Letters from John E. Robinson and Welcome Whittaker.

During the progress of all this, our Buffalo Campaign, it is scarcely worth while to say that I received no end of letters of sympathy and encouragement. The number must have counted by thousands who had by this time witnessed for themselves, not merely the comparatively small sounds of the ordinary rapping near our persons, but sometimes great knockings, as by powerful arms and heavy hammers, on all parts of rooms and even outside of them; together with ringing of bells, moving and lifting of tables, etc.; to say nothing of the intelligent communications which identified their Spirit friends, etc. All such persons therefore knew that the Buffalo doctoral theory of knee-joints was impossible and absurd, and felt no uneasiness about the result of any real investigations. But many of them naturally sympathized with us under the harassing annoyance in which we were placed by the promulgation of even such a ridiculous theory, under such high-sounding “scientific” authority.

From these letters I select the following.

LETTER FROM JOHN E. ROBINSON.

Rochester, February 26, 1851.

“Dear Leah:

“I received this evening your note (of rather diminutive proportions), written day before yesterday. Having been on the lookout for a letter for several days, it was very acceptable. It is written in a hopeful and encouraging vein, and, so far as what is expressed relates to myself, I can take no exceptions to its language. I should think it dictated in some intervening hour of quiet; one of the few which pass above and tranquillize for the time the unresting surface of your daily life. Such hours, let them be passed when they may, come and go with all of us; and the dial finger that marks their exit, registers also the blessings which they leave upon the heart. Impulsive as you are; accustomed as you are to excitement, and possessing (as you do) a woman’s fondness for the glare of the world’s gilded exterior; there is a part of your nature better than the rest, which would often shut out from the chamber of its occupancy those noisy and obtrusive influences which corrode its brightness and rob it of its rest.

“That is the part of your being (the Leah) whom I would oftenest wish to have audience with; and in such hours as I speak of I would consider it a luxury equal to ‘Wenham ice’ in the torrid zone, or a shower of vertical sunbeams on an Arctic traveller—to knock at the door of that inner chamber, and finding entrance, to sit down at the table of your heart and commune with you face to face. I have turned down the leaves in my memory whereon the records of such brief communings have been made, and it is no small pleasure to refer to them, as I often do, during these days of denial. So seldom it is now-a-days when the Spirit I would talk to answers my signal with the words ‘at home.’

“We (your friends here) want you and the Spirits—who seem to think their bread-and-butter depends on their paying court (in especial) to you and yours—to come to us once in a while—like the chance sunlight that struggles through the bars of the prisoner’s window to reveal the gladness of the upper world—and rub the rust from our chains.

“You ought to come home next week, at any rate, even if you are determined on going West again. And really, I think you ought to visit Cleveland and Cincinnati before long. You would find many good people in both places, who would rejoice to see you and Margaretta, and who are looking out for your advent there with no little anxiety.

“Mrs. Bush read to me last evening a portion of a letter from her brother, resident, I believe, in the latter city, in which he urges her to come there and speaks of things connected with Spiritualism somewhat in detail. I observe Mr. Cogshall’s book is noticed very fairly in the National Era (of Washington, D.C.), a journal of high character for literary attainments. I will copy the notice as follows: ‘We have read this book, and have been pleased with its style, and impressed with the sincerity of its author. Still we do not believe. Nothing short of sight and hearing can convince us that the souls of the departed are really rapping in such an audible and startling manner on the wall which divides us from the Spiritual world—really moving chairs and tables and ringing bells, and otherwise disturbing domestic order and quiet. Yet, according to this little history, some Spirits justify themselves for their sudden incursions into our territory, by giving comfort to the mourner and sweet assurances of a love which could not die.’

