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Receive our memories the letters of Luz Moreno 1950
1952 1st Edition Orozco Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Orozco, José
ISBN(s): 9780199340439, 0199340439
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 20.37 MB
Year: 2017
Language: english
i

Receive Our Memories

ii
iii

Receive Our Memories

The Letters of Luz Moreno, 1950–​1952

José Orozco

1
iv

1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Orozco, José, author.
Title: Receive our memories : the letters of Luz Moreno, 1950–1952 / José Orozco.
Other titles: Letters of Luz Moreno, 1950–1952
Description: New York City : Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025407 (print) | LCCN 2016047158 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199340439 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780199340422 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780199340446 (Updf) | ISBN 9780199340453 (Epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Moreno, Luz, 1877–1953—Correspondence. | Mexican American
families—Correspondence. | Moreno family. | Fathers and daughters—Correspondence. |
Moreno Rivera, Francisca, 1901–2002—Correspondence. | Sharecroppers—Mexico—
San Miguel el Alto—Biography. | San Miguel el Alto (Mexico)—Social life and
customs—20th century. | Synarchism—Mexico. | Poor—Mexico—Correspondence. |
Poor—Mexico—Attitudes.
Classification: LCC E184.M5 O7855 2016 (print) | LCC E184.M5 (ebook) |
DDC 306.874089/6872073—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025407

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Paperback printed by WebCom, Inc., Canada

Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
v

To the admissions committee at University of California, Santa Cruz

for allowing me into their community
and to Jonathan Beecher, Herman Blake, and Roberto Crespi
for, among other things, taking the time to speak with me.
vii

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction  1
1. The Morenos of San Miguel el Alto   19
2. “Follow Your Path My Beloved Children, Go in Peace”: On Saying
Goodbye and Keeping in Contact   43
3. “Humanity Cries Tears of Blood”: On Religion, Epistles,
and the End of the World   83
4. “El Miserable Pueblo”: On Being Poor and Knowing It   111
5. “Newspapers Are Liars”: On the Importance of Reading
and Writing   153
6. “The Anxieties of an Old Man Are Very Sad”: On Being Old
and Preparing to Die   177
Afterword  203

Notes  213
Bibliography  245
Index  257
viii

Plaza de Armas, San Miguel el alto, c. 1945. Courtesy of Obdulia Orozco.

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the generosity of my aunt
Obdulia Orozco Moreno (Lula). She gave me the shoebox that contained
Luz Moreno’s letters and photos and entrusted me with their fate. Over the
years, she has been the first person I called when I got confused or feared
that I had gotten something wrong about her grandfather, the Moreno fam-
ily, San Miguel el Alto, or her life. With unfailing good cheer she answered
my questions and often gave me much more information than I asked for.
When Lula was not available, or when she could not answer one of my ques-
tions, I turned to my parents José Orozco Moreno and Elida Barba Orozco.
They were especially helpful in helping me decipher some of the colloquial
expressions that Luz used in his letters but I could not find in the dictionar-
ies I consulted. I also want to thank the many people who helped me over
the many years I have worked to complete this book. My colleague and
friend Laura McEnaney read many of my “shitty first drafts” (God bless
Anne Lamott!) and helped me make them less so. Roger Mensink helped
tame an early draft of a rambling first chapter. John Womack Jr. read
some of the letters and early drafts of the book; he helped convince me
that they would be interesting and significant to people beyond my imme-
diate family. Enrique Ochoa read an early version of the manuscript and
suggested that it would be easier to use the letters in an undergraduate
course if they were organized into thematic chapters. He was right. Roy
Márquez, the best friend a person could ever ask for, helped me edit the
translated letters. Roberto Gutiérrez read the first draft of the book and
said he loved it. That was enough. My aunt, Sidonia Moreno Márquez, had
several conversations with me about her father Bonifacio Moreno and her
grandfather, Luz Moreno. My cousins Luz Delia, Martha, Judith, Lourdes,
Yesenia, and Gema Orozco kept me company, and in good cheer while I
was in San Miguel doing research. Thanks to them I met local historians,
who helped me with various aspects of the book. Among these were José
de Jesús Ortega Martín and Juan Alonso Hernández Delgado. Students
at Whittier College, too many to name, but especially Manuel Román and
x

