The cabin and the salon.

Among our old correspondence we find the following letter, which comes apropos of the preceding article.

Paris, July 29, 1860.

Sir, I take the liberty of communicating to you the reflections suggested by two facts that I observed and that, with all justice, could be qualified as studies of Spiritist customs. You will see thereby that moral phenomena have value for me. Since I devoted myself to the study of Spiritism, it seems that I see a hundred times more things than before; some fact, to which I would not have given the least attention, today leads me to reflect. I am — I might say — before a perpetual spectacle, in which each individual has his role, and offers me an enigma to decipher. It is true that some are so easy, when one possesses the admirable key of Spiritism, that there is no great merit in them; even so they awaken great interest, as if we found ourselves, thanks to Spiritism, in a country whose language we understand. The doctrine has made me meditative and observant, for now for me everything has a cause. The thousand and one facts that in other times seemed to me the work of chance and passed unnoticed, today have their reason for being and their usefulness. A trifle, in the moral order, attracts my attention and is a lesson to me. But I was forgetting that it is apropos of a lesson that I wish to entertain you. I am a piano teacher. Some time ago, going to the house of one of my pupils, who came from a family of high society, I entered by chance the rooms intended for the porter. A woman with her fists on her hips, of commendable physique and morals, occupied a corner. She was rebuking the conduct of her daughter, a girl of about fifteen, whose manners contrasted in an admirable way with the mother. “What has Miss Justina done — I asked, to excite to such a point your anger? — Do not speak to me of it, sir; this little hussy does not realize her duchess airs! She does not like to wash dishes; she thinks it ruins her hands, that it smells bad, she who was raised with the cows, at her grandmother's house. She is afraid of dirtying her nails; she needs perfume for her handkerchief! Look at the perfume I will give you!” At this a vigorous slap made her recoil four steps. “Ah! sir, one must correct children when they are immature. I never spoiled mine; all my children are good workers and it is necessary that this pretentious minx lose her airs of a great lady.” After having given some counsel of serenity to the mother and of submission to the daughter, I went up to the residence of my pupil, without attaching importance to that family scene. There, by singular coincidence, I saw the counterpart. The mother, a woman of society, of fine manners, was also rebuking her daughter, but for a completely opposite reason. She said to her: “Look at your manners, Sophia; you resemble more a cook, which is not to be wondered at: your particular predilection for the kitchen makes you feel better there than in the salon. I guarantee that Justina, the porter's daughter, would be ashamed of you. One would say that the wet nurse exchanged one for the other in the cradle.”

I had never given attention to these particulars. The juxtaposition of the two scenes was necessary for me to notice them. Miss Sophia, my pupil, is a young woman of eighteen, very pretty, but her features have something vulgar; her manners are common and without distinction; her bearing, her movements have something heavy and awkward. I was unaware of her inclination for the kitchen. I then set myself to comparing little Justina, of such aristocratic instincts, and I asked myself whether here was not an admirable example of innate propensities, considering that in the two, education was powerless to modify them. Why does one, raised in the bosom of opulence and of good manners, have vulgar tastes and manners, whereas the other, from infancy living in a more rustic milieu, has the sentiment of distinction and of delicate things, despite the mother's corrections, that she might lose the habit? O philosophers! you who wish to probe the depths of the human heart, explain these phenomena without the previous existences. For me, it is indubitable that the two girls have the instinct of what they were. What do you think of this, dear master? Accept, D…

We think that Miss Justina, the porter's daughter, might well be a variant of what Charles Fourier says: “One sees every day persons begging at the doors of the castles of which they were owners in preceding lives.” Who knows whether Miss Justina was not the lady of that palace, and Miss Sophia, the great lady, her porter? This thought is revolting for certain people who do not admit the idea of having been less than what they are, or of becoming the servant of their servant; if it were so, what would become of the pure-blooded races, which one took such care not to mate? Console yourselves. The blood of your ancestors may run in your veins, since the body proceeds from the body. As for the Spirit, it is another thing. But what is to be done, if it is so? Because a man is vexed by the rain, it will not therefore cease to rain. Without doubt it is humiliating to think that from master one may pass to servant and from rich to beggar; but nothing is more natural than that it should be so. It suffices not to be vain and proud in order not to be lowered; good and generous in order not to be reduced to begging for that which one refused to others. To be punished for that in which one has sinned, is this not the most just of justices? Yes, from great we can become small; but, if we were good, we shall not become bad again. Now, is it not preferable to be an honest proletarian than a vicious rich man?