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"quite an original being, grand from a blending of innocence with prudent tact, prompt in speech as in action; for the rarest presence of mind, and the most extraordinary address, sagacity, and perspicacity were combined in her, and all this was animated by an ever practical and true warmth of feeling, and the liveliest sympathy with others in their joys and sorrows. Comprehensiveness and brilliancy, depth and frankness, imagination and irony combined together were displayed by her in the series of unexpected circumstances of which her life was composed. But with power and greatness were always found in her the gentleness and grace of the woman, which were especially visible in the charming expression of her eyes and mouth, as well as passion and enthusiasm."

Born in 1771 of Jewish parents, she was of a highly susceptible temperament, wayward in disposition, and glad to escape as often as she could from the uncongenial atmosphere of her home, where her father ruled with an iron hand, and her mother failed to understand and appreciate her. It seems to have been her fate to have been misunderstood during her life, as it has been to be less known since her death than, according to all accounts, she deserved. Her husband said it was not till after having been long uncertain and mistaken about her, that he at last got to know her true character. She can hardly be said to have led a happy life. Those who are not blest with a happy home in childhood are at a great disadvantage to begin with. Soured in temper and wounded in spirit at the time of life when the heart is most susceptible, they are apt to be gloomy and morose all through life, the objects of dislike and suspicion rather than sympathy and kindness. It is sad to read what Rahel says in one of her letters:

"I am compelled to live misunderstood among unworthy people. Fools and liars protect themselves against each other, but I have no protection, no kindred spirit, no friend, nothing. And what makes matters worse, is that, living in the midst of injustice, blame irritates me like something new. There is not a single person of those that condemn me, who has not been completely mistaken. No one undertakes my defence: they persecute me because I have always spoken to each

one in favour of the other. The women whom I see completely undo It is a physical effect. Their presence agitates my nerves, they depress my mind."

me.

To add to her other sufferings, Rahel was doomed to undergo the misery of disappointment in a love affair with Count von Finkenstein, who, after a long courtship, was released by her from his engagement on account of their disparity of rank and difference of religion. Though she never afterwards regretted this result, it affected her so deeply at the time as to bring on a severe illness of long continuance, after which she visited Paris, having long been familiar with the French language and literature through study and intercourse with many French emigrants in Berlin.

Mrs.Jennings gives an interesting sketch of an evening at Rahel's salon from the pen of a French count, who says:—

"I heard the boldest ideas, the acutest thoughts, the most significant play of fancy, all linked and suggested criticisms, and the most capricious by the simple thread of accidental chit

chat.

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Every one was naturally active without being obtrusive, and all seemed equally ready to talk or to listen. Most remarkable of all was Mlle. Levin herself. With what easy grace did she seem to rouse, brighten, and warm everybody present. Her cheerfulness was irresistible; and what did she not say? I was entirely bewildered,

and could no longer distinguish among her remarkable utterances, what was wit, depth, right principle, genius, or mere eccentricity and caprice. I heard from her phrases of colossal wisdom, true inspirations, which in a simple word or two traversed the air like lightnings and lodged in the heart."

The next day the count called upon Rahel, and having congratulated her on being the centre of so distinguished and intellectual an assembly as he had seen the previous evening, he received a melancholy reply:

I

"How do I stand to all these people?' she exclaimed sadly. 'I have no personal satisfaction in any of them. They bring me their sorrows, their offences, their troubles, their cares. They come here to be amused, and if they find better entertainment elsewhere, they leave me at once. amuse them, I listen to them, I help, comfort, advise them. In so far as I do this, because it is my nature, I have a perfect satisfaction, but they have the whole benefit. . . . Even among my best friends I stand unarmed, exposed to wounds upon all sides, and without any balsam for the wounds.'

From this we gather that these evening assemblies were, with all their brilliancy of intellectual display, rather hollow affairs, a kind of mental masquerades in which the heart had no place, highly enter taining no doubt for the moment, but unproductive of any solid or lasting satisfaction. It seems the guests were not specially invited, nor confined to any particular class. All that was required of them was the strict observance of social propriety. Beyond that there was no restraint on the freest expression of opinion. Nothwithstanding the variety of character, the incompatibility of temper, the difference of pursuits, the disparity of rank, and the discordance of creed among those present, Rahel, by her rare tact and readiness of resource,

managed to prevent all unpleasant

ness.

