The Undiscovered Country. William Dean HowellsЧитать онлайн книгу.

      III.

      FORD went back to his room, and turned over some new books which he had on his table for review. He could not make his choice among these volumes, or else he found them all unworthy; for after an absent glance at the deep chair in which he usually sat to read, he looked up his hat and went out, taking his way toward the shabbily adventurous street where the Boyntons had their lodgings.

      Dr. Boynton met him at the door of his apartment with a smile of cheerful cordiality; but when Ford mentioned his encounter with Mr. Eccles, and expressed his hope that Miss Boynton was better, "Well, no," answered the doctor, "I cannot say that she is. She has had a shock,—a shock from which she may be days and even weeks in recovering." He rubbed his small, soft hands together, and beamed upon Ford's cold front almost rapturously.

      "I am very sorry to hear it," said the latter, with a glance of misgiving.

      "Yes, yes," admitted the other. "In some respects it is regrettable. But there are in this case, as in all others, countervailing advantages." He settled himself comfortably in the corner of the sofa as he proceeded. "Yes. The whole episode, on its scientific side, has been eminently satisfactory. The character of the manifestations at the seance, the violence with which neglect of the conditions was resented, the subsequent effects, primary and secondary, on the nervous organism of the medium, and indeed of almost all persons present, have been singularly impressive, and indicative of novel and momentous developments. I don't know, Mr. Ford, whether you have had an opportunity of conversing with any of our friends, since the evening in question, but I have seen many of them, and they have all testified to an experience which, however difficult of formulation, was most distinct.

      It appears to have been something analogous to the electrisation of persons in the vicinity of a point struck by lightning. In the case of Mrs. Le Roy there has scarcely been a cessation of the effects. The raps in her room have been almost continuous, and the furniture of the whole house has been affected. Miss Boynton has suffered the greatest distress from the continuance of the manifestations, and her mind is oppressed by influences which she is apparently powerless to throw off. In a word, everything has worked most harmoniously to the best advantage, and the progress made has been all that we could wish. Mr. Eccles perhaps told you of a marked increase of the discomfort he habitually suffers from indigestion?"

      Ford hardly knew whether to laugh or rage at all this, but he merely said that Mr. Eccles had mentioned his dyspepsia, and remained in a bitter indecision, while Dr. Boynton went on. "Ah, yes! yes, yes! I think we may safely refer the aggravation of his complaint to the influences, still active, of our memorable seance. But I am not sure that Mr. Eccles's peculiar theory is the correct one. I distrust his speculations in some degree. A ferment of the kind he speaks of in the world of spirits would be more apt to ultimate itself here in the mind than in the stomach."

      "Do you generally distrust speculations in regard to these matters?" asked Ford.

      "I distrust all special speculation," said the doctor. "We physicians know what specialism leads to in medicine. I prefer to base my convictions solely upon facts."

      "Are you able to satisfy yourself as to the facts of the seance here the other night?"

      "Not absolutely,—no. Not entirely. As yet we are only able to approximate facts."

      "Then as yet you have only approximated convictions?" asked Ford.

      "As yet I am only inquiring," said the doctor, with sweet acquiescence. "Startling and significant as those manifestations were, I feel that I am still only an inquirer. But I feel also that I have gained certain points which will almost infallibly lead me to a final conclusion in the matter."

      "Then you mean to say," pursued Ford, "that as a man of science you rose from Mrs. Le Roy's experiments in sleight of hand, the other night, with a degree of satisfaction. Have you the slightest confidence in her powers?"

      "Why, there," replied Boynton, "you touch upon a strange problem. I am always aware, in these matters, of an obscurity of motive and of opinion which will not allow me to make any explicit answer to such a question as yours."

      "You obfuscate yourself before sitting down, as you darken the room, that you may be in a perfectly receptive condition?"

      "Something of that nature,—yes. But I should distinguish: I should say that the obfuscation, though voluntary, was very largely unconscious."

      Ford laughed. "I am afraid that I was in no state to judge of the exhibition then. You are a man of such candor yourself that I am sure you will not blame my frankness in telling you that I thought the whole apparitional performance a piece of gross trickery."

      "Not at all, not at all!" cried Boynton, with friendly animation. "From one point your position is perfectly tenable,—perfectly. You will remember that I myself warned you of the possibility of deceit in the effects produced, and said that I always took part in such a stance with the full knowledge of this possibility. At the same time, I always try, for my own sake, and for the sake of the higher truth to be attained, to keep this knowledge in abeyance,—in the dark, as we were saying."

      "I see," said Ford drily. He waited blankly a moment, while Boynton watched him with cheery interest. "I suppose it was my misfortune to have been able to expose the whole performance at any moment. I didn't think it worthwhile."

      "It was not worthwhile," Boynton interposed. "Those people would not have accepted your expose",—I can't say that I should have accepted it myself; and in your effort to fulfil a mission, a mere mechanical duty, to society, you might have placed obstacles in the way of the most extraordinary developments. Nothing is clearer to my mind," he proceeded impressively," than that it is our business, after the first intimations of a desire for converse on the part of spirits, to afford them every possible facility, to suggest, to arrange, to prepare agencies for their use. Suppose you had detected Madame Le Roy in the employment of stuffed gloves; at the very moment when you seized upon the artificial apparition, a genuine spirit hand might have been about to manifest itself, in obedience to the example given. My dear sir," cried Dr. Boynton, leaning from his perch on the sofa toward the place where Ford sat, "I have gone to the very bottom of this matter, and I find that in almost all cases there is a degree of solicitation on the part of mediums; that where this is most daring the results are most valuable; and what I wish now to establish as the central principle of spiritistic science is the principle of solicitationism. If the disembodied spirits do not voluntarily approach, invite them; if they cannot manifest their presence, show them by example the ways and means of so doing. Depend upon it, the whole science must die out without some such direct and vigorous effort on our part."

      He paused, leaving Ford in a strange perplexity. The smoothness and finish with which Boynton had formulated the