Several newspapers have reported Mirette's novel, with praises, of which we spoke in the Spiritist Review of last February. We can only congratulate the journalist that have not stopped the ideas contained in that work, although contrary to their convictions. It is a step forward, for there was a time, when the Spiritist color alone would have been a reason for disapproval. We have seen with which parsimony and embarrassment, even the friends of Théophile Gautier, spoke of his novel
Spiritist. It is true that, apart from what touches the spiritual world, the essentially moral character of Mirette, lends its flank to the mockery. However skeptical one is, one does not laugh at what results in good.
Criticism has mainly focused on this point: Why mix the supernatural in this simple story? Was it useful for the action to rely on facts of visions and apparitions? What need had the author to transport his heroes to the
imaginary world of the spiritual life, to get to the reparation decreed by the Providence? Don’t we have thousands of very educational stories without the use of such resources?
Certainly, it was not necessary; but we will say to these gentlemen: if Mr. Sauvage had written a Catholic novel, would you reproach him, skeptical as you are, for using hell, paradise, angels, demons and all the symbols of faith? To bring in the gods, goddesses, Olympus, and Tartarus in a Pagan novel? Why then find it bad for a writer, whether he is a Spiritist or not, to use the elements offered to him by Spiritism, that is a belief like any other, having its place in the sun, if such belief lends itself to him? With less reason one can blame him if, in his conviction, he sees providential means in them, to arrive at the punishment of the guilty and the reward of the good ones.
If, then, in the writer's mind, these beliefs are truths, why should he not expound them in a novel, as well as in a philosophical work? But there is more: it is that, as we have said many times, these same beliefs, open to literature and the arts a vast and new field of exploration, from which they will draw, with full hands, the most striking paintings and endearing situations. Look at what use Barbara made of it, incredulous as he was, in his novel
The Murder of the Red Bridge (Spiritist Review, January 1867). Only, as it has happened to Christian art, those that have faith will put them to better use; they will find in them inspirational motives that those that only make works of fantasy will never have.
Spiritists ideas are in the air; they abound in current literature, as we know; the most skeptical writers have resorted to them without realizing it, urged by the very force of reasoning, to use them as explanations or means of action. This is how Mr. Ponson du Terrail has very recently, and more than once, enlivened himself at the expense of Spiritism and its followers, in a serial novel entitled
Mon Village, published in the
Evening Monitor (January 7
th, 1867), expressing himself as follows:
“These two children already loved each other, and perhaps they would never dare say it.Love is sometimes instantaneous and would readily lead people to believe in the transmigration[1]of souls and the plurality of existences. Who knows? These two souls that quiver at the first contact and who, in the past, believed themselves unknown to one another, weren't they sisters once?And, as they arrived in the “Grand'Rue de Saint-Florentin,” they passed by a man that was walking quickly, and that suffered a sort of electric shock, at their sight. This man was Mulot, coming out of the Universe cafe. But Mr. Anatole and Mr. Mignonne did not see him. Collected and silent, living, so to speak, in themselves, their souls were undoubtedly far from the land they were treading on."The author has, therefore, seen situations in the world similar to those he wishes to portray, and which are a problem for the moralist; he finds a logical solution only by admitting that these two incarnate souls that urged towards each other, by an irresistible attraction, could have been sisters in another existence. Where did he get this thought from? It wasn’t, certainly, from the Spiritist books that he probably did not read, as proven by the errors he made every time he talks about the doctrine. He got it from this current of ideas that go around world, from which the unbelievers themselves cannot escape, and that they believe, in good faith, to draw from their inner self. While fighting Spiritism, they unwittingly work to accredit its principles. It doesn't matter which way these principles infiltrate; later they will recognize that only the name is missing.
With the title
Christmas Story,
l'Avenir National on December 26
th, 1866, published an article by Mr. Taxile Delort, a not much Spiritist writer, as we know, in which the author supposes a journalist sitting by the fireplace on Christmas Eve, wondering what had become of the Good News
[2] that the angels, had come to announce to the world, two thousand years ago, on that day. As he was devoting himself to his reflections, the journalist heard a firm and gentle voice telling him:
“
I am the Spirit; that of the Revolution; the Spirit that strengthens individuals and peoples; workers, stand up! The past still has a breath of life and challenges the future. Progress, lie or utopia, shouts at you; don’t you hear these deceptive voices? To gain strength and walk forward, look behind you for a moment.Progress is invincible; it even uses those that resist it to advance."
We will not follow the journalist and the Spirit in the dialogue that is established between them, and in which the latter unfolds the future, because they are walking on grounds that are forbidden to us; we will only point out at the artifice that the author uses to achieve his ends. To his eyes, such artifice is pure fantasy, but we would not be surprised if a true Spirit had whispered to him the sentence that we have underlined above.
At this time, a most moving drama, entitled Maxwel, by Mr. Jules Barbier, is being played at the
Théâtre de l'Ambigu, and of which, in just a few words, this is the crux of the plot.
A poor weaver, named Butler, is accused of murdering a gentleman, and all indications point at him, so that he is sentenced to be hanged, by Judge Maxwel. Only one man could prove him innocent, but nobody knows what became of him. The weaver's wife, however, in a fit of somnambulism, saw the man and portrayed him; they could, therefore, find it.
A good and wise doctor, who believes in somnambulism, friend of Judge Maxwel, comes to inform him of this incident, in order to obtain a stay of execution; but Maxwel, skeptical of the faculties that he regards as supernatural, maintains his judgment, and the execution takes place. A few weeks later this man reappears and tells what happened. The innocence of the condemned is demonstrated, and the vision of the somnambulist confirmed.
However, the true murderer remained unknown. Fifteen years passed, during which a host of incidents took place. The judge, overcome with remorse, devotes his life to finding the culprit. The Butler's widow, that moved abroad with her daughter, died in misery. Later this girl becomes a fashionable courtesan, with another name. A fortuitous circumstance places the knife that had been used in the murder in her hands; like her mother, she goes into somnambulism, and this object, like a common thread, brings her back to the past, she recounts all the adventures of the crime and reveals the real culprit, that is nobody else but the very brother of Judge Maxwel.
This is not the first time that somnambulism has been staged; but what distinguishes the new drama is that it is represented under an eminently serious and practical light, without any mixture of the marvelous, and in its most serious consequences, since it serves as a means of protest against the death penalty. By proving that what men cannot see through the eyes of the body, is not hidden from the eyes of the soul, it demonstrates the existence of the soul, and its action, independent of matter.
From somnambulism to spiritualism the distance is not great, since they are explained, demonstrated, and complemented by each other; whatever tends to propagate the one, also tends to propagate the other. The Spirits were not mistaken when they announced that the Spiritist idea would come into being through all kinds of ways. The double vision and the plurality of existences, confirmed by the facts, and accredited by a multitude of publications, join the beliefs more and more every day, and surprise no more; they are two doors open back to back to Spiritism.
[1] The original reads “transmission” that seems to be a typo (T.N.)
[2] The Gospel (T.N.)
