"My Dear Will,--I am quite satisfied with your decision respecting Bob. By all means, send him to the school you are thinking of. He will get on better there. His education requires more pushing than it gets at present. Thanks for all you have done for him. G.o.d bless you.--Your affectionate cousin, R. Tasker."
I do not pretend to give the exact words of this letter; for though they were afterwards published, I have not a copy by me. But the gist of the experiment does not lie in the exact.i.tude of the words. When I saw the slate, I looked at Mr. Lee in astonishment.
"Who is it for?" I asked.
"It is all right," he replied; "it is for me. It is from my cousin, who left his boy in my charge. _My real name is William Tasker._"
Now, I had never heard it hinted before that Edgar Lee was only a _nom de plume_, and the announcement came on me as a genuine surprise. So satisfied was Mr. William Tasker Edgar Lee with his experimental _seance_, that he had the slate photographed and reproduced in the _St.
Stephen"s Review_, with an account of the whole proceedings, which were sufficient to make any one stop for a moment in the midst of the world"s hara.s.sing duties and think.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF ARTHUR COLMAN.
Arthur Colman was so intimate a friend of Mr. Eglinton"s, and so much a.s.sociated with him in my thoughts in the days when I first knew them both, that it seems only natural that I should write of him next. His powers were more confined to materialization than Eglinton"s, but in that he excelled. He is the most wonderful materializing medium I ever met in England; but of late years, owing to the injury it did him in his profession, he has been compelled, in justice to himself, to give up sitting for physical manifestations, and, indeed, sitting at all, except to oblige his friends. I cannot but consider this decision on his part as a great public loss; but until the public takes more interest in the next world than they do in this, it will not make it worth the while of such as Mr. Colman to devote their lives, health and strength to their enlightenment. For to be a good physical medium means literally to part, little by little, with one"s own life, and no man can be expected to do so much for the love of a set of unbelievers and sceptics, who will use up all his powers, and then go home to call him a rogue and a cheat and a trickster. If, as I am persuaded, each one of us is surrounded by the influences we gather of our own free-will about us--the loving and n.o.ble-hearted by angels, the selfish and unbelieving by devils--and we consider how the latter preponderate over the former in this world, is it to be wondered at that most _seances_ are conducted by an a.s.semblage of evil spirits brought there by the sitters themselves? Sceptical, blasphemous and sensual men and women collect together to try and find out the falsehood, _not the truth_, of Spiritualism, and are tricked by the very influences that attend their footsteps and direct their daily lives; and therein lies the danger of Spiritualism as a pursuit, taken up out of curiosity rather than a desire to learn. It gives increased power to the evil that surrounds ourselves, and the devil that goes out of us returns with seven other devils worse than himself. The drunkard, who, by giving rein to a weakness which he knows he should resist, has attracted to him the spirits of drunkards gone before, joins a _seance_, and by the collaboration of forces, as it were, bestows increased power on the guides he has chosen for himself to lead him into greater evil.
This dissertation, however, called forth by the never-ceasing wonder I feel at the indifference of the world towards such sights as I have seen, has led me further than I intended from the subject of my chapter.
Arthur Colman is a young man of delicate const.i.tution and appearance, who was at one time almost brought down to death"s door by the demands made by physical phenomena upon his strength; but since he has given up sitting, he has regained his health, and looks quite a different person.
