Chapter III: Preface: To the Fourth Volume (3)

I have been out at milking-time
Beneath a dull and rainy sky,
When in the barn 'twas time to feed,
And calves were bawling lustily--
When scattered hay, and sheaves of oats,
And yellow corn-ears, sound and hard,
And all that makes the cattle pass
With wilder richness through the yard--
When all was hateful, then have I,
With friends who had to help me milk,
Talked of his wife most spitefully,
And how he kept her dressed in silk;
And when the cattle, running there,
Threw over me a shower of mud,
That fellow's voice came on the air,
Like the light chewing of the cud--
And resting near some spreckled cow,
The spirit of a woman's spite,
I've poured a low and fervent vow,
To make him, if I had the might,
Live all his life-time just as hard,
And milk his cows in such a yard.

I have been out to pick up wood
When night was stealing from the dawn,
Before the fire was burning good,
Or I had put the kettle on
The little stove--when babes were waking
With a low murmur in the beds,
And melody by fits was breaking
Above their little yellow heads--
And this when I was up perhaps
From a few short and troubled naps--
And when the sun sprang scorchingly
And freely up, and made us stifle,
And fell upon each hill and tree
The bullets from his subtle rifle--
I say a voice has thrilled me then,
Hard by that solemn pile of wood,
Or creeping from the silent glen,
Like something on the unfledged brood,
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed
Close in my arms my load of chips,
And pouring forth the hatefulest
Of words that ever passed my lips,
Have felt my woman's spirit rush
On me, as on that milking night,
And, yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable spite,
Have risen up, the wed, the old,
Scolding as hard as I could scold.

And in the same vein "The Annoyer," in which is imitated one of the most delicate pieces of sentiment and fancy which Willis has given us:

THE ANNOYER.

"Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever."--SHELLEY.

Love knoweth every body's house,
And every human haunt,
And comes unbidden, every where,
Like people we don't want.
The turnpike roads and little creeks
Are written with love's words,
And you hear his voice like a thousand bricks
In the lowing of the herds.

He peeps into the teamster's heart,
From his Buena Vista's rim,
And the cracking whips of many men
Can never frighten him.
He'll come to his cart in the weary night,
When he's dreaming of his craft;
And he'll float to his eye in the morning light,
Like a man on a river raft.

He hears the sound of the cooper's adz,
And makes him too his dupe,
For he sighs in his ear from the shaving pile
As he hammers on the hoop.
The little girl, the beardless boy,
The men that walk or stand,
He will get them all in his mighty arms
Like the grasp of your very hand.

The shoemaker bangs above his bench,
And ponders his shining awl,
For love is under the lap-stone hid,
And a spell is on the wall.
It heaves the sole where he drives the pegs,
And speaks in every blow,
'Till the last is dropped from his crafty hand,
And his foot hangs bare below.

He blurs the prints which the shopmen sell,
And intrudes on the hatter's trade,
And profanes the hostler's stable-yard
In the shape of a chamber-maid.
In the darkest night, and the bright daylight,
Knowing that he can win,
In every home of good-looking folks
Will human love come in.

The next is from Poe's "Annabel Lee:"

SAMUEL BROWN.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a dwelling down in town,
That a fellow there lived whom you may know
By the name of Samuel Brown;
And this fellow he lived with no other thought
Than to our house to come down.

I was a child and he was a child,
In that dwelling down in town,
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Samuel Brown--
With a love that the ladies coveted,
Me and Samuel Brown.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
To that dwelling down in town,
A girl came out of her carriage, courting
My beautiful Samuel Brown;
So that her high-bred kinsman came
And bore away Samuel Brown,
And shut him up in a dwelling-house,
In a street quite up in town.

The ladies, not half so happy up there,
Went envying me and Brown;
Yes! that was the reason, (as all men know,
In this dwelling down in town,)
That the girl came out of the carriage by night
Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown.

But our love is more artful by far than the love
Of those who are older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the girls that are living above,
Nor the girls that are down in town,
Can ever discover my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Samuel Brown.

For the morn never shines without bringing me lines
From my beautiful Samuel Brown;
And the night is never dark, but I sit in the park
With my beautiful Samuel Brown.
And often by day, I walk down in Broadway,
With my darling, my darling, my life, and my stay,
To our dwelling down in town,
To our house in the street down town.