It was when Rahel was about thirty-four years of age that Varnhagen, who was more than twelve years younger, was first introduced to her, and soon managed to get a general invitation to her salon. She had, since the dissolution of her engagement with Count von Finkenstein, formed a passionate attachment to the Chevalier Raphael Urquijo, a Spanish gentleman introduced to her by the Spanish Ambassador at Berlin; but it had abruptly terminated in a manner not now known. Varnhagen gives a glowing account of his first evening in her salon, and the gradual growth of their intimacy, which, after a series of adventures, extending over eight years, and including his being wounded at the battle of Wagram, and his active literary efforts to stir up his countrymen against Napoleon, resulting in an order for his arrest, was finally consummated by their marriage at Berlin in September, 1814, after which they lived happily together till her death, March 7, 1833.

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Perhaps one of the most remarkable circumstances about Rahel was that, with all her high intellectual gifts and her effusive disposition, she produced no literary work beyond a few aphorisms, entitled "Stray Thoughts from a Berliner," which she describes as a distilled essence, mainly of the sorrows of life." Count Custine, referring to this circumstance, says, "She was a woman as extraordinary as Madame de Staël for her faculties of mind, for her abundance of ideas, her light of soul, and her goodness of heart; she had, moreover, what the author of 'Corinne' did not pretend to, a disdain for oratory; she did not write. The silence of minds like hers is a force too. With more vanity, a person so superior would have sought to make

a public for herself; but Rahel desired only friends. She spoke to communicate the life that was in her; never did she speak to be admired." This is one way of explaining the singular phenomenon certainly, but can hardly be accepted as a satisfactory solution. Mrs. Jennings gives a different account of the matter, without, however, clearing it up :

"It was at this time that Rahel first became conscious of the want of power to express the thoughts which crowded her active brain; while possessing the breadth and originality of thought, the brightness and fertility of intellect, the keen sensibility to suffering, which we admire in our own Mrs. Browning, she was denied the gift of poetic utterance. Her genius found for itself other channels of expression, and accomplished its appointed work in its own way."

It is very unusual for such superior endowments as are here claimed for Rahel to be unaccompanied by a corresponding power of expression, so rare, indeed, as to raise a suspicion of some delusion in the estimate formed of her abilities. The admission that "she was denied the gift of poetic utterance" is in itself sufficient to show that she ought not to be placed on a par with Mrs. Browning, either in mind or heart.

Mrs.

If we turn from vain speculation as to what she might, could, or would have written, to what she actually did write, we look in vain for indications of that surpassing genius with which she has been credited by enthusiastic admirers. Jennings frankly confesses that Varnhagen might well have kept back many of her letters, which he edited in three thick volumes. Mr. Carlyle goes farther, and quaintly admits that with him " in the second thick volume the reading faculty unhappily broke down." Even the small fraction of the whole collec

tion inserted in this volume will be more than enough to satisfy most readers who do not happen to have special knowledge of the persons and circumstances concerned, or to be fond of listening to the melancholy moanings of a wounded spirit. Each has sorrows enough of his own to think of without adding those of others. Rahel herself said, "I do not pity sorrows of which people complain true sorrow hides itself; it is silent."

On the whole, we question whether the present volume will extend or exalt the reputation of its principal subject. The amount of information about her is too scanty, and the letters give no idea of the peculiar charm of her conversation.

Spiritualism, and allied Causes and Conditions of Nervous Derangement. By W. A. Hammond, M.D., Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in the University of New York, &c. G. P. Putnam, New York; Sampson Low & Co., London, 1876.-Spiritualism, or rather spiritism, has lately been heard of in two quarters where it was previously unknown. Its professors, anxious to render their séances more attractive to the public and more profitable to themselves, managed, by a little cunning and a breach of faith, to get the subject discussed, after a fashion, in the Anthropological Section of the British Association during its late meeting at Edinburgh.

The discussion was occasioned by the reading of a paper of Professor Barrett's on "Phenomena con

nected with abnormal conditions of mind," and resulted in the production of more heat than light on the subject. An attempt was made to secure the appointment of a committee to investigate and report to the Association on some of the

alleged phenomena produced by spiritist performers. It is perhaps to be regretted that this was not accomplished, because if fair and reasonable conditions were rejected by the spiritists, as in the case of Prof. Tyndall's challenge, their cause would be still further discredited in the estimation of all sensible people; and if they were accepted, some satisfactory conclusion would probably be arrived at, as in the case of the so-called electric girl in France, thirty years ago, whose pretensions were carefully investigated and completely quashed by a commission of the Academy of Sciences.

The day before Professor Barrett's paper was read, a séance took place at Dr. Slade's rooms, which has led to an investigation into the merits of spiritists and spiritism at Bow Street police office, a far more appropriate sphere than the Anthropological Section of the British Association, and it is to be hoped the prosecution will not be without good results, in addition to the entertainment afforded by the reports of the proceedings, which have been worth reading.

If any are disposed to pursue the subject further, they may find it treated, with various allied topics, in the present volume, which is an amplified reproduction of an article contributed to the North American Review by a physician who is Professor of Diseases of the Mind in the University of New York.

As a mere collection of curious cases which have fallen under his own professional observation, or been recorded in books and journals, the work may interest not a few readers. That it can be considered an exhaustive and conclusive discussion of the subject is probably more than Dr. Hammond himself would affirm, and certainly more than we are prepared to concede. A subject of such complexity and

delicacy requires a

delicacy requires a greater power of subtle analysis than Dr. Ham- . mond appears to possess. However eminent he may be as a physician, he does not shine as a metaphysician, if we may judge from what follows:

"Before we can be qualified to inquire into the powers of the mind, we must have a definite conception of what mind is. To express the idea in sufficiently full, but yet concise language is difficult, and perhaps no definition can be given which will be entirely free from objection. For the purposes, however, of the present memoir, the mind may be regarded as a force, the result of nervous action, and the elements of which are perception, intellect, the emotions and the will. Of these qualities some reside exclusively in the brain, but the others, as is clearly shown by observation and experiment, cannot be restricted to this organ, but are developed with more or less intensity by other parts of the nervous system. It would be out of place to enter fully into the consideration of the important questions thus touched upon, but in the fact that the spinal cord and sympathetic ganglia are not devoid of mental power we find an explanation of some of the most striking phenomena of what is called spiritualism."

It is strange enough to speak of the mind as "a force, the result of nervous action." Action must mean motion, and force is usually considered the cause, not the effect or result of motion. It is still stranger to describe the mind as composed of the elements "perception, intellect, the emotions, and the will." Dr. Hammond might with equal propriety say the body is composed of the elements nutrition, respiration, and circulation. To increase our surprise still further, the doctor transmogrifies these "elements" into "qualities," some of which, he says, "reside exclusively in the brain;" while others " are developed

with more or less intensity by other parts of the nervous system." It is a pity he did not, when he was about it, tell us the private residence of each instead of leaving it so indefinite. It is also a matter of regret that he did not furnish some evidence of the assumed "fact that the spinal cord and sympathetic ganglia are not devoid of mental power." How they can have mental power without being mental, we are at a loss to understand; still less how any one can form" a definite conception of what mind is," from such a strange jumble of ideas as the above extract presents.

For

Dr. Hammond admits that there is a substratum of fact in the allegations of spiritist performers, but contends that it is overlaid and distorted by delusion and deception, and his object is to separate these elements from the former. this purpose he quotes and examines a number of instances of alleged spiritual manifestations, including not only those of modern times, but also many recorded in the lives of saints, which are not worth the attention and space he devotes to them. In treating of the alleged instances of levitation, or rising and floating in the air, he maintains that they are not supported by sufficient evidence, but may reasonably be ascribed to hallucination on the part of the subject, unintentional error in the observer and narrator, intentional mis-statement, or legerdemain. His mode of treating Lord Lindsay's report of Mr. Home's alleged floating out of the window of one room through the window of another seven feet six inches off, is hardly satisfactory :-

"Lord Lindsay may have dined heartily, his cravat may have been too tight, or from some other cause, the circulation of blood in his brain may have been accelerated so as to have produced active congestion, or

retarded so as to have caused passive congestion."

If the pretensions of spiritists have no stronger argument to contend with than such flimsy conjectures as these, they may be considered pretty safe from attack. Even supposing one could be satisfied with what Dr. Hammond says of Lord Lindsay, some explanation is still required with regard to Lord Adair and a cousin of his, who are stated to have been present on the occasion. It is difficult to imagine that all three happened on that particular day to have dined heartily, and to have had their cravats too tight, and to have had the circulation of blood in the brain unduly accelerated or retarded.

Dr. Hammond rather weakens than strengthens his case by resorting to such desperate shifts. He frankly acquits Lord Lindsay of all suspicion of intentional misstatement, but endeavours, not very successfully, to show how he may have been mistaken; relying chiefly upon universal experience as a proof that he must have been mistaken, which is safe ground enough to take.

Dr. Hammond is no doubt correct in ascribing some of the spiritist phenomena to sleight of hand. He says, the dexterity of Hindoo jugglers far surpasses that of any spiritist performer. "Thus the Hindoo magician causes flowers to grow several feet in a few minutes, changes his rod into a serpent, suspends himself in the air, kills people and restores them to life, and even allows himself to be buried several months in the earth, to be dug up at the end of that time alive." The accounts of their performances two hundred and fifty years ago are still more astonishing. Even the conjurors of our own day have not only performed the same feats as the spiritists, but exceeded them, so that, in spite of their own disavowal,

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