Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 125, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1917 — Page 2

His Brother’s Keeper

A strange life has come to an end In the death of Mr. Sedley Crayden of Crayden Hill. Mild, harmless, he was the victim of a strange delusion that kept him pinned, night and day, in his chair for the last two years of his life. The mysterious death, or rather disappearance, of his elder brother, James 'Crayden, seems to have preyed upon his mind, for it was shortly after that event that his delusion began to manifest itself. Jtff. Crayden never vouchsafed any explanation of his strange conduct. There was nothing the matter with him physically or mentally; the alienists found him normal in every way save for his one remarkable idiosyncrasy. His remaining in his chair was purely voluntary, an act of his own will. And now he is dead and the mystery remains unsolved.—-Extract from the Newton Courier-Times. “Briefly, I was Mr. Sedley Crayden’s confidential servant valet for the last eight months of his life. During that time he worked a good deal on a manuscript that he kept always beside him, except when he drowsed or slept, at which times he invariably locked it in a desk drawer close to his hand. I was curious to read what the old gentleman wrote, but he was too cautious and cunning. I never got a peep at the manuscript. If he were engaged upon it when I attended on him, he covered the top sheet with a large blotter. It was I who found him dead in his chair, and it was then that I took the liberty of abstracting the manuscript. I was very curious to read it, and I have no excuses to offer. After retaining it in my secret possession for several years, and later ascertaining that Mr. Crayden left no surviving relatives. I have decided to make the nature of the manuscript known. It is very long, and I have omitted nearly all of it, giving only the more lucid fragments. It bears all the earmarks of a disordered mind, and various experiences are repeated over and over, while much is so vague and incoherent as to defy comprehension. Nevertheless, from reading it myself, I venture to predict that if an excavation is made in the main basement, somewhere in the vicinity of the foundation of the great chimney, a collection of bones will be found which should very closely resemble those which James Crayden once clothed in mortal flesh.—Statement of Rudolph Heckler.

Here follow the excerpts from the manuscript, made and arranged by Rudolph Heckler i I never killed my brother. Let this be my first word and my last. Why should I kill him? We lived together in unbroken harmony for twenty years. We were old men, and the fires and tempers of youth had long since burned out. We never disagreed even over the most trivial things. Never ■was there such amity as ours. We were scholars. We cared nothing for the outside world. Our companionship and our books were all-satisfying. Never were there such talks as we held. Many a night we have sat up till two or three in the morning.conversing, weighing opinions and judgments, referring to authorities in short, we lived at high and friendly intellectual attitudes.

He disappeared. I suffered a great shock. Why should he have disappeared? Where could he have gone? It was very strange. I was stunned. They say I was very sick for weeks. It was brain fever. This was caused by his inexplicable disappearance. It was at the beginning of the experience I hope here to relate that he disappeared. How I have endeavored to find him ! I am not an excessively rich man, yet have I offered continually increasing rewards. I have advertised in all the papers, and sought the aid of all the detective bureaus. At the present moment the rewards I have out aggregate over fifty thousand dollars.

They say he was murdered. They also say ■murder will out. Then I say, why does not his murder come out? Who did it? Where is he? Where is Jim? My Jim. We whre so happy together. He had a remarkable mind, a most remarkable mind, so firmly founded, so widely informed, so rigidly logical, that it was not at all strange that we agreed in all things. Dissension was unknown between us. Jim was the most truthful man I have ever met. In this, too, we were similar, as we were similar in our intellectual honesty. We never sacrificed truth to make a point. We had no points to make, we so thoroughly agreed. It is absurd to think that we could disagree on anything under the sun. I wish he would come back. Why did he go? Who can ever explain it? I am lonely now, and depressed with grave forebodings—frightened by terrors that are of the mind and that put at naught all that my mind has ever

