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THE UNEARTHLY FRIENDS OF D. D. HOME
77
come in the best of homes wherever he roamed.
William Cullen Bryant was one of a group of four for whom the illustrious Home conducted a seance in 1852. For them a table "moved in every possible direction, when we could not perceive any cause of motion." Later, the table appeared "to float in the atmosphere for several seconds, as if sustained by some denser medium than air."
As the famous poet, Bryant, watched, the others seated themselves on the table as it continued to rock and move about.
"We may observe," said the four witnesses in a written account, "that Mr. D. D. Home frequently urged us to hold his hands and feet. During these occurrences the room was well lighted . . . and every possible opportunity was afforded us for the closest l inspection. . . . We \now that we were not imposed upon nor deceived."
Mark Twain, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Thackeray, Dumas, Ruskin — these are but a few of the spectators who sat entranced as the marvelous Home called down his friendly spirits. At their bidding the spirits would play melancholy music, produce flowers, answer questions, and perform a host of other mysterious actions. The unearthly visitors did not like tobacco smoke or dogs in the rooms in which they appeared, and made this evident to their observers through Home.
One of the last of Home's American seances was described by F. L. Burr, editor of the Hartford Times. A ghostly hand was materialized for him. Taking a pencil, the hand wrote a message on a sheet of paper. As Burr
drew near to watch, the hand disappeared. When it reappeared, Burr examined it closely.
It "let me examine the finger nails, the joints, the creases ... it ended," he wrote excitedly, "at the wrist!"
Fire-handling and elongation were two feats added in the later years of Home's career. He would stir a blazing fire and remove a redhot coal with his bare hands, handling it as if it were very pleasant to the touch. In the elongation effect, he would stretch his body from his normal five feet, nine inches, to six and a half feet in height. At the same time his body was seen to grow larger around, witnesses stated.
Always jealous of imitators — whom he termed "conscious frauds" — Home wrote articles denouncing them and exposing their mysteries. In his book, Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism, published in 1877, Home devotes a chapter to "Trickery and Its Exposure." It was considered quite sensational in its day, but did not add to Home's popularity with his fellow mediums.
Home seemed to accept his own powers matter-of-factly. At no time in his career did he ever so much as hint that trickery might be the basis of the strange events which occurred in his presence. He submitted to rigid test conditions imposed by psychical researchers and scientists of his day. Not once were his actions proved fraudulent.
If Home was a charlatan, his knavery was carried off to perfection. Never in history has one man so utterly confounded his fellows as did the gifted D. D. Home.