The two poems that have been most parodied in this country are the "Woodman spare that tree," of General Morris, and Poe's "Raven." There have been an incredible number of burlesques of the former, and of the latter we have seen a collection of seventeen, some of which are scarcely less clever than the original performance.

THE BRITISH HUMORISTS: DESCRIBED

BY MR. THACKERAY.

In the last _International_, we gave sketches of the first and second of the series of lectures Mr. Thackeray is now delivering in London, a series which we may regard with more interest because it is to be repeated in Boston, New-York, and other American cities. The subjects of the lectures already noticed were SWIFT, CONGREVE, and ADDISON. The third lecture was upon

SIR RICHARD STEELE.

"Having," says the _Times_, "to deal with a personage whose
character was any thing but perfection, Mr. Thackeray
started with a good-humored declamation against perfection
in general. A perfect man would be intolerable--he could not
laugh and he could not cry, neither could he hate nor even
love, for love itself implied an unjust preference of one
person over another, which was so far an imperfection. The
interest which a man takes in the progress of his own boy at
school, while he is indifferent about other boys who are
probably better and more clever, his choice that a death
should occur in his neighbor's house rather than in his own,
and various traits of a similar kind, are all so many
manifestations of selfishness, and therefore so many removes
from perfection.

"After this preface, Mr. Thackeray discoursed upon Steele's
career at school. At the Charter-house he distinguished
himself as a good-natured _mauvais sujet_--idle beyond the
average mark. By his scholastic acquisitions he gave little
satisfaction to his masters, and was flogged more frequently
than any boy in the school. Moreover, he was in debt to all
the vendors of juvenile delicacies in the neighborhood; and,
if any boy came to school with money to lend, Dick Steele
was certain to appear as the person to borrow. These facts,
given with much minuteness, were followed by an assertion on
the part of the lecturer that he had no authority for them
whatever. It was an admitted truth that 'the child is the
father of the man,' and on this principle he felt he had a
right, from his intimate knowledge of Captain Steele, to
deduce what sort of a personage Master Dicky Steele was
likely to be.

"This bit of mock biography gave the key-note to the entire
lecture. While Mr. Thackeray admitted that Steele was a far
less brilliant man than any who had formed the subjects of
the preceding discourses, and far less entitled to
admiration than Addison, he spoke of him in a tone of warmer
affection than he had displayed when talking of the great
Joseph. He dilated with unction on Steele's many follies and
vices--his strange medley of piety and debauchery, his
inordinate love of dress, his insensibility as to the duty
of meeting pecuniary obligations; he even read an
ill-natured description by John Dennis, remarking that it
was substantially true, but at the same time he constantly
kept before the minds of his hearers the kindliness of
Steele's heart. He did not call upon them to worship him as
a moral being or as a talent, aware that many others much
more deserved such honor, but he exhorted them to love him
as a friend: 'If Steele is not a friend, he is nothing.'

"The great number of letters which Steele wrote to his wife,
and which are still extant, furnished Mr. Thackeray with
much of the knowledge he possessed as to the character of
his hero. With these he could pursue him through every
variety of joy and sorrow, difficulty and triumph, and, as
they were evidently written for none but her to whom they
were addressed, he could be sure that the writer spoke from
his own heart. On the literary productions of Steele, Mr.
Thackeray dwelt very little, but he pointed out in them this
peculiarity, that the author showed a reverence for woman
unknown to his contemporaries. Swift hated women just as he
hated men; Congreve regarded them as so many fortresses to
be conquered by a superior general; even Addison sneered at
them with a gentle sneer; but Steele really spoke of them in
a tone of affectionate respect, and this gives a charm to
his comedies not to be found in more brilliant productions.

"Mr. Thackeray took occasion to illustrate by these extracts
the characteristic differences of Swift, Addison, and
Steele. He had already drawn a ludicrous picture of the
relative positions of Steele and Addison, remarking that the
latter had been through life to the former what a 'head boy'
is to an inferior boy at school. Now by Swift's poem on the
'Day of Judgment'--an extract from the _Spectator_,
containing Addison's reflections in Westminster Abbey--and a
passage from Steele, he showed how the subject of Death was
treated by the three writers. Swift's poem savagely treats
as fools all who pretend to know any thing beyond the grave,
including the teachers of the several sects. Addison's tone
was kinder, but, while he was benevolent in his skepticism,
he came to nearly the same result as the ferocious Dean.
Steele, on the other hand, was content to remember, as his
first grief, the death of his father, when he was five years
old, and the dignified sorrow of his mother.

