Class., 
 
 ^3J^tliJ^ 
 
 z 
 
 igtitN" 
 
 Ci}£^IGHT DEPOSIT 
 
5 l-I r^b 
 
 Price Twenty-Five Cents. 
 
 THE 
 
 PROPHETESS: 
 
 BEING THK LIFE, 
 
 MTUML AND SUPERNATURAL, 
 
 MRS. B 
 
 OTHERWISE KNOWN AS MADAME ROCKWELL, 
 
 THE FORTUNE-TELLER, 
 
 FOR THE PAST FIVE VEARS AT BARNUm's MUSEUM, IN THE 
 CITY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD, CLINTON HALL. 
 
 BOSTON: REDDING & CO., No. 8 State Street. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : G. B. iflEBER, Agent, No. 3 Ledger Buildings, Third St. 
 
 Baltimore.- w. taylor &. co.— new oih.eans: j. c. morgan. 
 
 1849. 
 
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD. 
 NEW AND BEAUTIFUL WORK. 
 
 HOGARTH: 
 
 HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 
 
 With Thirty- Th7-ee Engravings, copied from Ms Choices Pictures, 12 pp. large octavo. 
 
 Price Ti^remty-Five Cents. 
 
 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 Portrait of Hogarth (painted by Himself) ; the Rake's Inheritance ; the Gaming- 
 House ; the Distressed Poet : the B^nraged Musician ; Marriage-a-la-Mode — the Sa- 
 loon ; Apprentices at their Looms; Industrious Apprentice at Church ; Idle Appren- 
 tice Gaming; Idle Apprentice sent to Sea; Idle Apprentice betrayed by a profligate 
 Associate and apprehended for Murder; Idle Apprentice committed for Trial by the 
 Industrious Apprentice, who has become a Magistrate of Loudon ; Industrious Ap- 
 prentice in the Confidence of his Master; Industrious Apprentice .married to his Mas- 
 ter's Daughter ; Calais Gate ; Scene from Four Stages of Cruelty; March to Finch- 
 ley; Beer Sti-eet ; Gin Lane; the Cockpit; tlie Election; the Entertainment ; the 
 Canvass ; the Polling ; Chairing the Member ; Dancing, from the Analysis of Beauty ; 
 the Politician; Columbus and the Egg; the Oratorio; the Laughing Audience ; Blun- 
 ders in Perspective ; Country Inn-Yard ; Scene from " Noon." 
 
 This is a most beautiful work, and is well calculated to instruct aiwl amuse the read- 
 er. The Engravings are full-sized imperial octavo pages, and are faithful and spirited 
 copies of the originals. The work can be procured at all the cheap publication offices. 
 It can also be sent to any part of the country by mail. Five copies will be sent to one 
 address for one dollar. 
 
 MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. 
 
 BY GEORGE HOGARTH. 
 In One Volume, Paper Covers — Phice Fifty Cents. 
 
 " This admirable work needs no praise to recommend it to the reading public. There 
 is no book in the language to compete with it — it stands by itself, a popular enc3'clope- 
 dia of musical information. It is not a book for musicians, but for readers ; and we 
 have no doubt that it will be moi-e popular here than it was in England, because the 
 information which it conveys is here more needed." — N. Y. Evening Mirror. 
 
 "A new and cheap edition of this valuable work, now that music is so generally cul- 
 tivated, was much desired. It is judiciously adapted to the wants of the general read- 
 er, avoiding minute details, but imparting all necessai-y infonuation relative to the 
 present state of the art, and also its history in other times and among various nations. 
 It forms a closely-printed octavo volume of 180 pages." — N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 
 
 THE SEAMSTRESS: 
 
 A GUIDE TO PLAIN AND FANCY NEEDLEWORK, KNITTING, NETTING, TATTING, AND 
 CROTCHET, MILLINERY AND DRESSMAKING, EMBROIDERY, BABY LINEN, &c., &c 
 
 In One Volume, 3'2mo., Cloth, and Gilt Backs — Price 63i Cents. 
 
 This is a useful little manual of Needlework that should find its way to the work- 
 table of every young lady in the country. 
 
 " We have looked over this work, spite of our literary tendencies, with strong inter- 
 est in the circumstantial details it opens in the useful and beautiful arts, which it so 
 well describes, that the mechanical spirit is roused, and we feel a desire to illustrate, 
 by actual experiment, the faiiylike operations of the magic needle. The directions, 
 in some hundred varieties of work, are clear and precise ; and the book furnishes ■» 
 complete manual in the ancient and feminine science of stitchery. Success, we say- 
 to that bright little lance, the needle !" — UniverccBlum. 
 
 %- 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/prophetessbeinglOOnewy 
 
E'c^ravad'T?!/ W, G Jaclaaao from s. Uafeuerreot^e "byBracly 
 
 RJ.'l'iflrr. L'rinlcr 
 
/ 
 
 THE 
 
 /^3 2— 
 
 PROPHETESS: 
 
 BEING THE LIFE, 
 
 NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL, 
 
 MRS. B 
 
 OTHERWISE KNOWN AS MADAME ROCKWELL, 
 
 THE FORTUNE-TELLER, 
 
 FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS AT BARNUM's MUSEUM, IN THE 
 CITY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 ^jj" COPYRIGi iT ^ 
 
 N E W Y O R K : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD, CLINTON HALL. 
 
 \ ■■ 
 
 1849. 
 

 
 Entered according to Act of Cougress, in the year 1849, 
 
 By J. S. REDFIELD, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 
 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 
 13 Chambers Street, N. Y. 
 
 LC Control Number 
 
 tmp96 026016 
 
THE 
 
 FORTUNE-TELLER OF THE MUSEUM. 
 
 In fulfilment of destiny, T found myself in the picture-gallery 
 of Barnum's museum, at New York, standing before a low glass 
 door, whereon a placard hung, whose staring capitals proclaimed 
 to the curious and credulous that within there any one, so choos- 
 ing, might have revealed to him, or her, any particular fact in 
 the past, present, or future — all for the extremely reasonable 
 price of twenty-five cents. 
 
 Leaning for a little while against the railing of the gallery, 
 and staring back again at those staring capitals, I deliberated 
 about making the investment they proposed. While I thus de- 
 liberated, the letters grew still larger to view, and grander and 
 more grand to my mind arose the ideas of past, present, 
 and FUTURE — and forgetting the sights around, and unheeding 
 the heavy voice of the English giant in the room below, who 
 repeatedly assured the crowd that his autobiography, of which 
 he had still a few copies remaining on hand, was well worth 
 reading, and dog-cheap at a shilling — I had a revery. 
 
 The PAST — ay, the dead and coffined past, who may reveal 
 it ? — who lift up the mouldy lid, or roll away the stone from the 
 mossy sepulchre's mouth ? How far back into eternity did the 
 time past extend ? What was transacted in the days that are 
 gone? Who existed, who acted, and who suffered therein? 
 What principles or ideas, living and moving in those days, now 
 lie buried in the dust of ages? Can science inform us? — not 
 our science, for she is but the child of the old age of time. 
 Can history tell ? History ! — alas, her scroll is too dirty with 
 the dust of disputation, too much torn by the fingers of faction, 
 too much blurred with the tears and blotted with the blood of 
 truth's millions of martyrs, too much interpolated, expurgated, 
 falsified, too insufficient, and very contradictory. No, whether 
 lisping in primitive fable or drivelling in newspaper news, his- 
 
6 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 tory must be confessed a sorry vevelator of either ancient or 
 modern matters and things. Can fame answer ? — fame ! — whose 
 vocation is to set good men's gravestones over bad men's graves, 
 while her trumpet still lies with a thousand false notes ! — no, not 
 fame. 
 
 Surely, if this woman in the little low room can truly tell one 
 about the past alone, a quarter were well expended for the in- 
 formation ; — yes, and another shilling along with it. 
 
 Then for the present, the breathing present, the busy, mo- 
 ving, tramping, crowding, rushing present, with its warm blood, 
 strong sinews, firm flesh, and quick breath ! — the palpable pres- 
 ent, whose living forms stand all in the foreground, in the full 
 daylight of to-day, straight before the eye, right under the nose, 
 and close to the immediate touch ! Who shall tell how much 
 of the present is white truth, and how much a black lie? Sorry 
 am I to say, not the savans or demi-savans of the lecture-room, 
 nor the preachers in the pulpits, nor the orators in Congress, nor 
 the spouters in the caucus, nor — most lamentable of all — the 
 " Times," nor " Presse," the " Sun," " Tribune," nor " Herald." 
 
 Now 1 am bold to say, of this madam " what's-her-name," 
 who deals here in a small way in the line of past and present, 
 that if her wares be but genuine, the prices she puts on them 
 are certainly most moderate. 
 
 But she advertises for the future also. The future, that is 
 not yet ! — the unformed, unborn child of the present and past, 
 in whose nostrils the breath of life has not been breathed, and 
 whose very soul is still in abeyance — whose house is a castle 
 of air, and whose home is the land of dreams ! The illimita- 
 ble future ! Who shall take its altitudes and bearings — its lati- 
 tudes and longitudes? The doubtful future! — whose truest 
 scriptures are the ever-opposite promises of hope and bodings 
 of fear ! Who will answer for it, or who dare even to question 
 it? The dim and misty, the dark and impenetrable future! 
 What keen eye may pierce its vast abyss, or what bright light 
 reveal its hidden things? From the museum's roof, now the 
 fierce Druramond light is throwing its intense and visible stream 
 of rays full in the face of the night sky, paling the stars in the 
 contrast, and well nigh extinguishing the little winking, twink- 
 ling, gas-burners below — yet this Drummond light can not illu- 
 minate our path one inch into the future. Realm of the to-be! — 
 is there a clue to your labyrinths, a chart to your oceans, or a 
 pathway on your deserts ? Are you subject to laws or decrees, 
 limits or boundaries ? Has the future its word, that may be 
 spoken and heard, written and read, by any under God? — or 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 7 
 
 has the Omniscient feared to burst such secret to the brightest 
 of the angels, and folded the unuttered idea in his holy breast? 
 
 Yet here, as plain as print, it reads, that Madam Rockwell, 
 the fortune-teller, will expose the future to the gaze of aston- 
 ished men, for barely two shillings the peep. Impossible! — it 
 would require an infinitude of wisdom, neither more nor less, 
 and we human wretches are not infinite in aught save that con- 
 ceit which sometimes shakes the upper spheres with angelic 
 laughter. In all beside we are finite, very. No, no, she may 
 tell the past, but not the unbidden future, that comes whether 
 we call or not, bringing in its long train many most unwelcome 
 guests; — not the abrupt future, that enters without knocking and 
 departs without good-by ; — not the inexorable future, whose 
 locomotive wheel crushes, without exception, all sleepers on the 
 track of time, shedding no tears for widow or orphan ; — not the 
 rich and powerful future, that gives life and death, disease and 
 health, wealth and want, wo and joy, that abases pride and ex- 
 alts humility, and bears in its cornucopia the flowers of time 
 with the fruits of eternity ; — no, not the futuie, 
 
 Here the little door opened, and there came out one whose 
 round and satisfied face showed she had been promised the 
 lover of her heart. 
 
 I entered the cell, and stood before a woman rather this side 
 of forty, thin and pale, simply dressed, of unpretending air, and 
 without the least exterior sign of imposture. And as I looked in 
 her mild and' pleasant face, I could not help a twinge of remorse, 
 fpr I had entered with my mind fully prepared to meet and de- 
 tect an impostor, and a barefaced one too. At her bidding, t 
 took a seat, and reached out my hand. Taking it in her own, 
 and looking with fixed eyes right into the centre of its palm (not 
 scanning the lines, as I had expected), she proceeded to busi- 
 ness, and with a slender, but rapid and very earnest voice run 
 on with the story of my past and present life ; — and every word 
 of it was true — as sure as that I live, it was entirely true ! 
 
 She went on — the wonderful woman! — and while she 
 hurried along, with business-like briskness, rapidly descend- 
 ing the scale of the past, pausing a moment on the plane of the 
 present, and then, without falter, ))lunging into the abyss of the 
 future, I confess that the mind of her astonished listener did not 
 hold back, to weigh vviilj nice scruples the probabilities of the 
 facts having been learntd by her through chance, or of her being 
 able to divine by guess-work, the innermost and unwhispered 
 thought; nor did it stop the way to calculate the profit and loss 
 of a wholesale system of spies employed to gather an indis- 
 
8 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 criminate mass of unimportant facts to be afterward retailed out 
 by the two shillings' worth. It had far other business to do, in 
 holding its rational balance against the in-rnshing flood of won- 
 der and the whirlwind of conviction that scattered skepticism to 
 the clouds. Jt needed all the mind's activity to keep pace with 
 the rapidly-told tale, and its greatest capacity failed to con- 
 tain the multitudinous thoughts crowding upon it in that brief 
 space of time — just as is sometimes experienced in moments of 
 critical danger, when the ideas of years are crowded within min- 
 utes, and seconds give birth to long ratiocinations ; — and thus 
 the thoughts then came. 
 
 By some inconceivable power, this woman surely tells the 
 truth concerning my present and my past ; and that power can 
 be no less than supernatural. This I do believe. Shall I go 
 further, and, yielding to her full pretensions, acknowledge she 
 can see the future also? — or must she be esteemed true half 
 way and false for the rest — half veritable seer and half liar 
 and cheat ? Concerning what has been and is, she has con- 
 quered the impossible ; has she anything harder to do in 
 achieving what remains? Why not believe the whole? Has 
 she not given me a sign? — and though signs be not always 
 accorded to a wicked and adulterous generation, yet when 
 they do come, the rational mind may not reject them. And 
 then came back the nearly-forgotten story of Croesus and the 
 Delphic oracle, and I remembered how that king, in order 
 to test the different oracles, set himself to the unguessable and 
 unkingly employment of stewing a turtle and a lamb in a brass 
 kettle, and had all the oracles of Lybia and Greece simultane- 
 ously inquired of concerning what he was about, and how all 
 failed but the Delphic woman, who exclaimed — 
 
 "I count the sand, I measure out the sea; 
 The silent and the dumb are heard by me. 
 E'en now the odors to my sense that rise, 
 A tortoise boiling with a lamb supplies, 
 Where brass below and brass above it lies." 
 
 and how this sign (a mere nothing to what was then being afforded 
 me) had justly inspired the faith of Croesus in the oracle's sub- 
 sequent prediction that the Persian mule would prove more than 
 his match — which prediction was fully accomplished when Cy- 
 rus conquered him. And thinking of this, I said to myself, 
 " Yes, I will believe her, for the present, at least, or my brain 
 will rend with the war of irreconcilable ideas ; so to save my 
 sanity and avoid a headache, 1 will for the present swallow the 
 whole, without cavil or doubt. Yes, the future has indeed its 
 
HER LTFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 9 
 
 laws, its gospel and revelations. Its word, the word of God, 
 does come to man, and Jeremiah lied not when he said so. It 
 is breathed to the prophets, and by the prophets spoken to 
 men — heard in the voice of Miriam and the seers of old 
 Israel — coming to Ezekiel by the river of Chebar, to the Bap- 
 tist in the wilderness, and to the Evangelist in his dream. The 
 prophets were prophets ; the soothsayers, sayers of sooth ; and 
 the witch of Endor, I don't doubt, was a decent and respect- 
 able woman. 
 
 The seers, who retired from the view of men to live in caves 
 and deserts, were not companionless there, but, in these seem- 
 ing solitudes, conversed with visitants from the inner spheres, 
 and of the deep wisdom they thus learned, imparted to men- 
 all that men were " able to receive." To the wizards of Scot- 
 tish hills, standing on the verge of this life, the light of the 
 next has been lent ; they were honest, and we scoffers have 
 been fools. And the humble fortune-tellers — those "wise 
 women" who, in all generations, have been compensated for 
 the scorn of the learned with the trusting faith of the wiser 
 multitude, and who, in modern times advancing further, have 
 challenged the attention of the highest, creating so much won- 
 der, but so little permanent belief, — these poor fortune-tellers 
 were and are the recipients of a wisdom with which aU the 
 poor exterior knowledge of the most learned is not to be com- 
 pared, and which has no name short of inspiration. 
 
 And this slender and pale-visaged woman with stufF-dress 
 and plaid shawl, whose low-sounding words are making a strong 
 man to tremble as an infant, and whose quiet utterings are pro- 
 ducing on the surface of her auditor a perspiration that it would 
 need the most approved preparations of antimony combined with 
 thick blankets to produce; — this woman, who sits here in the 
 upper room of a museum, rocking to and fro in a Boston rock- 
 ing-chair, and for the bread of herself and family, following, in 
 a business-like way, the poor trade of fortune-teller ; — this 
 woman is a prophetess, whom Jeremiah would have honored 
 and loved — a sister of Miriam — a daughter of Elijah. The wis- 
 dom of the higher worlds is on her thin lips ; her mild eyes, with 
 their reddened lids, are looking beyond the bounds of time and 
 space, and her frail organization, that a single breath of the ma- 
 terial wind seems enough to destroy, is now, even now, encoun- 
 tering the dread things of the invisible world. 
 
 The conclusion of these reflections found me walking rapidly 
 up Broadway, two miles beyond the museum, with the cold 
 night-air of December reducing the temperature of my brain, 
 
10 THE prophetess: 
 
 and the rattling noises of the natural world recalling me to my 
 common senses. In truth, I was greatly moved by the inter- 
 view with the mysterious woman, and it needed a long walk to 
 restore me. I turned and went home, to dream of wizards and 
 witches. 
 
 The morning found me again at the fortune-teller's cell, 
 where I completed my inquiries relating to my own life. The 
 following day I thought of something further to ask about, and 
 the next and the next still found me there; and it was thus, 
 and in researches respecting her, that most of my visit to tlie 
 city was occupied. The inquiries which I diligently made, 
 more than justified my first impressions in her favor ; nearly all 
 I spoke with had something new and startling to tell concerning 
 the fulfilment of her predictions, and the great wonder was, that 
 T, though living far distant, and of retired habits, had not before 
 heard oPthe wonderful Madam Rockwell. 
 
 But it is to be observed that, saving that her name appeared 
 in the museum advertisements, she had never been brought for- 
 ward in the newspapers, for, having always had more visiters than 
 she could conveniently attend to, there had been no need to put 
 in play any of that well-known enginery by which public opin- 
 ion is manufactured in favor of those who need it. Herself a 
 reader of destiny, she had never resisted the decree, long before 
 shown to her, by which a portion of her career was allotted to this 
 kind of life, and she has been without friends who were disposed 
 to make exertions for bringing her properly before the public. 
 But while passively yielding to this passive fate, she had full 
 well known that it was in due time to change. The time had 
 become due. 
 
 I remember that at the close of my first call she intimated that 
 I was the one destined to write her life, and that during the second 
 one she renewed the subject; but it was only in a subsequent 
 conversation, in which she freely yielded to my cautiously-ex- 
 pressed curiosity and gave me a sketch of her career, that she 
 seriously charged me with writing her biography, and told me 
 that at the moment I first stepped over her door-sill she had 
 recognised the author of her book, in the very features in which, 
 years ago, he had been shown in a vision. Thus honored by 
 one who could not have heard whether I could write or not, 
 and thus commissioned through lips by which Fate herself spoke, 
 I could but obey. 
 
 In the arrangement of the book, I shall follow the order in 
 which the thoughts arose in my mind, as the materials were dic- 
 tated by her, Times and places will be correctly given, but not 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 11 
 
 her true name. This reservation is made out of regard to the 
 feelings of her family, who, siie thinks (groundlessly perhaps), 
 would dislike any greater publicity than is really requisite ; but 
 the day is not distant when her richest relatives will be glad to 
 avow connection with her whom the world shall acknowledge 
 to be at. ihe least one of the rarest manifestations of the spirit 
 of prophecy since the days of the sacred seers. 
 
 " O Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them 
 which are sent unto thee !" O Barnum, of the Museum, that 
 catchest the prophets, and cagest them in glass cases, to be 
 exhibited foi- the small change that perisheth ! O liberal and 
 enlightened community of this nineteenth century, now ap- 
 proaching its focus and zenith in this year 1849, who, when 
 Barnum has fairly caught and caged a prophetess, come and 
 pelt her with Iwenty-five-cent pieces in lieu of stones, which 
 were the ruder, but hardly wickeder, missiles used in Stephen's 
 case ! — where do you expect to go to when you die? 
 
 In the dreamy East and the far-distant time, such as possessed 
 any spark of this woman's gift were recognised, believed in, and 
 received. Kings came to consult them, and multitudes thronged 
 from afar, bringing the incense of a trusting faith, and rendering 
 the homage of an implicit obedience. Of the seers so revered, 
 this one would then and there have been accounted a queen and 
 a star ; a temple would have risen around her cell, and her 
 oracles would have resounded through the nations. How dif- 
 ferently is she treated here and now ! 
 
 There she sits, in that museum-box, unrecognised by the 
 world. From a thousand pulpits are twinkling the farthing can- 
 dles and rushlights of disputatious theology, while millions ac- 
 count themselves brightened and gladdened in the rays. Do 
 those millions know that there is one near by who conver&es at 
 will with the spirits of the dead, and brings the hitest intelli- 
 gence from the abodes of the past-away ? 
 
 There she sits, unnoticed and unknown to science. The sci- 
 entific, who go about star-gazing for new masses of nebulae, and 
 fretting their brains in nicely calculating the comings and goings 
 of baby-comets — whom it were the part of wisdom to let pass 
 by in silent contempt; — the scientific, still stumbling among dis- 
 placed strata, or grinding sharp their prying noses in the search 
 for new fossil minims, burning their fingers in experimenting for 
 new chemical combinations, and spoiling their own tempers and 
 deafening our ears with disputing over them when discovered ; — 
 do ihey know, that high up in that museum there sits the pro- 
 fessor of a science great beyond comparison, shedding down on 
 
12 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 the fields of their petty research a blaze of light that would ob- 
 literate to the sense all those fine lines and nice shades of dis- 
 tinction wherewith they are now so busy, and opening up into 
 the very arcana of creation ? 
 
 Poh ! The scientific crowd are humbugs. A dog chasing 
 his tail all day in the sunlight might teach them wisdom. 
 
 No, the scientific know her not. They do not wish to know 
 her. They would feel exceedingly grieved at being forced to 
 know her, for the learning she brings is too deep for their shal- 
 lowness, and the things whereof she treats, too large for their 
 capacities. They have read how that a beaten path is safest, and 
 they exceedingly love the beaten path. When a great truth, 
 bursting from some humble source — humble as the ground 
 whence the flowers spring — flashes too glaringly on their aston- 
 ished perceptions, like frightened ostriches, they fly to hide their 
 heads in the sands of conservatism, where they skulk until the 
 new discovery finds them out, and not they it. 
 
 Those who have read will know, that from the very earliest 
 days, and through all times, the conservators of science have 
 continued to encounter the wonders of the supernatural world, 
 but have always refused to examine them, and sedulously de- 
 nied their existence; — and why? The phenomena were surely 
 startling enough to arouse attention, and (now I bethink me of 
 it) there was a relationship and similarity between them that invited 
 scientific inquiry. But the truth is, such phenomena do not fay 
 in to any of our philosophers' systems ; and they love their sys- 
 tems, they do. In order to learn some things, we must become 
 as little children. Now respectable philosophers do not like to 
 become as little children. Sages don't admire to wear the ju- 
 venile bib and tucker. And so when they have occasionally met 
 full in the face grand facts of this sort, they have turned their 
 backs on them and gone other ways, to potter among little 
 things. 
 
 And the theologians, — they have devoted too much of their 
 valuable time in mastering the most orthodox expositions of dead 
 and accomplished prophecies and the significations of old mira- 
 cles, to afford attention to new prophecies or new wonders. 
 And so the pious and the wise ones unite in stoning all who 
 are "sent unto" them with things or thoughts too new or strange. 
 How miserably would Christ and his apostles have fared in 
 their hands ! 
 
 Verily, verily, when I remember how the unlearned have in 
 every age received the wise ones whom the learned have re- 
 jected, my respect increases for " the intelligence of the masses." 
 
