Chapter V: Part 5

The following, he says, “are the facts,” relative to another incident that happened in his vicinity. “In September, 1831, a worthy and highly esteemed inhabitant of this town (Haverhill, Mass.) died suddenly on the bridge over the Merrimack, by the bursting of a blood-vessel. It was just at daybreak, when he was engaged with another person in raising the draw of the bridge for the passage of a sloop. The suddenness of the event, the excellent character of the deceased, and above all, a vague rumor that some extraordinary disclosure was to be made, drew together a large concourse at the funeral. After the solemn services were concluded, Thomas, the brother of the dead man--himself a most exemplary Christian--rose up and desired to relate some particulars regarding his brother’s death. He then stated--and his manner was calm, solemn, impressive--that more than a month previous to his death, his brother had told him that his feelings had been painfully disturbed by seeing, at different times on the bridge, a quantity of human blood; that sometimes while he was gazing upon it, it suddenly disappeared, as if removed by an invisible hand; ... that many times in the dusk of the evening, he had seen a vessel coming down the river, which vanished just as it reached the draw; and that, at the same time, he had heard a voice calling in a faint and lamentable tone, ‘I am dying!’ and that the voice sounded like his own: that then he knew the vision was for him, and that his hour of departure was at hand. Thomas, moreover, stated that a few days before the melancholy event took place, his brother, after assuring him that he would be called upon to testify to the accounts which he had given of the vision on the bridge, told him that he had actually seen the same vessel go up the river whose spectral image he had seen in his vision, and that when it returned the fatal fulfilment would take place.”

Though of still earlier date, the remarkable premonition of Rev. Samuel Newman, of Rehoboth, will bear being repeated here. According to his biographer, he not only felt a certain presage of the approach of death, but seemed to triumph in the prospect of its being near. Yet he was apparently in perfect health, and preached a sermon from Job xiv. 14, “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.” In the afternoon of the following Lord’s Day, he asked the deacon to pray with him, saying he had not long to live. As soon as he had finished his prayer he said the time was come when he must leave the world; but his friends seeing no sign of approaching dissolution, thought it was merely the effect of imagination. Immediately he turned away, saying, “Angels, do your office!” and expired on the spot.

Lord Roberts of Kandahar relates the following of himself: “My intention, when I left Kabul, was to ride as far as the Khyber Pass; but suddenly a presentiment, which I have never been able to explain to myself, made me retrace my steps and hurry back toward Kabul--a presentiment of coming trouble which I can only characterize as instinctive.

“The feeling was justified when, about halfway between Butkhak and Kabul, I was met by Sir Donald Stewart and my chief of the staff, who brought me the astounding news of the total defeat by Ayab Khan of Brigadier-general Burrows’s brigade at Malwand, and of Lieutenant-general Primrose, with the remainder of his force, being besieged at Kandahar.”[23]

Most people are familiar with the story told by President Lincoln to a friend,--told too, in his own half-playful, half-pathetic way, as if to minimize the effect upon that friend’s mind. It is given in the words of that friend:--

“It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great ‘hurrah, boys,’ so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had _two_ separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler--say, five shades--than the other, I got up, and the thing melted away; and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it--nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up and give me a little pang, as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night, I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! the thing came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a ‘sign’ that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.”

These are by no means isolated cases. It is said that General Hancock, who had faced the King of Terrors on too many battle-fields to fear him, was pursued by a presentiment of this sort, only too soon to be fully verified. While present as an honored guest at a dinner, surrounded by his old comrades in arms, the general remarked to a friend that he had come there with a premonition that it would be his last visit, and that he had but a short time longer to live. In fact, his lamented death occurred within a short time after.

Instances of fatal presentiments before going into battle are familiar to every veteran of our great Civil War. I have heard many of them feelingly rehearsed by eye-witnesses. The same thing has occurred, under precisely similar conditions, during the late war with Spain. But here is a tale of that earlier conflict, as published broadcast to the world, without question or qualification:--

“In a research for facts bearing upon psychology, Mrs. Bancroft (a daughter-in-law of the historian) has brought to light a strange story relating to either the record of odd ‘spirit communications’ or coincidences. On July 2, 1863, the wives of Major Thomas Y. Brent and Captain Eugene Barnes, two Confederate officers, were together at a wedding in Fayette County, each wearing her bridal dress. While dressing for the occasion Mrs. Brent’s companion discovered a blood spot upon the dress of the major’s wife, which could not be accounted for, and somewhat excitedly exclaimed, ‘It is a bad omen!’ Two days after Mrs. Brent experienced a severe pain in the region of her heart, although at the time in the best of health. This occurred at the birthplace of her husband. Two days later she heard that, while storming a Federal fortification, her husband was killed on July 4, 1863, as far as she could learn, at the identical time that she had experienced the heart pain. The major was shot in the breast by a Minié ball and instantly killed.”

