Chapter 6

The young man used to rise, to take paper, and to write. Before he wrote music, he would take a stick and rule the lines with it. He wrote the notes, together with the words corresponding with them, with perfect correctness. Or, when he had written the words too wide, he altered them. The notes that were to be black, he filled in after he had written the whole. After completing a sermon, he read it aloud from beginning to end. If any passage displeased him, he erased it, and wrote the amended passage correctly over the other; on one occasion he had to substitute the word "_adorable_" for "_divin_;" but he did not omit to alter the preceding "_ce_" into "_cet_," by adding the letter "_t_" with exact precision to the word first written. To ascertain whether he used his eyes, the archbishop interposed a sheet of pasteboard between the writing and his face. He took not the least notice, but went on writing as before. The limitation of his perceptions to what he was thinking about was very curious. A bit of aniseed cake, that he had sought for, he eat approvingly; but when, on another occasion, a piece of the same cake was put in his month, he spit it out without observation. The following instance of the dependance of his perceptions upon, or rather their subordination to, his preconceived ideas is truly wonderful. It is to be observed that he always knew when his pen had ink in it. Likewise, if they adroitly changed his papers, when he was writing, he knew it, if the sheet substituted was of a different size from the former, and he appeared embarrassed in that case. But if the fresh sheet of paper, which was substituted for that written on, was exactly of the same size with the former, he appeared not to be aware of the change. And he would continue to read off his composition from the blank sheet of paper, as fluently as when the manuscript itself lay before him; nay, more, he would continue his corrections, and introduce the amended passage, writing it upon exactly the place on the blank sheet which it would have occupied on the written page.

The form of trance which has been thus exemplified may be therefore well called half-waking, inasmuch as the performer, whatever his powers of perception may be in respect to the object he is thinking of, is nevertheless lost in dream, and blind and deaf to every thing without its scope.

The following case may serve as a suitable transition to instances of full-waking in trance. The subject of it alternated evidently between that state and half-waking. Or she, could be at once roused from the latter into the former by the conversation of her friends. The case is recorded in the Acta Vratisl. ann. 1722, Feb. class iv., art. 2.

A girl seventeen years of age was used to fall into a kind of sleep in the afternoon, in which it was supposed, from her expression of countenance and her gestures, that she was engaged in dreams which interested her. After some days, she began to speak when in this state. Then, if those present addressed remarks to her, she replied very sensibly; but then fell back into her dream-discourse, which turned principally upon religious and moral topics, and was directed to warn her friends how a female should live, Christianly, well-governed, and so as to incur no reproach. When she sang, which often happened, she heard herself accompanied by an imaginary violin or piano, and would take up and continue the accompaniment upon an instrument herself. She sewed, did knitting, and the like. But on the other hand, she imagined on one occasion that she wrote a letter upon a napkin, which she folded with the intention of sending it to the post. Upon waking, she had not the least recollection of her dreams, or of what she had been doing. After a few months she recovered.

I come now to the exemplification of full-waking in trance, as it is very perfectly manifested in the cases which have been termed double consciousness. These are in their principle very simple; but it is not easy in a few words to convey a distinct idea of the condition of the patient. The case consists of a series of fits of trance, in which the step from ordinary waking to full trance-waking is sudden and immediate, or nearly so, and either was so originally, or through use has become so. Generally for some hours on each day, occasionally for days together, the patient continues in the state of trance; then suddenly reverts to that of ordinary waking. In the perfectest instances of double consciousness, there is nothing in the bearing or behaviour of the entranced person which would lead a stranger to suppose her (for it is an affection far commoner in young women than in boys or men) to be other than ordinarily awaked. But her friends observe that she does every thing with more spirit and better--sings better, plays better, has more readiness, moves even more gracefully, than in her natural state. She has an innocent boldness and disregard of little conventionalisms, which imparts a peculiar charm to her behaviour. In the mean time, she has two complete existences separate and apart, which alternate but never mingle. On the day of her first fit, her life split into a double series of thoughts and recollections. She remembers in her ordinary state nothing of her trance existence. In her trances, she remembers nothing of the intervening hours of ordinary waking. Her recollections of what she had experienced or learned before the fits began is singularly capricious, differing extraordinarily in its extent in different cases. In general, the positive recollection of prior events is annulled; but her prior affections and habits either remain, and her general acquirements, or they are quickly by association rekindled or brought into the circle of her trance ideas. Generally she names all her friends anew; often her tone of voice is a little altered; sometimes she introduces with particular combinations of letters some odd inflection, which she maintains rigorously and cannot unlearn.

