XII
THE DIVINING-ROD
“One point must still be greatly dark,
The reason why they do it.”
It is a matter of common knowledge that certain expert “finders,” as they are called, use a divining-rod for detecting underground springs in New England; in Pennsylvania for the locating of oil springs; and in the mineral regions of the Rockies for the discovery of hidden veins of valuable ores. The Cornish miners, also, have long made use of the divining-rod, or “dowsing-rod,” as they call it, for a like purpose. A further research, probably, might reveal a similar practice in other countries; but for our purpose it is enough to present two of the most intelligent in the world as giving it their sanction and support.
Various implements are employed by the expert operator in his quest for what lies hidden from mortal eyes; but the preferred agent is usually a bough of witch-hazel, branching at one end like the tines of a pitchfork.24 Taking firm hold of each prong, with the palms of the hands turned upward, the operator slowly walks around the locality where it is desired to find water; and when he reaches the right spot, presto! the free end of the bough is bent downward toward the ground as if by some invisible force, sometimes so strongly that the operator is unable to overcome it by putting forth his whole strength. “Dig here,” he says, with positive assurance that water will be found not far below the surface of the ground.
On the face of it, this performance comes rather nearer to our idea of a miracle than anything we can now call to mind. Certainly, Moses did no more when he smote the rock of Scripture. Very possibly, former generations of men may have associated the act with the operation of sorcery or magic. An enlightened age, however, accepts neither of these theories. We do not believe in miracles other than those recorded in Scripture; and we have renounced magic and sorcery as too antiquated for intelligent people to consider. Yet things are done every day which would have passed for miracles with our forefathers, without our knowing more than the bare fact that, by means of certain crude agents, obtained from the earth itself, messages are sent from New York to London under the Atlantic Ocean in a few minutes; that the most remote parts of the habitable globe have been brought into practically instantaneous communication, the one with the other; and that public and private conveyances are moving about our thoroughfares without the use of horses or steam. All these things looked to us like miracles, at first, yet custom has brought us to regard them with no more wonder than did the lighting of the first gas lamp the pedestrian of forty odd years ago. Much as we know, there is probably yet much more that we do not know.
The methods employed in finding oil springs or “leads” of ore are very similar to those made use of in discovering water. It is a fact that some of the most productive wells in the oil regions were located in this manner. It is a further fact, that from time to time, search for buried treasure has been carried on in precisely the same way. Now some astute critics have said that the divining-rod was a humbug, because when they have tried it the mystic bough would not bend for them. It is, however, doubtful if any humbug could have stood the test of so many years without exposure, or what so many witnesses stand ready to affirm the truth of be cavalierly thrust aside as a palpable imposture.
Although I have never seen the operator at work, myself, I have often talked with those who have, whose testimony was both direct and explicit. Moreover, I do know of persons who continue to ply this trade (for no more than this is claimed for it) in some parts of New England to-day. Whether it should be classed among superstitions may be an open question after all.
XIII
WONDERS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE
“The hag is astride
This night for a ride —
The devil and she together.” —Herrick.
All abnormal exhibitions of nature, or in fact any departure from the regular order of things, such as great and unusual storms, earthquakes, eclipses of the sun or moon, the appearance of a comet in the heavens, or of a plague of flies, caterpillars, or locusts were once held to be so many infallible signs of impending calamity. All of our early historians give full and entire credit to the evil import of these startling phenomena, which were invariably referred to the wrath of an offended deity, only to be appeased by a special season of fasting and prayer. Of course ample warrant exists for such belief in the Bible, which was something no man dared question or gainsay in those primitive days. For example, in his history of Philip’s War, Increase Mather lays down this, to our age, startling proposition. “It is,” says the learned divine, “a common observation, verified by the experience of many ages, that great and publick calamityes seldome come upon any place without prodigious warnings to forerun and signify what is to be expected.” He had just noted the appearance “in the aire,” at Plymouth, of something shaped in the perfect form of an Indian bow, which some of the terror-stricken people looked upon as a “prodigious apparition.” The learned divine cleverly interpreted it as a favorable omen, however, portending that the Lord would presently “break the bow and spear asunder,” thus calming their fears.
This extract taken at random, fairly establishes the survival of certain forms of superstition in the second generation of colonists. The first, as has been said already, brought all of its old superstitions with it. In short, every form of belief in the supernatural, for which the fathers of New England have been so roundly abused or ridiculed, may be distinctly traced back to the old country.
