THE HEART PLEADS FOR THE SOUL.
The most interesting feature, after all, of Margaret Fox’s career, was perhaps that sad and abortive romance of which Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the gallant Arctic explorer, was the hero. This history should be known to the reader in order that the exact aspect of Spiritualism to her developed conscience in after years may be understood.
Dr. Kane first saw Maggie Fox in the autumn of 1852, when she was staying with her mother at a hotel in Philadelphia, being then engaged in “spiritualistic manifestations.” Dr. Kane, whose heart had never before been touched, at once succumbed to the sweet charm of this erratic child, and conceived the romantic idea of removing her from the life she then was leading, educating her and marrying her. The project, when it became known, awakened the bitter hostility of his friends, and from this hostility, the unfortunate separation between them which it caused, and Dr. Kane’s untimely death, all of the sorrow that afterwards engulfed her life and deprived her of the ambition for a nobler career, directly sprang.
Margaret was but thirteen years old when Dr. Kane first saw her. A friendly hand[4] has thus traced her portrait:
“Her beauty was of that delicate kind which grows on the heart, rather than captivates the sense at a glance; she possessed in a high degree that retiring modesty which shuns rather than seeks admiration. The position in which she was placed imposed on her unusual reserve and self-control, and an ordinary observer might not have seen in her aught to make a sudden impression. But there was more than beauty in the charm about her discerned by the penetrating eyes of her new acquaintance. The winning grace of her modest demeanor, and the native refinement apparent in every look and movement, word and tone, were evidences of a nature enriched with all the qualities that dignify and adorn womanhood; of a soul far above her present calling, and those who surrounded her. To appreciate her real superiority, her age and the circumstances must be considered. She was yet a little child—untutored, except in the elements of instruction to be gained in country district schools, when it was discovered that she possessed a mysterious power,[5] for which no science or theory could account. This brought her at once into notoriety and gathered around her those who had a fancy for the supernatural, and who loved to excite the wonder of strangers. Most little girls would have been spoiled by that kind of attention. The endurance of it without having her head turned, argued rare delicacy, simplicity and firmness of character. After exhibitions given in different cities, to find herself an object of public attention, and of flattering notice from persons of distinction, would naturally please the vanity of a beautiful young girl; and it would not be surprising if a degree of self-conceit were engendered. But Margaret was not vain, and could not be made self-conceited. If she had any consciousness of her exquisite loveliness,—if it pleased her to possess pretty dresses and ornaments—her delight was that of a happy child taking pleasure in beautiful things, without reference to any effect they might enable her to produce. Perhaps no young girl ever lived more free from the least idea of coquetry or conquest. She heeded not the expressions of admiration that reached her ear so frequently. She had seen enough of the world at this time to be aware of the advantages of a superior education, and it was the most ardent wish of her heart to make herself a well-educated woman.”
Margaret showed a disposition to devote herself with great industry to the acquirement of knowledge. In fact, at her first meeting with Dr. Kane, he found her conning over a French exercise in an interval of the public receptions which were given by herself and her mother. Dr. Kane easily enlisted her thoughts in a better and higher career. The deception which was required of her already appeared in something of its true light to her young mind, and she was restless under its abhorrent shackles. Dr. Kane’s interest in her was certainly pure and elevated, and it led him to gloomy apprehensions of the fate of so fair, yet so misguided, a creature. He wrote in verse a prophecy that she would “live and die forlorn.” There have been many times when the latter part of this warning seemed most likely to come true; and that, doubtless, would have been her fate had she not found in a final renunciation of her past, a solace to her heart for the lack of that falsely won prosperity which had been hers during but brief intervals.
Dr. Kane was but an indifferent versifier; but some of the trifles in rhyme which he addressed to Margaret may well illustrate certain facts that I shall state at length hereafter. One day, he sent her “Thoughts that Ought to Be Those of Maggie Fox,” the first refrain of which is as follows:
“Dreary, dreary, dreary,
Passes life away,
Dreary, dreary, dreary,
The day
Glides on, and weary
Is my hypocrisy.”
