TWO NEGLECTED VIRTUES

This seems to me a very strong point. Its force will be realized by most of those who read the Sutton and Thaw sittings in Pr. XIII. Phinuit, the "preposterous old scoundrel," is eminently "the children's friend." Hodgson continues:

"Having tried the hypothesis of telepathy from the living for several years, and the 'spirit' hypothesis also for several years, I have no hesitation in affirming with the most absolute assurance that the 'spirit' hypothesis is justified by its fruits, and the other hypothesis is not.""Since Phinuit's 'departure' [explained below. Ed.] the voice has been used on a few rare occasions only, and almost exclusively by communicators who purported to be relatives of the sitters, and who had used the voice before Phinuit's 'departure.' ... But there never seemed to be any confusion between the personality using the hand, whether this was 'clear' or not, and the personality using the voice."

"Since Phinuit's 'departure' [explained below. Ed.] the voice has been used on a few rare occasions only, and almost exclusively by communicators who purported to be relatives of the sitters, and who had used the voice before Phinuit's 'departure.' ... But there never seemed to be any confusion between the personality using the hand, whether this was 'clear' or not, and the personality using the voice."

This consideration and those before associated with it seem to me more for the spiritistic hypothesis than any others which we have met so far.

G. P. soon developed into the Mercury of the spiritistic Pantheon, turned up at almost all sittings, went to seek the friends of the sitters in the "spirit-world," and acted as intermediary for those who were new to the conditions of communication or had not enough of the psychokinetic power which was alleged to be necessary to use them effectively.

It should be noted that during G. P.'s life, telepathy from the sitter had been reluctantly conceded as a defense against the spiritistic hypothesis, but it was not till after his death that teloteropathy from persons at a distance had been conceded; and it was not until 1909—seven years later, that James, one of the most steadfast holders of the conservative fort, in his report on the communications from Hodgson's alleged spirit, in Pr. XXIII, admitted, as among the possible "sources other than R. H.'s surviving spirit for the veridical communications from the Hodgson control," "access to some cosmic reservoir, where the memory of all mundane facts is stored and grouped around personal centers of association."

James had a subtler mind than mine or almost anybody's. Mine is not subtle enough to be very seriously impressed by the difference between "memory of mundane facts stored and grouped around personal centers of association," and a surviving personality; and what difference does impress me, is pretty well filled up when the "personal center" also has "grouped around" it, the initiative, response, repartee and emotional and dramatic elements that, as shown not only by the G. P. control, but,years later, by the Hodgson control, and by hundreds of others, make a gallery of characters more vivid than those depicted by all the historians. But even claiming them to be historical, as in a sense they are, would not be claiming them to be surviving. Many historical characters have put in that claim through Mrs. Piper and other mediums, and while our greatest psychologist knew as much as anybody about the claims, and seemed somewhat on the road to admitting them to be from surviving personalities, he did not live to go farther than memories "stored and grouped around personal centers of association."

Butà basthe "memories"! one is tempted to say; credit them all to telepathy if you will: what are they beside the active and spontaneous emotions and responses?

Meantime in 1892 our old acquaintance Stainton Moses had "passed over," and in 1895 had ostensibly appeared through Mrs. Piper to Professor Newbold of the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Newbold asked him to bring his friends Imperator, Rector, etc. These high-toned personages—none high-toneder, as John Hay of blessed memory, puts it—nor more bombastic or long-winded, had manifested before only through Moses (for convenience I am using the simple phraseology that would attend their genuineness, but do not mean to convey any opinion), and when they came through Mrs. Piper, they professed to find her in a very bad way because of the "earth-bound" Phinuit, and they professed to remove him to a higher sphere where he would be purified and disinfected and sanctified and turned from a genial sympathetic, humorous and, it must be admitted, occasionally slangy and profane soul, into a prig of purest ray serene. Rector now generally took his place with Mrs. Piper, which he had done to some extent before. The gang was very well satisfied with G. P., however, and he appeared for some years as their valued friend and collaborator, until in 1897 they declared his work done, and his proper place a "higher sphere." He bade his friends here affectionate farewells, but has occasionally sent back messages, and has once or twice spokenhimself. Mind, I am throughout speaking only provisionally; but I would defy any writer to escape the verisimilitude, and even if that were possible, it would involve intolerable verbiage.

Imperator & Co. now proposed to do most of the talking themselves, and they did a frightful amount of it; and occasionally really said something.

Moreover, they took charge of Mrs. Piper and Hodgson too, in their goings and comings and all their ways, dictated their diet and exercise, and even whom they should have at sittings, giving the preference to people of exceptionally high character, and to those in deep distress from loss of friends, and eager to communicate with them.

The present writer and some others are tempted to think that these autocratic personages are products telepathically conveyed to Mrs. Piper from the unconscious imagination of Hodgson and his recollection of Moses' writings, with perhaps a little involuntary dash of Prof. Newbold. But if they are, the imagination is expanded to a degree entirely outside of ordinary experience, and its study must enlarge our conception of the range of human faculty. Whatever they were, if only an allegorized form of faith cure, there is no question about their beneficial effect on the clearness of the sittings, and on the health and happiness of Mrs. Piper and Hodgson.

James says something which goes to the root of the whole business, and which, though it is episodic to the Hodgson narrative, may as well be considered here (Pr. XXIII, 3):

"Dr. Hodgson was disposed to admit the claim to reality of Rector and of the whole Imperator-Band, ... while I have rather favored the idea of their all being dream-creations of Mrs. Piper.... I can see no contradiction between Rector's being on the one hand an improvised creature of this sort, and his being on the other hand the extraordinarily impressive personality which he unquestionably is.... Critical and fastidious sitters have recognized his wisdom, and confess their debt to him as a moral adviser. With all due respect to Mrs. Piper, I feel very sure that her own waking capacity for beinga spiritual adviser, if it were compared with Rector's, would fall greatly behind."

"With all due respect" for Professor James's opinion, I think I do "see [a] contradiction," and I see the contradiction because, with Professor James, "I feel very sure that her own waking capacity for being a spiritual adviser, if it were compared with Rector's, would fall greatly behind." If the Imperator band were merely, as James suggests, "dream creations," ... and if "her own waking capacity ... compared with Rector's, would fall greatly behind," how could she make anything so superior to herself? How can she do better as Rector than she can as herself? The whole scheme seems to me akin to the Du-Prel and Myers scheme of making a man lift himself higher than his head by his own boot-straps; and beside it the spiritistic hypothesis seems simplicity and probability themselves.

The simplest individual, incarnate (or discarnate?), of course manifestshimselfin a way that the most skillful dramatist could not equal, and it may well be questioned whether it is not more rational to assume that the hundreds of alleged personalities dramatized in the words and gestures of Mrs. Piper are manifestations by the personalities themselves, than that they are creations of some as yet unknown kind of genius residing in some layer of Mrs. Piper's consciousness, and getting its material from fragments among her own memories or by telepathy from those of other living persons, present or remote.

Hodgson closes his report (Pr. XIII, 409):

"It has been stated repeatedly that the 'channel is not yet clear,' that the machine is still in process of repair; and it has been prophesied that I shall myself return eventually to America and spend several years further in the investigation of Mrs. Piper's trance, and that more remarkable evidence of identity will be given than any heretofore obtained."

He did return and continue his beloved work for several years. But the next time we meet him it will be as an alleged denizen of the spirit world, and perhaps his testimonyin that capacity was part of the "more remarkable evidence of identity" promised.

These influences, whatever their fundamental character, having made a saint of Hodgson, as was alleged by a friend who did not believe that the influences were from a post-carnate world, the drama took a new turn on December 20, 1905, in the death which Hodgson had eagerly awaited, and his ostensible reappearances through Mrs. Piper and other mediums. The principal report of them is made by his friends Professor William James, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, Mr. J. G. Piddington and Sir Oliver Lodge in Pr. XXIII, and occupies some 170 octavo pages, most of them literal reports of sittings. Other manifestations appear in the heteromatic writing of Mrs. Holland (Pr. XX) and elsewhere. Of course but a few entirely inadequate scraps can be given here.

As in the case of G. P., the first appearance did not take place until, on Dec. 28th, a peculiarly close and congenial friend of Hodgson happened to have a sitting—an argument of course for telepathy from the friend, but an equal argument for a genuine communication that had to await a congenial sitter.