Very much of the belief in the baleful influence of so-called prodigies, with the possible exception of that ascribed to comets, or “blazing stars,” as they were called, has fortunately subsided in a measure, for we shudder to think of a state of things so thoroughly calculated to keep society continually on the rack. But in those earlier times life and death had about equal terrors. Sin and sinners were punished both here and hereafter; and, really, if we may credit such writers as the Rev. William Hubbard and the Mather family, poor New England was quite ripe, in their time, for the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As regards comets, we risk little in saying that a great many very sensible people still view their periodical appearance with fear and trembling, and their departure with a feeling of unfeigned relief. It is our unwilling tribute to the unfathomable and the unknown. And, disguise it as we may, we breathe more freely when the dread visitant has faded from our sight. In the language of Macbeth after seeing Banquo’s ghost, —
“Why, so: being gone, I am a man again.”
In truth, we know comets as yet only as the accredited agents of destruction. It seems a natural question to ask, If order is nature’s first law, why are all these departures from it? Can they be without fixed end, aim, or purpose? Why should the solid earth quake, the sea overwhelm the land, mountains vomit forth flames, the tempest scatter death and destruction abroad, the heavens suspend a winged and flaming monster over us, —
“So horribly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls”?
There was still another form of belief, differing from the first in ascribing supernatural functions to great natural phenomena. In this sense, the storm did not descend in the majesty of its mighty wrath to punish man’s wickedness, but, like the roar of artillery which announces the death of the monarch to his mourning people, was coincident, in its coming, with the death of some great personage, which it proclaimed with salvos of Olympus. Indeed, poets and philosophers of keen insight have frequently recognized this sort of curious sympathy in nature with most momentous movements in human life. We are told that the dying hours of Cromwell and Napoleon were signalized by storms of terrific violence, and Shakespeare describes the earth and air as filled with omens before the murders of Julius Cæsar and of King Duncan.
“As busy as the devil in a gale of wind,” emphasizes by a robust, sea-seasoned saying the notion current among sailors of how storms arise.
It was just now said that the belief in direct manifestations of the divine wrath, through the medium of such calamitous visitations as great droughts, earthquakes, eclipses, tidal waves, fatal epidemics, and the like, had, in a measure, subsided. The statement should be made, however, with certain qualification; for it is well remembered that during a season of unexampled drought, in the far West, the people were called together in their churches, and on a week-day, too, to pray for rain, just as we are told that the Pilgrim Fathers did, on a like occasion, two hundred and fifty odd years before. Prayers were kept up without intermission during the day. And it is a further coincidence that copious showers did set in within twenty-four hours or so. Even the most sceptical took refuge in silence.
From many different sources we have very detailed accounts of the remarkable dark day of May 19, 1780, with the great fear that phenomenon inspired in those who witnessed it, the general belief being that the Day of Judgment was at hand.25 In the presence of this overshadowing terror, few retained their usual presence of mind unshaken. One such instance is worth repeating here, if only for its rarity. At that time the Connecticut legislature was in session. The House of Representatives immediately adjourned. A like motion was before the Council. The protest of Colonel Davenport has become historical. Said he, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be lighted.”
Nearly fifty years later (September, 1825), a similar visitation, due to extensive forest fires in New Brunswick, again created widespread alarm, hardly quieted by the later knowledge of the atmospheric conditions (an under stratum of fog and an upper stratum of smoke) that were so plainly responsible for it. On the contrary, from what we have been able to gather on the subject, it appears that where the phenomenon was visible, people were quite as ill at ease as their fathers were.
Once again, under almost identical conditions, the same phenomenon wrought exactly the same chaos in the minds of a very large number of people in New England and New York. This has passed into history as the Yellow Tuesday (September 6, 1881). On this occasion the brooding darkness lasted all day. It was noticed that a fire built in the open air burned with a spectral blue flame. Blue flowers were changed to a crimson hue. By two in the afternoon one could not see to read without a light. At a certain hotel in the White Mountains some of the servants were so frightened that they refused to go to work, and fell to praying instead.
These examples at least afford data for a comparison of some little interest, as to how any wide departure from nature’s fixed laws has affected the human mind at widely separated periods of time, all the theories or demonstrations of science to the contrary notwithstanding.
