Casper S. Yost

“ One of the pleasures of an evening with Patience is the uncertainty of the form of the entertainment. Never are two evenings alike in the general nature of the communications. She adapts herself to circumstances and to the company present, serious if they are bent on serious subjects, merry if they are so; but seldom will the serious escape without a little of the merry, or the merry without a little of the serious. ”

“ She replied:
“Nay. Earth be a home of sorrow’s dream. For sorrow be but dream of the soul asleep. ’Tis wake (death) that setteth free.”
And after such assurance comes the cry of faith and content and peace:
279Then do I cease to clutch the emptiness,
And sleep, and sleep me unafeared! With this comforting assurance in mind one may cheerfully approach her solemn address to Death:
Who art thou,
Who tracketh ’pon the path o’ me—
O’ each turn, aye, and track?
Thou! And thou astand! ”

“ Or shall I burst and float my atoms in a joyous spray at the first beholding of this home prepared for thee and me, and shall we together mingle our joys in one supreme joy in Him? It matters not, beloved, so comfort thee. For should the blowing be the end, what then? Hath not thy pack been full, and mine? We are o’erweary with the work of living, and sinking to oblivion would be rest. Yet sure as sun shall rise, my dust shall be unloosed, and blow into new fields of new days. I see full fields yet to be harvested, and I am weary. ”

“ Earth’s sounds, ye deem?
I tell thee ’tis but the echoing o’ Here.
Thy days be naught
Save coax o’ Here athere! All that is worth while on earth is but the echoes of Heaven, and there would be nothing to life but for the joys that have been “coaxed” from there. How closely that thought unites the here and the there. Earth sounds but the echoes of the other land adjoining! She makes it something tangible, something almost material, something we may nearly comprehend ”

“ It is that religion, stripped of all the doctrines and creeds and ceremonials and observances that have grown up about it in all the ages since His coming, and paring it down to the point where it can be expressed by the one word—Love. Love, going out to fellow man, to all nature and overflowing toward God. ”

“ Fear thee not, for Truth saileth on.
Set thy beacon, then, to crafts not thine,
For thou hast a light for man. “There, thou knowest me. I tell thee I speak unto him who hath truth for his very own. Set thee aweave.”
The sitters complied and received about six hundred words of the story, after which Mrs. X. took the board, remarking as she did so that she was afraid, which elicited this observation from Patience:
“She setteth aside the stream and seeth the craft afloat and be at wishing for to sail, and yet she would to see her who steereth.” ”

“ If we may assume that Patience is what she seems to be—a voice from another world, then indeed we may discern a purpose. She has a message to deliver, and she gives the impression that she is a messenger.
“Do eat that which I offer thee,” she says. “’Tis o’ Him. I but bear the pack apacked for the carry o’ me by Him.”
Constantly she speaks of herself as bearing food or drink in her words. “I bid thee eat,” she said to one, “and rest ye, and eat amore, for ’tis the wish o’ me that ye be filled.” ”

“ And hast thee lost the silver of thy laugh and bid me fetch it thee? The world doth hold but fools and lovers, folly sick.”
(Lisa) “His eye grows misty. Fool, I know thee as a knave and love thee as a man.”
(Fool) “’Tis but a patch, Beppo, a patch and tassel from a lance ... but we did ride, eh? Laugh, Beppo, and prove thou art the fool’s! I laugh anew, lest my friends should know me not. Beppo, I dream of new roads, but thou art there! ”

“ Young grasses send sweet-scented damp through the hours of risen day. The bell, atoll, doth bid the village hence. E’en path atraced through velvet fields hath flowered with fringing bloom and jeweled drops, atempting tarriers. The sweet o’ sleep doth grace each venturing face. The kine stand knee depth within the silly-tittered brook, or deep in bog awallow. Soft breath ascent and lazy-eyed, they wait them for the stripping-maid.
The play is permeated with rich humor, and to illustrate this I give a bit of the dialogue between Dougal, the page, and Anne, the castle cook. ”

“ I quote this passage, not merely because it so clearly states the experience and conclusions of many who have investigated these phenomena, but because it serves to show by its marked contrast the wonder of the communications from Patience Worth. There are no efforts on her part to prove her identity. On the contrary, she can rarely be induced to speak of herself, and the personal information she has reluctantly given is disappointingly meager. “About me,” she says, “thou wouldst know much. Yesterday is dead. Let thy mind rest as to the past.” ”

