ith him?

And then, as to the man himself, how puerile it is to give him this
importance! The solitary bit of cleverness about him is his statement
that he has no control whatever over the spirits that attend him. Asking
him not to summon them, is pretty like asking Mr Windham not to send for
his creditors. They come pretty much as they like, and probably their
visits are about equally profitable.

In this respect Home belongs to a very low order of his art. When Bosco
promises to make a bouquet out of a mouse-trap, or Houdin engages to
concoct a batter-pudding in your hat, each keeps his word. There is no
subterfuge about the temper the spirits may happen to be in, or of their
willingness or unwillingness to present themselves. The thing is done,
and we see it--or we think we see it, which comes much to the same.

With this provision of escape Mr Home secures himself against all
failure. Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more
discriminating and observant character than he liked or anticipated,
and the exhibition in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to
do was, to aver that the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown
on _his_ part Homer was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon
was indisposed to meet company, and there was the end of it. You were
invited to meet celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they would
present themselves.

On the other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered--when
the seance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and
hysterical as they ought to be--when the nervous lady sat beside the
timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia--the
artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that
astounded even himself. What limit is there, besides, to contagional
sympathy? Look at the crowded theatre, with its many-minded spectators,
and see how one impulse, communicated occasionally by a hireling, will
set the whole mass in a ferment of enthusiastic delight. Mark, too, how
the smile, that plays like an eddy on a lake, deepens into a laugh, and
is caught up by another and another, till the whole storm breaks out in
a hearty ocean of merriment. These, if you like, are spirits; but the
great masters of them are not men like Mr Home--they have ever been,
and still are, of a very different order. Shakespeare and Moliere and
Cervantes knew something of the mode to summon these imps, and could
make them come at