Novelist.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 997, 8 December 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist.

A NEW PALINGENESIS.

By Robert Duncan Milne.

(Concludes.) presently found the intense vigilance of the doctor becoming infectious. I, too, began to watch the figure before me with eager curiosity, though without the faintest conception of why I was doing so. I began to speculate upon the meaning and purpose of the tanks, tubes, and wires I saw before me. Suddenly a flash of light darted from the end of the lower wire ia the upright reservoir to the end of the upper one. The flash was precisely similar to the one I had just seen pass from the doorknob to the insulated rod. The doctor started, and clutched my arm. " Did you see that flash ? " he asked, in Suppressed tones. "Do you know what it means ? The body which lies before you is dead. The spirit which animated it has passed from it. It is now in the other reservoir."

It now occurred to me that I had a madman to deal with, and the most dangerous species of madman, for there was certainly method in his madness. I had never been in a similar position before, but I had read that the best way to act under such circumstances is to feign acquiescence in the ideas and caprices of the lunatic Escape was impossible, as I have previously intimated, and to thwart the man would, doubtless, have meant to provoke a hand-to-hand contest with the odds in his favor ; for are not madmen possessed of superhuman strength and courage ? I had always heard so ; so I resolved to act with prudence, and to endeavor to lead rather than compel.

" Are you positive," said I, "that the lady is dead ? Had we not better examine the body more closely, so as to arrive at absolute certainty ? Had you not better send for another physician ? Suppose Igo and fecth Doctor B .He lives only a block away. I won't be a minute."

I had also read that lunatics could be managed by diverting the current of their thoughts, and so made this attempt. The doctor glared at me keenly for a moment, then said :

"There is no necessity for it. You can implicitly trust my diagnosis that my wife is dead. Even if the external appearance of the body were not sufficient proof of this fact, the electric flash whioh we just witnessed in the other reservoir, sets all 'doubts at rest." " How so ? " I inquired.

" Simply because soul, spirit, intelligence, the life principle, call it what you will, is neither more nor less than a form, a mode of that force whioh we call electricity." " Then what are you ? " I asked, carried away by the earnestness and gravity of the man, and forced to believe, in spite of myself, that there must be some meaning in the strange paraphernalia I saw before me. " What are you ? A spiritualist ? What is the meaning of all that I see here ? "

"A spiritualist? Yes. A materialist? Yes. Strange as it may seem to you, lam both. Spirit is really and truly nothing but a form of matter. Nothing can exist which is not material. It is simply our blindness and ignorance which draws a distinction between matter and spirit. The soul is simply individualized electricity — an intelligent secondary battery, if you will ; a store-house of the life principle, capable of using and controlling all forms of co-existent matter. You will at once comprehend my reason for employing glass solely in the construction of all the apparatus. Perfect insulation is, of course, necessary to prevent the escape of the subtile principle within." And the dootor stepped to the interior of the alcove.

" I must now," he continued, as he drew aside a curtain and disclosed, upon a raised platform, a third reservoir, also of glass, and filled with some colorless liquid, " I must now proceed at once with the operation." As he said this he introduced into an aperatnre in the top of the raised reservoir, the end of a bent tube which had been lying on the floor against the wall; placing its other extremity in the funnel on the top of the tank in which the body ojt his wife lay. Be then withdrew $» c stoppers from the ends of the tube, and as this had previously been filled with liquid, the contents of the higher reservoir began to flow into the lower one through the syphon which was thus formed.

