On the 17th of August, in 1838, as I find by my diary, “I went with
Henrietta Skerret to see the Baron Dupotet magnetise his patients.” This
was my first introduction to a subject, and to a special little world of
its own, of which subsequently I saw a great deal, and which shortly
began to attract an increasing amount of attention from the greater
world around it. The Miss Skerret mentioned was the younger of two
sisters, the nieces of Mathias, the author of the once well known, but
now forgotten, _Pursuits of Literature_. Mr. Mathias and his sister,
Mrs. Skerret, had been old acquaintances of my mother from earlier days
than those to which any reminiscences of mine run back. And Maryanne and
Henrietta Skerret were life-long friends of my mother’s and of mine.
They were left at the death of their parents very slenderly provided
for, and Maryanne, the elder, became by the interest of some influential
person among their numerous friends, received into the service of the
Queen in some properly menial capacity. But of all those in the
immediate service of Her Majesty, it is probable that there was not
one, whether menial or other, equal to Miss Skerret in native power of
intellect, extent of reading, and linguistic accomplishment. And this
the Queen very speedily discovered, the result of which was that to her
particular service, which I believe consisted in taking charge of the
jewellery which the Queen had in daily use, was added that of marking in
the volumes which Her Majesty wished to make some acquaintance with,
those passages which she deemed worth the Queen’s attention. She
remained with the Queen many years, till advancing age was thought to
have entitled her to a retiring pension, which she was still enjoying
when I saw her, a very old woman, two or three years ago. I know that
she found her position in the household, as may be readily understood,
an irksome and materially uncomfortable one. But of her royal mistress,
and of every member of the royal family she came into contact with, she
never ceased to speak with the utmost affection and gratitude.
The younger sister, Henrietta, died some years before her. I had of late
years seen much more of her than of her sister; for of course the
position of the latter cut her off very much from all association with
her friends. Henrietta was as remarkably clever a woman as her sister,
but very different from her. She was as good a linguist, but her natural
bent was to mathematics and its kindred subjects rather than to general
literature. And whereas Maryanne was marked by an exquisite sense of
humour, and was always full of fun, Henrietta was, I think, the most
judicial-minded woman I have ever known. I have never met the man or
woman whom I should have preferred to consult on a matter of weighing
and estimating the value of evidence. She was for many years, as was my
mother also, an intimate friend of Captain Kater, who was in those days
well known in the scientific world as “Pendulum Kater,” from some
application, I fancy, of the properties of the pendulum to the business
of mapping, in which he had been engaged in India. Young, Woolaston, De
Morgan, and others _ejusdem farinæ_, were all Miss Skerret’s friends,
especially the last named. And I was brought into contact with some of
them by her means.
This was the lady who, in 1838, invited me to accompany her to a
_séance_ at the house of Baron Dupotet, a Frenchman, whose magnetising
theories and practice were at that time exciting some attention.
Here is an extract from my diary written the same evening.
“The phenomena I have witnessed are certainly most extraordinary and
unaccountable. That one young woman was thrown into a convulsive state,
is entirely undeniable. Her muscles, which we felt, were hard, rigid,
and in a state of tension, and so remained for a longer time than it is
possible for any person voluntarily to keep them so--for, I should say,
at least twenty minutes. A little girl became to all appearance
somnambulous. This, however, might more possibly be imposture. When the
little girl and the young woman were placed near each other, the effect
on both was increased, and the girl instead of being merely somnambulous
became convulsive. The little girl, _as far as the_ CLOSE _observation
of the onlookers could detect_ [underlining in original], saw the
colours of objects, &c., with her eyes closed. This, however, is
evidence of a nature easily deceptive. When waked from her magnetic
trance, she forgot, or professed to have forgotten, all that she had
said or done when in it. But when again put into a state of trance or
somnambulism, she again remembered and spoke of what had occurred in the
former trance.
“After these patients were disposed of, two young men of the spectators
offered themselves as subjects to the magnetiser. He said that they were
not good subjects for it, and that it would be difficult to affect them,
and would take a long time. He then tried me, and after a short space of
time, I think not more than half a minute, he said that I was _very_
sensitive to the magnetic influence, and that in two or three sittings
he could produce ‘_des effets extraordinaires_’ on me; but that he was
then tired, and that ‘_rien ne coule plus_’ from his fingers.”
It is not so stated in my diary, but I remember perfectly well that the
general impression left on my mind by the Baron was not a favourable
one. I find by my diary that I read his book, translated from the French
by Miss Skerret, a few days afterwards, and the result was to increase
the above impression. But I was far from coming to the conclusion that
his pretensions were all chimerical. As regards his dictum about my own
impressionability, I may observe, that on various occasions at long
distant times, I have been subjected to the experiments of several
professing magnetisers of reputed first-rate power, but that _never_ has
the slightest effect of any kind whatever been produced upon me.
Sometimes I was pronounced to be physically a bad subject; sometimes I
was accused of spoiling the experiment by wilfully resisting the
influence; sometimes the magnetiser was too tired.
I think I may as well throw together here the rest of my experiences and
reminiscences in connection with this subject--or rather some selections
from them, for I have at different times and places seen so much of it,
that I might fill volumes with the reports of my observations.
On the 13th of February, 1839, my mother and I dined with Mr. Grattan to
meet Dr. Elliotson, and on the following day we went by appointment to
meet him at the house of a patient of his, a little boy in Red Lion
Street. I saw subsequently a great deal of Dr. Elliotson, and I may say
became intimate with him. It needed but little intercourse with him to
perceive that here was a man of a very different calibre from Baron
Dupotet. Without at all coming to the conclusion that the latter was a
charlatan, it was abundantly evident to me that Elliotson was in no
degree such. He was a gentleman, a highly educated and accomplished
man, and so genuinely in earnest on this subject of “animal magnetism,”
as it was the fashion then to call it, that he was ready to spend and be
spent in his efforts to establish the truthfulness and therapeutic
usefulness of its pretensions.
Here is the account of what we--my mother and I--witnessed on that 14th
of February, as given in my diary written the same day:--
“He put the little boy to sleep very shortly, then drew him by magnetic
passes out of his chair, and caused him while evidently all the time
asleep, to imitate him [Dr. Elliotson] in all his attitudes and
movements. We both firmly believed that the boy _was_ asleep. We then
went to the house of another patient, Emma Melhuish, the daughter of a
glazier, sixteen years old, and ill in bed from cataleptic fits.”
This was a very remarkable case, and had attracted considerable
attention. Emma Melhuish was a very beautiful girl, and she was perhaps
the most remarkable instance I ever witnessed of a singular phenomenon
resulting from magnetic sleep, which has been often spoken of in
relation to other cases--the truly wonderful spiritual beauty assumed by
the features and expression of the patient during superinduced
cataleptic trance, which has never, I believe, been observed in cases of
natural catalepsy. I have seen this girl, Emma Melhuish (doubtless a
very pretty girl in her normal state of health, but with nothing
intellectually or morally special about her), throw herself during her
magnetic trance into attitudes of adoration, the grace and
expressiveness of which no painter could hope to find in the best model
he ever saw or heard of, while her face and features, eyes especially,
assumed a rapt and ecstatic expressiveness which no Saint Theresa could
have equalled. It was a conception of Fra Angelico spiritualised by the
presence of the breath of life. Never shall I forget the look of the
girl as I saw her in that condition! I can see her now! and can
remember, as I felt it then, the painfulness of the suggestion that such
an apparent outlook of the soul was in truth nothing more than the
result of certain purely material conditions of the body. But was it
such?
Here is my diary’s account of what I saw that first day:--
“We found her in mesmeric sleep, she having been so since left by Dr.
Elliotson in that condition the day before. We heard her predict the
time when her fits would recur, and saw the prediction verified with the
utmost exactitude. We heard her declare in what part of the house her
various sisters were at the moment, saying that one had just left the
counting-house and had come into the next room, all which statements we
carefully verified. My mother and myself came home fully persuaded that,
let the explanatory theory of the matter be what it might, there had
been no taint of imposture in what we had witnessed.”
On subsequent visits we assured ourselves of the entire truthfulness of
statements to the effect that Emma was conscious of the approach of Dr.
Elliotson, while he was still in a different street, and to the
punctuality with which she went to sleep and waked, at the hour she had
named herself as that when she should do so.
I remember Dr. Elliotson relating to me, as an instance of the utility
of the magnetic influence, a curious case to which he had been called.
The brother of a young girl had, as a practical joke, suddenly fired off
a pistol behind her head. She was of course painfully startled, with the
result of becoming affected by a fit of hiccough so persistent, that no
means could be found or suggested of making it cease. It was absolutely
impossible for the girl to swallow anything. She was becoming exhausted,
and the case assumed a really alarming aspect. It was at this
conjuncture that Elliotson was called in. He succeeded in putting her
into a magnetic sleep, with of course perfect calm, after which the
hiccough returned no more.