This fact proves of itself what a tax is laid upon the unfortunate medium for such manifestations. Since he has resolved, however, never to sit again, I am all the more anxious to record what I have seen through him, probably for the last time. When I first knew my husband Colonel Lean, he had seen nothing of Spiritualism, and was proportionately curious, and naturally a little sceptical on the subject, or, rather let me say, incredulous. He was hardly prepared to receive all the marvels I told him of without proof; and Mr. Colman"s guide, "Aimee," was very anxious to convince him of their truth. She arranged, therefore, a _seance_ at which he was to be present, and which was to be held at the house of Mr. and Mrs. George Neville. The party dined there together previously, and consisted only of Mr. and Mrs. Neville, Arthur Colman, Colonel Lean, and myself. As we were in the drawing-room, however, after dinner, and before we had commenced the _seance_, an American lady, who was but slightly known to any of us, was announced. We had particularly wished to have no strangers present, and her advent proportionately annoyed us, but we did not know on what excuse to get rid of her. She was a pushing sort of person; and when Mrs. Neville told her we were going to hold a _seance_, as a sort of hint that she might take her leave, it only made her resolve to stay; indeed, she declared she had had a premonition of the fact. She said that whilst in her own room that morning, a figure had appeared standing by her bed, dressed in blue and white, like the pictures of the Virgin Mary, and that all day she had had an impression that she must spend the evening with the Nevilles, and she should hear something more about it. We could not get rid of the lady, so we were obliged to ask her to remain and a.s.sist at the _seance_, which she had already made up her mind to do, so we commenced our preparations. The two drawing-rooms communicated by folding doors, which were opened, and a _portiere_ drawn across the opening. In the back room we placed Mr. Colman"s chair. He was dressed in a light grey suit, which we secured in the following manner:--His hands were first sewn inside the sleeves of the coat, then his arms were placed behind his back, and the coat sleeves sewn together to the elbow. We then sewed his trouser legs together in the same way. We then tied him round the throat, waist and legs with _white cotton_, which the least movement on his part would break, and the ends of each ligament were sealed to the wall of the room with wax and stamped with my seal with "_Florence Marryat_" on it. Considering him thus secure, without any _possibility_ of escape unless we discovered it, we left him in the back room, and arranged ourselves on a row of five chairs before the _portiere_ in the front one, which was lighted by a single gas-burner. I sat at the head of the row, then the American lady, Mrs. Neville, Colonel Lean and Mr.
Neville. I am not sure how long we waited for the manifestations; but I do not think it was many minutes before a female figure glided from the side of the curtain and took a vacant chair by my side. I said, "_Who is this?_" and she whispered, "_Florence_," and laid her head down on my shoulder, and kissed my neck. I was turning towards her to distinguish her features more fully, when I became aware that a second figure was standing in front of me, and "Florence" said "Mother, there is Powles;"
and at the same time, as he bent down to speak to me, his beard touched my face. I had not had time to draw the attention of my friends to the spirits that stood by me, when I was startled by hearing one exclamation after another from the various sitters. The American lady called out, "There"s the woman that came to me this morning." Mr. Neville said, "That is my father," and Colonel Lean was asking some one if he would not give his name, I looked down the line of sitters. Before Colonel Lean there stood an old man with a long, white beard; a somewhat similar figure was in front of Mr. Neville. Before the dark curtain appeared a woman dressed in blue and white, like a nun; and meanwhile, "Florence"
and "Powles" still maintained their station by my side. As if this were not enough of itself to turn a mortal"s brain, the _portiere_ was at the same moment drawn aside, and there stood Arthur Colman in his grey suit, freed from all his bonds, but under the control of "Aimee," who called out joyously to my husband, "_Now, Frank, will you believe?_" She dropped the curtain, the apparitions glided or faded away, and we pa.s.sed into the back drawing-room, to find Mr. Colman still in trance, just as we had left him, and _with all the seals and st.i.tches_ intact. Not a thread of them all was broken. This is the largest number of spirits I have ever seen at one time with one medium. I have seen two materialized spirits at a time, and even three, from Mr. Williams and Miss Showers and Katie Cook; but on this occasion there were five apparent with the medium, all standing together before us. And this is the sort of thing that the majority of people do not consider it worth their while to take a little trouble to see. I have already related how successfully "Florence" used to materialize through this medium, and numerous friends, utterly unknown to him, have revisited us through his means.
His trance mediumship is as wonderful as his physical phenomena; some people might think more so. Amongst others, two spirits have come back to us through Mr. Colman, neither of whom he knew in this life, and both of whom are, in their way, too characteristic to be mistaken. One is Phillis Glover the actress; the other my stepson, Francis Lean, who was drowned by an accident at sea. Phillis Glover was a woman who led a very eventful life, chiefly in America, and was a versatile genius in conversation, as in everything else. She was peculiar also, and had a half-Yankee way of talking, and a store of familiar sayings and anecdotes, which she constantly introduced into her conversation. She was by no means an ordinary person whilst in this life, and in order to imitate her manner and speech successfully, one would need to be as clever a person as herself. And, without wishing to derogate from the powers of Mr. Colman"s mind, he knows, and I know, that Phillis Glover was cleverer than either of us. When her influence or spirit therefore returns through him, it is quite unmistakable. It is not only that she retains all her little tricks of voice and feature and manner (which Mr.
