Old Moodie

The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my
bachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the
Veiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me in
an obscure part of the street.

"Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, "can I speak with you a moment?"

As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss to
mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with
her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric
line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new
science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her
sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice;
nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under such
skilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those which at
once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady
in question.

Nowadays, in the management of his "subject,"
"clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and
openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a
step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries
with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his
preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary,
all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and
artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order
to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to
ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest
of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity,
and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one
time very prevalent) that a beautiful young lady, of family and
fortune, was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil.