AN ASTRAL PARTNER. By Hon. Albion W. Tourg£e.
IT was in 1876. Our literature had not yet become the dumping ground for all sorts of wild imaginings which are set forth as evidences and exemplifications of preter natural influences, and which culminated in the Blavatsky memoirs. At times some thing was heard of " spiritual manifesta tions," as they were termed, and there was occasional speculation as to the power of one mind over another, — what is now called hypnotism. In the latter, as a law of intel lectual existence, I have always been a firm believer, because of the many instances which have occurred within my own per sonal observation and experience. To the former, I have never given credence. That any intellectual or so-called spiritual force could directly control inanimate matter, I have never been able for one to accept as true, though, in the ultimate, it is evident that creation itself must have been the re sult of such determination of chaotic atoms. That, however, is based on the conception of a Deity, fundamental, supreme, and gov erned by laws applicable only to Himself. That any other existence, whether incarnate or disembodied, should move inert material matter by an exercise of will or other intan gible force, I have always firmly denied. At the same time, considering such speculation unprofitable and enervating in the extreme, I have persistently refrained from effort to solve any of the apparently necromantic riddles put forth by professors of mysterious arts bordering on the preternatural. I fancy I am one not likely to be led away by mere show of mystery, and the event hereafter related, every incident of which is true, will, I think, prove me not to be one apt to admit the truth of another man's assump tion, simply because I might myself be un able to offer a plausible, demonstrable so lution of a given state of facts.
At the time mentioned, I was practicing my profession in a Southern city and occu pied one of those one-story offices with a porch in front and a front and back room, which are the ideal of the Southern lawyer's den. It was painted a dark brown, and on one side of the door a modest sign showed in neat gilt letters the legend," , Attorney"; nothing more. I have always had a supreme contempt for the long-winded "counsellor at law." Besides that, I had gotten beyond the need of advertisement, and did not require a sign as big as a door to let the public know of my existence. This served for those who were looking for me, and they were sufficiently numerous to keep me busy and yield a reasonable in come. One day in midsummer, during the heated term which intervenes between the spring and fall circuits, the colored boy who swept my office and ran errands for me, brought the mail and laid it on my desk. The temperature did not conduce to either physical or mental activity. I was sitting in one of the great splint-bottomed rockers which lend such an air of comfort to South ern houses, a note-book open on one of its broad arms and a lot of law-books ranged about on the floor in easy reach, their redand-black-banded backs turned upward to save even the trouble of stooping to deter mine which one was required. Nominally, I was engaged in the study of an important case which had some curious and puzzling aspects, struggling with the consciousness that somehow or other the law ought to be with my client, but meeting in every volume examined the discouraging discovery that hitherto the judges of the various courts seemed to have taken a different view. One after another, I had read the reported cases with much the same feeling a soldier has when scrutinizing the defences of an enemy.
