Contributions to All The Year Round

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They will next believe (if they be, in the words of Captain Bobadil,
"so generously minded") in the transatlantic trance-speakers "who
professed to speak from direct inspiration", Mrs. Cora Hatch, Mrs.
Henderson, and Miss Emma Hardinge; and they will believe in those
eminent ladies having "spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand
hearers"--small audiences, by the way, compared with the intelligent
concourse recently assembled in the city of New York, to do honour
to the Nuptials of General the Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about
this stage of their spiritual education they may take the
opportunity of believing in "letters from a distinguished gentleman
of New York, in which the frequent appearance of the gentleman's
deceased wife and of Dr. Franklin, to him and other well-known
friends, are unquestionably unequalled in the annals of the
marvellous". Why these modest appearances should seem at all out of
the common way to Mr. Howitt (who would be in a state of flaming
indignation if we thought them so), we could not imagine, until we
found on reading further, "it is solemnly stated that the witnesses
have not only seen but touched these spirits, and handled the
clothes and hair of Franklin". Without presuming to go Mr. Howitt's
length of considering this by any means a marvellous experience, we
yet venture to confess that it has awakened in our mind many
interesting speculations touching the present whereabout in space,
of the spirits of Mr. Howitt's own departed boots and hats.

The next articles of belief are Belief in the moderate figures of
"thirty thousand media in the United States in 1853"; and in two
million five hundred thousand spiritualists in the same country of
composed minds, in 1855, "professing to have arrived at their
convictions of spiritual communication from personal experience";
and in "an average rate of increase of three hundred thousand per
annum", still in the same country of calm philosophers. Belief in
spiritual knockings, in all manner of American places, and, among
others, in the house of "a Doctor Phelps at Stratford, Connecticut,
a man of the highest character for intelligence", says Mr. Howitt,
and to whom we willingly concede the possession of far higher
intelligence than was displayed by his spiritual knocker, in
"frequently cutting to pieces the clothes of one of his boys", and
in breaking "seventy-one panes of glass"--unless, indeed, the
knocker, when in the body, was connected with the tailoring and
glazing interests. Belief in immaterial performers playing (in the
dark though: they are obstinate about its being in the dark) on
material instruments of wood, catgut, brass, tin, and parchment.
Your belief is further requested in "the Kentucky Jerks". The
spiritual achievements thus euphoniously denominated "appear", says
Mr. Howitt, "to have been of a very disorderly kind". It appears
that a certain Mr. Doke, a Presbyterian clergyman, "was first seized
by the jerks", and the jerks laid hold of Mr. Doke in that
unclerical way and with that scant respect for his cloth, that they
"twitched him about in a most extraordinary manner, often when in
the pulpit, and caused him to shout aloud, and run out of the pulpit
into the woods, screaming like a madman. When the fit was over, he
returned calmly to his pulpit and finished the service." The
congregation having waited, we presume, and edified themselves with
the distant bellowings of Doke in the woods, until he came back
again, a little warm and hoarse, but otherwise in fine condition.
"People were often seized at hotels, and at table would, on lifting
a glass to drink, jerk the liquor to the ceiling; ladies would at
the breakfast-table suddenly be compelled to throw aloft their
coffee, and frequently break the cup and saucer." A certain
venturesome clergyman vowed that he would preach down the Jerks,
"but he was seized in the midst of his attempt, and made so
ridiculous that he withdrew himself from further notice"--an example
much to be commended. That same favoured land of America has been
particularly favoured in the development of "innumerable mediums",
and Mr. Howitt orders you to believe in Daniel Dunglas Home, Andrew
Davis Jackson, and Thomas L. Harris, as "the three most remarkable,
or most familiar, on this side of the Atlantic". Concerning Mr.
Home, the articles of belief (besides removal of furniture) are,
That through him raps have been given and communications made from
deceased friends. That "his hand has been seized by spirit
influence, and rapid communications written out, of a surprising
character to those to whom they were addressed". That at his
bidding, "spirit hands have appeared which have been seen, felt, and
recognised frequently, by persons present, as those of deceased
friends". That he has been frequently lifted up and carried,
floating "as it were" through a room, near the ceiling. That in
America, "all these phenomena have displayed themselves in greater
force than here"--which we have not the slightest doubt of. That he
is "the planter of spiritualism all over Europe". That "by
circumstances that no man could have devised, he became the guest of
the Emperor of the French, of the King of Holland, of the Czar of
Russia, and of many lesser princes". That he returned from "this
unpremeditated missionary tour", "endowed with competence"; but not
before, "at the Tuileries, on one occasion when the emperor,
empress, a distinguished lady, and himself only were sitting at
table, a hand appeared, took up a pen, and wrote, in a strong and
well-known character, the word Napoleon. The hand was then
successively presented to the several personages of the party to
kiss." The stout believer, having disposed of Mr. Home, and rested
a little, will then proceed to believe in Andrew Davis Jackson, or
Andrew Jackson Davis (Mr. Howitt, having no Medium at hand to settle
this difference and reveal the right name of the seer, calls him by
both names), who merely "beheld all the essential natures of things,
saw the interior of men and animals, as perfectly as their exterior;
and described them in language so correct, that the most able
technologists could not surpass him. He pointed out the proper
remedies for all the complaints, and the shops where they were to be
obtained";--in the latter respect appearing to hail from an
advertising circle, as we conceive. It was also in this gentleman's
limited department to "see the metals in the earth", and to have
"the most distant regions and their various productions present
before him". Having despatched this tough case, the believer will
pass on to Thomas L. Harris, and will swallow HIM easily, together
with "whole epics" of his composition; a certain work "of scarcely
less than Miltonic grandeur", called The Lyric of the Golden Age--a
lyric pretty nigh as long as one of Mr. Howitt's volumes--dictated
by Mr. (not Mrs.) Harris to the publisher in ninety-four hours; and
several extempore sermons, possessing the remarkably lucid property
of being "full, unforced, out-gushing, unstinted, and absorbing".
The candidate for examination in pure belief, will then pass on to
the spirit-photography department; this, again, will be found in so-
favoured America, under the superintendence of Medium Mumler, a
photographer of Boston: who was "astonished" (though, on Mr.
Howitt's showing, he surely ought not to have been) "on taking a
photograph of himself, to find also by his side the figure of a
young girl, which he immediately recognised as that of a deceased
relative. The circumstance made a great excitement. Numbers of
persons rushed to his rooms, and many have found deceased friends
photographed with themselves." (Perhaps Mr. Mumler, too, may become
"endowed with competence" in time. Who knows?) Finally, the true
believers in the gospel according to Howitt, have, besides, but to
pin their faith on "ladies who see spirits habitually", on ladies
who KNOW they have a tendency to soar in the air on sufficient
provocation, and on a few other gnats to be taken after their
camels, and they shall be pronounced by Mr. Howitt not of the
stereotyped class of minds, and not partakers of "the astonishing
ignorance of the press", and shall receive a first-class certificate
of merit.

