Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2185 page)

Thus far I have been careful to base our claim to international
 
copyright on no lower ground than that of justice. Would you
 
like, before I conclude, to form some idea of the money we lose by
 
the freedom of robbery which is one of the freedoms of the American
 
republic?

Take the illustrious instance of Charles Dickens. The price agreed
 
on with his English publishers for the work interrupted by his death — -”Edwin Drood” — - was seven thousand five hundred pounds ; with
 
a provision for an addition to this sum if the work exceeded a certain circulation. Even Dickens’s enormous popularity in England is beaten
 
by his popularity in the United States. He has more readers in your
 
country than in mine, and, as a necessary consequence (with inter- national copyright), his work would be worth more in America than
 
in England. What did he get in America for the “advance-sheets,”
 
with the pirates to be considered in making the bargain ? Less than
 
a seventh part of what his English publishers agreed to give him,
 
before a line of his novel was written, — - one thousand pounds.

But the case of Charles Dickens is the case of a writer who stands
 
apart, and without a rival in popularity. Take my case, if you like,
 
as representing the position of writers of a less degree of popularity.
 
I fail to remember the exact price which Messrs. Harper paid me for
 
the advance-sheets of “The Woman in White.” It was certainly not
 
a thousand pounds ; perhaps half a thousand, or perhaps not so much.
 
At any rate (with the pirates in the background, waiting to steal), the
 
great firm in New York dealt with me liberally. It has been calcu- lated, by persons who understand these matters better than I do, that
 
for every one reader in England I have ten readers in the United
 
States. How many unauthorized editions of this one novel of mine — -
 
published without my deriving any profit from them — - made their ap- pearance in America ? I can only tell you, as a basis for calculation,
 
that
one
American publisher informed a friend of mine that he had
 
“sold one hundred and twenty thousand copies of ‘The Woman in
 
White.’ “ He never sent me sixpence.

Good-by for the present, Colonel. I must go back to my regular
 
work, and make money for American robbers, under the sanction of
 
Congress.

 WILKIE COLLINS.

NOTE. — -The editors agree with Mr. Collins in thinking that a treaty securing Inter- national Copyright is in every way just and proper ; but they must disclaim all responsi- bility for the language adopted by him in his argument. In a letter to the publishers of this
 
Review Mr. Collins says : “ It [this article] has my name attached to it because I wish to
 
take on myself the entire responsibility of the tone in which this little protest is written. If
 
the article is published, I must ask as a condition that it shall be published without altera- tions of any kind, excepting palpable errors or slips of the pen,
exactly as it is written
.
 
The article is printed in exact accordance with this request.

LETTER I. — TO. G. H. LEWES

YOU have asked me to give you an account of some extraordinary experiments in Animal Magnetism, which I witnessed during my recent Christmas visit to Somersetshire. In complying with your wish, I intend to confine myself as strictly as possible to simple narrative — or, in other words, to be the reporter, rather than the judge, of the proceedings of which I was a spectator. Had those proceedings been publicly exhibited for hire, I should certainly not have taken the notes of them from which I am now about to write. But they were of a private nature; they were only shown from motives of hospitality and kindness; and they were directed by a gentleman whose character I knew to be above all suspicion. Under these circumstances, I thought it well worth while to write down, at the time all that I saw; and I gladly commit my materials to press, in their present form — knowing that they have been carefully collected; and believing that they will furnish specimens of evidence, which the opponents of Animal Magnetism will find it much easier contemptuously to reject than fairly to confute.

On the first of this month, after a pleasant dinner with my Somersetshire friends, in honour of the New Year, I went to drink tea at the house of Count P — , accompanied by two gentlemen — one a clergyman, the other a barrister. The Count had been known to the family with whom I had dined, for fifteen years; his wife (an English lady) was a friend of still longer standing. I mention these particulars, in order to show at the outset what confidence might fairly be reposed in the character of my host; what guarantee was given me on the unimpeachable testimony of my friends and his, that, let the experiments to be shown appear what they might, they were performed by a gentleman of honour and integrity, whose position placed him above the slightest imputation of acting from a motive of personal advantage — or, indeed, from any motive at all but the wish to study a science in which he felt a deep and natural interest.

We found the Count, his wife, and a young French lady who lived as companion to the Countess, seated round the tea-table when we entered. The young lady (Mademoiselle V — ) had been a member of the Count’s family for five years. She was first made the subject of magnetic experiments two years since, and certainly looked anything but a martyr to them. Her complexion was fresh and clear, her eyes lively and intelligent, and her whole appearance that of a person in the full vigour of youth and health. She described her sensations on being awakened from the magnetic sleep as invariably those of one who had enjoyed a good night’s rest; and told us with her own lips that, before she had been selected as a subject for magnetic influences, she was pale, thin, and weakly; and that, since that period, her constitution had altered quickly and permanently for the better. These, and all other particulars which we learnt from her, she related readily and simply. On our first introduction to her, it was not easy to imagine that this young girl, so quiet and natural in her manner, so gentle and good-humoured in her expression, was soon to display before us all the mysterious phenomena of magnetic influence — soon to open to our view glimpses into the dim, dark regions of the spiritual world.

