Herr Paulus : his rise, his greatness, & his fall

Front matter

Herr Panlu

By Walter Besant

_J i

Preface

The first edition of ' Herr Paulus ' revealed a very astonishing, unexpected, and, I think, an unprecedented fact. From certain letters which were sent to me privately, and from certain observations made by various reviewers in sundry papers, I have learned that the English people have entirely forgotten the whole subject of Mesmerism, or Animal Magnetism. This mysterious Force, which has been proved over and over again to be as real and as inexplicable as any oi the Forces which are found to govern matter, which has been made the subject of innumerable controversies, on which a whole body of literature has been written, is now, after some thirty years of comparative neglect in this country, utterly forgotten. A Force which will enable one man to control another so that he shall make him walk, sit, lie, write, read, think, or feel exactly as the controller orders : a Force which, when it can be applied, is an anaesthetic under whose influence a patient can endure, painlessly and unconsciously, the most terrible operations ; which has engaged the attention of the greatest scientific minds ; from which so much was once expected : this has been so utterly forgotten that people not generally considered ignorant have learned to class it among the common cheats and juggleries of the professional medium. Now and then a peripatetic lecturer gives a feeble illustration of Mesmerism at an Institute, or a young man of inquiring mind finds out that he possesses the mesmeric power ; but serious investigation of the subject has, in this country at iv HERR PAUL US

least, entirely ceased ; the mass of the people have wholly forgotten it ; and most of those who have read ' Herr Paulus ' cannot understand how he ' did ' certain things, though in the novel it is expressly stated that they were done by means of mesmerism. Critics in their reviews objected that his method ought to have been explained, that demands were made on credulity, that nobody could be expected to believe these things, and so forth. Some thinkers wrote to the unfortunate author in these terms, and the anonymous letter-writer, who is always a great chucklehead, asked with scorn if one was expected seriously to believe in Mr. Brudenel's conversation with the Sage of Abyssinia, and to swallow the statement that by ' mere conjuring ' a man could be made to write letters against his own knowledge.

Herr Paulus mesmerised a whole household except two. Had he brought these two also under his power there would have been no limit to his miracles. As it was, his achievements were modest indeed compared with what he might have done. For my own part, when I think of the position which he occupied and the marvels he might have worked, I am even surprised at his moderation. It sometimes seems to me as if he threw away one of the greatest chances ever offered to any young man. For to be at once a highly developed Mesmerist and a Prestidigitateur of the first order is a combination that is rare indeed. The latter cheats the eye ; he makes photographs flutter from the ceiling, he makes Indian papers suddenly appear in the hands and as suddenly vanish — at least, that is what the audience will report of the phenomenon. But the former — the Mesmerist — subdues the mind, which is a much greater thing. It was by magnetic influence that Herr Paulus made Mr. Brudenel write, say, and think what he chose. All this would have been perfectly well understood forty years ago. Now, it has gone clean out of people's minds. Not in America, it is true, nor in France, where they still investigate and study the developments of this Force, which has hitherto escaped scientific control ; but in Great Britain and her colonies.

PREFACE v

One cannot but believe that there is a great future for this mysterious power. For many years the Force of Electricity was known and experimented on ; for many years it remained the subject of occasional and fitful research; sometimes it was neglected ; then it was taken up again ; it was a curious scientific toy, interesting always and amusing sometimes except when it appeared, unbidden, in the shape of forked lightning. Now it has been conquered and is put into harness It carries messages, drags cars, stores up speeches, and is before long going to do many more useful things ; among othei things, for instance, it is, I am quite certain, about to put intc our hands a weapon by which one man will be able, alone and unaided, to destroy a great army. By means of this weapon wars will be made to cease, and the smallest nation will become as powerful for independence as the greatest. At that same time (we are born a century too soon), by means oi Magnetic Influence or Mesmerism, the greatest and best oi mankind will so order and incline the wills of the weaker brethren, including those of Czars, Emperors, Popes, and Prime Ministers, that they shall be wholly bent upon peace and think of nothing but the advancement of humanity. Then will follow a great and wonderful time for the children or grandchildren of Herr Paulus and Hetty his wife.