To avoid constant circumlocution, I will provisionally write as if Hodgson were really speaking. Indeed, I doubt if I could persistently do otherwise: for the utterances are so natural that all the editors of the Pr. S. P. R. unconsciously fall into that way of expression.

James says (Pr. XXIII, 7) that the first alleged appearance of Hodgson:

"was at Miss Theodate Pope's sitting on Dec. 28th, 1905 [the eighth day after Hodgson's death. Ed.] ... Rector had been writing, when the hand dropped the pencil and worked convulsively several seconds in a very excited manner."Miss P.: 'What is the matter?' [The hand, shaking with apparently great excitement, wrote the letter H, ... bearing down so hard on the paper that the point of the pencil was broken. It then wrote 'Hodgson.']

"Miss P.: 'What is the matter?' [The hand, shaking with apparently great excitement, wrote the letter H, ... bearing down so hard on the paper that the point of the pencil was broken. It then wrote 'Hodgson.']

Was all this a "put-up job?" And if so, who put it up, and why?

"Miss P.: 'God bless you!' [The hand writes 'I am'—followed by rapid scrawls, as if regulator of machine were out of order.] Miss P.: 'Is this my friend?' [Hand assents by knocking five times on paper-pad.] (Rector): 'Peace, friends, he is here, it was he, but he could not remain, he was so choked. He is doing all in his power to return.... Better wait for a few moments until he breathes freer again.'"

Do spirits require a supply of oxygen, or is the expression metaphorical for something not accurately communicable to our intelligence? It occurs several times. Frequently the "spirits" say they are tired, especially in the transition from the body. The expression "choked" may be purely metaphorical, yet it hardly reinforces the argument for spiritism.

James says (Pr. XXIII, 13f.):

"The R. H. control suddenly wrote: 'Give ring to Margaret back to Margaret.' [Mrs. Lyman's name [pseudonym. Ed.] is not Margaret.] Miss P.: 'Who is Margaret?' R. H.: 'I was with her in summer.' Miss P.: 'All right, but the ring has not been found yet. Can you find out where it is?' R. H.: 'The undertaker got it....'""On January 24th, Mrs. Lyman had her first sitting. As soon as Hodgson appeared he wrote: 'The ring. You gave it me on my fiftieth birthday. When they asked I didn't want to say you gave it me.... Two palm-leaves joining each other—Greek. [Here followed an illegible word. The palms truly described the ring, which Mrs. Piper probably had seen; but it bore no Greek inscription....]' Mrs. L.: 'Yes, Dick, where is it now?' R. H.: '... They took it off my finger after I was gone.' Mrs. L.: 'No, they didn't find it on your finger.' R. H.: 'Pocket, it was in my pocket. I'll find it, you shall have it.'"On January 29th, Mrs. L. had another sitting. The Hodgson control wrote: 'I have been trying to make clear about that ring. It is on my mind all the time. I thought if I could get Margaret B. to get it for me, I would get it to you through her, then no one would understand. I could not tell Miss Pope about you.' [Then a possible attempt to draw a symbol engraved on the ring.] 'No one living knows this but myself and yourself.' [Note the term 'living' as applied to himself. Ed.] Mrs. L.: 'That is true, but what was the motto in the ring?' R. H.: 'Allwill be clear to me in time. Do not ask me test questions now....'"

"On January 24th, Mrs. Lyman had her first sitting. As soon as Hodgson appeared he wrote: 'The ring. You gave it me on my fiftieth birthday. When they asked I didn't want to say you gave it me.... Two palm-leaves joining each other—Greek. [Here followed an illegible word. The palms truly described the ring, which Mrs. Piper probably had seen; but it bore no Greek inscription....]' Mrs. L.: 'Yes, Dick, where is it now?' R. H.: '... They took it off my finger after I was gone.' Mrs. L.: 'No, they didn't find it on your finger.' R. H.: 'Pocket, it was in my pocket. I'll find it, you shall have it.'

"On January 29th, Mrs. L. had another sitting. The Hodgson control wrote: 'I have been trying to make clear about that ring. It is on my mind all the time. I thought if I could get Margaret B. to get it for me, I would get it to you through her, then no one would understand. I could not tell Miss Pope about you.' [Then a possible attempt to draw a symbol engraved on the ring.] 'No one living knows this but myself and yourself.' [Note the term 'living' as applied to himself. Ed.] Mrs. L.: 'That is true, but what was the motto in the ring?' R. H.: 'Allwill be clear to me in time. Do not ask me test questions now....'"

His failure to remember it is one of the most knock-down anti-evidential arguments, but it is equally anti-telepathic. His never speaking of the ring to other friends, the Jameses, and Mr. Dorr, seems very evidential.

Hodgson (or the control, if you prefer, whatever that may mean), kept worrying about the ring through several sittings, and got so far as to imagine that he had seen it on the finger of a man who stole it. It was eventually found in Hodgson's waistcoat pocket. James comments on the case:

"The whole incident lends itself easily to a naturalistic interpretation. Mrs. Piper or her trance-consciousness may possibly have suspected the source of the ring. Mrs. Lyman's manner may have confirmed the suspicion. The manner in which the first misleading reference to 'Margaret' was afterwards explained away may well have been the cunning of a 'control' trying plausibly to cover his tracks and justify his professed identity."

But, please, what is a "control"? And why does one want to be taken for somebody else? Is this explanation "naturalistic"? It seems to my poor wits to grant the whole case, and reminds me of the deniers of telepathy availing themselves of it to explain away spiritism. Or does James mean a control faked by Mrs. Piper? If he had not already grown past that, he gave indications that he had later. He continues:

"The description of the house and of the man to whom he ascribes its [the ring's. Ed.] present possession sounds like vague groping, characteristic also of control-cunning."

But why should there be "control-cunning"? Is it anything like commentator-cunning?

James proceeds without any "cunning:"

"On the other hand, if the hypothesis be seriously entertained that Hodgson's spirit was there in a confused state, using the permanent Piper automatic machinery to communicate through, the whole record is not only plausible but natural. It presents just that mixture of truth and groping which we ought to expect.Hodgson has the ring 'on his mind' just as Mrs. Lyman has. Like her, he wishes its source not to be bruited abroad. He describes it accurately enough, truly tells of his taking it to the fatal boat-club [He died while playing hand-ball there. Ed.], and of putting it into his waistcoat-pocket there, of the waistcoat being taken from the locker, and vaguely, but not quite erroneously, indicates its present position."

And why should it not be even "quiteerroneously"? Nearly all the reasoning I have seen on these matters is vitiated by the entirely gratuitous traditional assumption that if a soul survives death, it enters at once into measureless wisdom. Hodgson (?) and the rest seem pretty much the same sort of people that they were here, and I for one am glad of it.

In the sittings of many others of Hodgson's friends the control showed a similar abundant knowledge of their experiences with Hodgson living, and, most important of all, it seems to me, all of Hodgson's exceptionally marked habits of thought and expression. We have room for but little more. James says (Pr. XXIII, 36):

"Hodgson was distinguished during life by great animal spirits. He was fond of argument, chaff, and repartee, a good deal of a gesticulator, and a great laugher.... Chaff and slang from a spirit have an undignified sound for the reader, but to the interlocutors of the R. H. control they seem invariably to have been elements of verisimilitude."

God save me from a heaven where there is no "chaff and slang"! I should fail to recognize some of my best friends among the loftiest souls who have escaped the flesh, Hodgson not the least. However intense the interest heretofore taken in a future world, I doubt if it has ever been thoroughly healthy, or ever will be before we get our conceptions of that world off stilts. James continues (pp. 37-8):

"This, however, did not exclude very serious talk with the same persons—quite the reverse sometimes, as when one sitter of this class notes: 'Then came words of kindness which were too intimate and personal to be recorded, but which left me so deeply moved that shortly afterwards, at the sitting's close, Ifainted dead away—it had seemed as though he had in all reality been there and speaking to me.'"

