FOOTNOTE:
[4] The Grand Lodge contemplates the enactment of laws looking to the providing for the families of members when sick, and to their burial when dead, which will be secured by the payment of additional fees from time to time. It also contemplates a system of life insurance of its members, who, by the payment of certain fees, may secure a certain sum to their families at death sufficient to maintain them in comfort, but not in luxury or idleness. The system will probably be one of graduated annuities.
“I made,” said Beverly to me one day, “my projected tour, and had returned much wiser than I went, but no nearer the consummation of my chief hope. I had begun the practice of medicine in the city of Boston, and occupied an office reputed to have been haunted by the troubled ghosts of sundry persons who were there attracted by some strange influence. I laughed at, and ridiculed the pretensions of scores of so called seers, who claimed to behold these flitting gentry.
“There came to my office one day—it was a very stormy day in the latter part of the winter of the year in the spring of which I was so neatly swindled—there came, I repeat, on a stormy day, when the snow fell thick and fast; when the fierce wind blew, and the Frost-king was busily engaged in putting icy manacles upon all that he could reach—a lady to consult me upon a case of scrofula in her child. At that time my reputation in that specialty was great and constantly increasing; for I had but a few months before introduced and practised the method of treating that order of diseases, taught me in Constantinople by the famous negro sage of that metropolis. I prepared the materials required, and stood waiting for her to leave the office, as I was anxious to continue the perusal of some Hieratic manuscripts lent me that day by a lettered friend in Dedham. She made no movement indicative of leaving; but instead, challenged me to a discussion of some spiritual subject or other, which challenge I, from an innate horror of all strong-minded male-feminines, respectfully declined. She called herself my friend, and was, if sticking to one is a title to the name. She possessed all the qualities of the best adhesive plaster—it was impossible to get rid of her presence. She declared that she constantly saw, and held conversations with the dead, and she would then and there give a proof of her qualifications in that direction; whereupon she was instantly seized with an exceedingly violent trembling, accompanied with any amount of spasmodic jerks and twitchings. I had witnessed such things before, and consequently did not feel alarmed at Mrs. Graham’s condition, but going into the rear office I procured a chair and sat down to wait for demonstrations; which, when they came, were but so many pretty word-paintings—commonplace counsel and advice addressed to me by what purported to be my mother—which latter, however, appeared to have forgotten her name, my own, and when and where she departed this life. I was perfectly certain that it was not my mother, and equally so that Mrs. Graham was not consciously acting the part of an impostor, and I accounted for the phenomenon on the Rosicrucian theory, then quite new to me, that she was obsessed, or possessed, by and with a distinct individuality entirely foreign to her own. To my mind the thing was certain that she, like scores of thousands of others are, was for the time being under the absolute control and dominion of a Will a myriad times stronger than that of any living human being that ever tenanted a body on this terraqueous globe of ours—beings perfectly intelligent, powerful, invisible, and totally conscienceless, wherein is a great difference from human beings.
“The lady came around in a few minutes, and I frankly stated my opinion to her. It was new and startling. ‘Not human spirits—yet intelligent? An intelligent thing—and guileful? It is dreadful! Horrible! What, then, is that Thing? Angels? No! Devils? If so, whence come they? Why? For what end?’
“These were terrible questions; and we talked about the matter, the lady and I, as we sat in the back office, near the fire, for it was very cold; and she sat leaning on the desk near the window, and I sat near the door between the offices, my back nearly touching it. The outer door, which opened on the stair-landing, was closed, and a wire was so attached to it that it could not be opened, or even the latch be raised, without touching a spring that instantly rung a bell that was suspended directly over my head in the rear office. I used this rear office as a reading-room and laboratory, and I frequently became so absorbed in my reading or chemistry, that nothing less than the ringing of that bell would suffice to divert my attention.
“And there and thus we sat and talked for more than three long hours. The strong-minded woman’s soul had at last really been aroused; while I once more brought to the surface my Rosicrucian lore. In thought and speech we traversed a score of conjectural worlds and labyrinths of Being; until, at last: ‘Are there, really, any intelligent, but viewless beings, other than man, in all the broad universe—I mean other than man as he is here, and disembodied likewise?—that’s the question,’ said the lady by the desk.
“ ‘Of course there are! MYRIADS!’ said a clear, manly voice in the room, right straight from the centre of the triangle formed by the desk, the door and the southern wall of the office! It was not the lady who thus replied to her own question! It was not I who spoke; nor, strange as it afterwards appeared, did the circumstance strike me as being at all out of the common. And, therefore, without an instant’s hesitation, I rejoined to the observation of the speaker, whom I subsequently remember to have observed was a thin, strange-looking, scrawny, shrivelled little old man, with the queerest possible little sharp grey eyes. He looked half frozen, and acted so, for he advanced toward some shelves and proceeded very leisurely to warm his hands over my laboratory furnace, between the door and wall. The lady appeared no more surprised than myself at the inexplicable presence of this singular intruder.
“ ‘I am not so sure of that,’ I replied, in answer to the words uttered by the strange old man—‘I am not so sure that there are such beings in existence.’
“ ‘Then you’re a greater fool than I took you for! Good evening!’ And he moved slightly toward the door, against which my chair firmly stood.
“ ‘Don’t go yet, for I want you to explain,’ said the lady. ‘Don’t you think he ought to?’ turning to me with a very peculiar earnestness expressed in her countenance, especially in her eyes—very peculiar eyes at all times, but lit up in the most extraordinary manner at that moment. ‘I think he ought to prove his statement, and not leave us in this state of uncertainty. It is positively cruel!’ And, as she spoke, her eye met mine, and fastened it as if the encountering glances were riveted together.
