To take one
example. In _The Nineteenth Century_ for April 1896 Mr. Hamilton Aide
published the following statement, of which he had made the record in
his Diary, 'more than twenty years ago.' Mr. Aide also told me the
story in conversation. He was 'prejudiced' against Home, whom he met
at Nice, 'in the house of a Russian lady of distinction.' 'His _very_
physical manifestations, I was told, had caused his expulsion from
more than one private house.' Of these aberrations one has not heard
elsewhere. Mr. Aide was asked to meet M. Alphonse Karr, 'one of the
hardest-headed, the wittiest, and most sceptical men in France' (a
well-merited description), at a _seance_ with Home. Mr. Aide's
prejudice, M. Karr's hard-headed scepticism, prove them witnesses not
biassed in favour of hocus-pocus.
The two arrived first at the villa, and were shown into a very large,
uncarpeted, and brilliantly lighted salon. The furniture was very
heavy, the tables were 'mostly of marble, _and none of them had any
cloths upon them_.' There were about twenty candles in sconces, all
lit, and a moderator lamp in the centre of 'the ponderous round
rosewood table at which we were to sit.
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