,
used to remain constantly at the windows of her apartment during the
summer. When she saw a beautiful cloud in the sky, she screamed out
‘Garnerin, Garnerin, come and take me!’ and repeated the same invitation
until the cloud disappeared. She mistook the clouds for balloons sent up
by Garnerin.”
CAST. There is here as much romance, as when Ajax mistook a drove of
oxen for the armed Greeks, or Don Quixote the windmills for a band of
Spanish giants.
EV. Again, Dr. Beddoes relates the case of a scholar, who locked himself
up to study the Revelation. The confinement brought on _dyspeptic_ pains
and spasms, and he was persuaded that “the monster blasphemy, with ten
heads, was preying on his vitals.”
The Reverend Simon Brown died with the conviction that his _rational
soul_ was annihilated by a special fiat of the Divine will; and a
patient in the Friends’ “Retreat,” at York, thought he had no soul,
heart, or lungs.
From “Tulpius” we learn, that the wife of Salomon Galmus sank into a
state of extreme melancholy, from the deep conviction that she was a
visitant from the tomb, but sent back to the world _without her heart_,
for God had detained that in heaven.
Such illusions are sometimes excited by wounds of the brain. A soldier
of the field of Austerlitz was struck with a delirious conviction that
he was but an ill-made model of his former self. “You ask how Père
Lambert is,” (he would say;) “he is dead, killed at Austerlitz; _that_
you now see is a mere machine, made in his likeness.” He would then
often lapse into a state of catalepsy insensible to every stimulus.
Dr. Mead tells us of an Oxford student, who ordered the _passing bell_
to be rung for him, and _went himself_ to the belfry to instruct the
ringers. He returned to his bed only to die.
A Bourbon prince thought himself dead, and refused to eat until his
friends invited him to dine with Turenne and other French heroes long
since departed.
There was a tradesman who thought he was a seven-shilling piece, and
advertised himself thus: “If my wife presents me for payment, don’t
change me.” Accuse me not of transatlantic plagiarism.
Bishop Warburton tells us of a man who thought himself a _goose pie_;
and Dr. Ferriday, of Manchester, had a patient who thought he had
_swallowed the devil_.
So indeed thought Luther. As in Hudibras,
“Did not the devil appear to Martin
Luther in Germany for certain?”
In Paris there lived a man who thought he had with others been
guillotined, and when Napoleon was emperor, their heads were all
restored, but in _the scramble he got the wrong one_.
And there is the “Visitor of Phantaste” in the old play of “Lingua,” who
exclaims: “No marvel, for when I beheld my fingers, I saw they were as
transparent as glass.”
You perceive that the illusions of Pope’s “Rape of the Lock” are not all
fictions: the maids who fancied they were turned into bottles, were not
more in error than these philosophers with their _maladie imaginaire_.
CAST. Is there not wisdom, Evelyn, in nursing _some_ of these innocent
illusions? I remember Kotzebue, in his “Journey to Paris,” relates the
following anecdote of a young girl, romantically in love. Her lover had
often accompanied her on the harp: he died, and his harp had remained in
her room. After the first excess of her despair, she sunk into the
deepest melancholy, and much time elapsed ere she would sit down to her
instrument. At last she did so, gave some touches, and, hark! the harp,
_tuned alike_, resounded in echo. The good girl was at first seized with
a secret shuddering, but soon felt a kind of soft melancholy: she was
firmly persuaded that the spirit of her lover was softly sweeping the
strings of the instrument. The harpsichord, from this moment,
constituted her only pleasure, as it afforded her the certainty that her
lover was still hovering near her. One of those unfeeling men, who want
to know and clear up every thing, once entered her apartment. The girl
instantly begged him to be quiet, for at that very moment the dear harp
spoke most distinctly. Being _informed of the amiable illusion_ which
overcame her reason, he laughed, and, with a great display of learning,
proved to her by experimental physics, that all this was _very natural_.
From that instant the maiden grew melancholy, drooped, and soon after
died.
EV. Truth is not always to be spoken, nor too much energy exerted, in
our treatment; for many a _mad act_, as it will be called, is resorted
to, _as a relief_.
Tirouane de Mericourt was wont to _saturate her bedclothes with cold
water, then lie down on it_. Although an extreme _remedy_, it might
yield her relief from _burning_ pains. In the darker ages, she would
have been chained and scourged.
But from Marcus Donatus we read the following case of still more
melancholy interest; another illustration of your question, dear
Castaly:
“Vicentinus believed himself too large to pass one of his doorways. To
dispel this illusion, it was resolved by his physician that he should be
_dragged through this aperture by force_. This erroneous dictate was
obeyed; but, as he was forced along, Vicentinus screamed out in agony,
that his limbs were fractured, and the flesh torn from his bones. In
this dreadful delusion, with terrific imprecations against his
murderers, he died.”
ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT.
“I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
For then he’s full of matter.”
AS YOU LIKE IT.
ASTR. So that in these cases it is _one faculty only_ which is
interrupted, and not the _combined intellect_. But all the faculties
_but_ one may be deranged, may they not?
EV. Yes. When the patient is insane on all points but one, we term it,
“Folie raisonnante.”
The very idiot, indeed, is often fond of most exact arrangement. The
savage of Aveyron instantly put things in order when they were deranged.
White, in his “History of Selborne,” records the propensities of an
idiot, who, he says, was a very _Merops-apiaster_, or Bee-bird.
Honey-bees, humblebees, and wasps, were his prey: he would seize them,
disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of
their honey-bags. Except in this adroitness, he had no understanding.
Pinel states the case of a mechanical genius, who became insane,
believing _his head to be changed_. Yet he invented mechanism of the
most intricate combinations. We are informed, too, of a clergyman, who
was ever insane, but when delivering his discourses from the pulpit.
I believe some parts of a national establishment were constructed from
the plans of one of its inmates, who was to all other intents and
purposes a madman.
Dr. Uwins once told me, that some of the lines in his biographical work
were written by a maniac in the Hoxton Asylum, who was ever aware of the
approach of his mania. These lines were thought to be among the best in
the work.
Nay, idiots will sometimes reason, and work out a syllogism. I think Dr.
Conolly relates a story of two, who quarrelled, because each asserted
that he was the Holy Ghost; at length, one decided that the other _was_
the Holy Ghost, and that he _could not be, because_ there were not two.
From this “folie raisonnante” there is an easy transition to that
eccentricity which seems to be a set-off against the _strength of mind_
of the deep thinker. The _permanent_ derangement, however, we term
_insanity_; the _transient, eccentricity_.
Marullus informs us that Bernard rode all day long by the Lemnian Lake,
and at last inquired _where he was_. Archimedes rushed into the street
naked from the bath, in an ecstacy at having discovered the alloy in the
crown of Syracuse. Pinel tells us of a priest, who, in an abstract mood,
felt no pain, although part of his body was burning.
“Viote,” says Zimmerman, “during his fits of mathematical abstraction,
would often remain sleepless and foodless for three days and nights.”
And Plato thus records an instance of the abstraction of Socrates:—“One
morning he fell into one of these raptures of contemplation, and
continued standing in the same posture till about noon. In the evening,
some Ionian soldiers went out, and, wrapping themselves up warm, lay
down by him in the open field, to observe if he would continue in that
posture all night; which he did until the morning, and as soon as the
sun rose he saluted it, and retired.” This is mental abstraction with a
vengeance!
ASTR. I will laugh with you at these oddities, Evelyn; yet not a whit
less ludicrous are some of the vagaries of the learned Thebans of
_modern_ times. The abstractions of Newton were proverbial. It may not
be true, that he once inserted the little finger of a lady, whose hand
he was holding, into his pipe, instead of a tobacco-stopper; or that he
made a small hole in his study-door for the exit of a kitten, by the
side of a large one for the cat: it is certain, however, that he was
once musing by his fire, with his knees close to the bars, when, finding
his legs in danger of being grilled, he rang his bell, and, in a rage,
desired his servant to _take away the grate_.
Dr. Hamilton, author of the acute “Essay on the National Debt,” visited
his college class in the morning with his own black silk stocking on one
leg, and his wife’s white cotton on the other; and would sometimes
occupy the whole class time by repeatedly removing the students’ hats
from his table, which they as often placed there. He would run against a
cow, and beg madam’s pardon, hoping he had not hurt her; and he would
bow politely to his wife in the street, without recognition. Yet with
all this he would, at any time, directly converse on a scientific
subject beautifully and eloquently.
Bacon, the sculptor, in a rich full dress was finishing Howard’s statue
in St. Paul’s, and, being cold, put on a ragged green and red shag
waistcoat. In this trim he walked out to call on some ladies in Doctors’
Commons. On his return he told his son that they were sadly disposed to
laugh about nothing. On being convinced, however, of his condition, he
remembered the people he passed _also_ giggled, and cried out, “He does
it for a wager.”
Hogarth paid a visit, in his new carriage, to the Lord Mayor, and, after
his audience, walked home in his state clothes, leaving his carriage at
a private door of the Mansion-House.
Dr. Harvest, of Ditton, a very learned man, would unconsciously allow
his horse to be loosened from his grasp, and walk home _with the bridle
on his arm_. He would walk into his church on Sunday, _with his
fowling-piece_. He would write a letter, address it, and send it to
_three different persons_. He lost a lady, the daughter of a bishop, as
his wife, by going out to _catch gudgeons_, forgetting that it was the
morning of his marriage ceremony; and he once threw a glass of wine at
backgammon, and swallowed the dice!
After this we can no longer call caricatures the abstract philosopher
who boiled his watch, and held the egg in his hand as the time-keeper;
or the American, who put his candle to bed, and blew himself out; or the
lady, who believed herself to be a post-letter, but waited patiently
until the letter-sorter had examined her, to ascertain if she was single
or double.
EV. There is some hope of you now, dear Astrophel, for you are returning
to matters of fact.
From the deep interest of _dramatic scenes_ may spring the same apathy
as that which _you_ have illustrated. Dr. Fordyce writes of one who
forgot he was sitting on a hard bench, when Garrick brought in his dead
Cordelia in his arms. And even the impression of _fatigue_ and _pain_
will often, for a time, leave us, when we are gazing on architectural or
picturesque beauty.
IDA. Are not those minds which are easily influenced by morbid
sensibility, the minutiæ of existence, often thus depressed into a
condition somewhat resembling the moroseness of these half-idiots?
EV. Ay, even the mighty minds of heroes and of monarchs. Queen Elizabeth
was often wont to sit alone, _in the dark_, in sorrow and in tears. We
know not if the fate of Essex or of Mary were the cause, but the marble
mind of Elizabeth was dissolved before she died. In Sully’s “Mémoires,”
also, we read that the solitude of Charles IX., of France, was saddened
by remorse, for his memory was ever pealing in his ear the shrieks and
groans of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. During this influence we may
often find that the features or actions are so deeply expressive as to
prove an involuntary, though correct, index of the thought. According to
the passions or subjects which occupy the mind, will be the play of
feature or the movement of the body.
“We might almost suppose the body thought.”
This “brown study” is the slightest form of that state which the French
term _ennui_, in which the mind too often is left to prey upon itself,
having, as it were, no sympathy with the world. Its more severe symptoms
are those of _misanthropy_, _melancholy_, and _hypochondriasis_,
inducing but too often that extreme _tedium vitæ_, the climax of which
is suicide. Out of the first, which is but the mere ripple of
derangement, we may be laughed or coaxed; nay, it may yield to the
positive _suffering_ of the _body_. The second is like the deep still
water, the awful calmness antecedent to a tempest. In the words of Lord
Erskine, “Reason is not driven from her seat, but distraction sits down
on it along with her, holds her trembling on it, and frights her from
her propriety. And then comes often o’er the mind a very coward
sentiment, echoing the demoniac resolution of Spenser’s “Cave of
Despair”:
“What if some little payne the passage have,
That makes frayle flesh to fear the better wave?
Is not short payne well borne, that brings long ease,
And layes the soule to sleep in quiet grave?”
IDA. Despair will often rouse even the most sensitive beings to the most
patient fortitude. How is this?
