John Addis

“ Her attitude was the very attitude of Helena lifting beseeching lips to Bertram. “What would you have?” quoth he. She answers:
Something, and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.
I would not tell you what I would, my lord—’faith, yes;—
Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kiss.
But I did gently sunder myself from the weight of Miss Simms without any osculation.
“And how is—is—is she?” I said. “She is not unfavourable, I hope, towards my suit?”
“She is only too much blessed!” Miss Simms replied, with a smile, in which archness blended with sympathy. “Can you doubt it for a moment?” ”

“ I deliberated.
“My dear Miss Simms,” I said. “I can never sufficiently repay the kindness—the sympathy, the great sympathy—you have shown to me, today. I am going to take advantage of this sympathy—”
“Sir!” cried Miss Simms.
“Yes; gratitude consists mostly in taking advantage of the people who are kind to you. I am going to ask a still greater favour of you. Will you break this matter to your brother? Will you hint my feelings to Lotty?” ”

“ I respected Miss Simms immensely, I had a great friendship for her. The idea struck me that I would make her my confidant with regard to Lotty. She was the very person for a confidant. I could not, for the life of me, have broken the subject to papa or mamma. Lotty was a child to them still, and I felt that it would scarcely have seemed more ridiculous to them for me to confess a tender passion for the infant in long clothes than to hint the state of my heart towards Lotty. I had determined to make some move, and the aunt appeared to me the very medium through whom to make it. ”

“ Sleep is a much more incomprehensible affair. Sleep is clearly a disease of tired nature, while this species of trance, or semi-separation of soul and body, is a legitimate exertion of the forces of nature in their highest strength. If it is half-way on the road to death, it nevertheless puts death in a new light, taking away from it all that mystery which ordinarily surrounds it. All that is required is an exercise of the will—a powerful exercise; but not more powerful than is used daily by many men upon trivial matters. ”

“ I was copying some music for Lotty. Lotty and her mamma were going forth on the business of card-leaving.
As I took them down to the carriage, Lotty said:
“You will finish my music?” And she made the prettiest beseeching moue, and lifted up her face, just as when a child she had lifted it up to be kissed. “We shall soon be back, and you can stay to dinner. You must stay to dinner. The evenings are so dull and stupid, and then you can sing that duet with me. Now, go back and finish the music. You and Aunt Sarah can talk poetry, you know, till I come back.” ”

“ What a libel upon human nature, worthy of the gross lips that uttered it! True love is always gradual. The first indifference burgeons into liking, flowers into friendship, fruits into love. We know not where indifference ends and love begins. Ah! my dear Miss Simms, &c &c., &c. ”

“ This was surely some pre-monitor of death, no normal power of healthful nature.”
Mauleverer’s face darkened—it became very sad and weary.
I do not think at that time I at all took in the drift of his argument. Thinking over it many, many times afterwards, I can see plainly now that, feeling the awful separation between himself and his fellow-men, he was eager to prove himself not different from, but like them. “All others have this awful power that I possess; the only difference is, that they have not discovered that they possess it. It is simply a natural gift, little used.” ”

“ The women are no longer fair; the horses, if any survive, are perhaps cab-horses; and the hunting, I hear, is by no means what it was. The Dean, whom we then execrated is dead; the tutors have disappeared into the seclusion of fat country livings; the Master—well, everybody who knows Holy Bottle knows that the Master of Holy Bottle is unassailable by time as by all other ills of life. ”

“ To watch the birth of new beauties and virtues from day to day—to tend, to foster—to—to—in short—to find, as it were, your own sensibilities reproduced and springing up—like—like objective personifications under your incubative cares. ”

“ I looked at my watch.
“Why not at once?” I said. “Are you going to chapel? There will just be time before it begins.”
Wyatt gave a glance towards the darkening windows, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I will go with you,” he said, “on condition that I am not to stay for the performance. I will introduce the subject and put matters in proper train, and then you shall have your séance to yourself.”
“Don’t go to-night,” said Allen; “it only wants half-an-hour of chapel time. I know you will not give up the anthem for Mauleverer.”
However, I was determined to satisfy my curiosity at once. ”

“ I think no man, the most insensate, could have seen daily, as I have seen, this sweet girl” (con molto spirito) “and have resisted her attractions. It does not lie within the power of human nature to resist them.”
I was silent for a few minutes, and steadily continued my copying. I had determined to discuss the subject in the calmest and most reasonable manner. I confess the dots were scarcely circular, and the strokes scarcely straight, but I completed a most prodigious series of running notes ad libitum before I recommenced. I dared not look at Miss Simms. ”

“ He says that the fits, which come upon him against his will, are ordinary cataleptic fits; but, over and above this affliction, he lays claim to a power of putting himself into a trance whenever he pleases. For myself, I don’t see much difference between the two. He declares that the trances into which he throws himself are absolutely a separating of the soul from the body. He talks in the most mysterious manner about this power that he possesses. ”

