The Sunday after we reached home (having seen no friends in the meanwhile), we walked into Steinway Hall to hear Mr. Fletcher's lecture. At its conclusion he passed as usual into a state of trance, and described what he saw before him. In the midst of mentioning people, places, and incidents unknown to us, he suddenly exclaimed: "Now I see a very strange thing, totally unlike anything I have ever seen before, and I hardly know how to describe it. A man comes before me—a foreigner—and in a dress belonging to some monastic order, a brown robe of coarse cloth or flannel, with a rope round his waist and beads hanging, and bare feet and a shaved head. He is dragging a picture on to the platform, a very large painting in a frame, and it looks to me like a portrait of himself, kneeling on a carpet of burning wood. No! I am wrong. The man tells me the picture is not a portrait of himself, but of the founder of his Order, and it is in the possession of some people in this hall to-night. The man tells me to tell these people that it was his spirit that influenced them to buy this painting at some place over the water, and he did so in order that they might keep it in remembrance of what they have done for him. And he desires that they shall hang that picture in some room where they may see it every day, that they may never forget the help which spirits on this earth may render by their prayers to spirits that have passed away. And he offers them through me his heartfelt thanks for the assistance given him, and he says the day is not far off when he shall pray for himself and for them, that their kindness may return into their own bosoms."
The oil painting reached England in safety some weeks afterwards, and was hung over the mantel-piece in our dining-room, where it remained, a familiar object to all our personal acquaintances.
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF MISS SHOWERS.
Some time before I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Showers, I heard, through friends living in the west of England, of the mysterious and marvellous powers possessed by a young lady of their acquaintance, who was followed by voices in the air, which held conversations with her, and the owners of which were said to have made themselves visible. I listened with curiosity, the more so, as my informants utterly disbelieved in Spiritualism, and thought the phenomena were due to trickery. At the same time I conceived a great desire to see the girl of sixteen, who, for no gain or apparent object of her own, was so clever as to mystify everyone around her; and when she and her mother came to London, I was amongst the first to beg for an introduction, and I shall never forget the experiences I had with her. She was the first private medium through whom my personal friends returned to converse with me; and no one but a Spiritualist can appreciate the blessing of spiritual communications through a source that is above the breath of suspicion. I have already written at length about Miss Showers in "The story of John Powles." She was a child, compared to myself, whose life had hardly commenced when mine was virtually over, and neither she, nor any member of her family, had ever had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with even the names of my former friends. Yet (as I have related) John Powles made Miss Showers his especial mouthpiece, and my daughter "Florence" (then a little child) also appeared through her, though at long intervals, and rather timidly. Her own controls, however, or cabinet spirits (as they call them in America)—i.e., such spirits as are always about the medium, and help the strangers to appear—"Peter," "Florence," "Lenore," and "Sally," were very familiar with me, and afforded me such facilities of testing their medium as do not often fall to the lot of inquirers. Indeed, at one time, they always requested that I should be present at their séances, so that I considered myself to be highly favored. And I may mention here that Miss Showers and I were so much en rapport that her manifestations were always much stronger in my presence. We could not sit next each other at an ordinary tea or supper table, when we had no thought of, or desire to hold a séance, without manifestations occurring in the full light. A hand, that did not belong to either of us, would make itself apparent under the table-cloth between us—a hand with power to grasp ours—or our feet would be squeezed or kicked beneath the table, or fingers would suddenly appear, and whisk the food off our plates. Some of their jests were inconvenient. I have had the whole contents of a tumbler, which I was raising to my lips, emptied over my dress. It was generally known that our powers were sympathetic, and at last "Peter" gave me leave, or, rather, ordered me to sit in the cabinet with "Rosie," whilst the manifestations went on outside. He used to say he didn't care for me any more than if I had been "a spirit myself." One evening "Peter" called me into the cabinet (which was simply a large box cupboard at one end of the dining-room) before the séance began, and told me to sit down at the medium's feet and "be a good girl and keep quiet." Miss Showers was in a low chair, and I sat with my arms resting on her lap. She did not become entranced, and we talked the whole time together. Presently, without any warning, two figures stood beside us. I could not have said where they came from. I neither saw them rise from the floor nor descend from the ceiling. There was no beginning to their appearance. In a moment they were simply there—"Peter" and "Florence" (not my child, but Miss Showers' control of the same names).
"Peter" sent "Florence" out to the audience, where we heard her speaking to them and their remarks upon her (there being only a thin curtain hung before the entrance of the cabinet), but he stayed with us himself. We could not see him distinctly in the dim light, but we could distinctly hear and feel him. He changed our ornaments and ribbons, and pulled the hair-pins out of our hair, and made comments on what was going on outside. After a while "Florence" returned to get more power, and both spirits spoke to and touched us at the same time. During the whole of this séance my arms rested on Miss Showers' lap, and she was awake and talking to me about the spirits.