“ Patience.—“Hark ye, lad, unto thee I do speak. Thou hast a sack o’ the wares o’ me, and thou hast eat therefrom. Yea, and thou hast spat that which thou did’st eat, and eat it o’er. And yet thou art not afulled.
“Hark! Here be a trick that shall best thee at thine own trick. Lo, thou lookest upon flesh and it be but flesh. Yea, thou lookest unto thy brother, and see but flesh. And yet thy brother speakest word, and thou sayest: ‘Yea, this is a man, aye, the brother o’ me.’ Then doth death lay low thy brother, and he speak not word unto thee, thou sayest: ‘Nay, this is no man ”

“ Thou cloud of billowed lace, a shield befitting her pure heart! And I the flowering of the bud! Hear me, all this o’ her! I love thee well, and should the day but offer a bitter draft to quaff, ’tis but to whet me for a sweeter drink. And mother, heart o’ me, hearken and do believe. I love my sire, Sir John.
“Come, Jana. Hear ye the carolers? Their song doth filter thro’ my heart and lighten it. The snow doth tweak aneath their feet like pipes to ’company them. Cast ye a bit o’ holly and a mistletoe.
“The feasters come to whet them with a pudding whiff. ”

“ As the reader will have observed, the poetry of Patience Worth is not confined to a single theme, nor to a group of related themes. It covers a range that extends from inanimate things through all the gradations of material life and on into the life of spiritual realms as yet uncharted. It includes poems of sentiment, poems of nature, poems of humanity; but the larger number deal with man in relation to the mysteries of the beyond. All of them evince intellectual power, knowledge of nature and human nature, and skill in construction. ”

“ Patience.—“This be a tracker! Ayea, ’tis nay a word o’ thy day or yet the word o’ thy brother, that meaneth unto me. I be a maker o’ loaf for the hungered. Eat thou. ’Tis not aright that thou shouldst set unto the feast athout thou art fed.” ”

“ Every writer uses colloquial words and idioms in conversation that he would never employ in literature. No matter what his skill or genius as a writer may be, he talks “just like other people.” Patience Worth in this, as in other things, is true to her character.
It may be repeated that in all this matter—and it is but a skimming of the mass—one may readily discern a distinct and striking personality; not a wraith-like, formless, evanescent shadow, but a personality that can be clearly visualized. ”

“ In it we can see the mother of, perhaps, the Puritan days, seated at the spinning wheel while she sings to the child which is supposed to lie in the cradle by her side. One can view through the open door the old-fashioned flower garden bathed in sunlight, can hear the song of the bird and the hum of the bee, and through it all the sound of the wheel. ”

“ The One o’ One, the All o’ All, yea, all o’ life holdeth the Him o’ Him, thy Sire and mine! ’Tis the breath o’ Him that pulses earth. Thou asketh where abides this thing. Aneath thy skull’s arch there be nay room for the there or where o’ this! ”

“ The hand of the Princess Ermaline is sought by Prince Charlie, a doddering 146old rake, whom she detests, but whom for reasons of state she may be compelled to accept. However, she vows she will not speak while he is at court, nor does she utter a word, in the play, until the end of the last act. She has fallen in love with a troubadour, who has come from no one knows where, but who by his grace and his wit and his intelligence has made himself a favorite with all the castle folk. Anne has a roast on the spit, and is scouring a pot with sand and rushes, when Dougal enters the kitchen. ”

“ Come within. ’Tis he who loveth not the fool who doth hate his God.”
(Fool) “I’m loth to leave my chosen company. Come, Beppo, his words are hard, but we do know his heart.
“A health to thee, Antonio. Put in thy wine one taste of thy heart’s brew and I need not wish ye well.
“To her, Beppo. Come, dip and take a lick.
“Tonio, hast heard that at a time not set as yet the tournament will be? Who think ye rides the King’s lance and weareth Lisa’s colors? Blue, Tonio, and gold, the heavens’ garb—stop, Beppo, thou meddling pest! ”

“ Would I were a posey wreath and Beppo here 117a fashioner of song. We then would lend us to thy hand to offer as a token. But thou dost know a fool and ape are ever but a fool and ape. I’m off to chase thy truant laugh. Who cometh there? The dust doth rise like storm-cloud along the road ahead, and ’tis shot with glinting. Oh, I see the mantling flush of morning put to shame by the flushing of thy cheek! See, he doth ride with helmet ope. Its golden bars do clatter at the jolt, and—but stop, Beppo, she heareth not! We, poor beggars, thee and me—an ape with a tail and a fool with a heart! ”