If James ran any one of his virtues into the ground, perhaps it was his modesty concerning anything connected with himself. Instance the following introduction and what it introduces:

W. J.'s Sitting.(May 21st, 1906). (Pr. XXIII, 8of.)"[J.] The evidence is so much the same sort of thing throughout, and makes such insipid reading, that I hesitate to print more of it in full. But I know that many critics insist on having the largest possible amount ofverbatimmaterial on which to base their conclusions, so I select a specimen of the R. H. control's utterances when he was less 'strong.' The reader, I fear, will find it long and tedious, but he can skip."(R. H. enters, saying:) 'Well, well, well, well! Well, well, well, that is—here I am. Good morning, good morning, Alice.' Mrs. W. J.:'Good morning, Mr. Hodgson.' R. H.: 'I am right here. Well, well, well! I am delighted!' W. J.: 'Hurrah! R. H.! Give us your hand!' R. H.: 'Hurrah, William! God bless you. How are you?' W. J.: 'First rate.' R. H.: 'Well, I am delighted to see you. Well, have you solved those problems yet?' W. J.: 'Which problems do you refer to?' R. H.: 'Did you get my messages?' W. J.: 'I got some messages about your going to convert me.' ... [R. H. had already sent me, through other sitters, messages about my little faith. W. J.] W. J.: 'Yes.' R. H.: 'Well, it has amounted to this,—that I have learned by experience that there is more truth than error in what I have been studying.' W. J.: 'Good!' R. H.: 'I am so delighted to see you to-day that words fail me.' W. J.: 'Well, Hodgson, take your time and don't be nervous.' R. H.: 'No. Well, I think I could ask the same of you! Well, now, tell me,—I am very much interested in what is going on in the society, and Myers and I are also interested in the society over here. You understand that we have to have a medium on this side, while you have a medium on your side, and through the two we communicate with you.' ... W. J.: 'You don't mean Rector?' R. H.: 'No, not at all. It is——do you remember a medium whom we called Prudens?' 'Yes.'"

W. J.'s Sitting.(May 21st, 1906). (Pr. XXIII, 8of.)

"[J.] The evidence is so much the same sort of thing throughout, and makes such insipid reading, that I hesitate to print more of it in full. But I know that many critics insist on having the largest possible amount ofverbatimmaterial on which to base their conclusions, so I select a specimen of the R. H. control's utterances when he was less 'strong.' The reader, I fear, will find it long and tedious, but he can skip.

"(R. H. enters, saying:) 'Well, well, well, well! Well, well, well, that is—here I am. Good morning, good morning, Alice.' Mrs. W. J.:'Good morning, Mr. Hodgson.' R. H.: 'I am right here. Well, well, well! I am delighted!' W. J.: 'Hurrah! R. H.! Give us your hand!' R. H.: 'Hurrah, William! God bless you. How are you?' W. J.: 'First rate.' R. H.: 'Well, I am delighted to see you. Well, have you solved those problems yet?' W. J.: 'Which problems do you refer to?' R. H.: 'Did you get my messages?' W. J.: 'I got some messages about your going to convert me.' ... [R. H. had already sent me, through other sitters, messages about my little faith. W. J.] W. J.: 'Yes.' R. H.: 'Well, it has amounted to this,—that I have learned by experience that there is more truth than error in what I have been studying.' W. J.: 'Good!' R. H.: 'I am so delighted to see you to-day that words fail me.' W. J.: 'Well, Hodgson, take your time and don't be nervous.' R. H.: 'No. Well, I think I could ask the same of you! Well, now, tell me,—I am very much interested in what is going on in the society, and Myers and I are also interested in the society over here. You understand that we have to have a medium on this side, while you have a medium on your side, and through the two we communicate with you.' ... W. J.: 'You don't mean Rector?' R. H.: 'No, not at all. It is——do you remember a medium whom we called Prudens?' 'Yes.'"

From one point of view, his not naming G. P. or Rector gives food for skepticism. But why didn't Mrs. Piper do the job consistently, if it was she who did it?

"R. H.: 'What I want to know first of all is about the society. I am sorry that it could not go on.' W. J.: 'There was nobody to take your place....' R. H.: 'William, can't you see, don't you understand, and don't you remember how I used to walk up and down before that open fireplace trying to convince you of my experiments?' W. J.: 'Certainly, certainly.' R. H.: 'And you would stand with your hands in your trousers pockets. You got very impatient with me sometimes, and you would wonder if I was correct. I think you are very skeptical.' W. J.: 'Since you have been returning I am much more near to feeling as you felt than ever before.' R. H.: 'Good! Well, that is capital.' W. J.: 'Your "personality" is beginning to make me feel as you felt.' R. H.: 'If you can give up to it, William, and feel the influence of it and the reality of it, it will take away the sting of death.... Now tell me a little bit more about the Society. That will help me keep my thoughts clear. I think, William—are you standing?' W. J.: 'Yes, I am standing.' R. H.: 'Well, can't you sit?' W. J.: 'Yes.' R. H.: 'Well, sit. Let's have a nice talk.'..."

There is nothing "evidential" about the last couple of lines in the scientific sense, but there are several kinds of sense. James continues:

(Pr. XXIII, 109): "The following incident belongs to my wife's and Miss Putnam's sitting of June 12th, 1906:—Mrs. J. said: 'Do you remember what happened in our library one night when you were arguing with Margie [Mrs. J.'s sister]?'—'I had hardly said "remember,"' she notes, 'in asking this question, when the medium's arm was stretched out and the fist shaken threateningly,' then these words came:"R. H.: 'Yes, I did this in her face. I couldn't help it. She was so impossible to move. It was wrong of me, but I couldn't help it.' [I myself well remember this fist-shaking incident, and how we others laughed over it after Hodgson had taken his leave. What had made him so angry was my sister-in-law's defense of some slate-writing she had seen in California.—W. J.]"(Pr. XXIII, 112): "On Jan. 30, 1906, Mrs. M. had a sitting. Mrs. M. said:"'Do you remember our last talk together, at N., and how, in coming home we talked about the work?' (R. H.): 'Yes, yes.' Mrs. M.: 'And I said if we had a hundred thousand dollars—'R. H.: 'Buying Billy!!' Mrs. M.: 'Yes, Dick, thatwas it—"buying Billy."' R. H.: 'Buying only Billy?' Mrs. M.: 'Oh no—I wanted Schiller too. How well you remember!'"Mrs. M., before R. H.'s death, had had dreams of extending the American Branch's operations by getting an endowment, and possibly inducing Prof. Newbold (Billy) and Dr. Schiller to co-operate in work.

"R. H.: 'Yes, I did this in her face. I couldn't help it. She was so impossible to move. It was wrong of me, but I couldn't help it.' [I myself well remember this fist-shaking incident, and how we others laughed over it after Hodgson had taken his leave. What had made him so angry was my sister-in-law's defense of some slate-writing she had seen in California.—W. J.]"

(Pr. XXIII, 112): "On Jan. 30, 1906, Mrs. M. had a sitting. Mrs. M. said:

"'Do you remember our last talk together, at N., and how, in coming home we talked about the work?' (R. H.): 'Yes, yes.' Mrs. M.: 'And I said if we had a hundred thousand dollars—'R. H.: 'Buying Billy!!' Mrs. M.: 'Yes, Dick, thatwas it—"buying Billy."' R. H.: 'Buying only Billy?' Mrs. M.: 'Oh no—I wanted Schiller too. How well you remember!'

"Mrs. M., before R. H.'s death, had had dreams of extending the American Branch's operations by getting an endowment, and possibly inducing Prof. Newbold (Billy) and Dr. Schiller to co-operate in work.

This buying Billy and Schiller brought Podmore squarely around, for the first time, I think, from his previous life-long fight against telepathy. He says (Newer Spiritualism, p. 222):

"It is impossible to doubt that we have here proof of a supernormal agency of some kind—either telepathy by the trance intelligence from the sitter or some kind of communication with the dead."

Two pages farther on, however, appears theadvocatus diaboli(Op. Cit., p. 224):

"When asked to give the contents of any sealed letters written in his life-time for the express purpose of being read by him after death the two sentences were given: 'There is no death' and 'out of life into life eternal' (p. 102). Whatever Hodgson may have written, it was surely not quite so commonplace as that."

To my gullible apprehension, it seems eminently appropriate.

Among the interesting phenomena investigated by the S. P. R., have been the automatic, or I should prefer to say heteromatic, writing of Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Holland, which were not made in trance. Vol. XX of the Proceedings is entirely given up to the consideration of it by Mrs. Verrall. She is the wife of a professor in Cambridge, and herself lecturer in Newnham College. The phenomena themselves are of moderate interest beside most of those described in these pages, but their evidential value is high, and their implications most important, and the treatment of them is pervaded by wide scholarship, and is charming. The experiences, however, do not connect with the main Moses—Piper—G. P.—Hodgson—Myers thread on which these brief extracts have naturally strung themselves, and I will not attenuate that thread to make room for this outside strand. I especially commend Mrs. Verrall's volume,however, to anybody who combines with an interest in Psychical Research, an interest in really "elegant letters."

