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Page 55
* * * * *
Now here is a tougher case which opens a new element of the problem. It is
from _The Autobiography of a Journalist_, by W.J. Stillman, Boston, 1901,
Vol. I, pp. 192-4: Not many of our older readers will require any
introduction of Stillman. For the younger ones, we may say that he was a
very eminent art-critic; spent most of the latter half of his life abroad,
being part of the time our consul at Crete; wrote a history of the Cretan
Rebellion, and other books; and was a regular correspondent of _The
Nation_, and of _The London Times_. We never knew his veracity questioned.
Here is the story:
A "spiritual medium," Miss A. was "under the control" of Stillman's dead
cousin "Harvey." The "possession" seems to have been throughout free from
trance. Stillman says:
I asked Harvey if he had seen old Turner, the landscape painter,
since his death, which had taken place not very long before. The
reply was "Yes," and I then asked what he was doing, the reply
being a pantomime of painting. I then asked if Harvey could bring
Turner there, to which the reply was, "I do not know; I will go
and see," upon which Miss A. said, "This influence [Harvey's.
Editor] is going away--it is gone"; and after a short pause added,
"There is another influence coming, in that direction," pointing
over her left shoulder. "I don't like it," and she shuddered
slightly, but presently sat up in her chair with a most
extraordinary personation of the old painter in manner, in the
look out from under the brow, and the pose of the head. It was as
if the ghost of Turner, as I had seen him at Griffiths's, sat in
the chair, and it made my flesh creep to the very tips of my
fingers, as if a spirit sat before me. Miss A. exclaimed, "This
influence has taken complete possession of me, as none of the
others did. I am obliged to do what it wants me to." I asked if
Turner would write his name for me, to which she replied by a
sharp, decided negative sign. I then asked if he would give me
some advice about my painting, remembering Turner's kindly
invitation and manner when I saw him. This proposition was met by
the same decided negative, accompanied by the fixed and sardonic
stare which the girl had put on at the coming of the new
influence. This disconcerted me, and I then explained to my
brother what had been going on, as, the questions being mental, he
had no clue to the pantomime. I said that as an influence which
purported to be Turner was present, and refused to answer any
questions, I supposed there was nothing more to be done.
But Miss A. still sat unmoved and helpless, so we waited.
Presently she remarked that the influence wanted her to do
something she knew not what, only that she had to get up and go
across the room, which she did with the feeble step of an old man.
She crossed the room and took down from the wall a colored French
lithograph, and, coming to me, laid it on the table before me, and
by gesture called my attention to it. She then went through the
pantomime of stretching a sheet of paper on a drawing-board, then
that of sharpening a lead pencil, following it up by tracing the
outlines of the subject in the lithograph. Then followed in
similar pantomime the choosing of a water-color pencil, noting
carefully the necessary fineness of the point, and then the
washing-in of a drawing, broadly. Miss A. seemed much amused by
all this, but as she knew nothing of drawing she understood
nothing of it. Then with the pencil and her pocket handkerchief
she began taking out the lights, "rubbing-out," as the technical
term is. This seemed to me so contrary to what I conceived to be
the execution of Turner that I interrupted with the question, "Do
you mean to say that Turner rubbed out his lights?" to which she
gave the affirmative sign. I asked further if in a drawing which I
then had in my mind, the well-known "Llanthony Abbey," the central
passage of sunlight and shadow through rain was done in that way,
and she again gave the affirmative reply, emphatically. I was so
firmly convinced to the contrary that I was now persuaded that
there was a simulation of personality, such as was generally the
case with the public mediums, and I said to my brother, who had
not heard any of my questions [He says above that they were
mental. Ed.] that this was another humbug, and then repeated what
had passed, saying that Turner could not have worked in that way.
Six weeks later I sailed for England, and, on arriving in London,
I went at once to see Ruskin, and told him the whole story. He
declared the contrariness manifested by the medium to be entirely
characteristic of Turner, and had the drawing in question down for
examination. We scrutinized it closely, and both recognized beyond
dispute that the drawing had been executed in the way that Miss A.
indicated. Ruskin advised me to send an account of the affair to
the _Cornhill_, which I did; but it was rejected, as might have
been expected in the state of public opinion at that time, and I
can easily imagine Thackeray putting it into the basket in a rage.
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