“There must be some magic in the soul that is only flashed forth on very rare occasions, else why did her glance so fix my gaze for ten seconds that I could not stir? At the end of that space of time the fascination ended, and, raising my eyes, I answered—
“ ‘Certainly! he ought to explain; and, of course,’ said I, turning toward the man—‘of course, you will explain yourself, and——’
“There was no man there! Not even a sign that he had been. He had disappeared, gone, utterly vanished—not through the window, for that was a clear fall of seventy feet to the ground, besides which it had been securely nailed down for over four months—not through the door, for my chair and back were against it!
“Mrs. Graham fainted, and fell prone upon the floor!
“I lived in Charlestown, and reached home rather early that evening. Not that I was frightened. Oh, no! but because home seemed cheerier than the office; for the weather was bitterly cold, and the storm-spirits were holding high, tempestuous revels in the common and the bay; and, ever and anon, as the shivering pedestrian jogged along, and turned the sharp corners of what is literally and emphatically, and in more senses than one, the most angular city in the world, the blast would meet him square in the face, side-ways, and all around him in the same blessed moment of time, no matter which way he headed; for a Boston snow-storm blows every way at once—here it is due north, around the corner it is south-east, behind you it is north-west; over the way it blows straight up, and in the middle of the street it blows straight down.
“It was hard work travelling the four miles to my home that night, for every step had to be wearily footed. True, there were street cars, but no man in Boston ever remembers one going the right way when most it was wanted; but everybody can find scores coming, when everybody is bent upon going.
“Well, after a perilous walk, I at last reached home, and gladly sat down to my comfortable supper of toast and tea in my snug little parlor—the same little parlor where I wrote my book and received the loan of money to publish it, which money I was afterwards deprived of by the financial acumen of as great a scoundrel as ever went loose upon the world.
“Oh, how it stormed outside! and oh, how warm and cosy was the little snug harbor into which I had just moored myself!
“It was the second cup of tea—orange pekoe it was, for I had bought it of a Chinaman in Boston, who knew all about tea—and the second slice of toast that I was discussing, along with my daily paper, when suddenly there came a loud, imperative double knock at the door, similar to that of an English postman when in a hurry to deliver his letters. The door was immediately opened by a servant, who thought some one had been taken suddenly ill, and that I had been sent for professionally. But what was my astonishment when in stalked, with as much ease and nonchalance as if he belonged there, no less a personage than the mysterious little old man of the afternoon. I was thunderstruck. It was the same person who had treated me so rudely, and who had first come and then gone again so unaccountably, and who had induced an illness in Mrs. Graham that resulted in causing her to forever abandon her mediumatic practices—the same that has sent so many scores of people to premature graves, and will send thousands more. The strange man advanced toward the fire, and exclaimed—
“ ‘What a fright I caused you and your guest this afternoon! Ha! ha! It was capital—was it not?’
“And again he laughed, but this time in a manner and with a voice which, had it not been for the immense physical disparity apparent, I could have sworn was that of the Italian Count in Paris. But this supposition was hardly possible. The man before me was so decidedly human, that, by a rapid and comprehensive induction, I concluded that Mrs. Graham and myself had been victimized for sport by one who was perfect master of the mesmeric art. This hypothesis was quite plausible, only I could not account for the non-ringing of the office bell; and the idea seemed at that time quite preposterous that any one could successfully magnetize the clapper of a bell into silence. I learned more afterwards. Neither did it seem quite reasonable that this man had, before entering the office at all, exerted his power upon our sense of hearing, rendering us deaf.
“To his remark I replied, rather sententiously, with ‘Very!’ and said no more, for I did not fancy his joke, if such it was, nor his brusquerie, nor his decided lack of good manners, nor his rude speech; in fact, I did not fancy the man at all, nor anything about him. Not that he was hated or despised, but because there was a something about him that made my very flesh creep again, and caused me to instinctively shrink from his contact.
“It is well known that one of the cardinal points of the Rosicrucian belief is that bodily life can be prolonged through whole ages in two different ways; first, by means of the Elixir of Life; secondly, by means of mere will alone. In the first case beauty and youth accompany age; but in the second, age is apparent all along the centuries. This latter secret and the processes were revealed by a degenerate Rosicrucian in 1605; and all students of medicine are aware that great capital was made of it in later times by a French physician named Asgill. This writer undertook to publicly demonstrate and teach the art of life-prolonging, laying it down positively, that man is literally immortal, or rather that any given man alive could, if he choose, utterly laugh at and defy death; that he need not, if so disposed, ever die, if he used sufficient prudence, and forcibly and constantly exerted his will in that direction. Asgill used to complain of the cowardly practice of dying, considering it a mere trick, and unnecessary habit. The records tell us that several men have used both these means to perpetuate existence, and I have not the slightest doubt that it has been attempted and proved measurably successful; and now, on this stormy night, as I gazed on the withered wreck before me, it struck me that he was one of those wretches who had attained indefinite length of years by the second method, and, as a necessary consequence, had lost all fire, all feeling, all love, and all conscience. I shuddered as the possibility flashed upon me. He saw the motion, and a smile of ineffable scorn curled his lip as he did so. I abandoned my notion.
