FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  
landers grow when either spirits are brought to the front, or we think we have found out a conjuring trick. I am not going to follow the example of my gushing brethren, but I can safely say that if anybody has an afternoon or evening to spare, he may do worse than go to the Crystal Palace or the Hanover Square Rooms, to see a very pretty and indescribable phenomenon, and to return as I did, a wiser, though perhaps a sadder man, in the proud consciousness of having "found out how it is all done." CHAPTER XXXIII. A LADY MESMERIST. When a man's whole existence has resolved itself into hunting up strange people and poking his nose into queer nooks and corners, he has a sorry time of it in London during August; for, as a rule, all the funny folks have gone out of town, and the queer nooks and corners are howling wildernesses. There is always, of course, a sort of borderland, if he can only find it out, some peculiar people who never go out of town, some strange localities which are still haunted by them; only he has to find them out--people and places--for it is so universally allowed now-a-days that all genteel people must be out of London in August, and all respectable places must be covered up in old newspapers, that it is difficult to get them to own the soft impeachment. However, there is one queer place that is never shut up, the Progressive Library in Southampton Row; and Mr. Burns and the Spiritualists, as a rule, do not shut up shop even in August. Their Summerland lies elsewhere than Margate or the Moors; and a valse with a pirouetting table or a little gentle levitation or elongation delights them more than all the revels of the countryside. I was getting a little blase, I own, on the subject of Spiritualism after my protracted experiences during the Conference, and I do not think I should have turned my steps in the direction of the Progressive Institution that week had not the following announcement caught my eye as I scanned the ghostly pages of the _Medium and Daybreak_:-- "A MESMERIC SEANCE. "We have been authorized to announce that Miss Chandos, whose advertisement appears in another part of this paper, will give a mesmeric seance at the Spiritual Institution, 15, Southampton Row, on Wednesday evening, August 19th, at eight o'clock. Admission will be free by ticket, which may be obtained at the Institution. The object which Miss Chandos has in vie
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
people
 

August

 

Institution

 
London
 
strange
 
corners
 

Southampton

 

Progressive

 

Chandos

 

places


evening
 
brought
 

countryside

 

revels

 

elongation

 

delights

 

subject

 

Spiritualism

 

turned

 

direction


Conference
 

experiences

 

protracted

 
levitation
 

gentle

 
Spiritualists
 
Library
 

object

 

Summerland

 

pirouetting


Margate

 

spirits

 
appears
 
advertisement
 

mesmeric

 
Wednesday
 

seance

 

landers

 

Spiritual

 

announce


scanned

 

ticket

 
ghostly
 

caught

 
obtained
 
announcement
 

Medium

 

Admission

 
authorized
 

SEANCE