There lies before me, as I write, the authoritative statement of an army officer, a survivor of the terrible charge up San Juan Hill, before Santiago de Cuba, to the effect that just before advancing to the charge a brother officer had confided to him a conviction that the speaker would be killed, entreating his friend to receive his last messages for his relatives. In this case, too, the fatal premonition was fully verified. The doomed man was shot while bravely storming the Spanish stronghold.

Still another story of this war has been widely published, so lately as this chapter was begun. It has reference to the death of the bandmaster of the United States ship _Lancaster_, then cruising in the South Atlantic. Upon learning that the _Lancaster_ was to touch at Rio de Janeiro the bandmaster requested his discharge, giving as his reason that he had for years been under the presentiment that if he went to that port he would die of yellow fever. A discharge was refused him. The ship entered the harbor of Rio, and the bandmaster immediately took to his bed with all the symptoms of yellow fever. The identity of the malady soon established itself. He was taken to the plague hospital on shore and there died. One of the bandsmen who kissed him as he was being removed from the ship also died. The account goes on to say that “these two are the only cases reported at Rio for months. The fever has not spread, and no man besides the unfortunate bandsman caught the fever, the health of the ship’s crew remaining excellent.”

The number of persons who have testified to having seen the apparitions or death wraiths of dying or deceased friends is already large, as the records of various societies for psychical research bear witness. These phenomena are not in their nature forewarnings of something that is about to happen, but announcements of something that already has happened. They therefore can have no relation to what was formerly known as “second sight.”

In spite of all that our much-boasted civilization has done in the way of freeing poor, fallible man from the thraldom of superstition, there is indubitable evidence that a great many people still put faith in direct revelations from the land of spirits. In the course of a quiet chat one evening, where the subject was under discussion, one of the company who had listened attentively, though silently all the while, to all manner of theories, spiced with ridicule, abruptly asked how we would account for the following incident which he went on to relate, and I have here set down word for word:--

“My grandparents,” he began, “had a son whom they thought all the world of. From all accounts I guess Tom was about one of the likeliest young fellows that could be scared up in a day’s journey. Everybody said Tom was bound to make his mark in the world, and at the time I speak of he seemed in a fair way of doing it, too, for at one and twenty he was first mate of the old _Argonaut_ which had just sailed for Calcutta. This would make her tenth voyage. Well, as I am telling you, the very day after the _Argonaut_ went to sea, a tremendous gale set in from the eastward. It blew great guns. Actually, now, it seemed as if that gale would never stop blowing.

“As day after day went by, and the storm raged on without intermission, you may judge if the hearts of those who had friends at sea in that ship did not sink down and down with the passing hours. Of course, the old folks could think of nothing else.

“Let me see; it was a good bit ago. Ah, yes; it was on the third or fourth night of the gale, I don’t rightly remember which, and it don’t matter much, that grandfather and grandmother were sitting together, as usual, in the old family sitting-room, he poring over the family Bible as he was wont to do in such cases, she knitting and rocking, or pretending to knit, but both full of the one ever present thought, which each was trying so hard to hide from the other.

“Dismally splashed the raindrops against the window-panes, mournfully the wind whined in the chimney-top, while every now and then the fire would spit and sputter angrily on the hearth, or flare up fitfully when some big gust came roaring down the chimney to fan the embers into a fiercer flame. Then there would be a lull, during which, like an echo of the tempest, the dull and distant booming of the sea was borne to the affrighted listener’s ears. But nothing I could say would begin to give you an idea of the great gale of 1817.

“Well, the old folks sat there as stiff as two statues, listening to every sound. When a big gust tore over the house and shook it till it rocked again, gran’ther would steal a look at grandmother over his specs, but say never a word. The old lady would give a start, let her hands fall idly upon her lap, sit for a moment as if dazed, and then go on with her knitting again as if her very life depended on it.

“Unable at length to control her feelings, grandmother got up out of her chair, with her work in her hand, went to the window, put aside the curtain, and looked out. I say looked out, for of course all was so pitch-dark outside that nothing could be seen, yet there she stood with her white face pressed close to the wet panes, peering out into the night, as if questioning the storm itself of the absent one.

“All at once she drew back from the window with a low cry, saying in a broken voice: ‘My God, father, it’s Tom in his coffin! They’re bringing him up here, to the house.’ Then she covered her face with her hands, to shut out the horrid sight.

“‘Set down ’Mandy!’ sternly commanded the startled old man. ‘Don’t be making a fool of yourself. Don’t ye know tain’t no sech a thing what you’re sayin’? Set down, I say, this minnit!’

“But no one could ever convince grandmother that she had not actually seen, with her own eyes, her dear boy Tom, the idol of her heart, lying cold in death. To her indeed it was a revelation from the tomb, for the ship in which Tom had sailed was never heard from.”

XII

THE DIVINING-ROD

“One point must still be greatly dark,
The reason why they do it.”

