manner of ways. But he developed a quite astonishing eloquence towards the ladies of the circle and in particular offered his allegiance to one whom Mr. P. R. had never known when alive. He affirmed that he had already cared very much for her in his lifetime, had often met her in the street without knowing who she was, and was now uncommonly delighted to become acquainted with her in this unusual manner. With such insipid compliments, scornful remarks to the men, harmless childish jokes, etc., he took up a large part of the séance. Several of the members found fault with the frivolity and banality of this “spirit,” whereupon he disappeared for one or two séances, but soon reappeared, at first well-behaved, often indeed uttering Christian maxims, but soon dropped back into the old tone. Besides these two sharply differentiated personalities, others appeared who varied but little from the grandfather’s type; they were mostly dead relatives of the medium. The general atmosphere of the first two months’ séances was accordingly solemnly edifying, disturbed only from time to time by Mr. P. R.’s trivial chatter. Some weeks after the beginning of the séances, Mr. R. left our circle, whereupon a remarkable change took place in Mr. P. R.’s conversation. He became monosyllabic, came less often, and after a few séances vanished altogether, and later on appeared with great infrequency, and for the most part only when the medium was alone with the particular lady mentioned. Then a new personality forced himself into the foreground; in contrast to Mr. P. R., who always spoke the Swiss dialect, this gentleman adopted an affected North-German way of speaking. In all else he was an exact copy of Mr. P. R. His eloquence was somewhat remarkable, since S. W. had only a very scanty knowledge of high German, whilst this new personality, who called himself Ulrich von Gerbenstein, spoke an almost faultless German, rich in charming phrases and compliments.[1]
Ulrich von Gerbenstein is a witty chatterer, full of
- ↑ It must be noted that a frequent guest in S. W.’s home was a gentleman who spoke high German.
