wn conscience, I find no reason for considering
the medium in question responsible for anything seen or heard on that
occasion.' But 'I consider that the seeking for intercourse with any
particular spirit would be apt to end either in disappointment or
delusion,' and she uses the phrase 'the supposed spirits.'

This lady who wrote thus at the time cannot conceivably have been
looking for the ghost of a child that never was born, and been
deceived by Home's white foot, which Mr. Browning then caught hold
of--an incident which Mrs. Browning could not have forgotten by August
30, 1855, if it occurred in July of that year. Yet Mr. ---- has
published the statement that Mr. Browning told him that story of
Home's foot, dead child, and all, and Mr. ---- is a man of undoubted
honour, and of the acutest intelligence.

Mr. Browning (August 30, 1855) assured Miss De Gaudrion that he held
'the whole display of hands,' 'spirit utterances,' &c., to be 'a cheat
and imposture.' He acquitted the Rymers (at whose house the _seance_
was held) of collusion, and spoke very highly of their moral
character. But he gave no reason for his disbelief, and said nothing
about catching hold of Home's foot either under or above the table. He
simply states his opinion; the whole affair was 'melancholy stuff.'
How can we account for the story of Mr. Browning and Home's foot? Can
poets possess an imagination too exuberant, or a memory not wholly
accurate?

But Mr. Merrifield had written, on August 18, 1855, a record of an
Ealing _seance_ of July 1855. About fourteen people sat round a table,
in a room of which two windows opened on the lawn. The nature of the
light is not stated. There was 'heaving up of the table, tapping,
playing an accordion under the table, and so on.' No details are
given; but there were no visible hands. Later, by such light as exists
when the moon has set on a July night, Home gave another _seance_.
'The outlines of the windows we could well see, and the form of any
large object intervening before them, though not with accuracy of
outline.' In these circumstances, in a light sufficient, he thinks,
Mr. Merrifield detected 'an object resembling a child's hand with a
long white sleeve attached to it' and also attached to Home's shoulder
and arm, and moving as Home moved. A lady, who later became Mrs.
Merrifield, corroborated.[20]

[Footnote 20: _Journal S.P.R._, May 1903, pp. 77, 78.]

This is the one known alleged case of dete