Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells
Page 99
“What singing is that?” asked his companion, as he paused again at the open window near the top of the stairs.
“It is our family meeting,” answered Humphrey. “Family meeting!” repeated the stranger briskly. “Would it be possible — could you allow a secular person like myself to look in a moment?”
“Nay,” said the Shaker, composedly, without vouchsafing any explanation.
The stranger looked at him as if puzzled. “I couldn’t go?”
“Nay,” repeated Humphrey, as before.
“But really, I’ve heard of people attending your meetings, haven’t I?”
“Yee.”
“Then why can’t I go?”
“This is a family meeting.”
“Oh! Is this my room?”
“Yee. Good-night,” he said, while the stranger was still hesitating at his door-way, and turned away; the latter then answered his good-night, and went in, and Humphrey descended to his room below, where, after he had put up the strangers’ horse, he busied himself restlessly in working at his accounts, till Laban raised the latch of the door.
“Laban,” said Humphrey, “there are two strangers — young men — in the house, that I’ve just give rooms to. One of us has got to stay away from the meetin’, I presume. It won’t do to have ’em alone here, these times.”
“Nay,” said Laban, taking off his hat, and hanging it on its appointed peg before he sat down. “I will stay.”
“I d’ know’s I’d ought to let ye,” rejoined Humphrey. “It’s a meetin’ of uncommon interest; quite excitin’, as you may say.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Well, Friend Boynton and Egery are goin’ to give what they call a test see-aunts, I suppose. Mahters have come to a head, all at once, — I don’t rightly know how. But Elihu and Friend Boynton, they got into consid’able of a dispute, just now; and Friend Boynton was tol’ble bitter, and spoke revilin’s that seemed to kind o’ edge Elihu on, and first we know they’d cooked it up between ’em that the’ wa’n’t any time like the present to prove whether spiritualism was better than Shakerism. I don’t believe’t she more ‘n half liked it, the way she looked.”
“I don’t seem to care anything about goin’,” said Laban. “I’ll stay.”
“Why, thank ye, Laban!” cried Humphrey, rising with an eagerness which betrayed itself, now that he had satisfied the scruples of conscience by setting forth the meeting in the most attractive colors, and giving Laban a free choice whether to go or stay.
When he came into the meeting Brother Elihu was on his feet, speaking. Humphrey softly crept to the place left vacant for him, beside Elihu, and sat down.
“I want,” Elihu was saying, “that all the brethren and sisters here present should wish well to Friend Boynton in his experiment. He claims that it is necessary to his success that there should be no feeling of enmity or suspicion towards him, and if any of us have such feelings I hope they will try to put them aside. I shall try to do so, for my part, with all my heart. Hard words have just passed between Friend Boynton and me, and I am willing to own that I was hasty and wrong in much that I said. I shall truly rejoice in all the success that he hopes for to-night.”
He sat down, and a little stir passed through the rows of listeners. One of them began a hymn, and they sang it through, while Dr. Boynton waited with a face of haughty offense. When the singing ceased, he came forward from his corner, and stood between the rows of brothers and sisters.
“I thank Elihu,” he said, without looking at him, “for his good intentions towards myself, and I freely acquit him for what he has said. I have myself nothing to withdraw and nothing to regret. Nor do I ask, in what I shall do to-night, any mood of especial assent or sympathy in you, or even of neutrality. I am not here to try an experiment. I am here to exhibit certain facts of psychological science, as thoroughly ascertained as the transmission of the electric current that bears your messages from Maine to California.” He seemed to gather defiance from his rotund phraseology; he rang the syllables of the last word through the hall with a clarion hardness. “When I last stood here,” he continued, “and addressed you upon this subject, I had to ask your patience. My daughter had fallen sick with a fever, of which no one could forecast the event. She lived, and made a recovery which, though painfully slow, is complete; and she is once more fully en rapport with my purposes and wishes. We shall begin with some simple experiments in biology, or, as it was originally called, mesmerism; and we shall gradually proceed to a combination of this science with spiritism, in a union which it has been the end and aim of all my inquiries to effect, — which I have foreseen from the beginning as the only true development of perfect mediumship. All that I shall ask of you,” said Dr. Boynton, with a certain emphasis on the last word, turning on his heel, so as to include all present in his glance of somewhat contemptuous demand, “is your strict attention and. your perfect silence. Stay! I shall ask one of you to oblige me by setting a chair here, where all can see, and by lending me a handkerchief.” His voice had fallen to the colloquial tone, and it touched something of its old suavity. But when Humphrey had set the chair, and Diantha had given him a folded handkerchief, he shook out the linen with a flirt, and called, with a sternness that startled all, “Come forward, Egeria!”
The girl rose from her place beside Sister Frances, and slowly advanced, with the Shakeress beside her.
“Come forward alone!” commanded her father, and Frances shrank back into her seat again, while Egeria continued to advance, and took her place in the chair as he directed with a wave of his hand. Those who were nearest saw that she was very pale, and they spoke afterwards of a peculiar look in her face, “as if,” they said, “the life had gone out of it.” She was also thought to tremble, and she let her arras fall into her lap, with a long patient sigh that was heard all over the room, and that brought tears to the eyes of some.
