At dinner, Livy smiled occasionally at my brother-in-law, even though she spent much of the time staring down into her plate, rarely eating a morsel or saying a word. Finally she piped up, asking Frederic, “What is it, Mr. Myers, that you do?”
Up to that moment, my husband and Clemens, at the other end of the table, had been holding forth about diverse subjects.
My brother-in-law responded, “Mrs. Clemens, I am a classicist by profession, trained at Trinity College, Cambridge, and among my other credentials, I am one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research, whose inception dates back to 1882. Our fundamental doctrine, in regard to the division between this life and the next, has always been one of telepathy—that is, communication between the so-called dead and the living through a process called supersensory communion, wherein the thoughts of the departed are conveyed through the ‘ethers,’ which I define as the silence that exists between our waking thoughts. It is our belief, Mrs. Clemens, that in death the consciousness we call the self and refer to as the ‘I’ never disappears but is transferred into a realm contiguous with the present; from that realm come communications, and these mainly enter our minds not through ghostly apparitions but through the phenomena of hallucination and dreams.”
Clemens, I noticed, was somewhat put off by this business, fumbling about his pockets for a match with which to light his cigar, even when there was a lit candle before him. I heard him muttering to himself: “Now, where is that thing?” and “Where are you?” as if to distract himself from the importance of what he refused, in his godless way, to believe. Livy, on the other hand, seemed raptly engaged: I cannot say if it was Frederic’s eloquence that held her so, but she, rising above her timidity, said, “Please do go on.”
“I am often asked,” he said, “if there is anything to divination. Consider crystal balls, for example—they cost but a few shillings and can be ordered through a catalog. Most people use them as handsome paperweights, yet there are professional mediums who have explored their practical effects: I have heard of—indeed witnessed—a medium staring into such a crystal until a faint pink and gaseous light seemed to form inside of it; from this will be divined some event, some foretelling of a distant simultaneous or future happening. But what is this act? It is the idea of it that matters most. The scientific explanation is that the peculiar effect upon the optic nerve provokes to activity some latent clairvoyant function of the brain, but the crystal itself is not a necessity. We’ve seen such practices in pagan rites and find instances of them in the Old Testament: A cup, a mirror, or a blot of ink can be used, as they do in India and Egypt. The Africans use a bowl of water. Any shining surface—a pond, or even the very surface of a river when it is caught in a certain light—will do. In such instances the mind enters into a receptive state, receiving, if the practitioner is skilled, signals—mind you, many of them are false; that is, erroneously or incompletely constituted or falsely and purposely misconstrued by the medium—but when they are accurate, and many successful transmissions have been noted, there is only one explanation: they are real. The scientific exploration of such matters is one of the things we do at the Society for Psychical Research; it is our mission to get at the heart of that reality, difficult as it can be in an age of skepticism.”
“And you truly believe in such things?” asked Mrs. Clemens.
“I do; and should you need assistance in any way,” Mr. Myers said, “we will be glad to offer it.”
Mr. Clemens, having listened with impatience, then asked: “Well, then, Mr. Myers, if I may ask, aside from so-called communications with the other world, just what do you seek to gain from such information?”
“Contact with the other realm, which goes against all logic and scientific reasoning, is real: In our mechanistic age, few have the gift. But as to your question, well, the answer, in a word, is hope. And not just for an individual but also for the world at large. We believe that science, with all its practical benefits, especially in the realm of medicine, comes with a price—which is the deadening of the human spirit.”
Having brought in our little toddler, Denzil, then nearly two and anxious to run about, Stanley had been standing by the dining room door for some minutes, taking in these words. Denzil, in breaking away from his father’s hand, ran over to Clemens, hurtling himself onto his lap. Clemens said, “Well, now, dear boy, perhaps you need a more comforting lap.” And with that he stood up and carried our son over to Livy, who held him tenderly.
