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Page 52
Foster fairly screamed at this. The younger of the men ... broke
into violent sobs. His companion wept, too, and the pair of them
clasped hands. Bartlett looked on concerned. As for me, I was
astounded.
"He was four days dying--four days dying--of starvation and
thirst," Foster went on, as if deciphering some terrible
hieroglyphs written on the air. "His thigh swelled to the size of
his body. Clouds of flies settled on him--flies and vermin--and he
chewed his own arm and drank his own blood. He died mad. And my
God! he crawled three miles in those four days! Man! Man! that's
how your father died!"
So saying, with a great sob, Foster dropped into his chair, his
cheeks purple, and tears running down them in rivers. The younger
man ... burst into a wild cry of grief and sank upon the neck of
his friend. He, too, was sobbing as if his own heart would break.
Bartlett stood over Foster wiping his forehead with a
handkerchief....
"It's true," said the younger man's friend; "his father was a
stock-raiser in Texas, and after he had been missing from his
drove for over a week, they found him dead and swollen with his
leg broken. They tracked him a good distance from where he must
have fallen. But nobody ever heard till now how he died." ...
Now it is hardly to be supposed that the young visitor could ever have had
this scene in his mind as vividly as Foster had. In that case where and
how did Foster get the vividness and emotion? How do we get them in
dreams? He dreamed while he was awake.
As Bartlett quotes this, and as it declares him to have been present, he
of course attests it by quoting it. So in each of Bartlett's quoted cases,
the original witness is the reporter in the newspaper, and Bartlett, who
was present (he was Foster's traveling companion and business agent) thus
confirms it. We know Mr. Bartlett personally, and have thorough confidence
in his sanity and sincerity. We have also been at the pains to learn that
he commands the confidence and respect of his fellow townsmen in Tolland,
Connecticut, where he is passing a green old age. Moreover, he does not
interpret these phenomena by "spiritism."
We also had a sitting with Foster, in which he undoubtedly showed abundant
telepathy, and satisfied us that he was fundamentally honest, though not
always discriminating between his involuntary impressions, and his natural
impulses to help out their coherence and interest.
* * * * *
Those who explain these things by denying their existence, were at least
excusable thirty, or even twenty, years ago, but since the carefully
sifted and authenticated and recorded evidence of recent years, especially
that gathered by the Society for Psychical Research, the makers of such
explanations simply put themselves in the category of those who, in
Schopenhauer's day, denied the telopsis which is now quite generally
recognized. He said their attitude should not be called skeptical, but
merely ignorant. This brings to mind an excellent very practical friend
who read the first number of this REVIEW, and praised it, but said: "Don't
fool any more with Psychical Research and Simplified Spelling." We
refrained from saying that we had not known that he had ever studied
either, and we would not say it here if we were not confident that his
aversion from the subject will prevent his reading this.
To return to the manifestations: here are some other cases where Foster
identified himself with a personality of his vision. (Bartlett, _op.
cit._, 93.)
From Sacramento _Record_, December 8, 1873:
Foster at one time seized A.'s hand, explaining, "God bless you,
my dear boy, my son. I am thankful I at last may speak to you. I
want you to know I am your father, who loved you in life and loves
you still. I am near to you; a thin veil alone separates us.
Good-by. I am your father, Abijah A----"
"Good heavens!" exclaimed A----, "that was my father's name, his
tone, his manner, his action."
"And," said Foster, "it was a good influence; he was a man of
large veneration."
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