Chapter 15

"'_It was in New York City_,' was the reply; then, after a moment's hesitation: '_It was at dinner--both times!_' 'You are right,' said Blake, much impressed. 'Can you tell me the places?' '_Once was on Fifth Avenue. The other was--I can't tell the location exactly; but it was where we went down a short flight of steps._' 'That is correct also,' said Blake. 'How many persons were there?' '_Five._' 'Quite right. Can you tell me who they were?' '_Well, Mary was there, and you, of course; but I can't be sure of the others._'

"Blake looked at me in astonishment, and our minds flashed along the same line. Suppose the whisper were only a bit of clever ventriloquism, how did the psychic secure the information conveyed in this dialogue? It was given as I write it, with only a bit of hesitation once or twice; and yet, it may have been merely thought transference."

"_Merely_ thought transference!" exclaimed Miller. "I consider thought transference quite as absurd as slate-writing."

Fowler interposed. "I consider this a simple case of spirit communication. You should be grateful for such a beautiful response."

"This significant fact is not to be overlooked," I resumed: "the psychic secured almost nothing else that concerned either Blake's affairs or my own. Mainly the whispers had to do with 'E. A.,' which, of course, bears out Miller's notion that the psychic could deal only with what was public property, and yet this little colloquy about the dinners in New York is very convincing so far as mind-reading goes.

"During the third sitting, Blake again being present, 'E. A.' took control, as before, from the start, and carried forward the recording of the musical fragment. '_I want you to fill in the treble, Blake_,' he said. '_It's nothing but the bare melody now._' Blake protested: 'I'm not up to this.' And the whisper came swiftly, '_You're too modest, Blake_'; and a moment later it said: '_I hope you're not bored, Garland._' If all this was a little play of the psychic's devising it was very clever, for after a few minutes of close attention to Blake, 'E. A.' turned toward me and asked, with anxious haste: '_Where's Garland?_' 'I am here,' I answered. '_Don't go away_,' he entreated. It was as if for the moment he had lost sight of me by reason of fixing his attention upon Blake."

"That is singular!" exclaimed Fowler. "Their field of vision is evidently much more restricted than we thought."

"It must be very small indeed, for Blake and I sat touching elbows. Two or three times the whispering voice called, '_Is Garland here?_' and once it asked: '_What is Garland doing? I see his hand moving._' I explained that I was making notes. '_Don't do it!_' was the agitated request."

"A very neat little touch," remarked Miller.

"We worked for a long time over this music, directed by the voice, both in the notation and in the execution of it. The lines were drawn for both bass and treble lengthwise of the slate, and Blake found the little piece difficult to play, partly because the staves were on different leaves of the slate and partly because the notes, especially some of those put in at the beginning by the composer, were becoming blurred. It was marvellous to see how exactly these dim notes were touched up by the mysterious pencil beneath the table. But our progress was slow. 'E. A.' was very patient, though now and then he plumply opposed his will to Blake's. Once, especially, Blake exclaimed: 'That can't be right!'

"'_Yes, it is right!_' insisted 'E. A.'

"'But it is very unusual to construct a measure in that way.' For there was a seeming confusion of three-four time with six-eight time.

"'_It is a liberty I permit myself_,' was the swift reply.

"In the last bar, which did not appear to be filled satisfactorily, the composer directed the insertion of a figure 2. This meant, as became clear through a subsequent reference to his printed scores, the playing of two quarter-notes in the time of three eighth notes, but was not understood at the moment by Blake.

"'_Never mind_,' said 'E. A.,' pleasantly, '_I will write it differently_.' The figure '2' was cancelled, and the measure was completed by a rest. This is only one of many astonishing passages in this dialogue.

"In all this work 'E. A.' carried himself like the creative master. He held to a plane apparently far above the psychic's musical knowledge, and often above that of his amanuensis. He was highly technical throughout in both the composition and the playing, and Blake followed his will, for the most part, as if the whispers came from Alexander himself. And yet I repeat the music and all may have come from a union of Blake's mind with that of the psychic, with now and then a mixture of my own subconscious self."

