The Epworth Phenomena | Page 2

for example, after a very careful and correct and necessary analysis of the records-for it is all-important to note the dates of the various documents, and whether the experience was first-hand or not-practically dismisses the case because Hetty Wesley had the "singular wit of trembling in a sound sleep," and because no letter of hers about the phenomena is extant, while her sisters wrote rather fully.* True, Mr. Podmore admits that this is no ground for an accusation, but he uses it as sufficient ground for a strong insinuation. Presumably the trembling was due to suppressed laughter at the puzzledom of her parents and sisters, who were sometimes kept up nearly all night, and had broken sleep for two months; or to the muscular effort involved in pulling a string which somehow made distant raps. But, even granting some possibility, but not probability, in this, we are no nearer an explanation of the invisible something which thrice pushed Mr. Wesley, or of the crashings among bottles downstairs (which were found to be unbroken) while all the children were in bed upstairs, or of several other phenomena occurring at Considerable distances from this supposedly naughty and extremely clever "little girl." In spite of my suspicious temperament, I confess that I cannot believe that Hetty Wesley was the most likely cause of all the happenings. As Emily Wesley said, the thing went on long enough to "try all ways of discovering any trick," and in the face of such testimony by such excellent witnesses it would seem better to suspend judgment altogether than to insinuate charges based on little more than the sceptic's own emotional craving for some naturalistic explanation, be it what it may.
* Modern Spiritualism, vol. i. pp. 37, 38.
Then as to rats, which Mrs. Wesley at first invoked as cause, even having a horn blown to scare them away -after which the noises became worse, for the agency evidently objected to the rat theory. And with reason! Mr. Andrew Lang, following Mrs. Wesley in attributing remarkable powers to the rat tribe, refers to Tennyson's The Ring as "a ghost story based on a legend told by Mr. Lowell about a house near which he had once lived, one of those houses vexed by
'A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls, A noise of falling weights that never fell, Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand, Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door, And bolted doors that open'd of themselves.'
"These phenomena were doubtless caused by rats and water pipes, but they do not destroy the pity or the passion of the tale." *
* Alfred Tennyson, p. 201.
Mr. Lang was a novelist and compiler of fairy-tales, and consequently may have been able to visualise a rat or a water pipe opening a bolted door, and so forth. Mrs. Wesley, being gifted with less imagination, could not, and accordingly had to give up the, rat theory, not without reluctance. Exactly what theory she did accept is not clear, but it was apparently a supernormal one of some sort.
Most of the other observers were similarly cautious, and were also gifted with the saving grace of humour.
We need not place much reliance on the man-servant who saw something like a rabbit, or on the maid who heard blood-curdling groans, for these are of the witchcraft and orthodox ghost-story type respectively. But for the most part the Wesleys themselves heard the kind of thing that is borne out by later investigation, rather than the "orthodox" kind of thing; and in spite of the general upset and loss of sleep, they were able to treat "Old Jeffery" with a very wholesome levity, Mr. Wesley remarking that the narrative "would make a glorious penny book for Jack Dunton," but that he had no wish for publicity in the matter. Emily also jokes about it; while son Samuel, with an eye to the business side, inquires whether they have dug at the spot where money seemed to be poured out. Altogether a sensible and far from mystical-minded or credulous household.
The kind and quality of the evidence may be briefly indicated as follows:-
1. Accounts were written out very soon after the disturbances by four eye-witnesses, viz. Mr. and Mrs. Wesley and their daughters Susannah and Emilia. Mrs. Wesley's first letter to Samuel is dated January 12, 1717, while the noises (which had begun in December) were still occasionally heard. Susannah wrote letters on January 24 and March 27, Emilia also writing evidently about this time, though the letter is undated, and the same applies to old Mr. Wesley's account.
As will be seen, these accounts support each other on the main points, and are nowhere inconsistent with each other.
2. Later reports were written in 1726 by Mrs. Wesley, Susannah, Emilia, Molly and Nancy, and Robin Brown. As might