Inch by inch the level of the liquid rose in i the lower reservoir ; up the legs of the glass slab on which the body lay ; up the sides of the slab itself, until it began to well around the form of the body. As the syphon was about two inches in diameter, a very few minutes sufficed to discharge the contents of the one reservoir into the other, and by the time the body was completely submerged, and the liquid had risen several inches above the face, and within about an inch of the enp at the end of the flexible tube, the doctor removed the Byphon from the funnel, and stopped the discharge. I had now become bo engrossed in the mystery of what I saw that I forgot my previous misgivings. I kept my eyes fixed intently on the horizontal reservoir before me. Presently a whitish vapor rose from the surface of the liquid. It rose from all points, as fog rises from the ocean. It moved in sluggish convolutions, permeating, pervading, and rendering opaque the plear, vacant space above the liquid. At the same time— could I believe my eyes ?— it became apparent that c body was melting away. The white satin dress had already disappeared, apd the exposed portions of the frame had assumed a deep yellow hue. There was no' doubt of it, the body was being speedily corroded by some powerful chemical agen£. I became faint and sickened at the spectacle, and, sinking back into a chair $osed my eyes. •• There is no ne.cessi.ty for our witnessing this stage of the operation,'' said the doctor, drawing the .curtain before the alcove. " pissolution and decay shock our senses, because we unconsciously recogpise in them a degradation of life, and life is ojar inestimable possession. B,ut conceal the mystery as we may, whether in the recesses of earth, the ghamber of a crematory furnace, or a bath of corrosive acid, the same end is reaphed — namely, the resolution of the body into its simple elements,. J may add that there is nothing novel in the mode I am now employing. It was discovered some few months ago

by an Italian savanl, Professor Paolo Gorini, of Lodi, and is capable of completely destroying a human body in twenty minutes, at a cost of eight francs, the principal ingrendient used being chromic acid." I could now understand why the dootor wished my presence from a legal point of view, as, if what he stated was correct, and inquiry should bo instituted on the disappearance of his wife, my evidence would be most important. Still I could not fathom the object of co disposing of ft dead body. The circumstances were, to say the least, suspicious, and the presumption would be that such disposition was resorted to for purposes of concealment, and to evade a proper inquest into the cause of death. I accordingly stated my views upon the matter. "I perfectly recognise," he answered, "the truth of what you say; but there need be no apprehension on that score now. The danger which I apprehended* consisted in the escape of the electrical energy— otherwise the spirit— through some orevice or imperfect joint in the first reservoir, when it passed from the body, and before it was finally lodged in the second. Although, as I have explained to you, spirit is individualized electrical energy, it is yet, in a measure, amenable to the laws whioh govern electricity in the abstraot. Although it was definitely agreed upon between my wife and myself that the vital element should pass from the reservoir, where her body underwent a physical death, into the adjoining receptacle, where its rehabilitation in its primitive form was to be consummated, and although a suitable conductor, in the shape of this lower wire, which ran, as you saw, from the neighborhood of her head to the interior of the second receptacle, was arranged so as to facilitate this transmission, yet there might have been, and moßt probably were, electrical influences, whose extent I could not possibly determine, outside the first reservoir, ready to exert an irristible attraction upon the element within, had there been any possibility for them to do so. There was not. The crystal compartment was a perfect non-conductor. The flash of light whioh you saw pass from one wire to the other, about half an hour ago, demonstrated that my wife's spirit was yet mistress of itself."

I was fascinated, in spite of myself by the doctor's language. It was -quiet, confident, and deliberate. In spite of the wild absurdity and apparent baselessness of his fantastic conceptions — as they then seemed to me — I caught myself speculating upon the materialistic theories of life and spirit, and confessing that such a solution of the vexed and mysterious problem of existence, here and hereafter, would reconcile many points apparently irreconcilable on any other hypothesis. My speculations were interrupted by the doctor drawing aside the curtain and reentering the alcove. In the few minutes during which the reservoir had been concealed from view a great change had taken place inside. The milky, opaque, and cloud-like vapor which had filled its upper portion had disappeared. Judging from large drops which covered the glass, like beads of perspiration, or like the moisture with which windowpanes are obscured on a frosty morning, the vapor had condensed, and was returning to the liquid mass below it. The body which had lain upon the glass slab was now resolved into an indistinguishable and formless congeries of porous matter, resembling sponge in color and texture, and literally melting and crumbling before our gaze. The doctor seemed satisfied.

"You will presently witness," said he, " the operations of that mysterious electrical agency called vital force or spirit, in its dealings with inorganic matter, This was my second reason for inviting you here tonight, as I wished to have an intelligent witness of this portion of the proceedings as well, and as I had promised at some time or other to explain to you the true relation of electricity to spiritual phenomena." By this time the last vestige of matter had vanished from the slab where, half an hour before, we had laid the body of the doctor's wife. The liquid in the reservoir retained the same transparent appearance as ever.

