To which Planchette promptly and rebukingly answered,

P. There were other strong minds, strong as yours, Sassiness

Q. Whose?

P. The Senator's, and Hon. Clarke's, who is not always asleep.

At this point Sassiness, overcome with the point and vigor of the repartees, and declaring that she had finally met with her ideal, said, solemnly,

"Planchette, I here offer you my heart and hand."

There being no response, some one said,

"Did you hear, Planchette?"

"Yea, I heard her," was the response. “And have you nothing to say?” There was another short pause; and then the pencil wrote rapidly,

"If the union were possible, I should accept; but we might find our minds incompatible. Besides, I am not so much devoted to you as I might be, Sassiness."

Of course this brought forth a burst of merriment from the company, the operators being as much astonished as any one at this unexpected turn to the serious conversation.

Then the Angel sat down to the board with the Flirt; and, having first reversed the machine, I asked Planchette to tell us which of its communications it preferred to have us publish in the article I was writing; to which it replied, at length,

"That touching little allusion to the devil and the preachers, also the pet names I have for my friends; such as, Deviless, Sassiness, Clarkey, and the rest. Also, you may throw in the poems, for they would please the public. I advise you not to throw in the description of characters. I could go on indefinitely, but this squeak" (referring to the noise of the pencil) "affects my head. But I will write more if you desire it." It then wrote,

"I want SSSSS to ask, and Clarkey to answer."

The required change having been made, the conversation was pursued, as follows:

This lady professes to be able to discern character from a letter, simply held in the hand. Both the Flirt and myself were ignorant of the facts alluded to in the two last questions; but it did not at all affect the clearness of Planchette's response.

P. Mrs. It is easy enough to state generalities, and make random applications.

is a deluded humbug.

Q. Is this the same power as clairvoyance?

P. Yes, in some respects. Don't ever suppose, however, that this process trenches on the supernatural.

Q. Is it the same as mesmerism?
P. I think it is magnetism.

Q. Explain the difference between the two.

P. There is no essential difference. Mesmerism is more an animal fluid; magnetism, more of an intellectual power.

Q. Is it the same as odic force?
P. No.

Q. What is odic force?

P. You could not understand my explanation. Besides, I do not understand it myself well.

Q. Can any unexplained historical phenomena be accounted for by this principle?

P. No; it is a new development. Q. When was it discovered? P. It has been used, unconsciously, for the last generation. Q. How ?

P. In magnetizing some minds, as you have often heard. It also is of use in pulling people.

Q. Why is it more apparent at present than formerly?

P. The animal magnetism is strong in some people, though it has never been thoroughly developed. A generation

*This is an ordinary professional medium, who tips tables in the dark.

from now this science will have attained a remarkable growth. It will have much to do then with the historic events of the world. Man, and all his actions, will be governed, more or less, by this wonderful magnetic power. It has been always latent; but all sciences are dependent on previous ones. This will be a natural outgrowth of various sciences. This follows electricity and astronomy.

sometimes in a prickling sensation in the fingers and arms, sometimes in headache, and again in general exhaustion. The effect passes off rapidly when the hands are removed from the machine. The negative temperament experiences no sensation when working with a corresponding positive agent; but if the positive quality in the other is not sufficiently powerful, or if he be likewise a negative, fatigue ensues in the strongest

P. Yes, I am dependent on it.

At this point we were called out, to look at the Aurora Borealis, which was irradiating the northern sky with lambent light. Some one suggested that the activity of Planchette might be accounted for by the electrical influences abroad; so that, on our return to the parlor, we interrogated it on this subject, asking whether it was affected by

the Aurora.

P. Yes; it affects the minds of all here. The peculiar condition of the atmosphere engenders clearness and a connection of all intellectual power.

Q. Would you be affected by a magnet in the room?

P. A magnet would not affect the minds of men. It is only the condition of the atmosphere that affects the intellectual magnetism.

come with extreme drowsiness when working in this way, though I can continue the practice for hours, without sensation, when the balance of the two magnetisms is perfect.

It is much to be regretted that we have not had more opportunities for trying the effect of different combinations upon the machine; as, upon one occasion, curious results were produced by a stranger, who, after watching Planchette's evolutions for some time, placed his hands upon her with the Flirt.