"What was the psychic doing all this time?" asked Miller.

"She was listening to the voice and repeating the words which Blake could not hear. She seemed merely the somewhat bored interpreter of words which she did not fully understand. It was precisely as if she were catching by wireless telephone the whispered instructions of my friend 'E. A.' I can't believe she consciously deceived us, but it is possible that these ventriloquistic voices have become a subconscious habit.

"One other very curious event I must note. Once, when Blake was asking for a correction, the whisper exclaimed: '_I can't see it, Blake!_'

"'_Cover it with your hand_,' interjected the 'control.' Blake did so, and 'E. A.' spoke, gratefully: '_I see it now._"

"Seeing cannot mean the same with them that it does with us," exclaimed Fowler. "You remember Crookes put his finger on the print of a newspaper behind his back, and the 'spirit' spoke the word that was under his finger-tip. They apprehend by means of some form of etheric vibration not known to us."

I resumed: "Let me stop here for a moment to emphasize a very curious contradiction. Between my first séance with Mrs. Hartley and this, our third attempt to secure the music, I had held two sittings in the home of a friend. Mrs. Hartley had come to the house about ten o'clock in the morning, bringing nothing with her except a few tips of soft slate-pencil. During the sitting I had secured in the middle of a manila pad (a pad which the psychic had never seen and which I had taken from my friend's desk) these words: '_Have Schumann.--E. A._' This writing I had taken to mean that 'Ernest' wanted to hear some of Schumann's music, and in that understanding I had called Blake in to play. This had seemed at the moment perfectly conclusive and entirely satisfactory; yet now, in this final sitting, 'E. A.' suddenly reverted to this message, and whispered: '_Garland, there is a certain étude which I took to Schumann. I want you to regain it and take it to Smart. Mary will know about it. I meant to take it away, but did I? I was so badly off mentally that I don't know whether I did or not._' Whereupon Blake said: 'Do you mean Schumann the publisher?' '_Yes_,' 'E. A.' replied; and I said: 'And you want the manuscript recalled from Schumann and given to Smart?' '_Yes_,' was his very definite answer.

"'Very well, I will attend to it,' I replied. 'What do you want done with this fragment, "Isinghere"?' I pursued. 'Shall I publish it?' '_That is what it is for_,' he answered, curtly.

"'How many bars are in it?' asked Blake. 'Forty?' '_More_,' returned the whisper.

"Blake made the mistake of again suggesting an answer. 'As many as sixty?'

"'_Yes, sixty or seventy_,' was the answer, like an echo. Here Blake's thought governed, but it was evident that the psychic had no clear conception of what this reference to Schumann meant in the first instance, for 'E. A.' was unable to complete his sentence, which should have read: '_Have Schumann return a certain étude which I took.--E. A._' Furthermore, the psychic evidently believed in the truth of the message or she would not have gone into it with such particularity; she would have been lacking in caution to have given me such definite and detailed information, knowing that it was all false.

"So far as my own mind is concerned, I had no knowledge of such a music publisher as Schumann. Smart I had met. Blake, however, knew of both firms. The entire message and the method of its communication were deeply exciting at the time, and completed what seemed like a highly intellectual test of identity, and we both left the house of the psychic with a feeling of having been very near to our dead friend.

"'To identify one of these bars of music would be a good test,' said Blake, 'but to find that _étude_ at Schumann's would be a triumph.'

"'To find the manuscript fragment would be still more convincing,' was my answer.

"Imagine my disappointment when, in answer to my inquiry, Schumann replied that no such _étude_ had ever been in his hands, and Alexander's family reported that no fragment called 'Unghere' could be found among the composer's manuscripts."

Fowler shared my regret. "What about the other messages? Were they all disappointing?"