But by far the most curious and interesting of Elliotson’s cases was
one, of which a good deal was, I think, said and printed in those days,
but of which very few persons, probably, saw as much as I did--the case
of the two Okey girls. They were both patients, I believe for some form
of catalepsy, in a hospital of which Dr. Elliotson was one of the
leading physicians. Dr. Elliotson was obliged to throw up his position
there, because those who were in authority at the hospital were bitterly
opposed to his magnetising experiments and practice. And about the same
time, or shortly afterwards, the Okey girls were dismissed for a cause
which seems grotesquely absurd, but the story of which is strictly true.
These girls, of, I suppose, about thirteen and fourteen, being in the
very extraordinary condition which a prolonged course of magnetising had
produced (of which I shall speak further presently) were in the habit of
declaring that they “saw Jack” at the bedside of this or that patient in
the hospital. And the patients of whom they made this assertion
invariably died! That the presence of such prophetesses in the hospital
was undesirable is intelligible enough; but what are we to think of the
motives, presentiments, instincts, intuitions of mental or physical
nature which prompted such guesses or prophecies?
Much about the same time my brother had a serious and dangerous illness,
so much so that his medical attendants--of whom Dr. Elliotson was, I
know not why, not one, though we were intimate with him at the
time--were by no means assured respecting the issue of it. Now it is
within my own knowledge that the Okey girls, especially one of them
(Jane, I think, her name was), were very frequently in the lodgings
occupied by my brother at the time, during the period of his greatest
danger, and used constantly to say that they “saw Jack by his side, but
only up to his knee,” and therefore they thought he would recover--as he
did! I am almost ashamed to write what seems such childish absurdity.
But the facts are certain, and taken in conjunction with the cause of
the girls’ dismissal from the hospital, and with a statement made to me
subsequently by Dr. Elliotson, they are very curious. I may add that
when cross-examined as closely as was possible as to _what_ they saw,
the girls said they did not know--that they did know that certain
persons whom they saw were about to die shortly, and that was their way
of saying it. They, on more than one occasion, on reaching our house by
omnibus, said that they had seen “Jack” by the side of one of the
passengers--of course I cannot say with what issue.
The statement referred to was as follows:--Elliotson having been in some
sort the cause of the two girls being turned out of the hospital, and
being anxious, moreover, to continue his observations on them, took them
into his own house. There looking out one day from an upper window, they
saw across the street at the opposite window three fine healthy-looking
children. They were, said Elliotson, the children of a hairdresser, who
had a shop below. “What a pity,” said Jane Okey, “that that child in the
middle has Jack at him. He will die!” And so within a day or two--it
might have been hours, I am not certain--the child _did_ die! Believing,
as I do, Dr. Elliotson to have been a truthful and habitually accurate
speaker, I confess that it does not satisfy me to dismiss this story,
especially when taken in conjunction with the other anecdotes I have
related, as mere “coincidence,” though I have no shadow of a theory to
offer in explanation of it.
The purely physical experiments which were performed with these girls
before my eyes were curious and interesting. I have seen those Okey
girls, and they were slight small girls, lift weights, which it would be
quite impossible for them to lift normally, not by applying the whole
strength of the body and back to the task, but by taking the ring of an
iron weight in the hand, and so lifting it in obedience to the “passes”
of the magnetiser applied to the arm.
But decidedly the most singular and curious part of the case consisted
in the abnormal condition of mind and intelligence in which they lived
under magnetic influence for many weeks at a time. There were three
conditions, or, as it might be said, three stages of condition in which
I saw and studied them. Firstly--though it was lastly as regards my
opportunities of observation--there was their normal natural condition.
Secondly, there was a condition not of trance, or somnambulism, but of
existence carried on according to the usual laws and conditions, but
resulting apparently from the application of magnetism during prolonged
periods of time, during which complete interruption of conscious
identity seemed to have taken place. The third state was that of trance.
In the first state they were much such as children of that age taken out
of a workhouse, say, might be expected to be--awkward, shy, seemingly
stupid, and unwilling to speak much when questioned. In the second state
they were bright, decidedly clever, apt to be pert, and perfectly
self-confident. And in this condition they had no recollection
whatsoever of any of the circumstances, persons, or things connected
with their previous lives. It was in this state that they talked about
“Jack,” and in this state that we--my mother and myself--knew them for
weeks together. While in this state a very slight accident was
sufficient to produce cataleptic rigidity and trance; often one without
the other. I remember one of the girls dining once with us in the middle
of the day. A dish of peas was handed round, the spoon in which, it
being hot weather, was no doubt heated by the successive hands which had
used it. When Jane Okey grasped it in her hand to take some peas her
fingers became clenched around it, and she could not open them. But
there ensued no trance or other manifestation of catalepsy. On another
occasion she was in my mother’s house playing on the accordion, which
she did very nicely in her magnetic state, but could not do at all in
her normal state, and I, sitting at the other side of the room opposite
to her, and reading a book, was moving my hand in time to the music,
though not thinking of her or of it. Suddenly she fell back in a trance,
magnetised unconsciously by me by the “passes” I was making with my
hand. I have also produced a similar result by magnetising her
intentionally behind her back, while she was entirely unconscious of
what I was doing.
But perhaps the most singular and remarkable scene connected with these
girls was that which occurred when, their physical health having been
very greatly, if not perfectly, restored, it became necessary to take
them out of that “second state,” which has been above described, and to
restore them to their former consciousness, their former life, and their
parents. The scene was a very painful one. The mother only, as far as I
remember, was present. Memory seemed only gradually, and at first, very
partially, to return to them. The mother was a respectable, but poor and
very uneducated woman, and of course wholly different in intelligence
and manners from all the surroundings to which the girls had become
habituated. And the expression of repulsion and dismay, with which they
at first absolutely refused to believe the statements that were made to
them, or to accept their mother as such, while she, poor woman, was
weeping at what appeared to her this newly developed absence of all
natural affection, was painful in the extreme.
Subsequently the daughter of one of these girls lived for some years, I
think, with my brother’s family at Waltham, as a housemaid.
The next reminiscences I have in connection with this subject belong to
a time a few years later.
We, my mother and I, had heard tidings from America of a certain Mr.
Daniel Hume, of whom very strange things were related. It was no longer
a question of physical specialties and manifestations, which
unquestionably did tend, apart from their medical value, to throw some
gleams, or hopes of gleams of light on the mysterious laws of the
connection between mind and matter. The new candidate for the attention
of the world claimed (_not_ to have the power, as was currently stated
at the time but) to be occasionally and involuntarily the means of
producing visitations from the denizens of the spirit world. And before
long we heard that he had arrived in England, and was a guest in the
house of Mr. Rymer, a solicitor, at Ealing. We lost no time in procuring
an introduction to that estimable gentleman and his amiable wife, and
were most courteously invited by him to visit him for the purpose of
interviewing and making acquaintance with his remarkable guest. We went
to Ealing, were most hospitably received, and forthwith introduced to
Mr. Daniel Hume, as he was then called, although he afterwards called
himself, or came to be called, Home. He was a young American, about
nineteen or twenty years of age I should say, rather tall, with a
loosely put together figure, red hair, large and clear but not bright
blue eyes, a sensual mouth, lanky cheeks, and that sort of complexion
which is often found in individuals of a phthisical diathesis. He was
courteous enough, not unwilling to talk, ready enough to speak of those
curious phenomena of his existence which differentiated him from other
mortals, but altogether unable or unwilling to formulate or enter into
discussion on any theory respecting them. We had tea, or rather supper,
I think. There were the young people of Mr. Rymer’s family about on the
lawn, and among them a pretty girl, with whom, naturally enough, our
young “medium” (for that had become the accepted term) was more disposed
to flirt--after a fashion, I remember, which showed him to have been a
petted inmate of the household--than to attend to matters of another
world.
But other guests arrived, Sir David Brewster I remember among them, and
Daniel had to be summoned to the business of the evening. This was
commenced by our all placing ourselves round a very large and very heavy
old-fashioned mahogany dining table, where we sat in expectation of
whatever should occur. Before long little crackings were heard, in the
wood of the table apparently. Then it quivered, became more and more
agitated, was next raised first at one end and then at the other, and
finally was undeniably raised bodily from the ground. At that moment Sir
David Brewster and myself, each acting on his own uncommunicated
impulse, precipitated ourselves from our chairs under the table. The
table was seen to be for a moment or two hovering in the air, perhaps
some four or five inches from the floor, without its being possible to
detect any means by which it could have been moved.
