"Katie" used to say that nothing material about her could be made to last without taking away some of the medium's vitality, and weakening her in consequence. One evening, when she was cutting off pieces of her dress rather lavishly, I remarked that it would require a great deal of mending. She answered, "I'll show you how we mend dresses in the Spirit World." She then doubled up the front breadth of her garment a dozen times, and cut two or three round holes in it. I am sure when she let it fall again there must have been thirty or forty holes, and "Katie" said, "Isn't that a nice cullender?"
She then commenced, whilst we stood close to her, to shake her skirt gently about, and in a minute it was as perfect as before, without a hole to be seen. When we expressed our astonishment, she told me to take the scissors and cut off her hair. She had a profusion of ringlets falling to her waist that night. I obeyed religiously, hacking the hair wherever I could, whilst she kept on saying, "Cut more! cut more! not for yourself, you know, because you can't take it away."
So I cut off curl after curl, and as fast as they fell to the ground, the hair grew again upon her head. When I had finished, "Katie" asked me to examine her hair, to see if I could detect any place where I had used the scissors, and I did so without any effect. Neither was the severed hair to be found. It had vanished out of sight. "Katie" was photographed many times, by limelight, by Mr. Alfred Crookes, but her portraits are all too much like her medium to be of any value in establishing her claim to a separate identity. She had always stated she should not appear on this earth after the month of May, 1874; and accordingly, on the 21st, she assembled her friends to say "Good-bye" to them, and I was one of the number. "Katie" had asked Miss Cook to provide her with a large basket of flowers and ribbons, and she sat on the floor and made up a bouquet for each of her friends to keep in remembrance of her.
Mine, which consists of lilies of the valley and pink geranium, looks almost as fresh to-day, nearly seventeen years after, as it did when she gave it to me. It was accompanied by the following words, which "Katie" wrote on a sheet of paper in my presence:—
"From Annie Owen de Morgan (alias 'Katie') to her friend Florence Marryat Ross-Church. With love. Pensez à moi.
"May 21st, 1874."
The farewell scene was as pathetic as if we had been parting with a dear companion by death. "Katie" herself did not seem to know how to go. She returned again and again to have a last look, especially at Mr. Alfred Crookes, who was as attached to her as she was to him. Her prediction has been fulfilled, and from that day, Florence Cook never saw her again nor heard anything about her. Her place was shortly filled by another influence, who called herself "Marie," and who danced and sung in a truly professional style, and certainly as Miss Cook never either danced or sung. I should not have mentioned the appearance of this spirit, whom I only saw once or twice, excepting for the following reason. On one occasion Miss Cook (then Mrs. Corner) was giving a public séance at the rooms of the National British Association of Spiritualists, at which a certain Sir George Sitwell, a very young man, was present, and at which he declared that the medium cheated, and that the spirit "Marie" was herself, dressed up to deceive the audience. Letters appeared in the newspapers about it, and the whole press came down upon Spiritualists, and declared them all to be either knaves or fools. These notices were published on the morning of a day on which Miss Cook was engaged to give another public séance, at which I was present. She was naturally very much cut up about them. Her reputation was at stake; her honor had been called into question, and being a proud girl, she resented it bitterly. Her present audience was chiefly composed of friends; but, before commencing, she put it to us whether, whilst under such a stigma, she had better not sit at all. We, who had all tested her and believed in her, were unanimous in repudiating the vile charges brought against her, and in begging the séance should proceed. Florrie refused, however, to sit unless some one remained in the cabinet with her, and she chose me for the purpose. I was therefore tied to her securely with a stout rope, and we remained thus fastened together for the whole of the evening. Under which conditions "Marie" appeared, and sung and danced outside the cabinet, just as she had done to Sir George Sitwell whilst her medium remained tied to me. So much for men who decide a matter before they have sifted it to the bottom. Mrs. Elgie Corner has long since given up mediumship either private or public, and lives deep down in the heart of Wales, where the babble and scandal of the city affect her no longer. But she told me, only last year, that she would not pass through the suffering she had endured on account of Spiritualism again for all the good this world could give her.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF KATIE COOK.