At the close of the second stanza were these lines:
“Happy as the hopes
Which filled my trusting heart,
Before I knew a sinful wish
Or learned a sinful art.”
“So long this secret have I kept
I can’t forswear it now.
It festers in my bosom,
It cankers in my heart,
Thrice cursed is the slave fast chained
To a deceitful art!”
And last:
“Then the maiden knelt and prayed:
‘Father, my anguish see;
Oh, give me but one trusting hope
Whose heart will shelter me;
One trusting love to share my griefs,
To snatch me from a life forlorn;
That I may never, never, never,
Thus endlessly from night to morn,
Say that my life is dreary
With its hypocrisy!’”
Among the first words that Dr. Kane spoke to Margaret were these: “This is no life for you, my child.” As their reciprocal attraction grew stronger, he bent all of his deep influence over her in one direction, to effect once and for all her release from the fatal snare of deceit that fate had cast about her. Only a few weeks later we find him writing her a note from New York, in which he says:
“Look at the Herald of this morning. There is an account of a suicide which causes some excitement. Your sister’s[6] name is mentioned in the inquest of the coroner. Oh, how much I wish that you would quit this life of dreary sameness and unsuspected deceit. We live in this world only for the good and noble. How crushing it must be to occupy with them a position of ambiguous respect!”
Dr. Kane, a short time afterwards, described Maggie as follows:
“But it is that strange mixture of child and woman, of simplicity and cunning, of passionate impulse and extreme self-control, that has made you a curious study. Maggie, you are very pretty, very childlike, very deceitful, but to me as readable as my grandmother’s Bible.”
“And again he said: ‘When I think of you, dear darling, wasting your time and youth and conscience for a few paltry dollars, and think of the crowds who come nightly to hear of the wild stories of the frigid North, I sometimes feel that we are not so far removed after all. My brain and your body are each the sources of attraction, and I confess that there is not so much difference.’”
Never for an instant did the manly and robust intellect of Dr. Kane stoop to the level of even a partial belief in the pretended wonders of “Spiritualism.” The allusions made to it in his letters, when not grave or indignant, are full of a certain contemptuous playfulness, well calculated to reprove the conscious deceitfulness practised by the childish Maggie, while not offending the natural pride which was yet apart of her imperfectly formed character. When the doctor was in Boston, he wrote to her sister Katie:
“Well, now for talk. Boston is a funny place, and ‘the spirits’ have friends here. You would be surprised if I told you what I have heard. * * * There are some things that I have seen which I think would pain you. Maggie would only laugh at them; but with me it gave cause for sadness. I saw a young man with a fine forehead and expressive face, but a countenance deeply tinged with melancholy, seize the hand of this ‘medium,’ whose name—as I never tell other’s secrets—I cannot tell you. He begged her to answer a question which I could not hear. Instantly she rapped, and his face assumed a positive agony; the rapping continued; his pain increased; I leaned forward, feeling an utter detestation for the woman who could inflict such torment; but it was too late. A single rap came and he fell senseless in a fit. This I saw with my own eyes.
“Now, Katie, although you and Maggie have never gone so far as this, yet circumstances must occur where you have to lacerate the feelings of other people. I know that you have a tender heart; but practice in anything hardens us. You do things now which you would never have dreamed of doing years ago; and there will come a time when you will be worse than Leah; a hardened woman, gathering around you the victims of a delusion. * * * The older you grow the more difficult it will be to liberate yourself from this thing. And can you look forward to a life unblessed by the affections, unsoothed by the consciousness of doing right! * * * When your mother leaves this scene, can you and * * * Maggie be content to live that life of constant deceit?”
To Maggie, Dr. Kane wrote from the sincerest depths of his heart, recalling the first moment when he saw her, “a little Priestess, cunning in the mysteries of her temple, and weak in everything but the power with which she played her part. A sentiment almost of pity stole over his wordly heart as he saw through the disguise.”