The following scrap relating to Hodgson is from an account by Miss Johnson (Research officer of the S. P. R.) of Mrs. Holland (pseudonym) (Pr. XXI, 303f.):

"In February, 1905 ... Mrs. Holland found that the automatic writing was beginning to make her feel faint or sleepy. The condition was obviated at the time.... It now began to recur. [This sort of thing is noted in several places as preceding the advent of a new, and especially a strong control. Ed.]"Mrs. Holland learned of Hodgson's death on January 2, 1906. Her script on Friday, February 9, 1906, 9P. M., is as follows (Pr. XXI, 304):"... S j d i b s e I p e h t p o—Only one letter further on—18891534871191815414——"They are not haphazard figures read them as letters—...."K. 57. [a Christian name]—Gray paper—"I found that in spite of the rather obvious hints....—'Only one letter further on' and 'Not haphazard figures read them as letters,'—Mrs. Holland had not deciphered the initial conundrums. The first letters are formed from the name 'Richard Hodgson' by substituting for each letter of the name the letter following it in the alphabet; the numbers represent the same name by substituting for each letter the number of its place in the alphabet."I asked Mrs. Holland if she had ever played at conundrums of this kind. She told me that as a child in the nursery she had played at a 'secret language' made by using either the letter before or the letter after the real one. But she had never practised or thought of using numbers in this way. She noted afterwards: 'When my hand wrote them I thought they were an addition sum and hoped [my subliminal] would add it very correctly and quickly. [My supraliminal] isverypoor at figures.'"

"Mrs. Holland learned of Hodgson's death on January 2, 1906. Her script on Friday, February 9, 1906, 9P. M., is as follows (Pr. XXI, 304):

"... S j d i b s e I p e h t p o—Only one letter further on—

18891534871191815414——

"They are not haphazard figures read them as letters—....

"K. 57. [a Christian name]—Gray paper—

"I found that in spite of the rather obvious hints....—'Only one letter further on' and 'Not haphazard figures read them as letters,'—Mrs. Holland had not deciphered the initial conundrums. The first letters are formed from the name 'Richard Hodgson' by substituting for each letter of the name the letter following it in the alphabet; the numbers represent the same name by substituting for each letter the number of its place in the alphabet.

"I asked Mrs. Holland if she had ever played at conundrums of this kind. She told me that as a child in the nursery she had played at a 'secret language' made by using either the letter before or the letter after the real one. But she had never practised or thought of using numbers in this way. She noted afterwards: 'When my hand wrote them I thought they were an addition sum and hoped [my subliminal] would add it very correctly and quickly. [My supraliminal] isverypoor at figures.'"

Hodgson in life was very fond of these puzzles.

All this anticipates a scrap of explanation out of a much longer and more interesting manifestation. Mrs. Holland wrote to Miss Johnson (Pr. XXI, 171f.):

"Any automatic writing that comes to me is nearly always in verse, headed—"'Believe in what thou canst not see,Until the vision come to thee.'"The verses, though often childishly simple in wording and jingling in rhyme, are rarely trivial in subject. I once wrote down fourteen poems in little over an hour.... When I write original verse I do so slowly and carefully, with frequent erasures: automatic verse is always as if swiftly dictated and there are never any erasures. I am always fully conscious, but my hand moves so rapidly that I seldom know what words it is forming."... I copy one set of verses.... I wrote it down as quickly as it was possible for my hand to move, and was surprised afterwards to find that it had a definite form of its own. It is exactly as it came to me, not 'polished' or altered in the least."'I whom he loved, am a ghost,Wandering weary and lost.I dare not dawn on his sight,(Windblown weary and white)He would shudder in hopeless fright,He who loved me the best.I shun the paths he will go,Because I should frighten him so.(Weary and lacking rest).

"Any automatic writing that comes to me is nearly always in verse, headed—

"'Believe in what thou canst not see,Until the vision come to thee.'

"The verses, though often childishly simple in wording and jingling in rhyme, are rarely trivial in subject. I once wrote down fourteen poems in little over an hour.... When I write original verse I do so slowly and carefully, with frequent erasures: automatic verse is always as if swiftly dictated and there are never any erasures. I am always fully conscious, but my hand moves so rapidly that I seldom know what words it is forming.

"... I copy one set of verses.... I wrote it down as quickly as it was possible for my hand to move, and was surprised afterwards to find that it had a definite form of its own. It is exactly as it came to me, not 'polished' or altered in the least.

"'I whom he loved, am a ghost,Wandering weary and lost.I dare not dawn on his sight,(Windblown weary and white)He would shudder in hopeless fright,He who loved me the best.I shun the paths he will go,Because I should frighten him so.(Weary and lacking rest).

Two stanzas are omitted from lack of space.

"'Should I beat on the window pane,He would think it the wind and rain,If he saw my pale face gleamHe would deem it a stray moonbeamOr the waft of a passing dream.No thought for the lonely dead,Buried away out of sight.And I go from him veiling my head,(1896)Windblown weary and white.'"... Automatic verses do not deal much with facts, but once when I was staying in Italy, in an old palazzo I had neverbefore seen, the day after my arrival, and before I had been into the garden, the impulse to write came on me, and I yielded to it, without however ceasing to take part in the conversation of two friends who were with me. One of them, who knew about my automatic writing, asked me to read what had come to me. I did so:—"'Under the orange treeWho is it lies?Baby hair that is flaxen fair,Shines when the dew on the grass is wet,Under the iris and violet.'Neath the orange treeWhere the dead leaves be,Look at the dead child's eyes!'(1901)"'This is very curious,' said my friend, 'there is a tradition that a child is buried in the garden here, but I know you have never heard it.'"

"... Automatic verses do not deal much with facts, but once when I was staying in Italy, in an old palazzo I had neverbefore seen, the day after my arrival, and before I had been into the garden, the impulse to write came on me, and I yielded to it, without however ceasing to take part in the conversation of two friends who were with me. One of them, who knew about my automatic writing, asked me to read what had come to me. I did so:—

"'Under the orange treeWho is it lies?Baby hair that is flaxen fair,Shines when the dew on the grass is wet,Under the iris and violet.'Neath the orange treeWhere the dead leaves be,Look at the dead child's eyes!'(1901)

"'This is very curious,' said my friend, 'there is a tradition that a child is buried in the garden here, but I know you have never heard it.'"

These heteromatic poems appear to be but extreme illustrations of the "inspiration" that poets have generally claimed for themselves. The author's modest deprecations seem to me unjust to her own.

Mrs. Holland continues (p. 173f.):

"I have said that automatic verses do not deal much with facts, but once, when I was sensitive after illness, I experienced a new form of automatic writing, in the shape of letters which my hand insisted on writing to a newly-made acquaintance."The first of these letters began with a pet name I did not know, and was signed with the full name of someone I had never heard of, and who I afterwards learnt had been dead some years. It was clearly impressed upon me for whom the letter was intended, but thinking it due to some unhealthy fancy of my own, I destroyed it. Having done so I was punished by an agonizing headache, and the letter was repeated, till in self-defense I sent it and the succeeding ones to their destination."

"The first of these letters began with a pet name I did not know, and was signed with the full name of someone I had never heard of, and who I afterwards learnt had been dead some years. It was clearly impressed upon me for whom the letter was intended, but thinking it due to some unhealthy fancy of my own, I destroyed it. Having done so I was punished by an agonizing headache, and the letter was repeated, till in self-defense I sent it and the succeeding ones to their destination."

This is perhaps the most "evidential" thing I know.

It has been natural to follow the career of Hodgson both incarnate and alleged post-carnate, without interrupting for the post-carnate career of Myers who had died in 1901, four years before Hodgson. Myers was perhaps theleading English spirit in the S. P. R., and everybody interested in Psychical Research—the skeptical as well as the credulous—was looking with great interest for manifestations professing to come from that spirit in a post-carnate state. As usual, they are a terrible jumble. Myers was not a demonstrative person. He had not, like Hodgson, salient characteristics of manner or expression. In that respect the communicating personality resembles him. His absorbing interests were the S. P. R., poetry, and classical literature. In those respects, too, the personality resembles him.

