 CHAPTER IX OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ACTRESS by Anna Cora-Mollett This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Kelly Taylor The illness which I mentioned in the preceding chapter was of long duration. As a faithful historian fulfilling a trust, I cannot omit the narration of events which were produced by that illness. But I allude to them with reluctance, a reluctance which has perhaps no reasonable foundation. Dr. C. of New York was called in to attend me. He considered my state dangerous. On the occasion of his first visit, after numerous inquiries in regard to my symptoms, he turned to Mr. Mollett and said, If she is susceptible to mesmerism, I think she can be relieved more readily than by any medicine that I could administer. Mr. Mollett had not any knowledge of mesmerism, nor had I. We had never seen a mesmeric subject, never had heard a case fully described. He strongly objected to my being made the subject of an experiment, an argument ensued which I did not hear. It ended in Dr. C.'s assurance that I might be greatly benefited by mesmeric treatment, but could not be injured. Mr. Mollett finally assented to the doctor's proposition. I was suffering too much to express an opinion, or even to have one. When Dr. C. first proposed to mesmerize me, I was reclining in an arm chair. The doctor now placed himself in front of me. I remember his making what are called passes before my eyes. Very soon my head grew slightly dizzy. The room seemed filled with a dim haziness. The objects began to dance and float, and then to disappear. I recollect nothing further. I was afterwards told that in less than twenty minutes I fell into a very deep sleep, from which I suddenly emerged into a state of somnambulic consciousness. A similar deep sleep, I am assured, always subsequently preceded my state of mesmeric somnambulism. It was the drawbridge separating the waking from the sleeping waking state, over which I had inevitably to pass. Even when I had become so sensitive to the mesmeric influence that I could be put by it into some nambulic state in less than a quarter of a minute, I am told there would be, to outward appearance, an absolute insensibility and suspension of all consciousness for an interval of several seconds, during which, if standing at the time, I would fall to the ground and less supported. On entering the somnambulic state thus induced by mesmerism, I am further informed I would be entirely unconscious of the presence of other parties than the magnetizer, until they were put in communication with me by him, and that often I was subjected to much pain and even thrown into convulsive shudderings by being inconsiderately touched by persons not into communication. It should be stated that from childhood, I had been occasionally addicted to natural somnambulism, I had repeatedly been known to walk and talk in my sleep. It is said that persons of this habit are especially susceptible of the mesmeric influence. In regard to my first mesmeric trance, I must rely solely upon the testimony of others as to what transpired during its continuance. I had, and still have, no conscious recollection whatever in regard to its experiences. I can only repeat what I was told by those whose good faith and accuracy I cannot distrust. Upon being awakened from the state of somnambulism, I felt very much relieved and refreshed. The fever from which I had been suffering had nearly left me, and my head which had ached incessantly for three days was free from pain. I had slept between two and three hours. Mr. Mowat and the doctor now amuse themselves by relating some of the fantastic remarks which I had made while somnambulic. I began to think that I was the victim of a joke. Was it possible that I had been but a few minutes previous in a separate state of consciousness during which I had talked, laughed, laughed at my waking self, I was told, and that of it all I could not bring away the faintest inkling of remembrance? Yet such, I am forced to believe, was the wonderful truth. I could with difficulty be persuaded that my trance was not a merely natural sleep into which I had accidentally fallen. The physical relief produced did not strike me as remarkable, as I had been unable to sleep before for several days and nights. To mesmerism under heaven I must believe I was subsequently indebted more than once for relief from a prostration which no other human agency could have prevented from ending in dissolution. Dr. C. attended me daily and continued to use mesmerism as the most powerful agent in my restoration. I soon grew impatient at this apparent surrender of free will, one of heaven's choices gifts to man. I was annoyed at being told that I had spoken, done, or written things of which I had no recollection. Numerous poems were placed in my hands which I was informed I had improvised as rapidly as they could be taken down. The subjects having been given haphazard by any person present. It was no particular gratification to be assured that I had never produced anything as good before. Nor was it any consolation to be told that in sleep waking I was far more sensible, more interesting, and more amiable than in my ordinary state. With womanly perverseness I preferred my everyday imperfection to this mysterious and incomprehensibly brought about superiority. For the former I was at least responsible, to the latter I could lay no conscious claim. I say conscious claim though it must be admitted that there may be separate states of consciousness. In the phenomena of the separation the student of human nature may, I believe, find the clue to momentous truths. The essential facts in ordinary somnambulism will not be denied except by those awfully rigorous inquirers who will accept nothing which they cannot weigh, gauge, and handle, and who are quite as likely to be deceived as the most credulous in as much as the skepticism which admits too little is as liable to mistake as the marvelous propensity which admits too much. But if pretenders to science will not grant it, common experience and common sense will that a person in somnambulism may hold long and rational conversations and perform acts of which he will have no recollection of whatever in his waking state. Let him again pass however into somnambulism and he can recall everything that he ever experienced in that state. It would seem from this common and undeniable phenomenon as if there were an inner consciousness of occupying a higher plane than the external and commanding a more extensive prospect A consciousness undeveloped in most mind except by flashes and retiring within itself before the external can distinctly realize its presence. How shall we account for the thick veil of separation dropped at once by the cessation of somnambulism, whether independent or induced by mesmerism, between the normal and abnormal, the external and internal consciousness? An analogy drawn from intoxication or insanity is not precisely applicable here, for under somnambulism one may be as calm and rational and as completely in possession of all his faculties as ever in his waking state, nay those faculties may be considerably quickened and exalted, and yet a wave of the mesmerizer's hand will bring the subject back from the higher to the lower, everyday consciousness where all that he has been saying and doing in his somnambulist state is an utter blank. Another wave of the hand, or an access of natural somnambulism entirely independent of mesmerism and low, all the knowledge of the former state is restored as if a curtain has been lifted. Townsend mentions an illustrative instance of the wonderful separation of these states in the case of E.A., a French youth whom he was in the habit of mesmerizing. When awake E.A. entertained infiddle opinions of the worst kind. I ask him once, in his waking state, writes Townsend, what he thought became of us after death. His answer was Desquanes Morte, Ones pour Rien de Tout. In sleeping waking all this was changed. His ideas of the mind were correct and singularly opposed to the material views he took of all questions when in the sleeping state. And the soul ever die, I ask, certainly not. It is the soul which is the only true existence and which gives existence to all we apprehend. Under mesmeric sleeping waking all the hard incredulity which characterized E.A. when awake was gone. His willfulness became submission, his pride humility. One would he regret the errors of his waking hours. Instances similar to the above were