Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/654

646 these it will be seen how unvarying was their attachment to each other. Throughout the entire series, extending over the whole period of her married life, there is not a single expression which could lead to any other conclusion.

It is, however, evident that the delicate health with which Mrs. Anderton had been afflicted from her birth, still continued, and in two instances we have indications of the same mysterious attacks noticed in the letter of Mrs. Vansittart, before quoted. These, however, appear to have been but very slight. They had for some years been of more and more rare occurrence, and from this date, (October, 1852), we have no further record of anything of the kind. Still Mrs. Anderton’s general health continued very unsatisfactory, and almost everything seems to have been tried by her for its improvement. Among the enclosed correspondence are letters dated from Baden, Ems, Lucca, Cairo, and other places to which the Andertons had, at different times, gone for the health of one or other, Mr. Anderton being also, as stated in Mrs. Ward’s letter of the 14th June, 1851, extremely delicate.

Of this gentleman all accounts agree in stating that the chief ailment was a constitutional nervousness, mental as well as physical. The latter showed itself in the facility with which, though by no means deficient in courage, he could be startled by any sudden occurrence however simple; the former, in his extreme sensitiveness to the opinions of those about him, and his dread of the slightest shadow of reproach on the name of which he was so justly proud. In the accompanying documents you will find instances of both these idiosyncrasies. In the summer of 1854 Mr. Anderton’s attention seems to have been drawn to the subject of Mesmerism. They had been spending some weeks at Malvern, where this science seems particularly in vogue, and had there made acquaintance with several of the patients at the different water-cure establishments, by some of whom Mr. Anderton was strongly urged to have recourse to mesmeric treatment both for Mrs. Anderton and himself.

The constant solicitations of these enthusiastic friends seem at length to have produced their effect, and the favourite operator of the neighbourhood was requested to try his skill on these new patients. On Mr. Anderton the only result seems to have been the inducing of such a state of irritation as might not unreasonably have been expected from so nervously excitable a temperament, in presence of the “manipulations” to which the votaries of mesmerism are subjected. In the case of Mrs. Anderton, however, the result was, or was supposed to be, different. Whether from some natural cause that, at the time, escaped attention, or whether solely from that force of imagination from which such surprising results are often found to arise, I cannot of course say; but it is certain that some short time after the mesmeric “séances” had commenced, a decided though slight improvement was perceptible. This continued until the departure of the operator for Germany, which country he had only recently left on a short visit to England.

Notwithstanding the worse than failure in his own case, the certainly curious coincidence of his wife’s recovery seems to have entirely imposed on Mr. Anderton, whose susceptibility of disposition appears indeed to have laid him especially open to the practices of quacks of every kind. So great was now his faith in this new remedy that he actually proposed to accompany the Professor to Germany rather than that his wife should lose the benefit of the accustomed “manipulations.” He had proceeded to London, for the purpose of making the necessary preparations, when he was induced to pause by the remonstrances of several of his friends, who represented to him that a winter in the severe climate of Dresden—the place to which the Professor was bound—would probably be fatal to one of Mrs. Anderton’s delicate constitution.

His medical adviser also, though himself professing belief in mesmerism, gave a similar opinion, while at the same time he obviated the difficulty respecting the mesmeric treatment of Mrs. Anderton, by offering an introduction to “one of the most powerul mesmerists in Europe,” who had recently arrived in London, and who eventually proved to be the so-styled Baron R**.

This introduction appears to have finally decided Mr. Anderton against the Dresden expedition; and, after a brief experience of his manipulations, Mrs. Anderton herself seems to have derived, in imagination at least, more benefit from them than even from those of her late attendant. So thoroughly were they both impressed with the beneficial results of the Baron’s “passes,” &c., that Mr. Anderton, who had now resolved to settle in London for the autumn and winter, went so far as to take a ready-furnished house at Notting Hill, for the express purpose of having his new professor in his immediate neighbourhood. Here the séances were continued often twice or three times a day, and though, of course, no one in his senses could really attribute such a result to the exercises of the Baron, it is certain that, from some cause or other, the health of Mrs. Anderton continued steadily to improve.

Matters had continued in this position for some weeks, when objections were raised by some of Mr. Anderton’s relations to what they not unnaturally considered the very questionable propriety of the proceeding. There seems to have been a good deal of discussion on this point in which, however, Mr. Anderton’s constitutional susceptibility finally carried the day against his newly conceived predilections with respect to a practice so obviously calculated to expose him to unpleasant comment. The Baron, however, was not disposed so easily to relinquish a patient from whom he derived such large and regular profits. On being made acquainted with the decision respecting the cessation of his visits, he at once declared that his own direct manipulations were unnecessary, and that, if considered improper for one of the opposite sex, they could easily be made available at second-hand.

Having once swallowed the original imposition, any additional absurdity was of course easily disposed of, and it was now determined to avoid all occasion for offence; Mrs. Anderton should henceforth be operated upon through the medium of a certain Mademoiselle Rosalie, a clairvoyante