EV. Not rouse, but depress—not fortitude, but apathy. I could excite
your deepest sympathy and wonder, Ida, by the history of the young and
beautiful Ann G——n, who was hung for child-murder; in whom the
convulsive agony which followed her sentence at length ended in a
resignation which some would term heroism. During the nights in which I
myself watched her slumbers, both from deep scientific interest, and the
request of her judges, her actions were automatic; her existence was one
perfect trance; and she met her fate as if life and its consciousness
had long been parted.
Even an intense blow will sometimes, as it were, annihilate sensibility,
creating an icy apathy to all subsequent inflictions; which was the
effect on Mandrin, during the tortures of the wheel; for he smiled at
the _third_ blow, to find that it hurt him so little.
IDA. Then we are to contrast the state of the unhappy girl with the
_voluntary_ endurance of heroism depending on the power of
_concentrating mind_? The almost superhuman endurance of pain is finely
displayed among the North American Indians, who even chant their own
death-song calmly amidst worse than the tortures of the Inquisition, or
sustain with a smile those probationary trials for the dignities of a
chief, or the admission to the class of warriors, that are modelled with
all the refinement of cruelty. On the banks of the Orinoco, especially,
(if Robertson be right, or Gumilla, his authority, to be believed,) the
ordeal begins by a rigid fast, reductive of the body’s energy; then
commences a flaying of his body by lashes as dreadful as the knout, by
the hands of the assembled chiefs, and then, if the slightest
sensibility be evinced, he is disgraced for ever. His raw and reeking
flesh is then exposed to the stings and venom of insects and reptiles,
and again suspended over the scorching and suffocating flames of herbs
of the most disgusting odour; and, to close this tale of torture, it is
not seldom that the victim sinks in mortal agonies beneath the dreadful
ordeal.
EV. The two great springs of voluntary endurance of pain are _religion_
and _honour_. Thus, among other heroic acts of England’s martyrs,
Cranmer held the apostate hand which signed his recantation in the midst
of the flames until it was _wasted_. And the unyielding fortitude with
which the victim bore the rack and other excruciating tortures of the
popish Inquisition is almost beyond belief.
The fanaticism of the wild enthusiasts of the east it were profanation
to call religion; but with the hope of rejoining her husband in the
realms of bliss, the Hindoo widow clasps his corpse in her arms, and,
without a sigh, sets the torch to his funeral pile. And, to inherit the
paradise of Brahma, the Fakir or Yoghee keeps his fist clenched for
years, until the nails grow through his hand; or forces the hooks
between his ribs, and whirls himself aloft until he expires, or throws
himself prostrate beneath the crushing wheels of Juggernaut.
It is written that Cardan rendered himself by great efforts insensible
to external irritants.
And analogous to this, was the almost superhuman effort of that
determined action of Muley Moloch quoted in the “Spectator,” from
Vertot’s “Revolutions of Portugal:”—“In a condition of extreme
prostration he was borne in a litter with his army. On the sounding of a
retreat, although in a half-dying state, he leaped from the litter, and
led his quailing troops to a charge, which ended in victory. Ere this
was accomplished his life was fast ebbing, and, reclining on his litter,
and enjoining the secrecy of his staff, with his finger on his lip, he
died.”
But my analysis will be incomplete, if I do not revert to a point that I
had almost forgotten. These abstract moods have often been confounded
with the visions of slumber, being adduced as proofs of the perfection
of mind during sleep.
You reminded me, Astrophel, of the brilliant parody composed by
Mackenzie, of the versification of Voltaire and La Fontaine, of the
solution of the difficult problem by Condorcet, of the discussion of
abstruse points of policy by Cabanis. You might have added Condillac,
who asserts that when he was composing the “_Cours d’Etudes_,” he often
left a chapter unfinished, but had it all in his mind when he awoke. And
Franklin assures us, that he often _dreamed_ of the issue of important
events in which he was engaged, believing the vision to be the influence
of inspired prophecy. Dr. Haycock, of Oxford, too, is said to have
composed and preached sermons in his sleep, in despite even of
buffetings.
These are not dreams, but the reveries of philosophers and poets. The
faculties of perception are suspended: one only object occupies the
mind, and the impression on the memory is vivid and permanent. Of this
reverie I do not recollect a more interesting illustration than the
“_Dream_ of Tartini,” and its exquisite product, “La Sonata di Diavolo.”
This admirable violinist and once esteemed composer, relates the
following anecdote as the origin of his _chef-d’œuvre_, the “Devil’s
Sonata.” “One night, it was in the year 1713, I dreamed that I had made
over my soul to his satanic majesty. Every thing was done to my wink;
the faithful menial anticipated my fondest wishes. Among other freaks,
it came into my head to put the violin into his hands, for I was anxious
to see whether he was capable of producing anything worth hearing upon
it. Conceive my astonishment at his playing a sonata, with such
dexterity and grace, as to surpass whatever the imagination can
conceive. I was so much delighted, enraptured, and entranced by his
performance, that I was unable to fetch another breath, and, in this
state, I awoke. I jumped up and seized upon my instrument, in the hope
of reproducing a portion, at least, of the unearthly harmonies I had
heard in my dream. But all in vain: the music which I composed under the
inspiration, I must admit the best I have ever written, and of right I
have called it the ‘Devil’s Sonata;’ but the falling off between that
piece and the sonata which had laid such fast hold of my imagination is
so immense, that I would rather have broken my violin into a thousand
fragments, and renounced music for good and all, than, had it been
possible, have been robbed of the enjoyment which the remembrance
afforded me.”
In the cases of precocious children, who are said to have “lisp’d in
numbers,” I do not doubt that the secret may be referred to this
concentration of genius. Mozart composed a sonata at the age of four.
The precocious little girl, Louisa Vinning, who was called the “_Infant
Sappho_,” has yet eclipsed Mozart in this; that at the age of two years
and eight months she sang repeatedly a melody perfectly new, and so
perfect, that it was written down from her lips, and entitled, “The
Infant’s Dream.” During all this, the little creature was in such a
state of apparent abstraction, that it was believed by all around her
that she walked and talked in _her sleep_.
These mental concentrations can, by some enthusiasts, be produced at
pleasure. The paroxysm of the improvisatore, for instance. But it is an
effort which, like the dark hour of the Caledonian seer, is not endured
with impunity: it points, indeed, emphatically to the limit beyond which
mind should not be strained.
The Marquis de Moschati expressed himself to us, as experiencing
excitement like intoxication when he _sat himself_ to compose, and threw
his whole soul into his subject. It commenced with irregular and
laborious breathing, excessive palpitations, _vertigo_, _tinnitus
aurium_,—the perception of objects being lost. Then came romantic
fancies, like the visions of opium, “thoughts that breathe, and words
that burn.” At the conclusion was felt excessive exhaustion, and a state
of mild catalepsy ensued for five or six days together. This excited
talent, therefore, is an evanescent madness.
CAST. Another fling at poesy. Were I an improvisatrice, you would not so
libel my inspiration. “Listen, lords and lady gay.” In the summer of
18—, after the _Eisteddfod_ at Cardiff, we wandered over the hills to
Caerphilly, the gigantic towers of Owain Glyndwr.
As I lay under the celebrated Hanging Tower, which is projecting eleven
feet beyond its base, I reflected on the strange circumstance of the
arrest of so gigantic a mass in its progress to prostration. “What,” I
exclaimed, “is the power by which it is suspended?” My imagination
heightened my reverie, and placed before me the image of the Destroyer,
with his emblematic scythe and glass, and he answered me thus:—
“Half-dreaming mortal, listen! It is _I_,
Time, the destroyer, whose gigantic arm
Lifted this pond’rous ruin from its base.
Why hangs it thus, arrested in its course,
In bold defiance of attraction’s law?
Why, like its once proud lord, renown’d Glyndwr,
Sinks not its mouldering grandeur to the ground?
Behold an emblem of vitality!
A type of mortal man, of thee, of all!
Like this grey wall, thy tott’ring steps are staid,
And on a thread thy fragile life is hung;
Yet leaning, ever leaning, to the grave.
One moment more, an atom of an age,
This mould’ring ruin, trembling on its base,
May, like the marble shafts of lone Palmyra,
Be hurl’d to earth, and crumble into dust;
And, like the ruin, thou!”
And yet _I_ was not mad.
EV. I talk not of a gentle heart like yours, fair Castaly; but of that
extreme, when ideas are received by a mind nearly exhausted, and lie for
a while dormant. As sleep and fatigue wear off, and consciousness
returns, these images are suddenly and brilliantly lighted up. If
intense impression shall have been made on the heart or mind, intense
will be the abstraction of the enthusiast. Until _one_ thought is
touched, the patient is sane; but, when the chord vibrates, then, as in
the pathetic episode of Sterne’s Maria, the paroxysm is expended in a
flood of tears, or in a mad fit, or in a gush of wildest music.
To the latter cause, we owe many beauties of composition. Demarini, the
Italian tragedian, acted a prison-scene before Paganini, in which, with
the pathos of deep distress, the victim prayed for death. The maestro
retired to bed, but not to sleep; his excited brain relieved its painful
sympathies by the composition of the “_Adagio apassionato_.”
Carl Maria Von Weber witnessed the waltzing of his wife with a gallant
cavalier. He retired in a mood of jealous frenzy, and expressed the
ideas which rankled in his heart by the “_Invitation à la Walse_.”
ASTR. Well, is there not something special in all this?
EV. Yes, truly,—a power imparted to some, withheld from
others,—_genius_.
ASTR. Yet, in explanation of this abstract reverie, the phrenologist
will, I dare say, satisfy himself by merely deciding that the organ of
concentrativeness is strongly developed.
EV. It is clear, at least, that the deep interest of the subject of
reflection overbalances the influence of the external senses. The
impression of objects is either too slight, or rapid, to produce
perception, or (in other words), however the impression may be imparted
to the brain by the nerve, the brain is not _sensible_ of it, and there
is therefore no perception.
So intense indeed has been this influence, that Pliny contemplated the
volcanic philosophy amidst the ashy cloud of Vesuvius by which he was
destroyed. And Archimedes was so intent in solving a problem, during the
siege of Syracuse, that no sense of danger impelled him to avoid the
storm, or fly from the dagger of the assassin.
While Parmegiano was painting at Rome the “Vision of St. Jerome,” which
now adorns the National Gallery of England, the famous siege of that
city was concluded by its spoliation. Yet Parmegiano (absorbed with his
painting) was unconscious of the tumult, until his _studio_ was burst
open by some of the soldiers of the enemy. A similar story is told,
also, of Protogenes, when Demetrius was laying siege to Rhodes.
CAST. The flappers of Laputa would soon have dispelled this reverie.
EV. But if they had thus flourished their official bladders, perhaps the
“Principia Mathematica” had not been written; for Newton explained the
extent of his discoveries by his “always thinking unto them.”
Somewhat like the effect of intense study on the mind, the muscles of
the limbs will be influenced _by one long-directed habit_. Paganini was
observed, on board a steam-boat, constantly to repose on the sofa.
During this state of reverie, his left arm assumed the peculiar attitude
in which he held his violin, until he saw that he was noticed, when he
altered its position.
The right hand of Benjamin West, of which I saw a posthumous model at
Lord de Tabley’s, appeared to have taken that form in which he was wont
to hold the pencil.
By this concentration, this full possession of the mind, the wildness of
fancy in the dark is often the source of terror; but this is ever
lessened or dispelled by any sound or sight which presents a subject to
the _perceptive_ faculty. Such is the sudden glimmer of a light, the
barking of a dog, or the almost instinctive effort of the school-boy,
“Whistling aloud to keep his courage up.”
All these cases, then, indicate concentration of mind. “Mental
conception is uninfluenced by conscious perception.”
I may add, that, in the heat of engagement, soldiers and sailors are
often unconscious of being even seriously wounded. In the battle of Lake
Thrasymene, the armies of Rome and Carthage were so absorbed in the
tumult and din of war, that an earthquake, which spread desolation
around them, was unheeded by these determined soldiers.