numerous. Truly we are wiser than we know. In the mind of the most stubborn materialist there may be an inner consciousness giving lie to his outward unbelief, a consciousness which may be developed in some tremendous moment, perhaps in the last of the earth, to confound and overwhelm him and to raise as by lightning flash his edifices of intellectual pride and presumption. Georges, a distinguished French physician and author of several scientific words advocating the broadest materialism, was converted to a conviction of his error by witnessing the phenomenon of Semnambulism. Dying he left a formal recantation of his philosophy, and his last moments were brightened by the serenious confidence in a herafter for the soul. If ever the livery of heaven was stolen to serve the devil in, it may have been done by Miss Martin though, and her ally Mr. Atkinson. In their late atheistical work in which they undertake to make some of the facts of mesmerism and Semnambulism subservient to the cause of blank atheism and unbelief, I can say it boldly that so far as I have been permitted to bring impressions and recollections, which the magnetizer, by an act of his will, may let in to the waking consciousness of the Semnambul, from my own ample Semnambulic experience, far empler and more extraordinary than any which Miss Martin know, according to her own showing, has either experienced herself or witnessed another. They contradict most emphatically not only all of her atheistical conclusions, but many of the loosely assumed facts on which these are based. There is one passage in her work which indicates such an extent of fatuity, such an ignorance of the actual phenomena from which she professes to reason, and such an absurd anticipation of great results from a cause ridiculously inadequate and inoperative that I may be pardoned for quoting it. The knowledge, she says, which mesmerism gives of the influence of body on body and consequently of mind on mind, will bring about a morality we have not yet dreamed of, and who shall disguise his nature and his acts when we cannot be sure at any moment that we are free from the clairvoyant eye of someone who is observing our actions and most secret thoughts and our whole character and history may be read off at any moment. Here is a substitute for the omniscient eye, such a substitute alas, as no healthy mind could ever have seriously suggested, even supposing the capacity of human clairvoyance to be what Ms. Martin know imagines. Let conscience, she substantially tells us, once rid itself of a belief in God and a future state, and it will be kept right by the fancy that there may be some obscure, some nambulance. We will suppose in Oregon or Hindustan or nearer home perhaps some poor, feeble little woman who may have the power and attention of scanning our actions and thoughts. What a substitute we have here for a belief in a just and benevolent God, what an agency for bringing about a morality we have not yet dreamed of, alas, then any person of intelligence, above all that a woman should, from her in intellectual pride of place, fall into such a wretched slough of despond as this and persuade herself that it is a bed of flowers. If Ms. Martin know knows anything accurately of clairvoyance, she must know that its recognitions are almost always involuntary, flashing and vanishing like lightning. Instances of clairvoyance originated and sustained at will are so rare that I have heard of no case in which any of the numerous offers of money for clairvoyant readings of concealed writings have been accepted. I could mention many instances in which Ms. Martin know has entirely misapprehended or mistated the phenomena of mesmerism, in which she has assumed, from the vaguest and most questionable premises, the most momentous and unwarrantable conclusions, on a subject too involving the peace of mind of thousands, but this is not the place for such a discussion. In dragging the facts of some nambulism to the support of her dismal creed, she has recklessly and mischievously turned them from their most obvious and legitimate service. Give me such evidence of powers transcending the mortal senses as they supply, and the whole tribe of atheists, from Lucretius to Atkinson, can no more shake by faith in spiritual things, and a heavenly Father and an immortal soul, then they can persuade me that heat and light proceed not from the Son of our system, but from the ice at the North Pole. Let me commend to Ms. Martin know the following true and eloquent passage by one of her own countrymen, the author of Church in State. Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, will, absolute truth, of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite, and animal, endowed with a memory of appearances and facts might remain, but the man will have vanished, and you have instead a creature more subtle than any beast of the field, upon the belly it must go, and dust it must eat all the days of its life. Ah, no, it is not to such a degradation that knowledge of the real facts of some nambulism would lead us. They have none of the vapor of the charnel house about them, which Ms. Martin knows imagination would impart. They are all of a cheering, elevating, and inspiring character. They lift our thoughts ever to another and better life, to heaven, and to anticipations of all that is most beautyous imagined there, in a happier beauty, more pellucid streams, an empler ether, a diviner air, and feels invested with puerperial gleams, climbs which the sun that sheds the brightest day, earth knows and is all unworthy to survey. The question whether the soul thinks always is decided by Locke in the negative, on the ground that after consciousness is the only testimony we can have of the mind's activity, and that, since we are by no means conscious that we think always, we ought not to assume that we do think always. I believe, with Townsend, that in this notion Locke was fundamentally wrong. For, equally with Townsend's somnambulist, I have the testimony of my fellow beings that the state which once ended appeared a blank to me was, in truth, marked by energy and activity of the highest order. On one point I feel a degree of satisfaction, though perhaps it was only a proof of my natural obstinacy. They told me that I was what is called an independent somnambulist, and that I could at any time defeat the will of the mesmerizer unless I chose to submit. It was also told me that my reasoning faculties were singularly developed under somnambulism, and that I often maintained opinions at variance with those of the mesmerizer and of others with whom I was in communication, especially on religious subjects. These opinions I could not be forced to relinquish by arguments or even through the exertion of a superior will. This brings me to another circumstance of somewhat graver interest. While I was in a somnambulist state, Mr. Mawat often conversed with me alone for hours together. Religion was the subject upon which he most frequently dwelt. His mind had naturally a strong skeptical tendency confirmed by a system of education miscalled philosophical. In what manner his favorite theories were overturned and his belief in a revealed religion established I do not understand. I only know that there was a downfall of the olden fabric and a new foundation laid for the new. While his religious views were undergoing a total revolution he encountered in the street Dr. W. An old and esteemed friend, the doctor naturally inquired after my help. In reply Mr. Mawat related the singular events of the latest few days, his own deep impressions and consequent change of feelings. Mrs. Mawat must have read Swedenborg's works, said Dr. W. For those doctrines Swedenborg promulgates. Mr. Mawat replied that this could not be the case as all my readings since I was fifteen years old had been known to him. He was right. I had never read a line of Swedenborg's writings. I had never heard of his doctrines mentioned. Dr. W. requested Mr. Mawat to ask me certain questions the next time I was in a somnamblic state and to let him know the replies. I have often heard what these questions were but I cannot trust my memory to repeat them with accuracy. The questions were asked and the answers are to Dr. W. His reply upon hearing them was, those are the doctrines revealed through Swedenborg. Who is Swedenborg? What are his doctrines? Where shall I find a church in which they are taught? How shall I obtain his writing? Were Mr. Mawat's a group inquiries. Dr. W. was himself