CHAPTER XI

A HAUNTING IN REGENT’S PARK, AND MY FURTHER VIEWS WITH REGARD TO SPIRITUALISM

Before concluding my experiences in the parks and commons of London, I will cite one other case, a case which serves to illustrate the theme I have just been discussing.

I was visiting the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, one day in the summer of 1898, and was so struck with the look of yearning in the eyes of one of the lions, the desperate look of yearning to have just five minutes’ gambol on the sunny lawn outside, five minutes in which to stretch its poor, cramped-up limbs, and sniff, perhaps for the first time, the fine fresh air of freedom, that I could not refrain from mentioning what was passing in my mind to a white-haired old man and a plainly dressed young woman, who were standing near.

“Yes, sir,” the old man said. “It does seem hard on these huge animals to be confined within the limits of such a very small space and to have to pace up and down these little boxes, tantalised by the sight of other creatures enjoying the privileges that are denied to them. It is worse treatment than any meted out to criminals; in fact, the biggest ruffian in jail does not suffer in anything like the same degree as these animals. They have one thing to be thankful for, however—life cannot last for ever. Death will be their kindest friend. It is the rich man’s purgatory, but it is Paradise for all these creatures as well as for the poor man.”

“You believe in another world, then?” I remarked.

“Believe in another world?” he answered sharply, “why, of course I do. I have seen far too much of it to do otherwise, haven’t I, Minnie?”

“Yes, Grandad,” the girl said simply.

“We both have, Minnie and I,” the old man went on.

“Spirits?” I enquired.

“Yes, spirits. Ghosts, if you like,” he said.

“Tell me. I’m not one of the scoffers,” I pleaded.

He looked at me searchingly, and then said: “I used to be a keeper here many years ago. I was devoted to the animals, and when they died, I invariably saw their ghosts. So did some of the other keepers. Now don’t run away with the idea that the Gardens are haunted, sir. As far as I know, they are not. It was only to us who had so much to do with them when they were alive that the spirits of these animals appeared. I remember one instance in particular, about twelve years ago, just before I left the Zoo. A young lion came here from East Africa. It wouldn’t let any of the keepers go near it excepting myself, and it was generally regarded as having a very uncertain temper. But I never found it so. I knew that the reason of its restlessness was its hatred of confinement. I knew it hated its cage, and I used to do all I could to comfort it. There was a sort of mutual understanding between us. When it saw me looking a bit anxious and worried, for my wife was often ill, it used to come and rub its great head against me, as if to cheer me up, and when I saw it looking more than usually dejected, I used to stop and talk to it for a longer time than I talked to any one of the other animals. Well, one day it fell ill, caught a chill, so we thought, and evinced a strong dislike to its food. I discussed its case with the other keepers, and they agreed there was nothing to be alarmed about, as it was young and to all appearances healthy. We all thought it would be well again in a few days. I had gone home as usual one night, and was sitting in the kitchen reading the evening paper, when something came over me that I must go for a walk. I told Minnie, who was a little girl then, not more than nine or ten years of age, and she begged her mother to let her go with me. We started off with the intention of going to the Caledonian Road, as Minnie liked looking at the shops there, but we hadn’t gone far before Minnie suddenly exclaimed, ‘Grandad, let’s go to Regent’s Park.’ ‘Regent’s Park,’ I ejaculated; ‘whatever do you want to go there for at this time of night!’ ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I feel I must.’ ‘Well now,’ I replied, ‘that’s odd, because the very same feeling has come over me.’

“We struck off down Crowndale Road—I was living in the neighbourhood of the St. Pancras Road then—and got to Gloucester Gate just about dusk. We had passed through, and were walking along the Broad Walk by the side of the Zoo, when Minnie suddenly caught hold of my arm, and said, ‘Look, Grandad!’ I followed the direction of her gaze, and there coming straight towards us from the Zoo walls was a lion. I can tell you it gave me a jump, as I naturally thought one of the animals had escaped. It aimed straight for us, and upon its getting close to I recognised it at once—it was the young lion that had been taken ill. To my astonishment, however, there was nothing of the invalid about it now. The expression in its eyes was one of infinite happiness. It seemed to say, ‘I have attained my ideal; I am out in the open, in the sweet, fresh air, and the wide darkness of the fast approaching night.’ It came right up to us, and I stretched out my hand to touch it, wondering what the passers-by would do when they saw it, and how on earth we should get it back into the gardens. It bitterly grieved me to think it would have to lose its freedom. I stretched out my hand, I say, to touch it, and to my surprise my fingers encountered nothing—the lion had vanished. I then realised what Minnie had known all along—that what we had seen was a ghost. A ghost, and yet it had appeared to me so absolutely real and life-like.”