Mr. George Dorr of Boston got from the Myers control, through Mrs. Piper, a large mass of classical lore which Mr. Dorr asserts he never could have possessed himself, and which certainly Mrs. Piper never did (Pr. XXIV).

Myers' appearances, though of great interest to students, do not make as good general reading as G. P.'s and Hodgson's, and we will make space for only one.

On September 16, 1903, nearly three years after Myers' death and his first alleged appearance through Mrs. Thompson, there was apparently the first appearance of a Myers control through Mrs. Holland. Myers, as his control intimates later, wrote, like Hodgson, for evidential purposes in cryptic ways that the heteromatist probably never would have deliberately used. The writing was, says Miss Johnson (Pr. XXI, 178):

"On two sides of a half-sheet of paper; the first side begins with the initial 'F.,' and the second ends with the initial 'M.'; the whole passage is divided into four short sections, the first three ending respectively in '17/,' '/1' and '/01.' January 17th, 1901, was the date of Mr. Myers's death, mentioned inHuman Personality; but the simple device of separating these initials and items from one another was completely effective in its apparent object. I read the passage a good many times before I saw what they meant and I found that the meaning had entirely escaped Mrs. Holland's notice."

This refers to the script containing the notorious stanza (Pr. XXI, 192) which excited the derision of the Philistine world of both continents, and disturbed not a small portion of the enlightened world:

"Friend while on earth with knowledge slightI had the living power to writeDeath tutored now in things of mightI yearn to you and cannot write."

Why the stanza excited so much adverse comment I cannot clearly make out: for what is it but a demonstration of what it claims, "I ... cannot write," unless it be also a demonstration that the tired shade, or befogged subliminal, or impotent group of world-soul elements, or what you please, could not criticise either?

It is worth remarking, by the way, that the Myers control, despite this and some other complaints of inefficiency, generally professed, as do the controls generally, to be in a condition of great happiness.

A word should be said of the very instructive and tedious subject of Cross-Correspondence, which has lately attracted more attention from the S. P. R. than any other topic.

If Mrs. Verrall in London and Mrs. Holland in India both, at about the same time, write heteromatically about a subject that they both understand, that is probably coincidence; but if both write about it when but one of them understands it, that is probably teloteropathy; and if both write about it when neither understands it, and each of their respective writings is apparently nonsense, but both make sense when put together, the only obvious hypothesis is that both were inspired by a third mind. The term Cross-Correspondence has been reserved for such a phenomenon. There are many famous ones—famous in a small circle, if that's not too Hibernian. The subject is entirely too complex for any treatment in our space. The reader is referred to Pr. XVIII, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIV and XXV.

The critics generally agree upon two points as the strongest against the spiritistic hypothesis. They were not enough for Myers, Hodgson and Sir Oliver Lodge, but they were strongest in suspending the judgment of James, Newbold and others of eminence.

The first is that Myers and Miss Wilde, of Holyoke,Mass., left sealed letters, the contents of which they purposed to announce should they be able to do so in a post-carnate life. The words ostensibly given by them through Mrs. Piper bore no relation to those found in the envelopes. Apologists offer in explanation that the memories are much confused by death, and means of communication at best very poor. There are many other cases where there is no apparent need of such apology: that there should be need of it in perhaps the most crucial cases of all, is itself suspicious. Farther, the apologists say that while it is well, and may be in the System of Things, that we should have enough communication with the world beyond to give souls aspiring that way, hope enough to keep their aspirations alive, it would not be well, and apparently is not in the System of Things, that we should have such certainty as to interfere with our living our lives here "for all we are worth"; and in support of this contention are cited the useless and worse than useless lives that, in spite of many cases far to the contrary, have been led in direct consequence of assumed certainty of a future life.

Hodgson was supposed to have left some sealed letters with intentions like those of Myers and Miss Wilde, but no such letters have been found. His control, however, gave some sentences alleged to be in them which are quoted some pages back.

The other hard nut in the S. P. R. records which resists the spiritistic hypothesis, is that Moses living told Myers that the Imperator gang gave certain well known names as borne by them on earth, and that Moses post-carnate (?) gave Professor Newbold an entirely different set of names for the same individualities. Of course the apologies for the envelope failures can be tried on this case, whether they fit it or not. And there is also the ampler, though perhaps less adequate one, that the whole Imperator business looks like a complex telepathic freak of the imaginations of Moses, Mrs. Piper, Professor Newbold, Hodgson and God knows how many others.

But a proof that the spiritistic hypothesis will not fit these cases, is no proof that it will not fit the cases of G. P., Hodgson, Gurney, Myers and hosts of others whowere known to the witnesses, and whose post-carnate manifestations tally with their incarnate ones, and yet with occasional and, so far, unexplainable lapses and inconsistencies.

Perhaps the best opinion of the investigators who have not reached the faith of Myers, Hodgson and Lodge, is that while failure of the sealed letters, and the Moses inconsistencies, are unanswerable on the negative side, there are other circumstances equally unanswerable on the positive side—especially the cumulative weight of the evidence, and the dramatic renderings which apparently would be impossible from any source but the characters themselves; that the contradictions or paradoxes are merely like many others in the borderland of our knowledge: for instance, that between free will and determinism; and that the only rational attitude is a suspense of opinion until more evidence accumulates. This was the attitude of James, who served a term as President of the S. P. R., and contributed voluminously to its Proceedings.

But, however we may interpret the phenomena, or if we do not interpret them at all, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that they point to modes of Force and reaches of Mind vastly wider than before suspected, and promising well to repay farther investigation. To some they may also suggest a recovery from the scrap-heap of abandoned things, and an appropriation to new uses, of that sadly battered and misapplied old virtue known as Faith.

And now we will give the attitude of the latest of James' successors, so far as it can be conveyed by a few extracts from the inaugural address of Professor Bergson.

As to his estimate of the labors of the Society: in thanking them for the honor of his election, he said (Pr., Part LXVII, Vol. XXVI, 462-3):

Je ne connais que par des lectures les phénomènes dont la Société s'occupe; je n'ai rien vu, rien observé moi-même. Comment alors avez-vous pu venir me prendre, pour me faire succéder aux grands savants, aux penseurs éminents qui ont occupé tour à tour le fauteuil présidentiel.... Si j'osais plaisanter sur un pareil sujet, je dirais qu'il y aeu ici un effet de télépathie ou de clairvoyance, que vous avez senti de loin l'intérêt que je prenais à vos recherches, et que vous m'avez aperçu, à travers les quatre cents kilomètres qui nous séparaient, lisant attentivement vos comptes-rendus, suivant vos travaux avec une ardente curiosité. Ce que vous avez dépensé d'ingéniosité, de pénétration, de patience, de ténacité, à l'exploration de laterra incognitades phénomènes psychiques me paraît en effet admirable. Mais, plus encore ... j'admire le courage qu'il vous a fallu pendant lespremièresannées surtout, pour lutter contre les préventions d'une bonne partie du monde savant et pour braver la raillerie, qui fait peur aux plus intrépides. C'est pourquoi je suis fier—plus fier que je ne saurais le dire—d'avoir été élu président de la Société de recherche psychique. J'ai lu quelque part l'histoire d'un officier subalterne que les hasards de la bataille, la disparition de ses chefs tués ou blessés, avaient appelé à l'honneur de commander le régiment: toute sa vie il y pensa, toute sa vie il en parla, et du souvenir de ces quelques heures son existence entière restait imprégnée. Je suis cet officier subalterne, et toujours je me féliciterai de la chance inattendue qui m'aura mis—non pas pour quelques heures, mais pour quelques mois—à la tête d'un régiment de braves.

He accounted for the indifference long shown by men of science to the phenomena studied by the S. P. R. by the fact that they do not square with the widely accepted theory of parallelism between mental action and brain function. This is of course especially the case with phenomena indicating the mind's survival of the body. He then proceeded to dispose of the doctrine of parallelism (Op. cit., 470-75):

Bref, l'hypothèse d'unparallélismerigoureux entre le cérébral et le mental paraît éminemment scientifique. D'instinct, la philosophie et la science tendent à écarter ce qui contredirait cette hypothèse ou ce qui serait mal compatible avec elle. Et tel paraît être, à première vue, le cas des faits qui relèvent de la "recherche psychique,"—ou tout au moins le cas de bon nombre d'entre eux....