Then Stanley, with whom I had had my differences over the subject of the spirit world, said: “Frederic, thank you for your enlightening talk about an unsolvable mystery. You would surely like Africa, where such things are taken for granted, but if I may, I would like to take the opportunity to raise a toast to my friend Mr. Samuel Clemens and his gracious family.”
WE HAD DESSERT, then as we reassembled in the parlor for after-dinner brandies, I offered to show Clemens the portrait I was making of him. Because many of our guests were leaving, we waited awhile, then I took Clemens and his family into my studio. With Stanley by my side, and with Clemens waiting somewhat patiently, I withdrew the velvet covering my canvas on its easel. It was an oil study, some twelve inches by sixteen inches, that I had begun the year before, though more work was needed. Looking it over, Clemens said, “I look younger in it. Seems I’ve turned into a gargoyle in the meantime.”
“You are as refined-looking a man as I have ever seen. Are you pleased?”
“As much as my worn-out self can be.”
But his daughters were delighted.
“What do you think?” I asked Livy. She hardly seemed to look at it or any of my other paintings. As she moved about my studio, it was as if she were moving through a room packed with heavy drapes.
“It looks like him. I like it,” she finally said.
WHILE WE WERE SAYING OUR FAREWELLS in the foyer, Samuel took me aside.
“Do you remember, Dolly, when I told you once about the ‘little commuter’ in my head?”
“Of course.”
“I told you how he waits and waits for that train. Well, since Susy died, when that man gets on the train and enters the car, I always see the back of a female head sitting in one of the seats—before Susy died, the car was empty. So I move up the aisle, and when I go to take a look, the head turns, and it’s Susy. She always recognizes me and says, ‘Papa.’ What do you make of that?”
“I don’t know, but she must surely love you.”
June 7, 1897
Dear Stanley,
Thank you for the delicious and welcoming time at your house. And thank you and Mrs. Stanley so much for the wonderful presents. A curious thing: In a private moment, I fell into further conversation about the psychic world with your brother-in-law, Frederic; and since he (like everyone else in the world, apparently) knew about our tragedy, he kindly made the suggestion that we, as a comfort, look into the medium business, and he recommended several to us, as well as a Hindu palmist of some great reputation. I should say that his professorial manner and the great weight of his learning make all the otherworldly stuff sound credible. I liked him—his kind and intelligent eyes give him something of an air of a vicar, and I can see why your wife is so attached to him. He made a good enough impression on Livy at dinner. Just hearing him hold forth about “spirit molecules” and “transmissions” and “ethers,” as if he were describing well-known facts, is very soothing. My conjecture is that if you are around enough people who believe in the same thing, it seems to be so.
In any event, Livy came away from your party feeling enchanted—not just by your family’s warmth and cheer but also by the hope of “contacting” Susy. She is so bent on finding proof of an afterlife—what with her mother and now Susy gone—that even my most cynical side is rooting for that nebulous cause: Though it doesn’t make all that much sense to me, she wants to pursue this foolishness, and I am willing to oblige her for the sake of easing her mind. But I take no great stock in the afterlife, and in a
ny case I cannot really buy into all the business of “telepathy” and the transfer of thoughts, etc. Granted, Livy and I upon occasion have seemed to have had the same thoughts at the same time—this Myers ascribes to telepathy and “transmissions,” electrical charges that can be plucked from the air—yet I am pretty sure that in our case, any semblance of similar thinking no doubt owes more to the fact that we have been like a pair of bookends wrapped around the same activities, people, and travels for most of the past twenty-five years. (You know she is my first reader and my strongest editor and that she combs over my every word, much to my texts’ betterment.) Anyway, I am not sure if it will be worth doing, but we are going to visit one of these spiritualists for the sake of diversion: Will you and Mrs. Stanley come? We will attempt to breach the unseen bridge at some point, and who the heck knows what there might be awaiting us?
As always, I tip my hat to you.