“People who observe things as they plod their way through the world, and who have at all made the human soul a study, have often been made aware that there is a certain nameless something that comes over a man, that with resistless eloquence persuades his inner soul that some danger approaches, some peril besets, some disaster impends over him. There are times, when calm reigns all around him, and peace blossoms in his heart, that he suddenly is apprised that Calamity is flapping her way toward him through the terrible nebulous gloom of the Future. Many a man and woman has felt this; and some such feeling, some such horror-form, now seemed hovering, cowering, crawling near me, and preparing to seize upon and fang my very soul, in the presence of the queer little man at my side. It was a mixed feeling of guilt and dread, and yet no guilt was mine. I had not cheated, robbed, lied, to my best friend. I had not fared sumptuously every day on the proceeds of villainy; my wife and daughters did not dress in purple and fine linen, bought with the money wronged from a poor man, or any man at all. I had not a fine piano, and parlors full of guests enjoying funds thus gotten; nor had I driven fast and fine horses of my own, fed and fattened on the money of a man whose child was at that very moment struggling, gasping, choking in the clutches of grim death for want of bread and medicine. True, there were those who did all this—and the corpse of a pretty little girl attests it—but I did not; why then should I be afraid? There is no answer to that, and yet I was in dread.
“After saying ‘Very!’ I spoke no more, but striving to repress the horror creeping over me, I tried to look as indignant as possible, which he was not slow to observe; for he approached, slapped me familiarly on the back, poured out and drank a cup of tea and ate a rusk, which settled the question as to his being no ghost; then he dropped carelessly into my easy-chair, rubbed his little perked-up nose with his thin, little, bluish-pale fingers, and throwing himself forward, so as to look right up into my face, he laughed heartily, and then bawled out, rather than sung, at the top of his voice:
And then he again burst out into one of the wildest, most outré, and ridiculous laughs that ever fell on mortal hearing.
“The wretched doggerel that I had just heard was beneath my notice; and little did I know of the singer, and still less did I imagine that those lines were to me the most important I had ever heard.
“Gradually, and by imperceptible degrees, my prejudices began to wane; I conversed with him upon a variety of subjects, and the conference was maintained during four long hours, perhaps more; for if my memory serves me, it was nearly eleven o’clock when he arose from his seat, shook me cordially by the hand, said he was going, promised to call again ‘when he wanted to serve me,’ and then, opening the doors, passed out into the midst of one of the most fierce and vindictive tempests that ever desolated the shores of Boston Bay. A singular thing was this: in the depth of winter, this man, who refused steadily to speak concerning himself, was clad in the very thinnest summer raiment, not having enough even for a northern June, much less for such fearful weather as prevailed on the night of that 4th of February—a night when the glass in Boston told of cold twenty degrees below zero, and in New Hampshire nineteen lower still—a night so bitter that many and many a man went to eternity, borne thither on the frosty pinions of the Ice-king.
“ ‘After all it is a man, and mesmerism furnishes a key to all this seeming mystery,’ thought I; and with this consoling supposition I went to bed, and there reproduced all that he had said or done. Now, although little was said in regard to himself, yet, from that little, I gathered that he was an Armenian by birth, that his name was Miakus, which is the ancient Chaldaic for Priest of Fire. He told me this as he bent down to kiss a sweet little prattling Cora, and said that he was very fond of children, and felt particularly so toward the little fairy, who, seated in her chair, was busily engaged in laying down the law to a culprit kitten, who, it appeared, had been guilty of leze majeste to her Christmas doll. After the child had been sent to bed, Miakus produced from his bosom a little square, flat case, apparently of rose or olive wood, and about seven inches across by two and a half deep.[5] It was locked, and the key, a silver one, hung by a golden clasp to an ordinary steel watch-chain round his neck. The little man laid this case upon the bureau, where it lay undisturbed, although it became clear to me that his business there was in some way associated with that box and myself. It was equally clear that his air was more than half assumed, and that, in spite of his nonchalance and brusque surface, great trouble reigned beneath; for, occasionally, as he spoke, there was a melancholy cadence and plaintive modulation in his tones, that, to practised ears, spoke, if not of a breaking heart, at least of one most deeply injured and bereaved. This circumstance affected me much, for, through life, I have been one who grieved with those in grief, and joyed with those in joy. Then, after a little, he told me that one of his objects was to initiate me into certain mysteries of white magic, to teach me how to construct the magic mirror in which the majority of persons could glance through space, see and talk with the dead, and in all things, save a few, have an unerring guide through life. Said he—‘I have such a curious looking-glass in yonder box, and perhaps—and perhaps not—you may test its qualities before I leave you. The fact is, I feel down-hearted, have been so all day, and all the more because I hurt your amour propré by calling you a fool, which, of course, I do not apologize for. It struck me that I would take advantage of the weather to chat with you, without infringing upon your business, and that, possibly, you might learn something and I find relief in teaching you, and thus withdraw us both for a time from the great Failure’—by which he meant the world. ‘I am weary of myself, the world, philosophers and philosophy. There’s nothing good but magic! You have been a fool while striving to be wise; and are ambitious to know what you have hitherto merely imagined.’