So much for the effects of what is a reality to be seen and felt by all men. But now and again the mere haphazard predictions of some self-constituted prophet of evil, if plausibly presented and steadily insisted upon, find a multitude of credulous believers among us. It is only a few years since a certain religious sect, notwithstanding repeated failures in the past, with much consequent ridicule, again ventured to fix a day for the second coming of Our Lord. Similarly it falls within the recollection of most of us how a certain self-constituted Canadian seer solemnly predicted the coming of a monster tidal wave, which in its disastrous effects was to be another Deluge. All the great Atlantic seaboard was to be buried in the rush of mighty waters; all its great maritime cities swept away in a moment. Fresher still in the recollection is the prediction that the end of the world would surely come as the inevitable result of the shower of meteors of November, 1899.
It is a fact that many good and worthy but, alas! too credulous people living along the New England coast, who believed themselves in danger from the destroying tidal wave, were thrown into a state of unspeakable agitation and alarm by this wicked prediction. Yet there was absolutely nothing to warrant it except the unsupported declaration of this one man, whom no one knew, and few had ever heard of. Yet some really believed, more half believed, and some who openly ridiculed the prediction apparently did so more to keep their courage up than from actual unbelief. So easy it is to arouse the fears of a community, who usually act first and reason afterward. I heard of one man who actually packed all his household goods in a wagon, so as to be ready to start off for higher ground upon the first signal of the approach of this much-dreaded rush of waters.
XIV
“SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT”
“Songe est toujours mensonge,” says a French proverb; “Dreams go by contraries” says the English proverb, – that is, if you dream of the dead you will hear from the living. Who shall decide, where the collective wisdom of centuries is at such wide variance?
To put faith in the supposed revelations of a disordered or overheated brain seems, on the face of it, sheer absurdity, especially when we ourselves may induce dreaming merely by overindulgence in eating or drinking. Yet there are people who habitually dream when the brain is in its normal condition. This brings the question down to its simplest form, “What is a dream?” And there we halt.
That there is no end of theories concerning the measure of credit that should be given to dreams is readily accounted for. What nobody can explain every one is at liberty to have his own peculiar notions of. Perhaps the most curious thing about it is the proven fact that so many different people should dream precisely the same thing from time to time; so making it possible not only to classify and analyze dreams, but even to lay down certain interpretations, to be accepted by a multitude of believers. Of course it is easy to laugh at the incoherent fancies that flit through the debatable region we inhabit while asleep, but it is not so easy to explain why we laugh, or why we should dream of persons or events long since passed from our memories, or of other persons or events wholly unknown to us, either in the past or the present.
Without a doubt people dream just as much nowadays as they ever did. That fact being admitted, the problem for us to consider is, whether the belief in the prophetic character of dreams, held by so many peoples for so many centuries, having the unequivocal sanction, too, of Scripture authority, is really dying out, or continues to hold its old dominion over the minds of poor, fallible mankind. In order to determine this vexed question inquiry was made of several leading booksellers with the following result: Thirty or forty years ago dream books were as much a recognized feature of the book-selling trade as any other sort of literary property; consequently, they were openly exposed for sale in every bookstore, large or small. It now appears that these yellow-covered oracles of fate are still in good demand, mostly by servant girls and factory girls, and, though seldom found in the best bookstores, may be readily had of most dealers in cheap periodicals. This, certainly, would seem to be a gain in the direction of education, though not of the masses. It also appears that, as in the matter of “signs,” the female sex is more susceptible to this sort of superstition than is the male; but that by no means proves the sterner sex to be wholly free from it.
Some persons dream a great deal, others but seldom. Let one who is not much addicted to the habit have a bad dream, a frightful dream, and be he never so well poised, the phantasm can hardly fail of leaving a disquieting, perhaps a lasting, effect. Seldom, indeed, can that person shake off the feeling that the dream forbodes something of a sinister nature. In vain he racks his brain for some interpretation that may set his mind at rest, wholly forgetful of the trite adage that dreams go by contraries.
So often, indeed, do we hear the pregnant declaration, to wit: “Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men see visions,” that we have adopted it as a striking rhetorical figure of wide application. In Hamlet’s celebrated soliloquy upon the immortality of the soul, the melancholy Dane confesses to an overmastering fear of bad dreams. And once again, as if wrung from the very anguish of his sinful heart, Gloster cries out: “Oh, Catesby, I have had such horrid dreams!” And Catesby expostulates, “Shadows, my lord, below the soldiers seeming.” But Gloster thrusts aside the rebuke as he impetuously exclaims: “Now by my this day’s hopes, shadows to-night have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers arm’d all in proof.”
