MRS. CROWE'8 NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE.
A WELL-CHOSEN collection of ghost-stories, second-sight tales, fulfilled dreams, and other incidents of a supernatural kind, is a want in our literature ; much more a really critical book upon the subject. To a cer- tain point, such works must proceed upon the same principle. The popular collection should as strictly eschew merely vulgar stories, or apparitions without drift or character, as the more critical review : at the same time, it should as accurately trace up every tale to its original source, so that the reader should have distinctly before him the exact authorities upon which the accounts rest ; since, very often, if they were thoroughly sifted, they would from their time or character be found to be totally unworthy of credit, or not possessing the kind of credit that would be requisite to establish an improbable natural fact, much more a supernatural story. At this stage the critical exposition would begin. In the case of ghosts, it would be the critic's duty to see whether the ap- pearance might probably arise from the now well-known spectral illusions of disease, or from that delusion of the senses which takes place when we see objects in an imperfect light, especially if the eye suddenly rests upon them,—as when awakened from a dream, or opening the eyes after they have long been shut. Perhaps there are few persons whose slumbers are disturbed but have seen objects of a spectral appearance, which are resolved into some article of drapery, &c. on rising in the bed or approaching still closer. It would also be the duty of the inquirer, in case of alleged warnings by these visitations, to reflect how far they were explainable by dreams excited by previous feeling. Above all, it would be necessary to consider what grounds there were for appre- hending trick, mystification, or hoax ; or whether the narrator of the tale might himself invent it to divert attention from a predetermined suicide, —as was alleged to be the case with the second Lord Lyttleton. The writer should likewise deduce the principles which these narratives contain,—as the remote and roundabout manner in which ghostly busi- ness is invariably done, as Grosse observed ; or the well-known law that ghosts never speak first ; or a rule that, we believe, is equally established —when any murder is to be mentioned, deathly warning conveyed, or other deep mystery transacted, the apparition comes in the dead of the night—when the object is only to terrify or annoy, the visitant disregards the crowing of the cock and besets his victims by day.
" Dreams remarkably fulfilled " would be subjected to a similar Bern- tiny. Was the subject one which the person was likely to think upon, and thus to dream about ? was he likely to consider any conclusion, and so interested as unconsciously to argue causes, too subtile to be recorded in his mind ? or—since every movement of a pebble is now said to exercise an (imperceptible) influence on the gravitation of the whole of our solar system—were the subject and the warning likely to have been influenced by any previous thought of the dreamer, now forgotten ? The following story will illustrate some of the principles we are endeavouring to trace. It is new to us, and differs from the ge- nerality of similar solemn warnings by the poetical and even philosophi- cal light in which hell is represented.
" Some ninety years ago, there flourished in Glasgow a club of young men, which, from the extreme profligacy of its members and the licentiousness of their orgies, was commonly called the Hell Club. Besides their nightly or weekly meet- ings, they held one grand annual saturnalia, in which each tried to excel the other in drunkenness and blasphemy; and on these occasions there was no star amongst them whose lurid light was more conspicuous than that of young Mr. Archibald B., who, endowed with brilliant talents and a handsome person, had held out great promise in his boyhood, and raised hopes which had been com- pletely frustrated by his subsequent reckless dissipations. "One morning, after returning from this annual festival, Mr. Archibald B. having retired to bed, dreamed the following dream. "He fancied that he himself was mounted on a favourite black horse, that he always rode, and that he was proceeding towards his own horse,—then a country- seat embowered by trees, and situated upon a hill, now entirely built over, and forming part of the city,—when a stranger, whom the darkness of night prevented his distinctly discerning, suddenly seized his horse's rein, saying, You must go with me!'
" ' And who are you?' exclaimed the young man, with a volley of oaths, whilst he struggled to free himself. "` That you will see by and by,' returned the other, in a tone that excited un- accountable terror in the youth; who, plunging his spars into his horse, attempted to fly, but in vain. However fast the animal flew, the stranger was still beside him, till at length, in his desperate efforts to escape, the rider was thrown; bat, instead of being dashed to the earth, as he expected, he found himself falling- falling—falling still, as if sinking into the bowels of the earth. "At length, a period being put to this mysterious descent, he found breath to inquire of his companion, who was still beside him, whither they were going. Where am I? Where are you taking me?' he exclaimed. "' To hell replied the stranger; and immediately interminable echoes. repeated the fearful sound, To hell!. to hell 1 to hell!' "At length a light appeared, which soon increased to a blaze; bnt, instead of the cries, and groans, and lamentings, the terrified traveller expected, nothing met his ear but sounds of music, mirth, and jollity; and he found himself at the entrance of a superb building, far exceeding any he had seen constructed by hu- man hands. Within, too, what a scene! No amusement, employment, or pur- suit of man on earth, but was here being carried on with a vehemence that ex- cited his unutterable amazement. There the young and lovely still swam through the mazes of the giddy dance! There the panting steed still bore his brutal rider through the excitements of the goaded race! There, over the midnight bowl, the intemperate still drawled out the wanton song or maudlin blasphemy! The gambler plied forever his endless game, and the slaves of Mammon toiled through eternity their bitter task; whilst all the magnificence of earth paled before that which now met his view.'
