f this character do in fact take place, and that they
are not due to any force or forces known to physical science. On one
occasion, for example, a glass decanter was seen to be moved from the
sideboard on which it stood on to the seance table, and thence rise and
float around the room, no one touching it--there being no possibility of
any connection between it and any object in the room. Finally, the glass
bottle held itself, or was held by invisible hands, to Eusapia's mouth,
and she thereupon drank some of the water it contained. The same thing
happened to an investigator, another member of the circle. The glass
decanter was then transported back to the sideboard, and a pile of
dishes and other objects were moved on to the table.[49] Similar
phenomena are said to have occurred in the presence, or through the
mediumship, of D.D. Home. Sir William Crookes informs us that on several
occasions a bunch of flowers was carried from one end of the table to
the other, and then held to the noses of various investigators in turn,
for them to smell. Some of those present at the seance saw a white hand,
visible as far as the wrist, carrying the bouquet. Others saw merely a
whitish cloud-like mass connected with the bunch of flowers. Still
others saw nothing--save that the flowers themselves were transported
through space without visible means of support.

Here, then, we have phenomena, attested by scientific men, all happening
within the past few years, rivalling any of a like nature that are
reported to have occurred in fairy stories! If _invisible beings_,
possessing intelligence, constantly move about us, and are capable, at
times, of affecting the material world, surely there should be no
objection to many of these fairy stories, since the difference in the
facts is one merely of _degree_ and not of _kind_; and this would be
true even were the phenomena proved to be due only to the action of some
force or forces (under more or less intelligent control) within
ourselves, producing the phenomena.

Other extraordinary narratives will doubtless occur to the mind. The
bean-stalk which grew overnight, might be referred to; and it is
possible to compare this with cases of electrically or artificially
forced vegetation. But, of course, the majority of the wonders reported
in fairy stories find their probable interpretation in those tricks of
the imagination which have now been duplicated by artificial means, and
which science is beg