Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1882-05-26
Gales aItb Sketfhts.
fHE NAN wlrn rive SOULS.
Continued from Yesterday

Ou0OuVtI0tys tORbCor W ~
to give q proportionafely longer time for
rest in sleep. wish could feel, how
ever. that our bodily strength was not
diminishing. I've seen DR.. Jones repeat
edIyc, in fact I've been staying at Plas
Newydd for weeks past. He shakes his
head and says I'm killing myself by what
he calls my morbid brooding; it's quite
useless to tell him that don't brood, and
that I'm perfectly happy. That is the
only thing that troubles me or her; it's
hard that such life as ours should be cut
of so Young. And yet we shall be hap
pier In our death. whenever we do die,
than any lovers since the world began ;
we shall die literally in the self-same
breath, and, while we know from onr own
experience that the soul does not die with
the body, we feel that, whatever the des-
tiny of our souls may be. they are in any
case not likely to be separated.
II am going to Oxford now. l don't
feel much up to reading for Greats. and,
If can't. shall resign my scholarship.
But love the old place, and want her
TO know it; Of course she shares my
"reminiscences Of it, but memory is not the
same as sight"
IL should Iike,- said /. before going
TO tell you nv conviction as to the origin
of YOUR belief, If can do so without pain
ing you. III didn't think that it was
fatally undermining your health. should
hesitate to say anything which might dis
turb belief 20 beautiful and so happy :
but, as it il. feel I've duty to fulfil, If
you'll allow me to fulfil it,
Most certainly; it'll interest me to
hear what You say, and in any case. owe
this much at leas,-very much more-in
return for your attention and sympathy"
"Many thanks: then. I'll begin at the
beginning. You've admitted that the
phenomena presented by Miss Evans in
her frances were at first purely mesmeric,
that the change was gradual, and that the
means employ ed were mesmeric through
out. There's continuity in all this
which forbds me to suppose that that the
later phenomena differed generically from
the earlier. And the number OF the mes
meric cases known to you and me Is so
enthusiastically small compared with the
total number of such cases that to assume
that the later phenomena were singular at
all is a very rash inference. Granted,
however, that they were unique, it is i'm
measureably more probable that they
were due to some peculiarly of her physi-
cal organization than that by either mes
meric or any other means a soul can be
attracted out of its own body into that of
another person.
las to the circumstances of her death.
IL may be quite true that she never was in
better health or spirits, and that she had
gone that same firing walk often before.
Yet how many little things would account
e. al affar
She may have walked quicker with you,
may have taken rougher and sleeper paths.
NAV have rested less on the way, or may
have gone longer without the sustenance
of food. How much more natural 10 ex-
plain the stoppage Of the heart by any one
Of these simple hypothesis
"As for those first sensations of yours
at Colwyn Bay. it would be strange if, in
your state of mind and with a nervous
system impaired by congestion of the
brain. you had not had curious
sensations of the brain sometimes; and it
was only natural that those sensations
should recur whenever You were most
melancholy. The first active thoughts
which you attribute to her mind thinking
within you were nothing more than, as
you yourself at first suspected. the work
ings Of your own mind. dare say every
one occasionally has thoughts which take
the form OF remarks addressed to himself;
know | have. Probably that indicates
temporary twist or rick in ones mind:
and the persstency with which thoughts
of this form required to you, instead of
convincing you that they were not your
own thoughts ought to have convinced you
that your mind was not in good working
order. Lastly. when once you were pos
sessed by this idea it was inevitable that
you should go on personating your be-
trothed in your thoughts, thinking as she
whenever you were not thinking as your
self. And this perpetual tension of the
mind, acting on system which has new
er been restored from the effects of that
illness. must wear you out sooner or lat
err.
"Now. | entreat You to believe that, in
what I'm going to advise you to, am not
for one moment throwing a suspicion on
your sanity. Your conviction has been
deduced in perfectly sane fashion. partly
from phenomena internal to your own
mind and partly from external phenome-
M; the reality of both sets of phenomena
is beyond dispute, and you have merely
mistaken their import. Go to some first
rate mental doctor-Maudsley. for in
stance-tell him everything you have told
me. and do as he bids you"
IL thank you very much for the advice"
he answered. land fully appreciate the
force of your arguments against the truth
of nv conviction. haven't doubt in
the world that any unprecedented person
whom we might choose as umpire would
decide for you, but only because the in
ternal evidence must be felt, and no one
but myself can feel it. can't 60 to
Maudsley or anyone else, because he
would most assuredly treat me on the
theory that was deluded. Grant for
arguments sake that am not deluded.
tell me how 1t would be possible tor me to
prove that to him. and I might consider
about taking your advice"
= thought for little time. and then ad-
mitted that saw no such means of proof
open to Anstie. But" said, "suppos.
ing for arguments sake that you are de-
luded. he might prove that to you by the
simplest means-by treatment which
would lessen the pressure of blood on the
brain, and soothe its over-activity. and
which would at least relax the unbearable
mental strain from which you are suffer-
ing"
''For that matter. them" Anstie replied,
''he would treat me rs I've already been