HER LTFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 13 
 
 There she sits — that woman of the far vision ! — without re- 
 spectability in the world, following a calling that is contemned ; 
 — a fortune-teller ; — one of those whom common consent has 
 hitherto placed in the pillory of contempt, to be pelted with the 
 brick-bats of unbelief, the stale cabbages of ridicule, and the 
 dead kittens of persecution. There she is, cooped in a glass 
 case in the upper chamber of a museum, to be shown like those 
 wax-figures — exhibited, in company with stuffed bears and hye- 
 nas, with defunct alligators and living monkeys, with three- 
 headed calves, giants, and dwarfs, and all manner of nature's 
 short-comings and over-doings. God help her ! God does help 
 her. 
 
 There she patiently sits, enduring all those things where- 
 with the exercise of her supernal calling is recompensed 
 by a hard-hearted world. Patiently and meekly, day by day, 
 she carries on her business there, and does her best to satisfy 
 the *' customers" who call. Meekly she seeks to appease their 
 anger when dissatisfied with the portion of good things to come 
 conscientiously meted out to them, and bears with patience their 
 real or pretended doubts or disbelief. She is offended at no 
 ridicule, and deprecates no scorn. Seeing and searching into 
 the interiors of all things, she knows how to disregard the flim- 
 siness of exterior covering, and, with the society of the centu- 
 ries, bygone and to come, she can sustain, unrepining, any present 
 neglect or contumely. There she sits, employing her wondrous 
 power in all such mean or little matters as are required by the 
 motley crowd of visiters. Very well knowing what she is, she 
 yet does well what she does ; and the eyes which can look in 
 the face of Heaven, she turns, for a fee, to peer after stolen 
 goods, among pawn-brokers' shelves, or to seek information of 
 the love-destinies of love-sick housemaids. 
 
 There she sits, persistently telling to all comers the story of 
 their fate, and, with whatever motives they come, or degree of 
 respect or disrespect they listen, steadily proceeds to the end 
 with what she has to say. She gives no glance at the visiter's 
 expression, to guess if she be on the true scent or not, nor does 
 she tqrn her eyes to the right or left, but straightforwardly goes 
 on with her search and exposition. She, herself, perfectly well 
 knows if she is what she claims to be, and, whether looking intO' 
 the questioner's palm, or gazing down at the floor, knows, be- 
 yond all doubt, whether it is the page of destiny she is peru- 
 sing, or merely the creases of the cuticle, or the worn and faded 
 figures of the three-and-sixpenny carpet. 
 
 Yes, she has confidence in her own powers, and sincerely 
 
14 THE prophetess: 
 
 believes in herself, a thing most desirable for all humbugs, if 
 they could only possess it ; iiovv much easier in such case, could 
 they humbug the enlightened public, who so readily receive im- 
 posters and so ruthlessly slay the prophets ! Count Cagliostro, 
 in his day, made some noise in the world, but he suffered a se- 
 rious inconvenience for want of belief in that of which he per- 
 suaded others. No man in the world knows better how to 
 humbug us than our popular friend, P. T. Barnum, but he 
 knows it. Joice Heth, the black old Virginia hag, whom, some 
 years since, he introduced to a patriotic people as the nurse of 
 Washington, and out of whose marrowless bones he made so 
 much excitement and consequent dollars, how much better 
 would slie have played her part could she have but possessed an 
 abiding faith in her own antiquity ! Cagliostro knew he was a 
 cheat, Joice Heth was aware she was telling wicked lies about 
 her former intimate relations with the father of his country — and 
 this, too, at a time of life when she should have been preparing 
 her miserable soul for another world ; and that mermaid whom 
 Barnum called into being out of the simple elements of a pickled 
 codfish and an embalmed monkey, must have known all the 
 while it was being exhibited (if it knew anything), that it was, 
 in the language of all the small Irish orators of the day, " a 
 cheat, a delusion, and a snare." The mermaid, poor thing! 
 must have lost all confidence in itself before being born. 
 
 Patiently and persistently this woman follows her calling and 
 •does her duty, as she conceives it, by both high and low. Let 
 who will doubt, she believes. Let who will laugh, she is seri- 
 ous. Let who can despise her, she respects herself. 
 
 And there she sits, and there for years she has sat, plying her 
 Irade, with a serious, simple, honest, and earnest demeanor, that 
 is stamped with truth, and with a real and unpretending dignity 
 which it were shameful not to appreciate and respect. 
 
 A NICE LITTLE GIRL. 
 
 In the valley of the Farmington river, near the source of that 
 stream, and at the foot of a high hill, we see a brown cottage- 
 built farmhouse. The day is softly sweet, and all those sights, 
 sounds, and breathings, which properly belong to a Connecticut 
 farmhouse and its appurtenances in the summer season of the 
 
 year and the forenoon of the day, are hovering there and 
 
 nothing more. It is a common scene. The cow in the clover- 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 15 
 
 lot is as sleepy and comfortable, and the bees around her are as 
 busy in securing their share of the honey-rich red blossoms, — 
 the sun-flowers of the garden are as large and yellow, and the 
 morning-glories of the stoop as wilted and drooping, — the dog 
 is as good-natured, and the cat, lying "^erc??^" for birds, beneath 
 the old quince-tree, as seemingly harmless and as innately cruel 
 — the tin pans and pails on the bench shine as brightly — the hens 
 cackle as triumphantly, while the barnyard buildings return the 
 echoes of that peculiar voice of home as loudly and distinctly, 
 — and the atmosphere by which all these are borne to the sense 
 is as pleasant and refreshing — as is usual to the time, place, and 
 circumstances. The sensations of the scene are, to the city 
 wanderer who carries his heart with him on his travels, a rare 
 and exquisite luxury, and to those whose every-day portion 
 they may be, an accustomed but real comfort of home. 
 
 In the door of the house there stands a little girl, who, hold- 
 ing back her hair, is looking out and up at the high blue and 
 white curtains of the sky, while her busy brain conjectures what 
 they may be made of. She is the child of the house and of the 
 scene. It all belongs to her, and she to it. She is the monitor 
 of the dog and cat, the pet of the cow, and the almoner of yel- 
 low corn to the hens — being in fact the sole proprietress of that 
 large white one which cackles now so clearly. The bees re- 
 spect her, and she fears them not, for she is innocent of evil 
 intent toward their community. She it is who plants and wa- 
 ters the flowers. She rises with the opening of the morning- 
 glories, and when the sun-flowers bow their heads in obeisance 
 to the sinking orb of their worship, she retires to her rest. And 
 all of these give joy to her glad little heart, and seem to love 
 with an undivided love the only child they know. 
 
 It is a beautiful little girl, with very fair face and serene fore- 
 head, but yet in no way distinguished from many a beautiful 
 child of that happy region, except that, in spite of the healthy 
 air, her cheeks are slightly pale, and her eyes have a strange 
 expression, which the neighbors sometimes notice in her pres- 
 ence, causing her often to wish that her eyes were not strange- 
 looking, but were like the eyes of the other girls. 
 
 It is a good little girl. At morning and evening she says her 
 prayers, without hurry or omission. Through the snows of 
 winter as well as over the green by-ways of summer, she goes 
 punctually to school, where she makes commendable progress 
 in Webster's spelling-book, and eats enormous nut-cakes and 
 red-cheeked apples at the nooning hour, — and where too, be it 
 truly said, her most unhappy hours are endured — thanks to bad 
 
16 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 benches, bad air, long sessions, and monotonous occupation (or 
 want of occupation). On Sundays she is never backward with 
 her Sunday-school lesson, and is fast learning the testament by 
 heart — rote, I mean ; and during all the long sermons on theo- 
 logical polemics which it is her privilege to hear, she dutifully 
 chews fennel-seed and calamus to keep herself awake ; the 
 sleep-moving " tenthly," however, often overcoming the anti- 
 somnolent aromatics, so that she can only nod a drowsy assent 
 to certain abstruse propositions concerning free will and elec- 
 tion, of which none of the congregation have the least doubt — 
 or the most remote comprehension. 
 
 It is a happy little girl. All duties faithfully performed, her 
 soul is at peace with God, — cherished with conscientious care, 
 her mind is tranquil and contented, while, with much running and 
 jumping, eating plenty of good bread and sweet butter, and 
 breathing freely the pure air of the hills, her light frame is healthy 
 and strong. Care avoids her little pillow, and no thorns of con- 
 science invade her rest. She can run all day without fatigue, 
 sleep all night without dreams, and eat green apples without 
 sign of indigestion. Is not this happiness ? 
 
 And here and thus she spends her days, which seem so long 
 that to-morrow is an idea vague and dim, it is so distant, and 
 weeks so interminable that neither her hopes nor schemes ex- 
 tend from one Saturday afternoon unto another. The world 
 she dwells in is little enough ; and yet how large and real it is 
 to her ! The rim of hills which enclose the valley are its 
 boundaries, and yet beyond those hill-tops neither her curiosity 
 nor her fancy dare to soar. Brothers and sisters she has, but 
 they are not with her. Years ago, and before the separation 
 could be felt, she was adopted by a good childless couple, and 
 removed from a large circle of little ones that surrounded the 
 lap of a newly-widowed mother ; and from that time she has 
 known hardly anything of her own family. 
 
 Rigidly and dutifully the step-mother performs her trust ; and 
 in the strictness of Connecticut education, morality, and piety, 
 Connecticut maxims and habits, in the plenitude of Connecticut 
 comforts and homely kindness, the girl is the recipient of a por- 
 lion rich beyond the calculations of money. 
 
 Her companions are (ew, but she does not care for company. 
 JShe loves to be alone, and is noticed for her solitary fancies. 
 'The homestead trees, with their benignant branches, the grassy 
 ihillsides of the shady glen, the little old brook that dug out the 
 glen and gives life and health to the great tree growing in it, 
 ithe primeval rocks of the river's bank, on whose rude and moss- 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 17 
 
 grown breasts her tender bosom often rests, while for hours she 
 looks down into the mysterious silvery chambers of the river's 
 channel, the breeze that comes down the valley to kiss her cheek 
 and play with her curls, the confident birds, that perch close to 
 her ear, and there sing their newest songs, the unterrified squir- 
 rels, that in her safe presence frolic with unmolested enjoyment, 
 the skies, in whose face she looks when she wants new thoughts, 
 and from whose light her mind is irradiated with delightful fan- 
 cies — these are her brothers and sisters, her pleasant playmates, 
 and her safe companions. 
 
 And within the circumscribed limits of her little-great world, 
 the current of her young life so smoothly and so slowly moves, 
 that, like a hill-encircled lake, wherein the waters of a river 
 repose awhile, it seems as if its home were found. 
 
 And thus she is living out her childhood. This sequestered 
 dwelling and these good foresters, these sober occupations and 
 simple but sufficient pleasures, these goodly and godly preach- 
 ings and teacliings, these uncontaminating companionships, these 
 budding moments and flowering hours of sweetened solitude, 
 these long, full years of unimpassioned existence, these scenes 
 of soft beauty and bright healthfulness — ihese redeem from pain 
 or sinful stain her childhood's time. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the village clock the fingers of fate are steadily 
 advancing, and long and replete with life as seem the moving 
 hours, the years roll evenly onward. 
 
 Look at her, and find her worth contemplating! Look to 
 and fro on the face of the earth — look up and down the scale 
 of time, and round about your circle of acquaintance, and say 
 if you can find any earthly thing more precious than just such 
 a little gill, so reared as this ! In the days of human sacrifice, 
 how unblemished and fit a subject for killing and roasting. But 
 does not Moloch yet live and receive presents '? What shall 
 we call the proceeding when pure and gentle children having, 
 under such select influences, grown into pure and beautiful 
 maidens, while yet the best innocence of childhood lingers to 
 mingle with the incoming love-power of womanhood, they are 
 delivered over, bound hand and foot in the bonds of matrimony, 
 into the hands of harsh and hard men, vile and brutish men, 
 drunken and drivelling men, to be for life-long their faithful and 
 obedient wives ? 
 
18 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 THE FIRST MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 Meanwhile, and as with increasing years her organization 
 was being duly and gradually developed, there was arising and 
 growing within her spirit the light of a supernatural sense ; a 
 sense which, though possibly in some degree existing in all, yet, 
 has hitherto been so slighdy manifested, save in rare and excep- 
 tionable organizations, that the term supernatural may well apply. 
 I mean the sense of spiritual vision of things past, present, and 
 future. But its progress in the life of the little maid was slow, 
 and but slightly indicated, for it awaited the full growth of her 
 physical nature before being called to assume the lead and con- 
 trol of all other senses and faculties, as we shall see afterward 
 to happen. There wei'e, however, some slight indications of 
 the prophetic sense, even at a very early age. The first of these 
 were simple impressions, kindred to those presentiments of which 
 very few are entirely devoid, however they may be disregarded. 
 These impressions came without spiritual sign or word, and con- 
 sisted merely in the opinion — how or why arrived at not being 
 known, but none the less distinctly and firmly formed — that such 
 and such events would happen. For instance, she would, when 
 no older than about seven years, say to her foster-mother that 
 on that day, at a certain hour, certain visiters (naming them), 
 would come. When asked how she knew this or why she said 
 so, the only answer would be that she did not know how she 
 knew it, but that she knew it. And as these little bits of pre- 
 diction never failed of accomplishment, the good woman finally 
 began to have faith in them. 
 
 There was also a strange propensity to know the future, a 
 desire foreshowing the power, according to a well-known law. 
 It was, as she insists, long before she heard of the mystery of 
 tea-leaves in an inverted teacup, as a means of augury, that she 
 was made to feel many sharp reproofs, and even boxes on the 
 ears, for a trick she had of stealthily goilig to the cupboard and 
 pouring out tea into a cup, which she would then turn down and 
 steadfastly look in, in vain search, how she knew not, for she 
 knew not what. 
 
 Now it is difficult, even for one who is prepared to assent to 
 all Mrs. B.'s claims, to believe that she can be correct in think- 
 ing that when she performed this teacup trick, she was really 
 ignorant that it had ever been practised before. An author dis- 
 posed to theorize, might here say, that no greater stretch of faith 
 is required to believe that tea-leaves, after having served the pur- 
 pose for which they have been decocted, become leaves of the 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 19 
 
 book of fate, than to credit the existence of the sense of super- 
 natural foresight in any degree. He might mention too, that 
 tea itself is a potent means of inspiration, instance the cases of 
 many great geniuses who have written powerfully or spoken elo- 
 quently under its effects — and plausibly argue that occult prop- 
 erties may well lie in these leaflets from a celestial land, culled, 
 as they are, at prescribed seasons of the moon, and that in their 
 shapes and marshallings on the sides of a moist cup, a wise im- 
 port may lie for those wise enough to read it ; and so insist that 
 the reader shall swallow ihe grounds of this belief without fur- 
 ther cavil. But it is far from my intent to theorize at all, but 
 only carefully to gather facts on this new subject of human in- 
 vestigation, knowing that theories have, since Bacon's time as 
 well as before, always too rapidly outrun the experiences on 
 which alone they can be properly based. I will, however, here 
 give a simple hint, that though seers may seem to see their sights 
 in tea-leaves, cards, the inwards of animals, or other objects, yet 
 the only office these substances serve is, being fixedly looked 
 at, to concentrate the mind, more requisite, probably, in the ex- 
 ercise of spiritual vision than in any other labor imposed on the 
 mind ; and this I think the sequel will show. 
 
 When about twelve years old, our little girl began to have 
 impressions of a vaguer kind than the others, but of more marked 
 effect on herself. These were intensely painful presentiments 
 of some impending trouble, of the nature of which, however, 
 she would know nothing. Such moods of melancholy were 
 often very violent, and quite disproportionate to the events which 
 they portended. Avoiding all companionship or commisera- 
 tion, she would all alone, seek that relief for her intense agita- 
 tion and gloom, which only outbursting sobs and freely flowing 
 tears could give. These paroxysms, sometimes continuing for 
 three or four days, would then subside, and all seem bright 
 again, until the presently coming affliction would verify the fore- 
 boding, which had, however, in advance, robbed it of its sting. 
 On the other hand she would, on the eve of some pleasant event, 
 become strangely elated, with as complete a confirmation in the 
 end as the other cases showed. These affections, particularly 
 of the melancholy sort, have continued down to the present 
 time, of late, however, abating in acuteness and frequency. 
 
 At other times she would see, as if showing themselves to 
 her natural sight, signs and representations, such as now compose 
 her visions, but which perhaps, because of themselves vague 
 or incomplete, perhaps because her faculty to read their mean- 
 ing, though ever so plainly appearing, was yet undeveloped, 
 2 
 
20 THE PROPHETESS I 
 
 perhaps because she had not yet received those instructions and 
 exercises in the mysteries of prophesy, to the recounting of which 
 will be devoted the most important portion of this book — were 
 then as meaningless to her senses as would be a printed page to 
 one never taught to read. These appearances probably repre- 
 sented the story of her future troubles, and were therefore kind- 
 ly kept dark to the child whom it could not benefit to be prema- 
 turely informed of them. It can do no good to the little girl to 
 know of the bride's blighted hopes, the wife's heart-sickening 
 trials, the mother's painful endurings, wasting efforts and rack- 
 ing cares, with all the pains and penalties of a weak woman 
 struggling with a strong and hard world, or of the cruel ways 
 contrived to torture her through the strongest and best affections 
 of her nature. 
 
 THE WOMAN. 
 
 The time arrived for her to leave the roof of her secluded 
 childhood, and enter on the thorny path of a woman's real life. 
 Under her foster-mother's close guardianship she had been kept 
 in almost entire seclusion up to the age of eighteen, being con- 
 tinued at school till sixteen, and not allowed for the rest of the 
 time to " see company," as the rustic phrase goes. At eighteen, 
 she bid good-by to her foster father and mother and went to re- 
 side with a married brother who offered her a home, and with 
 whom she remained for about a year. Then she removed 
 to Hartford, where, three years later, she was married, and be- 
 came Mrs. B. 
 
 Never mind we the story of the eight following years ; — it is 
 an old and common one, far too common. At the end of that 
 time she was left, " to get along" with three young children on 
 her hands. The orphan asylum took one, while she provided 
 for the other two. She went and lived at the village of Cabot- 
 ville, near Springfield, Massachusetts, for three years more ; then 
 returned to Hartford, to remain a year longer and until she was, 
 near five years since, appropriated as one of the curiosities of 
 the " American Museum." ♦ 
 
 These events of her outward life are hurried over, because 
 the object of this book is to relate her inner life, and not to claim 
 the reader's time for mere matters of private history, which as 
 yet the public are little or nothing interested in. 
 
 Be it sufficient to say that the years so quickly gone over were 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 21 
 
 all round, solid years, full of suffering, furrowed with cares, and 
 fruitful of those experiences which can only come of much trib- 
 ulation, but which were most essential fully to form the charac- 
 ter of a prophetess. 
 
 THE INDIAN DOCTOR. 
 
 In the streets of Hartford the boys are staring and pointing 
 at him, as with negligent and dirty dress, and no single outward 
 sign of the respectable, except a composed and dignified air, he 
 bears his little medicine-chest along, and tramps upon his va- 
 grant circuit ; — if it were winter-time, he would be a subject 
 for snow-balls. He io called " The Indian Doctor," but he 
 belongs to no faculty or medical society, being strictly an "irreg- 
 ular," and making it his regular business to cure sufferers who 
 have been pronounced incurable by 511 the rules of regular 
 physic. Nor has he other fellowship or diploma than the bles- 
 sings of numberless of these cast-off patients of physicians most 
 regular and respectable. His wide range of practice extends 
 through several adjacent states, where there are thousands, 
 knowing him only through his good deeds, who will read with 
 pleasure all that is written here concerning the slovenly, skilful, 
 and most mysterious " Indian doctor." 
 
 He is in the vigor of life, six feet high, and well-proportioned. 
 No half-breed he ; — his veins swell with the unadulterated blood 
 of the first lords of the soil. In mental qualities he is a re- 
 markable man. His fine and strong mind is stored with the 
 sciences of civilization, and he brings to bear, in his vocation, 
 a'U that the latest teachers of anatomy, physiology, and thera- 
 peutics, can impart, while to the botany of the books he joins 
 the results of actual research among the unpaged leaves of na- 
 ture, aided by the unwritten lore of old Indian tradition, and 
 illumined with that instinctive knowledge of the properties of 
 plants which Heaven only accords to wild beasts and wild men. 
 He despises no means of learning, even if it comes from the 
 darkened mind of the white man, for the wilderness of undis- 
 covered nature is still a wide one. 
 
 But more than this. The Indian is a prophet and a ^'■medi- 
 cine man,"^ in the Indian sense. He has that same spiritual 
 vision and prescience, by whose inspiration his forerunners, un- 
 aided with any written revelation, gave religious guidance and 
 wise civil polity to the tribes which held the virginal continent 
 
22 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 in exclusive dominion, and all quietly among themselves quar- 
 relled for its hunting-grounds, in those far-back days when the 
 vi^hite races which plough it now were howling savages in the 
 Scandinavian wilderness. He is of the sacred line of those 
 who, in much later times, when their cotemporary Daniel 
 was having visions concerning the troubles of Pius the Ninth, 
 plainly foresaw and foretold the coming of Columbus, while 
 the confident nalions of the Mississippi derided with scorn the 
 prophesy concerning a race of white-skinned men who were to rise 
 from the stormy ocean of the farthermost east, and with fire-arrows 
 and fire-water utterly destroy the red people. And the prophets 
 would then, doubtless, wax wroth with the unbelieving scoffers, 
 and for their punishment foretell a famine or a disastrous war. 
 
 But not like those of the olden time is this prophet rewarded. 
 They received faith and fear, ceremonious reverence and earthly 
 honor; — he wanders here a heteroclite in the land of his inher- 
 itance — is ineligible to office, has no vote in town-meeting, and 
 is exempt from mllitary»duty. A man, but no citizen — an In- 
 dian, without a tribe, he comes to the banks of the Connecticut 
 as a heteroclite and a stranger. O river of Connecticut, that 
 on thy borders the children whose fathers drank thy primeval 
 waters should be gaped at as strangers by the young brood of 
 those whom the salt sea cast up from her bosom, to mar thy 
 green margin with tlieir dirty docks, to chain thy strong current 
 with their dams and locks, and scourge thy freeborn flood with 
 their foaming mill-wheels ! 
 
 These are not, however, our Indian's reflections. He is a 
 philosopher as well as a prophet — a civillzee as well as a sav- 
 age, and never disturbs himself with broodings over the red 
 man's wrongs. A priest and minister of destiny himself, he 
 never questions her decrees. 
 
 He has entered the dwelling of a decent Indian woman who 
 lives by the trade of fortune-telling (having in a good degree 
 the sense of foresigbt), and in her neat little parlor is seated, 
 rummaging his medicine-chest. A knock is at the door, and 
 there enters a white woman, with face pale like a corpse, and 
 form thin like a shadow. Suffiering is well enstamped on her yet 
 young forehead, and evidently the serious things of the world 
 are upon her. She makes known her desire to consult with the 
 fortune-teller, and is accordingly led into an inner room, fitted 
 up like a chapel, with crucifix and altar (for the squaw is a 
 catholic). The fortune-teller kneels and prays at the altar, then 
 
 rising, she sets herself to look at the future in a teacup, in 
 
 in which she has poured a few drops of tea which she has then 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 23 
 
 poured out again. What the poor inqiiiier fears, and what her 
 own dim prescience has already boded, is now confirmed by the 
 oracle of the teacup, who declines, however, to tell more than 
 this one and sufficient calamity — and so dismisses her visiter. 
 It is no other than the girl of the farm-cottage. 
 
 As she had passed through the parlor where the Indian was, 
 he had not lifted his eyes from the chest in which he seemed 
 intently looking, and yet he had seen and noted her well, and 
 now awaits her return in order to address her ; and he, the 
 latest of the aboriginal prophets, recognising in this palest of the 
 pale-faces a sister of light, and the chosen recipient of supernatu- 
 ral knowledge, rises to meet her; his heart goes forth unto her, 
 and from this moment, even to the end of his earthly existence, 
 he devotes himself to her service. As she would go past him, 
 he puts out his hand and takes hers, and with a graceful yet 
 commanding dignity leads her to a seat, saying: — 
 
 "Young woman, I have something to say to you." 
 
 She sits down, while he holds her hand, and for some mo- 
 ments looks in her face, and then adds — 
 
 " You are ill ; I will prescribe for you. Will you take my 
 medicines?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " But will you promise me, and not fail?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. I am very ill. They fear I have the consump- 
 tion, but I don't think so ; yet I would be glad if you would 
 try to do something to help me." 
 
