Catherine Crowe

“ I wanted leisure to brood over my suspicions, for morbid suspicion, like morbid jealousy, “grows by what it feeds on!” the germ, once planted, it fell on such congenial soil, that it spread and spread till it had quite o’ermastered me.
Poor Clara must have found it a dull journey; however, it came to an end, and we arrived at Elfdale. She was struck with the beauty of the grounds—a gloomy beauty it is true; but even I, whether, because my taste was developed by time and travel, or whether because it was now my own, could not but acknowledge it. ”

“ On another night, however, behold! the youth appears to him again, and asks him if he knows him; and Sennadius related to him all the particulars of his former dream, which he well remembered. ‘Then,’ said the youth, ‘was it while sleeping or waking that you saw these things?’—‘I was sleeping,’ answered Sennadius. ‘You are right,’ returned the youth, ‘it was in your sleep that you saw these things; and know, O Sennadius, that what you see now is also in your sleep. But if this be so, tell me where then is your body?’—‘In my bed-chamber,’ answered Sennadius. ”

“ Nothing could exceed the good lady’s horror and indignation at such an instance of irreverence on my part; and, besides taking away the ball, she asked me what I supposed God Almighty could think of me. I could not tell, of course; but I know what I thought of him; I thought he was another Bogie, only less disagreeable than my grandmother because I did not see him. How could I think otherwise, when she informed me every Sunday that, if I did not learn my Catechism and obey the Ten Commandments, he would burn me in everlasting fire? ”

“ There must be few, indeed, who leave this earth fit for heaven; for, although the immediate frame of mind in which dissolution takes place is probably very important, it is surely a pernicious error, encouraged by jail chaplains and philanthropists, that a late repentance and a few parting prayers can purify a soul sullied by years of wickedness. Would we at once receive such a one into our intimate communion and love? Should we not require time for the stains of vice to be washed away and habits of virtue to be formed? ”

“ Everything was acting, even my tenderness for Clara was acting, for a new element had sprung up and mingled with my love—hatred born of suspicion. Suspicion of what? I did not know; I could fix upon nothing; but there it was, a cormorant keeping itself alive by feeding greedily on every word, look, and action of my affianced bride and her relatives. Day and night I asked myself why they had been so ready to receive me on a footing of intimacy at first,—why they had been so eager for the match, and why they had never insisted on my father’s being consulted even in regard to the settlements. ”

“ Whoever closely observes the signs of the times, will be aware that another change is approaching. The contemptuous skepticism of the last age is yielding to a more humble spirit of inquiry; and there is a large class of persons among the most enlightened of the present, who are beginning to believe that much which they had been taught to reject as fable, has been, in reality, ill-understood truth. Somewhat of the mystery of our own being, and of the mysteries that compass us about, are beginning to loom upon us—as yet, it is true, but obscurely ”

“ Carter appeared to me an angel of light, and even her husband, though a schoolmaster, had a less disagreeable air and manner than my father. The boys were in the playground, engaged in various sports, and their loud voices and merry laughs, their balls, their tops, their kites, things I had always longed for but never had, would have given me a lively idea of the joys of heaven, had I ever heard of them, which I had not, my grandmother being too eager to impress on my infant mind the pains and penalties I was incurring by my naughtiness, to remember to mention them. ”

“ One night, the same servant who had heard the footsteps following her to the bed-room fireplace, happening to be asleep in Mrs. C⁠——’s chamber, she became much disturbed, and was heard to murmur, “Wake me! wake me!” as if in great mental anguish. Being aroused, she told her mistress a dream she had had, which seemed to throw some light upon these mysteries. She thought she was in the oak bed-room, and at one end of it she saw a young female in an old-fashioned dress, with long dark hair, while in another part of the room was a very ugly old woman, also in old-fashioned attire. ”

“ The servants, some of them, might possibly have shown me favour; but they were forbidden to speak to me except for necessary purposes; besides, I was so completely cowed that they could never have relied on my fidelity. I should have betrayed them the moment my grandmother clutched me.
I felt, in short, as if all mankind was in a conspiracy, and I was the wretched victim of their tyranny; whilst behind them loomed the terrible figure of God, whom fancy pictured as a frightful, gigantic man, with hands like my grandmother's, wherewith he was waiting to seize and cast me into the fires of hell. ”

“ He raised his axe and aimed a blow at Catherine—a blow which, to her horror, my mother could not intercept, though she had snatched up a three-legged stool, the sole furniture of the apartment, for that purpose. She could not, she felt, fling the stool at the figure without destroying Alexes, who kept shooting out and in between her and the ghastly thing. She tried in vain to scream; she besought my father, in agony, to avert the impending stroke; but he did not hear, or did not heed her, and stood motionless, as in a trance. ”