Colman has never seen), but she alludes to circ.u.mstances that took place in this life and people she was a.s.sociated with here that he has never heard of. More, she will relate her old stories and anecdotes, and sing her old songs, and give the most incontrovertible tests of her ident.i.ty, even to recalling facts and incidents that have entirely pa.s.sed from our minds. When she appears through him, it is Phillis Glover we are sitting with again and talking with, as familiarly as we did in the days gone by. "Francis," in his way too, is quite as remarkable. The circ.u.mstances of his death and the events leading to it were unknown to us, till he related them through Mr. Colman; and he speaks to us of the contents of private letters, and repeats conversations and alludes to circ.u.mstances and names that are known only to him and ourselves. He had a peculiar manner also--quick and nervous--and a way of cutting his words short, which his spirit preserves to the smallest particular, and which furnish the strongest proofs possible of his ident.i.ty to those who knew him here below. But these are but a very few amongst the innumerable tests furnished by Arthur Colman"s occult powers of the a.s.sured possibility of communicating with the spirits of those gone before us.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF MRS. GUPPY VOLCKMAN.
The mediumship of this lady is so well known, and has been so universally attested, that nothing I can write of could possibly add to her fame; and as I made her acquaintance but a short time before she relinquished sitting for manifestations, I have had but little experience of her powers, but such as I enjoyed were very remarkable. I have alluded to them in the story of "The Green Lady," whose apparition was due solely to Mrs. Guppy Volckman"s presence, and on that occasion she gave us another wonderful proof of her mediumship. A sheet was procured and held up at either end by Mr. Charles Williams and herself.
It was held in the light, in the centre of the room, forming a white wall of about five feet high, _i.e._, as high as their arms could conveniently reach. _Both_ the hands of Mrs. Volckman and Mr. Williams were placed _outside_ the sheet, so that no trickery might be suspected through their being concealed. In a short time the head of a woman appeared above the sheet, followed by that of a man, and various pairs of hands, both large and small, which bobbed up and down, and seized the hands of the spectators, whilst the faces went close to the media, as if with the intention of kissing them. This frightened Mrs. Volckman, so that she frequently screamed and dropped her end of the sheet, which, had there been any deception, must inevitably have exposed it. It seemed to make no difference to the spirits, however, who reappeared directly they had the opportunity, and made her at last so nervous that she threw the sheet down and refused to hold it any more. The faces were life-size, and could move their eyes and lips; the hands were some as large as a man"s, and covered with hair, and others like those of a woman or child. They had all the capability of working the fingers and grasping objects presented to them; whilst the four hands belonging to the media were kept in sight of the audience, and could not have worked machinery even if they could have concealed it.
The first time I was introduced to Mrs. Volckman (then Mrs. Guppy) was at a _seance_ at her own house in Victoria Road, where she had a.s.sembled a large party of guests, including several names well known in art and literature. We sat in a well-lighted drawing-room, and the party was so large that the circle round the table was three deep. Mrs. Mary Hardy, the American medium (since dead), was present, and the honors of the manifestations may be therefore, I conclude, divided between the two ladies. The table, a common deal one, made for such occasions, with a round hole of about twenty inches in diameter in the middle of it, was covered with a cloth that hung down, and was nailed to the ground, leaving only the aperture free. (I must premise that this cloth had been nailed down by a committee of the gentlemen visitors, in order that there might be no suspicion of a confederate hidden underneath it.) We then sat round the table, but without placing our hands on it. In a short time hands began to appear through the open s.p.a.ce in the table, all sorts of hands, from the woman"s taper fingers and the baby"s dimpled fist, to the hands of old and young men, wrinkled or muscular.