Keeping before him this conception, the reader will comprehend the following sketch of a case of double consciousness, communicated by Dr George Barlow. To one reading them without preparation, the details, which are very graphic and instructive, would appear mere confusion:--

"This young lady has two states of existence. During the time that the fit is on her, which varies from a few hours to three days, she is occasionally merry and in spirits; occasionally she appears in pain and rolls about in uneasiness; but in general she seems so much herself, that a stranger entering the room would not remark any thing extraordinary; she amuses herself with reading or working, sometimes plays on the piano and better than at other times, knows every body, and converses rationally, and makes very accurate observations on what she has seen and read. The fit leaves her suddenly, and she then forgets every thing that has passed during it, and imagines that she has been asleep, and sometimes that she has dreamed of any circumstance that has made a vivid impression upon her. During one of these fits she was reading Miss Edgeworth's tales, and had in the morning been reading a part of one of them to her mother, when she went for a few minutes to the window, and suddenly exclaimed, 'Mamma, I am quite well, my headach is gone.' Returning to the table, she took up the open volume, which she had been reading five minutes before, and said, 'What book is this?' she turned over the leaves, looked at the frontispiece, and replaced it on the table. Seven or eight hours afterwards, when the fit returned, she asked for the book, went on at the very paragraph where she had left off, and remembered every circumstance of the narrative. And so it always is; as she reads one set of books during one state, and another during the other. She seems to be conscious of her state; for she said one day, 'Mamma, this is a novel, but I may safely read it; it will not hurt my morals, for, when I am well, I shall not remember a word of it.'"

This state of double consciousness forms the basis of the psychical phenomena observed in the extraordinary cases which have been occasionally described under the general name of catalepsy. The accounts of the most interesting of these that I have met with, were given by M. Petatin in 1787; M. Delpet, 1807; Dr Despine, 1829. The wonderful powers of perception evinced by the patients when in this state of trance-waking would exceed belief, but for the respectable names of the observers, and the internal evidence of good faith and accuracy in the narratives themselves. The patients did not see with their eyes nor hear with their ears. But they heard at the pit of the stomach, and perceived the approach of persons when at some distance from their residence, and read the thoughts of those around.

I am, my dear Archy, no wonder-monger; so I am not tempted to make a parade to you of these extraordinary phenomena. Nor in truth do they interest me further than as they concur with the numerous other facts I have brought forward to show, and positively prove, that under certain conditions the mind enters into new relations, spiritual and material. I will, however, in conclusion, give you the outline of a case of the sort which occurred a few years ago in England, and the details of which were communicated to me by the late Mr Bulteel. He had himself repeatedly seen the patient, and had scrupulously verified what I now narrate to you:--

The patient was towards twenty years of age. Her condition was the state of double consciousness, _thus_ aggravated, that when she was not in the trance, she suffered from spasmodic contraction of the limbs. In her alternate state of trance-waking, she was composed and apparently well; but the expression of her countenance was slightly altered, and there was some peculiarity in her mode of speaking. She would mispronounce certain letters, or introduce consonants into words upon a regular system; and to each of her friends she had given a new name, which she only employed in her trance. As usual, she knew nothing in either state of what passed in the other. Then in her trance she exhibited three marvellous powers: she could read by the touch alone: if she pressed her hand against the whole surface of a written or printed page, she acquired a perfect knowledge of its contents, not of the substance only, but of the words, and would criticise the type or the handwriting. A line of a folded note pressed against the back of her neck, she read equally well: she called this sense-feeling. Contact was necessary for it. Her sense of smell was at the same time singularly acute; when out riding one day, she said, "There is a violet," and cantered her horse fifty yards to where it grew. Persons whom she knew she could tell were approaching the house, when yet at some distance. When persons were playing chess at a table _behind her_, and intentionally made impossible moves, she would smile, and ask them why they did it.

Cases of this description are no doubt of rare occurrence. Yet not a year passes in London without something transpiring of the existence of one or more of them in the huge metropolis. Medical men view them with unpardonable indifference. Thus one doctor told me of a lady, whom he had been attending with other physicians, who, it appeared, always announced that they were coming some minutes before they drove to her door. It was very odd, he thought, and there was an end of it.