“He rose, took the case, laid it on the table between us, and, while playing with the key, continued—‘If you really desire to pierce through the gloom that palls the human senses, you must abandon all human loves and passions, most especially all that relates to woman; for woman’s love destroys—in the very moment of man’s victory over her, she triumphs—he yields his life, and offers up existence itself on her altars, and then she laughs! Is it not so? Does not every man’s experience corroborate this? Strong as iron alone, no sooner does he reach the goal of love than he is lost in a sea of weakness, lethargy, deadness! Bah! avoid woman. You want high knowledge, and must pay high prices. God gives nothing—he sells all; and he who would have must purchase, and the price is suffering. So with love. Its life is bought with the coin of death. Woman is like the ivy vine mantling round some hoary tower, and the more you are ruined the closer she clings, and the closer she clings the more you are ruined! Listen. No one acts without a motive. I have one with regard to yourself, and it is a selfish one. It so happens that the possessor of the magic mirror can in it behold all other horoscopes but his own, beyond a certain point; and, if he would know it, he must consult other seers. Now, there are certain beings in existence whose future cannot be read except by certain persons specially constituted. You are one of the latter, I am one of the former; and such as we only meet at the beginning and the end of epochs and eras. The present is one of these. I will present you with the mirror when you have done me this favor; I will teach you the art of their construction; and I will give you a verbatim copy of the answers you shall make to the questions I shall ask you while gazing in its awful depths. To this I pledge a word that never yet was broken, and an oath that never will be. For this purpose I have followed you for years, patiently waiting for the hour that dawns at last. To successfully do the thing I ask, two things are essential. 1st, That, in a perfectly pure state of body, health, mind, intent, and morals, you gaze into the glass. 2d, That, while doing so, you make no resistance against certain sleepful influences that may assail you, which influences will not be mesmeric, nor assisted by myself in any way, but is the sacred slumber of Sialam Boaghiee, which can only be enjoyed once in a hundred years, and then only by persons who are singularly constituted as you are—whose veins are filled with the mingled blood of all the nations that sprung from the loins of the Edenic protoplast, the Biblical Adam, and who, temperamentally, and in all other respects, save sex, are perfectly neutral. Certain great advantages will accrue to you from this concession that are unattainable without. From this slumber you will awaken doubly; first, to the old life without; and, second, to another and a fuller though stranger life within, and to the power of comprehending innumerable mysteries that lie enshrouded in dim regions far beyond the ken of ordinary man. Dreamer! you shall comprehend your dreams. Rosicrucian! you shall comprehend the Light, the Tower, and the Flame, and where Artefius and Zimati failed you shall find success! It is difficult, if not impossible, to either over-rate the advantages to be derived by the possession of the power I allude to, or to define and characterize it in words, mainly for the reason that, although the idea stands out well marked and distinct before the mind, yet the language which you speak has no terms of symbols adequate to its naming or expression; for, at best, words are coarse raiment for thought, and no more show the beauty of what they cover, than the preposterous costumes of Christendom display the superlative glories of the human form. The soul that sleeps this slumber passes through a gate which even the privileged dead cannot enter, save once in a century, and then only by reason of neutrality, for positive people are to be counted by the billion on either side the grave, negative people outnumber them ten million to one, while neutrals are, like cold heat, very rare indeed. I trust we shall yet assist each other.’
“Now, I had, two hours before, on seeing him eat and drink, hastily abandoned my ghostly hypothesis regarding the little queer old man. But now, as he talked so strangely, and so grandly indicated the Door of the Dome of all possible human knowledge and attainment, the mystery that wrapped him changed its character, but enveloped him in a ten-fold gloom and shadow, that continually grew more thick and dense, so much so, indeed, that, but for his eating, and the fact that several persons in the house beside myself had seen and exchanged speech with and touched him, I certainly should have doubted the evidence of my senses, and set the whole thing down, from the scene in the office till his departure, to the account of a disturbed imagination. There was a something unearthly about his voice and manner; and once, when he turned his chair, the upper part of his right thigh came in direct contact with the red-hot stove, and I watched it there until the chair was ruined by the fire, and the smoke of its varnish and seat fairly filled the room, and yet he was not burned, but coolly rose and opened the door for the smoke to escape, and then resumed his seat as if nothing whatever had happened; and, two or three times in the course of the evening, I not only felt a chilly atmosphere proceed from him, but distinctly saw his skeleton beneath his thin, parchment-like skin, as if but the thinnest integument had been loosely thrown over it to hide its naked deformity by some mouldy tenant of the grave, doomed to expiate its offences by again walking the earth with embodied human beings. Could it be that I had struck the truth, and that this mysterious Miakus was in reality such a vampire as we read of in German story?”
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Both the incidents of the magic mirror are actual, literal facts, as is also its curious construction and effects as herein related. I have witnessed many astonishing experiments with mirrors constructed as was that treated of in the text. I have seen several exactly similar—one in Zagazik, Lower Egypt, in the hands of a Hindoo magician, two in Cairo, one in Thebes, two in Constantinople, and one in London. In the East, owing to the scarcity of the peculiar material wherewith the space between the glasses is filled, they cost enormous prices, and then can only be had by a Christian through favor. In this country, or England, they might cheaply be made. I have one in my possession that I would not part with for three thousand dollars, so wonderful, so astonishing are the effects witnessed in and through it.—Editor.
“Marvelling,” said Beverly, continuing his wonderful story—“Marvelling on the strange events of the day and night, as said before, I retired to my chamber, but not to rest, for ere the morning dawned upon the world again, there came to me an experience that in some respects totally changed the current and character of my life. These incidents are already recorded in my narrative concerning ‘Cynthia and Thotmor,’ long since given to the world.[6]
“On the morning following this eventful night, I repaired to the office of a reputed to be Philosophic tooth-doctor, whose brain is a far more curious museum than the one near his office. With him I conversed awhile, and by him was introduced to a real thinker, whose name, I think, was Blood. After smoking a segar—and each other—in his laboratory, I repaired to Nichols’, the chemist, made a few purchases, and forthwith went to my office.