Some of the hands had rings on the fingers, by which the sitters recognized them, some stretched themselves out to be grasped; and some appeared in pairs, clasped together or separate. One hand took a glove from a sitter and put it on the other, showing the muscular force it possessed by the way in which it pressed down each finger and then b.u.t.toned the glove. Another pair of hands talked through the dumb alphabet to us, and a third played on a musical instrument. I was leaning forward, before I had witnessed the above, peering inquisitively down the hole, and saying, "I wonder if they would have strength to take anything down with them," when a large hand suddenly appeared and very nearly took _me_ down, by seizing my nose as if it never meant to let go again. At all events, it took me a peg or two down, for I remember it brought the tears into my eyes with the force it exhibited. After the hands had ceased to appear, the table was moved away, and we sat in a circle in the light. Mrs. Guppy did not wish to take a part in the _seance_, except as a spectator, so she retired to the back drawing-room with the Baroness Adelma Vay and other visitors, and left Mrs. Hardy with the circle in the front. Suddenly, however, she was levitated and carried in the sight of us all into the midst of our circle. As she felt herself rising in the air, she called out, "Don"t let go hands for Heaven"s sake." We were standing in a ring, and I had hold of the hand of Prince Albert of Solms. As Mrs. Guppy came sailing over our heads, her feet caught his neck and mine, and in our anxiety to do as she had told us, we gripped tight hold of each other, and were thrown forward on our knees by the force with which she was carried past us into the centre. This was a pretty strong proof to us, whatever it may be to others, that our senses did not deceive us when we thought we saw Mrs. Guppy over our heads in the air. The influence that levitated her, moreover, placed her on a chair with such a b.u.mp that it broke the two front legs off. As soon as Mrs. Guppy had rejoined us, the order was given to put out the light and to wish for something. We unanimously asked for flowers, it being the middle of December, and a hard frost.
Simultaneously we smelt the smell of fresh earth, and were told to light the gas again, when the following extraordinary sight met our view. In the middle of the sitters, still holding hands, was piled up _on the carpet_ an immense quant.i.ty of mould, which had been torn up apparently with the roots that accompanied it. There were laurestinus, and laurels, and holly, and several others, just as they had been pulled out of the earth and thrown down in the midst of us. Mrs. Guppy looked anything but pleased at the state of her carpet, and begged the spirits would bring something cleaner next time. They then told us to extinguish the lights again, and each sitter was to wish _mentally_ for something for himself.
I wished for a yellow b.u.t.terfly, knowing it was December, and as I thought of it, a little cardboard box was put into my hand. Prince Albert whispered to me, "Have you got anything?" "Yes," I said; "but not what I asked for. I expect they have given me a piece of jewellery."
When the gas was re-lit, I opened the box, and there lay _two yellow b.u.t.terflies_; dead, of course, but none the less extraordinary for that.
I wore at that _seance_ a tight-fitting, high white muslin dress, over a tight petticoat body. The dress had no pocket, and I carried my handkerchief, a fine cambric one, in my hand. When the _seance_ was over, I found this handkerchief had disappeared, at which I was vexed, as it had been embroidered for me by my sister Emily, then dead. I inquired of every sitter if they had seen it, even making them turn out their pockets in case they had taken it in mistake for their own, but it was not to be found, and I returned home, as I thought, without it. What was my surprise on removing my dress and petticoat bodice to find the handkerchief, neatly folded into a square of about four inches, _between_ my stays and the garment beneath them; placed, moreover, over the smallest part of my waist, where no fingers could have penetrated even had my dress been loose. My woman readers may be able better than the men to appreciate the difficulty of such a manoeuvre by mortal means; indeed it would have been quite impossible for myself or anybody else to place the handkerchief in such a position without removing the stays. And it was folded so neatly also, and placed so smoothly, that there was not a crumple in the cambric.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MEDIUMSHIP OF FLORENCE COOK.
In writing of my own mediumship, or the mediumship of any other person, I wish it particularly to be understood that I do not intend my narrative to be, by any means, an account of _all seances_ held under that control (for were I to include everything that I have seen and heard during my researches into Spiritualism, this volume would swell to unconscionable dimensions), but only of certain events which I believe to be remarkable, and not enjoyed by every one in like measure. Most people have read of the ordinary phenomena that take place at such meetings. My readers, therefore, will find no description here of marvels which--whether true or false--can be accounted for upon natural grounds. Miss Florence Cook, now Mrs. Elgie Corner, is one of the media who have been most talked of and written about. Mr. Alfred Crookes took an immense interest in her, and published a long account of his investigation of Spiritualism under her mediumship. Mr. Henry Dunphy, of the _Morning Post_, wrote a series of papers for _London Society_ (of which magazine I was then the editor), describing her powers, and the proof she gave of them. The first time I ever met Florence Cook was in his private house, when my little daughter appeared through her (_vide_ "The Story of my Spirit Child"). On that occasion, as we were sitting at supper after the _seance_--a party of perhaps thirty people--the whole dinner-table, with everything upon it, rose bodily in the air to a level with our knees, and the dishes and gla.s.ses swayed about in a perilous manner, without, however, coming to any permanent harm. I was so much astonished at, and interested by, what I saw that evening, that I became most anxious to make the personal acquaintance of Miss Cook. She was the medium for the celebrated spirit, "Katie King," of whom so much has been believed and disbelieved, and the _seances_ she gave at her parents"
house in Hackney for the purpose of seeing this figure alone used to be crowded by the cleverest and most scientific men of the day, Sergeants c.o.x and Ballantyne, Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. Alfred Crookes, and many others, being on terms of the greatest intimacy with her. Mr. William Harrison, of the _Spiritualist_ paper, was the one to procure me an introduction to the family and an entrance to the _seances_, for which I shall always feel grateful to him.