The doctor then readjusted the syphon as before, between the reservoirs, and proceeded to decant more of the fluid from the one to the other. Slowly the liquid rose in the lower reservoir, till it reached the bell-shaped termination of the flexible tube, through which ran the second wire to the upright reservoir. At length the glass cup touched and floated on the liquid. After letting the surface rise about an inch higher, the cup rising with it, the doctor again disconnected the syphon.

A strange phenomenon now made itself apparent. There were, as I have stated, two wires, running from contiguous points in the vessel containig the fluid, through glass tubes, to contiguous points in the upright empty compartment. The lower end of each of these wires was now immersed in the liquid. From the end of each wire there immediately began to rise a train of tiny air bubbles, whioh broke at the surface of the liquid, and beneath the cups. It reminded me exactly of the vaporization of water effected by the galvanic battery, when both of its electrodes are introduced into the fluid j the two constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen, being set free, as is well known, by electric action at their respective poles.

" You see," remarked thp doctor, " that this part of the operation follows the ordinary laws of electricity. As soon as the poles of the intelligent battery in the upright compartment became united by cantacfc with a common medium— namely, the fluid in the reservoir— disintegration of that 1 fluid commenced. You will remark my use of the term 'intelligent' battery. An ordinary material battery would deoompose merely so much of that fluid as consists of water — would liberate, in fact, only the two elements, oxygen and hydrogen; but the 'intelligent' battery, the spirit, is capable of exerting a much subtiler and a much wider force. It is now in process of liberating and attracting to itself, in the form of gas, every element which was originally decomposed and is now held in solution by the fluid on which it acts. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulphur, albumen, — every element, in short, which once composed the body of my wife is now being extracted from that reservoir in the form of gas, and passing into the other I compartment by way of these tubes."

As I examined the phenomenon more closely, I could see that several trains of bubbles were being formed at various points on those portions of the wires whioh were submerged in the fluid ; and that each train rose, separate and distinct, to the surface, though all broke within the peripheries of the terminal cups.

" Each of these series of gas bubbles represents one of the elements composing the human body," explained the doctor, "and all are now passing into the other compartment, where they will be recombined in the form they originally went to make up. You will presently witness 'the real triumph of mind over matter.' will witness the mysterious and wondrous manner in which the intelligent battery,' called 'spirit' or 'sonl,' attracts, combines, and weaves together the various elements of |norgamc matter which go to make up the vehicle through which it works, while confined therein, called • body J> "

" The phenomenon of materialization, as evolved by genuine spirit mediums," went on the doctor, after a pause, "is an actual and bqjMJldA phengmejion, for you will presently

witness its accomplishment. The error the spiritualists fall into consists in supposing that the phenomenon is supernatural; and the public is misled by this consideration, and by the fact that in many oases it has been proved to be fraudulent, into inferring that the phenomenon is, in every case, fraudulent, and, consequently, that the spiritual hypothesis on whioh it is based is delusive and imaginary. When, however, both phenomenon and hypothesis are reduced to a scientific formula, there is no longer room for doubt or cavil."

