rfect composure, and said,
"Well, now perhaps you had better ask him to tell you something
about your mother, because, you know, mine is not dead." The
_seance_ of course proceeded no further. At an earlier period of it,
as they were sitting round a table, Mr. Foster desired that written
names might be furnished him of the persons with whose spirits
communication might be desired. Among the names written down for
this purpose by my sister were several foreign, Italian and German,
names, with which she felt very sure Mr. Foster could not possibly
have any acquaintance; indeed, it was beyond all question that he
never could have heard of them. Adelaide was sitting next to him,
watching his operations with extreme attention, and presently
observed him very dexterously convey several of these foreign names
into his sleeve, and from thence to the ground under the table.
After a little while, Mr. Foster observed that, singularly enough,
several of the names he had received were now missing, and by some
extraordinary means had disappeared entirely from among the rest.
"Oh yes," said my sister very quietly, "but they are only under the
table, just where you put them a little while ago." With such
subjects of course Mr. Foster performed no miracles.

Some years ago a new form of these objectionable practices came into
vogue, and one summer, going up into Massachusetts, I found the two
little mountain villages of Lenox and Stockbridge possessed, in the
proper sense of the term, by a devil of their own making, called
"Planchette." A little heart-shaped piece of wood, running upon
castors, and that could almost be moved with a breath, and carrying
along a sheet of paper, over which it was placed, a pencil was
supposed to write, on its own inspiration, communications in reply
to the person's thoughts whose finger-tips were to rest above,
without giving any impulse to the board. Of course a hand held in
this constrained attitude is presently compelled to rest itself by
some slight pressure; the effort to steady it, and the nervous
effort not to press upon the machine, producing inevitably in the
wrist aching weariness, and in the fingers every conceivable
tendency to nervous twitching. Add to this the intense conviction of
the foolish folk, half of them hysterical women, that their
concentrat