But before they pass through this portal into the Temple of Serene
Wisdom, we, halting blind and helpless on the steps, beg to suggest
to them what they must at once and for ever disbelieve. They must
disbelieve that in the dark times, when very few were versed in what
are now the mere recreations of Science, and when those few formed a
priesthood-class apart, any marvels were wrought by the aid of
concave mirrors and a knowledge of the properties of certain odours
and gases, although the self-same marvels could be reproduced before
their eyes at the Polytechnic Institution, Regent Street, London,
any day in the year. They must by no means believe that Conjuring
and Ventriloquism are old trades. They must disbelieve all
Philosophical Transactions containing the records of painful and
careful inquiry into now familiar disorders of the senses of seeing
and hearing, and into the wonders of somnambulism, epilepsy,
hysteria, miasmatic influence, vegetable poisons derived by whole
communities from corrupted air, diseased imitation, and moral
infection. They must disbelieve all such awkward leading cases as
the case of the Woodstock Commissioners and their man, and the case
of the Identity of the Stockwell Ghost, with the maid-servant. They
must disbelieve the vanishing of champion haunted houses (except,
indeed, out of Mr. Howitt's book), represented to have been closed
and ruined for years, before one day's inquiry by four gentlemen
associated with this journal, and one hour's reference to the Local
Rate-books. They must disbelieve all possibility of a human
creature on the last verge of the dark bridge from Life to Death,
being mysteriously able, in occasional cases, so to influence the
mind of one very near and dear, as vividly to impress that mind with
some disturbed sense of the solemn change impending. They must
disbelieve the possibility of the lawful existence of a class of
intellects which, humbly conscious of the illimitable power of GOD
and of their own weakness and ignorance, never deny that He can
cause the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He may
have caused the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He
can cause any awful or wondrous thing to be; but to deny the
likelihood of apparitions or spirits coming here upon the stupidest
of bootless errands, and producing credentials tantamount to a
solicitation of our vote and interest and next proxy, to get them
into the Asylum for Idiots. They must disbelieve the right of
Christian people who do NOT protest against Protestantism, but who
hold it to be a barrier against the darkest superstitions that can
enslave the soul, to guard with jealousy all approaches tending down
to Cock Lane Ghosts and suchlike infamous swindles, widely degrading
when widely believed in; and they must disbelieve that such people
have the right to know, and that it is their duty to know, wonder-
workers by their fruits, and to test miracle-mongers by the tests of
probability, analogy, and common sense. They must disbelieve all
rational explanations of thoroughly proved experiences (only) which
appear supernatural, derived from the average experience and study
of the visible world. They must disbelieve the speciality of the
Master and the Disciples, and that it is a monstrosity to test the
wonders of show-folk by the same touchstone. Lastly, they must
disbelieve that one of the best accredited chapters in the history
of mankind is the chapter that records the astonishing deceits
continually practised, with no object or purpose but the distorted
pleasure of deceiving.