W. B.

United University Club : October 1888.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

PKOLOGUE 1

Book I

I. The Vestaii Virgin 13

II. The Leader ,20

III. The Prophet 24

IV. At Dinner 30

V. The First Function . . 38

VI. Good Night 49

VII. The Smoking-Koom 55

VIII. The Submission op the Leader 61

IX. The Conquest op the Harem 67

Book II

I. In the Studio 73

II. In the other Boom 79

III. In Abyssinia and Elsewhere 85

IV. Should this Happen ? 94

V. The Second Function 97

VI. Beaumont Street, Marylebone 108

VII. The Instruction op the Vestal 116

VIII. A Trifling Incident 121

IX. The Message op the Bank Book 132

X. The First Investigation ....... 141

XI. Only a Kiss 146 viii CONTENTS

CHAFTEB PAGI

XII. Sir Percival 152

XIII. Sludge .158

XIV. On Advantageous Terms 164

XV. Tom's Discovert 169

XVI. I Give Consent 173

XVII. Samson and Delilah 178

XVIII. The Forenoon 186

XIX. Still the Forenoon 192

XX. The Miracle 199

Book III

I. No Sympathy at All ...... 211

II. Satisfied with Himself , 223

III. Husband and Wife 228

IV. The First Blow . 234

V. The Second Blow 239

VI. The Third Blow 246

VII. The Fourth Blow 252

VIII. One More Engagement 257

IX. Yet Another Blow 262

X. The Dance, and After 270

XI. A Council 281

XII. A Plenary Confession 2S7

XIII. The Conference 293

XIV. A Wedding Day 306

HERR PAULUS.

Prologue

Two young people were in a garden. Their names were not Adam and Eve, but Ziphion and Bethiah, which seem somehow to resemble the original names. It was a spacious garden, though not so spacious, nor so well furnished, as the Garden of Eden, which, I take it, covered many acres and had gushing fountains of clear water ; humming birds, with love birds and avadavats ; beautiful harmless flying dragons of all colours ; tame leopards, tigers, hyaenas, and pumas, whose eyes flamed with love and praise instead of cruelty and hunger ; gold and silver fish, bright-coloured and vivacious sea snakes, and lubberly good-natured sharks for the children to swim with ; together with other delightful things which to us would be the more delightful because they would be at first so very surprising. It was, however, a beautiful garden, with some age, as they say of port. If it had been an English garden it would have been very old indeed, and would have had all round it a lovely red brick wall covered with lichen— yellow, and white, and red — with wall-flowers and grasses growing tall and thick on the broad top of it. But it was in America, where, I believe, there are no gardens at all more than two hundred years old, and few which have seen so many as three generations of English-speaking men and women. It contained a flower garden, a kitchen garden, and an orchard, all in one. The orchard contained chiefly apple-trees, and the apples were now nearly ripe, for all day long they had been industriously turning their red and streaky sides to the hot sun of early September, getting every hour ruddier and streakier, as good apples should. One of the young persons was sitting on a low stool, and the other was leaning against the trunk of an old tree. This is a detail of some importance because it shows that they were not in England, where, at sunset of a day in early autumn, young people are longing to run about, play lawn-tennis, go for walks, and do vigorous things. In America, where the heat is fierce, they are naturally less active.

B

This is one reason why so many young people ask permission to be born in England. The house which belonged to the garden stood behind it, well-built and ugly ; it was the house of Mr. Euysdael, lawyer and prominent citizen of the town, which was a small town not many hundred miles from Boston.

The girl— Bethiah Euysdael — had a box of colours and a sketching-block lying on the ground beside her. She had been engaged in making a study of trees. But now she sat, with hands clasped, looking up into the face of the young man. I have elsewhere — I believe more than once — preached the doctrine that the very best kind of woman is the woman's woman, which is the same thing as the womanly woman, the woman whom other women love, of whom other women do not speak with bitterness, or with innuendo, or with eyes glancing at each other. She may be beautiful, but women do not greatly dwell upon her good looks : she may be graceful and may possess all the accomplishments, clevernesses, dexterities, and arts which cultivated ladies desire to acquire, but other women do not greatly talk of these things : they speak of those qualities which are not taught in the schools, such as her unselfishness, her kindness, her thought for others, her sympathy, and so forth. She never studies, as some maidens use, the arts and mysteries by which man may be attracted and drawn to them as by a magnet : she does not in the least understand the strength and vehemence of the passion of love in man : nor does she inquire at all into the subject. But she knows that some women are weak, and that a pretty face does not always mean a perfectly faultless soul, whatever men may foolishly believe ; and when she comes, in her reading, upon the pretty, passionate exaggerations of poets, dramatists, and novelists, who love to represent their hero's mistress as a beautiful goddess, full of all perfections, because she is so beautiful, she lays down the book and takes up another pitched in a lower and more sensible key. When she marries it is with calmness ; she gives away her heart without illusions ; she knows her own weaknesses and is not blind to those of her husband, and she thinks that life is at best soberly happy, and that there will be no moment in it which will call for the rapture of overwhelming joy. Yet she is said to make her husband happy all his life. Very often, however, this kind of woman never marries at all.