It is a matter of common knowledge that certain expert “finders,” as they are called, use a divining-rod for detecting underground springs in New England; in Pennsylvania for the locating of oil springs; and in the mineral regions of the Rockies for the discovery of hidden veins of valuable ores. The Cornish miners, also, have long made use of the divining-rod, or “dowsing-rod,” as they call it, for a like purpose. A further research, probably, might reveal a similar practice in other countries; but for our purpose it is enough to present two of the most intelligent in the world as giving it their sanction and support.

Various implements are employed by the expert operator in his quest for what lies hidden from mortal eyes; but the preferred agent is usually a bough of witch-hazel, branching at one end like the tines of a pitchfork.[24] Taking firm hold of each prong, with the palms of the hands turned upward, the operator slowly walks around the locality where it is desired to find water; and when he reaches the right spot, _presto!_ the free end of the bough is bent downward toward the ground as if by some invisible force, sometimes so strongly that the operator is unable to overcome it by putting forth his whole strength. “Dig here,” he says, with positive assurance that water will be found not far below the surface of the ground.

On the face of it, this performance comes rather nearer to our idea of a miracle than anything we can now call to mind. Certainly, Moses did no more when he smote the rock of Scripture. Very possibly, former generations of men may have associated the act with the operation of sorcery or magic. An enlightened age, however, accepts neither of these theories. We do not believe in miracles other than those recorded in Scripture; and we have renounced magic and sorcery as too antiquated for intelligent people to consider. Yet things are done every day which would have passed for miracles with our forefathers, without our knowing more than the bare fact that, by means of certain crude agents, obtained from the earth itself, messages are sent from New York to London under the Atlantic Ocean in a few minutes; that the most remote parts of the habitable globe have been brought into practically instantaneous communication, the one with the other; and that public and private conveyances are moving about our thoroughfares without the use of horses or steam. All these things looked to us like miracles, at first, yet custom has brought us to regard them with no more wonder than did the lighting of the first gas lamp the pedestrian of forty odd years ago. Much as we know, there is probably yet much more that we do not know.

The methods employed in finding oil springs or “leads” of ore are very similar to those made use of in discovering water. It is a fact that some of the most productive wells in the oil regions were located in this manner. It is a further fact, that from time to time, search for buried treasure has been carried on in precisely the same way. Now some astute critics have said that the divining-rod was a humbug, because when they have tried it the mystic bough would not bend for them. It is, however, doubtful if any humbug could have stood the test of so many years without exposure, or what so many witnesses stand ready to affirm the truth of be cavalierly thrust aside as a palpable imposture.

Although I have never seen the operator at work, myself, I have often talked with those who have, whose testimony was both direct and explicit. Moreover, I do know of persons who continue to ply this trade (for no more than this is claimed for it) in some parts of New England to-day. Whether it should be classed among superstitions may be an open question after all.

XIII

WONDERS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE

“The hag is astride
This night for a ride--
The devil and she together.”--_Herrick._

All abnormal exhibitions of nature, or in fact any departure from the regular order of things, such as great and unusual storms, earthquakes, eclipses of the sun or moon, the appearance of a comet in the heavens, or of a plague of flies, caterpillars, or locusts were once held to be so many infallible signs of impending calamity. All of our early historians give full and entire credit to the evil import of these startling phenomena, which were invariably referred to the wrath of an offended deity, only to be appeased by a special season of fasting and prayer. Of course ample warrant exists for such belief in the Bible, which was something no man dared question or gainsay in those primitive days. For example, in his history of Philip’s War, Increase Mather lays down this, to our age, startling proposition. “It is,” says the learned divine, “a common observation, verified by the experience of many ages, that _great and publick calamityes seldome come upon any place without prodigious warnings to forerun and signify what is to be expected_.” He had just noted the appearance “in the aire,” at Plymouth, of something shaped in the perfect form of an Indian bow, which some of the terror-stricken people looked upon as a “prodigious apparition.” The learned divine cleverly interpreted it as a favorable omen, however, portending that the Lord would presently “break the bow and spear asunder,” thus calming their fears.

This extract taken at random, fairly establishes the survival of certain forms of superstition in the second generation of colonists. The first, as has been said already, brought all of its old superstitions with it. In short, every form of belief in the supernatural, for which the fathers of New England have been so roundly abused or ridiculed, may be distinctly traced back to the old country.

Very much of the belief in the baleful influence of so-called prodigies, with the possible exception of that ascribed to comets, or “blazing stars,” as they were called, has fortunately subsided in a measure, for we shudder to think of a state of things so thoroughly calculated to keep society continually on the rack. But in those earlier times life and death had about equal terrors. Sin and sinners were punished both here and hereafter; and, really, if we may credit such writers as the Rev. William Hubbard and the Mather family, poor New England was quite ripe, in their time, for the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

As regards comets, we risk little in saying that a great many very sensible people still view their periodical appearance with fear and trembling, and their departure with a feeling of unfeigned relief. It is our unwilling tribute to the unfathomable and the unknown. And, disguise it as we may, we breathe more freely when the dread visitant has faded from our sight. In the language of Macbeth after seeing Banquo’s ghost,--

“Why, so: being gone, I am a man again.”