 He gives her medicine, with directions for taking it, but refu- 
 ses the money offered in return, saying : — 
 
 "Don't pay me; I will call at your house to-morrow morn- 
 ing at eight, and you may give me some breakfast." 
 
 She tells him where she lives, and that she will be glad to 
 see him there, provided her husband consents. He says: — 
 
 " Very well, I will call at eight." 
 
 The pale woman returned home, full of sad thoughts at the 
 squaw's prophesy (whicii was afterward strictly to be fulfilled), 
 mixed with deep wonder at the interview with the strange man. 
 Her husband's permission having been easily obtained, at eight 
 the Indian called, and was admitted. The subjects of the 
 long conversation he then had with her were merely her 
 health and like matters of common interest, and the result ob- 
 tained was, to make her feel quite at ease in his presence, as 
 well as very desirous to see and know more of so interesting a 
 companion. On taking leave he promised to call again at the 
 end of two months. 
 
24 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 He was punctual even to a day, and at the end of the 
 time, to her great delight, again entered the door. She had 
 much to say. She told him how that, under God, his med- 
 icines had quite restored her, — how much her mind had 
 dwelt on him during his absence, — how earnestly she had de-, 
 sired the time to pass by, that she might thank him for his 
 kindness and skill, and how, meanwhile, she had prayed for his 
 welfare. He remained and conversed with her for a long time, 
 the same as at the first visit, and then bid her good-by, telling 
 her to expect him again at the end of two months farther. An 
 oppressive foreboding, however, made this parting bitter to her, 
 and as he went from the door, she turned to her sister and 
 said : — 
 
 " He means to disappoint us, for I am sure I shall never see 
 him again." 
 
 She was right, and she was wrong. Nearly a year went by, 
 and he came no more. But one evening, at the end of about 
 that time, Mrs. B.'s servant asked permission to go out, for the 
 purpose, as she said, of calling on an Indian doctor, who was 
 then in town. 
 
 " An Indian doctor," said her mistress ; " I wonder if it is 
 my Indian doctor? Pray notice him closely, and tell me how 
 he looks." 
 
 As the girl entered the room where the medicine-man re- 
 ceived his patients, he quickly remarked : — 
 
 " You live with Mrs. B. She wishes very much to see me, 
 but my visits have caused her trouble. Tell her she must not 
 come to see me, and that I will not go to her, but tell her to send 
 me a book which is now on her bureau. I know she prizes it 
 highly, but I must have it, for I wish something to remember 
 her by. Go, now, and bring it." 
 
 This message the girl came back and delivered. The book 
 on the bureau was " Solitude Sweetened," and was, in truth, 
 greatly valued by its owner; but she did not hesitate to send it, 
 and with it also a more valuable present, which was of silver. 
 The girl had not lived with her long, and in committing the lat- 
 ter article to her hand, a slight suspicion arose that it might not 
 be safely delivered ; but the maid faithfully discharged her trust. 
 On receiving the presents the Indian returned the silver article, 
 saying : — 
 
 " Tell your mistress I don't want that ; and tell her, too, not 
 to suspect you, for you are honest. The book I will keep. 
 Remember well now the message you are to repeat to Mrs. B. 
 Say to her that she shall not be subjected to any trouble on my 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 25 
 
 account; — say that I am about going away from here, but will 
 come to her again — that while a great way off, I will still be 
 with her. In fo%ir months from to-day she will see me, and we 
 will have a good many long talks together, in which I will in- 
 struct her concerning all she wishes to know.'''' 
 
 The bearer of this extraordinary message delivered without 
 comprehending it, while she who received it only vaguely un- 
 derstood that she must wait and watch for some mystical com- 
 munication, not doubting that the word of the Indian would be 
 fully kept. 
 
 THE GHOST OF THE LIVING. 
 
 Mrs. B. had, as we have seen, received a very religious ed- 
 ucation, which had developed, to fully as great a degree as was 
 healthy, the religious sense ; but the sense had been stimulated 
 to a morbid action, really dangerous to a true equilibrium of the 
 faculties, by her many troubles, by ill-health, and finally by her 
 habits of solitary meditation. She had brooded despondingly 
 over her sins, and cultivated a desire to be free from all earthly 
 taint. Her prayers became frequent, earnest, and long, while 
 the burden of her entreaty to God was, that she might be 
 " sanctified." And this mood was rapidly growing upon her, 
 as the day drew near when the Indian was to make good his 
 word. 
 
 The day at length arrives. It is in September, 1838. The 
 time has been carefully calculated, and she is sure he will come. 
 She is sitting alone — except that her young infant is sleeping in 
 the cradle by her side — and waiting for him, feeling aware that 
 something supernatural is to happen, but yet, by some super- 
 natural aid, rendered free from fear, and only feels a quiet, 
 strong, and confiding expectation. She sits still, and longingly 
 looks and waits to see. 
 
 He is there ! Not by opening the door, nor yet through it, 
 does he come, but right out from it he steps into the room, and, 
 after taking off his hat, which he flings on the table, he seats 
 himself on a chair right before her. It is the very same Indian 
 as before, with clothes as greasy, shirt as soiled, shoes as dusty, 
 and hat as old and rumpled, and he sits with the same compo- 
 sure, holding his cane in the same manner. And how does the 
 woman endure the presence of this ghost of the living? Heu 
 flesh does not freeze, neither does the hair rise on her head:. 
 
26 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 and though she says no word, yet it is not because her tongue 
 is palsied with terror ; but with hardly a flutter of heart, and 
 filled with a calmness of spirit which is surely of his bestowal, 
 she looks as intently at him as he at her. She does not speak, 
 because she is impelled to silence, and so, keeping silence to- 
 gether, they remain — this woman and this ghost — quietly con- 
 templating each other. Her nerves are made steady and strong 
 by the upholding might of his will, the genial light of his spirit 
 exalts and brightens her own, and a happiness is hers which 
 well recompenses for the long and sad absence of her friend. 
 
 Yet it is only an apparition, — the mere mirage of a distant 
 man ; and she knows it. 
 
 Thus an hour goes by, and another, and a third, when the 
 visiter rises, resumes his hat, turns and gives her another pleas- 
 ant look, and then goes out ; — remembering himself, however, 
 this time, and sufficiently regardful of appearances to open the 
 door and walk out, like a gentleman of real flesh and cloth. 
 Ghosts can not be too careful to keep up these appearances with 
 us of the earth ; if they would render their visits pleasant, or 
 even tolerable, they should appear as natural as possible. 
 
 And in this manner were these two thereafter to communi- 
 cate. On the next day the same appearance was repeated, and 
 the same silence preserved ; and so, too, it was on the third. 
 He did not speak, because she was not yet ready to hear with- 
 out terror the sound of his voice, and so he was waiting till 
 these long and renewed interviews should have so accustomed 
 her senses to his sight, as to give her courage to hear his ghostly 
 speech. On the fourth day he broke silence. 
 
 It was on that day that, soon after he appeared, she heard, as 
 with her natural ears, his voice, saying, 
 
 " My friend, you are praying for sanctification ; but you shall 
 change your prayer and pray with one which I will give 
 you, and which will certainly be granted. Pray only in these 
 words : — 
 
 " ' Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.' Now see if you 
 can pray as you have been used to do." 
 
 Instantly she tried, but could not, and could only repeat, with 
 fervent heart and lips, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done," 
 and never afterward, while he was by, except in one case, was 
 she able to use other phrase of prayer. 
 
 He went on to say : " The visits I in this way make, will 
 vcause you no trouble ; so don't fear. I come, my child, from 
 a distant place, of which you will not know, and for many 
 moons will visit you almost every day. There is much I must 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 27 
 
 instruct you in, and much that you must learn. Give me your 
 best attention, and hsten and look patienily." 
 
 As he was speakinn; she seemed to be undergoing intense 
 effort, and her frame trembled, while a profuse perspiration 
 started to her forehead. Perceiving this, he remained silent for 
 a considerable time, and until her strength had gradually re- 
 turned, and then said : — 
 
 " Look up, and tell me what you see." 
 
 She raised her eyes to the oj)ening door, and beheld the en- 
 trance of a female figure, who came slowly forward, stooping 
 greatly with the weight of three large stones piled upon her 
 back, and hobbling along with chained feet. The features 
 were as black as an African's, but, being closely regarded, the 
 startled beholder saw them to be those of her very self! With 
 emotions of deep commiseration, Mrs. B. for some moments 
 looked at her own spectre in this pitiable plight, and then 
 remarked : — 
 
 " This must be me, but why the face is so black, or why the 
 stones or chains are there, I am sure I can't tell." 
 
 The figure went out. 
 
 "Look again," said the Indian. 
 
 She saw the same figure again enter, but now one of the 
 stones had fallen off, and lay at her feet, while her posture had 
 become more erect. 
 
 " What does this mean?" said the spectre showman. 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " This," said he, " represents you as being relieved of the 
 burden of one of your three children (represented by the three 
 stones), who will be taken off your hands." 
 
 The apparition went out again, and returned with another 
 stone falling off. 
 
 "And what does this mean?" 
 
 ' That another of my children is to leave me, I suppose.'* 
 
 " Very good." 
 
 She with the black face again exits and re-enters, — and now 
 the last burden has fallen, and she has ceased to stoop. This 
 is explained as before. It then goes, and returns with its face 
 half white. 
 
 " Tell me how you understand this," says he. 
 
 "I can not tell." 
 
 " This shows that your husband is to go away." 
 
 Then there appeared in the air a hand, holding a brush, which 
 it passed across the other side of the face, making now the whole 
 of it while, while at the same instant the chains dropped from 
 
28 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 the feet, and the appearance stood before its own reality, erect, 
 and fair. 
 
 "Can you explain this?" 
 
 " No, sir ; it is very strange." 
 
 " You are to be a single woman again, and become your own 
 mistress." 
 
 During this representation there were long pauses, and three 
 hours elapsed before the whole was ended. He then left her 
 greally exhausted, with her clothing saturated in perspiration, 
 for the listening to his voice, and responding to it (with spiritual 
 speech), was attended with every sensation and result of intense 
 muscular effort. For this reason, during his visits of the first 
 six weeks which followed, the intervals in the conversation were 
 long and frequent, and during them she perceived that the spell 
 of his will was powerfully at work to restore her exhausted 
 strength. In the course of these six weeks she gradually be- 
 came inured to the effort, so as at the end of that time, to be 
 able to endure, unfatigued, a much more continuous dialogue, 
 though it has never been without considerable exertion. 
 
 At his coming on the following day, she was on her knees at 
 prayer. As she repeated again and over again the short formula 
 she had received, she became possessed with a desire to see 
 heaven, by representation similar to that of the day before, and 
 while, with growing intensity of feeling, she went on, and felt 
 all of that wrapt and exalted enjoyment which gratifies the ex- 
 ercise of religious sense, the words " Thy kingdom come, Thy 
 will be done," seemed only to mean the letting down of the 
 kingdom of heaven for the satisfaction of her immediate wish. 
 While still the prayer proceeds, and while beneath the closed 
 lids the straining eyeballs are yearning for a vision, the dark- 
 ness vanishes, and a clear, warm sunlight shines around, reveal- 
 ing a beautiful landscape, with blue sky and rosy clouds, with 
 hills and trees, lanes and houses, and all the features of a vil- 
 lage like that near her own early home. The suddenness and 
 real seeming of the sight strike her with terror, and she springs 
 to her feet. She thinks her call is answered, but a second 
 glance reveals that the scene is of the earth and not of heaven, 
 — which only frightens her more. A pleasant laugh is heard 
 behind, and, startled again, she turns to meet the smiling face 
 of the Indian ghost, who greets her with — 
 
 " Why do you shake so ? — it is only me. Did you think it 
 was heaven I was showing you ? No, no ; you will see 
 heaven, my good child, all in due time." 
 
 " I do believe you are a devil," she exclaimed. 
 
HER LTFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 29 
 
 " Do you, indeed ! — ha ! ha ! I know you are a godly 
 woman, and that you think me not good. The prayers of such 
 as you can drive away devils. Then pray your own prayer, 
 and not mine, and see if you can pray me away." 
 
 She does so, but the visiter will not budge. 
 
 " Throw salt on the fire ; they say no devil can stand thaty 
 
 She actually fetches the salt and tries the experiment, but still 
 he holds his ground. 
 
 Then for a good while she stands, with trembling limbs and 
 flushed face, all streaming with sweat, looking earnestly and 
 somewhat doubtfully at him, while he keeps his position, and 
 leaning on his cane, with hat in hand, meets her gaze with a 
 calming and sustaining look, which at length works its effect in 
 fully reassuring and restoring her. 
 
 Finally, in a deep, serious voice, he continues: — 
 
 " No, I am not a devil, but your good friend. The power 
 which enables me thus to communicate with you, is from above, 
 and not beneath, and can be used only for your good. There 
 are some things you have allowed your mind to dwell too in- 
 tently on. My endeavor for a while must be to divert it from 
 them. Good-by." 
 
 The mild dignity with which this was said, sunk into her 
 soul, and thenceforth she deemed the Indian rather angelic 
 than diabolical, and good proof against muttered exorcisms and 
 burnt salt. 
 
 During the six weeks which followed, he occupied the time 
 in calling up the events of her life, devoting half the time to the 
 past and half to the future. While doing this it was his custom 
 not to show himself when speaking, but to appear again after 
 he had finished. During these six weeks, as has before been 
 observed, he was most of the time silent, but apparent. After- 
 ward he was seldom seen, except at the beginning of each visit, 
 when he would introduce himself, as it were, through the organs 
 of vision, to vanish again as soon as he began to converse. 
 
 These communications did not necessarily interrupt Mrs. B.'s 
 household duties, but while going about the house and perform- 
 ing them she would still keep up the conversation and see the 
 sights, except only when engaged in something requiring the 
 whole attention. When she spoke to him, it was not with a 
 voice audible to material senses, any more than his presence 
 was perceptible to those who might be by, but she spoke with a 
 spiritual voice, audible to herself as well as him to whom it was 
 addressed. 
 
 The generals of these occurrences she remembers with her 
 
30 THE PROPHETESS t 
 
 natural memory, but the particulars are mostly recalled by aid 
 of her spiritual perceptions, in the same manner as she would 
 call up the past occurrences of any other person's life. For this 
 reason the interviews with the Indian spectre, endeavored in 
 this book to be particularly related, may be sometimes partly 
 imperfect, though always correct so far as they go. Some of 
 the most striking occurrences of this long and interesting spirit- 
 ual intercourse will be given as minutely as Mrs. B. has been 
 able to recall them, and will suffice as illustrations of the mode 
 pursued by her mysterious instructor. This, with some remarks 
 applying to the subject of his lectures in their general scope, 
 will be a sufficient draught upon the reader's time, as the com- 
 munications occupied about three hours each day for nearly 
 three years, during which time he faithfully labored to accom- 
 plish his mission to the neophyte, and to fulfil the promise he 
 had given, that from a distance he would come to her and in- 
 struct her concerning all she wished to know. The chief object 
 of these long lectures was, doubtless, so far to inform her mind 
 with the sciences relating to man as to render it a fit receptacle 
 of important revelations to be thereafter and hereafter made, as 
 well as to exercise and familiarize her with that correspondential 
 language — the language of spirits — by which spiritual commu- 
 nications were afterward to be made to her. 
 
 Any further explanations on these points would only forestal 
 what will sufficiently appear as the narrative proceeds. We 
 will now return to the visit that followed the one last detailed. 
 
 EXERCISES IN FOUTUNE-TELLING. 
 
 On making his appearance next morning, the Indian anticipa- 
 ted Mrs. B.'s desire, by saying, " I am aware of your wish to 
 see me in my natural body, but that can not be. Would you 
 not like something to remember me by ?" 
 
 "Yes 1 would, indeed," she answered. 
 
 •' I will give you a keepsake," he replied. " What I am 
 about to bestow will last you all your days. The book you gave 
 me is not true, I will give you one that is true ; it shall be the 
 book of your life, containing your past and future history. 
 Three weeks time I will devote to the past, and then three weeks 
 to the future. 
 
 Accordingly, for such portion of their interviews during the 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 31 
 
 three following weeks as her strength allowed her to see spec- 
 tral ohjects, her teacher was occupied in calling up from the grave 
 of things done, but not ended, the representations of her past 
 existence. Not a single day of the whole time seemed to be 
 omitted, and occurrences so trivial and minute as to have been 
 long gone from memory, were summoned to appear, and made 
 to pass in measured march before the eye. Of course a detail 
 of the whole would be too long, if not too tedious, but the fol- 
 lowing are a few of the scenes. 
 
 The Birthiilace. — Close by a small stream is a well-remem- 
 bered dwelling, with its curtilage complete. There are the 
 yard and garden, the first of earth whereon her toddling feet 
 first balanced her tiny form, the grassplat, spangled with earth 
 stars, the first golden dandelions that gladdened lier eyes in this 
 vv'orld of bright things, the stone-fences and the picket-fences, 
 the shrubbery and trees, coops and sheds, the old gray well-curb, 
 with its huge mossy bucket; the familiar surroundings all, which 
 greeted her opening faculties in the freshness of their first im- 
 pressions, when her new soul, just come to itself after an eterni- 
 ty before birth, stood staring with bewildered wonder on the 
 threshold of being and first knew that it lived and had a world 
 given it to live in. 
 
 " This shows where you were born ; now we will see the 
 hour of your birth," said the Indian. 
 
 At a window is seen the face of a very handsome woman. 
 Over her shoulder is the dial of a clock, whose hands point to 
 a quarter before five, and the sun in the horizon indicates the 
 same hour in the afternoon. 
 
 A new Eve in her Eden. — On a steep hillside, where grows 
 an orchard of plum-trees, a fair-faced, white-haired little girl of 
 three years is climbing and clambering, and freely appropriating 
 the ripe fruit within reach. Now she is gleefully rolling down 
 the grassbank, and now climbing up again, with a paradisaical 
 laugh, renews the hearty sport. Now reposing on her back, she 
 looks up to the blue unclouded heavens, and with widely opened 
 lids shows to the skies orbs as blue and unblemished as them- 
 selves. The child is not idle, but busy with taking cognizance 
 of things and becoming acquainted with the visions of earth, their 
 names and significations. Though her features are a trifle be- 
 grimmed with kissing mother earth's dirty face, rendering them 
 less pretty, but more piquant and picturesque, the beholder ea- 
 sily recognises the image of herself at the furthest point where 
 the memory can reach. 
 
 " You were stealing fruit, you little thief," said the Indian. 
 
32 THE PROPHETESS t 
 
 A Hard Death on a Hard Bed. — In the depth of night, lying 
 on the ground, a strong man is struggling with mortal agony. 
 No din of battle or martial music is there to glorify the death 
 of the camp distemper's victim. Not in the heat of active fight 
 is the soldier's blood boiling forth to dye with ruby flowers the 
 carpet of fame, but in the still and cold night, beneath an unpity- 
 ing sky, cankering disease slowly gnaws at his vitals, and the 
 creeping hand of death gradually chills the current within the 
 veins. Near by they are digging a grave, but no coffin is seen. 
 He is dying for his country, leaving to its Congress the safer 
 task of disputing whether she is in the right or wrong. The 
 sight of the sufferer's face recalls a past vision, and the words 
 of the Indian are heard — '"You have wanted to see your father 
 — here he is." 
 
 A Common Domestic Spectacle. — A weeping mother sits in a 
 widowed home, surrounded by six children who are weeping 
 too. Grief is deepened and stained by sordid cares. In some 
 way, the Lord knows how (yes he does), she is to provide for 
 all these, during a long childhood, bread and raiment, fuel and 
 bedding, shelter and health. Truly her trouble will not be ag- 
 gravated by ennui, nor her energies lag for need of stimulus to ex- 
 ertion. Six children and two hands, a half dozen healthy stom- 
 achs and a couple of organs of prehension, with a weary world 
 to work in, and a hard world to deal with ! But rouse thee, woman, 
 and take cheer ! Those young ones who now hang about thy 
 neck, are a necklace of jewels — veritable Yankee Gracchi. 
 Thy long task, tedious and anxious though it must be, and ex- 
 hausting, not wasting, the prime of existence, shall not be with- 
 out reward. The babies of the rich, mumbling the golden 
 spoons of prosperity shall rot away without usefulness, while thy 
 little trencher-scrapers, hardened and strengthened in the school 
 of circumstance, cultivated in morals and informed in mind by 
 thy teachings, aided by that grace and guidance that comes for 
 a widow's prayers, and linked in concentring love to their 
 mother will form a diadem of honor for thy later life, and enrich 
 a country in whose soil they have no heritage. 
 
 " A widow and orphans," said the Indian. 
 
 The Given Away. — At the door of a smaller house than the 
 former one, stands a horse and wagon, wherein are seated a 
 middle-aged couple, the woman holding in her lap the child of 
 the apple-orchard, whose eyes are pouring plentiful tears. A 
 little family crowd is gatliered round, amid which stands a moth- 
 er, who with kisses, sobs, and tears, is giving away her child to 
 new parents. It is noticeable that when childless people select 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 33 
 
 for adoption, one from a lar^e family of children, they do not 
 usually choose the least intelligent or lovely. And the mother, 
 who is bargaining to secure her child's welfare in exchange for 
 a parent's rights, is throwing into the scale a liberal amount of 
 parental pride ; and the lifting a burden from her hands hangs 
 a heavy weight on her heart. 
 
 The vehicle drives away and pursues its homeward course at 
 such moderate pace as befits the steady paced beast of a steady 
 old farmer's horse, while in dimning distance and blinding tears 
 the sight of home is gradually lost. And now the perfect pan- 
 orama of that ten-mile ride recurs in regular order, presenting 
 each house and field and flock, each turn of the road, each pas- 
 sing vehicle and wayside traveller, all in the fresh aspect of their 
 original reality, and the particular mood of the sky and the 
 signs of the season indicating the very year, month, day, and 
 hour of the hegira of our infant prophetess, are vividly renewed 
 to the sense. At length, passing the house of the nearest neigh- 
 bor, in the yard of which is seen a sturdy little lad, the destined 
 playfellow and protector of the girl, the new home is reached. 
 It is the cottage of the Farmington valley. 
 
 Going to School. — Along the sidepath of the road to the vil- 
 lage school, the boy of the last scene is leading the girl, who, 
 holding in one hand a basket, the lid of which swells with bread 
 and butter, cakes and apj)les, for three city-bred urchins, closely 
 grips with the other the fist of her little knight, whose duty as 
 well as pleasure it is to scare away the troops of hissing geese, 
 and save her harmless from the threatening horns of mischievous 
 cows, those common dangers besetting the juvenile pilgrims' prog- 
 ress to the halls of learning. Well, well, knowledge is power, 
 and must be had at considerable sacrifice. Children are troub- 
 lesome, and at school, if not out of harm's way, are at least out 
 of their mother's way, yet the benevolent lungs must sometimes 
 perform a sigh as the benevolent heart considers how much is 
 endured and how little learned by the rows of small galley slaves 
 chained to backless benches, while vivid and painful memories 
 of the hated schoolroom, awaken pity for the millions of little 
 wretches so easily made happy with proper care, and so easily 
 rendered wretched by incompetence and harshness. 
 
 " Simre the Rod and Siwil the Child.^' — It is several years 
 later, and the girl is seen at school. The tedious morning ses- 
 sion is drawing its slow length to a close ; the minutes seem 
 hours, and the jaded faculties are acting on the nerves with in- 
 tolerable ennui. The monotonous task has become thoroughly, 
 hated, in its generals as well as in all its details, while the im- 
 
34 THE PKOPHETESS: 
 
 prisoned energies are nigh collapsing the little bosom wherein 
 they are pent. The growing organs and muscles are groaning 
 for that exercise whicii their due development so often and ur- 
 gently demands, being unfortunately constituted, you see, accord- 
 ing to natural laws prior in date to the rules and regulations of 
 
 Miss 's select school. No doubt, had Nature known of 
 
 those rules and regulations before she enacted her own, she 
 would have made them conformable. " O dear ! how wearily 
 the time lags on !" is plainly stamped on the contracted forehead 
 of the spectre child, who sits there. Finally, for a moment re- 
 volting from control, the subvertive impulses break out in a 
 whisper, or some other forbidden demonstration of that particu- 
 lar manifestation of original sin, termed mischief, and the fright- 
 ened offender is called up to stand before the enraged school- 
 mistress. 
 