By JACK LONDON

(Copyright by tbo McClure Newspaper tfyndlcato)

conceived. Form is mutable. This is the last word of positive science. The dead do not come back. This is incontrovertible. The dead are dead, and that is* the end of it, and of them. And yet I have had experiences here —here, in this very room, at this very desk, that —but wait. Let me put it down in black and white, in words simple and unmistakable. Let me ask some questions. Who mislays my pen? That is what I desire to know. Who uses up my Ink so rapidly? Not I. And yet the ink goes. The answer to these questions would settle all the enigmas of the universe. I know the answer. I am not a fool. And some day, if I am plagued too desperately, I shall give the answer myself. I shall give the name of him who mislays my pen and uses up my ink. It Is so silly to think that I could use such a quantity of ink. The servant lies, I know. I have got me a fountain pen. I have always disliked the device, but my old stub had to go. I burned it in the fireplace. The ink I keep under lock and key. I shall see if I cannot put a stop to these lies that are being written about me. And I have other plans. It is not true that I have recanted. I still believe that I live in a mechanical universe. It has not been proved otherwise to me, for all that I have peered over his shoulder and read his malicious statement to the contrary. He gives me credit for no less than average stupidity. He thinks I think he is real. How silly. I know he is a brain-figment, nothing more.

There are such things as hallucinations. Even as I looked over his shoulder and read, I knew that this ■was such a thing. If I were only well it would be interesting. All my life I have wanted to experience such phenomena. . And now it has come to me. I shall make the most of it. What is imagination? It can make something where there is nothing. How can anything be something where there is nothing? How can anything be something and nothing at the same time? I leave it for the metaphysicians to ponder. I know better. No scholastics for me. This is a real world and everything in it is real. What is not real is not. Therefore he is not. Yet he tries to fool me into believing that he is—when all the time I know he has no existence outside of my own brain cells. I saw’ him today, seated at the desk, w’riting. It gave me quite a shock, because I had thought he was quite dispelled. Nevertheless, on looking steadily, I found that he was not there —the old familiar trick of the brain. I have dwelt too long on what has happened. I am becoming morbid, and my old indigestion is hinting and muttering. I shall take exercise. Each day I shall walk for two hours. It is impossible. I cannot exercise. Each time I return from my walk, he is sitting in. my chair at my desk. It grows more difficult to drive him away. It is my chair. Upon this I insist. It was his, but he is dead, and it is no longer his. How Can one be fooled by the phantoms of his own imagining! There is nothing real in his apparition. I know it. lam firmly grounded with my fifty years of study. The-dead are dead. And yet, explain one thing. Today, before going for my walk, I carefully put the fountain pen in my pocket before leaving the room. I remember it distinctly. I looked at the dock at the time. It was 10:20. Yet on my return there wms the pen lying on the desk. Someone had been using it. There was very little ink left. ’ I wish he would not write so much. It is disconcerting. ---'

There is one thing upon which Jim and I were not quite agreed. He believed in the eternity, of the forms of things. Therefore, there entered in immediately the consequent belief in immortality and all the other notions of the metaphysical philosophers. I had -Tttfle patience with him in this. Painstakingly I have traced to him the evolution of his belief in the eternity forms, showing him how it has arisen out of his early infatuation.with logic and mathematics. Of course, from that warped, squinting, abstract viewpoint, it is very to believe in the eternity of forms. | I laughed at the unkeen world. Only the real was real, I (contended, and what one could not perceive, was not, eould not be. I believed in a mechanical universe. Chemistry and physics explained everything. “Can no being be?” he demanded in reply. I said that his question was but the major premise of a fallacious Christian Science syllogism. Oh; believe me, I knew my logic,’ too. But he was Very stubborn. I never bad any patience with philosophic idealists. Once I made to him my confession of faith, It was simple, brief, unanswerable. Even as I write it now, I know It .is unanswerable. Here it is. I told him: “I assert, with Hobbes, that it

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is impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks. I assert, with Bacon, that all human understanding arises from’ the world of sensations. I assert, with Locke, that all human ideas are due to the functions of the jsenses. I assert, with Kant, the mechanical origin of the universe, and that creation is a natural and historical process. I assert, with Laplace, that there is no need of the hypothesis of a creator. And, finally, I assert, because of all the foregoing, that form is ephemeral. Form passes. Therefore we pass.” v I repeat, it was unanswerable. Yet did he answer with Paley’s notorious fallacy of the watch. Also, he talked about radium, and all but asserted that the very existence of matter had been exploded by these later-day laboratory researches. It was childish. I had not dreamed he could be so immature. How could on# argue with such a man? I then asserted the reasonableness of all that is. To this he agreed, reserving, however, one exception. He looked at me, as he said it, in a way I could not mistake. The Inference was obvious. That he should of so cheap a quip in the midst of a serious discussion, astounded me. The eternity of forms. It was ridiculous. Yet is there a strange magic in the'words. If it be true, then has he not ceased to exist? Then does he exist? This Is impossible. I have ceased exercising. As long as I remain in the room the hallucination does not bother me. But when I return to the room after an absence he is always there, sitting at the desk, writing. Yet I dare not confide In a physician. I must fight this out by myself. He grows more importunate. Today, consulting a book on the shelf, I turned and found him again in the chair. This is the first time he has dared to do this in my presence. Nev-