Liz Rubalcava, helped me with translations and engaged me in conversa-

tions about how to make the letters more accessible to undergraduates.
Rebecca Overmyer-​Velázquez encouraged me to complete the project and
reached out to her brother, Mark Overmyer-​Velázquez, who in turn gave
me the name of an editor at Oxford University Press. Brian Wheel at OUP
graciously took the time to talk with me about the project, and then agreed
to consider the manuscript for publication. Susan Ferber kindly and ably
edited the book for publication. Whenever my writing glided into esoteric
corners of academese she reminded me that my audience would not follow.
She was right. Maya Bringe and her team expertly crafted the final produc-
tion of the book, and did so with great sympathy and good cheer.
To Emilio Kourí, Kathryn Burns, Brodwyn Fischer, Aurora Gómez
Galvarriato, and Charles Romney for being professional inspirations and
great friends.
Finally, to my cobbled-​together family: Irma, Spencer, Santos, Nicolás,
and Naima. Mbs.
The illustrations that grace this book are by the artist José Lozano.
Lozano was born in East Los Angeles, raised in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and
has lived most of his life in Fullerton, California. He earned his MFA from
California State University, Fullerton and has spent most of his professional
career painting, drawing, and writing children’s books that capture that
culture of his transnational existence and the aesthetic qualities of the art
forms he loves best: good French cinema, bad lucha libre movies, and the
tantalizing gossip he heard from the women who raised him. Inspired by
the visual quality of Luz Moreno’s letters and the way they reminded him of
his favorite novel, Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, Lozano used Luz’s correspon-
dence and the Moreno’s family photographs to create the black ink images
that are included in this book. Other drawings, including the family tree and
the maps, represent Lozano’s fanciful depictions of Luz Moreno’s imagined
world. All the images reflect back on the text while transforming it into a
visual medium that values expressive rendition more than literal fealty.
The drawings and their pairing with Moreno’s letters are meant to honor
and reflect the lexical-​visual collaborations undertaken in the 1930s and
1940s by Mexican artists like Miguel Covarrubias, Diego Rivera, and José
Clemente Orozco with radical American writers like Frank Tannenbaum,
Stuart Chase, and Carleton Beals.1 These transnational collaborators, most
of them political radicals with socialist affinities, favored naïve, sensu-
ously drawn black ink images that emphasized the supposed nonmecha-
nized, primitive, and subversive power of the Mexican peasant and Indian
populations.2 Culled from the iconography of the Mexican Revolution,
this imagery, full of sombreros, donkeys, cacti, and peaceful Indians, was

[x] Acknowledgments
xi

popular among a segment of Americans who, tired of economic depression,

social unrest, world wars, and the alienation of modern industrial society,
flocked (or dreamed of going) to Mexico to find a more authentic way of
life.3 Their collaboration was one that was hopeful and sunny. Moreno’s
letters and Lozano’s drawings represent a multigenerational, transnational
collaboration that elegizes the darker, emotionally gloomy experience of
Mexican families who, finding that Mexican primitivism does not fill one’s
belly, decided to migrate from rural idylls like San Miguel el Alto to live and
work in industrial cities like Stockton, Fullerton, and East Los Angeles.

Acknowledgments [ xi ]
xiii

Receive Our Memories

xiv
1

Introduction

The history of a family begins when a person leaves home.

​Leslie Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China (2008)

F rancisca (Pancha) Moreno Rivera was born in 1901 in the Mexican

town of San Miguel el Alto in the central-​west state of Jalisco. When
she died in California, in 2002, she was 101 years old.1 No one who knew
her was surprised by her longevity. In San Miguel, Pancha’s small body
moved through space and time with a kinetic energy that was admired by
her friends and family. As the eldest of seven children, she was a seamstress
and the comatriarch (along with her mother, Secundina) of the Moreno
family. She provided her large and poor family with emotional and financial
stability, as well as the hard hand of discipline that kept it a functioning,
and often loving, entity. She was also a Catholic revolutionary who partici-
pated in the two biggest movements mounted by the Catholic Church and
its lay partisans against the Mexican State in the twentieth century, the
Cristero Rebellion (La Cristiada) of the late 1920s and the Sinarquista move-
ment of the early 1940s. In 1950, at the age of forty-​nine, she married
her childhood sweetheart, Juan Rivera, and left Mexico to live in Stockton,
California. In Stockton, she found work in the rich agricultural fields and
the fruit and vegetable canneries of California’s Central Valley. She labored
in the canneries until she was sixty-​five years old and remained in Stockton
until she died almost four decades later. While she often visited her family,
and was eventually buried in San Miguel, Pancha never returned to live in
Mexico.
2