Pour une seule fonction de la pensée, en effet, l'expérience a pu faire croire qu'elle était localisée en un certain point du cerveau: je veux parler de la mémoire, et plus particulièrement de la mémoire des mots. Ni pour le jugement, ni pour le raisonnement, ni pour aucune autre faculté de la pensée proprement dite nous n'avons la moindre raison de supposer qu'elle soit attachée à tels ou tels processus cérébraux déterminés.... Si l'on examine de près tous les faits allégués en faveur d'une exacte correspondance et d'une espèced'adhérencede la vie mentale à la vie cérébrale (je laisse de côté, cela va sans dire, les sensations et les mouvements, car le cerveau est certainement un organe sensori moteur), on voit que ces faits se réduisent aux phénomènes de mémoire, et que c'est la localisation des aphasies, et cette localisation seule, qui semble apporter à la doctrine paralléliste un commencement de preuve expérimentale.

He says that lesions in the place in the brain already alluded to

"rendent, en réalité, impossible ou difficilel'évocationdes souvenirs; elles portent sur le mécanisme du rappel, et sur ce mécanisme seulement. Plus précisément, le rôle du cerveau est ici de faire que l'esprit, quand il a besoin de tel ou tel souvenir, puisse obtenir du corps une certaine attitude ou certains mouvements naissants, qui présentent au souvenir cherché un cadre approprié. Si le cadre est là, le souvenir viendra, de lui-même, s'y insérer. L'organe cérébral prépare le cadre, il ne fournit pas le souvenir.... Dans le travail de la pensée en général, comme dans l'opération de la mémoire, le cerveau nous apparaît comme chargé d'imprimer au corps les mouvements et les attitudes quijouentce que l'espritpenseou ce que les circonstances l'invitent â penser.... Il en connaîtrait tout juste ce qui est exprimable en gestes, attitudes et mouvements du corps, ce que l'état d'âme contient d'action en voie d'accomplissement, ou simplement naissante: le reste lui échapperait.... Les phénomènes cérébraux sont en effet à la vie mentale ce que les gestes du chef d'orchestre sont à la symphonie: ils en dessinent les articulationsmotrices, ils ne font pas autre chose. On ne trouverait donc rien des opérations de l'esprit proprement dit à l'intérieur du cerveau....

Orienter notre pensée vers l'action, l'amener à préparer l'acte que les circonstances réclament, voilâ ce pour quoi notre cerveau est fait...."

Then he turns to the strange memories of the dream state, in ordinary sleep, hypnosis and trance:

Bien des faits semblent indiquer que le passé se conserve jusque dans ses moindres détails et qu'il n'y a pas d'oubli réel. Vous vous rappelez ce qu'on raconte des noyés et des pendus qui, revenus à la vie, déclarent avoir eu, en quelques secondes, la vision panoramique de la totalité de leur vie passée....

Mais ce que je dis de la mémoire serait aussi vrai de la perception. Je ne puis entrer ici dans le détail d'une démonstration que j'ai faite autrefois: qu'il me suffise de rappeler que tout devient obscur, et même incompréhensible, si l'on considère les centres cérébraux comme des organes capables de transformer en états conscients des ébranlements matériels, que tout s'éclaircit au contraire si l'on voit simplement dans ces centres (et dans les dispositifs sensoriels auxquels ils sont liés) des instruments de sélection chargés de choisir, dans le champ immense de nos perceptions virtuelles, celles qui devront s'actualiser.... J'estime que nous percevons virtuellement beaucoup plus de choses que nous n'en percevons actuellement, et qu'ici encore le rôle de notre corps est d'écarter du champ de notre conscience tout ce qui ne nous serait d'aucun intérêt pratique, tout ce qui ne se prête pas à notre action.

This implies what is more fully stated elsewhere in M. Bergson's works, and suggested by nearly all the philosophers, that mind pervades the universe, and flows through each organism, according to its constitution, as force and matter do.

He does not go into the paradox (perhaps another of those we have already alluded to) of individuality survivingas part of the universal mind, but contents himself with saying merely:

Mais si les faits, étudiés sans parti pris, nous amènent au contraire à considérer la vie mentale comme beaucoup plus vaste que la vie cérébrale, la survivance devient si probable que l'obligation de la preuve incombera à celui qui la nie, bien plutôt qu'à celui qui l'affirme; car, ainsi que je le disais ailleurs, "l'unique raison que nous puissions avoir de croire à une extinction de la conscience après la mort est que nous voyons le corps se désorganiser, et cette raison n'a plus de valeur si l'indépendanceau moinspartielle de la conscience à l'égard du corps est, elle aussi, un fait d'expérience."

Regarding telepathy, he made the following suggestions (Op. cit., 465, 466, 475-6):

Si la télépathie est un fait réel, c'est un fait susceptible de se répéter indéfiniment. Je vais plus loin: si la télépathie est un fait réel, il est fort possible qu'elle opère à chaque instant et chez tout le monde, mais avec trop peu d'intensité pour se faire remarquer, ou en présence d'obstacles qui neutralisent l'effet au moment même où il va se manifester. Nous produisons de l'électricité à tout moment, l'atmosphère est constamment électrisée, nous circulons parmi des courants magnétiques; et pourtant des millions d'hommes ont vécu pendant des milliers d'années sans soupçonner l'existence de l'électricité. Il pourrait en être de même de la télépathie. Mais peu importe. Un point est en tous cas incontestable, c'est que, si la télépathie est réelle, elle est naturelle, et que, le jour où nous en connaîtrions les conditions, il ne nous serait pas plus nécessaire, pour obtenir un effet télépathique, d'attendre une hallucination vraie, que nous n'avons besoin aujourd'hui, quand nous voulons voir l'étincelle électrique, d'attendre que le ciel veuille bien nous en donner le spectacle pendant une scène d'orage....

Pour ma part, quand je repasse dans ma mémoire les résultats de l'admirable enquête poursuivie continuellement par vous pendant plus de trente ans, quand je pense à toutes les précautions que vous avez prises pour éviterl'erreur, quand je vois comment, dans la plupart des cas que vous avez retenus, le récit de l'hallucination avait été fait à une ou plusieurs personnes, souvent même noté par écrit, avant que l'hallucination eût été reconnue véridique, quand je tiens compte du nombre énorme des faits et surtout de leur ressemblance entre eux, de leur air de famille, de la concordance de tant de témoignages indépendants les uns des autres, tous examinés, contrôlés, soumis à la critique,—je suis porté à croire à la télépathie de même que je crois, par exemple, à la défaite de l'Invincible Armada. Ce n'est pas la certitude mathématique que me donne la démonstration du théorème de Pythagore; ce n'est pas la certitude physique où je suis de la vérité de la loi de la chute des corps; c'est du moins toute la certitude qu'on obtient en matière historique ou judiciaire.

Nos corps sont extérieurs les uns aux autres dans l'espace; et nos consciences, en tant qu'attachées à ces corps, sont extérieures les unes aux autres aussi. Mais si elles ne tiennent au corps que par une partie d'elles-mêmes, on peut conjecturer que, pour le reste, elles ne sont pas aussi nettement séparées. Loin de moi la pensée de considérer la personnalité comme une simple apparence, ou comme une réalité éphémère, ou comme une dépendance de l'activité cérébrale! Mais il est fort possible qu'entre les diverses personnalités s'accomplissent sans cesse des échanges comparables aux phénomènes d'endosmose. Si cette endosmose existe, on peut prévoir que la nature aura pris toutes ses précautions pour en neutraliser l'effet, et que certains mécanismes devront être spécialement chargés de rejeter dans l'inconscient les représentations ainsi provoquées, car elles seraient fort embarrassantes dans la vie de tous les jours. Telle ou telle de ces représentations pourrait cependant, ici encore, passer en contrebande, surtout quand les mécanismes inhibitifs fonctionnent mal; et sur elles encore s'exercerait la "recherche psychique."

Two virtues are generally ignored in the systematic books on morals and in the informal admonitions of fathers to sons, yet upon these virtues depends most of the ease, delight and profit which comes to us in human fellowship. Let me illustrate.