A Strange Delusion That Kept Him Night and Day in His Chair for the Last Two Years of His Life.

ertheless, by looking at him steadily and sternly for several minutes, I compelled him to vanish. This proves my contention. He does not exist. If he were an eternal form I could not make him vanish by a mere effort of my will.

This Is getting damnable. Today I gazed at him for an entire hour before I could make him leave. Yet it is so simple. What I see is a memory picture. For twenty years I was accustomed to seeing him there at the desk. The present phenomenon is merely a recrudescence of that memory picture —a picture which was impressed countless times on my conscience. T gave up today. He exhausted me, and still he would not go. I sat and watched him hour after hour. He takes no notice of me, but continually writes. I know he writes, for I read it over his shoulder. It is not true. He is taking an unfair advantage. Query : He is a product of my consciousness; is it possible, then, that entities may be created by consciousness? We dkt not quarrel. To this day I do mot-Ttnow how it happened. Let me tell you. Then you will see. We sat up late that never-to-be-forgotten last night of his existence. It was the old, old discussion—the eternity of forms. How’ many hours many nights we had consumed over it! On this night he had been particularly irritating, and all my nerves were screaming. He had been maintaining that the human soul was itself a form, an eternal form, and that the light, within Ms brain would go on forever and always. I took up the poker. “Suppose,” I said, “I should strike you dead with this?” “I would go on,” he answered.

“As a conscious entity?” I demanded.* . “Yes, as a conscious entity,” was his' reply. “I should go on, from plane to plane of higher existence, remembering my earth life, you, this very argument —ay, and continuing the argument with you.” It was the only argument. (Forcible! Ha, ha! —comment of Rudolph Heckler bn margin). I swear it was only argument. I never lifted a hand. How could I? He was my brother, my elder brother, Jim. I cannot remember. I was very exasperated. He had always been so obstinate in this metaphysical belief of his. The next I knew he was lying on the hearth. Blood was running. It was terrible. He did not speak. He did not move. He must have fallen in a fit and struck his head. I noticed there was blood on the poker?In falling he must have struck upon it with his head. And yet I fail to see how this can be, for I held it in my hand fl’ll the time. I was still holding it in my hand as I looked at it. It is a hallucination. That is a conclusion of common sense. I have watched the growth of it. At first it was only in the dimmest light that I could see him sitting in the chair. But as the time passed and the hallucination, by repetition, strengthened, he was able to appear in the chair under the strongest lights. That is the explanation. It is quite satisfactory. I shall never forget the first time I saw it. I had dined alone downstairs. I never drink wine, so that what happened was eminently normal. It was in the summer twilight that I returned to the study. I glanced at the desk. There he was, sitting. So natural was It, that before I knew I cried out, “Jim!” Then I remembered all that had happened. Of course, it was a hallucination. I knew that. I took the poker and went over to it. He did not move or vanish. The poker cleaved

through the non-existent substance of the thing and struck the back of the chair. Fabric of fancy, that is all it was. The mark is there on the chair now where the poker struck. I pause from my writing and turn and look at it—press the tips of my fingers into th§ indentation. He did continue the argument I stole up today and looked over shoulder. He was writing the histoify of our discussion. It was the same old nonsense about the eternity of forms. But as I continued to read, he wrote down the practical test I had made with the poker. Now this is unfair and untrue. I made no test. In falling he struck his head on the poker. Some day somebody will find and read what he writes. This will be terrible. —I-amsuspicious of the servant," who is always peeping and peering, trying to see what I write. I must do somethings Every servant I have had is curious about what I write. Fabric of fancy. That is all It is. There is no Jim who sit-in the chair. I know that. Last night, when the house was asleep, I went down into the cellar and looked carefully at the soil around the chimney. It was untampered with. The dead do not risfe up. Yesterday morning, when I entered the study, there he was in the chair. When I had dispelled him, I sat In the chair myself all day. I had my meals brought to me, And thus I escaped the sight of him for many hours, for he appears oy|y in the chair. I was weary, but I sat late, until 11 o’clock. Yet/ when I stood up to go to bed, I looked around, and there he was. He had slipped into the chair on the instant Being only a fabric of fancy, all day he had resided in my brain.

