D. D. HOME
HIS LIFE AND MISSION
D. D. HOME
HIS LIFE AND MISSION
BY
MME. DUNGLAS HOME
Edited, with an Introduction, by
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
"La raiaon ne prescrlt jamaia; elle 6clire."
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.,
MANCHESTER: THE TWO WORLDS PUBLISHING CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON * CO.
1921
INTRODUCTION
BY
SIR ARTHUR CON AN DOYLE
I have felt it to be an honour to be allowed to edit
this new Edition of the Life of D. D. Home. The
book is so vital that it went much against the grain to
excise any part of it, but our first task is to make it easy
for the public to get the information which they need,
and in its original form the book was a little difficult
on account of occasional redundancy and repetition.
This I have endeavoured to correct, but I foresee the
time when the full text will be restored and I censured
for having tampered with what is a very valuable record.
Meanwhile this shorter version gives the reader all that
is essential.
Home has himself left three books to the world, the
first and second series of Incidents of my Life and
Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism. The latter contains
the most earnest protest against the abuse either of
mediumship or of Spiritualism which the most
conservative critic could utter. Personally I am of
opinion that Home took a somewhat narrow view of
mediumship, failing to realise its protean aspects, so
that when he found any which differed from his own he
was inclined to put it down to bad observation or to
fraud. At the same time he sets us an example of that
alert and critical intelligence which every spiritualist
should cultivate. In Incidents of my Life will be
found a most interesting autobiography including his
controversy with Sir David Brewster from which the
man of Science emerged so badly. Very especially the
second series is commended to the student of Home,
because in it will be found all the actual papers dealing
with the Home-Lyon lawsuit, showing conclusively how
honourable was the action of Home, in spite of the
severe remarks by Lord Gifford, which were the result
of his own ignorance and prejudice. To quote them
against Home's character is like quoting the remarks
iii
iv INTRODUCTION
of a Roman judge upon an early Christian. A spectator
has told me that Gifford asked Home's counsel : " Do
I understand that your client claims to have been
levitated ?" Upon the counsel assenting, Lord Gifford
made a wild gesture of his arms, very much as the High
Priest rent his garment of old. The reader who
consults the evidence for levitation given in this volume
will certainly have no doubt as to Home's power or as
to Gifford's bumptious ignorance.
Home is a man to whom the human race, and
especially the British public, owes a deep apology. He
was most shamefully used by them. He came as one
of the first and most powerful missionaries who have set
forth upon the greatest of human tasks, to prove
immortality, to do away with the awful mystery of death,
to found religion upon positive knowledge, and to break
down the dense materialism which was as great within
the Christian Churches as outside them. All this he
felt that he could do by those same personal demonstra-
tions of spiritual power which were used for the same
ends in the early age of the Church, before form and
ritual smothered the living reality. He devoted his life
to this end in spite of failing health and comparative
poverty. Never did he receive any reward for his
splendid, self-sacrificing work save indeed those
personal souvenirs from Royalties which were given not
in payment but in friendship. He left a trail of
religious conviction and of human consolation behind
him wherever he went. He was admirable in every
relation of life, a good husband, a devoted father, a
beloved friend, a charitable helper, a worker upon the
battle-fields, a lover of art and of all that is beautiful.
And yet when he died worn out at the age of 51 there
was hardly a paper in Great Britain which did not speak
of him as if he had been a Cagliostro, who had spent a
life of intrigue and deception. Those who read this life
will surely echo my words that we owe him a deep
apology, and recognise that in this Spiritual tide which
flows so strongly to-day we find much which un-
doubtedly found its spring in his unselfish labours. His
influence was admirably summed up by Mrs. Webster, a
INTRODUCTION v
well-known resident of Florence, when she wrote : " He
is the most marvellous missionary of modern times, and
the good that he has done cannot be reckoned. Where
Mr. Home passes he bestows around him the greatest of
all blessings, the certainty of a future life."
One or two of Home's aphorisms may be quoted to
show the mind of this man who is even now hounded
down by ignorant traducers, especially Materialists who
cannot forgive the shattering blow which he inflicted
upon their whole philosophy a death-blow, as it will
prove. ' Follow Christ's teaching and carry out His
mission." " Religion is to worship something outside
and beyond yourself." ' Try all communications by
the help of your conscience and your reason." The
sanity as well as the essential piety of the man shines
through such sayings. Surely it is the outworn case
of a beautiful soul which lies under the slab in Paris on
which is carved the words : " To another, discerning of
spirits." Cor. xii. 10.
A. C. D.
March, 1921.
NOTE. In reading this edition of " D. D.
His Life and Mission" it is necessary to remember that
the book was originally written nearly forty years ago.
It is thus necessary to make allowance for dates and
occurrences referred to as of comparatively recent
occurrence the original language being retained.
PROLOGUE
IN the realm of Spirit as well as in the exact sciences, our
age demands facts that can be verified. I reproduce, in all its
authenticity, as much as possible of the testimony that has
been borne to the phenomena investigated in the presence of D.
D. Home. A crowd of theories, more or less ingenious but
none satisfactory, have been created to explain away the
facts, without explaining them in the least. The perverted
understanding which takes that which is not for the reality,
and the reality for a chimera, can alone lead men into this
singular denial of the possibility of a truth that, by their own
avowal, it would give them the greatest happiness to recog-
nise. Undoubtedly the most hideous cancer of our age is its
materialism, that, eating constantly deeper, leads men more
and more into the denial of their immortality. Spiritualism
was not regarded by Home as a fantastic or poetic reverie.
He suffered cruelly for his mission, without having any other
object in view than to give an irresistible impulse to the
consoling belief in a future life. A multitude of irrefutable
facts were demonstrated in his presence which science tested
and admitted. By sacrificing himself to every description of
research, he enabled scientific investigators to establish the
existence of forces that until his day had remained unknown;
and he founded belief in a spirit-world on those remarkable
evidences of identity that will remain the bases of the true
modern Spiritualism. No sophistry can avail to show that
the well-established and well-attested facts contained in this
work have had no existence. It will be seen how great a
number of well-known personages have investigated the sub-
ject, and have been convinced. The fact that many of these
names are now for the first time published, will prove to what
degree Home carried his consideration for others, suppress-
ing their names in order to spare them from ignorant abuse,
and tranquilly encountering the host of calumnies that were
directed against him in consequence. Where is there another
man, who, with the means in his possession of proving how
false were the assertions made concerning him, would have
thought of others, rather than of himself? There are very
few celebrated men whose real character has been so strangely
misunderstood, and concerning whom false reports have more
persistently been spread abroad. The extensive correspond-
ence he has left even the small portion of it I have found
space to print proves how blameless his life must have been,
how irreproachable his honour, and how elevated his sentiments.
No one was ever more happy in doing good, or was more
beloved. In every coimtry persons who were not Spiritualists
vii
PROLOGUE viii
pronounced his name with respect; and the social position he
occupied in the world is the best proof of the estimation in
which he was held.
Spiritualism, as demonstrated by Home, gives a serenity
of mind that death cannot destroy. The edifying proofs of
identity contained in the communications received through
him tend to change our life and modify our actions, by giving
fresh strength to love and charity. The Spiritualism which
is incapable of being investigated under scientific, or, at least,
trustworthy conditions, and confers no moral benefit, is not
Spiritualism. If tokens of spirit-identity and phenomena
established under such conditions as are described in this
volume can rarely be met with, and the truth is, in conse-
quence, derided as fiction, this only illustrates a fact estab-
lished by the history of humanity in every age that the
possessors of such a diversity of gifts as were bestowed on
Home are makers of epochs. Home never had the ambition to
create a sect, although nothing would have been easier to him.
For him who understood the teaching of the Saviour, there
could be no question of honour and prominence ; and the acts
of his life show that he was a Christian in the full acceptation
of the word. His aim was the propagation of Spiritualism,
especially among those who have lost the innate perception of
spiritual things, that inner light whose revelations all Nature
confirms. He sought to save us from the emptiness of a selfish
life, and to give us in this world less of suffering and more of
joy.
D. D. Home did not teach; he proved.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACE
I. SCOTLAND AND AMERICA ... ... ... ... i
II. ENGLAND AND ITALY .. 23
III. ITALY AND FRANCE ... ... ... ... ... 40
IV. FRANCE AND RUSSIA ... ... ... ... 56
V. ENGLAND 69
VI. ENGLAND ... ... ... ... ... ... 91
VII. ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS ... ... ... 107
VIII. AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND ... ... 129
IX. ENGLAND 152
X. PUBLIC READINGS SCOTLAND FRANCE ... 173
XI. ENGLAND SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 185
XII. RUSSIA, GENEVA, FLORENCE, NICE 206
XIII. 1876-1886 216
D. D. HOME
HIS LIFE AND MISSION
CHAPTER I
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA
DANIEL DUNGLAS HOME was born near Edinburgh, March 20, 1833.
His parents both came of ancient Scottish families. Through his
mother, whose maiden name was McNeill, he was descended from a
Highland family in which the traditionary Scottish gift of the
" second-sight " had been preserved. Mrs. Home possessed it
herself; and while her son was still an infant she had a vision con-
cerning him that found fulfilment more than twenty years later at
Fontainebleau.
An aunt, who had no children of her own, adopted Home ; and his
infancy was passed in her care at Portobello. When he was nine
years old, she and her husband emigrated to America, and took with
them the boy whose life was destined to be so wonderful. He was a
sensitive, delicate child, of a highly nervous temperament, and" of such
weak health from his infancy that he had not been expected to live.
His frail health, however, no more affected his natural sweetness of
temper and gaiety of spirits than did the bitter trials of after years.
" I remember him," writes to me a schoolfellow of his, Mr. J. W.
Carpenter, Mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, " as one of the most
joyous, affectionate, and whole-souled boys among my whole circle
of acquaintances, always ready to do a kind act. He was fond of
his studies ; but when out of the schoolroom spent all his time in the
wood and beside the streams, with one or two chosen companions.
His nature was very sensitive, and he was easily grieved at any act of
unkindness done to others or to himself.
"I never saw anything of Spiritualism," adds Mr. Carpenter,
" and am therefore a disbeliever myself; but I know that my old
friend was thoroughly honest and sincere in his belief. I know of
no one of my many schoolmates whose career I have more carefully
followed, and whom I have been more proud to call my friend, than
D. D. Home."
Greeneville, Connecticut, where Home received his first impressions
of America, has been swallowed up in the growth of the adjoining
city of Norwich. Forty years ago, when he lived there with his
uncle and aunt, Greeneville existed as a separate village; and close
at hand were the woods to which he escaped at every opportunity,
spending there hours in that study of nature which always charmed
2 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
him. Isiothing escaped his observation and his prodigious memory.
He always looked back on those days as the happiest of his boyhood.
His studious and dreamy habits separated him from most other children
of his age ; but he had a chosen companion in these rambles, a school-
tellow a little older than himself, of the name of Edwin. A strong
friendship grew up between the two; and they were always together,
until Home went with his relatives to live at Troy, in the State of New
York, some three hundred miles from Norwich.
A few weeks before this separation, Home was, as usual, with his
friend Edwin in the woods. The two boys were both great readers ;
and when either of them had found anything in a book that interested
him, it was sure to be communicated to the other. On this occasion
it was in April, 1845 or 1846 Edwin was full of a ghost-story
that he had just read. The event it related to is associated with the
history of a noble English family ; and I am told that it furnished Sir
Walter Scott with the groundwork of one of his ballads. A lady
and her lover had mutually agreed that, if there were a life beyond
this, the one who died first should appear to the survivor. In
pursuance of his vow, the lover, within a few days of his death,
presented himself to his mistress. She treated the vision as a
delusion of her senses; on which the spirit stretched forth his hand
and laid it on hers, leaving there a mark that was ineffaceable.
Many years after lie had listened to this legend in the woods of
Norwich, Home met in England a member of the family to which
it related ; and was assured that the history was well authenticated,
and that a portrait of its heroine still existed, known in the family
as " the lady with the black ribbon," from a covering she had always
worn on her wrist, to conceal the mark.
When Edwin's story was told, the two boys set themselves to discuss
it, and also the possibility of such apparitions of departed spirits
appearing to those whom they had loved on earth. With the romance
of their age, they ended by agreeing to bind themselves by the same
promise that the two lovers in the legend had taken ; and exchanged
vows on the spot, in the most solemn manner they could devise. A
few weeks later, Home went to live at Troy. He was then about
thirteen years of age.
In the month of June following, he had been spending the evening
at a friend's house, and on returning to that of his aunt, found that
she had already retired to rest. Fearing to be scolded for being late,
her nephew hastened to follow her example. It was a lovely
summer's night, and the moon, shining through the curtainless window
of his room, rendered a candle unnecessary ; but at the moment when
the boy, having finished his prayers, was slipping into bed, her light
was suddenly darkened. Startled by the phenomenon, Home looked
up, and beheld a vision that he has described in the opening chapter
of his Incidents in My Life, published in the year 1863 by Messrs.
Longman :
" I was about to draw the sheet over me," he writes, " when a sudden
darkness seemed to pervade the room. This surprised me, inasmuch as I had
not seen a cloud in the sky ; and on looking up I saw the moon still shining,
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 3
but it was on the other side of the darkness, which still grew more dense
until through the darkness there seemed to be a gleam of light, which I cannot
describe; but it was similar to those which I and many others have since
seen when the room has been illuminated by spiritual presence. This light
increased ; and my attention was drawn to the foot of my bed, where stood my
friend Kdwin. He appeared as in a cloud of brightness, illuminating his face
with a distinctness more than mortal. . . . He looked on me with a smile of
ineffable sweetness, then, slowly raising the right arm, he pointed upward;
and making with it three circles in the air, the hand began slowly to disappear.
Then the arm, and finally the whole body, melted away. The natural light
of the room was then again apparent. I was speechless, and could not move,
though I retained all my reasoning faculties. As soon as the power of movement
xvas restored I rang the hell, and the family, thinking I was ill, came to my
room, when my first words were * I have seen Edwin he died three days
ago.' '
A day or two afterwards a letter was received, announcing the death
of Edwin after a very short illness.
The second such vision that befell Home was in the year 1850. By
this time his aunt had returned to Norwich ; and at Waterford, some
twelve miles off, were settled his father and mother, who had followed
their relatives to America. One day Mrs. Home, when alone with
her son, told him that she would leave him in four months' time.
" Your little sister Mary," she went on, " came to me in a vision,
holding four lilies in her hand ; and allowing them to slip through her
lingers one after the other, till the last one had fallen, she said
' And then you will come to me.' I asked her whether the four
lilies signified years, months, weeks, or days, and she told me
'months.' "
The death of little Mary had taken place under the saddest of
circumstances. The mother went out for a few hours, leaving the
child at home. On returning, she had to cross a small stream near
the house; and while on the bridge, saw what seemed to be some
loose clothes floating in the stream. She ran down the bank, and
drew from the water the body of her child.
In the fourth month after her vision, Mrs. Home was called away
to visit some persons at a distance ; and when her family were expecting
her return, they received instead a telegram announcing her serious
illness. Her husband started at once on its receipt ; her son could
not accompany his father, for he was himself confined to bed in the
house of his adopted parents by an affection of the lungs. The same
evening, nis aunt heard the boy calling loudly for her ; and on hurrying
to his sickroom, found him in the greatest distress and agitation.
" Auntie," he said, " mother died to-day at twelve o'clock, because
I have seen her, and she told me so."
His aunt, as most persons would have done in her place, thought
her nephew delirious. " Nonsense, child," she said, " you are in,
and this is the effect of a fevered brain."
It proved to be sad reality. Mrs. Home had died that day at
twelve o'clock, without one of her family near her even as she
had predicted to her son four months before.
After the loss of his mother, Home's thoughts occupied themselves
4 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
more and more with the life beyond this; and he was constant in
attending the religious exercises of the body to which he belonged.
Much to the displeasure of his aunt, who was a member of the
Kirk of Scotland, he had joined the Wesleyan communion; but her
opposition to this step was so persistent and violent, that her nephew
finally compromised matters by leaving the Wesleyans for the Con-
gregationalists, whom she regarded with less dislike.
One night, on going to bed, he heard three loud blows struck at the
head of the bedstead. Thinking some one was hidden there and
trying to frighten him, he rose and searched, but found nobody.
While he could still hardly realise that he was actually the only person
in the room, the three blows sounded again in the same place,
and then, after a moment's pause, they came a third time.
The listener spent a sleepless night in watching for their recurrence
and in repeating to himself that the phenomenon was a something
not of earth; but the strange sounds were heard no more by him.
In the morning he came down to breakfast pale and fatigued ; and
his tired looks were noticed by his aunt, who set them down to
the account ot a prayer-meeting he had attended the evening before,
and began to lecture on the evil results of religious excitement. She
was interrupted by a volley of raps on the table at which the two were
seated.
" What is this? " was her astonished demand.
Her nephew, almost as startled as herself, could not answer; but
if he had no interpretation of the marvel to furnish, his aunt soon
found one. " So," she exclaimed, drawing away from him in horror,
" you have the devil in you too, have you? and you have brought
him to my house ! '"
About two years earlier, the knockings at Rochester had attracted
public attention. Home's aunt had heard of them from some of her
neighbours, and believed them to be works of the Evil One. She
put the same construction on the strange sounds now heard in her
own presence, and considered her nephew to be possessed. It was
some hours before she could get over the shock of having, as she
fancied, entertained one or more fallen angels unawares ; but in the
afternoon she began taking steps to drive the visitors from her house.
There were three pastors in the village of Greeneville, a Congrega-
tionalist, a Baptist, and a Wesleyan. Forgetting for the moment
her prejudices against one and the other persuasion, she sent for
all three, and requested their advice and ministrations. Two of the
three were perfectly of her opinion as to the source of the phenomena ;
and one of these two, the Baptist, proceeded to question Home.
"It is Satan who possesses you," he began. " What have you
done to bring him to you ? ' '
His catachumen could only protest that it was out of his power
to give any explanation of the mysterious sounds; and seeing his
agitation, the Congregationalist minister interposed. "Don't be
frightened," he said kindly; " if this is the work of Satan, it is your
misfortune and not your fault."
" In any case," said the Baptist, " let us seek to drive him forth by
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 5
our prayers " ; and he proceeded to offer up a supplication in which
he desired Home to join.
" Whilst we were thus engaged in prayer," writes Home, " there came
gentle taps on his chair and in different parts of the room ; while at every
expression of a wish for God's loving mercy to be shown to us and our fellow-
creatures, there were loud rappings as if joining in our heartfelt prayers. ^
was so struck and so impressed by this, that there and then, upon my knees,
1 resolved to place myself entirely at God's disposal, and to follow the leadings
of that which I then felt must be only good and true, else why should it have
signified its joy at those special portions of the prayer? This was, in fact,
the turning-point of my life ; and I have never had cause to regret for one
instant my determination, though I have been called on for many years to-
suffer deeply in carrying it out."
Astonished and perplexed by the result of their prayers, the three
ministers departed. The Congregationalist offered no opinion as to
the origin of the phenomena ; saying only that he did not see why this
young member of his flock should be persecuted for what he was
unable either to prevent or cause. The Baptist a Mr. Mussey
shook his head, but was so bewildered by the thought that his
prayers had seemed to call forth the sounds, instead of silencing
them, that he had little to say ; and only the Methodist remained firm
in his first belief, declaring that these wonders were the work of
Satan, and telling Mrs. McNeill Cook that her nephew was a lost
sheep. " He was so unkind," says Home simply, " that I derived
no comfort from him."
From that day the rappings were heard frequently ; but familiarity
with the sounds had no effect in diminishing the terror with which the
aunt of Home regarded them. After a time the furniture began to
be moved about without visible agency. On one occasion, when
a table was moving across the room with no one near it, the aunt ran
tor the family Bible, and placed it on the table widi the triumphant
exclamation, " There ! that will drive the devils away ! " " To her
astonishment, ' ' writes Home, ' ' the table only moved in a more lively
manner."
As yet, no one seems to have thought of trying to ascertain whether
the sounds heard were controlled by intelligence. The first experi-
ment in this direction was made at the house of another relation of
Home's, a widow who lived near the aunt who had adopted him. One
evening, while with this second relative, raps were heard, and the
alphabet was called over. The letters indicated by the raps were
written down ; and in this way intelligent communications were
received, and replies obtained to questions put.
The people of Greeneville had heard by this time of what was
occurring. " They took to besieging the house," says Home, " in
a way that did not tend to soothe the religious susceptibilities of my
aunt." Among them came a Mrs. Force, in whose presence the
name of her mother was spelt out by the raps. A message followed,
reproaching her with having forgotten a sister who had gone West
with her husband some thirty years before, and had not since been
heard of. The name of the town where this long-lost relative lired
6 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
was added; and on the astonished Mrs. Force writing there, she
received a letter from her sister in reply.
It has been objected ad nauseam that it is ridiculous to suppose that
a disembodied spirit would seek to communicate with us by sounds
made on a table or a wall. Why ridiculous? Contrary to the pre-
conceived opinions of many, it may be; but then, those opinions are
themselves based on no grounds but prejudice and sentiment, while
the assertion that spirits do thus seek to communicate is based on
evidence. The question was ably discussed in the year 1863, in a
preface contributed to Mr. Home's Incidents in My Life, by a dis-
tinguished man of letters, who, as a result of his investigations with
Home, had become a Spiritualist the late Dr. Robert Chambers.
It was in no credulous spirit that this well-known writer had com-
menced has inquiry. For a great part of his life Dr. Chambers was a
materialist of materialists, and was known among his friends to have
been the joint author with Leitch Ritchie of one of the most sceptical
works of the day, The Vestiges of Creation.
" There remains a great stumbling-block to many," wrote Chambers in his
anonymous preface to Home's book, " in the manner in which the
communications are most frequently made. It seems below the dignity of
a disembodied spirit to announce itself and speak by little pulsaiory noises on
a table, or wainscot. It might, however, be asked if it be not a mere prejudice
which leads us to expect that the spirit, on being disembodied, suddenly, and of
necessity, experiences a great exaltation. . . . We must, moreover, remember
that we know nothing of the conditions under which spirits can communicate.
This may be the most readily available mode in most instances. Beyond doubt,
in certain circumstances of difficulty, the most exalted of living persons might
be glad to resort to such a mode of telegraphy."
Home's aunt did not treat the phenomena in the spirit of those
critics to whom the remarks of Dr. Chambers were addressed. She saw
them to be real, she feared them to be unholy ; and, far from finding
in the sounds heard in the house and the sights seen there a matter
of ridicule, they distressed her mind beyond endurance. The siege
laid to her house by her neighbours was the last straw; and declaring
that, since the spirits of which she had such a horror would not go,
her nephew must, she turned him out of doors.
Home found a temporary refuge in the house of a friend in the
neighbouring town of Willimantic. In most natures, the cruelty of
such treatment as his aunt had dealt out to him under the impulse of
perverted religious feelings would have excited abiding resentment ;
but Home's temper was too sweet and generous not to forgive and
forget. He remembered only her kindness of former years ; and the
old age of his aunt was passed in a cottage that he bought for her.
brie died in 1876, of the shock caused' to her by reading in the
American papers a false report of his death.
While Home was at Willimantic, he was constantly beset by curious
intruders ; and offers of money were made to him, which he refused.
He felt that his mysterious gift was not a thing to be trafficked in,
and had already laid down the rule to which he adhered all his life,
that he would never take payment for a seance.
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 7
Much against his will, an account of some extraordinary phenomena
witnessed at Willimantic was contributed to the local newspaper.
Shrinking from the publicity thus forced on him, he cut short his
visit and went to Lebanon. "There," he writes in his Incidents
in My Life, " I was received in the family of an old resident."
Very few names are given in the Incidents, for Home's chivalrous
delicacy towards others made him prefer to suffer from the misconcep-
tion of the world himself, rather than expose a friend to ridicule or
abuse. This consideration for the feelings of others sometimes
led him to refrain from availing himself of the permission when granted,
especially in the case of ladies. His generosity was, as a rule, its
own reward. When a cry for more names of witnesses was raised by
the press on the publication of the Incidents, very few of those
witnesses had the courage of their opinions.
'i'he results of numerous applications made to the friends of Mr.
Home in both the Old and New Worlds, together with the corre-
spondence preserved by him, enable me to supply most of the names
omitted in the Incidents, and in various cases to add the personal
testimony of investigators concerning their experiences. In this
way I shall be able to render these pages a record of attested facts.
My only difficulty will be to contain the record of a life so full of
wonderful and varied incident within the limits of a single volume.
It was in the spring of 1851 that Home left Willimantic for
Lebanon, where he became the guest of a family named Ely, who had
a farm in the neighbourhood. Hist health was in a most delicate
state, and trying scenes through which he had just passed had inten-
sified the symptoms of lung disease ; but quiet and the healthy
influences of a country life wrought a change for the better. More
unselfish and considerate than some of his friends of later years, the
Ely family discouraged their young visitor from holding seances too
frequently. It was a fact of which Home soon became conscious,
that some power or force passed from him during the occurrence of
the phenomena ; or, as MV. Crookes put it in 1871, " The evolution of
psychic force is accompanied by a corresponding drain on vital force."
Repeated seances meant the serious injury of Home's health ; but for
that health the majority of his friends had very little consideration ;
and his unselfish good nature again and again led him to comply with
their entreaties for seances, when his vital force was already at the
lowest ebb from previous sittings. "Were I in Springfield, I should be
a very discordant element," writes one of the Ely family to him in
March, 1852, " if you continued verv long to sit in six circles a day,
you invariably pay the penalty fainting when you do so, and why
can you not say ' No ' ? "
Near Lebanon, in 1851, the first of many remarkable cures was
wrought through the agency of Home, the life saved being that of a
Mrs. Bill. The facts of this case are recorded in the Incidents,
without names being given.
In June, 1851, Home accepted the invitation to pay him a visit, of
Mr. W. Green, living at Boonton, New Jersey. While there, he had
frequent visions and trances, at which times he beheld the lost friends
LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
of many persons who were perfect strangers to him, and described
them with such accuracy that they were immediately recognised.
From .boonton, Home, about the middle of July, 1851, went on a
visit to Mr. J. W. Carrington, a resident (then and now) of Brooklyn,
-New York. During this visit he met Professor George Bush, a
distinguished theologian and Oriental scholar. Mr. Bush, who had
been educated with a view to taking orders in the Episcopal Church,
but had abandoned the design in consequence of the change wrought
in his views by an acquaintance with the works of Swedenborg, took
deep interest in observing the phenomena connected with Home. The
communications he received were of such a nature as to render him
assured that they proceeded from friends who had passed from earth.
I will give an instance of their character.
Home had one evening fallen into a trance. In this condition he
saw one who had been the schoolfellow of Professor Bush forty years
before. The name was given through Home, and the Professor
was reminded of a strange dream that he had had on the very night his
friend passed from earth.
" The spirit," writes Home, " now told through me the whole of the
Professor's dream, which was that, whilst they were playing together, he
suddenly saw his schoolfellow taken from him, and heard his voice saying,
' I leave you, George, but not for ever." A dream of forty years previously was
thus brought to his remembrance. The Professor was so strongly impressed
with this that he called on me next day, and wished to have me reside with
him for the purpose of studying for the Swedenborgian ministry. I went to
his house with the intention of so doing ; but within forty-eight hours I saw
in my waking state the spirit of my mother, who said to me, ' My son, you
must not accept this kind offer, as your mission is a more extended one than
pulpit preaching.' On seeing the good Professor, I told him of this spirit
message. He expressed regret, but no surprise ; so I returned to my friend Mr.
C " (Carrington), " and remained with him till the end of August. 1
frequently afterwards saw Professor Bush, with whom the most kindly inter-
course was interchanged."
From Brooklyn, Home returned to Lebanon. The youngest of his
triends there, the Ely family, was a boy of about his own age, named
Ezra. In September, 1851, Ezra fell ill. The family were under no
alarm, the illness appeared so slight; but Home had a vision that
forewarned him his friend would be gone within three weeks. On
the nineteenth day of his illness Ezra passed from earth tranquilly
and happily.
" His extraordinary composure," records Home, " remained with him
throughout. I had told the family of my vision, which prepared them for
the coming change. About two days before his leaving us, the doctor asked
me to break it to him, when I informed him that Ezra had long been aware
of it. He doubted this, from seeing him so composed ; and I desired him to
stand at the door and hear what I would say to Ezra. I then went to his bed,
and told him that the doctor had left some news for him. He laughingly said,
' I suppose it is to tell me that I am going. Little does he imagine that I
have already decided who my bearers are to be.' The doctor now came into
the room, and taking his hand, said, ' My dear boy, if I had not heard this,
I could not have believed it. You have everything to make life happy,
and yet you are so willing to leave it.' A few hours after this a deacon of
the church visited him. He argued with the dying boy, trying to take away
his happy belief, but fortunately without the slightest success."
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 9
Home remained at Lebanon till the end of January, 1852, and then
went to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he became the guest of
one of the best known residents, Mr. Rufus Elmer. The Elmers,
unlike the Elys, took no account of the drain on the vital force of
Home that went on during seances. They threw open their house
to all inquirers, and urged him to sit morning, noon, and night. A
passage in Incidents in My Life indicates the exhausting and hurtful
nature of Home's surroundings at Springfield:
' I stayed with them " (Mr. and Mrs. Elmer) " for some time,"
he writes, " and great interest was excited by the accounts given by
the very numerous witnesses who came to see the manifestations.
Whilst here the power was very strong, and frequently 1 had seances
six or seven times a day. . . . The house was besieged by visitors,
and often outside in the street there was a concourse of anxious
inquirers. People came from a distance, even from the extreme west
and south of America, having seen the accounts given of me in the
newspapers of the previous year."
Among them came the celebrated American poet, Bryant, accom-
panied by Professor Wells of the University of Harvard, and two other
persons. They were, one and all, thorough sceptics as to the reality
of tae phenomena ; and their investigations, which extended over
several sittings with Home, were as searching as a determined in-
credulity could render them. Constrained at length to yield to the
testimony of their senses, Messrs. Bryant, Wells, and their coadjutors
had not only the candour to own that they had witnessed phenomena
which could not have been produced by trickery, but the fairness
to state so publicly. Their conduct might have been imitated with
advanta-ie by Lord Brougham, Mr. Ruskin, and many other subsequent
investigators, on whose lips timidity set a seal.
The narrative published by Bryant and his friends restricted itself
to the phenomena witnessed at a single seance with Home, the most
remarkable. I append it, with the exception of a passage I reserve
for another chapter, in which I shall have occasion to cite instances
of the particular phenomenon this passage attests :
" The undersigned, from a sense of justice to the parties referred to,
very cordially bear testimony to the occurrence of the following facts,
which we severally witnessed at the house of Rufus Elmer, in Springfield :
" The table was moved in every possible direction, and with great force,
when we could not perceive any cause of motion.
" It (the table) was forced against each one of us so powerfully as to move
us from our positions together with the chairs we occupied in all several
feet.
" Mr. Wells and Mr. Edwards took hold of the table in such a manner as to
exert their strength to the best advantage, but found the invisible power,
exercised in an opposite direction, to be quite equal to their utmost efforts. . . .
' Mr. Wells seated himself on the table, which was rocked for some time
with great violence, and at length it poised itself on two legs, and remained
in this position for some thirty seconds, when no other person was in contact
with it.
" Three persons, Messrs. Wells, Bliss, and Edwards, assumed positions
on the table at the same time, and while thus seated, the table was moved
in various directions.
" Occasionally we were made conscious of the occurrence of a powerful
10
shock, which produced a vibratory motion of the floor of the apartment in
which we were seated it seemed like the motion occasioned by distant thunder,
or the firing of ordnance far away causing the table, chairs, and other
inanimate objects, and all of us to tremble in such a manner that the effects
were both seen and felt.
" In the whole exhibition, which was far more diversified than the fore-
going specification would indicate, we were constrained to admit that there
was an almost constant manifestation of some intelligence which seemed, at
least, to be independent of the circle.
" In conclusion, we may observe that Mr. D. D. Home frequently urged
us to hold his hands and feet. During these occurrences the room was well
lighted, the lamp was frequently placed on and under the table, and every
possible opportunity was afforded us" for the closest inspection, and we admit
this one emphatic declaration We know that we were not imposed upon nor
deceived. 1
" WM. BRYANT,
B. K. BLISS,
WM. EDWARDS,
DAVID A. WELLS."
Similar, but still more striking phenomena were witnessed on the
28tn> of February, 1852, at the house of the Elmers, and attested in a
declaration signed by John D. Lord, Ruf us Elmer, Henry Foulds, and
eight other persons.
One evening a visitor from New York, Mr. S. B. Brittan, was at the
Elmer's residence. There was no thought of a seance, the party
were sitting talking to each other, when their conversation was
interrupted by a startling incident. The person most intimately con-
cerned, Mr. Brittan, subsequently published the following account of
his memorable experiences at Springfield :
" While spending a few days at the house of Mr. Ruf us Elmer, Springfield,
I became acquainted with Mr. Home. One evening Mr. Home, Mr. and Mrs.
Elmer, and I were engaged in general conversation, when suddenly, and most
unexpectedly to us all, Mr. Home was deeply entranced. A momentary silence
ensued, when he said, ' Hannah Brittan is here,' I was surprised at the
announcement ; for I had not even thought of the person indicated for many
days, or perhaps months, and we parted for all time when I was but a little
child. I remained silent, but mentally inquired how I might be assured of
her actual presence.
" Immediately Mr. Home began to exhibit signs of the deepest anguish.
Rising from his seat, he walked to and fro in the apartment, wringing his
hands? and exhibiting a wild and frantic manner and expression. He groaned
audibly, and often smote his forehead and uttered incoherent words of
prayer. . . . Ever and anon he gave utterance to expressions like the
following :
" 'Oh, how dark! What dismal clouds! What a frightful chasm! Deep
down far, far down, I see the fiery flood. Save them from the pit ! ... I
set no way out. There's no light ! The clouds roll in upon me, the darkness
deepens! My head is wriirling !' . . .
" During this exciting scene, which lasted perhaps half an hour, I remained
a silent spectator, Mr. Home was unconscious, and the whole was inexplicable
to Mr. and Mrs. Elmer. The circumstances occurred some twelve years before
the birth of Mr. Home. No person in all that region knew aught of the
history of Hannah Brittan, or that such a person ever existed. But to me the
scene was one of peculiar and painful significance. She was highly gifted by
nature, and endowed with the tenderest sensibilities. She became insane
1 Similarly italicised in the original.
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA n
from believing in the doctrine of endless punishment ; and when I last saw
her the terrible reality, so graphically depicted in the scene I have attempted
to describe, was present in all its mournful details before me.
" Thirty years have scarcely dimmed the recollection of the scene which was
thus re-enacted to assure me of the actual presence of the spirit. That spirit
has since informed me that her present life is calm, peaceful, and beautiful,
and that the burning gulf, with all its horrible imagery, existed only in the
traditions of men, and in the fitful wanderings of her distracted brain."
Home was now nineteen years of age. Since quitting his aunt's
house, he had been the guest of one or other friend ; but from the
suggestion of seeking to turn his gift to pecuniary account he invariably
recoiled, and was as poor as on the day when he began his wanderings.
Some extraordinary cures wrought through him at Springfield turned
his mind towards the medical profession. If he were to train himself
lor that profession by the usual course of study, the beings who guided
him would surely, he reasoned, be able to turn his training to account.
He spoke of his plan to Mr. and Mrs. Elmer, who, without entirely
disapproving of it, responded by an unexpected proposal. They had
learned to feel a great affection for their young guest, and they were
rich and childless. They offered to adopt Home and make him their
heir, on condition of his changing his name to that of Elmer.
It was a tempting prospect to be held forth to one who had neither
home nor means, but after anxious thought he decided to decline it.
Before doing so, he wrote to ask the advice of his friends, the Ely
family, who replied in a letter now before me: " You can never feel
anything but unbounded gratitude for Mr. Elmer's kindness still it
would be a pity to do anything hastily which might eventually become
irksome to either party. Your name is a very good one as it is, and
why not be distinguished by it? ;; The words echoed Home's own
thoughts. He was unwilling to change his name, and his sensitive
and independent nature had already pictured the offer of adoption as
.an impulse of which the Elmers might afterwards repent. The result
was that he gratefully refused the proffered adoption, and soon after-
wards left Springfield for New York. There was no break of friend-
ship between him and the Elmers ; he spent a few days with them the
following autumn, and, at their pressing invitation, paid them a long
visit in the spring of 1854.
In New York, Home met, among other distinguished Americans, Pro-
fessor Hare, the eminent chemist and electrician, inventor of the oxy-
hydrogen blowpipe; Professor Mapes, noted for his researches in
connection with the application of chemistry to agriculture; and Judge
"Edmonds, of the United States Supreme Court. All three investigated
the phenomena that occurred in Home's presence, and all three became
fully satisfied, not only of their genuineness, but of their spiritual
origin. Yet they had approached the subject as utter sceptics.
Judge Edmonds, who devoted three years to a painstaking
series of researches into Spiritualism, wrote in the New York Herald,
August 6, 1853 : " I went into the investigation originally thinking it a
deception, and intending to make public my exposure of it. Having
from my researches come to a different conclusion, I feel that the
obligation to make known the result is just as strong."
12 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Professor Hare had accepted the experiments of Faraday as con-
clusive; but meeting with facts for which the explanations of the
English philosopher would not account, he set himself to devise more
ingenious apparatus than Faraday's, that should, as he expected, con-
clusively establish that no force was exerted during a seance but that of
the sitters present. The results of his manifold experiments he published
in a volume that passed through five editions. Vary the experiments
and apparatus as he might, he found it demonstrated that there was a
power at work not that of the human beings present, and that this
power was governed by intelligence.
Another inquirer who sought Mr. Home's acquaintance at New York
in 1852 was Dr. John Gray, a leading American physician. " For
Dr. Gray," wrote Home in his autobiography, " I have ever had the
deepest affection and esteem. He and his kind wife have given me
counsel and befriended me at all times and under all circumstances.
From his character and attainments he was eminently suitable as an
investigator of phenomena requiring a calm, dispassionate judgment. ' '
Dr. Gray encouraged his young friend to carry out his plan of
entering on a course of medical study, but a chain of unforeseen cir-
cumstances for some time prevented Home from following the advice.
The first was a pressing invitation from a Dr. Hull, who had been
present at a seance in New York, to visit him at his residence on the
Hudson. Home accepted, and did not see New York again till the
autumn of 1853.
Dr. Hull lived at Newburgh on the Hudson. He had offered Mr.
Home a considerable remuneration in proposing the visit, which was,
of course, declined ; Home informing him that he had never been paid
and never would be, but that he should be happy to pay a visit t
Newburgh if all suggestions of payment were dropped. Some very
interesting seances were held there ; and the result was that Dr. Hull
and others of Home's new friends united in a kindly-meant project.
They proposed that, as his education had naturally been somewhat
neglected, he should place himself in their hands to go through a course
of ordinary study, before entering on the medical training that he had
in view. Home accepted the offer ; but having made promises to visit
numerous persons during that autumn and winter, he was obliged to
defer availing himself of it till the following year.
In August, 1852, after spending a week at Springfield, where he was
prostrated by severe illness, he went on a visit to Mr. Ward Cheney
of South Manchester, near Hartford, Connecticut, one of the most
eminent of American manufacturers. The Cheney family were soon
numbered among his fastest friends in America ; and when Home left
the States, one or other of its members was always among his corres-
pondents. In 1869, Ward Cheney, then a friend of seventeen years'
standing, visited him in England ; and manifestations occurred that
were recorded by Lord Dunraven. Those attending Home's intro-
duction to the Cheneys were somewhat remarkable.
As he entered the hall of their residence at South Manchester, a
sound resembling the rustling of a heavy silk dress attracted his atten-
tion. He looked round, and was surprised to see no one. A few
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 13
minutes later, when talking to Mr. Cheney in one of the sitting rooms,
Home again heard the rustling of the dress, and again sought in vain
tor anything that might account for such a sound. His host noticed
his startled look, and naturally asked him the reason of it. Home,
unwilling to make much of the matter, only replied that he had been
very ill, and his nervous system was probably out of order. He had
hardly spoken the words, when looking through the open door into the
hall, he saw standing there a little, active-looking elderly lady, clad in
a heavy dress of grey silk. The apparent mystery was explained ;
and as the thought passed through his mind, the dress again rustled.
This time Mr. Cheney also heard the sound. " What is that? "
he asked, looking towards the hall. " Oh," said Home, who, from
the life-like distinctness of the figure, had not the slightest thought
that it could be other than of flesh and blood, ' ' only the dress of that
elderly lady in the grey silk rustling."
Mr. Cheney made no response ; and his guest's thoughts were
diverted trom the subject by the entrance of the other members of the
family. The lady of the grey silk was not among them; nor, to his
surprise, did she appear at dinner. He expected that his host would
make some remark about her, but nothing was said ; and this singular
reserve naturally set the visitor wondering who she might be.
As he was leaving the dining-room, the dress again rustled, close to
him; and he heard a voice say very distinctly, " I am annoyed that
a coffin should have been placed above mine."
Astonished beyond expression, Home repeated this strange message
to Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, and related what he had previously seen and
heard. His listeners stared at him, and at each other in mute astonish-
ment, till finally Mr. Cheney broke silence.
" The style of dress," he said, " we perfectly recognise, even to the
peculiar colour and heavy texture ; but as for this story of a coffin
having been placed on hers, it is as incorrect as it's ridiculous."
Home did not know what to answer. Till he heard the words,
he had not for a moment suspected the visionary character of the
figure; and even now he was not aware what relationship existed
between the mysterious visitant and his hosts. He waited to see what
would happen next ; and what happened was that, an hour later, the
voice again sounded in his ear, uttering the self -same words. This
time, however, it added: " What is more, Seth had no right to cut
that tree down."
Home repeated the message from first to last. Mr. Cheney seemed
greatly perplexed. " Certainly," he said, " this is very strange. My
brother Seth did cut down a tree that rather obstructed the view from
the old homestead ; and we all said at the time that the one who
claims to speak to you would not have consented to his felling it had
she been on earth. As for the rest of the message, it is sheer
nonsense."
Just before the party separated for the night, the message was again
given, and again met by a point-blank contradiction. " I went to my
room," writes Home, " feeling greatly depressed. It was the first
time an untrue message had been received through me ; and even were
14 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
it correct, it astonished me that a liberated spirit should occupy itself
with such a matter. I could not sleep for thinking of the occurrence. ' '
In the morning he made known to his host how much the matter
had troubled him. " I am just as sorry about it," answered Mr.
Cheney ; and resumed ' ' I am now going to demonstrate to you that,
if it were the spirit it purports to be, it is sadly mistaken. We will
go together to the family vault, and you shall see for yourself that,
even had we desired to do so, it would be impossible to place another
coffin above hers."
The two went at once to the burying-ground. The person who had
the care of the vault was sent for, and its owner desired him to open
it. As he placed the key in the lock, the man seemed to recollect
something; and turning, said in a half-apologetic tone, " By the way,
Mr. Cheney, as there was just a little room above the coffin of Mrs.
" (the old lady in the grey silk), " I have placed the coffin of
Mrs. L 's baby there. I suppose it's all right, but perhaps I
ought to have asked you first about it. I only did it yesterday."
Mr. Cheney turned on his companion a look that Home could never
forget. " It's all true, then it's all true! " were the only words
he could utter.
Home related this strange incident in his Lights and Shadows of
Spiritualism, published in 1877. He gave the scene of its occurrence,
Hartford, Conn., but ommitted naming the Cheney family.
" The same evening," he writes, " the spirit once more made
known her presence. ' Think not,' ran the message now delivered,
' that I would care were a pyramid of coffins to be piled on mine. I
was anxious to convince you of my identity, once and for ever. ' '
Ward Cheney, Home's host of 1852, died at South Manchester in
1876. Shortly after his departure from earth, Home received a com-
munication that I shall give in a future chapter.
While staying with the Cheneys in 1852, the first instance of Home
being lifted in the air occurred.
" During these elevations or levitations," he wrote, " I feel no
hands supporting me, and since the first time, I have never felt fear ;
though, should I have fallen from the ceiling of some rooms in which
1 have been raised, I could not have escaped serious 1 injury. I am
generally lifted up perpendicularly ; my arms frequently become rigid,
and are drawn above my head, as if I were grasping the unseen power
which slowly raises me from the floor. ' '
On taking leave of his new friends at South Manchester, Home
passed the remainder of the year 1852 in paying various visits he had
promised. It was at this time that he first saw Boston, where converts
to Spiritualism were becoming numerous. The manifestations
witnessed there were similar to those already recorded, with the
addition that on more than one occasion strains of music were heard
during a seance when no instrument was near, a phenomenon often
subsequently attested.
Early in the year 1853, Home returned to Newburgh to commence
the course of study proposed to him by Dr. Hull and his other friends
there. In this retired and beautiful spot, which lies among the
SCOTLA'ND AND AMERICA 15
highlands of the Hudson and not far from West Point, the spring and
summer were tranquilly but laboriously spent. He had entered the
Theological Institute as a boarder, though he did not attend the
classes; and, under the direction of Dr. Hull, was commencing the
acquirement of the French and German languages.
" While here," wrote Home in 1863, " I had an extraordinary vision, which
is still "so vivid that 1 remember it in all its details.
" The Institute was built on an eminence commanding a view of peculiar
beauty ; below lay the city ; on the right the river was lost in its windings
among the rocky hills surrounding West Point ; on the left it lay in expanse,
and could be traced for a distance of many miles ; behind spread out the
country, with its pretty little farmhouses dotted here and there. I have sat
for hours of an evening watching their lights, and endeavouring to picture
the lives and emotions that crossed those thresholds.
" One evening I had been pondering deeply on that change which the world
calls death, and on the eternity that lies beyond, until, wearied, I found relief
in prayer, and then in sleep. It appeared to me that, as I closed my eyes
to earthly things, an inner perception was quickened within me, till at last
reason was as active as ' when I was awake. I, with vivid distinctness,
remember asking myself the question whether I were asleep or not? when,
to my amazement, 1 heard a voice" which seemed so natural that my heart
bounded with joy as I recognised it for the voice of one who, while
on earth, was far too pure for such a world as ours, and who, in passing to
that brighter home, had promised to watch over and protect me. And,
although I well knew she would do so, it was the first time I had heard
her voice with that nearness and natural tone. She said, ' Fear not, Daniel ;
I am near you : the vision you are about to have is that of death, yet you will
not die.'
" The Toice became lost; and I felt as one who at noonday is struck
blind. As he would cling even to the last memories of the sunlight, so I would
fain have clung to material existence not that I felt any dread of passing
away, nor that I doubted for an instant the words of my guardian angel ; but
I feared I had been over-presumptuous in desiring knowledge, the very
memory of which might disturb my future life. This was but momentary, for
almost instantaneously came rushing with a fearful rapidity memories of the
past ; my thoughts bore the semblance of realities, and every action appeared
as an eternity of existence. During the whole time I was aware of a
^benumbing and chilling sensation which stole over my body ; but the more
inactive my nervous system became, the more active was my mind, till at
length I felt as if I had fallen from the brink of some fearful precipice ; and
as I fell, all became obscure, and my whole body one dizzy mass, only kept
alive by a feeling of terror, until sensation and thought simultaneously ceased,
and I knew no more.
" How long I had lain thus I know not ; but soon I felt that I was about
to awaken in a most dense obscurity. Terror had given place to a pleasurable
feeling, accompanied by a certitude of some one dearly loved being near me,
yet invisible. Instinctively I realised that beyond the surrounding obscurity
lay an ocean of silver-toned light. . . .
" I felt that thought and action were no longer connected with the earthly
tenement, but that they were in a spirit-body in every respect similar to the
body which I knew to have been mine, and which I now saw lying motionless
before me on the bed. The only link which held the two forms together seemed
to be a silvery light, which proceeded from the brain. As if it were a response
to my earlier waking thoughts, the same voice, only that it was now more
musical than before, said : ' Death is but a second birth, corresponding in
every respect to the natural birth ; and should the uniting link now be severed,
you could never again enter the body. As I told you, however, this will not
be. You did wrong to doubt, even for an instant, for this was the cause
of your having suffered ; and this very want of faith is the source of every
16 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
evil on your earth. ... Be very calm, for in a few moments you will see us
all ; but do not touch us. Be guided by the one who is appointed to go with
you, for I must remain near your body.'
" It now appeared to me that 1 was waking from a dream of darkness
to a sense of light, but such a glorious light ! Never did earthly sun shed such
rays, strong in beauty, soft in love. This heavenly light came from those I
saw standing about me. Yet the light was not of their creating, but was
shed on them from a higher and purer source, which only seemed the more
adorably beautiful in the invisibility of its holy love and mercy thus to
shower every blessing on the creatures of its creation. And now I was bathed
in light, and about me were those for whom I had sorrowed. One that I had
never known on earth then drew near, and said, ' You will come with me,
Daniel? ' I could only reply that it was impossible to move, inasmuch as I
could not feel that my nature had a power over my new spirit-body. . . .
"I was wafted upward, until I saw the earth, as a vision, far, far below
us. Soon I found that we had drawn nearer, and were just hovering over a
cottage that I had nei*er seen ; and I also saw the inmates, but had never met
them in life. The walls of the cottage were not the least obstruction to my
sight ; they were only as if constructed of a dense body of air, yet perfectly
transparent ; and the same might be said of every article of furniture. I
perceived that the inmates were asleep ; and I saw the various Spirits who were
watching over the sleepers. . . .
" I was most deeply interested in all this, when my guide said, ' We must
now return.' When I found myself near the body, I turned to the one who
had remained near my bed, and said, ' Why must I return so soon? for it can
be but a few moments I have been with you ; and I would fain see more,
and remain near you longer.' She replied, ' It is now many hours since you
came to us ; but here we take no cognisance of time, and as you are here in
spirit, you, too, have lost this knowledge ; we would have you with us, but
this must not be at present.' . . .
" I heard no more, but seemed to sink as in a swoon, until consciousness
was merged into a feeling that earth with its trials lay before me, and that I,
as well as every human being, must bear my cross. And when I opened my
eyes to material things, I found that the little star I had lain watching had
given way to the sun, which had been above the horizon about four hours ;
making in all some eleven hours that this vision had lasted. My limbs were
so dead that at least half an hour elapsed before I could reach the bell-rope
to bring anyone o my assistance, and it was only by continued friction that,
at the end of an hour, I had sufficient force to enable me to stand upright.
" I merely give these facts as they occurred; let others comment on them as
they may. I have only to add that nothing could ever convince me that this
was an illusion or a delusion ; and the remembrance of those hours is as fresh
in my mind now as at the moment they took place."
In the autumn of 1853, Home quitted Newburgh for New York, with
the intention of beginning a course of medical study. One after the
other, various hindrances linked themselves together into a chain of
circumstances opposing the fulfilment of his wish; until, convinced
that another career was destined for him, he began to feel the necessity
ot abandoning his cherished plan.
His friends at Newburgh had wished him to promise that, during
his residence in New York, he would give no seances without their
express consent. Impressed by the cures already wrought through
him, they were eager to see him become, as Dr. Hull expresses it in
one of his letters, "a physician who would do honour to his race;"
and in the hope of developing speedily and remarkably his gift of
healing, they insisted on his pursuing a course of severe and solitary
study. But of all natures, the joyous, affectionate, social tempera-
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 17
ment of Home was most unfit for solitude, and suffered most from the
enects of a life unhealthy to all, and to him repulsive. In January,
1654, he tell ill. ' I had been so left to myself in solitude and study
the whole winter," he records in the Incidents, " that mind and body
were alike disturbed. I wrote to my friends saying that I could not
think of continuing the life I then led; and after many letters had
passed between us, I was again left to myself to decide as to my future
course. I had friends in Boston, who, as soon as they knew what my
intentions were, generously offered to do all that my other friend* had
been doing, and to allow me perfect liberty to see whom I might
please."
On recovering his liberty of action, he stayed for some time with
the Elmers at Springfield, where manifestations occurred of which an
account was published by one of the witnesses, Dr. Gardner, of
Boston. " With the room well lighted," he wrote, " we were many
times touched more or less forcibly, producing a peculiar and indescrib-
able sensation. Some of us distinctly 'felt the form of the spirit hand,
a soft, delicate, elastic, yet powerful touch, which cannot be described,
but must be felt to be appreciated. The reader," added Dr.
Gardner, " will bear in mind that the hands of every person present
were in plain view on the top of the table."
Home passed much of the spring and summer of 1854 in
Boston, where frequent and remarkable seances took place, the rare
phenomenon of the apparition of a phantom form being observed on
more than one occasion. For part of the summer he lived at
Roxbury; and as his health seemed gradually improving, he rererted,
in spite of former obstacles and disappointments, to his wish of
studying for a medical diploma. Among his correspondents at this
time and subsequently, was one of the most distinguished of American
preachers and theologians, Dr. T. M. Clark, now Bishop of Rhode
Island, who, in the years 1853 and 1854, was residing at Hartford,
Connecticut. South Manchester, the home of the Cheney family, is
not far distant ; and Dr. Clark was a friend of the Cheneys, in whose
views a revolution had been wrought by their experiences with Home.
The wonderful particulars communicated to him determined Dr. Clark
to inquire into the subject ; and he availed himself of the various visits
of Mr. Home to Hartford and its neighbourhood to carry on in his
own house a patient and searching investigation of the phenomena.
As to the results of that inquiry, I may leave the following letter from
Bishop Clark to Home to speak for itself :
" HARTFORD, June 2, 1854.
" MY DEAR DANIEL, It is a glorious June morning, and I think that I will
have a little chat with you. I can imagine you looking out from your elevation
in Roxbury upon the distant sea, and then up into the more distant heavens,
to see who are looking down upon you from above. I can also imagine you
squaring away at your table, digging into French and German. . . .
" One law, if I were you, should be as the laws of the Medes and Persians
I would not ' sit ' but twice a week for anybody. You have been over excited
of late, and now ' the grasshopper is a burden.'
" Don't allow yourself to be too sensitive as to the opinions and notions
of other people. I think that this is perhaps the source of your greatest
iS LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
trouble. \ou have the consciousness of integrity: let that suffice for the
present the future will settle the rest. You have the pleasant assurance of
having been the instrument of conveying incalculable joy and comfort to th
hearts of many people . in the case of some you have changed the whole aspect
of their existence ; you have made dwelling-places light that were dark before ;
you have, then, a right to be happy yourself.
" And again, you never ought to feel that you are living in a state of
dependence upon others. For you give infinitely more than you receive.
Never have one distrustful thought as to the future. You will see bright
sunshine yet.
Every evening, as we sit down in our snug parlour, we say as a regular
chorus, ' Oh, if Dan were only here ! ' We intend to drive to Manchester in
a day or two. My book is posted up to that last night in your chamber.
Those tangible demonstrations cannot be recorded on paper. Write me as soon
as you can.' Very affectionately yours,
"THOMAS M. CLARK."
The excellent advice of Dr. Clark, that he should lay down a law
to hold at most two seances a week, Home could not act upon. He
was surrounded by eager inquirers, who were determined that he
should not act upon it. As for that sensitiveness in which his
correspondent justly discerned a source of trouble to him, it was one of
the conditions of his phenomenal life a hard condition, but one of
which no effort would! have enabled him to divest himself. He
was created to feel both joy and sorrow more keenly than other men,
and his life was so ordained that the sorrow should largely predominate
over the joy.
A few weeks later, Dr. Clark wntes to Home again :
" HARTFORD, June 25, 1854.
" MY DBAR DANIEL, I expect to be in Newburyport on the Fourth of July,
and shall return here on the 5th, by way of Boston. Please to let me know
whether I shall find you home on Wednesday, the 5th. How I wish that you
could only drop in upon us this quiet Sunday evening ! It seems hardly
possible that we can ever have any more of those wonderful scenes which
we passed through with you. When I recall the incidents as they occurred,
they appear too great to be believed. Do you get anything new that is,
anything different in kind from what we have experienced? It is rather hard
for us to be deprived of all that is going on in Boston and Brooklyn. I
have been so occupied with other matters, that I have now a strong appetite
for something a little spiritual."
What were the wonderful scenes, it will be asked, to which the
Bishop refers ? Dr. Clark does not afford me any information ; not
that he denies the evidence of his senses! any more than he did in
1854, but that those who were tooi timid to give their names to the
world, when the impression made by the phenomena was fresh, are still
more unwilling now. I will relate briefly the remaining events of
Home's life in America, and then conclude this chapter with an extract
from the scanty information in my possession concerning the seances
at Hartford. Home kept no record of those seances or of any others ;
he left the phenomena to speak to the beholders, and the beholders to
speak in their turn to the world, if they had the courage. Not very
many displayed that courage; and with regard to the Harford mani-
festations, there are few now left on earth to speak of what they saw
and tested! in Home's presence more than thirty years ago..
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 19
Home spent the winter at New York, going much among the poorer
classes, and holding seances with them. He had again entered on his
medical studies, and again they were interrupted by the failure of his
health. The winter that year was unusually bitter; and by January,
1855, the symptoms had grown so alarming that all thought of continu-
ing his studies had to be abandoned. A year previously, his left lung
had been pronounced diseased. Dr. Gray of New York, and other
eminent medical friends whom he now consulted, united in declaring
that the malady had made such progress as to render his condition
one of grave danger, and in recommending, asi the best hope of pro-
longing his life, a voyage to Europe.
That recommendation was the sole and sufficient reason why Home
quitted America. It cost him a hard struggle to follow the advice so
pressingly tendered. " I was to be separated from those who would
have tended me with every affection, ' ' he writes, ' ' and to be thrown
as it were a stranger in a strange land. My family had by this time
all been residents of America for some time, and I knew no one
friend in all England."
His many friends in the States wrote, as soon as the verdict and
advice of the physicians became known to them, to express their deep
grief at the news and press him to pay them parting visits before he
sailed. I quote a few words from a letter in my possession written
to Home early in 1855 by Mrs. Clark:
" I ain grieved at the result of Dr. Gray's examination, for I had
always tried to persuade myself that no serious difficulty existed. But
oh, it cannot be that you are to pass away from us soon. I will not
think of it. I am sure that, with care and a quiet course of life,
you may be spared to us many years yet, and enjoy a good degree of
health, as many do under such circumstances."
February and March, 1855, were passed by Home in paying farewell
visits to his friends ; they and he both thinking it was the last time
they should meet on earth. In March he was at Hartford, Conn., and
held one or two last seances there. Three years later a lengthy
narrative of one of these seances was published in the Hartford
Courant (March 6th, 1858), but as the writer only signs himself
"D." I have been unable identify him. The editor of the
Courant prefixed to " D.'s " narrative the following introductory
remarks. Perhaps they may enable some American readers to
identify the " D." to whom they refer :
" The gentleman who signs the subjoined! communication was
appointed by the Secretary of War a member of the Board of
Examiners of the national military school at West Point last summer "
(1857). " At West Point he was selected by the Board of
Examiners from their number to deliver the parting address to the
cadets. We mention these facts as significant of the mental calibre
and culture of the writer. ' '
" The friend to whom I was indebted for an introduction to Home," writes
" D.," " being well acquainted with my scepticism upon these matters,
arranged that the ' circle ' should sit in my own house, that all suspicion of
machinery or any other underhanded contrivance might be removed at the
20 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
outset. It was also left for me to determine who should compose the circle.
I selected a party of ladies and gentlemen of whom it was presumed that
two, from previous investigations with Mr. Home, admitted the reality of
these phenomena, and were inclined to believe in the spiritualistic solution.
The remaining eight scouted Both the theory and the facts. . . .
" I could not help compassionating Home when I saw him, a youth at* twnty,
pale, emaciated, and suffering from consumption, confronted by such a* array
of mature, hard-headed scoffers at his pretensions."
The seance, relates " D.," was held in a room " lighted by a gas
chandelier with four burners ; " and the party sat at a large oral table,
seven feet eight inches in length. The table vibrated, loud rapi were
heard, and various phenomena succeeded, which " D." minutely
describes. Among them, an accordion played in "D.'s" hand, he
holding the instrument by the end farthest from the keys. " Home
was seven feet eight inches from me." " D." writes, " and could not
have reached me even if his entire body had been extended in my
direction."
" These spiritual phenomena," continues " D.," " had so repeatedly refused
to appear in my presence and respond to my wooing, that in regard to then
I was inclined to reject all testimony. One sitting with Mr. Home disabused
me of this incredulity, and convinced me, not of the alleged spiritual agency,
bat that the marvels which attend him are genuine, and cannot be explained
by jugglery, collusion, deception, or hallucination, but must be solved, if
solved at all, by some law of nature or of mind as yet undiscovered. I affirm
this of no other medium but Home, for my attempts to extract miracles from
other professors of this art have proved most signal failures.
" Home spurns every inducement to invest his wonderful power in business,
and engage in rapping as a trade. He is rather too chary of his rare gift, and
displays it only on urgent solicitation, as a favour to those he likes, or as a
grace to the psychological inquirer.
" It is less preposterous to my mind," declares " D.," in terminating his
account of the seance, " to adopt even the spiritual hypothesis than to believe
that Home could accomplish all this by his feet, while twenty suspicious eyes
were fastened upon him."
Throughout this narrative, Home's name is spelt " Hume " a
mistake made by many persons besides the writer in the Hartford
C our ant. Home always wrote his name " Home," but he retained
the ancient Scottish pronunciation of that name, " Hume; " hence
the difference between his own mode of spelling it and that sometimes
mistakenly adopted by others. He was much amused when, on one
occasion, a very oracular acquaintance wrote to some American news-
paper to settle, once and For ever, the question whether the name were
Home or Hume, by announcing that with his own ears he had heard
the bearer of that name pronounce it Hme, and that those persons
who spelt it H0me, only showed that they had never met its owner.
In Mr. Home's Incidents in My Life, published in 1863, is contained
(pp. 56 61) the narrative of a seance that took place at Hartford,
Connecticut, on March 14, 1855, within a few days of the other seance
described by the West Point Examiner " D." The name of the
witness who furnished this narrative was not published in the Incidents.
He was Mr. Frank L. Burr, editor of the Hartford Times, and has
kindly sent me a letter attesting the facts narrated in the Incidents,
SCOTLAND AND AMERICA 21
and adding some further particulars to the description there giren
by him.
This Hartford seance of March i4th, 1855, was one of the last
perhaps the very last held by Mr. Home in the States before he
sailed. I extract a portion of Mr. Burr's narrative as published in
the Incidents. The sitters on this occasion consisted of Mr. and
Mrs. Burr, and Mr. Home:
"A paper was taken from the floor, slowly lifted up, and placed upo
the table, as I can affirm, without the aid of a human hand. Sitting at the
end of the table where this was done, I was enabled to see the whole of this
proceeding. The paper was placed upon the edge of the table, and so near my
hand as to touch it. I saw plainly and clearly the hand that held the paper.
It wab evidently a lady's hand very thin, very pale, ind remarkably attenuated.
Ihe conformation of this hand was peculiar. The fingers were of an almost
preternatural length, and seemed to be set wide apart. The extrome pallor
of the entire hand was also remarkable. But perhaps the most noticeable thing
about it was the shape of the fingers, which, in addition to their length and
thinness, were unusally pointed at the ends ; they tapered rapidly and evenly
towards the tips. The hand also narrowed from Ihe lower knuckles to the
wrist, where it ended. All this could be seen by such light as was in the
rom, while the hand was for a few moments holding the paper upon the
edge of the table. . . .
'' Tke hand," continues Mr. Burr, " presently took a pencil and began to
write. This was in plain sight, being only shaded by one of the circle who
was sitting between the paper on the table, and the fire. The hands of each
ne present were upon the table, in full view, so that it could not have
been one of the party who was thus writing. Being the nearest one to the
hand, I bent down close to it as it wrote, to see the whole of it. It extended
further than the wrist. With a feeling of curiosity natural under the
circumstances, I brought my face close to it in the endeavour to see exactly
what it was, and, in so doing, probably destroyed the electrical or magnetic
influence by which it was working ; for the pencil dropped, and the hand
vanished. The writing was afterwards examined, and proved to be the
nme, in her own proper handwriting, of a relative and intimate friend of one
of the circle, who passed away some years since." (" My wife's cousin a
lady who died some five years before," says Mr. Burr in a letter to me of
April, 1887.) "Other marks were also made, and the word 'Dear' had been
written just as the pencil dropped. This writing has been preserved, and
remains as an evidence of the reality of the fact. That it was produced by no
hand of any one bodily in that room I know and affirm."
A daguerreotype portrait of Mrs. Burr's cousin, taken shortly before her
death (from consumption) was presented to Mr. Home subsequently to the
seance. It has been preserved, and is now in my possession. The hands and
fingers in the daguerreotype have the very same wasted look and singular
conformation so minutely described by Mr. Burr.
The hand," says Mr. Burr in concluding his narrative published in the
Incidents, " afterwards came and shook hands with each one present. I felt
it minutely. It was tolerably well and symmetrically made, though not
perfect; and it was soft and slightly warm. IT ENDED AT THE WRIST."
In his letter to me of April 6, 1887, Mr. Burr gives some additional
particulars concerning the seance, and relates in detail the examina-
tion he made of the spirit-hand when it grasped his.
" Mr. Home came to our house rather late in the evening," he
writes, " having been at the house of Mr. Day, then the editor of
the Hartford Courant, all the evening. I invited him into the parlour
for a seance. Nobody was present but Mrs. Burr and myself and
Mr. Home."
22 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Mr. Burr then details the phenomena of the seance as in his des-
cription written thirty years before; and on arriving at the point
where the narrative given in the Incidents concludes, he subjoins the
following particulars :
" The hand white as marble, and not visibly attached to any arm
reached out to my hand, and shook hands with me ; a hearty human
shake. Then the hand! sought to withdraw from mine. I would
not let it. Then it pulled to get away, with a good deal of strength.
But I held it firmly, resolved to see what it was. (All this time
Mr. Home did not move, more than a dead man. He was too far
back in his chair to reach me, without bending over forward.)
When the hand found it could not get away, it yielded itself up to me
for my examination; turned itself over and back, shut up its fingers
and opened them; let me examine the finger-nails, the joints, the
creases. It was a perfect human hand 1 , but white as snow, asd
ENDED AT THE WRIST. I was not satisfied with the sense of sight to
prove this I wanted the concurrent testimony of other senses; and
I swung my hand and arm up and down, where the arm belonging
to this hand should have been had it been of flesh and bone, but
no arm was there. Even then I was not satisfied. Turning this
strange hand palm towards me, / pushed my right forefinger entirely
through the -palm, till it came out an inch or more visibly,
from the back of the hand. In other words, I pushed my finger
clear through that mysterious hand. When I withdrew it, the place
closed up, much as a piece of putty would close under such circum-
stances leaving a visible mark or scar, where the wound was, but
not a hole.
" While I was still looking at it the hand vanished quick as a
lightning-flash. It was gone!"
The above remarkable seance was also described by Mr. Burr, in
1875, m tne Ne>uf Y <> r k Sun >' his narrative being headed " A Strange
and Startling Story."
CHAPTER II
ENGLAND AND ITALY
Arrival in England. Stance at Cox's Hotel. Controversy with
Sir David Brewster. Damaging testimony against Sir David.
Lord Brougham. Lord Dunraven's testimony. Browning and
Sludge. Lord Lytton's experience. Thompson's opinion.
Experience of the Trollopes, mother and son. Journey to
Florence. Attempted assassination.
IN April, 1855, Home landed in England. " I never can forget
my feelings," he writes in his first volume of Incidents, " as I looked
around me, and saw only joy beaming on the faces of my fellow-
passengers; some there were who were about to reach their home,
and the thought of kind friends waiting to welcome them brought the
smile of joy to their countenances. ... I stood there alone,
with not one friend to welcome me, broken down in health, and my
hopes and the fairest dreams of youth all, as I thought, for ever
fledL The only prospect I had was that of a few months' suffering,
and then to pass from earth. I had this strange power also
which made a few look with pity on me as a poor deluded being,
devil-sent to lure souls to destruction, while others were not chary in
treating me as a base impostor. I stood there on the ship's deck
amongst the crowd of passengers, and a sense of utter loneliness crept
over me, until my very heart seemed too heavy for pie to bear up
against it. I sought my cabin, and prayed to God to vouchsafe one
ray of hope to cheer me. In a few moments I felt a sense of
joy come over me, and when I rose I was as happy as the happiest
of the throng."
Home's presence in London soon became known, and without
having courted it, he found the notice of English society attracted to
him. More requests for seances were pressed upon him than he
could gratify; and among other noted personages of the day, Lord
Brougham expressed a desire to investigate the phenomena. An
afternoon seance was appointed, and Brougham requested and
received permission to bring with him a scientific friend, Sir David
Brewster. In full daylight, these two shrewd inquirers sat with
Home; the proprietor of the hotel in Jermyn Street where he was
staying being also present. This was Mr. W. Cox, a most worthy
and excellent man, who had speedily become, and remained till the
day of his death, the fast friend of Mr. Home. The effect pro-
duced on the minds of the two investigators by what they witnessed
was subsequently attested by Mr. Cox in a letter to the Morning
Advertiser, dated October 15, 1855.
" I assert," he wrote, " that both Sir David and Lord Brougham
were astonished at what they heard, saw, and felt. I assert that
Sir David, in the fulness of his astonishment, made use of the
23
24 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
expression, ' This upsets the philosophy of fifty years.' ... I
assert that Lord Brougham was so much interested that he begged me
to arrange for him another sitting, and said he would put off erery
engagement for the purpose of further investigation."
After the seance, Mr. Home wrote to a friend in America a des-
cription of his English experiences, in the course of which he very
naturally and truly stated of Lord Brougham and Sir D. Brewster,
that both had brought the whole force of their keen discernment to
bear upon the phenomena with a view to accounting for them by
natural means, and had been unable to so. The letter was
published and commented upon in America, and the statements of
the American press presently found their way into English journals.
Long before they did so, Home had left Jermyn Street on a visit
to Mr. Rymer of Baling, a London solicitor in large practice; and
at Baling, Sir D. Brewster was present at a second seance. A few
days later Mr. Rymer received a letter, of which the following are
the first few lines :
" Sir, In consequence of a very remarkable account given by Sir
David Brewster of the extraordinary powers of Mr. Home, together
with two or three friends I am anxious to have an interview with him.
If he can make it convenient to come to my house, No. 80, Eaton
Square, on Thursday or Saturday next, at two o'clock, I should be
glad to make an appointment for either of those days. . . .
Your obedient servant,
" EDWARD BULLER."
A still more' decisive testimony to the effect produced on Sir
David's mind is on record.
" I was so struck," wrote the late Earl of Dunraven, " with what
Sir David Brewster with whom I was well acquainted had himself
told me, that it materially influenced me in determining ^ to examine
thoroughly into the reality of the phenomena. I met him one day
on the steps of the Athenaeum; we got upon the subject of table
turning, &c. ; he spoke most earnestly, stating that the impression
left on his mind from what he had seen was that the manifestations
were to him quite inexplicable by fraud, or by any physical laws
with which we were acquainted, and that they ought to be fully and
carefully examined into."
As yet, the assertion that Sir David had been converted to a belief
in Spiritualism had not been copied from the American press by the
English ; and the philosopher, with the first feelings of wonder and
bewilderment strong in his mind, had the frankness, as the words of
Lord Dunraven and Mr. Buller show, to confess to his friends that
the phenomena he had witnessed in the presence of Mr. Home were
inexplicable by the theory of fraud. At last, in September, 1855,
the Morning Advertiser reproduced the American statements ; and
Sir David at once wrote to that paper to disclaim all belief in
Spiritualism, and to set down to imposture the very phenomena that
he had assured Lord Dunraven could not have been produced
by trickery and were inexplicable by any physical laws with which he
was acquainted.
ENGLAND AND ITALY 25
A lengthy correspondence followed. Sir David, in a second letter,
declared that, had he been allowed to look under the table, he might
perhaps have been able to expound the riddle of the phenomena.
" I assert," replied Mr. Cox of Jermyn Street, " that no hindrance
existed to Sir David looking under the drapery of the table ; on the
contrary, he was so frequently invited to do so by Mr. Home, that
I felt annoyed at Mr. Home's supposing that either he or I could be
suspected of any imposition."
So much for the seance in Jermyn Street. Sir David was
requested to verify the absence of concealed mechanism, but declined
a curious mode of conducting a scientific investigation. Yet he
afterwards assumed its presence. Was it honest of him to do so in
view of his refusal to examine, and still more in view of the fact that
at Baling he actually did examine ? Invited by Mr. Rymer to give
his testimony to facts, the well-known author, Mr. T. A. Trollope,
responded as follows, in a letter written for publication :
" I declare that at your house at Ealing, on an evening subsequent to Sir
David Brewster's meeting with Mr. Home at Cox's Hotel, in the presence
of Sir David, of myself, and of other persons, a large and very heavy dining-
table was moved about in a most extraordinary manner ; that Sir David was
urged, both by Mr. Home and by yourself, to look under the cloth and under
the table; that he did look under it; and that while he was so looking, the
table was much moved ; and that while he was looking, and while the table
was moving, he avowed that he saw the movement.
" I should not, my dear sir," ends Mr. Trollope, " do all that duty, I think,
requires of me in this case, were I to conclude without stating very solemnly
that, after very many opportunities of witnessing and investigating the
phenomena caused by, or happening to Mr. Home, I am wholly convinced that,
be what may their origin, and cause, and nature, they are not produced by
any fraud, machinery, juggling, illusion, or trickery on his part."
Sir David was as fully convinced of that, in his secret soul, as Mr.
Trollope, but he had a scientific reputation to lose, and he feared
ridicule; so, after declaring in private that the manifestations could
not have been produced by jugglery, he declared in public that they
could, and wrote, " Were Mr. Home to assume the character of the
Wizard of the West, I would enjoy 'his exhibition as much as that
of other conjurors."
On which Mr. B. Coleman of Bayswater wrote to the Morning
Advertiser :
" I was as much astonished at what I saw, felt, and heard in the presence
of Mr. Home as any man ; and when I found that Sir David Brewster had
been a witness of similar phenomena at the house of my friend, I called upon
Sir David, accompanied by my neighbour ; and in the course of conversation
Sir David said, that what he and Lord Brougham saw ' was marvellous
quite unaccountable.'
" I then asked him, ' Do you, Sir David, think these things were produced
by trick? '
' No, certainly not,' was his reply.
'Is it delusion, think you? '
' No, that is out of the question.'
' Then what is it? '
To which he replied, ' I don't know; but spirit is the last thing I will
give in to.' '
C
26 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
The publication of this letter naturally made Sir David very angry,
and he wrote to contradict it in part, not denying the substantial
accuracy of the above statements, but challenging the writer's repro-
duction of the description that Sir David had given him of the
phenomena in Jermyn Street. Brewster then continued:
" In reply to Mr. Cox, I may take this opportunity to answer his request
by telling him what I have seen, and what I think of it. At Mr. Cox's
house, Mr. Home, Lord Brougham, and myself, sat down to a small table,
Mr. Home having previously requested us to examine if there was any
machinery about his person, an examination, however, which we declined to
make. When all our hands were upon the table, noises were heard rappings
in abundance ; and, finally, when we rose up, the table actually rose, as
appeared to me, from the ground. This result I do not pretend to explain ; but
rather than believe that spirits made the noise, I will conjecture that the
raps were produced by Mr. Home's toes, . . . and rather than believe that
spirits raised the table, I will conjecture that it was done by the agency of
Mr. Home's feet."
This from the man who had declared so emphatically to Lord
Dunraven and Mr. Coleman that he could not suppose the phenomena
were produced by trickery !
bir David then described, with more than one suppressio vert, the
remaining phenomena that he had witnessed in Jermyn Street, and
continued: " How these effects were produced neither Lord
Brougham nor I could say, but I conjecture that they may be pro-
duced by machinery attached to the lower extremities of Mr. Home. ' '
Which machinery a keen and sceptical observer like Brewster could
not detect in broad daylight ! Nor could he say, in full daylight,
whether a table rose in the air or not, but only that it " appeared "
to him to rise.