I said to Sir David, as our heads were close together under the table,
and we were on “all fours” on the floor, “Does it not seem that this
table is raised by some means wholly inexplicable?” “Indeed it would
seem so!” he replied. But he wrote a letter to the _Times_ the next day,
or a day or two after, in which he gave an account of his visit to
Ealing, but ended by denying that he had seen anything remarkable. But
it is a fact that he did do and say what I have related.
This was the sum of what occurred. There was no pretence of the presence
of any spiritual visitor. I may observe that although an ordinarily
strong man might have lifted either end of the table while the other end
remained on the ground, I am persuaded that no man could have raised it
bodily, unless perhaps by placing his shoulders under the centre of it.
After the table exhibition Mr. Hume fell into a sort of swoon or trance.
And it was then that he uttered the often-quoted words, “When Daniel
recovers give him some bottled porter!” which was accordingly done! It
may be observed, however, that he _did_ appear to be much exhausted.
Various little fragments of experiences, and the increasing amount of
attention, which the world was giving to the subject, had kept the
matter in my mind, till some years afterwards I had an opportunity of
inviting Mr. Hume to visit me in my house in Florence. He came, and
stayed with us for a month. And during the whole of that time--every
evening as it seems to my remembrance, though I have no diary which
records the fact--we had frequent experiments of his “mediumship.”
Of course it is (happily for the reader) out of the question for me to
attempt to give any detailed record of the proceedings and experiences
of those repeated _séances_. I can only select a few facts which
appeared to me most striking at the time, and add the general result as
to the impression produced on my mind.
All our Florentine friends and acquaintances were eager to have an
opportunity of passing an evening with the already celebrated medium. We
generally limited our number to about eight persons; but pretty
regularly had as many as that every evening. The performance usually
began by crackings and oscillations of the round table at which we sat.
Then would come more distinct raps; then the declaration that a visitor
from the spirit world was present, then the demand for whom the said
visit was intended, to which a reply was “knocked out,” by raps
indicating the letters required to form the desired name as the letters
of the alphabet, always on the table, were rapidly run over. Sometimes a
mistake was made, and an unintelligible word produced in consequence of
too great haste in doing this. And then the process had to be gone
through again. The medium never corrected any such mistake at the moment
it was made, but seemed to await the completion of the process as the
rest did.
One or more “spirits” came, to the best of my recollection, every
evening. Nor could I detect any sort of favouritism, or motive of any
sort for the selection of the parties said to be visited. This is the
sort of thing that would occur: There was present a well known and much
respected English banker, established in Florence, a hale, robust,
cheery sort of man, and a general favourite--the last man in the world
one would say to be credited with nervous impressionability. A “spirit”
was announced as having “come for him.” Who is it? A name was rapped out
in the manner described. The elderly banker declared that he had never
had any friend or relative of that name, and had never heard it before.
A second time the name was spelled out while the banker sat thrashing
out his recollections. Suddenly he struck his forehead with his hand,
and exclaimed, “By Heaven! it is true! Nanny ----” (I forget the name.)
“She was my nurse in Yorkshire more than half a century ago!” Of course
those who do not understand that scepticism is frequently more credulous
than faith, say at once that Mr. Hume, in the exercise of his
profession, like the gipsies in the exercise of theirs, had made it his
business to discover the former existence of Nanny ----, and her
connection with the person he was bent on befooling. But taking into
consideration the total severance of the old banker’s infancy both as to
years and locality from any of his then surroundings; the fact that it
was so long since he had heard the name in question mentioned, that he
had himself entirely forgotten it; and the further fact that there was
nobody in Florence who had any connection with him or his family in his
early years, and the circumstance that he that evening saw Mr. Hume for
the first time, I confess that it seems to me that the improbability of
any proposed explanation of the mystery must be incalculably great
indeed, for a solution the improbability of which approaches so very
near to impossibility to be preferably accepted.
Here is one other case, which I will give both because the person on
whose testimony the value of it depends, was one on whose accurate
veracity I could depend as on my own, and because it illustrates one
specialty of Mr. Hume’s performances which I have not yet spoken of.
This was a sensation of being touched, which was frequently experienced
by many of those present. This touching almost invariably took the form
of a knee being grasped under the table, or a hand being laid upon it.
In the case I am about to relate this was experienced in a more
remarkable manner.
A very highly valued old female servant, who had lived in my then wife’s
family since her birth, and had followed her when she married me, had
some months previously died in my house. The affection which had
subsisted between her and my wife was a very old and a very strong one.
Now there was, it would seem, an old nursery pet name, by which this
woman had been long years before in the habit of calling my wife. I had
never heard it, or of it. My wife herself had never heard it for very
many years. She and the old servant had never for years and years spoken
on the subject. But one evening this pet name was very distinctly
spelled; and my wife declared that she at the same time felt a sort of
pressure at her side, as she sat in the circle, as if some person or
thing had been endeavouring to find a place by her side. But for all
that, my wife, though utterly mystified and incapable of suggesting any
theory on the subject, was a strong disbeliever in all Mr. Hume’s
pretensions. She strongly disliked the man. And were it not that, as we
all know, her sex never permits their estimate of facts to be influenced
by their feelings, it might be supposed possible that this biassed her
mind upon the subject!
I could add dozens of cases to the above two, but they were all very
similar; and it is sufficient to say that the same sort of thing
occurred over and over again.
I may mention, however, that I observed that any question addressed to
the supposed spirits bearing on theology and matters of creed were
invariably answered according to the views of the questioner. Catholics,
Protestants, materialists, were all impartially confirmed in the
convictions of their diverse persuasions.
Also I should not omit to mention that my wife, taking her occasion from
Mr. Hume’s complaints of his own weakness of lungs, spoke of my
brother’s death in Belgium and of my life at Ostend, and at a sitting
some few days afterwards asked if she could be told where I had last
seen my brother on earth. The answer came promptly, “At Ostend.” But the
truth is, as the reader knows, that I took my leave of him on board the
Ostend steamer in the Thames.
My account of these sittings would not be as judicially accurate as I
have endeavoured to make it, however, were I to omit the statement that
Mr. Hume on two or three occasions offered to cause “spirit hands” to
become visible to us. The room was darkened for this purpose; and at the
opposite side of a rather large table from that at which the spectators
were sitting, certain forms of hands did become faintly visible. To me
they appeared like long kid gloves stuffed with some substance. But I am
far from asserting that they were such.
On the whole, the impression left on my mind by my month-long
intercourse with Mr. Hume was a disagreeable one of doubt and
perplexity. I was not left with the conviction that he was an altogether
trustworthy and sincere man. Nor was I fully persuaded of the reverse. I
_saw nothing_ which appeared to me to compel the conclusion that some
agency unknown to the ascertained and recognised laws of nature was at
work. But I _did hear_ many communications made in Mr. Hume’s presence
in the manner which has been described, which seemed to me to be wholly
inexplicable by any theory I could bring to bear upon them. It may be
observed that no theory of thought-reading will serve the turn, for in
many cases the facts, circumstances, or names communicated were
evidently _not_ in the thoughts of the persons to whom they were so
communicated. Of course it may be answered, “Ah! but however ‘_evident_’
that may have seemed to you, the facts _were_ in the thoughts of the
parties in question.” To this I can only reply that to me, my very
complete knowledge of the persons in question, and of their
veracity--one of them, as in the case above related, being my own
wife--renders the explanation suggested absolutely inadmissible.
I have seen at various subsequent periods a great many professors of
“mediumship,” and their performances. I was present at many sittings
given by Mrs. G.----, a huge mountain of a woman, very uneducated,
apparently good-natured and simple, but with a tendency to become
disagreeable when her attempts at communication with the unseen world
were declared to be failures.
I will give here the copy of a letter which I wrote to the secretary of
“The Dialectical Society,” which had applied to me for my “experiences”
on the subject. I cannot at the present day sum up any better the
conclusions to which they led me.
“FLORENCE, _27th December, 1869_.
“SIR,--In reply to your letter of the 17th I can only say that I
have but little to add to those previous statements of mine, of
which you are in possession.
“With regard to the sittings with Mrs. G., I can only say that the
greatest watchfulness on the part of those sharing in them failed
to detect (as regards the physical phenomena), any trace of
imposture. These phenomena, which took place in the dark, such as
the sudden falling on the table of a large quantity of jonquils,
which filled the whole room with their odour, were extraordinary,
and on any common theory of physics unaccountable. The room in
which this took place had been completely examined by me, and Mrs.
G.’s person had been carefully searched by my wife. With regard to
metaphysical phenomena, an attempt to hold communication with
intelligences other than those present in the flesh, was stated by
a lady to whom a communication was addressed, to have been
extraordinarily successful, and to have been proved by the event.
