LETTER III.
Dear Charles,—And so you sneer at the “bread pills,”
as mere stuff! and ask me to account for the wonders of your
phreno-mesmerist! But, sir, do you account for the efficacy of
the pills, and then I pledge myself to account for your amazing
fact, that “the young man of good character did, in a mesmeric
sleep, go to Miss Prude's chamber, and actually describe
on the toilet a something like an enormous sausage,
swollen in the middle, with tails at each end like tape-worms;
and when Miss Prude indignantly denied all knowledge of
such a monster being in her room when she left for the lecture,
Miss Foril, the milliner, rose and modestly begged
leave to say, that `calling at Miss Prude's and finding her
out, she had left on her table a
new tournure!”' And “is
not
that,” you triumphantly ask, “demonstration palpable,
visible?”
But, Charles, is it very wonderful that a clairvoyant, even
if but half asleep, should think he saw “a sausage” affair
in a lady's dressing-room? The wonder is he should see
any thing else; for the whole female world is nearly encompassed
in—bustle. And, moreover, I do stoutly maintain
that it is, for me at least, easier to believe that “the young
man of good character” had made an arrangement with
Miss Foril to call and leave the article, than to believe his
spirit went forth from his body on a bustle-hunt! Neither
nature nor science can be so essentially impertinent.
When clairvoyants reveal where treasure is hid, or murdered
victims are buried; where are springs of water or
mines of gold, or tell about the spiritual world—why in such
sort of matters we can give in to the deception; we are willing
to be deceived, for after all, the clairvoyant sees no more
than a thousand waking dreamers see and believe every day,
nor half so much as some learned and philosophic religionists
see even now, and believe:—but that the spirit of a man
should be let out, and sent to pry into a lady's bed-chamber,
and tell where her slippers lie, or “something like a long
and hollow leather something,”—bah! Clarence, you can't
be such a dunce.
Come, I will tell you another story, but alas! not with an
ending like the first.
Some twenty years since, and within fifty miles of Kaleidaville,
lived a man known as the Indian Doctor. He did
not, however, confine himself to a mere herbal practice, but
he professed, in all cases where it was impossible or inconvenient
for patients to come to his house, that he was able to
cure, even without a prescription, all sick persons who would
believe in his power and give him in a letter a description of
the complaint, with their real name, precise age, and their
height and complexion; and incredible as some may deem
it, cures, or seeming cures, were effected in this way.
Forty miles from the faith-doctor's residence, was a substantial
farmer, whose wife, for many years, had been what
is often called “ailing;” and who, after in vain having tried
the “regular doctors,” prevailed on her husband to try Doctor
Herbal. The husband consenting, on a certain day a
letter, properly written and with the fee inclosed, was handed
to the farmer's man, who, mounting his horse at the door,
set out on the journey. In the meanwhile the wife, wholly
unable to rise from her bed, on seeing the man ride away
with the letter, called her husband from the door to the bedside,
and thus addressed him:
“Husband, when do you think John will reach the doctor's?”
“Well, Molly,” answered he, “I have ordered John to
ride exactly so many miles an hour, and making all necessary
allowances for stops and so on, he will reach the doctor's
to-morrow evening at sundown.”
“And then, husband,” rejoined the wife, “I shall be
cured—I know—I feel it; yes, husband, as soon as the doctor
reads and wills me to be cured, I shall get right up out
of this bed!”
The morrow came, and just as the sun was setting, the
farmer's wife, to the utter amazement of the husband and
the whole family, did actually arise from her bed! and relieved,
too, from all her sickness and weakness! Nay, she
deliberately, and without aid, dressed herself and engaged
with cheerfulness in her domestic duties. Nor, from that
hour, did she take medicine, or complain of any pain or disorder.
Full six months elapsed, and then the wife, wishing to
celebrate her miraculous cure, made a feast, and invited her
numerous friends and neighbros, who, full of joy and wonder,
came. Never had the wife been apparently so well.
Her spirits were exuberant, and with a thankful heart, she
spoke of her recovery, and was loud in praise of the wonderful
doctor and his miraculous cures. At this moment,
the kind husband, playfully and affectionately taking his
wife's hand, said:—
“Molly! I do believe you are, indeed, well; and we are
all happy—but, wife, I cannot allow the deception to go any
further—the letter we wrote never went to the doctor's at
all—John only staid out of the way for two or three days—
and here is the letter now!”
“Rash man!” I exclaimed, to the gentleman who knows
the incident to be true, and who related it to me; “rash
man! he endangered her life!”
“Alas!” replied my friend, “you are but too correct in
this apprehension: the woman was on the very instant seized
with all her former symptoms; she took to her bed again,
and in ten days we laid her in the grave!”