IDA. I have gleaned enough from your illustrations, Evelyn, to believe
that we may explain by them that solemn and last reverie of the dying,
when all other ideas have ceased to influence, but the _most
impressive_—
“The ruling passion strong in death;”
when earthly life is on the wane, and the spirit, in this expiring
thought, takes its last farewell of the flesh. I remember some beautiful
evidences of this influence.
It was observed that Porson, after a paralytic fit, scarcely uttered a
word of English; but to the last moment spoke _Greek_ fluently.
Dr. Adam (a master of Sir Walter Scott), on the subsidence of delirium,
exclaimed, “It grows dark—the boys may dismiss;” and instantly expired.
The last words of Dr. Abercrombie were addressed to an imaginary
patient, regarding the care of his digestive functions.
Some time after the trial of the Bristol magistrates, Lord Tenterden
lapsed into a stupor from exhaustion. A short period before death he
rallied, and, after conversing with his friends for a few minutes, he
raised himself on his couch, and said, “Gentlemen of the jury, you may
retire;” and then fell back and expired.
SOMNOLENCE.—TRANCE.—CATALEPSY.
——“In this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death,
Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours,
And then awake, as from a pleasant sleep.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.
CAST. Evelyn, you have again bewildered my thoughts. Sleep, that should
be the _anodyne_ of the mind, has awakened afresh my curiosity. I am in
a mood for mystery. Any more wonders?
EV. The prototypes of sleep, dear Castaly, are _all_ “mysteries,” as
_you_ call them, and marked by ever-varying shades.
The most impressive conditions of the mind are these:
Unconscious and passive, as in _sound sleep_.
Conscious yet passive, as in _dreaming_.
Conscious and willing, yet powerless, as in _night-mare_.
Unconscious yet active, as in _somnambulism_.
If we go deeper in our analysis, we shall discover a state more wondrous
still than all we have unravelled, in which mind is unconscious,
sensationless, unwishing, motionless, powerless, as in _trance_ or
_catalepsy_; an absolute apathy of body and complete oblivion of mind.
_And yet life is there!_
In the dream of night-mare, you remember, there is a will, but no power.
In the absolute senselessness of trance, all sympathy between the brain
or spinal marrow, or the influence of the nerves of motion, or of the
will on muscle, _altogether cease_.
I will not fatigue you with _varieties_, such as _carus_, _catalepsy_,
and the like, or with mere medical definitions, as _syncope_ or
fainting, epilepsy, apoplexy, and _their_ analogies.
By the term trance I would define all those conditions in which there is
protracted _derangement of volition_ or the will; sensibility and
voluntary action being suspended, while the _vital functions_ are
performed, yet with diminished energy; the “deep sleep” of Paracelsus,
Hieronymus Fabricius, Celsus, and other writers of antiquity.
In some the rosy colour of the lips and cheeks will not fade; in others,
they are pale and bloodless; the body becomes cold as marble, the pulse
often imperceptible, and the vapour of breathing on a polished surface
alone distinguishes the still living being from the perfect work of the
sculptor. I have, however, had patients who were rosy when they fell
asleep, but became pale about the end of the second day.
Girls often smile sweetly in full catalepsy, but the countenance will
become anxious as waking approaches; and this must ever excite
suspicion. The body indeed is, to the external world, _dead_; for
although the cataleptic will often swallow food, while all the other
muscles are in spasm, this may, I believe _does_, depend on mere
_irritability_, by which, as I before told you, the brain is first
excited, and then directs a movement without the mind’s feeling.
Catalepsy is so peculiar to young females of extreme sensibility, that
it may be considered an intense _hysteria_, depending on certain
_sympathies_, or resulting from sudden or powerful influences on the
passions. The form of catalepsy marked by _hysteria_ is least dangerous;
but it is very stubborn. Probably this is the form so common in Germany.
Previous to the _cataleptic acme_ girls are often maniacally violent,
and will then suddenly regain their temper and their reason. They will
sit and play with their fingers in a sullen mood, and the power of
motion and speech and other acts of volition may be alternately impaired
or lost. In some, the sleep has been preceded by fits of lethargy, by
lassitude, and inaptitude to exertion, and perhaps a propensity to
sleep-walking. The decided state of catalepsy has begun in an epileptic
convulsion. In all, I think, I have seen combined with this disorder,
irregular determination of blood; in one case, where the taste and smell
were gone for four or five months, the climax was suicide by arsenic.
The countenance is almost always placid in cataleptic sleep; the eyes
being turned up, the pupils dilated, but the eyelids closed. If the fit
be the result of _sudden_ fright, the features will remain as they were
at that moment—the eyelid fixed, but the pupil usually sensible. The
joints and muscles are pliable, and may be moulded to any form, but they
remain in that position as rigidly fixed as the limbs of a clay figure,
or the _anchylosed_ joints of the self-torturing fakir; insensible to
all stimuli, beating, tickling, or pricking.
I have seen patients lapse into a state of catalepsy, _in a moment_,
without a struggle. I remember, during one of my visits to the asylum in
Hoxton, a maniac, who often in the midst of his occupation became
instantaneously _a statue_; leaning a little forward, one arm lifted up,
and the _index_ finger pointed as at some interesting object; the eye
staring and ghastly, and the whole expression as of one rapt in an
ecstacy of thought or vision.
The waking from a trance, like the recovery from the _asphyxia_ of
drowning, is painful. It is attended with a struggle, and the hand is
almost invariably placed firmly _over the heart_, as if its actions were
a painful effort to overcome _congestion_.
In some cases, indeed, a purple hue will suddenly suffuse the cataleptic
body; the limbs are then extremely rigid, but become pliant when the
healthy tint is restored.
The sensation in the brain of the cataleptic, as of those recovering
from drowning, resembles the pricking of needles, the circulation soon
becoming accelerated. Hunger is usually intense when the patient awakes.
The usual duration of catalepsy is from twenty to forty hours. The
return of volition is commonly marked by perspiration; this premonitory
sign is often followed by a piercing shriek, as in the case of
night-mare, and, indeed, in a _slight_ degree, of an infant’s cry as
soon as it is born.
It has appeared to me that the cataleptic is marked by _extremes_ of
feeling and disposition. The sensibility either being too dull for the
feeling of joy, or so intensely excited by pleasure, as to approach the
confine of delirium. One of my patients, in particular, who was an
eighty-hour sleeper, endured a metamorphosis from religious enthusiasm
to theatrical mania. Her Bible was discarded for romances and
play-books, and even the most licentious volumes.
CAST. I have read, (I suppose in some moth-eaten tomes enshrined I know
not where,) of a scholar of Lubeck, who slept seven years; in Diogenes
Laertius, of Epimenides, who slept fifty-one years in a cave; in Ricaut,
of the seven devoted sleepers of Ephesus (the same, I presume, as the
seven illustrious sleepers of Mahomet’s tale in the Koran); and of the
_Leucomorians_, who fall asleep with the swallows early in November, and
wake at the end of April.
One moment more among the legends of romance. In the “Hierarchie of the
Blessed Angels” it is written, that in a dark cavern of the Baltic,
there were discovered five men in Roman habits, so deeply sleeping, that
all efforts to awaken them were unavailing.
Ogier the Dane is _now_ sleeping in the dungeon of Cronenburg
Castle—(so recordeth the “_Danske Folk Saga_.”)
Prince Arthur, too, was lying, when a chronicle was writ, in a trance at
Avelon; and the Britons, with implicit belief, were watching for his
awaking.
Years have passed since these mysterious legends were penned, and I dare
not say that the spells are broken yet.
EV. If they _then_ slept, sweet Castaly, they are surely sleeping _now_.
Tales lose nothing by telling, and nature is often thus magnified into a
miracle. You may however _believe_ this, that a _periodical_ catalepsy
with intervals may last even for years. The “Memoirs of the Academy of
Berlin” record the case of a woman, who sunk into catalepsy twice a day
for many years; during which period she was married, and became the
almost unconscious mother of children.
Nay, there is a story of Mynheer Vander Gucht, of Bremen, who, with very
brief intermissions, slept and dreamt for thirty years; so that, on the
return of travellers by sea or land, the primal question was, if _Mr.
Vander Gucht was up_!
IDA. Catalepsy, I believe, has been often _feigned_; and, although it is
astonishing with what apathy pain may be endured, the imposture, I
presume, may be usually discovered by the proposition of some horrible
remedy.
EV. Frequently; but many impostors have withstood the test, and
triumphed in their deception. Yet it is true that the perfect state of
catalepsy has been, in very rare instances, voluntarily produced; thus
exhibiting the complete influence of will over an _involuntary muscle,
the heart_.
The case of Colonel Townsend I adduce, as one of undoubted authority.
This officer was able to suspend the action both of his heart and lungs,
after which he became motionless, icy cold, and rigid,—a glassy film
overspreading his eyes. As there was no breathing, there was no vapour
_apparent_ on the glass, when held to his mouth. During the many hours
in which this voluntary trance existed, there was a total absence of
consciousness, yet a _faculty of self-reanimation_!
Avicenna speaks of one that could “cast himself into a palsie when he
list;” and Celsus, of a priest that could “separate himself from his
senses when he list, and lie like a dead man, void of life and sense.”
Cardan, the Pavian astrologer, brags of himself that _he_ could do as
much, and that “when he list.”
Dr. Cleghorn, of Glasgow, relates the case of a man who could stop the
pulse at his wrist, and reduce himself to the condition of syncope, _by
his will_, of course.
Barton, the holy maid of Kent, was enabled thus to “absorb her
faculties.”
Restitutus, a presbyter, could also throw himself into a trance,—being
insensible, except to the very loudest sounds. So says Augustin.
ASTR. So that there may not be much imposture in the case, recorded in
the “Spectator,” of Nicholas Hart, a professor of somnolency, who _lived
by sleeping_. The following is his advertisement in the “Daily Courant,”
of that time:—
“Nicholas Hart, who slept last year in Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital,
intends to sleep this year at the ‘Cock and Bottle,’ in Little Britain.”
I will freely confess to you, Evelyn, my scepticism as to these _ultra_
romantic legends; but may my own memory fail me not, while I relate a
few strange stories, and demand of yourself confirmation.
Euphemia Lindsay, of Forfarshire, slept eight weeks, having taken
nothing but (possibly) a little cold water. In the eighth week she died.
Angelica Vlies, of Delft, had fasted in a state of insensibility from
1822 to 1828. She took nothing but water, tea, and whey, and these in
the most minute quantities.
In a record, A.D. 1545, I read that “William Foxley, a pot-maker to the
Mint in London, slept in the Tower of London (not being by any means to
be waked) fourteen days and fifteen nights; and, when he waked, it
seemed to him that the interval was but as one night.”
Samuel Clinton, of Timbury, near Bath, often slept for a month; and
once, from April to August. He would, during this period, suddenly wake,
but ere food could be administered to him, he lapsed again into a
trance.
Margaret Lyall (of Edinburgh) slept from the morning of June 27th to the
evening of the 30th, then from July 1st to August 8th. Her breathing was
scarcely perceptible, and her pulse low; one arm was sensitive, the
other senseless, to the pricking of pins. She had never any subsequent
cognizance of this sleep.
A lady, at Nismes, had periodical attacks of trance; and it is curious
that the intervals of waking were always of the same duration as the
previous time of sleeping, however these might vary.
In the year 1738, Elizabeth Orvin slept for four days; and, for the
period of ten years afterwards, passed seventeen hours of the
twenty-four in sleep. No stimuli were powerful enough to rouse her:
_acupuncturation_, flagellation, and even the stinging of bees were
ineffectual. Like many other somnolents, she was morose and irritable,
especially previous to the sleeping-fit.
“Elizabeth Parker, of Morley Saint Peter, in Norfolk, for a considerable
time was very irregular in her times of waking, which was once in seven
days; after which they became irregular and precarious, and though of
shorter duration, they were equally profound; and every attempt at
keeping her awake, or waking her, was vain. Various experiments were
tried, and an itinerant empiric, elated with the hope of rousing her
from what he called _counterfeit sleep_, blew into her nostrils the
powder of white hellebore; but the poor creature remained insensible to
the inhumanity of the deed, which, instead of producing the boasted
effect, excoriated the skin of her nose, lips, and face.”