For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me begin by telling _who_ "Katie King" was supposed to be. Her account of herself was that her name was "Annie Owens Morgan;" that she was the daughter of Sir Henry Morgan, a famous buccaneer who lived about the time of the Commonwealth, and suffered death upon the high seas, being, in fact, a pirate; that she herself was about twelve years old when Charles the First was beheaded; that she married and had two little children; that she committed more crimes than we should like to hear of, having murdered men with her own hands, but yet died quite young, at about two or three and twenty. To all questions concerning the reason of her reappearance on earth, she returned but one answer, That it was part of the work given her to do to convince the world of the truth of Spiritualism. This was the information I received from her own lips. She had appeared to the Cooks some years before I saw her, and had become so much one of the family as to walk about the house at all times without alarming the inmates. She often materialized and got into bed with her medium at night, much to Florrie"s annoyance; and after Miss Cook"s marriage to Captain Corner, he told me himself that he used to feel at first as if he had married two women, and was not quite sure which was his wife of the two.
The order of these _seances_ was always the same. Miss Cook retired to a back room, divided from the audience by a thin damask curtain, and presently the form of "Katie King" would appear dressed in white, and walk out amongst the sitters in gaslight, and talk like one of themselves. Florence Cook (as I mentioned before) is a very small, slight brunette, with dark eyes and dark curly hair and a delicate aquiline nose. Sometimes "Katie" resembled her exactly; at others, she was totally different. Sometimes, too, she measured the same height as her medium; at others, she was much taller. I have a large photograph of "Katie" taken under limelight. In it she appears as the double of Florrie Cook, yet Florrie was looking on whilst the picture was taken. I have sat for her several times with Mr. Crookes, and seen the tests applied which are mentioned in his book on the subject. I have seen Florrie"s dark curls _nailed down to the floor_, outside the curtain, in view of the audience, whilst "Katie" walked about and talked with us. I have seen Florrie placed on the scale of a weighing machine constructed by Mr. Crookes for the purpose, behind the curtain, whilst the balance remained in sight. I have seen under these circ.u.mstances that the medium weighed eight stone in a normal condition, and that as soon as the materialized form was fully developed, the balance ran up to four stone.
Moreover, I have seen both Florrie and "Katie" together on several occasions, so I can have no doubt on the subject that they were two separate creatures. Still, I can quite understand how difficult it must have been for strangers to compare the strong likeness that existed between the medium and the spirit, without suspecting they were one and the same person. One evening "Katie" walked out and perched herself upon my knee. I could feel she was a much plumper and heavier woman than Miss Cook, but she wonderfully resembled her in features, and I told her so.
"Katie" did not seem to consider it a compliment. She shrugged her shoulders, made a grimace, and said, "I know I am; I can"t help it, but I was much prettier than that in earth life. You shall see, some day--you shall see." After she had finally retired that evening, she put her head out at the curtain again and said, with the strong lisp she always had, "I want Mrs. Ross-Church." I rose and went to her, when she pulled me inside the curtain, when I found it was so thin that the gas shining through it from the outer room made everything in the inner quite visible. "Katie" pulled my dress impatiently and said, "Sit down on the ground," which I did. She then seated herself in my lap, saying, "And now, dear, we"ll have a good "confab," like women do on earth."
Florence Cook, meanwhile, was lying on a mattress on the ground close to us, wrapped in a deep trance. "Katie" seemed very anxious I should ascertain beyond doubt that it was Florrie. "Touch her," she said, "take her hand, pull her curls. Do you see that it is Florrie lying there?"
When I a.s.sured her I was quite satisfied there was no doubt of it, the spirit said, "Then look round this way, and see what I was like in earth life." I turned to the form in my arms, and what was my amazement to see a woman fair as the day, with large grey or blue eyes, a white skin, and a profusion of golden red hair. "Katie" enjoyed my surprise, and asked me, "Ain"t I prettier than Florrie now?" She then rose and procured a pair of scissors from the table, and cut off a lock of her own hair and a lock of the medium"s, and gave them to me. I have them safe to this day. One is almost black, soft and silky; the other a coa.r.s.e golden red.
After she had made me this present, "Katie" said, "Go back now, but don"t tell the others to-night, or they"ll all want to see me." On another very warm evening she sat on my lap amongst the audience, and I felt perspiration on her arm. This surprised me; and I asked her if, for the time being, she had the veins, nerves, and secretions of a human being; if blood ran through her body, and she had a heart and lungs. Her answer was, "I have everything that Florrie has." On that occasion also she called me after her into the back room, and, dropping her white garment, stood perfectly naked before me. "Now," she said "you can see that I am a woman." Which indeed she was, and a most beautifully-made woman too; and I examined her well, whilst Miss Cook lay beside us on the floor. Instead of dismissing me this time, "Katie" told me to sit down by the medium, and, having brought me a candle and matches, said I was to strike a light as soon as she gave three knocks, as Florrie would be hysterical on awaking, and need my a.s.sistance. She then knelt down and kissed me, and I saw she was still naked. "Where is your dress, Katie?" I asked. "Oh that"s gone," she said; "I"ve sent it on before me." As she spoke thus, kneeling beside me, she rapped three times on the floor. I struck the match almost simultaneously with the signal; but as it flared up, "Katie King" was gone like a flash of lightning, and Miss Cook, as she had predicted, awoke with a burst of frightened tears, and had to be soothed into tranquillity again. On another occasion "Katie King" was asked at the beginning of the _seance_, by one of the company, to say _why_ she could not appear in the light of more than one gasburner. The question seemed to irritate her, and she replied, "I have told you all, several times before, that I can"t stay under a searching light. I don"t know _why_; but I can"t, and if you want to prove the truth of what I say, turn up all the gas and see what will happen to me.
Only remember, it you do there will be no _seance_ to-night, because I shan"t be able to come back again, and you must take your choice."
Upon this a.s.sertion it was put to the vote if the trial should be made or not, and all present (Mr. S. C. Hall was one of the party) decided we would prefer to witness the effect of a full glare of gas upon the materialized form than to have the usual sitting, as it would settle the vexed question of the necessity of gloom (if not darkness) for a materializing _seance_ for ever. We accordingly told "Katie" of our choice, and she consented to stand the test, though she said afterwards we had put her to much pain. She took up her station against the drawing-room wall, with her arms extended as if she were crucified. Then three gas-burners were turned on to their full extent in a room about sixteen feet square. The effect upon "Katie King" was marvellous. She looked like herself for the s.p.a.ce of a second only, then she began gradually to melt away. I can compare the dematerialization of her form to nothing but a wax doll melting before a hot fire. First, the features became blurred and indistinct; they seemed to run into each other. The eyes sunk in the sockets, the nose disappeared, the frontal bone fell in. Next the limbs appeared to give way under her, and she sank lower and lower on the carpet like a crumbling edifice. At last there was _nothing but her head_ left above the ground--then a heap of white drapery only, which disappeared with a whisk, as if a hand had pulled it after her--and we were left staring by the light of three gas-burners at the spot on which "Katie King" had stood.
She was always attired in white drapery, but it varied in quality.
Sometimes it looked like long cloth; at others like mull muslin or jaconet; oftenest it was a species of thick cotton net. The sitters were much given to asking "Katie" for a piece of her dress to keep as a souvenir of their visit; and when they received it, would seal it up carefully in an envelope and convey it home; and were much surprised on examining their treasure to find it had totally disappeared.
"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 ident.i.ty. She had always stated she should not appear on this earth after the month of May, 1874; and accordingly, on the 21st, she a.s.sembled 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 a 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 _seance_ at the rooms of the National British a.s.sociation 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 _seance_, 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 _seance_ 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 pa.s.s 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 spa.r.s.ely 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 b.u.t.toned 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 b.u.t.tons, 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 pa.s.sed my hand up and down her figure. She had full b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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"