The Heart Line: A Drama of San FranciscoBurgess, Gelett
General
The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
Burgess, Gelett
Bohemianism -- Fiction; Fortune-tellers -- Fiction; San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction
He retreated silently to the cabinet, and the curtains closed upon him.
Some one asked if they couldn’t see the "Egyptian Hand" and Starlight’s
voice from the cabinet gave assent. Forthwith it appeared and made a
hurried circle of the front part of the room, shedding a ghostly,
phosphorescent glow, and, on its way, patting the heads of the faithful.
"Oh, I feel something so nice and soft!" cried Mrs. Brickett. "It’s
perfectly ’eavenly—right on top of my head—what is it?"
"That’s _hair_!" Starlight called out.
The Professor bellowed from the cabinet, "Oh, ho, ho, ho! You must-unt
mind lit-tul Star-light! She’s so love-ly we don’t mind her, do we?"
Vixley gave the cue for another song to cover the next entrance. This
time it was _My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean_, its special appositeness
seeming to lie in the line, "Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!"
Another shorter form appeared and stood wavering in front of the
curtains, then, without a word, withdrew.
"That’s Stella," said Vixley. "She’s only come to get progression. She
ain’t very strong yet, so she can’t stay but a minute, but we’re always
glad to see her and help her along all we can with our thought."
A woman, with a sob, rose to go forward.
"No, not to-night, Mrs. Seeley; the medium ain’t strong enough!" said
Vixley.
How he recognized these spectral visitors nobody asked. They looked
just alike, except, perhaps, for height; all were wavering, white and
mysterious, without distinguishable faces. At the entrance of another,
like all the rest, Professor Vixley startled the company by saying,
suavely and patronizingly:
"This is Mr. McKinley, friends. It’s good to see you, Mr. McKinley.
I’m glad you come. We’re _always_ glad to see you. Come again, come
any time you feel like it." He explained, after the spirit vanished,
that Mr. McKinley had had great difficulty in finding any medium
sympathetic enough for him to control, and he wandered from circle to
circle, hoping to establish communication with the earth-plane.
The next visitor was no less than Queen Victoria. "That’s good!" said
Vixley, "we’re awful glad to see you, sure!" It now transpired that the
spirits whispered their names to him in entering. His conversation
became a bit dreary and monotonous and he failed to rise to his obvious
opportunities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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