In the matter of producing physical phenomena the Cooks are a most remarkable family, all three daughters being powerful media, and that without any solicitation on their part. The second one, Katie, is by no means the least powerful of the three, although she has sat more privately than her sister Florence, and not had the same scientific tests (I believe) applied to her. The first time I had an opportunity of testing Katie's mediumship was at the private rooms of Signor Rondi, in a circle of nine or ten friends. The apartment was small and sparsely furnished, being an artist's studio. The gas was kept burning, and before the sitting commenced the door was locked and strips of paper pasted over the opening inside. The cabinet was formed of a window curtain nailed across one corner of the room, behind which a chair was placed for the medium, who is a remarkably small and slight girl—much slighter than her sister Florence—with a thin face and delicate features. She was dressed, on this occasion, in a tight-fitting black gown and Hessian boots that buttoned half-way to her knee, and which, she informed me, she always wore when sitting (just as Miss Showers did), because they had each eighteen buttons, which took a long time to fasten and unfasten. The party sat in a semicircle, close outside the curtain, and the light was lowered, but not extinguished. There was no darkness, and no holding of hands. I mention these facts to show how very simple the preparations were. In a few minutes the curtain was lifted, and a form, clothed in white, who called herself "Lily," was presented to our view. She answered several questions relative to herself and the medium; and perceiving some doubt on the part of some of the sitters, she seated herself on my knee, I being nearest the curtain, and asked me to feel her body, and tell the others how differently she was made from the medium. I had already realized that she was much heavier than Katie Cook, as she felt like a heavy girl of nine or ten stone. I then passed my hand up and down her figure. She had full breasts and plump arms and legs, and could not have been mistaken by the most casual observers for Miss Cook. Whilst she sat on my knee, however, she desired my husband and Signor Rondi to go inside the curtain and feel that the medium was seated in her chair. When they did so, they found Katie was only half entranced. She thrust her feet out to view, and said, "I am not 'Lily;' feel my boots." My husband had, at the same moment, one hand on Miss Cook's knee, and the other stretched out to feel the figure seated on my lap. There remained no doubt in his mind of there being two bodies there at the same time. Presently "Lily" passed her hand over my dress, and remarked how nice and warm it was, and how she wished she had one on too. I asked her, "Are you cold?" and she said, "Wouldn't you be cold if you had nothing but this white thing on?" Half-jestingly, I took my fur cloak, which was on a sofa close by, and put it round her shoulders, and told her to wear it. "Lily" seemed delighted. She exclaimed, "Oh, how warm it is! May I take it away with me?" I said, "Yes, if you will bring it back before I go home. I have nothing else to wear, remember." She promised she would, and left my side. In another moment she called out, "Turn up the gas!" We did so. "Lily" was gone, and so was my large fur cloak! We searched the little room round for it. It had entirely disappeared. There was a locked cupboard in which Signor Rondi kept drawing materials. I insisted on its being opened, although he declared it had not been unlocked for weeks, and we found it full of dust and drawing blocks, but nothing else, so the light was again lowered, and the séance resumed. In a short time the heavy cloak was flung, apparently from the ceiling, evidently from somewhere higher than my head, and fell right over it.
I laid it again on the sofa, and thought no more about it until I returned home. I then found, to my astonishment, and considerably to my annoyance, that the fur of my cloak (which was a new one) was all coming out. My dress was covered with it, and from that day I was never able to wear the cloak again. "Lily" said she had de-materialized it, to take it away. Of the truth of that assertion I had no proof, but I am quite sure that she did not put it together again when she brought it back. An army of moths encamped in it could not have damaged it more, and I can vouch that until that evening the fur had been as perfect as when I purchased it.