The records of medicine, I doubt not, may add a volume to these simple
stories, and, perchance, may unfold to us something of the exciting
causes which have induced these strange conditions; yet they seem to me
so various, in some the effect being so sudden, in others so gradual,
that it were vain for _me_ to conjecture.
EV. The influence of fear, and fright, and extreme joy, will often
produce instantaneous _paralysis_; while that of intense study, or
anxiety, will steal on by degrees; and then, while in some cases the
senses will be entirely _apathetic_, in others, they will be acutely
_excited_.
Mendelssohn almost every evening immediately fell into a trance whenever
“philosophy” was even _named_ in his presence; and so acutely deranged
was then his conception of sound, that a voice of stentorian force
seemed to ring in his ears, repeating to him any impressive conversation
he had heard during the day.
Without presuming to satisfy Astrophel in explaining the full pathology
of these curious cases, I may, by analogy, illustrate his question by
alluding to the acute influence which impressions exert on the mind,
and, through it, on the body.
Captain D——, on service in Ceylon, was ordered to march to the Kandian
territory. This district had been the grave of many officers who had
resided in it. From this circumstance, and the anticipation of a similar
fatality to himself, he became speechless, and died in fifty hours.
During the plague of Egypt, lots were drawn for a decision as to what
surgeon should remain with the sick on the departure of the troops. Mr.
Dick, the army inspector, relates that on one occasion the surgeon on
whom the lot fell dropped dead.
In the treaty with Meer Jaffier, Colonel Clive omitted the name of the
Gentoo merchant, Omichund. This man was induced to expect treasures to
the amount of one million, for his aid in deposing the Bengal nabob.
From this disappointment he became speechless, and subsequently insane.
George Grokatski, a Polish soldier, deserted. He was discovered a few
days after, drinking and merry-making. On his court-martial he became
speechless, unconscious, and fixed as a statue. For twenty days and
nights he lay in this trance, without nourishment; he then sunk and
died.
Some girls (as we read in Platerus) playing near a gibbet, one wantonly
flung stones at the criminal suspended on it. Being violently struck the
body _swung_, and the girl, believing that it was alive, and was
descending from the gibbet, fell into violent convulsions and died.
The following case, although not fatal, very powerfully displays the
paralyzing effects of imagination.
A lady in perfect health, twenty-three years of age, was asked by the
parents of a friend to be present at a severe surgical operation. On
consideration, it was thought wrong to expose her to such a scene, and
the operation was postponed for a few hours. She went to bed, however,
with the imagination highly excited, and awoke in alarm hearing, or
thinking she heard, the shrieks of her friend under the agony of an
operation. Convulsions and hysterics supervened, and, on their
subsiding, she went into a profound sleep, which continued sixty-three
hours. The most eminent of the faculty were then consulted, and she was
cupped, which awoke her; but the convulsions returned, and she again
went to sleep, and slept, with few intermissions, for a fortnight. The
irregular periods continued for ten or twelve years; the length of the
sleeping fits from thirty to forty hours. Then came on irritability, and
total want of sleep, for three months; her usual time for sleeping being
then forty-eight hours.
But if the sudden transition be _excess of joy_, its effect may be
equally melancholy.
Wescloff was detained as a hostage by the Kalmucs, and carried along
with them in their memorable flight to China. His widowed mother had
mourned him dead, and, on his sudden return, the excess of joy was
instantaneously fatal.
In the year 1544 the Jewish pirate, Sinamus Taffurus, was lying in a
port of the Red Sea, called Orsenoe, and was preparing for war, being
then engaged in one with the Portuguese. While he was there he received
the unexpected intelligence that his son (who in the siege of Tunis had
been made prisoner by Barbarossa, and by him doomed to slavery) was
suddenly ransomed, and coming to his aid with seven ships, well armed.
He was immediately struck as if with apoplexy, and expired on the spot.
A Swiss student, writes Zimmerman, yielded himself to intense
metaphysical study, which gradually produced a complete trance of the
senses; the functions of the body being not inactive. After the lapse of
a year of apparent idiocy, each sense was successively excited by its
proper stimulus; the ear by loud sounds, &c. When these were restored,
the mind was again perfect, although in this effort his strength was
nearly exhausted.
I may add that lunar influence, though it is now somewhat out of
fashion, was formerly believed even by so sage a physician as Dr. Mead
and others, and Astrophel will thank me for blending with his own
examples the following case of catalepsy in a moon-struck maiden. At the
full of the moon this damsel fell in a fit; the recurrence obeying the
regular periods of the tide. During the flood she lay in a speechless
trance, and revived from it on the ebb. Her father was engaged on the
Thames, and so struck was he with the regularity of these attacks, that
on his return from the river he correctly anticipated the condition of
his daughter; and even in the night he has arisen to his work, as her
cries on recovering from the fit were always a correct monitor to him of
the turning of the tide.
PREMATURE INTERMENT.—RESUSCITATION.
“Oh sleep! thou ape of death, lie dull upon her;
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying.”
CYMBELINE.
“Sleep may usurp on nature many hours.”
PERICLES.
IDA. These stories are, indeed, painfully interesting; but tell us,
Evelyn, is it so certain that the shaft of Azrael had irretrievably
struck these unhappy creatures of whom you speak? Is it not to be feared
that instances of premature sepulture have too often occurred from want
of scientific discernment? On the exhumation of the Cimetière des
Innocents at Paris, during the Napoleon dynasty, the skeletons were many
of them discovered in attitudes indicating a struggling to get free:
indeed some, we are assured, were partly out of their coffins.
To avert this awful catastrophe it was the custom, in the provinces of
Germany, to place a bell-rope in the hand of a corpse for twenty-four
hours before burial. We may look on this, perhaps, as one natural source
of _romance_ and mystery; for the ringing of bells by the dead has been
a favourite omen of the ghostly legends.
EV. Alas! even my own professional study and duties have not been free
from these melancholy scenes; and if I make not your gentle heart to
tremble, fair Castaly, I will recount some of those unhappy instances of
fatality, to which the errors and neglect of man may doom his
fellow-mortal.
Miss C—— (of C—— Hall, in Warwickshire,) and her brother were the
subjects of typhoid fever. She seemed to die, and her bier was placed in
the family vault. In a week her brother died also, and when he was taken
to the tomb, the lady was found _sitting in her grave-clothes_ on the
steps of the vault; having, after her waking from the trance, died of
terror or exhaustion.
A girl, after repeated faintings, was apparently dead, and was taken, as
a subject, into the anatomical theatre of the “Salpetrière,” at Paris.
During the night, faint groans were heard in the theatre, but no search
was made. In the morning, it was evident that the girl had _attempted to
disengage herself from the winding-sheet_, one leg being thrust from off
the trestles, and an arm resting on an adjoining table.
A slave girl of Canton, named Leaning, apparently died. She was placed
in a coffin, the lid of which remained unfastened, that her parents
might come and see the corpse. Three days after the apparent death,
while the remains were being conveyed to the grave, a noise or voice was
heard proceeding from the coffin, and on removing the covering, it was
found the woman had come to life again.
In 1838, at Tonnieus, in the Lower Garonne, as the graveman threw earth
on a coffin he also heard groans. Much terrified, he ran away, and a
crowd assembled. On opening the coffin, the face of the buried man was
distorted, and he had disengaged his arms from the folds of his winding
sheet.
The Emperor Zeno was, as it is written, prematurely buried; and, when
the body was soon after casually discovered, it was found that he had,
to satisfy acute hunger, _eaten some flesh from his arm_.
ASTR. One might think that Master Ainsworth, from this record, sketched
the episode of the sexton and the old coffin in his “Rookwood.” The
truth is equal to the fiction.
CAST. When I was at Breslau, in 1835, (and this is not one of
Astrophel’s fictions,) a nun of the Ursuline Convent was placed in her
coffin in the church. At midnight, the sisters assembled to chaunt the
vigils over the body of their sainted sister. While the holy hymn was
echoing through the oratory, the nun arose, tottered to the altar, knelt
before the cross, and prayed. The sisters with a cry of horror awoke the
abbess; and on her arrival, the nun again arose, and lay down in her
coffin. The physician of the convent was speedily summoned, but, on his
arrival, _he found her dead_.
There can scarcely be drawn a scene, combining the sublime and beautiful
of romance, in higher intensity than this. It was the spectral
visitation of a seraph.
IDA. Like many sublimities of nature, these mysteries have been profaned
by unholy imitation; as for instance, the reanimation of the nuns in the
opera of “Robert le Diable.” But there is an awful romance mingled with
the history of those melancholy creatures, from whose inanimate clay the
immortal spirit was thought to have parted, still more impressive. That
instinctive, that inexpressible dread, with which we contemplate a
corpse, is nothing in comparison with that thrill of astonishment which
overwhelms us, when a body becomes (as in the miraculous recall of
Lazarus) _reanimated_; when a spirit appears to visit us from the dead.
Yet this is not _fear_, for we know it cannot injure us; it is a feeling
that we are with something beyond ourselves spiritual, which had seemed
to have endured a transfiguration, and been admitted into the order of
angelic beings. There must be something of the supernatural which
creates this fearful wonder; an impression on the heart that is an
especial influence of the Deity. Else should we not behold with _dread_,
instead of a sacred _pleasure_, the success of our efforts in cases of
suspended animation?
This visitation from another world is one of the surest indications of
our spirituality; and like the reanimation of soul and mind, and
consciousness, from deep and undreaming sleep, lighting up the body into
brilliancy and beauty, might drown a sceptic’s reasoning in a flood of
holy faith, and overwhelm him with the belief of immortality.
CAST. It is this combination of vitality and death—so seemingly a
paradox—that forms the basis of many of our deepest romances; as the
“Spectre Life in Death,” in the Ancient Mariner, of the melancholy
Coleridge,—himself a wild visionary of the first order. If I remember,
he is writing of a spectre ship.—
——“Betwixt us and the sun.
And straight the sun was fleck’d with bars—
(Heaven’s mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’d
With broad and burning face.
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,)
How fast she neers and neers.
Are those _her_ sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?
Are those _her_ ribs, through which the sun
Doth peer, as through a grate?
And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a Death—and are there two?
Is Death that woman’s mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold,
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The night-mare Life in Death was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”
EV. It is melancholy that a noble mind should be so perverted by
poppy-juice. And yet the Mahometan beats him hollow at this sort of
burlesque.
There is a fiction in Sale’s notes to the “Koran.” During the building
of his magnificent temple, King Solomon sleeps in death. He remains
supported by his staff, on which he had been leaning, until a worm eats
away the prop, and the body falls prostrate to the ground.
But we need not go to the East for our specimens. Even in the year 1839,
in our Emerald Isle of superstition, they would have us believe a
miracle of this kind.
In a field near Lurgan, a man, called Farland, had received money from a
widow, wherewith to pay her rent;—this he failed to do. On her
remonstrance and declaration, she was asked to name her witnesses. She
answered,—“No one but God and herself.” “Then,” rejoined the man, “your
God was asleep at the time.” The attestation of three witnesses records,
that he was instantly struck in a trance as he was resting on his spade,
and in that attitude he had ever since continued!
CAST. And is it not a blot on the page of science, that so many
ill-fated creatures are thus, through an error, doomed to dissolution?
Say, gentle Evelyn, has not your philosophy discovered some mode of
discernment between life and death, which would smile the philanthropist
on to patient watching?
EV. To a degree. But it were vain to offer here precepts for such
discrimination, which, sooth to say, are not yet absolute. The rosy tint
of complexion may remain for some time, and even perspiration may break
forth, _after death_; or the body may assume the _most deathlike_
aspect, and yet vitality is only _in abeyance_. Among our recoveries, it
is true, there are many _spontaneous_ rousings, and this especially if
deep impression has been the cause of trance.