“If all be an imposture, who can measure the depth of that depravity which trifles thus with the holiest affections, aspirations, and sorrows? Greeley in a late Tribune has a rich joke. He says: ‘Some brainless editor out in Milwaukee not long since published the fact that he had an interview with the Spirit of Captain West, of the steamer, who reported that the noble steamer struck an iceberg and went to the bottom of the ocean with all on board.’ Milwaukee is a great place! Our George (Willets) thinks ‘that Spirit took some trouble to spread the news.’ It is presumable that it was one of the Auburn Apostolic brethren. What a pity that Spirits (some of them) are not less given to lying. However, if they are capable of falsehood (as we well know some of them are), it is better they should show their hands, else their communications might work much evil. The good shines out with a more glorious brightness in contrast with the darkness of its opposite.

“Enough is known already to warrant the immense interest which this subject is now creating, and I think that there is in the future (not very distant) a glad day approaching. I am sometimes disposed to be depressed. I have very little from Spirits, such as I would most wish to get communications from, and you can hardly realize the sense of neglect—so to speak—which I feel. I hope, when you return, some of my kindred Spirits—that delicate, pure-souled sister of mine, in particular (a lock of whose hair I took from among my papers yesterday and found it as lustrous as when first taken from her perishing form), may have some message to deliver to one whose love for her is immortal. Leah, I want to whisper in your ear. Turn from the table and the sceptics who sit by, and lend me your ears. Last night, when my internal senses were playing their pranks, I had a dream of you. You were at your home, and my solicitude for the kingdom had led my steps to the capital of the New Jerusalem. My best bow had been made to the Spirits, the last words to you had been said, and I was about going out of the gate, when I remembered an important omission: and turning just as you were closing the front door, I cried, ‘Leah! Leah!’ and awoke with your name on my lips; pronouncing it once audibly after I awoke—just to see if you could come and answer me. But no response came, not even an echo of my voice from the walls of my room. Leah! Leah! I call again, and will you come?

“Yours in the bonds of patience,
“J.E.R.”

LETTER FROM WELCOME WHITTAKER.

Troy, N.Y., February 24, 1851.

“Mrs. Fish:

“I perceive, by the Buffalo papers, that you have had the unparalleled temerity to call public attention, in that place, to the manifestations of Spiritualism; and that, too, without so much as consulting for one moment the feelings, prejudices, or scientific accumulation of certain of the wonderful Faculty there. Well, they pounced upon you as you might well suppose such (God forgive me!) scientific gentlemen would, conscious as they doubtless are, that their position on the pyramid of all human knowledge is nothing short of the very cap-stone itself. Not only have they, in most chivalrous manner, arrayed themselves for your disrespect, but a masterly stroke, ingeniously given, shielded the public forever against such gross trickery and imposition by an exposÉ of the whole thing!

“O! never three luckier D(og)s together than the three M.D.’s of Buffalo, who in so short a time lifted the veil and exposed to open day the ‘very mechanism’ by which deluded thousands have been led astray, first by a course of negative reasoning, the parallel of which, I venture to say, cannot be found in all the annals of philosophic research. This of itself must be sufficient to render the names of Lee, Flint, and Coventry, at least notorious, if not illustrious.

“But, as if one death would not be a sufficient quietus, they give the certain home-thrust (the mortal stab), in the naked, positive proof. Now was there ever anything equal to that? When will such philanthropy, such critical discernment, such zeal, and such science be appreciated? And last, though not least, that highly respectable lady, ‘who, by a mental effort, can dislocate her knee-joints,’ and then make the ‘identical’ sounds so foolishly ascribed to the Spirits, must not be lost sight of in the words of overwhelming gratitude to these three M.D.’s above mentioned.

“Dear, kind-hearted soul! she must possess an unbounded share of the milk of human-kindness. No one can, for a moment, suppose that she was solicited to expose her knees to various gentlemen of the medical profession, for they must be sufficiently acquainted with anatomy and physiology to know all the mechanism at all competent to produce those sounds. It must, therefore, have been on her part perfectly voluntary—prompted purely by a most benevolent desire to expose a humbug. But Spiritualism will still progress, and its advocates shall gloriously ride over all adversity, for God is omnipotent.