In the case of myself and my wife all such attempts resulted in
_total_ failure.
“I have recently had a sitting with Dr. Willis of Boston. The
physical manifestations (in the dark) were remarkable and
perplexing. The attempts at spiritual communication were altogether
failures.
“In short, the result of my experience thus far is this--that the
physical phenomena frequently produced are, _in many cases_, not
the result of any sleight of hand, and that those who have
witnessed them with due attention must be convinced that there is
no analogy between them and the tricks of professed ‘conjurors.’ I
may also mention that Bosco, one of the most accomplished
professors of legerdemain ever known, in a conversation with me
upon the subject, utterly scouted the idea of the possibility of
such phenomena as I saw produced by Mr. Hume being performed by any
of the resources of his art.
“To what sort of agency these results are to be attributed I have
no idea, and give no opinion; although (inasmuch as I consider that
the word ‘supernatural’ involves a contradiction in terms) I hold
that to admit that the phenomena exist, implies the admission that
they are ‘natural,’ or in accordance with _some_ law of nature.
“With regard to the metaphysical phenomena, though I have witnessed
many strange things, I have never known any that satisfactorily
excluded the _possibility_ of mistake or imposture.
“Your obedient servant,
“T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.”
If I am asked what, upon the whole, is my present state of mind upon the
subject, I can only say that it is that unpleasant one expressed in Lord
Chancellor Eldon’s often-quoted words, “I doubt.”
Before, however, quitting the subject, my gossip about which has run to
a length only excusable on the ground of the very general interest that
has been attracted by it, I will give two more excerpts from my
recollections, which relate to cases respecting which I have _no_ doubt.
They both refer, however, to purely physical phenomena.
A French professor of “animal magnetism” came to Florence. His name, I
think, was Lafontaine. He had a young girl with him, his patient. He
brought her to my house, in which there was a long room, at one end of
which he directed me to stand, then put the girl immediately in front of
me, and told me to hold her, so as to prevent her from coming to him,
when, standing at the further end of the room, he should draw her to
him. I accordingly placed my arms around her waist, interlacing my
fingers in front of her. She was a small, slight girl, and I was at that
time a somewhat exceptionally strong man. The operator then standing at
the distance of some twenty feet or more made “passes” as it were,
beckoning her with his hands to come to him. She struggled forwards. I
held her back with all my force, but was dragged after her towards the
magnetiser. This may be accepted as an absolutely accurate and certain
fact.
This same Lafontaine had entirely failed in attempts to magnetise me,
and in telling me, as he promised to do, what I in my house was doing at
a given moment while he was absent.
My second excerpt concerns also my own experience, and shall be given
with equally truthful accuracy.
My wife, my wife’s sister, and myself, had been spending the evening in
the house of Mr. Seymour Kirkup, an artist, who, once well known in the
artistic world, lived on in Florence to a great age after that world had
forgotten him. A girl, his daughter by a servant who lived several years
in his house, and who also had pretended to very strongly-developed
spiritualistic powers, developed, as he asserted, similar powers in a
very wonderful degree. And during his latter years the old man
absolutely and entirely lived, in every respect, according to the advice
and dictates of “the spirits,” as oracularly declared by Imogene, for
that was her name. In short, she was a clever, worthless hussy, and he
was a besotted old man. Our visit to his house was to witness some of
Imogene’s performances. There was also present a Colonel Bowen, who was
a convinced believer.
I, my wife, and sister-in-law detected unmistakably the girl’s clumsy
attempts at legerdemain, but knew poor old Kirkup far too well to make
any attempt to convict her. But as we walked home with our minds full of
the subject, we said, “Let us try whether we can produce any effect upon
a table, since that seems the regulation first step in these mysteries;
and, at least, we shall have the certainty of not being befooled by
trickery.” So, on reaching home, we took a table--rather a remarkable
one. It was small, not above eighteen or twenty inches across the top of
it. But it was _very_ much heavier than any ordinary table of that size,
the stem of it being a massive bit of ancient chestnut-wood carving,
which I had adapted to that purpose.
Well, in a minute or two the table began to move very unmistakably. We
were startled, and began to think that the ladies’ dresses must have,
unconsciously to them, pressed against it. We stood back therefore,
taking care that nothing but the tips of our fingers touched the table.
It still moved! We said that some unconscious exertion of muscular force
must have caused the movement, and finally we suspended our fingers
about an inch or so above the surface of the table, taking the utmost
care to touch it in no way whatever. The table still turned, and that to
such an extent that, entirely untouched, it turned itself over, and fell
to the ground.
I can only observe of this, as the little boy said who was accused of
relating an impossibility as a fact, “I don’t say it is possible, I
only say it is true!”
In Kirkup’s case his entire and never-varying conviction of the
truthfulness of Miss Imogene’s material manifestations and spiritual
revelations was the more remarkable in that he had for many years--for
all his life, for aught I know to the contrary--entertained and
professed the most thorough persuasion of the futility and absurdity of
all belief that the soul of man survived material death. His tenets on
this subject are the more strongly impressed on my memory by an absurd
incident that occurred to my present wife in connection with his
materialistic theories.
He and she were one day talking upon the subject, as they sat
_tête-à-tête_ on opposite sides of a table. Now Kirkup was very
deaf--worse by a great deal than I am--and my wife failing to make him
hear a question she put to him, and having no other writing materials at
hand, hastily drew a card from her card-case, and pencilled on the back
of it: “What are your grounds for assurance that the visible death of
the body is the death of the spirit also?” He read, and addressed
himself to reply, letting the card fall on the table between them, which
she, thinking only of the matter in discussion, mechanically put back
into her card-case, and--left at the next house at which she happened to
be making a morning call!
Kirkup’s conversion to spiritualism was so complete that, as I have
said, his entire life was shaped according to the dictates which Miss
Imogene chose to represent as coming from her spiritual visitors. The
old man had lived for very many years in Florence. All the interests
which still bound him to life were there, and he was much attached to
the city in which so large a portion of his long life had been passed.
But Imogene one day announced that “the spirits” declared that he must
go and live in Leghorn! Of course the blow to the old man was a terrible
one, but he meekly and unhesitatingly obeyed, and submitted to be
uprooted when he was past eighty and packed off to Leghorn! I discovered
subsequently--what I might have guessed at the time--that the
good-for-nothing jade had a lover at Leghorn. Kirkup’s new faith in the
existence of a soul in man, separable from his body, continued firm, I
believe, till his death, which occurred shortly afterwards.
I have at various times and in various countries been present at the
performances of spiritualistic _mediums_ (a monstrous word, but one
can’t write _media_), and always with an uniformly similar result in one
respect. No non-material experience whatever has ever been vouchsafed to
me myself. _Material_ phenomena of a very surprising nature, and
altogether unaccountable in accordance with any received physical
theories, I have seen in great abundance. And I must in justice say that
the performances of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke, which attracted so much
attention in Piccadilly, masterly as they were as exhibitions of
legerdemain, did not by any means succeed in proving the imposture of
the pretensions of Hume and others, by doing the same things. I think
the Piccadilly performances _did_ achieve this as regards the tying and
loosening of knots in a dark cabinet. But when one of the performers
above mentioned proceeded to “float in the air,” he only demonstrated
the impossibility of doing by any means known to his art, that which
Hume--or Home--was declared on the most indisputable testimony to have
done. Mr. Maskelyne certainly “floated in the air” above the heads of
the spectators, but I saw very unmistakably the wire by which he was
suspended. It may not have been _wire_, but I saw the cord, thread, or
whatever it may have been, by which he was suspended. Nor is it possible
to doubt that the gentlemen, who saw, or supposed themselves to have
seen, Mr. Hume floating in the air above them, would have failed to
detect any such artifice as that by which the professor of legerdemain
was enabled to do the same. And then we must not lose sight of the
all-important difference between the two performances, arising from the
fact, that the one performer has at command all the facilities afforded
by a _locale_ in which he has had abundant opportunity of making every
preparation which the resources of his art could suggest to him; whereas
the other exhibits his wonders under circumstances absolutely excluding
the possibility of any such preparation.
But _I_ never saw Mr. Hume float in the air! The only physical phenomena
which I saw produced by him consisted in the moving and lifting of
tables--in some cases very heavy tables. But I have witnessed in _very_
numerous cases, communications made by the medium to individuals who
have declared it to have been absolutely impossible that Mr. Hume should
by any ordinary means have known the facts communicated. And it has
appeared to me, knowing all the circumstances, to have been as nearly
impossible as can well be conceived without being absolutely so.
Here is one more remarkable case--one out of dozens of such. A
middle-aged Italian gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, asked that the
spirit of his father, who, it was stated by the medium, was present,
should mention where he and his son, then communicating with him, last
met on earth. It should be stated that the inquirer, having abandoned
the faith of his fathers, professed entire disbelief in any existence of
the soul, or any future life. The answer to his query was spelled out in
the manner I have already described, a certain Italian city being named.