All through this newspaper warfare Lord Brougham preserved an
inflexible silence; and Sir David Brewster did not venture to appeal
to him. Is not the inference certain that Sir David dared not and
that his lordship would not speak, though requested by Mr. Home to
do so, and though he had half -promised to publish an account of the
seance, because his testimony must have been unfavourable to his
friend? That Lord Brougham's views were not in accordance with
those of Brewster may be inferred from the fact that in 1860 or 1861
Brougham was again present at seances with Home, and from his
remarkable declaration made in a preface written by him for Mr.
Groom Napier's work, The Book of Nature: " In the most cloud-
less skies of scepticism, I see a rain-cloud if it be no bigger than a
man's hand: it is Modern Spiritualism."
Said the Spectator, when the whole correspondence was
republished by Mr. Home in his first volume of Incidents : " It seems
established by the clearest evidence that he" (Sir David) " felt and
expressed, at and immediately after his seances with Mr. Home, a
wonder and almost awe, which he afterwards wished to explain
away. . . . The suppression of Lord Brougham's half-promised
testimony, though challenged by Mr. Home, is on the whole un-
favourable to Sir David, as it might be presumed that Loid Brougham
would support his friend's testimony as far as possible. Nor does
ENGLAND AND ITALY 27
the passage-at-arms between Sir David and Mr. T. A. Trollope con-
cerning the subsequent seance at Baling, seem to us quite creditable
to Sir David. . . . The hero of science does not acquit himself
as we could wish or expect."
How could he ? Sir David was not conducting the controversy in
the interests of truth, but in the interests of David Brewster. When
compelled to decide whether he would tell the truth and be laughed
at, or prevaricate and have the world on his side, the philosopher did
not hesitate for a moment. But it so happened that he had already
placed his honest opinion of the Jermyn Street seance on record ; and
the letter that contains it was published by his daughter, Mrs.
Gordon, in her Home Life of Sir David Brewster. As there could
not be a better witness against Sir David than himself, I append the
words in which he contradicts the statements he had made in the
Morning Advertiser.
" Last of all, I went with Lord Brougham to a stance of the new spirit-
rapper, Mr. Home, a lad of twenty. . . . Mr. Home lives in Coxe's Hotel,
Jermyn Street, and Mr. Coxe, who knows Lord Brougham, wished him to have
a stance, and his lordship invited me to accompany him in order to assist in
finding out the trick. We four sat down at a moderately-sized table, the
structure o/ which we were invited to examine. In a short time the table
shuddered, and a tremulous motion ran up all our arms ; at our bidding these
motions ceased and returned. The most unaccountable rappings were produced
in various parts of the table ; and the table actually rose from the ground when
no hand was upon it. A larger table was produced, and exhibited similar
movements. ... A small hand-bell was laid down with its mouth on the
carpet ; and after lying for some time, it actually rang, wh'en nothing could
have touched it. The bell was then placed on the other side, still upon the
carpet, and it came over to me and placed itself in my hand. It did the same
to Lord Brougham.
" These were the principal experiments. We could give no explanation of
them, and could not conjecture how they could be produced by any kind of
mechanism."
Written with no idea that it would ever see the light, this letter
undoubtedly contains Sir David Brewster's true impression of the
phenomena he had witnessed. He could not explain them : he could
only see that they were not, as he subsequently and dishonestly
suggested, due to trickery on the part of Mr. Home.
It should be added, with regard to Sir David's " conjecture" that
the table might have been lifted by the feet of Mr. Home, that at
the Ealing seance the table used was a dining-table twelve feet
long; that Sir David Brewster, Mr. T. A. Trollope 1 , and Mr. Rymer
did, as a matter of fact, experiment on it after the seance to see
whether it were possible to move the table or to raise it with their feet,
and that it could not be stirred by the united efforts of the feet of
all three.
No doubt thousands of tables have been tilted by human feet and
hands, and Faraday's famous theory of the action, unconscious or
conscious, of the sitters, was applicable to many seances, but never to
those of Mr. Home. Only those who have witnessed the phenomena
can realise how startling and peculiat they were in his presence.
Many persons have attested the facts detailed in the following
28 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
description, and many more could bear witness to its exactitude had
they the courage to come forward.
The phenomena that marked the commencement of a successful
seance were, as a rule, as follows :
While the hands of Mr. Home and the other persons present
rested on the table, a curious phenomenon would fix the attention of
the circle. The table did not move, it was neither tilted nor raised ;
but the hands resting on it felt it quiver and tremble as if instinct
with life. When the power was strong, these vibrations affected
not only the table but everything in the room, and often the floor
and walls also' shook. Some have compared the vibrations to the
beating of a pulse; others to the ripples that pass over a sheet ot
water when its surface is lightly stirred by the wind., The
phenomenon was well described by Dr. J. Garth Wilkinson, or rather
by his daughter, in his Evenings with Mr. Home and the Spirits,
published at the time of the Brewster controversy.
" In a minute or two the same inward thrill went through the table
as I have described in the first -seance, and the chairs also, as before,
thrilled under us so vividly that my youngest daughter jumped up
from hers, exclaiming, ' Oh, papa, there's a heart in my chair ! '
which we all felt to be a correct expression of the sensation
conveyed."
Presently the tremors would cease, and raps were forthwith heard,
as if the vibrations that passed through the table had marked the
period occupied in charging it with some subtle force, electrical or
otherwise, that was now given off in these tiny detonations. The
raps were as varied in their character as human nature is varied,
timid, bold, clear, muffled, changing with every intelligence that
produced them ; just as in this world no two persons will knock at a
door in a manner exactly similar. " I have heard," wrote Mr. W.
Crookes, F.R.S., " delicate ticks, as with the point of a pin; a
cascade of sharp sounds as from an induction coil in full work ;
detonation in the air; sharp, metallic taps; a cracking like that
heard when a frictional machine is at work ; sounds like scratching ;
the twittering as of a bird, &c."
When the power was present in great force, not only did the largest
and heaviest tables repeatedly rise from the ground when the hands
of the sitters were on them ; but a mass of evidence is on record that
at seances with Mr. Home tables, chairs, and many other objects have
been seen in strong light to move about the room or to rise in the air,
when neither Home nor any other of the human beings present was
touching them. The world is slow to attach credence to such a
fact, but a fact it is, if human eyesight and human testimony count
for anything. Sir David Brewster, one of the most hostile and
sceptical of inquirers, attests the phenomenon in the letter published
by his daughter; and Mr. Crookes wrote: " I have had several
repetitions of the experiment considered as conclusive by the com-
mittee of the Dialectical Society, that is to say, the movement of a
heavy table, in full light, the backs of the chairs being turned towards
the table, at about a foot away from it, and each person kneeling on
ENGLAND AND ITALY 29
his chair, his hands placed on the back, above the table, but without
touching it."
Means were often adopted by inquirers to test the correctness of
Professor Faraday's theory in the case of Mr. Home. For instance,
in 1868, Mr. J. H. Simpson of Campden Grove, Kensington, a
gentleman of considerable scientific attainments and a disbeliever in
Spiritualism, placed rollers on the table, and on these a large flat
music-book. The fingers of Mr. Home and the other sitters rested
lightly on the music-book, and while the result of this experiment
was watched above, Mr. Simpson lay down on the floor to see that
no foot touched the table below. The table moved more violently
than before, and Mr. Simpson quite satisfied himself that the move-
ment, to whatever cause due, was independent of any person present.
This experiment, it will be seen, was made three years before Mr.
Crookes employed a different apparatus with similar results.
At seances with Mr. Home, when the table tilted, the tilting
was almost always accompanied by a very startling phenomenon. No
matter how acute the angle, the various articles on the table, such
as pens, pencils, paper, lamps, candlesticks, etc., would remain in
their place as if glued to it. This has been seen to occur again and
again in the strongest light ; and at the demand of persons present
the force retaining the article in its place has been instantaneously re-
laxed, and the substance so released has slipped from the inclined
surface of the table. Sometimes it \vould be requested that a particular
article might thus slide down, while others on the table kept their
places; and the invisible forces at work always complied with the
request.
The Earl of Dunraven wrote, in describing a seance in 1867, at
which he, Mrs. Thayer, and Mr. Earl, the latter a total disbeliever
in the phenomena, were present with Mr. Home: " The room was
lighted by a fire, a large lamp standing on the piano, and two wax
candles on the table. The table was repeatedly tilted up at an angle,
I should say, greater than 45. The surface was smooth, polished
mahogany, yet the candles, paper, and pencil did not move.- Home
asked that the candles might slip (as they naturally would), and they
did slide down the table until near the edge, when at his request they
remained stationary."
In 1860, Robert Bell wrote in his famous article " Stranger than
Fiction," contributed to the Cornhill Magazine while Thackeray
was editor:
" Of a somewhat similar character is another movement, in some respects
more curious, and certainly opening a stranger field for speculation. The
table rears itself up on one side, until the surface forms an inclined plane,
at an angle of about 45. In this attitude it stops. According to ordinary
experience everything on the table must slide off, or topple over ; but nothing
stirs. The vase of flowers, the books, the little ornaments are as motionless
as if they were fixed in their places. We agree to take away our hands, to
throw up the ends of the cover, so as to leave the entire round pillar and
claws exposed, and to remove our chairs to a little distance, that we may have
a more complete command of a phenomenon which, in its marvellous develop-
ment at least, is, I believe, new to us all. Our withdrawal makes no
difference whatever; and now we see distinctly on all sides the precise pose
of the table, which looks like the Tower of Pisa, as if it must inevitably
3 o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
tumble over. With a view to urge the investigation as far as it can be carried,
a wish is whispered for a still more conclusive display of the power by which
this most extraordinary result has been accomplished. The desire is at once
complied with. The table leans more and more towards the perpendicular ;
two of the three claws are high above the ground ; and finally the whole
structure stands on the extreme tip of a single claw, fearfully overbalanced,
but maintaining itself as if it were all one solid mass, instead of being
freighted with a number of loose articles, and as if the position had been
planned in strict accordance with the laws of equilibrium and attraction
instead of involving an inexplicable violation of both."
The evidence of various other witnesses of this phenomenon will be
found in subsequent chapters.
Before the Brewster controversy begun, Mr. Home had left
England, and was passing the autumn of 1855 at Florence, while his
assailants and defenders were filling the columns of the Morning
Advertiser. After leaving Cox's Hotel, he had spent the summer
with the Rymer family at Baling, and the warm affection with which
these new English friends soon learnt to regard their young guest is
repeatedly, expressed in their letters subsequently written to him.
Many years later one of those pitiful creatures who invent and publish
falsehood, but forget to sign their names to them, set afloat a story
that soon went the round of the American press. It was said that
Mr. Horn* had ordered in the name of Mr. Rymer a fur-coat, value
^50, and had left his generous host to pay for it.
"A lie that is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie that is half a truth is a harder matter to fight."
And so Mr. Home found. The half-truth in this particular slander
was that a gift of ,50 had entered into his relations with the Rymer
family. But it was not the value of the apocryphal fur-coat, and so
far from having received a gift of ^50, Mr. Home had made it, under
the following circumstances:
A few years after the seances at Baling, business embarrassments
and the conduct of others involved Mr. Rymer in absolute ruin. His
being a declared Spiritualist was against him in England ; and
despairing of finding an opening at home, he went to Australia to try
his fortune there. His wife and children were longing to join him,
but had not the means. In her distress Mrs. Rymer wrote to Mr. Home,
recalling old days at Baling, and entreating him in memory of them
to aid her. This was in the autumn of 1859, and on November
ist of that year Mrs. Rymer was able to write to Mr. Home a letter
now before me. I quote only as much of it as is necessary for my
purpose :
" MY DEAR DAN, I cannot in words express my thanks for your
affectionate liberality, which enables me to follow my beloved husband
to the new country. . . . Most heartily, most sincerely do I thank
you for what you have given ; also, Dan, for your prayers and good
wishes. Believe, with affectionate greetings and many prayers, how
truly I am always, dear Dan, in this or a far-off country, your sincere
and grateful friend,
" EMMA RYMER."
ENGLAND AND ITALY 3 1
The sum that Mr. Home sent was 50. This gift of ,50 to Mrs.
Rymer is the only traceable foundation for the falsehood that he had
wronged her husband. It was but one of a thousand slanders
circulated concerning him.
During his stay at Ealing, frequent seances were held, and remark-
able manifestations occurred. It was at this time that he made the
acquaintance of Dr. Garth Wilkinson, who published in a very
interesting pamphlet, Evenings with Mr. Home and the Spirits, an
account of the phenomena he had witnessed and the striking com-
munications he had received. Dr. Wilkinson gave no names in his
pamphlet, and at the distance of thirty years it is impossible to
recover them, or I would have supplied them in the following
extract :
Dr. Wilkinson relates that he was present at the seance with Mr.
Home, where there was spelled out by touches on his knee, a message
from " an intimate friend of mine, once a Member of Parliament, and
as much before the public as any man in his generation, who died
on the 30th of June last " (1855). " I said, ' Have you any message
to your wife, whom I shall probably see in a few days? ' Again
affirmative touches, five in number, therefore calling for the alphabet.
Mr. Home now called over the alphabet, and this was spelled out:
' The Immortal Loves. ' I remember at the time thinking that this
was rather a thin message; but the next time I saw Mrs. I told
her the circumstances, and gave hex the words. Her son was sitting
with her, and said, ' That is very characteristic of my father, for it
was a favourite subject of speculation with, him whether or not the
affections survive the body ; of the immorality of the soul itself he
never doubted ; but the words, the immortal loves, show that he has
settled the problem of his life.' Such was the import which the
family of the deceased quite unexpectedly to me conferred upon the
phrase."
Lord Lytton, then Sir E. B. Lytton, was perfectly convinced of the
genuineness of the phenomena he witnessed in Mr. Home's presence,
and even of their spiritual origin, but too timid to avow his convic-
tions publicly. Mr. Home was his guest for a short time at Kneb-
worth in 1855; and several seances took place there, no record of
which is available. Home never wrote down an account of a seance,
but left it to others to speak; and when, from fear of the world
or fear of ridicule, they preferred to remain silent, he acquiesced in
their silence with the easy good-nature that characterised him. His
mission, as he understood it, was to convince people of the facts: if
they were bold and honest enough afterwards to declare what they
had witnessed, that was as it should be ; if they kept silence, it was
their affair, not his. Almost any other man in his place would have
laboured to accumulate all the names and data possible ; not perhaps
for publication in his lifetime, but at any rate that the full story of
his life might he told when he had quitted earth. Home collected
nothing, published in his two volumes of Incidents such seances
as friends chose to give him, or had already made public; and let
the memory of the rest perish, many of them more remarkable than
32 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
those given to the world. These facts explain why nothing can be
said here of the seances at Knebworth. Mr. Home kept no record
of them; and Lord Lytton, though he probably preserved one, never
published it.
In the years 1860 and 1861, Lord Lytton was again present at many
seances with Mr. Home, both at Knebworth and in London. Of
the latter I can give some details, obtained from other persons who
were present ; and shall do so in the proper place.
At Baling, Sir E. B. Lytton took part in at least one seance at the
house of the Rymers. During the lifetime of this celebrated man,
Mr. Home published in his first volume of Incidents the following
description of what occurred ; and as Lytton remained silent though;
the press at once detected his identity, and called on him either to
deny or affirm it may be presumed that the account was absolutely
correct. In a mattter of this kind to be silent was to affirm, and
that Lord Lytton could not but know.
" Whilst I was at Baling," says Mr. Home, " a distinguished
novelist, accompanied by his son, attended a seance, at which some
very remarkable manifestations occurred that were chiefly directed to
him. The rappings on the table suddenly became unusually firm
and loud. He asked, ' What spirit is present? ' The alphabet was
called over, and the response was, ' I am the spirit who influenced
you to write Z -' (Zanoni). ' Indeed,' said he, ' I wish you
would give me some tangible proof of your presence.' ' What
proof ? Will you take my hand 1 ? ' ' Yes, ' and putting his hand
beneath the surface of the table, it was immediately seized by a
powerful grasp, which made him start to his feet in evident trepida-
tion, exhibiting a momentary suspicion that a trick had been played'
upon him. Seeing, however, that all the persons around him were
sitting with their hands quietly reposing on the table, he recovered
his composure, and offering an apology for the uncontrollable excite-
ment caused by such an unexpected demonstration, he resumed his
seat."
Immediately after the above phenomenon, another equally remark-
able occurred. " We wish you to believe in the ' was spelt
out, and there the message stopped.
" In what am I to believe? " asked Lytton. " In the medium? "
"No."
" In the manifestations? "
" No."
As this second negative was returned, Sir Edward felt himself
gently touched on the knee, and on putting down his hand a cross
was placed on it, by way of finishing the sentence. The cross, which
was of cardboard, had been lying with other articles on a table at the
end of the large room in which the party were seated. Lytton,
apparently much impressed, turned to Mrs. Rymer, and asked her
permission to retain the cross as a souvenir.
" She assented, saying that its only value to her was that it had
been made by her boy, then recently deceased ; but she could have
no objection to him keeping it, if he would remember the injunction.
ENGLAND AND ITALY 33
He bowed his assent, and placing the souvenier in his breast-pocket,
carried the cross away with him " (Incidents In My Life, vol. i.).
The following undated note preserved by no process of selection,
but at random, as the mass of Mr. Home's correspondence was pre-
served or destroyed belongs evidently to this period:
" i PARK LANE, Wednesday.
" DEAR SIR, I am very anxious to see you for half an hour. It
would be very kind of you so to favour me.
" You said you would try and see if you got en rapport with me.
Has any such been established? I would come to you at Baling if
more convenient, whenever you like to appoint. Yours truly,
"E. B. LYTTON."
Perhaps none of the thousand falsehoods circulated concerning Mr.
Home has been more persistently repeated than the assertion that he
was found cheating by Mr. Robert Browning. Mr. Browning himself,
in his unpoetic effusion, " Mr. Sludge, the Medium," appeared to
lend a certain colour to the fable, or it would probably soon have died
the death natural to slanders that have not a grain of fact in their
composition. The press, on the appearance of " Mr. Sludge,"
insisted that he was meant for Home. Had this been an error, Mr
Browning, as an honourable man, would of course have written to
some leading English journal to correct it.
" It is ' a blot on the 'scutcheon,' " wrote the American authoress,
Mrs. Whitman, on the publication of Mr. Browning's prose-verse,
and a harsher term might with justice have been used of the
incoherent attack that was declared by the English journals of the
time to be directed against Mr. Home as the foremost living exponent
of Spiritualism. Flattered into an opinion of his own infallibility
by his admirers, Mr. Browning has probably long been in the habit
of considering that the truth of any proposition which he may
advance is self-evident, or he would have felt that even the angriest
poet who chooses to write as follows, should have been prepared to
back up his poetical flights, when challenged to do so, with the
plain prose of facts :
" Now don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once!
This was the first and only time, I'll swear,
Look at me, see, I kneel, the only time,
I swear, I ever cheated. . . .
" Well, sir, since you press
(How you do tease the whole thing out of me !)
Now for it, then ! . . .
" I cheated when I could,
Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work,
Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink,
Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor-match,
And all the rest "
Mr. Browning's poetic eye, in its " fine frenzy rolling," saw, in
the retirement of his study, more than the thousands of keen
inquirers who so narrowly, and in many cases so sceptically, in-
34 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
vestigated the phenomena during a period of thirty years in the
presence of Mr. Home. In all that time, no person present at a
seance with Mr. Home, sceptic or Spiritualist, ever found him
rapping with his toe- joints, or setting sham hands at work, or writing
names in sympathetic ink, or rubbing odic lights with phosphor-match,
' ' and all the rest of it. ' ' Let any reader, however stubborn bis
incredulity as to the reality of the phenomena, trv to consider calmly
what is involved in the proposition that, year after year, Mr. Home
continued to manufacture sham hands and set them to work, but that
none of the thousands of persons who both saw and touched these
hands ever detected them to be an imposture ! ! I shall speak
more fully of these spirit-hands in other chapters : here it is enough
to say that they have again and again appeared under circumstances
that made detection an absolue certainty, had they been, as some
ingenious theorists have surmised, wax casts, or stuffed gloves mani-
pulated with wires, or, in fact, anything but what they were, a
marvellous phenomenon, inexplicable by any known physical laws.
The late Robert Bell was quite as shrewd, intelligent, and honest
a man as Mr. Browning. He described in the Cornhill his experi-
ences with Mr. Home ; and his friend, Thackeray, a keen and intensely
sceptical observer, who had also witnessed various phenomena in
Home's presence, indorsed his declarations by publishing with them
the note : " As editor of this magazine, we can vouch for the good
faith and honourable character of our correspondent, a friend of
twenty-five years' standing."
Says Mr. Bell : ' ' Soon after, what seemed to be a large hand
came under the table-cover, and with the fingers clustered fa a point,
raised it between me and the table. Somewhat too eager to satisfy
my curiosity, I seized it, felt it very sensibly, but it went out like air
in my grasp. I know of no analogy in connection with the sense of
touch by which I could make the nature of that feeling intelligible.
It was as palpable as any soft substance, velvet or pulp ; and at the
touch it seemed as solid, but pressure reduced it to air."
Would that Mr. Browning had seized the hands he saw at Baling,
whose action, in placing a wreath on the brow of his wife and
omitting to crown his own, may possibly have given him deep
offence ! Had the poet been a man of large and liberal nature, he
would have forgiven the want of discernment the spirits showed
reflecting that, while all the world does homage to the genius of his
wife, the larger half of it fails to comprehend his own.
Mrs. Browning, it is well known, accepted Spiritualism as a fact.
In her Notes on England and Italy, Mrs. Hawthorne, the wife of
Nathaniel Hawthorne, writes : " Mrs. Browning introduced the
subject of spiritism, and there was an animated talk. Mr. Browning
cannot believe, and Mrs. Browning cannot help believing."
When the Browning Society has succeeded in explaining tHe other
poems of Mr. Browning to the world if it ever accomplishes that
herculean task perhaps it will be bold enough to take the poem (or
prose) of " Mr. Sludge, the Medium," in hand, and explain why
Mr. Browning had the bad taste to write it. There is nothing in
ENGLAND AND ITALY 35
the account of the single seance at which Mrs. and Mr. Browning
were present at Ealing, given by Mr. Home in his second volume of
Incidents, vouched tor by Mr. W. M. Wilkinson, and never
challenged by the poet, to explain either Mr. Browning's conduct or
his motives.
" Mr. and Mrs. Rymer and their family," writes Mr. Home, " were
present at the stance, which began by several of the ordinary manifestations.
Mr. Browning was requested to investigate everything as it occurred, and he
availed himself freely of the invitation. Several times during the evening, he
voluntarily and earnestly declared that anything like imposture was out of
the question. Previously to the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Browning, some of
the children had been gathering flowers in the garden, and Miss Rymer and
I had made a wreath of clematis. . . . During the stance this wreath was
raised from the table by supernatural power in the presence of us all, and
whilst we were watching it, Mr. Browning, who was seated at the opposite
side of the table, left his place, and came and stood behind his wife, towards
whom the wreath was being slowly carried, and upon whose head it was
placed in full sight of us all, and whilst he was standing close behind her.
He expressed no disbelief ; as, indeed, it was impossible for any one to have
any of what was passing under his eyes ; whilst Mrs. Browning was much
moved, and she, not only then but ever since, expressed her entire belief and
pleasure in what then occurred. . . . All that was done in the presence of
eight persons besides Mr. and Mrs. Browning, all of whom are still living,
and are ready to testify to the truth of every word here written, if it should be
gainsaid by Mr. Browning."
Was Mr. Browning annoyed that to him there came no crown?
All the Rymer family thought so, at least. Yet the invisible wreath-
bringers were probably only anticipating the verdict of posterity, both
in their neglect of him and in crowning his gifted wife.
At any rate, Mr. Browning subsequently elaborated a theory to
account for the manifestations ; and, forgetting that he had
' ; voluntarily and earnestly declared that anything like imposture was
out of the question," his theory, if Mrs. Hawthorne and the Notes on
England and Italy may be trusted, was that the hands were in some
way "affixed in Mr. Home's chair, with his legs stretched far under
the table." It was natural to some minds, as Sir David Brewster
had already shown, to grasp eagerly, when the first sensation of
Bonder had passed away, at any explanation of the phenomena,
however ridiculous and futile, that did not involve a belief in the
spiritual.
It would be the merest waste of time and labour to contradict one
by one the many calumnies that have been circulated concerning Mr.
Home ; and I dwell on the above incidents only because so many
fabulous versions of the single seance with Mr. and Mrs. Browning
have been circulated, both in England and America. It may be
interesting to quote here the following extract from a letter written
to Mr. Home by an old friend, a well-known English medical man, so
long after the Ealing seance in 1870:
" Since I saw you I have been in the Isle of Wight. I went to
lunch with Alfred Tennyson, and had two or three hours' talk with
him. . . . He says that if he and you and I could have a sitting
or two in daylight, or in a strong artificial light, and he convinced
himself of the facts, he should have no hesitation in proclaiming his
36 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
belief in any way. Meantime he says that he is much more inclined
to believe than to disbelieve. He had all those tales about you from
Browning, including one that you went on your knees, wept, and
confessed your imposture in a certain thing. I told him Browning
was mad about the matter, and he admitted that B's manner led him
to credit his prejudices more than his statement."
I do not know what prevented Mr. Home from gratifying Lord
Tennyson's wish to investigate, but probably the fact that in 1870
his time was much occupied and he was absent more than half the
year from England. I pass now from the subject of the calumnies
that have been invented and circulated concerning Mr. Home, with
the determination not to recur to it, but to relate simply the facts of his
life, and leave them to speak for themselves.
In the pamphlet of Dr. Garth Wilkinson, already referred to, the
doctor, like Robert Bell, relates how he, on one occasion, grasped
a spirit-hand. The result was the same as in the case of Mr. Bell.
" Every hand but my own being on the table, I distinctly felt the
fingers, up to the palm, of a hand holding the bell. It was a soft,
warm, fleshy, substantial hand, such as I should be glad to feel
at the extremity of the friendship of my best friends. But I had
no sooner gasped it momentarily than it melted away, leaving my
hand void, with the bell only in it. ... As a point of observa-
tion, I will remark that I should feel no more difficulty in swearing
that the member I felt was a human hand' of extraordinary life, and
not Mr. Home's foot, than that the nose of the Apollo Belvidere is
not a horse's ear."
In the early autumn of 1855, Mr. Home went to Florence on a
visit to the well-known writer, Mrs. Trbllope, accompanied by the
son of his Baling host, Mr. Rymer. The invitation had been given
by Mrs. Trollope during her stay at Baling ; she and her son, Mr. T.
A. Trollope, having come from Italy to London that summer expressly
to investigate the phenomena occurring in the presence of Mr. Home.
She left England convinced of their genuineness ; and Mr. T. A.
Trollope, as I have already shown, shared her certainty. As to
the theory that the manifestations might be produced by trickery,
that accomplished gentleman wrote, at a period subsequent to the
manifestations at Baling and Florence: " I may also mention that
Bosco, one of the greatest professors of legerdemain ever known, in
a conversation with me upon the subject, utterly scouted the idea of
the possibility of such phenomena as I saw produced by Mr. Home
being performed by any of the resources of his art." And in a
letter to the Athenaeum, written from Florence eight years later
(March 21, 1863), Mr. T. A. Trollope said : " I have been present
at very many ' sittings ' of Mr. Home in England, many in my own
house in Florence, some in the house of a friend in Florence. . . .
My testimony is this : I have seen and felt physical facts wholly and
utterly inexplicable, as I believe, by any known and generally
received physical laws. I unhesitatingly reject the theory which
considers such facts to be produced by means familiar to the best
professors of legerdemain."
ENGLAND AND ITALY 37
In Florence the interest aroused by the arrival of such a visitor
was even greater than in London. Society talked of nothing but his
wonderful powers ; and though some shunned him in the fear that
they were of demoniac origin, the great majority eagerly sought the
acquaintance of Mr. Home, and made every effort to be admitted to
his seances.
MT. Hiram Powers, the celebrated sculptor, writes as follows con-
cerning the seances held in Florence :
" I recollect we had many stances at my house and others, when Home
was there. I certainly saw, under circumstances where fraud, or collusion,
or prearrangement of machinery was impossible in my own house, and
among friends incapable of lending themselves to imposture very curious
things. That hand floating in the air, of which all the world has
heard, I have seen. There was nothing but moonlight in the room, it is
true ; and there is every presumption against such phenomena, under such
circumstances. But what you see, you see ; and must believe, however difficult
to account for it.
" I recollect that Mr. Home sat on my right hand ; and besides him there
were six others, round one half of a circular table, the empty half towards
the window and the moonlight.
" All our fourteen hands were on the table, when a hand, delicate and
shadowy, yet denned, appeared, dancing slowly just to the other side of the
table, and gradually creeping up higher, until, above the elbow, it terminated
in a mist. The hand slowly came nearer to Mrs. , at the right side
of the table, and seemed to pat her face. ' Could it take a fan? ' cried her
husband. Three raps responded ' Yes,' and the lady put her fan near it,
which it seemed trying to take. ' Give it the handle,' said her husband.
The wife obeyed ; and it commenced fanning her with much grace. ' Could
it fan the rest of the company ? ' some one exclaimed ; when three raps
signified assent, and the hand, passing round, fanned each of the company,
and then slowly was lost to view.
" I felt, on another occasion, a little hand it was pronounced that of a
lost child patting my cheek and arm. I took hold of it ; it was warm, and
evidently a child's hand. / did not loosen my hold, but it seemed to melt
out of my clutch."
Powers' testimony corroborates that of Robert Bell and Dr.
Wilkinson. In 1871 the experience of Mr. William Crookes, F.R.S.,
was exactly similar. I shall refer in another chapter to the
researches of Mr. Crookes ; here I content myself with citing a few
words from his narrative. The phenomena that he describes are
attested by him to have occurred in a strong light.
' I have retained one of these hands in my own," writes Mr.
Crookes, " firmly resolved not to let it escape. There was no
struggle or effort to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself
into vapour, and faded in that manner from my grasp." '
Dr. Wilkinson (of whom the Spectator said, March 14, 1863, " In
the honour of his personal character we have good reason to believe ")
grasped one of these hands in 1855, Hiram Powers in the same year,
Robert Bell in 1860, Mr. Crookes in 1871. In each of the four cases
the result was the same : there was no effort at withdrawal, but the
warm, life-like hand that had been seized melted in the grasp. Set
against these facts the contradictory declarations of Mr. Browning,
during and after the single seance he attended, and to which side
does the balance of testimony incline? If still further evidence be
1 " Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism."
38 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
asked for, let the reader turn to the narratives in subsequent chapters
of this work, and read the accounts furnished to me of these unearthly
hands by observers quite as sceptical as Browning, but more reason-
able and less prejudiced. If he wishes to balance poet against
poet, let him turn to the letter in which thfe distinguished Russian
poet, Count Alexis Tolstoy, relates how he travelled to London in
the year 1860 expressly to meet Mr. Home; how, at a seance at Mrs.
Milner Gibson's, he seized a hand that appeared and touched him,
and what was the result of this decisive method of verifying the
phenomenon.
Whatever the Italian peasant may have become since the political
redemption of Italy, he was in 1855 an extremely bigoted and
superstitious creature. At Florence in that year his fears and
passions were worked on to the prejudice of Mr. Home. He was
told perhaps by the priesthood that Home was a vile necromancer,
who administered the sacraments of the Church to toads, in order,
by spells and incantations, to raise the dead. In January, 1856,
Signor Landucci, Minister of the Interior to the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, warned Home of these reports and the excitement they had
created among the peasantry ; but he had already received a terrible
proof of the fact that his life was in danger in Florence.
The winter of 1855 was very severe there. Late one bitter night
that of the 5th of December Mr. Home was returning to his
rooms alone through the deserted streets, when, just as he reached the
house where he was staying, a man stepped from the adjoining
doorway. In the Incidents, Home describes what ensued :
" I was on the step leading to my own door, and was looking up at the
window to see if the servant was still up, when I received a violent blow on
my left side, the force of which, and the emotion caused by it, threw me
forward breathless in the corner of the doorway. The blow was again repeated
on my stomach, and then another blow on the same place ; and the attempted
assassin cried out, ' Dio mio, Dio mio ! ' and turning with his arm outstretched,
he ran. I distinctly saw the gleam of his poignard ; and as he turned, the
light of the lamp also fell full on his face, but I did not recognise
his features. I was perfectly powerless, and could not cry out or make any
alarm ; and I stood thus for at least two minutes ; after which I groped my
way along the wall to the door of a neighbour, where I was admitted. I
thought I must ha%'e received some serious injury ; but on examining myself I
found that the first blow had struck the door key, which I happened to have in
my breast pocket, immediately over the region of my heart. I wore a fur
coat, and this had chanced to be twice doubled in front. The second blow
had gone through the four folds of it, through a corner of my dress coat, my
waistcoat, and the band of my trousers, without inflicting any wound. The
third blow had penetrated the four folds of my coat, and also my trousers and
linen, and made a slight incision, which bled, but not freely."
It appears by the following letter that an accident to an
acquaintance was the cause of Mr. Home being alone on the night
in question :
" CASA SALVIATA, VIA CHIARA,
" Friday, December 7, 1855.
" MY DEAR HOME, I should have certainly have gone to see you,
were I not laid up with a sprained ankle, which prevented my
meeting you at the Colombaia on Wednesday evening, and coming
ENGLAND AND ITALY 39
home with you that evening. Perhaps there being two might have
prevented the accident which happened to you. I am delighted to
hear you came almost miraculously out of it ; and though I do not
think that I am of a revengeful nature, still I sincerely wish the
cowardly scoundrel to get what he deserves ; and, could I in any way
be of use to you, pray dispose of me. Believe me to be, dear Home,
yours very truly. " C. T. FULLER."
The attempted murderer was never arrested. Probably super-
stitious bigotry was the passion that inflamed him; though some
persons thought robbery to have been the motive of the crime;
and it was even suggested that Mr. Home might have been mistaken
for another man.
-
CHAPTER III
ITALY AND FRANCE
Temporary cessation of Home's powers. Conversion to Roman
Catholicism. Napoleon III. Return of his powers. Seance
with the Empress Eugene. Fontainebleau. Refusal of
,2,000 for a sitting. Cure of a deaf boy.
EARLY in 1856, Home, who was then suffering severely in health
from the trying winter and the shock to his sensitive temperament of
the dastardly crime from which he had so narrowly escaped, made
the acquaintance at Florence of a Polish nobleman, Count Branicka,
and of his mother, the niece of the famous Potemkin. The Count,
with his family, was about to visit Naples and Rome, and invited his
new friend to accompany him. Hardly had the invitation been
given and accepted, when Home's power left him. His conduct
under these unexpected circumstances was characteristic of the self-
respect and delicacy of his nature, and met with a worthy response
from Count Branica.
" The spirits," writes Mr. Home in the Incidents, "told me that
my power would leave me for a year. This was on the evening
of the loth of February, 1856. Feeling that the Count and his
family must have felt an interest in me arising only from the
singular phenomena which they had witnessed in my presence, and
that this cause being removed, their interest in me would have
diminished, I wrote the following morning to inform them of what
I was told, and to say that I could no longer entertain the idea of
joining them. They at once told me that it was for myself, even
more than for the strange gift I possessed, that they had become
interested in me. I went to them; and in a day or two we left
Florence for Naples."
Either there or previously at Florence, Mr. Home made the
acquaintance of Prince Luigi, the brother of the King of Naples, who
presented to him one of the numerous souvenirs that he was destined
to receive from royal personages, in token of their esteem and
friendship. It was a ring set with a ruby shaped in the form of a
horseshoe; and his Highness at the same time had a second ring
exactly similar wrought for himself, and always wore it. The ruby
is a brittle gem ; and it was so difficult to shape two horseshoes from
it, that, before the Prince's orders could be carried out, seven stones
were broken.
These presents from crowned heads and members of royal families
had no other value in Home's eyes than the memories attached to
them. They were marks of gratitude and esteem; and as such he
cherished them, preferring, in the moments of his greatest poverty,
to support any hardships rather than part with a single stone. It
is a mistake to suppose that these jewels were an indirect recompense
40
ITALY AND FRANCE 41
for seances. He never accepted recompense for a seance, direct or
indirect. The three most valuable rings that Home possessed were
presented to him by the Emperor Alexander II. ; and in each case
the circumstances under which the gift was made rendered it doubly
precious. One ring was the wedding-gift sent by the Czar in 1858,
at the time of Home's first marriage. The following year, on the
birth of a son, his Majesty presented an emerald set with diamonds ;
and thirteen years later, in 1871, the Emperor, on the occasion of our
marriage, sent to Mr Home a ring set with a sapphire of great size,
surrounded with diamonds. The sapphire Home retained in the
ring ; the diamonds he caused to be set in an exquisite ornament of his
own design, and presented this to me as a marriage gift.
Nothing could have been more gracious and delicate than the Czar's
behaviour to Home on every occasion when the latter was his Majesty's
guest. I relate in another chapter an incident connected with Mr.
Home's presentation to the Emperor of Russia in 1858, which not
only does honour to both the Czar and himself, but would alone
explain why Home always remembered Alexander II. with peculiar
esteem and gratitude, and received with the profoundest grief and
horror the news of the hideous crime that in 1881 deprived Russia of
her beloved sovereign.
Naples, so beautiful to look on and so unpleasant to live in, was
Home's residence for six weeks in the early spring of 1856. In
addition to Prince Luigi, he became intimate with the Hon. Robert
Dale Owen, American Minister at the Neapolitan Court ; tor whom
he had a letter of introduction from Owen's father, whose life was
consumed in the heroic attempt to prove that in England Socialism
is possible. The elder Robert Owen, then almost a dying man, had
been staying at Cox's Hotel when Home was there; and in his letter
to his son he speaks very warmly of the kind attentions his young
acquaintance had shown him.
I have not Mr. Dale Owen's work, Footfalls, before me, and
cannot say with certainty whether the manifestations he describes
himself as having witnessed in Mr. Home's presence occurred in
1856, or two years later, when Home returned to Italy. More
than probably the latter, as his power had quitted him at the time
of the earlier visit ; though it may be remarked that there were a few
detached phenomena during the twelvemonth of its absence, notably
the " Gregoire " manifestation that summer at Paris, which Home
recorded in the Incidents, but mistakenly gave the date as 1857.
From Naples, the Branica family and their guest went to Rome,
where the Catholic influences that surrounded him exerted themselves
constantly and effectively to turn his thoughts towards seeking refuge
in the Church. They were aided by the cruel experiences he had
recently suffered. The falsehood of friends to whom he was much
attached had wounded him keenly, the occurrences that closed his
stay at Florence had profoundly saddened him ; and while these
clouds darkened the natural sunshine of his spirit a veil had been
suddenly dropped between him and the world beyond, and all counsel
and comfort from it was withdrawn. In this gloomy moment,
D
42 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Catholic advisers suggested to him that the peace of mind he longed
for might perhaps be found in the Church of Rome, and he sought
and read with intense eagerness works relating to her doctrines.
Finding them expressive of so many facts coincident with my own
experiences," he writes, " I thought that all contending and con-
tradictory beliefs would be for ever set at rest, could I but be received
as a member of that body. My experiences of life and its falsity
had already left so indelible a mark on my soul, from my recent
experiences of it at Florence, that I wished to shun everything which
pertained to this world, and I determined to enter a monastery.
After two or three weeks of seriousi deliberation on the part of the
authorities, it was decided that I should be received as a member of
the Church, and I was confirmed."
Pius IX. gave an audience to the young convert, and received him
wiin the most benign favour. An English prelate, Monsignore Talbot,
accompanied Home to the Vatican. " The Pope questioned me
much regarding my past life," writes the neophyte. " He pointed
to a crucifix which' stood near to us, and said : ' My child it is
upon what is on that table that we place our faith. ' '
There was nothing said of demoniacal possession. Possibly, in
welcoming her new son, the Church had hopes that she might one day
canonise in him a worker of miracles.
It was Monsignore Talbot to whose counsels Home had chiefly
recourse in this important moment of his life; and I find among his
papers a letter from that prelate, dated on the eve of his confirmation,
and giving directions to him concerning it.
Not only did Pius IX. favour Mr. Home with an audience, and
converse with him in the most benignant manner, but he subsequently
sent him his special blessing, guaranteeing to Home and to his
relatives an entry into Paradise. Home preserved this interesting
document, and it is now in my possession.
Whom the king smiles on, courtiers smile on ; and the gracious
bearing of the Pope was imitated by all the hierarchy of Rome,
from cardinals downwards. The path that led the young convert
up to the monastery gates was strewed with roses, and, amidst the
applause and encouragement of all round him, he might have finally
seen those gates close on him, but that
But that the nearer he drew to the monastic life the less that life
allured him, and the stronger became his misgivings. He had hoped
to find peace in it ; but his hopes soon changed to fears that peace
very rarely inhabits the cell of the monk. Did not Christ set the
example of living in the midst of the world ? and is not the task of
following that example less agreeable and more difficult? Convinced
that to shut himself in a monastic cell would be a fatal error, he drew
back and refused to enter. This determination was no- sooner
arrived at than he quitted Italy ; and in company with the Branica
family, betook himself to Paris, in June, 1856.
Although Home had renounced his purpose of entering a monastery,
the Pope's interest in him did not cease. Perhaps his Holiness
hoped that he might yet be persuaded to take the vows ; what is
ITALY AND FRANCE 43
certain is that, before Home left Rome for Paris, Pius IX. had per-
sonally counselled him -to select for his confessor there one of the
most excellent and eloquent of French priests, the celebrated Pere
de Ravignan. In him Home found a kind friend, whose lofty piety
delighted him and in whose society he took great pleasure. There
was but one point on which he and the good Father differed. It
had been foretold to Home when his power left him, that it would
return exactly a twelvemonth later, on the loth of February, 1857,
and he was convinced that the promise would be kept ; but when he
said so to Pere de Ravignan, the priest always confidently replied :
" Have no fear of that, my child so long as you go on as you are
now doing, observing carefully all the precepts of our holy Church,
they will not be allowed to return."
During the winter Home again fell ill; and Dr. Louis, one
of the most celebrated physicians in France for consumptive cases,
decided on auscultation that the left lung was diseased, and advised
a more genial climate. His patient was without the means of acting
on his advice, and remained in Paris, where for some time he was
confined to his bed.
" On the night of the loth of February, 1857," he writes, " as
the clock struck twelve, I was in bed, to which I had been confined ;
when there came loud rappings in my room, a hand was placed gently
upon my brow, and a voice said, ' Be of good cheer, Daniel ; you
will soon be well.' But a few minutes had elapsed before I sank
into a quiet sleep, and I awakened in the morning feeling more
refreshed than I had done for a long time. I wrote to the Pere de
Ravignan, telling him what had occurred ; and the same afternoon
he came to see me. During the conservation, loud rappings were
heard on the ceiling and on the floor ; and, as he was about to give
me his benediction before leaving, loud raps came on the bedstead.
He left me without expressing any opinion whatever on the subject
of the phenomena."
The predicted return of Home's power on the loth of February,
1857, was known at the French Court; and the following day the
Marquis de Belmont, chamberlain of the Emperor, presented himself
to inquire if he had regained it. An Imperial invitation to the
Tuileries followed ; and he was presented to the Emperor and
Empress. This was on the i3th of February; and certain
personages of the Court were selected by their Majesties to be
present at a seance held the same evening.
No account was published of this or any seance at the Tuileries ;
but a few of the particulars became known in the Parisian world ;
and as they passed from lip to lip a thousand fabulous details were
added, until, in the imagination of French society, Home assumed
the proportions of a necromancer with a host of familiar spirits at his
command, over whom he exercised the authority of a Manfred or a
Faust. It was in vain for him to make known again and again,
in the most emphatic terms, the fact that he was nothing but the
instrument of the phenomena, and had never pretended to evoke
spirits or exercise any influence over them ; the world of Paris would
44 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
have its way; and in the journals and caricatures of 1857, Home,
who was perfectly unable to say at the commencement of a seance
whether there would be manifestations or not, figures always as the
imperious summoner of a legion of familiars, who are his very humble
servants. Now he is evoking Caesar in a Parisian salon, and startled
society looks on while he sets the august shade to brush his boots;
in another caricature he directs with a wave of his magic wand the
operations of a number of detached hands that act as barbers and
hairdressers to the company. In a third, the wizard is packing to
quit Paris. A number of little imps stand meekly around, waiting
their turn to be popped into the box where their fellows are already
imprisoned ; but the master goblin of the party, a fiend with the most
imposing of tails and horns, is on his knees before the magician,
begging for a longer stay. ' ' Ah, my dear master, ' ' remonstrates the
poor demon, " If you would but consider how much I like Paris,
and how perfectly the society suits me here ? ' '
The pictures that caricaturists drew in sport presented themselves
to the imagination of the excellent Pere de Ravignan in grim earnest.
In his eyes the spirits were demons, and he who communed with them
was a lost soul. Again and again he had assured Home that these evil
beings would not be permitted to return to him; that the spirits
must perforce keep their distance now he was a son of the Roman
Church and specially blessed by the Pope. The night of February
loth falsified his prediction ; but in spite of this proof that the
invisibles actually could approach a son of thJe Church, though
specially fortified by the Papal blessing, Pere de Ravignan clung
stubbornly to the belief that the forces at work were those of evil.
The morning after the first visit to the Tuileries, Home called on him
to tell him of the seance there.
" He expressed great dissatisfaction at my being the subject of
such visitations ; and said that he would not give me absolution unless
I should at once return to my room, shut myself up there, and not
listen to any rappings, or pay the slightest attention to whatever
phenomena might occur in my presence. ' '
Home attempted to reason with his confessor. He represented
that the strain on his nervous system of the solitary confinement pre-
scribed to him would be too great for endurance. As for paying no
attention to the phenomena
" How can I help it? " said Home. "If I were to strike on
this table with my hand, could you avoid hearing ?
" Yes," said the Father, stubbornly faithful to the traditions of his
order : " I only hear when I wish to hear, and see when I wish to
see."
" But, my Father, if you would listen to reason "
" You have no right to reason with me," replied the priest. " Do
as I bid you, or bear the consequences."
" I left him," writes Home, " in great distress of mind. On reaching my
room, I found there a very dear and valued friend, the Count de K "
(de Komar). " He observed my agitation, and questioned me as to the cause.
I told him all, and he said, ' There is but one thing to do ; come home with
ITALY AND FRANCE 45
me, and we will send for the Abbe" de C , and consult him." '
(Abbe Deguery of the Madeleine ; murdered by the Communists in 1871.)
" The Abbe came; and, after hearing my story, he said, ' That they might
as well put me in my grave alive as to try to carry out what had been ordered ;'
adding, ' I would like very much to witness some of these wonderful things.'
Most fortunately my emotion had not destroyed the power, as is usually the
case when I am agitated, for while we were together several interesting
phenomena occurred. His words were : ' Let this power be what it will, it
is in no way of your making.' He recommended me to seek another spiritual
adviser, and added, ' I myself would gladly be your adviser, but, as it would
be known, I should only be persecuted.' He gave me the name of one of the
most eloquent preachers of the day, and I introduced myself to him, and
remained under his guidance during the few weeks of my stay in Paris,
previous to my going to America to bring back my sister."
There was great curiosity in Paris to find out Mr. Home's new
confessor. " The Countess L -" (Lubinski), he writes, " having
heard that he was a distinguished man, called upon several of the
most noted in Paris ; and after a short conversation, she abruptly
said to each, ' So you are Mr. Home's confessor.' Most naturally,
on one such occasion she chanced to find the right one, and his look
of surprise betrayed him."
" M. Deguery," said Mr. Home in a letter published many years
afterwards, " was ever a very kind friend to me, and he did not
believe the manifestations to come from an evil source." As for
Pere de Ravignan, Home always cherished an affectionate memory of
him ; and that the good father had felt a more than common interest
in Home, is sufficiently shown by his letters written before the return
of the power caused the rupture of their relations. The following
was one of the last that Home received from him :
" MON BEIN CHER ENFANT, Etes-vous malade ? Faites-le moi
savoir. J'irai pres de vous; cai il y a trop longtemps que je ne
vous ai vu. . . . Vous sa vez que je vous aime tendrement en
N. S. X. DE RAVIGNAN, S. J.
" PARIS, 28 Janvier, 1857."
Six weeks after the return of hig power, Home sailed for
America. Of the seances that he had held in the interval, several
were at the Tuileries ; and though no details of these had been made
public, a thousand partially or wholly untrue narratives circulated
in Parisian society. Here is the true description of the first
seance.
Although Home sometimes sat with as few as one or two, or as
many as twelve or fourteen people present, his preference was to fix
the number of sitters at seven or eight, both to prevent confusion,
and because he had found that the manifestations were of more
frequent occurrence with a moderate-sized circle. On his first visit
to the Tuileries, he informed their French Majesties that he should
be able to admit to the seance eight persons at the most. The
Empress was very vexed at this, having intended to bring her whole
suite to the table with her ; and declared that if Mr. Home persisted
in his intention she should refuse to be present. Knowing that
46 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
the presence of so many sitters would probably spoil the seance,
Home could only express his profound regret that it was impossible for
him to accept the conditions her Majesty insisted on. The Empress
adhered to her resolve, and withdrew in displeasure; but the
Emperor remained.
" I consent to your proposition, Mr. Home," said Napoleon. " Is
there any other condition that you wish to be observed ? ' '
" None, Sire," said Home, " and with your permission we will
take our places at any table that your Majesty may indicate. I
promise nothing, for I have no power over the manifestations; but
should any occur, the first party of sitters may be replaced whenever
your Majesty chooses by an equal number of other persons. I make
this suggestion to prove my great desire to comply as far as possible
with the wish of the Empress, although it is always a pity to
interrupt a good seance.' 11
Five personages of the Court were selected by the Emperor, and
with his Majesty and Home took their places at the table, which,
although large and massive, soon began to vibrate and tremble
under the hands placed on it, then to move, and presently to be lifted
from the ground. At last came raps 1 on the table, and on the
alphabet being called over, responses were given, not only to the
spoken queries of the Emperor, but to questions he put mentally.
Napoleon followed every manifestation with keen and sceptical
attention, and satisfied himself by the closest scrutiny that neither
deception nor delusion was possible. The replies to the Emperor's
unspoken thoughts completed the impression made on him; and it
was with a marked affability that he now addressed himself to Mr.
Home, saying :
" I should very much like the Empress to see something of this.
Will you consent to my going myself to seek her? "
" Certainly, Sire," said Home; " and if you desire, we will
change the circle."
" No, no," said the Emperor, " I am much too anxious to see
all that is possible of the manifestations, and will follow your
counsels in every particular."
With fhese words Napoleon rose, and went to seek the Empress,
who accompanied him on his return ; but in taking her place in the
circle, her Majesty said to Home, with a half -annoyed air, " I am
only here on condition that next time all my party shall be present
too; (toute ma clique y sera)." The manifestations were not long in
recommencing ; and Home once more desired the Emperor to investi-
gate as closely as his Majesty pleased. Napoleon, extremely
sceptical by nature, readily complied ; looking under the table him-
self when raps came on it, and watching Home with the keenest
scrutiny.
The Empress, in her turn, received through the rappings a reply to
her unspoken thought; and presently feeling her robe pulled, started,
and uttered a slight cry. Mr. Home sought to calm her agitation ;
and at his request she consented to place her hand below the table,
Home saying, " If a hand takes that of your Majesty, I am confident
ITALY AND FRANCE 47
that the touch will cause you no alarm." The Emperor and the
other sitters looked on ; Home's hands resting on the table. Immedi-
ately the look of the Empress took an expression of joy, but at the
same time tears trembled in her eyes. When the Emperor asked the
cause, she replied, " I felt the hand of my father in mine."
" How could you distinguish it? " asked the Emperor, incredulous.
" I would distinguish it among a thousand," answered the
Empress, " from a defect in one of the fingers just as it was in
life. As it lay in mine, I satisfied myself of this defect." The
Emperor, in his turn, was touched by the hand, and verified the
fact of the defect referred to by the Empress.
When the seance ended, her Majesty, still much moved, held out
her hand to Home. " You will never again have reason to complain
of me," she said ; " and from this moment there shall only be present
the number of sitters you prefer, and always the same persons."
Mr. Home quitted the Tuileries, leaving on the mind of the
Empress an impression very different from that which he had pro-
duced before the seance.
Four personages of the Court were selected by their Majesties
to be present at the second seance ; the Duchess de Bassano and the
Duchess de Montebello, with Count Tascher de la Pagerie and the
Marquis de Belmont, Chamberlains of the Emperor. The evidences
of the presence of an invisible but not the less real power caused
a lively emotion to those who took part in the seance. The table
rose to a height of several feet ; then, to the astonishment of the
beholders, descended gently and settled in its place again, light as a
feather falling to the ground. An unseen force shook the apartment,
till the crystal pendants of the lustre suspended in the middle rattled
loudly against each other. A bell placed on the table was lifted
by invisible hands and carried some distance ; and a handkerchief
that the Empress held in her hand was softly taken from her bjy
invisible means and seen to rise and float in the air.
While the hands of all present rested on the table, other hands
appeared. One of these, the small hand of a child, approached the
Duchess de Montebello, who started back from it. The Empress
was seated next to her. No longer susceptible of similar terror since
she had held in hers the hand she recognised, she cried, " For my
part, I am not afraid ! (Moi, je n'ai pas peur !);" and caught the
little hand in hers, where she felt it gradually melt back into air.
At this second seance at the Tuileries, the phenomenon of a massive
table becoming light or heavy at desire exhibited itself in a marked
degree, and greatly interested the Emperor, who assured himself of
the fact by repeated trials, one moment easily moving the table with
a couple of fingers, and the next, on the expression of his wish that
it should become heavy; trying in vain to stir it with his whole
strength. As this is one of the phenomena that have been attributed
to delusion, it may be well to refer here to the experiments of Mr.
Crookes.
" I had seen on five separate occasions," he writes, " objects varying in
weight from 25 to 100 Ibs. temporarily influenced in such a manner that I
48 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
and others present could with difficulty lift them from the floor. Wishing to
ascertain whether this was a physical fact, or merely due to a variation in the
power of our own strength under the influence of imagination, I tested with
a weighing machine the phenomenon on two subsequent occasions when I
had an opportunity of meeting Mr. Home at the house of a friend. On the
first occasion, the increase of weight was from 8 Ibs., normally, to 36 Ibs.,
48 Ibs^, and 46 Ibs., in three successive experiments tried under strict scrutiny.
On the second occasion, tried about a fortnight after, in the presence of
other observers, I found the increase of weight to be from 8 Ibs. to 23 Ibs.,
43 Ibs., and 27 Ibs., in three successive trials, varying the conditions."
(Quarterly Journal of Science, October 1871.)
In the Salon Louis Quinze, at one of the Tuileries seances (I believe,
the third), the hand of a man appeared above the table, on which a
sheet of paper and a pencil were lying, placed there that any com-
munications received might be written down. The hand moved
across the table, lifted the pencil, and wrote on the paper the single
word, " Napoleon." The writing was the autograph of the Emperor
Napoleon I. ; the hand small and beautifully formed, as his is
recorded to have been.
The Empress, moved by the sight of this hand, requested per-
mission to kiss it ; and it placed itself to her lips, then to the lips of
the Emperor. The hand was distinctly seen ; this seance, like all
others at the Tuileries, being held in a good light.
In accordance with the promise of the Empress to Home, the
same persons were usually present at each seance ; but occasionally
one or two of the number were changed. I am not sure, however,
that the four personages selected to be present at the Imperial seances,
whom I Rave already named, were varied in any way until after the
return of Home from America. After (or before) that short absence
of Mr. Home, the Duchess of Hamilton wasi present at seances, as
was also Prince Murat, of whom I have an anecdote to relate,
interesting in view of the assertion sometimes made that Napoleon
III. remained always sceptical concerning the manifestations.
Some years after the seances at the Tuileries, Home was in
London ; and there was a seance one evening at the house of Lady
Dunsany. Mrs. A. Senior, sister-in-law of the late Nassau Senior,
was present, and a witness, after the seance, of the following
occurrence, which I leave her to relate.
" Just as we were seated round the supper tray," writes Mrs. Senior, " a
loud ring sounded from the door bell ; and a servant came to say that two
gentlemen were in the hall asking for Mr. Home, who immediately stood up
and begged Lady Dunsany's permission to go down to them, when she most
kindly said: ' Pray bring them up: any friends of yours will be welcome.'
He quickly returned, introducing Prince Murat and Lord Adare (now Lord
Dunraven). They had called hoping to catch Mr. Home at the end of his
seance. After some very agreeable chit-chat, Prince Murat asked Mr. Home
whether he remembered the first evening he met him at the Tuileries, and
how very ill he had behaved, going under the table and laying hold of his feet,
and declaring" that he would ' find out his tricks.' ' Was I not a saucy dog? '
he said, to which Mr. Home laughingly agreed ; and we were all much amused
by the Prince's lively tale, which ended by his saying, turning to Mr. Home,
' When you left the room, the Emperor leant forward, with his arms on th-j
table, and said, in the most impressive manner : " Whoever says that Home
is a charlatan is a liar." ' This we felt was information from the fountain-
head."
ITALY AND FRANCE 49
" They say, Sire, you believe in these things," said the Duke de
Morny to the Emperor one day, when the talk was of the seances
with Home.
' Whoever has said so is much deceived," replied Napoleon III.
" I was sure of it, Sire," said the Duke delighted; " and felt it
my duty to contradict the report."
" Quite right," said the Emperor; " but you may add, when you
speak on the subject again, that there is a difference between believing
a thing and having proof of it, and that I am certain of what I have
seen."
I have mentioned that the Duchess de Bassano was one of the four
personages of the Court selected by their Majesties to assist habitually
at the Tuileries seances. The Duchess arrived one evening,
wearing on her fingers rings that had been blessed at Rome, and
having divers other consecrated objects attached to her bracelets.
Curious to see what would happen, she said nothing of these saintly
influences ; but took her place as usual in the circle. Her new
fashion of jewellery made no difference ; or, if any, it seemed to
encourage the manifestations ; for the seance was very successful.
The Duchess, astonished, demanded of the spirits if the neighbour-
hood of these consecrated objects was not disagreeable to them. " Not
in the least," was the reply; and as a proof of the fact several mani-
festations were addressed to her personally.
An empty chair, at this seance, was seen to advance slowly from
the end of the apartment, and to stop before the seat of the
Empress. She made a gesture of surprise ; and the chair recoiled to
a little distance ; then, as it halted, a motion was communicated to it
that made it sway backward and forward. The Empress, as she
watched the movement, recollected that it had been a habit with her
father to balance himself thus in his chair ; and inquired of Home,
if he, the seer, could perceive any figure in the apparently empty
chair before her.
" Yes," he replied, " it is that of a soldier."
" Give me a description of him," demanded the Empress.
Home obeyed, and drew the portrait of her Majesty's father, whom
he had not known, and of whom there existed but a single portrait,
which the Empress, in whose possession it was, knew that Home
had never seen.
The departure of Home from Paris in March, 1857, astonished the
Parisian world; and the press was at once filled with absurd and
scandalous stories, to some of which I have referred in another
chapter. In one thing the authors of these different falsehoods were
agreed : Mr. Home's departure was compulsory, and he would never
be seen in France again. In the meantime the subject of these
calumnies was crossing the Atlantic, his sole errand being to bring to
France his young sister, whom the Empress had offered to take under
her protection and educate at her expense. As solicitous for the
welfare of those whom he loved as he was negligent of his own,
Home had accepted with much gratitude the kind and gracious pro-
posal by which her Majesty proved how deep was the interest she
felt in him.
5 o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
The day before he sailed a wonderful case of healing occurred
through his means, of which particulars are given in the Incidents,
vol. i. Supplying the names of the witnesses, which' Mr. Home
indicated only by initials, I reprint the circumstances here.
" On the igth of March, 1857, when I was residing at 13 Rue des Champs
Elysees, I received a letter from a stranger to me, Madame A. de Cardonne,
of 233 Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain, stating that she had had a dream,
in which she had seen her own mother and mine, and that the latter had
told her to seek me at once, in order that her son, who had been deaf for four
years from the effects of typhoid fever, might be cured. This was so strongly
impressed upon her mind, that she wrote to me to say that she would call upon
me with her son, the following morning at ten.
" Accordingly, the next morning she presented herself with her son at my
rooms, there being present the Princess de B " (Princess de Beauveau),
" and Miss E " (Miss Ellice), " who were with me previous to my leaving
Paris that very day, to proceed on my voyage to America. I had been so
overwhelmed by persons wishing to see me that I had uniformly refused such
visits ; but on this occasion I had been so much pre-occupied by my engagements
in preparing for my voyage, that I had not been able to acknowledge her
letter. I therefore received her with considerable embarrassment, which was
fully reciprocated on her part. It was indeed an embarrassing meeting for
both of us, the mother yearning for her son's recovery, and I not knowing
how I was expected to be instrumental in healing this long total deafness, the
more so that operations had been performed on the boy, as I afterwards found,
by eminent surgeons of Paris, who had said that it was impossible he should
ever be restored to hearing.
She sat down on a chair near a sofa, I taking a seat on the sofa and
beckoning the son to be seated on my left. He was in his fifteenth year,
tall for his age, of a delicate complexion, with large dreamy blue eyes that
looked as if they would supply the place of hearing with their' deep, thoughtful
inquiring gaze. The mother began her description of the boy's illness,
commencing with the attack of the fever, and ending in the entire loss of
hearing. During the recital, told with all the warmth and tenderness of a
mother's heart, and describing the various surgical operations to which he had
been subjected, my sympathies were deeply moved, and I had unwittingly
thrown my left arm about the boy and drawn him towards me, so that the
boy's head rested upon my shoulder. Whilst in this position, and as Madame
de Cardonne was telling some of the most painful particulars, I passed my
band caressingly over the boy's head, upon which he, partly lifting his head,
suddenly exclaimed in a voice trembling with emotion, ' Maman, je t'entends!'
(Mamma, I hear you !) The mother fixed on him a look of astonishment, and
said, ' Emile!' (the boy's name); and he at once replied, ' Quoi? ' (What?).
She then, seeing that the child had heard her question, fainted with emotion ;
and on her recovery the scene was a most thrilling one the poor mother ask-
ing continually questions for the mere pleasure of hearing her child reply.
The boy was able to resume his studies, and has continued to hear perfectly
up to the present time " (1863.)
It was characteristic of Home that, as soon as Madame de
Cardonne had left him, he quietly finished his preparations and
started for America, without troubling himself in the least to make
public the particulars of this wonderful cure, or to obtain the
attestations of the mother and the witnesses. It was not till his
return from America with his sister that Madame de Cardonne could
write to him the grateful letter from which I extract the following
passages :
ITALY AND FRANCE 51
" May 3Ofh, 1857.
" Let me add myself to the number of those who love you, and
who welcome your return.
'' Messenger of Divine Providence! I bless you, for you have
wrought a miracle for my son. I have inspired in all around me a
sentiment of veneration for you, whose mission enlarges from hour to
hour (grandit d'heure en heure)."
Madame de Cardonne then asks permission to introduce to Mr.
Home her friend M. Sardou a name that has since become well
known in France. I find among Home's papers a letter from Sardou,
of nearly the same date as that of Madame de Cardonne, and
expressing a hope that Home will name a day for the writer to
call on him. It may be presumed, therefore, that the celebrated
dramatist, among other persons, is able to testify to the fact that
neither Madame de Cardonne nor the strange and sudden restoration
of her son's hearing is a myth.
The mother's letter ends : " My son joins himself to me in
offering you his tenderest regards. The kind caresses you bestowed
on my poor child have resulted in so much good to me that the sweet
memory of them will never leave me."
Again, on June lyth, 1857, she wrote:
" DEAR, VERY DEAR MR. HOME. My son, who never ceases to
bless you, begs me every day to take him to see you. He is so
happy to have recovered his hearing that' he cannot rest till he
expresses to you his gratitude. Will you be able to receive me
to-morrow, Thursday, between 10 and n? .
" I renew to you, my very dear sir, the assurance of a devotion
that I shall carry with me to the grave.
" A MAUVOISIN DE CARDONNE."
During Mr. Home's absence from France, Madame de Cardonne,
the Princess de Beauveau, and Miss Ellice had all spoken to their
friends of the miraculous cure ; and the history was soon well known
in Paris and eagerly discussed there. Many doubted, others
credited ; numbers carried their enthusiasm so far as to visit the
house in the Rue des Champs Elysees, and entreat to see the
chamber where the wonderful event had taken place. Some of
these persons wrote to Home in a manner that was, of the many
misconceptions concerning his mission, the most vexatious and intoler-
able to him. They addressed him in a language of worship, and
exalted him to the height of a supernatural being. Home carried
his repugnance to all such adulation, and his wish to be regarded as
merely the instrument of the manifestations, to such a length that,
after his seances, he was accustomed to reject even a simple expression
of thanks from the persons present. " How can we thank you
enough, Mr. Home, for the opportunity of witnessing such wonder-
ful things ! " was a frequent cry; and the invariable response was,
" You will have thanked me sufficiently in not thanking me at all."
52 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Neither angel, demon, nor charlatan, he wished it to be clearly
understood that, apart from his extraordinary gift, he was a man
like other men.
The restoration of hearing to the son of Madame de Cardonne was
not the only extraordinary cure performed in France through the
instrumentality of Mr. Home. I have selected it as one of the best
known and best accredited instances of healing ; but among his
correspondence are preserved letters that testify to other cures
wrought through him. Of similar manifestations in America and
England, I have given details under the date of their occurrence.
When Home returned from America with his sister, the Empress
graciously redeemed her promise by placing Christine Home in the
celebrated convent of the Sacred Heart, where the daughters of the
noblest families of France were educated. The Court was then
at Fontainebleau ; and Home was speedily summoned there, as a
royal visitor had delayed his departure expressly that he might have
the opportunity of seeing something of the phenomena on Home's
return. This was the old King of Bavaria, predecessor of the
sovereign whose melancholy fate is fresh in the recollection of the
world. The seance was a successful one ; and the Bavarian monarch,
being new to the manifestations, was not only interested but startled
by them; and overwhelmed Home with questions, much to the
amusement of their French Majesties.
As various of the manifestations at Fontainebleau were of the
same description as those witnessed at the Tuileries, I pass over
them. A striking incident of the evening was the following :
An accordion was brought to Home that one of the Court servants
had been sent to buy in the first shop in Fontainebleau. It was
perfectly new, and Home had not even seen it before the seance.
He held it in one hand, and it played; then Home withdrew his
hand, and the instrument, without mortal fingers touching it,
executed a charming air, which voices were distinctly h|eard
accompanying. All present listened spell-bound ; and little by little
these aerial voices seemed to recede into the distance, and
were heard more faintly, till, as the music ceased, they died away,
too, like an echo.
The next day was a Sunday. There was no seance in the morning,
but in the midst of a conversation raps were heard. One of the
ladies of the Court touched in succession the letters of a written
alphabet, while another wrote down the letters the raps indicated.
In this way the message " etlam " was received, a word incompre-
hensible to all present. The rappings began again, and added the
letters " es "/ but etlames was as unintelligible as the first communi-
cation. A third time raps were heard, and gave the key to the
enigma by the addition of the letters " se," " Et la messe ?
was the hour for attending mass; but every one had forgotten the
fact, until reminded of their religious duties by some invisible who
perhaps wished to remove the fear always lurking in some minds that
the phenomena were the work of the Evil One.
The same afternoon, there was an excursion on the lake at
ITALY AND FRANCE 53
Fontainebleau. Their Imperial Majesties had the King of Bavaria
with them in their boat, and invited Home to be the fourth in the
party. Arriving at a little isle on which there was a kiosk, the
three crowned heads and Home landed. There was no thought of a
seance; but as they entered the kiosk raps sounded loudly; and on
the alphabet being called over, a communication was addressed to
the Empress.
Such were a few of the manifestations witnessed at the Tuileries
and Fontainebleau. I have omitted various details, where the
phenomena resembled those already described; and undoubtedly
much occurred in the presence of the Emperor and Empress of the
French of which I have no knowledge, and therefore cannot record.
Home returned from Fontainbleau to Paris in the Imperial train,
and in the same carriage with their Majesties. During the journey
various phenomena were witnessed ; and their unexpected occurrence
greatly startled the King of Bavaria, who fairly fled from one
moving object when he saw it advance towards him in broad daylight,
untouched.
Home now remained in Paris till July, 1857, and held many
seances. He was in great power at this time ; and extraordinary
manifestations were witnessed, not only in fashionable salons, but
by sitters of every class in life. Had he complied with half of
the requests pressed on him for seances in Paris in the summer of
1857, and on his return there the winter following, he would have
needed to sit for the whole of the twenty-four hours, and change
the sitters every hour. Had he allowed himself to be tempted by
the demon of cupidity into selling a gift which was beyond price,
he could have rapidly piled up a splendid fortune always suppos-
ing that his power had not abandoned him the moment he began to
traffic in it. Again and again large sums were offered to him for
seances by persons whose eager curiosity his refusal to sit had
disappointed, and they were invariably offered in vain. I will
cite but a single instance.
There was in Paris a society of certain of the jeunesse doree,
called the Union Club, among whose members there had been much
talk of Home and his seances. It was known that he had
repeatedly refused large offers of money ; but the club probably
thought, like the English Sir Robert Walpole, that every man has
his price, and if Home had not yet been tempted, it was because his
was an exorbitant one. They talked the matter over, and deter-
mined to bid high. Home was offered 50,000 francs for a single
seance, and astonished the club by returning a prompt and decided
refusal
These facts were made known to the De Komar family, whose
guest Home was at the time, by the younger of the two Counts de
Komar, who happened to be a member of the Union Club. Friends
of Count Branicka, with whom Home came to Paris in 1856, the De
Komars speedily became the most prized and intimate of all his
friends in France. There were two brothers, Alexander and
Waldimir, the former much the elder of the two; and with them
54 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
and their sisters, the Princess de Beauveau and the Countess Potocka,
Home had many remarkable seances.
Long afterwards, Mr. Home happened to meet one evening in
society the son-in-law of Count Alexander de Komar, who recalled to
him the offer in Paris of ^2,000 for a seance, and the surprise of
the bidders when their proposal was rejected as an insult. Home
at once took out a pencil, and sought a sheet of paper. " I have
told that story, my dear Bodisl.a," he said, " and have had it treated
as a fable put down your attestation of the fact on the spot. As
justice is very seldom done to me, and the falsehood is constantly
repeated that I am paid for my] seances, it will probably be said
of me, when I leave th'is world, that I accepted the 50,000 francs
offered me for this seance or perhaps even double the amount."
Bodiska complied ; and added other incidents concerning Home that
came within his knowledge. I have the paper before me at this
moment, and will give it in the English of the writer, who was son
of the Russian consul at New York :
" I first met Mr. D. Dunglas Home at the Hotel de Vouillemont,
Paris, where my father-in-law, Count Alexander Komar, resided.
He resided in the family of my father-in-law ; and I myself had
ample opportunity of studying his private life and character, as well
as the extraordinary phenomena occurring in his presence; and I
can frankly state that nothing in natural principles can explain
what I and others witnessed, not only once but surely a hundred of
times. There was never any mercenary motive to incite him to
call attention to his wonderful gift, for to my knowledge he refused
many proposals, amongst which was one from the Union Club, that
offered him francs 50,000, for a seance. A relative of my wife
even offered him adoption, and to settle a life annuity on him, which
likewise he refused. " B. BODISKA."
One of the celebrities who sought and made Home's acquaintance
at Paris in 1857 was Madame Grisi, another was Mario, a third was
Francis Mahoney (" Father Prout "). A letter from Grisi to Home,
dated December 8, 1857, is sufficiently interesting to translate
here :
" Your extraordinary and mysterious power has continued during
the whole night to exercise its influence over my astonished imagina-
tion. I am charmed to be able to express to you all the pleasure I
have found in making your acquaintance ; and I hope to see you
again on my return from England. M. Mario desires me to present
his best compliments to you, and he will be delighted to have a
call from you. Receive &c., " GIULIA GRISI."
Another celebrated person who made Home's acquaintance at this
time was Marchioness de Boissy, who, thirty years earlier, as the
Countess Guiccioli, had published her recollections of Byron.
Madame de Boissy was present in 1857, and again in 1865, at several
seances with Home, and beheld phenomena that deeply impressed
ITALY AND FRANCE 55
her. There are several letters from her among Home's corres-
pondence ; but they give no details of the manifestations witnessed
by her.
If only half of those who believed had had the courage of their
belief! if they had published their testimony to their experiences;
or, too timid for that, had at least written it down, and left it to be
made public when they were beyond the reach of incredulity. But
the silence they have preserved, the secrecy in which they have
enshrouded their knowledge of the facts, are so many unspoken
falsehoods that hinder the progress of a consoling verity. Believers,
no less than scoffers, look first of all to their own interests in these
days, when all that remain of Christianity are its temples and its
ceremonies. Each is for himself, and all are for the world.
When Home passed from earth, the press proved how much the
intellect may be degraded by the moral nature associated with it,
and hatred availed itself of the silence of death to exhaust itself in
invectives accompanied by the insinuations that are worse than out-
spoken calumnies. Invective is the natural weapon to which such
enemies have recourse when proofs are wanting to them. But
the name of Home is pronounced with respect by all whose opinion
deserves attention and who have had means of forming it ; and as
for the honours or the reproaches that the mob decree to us, they
ought to be regarded with equal indifference the one should cause
no joy and the other no sorrow. He who had so many friends
could not fail to have enemies even without knowing of them ; for
one may justly apply to Home these lines of Victor Hugo :
" Ces ennemis qu'il a s'il faut qu'il s'en souvicnne,
Lui viennent de leur haine, et non pas de la sienne."
CHAPTER IV
FRANCE AND RUSSIA
Meetings with the King of Wurtemberg and the Emperor William of
Germany. Remark of the latter at Versailles. The Duke of
Parma and the vision. Seance with the Queen of Holland.
Adventures in Russia. Anecdotes of Alexandre Dumas.
Spiritism and Spiritualism. Second loss of his powers. Marriage
in St. Petersburg. Strange cure. His critics. Wild theories as
to his powers.
HOME guided himself in numerous actions of life by spirit-counsels ;
and, influenced by these, he took a resolution in 1857 to visit Turkey.
Among his acquaintances in Paris was Lord Howden, for some years
British Minister at Madrid. Lord Howden, attracted by simple
curiosity, came to a seance, and was startled by the phenomena he
witnessed out of his preconceived notions concerning them. He saw
a great deal of Home during the next few weeks, inviting him fre-
quently to dinner and taking every opportunity of being present at
seances; and when Home was on the point of starting for the East,
Lord Howden furnished him with introductions to the British
Ambassadors at Vienna and Constantinople. I quote the letter that
enclosed them:
" RUE D'ANTIN, Monday.
" MY DEAR HOME, Here are letters for our ambassadors at Vienna and
Constantinople. If I can do anything else for you in the limited circle of my
capabilities, freely command me. Will you come and eat a bad dinner at my
Hotel at 7 o'clock on Saturday next, with only our friend Denys and my
attach^ Middleton?
" // you feel inclined afterwards, and will accompany me to Passy, to my
friends the Delesserts and her sister, Madame Odier, you will please me,
please them, and, I hope, please yourself, for they have a sympathy for you,
as I have but do not consider yourself the least bound to me on this head.
" Yours with truth, HOWDEN."
At the very moment of departure, Home's journey to Vienna and
the East was abandoned as suddenly as it had been resolved upon.
" My trunks were packed," he writes, "my passport sent for visa.
I was making a farewell call on the Duchess d'A , and while in
conversation with her, the drawing-room seemed filled with rappings,
the alphabet was called for, and I was told that my journey must be
postponed, as some political troubles were just about to occur.
Instead, therefore, of going to Turkey, I went to Baden-Baden."
The " Duchess d'A " was the Duchess of Hamilton, daughter
of the Grand Duke of Baden, and the incognito "d'A " was
probably suggested to Home by the fact that the occurrence took
place in the Hotel d'Albe, where the Duchess was then residing.
Home was at Baden during August and part of September, 1857.
His health was again failing; and his power, as was ordinarily the
56
FRANCE AND RUSSIA 57
case when his health failed, had grown weaker. " I met, however,"
he writes, " the King of Wurtemberg and the then Prince, now
King of Prussia, both of whom investigated the phenomena."