an earnest new churchman and gave the required information. The next Sunday Mr. Mawat went to hear Dr. Barrett, a new church minister preach. My indisposition confined me to the house. I asked him how he liked the sermon and what it was about. He answered that he hardly knew how he liked it, though he had never listened to a sermon with so much interest in his life. He should certainly attend the new church again. The next day he procured several volumes of Swedenborg's work. They were in a large old-fashioned print but Mr. Mawat's eyes were still so much affected that he could only read for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at the time. I used to feel troubled to see him day after day pouring over these huge volumes at the risk of ruining his eyesight but the knowledge for which he thirsted brought him too much happiness for any remonstrances to be heeded. While I remained ill I felt an indifference almost amounting to an aversion towards the writings of Swedenborg and invariably grew weary when they were discussed. As I became stronger I resumed my usual occupation of reading aloud to Mr. Mawat. He did not care to listen to any author but Swedenborg and therefore from Swedenborg's works I read. My interest was quickly awakened. I read with avidity and involuntarily from an internal conviction as it were accepted the doctrines. I never had a doubt to combat. Sometimes it seemed to me as though I had known all that was there to be revealed. Believed it all before only I had never deliberately thought on the subject. With the full acceptance of new church doctrines came the cheerful faith that all which we behold is full of blessings. All things in life were a different aspect. I realized that the things which befell us in time had no true importance except as they regarded eternity. Whatever we received from above was good whether it came in the shape of prosperity or misfortune for it was but a means to fit us for our future selves. It became easy to perceive that the most trivial of our daily joys and pains advance to a divine significance. Life's trials lost all their bitterness. As I have no intention of discussing new church doctrines I pass over our first acquaintance with ministers and members of the church and other circumstances in the same connection. In six months more we have both made open confessions of our belief and became members of the new church. One by one or of my sisters but none of them in the slightest degree influenced by me were baptized before the same altar and communed at the same table. Our eldest, Mrs. William Turner, who was unquestionably the profoundest thinker and best reasoner, had been for many years a communicant in the Episcopal Church. Great opposition was made by her religious friends to her open change of faith. She made an able defense of her conduct in two volumes published in New York, one entitled Reasons for Joining the New Church by a member of the Episcopal Church and the other Points of Difference Between the New and Old Church. The latter of these was reprinted in London without my sister's knowledge and had an extensive circulation. To return to my mesmerics experiences, I have seen you, writes a friend, several hundred times in this somnambulist state during a period extending over three years. The peculiarities which distinguished it were most remarkable. Your eyelids in this state, when you are particularly animated, would be tightly closed and yet there would be a luminous expression on your countenance which could hardly have been equaled with the aid of your open eyes. Generally the eyelids would hang loose and slightly open and then it could be seen that the balls were always so rolled up that they could not be a medium of vision. During the months and years that I saw you almost daily in this state, I can never detect the waking expression on your face. Whatever might occur to startle or surprise, never by accident were the eyes thrown open as they would have been when awake. It was remarked by all that your voice was much more soft and childlike than usual. Indeed your whole manner would be changed as if you had become once more a little child. You would always allude to your waking self or material body in the third person as she. For instance you would say, she isn't hungry. Never by any inadvertence I am not hungry. It was rather unpleasant to you to be confounded with your physical person. It was sometimes a little embarrassing to other to keep your identities distinct and they would often confound the two in conversation, but the distinction would never be lost for a moment by yourself. To you the existence of a spiritual body distinct from the natural seemed a consciousness as vivid as that which assures us that we breathe and move. The words of Saint Paul, there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body were to use something more than a figure of speech. They were a literal truth not to be explained away or darkened by any ingenuity of commentators or dogmatism of theologians. Your household duties and a custom function would be discharged by you in the somnambulic state with perfect convenience and with a propitude quite exemplary. You would frequently take your meals in this state and if your magnetizer were present you would manifest the phenomena of sympathy of taste and a marked and satisfactory manner telling whether he were taking salt or vinegar pepper or mustard etc. When he might be behind a screen at night before the lamps were lighted you would have a decided advantage over all others in the room in your ability to read write or work while the rest of us might not be able to see our hands before us. I have several specimens of your somnambulic handiwork in the form of moss and flowers arranged most tastefully on paper and the whole executed in my presence while it was totally dark. I also have letters which were penned by you in utter darkness and strange to say the handwriting is greatly superior to your usual careless chirography and would not be supposed to be from the same hand. Your conversation was marked by fluency and confidence especially on religious subjects than in your ordinary state but as I looked mainly to the palpable phenomena of your case I took little note of your opinions. Still I was not insensible to the physical phenomena continually presented they were too numerous to count in this rapid summary. The nearest trifles says a philosopher of our day are interesting to suggest to us an action in man independent of his present organization. Now mesmerism teams with more than slight indications of this and we should treasure up such glimmerings of futurity however faint and however presented to us as inestimable proofs that we possess a germ of being which God permits us to behold partially unfolded here in order to confirm our faith as to its fuller development in the hereafter. Most thoroughly do I acquiesce in this sentiment and most cogently have my experiences in your case commended it to my acceptance. Frequently after you had been awakened from a long magnetic trance during of which a variety of incidents may have occurred and many topics may have been discussed I have with the consent of your magnetizer and seconded by his will brought it up one by one by the silent agency of my will to your waking consciousness any incident or topic which might suggest itself. This I would do by simply touching your forehead with my forefinger thinking the while intently on the image to be awakened in your mind. The response would be as perfect and accurate as from the keys of a piano for instance out of a hundred various incidents I would select that a plate of strawberries having been offered to you or that of a watch having been wound up and by a touch on your forehead the image would instantaneously be brought up and you would explain strawberries or watch as it might have been. I repeated this experiment so often with success that finally though so marvelous in itself it grew to be like other daily marvels an occasion for no emotion of surprise not only was your philanthropy more Catholic and active but towards the brute creation especially the more despised such as insects spiders snakes etc from which you would shrink a Friday in your waking state you would manifest a strange and fearless tenderness you would take them up if injured in your hands and remove them to a place of safety fond of flowers when awake you were doubly so in this singular state you would manifest an intuitive faculty of