Bethiah Euysdael was such a girl as this. Her calm, capable face : her clear grey eyes : her firm mouth : the clear strong curve of her cheek — all inspired confidence. Even the business-liko arrangement of her dark-brown hair helped to show that she was a perfectly sensible and trustworthy person : not flighty, whimsical, or humoursome — the history of the last century presents some truly admirable studies of the whimsical or himioursome woman, but at present she is rare — not enthusiastic, emotional, or hysterical. As for beauty, being what she was, nobody spoke much of her "onil

PROLOGUE 3

looks : yet she was comely and pleasant to look upon : somewhat paler in the cheek than a healthy English girl, slighter in frame and figure, and more delicate in feature. When a girl lays herself out to call attention by her dress and by her manners to her personal appearance, of course one talks about it : but Bethiah did not betray the least consciousness of beauty or the least desire for notice. Therefore such notice as she got was of another kind.

It is said that there is no place in the world where young men are so wonderfully beautiful as in New York. The ancient Greeks, it is reported, jealous of their own reputation, have sent down to know if it is really true. The young man leaning against the trunk of the old apple tree possessed this remarkable beauty, in full and brimming measure. You know the portrait of Shelley, with his girlish face and the strangely eager, passionate eyes, full of light and earnestness and fearless questioning. "Well : that face has always reminded me of Ziphion's, though Ziphion was not so tall and had a larger head in proportion to his height. By what long-forgotten marriage and blending of race did this strange face break out in a small town of a New England State '? Who was the ancestor or ancestress from whom the boy got that wonderful face and those wonderful eyes ? His mother was certainly not an artist, or a poet, nor did she in any sense belong to the imaginative race. She was a severely Christian pierson and a notable housewife, whose readings as well as her imagination were, so far as one knows, as narrow as her creed. His father certainly might have been at one time a potential poet, but the General Store which he conducted blamelessly had long since killed the poetic germ, if it ever existed. He was, however, a most respectable person : he sold everything, from an English pirated novel at ten cents to a string of onions, a barrel of apples, or a saucerful of treacle : he was a deacon in his church : and when he was not talking of dollars his mouth was full of doctrine. Dollars and doctrine : the union of this world and the next : salvation and investments : the thing is not unknown on this side of the Atlantic. Both father and mother, being perfectly satisfied with themselves, ardently desired that their only son should follow in their steps and strike out a line of trade for himself ; or, failing this, because the great and glorious gift of dollar- snatching is not granted to everyone, they prayed that he might become a lawyer and a politician, and so, presently, be elected Mayor of his own City, Governor of his own State, and perhaps — who knows ? — • President of the United States.

Where did the boy get that face ?

Perhaps — the middle classes preserve no genealogies — in some far-off generation this American youth had some Italian woman for a great-grandmother : or some passionate Andalusian, or some wild gipsy — perhaps a Provencale — from whom he derived those cle.n.r and delicate features, those black eyes which were svft and lustrous and charged with all poetic qualities, such as tenderness) sympathy, wonder, insight and sensitiveness. The lad's figure was slender and tall. In the mobile lips, in the pose of the head, in the long thin fingers, one could read a temperament more nervous than that generally found even among his countrymen. Whither this nervousness will lead the American one knows not. Perhaps in the amalgam of the future, when all the nations of the world have contributed some part to the construction of the American, the nervous temperament will be modified. But how if it be intensified '? "Whither, however, this highly-strung organisation leads the present generation one may readily observe. For of some it makes splendid orators : of some, the most eloquent preachers : of some, fiery partisans : of some, fervid martyrs : of some, the most ingenious inventors : of some, cranks : of some, the most crafty rogues : of some, impostors of the very highest order : on all it bestows qualities in the superlative.

You shall learn, presently, whither this sensitive and nervous organisation brought this young man. Never since the day — too short a day — of Absalom, was there so sweet a youth. Like Absalom, but in this respect only — because in thinking of Absalom one always thinks of a beau, sabreur — the boy wore his hair long. It was parted at the side, and rolled over his white temples with a natural curve, which, in the days of the gallant D'Orsay, was achieved, where it was not natural, by the aid of science, bear's grease, and fragrant pomade. It seemed natural that he should wear long hair : if it was an affectation it was his only one, because his chess was quite plain and even rustic, while his boots would have attracted considerable attention in the fashionable quarters of New York.