“How did you know it was a ghost?” I enquired of the young woman.

“By the curious kind of light that seemed to emanate from all over its body,” she replied. “I can only describe it as a kind of glow, something like that of a glow-worm. It was not a bit natural.”

“But you saw the figure distinctly?”

“Yes,” she responded, “very distinctly, and I wasn’t the least bit afraid.”

“Let me tell you the sequel, sir,” the old man interrupted. “On my arrival at the Zoo in the morning, one of the men came running up to me. ‘It’s dead!’ he said. ‘Dead!’ I cried. ‘Who’s dead?’ ‘Why, that young lion of yours,’ was the reply; ‘it died at eight o’clock last night.’

“And, sure enough, when I went into the lion-house, there was the animal lying stretched out at full length in its cage—dead. It had died at eight o’clock, which was the exact time we had seen it in the park.”

* * * * *

And now to pursue the thread of my own life, which must of necessity run through this volume. While I was teaching at Blackheath, I not only completed my first novel, “For Satan’s Sake,” but studied for the stage at the Henry Neville Studio in Oxford Street. I shall never forget with what joy, when my duties with the spoilt and tiresome boys were over, I exchanged the terrible monotony of the schoolroom for the delightful and interesting atmosphere of the Studio. Henry Neville did not teach there himself, but periodically came to watch and help us with his criticisms, which were always as kindly and instructive as they were utterly free from pomposity and egotism. Easy and natural himself, he tried to infuse something of his spirit into us, and with many of us, I believe, he succeeded; for even those who did not believe that acting could be taught, were bound to admit that the pupils of Henry Neville were singularly free from the staginess almost always seen in amateurs, and sometimes in professionals as well.

Henry Neville’s brother, Fred Gartside, who gave me my first lesson in elocution—an abler or more persevering instructor could not have been found—left off teaching at the Studio soon after I joined. Mr. G. R. Foss took his place, and is, I believe, still at the head of it.

I have always looked upon G. R. Foss as one of the greatest stage geniuses I have ever met. He is that rarest of all individuals—the born actor—the man who can perform almost any _rôle_ with equal success. He is the ideal stage manager, a past master in the knowledge of all the technicalities adhering to the theatre, and the possessor of a never-ceasing flow of wit and good humour.

Among the pupils who were at the Studio with me, several have performed in London. I toured with George Desmond, who was quite recently playing in the West End, and I met Miss Yvonne Orchardson again, some two or more years ago, when she was also acting in a London theatre, whilst I constantly see that charming and talented old Nevillite, Miss Lilian North, who delights London audiences with her sweetly told stories and good recitations. Apart from many other personal attractions, Miss North has the most beautiful hands; the fingers are long and tapering and the nails exquisitely shaped. It is the rarest combination of the psychic and dramatic hand, and such as I have very seldom seen saving among Orientals.

If I have spoken somewhat extravagantly of the Neville Studio, its instructors and pupils, it is only what I genuinely feel, and I repeat, again, that the hours there were some of the most delightful I have ever experienced. When I had completed my course of instruction, I went on tour in “A Night Out.” I then came back to London and remained nearly a year in Town, writing in the day-time and playing in one or other of the suburbs in the evening. I lived, for the most part, in St. James’ Road, Brixton, where I wrote my second and third books, both novels, and entitled respectively “The Unknown Depths” and “Dinevah the Beautiful.”

“The Unknown Depths,” founded to a large extent upon my own life, introduces the subject of Spiritualism, or, as it is now more often termed, Spiritism, and, whilst I was engaged on it, I attended many séances.

I am often asked to express an opinion on Spiritualism.

