The kind of people that he had met
there--sentimental bourgeois with less power of sifting evidence than
the average child, with a credulity that was almost supernatural--the
medium, a stout woman who rolled her eyes and had damp fat fingers;
the hymn-singing, the wheezy harmonium, the amazing pseudo-mystical
oracular messages that revealed nothing which a religiose fool could
not invent--in fact the whole affair, from the sham stained-glass
lamp-shade to the ghostly tambourines overhead, the puerility of the
tricks played on the inquirers, and all the rest of it--this seemed as
little connected with what he had experienced with Mr. Vincent as a
dervish dance with High Mass. He had reflected with almost ludicrous
horror upon the impression it would make on Maggie, and the remarks it
would elicit.
But this other engagement was a very different matter.
They were going to attempt a further advance. It had, indeed, been
explained to him that these attempts were but tentative and
experimental; it was impossible to dictate exactly what should fall;
but the object on Sunday night was to go a step further, and to bring
about, if possible, the materialization process to such a point that
the figure could be handled, and could speak.
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