In truth, we know comets as yet only as the accredited agents of destruction. It seems a natural question to ask, If order is nature’s first law, why are all these departures from it? Can they be without fixed end, aim, or purpose? Why should the solid earth quake, the sea overwhelm the land, mountains vomit forth flames, the tempest scatter death and destruction abroad, the heavens suspend a winged and flaming monster over us,--

“So horribly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls”?

There was still another form of belief, differing from the first in ascribing supernatural functions to great natural phenomena. In this sense, the storm did not descend in the majesty of its mighty wrath to punish man’s wickedness, but, like the roar of artillery which announces the death of the monarch to his mourning people, was coincident, in its coming, with the death of some great personage, which it proclaimed with salvos of Olympus. Indeed, poets and philosophers of keen insight have frequently recognized this sort of curious sympathy in nature with most momentous movements in human life. We are told that the dying hours of Cromwell and Napoleon were signalized by storms of terrific violence, and Shakespeare describes the earth and air as filled with omens before the murders of Julius Cæsar and of King Duncan.

“As busy as the devil in a gale of wind,” emphasizes by a robust, sea-seasoned saying the notion current among sailors of how storms arise.

It was just now said that the belief in direct manifestations of the divine wrath, through the medium of such calamitous visitations as great droughts, earthquakes, eclipses, tidal waves, fatal epidemics, and the like, had, in a measure, subsided. The statement should be made, however, with certain qualification; for it is well remembered that during a season of unexampled drought, in the far West, the people were called together in their churches, and on a week-day, too, to pray for rain, just as we are told that the Pilgrim Fathers did, on a like occasion, two hundred and fifty odd years before. Prayers were kept up without intermission during the day. And it is a further coincidence that copious showers did set in within twenty-four hours or so. Even the most sceptical took refuge in silence.

From many different sources we have very detailed accounts of the remarkable dark day of May 19, 1780, with the great fear that phenomenon inspired in those who witnessed it, the general belief being that the Day of Judgment was at hand.[25] In the presence of this overshadowing terror, few retained their usual presence of mind unshaken. One such instance is worth repeating here, if only for its rarity. At that time the Connecticut legislature was in session. The House of Representatives immediately adjourned. A like motion was before the Council. The protest of Colonel Davenport has become historical. Said he, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be lighted.”

Nearly fifty years later (September, 1825), a similar visitation, due to extensive forest fires in New Brunswick, again created widespread alarm, hardly quieted by the later knowledge of the atmospheric conditions (an under stratum of fog and an upper stratum of smoke) that were so plainly responsible for it. On the contrary, from what we have been able to gather on the subject, it appears that where the phenomenon was visible, people were quite as ill at ease as their fathers were.

Once again, under almost identical conditions, the same phenomenon wrought exactly the same chaos in the minds of a very large number of people in New England and New York. This has passed into history as the Yellow Tuesday (September 6, 1881). On this occasion the brooding darkness lasted all day. It was noticed that a fire built in the open air burned with a spectral blue flame. Blue flowers were changed to a crimson hue. By two in the afternoon one could not see to read without a light. At a certain hotel in the White Mountains some of the servants were so frightened that they refused to go to work, and fell to praying instead.

These examples at least afford data for a comparison of some little interest, as to how any wide departure from nature’s fixed laws has affected the human mind at widely separated periods of time, all the theories or demonstrations of science to the contrary notwithstanding.

So much for the effects of what is a reality to be seen and felt by all men. But now and again the mere haphazard predictions of some self-constituted prophet of evil, if plausibly presented and steadily insisted upon, find a multitude of credulous believers among us. It is only a few years since a certain religious sect, notwithstanding repeated failures in the past, with much consequent ridicule, again ventured to fix a day for the second coming of Our Lord. Similarly it falls within the recollection of most of us how a certain self-constituted Canadian seer solemnly predicted the coming of a monster tidal wave, which in its disastrous effects was to be another Deluge. All the great Atlantic seaboard was to be buried in the rush of mighty waters; all its great maritime cities swept away in a moment. Fresher still in the recollection is the prediction that the end of the world would surely come as the inevitable result of the shower of meteors of November, 1899.

It is a fact that many good and worthy but, alas! too credulous people living along the New England coast, who believed themselves in danger from the destroying tidal wave, were thrown into a state of unspeakable agitation and alarm by this wicked prediction. Yet there was absolutely nothing to warrant it except the unsupported declaration of this one man, whom no one knew, and few had ever heard of. Yet some really believed, more half believed, and some who openly ridiculed the prediction apparently did so more to keep their courage up than from actual unbelief. So easy it is to arouse the fears of a community, who usually act first and reason afterward. I heard of one man who actually packed all his household goods in a wagon, so as to be ready to start off for higher ground upon the first signal of the approach of this much-dreaded rush of waters.