“If contemptible meanness, united with unmitigated scoundrelism, can be found on this earth, it resides in the black heart of him who coins epithets designed to rob defenceless females of their spotless reputation, which is ever of more value to them than life itself.

“I felt, therefore, most indignant while reading the two articles in the Commercial Advertiser of the 17th, and the Courier of the 18th, both of which I believe to be palpably libellous; and for which, I have no doubt, any able lawyer would tell you a suit for slander would bear most beautifully.

“I thought to advise you to proceed against these libellers forthwith; but when indignation gave place to mingled contempt and pity, I came to the conclusion that if you could follow the example of Him whose persecutors were the objects of his latest petition—‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’—it might perhaps be best in the long run. But it is not always easy to determine the exact point where forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

“A friend from Syracuse told me the other day, that a sum of money (he did not say how much) had been subscribed for the purpose of having you visit that place. I will meet you if I can.

“Yours,
“Welcome Whittaker.”

LETTER FROM JOHN E. ROBINSON.

“The City of the New Dispensation,
“March 12, 1851, Anno Spirituum, 3.

“Dear Leah:

“What a woman you are! Why don’t you write to me? You know how anxious your friends are to hear from you, and you promised to write often and to send papers frequently. Only one paper have I received from you. Everybody whom you care a fig for here in Rochester asks me about Buffalo and you, and you. But I am not posted up and cannot tell them of your triumphs or escapes from the hands of the many-headed hydra whom you have slain so often. Not having a line from you a week ago, in answer to my last letter, I thought you intended to return last Saturday, but no train of cars, which I have heard of, brought you as a part of its living freight, and we (that is I) are ‘a-wearied’ because you answer not our call to ‘come.’ Now I command you, in the name of all the gods of the heathen mythology, to come to us, either spiritwise (on a sheet of paper of ample dimensions), or bodily (as would most effectually comport with our comfort and desire), by an early departing train from our sister city, whose queenly dignity, in thus aspiring to rob us of our Spiritual flame—the guide of our uncertain steps—we are getting jealous of. I received a good letter from your witch sister, my darling little Katie, this morning. She writes with much cheerfulness. Says she has commenced another quarter at her school (in New York). She says also she is ‘crazy’ to see me! You know just about what is intended to be understood when she thus addresses me (her friend and adviser); but Cathie is fast learning to be a woman, and my prayer is that she may escape the bitter trials through which you and your mother have been called to pass. She adds: ‘We had a telegraphic despatch from Maggie, saying she would be here last week Saturday; but she don’t come, and we have given up looking for her.’ She says: ‘Give my love to Leah and Margaretta, and tell them I want to see them.’

“George Willets and myself went over to see Clara (your housekeeper) yesterday. She is getting along tolerably well, but appears unwilling to remain much longer alone. She is evidently afraid—thinks the Spirits annoy her at nights. More than half of that is (of course) imagination. Why not come home, and go again, if you must, westward? But here I am asking you questions and you do not answer them. Busied as you are, and tired as you must be, most of the time, it is too much of a task for you to write to me; and I don’t know but George is right in saying, ‘Leah has found so many new loves that the winds blowing eastward come not freighted with a thought of us.’ Since the above was written an old friend from the country has called in to see me, and one of his questions was, ‘Well, do your views remain the same in regard to the rapping?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have had no occasion or cause to change them.’ ‘Why, Doctor Flint’s statement has explained the whole thing,’ he said, and added, ‘He writes very plausibly and conclusively on the subject.’ Now, this friend and relative of mine is a most excellent man, and I thoroughly appreciate him as a good member of society, an excellent husband and father, and an honest man; but the light which illumes the pathway of his intellect is not set on a very high hill! Leah, I ought not to write to you, wouldn’t if I could avoid it, and beg pardon of propriety for thus making a virtue of necessity.

“Mine to you—not forgetting Maggie and Calvin.

“Yours,
“J.E.R.”