Browning's belief survived the
shock. On December 5, 1902, in the _Times Literary Supplement_, a
letter by Mr. R. Barrett Browning appeared. He says: 'Mr. Hume, who
subsequently changed his name to Home' ('Home' is pronounced 'Hume' in
Scotland), 'was detected in a "vulgar fraud," for I have heard my
father repeatedly describe how he caught hold of his foot _under_ the
table.' In the other story the foot was _above_ the table; in the new
version no infant phantasm occurs. Moreover, to catch a man's foot
under a table in itself proves nothing. What was the foot doing, and
why did Mr. Browning not tell this, but quite a different story, to
Mr. Myers? We 'get no forrarder.'
On November 28, 1902, Mr. Merrifield, in the _Times Literary
Supplement_, published a letter on August 30 (?), 1855, from Mrs.
Browning to Miss De Gaudrion, as to the _seance_ with the Brownings at
Ealing. Mrs. Browning enclosed a letter from Mr. Browning, giving his
impressions. '_Mine, I must frankly say, were entirely different_,'
wrote Mrs. Browning; and Home says: 'Mrs. Browning was much moved, and
she not only then but ever since expressed her entire belief and
pleasure in what occurred.
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