Latendum est dum vivimus, ut feliciter vivamus.
In a preceding article I have given a sketch of the custom of administering love-philters.
The singular sympathies that forewarn a future union between the sexes have in some instances been most surprising. The following example, that came within my knowledge, is perhaps one of the most singular: Mr. ——, a brother officer of mine, was a man of taciturn and retired habits, seldom frequenting public places of amusement, and, when there, felt any thing but gratification. One evening after dinner he was, however, prevailed upon to go to a ball. We had not been long in the room when, to my utter surprise, he expressed great admiration of a young lady who was dancing, and, what still more amazed us all, he engaged her to dance. Such an act of apparent levity on his part struck us as a singularity which might have been attributed to an unusual indulgence at table, had not the contrary been the case, for he was remarkably abstemious. The dance was scarcely over when he came to me, and told me with a look of deep despondency, that his lovely partner was a married woman. The tone of sadness in which he addressed me was truly ludicrous. A few minutes after he left the ball-room. The strangeness of his conduct led me to fear that his mind was not altogether in a sound state; but I was confirmed in my apprehension when he told me the following morning that he was convinced he should be married to the object of his admiration, whose husband was a young and healthy clergyman in the neighbourhood. Here matters rested, and we both went abroad. We did not meet until three years after, when, to my utter surprise, I found that his prediction had been verified. The lady’s husband had died from a fall from his horse, and the parties were married. But what rendered this circumstance still more strange is, that a similar presentiment was experienced by the young lady herself who, on returning from the ball, mentioned to her sister with much emotion, that she had danced with a stranger, to whom she felt convinced that she was destined to be married. This conviction embittered every moment of her life, as, despite her most strenuous endeavours, she could not dismiss her partner from her constant thoughts, reluctantly yielding to the hope of seeing him again.
The sympathetic power of fascination is another unaccountable phenomenon. It is well known that in regions infested with venomous snakes, there are persons endowed both by nature and by art with the power of disarming the reptiles of their poisonous capacities. The ancient Cyrenaica was overrun with poisonous serpents, and the Psylli were a tribe gifted with this faculty. When Cato pursued Juba over the Cyrenaica desert, he took some of these Psylli with him to cure the poisoned wounds that these reptiles might have inflicted on his soldiers. Bruce informs us that all the blacks in the kingdom of Sennaar are perfectly armed by nature against the bite of either scorpion or viper. They take the cerastes, or horned serpent, (one of the most venomous of all the viper tribe,) in their hands at all times, put them in their bosoms, and throw them to one another, as children do apples or balls; during which sport the serpents are seldom irritated to bite, and, when they do bite, no mischief ensues from the wound. It is said that this power is derived from the practice of chewing certain plants in their infancy. This is most probably the fact; these substances may impregnate the body with some quality obnoxious to the reptile. The same traveller has given an account of several of these roots. In South America a similar practice prevails, and a curious memoir on the subject was drawn out by Don Pedro d’Orbies y Vargas, detailing various experiments. He informs us that the plant thus employed is the vejuco de guaco, hence denominated from its having been observed that the bird of that name also called the serpent-hawk, usually sucked the juice of this plant before his attacks upon poisonous serpents. Prepared by drinking a small portion of this juice, inoculating themselves with it by rubbing it upon punctures in the skin, Don Pedro himself, and all his domestics, were accustomed to venture into the fields, and fearlessly seize the most venomous of these serpents. Acrell, in the Amœnitates Academicæ, informs us that the senega possesses a similar power. The tantalus or ibis of Egypt, that derives its chief food from venomous animals, depends in a like manner on the protection of antidotes. This power of fascinating serpents is so great, that they remain totally torpid and inactive under its influence, and are not even able to offer any resistance when skinned from tail to head like an eel, and eaten alive. According to Bruce, they sicken the moment they are laid hold of, and are exhausted by this invincible power as though they had been struck by lightning or an electric battery, shutting their eyes the moment they are seized, and never attempting to turn their mouth towards the person that holds them. It has been asserted that the Hindoo jugglers render serpents innocuous by the extraction of their teeth, and although this may be the practice in some parts of India, it is not generally resorted to in other countries.
Dr. Mead and Smith Barton of Philadelphia endeavour to explain this power by the influence of terror. This supposition, however, is not correct, since the serpent will injure one man and not another, if the latter is gifted with this faculty and the former one is not. Major Gordon of South Carolina attributes the fascinating power of reptiles to a vapour which they exhale and shed around them; and he mentions a negro who, from a peculiar acuteness of smell, could discover a rattlesnake at two hundred feet distance. That certain odours are overpowering there is not the least doubt; and trout and other fresh-water fishes are charmed and caught without resistance when the hand is smeared with asafœtida, marjoram, and other aromas. The fishes, delighted no doubt with this odour, or intoxicated by its power, will actually flock towards the fingers, and allow themselves to be laid hold of.