“ My hand became quite dead, white in the flesh and purple in the nails, and all the sensation I had in it for a week was that of what they call pins and needles. I have seen men in fits before, but never a fit like that. ”

“ I mentioned that this particular of the aperture in the head seemed familiar to me.
“It is one of the symptoms related by Cardan,” said Mauleverer. “He—if he is to be believed—could exercise precisely the same power that I can. By his own confession, he was neither an honest nor a trustworthy man; but he certainly speaks truth in this account of his own experience. His diagnosis is singularly correct and complete. No one, however learned in physiology, could have hit precisely on these symptoms. Cardan’s case is a noted one, and probably you have seen it referred to in some book. ”

“ Mauleverer “kept” (another University word) on the opposite side of the court, between the great gateway which opened on Holy Bottle Street and the chapel.
As we crossed the court the moon was struggling through the thick damp mists. The fountain in the centre of the open space, the lantern of the Hall and the tower of the chapel loomed large and vague through the white fog.
“It is a hundred to one if his oak is not sported,” said Wyatt, “and then you will be disappointed. I half hope you will. You will never wish to repeat the experiment.” ”

“ I said, “those middle-age legends were cases of disease or of imposture.”
“Hardly of disease,” he said; “though of course unhealthy people might discover this latent power as well as healthy. Because whole communities exhibited the same symptoms it is said that it was an epidemic. The simpler explanation is that one learned of the latent power from another. Of imposture, no doubt. They deceived others, and often deceived themselves, mixing the physical fact with a thousand superstitious fancies and lies.” ”

“ An elder than herselfLet still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband’s heart.
So I ceased to compare myself with the small boys with whom Lotty flirted, I turned a blind eye on the budding obesity of my figure, and began to consider the matter as an accomplished fact.
Miss Lotty had an aunt—a very respectable person—of mature age. Miss Simms was the name of this lady, and Miss Simms and I had always been great friends. She was a gushing person, strongly sympathetic, and given to the study of the minor poets of the last generation. ”

“ He describes the soul—or the life-principle, or the breath, or whatever it is—as first collecting in the heart, and then passing from that up the spine, and so out from the body at the top of the head. He says an aperture is formed in the head, through which the soul goes out, and that it is very difficult to keep this aperture open while the soul is absent. ”

“ Besides, in almost all cases these stories claim to be miraculous and supernatural.”
“Any power,” he answered, smiling, “not yet accepted as natural and ordinary, is sure to be looked on as a miracle, and to be surrounded by superstitious additions and interpretations. All that I argue for is for the existence of some natural cause lying beneath. Although we have ceased to believe that thunder is a divine voice, yet none the less do we believe in the thunder. The books of the middle ages are full of instances. ”

“ It is impossible to explain. I myself have as great a curiosity and eagerness to learn more as you can have.”
We were both silent.
Then Mauleverer continued.
“You disbelieve those old stories that come down to us, intermixed with superstitious additions. But there are plenty of later stories, of cases here in England, well-attested, and without a shadow of imposture or superstition in them. Take, for example, the case of Colonel Townshend.” ”

“ Where, I could not tell; but this one point coming clearly before me as a fact known before, impressed me forcibly.
“Is Mauleverer ashamed of exhibiting this power which he possesses?” I asked. “I suppose he does not wish it to be known or talked of.”
“On the contrary,” said Wyatt, “I think he is rather proud of it. He is fond of obtruding the subject, and has several times, since that first, proposed to exhibit, as you call it, before me. That one exhibition, however, was quite enough. I never will submit to another. It must be awfully dangerous to himself ”

“ She has lived with us now for a number of years, and, upon my soul, I shall be sorry to lose her. But we must not be selfish in this world. Yes, I am convinced that Sarah will make you an excellent wife. ”

“ The legends of Pythagoras, of Hermotimus, and of many more of the early philosophers, claim for them the power of leaving the body and returning to it. And when we come down to Alexandria and the Neo-Platonists, the exercise of the power is ordinary and common. ”

“ That they are rare at all is, I believe, simply owing to people’s ignorance of the extent of the natural powers they possess. I am quite sure that this gift is not preternatural, but natural, possessed dormantly by everybody, and capable of being used by everybody, if they knew of it, and were disposed to use it. ”

“ In a room in the Great Quadrangle of the College of Holy Bottle some dozen of us sat. It was after “hall” (that is to say dinner) , and we were “wining” (another uncouth University expression) , with my friend Allen. Undergraduates all of us, and all members of the aforesaid college, which I have chosen to call (stealing from “Rabelais”) by the name “Holy Bottle.” I am not going to describe a wine-party, or to indulge in boyish slang. In the first place, we were not freshmen ”

“ Mauleverer, who seemed a little flushed and excited, walked to one of the windows, and, throwing it open, sat down on the window-seat. I leaned against the shutter-case, and listened as he spoke.
Through the window the court, full of mist, rendered semi-transparent by faint moonlight, lay before us. I can see the scene at this moment. The men were pouring into chapel, rushing along from all directions, their wide white surplices floating behind them as they ran. Now a flock came together, now a single figure ”