We have summed up a few--not nearly all--of the articles of belief
and disbelief to which Mr. Howitt most arrogantly demands an
implicit adherence. To uphold these, he uses a book as a Clown in a
Pantomime does, and knocks everybody on the head with it who comes
in his way. Moreover, he is an angrier personage than the Clown,
and does not experimentally try the effect of his red-hot poker on
your shins, but straightway runs you through the body and soul with
it. He is always raging to tell you that if you are not Howitt, you
are Atheist and Anti-Christ. He is the sans-culotte of the
Spiritual Revolution, and will not hear of your accepting this point
and rejecting that;--down your throat with them all, one and
indivisible, at the point of the pike; No Liberty, Totality,
Fraternity, or Death!

Without presuming to question that "it is high time to protest
against Protestantism" on such very substantial grounds as Mr.
Howitt sets forth, we do presume to think that it is high time to
protest against Mr. Howitt's spiritualism, as being a little in
excess of the peculiar merit of Thomas L. Harris's sermons, and
somewhat TOO "full, out-gushing, unstinted, and absorbing".

THE MARTYR MEDIUM

"After the valets, the master!" is Mr. Fechter's rallying cry in the
picturesque romantic drama which attracts all London to the Lyceum
Theatre. After the worshippers and puffers of Mr. Daniel Dunglas
Home, the spirit medium, comes Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home himself, in
one volume. And we must, for the honour of Literature, plainly
express our great surprise and regret that he comes arm-in-arm with
such good company as Messrs. Longman and Company.

We have already summed up Mr. Home's demands on the public capacity
of swallowing, as sounded through the war-denouncing trumpet of Mr.
Howitt, and it is not our intention to revive the strain as
performed by Mr. Home on his own melodious instrument. We notice,
by the way, that in that part of the Fantasia where the hand of the
first Napoleon is supposed to be reproduced, recognised, and kissed,
at the Tuileries, Mr. Home subdues the florid effects one might have
expected after Mr. Howitt's execution, and brays in an extremely
general manner. And yet we observe Mr. Home to be in other things
very reliant on Mr. Howitt, of whom he entertains as gratifying an
opinion as Mr. Howitt entertains of him: dwelling on his "deep
researches into this subject", and of his "great work now ready for
the press", and of his "eloquent and forcible" advocacy, and eke of
his "elaborate and almost exhaustive work", which Mr. Home trusts
will be "extensively read". But, indeed, it would seem to be the
most reliable characteristic of the Dear Spirits, though very
capricious in other particulars, that they always form their circles
into what may be described, in worldly terms, as A Mutual Admiration
and Complimentation Company (Limited).

Mr. Home's book is entitled Incidents in My Life. We will extract a
dozen sample passages from it, as variations on and phrases of
harmony in, the general strain for the Trumpet, which we have
promised not to repeat.

1. MR. HOME IS SUPERNATURALLY NURSED

"I cannot remember when first I became subject to the curious
phenomena which have now for so long attended me, but my aunt and
others have told me that when I was a baby my cradle was frequently
rocked, as if some kind guardian spirit was attending me in my
slumbers."

2. DISRESPECTFUL CONDUCT OF MR. HOME'S AUNT NEVERTHELESS

"In her uncontrollable anger she seized a chair and threw it at me."