XIV

“SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT”

“_Songe est toujours mensonge_,” says a French proverb; “Dreams go by contraries” says the English proverb,--that is, if you dream of the dead you will hear from the living. Who shall decide, where the collective wisdom of centuries is at such wide variance?

To put faith in the supposed revelations of a disordered or overheated brain seems, on the face of it, sheer absurdity, especially when we ourselves may induce dreaming merely by overindulgence in eating or drinking. Yet there are people who habitually dream when the brain is in its normal condition. This brings the question down to its simplest form, “What is a dream?” And there we halt.

That there is no end of theories concerning the measure of credit that should be given to dreams is readily accounted for. What nobody can explain every one is at liberty to have his own peculiar notions of. Perhaps the most curious thing about it is the proven fact that so many different people should dream precisely the same thing from time to time; so making it possible not only to classify and analyze dreams, but even to lay down certain interpretations, to be accepted by a multitude of believers. Of course it is easy to laugh at the incoherent fancies that flit through the debatable region we inhabit while asleep, but it is not so easy to explain why we laugh, or why we should dream of persons or events long since passed from our memories, or of other persons or events wholly unknown to us, either in the past or the present.

Without a doubt people dream just as much nowadays as they ever did. That fact being admitted, the problem for us to consider is, whether the belief in the prophetic character of dreams, held by so many peoples for so many centuries, having the unequivocal sanction, too, of Scripture authority, is really dying out, or continues to hold its old dominion over the minds of poor, fallible mankind. In order to determine this vexed question inquiry was made of several leading booksellers with the following result: Thirty or forty years ago dream books were as much a recognized feature of the book-selling trade as any other sort of literary property; consequently, they were openly exposed for sale in every bookstore, large or small. It now appears that these yellow-covered oracles of fate are still in good demand, mostly by servant girls and factory girls, and, though seldom found in the best bookstores, may be readily had of most dealers in cheap periodicals. This, certainly, would seem to be a gain in the direction of education, though not of the masses. It also appears that, as in the matter of “signs,” the female sex is more susceptible to this sort of superstition than is the male; but that by no means proves the sterner sex to be wholly free from it.

Some persons dream a great deal, others but seldom. Let one who is not much addicted to the habit have a bad dream, a frightful dream, and be he never so well poised, the phantasm can hardly fail of leaving a disquieting, perhaps a lasting, effect. Seldom, indeed, can that person shake off the feeling that the dream forbodes something of a sinister nature. In vain he racks his brain for some interpretation that may set his mind at rest, wholly forgetful of the trite adage that dreams go by contraries.

So often, indeed, do we hear the pregnant declaration, to wit: “Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men see visions,” that we have adopted it as a striking rhetorical figure of wide application. In Hamlet’s celebrated soliloquy upon the immortality of the soul, the melancholy Dane confesses to an overmastering fear of bad dreams. And once again, as if wrung from the very anguish of his sinful heart, Gloster cries out: “Oh, Catesby, I have had such horrid dreams!” And Catesby expostulates, “Shadows, my lord, below the soldiers seeming.” But Gloster thrusts aside the rebuke as he impetuously exclaims: “Now by my this day’s hopes, shadows to-night have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers arm’d all in proof.”

We find that our own immediate ancestors were fully as credulous in regard to the importance of dreams, as affecting their lives and fortunes, as the ancients appear to have been. But with them it is true that Scripture warrant was accepted as all-sufficient. Just a few examples will suffice.

In the time of its disintegration, owing to the removal of some of its members to Connecticut, the church of Dorchester, Massachusetts, “did not reorganize on account of certain dreams and visions among the congregation.”

Under a certain date, Samuel Sewall sets down the fact that he has had disturbing dreams, which he, according to his wont, anxiously strives to interpret--he, of all men!--a magistrate, a councillor, and a ruler in the land. One dream was to the effect “that all my [his] children were dead except Sarah, which did distress me sorely with reflections on my omissions of duty towards them as well as breaking of the hopes I had of them.”

Shifting now the scene to half a century later, we find in the “Diary and Letters of Sarah Pierpont,” wife of the celebrated theologian, Jonathan Edwards, this letter, describing a singularly prophetic dream relative to her grandson, then an infant, Aaron Burr:--

“STOCKBRIDGE, May 10, 1756.

“DEAR BROTHER JAMES: Your letters always do us good, and your
last was one of your best. Have you heard of the birth of
Esther’s second child, at Newark? It was born the sixth of
February last, and its parents have named him Aaron Burr, Jr.,
after his father, the worthy President of the College. I trust
the little immortal will grow up to be a good and useful man.
But, somehow, a strange presentiment of evil has hung over my
mind of late, and I can hardly rid myself of the impression
that that child was born to see trouble.