 " What shall be done with her ?" Whipping has been two 
 or three times tried that day, and still offences will come. Be- 
 sides this, the mistress is just now in an ill humor, and with good 
 cause, having conceived a well-founded jealousy of her beau's 
 attentions to the village mantuamaker. Among all their many 
 vexations and trials, school-teachers have at least this one satis- 
 faction, of being always quit and square with the world, for who- 
 ever offends against them, the offence is sure to be visited upon 
 the head or ears, back or breast, legs or hips, or palms of some- 
 bodifs children. And now the poor little prophetess is about to 
 play the part of scapegoat for the sins of the mantuamaker. A 
 box that serves for a bench is lifted, and the child being forced 
 underneath, it is closed down and sat upon. Plainly now this 
 principal of the select school is ignorant of the simplest laws of 
 respiration, or else very angry with the mantuamaker, for other- 
 wise she would not thus encofiin a living child with fully devel- 
 oped lungs. And the beholder of the vision trembles and 
 sweats with sympathy for the poor imprisoned little phantom of 
 herself, for the scene has never been forgotten. At length deliv- 
 erance comes, but almost too late. O how long it seemed in 
 coming ! " Almost too late," says the Indian, " death would 
 have liad you in a few moments more. Sparing the rod almost 
 spoilt the child that time." 
 
 On the bench being lifted the girl does not rise, and being 
 raised up, falls down again, pale as a corpse, while, almost as 
 pale with terror, the school ma'am sinks down, too, and strives 
 to restore the little corpse-like thing. O Miss Mantuamaker ! 
 had you known the consequences you would hardly have bitten 
 your lips at the schoolma'am's beau, and you, my mistress, had 
 
 ^i< 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 35 
 
 you known how much fresh air a pair of lungs consume per 
 minute, you would hardly have ventured to try such a punish- 
 ment, even upon your rival herself. " Had she known ?" ay, 
 had she known ! What fearful ignorance prevails in the halls 
 of learning? and all of it is not confined to juvenile schools 
 either. 
 
 Sleeping in Church. — She is trying very hard indeed — yes 
 with all her might and main — to keep awake, but the weather is 
 warm and the sermon long. The voice of the preacher is dron- 
 ing and monotonous, and he is, in some of his points, a trifle 
 incomprehensible to a child of such an age; so while resolution 
 opens one eye, dullness closes the other. Fennel seed has been 
 tried to satiety, but there is a stage of drowsiness where even 
 fennel seed fails to arouse. The day has been without amuse- 
 ment, and seems already to have been a week long, and seven 
 bedtimes seem to her, to have come and passed since the morn- 
 ing. She has called to mind all the merry doings of yesterday 
 afternoon, till the subject is fairly exhausted ; and she has con- 
 jured up the sensations of boxed ears, which after meeting will 
 be the certain punishment for the sins of the eyes, until even 
 tingling ears have no terrors to revive a drooping soul, and vis- 
 ibly and contumaciously she falls asleep, and dreams of secular 
 things. 
 
 Botanizing. — A wild scene in the depth of a wood, where 
 the woodchuck and adder, worst terrors of a Connecticut for- 
 est, make their abodes. Out from beneath the tangled under^ 
 growths, that crackles with the struggle, comes creeping the 
 same girl, now seven years old. Her face is not pale, being 
 flushed with excitement and exertion, rendering her rather a 
 pretty sight, and, in that wild wood, a strange one, as she stands 
 up and brushes away her yellow-white hair with one hand, 
 while with the other closely clutching the corners of her apron, 
 containing a full load of all manner of intermixed roots and 
 herbs, leaves, stalks, and flowers, evidently the accumulation of 
 much labor, in a wide excursion through the forest. What does 
 she there, among the old trees, with their gloomy aspects and 
 threatening out-shooting arms, and rugged bark, whose grotesque 
 lines seem to make faces to frighten her away ? — trampling over 
 dead leaves and dead limbs, and through lacerating thorns, 
 breathing the damp chill air of this sepulchre of the vegetable 
 kingdom. What does she there, far away, miles distant from 
 the school-children, who are playing upon the green and having 
 a happy Saturday afternoon of it? She does not know, herself. 
 Botany is not taught in the school. She has never heard the 
 3 
 
36 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 word ; yet so eager is she in her researches among the plants, 
 that at this point of her life it is a customary mode of spending 
 the weekly half-holyday to ramble in such places, and, with an 
 eagerness that brooks no impediment and fears no danger, pluck- 
 ing and digging, dirtying her nails, scratching her arms, and 
 tangling her hair, to make a most miscellaneous collection, which 
 none in the village can either name or classify. Now, returned 
 home, she appears exhibiting her spoils to her foster-mother, 
 and seems to ask their names, and what they are respectively 
 good for; and when the latter turns impatiently away, and mo- 
 tions to throw the whole collective botanical treasure on the 
 muck-heap, the child's countenance falls, and expresses no little 
 impatience at such unpardonable ignorance in a woman of her 
 mother's age and size. Here the Indian remarked : — 
 
 " 1 will gratify your desire for this kind of knowledge, before 
 I have done. We will explore the woods and meadows to- 
 gether, where you will learn all about these roots and herbs, and 
 become your own doctor." 
 
 A Vision of Prayer. — One year later. Beneath a tree in 
 the orchard the girl is kneeling at prayer, with an earnest devo- 
 tion glowing in her features, and her little hands clutched con- 
 vulsively in the strife of supplication. Suddenly on the kneel- 
 er's view there shines an appearance of the sun, moon, and 
 stars, clustered in the over-head heavens. Then below these, 
 in the clouds, there stands the unclad and radiant form of a 
 perfected spirit, whom she knows for an angel near to God. 
 The splendor of the orbs is outshone by the glory of the spirit, 
 which, during a space of time marked only by immeasurable 
 emotions, fills her with rapt delight ; — and then all fades away, 
 and the trembler falls prone to the earth. 
 
 " You were not deceived," said the Indian ; " it was indeed 
 •a vision of God, showing himself in his works. At the time 
 this happened you were under a high excitement, and you 
 called it ' experiencing religion ;' but why did you not do as 
 you resolved to do, when you rose up, and go and tell your 
 mother of all you had seen ? Were you guilty of backsliding, 
 being tempted by the devil ? or were you afraid she would 
 whip you for lying? Perhaps she would." 
 
 With similar scenes to these, the story was from day to day 
 continued, till the girl had grown to be no longer a child. Now 
 she would appear learning her prayers at the rudimental " Now 
 I lay me down to sleep ;" — now, at her spinning task, which is 
 gone tlirough with at furious speed, and the rest of the time 
 dev.otad to a solitary ramble on the river's side ; — now, in the 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 37 
 
 fields, orchard, or barnyard, she is disporting like other chil- 
 dren, and making friends of all the domestic animals ; — now, 
 bitterly weeping over the prospect of an approaching calamity, 
 and now wildly galloping over the lots on the bare back of an 
 unbridled colt, who, passing under an apple-tree, leaves his rider 
 in precisely the same lurch as Absalom was left in ; — now, at 
 her little chamber-window, she is reaching forth to follow with 
 straining and streaming eyes the receding form of her own 
 mother, who has just been to pay her a visit, and the tears copi- 
 ously come which the little Spartan has, during the interview, 
 had the discretion and heroism to withhold, lest they should 
 cause useless pangs to both foster and real parent. And now, 
 again, there appears passing before her view, as she sits in the 
 doorway, strange landscapes and villages, large cities, with 
 wharves and shipping, the surging ocean, and distant countries, 
 with palaces and castles, and she, in contemplating them, ap- 
 pears struggling with an almost uncontrollable desire to travel 
 and see the great world beyond the hills of Farmington, and the 
 river of Connecticut. At this scene the Indian says: "You 
 shall see it all, one day." 
 
 The Partino- ao-ain. — The vehicle is at the door of the 
 brown cottage, and where also the foster-parents are standing, 
 to say a difficult good-by to the daughter of their adoption, and 
 the light-framed child, whom years ago they received within 
 their threshold, now passes forth over that threshold a full-grown 
 woman. She is comely to look upon. Her physical devel- 
 opment has in good degree overpowered the spirituality that 
 shone out in her younger years, and the vigor of maturity and 
 the bloom of health have for the present nearly effaced all indi- 
 cations of the incipient prophetess. Her glimmerings of pre- 
 vision have almost entirely faded away, and she is nearer to 
 being an ordinary mortal than ever before or after. The pleas- 
 ant, lively spring-time of life has not commonly been the har- 
 vest-time of the mystical gift, and, whatever history may say, I 
 am inclined to think that the maid of Orleans, of glorious mem- 
 ory, was an old maid and not a young one. 
 
 Love, Courtship, and Marriage. — Some years have gone by, 
 and the scene lies in a city. Late in the evening the young 
 woman is seen entering her chamber, after dismissing a visiter 
 from his second call. But he is a widower, and a widower's 
 second call means as much as fifty from any other beau. She 
 seems alone in her chamber, as, closing the door, she sits on the 
 edge of the bed and appears to think with an anxious and dis- 
 turbed mind. She seems alone, but there is there an invisible 
 
38 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 one who has always been, on earth, her close companion. It is 
 her guardian spirit, who, from deep within the interior spheres, 
 has been appointed and sent to guide, guard, and provide, for a 
 daughter of the flesh. As the maiden sits thus musing, a dis- 
 tinct toll of a bell is heard, sounding from within herself, and 
 repeated till its reality and meaning have become fully compre- 
 hended, and she cries out with affright, " My God, that man is 
 to be my husband." 
 
 Then, in a church, a marriage scene is shown; and afterward, 
 in crowding representations of painful memories, come cares 
 and troubles, toil and distress, children and illness — and a plenty 
 of them 
 
 Three weeks of such visions brought the neophyte's biogra- 
 phy down to that point of eternity without length, breadth, 
 depth, or thickness, which men term time present, but which, 
 ere its name can be pronounced, becomes time past; and then, 
 by similar imagery, the future was represented to her. Of the 
 appearances for this purpose called up, some explained them- 
 selves, some were explained by the Indian at the time, and 
 others came and went without interpretation, it being reserved 
 for their fulfilment to make their meanings clear. The follow- 
 ing are a few of the glimpses of the future : — 
 
 The Medicine-Woman. — A large table appears, covered with 
 various medicinal plants, thousands of them yet unknown in 
 their curative qualities, — specifics for old and well-established 
 incurable complaints, and remedies for dire diseases yet to be 
 let loose upon earth. Another table similarly laden is added to 
 this, and then another ; and afterward all three are, one by one, 
 removed. 
 
 "You will heal the sick," said the Indian. 
 
 The Congress of the Curses. — Ah ! and bah! — how heart and 
 stomach nauseate as she is held to the horrid vision ! Every 
 disease permitted to roam up and down in the earth, sends along 
 the scene a selected specimen of its handiwork, — measles, 
 mumps, and hooping-cough ; plague, small-pox, and cholera ; 
 ghastly consumption, coughing, expectorating, and hoping still ; 
 bloated dropsy, swelling, and desponding ; melancholy jaundice, 
 and distressed dyspepsia ; hydra scrofula, with its thousand 
 manifestations of torment ; torturing rheumatism and twinging 
 gout, fruit of original sin as well as of actual transgression ; ex- 
 cruciating neuralgia and tic, cheek by jowl with the jumping 
 toothache; scaling leprosy and gnawing noli me tangere ; driv- 
 elling, mumbling idiocy and yelling mania ;— these were among 
 the rest. 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 39 
 
 "The blessings of civilization," said the facetious Indian. 
 
 The ForUine-telJer's Lever. — The spectator of these spectacles 
 is next shown her own ioiage grown a few years older than at 
 the time in question, and seated and consulting with different 
 persons who come and depart singly. 
 
 She holds the hand of a young girl who looks intently and 
 anxiously in her face, and seems listening with believing ears to 
 words which cause the color to flutter, sink, and rise again, like 
 Hope's struggling standard, on the field of her fair cheek. No 
 sign of doubt contracts the maiden's open forehead, and the 
 very breath of her existence seems depending on the revelation 
 being made. The revelation relates to the precise state and 
 mood of the fanciful and fleeting affections of some silly, sleek 
 Adonis, whom her true heart glorifies and adores. 
 
 An elderly, conservative-looking man professes entire unbe- 
 lief, and demands a sign before he will yield his faith. The 
 sign he seeks is a lottery prize, or a pot of treasure trove ; the 
 sign of the prophet Jonas will not answer his purpose. 
 
 A victim to the evil eye — of green, next comes and asks to 
 exchange his torturing doubts for damning certainty, being wil- 
 ling to throw in a half-eagle into the bargain, but he gets no sat- 
 isfaction from one whose sight has too well explored the extent 
 of human frailty to allow her to aid in laying bare the wife's 
 transgressions to a husband whose place would hardly be num- 
 ber one in the front rank of throwers of stones. 
 
 An unfortunate widow comes and receives from a sister in 
 affliction much counsel and comfort respecting her hard trials 
 and many troubles. 
 
 One bereft of his watch is inquiring for its whereabouts, and 
 taking a memorandum of the thief's name and place of abode, 
 pays his fee, but reserves his faitii to abide the event. 
 
 A bold operator in stocks wants to learn the future prices of 
 " fancies," and from past experience, perhaps, in the oracle's 
 infallibility, seems confident of his profits, and makes liberal 
 remuneration. 
 
 An anxious sailor's wife is requiring diligent search to be 
 made throughout the ocean — perchance in its depths — for the 
 joy of her heart, whom she describes as wearing a red shirt, 
 chewing much tobacco, swearing occasionally, and answering to 
 the name of " Bill." 
 
 A young heir wants to know the tenor of an aged relative's 
 will, and if it contains a trust clause, and when that long phthisic 
 that has been twenty years in stifling the life of a weak old man, 
 will finally end its work, and give relief to both testator and legatee. 
 
40 THE PROPHETESS t 
 
 A politician would be taught what opinions and sentiments he 
 should declare in order to insure the shuffling chances of the 
 ballot-box. 
 
 A lawyer takes council concerning a pending suit, and asks 
 how the jury will view the law, and what the judges will think 
 of the facts. 
 
 A thief wants to learn his luck. 
 
 A gambler is in search of a rich young flat; — he will take 
 care of the chances if he can find a customer. 
 
 A delicate young wife, well shawled, asks to be told the gen- 
 der of a prospective individual. 
 
 And thus every grade of society, and all sorts of people, 
 represented by their proper apparitions, came to consult the 
 shade of the wise woman ; and as they came, the Indian would 
 announce the character and errand of each. 
 
 " It is only in this way," said he, " that you can learn what 
 it is very requisite you should know. You must see all kinds 
 of people, from the highest to the lowest, observe all their 
 thoughts and motives, cares and griefs, and consult and sympa- 
 thize with them all, if you would be wise ; and I know you de- 
 sire wisdom. A long, thorough, and somewhat painful expe- 
 rience is before you, and will qualify you to fulfil your 
 destiny. 
 
 The Lily of the Valley stands before the Popular Blast. — In 
 a large public hall there is assembled a full auditory, and from 
 
 an elevated desk Mrs. B is addressing them. She appears 
 
 a litde older than before, and has a wiser and more assured as- 
 pect. She seems to be speaking as if her words were of impor- 
 tance, and her hearers to listen as if there was something to be 
 heard. Who they are and why assembled ? — why she is there 
 and what she is discoursing about ? — how so timid a person as 
 she has acquired the resolution and nerve to speak in public ? — 
 none of these questions were answered by the Indian, and none 
 have yet been solved. 
 
 Another unexplained Vision. — A gorgeously-decorated room. 
 In the middle a crowned king sits on a throne, surrounded by 
 a respectful assemblage, among whom herself appears. And 
 this is all ; nothing more is given to explain what is meant, or 
 who the king is ; the Indian only saying, — " You see yourself 
 among the royal family." 
 
 The Writer of this Booh. — He is plainly represented (so 
 plainly as to be afterward at first sight recognised), and he holds 
 a book. Taking it from his hand, the Indian opens and shows 
 it to the spectator. The binding is black, and the frontispiece 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 41 
 
 is her own likeness. " Why, it is my own Hfe," she exclaimed. 
 "Yes," says the Indian, "and our friend here is the author." 
 
 Wealth. — Much gold appears, and by various representations 
 she is shown to possess riches. Some of it is promised to 
 come suddenly, and to be acquired by her genius. 
 
 A Home. — In the distance, and apparently southerly and 
 westerly, is a beautiful dwelling in the midst of highly-cultivated 
 grounds. In one of the rooms are herself and her daughter 
 and one son, in another room is the other son. Her daughter 
 is shown as a full-grown woman, and is elegantly attired in 
 white ; the others are also elegantly dressed ; and each one is 
 attended by a black servant. Everything indicates comfort 
 and elegance. A strange prospect for her, and somewhat diffi- 
 cult to realize, yet, with faith sufficient to believe the promise, 
 she is gladdened with the view of her children's happy home. 
 
 The future closes with a tableau of her deathbed. But did 
 he not reveal the matters and things to come after death ? — the 
 joys and sorrows of the second life, the stirring business of the 
 busy spiritual spheres, the scientifics of the heavenly kingdom? 
 No, nothing of these showed he. But on the verge of that 
 spirit-realm there will meet certain good ministers, whose 
 business it will be to instruct her in heavenly knowledge ; and 
 perhaps among them will stand — as clean as the best of them — 
 the good Indian doctor. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC LECTURES. 
 
 The day that followed the last scene, the Indian made Mrs. 
 B. a short morning call. On retiring he told her to sweep and 
 dust her house, for she might expect visiters in the afternoon. 
 
 At about three in the afternoon he again appeared, and found 
 her in the kitchen. " Your company has come," said he, " go 
 into the front room and receive them." She went, and on open- 
 ing the door, started back, and with dismay, mixed with no lit- 
 tle vexation, asked why he had called her to such a sight. And 
 well might she do so, for there, what think you she saw in her 
 best parlor? A man in the garb of Adam, except the fig-leaves! 
 — naked, but by no means ashamed, for he stood in presence of 
 the lady of the house, in all the native dignity of our unfallen 
 leafless first ancestor ! 
 
 " Go in," says the Indian ; " dont be foolish ;: you must see^ 
 more than this." 
 
42 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 Without power to resist the command, she obeys, and lo ! on 
 the other side of the room, a sight to behold ! It was a group 
 of nude figures of every stage in life's series, from the unswad- 
 dled infant to decaying old age, all of whom she contemplated 
 with an interest absorbing every other feeling, and while doing 
 it observes there has been added to them, the dead body of the 
 first man, stiffened and ghastly, lying in a coffin. 
 
 They vanished, and gave place to the view of a road, bor- 
 dered with all of nature that represents earthly natural beauty, 
 and all of art with which man has improved its face. Differ- 
 ent paths intersected it, tending to lead astray the numerous trav- 
 ellers seen moving there, which travellers representing every 
 grade of society, are all making what haste they can to reach 
 the end of their journey. Plod on, ye plodders; trudge on, ye 
 sturdy ones ; limp on, ye cripples of life's warfare ; dance on, 
 ye gay ones, as wise as the wisest are ye ; hurry on, ye eager 
 ones; shamble on, ye slipshod never-readies; roll on, ye nabobs, 
 in your down-stuffed chariots ; lounge along, ye easy ones; push 
 along, ye go-aheads; some way and somehow ye will all get to 
 your graves in good season for the resurrection. " This is the 
 beginning of your studies concerning man and his life," said the 
 Indian. " You shall learn his whole nature, how he is created, 
 how he lives and how dies, his organization, his members and 
 their functions, his diseases and the means of cure, his thoughts 
 and motives, his actions, and finally his fate. The road you see 
 shows the space of his life and is the scale by which you shall 
 learn to measure human destiny." 
 
 What a syllabus was this for a short course of lectures? Here 
 is a labor and a task for you, my fair neophyte. But the cop- 
 per-hued professor had the art, which our white-skinned ones 
 seldom possess, of exciting his pupil's curiosity to desire earn- 
 estly to know at each step of instruction, precisely the thing 
 about to be taught her, and so attracting her to the study, as to 
 bring into the briskest as well as happiest actii'ity, every facul- 
 ty that learns, and every sense that can taste of knowledge. 
 
 In the course of instruction thus entered upon, the Indian 
 fell a little short of, and went a trifle beyond, what is taught in 
 ■the colleges, introducing into the lessons, it must be confessed, 
 many things which no college would allow to be promulgated in 
 its precincts ; but then what are colleges, that their dogmas 
 should reign over poor outcast truth, as they do, with a rod of 
 iron? Colleges! unquestionable authorities in indisputable 
 mathematics — excellent at a post-mortem examination of de- 
 ceased languages, but for our poor and blind science, our lame 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 43 
 
 and limpiiio; philosophy, what have they done? Colleges, out- 
 side of whose precincts all new things have to be learned, and 
 within whose ancient quiet shades, old learxiing reposes and 
 sleeps snoringly, while orthodoxy and conservatism guard her 
 slumbers. Colleges, whose thick walls of conceit, with draw- 
 bridge and portcullis of censorship, defend the entrance of every 
 original idea:, while their tall and " antique towers" cast long, dark- 
 ening shades far into society ! Cowardly colleges, whose safe 
 maxim is, that it were better a thousand truths, however honest, 
 plump, and fair, should go unexpounded, and like exposed in- 
 fants, die in the outer blast, than that one single bastard error 
 should be laid at your doors ! Cruel colleges, what single truth 
 have you ever adopted or patronized, until after it had, in spite 
 of your buffets and scorning, grown from precarious infancy into 
 hearty manhood? But spite of your conceit, the round world wags 
 on without your aid, light from without is breaking in surprising- 
 ly through the chinks of your crumbling walls, and teachers of 
 men are rising in the world, not by degrees. 
 
 He laughed at colleges, this copper-faced professor did. All 
 quietly to himself, with his simple-minded pupil he cachinated 
 over the pride and weakness of their learning, while he opened 
 to her greedy understanding the sufficient pages of nature's au- 
 thentic encyclopedia, and discoursed concerning man and his 
 organs, life, health, and disease, motives, conduct, and destiny, 
 without once pronouncing anthropology, anatomy, physiology, 
 pathology, materia-medica, phrenology, psychology, theology, 
 or other terms of heathen and Greek derivation. He dealt in 
 science and not in scientifics. 
 
 After showing the laws of man's coming into the world, he 
 proceeded to explain minutely every organ, element, and mem- 
 ber, of the body, with their formation, uses, and operations, 
 beginning with the brain and ending with the bones. Here he 
 possessed an advantage over other dissectors which would have 
 made Broussais and that other Frenchman — Magendie, I think 
 his name was, who damned the soul whose existence he de- 
 nied, by torturing so many dogs to death — die of envy, — for 
 instead of dead subjects, he had the use of living ones, and 
 made plain the whole arcana of the physical man, by elaborate 
 examinations of every part while actually performing the func- 
 tions of life. Visibly the favored student saw the lungs dilate, 
 the black and red blood flow and return, the gastric juice doing 
 its work, the chyle being formed, and taken up and assimilated, 
 the bile going its rounds, and all the process of nutrition and 
 waste performed ; and dull indeed would she have been, had 
 
44 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 she not rapidly acquired the knowledge so plainly and pleas- 
 antly taught. 
 
 Then in the same order was shown each part, under every 
 disease to which it is subject, the way of its originating, and its 
 complete progress till reaching its natural limits, or terminating 
 in cure or death. And the same minuteness was observed in 
 exhibiting the symptoms of disease as well as in indicating the 
 jjrocess of cure. He also taught how hereditary diseases are 
 introduced and transmitted, with the laws which govern their 
 developments and limit their course. Here the fallacies of the 
 faculty came in for many a savage jest ; but what cared the fac- 
 ulty for the irregular practitioner, who had little access to the 
 bedsides of the rich and well-paying patients languishing and 
 dying all for their profit and glory ? 
 
 After teaching how health should be preserved and life pro- 
 longed, he entered upon the science of Medicine. 
 
 He conducted her into the woods and meadows, and caused 
 her to examine and gather each curative plant, while he would 
 explain their virtues. These she must carry home, to prepare 
 and compound according to his prescriptions, and then — O in- 
 exorable Indian ! — by way of learning how to administer them, 
 she must take them all herself! but manfully the trusting disci- 
 ple swallowed the doses of syrups, teas, tinctures, powders, and 
 pills, and by living through the harsh ordeal, became a living 
 proof that the Indian's medicines were of a different quality 
 from those of the drug-seller's jars, for such a comprehensive 
 course of fhose, who could have taken and lived? 
 