I watched the face of the sceptical inquirer as the letters were “rapped
out” and gradually completed the name required. And I needed no
confession of the fact from him to know that the answer had been
correctly given. I thought the man would have fallen from his chair. He
became ghastly pale, and trembled all over. He was in truth very
terribly impressed and affected, but--and the phenomenon is a very
curious, though by no means an uncommon one--a few days afterwards the
impression had entirely faded from his mind. He continued fully to admit
that the fact which had occurred was altogether inexplicable, but wholly
refused to believe that it involved any supposition inconsistent with
his strictly materialistic creed.
In the above case, as in that of the banker given above, it may of
course be said that it was within the bounds of possibility that Mr.
Hume should have previously ascertained the fact that he stated. It is,
of course, impossible for me here to explain to the reader every detail
of the circumstances that seem to me to render such an explanation
wholly inadmissible. I can only say that to a mind as entirely open upon
the subject as I think my mind is, the supposition in question appears
so improbable, that it fails to impress me as a possibility.
On the other hand, I have to say that every attempt of a similar kind,
whether by Mr. Hume or by any other so-called medium, in which I myself
have been the subject of the experiment, has absolutely and wholly
failed. Mr. Hume never, to the best of my remembrance, introduced or
announced the presence of any spirit “for me.” I was like the boy at
school whom no relative ever comes to see! The Mrs. G---- who has been
mentioned at an earlier page, announced upon one occasion the presence
of my mother, with results which would have sufficed to prove very
satisfactorily that my mother’s spirit was not there, if I had
previously fully believed the case to have been otherwise.
I once went to visit the then celebrated Alexis in Paris. He knew that I
was a resident in Florence, and began operations by proposing to
describe to me my house there. Of course such an experiment admitted of
almost every conceivable kind of mystification and uncertainty. I told
him that the proposed description would necessarily occupy more of his
time than seemed to me needed for producing the conviction of the
reality of his power, which I was anxious to acquire; and that it would
be abundantly sufficient for that purpose if he would simply tell me the
number composed of four figures which I had written on a piece of paper,
and sealed in a (perfectly non-transparent) packet. He refused to make
the attempt.
Many years subsequently I attended the _séances_ of a gentleman in
London, whose performances attracted a good deal of attention at the
time--of an unfavourable description, for the most part--and whose chief
specialty consisted in enclosing a piece of slate pencil loosely between
two ordinary framed slates, securely tied together, and awaiting
communications to be made by writing produced on the slate by the pencil
thus enclosed acting automatically. I _did_ see written words thus
produced, where to the best of my observation there had been no words
before the slates were (quite securely) tied together. Nor could I form
any theory or guess as to the manner in which this writing was produced
under circumstances which seemed to make it perfectly impossible that it
should be so produced. But the words so written conveyed no remarkable
or surprising information--and indeed to the best of my recollection had
little meaning at all.
Thus once again that portion of the performance which was, or might have
been, of the nature of sleight of hand, was done so well as to cause
much puzzlement and surprise; while what may be called the spiritual
part of the promised phenomenon failed _entirely_.
I have witnessed the performances of sundry other medi_ums_--I hate to
write the word!--always with the same net result. That is to say, the
strictly physical phenomena witnessed were in very many cases--not in
all--utterly unaccountable and incomprehensible. The statement that the
performances of many masters of legerdemain are also unaccountable and
incomprehensible appears to me, while I fully admit the truth of it, to
be of very little value. The phenomena produced by these professors are
in almost every case totally different in kind, and are in every case
placed in a wholly different category by the fact that the performers of
them have the assistance of tools and means--the highly-skilled
preparation and combination of which constitute a very important (if not
the most essential) part of their professional equipment--and of the
resources of their own prepared _locale_. Furthermore, I cannot forget
the testimony of that “prince of conjurors,” Bosco, to the effect that
the phenomena, which I declared to him I had seen, were entirely
unachievable by any of the resources of his art.
Above all I have the certain knowledge (resting not only on my own very
perfect recollection, but on the unvarying testimony of the two other
persons engaged in the experiment) that a table did move much and
violently, as recorded above, while wholly and certainly untouched by
any human hands or persons, and uncommunicated with--if I may use such
an expression--save by the minds of the operators.
The net conclusion, therefore, of my rather extensive experience in the
matter is, that as regards phenomena purely physical, such have been and
are frequently produced by the practisers of “animal magnetism”--or by
whatever name it may be preferred to call it--of a nature wholly
inexplicable by any of the theories or suggestions which have been
adduced for the explanation of them.
With regard to _non-physical_ phenomena--that is to say, such as imply
the abnormal exercise of intelligences, whether incarnate or
disembodied, outside the intelligence of the individual experimenting--I
have to testify that I have _heard_ from many highly credible persons
the statement of their own experience of such communication with
intelligences other than their own. And I have heard such statements
immediately on the occurrence of the facts. But I have never in my own
person received or been made the subject of any such.
INDEX.
A.
Abbaye-aux-Bois, at the, 271, 273
Abingdon Road, pedestrian feat on, 218
Academical career, my, a failure, 216
Acheron pavement, 226
Adventure on the Danube, 312, 313
Advertising, modern, 45
Alabama, Miss Wright’s property in, 153
Alban Hall, I matriculate at, 191
as it was under Whately, 192
membership of, disastrous to me, 211
cause of my quitting it, 211
Ale _versus_ claret, 46
Alexis; thought-reader of Paris, 393
Alleghany Mountains, beauty of, 165
American stabbed at Naples, 12
Americans, my experience of, 168, 169, 181-183
rigging a sledge, 346
Amusements of childhood, 22
Anabaptist, 14, 15
Angelico, Fra, 368
Antwerp, from, to Dover, 345
Aristotle’s _Ethics_, 220
Arithmetic, ignorance of, 145
Atlantic, passage across, 156
Austen, Miss, 64
Austrian Empire, heterogeneousness of, 326
Authority of Prefects at Winchester, 124
Authorship, my first, 148
Autobiography, my brother’s, 228
Autograph of Byron, remarkable, 92
Auvergnats at Paris, 264
B.
Badger baiting, Winchester, 108
“Badger,” my nickname at Winchester, 170
Bamberg, 17
Barclay, Captain, 218
Barge, from Bruges to Ostend, 290
Bathing, death from excessive, 292
Batten, Rev. Mr., 72
Beattie’s Young Edwin, illustrated, 224, 225
Bedford, Duke of, 2
Bedford Square, 3
Bedsteads at Winchester, 132
Beer Cellar at Winchester, 100
Belgian cities, tour among, 246
Belgiojoso, Princess, 286, 287
Belgium, tour with Fanny Bent in, 254
Bell, Jockey, 47
Bent, Fanny, 32, 37, 247, 254
Bent, Mary, 32
Bent, Rev. John, 32
Bentley, Mr. Richard, 262
_Beppo the Conscript_ written in twenty-four days, 357, 358
Berryer, 280
Birmingham, mastership at, offered me, 255
delays and disappointments
about it, 256, 258
continued disappointment, 294
I assume my duties at, 349
difficulties of them, 350, 352
my life at, 353, 354
I resign my position at, 355
Bismarck and Metternich, contrast between, 328, 329
Bismarck, Prince, 328, 329
Bloomsbury Square, 3
Boat on the Danube, description of, 308-310
Bohemian waggoners, 327
Bosco, the conjuror, 395
Bowen, Colonel, 386
Bower, Fungy, 145
Bowring, Lucy, 39
Bowring, Sir John, 39
Boy, whole duty of, 13
Brewster, Sir David, 376
Brittany, summer in, 303
Brown’s _Vulgar Errors_, 220
Bruges, I join my parents at, 242
return to, June, 1835, 290
my mother quits, 298
Buller, Dean, 38
Bullying at Harrow, 78
Burial of Byron’s daughter at Harrow, 91
Burton’s _Anatomy_, 220
Butler, Rev. Dr., 72, 73, 89
Butt, Dr., M.D., 79, 80
Byron, Lord, 91, 92
C.