“You know I don’t believe in dreams and visions; but lately I
had a sad night of broken sleep, in which the future career
of that boy seemed to pass before me. He first appeared as
a little child, just beginning to ascend a high hill. Not
long after he set out, the two guides who started with him
disappeared one after the other. He went on alone, and as the
road was open and plain, and as friends met him at every turn,
he got along very well. At times he took on the air and bearing
of a soldier, and then of a statesman, assuming to lead and
control others. As he neared the top of the hill, the way grew
more steep and difficult, and his companions became alienated
from him, refusing to help him or be led by him. Baffled in
his designs, and angered at his ill-success, he began to lay
about him with violence, leading some astray, and pulling down
others at every attempt to rise. Soon he himself began to
slip and slide down the rough and perilous sides of the hill;
now regaining his foothold for a little, then losing it again,
until at length he stumbled and fell headlong down, down, into
a black and yawning gulf at the base!

“At this, I woke in distress, and was glad enough to find it
was only a dream. Now, you may make as much or as little of
this as you please. I think the disturbed state of our country,
along with my own indifferent health, must have occasioned it.
A letter from his mother, to-day, assures me that her little
Aaron is a lively, prattlesome fellow, filling his parents’
hearts with joy.

“Your loving sister,
“SARAH.”

Though “only a dream,” this vision of the night prefigured a sad reality, for within two years both of the “guides” had gone, President Burr in September, 1757, his wife in the same month of the next year, 1758.

Passing now down to our own day, the Rev. Walter Colton, sometime alcalde of Monterey, tells us, in his reminiscences of the gold excitement of 1849, that he dreamed of finding gold at a certain spot, had faith enough in his dream to seek for it in that place, and was rewarded by finding it there.

A mass of similar testimony might be adduced. One piece coming from a brave soldier, who will not be accused of harboring womanish fears, will bear repeating here. We again quote from that most interesting volume, “Forty-one Years in India.” Lord Roberts, its author, is speaking of his father, then a man close upon seventy.

“Shortly before his departure an incident occurred which I will relate for the benefit of psychological students; they may perhaps be able to explain it, I never could. My father had some time before issued invitations for a dance which was to take place in two days’ time,--on Monday, the 17th October, 1853. On the Saturday morning he appeared disturbed and unhappy, and during breakfast was despondent--very different from his usual bright and cheery self. On my questioning him as to the cause, he told me he had had an unpleasant dream--one which he had dreamt several times before, and which had always been followed by the death of a near relation. As the day advanced, in spite of my efforts to cheer him, he became more and more depressed, and even said he should like to put off the dance. I dissuaded him from taking this step for the time being; but that night he had the same dream again, and the next morning he insisted on the dance being postponed. It seemed rather absurd to disappoint our friends on account of a dream; there was, however, nothing for it but to carry out my father’s wishes, and intimation was accordingly sent to the invited guests. The following morning the post brought news of the sudden death of a half-sister at Lahore, with whom I had stayed on my way to Pashawar.”

A man is now living who ran away from the vessel in which he had shipped as a sailor before the mast, in consequence of dreaming for three nights in succession that the vessel would be lost. All the circumstances were related to me, with much minuteness of detail, by persons quite familiar with them at the time of their occurrence. The vessel was, in fact, cast away, and every one on board drowned, on the very night after she sailed; consequently the warning dream, by means of which the deserter’s life was saved, could hardly fail of leaving a deep and lasting impression upon the minds of all who knew the facts. The story has been told more at length elsewhere by the writer,[26] as it came from the lips of a seafaring friend; and the hero of it is still pointed out to sceptics as a living example of the fact that--

“Coming events cast their shadows before.”

Richard Mansfield, distinguished actor and playwright, has recently related in an interview a most interesting incident in his own career, which he declared himself wholly unable to account for. So much more credit attaches to the testimony of persons if known to the public even by name, that Mr. Mansfield’s experience has special value here. It is also a highly interesting fragment of autobiography.

Mr. Mansfield goes on to say that after leading a most precarious existence, in various ways, his discharge from Mr. D’Oyley Carte’s company brought on a crisis in his affairs. Reaching his poor lodgings in London, he soon fell into desperate straits, being soon forced to pawn what little he had for the means to keep body and soul together. He declares that he did not know which way to turn, and that the most gloomy forebodings overwhelmed him. We will now let him tell his own story in his own way:--

“This was the condition of affairs when the strange happening to which I have referred befell me. Retiring for the night in a perfectly hopeless frame of mind, I fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed dreams. Finally, toward morning, this apparent fantasy came to me. I seemed in my disturbed sleep to hear a cab drive up to the door as if in a great hurry. There was a knock, and in my dream I opened the door and found D’Oyley Carte’s yellow-haired secretary standing outside. He exclaimed:--

“‘Can you pack up and catch the train in ten minutes to rejoin the company?’

“‘I can,’ was the dreamland reply; there seemed to be a rushing about while I swept a few things into my bag; then the cab door was slammed, and we were off to the station.