Her father stood drawing the handkerchief through his hand. “We will begin, as I said, with some of the most elementary phases of mesmerism, and we will work up through these to its ultimation in clairvoyance, at which point of junction we will invoke the aid of spiritism, the science into which it merges, and we will then continue our inquiries in a dark séance. For the present the lights can remain as they are.”
He came round in front of his daughter, and steadily regarded her. “Fix your eyes on mine,” he said, as if addressing a stranger.
She obeyed, lifting her eyes with an effect of mute appeal, while the corners of her mouth drooped.
“When I count three,” continued her father, “your eyes will close. One, two, three.”
Her eyelids fell, and she remained as if in a quiet sleep. Her father approached, and with a series of downward passes assumed to deepen the spell.
“Now,” he said, turning to the intent spectators, “we will exhibit some well-known phenomena of this condition. The subject is in a complete mesmeric trance, and is entirely under my control. I can will her to remain in that chair, and she will have no power to rise. If I were simply in my own mind, without the utterance of a word, to will her to go to the house-top and fling herself down, she would instantly do so. If I willed her to put her hand in the flame of that lamp, she could not refuse; neither would she feel any pain, if I forbade her to feel pain. She sees, hears, tastes, feels, whatever I will. She has no being except in my volition, and I have not a doubt that, terrible as it may seem, if I were to will her death, she would cease to breathe.”
His hearers had listened with interest that deepened at each successive assertion; at the last a sort of moan ran through the ranks of the sisters. The brothers remained hardly less impressively silent.
“You can now easily understand,” resumed Boynton, “what a tremendous engine, what a superhuman agency, such a power as that I exert must be in the development of a spirit medium. It is to this end that I have chiefly exerted it in the case of my daughter. My theory has been that the medium’s obsession by spirits is of
ten so thorough that mind and body alike succumb to their influence, and that the medium is thus so obscured as to be able to transmit no intelligible result. It is at this point that the mesmeric power, sterile in itself, and hitherto useless, comes to her rescue. It stays and supports her; it enables another to reinforce her will, and she receives a distinct and ineffaceable impression from the other world. I ask you to consider but for a moment the vast consequences to flow from such a development. I ask you to do this, not in your behalf or mine; for we know, by our converse with spirits, that we shall live hereafter, — that another world lies beyond this, in which we shall abide forever. But you who dwell here, in the security, the sunshine, of this faith, have little conception of the doubt and darkness in which the whole Christian world is now involved. In and out of the church, it is honey-combed with skepticism. Priests in the pulpit and before the altar proclaim a creed which they hope it will be good for their hearers to believe, and the people envy the faith that can so confidently preach that creed; but neither priests nor people believe. As yet, this devastating doubt has not made itself felt in morals; for those who doubt were bred in the morality of those who believed. But how shall it be with the new generation, with the children of those who feel that it may be better to eat, drink, and make merry, for to-morrow they die forever? Will they be restrained by the morality which, ceasing to be a guest of the mind in us, remains master of the nerves? Will they not eat, drink, and make merry at their pleasure, set free as they are, or outlawed as they are, by the spirit of inquiry, by the spirit of science, which has beaten down the defenses and razed the citadel of the old faith? I shudder to contemplate the picture. In view of this calamitous future, I, as a spiritualist, cannot refrain from doing; and I appeal to you, as spiritualists, to shake off this drowse of prosperity, this poppied slumber of love and peace, and buckle on the armor of action. What right have you, I ask, — what right have you Shakers to remain simply a refuge for the world’s lame and halt and blind? This dream of perfect purity, of affectionate union, of heavenly life on earth, is very sweet; and I too have been fascinated by it. I too have asked myself why there should not be some provision in Protestantism, as there is in Romanism, for those who would retire from the world and dedicate themselves to humble industry, to meek communion with the skies, to brotherly love. But I tell you that this is all a delusion and a snare. On your purity rests the guilt of the world’s foulness; on your union the blame of the world’s discord; on your heavenly peace the responsibility of the world’s hellish unrest. To you was first given, in this latter time, the renewed gospel of immortality, the evidence of spiritual life, the truth that matter and spirit may converse for the salvation of mankind. What have you done with this priceless gift? Have you cherished it, kept alight the precious jewel, to shine before the eyes of men; or have you flung it into the world to be trampled under foot by the swinish herd of sorcerers, who will yet turn again and rend you, unless you fulfill your duty? Every one of you here should become a messenger of the truth, and devote himself and herself to its promulgation. Go forth into the world, though it leave your home desolate, and serve the truth! Or, better still, break up this outworn brotherhood, this barren union in which you dwell, a company of aging men and women, childless, hopeless, with whom their heritage must perish, and form with me on its ruins a new Shakerism, — a Shakerism which shall be devoted to the development of spiritistic science; which shall — which shall” —
He paused for the word, and Brother Elihu suddenly rose. “I would remind Friend Boynton,” he said, “that we are waiting to witness the mesmeric phenomena which he has promised us.”