Caen, bookseller at; anecdote of, 303, 304
Caermarthen in assize time, 222
_Cain_, Byron’s; Harry Drury and the Vicar on, 91
Calais, journey to, 243
journey from, to Ostend, 244
Calling “Domum” at Winchester, 107
Calomel, use of, 59
Camaldoli, Sagro Eremo, porter at, 1
Cane _versus_ rod, 351
Canterbury, walk in snow to, 347
Carlyle, Thomas, 45, 263
Carmelite Monastery, library at, 246
Casuistry, extraordinary, 246
Catacombs at Vienna, 341
Cathedral service sixty years ago, 84, 85
Catherine’s, St., Hill, Winchester, 106, 107
Chadwick, Captain, 157, 159
Chalk pit on St. Catherine’s Hill, 110
Chambers at Winchester, 131
Chambers, discipline in, at Winchester, 133, 134
Chancery Lane, 47
Chancery report, extraordinary, 48
Changes, social, 25, 26, 28
Changing horses, coach, 35
Chapel-going at Winchester, 137
Chaplains at Winchester, 138
Chapman, General, 62
Chapone, Mrs., 230
Character from school, my, 24
Charity at Winchester and at Harrow, 77
Charles Dix, 265
Charlotte, Princess, 16
Charlotte, Queen, 136
Chateaubriand, 269, 271, 272, 274
Château d’Hondt at Bruges, 245
Cheddar Cliffs, excursion to, 188
Cincinnati, my mother’s house at, 166
country around, 168
Powers, Hiram, at, 176
life at, 178, 181
theatricals at, 181
plans at, 184
Claret _versus_ ale, 46
Clarke, Miss, 271, 272, 285
Class third given me, 216
Classical lesson, giving, in London, 248
“Classicus paper” at Winchester 145
Clements, Mrs., 353
Clergyman’s escape from burning ship, 207
Coaches, names of, 7
Coachman, 35, 36
Cocked hat of master at Winchester disused, 117
Coincidence, singular, 187
Coleridge, S. T., 301
College and Commoners at Winchester, 77
Columbia, near Cincinnati, Mr. Longworth’s estate, 175
“Commercial gentlemen,” dinner with, 222
Confectioner, revisited, 3
“Continent” at Winchester, 120
Conversation sixty years since, anecdote of, 230
“Corduroy” roads, 165
_Corinthian_, the ship, 157
Corporal punishment, objections to, 115, 116
Courage, my boyish notion of, 71, 72
Courier, Austrian, 344, 345
Cousin, 275
Cramer, John, 131, 325
Crediton, near Exeter, 32
Cricket, changes in, 146
Croatian gipsies, 327
Cross, St., near Winchester, 107
Cunningham, Rev. Mr., 88, 91, 151
D.
Dannecker, sculptor, 314
Dante’s _bolgia_, representation of, at Cincinnati, 176, 177
Danube, boats on, 306, 307
Dean Rennell, a Platonist, 142
anecdotes of, 143
Debating Society at Birmingham, 353
Deck, nights on, 158
Degree, examination for my, 215, 216
I take my, 257
_Delirant reges plectuntur Achivi_, 212
Delirium, my, in typhus, 79
De Morgan, 364
Devonport Mail (Quicksilver), 32
Dialect, provincial affected, 37, 38
Devonshire, 43
Dialectical Society, letter to the, 383
Dickens, Charles, 29
Dickson, Colonel, 293
Dinner in Hall at Winchester, 104
Dinner with the Austrian Mail, 344, 345
Discipline by night at Winchester, 121
Dispers at Winchester, 103
Dissenters sixty years ago, 66
Distribution of rations at Winchester, 105
Divinity lectures at Oxford, 242
Docks, the, 9
Dolgelly, ancient custom at, 223
Dons, Oxford, disliked Whately, 197
Door of Fourth Chamber, anecdote, 134
Dorfeuille, M. 176, 177
Dormitories at Winchester, 131
Dover to London in 1834, 247
under snow, 345
Driving in America, 165, 166
French, 261
Drury Lane in 1834, 243
Drury, Mrs. Mark, 74, 75
Drury, Rev. Mark, 72, 74, 76, 78, 90
Drury, Rev. Harry, 72, 89, 91, 92
Drury, Rev. William, 72
Dulau, M., 304
“Dulce Domum,” 99
Dunkirk, journey to, 244
hospitable Frenchman at, 244
Dupotet, Baron, 364, 366
Dusty shoes, 249
Dyer, Lady, 16, 17
Dyer, General Sir Thomas, 17
E.
Echo Song in _Comus_, translation of, 231
Edgware Road, 31
Edwardes, Mrs., 79
Eldon, Lord, 48, 385
Eliot, George, 179
Elliotson, Dr., 366-371
English language not taught, 144
Evangelicalism, 14
Evans, Rev. Mr., 72
Events in life dreaded by me, 71
Exclusiveness, social, less common than formerly, 53
Exe, valley of the, 39
_Exemplum vitiis imitabile_, 357
Exeter Cathedral, 38
changes in, 41, 42
garden in, 42
Expectations, my, disappointed, 68
Experiences, new, 163
F.
Fads, the Vicar’s, 21
Fagging at Harrow, 78
at Winchester, 78
difference between the two, 78
Falstaff, my impersonation of, 181
Farmer, Nurse, 14, 15
Farnham, “The Bush,” 95
Farren, the actor, 243
Fauche, Mr., 245, 291
Fauche, Mrs., 245, 291, 301
Fayette, La, General, 272
Fellow passengers in steerage, 157, 161
Fieschi, conspirator, 265
Fifth of November in College chapel, 141
Fighting at Winchester, anecdote, 169
Firs on St. Catherine’s Hill, Winchester, 109
Fives at Winchester, 147
Fives bat, peculiar, 147
Flanders, French, visited, 290
Fleece, Golden, Installation of Knights, 340
Fleet Prison, 47
Flog, word not used at Winchester, 114
“Flower de Luce,” the, 95
Forest primeval disappoints me, 165
_Fortunes of Nigel_, 47
Fouché, police minister, 337-339
Founders’ Commemoration, 141
Founders’ Obit, 141
“Fountain” inn, Canterbury, at the, 347, 348
Franchise, the, Whately on, 207
Franz Vater, Austrian Emperor, 324, 325.
French prisoners, College dole to, 101
Fulham, walk to, 219
G.
Gabell, Miss, 17
Gabell, Dr., 17, 96, 125, 126
_Gaffarel’s Curiosities_, 220
Gaffer Williams, 110
Galicia, peasants from, 327
Gastronomy and “L. E. L.,” 236
Gedge, Mr., 349
Gennaro, Monte, near Rome, 108
Geography, early studies in, 6
Germany, life in, 221
journey in, 306
South, impression of, 315
Gibbon, Mrs., 60, 61
Gibbon, Kate, 60, 61
Gig, _Virgil_ lesson in the, 82
escape in the, 87
Gloucester, adventure at, 83
Goethe, 327
his _Gretchen_, first performance of, 327
Golden Fleece, Installation of Knights, 340
Gout, Sir F. Milman on, 236
_Grammar, Latin_, my introduction to, 4
_Grandison, Sir Charles_, readings in, 60
Grange, La, La Fayette’s estate, 151
Granger, Edmund, 42
Grant’s family, 257, 294
Granville, Lord, 191
Grattan, T. Colley, 234, 260, 366
Graves, price current of, 225
“Greek Slave,” Power’s statue of, 176
Green, Joseph Henry, 301
Gresley _mésalliance_, 18
Guard, National, in Paris, 268
Guildhall, 9
Guizot, 275, 282, 283
Gumbrell, Mother, 119, 120
Gumbrell, Dicky, 120
H.
Hackney coaches, 29, 30
Hadley, my mother settles at, 298
life at, 300
in the garden at, 356
Haldon Down, 39
Haliburton (Sam Slick), 359
Hall, Captain Basil, 232
Hall, Prefect of, at Winchester, 106, 111
Hall, Rev. George, 254, 256
“Halls” and Colleges at Oxford, 192
Hammond, Mr., 301
Hampstead, 9
“Harmony, New,” Miss Wright’s property, 154
Harrow, my father moves to, 61
farm at, 61
school, 69, 73, 77
masters, 72
my first appearance at, 72, 76
antagonisms at, 88, 89
vicarage of, 89, 90
scandal in parish church of, 90
extraordinary vestry meeting at, 91
my parents quit, 228
Weald, house at, 228
farm at, 150, 151
Haymarket, the, sixty years ago, 55
Heckfield vicarage, 13, 20
_versus_ Julians, 63
Herbout, Dr., 253, 294
Heredity, question of, 350
Hereford, Bishop of, 97, 130
Hertford College, 213
Hertfordshire squire, a, sixty years ago, 63
Hervieu, M., 224, 305, 314, 320, 333
Highgate, 9
Hinds, Mr., 193, 195
“_Hoc est Corpus_,” Blanco White’s anecdote of, 208
Hodgson, Mrs. Archdeacon, 237
Holborn, verse-making in, 6
Homilies, passage from, 216
Hoopern Bowers, 39, 40
“Hopkins, Damme,” 140
Hugo, Victor, 277-279
anecdote of his historical ignorance, 280
Hume (or Home), Daniel, 374, 375, 377, 379-382, 384, 390-392
Hungarian Gipsies, 327
Hungarians, 320
Huntingford, Bishop of Hereford, 127, 129, 130
Hutchinson, Rachel, 39
I.