' Don't try to set me against it,' he said. ' Oh ! Bethiah, I never wanted so much sympathy as now, and if you refuse to stand by me there will be no one. Everybody is against me.'

' I am not against you, Ziph. You ought to know that.'

' I met your father just now, and ho stopped to read me a lecture about the safe waysand the unsafe ways. Well : there have been plenty of men who have tried this way and failed. I know that very well. But if I were to fail— I shan't fail, though— I should be happier than if I never had tried at all.'

' You have told your father and mother ? '

' Yes -it was like having a tooth out. I'd rather have two tectli out than go through it again. But I was bound to tell them. And now it's over, and— Bethiah— don't try to argue against it.'

' I won't, Ziph. But— oh ! — if you were oidy sure that it was the wisest and the best thing. Could you not wait a year or two—

I am sure that eighteen is full early to achieve a literary success

coidd you not, just for a little while, do — what your father wishes '? ' She added the last words with a little hesitation, from which it was

PROLOGUE 5

clear that the paternal wishes were clearly distasteful even to herself.

' Measure calico and weigh out tea ? No —no — I cannot do it.'

' But he offered to make you a lawyer if you like.'

' I hate law.'

' Then you might be a doctor — or a minister — think of being a minister, Ziph ! Why you might put your poetry into your sermons and make us all cry.'

' No — no — I must be a poet and an author. Do not try to dissuade me, Bethiah. It is my destiny.' He looked grand — this young Apollo — as he rammed his hand into his waistcoat and stood upright, the breeze gently lifting his long locks. ' My destiny calls me — a man must face his destiny.'

Of all Biblical heroes, Ziphion, son of Gad, is one of the least remarkable. He is only mentioned twice : there is even uncertainty in the spelling of his name : and by some he is held to have been a family rather than an individual. Perhaps the name was conferred upon this young poet, while yet an infant, in a spirit of Christian humility. Ziphion B. Trinder ! Neither Christian name nor surname quite consorts with a romantic face, poetical eyes, and yearning after literary fame. But what are we to do ? We are born to our surnames as we are to our godfathers and godmothers, and are powerless, unless, like Charles Kingsley's hero, we change both names altogether, which is a kind of forgery. By dint of very great genius, perhaps the commonest of names — even Johnny Briggs or Ziphion Trinder — might be made beautiful in the eyes of the world. Yet somehow it seems as if all great poets, novelists, painters, and artists of every other kind had names sweetly and musically resonant. How beautiful to the ear are the names of Raffaello, Tasso, Tennyson, Byron, Wordsworth, Talma, liachel, Bossetti, Meredith, Alma Tadema ! Perhaps the constant handling and daily familiar use of these names have polished them up and burnished them so that they now shine and glow and glitter in the sun and show to the best advantage : whereas, were they merely stuck up over shops, they would attract but little admiration.

'Well but, Ziph,' the girl objected, 'think a little. You may be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a minister, and yet become an author if you like. Think of Oliver Wendell Holmes. He is a physician.'

' No — no — literature is sacred. She will have no divided allegiance. I belong, heart and soul, to literature.'

'You are ambitious, Ziph,' — the lad blushed — 'nobody except you and me know how ambitious you are. Why not follow the regular line ? Everyone who wants to become a great man begins by being a lawyer. I suppose it is different in England. At least I never heard that Lord Salisbury or that Mr. Gladstone began in a lawyer's office. But here — think of it, Ziph.' ' I cannot think of it,' he replied.

' You believe that you can make your living by your poems and stories and things.' Observe that man, mere man, could never bring himself to speak thus coldly to a friend concerning that friend's dearest ambitions. Woman, who belongs to the sensible sex, who has no illusions, and tears away the veil without remorse, and disperses the golden mist, permits herself to say such things. Bcthiah knew the boy's dreams and loved to hear them : yet she knew also, or thought she knew, the trifling commercial value of those MSS. which filled his desk, and therefore she said, ' Poems and stories and things.'

' Of course,' the boy replied, ' I know very well that at first I may not be successful. Then I must wait in patience and work. I can live on very little. I shall go to one of the cheap boardinghouses where they charge five dollars a week. One poem a week — they couldn't offer less than five dollars for a poem —an essay now and then — a short tale occasionally — one of those that you like so much — a sketch of Something or other, dashed off — oh ! I could live very easily.'

' Well : but could you persuade editors to take one poem a week ? Don't think, Ziph '—for he changed colour — ' don't think,' she repeated earnestly, ' that I do not like your poems. I am sure they are beautiful. Many poems, not much better, are published every week in our own paper.' — Oh ! Bethiah ! 'not much better ! ' Ziph choked, but repressed himself. ' And yet I fear that you may not get a poem taken every week. And if you wish to rise you must always be learning to write better and better, and so be lifted above the first anxieties for a livelihood.'

