- THE OREGON. SUNDAY.1 JOURNAL," PORTLAND.? SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER ' 4V X92Q..
1
ae
J :' A
- ftt- ' ,a ' k Jy,i lot -'
vl H;Ti
Sappho and Alcaeu, the Painting by Alma-Tadema WhicE Represents
the "Violet-Tressed, Sweetly-Smilihg" Poetess of Ancient Greece
Listening1 to the Poems of the Poet Who Loved Her,
But Whom She Did Not Love,
a
. NB of the most curious manifesta
tions of the ohscure and baffling
possibilities of the human mind re
cently to come to, the attention of psycho
logical science is that of twelve-year-old
Juanlta Clivette, of Greenwich Village,
New York City. Seven years ago, when
she was only five, this little girl, the daugh
ter of Mr. and Mrs. Merton Clivette the
father a lecturer and her mother a grad
uate physician calmly announced to the
latter that she was her daughter, in body
only, but that the consciousness which- in
habited that body was that of Sappho, the
Ill-fated Grecian poetess of 2,500 years ago.
Since that time the child has persisted
in her attitude, has given what she claims
to be details of her previous life, and has
written a number of truly extraordinary
poems. In all other ways she la a normal,
happy, lovable little girl. She has been
the. subject of guiet study by scholars of
the fragments of Sapphic writings that
have come down from that remote age
and by students of that same civilization.
These profess themselves amazed at the
child's descriptions and the actual Infor
mation contained therein, whose method
of acquirement by the child frankly puzzL
them.
Psycnologlcal science, no less interested,
believes the case to be a form of dissoci
ated personality, of which the classic ex
ample is the "Case of Miss Beauchamp"
studied by the distinguished alienist, Dr.
Morton Prince, whose findings threw new
and astonishing light upon the obscure and
powerful possibilities of the human mind.
In the case of "Miss Beauchamp" there
were four alternating personalities or
states of consciousness, each of which at
various times was the dominant mental
force in the body of "Miss Beauchamp."
It was the task of science to merge the
best of them into one complete conscious
ness, which then became the normal per
sonality of the subject. How this was
done, those Interested can read in the nar
'rative of the case published by Dr. Prince.
Mrs. Clivette is a woman of extremely
healthy mentality and before her marriage
practiced medicine. She is the daughter
of a prominent New York physician and
was a classmate of Florence Pullman, now
the wife of Governor Lowden. of Illinois.
Her upbringing of her little daughter has
been pursued along the every-day lines.
The child had heard fairy stories and could
only read within the limited scope of the
erage five-year-old.
"Imagine, then, how I felt," says Mrs.
Clivette, "when Just after her fifth birth
day Juanlta came to me and said, 'Mamma,
who was Sappho?'
"I corrected her, thinking that she was
trying to speak the name of a then widely
advertised cleansing powder, whose name
she had doubtless heard or seen.
"No lMlated ths bsbj; 1 mean a.
woman Sappho. I know her name but
aot who aha was. VJhj did you and father
name me Juanlta? I should have been
called Sappho for that is who I really
am." .
The mother laughed and teased her little
one. he child said nothing until her
father returned, and then reopened the
subject.
remember another name now Phaon,
he said. "I know that I loved him and I
think that I killed myself because he did
not lote me."
This curious utterance coming from the
lip a of almost a baby brought no laughter.
The parents questioned her. Had she read
anything of Sappho? Had anyone spoken
to her of the story? She shook her head.
No, it had Just come to her, she told them.
She remembered the names and there
were others that were forming In her mind.
And. baby as she was, they tried to rea
son with her.
"Sappho was a Grecian," they told her.
"If you are Sappho, why do you not speak
to us in Greek?"
The child seemed puczled.
"I speak what-1 think," she aakL Tt
comes to me and I say It What la Greek?"
For some months little Juanlta did not
return to the subject, and the mother,
though still mystified and not a little wor
ried, believed that she bad forgotten it.
But one day she found, Juanlta writing
. she waa then a little oyer six. And this
Is what she read: v :r ,
Silently the stars are shining,
Shining In the stOl moonlight.
