American fiction -- 19th century; Historical fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction
The bee-hunter made no reply, but his pretty wife raised her hand,
involuntarily, as if to implore the Indian to forbear. Peter was a
little bewildered; for as yet, he did not understand that a belief in
necromancy was not exactly compatible with the notions of the Christian
Providence. In his ignorance, how much was he worse off than the wisest
of our race? Will any discreet man who has ever paid close attention to
the power of the somnambule, deny that there is a mystery about such a
person that exceeds all our means of explanation? That there are degrees
in the extent of this power--that there are false, as well as true
somnambules--all who have attended to the subject must allow; but, a
deriding disbeliever in our own person once, we have since seen that
which no laws, known to us, can explain, and which we are certain is
not the subject of collusion, as we must have been a party to the fraud
ourselves, were any such practised. To deny the evidence of our senses
is an act of greater weakness than to believe that there are mysteries
connected with our moral and physical being that human sagacity has not
yet been able to penetrate; and we repudiate the want of manliness
that shrinks from giving its testimony when once convinced, through an
apprehension of being derided, as weaker than those who withhold their
belief. We KNOW that our own thoughts have been explained and rendered,
by a somnambule, under circumstances that will not admit of any
information by means known to us by other principles; and whatever
others may think on the subject, we are perfectly conscious that no
collusion did or could exist. Why, then, are we to despise the poor
Indian because he still fancied le Bourdon could hold communication with
his bees? We happen to be better informed, and there may be beings
who are aware of the as yet hidden laws of animal magnetism--hidden
as respects ourselves, though known to them--and who fully comprehend
various mistakes and misapprehensions connected with our impressions on
this subject, that escape our means of detection. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Peter, in his emergency, turned to those bees, in the
hope that they might prove of assistance, or that Margery silently
rebuked him for the weakness, in the manner mentioned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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