A letter with an almost illegible signature throws some light on the
circumstances of Home's introduction to the King of Wurtemberg. It
is addressed to him at the Hotel d'Angleterre, Baden, and was
written by the physician to the King, Dr. Guggert. Other letters
identify this correspondent with a physician who had been present in
France at some of Home's seances, and whose obstinate scepticism
was conquered by what he witnessed.
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, I spoke yesterday to H.M. the King of
Wurtemberg of your good disposition, and of your extraordinary and
miraculous qualities. His Majesty would like to see you at noon
to-day, as he will probably leave to-morrow morning for Stuttgart.
If you should be disposed to accept the high invitation, you must be
kind enough to call on me at twelve o'clock, and I will take you
with me."
Home has himself described, in a letter published in 1883, his
meeting at Baden-Baden with the then Prince Regent of Prussia, the
late Emperor of Germany, and with his Majesty's son, the present
Emperor. " My first meeting with the Prince of Prussia," he wrote,
" was at once amusing and interesting. The Emperor William of
to-day, then Prince Regent, sent one of his aides-de-camp to ask me
to call on him. I went as desired, and on entering the drawing-room,
I was received by a gentleman whose commanding presence agreeably
impressed me; but as he began a series of questions more or less
personal and pointed, I became reticent, and replied rather coldly.
It was a relief when the door opened, and the Prince Regent came in.
I was taken aback when he laughingly said, ' I see that I do not
require to present you to my son, for you already know him.' ' Three
seances with the Prince Regent of Prussia followed this interview.
Thirteen years later, at Versailles, Mr. Home again saw the
King of Prussia, not yet crowned Emperor. Home was with a party
of Prussian officers and English newspaper correspondents ; and one
of the latter, Mr. Kingston, correspondent of the Daily Telegraph,
thus described the incident, in a letter published in that journal,
October 3 ist, 1870:
" A staff-officer put his head in at the door, and exclaimed, ' The
King! The King!' disappearing as he uttered the words. We
hurried after him ; and, sure enough, there in the dining-room stood
the venerable monarch, who had improvised a visit to the chateau
during his afternoon drive, surrounded by the members of his personal
staff. I never saw the King in better health or spirits. Among our
party was an American General, with whom his Majesty conversed
for some time. Another was Mr. Daniel Home, the celebrated
Spiritualist, whom the King promptly recognised and addressed very
kindly reminding him of the wonders that he (Mr. Home) had been
the means of imparting to him, and inquiring about ' the spirits ' in
by no means a sceptical tone."
58 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
As the Daily Telegraph correspondent, an almost total stranger to
Home, is an unexceptionable witness to the fact of this conversation,
I have preferred to cite his account of it, although somewhat meagre.
He might have added that the exact words King William addressed
to Home were: "Ah, Mr. Home, when I relate the strange things
I witnessed in your presence, they laugh at me ; but the facts are true
for all that."
It was late in August or early in September, 1857, that Mr. Home's
presence at Baden afforded the late Emperor of Germany the oppor-
tunity of investigating the phenomena, an investigation renewed by
his Majesty in subsequent years. Another seance at Baden was with
the Prince of Nassau, whose interest had been excited by the account
that the Princess had written to him of a seance with Home at Paris
a few weeks before, at which her Highness and the Princess
Mentchikoff were present.
The Court of France was at Biarritz in September, 1857 ; and an
Imperial invitation telegraphed to Mr. Home at Baden cut short his
stay there. He had hardly arrived at Biarritz when his health failed
him still more ; and, hearing of his illness, various priests made per-
severing attempts to penetrate to his sick-room. The Church had
not yet lost hope of reclaiming the wanderer from her fold, and setting
on his wonderful life the seal of the monastery.
In parting with the year 1857, I may add to the particulars already
given the remark that I have named only a very few of the persons of
intellectual and social distinction who were present at seances given
by Mr. Home in France. Many names are unknown to me; for Home
kept no record of the persons present at seances, and destroyed nine-
tenths of the countless letters he received. As tor the correspondence
that remains, it is not always dated ; and the higher the rank of the
writer, the more common this omission. Various of these undated
letters evidently belong to the year 1857, but to what month it is
impossible to say. Among these correspondents are celebrities of
every description, the aristocracy of talent as well as that of birth.
There are letters from Princess Murat, Princess Orloff, Lacordaire
(brother of the celebrated preacher), Madame de Balzac (widow of
the great novelist and a life-long friend of Home), the Prince and
Princess Metternich, Count de Sancillon, Count de Villiers, Madame
de Girardin, the Duchess de Tascher, the Turkish Ambassador at
Paris, the Duchess de Medina-Celi, the Countess de Lourmel, the
Princess de Montleart, the Count de Riancourt, the Marquis Duplanri,
the Marquis Strachan de Salza, the Duchess de Valmy, Baron de
Retz, Baron de Stakelberg, Dossini the composer, and Hebert the
painter. A note written by this last-named celebrated artist after a
seance deserves quotation:
" GRAND HOME, Mes felicitations et mes remercrments les plus
chaudes pour les hautes emotions que je vous dois.
"E. HEBERT."
I have omitted from the above list the name of one of the most
remarkable personages with whom Mr. Home became acquainted in
FRANCE AND RUSSIA 59
France in 1857. I speak of the last Duke of Parma, who had abdi-
cated some time previously, and was living at Paris in 1857 under the
incognito of Count de Villafranca. The strange circumstances
attending the commencement of the Duke's friendship with Home are
related without names in the Incidents. Briefly summarised, the
story is as follows :
In the early summer of 1857, the Count de Villafranca, a stranger
to Home, called on him one morning and sent up a pressing request
to see him :
" He advanced to where I stood," writes Mr. Home, " and, taking
me kindly by the hand, he said to me, ' I have been sent to you, and
you will yet know the reason why, though you do not even know who
I am. I' live at No. 4, Rue , and you will be obliged to come
to me. ' I shook my head at this incredulously, and told him my time
was so taken up that I had scarcely time even to call on my friends.
He smiled, and said, ' You will see, you will see.' The conversation
then changed; and he left me after having written his address."
Home dined the same evening with the Baroness de Meyendorf,
and, on entering the drawing-room, saw a young man standing there.
" I was surprised at this," he writes, " expecting to have met no
stranger. With his eyes fixed upon me, he said, ' I am glad you have
come, for we will go together to see my father ' ; and he then suddenly
disappeared. I had thought till then he was a guest, so real was the
vision."
Later in the evening the apparition again presented himself; and
Home then delayed no longer, but went to the residence of his visitor
of the morning. " On reaching No. 4, Rue , I was directed
to the rooms of the Count ; and his valet told me that his master was
preparing to retire, and in all probability could not see me. Again
the voice told me to announce myself; and at that very moment a
door was opened, and the Count came towards me, and said, ' I
have been waiting for you I knew you would come.' I described to
him the young man I had seen, and all that had happened ; and he
at once recognised him as his son. He showed me a portrait of him,
which exactly corresponded with my vision of him."
The tragic story of the death of the Duke of Parma's son need not
be related here. It is enough to add that the Count or, rather, the
Duke told Home in what manner he had been impressed to seek him ;
and that the morning visit and evening vision were the commencement
of a friendship that Home valued greatly. The Duke of Parma, a
brother of the celebrated Duchess of Berry, was one of the most
finished and noble representatives of manners and traditions that are
almost extinct in Europe. He had outlived his world and resigned
his duchy ; but he preserved that union of perfect simplicity with
perfect dignity which constitutes the true grand seigneur. The
exquisite charm of such manner is seldom felt now; but it will be
remembered by all who were honoured with the society of the Count
de Villafranca.
In his journey to Holland in January, 1858, Mr. Home was accom-
panied by his friend Mons. Tiedemann, a Dutch gentleman then
60 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
residing at the Chateau de Cergay, not far from Paris, where, two
years later, Home's remarkable preservation from death occurred. I
have no details of the seances at the Hague; but a circumstance con-
nected with them left a profound impression on the mind of the Queen
of Holland. The first took place in one of the grand apartments of
the palace, among surroundings of a somewhat cheerless and sombre
magnificence ; and little or nothing occurred. On the occasion of the
following seance, the Queen invited Home to choose for himself the
room in which he would prefer to hold it ; and her emotion was great
on seeing him, after having traversed the whole length of the state
apartments, pause in front of a locked door. None entered this
chamber save the Queen. It was the chamber of her child, whose
loss she had) never ceased lamenting. The manifestations that took
place there left in the mind of this gifted and amiable sovereign a
vivid remembrance, that was attested by the action of her Majesty.
On the eve of Home's departure from the Hague, she drew from her
finger a ring of which the chief value consisted in the fact that she
had long worn it, and sent it to him with the following holograph
note :
" February qth, 1858.
"I send you a grateful (reconnaissant) souvenir of our seances."
"SOPHIE."
At the wish of Mons. Tiedemann, Home accompanied him from
the Hague to Amsterdam, and held there a seance with a party of
very pronounced sceptics, the proprietors and staff of a Dutch journal.
His power was now weakening, and a few days later wholly left him.
He returned to Paris suffering from the effects of a severe chill he
had taken in Holland; and was ordered by his doctor to leave for
Italy.
While he was living quietly in Italy, Paris and the Parisian journals
were lending ready credence to an infamous falsehood concerning him.
He had not left Paris, after all, ran. this new slander. He had been
arrested on the scandal-mongers knew not what charge and was in
the prison of Mazas. " Persons in official positions even told my
friends that they had seen and spoken to me in that prison ; and one,
an officer, went so far as to state that he had accompanied me there
in the carriage" (Incidents in My Life, vol. i., p. 106).
Home, without knowing anything of the slanders that were in
circulation, had already written from Rome to several friends in Paris.
The recipient of one of his letters, the well-known author, Henri
Delaage, showed it to the Paris correspondent of Le Nord, who, on
March lyth, wrote to that journal: "Allow me to begin by a good
action; it is to free an honourable man from calumnies, arising from
what source I know not, but which for the past few days have been
rapidly spreading. I speak of Mr. Home, who is for the moment in
Italy, whereas it is whispered both secretly and openly that he is in
the prison of Mazas, for we know not what crimes. The letter here
given, dated Rome, 7th of March, was received yesterday by M.
Henri Delaage, an intimate friend of Mr. Home. The letter is there
before me with the postal mark."
FRANCE AND RUSSIA 61
On the publication of this paragraph in Le Nord, accompanied by
Home's letter from Rome to Delaage, the spread of the Mazas slander
was stopped. It had already travelled from Paris into Belgium and
Holland ; a delay of a week or two more in disproving it, and the lie
would no doubt have made the round of the civilised world.
There was at Rome, in March, 1858, a young Russian nobleman,
Count Koucheleff-Besborodka, who, as well as the Countess his wife,
so celebrated for her beauty, had a lively curiosity concerning Home
and a great desire to make his acquaintance. As he refused all
invitations to go into Roman society, the Koucheleffs ended by
pressing into their service one of the few friends he saw, who promised
to gratify their wish for an introduction, and arranged the matter in
the fashion related by Mr. Home in the Incidents :
" He mentioned one afternoon, while we were walking together on
the Pincian, the name of a Russian family of distinction then in
Rome, and added that they were anxious to make my acquaintance.
I excused myself on the ground of my health. At this moment a
carriage was passing us and stopped ; and my friend, before I was
aware of what he was doing, introduced me to the Countess de
Koucheleff, who asked me to come and sup with them that evening,
adding that they kept very late hours."
The evening was destined to be a memorable one in Home's life.
" I went about ten," he writes, " and found a large party assembled.
At twelve, as we entered the supper-room, the Countess introduced
to me a young lady, whom I then observed for the first time, as her
sister. A strange impression came over me at once, and I knew she
was to be my wife. When we were seated at table, the young lady
turned to me, and laughingly said, ' Mr. Home, you will be married
before the year is ended.' I asked her why she said so; and she
replied that there was such a superstition in Russia when a person was
at table between two sisters. I made no reply. It was true. In
twelve days we were partially engaged, and waiting only the consent
of her mother."
' ' Home had lost the power of making himself feared, but had pre-
served that of making himself loved," wrote Alexander Dumas in
allusion to the fact that his friend's power had not yet returned 1 to
him. Mademoiselle de Kroll had seen nothing whatever of the
phenomena, and was incredulous as to the possibility of communica-
tions with another world, at the time of her engagement to Home.
" The evening of the day of our engagement," continues Home in the
Incidents, " a small party had assembled, and were dancing. I was seated
on a sofa by my fiancee, when she turned to me and si.id abruptly : ' Do tell
me all about spirit-rapping, for you know I don't believe in it.' I said to her
' Mademoiselle, I trust you will ever bear in mind that I have a mission
intrusted to me. It is a great and holy one. I cannot speak with you about
a thing which you have not seen, and therefore cannot understand. I can
only say that it is a great truth.' The tears came welling into her eyes; and
laying her hand in mine, she said, ' If your mission can bring comfort to those
less happy than ourselves, or be in any way a consolation to mankind, you will
ever find me ready and willing to do all I can to aid you in it.' She was
true to this noble sentiment t the last moment of her short life ; and she is still
my great comfort and sustainer since we have separated in this earthly
sphere."
62 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
The acquaintance of the Koucheleffs with Dumas resulted in an
invitation to 'the author of Monte Cristo to accompany them to Russia,
and be present at the marriage of Home. Dumas accepted; and in
the month of June the party left for St. Petersburg. On the eve of
Home's departure, a banquet was given to him by his friends in Paris
to celebrate his marriage ; and a distinguished and numerous company
of various nationalities assembled, including many of the names men-
tioned a few pages back, all, or nearly all, of them men who had been
present at seances with Home.
Dumas insisted, like almost every other Frenchman, on regarding
Home as a magician. At his pressing request, Home had given him
a sketch of his life up to the year 1858, and this Dumas reproduced in
his work, but could not resist the temptation to re-touch it. There
are natures to which veracity is impossible, and history as treated by
Dumas becomes fiction, biography becomes romance. Home, who had
expected nothing else, laughed heartily over his metamorphosed
biography when he read it; and Dumas responded to his laugh by
another, that seemed to say, ' ' Does the world ever take me
seriously?"
Probably not ; but the Paris correspondent of the Daily News would
seem to have done so, when, in June, 1886, she sent to that journal
her ridiculous biographical sketch of Home.
Count Koucheieff-Besborodka possessed a fine estate in the neigh-
bourhood of St. Petersburg that had been bestowed on his grandfather
by Catherine II. Here the festivities took place that accompanied the
marriage of Home ; and here, on arriving in Russia, Dumas enjoyed
the lavish hospitality of the Count. Within a few days of Home's
arrival, the Emperor Alexander II. sent to request that he would
present himself at Peterhoff, the summer residence of the Court.
Dumas was something more than disappointed at not receiving a
similar invitation ; but affected to consider that the loss was the
Emperor's not his. "There are many crowned heads in Europe,"
he grandiosely remarked; " but there is only one Alexander Dumas."
At the marriage of Home, it was necessary for Dumas to give his
name; and on being asked for it, he responded briefly, " Dumas."
The official repeated the question.
" Dumas!" replied the illustrious owner of that name, more loudly
than before.
" But your Christian name, Monsieur Dumas? "
"Alexander Is there another Alexander Dumas in the world?"
demanded the outraged author.
A dozen such anecdotes might be told of Dumas in Russia. He
was certainly one of the vainest of men ; but his vanity was so naive in
its display that it amused much more than offended. So long as
sufficient incense was burnt in his honour, Dumas was the pleasantest
companion in the world, and as entertaining as one of his own novels ;
but he lived in purgatory when he saw another excite more interest
than himself. If he hardly did justice in Russia to his reputation of
" bon enfant" it was because of his ill-humour at attracting less
attention than he had anticipated.
FRANCE AND RUSSIA 63
Dumas, who never took life seriously, could not accept the mani-
festations as matter for serious consideration. This truly French
fashion of looking at the subject was more disagreeable to Home than
any scepticism, and explains the statement made by Dumas that
Home accused him of putting the spirits to flight.
A Paris anecdote of 1857 deserves a passing mention. It may be
true or not probably not but at least it is ben trovato. A Parisian
journalist, so the story runs, came to a seance ; and on seeing a heavy
table rise to the ceiling when no person was touching it, was so
startled that he rushed out of the house without his hat.
"Frightened!" said the witty fugitive, when joked with on his
escapade; " no. not at all. Why did I leave my hat, then? What
did I want with a hat when I had lost my head ? ' '
Dumas relates how at Polonstrava, the residence of Count
Koucheleff-Besborodka, a spirit entered into a round table. In his
fantastic narrative, the table is no longer a table; it has become an
intelligence itself, instead of being merely the means of communica-
tion between one intelligence and another. In this confusion of
things material with things spiritual, Dumas was a type of his nation.
When, as so often happened at the seances cf Home, a piece of furni-
ture was seen to move without any person touching it, the French
mind commonly grasped at the explanation that the spirit had entered
into the table or chair, and animated it. In other countries, the
belief of an invisible force acting from without on a visible object
might be understood and accepted ; but the French mind was seldom
able to separate the spirits from the chairs and tables. In the pages
of one of the many writers who have charged their own aberrations
on the world of spirits, Count Theobald Walsh, we even find tables,
footstools, and baskets animated at his bidding with the various
passions of humanity, and representing anger, gluttony, pride, etc.
In no country were more extraordinary requests addresed to Home
than in France. He received, for instance, a letter from a French
officer quartered at Algiers, who was possessed with the belief that
treasure had been buried somewhere under an old Moorish dwelling
there, and was ready to share it with Home, if the wizard would tell
him the exact spot. Another writer cherishes the memory of a friend-
ship formed with Home during a previous existence in some other
planet than the earth, and longs to know if on Home's part a similar
recollection has been preserved.
Spiritualism does not exist in France ; its place has been taken by
Spiritism, a very different thing. The fundamental conceptions of
Spiritualism are the individual immortality of the soul, and the reality
of the invisible world. Home proved that death is a second birth.
The facts collected in this volume show that there is no interruption
in the existence of those who have passed from earth. What can be
more comforting than such a belief? The certitude of immortality
transfigures lives that were formerly filled with despair and the shadow
of death, and inspires us with a keener sentiment of submission and
gratitude to the Creator. There is nothing in this antagonistic to the
Christian faith; but " Spiritism " (as its inventor named it) professes
64 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
to be an anti-Christian religion taught by spirits if the name
" religion " can be applied to so gross a superstition. It is not even
a new heresy; it is merely a nineteenth-century application of the very
ancient superstition of the transmigration of spirits. Revel, who first
taught the doctrines of Spiritism in France, took the name of " Allan
Kardec," asserting himself to have borne it in a former existence as
a Breton Druid. Those who accept this doctrine do so entirely on the
faith of pretended revelations made by spirits. Reason is set aside,
and proofs of identity are replaced by the flights of an imagination
more conspicuous for incoherence than for grandeur. If this super-
stition attracts in France and only in France people of no intellect
or education, it does not include a single intellectual celebrity among
its adepts.
When Home, at St. Petersburg, received the Imperial command so
much envied him by Dumas, his power had been absent for nearly
three months ; and he replied to the invitation by acquainting the
Emperor with the fact, and added that, at the earliest indication of
its return, he would hold himself entirely at the disposition of his
Majesty.
The marriage of Mr. Home and Mademoiselle Alexandrina de
Kroll, sister of the Countess Koucheleff, took place on the ist of
August, 1858, new style, or the 2oth of July by the Russian calendar.
The ceremony was first performed according to the rites of the Greek
Church in the private chapel of Count Koucheleff, and again in the
Church of St. Catherine by a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Three days before the marriage, the Emperor Alexander II. sent to
the bridegroom the wedding-gift of which I have spoken in a previous
chapter. It was transmitted to Mr. Home by Count Schouvaloff,
together with the following letter:
" PETERHOF, te 17/29 juillet, 1858.
"MONSIEUR, Le Ministre de la Maison de I'Empereur m'a fait
parvenir une bague enrichie de diamants que Sa Majest6 vous a
destinee comme une marque de Sa bienveillance.
" Ayant 1'honneur de vous la transmettre ci-joint, je vous prie,
Monsieur, de recevoir 1'assurance de ma consideration tres distinguee.
" SCHOUVALOFF."
A comparison of the date of Count Schouvaloff's letter with that
of Mr. Home's marriage would alone sufficiently establish the fact
that the Emperor's gracious token of his interest in the bridegroom
took the form of a wedding-gift.
Besides the letter just given, several others from Count Schouvaloff
have been preserved. They convey, for the most part, the Imperial
invitations to Mr. Home ; but in one of those written in July the Count
gladly accepts Home's offer to give him a special seance. " Discre-
tion prevented me asking you," he writes; "but since you have the
kindness to propose it to me, I will be with you any day and any hour
that you can receive me."
Leaving St. Petersburg shortly after their marriage, Mr. Home and
his bride spent the autumn in visits to the various estates of their
FRANCE AND RUSSIA 65
brother-in-law, Count Koucheleff, some of which were situated in the
farthest south of Russia ; and it was November before they were back
in St. Petersburg. On his return, Home, as the letters of Count
Schouvaloff and Count Bobrinsky show, was several times summoned
to the Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo, where the Emperor was just then
residing. The social consideration that Mr. Home enjoyed in Russia
does not need attesting, but such letters as the following sufficiently
establish it:
" S. M. 1'Empereur desire, cher Home, vous voir a Tsarskoe, lundi
soir. Veuillez avoir la bonte de m'informer par le porteur si Ton peut
compter sur vous ce jour-la. Une voiture vous attendra a la gare de
Tsarskoe. Tout a vous, " COMTE A. BOBRINSKY."
In January, 1859, Home fell ill, and was soon in great danger. The
malady that had attacked him baffled his physicians, but was expelled
in the manner he has narrated in the Incidents :
" The dangerous symptoms were greatly increased by my usual nervous
debility. Friction was recommended, but the extreme pain which it caused
precluded its use. I was in this state when one evening my wife and a friend,
the Baron de M " (Baron de Meyendorff), " were present, and my hands
were suddenly seized by spirit-influence, and I was made to beat them with
extreme violence upon the part which was so extremely sensitive and tender.
My wife was frightened, and would have endeavoured to hold my hands ; but
my friend, who had sufficient knowledge of spirit-manifestations, prevented her.
I felt no pain, though the violence of the blows which I continued giving
myself made the bed and the whole room shake In an hour I was in
a quiet sleep ; and on awaking the next morning, I found the disease had left
me, and only a weakness remained. The expression of the doctor's face baffles
my description, when he visited me early that morning, expecting to have found
me worse, and felt my pulse and saw that a great change must have occurred,
beyond his skill to account for."
In all countries but especially in France and America the num-
ber of persons who claimed Home's acquaintance without ever having
met him was legion. He had several amusing rencontres with
imaginative beings of this class, and often told in his own inimitable
fashion the story of these meetings. One of the most amusing took
place in a railway-carriage in which he was travelling to Fontaine-
bleau, in May, 1857.
In early summer there are few pleasanter places in France than
Fontainebleau ; and under the Empire that was the time of year
usually selected for an Imperial visit to the beautiful old forest and
chateau. The Court was there in May, 1857 ; and on the 23rd, a few
days after his return from America, Home received a telegram con-
veying an invitation from the Empress to present himself at the
chateau, and left Paris by the evening train. Three gentlemen, all
strangers to him, were his companions on the journey ; and their talk
fell on the news of the day.
" Home is back with us, it seems," said one. " I am told that the
fact is he had never left Paris."
' So far from that being the case," replied oracle number two,
" he will never be seen in Paris again. The journals may announce
66 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
what they like ; but, take my word for it, Home is far enough from
Paris at this moment."
" Is it true, then, that the Emperor had him sent away?"
" Quite true. The Empress was so alarmed by what she saw at a
certain seance I have my information from those who ought to know
that the Emperor determined to allow no more of these diabolical
scenes; and our sorcerer was ordered to leave France the next day."
"It is said he had received enormous sums."
" He was paid at the rate of a million francs a year," replied the
other, with the air of a man who knows of what he speaks.
Home joined in the conversation at this point, and his gay and
pleasant manner soon put him on the best of terms with his three
travelling companions. A number of interesting particulars in his
own history, all quite novel to him, were communicated by one or the
other; and in the midst of these piquant anecdotes the train reached
Fontainebleau. There was a servant in the Imperial livery on the
platform, and Home beckoned to him.
" You are waiting for -?"
"For Mr. Home, sir."
" I am Mr. Home."
Home stepped from the carriage, and took the politest of farewells
of the blank and silent three within.
They were neither the first nor the last of the Munchausen tribe in
whose company he had the amusement of travelling incognito, and of
listening to imaginary incidents in his history, sometimes recounted
by romancers who claimed to know him personally. The same year,
1857, he happened to be the third occupant of a coupe on a French
railway; the other two being an elderly man and a young man. The
former mentioned the name of Home, and the young man at once
claimed it as that of an acquaintance.
" Not that I know him well," he explained; " but I have met him
occasionally at the house of my friend, the Princess de Beauveau, who
amuses herself sometimes by witnessing his feats of legerdemain."
" They are well managed?" asked Home.
" Oh, very clever !"
" But Madame la Princesse has the reputation of believing in his
spiritual claims."
' ' If one believes all one hears ! She has no more faith in them
than I have myself, and recognises Home for what he is."
Home took a letter from his pocket. " You have interested me in
mentioning a name very well known to me," he said; "since the
Princess de Beauveau is a lady who honours me with her friendship.
I have heard her speak ot Mr. Home, but not as a charlatan."
"Pardon, monsieur; but I can affirm that such is her opinion of
him."
" You have seen him and would, of course, recognise him, if you
were to meet him again," Home continued.
"Without doubt."
" And this letter," said Home, drawing it from the envelope and
holding it out ; " do you know the writing? "
FRANCE AND RUSSIA 67
No, the young Frenchman did not.
" It is, however, from the Princess de Beauveau to me. Will you
do me the favour of reading it? You will find that she has consider-
able faith in the spiritual pretensions of Mr. Home."
But the young man, much embarrassed, declined to take the letter,
and protested that he quite accepted the speaker's word.
" At least do me the favour to look at the envelope," said Home,
presenting it, " that you may see to whom the letter is addressed."
The other did so; and said not another word, but at the next station
he hurriedly left the carriage.
His exit was not so dramatic as that which another French railway-
companion of Mr. Home proposed for himself. This gentleman,
equally unconscious to whom he was speaking, confided to Home his
terror of Home. " I have never seen him I should be afraid to see
him. If I were to meet him near a cemetery at midnight, it would
cause me I cannot describe the feeling it would cause me."
' ' They say there is nothing very frightful in his appearance. If
you were to meet him out of a cemetery in the day-time, you might
take a liking to him," said Home.
"Impossible."
The journey was long, and the two had become excellent friends
before it ended. As Home drew near the station where he was to
alight, he said to his companion: " So you have never seen Home.
What if I were to present him to you?"
" I would jump out of the window."
" Bon voyage ," said Home, lowering it.
But the other, though he realised the situation with French quick-
ness, did not jump.
These men were types of the greater portion of the world that had
heard of Home without having seen him. The most outrageous
falsehoods were told of him by one class of calumniators, the most
absurd and fantastic legends invented by those who believed him a
necromancer. A romancer who chose for a subject either of the two
imaginary Homes would be spared the trouble of inventing ; he would
only have to collect enough falsehoods to fill his volumes, and arrange
them with an eye to effect.
A very common report about Home in Paris was that he carried in
his pocket a tame, trained monkey, which was let out during a seance
to twitch dresses and shake hands. As for the raps, he had "an
electrical quality that he could throw off at command of the will."
A method of explanation much favoured by scientists and pseudo-
scientists was to alter the facts of seances in accordance with their
preconceived theories; and then, on such basis of omission and addi-
tion, to proceed to demonstrate the theories in question. This
disingenuous and unscientific method was largely employed, as a
subsequent chapter of this work will show, by Dr W B
Carpenter, V.P.R.S.
Medical men have been found who could gravely conjecture that
Home administered "a thimble-full of chloroform" to each of the
sitters before the seance began. Others declared that he magnetised
8 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
or biologised his audience ; and the things that they said they saw the
poor mesmerised dupes only imagined they had seen. Mr. Crookes,
F.R.S., employed instruments to record the phenomena, and again
and again the instruments recorded them. It seemed a bold theory to
suggest that Mr. Crookes' instruments were capable of being
mesmerised; but, since the biological explanation was advanced as a
triumphant disproof of .his experiments, it must be concluded that
they were, and that Home somehow found out the fact, and turned
it to account.
Of all phenomena, that of rising in the air has had the most ridicu-
lous explanations adduced concerning it. The mesmeric theory is
naturally a favourite here; and when the present Earl of Crawford,
for instance, saw Home, in full light, rise from the ground, he was
of course biologised. Some theorists have conjectured that Home
carried with him a magic lantern truly deserving of the name !
The one really simple, scientific, and satisfactory explanation ever
advanced to account for the phenomena from a non-spiritual point of
view was that of an old woman in America. Asked if she could explain
what she had seen, she replied, " Lor', sirs, it's easy enough ! He
only rubs himself all over with a gold pencil first."
"A general belief," writes Mr. Home in the Incidents, " is that I
bribe the servants at whatever house I visit, that they may assist me
in concealing my machinery. The intelligence displayed in obtaining
names, dates, and other circumstances is previously communicated to
me, either by my own inquiry from servants, or by visiting the tomb-
stones of the relatives, or even by a body of secret police who are in
my pay."
'"If such statements are circulated during my lifetime," wrote
Home in 1883, " I often wonder what will be said of me when I shall
have passed to spirit-life."
CHAPTER V
ENGLAND
Second English campaign. Faraday's dictum. Conversion of Dr.
Elliottson. Stir in London Society. The Cornhill Article.
Thackeray's position. Robert Chambers. His remarkable
conversion. Convincing evidence to Mrs. Senior. Conversion
of Lady Shelley, and of Dr. Lockhart Robertson, the alienist.
Opinion of Professor Challis.
THE second residence of Mr. Home in England lasted from November,
1859, until the last week of July, 1860. He returned a third time in
the following winter, and was in England during the whole of 1861.
Coming events often cast their prophetic shadows on the mind of
Home ; but when he brought his young wife to London in the winter
of 1859, and introduced her to his English friends, he had as yet
received no impression of the parting that was already so near at hand.
She was destined, it might have been reasonably thought, to outlive
her husband, whose hold on life had more than once seemed so frail.
Apart from the messages conveyed through him and the impressions
granted to him, Home was no more capable of looking into the future
than other men ; nor could he command those messages and impres-
sions at will ; they were communicated or withheld as other intelli-
gences than his own saw fit. He exercised no more volition in the
matter than a wire, designed to convey the electric current, exercises
with regard to the messages that travel over it.
The year 1860 was remarkable for the number of seances that Home
gave, and for the variety of persons who investigated the phenomena.
His power had returned to him very strongly, and was especially great
during the early summer of 1860, when many very remarkable seances
took place. I say " power," in default of a better word by which to
describe Home's gift. His part was to be a passive agent; and the
more he could detach his mind from the subject, the better were the
results. Home's gift appeared to obey somewhat the same laws as
the inspirations of a great poet or painter, concerning which the artist
only knows that he cannot compel his power into his service, and that
his inspiration is often absent when he would most desire its presence.
No great writer or painter was ever yet able to declare with certainty
in commencing a work that it would be a masterpiece ; and Home, the
manifestations of whose strange power were more capricious, as they
were more wonderful, than the inspiration of any poet or painter,
could never foretell at the commencement of a seance what would
happen, or whether anything would happen at all. Yet such is the
temper of the nineteenth century, that men distinguished for their
intelligence and attainments considered Home's declaration of his
inability to obtain manifestations at will a sufficient reason for declin-
ing to investigate the subject.
Among the letters of the English acquaintances of Mr. Home is one
that throws an amusing light on the spirit in which some leaders of
69
70 ,LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
public opinion approached the question of Spiritualism, when they
consented to approach it at all. A well-known scientific man had
been pressed by Mrs. Parkes, the widow of an Indian judge, to come
to a seance at her house with Mr. Home, and had ended by accepting
the invitation. He duly appeared on the evening appointed ; but
demanded, as an indispensable preliminary to sitting, that he should
be furnished with " a programme of the seance." It was in vain that
his hostess represented to him that seances had no programmes, and
there were no earthly means of arranging beforehand what should
happen ; he only replied that he was determined not to investigate at
all, unless he knew exactly what he was investigating; and, refusing
to sit, departed in much ill-humour.
His attitude was a caricature of that of Faraday, at whose feet he
had probably sat. Faraday is deservedly a great name; but he was
emphatically a thinker of the nineteenth century, and the thinkers of
the nineteenth century are specialists, not philosophers. England is
little likely ever to produce another Bacon, to take all knowledge for
his province; or another Newton, whose great intellect, dimly appre-
hending the secrets of the universe and its own ignorance of them,
could humbly compare its discoveries to the action of a child who
walks on the sea-shore, and brings away a few shells and pebbles as
indications of the treasures of the ocean. The modern scientist has
no such overwhelming conviction of the vastness of that ocean, and
of his own inability to penetrate its depths. He is a child who picks
up one particular pebble, and, after close inspection of it, declares
that the sea has nothing in it but pebbles, and they are all like his.
Faraday wrote, with reference to the phenomena of Spiritualism:
" Before we proceed to consider any questions involving physical
principles, we should set out with clear ideas of the naturally possible
and impossible." He forgot that even the nineteenth century is not
omniscient, that its ideas of the naturally possible and impossible are
not those of the eighteenth, and will not be those of the twentieth.
Man's knowledge of the possible never was and never will be final ;
though in every age humanity has repeated Faraday's mistake of
supposing it to be so. The scientific critics of Stephenson had very
clear ideas of the naturally possible when they proceeded to the con-
sideration of the physical principles involved in the question of the
locomotive ; and their ideas led them to declare that it was impossible
to run engines at the rate of thirty miles an hour. If we could
resuscitate the Royal Society of 1787, and submit to its consideration
inventions like the telegraph and the telephone, the ideas of a hundred
years ago concerning the naturally possible would lead the Society to
ridicule as chimerical such propositions for annihilating distance.
Human conceptions of what is possible and impossible have been
subjected to a thousand corrections since this world began, and are
likely to be subjected to many more before it ends.
As Mr. A. R. Wallace ably wrote, in criticising Faraday's dictum:
" No man can be sure that, however ' clear ' his ideas may be in this
matter, they will be equally true ones. It was very ' clearly impossible'
to the minds of the philosophers at Pisa that a great and a small
ENGLAND 71
weight could fall from the top of the tower in the same time; and if
this principle" (Faraday's) " is of any use, they were right in dis-
believing the evidence of their senses, which assured them that they
did; and Galileo, who accepted that evidence, was, to use the words
of the same eminent authority, ' not only ignorant as respects the
education of the judgment, but ignorant of his ignorance.' '
De Morgan, the celebrated mathematician, answered Faraday, and
pointed out, with equal truth and force, that the object of all investi-
gation is to arrive at those very same " clear ideas," on the possession
of which Faraday insisted as a preliminary. "Set out in physical
investigation with a clear idea of the naturally possible and imposs-
ible!" exclaimed De Morgan, repeating his contemporary's words.
" We thought the world had struggled forward to the knowledge that
a clear idea of this was the last attainment of study and reflection,
combined with observation ; not the possession of our intellect at
starting."
De Morgan's own opinion concerning Spiritualism had been "the
last attainment of study and reflection, combined with observation."
After investigating the subject for many years, he wrote in 1869: " I
retain my suspense as to what the phenomena mean, but I am as fully
persuaded as ever of their reality."
Mr. Faraday's dictum, if it meant anything with regard to
Spiritualism, meant that the subject was to be dismissed without
investigation, on the plea that it conflicted with existing ideas of the
possible. This frame of mind, however, did not prevent Faraday
from investigating the phenomenon (if it deserve the name) of table-
tilting ; and he was easily able to show that tables were often tilted,
consciously or unconsciously, by the sitters themselves. Mr. Home
was the last person to doubt the fact, and in the Lights and Shadows
of Spiritualism has declared his conviction of the accuracy of
Faraday's observations.
None of Faraday's experiments had been made with Home; and it
was obvious to all men who knew anything of the seances of the latter,
and were not blinded by prejudice, that here Faraday's theory of
" involuntary muscular action " would not apply. Accordingly, in
1 86 1, Sir Emerson Tennant endeavoured, with the help of Mr. Robert
Bell, to bring about a meeting between Home and Faraday. Sir
Emerson acted on his own responsibility, and without any authority
from Mr. Home, who, as the Morning Star had the candour to admit
when discussing the incident some years later, " did not appear to
have been particularly consulted in the matter at all." As the writer
in the Morning Star (May i2th, 1868) was hostile to Home and
friendly to Faraday, his description of the attitude assumed by the
man of science will carry more weight than any words of mine would :
and I will therefore give it :
" He " (Faraday) " prescribed certain conditions which it would
have been utterly impossible for Mr. Home, whether that gentleman
be the apostle of a new science or a mere pretender and humbug, to
accept. In fact, Mr. Home was invited, as a condition precedent to
Faraday's entering on the investigation, to acknowledge that the
72 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
phenomena, however produced, were ridiculous and contemptible."
Faraday may have been right as regards what he had seen, but to
judge before examining it of what he had not seen implied a confidence
in his own infallibility as conceited as it was dogmatic.
Faraday's second condition, of open and complete examination,
Home would as readily have accepted as he afterwards did in the
case of Crookes ; but was it conceivable he should accept this ? Mr.
Robert Bell was so assured he would not, that he did not think it worth
while even to transmit to Mr. Home a proposal so insulting; and
accordingly the negotiations between Bell, Sir Emerson, and Faraday
were dropped and never resumed.
Seven years later, at the close of the Lyon suit, Professor Tyndall
published a letter in which he intimated his willingness to be present
at a seance with Mr. Home, but expressly declared that he made the
offer " in the spirit of Faraday's letter." In putting forth such a
challenge, Professor Tyndall was only making a cheap vaunt of his
prejudices. What did it matter to Home, who never sought to impose
his own principles on anyone, whether Tyndall were of Faraday's
opinion or not?
There is one aspect of the manifestations that probably even Pro-
fessor Tyndall would approach in a serious mood, and would abstain
from qualifying with such adjectives as " ridiculous " and " con-
temptible "; however emphatically he might express his denial and
disbelief. I refer to the evidence afforded in the seances of Mr. Home
of the identity of the beings communicating. It is only to those who
have been fully convinced of that identity that Spiritualism can ever
be Spiritualism.
If gratitude and the courage of one's convictions were virtues
common among men, the recipients of incontrovertible proofs of
identity would have more frequently placed their testimony on record.
Unhappily, there are few who can face abuse, fewer still who do not
fear ridicule ; and the knowledge of what awaited them if they spoke
outweighed with the majority every other consideration, and caused
them to remain silent. Home never complained of this conduct ; on
the contrary, he was only too unselfishly ready to excuse it ; and in
Incidents of My Life (vol. i. p. 204), he even constituted himself the
apologist of the timid many, and stated with generous candour the
best defence that can be offered for their discreditable silence:
" I am sorry that in so many instances I am obliged to conceal the names
of my friends who have witnessed wonderful things," he wrote; "but if the
reader is disposed to complain of this, let him remember the reason, and take
the greater part of the blame on himself. No sooner is the name of some honest
and courageous person given, in obedience to the call for testimony, than it
becomes a target for all the ridicule, jests, and abuse of the unscrupulous, the
sceptical, the orthodox, and the scientific ; in fact, of all who are not wise
enough to think and observe, and weigh and judge before they decide. There
is small encouragement for men, and still less for ladies, to come forward and
stand in front of all this obloquy. If an example be needed of the truth of this,
if it be not an obvious fact already in this uncharitable day, let my adventurous
friends watch the extent to which I shall be abused, and called bad names, and
give'n to the devil, for simply and truthfully writing in this little book a few of
the incidents of my life, with the production of which I have had nothing to
ENGLAND 73
Many of those who had wonderful and convincing experiences at
the seances of Mr. Home in England have quitted the world, and
have carried their knowledge with them. As for the survivors, it may
readily be conceived that few of those who shrank from publicity when
the impression made on them was fresh and vivid are inclined to come
forward now. I am the more thankful that there are a courageous
minority who have not feared to speak. Some of these, too, are now
in another life, but their witness remains; others are still on earth,
and I gratefully acknowledge the assistance they have afforded me.
The life of Home and its marvellous phenomena are sufficient to prove
that God rendered worthy of this gift, the man on whom it was
bestowed.
All the facts I can give I shall ^ive; my care is not to respect the
scruples of the timorous, but to render justice to the truth. If the
publication of names causes pain, I can only say that I am sorry ; but
that the timid portion of his friends must be content with having
sacrificed him during his lifetime to their anxiety not to compromise
themselves in the eyes of the world. I cannot imitate Mr. Home's
generosity on this point; my duty forbids me, on account of the
honour of a truth that was sacred to him, and for the future of which
I write this book. I only regret that my want of full information must
necessarily render my narrative incomplete, and that the history of
many remarkable seances will never be known, unless such of the
persons present at them as still survive will summon up courage enough
to remember the duty they owe to the truth, and will put it in practice
by giving the facts of those seances to the world.
During the years 1860 and 1861, the manifestations in England
were, as I have said, of a very wonderful character. The mere list
of the persons present at Mr. Home's seances would furnish sufficient
testimony to the interest he excited in English society. He sought
none of those persons ; all his life his rule was to allow events to take
their course with him ; and his acquaintance extended itself without
any efforts of his own.
On his arrival in England in November, 1859, he received a warm
welcome from the friends whom he had made during his visit in 1855 ;
and various men of note who had then been present at his seances
took the opportunity of renewing their acquaintance with him. Two
of the earliest of these were Sir E. B. Lytton and Dr. Ashburner; the
former of whom writes to Mr. Home, January 10, 1860, pressing him
to pay a visit for two or three days to Knebworth. Home was unable
to accept the invitation ; but later in the year Lytton came to London,
and then, and again in 1861, was present at various seances, of which
I shall presently speak.
Dr. Ashburner had become a firm believer in Spiritualism ; and his
belief had estranged from him his old friend and colleague, Dr.
Elliottson, whose portrait Thackeray drew in Pendennis as Dr.
Goodenough, and to whom the great writer affectionately dedicated
that work. Elliottson and Ashburner had co-operated in investigating
the phenomena of mesmerism ; but after beinc^ present at one or two
seances with so-called mediums, the former contemptuously refused to
F
74 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
make further inquiry into Spiritualism, and lost all patience with what
he regarded as his old friend's delusions on the subject. Elliottson-
was a man whose noble and upright character was worthy of all
esteem; but, like many other great physiologists, he rejected absolutely
the doctrine of a future life.
On Dr. Ashburner becoming an avowed Spiritualist, Elliottson
broke off all intercourse with his old friend, and publicly charged him
with worse than folly in assisting to promote the spread of so gross
a delusion; nor did "Dr. Goodenough " hesitate to inveigh in
unmeasured terms against Home, whom he had never seen. He was
destined, however, to make Home's acquaintance, and under dramatic
circumstances. The most placable of mankind, Home had never for
a moment thought of resenting the conduct of Elliottson, whose pre-
judice he felt to be as honest as it was unreasoning and violent, and of
whose estimable character he was well aware. The circumstances
under which the two men at last met were related by Mr. Home in his
second volume of Incidents, published after Dr. Elliottson's death,
but during the lifetime of the lady who was the agent of the intro-
duction.
" In the autumn of 1863, while at Dieppe," wrote Home, " I met my friend,
Mrs. Milner Gibson, one afternoon on the parade there. In the course of
conversation, she said : ' Do you know that Dr. Elliottson is in Dieppe at
present? ' ' Is he? ' I replied; ' I should like to be introduced to him.' Mrs.
Milner Gibson expressed surprise, but undertook to introduce me ; and a few
minutes afterwards we observed him on a seat. I was introduced to him, and
said, ' Dr. Elliottson, you have said and written very hard things of me. Now,
don't you think it was very wrong for an old man like you to make such
accusations as you have done against me, and call a man an impostor of
whom you know nothing whatever? If you like to know something of me,
and to investigate the subject of Spiritualism, I shall be happy to see you at
Mrs. Milner Gibson's this evening, and to give you every opportunity of testing
what you see.' He came; and saw so much that he was convinced of the
truth of Spiritualism. The next day he called on me, and said : ' What I
witnessed last evening was wonderful and convincing, but it is too much for
me to change suddenly the convictions of seventy years. T must ask you to let
me come again, and bring a young friend with me.' I agreed readily ; and that
evening he came accompanied by the two young Messrs. Symes. The fullest
use was made by the tHree gentlemen of their power of observing and testing
what they witnessed, and the result was that Dr. Elliottson was perfectlv
convinced."
On returning to London, Elliottson hastened to seek a reconcilia-
tion with his old friend, Dr. Ashburner, and during the few
remaining years of his life made no secret of the change in his
convictions, nor of the manner in which it had been wrought. Yet
the old incredulity struggled at times to reassert itself; and to
strengthen his new belief, he wished to obtain communications
himself. He applied accordingly to Mrs. Milner Gibson for instruc-
tions as to the most favourable conditions under which to hold
seances; and followed them carefully, but without effect. Dis-
appointed by his failure, he wrote the following note to Mr. Home :
" CONDUIT ST. 37, Oct. 30, 1863.
" MY DEAR SIR, I have sat regularly accordingly to the instructions
I received from Mrs. M. G., but with no result. When shall you
be here? Yours sincerely, " J. ELLIOTTSON."
ENGLAND 75
Eiliottson was still only on the threshold of the subject. He
Lad not yet learned that a gift of the nature of Home's can never
be acquired. A man is born witn or without it ; and the vast
majority without.
In the following year, 1864, Mr. B. Coleman, of Bayswater,
received from Eiliottson an account of the revolution wrought in his
views by the seances with Home at Dieppe, and published it, with
the full approval of the giver, in the Spiritual Magazine.. This
authorised version of the conclusion that Eiliottson had arrived at
is as follows :
' I am,' Dr. Eiliottson said to me, and it is with his sanction
that I make the announcement, ' now quite satisfied of the reality of
the phenomena. I am not yet prepared to admit that they are
produced by the agency of spirits. I do not deny this, as I am
unable to satisfactorily account tor what I have seen on any other
hypothesis. The explanations which have been made to account for
the phenomena do not 'satisfy me, but I desire to reserve my opinion
on that point at present. I am free, however, to say that I regret
the opportunity was not afforded me at an earlier period. What I
have seen lately has made a deep impression on my mind; and the
recognition of the reality of these manifestations, from whatever
cause, is tending to revolutionise my thoughts and feelings on almost
every subject."
Dr. Eiliottson died in 1868. The Morning Post in the course
of its obituary notice, related the story of his meeting with Mr.
Home at Dieppe, which, it must be noted, Home had not yet
published ; and continued :
:< He then spent some time in investigating the phenomena of
Spiritualism, aided by the sons of his friend, Dr. Symes. The
result was that he expressed his conviction of the truth of the
phenomena, and became a sincere Christian, whose handbook
henceforth was his Bible. Some time after this he said he had
been living all his life in darkness, and had thought there was
nothing in existence but the material ; but he now had a firm hope
which he trusted he would hold while on earth."
' In one of my latest interviews with him," a friend of Elliott-
son's wrote in 1870, " he expressed the great happiness his later
convictions had brought him, and looked forward to the life hereafter
with calm confidence. The leading characteristic of his mind, in
addition to his high intellectual development, was the perfectly honest
search after truth."
The same description might with equal justice be applied to
Elliotson's friend Ashburner, who besides, possessed a virtue that
Eiliottson, with all his great qualities, lacked that of a well-
governed spirit. Ashburner's numerous letters to Home pleasantly
illustrate the tranquil goodness of his character. I would like to
1 Note by Mr. H. T. Humphreys : " It was to me that Dr. Eiliottson made
the remark quoted in the biography of him which I wrote for the Morning
Post; and it was made at Mrs. Milner Ciibson's, on the only occasion on which
I had the pleasure of meeting him."
76 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
give some of the pictures of a happy, religious, and tranquil old
age these letters afford ; but other demands on my space forbid it.
Home had several seances with him, of which one that took place
in May, 1860, was perhaps the most remarkable.
No one in England saw more of the manifestations during the
years 1860 and 1861 than the lady who introduced Mr. Home to Dr.
Elliottson at Dieppe Mrs. Milner Gibson. She was almost as
familiar a figure in French and Italian society as in English ; and
it was in Paris that Mr. Home first met her.
During Home's stay in London, it was customary for him to hold a
seance once a week at Mrs. Gibson's residence in Hyde Park Place,
a few doors from Dr. Ashburner. The lady's husband, a well-
known Member of Parliament, who, then or subsequently, held the
position of President of the Board of Trade, uniformly declined to
be present at these seances. Mr. Gibson was willing to extend a
courteous tolerance to his wife's belief ; but he did not share it, and
did not wish to share it ; not from any deep-rooted incredulity as to
the verity of the facts, but from the fear that his presence at seances
might tend to compromise that which was everything to such a man
his political and social position.
At these seances in Hyde Park Place, and at others that Home
held in London during 1860 and thfe years following, many of the
best-known figures in English society were present. The effect on
some was to convert them to a belief in the spiritual origin of the
manifestations' ; others preserved a suspense of judgment as to their
origin, while admitting the facts. In attempting to distinguish
between these two classes, my chief, almost my only guide, has been
the letters from English friends and acquaintances preserved by Mr.
Home.
The witnesses whom letters to Mr. Home, or their published
testimony, show to have not only recognised the manifestations as
genuine but to have been convinced of their spiritual origin, included,
between the years 1859 1866, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady
Shelley, Lady Gomm, Dr. Robert Chambers, Lady Otway, Miss
Catherine Sinclair, Mrs. Milner Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. William
Howitt, Mrs. De Burgh, Dr. Gully of Malvern, Sir Charles
Nicholson, Lady Dunsany, Sir Daniel Cooper, Mrs. Adelaide Senior,
Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mrs. Makdougall Gregory, Miss Douglas,
Mr. Pickersgill, R.A., Mr. E. L. Blanchard, and many others. No
letters from Mr. Robert Bell remain ; but his article, " Stranger than
Fiction," in the Cornhill Magazine, constitutes sufficent proof that
he is to be added to the list.
I am fully aware that I have named but a small number of the
Englishmen and Englishwomen of high intellectual or social position
who became convinced of the spiritual origin of the manifestations
witnessed by them in presence of Mr. Home. The merit I claim
for my list of believers is that, while very far from being exhaustive,
it is of indisputable accuracy, as I have included in it only those
present at the seances of Mr. Home, concerning whom I have written
or printed evidence of the fact that they became Spiritualists. Some
ENGLAND 77
of them, as the Howitts and the Halls, had the courage to proclaim
their belief openly ; others shrank from such a course.
After the convinced, the half-convinced. I mean by this, that
among the investigators present at seances of Mr. Home in England
were certain distinguished persons, of whom I have warrant for
stating that they acknowledged the phenomena they had witnessed
at those seances to be inexplicable on the theory of imposture, but of
whose beliefs or opinions if they formed any I cannot with cer-
tainty speak. I refer, among others, to Mr. Ruskin (one or two of
whose letters to Mr. Home will be found in another chapter), Mr.
Thackeray, Mr. John Bright, Lord Dufferin, Sir Edwin Arnold,
Mr. Edmond Beales, Mr. Heaphy, Mr. Durham, the sculptor; Mr.
Nassau Senior, the distinguished political economist, who secured
the publication by Messrs. Longmans of Mr. Home's Incidents ;
Lord Lyndhurst, Mr. J. Hutchinson, ex-chairman of the Stock
Exchange; Dr. Lockhart Robertson, &c. This short list, it will
be observed, includes men whose habits of thought were as wide
asunder as the poles ; but on each the impression produced was the
same that the theory of imposture was untenable. No man who
impartially and honestly investigated the manifestations that
occurred at the seances of Home ever failed to arrive at a similar
opinion. The loudest declarations to the contrary have always pro-
ceeded from those who knew least of him, and their only importance
has been to furnish an illustration of the hopeless incapacity of the
mass of mankind to distinguish between prejudices and facts. A
remarkable instance of this unhappy tendency of human nature to
confound assertion with fact occurred in the year 1864, the details of
which I shall briefly relate in an ensuing chapter.
Besides the Spiritualists and investigators already named, very
many persons came to the seances of Mr. Home in London, of whom
I know only this one fact that they were present at seances. The
names of Mr. Buckle, Lord Clarence Paget, Lord Houghton, the
Marchioness of Hastings, Lady Londonderry, Miss Geraldine
Jewsbury, and Mr. Hain Friswell, author of The Gentle Life, may
be of interest ; but of the experiences and opinions of these inquirers
I can say nothing with certainty ; though it is evident from the letters
of Lady Londonderry to Mr. Home that she was present at several
seances, and that a considerable impression had been made on her.
During the early months of 1860 the circle of Mr. Home's
English acquaintances continued to widen steadily, but as yet his
name had not been brought prominently before the public. In
August, 1860, however, a startling impression was produced by the
appearance of the article " Stranger than Fiction " in the Cornkill
Magazine, then at the height of its popularity, and edited by Mr.
Thackeray. As the article was unsigned, it lost the weight that
the name of Mr. Robert Bell would otherwise have given to it; and
Thackeray was bitterly attacked for having permitted the publica-
tion of statements which his hasty and ignorant critics set down as
pure invention.
To be reproached with over-credulity was the fate of every
78 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
intelligent and honest inquirer into the phenomena of Spiritualism
whose experiences conflicted with the prejudices of the public, but
the accusation was especially unjust as regarded Thackeray, and
must have galled him deeply. As the verses attributed to Dickens
say of him, he was emphatically " the man, of all his time, who
knew the most of men " ; and that knowledge, combined with his
great natural shrewdness, had rendered him the most wary and
sceptical of mankind. He had had opportunities of testing the
phenomena that occurred in Mr. Home's presence, and had availed
himself of them in the most incredulous spirit. Many years after-
wards a friend asked Home, " Who was the most sceptical inquirer
you have ever met? " and Home, without any hesitation, answered,
" Thackeray." Thackeray's first introduction to Home took place,
I believe, during the great writer's lecturing tour in America. My
reason for thinking so is that I well remember a description given
by an American lady of a seance at which she was present in the
States with Home, Thackeray being also present, and; of the
amusements caused to her by Thackeray's minute examinations of
floor, table, and everything in the room, in his persistent determina-
tion to unearth the trickery that he supposed to be at the bottom of
the wonders he was witnessing. The character of a credulous
dupe was the very last that would have been attributed to the author
of Vanity Fair by any one iwho knew him intimately ; and his honest
and fearless action in publishing Bell's testimony was the more
commendable because of the fact that he had himself been convinced
entirely in spite of himself. I do not say that Thackeray ever got
so far as to entertain the belief that the manifestations were pro-
duced by disembodied spirits. Most probably he did not ; but when
he published the Cornhill article, and vouched for his old friend
Bell's good faith in an editorial note, he had certainly abandoned
as incredible the supposition that they could be attributed to either
delusion or imposture. I have only been able to identify one of the
seances at which he was present in London with Home. It took
place towards the end of December, 1862, at the residence in Park
Lane of (Mrs. or Miss?) M. G. Hope, the sister of Lady Home.
Robert Bell was less profoundly sceptical by nature than his
friend Thackeray, but as frank and candid, and a close, intelligent,
and dispassionate observer. No better account of the physical
manifestations has ever been given than his lucid and unbiassed
narrative in the Cornhill, written by him with no other aim than to
place on record, as befitted a candid inquirer, the results of a series
of investigations conducted in a temper equally remote from
unreasoning prejudice and foolish credulity. As for the reception
accorded his testimony by the mass of the public, Bell had fully
anticipated that storm of angry incredulity and ignorant derision.
Quoting the reply of Dr. Treviranus to Coleridge, when the poet
questioned the savant as to the reality of certain magnetic phenomena,
Bell told his readers in the very first lines of his article : " I have
seen what I would not have believed on your testimony, and what I
cannot, therefore, expect you to believe upon mine. ' '
ENGLAND 7y
;- It is not to be expected," he writes, later on, " that any person
who is a stranger to these phenomena, should read such a story as this
with complacency. Yet here is a fact which undoubtedly took
place, and which cannot be referred to any known physical or
mechanical forces. It is not a satisfactory answer to those who
have seen such things, to say that they are impossible ; since, in such
cases, it is evident that the impossibility of a thing does not -prevent
it from happening.''
In the words I have italicised, Robert Bell anticipated by eleven
years the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Crookes after repeated and
exhaustive experiments, and expressed by him in his reply to Sir
Charles Wheatsfcone. VVheatstone had written, with regard to one
of Crookes' experiments with Home: "It appears to me contrary
to all analogy that a force acting according to physical laws should
produce the motion of a lever by acting on its fulcrum."
" In this," replied Mr. Crookes, " I entirely agree. I, too,
cannot trace the analogy between the psychic force and a force
acting according to known physical laws. Yet the facts recorded
in my papers are true for all that."
In the presence of such experiences as those of Mr. Crookes and
Mr. Bell, Science had but two courses open to it to carefully
investigate the subject, or to deny its title to investigation. Science
was content to adopt the latter course, as the easier and speedier
way of arriving at a conclusion ; but in so doing it ceased to be
science.
I have not space to give in extenso Robert Bell's long and
interesting narrative. In a former chapter I quoted his testimony
concerning the detached hand that he seized, and that, without any
effort at withdrawal, melted into air. His evidence as to another
phenomenon repeatedly witnessed at the seances of Mr. Home, the
playing of an instrument without the contact of mortal hand, is no
less conclusive and emphatic :
" We heard the accordion begining to play where it lay on the ground.
" Apart from the wonderful consideration of its being played without hands
no less wonderful was the fact of its being played in a narrow space which
would not admit of its being drawn out with the requisite freedom to its full
extent. We listened with suspended breath. The air was wild, and full of
strang_e transitions, with a wail of the most pathetic sweetness running through
it. Tne execution was no less remarkable for its delicacy than its power.
When the notes swelled in some of the bold passages, the sound rolled through
the room with an astounding reverberation ; then gently subsiding, sank into
a strain of divine tenderness.
' That an instrument should be played without hands is a proposition
which nobody can be expected to accept. The whole story will be referred
to one of the categories under, which the whole of these phenomena are
consigned by ' common sense.' It will be discarded as a delusion or a fraud.
Either we imagined we heard it, and really did not hear it, or there was some
one under the table, or some mechanism was set in motion to produce the
result.
Upon the likelihood of delusion my testimony is obviously worth nothing.
With respect to fraud I can speak more confidently. It is scarcely necessary to
say that in so small a circle, occupied by so many persons who were
inconveniently packed together, there was not room for a child of the size of
a doll, or for the smallest piece of machinery to operate.
8o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" But we need not speculate on what might be done by skilful contrivances
in confines so narrow, since the question is removed out of the region of
conjecture by the fact that, upon holding up the instrument myself in one
hand, in .the open room, -with the full light upon it, similar strains were
emitted, the regular action of the accordion going on without any visible
agency. And I should add that, during the loud and vehement passages, it
became so difficult to hold, in consequence of the extraordinary power with
which it was played from below, that I was obliged to grasp the top with
both hands. This experience was not a solitary one. I witnessed the same
result on different occasions, when the instrument was held by others."
Bell was a sane man, and widely respected as an honest one. Did
the accordion play in his hands under the circumstances he describes ;
or was he deliberately writing a falsehood, thq only result of which,
as he well knew, would be to bring upon him a storm of obloquy ?
Were the many other credible witnesses equally telling falsehoods,
who have recorded a similar experience? The intellect that answers
" Yes " cannot be reasoned with; and unfortunately there are only
too many who will answer " Yes."
In the Morning Star, in October, 1860, appeared a Tetter from
Dr. Gully, of Malvern, who had been present at the seance when
the accordion was played, and who fully confirmed Bell's testimony.
" I held it myself for a short time," he wrote, " and had good reason
to know that it was vehemently pulled at the other end, and not by Mr.
Home's toes, as has been wisely surmised ; unless that gentleman has legs three
yards in length, with toes at the end of them quite as marvellous as any
legion of spirits. For, be it stated, that such music as we heard was no
ordinary strain ; it was grand at times, at others pathetic, at others distant
and long-drawn, to a degree which no one can imagine who has not heard it.
I have heard Blagrove repeatedly ; but it is no libel on that master of the
instrument to say that he never did produce such exquisite distant and echo
notes as those which delighted our ears. The instrument played, too, at
distant parts of the room, many yards away from Home and from all of us."
One of the phenomena at the same remarkable seance that most
impressed and startled the persons present was the levitation of Mr.
Home. The lights had then been put out, but the sitters were
not in absolute darkness ; they could still distinguish objects with the
help of what light came through the windows from a gas-lamp
outside, and of the fire that was dying in the grate.
" Mr. Home," writes Bell, " was seated next the window. Through the
semi-darkness his head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands
might be seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he said in a quiet
voice, ' My chair is moving I am off the ground don't notice me talk of
something else; ' or words to that effect." (In explanation of these words,
it may be remarked that Home's experience of the phenomenon of levitation
was that, until he had risen above the heads of the circle, any movement
or excitement on the part of the persons present appeared to have the effect
of checking the force at work to produce the manifestation.)
" It was very difficult," continues Bell, " to restrain the curiosity, not
unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few words awakened ; but we
talked, incoherently enough, upon some indifferent topic. I was sitting nearly
opposite Mr. Home ; and I saw his hands disappear from the table, and
his head vanish into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two more
he spoke again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He
had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from the ground.
As he ascended higher he described his position, which at first was perpen-
dicular, and afterwards became horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been
ENGLAND 81
turned in the gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse.
In a moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass across the
window, against the grey, silvery light of which he would be visible. We
watched in profound stillness, and saw his figure pass from one side of the
window to the other, feet foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke
to us as he passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way and recross
the window, which he did. . . . He hovered round the circle for several
minutes, and passed this time perpendicularly over our heads."
As Home passed him, Bell touched his foot, and relates that it
was " withdrawn quickly, with a palpable shudder. It was
evidently not restir g on the chair, but floating ; and it sprang from
the touch as a bird would."
" He now," ends Bell, " passed over to the farthest extremity of
the room ; and we could judge by his voice of the altitude and
distance he had attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which
he made a slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed
his place at the table."
If nine hundred and ninety-nine men who had seen them united in
testifying to such facts, would the thousandth man who had not seen
believe their testimony ? Probably not ; but, in the words of Mr.
Crookes, " the facts are true, for all that."
44 You can have but a limited idea," wrote Mr. S. C. Hall to Mr.
Home, " of the sensation created by the article in the Corn/till
Magazine. It was a bold, noble, and honest act in Robert Bell.
Mrs. Hall wrote to thank him in our names. It was so well done
so calmly yet so eloquently written ; so judicious while so earnest ;
and so effectually redeeming your character of which the gaping
crowd may have doubts, but which all who know you respect and
esteem and regard you with something warmer than either respect
or esteem.
" I need not add I have taken all opportunities to say I endorse
(and so does Mrs. Hall) every sentence in the article."
The seance during which the accordion played without human
hand touching it, and Mr. Home was lifted in the air, was the
most remarkable of several seances at which Bell had been present ;
and a large portion of his article in the Cornhill is naturally devoted
to a description of its various incidents. Besides Mr. Robert Bell
and Dr. Gully, the sitters present on that occasion included a solicitor
whom I have been unable positively to identify, and the well-known
writer, Dr. Robert Chambers. Dr. Chambers had a remarkable
experience in the course of the evening, which Dr. Gully related in
his letter to the Morning Star.
" I may add," wrote Dr. Gully, " that the writer in the Cornkill
Magazine omits to mention several curious phenomena which were
witnessed that evening. Here is one of them. A distinguished
litteratuer who was present " (Robert Chambers) 44 asked the
supposed spirit of his father whether he would play his favourite
ballad for us ; and addressing us, he added : ' The accordion was
not invented at the time of my father's death, so I cannot conceive
how it will be affected; but if his favourite air is not played. I
pledge myself to tell you so.' Almost immediately the flute notes
82 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
of the accordion (which was upon the floor) played through ' Ye banks
and braes o' Bonnie Doon,' which the gentleman alluded to assured
us was his father's favourite air, whilst the flute was his father's
favourite instrument. He then asked for another favourite air of
his father's ' which was not Scotch,' and ' The Last Rose of
Summer ' was played in the same note. This, the gentleman told us,
was the air to which he had alluded."
Dr. Gully had been introduced to Mr. Home by Lady Shelley.
He was not as yet a Spiritualist when he attended this seance.
" I have endeavoured," he wrote in the same letter to the Morning
Star, " to show that, as regards the principal and most wonderful
phenomena, there could have been no contrivance by trick or
machinery adequate to produce or account for their existence. How,
then, were they produced ? I know not ; and I believe that we are
very very far from having accumulated facts enough upon which to
frame any laws or build any theory regarding the agent at work in
their production."
If ever a conversion to Spiritualism was remarkable, it was that of
Robert Chambers. The fact that he was one of the most kindly and
genial of men did not prevent him from being at the same time one of
the hardest and most dogmatic of materialists ; and he was known by
his intimate friends to have been the joint-author, together with Leitch
Ritchie, of a work that had startled the public by its outspoken
scepticism, The Vestiges of Creation. Chambers published it
anonymously, from a care of his reputation ; and from the same motive
he was unwilling, after becoming a Spiritualist, to let his name be
mentioned in connection with Bell's Cornhill article, or to sign it to
the Introduction and Appendix which he kindly wrote in 1863 for Mr.
Home's first volume of autobiography. It was not until 1867 that
Robert Chambers abandoned this attitude of reserve. In that year
he was asked by Home to give an affidavit in connection with the
Lyon lawsuit, and honourably consented.
Robert Chambers did not become a Spiritualist in a day, but in the
end he did become one. His acquaintance with Home began in 1859,
and was continued in 1860 and the years following. It is much to be
regretted that he never had the courage to publish the experiences
that were the means of converting him ; for few men could have borne
more remarkable testimony on the subject of identity, as established
by the knowledge displayed, on the part of the intelligences communi-
cating, of matters that Chambers was well assured were unknown to
Home.
The first conviction at which intelligent and impartial observers
present at the seances of Home arrived was that imposture had no part
in the manifestations ; the second fact demonstrated to them was that
those manifestations were governed by intelligence. But by what
intelligence? Was it that of Home or of the other persons present,
acting in an unexplained manner and under unknown conditions ? Or
were the intelligences that produced the phenomena separate entities
from the human beings present; and, if so, were they disembodied
spirits ?
KN GLAND 83
What amount of proof could answer the last question in the affirma-
tive? Each inquirer had to decide for himself; but it was obvious
that only one class of proofs could be conclusive. If we find that an
intelligence communicating with ours claims to be that of a friend
whom death has separated from us, we may reasonably
expect the spirit to remember something of the facts of his life
on earth.
In the case of one investigator present at the seances of Home,
messages from lost friends would be frequent, and the most remarkable
proofs of identity would be given : another person might be present at
seance after seance, and never receive a message of the kind. Why
not ? The question was often asked ; and the reply the spirits gave
was that the life beyond is, like our own, subject to conditions and
restraints, differing indeed from earthly restraints and conditions, but
often debarring spirits from communicating, just as we are often
unable to carry out our wishes here below.
Robert Chambers was one of the former and more fortunate class
of investigators, the recipients of evidences of identity that were con-
clusive to them. '' Evidences that may be accounted for by the
theory of thought-reading," some objectors will answer. If that
theory be held sufficient to account for the knowledge shown at the
Corn hill seance of the two airs that Chambers was thinking of when
he put his question, it still remains to be demonstrated how an
accordion that Home was not touching could be induced to play those
airs. But can thought read thought at a distance of four hundred
miles ?
In the latter part of 1866, Dr. Robert Chambers was in Scotland,
and Mr. Home in London. One day, at the rooms of the Spiritual
Athenaeum in Sloane Street, where Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. Humphreys,
Mr. Jencken, Mr. Perdicaris, and Mr. Home had met for the dis-
cussion of some matters of business, a message was rapped out that
claimed to emanate from a daughter of Dr. Chambers. Her name
was given; and Mr. S. C. Hall, who had been for many years
acquainted with the family, declared his disbelief that Dr. Chambers
had ever had a daughter of that name. For the sequel of the incident,
my authority is Mr. Hall himself, together with letters written by jJr.
Chambers on the subject, and quoted from by Mr. Home in his second
volume of Incidents, page 143.
Mr. Hall relates that, as the message received had reference to
certain very private matters, he was most reluctant to communicate it
to Chambers under the circumstances ; and, although he unwillingly
undertook to write to the latter, neglected to fulfil his promise. Some
weeks passed ; and one evening, at a seance at the residence of Mr.
and Mrs. Hall, in Essex Villas, Campden Hill, another message was
received, declaring the regret of the spirit that Dr. Chambers had not
been communicated with. She described herself as being accompanied
on this occasion by the spirit of a sister who had died at an early age ;
and in reply to Mr. Hall's request for some token of identity that he
84 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
might furnish to Dr. Chambers, the words, " Tell him, Pa, love,"
were spelt out. 1
Mr. Hall sent this message to Dr. Chambers, with a letter explain-
ing the circumstances under which it had been received, and added
that he thought it best to withhold the former communication made,
until he had obtained Chambers' opinion of the test of identity. Dr.
Chambers wrote back that it was a most remarkable one. " The
whole of the communications," said his letter to Mr. Hall, " accord
with actual facts. The words, ' Pa, love,' were the last words she
pronounced in life."
Mr. Hall had now no scruple in forwarding the other message,
which related to private affairs of the Chambers' family and entreated
Dr. Chambers to adopt a particular course of action with reference
to certain family matters. Chambers did as the spirit advised ; and
in a letter that he wrote to Home a short time afterwards he related
the result of his action; adding, " You see, she was right about the
imminence of that step, of which I Knew nothing. ' '
I have dwelt on this incident at some length, because the theory of
thought-reading is clearly quite inapplicable here. In the narrative i
am now about to give, such an explanation is, to say the least, very
far-fetched ; for it is evident that the recipient of the communication
was not at the moment thinking of the person it referred to.
One of the friends of Dr. Chambers was the late Miss Catherine
Sinclair, a well-known writer in her day, and a lady much beloved for
the beauty and amiability of her character. She, like Chambers,
became a Spiritualist ; and one of the experiences that were the means
of convincing her is thus narrated by Mrs. Adelaide Senior, sister-in-
law of the late Nassau Senior. The seance in question took place in
the summer of 1861 ; and Mrs. Senior, who was present at it, writes:
" We were all assembled in the summer twilight in a large drawing-room in
one of those immense houses in the Regent's Park, where Mr. and Mrs.
Home were staying with the widow of an Indian judge. Miss Catherine
Sinclair was seated next me ; we were not at a table, nor in a circle. Mr.
Home went into a trance ; and coming up suddenly to Miss Sinclair, he
said in that peculiar trance voice ' You knew James Ferguson,' when she
actually bounded up from her chair, and said, ' Yes, I did ! ' He went on
in the same voice : ' He was called Sir James in life he wishes to
communicate with you, but cannot do so you are so surrounded by your
friends ; ' and she answered bitterly, ' Aye, I daresay ! ' Upon which I
conjured up a love story in my mind, and I believe that I was perfectly
right. Mr. Home meanwhile went on, ' He wants you to do something for
him.' ' Oh ! what is it? ' she interrupted; ' there is nothing that I would not
do for him.' "
Mrs. Senior then narrates a communication that was made relative
to a son of Sir James Ferguson, to whom Miss Sinclair was requested
to write ; and continues :
1 Note by Mr. H. T. Humphreys : " I was also present at the stance at
Essex Villas, Campden Hill, where Mary Edwards (formerly Chambers) came
accompanied by her little sister, and recollect how the window curtains were
moved into something like a canopy on the occasion. We asked for an
explanation of ' Pa, love,' and were told it was a test."
ENGLAND 85
" ' But I do not know where he is,' Miss Sinclair answered; ' can you
tell me? ' Mr. Home paused a moment, and said, ' I will try and find out.'
When he turned to walk away from us, I saw a bright star glittering in the
centre of his forehead, and said impulsively, ' Oh, look at the star ! ' but
no one saw it except myself. He walked to the other end of the room, 18
to 20 feet, where there were folding doors, leading to another room ; they were
closed, and he began to walk up and down in front of them like a sentry on
his post ; and, as he did so, we all saw seven stars sparkling round his head,
as they do in the sky on a frosty night. In a few minutes Mr. Home came
over to us again, and walking close to me, said, ' No one saw the first star
in my forehead but you that was Henry's star.' Then, turning to Miss
Sinclair, he mentioned some foreign baths Baden-Baden, I think, and I
afterwards saw a notice of the death of Sir J. Ferguson's son at the same
place.
" I ought to have mentioned that when Mr. Home walked away from us
in the first instance, Miss Sinclair turned to me, and said, in the lowest
whisper : ' How very wonderful ! he has been dead these thirty years ;* when
Mr. Home instantly called out in a tone that thrilled us : ' Don't say dead
nothing kills but sin sin kills through the devil; but those who live in
Christ never die.' This was said from the far side of the room, where no
human ears could have heard Miss Sinclair's words.
" I had never met her before, nor did I ever see her again ; but on that
night we had a great deal of talk, and hoped to meet again. I have often
wondered whether Miss Sinclair had left any record of her experience. She
seemed very much impressed, and to believe fully all she heard and saw."
When he was thrown into the trance-condition referred to by Mrs.
Senior, Home's identity became merged in that of the intelligences
communicating, and he described the spirits he saw, and spoke in
their words ; but, on awaking from the vision, remembered nothing of
what had passed. I shall write more fully on this subject in another
chapter.
From one of the letters of Robert Chambers, it appears that he was
in London late in April or early in May, 1860; this, therefore, must
have been the visit during which Chambers was present at the seance
described a few months later in the Cornhill.
If any further evidence be asked that Chambers in the last years
of his life was a Spiritualist in the full sense of the term, I may cite
some words of his with reference to a pamphlet on the subject of
Spiritualism, of which his friend Miss Douglas (another of Home's
converts) was the author. "These twenty-four pages," he wrote,
"in my opinion contain the germ of the greatest discovery and the
greatest revolution of human thought that the world has witnessed."
The same recognition of the spiritual origin of the manifestations is
apparent in the following extract from a letter written by Dr. Chambers
to Mrs. S. C. Hall, on hearing of Mr. Home's adoption by Mrs. Lyon :
" I need not say how delighted I am, in common with all his well-
wishers, with the good fortune that has befallen him. Such is my
opinion of him that not only do I think him deserving of it but that he
will make good use of it. We may, I think, trust to see him pro-
pagating Spiritualism from the independent point he has reached,
with power only bounded by the needful regard to his health."
Several of the letters of Dr. Robert Chambers and Miss Sinclair
were printed by Mr. Home in his second volume of Incidents. A
passage from one of Miss Sinclair's may be quoted here, as indicative
of her convictions :
86 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" The message of last night was most marvellous. . . I live
with those who have heard, from my near relative Mrs. Hope
Johnstone, a very detailed account of her experience and also Mr.
Grant's cf the Advertiser ; but people cannot long resist conviction,
seconded by manifestations so pleasing and elevating as those of last
night. I merely relate what I have myself witnessed, and all become
at once desirous to share in such revelations."
In an unpublished letter from Miss Sinclair to Mr. Home, I find
the following grateful reference tc her experiences:
" My brother and I would much like to be present at the seance, if
you could obtain Mrs. Edgeworth's leave to allow us to accompany
Lady Hesketh. I hear from Mr. S. C. Hall that you are now in great
power; and I am so deeply interested in the subject of Spiritualism,
and have had such experience of its truth and usefulness, that it
interests me of all things. I have never forgotten the beautiful
manifestations we had at your house in Sloane Street."
