THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
between him and the clairvoyante, or if he had, without knowing it, betrayed from whom the envelopes had come, it would not have solved the riddle how the clairvoyante could have described my character, my inclinations, my impulses, my mental qualities, much more clearly and truthfully and sagaciously than Strodtmann or Melbye ever could have done. In fact, Melbye knew me only very superficially. In our few conversations he had always done the most talking; and a deep insight into the human soul did not at all belong to Strodtmann's otherwise excellent abilities. In short, I could not in the whole incident find the slightest reason for the suspicion that here we had to do with a merely clever juggler. The question arose: Was not here a force at work which lay outside of the ordinary activity of the senses and which we could indeed observe in the utterance of its effects, and which we perhaps could also set in motion, but which we could not define as to its true essence or its constituent elements? In later years I have had similar experiences, which I intend to mention in their proper places.
I shall now return to my visit in London. Kinkel had rented in the suburb of St. John's Wood a little house, where I was most heartily welcomed as a guest. He had already found a profitable field of work as a teacher, and Frau Kinkel gave music lessons. I found the whole family in a very cheerful state of mind, and we spent some happy days together. In fact I felt myself so much at home that Kinkel could easily persuade me to give up Paris and to come over to London, where I, as it seemed to me, would be able to make a comfortable living as a teacher without great difficulty. I then returned to Paris, as I thought only for a few weeks but my departure from the French capital was to be delayed by an unexpected and very disagreeable incident.
One afternoon I accompanied on a walk the wife of my
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