Hamlin Garland

“ Never before had she ventured upon so frank a defense of her vocation, and Victor listened with a new conception of her powers. As she continued she took on dignity and quiet force.
"The medium gives more for her wages than any earthly soul; and when you consider that we make the grave a gateway to the light, that our hands part the veil between the seen and the unseen, then you will see that our gifts are not abnormal, but supernormal. God has given us these powers to comfort mankind, to afford a new revelation to the world." ”

“ It was hard to think of Leo as one carried out of herself by love—and yet here lay the jewel of her bosom in his hand! How to meet her puzzled and excited him.
Up to this minute he had admired her and had paid court to her as a young man naturally addresses a handsome girl, but he was not violently in love with her; indeed, she had interested him rather less than a girl in Winona, daughter of Professor Boyden; but now, as he was about to meet her in the breakfast-room, she possessed more power, more significance, than any woman in the world. ”

“ Mrs. Joyce led the way down the creaking stairs, and Victor, following in sullen silence, was surprised and a little daunted to find a luxurious automobile waiting for them. He rebelled at the curb. "You go on without me," he said, harshly. "I'll stay here till you come back."
"Oh no," exclaimed Mrs. Joyce. "Please come with us. Your mother will not be happy without you."
Miss Wood remarked, humorously, "Never refuse a dinner or a ride in a motor-car; that's my motto."
His mother timidly lifted her face. "Victor, Mrs. Joyce is my most loyal friend. I owe her more than you know. ”

“ He related his experiences during the time she lay in deathly trance, and his voice lost its smooth flow as he approached the most marvelous experience of all, when the vast and murmuring wind blew through the small room and Altair came with sad, sweet face, to bewitch him and to shake his conceptions of the universe to their foundation stones. He confessed his bewilderment and confusion, and ended by saying: "It's all unnatural, diseased. I can't believe it is the real side of things."
"I wonder that you kept your head at all," remarked Bartol. "Your youth and good, hot blood protect you. ”

“ Mrs. Joyce replied. "Would you mind taking my car and going to my home to tell Leonora where I am? I wish also you would bring Mrs. Post, my seamstress, back with you. She's a good, strong, kindly soul and will be most helpful to-day."
He consented readily and went away in the car, with the bright spring sunlight flooding the world, feeling himself snared in an invisible net. All thought of leaving the city passed out of his mind. He thought only of his mother and of her possible revivification. "I will fight the world here if only she will return," he said. ”

“ Ollnee's face was delicately pink and her eyes were bright with happiness. To her son she seemed once more the lovely and delicate figure of his boyhood's admiration. It seemed that her death-like trance had been a horrible dream.
The ride, the club-house, the dinner, were all luxurious to the point of bewilderment to Victor, but he did not betray his uneasiness. He was only a little more silent, a little more meditative, as he took his place at the finely decorated table in the pavilion which faced upon the water. He determined (for the day at least) to accept everything that came his way. ”

“ To Leo and Mrs. Joyce my mission is noble."
"I hate it because I think it's foolish, unnatural, and false. I don't mean that you consciously cheat, mother, but I am certain that in some way it all comes down to that."
She opened her arms in a gesture of passionate appeal. "My son, these Voices have educated you—they have helped me to feed and clothe you. Now here I am, prove me, try me, convict me if you can. I yield myself to your tests. I know the spirit life is a reality. If I did not I should perish with despair. Every day, almost all hours of the day, these Voices whisper in my ears. ”

“ She radiated the vitality and the melody of youth. Without being boisterous or silly, she filled the house with laughter. "There's something about Hazeldean that always makes me happy. I don't know why," she said.
"You make all who inhabit this house happy," said Mrs. Ollnee. "I can hear spirit laughter echoing to yours."
"Can you? Is it Margaret?"
"Yes, Margaret and Philip."
Victor did not smile; on the contrary, his face darkened, and Mrs. Joyce changed the tone of the conversation by asking: "Did you see the paper this morning? They say you have skipped to join Pettus." ”

“ Joyce, who knew Mrs. Ollnee's history intimately, only smiled as she answered: "I don't see that you need to feel ashamed of your mother's profession. A medium is one of the most precious instruments in this world. She brings solace to many a sorrowing heart. Why is her work less honorable than singing, for example? Furthermore, no one is obliged to come to her. We sit of our own choice, and if we are not pleased we can refuse to pay, and we need not return. So you see it is a free contract, after all."
Her reasoning staggered Victor. ”

“ Your mother met every test cheerfully and instantly, and demonstrated to me, as Home did to Crookes, as Slade did to Zöllner, that matter, as we think we know it, does not exist. She convinced me not merely of her honesty, but of her high powers as a psychic. A calm, persistent, logical purpose ran through all her manifestations, and her Voices—whatever they may mean to you—advised me to sit again with her and to have you and Miss Wood, Mrs. Joyce, and Marie always in the circle. ”

“ Bartol mused. "Belief is not a matter of evidence; it is a habit of mind. I find myself unable to follow the evidence of my own senses. My tests of your mother last night convinced me at the moment that she had the right to claim supernormal powers. She seemingly turned matter into a mere abstraction, and made the learning of physicists the chatter of children." As he spoke his memory of what he had seen freshened and his excitement increased. His voice deepened and his eyes glowed. ”

“ Doctor Eberly again approached, walking in that quaint, sidewise fashion which had made him the subject of jocose remark among his pupils at the medical school.
Mrs. Joyce was instant in inquiry. "How is she, Doctor?"
"Life is extinct," he replied, with fateful precision.
"Are you sure?" she demanded.
"Reasonably so. One is never sure of anything that concerns the human organism," he replied, wearily.
She warned him: "You must remember she was accustomed to these trances."
"So I understand. Nevertheless, this is something more than trance. ”