“ Good friends, let us be merrie. The time for work is past. Let the tabbie drowse and blink her wisdom to the firelog.”
“How quaint that is!” one of the women exclaimed.
“Good Mother Wisdom is too harsh for thee,” said the board, “and thou shouldst love her only as a foster mother.”
Thus began an intimate association with “Patience Worth” that still continues, and a series of communications that in intellectual vigor and literary quality are virtually without precedent in the scant imaginative literature quoted in the chronicles of psychic phenomena. ”

“ God grant ’tis so!”
245Nor does she hesitate to assert His divinity with definiteness. “Think ye,” she cries, “that He who doth send the earth aspin athrough the blue depth o’ Heaven, be not a wonder-god who springeth up where’er He doth set a wish! Yea, then doth He to spring from out the dust a lily; so also doth He to breathe athin (within) the flesh, and come unto the earth, born from out flesh athout the touch o’ man. ’Tis so, and from off the lute o’ me hath song aflowed that be asweeted o’ the blood o’ Him that shed for thee and me.” ”

“ Ah, man may breathe a sorrow. Doth then the dumbness of 249his brother bar his sighing? Nay—and hark! The sea doth sigh, and yonder starry jasmine stirreth with a tremorous sigh; and morning’s birth is greeted with the sighing of the world. For what? Ah, for that coming that shall fulfill the promise, and change the sighing to a singing, and loose the tongue of him whom God doth know and, fearful lest he tell His hidden mysteries, hath locked his lips.”
And again she asks: “Needest thou see what God himself sealeth thine eyes to make thee know?” ”

“ There is no ceremony about the sitting, no dimmed lights, no compelled silences, no mummeries of any sort. 19The assistance is of the ordinary, fun-loving, somewhat irreverent American type. The board is brought into the living-room under the full glare of the electric lamps. The men perhaps smoke their cigars. If Patience seems to be in the humor for conversation, all may take part, and she hurls her javelins impartially. A visitor is at once brought within the umbra of her wit.
Her conversation, as already indicated, is filled with epigrams and maxims. ”

“ Possibly it was because the poet has not the same zest in painting pictures of winter that she has in depicting scenes of kindlier seasons, in which she is in accord with nearly all poets, and, for that matter, with nearly all people. Her pen, if one may use the word, is speediest and surest when she presents the beautiful, whether it be the material or the spiritual. She expresses this feeling herself with beauty of phrase and rhythm in this verse, which may be entitled “The Voice of Spring.”
The streamlet under fernbanked brink
Doth laugh to feel the tickle of the waving mass ”

“ The publications of the Society for Psychical Research are filled with examples of communications received in the same or a similar way. The fact that makes this phenomenon stand out, that altogether isolates it from everything else of an occult nature, is the character and quality of its literature. Literature is something 224tangible, something that one can lay hands on, so to speak. It is in a sense physical; it can be seen with the eyes. And this literature is the physical evidence which Patience Worth presents of herself as a separate and distinct personality. ”

“ Yea, and there be a kinsman o’ thee who throbbeth as dost thou. Yea, and he knoweth thee as doth nay brother o’ thee whose throb be not as thine. So ’tis, the drop that falleth athin the sea, doth sound out a silvered note that no man heareth. Yet its brother drops and the drop o’ it do to make o’ the sea’s voice. Aye, and the throb o’ the sea be the throb o’ it. So, doth thy brother seek out that he make word unto thee from the Here, he then falleth aweary. For thee of Earth do hark not unto the throb. And be the one aseeked not attuned unto the throb o’ him he findeth, ’tis nay music. ”

“ The love that she expresses is universal. It goes out to nature in all its forms, animate and inanimate, lovely and unlovely. It is manifested in all her references to humanity, from the infant to doddering age; and her compositions are filled with appeals for the application of love to the relations between man and man. ”

“ There are a number of things that distinguish Patience Worth from all other “intelligences” that have been credited with communications pretending to come from a spiritual source. First is her intellect. One of the strongest arguments against the genuineness of such communications has been the lack of intelligence often displayed in them. They have largely been, though with many exceptions, crude emanations of weak mentalities, and few of the exceptions have shown greater intellect or greater knowledge than is possessed by the average human being. ”

“ Nay, my forefolk drank not truth, but sent through my veins acoursing, chaff, chaff, naught by chaff.” Plainly, then, Patience has no great respect for learning, and it is the book of Nature rather than the book of words that she would have us read. ”