Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-03-20

: NAG touched a tender chord. and so
.IIlreooEe to prosecute the subject.
snough entitled by intimacy with 10th
70 Ieel an interest in their mutual rela.
~ IS This very matter which troubles
me just now" replied nv friend I'M
easily. Her letters latterlv have been
growing ~lessfrequent, and / fancy I can
detect also q change of stvle' Her
phrases seem less endearinc than form.
sh Ely u would seem as though a
You know how 1 love her. and T am
racked with apprehension when I think
sa SILL Is so 1ar away, and exposed to 1
tnces."
where are the family nowP" I
asked, as since the Radcliffes had left
oss1 francisco, some six months before,
1hey had, as l knew, been travelling in
Europe, though l was unacquainted
with their present location.
THAT is what 1 do not know" re-
Piled Ashley, in tremulous tones.
"lhey were in New York two weeks
ago, q since then 1 have had no letter
from Julia, though hitherto she had
e " missed a week without writine.n
Julia Radcliffe, the atfianced bride of
Gerald Ashley, was a charming, sym
pathetic and impressionable girl of
nineteen summers, the only daughter
OF one OF San Francisco's representa-
tive business men, who had been travel
ing with his family, and was now on
his return home. Knowing the extent
of my friends affection for the lady, I
felt sincere sympathy for him in his
present condition.
Presently an idea struck me WHY
should not my friend make use of the
mode of communication he had Just
been explaining to nue., and thus obtain
the information he stood so sadly in
need Of? If it really possessed the vir-
tue he expressed such confidence in,
! surely the present was the time to prove
it, and l Immediately made the scgges
| ton.
"The very thing I had in my mind"
he returned, in answer to my obserya-
ton, ''when l asked you to accompany
me this evening. Prof. Vehr is no or
binary scientist, 1 assure you. So1ue
of the phenomena he produces are of
the most extraordinary and startling
character"
"Prof. Vehr!" I exclaimed, in sur
prise. 800 you mean Prof. Vehr, of
the Palace Hotels: l have already wit
messed some of his remarkable experi-
ments," recalling an episode in which
a magic mirror had figured, some few
months before. II will willingly ac-
company YOU"
Two hours later found us in the
professors apartments in the Palace
Hotel. where we were cordially well
| coined.
'You have repeated your VISIT" he
said, ''with a view to further investi-
gate the occult. Good. l shall be
happy to oblige you-the more so as l
have myself been pursuing the investi-
| cations, and have arrived at even more
subtitle calculations of the energies con-
served in the fluid we call electricity
than those which you witnessed in the
! case of the mirror. There this phe-
nomenon was confinedito the reproduce
ton of optical effects, with a certain
| reaction on the substantial forms of
which the figure on the mirror were
ert an actual physical control over the
l fOlCCS DIS VIGIL DIS Vic HluuS I'll ulSUiuU
persons themselves, so as, if necessary,
to v e transport them from place to
place."
was struck with the last observation
| of the professor. and with the resem-
blance of its claim to that of the adopts
of the Oriental Theosophy, and SO init
mated.
'.It is quite true" he said, .tthat this
formulation Of the energy 1 have just
! limited at is, in effect, the same as that
controlled by the Theosophists. 1t
may be, also, that, in one sense, they
have arrived at that more complete
mastery over nature where the mere
effort of mind and will is able to pro-
duce effects which I can only obtain in
natural corollaries of laws which the
world at large possesses. Still, even
granting that such is the case, my
mode Of procedure for obtaining my
results does notentai1 those penalties for
their abuse to which explorers into the
realms of the occult. under purely ply
steal conditions are exposed. There
are, however, penalties equally terri
BILE for a failure to observe the substan-
tial conditions of scientific law-penal-
ties which threaten absolute annihila-
ton of individual identity, so far as the
material person Or ego can be annihi-
lakeland SO saying, the professor
turned toward the alcove which had
been the scene of the experiment with
the mirror.
It can readily be conceived that,
while impressed with the deliberate
enunciation and careful p~hraseology of
the professor, I was somewhat at a loss
to trace their application to a pheno-
menon which I had not yet witnessed,
strongly tinctured as they were with
that transcendental flavor which, while
it whets the curiosity, tends rather to
obscure than elucidate the subject on
which it treats. I was not, therefore,
sorry when I saw that our host was
busying himself with the arrangement
of some apparatus in the alcove. to
which Ashley and myself now directed
our attention, and waited.
The object which particularly arrest
ed our attention was an immense glass
bell, of something the shape and size of
a divipg-bell, which occupied the center
fA III