"No; some of them were not. The most intimate were true; and a signature which came on the slate under test conditions, and which I valued very little at the moment, turned out to be almost the exact duplicate of Alexander's signature as he used to write it when a youth twenty years ago. As a matter of fact, it closely resembled the signature appended to a framed letter which used to hang upon the wall of his study. But, even so, its reproduction under these conditions is sufficiently puzzling."

"What was Blake's conclusion? Did he put the same value upon it all that you did?"

"Yes, I think he was quite as deeply impressed as I. He said the music seemed like Alexander's music, somehow distorted by the medium through which it came. 'It was like seeing Alexander through a pane of crinkly glass,' he put it. And he added: 'I had the sense of being in long-distance contact with the composer himself.' He had no doubt of the supernormal means through which our writing came, but he remains doubtful of the value of the music as evidence of 'Ernest's' return from the world of shadows."

"Have you tried to secure more of the music?" Fowler asked.

"No, not specifically; but I've had one further inconclusive sitting since then with Mrs. Hartley. Almost immediately 'Ernest' whispered a greeting and said: '_I want to go on with that music, Garland. I want to put B and D and A into the first bar--it's only a bare sketch as it stands._'

"To this I replied: 'I can't do it, 'Ernest.' It's beyond me. Wait till I can get Blake again.'

"This ended his attempt, although he was 'terribly anxious,' so the psychic said. I am going to try for the completion of this score through another psychic. If I can get that eighth bar taken up and carried on by 'Ernest' through another psychic the case will become complicated.

"I have gone into detail in my account of this experiment, for the reason that it illustrates very aptly the inextricable tangle of truth and error which most 'spirit communications' present. It typifies in little the elusive problem of spirit identification which many a veteran investigator is still at work upon, after years of study. Maxwell gives a case of long-continued unintentional and unconscious deception of the general kind which went far to prevent his acceptance of the spirit hypothesis."

"I don't think the failure to find the musical fragment invalidates this beautiful communication," declared Fowler. "You admit that many of the messages were to the point, and that some of them were very intimate and personal."

"Yes, speaking generally, I would say that 'E. A.' might have uttered all the words and dictated all the messages except those that related to the publishing matter; but there is the final test. Schumann declares that no such manuscript has ever been in his hands."

"He may be mistaken, or 'E. A.' may have misspoken himself--for, as William James infers, the spirits find themselves tremendously hampered in their attempts to manifest themselves. Furthermore, you say you could not hear all that 'E. A.' spoke--you or the psychic may have misunderstood him. In any case, it all seems to me a fine attempt at identification."

"I wish I could put the same value on it now that I did when Blake played the first bar of that thrilling little melody; but I can't. As it recedes it loses its power over me."

"What did Alexander's family think of the music?"

"They thought it more like a Cheyenne or Omaha love-song than like a melody of 'Ernest's' own composition."

"But that only adds to the mystery of the mental process," objected Miller. "That supposes it to have come out of your mind."

"I can't believe that I had any hand in the musical part of it, and I can't persuade myself that my dead friend was present."

"Suppose you had been able to find that musical fragment, would it have converted you?" This was Miller's challenge.

"No, for even then some living person might have known of it--must have known of it; and if a knowledge of it lay in some other mind, no matter where and no matter how deeply buried in the subconscious, that knowledge, according to Myers and Hudson, would have been accessible to the supernormal perception of the psychic."

Fowler interrogated me: "But suppose a phantom form resembling 'E. A.' had _spoken_ these things to you face to face--what then?"

"I would not have believed, even then."

"Why?"

"Well, for one reason, belief is not a matter of the will; it is not even dependent upon evidence."

Miller interrupted me. "I am interested in the writing. How do you account for the writing? As I understand it, the psychic did not, in some instances, touch the slate while the writing was going on. Are you sure of Blake?"