"By way of an additional comical apology for the foibles of
Steele, Mr. Thackeray concluded his lecture by remarking on
the atrocities of the age when poor Dick lived,--an age when
young ladies, at dinner, actually put their knives into
their mouths. The social peculiarities of the period he
illustrated by a sort of summary of Swift's _Polite
Conversation_, which led up to an ironical praise of the
nineteenth century, as a century whose anomalies are
unknown."

The fourth lecture on the humorists was of Prior, Gay, and Pope, Mr. Thackeray choosing to consider Pope, who was not a humorist, but a wit, the greatest humorist of all:

MATHEW PRIOR.

"Prior he characterizes as the foremost of lucky wits,
abounding in good nature and acuteness. He loved--he
drank--he sang. Some verses at Cambridge first rendered him
an object of notice, and by the 'City Mouse and Country
Mouse,' which, jointly with Montague, he wrote against
Dryden, and which, Mr. Thackeray ironically asserted, all
his hearers knew, of course, by heart, he gained the post of
Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague, in accordance with
the usage then prevalent of rewarding a talent for correct
alcaics or biting epigrams with important diplomatic
appointments. However, his fortune was but transient, since
he fell with his patron Montague. As a poet, Mr. Thackeray
praised Prior highly, calling him the most charming of
English lyrists, and comparing him with Horace on one side
and Moore on the other. At the same time he referred to a
certain statement that Prior, after he had spent the evening
with the first men of the day, would retire to Long-acre to
smoke a pipe with two very intimate acquaintances--a soldier
and his wife--adding that many of his writings seemed to be
under the influence of his Long-acre friends."

JOHN GAY.

"Gay was pointed out as a remarkable instance of kindliness
and good humor, gaining the love even of the most savage
wits of the day, and incurring the hatred of none. The
ferocious giant Swift loved him as the Brobdignag loved
Gulliver, and was afraid to open the packet which contained
the tidings of his death. This kindliness is an especial
feature in Gay's writings, even in his _Beggars' Opera_, and
as Rubini was said to have, 'une larme dans la voix,' so was
there in all that Gay produced a tone of the gentlest
pathos. This peculiarity he illustrated by reading the well
known story of the two devoted lovers struck dead by
lightning. As for Gay's life, it was easy enough. He failed,
indeed, to make his fortune, but he led a comfortable
existence with his noble patrons the Duke and Duchess of
Queensbury, living like a little round French _abbe_, eating
and drinking well and growing more melancholy as he
increased in fat."

ALEXANDER POPE.

"For a guaranty of Pope's merits, Mr. Thackeray especially
referred to the _Rape of the Lock_ and the _Dunciad_. He
insisted on his claims to admiration as a great literary
artist, always bent on the perfection of his work and gladly
adopting the thoughts of others if they would serve to
complete his own. This peculiarity of carefulness was early
shown in the fact that Pope began by imitation. The five
happiest years of his life were devoted to the study of the
best authors, especially poets, and the intellectual
enjoyment was heightened by the feeling that genius was
throbbing in his heart and awakening within him dreams of
future glory. He too should sing--he too should love. Of
love, indeed, Pope did not make a great deal, and as his
addresses to Lady Wortley Montague were a failure, so was
his first amour a sham love for a sham mistress. A
particular pleasure in reading the works of Pope consists in
the fact that they bring the reader into the very best
company--a company whose manners are, to be sure, a little
stiff and stately, and whose voices are pitched somewhat
beyond the ordinary conversation key, but there is something
ennobling about them. _Apropos_ of this peculiarity, Mr.
Thackeray took occasion to dwell with great unction on the
advantages of high society, and said, for the benefit of any
young hearer who might be present, 'Young hearer, keep
company with your betters.' Addison, as we have seen, is Mr.
Thackeray's moral hero. He considers, however, that he has
one great blemish in his dislike of Alexander Pope. The
young poet was too conscious of his own powers to be a mere
attendant at the Court of King Joseph, and King Joseph did
not like this independence. The support given by the Addison
_clique_ to Tickell's translation of Homer might naturally
enough be construed by the Pope faction as proceeding from
an ungenerous wish to depreciate their chieftain's version,
and they might easily suppose that what was emulation in
Tickell was envy in Addison. The verses which Pope wrote on
this occasion and sent to Addison, had the satisfactory
effect that the great Joseph was civil ever afterwards. But
still Mr. Thackeray surmised that their sting was never
forgotten, and that the saintly Addison might be painted as
a Sebastian, with this one arrow sticking in him.

