if theyspeak, they utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth.American spirit-seers have published volumes of communications, inprose and verse, which they assert to be given in the names of themost illustrious dead: Shakespeare, Bacon,--Heaven knows whom. Thosecommunications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of higherorder than would be communications from living persons of fair talentand education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon,Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is morenoticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earthbefore. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting themto be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing thatit is incumbent on philosophy to deny,--namely, nothing supernatural.They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yetdiscovered the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in sodoing, tables walk of their own accord, or fiendlike shapes appear ina magic circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material objects, ora Thing of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze ourblood,--still am I persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, asby electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another. In someconstitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those constitutionsmay produce chemic wonders,--in others a natural fluid, call itelectricity, and these may produce electric wonders. But the wondersdiffer from Normal Science in this,--they are alike objectless,purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand results; andtherefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivatedthem. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man, human asmyself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously tohimself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no twopersons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly thesame thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly thesame dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would bearranged for results that would but little vary; if it were asupernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be forsome definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; mypersuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; thatthat brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; thatwhat does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting,half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams ofsuch a brain put into action and invested with a semi-substance. Thatthis brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement,that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material forcemust have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, havesufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as thedog,--had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailingresistance in my will."
"It killed your dog,--that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that noanimal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Bats andmice are never found in it."
"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to theirexistence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has aresisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend mytheory?"
"Yes, though imperfectly,--and I accept any crotchet (pardon theword), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghostsand hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunatehouse, the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?"
"I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internalfeelings that the small, unfurnished room at right angles to the doorof the bed-room which I occupied, forms a starting-point or receptaclefor the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you tohave the walls opened, the floor removed,--nay, the whole room pulleddown. I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, builtover the small backyard, and could be removed without injury to therest of the building."
"And you think, if I did that--"
"You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded thatI am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me todirect the operations."
"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest allow me towrite to you."
About ten days after I received a letter from Mr. J----, telling methat he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had foundthe two letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from which Ihad taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own;that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom Irightly conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-sixyears ago (a year before the date of the letters) she had married,against the wish of her relations, an American of very suspiciouscharacter; in fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate.She herself was the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and hadserved in the capacity of a nursery governess before her marriage. Shehad a brother, a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had onechild of about six years old. A month after the marriage the body ofthis brother was found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemedsome marks of violence about his throat, but they were not deemedsufficient to warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of"found drowned."
The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceasedbrother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his onlychild,--and in event of the child's death the sister inherited. Thechild died about six months afterwards,--it was supposed to have beenneglected and ill-treated. The neighbors deposed to have heard itshriek at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said thatit was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body wascovered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the childhad sought to escape; crept out into the backyard; tried to scale thewall; fallen back exhausted; and been found at morning on the stonesin a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, therewas none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought topalliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversityof the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may,at the orphan's death the aunt inherited her brother's fortune. Beforethe first wedded year was out, the American quitted England abruptly,and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which waslost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left inaffluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen her: a bankbroke; an investment failed; she went into a small business and becameinsolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower,from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,--never long retaining aplace, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged.She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways;still nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into theworkhouse, from which Mr. J---- had taken her, to be placed in chargeof the very house which she had rented as mistress in the first yearof her wedded life.
Mr. J---- added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnishedroom which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions ofdread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seenanything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floorsremoved as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, andwould commence any day I would name.
The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house,--wewent into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then thefloors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found atrap-door, quite large enough to admit a man. It was closely naileddown, with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we descendedinto a room below, the existence of which had never been suspected. Inthis room there had been a window and a flue, but they had beenbricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles weexamined this place; it still retained some moulderingfurniture,--three chairs, an oak settle, a table,--all of the fashionof about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against thewall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned articles of aman's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred yearsago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons,like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court sword; in awaistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which was nowblackened and foul with d
amp, we found five guineas, a few silvercoins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainmentlong since passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of ironsafe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much trouble toget picked.
In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on theshelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped.They contained colorless, volatile essences, of the nature of which Ishall only say that they were not poisons,--phosphor and ammoniaentered into some of them. There were also some very curious glasstubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump ofrock-crystal, and another of amber,--also a loadstone of great power.
In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, andretaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering thelength of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of