detecting the seats of disease in persons often pointing out the part affected as if from sympathy I cannot recall in this hurried letter half the interesting phenomenon witnessed in your case such as your insensibility to pain of an incision or wound in a magnetized limb your quick reception of a mental communication without the medium of any sound or sign your distinct provision at one time six months in advance of crises of disease your detection of the character of an individual by pressing the hand your ability to choose out of a heap of miscellaneous articles the one magnetized your many striking developments of faculties and modes of thought distinguishing you in a marvelous manner from your waking self on one occasion at a time when you had suffered from many repeated hemorrhages of the lungs and we all fear that you would not live through the winter you were kept in the some nambulic state the entire fortnight without being awakened the reason for this was that while some nambulic you were far more manageable and reliable in observing all necessary precautions and that you seemed less sensitive to the cold and your violent attacks of coughing were much more under control at the time you were thrown into the some nambulic state on this occasion there had been a heavy snowstorm and Broadway in New York on which thoroughfare your windows looked was blocked up with snow there was a rose bush in your room having a little green bud on it upon which a faint speck of crimson had just appeared your last impressions when you were thrown into some nambulism where of the snow without and the rose bush within a fortnight afterwards your magnetizer without preparing you for the change in surrounding objects suddenly awakened you and led you to the window every flake of the immense accumulation of snow had disappeared he then led you to the well known rose bush a little bud was in full luxuriant bloom i shall never forget the expression of bewildern it and consternation on your face as you looked upon the changes that seem to strike you as miraculous the fortnight was to your waking consciousness but a moment such was your excessive agitation that your magnetizer was obliged to make passes at once and restore you to your some nambulic consciousness he then gave you an ordination to carry into your waking state so much recollection of your fortnight's experience as would prepare you fully for the changes around you a year or two previously and a week or two after you were first magnetized by dr c which was while you were stopping at aster house in new york in the winter of 1842 the illness under which you were laboring assumed a more alarming aspect than it had yet worn and while some nambulic you were charged by your magnetizer to investigate your physical condition i was not present but learned in the same day that you had predicted a great crisis in your malady at a certain hour in the night the week following to the inquiry whether or not any medical relief could be given you replied no drugs mesmerism may possibly bring her through you pronounced yourself uncertain as to the issue of the crisis that gave great encouragement to dr c to believe that prompt and earnest mesmeric aid could avail in producing the required relief on the night fixed at dr c's request i accompanied him to your parlor at the aster house and you were shortly afterwards mesmerized and i was put into communication mr mawa was present and was also put into communication while awake you had not the slightest anticipation of what was expected and no one had intimated your mesmeric prediction we engaged in conversation and had some hope of drawing your mind from the anticipated attack you were perfectly tranquil and converse freely on various subject but precisely at the hour you had revised and predicted an expression of the intense's pain came upon your face and you fell back in the most violent convulsions dr c bore you to the sofa but though a strong man his strength was unequal to the task of controlling the horrible spasms which quivered through all your limbs and disfigured your face at one time every fiber was knotted into a state of iron rigidity your writhings were fearful to witness dr c pronounced the attack congestion of the brain your face was purple your forehead throbbed violently and your skin was of the highest fever heat dr c used no other ministration than the mesmeric passes throughout the attack which lasted with hardly an instant sensation about an hour at the end of that time there was a sudden relaxation of your limbs and they seemed to settle into a state of repose your countenance became pale and we half feared your last earthly moment had come but a smile of inexpressible sweetness broke forth and your closed eyes seemed to make it all the more luminous and you whispered in the childlike tone which was peculiar to your somnambulist state you have brought her through thank god exclaimed dr c bursting into tears with an uncontrollable emotion after this crisis your health began slowly to improve though your lungs were still very sensitive and you are subjected to frequent spitting of blood and violent fits of coughing which kept your friends continually in a state of suspense as to your recovery your exact knowledge of the time in the somnambulist state was a remarkable trait no chronometer could be more exact it seemed as if all nature were your dial plate and that you could at any moment read what its index denoted i'm inclined to believe it is only these somnambules who are naturally pliable and dependent who are under the entire control of their magnetizers there was certainly no surrender of your will to yours you were the dictator to him on all occasions as to what you should do you prescribed your own medicines and diet disputed argued and disagreed with him often and were entirely independent of him except so far as related to the keeping up of the magnetic influence by an occasional visit from him and a renewal without touch of the passes he would leave you in the somnambulist state with mr. moffatt or your sister and perhaps not see you again for 24 hours although in this state you are always cheerful and sometimes jacuzzi one of your most prominent developments was that of your religious faculties and sympathies frequently you would talk like when inspired of spiritual realities and the meaning of life what in your waking state was faith seemed to be site in your somnambulist it was no longer a speculation or even a belief that there was a life after death but a knowledge far more confident and ensured than that which we usually entertain ongoing to bed that we shall wake in the morning in crises of disease when your physician did not believe that you would live through the week he would tell you in your somnambulist state his apprehensions though it would have been dangerous to communicate them to you awake the perfect equality even cheerfulness with which you would receive such announcements was a matter of surprise to all who witnessed it in times of extreme emancipation when you could be lifted like a child when all who looked upon you and heard your proxisms of coughing would turn away with the persuasion that you could not last through the season you had always in your somnambulist state some pleasantry with which to dispel the fears of the standards by the truth was that though you regarded death as a welcome emancipation you still knew far better than the doctor the physical state of the simpleton as you used to call your waking self and relied upon mesmerism to bring her through your views of death at the same time in your somnambulist state were always so serenely assured and such was the quiet satisfaction with which you seem to look forward on what john sterling calls the common road into the great darkness that the nearer the prospect was brought the more grateful it became or rather to you there was no darkness but it was all a rosy light and to your mind this king of terrors was the prince of peace the separation of the waking from the somnambulist consciousness in your case was the most complete and perfect never by any accident could i discover that you brought into your waking state the slightest recollection of what had occurred in your somnambulist and this during a period of three years to the psychologist as well as the physiologist all phenomena of your case are intensely interesting as the many persons who had an opportunity of investigating them will admit during my illness the beloved home which i