' Well — if I find any difficulties I shall become a journalist. It's a step down, but still it is literature.'

' If you are going to be a journalist,' the girl insisted, ' why go to New York at all ? Why not begin here, right away ? Or there's Salem, where your father came from, and where you've got cousins. Why not begin in Salem, which isn't full of wickedness, like New York?'

' No,' said the boy, ' I must go to New York. In Salem I should be buried for ever. It is only in New York that a man can speak so as to be heard all over the American Continent and across the ocean as well. I want a world-wide fame.' Here he blushed, and stammered, and stopped for a moment, because he was ashamed even to speak of his own ambitions. 'I want a world-wide fame,' he repeated, after a gulp. ' I can be satisfied with nothing short of that, I want to speak to all the ends of the earth. Nobody knows except you. Everybody would laugh at me if they knew.'

' I shall never laugh at you, Ziph.' This girl was younger than himself, yet the lad confided in her, asked her advice, and was to some extent guided by her. You have heard what manner of girl she was, so that you will not ask how this could be.

PROLOGUE 7

' Well, then — you know already what I think. How can people go on living in such a place as this ? It is small and mean and ugly, and the people are ignorant and conceited and stupid. In books we read — that is, you and I read — none of the others do — about art and society and all the splendid things that go on, but hero we see none of them — we don't belong to the real world, the civilised world that has taken so many years to build.'

' We read of it, Ziph. Does not that content you '? To be sure we cannot go and live in London, if that is what you want. But we are quite as well off as other American citizens. Wo make our own culture, and everybody says it is much deeper and more real than the aristocratic varnish of Europe.'

' And we read about great men, but we never see any of them. Here they are all little men, Yesterday I was in the cemetery looking at the tombs. How many hundreds lie there ! Yet not one — no — not one — who was ever known outside his native place or will be remembered when his children are dead. How can they go on contented to be so obscure ? '

The lad had often talked in this way before. But his talk had more meaning in it now that he was going to cast himself upon the world.

Bethiah, who was neither an agnostic nor an atheist, hastened to administer, or at least to exhibit, the consolations of religion.

' Ye — yes,' the boy replied doubtfully, as if he would like to have, in addition to the Harp and Crown, the remembrance and the contemplation of world-wide fame. Indeed, one cannot but feel as if the great soul of Shakespeare himself must derive continually fresh gratification from the reports daily dropping in of his continued fame. A glorified person whose mortal remains lie in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery, or that of East Finchley, cannot have this satisfaction.

' But yet — oh ! To feel that one has lived to some purpose, and has made a mark upon his generation, and is talked about wherever the English language is spoken, and will not be forgotten when the breath is out of his body, why,' he stopped and gasped.

'Always fame and distinction, Ziph,' said the girl. 'That is all you think about. Would it not be better to feel that your work has been good work well done, whether you have won fame or whether you have remained obscure ? Then you would die with the assurance '

' You talk as if everybody was always going to church,' the boy interrupted impatiently. ' "Why, to do good work and yet miss fame — one would rather — ' he stopped, because on this girl's ears the sentiment in his mind would have sounded like rank blasphemy. ' Besides,' he went on, ' do they get such an assurance — • these obscure villagers ? Why should they get more of it than the men who fight with all the world lookirg on ? '

' If you talk of fighting,' said the girl, ' remember how many gladiators die unseen and unremembered.'

' Well, they die nobly, because they die fighting. These people die ignobly, as they have lived.'

Then there was silence awhile. The sun was sinking low and the evening air was quiet, save for the bells of the cows as they were driven slowly home along the road, each one stopping at her own gate.

' Ziph,' said Eethiah whispering, ' how much money have you ? '

' Mother will give me a hundred dollars. Father will give me nothing. When I have spent my hundred dollars, he says it will be time enough for him to send me money to carry me home again.'

' I've got a hundred dollars saved, Ziph. You shall have that money too.'

' Oh ! no — no.'

' Yes — you shall — do not say a single word. Why, Ziph, we have been schoolfellows and like brother and sister always, haven't we ?

' Always, he replied.

' Two hundred dollars is not a great deal to give you a fair start, but perhaps it will do.'

' It shall do,' said the boy. ' I am sure to succeed. I feel that I must succeed. And when I come back here I shall be' — his voice choked — ' famous. I shall be famous.'