We could have done a number of other things;but on account of limited time,we went back home.The sail up the breezy and sparkling river was a charming experience,and would have been satisfyingly sentimental and romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet parrot,whose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were always this-worldly,and often profane.He had also a superabundance of the discordant,ear-splitting,metallic laugh common to his breed--a machine-made laugh,a Frankenstein laugh,with the soul left out of it.
He applied it to every sentimental remark,and to every pathetic song.
He cackled it out with hideous energy after 'Home again,home again from a foreign shore,'and said he 'wouldn't give a damn for a tug-load of such rot.'Romance and sentiment cannot long survive this sort of discouragement;so the singing and talking presently ceased;which so delighted the parrot that he cursed himself hoarse for joy.
Then the male members of the party moved to the forecastle,to smoke and gossip.There were several old steamboatmen along,and I learned from them a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friends during my long absence.
I learned that a pilot whom I used to steer for is become a spiritualist,and for more than fifteen years has been receiving a letter every week from a deceased relative,through a New York spiritualist medium named Manchester--postage graduated by distance:from the local post-office in Paradise to New York,five dollars;from New York to St.Louis,three cents.I remember Mr.Manchester very well.
I called on him once,ten years ago,with a couple of friends,one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle.
This uncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way,half a dozen years before:a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked a tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and sixty-five feet high.
He did not survive this triumph.At the ance/> just referred to,my friend questioned his late uncle,through Mr.Manchester,and the late uncle wrote down his replies,using Mr.Manchester's hand and pencil for that purpose.
The following is a fair example of the questions asked,and also of the sloppy twaddle in the way of answers,furnished by Manchester under the pretense that it came from the specter.
If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives,I owe him an apology--QUESTION.Where are you?
ANSWER.In the spirit world.
Q.Are you happy?
A.Very happy.Perfectly happy.
Q.How do you amuse yourself?
A.Conversation with friends,and other spirits.
Q.What else?
A.Nothing else.Nothing else is necessary.
Q.What do you talk about?
A.About how happy we are;and about friends left behind in the earth,and how to influence them for their good.
Q.When your friends in the earth all get to the spirit land,what shall you have to talk about then?--nothing but about how happy you all are?
No reply.It is explained that spirits will not answer frivolous questions.
Q.How is it that spirits that are content to spend an eternity in frivolous employments,and accept it as happiness,are so fastidious about frivolous questions upon the subject?
No reply.
Q.Would you like to come back?
A.No.
Q.Would you say that under oath?
A.Yes.
Q.What do you eat there?
A.We do not eat.
Q.What do you drink?
A.We do not drink.
Q.What do you smoke?
A.We do not smoke.
Q.What do you read?
A.We do not read.
Q.Do all the good people go to your place?
A.Yes.
Q.You know my present way of life.Can you suggest any additions to it,in the way of crime,that will reasonably insure my going to some other place.
A.No reply.
Q.When did you die?
A.I did not die,I passed away.
Q.Very well,then,when did you pass away?How long have you been in the spirit land?
A.We have no measurements of time here.
Q.Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as to dates and times in your present condition and environment,this has nothing to do with your former condition.
You had dates then.One of these is what I ask for.
You departed on a certain day in a certain year.
Is not this true?
A.Yes.
Q.Then name the day of the month.
(Much fumbling with pencil,on the part of the medium,accompanied by violent spasmodic jerkings of his head and body,for some little time.
Finally,explanation to the effect that spirits often forget dates,such things being without importance to them.)Q.Then this one has actually forgotten the date of its translation to the spirit land?
This was granted to be the case.
Q.This is very curious.Well,then,what year was it?
(More fumbling,jerking,idiotic spasms,on the part of the medium.
Finally,explanation to the effect that the spirit has forgotten the year.)Q.This is indeed stupendous.Let me put one more question,one last question,to you,before we part to meet no more;--for even if I fail to avoid your asylum,a meeting there will go for nothing as a meeting,since by that time you will easily have forgotten me and my name:did you die a natural death,or were you cut off by a catastrophe?
A.(After long hesitation and many throes and spasms.)NATURAL DEATH.
This ended the interview.My friend told the medium that when his relative was in this poor world,he was endowed with an extraordinary intellect and an absolutely defectless memory,and it seemed a great pity that he had not been allowed to keep some shred of these for his amusement in the realms of everlasting contentment,and for the amazement and admiration of the rest of the population there.
This man had plenty of clients--has plenty yet.He receives letters from spirits located in every part of the spirit world,and delivers them all over this country through the United States mail.
These letters are filled with advice--advice from 'spirits'who don't know as much as a tadpole--and this advice is religiously followed by the receivers.One of these clients was a man whom the spirits (if one may thus plurally describe the ingenious Manchester)were teaching how to contrive an improved railway car-wheel.It is coarse employment for a spirit,but it is higher and wholesomer activity than talking for ever about 'how happy we are.'