had made such efforts to save was sold as soon as i was able to drive out i begged to be allowed to visit it once again it was spring but a late spring not a tree had begun to bud the gardens which i had last seen in all the richness of their autumn bloom would bear of leaf or flower accepting a few crocuses that had pierced through the slowly melting snow the favorite arbor appeared more bleak and desolate even than the gardens brown and withered vine stems alone covered the trellis where huge clusters of grapes had hung in purple luxuriance even the greenhouse had a deserted air many of the flowers had been removed many more had died and those that remain were suffering from neglect we looked around for the heliotrope of hairdecking memory it was gone after wandering about in the grounds until we were chilled in more senses than one we took refuge in the house the unfurnished rooms had a cold deserted aspect but to me every nook and corner teamed with delightful associations i could scarcely compel myself to believe that this house would never more be our home that in this bright cheerful chamber i would never again sleep that there would be no more merry meetings in this large old-fashioned ballroom which at christmas time was ever decked with evergreens and on summer festivities ever garlanded with flowers that there would be no more plays in our little theater no more bands of music in the old hall but so it was yet when the certainty of what must be resigned came upon me its pain had been abstracted the loss was heavy but could be reckoned the gain since that loss no human reckoning could measure it was arranged that if my help was sufficiently restored i should resume my public readings in the autumn making a tour of the united states for that purpose we passed the summer at linux one of the most picturesly beautiful localities i had ever visited a summer brightened by my constant intercourse with the gifted miss sedgwick and her genial relatives mrs charles sedgwick kept a seminary for young ladies amongst her scholars were a number of charming girls we soon became acquainted and they used to treat me as a companion crowding my apartment at every recess and bringing me fruits and flowers and other simple offerings of affection i grew warmly attached to many of them as i believe they were to me they made me listen to their grievances or join in their games or read aloud for their amusement then came the usual schoolgirl interchange of locks of hair and pressed flowers i still preserve a goodly pile of curls ringlets and braids of various hues that remind me of the lovely linux schoolgirls now wives and mothers mrs sedgwick wrote them a play and they pressed me into service as stage manager costumer and prompter the rehearsals were particularly amusing there were some tragic effects necessary and my young pupils found the greatest aversion in learning how to stab themselves gracefully and die in attitude i devoted a week to teaching them their parts playing their costumes and making toe wigs to represent gray hairs of age for the powdered toupees of english footmen the play performed before a numerous assemblage of mrs sedgwick's friends it was highly successful the girls acted with great spirit and even the toe wigs made a hit i was busily engaged behind the scenes during the performance but joined the company in the drawing room at his conclusion feeling greatly fatigued i was planning how i could steal off unnoticed when the door was thrown open and an emphasis that announced some important interest the scholars in procession walked in the eldest bearing a wreath of white flowers the crowd drew back and the young girls approached their amateur manager i could only stare at them in mute and embarrassed establishment the crown bearer made me a simple and feeling address and placed the wreath upon my head a very tired aching head it chance to be this was part of the performance which i had not anticipated of course it was necessary to say something but i fancy i made a rather stupid and awkward acknowledgement for i was taken unawares supposing that the curtain had fallen upon my portion of the entertainment and left me where i had passed the evening happily behind the scenes the distinguished divine dr william ellery chenning was an honored guest at this performance he was warm in his expressions of delight and many times rose from his seat and clapped his hands and laughed with genuine enjoyment some of the guests remarked that in watching him they forgot to look at the play he said to me afterwards i was never in a theater but once in my life and that was when i was traveling in england i saw a fellow but i was not half so much entertained as i have been tonight with the performance of these young girls dr chenning and his family resided in the same hotel with us we spent many hours together and i was never tired of listening to his eloquent discourse and watching the brilliant play of his benign countenance one day i was sitting on the piazza reading aloud to mr mawatt the book was swedenborg's divine providence a slight movement behind my chair calls me to turn dr chenning was leaning against the open door apparently listening he told me to go on and i had no excuse for not obeying i read for some time uninterruptedly at length he accosted me with do you understand what you are reading i replied i think i do do you believe it yes what makes you believe it because i can't help it that's a woman's reason he answered laughing but i believe it's the strongest you could give he then told me that he had read a portion of swedenborg's works with great attention and he reverts the author although the doctrines had not as yet carried the same conviction to his mind as they had done to ours in the subject of mesmerism he took the deepest interest on two occasions he persuaded me to allow myself to be placed under the influence that he might satisfy himself on several doubtful points one was of the possibility of mind communicating with mind without the medium of language or any material sign his experiment i believe convinced him that this could be the case i recited at his request several of the selections which i had read in public he now and then kindly pointed out defects in allocution or faulty pronunciations and even now i can never utter one or two of the words in the pronunciation of which he corrected me without thinking of dr chenney the day before we parted he came to my room and asked me to read to him once more i did so and he proposed to return to read to me he chose brides exquisite poem the future life his silvery tones were tremulous as he read and his mild eyes beamed with a luster almost angelic in his manner there was something so solemn and impressive that i listened with awe in less than a month he himself entered that future life the sphere that keeps the disembodied spirits of the dead he was standing on its threshold when he read to me i might well harken with suspended breath in rapt and wondering reverence end of chapter nine chapter ten of autobiography of an actress by anna koran mollett this libra vox recording is in the public domain recording by kelly taylor autumn did not find me sufficiently reestablished in health to resume my public readings as was proposed this was a heavy disappointment but i was well enough for less fatiguing occupation so little had been saved from the wreck of our fortune that there was strong need for exertion i wrote a series of lively articles under the nom de plume of helen berkley they were published in various popular magazines and i was well renumerated these articles consisted of sketches of celebrated persons with whom i had been brought into communication and humorous articles generally founded on fact the larger portion of them have since appeared in london magazines several were translated into german and reprinted under my own name i at that time published nothing but verse i had half determined to attempt a tale of some length and was pondering upon the subject when a friend informed me that the new world newspaper had offered one hundred dollars for the best original novel in one volume the title must be the fortune hunter and the scene laid in new york the novel must be completed in one month or within six weeks at the latest why do you not try what you can do said my friend write a story in your mrs berkley style you can easily make the title apply ten to one your novel will be the one accepted thus encouraged i lost no time and that very day made