Listen to the following, from a journal of 1834:—“The wife of Thomas
Benson, livery-lace maker, of Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
being suddenly taken ill, to all appearance expired; and, when every
symptom of life had fled, the body was duly laid out. On the following
night, between nine and ten o’clock, whilst the undertaker was in the
house receiving instructions for the funeral, to the astonishment and
terror of the whole family, Mrs. Benson came down stairs, having been in
a trance nearly thirty hours. Her situation has so terribly shocked her,
that but faint hopes are entertained of her recovery.”
It is melancholy to know how often these cases are abandoned _to
nature_; but science may do much, and _should do_ more, to relieve them;
although we possess not the wondrous phial of Renatus, nor have
developed the creative mysteries of Prometheus or Frankenstein.
Yet the recovery of François de Civille, was almost as great a wonder.
He was thrown, at the siege of Rouen, into insensibility. He was, in
this state, carried home by his servant. During a week he became warm,
but exhibited no other sign of life. He was, at this period, flung out
of a window by the besiegers, and cast upon a dunghill, where he lay
naked for three or four days. Yet, even after this, he was restored to
life.
ASTR. You confess the _wonder_, Evelyn, that is some concession; you
may, perchance, believe another of equal interest.
“My mother being sick to death of a fever three months after I was born,
which was the occasion she nursed me no longer, her friends and servants
thought, to all outward appearance, she was dead, and so almost two days
and a night. But Dr. Winston coming to comfort my father, went into my
mother’s room, and looking earnestly in her face, said, ‘She is so
handsome, and looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead;’ and suddenly
took a lancet out of his pocket, and with it cut the sole of her foot,
which bled. Upon this he immediately caused her to be laid upon the bed
again, and to be rubbed, and such means, as she came to life, and
opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen stand by her, my Lady
Knolleys and my Lady Russell, both with great wide sleeves, as the
fashion then was, and said, ‘Did not you promise me fifteen years, and
are you come again?’ which they not understanding, persuaded her to keep
her spirits quiet in that great weakness wherein she then was; but some
hours after she desired my father and Dr. Howlsworth might be left alone
with her, to whom she said, ‘I will acquaint you, that during the time
of my trance I was in great quiet, but in a place I could neither
distinguish or describe; but the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer
to me than all my children, remained a trouble upon my spirits. Suddenly
I saw two by me clothed in long white garments, and methought I fell
down upon my face upon the dust, and they asked me why I was so troubled
in so great happiness. I replied, O let me have the same grant given to
Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years, to see my daughter a woman; to
which they answered, It is done, and then at that instant I awoke out of
my trance.’ And Dr. Howlsworth did then affirm that that day she died
made just fifteen years from that time.”
I remember a story of the effect of deep impression on a sensitive mind:
the sleep of a love-sick Juliet, without the entrancing draught of the
friar.
A young French lady in the Rue St. Honoré, at Paris, was condemned by
her father to a hated marriage while her heart was devoted to another.
She fell into a trance, and was buried. Under some strange influence her
lover opened her grave, and she was revived, and married. Thus the
romance of the “Beauty of Verona” was acted without its tragedy.
I have heard, but where I recollect not, a story of another French lady,
who was actually the subject of an anatomist. On the evidence of some
faint signs of vitality, he not only restored the lady to life, but
united himself to her in marriage.
There is no doubt, also, that Rachael, Lady Russell, would have been
buried alive, had not the devoted affection of her husband, and his
constant visits to her coffin, prevented it.
I read, too, that Shorigny, an hysterical girl in Paris, was watched
daily by her physician, after he was assured by the friends that she was
dead. On the sixth day, the cloth covering was seen to move, the eyes
soon after opened, and she gradually recovered.
EV. It is one of the anomalies of our science, that _similar_ causes
will often produce _opposite_ effects. We may be thrown into trance by
fright; and intense alarm may be the cause of recovery. I may relate an
oriental anecdote as an analogy, which, however, I beg you to receive
with some reservation.
A Persian, at the siege of Sardis, was about to kill Crœsus, whom he did
not recognise. By his side was the king’s dumb child, who, in a sudden
paroxysm of agony, screamed out, “Kill not Crœsus.” From this instant
(as it were a miracle), Herodotus writes, his speech was fully restored!
We learn from Bourgeois, in 1838, that a medical man, from the sudden
influence of grief, sunk into a cataleptic state, but his consciousness
never left him. The lamentations of his wife, the sympathetic condolence
of his medical friends, and the arrangements regarding his funeral, were
to him distinctly audible. He knew that he was in his coffin, and that
there was a solemn procession following him to the grave. As the solemn
words of “Earth to earth” were uttered, and the dust fell on his coffin
lid, the consciousness of this, and his horror at his impending fate,
burst the fetters of his icy trance—he shrieked aloud, and was saved.
In the “Psychological Magazine” we read of a lady who fell into a state
of catalepsy, after a violent nervous disorder.
“It seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was really dead. Yet she
was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in this dreadful
state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking, and lamenting her
death, at the side of her coffin; she felt them pull on her dead
clothes, and lay her in it. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which
was indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was without power, and
could not act on her body. She had the contradictory feeling, as if she
were in her own body, and yet not in it, at one and the same time. It
was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm, or to open her
eyes, as to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. The
internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height, when
the funeral hymns were sung, and when the lid of the coffin was about to
be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the first
one which gave activity to her soul, and caused it to operate on her
corporeal frame.”
I have been assured that the soldier who has been placed in his grave by
such an error, has been awoke in his coffin by the volley fired over
him.
Parallel with these are the instances in which vitality seemed to be
instantly excited by acute pain.
I remember the case of a cataleptic girl, related by the Abbé Menon, who
was doomed to dissection; the first stroke of the _scalpel_ awoke her,
and she lived.
Cardinal Sommaglia was not so fortunate. He fell into _syncope_ from
intense grief, and it was decided that he should be opened and embalmed.
As the surgeon’s knife punctured the lungs, the heart throbbed, and the
cardinal attempted to avert the knife with his hand; but the _die_ was
cast, and he shortly _died_.
The Abbé Prevost was also sacrificed in this way.
As Vesalius, the physician of Philip II., was opening the thorax of a
Spanish gentleman, the heart palpitated. Death also occurred here.
Vesalius was brought before the Inquisition, but was pardoned.
A gentleman was seized, apparently with apoplexy, while at cards. A vein
was opened in both arms, but _no blood flowed_. He was placed in a room
with two watchers, who slept, alas! too long; for in the morning the
room was _deluged with blood_ from the punctures, and his life was gone.
These are indeed unhappy instances of the errors of omission and
commission entailed on the fallibility of science. I believe a French
author, Bruhier, has collected fifty-two cases of persons buried alive,
four which were dissected prematurely, fifty-three which recovered, and
seventy-two which were falsely reported dead.
ASTR. There is a solemn problem associated with this, on which I have
often reflected, the solution of which, I presume, your philosophy
_cannot_ offer to us. At what moment would the mind cease to influence
the body, were there no recovery from the trance? I have sometimes felt
a mysterious influence, apart, I am sure, from philosophy, that
whispered me, the life, which I had watched in its ebb, was at length
gone. Yet, of the transit of an immaterial spirit, although convinced of
the sublime truth, it is certain we _know_ nothing.
EV. Nothing _demonstrative_. It is not, however, when the body _seems_
dead, for consciousness, or the _systemic_ life, may for awhile be
suspended by mere cold. But dissolution is _that point_, unknown to us,
when the principle of life (whether that be the influence of _arterial_
blood, or electricity, magnetism, or galvanism,) is not excitable—when
_molecular_ death has ensued; not even irritability, that _vis insita_
or _vis nervosa_ of Haller, remaining. Of course mind must instantly
depart on the commencement of _decomposition_, the brain being _then_
totally incompatible with mind. The _stoics_ believed the soul to occupy
the body _until it was putrified_, and resolved into its _materia
prima_.
ASTR. I once thought, Evelyn, that the difference in the tenacity of
life in the man and the zoophyte might with some subtlety be explained
on this principle—thus: That the life of a reasoning creature was in
_its soul_; that of an inferior animal in its _spinal irritability_.
Thus, when man is decapitated, his _soul_ is gone from him—he is dead;
but when vitality is in the _vis nervea_, as in the insect, life may
exist without a head, that is, the organ of a soul. The butterfly will
flutter, I am told, long after decapitation.
EV. The _excito-motary_ principle illustrates this fact, without the
requisition of such a notion; and life, we know, may be _artificially
sustained_ for a time after decapitation. The interesting physiology of
the _reflex actions_ of a nerve explains this, and all the terrific
convulsions of galvanized bodies.
CAST. I think I have a glimpse of your meaning, Evelyn. May we not
believe, then, that there is truth in the affirmation, that Charlotte
Corday’s cheeks _blushed_ at her exposure after her decollation?
EV. There is far more romance than truth, fair Castaly, in this story;
but I do believe the probability of a story almost as marvellous, that
the lips of Mary Stuart _prayed visibly_ after her head fell from her
body. Sœmmering has written, that if the open eyes of a decollated head
be turned full on the sun, the lids will immediately close, but this of
course _without consciousness_.
CAST. And yet some _learned_ men believed the head of Charlotte Corday
sensible of its state, from this asserted fact of its blushing.
EV. They should _not_ have believed without complete evidence. Indeed,
this question may now be deemed decided _in the negative_, by the
experiments of a learned professor of Heidelburg, on the head of
Sebastian Zink, decollated at Rastadt. On placing bitters on the tongue,
and hallooing “pardon” in his ear _at the instant of decapitation_, it
was proved that there was an utter insensibility to all.
IDA. Then sensation is instantly destroyed. In this, as in all his
dispensations, how is the mercy of the Deity displayed!
EV. It is still a question with us, whether our physical sensations on
the point of dissolution are often so acute as they appear.
Cabanis and the famous Guillotine declared their conviction that no pain
was felt at the moment of or after decapitation. In the works of Lord
Bacon, we read of one who was suspended till he was all but dead, and
his declaration was that his suffering was a mere trifle. Cowper also
left a manuscript, in which he states that in one of his three attempts
at suicide, he hung himself over his door in the Temple, but that he did
not suffer in the least.
IDA. And in drowning?
EV. While the medical committee of the Humane Society were framing those
scientific rules which have rendered the process of resuscitation so
successful, I remember especially one pale and melancholy girl, who
glided in before us like a spectre. She had attempted suicide, but her
intention was happily thwarted, after she had been for many minutes in
the water, and was apparently lifeless.
True, the mental agony which prompts to such an act, will often
overwhelm sensation; but this creature was _conscious of her act_, and
assured us that the sensation of drowning was but _an intense feeling of
faintness preceding a sinking into insensibility, with a short spasmodic
struggle; an uneasiness rather than a pain_. When Clarence therefore,
recounting his dream, exclaims,—
“My God, methought what _pain_ it was to drown!”
I believe, he should rather have referred his feelings to his
_recovery_, if the words of the pale girl were true; for, when
consciousness and sensation are returning, the feeling is intense.
Throughout the body, as it is recovering from _apathetic_ numbness, the
sense of returning circulation of the blood is terrible: an acute
sensation of _pins and needles_ in the brain and the marrow of the
spine. No wonder, then, that these resuscitated beings will request that
_no efforts_ may be made, should they again be in the state of suspended
animation. The sensation on being born is probably as acute as that on
dissolution.
IDA. Then there _is_ consciousness?
EV. The evidence of Dr. Adam Clarke will illustrate this interesting
question. Yet I differ somewhat with him, regarding so perfect a
consciousness during submersion. In his life, you will see the following
dialogue with Dr. Lettsom, in which Clarke describes his own case of
immersion:
“Dr. Lettsom said,—‘Of all that I have seen restored, or questioned
afterwards, I never found one who had the smallest recollection of any
thing that passed, from the moment they went under water, till the time
in which they were restored to life and thought.’ Dr. Clarke answered
Dr. L.,—‘I knew a case to the contrary.’ ‘Did you, indeed?’ ‘Yes, Dr.
