Several years ago I made a campaign on the platform with Mr. George W. Cable. In Montreal we were honored with a reception. It began at two in the afternoon in a long drawing-room in the Windsor Hotel. Mr. Cable and I stood at one end of this room, and the ladies and gentlemen entered it at the other end, crossed it at that end, then came up the long left-hand side, shook hands with us, said a word or two, and passed on, in the usual way. My sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently recognized a familiar face among the throng2 of strangers drifting in at the distant door, and I said to myself, with surprise and high gratification, “That is Mrs. R.; I had forgotten that she was a Canadian.” She had been a great friend of mine in Carson City, Nevada, in the early days. I had not seen her or heard of her for twenty years; I had not been thinking about her; there was nothing to suggest her to me, nothing to bring her to my mind; in fact, to me she had long ago ceased to exist, and had disappeared from my consciousness. But I knew her instantly; and I saw her so clearly that I was able to note some of the particulars of her dress, and did note them, and they remained in my mind. I was impatient for her to come. In the midst of the hand-shakings I snatched glimpses of her and noted4 her progress with the slow-moving file across the end of the room; then I saw her start up the side, and this gave me a full front view of her face. I saw her last when she was within twenty-five feet of me. For an hour I kept thinking she must still be in the room somewhere and would come at last, but I was disappointed.
When I arrived in the lecture-hall that evening some one said: “Come into the waiting-room; there’s a friend of yours there who wants to see you. You’ll not be introduced—you are to do the recognizing without help if you can.”
I said to myself: “It is Mrs. R.; I shan’t have any trouble.”
There were perhaps ten ladies present, all seated. In the midst of them was Mrs. R., as I had expected. She was dressed exactly as she was when I had seen her in the afternoon. I went forward and shook hands with her and called her by name, and said:
“I knew you the moment you appeared at the reception this afternoon.” She looked surprised, and said: “But I was not at the reception. I have just arrived from Quebec, and have not been in town an hour.”
It was my turn to be surprised now. I said: “I can’t help it. I give you my word of honor that it is as I say. I saw you at the reception, and you were dressed precisely5 as you are now. When they told me a moment ago that I should find a friend in this room, your image rose before me, dress and all, just as I had seen you at the reception.”
Those are the facts. She was not at the reception at all, or anywhere near it; but I saw her there nevertheless, and most clearly and unmistakably. To that I could make oath. How is one to explain this? I was not thinking of her at the time; had not thought of her for years. But she had been thinking of me, no doubt; did her thoughts flit through leagues of air to me, and bring with it that clear and pleasant vision of herself? I think so. That was and remains6 my sole experience in the matter of apparitions7—I mean apparitions that come when one is (ostensibly) awake. I could have been asleep for a moment; the apparition8 could have been the creature of a dream. Still, that is nothing to the point; the feature of interest is the happening of the thing just at that time, instead of at an earlier or later time, which is argument that its origin lay in thought-transference.
My next incident will be set aside by most persons as being merely a “coincidence,” I suppose. Years ago I used to think sometimes of making a lecturing trip through the antipodes and the borders of the Orient, but always gave up the idea, partly because of the great length of the journey and partly because my wife could not well manage to go with me. Towards the end of last January that idea, after an interval9 of years, came suddenly into my head again—forcefully, too, and without any apparent reason. Whence came it? What suggested it? I will touch upon that presently.
I was at that time where I am now—in Paris. I wrote at once to Henry M. Stanley (London), and asked him some questions about his Australian lecture tour, and inquired who had conducted him and what were the terms. After a day or two his answer came. It began:
“The lecture agent for Australia and New Zealand is par3
excellence10 Mr. R. S. Smythe, of Melbourne.”
He added his itinerary11, terms, sea expenses, and some other matters, and advised me to write Mr. Smythe, which I did—February 3d. I began my letter by saying in substance that while he did not know me personally we had a mutual12 friend in Stanley, and that would answer for an introduction. Then I proposed my trip, and asked if he would give me the same terms which he had given Stanley.
I mailed my letter to Mr. Smythe February 6th, and three days later I got a letter from the selfsame Smythe, dated Melbourne, December 17th. I would as soon have expected to get a letter from the late George Washington. The letter began somewhat as mine to him had begun—with a self-introduction:
“DEAR MR. CLEMENS,—It is so long since Archibald Forbes and I
spent that pleasant afternoon in your comfortable house at
Hartford that you have probably quite forgotten the occasion.”
In the course of his letter this occurs:
“I am willing to give you” [here he named the terms which he
had given Stanley] “for an antipodean tour to last, say, three
months.”
Here was the single essential detail of my letter answered three days after I had mailed my inquiry13. I might have saved myself the trouble and the postage—and a few years ago I would have done that very thing, for I would have argued that my sudden and strong impulse to write and ask some questions of a stranger on the under side of the globe meant that the impulse came from that stranger, and that he would answer my questions of his own motion if I would let him alone.
Mr. Smythe’s letter probably passed under my nose on its way to lose three weeks traveling to America and back, and gave me a whiff of its contents as it went along. Letters often act like that. Instead of the thought coming to you in an instant from Australia, the (apparently) unsentient letter imparts it to you as it glides14 invisibly past your elbow in the mail-bag.
Next incident. In the following month—March—I was in America. I spent a Sunday at Irvington-on-the-Hudson with Mr. John Brisben Walker, of the Cosmopolitan15 magazine. We came into New York next morning, and went to the Century Club for luncheon16. He said some praiseful things about the character of the club and the orderly serenity17 and pleasantness of its quarters, and asked if I had never tried to acquire membership in it. I said I had not, and that New York clubs were a continuous expense to the country members without being of frequent use or benefit to them.