"Then, you mean to tell me," I said, quietly, for I had now passed beyond that mental stage in whioh I had recognized the doctor either as a lunatic or an enthusiast, and was content to be a passive spectator and commentator on whatever might transpire, "you mean to tell me that the body which has just been corroded and dissolved— the body of your wife — will be reconstructed and reincorporated in that receptacle ? " "I do," said the doctor, "and why not? The prooess which is about to take place is simply an expansion of a process which goes on about us, unnoticed and unremarked, which is nevertheless equally remarkable with this. What is the power which attracts steel filings to a magnet ? You answer electricity. What is the power by which the seed, the germ, the egg of plant or animal attracts, combines, and modifies the various elements whioh are necessary to its sustenance and growth ? You do not know. Of two seeds, apparently similar to the eye, planted side by side in the same soil, why is it that one attracts to itself certain salts and alkaloids, and grows into a nutritious vegetable, while the otV.er attracts other salts and alkaloids— from the same soil, mind you— and becomes a plant whose appearance is repulsive, whose smell is rank, and whose taste is poisonous ? Because it has an inherent power to do so, you answer. But when I ask you to explain the nature of that power, you are lost. We will call it, if you please, for lack of a betttr term, • the vital principle.' One of its peculiarities is that it attracts affinities and begets likes. Now, the 'vital principle* of a human being, or the • soul ' or • spirit,' as it is variously termed, is, as I have already stated, an intelligent battery, answering to the ' vital principle ' in the seed or germ ; both alike possessing individuality, the" difference being that the former is intelligent, the latter instinctive. Now, following up the analogy, the human germ or egg possesses merely instinctive individuality, or the power to attract and appropriate such substances as are suitable to its corporate development and sustenance and within its reach. But when the life-principle becomes separated from its corporeal surroundings, it becomes endowed also with higher powers as an intelligent individuality. It then exerts control over matter to the extent and degree to whioh it was schooled while in the body. Do you follow ? " " I think I comprehend the line of your argument," I assented.

" Of course, it is ridiculous to suppose that the immature intelligence of the still-born child, or the depraved intelligence of the barbarian, should possess powers coincident with those of the well-developed and well-condi-tioned being ; and it is equally ridiculous to suppose that an intelligence should be placed here in a school of matter, and subsequently relegated to some immaterial condition where its past experience would be valueless. Nature does not deal in such wanton waste of energy as this."

"But," objected I, "how is it that if, as you assert, the phenomenon of materialization is an actual, natural, and scientific fact — how is it that such materialized bodies always disappear, vanish, melt into thin air, and leave no trace of their existence behind them? Why cannot they retain their corporeality, so to speak, and remain as living, unimpeachable witnesses of the troth of the phenomenon? This would end all doubt about the matter, and set argument at rest forever."

" That fact is also dependent," replied the doctor, •• upon a simple, natural law. Just as a magnet exposed to undue or prolonged excitement will part with its magnetic property and become powerless to attract until recharged with the electric fluid, so the intelligent battery, or spirit of a man, though competent under certain conditions to attract to itself from surrounding space all the elements necessary to reconstruct the body it formerly inhabited, is incompetent to retain them in their forced combination for any conciderable length of time. Why, consider, my dear sir, the gigantic expenditure of force necessary to bring together frqm the atmpsphere the necessary quantities of all the alkaloids, metals, and gases which go to make up the material constitution of the human body 1 Areas of atmosphere, leagues in extent in some cases, have to be ransacked for the necessary elements. The energy exerted in doing this is tremendous, and the magnet, in effect, becomes demagnetized — hence the inevitable disintegration which follows; It is needless to criticise the natural provision in this— it is obvious. Besides, the spirit has explored new fields, ha 3 entered new conditions, and come under other influences since leaving the body, and, it may be safely predicated, would not resume its former existence if it could. Bat, in the case of my wife here, the conditions are altogether different. Her spirit has come under no extraneous influence, and requires to exert but a moderate amount of energy to attract and recombine the constituent elements of her hody, as they are all within easy reach, and are even npw undergoing the process af reincorpora|ion."

I oast my eyes on the upright glass compartment into which the gaseß liberated from the fluid by the wires were passing, as the doctor said, through the insulating tubes. The extremities of both wires— l could now judge that they were about eighteen inches apart — seemed to be enveloped in a pale, lambent flame, while in a vacant surrounding space a wonderful scene was visible. A luminous, nebulous mist, seeming to roll and convolute upon itself, by turns bright and dark, transparent and opaque, now here, now there, but endowed with marvellous and incessant activity, pervaded every portion of the compartment, though the activity was more marked and the mist more luminous in the immediate vicinity of the ends of the wires. Even while we looked it was evident that a gradual change was coming over this cloudlike substance. The homogeneous mist began to resolve itself into individual atoms. Myriads of tiny, shining globules shot hither and thither, wheeling, darting, turning ■on themselves in seemingly endless convolutions. The eye was pained and the sense of vision bewildered in attempting to follow their movements. As the peculiarity of the first stage qf the phenomenon lay in general motion, so the second, lay in individual or specific. The whole scene impressed one with the idea of live— fervent, intensely active, purpose- teeming life. *\ After a further fnter-ya'l^-howlong I know not, as my interest was so keenly aroused by what I saw that 1 became oblivious of time — a multitude of the Vibrating molecules seemed to arrange themselves in a fibrous network around the two central nuclei, at the [extremities of wires.