: Softly the wind Is Blnging,
Singing through the night
- Chanting a wild, weird song of lore
The trees are swinging now.-
The sea Is deep and fearful, ' "
la lta depths 1 eee '
I see the drowned clay body ' & -,
v vnAi once oeiongea to me.
c
5:;-" ' ykv
The significance of the last four lines
gave a decided shock. For Sappho, the
legend says, in despair over the hopeless
ness of her love for the Grecian Phaon
flung herself into the sea from a high
cliff on one of the Ionian Islands, and this
cliff Is known to this day as "Sappho's
Leap."
They asked her where she had read ths
verses that, she had writ
ten. She said that they
were her own, and went
on calmly:
"I was a great poetess.
I was Sappho. And what
I write now is what I re
member of that time. I
saw my body beneath the
sea where I had leaped be
cause Phaon did not love
me! And I wrote of it."
Again the parents tried
to reason with her, but
they could not get past
that strange conviction In
the little maid's mind. That
It made the mother un
happy, and that she is still
unhappy. Is undeniable. '
"When she was eight"
says the mother, "I had a
crying spell over her. It.
troubled me, and it trou
bles me now, because she
Is so unlike other girls. I
aald to her, 'Juanlta, try
as I will, I cannot make
you out' And her answer
made me weep the more.
She said, 'Don't try, moth
er. I came back here to
work another reincarna
tion and spiritual redemp
tion, and chose you for my
mother because you had a .
clean body and your mind
was bright enough to make
you companionable, but
you will never really un
derstand me. You never
can; so please don't try!' "
A month ago Juanlta an
nounced that she is des
tined to lire on this earth
only twelve years longer!
"By the time I am twen
tyifour," she said, "I will
be united to Phaon. But
not here. It will be In an
other world, where he will
give me all the love he denied me centuries
ago. And after that I will never come back
to this earth." '
Now Sappho, as all students of Greek
history and literature know, was a Lesbian
poetess of good family, who lived about
six centuries before the Christian era. The
chief motives of the poems which made
her famous were love and the ibeauty of
nature. They contained no profound
thoughts and few striking images, but are
marked by exquisite beauty of diction and
liquid lapse of rhythm. From the fragments
of her work which have come down to us
it Is Inferred that she practiced or taught
the art of poetry In a school of maidens
of about her own age. She was devotedly
attached to these maidens, composing
their bridal odes when they left her to
marry.
Sappho was a contemporary of the poet
Alcaeua, and with hiin the chief creator
of what Is known as the Aeolian lyric.
According to legend. Alcaeus was In love
with her, but she Is said to have preferred
-handsome young Greek called Phaon.
Her love for him, however, was unrequited,
and In despair she killed herself.
Here Is the English translation of one
of Sappho's famous poems:
The luminous moon
Fled with the Pleiades;
The silent night soon
Falls and Nature fades;
' The hour passed, all alone
On my conch I restless lie.
As tears and anguished moan
Those words decry.
For the love that In my breast
t Which doth continuously agitate,
Is sweet but robs me of rest
V And fain would seek its mate.
l 'And here are some of little Juanlta
Cuvette's poems on which the theory of
It '- i' r1. v (r - v - f'- i t l
Fms i:mra-; Scholars,
I ' A :;:AV V:A; v I , a - '; 'f . 1
I 'a r . v 1
1 ' V - , ' V' ' , Ax. . .-v 1
v-aav-'-r.v;,; a; .- .
. fa f 1.a'3 ' '4","x'- -1,-' A ' - , ? - vv ' v
' X O - 4 ' - - A ' ' " ' " - 4 ,s t f
f.T. I 41i,A':-- - t 2Z- - AV";:'-
rSV' t LittI? JaanlU CUrctte (in Two: ' -U;.Vl ,Vr A
V;' Poses), Who Believes She Is the t t kj h'.r
- V J; "Reincarnated" Spirit of Sappho, JT -T: """j Vl1" , - "
Jfcl the Poetess, and Whose Cai; I. SSn', W'm
H vX'i .Arousing Widespread Attention &?Tm' - :?'u?S A "
' 1 Among Psychologists. ' JA ' ; ' . V"- ' " J
11 Mil i A,.r , - -:Al'. ;'r .1
the reincarnation
based:
MISTS OF JEWELS
(WrltUs at tiu I of sm)
Mists of .Jewels rise into the air,
Amethysts of sin lost souls laid bare;
Emeralds of purity with fire of astral light;
Rubies dark and rich
With flames of night
Passion's diamond shining clear though
false,
Sapphire gleaming with heartaches blue.