“And now I’ve got an idea!” said I. “There’s the Lotos—the first New York club I was ever a member of—my very earliest love in that line. I have been a member of it for considerably18 more than twenty years, yet have seldom had a chance to look in and see the boys. They turn gray and grow old while I am not watching. And my dues go on. I am going to Hartford this afternoon for a day or two, but as soon as I get back I will go to John Elderkin very privately19 and say: ‘Remember the veteran and confer distinction upon him, for the sake of old times. Make me an honorary member and abolish the tax. If you haven’t any such thing as honorary membership, all the better—create it for my honor and glory.’ That would be a great thing; I will go to John Elderkin as soon as I get back from Hartford.”
I took the last express that afternoon, first telegraphing Mr. F. G. Whitmore to come and see me next day. When he came he asked: “Did you get a letter from Mr. John Elderkin, secretary of the Lotos Club, before you left New York?”
“Then it just missed you. If I had known you were coming I would have kept it. It is beautiful, and will make you proud. The Board of Directors, by unanimous vote, have made you a life member, and squelched20 those dues; and, you are to be on hand and receive your distinction on the night of the 30th, which is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the club, and it will not surprise me if they have some great times there.”
What put the honorary membership in my head that day in the Century Club? for I had never thought of it before. I don’t know what brought the thought to me at that particular time instead of earlier, but I am well satisfied that it originated with the Board of Directors, and had been on its way to my brain through the air ever since the moment that saw their vote recorded.
Another incident. I was in Hartford two or three days as a guest of the Rev21. Joseph H. Twichell. I have held the rank of Honorary Uncle to his children for a quarter of a century, and I went out with him in the trolley22-car to visit one of my nieces, who is at Miss Porter’s famous school in Farmington. The distance is eight or nine miles. On the way, talking, I illustrated23 something with an anecdote24. This is the anecdote:
Two years and a half ago I and the family arrived at Milan on our way to Rome, and stopped at the Continental25. After dinner I went below and took a seat in the stone-paved court, where the customary lemon-trees stand in the customary tubs, and said to myself, “Now this is comfort, comfort and repose26, and nobody to disturb it; I do not know anybody in Milan.”
Then a young gentleman stepped up and shook hands, which damaged my theory. He said, in substance:
“You won’t remember me, Mr. Clemens, but I remember you very well. I was a cadet at West Point when you and Rev. Joseph H. Twichell came there some years ago and talked to us on a Hundredth Night. I am a lieutenant27 in the regular army now, and my name is H. I am in Europe, all alone, for a modest little tour; my regiment28 is in Arizona.”
We became friendly and sociable29, and in the course of the talk he told me of an adventure which had befallen him—about to this effect:
“I was at Bellagio, stopping at the big hotel there, and ten days ago I lost my letter of credit. I did not know what in the world to do. I was a stranger; I knew no one in Europe; I hadn’t a penny in my pocket; I couldn’t even send a telegram to London to get my lost letter replaced; my hotel bill was a week old, and the presentation of it imminent30—so imminent that it could happen at any moment now. I was so frightened that my wits seemed to leave me. I tramped and tramped, back and forth31, like a crazy person. If anybody approached me I hurried away, for no matter what a person looked like, I took him for the head waiter with the bill.
“I was at last in such a desperate state that I was ready to do any wild thing that promised even the shadow of help, and so this is the insane thing that I did. I saw a family lunching at a small table on the veranda32, and recognized their nationality—Americans—father, mother, and several young daughters—young, tastefully dressed, and pretty—the rule with our people. I went straight there in my civilian33 costume, named my name, said I was a lieutenant in the army, and told my story and asked for help.
“What do you suppose the gentleman did? But you would not guess in twenty years. He took out a handful of gold coin and told me to help myself—freely. That is what he did.”
The next morning the lieutenant told me his new letter of credit had arrived in the night, so we strolled to Cook’s to draw money to pay back the benefactor34 with. We got it, and then went strolling through the great arcade35. Presently he said, “Yonder they are; come and be introduced.” I was introduced to the parents and the young ladies; then we separated, and I never saw him or them any m—-
“Here we are at Farmington,” said Twichell, interrupting.
We left the trolley-car and tramped through the mud a hundred yards or so to the school, talking about the time we and Warner walked out there years ago, and the pleasant time we had.
We had a visit with my niece in the parlor36, then started for the trolley again. Outside the house we encountered a double rank of twenty or thirty of Miss Porter’s young ladies arriving from a walk, and we stood aside, ostensibly to let them have room to file past, but really to look at them. Presently one of them stepped out of the rank and said:
“You don’t know me, Mr. Twichell; but I know your daughter, and that gives me the privilege of shaking hands with you.”
Then she put out her hand to me, and said:
“And I wish to shake hands with you too, Mr. Clemens. You don’t remember me, but you were introduced to me in the arcade in Milan two years and a half ago by Lieutenant H.”
What had put that story into my head after all that stretch of time? Was it just the proximity37 of that young girl, or was it merely an odd accident?
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1
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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4
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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6
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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7
apparitions
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| n.特异景象( apparition的名词复数 )；幽灵；鬼；（特异景象等的）出现 | |
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8
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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9
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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10
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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11
itinerary
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| n.行程表，旅行路线；旅行计划 | |
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12
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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13
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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14
glides
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| n.滑行( glide的名词复数 )；滑音；音渡；过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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15
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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16
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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17
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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18
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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19
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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20
squelched
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| v.发吧唧声，发扑哧声( squelch的过去式和过去分词 )；制止；压制；遏制 | |
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21
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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22
trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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23
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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27
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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28
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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29
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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30
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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31
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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32
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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33
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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34
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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35
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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36
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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37
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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