Exploitation of Spiritist ideas,

— Several newspapers spoke with praise of the novel Mireta, of which we wrote in the Review of February 1867. We can only congratulate the journalists, who did not stop short before the ideas contained in this work, although contrary to their convictions. This is progress, because there was a time when the mere Spiritist coloring would have been grounds for disapproval. We saw with what parsimony and embarrassment even Théophile Gautier's friends spoke of his novel Spirite. It is true that, apart from what concerns the spiritual world, the essentially moral character of Mireta lent itself little to mockery. However sceptical one may be, one does not laugh at that whose consequence is good. The criticism fixed itself principally on this point: Why mingle the supernatural in this simple tale? Was it useful to the action to rely on cases of visions and apparitions? What need had the author to transport his heroes into the imaginary world of the spiritual life, in order to reach the accomplishment of the reparation decreed by Providence? Have we not thousands of edifying stories without the employment of such resources?

Certainly this was not necessary. But we will say to these gentlemen: If Mr. Sauvage had written a Catholic novel, would you, however sceptical you might be, reproach him for employing as a resource of the action hell, paradise, the angels, the demons, and all the symbols of the faith? For making the gods, the goddesses, Olympus and Tartarus intervene in a pagan novel? Why, then, find it bad that a writer, Spiritist or not, should use the elements offered by Spiritism, which is a belief like any other, having its place in the sun, if this belief lends itself to the subject? With still less reason can he be censured if, in his conviction, he sees therein a providential means to reach the punishment of the guilty and the reward of the good. If, then, in the writer's thought, these beliefs are true, why would he not expound them in a novel, as much as in a philosophical work? But there is more: it is that, as we have often said, these very beliefs open to literature and the arts a vast and new field of exploitation, where they will gather by handfuls moving scenes and the most interesting situations. See the advantage that Barbara, however incredulous he was, drew in his novel The Murder of the Red Bridge (Review of January 1867). Only, as happened with Christian art, those who have faith will draw better profit from them; therein they will find motives of inspiration which those who make only works of fantasy will never have.

— Spiritist ideas are in the air; as is known, they abound in current literature; the most sceptical writers resort to them without suspecting it, impelled by the very force of reasoning to employ them as explanations or means of action. It is thus that, very recently, Mr. Ponson du Terrail, who more than once amused himself at the expense of Spiritism and its adherents, in a serial novel entitled Mon Village - Google Books, published in the evening Moniteur (January 7, 1867), expresses himself thus:

“These two children already love each other and perhaps would never dare to say so.

“At times love is instantaneous and would easily lead one to believe in the transmission of souls and in the plurality of existences. Who knows? These two souls, which throb at the first contact and which, a short while ago, believed themselves unknown to each other, were they not once sisters?

“And, when they arrived on the Grand’Rue of Saint-Florentin, they crossed paths with a man who was walking very quickly and who, at the sight of them, experienced a kind of electric shock. That man was Mulot, who was coming out of the Café Univers. But Mr. Anatole and Mignonne did not see him. Withdrawn and silent, living so to speak within themselves, no doubt their souls were far from this earth they trod.”

The author, then, saw in the world situations similar to those he has just described, and which are a problem for the moralist; he finds no logical solution except by admitting that these two incarnated souls, drawn one toward the other by an irresistible attraction, could have been sisters in another existence. Where did he gather this thought? Certainly not in the Spiritist works, which he probably has not read, as is proved by the errors committed every time he spoke of the doctrine. He gathered it in that current of ideas which traverse the world, from which not even the incredulous can escape, and which in good faith they believe they draw from their own depths. Even in combating Spiritism, they work without willing it to give credit to its principles. Little matters the way by which these principles infiltrate; later they will recognize that it lacks only the name.

— Under the title of Christmas Tale, the Avenir National of December 26, 1866 published an article by Mr. Taxile Delort, a writer very little Spiritist, as is known, in which the author supposes a journalist seated, on Christmas Eve, by the fire, asking what had become of the Good News which the angels, on such a day, had come to announce to the world two thousand years ago. As he gave himself over to his reflections, the journalist heard a firm and gentle voice, which said to him:

“I am the Spirit; that of the Revolution; the Spirit that fortifies individuals and peoples; workers, arise! the past still keeps a breath of life and defies the future. Progress, lie or utopia! they cry to you; do not listen to these deceptive voices; to take strength and march forward, look a moment behind you.

“Progress is invincible; it makes use even of those who resist it in order to advance.”

We shall not follow the journalist and the Spirit in the dialogue established between them, and in which the latter unfolds the future, because they march on a terrain that is forbidden to us; we shall only make note of what resource the author employs to reach his ends. In his eyes this resource is pure fantasy, but we would not be surprised if a true Spirit had whispered to him the phrase above, which we underline.

— At this moment there is being performed at the Ambigu theater one of the most moving dramas, entitled Maxwel - Google Books, by Mr. Jules Barbier. n Here, in two words, is the knot of the plot.

A poor weaver, named Buttler, is accused of the murder of a gentleman, and all the appearances are so much against him that he is condemned by the judge Maxwel to be hanged. Only one man could vindicate him, but it is not known what became of him. Meanwhile, the weaver's wife, in a fit of somnambulistic sleep, saw this man and described him; thus they could find him. A good and learned physician, who believes in somnambulism, a friend of the judge Maxwel, comes to inform him of this incident, in order to obtain a reprieve for the execution. But Maxwel, sceptical regarding these faculties, which he considers supernatural, upholds the sentence and the execution takes place. Some weeks later the man reappears and tells what happened. The innocence of the condemned man is demonstrated and the somnambulist's vision confirmed. Nevertheless, the true murderer remained unknown. Fifteen years passed, during which several incidents succeeded one another. The judge, overwhelmed with remorse, devotes his life to the search for the guilty one. Buttler's widow, who expatriated herself taking her daughter, died in misery. Later the daughter becomes a fashionable courtesan, under another name. A fortuitous circumstance places in her hands the cleaver used by the murderer; like her mother, she falls into somnambulism, and that object, as a guiding thread, leading her to the past, she tells all the vicissitudes of the crime and reveals the true culprit, who is none other than the very brother of the judge Maxwel. It is not the first time that somnambulism has been put on stage; but what distinguishes the new drama is that it is presented in an eminently serious and practical light, without any mixture of the marvelous and in its gravest consequences, for it serves as a means of protest against the death penalty. To prove that what man cannot see with the eyes of the body is not hidden from those of the soul, is to demonstrate the existence of the soul and its action independent of matter. From somnambulism to Spiritism the distance is not great, for they explain, demonstrate, and complete each other; all that tends to propagate one, tends equally to propagate the other. The Spirits were not mistaken when they announced that the Spiritist idea would arise by every means. Second sight and the plurality of existences, confirmed by facts and given credit by countless publications, enter more and more each day into beliefs and no longer surprise: they are two doors thrown wide open to Spiritism. [1] [Paul Jules Barbier was a French poet, dramatist, and librettist born on March 8, 1825 and deceased on January 16, 1901.]