“ To say the truth, nobody can be more ignorant than I am of our neighbours at Elfdale. As far as my childish recollections go, we seemed to live as in a monastery, seeing and knowing nothing of the world outside the Park walls. I hated the place, and everybody in it, especially my grandmother, who was the principal figure there; and even now it is the last place on God’s earth I should choose to reside in. ”

“ Neither is the comparative rarity of these phenomena any argument against their possibility. There are many strange things which occur still more rarely, but which we do not look upon as supernatural or miraculous. Of nature’s ordinary laws, we yet know but little; of their aberrations and perturbations, still less. How should we, when the world is a miracle and life a dream, of which we know neither the beginning nor the end! We do not even know that we see anything as it is, or rather, we know that we do not. We see things but as our visual organs represent them to us ”

“ Arrived at Elfdale, Mrs. Herbert senior at once assumed the command; Mrs. Herbert junior was nobody; and as the ill will of the old lady to her daughter-in-law was no secret, it may be easily inferred that poor Rose had more foes than friends amongst the servants and dependants. The love passages betwixt her and young Sir Ralph had not escaped their observation, and were now made the most of; even Miss Wellwood, envious of her beauty and, perhaps, unconsciously jealous of the very advancement to which she herself had contributed, was her covert enemy, though her avowed friend. ”

“ To any one who has been fortunate enough to witness one genuine case of clairvoyance, I think the conception of this universal sense will not be difficult, however the mode of its exercise may remain utterly incomprehensible. As I have said above—to the great Spirit and Fountain of life, all things, in both space and time, must be present. However impossible it is to our finite minds to conceive this, we must believe it. It may, in some slight degree, facilitate the conception to remember that action, once begun, never ceases—an impulse given is transmitted on for ever ”

“ Conceive what this awakening must be to an earth-bound spirit—to one altogether unprepared for its new home—carrying no light within it—floating in the dim obscure—clinging to the earth, where all its affections were garnered up: for where its treasure is, there shall it be also. It will find its condition evil, more or less, according to the degree of its moral light or darkness, and in proportion to the amount of the darkness will be its incapacity to seek for light. ”

“ Never shall I forget my fright when he grasped me with one iron hand and held up the broken instrument with the other, for the spade had struck it and snapt it in two. In vain I cried; in vain I prayed that he would not tell my father; he was not to be moved. I had often vexed him, no doubt; for having nothing to divert me, I was apt to indulge myself in a little mischief in the garden occasionally ”

“ The ghost now comes in a perfect human shape, and is dressed in a loose robe, with a girdle, and has on its head a four-cornered cap. It has a projecting chin and forehead, fiery, deep-set eyes, a long beard, and high cheek-bones, which look as if they were covered with parchment. A light radiates about and above his head, and in the midst of this light she sees the outlines of the spectre.
“Both she and her fellow-prisoners declare, that this apparition comes several times in a night, but always between the evening and morning bell. ”

“ We are part spirit and part matter: by the former we are allied to the spiritual world and to the absolute spirit; and as nobody doubts that the latter can work magically, that is, by the mere act of will—for by the mere act of will all things were created, and by its constant exertion all things are sustained—why should we be astonished that we, who partake of the Divine nature and were created after God’s own image, should also, within certain limits, partake of this magical power? ”

“ Goodness is truth, and truth is light—and wickedness is falsehood, and falsehood is darkness; and so it will be seen to be. Those who have not the light of truth to guide them, will wander darkly through this valley of the shadow of death; those in whom the light of goodness shines will dwell in the light, which is inherent in themselves. The former will be in the kingdom of darkness—the latter in the kingdom of light. ”

“ And by investigation, I do not mean the hasty, captious, angry notice of an unwelcome fact, that too frequently claims the right of pronouncing on a question; but the slow, modest, pains-taking examination, that is content to wait upon Nature, and humbly follow out her disclosures, however opposed to preconceived theories or mortifying to human pride. If scientific men could but comprehend how they discredit the science they really profess, by their despotic arrogance and exclusive skepticism, they would surely, for the sake of that very science they love, affect more liberality and candor. ”

“ Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, appears to be one of the most eminent, maintains that the explanation of the mystery is to be chiefly sought in the great and universal law of polarity, which extends not only beyond the limits of this earth, but beyond the limits of this system, which must necessarily be in connection with all others; so that there is thus an eternal and never-ceasing inter-action, of which, from the multiplicity and contrariety of the influences, we are insensible, just as we are insensible to the pressure of the atmosphere, from its impinging on us equally on all sides. ”