During the 1970s, Pancha, her husband Juan Rivera, and my aunt
Obdulia (Lula) Orozco made regular trips from Stockton to visit their
extended family in Southern California. I always looked forward to these
visits from my two aunts. Pancha was the saintly aunt who had raised my
father, José, after his mother died. Lula was my father’s older sister. Both
Lula and Pancha were kind, gentle, and generous with their time, affection,
and the bricks of government cheese they brought us from Stockton.
Every night after dinner, when the family sat around the living room
television set to watch Spanish-​language soap operas, my two brothers
and I would sneak off to another room to play with our tía Lula. Because
she didn’t have children, and, I assume, because she knew that she would
leave us in a day or two, our tía Lula lavished attention on us. We talked,
she told us stories, and—​when our father was not paying attention—​she
wrestled with us. During her visits, our small house shook as my brothers
and I clambered all over Lula. We pummeled her, and our poor aunt would
writhe in dramatic displays of pain that rivaled the theatrics of the “real”
wrestlers we idolized.
Very little could pry us away from our daily wrestling matches. Little,
that is, except for the professional wrestling matches televised from the
Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium. On Saturday evenings, the English-​lan-
guage station, KCOP, channel 13, televised wrestling. On Wednesdays,
lucha libre was televised by the local Spanish-​language station, KMEX,
channel 34. On those evenings, our whole family was absorbed by the
drama of the black-​and-​white gladiators that tumbled across our televi-
sion screen. My reserved and well-​mannered parents watched but did not
comment. My brothers and I gazed silently into the glowing television set,
took mental notes, and imagined ourselves applying the holds and aerial
maneuvers we were seeing on each other and on our hapless aunt. Lula
would give us sly looks from across the room and feign fear. She knew
what we were thinking; and, in the best tradition of all rudos (the Mexican
wrestling world’s bad guys), she was conveying contempt for our hubris
and challenging us to prove our skills.
Everyone sat before the television set in silence. Everyone, that is, but
Pancha. Pancha loved lucha libre; while she was not quite convinced that it
was real, she was also not quite convinced it was not. This doubt was enough
to draw her into the spectacle as an excited participant who was never shy
about fulminating at the deaf figures whose play violence so enthralled
her. Being a good Catholic and a true wrestling fanatic meant that Pancha
always cheered for the good guys and booed at the rudos. Her sense of jus-
tice dictated this alliance with good; it is what made her such an extremely
devout Catholic, and it is why she almost never attended wrestling matches

[2] Receive Our Memories

3

Obdulia Orozco (far left) and her brothers Jesus and José Orozco c. 1940.

in person: On one of the few occasions when Pancha actually went to see
a wrestling match, our tía Lula had to restrain her from throwing a folding
chair at one of the bad guys.2 She believed the rudo had gone beyond the
limits of respectable wrestling etiquette, and felt that a chair thrown on top
of his head was not only justified, but also called for.3
Pancha remained an avid wrestling fan until 1994, when she suffered
a series of strokes that effectively ended her romance with the sport and
her life as a practicing Catholic. While incapacitated she remained alive for
another eight years. Tended to by Lula, Pancha remained in her room on a
hospital bed, beneath a crucifix and surrounded by the many plastic dolls and
plaster Catholic saints she had spent a lifetime collecting, fussing over, and

