Mysterious drawings

Under this title, the Herald of Progress, of New York, a journal devoted to spiritualist subjects and directed by Andrew Jackson Davis, contains the following narrative:

“On the 22nd of last November, Dr. Hallock, together with other persons, was invited to the house of Mrs. French, 4th Avenue, no. 8, to witness various Spiritist manifestations and to see the evolutions of a graphite pencil. Around eight o'clock Mrs. French left the room where the group was gathered and sat down on a couch, located in an adjoining cabinet. She did not leave that place during the whole meeting. Shortly after sitting down, she seemed to enter a sort of ecstasy, with eyes fixed and wild. She asked Dr. Hallock and Professor Britton to examine the room. They found upon the bed, opposite the place where she was seated, a portfolio tied with a silk ribbon and a bottle of wine to serve for the experiment. The paper that would be used to make the drawings was in the portfolio. We were invited – says Dr. Hallock – not to touch the portfolio, nor the bottle. Several pencils and two pieces of india rubber were likewise found upon the bed, but in the rest of the room there were no drawings, nor paper. After this search Mrs. French asked Mr. Cuberton to take the portfolio and carry it to the room occupied by the guests, to open it and take out the contents. There was ordinary paper, of which six sheets of different sizes were taken from the hands of Mr. Cuberton by Mrs. French and placed upon a table situated before her. She asked for pins and, taking a strip of paper 5 or 6 inches in length, which she placed on the lower edge of the paper, fastened the two edges of the latter to the strip. This done, someone was asked to take the paper and have it examined by the assistants, to hold the strip and the pins and return the sheet to her. The same thing was done with the other sheets, and each time the pins were placed in different numbers and in different locations; the sheets were handed, one by one, to another person, with a view to recognizing the paper by means of the marks, which were to correspond to those of the strips. After all the sheets had been examined and returned to Mrs. French, Mr. Cuberton took the wine and handed it to her. She placed the sheets upon the table and poured, over each of them, a quantity of wine sufficient to wet it completely, spreading it with the palm of her hand. Next she set about drying them, pressing the sheets one by one, rolling them up, blowing above them, and shaking them in the air. This lasted some minutes; then she lowered the wick of the lamp and bade the guests draw near. It must be said that during the operation of wetting, one of the sheets of paper had remained quite dry, making it necessary to begin the work over again. (The wine was a simple mixture of grape juice and sugar, authorized by the State and produced in New England). Then Mrs. French had the light restored and asked the persons to come and sit near the door where she was: Mr. Gurney, Professor Britton, Dr. Warner, and Dr. Hallock were six feet from her and the others in full view. “Placing one of the sheets upon the table before her, she put several pencils between her fingers; Dr. Hallock did not lose sight of her, as he had promised. Everything being ready, Mrs. French, to give warning that the experiment was about to begin, exclaimed: Time; then a rapid movement of the hand was seen and, for a certain moment, of both hands; a noise sharply repeated upon the paper was heard; the pencils and the paper were thrown some distance onto the floor, by a sort of nervous movement; all this lasted twenty-one seconds. The drawing represents a bouquet of flowers, composed of hyacinths, lilies, tulips, etc.

“They operated successively upon other sheets. No. 2 is also a group of flowers. No. 3 is a beautiful cluster of grapes, with its stalk, leaves, etc.; it was made in twenty-one seconds. No. 4 is a stalk and leaves with five groups of fruits resembling apricots; the leaves are a sort of moss. When she prepared for this sheet, Mrs. French asked how much time they gave her for the execution; some said ten seconds; others, less. Well, said Mrs. French, when I say: one, look at your watches; at the word four the drawing will be finished. Attention! one, two, three, four: the drawing was made, that is, in four seconds. No. 5 represents a branch of currant, from which spring twelve clusters of green currants, with flowers and leaves, surrounded by leaves of another species. The drawing was presented by Mrs. French, in ecstasy, to Mr. Bruckmaster, of Pittsburgh, as coming from the Spirit of his sister, in fulfillment of the promise she had made to him. The time spent was two seconds. No. 6, which may be considered as the masterpiece of the series, is a drawing of nine inches by four; it consists of white flowers and foliage on a dark background, that is, the drawing is of the natural color of the paper, the outlines marked and the interiors colored in pencil. Except for two other drawings produced in the same manner on another occasion, they are always in pencil on a white background. In the center of this group of flowers and in the lower part of the page there is a hand holding an open book, of one inch and a quarter by three quarters; the corners are not exactly at right angles; but what is very curious, the holes of the pins, made earlier to recognize the paper, mark the four corners of the book. At the top of the left page is written: Galatians VI and, following, the first six verses and a sixteenth part of this chapter, covering almost the two entire pages, in very legible characters, in good light, to the naked eye or with a magnifying glass. More than a hundred well-written words are counted. The time spent was thirteen seconds. When the coincidence of the holes of the paper with those of the strip was verified, Mrs. French, still in ecstasy, asked those present to certify in writing what they had just seen. Then there was written in the margin of the drawing the following: “Executed in thirteen seconds in our presence, by Mrs. French; certified by the undersigned. November 22, 1860, 4th Avenue, no.

There follow nineteen signatures.” We have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the fact, nor to suspect the good faith of Mrs. French, whom we do not know. But it must be admitted that this manner of proceeding would have something not very convincing for our incredulous ones, who would not fail to raise objections and to say that all the preparations would have an air of familiarity with prestidigitation, which does the same things, apparently without so many encumbrances. We confess to being somewhat in agreement with them. That the drawings were made is incontestable; only the origin does not seem to us proved in an authentic manner. Be that as it may, granting that there was no fraud, it is, without the least doubt, one of the most curious facts of direct writing and drawing, of which the theory explains to us the possibility. Without this theory, such facts would, at first sight, be relegated as fables or maneuvers of prestidigitation. But, by the very fact of making known to us the conditions under which the phenomena can be produced, it should make us all the more circumspect, accepting them only with knowledge of the cause.

Decidedly the American mediums have a specialty for the production of extraordinary phenomena, for the journals of the country are full of a host of facts of the kind, which our European mediums are far from approaching. Thus, on the other side of the Atlantic, they say that we are still very backward in Spiritism. When we asked the Spirits the reason for this difference, they answered: “To each his role,” yours is not the same, and God has not reserved for you the smallest part in the work of regeneration.” Considering the merit of mediums from the point of view of rapidity of execution, of the energy and the power of the effects, ours are eclipsed beside those; nevertheless, we know many who would not exchange the simple and consoling communications they receive for the wonders of the American mediums. They suffice to give them faith, and they prefer what touches the soul to what strikes the eyes; the morality that consoles and makes better, to the phenomena that impress. For a moment, in Europe, people were preoccupied with the material facts; but soon they set them aside for Philosophy, which opens a vaster field to thought and tends toward the final and providential object of Spiritism: social regeneration. Each people has its particular genius and its special tendencies, and each, within the limits assigned to it, concurs in the plans of Providence [see Reincarnation in America]. The most advanced will be the one that marches most quickly on the path of moral progress, inasmuch as it is this one that will draw nearest to the designs of God.