Sitter

“ A bereaved mother or a bereaved wife sits with one of those mediums. The medium goes into a genuine trance, and probing the mind of the eager expectant sitter, can tell her all sorts of intimate details about the husband or son who has been killed which are already known to her. The medium can produce his name, his appearance; can recount events and happenings of his childhood; can even say things which the mother has forgotten, but which prove to be true. Is it any wonder that the sitter is immensely impressed? ”

“ At any kind of sitting the conversation is rather one-sided, but whereas with a medium the sitter is reticent, and the communicator is left to do nearly all the talking, in a family group the sitters are sometimes voluble; while the ostensible control only occasionally takes the trouble to spell out a sentence, most of his activity consisting in affirmation and negation and rather effective dumb show. ”

“ Buguet pointed out to the court one face which had been recognised as the mother of one sitter, the sister of a second, and the friend of a third. One spirit, recognised by a sitter as his lifelong friend, was declared by another man to be an excellent likeness of his still-living—and much annoyed—father-in-law. ”

“ There are many obvious disadvantages about a Table Sitting, especially in the slowness of the communications and in the fact that the sitter has to do most of the talking; whereas when some personality is controlling a medium, the sitters need say very little. ”

“ Another sitter was an undergraduate in training for the 'Varsity boat-race. I have found men of this rowing calibre usually wonderful sitters, being perfectly fit; this particular young man was in excellent form, so much so that he completely outstood me and said when I, at last, begged him to have a rest:—
"Why I can go on standing all day without fatigue!" ”

“ The sitters composing the circle should always remember that mutual harmony is a most important factor contributing to the success of the manifestations sought to be secured. Accordingly, each sitter should strive to bring himself or herself into a sympathetic and harmonious relationship with each and every other sitter, so far as is possible. ”

“ When your assistant touches your foot you will know that he is ready to make the exchange again, by which the sitter will get hold of the slates he fastened. When you get the signal you give a snort and jump that jerks the end of the slates from the sitter’s hand. He is now given the end of the slates held by your assistant, and you will allow the assistant to take the dummy. After [Pg 90] sitting a moment or two longer, you will tell the sitter to take out his slates and examine them if he chooses. Many times they do not open the slates until they reach their homes. ”

“ Artists like one to talk and be amused, otherwise the sitter gets bored and the picture reflects the boredom. Few painters can work with a third person in the room, although Sir William Orchardson always preferred to have his wife reading aloud to him, or talking to his sitter while he was at the easel. ”

“ A peculiarity of some of my sitters in which I have rarely found an exception, is as to their professed ability to stand. I do not like to tire my sitters, and I usually tell them I am afraid they will find a position wearisome, which they deny, telling me at the same time that standing for hours is not in the least tedious to them. ”

“ I have often been present at sittings which promised well in the beginning, and became suddenly barren because of a futile discussion between the sitters. The harmony recommended by spiritists is a kind of equilibrium between the mental and emotional states of the sitters. Each sitter should be animated by the same spirit—I do not use this word in its spiritistic acceptation—and seek only the truth ”

“ But I think I hear the larger girl, who is standing up, say to the sitters, "Children, don't you know better than to sit there on the damp earth? You will every one of you catch a cold. Get up this instant." ”

“ Sitters can be so antipathetic that I feel when I look at them that the imaginative vision is oozing out of me, like sawdust when you clip a doll’s leg, and that in another moment I shall be just a heap of collapsed rags on the floor, with a silly waxen head and shoulders on the top. ”

“ The time at which the seances are held is not in itself important, but it will be found best to fix such time at such an hour that will be most convenient for the sitters, and at which their minds will not be distracted by thoughts that they should return home, or should be attending to certain household or business duties, etc. ”

“ Father has such boisterous ways, bellows words of petting praise, flings him high into the air. "Oh!" shrieks mother, "do take care." 'Tis four o'clock, he's been to sleep and yet he's not allowed to creep; not allowed the happiness of sucking bits of his clean dress. He has to sit in his high chair and let a lot of people stare. They bring him things to touch and squeeze, and sister plagues him to say "please." Then someone cries, "Now, Baby, look! Here is a lovely picture book." And someone else says, "Here's a bunny, a soft, white woolly one, for Sonny." He's feeling bored. ”

“ I hear you point out a spot, where, if we could erect a little cottage and call it our own, we should be the happiest of human beings. I see my brother fired with the idea of leading his sister to such a retreat. Our parlour is in a moment furnished; our garden is adorned by magic; the roses and honeysuckles spring at our command; the wood behind the house lifts its head, and furnishes us with a winter's shelter and a summer's noonday shade. My dear friend, I trust that ere long you will be, without the aid of imagination, the companion of my walks, and my dear William may be of our party.... ”

“ And let them find companionship in stairs that creak a welcome when they mount at night, and in the friendliness of well-used chairs, and all small things, through time, made dear to sight. And let there be a child who'll shyly peep at lonely lodgers as they come and go—a laughing child who nightly falls asleep while mother sings in accents sweet and low. ”

“ The old women of the village would say to each other: "If we had such a child we should never let him out of our sight. Oh, what a store of merit must his mother have laid up to have got a son like this!" ”

“ SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all the children.
GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you?
SILAS: (derisively) Oh, mother—what a thing for you to say! You who were never too tired to give up your own bed so the stranger could have a better bed.
GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their way.
FEJEVARY: So are we.
(SILAS turns to him with quick appreciation.)
GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of other old settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want yours to.
SILAS: I want other things more. ”