Ilchester to Ilminster, 36
Ilfracombe, from, to Lynton, 87
Indians, West, at Alban Hall, 193
_Infra dig._, or, _in for a dig_! 234
Innovations at Winchester, 131
Intentions, good, imprudence of registering them, 226
Ireland, Whately’s utterances on, 205, 206
Itchen water-meads, Winchester, 108
J.
Jacobson, Mr., 214-216
Jamaica, Bishop of, 71
Jeune, Dr., 254, 256-258, 294, 349, 354
Jeune, Mrs., 354
Jews at Vienna, 323
Johnson, Dr., of Magdalen, 198
Journey in West of England, 81
from Vienna to England, 344, 345
Julians, visits to, 63
K.
Kater, Captain, 364
Keppel Street, 2, 4, 5, 16-18, 24-27, 57
Kensington Gardens, 9
Key of the birch cupboard and “Mother Mark,” 75
“King’s Head” Inn, Dover, detention at, 346
Kirkup, Mr. Seymour, 386-389
Kiss of peace, the vicar’s, 93
L.
La Fayette, General, 151, 152
Lafontaine, M., 385, 386
Lamartine, 274
Lamb, Sir F., 331, 332
Lamennais, Abbé de, 281
Landon, L. E., 235
Language, degradation of, 49
Larochefoucauld, Duchesse de, 272
Law, idea of, supremacy of, at Winchester, 202
Leatherhead, Sexton of, 225
“Leave out” at Winchester, 128
Lebanon, Mount, Shaking Quaker establishment, 174
Lectures, classical, Whately’s, useless to me, 196
logic, Whately’s wit at, 200
Lembach, portrait painter, 329
Leo XIII., 316
Lesson giving in London, 248
Lessons in chapel, extraordinary, 139
Letters, single and double, 55
Librarian at Tübingen, 316
Lincoln’s Inn, 2, 5, 46, 47
Linguistic solecisms, modern, 50
Lipscomb, Rev. Mr., 71
Liszt, 287
Literary judgments of Paris in 1834, 275-277
Little Marlbro’ Street, Lodgings in, 249
Liverpool and Manchester railroad, 223
Livery servant, 4
Livingstone, 82
Lohnkutscher, German, 306
London, changes in, 28, 29, 43, 44
Longworth, Mr., 174, 175
Louis XI., 280
Louis Philippe, 264, 269, 277, 281
Lowth, Dr., 137
Lynmouth as it was, 86
Lynton, sixty years ago, 86, 87
Lyon, John, 69, 73, 77
M.
Macbride, Dr., 213
Mackintosh, Mrs., 292
Margaret, 292
Macready, Mr. 56
Magdalen College, 46, 198
Magdalen Hall, 213
society at, 214
anecdotes of, 214
Magisterial duties, 67
Magnetism, animal, 364, 365
experiences of, with Baron Dupotet, 365
with Dr. Elliotson, 366-371
with Daniel Hume, 374-382
with Mrs. G----, 383, 384
with Dr. Willis, 384
with M. Lafontaine, 385
with Seymour Kirkup, 386
with my wife and sister-in-law, 387
with Alexis, 393
with performer with slates and pencils, 393
Magnetism, performances of Messrs. Maskelyne & Cooke, 389
general impression left on my mind, 395
Mail coaches, 33, 34
racing the, 217
from Canterbury to London, 349
Malibran, 326
Mancel, M., 303, 304
Manchester, marriages at, 224
Manciple and Bishop, anecdote of, 141
Marriage Service extraordinary, 224
Marsh, G. P., 334
Maskelyne and Cooke, Messrs., 389, 390
Mason, Mr., 349, 353
Massaia, Cardinal, 316
Mathias, Mr. 362
Mattingley near Heckfield, 18
Matriculation, my, 191
Meetkerke, Adolphus, 62, 63, 67, 68
Mrs., 64, 67
Mrs. Anne, 64
Melfort, Count, 293
Melhuish, Miss Emma, 367
_Mémoires d’Outretombe_, Chateaubriand’s, 271
readings from, 272
Metternich and Bismarck contrasted, 328, 329
Metternich, personal appearance of, 330, 331
his habit at dinner, 333
his account of his interviews
with Napoleon, 335
his story of Fouché, 337
Princess, 332
Metz, 306
Middle Temple, 2
Middleton, Captain, 244
Mignet, M., 275
Milan, “Untori,” 67
Mills, Rev. Mr. 72
Milman, Lady, 236
Milman, Rev. H., 236-238
Milman, Sir William, 237
Milman, Sir. Francis, 236
Milton, Henry, 219
Milton, Mrs., 231
Milton, Rev. William, 13, 18, 63
Mohl, M., 286
Molière, 231
Montmorenci, picnic at, 288
Mountain, Mrs., 35
Mouse digging at Winchester, 109
Mudie, Mr., 229
Murch, Captain, 256
Music never taught, 148
Mutton at Winchester, 102
loin of, anecdote of a, 219
N.
Naples, King of, 18
pocket-picking at, 12
Napoleon, 337, 340
Narrow escape, my, in typhus fever, 79
Nashoba, Miss Wright’s property at, 154
New College, 18
election to, from Winchester, 96
privilege now abandoned, 192
New York, first impressions of, 164
Niagara, visit to, 185, 186
Nieufort, gig monstre, 245
Noailles, Duchesse de, 272
“No innovation!”, 129
Normandy, tour in, 302
Northwick, Lord, 61, 76, 90, 150
Nott, Dr., 15, 231, 331, 332
O.
Oath, College, at Winchester, 128
Obedience, anecdote of, 61
Odiam, theatricals at, 231
Offices of Prefects at Winchester, 103
Ogle, Dean, 120
Okey, two sisters, 369-373
Oratorio, Dr. Nott at an, 231
Ordinations by Bishop of Hereford, 129
Oriel College, Whately popular at, 196
_Orley Farm_, my brother Anthony’s, 235
Ostend, society at, anecdotes of 255
pleasant days at, 291
tragedy at, 292
society at, 293
Ovington, 17
Owen, of Lanark, 153
Owen, Dale, 153
Oxford Road, 30, 31
Street, 31
Oxford, my life at, 217, 220
general habits at, 217
Oyster soup, anecdote, 301
P.
Pantomime, 22
_Parceque_, and _Quoique Bourbon_, 265
Paris, first visit to, 263
changes in, 263, 264
Parish Church, sixty years ago, 65
Parodies and jibes ridiculing the Republicans, 267
Partington, Miss, 18
Passenger ship, burning of, 207
Passengers in steerage, 157
Paved roads in France, 261
Pedestrianism, my, 218, 219, 241
in Wales, 226
Pepe, General Fiorestano, 18
Pepe, General Guglielmo, 17
Personal appearance, my, in youth, 22, 23
Personal superintendence, little, at Winchester, 121
Piccadilly, 6, 7
Picnic at Montmorenci, 288
Pidding, confectioner, 3
Pindar, Peter, 38
Pinner, Lady Milman’s house at, 236
Pittsburg, squalor of, 165
Pleintling, on the Danube, adventure at, 312, 313
Plinlimmon pedestrianism, 226
Plot’s _Oxfordshire_, 220
Plymouth, no tobacconist in, 221
Politics _al fresco_, 264
at Paris in 1834, 265
Postman, twopenny, 54
Post Office, at the, 31
Poulter, Rev. E., 148
Powers, Hiram, 175-177
Practitioner, country, sixty years ago, 79
Prayer, family, sixty years ago, 64
Prefects, authority of, at Winchester, 124
Prefect’s table at Winchester, 104
Prester John, 10
Price, Dr., 178
Price, Mrs., 178, 180
Professional etiquette sixty years ago, 54
Pronunciation, changes in, 49
Propaganda, Roman, visit at, 316, 317
Provence, Rue de, at Paris, 262
_Purley, Diversions of_, 220
Q.
Quakers, Shaking, visit to, 170-174
Quicksilver mail, 33, 36
Quirinal, anecdote of dinner at, 334
R.
Raglan Castle, 85, 86
Railway, new, Liverpool to Manchester, 223
Ratcliffe, Mrs., 85
Rations at Winchester, 101
Ratisbon, 307, 309
Reading, early lessons, 23
Récamier, Madame, 271, 272, 284, 285
Red Lion Square, 3
Religious education, 13
at Winchester, 136, 137
indifferentism at Cincinnati, 178
Remedy ring at Winchester, 111
Rennell, Dean, 129, 142, 143
Republicans, Parisian, in 1834, 266
feared, 267
Rettich, Madame, 327
Return to England from America, 187
Ridding, Mr., 125, 127
Robbins, Mr., 148
Rocks, Valley of, 87
Rod, Mark Drury and the, 75
the Winchester, 113
_Rotis volventibus_, 20
Route through Germany, 316
Russell Square, 3
Rymer, Mr., 375
S.
