He was a fair linguist,
he had been a Catholic, he was of the middle order of intelligence, he
had no 'mission' except to prove that disembodied spirits exist, if
that were a legitimate inference from the marvels which attended him.
Mr. Robert Bell in _The Cornhill Magazine_, Vol. II., 1860, described
Home's miracles in an article called 'Stranger than Fiction.' His
account of the man's personality is exactly like what I have already
given. Home was 'a very mild specimen of familiar humanity.' His
health was bad. 'The expression of his face in repose' (he was only
twenty-seven) 'is that of physical suffering.... There is more
kindliness and gentleness than vigour in the character of his
features.... He is yet so young that the playfulness of boyhood has
not passed away, and he never seems so thoroughly at ease with himself
and others as when he is enjoying some light and temperate
amusement.'
Thus there was nothing in Home to dominate, or even to excite personal
curiosity. He and his more intimate friends, not marchionesses but
middle-class people, corresponded in a style of rather distasteful
effusiveness. He was a pleasant young man in a house, not a Don Juan.
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