the sketch of a plot which i submitted to my counselor and friend he approved and i went to work diligently at the time appointed the book was completed it was presented to the new world publishers and the note for one hundred dollars sent me in return was the most agreeable evidence of its acceptance the fortune hunter had an extensive sale and after my identity with mrs berkley became known the publishers chose to affix my name to the work the copyright being theirs my consent was not even asked i was very much amused by an article that appeared in one of the papers accusing me being an imitator of mrs berkley and more than hinting that the imitation fell far short of the original the fortune hunter has lately been translated into german i continued to write for various magazines the columbian democratic review ladies companion gaudies grams etc i use fictitious names and sometimes supplied the same number of a magazine with several articles only one of which was supposed to be my own i also prepared for the press a number of works the copyrights of which were purchased by mrs berges and stringer they were principally compilations with as much or as little original matter as was found necessary books cement to make the odd fragments adhere together the subject of these books were not of my own choosing i wrote to order for profit and to supply the demands of the public in this manner were produced housekeeping made easy the name of mrs ellis was not affixed by me book of the toilets cookery for the sick book of embroidery knitting and crochet etiquette for ladies ballroom etiquette and similar publications the very names of which i cannot remember now these books especially the first proved very profitable so much so that mr mawik concluded that he would derive greater benefit by publishing the works i compiled himself than by selling the copyright to other publishers he accordingly established a firm and his books were supplied chiefly by me the success of the undertaking was of brief duration my time was holy and grossed in bookmaking but having now more freedom of choice as regarded the works i prepared cookery books and books on etiquette worked loudly abandoned i found more congenial occupation in abridging a life of girtha and another of madame du bré the pleasure however was of particularly private nature for the books proved unsayable not a little disheartened by their failure i returned to my labors in a less interesting but more lucrative field of literature i could not drudge always for the book compiling was unmitigated drudgery and during leisure moments i amused myself by writing evelyn a domestic tale in two volumes frederica brimmer's works translated by mary howitt were my favorites amongst modern novels the delight with which i perused them undoubtedly influenced the style in which evelyn was written evelyn herself was not an ideal creation i could never write mere fiction i needed a groundwork of reality her history was that of one whom i dearly loved over whose tomb there were few to weep but whose sin we may dare hope was forgiven for she loved much when the book was completed an english literary gentleman proposed that i should allow him to take the manuscript to london and have it published there previous to its appearance in this country i consented and a few months later received a notice from a london publisher that he would purchase the english copyright and produce the book if i would write a third volume he assured me that nobody purchased novels in two volumes all the popular writers of the day extended their romances to three as a second volume of evelyn ends with the heroine's death i did not see how i could with propriety bring her to life and prolong her misery's new the author of the london publisher was politely declined evelyn was published and originally written by carrie and heart of philadelphia owing to the delay occasioned in regaining possession of the manuscript the work was not produced until i had made my debut upon the stage this event probably accounted for its rapid sale the copyright fortunately remained in my own possession a rather singular violation of this copyright took place in sentinati the book was abridged into one volume and published with a wretched fraughtice piece as a sort of souvenir for young ladies the word london was to be found upon the title page but the type paper and general getting up of the book betrayed this to be a mere roose the gear this mangled edition also appears to have had a sale its existence was a source of much annoyance but could not be prevented without the institution of legal proceedings these were not taken incidents of a different nature belong to this period mary howitt in her memoir of me makes affectionate mention of three orphan children who were protected and educated by mr mowat and myself as though the act were one of premeditated and intentional charity this was not so i should consider our first acquaintance and the whole intercourse with the family of the grays as merely accidental could i believe that word applied to any event of life providential it certainly was to them and we were but unconscious instruments in the hand of a higher power the circumstances which led to our becoming interested in the children of the grays were these returning from a drive one severely cold day in november i noticed a little beggar girl thinly cloud who was seated upon our doorsteps sobbing violently she cried like a child in real distress i stopped to ask what ailed her and could gain no answer but tears as i was still in an invalid and dared not remain in the cold i told the servant to make the little girl come into the parlor and talk with me she was brought in with some difficulty but gradually the warm fire thawed her half frozen limbs and perhaps her heart tell me what you are crying about had been repeated some 20 times in all the varieties of coaxing intonations before i could gain a reply at last her tongue was loosened and she sobbed out mother's very ill and they say she is dying father's got no work and sent me out for cold vitals but i can't get nothing and your cook turned me out of the kitchen little esters grief was too genuine for me to doubt her story i inquired where her mother lived the distance was very short i had not thrown aside my hat and coat it was very easy to accompany her home she took me to a dilapidated building and we entered a small close room upon a cot in one corner lay a young woman whose ghastly features betoken acute suffering a puny infant about two or three weeks old rested upon her arm the little preacher was moaning piteously but seemed too feeble to cry instead of the plump ruddiness of first babyhood its face was as pallid as that of the mother and far more wrinkled the woman told me her history it was one of utter destitution she added that she believed herself to be dying but her chief anxiety was for her children i promised to visit her occasionally and to interest others in her behalf and left desiring her to send little ester to see me the next morning ester was a dark-eyed bright little preacher and i thought affectionate when she came in that morning i sent her home to tell her mother that if the latter chose i would keep the child to run errands and wait upon me and that i would take as good care of her as i could i had no particular use of her but i love the presence of childhood about the house the mother returned her thanks and hearty consent with the assistance of my sisters ester was soon furnished with a suitable wardrobe and her ragged coal ritual clothes as she used to call them were exchanged for neat and comfortable attire she seemed happy in her new home and gave me little trouble i accompanied her to see her mother at short intervals for a month the poor woman grew gradually worse one sunday after noon ester rushed into the room greatly agitated and said come quickly to see my mother she is dying i went the room was filled with roman catholic friends of the dying woman who were performing the last ordinances of their religion they drew back and allowed me to approach the bed with the child the mother tried to speak but she could not she feebly lifted her hand looked in my face and smiled as the dying only can smile a few moments afterwards she expired ester for some days was almost inconsolable for the loss of her mother and was often at home taking care of her baby sister i wish i were not compelled to allude to the father one of the courses specimens of an irish man that