"Blake is as much to be trusted as I am. No, I am forced to a practical acceptance of the theory of the fluidic arm, and yet this is a most astounding admission. We must suppose that the psychic was able to read our minds and write down our mingled and confused musical conceptions by means of a supernumerary hand. It happens that I have since seen these etheric hands in action, which makes it easier for me to conceive of such a process. I have seen them dart forth from another medium precisely as described by Scarpa. I have seen them lift a glass of water, and I have had them touch my knees beneath a table while slate-writing was going on--so that, given the power to read my mind, there is nothing impossible (having regard to Bottazzi's definite experiments) in the idea of the etheric hand's setting down the music and reproducing the signature of 'E. A.' In fact, at a recent sitting in a private house with a young male psychic, we had this precise feat performed. Said the psychic to our host, Dr. Towne, 'Think hard of a signature that is very familiar to you,' and Dr. Towne fixed his mind upon the signature of his brother, and immediately, while the young man's material hands were controlled, his etheric hand seized a pencil in the middle of the table and reproduced the signature."

"Could you see this hand?" Miller asked.

"Not in this case; but at a sitting which followed this, during such time as I sat beside the psychic and controlled one hand, I plainly saw the supernumerary arm and hand dart forth and seize a pencil. I saw a hand very plainly cross my knee and grasp me by the forearm. All of this has its bearing upon this very curious phenomenon of the reproduction of 'E. A's.' youthful signature, which remained very puzzling to us all."

"But did you not say that 'E. A.' at times represented an opposing will?" questioned Fowler--"that he disputed certain passages with Blake, and that he finally carried his point in opposition to every mind in the circle?"

"Yes, that happened several times, and was all very convincing at the time. And yet this opposition may have been more apparent than real. It may have concerned our conscious wills only; our subconscious selves may have been in accord, working together as one."

Fowler was a bit irritated. "If you are disposed to make the subconscious will all-powerful and omniscient, nothing can be proved. It seems to me an evasion. However, let me ask how you would explain away a spirit form carrying the voice, the features, and the musical genius of 'E. A.'?"

"Well, there is the teleplastic theory of Albert de Rochas. He claims to have been able not merely to cause a hypnotized subject to exteriorize her astral self, but to mould this vapory substance as a sculptor models wax. So I can imagine that a momentary radiant apparition might have been created in the image of my sister or 'David' or 'E. A.'"

"To my thinking, that is more complicated and incredible than the spirit hypothesis," objected Fowler.

"Nothing can be more incredible to me than the spirit hypothesis," I replied. "But, then, everything is incredible in the last analysis. I am the more disposed to believe in the teleplastic theory, for the reason that I have recently had an opportunity to witness a particularly incredible thing: the materialization of a complete human form outside the cabinet and beside the psychic--a phenomenon which has a special bearing upon the matter of identity which we are discussing. The sitting took place in a small private house here in the city. The psychic in the case was a young business man who is careful not to advertise his power. For four years he has been holding secret developing circles whereto a few of his friends only are invited. I was present last Sunday, and shared in the marvels. The place of the séance was the parlor of his apartment, his young wife and little daughter being present. There was, in addition, an elderly lady, mother-in-law of the psychic, and a Polish student whom I will call Jacob. I am quite sure that no one else entered or left the room during the evening. Mrs. Pratt, the mother-in-law, occupied a seat between me and Jacob. The little girl sat at the window, and was under my eye all the time. The wife spent most of the evening at the piano on my right. The room was fairly dark, though the light of a far-away street lamp shone in at the window.

"The psychic retired into a little alcove bedroom, which served as cabinet, and the curtain had hardly fallen between him and our group when the spirit voices began. The first one to speak was 'Evan,' the 'guide,' and I remarked that his voice was precisely like a falsetto disguise of the psychic's own.

