this mysterious misfortune dwelt within his house.

It may be prudent to say, just here, that it will be quite useless to
make any further inquiries of me upon the subject, or to ask of me--a
request which has been repeated till I am fain to put an end to
it--for either loan or copy of these records for the benefit of either
personal or scientific curiosity. Both loaning and copying are now
impossible, and have been made so by family wishes which will be
sacredly respected. The phenomena themselves have long been too widely
known to be ignored, and I have no hesitation in making reference to
them.

[Illustration: ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, HER MOTHER, AND HER INFANT
BROTHER. AFTERWARDS PROFESSOR M. STUART PHELPS.]

Perhaps it is partly on account of the traditions respecting this bit
of family history that I am so often asked if I am a spiritualist. I
am sometimes tempted to reply in grammar comprehensible to the writers
of certain letters which I receive upon the subject:

"No; nor none of our folks!"

How the Connecticut parson on whom this mysterious infliction fell
ever came out of it _not_ a spiritualist, who can tell? That the
phenomena were facts, and facts explicable by no known natural law, he
was forced, like others in similar positions, to believe and admit.
That he should study the subject of spiritualism carefully from then
until the end of his life, was inevitable.

But, as nearly as I can make it out, on the whole, he liked his Bible
better.

Things like these did not happen on Andover Hill; and my talks with
this very interesting grandfather gave me my first vivid sensation of
the possibilities of life.

With what thrills of hope and fear I listened for thumps on the head
of my bed, or watched anxiously to see my candlestick walk out into
the air!

But not a thump! Not a rap! Never a snap of the weakest proportions
(not explicable by natural laws) has, from that day to this, visited
my personal career. Not a candlestick ever walked an inch for me. I
have never been able to induce a chair to hop after me. No turnip has
consented to drop from the ceiling for me. Planchette, in her day,
wrote hundreds of lines for me, but never one that was of the
slightest possible significance to me, or to the universe at large.
Never did a medium tell me anything that ever came to pass; though one
of them once made a whole winter miserable by prophesying a death
which did not occur.

Being destitute of obje