"M. l'Abbé," said Voltaire to a visitor, who gave him a commonplace account of some remarkable scenes, "do you know in what respect you differ from Don Quixote?"--"No," said the Abbé, not half liking the look of the question. "Why, M. l'Abbé, Don Quixote took the inns on the road for castles, but you have taken castles for inns."

Adieu, dear Archy.--Yours, &c. MAC DAVUS.

FOUR SONNETS BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I. LIFE.

Each creature holds an insular point in space; Yet, what man stirs a finger, breathes a sound, But all the multitudinous beings round In all the countless worlds, with time and place For their conditions, down to the central base, Thrill, haply, in vibration and rebound; Life answering life across the vast profound, In full antiphony, by a common grace?-- I think this sudden joyaunce, which illumes A child's mouth sleeping, unaware may run From some soul breaking new the bond of tombs: I think this passionate sigh, which, half begun, I stifle back, may reach and stir the plumes Of God's calm angel standing in the sun.

II. LOVE.

We cannot live, except thus mutually We alternate, aware or unaware, The reflex act of life: and when we bear Our virtue outward most impulsively, Most full of invocation, and to be Most instantly compellant, certes, there, We live most life, whoever breathes most air And counts his dying years by sun and sea! But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth Show out her full force on another soul, The conscience and the concentration, both, Make mere life, Love! For life in perfect whole And aim consummated, is Love in sooth, As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.

III. HEAVEN AND EARTH. 1845.

"And there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour."--_Revelation._

God, who with thunders and great voices kept Beneath thy throne, and stars most silver-paced Along the inferior gyres, and open-faced Melodious angels round, canst intercept Music with music, yet, at will, hast swept All back--all back--(said he in Patmos placed) To fill the heavens with silence of the waste, Which lasted half an hour! Lo! I, who have wept All day and night, beseech Thee by my tears, And by that dread response of curse and groan Men alternate across these hemispheres, Vouchsafe as such a half-hour's hush alone, In compensation of our noisy years! As heaven has paused from song, let earth, from moan.

IV. THE PROSPECT. 1845.

Methinks we do as fretful children do, Leaning their faces on the window-pane To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain, And shut the sky and landscape from their view. And thus, alas! since God the maker drew A mystic separation twixt those twain, The life beyond us and our souls in pain, We lose the prospect which we are called unto, By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath, And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong, That so, as life's appointment issueth, Thy vision may be clear to watch along The sunset consummation-lights of death.

ROSAURA: A TALE OF MADRID.

Fourteen years have elapsed since there dwelt in Madrid a certain student, who went by the name of El Rojo, or the Red. Not by his acquaintances and intimates alone was he thus designated, but by all the various classes of idlers with whom the Spanish capital abounds; by the listless loiterers at the coffee-house doors, by the lounging gossips of the Puerta del Sol, and by the cloaked saunterers who, when the siesta is over, pace the Calle Alcala, puffing their beloved Havanas, retailing the latest news, discussing the chances of a change of ministry, or the most recent and interesting scandalous anecdote current in that gallant metropolis. It would be wrong to infer, from his somewhat ambiguous appellation, that the student's skin had the copper hue of a Pawnee or an Osage, or his hair the ruddy tint usually deemed detrimental and unbecoming. The name implied no sneer--it was given and taken as a compliment; and Federico was at least as proud of it as of the abundant golden curls to which he owed it, and that flowed in waving luxuriance down his graceful neck and over his well-formed shoulders.