The brethren and sisters, who had been unawares drawn upward and forward by Boynton’s eloquence, sank back into their seats, but some of the latter turned a reproachful glance at Elihu, in wonder that he could have the heart to interrupt the heroic strain. Then all eyes reverted to Egeria, who in the general forgetfulness had sat with her head drooping and her person dejected in a weary lassitude.
The doctor stopped, stared at Elihu, and caught his breath. He could not collect his thoughts at once, or master his overstrung nerves; but when he regained his voice he said dryly, “If you will do me the favor to look at your watch, I will show you the least of these phenomena.”
Brother Elihu promptly took out his watch and held it in his hand.
“Egeria,” said the doctor, “tell me the time by Elihu’s watch.”
The girl lifted herself like one peering forward, but her eyes were still closed. “The case is shut,” she answered.
“That is true,” Elihu declared. “I had shut it.” He opened it.
“Look now, Egeria.”
She remained in the same posture for some time. “I can’t tell,” she said at last. “I can’t see.”
The doctor smiled triumphantly. “Oh, I had forgotten to bandage your eyes. You can’t see, of course, unless your eyes are bandaged.” He bound the handkerchief, which he had continued to draw through his hand, over her eyes. “Now look.”
“I can’t see,” repeated the girl.
Boynton laughed. “Really,” he said, “I must apologize for having forgotten some essential conditions of these simpler phenomena. We had advanced so far beyond them that I didn’t recur to them at once in all their details. I can’t, of course, will the subject to know what I don’t know myself. If I were to guess at the time, she must necessarily repeat my guess.” He went quickly to Elihu, and glanced at the watch; then returning to his place beside Egeria’s chair, he looked off at a distant point and said, with a tone of easy indifference, “Well, Egeria, what time is it?”
The girl fell back into her chair, and putting up her hands took the bandage from her eyes, which she fixed upon her father’s face in a passion of pity and despair.
“Let it go, Friend Boynton,” said Elihu kindly. “There is no haste. Another time will do as well. Perhaps Egeria has not quite recovered.”
“Yee,” repeated one and another of the brethren and sisters, “another time will do as well.”
“No,” said Boynton, “another time will not do as well.” He was strongly moved, but he made a successful effort to command his voice. “My daughter has been so habitually under my influence that I had not thought it worth while to go through the preliminaries we use with a fresh subject. But as a great interruption has taken place during her fever, perhaps this has become necessary.” While he spoke, he was searching in his different pockets. He continued bitterly: “I was once the possessor of a silver piece which I used in producing the mesmeric trance, but it would not be strange if I had parted with it in the distress which threw me upon your charity. If any of you happens to have a silver coin of any sort” —
Few of these simple communists often had money about them; and in those days of paper currency even the business men of the family knew very well that there was no silver in their pockets. If a silver coin was the indispensable condition of the mesmeric slumber, apparently Boynton stood on safe ground.
But with a quick “Ah!” he came upon the piece he was seeking in his pocket-book. He pressed it between his palms, keeping his eyes fixed upon his daughter’s. Then he put it in her open hand, and bade her look at it without winking, till her eyelids fell. As they closed he softly removed the piece, and made a number of downward passes over her face. There was a pause, during which Boynton was about to say something to his audience, when Egeria opened her eyes and rose from her chair.
“I can’t, I can’t!” she cried, pitifully. “I’ve tried, but indeed, indeed, I can’t.” She stood before him, wringing her hands, and longing to cast her arms about his neck; but the sternness of his reproachful face forbade her. He opened his lips to speak, but no sound came from them. One of the brothers nearest him thought that he tottered, and half rose, with outstretched hands, to support him. Sister Frances was already at Egeria’s side, she drew her head down upon her shoulder with a motherly instinct, while a murmur of sympathy went through the house.
Elihu stood up. “Friend Boynton, we believe you are an honest man.”
“Yee, we do!” was repeated from bench to bench. —
“I thank you,” replied Boynton, in a breaking voice. “Then I can ask you to let me say that our failure is a profound mystery to me, and belies all our past experience. I do ask you to believe this; I ask you to let me say it, and to let it remain with you as my last word. For myself, I cannot lose faith in the past and keep my sanity. But somehow I see that the power has passed from us. In any case our destiny is accomplished among you. We must go out from you self-condemned. Before we go, I wish to acknowledge all your kindness, and to ask your forgiveness for such words of mine as have wronged you. Come, Egeria.”
The girl came forward to where her father stood, and he took her hand and passed it through his arm.
“You mustn’t leave us, Friend Boynton,” said Elihu. “We wish you to stay. We wish you to 16 stay,” he repeated, at a dazed look of inquiry from the doctor, “and take all the time that you want for your investigations.”
“Yee, that is so,” assented all the voices in the room successively. Brother Humphrey alone continued silent, and he was ordinarily so undemonstrative that his tacit dissent would hardly have been noticed, but for his saying, before Boynton could collect himself for reply, “There ain’t nothin’ agin Friend Boynton but what he can clear up with a word to the elders, and I jine with ye all in askin’ of him to stay.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Boynton, turning fiercely upon him. “If you know anything against me, I wish you to speak out.”