“This was all a dream,” continued Mr. Mansfield; “but here is the inexplicable denouement. The dream was so vivid and startling that I immediately awoke with a strange, uncanny sensation, and sprang to my feet. It was six o’clock, and only bare and gloomy surroundings met my eye. On a chair rested my travelling bag, and through some impulse which I could not explain at the time and cannot account for now I picked it up and hurriedly swept into it the few articles that had escaped the pawnshop. It did not take me long to complete my toilet, and then I sat down to think.

“Presently, when I had reached the extreme point of dejection, a cab rattled up, there was a knock, and I opened the door. There stood D’Oyley Carte’s secretary, just as I saw him in my dreams. He seemed to be in a great flurry, and cried out:--

“‘Can you pack up and reach the station in ten minutes to rejoin the company?’

“‘I can,’ said I, calmly, pointing to my bag. ‘It is all ready, for I was expecting you.’

“The man was a little startled by this seemingly strange remark, but bundled me into the cab without further ado, and we hurried away to the station exactly in accord with my dream. That was the beginning of a long engagement, and, although I have known hard times since, it was the turning-point in my career. I have already said that I have no theories whatever in regard to the matter. I do not account for it. It is enough for me to know that I dreamed certain things which were presently realized in the exact order of the dream. Having no superstitions, it is impossible to philosophize over the occurrence. All I know is that everything happened just as I have stated it.”

Some of the hidden meanings attributed to dreams are elsewhere referred to. As the subject has a literature of its own, we need mention only a few of the more commonly accepted interpretations. Their name is legion.

To dream of a white horse is a certain presage of a death in the family.

To dream of a funeral is a sign that you will soon attend a wedding.

To dream of losing one’s teeth is ominous of some coming sorrow.

To dream of a snake is a token that you have an enemy.

Touching a dead body will prevent dreaming of it.

The same dream, occurring three nights in succession, will surely come to pass.

A slice of wedding-cake put under the pillow will cause an unmarried woman to dream of her future husband.

XV

FORTUNE-TELLING, ASTROLOGY, AND PALMISTRY

“I asked her of the way, which she informed me;
Then craved my charity, and bade me hasten
To save a sister.”--_Otway._

One noticeable thing about certain forms of superstition is their general acceptance by the public at large, like certain moral evils, which it is felt to be an almost hopeless task to do away with. Other good, easy souls choose to ignore the presence of fortune-tellers, astrologers, palmists among their daily haunts. As a matter of fact, however, fortune-telling, astrology, and palmistry have become so fully incorporated with the everyday life of all large communities as to excite very little comment from the common run of us.

It certainly would astonish some people if they knew to what an extent these methods of hoodwinking the credulous, or weak-minded, continue to flourish in our large cities, without the least attempt at concealment or disguise. One need only look about him to see the signs of these shrewd charlatans everywhere staring him in the face, or run his eye over the columns of the daily papers to be convinced how far superstition still lives and thrives in the chosen strongholds of modern thought and modern scepticism. At fairs and social gatherings fortune-telling and palmistry have come to be recognized features, either as a means of raising funds for some highly deserving object, of course, or for the sake of the amusement they afford, at the expense of those well-meaning souls who do not know how to say no. To be sure, it has come to be thoroughly understood that no benevolent object whatsoever has a chance of succeeding nowadays without some sort of nickel-in-the-slot attachment, by which the delusion of getting something for your money is so clumsily kept up.

At fairs, for instance, it is not necessary that the oracle of fortune should speak. Time is saved and modern progress illustrated and enforced by having printed cards ready at hand to be impartially distributed to all applicants on the principle of first come, first served. As the victim receives his card, he laughs nervously, fidgets around a few minutes, goes aside into some quiet corner and furtively reads, “Fortune will be more favorable to you in future than it has been.”

Unwittingly, perhaps, yet none the less, has he paid his tribute to superstition, thus thriftily turned to account.

The penny-in-the-slot machines, so often seen in public places, tell fortunes with mechanical precision, and in the main, impartially, evident care being taken not to render the oracle unpopular by giving out disagreeable or alarming predictions. True, they are just a trifle ambiguous, but does not that feature exactly correspond with the traditional idea of the ancient oracle, which was nothing if not ambiguous? Here is a sample, “You will not become very rich, but be assured you will never want for anything.”

Fortune-telling also is openly carried on at all popular summer resorts, with considerable profit to the dealer in prophecies, who is generally an Indian woman. She is much consulted by young women, “just for the fun of the thing.” Roving bands of gypsies continue to do a more or less thriving business in the country towns. Character is unfolded or the future foretold by the color of the eyes, the length or breadth of the finger nails or of the eyebrows.

Telling fortunes by means of tea grounds is often practised at social gatherings.

“For still, by some invisible tether
Scandal and tea are linked together.”

It is done in this way: When drinking off the tea, the grounds are made to adhere to the sides of the tea-cup, by swiftly twirling it round and round. The cup is then inverted, turned thrice and no more, after which the spell is completed, and the mistress of the revels proceeds to tell the fortunes of those present, with neatness and despatch.

