shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from the ground. As he ascended higher he described his position, which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse. In a moment or two more, he told us that he was going to pass across the window, against the gray, silvery light of which he would be visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way, and recross the window; which he did. His own tranquil confidence in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most novel peril, gave confidence to every body else; but, with the strongest nerves, it was impossible not to be conscious of a certain sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle for several minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly, over our heads. I heard his voice behind me in the air, and felt something lightly brush my chair. It was his foot, which he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the spot where it was on the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon it, when he uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair, but floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He now passed over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we could judge by his voice of the altitude and distance he had attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which he made a slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed his place at the table. An incident which occurred during this aërial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity to it, was that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground under the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the air from the most distant corner of the room. I give the driest and most literal account of these scenes, rather than run the risk of being carried away into descriptions which, however true, might look like exaggerations. But the reader can understand, without much assistance in the way of suggestion, that at such moments, when the room is in deep twilight, and strange things are taking place, the imagination is ready to surrender itself to the belief that the surrounding space is inhabited by supernatural presences. Then is heard the tread of spirits, with velvet steps, across the floor; then the ear catches the plaintive murmur of the departed child, whispering a tender cry of "Mother!" through the darkness; and then it is that forms of dusky vapour are seen in motion, and coloured atmospheres rise round the figures that form that circle of listeners and watchers. I exclude all such sights and sounds because they do not admit of direct and satisfactory evidence, and because no sufficient answer can be made to the objection that they may be the unconscious work of the imagination. Palpable facts witnessed by many people, stand on a widely different ground. If the proofs of their occurrence be perfectly legitimate, the nature of the facts themselves cannot be admitted as a valid reason for refusing to accept them as facts. Evidence, if it be otherwise trustworthy, is not invalidated by the unlikelihood of that which it attests. What is wanted here, then, is to treat facts as facts, and not to decide the question over the head of the evidence. To say that certain phenomena are incredible, is merely to say that they are inconsistent with the present state of our knowledge; but, knowing how imperfect our knowledge is, we are not, therefore, justified in asserting that they are impossible. The "failures" which have occurred at séances are urged as proofs that the whole thing is a cheat. If such an argument be worth noticing, it is sufficient to say that ten thousand failures do not disprove a single fact. But it must be evident that as we do not know the conditions of "success," we cannot draw any argument from "failures." We often hear people say that they might believe such a thing, if such another thing were to happen; making assent to a particular fact, by an odd sort of logic, depend upon the occurrence of something else. "I will believe," for example, says a philosopher of this stamp, "that a table has risen from the ground, when I see the lamp-posts dancing quadrilles. Then, tables? Why do these things happen to tables?" Why, that is one of the very matters which it is desirable to investigate, but which we shall never know anything about so long as we ignore inquiry. And, above all, of what use are these wonderful manifestations? What do they prove? What benefit have they conferred on the world? Sir John Herschel has answered these questions with a weight of authority which is final. "The question, Cui bono? to what practical end and advantage do your researches tend?