Introduction [3]
4

making clothing for. In its semiconscious state, Pancha’s body—​the first link
in the chain of migration that eventually brought many of the Orozcos and
Morenos to the United States—​became the object of much reverence and
propelled members of her family, all of whom lived in Los Angeles, to make
pilgrimages to Stockton. For Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, throughout
the summer, and especially for her birthday, the Orozcos and the Morenos
trekked up the Golden State Freeway to be with Pancha and Lula. During
these visits Lula and her guests sat around Pancha’s bed and reminisced
about their shared history, gossiped about family members who were not
there, and sang old ranchera songs and Cristero anthems (“Viva Cristo Rey!
Viva Cristo Rey!”) to Pancha’s inert body.4 Invariably, someone would take
out a camera and invite the whole group to assemble around Pancha’s bed
for a family portrait. Parents held their infants aloft near Pancha and young
children were encouraged to pose with their great-​great aunt.
In 1996, Lula organized a party for Pancha’s ninety-​fifth birthday. Many
members of her extended family, including myself, attended. Along with
her aging friends—​mostly Mexican and Filipina cannery and agricultural
workers—​her family gathered to celebrate her long life and their presence
in the United States. It was a joyous affair that began with a Mass and con-
tinued with a party. At the end of the festivities, after all the guests had
left and we had cleaned the house, Lula called me over and said she had a
gift for me. From a closet located next to a framed photograph of President
John Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline, Lula pulled out an old shoebox
and handed it to me. Inside the box I found several bundles of old letters.
Each bundle had been lovingly preserved and tied with a red ribbon. Lula
glowed with pride as she explained to me that her grandfather Luz Moreno
(Pancha’s father) had written these letters to Pancha in the years following
her departure from Mexico in 1950. Lula said she hoped the letters would
help me in my studies (I was then in graduate school) and that by reading
them I would come to understand a little about our family’s history.5
It was nearly midnight when I laid down on the turquoise blue Naugahyde
couch that was my makeshift bed. As I squirmed trying to get comfortable,
I opened Pancha’s shoebox. I took out the bundles of letters and discovered
a small collection of family photographs. Among these photographs was
one of Pancha taken in the 1940s during her time as a Sinarquista activist.
Pancha is standing with five other Sinarquista women in front of two home-
made, hand-​painted flags. The first flag is the Mexican national flag. The
second flag, red with the silhouette of the Mexican nation in a white circle,
is the flag of the Sinarquista Party. The women, resolute about their ideas
and their politics, look confidently, almost threateningly, into the camera.
They hold their right arms stiffly across their chests (a gesture that bears

[4] Receive Our Memories

5

Executive Board (Mesa Directiva) of Sinarquista Women: Francisca (Pancha) Moreno

(President) is the fourth from the left. San Miguel el Alto, c. 1940. Courtesy of Obdulia
Orozco.

more than a passing resemblance to the German Nazi and Italian Fascist
salutes) and seem ready to strike against anyone who dared threaten their
version of conservative Catholicism and the spiritual security it provided
their community at a time of great change.
Pancha—​who in all likelihood not only sewed the flags but also the
dresses she and her comrades are wearing—​stares out through and beyond
the camera. The force of her presence seems to flow from her disciplined
body, through her chiseled jawline, and out her steely eyes; her visage and
posture highlighting her confident and combative spirit. Seeing a Mexican
woman enact such a defiant stance in public—​one that is at odds with pre-
vailing ideas of Mexican femininity, especially conservative Catholic femi-
ninity—​ defies traditional expectations.6 But Pancha’s attitude, and the
political convictions that fortified it, had been hard-​earned through her
participation in both the Cristero Rebellion and the Sinarquista move-
ment. During the Cristiada, when a ragtag army of Catholic partisans vio-
lently resisted the revolutionary federal government’s attempts to wrest
many of the social and political privileges that the Catholic Church had
enjoyed since the sixteenth century, Pancha smuggled arms for the rebels
and tended to wounded soldiers. She also took it upon herself to remove
dead Cristero combatants from the public spaces where the federal troops

Introduction [5]
Another Random Scribd Document
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window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the
view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had
compressed the victim of my cruel 
The text on this page is estimated to be only 27.86%
accurate

THE BLACK CAT. 41 ty into the substance of the freshly-

spread plaster ; the lime of which, with the flames, and the
ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as
I saw it. Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not alto
gether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not
the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I
could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat ; and, during this
period, there came back into my spirit a half-senti ment that
seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to re gret the loss of
the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I
now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and
of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place. One
night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infa my, my
attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, re posing upon
the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily at the top of this hogshead for sc&ne minutes, and what
now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner
perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with
my hand. It was a black cat — a very large one — fully as large as
Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto
had not a white hair upon any portion of his body • but this cat had
a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the
whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately
arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared
delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which
I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord ; but
this person made no claim to it — knew nothing of it — had never
seen it be fore. I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go
home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I
permitted it to do so ; occasionally stooping and patting it as I
proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once,
and be came immediately a great favorite with my wife. For my own
part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the
reverse of what I had anticipated ; but —
The text on this page is estimated to be only 27.62%
accurate