We find that our own immediate ancestors were fully as credulous in regard to the importance of dreams, as affecting their lives and fortunes, as the ancients appear to have been. But with them it is true that Scripture warrant was accepted as all-sufficient. Just a few examples will suffice.
In the time of its disintegration, owing to the removal of some of its members to Connecticut, the church of Dorchester, Massachusetts, “did not reorganize on account of certain dreams and visions among the congregation.”
Under a certain date, Samuel Sewall sets down the fact that he has had disturbing dreams, which he, according to his wont, anxiously strives to interpret – he, of all men! – a magistrate, a councillor, and a ruler in the land. One dream was to the effect “that all my [his] children were dead except Sarah, which did distress me sorely with reflections on my omissions of duty towards them as well as breaking of the hopes I had of them.”
Shifting now the scene to half a century later, we find in the “Diary and Letters of Sarah Pierpont,” wife of the celebrated theologian, Jonathan Edwards, this letter, describing a singularly prophetic dream relative to her grandson, then an infant, Aaron Burr: —
“Stockbridge, May 10, 1756.
“Dear Brother James: Your letters always do us good, and your last was one of your best. Have you heard of the birth of Esther’s second child, at Newark? It was born the sixth of February last, and its parents have named him Aaron Burr, Jr., after his father, the worthy President of the College. I trust the little immortal will grow up to be a good and useful man. But, somehow, a strange presentiment of evil has hung over my mind of late, and I can hardly rid myself of the impression that that child was born to see trouble.
“You know I don’t believe in dreams and visions; but lately I had a sad night of broken sleep, in which the future career of that boy seemed to pass before me. He first appeared as a little child, just beginning to ascend a high hill. Not long after he set out, the two guides who started with him disappeared one after the other. He went on alone, and as the road was open and plain, and as friends met him at every turn, he got along very well. At times he took on the air and bearing of a soldier, and then of a statesman, assuming to lead and control others. As he neared the top of the hill, the way grew more steep and difficult, and his companions became alienated from him, refusing to help him or be led by him. Baffled in his designs, and angered at his ill-success, he began to lay about him with violence, leading some astray, and pulling down others at every attempt to rise. Soon he himself began to slip and slide down the rough and perilous sides of the hill; now regaining his foothold for a little, then losing it again, until at length he stumbled and fell headlong down, down, into a black and yawning gulf at the base!
“At this, I woke in distress, and was glad enough to find it was only a dream. Now, you may make as much or as little of this as you please. I think the disturbed state of our country, along with my own indifferent health, must have occasioned it. A letter from his mother, to-day, assures me that her little Aaron is a lively, prattlesome fellow, filling his parents’ hearts with joy.
“Your loving sister,“Sarah.”
Though “only a dream,” this vision of the night prefigured a sad reality, for within two years both of the “guides” had gone, President Burr in September, 1757, his wife in the same month of the next year, 1758.
Passing now down to our own day, the Rev. Walter Colton, sometime alcalde of Monterey, tells us, in his reminiscences of the gold excitement of 1849, that he dreamed of finding gold at a certain spot, had faith enough in his dream to seek for it in that place, and was rewarded by finding it there.
A mass of similar testimony might be adduced. One piece coming from a brave soldier, who will not be accused of harboring womanish fears, will bear repeating here. We again quote from that most interesting volume, “Forty-one Years in India.” Lord Roberts, its author, is speaking of his father, then a man close upon seventy.
“Shortly before his departure an incident occurred which I will relate for the benefit of psychological students; they may perhaps be able to explain it, I never could. My father had some time before issued invitations for a dance which was to take place in two days’ time, – on Monday, the 17th October, 1853. On the Saturday morning he appeared disturbed and unhappy, and during breakfast was despondent – very different from his usual bright and cheery self. On my questioning him as to the cause, he told me he had had an unpleasant dream – one which he had dreamt several times before, and which had always been followed by the death of a near relation. As the day advanced, in spite of my efforts to cheer him, he became more and more depressed, and even said he should like to put off the dance. I dissuaded him from taking this step for the time being; but that night he had the same dream again, and the next morning he insisted on the dance being postponed. It seemed rather absurd to disappoint our friends on account of a dream; there was, however, nothing for it but to carry out my father’s wishes, and intimation was accordingly sent to the invited guests. The following morning the post brought news of the sudden death of a half-sister at Lahore, with whom I had stayed on my way to Pashawar.”