The seance at which Miss Sinclair was so startled by hearing the
name of Sir James Ferguson, was the second that the narrator of the
incident, Mrs. A. Senior, had ever attended. Her own experiences
on that and the previous occasion were still more impressive than
those she relates in connection with Miss Sinclair. I give them in
Mrs. Senior's own words, written in 1862, and published under the
initial "S " in Mr. Home's first volume of Incidents (pp. 206-
208) :
" I first attended a seance of Mr. Home's in the summer of 1861, when I
was in very deep affliction. I had never seen anything of Spiritualism before,
but had heard a good deal of it from a dear old friend who introduced me to
Mr. Home. My own experiences that night were far more wonderful than
anything I had ever heard or read of, and were to me most convincing.
After many raps, movements of the table, &c., Mr. Home fell into a trance,
and described my dear husband most accurately, said how noble he was in
mind and body, and how he should have loved him had he known him in
life; and then said, ' But who is that Mary standing by his side? What a
noble woman, and how she loves him and how happy they are together
and how they both love you ; you were his star in life. But what was that
misery about his watch? You forgot to wind his watch, and how miserable
it made you.' Now this was a fact known to no living being but myself.
I had wound the watch the night I lost my husband, and resolved nover to
let it go down again ; but more than a month afterwards, when I returned to
our old home, I forgot to wind it one night ; and my agony was great when I
discovered it in the morning, but I never mentioned it even to my husband's
sister, who was in the house with me.
" A month later I attended a second stance. Some remarkable things were
told by Mr. Home, who was in a state of trance, to a lady present " (Miss
Sinclair) " of her departed friend. . . . Mr. Home came soon afterwards to
me ; and said that my dear husband and his mother the Mary spoken
of before were behind my chair, and that both longed to comfort me.
He then went on to say that I. had had a conversation with my husband
eight months before, and that he blessed me for that conversation now ; that
we were sitting in our drawing-room at home, he in his arm-chair and I in
mine, with the little round table between us, and that I had just been reading
a chapter in the New Testament. ... I remember perfectly the conversation
alluded to, and it was a very remarkable one.
' These are facts for which I can vouch. To me the comfort has been
unspeakable."
ENGLAND 87
" I do hope," wrote Mrs. Senior to Mr. Home in November, 1866,
with reference to one of her friends, " that Spiritualism may be the
same comfort to her that it has been to me more I cannot wish her.
For one who has had, like Mrs. Senior, the courage to speak, a
hundred have been silent concerning their experiences with Mr. Home.
Their letters often make allusions to wonderful seances at which the
writers had been present, but the story of those seances remains
untold. For instance, a lady who was a distinguished ornament of
English society a quarter of a century ago, Mrs. G. Cowper, saw a
great deal of the manifestations in 1861. "I was up till very late,
thinking over and writing an account of the wonders of the evening,"
she tells Mr. Home in a letter written in the summer of that year
But if Mrs. Cowper's account ever found its way into print, it did so
anonymously, and cannot now be identified.
Again, there are several letters from Miss Sophia Hope-Vere. A
very interesting one, written in 1860, describes the impression made
on the writer by the first seance at which she was present.
" 20 PARK LANK, July i-jth.
" DEAR MR. HOME, Ere you leave London, I feel it due to you to thank
you for admitting me to your stance. I feel I cannot, and never shall, forget
what I have felt and heard. I am thankful for the opportunity I had of
witnessing what I must honestly own I not only doubted but scouted. I
fear, at the outset of anything so strange and mysterious, to express all I
feel for I know not how far my present feelings on the subject may last.
I shall ever hail with joy an opportunity of another such meeting. I am happy
to say that what 1 narrated to my family has not been sceptically received.
I prefaced my communications to them by saying : ' I do not give you my
views or ideas in what I am about to tell I confine myself to facts ; draw your
own impressions, and make what comments you like.' They have paid me
the compliment of not doubting one word of what I told them ; and one and
all are anxious to have a seance. I saw Lady P. yesterday ; her feelings are
quite in unison with mine on the point. . . . Sincerely yours,
" SOPHIA J. HOPE-VERE."
What were the experiences that drew from one who " not only
doubted but scouted " the manifestations, such a letter as the above,
after a single seance ? What did the writer witness at the seances she
subsequently attended? I cannot say: her letters are eloquent of the
effect produced on her; but the history of the experiences that con-
verted her scorn into belief is unwritten, and must remain unwritten.
The same blank exists in the case of Lady Shelley, who was present
at numbers of Mr. Home's seances in London, including several at
Mrs. Milner Gibson's ; and who, with her husband, frequently invited
him to Boscombe. I have no materials for writing the narrative of
her conversion to Spiritualism ; but of the fact that Lady Shelley
became a Spiritualist her letters leave no question.
" We have been thinking and talking of you for many days past," she
writes to Mr. Home in 1863. " All the world has read your book ; and it has,
1 believe, done much good. The next best thing, you know, to seeing you was
to hear from you, and to know that your heart yearns towards our little, dark,
fgy island. The idea that you might have really been established at the
cottage this winter, had we not pulled it down, is tantalising ; but you must let
me know as soon as you return to England, and Sir Percy joins with me
88 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
in hoping that you will come and spend a fortnight with us. We are in all
the confusion at Boscombe of building new kitchens and offices, but we shall
always be able nevertheless to give you a mutton-chop. . . .
*' You know I am always living in hopes that some day my husband will
have all the comfort from Spiritualism that I have had myself and if that
knowledge is to come to him, it will certainly be through you.
" Direct to Boscombe, and say that we are to see you there before long."
The letters of Lady Shelley convey the impression of a nature at
once intellectual and amiable. I may cite, as an instance, a letter
written by her in 1862, on learning of the death of Mrs. Home:
" BOSCOMBE, July i-jth.
" DEAR MR. HOME, Just before leaving town, I received from our
friend Mrs. Milner Gibson the sad news of your loss. Accept my
warmest and most heartfelt sympa/thy for whenever this parting
comes, it must be a sorrow for a time; though to us Spiritualists, who
know that our beloved ones are not separated from us, but have merely
put off the earth-worn garment to enter into a more glorious life, it is
indeed a far different sorrow to that which sees nothing beyond the
grave. I trust you will not deem these few lines an intrusion at such a
time but the warm interest I must ever take in all that concerns you
must plead my excuse."
This chapter has already grown to such length that I had intended
to close it here ; but another name suggests itself in connection with
Mr. Home and the year 1860, that I cannot pass without remark.
Dr. Lockhart Robertson, long editor of the Journal of Mental Science,
had been one of the most derisive critics of the new belief. When
Mr. Rymer published a pamphlet on the sittings with Mr. Home at
Baling, this distinguished physician replied to it with an essay of
thirty-six pages, wherein he demonstrated according to the most
approved logical methods the inherent impossibility of the asserted
facts. His witticisms on Mr. Home and the believers in Mr. Home
would have done honour to the Saturday Review. Dr. Robertson
declared himself especially anxious that Mr. Rymer should " catch
a sense of the pitying scorn with which those nurtured on the strong
meat of the inductive philosophy within the very courts and halls that
Newton trod, view these sickly Spiritualist dreamers, thus drunk with
the new wine of folly and credulity."
These words were written in 1857. In 1860, Dr. Robertson was
a convert. Of the spiritual origin of the phenomena he remained
unconvinced ; but the very manifestations that he had declared to be
impossible, investigation compelled him to accept as facts ; and he
rery honestly published his recantations of former denials in the
Spiritual Magazine for April and August, 1860. He had the courage
to wish to append his name to his testimony; but the editor strongly
dissuaded him from doing so, on the ground that injury, and possibly
ruin, to his professional reputation would be the result. Some years
later, however, on the occasion of the inquiry by the Dialectical
Society into Spiritualism, Dr. Robertson came publicly forward to
re-state his experiences.
ENGLAND 89
His testimony is that the most remarkable phenomena he witnessed
were at a seance with Mr. Home, eight persons in all being present.
" 'Ihe raps came on the table on the floor about the room the whole
floor vibrated with a tremor," wrote Dr. Lockhart Robertson in the Spiritual
Magazine. " The table was then lifted from the ground about two feet, all
our hands being placed on the surface, we standing the while; and one of the
circle knelt on the ground, and saw it so suspended. . . . The accordion played
the most beautiful music in the hand of Mr. Home, and also while suspended
alone, as verified by one of the circle, under the table. I never heard anything
more wondrous or unearthly than that music.
" During all these phenomena " (the italics are Dr. Robertson's) " six
wax lights were burning in the room.
" It was then intimated by raps that the lights were to be put out, and
the table moved into the window. There was the light of a summer night
mixed with the street gas, and enough to enable us distinctly to distinguish
objects in the room, each other's faces, &c. . . .
" In a few minutes X. and I both distinctly twice saw, as did every one else
present, a hand like that of a dark mulatto woman's rise up to the level of the
table, in the open, unoccupied space between the table and the window, and
take up a pencil laid on a piece of paper, and draw on it what afterwards we
found to be a leaf and an eagle's head. I am most positive, and so is X., that
this hand belonged to no one in the room, that it could not by any possibility so
belong. Whether owned by angel, spirit, or demon I know not."
The silliest of many things said concerning Mr. Home was the
frequently-repeated assertion that he avoided meeting sceptics, that
wonders only happened in the presence of Spiritualists, and so on.
Except Dr. Ashburner, not one of the persons whose experiences are
described or referred to in the present chapter: Dr. Elliottson, Dr.
Robert Chambers, Mr. Robert Bell, Dr. Gully, Miss C. Sinclair, Mrs.
Senior, Miss Hope-Vere, Dr. Lockhart Robertson, etc., was a
Spiritualist at the time of his or her first seance with Mr. Home.
Certainly wonders happened in their presence after they became
believers; but what had induced their belief? The wonders they wit-
nessed and tested in Home's presence while they were still sceptics.
I will quote a portion of the testimony of one more sceptic concern-
ing his first seance with Mr. Home. This was a Mr. Pears, a friend
of Mr. Cox of Jermyn Street, who came to a seance in the early part
of 1860, and whose letter to a friend on the subject was published,
with its writer's permission, in the first volume of the Incidents
(p. 134):
" I said, half laughing, which you might expect from my scepticism," wrote
Mr. Pears, " that I should not wonder if there were some one for me also.
Immediately there were raps under my hand, strong enough to shake the table.
II Perhaps I looked dubiously at a phenomenon so unexpected ; for Mr.
Home said, ' I should like Mr. Pears to be convinced that we do not make
these sounds; perhaps he would get under the table and observe.' I did so;
and while I saw that they were not produced by any visible agency beneath,
they were sounding as vigorously as ever ; Mrs. P. being witness to their
not being produced by the hands, or any visible means aboveboard. . . .
" There was one part of the stance which forcibly struck me, and
which I must relate." Having explained that the raps under his hand
" purported to come " from his grandfather's spirit, Mr. Pears continues :
" Mr. Home soon after passed into a singular state half-unconscious as
it were and said : ' Here's a tall, old, upright, Quaker-like man, yet not
a Quaker ; ' then he seemed to take on the manner and gesture, as closely
G
9 o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
as a young man can, of those of an old one held out his hand to me, and
grasped mine in a way that further reminded me of my grandfather, and
addressed me in words somewhat characteristic of him ; and went on to speak
of one whom he had held very dear, but from whom he had long been
separated, to his great grief ; but that they had happily met in the other world,
and were reconciled. All upon this point was said in a broken way, but with
gestures and allusions which were intelligible solely to myself ; as the person
and events so alluded to touched closely upon my grandfather's history in
conjunction with my own. My astonishment was increased when from Mr.
Home's lips fell the name of her to whom the allusion had been made ! my
grandfather's daughter. Both died when Mr. Home must have been a boy
in America. Long as I have known you, friend Dixon, I think I never told
you that my grandfather was of a Quaker family, which was the case.
" I was by this incident astonished beyond expression ; and acknowledged
to Mr. Cox that the history which had been sketched, and the reflections upon
it, were just what I should have expected might have been made by my
grandfather. I have not yet found a place in my system for these phenomena,
but that they are genuine phenomena is settled in my mind."
That a single- observer, however acute and sceptical, might be
deceived is very possible. That a dozen such observers, whose
investigations were independently conducted, should all be deceived
is highly improbable. That hundreds nay, thousands of sane and
able investigators, of every country and condition of life, who had
never seen each other, and whose habits of thought were as diverse as
nationalities, should have, one and all, been deluded by a single man
into the conviction that they witnessed phenomena which never took
place is impossible. Were it possible, there would be an end of the
value of human testimony ; and the only reasonable being in the world
would be the sceptic who endorsed unconditionally the Psalmist's
hasty declaration, "All men are liars," and was even prepared to
include himself, if his senses testified to facts that his prejudices
rejected.
To the rash denials of those who have not seen, those who have
seen cam only respond in the words which Mr. Weld, in his Last
Winter in Rome, tells us were uttered by Thackeray shortly after the
publication of Bell's article, " Stranger than Fiction." On being
reproached, at a dinner in London, for having permitted such an
article to appear in the Cornkill Magazine, Thackeray, says Mr.
Weld, tranquilly listened to all that his critics had to say ; and then
replied : '' It is all very well for you, who have probably never seen
any spiritual manifestations, to talk as you do; but had you seen
what I have witnesed, you would hold a different opinion."
Professor Chain's, the Plumierian Professor of Astronomy at Cam-
bridge, had never been present at a seance; but a careful and unpre-
judiced examination of the evidence given by those who had,
compelled him to write in 1862: " In short, the testimony has been
so abundant and consentaneous, that either the facts must be admitted
to be such as are reported, or the possibility of certifying facts by
human testimony must be given up."
CHAPTER VI
ENGLAND
Experiences of Count Tolstoy. Mrs. Milner Gibson. Miraculous
Escape of D. D. Home. Evidence of Dr. Hoefer. Evidence
of the Ex-Chairman, London Stock Exchange. Lord Lytton as
Nicodemus. Home's Sunny Nature. Death of Mrs. Home.
FRIENDS in Russia had been urging Mr. Home to re-visit them; but
finding that there was no immediate prospect of his making the
journey, two of their number, Count Alexis Tolstoy and Count
Steinbock-Fermor, determined to go to him instead; and he had
accordingly the pleasure of welcoming them to London about the
middle of June, 1860. These accomplished gentlemen spoke English
remarkably well ; and were soon at home in English society. In the
case of Tolstoy, his letters to Home are as often written in English
as in French.
Mr. Home's weekly seance at Mrs. Milner Gibson's was often
supplemented by others; and in June, 1860, he was holding two,
three, and sometimes four seances in the week at Hyde Park Place.
The requests for invitations were more than numerous; and the
eagerness of well-known personages in London society to be present
was only equalled by the timidity with which they insisted on con-
cealing their experiences from the world. Tolstoy's letters to his
wife contain the description of two seances, both at Mrs. Milner
Gibson's. The first was given to himself and Fermor, and to a third
Russian, an entire sceptic, who had accompanied them to England ;
at the other the investigators present comprised Lord Dufferin and
Lord Clarence Paget, neither of whom had previously seen anything
of the phenomena. The first seance was the more remarkable of the
two ; and Botkine, the materialist companion of Fermor and Tolstoy,
who had come to it incredulous, went away convinced. I translate
the interesting record of the evening preserved in 1 Count Tolstoy's
first letter from London to his wife.
" June i?th, 1860.
" It is two o'clock in the morning; I have just left Home; and in spite
of the pain it gives me to be away from you I don't regret my journey to
London, for this stance has been overwhelming (cette seance a te
renversante). Botkine brother of the doctor is converted ; and wishes to
shut himself up to-morrow and stay the whole day indoors, to meditate over
what he has seen. Nicholas the donkey ! being rather unwell, did not
choose to be present at the seance. There were myself, Botkine, Mrs. Home,
Mrs. Milner Gibson (wife of the President of the Board of Trade), Count
Alexander Steinbock-Fermor, and a dame de compagnie. First there occurred
all the manifestations you have witnessed ; then, on the light being reduced,
every article of furniture in the room took to moving of its own accord. A
table placed itself on another table ; a sofa moved into the middle of the room ;
a bell rose in the air and went all round the apartment, ringing as it floated.
" Finally the remaining lights were put out, and we sat almost in darkness ;
there was only the faint light that came through the window from a gas-lamp
91
92 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
outside. The piano played with no one near it ; a bracelet unclasped itself from
the arm of Mrs. Milner Gibson, and fell on the table, where it lay surrounded
by a luminous appearance. Home was raised from the ground ; and I clasped
his feet while he floated in the air above our heads. Hands touched my knees
and laid themselves in my hands ; and when I sought to retain one it dissolved
in my grasp. There were paper and pencils on the table. A sheet of paper
came thrusting itself into my hand, and through the alphabet I was told to
give it to Home. There was written upon it, ' Love her always. N. K'roll.'
The writing exactly resembled that of the mother of Mrs. Home ; we have
compared it with that of her letters. A very faint voice was heard
accompanying the piano while it played. Raps as loud as if made with a
hammer were struck on the table under the hands of Botkine.
" What would have, above all, convinced me, were I a sceptic, are the
hands I have felt, which were placed in mine and melted when I tried to retain
them. A cold wind passed round the circle very distinctly, and perfumes were
wafted to us. After the stance Home's hands were burning hot, and the
tears were in his eyes. His wife and he saw constantly a star on one of the
chairs, but I did not see it. The curtains of the windows were drawn back,
and hands were visible passing before the window faintly lit by the gas outside.
Mrs. Milner Gibson made me promise to come to-morrow evening to a fresb
stance, but unfortunately Botkine this time was not invited, as there will be
so many without him."
Two days later another letter was written to the Countess Tolstoy
by her husband to describe the second seance :
" LONDON, igth June, 1860.
" I had a headache of the worst sort yesterday ; however, I put on my dress-
coat and white tie, and went to the stance at Mrs. Milner Gibson's. I would
have gone a thousand leagues to see these things. There were present Lord
and Lady Clarence Paget, Lord Dufferin, Lord de Tablet, Dr. Ashburner, a
celebrated physician ; Miss Alice, daughter of Mrs. Milner Gibson ; her brother,
a very nice boy of the age of George, and Mrs. Home. The two children and
Mrs. Home were in the room, but not at the table, where there was not room
enough for every one. The stance was by no means so good as the first, but
there was a new phenomenon. I saw the accordion play without being held ;
and after each note there was an echo very distant, but very distinct and
agreeable which repeated it. Lord Clarence, feeling his knee clasped, wished
me to touch the hand that was holding it ; and when I placed my hand on
his knee without finding anything, he still felt, besides my hand, another that
was touching him. This time Home did not float in the air in my presence.
The three lords were present at a stance for the first time ; and did not fail,
at the invitation of Home, to make a search under the table, while the rest
of us were observing what went on above."
Count Tolstoy's words " in my presence," are explained by a note
added by Mr. Home :
The apartment was lighted by two lamps and several wax candles ; and
when the stance was over, the company passed into another room, except Lord
and Lady Clarence Paget and myself, who stayed behind conversing. Suddenly,
I felt myself raised from the ground ; and said so to Lord Clarence, who knelt
down and passed his hands between my feet and the carpet, to satisfy himself
of the fact."
Tolstoy and Home did not meet again till the year 1865, when, to
the great joy of the Count, his friend at last consented to pay a second
visit to Russia. The former had never written without a pressing
invitation ; and on arriving from America in the spring of 1865, Home
found a charming kind of round-robin from the members of the
Tolstoy family awaiting him at Cox's Hotel, and intended to second'
ENGLAND 93
the following letter from the Count. If there are flaws in the English
of the writer, there were none in his good heart.
" 16/4 December, 1864.
" MY DEAR FRIEND DANIEL, I am afraid you have not received my letter
from Poustineka, which I sent to you three months ago. I, and all the
persons living with me, required your presence, and expected that you would
perhaps agree with our desire, and come here to pass the winter with us. ...
Now I write you again, and tell you once more how happy I, my wife, and
we all would be if you come to visit us and remain with us till summer. Come,
my dear friend, it will be a good distraction for your sorrows."
To enforce the invitation, every member of the household has
penned a few words. " I hope we shall see you, dear Mr. Daniel,"
writes the Countess. " Please come we shall be so glad to see you
again," another of the family adds. "Come come come," write
friends four, five, and six; and "Venez, mon cher Home," is the
concluding appeal addressed to him by a correspondent who has no
English. It was impossible not to yield ; and Home started for
Russia forthwith.
Count Steinbock-Fermor must either have remained in London in
1860 after Tolstoy's departure, or have returned the following year;
for I find him present at a seance in 1861, at 7, Cornwall Terrace,
Regent's Park, the residence of a Mrs. Parkes, with whom Mr. and
Mrs. Home were then staying. Besides Count Steinbock-Fermor,
the circle included Mr. and Mrs. William Howitt (the well-known
authors), and Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Wilkinson. The phenomena of
this seance were described in the Incidents (vol. i., pp. 183 et seq.)
both by Mr. Howitt and Mr. Wilkinson.
" Mr. Home," wrote the letter, " now held the accordion in his right hand
beside his chair, and it at once began to play. He held it by the bottom,
the keys being on the top, and therefore out of his reach. It was impossible
that he could touch them. I carefully examined the instrument, opening the slide
beneath the keys, and I found it to be a common instrument with only the
usual mechanism of the keys. There was nothing inside it. I looked steadily at
it, and at the hand and fingers with which he held it. There it was, being
pulled up and down, and discoursing sweet sounds ; whilst his hand was
stationary and h,is ringers motionless. I could see above and beneath the
instrument, but there was no visible cause for its motion, nor for the opening
and shutting of the keys which caused the music.
" When it ceased, my wife asked if it could not be played in her hand.
and immediately the instrument emitted three sounds, which we took to
mean that it would have much pleasure in trying. It was accordingly given
to her, and whilst in her right hand it began to play. She felt it distinctly
lifted up and drawn forcibly down ; and she did not and could not touch the
keys, which however, must necessarily have been touched and opened to make
the sounds. ... I have once had an accordion play in my own hand, when
I know that I did not do it. I also know that Lord Lyndhurst and many other
public men whom I could name have had a similar experience."
'There were, besides Mrs. Howitt and myself," writes Mr.
William Howitt of the same seance, "a Russian, Count Steinbeck,
and several others. We had beautiful music played on the accordion,
when held in one hand by Mr Home, who cannot play a note ; and
the same when held by a lady " (Mrs. W. M. Wilkinson).
Flowers were taken from a bouquet on a chiffonier at a distance,
and handed to each of us. . . . I saw a spirit hand as distinctly
as I ever saw my own. I touched one several times."
94 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
The Howitts were at this time living near Hampstead ; and their
house was the resort of half the authors and artists of London.
Several of Mr. Home's seances were held there in 1861 and subse-
quent years ; and he met a number of new investigators on these
occasions.
The letters of Count Steinbock-Fermor to his friend are numerous
and interesting. One of them, belonging to the year 1861, discusses
the philosophy of Spiritualism as the writer viewed it, and is anno-
tated with a few remarks by Mr. Home some endorsing, others
rejecting the propositions it contains. I give part of this long letter,
bracketing Home's annotations with the statements they refer to :
" Spirits," writes Steinbock-Fermor, " never wholly cease to be
linked with matter." (Certainly not.} " In continually progressing,
they put more distance or, more correctly, difference between
them and their first state of being. (Through refinement.) "They
attain a nearer resemblance to the One Spirit who is God ; but it is
comparable to geometrical proportion, which removes farther and
farther from i without approaching infinitude." (Yes.) "Spirits
can advance until they at last attain to their perfection the perfec-
tion of the created." (We can never arrive at absolute perfection,
and there is no arbitrary limit set.}
In the months of May and June, 1860, hardly a day passed without
a seance ; and the constant drain on his vital force had most injurious
effects on Home's health. The experience of years had taught him
that, in the words of Mr. Crookes, " the evolution of psychic force
is accompanied by a corresponding drain on vital force;" and he well
knew that after a seance he required a period of repose during which
his exceptional organisation might recruit its exhausted energies, and
that the interval of a day only was not long enough. While holding
daily seances, he saw his health grow rapidly worse; but all that
others regarded was their eager desire to see as much as possible of
the manifestations. Had he remained a few months longer in
London, he would probably have prostrated himself utterly ; for he
could not say " No " to a friend who pressed him to sit, and believers,
inquirers and sceptics by the hundred were besieging him for seances.
There was nothing for it but to escape from his surroundings for a
time; and towards the end of July, 1860, Mr. and Mrs. Home went
on a visit to friends in France.
Mr. Wason was invited by Mrs. Milner Gibson to a seance, at
which, among numerous manifestations, an accordion played in his
own hand. He also witnessed on this occasion the phenomenon of
Home's levitation, the room being faintly lit from the outside in
the manner already described by Count Tolstoy.
" Mr. Home crossed the table over the heads of the persons sitting
around it," said Mr. Wason. " By standing and stretching upwards
I was enabled to reach his hand, about seven feet distant from the
floor ; and laying hold and keeping hold of his hand, I moved along
with him five or six paces as he floated above me in the air, and I only
let go his hand when I stumbled against a stool. ... I saw his body
eclipse two lines of light of issuing from between the top of a door and
ENGLAND 95
its architrave such door leading into an adjoining room that was
brilliantly lighted.
" I make no comments on the above, and advance no theory or
hypothesis : I have confined myself simply to facts," adds Mr.
Wason, who was at this time a sceptic, but, as the result of continued
investigation with Mr. Home, became a Spiritualist, and was sub-
sequently Home's hast at Liverpool.
Mrs. Milner Gibson had narrated to numbers of her friends the
wonderful phenomena of the seances in Hyde Park Place; and as
Mrs. Gibson, in society phrase, " knew every one worth knowing,"
the natural consequence of the curiosity excited was that her letters
to Mr. Home are filled with well-known names, the owners of which
were pressing her for invitations to a seance. She gives a long list
on one occasion of those who had been invited by her and were
waiting their turn ; including Lord Dufferin, Sir Emerson Tennant,
Lady Trelawney, Mdlle. Tietjens, Mr. Lawrence Oliphant, Sir
Fitzroy Kelly, Mrs. Grote, Mr. Stirling, Mr. Higgins, and Mr.
Hay ward. " Fancy my joy on Saturday night at Lady Palmer-
ston's," writes Mrs. Gibson, " when Higgins (Jacob Omnium) and
Hayward both asked me to be permitted to come to a seance. I
told Robert Chambers, who called on Sunday, and he was greatly
astonished and pleased. I had a conversation with Lord Dufferin,
and promised to let him know as soon as you return."
Mrs. Milner Gibson went often to Dieppe. " There is a ludicrous
story here about you and le Pere Ravignan," she tells Mr. Home
during one of her visits ; " how the Father persuaded you to give up
Spiritualism, and the Evil One seized you and threw you down, and
forced you to continue! I was very amused."
In November, 1862, when Mr. Home was preparing his first volume
of Incidents for publication, he discussed with a friend of Mrs.
Milner Gibson's the propriety of asking that lady to write a narrative
of some of the seances at Hyde Park Place, and authenticate it with
her name. On hearing of this, Mrs. Gibson, who was abroad at the
time, wrote to him to say that her testimony was at his service ; all
she asked was that a declaration of her religious views should accom-
pany the publication of the fact that she was a Spiritualist. I copy
her letter :
" November i^th.
" DEAR DANIEL, I have just received a letter from Witch, wherein she
says that you want an account of the stance in which you placed your head
on the fire and took up a burning coal in your hand. I regret to say that I
have no detailed account of that seance, though I have of many others. I
think Robert Bell was present ; and I can, of course, give my testimony.
Witch says that you mentioned something about my name. My name is quite
at your service you have never found me shirk from declaring the truth, and
all who know me know that I am a Spiritualist. There is only one point
which I wish to be clear upon, and that is a religious one. I attack no one's
creed : I sit with all creeds : I go side by side with many who hold different
opinions from mine ; but I am very firm in my opinions, and very anxious that
it should be distinctly understood that I am wholly and entirely apart from
those who in any way question the New Testament. I see with fear and
horror that some Spiritualists are making a weapon of Spiritualism to attack
96 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
what is divine, instead of upholding it. I abominate discussion, and never
enter into it ; I therefore rarely mention my fears, unless I see danger of
being supposed to belong to those who deny the Divinity of our Saviour.
Therefore, my dear friend, I give you my credo."
In spite of the generous readiness of Milner Gibson to give her
name, Mr. Home, with equal generosity, finally determined to omit it
from his book. Not only did he shrink from allowing so dear a
friend to expose herself to the ridicule and insult that she was willing
to brave, but the delicacy of the situation was increased by the fact
that her husband did not share her beliefs, and was nervously anxious
to shun all appearance of identifying himself with them. I have
already said that Mr. Milner Gibson had never been present at a
seance ; and it may be added that he took every opportunity of making
that fact as public as possible. None the less, many people annoyed
him by insisting on associating his name with Spiritualism; and in
1864, when Mr. Roebuck brought the question of Mr. Home's expul-
sion from Rome before Parliament, an appeal that he addressed to
Mr. Milner Gibson, under the misconception of his being a Spiritualist
fairly drove the President of the Board of Trade out of the House. 1
Mrs. Gibson was no less provoked, and writes to Home :
" I suppose in this stupid country they so idiotically mix up husband and
wife that they seem never to dream of or allow a woman to hold independent
ideas ; and as I am well known to be a Spiritualist, I fancy that they torment
the poor man out of his mind by asking him about the manifestations
thinking that he must believe or that I should never have dared to do so. How
Roebuck made the blunder of fancying him one I cannot conceive ; you see, it
drove him out of the House. He says he denies loudly to all that he knows
anything about it ; and we must excuse the irritation caused by their stupidity.
He said to M that he had nothing to say against you, that you might
be an angel all he wanted was to be able to say that he knew nothing of
Spiritualism."
When Mr. Home's book appeared, it did not contain the name of
Mrs. Milner Gibson, though one, and probably more, of the
anonymous records of seances included in it was written by her.
Anonymous evidence is no evidence, as Home well knew ; and in
commenting on his book, a portion of the press even delicately
insinuated that such narratives as were unsigned were fictitious, and
had been written by Home himself to fill his pages. I hope I have
made it clear by the evidence of Mrs. Milner Gibson's letters (which
I need hardly say are in my possession) that Mr. Home had the full
permission of that lady to publish her name, and was only deterred
from doing so by motives which all will admit to hlave been as un-
selfish as honourable.
Leaving London towards the end of July, 1860, Mr. and Mrs.
Home went to stay at the Chateau de Cere. ay, near Paris, the residence
of Mons. Tiedemann, who has been already mentioned in connection
with seances in Holland. At his beautiful French country-seat, on
1 Note by Mr. H. T. Humphreys : " Mr. Milner Gibson at one time rose
in the House, and in his speech said, ' I have been a medium," when he was
interrupted with cheers and laughter. He meant to add, ' of communicating
between So-and-so and the Government.' "
ENGLAND 97
the 1 6th of September, Home's life was wonderfully preserved in
the manner he has described in the Incidents :
" Being recommended to take much out-door exercise during my stay at
the Chateau de Cercay," he writes, " I used to take with me my gun more
that it might be said I was out shooting than for any great attraction the
sport has for me. The Chateau de Cer9ay, distant half an hour by railway
from Paris, stands in a beautiful old park. Some of the trees are of very
great height ; one of the largest, a northern poplar, stands a quarter of a
mile from the Chateau at an angle of the park, where it is separated from the
outer grounds by a hedge. To this spot, when there was much shooting
going on in the neighbourhood, the game used to come for shelter; and I,
who am but an indifferent marksman, could get easy shots by planting
myself by the hedge.
" I had been walking with my friend, Mons. T " (Tiedemann), " and on
his leaving me I bent my steps to this favourite corner, wishing to take home a
partridge. As I neared the hedge, I stooped and advanced cautiously.
When close up to it, I was raising my head to look for my game ; when,
on my right, I heard some one call out, ' Here, here ! ' My only feeling
was surprise at being thus suddenly addressed in English. The desire to
have a good look out for my game overruled my curiosity as to whom
the exclamation had come from ; and I was continuing to raise my head
to the level of the hedge, when suddenly I was seized by the collar of my
coat and vest, and lifted off the ground. At the same instant I heard a
crashing sound, and then all was quiet. I felt neither fear nor wonder. My
first thought was that by some accident my gun had exploded, and that I was
in the spirit-land ; but looking about I saw that I was still in the material
world, and there was the gun still in my hands. My attention was then drawn
to what appeared to be a tree immediately before me, where no tree had been.
On examination, this proved to be the fallen limb of the high tree under which
I was standing. I then saw that I had been drawn aside from this falleri
limb a distance of six or seven feet. I ran, in my excitement, as fast as I
could to the chateau. . .
" The limb which had thus fallen measured sixteen yards and a half in,
length, and where it had broken from the trunk it was one yard in circum-
ference. It fell from a height of forty-five feet. The part of the limb which
struck the very spot where I had been standing measured twenty-four inches
in circumference, and penetrated the earth at least a foot. The next day a
friend made a sketch of the tree and branch.
" We speculated as to how it could have happened. The tree is not a dead
one, nor was the branch at all decayed ; and there was scarcely wind enough
to stir the leaves. The branch was so clearly reft from the trunk that one
might think at first it had been sawn off, and the bark was not in the least
torn about it. I have been informed since that such accidents are not uncom-
mon with trees of this species of poplar, and that there are trees of a similar
quality in Australia, under which settlers will not remain for fear of such
sudden breakages."
A day or two later the well-known Dr. Hoefer, editor of the
Biographic Generate a complete sceptic as to the manifestations
paid a visit to Mons. Tiedemann, and asked for a seance. The
seance was held ; and the sequel to it is best related in the published
words of one of the persons present, Mons. Pierart :
Dr. Hoefer declared himself satisfied with the answers, and wished to
continue the conversation ; but the spirits proposed that all should now proceed
to. the tree where Mr. Home had escaped being 'crushed. Dr. Hoefer still
urged his questions ; but there being no response, we agreed to proceed to the
tree. The arm still remained as it had fallen, one end resting against the
trunk, the other imbedded in the earth, so that to detach it from its place
would have required all the strength of a man's two arms. Moved by some
secret impulse, Dr. Hoefer proposed that Mr. Home should touch with a finger
98 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
the end of one of the small branches. He did so ; and immediately the enor-
mous arm, 13 metres in length and 95 centimetres in circumference, moved
from its point of support and fell. I had had only the testimony of Mr. Home
himself as to the previous occurrence at this spot ; but this strengthened it, and
showed the operation of something beyond chance."
Dr. Hoefer remained some days at the Chateau de Cere, ay, and
took part in other seances there. " Will you not pay another visit
soon to your friends in France? " he writes to Home the following
year. " All my leisure moments are devoted to meditating on the
immensity of the horizon of which those wonderful evenings at
Cergay gave me a glimpse (ni'ont laisse entre-voir). I try all I can
to lift a corner of the veil that hides such great mysteries from us;
perhaps I shall succeed one day, especially if the intelligent powers
that surround us are kind enough to aid me."
The winter of 1860 was quietly passed in London. Mrs. Home's
health was very delicate; and she and her husband did not go so
much into society as during their previous visit.
I find among the letters of this period one giving news to Home
in London of his friends at Florence, and written to him by a
celebrity of the day, whose acquaintance he had made a few years
previously, the musician Blumenthal. Blumenthal, who subsequently
came to stay with Home in Sloane Street, was an ardent Spiritualist
twenty-five years ago but on that point I may leave his letter to
speak for itself. Like Mons. Tiedemann with whom, by the way,
he was acquainted Blumenthal writes in English, and writes it well.
" FLORENCE, ^th December, 1860.
" MY DEAR DAN, We are both very anxious to have some news of you and
dear Sacha " (Mrs. Home). " I had written you some time ago a little letter
through Mr. Tiedemann ; but as I have not heard from you, I suppose it has
never reached you. I send this one to Cox's Hotel, as you told me once that
they always knew your address. In a letter from England which I received a
few days ago, there was even a rumour as if you were there yourself. . . .
If you are not there now, I hope, at all events, you will come there in spring,
when we return. We want to know all you have done since we saw you, as
well as some particulars as to the manifestations at Tiedemann 's in presence
of Mr. Hoeffer. Was Mr. Hoeffer convinced, and what did he say?
" As for us, we have settled for the winter in Florence. You must not think
that we forget for a moment Spiritualism ; and as you are in our eyes its
personification, we think and talk a great deal about you. There is much
occasion for it here ; as you have so long lived here and we see often people
who have known you at the Crossmans', the Trollopes', &c. Your dear
portrait is always on our drawing-room table, and I wish we had Sacha's as
well. I wish you were all here wouldn't we enjoy it? However, one must
not be egotistical ; and I suppose you can do more good for the promotion of
spiritual ideas where you are than you could here. The other day we tried to
sit with Miss Grossman and Mrs. Baker round a table, but with no result.
I wish I could be a medium of some sort or other some day.
" If you are in London, I suppose you have resumed your Monday sittings
at Mrs. Milner Gibson's tell me when something particular happens.
if you were here, we could see each other much oftener than in London, where
life is too busy for friends. Good-bye, dear Dan, and don't forget your
affectionate " J. BLUMENTHAL."
Another acquaintance of this period was Herzen, the banished
Russian political writer whose wild theories had inflamed so many
minds. Home met him in London early in 1861, an old man, but
ENGLAND 99
still as enthusiastic in labouring to disseminate his insane ideas as he
had been in youth. Herzen seems to have established a printing-
press in London for their propagation ; for he writes to Home in
April, 1 86 1 : " We make a fete and illuminate the printing-office on
the loth to celebrate the Emancipation" (of the serfs); "come in
the evening and take a look at us."
Still another Russian acquaintance made in London (I forget in
what year) was Tourgenieff a nature that attracted Home ; for in
the famous writer there was much of the naive, child-like joyousness,
beneath which lay sadness, that characterised his own temperament.
Tourgenieff would seem to have also resembled him in taking delight
in the society of children, and was in the habit of spending a good
deal of his time in playing with Home's baby son, of whom the great
novelist made a great pet, as did also another literary giant of Home's
acquaintance Thackeray.
In January, 1861, Mr. James Hutchinson, for many years Chair-
man of the London Stock Exchange, was present at a seance with Mr.
Home, and wrote and published an account of it. Having heard
from friends of what they had witnessed, says Mr. Hutchinson, and
being unable to believe what he heard, he determined to see for
himself.
" I feel it a duty," he wrote, January 26, 1861, " to openly bear my
testimony to the facts, leaving others to theorise on the causes and tendency of
these remarkable phenomena.
" Recently introduced by a friend to Mr. D. D. Home, a seance \vas
arranged for the 23rd instant ; and, together with Mr. and Mrs. Coleman, Mr.
G. S. Clarke, Mr. T. Clarke, Mr. Gilbert Davidson, and another lady and
gentleman unknown to me, we formed a party of nine. Shortly after sitting
down, we all felt a tremulous motion in our chairs and in the table, which
was a very heavy circular drawing-room table. . . .
" The rapping sounds on the table and floor were constant ; the heavy table
was raised up repeatedly ; and these manifestations were continued whilst my
friend, Mr. Clarke, and another were seated, at the request of Mr. Home,
under the table.
" Two hand-bells, one weighing at least a pound and a half, were passed
from one to another of the party by unseen agencies. All of us in turn felt
the touch and pressure of a soft and fleshy life-like hand. I saw the full-
formed hand as it rested on my knee. The accordion, whilst held by Mr.
Home in one hand, discoursed most eloquent music ; and then, to our great
astonishment, it was taken from him, and whilst both his hands, and those
of all the party, were visibly imposed on the surface of the table, the
accordion, suspended from the centre of the table, gave out an exquisite air,
no human hand touching it !
" These, and many other incidents of a seriously impressive but private
character, of which I do not hesitate to speak among my friends, occupied
about four hours of what I must admit to be one of the most interesting
evenings I have ever spent. . . . Contrary to the assertions so constant!}
made that the manifestations are always in the dark, the -whole of the pheno-
mena of which I have spoken were manifested in a room lighted -with gas, and
a bright fire burning. " JAS. HUTCHINSON."
Mr. Hutchinson, it will be seen from a passage in his letter, was
one of the many who kept to themselves the tokens of spirit identity
that were communicated to them. The Mr. B. Coleman who was
present with him at the above seance, gave evidence in 1869 before
a committee of the Dialectical Society concerning similar tokens
ioo LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
received byhim at his own first seance with Mr. Home in the year
1855-
" At the first stance which I attended," stated Mr. Coleman, " there were
fourteen persons in the room, seated round a long dinner-table. Mr. Home
sat at one end, and I at the other. Through the rapping sounds several
messages were given to different individuals of the party. One purported to
be from the spirit of an aunt of mine, who gave me her name as Elizabeth ;
and another spirit, also an aunt of mine, gave the name of Hannah. I did
not recognise the names I had never known of any aunts of those names ;
but subsequently I wrote to my mother, and asked whether she recognised
them as family names ; and she then told me what was quite new to me, that
two sisters of my father were named Elizabeth and Hannah, who died before
I was born."
Confronted with evidence of this kind, the ingenious philosophers
who trim the facts of Home's life into accordance with their pet
theories of " throught-reading," "unconscious cerebration," and
so forth, have but one course open to them to declare boldly that
they do not believe the witness, and would not believe ten thousand
witnesses if they swore to similar occurrences.
The 'letters of Mrs. Milner Gibson to Mr. Home in the spring of
1861 show that the seances at Hyde Park Place had been resumed;
and among the new names mentioned in connection with them is that
of Mrs. F. C. Parkes, of 7, Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, a
lady who had been long resident in India. Her introduction to
Home and Spiritualism was mude through Mrs. Milner Gibson in
December, 1860. " I returned home from this my first seance with
Mr. Home," she noted in her journal, "convinced of the truth of
our being permitted to hold intercourse with those who have passed
to the spirit-land."
Mr. and Mrs. Home were for some time the guests of Mrs. Parkes ;
and before and during their visit numerous seances were held at 7,
Cornwall Terrace. A diary of the manifestations witnessed was
kept by Mrs. Parkes ; and having been placed by her at the disposal
of Mr. Home, he published large portions in the Incidents (vol. i.),
the identity of the writer being veiled, at her desire, under the initial,
"Mrs. P ."
Sir E. B. Lytton was a good deal in London in 1861 ; and besides
seances at his house in Park Lane when Home dined there (Mrs.
Milner Gibson being sometimes one of the party), the distinguished
litterateur frequently came to seances at Mrs. Gibson's and with Mrs.
Parkes in Cornwall Terrace. I find in one of Mrs. Milner Gibson's
letters an interesting account of attempts made by Lytton and herself
to obtain manifestations at Nice in 186-5, at a time when Home was
in London. " There was not much," she adds.
Lytton was a typical example of the weak man who, above all
things, fears ridicule. In public he was an investigator of
Spiritualism, in private a believer. Not long before his death he
wrote to Mr. S. C. Hall to inquire if the latter could give him the
name of " some reliable medium " in London, with whom he might
put a friend of his in communication who had just lost a near and
dear relative; a strange thing to do, if he were quite candid in his
ENGLAND 101
published declaration: "So far as my experience goes, the pheno-
mena, when freed from the impostures with which their exhibition
abounds, and examined rationally, are traceable to material influences
of the nature of which we are ignorant. They require certain
physical organisations or temperaments to produce them, and vary
according to those organisations and temperaments." (Letters of
Lord Lytton to the secretary, of the Dialectical Society, February,
1869).
From a man so timid and so sensitive to ridicule, even this
cautiously-weighed testimony is remarkable. Lytton refers to the
abundant impostures that simulate the phenomena; but he admits
that his experiences have satisfied him of the existence of the pheno-
mena themselves. It was the least he could honestly do, after the
remarkable seances at which he had been present with Home ; and if
his numerous letters to Home are of no great interest in themselves,
they at least demonstrate by their friendly tone that their writer did
not do his correspondent the injustice of classing him with the
charlatans of whose trickery Lord Lytton had only too abundant
evidence. It was his own fault that he received so many proofs of
it. The wonderful things he had seen with Home had excited in
him, as in many others, an eager desire for more and more wonders ;
and, like subsequent inquirers whom I could name, he sought out
persons calling themselves "mediums," with the result, in his case
as in theirs, that where he had hoped to see marvels he ended by
detecting imposture. Such disappointments taught at least one
lesson to those who encountered them how more than rare was the
marvellous gift of Home.
That Lord Lytton should never have publicly declared his know-
ledge of the genuineness of that gift was only to be expected from
him. All the days of his life he was constantly giving proofs of his
excessive sensitiveness to ridicule ; and what could have brought more
ridicule on him than a fearless, candid statement of the convictions
impressed on him by his investigations of Spiritualism with Mr.
Home in London, and on occasions when the latter was his guest at
Knebworth? Lytton 's intimate friends knew the truth; but the
public who wish to arrive at the real sentiments of this talented man
with regard to Home and Spiritualism must read between the lines.
It is for that reason I pause here to say a few words concerning the
fragments in my possession of Lord Lytton 's correspondence with his
frequent guest, Mr. Home.
The letters range from 1855 over a period of ten years subsequent.
As, during those ten years, Lytton's tone is unchanged and cordial
as he is constantly pressing Home with invitations to dine in Park
Lane or run down for a few days to Knebworth the obvious inference
is that, whatever his reasons for associating imposture with the word
" Spiritualism," he had never seen cause to associate imposture with
the name of Home. A man of Lytton's position and celebrity would
not have continued year after year on intimate terms with another
who had given him reasons for even a suspicion of charlatanism.
Mrs. Home passed away from earth on the 3rd of July, 1862 ;
102 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
and Lytton writes to Home from Spa towards the end of the same
month :
" I condole with you most sincerely on the sad loss of your amiable and
interesting wife. The intelligence pained me much. It is indeed a consolation
to you to know that she looked so serenely on quitting this world, and with sc
intense a faith in that happier world which was familiar to her thoughts.
" I certainly did not think her dying when I saw her, nor was she so then.
It affected me greatly to receive her touching remembrances from you, and I
shall mournfully treasure the photograph you so kindly promise.
" Perhaps I, too, may winter in Italy. I find no climate worth the winter
change except Nice and Naples. Wishing you a complete restoration to health,
and assuring you of my sympathy in your bereavement, believe me, truly
yours, " E. B. LYTTON."
I have said that Lord Lytton was probably present at 7, Cornwall
Terrace when Mrs. Home's approaching departure from earth was
referred to in the touching and beautiful words already quoted. That
Lytton had been one of the five persons who formed the circle of the
previous evening, June 2nd, 1861, I know from the testimony of the
single survivor of the five, Mr. S. C. Hall, whose recollections have
enabled me to identify the seance in question among those recorded
in the diary of Mrs. Parkes.
The five sitters present that evening were Mr. and Mrs. Home,
Mrs. Parkes, Sir E. B. Lytton, and Mr. S. C. Hall. Mr. Hall
relates that he had brought with him to Cornwall Terrace a large
hand-bell, which he placed on the centre of the table to try if it would
be rung there, and that he distinctly saw a hand appear above the
table, grasp the bell, and ring it violently ; Mr. Home's hands resting
quietly on the table the while in full view, and the light being quite
sufficient to enable Sir E. B. Lytton and Mr. Hall to satisfy them-
selves that no machinery of any kind was connected with the
apparition of the mysterious hand. Mr. Hall adds that he perfectly
remembers the impression produced on Lytton and himself by the
noisy displacement of the idoJs in the Hindoo shrine at the end of
the large drawing-room, while all five persons present were quietly
seated in the summer twilight at the table.
The diary of Mrs. Parkes contains an account of the same seance,
written by her at the time.
June 2nd," she writes. " A s6an.ce of five persons. As twilight came on,
e pleasant dimness fell over the room. . . . The spirits moved the table
with violence up to the window, near the Hindoo shrine ; and the accordion,
no human hand touching it, played in the most charming manner, exquisitely
and with great power. There was much noise at the Hindoo shrine ; the
images of Vishnu and the Holy Bull were brought, and put on the top of the
table ; then a large hand, which appeared dark, being between us and the 1
light, put up the accordion entirely above the top of the table. Another hand
took a bell off the table, and rang it. Mr. Home was raised from his chair
erect into the air. Then he was drawn to the other end of the room, and
raised in the air until his hand was on the top of the door ; thence he floated
"horizontally forward, and descended. I saw a bright star constantly flashing
forth ; the raps died away in the distance, and the seance ended." (" Extracts
from the diary of Mrs. P :" Incidents of My Life, vol. i., p. 196.)
Lord Lytton had many seances with Mr. Home more remarkable
than the above; but I have preferred to narrate this one, because T
ENGLAND 103
have the attestation of Mr. Hall to the fact that Lytton and himself
were both present and witnessed the phenomena described.
It is not generally known that, when Lytton commenced that
wildest of all his romances, A Strange Story (which was written,
I believe, in 1859 or 1860), he had intended making an attempt to
portray Home in its pages ; but speedily abandoned the design, and
substituted for it the fantastic conception of Margrave. So, at least,
Lytton told Home; adding that the original plan of A Strange
Story differed almost as materially from the course the story
actually took as Home's portrait would have differed from that of
Margrave. " Of all I have written," said the celebrated romancer,
" A Strange Story satisfies me the least."
In forsaking his design of attempting to picture Home, Lytton
took from him a single hint not for the character of Margrave, but
for the impression that abnormal being is represented as making on
the ordinary mortals who encountered him. All who knew Home
were struck by the joyousness of his nature, and the gaiety and sweet-
ness of a temper that no wrong could embitter and 1 no sufferings sour.
In his happy moments of freedom from pain he had the bright cheer-
fulness of a child, and that keen joy in living which charms us in
young children, and makes us look back regretfully with Wordsworth
to the lost days when
" The earth and every common sight
To us did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream."
Home's gaiety and cheerfulness in his moments of respite from
suffering exercised an irresistible spell on all around him, that won
for him in Russia and France the sobriquet of " Le Charmeur. "
Lytton, like others, had remarked this trait; and he attached it to
the outward man of Margrave in A Strange Story, exaggerating it
somewhat in his description, as it was the habit of Bulwer Lytton to
exaggerate.
As I probably shall not again have occasion to allude to Lord
Lytton in these pages, I will give here two letters written by him to
Mr. Home in the year 1864. They are not of very great importance ;
but they show that his relations with Home and interest in Spiritualism
remained unchanged ; and the second contains, in as explicit a manner
as could be expected from so timid a Spiritualist, Lytton's recognition
of the fact that Home was a man phenomenally gifted.
Both letters are addressed from 2 1 , Park Lane, and the earlier is
dated April 27th, 1864. " I hear you are in town how long do you
stay? " Lytton asks. " I am still suffering under a severe attack of
bronchitis, and unable as yet to call on any one or see any one here.
But my doctor promises me I shall be much better the moment the
weather becomes more genial, and in that case I shall hope for the
pleasure of seeing you."
The second note, dated July i8th. 1864. is still shorter, but of more
interest. " Let me introduce to you my eldest brother, Mr. Bulwer,"
104 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Lytton writes. "He is seriously interested in the extraordinary
phenomena which are elicited by your powers and you will thank
me for presenting to you so intelligent and unprejudiced an examiner."
Not much ; but at least evidence from Lytton himself that an
acquaintance extending over nine years had left unchanged or,
rather, had confirmed the conviction impressed on him in 1855 of the
extraordinary nature of the phenomena " elicited " (to put it in his
own phrase) " by the powers of Home."
Till the middle of July, 1861, Mr. and Mrs. Home remained in
London. " During our stay," writes the former in the Incidents,
" I had a seance almost every night, my wife feeling that they did
her good, both physically and spiritually." The fatal malady had
not yet developed itself sufficiently to prostrate the sufferer; and so
long as his wife could be present at seances and took joy
at being present, Home was happy to hold them. A few months
later she had become too ill to sit, and her husband's every
thought was asborbed in caring for her. At the same time his
power had left him, or nearly so; but it was by reason of his wife's
illness, even more than of his weakened power, that he declined to
hold seances, and in so doing gave great offence, both to Spiritualists
and inquiring sceptics.
A well-known Spiritualist, whose name I naturally withhold, was
anxious that some friends should witness the manifestations; and
pressed Home for a seance, which was refused. More than a year
later, and some months after Mrs. Home had passed away, Home
wrote to his acquaintance to express a hope that the other had got
over the annoyance his refusal to sit had caused ; and received a reply
from which I extract a few lines :
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, I am sorry you continue to think of the
little contretemps of some time ago. I was certainly very much vexed
at the time ; however, I have long ceased to think of it I can
only hope the good angels will in future do their best to arrange
matters between seances and sick-beds."
Such was the feeling and considerate manner in which some who
called, and perhaps thought themselves his friends, behaved to Home.
It was nothing to the writer of these almost brutal words a man very
estimable in many respects that Home had refused him a seance
because he was absorbed in attendance on a dying wife: all lie could
think of was that his sceptical friends had been disappointed of their
ieance ; and, from the tone of his letter, he evidently felt that he had
just ground for complaint against Home and the ' ' good angels ' ' both.
I have already given in the words of Mr. W. Howitt, Mr. Wilkinson,
and Mrs. Parkes, their description of manifestations witnessed at the
residence of the latter in the summer of 1861. The portions of the
diary of Mrs. Parkes that are published in the Incidents narrate
the events of more than twenty seances ; and a brief extract or two
may be of interest.
" On July 7th," writes Mrs. Parkes, " we (four persons) were sitting at the
centre window in the front drawing-room, talking together, when the spirits
ENGLAND 105
began to rap on the floor. ... It was a fine summer evening, and the
room was perfectly light. Mr. Home fell back in his chair, and went into the
deep sleep for some time ; then he walked about the room, led apparently by a
spirit ; a very large bright star shone on his forehead, several clustered on his
hair and on the tips of his fingers. . . . Mr. Home passed in front of a
very large mirror a sea of glass. I saw a form leading him, over the head
of which was thrown a tinted robe flowing to the ground, marking the shape
of the head and shoulders. He followed close upon it : I saw them both in the
mirror ; his features, face, and hair perfectly distinct ; but the features of the
form that led him were not visible beneath the dark, blue-tinted robe that
covered them. They passed from before the glass ; and then we all saw a
female figure with a white veil thrown over her head which fell to the ground ;
at the same time, but rather higher, the form of a man in Oriental costume.
The startling vision faded away ; and the great mirror remained with only the
light from the window, which streamed in upon it.
" July i2th. En stance six persons. Stars appeared above Mrs. Home's
head ; and a light was seen, with fingers passing over it as it floated above our
heads. It was the Veiled Spirit. I saw the hand that held the veil, which
was spangled with stars ; and the fingers moved distinctly as it floated just
in front of us."
The note appended by Mr. Home to the extracts from Mrs. Parkes'
diary furnishes a clue to the probable origin of a mendacious story
published in America by a certain Celia Logan, who untruly asserted
Home to have stated that his wife changed visibly into an angel as
she died.
' ' In this diary, ' ' wrote Home, ' ' there are several remarkable
manifestations, and amongst them that of the presence of the veiled
spirit, who thenceforth was frequently seen by my wife and by me,
as will be read in the beautiful memoir of my wife written by that most
estimable type of womanhood, Mrs. Mary Howitt. The veil of that
spirit kept gradually being raised through the successive stages of my
dear wife's painful illness, and became almost an index of the insidious
advances of her disease."
The silver cord was loosed on July 3rd, 1862. There was no priest
of her own Russian Church within many miles of Chateau Laroche;
and the last consolations of religion were received by Mrs. Home at
the hands of the Catholic prelate whose visits had been so kind and
constant. Mrs. Howitt, in the pages already quoted from, gives an
exact and touching account of the emotions her beautiful resignation
stirred in him:
' ' The last sacraments were administered to her by the Bishop of
Perigueux, who wept like a child, and who remarked that, ' though
he had been present at many a death-bed for Heaven, he had never
seen one equal to hers.'
"At her funeral," continues Mrs. Howitt, "four of the men-
servants of her sister asked each to lead a horse of the hearse to the
burial-ground, saying that they could not allow hired persons to be
near the dead body of her who had ever had a kind word and a loving
look for all. The peasantry, instead of, as is customary, throwing
earth upon the coffin, first covered it with flowers fittest for her last
garment, and fittest for the expression of their love."
Soon after the parting, Mr. Home returned to London. There,
many tokens of the nearness of the spirit that had just departed were
106 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
received, one of the most remarkable being given at a seance at
Bannow Lodge, West Brompton, then the residence of Mr. and Mrs.
S. C. Hall. It is related by Mrs. Hall in her memories of Mrs. Home,
published the following year, 1863, with those of Mrs. Howitt, in the
Incidents.
" More than the usual manifestations came that night," writes Mrs.
Hall ; ' ' not only the table, but our chairs and the very room shook,
and the ' raps ' were everywhere around us. ... A very eminent
sculptor, whose engagements on public works are unceasing, had
been rising before day to finish a bust of Sacha " (Mrs. Home),
" which he desired to present to her husband this fact -was not even
known in his own household. He received a message thus :
' Thanks for your early morning labour : I have often been near
you. ' '
The eminent sculptor of whom Mrs. Hall speaks and to whom
frequent references are made in her letters to Mr. Home was Mr.
Durham.
CHAPTER VII
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS
Breakdown of Home's Health and Powers. " Incidents in My
Life." Works as a Sculptor. Expulsion from the Papal
States. Investigation by Mr. Ruskin. By John Bright. False
Accusations and Apologies. The " Evil Spirit " Hypothesis.
Conversion of Varley the Electrician. Dr. Carpenter's Blunder.
ALL who had known the spirit now gone from earth had loved her;
and the letters in which friends spoke of their affection for her and
mourned her loss were treasured as precious by Mr. Home. Out of
many that lie before me, I select one or two passages the first from
the letter of a friend to whom she had been very dear, Mrs. Milner
Gibson.
" We have received the news. Our darling Sacha is happy now. May He
permit me so to live here that I may meet the dear child in that happier state.
. . . We weep for you and with you, but yet with a feeling of gladness that
she is happy very, very happy, I know."
" Robert Bell came to see me to-day," says Mrs. Gibson in another letter.
" He will have written to you, and told you that poor Mrs. Bell knows nothing
of your sorrow ; for her husband had carefully hidden it from her, fearing the
shock for her in her delicate state of health. Grattan, 1 too, came, with tears
in his eyes, begging me me, of all people ! to write a short notice of dear
Sacha. I, who have never written for the press and cannot write of her. for I
feel too much to write."
In a former chapter some of the early Spiritual experiences are
given of one who became a very dear friend of Mr. Home Mrs.
Adelaide Senior. " I am so pleased," she now wrote, "to think
that your sweet wife spoke of me before her departure and so very
grateful to her for wishing me to have her picture, which I shall
indeed beyond price. I have the unspeakable comfort of knowing
of comfort in knowing that your darling is watching over you it is
indeed beyond price. I have 4ie unspeakable comfort of knowing
that my darling husband is ever near me. I feel that is so; and I
am so very grateful to God that He has, through you, given me
this comfort."
A touching letter is that of Mrs. De Burgh, a friend of Mrs.
Milner Gibson, who had been present at many of the seances in
Hyde Park Place :
" MY DEAR DANIEL, Mrs. Milner Gibson has told me that the blow so long
pending over you has fallen, and that you are left alone. I must write,
although you will probably not read my letter ; but I feel so truly and so
deeply for you in your heavy sorrow that I cannot resist writing. . . . She
was so charming and irresistibly attractive that all who knew her loved her,
and many, many will mourn sincerely for her. I never heard anyone speak
of her but with the warmest interest and affection. She was so winning so
bright and loving I can hardly realise that she is gone.
1 Mr. Colley Grattan, M.P.
107
io8 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" I am writing strange comfort, but I feel there is none for such sorrow as
yours at least, none that any friend can offer. . . . But you will not give
way to sorrow, as one who mourns without hope ; for Spiritualism will suffer,
if it is found to fail you now in your strong need. You must think of this,
and prove that the practical good it supplies takes the sting from death, and
enables the one left to rejoice in its consolations. I pray that that blessed
spirit may be permitted soon to communicate, and thus make you share her
happiness.
" You soothed her months of trial, and were the tenderest and best of nurses
you must now take care of your shattered health for the sake of her child."
Mr. Home's health was indeed shattered by the racking anxiety
and limitless devotion of the many months during which he had
watched so lovingly and constantly over her who was gone. How
much his most sensitive nature had suffered in seeing her suffer,
none but himself could know ; but the strength which unselfish
affection bestows had never failed him, and he had soothed and tended
her to the last. It was not till his cares were no more needed that
strength and! cheerfulness both forsook him, and breaking !down
terribly, he paid the penalty of an overtaxed nervous system and
week after week passed almost without food or sleep.
I will not dwell on these dark and bitter moments of an life that
was filled with trial. As soon as some return of health permitted,
Home occupied himself in the completion of his first volume of
autobiography, whch he had begun writing nearly three years before.
In January, 1863, he paid a short visit to his friend Waldimir de
Komar, at Paris ; held seances at the Tuileries, in obedience to a
summons) from the Empress ; and then, returning to London, pre-
pared for the press, with the kind assistance of Dr. Robert Chambers,
his now completed work. It was published, under the title of
Incidents in My Life, in the spring of 1863, the introduction and
concluding chapter being from the pen of Robert Chambers.
Through Mrs. Senior, Home had made the acquaintance of her
brother-in-law, Nassau Senior, the noted political economist, twice
Professor of Political Economy in the University of Oxford. Mr.
Nassau Senior investigated the phenomena at various seances with
Mr. Home, was convinced of the impossibility of attributing them
to imposture; and on the completion of the Incidents, obtained the
publication of the work by Messrs. Longmans and Co.
An early copy of the work was sent by Mr. Home to the Empress
of the French. I find among his papers a letter from the Secretary
to the Empress, conveying her acknowledgments, and translate it :
" 12th March, 1863.
"Sm, I hastened to pl-ace in the hjands of the Empress the
work that you did me the honour of entrusting to my care.
" Her Majesty has charged me to thank you for your attention 1 ,
and' to say to you that she will read this work with interest.
Receive, etc., DAMAS HINARD,
" Le Secretaire des Commandements."
The Incidents attracted widespread notice ; and were criticised
in every spirit, from fair and unprejudiced inquiry to dishonest mis-
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 109
representation and ignorant abuse. True to the traditions of a
certain class of journalism, some critics reviewed the book without
reading it; described Mrs. Home as "an ardent Spiritualist and
medium " when Home first met her, and turned her husband into an
American, although the first words of his first chapter were, " I
was born near Edinburgh. ' '
" I had no reason to complain of the neglect of the press," wrote
Mr. Home; "for several journals fell foul of me with commend-
able speed. I have, however, to thank some of those who reviewed
my book for the fair and candid tone in which they treated the
subject. The Spectator, the Times, and the Morning Herald call
for special mention in this respect."
The Times review I have not seen. Those of the other two
journals named certainly deserve the character of " fair and
candid" that Mr. Home bestows on them. I quote a portion of
the remarks of the writers in the Morning Herald :
" The more a man learns, the more wary he is as to this word ' impossible.'
Mr. Grove shows us in his book on the Correlation of Forces how little we
know as to physical laws ; on the relations of matter and spirit we know
hardly anything. All we can say is, that these manifestations appear to us
to be in the highest degree improbable. But here we are met by evidence that,
improbable or not, they have taken place. . . . We are narrowed to the
alternative, that either Mr. Home is an impostor, or that Spiritualism is true.
" Now as to imposture. Assuredly Mr. Home is very different from the
ordinary type of an impostor. When only eighteen years old, he began his
career of mediumship by doing, or appearing to do, things so difficult as to
involve almost a certainty of the early detection of any sort of deceit. In 1852,
Mr. Bryant, the American poet, joined with three others in a declaration that
closed by saying, ' We know that we were not imposed upon nor
deceived.' Again, we cannot but remark that the manifestations are not now
more elaborate than they were twelve years ago. We might expect a successful
impostor to use his advantages of experiences and wealth to produce new and
stronger effects ; but this has not been the case with Mr. Home. The spirit
hands (by far the most difficult manifestation for an impostor to produce) are
said to have been seen at a very early period of his mediumship. Again, an
impostor always tries to weave his deceptions into a system ; generally to form
some sort of sect. Now, Mr. Home, with every temptation to do this, in that
he has persuaded so many of the truth of the manifestations, not only does not
try to establish any great position for himself as the high priest of Spiritualism,
but he constantly denies that he has any power in the matter. . . . Mr.
Home speaks of his book as a collection of facts, which are worthy of
investigation, and may be found useful in revealing some of the yet hidden
laws of creation.
" We must note also the strangeness of the fact that Mr. Home has never
been detected, if indeed he is an impostor. To move heavy tables, to raise
himself to a horizontal position near the ceiling, to play tunes upon guitars,
4c., would require elaborate machinery. But these things have been done in
palaces and in private houses, in every part of Europe."
In July, 1863, the Quarterly Review noticed the book; and after
commenting on the a priori improbability of the narratives contained
in it continued: "But on the other hand we are bound in justice
to Mr. Home, to admit that this internal evidence against his state-
ments has to be weighed against a very respectable amount of external
evidence in their favour ; that his own character, so far as we have
been able to ascertain, offers no ground for suspecting his integrity ;
no LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
and that the authorities whom he brings forward, both as vouchers
for his own trustworthiness and as eye-witnesses of the marvels
which he exhibits, are such as would probably be sufficient to ensure
belief in any story less intrinsically incredible."
The Quarterly reviewer (evidently not Dr. Carpenter) deserves
credit for having had the fairness to deal with the names given,
instead of following the unfair line adopted by some other writers ;
who confined their attention to the fact that many names of
witnesses were suppressed, and pretended to disbelieve Home's
statement that he withheld those names from consideration for their
owners, who feared the ridicule and obloquy that awaited them if
they came forward to bear witness. Certainly, his consideration for
timid friends was carried to the verge of Quixotism ; but if a mis-
take, it was a very unselfish and generous one. In these pages
I have filled in the blanks he left as far as lies in my power, and
will cite now the testimony of two other English witnesses of the
phenomena called forth by the publication of thfe Incidents.
Both of these gentlemen had been present at numerous seances with
Mr. Home in London, in the years immediately preceding 1863.
The first was the Hon. Colonel Wilbraham, who had the courage
to allow his letter to Mr. Home to be published. It was as follows :
" 46, BROOK STREET, April iqth, 1863.
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, I have much pleasure in stating that 1
have attended several seances, in your presence, at the houses of two
of my intimate friends and at my own when I have witnessed
phenomena similar to those described in your book which I feel
certain could not have been produced by any trick or collusion what-
ever. The rooms in which) they occurred were always perfectly
lighted ; and it was impossible for me to disbelieve the evidence of
my own senses. Believe me, yours very truly, E. B. WILBRAHAM. : '
The second witness to facts recounted in Incidents in My Life
was not as courageous as Colonel Wilbraham ; and his letter to Mr.
Home now sees the light for the first time. Its writer had been
present at some very remarkable seances at Mrs. Milner Gibson's :
" 46, SUSSEX GARDENS, HYDE PARK, W.,
" April gth, 1863.
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, I have just finished reading your book, and have
been very much interested in it. Having witnessed so much of what you and
others have narrated, every page brought back to me those evenings which
never can be forgotten.
" I very much like the quiet manner in which you have mentioned scenes
and events which, almost word for word, I perfectly remember witnessing and
hearing ; and I think you hare given much value to your book by keeping so
well and clearly to the original incidents.
" I hope you are better in health. Blumenthal and Madame Loeser come
over from Paris at the end of this week to pay a visit to us. Mrs. Kater
unites with me in kind remembrances ; and believe me, yours faithfully,
" EDWARD KATER."
As Mr. Kater justly remarks, the great value of the book consists
in its fidelity to facts. Nothing is added, nothing taken away ;
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS in
Home relates the events of his life exactly as they occurred, and
leaves the final judgment on them to be passed by future ages.
That of his own generation was the verdict of the blind and deaf
on a man who could see and hear.
The unpretentious candour of the Incidents impressed many
besides Mr. Kater among them that gifted writer and charming
woman, Mrs. S. C. Hall. " I do not know which most to admire
in your book," she writes to Mr. Home; "its simplicity, so per-
fectly free from every taint of self-glorification, or the facts that
speak trumpet-tongued." Then, referring to that prudent timidity
of friends for which Mr. Home had so Quixotic a consideration,
Mrs. Hall, who had courageously allowed her name to appear in the
Incidents, continues : " I only wish that more names had been given
Robert Chambers', for instance, and Sir Edward Lytton's, and
Mr. Bell's. I have no patience with the cowardice that withholds
testimony from truth."
A month or two after the appearance of the Incidents, and) when
the first edition was nearly exhausted, the publishers were threatened
with an action for libel. In the portion of his book where he
dealt with the Brewster controversy, Home had brought forward the
published evidence of Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S., and Messrs. Steven-
son, to show that Sir David Brewster had treated certain of his
scientific contemporaries even worse than he had treated Home.
Brewster now threatened (June, 1863) a libel action; and Messrs.
Longmans, alarmed, terminated their connection with the work.
Home promptly sought another publisher;, and a few months later
a second edition of his book appeared. Not a word was erased or
changed of the chapter dealing with Brewster; on the contrary,
Home wrote a preface for the new edition, in which he added
Arago, the Edinburgh Review, and the Westminster Review to his
list of the authorities that had exposed Brewster's mendacity.
"It appears," said Home, "that, in addition to his other
claims, Sir David Brewster sets up a claim that he alone is gifted
with the power of feeling. To me he denies all feeling, and has
coarsely and untruly held me up to the public as a cheat and an
impostor. But when I prove by documents and independent wit-
nesses his true character, he actually feels it, and complains."
Sir David Brewster did not bring a libel action. Perhaps he felt
the force of Home's remark, when, after citing the authorities for
his statements, he added : "It is a great pity that Sir David
Brewster did not bring actions to vindicate his character against the
authors of some of these books, or against Dr. Carpenter, against
whom he made an abortive threat, instead of attacking me."
This preface to the second edition was written at Rome in Decem-
ber, 1863, where Mr. Home had gone to study art. For some
months past the longing had possessed him to attempt turning to
account the keen artistic perceptions he possessed ; and the career in
which he believed himself most likely to succeed was that of the
sculptor. It was in vain that friends, especially medical friends,
remonstrated with him, and warned him that such a career was of all
ii2 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
others most unsuited to him, who had twice already been at the
point of death from affections of the lungs. Home was determined
to gratify his longing ; the more so that pecuniary difficulties were
threatening him, as his right to the inheritance of his wife's little
fortune was very unjustly disputed by her relatives. He had made
the acquaintance in London of some eminent sculptors, Mr. Durham,
Mr. Boehm, and others; and before going to Rome, he consulted
with some of these, and took lessons in the art.
In the year 1863 he was often a visitor at two houses where artists
of every description congregated those of Mr. and Mrs. Howitt
and Mr. and Mrs. Hall. I need not bring forward evidence of the
faith of the Halls and the Howitts in Spiritualism all four de-
clared it publicly; and all four, be it marked, had commenced the
investigation of the subject as absolute sceptics. " I laughed,"
wrote Mrs. S. C. Hall, " at the idea of a spirit giving a message
by raps on a table. I did worse, I became angry." Her husband
has borne equally emphatic testimony to his original incredulity.
How Mr. and Mrs. William Howitt were led to investigate I do
not know, but by the year 1861 they had both become zealous
Spiritualists.
Mr. Home's acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall com-
menced in 1860. Among the various inquirers, more honest and
candid than Brewster, who were present in 1855 at seances with
Home at Baling, were Mr. and Mrs. Newton Crossland. They
became firm Spiritualists, declared their convictions ; and Mr. Cross-
land suffered much loss and persecution in consequence. They were
acquainted with S, C. Hall, then a sceptic concerning the manifesta-
tions. He only laughed at his friends' accounts of what they had
seen at Baling and elsewhere; but on making in his turn the acquain-
tance of Mr Home, the incredulity of a lifetime was vanquished.
Mr. Hall has frequently related to his friends one of his earliest
experiences with Mr. Home; and in 1884 he made the incident public.
I copy his narrative :
" In 1860, sitting with Daniel Home (some persons of distinction being
present), the spirit of my father came to us. When the name ' Robert Hall '
was announced, I asked if he were my father or my brother the answer
being, ' Your father, Colonel Hall.' I requested some test to make me sure.
The answer given was this (it excited laughter among the party, by whom it
was not understood ; but I knew that a more conclusive and convincing test
could not have been given to me) : ' The last time we met in Cork you pulled
my tail.' Like all military officers of his time, he wore the queue ; he wore it,
indeed, up to his death, and was buried in it. Few persons living can remem-
ber the queue : the hair behind was suffered to grow long, and was tied with
black ribbon up to nearly the end."
All who knew Mrs. S. C. Hall remember her as one of the most
gifted, charming, and warm-hearted of women. It was a privilege
to call her friend ; and Home was one of her dearest friends ; the
difference in their ages enabling her to counsel and encourage him
in something of the spirit of a mother speaking to a son. Letters
from very dear friends, Mr. Home carefully preserved ; and there
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 113
remain hundreds of Mrs. Hall's extending over a period of twenty
years, and as interesting as they are outspoken and affectionate.
The letters of the years 1863 and 4 show Mrs. Hall as interesting
herself cordially in Home's project of becoming a sculptor.
"I received your letter late on Saturday," she writes on first
learning of that project; " and wrote at once to Mr. Durham. I
am sure you have the corner in his heart, and will have one in his
studio, if there is one to spare."
It seems that there was not; and so Mr. Home's first essays in
the art were made at Dieppe in the autumn of 1863. It was there
and then that the angry incredulity of Dr. Elliottson was shattered
in the manner already described ; Mrs. Milner Gibson being one of
the witnesses of the wonderful change wrought in his sentiments by
his two seances with Home. A letter of February, 1864, shows
Mrs. S. C. Hall to have also been at Dieppe when Elliottson was
there :
" Mr. Dallas of the Times was opposite me at dinner at Mr.
Warde's yesterday," writes Mrs. Hall. " He said across the table,
' Dr. Elliottson is attending me do you know he is almost a believer
in Spiritualism ? ' ' Almost ! ' I repeated ; ' he was altogether so, when
I saw him at Dieppe.' '
In November, 1863, the intending sculptor went to Rome to study
his art. For six weeks he quietly pursued it among the artist colony
there, with several of whom he was acquainted ; but on the 2nd of
January, 1864, he received a proof that the Papal Government had
neither forgotten nor forgiven his refusal, eight years before, to let
the monastery gates close upon him. He was summoned before the
chief of the Roman police, subjected to a long interrogatory, and
finally ordered, on the ground of sorcery, to quit Rome within three
days.
Mr. Home at once claimed the protection of the English Consul ;
the result of whose intervention, joined with that of a distinguished
personage friendly to Horn*, was somewhat incorrectly related by
the Times correspondent in w/iting to that journal :
" On Monday morning," said the correspondent, " the British Consul saw
Monsignor Matteucci, the Governor of Rome, and complained that any British
subject should be interfered with in consequence of his opinions. He stated
that Mr. Home had conducted himself during his residence in Rome in a
strictly legal and gentlemanly manner ; and demanded that the obnoxious order
should be rescinded. Monsignor spoke of dangerous powers of fascination, of
the prohibition by the Government of all the practices of the black art ; and
finally assented to Mr. Home's remaining, on condition of his entering into an
engagement, through Mr. Severn, that he would desist from all communica-
tions with the spiritual world during his stay in Rome."
Mr. Home entered into no such engagement. He could not.
Nothing was more common with him than for manifestations to occur
unexpectedly, and he could do nothing to prevent their happening.
The actual written promise that he gave, at the request of the
Governor of Rome, was word for word as follows :
" I give my word as a gentleman that during my stay in Rome I
H4 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
will have no seance, and that I will avoid, as much as possible, all
conversations upon Spiritualism."
No seance was held ; but behind the Governor of Rome there were
higher powers still, who were determined that, seances or no
seances, Home should leave the city. The British Consul was falsely
informed that Home had broken his promise, and Home himself was
once more ordered to quit the Papal territory, the excuse made being
that, since he could only promise to hold no seance, and was unable
to say that manifestations would not occur in spite of such abstention,
it was impossible to allow him to remain. It deserves to be added,
as characteristic of the methods of the defunct Papal Government,
that for the four weeks preceding the expulsion none of Home's letters
had been delivered to him, the authorities retaining them to study
their contents at leisure.
" Is there anything against Mr. Home's character? " asked a high
personage who interviewed the Governor of Rome on his behalf.