42 FOE'S TALES. I know not how or why it was — its

evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow
degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the
bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature ; a certain sense of
shame, and the remem brance of my former deed of cruelty,
preventing me from physi cally abusing it. I did not, for some weeks,
strike, or otherwise violently ill use it ; but gradually — very
gradually — I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and 10
flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a
pestilence. What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was
the dis covery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like
Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This
circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have
already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling
which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many
of my simplest and purest pleasures. ^ With my aversion to this cat,
however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my
footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the
reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my
chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome
caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus
nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my
dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although
I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so do ing,
partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly — let me confess
it at once — by absolute dread of the beast. This dread was not
exactly a dread of physical evil — and yet I should be at a loss how
otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own — yes, even in
this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own — that the terror and
horror with which the ani mal inspired me, had been heightened by
one of the merest chimseras it would be possible to conceive. My
wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of
the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which
constituted the sole visi ble difference between the strange beast
and the one I had de stroyed. The reader will remember that this
mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite ; but, by
slow degrees —
The text on this page is estimated to be only 26.76%
accurate

THE BLACK CAT. 43 degrees nearly imperceptible, and

which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful — it
had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was
now the representation of an object that I shudder to name — and
for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid
myself of the monster had 1 dared — it was now, I say, the image of
a hideous — of a ghastly thing — of the GALLOWS ! — oh, mournful
and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime — of Agony and of Death
! And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere
Humanity. And a brute beast — whose fellow I had con temptuously
destroyed — a brute beast to work out for me — for me a man,
fashioned in the image of the High God — so much of in sufferable
wo ! Alas ! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest
any more ! During the former the creature left me no moment alone
; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear,
to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight
— an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off —
incumbent eternally upon my heart ! Beneath the pressure of
torments such as these, the feeble rem nant of the good within me
succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates — the darkest
and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper
increased to hatred of all things and of all mankkid ; while, from the
sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I
now blindly aban doned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas ! was
the most usual and the most patient of sufferers. One day she
accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the
old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat
followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me
headlong, exasperated me to madness. Up lifting an axe, and
forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed
my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have
proved instantly fatal had it de scended as I wished. But this blow
was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference,
into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her
grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot,
without a groan. This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself
forthwith, and
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44 FOE'S TALES. with entire deliberation, to the task of

concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the
house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed
by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I
thought of cut ting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying
them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor
of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the
yard — about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual
arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house.
Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expe dient than
either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cel lar — as the
monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their
victims. For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its
walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered
throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the
atmosphere had prevented from hardening. ]V^5reover, in one of
the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fire place,
that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest of the cellar.
I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point,
insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye
could detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not
deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and,
having carefully de posited the body against the inner wall, I
propped it in that posi tion, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the
whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand,
and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which
could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully
went over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied
that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest ap pearance
of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up
with the minutest care. I looked around trium phantly, and said to
myself—" Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain." My
next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so
much wretchedness ; for I had, at length, firmly re solved to put it to
death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the
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THE BLACK CAT. 45 moment, there could have been no

doubt of its fate ; but it ap peared that the crafty animal had been
alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to
present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to
imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of
the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its
appearance during the night — and thus for one night at least, since
its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept ; aye,
slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul ! The second
and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once
again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the
premises forever ! I should behold it no more ! My happiness was
supreme ! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some
few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered.
Even a search had been instituted — but of course nothing was to
be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured. Upon the
fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very
unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous
investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability
of my place of concealment, I felt no embar rassment whatever. The
officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook
or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they
descended into the eellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat
calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar
from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed
easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared
to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I
burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to ren der
doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness. " Gentlemen," I said
at last, as the party ascended the steps; "I delight to have allayed
your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By
the bye, gentlemen, this — this is a very well constructed house."
[In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I
uttered at all.]— " I may say an excellently well constructed house.
These walls — are you going, gentlemen ? — these walls are solidly
put togeth 
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46 POE'S TALES. er ;" and here, through the mere phrenzy

of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand,
upon that very portion of the brick- work behind which stood the
corpse of the wife of my bosom. But may God shield and deliver me
from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation
of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from
within the tomb ! — by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the
sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and
con tinuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman — a howl — a
wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have
arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in
their agony and of the demons that exult in the dam nation. Of my
own thoughts it is folly to, speak. Swooning, I stagger ed to the
opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained
motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a
dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse,
already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before
the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth
and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had
seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned
me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb !
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MESMERIC REVELATION. 47 MESMERIC REVELATION.

WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its
startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter,
those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession — an
unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute
waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that
man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fel low, as to cast
him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble
very closely those of death, or at least re semble them more nearly
than they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within
our cognizance ; that, while in this state, the person so impressed
employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external organs of
sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through
channels supposed unknown, mat ters beyond the scope of the
physical organs ; that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are
wonderfully exalted and invigorated ; that his sympathies with the
person so impressing him are pro found ; and, finally, that his
susceptibility tq the impression in creases with its frequency, while,
in the same proportion, the pe culiar phenomena elicited are more
extended and more pronounced. I say that these — which are the
laws of mesmerism in its gen eral features— it would be
supererogation to demonstrate ; nor shall I inflict upon my readers
so needless a demonstration to-day. My purpose at present is a very
different one indeed. I am impelled, even in the teeth of a world of
prejudice, to detail without com. ment the very remarkable
substance of a colloquy, occurring be tween a sleep- waker and
myself. I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in
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48 FOE'S TALES. question, (Mr. Vankirk,) and the usual

acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric perception had
supervened. For many months he had been laboring under
confirmed phthisis, the more distressing effects of which had been
relieved by my manipula tions ; and on the night of Wednesday, the
fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside. The invalid was
suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and breathed
with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma. In
spasms such as these he had usually found relief from the
application of mustard to the nervous cen tres, but to-night this had
been attempted in vain. As I entered his room he greeted me with a
cheerful smile, and although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared
to be, mentally, quite at ease. " I sent for you to-night," he said, "
not so much to administer to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me
concerning certain psychal impressions which, of late, have
occasioned me much anxiety and surprise. I need not tell you how
sceptical I have hitherto been on the topic of the soul's immortality. I
cannot deny that there has always existed, as if in that very soul
which I have been denying, a vague half-sentiment of its own
existence. But this half-sentiment at no time amounted to conviction.
With it my reason had nothing to do. All attempts at logical inquiry
resuited, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than before. I had
been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own works as well
as in those of his European and American echoes. The ' Charles
Elwood ' of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed in my hands. I
read it with profound attention. Throughout I found it logical, but
the portions which were not merely logical were unhappily the initial
arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In his summing up it
seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in
convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like
the government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving
that if man is to be intellectually convinced of his own immortality,
he will never be so convinced by the mere abstractions which have
been so long the fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and
of Ger many. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold
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MESMERIC REVELATION. 49 on the mind. Here upon earth,

at least, philosophy, I am per suaded, will always in vain call upon us
to look upon qualities as things. The will may assent — the soul —
the intellect, never. " I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never
intellectually believed, But latterly there has been a certain
deepening of the feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the
acquiescence of reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between
the two. I am enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the
mesmeric in fluence. I cannot better explain my meaning than by
the hy pothesis that the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive
a train of ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence, convinces,
but which, in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does
not extend, except through its effect, into my normal condition. In
sleep- waking, the reasoning and its conclusion — the cause and its
effect — are present together. In my natural state, the cause
vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only partially, remains. "
These considerations have led me to think that some good re sults
might ensue from a series of well-directed questions pro pounded to
me while mesmerized. You have often observed the profound self-
cognizance evinced by the sleep-waker — the exten sive knowledge
he displays upon all points relating to the mes meric condition itself;
and from this self-cognizance may be de duced hints for the proper
conduct of a catechism." I consented of course to make this
experiment. A few passes threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep.
His breathing be came immediately more easy, and he seemed to
suffer no physical uneasiness. The following conversation then
ensued : — V. in the dialogue representing the patient, and P.
myself. P. Are you asleep ? V. Yes — no ; I would rather sleep more
soundly. P. [After a few more passes.'] Do you sleep now ? F Yes. P.
How do you think your present illness will result ? V. [After a long
hesitation and speaking as if with effort.'] I must die. P. Does the
idea of death afflict you ? F. [ Very quickly,] No — no ! P. Are you
pleased with the prospect ? 5
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50 FOE'S TALES. V. If I were awake I should like to die, but