3. PUNISHMENT OF MR. HOME'S AUNT

"Upon one occasion as the table was being thus moved about of
itself, my aunt brought the family Bible, and placing it on the
table, said, 'There, that will soon drive the devils away'; but to
her astonishment the table only moved in a more lively manner, as if
pleased to bear such a burden." (We believe this is constantly
observed in pulpits and church reading desks, which are invariably
lively.) "Seeing this she was greatly incensed, and determined to
stop it, she angrily placed her whole weight on the table, and was
actually lifted up with it bodily from the floor."

4. TRIUMPHANT EFFECT OF THIS DISCIPLINE ON MR. HOME'S AUNT

"And she felt it a duty that I should leave her house, and which I
did."

5. MR. HOME'S MISSION

It was communicated to him by the spirit of his mother, in the
following terms: "Daniel, fear not, my child, God is with you, and
who shall be against you? Seek to do good: be truthful and truth-
loving, and you will prosper, my child. Yours is a glorious
mission--you will convince the infidel, cure the sick, and console
the weeping." It is a coincidence that another eminent man, with
several missions, heard a voice from the Heavens blessing him, when
he also was a youth, and saying, "You will be rewarded, my son, in
time". This Medium was the celebrated Baron Munchausen, who relates
the experience in the opening of the second chapter of the incidents
in HIS life.

6. MODEST SUCCESS OF MR. HOME'S MISSION

"Certainly these phenomena, whether from God or from the devil, have
in ten years caused more converts to the great truths of immortality
and angel communion, with all that flows from these great facts,
than all the sects in Christendom have made during the same period."

7. WHAT THE FIRST COMPOSERS SAY OF THE SPIRIT-MUSIC, TO MR. HOME

"As to the music, it has been my good fortune to be on intimate
terms with some of the first composers of the day, and more than one
of them have said of such as they have heard, that it is such music
as only angels could make, and no man could write it."

These "first composers" are not more particularly named. We shall
therefore be happy to receive and file at the office of this
Journal, the testimonials in the foregoing terms of Dr. Sterndale
Bennett, Mr. Balfe, Mr. Macfarren, Mr. Benedict, Mr. Vincent
Wallace, Signor Costa, M. Auber, M. Gounod, Signor Rossini, and
Signor Verdi. We shall also feel obliged to Mr. Alfred Mellon, who
is no doubt constantly studying this wonderful music, under the
Medium's auspices, if he will note on paper, from memory, say a
single sheet of the same. Signor Giulio Regondi will then perform
it, as correctly as a mere mortal can, on the Accordion, at the next
ensuing concert of the Philharmonic Society; on which occasion the
before-mentioned testimonials will be conspicuously displayed in the
front of the orchestra.

8. MR. HOME'S MIRACULOUS INFANT

"On the 26th April, old style, or 8th May, according to our style,
at seven in the evening, and as the snow was fast falling, our
little boy was born at the town house, situate on the Gagarines
Quay, in St. Petersburg, where we were still staying. A few hours
after his birth, his mother, the nurse, and I heard for several
hours the warbling of a bird as if singing over him. Also that
night, and for two or three nights afterwards, a bright starlike
light, which was clearly visible from the partial darkness of the
room, in which there was only a night-lamp burning, appeared several
times directly I over its head, where it remained for some moments,
and then slowly moved in the direction of the door, where it
disappeared. This was also seen by each of us at the same time.
The light was more condensed than those which have been so often
seen in my presence upon previous and subsequent occasions. It was
brighter and more distinctly globular. I do not believe that it
came through my mediumship, but rather through that of the child,
who has manifested on several occasions the presence of the gift. I
do not like to allude to such a matter, but as there are more
strange things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of, even in my
philosophy, I do not feel myself at liberty to omit stating, that
during the latter part of my wife's pregnancy, we thought it better
that she should not join in Seances, because it was found that
whenever the rappings occurred in the room, a simultaneous movement
of the child was distinctly felt, perfectly in unison with the
sounds. When there were three sounds, three movements were felt,
and so on, and when five sounds were heard, which is generally the
call for the alphabet, she felt the five internal movements, and she
would frequently, when we were mistaken in the latter, correct us
from what the child indicated."

We should ask pardon of our readers for sullying our paper with this
nauseous matter, if without it they could adequately understand what
Mr. Home's book is.