Thieves and housebreakers have been known to possess the power of quieting watch-dogs, and keeping them silent during their depredations. Lindecrantz informs us that the Laplanders can instantly disarm the most furious dog, and oblige it to fly from them with every expression of terror. The strange faculty of taming the most unmanageable horses, possessed by an Irishman, hence called the Whisperer, is well known. Several horse-breakers have appeared at various periods possessing the same art, and they would make the wildest horse follow them as tamely as a dog, and lie down at their bidding. It has been affirmed that these whisperers introduce a globule of quicksilver, or some other substance, into the animal’s ears. It is, however, more probable that these charmers derive their power of fascination from some natural or artificial emanation. The most singular power of fascination is perhaps that exhibited by the jugglers of Egypt, who, by merely pressing the serpent called haje on the neck, stiffen the reptile to such a degree, that they can wave it like a wand.
To explain this sympathetic influence that living beings exercise on each other, as I have already observed, has long been the study of philosophers. Their chief theories may be divided into those of the advocates of pneumatism or spiritualism, who maintained that the nerves transmitted a subtle fluid susceptible of external transmission. Such were the disciples of Plato; and, amongst the moderns, the Arabian writers, Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Willis, Digby, Wirdig, and even Boerhave. The mechanicians formed another class, refusing to admit the doctrine of influences, and submitting all sympathetic phenomena to the laws of mechanism and chemistry. Amongst these we find the Cartesians, Boyle, Hoffmann, and Haller. Their doctrine had already been established amongst the ancients by Asclepiades. The third system was that of the organicians, who attributed these effects to our organization, governed by a principle of free agency. In this school are recorded the names of Hippocrates, Galen, Stahl, Bordeu, and many illustrious writers of various ages. An investigation of these discrepancies would be foreign to these sketches. I can only observe, that none of them are tenable, and have only tended to display scholastic learning and ingenuity, without any practical beneficial results. Indeed, the only advantages that might possibly accrue from these pursuits would be the shedding of some faint light upon our systems of early education, by finding out the most judicious method of counteracting innate dispositions and peculiar idiosyncrasies.
The life of man is a relative and external existence. He lives in communion with all around him, and before his ultimate dissolution he is doomed to die with every object of his affections that perishes before him. To these objects he has been united by the secret powers of sympathy. The organism of both appears to have been subject to mutual laws; and grief and joy, our pains and pleasures, are transmitted with the rapidity and power of the magnetic fluid. Nor time nor distance can affect these sympathies, which have been known to remain latent in our breasts till called into action by accidental circumstances. Thus, a man has never known how fondly he loved until he was suddenly deprived of the object of his sympathies, although until that moment this affection had been unknown even to himself. This circumstance clearly proves that these sympathies are not under the influence of our imagination. Although it is to this creative faculty that these reminiscences are attributed by Madame De Staël in the following exquisite words, “The creative talents of imagination, for some moments at least, satisfies all our desires and wishes,—it opens to us heavens of wealth; it offers to us crowns of glory; it raises before our eyes the pure and bright image of an ideal world: and so mighty sometimes is its power, that by it we hear in our hearts the very voice and accents of one whom we have loved.”
Sympathies might be denominated a moral contagion in mankind: in the brute creation they merely produce a physical impulse. Reid attributed to the nervous system an atmosphere of sensibility, influencing all that came within its range. Ernest Platner maintained that our soul could diffuse itself in mutual transmission; and in another paper I have shown that life may be prolonged by sacrificing the health of others, when the genial warmth of youth is surreptitiously communicated to decrepitude.
What is then this invisible vital fluid, this electric principle, that the touch, the breath, the warmth, the very aroma of those we are fond of, communicates, when trembling, fluttering, breathless, we approach them? that enables us, even when surrounded with darkness, to recognise by the feel the hand of her we love? Nay, whence arises the feeling of respect and veneration that we experience in the presence of the great and the pre-eminently good? It may be said this is the result of our education; we have been taught to consider these individuals as belonging to a superior class of mortals. To a certain extent this may be true; yet there does exist an impressive contagion when we are brought into the presence, or placed under the guidance, of such truly privileged persons. Their courage, their eloquence, their energies, their fanaticism, thrill every fibre, like the vibration of the chord under the skilful harpist’s hand. Actuated by this mystic influence the coward has boldly rushed into the battle, the timid dared imminent perils, and the humane been driven to deeds of blood. Fanatic contagion has produced both martyrs and heroes. Example stimulates and emulates, despite our reasoning faculties. Regis ad exemplar totus componitur orbis. Imitation is the principle of action, the nursery of good and great deeds. We either feel degraded by the ascendancy of others, when we fancy, however vainly, that we may attain their level; or devote ourselves to their cause and their service, when we tacitly recognize their mastery. It is more particularly in our devotion and in our love,—two sentiments more analogous than is generally believed,—that this mutuality of sympathies prevails; and when Galigai was asked by his judges by what means he had obtained his influence over Mary of Medicis, his reply was similar to that of the Moor when describing his course of love,—the witchcraft he had used to win his Desdemona, when with a greedy ear devouring his discourse.