L., and the case was my own. I was once drowned.’ And then related the
circumstances, and added,—‘I saw my danger, but thought the mare would
swim, and I knew I could ride when we were overwhelmed. It appeared to
me, that I had gone to the bottom with my eyes open. At first, I thought
I saw the bottom clearly, and then felt neither apprehension nor pain;
on the contrary, I felt as if I had been in the most delightful
situation; my mind was tranquil and uncommonly happy. I felt as if in
Paradise, and yet I do not recollect that I saw any person; the
impressions of happiness seemed not to be derived from any thing around
me, but from the state of my mind. And yet I had a general apprehension
of pleasing objects; and I cannot recollect that any thing appeared
defined, nor did my eye take in any object, only I had a general
impression of a green colour, as of fields or gardens. But my happiness
did not arise from these, but appeared to consist merely in the
tranquil, indescribably tranquil, state of my mind. By and by, I seemed
to awake as out of a slumber, and felt unutterable pain and difficulty
of breathing; and now I found I had been carried by a strong wave, and
left in very shallow water upon the shore, and the pain I felt was
occasioned by the air once more inflating my lungs and producing
respiration. How long I had been under water I cannot tell; it may
however be guessed at by this circumstance: when restored to the power
of reflection, I looked for the mare, and saw her walking leisurely down
shore towards home, then about half a mile distant from the place where
we were submerged. Now, I aver,—1st. That in being drowned I felt no
pain;—2nd. That I did not, for a simple moment, lose my
consciousness;—3rd. I felt indescribably happy, and, though dead as to
the total suspension of all the functions of life, yet I felt no pain in
dying; and I take for granted, from this circumstance, those who die by
drowning feel no pain, and that probably it is the easiest of all
deaths;—4th. That I felt no pain till once more exposed to the action
of the atmospheric air, and then I felt great pain and anguish in
returning to life, which anguish, had I continued under water, I should
have never felt;—5th. That animation must have been totally suspended
from the time I must have been under water, which time might be in some
measure ascertained by the distance the mare was from the place of my
submersion, which was at least half a mile, and she was not, when I
first observed her, making any speed;—6th. Whether there were any thing
preternatural in my escape, I cannot tell; or whether a ground swell had
not, in a merely natural way, borne me to the shore, and the
retrocession of the tide (for it was then ebbing), left me exposed to
the open air, I cannot tell. My preservation must have been the effect
of natural causes; and yet it appears to be more rational to attribute
it to a superior agency. Here then, Dr. L., is a case widely different,
it appears, from those you have witnessed, and which argues very little
for the modish doctrine of the materiality of the soul.’ Dr. Lettsom
appeared puzzled with this relation, but did not attempt to make any
remarks on it.”
And well he might; for if animation were _totally suspended_,
consciousness would have been suspended also.
TRANSMIGRATION.—ANALYSIS OF TRANCE.
“Thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras, ere I will allow of
thy wits; and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the
soul of thy grandam.”
TWELFTH NIGHT.
“Through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize
Each vital spirit.”
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ASTR. You have granted me more than you desire, dear Evelyn. If life be
_restored_, it had never _deserted_ the body, and yet the mind _had_
deserted it.
The mind and body, then, are both independent of each other. From this
truth, a metaphysical question of deep and wondrous interest arises. _In
what condition does the mind exist, during so long a period,
uninfluencing and uninfluenced by the power of perception?_ I remember
searching for some elucidation of this mystery among those ghost-stories
of the Hebrews, founded on the “purgatorie of souls” in Stehelin’s
“Traditions of the Jews,” but I rose from my reading unenlightened.
IDA. And ever will, Astrophel. Profane curiosity must fail in such a
study; adoration alone can sanctify this mystic question, on which
theologians and philosophers, even those devoutly confident in the
sublime truths of immortality, have so essentially differed.
Like Astrophel, Paley inquires where is the soul during suspended
vitality? and Priestly, where when the body was created? Hume, with the
subtlety of a sceptic, asks how can the soul long be the same, seeing
that, like the body, its particles are constantly changing? While
Glanville thinks himself a wondrous wight, as he prates of its
“_essential spissitude_, a something that is more subtle than body,
contracting itself into a _less ubi_.”
Were this sublime secret fathomable by the deepest intellect, then would
be unfolded things above, which are ordained to be ever mysteries to
creatures on earth; such as the future existence of the spirit, and the
nature of Paradise.
Although revelation has given us glimpses, enough to satisfy humble
devotion, what mind can _decide_ on the exact nature and changes of its
own future state? The negative answer is at once returned by the variety
of these learned opinions:—That the soul is, immediately after death,
submitted to its reward or punishment;—That its state after death is
one of _half_ happiness or misery, until it be again joined to its body
on the resurrection; and then it shall enjoy or suffer the _extremes_ of
felicity or torment;—That the soul rests in quiet unconsciousness until
the day of judgment;—And lastly, that souls are purified by purgatory
and comparative suffering, and _then_ are admitted into the realms of
perpetual enjoyment.
ASTR. Is it not strange that in this notion of purgatory, with slight
variations, pagans, and Romanists, and Egyptians, and Brahmins, so
nearly accord? In the creed of the Brahmins, there is something of
sublimity, whatever may be their error, and Ida will not chide, if I
repeat the essence of their creed, which Robertson has gathered from the
“Baghvat Geeta.”
“Every intelligent nature, particularly the souls of men, they conceived
to be portions separated from this great spirit; to which, after
fulfilling their destiny on earth, and attaining a proper degree of
purity, they would be again reunited. In order to efface the stains with
which a soul, during its residence on earth, has been defiled by the
indulgence of sensual and corrupt appetites, they taught that it must
pass, in a long succession of transmigrations, through the bodies of
different animals, until, by what it suffers and what it leaves in the
various forms of its existence, it shall be so thoroughly refined from
all pollution, as to be rendered meet for being absorbed into the divine
essence, and returns, like a drop, into that unbounded ocean from which
it originally issued.”
Aristotle, in taking up this notion of transmigration in his book “De
Animâ,” says that “the soul was always joined to a body, sometimes to
one, sometimes to another.” And from this idea were taken the stories of
Fadlallah and the Dervis, in the “Spectator,” of the “Transmigrations of
Indus,” and the beautiful fable of “Psyche,” or the soul, which when a
body died, could not live _alone_ on earth, and so crept into another.
Herodotus, in the second book of his history, has some allusions to the
Egyptian creed; and, indeed, the fear of this transmigration was the
origin of mummies among the Copts. Their belief that the soul (the
immortality of which they very early, if not the first, decided,) could
not leave the body when _entire_, induced them to preserve that body as
long as possible; and the mummy unrollers and hieroglyphic readers must
commit sad sacrilege, by exposing their sacred dust to the decomposition
of air.
When the body was dissolved, however, the soul entered that of some
animal that instant born; and profane commentators have, on this creed,
presumed to explain the sacred story of the “banishment and savage life
of Nebuchadnezzar.” At the end of 30,000 years, it again entered that of
a man; and it is likely that their object in embalming was, to have the
soul _re-enter the same body_ from choice and habit.
Simonides, four hundred years after the siege of Troy, ungallantly
reversed this doctrine, deciding that “the souls of women were formed of
the principles and elements of brutes.” The Pythagorean system was, if
not more courteous, at least more just.
“Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies;
And here and there th’ embodied spirit flies.
By time, or force, or sickness, dispossess’d,
And lodges, where it lights, in bird or beast;
Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind.
From tenement to tenement is toss’d,
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost.”
This is from Dryden’s translation of Chaucer.
And Burton’s record is as follows:
“The Pythagoreans defend _Metempsychosis_ and _Palingenesia_, that souls
go from one body to another, _epotâ prius Lethes nudâ_, as men into
wolves, beares, dogs, hogs, as they were inclined in their lives, or
participated in conditions:
‘_——inque ferinas_
_Possumus ire domus pecudumque in corpora condi._’
“Lucian’s cock was first _Euphorbus_, a captaine:
‘_Ille ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli_
_Panthoides Euphorbus eram._’”
And Plato, in Timæus, and in Phædo—
EV. Enough of Plato, dear Astrophel; or believe, with me, that _his_
philosophy on this point was merely _figurative of the similarity of
mind, or genius, or feature, between the dead and the living_;—as it
was said of old, that the soul of Raphael had transmigrated to the body
of Francesco Mazzola (Parmegiano), _because_ his style and personal
beauty so closely resembled those of the all but divine master of his
art.
And pray what was the gist of that special astronomer, who affirmed that
he “saw something written in the moon?”—A wild romance only? No,
forsooth. Pythagoras may classically vociferate—
“——errat, et illinc,
Huc venit, hinc illuc, et quoslibet occupat artus
Spiritus: eque feris humana in corpora transit,
Inque feras noster.”
But read further, and you will find the high moral to be a severe
injunction against flesh-eating:
“Then let not piety be put to flight,
To please the taste of glutton appetite;
But suffer innate souls secure to dwell,
Lest from their seats your parents you expel:
With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,
Or from a beast dislodge a brother’s mind.”
Think you this injunction will be obeyed, in the face of the “Almanac
des Gourmands?”
IDA. Evelyn is severe. May I tell him that, among the records of the
East, he will find incidents blended with this idea which may almost
consecrate the creed of a Pagan. As the honey is hung close to the
poisoned sting of the bee, there may be a bright spot to illuminate the
gloomy annals of superstition. The very belief in _transmigration_ may
impart an atom of mercy, even to an infidel; and where superstition,
shorn of the light of Christianity, _must_ prevail, it were better sure
to foster that notion which may, even in one little sentiment, half
humanize the heart.
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.
EV. Yes, and in modern Italy the professors of the art are yet termed
_jettatori_, or _eye-throwers_. But Valletta, an Italian author,
conscious of the truth, boldly disclaims for his countrymen the notion
of _demoniac influence_, referring it to _physical impression_, somewhat
resembling the fascination of the eye of the rattlesnake, that drops, as
we are told, the bird from the branch into its mouth. In that exquisite
sympathy between mind and body (the sequence of an influence on
sensibility, or on the senses) consists the secret of all this.
You remember the effects of intense impression on the mind in the
excitement of catalepsy, and indeed in causing instantaneous death: this
is intense influence on the _sensibility_. The effects of deep
impression on the sight or touch, by the passes of magnetism, are
magnetic ecstacies: this is intense influence on the _senses_. So that
all your mysteries are the result of this influence passing through the
brain to the body; and the vaunted miracles of Mesmer, and Bertrand, and
Dupotet, are, as I have said, impositions, chiefly as regards the
_nature_ of their _influence_. And, like these, the doctrines of Fludd
_the Seeker_, of the Abbé Nollet, of Lavater, of Nicetas the Jesuit, and
the quaint ideas of many other visionaries, which you may read in their
writings, are really explicable by the laws of physiology.
When the magnetiser asserts that a patient should possess _a disposition
to be acted on_, he unwarily divulges his own secret; for this is
nothing more than blind faith in a promise. And this credulity is most
characteristic of that disordered condition of a nerve, acute
sensibility, in which the slightest causes may effect a seeming wonder.
Nay, even disease and _death were_ so induced during the manipulations
of Hensler and Emmelin.
This also is the secret of that influence imparted by the touch of a
seventh son; or of the hand of a criminal hanging on the gallows; or the
revolting precept of Pliny, that an epileptic should drink the blood of
a dying gladiator, as it gushes from his wound; or the _stroking_ of
Valentine Greatrex; the _sympathetic powder_ of Sir Kenelm Digby; the
_tractors_ of Perkins; of chiromancy, rhabdomancy, and of other
curiosities recorded in tracts and journals.
In my professional life, I have seen the same influence, though
infinitely less in degree, imparted by an implicit confidence in the
blessings of our science. Even Bertrand honestly confesses its power.
A lady was thrown into deep sleep by the touch of a magnet, sent by him
in an handkerchief from the distance of three hundred miles. But the
_same effect_ was produced by the contact of _unmagnetized_ cambric; and
Bertrand allows, that where an ignorance of his intention existed, _even
the magnetized talisman was powerless_ over his patient.