One evening, at a sitting at Mr. Luxmore's house in Hyde Park Square, the spirit "Florence" had been walking amongst the audience in the lighted front drawing-room for a considerable time—even sitting at the piano and accompanying herself whilst she sung us a song in what she called "the planetary language." She greatly resembled her medium on that occasion, and several persons present remarked that she did so. I suppose the inferred doubt annoyed her, for before she finally left us she asked for a light, and a small oil lamp was brought to her which she placed in my hand, telling me to follow her and look at her medium, which I accordingly did. "Florence" led the way into the back drawing-room, where I found Miss Showers reposing in an arm-chair. The first sight of her terrified me. For the purpose of making any change in her dress as difficult as possible, she wore a high, tight-fitting black velvet frock, fastened at the back, and high Hessian boots, with innumerable buttons. But she now appeared to be shrunk to half her usual size, and the dress hung loosely on her figure. Her arms had disappeared, but putting my hands up the dress sleeves, I found them diminished to the size of those of a little child—the fingers reaching only to where the elbows had been. The same miracle had happened to her feet, which only occupied half her boots. She looked in fact like the mummy of a girl of four or six years old. The spirit told me to feel her face. The forehead was dry, rough, and burning hot, but from the chin water was dropping freely on to the bosom of her dress. "Florence" said to me, "I wanted you to see her, because I know you are brave enough to tell people what you have seen."
There was a marked difference in the personality of the two influences "Florence" and "Lenore," although both at times resembled Miss Showers, and sometimes more than others. "Florence" was taller than her medium, and a very beautiful woman. "Lenore" was much shorter and smaller, and not so pretty, but more vivacious and pert. By the invitation of Mrs. Macdougal Gregory, I attended several séances with Miss Showers at her residence in Green Street, when these spirits appeared. "Lenore" was fond of saying that she wouldn't or couldn't come out unless I held her hand, or put my arm round her waist. To tell the truth, I didn't care for the distinction, for this influence was very peculiar in some things, and to me she always appeared "uncanny," and to leave an unpleasant feeling behind her. She was seldom completely formed, and would hold up a foot which felt like wet clay, and had no toes to it, or not the proper quantity. On occasions, too, there was a charnel-house smell about her, as if she had been buried a few weeks and dug up again, an odor which I have never smelt from any materialized spirit before or after. One evening at Mrs. Gregory's, when "Lenore" had insisted upon walking round the circle supported by my arm, I nearly fainted from the smell. It resembled nothing but that of a putrid corpse, and when she returned to the cabinet, I was compelled to leave the room and retch from the nausea it had caused me. It was on this occasion that the sitters called "Lenore" so many times back into the circle, that all the power was gone, and she was in danger of melting away before their eyes. Still they entreated her to remain with them a little longer. At last she grew impatient, and complained to me of their unreasonableness. She was then raised from the floor—actually floating just outside the curtain—and she asked me to put my hands up her skirts and convince myself that she was half-dematerialized. I did as she told me, and felt that she had no legs, although she had been walking round the room a few minutes before. I could feel nothing but the trunk of a body, which was completely lifted off the ground. Her voice, too, had grown faint and her face indistinct, and in another moment she had totally disappeared.
One evening at Mrs. Gregory's, after the séance was concluded, "Florence" looked round the curtain and called to me to come inside of it. I did so and found myself in total darkness. I said, "What's the good of my coming here? I can't see anything." "Florence" took me by one hand, and answered, "I will lead you! Don't be afraid." Then some one else grasped my other hand, and "Peter's" voice said, "We've got you safe. We want you to feel the medium." The two figures led me between them to the sofa on which Miss Showers was lying. They passed my hand all over her head and body. I felt, as before, her hands and feet shrunk to half their usual size, but her heart appeared to have become proportionately increased. When my hand was placed upon it, it was leaping up and down violently, and felt like a rabbit or some other live animal bounding in her bosom. Her brain was burning as before, but her extremities were icy cold. There was no doubt at all of the abnormal condition into which the medium had been thrown, in order to produce these strong physical manifestations which were borrowed, for the time being, from her life, and could never (so they informed me) put the whole of what they borrowed back again. This seems to account for the invariable deterioration of health and strength that follows physical manifestations in both sexes. These were the grounds alone on which they explained to me the fact that, on several occasions, when the materialized spirit has been violently seized and held apart from the medium, it has been found to have become, or been changed into the medium, and always with injury to the latter—as in the case of Florence Cook being seized by Mr. Volckman and Sir George Sitwell. Mr. Volckman concluded because when he seized the spirit "Katie King," he found he was holding Florence Cook, that the latter must have impersonated the former; yet I shall tell you in its proper place how I have sat in the same room with "Katie King," whilst Miss Cook lay in a trance between us. The medium nearly lost her life on the occasion alluded to, from the sudden disturbance of the mysterious link that bound her to the spirit. I have had it from the lips of the Countess of Caithness, who was one of the sitters, and stayed with Miss Cook till she was better, that she was in convulsions the whole night after, and that it was some time before they believed she would recover. If a medium could simulate a materialized spirit, it is hardly likely that she would (or could) simulate convulsions with a medical man standing by her bedside. "You see," said Miss Showers' "Florence," whilst pointing out to me the decreased size of her medium under trance, "that 'Rosie' is half her usual size and weight. I have borrowed the other half from her, which, combined with contributions from the sitters, goes to make up the body in which I shew myself to you. If you seize and hold me tight, you are holding her, i.e., half of her, and you increase the action of the vital half to such a degree that, if the two halves did not reunite, you would kill her. You see that I can detach certain particles from her organism for my own use, and when I dematerialize, I restore these particles to her, and she becomes once more her normal size. You only hurry the reunion by violently detaining me, so as to injure her. But you might drive her mad, or kill her in the attempt, because the particles of brain, or body, might become injured by such a violent collision. If you believe I can take them from her (as you see I do) in order to render my invisible body visible to you, why can't you believe I can make them fly together again on the approach of danger. And granted the one power, I see no difficulty in acknowledging the other."