. . then my sleep deepened into utter oblivion. . . .

 

[33.] Stoehr, "Hawthorne and Mesmerism," 35, quoting from Emerson's "Historic Notes on Life and Letters in New England," and 54-55, discussing Hawthorne and the unpardonable sin. See also Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks . . . edited by Randall Stewart (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1933), PP- Ixxiv-lxxvi; Madeleine B. Stern, Heads & Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), pp. 70-85, discussing Poe's "Mesmeric Revelation."

 

            Erdmann is expertly roused from the mesmeric state. “A pungent odor seemed to recall me to the same half wakeful state. ... an unseen hand stirred my hair with the grateful drip of water, and once there came a touch like the pressure of lips upon my forehead. ... I clearly saw a bracelet on the arm [of Agatha] and read the Arabic characters engraved upon the golden coins that formed it; I . . . felt the cool sweep of a hand passing to and fro across my forehead.” Alcott seems to have studied seriously the mesmeric process, the efficacy of mesmeric passes, and even the use of a bracelet as a magnetic aid.

            Later in “A Pair of Eyes,” in the course of their tempestuous marriage, Agatha exercises her mesmeric powers upon Max with the sole purpose of subduing his will to hers. Aware of the telepathic influence being exerted upon him, Erdmann consults a physician. “Dr. L---” is temporarily absent, and while Max awaits his arrival, his attention is drawn to a book on magnetism, which opens “a new world” to him. In all likelihood, the book that elucidates his victimization is Theodore Leger’s Animal Magnetism; or PsycodunaMy,[34] a volume that includes a general history of the subject, a chapter on Mesmer, and an account of the progress of the pseudoscience in the United States. “These operations,” Leger expounded, “are as simple as possible; . . . No apparatus is necessary. ... It is only necessary that you find a person of impressible temperament, which is indicated generally by the largeness of the pupils of the eves.” Theodore Leger happened also to have been physician to the great American feminist Margaret Puller, and his office was the place of assignation for her and her lover James Nathan. Had Louisa Alcott, who admired Margaret Fuller all her life, been aware of this?[35]

 

[34.] Theodore Leger, Animal Magnetism; or Psycodunamy (New York: Appleton, 1846), p.