There is in the Metropolitan Museum a very handsome funeral slab of a certain bailiff of Sesostris I., Menthu-Weser. This steward prepared his own epitaph with conviction and most carefully. Among many assertions of his own merits the most striking is, "I was one who really listened." Here seems evidence that in Egypt early in the second millennium before Christ the virtues of reticence and tact were valued. Ever since they have had scant enough recognition in the world. In our own days particularly the robust virtues have the preference. We acclaim the square deal. We are socially minded, meaning that we aggressively mind the business of others. Naturally such quiet and unsensational virtues as tact and reticence are gone out of fashion. In a land where all are equals, tact is likely to pass for truckling, or worse for condescension, whereas reticence must perforce be abhorrent to a generation which has trusted to an unlimited publicity the remedying of most earthly ills. Lest we think too hardly of our own generation, let me hasten to repeat that no age has done full justice to these dubious virtues. Holy Writ, to be sure, extols the value of the "word in season," while to the much married Solomon is ascribed the proverbs, "He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life, but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction." But this sinister aspect of loquaciousness is evidently proper to an oriental despotism and not to a free republic. We gain but faint glimpses of our unscheduled virtues from moralist and theologian. The Roman Church, always meticulously analytical of both the virtues and vices, finds no official rubric either for tact or reticence. These capacities,indispensable stay and safeguard of the confessional, may indeed have been regarded as the trade secret of the clergy, and, as tending to produce too astute a laity, unfit for promulgation. However that be, it is not to the pious manuals that we must go for examples of tactful sayings or happy silences, but to the extra-clerical expressions of such vagrom clerics as Boccaccio and Bandello. From their collections of ready and witty retorts many instances of tact might be selected, but neither of these storytellers can be said conspicuously to illustrate the virtue of reticence.

Reticence in fact is perhaps the most unpopular of virtues. What most people like is loquaciousness and its kindred vice tactlessness. The reticent man is seldom that meritorious thing, a good mixer, and he suffers from the suspicion of moroseness. Open-heartedness, on the contrary, is charitably credited to the habitual chatterer. He is, as the Irish happily say, an easy spoken man, joyously gregarious. A similar credit attaches itself to the habitually tactless person. You know where to find him. He speaks his mind without regard to your sensibilities. At bottom, an expression which a clever French writer has shrewdly remarked always means exceptionally, he is surely amiable, a thoroughly good sort—at bottom. It is significant, however, that reticence and tact may be partially condoned by the possession of great wealth. Only recently a multimillionaire won prominence in his obscure class, and a nickname, merely on his silence, while another who was all things to all men, and to many women, is still remembered as a prince charming whether among sportsmen or statesmen. All of which goes to show that our twin virtues are essentially aristocratic or at least capitalistic, and appraised accordingly. A statesman or politician, being in a democracy a hybrid between the classes and masses, must practice the virtue of tactfulness but by the same token resolutely eschew that of reticence. The political aspirant is heard for his much speaking, and when silent may be said to cease to exist.

Now for such misvaluations there is generally a specious and respectable reason. Indeed one reason will doubtless explain nine-tenths of popular delusions—the habit ofjudging not from the long but from the short run. The blurting way is the easiest way of meeting a situation and wins the praise of frankness. It takes time and pains to weigh a situation and adjust one's attitude to that of another, and such considerateness often passes for obliquity. Of course the blurting habit itself is often merely a form of pose; confidence men practice it for good business reasons. The man who overrides you will as often be pursuing a tactic as he cajoles you. Indeed the professionally downright man is often more devious than the tactful person. Battering you with a confusing flow of argument, imposing his will at random, he is precisely the man you do not know where to find. You yield to him in small matters out of weariness and avoid him in great. But at any particular moment he does seem outspoken, and he leaves a general impression of strength and candor. Beyond such false appearances an untrained mind will rarely inquire. The tactful man who watches his opportunity to set his matter agreeably before you, taking you on your best side, is proceeding quite straight-forwardly, but to an impatient or unattentive or irresolute person the processes of tact may well seem both dilatory and crooked. Thus the merely assertive man will usually get undue credit on first hearing while the tactful man generally wins his standing only on prolonged acquaintance. The great painter Delacroix, a fastidious man if there ever was one, used to deplore the ease with which at first meeting persons of a certain persistent aggressiveness took him in.

Talkativeness, like tactlessness, has an undeniable face value that largely disappears on inspection. Ten times a day in casual contacts it might be pleasanter and easier to deal with a chatty person than with a silent one, that is, easier and pleasanter for one to whom time was small object. The commercial traveller is proverbially loquacious, though in the higher ranges of the calling doubtless a businesslike taciturnity prevails. An ex-grocer's clerk has been publishing some amusing confessions in a popular magazine—in our unreticent age confessions singularly abound—and he tells that his sole instructions were "Chin the women." Evidently what was assumed of hisfair customers was rather amenability than intelligence or thrift. In a world where there was little or no intelligence, tact and reticence would be unnecessary virtues, rational persuasion being impossible. In such a world the human compact would imply infinite blundering and unrestrained conversability. Such is still the unwritten law of life among people who have not wholly reached the conscious stage. "Yes, I burnt it," my cook says beamingly with the air of inviting a compliment, carelessness being quite normal in her code.

The trouble with the virtues of reticence and tact—and naturally the ground of their unpopularity—is precisely that they are products not of the heart but of the head. To possess these qualities opens one to the suspicion of being a cold fish. Nobody objects to the warmer and less rationalized virtues. If we accept the convenient and I believe quite psychologically defensible list drawn up by the mediæval schoolmen, we shall find that the standard virtues are almost without exception of the heart. Obviously this is true of the prime theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Despite utilitarian interpretations, these remain temperamental qualities. We are born believing, hopeful, and loving, or not. And even such of us as are deficient in these merits by heredity or from policy at least will accord to the entire Pauline triad the tribute of a distant admiration. When we approach the pagan list, Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance and Justice, the virtues begin to make enemies. With Fortitude no one quarrels, for that is an instinctive virtue, an expression largely of ample circulation and steady nerves. It is the only secular virtue that is completely popular. Justice may share such esteem in a measure, for the inclination towards the square deal and a rough sense of its needfulness are deeply seated in the race. Prudence and Temperance, on the contrary, within which larger categories our special virtues of reticence and tact are comprised, have ever been grudgingly practiced and even theoretically disallowed. Humanity has ever boasted a sporting contingent to whom to be prudent and temperate was anathema. The deeply rooted feeling that every young man must sow his wildoats is the express disavowal of these virtues so far as male youth is concerned. Reticence and tact, then, must be content to share the unpopularity of all the cerebral virtues. The man who is delicately considerate of his neighbor's case must be content to be regarded as a schemer, and he who cautiously weighs his utterances must bear the reproach of ungeniality.

But as soon as a society becomes conscious and complicated, tact and reticence assume high and even indispensable value. No physician who had the confidential ways of a country postmistress would be tolerated. Why is a parvenu stranded in a society which may consist of his inferiors in capacity and morals? Because he has no clear notion of his attitude to his new fellows or of theirs to him and to each other, he lacks the tact for an untried situation. The grace of a reticent observation may gain him time and save him appalling blunders. If his social intelligence be keen, he will adopt such Fabian tactics until some opening in mutual sympathy establishes itself. But this implies reticence. As a matter of fact, he will usually be restive, and will talk at random and constrainedly, being ignorant of what that particular company likes to hear said or left unsaid. His utterances successively betray him and he progressively writes himself down an ass. Nor is his case made better, as humanitarians confidently profess, by kindliness. His heart may be the best in the world and understanding of the minds and manners of new people denied him. His kindliness may condone the spectacle he cuts, but to make his position good wants intelligence which good-heartedness may supplement but not supplant. Nor is his dilemma due, as Socialists will perhaps maintain, merely to the fact that his difference is arrogantly ascribed by snobbishness to personal inferiority. In the same circumstances a far humbler person, a forest-guide or a sailor, will comport himself agreeably and without constraint. Perhaps the close quarters of tent and forecastle conduce to tolerant understanding between very different individuals, and set natural limits to forced or heedless talk.