“ As she enlarged upon this phase of her life Victor was appalled by it. Her madness—and madness it seemed to him—was now a settled and specific part of her life. "How do they punish you?" he asked, after a pause.
"They do not hesitate to throw me into convulsions, or make me do things that rob me of my friends. They bring disaster upon me whenever I try to walk my own road. Every investment I make on my own judgment they defeat. Did you ever plague an ant or a bug by putting something in its way, checking its advance, no matter in which direction it went?" ”

“ The electric carriage came smoothly to the door, and Leo, dismissing the driver, motioned Victor to enter. "I'll drive," she said; and they swept out of the gate and down the boulevard as if, by a wafture of the hand, this young girl had invoked the aid of an Oriental magician.
The run was easy and swift, till they reached the crowded cross-street which led westward into the city deeps; and as the carts thickened and coarse and vicious humanity began to swarm Victor was moved to assert the man's prerogative. ”

“ Your mother's impersonations of my wife, her messages—Voices—may be due to mind-reading, to clairvoyance, but the method of their delivery certainly lies beyond any known law. In that glows my hope. Grant the possibility of direct writing, of the power of the mind to think its will upon paper without the aid of hand or pen, and a whole new world is opened up, the horizons of life are infinitely extended. ”

“ Mrs. Joyce glanced at Victor. "I see no objection to your feeling for her pulse or listening for her breath."
"I wish to lift her eyelids," he explained.
"You must not touch her!" Victor broke forth. "Two doctors have examined her already. Why should you?"
"Because I, too, am one of the mystic order. I am a healer. Life's mysteries are as an open book to me."
As he spoke a folded paper appeared to develop out of thin air above the bed, and fell gently upon the coverlet.
Mrs. Joyce started. "Where did that come from?"
The healer smiled. "From the fourth dimension." ”

“ All depended upon the man whose impassioned words still rang in his ears, and his admiration for the lawyer rose to that love which youth yields to the highest manhood.
Mrs. Joyce met him in the hall, excited, eager. "What did he say?"
Victor passed his hand over his face in bewilderment. "I must think," he protested. "He said so much—Where is mother?"
"She is on the porch—waiting. Let us go out to her."
He followed her with troubled face, but the bright sunshine and the songs of the birds miraculously restored him. He looked up and down the piazza hoping to see Leo, but she was not in sight. ”

“ She had grown very pale, and her hands were trembling. To Victor this seemed like the tremor of terror, and his heart was aching with pity.
On one side of the room a deep alcove lined with books had been turned into a dark-room by means of curtains, and before these draperies stood the inevitable wooden table, but beside it, inclosing a chair, was a conical cage of wire netting encircled by bands of copper. ”

“ He was a man now—in fact, his quarrel with Leo from the first had been over her evident determination to treat him as a lad.
The memory of her serene self-possession made her self-surrender of the night all the more amazing to him. "It is cold and empty where I dwell," she had said. This meant that she loved him—longed for him—it could mean nothing else. Her love had begun during their ride on the lagoon, in their delicious drowse on the grass. It had been deepened by their afternoon of sweet companionship at tennis and over their books ”

“ What's more, you love her, and I can't blame you for it. She is more beautiful than angels. You will not forsake the 'ghost-room' so long as you have a hope that she may return."
"You are mistaken," he protested. "Altair is only a dream. I worship her as a figure in a vision. Do you know what I think she was?" Her look questioned, and he went on. "For days I have pondered on her face and figure, in the light of modern science, and I am convinced that she was nothing but a union of my mother's astral self and you." ”

“ Lucy Ollnee breathed no more. She had died as she had lived, a martyr to the unseen world.
But her death was triumphant, for on the sensitive plate of each camera science and law were able to read the proof of her power. In the dark face of his grandsire Victor read a stern contempt as though he said:
"Deny and still deny. In the end you must believe."
In the alcove on the pad these words were written in his mother's hand: "Do not grieve. My work is done. I do not go far. I shall be near to cheer and guide you. Your future is secure. Work hard, be patient, and all will be well. ”

“ A realization of his own poverty and youth and general helplessness came over him with crushing effect as he trod the hall, which seemed very vast and splendid in his eyes. He was subdued, too, by the thought that he had not silver enough in his pocket to fee the girl who took their wraps. His resolution to fight, to earn not only his own living but to rescue his mother, became fainter each moment. "Can it be that yesterday I was behind the bat?" he asked himself. "Surely I must be dreaming." ”

“ Leo had sprung out and was throwing off her cloak and veil. "I hope we're not too late for luncheon. Mr. Bartol has the best cook, and I'm famished."
Her coming swept Victor back into his other and normal self, and he took charge of her with a mingling of reverence and audacity which charmed her. He went out into the dining-room with her and sat beside her while she ate. "I hope you're going to stay," he said, earnestly.
"Stay! Of course we'll stay. It's hot as July in the city—always is with the wind from the southwest. Isn't it heavenly out here?" ”

“ The youth was being educated swiftly into new conceptions of human nature. His mother was neither beautiful nor wise nor witty. Why should she attract and hold a lady like Mrs. Joyce? He wondered if she had been quite honest with him. Would her interest be the same if The Voices had not enriched her?
She returned to her invitations. "Now put on your dinner-suit and come with us," she insisted. "My niece, Leo, will be there—surely you will respond to that lure?"
His mother laid her small hand upon his arm. "Let us go, Victor. I am in terror here." ”

“ What a frightful gulf gaped between these savage and bestial men—these sullen, pinched, grimy, and malodorous street-walkers, these sottish, half-human creatures, torn and bloody with one another's claws—and the celestial vision which his mother, by some inexplicable necromancy, had been able to create from the sunless world of her magic! ”