And again: “Waddy[7] called on me to-day, as did Tallmadge;[8] I was kind to both for your sake. Waddy talked much about you. He said that he feared for you, and spoke long and well upon the dangers and temptations of your present life. I said little to him other than my convictions of your own and your sister’s excellent character and ‘pure simplicity;’ for thus, Mag, I always talk of you. And it pained me to find that others viewed your life as I did, and regarded you as occupying an ambiguous position. Depend upon it, Maggie, no right-minded gentleman—whether he be believer or sceptic—can regard your present life with approval. Let this, dear sweet, make you think over the offer of the one friend who would stretch out an arm to save you. Think wisely, dear darling, ere it be too late. * * *
“Maggie, you cannot tell the sadness that comes over me when I think of you. What will become of you? you, the one being that I regard even before myself! * * *
“If you really can make up your mind to abjure the spirits, to study and improve your mental and moral nature, it may be that a career of brightness will be open to you; and upon this chance, slender as it is, I offer, like a true friend, to guard and educate you. But, Mag, clouds, and darkness rest upon the execution of your good resolves; and I sometimes doubt whether you have the firmness of mind to carry them through.”
The author of “The Love-Life of Dr. Kane,” says of this period:
“Dr. Kane was very often in the habit of saying—as if with melancholy presentiment—‘What would become of you if I should die? What would you do? I shudder at the thought of my death, on your account.’
“In the buoyant confidence of youth, the poor girl could not then understand his fears. But he knew that in separating her from Spiritualism he was isolating her from all her friends and associates, and depriving her of the only means she possessed of earning a livelihood. In compensation for the sacrifices required of her, he was giving her a hope only; a hope that might be blissfully realized, but might be sadly disappointed; and in the event of losing him, what must be her destiny!”
Dr. Kane met with malignant opposition from Leah, Maggie’s elder sister, in his efforts to detach her from the damning career into which she had been thrown. The “shekels” were then pouring in in great abundance at the séances, and this explains sufficiently the hostile attitude of the one person who was chiefly responsible for the ruin of her young life. Thus the doctor wrote to Maggie in New York:
“Is the old house dreary to you? * * * Oh, Maggie, are you never tired of this weary, weary sameness of continual deceit? Are you thus to spend your days, doomed never to rise to better things?—you and that dear little open-minded sister Kate (for she, too, is still unversed in deception)—are you both to live on thus forever? You will never be happy if you do; for you are not, like Leah, able to exult and take pleasure in the simplicity of the poor, simple-hearted fools around you.
“Do, then, Maggie, keep to your last promise. Show this to Katie, and urge her to keep to her resolution.”[9]
By this time, Maggie had pledged herself to her lover to abandon the “rappings” altogether; but they were both very cautious lest this resolution should be known to her elder sister. Maggie appears to have yielded to the influences around her, in spite of her respect and regard for the doctor, and once or twice to have lapsed back into the ways that he dreaded and abhorred. We find him then, writing from New York to Washington:
“Don’t rap for Mrs. Pierce.[10] Remember your promise to me. * * *
“Begin again, dearest Maggie, and keep your word. No ‘rapping’ for Mrs. Pierce or ever more for any one. I, dear Mag, am your best, your truest, your only friend. What are they to my wishes? Oh, regard and love me, and listen to my words; and be very careful lest in an idle hour you lose my regard and your own respect.”
And later:
“All last night did this good friend of yours think about you and your probable future.
“I can see that this is one of the turning points of your life, and upon your own energy and decision now depend the success and happiness of your future career. Dear Maggie, think it over well and do not be turned aside from what is right by the sincere but still misguided advice of others. * * * But remember, Maggie, that all this will not last. * * * What will it be when, looking back upon * * * misspent and dreary years, you feel that there have been no acts really acceptable to your Maker, and that for the years ahead, all will be sorrow, sameness and disgust! * * *
“Why, you know that sometimes, even now, when Leah is cross, or the company coarse and vulgar, or the day tiresome, or yourself out of sorts, that low spirits and disgust come over you and you long like a bird to spread your wings and fly away from it all.”