The moment it was unoccupied, he took up his residence in the chair. Are these his boasted higher planes of existence —his brother’s brain and chair? After all, was he not right?! Has his eternal form become so attenuated as to be a hallucination? Are hallucinations real entities? Why not? There is foo<Ffor thought here. Some day I shall come to a conclusion upon it. He was very much disturbed today. He could not write, for I had made the servant carry the pen out of the room in his pocket But neither could I write. . • .. The servant never sees him; This is strange. Have I developed a keener sight for the unseen? Or rather, does it not prove the phantom to be what .it is—a product of my own morbid consciousness? He stole my pen again. Hallucinations cannot steal pens. This is unanswerable. And yet I cannot keep the pen always out of the room. I want to write myself. I have had three different servants since my trouble came upon me, and not one has seen him. Is the verdict of their senses right? And is that of mine wrong? Nevertheless, the ink goes too rapidly. I fill my pen more often than is necessary. And furthermore, only today I found my pen out of order. I did not break it. I have spoken to him many times, but he never answers. I sat and watched him all morning. Frequently he looked at me, and it was patent that he knew me. By striking the side of my head violently with the heel of my hand, I can shake the vision of him out of my eyes. Then I can get into the chair; but I have learned that I must move very quickly in order to accomplish this. Often he fools me and is back again before I can sit down.

It is getting unbearable. He is a jack-in-the-box, the way he pops into the chair. He does not assume form slowly. He pops. That is the only way to describe it. I cannot stand looking at him much more. That way lies madness, for it compels me almost to believe in the reality of what I know is not. Besides, hallucinations do not pop. Thank God, he only manifests hlmaelf in the chair. As long as I occupy the chair lam quit of him. . My device for dislodging him from the chair by striking my head is failing. I have to hit much more violently, and I do not succeed perhaps more than once in a dozen trials. My head is quite sore where I have so repeatedly struck it. I must use the other hand. My brother was right. There is an unseen world. Do I not see it? Am I not cursed with the seeing of it all the time? Call it a thought, an idea, anything you will, still it is there. It is unescapable. Thoughts are entities. We create with every act of thinking. I have created this phantom that sits in my chair and uses my ink. Because I have created him is no reason that he is any the less real. He is an idea; he is an entity; ergo, ideas are entities, and an entity is a reality.

Query: If a man, with the whole historical process behind him, can create an entity, a real thing, then is not the hypothesis of a Creator made substantial? If the stuff of life can create, then it is fair to assume that there can be a he who created the stuff of life. It is merely a difference of degree- I have not yet made a mountain nor a solar system, but I have made something that sits in my chair. This being so, may I not some day -be able to make a mountain or a solar system?

All his days, down to today, man has lived in a maze. He ha§ never'seen the light. lam convinced that I am beginning to see the light—-not as my brother saw it, by stumbling upon it 1 accidentally, but deliberately and rationally. My brother is dead. He has ceased. There is no doubt about It, for I have made another journey down Into the cellar to see. The ground was untouched. I broke It myself to make sure, and I saw what made me sure. My brother has ceased, yet have I recreated him. This is not my old brother, ’ yet it is something as nearly resembling him as I could fashion it. I am unlike other men. I~»m~» god. I have created. . Whenever I leave the room to go to bed I lookback, and there is my brother sitting in the chair. And then I cannot sleep because of thinking of him sitting through all the long night hours. And in the morning, when I open the study door, there he is, and I know he has sat there the night long. I am becoming desperate from lack of sleep. I w’ish I could confide in a physician. Blessed sleep! I have won it at last. Let me tell you. Last night I was so worn that I found myself dozing in my chair. I rang for the servant and ordered him to bring blankets. I slept. All night was he banished from my thoughts as he was banished from my chair. I shall remain in It all day. It Is a wonderful relief. - It Is uncomfortable to sleep in a chair. But it is more uncomfortable to lie in bed, hour after hour, and not