" Those myriad atoms* that seemed to be instinct with life and motion, dp yon know what they are 2 " asked the doctor. " They are the factors of the original bioplasm — the physical basis of all organic hie, whether vegetable or animal. The controlling agency at worjc can prpduce any of life's protean forms at will if possessed of a knowledge of

the proportions necessary for their construction. Only the higher intelligences, however, possess this knowledge." " That delicate network which is being woven around the wires — what is it?" I asked, carried away by the wondrous spectacle.- "See: it spreads farther and farther from the centres, as if an invisible loom were at work upon its fairy texture ! Inch by inch it grows under our gaze. Now the borders of the two parent nulcei have united. The upper one assumes the outline of a head, the lower of a heart. The network is spreading in every direction. It seems to take on the outline of shoulders, of arm*, of legs."

"That mysterious network," replied the doctor, " constitutes the muscular and nervous tissue. It is one of the simplest products of bioplasm, consequently among the earilest formed. It is a point of distinction between a body developed from an embryo and a body formed as we see it npw, that the organs in the former case are simultaneously developed, while- in the latter simplicity of structure claims priority of production,"

While he was yet speaking, the fibrous tracery assumed the distinct form of a human being, and along specific lines of the figure flowed and ebbed a colorless ichor, which gradually took on a reddish hue, and around the endless ramifications of which grew a series sf thin, transparent envelopes, which I had no difficulty in classifying as veins and arteries. The changes of appearance were so kaleidoscopic and unexampled in their rapidity, that almost before I had time to appreciate the significance and memorize the particulars of one phase of this spectacular lesson in anatomy, another had taken it 3 place. A glimpse of the different internal organs of the body was rapidly obscured by an ever-thickening veil of flesh, through which the form and structure of the. bones were rather felt than seen. By the time that I became fully conscious of all the changes that had taken place, a female figure of rare loveliness stood before me, clothed in a white satin dress. I recognized the dress as that which the doctor's wife had worn when we consigned her to the reservoir about an hour before, as my watch told me, though the occurrences of the evening seemed to occupy a week. I recognized, as I said, the dress, but I did not recognize in the figure that stood before me— a perfect type of feminine health and beauty— the wan and emaciated lady whom I had known as the doctor's wife. The body smiled, nodded, and spoke, though the thickness of the glass was such that the latter action was only evidenced by the movement of the lips. The doctor's face wore a joyful and triumphant expression, as he beckoned to the lady and pointed to the bottom of the compartment. The signal was probably prearranged, for it was at once understood. The lady stooped, raised a small lid from a box-like receptacle, and took thence a piece of bread, some fruit, and a glass of water, and began to eat and drink.

"This," said the doctor, "is the most essential proceeding of all.' Although my wife's body is perfectly materialized, the fact must not be lost sight of that it can be resolved into its component elements again as speedily as it has just been reincorporated by the converse of the method just employed. In other words, by the failure of that individual vital energy which served to materialize it. The only way in which this result can be counteracted is by introducing into this corporeal, yet ethereal, body a sufficiency of ordinary food, the digestion and assimilation of which acts as an indissoluble link between the various component parts of the organism, and builds up an impregnable barrier against dissolution or dematerialization. It is essential that my wife should remain where she is until the natural vital processes are in full play, and in order that she may not be suffocated meanwhile I must immediately bring my force and exhaust pumps into action to supply that air-tight compartment with pure air. And the doctor walked to another part of the alcove and began to manipulate the pistons of an air-pump which connected with the compartment his wife was in. " Two hours," he continued, "will suffice for all purposes, and my wife will then be free. I will beg you to relieve me from time to timej as the operation is fatiguing."

