He renewed his interviews daily as long as the quadroon girl lived. Skeptical, cautious, and meditative, he must test all these phenomena over and over again. And he did test them. He established conditions. He made records on the spot. He removed all possibilities of collusion and deception. And still the same phenomena!
Nor were they confined to the imperfect wonders of clairvoyance and prophecy. Once in the broad daylight, when he was alone with the invalid girl in her hut, and no other human being within a distance of a quarter of a mile, she was lifted horizontally before his eyes into the air, and kept there swaying about at least a third of a minute, while the drapery of her dress clung to her person as if held by an invisible hand.[[5]]
A bandore—a stringed musical instrument the name of which has been converted by the negroes into banjo—hung on a nail in the wall. One moonlight evening, when no third person was present, this African lute was detached by some invisible force and carried by it through the room from one end to the other! It would touch Peek on the head, then float away through the air, visible to sight, and sending forth from its chords, smitten by no mortal fingers, delectable strains. The same invisible power would tune the instrument, tightening the strings and trying them with a delicate skill; and then it would hang the banjo on its nail.
After this improvised concert, Peek felt all at once a warm living hand upon his forehead, first lovingly patting it and then passing round his cheek, under his chin, and up on the other side of his face. He grasped the hand, and it returned his pressure. It was a hand much larger than Corinna’s, and she lay on her back several feet from him, too far to touch him with any part of her person. Plainly in the moonlight he could see it,—a perfect hand, resembling his mother’s! It shaded off into vacuity above the wrist, and, even while he held it solid and flesh-like, melted all at once, like an impalpable ether, in his grasp.[[6]]
These phenomena, with continual variations, were repeated day after day and night after night. Flowers would drop from the ceiling into his hands, delicious odors of fruits would diffuse themselves through the room. A music like that of the Swiss bell-ringers would break upon the silence, continuing for a minute or more. A pen would start up from the table and write an intelligible sentence. A castanet would be played on and dashed about furiously, as if by some invisible Bacchante. A clatter, as of the hammering of a hundred carpenters, would suddenly make itself heard. A voice would speak intelligible sentences, sometimes using a tin trumpet for the purpose. Articles of furniture would pass about the room and cross each other with a swiftness and precision that no mortal could imitate. The noise of dancers, using their feet, and keeping time, would be heard on the floor.
Once Corinna asked him to leave his watch with her. He did so. When he was several rods from the house she called to him, “You are sure you haven’t your watch?” “Yes, sure,” replied Peek. He hurried home, a distance of two miles, without meeting a human being. On undressing to go to bed, he found his watch in his vest pocket.
These physical thaumaturgies produced upon Peek a more astounding effect than all the evidences of mind-reading and clairvoyance. In the communications made to him by the “power,” there was generally something unsatisfying or incomplete. He would, for instance, think of some departed friend,—a white man, perhaps,—and, without uttering or writing a word, would desire some manifestation from that friend. Immediately Corinna would strip from her arm the drapery, and show on her skin, written in clear crimson letters, some brief message signed by the right name. And then the supposed bearer of that name (speaking through Corinna) would correctly recall incidents of his acquaintance with Peek.[[7]]
Thus much was amazing and satisfactory; but when Peek analyzed it all in thought, he found that no sufficient proof of identification had been given. A “power,” able to probe his own mind, might get from it all that was spoken relative to the individual claiming identity; might even know how to imitate that individual’s handwriting. Peek concluded that one must be himself in a spiritual state in order to identify a spirit. The so-called “communications” he found, for the most part, monotonous. They were, some of them, above Corinna’s capacity, but not above his own. Erroneous answers were not unfrequently given, especially in reply to questions upon matters of worldly concern. He was repeatedly told of places where he could find silver and gold, and never truly.
He concluded that to surrender one’s faith implicitly to the word of a spirit out of the flesh, either on moral or on secular questions, was about as unwise as it would be to give one’s self up to the control of a spirit in the flesh,—a mere mortal like himself. He was satisfied by his experience that it was not in the power of spirits to impair his own freedom of will and independence of thought, so long as he exercised them manfully. And this assurance was to his mind not only a guaranty of his own spiritual relationship, but it pointed to a supreme, omniscient Spirit, the gracious Father of all. If the words that came through Corinna had proved, in every instance, infallible, what would Peek have become but a passive, unreasoning recipient, as sluggish in thought as Corinna herself!
We have said that the “communications” were generally on a level with Peek’s own mind. There was once an exception. Said a very learned spirit (learned, as to him it seemed) one night, speaking through Corinna:—