Emma, Fibbing and Revealing (?)

Today's mud-encrusted sapphire comes from Elizabeth J. French's A New Path In Electrical Therapeutics, published in Philadelphia in 1873 by French herself, and subsequently republished by Lippincott.

French, as I mentioned in an earlier post, provided a home for EHB and her mother in New York City shortly after EHB's arrival from Europe, and probably introduced EHB to trance-speaking: a skill French advertised herself as possessing. It also seems clear, from the excerpt of EHB's writing published here, (and here, in flat text form) that whatever falling-out occurred between French and EHB occurred subsequent to March of 1873, for no miffed party would have written a puff piece for an adversary like the one below.

The archives of the Philadelphia Press aren't readily available to check the date and the accuracy of the text (I cannot at this point even verify the existence of such a paper), but assuming it to be an accurate transcription of an actual letter published in March of 1973 by EHB, the text is revealing in a number of ways, indicating that

• it places EHB in residence, at least temporarily, in the Philadelphia area in 1873, thus possibly putting a specific time-frame around the "Rose Cross"/Delanco "blue ink" stalker incident in her Autobiography, on which more another day


• EHB spent time in Milan, Italy, as well as in London and Paris, performing in opera companies


• EHB underwent some number of medical procedures at the hands of eminent London physicians just prior to her first trip to the US -- some time in the early 1850s, after she first became associated with the Haymarket Theatre (which places this any time after May of 1848, when EHB (as Emma Harding) made her debut at the Haymarket as Zepherine in a retitled version of Lola Montes)


• the proximate reason for her trip to the US was not a contract to appear on the stage at the Old Broadway theatre, but rather a doctor's directive that she take a "long sea voyage" or risk "pulmonary consumption."


• EHB was under the care of A. D. Wilson, a prominent and controversial homeopath connected with the French circle, while living in New York


• EHB was at least passingly familiar with the major works of homeopathy, including Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of Medicine (1810), and assumed her readers would be as well

Some of these statements are almost certainly false.

But perhaps most interestingly, though, the letter studiously avoids drawing the very close connection that undoubedly existed for several decades between French and EHB. The text of the letter is written in such a way as to suggest, very clearly, that EHB sought treatment from Mrs. French, and then did not see her again for a significant period of time.

Her Autobiography tells a significantly different story:

One of the most fortunate acquaintances that I was. privileged to make, as I then deemed, was with the family of Mrs. E. J. French, a very fine clairvoyant, physician, electrician, and one who from the first days of the modern movement had been gifted with extraordinary powers as a trance, writing, rapping, and physical medium. I had been introduced to this remarkable medium with a view of consulting her professionally as to the possibility of recovering my powers as an opera singer. Whilst giving me absolutely no hope in that direction, Mrs. French's spirits, the chief of whom professed to be the great electrical discoverer, Benjamin Franklin, strongly advised that my mother and I should make our home with Mrs. French and her family of three sweet young girls. Following this advice, we took rooms with Mrs. French, in a new house to which she was, removing, and for many years we boarded with her, forming an intimate part of her family, and constantly connected with her life and professional experiences.

Selective memory? Creative embellishment (Milan? Really?) Just good storyelling/marketing sense?