"The causes that led to the writing of the _Dunciad_ were
laid down, chiefly with a view of justifying the author,
though Mr. Thackeray admitted that Pope's arrows are so
sharp, and his slaughter so wholesale, that the reader's
sympathies are often enlisted on the side of the devoted
inhabitants of Grub-street. The vile jokes and libels that
were aimed against the illustrious poet, and the paltry
allusions to his personal defects, were brought forward as
sufficient motives; and the lecturer dwelt with admiration
on the personal courage which the "gallant little cripple"
displayed when the indignant dunces threatened him with
corporeal chastisement. At the same time, he declared it his
conviction that the _Dunciad_ had done the greatest possible
harm to the literary profession. Prior to its publication
there were great prizes for literary men in the shape of
government appointments and the like; but Pope, a lover of
high society--a man so refined that he kept thin while his
friends grew fat--hated the rank and file of literature, and
if there was one point in his assailants on which he dwelt
with savage partiality, it was their abject poverty. He it
was who brought the notion of a vile Grub-street before the
minds of the general public; he it was who created such
associations as author and rags--author and dirt--author and
gin. The occupation of authorship became ignoble through his
graphic descriptions of misery, and the literary profession
was for a long time destroyed.

"Pope's well known affection for his mother, on which Mr.
Thackeray feelingly expatiated, and the love which his
friends entertained for him, were introduced as a
sentimental relief in describing the character of a man
whose career Mr. Thackeray compared to that of a great
general, obtaining his end by a series of brilliant
conquests."

HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING.

"In his fifth lecture," says the _Leader_, "Mr. Thackeray
dwelt at great length on Hogarth, and pointed out how much
of his success lay in the simple conventional morals of his
works; gave a graphic analysis of the _Marriage a la Mode_
and the _Idle and Industrious Apprentices_; and humorously
set forth Hogarth's pretensions to the sublime in historical
painting. Smollett was dismissed in a few pleasant
paragraphs. Fielding called out the hearty admiration of the
author of _Vanity Fair_; and amidst the panegyric there were
some admirable passages, notably one on the scorn and hatred
Richardson and Fielding unaffectedly felt for each other,
and the sincerity which may animate even the most
contemptuous criticism. The opinions Thackeray stamps with
his authority, we constantly find open to question; but it
is not as a Course of Criticism that these Lectures have
their inexpressible charm, and it would be possible for a
man to dissent _in toto_ from the views put forth, while at
the same time he held them to be among the most delightful
lectures he ever listened to."

STERNE AND GOLDSMITH.

In the sixth and last lecture of the course, Mr. Thackeray's
subjects were Sterne and Goldsmith. He stigmatized severely
all Sterne's relations with women, showed up the sham
sensibility which wept through his writings, dwelt on the
perilous thing it was to make a market of one's sorrows, and
sell the deepest experiences of one's life at so much per
volume, and wound up with an emphatic condemnation of the
pruriency of Sterne's writings, contrasting that pruriency
with the purity of Dickens. All the generosity, sweetness,
and improvidence of Goldsmith's Irish nature were earnestly
and genially presented.

This course of lectures has been described as "a review of the humorists, by their master," but Mr. Thackeray is not a humorist--at least humor is not his distinguishing quality; he is a cold satirist, sneering at humanity, and in all his writings never exhibiting a spark of the genial fire which should commend an author to the affections of his readers. Gentlemen may be amused by him--he may be even punctilious and sincere in the observance of all honorable conduct--but judging him by his works, he is one of the last men living whom any person with the instincts of a gentleman would admit to his friendship. Some of his books are amazingly clever, but others, as the _Kickleburys on the Rhine_, are but unredeemable vulgarity. He has been taken up very much by the snobs--a class somewhat remarkable for misapprehensions of their real relations--and we find the snobs of this country as well as of England lauding the satirist as an enemy of their own peculiar caste. This is a mistake: Mr. Thackeray has painted to the life the sentimental snob, indeed, but he is himself a chief of a different and far less endurable class in this division of the race--_the snob cynical and supercilious_.

ALRED.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY ELMINA WALDO CAREY.

Do you remember, Alred dear,
The peach-tree's cool and ample shade,
Where first our hearts learned love and fear,
And vows of constancy were made?

The peach-tree stands there, now as then,
Its shadow just as dim and mild,
And over all the sacred glen
The vines of strawberries run wild.

Still all about the water's edge
Beds of green flags in beauty lie,
And, sloping towards the elder-hedge,
Are fields of graceful waving rye.

But, Alred dear, not by our feet
Will the round clover-heads be pressed,
For years must pass before we meet
In that dear valley of the west.

Sometimes my heart is filled with fear,
Yet if not, Alred, in that land,
'Tis bliss to know, in some bright sphere
You'll wait to take my trembling hand.

CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

The July number of _Blackwood's Magazine_ has a long paper under the title of _What is Mesmerism?_ in which the question is discussed with ingenuity, apparent candor, and occasional eloquence. The editor, however, does not altogether agree with his contributor, and adds to the article the following postscript. Undoubtedly a large proportion of the "professors of magnetism" are mere mountebanks, and the pretenders to clairvoyance may in all cases probably be set down as knaves, or as very ignorant or feeble-minded persons. Nevertheless, we cannot quite agree with Professor Wilson in all his propositions:

WHAT IS MESMERISM?

"It must be admitted that our excellent correspondent has
set forth the claims of 'Adolphe' and 'Alexis,' and similar
interesting abstractions, to the powers of omnipresence and
omniscience, with great candor and becoming gravity. We are
sorry that we cannot follow what many of our readers may
consider so excellent an example. We have no faith in those
dear creatures without surnames: we have no faith in animal
magnetism, either in its lesser or in its larger
pretensions; but we have an unbounded faith in the
imbecility, infatuation, vanity, credulity, and knavery of
which human nature is capable. And we are of opinion that
there is not a single well-authenticated mesmeric phenomenon
which is not fully explicable by the operation of one or
more of these causes, or of the whole of them taken in
conjunction.

"The question in regard to mesmerism is two-fold: _first_,
how is the mesmeric prostration to be accounted for? and
_secondly_, how is it to be disposed of? It may be accounted
for, we conceive, by the natural tendencies just recited,
without its being necessary to postulate any new or unknown
agency; it may be disposed of by the influence of public
opinion, which would very soon put a stop to these pitiable
exhibitions, and very soon extinguish the magnetizer's power
and the patient's susceptibility, if it were but to visit
the performers with the contempt and reprobation they
deserve. A few words on each of these heads may not be out
of place, as a qualifying postscript to the foregoing
letter, which, in our opinion, treats the mesmeric
superstition with far too much indulgence.

"I. The existence of any physical force or fluid in man or
in nature, by which the mesmeric phenomena are induced, has
been distinctly disproved by every carefully conducted
experiment. _No person was ever magnetized when totally
unsuspicious of the operation of which he was the subject._
This is conclusive; because a physical agent, which never
does, _of itself_ and unheralded, produce any effect, is no
physical agent at all. Then, again, let certain persons be
prepared for the magnetic condition, and aware of what is
expected of them, and the effects are equally produced,
whether the intended influence be exerted or not. It seems
simply ridiculous to postulate an _odylic_ (we should like
to be favored with the derivation of this word) fluid to
account for phenomena which show themselves just as
conspicuously when no such fluid is or can be in operation.

"But it is argued by some of the advocates of mesmeric
influence, that their agent, though perhaps not physical, is
at any rate moral--that the will, or some spiritual energy
on the part of the mesmerist, is the power by which his
victims are entranced and rendered obedient to his bidding.
Here, too, all the well-authenticated cases establish a
totally different conclusion. They prove that the will or
spiritual power of the mesmerist has _of itself_ no
ascendency or control whatsoever over the body or mind of
his victim. Every well-guarded series of experiments has
exhibited the mesmerist and his patient at cross-purposes
with each other--the patient frequently doing those things
which the mesmerist was desirous he should not do, and not
doing those things which the operator was desirous he should
do. As for the buffoonery begotten by mesmerism on
phrenology, this exhibition can scarcely be expected to
provoke much astonishment, or credence, or comment, except
among professional artists themselves--

'Like Katterfelto, with their hair on end,
At their own wonders, _wondering for their bread_!'

"The true explanation of mesmerism is to be found, as we
have said, in the weakness or infatuation of human nature
itself. No other causes are at all necessary to account for
the mesmeric prostration. There is far more craziness, both
physical and moral, in man than he usually gives himself
credit for. The reservoir of human folly may be in a great
measure occult, but it is always full; and all that
silliness, whether of body or mind, at any time wants, is
_to get its cue_.

"These general remarks are of course more applicable to some
individuals than they are to others. In soft and weak
natures, where the nervous system is subject to cataleptic
seizures, mental and bodily prostration is frequently almost
the normal condition. Such of our readers as may have
frequented mesmeric exhibitions must have observed a kind of
_semi-humanity_ visible in the expression and demeanor of
most of the subjects whom the professional operators carry
about with them. These poor creatures are at all times ready
to imbibe the magnetic stupefaction, because it is only by
an effort that they are ever free from it. There is always
at work within them an occult tendency to
self-abandonment--an unintentional proclivity to
aberration, imitation, and deceit, which only requires a
signal to precipitate its morbid deposits. This
constitutional infirmity of body and of mind furnishes to
the mesmerist a basis for his operations, and is the source
of all the wonders which he works.

"It is only in the case of individuals who, without being
fatuous, are hovering on the verge of fatuity, that the
magnetic phenomena and the mesmeric prostration can be
admitted to be in any considerable degree real. Real to a
certain extent they may be; marvellous they certainly are
not. Imbecility of the nervous system, a ready abandonment
of the will, a facility in relinquishing every endowment
which makes man _human_--these intelligible causes, eked out
by a vanity and cunning which are always inherent in natures
of an inferior type, are quite sufficient to account for the
effects of the mesmeric manipulations on subjects of
peculiar softness and pliancy.

"In those persons of a better organized structure, who yield
themselves up to the mesmeric degradation, the physical
causes are less operative; but the moral causes are still
more influential. In all cases the prostration is
self-induced. But in the subjects of whom we have spoken, it
is mainly induced by physical depravity, although moral
frailties concur to bring about the condition. In persons of
a superior type, the condition is mainly due to moral
causes, although physical imbecility has some share in
facilitating the result. These people have much vanity, much
curiosity, and much credulity, together with a _weak_
imagination--that is to say, an imagination which is easily
excited by circumstances which would produce no effect upon
people of stronger imaginative powers. Their vanity shows
itself in the desire _to astonish others_, and get
themselves talked about. They think it rather creditable to
be susceptible subjects. It is a point in their favor! Their
credulity and curiosity take the form of a powerful wish _to
be astonished themselves_. Why should they be excluded from
a land of wonders which others are permitted to enter? The
first step is now taken. They are ready for the sacrifice,
which various motives concur to render agreeable. They
resign themselves passively, mind and body, into the hands
of the manipulator; and by his passes and grimaces, they are
cowed pleasurably, bullied delightfully, into _so much_ of
the condition which their inclinations are bent upon
attaining, as justifies them, they think, in laying claim to
the _whole_ condition, without bringing them under the
imputation of being downright impostors. _Downright_
impostors they unquestionably are not. We believe that their
condition is frequently, though to a very limited extent,
_real_. We must also consider, that, in a matter of this
kind, which is so deeply imbued with the ridiculous, a
mesmeric patient may, and doubtless often does, justify to
his own conscience a considerable deviation from the truth,
on the ground of waggery or hoaxing. Why should an audience,
which has the patience to put up with such spectacles, not
be fooled to the top of its bent?

"II. How, then, is the miserable nonsense to be disposed of?
It can only be put a stop to by the force of public opinion,
guided of course by reason and truth. Let it be announced
from all authoritative quarters that the magnetic
sensibility is only another name for an unsound condition of
the mental and bodily functions--that it may be always
accepted as an infallible index of the position which an
individual occupies in the scale of humanity--that its
manifestation (when real) invariably betokens a _physique_
and a _morale_ greatly below the average, and a character to
which no respect can be attached. Let this
announcement--which is the undoubted truth--be made by all
respectable organs of public opinion, and by all who are in
any way concerned in the diffusion of knowledge, or in the
instruction of the rising generation, and the magnetic
superstition will rapidly decline. Let this--the correct and
scientific explanation of the phenomena--be understood and
considered carefully by all young people of both sexes, and
the mesmeric ranks will be speedily thinned of their
recruits. Our young friends who may have been entrapped into
this infatuation by want of due consideration, will be wiser
for the future. If they allow themselves to be experimented
upon, they will at any rate take care not to disgrace
themselves by yielding to the follies to which they may be
solicited both from within and from without; and we are much
mistaken if, when they know what the penalty is, they will
abandon themselves to a disgusting condition which is
characteristic only of the most abject specimens of our
species."

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[1]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.