 The test he gave by which she was to know the particular 
 medicinal property of a plant, was its taste, or, rather, the se7i- 
 sation it produced, when tasted, upon the tongue ; and by these 
 rules she readily learned to detect each class of remedies, 
 whether tonic or laxative, &c., with all their subdivisions. But 
 numerous plants were found to have the same properties, and in 
 this connection he instructed her that some of them would often 
 be found to produce, on certain constitutions, a more specific 
 effect than others of the same class ; this he said was the result 
 of the influence of the stars upon both the vegetable and ani- 
 mal kingdoms, adapting one to the other by their mysterious 
 presidency ; — but further than this he did not in this place 
 explain. 
 
 These botanical researches were extensive, and continued, from 
 time to time, for nearly the whole of two summers, during which 
 she might often be seen tramping through all the woods around 
 Hartford, and enduring extraordinary fatigue in plucking, digging, 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 45 
 
 and tasting, at the behest of her invisible companion. Then she 
 would seat herself on some prostrate log to rest, and to converse 
 with the pleasant mentor, who often interspersed his lectures with 
 jokes fully as brilliant as those wherewith Professor Silliman,of 
 Yale college, spices his own, and which caused the merry laugh 
 of the pupil to resound through the forest. To see her there, 
 heated and excited with her occupation, listening most atten- 
 iively, as if to a voice at her side, — now gravely considering 
 the unheard saying, — now smiling with pleased interest, and 
 now again shouting with unrestrained laughter, — who, having 
 sommon sense (and having nothing else), would not have known 
 the poor woman was crazy as a March hare. 
 
 While tiius studying medicine, she had an opportunity to gain 
 experience and test the Indian doctor's skill upon cases arising 
 in her own family. For several weeks she was possessed with 
 forebodings of approaching illness, which, acting strongly on 
 sensibilities acute in all things, wrung her with the intensest 
 grief. Often at midnight would she steal from her husband's 
 side, and go into another part of the house, there to weep and 
 sob till her whole frame was convulsed. These premonitions 
 were followed by a dangerous and peculiarly-distressing illness 
 which continued for four months. Under the Indian's direc- 
 tions she all this while prescribed for herself, and took no other 
 prescription, although several doctors of the botanical school, 
 who had learned to respect her for her medical skill, and who 
 called occasionally out of friendship and regard as well as curi- 
 osity, would sometimes make suggestions and offer advice on 
 the course of treatment ; all of which were subjected to the 
 ghostly doctor's criticism. There are those now of this school, 
 in and near Hartford, who remember her, and will know how to 
 respect her medical skill, having often confessed it to be great, 
 while always denying that it came from the source which she 
 frankly disclosed. It is true, that having early conceived a 
 taste for medical knowledge, she had obtained and carefully 
 read the best books of the authors upon Thomson's system, 
 but the new teacher, in order to give her singleness of mind, 
 had begun by wiping away such teachings entirely from her 
 memory, and taught her contempt for the blind guides whom 
 civilized man was compelled to follow in the deprivation of that 
 instinct which directs the researches of the medicine-man of tlie 
 tribes. He mentioned that the high cheek-bones of his race 
 showed more prominently than any the medicine-mark, and re- 
 marked, that in her face the indication was peculiarly strong. 
 
 He explained the general principles of bone-setting, without, 
 
46 THE prophetess: 
 
 however, enlarging upon it, but she has never put it in practice. 
 She has had occasion to observe that it is by reason of a partial 
 and modified endowment of " spiritual vision" that the celebra- 
 ted Sweets possess such skill, and which, by revealing the pre- 
 cise position of an unset joint, enables them easily to readjust it, 
 so that they are, according to Mrs. B., in truth what they pro- 
 fess to be, " natural bone-setters," and, in the words of the paid- 
 for editorials, she " commends them to the confidence of the 
 public." 
 
 Two years' time was thus occupied, and the learner was rap- 
 idly becoming a proficient. Meanwhile, the prophecy of the 
 stones and chains was in due course of fulfilment. But those 
 two years were full of events, full of troubles, and marked with 
 illness, destitution, and other earthly tribulation, sufficient to em- 
 bitter even the reflections of a Job. Her outer circumstances 
 were indeed dark enough, and to the eye of flesh, the long lane 
 of misfortune was without prospect of a turn, and her dark 
 night of sorrow far enough from the morning. Her case, in- 
 deed, had every feature of a very bad and a very hard case ; 
 but it was only a case, an outside case, after all, and the com- 
 miseration of her friends, freely and kindly tendered, was wholly 
 wasted, and would have been better bestowed upon some woman 
 whose exterior circumstance were made of velvet and satin, 
 stuffed with swan's down, and bordered with finest lace. 
 
 Mrs. B. was a happy woman, — "happy as a lord," as the 
 proverb goes, and far happier as the reality is. She soon 
 learned, by frequent experiences similar to those of Elijah in 
 the wilderness, that her Indian had power to make good his 
 words in the promise he gave that she should not want; and so 
 care for the morrow was dismissed from her heart and door. O 
 most happy riddance ! — how few of us can boast of it in this 
 anxious, careful world ! What a mountain would be lifted from 
 the breast of groaning society were " care for the morrow" only 
 removed from it ! One of the means of the Indian's providence 
 was her own strict economy, easily exercised, however, by one 
 whose enjoyments in the inner life left her nothing to desire 
 from the good things of the outward world. In her illness and 
 that of her children he would cheer her believing mind with 
 the certain promise of a recovery, while her faculties were all en- 
 grossingly interested with the ministration of the means of cure, 
 and with watching the progress of the remedies. And in vari- 
 ous ways he would alleviate all her other griefs. 
 
 But her positive happiness was found in the daily communion 
 of that unseen visitant, and in the words he uttered in her ear, 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 47 
 
 discoursing of the science of matter, of spirit and of mystery. 
 In the morning anticipation of his coming, in the midday light 
 and joy of his presence, and in tiie evening's sweet meditations 
 on his teachings, she found a pure and most exquisite enjoyment. 
 Professor Dick, I think it is, who theorizes, concerning the joys 
 of heaven, that they consist in the continual development and pro- 
 gressive study of the science of God's infinite works. Without 
 believing in the Christian philosopher's theory, it is easily con- 
 ceivable that the acquisition of learning in the manner vouch- 
 safed to Mrs B., unclouded as it was by any of the fogs wherein 
 experiment gropes her way, and undisturbed by the wisp-light 
 wherewith false theory leads astray, could afford an intellectual 
 happiness sufficient to neutralize a large mass of material ills. 
 Nor was the unhappy exterior lot of her widow-wife unenlivened 
 by consolations of light mirth. We contemplate the world of 
 spirits through the gates of death, whose aspect on tJiis side is 
 full of awfulness to all, and to most of us replete with bare hor- 
 ror, even as the intercepting clouds frown gloomily upon man, 
 and chill his soul with their descending damps, while on their 
 heavenward surfaces the sunlight plays in gladness, and adorns 
 them with crimson and purple, and silver and gold. Hence our 
 conceptions of the spirit-land (being thus burthened and shad- 
 owed with awe) are divested of all ideas of the common-place, 
 the familiar, the mirthful, or the funny. Yet analogy will teach 
 the reflecting mind that without these, heaven itself would be 
 too unlike the earth for our happiness, since it would be unadapt- 
 ed to man's fundamental organization. The angelic race are 
 created through the human, but such angels as could exist in the 
 state commonly imagined for them, would call for a new crea- 
 tion of men for their germination. It is the lower and not the 
 higher order of animals that can not laugh. 
 
 Now our spirit-Indian was as dignified as a Choctaw chief, 
 and that is more dignified than any Roman Caesar ever was, yet 
 he would often amuse himself and his neophyte with funny sto- 
 ries and most laughable jests. He taught her music by what 
 seemed to her a new method ; it was by means of two ladders 
 on which the notes were represented, one for the ascending and 
 the other for the descending scale. When sufficiently instructed 
 for the purpose, she was made to learn and sing for their joint 
 amusement, songs quite different from those her austere educa- 
 tion had permitted ; and the house resounded with those com- 
 pounds of Yankee words and German music, known as Ethio- 
 pian glees. 
 
 Many an interview was occupied in relating stories of the ro- 
 
48 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 raantic sort, of heroes and battles, heroines and castles, fairies 
 and wizards, which he seemed to draw at will from a fancy 
 whose redundance rivalled even the Arabian Nights. 
 
 He talked freely upon the household occupations in which 
 she would happen to be engaged and gave valuable practical 
 advice upon many matters of common moment. She bad ac- 
 cumulated in trunks quite a number of old calico dresses. 
 One day he reproved her for this, and told her she must put 
 them to some use. Obeying his directions, she took them out 
 and commenced making them up into patchwork quilts. For 
 four weeks, during such time as the care of a young infant and 
 other duties would allow, she labored at the work prescribed by 
 her spectral task-master. The strength of his spirit was upon 
 her, energizing every movement — scissors and needle flew like 
 lightning — she cut and tore, stitched and quilted, like one pos- 
 sessed ; — and so she was, with the will of the Indian. It im- 
 parted a quickness to her mind similar to that prevailing in the 
 spiritual state in which he then was, where moments bring the 
 events of common hours, and rapidly as the weird sisters of po- 
 etical fable wove their web of fate, or as the workmen worked 
 upon Aladdin's palace, she urged her labor of love. She lost 
 no time in those nice questions of taste concerning the shapes and 
 arrangement of the parti-colored blocks and triangles, that so great- 
 ly perplex the housewife in this most fanciful of household employ- 
 ments, for the true arrangement came to her in a twinkling, and 
 quicker than the physical fingers could move, the mind contrived 
 their task. Seven quilts of fine patchwork, nicely finished in all 
 respects, with an arrangement of colors that drew the unbound- 
 ed admiration of all the neighbors, were the results of six weeks 
 scraps of time and the two trunkfuls of scraps of calico. The 
 quilts when done, were not needed, but the making them had 
 been very pleasant. Her expertness was praised by him who 
 prompted it, and she was repaid. 
 
 At another time he showed her how to braid herself a bonnet. 
 The grass was gathered, prepared, guaged, and plaited, and 
 soon she produced a large roll of braid equal to fine leghorn, to 
 which it was similar. On producing a roll of it to her sister, 
 one day, the latter, though greatly struck at the remarkable skill 
 displayed, became fearful that it would injure her eyes to labor 
 on such fine work, and by the present of a new bonnet, persua- 
 ded Mrs. B. to relinquish it. 
 
 With many similar bits of bye-play were the serious instruc- 
 tions of the Indian interspersed. 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 49 
 
 RELIGION AND POLITICS. 
 
 In the higher portions of his lectures, as he approached tow- 
 ard God, the all-causing, the red man would occasionally give 
 glimpses of his own belief, though carefully avoiding to interfere 
 with hers. He would speak of the Great Spirit according to 
 to the simple faith of the North American tribes, as being one, 
 and seemed to have pride in the simple, single, and exalted faith 
 of his race, whose privileged access to the spiritual world en- 
 joyed by them, in right of their savagism, to a like degree with 
 that of our own race in its Edenic state, had from the first, and 
 without the need of written revelation, lifted its possessors above 
 the paganism of the more civilized red, black, yellow, or brown 
 people — above the idolatry of the cross and virgin worshippers, 
 into the single and fixed faith of the Great Spirit, and through 
 that faith into the recipiency of the very best religion of which 
 their intrinsic organizations are capable, and from which a mil- 
 lion of missionaries can never allure them, until civilization with 
 its exterior lights shall have first destroyed all their instinctual 
 perceptions; and then they will hardly be worth Christianizing. 
 How far down the scale of history do we come, before we find 
 a better faith than theirs ? The Indian had never seen reason 
 in his observation of our Christian societies, or in his spiritual 
 experiences, to induce any fundamental departure from the reli- 
 gion of his fathers. He would say, " God is everywhere and in 
 every thing ; and we are God." 
 
 He believed in phrenology, physiognomy, and mesmerism, 
 in sorcery and witchcraft, in astrology and palmistry — and in the 
 potency of prayer. 
 
 Not being a voter, h^ had probably formed no opinions on the 
 bank, tariff, or internal improvement, questions. But for the 
 comfort of the " national reformers," and other people of agra- 
 rian or quasi agrarian tendencies, be it known that he occasion- 
 ally affirmed the fundamental principle that the earth and all its 
 good things are the common estate of all, in proportion to their 
 needs, and not rightly distributable according to capacities for 
 acquisitio/i merely. And be it furthermore known to all people, 
 and to the despair of many, that he unhesitatingly and positively 
 declared it to be his confident expectation and belief, founded 
 as well on his acquired knowledge as derived from his spiritual 
 vision, that for this sinful and suffering world, this world full of 
 crying evils and crying babies, for this world wearied with con- 
 stant and painful toil, for this big-bellied world groaning with long 
 labor and little bringing's forth — tired with turning and turning, only 
 
50 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 to turn up dismal days, and turn down wretched nights for the 
 afflicted sons of Eve — there was, and is, " a good time com- 
 ing ;" a consummation that would fill with grief the hearts of 
 many well-meaning persons, who insist upon it, as the result of 
 their experience, that there is not any " good time coming." 
 
 THE UNKNOWN TONGUE. 
 
 Two years having thus gone by since the Indian's first com- 
 ing in spiritual form, Mrs. B. removed from Hartford to the 
 village of Cabotville, where she made her home for three years 
 further. 
 
 Soon after this removal another task was set for her, concern- 
 ing the signification of which she has never been informed. 
 The young woman who was her chamber companion awoke at 
 midnight, and found Mrs. B. still up and at her table, writing as 
 if for a wager, from which occupation no urging could make 
 her desist until late in the night. The next night she was at 
 the same work ; and so it continued for several successive ones. 
 She would first cover the paper vt'ith characters in horizontal 
 lines, then in lines running from top to bottom of the page, and 
 then cornerwise across the whole ; and this she did, as was the 
 case in all these mystical labors, with wonderful rapidity and 
 facility. The result was a MS. covering with triple lines more 
 than a quire of foolscap, equal to three hundred pages. The 
 characters, though regular after their own manner, were wholly 
 unknown to her, and so they still remain ; she thinks, however, 
 they resembled the Hebrew. Her per^, while flying over the 
 page in performing the mysterious chirography, was not guided 
 by her own mind, but by that of him who was at her side, and 
 who seemed to know no pause from want of ideas. The strangest 
 of all was that, when with such hard midnight work the book 
 had been written, he directed her to burn it. On her looking 
 for the sheets, in her trunk where she had locked them, two of, 
 them were missing. The room-mate was charged with the theft, 
 and confessed it, but refused to make restitution, so those two 
 sheets escaped the burning ; and although, by spiritual seeing, 
 she has since learned where they went, yet she has never suc- 
 ceeded in recovering them. 
 
 Now what must we think it was that this uninformed scribe 
 was thus made to write down on those sheets of foolscap, cross- 
 wise, crist-cross, and cornerwise, with such paper-saving com- 
 
 .L... 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 51 
 
 plexity of lines and time-saving swiftness of hand, and then after- 
 ward to destroy? Was it tlie ghost's last will and testament? 
 Was it some prophecy of grand portent, concerning the doings 
 of the great nations, which the European world is now sweating 
 blood and water to fulfil ? Was it of the interior arcana, too 
 sacred to be whispered in ears of flesh, or muttered by lips of 
 clay? Was it a stray chapter in the new world's history done 
 into black and white for a specimen — for the author's private 
 satisfaction — of that simple and unitary language which is des- 
 tined in due time to prevail and to dis-babel-ize this many- 
 tongued, wrangling, babbling, gabbling world, and become, 
 through all its quarters, the all-expressive and sole medium of 
 thought ? If done for any of these purposes, or for any other 
 conceivable object, why destroy the whole as soon as finished? 
 Or did the Indian himself cause the abstraction of the two mis- 
 sing sheets, and direct their disposal and preservation? — and 
 have they become like the one volume of the Sybil's book, 
 which remained after she had burned the others, more valuable 
 than the whole together? Who knows? I don't know; — she 
 don't know ; — nobody knows. 
 
 HE IS CHANGED. 
 
 This was the last work of the kind he set her to do. After 
 it his visits became gradually shorter and less frequent, until the 
 end of about six months more, when they ceased altogether. It 
 was meanwhile his endeavor — probably to cause her to feel less 
 severely these absences and his final separation — to interest her 
 in the study of mental philosophy. He caused her to procure 
 the best authors, foreign and American, upon phrenology, and 
 carefully to peruse them, and also to make practical observation 
 and experiment on all fitting occasions. She applied herself so 
 assiduously to this that she soon became well versed in theoret- 
 ical phrenology, and a no mean expert in its practical applica- 
 tion, even before she became sensible of her higher and far 
 more certain means of exploration by spiritual vision, which 
 avoids all objections raised against the practical application of 
 its principles, based on the difficulty of measuring the size of 
 the organs through their bony covering. In these studies, as well 
 as in her inquiries into the nature of " human nature" in gen- 
 eral, she found an absorbing and highly pleasing interest whicb 
 had much of the desired effect. 
 4 
 
62 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 But it needed all this, added to the positive exercise of his 
 will, all-powerful as it had become in controlling her every 
 emotion and thought, in order to prepare her for so severe a 
 severance as was coming. The wise and good ghost had be- 
 come a very part of that new and vivid life which had been hers 
 during the three years of his companionship. His hand had 
 opened to her the book of the new lore she was absorbed in 
 learning, his finger had guided her eye along its teeming page?, 
 and his full mind supplied the elucidating note and comment. 
 Withdrawn as she had been from close association with people 
 of this flesh, and in spiritual abstraction lifted above this earthly 
 sphere, he had still been by her with his will for her safe reli- 
 ance in encountering the elements of the upper world. Un- 
 called he had come from a distant pilgrimage to relieve her 
 temporal troubles, to supply her wants with unknown spells, to 
 guide her with his counsel, inform her with his wisdom, 
 strengthen her with his strength, and charm her with his kind- 
 ness. While sitting in outer darkness, she had been cheered 
 with interior light of his lending. For three years he had held 
 himself constantly ready at the call of her reveries, and had 
 proved himself a comforter indeed. And having by this com- 
 munion attained an exaltation of spirit that had caused earth 
 and the things of earth to grow less and less beneath her feet, 
 by his withdrawal she was to be made to feel anew their reality 
 and roughness. Well, it was right she should descend to earth, 
 for there her duty, her journey, and her labor lay. 
 
 In all material respects he was leaving her far happier than 
 he had found her ; and this through his efforts and advice. He 
 had brought her spiritual faculties out of chaos into order, and 
 iunfolded, practised, and strengthened them, to a point where they 
 bad acquired the power of progression by themselves. And the 
 new and abundant resources growing within her, had enabled 
 lier to be not only wise and happy, but also useful to her kind. 
 
 In his later visits his appearance had become brighter and his 
 ^carriage more erect, while instead of the slovenly garb in which 
 he had formerly come, his apparel was new, neat, and hand- 
 some. She well knew that a change was soon to happen. 
 
 And he, too, in departing from her, had his journey to go. 
 His mission to the white woman was accomplished. His task 
 in the body finished, and the hard labor of his earthly day 
 done, a change was at hand which his informed mind knew to 
 be only a change ; and with a foreknowledge which dispensed 
 iwith fortitude, he was preparing to overstep the verge of time — 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 53 
 
 to put off the shell of matter — and stand again free in the sub- 
 stance of ever-enduring spirit. 
 
 For some good reason, he had never told where his bodily 
 existence was while his spirit was with her, nor what part he 
 was acting in material nature during that long spiritual inter- 
 course ; nor does she yet know. Was he, during those years, 
 still, with medicine-chest in hand, tramping the country in the 
 character of " Indian doctor ?" Had he retired to the comforts of 
 a civilized home — which his earnings must have easilv enabled 
 him to do — to smoke his latter pipes under his own quiet porch, 
 whence, while to the passing neighbors seeming to be only lazily 
 puffing out the smoke-clouds and contemplating their curlings, 
 he was, in truth, energetically projecting forth his spirit to the 
 side of his far distant, faithful, young disciple ? Or had he, at 
 life's close, reverting to the instincts and habitudes which had 
 ruled its dawning, withdrawn to his native prairie, and there, 
 lying in his lodge on the broad Missouri's shore, dozing among 
 his harmonious squaws, made daily journeys in the spirit, over 
 the high Alleganies to continue his communion with her beyond 
 the mountains? She would very much like to know. 
 
 At length she saw him die. With chilled heart and burning 
 eyes, she saw right before her the powerful and manly form of 
 her friend shaking in the convulsions of transitions — painfully 
 casting his slough — dying — and dead. 
 
 Black was the pall that closed on the vision, and for ever 
 from her eye and ear removed the familiar voice and form of the 
 prophet-brother, whom as a prophet and a brother she had so 
 respected and loved. Since that day no token of him has ever 
 reached her. Others from the world of spirits have come to her, 
 and thither she has herself gone, to pass up and down through 
 the throngs of the dead who live again, but never there, nor 
 here, in substance or shade, has she ever again seen " the In- 
 dian doctor." 
 
 Long and deeply she grieved for him. As the death-scene 
 closed, desolation descended on her soul, englacing it like a 
 snow-sheet, that seemed to render life a blank waste. And yet 
 beneath that snow there was already upspringing the green 
 blades of consolation. Rapidly in her inner existence, a self- 
 consciousness and self-reliance were dev^eloping, that were ren- 
 dering her a companion unto herself — a lamp to her own feet, 
 and a guide to her own path. Not until his light was removed 
 could she perceive the brightness of her own, nor until his up- 
 holding arm was withdrawn, could she feel her own ability to 
 stand and walk alone. The time had duly come, and all had 
 
54 THE PROPHETESS ! 
 
 been fitly done. And while, like the servant of that other 
 prophet, she stood with outstretched arms and upturned eyes 
 on the spot whence he had been lifted, his mantle, descending, 
 invested her with the prophetic office. 
 
 THE IDOL OF STONE. 
 
 We now go back to about a year before Mrs. B. left Hart- 
 ford. One day a child brought in a collection of pebbles which 
 he had for some reason been making, among which was a light- 
 colored agate in the rough, round and flat in shape, and nearly 
 as large as a man's fist. No sooner did Mrs. B. see this pebble, 
 than she fell in love with it ; — not with that evanescent affection 
 wherewith ladies sometimes love " precious" stones set in gold, 
 or " dear" shawls in the shops, but with a real, heart-warming, 
 and adhesive devotion. She begged it of the child, and went 
 and treasured it up in a drawer, whence, from time to time, 
 she would often take it to delight her eyes with the litde, cold, 
 rough, unprepossessing thing, which did not by word or sign in 
 the least reciprocate her love ; — not for a long time, but finally it 
 did give signs that rewarded her devotion and justified it, and 
 through it there came to her a word well worth the knowing — 
 blessings beyond the measure of any ever before bestowed on 
 its votary by idol of stone, or clay, or wood. Her feelings for 
 the pebble were a constant cause of wonder to herself But 
 since then she has been made to know that the agate is ruled 
 by the star which governs the Indian's fate, and that by his will 
 it was made so strongly to attract her. 
 
 Don't laugh at this, but remember how, in both the near and 
 distant past, wise men have attributed occult properties to stones, 
 and how the vulgar have, in consequence, invested each of the 
 precious gems with some talismanic power, from which several 
 of them are even now named ; and, while considering that these 
 notions are not yet wholly exploded, though without believing 
 that an amethyst will prevent drunkenness, — respect the past, 
 and moderate your mirth. Remember how in metals, seem- 
 ingly as dead and powerless as stone, tardy discovery has found 
 the chosen abode of that subtle fluid which gives as well as takes 
 life,- — and respect infantile science enough to believe that in the 
 common or precious stones forming tlie bulk of earth, and out 
 of which we and all below us have gradually grown, there may 
 yet be found wonders as far beyond electricity as lightning is 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 55 
 
 beyond fire. Consider how few have been the steps of our pain- 
 ful progress from cause to cause, and how nnany are yet to be 
 accomplished ere destiny shall have broupjht us up to the One 
 Cause which is First, — and respect the future — with humility 
 be willing to hear a '* sermon from stones," and so shall you find 
 " g;ood in everything." 
 
