Part 42 (1/2)
You are at liberty to give in your own language as a prologue the history of your connection with the author, reserving, however, if you desire to do so, your personality, adding an introduction to the ma.n.u.script, and, as interludes, every detail of our several conversations, and of your experience. Introduce such ill.u.s.trations as the selected artist and yourself think proper in order to illuminate the statements. Do not question the advisability of stating all that you know to have occurred; write the whole truth, for although mankind will not now accept as fact all that you and I have experienced, strange phases of life phenomena are revealing themselves, and humanity will yet surely be led to a higher plane. As men investigate the points of historical interest, and the ultra-scientific phenomena broached in this narrative, the curtain of obscurity will be drawn aside, and evidence of the truths contained in these details will be disclosed. Finally, you must mutilate a page of the ma.n.u.script that you may select, and preserve the fragment intact and in secret. Do not print another edition unless you are presented with the words of the part that is missing.[16]
[16] I have excised a portion (see p. 190).--J. U. L.
(Signed.) I--Am--The--Man.
NOTE BY MR. DRURY.--Thus the letter ended. After mature consideration it has been decided to give verbatim most of the letter, and all of the ma.n.u.script, and to append, as a prologue, an introduction to the ma.n.u.script, detailing exactly the record of my connection therewith, including my arguments with Professors Chickering and Vaughn, whom I consulted concerning the statements made to me directly by its author. I will admit that perhaps the opening chapter in my introduction may be such as to raise in the minds of some persons a question concerning my mental responsibility, for as the princ.i.p.al personage in this drama remarks: ”Mankind can not now accept as facts what I have seen.” Yet I walk the streets of my native city, a business man of recognized thoughtfulness and sobriety, and I only relate on my own responsibility what has to my knowledge occurred. It has never been intimated that I am mentally irresponsible, or speculative, and even were this the case, the material proof that I hold, and have not mentioned as yet, and may not, concerning my relations with this remarkable being, effectually disproves the idea of mental aberration, or spectral delusion. Besides, many of the statements are of such a nature as to be verified easily, or disproved by any person who may be inclined to repeat the experiments suggested, or visit the localities mentioned. The part of the whole production that will seem the most improbable to the majority of persons, is that to which I can testify from my own knowledge, as related in the first portion and the closing chapter. This approaches necromancy, seemingly, and yet in my opinion, as I now see the matter, such unexplained and recondite occurrences appear unscientific, because of the shortcomings of students of science. Occult phenomena, at some future day, will be proved to be based on ordinary physical conditions to be disclosed by scientific investigations [for ”All that is is natural, and science embraces all things”], but at present they are beyond our perception; yes, beyond our conception.
Whether I have been mesmerized, or have written in a trance, whether I have been the subject of mental aberration, or have faithfully given a life history to the world, whether this book is altogether romance, or carries a vein of prophecy, whether it sets in motion a train of wild speculations, or combines playful arguments, science problems, and metaphysical reasonings, useful as well as entertaining, remains for the reader to determine. So far as I, Llewellyn Drury, am concerned, this is--
THE END.
[Ill.u.s.tration: handwritten script]
Had the above communication and the missing fragment of ma.n.u.script been withheld (see page 161), it is needless to say that this second edition of Etidorhpa would not have appeared.
On behalf of the undersigned, who is being most liberally scolded by friends and acquaintances who can not get a copy of the first edition, and on behalf of these same scolding mortals, the undersigned extends to I-Am-The-Man the collective thanks of those who scold and the scolded.--J. U. L.
[Ill.u.s.tration: handwritten script]
This introduction, which in the author's edition was signed by the writer, is here reprinted in order that my views of the book be not misconstrued.--J. U. L.
THE LIFE OF
PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN
BY PROF. RICHARD NELSON
TO WHICH IS ADDED
AN ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH
BY FATHER EUGENE BRADY, S.J.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN.]
Story of the Life of Prof. Daniel Vaughn.[17]
[17] Reprinted from the Cincinnati Tribune.
BY PROF. RICHARD NELSON.
HIS VALUABLE LIBRARY SHOWING MARKS OF MUCH STUDY.
Twelve Years' Record in the Chair of Chemistry at the Cincinnati College of Medicine.
[A paper read before the Literary Club by Prof. Richard Nelson.]