"He soon perceived that be was amongst old acquaintance, whom he knew to be dead; and each, he observed, was pursuing the object, whatever it was, that had formerly engrossed him; when, finding himself relieved of the presence of his unwelcome conductor, he ventured to address his former friend Mrs. D.—whom he saw sitting, as had been her wont on earth, absorbed at loo—requesting her to rest from the game, and introduce him to the- pleasures of the place, which ap- peared to him to be very unlike what he had expected, and indeed an extremely agreeable one. But, with a cry of agony, she answered, that there was no rest in hell; that they must ever toil on at those very pleasures: and innumerable voices echoed through the interminable vaults, 'There is no rest in hell!' whilst, throwing open their vests, each disclosed in his bosom an ever-burning flame ! These, they said, were the pleasures of hell: their choice on earth was now their inevitable doom In the midst of the horror this scene inspired, his conductor returned, and, at his earnest entreaty, restored him again to earth; but,. as he quitted him, he said, Remember! in a year and a day we meet again At this crisis of his dream, the sleeper awoke, feverish and ill; and, whether from the effect of the dream or of his preceding orgies, he was so unwell as to be obliged to keep his bed for several days • during which period he had time for many serious reflections, which terminated in a resolution to abandon the club and his licentious companions altogether. "lie was no sooner well, however, than they flocked around him, bent on re- covering so valuable a member of their society; and, having wrung from him a confession of the cause of his defection, which, as may be supposed, appeared to them eminently ridiculous, they soon contrived to make him ashamed of hisgood resolutions. He joined them again; resumed his former course of life; and when the annual saturnalia came round, he found himself with his glass in his hand at the table; when the president, rising to make the accustomed speech, began with saying,' Gentlemen, this being leap-year, it is a year and a day since our last anniversary,' &c. &c. The words struck upon the young man's ear like a knell; bat, ashamed to expose his weakness to the jeers of his companions, he sat out the feast, plying himself with wine even more liberally than usual, in order to drown his intrusive thoughts; till, in the gloom of a winter's morning, he mounted his horse to ride home. Some hours afterwards, the horse was found, with his saddle and bridle on, quietly grazing by the road-aide about half-way between the city and Mr. B.'s house; whilst a few yards off lay the corpse of his master.
"Now, as I have said in introducing this story, it is no fiction: the circum- stance happened as here related. An account of it was published at the time, bat the copies were bought up by the family. Two or three, however, were pre- served, and the narrative has been reprinted." The first thing a critic would have to note here would be, that in re- ferring to little-known books, the title should be given, especially place, date, and publisher's name. Secondly, nothing is more likely than that a man who had thrown away good opportunities should brood over his misdeeds during those periods of depression which ensue when the stomach and nervous system are suffering from the languor and disturb- ance of over-excitement. If Mr. B. bad been religiously brought up, as is probable from the age and locality, he might rather have stifled than altogether have discarded his belief. Nothing was therefore more natu- ral than for him to dream upon the subject of hell. The warning is equally natural. In all such cases, (and in his childhood he had doubt- less heard of many, for they are common enough,) the time for a second visitation is fixed, sometimes with an object, sometimes without. In- evitable associations in Mr. B.'s mind would fix upon sonic date ; and such warnings, like certain prophecies, tend greatly to their own fulfil- ment; besides, few things are more likely than that a drunken rider should be thrown from his horse and killed. The curious part is the precise and appropriate features of hell; for few will incline to think (as Mrs. Crowe almost seems to do) that the character of future punishment should be shrouded in darkness for thousands of years, to be revealed in a vision to a profligate of Glasgow ; and that without attaining its appa- rent end. It is possible that the fever in the region of the chest might have suggested the idea.
Mrs. Crowe's Night-Side of Nature, or Ghosts and Ghost-Seers, aims at being, not critical, but philosophical. The writer speculates upon the unseen and unknown world, as well as narrates its wonders; having derived some of her views from the German mystical and mesmeric writers. One of her notions is, that there may really be, as ancient mythology held, a threefold future state,—a place of bliss, a place of torture, and an in- termediate state, where the ghosts are neither in weal nor wo, but ex- Ceedingly dissatisfied and grumbling, and consisting of persons who in this world had no character at all. Mrs. Crowe believes in witchcraft and animal magnetism ; and she explains various supernatural circumstances by means of the latter, as well as uses it to show the modus operandi of certain occurrences. Sleep she inclines to think a retrograde step towards instinct, which may render its decisions truer than those of waking rea- son : she also inclines to hold that we have a double life—one for waking and one for sleeping, as well as a double person (or we mistake her)—the soul, or rather something material, being able to leave the body and go abroad by itself: and so she goes on, not passing beyond some of the clairvoyant folks, for that is impossible, but pretty well coming up to them.
Many of her tales are much better than her philosophies. Some, in- deed, have a touch of the true spectral thrill about them ; but others are trivial, or vulgar, or inherently bad. Mrs. Crowe, too, frequently omits to quote any authority ; and when she does quote, her references are mostly vague, not specifying the book, but merely the writer's name. &sides much idle matter, there are, we think, some omissions of good. But the arrangement is complete. Warnings, Presentiments, Wraiths, Double Dreaming, Trance, Doppel-gangers or Doubles, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Spectral Lights, and Family Apparitions, (as the Irish Banshee,) are all handled in their turn ; as well as miscellaneous and philosophical topics. From the writer's faith we, of course, totally dissent; and a better book of ghostly tales might be made without much difficulty : but those who like to go " trembling to their beds," will find a good deal of suitable matter in The Night-Side of Nature ; only let them take care to avoid chapters whose titles are too profound.
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