I could tell you tales of bits of wood effecting all the wonders of the
metallic tractors of Perkins; and cubes of lead, and those of nickel,
fraught, as a learned doctor had declared, with magnetic virtues; but I
spare you.
From this superstitious faith spring also the miracles of that pious
saint, who had assumed the staff of Saint Francis Xavier, the Prince
Hohenlohe. One of these was the cure of Miss O’Connor, attested by Dr.
Baddeley, of Chelmsford, who had tried in vain to relieve the lady of
_acute neuralgia_. She was directed to prostrate herself at the altar in
Chelmsford at the moment when the sainted prince would kneel at his
shrine in the cathedral of Bamberg. At the appointed time, during the
solemn celebration of high mass, as she exclaimed, “Thy will be done, O
Lord,” the agonizing limb was painless.
I do not doubt the possibility of such an incident. And here is the
unfolding of another secret of these German magnetizers, who were
believed to _shoot at_ their patients with the unerring aim of a rifle,
even though many miles might intervene. Nadler, as we are told in the
“Asclepeion,” was so good a shot, that he brought a woman to the ground
at the moment he fixed his magnetic aura at her, aiming between the eyes
and the bosom, even at the distance of eighteen miles.
I am aware that this, my philosophy, would not pass current at the
Vatican, for “the congregation of the holy office, having once applied
to the pope, to know if animal magnetism were lawful, and if penitents
might be permitted to be operated on; his holiness replied, that the
application of principles and means purely physical to things and
effects which are supernatural, for the purpose of explaining them
_physically_, is nothing but an unlawful and heretical deception.”
But I may tell you that his holiness himself was once a great monopolist
of saints’ cures, if we may believe a book, printed by Roberts, in
London, in 1605, entitled, “A Declaration of egregious Popish
Impostures, to withdraw the hearts of religious men, under pretence of
casting out devils; practised by Father Edmunds, alias Weston, a
Jesuite, and divers Romish priests his wicked associates.”
And, moreover, the interference of priests has often led to the
interdiction of protestants, in their scientific ministering to disease
the most severe, as typhus fever, or surgical operations, because they
were heretics; while the profane Paracelsus says, “It matters not, by
God or devil, so he _be_ cured;” even without an indulgence, I presume,
from Della Genga, or the leave of the sacred college.
Believe me, the influence of faith will illustrate all this mystery, and
reduce even these impostures to a simple truth. Without it, only the
grossest superstition would believe that sympathy would thus “take the
wings of the morning,” and impart to a mind that was thinking at our
antipodes a consciousness of our own sentiments; for this would be a
revival of that blind credulity, which in the darker ages was reposed in
the superhuman agency of magic and of witchcraft.
SIBYLLINE INFLUENCE.
“She was a charmer, and cou’d almost read
The thoughts of people.”
OTHELLO.
IDA. As you unfold the wonders of the mind, Evelyn, the secrets of many
splendid mysteries shine forth in the light of your truth; and the
wisdom of “charmed rings,” “blessed brambles,” and amulets and
talismans, fades before the precepts of a purer faith. Yet is there no
witchcraft in your philosophy? You have, methinks, absolved Astrophel
from spells and dark hours, for, in the softened lustre of his eye I see
a light more holy than its wonted flash of divination.
CAST. You have more faith in his conversion than I have, Ida; for, lo ye
now! On a mossy stone in Tintern lay this sable velvet pouch, which,
from its mystic ’broidery, might be the lost treasure of a Rosicrucian
cabalist.
“There’s magic in the web of it;
A sibyl that had number’d in the world
The sun to make two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew’d the work.”
And here is a scroll of vellum folded within it. Listen, and you shall
hear the pencillings of some unhappy student, benighted in the mazes of
the Cabala.
“The eye of modern philosophy may wink at the wisdom of occult sciences,
and sorcerers and magicians, necromancers and Rosicrucians, cabalists
and conjurers, astrologers and soothsayers, Philomaths, Drows, and
Oreades, wizards and witches, and warlocks, and sibyls and gipsies, may
be, in _its_ estimation, a mere legion of cyphers. Yet faith hath been
long and firmly lavished on the art of divination by the learned and
mighty men of all ages. The Chaldean, who read the stars, was the
coryphæus and the type of superhuman knowledge; the magi of Persia and
Egypt, and other orient lands, followed in his wake. The venerable
Hermes Trismegistus was surrounded by his proselytes in the year of the
world 2076; and Apollonius and Zoroaster, and Pythagoras, and, in later
ages, John of Leyden, Roger Bacon, and other learned mystagogues, have
imbibed a more than mortal wisdom from the aspect of those starry lights
which gem the vaulted firmament; while the luminous schools of Padua,
and Seville, and Salamanca, were rich in the records of occult and
mystic learning. Emperors and kings, and ministers, who ruled the
destiny of mighty nations, have believed. Wallenstein was all confiding;
Richelieu and Mazarin (as Morin writes) retained soothsayers as a part
of their household; Napoleon studied with implicit faith his book of
fate; and Canute, obedient to his confidence in the virtue of relics,
directed his Roman agent to buy St. Augustine’s arms for one hundred
silver talents, and one of gold.
“Nay, what saith divinity itself? Glanvil, the chaplain of King Charles
II., affirms in his ‘Saducismus Triumphatus,’ that ‘the disbeliever in a
witch must believe the devil gratis;’ and Wesley said, that ‘giving up
witchcraft was, in fact, giving up the Bible.’ Now, as the Chaldean
sophs were divided into three classes—1. the ‘Ascaphim,’ or charmer; 2.
the ‘Mecascaphim,’ or magician; 3. the ‘Chasdim,’ or astrologer; so the
legion of modern witches was composed of a mystic tryad, distinguished
by colours that were a symbol of their influence on our mortal frame.
The black witch could hurt, but not help; the white could help, but not
hurt; the grey could both help and hurt.”
IDA. My own Castaly, have pity on us. Evelyn may unrol the coils of this
unholy manuscript if he will.
I do believe this lettered clerk has, in some unhappy hour, wandered by
the ruins of the Seven Churches in the valley of Glendalough; and there,
creeping up to St. Keven’s bed, that hangs over the gloomy waters of its
lake, has won the fatal gift of Catholic magic. Or perchance he has
sworn allegiance with Faust and Friar Bacon.
ASTR. If an Oxford student _must_ kneel at the shrine of a fair lady, he
will whisper this confession. In exploring the treasures of black-letter
romance, he revelled among the occult mysteries, slighting that pure
analysis of nature which is the essence of all philosophy. The legends
of Reginald Scott, De Foe, Glanvil, and Wanley, were the companions of
his pillow; and thus in poring over the legends of enchantment, he was
himself enchanted, and contemplated a wondrous history of witchcraft,
where Sir Walter himself had failed. Let me have light penance, and I
promise in the simple and beautiful light of nature alone to read her
wonders; and if I dare, to study astrology in those planet eyes which
look so mildly on their proselyte.
IDA. Or rather, as the magi of old, you will burn your books of
divination; and, like Friar Bacon, who broke the rare glass which showed
him things fifty miles off, you will study divinity, and become a pious
anchorite.
CAST. I am happy that you abandon the dark and dooming spells of the
magus and the witch, Astrophel, for witchcraft is the unholy opposition
of a demon to the Deity. Yet in your fate I read my own. But censure not
the poetry of that innocent romance that lights up the legends of the
berry-brown sibyl, whether she be a _tirauna_ prowling in the streets of
Madrid, or a gipsy perched upon the heath-brow of Norwood; for theirs
are _happy_ prophecies. Yet if, like Astrophel, I am to be the slave of
philosophy, let me at least make “a dying and a swan-like end.”
It was among the heath-valleys, where nature lay in wild repose around
the place of my birth, that I first met the glance of a gipsy’s eye. On
the northern side of that beautiful sandhill in Surrey, that rears its
purple and turret-crowned crest between the chalk hills and the weald,
there is a green and bosky glen, the “Valley Lonesome,” Along the waste
of _Broadmoor_, that spreads between the brow of _Leith-Hill_ and the
Roman camp of _Anstie-bury_, comes rippling down the crystal streamlet
of the _Till_, which, blending with a torrent that leaps from a lofty
sand-rock, steals away amid mosses and cardamines, and cuckoo-flowers;
now gliding between its emerald banks, now swelling into a broader
sheet, beneath the beech woods of _Wotton_, the ancient seat of the
Evelyns. There the willows dip their silver blossoms, and the violet,
almost hidden beneath them, fills the air with sweetness. There the wild
briar wreaths in light festoons its tiny roses, and the passion-flower,
entwining its luxuriant tendrils around the aspen and the sycamore,
hangs its beautiful blue stars in rich profusion. And there, among the
boughs of lofty elms whose shadows in the early morning darken the
casements of _Tillingbourne_, a colony of rooks hang their woody nests;
and the murmurs of the ringdove, nestling within the woods of Wotton and
the Rookery, are heard in the golden noon and sunset of June, floating
around this leafy paradise.
It was on such an eve that my thoughts had faded into slumber; and when
my eyelids oped, there was a form of embrowned beauty before me so wild,
yet so majestic, that Cleopatra, in the garb of an Egyptian slave-girl,
might have stolen upon my sleep: so scant of clothing, so lovely of form
and feature, she was like an almond-flower upon a leafless branch. Her
expression was full of beautiful contrasts, for, while her eaglet eye
went into my being, there was a languid smile on her ruddy lip, as she
were about to syllable my own destiny; and, indeed, she _did_ unfold to
me many things which have been most strangely worked out and verified in
my life. I wept at some of these foretellings, and she said, “Tears were
the pearls that gem the rose-leaves of life.” I smiled at others, and
she said, “Smiles were the sunlight that warmed their swelling leaflets
into beauty.”
Throughout that summer night, when all were sleeping, save two romantic
girls, she unfolded to me the secrets of her tribe, and a mine of
mysteries learned from a Bohemian _Maugrabee_. She told me how, and why,
the Druids, when the moon was six days old, cut the _misseltoe_ with a
golden knife; how the _vervain_ was gathered with the left hand, at the
rising of the dog-star; and the _lunaria_ was valueless, if not picked
by moonlight; how the _roan-wood_, and the _Banyan seedling_, and the
four-leaved _shamrock_, bore a charm in their tender leaves against
every ill of life. In nature, she said, there is no bane without its
antidote, were the intellect of man ripe for its discovery. There are
corals and green jaspers, carved into the forms of dragons and lizards,
hung round an infant’s neck, for the cure of an ague; the
crimson-spotted _heliotropium_, to staunch a flow of blood; a wrapper of
scarlet-cloth, to mitigate the virulence of small-pox; the blue-flannel,
_nine times_ _dyed_, to allay the pains of rheumatism; and the magic
word _Abracadabra_, to sooth the disorders of a nerve. And, above all,
that wondrous _weapon-salve of sympathy_, which once healed on the
instant the wound of Ulysses, and that which the dainty Ariel gave to
Miranda, to charm Hippolito to life and health; and that with which the
lady of Branxholme _salved_ the broken lance, when William of Deloraine
was healed.
It will be long ere from my memory fade this vision of Charlotte
Stanley. In pity, Evelyn, leave me this one romance of my young
life,—the sheet and taper, nay, the ducking-stool for the witch, if you
will, but deign to bestow one smile upon the gipsies.
Remember the story of the Sibylline Tables. If Sextus Tarquin had not
frowned on the _Roman_ gipsy, she had not burned six of those precious
volumes, which, from the massive cabinets of stone made to enclose the
three that were preserved, prove that the Roman thought them priceless.
One smile, Evelyn, for my sibyl.
EV. Not in memory of the Sibylline Tables, but for your own sake, dear
Castaly. Although the innocence of your nut-brown sibyl is not so clear,
and I am somewhat jealous, too, of that _white magic_ of hers, which
hath won the belief of so many minds the reverse of illiterate, who,
from the Chaldean even to Bacon and William Lilly, have spurned
philosophy, and even divinity, and pinned their faith upon a gipsy’s
sleeve, and doted on the inspiration of an astrologer.