I am very averse from any attempt to invoke spirits, either through the aid of spells or mediums, by table-turning, or by automatic writing. As I have already said, I believe that genuine spirits do occasionally manifest themselves at séances, but that, when they do, the medium is quite as surprised at the manifestation as the sitters, and in no greater a degree, perhaps, responsible for it. I believe the spirit I have named neutrarian is the only type of spirit that takes advantage of a séance, that is to say, takes advantage of the peculiar magnetic atmosphere created at a séance. It adopts the form, or attributes, of some relative or friend of one of the sitters, and, thus disguised, manifests itself merely for the sake of deceiving and misleading over-credulous men and women. But unfortunately these spirits do not stop at mere mischief. Having once gained a footing, so to speak, they can attach themselves to certain people, and by tormenting them continually, drive them in the end to madness and suicide.

In addition to the danger of attracting undesirable neutrarians at séances, there is the risk of being duped by mediums. I have met a good many professional mediums—so-called clairvoyants, aura tellers, psychometrists, materialising mediums, and the like, and none of them have convinced me that they can do all that they profess to do. Besides, even if they could, the mere suggestion that one’s spirit friend or relative is tapping on a wall or blowing through a trumpet, presumably to satisfy the curiosity of a number of strangers, and incidentally to fill the coffers of an illiterate man or woman, only fills one with disgust. If any departed friends of mine wish to visit me, I am sure they could do so without the assistance of a so-called medium and all their paltry paraphernalia. The usual argument in defence of these mediums is that some well-known scientific man believes in them. “If Sir somebody or other says I am genuine,” the clairvoyant exclaims, “then I am genuine, and you’ve no right in the world to doubt me.”

The medium is wrong. I have every right. Scientists may be very shrewd, perhaps infallible in their own legitimate calling, but, outside it, their opinion need carry no more weight than mine, or yours, or anyone else’s.

It by no means follows that because a man is a Professor of Physics he is also a great student of character. Poring over chemicals or figures all day is a very poor training for reading the human mind. An actor is a far more able exponent of psychology than any chemist or mathematician, and this being so, it is the actor who should play a prominent part in psychical research and not the scientist. If a veteran actor were to say to me, “Look here, I have watched that woman very carefully when she was supposed to go into a trance, and to speak in an entirely different voice from her own, and I am convinced she is merely acting,” I should be inclined to believe him. In his wide experience of facial expression, posing, and assumed voices, it would be comparatively easy for him to tell whether the medium was shamming or not. A clever actress can disguise her voice effectually, and no one would know it. She can speak with a French accent one moment and broad cockney the next, and so naturally that few people would know she was the same person. That is why, when I have listened to a clairvoyant, in an alleged trance, speaking in the voice of Tommy Jones or some other presumed obsessing spirit, I have been unmoved. There are a dozen actresses of my acquaintance who could easily do the same. But someone exclaims, “She actually spoke in Russian, a language she knows nothing about.” “How do you know she is unacquainted with Russian?” is my answer; no one can possibly tell that but herself. She has most likely acquired a smattering of it, simply for this purpose. What could be easier? I have a smattering of a good many languages, but I could easily stimulate complete ignorance of any one or all of them; I repeat, no one knows but ourselves how much we have seen, and read, and heard, where we have been, and what we have studied, and, if we are sufficiently clever, we can let the outside world know just as much as we want it to know and no more. Some mediums are said to act in one manner when they are obsessed, and in an entirely different manner when in their normal condition. What futile rubbish! Who knows when they are in their normal condition, or what their normal condition really is? Most of us are complex. I myself have several distinct personalities—and I defy anyone to enumerate them—any one of which might be equally my true, my normal self. Moreover, I might go into a trance, speak with the voice of a Spaniard, and behave like a Red Indian, and those who saw me would think me obsessed. Yet they might easily be mistaken. I might have secretly acquired a smattering of Spanish, and one of my hobbies might be that of imitating, in private, the ways and habits of a Sioux or Crow Foot.

I know a clergyman who attracts large congregations by reason of his eloquence and apparent piety, and who is believed in his parish to be most moral and sincere. I also know him to spend several evenings a week in an East End tavern, singing ribald songs and playing poker. Which is his true self, which his normal condition? His congregation believe him to be one thing, his East End cronies another, and he is apparently quite as much at home in the church as he is in the tavern.