could well be found in less than a week after his wife's funeral he called upon mr. mollett and demanded wages for his daughter a child not yet ten years of age mr. mollett explained to him that she was only allowed to remain in the house to please me that she was too young to be of any service and that all indebtedness was on the side of the parent the man rudely replied that if he couldn't get paid for her she would be taken home immediately he knew that i was attached to the child and supposed that we would yield to his demands rather than part with her his threat was put into execution and the weeping little girl was taken back to her former wretched home it is proverbial that one's neighbors have an acute knowledge of one's domestic affairs our neighbors had remarked the transformation of the little cold ritual girl into a neatly dressed merry looking attendant they had become acquainted with the history of the mother and the ungracious conduct of the father his ingratitude was a theme constantly discussed i was of course duly pitied for having had anything to do with such a man and the little i had accomplished for the child was greatly exaggerated and lauded about ten times as much as it deserved to be the remark of a seamstress who was sowing for our opposite neighbors was repeated to a domestic of mine if mrs. mollett is fond of children and cares anything about poor people said the seamstress i wish somebody would tell her of the graves an english family who are living in harlem they are people that have seen better days but the father is blind there are several children one of them is a sweet little girl a much finer child than that ester and they are actually starving this speech was communicated to me it did not make any particular impression at the time but the next day the words kept coming into my head again and again and i could not help wondering whether the graves were really starving whether anything could be done for them whether i should not like the little girl in ester's place et cetera et cetera very soon i could think of nothing else the graves were always in my mind i could not sleep without dreaming of them or wake without longing to know something of their history i could not interest myself in my usual occupations i was thoroughly idle restless and uncomfortable two days passed thus and on the third i came to the conclusion that i would drive to harlem i was seldom allowed to venture out at all in very cold weather this was a much longer drive than i was considered able to take therefore i said nothing of my determination to mr. mollett i knew he would object on the plea of my health as soon as i was left alone i dispatched a message to our opposite neighbor requesting that she would send me the address of the graves the answer returned was that the seamstress who had spoken of them had gone home she had said that they live somewhere in harlem and that a mr. g who kept a hotel there knew all about them and he could answer for their respectability she knew nothing of the people herself this information was scanty enough but in my restless and excited state of mind it's sufficed i sent for a carriage and told the coachman to drive to harlem and stop at the first hotel the carriage stopped after what seemed to my impatience a very long drive is mr. g the proprietor of this hotel was the inquiry made to the waiter who with an air of great empress mold opened the carriage no ma'am do you know what hotel in harlem he keeps the answer was also in the negative we drove to another hotel and still another but at both the existence of any mr. g was ignored at a fourth the proprietor himself chance to be standing on the piazza in answer to the usual question he somewhat pompously proclaimed his own proprietorship and offered to hand me out of the carriage i wish you could tell me at what hotel mr g keeps i am very anxious to find it out i said to him in a somewhat appealing manner for i was beginning to get discouraged i know all the hotels here about and there's no mr. g that keeps any of them you'll find mine as good as the best of them ma'am it is mr. g himself i want do you know any person in harlem of that name there's an individual that keeps a place where they sell spirits and his name is g but i don't suppose that's what the lady wants replied the man with so decidedly insolent expression that it took some courage to address him again be so good as to give my coachman the direction i managed to reply i was becoming tremblingly alive to the folly of my expedition after a rude stare and an evident inclination to indulge me with some further remarks probably upon the eccentricity of my taste and conduct the man obeyed we drove to the place where spirits were sold mr. g lived there but was not at home i sent for mrs g she was also out the message was brought by a little girl about eight or nine years old is there not anybody in the house to whom i can speak i inquired of her only me everybody is out does your father know the grays an english family who live somewhere in harlem is that the blind mrs mr gray yes i believe he's blind oh we know him and mrs gray and the children are they poor the little girl laughed the little girl laughed as though she already understood the distinction between rich and poor and replied well i guess they be i asked her to tell the coachman where they lived i never expected him to find the place when i heard her puzzling direction of after you turn the corner you go to the right then down to the left then take the first street etc and etc but he did find it without so much difficulty the house or shanty as it might more properly be called stood back some distance from the road the snow lay on the ground at least a foot deep there was no pathway through it to the door the coachman who was accustomed to drive me begged that i would sit still until he had trampled it down to form a narrow path i then alighted and he remained with the horses no answer came to my repeated knockings at the street door i opened it and went in i knocked at the first door within no answer i opened it the room was empty both of furniture and inhabitants i tried room after room but with the same result while i was still searching a large dog started from some unnoticed corner and leaped upon me as though to be caressed this was the first sign of life that i beheld i made friends with the dog as best means of self-defense after playing about me in a manner which seems a dumb welcome he ran to a sort of outer building so i think it was and i followed here he scratched at the door and i thought it advisable to knock come in said the voice of a man i entered a room where poverty had undisputed rain the floor was bare scarcely an article of furniture was to be seen in the center of the room stood a small stove but the fire had quite died out though it was a piercingly cold day in front of the stove lay a little boy half naked and shivering with the cold upon a small wooden box set a baby strapped by its waist to the back of the chair beside them so close to the stove that his clothes must have burned had there been any fire within said the father can you tell me if mr gray lives here i asked upon entering the man rose for the kind of dignity that i did not look for in so rude a place and vowing answered my name is gray he advanced to find me a chair but with uncertain steps and one hand extended as though feeling his way by his movement only could one have divine that he was blind his eyes were large of a clear light blue and did not seem to me wholly expressionless he was tall well made and handsome in spite of the traces of suffering upon his countenance i could not but notice the courtesy of his manner as he bowed on offering me the seat i entered into conversation with him his language was not that of an uneducated man i drew from in his history though he was evidently inclined to be reserved he had been cheated by his partner while conducting a prosperous business either in england or ireland i forget which his partner had absconded and mr gray totally ruined had brought his family to america in hope of almost digging gold in the streets shortly after his arrival in new york his eyes began to trouble him and soon he became so blind that he could barely distinguish light from darkness his wife tried to get work sometimes she obtained a little sowing sometimes a little washing but often she could get no employment at all they had no friend but mr g who had known them in the old country he had been