Seen and Unseen. E. Katherine Bates
amongst the audience in a good-natured but flippant and very unspiritual manner, and even the ladies joined in the undignified punning and "play upon words" that went on all the time.
The little child's voice came in as a relief every now and then. She spoke broken, childish English, but used the expressions of a grown-up person. She described several spirits as "chying" (trying) to come, but not being strong enough.
I was becoming drowsy, and rather tired of the performance, when my attention was once more aroused by hearing that a very beautiful female spirit, with a diamond star in her forehead, had appeared and asked for me, saying she had been a friend of mine on earth, and wished to communicate with me.
This was conveyed to me by the little child's voice, the spirit herself not having yet emerged from the curtain; but the medium's husband looked behind it, and told me of the diamond star, which he said was some "order" in spirit life.
Having no idea who the friend might be, I begged for some further particulars before going up to speak to her.
"She passed from earth life about five years ago, and in Germany," answered the medium's husband, who had conducted the conversation behind the curtain.
This was less vague, and now for the first time a suspicion of the spirit's identity crossed my mind; but I would not go up until a name had been given, and I asked for this before leaving my seat.
My travelling companion—a recent acquaintance—had never heard me mention the lady in question, who had died in Germany at the time specified. The little child said the spirit would give the name through her, and the process was a curious one. Instead of mentioning the whole name or each letter of it to her father, the child described each letter to him as you might describe the lines of the large capitals in a child's reading-book. The father guessed the letter from the child's description, and asked me if the first one were correct? It was; but I did not tell him so, merely saying I should like to have the Christian name in full before giving any opinion.
In due time the six letters (Muriel, we will call it) were correctly given, and I had then no further excuse for refusing to speak to the spirit.
I went up to the curtain, and she appeared in front of it. I have been frequently asked: "Should you have recognised her as your friend had no name been given?" With every wish to be perfectly truthful, I find it difficult to answer this question, for the following reason:—None of the "materialisations" I saw were exactly human in face. There was no idea of a mask or clever "get up," but if one could accept the theory of a body hastily put together and assumed for a time, the result is exactly what might have been expected under the circumstances.
My friend in real life was very pale, and had exquisitely chiselled features, and the ones I now looked upon were of the same cast. The height was also similar, and an indescribable atmosphere of refinement, purity, and quiet dignity, for which she had been remarkable; all this was present with this materialisation. More than this I cannot say, for no materialisation I have ever seen could be truthfully considered identical with the human original.
I did not feel frightened, but I did feel embarrassed, and naturally so, considering how unwilling and grudging my recognition of her individuality must have appeared. She seemed conscious of this, for almost immediately she mentioned her hands, holding them out for inspection, and saying:
"Don't you remember my hands? I was so proud of my hands!"
Now, as a matter of fact, my friend was noted for her beautiful hands, but she was too sensible and clever a woman to have been conceited about them, and had too much good taste ever to have made their beauty a subject of remark, even to an intimate friend.
Moreover, the hands now en évidence, although well shaped and with tapering fingers, were as little identical with a human hand as the face was identical with a human face.
Casting about for something to say to her, my first thought was for an only and dearly loved married sister of hers, also a friend of mine, and I mentioned the latter in a guarded way, saying: "If you are in reality my friend, have you no message for your sister?"
In a moment, and without the slightest hesitation, she said: "Tell poor Jessie," going on with a message peculiarly appropriate to the facts of the case, but of much too private a nature for publication.
Almost immediately afterwards, and with no shadow of suggestion from me, she added:
"Poor Jessie! She suffered terribly when I passed away so suddenly."
My friend had died in a foreign country, under peculiarly sad circumstances. She was young, beautiful, and accomplished; a prominent local figure in the well-known capital where she had spent several winters. Her death was so sudden that there was not even time to put off a large afternoon "At Home" arranged for that day. Moreover, this sister, by a most merciful chance, happened to be spending a few months with her, out of England, at the time. These were all special facts, spontaneously referred to by her, but which would not have applied equally well to the death of any other friend, even supposing such a death to have occurred abroad.
The spirit spoke feebly and with difficulty, "not having much strength," she told me.
I asked if her father (who had died a few months previously) were with her.
"Not yet," she said gently; "but I know that he has passed over." She then kissed my hand, and faded away before my eyes, not apparently returning to the curtain (close to which I stood), but vanishing into thin air.
Some ten days later my friend and I went again to an evening séance at the same house, different people being present on this occasion. A stupid, "unintelligent sceptic" woman put us all out of harmony by making inane suggestions, always declaring that "she would not for the world interfere with the conditions," but doing so all the same. The "Angel Mother" came again, and rather lost her temper, I thought, with an aggravating, illogical man in the circle, who hammered away about Faraday's opinions on the spirit world without much idea of what he was talking about. "Nels Seymour" appeared, as well as spoke, this time. He took my hand and kissed it; but he does not leave the cabinet, as he is the "control." It was eleven years on this day since he had "passed over," so he called it his "birthday."
A very beautiful female spirit materialised and offered to sit on my lap; an offer I closed with at once.
She was some five feet eight inches in height, and a large, well-developed woman. Anticipating the possibility of her resting her feet on the ground, and so concealing her real weight, I moved my own feet from the ground the moment she sat down, which was easily done, as my chair was a high one.
She remained for several minutes in this position, resting, of necessity, her whole weight upon me, which was about equal to that of a small kitten or a lady's muff, in the days when small muffs were in fashion. There was an appreciable weight, but I have never nursed any baby that was not far heavier.
The veil this time was materialised in the usual way, my friend going up to watch the process.
My spirit friend appeared again, and more strongly this time. At a public séance, where so many are eager to communicate with their friends, it is impossible to monopolise more than a few minutes of the public time, and consequently any communications are as hurried and unsatisfactory as a conversation with an intimate friend in the public reading-room of a hotel would be.
I pass over another most excellent and evidential incident as a concession to family prejudice. It has already appeared in my book on America entitled "A Year in the Great Republic," and may be found there.
At a third materialising séance at the same house an excitable Italian friend of mine, who had never seen anything of the kind before, came with much the same prejudices as I had felt at the Boston séance, and disturbed the conditions very much by his attitude of determined antagonism; whilst his comparative ignorance of English, and my feeble Italian, made explanations, under the circumstances, rather hopeless. The whole circle was put out of harmony, and a dead weight lay upon us all. The materialisations continued,