Then, apart from the question of personalities, I believe another evidence of trickery lies in the non-usefulness of any of the communications alleged to be made by the spirits. If professional mediums could receive bona fide communications from the other world, I am quite sure that they would acquire some knowledge of a practical nature, and that we should, in consequence, soon see them all multi-millionaires. That they are not all Vanderbilts and Rothschilds is, I think, a very strong argument that their alleged spirit friends have told them nothing.

And that is what it all amounts to—nothing. Automatic writing, table-turning, and trances have taught us absolutely nothing concerning either this or the other world, and the messages purporting to come from the spirits have hitherto, at all events, consisted of trivialities and commonplaces of such an unedifying nature that we cannot dissociate them from factory girls and nursemaids.

Our friends on the other side, who have passed through the valley of the shadow of death, might reasonably be expected to know something that we do not; and yet not even the smallest fragment of their knowledge has so far been transmitted to us through any of the channels resorted to by Spiritualists. Neither, as far as I know, have the police benefited by any information imparted to them by mediums or automatic writers. On the other hand, although the Unknown has refused to confide to those claiming to be its chosen few any messages that would right the wrong, bona fide phantasms of the dead have certainly been known to appear spontaneously, to other than professional mediums, with this intent.

* * * * *

I am acquainted with an old lady, who tells me that she often talks with Charles Dickens, Napoleon Bonaparte, Cardinal Newman and other eminents. I have enquired how, and she has reluctantly admitted that the spirits of these eminents come to her at a séance conducted by a professional medium, who, of course, is paid very liberally for her services. The medium, I gather, sits behind a screen, where she is supposed to wait, until she is obsessed. When everything is ready, she glides out, and in a voice purporting to be that of Napoleon, or of someone equally distinguished, she converses with this foolish and conceited old lady. It seems incredible that anyone outside a lunatic asylum could believe that the spirits of such great men as Napoleon, Newman and Dickens should take the trouble to obsess a medium, in order to chat with some nonentity, who is neither extraordinarily clever nor particularly interesting. And yet there are dozens of people, apart from the old lady I have mentioned, who know so little of genius and eminence, and even ordinary talent, as to believe this incongruous happening to be possible. I, myself, have heard a Spiritualist, who lays down the laws respecting the Unknown, as if he were actually the Creator, declare that, whenever he lectures, the hall is full to overflowing with spirits. Amongst them, he says, are the shades of Charles Dickens—there must be at least a hundred shades of Dickens, for there is hardly a spiritualistic meeting or séance that I hear of at which Dickens is not alleged to be present—Sir Isaac Newton and Napoleon. (Soon, perhaps, there will be the Kaiser and the Crown Prince. I hope so.)

Family séances are, of course, quite another matter. I have not the least doubt that when the friends and relatives of some departed person meet together, and, concentrating very earnestly on that dead one being present, create the right magnetic atmosphere, that sometimes a real spirit manifestation does take place, and the phantasm of the deceased, or what at any rate purports to be the phantasm of the deceased, does actually appear.

The phenomenon may possibly be a neutrarian—for, of course, there is always that risk—or it may really be the soul, spirit, or whatever else we like to call it, of the dead person. And here let me urge again, the utter absurdity of attempting to dogmatise on the Unknown. At one time it was the parson, who unfolded to us, with all the sageness of one who had been there, the mysteries of the other world. He not only told us what we must do and not do in order to ascend to Heaven, but he went a step further: he told us what Heaven was like, and what actually was taking place there. The parson of to-day, however, does not seem quite so sure of his knowledge on these points as he was formerly, and his statements have become far less assertive; indeed, they have become somewhat tentative. It is the Occultist now who dictates. He talks with an air of absolute authority of Astral Planes, Elementaries, Elementals, vitalised shells, Karmas, and goodness knows what besides, and uses such a variety of high-falutin’ terms, that our brains at last become bewildered, and we begin to wonder with Goldsmith how it is possible that one small head can carry all he knows. But when we have boiled it all down, when we have analysed his dissertation, we find that it is, in the last resort, merely a repetition of all the old doctrines with which we have been familiar from our earliest youth. The only difference is that our Occultist, chiefly by discarding the old names of dogmas, and adopting a superfluity of new ones, has made of these same doctrines a hotch-potch of such rare quality, that few—if indeed any—of us can digest it.