now it is no mat ter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to
content me. P. I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk. V. I am
willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I feel able to make.
You do not question me properly. P. What then shall I ask ? V. You
must begin at the beginning. P. The beginning ! but where is the
beginning ? V. You know that the beginning is GOD. [This was said in
a tow, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound
veneration.'] P. What then is God ? V. [Hesitating for many minutes.']
I cannot tell. P. Is not God spirit ? V. While I was awake I knew what
you meant by " spirit," but now it seems only a word — such for
instance as truth; beauty — a quality, I mean. P. Is not God
immaterial ? V. There is no immateriality — it is a mere word. That
which is not matter, is not at all — unless qualities are things. P. Is
God, then, material ? V. No. [This reply startled me very much.] P.
What then is he ? V. [After a long pause, and mutteringly.~] I see —
but it is a thing difficult to tell. [Another long pause.] He is not spirit,
for he exists. Nor is he matter, as you understand it. But there are
gradations of matter of which man knows nothing ; the grosser
impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmos phere,
for example, impels the electric principle, while the elec tric principle
permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in
rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter unparticled — without
particles — indivisible — one; and here the law of impulsion and
permeation is modified. The ultimate, or unparticled matter, not only
permeates all things but impels all things — and thus is all things
within itself. This matter is God. What men attempt ,o embody in the
word " thought," is this mat ter in motion. P. The metaphysicians
maintain that all action is reducible
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MESMERIC REVELATION. 51 to motion and thinking, and

that the latter is the origin of the former. T. Yes ; and I now see the
confusion of idea. Motion is the action of mind — not of thinking.
The unparticled matter, or God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we
can conceive it) what men call mind. And the power of self-
movement (equivalent in effect to human volition) is, in the
unparticled matter, the result of its unity and omniprevalence ; how I
know not, and now clearly see that I shall never know. But the
unparticled matter, set in mo tion by a law, or quality, existing within
itself, is thinking. P. Can you give me no more precise idea of what
you term the unparticled matter ? V. The matters of which man is
cognizant, escape the sepses in gradation. We have, for example, a
metal, a piece of wood, a drop of water, the atmosphere, a gas,
caloric, electricity, the luminiferous ether. Now we call all these
things matter, and em brace all matter in one general definition ; but
in spite of this, there can be no two ideas more essentially distinct
than that which we attach to a metal, and that which we attach to
the luminiferous ether. When we reach the latter, we feel an almost
irresistible inclination to class it with spirit, or with nihility. The only
consideration which restrains us is our conception of its atomic
constitution ; and here, even, we have to seek aid from our notion of
an atom, as something possessing in infinite minute ness, solidity,
palpability, weight. Destroy the idea of the atomic constitution and
we should no longer be able to regard the ether as an entity, or at
least as matter. For want of a better word we might term it spirit.
Take, now, a step beyond the luminiferous ether — conceive a
matter as much more rare than the ether, as this ether is more rare
than the metal, and we arrive at once (in spite of all the school
dogmas) at a unique mass— an unparti cled matter. For although we
may admit infinite littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude
of littleness, in the spaces between them is an absurdity. There will
be a point— there will be a de gree of rarity, at which, if the atoms
are sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the
mass absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic
constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass inevitably
glides into what we con 
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52 FOE'S TALES. ceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it

is as fully matter as before. The truth is, it is impossible to conceive
spirit, since it is impossible to imagine what is not. When we flatter
ourselves that we have formed its conception, we have merely
deceived our understanding by the consideration of infinitely rarified
matter. P. There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the
idea of absolute coalescence ;— and that is the Very slight
resistance experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions
through space — a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in
some degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have been
quite overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton. We know that the
resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their density.
Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there are no
interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether, absolutely dense,
would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star
than would an ether of adamant or of iron. V. Your objection is
answered with an ease which is nearly in the ratio of its apparent
unanswerabilityj— As regards the prog* ress of the star, it can make
no difference whether the star passes through the ether or the ether
through it. There is no astro nomical error more unaccountable than
that which reconciles the known retardation of the comets with the
idea of their passage through an ether : for, however rare this ether
be supposed, it would put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very
far briefer period than has been admitted by those astronomers who
have en deavored to slur over a point which they found it impossible
to comprehend. The retardation actually experienced is, on the other
hand, about that which might be expected from the friction of the
ether in the instantaneous passage through the orb. In the one case,
the retarding force is momentary and complete within itself — in the
other it is endlessly accumulative. P. But in all this — in this
identification of mere matter with God — is there nothing of
irreverence ? [ I was forced to repeat this question before the sleep-
waker fully comprehended my mean ing.} V. Can you say why matter
should be less reverenced than mind ? But you forget that the
matter of which I speak is, in all respects, the very " mind" or "
spirit" of the schools, so far as
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MESMERIC REVELATION. 53 regards its high capacities,