very kind but he had family of his own had he not helped them they must have starved i inquired after mr gray's wife she was out and his little daughter margaret was also absent he hoped they would bring back something to make the fire burn this winter weather was so hard upon the little boys i looked upon the baby faces turned wonderingly to mine they were blue with coals i could not ask whether his wife was gathering chips for the fire or whether she was endeavoring to obtain money to purchase fuel there was something about the bearing of the man that would have made anyone guarded in running the risk of wounding his feelings i told him that if i liked his little girl i might take her to live with me then gave him my address and expressed a desire that his wife would call the next day with the child i returned home just in time to prevent alarm at my long absence had the result of the expedition been different i should have recorded it as quixotic dorcasina ish in the extreme the next morning brought mrs gray and the little daughter the former did not impress me so favorably as her husband but the sweet face of the child with its large blue frightened eyes one spontaneous interest she was nine years old but small for her age and then almost to amaciation her fair hair fell in disordered masses to her waist her features were pinched and sharp and she had the look of quiet suffering which it was so painful to behold in the countenance of childhood the mother joyfully consented to leave little margaret with me it was arranged that the family should remove from Harlem to New York to more comfortable apartments the influence of my friends could readily procure for her work or needful assistance the mother departed and the little girl with her piteous expression of face stood trembling at my knee she seemed almost heart broken when her mother kissed her for goodbye but she dared not cry ill usage had so thoroughly crushed her spirit that it seemed to have deprived her of the childish relief of tears of that brutal usage we had ample proof when her tattered garments were removed her fragile person was literally covered with blue and yellow bruises the consequence of severe blows these had not been received from her parents so she told me but from one to poverty had forced them to entrust her though it was December her garments were but three in number and of summer suited materials busy fingers plied their needles that day some of them more used to the pin than the needle but retaining a feminine affection for the latter a little girl set by the fire that evening vending towards the genial heat as though she were making a new acquaintance in her neat blue dress and white bib with her fair hair smooth and cut it was only in the painful expression of her face that little Margaret of the morning could be recognized her countenance still wore a look of strange apprehension it was months before it lost that mournful expression many months before I ever saw her smile the first time I heard her sing I had noiselessly entered the room where she was at work her voice gushed out rich and clear as the song of a bird she gave a start of terror when she saw me and on my bidding her sing on burst into tears the child of nine years old was already a skeptic to the existence of kindness but I must shorten my narrative of the grace little Margaret remained with us beloved and learning to love her parents and infant brothers removed to New York medical aid failed to restore her father's site her mother worked incessantly to support her little family but had a bitter struggle with poverty in less than a year from the day I wandered through the empty house at Harlem and was guided by a dog to the back building where the blind man set all that was mortal of him was lying in a coffin in four more weeks another coffin entered the room from which his mortal remains had been removed and Margaret and her brothers were weeping over the corpse of their mother they had two elder sisters but neither in circumstances to provide for the little orphans the elder boy John a gentle delicate little fellow of about six years old was evidently ill his disease was the same that his mothers had been inflammation of the lungs that he should be instantly cared for was imperative and we took him home to nurse one of the neighbors to the graves took charge of little Willie the elder boy was ill for nearly two months but so patient and docile that he gave a little trouble he sometimes had to be left alone for hours but we always found him either singing merrily or with his toys and picture books laid on the bed beside him and always happy when the pale feeble little fellow began to wonder about the house he was in nobody's way but even tried to make himself useful and share his sister's like duties I used to send Margaret on a weekly visit of inquiry after the youngest child one day she returned sobbing so loudly that I heard her before she entered the room where I was sitting my little brother little Willie poor little Willie was all she could say at first I thought the child was dead and reproach myself for having bestowed so little care upon him as soon as Margaret could speak she told me that he had been ill with the measles and was just recovering but the people where he was staying said they could be burdened with him no longer they had arranged to send him that very day to the orphan asylum the weeping child ended her tail with don't let him go let me bring him here only let me bring him here for a little while her grief was so persuasive that I could not resist her in treaties an hour after she came into the room again staggering under the weight of the little boy in her arms but this time her face was covered with smiles Willie was about two years old an apple dumpling shaped rosy cheek little boy who could just tattle about and prattle in an unintelligible language I had no intention of keeping him no fixed intention towards children at all they were quiet manageable and winning Mr. Mobut took a ready interest in them they grew into his affections as rapidly into mine they were my pupils and if they added much to my cares they contributed as largely to my joys little by little they became an acknowledged part of our small household at first we anticipated finding some person or persons who would like to adopt the two boys no such party sprang up and the idea was tacitly abandoned or rather it was gradually forgotten when new reverses caused me to enter a profession the children found protection for a short period in the homes of my sisters Mr. Mobut went through the necessary forms and became their legal guardian before we sail for Europe a highly respectable family in Connecticut the state of steady habits received the two boys as borders and treated them as tenderly as though they had been their own children the lads attended day school regularly and prospered in all ways they have remained at Greenfield Hall until this period and are now a couple of fine Frank true hearted boys whoever paid by their gratitude and all good conduct all the care and love that have been bestowed upon them three miles distant from the residence of the boys little Margaret was placed at school with a family of equally excellent equally kind with that to which we entrusted her brothers when I returned from England four years afterwards returned alone I could scarcely believe that tall graceful girl who threw herself into my arms weeping with joy was the tiny Margaret I had left I could not help seeing in thought the bruised emaciated child who shivering with cold and fear stood before me on that memorable December morning I felt that she was heaven entrusted to my care if her mature womanhood fulfilled the promise of her girlhood I have nothing more to ask I must not close the history of these children without relating a singular circumstance in connection with them until quite recently I knew nothing of their parentage but what I have related above the Reverend Mr. A visiting Greenfield where the boys are living noticed the children and inquired who they were to his surprise he found that their parents had belonged to the parish in Harlem of which he was pastor he had baptized little Willie he had been informed by the Mr. G after whom I had made such a singular search that they were of good family and had wealthy bachelor uncles with other particulars that may at some future day be advantageous to the children but which I have taken no pains as yet to authenticate end of chapter 10