“Now, it so happened that sometime previously I had purchased a chemical apparatus, conducting my experiments secretly, and mainly after twelve at night—for the purpose of repeating La Brière’s great experiment for the removal of the poisonous and igneous properties of Phosphorus without decreasing its revivifying and medicinal qualities. I had experimented untiringly for five months, at a cost almost ruinous to me, but still with an invincible conviction that I should succeed, and give my secret to the world, instead of perishing like the poor Frenchman, who burst an artery from excitement at his success, having made about eleven ounces that fulfilled his entire expectations. Part of his process only survived him, and many a man, like myself, had attempted to fathom the secret and gain the enormous fortune that must result from complete success, but hitherto in vain.
“The experiment was a most important one. Churchill had produced his hypophosphites, and they had lamentably failed of the intention; hence, in working at this mine, I had avoided his and others’ formulæ. Success, I felt, would not only benefit my own private practice, but would be of incalculable service to the medical profession, and still more to that large class of persons who by over mental exertion, severe intellectual and sedentary occupations, and by passional and other imprudent excesses, had deprived themselves of the wine of life, by draining themselves of nervous force; and become spiritless, semi-insane, gloomy, and despondent. Such a discovery I knew would place in the hands of the profession a true, positive, but perfectly harmless aphrodision nervous stimulant, invigorant and tonic. It was, therefore, worth all the time, trouble, and expense I devoted to it, for it would be one of the best things medical science had yet given to the world.
“It had long been demonstrated: 1st. That Phosphorus abounded in the bones, nerves, and tissues of the human body, but especially in the human brain. 2d. That Phosphorus was invariably present in large quantities in the brains of healthy men who had been killed, and analysis thereafter made; and invariably as the brain thus analyzed was that of an intellectual, fine-strung, high-toned, ambitious, executive, or spiritual person, just in proportion was the volume of phosphorus found in their remains; while the low, the ignorant, coarse and brutal had comparatively little phosphorus in them. 3d. It had been proved that in the administration of phosphorus to old people; to the class of patients who seek private advice; to those exhausted by mental labor or excess, it invariably acted as a revivifier, and seemed not only to restore health, strength, and fire to the body, but to rejuvenate and tone up the mind to its pristine strength, power, and activity; while insanity, idiotcy, brain-softening, and causeless terror, disappeared in the ratio of its exhibition, for one half of the diseases of civilization result from the waste of phosphorus from the system, and for thirty years medical chemistry had sought to so prepare the article that it would at once assimilate with the tissues and fluids. It had not succeeded. True, La Brière had, but then his secret was dead. I resolved to restore it; and after a hundred failures, produced what he had named Phymyle.
“I tried its effects upon myself; then several physicians on themselves; and finally, it was tried upon patients at their own request, and the result left not a nail to hang a doubt on, that I was perfectly justified in crying ‘Eureka!’ This preface is essential to the understanding of what follows.
“Now, it so happened that a few days before I saw Mrs. Graham, that I had placed about four pounds of phosphorus, together with about five times that weight of other materials, in a strong glass vessel, in a sand-bath, ready for the production of, perhaps, one quart of the precious medicine; and the first thing I did on entering my office from the dentist’s, was to light the gas beneath it. For a few minutes I stood watching the rich and beautiful scarlet and purple vapor as it rose and curled through the neck of the retort, and the long glass pipes leading to the condensing apparatus.
“While thus intently engaged, I was suddenly startled by the exclamations, ‘Careless fool! Look out! Run!’ Mechanically I obeyed, leaped into the outer office, and had scarcely done so, than there occurred a loud explosion. The retort had burst into a million fragments, shattering the windows and apparatus into fine pieces, and scattering some pounds of ignited phosphorus upon the floor. Here was trouble. But not to the speaker—for, quick as light, he tore the carpet off the office floor, and hurled it, phosphorus and all, into the snow-drifts in the yard below, which soon melted under the intense blaze of that almost quenchless fire, until, having consumed itself, nothing but a white smoke was left to tell the danger I and the house had been in.
“The fire out, and my fright subsided, I turned to see who it was that had so opportunely saved me, and found the little old man smiling and smirking before me.
“ ‘What! is it you, then?’ I asked, at the same time cordially extending my hand toward him.
“ ‘I rather think it is!’ said he, grasping it, ‘and very lucky for you it was that I chanced to happen along
said and sung the Enigma, continuing: ‘You are not an overwise chemist, my dear doctor, else you would never expect, either that Phosphorus gas could reach the condenser, with the stop-cock shut, or that a glass retort, already cracked, would long resist the immense pressure of the accumulating and continually heating vapor. I see you have turned Hermetist and Alchemist—Rosicrucian like! and that you are determined to blow yourself up, or else
and the little old man clapped his hands and danced about the room in the most exuberant glee.