and is, moreover, the " matter" of these schools at the same time.
God, with all the powers attributed to spirit, is but the perfection of
matter. P. You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion, is
thought ? V. In general, this motion is the universal thought of the
uni versal mind. This thought creates. All created things are but the
thoughts of God. P. You say, " in general." V. Yes. The universal mind
is God. For new individual, ities, matter is necessary. P. But you now
speak of " mind" and " matter" as do the metaphysicians. V. Yes —
to avoid confusion. When I say " mind," I mean the unparticled or
ultimate matter ; by " matter," I intend all else. P. You were saying
that " for new individualities matter is necessary." V. Yes ; for mind,
existing unincorporate, is merely God. To create individual, thinking
beings, it was necessary to incar nate portions of the divine mind.
Thus man is individualized. Divested of corporate investiture, he
were God. Now, the par ticular motion of the incarnated portions of
the unparticled mat ter is the thought of man ; as the motion of the
whole is that of God. P. You say that divested of the body man will
be God ? V. [After much hesitation.'] I could not have said this ; it is
an absurdity. P. [Referring to my notes.] You did say that ff divested
of corporate investiture man were God." V. And this is true. Man thus
divested would be God — would be unindividualized. But he can
never be thus divested — at least never will be — else we must
imagine an action of God re turning upon itself — a purposeless and
futile action. Man is a creature. Creatures are thoughts of God. It is
the nature of thought to be irrevocable. P. I do not comprehend. You
say that man will never put off the body ? V. I say that he will never
be bodiless.
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54 FOE'S TALES. P. Explain. V. There are two bodies — the

rudimental and the complete ; corresponding with the two
conditions of the worm and the butter fly. What we call " death," is
but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is
progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected,
ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design. P. But of the
worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cog nizant. V. We, certainly
— but not the worm. The matter of which our rudimental body is
composed, is within the ken of the organs of that body ; or, more
distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted to the matter of which
is formed the rudimental body ; but not to that of which the ultimate
is composed. The ultimate body thus escapes our rudimental senses,
and we perceive only the shell which falls, in decaying, from the
inner form ; not that inner form itself; but this inner form, as well as
the shell, is ap preciable by those who have already acquired the
ultimate life. P. You have often said that the mesmeric state very
nearly resembles death. How is this ? V. When I say that it
resembles death, I mean that it resem bles the ultimate life ; for
when I am entranced the senses of my rudimental life are in
abeyance, and I perceive external things directly, without organs,
through a medium which I shall employ in the ultimate, unorganized
life* P. Unorganized ? V. Yes ; organs are contrivances by which the
individual is brought into sensible relation with particular classes and
forms of matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms. The
organs of man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that
only ; his ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited com
prehension in all points but one — the nature of the volition of God
— that is to say, the motion of the unparticled matter. You will have
a distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be entire
brain. This it is not ; but a conception of this nature will bring you
near a comprehension of what it is. A luminous body imparts
vibration to the luminiferous ether. The vibrations gen erate similar
ones within the retina ; these again communicate
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MESMERIC REVELATION. 55 similar ones to the optic nerve.

The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain ; the brain, also, similar
ones to the unparticled mat ter which permeates it. The motion of
this latter is thought, of which perception is the first undulation. This
is the mode by which the mind of the rudimental life communicates
with the ex ternal world ; and this external world is, to the
rudimental life, limited, through the idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in
the ul timate, unorganized life, the external world reaches the whole
body, (which is of a substance having affinity to brain, as I have
said,) with no other intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether
than even the luminiferous ; and to this ether — in unison with it —
the whole body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter
which permeates it. It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs,
therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of
the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages
necessary to confine them until fledged. P. You speak of rudimental "
beings." Are there other rudi mental thinking beings than man ? V.
The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into nebulae,
planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulae, suns, nor
planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying pabulum for the
idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings. But for
the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ul timate life, there
would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is tenanted
by a distinct variety of organic, rudimental, thinking creatures. In all,
the organs vary with the features of the place tenanted. At death, or
metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the ultimate life —
immortality — and cognizant of all secrets but the one, act all things
and pass everywhere by mere volition : — indwelling, not the stars,
which to us seem the sole palpabilities, and for the accommodation
of which we blindly deem space created — but that SPACE itself—
that infinity of which the truly substantive vastness swallows up the
star-shadows — blotting them out as non-entities from the
perception of the angels. P. You say that " but for the necessity of
the rudimental life" there would have been no stars. But why this
necessity ? V. In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter
generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple
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