a pencil, two
candles, a tumbler, and some papers had been placed, tipped over at an
angle of thirty degrees without disturbing in the slightest the position
of the movable objects on its surface. Then at the medium's bidding the
pencil was dislodged, rolling to the floor, while the rest remained
motionless; and afterward the tumbler.

A little later occurred the first of Home's levitations when at the
house of a Mr. Cheney in South Manchester, Connecticut, he is said to
have been lifted without visible means of support to the ceiling of the
seance room. To quote from an eye-witness's narrative: "Suddenly, and
without any expectation on the part of the company, Mr. Home was taken
up in the air. I had hold of his feet at the time, and I and others felt
his feet--they were lifted a foot from the floor.... Again and again he
was taken from the floor, and the third time he was carried to the lofty
ceiling of the apartment, with which his hand and head came in gentle
contact." A far cry, this, from the simple raps and knocks that had
ushered in his mediumship.

Now, however, an event occurred that threatened to cut short alike his
"mission" and his life. Never of robust health, he fell seriously ill of
an affection that developed into tuberculosis. The medical men whom he
consulted unanimously declared that his only hope lay in a change of
climate, and, taking alarm, his spiritistic friends generously
subscribed a large sum to enable him to visit Europe. Incidentally, no
doubt, they expected him to serve as a missionary of the new faith, and
it may be said at once that in this expectation they were not deceived.
No one ever labored more earnestly and successfully in behalf of
spiritism than did Daniel Dunglas Home from the moment he set foot on
the shores of England in April, 1855; and no one in all the history of
spiritism achieved such individual renown, not in England alone but in
almost every country of the Continent.

It is from this point that the mystery of his career really becomes
conspicuous. Hitherto, with the exception of the Bryant-Wells
investigation, which could hardly be called scientific, his pretensions
had not been seriously tested, and operating as he did among avowed
spiritists he had enjoyed unlimited opportunities for the perpetration
of fraud. But henceforth, skeptics as well as believers having ready
access to him, he found himself not infrequently in a thoroughly hostile
environment, and subject