Between the reticent and the merely taciturn personthere is constant confusion. The silent man may simply be devoid of interests, morose and with nothing to say. A trappist is merely speechless; not reticent. The reticent man has much to say, but for reason says only the part that his judgment approves. He is his own censor. His abstentions are due to a fundamental conviction that many things never need to be said at all, and that most personal difficulties best adjust themselves with fewest words. His attitude evinces respect for certain privacies. His intimate business is not in the show window nor on the bargain counter, and he assumes as much of the personal concerns of his fellows. If there be a human type peculiarly intolerable, it is that which insists on stated explanations of every trifling misunderstanding. There are minds for which no slightest transaction is outlawed and no statute of limitations admitted. What shall that woman say who wastes five minutes explaining why she didn't bow to me yesterday when a real occasion of conference arises? How shall I respect the man who insists on divulging most physiologically the mysteries of his bed and board? How shall I bear that my own humble Lares and Penates be bywords on reckless lips? On the whole the finest gentleman I have ever met was the Japanese Samurai and art critic, the late Okakura Kakuzo. I recall as vividly his courteous and expectant silences as I do his always eloquent and brilliant discourse. Indulgent to the small talk of others, he declined to share it. If he ever gave utterance to a mere prejudice or to any petty personal concern, it was not in my hearing. He appeared to husband himself until the talk should take a wide impersonal range, and then his comment was fervent and illuminating. A noted American poet and critic has somewhat similar habits. His prolonged silences are comfortable, even deferential, his rare speech instinct with sympathetic understanding of men and books and nature. The late John LaFarge who was in congenial society a continuous talker offered an interesting equivalent for reticence in the allusiveness of his touch and in a beautiful perception of the kind of sympathetic response you would have made had you not been better occupied in listeningto him. He had what most free talkers signally lack, perfect tact.

Perhaps the most distressing and alarming feature of our American civilization is the complete lack of any ideal of reticence. Scientists babble for the press, clergymen fan the prurient flame of curiosity after each especially noxiouscause célèbre, chorus girls divulge the hygiene of their personal charms, nameless outrage becomes the favorite theme of venal dramatists, young girls make small talk of the pros and cons of marriage and free love, shallow journalists glorify the vices of the city slums, an unprincipled press and an untrained laity freely review the findings of the courts, clever but irresponsible scribblers pillory wholesale our industry and finance—in short we live in an age when to expose anything is the highest good, and to conceal anything passes for a manner of treason. When everything conceivable has been said, boggled and muddled out, a reaction must come. Wearied by the vociferations of the nostrum vendors, the plain man will come to realize that what is read counts little in comparison with what is marked and inwardly digested. In a thoroughly unreticent age we get mere data, much of it false, far too fast. We have yet to learn the elementary lesson of the Stoics, to learn and fix upon that which concerns ourselves. A chief merit of the Pragmatic philosophy, with most of which I cordially disagree, is to have shown that we must bring words and thought to the test of action, and a very simple test of the worth or worthlessness of talk or writing on social matters would be whether the residual impression is a mere perturbation, or titillation, or a firm purpose to do some definite remedial thing. If I am taught to be merely uneasy about the sharp practices of my retail grocer, or more likely of his wholesale grocer, without seeking for tangible relief and redress, my last estate is worse than my first. I merely eat in bitterness of spirit the preservatives and adulterants which otherwise I might have negotiated at the cost of a slight dyspepsia. Where Mr. Roosevelt has most deserved ill of the republic is in fomenting this general atmosphere of suspicion in the people while lodging both the recognition of the criminal and his properpunishment in some transcendental capacity of his own personality. He is the Dr. Munyon of the diseased body politic, and his power consists largely in continual and breathless reiteration of universal symptoms under which each man may have the grateful illusion of registering his own particular ache. Mr. Roosevelt seems to me a supreme example of the inconveniences, nay danger, of incorrigible and thoroughly well meaning garrulity in a political leader. But Mr. Roosevelt's tact is often as noteworthy as his prolixity, even his indiscretions are calculated or inspired to meet the call of the occasion. Why of X? was his remark when a scholar of international repute was introduced at the White House as "of X University."

The case of Mr. Roosevelt and in a quite different sense that of John LaFarge make me question sometimes what really seems axiomatic that no free talker can be completely tactful. Carlyle, Ruskin, Gladstone seem to illustrate the rule, and even Lowell, as his intimates admit, long retained certain asperities. It seems obvious that one who has never quietly looked into himself and seen clearly, nor studied his fellow man at leisure and accurately, can acquire the art of compatibility. To think otherwise is to assert that the tactful man, poetlike, is born not made. Were this so, cases of tact among young children should be fairly common, and I doubt if the fondest parent could supply any genuine instance. So I feel that such apparent exceptions to the rule as John LaFarge and Mr. Roosevelt would fall into line if one knew the whole story. There must have been a time when both, like the steward, Menthu-Weser, listened much and took keenest note of the ways and moods of other men.

Tact is so readily divined and so difficult of definition that I have avoided what might seem an essayist's plain duty. Yet a tactful reader will not require a pedantic formulation in these matters of common experience. I suppose the basis of tact is a good understanding with one's self, a comprehension of the permanent disposition and passing moods of those with whom one deals, a desire to approach men on their best side, combined with the force and initiative that enable one to act promptly on suchknowledge. Tact may or may not be coupled with expansive kind-heartedness. In such association it gains an added grace. Tact implies at the least a vivid human curiosity hardly distinguishable from sympathy. If it were otherwise there would be no motive for exercising tact in cases which involve no material interest. And I suppose the genuinely tactful person finds his greatest incentives and rewards in emergencies that offer only the satisfaction of a neatly played game. In the whole matter the sense of timeliness is everything. To wait for a softening expression, to suppress a cherished witticism the appositeness of which has passed, to exhaust without insistence a happy vein, to rise sharply to any worthy lure and refuse an unworthy one without offence—such are some of the delightful and legitimate arts of the tactful person. Whether men or women possess these gentle arts in fuller measure would be matter for a separate essay. The impression prevails that women do, indeed the phrase "feminine tact" is quite stereotyped among us. I presume that a scrutiny of the memoirs of the most highly developed society of modern times, the French salons of the old régime, would confirm this judgment. From my own limited experience I can only say that while I have met ten tactful women for one tactful man, the consummate exemplars of this virtue in my acquaintance have been of the so-called sterner sex, and I am inclined to believe that the finest flower of considerateness grows best in the rocky soil of the masculine intelligence. The mere fact that the personal adjustment is more difficult between men with no reconciling tradition of chivalry prevailing may make for finer transactions. Possibly too, the absence of a conventional sex loyalty, a relatively detached and impersonal habit of thought, a somewhat ruthless will to understand, a practice of moving resolutely in difficult affairs, may make the tact of a man when it occurs at all a more precious and complicated product. So at least it strikes one who confessedly knows the world largely through books. I would rather have overheard the talk and silences of David and Jonathan, or for that matter of Charles Eliot Norton and Carlyle, than that of any man and woman orof any two women recorded by historian or novelist. If, fair reader, this be treason, make the most of it.

To the notion that tact requires both a perceptive and an active part, I must for a moment return. The fact seems to me to explain the oft discussed case of the shy person. In my observation shy people are usually quite delicately perceptive, victims in fact of an almost morbid open-mindedness and sympathy. Where they lack is in prompt decision between diverging courses, in the sense of relativity which brings the right word or silence at the right moment, and precisely and only for that moment's sake. I fancy many shy persons are not egotists, as an impatient and genial world is prone to hold them, but absolutists, expecting of human intercourse a sort of abstract fitness in the light of an eternal aspect which for the really tactful man has no practical existence. In heaven and probably in hell the shy should get along capitally. In the celestial domain active tact would be unnecessary—it would merely trouble the perpetual beatitude; in the nether realm tact would simply mitigate those tense affinities and antipathies which are implied in a future punitive state. The damned, if really tactful folk, would never have to be strictly regimented among their infernal peers with the inevitability which a Dante or a Swedenborg describes. In the sphere of intelligence indeed inevitability has no meaning. Alternatives always exist. A determinist's god cannot be tactful, and if Professors James and Royce have been allured by the idea of a conditioned deity, I fancy it has been largely with the hope of shading the arid conception of omnipotence with one of the most amiable human qualities. It is a compromise which the Christian effects less philosophically in the doctrine of the God-man. Yet the Jesus of the Gospels remains for the philosopher much more of a God than of a man, despite the efforts of orthodox and skeptical criticism to elucidate the historic figure. His sayings transcend tact, and the Jews, eminently a negotiating, compromising and tactful race, bore true report when they said "He speaks as never man spake."

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