A remarkable perturbation at once took place. The instrument dashed violently backward and forward across the paper, and wrote, with impetuous vehemence, in letters of great size, "It is too strong; leave off, off, off!" and became completely uncontrollable, not only for the moment, but for three days after, though the gentleman de

P. No; there is no connection whatever. Besides, I don't believe in the demoniacal theory.

Q. What do you think of it?

P. Nothing but insanity. It was an extraordinary case, made to influence the superstitious mind.

Q. What of the devils of Moozine ? P. Only an extreme case of insanity. Q. Is insanity, then, contagious? P. Rarely. In this case, however, it was; for the minds of many people were predisposed for that condition.

At this point the séance broke up, the Flirt having become exhausted.

We have found, as a general thing, that the positive magnetic agent feels the physical effects of the operation

thing but nonsense, even with those for whom it had previously responded; and covering the paper with scrawls, and the words, "Hall, Hall, Hall," the name of the gentleman who had bewitched it. It tore holes in the paper with the point of the pencil, jumped up and down on one leg, and even ran off the table several times. It had, during this attack, which it called its "sickness," moments that it called its "lucid intervals," during which it explained that it must be left on the table, that the false magnetism might "run off through the legs."

At the end of three days it responded to our questions about its health, with the words, "Well, well, well!" and a huge exclamation-point at the

end, to give emphasis to the declaration. It then explained that the power of Mr. Hall was rather mesmerism than magnetism; and that such an influence was fatal to its organization. Upon inquiry, we learned that the gentleman in question had formerly possessed mesmeric power, and had occasionally exercised it upon various individuals.

These are but a few of the curious. phenomena of which we have been witnesses; but I have no doubt that, when it is generally known that intelligent answers can be obtained to sensible questions, others who, until now, have treated this curious little toy with contempt, will be induced to give it attention, as perhaps capable of throwing light upon many of the manifestations which the superstitious mind has ascribed to spiritual agency, and the scientific observer scouted as imposture. Intelligent minds may find subject for experiment and investigation in this simple bit of machinery, and amusement may at least be afforded by its curious readiness and marvellous aptitude; while the philosopher may find a new topic of thought, in the consideration of this problem of a floating and combined intelligence brought to bear upon an inanimate agent, which our magnetic friend seems inclined to suggest.

Are we, then, all Planchettes, worked upon by the active intellectual principle afloat in the "circumambient" air, and are our grades of mental power only indications of our magnetic responsiveness

to the influences of nature? Is a blockhead, with three legs, the archetype of abstract thought? Is it possible that the Delphic tripod may have been the Planchette of the period, and that the profound and wonderful answers of the oracle may have been procured by the same means we now employ to amuse an idle hour?

If this theory of atmospheric influences be true, have we not a clue to the extraordinary manifestations of those great eras of literature, when many minds of rare genius have burst together into marvellous blossom? May we not owe the Augustan and Elizabethan Ages to some prolonged auroral influence, producing the necessary conditions of intellectual power that led to such results as Horace, Virgil, Jonson, Shakespeare, and the other human Planchettes have achieved? May not the cycles of magnetic force return, like comets, at eccentric intervals? And who knows but the Dark Ages may have been the perihelion of its orbit, as the Augustan Age may have been its aphelion?

These suggestions open a wide field for the speculative mind, and we trust we may be excused in view of the pres ent tendency of even the British scientific mind of our day. We do not think we are much in advance of Professor Tyndal, whose late scientific discourse, even in these progressive days, has excited so much attention on both sides of the water. We take shelter behind his robes.

No field of literature is more fruitful and advantageous than biography. It affords the writer the opportunity of combining the most various elements of interest, and of mixing, in a seasonable manner, the most serious lessons of philosophy with the lighter charms of literature. No other author has broader and more abundant materials than the biographer. He has but commenced his task when he has only put in orderly narrative the events and incidents of the life of his subject; he has yet to explore the personal character, in which this life has its true significance and interest, to study it in the subjective, and make of it a purely psychological inquiry; and even beyond this, he has, necessarily, to determine the reciprocal relations, the connecting influences between this life and its times, the general historical condition in which it flourished. "For," as the acute German philosopher Goethe says, "the main point in biography is to present the man in all his relations to his time, and to show to what extent it may have opposed or prospered his development; what view of mankind and the world he has shaped from it, and how far he himself may be an external reflection of its spirit."