Time has worked certain marked changes in the method of practising this equivocal trade. The modern fortune-teller no longer inhabits a grewsome cavern, reached by a winding path among overhanging rocks, and choked with dank weeds, or goes about muttering to herself in an unknown tongue, or is clothed in rags. Far from it. She either occupies luxurious apartments in the best business section, or in a genteel up-town hotel, or dwells in a fashionable quarter of the town, and dresses _à la mode_. Nor are her clients by any means exclusively drawn from among the lowly and ignorant, as might be supposed, but more often come from the middle class of society; and, though consultations are had in a private manner, those who ply this trade do so without fear or disguise.

Of the thousand and one matters submitted to the dictum of fortune-tellers, those relating to love affairs or money matters are by much the most numerous. On this head just a few selections, taken at hazard from the advertising columns of a morning newspaper, perhaps will afford the best idea of the nature of the questions most commonly addressed to these disposers and dispensers of fate. One reads, “Mrs Blank: consult her on all business, domestic or love affairs. Unites separated parties.” A shrewd offer that! The next, who styles himself “Doctor” is an astrologer. He invites you to send him your sex, with date and hour of birth; or a full description. All matters, he naïvely declares, are alike to him. For the trifling matter of one dollar he promises “a full reading”--presumably of your horoscope. The next, a trance and business medium, professes to be able to tell the “name of future husband or wife, and all affairs of life.” Still another, after setting forth her own abilities in glowing colors, warns a trusting public, after the manner of all quacks, to beware of imitators.

As an indication to what extent these forms of superstition flourish, it would be vastly interesting to know just how many persons there are in the United States, for instance, who get their living by such means. Enough, perhaps, has been said to open the eyes of even the most sceptical on this point. We may add that the modern applicant for foreknowledge is not satisfied with the obscure generalizations of the ancient oracles. He or she demands a full and explicit answer, and will be satisfied with nothing less.

Moll Pitcher, of Lynn, who practised her art in the early part of the century, was the most famous, as she was by far the most successful, fortune-teller of her day. In fact, her reputation was world-wide, it having been carried to every port and clime by the masters and sailors, who never failed to consult her about the luck of the voyage. Her supposed knowledge of the future was also much drawn upon by the highly respectable owners themselves, who, however, possibly through deference to some secret qualms, generally made their visits at night, sometimes in disguise.[27] Indeed, stories little short of marvellous are told of this cunning woman’s skill at divination, or luck at guessing, according as one may choose to look at the matter. Besides being the subject of the poet Whittier’s least-known verses, a long forgotten play was written with Moll Pitcher as its heroine, after the manner of Meg Merrilies, in Sir Walter Scott’s “Guy Mannering.”

From the earliest to the latest times, the astrologers have always claimed for their methods of divination the consideration due to established principles or incontrovertible facts. The court astrologer was once quite as much consulted as the court physician. Though fallen from this high estate, and even placed under the ban of the law as a vagabond and charlatan, the astrologer still continues to ply his trade among us with more or less success; and, unless we greatly err, the craft even has an organ, called not too appropriately, “The Sphinx,” as the Sphinx has never been known to speak, even in riddles.

Palmistry is the name now given to fortune-telling by means of the hand alone. Formerly there was no such distinction. After looking her client over, the fortune-teller of other days always based her predictions upon a careful scrutiny of the hand. Some careless hit-or-miss reference to the past, at first, such as “you have seen trouble,” usually preceded the unravelling of the future. The disciples of palmistry now claim for it something like what was earlier claimed for phrenology and physiognomy. Every one knows that palmistry openly thrives in all large communities as a means of livelihood. How many practise it in private, no one can pretend to say, but the number is certainly very large. It is a further fact that some surprising guesses at character now and then occur, but we must hold to the opinion that they are still only guesses, nothing more.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “L’Inconnu et les Problems Psychiques.”

[2] Wallington, “Historical Notices, Reign of Charles I.”

[3] Chap. 15, 32 v.

[4] Candlemas Day (2 February) is observed as a festival day by the Roman Catholics, and still holds a place in the calendar of the Episcopal Church. It is kept in memory of the purification of the Virgin, who presented the infant Jesus in the Temple. A number of candles were lighted, it is said in memory of Simeon’s song (Luke ii, 32), “A light to lighten the Gentiles.” Hence the name of Candlemas. Edward VI. forbade the practice of lighting the churches in 1548.

[5] See the ominous import of this farther on.

[6] The white and purple spiræa.

[7] For the ill omens of nosebleed, see Chapter ix.

[8] It was commonly believed that the haddock bore the mark of St. Peter’s thumb, ever since that saint took the tribute penny out of a fish of that species.

[9] It is deemed lucky to be born with a caul or membrane over the face. In France _être né coiffée_ signifies that a person is extremely fortunate. It is believed to be an infallible protection against drowning, and under that idea is frequently advertised for sale in the newspapers and purchased by seamen. If bought by lawyers they become as eloquent as Demosthenes or Cicero, and thereby get a great deal of practice.--FIELDING.