 It was two years after the death-transition of her Indian 
 friend, and while still living at Cabotville, that Mrs. B. was led 
 to visit a woman at Springfield whose considerable skill in see- 
 ing had given her a reputation through all that region. Since 
 that death-view, and down to this time, there had been but 
 little manifestation of spiritual phenomena, though her time had 
 been interestingly spent in studying phrenology and human na- 
 ture. The time had now come, however, when her character- 
 istic gifts which had been during childhood steadily growing, in 
 womanhood almost latent, but living, and lately educated and 
 exercised by spectral instructions and intercourse — were to burst 
 forth in full and brilliant manifestation, and she to take her place 
 among the prophets of the new series. 
 
 She found that the fortune-teller looked for her visions in a 
 dark agate-stone, and it at once occurred to her that she herself 
 might see things her own dear little agate, still preciously pre- 
 served. Hurrying home from the interview, she flew to the 
 solitude of her own chamber, and, all trembling with excitement, 
 brought forth the stone, looked upon it, and wished — intensely 
 wished. O glory of glories ! — they are there, — at her call they 
 come, — uppermost in mind, tliey rise first to sight — her own three 
 round, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, absent children. The stone van- 
 ishes, and they appear and shine full in her eyes and into her heart, 
 as real as the little flesh and blood ones so far away — and 7iow 
 she sees at will ! The crowding emotions made her head whirl, 
 while the back-rushing blood nearly stifled her life, and it was 
 some time before she gained sense or courage to realize the 
 richness of her new-found treasure or further to test its virtues. 
 She had seen visions before, but they had come uncalled and 
 seldom ; never till this time had she been able to see them at 
 will. 
 
 On recovering strength, she looked and wished again ; it was 
 to see her father. She did see him. Dead and faded from the 
 earth as was his form, he came, through that opaque stone he 
 came up, in the fresh hues of health and youth, to the daughter 
 he had never seen, lived in her gaze till she had well considered 
 his lineaments, and then sank down again. 
 
 Now, these first wishes having been answered, her early love 
 
56 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 for travel is renewed, and, agate in hand, she traversed the sea 
 and land, and under its spell, the plain chair she sat on forth- 
 vi^ith became a ship without its bilge-water or sea-sickness — a 
 steamboat without danger of explosion or odor of burnt grease, 
 — a rail-car without dust, or possibility of running off the track, 
 — and all without the trouble and expense of paying fare. She 
 visited the countries of Europe, traversed their beautiful parks 
 and even fields, and passing over mountain and valley, viewed 
 their wild and tame landscapes by the dozen at a glance. She 
 went through their cities and saw their opulence and poverty, 
 their palaces and pageantry, and always had the best stands to 
 view the processions when they went b3^ With the stone for a 
 knocker, all doors flew open, and no castle or dungeon, or ex- 
 clusive parlor, was private against her o'pen sesame. — Or, rather, 
 instead of her visiting them, they came to her, and countries, 
 cities, and people — among whom was the little lady of England, 
 with a few of her children — all, at the call of that single Yankee 
 woman, in her solitary chamber, came over the Adantic and 
 remained while she looked her fill ; all came as fast as they 
 were summoned, and none disobeyed the summons that re- 
 quired their attendance at shortest notice. 
 
 Without knowing the extent of her possession, any more than 
 did Columbus when he found Hispaniola, she was as happy 
 as he, and as rich ; for no royal diamond in the treasury of 
 kings would have purchased that little old stone. After the 
 long, sad absence of the one who was dead, her consolation had 
 come at last, — had come, but come without him, for while she 
 looked and wished, and looked and wished, and waited for his 
 appearance, the stone grew dark to the view, and as opaque as 
 agate could be. For weeks she neglected everything to commune 
 with this stone of life alone, save with the company it brought. 
 And she did not doubt that this newly-perceived power, which 
 was, in fact, the result of her peculiar and favored organization, 
 was a virtue inhering in the stone alone. With difficulty and 
 self-striving it was that she at length brought herself back to the 
 village called Cabotville, on the Connecticut banks, where she 
 had so suddenly lost herself on first finding the treasure. After 
 that she was content to see her sights in intervals of time, and 
 so continued to do for the six months of her remaining stay in 
 the village. But as yet, and for some time further, her vision 
 was confined to material objects existent in the present or past, 
 but mostly in the present. 
 
 It was at the end of those six months, and while visiting her 
 relatives at Hartford, that she heard of the young girl who, as 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 57 
 
 is well known there, was then exciting considerable attention by 
 her precocious powers of spiritual vision. Mrs. B. lost no time 
 in callino; on the girl to observe her process, which she found, 
 as was the case with the other, to consist in looking in an agate. 
 On trying herself to see in this stone, Mrs. B. found that the 
 visions it gave were very dim, and so it was with those the girl 
 saw when looking in Mrs. B.'s stone, whereupon the child ob- 
 served that her stone was best for her, and Mrs. B.'s best for 
 her. The girl's agate was even darker than that of the Spring- 
 field woman. 
 
 In the course of the conversation, the father of the girl, who 
 was present, produced the map of a field, and requested Mrs. 
 B. — whom he had soon learned to be a seer of great power — 
 to look upon it for buried treasure. She did so, and easily saw 
 the treasure, which she indicated to be concealed in a certain 
 portion of the field, the same as that the child had previously 
 pointed out. The old man then told Mrs. B. that his daughter 
 had been engaged to look for the treasure by a Mr. C, who 
 had, on the faith of her revelations, already procured from the 
 owners of the ground the right to dig for what he could find ; 
 that they were soon all to go to the place, about thirty miles dis- 
 tant, to secure the treasure. In fine, at his solicitations, joined 
 to those of Mr. C, Mrs. B. was induced to join the party, to 
 aid in the search. A few days found them all at the town of N., 
 and the two females were conducted to the ground, each in the 
 absence of the other, to designate the spot where the workmen 
 should dig. The marks they respectively made were not a yard 
 apart. Tlie men then set to work to lift the gold. They dug, 
 and dug, and dug, but no gold turned up ; — not even silver or 
 copper, or current bank bills, rewarded their sweat. After con- 
 suming a whole night in displacing much earth and exuding 
 much sweat, all returned to the tavern to consult the seeresses 
 anew. Meanwhile, all night Mrs. B.'s brain had been laboring, 
 and she gave Mr. C. her conclusion, which was, that though the 
 money was there, yet he would never be permitted to find it, 
 for that it was in the keeping of a spirit, who would make it 
 his (the spirit's) business to see that Mr. C should not reach it. 
 And having expressed this opinion, she desired at once to return 
 to Hartford. But notwithstanding this adverse augury, they 
 continued their excavations during two days (or nights) farther, 
 with a barren result, and then desisted, leaving the owner of the 
 soil, if he received anything for the right to dig, a clear gainer 
 by the trade of precisely the sum so received, — and so the 
 " treasure" was not "trove." 
 
58 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 Since then, Mrs. B. has well-considered the subject of trea- 
 sure-hunting, and has arrived, as she thinks, at a solution of the 
 mystery ; and it may as well be given here for the saving of 
 time to those who are given to that so unprofitable pursuit. 
 Perhaps it may save the character, too, of the late searchers 
 after Kidd's money. 
 
 The earth is full of gold, and silver, and precious stones, 
 which in the turbulent times of the past, rife with wars and per- 
 secutions, have been secreted by those who never lived to 
 reclaim them. The timid, too, and the prudent, the miser and 
 the miserable Jew, the thief and the murderer, have all con- 
 tributed to stuff the earth's bowels with coundess wealth. In 
 future ages this will all come to light, and the time is near at 
 hand when all the remaining undiscovered treasure will make 
 its appearance in an era of general earth delivery ; but that this 
 will not happen until mankind shall be better disposed than 
 now to make good use of what they find — till which time, the 
 valuables are well enough where they are. 
 
 Generally, hidden treasures are watched and guarded by the 
 spirits of the persons who concealed them, or of those to whom 
 they properly belonged ; for which purpose they are allowed 
 the power, in various ways, to secure the safety of their charge, 
 which they do by misleading the searchers — by frightening them 
 from their object — or finally, if need be, by actually removing 
 the property, or forcibly resisting the attempt to take it. Hence 
 it follows, that it is seldom worth while to dig for buried treas- 
 ure, without first having the consent of the spirits who keep it. 
 Very often, such a custodian spirit has a desire that some par- 
 ticular one of the living — usually a descendant — shall have 
 what itself has been deprived of enjoying, and for that purpose 
 seeks to reveal it to the favored mortal. Sometimes this is 
 done by dreams, and sometimes by daylight apparitions. But 
 such well-meaning efforts are most commonly unsuccessful, 
 especially in the present times, so characterized by a want of " 
 faith. The dreams, twice and thrice repeated, are disregarded ; 
 and as for the apparitions, those who view them, being the more 
 easily terrified because of their skepticism, are so palsied with 
 fear as seldom to be fit to receive the communication or com- 
 ■prehend it. Spirits will not, on such occasions, speak to the 
 itremblers, lest the superadded horror of a supernatural voice 
 should destroy them quite ; and it is for this reason that these 
 ivisitants axe so proverbially taciturn, and that it is generally 
 understood that they require to be first addressed by us before 
 they will make known their errand. — See the story of Hamlet's 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 59 
 
 ghost, embodying all former traditions on this point; and see 
 also the relation, in a former part of this book, of Mrs. B.'s first 
 interviews with the Indian ghost, who, though calling by previous 
 appointment — though divested of the horrors that associate with 
 death — and though coming to one familiar with the supernat- 
 ural, would not speak till after three long interviews. Really 
 our ghostly visitants have great reason to complain of their 
 receptions from this world's people. 
 
 The above theory of Mrs. B.'s is confirmed as well as 
 illustrated by some striking occurrences, of which she has since 
 been informed by actors in them ; among which are the two 
 following : — 
 
 First. In a certain town, in the state of New York, there 
 lived, a few years ago, a lady who had the faculty of " seeing," 
 — in the exercise of which she used a large crystal to look in. 
 One day, at the request of an intimate friend of her husband, 
 and who was one of the very few allowed to know of her gift, 
 she looked for a hoard of money which old tradition declared 
 bad been buried in that neighborhood by a soldier in the 
 revolution, who was afterward (if Mrs. B. remembers rightly) 
 killed in battle. The lady found the money and its location, 
 and saw that it was buried in a keg; but she also perceived 
 that the soldier's spirit still guarded it, and intended it for some 
 of his distant kindred living in the town, and who were poor: 
 all which she made known to the friend, and advised him at the 
 same lime not to attempt to obtain the money against the wishes 
 of its dead owner. Impelled, however, as well by the love of 
 gain as by curiosity, it was resolved by the friend to go and dig 
 where she had pointed out; and for that purpose, himself, with 
 the seer, her husband, and another person, went and commenced 
 operations. Presently they did come to the head of a keg; 
 with eager, trembling hands, the earth was cleared away and a 
 crowbar brought to bear. As the crowbar was struck down 
 upon the head, the indisputable clink of those round pieces of 
 current metal, whose dye-stamped images are the idols of our 
 latter-day idolatry, was clearly lieard by all ; at which material 
 and substantial verification of what had before only rested in 
 the impalpable visions of the crystal-seer, pallor, weakness at 
 the joints, quick perspiration, heart-knockings at the ribs, and 
 all the diagnoses of great alarm, were exhibited in each one 
 of the company — all without the least interference with their 
 movements on the part of anybody or any spirit. Their first 
 emotions, however, passing off, they set lo work to raise the 
 keg ; — they raised something else ! — the soldier came up and 
 
60 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 Stood beside the pit — plainly stood there, in the old continental 
 uniform, and with a bandage around his wounded head, and 
 regarded them fixedly, while at the bottom of the hole a 
 rumbling noise was heard, and the keg moved out of sight. 
 Enough said, good ghost — or, rather, enough done : the pre- 
 sumptuous mortals turned and fled as fast as fright would allow 
 them, and sought no more to finger dead men's gold. And 
 while standing on the field of his easy victory, and contem- 
 plating their timorous flight, ere returning again to the sphere 
 where his business lay, how ineffable must have been his dis- 
 gust at the mortal meanness which could seek to appropriate 
 tlie property of another, merely because its owner happened to 
 be absent from the world ! Politically speaking, they were the 
 agrarians, and the ghost the conservative. 
 
 Second. A man, living on Long Island, called one day on 
 Mrs. B. and asked her to look in a certain place for buried 
 money. She did so, and saw it. He then said that he sup- 
 posed she was right, and told the following story : 
 
 Some years before, he had been told by a mesmerized per- 
 son that this deposite existed, but was enchanted; that, in order 
 te get it, he must go in company with another person, and, 
 while engaged in. digging, both must preserve strict silence, and 
 in case they should see anything, must fall on their backs and 
 remain so till it should pass away. He determined to attempt 
 the enterprise ; and having engaged the aid of a negro, to whom 
 he imparted the instructions of the clairvoyant, set to work with 
 his sable assistant, and with a heart braced up to meet all the 
 powers of darkness who might oppose. These, like the others, 
 easily came to the vessel containing the money ; it was a stone 
 jar, just such as had been described. Up from the jar then 
 instantly there came a large white dog, whereat both easily fol- 
 lowed the instructions and fell speechless on their backs. The 
 dog ran round to the opposite side of the hole and stood there, 
 without bark or bite. Gradually coming to his powers of mo- 
 tion, and encouraged perhaps by the quietness of the " T?/A;e," 
 the negro rashly seized a brickbat lying near, and threw it at 
 the spectre, which, without seeming much impressed by the 
 weapon of clay flung by a hand of flesh, at once vanished, 
 while to its place there sprung a large horse, and at the same 
 time the hole filled with water. * * * They fled, leaving the 
 horse there. 
 
 Encouraged still, however, by the hope of overcoming the 
 " enchantment," the white man subsequently returned to the 
 place, and found the spectre-beasts were gone, but the water 
 
HER LTFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 61 
 
 Still there. He commenced bailing it out ; but his most labo- 
 rious efforts were fruitless, the water rising as fast as he could 
 dip. Finally, by under-drainage (Mrs. B. thinks he used 
 quicksilver for the purpose), the hole was made dry — but the 
 jar was gone. The spirit who kept it, finding his means of 
 intimidation to fail, had in fact resorted to material force, and 
 conveyed his charge to another spot. 
 
 The negro, who had hurled the sacrilegious brickbot at the 
 white dog of hades, became from that time imbecile in mind, 
 and so still remained ; whether as punishment for his temerity, 
 or as tlie consequence of the shock his nerves had sustained, 
 can not be known. 
 
 Mrs. B. always avoids, as far as possible, this kind of 
 exploration, for it usually leads her to see spirits, not always 
 of agreeable aspect ; and she strongly discourages attempts to 
 acquire wealth by any digging that goes further down into the 
 earth than the husbandman's honest spade or plough can reach. 
 
 It was perhaps through her caution to Mr. C., that his opera- 
 tions did not progress sufficiently far to call for any supernatural 
 means to defend the object of his search. Notwithstanding his 
 ill success in that enterprise, he had learned to entertain great 
 faith in the modestly-asserted claims of our seeress, and become 
 much interested in her welfare. At his request, she soon after 
 
 this visited his family at , and prescribed for one of his 
 
 children, whom she cured of. an obstinate illness of long-stand- 
 ing. Mr. C. then benevolently cast about for some way 
 whereby our seeress' talent might be made pecuniarily avail- 
 able to her, and induced her to accompany him to New York 
 for that purpose. After considering various projects, her judg- 
 ment dictated the acceptance of the terms offered by Mr. Bar- 
 num's Museum ; and as soon as a room could be fitted for her, 
 she entered on her engagement, in November, ]844, and has 
 remained in the Museum ever since. 
 
 Though, as we have seen, visions disclosing her own future 
 had often, with more or less distinctness, come to her, yet, 
 hitherto, she had remained quite unconscious of any ability to 
 look into the future at will, whether for things relating to her- 
 self or others. It was when, on her application at the Museum, 
 Mr. Hitchcock, then the manager, asked for a specimen of her 
 skill, that the past, present, and future life of that gentleman 
 appeared in the magic stone. From that time she has exer- 
 cised the functions of a prophetess, a fortune-teller, a witch, or 
 what you will. 
 
 And thus, at the last, we see the spirit of prophecy fully 
 
62 THE PROPHETESS t 
 
 developed in and fully possessino; her, and the science of 
 prophecy completely achieved. The progress has not been 
 rapid or easy. With long, gradual, and toilsome ascending, the 
 summit has been gained. Though w^ith little resting by the 
 way, the journey has been a long one. A born seeress as she 
 was, and from nativity destined thitherward, the ascent had 
 required careful teaching and training, much study and exer- 
 tion, with some painful discipline. But at length the end is 
 reached, and it is a high one. She stands on the zion of 
 prophecy, and the broad domain of the future land, reaching 
 dimly away to the purple hills of unsurveyed eternity, lies 
 before and beneath her view — just where, of old, the scriptural 
 -wizards stood when they beheld whirlwind, deluge, and fire, 
 battle, pestilence, and famine, devastation and captivity, sweep with 
 swift destruction over the scene, and then turned to denounce 
 the coming calamities to their rigid-necked cotemporaries. 
 
 For what special end she has been born and bred a prophet- 
 ess, she does not know. That she has been specially selected 
 to communicate to the world any Divine revelation, or even to 
 foresee and foretell grand events of mere earthly consequence, 
 she is very far from claiming. It may be that this peculiar 
 organization and supernatural teaching have been lent for no 
 remarkable purpose, and it may be that it has been in order, 
 some day, to serve, in some way, some purpose of importance 
 to somebody* Time will tell. There is time enough to tell ; 
 let it tell. 
 
 But, with whatever high or whatever lowly calling — or 
 whether with any calling at all — summoned to that zion, she 
 has come, and here she is, occupying the same high ground 
 with Samuel and Baalam, and those of Delphos ; — as truly a 
 prophet she— as really a recipient of prophetic light — as any 
 of them ; and if not commissioned to denounce Heaven's wrath 
 against the offending nations of modern times, yet it is not be- 
 cause those same nations have not richly deserved it, nor 
 because she has not been ready and willing to do so. A 
 prophetess she is, and would not be properly entitled with any 
 other appellation. The spirit of prophecy is upon her, rests 
 with her, and will not depart ; and she lives and breathes in 
 that high spiritual atmosphere, through whose rare medium the 
 light of God in old times shone, and the word of the future 
 vibrated to the most gifted of the great prophets, bearing to 
 Moses the wisdom of the law, and to Zoroaster's ears the far- 
 off music of the moving spheres. 
 She tells fortunes — " cheap." 
 
HER LTFK^NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 63 
 
 MUSEUM LIFE. 
 
 During the fortnii^ht occupied in fitting; up a cell for her at 
 the Museum, Mrs. B. was bracin;^ her resolution to meet the 
 obvious unpleasantnesses of the new callino; on which she was 
 to enter — and it was a fortnijrht of sobs and tears. No wonder 
 at it, poor thing ! — and all who have noticed her slight organiza- 
 tion and retiring demeanor, so directly opposed to the character 
 required in a woman whose vocation is to look the great public 
 in the face and speak to it, will readily join in the exclamation — 
 " They do not raise prophetesses for exhibition, in the quiet Farm- 
 ington valley." With her one smooth pebble, and not three, she 
 was to meet the Goliath of the million, and, only by hard smi- 
 ling against his causality bump, break through his skull of prej- 
 udice, and reach his fore-brain. 
 
 Slie was not long in drawing visiters. At first her attention 
 was largely devoted to diseases and their cure, in which, by aid 
 of the experience she had already acquired, as we have before 
 seen, she was brilliantly successful. But after a year's time she 
 had to abandon it, except in rare cases, for the reason that her 
 health suffered too much in enduring the various maladies of 
 her patients, which, to a certain degree, and temporarily, were 
 communicated, through sympathy, to her own system. Search- 
 ing for lost or stolen goods has engaged and severely taxed a 
 good share of her energies. Common " fortune-telling" has 
 constituted the remainder of her business, and was the last 
 branch in which she succeeded in commanding confidence ; for 
 the public had been prepared by the clairvoyance of mesmeri- 
 zees to credit the existence of the two former faculties, but not 
 for the third. In fine, she has not, since she first opened her 
 cell, wanted for work ; and hard work it has been too. At 
 first, and for many months, the nervous effort of " seeing" was 
 so great that most of her clothing, even in winter, and with no 
 fire in the room, would continue through the day quite saturated 
 with sweat ; and this is partially the case still. 
 
 One feature of her practice as a fortune-teller should be no- 
 ticed, to meet in advance the common opinion (derived from 
 the cases of imperfect seers or mere impostors) that all fortune- 
 tellers are sustained by the calls of the idly curious, of silly 
 women and ignorant men, and that is, that her labors are by far 
 the greater part confined to matters of business, and that full 
 two thirds of her visiters are men, many of whom are in the 
 habit of making repeated calls at her cell, and of planning their 
 business operations upon the advice they there receive. And, 
 
64 THE PROPHETESS : • 
 
 true is it, though these would be loth to publicly confess it, that 
 by repeated experience they find her to be quite an expert at 
 lawsuits, an infallible future price-current of stocks and mer- 
 chandise, and a safe counsellor in all the practical affairs of life. 
 
 No important event has occurred to mark her Museum life. 
 The painful excitement arising from cases of sad fate brought 
 before her, and the pleasant interest from those fewer ones of 
 happy promise, have alike gradually lost their first intensity, 
 which was great, and, falling into the daily routine of an ardu- 
 ous vocation, she has become indurated at least, if not suited 
 to her condition. 
 
 The welfare of her children requires that they should be at 
 a distance. The change in her name and her long residence 
 away from her relations, have very much served to disconnect 
 her from all her former friends and circumstances. Everything 
 in her spiritual experience tends to destroy interest in those ex- 
 trinsic nothings for which so many of us almost wholly live, and 
 her worldly regards are confined to and concentered in her few 
 and absent children. 
 
 What notoriety or fame she has acquired, if known to, is not 
 perceived by her, and she neither enjoys, nor is annoyed by it, 
 for she never goes where it is bruited. From morning till late 
 in the evening, her seat is in that cell at the Museum. If it is 
 a pleasant place, she is used to it, and if it is not pleasant she is 
 used to it. She hardly knows whether she likes or dislikes her 
 mode of life, for she has followed it long enough to have got 
 accustomed to any occupation. Her (natural) life is confined 
 within the close walls of that cell, and beyond these she can not 
 be said to have any existence. She is a kind of hermit there. 
 The nook is as small as any hermit would think comfortable for 
 meditation or respiration, and without having the musical neigh- 
 borhood of brook, the shade of vine, or the aspect of the clear 
 or clouded heavens. Her cave is built of clumsy lath and plas- 
 ter, its moss banks are chair, table, and stool, and its outer pros- 
 pects only brick, and brick, and brick, piled so high as to leave 
 no glimpse of sky. Yet a hermit she is, and solitary in a wil- 
 derness — in the drear wilderness of a stranger crowd and the 
 dismal solitude of a great city. These are the exterior remains 
 of the little girl of the brown farmhouse of the Farmington 
 valley. 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 65 
 
 A GLIMPSE THROUGH THE GLASS. 
 