“ ‘But, my friend,’ said he, ‘as constant trying means eventual success, I have not the slightest doubt but that you will yet become a very rich man, as well as a long-lived one; for, to tell you the truth, you have come nearer this morning to compounding the Elixir of Life—that very Elixir for which Philosophers have toiled during thousands of years, in vain—than any man that ever lived. For instance: had you placed a less quantity of phosphorus in the retort; more of the first and third, and less of the second, fourth, and fifth ingredients, with a slower heat, and the addition of two ounces of ——, and ——, and one of ——,’ mentioning the articles, ‘you would have, indeed, made the water of perpetual youth and health—that wonderful chemic which purifies the juices, removes obstructions, clarifies the fluids, and renders man physically invulnerable to miasmas and disease—to all things destructive to life, except, of course, material injury. What d’ye think of that? Ha! ha!’ and again he burst out in a roaring squeak:
“It has been the habit of the wiseacres of this world to deride the idea that it is possible to make gold; to laugh in face of the notorious fact that nature is constantly making it, and that, too, of gasses in the earth, as all things else, save souls, are made. It has been fashionable to laugh at the idea of compounding a material capable of freeing the system of all its gross and clogging impurities—the only friction to the wheels of life; a mixture which would exhilarate, purify, strengthen, and supply to the body the chemical and dynamic forces of which it is constantly being robbed. But these wise people will have done laughing by-and-by; not by any means must it be thought that I, for a moment, entertained the silly notion of the alchemists and false Rosicrucians—of finding a material which when brought into contact with metals would change them into gold. We of this century are too knowing for that; nor that I hoped to discover, from the application of the old man’s suggestions, that wonderful fluid alluded to awhile since; but I did believe it possible that I could compound a draught that when quaffed would repair the waste of nature, and believed until that moment, that in Phymyle I had found it. What, then, was my astonishment when the weird old man whispered in my ear that I stood upon the brink of the grandest success conceivable, that the grand Secret of secrets was all but in my grasp? To describe my sensations at that moment is impossible, and the more so because the old man told me the whole process and constituents.
“What cared I even if it was necessary for me to go to Jerusalem, and gather the precious seeds of a fruit that grows upon its walls, wherewith to prepare the water? In other years I did go, and the treasured seeds are mine.... In that awful moment of success I blessed the old man and internally vowed that in return I would read his horoscope, and sleep the sleep of Sialam; for was not the desire of my soul gratified? Why then should I not return the favor?
“Such, in that tumultuous moment, were my thoughts. Soon I became calmer, and then, ‘How came the old man to know the materials that were being used?’ ‘Perhaps he saw the fumes, and thus knew them!’ But how of the contents of the condensing-chest through which the vapor was forced for the purpose of nullifying its injurious qualities? for no living human being had seen me compound or place them there. How came he to know the purpose for which this compound was being brewed? How had he become aware of the dream, the hope of my soul, the fixed purpose of my life during long and wearisome years?
“All these queries served but to envelop their subject in a deeper robe of mystery; and while they were passing he stood at my side gazing curiously at the now white vapor, as it writhed and curled upward, and out upon the air, through the broken panes.
“It was very, very singular!
“In a little while the wreck was cleared; the old man left me, promising to call again that day, and I went out to order new apparatus, some glazing, another carpet, and to visit a number of patients; after which I returned. It was about three o’clock, and I had not been long in before Miakus, true to his word, came also.”
FOOTNOTE:
[6] See the book called “Dealings with the Dead,” second series.
“ ‘Let me give you a piece of advice,’ said Miakus, ‘for you need it. First, never intrust any secret to a friend, which, if revealed, would bring trouble or disgrace. Never interfere in a brawl or quarrel, no matter who is right or who wrong; but always let the world do its own fighting, while you stand by to avail yourself of any advantage that chance may disclose; and lastly, keep what you know until there shall be a market for it. Now we will test our magic glass,’ and forthwith we went into the rear office, which by that time had been refitted, so far as glass and carpet were concerned.
“In his hands he bore the rose-wood box, which he laid upon the table, while, by the aid of four gimlets, he fixed a silken screen, or curtain, entirely across the room, having previously closed the shutters to exclude every ray of daylight from the apartment.
“ ‘That,’ said he ‘is a magic screen. You have seen a magic-lantern exhibition. Well, this is to be a similar one, without the lantern. I now open this box, as you see, and take from it this mirror, which is, as you observe, merely two plates of French glass, with strips of wood around their edges to keep them half an inch apart, and so that a fluid poured between them shall not escape. Nothing depends for success upon either the box, the curtain, or the glasses, but all depends upon the peculiar fluid between them, which is, as you perceive, of a dark brown color, but at a distance, quite inky to the eye.
“ ‘I now hang this mirror by this hook, to the ring sewed to the upper central edge of the screen. Then closing and locking both the doors, thus, I place these two chairs for you and I to sit upon. Then I take this reflector and place it near the gas jet in such a manner as to throw a strong light—a perfectly circular and brilliant disk upon the very centre of the glass tablet, thus,—and he suited his actions to his words; after which we took our seats before the curtain, and I observed that the liquid between the glasses was of such a nature as to reflect a sort of semi-opalescent hue.