I expressed my willingness to do so, and fell to speculating on the marvellous occurrences I had just witnessed. Absurd and incredible as it had seemed to me an hour before, the result was there. The mystery of existence had been probed and solved, and the substantial evidence lay in the lady, who was now sitting upon a narrow glass bench, which had escaped m y observation, at one side o£ the compartment, and smilingly watching the doctor, with whom she was keeping up an animated sign correspondence. I was suddenly startled by an abrupt exclamation from the doctor.

" Great God I " he cried, " what is to be done ? " The valve of my force pump is broken 1 The exhaust cylinder is safe, but of what use is that if I cannot supply air to be exhausted?" and he approached me with agony depicted on his brow.

I glanced at the lady, and saw by the uneasiness she manifested— she had risen from her seat and was anxioqsly -making signs to vs — that she thoroughly appreciated the nature of the catastrophe. In another moment she held her hands up to her head and sank heavily down upon the floor of the compartment. There was but one coarse to pursue. To leave bpr where she was meant asphyxiation. To release her could not possibly be worse, perhaps not so bad. The dootor understood this but vacillated at the idea of the nullification of all his efforts. I sprang to the compartment, put my shoulder against it and endeavored to move it. It was too firmly based to move. Looking around I espied a hatchet lying near, and with one blow shivered one of the plate-glass sides to fragments. It was the work of a moment to drag out the lady, and by this time the dootor had recovered from his temporary weakness, and was at his wife's side. She had fainted away, and the bloom had died from her cheek. Instinctively I rushed to a sideboard and seized a water-jug and decanter. The contents of the first I threw into her face, the latter I put to her lips. As we knelt there beside her it seemed as if she were again melting away into the ethereal essence whence she had originated.

The satin dress became filmy and lost its lustre. Through its texture could be seen the skin.and the strange molecular motion with which I had become familiar in the reservoir, was again discernable in the surface portions of the frame. There was no room to douty that the converse of the process of materialization just witnessed was being enacted beneath our eyes. In a few shorf minutes the component elements of. her body would, be disintegrated, and the la.dy who had been go mysteriously restored,' $o ltfe and health, woqld once mpre yani^h, ipfe nqthingness, and tyend wish %3 surrounding atmosphere.

Efurriedly and abruptly th,e doctor gpoke : !• Extreme measures must be taken," he said. " The time has heen top, s,horifc for the food she has partaken of to assimilate, IJer bqdy -will disjnjegr^te flnlesg something can be introduced into, the system, which goes straight into the blqod. There is only one substance which possesses tm;s property, and fhatis a}cphs."

So saying he grasped the decanter and poured about a glassful of its contents, which were brandy, into his wife's mouth. The effect was instantaneous. The body whioh seemed to fee lading away under ©ur very

eyes, began to resume solid corporeal proportions.

The dress, on the other hand, continuing to become more filmy, the doctor hastily enveloped his wife's form in such wraps as lay near.

•• I'he force which materialized the inorganic matter composing the dress," explained the doctor, "has no power to preserve its elements from disintegration, since nothing can be introduced into its texture capable of intimate assimilation therewith, as id the case with organic matter. It is, as I have said, the ability to weave and knit a homogenous substance into the organic tissues of the body that alone prevents that disintegration which a short time ago was imminent. The human body, as you know, is ever renewing itself and wasting away. Little by little the tissues which have just been materialized will be replaced by fresh matter constantly being assimilated through the organs of nutrition. Even the introduction into the blood of the small quantity of alcohol just used will suffice to arrest molecular disintegration until the digestion of the food proper shall have taken place. After that there is nothing to fear."

In a few minutes the lady opened her eyes, looked around her, and embraced her husband. We had triumphed. About two hours afterward I took my leave, the doctor assuring me that digestion and assimilation had now done their work, and inextricably woven their material texture into the ethereal tissues of his wife's frame.

A week after, when Mrs. S reappeared in society, all the friends of the family were amazed at her sudden change from the condition of a dying consumptive to one of a lady in the full flush of youth and health. None, however, knew the secret of this change but the doctor, myself, and now, for the first lime, the readers of this narrative.