IDA. Forgetful, it would seem, that the wicked king of Babylon found the
devout Daniel, and Hananiah, and Michael, and Azariah, _ten times
better_ than all his magi and astrologers.
These are the antiquaries who possess the last relic of the true cross;
or the last morsel of Shakspere’s mulberry, of which last bit there may
be about ten thousand; such are they who would pen learned theses on the
disputed place of sepulture of St. Denys, and _determine_ the question,
too, although one of his heads is in the cathedral of Bamberg, another
in the church of Saint Vitus in the castle of Prague; one of his hands
in a chapel at Munich; one of his _bodies_, minus one hand, in the
keeping of the monks of Saint Emmeram at Regensberg; while the monks of
Saint Denys possess another, his head being preserved in the third
shrine of the treasury in their cathedral. These may be innocent
follies, but superstition, alas! will not always stop here; fanaticism
soon descends to self-infliction, or to cruelty, and in that moment it
becomes a black stain on the heart of man. Yet, even for the tortures of
the Inquisition (so exquisite, that we might believe them the
suggestions of a devil), the jesuit, Macedo, has put forth this profane
justification: that the bloody tribunal was first instituted by the
Deity, in the condemnation of Cain and the bricklayers of Babel.
EV. Such was the trial of _ordeal_ instituted for the test of innocence.
Among the Anglo-Saxons, as all the chronicles of their history will
show, this mode of trial prevailed; as in the ordeals of the _Cross_, of
_boiling water_ and of the _hot iron_; of _cold water_, or _drowning_;
and of the _corsned_, or consecrated cake. Equally savage was the trial
for murder, so prevalent in Scotland, especially the institution of
their _Bahr-recht_, or “Right of the bier.” Among the “decisions” of
Lord Fountainhall, you may read of legends almost incredible. Philip,
the son of Sir James Standfield, was executed because, in lifting the
corpse of his murdered father from its bier, blood welled forth from his
wound; and the Laird of Auchindrane was tortured, because a corpse
chanced to bleed on the approach of a little girl, who, I believe, was
merely one of his domestics.
But waving these profanations, the reliques of a darker age, let me have
a word with Astrophel on parting. The seeming _fulfilment of many a
sibylline prophecy_ is perfectly clear _as to its source_. There may be
_coincidence_, as in the dream; or _faith_ and _inducement_ may impart
an energy of action, which may itself work a wonder, or accomplish that
end which is referred to a special power.
At the siege of Breda, in 1625, when fatigue and abstinence had well
nigh reduced the garrison to prostration and despair, the Prince of
Orange practised this pious fraud on his soldiers:—He pretended to have
obtained a charmed liquor, so concentrated, that (on the principles of
homœopathy) four drops would saturate a gallon of water with restorative
virtues; and with so much skill was this administered by the physicians,
that a _general restoration was speedily effected_.
You remember, Astrophel, the temptation of Diocletian. From Flavius
Vopiscus we learn, that he was paying the Druidess of Brabant, with whom
he lodged. “When I am emperor,” he said, “I will be more generous.”
“Nay,” said the Druidess, “_you shall be emperor, when you have killed
the_ BOAR.” He hunted and killed boars incessantly, but the purple was
not offered to him. At length, the Emperor Numerianus was murdered by
Arrius _Aper_. This was the eventful moment, and, transfixing the heart
of Aper with his sword, he said, “I have slain the boar!” and the
imperial crown was his.
Is not this, too, the counterpart of that seeming prophecy of the Weird
Sisters, which made Macbeth a murderer and a king?
There was an enchanted stone at Scone, in Scotland, the palladium of
Scottish liberty, for it was believed that the lord of that spot on
which the stone lay, should bear sovereign sway. King Edward bore this
talisman away in triumph; and Scotland, _depressed by its loss_, became
a vassal of the English crown.
And this faith may invest the merest trifle with a spell. Sir Matthew
Hale was presiding in his court on the trial of a witch. She had cured
many diseases by a charm in her possession; and the evidence seemed
conclusive of her guilt. But when the judge himself looked on this
charm, behold! it was a scrap of paper, inscribed with a Latin sentence,
which, in default of money, _he himself_, while on the circuit, had
given many years before, in a merry mood, to mine host, by way of
reckoning.
Among the many analogies to this story in ancient times, there was the
potent poison-charm or antidote of Mithridates, King of Pontus. Its
_effect_ was supreme. And what its composition? twenty leaves of rue,
one grain of salt, two nuts, and two dried figs!
Now you will remember that the wizard and the ministers of these charms,
even among savages, were also their physicians, and, among pagans and
papists, their priests. It is clear that the sensitiveness of mind and
body _under disease_, when the first were consulted, and under the
influence of superstitious fear, instilled by the priesthood, rendered
them impressible to the most trifling causes.
Even in minds of superior natural energy, from the instilment of
superstitious ideas _in infancy_, a blind faith will often become
paramount. Such a mind, and so influenced, was Byron’s; and on such a
faith he once stole an agate bead from a lady, who had told him it was
an antidote to love. It failed: had it not, Byron might have been a
happier man; but the world would have been ’reft of poesy, the
brightest, yet the darkest, that ever flashed on the heart and mind of
man.
Sir Humphrey Davy, you may recollect, “knew a man of very high dignity,
who never went out shooting without a bittern’s claw fastened to his
button-hole by a riband, which he thought ensured him good luck.”
To illustrate the _innocence_ of your gipsy, Castaly, hear this story.
“About forty years ago, a young lady, afterwards Mrs. W——, rallied her
companions aloud for listening to the predictions of an itinerant gipsy,
when the latter malignantly threatened her to beware of her first
confinement. She was shortly afterwards married; and, as the period of
her peril approached, it became evident to her friends that the
remembrance of the wizard malediction began to fasten upon her spirits.
She survived her time only a few days: and the medical attendants, who
were men of eminence, stated it as their opinion, that mental
prepossession alone could be admitted as the cause of her death; not one
unfavourable circumstance having occurred to explain it.
“And some melancholy illusion of this nature induced fatality in the
case of another lady, (Mrs. S.) who, according to the statement of the
venerable Mr. Cline, reluctantly submitted to the removal of a small
tumour in her breast. Unexpectedly, and without any apparent cause, she
died, on the morning following the operation. It was then for the first
time ascertained that she had prognosticated her death, and the
impression that she should not survive had taken so strong a possession
of her mind, that her minutest household arrangements were preconcerted,
as appeared by the papers found in her cabinet.”
I believe that many modern instances of gradual and almost imperceptible
decay, may be referred to the influence both of melancholy prophecies
and visions on the mind, although their agency may be unsuspected, and
as obscure as that of the poisonous herbs of the Thessalian Erichtho, or
the sorceress of Neapolis, or the _aqua tofana_ of the _Italians_.
And superstitious fear may induce a _sudden_ death. Alfred, a nobleman,
was one of the conspirators against the Saxon Athelstan. To justify
himself from the accusation, he went to Rome, that he might make oath of
his innocence before John, the pope. On the instant he took the oath he
was _convulsed_, and, in three days, _died_.
Then as to the language of the stars:—as the phrenologist is much
indebted to the principles of Lavater in forming his estimate of
character, so I believe of the astrologer. The aspect of the _face_ is
not always disregarded in his prophecy, while he seems to observe only
the aspect of the stars. And although there is often a very strange
precision in his guesses, yet there was once a curious incident in my
own presence, from which we may learn something of this secret. On a
visit to a learned astrologer, (who might rest his fame on another art
in which he is so eminent,) our fortunes, past and future, were told
with extreme minuteness, and, I confess, with many coincidences of
former times. One was reminded by the seer of a state of deprivation
which he endured in the year 18—, in the Mediterranean. The officer
remembered in that year being becalmed in a voyage to Malta, and, under
a sultry sky with parching thirst, enduring the want of water for many
days. This was conclusive of the fidelity of the planets, until we
discovered that the horoscope was imperfect, for the officer had given
to the astrologer the _wrong date of his birth_.
CAST. And this, sir, is your Philosophy of Mystery? Oh for the
forethought of my sibyl, that I might learn my own fate for listening to
this treason against the throne of fancy, on the steps of which I have
so long offered up my homage—this ruthless spoliation of her dreamy
kingdom!
EV. Let me for once play the sibyl, fair Castaly, and whisper the
penalty in your ear——
IDA. A lesson in natural philosophy; and the apt scholar, as I read it
on her cheek, has in a moment learned it all by heart; o’ershadowing all
her bright visions of earth and its romances.
EV. What marvel that a daughter of earth should be so apt in its
philosophy?—
“For half her thoughts were of its sun,
And half were of its show’rs.”
But it is not so easy to shake the throne of fancy, or to lay the genius
of romance. He will ever wave his wand of enchantment over the human
mind. The poet will still build his air-castles, and the ghost-seer
indulge in his wild visions of nonentity.
The wonders of creation will still affect us, according to the quality
of intellect or genius, or the constitution or cultivation of the mind.
The poor Indian will still “see God in clouds, and hear him in the
wind,” and the untutored rustic be startled by the shadow of a shade. To
him the slightest change in the regular course of nature will still be a
special miracle: thunder, the awful voice of Divine reproof; lightning,
the flashes of Divine displeasure; the scintillations of the aurora, the
spectral forms of contending armies; and the comet foretel the wreck of
mighty empires. Against this untutored devotion I would not breathe a
thought,—it is the voice of the Deity speaking to the savage.
But it is the privilege, the duty of intellect, to think more deeply of
the physiology of nature; and to learn from the physical sciences, its
real utility in the grand scheme of the creation.
Philosophy, rising from the sublime study of these beautiful phenomena,
regards them as the pure effect of those elemental laws, by which the
integrity of the universe is preserved. And what ought this philosophy
to teach us? Not the superstition of the bigot—for the age of special
miracles is, for the present, past; not the pride of the fatalist, who
refers all to chance and necessity; not the mania of the astrologer, who
plumes himself on his prophetic wisdom, and presumes to interpret to the
letter the mysterious voice of his Creator; but that true wisdom, which
threw over Boyle, and Locke, and Newton, the mantle of humility and
devotion.
* * * * *
The autumn floods had descended from the mountains of Gwent; the banks
of the meandering Wye were desolate, and her woods leafless; yet the
Abbey of Tintern was still majestic and unchanged.
It had been decided, that when the summer sun shone again on Wyndcliff,
the wanderers should revisit the beautiful valleys that lay beneath it,
in memory of happy hours; but ere this was fulfilled, changes manifold
had come over their destiny, from which might be fashioned a true
love-story.
For Astrophel, Ida had unconsciously worked a spell of natural
witchcraft, and his wild thoughts were ever chastened by the pure light
of her devotion. And Evelyn almost confessed to Castaly, that there
might be a sort of animal magnetism. He has neglected the study of the
atomic theory, for the contemplation of the animated atoms that play
around his domestic hearth; and the heart and life of Castaly, a poetry
in themselves, have since interwoven many a blushing flower on the
classic pages of his philosophy.
THE END.
LONDON:
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ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
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INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Page of other books by this same author was moved from the front of the
book to the end of the book. Archaic spellings have been retained as in
the original. Punctuation and obvious typesetting errors have been
corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below.
page 5, St. Hilary at Poictiers ==> St. Hilary at Poitiers
page 30, The Welch guide was ==> The Welsh guide was
page 33, to be a meanless ==> to be a meaningless
page 48, Praise God Barebones ==> Praise God Barebone
page 53, of Halloween and Hogmany ==> of Halloween and Hogmanay
page 54, Stonehenge and Abury, ==> Stonehenge and Avebury,
page 54, when we have past ==> when we have passed
page 67, the niflheiner, or hell ==> the niflheimr, or hell
page 95, shall be crowned King ==> shall I be crowned King
page 95, Westermister Abbey, likely refers to Westminster Abbey
page 95, in the of Hyde the Park ==> in the Hyde Park
page 159, Hogmany, or New-year’s Eve, and ==> Hogmanay, or New-year’s Eve,
and
page 160, around the Feroe Islands. ==> around the Faroe Islands.
[End of _The Philosophy of Mystery_ by Walter Cooper Dendy]
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