“ ‘Before proceeding to demonstrate the truth of Hamlet’s remark to Horatio,’ said the experimenter at my side, ‘I find it essential to give you a why and wherefore. Know, then, that not only is there a mysterious and powerful sympathy between man’s body and all things outside of it, but it is still more true that a greater one exists between these outside things and his soul within, as is proved by the astonishing power over it exerted by various substances, most of which, especially the last eight, ought to be banished from the earth and be accursed for ever—for instance, Belladonna, Cantharadin, Beng, Opium, Hasheesh, Dewammeskh, Hyndee, Tartooroh, Hab-zafereen, Mah-rubah, Gunjah, and many other vegetable preparations that might be named, and every one of which will not merely affect the body, but the tremendous mystery that lies concealed within it. They expand the soul, but they also damn it! Let us ascend from gross matter to the volatile—Light, for instance. By concave mirrors we can throw an image in open space that shall be seen by thousands. We chain a shadow, and whoever has a photograph possesses one such prisoner. We make a few passes over a glass of water, and charge it thus with any specific quality we choose, nauseous or pleasant, and it produces corresponding effects upon the patient who takes it. Here you have mind and matter united by an act of mere volition. But we go still farther: for we select materials, and with them render the water still more highly sensitive. We then charge it with our souls, to such an extent that it shall comatize a man’s body, and illuminate his soul to the sublimest degree of clairvoyance. Still higher: it is possible to compound a liquid that shall seize on, and for a time retain, by its subtle power, any mental image thrown upon it. Still higher: there are direct and positive affinities and co-relations between every thing and person on this earth and off it. By certain knowledge, certain persons are able to select those things that possess certain affinities to and for the inhabitants of the upper worlds, and the dwellers in the Spaces. Now that glass disk before you contains such a liquid, thus compounded—’
“Here he gave me the most minute explanations of the process of constructing such curious mirrors, and how to charge them with a liquid which I at once saw must of necessity be electrical, magnetic, highly odyllic and ethereal. Then he told me how to charge it differently for different uses—as a toy, a means of medical diagnosis, for the purpose of interpreting dreams, seeing earthly things, discovering lost treasures, reading the past or the future, and for many other purposes, as no one mirror would serve more than one end, or work in more than a single direction, unless specially constructed for such general use, which would render them too costly.
“ ‘Properly prepared,’ he continued, ‘your mirror becomes so amazingly sensitive as to not only receive and retain images of things too subtle for solar light, but to bring out and render them visible. Nor is this all. There is light within light, atmosphere within atmosphere, and intelligent beings who dwell within them, and who can commune with man only through such mirrors, upon which they can photograph the information they wish to convey, either by scenes depicted therein, or by words projected thereon. Now, observe. Thoughts are things—they are real, substantial actualities, if not actual matter. They are things that have shadows, shape, form, outline, bulk. Some are flat, others are sharp, cutting, pointed, and go on boring their way through the world from age to age. Others are solid, round, bulky, and stagger when they strike you or impinge upon the world. Thoughts live, die, and grow. Now, attend. Gaze steadily and firmly; desire to see something, no matter what.’
“I smiled incredulously, and observed that one could see one’s face in any bit of glass.
“ ‘True,’ replied he, ‘but you have never seen your soul; and this bauble will show you that. It will reveal events already past, that are now occurring, or that will transpire in the future, on the earth or off it.’
“Much doubting what he said, I told him that, just then, the sceptical mood was on me, and my belief must be forced. He well knew the singular constitution of my mind, and that, in spite of much contrary seeming, I was one of the most obdurate sceptics concerning the supernatural that ever lived. To most of those who have known me, or read what I have written in past years, it may appear strange that I, who have been the accepted champion of all things spectral, should now make such a seeming confession. But human nature is a very strange compound! My heart, my loves, desires, and emotional nature were all on the side of the ghostly, and eagerly grasped and nursed the occult and weird; and when these reigned in my soul I bravely defended the spiritual theory against all comers. I rose to sublime heights of inspiration and speculation, and being thereby rendered morbidly sensitive to affectional influences, readily yielded to the specious social sophistry of the hour, and, for a while, pursued a course from which, had not reason been utterly blinded, I would have shrunk with ineffable horror; but, being surrounded by scores of thousands similarly deluded, it was impossible for a while to break through the accursed meshes of this devil’s net into the clear, cool light of truth beyond.
“This was one side of the life-web I was weaving. But there came moments wherein enthusiasm was exchanged for something like sober-mindedness; and then intellect rejected most of what heart had drank in, and challenged the conclusions of my own and others’ in regard to the Phantom-Philosophy. People cried, ‘Inconsistent!’ ‘Variable!’ mistaking honesty for whim—and just as if anything or person was ever consistent!
“In the present séance, logic held the reigns of mind, and I laughed, which Miakus observing, said: ‘Laugh on, laugh on; but you must be careful or the laugh will be against you. Truth is a dainty and a jealous dame, and never relishes practical jokes at her expense. But, look! the mirror begins to operate.’ And, instantly bending down, he veiled his face in both his hands, and remained thus for perhaps a minute, when he spoke, saying, ‘What see you in the glass?’
“ ‘Nothing,’ I replied, ‘but the images of ourselves.’
“ ‘Have patience! Look again! Try!’
“A short silence then followed, when—
“ ‘Do you see anything yet?’
“ ‘Yes; but nothing extraordinary. Only a clear spot—an atmospheric-looking aperture in the centre of the glass. Yes! now there comes a change—faint, misty, dusky shadows flit across; but nothing positive or distinct.’
“ ‘Is that all?’
“ ‘It is.’
“ ‘Look again.’
“ ‘Clearly and distinctly I see the fore-quarters of a large greyish-white dog. It grows! Now it is complete! The image stands out, bold and clear, from the mirror!’