“ My Dearest Sisty,—You are coming home! My heart is so full of that thought that it seems to me as if I could not write anything else. Dear child, you are coming home; you have done with school, you have done with strangers,—you are our own, all our own son again! You are mine again, as you were in the cradle, the nursery, and the garden, Sisty, when we used to throw daisies at each other! ”

“ The boy who has been brought up at home, both by precept and by his father's example, never to seat himself at the dining table or in the family sitting-room until his mother is seated, will not need to be told that he should rise in a crowded street car and give his seat to an elderly woman. ”

“ In the course of some half-an-hour the gentleman exhibits signs of an inclination to take his siesta, and the rest of the party adjourn to the drawing-room, where a confidential conversation ensues between madam and the resident governess, in reference, apparently, to the dependent child, who, with the quick instinct of inborn propriety, retreats towards the other end of the room, where she endeavours to amuse the younger children; in which she is so eminently successful, that the stately manner of the lady gradually begins to relax. ”

“ For be it known to my readers, that, as my youngest child was eight years old, I determined, Spartan-like, to do away with the nursery, and converted the room into a sitting and sleeping room for my nurse, who was henceforth to act as maid; the young person, who was as her own baby, being taken from her and sent to share her sister’s rooms, one of which was to be part school, part sitting room; but we were all so uncomfortable I had no heart to continue the arrangement. When small friends came to tea there was nowhere for them to go ”

“ Niece. As we do! That's a fine life, indeed, with one servant of each sex. Let's see how many things our coachman is good for—He rubs down his horses, lays the cloth, whets the knives, and sometimes makes beds.
[Pg 220]
Aunt. A good servant should turn his hand to everything in a family.
Niece. Nay, there's not a creature in our family that has not two or three different duties. As John is butler, footman, and coachman, so Mary is cook, laundress, and chamber-maid. ”

“ Where the life of the sixteen-year-old daughter in the home may become most useful may perhaps consist in getting the parents and the children to join her in carrying through the great endeavor of presenting a play, some winter afternoon in the kitchen, for their own delectation and education. It is easy to imagine the whole family, including the father, whatever his age may be, taking part in a play; and if the father finds it hard work to fall down dead at the proper minute, it is good enough for him for allowing himself to grow so stiff! ”

“ Long had spent six weeks in my sister's house, and had then established herself in a very beautiful furnished house on the same street. Almost every day Mrs. Long's carriage was at my sister's door, to take my sister or the children to drive. Almost every evening Mrs. Long came with the easy familiarity of an habituated guest in the house, to sit in my sister's parlor, or sent with the easy familiarity of an old friend for my sister and her husband to come to her, or to go with her to the theatre or to the opera. ”

“ Children (according to their view) were sent to bed too soon; they always have been, and always will be. But that was not a grievance of mine. As a nursery child, not yet at the stage of learning letters, I practically lived downstairs with my parents—at such times as the youngest aunt was not there to prevent it. Father took me out on horseback about the farm, seated on a pad in front of him within his arms, mother in the gig with her when she went to her old home or shopping to L——; and I believe I could always manage to sit up to supper, if I begged hard and long enough. ”

“ How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary; so let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? ”

“ Is it not to the careful, motherly, little elder sister, patient nurse of eight or nine years old, hugging the heavy, round-cheeked baby, with two or three other children clinging to her dress, she who cannot get as far as the park? ”

“ Sometimes when there is a large family, it is necessary to separate the children by placing 58 the mother in the midst of them between two restless ones. But whatever order is necessary, let it be so matter-of-course that the coming in and seating shall be in that decorous manner which will impress the children with the sacredness of the service for which they have come. ”

“ That which a young girl who is a visitor in any family should first of all observe, is the wishes and convenience of the older people of the household. If the friend she is visiting should show too much disposition to make everything about the house bend to the occasion of the visit, the visitor should deprecate this, both by word and example. ”

“ When her mother’s dark-eyed sister had a little reception in consequence of having married the minister, baby was in the thick of it, watching first the preparations, and then the comings and goings of people, with the closest attention and the deepest enjoyment, cheerfully willing to have her meals postponed, her nap broken, anything, if the fun would only go on. ”

“ When we had passed a short distance along the road, an interesting child, who had come down from a log cottage above, offered us a skilling. The little girl and her parents had evidently commiserated our forlorn condition as nomad wanderers, and were anxious to give their unsolicited assistance. It will not be forgotten in their account with the next world. We were obliged to refuse, and, shaking the little girl by the hand, bade her farewell. May she have long happiness in life, as her kind heart deserves. 129
CHAPTER XIII.
Twist ye, twine ye! ”

“ I set no chair to welcome you, my dear.”
And said the maidens, laughing in their play,
“How he goes groaning, wrinkled-faced and hoar,
He is so old, and angry with his age—
Hush I hear the banshee sobbing past the door.” ”

“ A brawny, large, and handsome man was the father, on whose shoulder the little fellow was riding, while a demure, pale-faced sister of about ten, walked by the side of the two. Father and little sister might have been met with anywhere, any day, but the baby once in a lifetime. ”

“ There's sure to be lots of casuals wantin' shelter to-night. It's a woman and a baby this time, Sister Patience; maybe she's took too much. She looks like it. Shall I tell the perleece to take her on to the London, Sister? ”

“ In the midst of these amusements, our hero received an intimation from his sister, that she should be overjoyed to meet him next day, at five o'clock in the afternoon, at the house of her nurse, who lived in a cottage hard by her father's habitation, she being debarred from all opportunity of seeing him in any other place by the severity of her mother, who suspected her inclination. ”