' ' No, ' ' replied Monsignor Matteucci, ' ' nothing. During the two
months he has been in Rome we have had him watched, and we
believe that his character is without blemish. But he is a sorcerer,
and cannot be permitted in Rome; and he must go."
Home left for Naples ; and was escorted to the railway station by
a number of his friends in Rome, as a mark of sympathy and a public
protest against his expulsion. The present King of Italy, then Prince
Humbert, was at Naples at the time ; and by his Highness's command
Mr. Home was presented to him, and favoured with an invitation to a
Court ball. A short but pleasant stay in Naples was followed by a
few weeks at Nice, where Mrs. Milner Gibson was then among the
winter residents, as was also, it would seem, Sir E. B. Lytton. Several
seances were held at Nice; and about the beginning of April, 1864,
Home returned to London. He addressed the Foreign Secretary
on the subject of his expulsion from Rome; and on Earl Russell
declining to make any representations to the Papal Government, Mr.
Home brought the matter before the House of Commons, through the
instrumentality of Mr. Roebuck. He did this in no expectation ot
obtaining redress, but it concerned him to make as widely known as
possible that the reasons of his expulsion from Rome in no way
affected his character.
It was on this occasion that Mr. Milner Gibson was driven out
of the House by the jocose appeal of Mr. Roebuck to the President
of the Board of Trade, whom Roebuck mistakenly assumed to be a
Spiritualist. Nothing came of the question in the House of Commons
beyond the discussion that ensued ; but the correct facts concerning
Mr. Home's expulsion from Rome were reported next morning in the
leading English journals, which was all that he had expected or
sought.
Between his departure from Nice and return to London he had spent
a week or two* in Paris, where the Empress com'manded his presence
at the Tuileries. Among the celebrities then in Paris was Nubar
Pasha. The Egyptian statesman was present at one or more seances,
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 115
was greatly impressed and startled by the manifestations; and on
writing to express his sentiments to Mr. Home, he sent him a souvenir
in the form of a small chain a trifle that it would have been un-
gracious to refuse.
The letter that accompanied the chain is dated March 22nd, 1864.
" You are leaving to-day," writes Nubar Pasha; " and I expect to have
quitted Paris myself before your return from London.
" I take the liberty of sending you a small chain ; it is a souvenir, a
memento ; for truly I should be happy to know that you will think of me
occasionally. As for me, you may believe me I carry away a recollection of
you that will never be effaced. Your very devoted servant and friend,
" M. NUBAR."
In writing the narrative of a life so full of incident as that of Home,
I find myself compelled sometimes to group together the events of
different years. Were I to preserve strict chronological sequence, and
to accompany Mr. Home step by step in his thousand and one
journeys, these chapters would read rather like a record of travel than
a biography.
I am now about to group together the incidents of the years 1863
and 1864 so far as they relate to London. Home was much in the
English Metropolis during those two years, and held frequent seances.
At these various English celebrities were present, including Mr. John
Bright, Mr. Ruskin, Sir Charles Nicholson, and Sir Daniel Cooper.
All four were deeply impressed by the manifestations they witnessed ;
of Mr. Ruskin and Sir Charles Nicholson I have reasons for saying
that the effect on them was to render them unavowed Spiritualists
reasons that I shall presently put before the reader. Sir D. Cooper
made no scruple among his friends of avowing his belief, but he
shrank from proclaiming it to the world.
In Mr. Home's second volume of Incidents, published in 1872,
he passes over that interesting period of his life, the early summer of
1864, with the brief remark, " I returned to England, and then
crossed the Atlantic, to revisit my- old friends in America." Con-
sideration for the feelings of timid inquirers could hardly be carried
to a higher pitch.
It was through Mr. and Mrs. S. C. riall that Mr. Ruskin, Mr.
Bright, and Sir D. Cooper made the acquaintance of Mr. Home. The
letters of Mrs. S. C. Hall during the years 1861, 2, 3, and 4, are
fortunately very numerous; and they have materially assisted me in
arriving at the facts of that portion of Mr. Home's English experiences
I am now dealing with.
Before speaking of Mr. Bright and Mr. Ruskin, I may take the
opportunity those letters give me to say a few words of a man less in-
tellectually distinguished, but who was, I believe, in some sort a social,
artistic, and literary celebrity in London a quarter ot a century ago
Mr. Heaphy.
To beo;in with, he is the hero of an amusing anecdote related by
Mrs. Hall. " Mr. Heaphy looked in on Sunday evening," she writes
in February, 1864; " and we are so amused. Old Lady P., we hear,
n6 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
has been carried up to the ceiling and has written on it she told this
to Mr. Heaphy, saying, ' Do you know, I am a -floater ! ' Now Mr.
Heaphy's deafness played him a bad trick, and he thought she had
said, ' Do you know, I am a bloater I ' So Mr. Heaphy went about
telling how Spiritualism had changed poor Lady P. into a Yarmouth
bloater."
A cool-headed, clever man of the world, Heaphy could joke at a
Spiritualist like " old Lady P.," but he was very differently impressed
by the mysterious gift of Home. " Mr. Heaphy called here last
night," writes Mrs. Hall in 1861 ; " and I do rejoice at the change
wrought in his mind through your means. Sometimes, even now, his
spirit rises against conviction; and then again it is brought right by
the wonders he has seen, the marvellous information you gave him.
He tells me darling Sacha's portrait is greatly improved. It is such
a blessing he has been brought to you."
As a reference in Mrs. Hall's letter indicates, Mr. Heaphy, whose
genius was of a versatile order, painted a portrait of Mrs. Home. He
had never the courage to make his convictions public ; but in private
he showed himself an attached and sincere friend ; and when Home
formed the design of studying sculpture at Rome, it was Heaphy who
sent him an introduction to one of the most eminent of the artist
colony there, the sculptor Gibson.
" My dear Dan," writes Heaphy, "'I am glad for many reasons
that you are back in the old place at last ; though I could have wished
that you were at Paris instead, that I might have a better chance of
coming to see you. My wife tells me you wish for an introduction to
Gibson I enclose one. . . .
" You will find many of our London friends at Rome, Edward
Stirling among the number. Possibly I may be in Rome by the Holy
week. Adieu ! When you have an opportunity let us hear how you
are getting on. Yours ever truly, " THOS. HEAPHY."
Mr. Ruskin's investigations of Spiritualism appear to have com-
menced in the year 1863, when he accepted the invitation of a well-
known English, or, rather, Scottish Spiritualist, Mrs. Makdougall
Gregory, widow of Professor Gregory, to be present at a seance. The
medium was not Mr. Home, who was at the time absent from Eng-
land; and a letter of Mrs. S. C. Hall's declares the distinguished
investigator to have been very unfavourably impressed.
Some little time afterwards, Mr. Ruskin was one evening at the
house of a Mr. Bertolacci, who was a Spiritualist, and an acquaintance
of Mr. Home. The topic of Spiritualism came up for discussion;
and Mr. Ruskin appears to have said something of the unfavourable
impression made on him by the mediums pretended or real
that he had seen.
"Mr. Bertolacci told him," writes Mrs. Hall, "that he ought to
see your mediumship. He asked if you were a true man to be
depended on as a man; and added, ' Of your wonderful gifts there
could be no doubt. ' Upon this, the whole family burst out into their
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 117
belief in all your goodness that we " (Mr. and Mrs. Hall) " knew
you so well, etc., etc. And then the rest came about."
The "rest" to which Mrs. Hall refers was the fact that Mr. Ruskin
had ended by expressing a desire to meet Mr. Home at a seance. The
Bertolaccis communicated his wish to Mrs. S. C. Hall; and, delighted
with the hope of so eminent a convert to Spiritualism, she at once
penned the letter to Home just quoted from. He willingly promised
the seance ; and the Halls, who had been on the point of starting for
Ireland, deferred their journey for a few days to be present. In her
next letter Mrs. Hall writes:
"Mv DEAR FRIEND, Mr. Ruskin comes on Monday evening he
asks if he may bring a friend who is coming to stay with ham a
clergyman : ' that is, ' he adds, ' if his friend wishes it. ' There
will be you, the three Bertolaccis our two selves, Mr. R. and his
friend ; that is all we have thought about exactly eight. ' '
Either the Halls were finally obliged to leave for Ireland on the
eve of the seance, or it was followed by a second seance that fhey
could not wait for; for on the i4th of June, 1864, Mrs. Hall
writes : " We greatly regret leaving town just now. I am so
interested about Mr. Ruskin do let me know if anything to catch
hold of his apathetic yet energetic nature occurs to-morrow evening ;
and do, dear friend, go to him in his own home."
What occurred ? The Halls were in Ireland most of the summer ;
Mr. Ruskin has never spoken. I do not know if he had two seances
with Mr. Home or twenty ; but that, whatever their number, those
seances had, in Mrs. Hall's phrase, "caught hold" of him, the
friendly, and even affectionate tone of his subsequent letters to Home
sufficiently demonstrates.
" Only fancy Ruskin being convinced ! " Mrs. Hall writes some
months later, when Home had again left England. " But he does
not wish it talked about," she adds, underlining the words emphati-
cally.
In the early autumn of 1864, Mr. Home sailed for America.
Evidently he had written to Mr. Ruskin on the eve of his departure,
and the subjoined letter from which I omit some confidences of
Mr. Ruskin concerning himself was the answer to his own :
" DENMARK HILL, qth September, 1864.
DEAR MR. HOME, It is so nice of you to like me ! I believe you are truly
doing me the greatest service and help that one human being can do another
in trusting me in this way, and indeed I hope I so far deserve your trust, that
I can understand noble and right feeling and affection though I have myself
little feeling or affection left, being worn out with indignation as far as regards
the general world. . . .
" Till March is long to wait and it really isn't all my fault. I did not
write that week for I was not sure if I could get into town for you on Mon-
day but you never told me you were going away before Monday, and I
thought my Saturday's letter quite safe.
" Well do, please, write me a line to say you are safe in America. And
come to see me the moment you come back. I shall be every way, I hope,
then more at leisure and peace. May you be preserved in that wild country, 1
and brought back to us better in health and happier. Ever affectionately
yours, " J. RUSKIN."
1 The Civil War was then raging
n8 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
In this pleasant letter, Mr. Ruskin would seem to say in effect :
' ' Do not expect too much from a man worn out by his warfare with
the spirit of the time, but as far as I have feeling and affection left,
I feel for and sympathise with you, my new friend." Sympathy
and liking were precious to Home, than whose nature none was ever
more sensitive, and who all his life stood as a target for the shafts of
abuse and calumny loosed against him by men who knew nothing of
him but his name.
Mr. Home returned from America in May, 1865, but spent only a
day or two in London, before leaving for France and Russia. It
seems to have been at this time that the following undated letter
of Mrs. Hall's was written.
" Saturday Night.
" DEAR FRIEND, I have just received such a charming note from Mr
Ruskin I cannot even ' lend you the loan ' of it for a single look, I am so
proud of it but I can quote : ' I'm coming at one o'clock on Monday to take
possession of Mr. Home, to drive him over to Denmark Hill ; and so we shall
have all the drive time besides so please tell him this, and hold him fast on
Monday morning till I come.'
" I have written to Mr. Ruskin to say that you have escaped that I write
by to-night's post to catch you at Cox's Hotel that I am sure you would
forego any engagement to spend a few hours with him (who would not?) and
" Well, that was all I could say. Nothing can exceed the cordiality of his
letter."
The winter of 1865 brought Home back from Russia to England,
and while on a visit to Dr. Gully at Malvern, he received a letter
written by Mr. Ruskin by way of New Year's greeting :
" DENMARK HILL, 2gth December, 1865.
" DEAR MR. HOME, This is only to thank you for your kind letter,
and to wish you a happy new year. Your letter from America
stayed by me reproachfully day by day it was the deep summer
time, and I was out all day long, and came in at night too tired to
write, and at last it was too late. But now I hope I may soon
see you. Please say that I may, and believe me affectionately yours,
" J. RUSKIN. ' :
As Mr. Home was much in London during 1866, Mr. Ruskin's
desire that he might soon meet again was probably gratified ; but on
this point I have no means of speaking positively. Passing over
nine months, I find, from, a letter of Mrs. Hall, dated October i6th,
1866, that Mr. Ruskin was then wishing for a seance on a friend's
account :
" MY DEAR DANIEL, All the town is ringing with the story 1 giving it, of
course, various readings but all your old friends are full of rejoicing.
" Mr. Ruskin called here to-day. Carter desires me to enclose you a note
he received from him. I wish, my dear Daniel, you could fix an evening to
receive his friend. If you could meet him here? or at the Athenaeum?" (the
Spiritual Athenaeum in Sloane Street), " only please do attend to it, and write
to me and to Mr. Ruskin. He rejoiced for you but, oh ! he is looking so
worn and ill. We had such a long talk on Spiritualism."
1 The adoption of Mr. Home by Mrs. Lyon.
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 119
As I am unable to give the particulars of that talk or of the
seances that had preceded it, I have printed here instead the indirect,
but none the less conclusive testimony that such letters from Mr.
Ruskin as have been preserved afford of the deep and favourable im-
pression made on him by his experiences with Mr. Home ; and leave it
now to the judgment of the reader, together with the corroborative
evidence of Mrs. Hall. Other portions of her letters also refer to
Mr. Ruskin in connection with Spiritualism; but as the statements
are hearsay, I have confined myself to the passages where she
speaks from personal knowledge.
Mr. John Bright's introduction to Mr. Home also took place
through the Halls, and at an earlier date than that of Mr. Ruskin.
The Mr. Wason, of Liverpool, whose description of his first seance has
already been given, was an intimate friend of a once-noted politician,
Mr. E. Beales ; and his relation of the wonderful phenomena he had
witnessed excited the interest and curiosity of Mr. Beales, who,
through Wason, obtained an introduction to Home. Mr. Beales, like
his friend, was vividly impressed by the manifestations he beheld ;
and it was his influence that induced the Morning Star newspaper to
open its columns to letters on the subject of Spiritualism. " As
regards my having been instrumental in throwing open the columns of
the Star to the discussion of Spiritualism," Mr. Beales writes to Mr.
Home, October i6th, 1862, " I very unfeignedly assure you that it
was to my mind both a pleasure and a duty."
In his turn, Mr. Beales, by his narrative, of the seances at which he
had been present, inspired his friend, Mr. John Bright, with the
desire to witness and investigate the phenomena. Being an
acquaintance and near neighbour of the Halls, with whom Home
was holding frequent seances in the winter of 1862 3, Mr. Beales
communicated Bright's wish to them, and a seance at their house
was appointed. Mr. John Bright came accordingly, bringing with
him Mr. Lucas, managing editor of the Morning Star. Among the
other sitters present was a lady whose narrative of her own early
experiences with Mr. Home has already been given, Mrs. Adelaide
Senior. The little I know of the occurrences of the evening is
from her.
In November, 1862," writes Mrs. Senior, " I was present at one of Mr.
D. D. Home's stances in the house of Mr. S. C. Hall, to which Mr. John
Bright had been invited, he having expressed a strong wish to see something
of Spiritualism. On the day of the stance, Mr. Hall received a note from
Mr. Bright, asking to be allowed to bring a friend, Mr. Lucas, editor of the
Star newspaper."
Mrs. Senior describes the manifestations of the evening as numerous
and remarkable, and gives the following narrative of one of the early
incidents of the seance :
Not many minutes after we were seated at the large, heavy round table,
knocks were given for the alphabet, and the words given were : ' You are
trying to prevent our raising the table.' Mr. Hall asked, ' Who is trying?'
and pointed to each in succession, when three knocks for ' Yes ' were given in
front of Mr. Lucas, who at once said, ' Yes, I was putting my whole weight
upon it ' I, sitting next but one to him, then asked, ' Do you think that
120 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
right?' ' Oh, yes,' he answered, ' I came here to investigate.' ' Certainly,'
I said ; ' but neither to assist nor retard the movements. ' A message then
came, desiring Mr. to sit upon the table ; this was a stout gentleman who
was present. The desire was complied with ; and instantly the table was not
only raised, but tossed up, as you would toss a baby in your arms saying,
as plainly as words could have done, ' You tried to prevent our raising the
table with nothing upon it, and we will prove to you that we can do it with
this additional weight. ' '
Laughable as this incident may seem to some sceptical readers, it
could not but impress the two shrewd and incredulous inquirers
present that evening. The room was fully lighted; Mr. Bright and
Mr. Lucas had satisfied themselves that no machinery was concealed
under the table or connected with it. There sat Mr. Home, his fingers
lightly resting on the table; and again and again the heavy table rose
clear of the ground, with the weight of a heavy man upon it in
.addition.
As Mrs. Senior cannot furnish me a precise account of the numerous
other phenomena of the seance, I refrain from describing them.
" I asked Mr. Bright, on his leaving," says Mr. S. C. Hall, " what
he thought of the manifestations he had witnessed that evening.
' They are very wonderful,' he replied; adding, ' I know, Mr. Hall,
you would not lend yourself to any trickery. It is very remarkable. ' '
" Mr. Beales is just gone," wrote Mrs. Hall a day or two after the
seance to Mr. Home. ' ' I am most thankful for the impression which
he assured me had been made both on Mr. Lucas and John Bright.
Both are most wishful to meet you again."
An invitation to a second seance was given and accepted; but on
the eve of the day appointed Mrs. Hall writes: " Carter has had a
most melancholy note from Bright, saying he cannot come on Friday.
He goes out of town, but hopes the week or so after next to be
fortunate. He is evidently deeply impressed."
Probably Mr. Bright was ultimately present at a second seance.
I find the following letter from him to Mr. S. C. Hall among Mr.
Home's papers:
" 4, HANOVER STREET, May 6, '64.
" MY DEAR MR. HALL, Would Wednesday next, the nth inst., suit you for
another sitting with Mr. Home? Mr. Tite, M.P., whom I think you know,
"has several times expressed to me his great wish to be present on an occasion
when manifestations may be expected ; and it would gratify him very much if
he could come. . .
" Wednesday will suit me best, but if some other evening, Saturday excepted,
can only be set apart for it, I will try to come.
" I hope you will not think me troublesome. You were kind enough to ask
me to come again, and to propose a day. I hope you may be able to arrange
with Mr. Home, and that he will not think me intrusive. Very truly yours,
" JOHN BRIGHT."
I believe Mr. Bright has never made public any account of his
experiences with Mr. Home; but in conversing on the subject, the
testimony of Mr. Hall and that of Mr. Beales, as reported by Mrs.
Hall, showed that he declared freely the impression made on him.
I have the evidence of another person to add to theirs. Mr. J. M.
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 121
Peebles, a United States consul, was in England about this time, and
had a talk with Mr. Bright on Spiritualism. Lecturing in America,
September 3, 1870, on his travels in Europe, Mr. Peebles stated:
" While in England I dined with John Bright, when transpired
quite an earnest conversation upon the subject of Spiritualism. He
said he had witnessed some of D. D. Home's manifestations. They
were wonderful. He could attribute them to no cause except it be the
one alleged, that of intelligent, disembodied spirits. ' But,' he added,
with due caution, ' I do not say that this is so ; but if it be true, it is
the strongest tangible proof we have of immortality. ' '
Sir Charles Nicholson, to whom I have referred a few pages back,
seems to have been a very amiable man, and, like many amiable men,
a very timid one. He had been present at a number of seances with
Home, was entirely convinced of the genuineness of the manifestations
and probably satisfied of their spiritual origin; but he could not
summon up courage to make his convictions public. In 1864, after Mr.
Home's expulsion from Rome, some of his English friends planned
an address to him, that should be at once a declaration of sympathy
and a testimony of their belief in Spiritualism. The wish of the pro-
moters of the address naturally was to obtain the signatures of various
distinguished Englishmen who had privately expressed their conviction
of the genuineness of the phenomena witnessed by them in Home's
presence ; but it was found that nearly all were too timid to let their
names go forth to the world.
" Of course I am ready to be a witness either in private or in
public," wrote Mr. S. C. Hall to Mr. Home; "but will others
will Robert Chambers, Sir E. B. Lytton, Sir Charles Nicholson and
others be both?"
It was found that they would not, and the testimonial ultimately
took a private, instead of a public form. But if timorous of publishing
his faith to the world, Sir Charles Nicholson would seem to have
declared it freely to his friends.
" At dinner at the Larnocks in Kensington Palace Gardens," writes
Mrs. S. C. Hall to Mr. Home, " Sir Charles Nicholson began about
Spiritualism he is now a perfect believer. Carter and he fought it
out bravely with the Larnocks."
And again, writing to Mr. Home in America, March, 1865: " Sir
Charles Nicholson told Mr. Durham that he had been informed you
had renounced Spiritualism. Both friends were in great anxiety and
distress at such a report; so I sent Sir Charles your last letter, and
had such a very nice reply. I think he is a very sincere Spiritualist."
Sincere in secret, that is. Of what avail to any cause is such
sincerity?
Sir Charles Nicholson's letters to Mr. Home are hardly of sufficient
interest to print here ; except perhaps the following, which slightly
bears on the testimony of Mrs. Hall concerning his convictions :
<f Mv DEAR MR. HOME, Many thanks for your kind note.
Be assured that the pleasure of cultivating social intercourse, and of
J-
122 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
enjoying your society, will always be regarded as a privilege by me,
irrespective of curiosity regarding the wonderful phenomena which I
may have an opportunity of witnessing in your presence. Ever most
faithfully yours, " CHARLES NICHOLSON."
That Sir C. Nicholson had seances at his own residence with Mr.
Home, I learn from a letter written by Sir Daniel Cooper :
" 20, PRINCE'S GARDENS, gth July, 1864.
" MY DEAR HOME, Lady Cooper desires me to say that we shall be very
happy to see your friend, Captain Pemberton, at 3 past 8 o'clock. Our party
will consist of Mr. and Mrs. Witt, Admiral and Mrs. Denham, Dr. Barrett,
and our two selves. Admiral Denham has met you at Sir Chas. Nicholson's
the others have never seen any manifestations, and are very anxious to see
you at a stance. Lady Cooper joins me in kind regards. Believe me, yours
very faithfully, " DANIEL COOPER."
I do not know that Sir D. Cooper, any more than Sir Charles
Nicholson, ever made his convictions public; but in private both Lady
Cooper and himself were converts.
" I heard last night," writes Mrs. S. C. Hall, " that Sir D. Cooper was ill,
so I called there en route to Mrs. Milner Gibson's, and found him better.
Lady C. said, ' I fear your maid never gave Sir Daniel's card to Mr. Home
I left it for him expressly, and hoped he might have called here before his
return to Paris.' ' Paris!' I repeated; ' he is in London.' I wish you had
seen the expression of pleasure that lit up her serious face. Then she told me
of the battles she and Sir Daniel had fought, both here and at Brussels, about
Spiritualism since that stance how deeply they are impressed, how impossible
they find it to reconcile the manifestations they saw with any human power,
and how eager they are to see more. Do, dear friend, call on them. Sarah
says she gave you Sir D. 's card, but I daresay you forgot all about it. In
their quiet way they are as much impressed as Pickersgill. 1 I had no idea
they were so deeply impressed."
The above letter was written early in 1863, and, during that and
the following year, fresh seances with Home deepened and
strengthened the Spiritual convictions of Sir Daniel and Lady
Cooper. I understand that some of the manifestations were des-
cribed in the Spiritual Magazine; but if so, the testimony was of
that anonymous kind which timid friends of Home were so fond of
furnishing, and consequently valueless.
If friends were timid of telling the truth they knew of him, foes
were always ready to make reckless statements based on hearsay or
sheer malice. I have remarked in another chapter that a striking
illustration of the tendency of human nature to confound assertion
with fact was given in the year 1864.
A Captain Noble, a scientific man of some small note, wrote a
letter to the Sussex Advertiser in March, 1864, on the subject of
Spiritualism, with especial reference to the seances of Mr. Home.
He had never been present at one ; but the unimportant fact that he
had no materials for arriving at a judgment did not prevent him from
forming one ; and he summed it up in the words : ' ' Home is as rank
an impostor, I verily believe, as ever lived."
1 Mr. Pickersgill, R.A., who was present at several seances with Mr. Home
about 1862-3.
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 123
A few weeks later Mr. Home arrived in England ; and his atten-
tion was called to the letter in the Sussex Advertiser. He at once
.gave instructions on the subject to his solicitors, who wrote to
Captain Noble :
" Mr. Home is astonished at this public and gratuitous attack
which you have made upon his personal character, and he is deter-
mined to have a public investigation, in which you will have an
opportunity if you can of proving your charge against him. We are
therefore instructed to ask " &c.
Captain Noble responded to the application for the name of his
solicitor 6y writing as follows to Mr. Home:
44 FOREST LODGE, MARESFIELD, 14^1 April, 1864.
41 SIR, My attention having just been directed to a passage in a long letter
.addressed by me to the Sussex Advertiser, reflecting strongly on your character,
I take the earliest opportunity of withdrawing the charge therein implied, and
of offering you, with all frankness and unreserve, the fullest apology for having
made what a moment's reflection tells me to have been an unjustifiable asser-
tion on my part. . .
" In affirming the grounds of my disbelief and in attributing Spiritual
manifestations to natural causes, I was inadvertently led to make the allusion
to yourself which I so much regret. You will, I feel assured, acquit me of
having entertained an) malevolent feeling against one of whom I had no
personal knowledge, and will readily perceive that I spoke only from general
conclusions hastily, and, I freely admit, unfairly formed. Under these circum-
stances, I feel it alike due to you and to myself to offer you every apology
which one gentleman is entitled to from another ; and, inasmuch as my attack
was a public one, I now express my readiness to make my retractation equally
public, and shall with pleasure clothe it in any appropriate form which you
may deem satisfactory to your own honour."
\
In making this amende honorable, it does not seem to have
occurred to the writer that the want of all knowledge of Mr. Home to
which he confesses, instead of being, as he implies, a mitigation of
his offence, greatly aggravated it. It was the way of the world,
however, to fling random slanders at Home; and probably nine-
tenths of his maligners, if brought to book, would have hastened to
plead, like this Sussex country gentleman, that they had acted more
in heedlessness than in malice. Then and always the most placable
of mankind, Home, whose desire was to vindicate himself, not to
punish others, very readily accepted the reparation offered ; and the
incident was terminated by Cap f ain Noble publishing in the journal
that had contained the libel an unreserved withdrawal of his state-
ments and apology for having made them.
I forget what celebrity described himself, or was described, as the
best abused man of his day. Mr. Home was unquestionably the best
(or worst) calumniated of his. The most harmless and meaningless
word dropped by one of his acquaintances was enough : some listening
ear picked it up, and in twenty-four hours the most astonishing
fictions had been built upon it. For instance, the distinguished
sculptor Mr. J. E. Boehm pointed out in a statuette made by him
of Mr. Home the well-formed hands and feet. Some one present
124 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
repeated the compliment with distortions ; and in a few days the
most extraordinary stories were circulated in London of what the
sculptor had said. Home wrote to inform him of these wild fables,
and Mr. Boehm wrote in return:
" DEAR MR. HOME, With astonishment I received your letter yesterday, and
hasten to reply. I cannot understand who can possibly be ill-natured enough
to spread such reports, and though I try to remember what could have given
cause to the origin of it, I cannot think that it was anything else but my
pointing out on your statuette your delicately-formed hands, feet, and limbs in
general. If such remarks raise such interpretations, I may as well give up
priding myself in that which I consider the only merit in my humble works
viz., that I pay just as much attention to the characteristics of the tip of the
fingers as the tip of the nose. I need not say more, as I know that these
things occur often to you, and that you would not really attach any importance
to them ; and I beg you to believe me, dear Mr. Home, truly yours,
" J. E. BOEHM."
The most sensitive of all men, past or present, Home could not but
sometimes feel the annoyance of the untruthful and malignant chatter
of the world, heartily though he despised it. On the ears of all who
really knew him it fell unheeded a fact well pointed out in the follow-
ing letter to him, which needs no other comment:
" HOTEL DE ROME, i2th Dec., '63.
a DEAR SIR, I cannot conceive why you give the slightest attention
to the circumstances you mentioned to me this morning.
" Your numerous friends in England, France, and Russia will
certainly not be influenced by idle gossip, and a man who holds so
prominent a position in European society as you do is inevitably
exposed to attacks of all kinds. Believe me, dear sir, yours truly,
" ODO RUSSELL."
About the time when he accepted Captain Noble's apology, Mr.
Home received a letter that took the form of a solemn warning to
cease dealing with familiar spirits. Its writer was especially earnest
in counselling him to read his Bible. Here again, as in Captain
Noble's case, a total lack of information is apparent; for few men
have ever searched the Scriptures more attentively and constantly
than Home.
Evidently the writer of this letter was actuated by the belief, so
common among pious, narrow-minded people, that the phenomena of
Spiritualism were the work of the Arch-Fiend. Home often met with
such persons : he met with some of them in this same year, 1864.
He had made the acquaintance of a Captain Chawner, and went
on a visit to him for a few days at Newton Vallence, Hampshire.
Several people were staying in the house; and on Home's coming
seances were held, of which a startling account was subsequently cir-
culated. It was said that the Fiend himself had visibly appeared in
the form of a radiant angel, but had been put to flight at once by the
exorcisms of a lady who was present.
This story was so frequently repeated in society that some friends
of Home ended by trying to trace it to its source, and had the fortune
to arrive at the facts on which it was based. They found that at one
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 125
of the seances with the Chawner family a lady had been present who
believed the manifestations to be the work of demons. She came to
the seance accordingly with the Lord's prayer and various texts written
on small slips of paper, that she had placed inside her rings and
within the pockets of her dress. None the less, manifestations
occurred ; and some of them were addressed particularly to her. If
I interpret correctly the narrative of the seance furnished by one of
the Chawner family, Mr. Home, in the trance-state, was controlled
by a lost friend of the believer in demon-wrought miracles, who gave
striking tokens of his identity. With this explanation, I may leave
the following extract from a letter written in March, 1866, to speak
for itself :
" MY DEAR Miss CAMERON, I am very much obliged to you for telling me
of Mr. Home's answer to my story. The lady who told it is the wife of
General Brounker, who has just got an appointment of consequence in India.
I will try to get the relation of the stance written down it took place when
Mr. Home was staying with the Chawner family at Newton, near Selbourne,
in Hampshire. . . .
" There can be no doubt as to the reality of the phenomena in the minds of
those who have fairly inquired into them. I believe the true difficulty to be
that the whole of the religious world, of every denomination, is strongly
opposed to Spiritualism the scientific opposition is nothing in comparison.
. . . Very truly yours, " JANE ALEXANDER."
The writer of the above letter obtained from a member of the
Chawner family a written narrative of the seance at which Mrs.
Brounker had been present, and had it forwarded to Mr. Home. I
extract a portion :
" The manifestations were not prevented from continuing with the general
circle ; only, as Mrs. Brounker supposed, the bad spirits could not come to her.
She had texts and the Lord's Prayer about her, and inside her rings, written
on a tiny piece of paper, was the Lord's Prayer, slipped between her rings
and her fingers. Several things about one who was dear to her came out at
this stance indeed, he appeared himself ; and this brings me to the real point
of Mrs. B.'s ideas on the subject. She and her sister feel convinced that,
though, to all appearance, it -was this gentleman there was even his peculiar
shake of the hand, also a phrase quite peculiar to himself was used yet, with
all this, thev feel convinced that it was not he himself, but an Evil Spirit
personating him with his peculiarities. I said, ' Why should an evil spirit
know his ways and phrases, &c. ?' She answered, ' That is the argument used,
but very easily met. The Arch Fiend knows all about us and all our peculiari-
ties, and makes use of that knowledge in his temptations and so, for his 1
purpose, he can tell all his emissaries. I believe, in every case, it is an evil
spirit that personates our dear lost friends.' '
Of such reasoning, one can only remark that it is curious how
much stronger a faith very orthodox people seem, as a rule, to have
in the power of Satan than in that of God. Such being their faith,
it is inevitable that, of all prejudices hostile to Spiritualism, that
which sees in every manifestation a deceit of the Fiend should be
the most inveterate. What token of identity can convince a person
who meets every proof with the objection: " Yes, yes, to others that
may seem convincing, but not to me, who know that the Evil One is
omniscient and omnipotent."
126 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
I have not space to do more than allude to various persons who
investigated the phenomena in the years from which I am now
passing. Among them was George, Prince of Solrns, who was con-
verted to Spiritualism by his seances with Mr. Home at Ryde, in
1862, and tried, on his return to Hanover, to convert the King. I
quote a portion of one of his numerous letters in the English of the
writer :
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, I can give you good news, because I
found an occasion to speak with my dear King of all I know about
Spiritualism. He was very interested, but has still an objection
if we are right to communicate in this way with spirits in the other
world. He only believes a part of that which I believe, but I am
yet happy that he has got an interest, and that is enough for me
I am not so alone in Hinover as I expected."
No allusion to the seances at Ryde with the Prince of Solrns was
made by Mr Home in the Incidents. The following extract from a.
letter that the Prince wrote to him in 1862 will explain why :
" I beg of you not to speak of my knowledge of Spiritualism and
interest in you, because it might be bad for my King. My
relations, to whom I told about this, asked me not to speak of it,
because I was so near to the royal family, that if the people knew
the King had a Spiritualist in his house, they would profit of it to
speak against him. My dear Mr. Home, promise me your discre-
tion, and I will never forget you. Believe me, for ever, yours very
truly, ' GEORGE, PRINCE OF SOLMS. '
Two other inquirers the date of whose experiences I can only fix
as antecedent to 1864 were the Marchioness of Hastings and Lady
Combermere. In a letter written after her first seance, the former
tells Mr. Home that she "was so surprised and startled by what she
saw as to feel it impossible to come to any conclusion, tilil she had
seen it several times."
In 1864, the distinguished electrician, Cromwell Varley, F.R.S.,
had a seance in his own house at Beckenham with Mr. Home. In
his letter to Professor Tyndall (May ipth, 1868) on the subject of
spiritual manifestations, Mr. Varley describes phenomena (the move-
ments of a table, a large sofa, &c., untouched by any person present)
that took place while the room was brilliantly lit. "Deception,"
he wrote, " was impossible."
The introduction of Cromwell Varley to the phenomena of
Spiritualism took place in 1860, at a seance with Home. The
manifestations he witnessed that evening were described by htm in
his letter to Tyndall, and again in his evidence given before the
Dialectical Society in 1869.
Varley, who, before seeing anything of the manifestations, seems
to have been inclined to attribute them to known forces, presented
himself to Mr. Home in the spring of 1860. " I am," he said to
Home, " the electrician of the International and Atlantic Telegraph
Companies ; and, therefore, have considerable knowledge of
electricity, magnetism, and other physical forces. I have heard
ENGLAND, ROME, AND PARIS 127
speak of the extraordinary phenomena which are produced in your
presence, and am very desirous to see them and search into their
cause. Are you willing to allow me to be a witness of these pheno-
mena? "
"With great pleasure," replied Home; and after warning his
new acquaintance that he could not promise him manifestations
would take place, and that sometimes several seances in succession
were held without anything particular happening, he invited Mr.
Varley to come to a seance and bring his wife with him.
Varley minutely describes the occurrences of that seance. The
room, he told Professor Tyndall and the Dialectical Society, was
lighted by four gas-burners ; and when raps began to sound on the
table he carefully searched beneath it, while Mrs. Varley kept watch
above. Later in the seance the sitters felt themselves touched.
Varley mentally asked that his coat-collar might be pulled on the
left side, and had hardly shaped the thought in his mind when three
pulls were given to the collar, on the side he desired, by an invisible
hand. He then mentally requested that his right knee might be
touched three times, and instantly the unuttered wish was complied
with.
' ' Now my left knee, ' ' desired Varley, still without speaking. It
was touched three times without an instant's delay.
" My right shoulder," continued the investigator always mentally.
" On the instant it was touched," he writes, "without my being
able to see anything." Varley adds that, as he had neither spoken
nor stirred, no one present had any idea of what had taken place
until he informed them.
As for the conjecture of Mr. Home having been able to read his
guest's thoughts and produce the touches that responded to them,
Varley disposes of it by stating the two facts that the room was
brightly lit, and that a lady whom he designates as " Mrs. A." was
seated between himself and Home.
But, remarkable as was the seance, it was destined to be followed
by an incident that impressed Varley with more decisive conviction
than all the wonders that had gone before. He lived, he relates,
some five or six miles from the scene of the seance, and reached home
that night between twelve and one. I copy from the published
report of the evidence that he gave before the Dialectical Society
his account of what ensued :
'These," said Mr. Varley, "were the first physical phenomena
I saw, and they impressed me; but still I was too much astonished
to be able to feel satisfied. Fortunately, when I got home, a cir-
cumstance occurred which got rid of the element of doubt. While
alone 'n the drawing-room, thinking intently on what I had witnessed,
there were raps. The next morning I received a letter from Mr.
Home, in which he said. ' When alone in your room last night, you
heard sounds. I am so pleased.' He stated the spirits had told
him they followed me, and were enabled to produce sounds. I have
the letter in my possession now, to show that imagination had
nothing to do with the matter."
i 2 8 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Here again is testimony so decisive that it can only be attacked
by impugning the sanity or the credibility of the witness. But it
was never so much as hinted by Mr. Var ley's bitterest critics that he
was insane; and those scientific brethern who passed to the other
side of the way from him when he declared himself a Spiritualist
never ventured to impugn his honesty. Of his scientific ability
there can be no doubt; though, in October, 1871, Dr. Carpenter
assured the readers of the Quarterly Review that there were grave
doubts of it, and that these misgivings of the learned world had kept
Mr. Varley out of the Royal Society. " His scientific attainments,"
said the reviewer amiably, " are so cheaply estimated by those who
are best qualified to judge of them, that he has never been admitted
to the Royal Society." Unfortunately for Dr. Carpenter, Mr.
Varley had been more than three months a Fellow of the Royal
Society when this Quarterly article was published. Yet its in-
accurate and pretentious author, who could blunder so grossly and
spitefully about a fact that ought to have been well within his
knowledge, is supposed by some simple people to have been an
impartial and painstaking investigator of Spiritualism !
CHAPTER VIII
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND
Invitation to Cambridge. Recitations in America. Home's Personal
Appearance. Second Visit to the French Court. Lecture in
London. Baseless Attacks. Fraudulent Imitators. The
Spiritual Athenxum. The Lyon Case. A Perjured Plaintiff.
A Legal Dilemma. Robert Chambers' Affidavit. A Miscarriage
of Justice. Moral Victory of Home. Posthumous Libels in the
Times and Daily News.
AMONG Mr. Home's correspondence are many letters hinting at
remarkable experiences the writers have had with him, but giving no
details. For instance, in the year 1864, a Mr. J. M. Bellew, writing
from Portsdown Gardens, Maida Hill, is anxious that his friend Mr.
Frith, R.A., should be impressed as he himself has been. Again,
there are numerous letters in the same year from a Mr. Jermyn Cowell,
establishing two facts first, that their writer had seen at seances with
Home sufficient to impress and interest him deeply ; secondly, that
Mr. Cowell was well acquainted with distinguished men at Cambridge
Professor Sidgwick amongst others and was very desirous to have
Home make a visit to some of his friends at the University. Another
correspondent associated with Cambridge is a clergyman, the Rev.
A. W. Hobson, who writes in May, 1864, that his friend, the famous
astronomer Adams, is very much interested by what he, Mr. Hobson,
has had to tell him, and would like to meet Mr. Home, if the latter
could conveniently come to Cambridge.
Probably Home was unable to accept the invitation, or there would
remain some record of the visit. It is evident, however, from their
letters that Messrs. Bellew, Cowell, and Hobson all belonged to the
too-numerous class of inquirers who had seen enough to convince
them that the phenomena could not be accounted for by the easy
hypothesis of imposture, but who shrank from making their convictions
public.
The testimony given and letters quoted from in preceding chapters
sufficiently indicate how varied and extensive would be the full list of
the English investigators present at seances with Mr. Home. A full
list I could not give ; for many names are unknown to me, and others
I have omitted because I had no particulars of the experiences con-
nected with those names ; but the incomplete record these passes con-
tain will at least dispose of the untrue statement so frequently made,
that miracles were to be seen only by the faithful, and that Home
129
i 3 o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
avoided meeting sceptics. On the contrary, he seldom held a seance
in England at which there were not one or more sceptics present, and
often the sitters wholly consisted of disbelievers in the phenomena.
That many of these sceptics became Spiritualists through their seances
with him is true, but surely that fact will not be urged in disproof of the
manifestations !
Sailing for America in the early autumn of 1864, Mr. Home
remained six or seven months in the States, renewing his acquaintance-
with all the old friends of ten years earlier who were still on earth, and
adding new friends to their number. Among the latter was Mrs.
Sarah Helen Whitman, herself a poetess of some merit, but more cele-
brated from having charmed the fancy of that strangest of beings and
weirdest of geniuses, Edgar Poe, who addressed to her some of his
most exquisite verses. Mrs. Whitman was present at seances with
Home ; and it was she who wrote to the editor of an American journal,
apropos of Browning's doggerel on Spiritualism: " If you will take
the trouble to read the poem of Mr. Browning to which I have re-
ferred, you will understand why it is regarded by some of Mr. Brown-
ing's warmest admirers as ' a blot on the 'scutcheon. ' '
The name of Henry Howard Brownell is almost unknown in
England. It is that of a young American of rare gifts who wrote two
poems, "The River Fight" and -"The Bay Fight," in which he
described two of the most stirring naval operations of the Civil War
Farragut's dash past the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi and
capture of New Orleans, and secondly, the defeat by the same com-
mander of the Confederate squadron in Mobile Bay, when wooden
Federal vessels surrounded and captured a Southern ironclad.
Brownell, who died young, was present at both engagements ; being,
I think, secretary to Admiral Farragut ; and the battle-fever has surely
never been more wonderfully breathed into words than in a verse of
"The Bay Fight:"
" Fear ! A forgotten form :
Death ! A dream of the eyes :
We were atoms in God's great storm
That roared through the angry skies."
Both poems were favourites with Home, and none who heard his
magnificent and fiery rendering of them will ever forget it. It was
during this visit to America that he first gave public expression to his
genius as a reader; and he several times recited the two poems of
Brownell, who had recently made his acquaintance. A notice of one
of these readings from the pen of Mrs. Whitman, records that Admiral
Farragut was among the audience, and was delighted with Home's
' ' masterly and daringly original rendering of the Bay Fight. ' '
At a private party in New York just after the close of the war,
Home read the same poem ; and on this occasion a strange tribute to
the author's genius and his own was paid. One of the most telling
portions of the " Bay Fight " describes the action of the commander
of the Confederate ironclad, when his consorts had fled or were taken,
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 131
and nothing remained to him but the choice between sinking and
surrender:
" Haughty, cruel, and cold,
He ever was strong and bold :
Shall he shrink from a wooden stem .'
He will think of that brave band
He sank in the Cumberland :
Aye ! he will sink like them.
" Nothing left but to fight
Boldly his last sea-fight :
Can he strike? By heaven! 'tis true,
Down comes the traitor blue,
And ..."
The verse was never fininshed; Home's voice and play of feature
had put such life into the stinging words, that, at the reference to the
" traitor blue," a young Southerner present was maddened out of all
self-control, and sprang at the reader like a wild beast. He was
mastered before he could do any mischief ; but this dramatic incident
abruptly terminated the reading. The occurrence was noticed in
American papers of the time.
Brownell, in whom Home felt a deep interest, became a Spiritualist.
He gave his friend a copy of his poems ; and Home in return sent him.
a copy of the Incidents, after reading which Brownell writes to him :
" I have read your book with the greatest interest. Heretofore, I
had only known you as a vehicle for the most wonderful communica-
tions which we have had with the next world ; but now I am beginning
to be acquainted with you mentally and morally. I can only say that
this acquaintance gives me high pleasure, and that I hope to improve-
it personally at some future time. ' '
" I had heard of the great sensation produced by your reading in
Paris," he says in another letter, " and feel indebted to you for
presenting my poem so nobly." Then, in words that have a pathetic
interest in view of the early death of their writer, Brownell adds :
" If I live, I will devote something of my poor verses to advocating
the truths of Spiritualism."
At Norwich, Connecticut, Mr. Home gave a reading for the benefit
of the Soldiers' Aid Society. On the announcement of this charit-
able intention in the local journal, a young clergyman wrote to the-
latter, "craving permission, as a Christian man, to say a few words
to the Christians in Norwich." It was kind and courteous of Mr.
Home, he admitted, to assent to the request of the Soldiers' Aid
Society that he would give a reading on its behalf.
" I have no doubt he is sincere in his spirtualistic belief. I have
no quarrel with him. But are the Christian men and women of
Norwich reduced to such extremities that they must resort to a re-
presentative and exponent of Spiritualism for aid in their Christian
and patriotic work? Is it seemlv that Christians should patronise
such an entertainment? "
And so on, through half a column of the Norwich Bulletin. Mr.
Home and some of his friends replied, pointing out to this curious
i 3 2 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
bigot that charity is of no creed, and that it must require a very
Jesuitical eye to detect the wickedness of allowing Home by his
genius as a reader to benefit the victims of the Civil War. Had he
been a wounded soldier in need of aid, the justice of this reasoning
would probably have commended itself to the Rev. Mr. Lewis ; but as
he was only a very young clergyman aping the authority of a Pope,
he replied, as hotly as inconsequently :
" My own private opinion of Spiritualism is that it is of the devil
from beginning to end." Then, with a triumphant effort of charity:
' ' It does not necessarily follow that every one who professes
Spiritualism is consciously in league with the devil. And I gave
Mr. H. the benefit of the doubt when I said that I conceded his
honesty and sincerity."
Much to the mortification of the reverend casuist, his appeal only
served to advertise the reading more widely ; and the room was
crowded with an enthusiastic audience, from whose numbers the
Soldiers' Aid Fund reaped substantial benefit. " Possibly." wrote
a correspondent of the Bulletin, "the author of this last encyclical,
with deep insight into human nature, may have seen that in no other
way could he ensure so large an attendance upon the occasion of Mr.
Home's reading, as by an apparent effort to dragoon the public away
from the reading. Looked at in that light, the letter has been a
grand success."
It was not only by Ms reading at Norwich that Home gave practi-
cal proofs of his sympathy with those victims of the Civil War, who,
in 1864 and 5, were so numerous in every town and village of the
Union. Out of his small means very small at that time, he contri-
buted freely to funds for the relief of such sufferers ; and at
Philadelphia, which city was just then crowded with human wrecks
that the war had made, he brightened the wards of the hospitals by
giving readings there, " to the great delight of the sick and wounded
soldiers," says the Philadelphia newspaper which informs me of the
fact. He, whose own life was so full of suffering, had the keenest
sympathy with the pain of others a practical sympathy that found
expression in deeds; and in America in 1864-5, and again in France
in 1870, the sight of the terrible suffering caused by war stirred him
to do many acts of kindness and devotion of which the world never
heard, nor did he wish that it should hear.
Mr. Home gave several readings, public and private, in New York ;
and among his clippings from newspapers of that date, I find the
following description of the first by some reporter present a lady, if
one may judge by the writer's eye for personal advantages :
" I really have had a sensation. I have heard Home, the great medium,
read. The programme did not appear attractive, and I had made every pre-
paration to be disappointed. When Home entered the room, a change came
o'er the spirit of my dream, for Home's personality alone is sufficient to
absorb a physiognomist's attention for hours. Fancy, my dear Republican, the
most distingul man you have seen for years, and then you will not have"
reached the plane on which Home stands. . . . His figure is singularly
fine and graceful, his hands and feet beautiful, the former being the embodi-
ment of artistic genius. ' Show me a man's hand, and I will tell vou what
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 133
he is.' Then Home's head, excellently shaped, is marvellous in expression.
He is of the blonde type, with beautiful hair, fine teeth, a good mouth, and
eyes that really look as though they saw things in heaven and earth not
dreamed of in our philosophy.
" And now, how does he read? Beautifully, wonderfully. His pathos is
exquisite, his humour perfect. Why the audience did not go frantic with
delight is because the audience did not appreciate the genius of the reader.
His rendering of Brownell's stirring poem, ' On the Hartford in Mobile Bay,'
was superb. Home would make a great actor. He is grace itself ; his manner
is thoroughly refined, his voice rich and of large compass, his facial expression
unequalled. Home is a marvel. He is one of those gifted creatures that
nature makes every now and then, to show what she can do when in the
mood."
And such Home was. It was impossible to be long in his society
without yielding to its spell. Prejudices the most inveterate melted
away before that irresistible charm of manner, coupled with, his
joyousness of nature and kindliness of heart. It was always those
who knew least of him who libelled him most flagrantly, the outer man
no less than the inner. No portraits could bear less resemblance to
the original than those drawn from time to time in pen and ink of
Home. Were it worth while a dozen such flights of journalistic
fancy might be cited here. Those who took their notion of Horns
from pictures so unlike him had a wide choice offered them every
possible colour of eyes, hair, and complexion, a figure now tall, now
short, at one time slender at another robust ; in short every variety of
counterfeit, the two opposed extremes of which were the haggard
spectre invented by All the Year Round in 1866 and the " dark-com-
plexioned person, with quick, shifting eyes, curly black hair, and a
nose which seemed to vouch for a purely Caucasian descent ' ' of
Echoes from the Clubs, April 29th, 1868.
Robert Bell sketched slightly the actual Home in his Corn/till
article, the Home of 1860 :
' The expression of his face in repose is that of physical suffering ;
but it quickly lights up when you address him, and his natural cheer-
fulness colours his whole manner. There is more kindliness and
gentleness than vigour in the character of his features ; and the same
easy-natured disposition may be traced in his unrestrained inter-
course. He is yet so young, that the playfulness of boyhood has not
passed away, and he never seems so thoroughly at ease with him-
self and others as when he is enjoying some light and temperate
amusement."
Bell thus refers to the emphatic disclaimer by Home of that
power of evocation foolishly attributed to him :
' Mr. Home's supernatural power is a current topic in all circles
where these phenomena are talked of by people who have never
witnessed them. But the truth is, he neither possesses such power
nor pretends to it. ... He not only cannot call up spirits, as
we hear on all sides, but he will tell you that he considers such
invocations to be blasphemous."
As a pendant to Robert Bell's sketch of Home, I translate from
134 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
' Le Monde Elegant a Nice ' a description written seventeen years
later by M. Fabre des Essarts :
" I must tell you frankly that Home was not at all like what I had
imagined he would be. To begin with, he is a perfect man of the world, with
.a most refined and winning aspect. Then, there is absolutely nothing in his
appearance to suggest the necromancer.
" Instead of that bat's claw, which certain English reporters give him, he
held out to me with perfect affability a hand quite aristocratic. . . . One
of those Olympian foreheads, which seem to have been moulded by Nature as
the temple of thought : an eye of an intense blue, that looks as if formed to
sound the depths of the unknown ; such are the details that complete this noble
.and intelligent figure."
Saddened as it as by the sight of the widespread and terrible
suffering caused by war, the visit to America that ended in May,
1865, could not have been a very happy time to Home, in spite of the
numerous friends who welcomed him. On his return to London, he
stayed there only two or three days ; and then left for Paris to take
charge of the young sister who had grown up to womanhood under
the gracious protection of the Empress of the French.
It has been frequently asserted, in print and out of it, that long
before 1865 Mr. Home had lost the favour he formerly enjoyed at
the Court of France. He never took the trouble to disprove this
falsehood, which he mightly easily have done by publishing half a
dozen letters in his possession, such as the following :
" 4*fe July, 1864.
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, I lose no time in answering your letter,
as I am sure that you are awaiting with anxiety the result of my
communication with the Empress " (a communication respecting Miss
C. Home). "I was at ^Fontainebleau on Saturday, and have the most
gracious acquiescence in your request. So that you may make your
.arrangements accordingly. . . . Yours truly,
' CAROLINE, PRINCESS MURAT. ' '
" June loth, 1865.
" MY DEAR MR. HOME, The Empress told me last night to write
to you and say that she would receive you to-morrow at half-past
three. Yours truly, 'CAROLINE, PRINCESS MURAT.'"
July saw Mr. Home in Russia, he having at last yielded to the
repeated invitations that Tolstoy and other friends there had been
pressing on him for years.
^ After a pleasant visit to one of the country-seats of his friend,
Count Alexis Tolstoy, Home returned to St. Petersburg, and from
there went to London where he passed the winter of 1865-6, a dreary
winter to him, for ill-health was aggravated by anxiety about the
future. Had he sought to profit by the exercise of his wonderful
gift, that anxiety would soon have been at an end ; but then, as ever,
he preferred the care and struggles of poverty. He had other
gifts, however, that he could honourably turn to account ; and after
taking counsel with his friends in London, he conquered the repug-
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 135
nance he had felt to appear on an English platform, and decided to
become a public reader.
Before carrying out the resolve, he gave a lecture upon Spiritualism,
at Willis's Rooms, in February, 1866; a portion of which I quote:
" There is in Spiritualism," said Home, " a wide field for profitable
research, if only it be conducted in the true spirit of inquiry the spirit that is
willing to study and learn of facts, however strange they may seem, however
counter to the prejudices of philosophy ; for philosophy, as well as ignorance,
has its prejudices, and sometimes those of philosophy are the most
inveterate. . . .
" I would not have you think for a moment that I am not aware of the
many abuses which may arise from this contact with the spirit world. But
God gives to every man the power of reason, and this it is in no way the
province of Spiritualism to supersede. If a spirit were to give advice which
our reason told us should not be followed, why should we pay more attention
to him, now that he is freed from the body, than if he were still moving
among us on earth, as formerly?"
Speaking of the many imposters who counterfeit the genuine
phenomena of Spiritualism, and trade in pretended wonders for a
living, he said :
" I have known of the most gross impostures being carried on, and in every
case have exposed them ; and, God being my helper, ever will do so. Of
course, in cases like these, I have much to contend with, even from my best
friends. They say, ' It is not your place; let others do it.' I feel it to be my
place ; and when I see the pure and glorious truths I advocate drawn down
and made a mockery of by the mob, I will lift up my voice and say, ' This is
not Spiritualism?' If they will prove it to be so, then I wish to have nothing
to do with it ; for it is a dark and damning error, and the sooner pure truth-
seekers leave it, the better. But there is no doctrine which is without its
abuses, and which is not abused by outsiders."
After rebutting the assertion that insanity is a frequent conse-
quence of the belief, Mr. Home adverted to the various " explana-
tions " of the phenomena.
" When in Russia this autumn, on a visit to his Majesty, it was told for a
fact that I had a great number of cats to sleep with me, and by this means
became so charged with electricity that the rappings were heard in my pre-
sence. Another story was that I held my feet a long time in ice-water, and
then ran and sat by the Emperor, putting my feet in his hands ; and so he
thought he touched a corpse-like hand. It is currently reported that my feet
are like monkeys' feet, and that I can do as I please with them. Some of
my friends have even asked to see my feet without shoes or stockings, that
they might contradict this. These, and many other fantastic, far-fetched, and
inadequate explanations, which in turn need explaining, have been from time
to time put forth ; each new hypothesis unkindly exploding its predecessors,
and being in its turn exploded. . . .
" Those tyros who, with little or no knowledge of the subject, think them-
selves justified in denouncing the whole thing as imposture, ought surely (if
not wholly deficient in modesty and common-sense) to be arrested by the
circumstance that scientific and learned men, sceptical as themselves as to the
supra-mundane origin of the facts, have yet, after the fullest investigation,
been constrained to concede their reality and genuineness."
The distinguished and numerous company that had assembled to
listen to the lecture were derided by a writer in All the Year Round
as "fools." They might, in view of the untruths and misstate-
ments of fact that abounded in his article, have replied that there
136 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
are much worse things than a fool in the world, if the fool is only
honest.
Mr. S. C. Hall wrote to the editor of All the Year Round to con-
tradict from his personal knowledge two of the many untrue state-
ments concerning Mr. Home that the article contained :
" In reference to the first of these two untruths," wrote Mr. Hall,
" I can only give you now my own assurance that Home distri-
buted no bills, having none to distribute. In regard to the second
falsehood, I sent you a copy of the only circular 1 he issued. You
will see for yourself how dishonourable and disgraceful has been the
change of a word to give a totally different meaning to the sentence.
The writer of that article, be he who he may, is a dishonest man,
to say the least."
As the editor of All the Year Round had nothing to say in defence
of his contributor he returned no answer. It is needless to add that he
did not publish Mr. Hall's letter in his columns.
Wonderful and beautiful manifestations were witnessed at the
residence of Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall on Easter Eve, 1866. Five
persons composed the circle ; the host and hostess, Lady Dunsany,
Mrs. Adelaide Senior, and Mr. Home. A narrative of the
occurrence was drawn up a few days later by Mrs. Senior, was
submitted in turn to Mr. and Mrs. Hall and Lady Dunsany for their
endorsement, and subsequently, with the consent of all four wit-
nesses, was published by Mr. Home in his second volume of Incidents
(pp. 120-122).
After naming the persons present at the seance Mrs. Senior writes :
" When Mr. Home arrived he was pale and worn, and we feared that we
should have few manifestations. He sat down to the piano, and played and
sang for some time ; and on his beginning a little Russian air, a favourite of
his late wife's, a chair which was at some distance from the piano slid up and
placed itself beside him. I was sitting close to the piano on the other side,
and I first saw the chair move.
" We sat down at the table, which at once began to vibrate and tremble,
and was raised off the floor to a considerable height. Very loud and heavy
knocks were heard on the table, the floor, and the furniture round the room ;
presently the accordion was touched, the alphabet was asked for, and it was
spelt out ' We will play the earth-life of One Who was not of earth.'
" First we had simple, sweet, soft music for some minutes ; then it became
intensely sad ; then the tramp, tramp, as of a body of men marching mingled
with the music, and I exclaimed, ' The march to Calvary ! ' Then three times
the tap-tapping sound of a hammer on a nail (like two metals meeting). A
crash, and a burst of wailing which seemed to fill the room, followed ; then
there came a burst of glorious triumphal music, more grand than any of us
had ever listened to, and we exclaimed, ' The Resurrection !' It thrilled to all
our hearts."
Thus far the manifestations, including that wonderful music played
by no earthly hands, had taken place in a brilliantly lit room. The
circle kept their places at the table for a while longer; but with the
last thrilling chords of the triumphal harmony that had symbolised
the Resurrection all manifestations ceased.
1 A private circular, sent only to Mr. Home's friends.
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 137
" Nothing more was done for some time," writes Mrs. Senior, " and we
decided upon putting out the lights in the rooms, so as only to have that from
the outside which came through the conservatory " (from a hanging lamp
there, explains Mr. Hall). ..." Soon after this, we observed the face of
Mr. S. C. Hall shining as if covered with silver light ; we all remarked it and
commented upon it. The accordion was carried round the circle, playing
beautifully ; it rested on the head of our host, then on my shoulder, and then
went on to Mrs. Hall,' who was next to me." (" Mr. Home's hand never
being near the instrument," adds Mrs. Senior in a subsequent letter.)
" Mr. Home was then raised up to the ceiling, which he touched, and
regretted not having a pencil to make a mark there. When he came down,
Mr. Hall gave him one, hoping that he might be again raised ; and in five
minutes after he was so, and left a cross on the ceiling. Just before this took
place we saw his whole face and chest covered with the same silvery light
which we had observed on our host's face. We had been sitting all this time
at the table ; and soon after our hands were touched and patted by other
hands, and our brows touched by loved hands whose touch we knew. Shortly
afterwards we heard the knocks and sounds die away in the distance out of
doors, and we felt that it was all over.
" That burst of music was still thrilling on our hearts. Nothing of mortal
composition could equal it, and its sound was that of a fine organ. We greatly
regretted that no one in the room could take down the notes. The wondrous
effect of the sound of feet, and the sound of the hammer and nails running
like a thread through the music, it is impossible that those who have not
listened to it could understand ; in the music itself also there was a mixture of
tones out of my power to describe."
Lady Dunsany, who was present with Mrs. Senior at this seance,
will be remembered for her amiable and charming disposition by all
who knew her. She was already advanced in years in 1866, and,
I believe, passed from earth no long time afterwards ; but her
letters to Mr. Home show that to her last day she preserved an
esteem and affection for him, and was a steadfast Spiritualist.
Like all other years, 1865 and 6 offer for my inspection letters
written by persons who had evidently had numerous opportunities
of investigating the phenomena, but whose experiences appear never
to have been published. Some of the writers are Spiritualists, others
form extraordinary theories to account for the manifestations, others
again express no theory at all, but content themselves with admitting
the reality of the facts. I select a letter from a correspondent of
the later class :
" 7, PRINCE OF WALES TERRACE, KENSINGTON,
" 26th December, 1865.
It was a real pleasure, my dear Daniel, to see your ' fist ' again. I
thought you had quite given me up as an unbeliever, because, while admitting
the extraordinary character of the phenomena that occur when you are pre-
sent, I never could feel convinced that they emanated from the volition of the
spirits of those who had once enjoyed, or rather passed through, the life of
this earth. I have, I fancy, examined you more closely than many of those
who have no doubt at all, than many of those who say, ' It's all humbug ;
and he must have some secret machinery or electrical apparatus about him.'
The result has been what I told you the last time we met I believe you, but
as to your theory, I am as yet, so far as I know it, a doubter. It is quite
possible that a man with a wonderful attribute may not know exactly whence
his peculiar quality springs.
' There! I don't pretend to be a philosopher; but I do pretend to be a
friend, and I shall be very glad to see you here. There are a great many
things and a great many persons I want to talk to you about, besides hearing
K
138 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
all your travels and experiences. ... I beg to ask you to dine here the
first Sunday you come to London. Are you aware that I am now an under-
paid, overworked Government official, and not any longer, like O'Connell's
Ireland, ' great, glorious, and free '? . . . Yours very truly,
" W. H. ASHURST."
The letter is valuable for the evidence it affords that Home was
tolerant of honest doubt of the spiritual origin of the phenomena,
however obstinate. As for the long silence on which the writer had
placed the mistaken interpretation that was removed by the receipt
of Home's letter, Mr. Ashurst, like hundreds of other people, had
forgotten to consider that probably no man ever lived who had so ex-
tensive an acquaintance as Home. It was easy for his friends to
write to him, but the vast mass of his correspondence rendered it
sometimes simply impossible for him to answer their letters. His
whole time would have been swallowed up in the task, and often
half his means in paper and postage.
"Do find time to send me a few lines," writes from Vichy in
June, 1866, a lady signing herself "P. M. Lockhart " "I hav^j
had no direct communication with you since we had the pleasure of
seeing you in town in January last. Mrs. Anfrere has felt greatly
interested and bewildered ever since she saw those comparatively
slight manifestations in London; and I unluckily should never have
confidence in any medium but you, so how can I persuade her to
see Spiritualism in any other form? "
This declaration that the seances of Home alone brought convic-
tion is explicit in many letters, and implied in others ; and in the
later years of his life Mr. Home frequently received assurances from
has friends from Mr. William Howitt and Mr. Crookes, for
example that, had it not been for their recollection of seances with
him, disgust with the impostures that usurped the name of
Spiritualism would have utterly shattered their belief.
" Lady Helena Newenham," writes from 14, Wilton Place, S.W., in
December, 1864, a correspondent whose signature, if I decipher it correctly, is
" G. M. Edge worth," " spent ten days here, and she often spoke of you and
the comfort which she had derived from the stances which she and her husband
had had with you. I wish much you were near us all now, and that your
good influence was in the atmosphere. I am so disgusted by amateur would-be
Spiritualists, who pretend to be mediums. When I say that I see people
kicking the tables and lifting them, they are so angry, and wish to put it
down that I believe nothing. I say, ' Yes, I do : I believe in Dan, and I do
believe he has wonderful power.' . . . Your affectionate friend,
" G. M. EDGEWORTH."
In February, 1866, some long-past scenes of Home's life were
unexpectedly recalled to his mind. Twelve or thirteen years before,
he had been the guest of Mr. Ogden, a resident of Long Island, U.S. ;
one of whose daughters had subsequently lost her husband, and her
fortune before him; and with brave spirit had then set herself to
turn to account the great talent for the stage with which she, was
endowed. As an actress, Mrs. Cora Mowatt Ritchie will be better
remembered in America than England, where she only took up her
residence, I think, on retiring from the boards ; but in both
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 139
countries she was endeared to her friends by her attractive and
lovable qualities as a woman. It happened, in February, 1866,
that a lady very intimate with her was seeking a seance with Mr.
Home; and this fact led to the two old acquaintances meeting again.
Mutual liking and esteem soon grew into friendship ; and during the
few years that remained to her on earth, Mrs. Ritchie was a
Spiritualist, and one of the most prized and cordial of Home's
friends. When the Lyon lawsuit closed, she instantly took steps for
furnishing to American newspapers the true facts of the case, before
any garbled account should have reached the States,
During the whole of 1866, Mr. Home's health was very feeble.
The anxieties of the mind were reacting on the body. In the
summer of that year an alternative to the reader's platform was
suggested. It had occurred to various English Spiritualists and
inquirers that the establishment of a kind of headquarters in London
would be of great advantage to the movement. Some of their number
interested themselves in carrying out the suggestion, which, it must
be noted, did not in any way originate with Mr. Home. Premises
were taken in Sloane Street; and, under the name of " The Spiritual
Athenaeum," an institution was opened there, intended, as the
circular of the promoters stated, to be " a rallying point for
Spiritualists and their friends." The post of resident secretary
was offered to Mr. Home, and accepted by him. In the list of the
Council of the Spiritual Athenaeum occurs the name of Dr.
Elliottson, a fact that bears convincing testimony of the great change
the Dieppe seances had wrought in his views. Among the remain-
ing members were Captain Drayson, R.A., and the popular writer
on natural history, the Rev. J. G. Wood. The former had been
present at several seances with Mr. Home. Of Mr. Wood's experi-
ences in Spiritualism I am ignorant.
Hardly had the Athenaeum been brought into working order, when
increasing ill-health and the circumstances connected with his tem-
porary change of name and fortune compelled Mr. Home to resign
his appointment as secretary. With him the life of the institu-
tion went ; and after languishing a short time, the Spiritual
Athenaeum died a very natural death.
The story of the Lyon lawsuit has often been told by writers whose
object was to cast a slur on Mr. Home. It served the purpose of
these dishonest controversialists to affect credence of the numberless
perjuries sworn to by the plaintiff in that suit a person of whom
even so prejudiced a critic of Spiritualism and Spiritualists as
Vice-Chancel lor Giffard said, when delivering judgment against Mr.
Home (I quote from the report of the Vicei-Chancel'lor's judgment
in the Pall Mall Gazette) : " The expenses " (of the suit) " have been
very seriously increased, first by the unwarrantable attack in the
plaintiff's affidavits on Mr. Wilkinson ; and, secondly, by her
innumerable misstatements in many important particulars misstate-
ments on oath so perversely untrue that thev have embarrassed the
Court to a great degree and quite discredited the plaintiff's testi-
mony."
i 4 o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" You are of course pained, my dear Daniel," wrote Mrs. S. C. Hall
to Mr. Home, " that the Vice-Chancel lor did not clear you by a few
words from all suspicion of fraud as a Spiritualist but how would
you have felt if he had blasted your character, as he has that of Mrs.
Lyon, by being the first to accuse her of perjury? "
On what grounds, then, the reader unfamiliar with English law will
ask, did the Vice-Chancellor order the restitution of Mrs. Lyon's gifts,
when he so emphatically declared that her story of the circumstances
under which those gifts were made had been utterly discredited ? On
two grounds, the one of law the other of prejudice. In a suit like
that of Lyon v. Home English law throws the onus of proof on the
defendant. It mattered nothing that Mrs. Lyon had signally Tailed in
seeking to show that the gifts were made in consequence of com-
munications claimed to be from her deceased husband, and had
established only her own total disregard of truth by the ' ' innumerable
and perversely untrue misstatements on oath ' ' to which the Vice-
Chancellor referred in such severe terms. English law, as interpreted
and no doubt correctly interpreted by Vice-Chancellor Giffard, did
not require the plaintiff to prove the affirmative, that influence had
been exercised on her mind. It required the defendant to prove the
negative, that he had exercised no influence over the mind of Mrs.
Lyon. Clean as were the hands of Mr. Home in this matter, how
was he to establish his uprightness to the satisfaction of a judge who
shared the common prejudices against Spiritualism to such an extent
that he travelled out of his way to denounce that belief as
"mischievous nonsense, well calculated on the one hand to delude
the vain, the weak, the foolish, and the superstitious, and on the other
to assist the projects of the needy and of the adventurer? " To put
the matter in a nutshell, Vice-Chancellor Giffard propounded to the
unfortunate defendant the following dilemma: " If you are to retain
these gifts, you must prove to my satisfaction that you exercised no
influence over the plaintiff when she made them; but no amount of
evidence you can bring forward will satisfy me that you are innocent
of having exercised such influence."
Lest I be suspected of misstating the grounds of the Vice-
Chancellor's decision, I extract from the " Equity Series of the Law
Reports " a portion of the note summarising the suit of Lyon v.
Home
" Held, that the relation proved to have existed between them
implied the exercise of dominion and influence by B. over A. 's mind,
and consequently that, as B. had failed to prove that these voluntary
gifts were the pure, voluntary, well-understood acts of A.'s mind,
they must be set aside. ' '
Coming from law to justice a very different matter an impartial
critic will be of opinion that, if Mr. Home failed to prove to the
satisfaction of the judge that the gifts were voluntary it was
simply because no amount of proof to that effect would have convinced
the Vice-Chancellor of the defendant's uprightness. " Be thou pure
as snow, thou shalt not 'scape calumny " if thou art a Spiritualist.
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 141
Except as complicated by the false witness of the plaintiff, the facts
relating to Mr. Home's adoption by Mrs. Lyon were sufficiently
simple. She was an old and rich widow, and a believer in
Spiritualism long before she sought the acquaintance of Mr. Home.
Not oiily was she a believer long before she met him, but, according
10 her own account, a seer, who communed in vision with the world of
spirits. After her adoption of Mr. Home, she told many persons that
on first meeting him she had immediately recognised him as the figure
that she had often seen in vision, and that her own visions, and not
spirit communications made through Mr. Home, had inspired the
thought of adopting him. Witness, for instance, the late Dr. Robert
Chambers, from whose affidavit I shall presently quote.
Happening to hear of the Spiritual Athenaeum and its secretary Mr.
Home, " I wrote on the 3oth of September, 1866," says Mrs. Lyon
in her affidavit, ' ' that I was anxious to become a subscriber, and
asking for a prospectus and particulars. Not having received any
reply from the said defendant, I called, and asked to see him
I had never before seen the said defendant."
At this visit, Mrs. Lyon, an absolute stranger to Mr. Home, entered
into conversation with him concerning his work, Incidents of My Life,
which she declared herself to have read with much interest. She
informed him that she had been a believer in the occurrence of
spiritual manifestations from her childhood, and that she was herself
a medium and saw visions. Her chief interest, however, appeared
to be centred in the royal and aristocratic personages mentioned in the
Incidents of My Life, and she asked Mr. Home many questions con-
cerning them and his intimacy with them. A day or two afterwards
she made a gift of ^30 to the funds of the Athenaeum, and followed
this act by astounding Mr. Home with the declaration that she had
taken a great fancy to him, and was determined to adopt him as her
son, and settle a handsome fortune upon him. She was rich, she
explained, was without children or relatives of her own, and her
husband's relatives she detested. He would add her name of Lyon
to his own; they would keep house together as mother and son;
and two people would be made happy, he in becoming rich
through her means, she in being introduced through has to the
fashionaSle world. " She told me," said Mr. Home in his affidavit,
" that she was the illegitimate daughter of a tradesman in Newcastle,
that her late husband was of good family, and his family always held
aloof from herself and husband." This passed at his second inter-
view with Mrs. Lyon.
Bewildered by an incident so extraordinary even in a life that had
been full of facts stranger than any fictions, Mr. Home at first treated
her offer of adoption as a jest, but finding that she was perfectly
serious, began to think that she could not be in her right mind. Yet
to all appearance she was a sane, shrewd woman. Uncertain how to
regard the affair, he did not call on her again for some days. When
he at last went, she greeted him most warmly and affectionately,
repeated that she had made up her mind to adopt him, and inquired
142 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
if he had acted on her wish that he should consult a lawyer about
the adoption. Mr. Home replied that he had not, and did not like
her to act so hastily in a matter of such importance. She again
assured him that her mind was fully made up, and added: " Whether
you will or not, I shall settle a fortune on you, and you will be
obliged to accept it. You are a gentleman, and have friends in the
best society. I shall go out with you, and your friends will come to
us; and my old age will become a joy instead of a burden."
He told her that he feared she sought him for the strange gift he
possessed. Her answer, as given in his affidavit, was: " Why, you
foolish fellow, I've seen nothing of your strange gift, as you call it;
and though it is through your being celebrated for that that I first
heard of you, now tliat I know you I love you for yourself, and should
not care if you never had anything singular occur to you again." As
no third person was present at the interview, it was impossible for Mr.
Home to demonstrate that Mrs. Lyon's subsequent denial of having
spoken these words was but one more addition to the many false oaths
which the Vice-Chancellor declared her to stand convicted of having
taken.
He took twenty-four hours more to consider the proposed adoption,
and then called on Mrs. Lyon and told her that he was unable to
accept her proffered kindness. She urged him earnestly to reconsider
his determination, and repeated her entreaties at a subsequent inter-
view. Finally, he consented to take counsel with his friends, and
began with Mr. S. C. Hall, who called by his request on Mrs. Lyon,
Home not accompanying him.
After the visit, Mr. Hall related to Mr. Home what had passed.
Mrs. Lyon said nothing on the subject of Spiritualism, but declared
her intention of adopting Mr. Home, and asked her visitor what he
thought she should settle on him. "I suggested," said Mr. Hall,
" that two or three hundred a year would suffice," on which she said,
" Oh, that's not enough."
"Finding from Mr. Hall's conversation," says Mr. Home in his
affidavit, ' ' that he thought her not only sane and in her right mind,
but a very sharp business woman, who gave efficient reasons for what
she had contemplated doing, I decided to accept what she offered
me."
The day following, October loth, Mr. Home and Mr. Hall called
on Mrs. Lyon to suggest that she should delay executing her intention
until she had considered it further. She refused, and said that she
had determined to transfer at once to her adopted son a sum of
,24,000. "When she said that she would give me ,24,000, Mr.
Hall said, ' Do, you good lady, take time and think this well over.
Do not act so hastily.' And I joined with him in saying so ; but she
only said, ' What is 24,000 to me in comparison with having a son
that I can love, and who will be kind to me?' " (Affidavit of Mr.
Home.)
On the day of this interview, but a few hours previous to it, Mrs.
Lyon had written to Mr. Home naming 24,000 as the sum she
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 143
intended to settle on ham. He found her letter waiting for him on
IMS return as follows. The italics and small capitals represent the
single and double underlinations of the writer:
MY DEAR MR. HOME, I have a desire to render you indepen-
dent of the world, and having am fie means for the purpose without
abstracting from any needs or comforts of my own, I have the
greatest satisfaction in now presenting you with and as an entirely
FREE GIFT from me the sum of ,24,000, and am, my dear sir, yours
very truly and respectfully, ' JANE LYON.' '
Mr. Home accepted the gift of ,24,000, and changed his name
to Home-Lyon. In spite of the unanimous approval that his
friends bestowed on the course he had taken, he sometimes doubted
its wisdom. His advisers, one and all, looked on the impulsive
action of Mrs. Lyon as a signal favour of Providence, that it would
have been not only foolish but wrong to reject. But he could not
forget that, in America, in Italy, and in France, offers of adoption
had been made to him by persons who were all of them better-bred
and more amiable than Mrs. Lyon, and some of them as wealthy or
wealthier ; and that he had never regretted his grateful refusal of
those offers. All his life he had studied to preserve an absolute
independence of thought and action. He soon found reason to
fear that, in becoming the adopted son of Mrs. Lyon, he had
sacrificed that independence.
On becoming the possessor of the .24,000, his first thought was
of others. The aunt who had adopted him as a child passed the
last years of her life in the house her nephew bought for her.
In November, 1866, Mrs. Lyon unexpectedly asked her adopted
son for the name of his solicitor; and a few days later Mr. Home
was astonished to find that, without giving him any hint of her
intention, she had ordered a will to be drawn up constituting him
heir to her fortune.