9. CAGLIOSTRO'S SPIRIT CALLS ON MR. HOME

Prudently avoiding the disagreeable question of his giving himself,
both in this state of existence and in his spiritual circle, a name
to which he never had any pretensions whatever, and likewise
prudently suppressing any reference to his amiable weakness as a
swindler and an infamous trafficker in his own wife, the guileless
Mr. Balsamo delivered, in a "distinct voice", this distinct
celestial utterance--unquestionably punctuated in a supernatural
manner: "My power was that of a mesmerist, but all-misunderstood by
those about me, my biographers have even done me injustice, but I
care not for the untruths of earth".

10. ORACULAR STATE OF MR. HOME

"After various manifestations, Mr. Home went into the trance, and
addressing a person present, said, 'You ask what good are such
trivial manifestations, such as rapping, table-moving, etc.? God is
a better judge than we are what is fitted for humanity, immense
results may spring from trivial things. The steam from a kettle is
a small thing, but look at the locomotive! The electric spark from
the back of a cat is a small thing, but see the wonders of
electricity! The raps are small things, but their results will lead
you to the Spirit-World, and to eternity! Why should great results
spring from such small causes? Christ was born in a manger, he was
not born a King. When you tell me why he was born in a manger, I
will tell you why these manifestations, so trivial, so undignified
as they appear to you, have been appointed to convince the world of
the truth of spiritualism.'"

Wonderful! Clearly direct Inspiration!--And yet, perhaps, hardly
worth the trouble of going "into the trance" for, either. Amazing
as the revelation is, we seem to have heard something like it from
more than one personage who was wide awake. A quack doctor, in an
open barouche (attended by a barrel-organ and two footmen in brass
helmets), delivered just such another address within our hearing,
outside a gate of Paris, not two months ago.

11. THE TESTIMONY OF MR. HOME'S BOOTS

"The lady of the house turned to me and said abruptly, 'Why, you are
sitting in the air'; and on looking, we found that the chair
remained in its place, but that I was elevated two or three inches
above it, and my feet not touching the floor. This may show how
utterly unconscious I am at times to the sensation of levitation.
As is usual, when I had not got above the level of the heads of
those about me, and when they change their position much--as they
frequently do in looking wistfully at such a phenomenon--I came down
again, but not till I had remained so raised about half a minute
from the time of its being first seen. I was now impressed to leave
the table, and was soon carried to the lofty ceiling. The Count de
B- left his place at the table, and coming under where I was, said,
'Now, young Home, come and let me touch your feet.' I told him I
had no volition in the matter, but perhaps the spirits would kindly
allow me to come down to him. They did so, by floating me down to
him, and my feet were soon in his outstretched hands. He seized my
boots, and now I was again elevated, he holding tightly, and pulling
at my feet, till the boots I wore, which had elastic sides, came off
and remained in his hands."

12. THE UNCOMBATIVE NATURE OF MR. HOME

As there is a maudlin complaint in this book, about men of Science
being hard upon "the 'Orphan' Home", and as the "gentle and
uncombative nature" of this Medium in a martyred point of view is
pathetically commented on by the anonymous literary friend who
supplies him with an introduction and appendix--rather at odds with
Mr. Howitt, who is so mightily triumphant about the same Martyr's
reception by crowned heads, and about the competence he has become
endowed with--we cull from Mr. Home's book one or two little
illustrative flowers. Sir David Brewster (a pestilent unbeliever)
"has come before the public in few matters which have brought more
shame upon him than his conduct and assertions on this occasion, in
which he manifested not only a disregard for truth, but also a
disloyalty to scientific observation, and to the use of his own
eyesight and natural faculties". The same unhappy Sir David
Brewster's "character may be the better known, not only for his
untruthful dealing with this subject, but also in his own domain of
science in which the same unfaithfulness to truth will be seen to be
the characteristic of his mind". Again, he "is really not a man
over whom victory is any honour". Again, "not only he, but
Professor Faraday have had time and ample leisure to regret that
they should have so foolishly pledged themselves", etc. A Faraday a
fool in the sight of a Home! That unjust judge and whited wall,
Lord Brougham, has his share of this Martyr Medium's
uncombativeness. "In order that he might not be compelled to deny
Sir David's statements, he found it necessary that he should be
silent, and I have some reason to complain that his Lordship
preferred sacrificing me to his desire not to immolate his friend."
M. Arago also came off with very doubtful honours from a wrestle
with the uncombative Martyr; who is perfectly clear (and so are we,
let us add) that scientific men are not the men for his purpose. Of
course, he is the butt of "utter and acknowledged ignorance", and of
"the most gross and foolish statements", and of "the unjust and
dishonest", and of "the press-gang", and of crowds of other alien
and combative adjectives, participles, and substantives.

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