The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-02-09
WHIBLEY'S SPIRIT.
His Experience with It Was
Rather Expensive.

1 never met it myself, but knew
whitley very we'll indeed, so that l
came to hear a goodish deal about it.
1t appeared to be devoted to whitley
and whitley was extremely fond of it.
Personally 1 am not interested in
spirits, and no spirit has ever inter-
ested itself in me. But / have friends
whom they patronize and my mind is
quite open ON the subject. OF Whib-
ley's spirit, therefore, wish to speak
with every possible respect. 1t was,
am willing to admit, as hard-working
and conscientious spirit as anyone
could ', ,ish to live with. The only
thing have to say against it is that it
had no sense.
1t came with a carved cabinet that
whitley had purchased in Wardour
street for old oak, but which, as mat
ter of fact, was made of chestnut wood,
and manufactured in Germany; (they
turn them out by the hundred in Black
Forest towns) and, at first, was harm
less enough, saying nothing but yes
or no." and that only when spoken
to.
whitley could amuse himself of an
evening asking it questions, being
careful to choose tolerably simple
themes such as Are you there?" Ito
which the spirit would sometimes an
swer "Yes," aud sometimes "No,"
thereby proving its imbecility from
the very beginning), 'How are you?"
Can you hear me?" Are you hap
py?" "Win you come again?" The
spirit made the cabinet crack three
times for "Yes" and twice for mo. -
Now and then it would reply both
"yes'' and mo" to the same question.
which whitley attributed to over
scrupulousness. When nobody asked
it anything, it would talk to itself, re-
peat Eyes, no"-"no. yes" over and
over again and in an aimless. lone.
some sort of way that made you feel
sorry for it.
After awhile whitley bought it q
table and encouraged it to launch out
into more active conversation. TIC
please whitley assisted at some OF
the earlier seances, but during my
presence it invariably maintained a
reticence boroering on positive dull
ness. gathered from whitley that il
disliked me. saying that was unsym
pathetic. The complaint YVES unjust.
was not unsympathetic-at least, not
at the commencement. / came to hear
it talk, and wanted to hear it talk;
would have listened to it by the hour.
What tried me was it's slowness in
starting and its foolishness when it had
started i'll using long words that it did
not know how to SPELL remember
on one occasion three of us, whitley,
Observation-Disclosures partner-and my
self. sitting for two hours trying tc
understand what the thing meant by
"H-e-s-t-u-r-n-e-m-y-s-f-e-a-r." 1t used
no stops whatever. 1t never so much
as limited where one sentence ended anC
| another began. 1t never even told Us
when it came to proper name. 1t:
idea of an evenings conversation wa:
to plump down one hundred or sc
| vowels and consonantS in front of you
and leave you to make whatever sense
out of them you could.
We fancied at first it was talking
about somebody named Hester; it haf
spelled Hester with ''u' before. VIZ
allowed margin for spelling-and we
tried to work the sentence out on thai
basis. Hester enemys fear" we
thought it might be. whitley had 6
niece named Hester, and we decided
the warning had reference to her. But
whether she was our enemy and we
were TO fear her; or whether we were
to fear her enemies land, if so. who
were they?); or whether it was our en-
emies who were to be frightened by
Hester, or her enemies, or enemies gen
orally, still remained doubtful. We
asked the table if it meant the first
suggestion and it said: "No." We
asked it what it did mean and it said
l "Yes"
| This answer annoyed me, but Whib
ley explained that the spirit was angry
with us for our stupidity. He informed
us that it always said first mo- an6
then yes when it was angry. and a.
it was his spirit and we were in hi.
house we kept our feelings to Aourselve.
and started afresh.
This time we abandoned the Hes
tur" theory altogether. Jobstock sug
gested Haste" for the first word, anG
thought the spirit might have gone or
phonetically.
"Hastel you are here. he my sfearr
was what he made of it.
whitley asked him sarcastically il
he'd kindly explain what he meant.
think Jobstock was getting irrita
BILE. We had been sitting cramped uI
round a wretched little one-legged table
all the evening, and this was almost
the first bit of gossip we had got out Of
it To further excuse him, it should
also be explained that the gas had been
put out BY whitley, and that the fire
had gone out. He replied that it was
'hard labor enough to find out what the