"Soon 'Evan' and other spirits appeared at the opening of the curtain. The wife called them each by name, but I could see only certain curious fluctuating, cloud-like forms, like puffs of fire-lit steam. The effect was not that of illuminated gauze, but more like illuminated vapor. At length came one that spoke in a deep voice, using a foreign language. Jacob, the young Pole, sprang up in joyous excitement, saying that he had sat many times in this little circle, but that this was the first time a spirit had spoken to him in his own tongue. As they conversed together, I detected a close similarity of accent and of tone in their speech. It certainly sounded like the Polish language, but I could not rid myself of the impression that the Pole was talking to himself."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that the accent, inflection, and quality of the ghost's voice were identical with that of the living man, and this became still more striking when, a little later, Jacob returned to his seat, and the 'Count,' his visitor, called for the Polish national hymn. Jacob then sang, and the phantom sang with him. Now this seemed like a clear case of identification, and was perfectly satisfactory to Jacob, but I had observed this fact: the Pole was an indifferent singer--having hard work to keep the key--and the 'Count' was troubled in the same way. His deep, almost toneless, singing struck me as a dead, flat, wooden echo of Jacob's voice. In short, it was as if the psychic had built up a personality partly out of himself, but mainly out of his Polish sitter, and as if this etheric duplication were singing in unison with its progenitor."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Fowler.

"Did he manufacture a double out of you?" queried Miller.

"No one spoke to me from the shadow, except the 'guide,' although I was hoping for some new word from 'Ernest,' and kept him uppermost in my mind. A form came out into the centre of the room, which the wife said was 'Evan,' and requested me to shake his hand. This I did. The hand felt as if it were covered with some gauzy veiling. My belief is that it was the psychic himself who stood before me, probably in trance. I could see nothing, however. I do not remember that I could detect any shadow even; but the hand was real, and the voice and manner of speech were precisely those of the psychic himself."

"I repeat that this does not necessarily imply fraud, for the mind and vocal organs of the psychic are often used in that way," Fowler argued.

"I grant that. Up to this point I had been able to see nothing but dim outlines. But toward the end of the evening the psychic advanced from the cabinet and in a dazed way ordered the lamp to be lit. This was done. He then asked that it be turned low. This was also done. Thereupon, directing his gaze toward the curtain, he called twice in a tone of command, '_Come out!_'

"I could place every one in the room at the moment. I could see the psychic distinctly. I could discern the color of his coat and the expression of his face. He stood at least six feet from the opening in the curtain. At his second cry, in which I detected a note of entreaty, I saw a luminous form, taller than himself, suddenly appear before the curtain and stand bowing in silence. I could perceive neither face, eyes, nor feet, but I could make out the arms under the shining robe, the shape of the head and the shoulders, and as he bowed I could see the bending of his neck. It certainly was not a clothes-horse. The covering was not so much a robe as a swathing, and we had time to discuss it briefly.

"However, my eyes were mainly busy with the psychic, whose actions impressed me deeply. He had the air of an anxious man undergoing a dangerous ordeal. His right hand was stretched stiffly toward the phantom, his left was held near his heart; his knees seemed to tremble, and his body appeared to be irresistibly drawn toward the cabinet. Slowly, watchfully, fearfully, he approached the phantom. The figure turned toward him, and a moment later they met--they clung together, they appeared to coalesce, and the psychic fell through the curtain to the floor of the cabinet, like a man smitten with death."

"What do you wish to imply?" asked Miller. "Do you mean that the man and the ghost were united in some way?"

"Precisely so. The 'spirit' seemed drawn by some magnetic force toward the psychic, and the psychic seemed under an immense strain to keep the apparition exterior to himself. When they met the spectre vanished, and the psychic's fall seemed inevitable--a collapse from utter exhaustion. I was at the moment convinced that I had seen a vaporous entity born of the medium. It seemed a clear case of projection of the astral body. In the pause which followed the psychic's fall the young wife turned to me and said: 'Sometimes, if my husband does not reach the spirit form in time, he falls _outside_ the curtain.' She did not seem especially alarmed.