“So perfect was this appearance, that I could not realize that it was a phantasm. The thing was impossible. It looked like the reflection of a dog in a looking-glass, and I actually turned my head, not to look for the dog, but for the picture of one upon the wall, that might have caused the image in the mirror. There was no such picture. The old man enjoyed my surprise, and muttered—
“ ‘Nothing supernatural, ha? Remember that idiots, bigots, and fools only dispute the existence of that which others do, but they do not understand. True, many pin their faith in a hereafter upon the curious phenomena attributed to disembodied souls, but they err in so doing. The demonstration can never be afforded through any process of either phenomena or intellection. Of that, be assured. Immortality can never be thought; it must be felt. Your philosopher cannot possibly grasp the idea, because it is not an idea at all. It is a reality, and comes to man never through the intellect, but ever and always through other channels of the spirit—comes over roads that begin on earth and terminate directly at the foot of God’s throne. Thus, when storms fall on the philosophic soul it shrinks and plays the coward. Not so the truly intuitional man. He feels, and, feeling, sees God through the gloom; and that, to him, is an insurance against loss or annihilation. He rides triumphant over circumstances that bar themselves effectually against all philosophers. Even when the shadow rests heaviest on the sky of life, such a soul beholds God enthroned in auroral splendor everywhere; he catches the sound of his voice from every echoing hill and dell, and it speaks to him of life everlasting, and its tones carry a thrilling demonstration of an hereafter that all the spiritualism of the earth could never impart.’
“Now while I looked upon the mirror I silently marvelled whether it were possible, through that glass, to solve the grand secret of the ages, and the old man’s speech could not possibly have been more apropos than it was. But in a moment afterward I felt indignant at having beheld such a figure, when he had promised I should see my soul, and told him so. ‘Let not that offend you,’ he replied, ‘that figure is not spectral, it is correspondential. What is the type of enduring fidelity, perfect trust and confidence, unbounded love and faith, if its symbol be not a dog? Such is the quality of your soul, nor is it very bad.’
“There now came a broad clean space on the glass, and the whole of it became clear and pellucid as the finest crystal; and in its very centre appeared a tiny, but very brilliant speck of white light, and its lustre increased till it became painful to gaze upon it. Gradually this expanded, and there came a space in its middle clearer than the brightest noon-day, into which I gazed with rapture, for the intense light faded away into a sort of hazy-vapor surrounding this spot.
“ ‘Into such, and through such do I wish you to look for me. But not now. The time is not propitious. That which you behold is the lense of a mystical telescope, wherewith you may scan and sweep the fields where revolve a myriad worlds like this, and of other millions whereof man is yet profoundly ignorant. Through it you can and may witness not only the worlds of which I speak, but also their tenants and all that they are doing.’
“ ‘What! Do you mean to tell me that through that telescope, as you call it, a living man can behold all that is going on in Mars and Jupiter?’
“ ‘Aye!’ said he, ‘and half a million planets, suns and systems more. It will reveal the fate or fortune of any one, alive or dead. But to the proof.’ As he spoke, it seemed that a sort of tube of light extended itself toward my eyes, and through it I beheld, as in a diorama, each and all of the terrible and painful scenes of what I believe to be my most recent life on the earth. I beheld all my few joys and successes, and all the countless agonies of body and soul, by which they had been girdled. Men met the phantom of myself, with smiles upon their faces, and seemed to speak in honied phrases, to make themselves believed, and then these shadows stabbed at the listener and he fell, but did not seem to die, for a grisly phantom ever hovered over him, but from pity forbore to strike.
“The scene changed. It appeared to be a rural village—the date, in fiery figures on the corner of the field, was 1852. It was a barber’s shop, and a light, happy-hearted youth was therein pursuing his avocation, and earning bread and health. This youth was apparently gifted to look beyond the veil, and into the dim regions of the dead; and it seemed that this was known, for presently people flocked about him, and the scene closed.
“Again the magic picture presented this man as in public life; cliques made use of him, flattered his vanity, and he was led into errors of conduct and judgment, but none so great as manifested by others around him; but, on the instant that this man discovered his error, and announced it, ten thousand daggers were levelled at his heart, ten thousand tongues defamed him—and for what? Because he had been true to his knowledge, his conscience and his God. He fell beneath the strokes of those who had sworn themselves his friends and the friends of all mankind. See him now with his heart bowed down.
“It shifts; and lo! the man appears again. Consumed by the fires of hatred, envy, ingratitude and venom of his former friends, he has risen again. ‘Je renais de mes cendres,’ was the motto on the banner that he floated to the breeze. He changed his mode of life. One of those who were the very first to take him from his labor, and bring him before the world, still clung to him, declared that even death should never alienate him (for the pantomime was as readable as speech), and the deceiver was believed.
“Again the phantorama changed. The barber-orator had reached to competence—had gained much gold, a deal of philosophy, and but very little wisdom with it all, for he still believed the speech of people; measured men and women by the standard of his own heart, and believed that honest say was honest mean. He had forgotten that, after all, this is but a baby world, and still went on in the same old way, trusting and suffering.
“He had one to provide for—a female relative—in whom his heart was bound, but this was not reciprocal. The relation was that of religious duty on his side, and self-interest on hers. Still the man nobly struggled for her—so it seemed—and the picture faded, but another came. His ‘friend’ by fraud obtained all the man had, and then, with malignant purpose, defamed the female to his dupe, having first reduced the man to beggary. All this, working on the barber, nearly upset his reason, and the victim raged in his agony, and the financier laughed at him, and fed sumptuously, daily; and, having previously obtained by double fraud, a signature to the effect that robbery was a legal loan, gloated over the misery he had caused, and denounced the victim himself had made. Once more the picture flew on, years had gone by, the despised man—despised because his skin was darker than his destroyer’s—had risen into eminence and fame.
“It changed again. Disgrace, poverty, the prison and the halter had avenged him.
“ ‘The way of the world!’ said Miakus, ‘but recollect that