Some of the things which the mesmerists, who go the length of clairvoyance, tell us, certainly have a very mysterious look; and were not sensation, thought, and all the manifestations of Life (not yet half investigated) all alike mysterious, we might be disposed to shut our eyes with the rest, and say we refused to believe, because we "did not understand."
But equally extraordinary relations to the same effect have been made by men who were neither mesmerists nor clairvoyantes. For instance, Kant, the German writer, relates that Swedenborg once, when living at Gottenburg, some three hundred miles from Stockholm, suddenly rose up and went out, when at the house of one Kostel, in the company of fifteen persons. After a few minutes he returned, pale and alarmed, and informed the party that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, in Sudermalm, and that the fire was spreading fast. He was restless, and went out often; he said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, "Thank God, the fire is extinguished the third door from my house." This statement of Swedenborg's spread through the town, and occasioned consternation and wonder. The governor heard of it, and sent for Swedenborg, who described the particulars of the fire—where and how it had begun, in what manner it had ceased, and how long it had continued. On the Monday evening, two days after the fire, a messenger arrived from Gottenburg, who had been dispatched during the time of the fire, and the intelligence he brought confirmed all that Swedenborg had said as to its commencement: and on the following morning the royal courier arrived at the governor's with full intelligence of the calamity, which did not differ in the least from the relation which Swedenborg had given immediately after the fire had ceased on the Saturday evening.
A circumstance has occurred while the writer was engaged in the preparation of this paper, which is of an equally curious character, to say the least of it. The lady who is the subject of it is a relation of the writer, and is no believer in the "Mysteries of Mesmerism." It may be remarked, however, that she is of a very sensitive and excitable nervous temperament. It happened, that on the night of the 30th of April, a frightful accident occurred on the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Railway, in consequence of first one train, and then another, running into the trains preceding. A frightful scene of tumult, mutilation, and death ensued. It happened that the husband of the lady in question was a passenger in the first train; though she did not know that he intended to go to the Chester races, having been in Liverpool that day on other business. But she had scarcely fallen asleep, ere, half-dozing, half-awake, she saw the accident occur—the terror, the alarm, and the death. She walked up and down her chamber in terror and alarm the whole night, and imparted her fears to others in the morning. Her husband was not injured, though greatly shaken by the collision, and much alarmed; and when he returned home in the course of the following day, he could scarcely believe his wife when she informed him of the circumstances which had been so mysteriously revealed to her in connection with his journey of the preceding day!
Zschokke, an estimable man, well known as a philosopher, statesman, and author, possessed, according to his own and contemporary accounts, the most extraordinary power of divination of the characters and lives of other men with whom he came in contact. He called it his "inward sight," and at first he was himself quite as much astonished at it as others were. Writing of this feature himself, he says: "It has happened to me, sometimes, on my first meeting with strangers, as I listened silently to their discourse, that their former life, with many trifling circumstances therewith connected, or frequently some particular scene in that life, has passed quite involuntarily, and, as it were, dream-like, yet perfectly distinct, before me. During this time, I usually feel so entirely absorbed in the contemplation of the stranger life, that at last I no longer see clearly the face of the unknown, wherein I undesignedly read, nor distinctly hear the voices of the speakers, which before served in some measure as a commentary to the text of their features. For a long time I held such visions as delusions of the fancy, and the more so as they showed me even the dress and motions of the actors, rooms, furniture, and other accessories. By way of jest, I once, in a family circle at Kirchberg, related the secret history of a seamstress who had just left the room and the house. I had never seen her before in my life; people were astonished and laughed, but were not to be persuaded that I did not previously know the relations of which I spoke, for what I had uttered was the literal truth; I, on my part, was no less astonished that my dream-pictures were confirmed by the reality. I became more attentive to the subject, and when propriety admitted it, I would relate to those whose life thus passed before me, the subject of my vision, that I might thereby obtain confirmation or refutation of it. It was invariably ratified, not without consideration on their part. I myself had less confidence than any one in this mental jugglery. So often as I revealed my visionary gifts to any new person, I regularly expected to hear the answer: 'It was not so.' I felt a secret shudder when my auditors replied that it was true, or when their astonishment betrayed my accuracy before they spoke."[12] Zschokke gives numerous instances of this extraordinary power of divination or waking clairvoyance, and mentions other persons whom he met, who possessed the same marvelous power.
The "Posthumous Memoirs of La Harpe" contain equally extraordinary revelations, looking forward, instead of backward, as in Zschokke's case, into the frightful events of the great French Revolution, the sightseer being Cazove, a well-known novel writer, who lived previous to the frightful outbreak. Mary Howitt, in her account of the extraordinary "Preaching Epidemic of Sweden," recites circumstances of the same kind, equally wonderful; and the Rev. Mr. Sandy and Mr. Townshend's books on mesmerism are full of similar marvels. Among the various statements, the grand point is, how much of them is true? What are the facts of mesmerism? To quote the great Bacon: "He who hath not first, and before all, intimately explained the movements of the human mind, and therein most accurately distinguished the course of knowledge and the seats of error, shall find all things masked, and, as it were, enchanted; and, until he undo the charm, shall be unable to interpret." How few of us have yet arrived at this enviable position.
CLARA CORSINI.—A TALE OF NAPLES.
A young French traveler, named Ernest Leroy, on arriving at Naples, found himself during the first few days quite confused by the multitude of his impressions. Now as it was in search of impressions that he had left his beloved Paris, there was nothing, it should seem, very grievous in this; and yet in the midst of his excitement there occurred intervals of intolerable weariness of spirit—moments when he looked upon the Strada Toledo with disgust, wished himself any where but in San Carlos, sneered at Posilippo, pooh-poohed Vesuvius, and was generally skeptical as to the superiority of the Bay over the Bosphorus, which he had not seen. All this came to pass because he had set out on the principle of traveling in a hurry, or, as he expressed it, making the most of his time. Every night before going to bed he made out and wrote down a programme of next day's duties—assigning so many hours to each sight, and so many minutes to each meal, but forgetting altogether to allow himself any opportunity for repose or digestion.
Thus he had come from Paris viâ Milan, Florence, and Rome, to Naples—the whole in the space of three weeks, during which, as will be easily imagined, he had visited an incredible number of churches, galleries, temples, and ruins of every description. In order to profit as much as possible by his travels he had arranged beforehand five or six series of ideas, or meditations as he called them: one on the assistance afforded by the fine arts to the progress of civilization, another consisting of a string of sublime commonplaces on the fall of empires and the moral value of monumental history; and so on. Each of these meditations he endeavored to recall on appropriate occasions; and he never had leisure to reflect, that for any instruction he was deriving from what he saw he might as well have stopped at home. However, having some imagination and talent, he frequently found himself carried away by thoughts born of the occasion, and so irresistibly, that once or twice he went through a whole gallery or church before he had done with the train of ideas suggested by some previous sight, and was only made aware that he had seen some unique painting or celebrated windows of stained-glass by the guide claiming payment for his trouble, and asking him to sign a testimonial doing justice to his civility and great store of valuable information. It is only just to state that M. Ernest never failed to comply with either of these demands.
When, however, as we have said, he had been two or three days in Naples, and had rushed over the ground generally traversed by tourists, our young traveler began to feel weary and disgusted. For some time he did not understand what was the matter, and upbraided himself with the lack of industry and decline of enthusiasm, which made him look forward with horror to the summons of Giacomo, his guide, to be up and doing. At length, however, during one sleepless night the truth flashed upon him, and in the morning, to his own surprise and delight, he mustered up courage to dismiss Giacomo with a handsome present, and to declare that that day at least he was resolved to see nothing.