—is one which the speculative philosopher, who loves knowledge for its own sake, and enjoys, as a rational being should enjoy, the mere contemplation of harmonious and mutually dependent truths, can seldom hear without a sense of humiliation. He feels that there is a lofty and disinterested pleasure in his speculations, which ought to exempt them from such questioning. But," adds Sir John, "if he can bring himself to descend from this high but fair ground, and justify himself, his pursuits, and his pleasures in the eyes of those around him, he has only to point to the history of all science, where speculations, apparently the most unprofitable, have almost invariably been those from which the greatest practicable applications have emanated." The first thing to be done is to collect and verify facts. But this can never be done if we insist upon refusing to receive any facts, except such as shall appear to us likely to be true, according to the measure of our intelligence and knowledge. My object is to apply this truism to the case of the phenomena of which we have been speaking; an object which I hope will not be overlooked by any persons who may do me the honour to quote this narrative. * Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 10. William Hogarth : PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER. VII.-A HISTORY OF HARD WORK. I must live on the Is there anything in the world that cannot be accomplished by sheer hard work? Grant to any man, high or low, a sound natural capacity, and the essential faculties of insight and appreciation—or, if you will, call them discernment and judgment-and may he not aspire, with a reasonable degree of certainty, to the very grandest prizes which the Heads of the Houses of Life have to confer? May he not say to his Will: "You are my steed, I mean to saddle and bridle you. I shall spare neither whip nor spur, and you must carry me to the great goal. Be your name Hare or Tortoise, you and I must win the race. I know full well that I must go into training for such a tremendous heat. I must rise at five in the morning, and sleep short hours upon hard beds. simplest and scantiest fare. I must conciliate and be servile, until I can command and be tyrannical. I must be always learning something, always doing something, always saving something. I must never look back, even though behind me may be a poor man crying out that I have ridden over his one ewe lamb, or a widow weeping for the trampling of her tender vines under my horse's hoofs. My motto must not be 'Excelsior,' but rather Cæsar Borgia's 'Avánti!' or Blucher's 'Vorwärts;' for the rewards of this world lie straight ahead, not far above, and must be tilted at, not clambered for. And if I have a firm seat, and a hard hand, and a steady eye, shall I not succeed? My hair may be powdered grey with the dust of the race; but shall I not ride in some day, the crowd crying— Tandem triumphans? Shall I not be crowned with laurels in the capitol-foremost poet of the age? Shall I not be the great painter: my hire a thousand guineas for six inches of coloured canvas? Shall I not have discovered the longitude and squared the circle? Shall I not be Rothschild, to hold crowns in pawn, and ticket sceptres in fasces as though they were fire-irons? Shall I not be borne on the shields of the legionaries, and saluted as Emperor of the Eujaxrians, King of Politicopolis, and Protector of the Confederation of the Scamander?" Many a man asks himself these questions; and digging his rowels into the sides of his stern Intent, rides away with his knees well set and his hand on his hip, defiant. What Cæsar, and Napoleon, and Frederick, and Newton, and Bayle, and Milton, and Buonarotti, and Pascal, and Wolsey, and Ximenes, and Washington, and Francia, and Ganganelli, and Flaxman, and Callot did-you see I dip my hand in the lucky-bag and draw out the numbers as they come-was by pure and simple hard work: the labour of the hand as well as the brain. Believe me that nothing is unavailing VOL. II.-NO. 8. 11 The making of sundials towards the great end, so long as it is work. and toy windmills helped Isaac of Grantham towards the Principia. Bacon was not wasting his time when he wrote about laying out gardens. Brougham took something by his motion when he sat down to furnish nearly Leonardo was not wholly an entire number of the Edinburgh Review. idle when he promulgated his rules for drawing "monsters :"-lions' flanks, fishes' tails, and "mulier formosa superne." Burke found his account in writing summaries for the Annual Register, and Canning in making jokes for the Anti-Jacobin. All these things "tell up." They are columned, and figured, and entered to our credit; and some day the balance is declared, and we draw the splendid capital. Here is And the reward—is it certain? Is it always spendid? Does every studious sub-lieutenant of artillery become an emperor? Is the masterAh, vain and ship of the Mint waiting for every mathematician? fallacious argument! Ah, sorry reckoning without our host! the day-room of a country workhouse, and here over the scanty fire is a paralytic, slavering dotard nearly a hundred years of age. Hard work! Giles Clover, of the old men's ward, was working hard when New York and Virginia were English colonies. He has tilled the earth so long, that just before the spade dropped from his palsied hand, he was digging a grave for his great-grandchild. His neighbour