Sabbath observance, Whately on, 200
Saffron Hill, expedition to, 10, 11
St. Catherine’s Hill, Winchester, 106
St. James’s Park, 9
St. Martin’s-le-Grand, 32
St. Martin’s Lane, pilgrimage to, 72
St. Stephen’s at Vienna, catacombs under, 341
Salisbury, 21
Sand, Georges, 275, 280, 282
Saunders, butler at Pinner, 237
Schiller, 314
School, public, what constitutes a, 73
Schools _versus_ colleges, Whately on, 201
Schwab, Gustav, 315
Scott, Sir W., 86, 223
Scourging, practice and method of, at Winchester, 115
Self-knowledge, disadvantage of, 179
Seniority in college at Winchester, 123
Sermons at the Cathedral, Winchester, 141, 142
Sermon by Bishop of London, 219
Severn, banks of, visited, 226
Seville, anecdote of scene at, 209
Shaking Quakers, visit to, 170-174
Shakespeare, 223
Shopkeepers, Parisian, 268
Shops, non-advertising, obsolete, 45
Shuttleworth, Warden of New
College antagonism with Whately, 198, 199, 201
his wit, 200, 238, 239
Shyness, my, 179
Siddons, Mrs., 25
Simon, Saint, 1
Singlestick practice with Anthony, 225
Skerret, Miss Henrietta, 362-365
Skerret, Mrs., 362
Skerret, Miss Maryanne, 362, 363
Skinner, Rev. Mr., 65, 66
Skinner, Rev. Mr., of Bath, 188
Skinner, Miss, 188
Slang, modern, 50
progress of, 51
when vulgar, 51;
and why, 52
humility in the use of it, 53
Sledge journey from Dover, 346
Smithett, Captain, 235, 247, 293
Snobbishness, absence of, among the Viennese, 321
anecdote on this subject, 321
Sobriety, my, 217
Somerset, Duke of, 85
Speedyman at Winchester, 99
Spiting Gabell at Winchester, 127
Squire, country, sixty years ago, 64
Squiress sixty years ago, 64
Stage coaches, plans for improving, 19
Stanton, near Monmouth, 23
Steerage passage across the Atlantic, 156
Store Street, 2
Storm at sea, 159
Strasbourg, 306
Stuttgardt, 306
Superannuation at Winchester, 144
Symonds, Dr., 354
Systematic law, force of, at Winchester, 122
T.
_Tabula legum_ at Winchester, 113
Tea-things at Winchester, 100
“Telegraph,” Exeter coach, 36
Temple, the, 46
Temple Bar, 47
Temple, Sir William, 331
Thackeray, Rev. Mr., 299
Thackeray, William M., 288, 358
Thames Embankment, 46
Theatre, visit to, to hear Siddons, 25
Theatres sixty years ago, 55
reforms in, 56
Theatricals at Cincinnati, 181
Theresa, Saint, 368
Thiers, Ad., 275, 282, 283
Thomason, Sir Edward, 257
Tilley, Sir John, 300
Tintern Abbey, 86
Tomkisson, Mr., 245
Torreborre’s barge, 290, 291
Tottenham Court Road, 2
Traffic between Dover and Canterbury
stopped, 345
Trapbois, Miss, 47
Travel in West of England, my father’s mode of, 81, 82
Trenton Falls, visit to, 185, 186
Trollope, Thomas Anthony, my father, 2-5, 13, 20, 57, 59-62,
67, 68, 76, 82, 87, 150, 156, 168, 184, 185, 190, 191
at the whist table, 58
his mode of teaching, 58
his expectations disappointed, 62
his dispute with Whately, 211
no fortune hunter, 230
his failures, 241
at Bruges, 245
consultations with French physicians, 263
his declining health, 294
his death, 295
his _Ecclesiastical Dictionary_, 297
his great industry, 297
his New College friends, 296
his unhappy life, 295
his peculiar temperament, 296
Trollope, Frances, my mother, 59, 83
journey from Exeter with, 37
at Cincinnati, 176
her letters to my father before marriage, 229
her book on America, 232
its truthfulness, 232
its faults, 234
at Harrow Weald, 235
effects of her success, 241
at Bruges, 245
her terrible time there, 251-253
her estimate of Chateaubriand, 273
her _Paris and the Parisians_, 273
her wonderful recuperative faculty, 299
her industry, 300
her account of Danube boat, 307, 308
consultations with me, 355
her illness, 359
settles in York Street, 359
Trollope, Henry, my eldest brother, 21, 79, 153, 166, 184, 250, 251
his illness, 247, 250, 251
my last parting with him, 251
Trollope, Anthony, my younger brother, 21, 240, 242, 243, 250, 260, 294
his autobiography, 228
at the Post Office, 257
in Ireland, 258
in South America, 259
his judgment of me, 356
work a necessity to him, 358
his industry, 359
his illness, 370
Trollope, Cecilia, my elder sister, 245, 300, 305
Trollope, Emily, my younger sister, 245, 250, 298, 299
Trollope, Rev. Anthony, my grandfather, 63
Tub, Prefect of, at Winchester, 103, 105
Tübingen, adventure at, 315, 316
Tuileries, ball, anecdote, 269
Tunding at Winchester, 111, 112
Tupto, Warden’s nickname, 130
Turbot, mutilated, 293
Tutor and pupil at Winchester, 123
Twistleton family, 70
Tyburn turnpike, 31
toll man at, 31
Typhus fever, I am attacked by, 79
U.
_Udolpho, Mysteries of_, and Raglan Castle, 85
Upland, 314, 315
Upton Pynes, 39
V.
Vacancies at New College, 99
Varying at Winchester, 119
Vauxhall, excursion to, 240
Verses, nonsense, 5
Vice-Principal’s examination, curious coincidence, 215
Victor Emmanuel, 334
Vienna, journey to, planned, 304,
arrival at, 317
Custom House, adventure at, 318
changes in, 319
from, to England, 344, 345
Viennese Society, 319
exclusiveness of, 320
habits of, 321, 322, 324
loyal feeling of, anecdote of, 324
Vinerian Fellowship, 3
Voyage down the Danube, 311-313
“Vulgus” at Winchester, 118
W.
Wager between Bishop and Dean, 129
Wall, Mr., 195
Warton, Dr., 135
Warton, Tom, 135, 136
Ways, the parting of the, 356
Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, his liberalism, 191, 204, 207
purges Alban Hall, 192
biography of, by Miss Jane Whately, 193, 195, 197
his methods of teaching, 194
anecdotes of, 195, 199, 203, 207, 208
disliked by the Oxford dons, 196
I did not please him, 196
his despotic temper, 197
antagonism with Shuttleworth,
warden of New College, 199
his wit, 200;
specimen of it, 200
his dislike of Winchester and Wykehamists, 201, 203
I rubbed him the wrong way, 202
his remarkable utterances on state of Ireland, 205
his logic lectures, 200, 203, 210
his “Liberalism,” good modern “Conservatism,” 207
his treatment of me, 212
Whately, Miss Jane, 193, 195, 200, 202, 208
Whately, Mrs., 195
Wheeler, Mr., 148
Whipcord and oats, 35
White Bear Inn, 7
White, Blanco, 208-210
Whitefriars, 47
White Horse Cellar, 6, 31
scene at, 8, 9
Wilkes, Mr., 164, 187
Williams, Dr. David, 24, 110, 115, 125-127, 148
Willis, Dr., of Boston, 384
Wilson, Rev. Daniel, 88
Winchester, Cathedral, chapter of, 15
restoration of, 16
my first journey to, 94
college electors, 69
election, manner of, 69, 70, 97
founders kin, 70
election chamber, 97
festivities, 98
phraseology, 101
rations, 101
Witney, drives to, 217
Woodburn, Rev. Jack, 139
Woolaston, Dr., 364
Work hard, 357
Wright, Camilla, 151, 153
Wright, Frances, 151, 152, 154, 165
Writing master at Winchester, 145
Wye, the, from Chepstow to Ross, 85
banks of the river, 226
Wykehamists, Whately’s dislike for, 196, 201-203
Y.
York Street, my mother’s house in, 359
Young, Dr., 364
Young, John, 62, 63
Z.
Zandt, Baron de, 17, 221
END OF VOL I
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LONDON AND BUNGAY.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Subsequently Master of the Rolls.
[B] My query.