The lawyer who received her instruction, Mr. W. M. Wilkinson,
remonstrated strongly against them.
" I reminded her," he stated in his affidavit, " of what she had already
done for Mr. Home, and that she might be disappointed with him, or he with
her. ... I asked her in the most pointed way if what she was doing was
in consequence of any spiritual control or orders, and she said it was not, but
was her own unbiassed wish and determination. . . . She assured me in
the most positive manner that in what she was doing she was not influenced
by any such reasons, but that she had taken the greatest liking to Mr. Home,
and found him all that she could wish ; and it was a delight to her to find that
she could make such a good use of her money. ... I told her that, as I
was a friend of Mr. Home, it would be much more satisfactory to me if she
would advise with some other solicitor ; but she said she was perfectly satisfied
with me and would not go to anyone else, that I had cautioned her in every
way that anyone else could, and she quite understood what she was about, and
was a good woman of business."
Dr. Hawksley and Mr. Rudall, two gentlemen of high standing and
unimpeachable character, were the witnesses to the will. In their
presence Mr. Wilkinson repeated all his former cautions to Mrs.
Lyon. She again replied that she was influenced by no spirit
communications, and insisted on signing the mil.
144 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Early in December, 1866, Mr. Home formally assumed the name
of Home-Lyon. Without saying anything to him, Mrs. Lyon wrote
on this occasion to the same solicitor :
" "jfh Decetnber, 1866.
" MY DEAR MR. WILKINSON, On the occasion of my adopted son
taking the name of Lyon, I wish to give ham a little surprise. I
intend to add six thousand pounds to the twenty-four I have already
given him, making a sum total of thirty thousand. . . . Yours very
truly, "JANE LYON."
Mr. Wilkinson in reply once more suggested that, as he had known
Mr. Home long and intimately, she should employ another solicitor
to transact the business. Mrs. Lyon refused. "I am perfectly
satisfied with your legal advice," she wrote, " and wish for no other
adviser; " and very soon afterwards informed him of her desire to
transfer a further sum of ^30,000 to Mr. Home.
The solicitor not only wrote but called on her to remonstrate. She
explained that she wished to save legacy duty by transferring this
large portion of her fortune to her adopted son during her lifetime.
" I told her," says Mr. Wilkinson in his affidavit, " that the mere question
of saving legacy duty was not to be considered against the all-important
question of divesting herself of her property, and that it was impossible to
say that she might not afterwards regret giving so large a sum to one whom
she had known so short a time. . . . She said she would do it, and
desired me to have the deed made out in his name. I asked her if she were
desirous of doing this in consequence of any spirit-communications, for that, if
so, I could have nothing to do with it on any such ground. She said that she
was not influenced by anything but the intention of placing him in an inde-
pendent position and saving the legacy duty, as she was satisfied she should
never change her mind."
On Monday, January 7, 1867, Mr. Wilkinson again called on Mrs.
Lyon.
" I saw her," he stated," and had a long conversation with her as to her
intended gift to the defendant Home. She expressed the greatest affection for
him, and said that she was determined to carry it out in the way proposed.
I reiterated to her all the old arguments. I again warned her against being
in any way influenced by any spirit-communications, or by anything but her
unbiassed reason, and she assured me that she was not. On this occasion she
told me that she had received the same advice from Lady Dunsany, who had
told her not to be guided in any worldly matters by any communications, and
she did not intend to be. She said, whatever happened, she had more money
than she could want, and she was only too glad to make Daniel independent
after all the obloquy he had suffered."
The winter of 1866 was very severe in England, and Mr. Home's
health grew worse and worse. Under the advice of his physicians,
he tried frequent change of air, and visited Brighton, Malvern,
Hastings, Torquay, and other health-resorts. All this while Mrs.
Lyon remained in London, and he saw her only during his
occasional residences there.
The will that Mrs. Lyon had made in favour of Mr. Home was
far from being her first testament. He discovered that she had
executed and revoked at least five wills, in favour of different persons.
\
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 145
He found her untruthful, ignorant, violent, capricious one day
testifying the warmest affection for him, the next loading him with
abuse. A feeling of aversion gradually began to contend with the
affectionate gratitude that had at first been his only sentiment towards
her. On her side, Mrs. Lyon wearied of her caprice as she had
wearied of twenty others that had preceded it ; and the more speedily
because she found herself, in her own brutal phrase, " tied to a
dying man." She had taken a violent dislike to Home's little son;
and the thought that, if she and Mr. Home died, the boy would
inherit her property made her talk of changing her will. She was
grievously disappointed with her reception in the society where Home
moved, and to which he had introduced her. His friends saw as
little as possible of her; for she was as ignorant of the ways and
habits of well-bred people, as destitute of their breeding. With this
disappointment working on her violent temper, and surrounded by
persons who had sought her acquaintance in the hope of diverting her
wealth from Mr. Home to themselves, she determined to recall a
portion at least of her gifts ; and in May, 1867, consulted a retired
barrister who was acquainted both with Home and herself, as to the
means she should adopt to recover the second sum of ^30,000 that
she had forced upon her adopted son. " She told him," says Mr.
Home in his affidavit, " that she did not wish to disturb the gifts^of
^24,000 and ;6,ooo to me, but thought she had been too lavish
in bestowing on me the subsequent gift."
Home, who was at Malvern, knew nothing of these proceedings.
He returned to London early in June; and his doctor having
prescribed a visit to some of the German baths, he informed Mrs.
Lyon of the fact, and invited her to accompany him. " I wisfi you
would go with me," he wrote. " I have been out of London more
than I wished, but I have ever asked you to join me."
" My dear Daniel," wrote Mrs. Lyon in reply: " I have this instant
got a letter from you that you are packing up to go away. I
perfectly approve of your determination. I think it will do you good;
and be assured I wish you every enjoyment, and that of health in
particular."
The letter closed with a request that Home would call on her.
He went at once : and throwing aside the pretended affection of her
letter, she demanded, in language of outrageous abuse and insult,
the return of the trust-deed that had conveyed the second ^30,000
to Mr. Home.
No situation could be more painful and perplexing than that in
which he found himself suddenly placed. He knew that, if he
surrendered the trust-deed thus insultinglv demanded of him. the
world would declare that he had yielded to Mrs. Lvon's threats
because he feared to stand a lawsuit. He consulted his friends in
London. One and all advised him not to give up the deed. In
spite, however, of their opinion that he could both leeallv and
honourably retain the whole ^60,000 bestowed on him, Mr. Home
finally determined to return that second ^30,000 to which he
146 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
supposed Mrs. Lyon's demand to be still limited; but only on
condition that be received from her a written retractation of the
charges she had made against his honesty and that of his friends. He
wrote to make this offer. ' ' I was wholly ignorant at the time, ' ' he
explained in his affidavit, ' ' that she had filed her Bill in Chancery,
making charges against me and my friends. I was in very feeble
health at the time, and required rest and freedom from anxiety. I
had no ill-feeling towards the plaintiff; and I wrote without taking
advice of any one, and for the sake of peace and quiet. Had I
been aware of such Bill having been filed, I most certainly would
have scorned to make or accept any offer of compromise."
Dishonestly suppressing the facts that Mr. Home's intended journey
to Germany was prescribed by his medical adviser, that he had
requested her to accompany him, and that she had expressed entire
approval of his intention, Mrs. Lyon obtained a writ of Ne exeat
regno, upon which Mr. Home was arrested on the i8th of June, 1867.
He was liberated the following day, on depositing in the Court of
Chancery the deeds of gift relating to the ^60,000; and from the
moment of his arrest his friends Lord Adare and Lord Lindsay had
never left him. Their generous sympathy and companionship
lightened the trial of these twenty-four hours to Mr. Home; but
coming at a time when he was already prostrated by illness, the
shock to his sensitive nature had all but proved fatal. It was three
months before he had sufficiently recovered to give any instructions
to his legal advisers.
On adopting Mr. Home, Mrs. Lyon had taken possession of the
jewellery, lace, &c., that had belonged to his wife. She retained
them even after the close of the lawsuit, and some of the most
valuable objects were never restored.
In April, 1868, the cause of " Lyon against Home" came on for
hearing before Vice-Chancellor Giffard without a jury. The
plaintiff declared that she had been influenced to adopt Mr. Home
as her son by communications which she had believed to proceed
from the spirit of her late husband. She asserted that during her
first visit to the Spiritual Athenaeum the following words were spelt
out by rappings on the table: "My beloved Jane, I am Charles,
your own beloved husband. I live to bless you." Yet by her own
sworn statement, she was an entire stranger to Mr. Home when that
interview took place, and he had no means of knowing that her
husband's name had been Charles.
Here I may state a fact, known to others besides myself. When
Mrs. Lyon first manifested the intention of reclaiming part of her gifts,
Mr. Home was recommended by at least one of the friends whom he
consulted to place the money where it would be out of the reach of
any English Court, but has honourable nature rejected the advice.
The proof of mens eonscia recti that he crave in investing the whole
of the fortune bestowed on him in English securities, puzzled even
the most prejudiced and hostile of his critics. "It is difficult to
understand," said the Daily News of May 2, 1868, " why the object
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 147
of the widow's motherly bounty, and more than motherly affection,
should have invested the large sums so prodigally cast at his feet in
securities within the reach of a widow's second thoughts and of the
Court of Chancery. These mysteries are beyond our ken."
In his answer to the plaintiff's affidavit, Mr. Home absolutely
denied that any allusion to the late Charles Lyon had been made when
Mrs. Lyon called on him at the Spiritual Athenaeum, or that any
spiritual manifestations whatever took place. With regard to the
second interview, he similarly swore that no spirit-communications
were received. At the third interview, and after she had declared
her intention to adopt him, a manifestation took place which Mr.
Home fully described in his affidavit. It did not refer to the proposed
adoption.
Such are the prejudice and dishonesty of the world that the
English press in general treated Mrs. Lyon's account of what passed
on these occasions as if it had been worthy of credence conveniently
ignoring the fact that the witnesses called by Mr. Home had
convicted her of false swearing in very many other particulars of
her evidence, and that the Vice-Chancellor had declared it to be
impossible to believe her on her oath. In order to fling a stone
however muddy at Mr. Home, the press calmly assumed that,
although the plaintiff stood convicted of falsehood in almost every
other particular of her evidence, she was telling the truth as to those
interviews at which only herself and the defendant had been present.
Mr. Home could call no witnesses to what had passed at interviews
where no witnesses had been. All he could do, he did ; he brought
forward witness after witness to prove that she had never attributed
her adoption of him to the communications she now pretended to
have received, and had uniformly declared that she was influenced
only by her affection for him in the course she had taken.
Take, for instance, the evidence of Mr. Home's lawyer, Mr.
Wilkinson, a solicitor in large practice, whose bona -fides the Vice-
Chancellor held to be fully established, and whose costs he ordered
Mrs. Lyon to pay as he ordered her to pay her own costs.
" So far as it relates to matters within my own knowledge," said Mr.
Wilkinson in his affidavit, " the plaintiff's affidavit is almost wholly untrue,
and is at variance with the facts, or with her own previous and repeated
statements to me. ... I was the friend of the defendant Home, though I
seldom saw him. I have always found him a person of honour and integrity ;
end when I heard that he had been adopted by the plaintiff, and that she had
given him ^24,000, I was very glad of it, as a compensation for the unmerited
abuse to which he has been subjected. When, however, that munificent gift
had been made to him, I thought it was enough for all purposes, and any
further gifts I considered quite unnecessary. This made me very independent
in advising her, and very determined that she should do nothing more for him
upon my advice. I never told Mr. Home or any other person what I intended
to do in the way of questioning her when I took her will, but I questioned her
in the strictest way. ... If she had at the time she signed her will the
conviction that she was influenced by any spiritual cause, she not only con-
cealed it from me, but resolutely denied it, and gave as her reason that she did
it out of her liking for Mr. Home, and to make him independent. . . .
" She assured me repeatedly that she was not influenced in any way by
148 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
spirit-communications, but only by her liking for him, and that if he were not
a medium at all, she should have the same affection for him. If it were
otherwise, she is alone to blame for concealing it from me and constantly
denying it, but I spoke to her so often against being led away by communica-
tions that the subject got quite threadbare between us. ... I have given
her the same advice, both when by ourselves and in the presence of the,
defendant Home ; and on such occasions he has always said the same to her.
I could have done nothing more than I did, except refusing altogether to carry
out her strict orders ; and had I done so, and she had gone to another solicitor,
and had told him the same as she told me, he would have had no alternative
but to act on her instructions.
" The plaintiff has repeatedly told me that she acted altogether on her own
judgment in what she was doing, and that it was the greatest pleasure to her
to have made such a use of her money, and to have found one who was such
a comfort to her."
How are these sworn statements of Mr. Wilkinson to be reconciled
with the plaintiff's assertion that spirit-communications had led her
to adopt Mr. Home?
What she had stated to Mr. Wilkinson concerning the motives of
the adoption, she stated to many besides ; some of whom came for-
ward in Court to swear to the fact, while others, residing at a dis-
tance from London, sent affidavits. She had told Lady Dunsany,
for instance, that she was not influenced by any spirit-communica-
tions and did not intend to be. She had made declarations of a
similar nature to Mr. Gerald Massey the poet and to numerous other
persons whose names are not before me.
Among the papers in my possession that relate to the Lyon law-
suit is an affidavit made by Dr. Robert Chambers, whom, on one of
his visits to London, Mr. Home had introduced to Mrs. Lyon. I
copy this interesting document. It will be seen that Mrs. Lyon
spoke to Dr. Chambers, as she had spoken to others, of her own
visions -previous to her acquaintance with Mr. Home, and added
that he identified him with the person she had seen in those visions.
A very different story this from the one she afterwards told in Court,
when all mention of her visions was suppressed, and in their place
imaginary communications made at her first interviews with Mr.
Home were substituted.
"I, Robert Chambers, LL.D., make oath and say as follows : I was
introduced by Mr. Home-Lyon to Mrs. Lyon, the plaintiff, at her house in
Albert Terrace, on the 4th of December last. I congratulated her on her
recent act of adopting Mr. Home as her son, as I knew him to be worthy of
her affection, as well as the fortune she had conferred upon him. She entered
into a recital of what had led her to do so. Mr. Home was a recent acquaint-
ance, and on seeing him she had recognised him as the person pointed out by
her husband in vision. . . . Her motives had sprung solely from her own
visions. Both on this occasion, and when I met Mrs. Lyon with her adopted
son at the house of a lady of rank in Onslow Square " (Lady Dunsany),
" Mrs. Lyon spoke of and to Mr. Home entirely as an affectionate mother.
" I have known Mr. Home for many years, and believe him to be of
irreproachable character. " ROBERT CHAMBERS.
" Sworn at St. Andrews, the fifth day of September, 1867."
In a letter written to Mr. Home shortly before making this
affidavit, Dr. Chambers says: "She" (Mrs. Lyon) "mentioned a
habit of visions from her youth." But surely for such a habit even
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 149
English law could not hold Mr. Home responsible? It was his
misfortune, not his fault, that on seeing him Mrs. Lyon should have
identified him with the figure seen in her visions, on whom her
ancient affections were to be lavished.
The pleadings in the suit of Lyon v. Home closed on May ist,
1868, and the Vice-Chancellor reserved judgment. The trial had,
in his own words, " quite discredited the plaintiff's testimony " ; and
the one or two persons who in some degree supported her statements
consisted of those very people who were most deeply interested in
seeing her gifts to Mr. Home revoked. His testimony, on the other
hand, was unshaken ; and his witnesses consisted of persons of rank
and character, unbiassed by those interested motives of which the
plaintiff's witnesses might very reasonably be suspected. At the
close of the case, those of his friends who knew little of law and
were sanguine enough to suppose that equity would rule a Court of
Equity, even when Spiritualism was in question, predicted con-
fidently that he would win. Their expectation was shared
mirabile dictu! by an authority so learned in the law as the Law
Times. In its issue of May 2, 1868, that journal said :
" Does she " (Mrs. Lyon) " show that she was imposed upon by the
defendant? Was it not rather that she imposed upon herself. . . . This is
not the common case of a weak mind enthralled by a strong one of advantage
taken of ignorance. . . . When feeling is put aside, and the strangeness
of the Spiritualists' creed forgotten, and we look only at the fact, that a
woman of more than common sagacity gave to a man, whom she believed to
possess certain miraculous powers, a large sum of money, from a desire, then
sincerely entertained by her, to benefit the object of her admiration, we shall
probably come to the conclusion that no sufficient case has been shown for the
interference of the law to undo the act of benevolence, now that her feelings
towards the object of it have changed, and she repents of her generosity.
Such a principle so established would be applicable to cases far beyond the
range of Spiritualism. It would affect many religious and not a few charitable
gifts."
On the other hand, Mr. Home's counsel, Mr. Henry Matthews,
Q.C., had warned him to be prepared for an adverse judgment; and
one of his friends, a medical man in large practice, wrote to him :
" B. said last autumn to me, ' They will give it against Home,
whatever the evidence be. . . . ' Sir W. Bovill told me a week ago,
' The precedents are against Home, though the evidence is for him.'
Lawyers go all by precedent, I find."
Delivered towards the end of May, 1868, the Vice-Chancellor's
judgment was adverse to Mr. Home on the grounds I have already
stated : that the proved false swearing of the plaintiff was im-
material, and that English law in a suit like this reversed the
ordinary maxims of jurisprudence, and held a defendant guilty unless
he could prove himself innocent. But, to the mind of every un-
prejudiced critic the evidence called for Mr. Home had established
his innocence. The Vice-Chancellor seems to have felt that
awkward fact, or why, besides ordering Mrs. Lyon to pay her own
costs, did he seek to give a colour of reason to his judgment by de-
nouncing Spiritualism in general terms, as " well calculated to de-
i 5 o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
lude the vain, the weak, the foolish, and the superstitious." Had
his candour been equal to his prejudices, Vice-Chancellor Giffard
would have said in so many words: " The law requires the defend-
ant to prove that he did not exercise undue influence over the
plaintiff. He has called evidence to show that he did not, and the
evidence is undisproved. Nevertheless, I decide against him; for,
as I hold Spiritualism to be a delusion, I must necessarily hold the
plaintiff to be the victim of a delusion, and no amount of evidence
will convince me to the contrary."
The reductio ad absurdum of the Vice-Chancellor's reasoning (?)
was wittily set forth in the Malvern News of June 6th, 1868 :
" We do not see how poor Mr. Home is henceforth ever to retain a bequest
or gift from anyone with whom he has ever sat at a table, for that may be
construed into a seance, and that again into an influence destructive of the
validity of the gift."
" The woman Lyon," says the same article in the Malvern News, " again
and again stated that she had believed in Spiritualism long before she knew
of Home's existence. She swore that he persuaded her to give the money, but
offered not a tittle of evidence to rebut the mass of written and oral evidence
that he had never attempted to persuade her. . . . From beginning to end
of the trial there was not a particle of evidence to show that Home had used
direct influence, based on spirit-communication, to cause the old woman to
give her money in the deliberate yet speedy way in which she did. Even the
judge admitted that there was no such evidence."
Mr. Home was subsequently taunted by the multitude of his pre-
judiced critics with not having prosecuted an appeal against the
judgment. Why should he have done so? His object in defending
the suit had been to vindicate his character, and that he had done
in the eyes of all whose opinion he valued. His friends did not
fall from him; on the contrary, they crowded the court during the
ten days the suit lasted, welcomed him when he entered and left
the building ; and both before and after the judgment was delivered,
those friends, who included persons of the highest standing in
English society, gave generous ?nd open testimony that their esteem
for him remained unchanged, because in the evidence given during
the suit of Lyon v. Home there was nothing that should cause him
to forfeit it.
English law being what it was, and popular prejudices against
Spiritualism what they were, it would have been useless for Mr.
Home to appeal. Any fresh judges before whom the suit came
would almost certainly have shared the prejudices of the Vice-
Chancellor against Spiritualism ; and sharing his prejudices, they
would have confirmed his judgment. Against a foregone conclusion
facts fight in vain.
The brief and imperfect outline of the suit Lyon v. Home that I
have given in the foregoing pages will prove to any impartial reader
that, if Mr. Home lost his case, he vindicated his character. As to
what passed during his first two or three interviews with the plaintiff,
he could but set his oath against hers; and her oath, on the
declaration of the Vice-Chancellor himself, was that of a person who
could not be believed. She pretended that on those occasions
AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND 151
messages had been rapped out in which she was told to adopt him as
her son. Mr. Home conclusively established that at the time of the
adoption, and for several months afterwards, not only had she made
no mention of such messages she had, times without number,
emphatically denied being influenced by any spirit-communications.
On that head, the evidence of Mr. Wilkinson would alone be
conclusive, but it was confirmed by a number of other witnesses.
When Home passed from earth, various leading English journals
in their notices of his death grossly misstated the grounds on which
judgment was delivered against him in the suit of Lyon v. Home.
Vice-Chancellor Giffard, with all his prejudices, had gone no further
than to declare that putting the plaintiff's evidence aside
as worthless the defendant had failed to show to the
Vice-Chancellor's satisfaction that the gifts of Mrs. Lyon were the
well-understood acts of a reasonable being. Yet the Times of June
24, 1886, could state: "By 'messages' which were rapped out on
tables, she was induced to execute deeds of gift to him covering
sums of money amounting in all to about thirty thousand pounds."
Had the writer of these words taken the trouble to consult the records
of the Chancery suit, he would have found that the only evidence as
to these pretended messages was contained in the statements of the
plrintiff ,and that her testimony was discredited as perjured by the judge.
" Mr. Home," said a discreditable article in the Daily News of
the same date as the Times leader, " explained the meaning of this
utterance from another world to be that twenty-four thousand
pounds' worth of stock should be invested for him in the Bank of
England. Soon afterwards he declared it to be the spirit's will that
Mrs. Lyon should leave him everything she possessed."
Compare these statements not with the actual facts on record
but simply with the less garbled account published by the same
journal in May, 1868, immediately after the 'Vice-Chancellor had
delivered judgment. " Mrs. Lyon," said the Daily News of that
earlier date, "proposed to be Mr. Home's mother. . . . She
insisted on his acceptance of ,30,000 as a free and absolute gift
and of an equal sum in reversion, subject to her life interest. . . .
Mr. Home had the necessary deeds prepared with no undue haste,
and with reasonable caution."
How account for this extraordinary difference between two versions
of the Lyon lawsuit published at different times by the same journal ?
Probably by the fact that when the first version was published Mr.
Home was still within the protection of the law of libel. English
law, I am told, does not account it any offence to libel those who
have passed from earth.
"There is no such thing as fair play in this world," says Mr.
Serjeant Cox in one of his letters to Mr. Home; " at least, I have
never met with it." Home might justly have echoed the words after
the Lyon lawsuit. I will only add that the resignation with which
Home supported every trial of has life is perhaps an even rarer virtue
than fair-play and justice.
CHAPTER IX
ENGLAND
Evidence of the Earl of Dunraven and Lord Adare. The
Dialectical Society. Evidential seances. Insensibility to heat.
The effects of faith. Light and dark mediumship. Spirit
music. ' ' A hundred instances of levitation. ' ' The
Levitation at Ashley House. Dr. Carpenter's misstatement.
Captain Wynne's evidence. Dr. Carpenter as a Universal
Spiritualist.
COMPARATIVELY full records have been preserved of seances with Mr.
Home during the years 1867-8-9. The phenomena witnessed were
remarkable both for their nature and their variety. One of their
frequent investigators at this time was the present Earl of Crawford,*
then Lord Lindsay, whose scientific attainments might have been
expected to secure for his evidence the impartial consideration of the
scientific world; but the reception accorded to it only demonstrated
how very timid, prejudiced, and unfair that world can be.
A record of eighty seances with Mr. Home was preserved by the
Earl of Dunraven and his son, then Lord Adare, in a volume printed
for private circulation. In the preface the writers relate that the
occurrences of each day were noted down at the time, that when both
had been present at a seance both drew up an account of the
manifestations, and insured accuracy by comparing them; and that,
still further to test the correctness of the narrative, the record of every
seance was sent to the remaining persons who had been present, with
the request that they would state whether it coincided with their own
recollections. Every answer was in the affirmative. It is added
that, while nothing had been inserted that did not occur, or had been
exaggerated that did, it was found necessary to omit a great deal
a very important fact to bear in mind. In all such narratives it is
precisely the most vital part of the tale that is left untold, the
communication of private matters to the persons present at the seance,
and unknown to Home.
" Even in the original letters to my father," said Lord" Adare, " 1
was obliged to omit a few circumstances of great interest ; in some
cases on account of their having reference to persons who did not
wish those circumstances to be mentioned."
It was; always so, or almost always. Sometimes the witness would'
not speak, because the communications he had received so intimately
concerned himself ; sometimes he could not, because the startling
facts with which he was conversant had reference to other persons,
who declined to make them public to the world. It is thus that much-
remarkable evidence received and verified at seances with Home has
* The late Earl of Crawford and Balcarres. [Eo.]
152
ENGLAND i 53
been lost to the world. There are very few who, like Lords Lindsay
and Dunraven, have placed the history of their investigations on
record.
An inquiry into the phenomena of Spiritualism was conducted by
the Dialectical Society in 1869; evidence, both oral and written, being
received, while various sub-committees were appointed to hold
seances. The committee appointed to meet Mr. Home contained some
of the most incredulous members of the Society, among others Mr.
Bradlaugh and Dr. Edmonds. Lord Adare and Lord Lindsay
attended the seances, which, to the number of four, were held in a
fully-lighted room. The manifestations did not extend beyond
slight raps and movements of the table ; and the illness of Mr. Home
preventing an extension of the inquiry, the committee were only able
to report that nothing material had occurred; adding that "during
the inquiry Mr. Home afforded every facility for examination."
It is a pity that circumstances prevented the Society's committee
from holding fourteen or twenty seances with Mr. Home instead of
four. In such a case numerous seances might be necessary to enable
the spirits to establish conditions rendering manifestations possible.
In what the difficulty of establishing such conditions consisted it
would be impossible to say, but that the mere fact of scepticism did
not constitute it was a hundred times proved. No scepticism could
have been more thorough or aggressive than that of Dr. Elliottson
when he came to his first seance with Home at Dieppe, but the
invisible forces went to work at once. Similarly, Thackeray,
Chambers, Mr. John Bright, Mr. Crookes, Dr. Huggins, and very
many others that I might name for instance, the Emperors of
Russia, France, and Germany were completely incredulous
concerning the phenomena when they first sat with Mr. Home; but
in none of these cases did the scepticism of the investigator paralyse
the manifestations. When Mr. Home sat with the Dialectical
Society's committee, either his variable power was almost absent at
the time, 1 or his state of health was such that the power, although
present, could not venture to manifest itself.
It is curious to notice with what ardour certain zealots of disbelief
maintain that the negative results of one or two seances constitute an
affirmative of their incredulity. If men of science are forced to avow
how little they comprehend of the nature of the visible
universe what must be their ignorance of the nature of a gift so
mysterious as that of Home, which passed the limits of human
experience, and whose source was connected with the origin and
mysteries of our spiritual being.
In a previous chapter I have collected instances of the proofs of
identity received at the seances of Home. The smallness of their
number, as I have already explained, is not due to the fact that these
convincing tokens were seldom forthcoming; on the contrary, they
1 " Whatever the nature of Mr. Home's power, it is very variable, and at
times entirely absent." Mr. Crookes: Experimental Investigation of a New
Force.
L
154 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
were the invariable characteristics of his seances, and referred
constantly to matters of the most intimate and remarkable nature.
In the present chapter I shall deal chiefly with physical
manifestations; but first I am enabled to add one or two interesting
items to the facts establishing identity that have been already given.
Several of the seances described by Lord Adare took place at the
house of Mrs. Hennings, a lady residing in Thicket Road, Anerley,
who became a dearly valued friend of Mr. Home. She has very
kindly written for me a narrative of some of the experiences that
made her a Spiritualist, from which I extract the following details :
"At a stance in 1869, Mrs. Jencken, senior, Lord Adare, Mrs. Scott Russell,
and Mr. Bergheim being also present, Mr. Home fell into the trance condition,
rose from his seat, paced the room, and then knelt down by me, saying,
' George is here ' (meaning my nephew, whom he had never met, and who
had recently passed away, in consequence of being thrown from his horse.
He had held a high legal position, and was employed against Mr. Home in the
Lyon trial). ' He wants to say something, but will not say it through me,
from prejudice ; therefore I have it from other spirits. '
" Home then said to me : ' Do you remember that George, as a boy, had
an accident at your house in Dulwich, where, having teased a dog, the animal
flew at him, threw him down, and bit him severely in the groin?' I did
remember the occurrence perfectly, though it had occurred many years before ;
for the severe nature of the wound had caused us great alarm."
Of another communication Mrs. Hennings writes: "As a proof of
recognised identity this case stands unrivalled." Her narrative of
the incident is as follows:
" Seance of October 26th, 1867. Present, Mrs. Jencken, senior, Mrs.
Hennings, and Mr. Percival. The second of the seances especially addressed
to me, for the purpose of establishing the identity of communicant spirit
friends. The following circumstances occurred :
" D. D. Home fell into the trance state ; and after giving a few words to
each of the party from, or relating" to, departed spirit friends, drew a chair
close to me, took both my hands in his, and addressed me in the following
words :
' The night before your father passed away, you played whist with him.
When it was his turn to play, he hesitated, and looked upwards with a smile,
as if entranced -that was the first glimpse he had of the spirit sphere. With
the dawn, he passed away without pain.
' He had previously communicated with Mr. Hennings, who told him
" that he had taken care of Mary," in consequence of which your father left
you but little in comparison with the others. Now, through me, he wishes to
assure you this did not arise from any want of affection, but only from a
misapprehension of the state of affairs.'
" Home then returned to his former seat ; but, looking across the room, his
face became radiant with smiles, as he repeated : ' He is so pleased so
pleased. '
" Mr. Home had never seen my father, nor heard anything about him ; and
most wonderful to me was this detail of such long-past events, known only to
myself. " M. HENNINGS."
Mrs. Scott Russell, who was one of the circle when Mrs. Hennings
received the remarkable proof of her nephew's identity narrated by
her above, was the wife of the eminent engineer of that name. She
was present at numerous seances with Mr. Home, and the
communications she received entirely convinced her of the reality of
spirit-communion. When he was about to bring out his second
ENGLAND
155
volume of autobiography, Home consulted Mrs. Russell with regard
to the publication of her name as a witness to some of the facts
narrated, and received the following reply:
" WESTWOOD LODGE, SYDENHAM.
"My DEAR FRIEND, Certainly I have no objection to my name
being inserted as present at your seances. I thank God for it, and
shall always gratefully bear witness to what I have been permitted to
see. . . . Always affectionately yours,
" HARRIETTS SCOTT RUSSELL."
In spite of this kind and brave permission, Mr. Home, with his
invariable delicate consideration for his friends, omitted Mrs. Scott
Russell's name from his book.
"I never forget," writes Mrs. Scott Russell to Mr. Home in
1880, " my deep debt of gratitude to you for the faith which I believe
I never should have received through any other channel."
A number of English ladies and gentlemen who had been present
at seances with Mr. Home gave evidence of their experiences before
the committee of the Dialectical Society. Among them was a much
esteemed friend, Mrs. Honywood, who, like Mrs. Hennings, had
been present at various of the seances recorded by Lord
Adare, including some of the most remarkable. I have received
narratives of manifestations witnessed at the seances in question from
two or three of the most frequent sitters, and have compared them
with the records contained in Lord Dunraven's book. In every case
the various accounts agree perfectly ; and therefore in describing the
manifestations that Mrs. Honywood, Mrs. Hennings, Mr.
and Mrs. S. C. Hall, the Earls of Dunraven and
Crawford, Captain C. Wynne, and some fifty or sixty other persons
witnessed during the years of 1867-8-9, I shall generally be enabled
to do so on the authority of more than one of the beholders who were
present. Sometimes I have two or three records by different sitters
of the phenomena of the same seance. It is obvious that, within the
limits of a single volume intended to include the whole range of Mr.
Home's fife on earth, I cannot print them all textually.
In their evidence given before the Dialectical Society, Mrs.
Honywood and the Earl of Crawford described the very startling
phenomena that occurred at a seance held on the iyth of March, 1869,
at the residence of a Mrs. E , who did not permit her name
to be published. I extract some of the most interesting particulars.
There were present Mrs. Honywood, Mrs. E , the Earl of
Crawford (then Lord Lindsay), Captain Gerard Smith, of the Scots
Fusilier Guards, and Mr. Home. The room was well lighted all the
time of the seance:
" Mr. Home," deposed Mrs. Honywood and Lord Lindsay, " passed into a
trance, and went to the table, on which stood a moderator lamo. Taking off
the globe, he placed it on the table, and deliberately clasped the chimney of
the lamp with both hands ; then, advancing to the lady of the house, he asked
156 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
her to touch it ; but she refused, knowing it was hot. Mr. Home said, ' Have
you no faith? Will you not trust in Dan if he says it is cool?' She replied,
' Certainly ' ; and, placing her fingers on the glass, exclaimed, ' Oh, it is not
at all hot!' This was corroborated by Lord Lindsay and myself, who, in
turn, laid our finger on the glass several times, to test it. ... Holding it
towards Mr. , Mr. Home turned, apparently addressing someone, and
said: ' It is necessary, to confirm the faith of others, that it should be made
hot for him.' Mr. now touched it; and exclaimed, ' You have indeed
made it hot!' shaking his hand and showing me a red mark. So hot was
the glass when the fourth person touched it, that it raised a blister, which I
saw some days subsequently peeling."
The ' ' Mr. ' ' who suffered to confirm the faith of others
was Captain Smith, of the Scots Fusilier Guards. A letter from Mrs.
Honywood to me relates this remarkable incident as follows. Mr.
Home, be it remembered, was holding all the while, in a well-lighted
room, the large glass chimney that Mrs. Honywood and Lord Lindsay
had just touched and found cool:
" I placed my finger on the top part of the glass several times to test it.
Each time the heat appeared to recede like a wave of the sea. I cannot
describe the sensation in any other words, but the heat seemed to be with-
drawn each time. Mr. Home then laughed, and said, turning to Captain S.,
' We will make it hot for you !' Turning his head, he appeared to listen, and
his expression changed ; then, speaking in a sad tone of voice, he said : ' It is
.necessary, to confirm the faith of others, that the glass should be made hot
for you.' Captain Smith now touched it, and cried out, ' By Jove ! you have,*
shaking his finger, and showing a red mark. He had a blister which lasted
several days."
I resume the joint narrative of Mrs. Honywood and Lord
Lindsay :
" Mr. Home then walked to the fireplace, and thrust the chimney among
the red-hot coals, where he left it for four or five minutes, then took it in both
hands. He went to the table, took a lucifer match from a box, and, handing
it to the lady of the house, desired her to touch the glass with it. The match
instantly ignited ; and having called our attention to this fact, he observed :
' The tongue and lips are the most sensitive parts of the body,' and thrust the
heated glass into his mouth, applying especially his tongue to it. ...
" Going to the fire, Mr. Home moved the red embers about with his hand,
and selected a small red-hot coal, which he placed in the glass chimney. He
approached Mrs. E. ; and saying, ' I have a present for you,' shook it out on
her white muslin dress. Catching up the coal in dismay, Mrs. E. tossed it to
Lord Lindsay, who, unable to retain it in his hand, threw it from palm to
palm, till he reached the grate and flung it in. While we were all looking at
the white muslin dress and wondering that it was not singed or soiled, Mr.
Home approached, and, in a hurt tone of voice, said : ' No, no, you will not
find a mark did you think that we would injure your dress.' '
*
This wonderful phenomenon of preservation from fire was repeated
with a spray of white flowers, taken from a vase on the table, which
flowers were held by Mr. Home in the fire of the grate and then in
the smoke rising from the coals, without their being injured or their
pure white colour so much as dimmed. Shortly afterwards Mr.
Home awoke from his trance, and the seance closed.
Again and again was the phenomenon of the instantaneous with-
drawal of intense heat from burning coals and other objects, and its
ENGLAND 157
equally instantaneous restoration, witnessed at seances with Home. I
could fill many pages with the names and narratives of those who
beheld and tested the facts; but must limit myself to two or three
extracts from the mass of testimony. In the narrative just given, it
will be observed that the intensely hot lamp-glass was handled without
harm by Mrs. Honywood and Lord Lindsay, as well as
by Mr. Home ; and the same innocuous contact with an intense
heat was experienced by persons whose testimony is equally above
suspicion, on each of the occasions about to be described. In all /
these cases it was declared by the spirits that, to prevent harm from
happening, it was necessary for the person experimenting to have
a perfect faith that no injury 7 would be received.
The present Earl of Dunraven, while Lord Adare, was among
those who had the opportunity of personally satisfying themselves
that the invisibles at work could so deal with fire that it would not
burn. In the winter of 1868, there was a seance at Mrs. Hennings'
house at Anerley. The sitters consisted of Mrs. Hennings, Mrs.
Jencken, senior, Lord Adare, Mr. Jencken, Mr. Saal, Mr. Hurt, and
Mr. Home. A full relation of the seance was written by Lord Adare,
and the most remarkable manifestation of the evening was also
described by Mr. Jencken in one of the Spiritualist journals.
Mr. Home, in the trance-state, went to the fire, and with his hand
stirred the red embers into flame. " Then, kneeling down," records
Lord Adare, " he placed his face right among the burning coals,
moving it about as though bathing it in water."
" He placed his hands and then his face in the flames and on the
burning coals," says Mr. Jencken. " I had the amplest opportunity
of watching the exact movements, and quite satisfied myself of the
fact that Mr. Home touched the burning coals."
Taking from the fire a burning ember, " about twice the size of an
orange," Mr. Home carried it to the sitters.
" Home held it within four or five inches of Mr. Saal's and Mr.
Hurt's hands," relates Lord Adare. " They could not endure the
heat. He came to me, and said : ' Now, if you are not afraid, hold
out your hand.' I did so; and having made two rapid passes over my
hand, he placed the coal in it. I must have held it for half a
minute, long enough to have burned my hand fearfully : the coal felt
scarcely warm. Home then took it away, laughed, and seemed much
pleased."
At some of the seances at Anerley with Mrs. Hennings and her
neighbours, the Jencken family, there was present Mr. J. H. Simpson,
of 10, Campden Grove, Kensington, a gentleman of considerable
scientific attainments and a total disbeliever in Spiritualism. I do not
know that Mr. Simpson ever succeeded in convincing himself of the
spiritual origin of the manifestations ; but, after having submitted the
phenomena witnessed by him at Anerley to every test he could con-
trive, he was compelled to admit that they were real and occurred
independently of Mr. Home. That Mr. Simpson was a very keen
and sceptical inquirer, the following fact may help to attest. He
went to a " dark seance " in January, 1868, with a " medium " who
158 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
need not be named here; and, in spite of the obscurity, succeeded in
demonstrating so plainly both the fact of fraud and the modus
operandi that the proceedings came to an abrupt end. The letter to
Mr. Home in which he narrates the whole occurrence concludes with
the following words:
" There could be no greater contrast than that of the disgusting
dark affair of last night with the beautiful, light-loving series ot
phenomena which I had the privilege of witnessing the previous night,
thanks to yourself. Your sincerely obliged J. H. SIMPSON."
In a paper read before the Dialectical Society in July, 1869, Lord
Lindsay thus narrates his night vision at Norwood and the proof
afforded next morning that the form he had seen was no creation of
his fancy:
" I first met Mr. Home at the house of a friend of his and mine, Mrs.
Gregory ; and when we left the party I asked him to come into my rooms in
Grosvenor Square to smoke a cigar. I heard a shower of raps run along a
beam that crosses the ceiling. This was the first thing of the sort I had ever
heard ; and naturally I was interested, and wished for more, but in vain :
nothing more happened ; and soon after he went away.
" On the Sunday following, I was asked by Mr. Jencken to come to his
house in Norwood to dine, and afterwards to have a stance. I went. . . .
and that evening I missed the last train to Crystal Palace, and had to stay at
Norwood. I got a shake-down on a sofa in Home's room. I was just going
to sleep, when I was roused by feeling my pillow slipping from under my
head, and I could also feel what seemed to be a hand under it, which was
pulling it away. Soon after this ceased.
" Then I saw at the foot of my sofa a female figure standing in profile to
me, and asked Home if he saw anything. He answered, ' A woman, looking
at me.' Our beds were at right angles to one another, and about twelve feet
apart. I saw the features perfectly, and impressed them upon my memory.
She seemed to be dressed in a long wrap, going down from the shoulders, and
not gathered in at the waist. Home then said : ' It is my wife ; she often
comes to me.' And then she seemed to fade away. . . .
" The next morning, before I went to London, I was looking at some
photographs, and I recognised the face I had seen in the room upstairs over-
night. I asked Mrs. Jencken who it was, and she said it was Home's wife."
Lord Lindsay also described in his paper various phenomena that
he beheld after the disappearance of the figure ; the following being
one of the most striking: -
" I saw on my knee a flame of fire about nine inches high. I passed my
hand through it, bat it burnt on, above and below. . . . The flame, which
had been flitting about me, now left me, and crossed the room about four feet
from the ground, and reached the curtains of Home's bed. These proved no
obstruction ; for the light went right through them, settled on his head, and
then went out."
Lord Lindsay was another of the numerous witnesses whose
experiences enabled them to testify that they had not only seen Mr.
Home expose himself for minutes at a time to the contact of fire
without being burned, but had experienced a similar protection in
their own persons. " Eight times," he told the Dialectical Society,
" I myself have held a red-hot coal in my hands without injury, when
it scorched my face on raising my hand. Once I wished to see if
they really would burn; and I said so, and touched a coal with the
ENGLAND 159
middle finger of my right hand. I got a blister as large as a sixpence.
I instantly asked Home to give me the coal ; and I held the part that
had burnt me for three or four minutes in the middle of my hand
without the least inconvenience."
Both Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare witnessed more than once the
strange phenomenon of the alternate elongation and shrinking of the
form of Mr. Home. It is my belief that this manifestation did great
physical harm to him ; fortunately, it was of rare occurrence. One of
the most remarkable instances was witnessed in the year 1868 at the
house of Mr. and Mrs. Hall. Among the persons present at the
time was Mr. H. T. Humphreys, a journalist, who subsequently
published an account of the occurrence, as follows:
" I formed one of a party of nine or ten. We sat in a room well lighted
with gas. . . . Mr. Home was seen by all of us to increase in height to
the extent of some eight or ten inches, and then sank to some six or eight
inches below his normal stature. Having returned to his usual height, he
took Lord Adare (now the Earl of Dunraven) and the Master of Lindsay (now
the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres), and, placing one boside each post of the
folding doors, lay down on the floor, touching the feet of one with his head
and the feet of the other with his feet. He was then again elongated, and
pushed both Lord Adare and the Master of Lindsay backward along the floor
with his head and feet as he was stretched out, his arms and hands remaining
motionless by his side."
Mr. S. C. Hall says that he measured the extent of this elongation,
and found that Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare were pushed to a
distance of more than seven feet apart, Mr. Home's head still
touching the one, his feet the other.
The form seen by Lord Lindsay at Norwood, when he shared
Home's room, was again seen on thie evening of February pth, 1869,
by Viscount Adare, Captain Gerard Smith, and Dr. Gully, of
Malvern, at the rooms of the first-named in London. The three
were sitting with Mr. Home in a small room, the objects in which
were dimly visible by the faint light that came in from the window,
when Home was impressed to rise and place himself near the latter.
Another form slowly revealed itself beside his that of Mrs. Home.
" Her form," wrote Lord Adare the next day, " gradually became apparent
to us ; she moved close to Home and kissed him. She stood beside him
against the window, intercepting the light as a solid body, and appeared fully
as material as Home himself ; no one could have told which was the mortal
body and which the spirit. It was too dark, however, to distinguish features.
I could see that she had her full face turned towards us, and either that her
hair was parted in the middle and flowed down over her shoulders, or that
she had on what appeared to be a veil."
This was witnessed, be it noted, in Lord Adare's own rooms in
London. At his request, Captain Gerard Smith wrote to him attesting
the fact that he had equally beheld the form, and furnished his
observations of the apparition in the following words:
" Home rose, and stood at the window with his right arm extended ;
and the spirit seemed to sweep down until it rested both hands on his
outstretched arm, looking up into his face. From the position in
which I sat the profile of the face was perfectly visible to me, and
i6o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
when the two faces approached each other to kiss, there was no
apparent difference in the density of the two figures."
Apparitions of other persons than Mrs. Home are also related by
Lord Adare to have been seen by him at different times. In August,
1868, he beheld a luminous form standing at the foot of Home's bedi;
and at Adare Manor, in March, 1869, a figure that was white and
slightly luminous appeared to him. He approached it, and it
vanished.
Mr. Home spent some weeks at Adare Manor in the early spring of
1869. On the night of the 4th of March, Lord Dunraven, Lord
Adare, Captain C. Wynne, and Mr. Home visited the ruins of the
Abbey of Adare, and startling phenomena occurred. On March
1 2th, a remarkable seance was held at Garinish, a cottage of Lord
Dunraven's on the Kerry coast. There were present Lord Dunraven,
Lord Adare, Major Blackburn, and Mr. Home. After twice forming
a circle without result, the sitters were about to give up the hope of
manifestations for that evening, when Lord Adare felt the cold air
blowing over him, the presence of which always heralded further
phenomena. Manifestations sometimes occurred at seances when no
such chill current had been noticed to pass round the circle ; but I do
not think there was ever an instance of its presence being remarked
when it was not the precursor of other phenomena.
On this night at Garinish it heralded a seance full of interest. Home
went into a trance, arranged the position of the chairs and tables in
the room, as if for unseen guests, placed the miniature portrait of Mrs.
Home on one table, and on another the photograph of a little friend
of his who had lately passed away; all the while, says Lord Adare,
appearing to consult with some presence invisible to the other sitters.
He then put out the candles, leaving the little room (all the rooms
at Garinish are very small) illuminated by the glow of the firelight;
and taking his seat with the rest of the party, arranged two vases of
flowers on the table, in such a way as to make with Pressense's " Life
of Christ," which he had placed between them, the figure of a cross.
Almost immediately aferwards he awoke from his trance.
Currents of cold air then blew round the circle very strongly, the
table vibrated, rose clear of the ground, and remained for some time
poised in the air. A hand formed itself above one of the vases of
flowers placed on the small table round which the party of four were
grouped, and carried a flower to Lord Dunraven. Lord Adare and
Mr. Home saw the hand ; the other two sitters only the flower moving
through the air; whereupon Lord Dunraven remarked that he was
very desirous also to see a hand. Presently one became distinctly
visible to him just above the vase of flowers. The miniature of Mrs.
Home was now brought from the other table. None but Home saw
the hand that held it they could see only the miniature approach
them and place itself gently upon Home's hands, as they rested on the
table in full view. The photograph above referred to was next
carried to the sitters in the same way; but this time Lord Adare
distinctly saw a hand holding it, and soon afterwards a whole hand
ENGLAND 161
and arm, white and slightly luminous, that hovered in the air between
the sitters and the window.
Again flowers were carried to the sitters ; but the recipients saw no
hand holding them, only the blossoms moving through the air. A
book that lay on the other table, six or eight feet away from the
circle, rose, floated through the air, and placed itself on the seance
table. Hands were again seen, and the flowers that remained in the
vases were stirred; then the round table from which Mrs. Home's
miniature had been brought rose into the air, no one touching it and
none of the sitters being near it, and placed itself gently on the
larger oblong table at which the four persons present were seated.
Immediately afterwards loud sounds like high-pitched voices were
heard at a little distance. The suspicion of ventriloquism was
impossible ; for Lord Adare relates that Mr. Home continued speaking
during the whole time that these voices were heard, and that the
louder he spoke the louder the sounds became. A lady who had
retired to rest in the room beneath Mrs. Blackburn told the others
of the party at Garinish next day that she had heard strange sound.-,
and imitated them so well, that, says Lord Dunraven, we at once
recognised that she had really heard the voices. No articulate words
were distinguished, but the effect is described as having been most
weird.
Manifestations similar to the wonderful phenomenon recorded at
Garinish of spirit-voices sounding in the air, while Mr. Home, by
talking incessantly, negatived the theory of ventriloquism, were ot
rare, but not very rare occurrence. In August, 1868, Lord Adare
and Mr. Home were about to start for the Continent together ; and on
the eve of their departure Home came to stay at his friend's rooms
in London. They had just retired for the night when a phenomenon
attracted their attention, of which, to obviate any suspicion ot
exaggeration, I will cite Lord Adare 's own description, written at the
time :
" We both heard music, much the same as at Norwood, but more powerful
and distinct. Home said that the music formed words ; that, in fact, it was
a voice speaking, and not instrumental music. I could hear nothing but the
chords like an organ or harmonium played at a distance. Home became
quite excited because I could not distinguish the words, thinking that, if I
could not hear them, it must have been his imagination. He asked the spirit.-.
if possible, to make the words sufficiently clear for me also to hear them.
They said ' Yes ' (by raps) ; and the music became louder and louder, until I
distinctly heard the words, " Hallelujah, praise the Lord, praise the Lord God
Almighty.' It was no imagination, or the result of anxiety on my part to
hear the same as Home did. Every now and then I could not distinguish
words, although he said he could ; but I repeatedly heard the words above
mentioned as plainly as possible. I cannot in the least explain to you how
the voice articulated ; the words were not separately spoken, neither did it
resemble a human voice. The sound was slightly reedy and metallic, not very
unlike the vox humana on an organ. If you can imagine an organ pipe of
some rather reedy stop speaking to you, it will be as near it as anything I
can describe."
Of a similar, but less remarkable manifestation, that occurred
during the third seance at which he was present, Lord Adare says:
i6a LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
' ' During the time the sounds were heard Home was talking, which
I was glad of, as I wished to feel sure the sounds were not the result
of ventriloquism on his part."
As already mentioned, the records of seances made by Lord Adare,
Lord Lindsay, and others are chiefly confined to the physical
manifestations witnessed. These embraced every variety ot
phenomena. Tables were raised in the air when neither Home nor
any other person was touching them; chairs and sofas moved across
the floor in full light when no one was near them ; flowers, books, and
other objects were carried to the sitters by hands that they sometimes
saw distinctly, and that on other occasions were invisible to them;
music was played without the touch of any mortal hand on the
instrument, and was frequently heard when no instrument of any sort
was there. It need hardly be remarked that at those seances to which
accordions were brought to see if they would be played upon, it was
always one or more of the sitters who brought the accordions, and
never Mr. Home. At Malvern, for instance, in November, 1867
(present an American lady, Mrs. Thayer, Lord Adare, whose first
seance it was; and a total disbeliever in Spiritualism, Mr. Earl), Mrs.
Thayer sent out a servant to borrow an accordion from a friend, and
it played, first an air resembling a voluntary on the organ, and then
an air asked for by Mr. Earl. At Adare Manor, on March 4th,
1869, Captain Wynne fetched an accordion. It played very
beautifully, both while held by Mr. Home with one hand and when
his hand was withdrawn. The air, " Oft in the Stilly Night," was
softly played ; and the late Earl of Dunraven, who was one of the
sitters, records that this air had many years before been one of his
greatest favourites. The room in which the seance was held was lighted
by one candle and a fire.
No seance with Mr. Home was ever held in total darkness; but
occasionally messages were rapped out, desiring the lights to be
momentarily extinguished, in order that the phenomenon of the
production of other lights by the spirits might be witnessed to
advantage. These evanescent, but wonderful manifestations, were ot
a very varied character. Sometimes a white, pure light would fill the
room, rendering every object distinctly visible; sometimes vivid
meteors darted through the air, or rested on the heads and hands ot
the sitters. The ridiculous theories thrown out by persons who were
never present at a seance with Mr. Home did not suggest themselves
to the minds of the investigators who beheld and were impressed by
these strange phenomena. " I have taken precautions to avoid being
imposed upon by phosphorised oil, or other means," wrote Mr.
Crookes, in the Quarterly Journal of Science for January, 1874.
" Moreover, many of these lights are such as I have tried to imitate
artificially, but cannot." Yet Mr. Crookes, who could not in his
laboratory imitate these lights that were beheld in the houses of a
hundred different people during seances with Mr. Home, is one of the
most distinguished of modern chemists.
The notes of Mr. Crookes on ' ' Luminous Appearances ' ' refer
ENGLAND 163
principally, but not entirely, to his experiences with Mr. Home. The
following describe phenomena witnessed at seances with Home.
" I have seen," says Mr. Crookes, " luminous points of light
darting about and settling on the heads of different persons ; I have
had questions answered by the flashing of a bright light a desired
number of times in front of my face. ... I have had an alphabetic
communication given by luminous flashes occurring before me in the
air, whilst my hand was moving about amongst them. . . . In the
light, I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side
table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady."
These luminous appearances were sometimes perceptible to the
touch as well as to the sight. On November 24th, 1868, Lord
Lindsay and Mr. Home returned from Norwood about n p.m. to the
rooms of Lord Adare in London ; and, together with the latter, sat
down at a table, the room being nearly dark. It may be noted here
that the few seances that Mr. Home held in a dim light (never in total
darkness) were with friends who had already seen much of the
phenomena in strong light, and were convinced of their reality. On
this occasion a variety of manifestations occurred, one of which was
that luminous bodies, described by Lord Adare as "balls of light,"
flitted about the room, and sometimes touched the sitters, feeling to
the latter " like a material substance and highly electrical."
Lord Adare, Lord Lindsay, &c. , were frequently witnesses of that
singular manifestation described in an early chapter, the retention on
the surface of a table inclined at an angle not far from the
perpendicular of the various objects that had been lying there before
the table was tilted. During a seance at Mrs. Hennings' house at
Anerley, Home, in a trance, brought a book to Lord Adare, and
placed the hand of the latter flat upon the cover that was uppermost.
Raps came on the volume; and Home then withdrew his own hand
from it, leaving the book suspended in air beneath Lord Adare's open
hand. " My fingers," says Lord Adare, " were not near the edges,
my hand was extended flat upon the cover. I could not have grasped
and retained the book in any way; it simply adhered to my hand
.... The book felt to me as though supported from beneath by a
cushion or column of air."
The most startling of the hundred or more recorded instances of the
levitation of Mr. Home was witnessed by Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare,
and Captain C. Wynne. Before turning to it, I may add to the
numerous instances already given of the more frequent physical
phenomena, the following narrative of a seance in London. Mrs.
Honywood, who was present, has kindly furnished it to me from her
notes made at the time.
" On the 23rd of June, 1869," writes Mrs. Honywood, " I was invited by
Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall to meet Mr. Home for a seance. We sat at a heavy
round table, seven in number ; Mr. and Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Senior, Lord Louth,
Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Home, and myself. After quietly talking for a little while,
raps were heard and vibrations felt in the table and floor. Before a stance
Mr. Home always took off all his rings, lest inadvertently they might make
any sound.
Mr. Home held the accordion in one hand, and notes were sounded upon
164 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
the instrument to indicate the letters of the alphabet in various messages given.
The air ' Auld Lang Syne ' was then most beautifully and touchingly played.
" A small, but very solid table upon castors, with a heavy stereoscope resting
on it, containing 50 glass slides, moved across the floor from the window
where it stood, and placed itself between Mr. Home and myself, having glided
about six or seven feet. Mr. Home requested Lord Louth to come and place
his hand on this table. Raps sounded distinctly on it, and the vibration was
felt very strongly by Lord L. We all heard a strange noise inside the camera,
and thought the slides were breaking ; but, although shaken violently, none
were cracked or broken.
" A chair now moved up between Mr. Home and Mr. Hall, a second chair
followed, a third, and then a fourth, also a very large arm-chair. A small
chair rose from the floor, and moved up and down close to Mr. Hall, appearing
to float in the air.
" After the seance, Lord Louth measured the distance each chair had
traversed, and found it to range from six to nine feet. The little table had
moved seven feet from the window to Mr. Home. This was the first seance
at which Lord Louth had ever been present."
Of the many wonderful phenomena witnessed in connection with
Mr. Home, none has been the subject of more discussion than that of
his levitation, and none is established by more conclusive testimony.
After having carefully considered that testimony, Mr. Crookes wrote,
in the Quarterly Journal of Science for January, 1874:
" There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home's rising from
the ground, in the presence of as many separate persons ; and I have heard
from the lips of the three witnesses to the most striking occurrence of this
kind the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, and Captain C. Wynne their
own most minute accounts of what took place. To reject the recorded evidence
on this subject is to reject all human testimony whatever ; for no fact in sacred
or profane history is supported by a stronger array of proofs.
" The accumulated testimony establishing Mr. Home's levitations is over-
whelming. It is greatly to be desired that some person, whose evidence would
be accepted as conclusive by the scientific world if indeed there lives a person
whose testimony in favour of such phenomena would be taken would seriously
and patiently examine these alleged facts."
The desire expressed by Mr. Crookes was not responded to by his
scientific brethren.
Mr. Crookes was enabled by his seances with Mr. Home to add his
own testimony to that already in existence concerning the phenomenon
of levitation. "On three separate occasions," he writes, "have I
seen Mr. Home raised completely from the floor of the room. Once
sitting on an easy chair, once kneeling on his chair, and once
standing up. On each occasion I had full opportunity of watching
the occurrence as it was taking place." (" Notes of an Inquiry into
the Phenomena called Spiritual.")
The present Earl of Crawford, when giving his testimony before the
Dialectical Society concerning the strange things he had seen in
Home's presence, was questioned as to the possibility of explaining
the phenomena by contrivance. " The more I studied them," he
answered, " the more satisfied was I that they could not be explained
by mere mechanical trick. I have had the fullest opportunity for
investigation."
It was asked if the phenomenon of levitation did not invariably
occur in semi-darkness. " No," replied Lord Crawford (then Lord
ENGLAND 165
Lindsay), "/ once saw Home in full light standing in the
air seventeen inches from the ground."
In November, 1868, Lord Adare and Lord Lindsay saw Mr. Home
raised in the air about four or five feet. On December 2oth of the
same year, Lords Adare and Lindsay, Captain C. Wynne, and Mr.
Arthur Smith Barry were present when he again rose from the ground.
During the manifestations in the ruined abbey at Adare, Home was
seen by Lord Dunraven, Lord Adare, and Captain Wynne to float
above the ground for a distance of ten or twelve yards at a height that
carried him over a broken wall two feet high. He passed close by
the three watchers during this aerial journey.
Of another instance of levitation Lord Lindsay gave the following
description: "Home floated round the room, pushing the pictures
out of their places as he passed along the walls. They were far
beyond the reach of a person standing on the ground. The light was
sufficient to enable me to see clearly." (Evidence given before the
Dialectical Society.)
But the most striking of the many occasions on which Home was
seen to float in the air was that to which Mr. Crookes so particularly
alludes in the passage I have quoted from him. This event occurred
in London, on December i6th 1868, in the presence of three
unimpeachable witnesses, Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare, and Captain
Charles Wynne, a cousin of the latter.
A seance was in progress ; and Home, who had been in the trance
state for some time, began to walk about uneasily, and finally went
into the adjoining room. At that moment a startling communication
was made to Lord Lindsay. " I heard," he related in his evidence
before the Dialectical Society, " a voice whisper in my ear, ' He will
go out of one window and in at another. ' I was alarmed and shocked
at the thought of so dangerous an experiment. I told the company
what I had heard, and we then waited for Home's return."
Mr. Home was at the moment in the room adjoining that where the
three sitters waited. Besides his evidence given before the Dialectical
Society, Lord Lindsay published a second and more minute
description of the levitation, in which he thus narrated the events that
immediately followed the spirit-intimation he had received, and had
communicated to Lord Adare and Captain Wynne :
" We heard," writes Lord Lindsay, " the window in the next room lifted
up, and almost immediately afterwards we saw Home floating in the air
outside our window.
" The moon was shining full into the room. My back was to the light ;
and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window-sill, and Home's feet about
six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, then
raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost, and sat down.
" Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from
which he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he
expressed his wonder how Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an
aperture.
" Home said (still in a trance), ' I will show you ' ; and then, with his back
to the window, he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture head first,
with the body rigid, and then returned quite quietly.
" The window is about seventy feet from the ground. I very much doubt
166 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
whether any skilful rope-dancer would like to attempt a feat of this descrip-
tion, where the only means of crossing would be a perilous leap.
" The distance between the windows was about seven feet six inches, and
there was not more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which
served as a ledge to put flowers on."
One of the other two witnesses of the scene, Lord Adare, had the
distances between the windows and other details measured, and
included them in the record written by him of the occurrence. Lord
Adare's testimony is as follows:
" Wynne and I went over to Ashley House after dinner. There we found
Home and the Master of Lindsay. Home proposed a sitting. We accordingly
sat round a table in the small room. There was no light in the room, but the
light from the window was sufficient to enable us to distinguish each other,
and to see the different articles of furniture. Home went into a trance. . . .
" Lindsay suddenly said: 'Oh, good heavens! I know what he is going to
do ; it is too fearful. '
" Adare : ' What is it?'
" Lindsay : ' I cannot tell you ; it is too horrible. A spirit says that I must
tell you. He is going out of the window in the other room, and coming in at
this window. 1
" We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown up, and
presently Home appeared standing upright outside our window. He opened
the window, and walked in quite coolly. ' Ah,' he said, ' you were good this
time ' ; referring to our having sat still and not wished to prevent him. . . .
* Adare, shut the window in the next room.'
" I got up, shut the window, and in coming back remarked that the window
was not raised a foot, and that I could not think how he had managed to
squeeze through. He arose, and said, ' Come and see.' I went with him :
he told me to open the window as it was before. I did so : he told me to
stand a little distance off ; he then went through the open space, head first,
quite rapidly, his body being nearly horizontal and apparently rigid. He came
in again, feet foremost ; and we returned to the other room. It was so dark
I could not see clearly how he was supported outside. He did not appear to
grasp, or rest upon, the balustrade, but rather to be swung out and in. Out-
side each window is a small balcony or ledge, nineteen inches deep, bounded
by stone balustrades, eighteen inches high. The balustrades of the two
windows are seven feet four inches apart, measuring from the nearest point.
A string-course, four inches wide, runs between the windows at the level of
the bottom of the balustrade ; another, three inches wide, at the level of the
top. Between the window at which Home went out and that at which he
came in the wall recedes six inches. The rooms are on the third floor.
" I asked Lindsay how the spirit had spoken to him. He could scarcely
explain ; but said it did not sound like an audible human voice, but rather as
if the tones were whispered or impressed inside his ear. When Home awoke,
he was much agitated ; he said he felt as if he had gone through some fearful
peril, and that he had a most horrible desire to throw himself out of window.
He remained in a very nervous condition for a short time, then gradually
became quiet.
" We now had a series of very curious manifestations. Lindsay and Wynne
saw tongues or jets or flames proceeding from Home's head. We then all
distinctly heard, as it were, a bird flying round the room, whistling and
chirping, but saw nothing ; except Lindsay, who perceived an indistinct form
resembling a bird. There then came a sound as of a great wind rushing
through the room ; we also felt the wind strongly : the moaning, rushing
sound was the most weird thing I ever heard."
It will be seen that the testimony of the two observers is in perfect
agreement. Lord Adare's narrative was written quite independently
of that of Lord Lindsay, but precisely the same facts are recorded in
ENGLAND 167
each. It is clearly established that Lord Lindsay, as Home left the
room, received an intimation of what was about to happen, and
communicated it to his two companions, that Mr. Home was carried
out of one window and in at another, at a height of seventy feet from
the ground; that, on Lord Adare expressing surprise at his having
been carried through the aperture of a window only raised a foot,
Home, before his eyes, was a second time floated through that opening
into the space outside, and back again. As Lord Adare gives the
measurements between the windows, &c., his figures are naturally more
precise than those of Lord Lindsay, who judged by the eye. They
establish that the ledges of the two windows were seven feet four
inches apart, between the nearest points. Along the wall ran two
string-courses, the lower of these four inches wide, the upper three.
It was obviously impracticable that anyone could walk along the
lower of these two very narrow shelves, as the space
between it and the upper ledge was only eighteen inches. The
sceptic as to the phenomenon of levitation is reduced therefore to two
alternatives either to accept the testimony of Lords Adare and
Lindsay as an exact narrative of facts, or to suppose that Mr. Home
chose to attempt, late at night, the impossible feat of walking along a
ledge three inches wide, at a height of seventy feet from the ground,
and successfully accomplished the impossible. Yet even this theory
would not explain the second levitation of which Lord Adare was the
witness, when Home, before his eyes, was floated out of the partly-
opened window into the empty air beyond.
Dr. W. B. Carpenter, V.P.R.S., imagined, indeed, another theory,
and communicated his imaginations to the public under circumstances
more daring than honest. The narrative of Lord Lindsay informed
him that there had been a third sitter present when the levitation
occurred Captain Wynne, the cousin of Lord Adare. In the
absence of any detailed testimony from this gentleman, Dr. Carpenter
chose to assume that his evidence, if made public, would have
contradicted that of Lords Lindsay and Adare. A little inquiry would
have informed Dr. Carpenter that Captain Wynne had narrated to Mr.
Crookes, Mr. S. C. Hall, and others what he saw, and that his
evidence exactly corresponded with that of Lord Adare and Lord
Lindsay. This trained man of science, this exact investigator made
no inquiry, however. He took his hypothesis concerning Captain
"Wynne for granted singular conduct on the part of the very man
who had always been loudest in accusing Spiritualists and inquirers
into Spiritualism of basing their conclusions on insufficient evidence,
but quite consistent with the whole method of Dr. Carpenter's warfare
against Spiritualism. The temper in which he conducted his assaults
was not that of a philosopher desirous to arrive at the
truth and nothing but the truth, but of a theorist who thought no
sacrifice of the truth too great to make in the interests of his favourite
doctrine of "unconscious cerebration." To throw doubt on the
phenomenon of the levitation of Mr. Home, he ventured on one of
the boldest of those sacrifices. Knowing all the while that his
assumption concerning; Captain Wynne was sheer supposition, he
168 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
deliberately stated it to the world as a fact. Of course, no names were
mentioned; that would have been to court investigation, and Dr.
Carpenter was aware that his statements would not bear it. It was
sufficient for him to tell the public, in an article published in the
Contempary Review of January, 1867 :
" The most diverse accounts of the facts of a stance will be given by a
believer and a sceptic. ... A whole party of believers will affirm that
they saw Mr. Home float out of one window and in at another, whilst a single
honest sceptic declares that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair all the time.
And in this last case we have an example of a fact, of which there is ample
illustration, that, during the prevalence of an epidemic delusion, the honest
testimony of any number of individuals, on one side, if given under a pre-
possession, is of no more weight than that of a single adverse witness if so
much."
It seems to me that, written under the circumstances I have just
detailed, nothing could well be more discreditable to Dr. Carpenter
than this passage. Published in a widely-circulated organ of opinion,
it could not but leave, and was evidently intended to leave, on the
minds of all who read it the impression that Dr. Carpenter's " honest
sceptic ' ' had actually been present with Lords Adare and Lindsay on
the only occasion when Home ever floated out of one window and in
at another, and had, to the knowledge of Dr. Carpenter, declared
" that Mr. Home was quietly sitting in his chair all the while." If
so, this "single adverse witness" could be no other than Captain
Wynne. Only once had Mr. Home been seen to float out of a window
and in at another in Ashley Place, S.W., on the i6th of December,
1868. Three persons in all had observed the phenomenon: two of
them, Lords Lindsay and Adare, had printed their testimony to the
occurrence. They were, therefore, Dr. Carpenter's "party of
believers " Lord Lindsay, who told the Dialectical Society, " I have
no theory to explain these things ; " and Lord Adare, who wrote: " 1
make no attempt to offer any explanation of the phenomena, or to
build up any theory upon them ; I only say that they have occurred as
I have stated them." The third and last sitter present when Mr.
Home was carried out of one window of Ashley House and in at
another more than seven feet distant was Captain Charles Wynne. To
him, therefore, Dr. Carpenter's statements concerning the "honest
sceptic" referred. Every one understood them so to refer, Captain
Wynne included ; and his answer to them is contained in a letter
written by him to Mr. Home under the following circumstances.
In or about the year 1876, an American of the name of Hammond
published a foolish book wherein he gave Dr. Carpenter's fable of the
' ' honest sceptic ' ' a niche among numerous fables of his own
concerning the experiments of Mr. Crookes ; his ingenuous method or
dealing with the latter being to pass over the most conclusive in
silence, substitute for the remainder dummy experiments that in no
way resembled them, and then proceed to triumphantly demolish the
shams he had himself created. In retailing as fact the fictions of Dr.
Carpenter, Dr. Hammond took occasion to find for those airy nothings
"a local habitation and a name," and boldly stated that the
ENGLAND 169
levitation referred to was that in Ashley Place, and that Dr.
Carpenter's " honest sceptic " was the cousin of Lord Dunraven. His
book came under the notice of Mr. Home, who wrote to Captain
Wynne as follows:
" NICE, January $th, 1877.
" MY DEAR WYNNE, I have been reading a book intensely stupid and
absurd called Spiritualism and Nervous Derangement : by W. A. Hammond,
M.D. On page 81 of his book I found the following question regarding the
very extraordinary manifestation you witnessed in Ashley Place, when I was
brought in at a window eighty feet from the ground, in the presence of your
cousin, Viscount Adare (now Earl of Dunraven), Lord Lindsay, and yourself:
" ' There were three gentlemen present in the room besides Mr. Home.
Lord Adare, we may admit, accepts the account given by Lord Lindsay.
Indeed, he may be said to be the father of it. But why have we no word
from the " cousin of his " who formed one of the company? There cannot
be too much evidence on so important a point as this.'
" I would have paid no attentioin to this question, but on the same page I
found the following reply, which perfectly suited this Dr. Hammond ; and he
has either arranged it so as to be a reply to the above question, or it may be
that it is an arrangement of Dr. Carpenter's. I am sorry to say that Dr.
Carpenter is not innocent, as regards these little arrangements to suit his own
convenience. Hammond says :
" ' But, as these lines are being written, the true ' (save the mark !)
' explanation comes to hand, showing that both Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare
suffered from a hallucination. In an interesting paper, Dr. Carpenter,
evidently referring to the account of Lord Lindsay, says, " A whole party of
believers will affirm that they saw Mr. Home float out of one window and in
at another, while a single honest sceptic declares that Mr. Home was sitting
in his chair all the time." This " honest sceptic " is probably the cousin
incidentally mentioned by Lord Lindsay. It is scarcely necessary to pursue the
inquiry further.'
" Under ordinary circumstances, I would have paid no attention even to
this, but in December, 1876, Dr. Carpenter, at the London Institution, made a
statement so utterly at variance with the truth that it is just as well to remind
him that, whatever his peculiar prejudices may be, he does wrong in stooping
to falsehoods. I give you his words, as reported in the public prints : ' Mr.
Crookes had admitted that . . . Mr. Home having exhibited marvels, Mr.
Crookes afterwards devised scientific tests, but the marvels were no longer
shown. That was Mr. Crookes' statement.' Mr. Crookes never made such a
statement, 1 and it is a most audacious and wilful falsehood on the part of Dr.
Carpenter to have said so.
" You will fully understand why I wish a reply to this. You have read the
statement as given to the world by Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare. Is it, or
is it not, a simple and concise statement of the facts just as they took place?
" I am well pleased that this question should have been asked while you
were here to give your testimony. Else these would-be great men who
condescend to untruthful statements might have found those capable of giving
credence to their inventions. Ever yours, " D. D. HOME."
Captain Wynne's reply to the above letter of Mr. Home is before
me as I write. It will be observed from it that he had already publicly
contradicted Dr. Carpenter's mendacious reference to him:
" Feb. 2, '77.
" DEAR DAN, Your letter has just come before me. I remember that Dr.
Carpenter wrote some nonsense about that trip of yours along the side of the
house in Ashley Place. I wrote to the Medium to say that I was present and
a witness. Now, I don't think that anyone who knows me would for one
1 For proofs of the absolute untruth of this assertion of Dr. Carpenter's, see
the chapter of this work that treats of the experiments of Mr. Crookes.
M
i;o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
moment say that I was a victim to hallucination or any other humbug of the
kind. The fact of your having gone out of the window and in at the other I
can swear to; but what is the use of trying to convince men who won't
believe anything not even if they see it. I don't care a straw whether Dr.
Carpenter or Mr. Hammond believe me or not it does not prevent the fact
having occurred. But this I will say, that if you are not to believe the'
corroborative evidence of three unimpeached witnesses, there would be an end
to all justice and courts of law. . . . Ever yours, " C. WYNNE.
" P.S. Honest, but not a sceptic."
By which postscript Captain Wynne meant that, like Lord Adare
and Lord Lindsay, he believed the testimony of his eyesight. He was
precisely the kind of witness whose testimony Dr. Carpenter would
have accepted with rapture, had it been unfavourable to Mr. Home
a frank soldier and gentleman, with no bias towards Spiritualism, but
who, happening to have been present with Lords Adare and Lindsay
on the occasion of Home's remarkable levitation, candidly added his
testimony to theirs.
In face of his letter, what becomes of the reputation of the Vice-
President of the Royal Society for common candour? Dr.
Carpenter had a perfect right, if he thought it consistent with his
reputation as a man of intellect, to propound the astonishing dictum
that, given a hundred persons equally honest, of whom ninety-nine
testified that Mr. Home had risen in the air, while the hundredth
declared he had not, the testimony of the one ought to outweigh that
of the ninety-nine. But what of has conduct in inventing the
" honest sceptic who declares that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair
all the time," and his presentation of this fiction to the readers of the
Contemporary Review as a fact, when all the while Dr. Carpenter was
aware that the anonymous " honest sceptic," on whose authority he
dismissed the evidence of Lords Lindsay and Adare as hallucination,
was himself a hallucination, and the coinage of his own brain ?
In parting with Dr. Carpenter, let me remark that the tone which
unbounded egotism, and the eagerness of a timid man to stand well
with the world, induced him to take publicly on the subject of
Spiritualism and the phenomena associated with Mr. Home was some-
what modified in private. It will perhaps be news to those who have
" read, marked, and inwardly digested " Dr. Carpenter's various
onslaughts on Spiritualism in the Quarterly Review, the Contemporary
Review, &c., to learn that he regarded Mr. Home as an honest man,
and that he not only believed in the continued existence of the
departed, but thought it possible nay, probable that spirits influence
the minds of the dwellers on earth.
A letter has been sent to me that was written by Dr. Carpenter
under the following circumstances. In November, 1877, a young
journalist, who was acquainted with Mr. Home, wrote to Dr.
Carpenter apropos of the lectures on " Spiritualism, Mesmerism,
&c.," that the latter had recently republished in book form. Two or
three letters followed ; and finally, at the invitation of Dr. Carpenter,
his correspondent called on him with a view to further discussion. He
found Dr. Carpenter's private views somewhat inconsistent with his
ENGLAND 171
published utterances, as, indeed, had been already demonstrated to
him by the letter he has placed in my possession. Mr. Home never
saw this letter, and was wholly ignorant that any correspondence
between Dr. Carpenter and its recipient had taken place.
Dr. Carpenter writes as follows:
" 56, REGENT'S PARK ROAD, N.W., Nov. 27, 1877.
" DEAR SIR, I am greatly obliged to you for your letter, and shall be very
glad to communicate further with you on the subject of it. You will have
observed that I do not anywhere call in question the continued existence of
departed spirits, or their influence over living minds. This is a matter
altogether distinct from that of the reality of the ' physical manifestations ' ;
and there seems to me nothing inconsistent with possibility or even with
probability in such spiritual influence. For, altho' Mr. Home and a great
many other persons rank me as a Materialist, my philosophy (as my British
Association Address would show) is much more like Priestley's a universal
Spiritualism.
" I hold myself open to new evidence in favour of the existence in particular
individuals of a power of direct communication of mind with mind, which
would solve many difficulties and clear up many obscurities. But all my
experience has led me to see such an amount of self-deception and unconscious
fitting-together in such revelations, that I distrust all stories that I have not
the power of myself verifying.