A man is now living who ran away from the vessel in which he had shipped as a sailor before the mast, in consequence of dreaming for three nights in succession that the vessel would be lost. All the circumstances were related to me, with much minuteness of detail, by persons quite familiar with them at the time of their occurrence. The vessel was, in fact, cast away, and every one on board drowned, on the very night after she sailed; consequently the warning dream, by means of which the deserter’s life was saved, could hardly fail of leaving a deep and lasting impression upon the minds of all who knew the facts. The story has been told more at length elsewhere by the writer,26 as it came from the lips of a seafaring friend; and the hero of it is still pointed out to sceptics as a living example of the fact that —
“Coming events cast their shadows before.”
Richard Mansfield, distinguished actor and playwright, has recently related in an interview a most interesting incident in his own career, which he declared himself wholly unable to account for. So much more credit attaches to the testimony of persons if known to the public even by name, that Mr. Mansfield’s experience has special value here. It is also a highly interesting fragment of autobiography.
Mr. Mansfield goes on to say that after leading a most precarious existence, in various ways, his discharge from Mr. D’Oyley Carte’s company brought on a crisis in his affairs. Reaching his poor lodgings in London, he soon fell into desperate straits, being soon forced to pawn what little he had for the means to keep body and soul together. He declares that he did not know which way to turn, and that the most gloomy forebodings overwhelmed him. We will now let him tell his own story in his own way: —
“This was the condition of affairs when the strange happening to which I have referred befell me. Retiring for the night in a perfectly hopeless frame of mind, I fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed dreams. Finally, toward morning, this apparent fantasy came to me. I seemed in my disturbed sleep to hear a cab drive up to the door as if in a great hurry. There was a knock, and in my dream I opened the door and found D’Oyley Carte’s yellow-haired secretary standing outside. He exclaimed: —
“‘Can you pack up and catch the train in ten minutes to rejoin the company?’
“‘I can,’ was the dreamland reply; there seemed to be a rushing about while I swept a few things into my bag; then the cab door was slammed, and we were off to the station.
“This was all a dream,” continued Mr. Mansfield; “but here is the inexplicable denouement. The dream was so vivid and startling that I immediately awoke with a strange, uncanny sensation, and sprang to my feet. It was six o’clock, and only bare and gloomy surroundings met my eye. On a chair rested my travelling bag, and through some impulse which I could not explain at the time and cannot account for now I picked it up and hurriedly swept into it the few articles that had escaped the pawnshop. It did not take me long to complete my toilet, and then I sat down to think.
“Presently, when I had reached the extreme point of dejection, a cab rattled up, there was a knock, and I opened the door. There stood D’Oyley Carte’s secretary, just as I saw him in my dreams. He seemed to be in a great flurry, and cried out: —
“‘Can you pack up and reach the station in ten minutes to rejoin the company?’
“‘I can,’ said I, calmly, pointing to my bag. ‘It is all ready, for I was expecting you.’
“The man was a little startled by this seemingly strange remark, but bundled me into the cab without further ado, and we hurried away to the station exactly in accord with my dream. That was the beginning of a long engagement, and, although I have known hard times since, it was the turning-point in my career. I have already said that I have no theories whatever in regard to the matter. I do not account for it. It is enough for me to know that I dreamed certain things which were presently realized in the exact order of the dream. Having no superstitions, it is impossible to philosophize over the occurrence. All I know is that everything happened just as I have stated it.”
Some of the hidden meanings attributed to dreams are elsewhere referred to. As the subject has a literature of its own, we need mention only a few of the more commonly accepted interpretations. Their name is legion.
To dream of a white horse is a certain presage of a death in the family.
To dream of a funeral is a sign that you will soon attend a wedding.
To dream of losing one’s teeth is ominous of some coming sorrow.
To dream of a snake is a token that you have an enemy.
Touching a dead body will prevent dreaming of it.
The same dream, occurring three nights in succession, will surely come to pass.
A slice of wedding-cake put under the pillow will cause an unmarried woman to dream of her future husband.