Samuel Clemens
September 3, 1897
Dear Father,
Frederic and I have arranged for the Clemenses to visit a psychic, a certain Mrs. Turner on Grosvenor Square, in order to obtain information about their daughter Susy’s situation in the afterlife. Stanley and I are planning to accompany them tomorrow afternoon, though I do wish that Stanley would remain behind, as he is somewhat skeptical about such things.
Good night, my dearest.
From Lady Stanley’s Journal, the Evening After the Séance at Mrs. Turner’s
WE ARRIVED AT MRS. TURNER’S around four. Her parlor was largely bare save for a circular table and some six or seven chairs, a cabinet containing crystal balls and some “star” stones from Tibet, and a nearly transparent screen made of rice paper, which stood on a Chinese lacquered frame against one of the walls, through which, it has been said (by my sister Eveleen, who has assisted Mrs. Turner on occasion), the faces of the departed have sometimes suddenly appeared, glowing. On the table itself was a slate board, some chalk, and some paper and pencils.
Mrs. Turner was a rather matter-of-fact sort of lady—from Kent, I believe. Around sixty, she wore an ordinary dress, her only spiritualist affectation a crystal that hung off a leather cord around her neck. When our party walked in, she could not have been more welcoming, and she seemed, in fact, quite flattered to meet the famous couple. Since Frederic and I were well known in such circles as believers but were not direct participants, she allowed us to sit off in a corner to observe. But a problem arose with Stanley, whose “energies” put Mrs. Turner off.
At least she was forthright about it: “Sir, with all due respect, I must ask you to wait outside; yours is such a powerful presence that you may confuse the communications.” Which is to say that she sensed immediately Stanley’s skepticism. And so, to his discontent, he left, advising us that he would wait to hear news of the outcome at home. (I was quite relieved.) However, another skeptical subject was on hand—Mr. Clemens himself, who, having dabbled with Livy (so she once told me) in spiritualist communications at the Lily Dale colony in upstate New York, remained unconvinced that there was anything to this practice. (The irony, I should say, was that they had often taken Susy to spiritualist healers to cure problems with her throat and had perhaps relied upon them a bit too much; despite my beliefs, I always went to doctors when I felt unwell.) Clemens and his wife, while courteous about the whole business, were sheepish at first and, as Mrs. Turner instructed them, took their place around the table somewhat reluctantly—I think with a little embarrassment, which is a normal thing.
“Have you something that belonged to the person you wish to contact?” she asked.
Livy did—one of her daughter’s brooches. This she passed to the medium. Mrs. Turner then instructed Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, who were sitting across from her, to join hands and close their eyes and concentrate on the object as a means to open the channels of communication. She then pressed the brooch against her heart, then held it against her forehead for several minutes, then set it down on the table before her. For some several minutes more she said nothing, her face in a grimace of fierce concentration. Though she had asked them to remain still, Samuel shifted in his seat several times during the twenty-minute or so lull. Once, he turned quickly toward me and winked; however quietly he had done so, and though her eyes were closed, Mrs. Turner noticed it and whispered, “Be still, sir, or I will end this now.” Another twenty minutes passed. A great silence prevailed—not a sound from the outside world penetrated the heavy drapes over the windows. Since it was September—and a warm one, I should add—the room became stifling, nearly unbearable. However, after another twenty-minute interval, the temperature in the room became noticeably cooler and a slight scent of strawberries wafted into the air. The atmosphere changed, without a doubt, and once this had taken place, Mrs. Turner, who had been still as a statue, with her eyes still closed, began to scramble about the table for her writing implements. Taking both chalk and pencil in hand, she began to scribble various words down on both the slate board and the papers. Coming out of her trance, she sat back in her chair and exhaled deeply, as if exhausted. At first, when she looked about, it seemed that she did not know where she was.