41 I always used to regard Mr. Home as an honest man, believing in him-
self ; but I must own that my faith was shaken by the Lyon trial. The
publication of this book " (Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism), " on the
other hand, has given me a more favourable opinion of him ; and you will
have remarked that the only thing I have said in depreciation of him has been
in regard to the ' physical manifestations.'
" Should you be able to call upon me here on any morning this week before
ii a.m., I shall be glad to see you. . . . Yours truly,
" WILUAM B. CARPENTER."
Coming from the author of the bitter attack on Mr. Crookes and
others that appeared in the Quarterly Review for October, 1871, this
letter is a very curious production. In public, Dr. Carpenter imputed
the physical phenomena of Spiritualism to fraud, and explained the
mental by his pet theory of " unconscious cerebration; " in private, he
sees " nothing inconsistent with possibility or even with probability "
in the exercise by the spirits of the departed of an influence over us
who are still on earth.
In private, Dr. Carpenter " used always to regard Mr. Home as an
honest man, believing in himself." It would be easy to collect from
his published writings a dozen passages that impute or hint the
contrary. On his own confession, then, Dr. Carpenter could think one
thdng and say another.
Not only does his letter contradict his published statements, but one
part of it contradicts another. He holds Mr. Home honest, yet he
considers the physical manifestations witnessed at Home's seances to
have been imposture. It would seem, therefore, that Mr. Home was,
in his opinion, an honest man who spent his life in deceiving others.
It is fortunate for Dr. Carpenter's reputation that he went with the
world of his day on the question of Spiritualism. Had he been a
Spiritualist, what severe things would that world have said of him
and of his muddled, illogical habits of thought !
172 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
As Dr. Carpenter never was present at a seance with Mr. Home, it is
obvious that he was incapable of expressing an opinion of any value
on the phenomena, whether mental or physical, that were witnessed at
the seances of the latter. The intelligent reader who has impartially
considered the facts I have here published, will perhaps share my
conclusion that the opinions of such a thinker as Dr. Carpenter on such
a subject as Spiritualism would have been of no great value in any
case.
Mr. Home, who, in 1868, had readily engaged in controversy with
such an antagonist as Professor Tyndall, never took the trouble to
contradict publicly the false statements of Dr. W. B. Carpenter
concerning the levitation in Ashley Place. He considered the inventor
of the " honest sceptic " a foeman somewhat unworthy of his steel.
In concluding this chapter, let me ask the reader, sceptical or
otherwise, what proof of a fact could be more complete than the proof
here given that, on December i6th, 1868, Mr. Home was floated out
of one window of Ashley House and in at another window nearly seven
and a half feet distant? There were three witnesses of the
occurrence Lord Adare, Lord Lindsay, and Captain Charles Wynne.
I have printed here the testimony of all three in their own words. If,
on comparing the evidence of these three unimpeachable witnesses and
finding it identical, the reader still objects : " For all that, I decline to
believe the impossible, ' ' I can only answer : ' ' The thing would have
seemed equally impossible to Viscount Adare, the Master of Lindsay,
and Captain Wynne, if their eyesight had not assured them that it was-
a fact."
CHAPTER X
PUBLIC READINGS SCOTLAND FRANCE
Home as a public reader. Seance at Edinburgh. Mr. Alexander's
narrative. Enormous correspondence. Home's benefactions.
Franco-German War of 1870. His experience at Versailles.
On the Battlefield. Saving a German officer. Story of the
German Sergeant.
THERE is no branch of the dramatic art in which failures are more
numerous and triumph more difficult than the career of the public
reader. In the theatre, scenery and costumes count for much of the
effect produced on the spectator, and often render him indulgent to
indifferent acting. The reader has no such ready-painted pictures to
offer; and, as a consequence, he finds his audience colder and more
exacting than that of the/ actor. When the curtain rises on the first
scene of a play, the interest of the house is already evoked before a
word has been spoken ; but the platform-reader must speak, and speak
to some purpose, if he is to carry his hearers with him. In nine cases
out of ten he fails to do so. The number of readers who weary their
hearers is legion, and, even of those who really succeed in interesting
an audience, how few can carry that interest to the pitch that Home
did. He could not only convulse his hearers with laughter by his fun
and humour, but he had the much rarer faculty of touching them by
his pathos so deeply as to call forth tears. None who heard them
could readily forget his renderings of such pieces as The Vagabonds,
Jane Conquest, The Death 0' th 1 Owd Squire, and Mr. Hamilton
Aide's Lost and Found. I may quote one or two of many press
tributes to his powers of pathos : "His pathetic yet forcible rendering
of The Death of the Old Squire won for the reciter the honour of a
double recall," says the Era of March 2Oth, 1870. " Mr. D. D.
Home, who is now established as one of our best readers, caused a
marked sensation amongst the audience many of whom were melted
to tears by his admirable recital of The Vagabond" (Court Circular,
Aug. 14, 1869).
Besides his wonderful pathos and humour, he had a fire such as few
readers possess, and his rendering of battle pieces was stirring to the
last degree. The usual resource of the reader who attempts martial
poetry is to stun his listeners by the noise he makes ; with Home there
was no noisy rendering, but the power and fire of the reader held his
audience breathless. I have already related the singular tribute paid
to his genius in New York, by the Southerner whose feelings his
impassioned recitation of the Bay Fight had wrought beyond
control. " I don't see how he could help flying^ at you," wrote an
American friend to Home, on reading a notice of the incident in the
174 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
newspapers; " for your rendering brings the scene to life. We see it
with our eyes; and to that Southerner it must have been like going
through it all again."
It was constantly remarked by his press critics sometimes with
approbation, at other times with astonishment that Mr. Home's
readings were ' ' thoroughly natural. ' ' They could not be otherwise ;
for his good taste and his exquisite sense of the ludicrous gave him a
horror of anything ' ' stagy ' ' ; and he would rather have missed an
effect than have obtained it by the means some readers do not scruple
to employ. It is, above all, the amateur of the Penny Reading who
revels in a superabundance of such sham effect ; and it was the fortune
of Home on one occasion to be present at a recitation by one of the
most melodramatic of the species. He added A Penny Reader's
Charge of the Light Brigade to his repertory from that evening ; and
there are none of his humorous pieces over which his auditors have
laughed more heartily.
It was a common thing for him to be made to deliver a reading
twice, and even a third time. " Though only down in the programme
three times, he had to appear on six occasions " (Glasgow Herald).
' ' He was recalled every time he read ; once he had to appear a third
time " (Ladies' Own Journal). Home was fond of relating an
incident that occurred to him in connection with Tennyson's
Grandmother, a poem that was an especial favourite of his, and the
homely pathos of which he rendered with inimitable effect. He read
The Grandmother to a North of England audience, and was
enthusiastically recalled. The poem is long, and the programme of
the evening was long, too; and Home, having made his acknowledg-
ments, was pleading the latter fact, when a man in one of the back
seats jumped up. " The programme be ," he interrupted;
" cut all the rest of it out, and give us the old lady again."
A master of the pathetic, the humorous, and the stirring, Home was
no less successful in the weird. His Raven was a memory to haunt
for days those who listened breathless to his dialogue with the " grim,
ungainly, ghastly" bird of Poe's conception; and the music of the
same poet's Bells could not be more perfectly rendered than it was by
Home. In his last illness he often passed hours in repeating the
poems that had been his favourites ; and only a day or two before the
end came, has doctor, visiting him one morning, found him reciting
The Bells, and rendering their melody with an effect as exquisite as
any that had ever delighted the hearers of former years.
When in the vein, he improvised additions to a narrative with
irresistible effect. The reading that lent itself the most readily to
such treatment was The Widow Bedott, a rambling monologue that, I
forget what American writer, has placed in the mouth of a Yankee
Mrs. Gamp, as she sits by her fireside relating the history of her
courtship to a neighbour, and wandering continually from her
narrative to discuss matters and people that have no relation to it.
When he had ceased to read in public, Home continued to charm his
friends with his readings ; and on such occasions it was his custom,
when he impersonated The Widow Bedott, to make her introduce on
PUBLIC READINGS, SCOTLAND, FRANCE 175
the spur of the moment references to various of the party assembled.
One evening his guests included a clergyman I will name him Smith
who had never heard Widow Bedott before, and who, unluckily for
both himself and the reader, was innocent of any sense of humour.
Home did not know this, or the Widow would hardly have included
the divine among those of her auditors of whom she had something to
say; but, in the belief that he would see the joke, she presently
wandered away from her narrative in his direction, with the remark :
" Phineas," ses I, " thet reminds me of our parson. ' Mr. Smith,'
ses I to him the other day "
" Me! " said the worthy man, astonished. " I beg Mr. Home's
pardon for interrupting him, but surely he must be mistaking me for
some one else."
Home, much tempted to laugh, but thinking that This time, at any
rate, the reverend gentleman would see the joke, answered, as
Widow Bedott: "Ah, deary me! it's them learned men as have
short memories. The many times I've listened to Mr. Smith telling
us we're all poor sinners, and now he ses to me ses he "
But Mr. Smith, more bewildered than ever, had turned to his wife,
who was sitting next him. " Have you any recollection, my dear, of
hearing me say to Mr. Home that we are all poor sinners ? " he asked,
solemnly.
Widow Bedott got no further with her gossip that evening.
Even under the most favourable circumstances, the readings that
Mr. Home gave during the years 1869 and 1870 in London, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Liverpool, and fifty other places in England and Scotland,
would have been an exhausting drain on the energies of a nature so
nervous and sensitive. To the last he retained a horror of the trying
hur that preceded his appearance and his successes; and those who
saw him agitated by the fear of failure, and distrustful both of his
ability and his memory, were astonished when, a few minutes later, he
presented himself before the audience another being, and entered on
the task before him with the happiest ease and self-possession. But
the emotions natural to his highly-strung temperament were not all he
had to contend against. The events of the year 1868 had not only
injured his health, but had burdened him with heavy debts that he
was anxious to discharge as speedily as possible. He had a young
son to provide for ; and there were numerous relatives and friends who
looked to him for a continuation of the assistance he had generously
afforded them, and was desirous still to give. Such anxieties would
have preyed on any man ; on Home they preyed tenfold, for he had 1
been constituted to feel both sorrow and joy more keenly than his
fellows. It was, therefore, under conditions the most discouraging
that he commenced his career as a reader; and what efforts it cost
him to present himself night after night to his audiences, and lavish
all his rich resources of humour and pathos for their amusement, only
he could know. But he always faced his trying task bravely, and
went through it with brilliant success.
Among the letters of Mr. Home to Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall that
have been placed at my disposal, there are several belonging to this
176 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
trying time. Written with the perfect simplicity and unreserve that
mark all his letters to his friends, they form a journal of his daily life
that tells, better than any words of mine can, how full it was of care
and struggle. A brief extract or two is all with whUch I shall
supplement my narrative.
From Edinburgh, on January 3oth, 1870, Home writes:
" DEAR FRIENDS, The agent here was very unwilling to engage me, and
told me that readings ' did not take ' that ' Miss was a dead failure,
and that had been hissed off the platform.' At last he engaged me for a
merely nominal sum. ... Of course, knowing that others had been hissed
off, I went on with fear and trembling. I had six or seven friends in the
house, and I truly believe that these were the only ones who applauded when
I came on. Oh, the silence was fearful! I began my piece ' Scotch Words,*
and before it was half over I had round after round of applause, and such an
encore. My every piece was encored, and at the termination of the last they
would not have the singers, and I had to go on three times. I am curious to
see what the papers will say to-morrow.
" I have just learnt such a poem! 1 It is beautiful; above all where he
speaks of the light from a burning ship as it enters the cottage-window in the
dark night :
" ' It shone with a radiant glory on the face of the dying child,
Like a fair first ray of the shadowless day in the land of the undefiled.'
I will not tell you the story, but I know the poem will deeply touch you. I
am far from being well, but the result of last night has cheered me."
Either during this or a subsequent visit to Scotland for the purpose
of giving public readings, Mr. Home became acquainted with a well-
known Edinburgh medical man, a relative of Sir James Simpson. Dr.
Doun was an entire sceptic on the subject of Spiritualism. Home had
not intended to hold any seances in Edinburgh; he went there as
a reader ; but a train of circumstances too long to detail here led to his
becoming the guest of Dr. Doun, and by the doctor's wish he held
several seances in the doctor's house. The result was that the beliefs
of the doctor were revolutionised in spite of himself ; and he became
convinced of the continued existence of the so-called dead, and of
their ability under exceptional circumstances to hold communion with
us.
I could have wished to narrate here some of the experiences that
made the doctor a Spiritualist, were it in my power; but my
knowledge of the facts is limited to the information contained in a
small volume, entitled, Spiritualism: A Narrative with a Discussion.
By Patrick Proctor Alexander, M.A., Author of Mill and Carlyle,
Moral Causation, &c. Edinburgh: W. P. Nirnrno: 1871. This little
book is ably written, and evidently the work of a candid, clear-headed
man a sceptic, but a sceptic who investigated, instead of prejudging.
Mr. Alexander, an old friend of Dr. Doun, attended a seance with Mr.
Home at the doctor's house. He obtained permission to bring with
him his friend, Dr. Findlater, as a fellow-observer. Neither had
previously attended any seance ; both were educated, intelligent, hard-
headed Scotchmen, entirely incredulous on the subject of Spiritualism,
and much astonished that what they conceived to be hallucinations
should have taken such hold of such a man.
*" Jane Conquest."
PUBLIC READINGS, SCOTLAND, FRANCE 177
" On an evening fixed," writes Mr. Alexander, " I presented myself at ihe
house, taking with me (by permission) Dr. Findlater, a man very well known
in Edinburgh intellectual circles not hitherto suspected by his friends of a
tendency to undue credulity in any matter ; a friend, and in some sense disciple,
of Mr. John Stuart Mill ; with a couple of good sharp eyes in his head, and
perhaps as accurate notions as most men as to what may constitute Evidence,
and the conditions of scientific inquiry. We found a small party assembled,
and to Mr. Home we were, of course, introduced. . . . His manners were
simple and quiet, and very much those of a gentleman. There was no trace
in him whatever of the charlatan ; and, except for an occasional wildness in
his eye so slight that I may have merely imagined it none of the Magus, or
seer, accustomed to hold awful commune with spirits, either evil or good. . . .
" I may premise that I cannot readily conceive conditions much more
favourable to Dr. Findlater and myself, as regards the interest of truth, than
those under which this little experiment was made more unfavourable to Mr.
Home, presumed a mere juggler and impostor. Had Mr. Home advertised an
entertainment to take place in a hired apartment of his own, I don't think I
should have cared to go to see him, any more than I ever cared to go to see
Professor Anderson bring puddings out of a hat, or pour liquors from his magic
bottle. But the room was Mrs. Doun's drawing-room, and could scarce in any
way have been prepared by Mr. Home without her or Dr. Doun's connivance
a theory of the matter, in my own mind, and, I venture to say, that of
every one who has ever had the pleasure of their acquaintance, disposed of as
utterly inadmissible, in virtue of the known and high character of both.
Further, it is certified to me beyond question, that the ' manifestations,* as
they are termed, took place indifferently in any or every room in the house,
and most particularly in Dr. Doun's bedroom, which could scarce have been
tampered with by Mr. Home without his becoming aware of it. None of the
company had any relations with Mr. Home, excepting as we ourselves had,
per favour of our host and hostess ; or could thus, any more than we, be
suspected of complicity with Mr. Home. The drawing-room was fully and
brightly lit with gas 1 ; and the table, which was good enough to vouchsafe us
intelligence from the Spirit-world, an old acquaintance, at which I had afore-
time taken tea, undreaming of Mr. Home or of Spirits. If conditions more
favourable can be suggested by any scientific gentleman, I shall be glad to
have the benefit of his wisdom."
For a detailed description of the phenomena witnessed and
searchingly investigated by Mr. Alexander and Dr. Findlater, I must
refer the reader to the interesting brochure of the former. ' ' Both of
us were a good deal perplexed," says Mr. Alexander, " and remain
so as quite unable to suggest any plausible explanation of the
wonders we witnessed. As to the obvious explanation of mala -fides
and jugglery on Mr. Home's part, the only little objection to it is (and.
perhaps may be thought but a little one), that, with our very best will
and care to that effect, and the best opportunities for doing so, we
utterly failed to detect any trace of these whatever. ' '
The host and hostess (Dr. and Mrs. Doun), Mr. Alexander, Dr.
Findlater, and other Edinburgh ladies and gentlemen to the number
of nine, formed, with Mr. Home, a circle about "an ordinary round
drawing-room tea-table, solidly built, and thus of considerable
weight; " and waited some time without any manifestations occurring.
" The first hint or foreshine we had of the ' phenomena,' " writes Mr.
Alexander, " came in the form of certain tremors which began to
pervade the apartment. These were of a somewhat peculiar kind;
and they gradually increased till they became of considerable violence.
1 Italicised thus by Mr. Alexander.
i;3 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Not only did the floor tremble, but the chair of each person, as distinct
from it, was felt to rock and as we Scots say dirl under him."
Ice-cold blasts of air were felt by some of the sitters drifting across
their hands. Mr. Alexander and Dr. Findlater did riot experience this
sensation so frequent a forerunner of other phenomena; but, in
common with the remaining sitters, they heard the rappings that
followed. " Presently, as to the ear it seemed, exactly in the centre
of the table," says the former
" Came a tap, tap, tapping, regular, continuous, and prolonged ; on hearing
which Mr. Home announced that he was now nearly sure we should have
1 manifestations ' of some sort ; and, turning to me, he suggested that, a9
naturally I might wish to test the thing a little curiously, I had better go
under the table, and satisfy myself as to whether there was anything there to
account for what would probably take place. Accordingly though a little
loth, as suspecting a slight degradation in it I performed what Mr. Darwin
would call an act of ' reversion ' ; and, in the enthusiasm of scientific inquiry,
was content, for the nonce, to relapse into the condition of an ' ape-like
progenitor ' or member of the genus Quadrumana. As such, I crept quietly
under the table, and kept steady watch there for the space of ten minutes or
so ; Dr. Findlater, as an observer of the genus Homo, keeping the like steady
watch above. I may remark that the I'ght under the table, though necessarily
dimmer than above, was yet amply sufficient for purposes of clear observation.
For a good while nothing took place but raps, which flew about all over the
table ; and I could indicate, when desired by Mr. Home to do so, the precise
locale upon the table of each rap as it occurred. Meantime, by anything
beneath the table, the raps were entirely unaccounted for ; and Mr. Home, in
particular, had his feet steadily at rest beneath his chair : his hands, as
observed by Dr. Findlater, were quietly before him on the table."
Various movements of the table followed. During their occurrence,
it was certified by Mr. Alexander that Mr. Home's feet were motionless
beneath his chair, by Dr. Findlater that his hands were at rest above.
The former resumed his seat; and the sitters proceeded to try if the
table would become light and heavy at command. Mr. Alexander
describes the result of the experiment:
" ' Be light,' said the operator; and the table, when softly solicited, moved
readily from beneath his fingers. ' Be heavy!' and the table seemed weighted
to the floor with lead, and could only at all be moved by a great expenditure
of force. Every one of the party in succession tried this : Dr. Findlater care-
fully twice ; I twice, with scrupulous care, and invariably with the above
results. On my trying the experiment the second time of course, if possible,
with some additional care and scruple it actually seemed to me that the table
sprang from under my fingers, almost before the initial touch could take the
form of distinct pressure the difficulty of moving it afterwards being well-
nigh, in proportion, great. These results certainly seemed curious, as to
every one present quite unaccountable."
Five raps presently called for the alphabet; and various
communications were spelt out, one of them being from a departed
friend of certain of the sitters present. Other manifestations occurred,
which I pass over, and quote Mr. Alexander's account of the
phenomenon that seems to have impressed him the most :
" Two accordions," he writes, " were on the table, one of which Mr. Home
selected. The instrument, he explained, was not his, but the property of Dr.
G (a gentleman present I had not before met, but very well known to me
by reputation), who had been good enough to bring it with him. This Dr.
PUBLIC READINGS, SCOTLAND, FRANCE 179
G confirmed ; and it is to be in fairness supposed he could scarce be
mistaken as to its being his own accordion. . . . Taking the instrument
in one hand by the end unfurnished with keys, Mr. Home put it under the
table. It almost immediately began to emit sounds ; and, having begun, went
on to play pretty briskly. Guiding the instrument in his direction, Mr. Home
then desired Dr. Findlater to go under the table, and, after careful examina-
tion, return and give an account of what he saw there. Dr. Findlater did so.
He remained some little time under the table, the accordion the while con-
tinuing to sound as before; and then, resuming his chair, he reported that the
instrument held motionless in Mr. Home's one hand his other hand being,
of course, all the time on the table was moving and giving out sound,
precisely as if it were worked by a hand at the other end of it ; whilst, to
account for this phenomenon, not to be questioned, except in so far as his
eyesight might be, nothing whatever was visible. . . . Going down to
make strict examination, I came up in a little to report precisely as Dr.
Findlater had before done. The accordion, held motionless in Mr. Home's
one hand at an angle of about forty-five degrees, was moving backward and
forward, and continuing to play, just as if a couple of hands had beert
manipulating it ; and to account for this nothing was visible. Meantime there
was no hint of a tune in the sounds produced ; they made just such an aimless
monotony as a child, let us say, might produce, amusing itself with the
instrument."
It was at this instant that raps came again on the table, and the
message already referred to was spelt out.
" It appeared," writes Mr. Alexander, " that this deceased Colin Campbell,
a gentleman of Aberdeenshire, had been intimately known to two or three of
the party. . . . Almost instantly after, the five raps were again heard ;
' He docs not forget ' was rapped out by the spirit of the faithful though
defunct Colin ; and odd as it may seem the accordion under the table, still
held in Mr. Home's one hand, played distinctly ' Auld Lang Syne!' (the
reader may laugh if he likes, as indeed to myself, had I not been present to
witness it, such a thing must needs have seemed at once ludicrous and
incredible). The tune was played distinctly, recognisably, and yet withal a
little bunglingly ; and then, as if Colin had suspected a certain deficiency in
his own performance, it was played over again, this time in tones of exquisite
modulation, which moved the admiration of all present."
Public readings and the seances that, wherever he went, he was
pressed to hold, filled up Home's time so largely that he had less of
it than ever to bestow on those thousands of voluminous correspondents
who, by the number and merciless length of their letters, must have
made the postman's knock a horror to him. " I am behind again
with all my correspondence," he writes to a friend. " My head is in
a whirl. This morning brought me in a mass of letters. One is from
Mrs. - , who writes that ' the Dublin doctors are killing her,' and
she sends me what she calls a statement of her case. You will imagine
my feelings when I tell you it consists of sixty pages of letter paper
crossed. Not being very well, I get so dreadfully nervous with these
things that I know not what to do. G - declares that he will
burn all my letter paper, and allow me to write only to you and a very
few others."
" I know," writes Mr. Home another time to Mrs. Hall, " you will
feel for me, and that in your prayers I shall not be forgotten. My
sister is in a very delicate state of health her lungs are very weak.
.... Does it not seem strange that I, who am young myself,
should thus be called upon to see the nearest and dearest pass to the
summer land before me?"
i8o LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
The Russian lawsuit still dragged on, and was likely to do so for
several years more. With the utmost exertions and economy, Mr.
Home could only pay off very slowly the sums he had borrowed to
defray the heavy legal expenses that had been forced on him in
England. Some of his friends advised him to sell his jewels, but he
would not part with them. It was not their value or beauty that
influenced him in this determination, but the associations connected
with these stones. Every ring or other jewel was a testimony to the
fact that the royal donor had learned to regard Home with goodwill
and esteem. Whatever the original scepticism of these high
personages and it is an idle fancy to suppose that their investigations
of the phenomena were entered on in a credulous spirit they had
ended by being convinced of the reality of the manifestations, and had
also recognised that Mr. Home's other qualities worthily accorded
with his wondrous gifts.
I have said enough to show that the years 1869 and 1870 were not
among the happiest of a life that had more cloud than sunshine in it.
But, whatever the accumulated cares and difficulties of his own
existence, Home had always a heart to feel for others, and a brain and
hand active to relieve their distresses. The world knew nothing of
his many deeds of kindness; even those nearest and dearest to him
often knew nothing; for it was his choice to do good unseen, and to
keep silence afterwards concerning it. But among his papers I find
many letters filled with expressions of gratitude and thankfulness.
Now it is a young and unknown artist, for whose brush Home's
generous efforts have found employment; now a distressed working
man writes of his sick wife's life saved by comforts and medical help
that Home had provided ; now a mother thanks him for the start in
life that he has secured for her son.
Home's charity was not the cheap kindness that begins and ends
with the giving of money. That he gave freely of his scanty means,
the letters before me show ; but they bear witness also to many acts of
a rarer and higher benevolence, they prove how much time and thought
he devoted to helping others, when the circumstances of his life would
have led most men to think only of their own needs and cares. There
is, for instance, a letter written to Mr. Home about the date when his
pressing difficulties led certain friends to recommend him to sell his
jewels, and others to offer him aid that was gratefully declined.
The first few words are all I need quote : ' ' Dear Sir,
You must allow me to express how exceedingly kind I feel it for you to
take so much trouble in introducing my work." How many of the
Brewsters and Brownings who misrepresented Home would have been
capable of a benevolence so real, unpretending, and self sacrificing as
this, in the midst of such depressing anxieties as then beset him?
I need hardly say that I have no thought of printing here the
numerous letters in my possession that testify to the active and
constant benevolence of Mr. Home. It would give pain to those of
the writers who are still on earth; and He himself would be the last to
desire that the details of kindness so modest should be vaunted before
the world. These letters must remain in the same obscurity as the
PUBLIC READINGS, SCOTLAND, FRANCE 181
generous actions that led to their being written; but there is one
written to him in the summer of 1870 from which I cannot help
copying a few lines. Probably they will not seem so touching to the
reader as to me, who know the circumstances that called them forth:
" SIR, I have learnt from day to day through my son in London with what
fatherly goodness you have come to our rescue, and proved a saviour to my
poor son, whose sad case is so distressing. No words of mine can convey
sufficiently the gratitude which I feel I owe you for that pure goodness of
heart alone which could have prompted you to it. The future of my poor
son's life will be devoted to rewarding you ; and time, I am sure, will prove
that he is worthy of what you have done for him.
" Again I pray you accept the heartfelt gratitude of an afflicted father, who
can never reward you for your charitable goodness, and but for which the
poor boy could never have been rescued."
The writer of this letter was then ill in the country ; and, I believe,
passed from earth without ever having met his son's preserver. If I
were to relate that son's story, it would furnish one proof more that
the realities of Home's life were stranger than any fiction. But the
fact has already been sufficiently demonstrated in these pages ; and,
except to illustrate it, the history could serve no useful purpose. I
leave it untold, therefore, and pass to other events of the year to which
it belongs 1870.
Very soon after a kindness beyond all price had been acknowledged
in the touching letter to Mr. Home, of which I have quoted a part, he
left England, in company with a friend, for the theatre of the great
war then raging. They reached the German headquarters within a
few hours of the battle of Sedan; and next day Home went over the
field. The sight would have tried any nerves; to a nature so sensitive
and keenly compassionate of suffering as his it was agonising. He was
able, while he followed the operations of the German armies, to be ot
frequent service to victims of the war ; but the months of September,
October, and November, 1870, did irreparable damage to his health.
The spectator of a great war needs a heart of steel and nerves of iron,
and Home had neither.
He witnessed the investment of Paris and the greater part of the
siege, including more than one of the sorties attempted by the
garrison. During his stay at Versailles, he acted as correspondent of
an English newspaper I believe of more than one; but my
information on this head is scanty, and I have only in my possession
one of the letters that he wrote the last of the series, dated November
2jrd. " We are told at least twenty times a day," it begins, " that
we are about to witness one of the greatest events in history the
capitulation of Paris ; and for a few minutes we reconcile ourselves to
this dreadful monotony. The very sight of these spiked helmets
begins to weary one. I am half -inclined to think that there is a strong
undercurrent of sympathy for France, at least in the outer circle ; and
though it would be akin to treason to repeat such a thought, yet I am
convinced that the greater part of the men would be rejoiced to
terminate this starving-out process. . . .
i82 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" I send you the menu of a dinner given to an English diplomatist,
to which I had the honour of being invited. When we sit down to a
dinner like this, the thought of so many within a few miles of us, who
are actually suffering for the necessities of life, rises like an unbidden
Banquo to the feast. I know it does so in my own case, and am
equally certain of its so doing with the rest of the guests."
The remainder of the long letter consists of anecdotes relating to
the siege. The most interesting of them has often been narrated;
how a German officer with his men visited a chateau on which they
were not quartered ; how they destroyed furniture and pictures, drank
the best of the wine in the cellar and spilled the rest ; and how finally
the Prussian officer turned the mistress of the chateau out of her room,
and occupied it; taking his leave afterwards with the explanation,
' ' Madam, when I was a little boy, I have often heard my mother relate
the cruel treatment she had to endure at the hands of a French officer
and his men. I took an oath, even when a boy, that I would take
revenge; and I have now done so. It is unfortunate that you should
have been the victim, but so it had to; be." " Si non e vero e ben
trovato," says Home, in telling the story.
Furnished with a safe-conduct from the German headquarters,
Home came and went freely. I have related in an earlier chapter the
circumstances of his meeting with King William (a few months later
Emperor of Germany), at Versailles, in October, 1870; when, as the
Daily Telegraph correspondent, who was present, wrote to that
journal: " The King promptly recognised Mr. Home, and addressed
him very kindly reminding him of the wonders that he (Mr. Home)
had been the means of imparting to him, and inquiring about the spirits
in by no means a sceptical tone." It was a dramatic incident, that
few minutes' conversation of the crowned representative of force
triumphant with the man who had been so wonderfully made the means
of proving to his contemporaries that around them were forces of
whose existence they had little dreamed.
On two occasions during the siege of Paris probably on more
Home, found himself under fire. The second time, he went under the
fire of the forts after a sortie to assist in removing the wounded. He
came on a young German officer, who had received a bullet in the
thigh and was in imminent danger of bleeding to death. Home bound
up the wound to the best of his ability ; and there being no assistance
at hand, lifted the sufferer and carried him to the ambulance an
exertion that threatened to have cost him his own life from the effect
it had on his lungs, which just then were in a condition more than
weak. His kindness did not end here. He visited his protege
constantly while the wounded man remained in hospital at Versailles,
cheering him and alleviating his sufferings by every comfort in his
power; and, finally, took a cordial leave of him when the young officer
was included in a party of disabled Germans who were sent back to the
Fatherland. The two never met again; but a year later Home
received a long letter from Beyrout in Syria, in which Lieutenant
Sauer related all his fortunes since their parting. I append an exact
PUBLIC READINGS, SCOTLAND, FRANCE 183
translation of as much of this interesting document as I have space to
quote :
" BEYROUT, SYRIA, November 2ist, 1871.
" HONOURED SIR, More than a year has passed since I left Versailles and
saw you no more ; and although I have so long remained silent to one who
alleviated the most dreadful moments of my existence, I now offer my sincerest
thanks for all the bountiful aid you rendered to a poor victim of war, who
was on the point of perishing but for your assistance. Perhaps you will accuse
me of ingratitude for not having written ere this, but sad events have trans-
pired to hinder my good intentions. I trust, however, you will excuse my
neglect when I relate the following events. You may remember the transport
party to which I belonged left Versailles the 8th November, 1870. Although
fearful weather prevailed, five days later we arrived at Nanteuil, where our
privations partially ceased. You can form some idea of the discomfort such
a journey upon rough waggons would entail even upon healthy persons, how
much more to those whose sad condition was aggravated by continual rain
and snow, falling upon partially frozen limbs? Our joy was unbounded on
reaching Nanteuil at finding a Wurtemberg train prepared for the comfortable
reception of poor suffering creatures, who hailed the succour as just in time
to save them. . .
" Towards Christmas I was able to walk with the support of a stick,
although the ball could not be extracted from my leg ; so I carry it even now
in sad remembrance of that memorable day for us Germans. I must here
remark that after a few days' sojourn in Gorlitz, I received the cross which
his Majesty had hitherto only lent me. . . .
" When I again sought my regiment, I heard from the doctor that I was
totally unfitted for further duty, and applied for permission to quit the service.
I could have wished to remain an officer, though no doubt my wound would
have proved a serious obstacle to my progress. Upon casting aside my regi-
mentals, it became necessary to seek some occupation for my future existence ;
and on application I received offers from Beyrout, where I formerly resided.
These I accepted ; so at present I am surrounded by loving friends, who had
anxiously followed my career on French territory.
" Should these lines reach you, be assured that one being on earth is
indebted to you for his preservation, and only longs for an opportunity to prove
his gratitude to one he must ever remember with intense thankfulness. May
I ask you to complete your kindness by letting me know that these lines have
reached you? Hoping some day to thank you personally, I remain, your ever
grateful, " R. SAUER,
" Lieutenant of the Reserve, ist Westphalian Grenadier Regiment."
The " memorable day for us Germans " of which the writer speaks
was one of the struggles that took place in the direction of Bougival,
when the besiegers of Paris were attacked by the besieged. In the
same month October, 1870 another sortie of the French led to an
occurrence that Home could never speak of without emotion.
The morning of the sortie, he had left his lodging with his pocket
filled with cigars, many hundreds of which he distributed at this time
among the troops and the wounded, though I doubt if he ever smoked
a cigar himself. As he passed along a boulevard where some French
children were playing it was at Versailles he noticed a non-
commissioned officer sitting on a bench near them, who seemed to be
talking to one of the smallest. Home, interested by the scene,
stopped as he came near; and was astonished and amused to hear the
grizzled Prussian sergeant chatting away amicably to his small com-
panion in the best of German.
" But, my friend," he said to the soldier, " the boy doesn't under-
stand a word you're saying to him."
184 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" Ja, ja," answered the Prussian seriously, "he understands me
well enough; " and then, patting the child's head and smiling at
Home's look of astonishment: " I have eight of them at home," he
said simply, " the big and the little waiting for the old father to
come back to them."
The words, and something in the way they were spoken, brought
the tears to Home's eyes. He sat down and talked with the soldier;
and when in a few minutes the veteran rose to go: " Stop," said
Home, pulling out a handful of cigars ; ' ' here is something to help
you to pass the time, sergeant."
The same day the besieged attacked the German positions near
Buzenval. When the skirmish was over, and the French columns
were retreating on Paris, Home joined a party that went out to seek
the wounded. On the battlefield, they came on his acquaintance the
sergeant again dead. The cigars were in his pocket still. But the
hand that had placed them there was already cold ; and as the search-
ing party turned away to look for those who were not past help, Home
thought of the bench where he had sat only a few hours before with
the brave sergeant at Versailles, and seemed still to hear him speaking
of his German home and the children who were waiting his return.
Of the many miseries of war that he witnessed during the great
siege, there was none that he remembered with a sadder heart.
CHAPTER XI
ENGLAND: SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE
The Investigation of Professor Crookes. Rigid tests. Wild theory
of Professor Balfour Stewart. The evidence of recording
instruments. Matter through matter. Materialised hands. A
reversal of the law of gravity. Refusal of organised Science to
investigate. Their mediaeval attitude. Dr. Higgins in public
and in private. Sergeant Cox, O.C. Dr. Carpenter in the
Quarterly Review.
" VIEWS or opinions I cannot be said to possess on a subject I do not
pretend to understand."
Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., published this declaration in July, 1870,
shortly after the announcement had been made in the Athenceum that
he was commencing a scientific investigation of Spiritualism. As
nineteen-twentieths of mankind come by their opinions in the manner
of the historic jury that proposed to return its verdict without hearing
the evidence, the public naturally concluded that Mr. Crookes shared
this common weakness of humanity, and he was deluged with letters
inquiring what his opinions of Spiritualism were. By way of general
response, he published a short article, Spiritualism Viewed by the
Light of Modern Science, that opens with the explanation above
quoted.
" I consider it the duty of scientific men who have learnt exact modes of
working," Mr. Crookes continued, " to examine phenomena which attract the
attention of the public, in order to confirm their genuineness, or to explain, if
possible, the delusions of the honest, and to expose the tricks of deceivers. . . .
" In the present case, I prefer to enter upon the inquiry with no preconceived
notions whatever as to what can or cannot be, but with all my senses alert
and ready to convey information to the brain ; believing, as I do, that we have
by no means exhausted all human knowledge or fathomed the depths of all the
physical forces.
" The modes of reasoning of scientific men appear to be generally misunder-
stood by Spiritualists with whom I have conversed ; and the reluctance of the
trained scientific mind to investigate this subject is frequently ascribed to
unworthy motives. I think it will be of service if I illustrate the modes of
thought current amongst those who investigate science, and say what kind of
experimental proof science has a right to demand before admitting a new
department of knowledge into her ranks. We must not mix up the exact and
the inexact. The supremacy of accuracy must be absolute."
After passing some very severe reflections on " pseudo-scientific
spiritualists," Mr. Crookes declares that: " In investigations which so
completely baffle the ordinary observer, the thorough scientific man
has a great advantage." The nature of that advantage he indicates
as follows:
" The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 Ibs. being lifted up into
the air without the intervention of any known force ; but the scientific chemist
is accustomed to use a balance which will render sensible a weight so small
that it would take ten thousand of them to weigh one grain ; he is therefore
185 N
i86 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
justified in asking that a power, professing to be guided by intelligence, which
will toss a heavy body up to the ceiling, shall also cause his delicately-poised
balance to move under test conditions.
" The Spiritualist tells of tapping sounds which are produced in different
parts of a room when two or more persons sit quietly round a table. The
scientific experimenter is entitled to ask that these taps shall be produced on
the stretched membrane of his phonautograph.
" The Spiritualist tells of rooms and houses being shaken, even to injury,
by superhuman power. The man of science merely asks for a pendulum to be
set vibrating when it is in a glass case and supported on solid masonry.
" The Spiritualist tells of heavy articles of furniture moving from one room
to another without human agency. But the man of science has made instru-
ments which will divide an inch into a million parts ; and he is justified in
doubting the accuracy of the former observations, if the same force is powerless
to move the index of his instrument one poor degree."
I omit from my quotation the last of the tasks that Mr. Crookes, in
the name of science, requested the spirits to perform an important
exception. Later in this chapter I will explain what the demand was,
and what the answer he received.
It will be by this time plain to the reader, I hope, that Mr. Crookes
did not approach in anything like a credulous frame of mind an
investigation which he states, in the same preliminary paper, to have
been suggested to him ' ' by eminent men exercising great influence on
the thought of the country." His attitude towards Spiritualism was
absolutely neutral and impartial an attitude that science ought surely
to maintain in investigating any subject whatever, but that Faraday
and Tyndall had failed to preserve. Of Dr. Carpenter's attitude
towards Spiritualism I say nothing. I think I have already proved in
these pages that he had at least two sets of opinions one for the
public, another for himself but both of them contradictory and
illogical.
An often-quoted passage from Lord Lytton's Strange Story seems
to express exactly the temper in which Mr. Crookes began his inquiry.
' I have no belief," Lytton makes the hero of his romance say.
" True science has none. True science questions all things, takes
nothing upon credit. It knows but three states of the mind denial,
conviction, and that vast interval between the two, which is not belief,
but suspense of judgment."
Mr. Crookes, then, until his investigations were completed, had
suspended judgment. Like everybody else who had heard the subject
of Spiritualism discussed, he had his impressions; but unlike the
great body of the world especially of the scientific world he was
able to distinguish those impressions from convictions, and to banish
them from his mind in entering on his task. What they were, he has
plainly stated in the paper from which I have already quoted : ' ' Like
other men who thought little of the matter and saw little, I believed
that the whole affair was a superstition, or at least an unexplained
trick." And that his expectation in July, 1870, was to be able to refer
the phenomena to natural causes, and demonstrate those causes, the
concluding words of the same paper prove : ' ' The increased
employment of scientific methods. . . . will produce a race of
observers who will drive the worthless residuum of spiritualism hence
into the unknown limbo of magic and necromancy."
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 187
The announcement of Mr. Crookes' investigation, and his statement
of its aim and methods, were received by the English press with high
favour. At last the scientific St. George had stepped into the lists
who was to slay the dragon of Spiritualism. The press was jubilant,
and had nothing but compliments for Mr. Crookes. His proved
ability and his high standing in the scientific world were loudly but a
little too hastily extolled by writers who were confident that their
accepted prophet would prophesy as they wished. One leading
journal expressed " profound satisfaction that the subject was about to
be investigated by a man so thoroughly qualified ; ' ' another was
' ' gratified to learn that the matter was now receiving the attention of
cool and clear-headed men of recognised position in science; " a third
declared that " no one could doubt Mr. Crookes' ability to conduct
the investigation with rigid philosophical impartiality ; ' ' and the
proclamation of a fourth to its readers ran in these words: " If men
like Mr. Crookes grapple with the subject, taking nothing for
granted until it is proved, we shall soon know how much to believe."
The history of Balaam often repeats itself; but the world of our
days is not so clear-sighted as the ass of the prophet, and has much
to learn from her. Prolonged and rigid investigation compelled Mr.
Crookes to bless where he should have cursed ; and his late panegyrists
united heartily in a chorus of invective when that eminently respectable
authority, Dr. Carpenter, came forward to deride and calumniate Mr.
Crookes and all who had shared his labours.
For the phenomena, it need hardly be said, had not been witnessed
and tested by Mr. Crookes alone. Often the experiments were of such
a character that at least two observers were necessary to ensure the
scientific accuracy which the principal investigator desiderated. His
chemical assistant took part in the researches ; his brother, Mr.
Walter Crookes, was also present at several seances; and from time to
time Mr. Crookes invited various of his scientific brethren to witness
his investigations and assist in them. The two secretaries of the Royal
Society were asked by him to meet Mr. Home at his house. Both of
them declined the invitation. It was quite within their right to do so;
but really, after these and other refusals, the uncandid assertion that
Mr. Home shunned meeting scientific observers might with decency
have been abandoned at least in England.
Of the various well known men who accepted the invitation of Mr.
Crookes, two names came prominently before the public, those of Dr.
Huggins, F.R.S., the eminent physicist and astronomer, and Mr.
Serjeant Cox. Both the distinguished man of science and the shrewd
lawyer attested publicly the accuracy of a narrative contributed by Mr.
Crookes to the Quarterly Journal of Science for July, 1871.
This record dealt only with the phenomena witnessed and the tests
applied at one particular seance. It was far from being the most
remarkable of the series that took place at the house of Mr. Crookes ;
but he was influenced by weighty reasons in selecting it for publication.
Not only had Dr. Huggins and Serjeant Cox been present, but Mr.
Crookes had contrived for the occasion special apparatus to be
employed in testing two of the most frequent physical phenomena,
i88 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
should they occur; the alteration in the weight of bodies and the
playing of an accordion when no human hand was touching the keys.
In the course of the evening both phenomena were searchingly and
satisfactorily tested.
In dealing with the subject of Spiritualism, scientific critics
repeatedly showed themselves as unfair and hasty as the rest of man-
kind. They did so on the publication of the results of this seance. Mr.
Crookes had taken care to state that numerous other seances and
experiments had preceded it; but his critics either did not notice the
declaration or did not choose to notice it. They accused him of
having rashly arrived at a conclusion on the strength of one or two
experiments hastily performed. How thoroughly baseless was the
charge even a sketch of Mr. Crookes' preceding investigations will
show.
In July, 1870, he published the explanation of the nature and aims
of his inquiry from which I have quoted. Mr. Home returned from
Russia at the end of March, 1871; and immediately afterwards the
series of experiments commenced that enabled Mr. Crookes ' ' to
affirm conclusively the existence of a new force."
The investigation had neither been avoided nor courted by Mr.
Home. I repeat what I have already said, that he was indifferent
whether Science concerned herself with his strange gift or not. He
was perfectly ready to meet' scientific men if they wished it; but he
was by no means disposed to admit that either Spiritualism or himself
was honoured by their attentions, and considered that he best main-
tained the dignity of his cause by preserving an absolutely passive
attitude in the matter, and neither seeking the notice of the scientific
world nor shunning it. He rightly felt, too, that, if the manifestations
were experimented upon, the experimenters ought to be men who
showed themselves capable of approaching the subject in an unbiassed
and impartial manner. Faraday and Tyndall had prefaced their
condescending intimation thlat they were willing to come to a seance
by prejudging the question of the phenomena and insulting himself.
I have in my possession a letter to Home written in the year 1868, at
the time of his controversy with Professor Tyndall, the writer of which
(Mr. Bertolacci) tells him that Tyndall had declared that " if his own
senses were convinced of the reality of Spiritualism, he would deny his
own senses." Was Mr. Home to go out of his way to court " with
bated breath and whispering humbleness ' ' the notice of such
philosophy ?
Unlike Professor Tyndall, Mr. Crookes had the courtesy to approach
Mr. Home as one gentleman usually approaches another by obtaining
an introduction. The acquaintance who gave it was Lady Burton, wife
of the distinguished traveller and Orientalist. Home's absence at
the scene of war, and afterwards in Russia, delayed the proposed series
of experiments for some months, but on his return from St. Petersburg
the sittings began.
In addition to this main series of experiments, Mr. Crookes
investigated the pretensions of various persons claiming to be endowed
with a gjft akin to that of Home. With these researches I have no
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 189
concern, nor am I called upon to offer an opinion as to their value.
I am writing only of Mr. Home, on whom the gift that St. Paul terms
" discerning of spirits," and that Serjeant Cox and Mr. Crookes
termed " the development of psychic force," was conferred in greater
measure than on any other man or woman of his time.
Home imposed no conditions whatever on the investigator, but
placed himself unreservedly in the hands of Mr. Crookes. The
seances that ensued were held in a strong light. Here are the words
of Mr. Crookes:
" Of all persons endowed with a powerful development of this Psychic Force,
Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home is the most remarkable, and it is mainly owing to
the many opportunities I have had of carrying on my investigation in his
presence that I am enabled to affirm so conclusively the existence of this
Force. . . .
" It is a well-ascertained fact that when the force is weak a bright light
exerts an interfering action on some of the phenomena. The power possessed
by Mr. Home is sufficiently strong to withstand this antagonistic influence ;
consequently, he ahvays objects to darkness at his seances. Except on two
occasions, when, for some particular experiments of my own, light was
excluded, everything which I have -witnessed with him has taken place in the
light. . . .
" There is a wide difference between the tricks of a professional conjuror,
surrounded by his apparatus and aided by any number of concealed assistants
and confederates, deceiving the senses by clever sleight-of-hand on his own
platform, and the phenomena occurring in the presence of Mr. Home, which
take place in the light, in a private room that almost up to the commencement
of the seance has been occupied as a living room, and surrounded by private
friends of my own, who not only will not countenance the slightest deception,
but who are watching narrowly everything that takes place. Moreover, Mr.
Home has frequently been searched before and after the stances, and he always
offers to allow it. During the most remarkable occurrences, I have occasion-
ally held both his hands, and placed my feet on his feet. On no single occasion
have I proposed a modification of arrangements for the purpose of rendering
trickery less possible which he has not at once assented to, and frequently he
has himself drawn attention to tests which might be tried." (Quarterly
Journal of Science, 1871 and 1874.)
What could investigator ask more than to conduct his inquiry under
circumstances so favourable to exact research? Here were no
darkened cabinets, rendering necessary the invention of a phosphorus
lamp to bring the eyesight into play at all. The room was always
fully lighted; Mr. Home imposed no conditions, and objected to no
tests. The seances were held in Mr. Crookes' house, the sitters were
selected by himself. " With the exception of cases specially
mentioned," he writes, " the occurrences have taken place in my own
house, in the light, and with only private friends present besides the
medium." (" Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena called
Spiritual.") The italics are Mr. Crookes' own.
Of the ability of Mr. Crookes to conduct an inquiry, especially
scientific in its character, no fair-minded man could have a doubt.
His scientific training had commenced before he was sixteen, and at
the time of his seances with Mr. Home had continued during a quarter
of a century. " My scientific education," he declared in his reply to
the spiteful calumnies of Dr. Carpenter, " has been one continuous
lesson in exactness of observation." His labours have extended over
;
190 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
a wide field of science ; and their valuable nature has been repeatedly
recognised by various scientific bodies, including the Royal Society,
of which he was elected a Fellow so long ago as 1863. Recent
honours conferred upon him by that body will be fresh in the minds
of English scientific readers. The reception accorded by the Royal
Society to the papers in which he detailed some of his experiments
with Mr. Home only demonstrated that scientific men in general are
creatures of their age and share its prejudices.
Not till June I5th, 1871, did Mr. Crookes submit to the Royal
Society a description of certain of the phenomena he had witnessed
in Mr. Home's presence, and of the scientific tests he had applied to
them. By that time a great number of seances had been held. Mr.
Crookes had keenly scrutinised the phenomena witnessed, and had
called in the help of other scientific men to aid him in scrutinising
them. Unsatisfied with the testimony of their senses and his own, he
had proceeded to call in better witnesses still, witnesses that could not
exaggerate or be mistaken. Various of the phenomena he had
witnessed seemd to negative that cardinal article of scientific faith,
the invariable action of the force of gravitation. Mr. Crookes accord-
ingly proceeded to construct instruments capable of registering this
fact, if a fact it were. Having perfected his apparatus, he employed it
again and again; and on every occasion it recorded the fact that
appeared so incredible to him. How incredible it had appeared, let
his own words testify:
" The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary, and so
directly oppose the most firmly-rooted articles of scientific belief amongst
others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the force of gravitation that,
even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism
in my mind between reason, which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible,
and the consciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight and these
corroborated, as they were, by the senses of all who were present are not
lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions."
Lying witnesses, however, some of the scientific brethren of Mr.
Crookes insisted them to have been. Professor Balfour Stewart, for
instance, hazarded the theory that Mr. Home was simply a man
possessed of great " electro-biological power," by means of which he
influenced those present at his seances in plain words that he was a
mesmeriser who could mesmerise at once a whole room-full of
people. In reply, Mr. Crookes pointed to the apparatus that he had
invented and the results that it had recorded. " However susceptible
the persons in the room might have been to that assumed influence,"
he wrote, " it will hardly be contended that Mr. Home biologised the
recording instruments."
Probably Professor Stewart, if reduced to select between this
hypothesis and a confession that the evidence adduced by Mr.
Crookes could not be overset, would have boldly pronounced for the
former, and have declared that he saw no reason why instruments
might not be susceptible to mesmeric influences as well as human
beings.
It is much to be regretted that Mr. Crookes has never published an
exhaustive account of his experiences with Mr. Home. He had
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 191
intended, he wrote in January, 1874, to embody the results of his
lengthy investigations of Spiritualism, or, as he preferred to term it,
of " Psychic Force," in the form of one or two articles
supplementary to those he had already published in the
Quarterly Journal of Science. " However, on going over my notes,"
he adds, " I find such a wealth of facts, such a superabundance of
evidence, so overwhelming a mass of testimony, all of which will have
to be marshalled in order, that I could fill several numbers of the
Quarterly. I must therefore be content on this occasion with an
outline only of my labours."
It may be asked what origin Mr. Crookes attributed to the
phenomena of which he so emphatically attested the existence. He
hesitated to propoun'd a theory at least to propound it publicly. " I
have desired," he wrote in December, 1871, "to examine the
phenomena from a point of view as strictly physical as their nature
will permit. I wish to ascertain the laws governing the appearance of
very remarkable phenomena. . . . That a hitherto unrecognised
form of Force whether it be called psychic force or x force is of little
consequence is involved in this occurrence, is not with me a matter
of opinion, but of absolute knowledge; but the nature of that force,
or the cause which immediately excites its activity, forms a subject
on which I do not at present feel competent to offer an opinion."
And again, in January, 1874: "It is obvious that a 'medium'
possesses a something which is not possessed by an ordinary being.
Give this something a name. Call it ' x ' if you like. Mr. Serjeant
Cox calls it Psychic Force."
This last passage occurs in a paper entitled " Notes of an Enquiry
into the Phenomena called Spiritual." By far the greater portion of
the notes refer to phenomena observed at seances with Home. " 1
speak chiefly of Mr. Home, "writes Mr. Crookes, " as he is so much
more powerful than most of the other, mediums I have experimented
with." A few extracts from these interesting and valuable notes will
convey some idea of the number and variety of the phenomena
witnessed and tested by Mr. Crookes in Mr. Home's presence during
an inquiry extending over several months of 1871.
Mr. Crookes classifies the phenomena in question under thirteen
different headings. The first treats of the movements of tables and
other heavy bodies when the hands of the sitters were laid on them.
This manifestation he dismisses with brief remark.
" It varies in degree," he writes, " from a quivering or vibration of the
room and its contents, to the actual rising into the air of a heavy body when
the hand is placed on it. The retort is obvious that if people are touching a
thing when it moves, they push it, or pull it, or lift it ; I have proved experi-
mentally that this is not the case in numerous instances, but as a matter of
evidence I attach little importance to this class of phenomena by itself, and
only mention them as a preliminary to other movements of the same kind,
but without contact."
More interesting to Mr. Crookes was the remarkable phenomenon
that thousands before him had noted at seances with Mr. Home.
" These movements," he continues, " and, indeed, I may say the same of
every kind of phenomenon, are generally preceded by a peculiar cold air,
sometimes amounting to a decided wind. I have had sheets of paper blown
192 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
about by it, and a thermometer lowered several degrees. On some occasions
I have not detected any actual movements of the air, but the cold has been so
intense that I could only compare it to that felt when the hand has been within
a few inches of frozen mercury."
Passing to that means of communication with the sitters ordinarily
employed by the intelligences at work, the manifestation popularly
termed "rappings," and by Mr. Crookes "percussive and other
allied sounds, ' ' he says : ' ' The popular name of ' raps ; conveys a
very erroneous impression of this class of phenomena." I have
quoted in an early chapter his description of their varied nature.
" With a full knowledge," he adds, " of the numerous theories which
have been started, chiefly in America, to explain these sounds, I have
tested them in every way that I could devise, until there has been no
escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences
not produced by trickery or mechanical means."
Concerning the messages conveyed by means of these " percussive
sounds," Mr. Crookes says very little. A discussion of this most
important subject of all would have led him beyond the scope of his
inquiry, which he wished to limit as much as possible to phenomena
that he could make the subject of scientific experiment. In other
words, he devoted has attention to the physical phenomena of
Spiritualism, passing over the psychical with the remark:
" At a very early stage of the inquiry, it was seen that the power producing
the phenomena was not merely a blind force, but was associated with or
governed by intelligence : thus the sounds to which I have just alluded will be
repeated a definite number of times, they will come loud or faint, and in
different places at request ; and, by a pre-arranged code of signals, questions
are answered, and messages given with more or less accuracy. . . . The
intelligence is sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it
does not emanate from any person present."
Towards the close of his article, Mr. Crookes reverts to the question
of the intelligence directing the phenomena, and narrates the
following occurrence, among others, in support of his testimony that
he had "observed some circumstances which seem conclusively to
point to the agency of an outside intelligence, not belonging to any
human being in the room ' ' :
" During a seance with Mr. Home, a small lath, which I have before
mentioned, moved across the table to me, in the light, and delivered a message
to me by tapping my hand ; I repeating the alphabet, and the lath tapping me
at the right letters. The other end of the lath was resting on the table, some
distance from Mr. Home's hands.
" The taps were so sharp and clear, and the lath was evidently so well
under control of the invisible power which was governing its movements, that
I said, ' Can the intelligence governing the motion of this lath change the
character of the movements, and give me a telegraphic message through the
Morse alphabet by taps on my hand?' (I have every reason to believe that the
Morse code was quite unknown to any other person present, and it was only
imperfectly known to me.) Immediately I said this, the character of the taps
changed, and the message was continued in the way I had requested. The
letters were given too rapidly for me to do more than catch a word here and
there, and consequently I lost the message ; but I heard sufficient to convince
me that there was a good Morse operator at the other end of the line, wherever
that might be."
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 193
Under his third heading, Mr. Crookes deals with the alteration of
the weight of bodies. For particulars he refers to former papers
published by him, of which I shall presently speak, including the
experiments witnessed by Dr. Muggins and Serjeant Cox.
The fourth and fifth sections treat of a phenomenon that has been
witnessed on thousands of occasions at seances with Home, and that
always startled those who observed it for the first time the movement
of articles of furniture when no person was near them. Sometimes
these bodies glided across the floor towards the sitters, at other times
they rose clear of the ground ; the one and the other manifestation,
let it be remembered, taking place in full light.
" A chair," writes Mr. Crookes, " was seen by all present to move slowly
up to the table from a far corner, when all were watching it ; on another
occasion an arm-chair moved to where we were sitting, and then moved slowly
back again (a distance of about three feet) at my request. On three successive
evenings a small table moved slowly acro.s the room, under conditions which
I had specially pre-arranged, so as to answer any objection which might be
raised to the evidence. I have had several repetitions of the experiment con-
sidered by the Committee of the Dialectical Society to be conclusive, viz., the
movement of a heavy table in full light, the chairs turned with their backs to
the table about a foot off, and each person kneeling on his chair, with hands
resting over the backs of the chairs, but not touching the table.
" On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches
and i$ feet off the floor, under special circumstances, which rendered trickery
impossible. . . . On another occasion the table rose from the floor, not
only when no person was touching it, but under conditions which I had pre-
arranged so as to assure unquestionable proof of the fact.
" A remark," adds Mr. Crookes, " is generally made when occurrences of
this kind are mentioned, Why is it only tables and chairs which do these
things? Why is this property peculiar to furniture? I might reply that I
only observe and record facts, and do not profess to enter into the Why and
Wherefore ; but, indeed, it will be obvious that if a heavy inanimate body in
an ordinary dining-room has to rise off the floor it cannot very well be any-
thing else but a table or a chair. That this propensity is not specially attached
to furniture, I have had abundant evidence ; but, like other experimental
demonstrators, the intelligence or power, whatever it may be, which produces
these phenomena can only work with the materials which are available."
On three separate occasions Mr. Crookes saw Mr. Home in full light
rise clear of the floor of the room and float in the air. I have already
quoted his description of these levitations.
Besides the movements of heavy bodies, such as tables and chair-, at
a distance from the sitters, Mr. Crookes witnessed similar phenomena
in connection with smaller articles, the room being always fully lighted.
"It is idle," he wrote, " to attribute these results to trickery, for I
would again remind my readers that what I relate has not been
accomplished at the house of a medium, but in my own house, where
preparations have been quite impossible. A medium, walking into my
dining-room, cannot, while seated in one part of the loom with a
number of persons keenly watching him, by trickery make an accordion
play in my own hand when I hold it keys downwards, or cause the
same accordion to float about the room playing all the time. He
cannot introduce machinery which will wave window-curtains or pull
up Venetian blinds eight feet off, tie a knot in a handkerchief and
i 9 4 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
place it in a far corner of the room, sound notes on a distant piano
cause a fan to move about and fan the company, or set in
motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case firmly cemented to
the wall."
The last of these phenomena, it will be remembered, was among
the demands that Mr. Crookes, in the name of science, had put forth
in his preliminary paper. The remaining tests there indicated by him
as satisfactory were all furnished to him at one time or another during
his seances with Home, with the exception of the last. I designedly
omitted that concluding demand in quoting the others : it was as
follows :
" The Spiritualist," wrote Mr. Crookes in July, 1870, " tells of flowers with
the fresh dew on them, of fruit, and living objects being carried through closed
windows, and even solid brick-walls. The scientific investigator naturally
asks that an additional weight (if it be only the i.oooth part of a grain) be
deposited on one pan of his balance when the case is locked. And the chemist
asks for the i.oooth part of a grain of arsenic to be carried through the sides
of a glass tube in which pure water is hermetically sealed."
No " flowers with the dew on them," &c., had ever been brought
through closed windows or solid brick walls at seances with Home.
Such phenomena generally occur only in absolute darkness. Tha
answer made by the spirits to the last of Mr. Crookes' demands was
that the passage of matter through matter was impossible ; and some
manifestations having occurred at his house that seemed to contravert
this statement, it was affirmed in the following manner :
" The circumstance I will relate," says Mr. Crookes, " occurred in the light
one Sunday evening, only Mr. Home and members of my family being present.
My wife and I had been spending the day in the country, and had brought
home a few flowers we had gathered. On reaching home we gave them to a
servant to put in water. Mr. Home came soon after ; and we at once pro-
ceeded to the dining-room. As we were sitting down, a servant brought in the
flowers, which she had arranged in a vase. I placed it in the centre of the
dining-table, which was without a cloth. This was the first time Mr. Home
had seen these flowers.
" After several phenomena had occurred, the conversation turned upon some
circumstances which seemed only explicable on the assumption that matter
had actually passed through a solid substance. Thereupon a message was-
given by means of the alphabet : ' It is impossible for matter to pass through
matter, but we will show you what we can do.' We waited in silence.
Presently a luminous appearance was seen hovering over the bouquet of
flowers, and then in full view of all present, a piece of china-grass, 15 inches
long, which formed the centre ornament of the bouquet, slowly rose from the
other flowers, and then descended to the table in front of the vase between it
and Mr. Home. It did not stop on reaching the table, but went straight
through it, and we all watched it till it had entirely passed through. Imme-
diately on the disappearance of the grass, my wife, who was sitting near Mr.
Home, saw a hand come up from under the table between them, holding the
piece of grass. It tapped her on the shoulder two or three times with a sound
audible to all, then laid the grass on the floor, and disappeared. Only two
persons saw the hand, but all in the room saw the piece of grass moving
about as I have described. During the time this was taking place, Mr.
Home's hands were seen by all to be quietly resting on the table in front of
him. The place where the grass disappeared was 18 inches from his hands.
The table was a telescope dining-table, opening with a screw ; there was no
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 195
leaf in it, and the junction of the two sides formed a narrow crack down the
middle. The grass had passed through this chink, which I measured, and
found to be barely &th inch wide. The stem of the piece of grass was far too
thick to enable me to force it through this crack without injuring it, yet we
had all seen it pass through quietly and smoothly ; and, on examination, it did
not show the slightest signs of pressure or abrasion."
With such phenomena and others still more marvellous constantly
occurring under the circumstances that he, Mr. Home, had arranged, it
was impossible for Mr. Crookes to resist conviction. And I cannot
too often repeat, for the benefit of the reader who is accustomed to
associate Spiritualism with the idea of darkness, that Mr. Crookes
carried on his investigations with Mr. Home in strong light trying
now one kind of light, now another, with a view to observing the effect
of each. " I have had many opportunities," he wrote, " of testing
the action of light of different sources and colours, such as sunlight,
diffused daylight, moonlight, gas, lamp, and candle light, electric light
from a vacuum tube, homogeneous yellow light, &c. The interfering
rays appear to be those at the extreme end of the spectrum."
In the narrative just quoted, Mr. Crookes speaks of a luminous
appearance that was seen by all present to hover over the vase of
flowers, and of a hand that subsequently became visible of Mrs.
Crookes and another of the sitters. In various portions of this work
I have quoted testimony showing that these apparitions were seldom
visible to all the persons present at a seance. Lord Dunraven
repeatedly records this fact, so does Mr. Crookes. " The hands and
fingers," he wrote, " do not always appear to me to be solid and life-
like. Sometimes, indeed, they present more the appearance of a
nebulous cloud partly condensed into the form of a hand. This is not
equally visible to all present. For instance, a flower or other small
object is seen to move; one person present will see a luminous cloud
hovering over it, another will detect a nebulous looking hand, whilst
others will see nothing but the moving flower. I have more than
once seen, first an object move, then a luminous cloud appear to form
about it, and lastly, the cloud condense into shape and become a
perfectly formed hand."
In view of these facts, attested by Mr. Crookes, Lord Dunraven, and
many other observers, what becomes of the silly fable of mechanical
contrivances ? Will any reasoning being maintain that this theory is
tenable in face of such evidence; and that, when Mr. Crookes and his
friends were observing the phenomena in full light, it would have
been possible for one to mistake a wax cast, glove at the end of a wire,
or other contrivance for a hand ; for another to fail to see anything,
and for a third to behold the contrivance as a luminous cloud con-
densing gradually into a perfectly formed hand ?
Only when fully formed, says Mr. Crookes, did the spirit-hand
become visible to all present. "It is not always a mere form," he
writes, "but sometimes appears perfectly life like and graceful, the
fingers moving and the flesh apparently as human as that of any in the
room. At the wrist, or arm, it becomes hazy, and fades off into a
luminous cloud."
t 9 6 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Here is his further testimony to these appearances :
" In the light I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side
table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady ; and on some occasions
I have seen a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand
and carry small objects about. . . .
" A beautifully-formed small hand rose up from an opening in a dining-table
and gave me a flower ; it appeared and then disappeared three times at inter-
vals, affording me ample opportunity of satisfying myself that it was as real
in appearance as my own. This occurred in the light in my own room, whilst
I was holding the medium's hands and feet.
" At another time a finger and thumb were seen to pick the petals from a
flower in Mr. Home's button-hole, and lay them in front of several persons
who were sitting near him.
" A hand has repeatedly been seen by myself and others playing the keys of
an accordion, both of the medium's hands being visible at the same time, and
sometimes being held by those near him.
" To the touch, the hand sometimes appears icy-cold and dead, at other
times warm and life-like, grasping my own with the firm pressure of an old
friend."
Did Mr. Crookes, it will be asked, resort to no decisive means to
assure himself of the unearthly nature of these apparitions ? Yes.
" I have retained one of these hands in my own," he wrote,
" firmly resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle or effort
made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into vapour,
and faded in that manner from my grasp."
At the Tuileries in 1857 a spirit-hand, as I have already related,
lifted a pencil that was lying on the table, and, in presence of the
Emperor and Empress, wrote on a sheet of paper the single word
" Napoleon." Mr. Crookes, during a seance in 1871, expressed the
desire to witness a similar phenomenon. The result was the
manifestation thus described by him :
' ' A good failure,' " he writes, " ' often teaches more than the most suc-
cessful experiment.' It took place in the light, in my own room, with only a
few private friends and Mr. Home present. Several circumstances, to which I
need not further allude, had shown that the power that evening was strong.
I therefore expressed a wish to witness the actual production of a written
message such as I had heard described a short time before by a friend.
Immediately an alphabetic communication was made as follows : ' We will
try.' A pencil and some sheets of paper had been lying on the centre of the
table ; presently the pencil rose up on its point, and, after advancing by hesitat-
ing jerks to the paper, fell down. It then rose, and again fell. A third time
it tried, but .with no better result. After three unsuccessful attempts, a small
wooden lath which was lying near upon the table slid towards the pencil, and
rose a few inches from the table ; the pencil rose again, and propping itself
against the lath, the two together made an effort to mark the paper. It fell,
and then a joint effort was again made. After a third trial the lath gave it
up and moved back to its place, the pencil lay as it fell across the paper, and
an alphabetic message told us ' We have tried to do as you asked, but our
power is exhausted.' '
The appearance of the full human figure was as rare as apparitions
of hands were frequent. The Why is easy to indicate. By whatever
means spirits produced these impressions on the senses of sight and
touch, it is obvious that to make a hand visible would be a work of less
difficulty to the intelligences operating than to render manifest the full
form. When the latter did appear, it was under conditions that
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 197
rendered the thought of trickery impossible. There was no darkened
recess with a ' ' medium ' ' shut inside to operate the production of a
"materialised spirit " at his leisure. There among the observers sat
Home ; and there, distinct and separate from him, stood the phantom.
Mr. Crookes' testimony concerning the phantom forms beheld by
him is as follows :
" These are the rarest of the phenomena I have witnessed. The conditions
requisite for their appearance appear to be so delicate, and such trifles inter-
fere with their production, that only on very few occasions have I witnessed
them under satisfactory test conditions. I will mention two of these cases.
" In the dusk of the evening, during a seance with Mr. Home at my house,
the curtains of a window about eight feet from Mr. Home were seen' to move.
A dark, shadowy, semi-transparent form, like that of a man, was then seen
by all present standing near the window, waving the curtain with his hand.
As we looked, the form faded away and the curtains ceased to move.
" The following is a still more striking instance. A phantom form came
from the corner of the room, took an accordion in its hand, and then glided
about the room playing the instrument. The form was visible to all present
for many minutes, Mr. Home also being seen at the same time. Coming
rather close to a lady who was sitting apart from the rest of the company,
she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished."
I have now summarised a few and only a few of the experiences
of Mr. Crookes, as related by himself. In view of them, it was not
surprising that he should write to Mr. Home on April izth, 1871 :
' ' What a wonderful seance it was last night ! The more I think of
it, the more impressed I am with its extraordinary character. Pray do
not hesitate to mention me as one of the firmest believers in you. Half
a dozen such seances as that, with a few picked scientific men (I have
the list of eligibles already drawn out), and the scientific recognition of
these truths would be as undoubted as are the facts of electricity."
The " eligibles," with hardly an exception, declined the invitation
of Mr. Crookes to co-operate in his researches.
" I confess," he told the readers of the Quarterly Journal of Science, in
July, 1871, " I am surprised and pained at the timidity or apathy shown by
scientific men in reference to this subject. Some little time ago, when an
opportunity for examination was first presented to me, I invited the co-opera-
tion of seme scientific friends in a systematic investigation ; but I soon found
that to obtain a scientific committee for the investigation of this class of facts
was out of the question, and that I must be content to rely on my own-
endeavours, aided by the co-operation from time to time of a few scientific
and learned friends who were willing to join in the inquiry. I still feel that
it would be better were such a committee of known men to be formed, who
would meet Mr. Home in a fair and unbiassed manner, and I would gladly
assist in its formation ; but the difficulties in the way are great."
They proved insuperable, but they were raised by Science, not by
Mr. Home. In default of a regular committee, Mr. Crookes called
to ftis aid the scientific and learned friends to whom he refers. Only
the names of Dr. Huggins and Mr. Serjeant Cox came before the
public, and these in connection with only a single seance of several at
which these two well-known men had been present. That seance was,
as I have said, selected for publication because of the searching tests
that had been applied to the phenomena observed.
198 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
" In the afternoon," wrote Mr. Crookes, " I called for Mr. Home
at his apartments, and when there he suggested that, as he had to
change his dress, perhaps I should not object to continue our
conversation in his bedroom. I am therefore enabled to state
positively that no machinery, apparatus, or contrivance of any sort was
secreted about his person."
The two then proceeded to the house of Mr. Crookes. The
investigators who were present that evening consisted of Dr. Huggins,
F.R.S., Mr. Serjeant Cox, Mr. William Crookes, F.R.S., his brother
Mr. Walter Crookes, and his chemical assistant.
To test the playing of the accordion, should that phenomenon
occur, Mr. Crookes had prepared a cage consisting of a drum-shaped
wooden frame, with insulated copper wire wound round it. The strands
of wire were then firmly netted together with string, " so as to form, ' '
says Mr. Crookes, " meshes rather less than two inches long by one
inch high. The height of this cage was such that it would just slip
under my dining table, but be too close to the top to allow of the hand
being introduced into the interior, or to admit of a foot being pushed
underneath it. In another room were two Grove's cells, wires being
led from them into the dining-room for connection, if desirable, with
the wire surrounding the cage."
The accordion had been provided by Mr. Crookes. " It was a
new one," he writes, " having been purchased by myself for the
purpose of these experiments. Mr. Home had neither handled nor
seen the instrument before the commencement of the test-experi-
ments. ' '
To test another frequent phenomenon, the alteration of the weight
of bodies, Mr. Crookes had fitted up an apparatus the salient feature
of which was a mahogany board three feet long.
" At each end a strip of mahogany i^ inches wide was screwed on, forming
feet. One end of the board rested on a firm table, whilst the other end was
supported by a spring balance hanging from a substantial tripod stand. The
balance was fitted with a self-registering index, in such a manner that it would
record the maximum weight indicated by the pointer. The apparatus was
adjusted so that the mahogany board was horizontal, its foot resting flat on
the support. In this position its weight was 3 Ibs., as marked by the pointer
of the balance." (Quarterly Journal of Science, July, 1871.)
ft was designed by the constructor of this apparatus that Mr. Home
should place his finger-tips on that end of the mahogany board which
rested on the table. If the index of the balance then descended, it
would be conclusively demonstrated that muscular force was not the
agent at work, since no pressure applied by Mr. Home's fingers to the
end of the board farthest from the balance could cause the index to
descend.
Both the cage and the other apparatus had been constructed without
any intimation of their nature being communicated to Mr. Home
" Before Mr. Home entered the room," says Mr. Crookes, "the
apparatus had been arranged in position, and he had not even the
object of some parts of it explained before sitting down."
The experiment with the accordion was first tried. The room was
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 199
fully lighted with gas. Mr. Home sat in a low easy chair at the side
of the table.
" In front of him under the table," says Mr. Crookes, " was the aforesaid
cage, one of his legs being on each side of it. I sat close to him on his left,
and another observer sat close to him on his right. . . . When anything
of importance was occurring, the observers on each side of Mr. Home kept
their feet respectively on his feet, so as to be able to detect the slightest move-
ment.
" Mr. Home took the accordion between the thumb and middle finger of
one hand at the opposite end to the keys. Having previously opened the bass
key myself, and the cage being drawn from under the table so as just to allow
the accordion to be passed in with its keys downwards, it was pushed back
as close as Mr. Home's arm would permit, but without hiding his hand from
those next to him."
Presently the accordion played.
" Dr. Huggins now looked under the table, and said that Mr. Home's hand
appeared quite still, whilst the accordion was moving about emitting distinct
sounds.
" Mr. Home still holding the accordion in the usual manner in the cage,
his feet being held by those next him, and his other hand resting on the table,
we heard distinct and separate notes sounded in succession, and then a simple
air was played. As such a result could only have been produced by the various
keys of the instrument being acted upon in harmonious succession, this was
considered by those present to be a crucial experiment. But the sequel was
still more striking.
" Mr. Home removed his hand altogether from the accordion, and taking
his hand quite out of the cage, placed it in the hand of the person next to
him." His other hand remained on the table. " The instrument," writes
Mr. Crookes, " then continued to play, no person touching it and no hand
being near it."
The current from the battery was now passed round the insulated
wire of the cage. The accordion again played. Mr. Home a second
time removed his hand from it, and laid that hand upon the table,
where it was taken by the observer next to him.
" Both his hands," says Mr. Crookes, " were now seen by all present. I
and two of the others present saw the accordion distinctly floating about inside
the cage with no visible support.
" Mr. Home presently re-inserted his hand in the cage and again took hold
of the accordion. It then commenced to play, at first chords and runs, and
afterwards a well-known sweet and plaintive melody, which it executed per-
fectly in a very beautiful manner. Whilst this tune was being played, I
grasped Mr. Home's arm, below the elbow, and gently slid my hand down it
until I touched the top of the accordion. He was not moving a muscle. His
other hand was on the table, visible to all, and his feet were under the feet
of those next to him.
" Having met with such striking results in the experiments with the
accordion in the cage, we turned to the balance apparatus."
I have already quoted Mr. Crookes' description of that apparatus.
It is figured by woodcuts in his pages, as also are the experiments
with the accordion.
" Mr. Home," writes Mr. Crookes, " placed the tips of his fingers lightly
on the extreme end of the mahogany board which was resting on the support,
whilst Dr. Huggins and myself sat, one on each side of it, watching for any
effect which might be produced. Almost immediately the pointer of the
balance was seen to descend. After a few seconds it rose again. This move-
ment was repeated several times, as if by successive waves of the Psychic
Force."
200 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Only the scientific reader can fully appreciate the impression made
by this phenomenon on the little party of scientific men observing it.
Here was a downward pull applied to the balance before their eyes,
when the conditions rendered it impossible for Mr. Home to make the
index of that balance descend.
The board was arranged perfectly horizontally. The wooden foot
screwed beneath it and resting on the table was i inches wide.
Across the upper surface of the board, at the same distance of i
inches from the end, Mr. Crookes, with the acquiescence of Dr.
Huggins, drew a line in pencil. Beyond this line Mr. Home's fingers
were not at any time advanced.
" Now, the wooden foot," writes Mr. Crookes, " being also i^ inches wide,
and resting flat on the table, it is evident that no amount of pressure exerted
within this space of ij inches could produce any action on the balance.
" Again, it is also evident that when the end furthest from Mr. Home sank,
the board would turn on the further edge of this foot as on a fulcrum. The
arrangement was consequently that of a see-saw, 36 inches in length, the
fulcrum being i inches from one end ; were he, therefore, to have exerted a
downward pressure, it would have been in opposition to the force which was
causing the other end of the board to move down."