It is in this just conception of biography that we at once comprehend its extraordinary literary advantage in uniting opportunities of philosophy with the art of narrative, and in occupying a field of the most various interest. The biographer is properly philosopher, dramatist, historian. Indeed, a remarkable tendency of the modern school of his tory, which has been developed since Macaulay's adventure, is to approach the style of biography, and to appropriate its interest in dramatic and vivid

* Our readers will doubtless be interested to see what is said of one of the most famous of the Rebel leaders, by one of their most prominent historians. -Ed. Putnam's Magazine.

treatment of subjects. It is a philosophical tendency, a correct school; for, after all, since persons create events, history is profoundly and logically nothing more than a collection of biographies, a narrative of many lives, instead of one. The practical realization of this school is a superior graphic style of historical composition, in which events are grouped around certain leading figures, and the narrative is discharged through the dramatic action of a few prominent characters. This, in fact, is both the true philosophy and the true art of history; it obtains the true unity of narrative; it makes distinct, vivid impressions; it combines artistic with logical effects, and heightens the interest of the reader with nearly every element admitted within the domain of the intellect and of the emotions. The effect of this school has been to lessen the merely convenient or conventional boundary between history and biography, to bring them more closely together, and to identify them in point of dramatic interest. The modern historian is no longer the dull, vapid chronicler; he discovers the true logical sources of his narrative in particular persons; he makes his pages successions of vivid and interesting biography; he arranges his story in dramas and picture-galleries; and he finds, with these aids, that he has obtained, not only better advantages to inform and instruct his readers, but also the means to entertain their fancy and cultivate their emotions. In this view, it may be said that the true historical interest of any period of time has come to be, not so much in the multitude of events, as in the number and variety of personal characters which compose the story. It is the biographical test of the interest of narratives. The curiosity of the reader has become dramatic; he wishes to know the men who figured on the stage of a particular period, in what

respect they were novel and admirable, how they acted upon each other and circumstances, what missions they represented, what problems they worked out, what conditions they effected. It is this dominant biographical interest which has brought into existence a new school of history, and erected a new standard of criticism; and we cannot help admitting that its tendencies are philosophical and improving.

We preface so much to the consideration of the literary records of our recent war. It has been customary to speak, and not without a mixture of vanity, of the great figure this war will make when the future historian comes to deal with it elaborately, and to explore its operations. Yet, how meagre the biographical interest of this struggle; how scant in its illustrations of any conspicuous virtues or novelties of personal character; how unfruitful of great or remarkable men! It is in the dominant feature of historical interest that the late war, of which we usually speak in so many superlative phrases, is singularly and fatally deficient. It is remarkable for immense physical phenomena, rather than for intellectual and moral display. What is wonderful in it is the extent of physical masses, the cloaca populorum, stupendous sums of money, monuments of carnage; but how paltry and flowerless its crops of men, how few its productions of genius, how slight those illustrations which make up the personal, heroic interest of history! It produced, of course, if only by the rule of comparison, some military celebrities-these even few, and one only of surpassing fame; but we look in vain for the intellectual contagion of a great excitement, for those tongues of fire with which men speak in a great war, for those thoughts of orator, poet, and priest which burn along the opposing lines like signal-fires, and make of modern war a conflict of inspirations as well as of arms.

We do not propose to invite here invidious comparisons between the military leaders on either side in the late war. And yet, as we have already re

ferred to one of them as of surpassing fame, we may take this name apart, as at least one conspicuous centre of biographical interest in the war. We refer to STONEWALL JACKSON. Around this man, whose fame bas already gone, on those quick messengers, the wings of battle, to the ends of the world, there must necessarily congregate, in the future, some of the most impressive memories of the war; and his biography, especially the study of his peculiar character, becomes at once a dominant subject of historical interest, and a standpoint of narrative. Whoever may hereafter write profoundly and philosophically a history of the Southern Confederacy, must take Jackson as a central figure; and he must mingle his biography, at least the characterization of the man, with many parts of his story, thereby dramatizing, coloring it, and binding up the attention of the reader with personal sympathies and heroic aspirations.

It will be the especial and exact task of the military historian, the expert critic, to adjust Jackson's peculiar fame in arms and to determine its details. It is just that his life should be regarded from a high and critical military point of view, for here is its excellent and almost exclusive interest; and, besides, it is remarkable how much he has already suffered from the inaccurate and overdrawn estimates of incompetent critics. His only considerable biographer (Dr. Dabney, a Presbyterian clergyman) has fallen into the lamentable error of regarding the religious and even sectarian character of his hero as the chief interest of his life, and subordinating to it his wonderful military career and his character as a master of war. So far is this estimate in error, that we may even venture a remark, which will probably be novel and distasteful to many readers -that the religious element in General Jackson's life has come in for an undue share of public attention; that it was among the least admirable parts of his character; and that it was singularly and painfully deficient.

Of this aspect of the life of the great