But she gathered herself and, instructing Samuel and Livy to open their eyes, began her interpretation of what she had received. On the slate board she had written, in wildly scripted letters, one word: “Train,” which in her confusion she had spelled “Twwain,” as if an infant had written it. Beneath that were two letters, P and W. And on the paper she had scribbled other words—“Mama,” “My book,” and the letters P-P. The rest, as often happens, consisted of indecipherable bits of script.
“Well, then,” she cheerfully said, “open your eyes to the revelation that your loved one is thriving.” Then, without so much as a pause: “Without being able to ascertain everything, I can tell you with confidence, Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, that your daughter Susy was in this very room, having been conducted through me.”
“You know her name?” gasped Livy.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Turner. “I read the newspapers. But what matters most are the other communications.”
Then she said: “Does this first word, ‘Train,’ have any relevance to you?”
They conferred. “Well, yes,” said Livy, somewhat hopefully. “We last saw our daughter waving good-bye to us from the Elmira train station, some sixteen months ago.”
Livy bowed her head and did not look up for some time.
“And the letters P and W—have these any meaning?”
“No,” Clemens said. “Nothing.”
“And ‘My book’—what do you make of that?”
“Well,” said Samuel, “she was the most gifted writer of the family, really.”
“Was she writing a book at her end?”
“She’d already written one, as an adolescent, about our family.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Turner. Then: “But ‘Mama,’ what does that bring to mind, Mrs. Clemens?”
“Her last word,” said Livy. “She spoke of me, then she died.”
And Livy began to weep in Clemens’s arms, gasping so deeply and with so many convulsions of her slight body that I, looking at Frederic and thinking that it had been a mistake to bring them there, despaired: The purpose of contacting the spirit world was not to conjure past grief but to give hope. But then, to my relief, Livy calmed down and awaited the rest of Mrs. Turner’s questions.
Mrs. Turner, holding up the slate board, then asked about the letters P-P.
“And these initials, have they a meaning for you?”
Neither Livy nor Samuel could arrive at any answer, though Samuel, slightly peeved, said: “They can mean anything.”
“You may say so,” said Mrs. Turner, “but such received things do have meaning. Does anything come to your minds?”
“No,” Livy said.
“Well, then,” said Mrs. Turner, “if I may take the liberty, I will give you my interpretation of what I received. First of all, Susy, your late daughter, is in the hands of loved ones. Sinc
e she is in a timeless place, both of you were by her side. What years you will die in I cannot say, but they will be as fully relevant to your souls as were once your birthdays, and those dates you will also celebrate in the afterlife, by her side. As to the first word I wrote down, ‘Train,’ erroneously spelled—but then, you must understand, I was in a trance and blindfolded—I will say this: It seems to me to be about more than just that last parting. I would imagine that in the other world, she is often journeying with you, but without the grief and discomforts that accompany our earthly travels. What else I have perceived is this: If she wanted to be a writer, then she will be writing; and she is doing so right now. But I also sense that she was a creature of great talents—did she sing?”
“Yes,” said Livy.
“Then she is singing there as well.”
She stood up.
“Please do believe me: My line goes back to the sibyls. I promise that what I have told you is truthful.” Then: “It has been a pleasure to meet you and your daughter: Please do come back. And the fee is two guineas. Thank you.”
Frederic lingered with his notebook to scribble down the more or less indecipherable scribbles that had eluded interpretation, many of the letters not even looking like letters at all. For my part I tried to forward the idea that it had been a successful outing, but Samuel was incensed. Walking along with him on the street, I was startled to hear him carry on in a manner that made me feel bad.
“Not a thing she said could not have been derived from the newspaper accounts of her passing. The only thing she came up with of interest was the ‘my book’ business, but then it would not be a wild impossibility for someone, even a half-baked medium, to suppose that Susy—the daughter of a writer—might have wanted to venture into such territories. All in all, Mrs. Stanley, while I appreciate your efforts on our behalf, please be careful—and not in regard to me, as I have taken every harsh thing in life—but with my wife, who is too delicate for this world. Please do be careful.”