Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/497

1858.]

cousin Moses has made the discovery that he is a powerful magnetizer.

Like many others who have newly come into possession of a small tract in those mysterious, outlying, unexplored wildernesses of Nature, which we call by so many names, but which as yet refuse to be defined or classed, he has been naturally eager to commence operations, and exploit and farm it a little. He is making experiments on a narrow border of his wild lands. He is a man of will and of strong physique, with an inquiring and scientific turn of mind, which inclines him chiefly to metaphysical studies. It is not to be wondered at, that, having lately discovered that he possesses the mesmeric gift, he should not sufficiently discriminate as to its application. Later he will see that it is an agent not to be tampered with, and never to be used on healthy subjects, but applied only to invalids. To-day he is like a newly-armed knight-errant, bounding off on his steed at sunrise, in search of adventures.

One afternoon, not long since, he was telling me of his extraordinary successes with somnambulists and somnoparlists,—of old ladies cured of nervous headaches and face-twitches, and of young ones put to sleep at a distance from the magnetizer, dropping into a trance suddenly as a bird struck by a gun-shot, simply by an act of his volition,—of water turned into wine, and wine into brandy, to the somnambulic taste,—and so on, till we got wandering into crooked by-paths of physics and metaphysics, that seemed to lead us nowhere in particular,—when I said, "Come, Cousin Moses, suppose you try it on me, by way of experiment. But I have my doubts if you'll ever put me to sleep."

My cousin yielded to my request with alacrity;—every subject for mesmerism was for him legitimate;—and I relinquished myself to his passes with the docility of a man about to be shaved.

The passes from the head downward were kept up perseveringly for half an hour, without my experiencing any change, or manifesting the least symptom of drowsiness. At last the charm began to work. I began to be conscious of a singular trickling or creeping sensation following the motion of his passes down my arms. My respiration grew short. I experienced, however, no tendency to sleep, and my mind was perfectly calm and unexcited. My cousin was satisfied with his experiment so far, but we both concluded it had better end here. So he made the reverse passes, in order to undo the knot he was beginning to tie in my nerves. He did not, however, entirely succeed in untying it. I was a healthy subject, and the magnetism continued to affect my nerves, in spite of the untangling passes.

Soon after, I rose and took my leave. I was strangely excited, but it was a purely physical, and not a mental excitement. Thinking that a walk would quiet me, I went through street after street, until I reached the outskirts of the city. It was a mild September evening. The fine weather and the sight of the trees and fields tempted me to continue my walk. It was near sunset, and I strolled on and on, watching the purple gray and ruddy gold of the clouds, until I had got fairly into the country.

As I rambled on, I was suddenly seized with a fancy to climb a tree which stood by the roadside, and rest myself in a convenient notch which I observed between two of the limbs. I was soon seated in among the branches, with a canopy of leaves around and over me,—feeling, in my still nervous condition, as I leaned my back against the mossy bark, like a magnified tree-toad in clothes.