Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/680

670 ." The desired interview took place, and a week later Mrs. Trollope returned a pamphlet on spiritual manifestations with the following note: "Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kindness in permitting me a leisurely perusal of the inclosed. It is a very curious and interesting document, and I think it would be impossible to read it without arriving at the conviction that the writer deserves to be listened to with great attention and great confidence. But as yet I feel that we have no sure ground under our feet The only idea that suggests itself to me is that the medium is in a mesmeric condition; and after giving considerable time and attention to these mysterious mesmeric symptoms, I am persuaded that a patient liable to such influence is in a diseased state. It has often appeared to me that the soul was partially, as it were, disentangled from the body. I have watched the sisters (the well-known patients of Dr. Elliotson) for more than a year, during which interval they were perfectly, as to the mind, in an abnormal state,—not recognizing father, mother, or brothers, or remembering anything connected with the year preceding their mesmeric condition. They learned everything which was submitted to their intellect during this interval with something very like supernatural intelligence. Emma, another well-known patient of Dr. Elliotson, constantly described herself, when in a mesmeric state, as 'greatly better than well,' and this was always said with a countenance expressive of very sublime happiness,—but as if her hearers were not capable of comprehending it I shall feel very anxious to hear the results of your own experience; for it appears to me that you are in a state of mind equally unlikely to mistake truth for falsehood, or falsehood for truth." Upon receiving a second pamphlet treating on the same subject, Mrs. Trollope wrote as follows: "The document you have sent me, my dear Sir, is indeed full of interest. Had it been less so, I should not have retained it to long. In speaking of a state of mesmerism as being one of disease, I by no means infer that the mesmeric influence is either the cause or effect of disease, but that only diseased persons are liable to it. I have listened to statements from more than one physician in great practice tending very clearly to show that the manifestations of this semi-spiritual state are never observed in perfectly healthy persons. One gentleman in large practice told me that he had almost constantly perceived in the last stage of pulmonary consumption a manifest brightening of the intellect; and children, at the moment of passing from this state to that which follows it, will often (as I well know) speak with a degree of high intelligence that strongly suggests the idea that there are moments when the two conditions touch. That the region next above us is occupied by the souls of men about to be made perfect, I have not the shadow of a doubt. The puzzling part of the present question is this,—Why do we get a dark and uncertain peep at this stage of existence, when philosophy has so long been excluded from it? and I am inclined to say in reply, 'Be patient and be watchful, and we shall all know more anon.—Such is the character of notes that Mrs. Trollope wrote at the age of seventy-five.

Mrs. Trollope realized from her writings the large sum of one hundred thousand dollars; but generous tastes and a numerous fanuly created as large a demand as there was supply, and kept her pen constantly busy. She wrote with a rapidity which seems to have been inherited by both her sons, more particularly by Anthony Trollope. One of her novels was written in three weeks; another she wrote at the bedside of a son dying of consumption, she being bound by contract to finish the work at a given time. Acting day and night as nurse, the overtasked mother was obliged to stimulate her nervous system by a constant use of strong coffee, and betweenwhiles would turn to the unfinished novel and write of fictitious joys and sorrows while her own heart was bleeding for the beloved son