s! Really,
there must be a stand somewhere made to credulity; but, at all events,
the venerable host and hostess believed this, on what seemed to them
reasonable evidence, and quite forgave me for not believing it too.

And this brings me, naturally enough, to give a detailed account of the
two best and last _seances_ I ever took the trouble to attend; for I
have, during many years, entirely avoided such exhibitions, as generally
childish, mentally unwholesome, and to some people dangerously
seductive. I had several times asked my worthy friends last alluded to,
to give me and a friend of mine, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, the
privilege of "assisting" at a _seance_ under their experienced guidance:
and accordingly we were invited to meet Mr. Home, the high priest of
spiritualism, a quiet, well-mannered gentlemanly person enough, known to
our host from his birth. The other guests were a countess, the widow of
a colonel, and a distinguished physician; in all we numbered eight. My
friend and I were requested privately, by our host, to conceal our
probable incredulity if we desired the favour of the "spirits" in the
way of manifestations; and as these were what we came for, besides our
own polite desire to do at Rome as the Romans do, we readily assented to
the reasonable request. After the usual greetings and small talk of the
day, and tea and coffee and so forth, we all took seats round the
drawing-room circular table, a very weighty one, as I proved afterwards,
on a gigantic central pillar, and covered with a heavy piece of velvet
tapestry; and before commencing the special business we came for, I was
pleased to hear our host propose that we should all kneel round the
table and offer up prayer: this he did, simply and beautifully, in some
words, extemporary, closing with a Church collect and the Lord's
Prayer. On my expressed approval of this course, when we rose, Mr. Home
said it was always his custom, as a precautionary measure against the
self-intrusion of evil spirits: admittedly a wisdom, even if it seemed
somewhat unwise and perilous to be more or less courting the company of
such unpleasant guests, if a _seance_ (as experienced afterwards) did
not happen to be made safe by exorcism. And now the gaslights bracketed
round the room were put as low as possible, making a dim, religious
semi-darkness; however, as there was a bright fire in the grate, and
some small scintillae of gas, and one's eyesight soon gets accus