In other words, it would have been as easy for Mr. Home to have
caused his chair to rise into the air by sitting on it, as to have caused
the index of the balance to descend by pressing on that end of the
board where his fingers rested.
When the descent of the balance was noted,
" Mr. Home of his own accord took," writes Mr. Crookes, " a small hand-
bell and a little card match-box, which happened to be near, and placed one
under each hand, to satisfy us, as he said, that he was not producing the
downward pressure. The very slow oscillation of the spring balance became
more marked, and Dr. Huggins, watching the index, said that he saw it
descend to 65 Ibs. The normal weight of the board as so suspended being
3 Ibs., the additional downward pull was therefore 3^ Ibs. On looking imme-
diately afterwards at the automatic register, we saw that the index had at
one time descended as low as 9 Ibs., showing a maximum pull of 6 Ibs. upon
a board whose normal weight was 3 Ibs."
Wishing to try whether it were possible to produce much effect on
the spring balance by pressure on that end of the board where Mr.
Home's fingers had rested, Mr. Crookes stood on one foot at the end
of the board. Dr. Huggins watched the index of the balance, and
recorded that the whole weight of Mr. Crookes' body (140 Ib.) when
thus applied only sank the index i Ib., and when he jerked up and
down 2lb. And this result was only obtained because the foot of Mr.
Crookes extended beyond the fulcrum, which the fingers of Mr. Home
had never passed.
"Mr. Home had been sitting in a low easy chair," adds Mr.
Crookes, " and could not, had he tried his utmost, have exerted any
material influence on the results. I need scarcely add that his feet
as well as his hands were closely guarded by all in the room. This
experiment appears to me more striking, if possible, than the one with
the accordion."
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 201
On putting into the form of an article the notes of these facts made
at the time, Mr. Crookes sent proofs of his paper to Dr. Huggins and
Mr. Serjeant Cox. The former attested as follows the correctness of
the statements it contained :
" June 9, 1871.
" DEAR MR. CROOKES, Your proof appears to me to contain a correct
statement of what took place in my presence at your house. My position at
the table did not permit me to be a witness to the withdrawal of Mr. Home's
hand from the accordion, but such was stated to be the case at the time by
yourself and by the person sitting on the other side of Mr. Home.
" The experiments appear to me to show the importance of further investiga-
tion, but I wish it to be understood that I express no opinion as to the cause
of the phenomena which took place. Yours very truly,
" WILLIAM HUGGINS."
Being intended for publication, the expressions of Dr. Huggins
were naturally weighed by him with the utmost caution. He wished,
if possible, to give his testimony to facts without offending the in-
grained prejudices of the scientific world. But " no man can serve
two masters "; and Dr. Carpenter, in the name of the world of
science, attacked his brother F.R.S. as venomously as if Dr. Huggins
had stated a belief that the phenomena were the work of disem-
bodied spirits.
In private, Dr. Huggins was more outspoken. " I saw Huggins
yesterday," writes Mr. Crookes to Mr. Home on July i8th, 1871.
"He has been doing good work with his tongue. Although a
coward with his pen, he is as bold as a lion in talking."
In a lengthy letter to Mr. Crookes, Mr. Serjeant Cox not only
attested in his turn the exactitude of the account of the experiments
furnished by the principal investigator, but proceeded to theorise as
to the origin of the phenomena which neither of the two scientific
observers had done. I extract a portion of the learned Serjeant's
testimony :
" June 8, 1871.
" MY DEAR SIR, Having been present, for the purpose of scrutiny, at the
trial of the experiments reported in this paper, I readily bear my testimony to
the perfect accuracy of your description of them, and to the care and caution
with which the various crucial tests were applied.
" The results appear to me conclusively to establish the important fact that
there is a force proceeding from the nerve-system capable of imparting motion
and weight to solid bodies within the sphere of its influence. . . .
" I venture to suggest that the force be termed the Psychic Force; and the
persons in whom it is manifested in extraordinary power Psychics.
" Permit me, also, to propose the early formation of a Psychological Society,
purposely for the promotion of the study of that hitherto neglected Science.
I am, &c., " EDVVD. WM. Cox."
I believe the Society now flourishing under the name suggested by
Serjeant Cox owes its origin to his efforts. He devoted much time
to the investigation of the phenomena, and Mr. Home, at his
entreaty, held several seances at the learned Serjeant's residence.
At one of these a person of the name of Spiller was present, who,
on the publication of Mr. Crookes' papers, darkly intimated in the
columns of the Echo that " an' he would " etc. Pressed by
o
202 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Mr. Crookes to explain, Mr. Spiller made several assertions concern-
ing the seance at the house of Mr. Serjeant Cox. Not only did
they furnish no explanation of the phenomena, but one and all were
easily proved by Mr. Crookes to be direct misstatements of fact,
conflicting with Mr. Spiller's own declaration at the time of the
seance. The most important was that a light, assumed to be a
spirit-light, had been seen playing about Mr. Home's hands. It
was a reflection, said the veracious Mr. Spiller, " from the shining
surface of Mr. H.'s monster locket." In reply, Mr. Crookes
showed that no one but Mr. Spiller himself had spoken of having
seen this light. It would have been strange indeed if more candid
inquirers had seen it ; for the locket (which still exists) is not only
small, but is of dull platinum. It is so covered on both sides
with ornamental engraving, " that," writes Mr. Crookes, in dis-
cussing Mr. Spiller's statements, " there is not a particle of polished
platinum about it. I have," he adds, " carefully examined the
optical properties of this locket. Tested in an accurate photometer,
the reflecting power of each side is found to be equal to that of a
silvered glass speculum less than one-tenth of an inch square."
Such were the weapons with which an attack on the testimony of
Mr. Crookes was conducted by a person professing to be a scientific
controversialist !
Were it worth while, I might here show, from the letters of Ser-
jeant Cox to Mr. Home, that the former had many experiences at
seances with Home which he found his theory of "psychic force"
quite insufficient to explain. Always, when this was the case, the
learned Serjeant proceeded to supp 1 ement his pet hypothesis by other
theories, some sober, a few wild. He was a typical representative
of a class of persons not uncommon, who are better fitted to observe
facts than to deduce inferences from them. Mr. Serjeant Cox, un-
truly styled by Dr. Carpenter in the Quarterly Review an infatuated
Spiritualist, conducted his researches with Mr. Home in a spirit of
keen and sceptical inquiry. He was slow in arriving at conviction
nay, even when convinced, the antagonism between reason and the
evidence of his senses that Mr. Crookes found in his own mind was
equally present in the mind of Serjeant Cox. Under its influence,
he submitted for Home's consideration one conjecture after another
respecting the origin of the phenomena, constructing them with a
rashness in inverse proportion to the wary scepticism with which he
had investigated the phenomena themselves.
I may here mention that Serjeant Cox was present at some of the
manifestations recorded by Lords Dunraven and Adare. "I re-
member' once with you at Sydenham," he writes to Mr. Home in
1878, " seeing a hand in the daylight come over the table and hand
a flower to Lord Dunraven. ... I have never seen any pheno-
mena to compare with yours." Under the date of 1876, I shall
quote an interesting letter written in that year by Serjeant Cox to Mr.
Home, in which the Serjeant avows how entirely opposed to his pre-
judices and preconceptions were the convictions impressed on him by
his seances with Home.
ENGLAND: SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 203
Desiring to experiment still further with the phenomenon of altera-
tions in the weight of bodies, Mr. Crookes planned an addition to
his apparatus. " On trying these experiments for the first time,"
he explains, " I thought that actual contact between Mr. Home's
hands and the suspended body whose weight was to be altered was
essential to the exhibition of the force ; but I found afterwards that
this was not a necessary condition."
Mr. Crookes had already sent to the Royal Society a paper con-
taining an account of his experiments made in the presence of Dr.
Huggins and Serjeant Cox ; at the same time inviting the two
secretaries, Professors Sharpey and Stokes, to meet Mr. Home at his
house. Both declined the invitation. Professor Stokes also formu-
lated objections to the experiment made with the mahogany board
and the balance, based on the assumption that Mr. Home might
have exercised a pressure on the board beyond the fulcrum. In
reply Mr. Crookes showed that, granting all the hypotheses of Pro-
fessor Stokes, a simple mathematical formula gave the amount of
force necessary to have been exerted by Mr. Home as 74^1bs.
"Considering that he was sitting in a low easy chair," continued
Mr. Crookes, " and that four pair of sharp, suspicious eyes were
watching to see that he exerted no force at all, but kept the tips
of his fingers lightly on the instrument, it is sufficiently evident that
an exertion of this pressure was impossible."
In another letter to Professor Stokes, Mr. Crookes wrote : " I
am now fitting up apparatus in which contact is made through water
only, in such a way that transmission of mechanical movement to the
board is impossible; and I am also arranging an experiment in which
Mr. Home will not touch the apparatus at all. This will only work
when the power is very strong ; but last night I tried an experiment
of this kind, and obtained a considerable increase of tension on the
spring balance when Mr. Home's hands were thnee inches off."
The apparatus in which the intervention of water was employed by
Mr. Crookes consisted of the same mahogany board and spring
balance, a large glass vessel filled with water being placed on the
board, exactly over the fulcrum. A massive iron stand, separated
by a distance of two inches from the mahogany board, was furnished
with an arm and a ring. In the latter rested a wide, shallow copper
vessel, perforated beneath with several holes. This vessel was so
adjusted as to dip i inches into the water of the larger glass vessel.
" Shaking or striking the arm or the copper vessel," wrote Mr. Crookes,
" produces no appreciable mechanical effect on the board, capable of affecting
the balance. Dipping the hand to the fullest extent into the water in the
copper vessel does not produce the least appreciable action on the balance.
" As the mechanical transmission of power is by this means entirely cut off
between the copper vessel and the board, the power of muscular control is
thereby completely eliminated."
To the index of the balance Mr. Crookes had soldered a fine
steel point. In front of this a sheet of plate-glass smoked over a
flame was made to travel by clockwork. The mark impressed on
this smoked surface by the steel point registered the results of the
204 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
experiment. The balance being at rest, the result was a perfectly
straight horizontal line. The tension on the balance varying, the
result was a curved tracing.
" The apparatus having been properly adjusted before Mr. Home entered
the room," wrote Mr. Crookes, " he was brought in, and asked to place his
fingers in the water in the copper vessel. He stood up and dipped the tips of
the fingers of his right hand in the water, his other hand and his feet being
held. When he said he felt a power, force, or influence proceeding from his
hand, I set the clock going, and almost immediately the end of the board
attached to the balance was seen to descend slowly and remain down for about
ten seconds ; it then descended a little further, and afterwards rose to its
normal height. . . . The lowest point marked on the glass was equivalent
to a direct pull of about 5,000 grains."
In a subsequent experiment, Mr. Crookes removed the glass vessel,
iron stand, and copper vessel, and placed Mr. Home at a distance
of one foot from the remaining apparatus, his hands and feet being
held. The force proceeding from him still acted on the apparatus,
and the index registered an increase of weight. On another
occasion, when the power appeared to be very .strong, Mr. Home was
placed at a distance of no less than three feet from the apparatus,
his hands and feet being again held. Even at this distance the
power showed itself capable of causing a marked increase of weight.
"The clock," writes Mr. Crookes, " was set going when he gave
the word, and the end of the board attached to the balance soon
descended and again rose in an irregular manner." Calculating by
the diagram that Mr. Crookes appends of the line traced on the
smoked glass, the maximum increase of weight recorded during this
remarkable experiment was, as nearly as possible, lib. 8oz. Troy.
This when Mr. Home was three feet away from the portion of the
mahogany board nearest to him. Could experiment be more
conclusive !
Papers detailing these and other experiments were sent in by Mr.
Crookes to the Royal Society. They were declined without any
reason being assigned for the course taken.
Early in 1872 Dr. Carpenter exhibited to a public audience in
London an experiment which he pretended to be a reproduction of
that conducted by Mr. Crookes with the glass vessel of water and
the copper vessel suspended above. Dr. Carpenter's design was to
show that, in the words of Mr. Crookes himself, the latter " was
ignorant of the merest rudiments of mechanics, and was deluded by
an experiment the fallacy of which any intelligent schoolboy could
have pointed out." A published protest followed from Mr. Crookes,
who conclusively established the correctness of his statement :
" Dr. Carpenter's experiment was not my experiment, but an un-
justifiable misrepresentation of it."
" Called upon to apologise for the wrong he had thus publicly
done to me," wrote Mr. Crookes, " Dr. Carpenter threw the res-
ponsibility from himself upon others whom he stated to have been
his informants. I print the conespondence, and leave it to the
judgment of the scientific world."
ENGLAND : SPIRITUALISM AND SCIENCE 205
That judgment must be taken to have been unfavourable to Dr.
Carpenter, whom even so friendly a critic as Professor Stokes ad-
mitted to have wholly misrepresented the experiment conducted by
Mr. Crookes with the vessel of water.
The crowning and most convincing experiments of the series those
in which an increase of weight was recorded by the apparatus when
Mr. Home stood at a distance from it, Dr. Carpenter and other
Royal Society critics passed over in silence. It surpassed even
their facility of invention to suggest how Mr. Home could possibly
have influenced an apparatus that he had not touched.
In the Quarterly Review for October, 1871, appeared the article
entitled " Spiritualism and its Recent Converts" to which I have
already referred. An edifying illustration of the candour and fair-
mindedness of its author, Dr. Carpenter, was furnished by the fact
that, for simply writing the letter quoted a ferw pages back, his
scientific superior, Dr. Huggins, was designated by him " a convert
to Spiritualism."
One would almost suspect, in reading this Quarterly Review
article, that Dr. Carpenter's anger arose from his looking on Mr.
Crookes in the light of an interloper who had usurped an inquiry that
ought to have been conducted by himself. What is certain is that
his criticisms took the form of a gross personal attack on Mr.
Crookes, Dr. Huggins, and Mr. Serjeant Cox, to which the former
felt himself constrained to reply publicly.
To the facts recorded by Mr. Crookes, and attested by Dr.
Huggins and Serjeant Cox, the Quarterly reviewer had no reply to
make, and attempted none. His plan of warfare was to attack the
experimenters, and not the experiments. "No case: abuse the
plaintiff's witnesses," is, I believe, a time-honoured maxim at the
bar; but whether Dr. Carpenter advanced his reputation by import-
ing such tactics into scientific controversy, I leave it to impartial
judges' to decide.
CHAPTER XII
RUSSIA, GENEVA FLORENCE NICE
Last Journey to Russia. Second Marriage. Testimony of Pro-
fessor Boutlerow. Failure of Power. Second Series of
Incidents. Death of Daughter. Failing Health. The
Artist Waiter. "Most Marvellous of Missionaries."
Seance at Nice.
EARLY in 1871, Mr. Home visited Russia. During his stay at St.
Petersburg he enjoyed the friendly hospitality of Baron Meyendorff,
the father of his old friend, and one of the principal officers of the
Court. He was summoned by the Emperor as soon as his arrival
became known. His Majesty welcomed him with his accustomed
kindness, the remembrance of which was so prized by Home. Several
seances were held at the Winter Palace; but Home followed his in-
variable custom on such occasions, and preserved strict silence as
to the manifestations. A person ge of the Court who took part in
the seances was subsequently more communicative, and related two
incidents that had reference to the Emperor Alexander II, and to
her Majesty, the present Empress. During a seance and in full
light, a spirit-hand opened a locket contrived in one of the buttons
of the uniform that the Emperor wore, and containing the portrait
of the defunct heir to the throne. This manifestation was followed
by tiny raps struck on the button itself, that spelt out a communica-
tion confirming his Majesty's belief as to their author.
In another seance the present Empress received a token of
identity not less striking, by means of a message in Danish from her
grandfather, who addressed her Majesty by a pet name that he had
given her in her childhood, and no one had ever employed but
himself.
The Emperor Alexander II. more than one signalised the favour
with which he regarded Home by authorising him to request some
mark of the Imperial good-will. The only supplication that he
ever addressed to his Majesty and that was granted on the spot
was for the pardon of a culprit, one of whose relatives, knowing
Home's interest with the Emperor, had entreated him to exert it on
behalf of the condemned.
On the eve of this journey to Russia, a forecast of the future had
been made to Home by the spirits. Our marriage realised it ; and
the object of his journey was attained by his gaining the lawsuit in
which he had been involved concerning the little fortune of his
first wife, unjustly disputed with him by the Countess Pouchkine,
the rich heiress of his late brother-in-law, Count Koucheleff-
Besborodka;.
I first saw Mr. Home in February, 1871. Expecting to find a
personage occupied with his own celebrity, I was agreeably surprised
206
RUSSIA, GENEVA, FLORENCE, NICE 207
to meet, on the contrary, a man in whom there was no trace of pre-
tension. A smile of seductive good-humour reflected a winning
nature, and gave a marked charm to his expressive features. His
form and bearing both denoted race. His affable disposition in-
dicated that Scottish nationality of which he was justly proud.
Such was the impression I retained of him after our conversation ;
but at the moment of his being presented to me, I had no power to
analyse my sentiments : I heard only a voice saying to me, " Here is
your husband." Home at the same instant received the same im-
pression. It was so real, so instantaneous, that it did not even
come on me with a feeling of surprise ; and a mutual accord was
established at once between us. The evening closed with, a very
interesting seance; and all that passed at it seemed as familiar and
sympathetic to me as if I had been habituated to these manifestations
of the invisible watchers over us.
It was nearly six years since Mr. Home had been in Russia, and
the society of St. Petersburg besieged him for seances. He held
many too many, for his nervous system had recently suffered terribly
from the scenes through which he had passed as a spectator of the
Franco-German war.
I might fill pages with extracts from letters written to Home by his
friends in Russia; but a series of proofs of the friendship and
gratitude he inspired would probably have little interest for the
reader. I will give, as a single example of this correspondence, a
portion of one of the numerous letters of a valued friend, the
Baroness de Lieven :
" ST. PETERSBURG, March JJ, '75.
" MY DEAREST FRIEND, The blossoms you sent me were yet in full scent,
and I kept them for many days in my room, enjoying their delightful perfume,
that spoke of a better and happier land, where flowers and young lives do not
shiver and fade, deprived of the blessed influence of the sunshine. ... I
was deeply touched by your sending me these flowers for his birthday, my
very dear Daniel ; and I repeat I cannot thank you enough for them. Your
letters are full of such words as nobody but yourself can find for a soul full
of anguish and sorrow. You feel so keenly all that the spirit goes through
in its most cruel sufferings, that your words go to the heart's deepest feelings.
God bless you for it, and make your own sufferings lighter for the sympathy
that you bear to others. How very much struck I was with the vision you
had so many months before the unhappy day that bereaved us of our own
beloved angel ! How miraculous that you should have so well understood the
meaning of all you saw and heard one more proof that it was so ordained
long before the doom was fulfilled. . . . Believe me, ever most affection-
ately, your true friend, " M. LIKVKN-'*
The Baroness de Lieven 's touching letter may acquire some ad-
ditional interest to English readers when they learn that it is not a
translation but a transcript of the original, and a proof of the in-
telligence with which its amiable and gifted writer had studied the
English tongue.
On the 24th of February, 1871, Mr. Home gave a lecture on
Spiritualism. The hall could scarcely contain the audience. At
the close of his address, he related some particulars of a seance
that he had recently held in presence of a distinguished savant of
208 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
the University of St. Petersburg, whose investigations of the pheno-
mena had resulted in a recognition of their genuineness. Home,
with his habitual delicacy, refrained fram naming the inquirer ; and
only added that, if it should prove agreeable to other scientific men
to investigate the phenomena, he would place himself at their dis-
position ; it being of course understood that he was unable to promise
that manifestations should occur. On this Professor von Boutlerow
(of the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg) rose from his place
among the audience, and announced himself as the investigator to
whom the lecturer had just referred, adding that he wished to attest
the exactitude of the account of the seance given by Mr. Home,
whose discretion concerning himself he fully appreciated. This
action on the part of a well-known scientific man, with regard to a
subject so little understood in Russia, was an honourable proof that
Boutlerow possessed the courage of his opinions, and the more
deserving of appreciation from the fact that such courage is very
rare in Russia, as in other countries.
A committee of five scientific men of the University, including
Boutlerow, was forthwith constituted, and a seance appointed for
March iQth. The committee stipulated that it should take place in
one of the rooms of the University, and that a table with a glass top
should be provided by the investigators. This was a novel experi-
ment, but Home raised no objection. Unfortunately, in the
interval occupied by the formation of the committee and its prepara-
tions for the seance, he fell ill, and his power diminished. Frequjent
seances had exhausted him, and the severity of a Russian winter
always tried him terribly. Unwilling to expose himself to the re-
marks that an abandonment of the seance would have called forth,
he kept his appointment with the committee, who were enabled to
verify the fact of his illness. Slight oscillations of the table
were the only manifestations observed, and the investigators, over-
joyed at the failure of the seance, proclaimed the fact to the
world. These grave and learned men were confounded when a
colleague in science gave them the following lesson :
' The explanation of this failure," wrote Mr. Crookes in the
July following, " which is all that they have accused him of, 1 appears
to me quite simple. Whatever the nature of Mr. Home's power, it is
very variable, and at times entirely absent. It is obvious that the
Russian experiment was tried when the force was at a minimum.
The same thing has frequently happened within my own experience.
A party of scientific men met Mr. Home at my house, and the results
were as negative as those at St. Petersburg. Instead, however, of
throwing up the inquiry, we patiently repeated the trial a second
and third time, when we met with results which were positive."
A second seance was appointed with the St. Petersburg committee
which the continued illness of Mr. Home prevented from taking
place. The date of his departure from Russia had been fixed
some weeks before ; and he was unable to delay it. It was his in-
tention to have placed himself again at the disposal of the Russian
1 The italics are Mr. Crookes' own.
RUSSIA, GENEVA, FLORENCE, NICE 209
committee in the following winter ; but before then our marriage had
taken place ; and as I did not cire at all whether the scientific world
was converted or not, and felt very anxious about Home's health,
which over-frequent seances fatigued, I entreated him not to carry
out his intention.
When Mr. Home saw the Emperor Alexander II. for the last
time in March, 1871, his Majesty congratulated him on his approach-
ing marriage, and sent to him a ring consisting of a magnificent
sapphire surrounded with diamonds. We had agreed that the
wedding should take place quietly in Paris; and in October, 1871,
we were married there at the Russian Church and afterwards at the
English Embassy. We visited England ; and in December re-
turned to St. Petersburg, where the number of fetes that were given
to us on our arrival compeletely exhausted Mr. Home.
Professor von Boutlerow sought and obtained numerous oppor-
tunities of resuming his experiments with Home during the visit
that, after our marriage, we paid to Russia, and on the occasions of
subsequent visits. " I am informed by my friend Professor von
Boutlerow," wrote Mr. Crookes in his papers on the phenomenon of
increase of weight, " that he tried almost the same experiments as
those here detailed, and with still more striking results. The nor-
mal tension on the dynamo-meter being 100 Ibs., it was increased
to about 150 Ibs., Mr. Home's hands being placed in contact with
the apparatus in such a manner that any exertion of power on his
part would diminish, instead of increase, the tension."
The result of a long and scientifically-conducted series of experi-
ments was that Boutlerow in Russia fully endorsed the conclusions
at which another distinguished chemist, Crookes, had arrived in
England.
Because the single seance that the St. Petersburg University com-
mittee held was without result, the majority of that committee
assumed that thousands of previous inquirers many of them far
above their own intellectual standard had been the victims of a
delusion. When men of science venture to set up such a colossus
of a presumption, the sight of it may well astonish the world.
But the curious thing with certain of this class of inquirers was,
that when their senses testified to facts that their prejudices denied,
they meekly proceeded to class themselves with those very victims of
hallucination at whom they had lately sneered. Rather than own
themselves convinced, they accused their senses of being liars. The
only credit they took to themselves was that they had not believed
their own eyes, and were, therefore, still philosophically superior
to the foolish people who had taken a fact for a fact. " In
ordinary investigations," ran the creed of these invulnerable sceptics,
" a fact is a fact ; but the facts of Spiritualism are hallucinations.
I did not accept them on your testimony shall I now believe them
because my own senses have turned traitors ? No ! I am hallucina-
ted thou art hallucinated he is hallucinated we are hallucinated
all."
On December 26th, 1872, the Times published a four-column
210 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
article headed " Spiritualism and Science." Its author (unnamed)
had been present at two seances with Mr. Home in London. 1 The
first was the counterpart of that at St. Petersburg; " nothing what-
ever occurred " is the concise summary of the writer in the Times.
On the second occasion he was more fortunate a sufficient reply to
the hypothesis of those who would attribute the former negative
result to the presence of such a sceptical and shrewd investigator.
It is to be presumed that he had not parted with his shrewdness in
the interval between the two seances and he furnishes emphatic
evidence that he had not lost any of his scepticism. I extract a
portion of his narrative :
" The room was at first well-lighted from a gas-burner overhead.
To give a detailed account of everything which occurred would need more
space than we can now spare. Suffice it to say, that the table was made light
and heavy at our wish, that it moved in every direction, that there were
vibrations of the floor and of our chairs, that on Mr. Home holding the
accordion (which we took to pieces and tried, and found to be in every respect
an ordinary instrument) under the table in his right hand and by the end
farthest from the keys, it played a distinct tune, Mr. Home's left hand being
on the table and his feet so raised as to be visible. All other hands were on
the table. At the same time, and under the same conditions, a small hand-bell
was rung in different parts of the space beneath the table. The gas was now
turned out and the two spirit-lamps lit ; these gave a fair light. The raps
became louder, and in the usual method directed us to take a leaf out of the
table. This was done, when the table appeared to float up about eight inches
off the floor, settling down again in a gentle swaying manner. The thin
wooden lath lying on the cloth was seen by the whole party to be in motion.
It tilted up sideways and endways, and then seemed to float backwards and
forwards. Holding our hand three inches, as near as we could guess, above
the cloth, the lath rose three times ; the last time it touched our hand, and
directly afterwards the table jumped and shook violently, and loud raps seemed
to come from all parts of it and of the floor."
The Times writer describes other phenomena ; the most notable
of which was the fact that the accordion played when he held it
himself. " We held it with the keys downward," he relates; " it
seemed to be pushed up towards our hand, and played a few bars.
"We tried," continues the Times narrative, "every test we could
think of. A subdued light, darkened as the evening went on, was
one of the conditions we were obliged to comply with. ' '
Hardly so, I may point out, for, on the evidence of the writer
himself, the room was " at first well-lighted from a gas-burner
overhead," and the movements of the table, vibrations of the floor
and chairs, increase and lessening of the weight of the table, play-
ing of a tune on the accordion, &c., took place while the room was
thus lighted.
1 Note by Mr. H. T. Humphreys : " The writer of the article in the Times
was Mr. Broome, and it was not till it had been in the office for several
months that it appeared, and in criticising his language it is but fair to say
that it was much altered, or we should say, ' toned down ' in the office before
it was allowed to appear. It did much good, however, for a long correspondence
afterwards appeared in the Times in which A. R. Wallace and others took part.
This was suddenly put an end to on account, it is said, of strong remonstrances
to Mr. Delane (then editor of the Times) by certain of the higher clergy of
the Church of England."
RUSSIA, GENEVA, FLORENCE, NICE 211
It would seem that in his secret heart the Times investigator felt
that his determination not to accept the evidence of his own senses
had much more to do with his incredulity than the fact of the light
having been subdued as the evening went on, for he had the fairness
to add : " Mr. Home seemed to wish to conceal nothing, and gave
us every opportunity, consistent with the above conditions tot
satisfying our scepticism By his request, we got under
the table with a lamp a great many times, and insisted always on
seeing his hands and feet, or on having them held firmly. As to
the hand with which Mr. Home held the accordion under the table,
all we know is that on one of our sub-mahogany expeditions with
the spirit-lamp, we saw that hand quite still, and saw the accordion
moving up and down and playing music. . . . There was nothing
during the whole evening except the phenomena themselves to suggest
imposture. We tried our best to detect it, but could find no trace
of it. We searched Mr. Home, and found nothing whatever upon
him but his clothes.
' Yet even with all this," concludes the sceptic of the Times
triumphantly, " we are not a Spiritualist, and do not even believe in
a ' Psychic Force.' ' Of course not. The writer gives a fair and
candid account of what he saw, with the exception of the somewhat
misleading reference to the light ; but he had evidently made his mind
up, once and for ever, that facts can be disputed, when they relate to
the phenomena of Spiritualism. The warfare between his senses and
his prepossessions is amusingly illustrated in two passages of his
article. In the first he writes, " The table appeared to float up off
the floor." When he penned the words, prejudice had evidently got
the upper hand ; the writer distrusted the testimony of his eyesight.
Towards the close of his narrative he reverts to this same occurrence,
and says: "We are certain that the table rose from the ground."
For the moment, reason had resumed her sway; and while writing
this second passage the investigator believed, if but for an instant,
that what his eyes had seen they had seen.
Early in 1872, Mr. Home published that second volume of
Incidents in My Life to which I have made occasional reference.
He included in it the principal affidavits sworn on both sides during
the progress of the Lyon lawsuit ; and would have published the
remainder in a third volume, had his health allowed him to carry out
his intention of continuing his autobiography ; but during the years
1872 and 1873 he passed few days that were free from, suffering.
In April, 1872, we installed ourselves at Paris, hoping to enjoy
there a calmer life than we had led in Russia ; but our hope was
shattered by a bitter trial. In the autumn we lost our child. Home,
who adored our little daughter, was heart-broken by the blow ; and his
health failed more and more. At the moment of her parting from
this world, we, and all the others who were present, heard as it were
a hail of tiny sounds on the pillow where the beautiful little head
rested, and in every part of the room: we heard also the sounds of
music and of voices. The little coffin was laid in a vault at St.
Germain, and Home expressed the desire that he might be buried there
himself.
212 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Following the counsels given to us, we passed the winter at Nice.
From this moment, the health of Home became my sole care. A
complete repose was necessary to him, and I entreated that he would
hold seances very seldom. Change of air and scene were always of
benefit to him; and in June, 1873, he went to visit his friends in
England; on his return we took refuge from the summer heats in
Switzerland.
In November, 1873, Home received news of a young friend whose
acquaintance he had made two years earlier under interesting
circumstances.
Shortly after the fall of the Commune, Home was in Paris; and
while one day dining alone at a restaurant, he was waited on by a young
man who seemed very little accustomed to the calling he was exercising.
One of the impressions that Home so often received came to him at
this moment, and he said suddenly to the young Frenchman, " You are
not a waiter what are you doing here ? "
Seeing the embarrassment that the question caused him, Home
hastened to set him at his ease. His evident interest soon gained him
the confidence of the other, who ended by relating his history. He
was a young painter whom the siege and the Commune between them
had ruined. Reduced at last to the greatest distress, he had preferred
becoming a gar con de cafe to dying of hunger ; and had only been exer-
cising his new calling for three or four days when Home's notice was
attracted to him.
Such a story awoke all the generous sympathies of the listener. He
exerted himself so effectually to be of benefit to his new acquaintance,
that he ended by finding him artistic employment in England. I have
in my possession several letters to Home from his protege, all of them
written in a strain of enthusiastic affection and gratitude. " I ask
myself every day," he writes in his first letter after crossing the Channel,
" if I shall ever have talent enough to prove myself worthy of all the
good you have done me morally even more than materially when my
heart was full of bitterness and discouragement. I thank God every
day for the friend He has given me, and pray Him to bless you
ALEXIS."
In November, 1873, the writer of these words returned to Paris.
Home had just before written to him, and received in reply the letter
of which I translate a portion.
" PARIS, i8th November, 1873.
" MY DEAR DANIEL, The years change you in nothing you are always the
same generous heart, on which it is so good to lean. I cannot tell you how
sad it has made me to learn the state of your health, and now I hope for
better news. Send me a word from the heart that has known so often how to
cheer a friend, who always blesses God for having known you.
" ALEXIS."
The untiring kindness of Home did not always select its objects so
happily. He could not resist a tale of distress ; his only impulse was
to relieve. Ingratitude that would have hardened any ordinary heart
had no effect on him.
We left Switzerland late in December, 1873, and went to Nice. The
following summer found us in Florence, where Home found, as
RUSSIA, GENEVA, FLORENCE, NICE 213
everywhere, old friends who welcomed his coming, and added new ones
to their number. He could not refuse the requests for seances pressed
on him; and several took place while we were at Florence.
Mrs. Webster (an English lady residing at Florence) was one of
the sitters. I extract a few lines from a letter written by Mrs.
Webster to me after these seances :
" I cannot tell how to express to you how much the two seances at which
I have had the happiness to be present have interested me, how deeply I am
moved by what I have seen and experienced, and how grateful I am to Mr.
Home, as well as to yourself, for having had the kindness to accord us these
seances in spite of the critical state of his health.
" He is the most marvellous missionary of modern times in the greatest of
all causes, and the good that he has done cannot be reckoned. . . Believe
me, I am not seeking to say flattering things to him, but I speak from the
depths of my soul and express my profound convictions. Where Mr. Home
passes, he bestows around him the greatest of all blessings, the certainty of a
future life."
We spent the winter of 1874 at Nice, and most of the ten winters
following. The blue sky and brilliant sunshine of the Riviera did
something to lighten for Home the burden of almost ceaseless physical
suffering ; and it was pleasant to him to meet many of the friends of
former years. Among those whom we found at Nice in the winter
of '74-5, was his old and prized friend Count Alexander de Komar.
Count de Komar welcomed his arrival with joy, sought every oppor-
tunity of being in his society, and took the greatest pleasure in
recalling the memories of long-past days in Paris. There was also
in Nice at the time another of Home's friends of 1857, the Countess
Potocka, who often joined in these conversations, and added her own
memories of remarkable manifestations that she had witnessed. One
evening, when the talk thus ran on the seances of 1857, Countess
Potocka earnestly entreated Mr. Home to hold at least one seance
that winter at Nice. A few days later, on December 23rd, we met
to the number of seven at her residence. The circle was composed
of the Countess Potocka, Count de Komar, the Countess de M ,
Mdlle. de Komar, Mons. d'Attainville, Mr. Home and myself. The
salon was brilliantly lit; and on the chimney-piece there were placed,
in addition, two large candelabra. We had no sooner taken our
places round a large table than we all felt a distinct vibration, which
was communicated to our chairs and the floor of the apartment. Five
raps were struck on the table a call for the alphabet; and com-
munications to several of the sitters were spelt out. A small hand
caressed Count de Komar, and rested a little while in his-
I will not describe in detail the manifestations we witnessed, but
will pass at once to the startling phenomenon with the interruption of
which the seance closed.
Mr. Home had passed into a trance ; he walked about the room
with closed eyes, then approached the fireplace an open fireplace.
A large fire was burning brightly on the hearth ; and kneeling down.
Home bathed his face and hands in the flames, as if in water. We
saw his head encircled by the flame in which it was plunged; and
at the sight Count de Komar started from his chair, crying " Daniel !
214 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
Daniel ! " At the cry, Home recoiled brusquely from his position;
and after some instants, during which none of us ventured to address
him, he said, in the low, clear voice with which he always spoke when
in a trance : " You might have caused great harm to Daniel by your
want of faith; and now we can do nothing more." We were not
told what other manifestations the spirits had intended to produce.
This remarkable phenomenon of bathing his face without injury in
flames had been witnessed more than once previously in England.
During this stay at Nice in 1874, Home one morning received a
letter written in a hand evidently disguised. " I am here in
passing," it ran; " and if you have not forgotten me, your heart will
tell you what friend has the same affection for you always." There
was neither address nor signature. Home puzzled over the enigma ;
and at last : " It is he it is he ! " he exclaimed, delighted ; and on
my asking who: "Alexis Tolstoy, and if it is really Alexis, we
shall find him at the Hotel . " We went there at once ; and there
we found the Count, imprisoned to his room by illness and suffering
severely ; but always the same noble, frank, loyal, affectionate nature
that Home had now known for so many years. I shall never forget
Tolstoy's delight at seeing his friend, and at Home's having divined
from whom the mysterious note proceeded. He was passing through
Nice to Mentone, and insisted on our visiting him there. We did
not fail to pay this visit ; and on our departure, it was agreed that
we should pass the following winter together at Florence- The project
was never realised ; for when the time came that should have brought
Tolstoy to us, the Count had passed from this world. There
remained of him here the memory of a noble nature, and the fame
of a true poet.
In the spring of 1875, Home's spirit-guides prescribed to him a
course to be followed for the improvement of his health ; and in
pursuance of these counsels we passed some months in Italy, where
he experienced much relief from the remedies he had been directed
to employ. We wintered again at Nice; and there met the Countess
Sant' Amaro, whom Mr. Home had known twenty years before, as
well as her husband. Time had not weakened or changed her friendly
sentiments ; and we passed some agreeable evenings at her house,
where in February a seance was held. The circle consisted of the
Countess Sant' Amaro. three of her friends, Mr. Home and myself.
The Countess, who had long been widowed, was deeply touched by
the manifestations of the evening, which were principally addressed
to her. Her husband communicated several proofs of his identity ;
and among them there were rappings that spelt out in Portuguese a word
none of the other sitters comprehended, but that the Countess at once
and joyfully recognised ; for it w r as the name by which he had been
accustomed familiarly to call her. We all heard a noise as of some-
thing being torn; and at the same instant five raps demanded the
alphabet. "There is no death," was spelt out; "therefore, no
mourning." The Countess had never laid black aside since her
husband's death. Before she could well grasp the meaning of the
message, she felt some object placed in her lap ; and on lifting this,
RUSSIA, GENEVA, FLORENCE, NICE 215
it proved, to her great astonishment, to be her handkerchief, from
which the black border had been torn. After that evening, the
Countess laid aside her mourning.
This winter of 1875, Mr. Home saw pass from earth his friend
Count Alexander de Komar, who came to him three days afterwards,
and gave him the simple and touching message, " Console my
children."
Numerous as are the witnesses whose testimony I have gathered
together in these pages, they do not attest the twentieth part of the
facts, as true as strange, that were the means of convincing thousands
that
" There is no death what seems so is transition :
This life of mortal breath
Is but the suburb of the life Elvsian,
Whose portal we call Death."
CHAPTER XIII
18761886
" Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism." Home a stern critic. Dark
days of Spiritualism. Serjeant Cox. Disappointment of Crookes.
Home and Mark Twain. A dishonest friend. Return of N.
Aksakoff. Spiritual messages. The transcendental philosophy.
Cruel sufferings. Joyful and beautiful end.
DURING the whole of 1876, Mr. Home was occupied with the work
that he published the following year under the title of "Lights and
Shadows of Spiritualism." He passed in review in those pages the
phenomena both of ancient and of modern times. A large portion
of the volume was devoted to an exposure of the noxious abuses that
every day were making Spiritualism more and more of a byword and
reproach. Home had long watched with pain and indignation the
growth of those abuses ; and the conviction was forced upon him that
it was his duty to speak out in earnest protest. The task was neither
a light nor a pleasant one. He well knew what would be the fury
of the impostors who traded in sham spiritual phenomena; and that
even a louder outcry would come from the enthusiasts whose self-love
he wounded.
With his accustomed frankness, he made publicly known his inten-
tion of exposing the impostures that usurped the name of Spiritualism
the impostures, not the impostors, be it noted ; for it was not his
intention to sully his pages by compiling a list of detected cheats,
but simply to put too credulous persons on their guard. The manner
in which his advertisement was received by some persons professing
to be Spiritualists, he described in the chapter introductory to that
portion of his work which dealt with the shadows the very dark
shadows of Spiritualism :
" I was assailed, both openly and anonymously, with slander, lying charges,
foul personalities, venomous abuse, in short, with every weapon which the
most unscrupulous partisan hatred can direct against the object of its hostility.
It was what I expected, and what I had been forewarned of. If the attacks
made on me have moved me at moments, the support I have received from
within and without, and the consciousness of the rectitude of my intentions,
have made the effect but that of a moment."
The book appeared. It made no attacks on individual impostors ;
and the persons who had feared to find their names in its pages
breathed again. Each could proclaim with reference to the facts
compiled from a hundred different sources, that they concerned his
neighbours not himself.
While the book was in progress, and after its publication, Home
received numerous letters from friends in England concerning the
very dark shadows that rested upon Spiritualism there. Among these
correspondents, Serjeant Cox was one of the most frequent. The
216
1876 i886 217
burden of the learned Serjeant's complaint was always the same
that he could find nowhere else the opportunities for thorough and
systematic investigation of the phenomena that he had enjoyed a few
years earlier with Mr. Home.
" In the investigations in which you so kindly assisted me," wrote Serjeant
Cox on March 8th, 1876, " there was nothing of this precaution and mystery.
You sat with me anywhere, at any time ; in my garden, and in my house ; by
day and by night ; but always, with one memorable exception, in full light.
You objected to no tests ; on the contrary, you invited them. I was permitted
the full use of all my senses. The experiments were made in every form that
ingenuity could devise ; and you were as desirous to learn the truth and the
meaning of it as I was. You sat alone with me, and things were done which,
if four confederates had been present, their united efforts could not have
accomplished. Sometimes there were phenomena, sometimes there were none.
When they occurred they were often such as no human hand could have pro-
duced without the machinery of the Egyptian Hall. But these were in my
own drawing-room, and library, and garden, where no mechanism was possible.
In this manner it was that I arrived at the conviction opposed to all my
prejudices and preconceptions that there are forces about us of some kind,
having both power and intelligence, but imperceptible to our senses, except
under some imperfectly-known conditions. I did not, and with subsequent
extended inquiry I cannot now, arrive at the conclusion you have come to that
these invisible agents are spirits of the dead."
As a pendant to the epistle of Serjeant Cox, the following letter
may find a place here. It was written by a gentleman who is a
relative of Lord Dunraven, and who had shared in a portion of his
investigations of the phenomena :
" ATHENJBUM CLUB, nth Oct., 1875.
" MY DEAR HOME, ... I feel more than half inclined to run over to
Paris, merely to have a talk with you.
" The phenomena I have witnessed through your kindness are the only
things left to which I attach any hope. All the other phenomena of so-called
Spiritualism of which I have been a witness except those accruing through
you have been in the last degree unsatisfactory ; and altho' I could offer no
explanation of them, they seemed to me more likely to be the result of trick
than of the action of disembodied spirits. Are you yourself absolutely and fully
certain that the phenomena which undoubtedly occur thro' your mediumship
are the acts of the spirits of those who have already lived, and that there is no
other explanation possible of these phenomena? . . . Very truly yours,
" B. NIXON."
In January, 1877, Mr. Nixon writes : " While what I have seen
when you were present, and what I have heard of as vouched for
by men like Crookes, Serjeant Cox and others, thoroughly accustomed
to the investigation of physical phenomena and the value of evidence,
seem to me to place the reality of the phenomena beyond all doubt or
question whenever I have tried lately to acquire personally any
fresh light or evidence, I have always been placed under circumstances
and conditions of the most unsatisfactory and suspicious character."
" If anything can kill Spiritualism, it will be the follies and con-
temptible meannesses of the Spiritualists themselevs. As to the fact
of Spiritualism, and the grand importance of the establishment of the
reality of spirit-life, there can be no question about them, and they
must be the solid comfort of every thinking man ; but what ridiculous
and mischievous stuff we see imported into the movement every day ! '
p
2i8 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
These words were written from Italy to Home, in the spring of 1876,
by a very old friend whom he had not seen for years, the well-known
author, William Howitt. Mr. Howitt's convictions impressed on
him by his seances with Mr. Home some fifteen years earlier were
unchanged ; but he had long watched with despair the condition into
which English Spiritualism was sinking, and had withdrawn from
all connection with the movement.
Another of Home's correspondents of 1876 was a still older friend,
an Englishman by birth, an Italian by long residence the celebrated
artist, Seymour Kirkup, of Florence, on whom the title of Baron
had been conferred ; a recognition by Italy, I believe, of his labours
in connection with the poems of Dante.
" Dearest old friend," writes Baron Kirkup in April, 1876 : " You were very
young when you knew me in Florence ; and it is impossible for me ever to
forget you. . . . How I long for your new book ! I never trusted these
dark seances : I could have done by trick all I saw accomplished. But to deny
the true because of the false is like saying there is no good coin because one
has met with a bad shilling. I have seen much, and so have thousands of
competent witnesses. Yours for ever, " SEYMOUR KIRKUP."
" In a letter from Wilkinson lately," writes Mr. William Howitt
to Mr. Home in February, 1876, "he said he had seen Crookes,
who said he could not get on with his experiments on Spiritualism
because the mediums in London are such cheats." Mr. Howitt's
testimony to the more than unfavourable opinion of Mr. Crookes
concerning the materials with which he had endeavoured to carry on
his experiments after the departure of Mr. Home from England is
given at third-hand, it will be noticed. None the less, it was abso-
lutely correct. " I am so disgusted with the whole thing," wrote
Mr. Crookes to Mr. Home on November 24th, 1875, " that, were
it not for the regard we bear to you, I would cut the whole Spiritual
connection, and never read, speak, or think of the subject again."
And writing to Mr. Home nine years later, in 1884, Mr. Crookes
says : " My belief is the same as ever, but opportunities are wanting."
I might multiply such plaints by the dozen from letters written
about this time to Mr. Home. It never seemed to occur to the writers
that their misfortunes were very much their fault. The phenomena
they had witnessed and tested at seances with Home were " light-
loving phenomena," as one scientific investigator, Mr. Simpson,
justly styled them. The light might be daylight or artificial light,
but there was always light. Home imposed no conditions on the
investigator. So far from avoiding tests, he welcomed them ; and
the more stringent they were, the better they pleased him. Let the
sceptic be never so sceptical (and I have surely accumulated in these
pages sufficient testimony to the original incredulity of Robert
Chambers, Dr. Elliottson, Mr. Serjeant Cox, Mr. Crookes, and a
hundred other inquirers named by me), a candid, careful investigation
of the phenomena always resulted in his acceptance of them as facts.
He might, with Mr. Serjeant Cox, attribute the marvels he had seen
and tested to " psychic force;" or, with Lord Lytton, conjecture
the existence of a race of beings alien to mankind ; or, with Robert
1876 1886 219
Chambers, Robert Bell, and many others, feel it impossible to doubt
longer of the continued existence of our lost friends and their nearness
to us; but if he were honest, and honestly spoke out his mind, he
invariably admitted that it was impossible to conceive of the mani-
festations as otherwise than genuine.
I have shown by the evidence of hundreds of witnesses that Mr.
Home had no concealments, but always urged the observers present
to scrutinise in the most rigid manner every phenomenon that
occurred. Thousands in every country did so; and the accumulation
of proof upon proof forced them to recognise, that the phenomena
were neither delusions nor deceptions, but facts. Like Serjeant Cox,
the inquirer might find this conviction " opposed to all his prejudices
and preconceptions; " but he could only add, with Mr. Crookes, " I
am conscious that my senses, both of touch and sight and these
corroborated, as they were, by the senses of all who were present
are not lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions."
Once convinced of the existence of the phenomena, investigators
commonly began to ask themselves: "If they occur in Home's
presence, why not in the presence of others? It is improbable that
he is the sole person in the world who possesses this marvellous gift. ' '
It was natural that they should so reason, and that they should seek
to test their conjectures by experiment. What was their plain duty
in conducting these researches for new marvels? Surely to
experiment as they had experimented with Mr. Home ; to investigate
only in tRe light, and if phenomena occurred, to subject them to a
rigid scrutiny. " Where the conditions imposed are just such as are
calculated to prevent detection if trickery is designed," says Serjeant
Cox in one of his letters to Home, ' ' we are bound to look with the
utmost suspicion upon all that is done ; and, indeed, we should refuse
to take part in any such unsatisfactory experiment."
An excellent precept, but did the learned Serjeant and others act
upon it? On the contrary, their eagerness to experiment further
was such, that when they were unable to do so under conditions
favourable to the interests of truth, they resigned themselves to
conditions that bore a suspicious air of having been imposed to
prevent the detection of trickery. With Mr. Home they had
investigated in full light ; but the persons with whom they afterwards
sat insisted on a darkness that would have discouraged owls. With
Mr. Home they had subjected the phenomena to the strictest scrutiny
and the most searching tests ; but these new phenomena were too coy
for either scrutiny or tests. What could result from " investigations "
so conducted but loss of time and temper? Either the inquiry was
abandoned in disgust when it was found that the " manifestations "
obstinately persisted in refusing to occur in the light or the inquirer
persisted in his discouraging task till, emboldened by previous
impunity, the exhibitor of the spurious phenomena ventured on more
open trickery and was convicted of imposture.
" Light," wrote Mr. Home in The Lights and Shadmvs of
Spiritualism, " is the single test necessary, and it is a test which can
and must be given. By no other means are scientific inquirers to be
220 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
convinced. Where there is darkness, there is the possibility of
imposture, and the certainty of suspicion."
It was retorted on Mr. Home by certain Spiritualists that
occasionally his own seances had been held in a very feeble light.
" Every form of phenomena," he replied (Lights and Shadows, p.
333), "ever occurring through me at the few dark seances has been
repeated over and over again in the light, and I now deeply regret
ever having had other than light seances. What we used to term
darkness consisted in extinguishing the lights in the room, and then
we used to open the curtains, or, in very many instances, have the fire
lit (which, if burning, was never extinguished), when we could with
perfect ease distinguish the outline form of everyone in the room.
" Of another class," he justly added, " are the dark seances at
present held."
Home might have also replied that the seances he held in a feeble
light had been with friends who had previously tested the phenomena
in a strong light and satisfied themselves of their genuineness.
Those who are already convinced do not need to be a second time
converted. Nor, I repeat, were his seances ever dark seances. The
light might be dim but still it was light, not darkness.
The disappointing results of subsequent investigations undertaken
by Mr. Crookes, Serjeant Cox, &c., so far from detracting from the
value of those made with Home, added one more proof of the
convincing nature of the phenomena witnessed in his presence. That
they did so may easily be made clear to the candid reader, whether
Spiritualist or sceptic.
A hundred English inquirers whom I might name began their
investigations with Mr. Home as sceptics. They confidently
expected to be able to attribute the phenomena to deception or
delusion. They were compelled by overwhelming proof to recognise
them as facts.
No longer sceptics but believers, they sought elsewhere for new
marvels with what result? That they met with imposture, and
discovered it to be imposture. Yet they were now convinced of the
existence of the phenomena ; whereas when, according to their shallow
critics, they had been deceived by Mr. Home, they were
as sceptical concerning the phenomena as any of those critics.
Imposture failed to dupe them when they became believers;
yet the assertion is loudly advanced that these very same observers
were duped while they were still sceptics. A candid thinker will
scarcely find the theory plausible.
Lights and Shadows had many readers in England and very many
in America. The book was abused by the foolish and welcomed by
the sensible. " I cannot understand," wrote to Mr. Home an
esteemed American Spiritualist, Mr. Hudson Turtle, " why
Spiritualists so oppose your book. It only tells the truth. I said in
my review of your Lights and Shadows that it was the beginning of a
new era Spiritualism here is now slowly approaching the
scientific plane that I have laboured for twenty years to have it
1876 i886 221
reach. I regard your Lights and Shadows as the opening cannonade
of the battle. "
" The book made you sad!" wrote Home to Mrs. S. C. Hall. " So it did
me, and doubly so does the so-called Spiritualism of the day. Right-minded
people have left and are every day leaving the movement. ... I see just
such rays of ' Light ' as are granted to you, but I also see ' Shadows," which
when they began to form were no bigger than a man's hand, but they have
increased with a most alarming rapidity, and at last are to be found intercept-
ing the very light we are praying and hoping for. My work is not written to
obtain the praise of men ; it is written to expose the falsehoods which are fast
obscuring a truth which is all-important to mankind. If I had a thousand
years to live on earth, I would rather speak out, and bear the heavy burden
of blame which I know will be cast upon me, than remain silent, and feel the
certitude that I, too, was playing a dishonest part in keeping silence."
The years with which I am dealing were years of much suffering to
Mr. Home; but from time to time it was relieved in a way that
surprised his medical advisers, who did not know to what to attribute
these unexpected improvements in his health. They were still more
astonished by the manner in which our spirit guardians sustained his
physical forces beneath the burden laid on them. Again and again
celebrated physicians declared his case to be hopeless; and in 1877
one of the most eminent of French medical authorities predicted that
he had not three months to live. Yet he lived on, and was supported
through all. I have often seen during the night a light shine round
him, while a hand issuing from a luminous cloud made passes over his
face, as if blessing him, and ended by making on his forehead the sign
of the cross. Often the spirits dictated long communications to him ;
cheering him with words of encouragement and love that, above all,
were needed while he was busy with his task of exposing the abuses
of Spiritualism ; for no effort was spared by those hostile to that task
to make him renounce it. Take, for example, a sentence in a letter
written from St. Petersburg in March, 1876, which went so far as to
say that it was improper for him to write this book " even if he had
at his disposal the most convincing evidence." Nothing could be
more dishonourable than the duplicity of such principles to the truth
that it was Home's mission to proclaim. " No man can serve two
masters ; ' ' and Home was not able to range himself on the side of such
a conscience. Nor could he think, with his correspondent, that it is
ever unbecoming to speak the truth. It is not astonishing that
Spiritualism should sink very low in Russia, when the truth has such
pioneers as this Russian champion to sustain it.
In April, 1876, a leading French journal published a telegram
announcing Home's sudden death. The news was speedily telegraphed
to the chief newspapers in Europe and America, and the whole
civilised worlrfcwas thus informed that " D. D. Home had been found
dead in a railway carriage while travelling between Berlin and St.
Petersburg." The exact origin of the first false telegram was never
traced ; but it is significant that in certain quarters dark hints had been
thrown out that Home would not live to complete his work. If some
of the silliest of the Theosophists spoke the truth, he had been solemnly
cursed by the high priestess of their superstition ; and her curses, it was
222 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
added, always slew. Others of his ill-wishers were either ignorant of
these baleful curses, or doubted their efficacy ; for Home received more
than one anonymous letter threatening his life, if he persisted in his
task. As he paid no attention to the threats, his enemies took his
life by means of the newspapers.
Day after day during the month of April, 1876, he continued to
receive from all quarters obituary notices of himself, in a dozen
different languages a class of reading that it has fallen to the lot
of few men, besides Home to enjoy. Some of these biographers re-
lated the facts of his life with no more distortion than was inevitable
to a hasty and badly-informed writer ; others, French journalists
especially, indulged in an unblushing license of romance that outdid
anything ever published in England. It is not every day that this
peculiar kind of genius obtains such scope for its exercise as the
author of the false report of Home's death had afforded to it.
In May we left Nice for the baths of La Malou. " Alexander
Dumas ills is here," wrote Home to a friend in England; " and I
went to call on him yesterday. You would have laughed to see the
way he stared at me, and said : ' In the first place, you died a month
or two ago; and in the next place you look positively younger than
when I last saw you seventeen years ago.' These baths are doing
wonders for me, and I walk now without a stick."
Among the American readers of the report of Home's death was
the aunt who had adopted him in his infancy and whose old age he
had provided for. The following extract from a newspaper of
May, 1876, tells the effect on her of the cruel falsehood :
" At Elwood, on the 6th of May, passed from earth Mrs. Mary
McNeil Cook, aged 70, the aunt, and mother by adoption, of D. D.
Home, Esq. Our readers will be pained to hear that her departure
was caused by the shock of hearing the false intelligence of Mr.
Home's sudden death. A paralytic seizure was the result, and
the poor lady never rallied."
Probably this announcement never reached the eyes of the inventor
of the story of Home's death, and the worthy being in question may
thus have been deprived of the gratification of learning what bitter
pain his lie had given.
I may relate here an incident in Home's life of a date six years
later. One of his friends in France was the author and journalist
Henri Delaage, whose acquaintance with Home dated back to 1857.
Delaage died at Paris on the isth of July, 1882. We were then
travelling in Switzerland; and on July i7th arrived at Mornex, a
little village near Annecy, in Savoy. Fatigued with the journey,
Home had sat down to rest himself ; but on entering the room a few
minutes afterwards, I was surprised to see him standing at the open
window looking fixedly into a large garden outside. " Look," he
said, "there is Delaage;" and then added, "No, I see nothing
now; and yet a moment ago he was there."
It was some months since we had received any news of Delaage,
but the last had left him in his usual health. Home felt sure, how-
1876 i886 223
ever, that his friend had quitted earth ; he had seen the form too
distinctly to doubt of its identity ; and to make certainty more certain,
a few hours later we heard rappings, and the following message
was spelt out : " I keep my word. H. D."
" If it was an illusion," wrote Home, the next day to Paris, in describing
his vision, " I shall be much astonished; for we had made each other a
promise on this subject, and I remember very well that when the report of my
death was spread some years ago, Delaage said to whoever would listen to
him : ' What nonsense ! If Home were dead, he would have come to tell me
so.' ... I await with impatience the Figaro, to which I subscribe, and
which will certainly speak of him if he is no more of this world. Unfor-
tunately, the numbers addressed to me go first to Loeche, so that the date of
the last received by me is the i3th. ... If the good fellow is as usual,
say nothing to him of what I have told you."
The recipient of Home's letter carried it at once to the Paris
Figaro ; and the whole story was related in that journal on July 22nd,
under the heading, " Home et Delaage."
During the years that followed the publication of " Lights and
Shadows," Home's spirit-guides enjoined on him complete repose
from all occupation involving mental labour or anxiety. We travelled
constantly ; for change of scene and climate were among the necessary
conditions of his life. The summers of 1877 and 1878 saw us in
Russia ; and part of each was passed in the far south-east, on an
estate in the Government of Samara. The scenery is among the most
charming in Russia; and Home was enchanted with it. "I have
just accomplished a journey of 250 miles in a posting carriage,"
he writes to a friend in England. " Such a lovely country, my dear
John. Hill and dale, forest and field, river and rivulet and lake,
and in the dim distance the Ural Mountains. I am trying the cele-
brated cure of ' Koumis ' mare's milk prepared in a certain way. I
have a Tartar who has been on the steppes many years, and nine
mares are milked twice a day for me."
At Paris in 1879, Home saw a good deal of the first of American
humourists, who came to one or two of the private readings to which
he from time to time invited his friends, and was charmed, like all
other listeners, by the alternate humour and pathos of the narrator.
Home enjoyed greatly the work that Mr. Clemens had just com-
pleted, " A Tramp Abroad " ; and wishing to give an idea of it to
friends at St. Petersburg, had one of its most laughable episodes,
the famous "Modern French Duel," translated into Russian with
the author's permission. Mark Twain's remark on receiving a copy
of the translation (of which he could not read a word) was charac-
teristic. " It seems an excellent translation," he wrote to Home;
" at any rate it looks funnier than it does in English. If it has a
defect, it has escaped me."
Year after year Mr. Home continued to be oppressed by the burden
of an enormous correspondence. To whatever corner of Europe we
fled, hundreds of letters pursued ; and it was often physically im-
possible for him, a constant invalid, to reply to one half of his
correspondents. Spiritualists in Spain, Holland, Italy, and other
countries wrote entreating him to visit them and found societies,
224 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
or stimulate with his presence the vitality of a languishing cause.
Inquirers sent requests for seances or for information ; and correspon-
dents by the score inflicted on him at merciless length their particular
opinions concerning Spiritualism. It was happy for him that his
indifference to the small troubles of life was so great and his temper
so sweet, or he would have lost the latter almost every time a fresh
batch of letters reached us.
His patience, and that generous belief in others which no dis-
appointments could kill in him, were destined to be severely tried.
A blind and absolute confidence had led him to deposit on a simple
acknowledgment (and even for that Home did not ask) a large sum
of money in the hands of one whom he believed to be a friend ; and
this person now refused to render up the charge confided to him.
Home would not take legal proceedings to punish this breach of trust,
more painf ul morally than materially ; although his Russian advocate
wrote to him : " You have a full right to reclaim this deposit, and
there is no doubt that the tribunal would decide in your favour."
In the end restitution of the money was made without a lawsuit ; but
this cruel affair gave a shock to Home's nervous system from which
he never recovered. His sufferings became still more acute, his
strength diminished more and more; and in the end this event cost
him his life.
In September, 1881, we received at Geneva a letter from my
uncle, His Excellency N. Aksakoff, who was neither a Spiritualist
nor a believer in the life after this. Its writer spoke of the interest
with which he had read reviews of " Lights and Shadows of
Spiritualism," and of his great desire to read the book itself. He
urged Home to have so interesting and valuable a work translated into
French without further delay. " I wish to read your book as soon
as possible," he wrote. " Have it translated and printed, and send
me a copy of so honourable and interesting a work. Your affectionate
friend. N. AKSAKOFF."
My uncle quitted this life before the translation of " Lights and
Shadows " was ready; and Mr. Home dedicated the book to his
beloved memory. "As a feeble tribute," ran the inscription, " in
return for the proofs of esteem and affection that he constantly gave
me. I was the prouder of his friendship in that he united to the
nobleness of his name that other nobleness which comes of greatness
of soul and goodness of heart.
In April, 1882, some weeks after his departure from this world,
we received at St. Petersburg the following communication :
" He begins to believe that he lives, but he often fears that it is
a dream."
Hardly had these words been spelt out when we heard sounds
resembling footsteps the very step of my uncle in the apartment
adjoining that in which we were ; and the portiere between the two
was drawn back. We saw a hand separate the curtains and then
let them fall into their place. I distinctly saw the full form of the
spirit as he approached us. The rappings, which had been silent for
a moment, recommenced. " It is true it is true," \vas spelt out;
1876 i886 225
" and there is my shadow " (at that instant I felt something placed
in my hand), " the shadow of him who loved you dearly. The
shadow of the past in no way resembles the being of the present;
but affection has not changed rather, it has augmented. Take it;
it is I who give it to you. You have touched my hand I have, then,
a hand. I live: God Is." These last words were spelt out by
louder sounds, more slowly struck ; as if wishing to make us feel all
the reverence they expressed. Then the message recommenced : " My
beloved Daniel, I love you more than ever We must go; " and the
rappings ceased. We heard again the sound of the well-known step
growing gradually more distant. I lit a candle, to see what object
had been placed in my hand ; and found it to be a framed photograph
of my uncle, that had been taken from the adjoining drawing-room.
It was indeed his shadow ; and the phrase was characteristic, for in
this world, when jesting at the notion of a future life, his habitual
sarcasm had been : " You will see my shade appear to you by and
by."
From that night he was often with us, and gave us the most con-
vincing proofs, of his identity, and of his continued affection.
To relate in detail Home's life during these last years on earth
would be simply to tell a story of great suffering patiently and
cheerfully borne. In place of this, let me, now that I approach the
close of my work, state briefly the substance of many communications
made concerning the life beyond this.
The greater part of such communications were given through Home
while he was in a state of trance. When he passed into this condi-
tion, the expression of his countenance became singularly sweet;
" angelic," writes one who had seen him many times in the trance,
Mr. S. C. Hall. There was nothing resembling excitement in these
trances; look, manner, and voice were calm. " The change which
takes place in him," wrote Lord Dunraven, " is very striking; he
becomes as it were a being of a higher type. There is a union of
sweetness, tenderness, and earnestness in his voice and manner which
is very attractive." As a rule, Home's eyes were fast closed in the
trance; but he moved about the room as readily and naturally as if
they had been open, appearing to follow some unseen guide.
The communications already detailed as having been made in 1876
by Home's old American friend, Ward Cheney, and in 1882 con-
cerning my uncle, show that the spirit, on passing from earth, had
often the greatest difficulty in realising the new conditions of his
being; that the change seemed to him a dream. The world in which
he found himself was so like this spiritually like this, not materi-
ally; himself was so thoroughly himself, that he refused to believe
he had quitted earth ; and the greater his attachment to earth had
been, the more obstinate was his incredulity. Hundreds of com-
munications given through Home refer to this gradual wakening of
the spirit to the consciousness that the second birth called death was
an accomplished fact. To some that awakening comes swiftly, to
others slowly ; but it does not seem that it is ever instantaneous.
One very noticeable fact with regard to these messages is that in
226 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
the spirit-world the idea of good is so intimately associated with
light, that of evil with darkness, that the spirits employ ' light ' and
' good ' as synonymous terms, ' darkness ' and ' evil ' as also
synonymous. " We can see all light," was said in the course of one
of the trance-communications, " the most beautiful combinations of
light. We see the progress either of growth or decay, that is taking
place in everything." " To us," another message ran, " the spirit-
land of higher spheres is like a beautiful planet, luminous, shining
forth as our goal and spheres higher and higher still brighten as
we advance in the vista of everlasting progress."
This last word progress is the keynote of the messages, one and all.
I would have written " of the teachings," but the expression would
be misunderstood. Home's mission was to teach by facts, not by
words. He was passive with regard to the words spoken through
him in the trance, as passive as the wire that conveys the electric
current. When he woke, he had no more consciousness of that which
he had uttered than has the wire of the message that has just passed
over it. To those who questioned him whether these supramundane
declarations were to be regarded as worthy of credence or not, he
responded invariably : ' ' Do as I do ; try all communications by
the help of your conscience and your reason."
Mrs. Hennings, some of whose experiences have been narrated in
a former chapter, relates that she had often begun to speak to Mr.
Home concerning messages given through him in the trance, and that
he had always stopped her. At last, she asked him why he did so.
Home thereupon explained that, as he had not the faintest recollec-
tion of anything which occurred in the trance, he preferred not to
receive particulars ; for they mixed themselves up in his memory with
the facts of his waking life, until he became unable to separate one
from the other.
It has been often objected that the wide-spread acceptance by
humanity of the noble conception of a life of infinite progress, in
place of the fancies of heaven and hell, would encourage the sinful
to put off, with Felix, their reformation to "a more convenient
season " that, in fact, men would abandon themselves to a life of
vice here on earth, with the convenient resolution of leading a life of
virtue in the world to come. One might ask in reply what the
accepted teachings of heaven and hell have done for the world at
large? Is its condition of to-day an outcome of those teach-
ings? And, if so, is that outcome one to be regarded with
satisfaction? But the true answer to such an objection is that the
same revelations which speak of progress as an eternal condition
of our being, speak of punishment as an eternal condition
of our sins. There is no escape, say the spirit-messages. Evil and
misery are one; and they who miss the knowledge of that truth on
earth are preparing for themselves a terrible awakening to it hereafter.
In all these communications it is earnestly inculcated that " Now is
the appointed time." " If you strive earnestly and prayerfully here,
you enter your true life in a state fitted for it." " Only a perfect
submission to the crosses of earth can work out for you a higher and
18761886 227
purer life." " Follow Christ's teaching, and carry out His mission."
" We know all your sufferings and shortcomings, and what you have
to contend with ; for have not we, too, been mortals, have we not
wearied on the roadside, and had our times of agony and doubt."
I might go on to make scores of such extracts from even the few
fragments that have been preserved of the trance-communications
spoken through Home. The vast majority of those communications
were never written down, and live only in the minds of the hearers.
" I shall never forget," writes one of those hearers, " the awfully
thrilling way in which M spoke through Home, the desolation
of the picture she drew of her feelings. The words I do not recollect
the effect of them I shall always remember."
Why, it was asked at one seance, do not spirits manifest their
presence frequently to us, and aid us to shun the wrong and seek
the right? as if we can judge how far spirits do actually influence
us, or can form any conception of the difficulties under which they
labour in seeking to make their presence known. The answer given
through Home in a trance is well worthy of attention.
" You should take a higher view of it than that. You wonder why spirits
do not help you. Are you not a spirit? You only have the earthly envelope
about you. Rouse yourself, and help yourself ; do not expect others to help
you if you do not act yourself. Yet do spirits interfere in a thousand ways
that you little dream of, and never notice. It is a common thing for people
to say, ' If spirits are about us, why don't they manifest themselves?' Is not
God everywhere? Is He not about you? Why, then, does He not manifest
Himself? God has so ordained that, though many of you spend your lives
looking for evidence of His existence, yet every day you pass by unnoticed the
most wonderful and beautiful evidences."
A circumstance of these communications not always sufficiently
borne in mind by the recipients was that their makers experienced
great difficulty in endeavouring to convey to men still in the material
body an idea of the life of man in the spiritual body. They could
say, for instance, that such a spiritual body clothed them, that it
was "exactly like the material body, only slightly smaller";
but the impression the words left was frequently either vague or
erroneous. It was hard for the hearers of those words to conceive
of a spiritual body, that took form from the spirit itself, and was
beautiful or hideous as the spirit was good or evil. Our beauty or
deformity in the world beyond this is of our own making ; and it is
here on earth that we mould our souls into one or the other form.
At the touch of Death the veil of clay drops from us, and shows us
as we are.
" How do you make us see you? " a sitter asked of the spirits
while Home was in the trance. " Sometimes," was the answer,
" we make the actual resemblance of what we were, so that we
appear exactly as we were known to you on earth ; sometimes we pro-
ject an image that you see, sometimes we cause it to be produced
upon your brain ; sometimes you see us as we are, with a cloud-like
aura of light around uts."
In the spirit-world, as in this, likeness attracts, unlikeness repels;
but far more strongly than on earth. This declaration was re-
228 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
peated and emphatic in the trance-messages given through Home. It
is the key to some of the most difficult problems of Spiritualism.
The popular conception of the happiness of hereafter is a state in
which spirits can commune at will with each other. The spirits
say that no such illimitable communion exists ; that in the next
world, as in this, there are difficulties of intercourse. Here the
great obstacle is distance from those we love. We seek at will the
society of a friend in the next street ; we communicate less freely
with one a hundred miles off ; we may hear nothing for years of a
third in the interior of Africa. These earthly obstacles to inter-
change of thought and sympathy have their spiritual counterparts.
Distance in the next world is the distance of soul from soul ; and it
is sometimes so great as to render communion imposisible. " Between
us there is a great gulf fixed," are words that take a very solemn
meaning in view of those declarations from the ispirit- world. Con-
sciously or unconsciously, we are working to widen that gulf every
day that we live on earth ; and according to our works we shall find
it set hereafter between us and the evil, or between us and the
good. In the latter event, declares Spiritualism, it may be bridged :
but how slowly and how painfully !
Spirits tell us that the peace of the life to come is peace from the
doubts, sorrows, and struggles of earth ; that the adoration they offer
to the Creator is obedience to His will ; that their joys, the joys we
cannot conceive or measure are found in forgetfulness of self and
love of others. They tell us that to live for others is to draw nearer
to God. " From the Eternal Source," says a trance-message
spoken through Home, " goes forth the Eternal Light to which we
aspire." Light Love Good; in the comprehension of the spirits
of the blest, these three are one.
When the human mind tries to conceive of Eternity, it commonly
falls into the error of figuring it as endless Time. In these trance
communications, the spirits invariably declare that the word time
had lost its meaning for them. " We know not of time," says a
message now before me; " to us yesterday, to-day, to-morrow are
all one. Had we hourjs, days, years, even ages, like you, we
should say time passes slowly or time passes fast. We never tire;
we are eternity." That is to say, eternity does not present itself
to us after death as endless Time, the passage of which we mark,
but as an infinite State, wherein we progress.
A question was once asked at a seance concerning the compara-
tive truth of different religions. The answer given through Home
in the trance was : " Even the poor Pagan who bows down before
his idol possesses the germ of truth, inasmuch as he worships some-
thing outside and beyond himself." It seems to me that there is a
whole sermon in these words.
In March, 1883, Mr. Home passed at Nice his fiftieth birthday.
His health had been too feeble all winter for him to go much into
society ; but he received his friends as often as possible friends
whose number was constantly being added to. On his birthday,
the 20th of March, a crowd of the foreign colony of Nice assembled
1876 i886 229
to fete the invalid, whom they surrounded with a prodigious heap of
baskets and bouquets of flowers. Home, although a prisoner to
his arm-chair and suffering severely, preserved all his accustomed
exquisite affability in welcoming and thanking his friendly visitors ;
and complied with the general desire by reciting to them several
pieces in French and English, among them a poem that I have
already referred to as being one of his favourites, the " Grand-
mother " of Tennyson. He never rendered it with more effect;
and the same was the case with the little piece that followed
" Carcassonne," the masterpiece of Nadaud.
We passed the following winter in Russia, part of it at Moscow.
While we were there, the Countess Tolstoy arranged an amateur
performance in aid of the poor, and Mr. Home took part in it ;
so did my cousin John Aksakoff, the well-known Slavophil leader,
not less celebrated as a poet. He had not heard Home recite
before ; and, the reading over, ran up to him in a transport of
enthusiasm. " It was perfect it was perfect! " he exclaimed;
' I never before heard anything so perfect."
Towards the close of 1884, Home predicted to me that his malady
was approaching a crisis, and that it would be long and painful.
He described minutely all that would happen ; and, in speaking of
the increased sufferings through which he foresaw that he was about
to pass, said, " God, who sends the trial, knows better than we why
He sends it : I trust myself wholly in His hands. I shall recover
if no complication supervenes : if it does, His will be done. I
am not anxious for you God will support you. I shall not suffer
at the last."
All that he had predicted was realised even to the superhuman
force God sent me. He suffered cruelly long and cruelly.
There were intervals of repose from pain, then increased suffering.
These few words tell all that need be 'told of the story of eighteen
months.
In June, 1886, the complication of which he had foretold the
danger supervened, and attacking the lungs, proved quickly fatal.
The last three days we both knew that all was ended for us on earth.
He retained full consciousness to the last; and resignation an
ineffable resignation illumined his features, as the thin thread that
held the spirit to the body slowly parted. His one thought was
to inspire me with strength to survive him, and to make me feel that
he was but gone a little way before me ; and he spoke to me much of
God's great goodness to us, and of friends :.n heaven. They were
around him ; he saw them, named them, and stretched forth his hands
to them with joy. He had ceased to suffer ; death came to him, as he
had predicted it would come, without a pang. During these last
hours, he seemed no more of this world ; the soul, disengaged from
all that was material, already anticipated its union with the Supreme
Being and the life eternal. It was no dream, no hope to him, that
life ; he had prepared himself for it by his life on earth ; and now,
in this moment of a sublime and tranquil death, he saw it open
bright before him, while slowly, painlessly, the last ties of spirit
and body were gently loosed.
230 LIFE AND MISSION OF HOME
It was his desire, as I have elsewhere said, to be buried in the
same vault with our little daughter. As she was laid in the Russian
cemetery near Paris, it was necessary, I learned, for the interment to
be conducted according to the ritual of the Greek Church. Our Lord
pays no heed to forms, but judges each according to his works ; and
I had no hesitation in complying. Home had received the sacrament
some days before with a devotion that deeply touched the priest,
who said, in leaving him, that we should rejoice and not mourn when
God finds a soul so ready to be called to Him.
In quitting its earthly envelope, the spirit had left imprinted on
the face an expression of celestial happiness ; a peace neither of sleep
nor of death, but of immortality, that seemed to say, with the
Apostle, "O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy
victory !" That tranquil happiness did not pass from his features;
and I had a photograph taken of them, in which the shadow of its
beauty is preserved.
Home wished, and had always wished, that his interment should
be simply conducted, and should be without show of mourning. " I
desire my funeral to be as simple as possible," he wrote in his will,
" and that all tokens and signs known as mourning may be entirely
discarded." In accordance with his injunctions, the vanities of
funereal pomp were absent from the interment ; and when the service
in the Russian church was performed, the priests, instead of being
robed in black, wore their festival attire of white and gold. No
shadow darkened that mystic and imposing service, the noble chants
of which were admirably rendered. The coffin, buried in flowers
and raised on a brilliantly-lit dais, had nothing dismal in its aspect ;
it became a simple token of our loving farewell to the mortal garment
of him whom God had called from earth before us.
The sentiment of all who were present at the church found expres-
sion in the words of a friend : " The whole effect was grand,
solemn, and suggestive, as the full voices of the choir rose and fell
in solemn cadence, and the rich soft strains of swelling harmony
filled the building, dying away in distant echoes repeated from dome
to dome."
Home's grave is at St. Germain. A plain cross of white marble
rises from a Calvary, on which is engraved : ' ' Daniel Dunglas Home.
Born to earth-life near Edinburgh (Scotland), March zoth, 1833.
Born to spirit-life : ' To another discerning of spirits' (ist Corinthians,
i2th chapter, loth verse) : June 2ist, 1886."
THE END.
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