Very soon afterwards, Dr. Kane wrote:
“At present, you have nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for. Your life is one constant round of idle excitement. Can your mother, who is an excellent woman, look upon you, a girl of thirteen, as doomed all your life to live surrounded by such as now surround you, deprived of all the blessings of home and love and even self-respect?”
Dr. Kane, looking upon Margaret as his future wife, was exceedingly anxious that the true explanation of the “rappings,” the fact that they were entirely fraudulent, should never be discovered. He hoped that Spiritualism would have but an ephemeral existence, and that when once it had died out, the public would so far forget the persons who originated it, that it would cease to associate with them the woman who would then bear his name. So he wrote in this vein to Maggie:
“You know I am nervous about the ‘rappings.’ I believe the only thing I ever was afraid of was this confounded thing being found out. I would not know it myself for ten thousand dollars.”
How both Margaret and Dr. Kane regarded the elder sister may be judged from this sentence, written by the latter at this time: “Be careful not to mention me before the Tigress.”
At last the object dearest to Dr. Kane’s heart seemed to be drawing near to its accomplishment. He says: “Your kind promise ‘solemnly never to rap again’ so pleases me, that I cannot help thanking you. Adhere to that, and you will be a dear, good, happy girl.” * * *
Maggie went to school at Crookville, near Chester, Pennsylvania, and was in charge of Dr. Kane’s aunt, Mrs. Leiper, who resided near the house where Maggie lodged. Just prior to this, Dr. Kane wrote as follows:
“Never do wrong any more; for if now ‘the spirits move’ it will be a breach of faith. From this moment, our compact begins.”
After Dr. Kane had reached the Arctic seas, I find this passage at the end of a long letter, full of solicitude and noble counsel about the education of his future wife: “One final wish—the only thing like restraint that your true friend can find it in his heart to utter: See little of Leah, and never sleep within her house.”
For a short time, on his return from his second Arctic voyage, Dr. Kane allowed himself to be swayed by interest and the vehement efforts of his relatives, so far as to require from Margaret a written declaration that they had never been engaged, and that she had no claim whatever upon his hand in matrimony. There was a quick reaction, however, and the old relations were renewed. One who wrote of these facts said: “Amid all his sorrow, one fear seemed to harass him perpetually—that Miss Fox might be induced to return to the professional life she had abandoned years ago for his sake. She was surrounded by spiritualists.” * * *
In his letters to her, Dr. Kane still harped upon the one anxiety that continually possessed him. He says: “Do avoid ‘spirits.’ I cannot bear to think of you as engaged in a course of wickedness and deception. * * * Pardon my saying so; but is it not deceit even to listen when others are deceived? * * * In childhood it was a mere indiscretion; but what will it be when hard age wears its wrinkles into you, and like Leah you grow old! Dear Maggie, I could cry to think of it. * * * A time will come when you will see the real ghost of memory—an awful specter!”
And again he wrote: “Maggie, I have but one thought, how to make you happier; how to withdraw you from deception; from a course of sin and future punishment, the dark shadow of which hung over you like the wing of a vampire.”
Then, as he claimed her more and more openly as his own, “he would not permit her,” says the writer already quoted, “even to witness any spiritual manifestations, nor to remain in the room when the subject was discussed. * * * ‘You never shall be brought in contact with such things again,’ he would say.”
The ending of this very sad tale of love, which throws a peculiar light athwart the colder theme of this volume, was bitterly tragic. A secret marriage under the common law was entered into, and Dr. Kane, whose health was shattered never to be mended, went first to Europe and then to Cuba to die. Margaret and her mother were to join him at Havana, but ere their departure from New York he was already a corpse.
And so, a noble and generous, if sometimes faltering heart, ceased to beat, and a gentle creature, who at last had learned to love as much as she had honored him, was on the shores of that deep sea of infamy against which, had he only lived, he would surely have shielded her.