During teatime I had an opportunity of ascertaining generally what our host’s ideas were on the subject of Animal Magnetism. He very frankly described himself, at the outset, as an enthusiast for the science. “How the magnetic influence acts,” said he, “may be seen, but cannot easily be explained. My idea about it is briefly this. We consist of three parts — the organic matter (
i. e
., bodily structure), the vital principle which animates it, and the soul. We feel that the soul has many of its divinest prerogatives suspended in this life, through its connection with the bodily part of us. To find out such a means of acting on the vital principle, without injuring or destroying it, as to render the organic matter perfectly passive, and thereby to weaken, if not suspend, its influence on the soul, is to give back to that soul, for the time, some portion of its inherent and higher nature — its immortal capacity to overstep all mortal boundaries of time and space. This object I think the magnetic influence achieves, in different degrees of perfection, as applied to different persons; and in this way I explain the phenomena of what we term
clairvoyance
. As to what constitutes the essence of the influence thus communicable from one individual to another, I believe it to be simply electricity! But I must repeat that I am only a student in the science; that we are all groping in the darkness of a mystery which is still unrevealed. The relation between cause and effect is not yet traced out in Animal Magnetism. With regard to the practical purpose to which it may be directed, I think it might be used as a curative agent in more forms of disease — especially nervous diseases — than I can well reckon up. Without entering into particulars, one great boon I know it can confer on humanity — it can produce sleep; a sleep from which every one awakens refreshed. Think of the disorders fatally aggravated by want of sleep, or inefficiently relieved by the short, unhealthy sleep produced by opiates. Think of what might be effected in the earliest stages of insanity, by procuring for the patient a long sleep, that could be made to last, if necessary for days together. This I know might be done in the vast majority of cases; and surely this alone is something! But let us get from speech to action. I will first throw V — into the magnetic sleep; and after that you can take your choice of the experiments that shall be tried. I must premise, however, that I do not promise to succeed in all. She is not the same on every occasion under the magnetic influence. An experiment which succeeded last night may not succeed to-night, and vice versa. Nevertheless, we will try anything you like.”

The manner of putting V — to sleep was singular enough. While we were talking, she had been at work joining two lace cuffs to make a collar. The Count took her thimble and magnetized it with his hand. She was to put it on her finger again, and by its influence she was to be thrown into the sleep. But while it still remained on the table, a watch was put before me, and I was desired to fix in my own mind the time she should go to sleep in — of course, without communicating the decision to any one. The time I thus secretly determined, was five minutes. No one prompted me to this choice: it was understood at the outset, that I was free to select any time, long or short, that I chose.

I was close by her when she took up the thimble. Exactly at the instant when she put it on her finger, I marked the position of the minute hand on the dial of the watch. I was left free to take any means I chose of trying to keep her awake — not merely by talking to her, but by clapping my hands, if I chose, before her face. We sat close together: she at one side, I at the other, of the same corner of the table. For the first three or four minutes, I kept her almost incessantly laughing and talking: she looked at me and spoke to me, as usual. But, as the fourth minute passed a change came, which no talking could avert. First, her articulation began to grow thick and low; very different from the clear rapid utterance of a Frenchwoman. Then her eyes got strangely dim and dull when she raised them to me. She still went on with her work; but slowly, and with increasing hesitation. The next alteration was in her mouth; her lips became firmly compressed, and grew pale like the lips of a corpse. Her complexion changed to a dull, unnatural, clayey hue; her brow suddenly contracted; her hands rapidly trembled; her eyelids dropped heavily — she had fallen into the magnetic sleep.

I immediately looked at the watch. Eight minutes exactly had passed since she first put the thimble on. Not betraying to any one, either by word or gesture, that she had exceeded the time I had fixed on by three minutes, I next tested the fact of her being really asleep, by calling out close at her ear, and clapping my hands before her eyelids — neither proceeding produced the smallest effect, outwardly; I especially remarked that her eyelids did not tremble or twitch in the slightest degree, when I tried to startle her by clapping my hands within almost a hair’s breadth of them. She could hear and answer a whisper from the magnetiser at the other end of the room, which was too faint to be audible to any of us. To every one else present — say what they might, as loudly as they chose — she was deaf and dumb.

She was now questioned as to the matter of time by the Count. Had she gone to sleep in the time I had fixed on? — No. In a longer or a shorter time? — A longer. How long a time was it? — Eight minutes. What time had I fixed on? — Five minutes.

When the last answer was delivered — and not till then — the Count asked me whether she was right or wrong, and reported my reply to her. I know as well as I know the fact of my own existence that neither by an involuntary word, look, or sign, did I betray to any one present what time I had fixed for her to go to sleep in — or what difference there was between the period I had settled on, and the period she had actually occupied in falling asleep. Two inferences and two alone, could be drawn from this first experiment. The perfect correctness of all four answers was either really produced by the magnetic influence, working within her by operations which can neither be understood nor reasoned on; or what we had heard was merely the result of pure guess-work. I confess, for my own part, that I have not credulity enough to believe in four random guesses following close on each other, all turning out perfectly right!