there, the patriarch of eighty, has helped to clear away the crumbling ruins of the house the bricks of which he worked so hard to mould the clay for. Hard work! Look at that doddering old fellow in the scarlet blanketing creeping along the King's Road, Chelsea. He was at Valenciennes, at Walcheren, at Maida, at Vittoria, at Waterloo. He was in garrison at St. Helena in 1821, and lent his strong shoulder to carry the body of Napoleon to the grave. But he will be thankful, poor pensioner, for a halfpenny to buy snuff, and his granddaughter goes out washing, to furnish Hard work! Look at the pale-faced curate of St. him with extra beer. Lazarus. He is full of Greek, and mathematics, and the Fathers. He marries, and buries, and baptizes, and preaches, and overlooks the schools, And he has just written and walks twenty miles a day to visit the sick. a begging letter to the benevolent society which supplies the clergy with old clothes. Perhaps these men, with all their industry, were dull. When genius is allied to perseverance, the golden mean must be reached indeed. Must it? Alack the reckoning of the host is still better than He comes with a smile, and taps us on the shoulder, and says, "Oh, ? You shall go to a padded room, ho! you are becoming famous, are you and howl for the rest of your days. And you who have heaped up riches, and have such a swollen cheque-book? Here is a little pin, with which I just perforate your skull. You tumble down in apoplexy, and farewell money-bags. And you, Monsieur le Duc, with a field-marshal's bâton you once carried in your knapsack? A tiny pellet of lead from a flintlock musket fired by a raw recruit will arrange all your affairs. And you, potent, and grave, and wise, who sit in the king's council and rule the ours. destinies of millions,-ah! I have but to place a little pebble beneath the pastern of your park hackney, and lo! he will stumble and fall, and four men with a stretcher will carry you home to die." Should these grim reminders cause men to shrink and faint, and lose their faith in the powers of Will and Hard Work? Never, I hope. Should the fame that Hamilton gained by a speech, and Shenstone by a quaint imitation, or Campbell and Thomson by a volume of blank verse, cause us to drift into the far niente, to sit down contented with the success of a lucky bit, and allow the game to go on while we lie in bed, and are fed with a spoon like Fenton; or, with our hands in our pockets, gnaw at the peaches on the walls, like the writer of the Seasons? Not yet, I trust. The grandest and noblest monuments in the world are those of hard work. Look at the Decline and Fall. Look at the great porch of Notre Dame de Paris. Look at Bayle's Dictionary. Look at the lines of Torres Vedras. Look at the Divine Comedy. Look at Holman Hunt's Doctors in the Temple. Every one of these elaborately magnificent performances-you see I have been playing at loto again, and trusted to the chances of the lucky-bag-might have remained mere sketches, crude and vigorous, perhaps, as Coleridge's Kubla Khan, or as that strange Titan-daub of the lady at the pianoforte in this year's Academy exhibition, but dreamy, unsubstantial, and unsatisfactory, without hard work. Therefore I drink to hard work, with a will and on my knees; and if ever I am sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour, I will try to become an expert even at the treadmill or the crank, satisfied that some good will come of it some day. I remember with a friend, once, staring at the great golden dome of St. Izaak's church, at Petersburg, as it blazed in the sunset, and striving to calculate how many bottles of champagne, ball-dresses, diamond bracelets, carriages and horses, marriage settlements, were spread over that glittering cupola. But in a healthier frame of mind, I began to ponder upon the immensity of human labour concentrated in that stately edifice. There were the men who beat the gold out into flimsy leaves, who spread it on the dome, who hewed the marble from the quarries, and polished and dragged it, and set it up, who formed those wondrous mosaics, and wrought those glowing paintings, who made the mould and cast the bronze for the statues, who hung the bells and laid the pavement, and illuminated the barbaric screen of the Ikonostast. Thousands of serfs and artisans were pressed or poorly paid to do this work. Numbers of brickmakers will build a pyramid or wall all Babylon round; yet that concentrated immensity is always astounding. How much more should I wonder at the pyramid of hard work that lies before me in the giant folio of William Hogarth's works! There are 157 plates in the book, and yet many of his minor works are not here. How the man must have pored and peered, and stooped to grave these millions of lines and dots on the hard metal! A large proportion of these performances was preceded by a sketch, a drawing, a finished oil picture. Every engraving required its separate drawing, tracing, retracing on the copper, etching, biting in, engraving deeper, touching up and finishing. |