erself, in shape, size, form,
and feature true to a line, and yet, one after another, honest men and
women at my side, within ten minutes of each other, assert that she is
the absolute counterpart of their nearest and dearest friends, nay, that
she _is_ that friend. It is as incomprehensible to me as the assertion
that the heavens are green, and the leaves of the trees deep blue. Can
it be that the faculty of observation and comparison is rare, and that
our features are really vague and misty to our best friends? Is it that
the Medium exercises some mesmeric influence on her visitors, who are
thus made to accept the faces which she wills them to see? Or is it,
after all, only the dim light and a fresh illustration of _la nuit tous
les chats sont gris_? The light, be it remembered, is always dim at
these seances, and it is often made especially dim when a Spirit leaves
the Cabinet. I think I have never been able at such times to read the
Arabic numerals on my watch, which happen to be unusually large and
pronounced. Unquestionably Spiritualists will be at no loss to explain
this puzzle; possibly they would say that I have here unconsciously
given one of the very best of proofs of the reality and genuineness of
Materialization, and that my unbelief acts on the sensitive, evanescent
features of the Spirit like a chemical reagent, and that--but it is not
worth while to weaken by anticipation their solacing arguments.

In any statement of this problem we should bear in mind all the
attending circumstances: the darkened room; the music; the singing; the
pervading hush of expectation; the intensely concentrated attention; the
strained gaze at the dark Cabinet and at its white robed apparitions;
and finally, the presence of a number of sympathizing believers.

There is another fact about these seances which I think cannot fail to
impress even the most casual observer, and this is the attractive charms
which the Cabinet seems to possess for the aboriginal Indian. This child
of nature appears to materialize with remarkable facility, and, having
apparently doffed his characteristic phlegm in the happy hunting
grounds, enters with extreme zest on the lighter gambols which sometimes
enliven the sombre monotony of a seance. Almost every Medium keeps an
Indian 'brave' in her cohort of Spirits; in fact, there is no Cabinet,
howe'er so ill attended, but has some Indian there. It is strange, too,
that, as far as I know, departed black me