Mists of Jewels form their love In you.
WITHOUT POWER
(WrttUB at tlw M of Ubt
I ran along the lake's smooth waters,
I flew across the sky,
I breathed the perfume from lore's bower,
I am passion without power.
A PRAYER
(Written at tb am at Un
Aphrodite, the mother of me in spirit
I pray to you this morn.
That you. will answer to me in the voice
of the wind f
Will you give to me the power over hearts?
That I may lie on the cool, clinging sods
this night.
And singing up to my throne
Of my sacrifice to love.
I am pure through pilgrimages of hells.
I suffered my bodily sins so long ago.
Grant me the gift of pure love
For now I understand.
Is this little girl actually the tessel that
holds the reincarnated soul of the Sappho
of over two millenlums ago, and are her
verses the echoes of that poetic genius
which delighted poetic Greece six centuries
before the Christian era? Or Is her case
one of those Upon the dim borderland of
psychology which science Is only begin
ning to penetrate?
W) 1M0, International Feature Service. la?
Psychology Explains
' '-T.-:vX..
' '-' - ' "
Here is what one
of the foremost phy
sicians and psychol
ogists of New York
has to say upon
science's viewpoint
of the matter:
"Science finds this
a rare but not a
unique case by any
means. Of course,
the idea of BOUl
transmigration is not
accepted by any
scientist. Until such
time as science can
prove the existence
of a soul it accounts
tor cases like this of
little Juanlta In a
very natural, though
unusual, way. We
must not forget one
axiomatic saying of
the scientist: 'We
must not posit any
explanation of a
phenomenon greater
than would account
for, if In other
words, why suppose
that the soul of
fZlSZl? r!aUr r!RPPearJ la this little
twentieth century.child if we can account
for her own Idea that she Is the re-born
Sappho in a simpler way?
"The same treatment must be given the
case of Juanlta. We are apt to under
estimate the Intellectual power of chil
dren, and she Is evidently a highly gifted
child, or, as her- mother says, 'different
from other children.'
"She Is unquestionably" ease of 'disso
ciated personality,' such as was made
famous by Dr. Morton Prince in his notable
case of Miss. Beauchamp, who was pos
sessed, not of two, but of four distinct
personalities, each one of which might
have been claimed to be ths transmigrated
( soul of three or more long-defunct men or
Brut Brttaia Xltftta
the Interesting Case of a ,
Child Who
Five Declared Herself
f " , f
d " .AX
iV"' - - - (mm 4
; '4 .A'-
iv. wNsli ..xili.L - ,-" r-' -
A Famous, Very Touching Painting
contemplating the Leap Into the
Her the Ueath one
women. But the learned Investigator al
lowed no such claim. He went about a
careful scientific Investigation and finally
succeeded in securing the complete fusion
of all of the personalities, save one, which
w-as almost entirely lost or destroyed. Dr.
Prince calls this the 'Death of Sally."
"It may be that under the stimulus of
the 'fixed idea that she is Sappho redevl
us, Juanlta will produce some poems of
real beauty and no, little literary value.
In so far the world may be. the richer for
her second personality. It may be that
this poetic nature Is the real Juanlta, and
that It will rise to the ascendancy and give
the world a new Sappho, but it would cer
tainly be straining the bounds of credulity
to assert that the soul of Sappho has
When Only
the Ancient Poetess
Born Again
and Has Been
Writing
Poems Ever
Since that
Perplex
of the Unhappy Poetess
Sea That Brought
nought. A
come to life sgain In this charming little
girl.
"Little Juanlta . Is most probably abso
lutely sincere and truthful in her conten
tion that she is Sappho come into being
once more, but science points to the sub
conscious mind and says, 'Yes, Juanlta.
yon believe It but toe do not for your own
little mind working beneath the threshold
of consciousness has given you this idea,
as it has to many hundreds of others.
The best test will be time itself, and the
world can well afford to wait and see what
the outcome will be. Will Juanlta become
a normal young woman, dropping this sub
conscious suggestion as she becomes older
and less "emotional, or will she prove her
self a great poetess?
!
I
I
I
L
is
' ' ' ''
v .. - A