From the Devout Inquirer's Guide, As, for example, is it True that the damned are fried or boiled? How baldness might be cured or foiled? If life's true seat were in the brain? a Was Socrates so dreadful plain? Ere ether was invented? Come recently from Hades, Who (for a quarter-dollar heard) Would ne'er rap out a hasty word Whence any blame might be incurred From the most fastidious ladies; Who was engaged the rather As ghost of Hamlet's father! Another a fair plan reveals Never yet hit on, which, he feels, To Knott's religious sense appeals "We'll have your house set up on wheels, A speculation pious; For music, we can shortly find Psalin-tunes, - an instrument designed For the New England tour-refined With no sectarian bias ;) Of Rationalism; while you could throw His Greek might make confusion, On Public Elocution. Meanwhile, the spirits made replies To all the reverent whats and whys, Resolving doubts of every size, And giving seekers grave and wise, Who came to know their destinies, A rap-turous reception; When unbelievers void of grace Came to investigate the place, (Creatures of Sadducistic race, With grovelling intellects and base,) They could not find the slightest trace To indicate deception; Indeed, it is declared by some That spirits (of this sort) are glum, Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, And (out of self-respect) quite mum To sceptic natures cold and numb, Who of this kind of Kingdom Come Have not a just conception: True, there were people who demurred That, though the raps no doubt were heard Both under them and o'er them, Yet, somehow, when a search they made, They found Miss Jenny sore afraid, Or Jenny's lover, Doctor Slade, Equally awe-struck and dismayed, Or Deborah, the chamber-maid, Whose terrors not to be gainsaid, In laughs hysteric were displayed, Was always there before them; This had its due effect with some Who straight departed, muttering, Hum! Transparent hoax! and Gammon ! But these were few: believing souls Came, day by day, in larger shoals, As the ancients to the windy holes 'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their doles, Or to the shrine of Ammon. The spirits seemed exceeding tame, You summoned with an awful ease; Of cunning Mephistopheles, With their astounding glamour; (Sometimes in shocking grammar) By raps and taps, now there, now hereIt seemed as if the spirit queer Of some departed auctioneer Were doomed to practise by the year With the spirit of his hammer: Whate'er you asked was answered, yet One could not very deeply get Into the obliging spirits' debt, Because they used the alphabet In all communications, And new revealings (though sublime) Rapped out, one letter at a time, With boggles, hesitations, Stoppings, beginnings o'er again, And getting matters into train, Could hardly overload the brain With too excessive rations, Since just to ask if two and two Really make four? or, How d' ye do? And get the fit replies thereto In the tramundane rat-tat-too, Might ask a whole day's patience. 'T was strange ('mongst other things) to find In what odd sets the ghosts combined. Happy forthwith to thump any Piece of intelligence inspired, With this response the chamber rang, "I guess it was Old Hundred.” And Franklin, being asked to name The reason why the lightning came, Replied, "Because it thundered." On one sole point the ghosts agreed, 'T was thus; by dreadful raps was shown Old Grimes, Young Norval, Swift, Bris- Some spirit's longing to make known sot, Maimonides, the Chevalier D'O, Socrates, Fenelon, Job, Stow, Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, With Franklin's expedition; By our mere mortal vision. Sometimes the spirits made mistakes, And seemed to play at dacks and drakes With bold inquiry's heaviest stakes In science or in mystery; They knew so little (and that wrong) Yet rapped it out so bold and strong, One would have said the unnumbered throng Had been Professors of History; Were just the ones that blundered; And who (with him) had wondered A bloody fact, which he alone In Earth's affairs to meddle are ;) Who are you? with awe-stricken looks, All ask his airy knuckles he crooks, And raps, "I was Eliab Snooks, That used to be a pedler; Some on ye still are on my books!" A duly licensed follower Of that much-wandering trade that wins And various kinds of hollow-ware; And (the same night) him ferried Across Great Pond to t' other shore, And there, on land of Widow Moore, Just where you turn to Larkin's store, Under a rock him buried; Some friends (who happened to be by) He called upon to testify That what he said was not a lie, And that he did not stir this Foul matter, out of any spite But from a simple love of right; Which statements the Nine Worthies, Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, Seth, Colley Cibber, General Wayne, Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain, The owner of a castle in Spain, Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain, (The friends aforesaid,) made more plain And by loud raps attested; To the same purport testified Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride Who knew said Snooks before he died, Had in his wares invested, Thought him entitled to belief And freely could concur, in brief, In everything the rest did. Eliab this occasion seized, Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins! Knott was perplexed and shook his head, He did not wish his child to wed With a suspected murderer, (For, true or false, the rumor spread,) But as for this roiled life he led, "It would not answer," so he said, "To have it go no furderer. Accordingly, this artless maid And ne'er gave trouble after; And found thereunder a jaw-bone, Though, when the crowner sat thereon, He nothing hatched, except alone Successive broods of laughter; It was a frail and dingy thing, In which a grinder or two did cling, In color like molasses, Which surgeons, called from far and wid Upon the horror to decide, Having put on their glasses, Reported thus-"To judge by looks, These bones, by some queer hooks crooks, May have belonged to Mr. Snooks, From human bones to bare bones." Still, if to Jaalam you go down, And one by Perez Tinkham ; Two curious facts which Prince Lee Boo Rapped clearly to a chosen few Whereas the others think 'em A trick got up by Doctor Slade With Deborah the chamber-maid And that sly cretur Jinny. That all the revelations wise, At which the Brownites made big eyes, Might have been given by Jared Keyes, A natural fool and ninny, And, last week, did n't Eliab Snooks Come back with never better looks, As sharp as new-bought mackerel hooks, And bright as a new pin, eh? Good Parson Wilbur, too, avers (Though to be mixed in parish stirs Is worse than handling chestnut-burrs) That no case to his mind occurs Where spirits ever did converse, Save in a kind of guttural Erse, (So say the best authorities ;) And that a charge by raps conveyed Should be most scrupulously weighed And searched into, before it is Made public, since it may give pain. That cannot soon be cured again, And one word may infix a stain Which ten cannot gloss over, Though speaking for his private part, He is rejoiced with all his heart Miss Knott missed not her lover. |