 Now turn we to interior things. It was natural for our seer- 
 ess to connect her gift of vision with the stone, since it was only 
 when looking upon it that her voluntary sights had hitherto come 
 to her, and since she had seen others using similar stones for the 
 same purpose. Just before leaving Hartford to come to New 
 York, she had been curious enough to try the experiment of 
 looking in other stones, and had found that crystal gave a clearer 
 vision than agate, and spar a better one than either ; spar being, 
 as she learns, governed by the same planet with herself. Fol- 
 lowing up the experiments after coming to the Museum, she 
 continued for a whole year to try the effect of the different kmds 
 of mineral substance, and many a time had the naturalist of the 
 establishment to unlock the cabinet cases, in order that some new 
 rock might have its vision-showing qualities tested. With all 
 of them she had some degree of sight, but none answered so 
 well as the spar, and with it in hand she received her visiters 
 during that year. When that time had elapsed, she conceived 
 the idea that the faculty lay wholly in her own mind, and, on 
 discarding the pebble and strongly abstracting her thoughts, 
 found she could see as well as before. After this, in order to 
 aid in this mental abstraction, she used to practise with blind- 
 folded eyes. Finally, after doing this for six months more, she 
 discarded the veil, and found herself fully able to see without 
 any such artificial mediums of stone or berage. And thus was 
 her education conducted. First she was familiarized to the 
 presence of a spectre, and enabled to converse with him. Then 
 her own past life was shown by representations and signs, which, 
 being the easiest lesson for a beginner to comprehend, she was 
 directed to read as far as she was able, while what she failed in 
 was afterward explained to her. Then followed her future life, 
 and other events resting in the future. Then the teacher of 
 all this was entirely withdrawn from her, so that she might gain 
 self-reliance. After two years longer, during which all these 
 seeds of instruction were germinating, she was caused to ab- 
 stract her mind by closely fixing her eyes on a stone, being made 
 to think that by siich means alone could anything be seen. At 
 first the stone used was one having affinity with the Indian, but 
 that was afterward changed for one ruled by her own peculiar 
 planet. After over a year's close practice, she was taught to 
 rely on her power of mental abstraction, with the simple aid of a 
 blindfold which excluded exterior sight from disturbing her 
 mind ; — and at length, when with all this discipline her educa- 
 
66 THE prophetess: 
 
 tion had been completed, all these adjuncts were discarded, and 
 her visions shone in immediatelj, directly, and clearly, to her 
 unaided mind. 
 
 Mrs. B.'s manner in interviews with those who consult her is, 
 at first to take the hand and concentrate her eyes for a while in 
 the centre of the palm, but soon letting it fall, she looks with a 
 fixed and peculiar expression downward and forward, or, some- 
 times, upon the face of her watch, occasionally fetching a deep 
 sigh. Sometime she examines the whole palm, and will remark 
 on the indications that the theory of palmistry, which she has 
 studied, teaches her to find there, but her revelations are never 
 based on palmistry, but solely upon her " sight." She will 
 speak respectfully of astrology too, on which subject she has 
 read several works, and entertains more respect for the early 
 astronomers than do we, who call those deep students fools ; 
 but inasmuch as astrology, for the correctness of its results, de- 
 pends upon the medium of the human science of figures, human 
 accuracy of calculation, and human systems of interpretation, 
 all finite in their nature, and inasmuch as we remain still in con- 
 siderable ignorance respecting the map of the starry heavens, 
 wiiich must be the very foundation of the science, its meagre 
 fruits are well accounted for. Yet it is surprising to learn how 
 many persons have come to her, who, even in this utilitarian 
 region, have spent ten, twenty, thirty years, or whole lives, in 
 poring over old tomes devoted to this occult science which we 
 have generally considered to be long ago consigned to the grave 
 of lost labors — to the grand salle des pas perdvs, among the 
 many chambers in the tomb of the past. O we are all finite 
 creatures ! our sight hardly outruns the length of our noses, our 
 noses are very short, and it is presumption to turn them up at 
 anything. 
 
 Now how does this woman see ? — and what is it she sees, 
 from which she infers the revelations made by her? The liter- 
 ature of this young world, even now at its infant school, learn- 
 ing only by dint of much persuasion and punishment, is already 
 extensive enough to require many lives to explore it; — what 
 must be then the extent of simply the alphabet and spelling- 
 book, to the universal spiritual language whereby she reads such 
 portion as is permitted of the broad pages in the library of fate ? 
 So far as may be done, she will one day in a suitable mode 
 make known to all as much of this as we can comprehend. For 
 the present we must be content with a sketch merely of the mode 
 by which she is enabled to prophesy. 
 
 LFpon looking for the life of a person, she calls up in her mind 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATl' RAL G7 
 
 a scale of measnreTnent, liy vvliieli to ninrk the time, vvhicli she 
 divides, at first, into years. Then, from the beginninn; she looks 
 along the scale to observe the circumstances and events which 
 appear each in the year of its occurrence, and so passes over 
 the whole scale till the end is reached ; the whole coming up to 
 sight without distinction of past, or present, or future ; so that 
 another effort is needed to separate them. This is done by 
 uis/iing for the circumstance that marks the present to appear, 
 which is instantly shown, in its proper position on the scale. 
 When any striking circumstance rises to view, and it is desired 
 to know the time with particularity, she again subdivides that 
 portion of the scale on which it is represented into months, — 
 these again into weeks, and so into days or hours if needed. 
 Suppose that in passing her thought along the scale, one of the 
 year-spaces is obscured by a cloud, which denotes misfortune, 
 she will fix her mind on the cloud and desire to see what it 
 portends, which will appear, perhaps in the shape of a sick-bed, 
 on which the subject of the story is seen lying ill. To know 
 the disease in such case, she closely regards the body, which is 
 thereby made to appear more distinctly, and all its organs are 
 shown, by the appearances of which, of course, the disease is 
 made manifest. To know the duration of the illness, the year- 
 space is subdivided as mentioned above, and if it results in 
 death, the scale is cut short at the illness. Tn the next place, it 
 may be, a young lady is seen, with certain adjuncts indicating 
 courtship or marriage. Perhaps it is a courtship being carried 
 on in the present, and on describing the appearance of the fair 
 one, the visiter, with some natural solicitude, asks if she loves 
 him. To answer this question the seeress wishes a closer in- 
 terview with the object of his flame, and on her coming quite 
 near, mentally asks her how she likes the young man, to which 
 the fair spectre replies in voice, seemingly sounding in the natu- 
 ral ears of the seeress, either that she loves John dearly, or that 
 she cares little for him, but is only holding on to him for a pis 
 alln; in case the other youth, whom she docs affect, should fail 
 to propose, — or else that she does not love him, but " perfectly 
 hates the sight of him" (young ladies never hale mperfectly). 
 But either way it may be, the real truth is told, no deceit being 
 permitted in such interrogatories. Possibly the disposition or 
 intellectual qualities of the subject of the vision is asked for; in 
 which case, the whole cranium comes up plainly, and the sizes 
 and relations of all the organs tell the story. 
 
 Here 1 will remark, that Mrs. B.'s skill and facility in phre- 
 nology, which she exerts without even looking at the head (witli 
 5 
 
GS THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 exterior eyes), is not the least wonderful or useful of her c:ifts. 
 Let any one produce to her a chart marked by one of the Fow- 
 lers, and with the greatest rapidity, and while his hat is on his 
 head, she will go over the phrenological scale, giving the num- 
 ber proper to each organ as she goes ; and when done, the co- 
 incidency between her numbers and those of the phrenologist 
 will be close enough to fully justify the eminent reputation of the 
 latter, while the discrepancies will, upon reference to the expe- 
 rience of those who know the person, be found clearly to estab- 
 lish her supremacy over all manipulators. Besides using the 
 chart, she also explains the head with untechnical language, giv- 
 ing as rapidly as she can speak each one of the characteristics 
 as well as the relations of the whole. 
 
 Now, — the scale thRt has been described, is an arbitrary men- 
 tal creation of her own, similar to what we all are constantly 
 using in our ordinary operations of thought. Tjie person on 
 the sick-bed, the organs of his body, the young lady, her brain, 
 and her voice, are all of them simple appearances, which any 
 one may easily understand, and which, in the spiritual commu- 
 nications made to mortals, are used whenever they can be ren- 
 dered expressive of the intended meaning, but where they would 
 fail of this, signs are used. The clovd was a sign of calamity, 
 as the coffin would be of death. The full sun is with Mrs. 
 B. a sign of certainty, while the sun with an eclipse signifies 
 doubt, — yes, strange as it may seem, the decrees of fate do 
 in some instances come to her darkened by doubt — positively 
 •doubtful, — but let this be considered elsewhere than in this 
 'book. The lessons she received from the Indian were written 
 in signs appropriate to him, but after he left her, and she began 
 ito see independently, a new set of signs were used, which were 
 appropriate to Iter. 
 
 It was by signs tliat the great visions of the Jewish prophets 
 were mostly if not wholly shown. Generally, those prophets 
 gave to the world the interpretations of what they saw, without 
 describing the signs themselves, while at other times they merely 
 transmitted to posterity the uninterpreted manuscript of heav- 
 enly hieroglyphics, with no hint of their meaning. Now, inas- 
 much as different prophets see by different systems of signs 
 ((so Mrs. B. says), and we are taught that the science of interpre- 
 tation is a lore as rare perhaps as the power of prophecy itself, 
 we must not be surprised that these grand mysteries of olden 
 prophecy, which the seers who saw them concealed from the 
 people, have met with no very clear or unanimous interpretation, 
 from those numerous modest expositors who have pretended to 
 
HER LIFE NATUKAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 69 
 
 understand tliein by unaided exterior wisdom alone. Why 
 those records were written in hidden ciphers, — when they are 
 to be made plain to mortals, — whether by fnture seers of clearer 
 light than those early ones, — whether, as is most likely, the old 
 prophets perfectly understood their meaning but were forbidden 
 to reveal it, — or whether, again, they were written only to be a 
 record unto themselves, and not to be made plain except by the 
 light of their own fulfilment, — we can not say. But however 
 it may be, of this we should feel sure, that when they are inter- 
 preted, it will be so clearly done as to leave theologians no pre- 
 text for mistake or disputation, for wasted words or misapplied 
 foolscap, or further outpouring of ink or wormwood, vinegar or 
 gall ; in those days many pages of commentary will suddenly 
 become waste-paper, and some marginal notes in the received 
 versions of the Bible read silly enough. 
 
 Although the signs are very numerous — those seen by her 
 being probably over a thousand in number — yet their meanings 
 are rendered to her by an immediate intuition which leaves no 
 room for doubt, or need of hesitation ; and her prophecies based 
 on them never fail of the completest fulfilment. In "telling for- 
 tunes" in the hurried manner often rendered necessary by a 
 press of visiters, — in unpleasant interviews with repugnant char- 
 acters, — while forcing herself to see in disregard of her moods 
 of mind or condition of health, she will occasionally neglect to 
 search out and observe, cr duly compare and consider all the 
 rej}rcsent<itions requisite to producing a correct result, and so, in 
 some rare cases, may fail of perfect accuracy, or even go, in cer- 
 tain respects, wide of the true mark. It is also true, that with 
 some very ^ew persons of controlling will, she finds it impossi- 
 ble to see clearly. But except under such disturbing influen- 
 ces, " representations" are as sure as signs, and her prophecies 
 absolutely infallible. This is her claim, and before a public 
 who have had and still have abundant opportunity to test her 
 pretensions, she abates not one jot or tittle of that claim. 
 
 I have said that her mission has not hitherto been to stand in 
 the high places of the holy prophets, to reveal the Divine pur- 
 poses to trembling nations. How could it be, as she has been 
 circumstanced "? Yet she knows full well that her talent is of 
 the same kind as theirs, and her lore learned through the same 
 mystical language ; nor have her spiritual eyes been wholly for- 
 bidden to dwell on deeper, grander, and holier things, than were 
 contemplated in her engagement with the Museum manager, — 
 but of these more in due time. 
 
 This prophetess, whether she be a true or a false one — is it 
 
70 THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 not known ? Her hand is open. She hides no lisfht under 
 any bushel, nor does she take other measures to avoid scrutiny. 
 Not like her sisters of imperfect sight, the Pythonesses, does 
 she speak in riddles, covering with cloudy phrase a back door 
 of escape through after construction, but right out she speaks, in 
 language common enough to be " comprehended by the common- 
 est comprehension." For nearly five years now gone, she has 
 sat in that Museum-box, receiving all comers, and rejecting 
 none, submitting to all tests, using no paraphernalia of mystery 
 to excite curiosity, or. theatrical clap-trap to tickle the popular 
 taste therefor. In those years she has been consulted by thou- 
 sands, and tens of thousands, for whom she has foretold births, 
 marriages, and deaths, disease and recovery, losses and gains, 
 friendships and enmities, journeys and returns, thefts, burglaries, 
 and burnings, affairs of the parlor, affairs of the kitchen, matters 
 of state, fluctuations in trade, common events and remarkable 
 occurrences, with all other of the generals and minutiae of vari- 
 ous human circumstance and transaction. And has she not 
 foretold them truly? Let those same tens of thousands be in- 
 quired of, and let them answer. There will be found among 
 them the learned, the pious, and the great. You will find them 
 in the grandest saloons of every American city, and you will 
 seldom search for them in vain in the obscurest regions of the 
 land. The sailor on the remotest coast beguiles the long dog- 
 watch with recounting the wonders of his experience with the 
 wise woman of New York, while faithful listeners believe and 
 tremble. No caravan crossing the bare plains which bar us 
 from the western placers of golden harvest, but contains some 
 one who can bear testimony in her favor. In Texan bar-rooms 
 the brawler is bowie-knived pursuant to her prediction, and on 
 the northern meadow or mountain, crops flourish or are blighted, 
 sheep are propagated or smitten with rot — all that it may be ful- 
 filled which was spoken by this prophetess. In Arkansas, Jones 
 is elected over Johnson according to her predication ; and when 
 in Maine " democracy is triumphant," she can truly say, "I told 
 you so." The tornado sweeps the ocean to accomplish her 
 decrees ; and ships freighted with wealth sail safely into port to 
 establish her fame. For almost five years she has been doing 
 this ; for four years and eight months she has continued regu- 
 larly at her post, dealing out the sweet things of happy promise 
 for a Spanish quarter the dole — pumping the thunders of dire- 
 ful fate at two shillings per clap. Ail-quietly has she conducted 
 her labor ; not roving about, but all the while remaining in the 
 same city and on the same corner, giving time a fair chance to 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 71 
 
 expose the impostor — time has verified and confirmed the 
 prophetess. 
 
 No mode could be better for establishing Mrs. B.'s claims 
 than this one into which she has been by circumstances led. 
 Prophesying during all this long time to as great an average 
 number as a hundred in each week, she has been enabled to 
 sow the seeds of a vigorous public opinion, which finally, not- 
 withstanding the silence of the press, and despite the thousand 
 and one opposing causes, are producing their fruit. The found- 
 ations of her fame are now too broad to be shaken. Her disci- 
 ples have become numerous enough to keep one another in 
 countenance, and though few may yet be bold enough publicly 
 to speak out, there are thousands standing ready to cheer him 
 who will. 
 
 During these same five years in which, with such labor, she 
 has been so slowly and surely coming forward, the atmosphere 
 of opinion has been in other ways preparing to receive her 
 claims. In that space of time common opinion has, with a 
 rapidity past all precedent, progressed in kindred channels of 
 belief in the (so called) supernatural. The faculty of present 
 seeing by mesmerized subjects, has in that time gained so many 
 believers, that to affirm its truth has ceased to be heretical or 
 ridiculous with any but those who live very far from the road 
 and never take the papers. In five years the scientific religion 
 and religious science of the wise Swedenborg has, after so long 
 a lapse since its discoverer's death, lifted high its head among 
 the highest and broadest heads in the land, and is rapidly be- 
 coming not only reputable but fashionable. And homeopathy, 
 medicine spiritualized, — most infinitesimal of "humbugs," out- 
 raging the plainest principles of common sense, absurd on its 
 face, based upon negation, with theory incomprehensible to its 
 own professors, and so thin and light that logic finds no prying 
 point on which to brace its lever in order to overturn the misty 
 fabric, — impertinent little homeopathy, leaping up and spitting on 
 the gray beard of old and reverend experience, and with its fine 
 mustard shot " pellets" making war against big bomb-boluses — 
 yes, and beating them too, in a fair fight, — is at this day quite 
 another homeopathy from what it was five years ago. Aided 
 simply by the force of facts, it has made good its entrance to 
 the chambers of patients rich enough to afford an illness once a 
 fortnight, and to pay the bills on presentation, and now is driven 
 on its wide circuit in a coach and pair, treads on velvet carpets, 
 and twirls its gold-headed cane, seated in a chair of damask be- 
 side a bed of down. Who that can swallow homeopathy will 
 
7S THE PROPHETESS : 
 
 choke at anything that is well proved ? Lastly, dreams and 
 ghost-stories are coming into vogue. The hobgoblins that 
 haunted the poor German seeress, are recalled to frighten fair 
 ladies of a distant land and language. The story of their re- 
 doubtable performances, and sketches of the " night side of 
 nature," are read in place of the discarded novel, — old spectres 
 are revived, new vamped and verified again, — interpreters of 
 dreams are called for, and spooks, bogles, and ghosts, dressed in 
 modern habiliments, come with familiar air and knock by day- 
 light at the doors of our belief. 
 
 Among the rest, and at the last, comes prophecy also ; — not 
 standing on the sacred mountains, or hiding in the caves of holy 
 valleys, not crying in the wilderness — she might cry there for 
 ever before customers would come — but in aspect of a respect- 
 able woman, of middle age, clad in dark stuff gown, and wear- 
 ing a warm shawl not made of camel's hair, " as she knows of," 
 seldom tasting wild honey, and not at all relishing locusts, but 
 eating bread and butter, and drinking strong green tea, — she 
 appears before the public, and speaking truly of simple things, 
 lifts up her slender and clear voice — and is finally heard through 
 all the roar of rushing ideas, the clangor of machinery, and the 
 bruit of business in these practical times. The turn of prophecy 
 has at length arrived ; — the hour has come, and the woman. 
 
 Certainly, the advent of the supernatural is upon us, and the 
 day of mere materialism is dying away. The old laws of na- 
 ture are being either foully violated or else receiving a new 
 construction that changes their meaning wholly. The solid, the 
 heavy, the fast-fixed, are yielding to the airy, the unsubstantial, 
 the ghostly. The ocean of the unknown rises around, and is 
 invading the dry ground of our ancient reliance, while the 
 vague clouds of mystery descend and drench us where we 
 stand ; and a new deluge threatens to drown our old world of 
 opinion for its long sins of unbelief. 
 
 There is getting to be no comfort for the unhappy conservatives 
 in these days; they do not even serve the humble purpose of a 
 drag upon the wheels of progress, since we turned loose the 
 poor old tortoise who had carried the world so slowly and quietly 
 on its back in the used-up centuries, and hitched in its harness 
 the locomotive rampant, — it will be the air-horse volant soon ! 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 73 
 
 SPIRITS AND GUARDIAN SPIRITS. 
 
 The people who dwell in the land of spirits, and even the 
 anejels of the inner heaven, are no strangers to our prophetess. 
 When it is properly required of her, she can always have sight 
 of them, and, had her vocations permitted it, would gladly have 
 devoted a large portion of her time to contemplating those inte- 
 rior realms where they abide. This kind of spiritual communi- 
 cation, however, which is effected by her visiting them, is very 
 different from that where they come to call on her, which last 
 has occurred in comparatively ievf instances, which I will here 
 relate. 
 
 Among the earliest of those who called on the " fortune-tell- 
 er," at the Museum, was an elderly gentleman now dead, who, 
 being himself, of a highly spiritual organization, and much versed 
 in spiritual phenomena, became at once greatly interested in 
 her. To him she communicated the history of her supernatu- 
 ral experience, and from him she received much valuable advice. 
 On being told of the interviews she had had with the Indian 
 doctor, he conceived the idea of attempting the same thing, and 
 partially succeeded in it ; and it was also found that she too 
 could make herself apparent to him from a distance, and in this 
 manner they would afterward often hold converse in the spirit, 
 while being separated in the body. After enjoying his friend- 
 ship for a few years, she saw that his end was approaching, and, 
 for an important reason warned him of it. He died according 
 to the prediction. 
 
 Not long after his death, he came to her one day, as plainly 
 visible as in life, and wearing the same aspect, to tell her how 
 to proceed in relation to one of her children, who was not then 
 situated just as she wished ; and pursuant to his counsel, she at 
 once set off on a long journey and placed the child in excellent 
 keeping. In this interview he showed her a book, which, on 
 opening was found to contain four portraits, being those of her- 
 self and her three children, and to be written in a strange lan- 
 guage — the Hebrew, as she fancied. His last visit was quite 
 lately, and while this present book has been in progress. 
 
 It was in the evening, at about ten o'clock, the hour when her 
 Museum duties ceased, when the noise of the outer orchestra 
 in the music balcony had discontinued its fierce, but desperately 
 hopeless competition with the inharmonious omnibus wheels, and 
 left the public ear free to them alone, when the liberated clerks 
 of the retail trade were seeking the subterranean oyster saloons 
 of Park Row, and through all Broadway and its tributary streets 
 
74 THE PnOPHETESS ! 
 
 the business of the day was giving way to the pleasures of the 
 evening, for those whose days, alas, were pleasureless, and the 
 ghosts of St. Paul's church\ard, relieved from the tormenting 
 rays of the Museum windows, could walk in quiet and gossip 
 from grave to grave — that she descended the Museum stairs and 
 bent her way round the corner to her boarding-house. Among 
 the crowd that covered the side-walk, a man in a cloak approached 
 the side of the fortune-teller and moved along with her. She 
 
 turned to look him in the face and saw it was Mr. . 
 
 They walked in silence till the house door was reached, and 
 passing in with her, he took his seat by her side. Still no word 
 was said, but from beneath his cloak he produced a basket of 
 fruit and handed it to his friend, who, receiving it, found the 
 fruit to be all of gold, and on opening them, that each contained 
 a precious gem in its centre. He departed in silence, as he had 
 come ; — and this was all. 
 
 Her grandmother frequently calls on her from her upper abode, 
 generally coming at times when her descendant needs counsel, 
 and for the purpose of giving it. Occasionally a visiter who 
 knocks at the door of the forlune-teller's cell, sees it open a lit- 
 tle, while her mild voice says, " presently sir," or, " wait a lit- 
 tle, I will see you ma'am in fifteen minutes," and then the door 
 is closed again. The visiter strives to beguile the time by look- 
 ing at the noted and the unknown worthies on the walls of the 
 picture-gallery, whom he did not come to see, but, while doing 
 this, little thinks that the visiter within the cell, for whom he is 
 postponed, has come from so great a distance as the spirit-land, 
 to see her granddaughter ; — if he did, he would doubtless 
 wait a half hour, even for the accommodation of the ancestral 
 spectre, or perhaps, feeling a natural aversion at succeeding her 
 on the only spare seat of the cell which she is occupying with- 
 out warming, would abandon his call altogether. 
 
 It has been made known to Mrs. B. that this is her guardian 
 spirit, or rather, is one of them, for another has her fate in charge. 
 
 " I am of thy brethren the prophets." — Bible. 
 
 Not near, but at a distance, not visiting and conversing with 
 Iher, but holding himself to view from afar ; of high and holy 
 aspect, she is allowed to recognise one, whom she also knows as 
 her guardian through her earthly pilgrimage, and her assistant in 
 her earthly labors. She thinks she can name him. He is dressed 
 in the costume of ancient Israel, with robe and sandals, and 
 wears a beard. It is thus that Elijah, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel, or 
 Jeremiah, might appear to a prophet-sister of the later time, in- 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 75 
 
 heritor of his powers of prescience, and to watch over whom, 
 and all her trials, was his appointed task and pleasant duty. 
 This spirit holds himself aloof, I said. Perhaps he will one 
 day draw near ; she hopes for it. 
 
 And tlie Indian, who came to her in her need and was good 
 to her, who found her in darkness and left her in light, who found 
 her in adversity and left her in good estate, who sought her out 
 while feeble and suffering, and brought with him strength and 
 health for her ; the Indian, whom the falling curtain of death shut 
 entirely from her view, and whose often looked-for, often longed- 
 for form, comes no more to her aching eyes; — has he no longer 
 any agency in her fate ? — and is a cloud of darkness always to 
 be the only sign that rises when she would search for him through 
 earth and heaven ? It seems so. No clue can she gain of his 
 fate, and even her inquiries for him, instituted in the natural 
 • world, have as yet been fruitless. But she knows that when 
 this book siiaJl be published, information of his fate (in this life) 
 will be forthcoming, and the book she gave him, " solitude sweet- 
 ened," be restored to her hands. 
 
 SPONTANEOUS VISIONS. 
 
 Spontaneous visions are those which come without being 
 looked for. They are sent to, and not colled uy by her. Of 
 this kind seem to be all the recorded visions of the sacred seers. 
 They are, of course, of far greater importance than are com- 
 monly the sights she herself searches for to serve the occasions 
 of some individual mortal. Of these she has been favored with 
 many, they come more frequently of late, than formerly. For 
 instance : — 
 
 One day while seated, waiting for visiters, the heavens were 
 shown with the sun, moon, and stars, all clustered together, just 
 as ihey had appeared in a vision of her childhood, and below 
 them was the surface of the earth, all of it evenly strewed with 
 gold in great abundance. Again — a tree is seen bearing two 
 kinds of fruit, crab-apples below, and oranges above. The crab- 
 apples turn to silver, and the oranges to gold. Again — in the 
 park (opposite the Museum), another tree is standing, and on it 
 are perched three beautiful birds, two of them being together 
 and the other by himself, below them. In the beak of each is 
 a ring, and from each ring there hangs a little gold bell. She 
 knows the signification of them all. 
 
76 THE PROPHETESS t 
 
 SHE STRETCHETH FORTH HER HAND AND PROPHESIETH CON- 
 CERNING GREAT THINGS. 
 
 " But the prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, 
 which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the 
 name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 
 
 " And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which 
 the Lord hath not spoken ? 
 
 " When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing fol- 
 low not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not 
 spoken, bur the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously : thou shalt not 
 be afraid of him." — Deuteronomy, xviii., 20, 21, 22. 
 
 The reader may now notice that no attempt has been made 
 to engage his faith by any details of "sample instances" show- 
 ing our prophetess' success in her art. Such a course would 
 have been needless, useless, and improper : needless, because 
 in every circle may be found those of good veracity who are 
 able — and, when this shall have been published, will be willing 
 — to recount their own experience with the fortune-teller of the 
 Museum, and bear witness in her favor ; — useless, because such 
 details, coming with the mere sanction of an anonymous pen, 
 would, justly, gain little credit; — improper, because it would 
 tamper with that implied obligation to secrecy under which she 
 feels herself to rest. 
 
 She is not unwilling, however, at the close of these pages, to 
 promulgate a few words concerning things of public moment, 
 and which are yet to happen. 
 
 By spontaneous vision she has seen a machine flying in the 
 air, and bearing on its swift wings, intelligence, fraternity, and 
 peace, as a belt around the globe. This is not to be until after 
 several failures, but it is to be, and that right soon. She has 
 seen and predicted it for three years past. 
 
 Again : In casting her spirit's glance over the troubled coun- 
 tries of Europe, a field more grand, I think, than has been often 
 unfolded to the prophets' eye, she has plainly seen certain gen- 
 eral results, preluding, as is usual, the perception of those more 
 minute occurrences which can only follow a much closer exam- 
 ination, and such an one as her occupations have hitherto pre- 
 vented her from making with sufficient thoroughness to justify 
 any public prediction concerning them. But she will yet have 
 much to say about the grand movements soon to shake the 
 world. Meantime, and while this book is nearly through the 
 press, 710W, on this sixteenth day of July, A. D. 1849, when the 
 hope of freedom for Europe is sinking and dying within the 
 breast of the most faithful of us here, as we learn how over all 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 77 
 
 that continent the tide of reaction, reddened and beautiful with 
 patriot blood, is flowing in fidl flood ; — 7wiv, while poor, pover- 
 ty-stricken Ireland, late blustering so promisingly, having found 
 out, what physiology might long ago have taught her, tliat there 
 is no fighting on an empty stomach, is subjugated by policemen, 
 and surrenders to misery, too weak to groan aloud, and only 
 faintly whining and asking for amnesty and potatoes — of the two 
 being more particular about having the potatoes; — noiv, while 
 the German people are learning at last, what people of their ed- 
 ucation should long ago have read in history, that princes are 
 wholly untrustworthy — and the Pharaohs of Germany, having, all 
 of them cheerfully submitted to the process of having their 
 hearts hardened by the Lord, refuse to let the people go free, 
 and, fixing their cracked crowns more firmly on their fools'- 
 heads, are bravely breaking oaths and tearing constitutions, and 
 each and all of them forcibly consenting to hold office for yet 
 another term ; — 71010, while " order" is being restored in Baden, 
 and " quiet" established in Bavaria, and United Germany's va- 
 grant parliament stands, by force of bayonet points, adjourned 
 sine die ; — 7ww, while Hungary alone, in isolated heroism, stands 
 single-handed against the banded bands of an emperor and a 
 czar, girding her with steel and fire, but holding out still, fight- 
 ing miraculously, and shrieking to the empty echoes for aid, yet 
 growing the while feebler in her war and fainter in her cry, and 
 seemingly without help or hope ; — 77010, while the Russian, being 
 templed by Metternich and instigated by the devil, is thundering 
 out his decided determination of calling Europe to order with the 
 voice of his guns, and comes marching down on her plains with 
 multitudinous platoons and squadrons, heavy artillery, and plenti- 
 ful munitions of war, though, to present appearances, only coming 
 in time to be in at the death of liberty ; — Jiow, while, in full 
 view of all this, France rests recreant and reactionary within her 
 own borders, save where, with the fury and fatuity of a bull 
 who is frightened at the sight of a red flag, she rushes forth to 
 trample on the new banner of republican Rome; — now, while 
 four several powers — two of them mighty ones — are marching 
 grand armies to reinstate over his rebellious children, the Holy 
 Father, Pius the Ninth, and by the battering of Oudinot's can- 
 non a breach is made in the walls, through which he may re- 
 enter to reign again, by grace of God and gunpowder, as Prince 
 of Rome ; — 7iow, while the same Pius, sipping his chocolate at 
 Gaeta, and carefully caring for his health, is patiently waiting 
 for the city to become penitent through loss of blood, and hourly 
 expecting the messenger who shall bring the glad tidings, that 
 
78 THE PROPHETESS ! 
 
 sufficient numbers of the children whom God ^ave him to love 
 and protect, having fallen with gashed and pierced bodies and died 
 in mortal agony, the remainder are willing to receive him again : 
 — notv, while thus runs the story in Europe, even now, the 
 humble woman of Connecticut casts her eyes thitherward, and 
 prophesies as follows : — 
 
 Not all the force or fraud of Oudinot, nor all the might of 
 those four powers combined, nor the might of the eight powers, 
 nor of all the powers of Europe, nor all the powers of hell, shall 
 succeed in re-establishing Pius the Ninth to be Prince of Rome. 
 
 Jt is said, and Oudinot can not gainsay it. And now let the 
 bombs burst, and the bullets whistle, tearing tapestry and flesh, 
 ripping bowels and canvasses, shattering bones and spattering 
 brains, and crushing column and capitol, while the ghosts of those 
 who fell in Vandal days, roused with the shrieks of the butch- 
 ered ones, come forth and howl in sympathy through the streets 
 of Rome : yet shall these vile doings all be done in vain. Even 
 though the red arm of conquest should beckon back the prince 
 and priest to his bombarded city and fusiladed flock, while car- 
 nage smooths his way to the throne, and rapine offers the bloody 
 crown to his anointed head — yet he shall not be suffered to rule 
 in Rome. The immortal children of the Eternal city, whose 
 dying deeds outglow the glories of her dawning-time, have not 
 fallen in vain. Not one bone has been broken, nor one drop of 
 blood blotted the pavement, without a most fit use and end, 
 which will gladden their liberated souls as, rising above the din 
 of conflict and beyond the range of bombs, they enter those 
 spheres where princes may torment them no longer. 
 
 Again : Victoria, by the grace of God, queen, and so forth, 
 will one day, by the blessing of God, be no longer queen : all 
 this through the disloyal behavior of her own subjects. And 
 Queen Victoria's time is now nearly due. At the end of twelve 
 years from her coronation, her troubles will begin ; — in about 
 another year her troubles of state will end, for she will then be 
 no longer a queen. 
 
 This has only very lately been thus plainly shown to the 
 prophetess. It came in a spontaneous vision, by which were 
 also represented certain circumstances connected with the catas- 
 trophe, which, however, she feels at liberty to withhold. Though 
 this vision is of late occurrence, she has for nearly five years 
 foreseen and frequently foretold that such an end would at some 
 time happen to Victoria's reign. May the prediction, piercing 
 the barriers of ministerial misrepresentation and courtly flattery, 
 find its way to the ears of her whom it most concerns, and be 
 
HER LIFE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 79 
 
 the means of timely inducing a pruflent investment of a portion 
 of her royal income in tiiose hio;hly villified "'American securi- 
 ties," so that in her retirement she may have ease, and be ena- 
 bled to educate her interesting family to grace such spheres of 
 usefulness as they shall be called to, and to deport themselves 
 with credit to the respectable family of Guelphs. Poor thing ! 
 it was not her fault that made her queen, but merely the acci- 
 dents of the generative process. 
 
 Acrnin : Pius and Victoria will not be without commiseration, 
 for the time is at hand when every sovereign in Christian Eu- 
 rope, save one, shall cease to reign, and ten years longer shall 
 see that one, the czar of Russia, succumb to that " spirit of the 
 age" and " want of faith" which even now, as he snuffs them 
 from afar, he instinctively knows to be his mortal enemies, and 
 arms himself against. 
 
 The times are ripe and rotten for these consummations. 
 
 //■ is said. And now let the kings and queens avoid, if they 
 can, this decree of the quiet Yankee fortune-teller. And let 
 them know — but they won't — that the Lord is only hardening 
 their hearts and softening their heads, in order to ensure for them 
 a surer and swifter doom from the hands of their enraged peoples. 
 
 It is sjwkr?!,, and it is written. God is great, and his prophets 
 still live. The bloody book of kings is closed. The destiny 
 of monarchs is done. The curse of crowns is accomplished. 
 What is next to follow? — by what easy or difficult transitions 
 will the nations enter upon the new order (or disorder) of things? 
 — how rapidly or slowly will be solved the crooked questions 
 
 which will thereupon arise and demand solution ? ah, these 
 
 things remain yet to be in due time told. But come what may, 
 kings must go. Upon such an assurance hope must await, clad 
 in her garments of gladness. 
 
 It is spoken and written. God is great and can perform it. 
 He is wise, and will well order it. He is good, and the earth 
 may hope. 
 
 IT IS WRITTEN. 
 
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD. 
 
 Price Twrenty-Five Cents. 
 GUIDE TO HEALTH AND LONG LIFE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 WHAT TO EAT, DRINK, AND AVOID, 
 
 WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE, 
 
 How to Control and Regulate the Passions and Appetites ; and on the 
 General Conduct of Life, whereby Health may he secured, and a happy 
 and comfortable Old Age attained ; that at last, when our career is conclu- 
 ded, we may 
 
 " Like ripe fruit, drop 
 Into our Mother's lap, or be with ease 
 Gathered, not harshly plucked." — Milton. 
 
 To which is added, a popular exposition of Liebig^s Theory of Life, 
 Health, and Disease. By Robert James Culverwell, M. D. 
 
 , This work, of which some 60,000, copies are sold annually in England, 
 I is now for the first time reprinted in this country, and is sold at a price 
 'u which will bring it within the reach of every individual within the Uni- 
 i ted States. It is probably the best work on Health and Long Life ever 
 T published. 
 
 j " Sound digestion ! What a boon ; but what a rarity ! All the wealth in the 
 
 ' world can not buy it. Dreamless nights ! How refreshing is a good night's rest, 
 ' and how few obtain it ! How fearful is illness, and who have we to blame for it 
 but ourselves. Physic is one evil to cure another ; but caution keeps off more fire 
 than water quenches. Reader, if you value the desiderata of good health in day, 
 and tranquil repose at night, together with mental serenity at all times, or should 
 lack firmness of nerve or purpose, or suffer from the sorrows of an afl[licted body, 
 seek bow to obtain the former, and remove the latter, in Dr. CtJLVERWELL's 
 pamphlet, called " Guide to Health and Long Life ; or what to Eat, Drink, and 
 Avoid." It recommends no nostrum, pill, or balm, but renders every possessor 
 master or mistress of his or her own case. It tells home truths, and details facts 
 that may astound, but which are worthy of recognition, and it furthermore unmis- 
 tifies the laws of life, health, and happiness ; and bow to live happily and content- 
 edly, is rendered clear and open to the humblest intelligence." — Po'keepsie Journal. 
 " This work of Dr. Culverwell is not calculated, certainly, for the use of profes- 
 sors, but it is admirably calculated for general reading, and can not fail to be bene- 
 cial in its effects. In England it has been very widely circulated, and we doubt 
 not it will have an extensive sale in this country. It contains a good deal of im- 
 portant matter, which has been embodied in a very readable style. In addition to 
 the rules for health, there are a good many excellent receipts in this work for cook- 
 ing a variety of palatable dishes that need not be avoided. 
 
 " Some people regard works of this class with suspicion, and think that the kind 
 of knowledge they impart is apt to do barm, but we do not think so ; the great 
 danger to the young is in not knowing ' what to avoid,' and this they can not 
 know, by experience, until the avoidance becomes too late to cure the disorders 
 which improper indulgences may have engendered." — Holden^s Magazine. 
 
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD. 
 
 Price Twenty-Five Cents. 
 
 HOW TO BE HAPPY. 
 
 AN ADMONITORY ESSAY FOR GENERAL AND FAMILY PERUSAL. 
 
 " Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves, that we are underlings." 
 
 BY R. J. CULVERWELL, M. D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF " WHAT TO EAT, DRINK, AND AVOID," " DISEASES OF WINTKK," ETC. 
 
 Nearly 100 pages of original and friendly counsel to readers of all ages, of either sex, 
 and of every class of society, from the affluent to the humble — the hearty and robust to 
 the feeble and weak — the thoughtless and light-hearted to the hypochondriacal and in- 
 felicitous — instructing them how to be happy. 
 
 The aim of this work is to convey to persons not read in, or not given to think upon, 
 physiological and philosophical matters, a popular understanding of the laws of^tha 
 economy of human life (mind and body), and all circumstances conducive 
 
 TO LONGEVITY, HEALTH, AND HAPPINESS! 
 
 it being contended that it is to general ignorance we owe ill health, and from general 
 obstinacy and mismanagement we are unhappy and depressed. 
 
 The subject embraces a wide sphere, not only, like its companion, to consider "what 
 we should eat, drink, and avoid,'" — how, when, and how often, we should take exercise 
 — in what manner we had best fill up our time, and how many hours, and the most fit- 
 ting period, we should devote to sleep, and work, and study — but how we should meet 
 difBculties, such as ailments and bodily afflictions, hurts, and accidents ; how best treat 
 M them, and on what best means to rely ; how we may distinguish between medicine, 
 cjaot, mj'stery, and empiricism ; and how much and to whom faith is due for the professional 
 fc^ aid we seek ; how we may become masters of ourselves in all matters of disappoint- 
 PtM ment, embarrassment, and domestic distresses ; how we may comfort others, and truly 
 'H' reaUzethemillenniumatleastofthis world— of HOW TO BE HAPPY. 
 
 IN PRESS. 
 
 DISEASES OF WINTER. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 On Consumption, Coughs, Colds, Asthma, and other aflPections of the Chest — their reme- 
 dial and avertive treatment — illustrated by upward of two hundred prescriptions, in 
 English, of the most recent and approved remedies. 
 
 This volume vies with the preceding in amount, utility, and quality of information. 
 It explains really what a "simple cold" is — what is the exact nature of it, how it is 
 acquired,, what it may lead to, how it may be avoided, and how it may be cured. It 
 details the insidious approach of that most fearful and fatal of all illnesses — Consump- 
 tion. While it admits its constitutional tendency, it is some great consolation to know 
 that the prevention of it is greatly in our power; that it has its origin very frequently 
 in our own incaution, ill-timed exposure to cold, or a neglected cough, unsuitable attire, 
 and physical and other excesses. These facts are fully detailed, and suggestions of- 
 fered for its arrest, alleviation, and cure, that time and experience have approved. The 
 various other affections of the chest have apportioned to their consideration a due 
 amount of detail ; the symptoms are duly and popularly described, and the most recog- 
 nised and highly-approved treatment laid down. The following table of contents will 
 atlbrd a better idea of the character of the publication ; and the author, in furnishing this 
 estimate, adds, that the execution of this undertaking received from him every pains 
 and attention to render it the useful domestic volume he has the satisfaction of believ- 
 ing, from the generous criticism of his friends, the said volume to be. 
 
 Table of Contents. — Introduction — Anatomy of the Chest, with Engraving — Aus- 
 cultation and Percussion — Inhalation — Cold, or common Catairh ; Causes and Treat- 
 ment — Bronchitis — Spitting of Blood — Angina Pectoris — Emphysema of the Lungs — 
 Empyema, or Water on the Chest — Asthma — Palpitation of the Heart — Pleurisy and 
 Pneumonia — Consumption; its Symptoms and Treatment — Avertive Measures: Diet, 
 temperature, clothing, air, exercise, sleep, cleanliness, temper, and self-discipline. 
 H;^ Upward of 50,000 copies have been sold in England. ^,^| 
 
BOOKS PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD. 
 
 OUTLINES OF A NEW SYSTEM OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " Since the time of Lavater, there has not. that we are aware of, been any systematic eflFort 
 to reduce physiognomical observations to a regular science. The observations of Lavater were 
 rather fragmentary than otherwise, and his results were arrived at by intuitive perception, rath- 
 er than by a thorough investigation and understanding of minute peculiarities of feature. The 
 work before us professes to examine Ihe subject in the latter mannfer, and it is certainly suffi- 
 ciently minute, some may think fenciful, in its distinctions. The conclusions drawn in this work 
 are, we think, generally correct, and whether they be so or not, we are quite sure that the in- 
 ward spirit of man speaks intelligibly through the outward features, and think that the pub- 
 lication before us can not fail to throw much light upon the subject."— Port/aM(i Transcript. 
 
 "The author, J. W. Redfield, M. D., evidently understands the subject under consideration in 
 all its bearings. He readily locates a faculty, drawing his conclusions from a close and scru- 
 tinizing observation of the human face, and traces the indications by similar signs in the lower 
 animals, in a masterly style. Although he does not pretend to have discovered the whole of 
 Physiognomy, nor deny but that he has made some observations that will need correcting, yet 
 he writes like a person who thinks that he has discovered, or at least opened the door, to that 
 which will be a very great benefit to those of his day and generation. Drawing a comparison 
 between certain men and animals is certainly not a new theory, but tracing the resemblance in 
 character which is indicated by the resemblance in external appearances is a modern, and to 
 us a very interesting study. With the limited knowledge we have obtained by a hasty perusal 
 of this work, we anticipate great pleasure in applying the tests as opportunities may occur." — 
 Poughkeepde Telegraph. 
 
 "Dr. Redfield advances the opinion that the lower brain, the seat of the affections,the cerebel- 
 lum as it is called, corresponds in development, to the lower jaw ; while the cerebrum is typi- 
 fied in the upper. What Gall and Spurzheim have with so much difficulty discovered by tumb- 
 ling up the hair, and rubbing the hidden bumps — our author reads on the tip of the nose, the 
 scowling of the eyebrows, or prominence of the chin. The many varieties of noses, eyes, 
 cheek-bones, and chins, are arranged and classified in a manner suitable for comprehension, and 
 we sighed involuntarily for a mirror in which we might ' see ourselves as others see us,' while 
 reading it. More amusing and at the same time instructive reading for twenty-five cents, we 
 have not taken up \aie\y.— Massachusetts Eagle. 
 
 " This work is illustrated by numerous profiles of wellknovm characters, and vrritten in a lucid 
 and intelligible manner, but what may excite a smile from many is the fact advanced that the 
 nose is the great index of character, and other parts of the face, head, and neck, presenting a 
 combination which he ' that runs can 'read,' provided always, that he first studies well the sci- 
 ence from this book, and also from the living models every day before him. If our readers 
 could always tell who is who, by looking at the face, they would avoid no little trouble, at any 
 rate."— ^r^M-s. 
 
 " The shrewd and sagacious make their acquaintance with the world, by the unerring signs 
 that every man has by nature, disposition, and habit, marked in the lineaments and features of 
 the face. This work is based on the above fact, and the whole subject reduced to a science. 
 This book will aid the inquirer, and establish the heWever."— Experiment. 
 
 •• The subject upon which it treats is a novel one, but worthy of attention and study. The 
 subject is intensely interesting, and we advise all who have the time and opportunity to send 
 for a copy of this work and study its contents. It can be sent by mail with safety."— Zfo»n«- 
 stead Journal. 
 
 " It contains 96 pages of well -written matter, and is illustrated by over one hundred engra- 
 vings, showing all the passions and feelings of the human heart as pictured forth in the out- 
 lines of the face and countenance. To the seeker after knowledge of men, this little book is 
 of inestimable value. By becoming thoroughly acquainted with its rules and principles, the 
 reader will be enabled to read at a glance the workings of the ' inner man,' in his intercourse 
 with the world, and can regulate his conduct accordingly." — Democratic Standard. 
 
 " We have attentively examined this volume, and have been much interested with its contents. 
 The author exhibits considerable tact in the management of his subject, which he has apparently 
 made the object of much study. We do not pretend that we are a convert to this system of 
 physiognomy, but we are free to say that as tar as our limited observation qualifies us to offer 
 an opinion, we think there is much truth in the hypotheses offered. There are many illustra- 
 tions given of the iudications of character in the form of the features, which we have observed 
 and found to correspond with the system before us, which leads us to suppose that in general 
 principles the author is correct."— S^am/ori Advocate. 
 
 " This book is calculated to interest all classes of readers— the scientific will peruse it with 
 profit and the novice will rise from its pages filled with a theme, which, if rightly improved, 
 will call all hia powers of observation into salutary exercise. The work is beautilully printed, 
 with a large number of engraved illustrations."— JEsser Register. 
 
 •' To a certain extent, every person is a physiognomist, and judges the character of another 
 at first sight, accurately or otherwise, in proportion to the degree he may possess of this talent. 
 Though many are accurate judges of character, scarcely any one knows the signs by which he 
 judges. Dr. Redfield has discovered these signs, and has in this work succeeded in pointing 
 them out, by means of the illustrations, in such a manner that 'he that runs may read.' The 
 system is placed upon the ground of an exact science."— Dispatch. 
 
S SMALL BOOKS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 
 
 Now in Course of Puhlicatlon, a Series of Tiiacts entitlea, 
 
 TRACTS FOR CITIES. 
 
 It is proposed in tliis Series of Tracts, to discuss the application of 
 Christianity to the institutions, classes, and social economy of large cities. 
 The following are among the subjects proposed to be discussed, though 
 they may not appear in the order here enumerated : — 
 
 " Social Position and Influence of Cities." — " Medical Police." — " Le- 
 gal Police." — PoHce of the Press." — "Frauds of Commerce." — " Frauds 
 of Office and Professions." — " Duties of Principals and Employers." — 
 " Eleemns3'narv Provision for the Poor." — " Suggestions to the Working- 
 Classes." — " The Fine Arts." — " Public Amusements." — " Mental Im- 
 provement of Young Men." — " Temiitations of the Christian Profession." 
 — " Temptations of Young Men." — " Temptations of Young Females." — 
 " Advice to Emigrants." — " Relations and Influence of the Theatre" — " of 
 Sabbath Desecration" — " of Intemperance" — " of Infidelity" — " of Gamb- 
 ling" — and " of Magdalenism." 
 
 NO. 1— "SOCIAL POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF CITIES," 
 
 IS NOW PUBLISHED, 
 
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 and producing Disease, with remarks on the Ventilation of Houses : in 
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 Popular Education." — "The Relations of Popular Liberty to Constitu- 
 tional Government." — " The Relations of Legislation to Social and Moral 
 Reforms." — " Divine Authority of Christianity." — "The Conservative 
 Influence of Christianity." — "Relations of the Sabbath to the Social and 
 Civil Condition of a People." — " Claims and Influence of Public Wor- 
 ship." — " The Relation of Punishment to Government." — " The Relation 
 of the Doctrine of Future Punishment to Public Morals." — " Usury." — 
 "Perjury." — "Position and Claims of the Temperance Reformation." — 
 "Position and Tendencies of Romanism." — "The Mutual Dependence 
 and Reciprocal Influence of Industrial Pursuits." — " Appeal to the Work- 
 ing Classes in Regard to Economy of Time and Money." — " Popular 
 Violations of the Laws of Health." — " System of Legal Provision for the 
 Poor." — " Economy of Prisons." — " Morals of Politics." 
 
 No. 1.— THE USES AND ABUSES OF AIR, Part I. 
 
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 AMERICAN DRAWING-BOOK. 
 
 BY JOHN Cr. CHAPMAN, N. A. 
 This Work is now publishing in Parts : in the course of which — 
 
 PRIMARY IXSTKOCTIOVS AND RUDIMENTS OF DRAWING: 
 
 DRAWING FROM N ATU UK — M ATK HI ALS ANT) MKTHODS: 
 
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