In southern climes, where the ardent sun embrowns the children of the soil, fair locks and eyes of azure are prized in proportion to their rarity. No wonder, then, that Federico found favour in the sight of the dark-browed and inflammable Madrileñas. Many were the tender glances darted at him from beneath veil and mantilla, as he took his evening stroll upon the Prado; oftentimes, when he passed along the street, white and slender fingers, protruded through half-closed _jalousies_, dropped upon his handsome head a shower of fragrant jasmin blossoms. Amongst the dames and damsels who thus signified their favour and partiality, not a few--so it is certified by the veracious authority whence we derive this history--dwelt in stately mansions, and went abroad in brave equipage, drawn by prancing steeds and comely mules, all glittering with trappings of silk and gold. These, it may be thought, condescended overmuch thus to notice an humble student. But the love-breathing daughters of Castile reck little of rank and station; and Federico, by all personal endowments, well deserved the distinction he obtained. Poor hidalgo though he was, no count or duke, or blue-blooded grandee, from Cadiz to Corunua, bore himself better, or had more the mien of a well-born and thorough-bred _caballero_. None more gallantly wore the broad-leafed sombrero, none more gracefully draped the ample cloak; and all Spain might have been searched in vain to match the bright and joyous glance of the student's dark-blue eye. Excepting on the coast, and in certain districts where Mahomedan forefathers have bequeathed their oriental physiognomy and tall slender frame to their Christian descendants, Spaniards are rarely of very lofty stature. Federico was from the flat and arid province of La Mancha, where, as in compensation for the unproductiveness of the parched soil, handsome men and beauteous women abound. Of the middle height, his figure was symmetrical, elastic, and muscular, formed for feats of agility and strength; his step was light, but firm; his countenance manly,--the expression of his regular and agreeable features denoted a passionate nature and lofty character. Like most of his countrymen, he was quickly roused, but easy to appease. Generosity and forbearance were prominent amongst his good qualities; and he had nobly displayed them in more than one encounter with antagonists, whose feebleness placed them at his mercy, and rendered them unworthy of his wrath. For in the use of arms, as in all manly exercises, Federico was an adept; and whether with Toledo blade, or _Majo's_ knife, there were few men in Spain who would not have found in him a formidable and dangerous adversary.

Strange to tell of so young a man, and of a Spaniard, in one respect our student appeared passionless. He met the advances of his female admirers with the utmost coldness--seemed, indeed, to avoid the society of the fair sex, threw love-letters into the fire, unread and unanswered, neglected invitations, went to no rendezvous. Favours which other men would gladly have purchased with years of life, he disdainfully rejected. The wrinkled duennas, who under various pretexts brought him tender messages and tempting assignations, met, instead of the golden guerdon with which such Mercuries are usually rewarded, harsh rebuffs and cutting sarcasm at the hands of the stoic of two-and-twenty. And with so much scorn did this Manchegan Joseph repel on one occasion the amorous attentions of a lady of birth and station, that her indiscreet love was changed into bitter hate, and Federico narrowly escaped a dagger-stab and a premature death. From that day, he was more inaccessible than ever, not only to women, but to men. Gradually he withdrew from intercourse with his former associates and was seldom seen in the streets or public places, but sat at home, buried amongst books, and diligently studying, with the intention, he was heard to declare, of going to Ciudad Real, and passing his examination as advocate in the royal courts. And thus, little by little, it happened with Federico as it does with most persons who neglect and forget the world, the world forgot him. His old intimates--joyous, light-hearted lads, revelling in the enjoyments and dissipation of the capital--voted him a spoil-sport and a pedant, and thought of him no more: friends, in the true sense of the word, he had none; and so, after a very short time, the list of visitors to the gloomy old apartment in which the eccentric youth mused and studied was reduced to one man, and that a very odd one, but whom Federico loved, because he in some sort owed him his life.

This second hero of our tale was one of those strange characters to be met with in Spain only. Don Geronimo Regato was a little wizened old creature, blind of an eye, and with a very ugly face, whose life had been a series of extraordinary adventures and bustling incidents. He had served his country in the most opposite capacities. In 1808, he fought the French in the streets of Madrid; two years later, he headed a guerilla band in the wild passes of the Sierra Morena; another two years, and he took the oath to the constitution of Cadiz, and was seen at Wellington's head-quarters as colonel of the Spanish line, and delegate from the Cortes. In 1814, he changed his colours, and was noted, after the return of Ferdinand VII., as a stanch royalist. But variety was his motto; and the revolution of 1820 saw him in the ranks of the Liberals, to whom he continued faithful until their cause was ruined and hopeless. That was the signal, with this Talleyrand on a small scale, for another _vuelta casaca_: once more he turned his coat; and as an earnest of penitence for past offences, opened to the Royalist troops the gates of a small Estremaduran fortress. Notwithstanding this act of tardy allegiance, he was thrown into prison at Madrid, and owed it entirely to the intercession and good offices of an old schoolfellow, the influential Father Cyrillo, that his neck was not brought into unpleasant contact with the iron hoop of the _garrote_. Either warned by this narrow escape, or because the comparatively tranquil state of Spain afforded no scope for his restless activity, since 1823 this political Proteus had lived in retirement, eschewing apparently all plots and intrigues; although he was frequently seen in the very highest circles of the capital, where his great experience, his conversational powers, and social qualities sufficiently accounted for the welcome he at all times met.