sleep, and to know that he is sitting there in the cold darkness. It is no use. I shall never be able, to sleep in a bed again. I have tried it now, numerous times, and every such night is a horror. If I could but only persuade him to go to bed! But no. He sits there and sits there—l know he I stare and stare up into the blackness and think and think, continually think, of him to know that he is sitting here. The servants think I am crazy. That is but to be expected and it is why I have never called a physician. lam resolved. Henceforth this hallucination ceases. From now on I shall remain in the.chair. I shall never leave it. I shall remain in it night and day and always. I have succeeded. For two weeks I have not seen him. Nor shall I ever see him again. I have at last attained the equanimity of mind necessary for philosophic thought. I wrote a complete chapter today. It is very wearisome sitting in a chair. The weeks pass, the months come and go, the seasons change, the servants replace <each other, while I remain. lonly remain. It Is a strange life I lead, but at least I ajn at peace. He comes no more. There is no eternity of forms. I have proved it. For nearly two years now I have remained in this chair, and I have not seen him once. But »it is clear that what I thought I saw was merely hallucination. He never was. Yet Ido not leave the chair. I am afraid to leave the chair.

SUPERSTITIONS ARE MANY

Seafaring Men, Especially, Have Many Signs Which Are Believed to Indicate Good or Bad Luck. Old actors believe the witches’ song in “Macbeth” to possess the power of casting evil spells, and the majority of them strongly dislike to play in the piece. Some of the creatures met with at sea are considered unlucky. If a shark is seen following a ship for days it is thought that someone on board is doomed to die shortly. The birds known ns Mother Cary’s chickens, ’ when they perch upon the rigging of a vessel, are believed to be the messengers of a storm. Dolphins or porpoises seen in a calm are unfavorable omens. The naming of a warship after stinging or venomous things is considered unlucky. In Newfoundland the superstitious say that if a ship has a starboard list it is a sign of a quick passage; a port list, it is a sign of a long passage. The throwing overboard during a calm of old clothes too bad to wear, which have been saved for the purpose, is supposed to bring a wind. If the nails of the hand be cut with a knife or scissors it will bring a head Wind. A vessel which sticks upon the way while being launched is certain to be unlucky, in the lore of the sea. A vessel painted-blue is supposed to be a hoodoo and to bring bad weather. Misfortune to a vessel is sure to be followed by ill luck to all vessels bearing the same name.

Business Men Best Farmers.

“It may be disputed and appear improbable, but it is nevertheless true that the best farmers are not those who are brought up on the farm and educated as farmers, but rather those who go on to the farm from other occupations,” remarked James Hayden, a .stockman of Montana, according to the Washington Post. “Montana, you may know, has become an agricultural state in the last decade. Before that we were a stock state, and there was very little real farming done. We have had immigrants from all parts of the country who have gone on to farms. Many have become rich, because Montana land is rich agricultural land. Investigation has been made in all parts of the country to learn who make the most successful farmers and why. Tlw>Se inquiries have invariably shown that the best farmers are progressive men. By that I mean men who are intelligent and aggressive. They are doctors, merchants, lawyers, clerks and others. The professional man usually makes a successful farmer because, as a rule, he applies to farming that systematic, orderly intelligence which made him a success in his profession.”

Hetty Green Changed Faith.

Mrs. Hetty Green, who was frequently called the richest woman in the world and was reared in the Quaker fhrth, accepted the Episcopalian creed three years before her death to be buried in the family plot her husband. The story became known in transfer tax proceedings to determine Mrs. Green’s legal place of abode. “Mrs. Green’s attachment,” said one of the estate’s lawyers, “for the place to which her young husband took her as his bride fifty years ago was so strong that she was baptized into the Episcopal faith'a few years before her death because she feared she otherwise might not be permitted to lie after death beside her husband in the cemetery of that church ip Bellows Falls.” —From the New York Sun.

A Useful Service.

Weather news is 'now received regularly by wireless at 270 amateur radio stations located in nine of the northern and western states. In this way. the wlrelqps operator Is enabled to give his neighborhood the weather forecast as soon as it is issued.