wrist is supposed to be always visible, the pencil
must be far under the table. The awkwardness, therefore, must be
overcome of having to reach or grope after it before the slate can be
turned over, which it must be in order to enable the Medium to read the
question on the under side. This difficulty is surmounted by constantly
bringing out the slate and looking at it to see if any answer has
appeared. By this manoeuvre a double end is attained; first, it creates
an atmosphere of expectation, and the sitters grow accustomed to a good
deal of motion in the arm that holds the slate; and secondly, by
constantly moving the slate the fragment of pencil (which, be it noted,
having been extracted from those slate pencils which are enclosed in
wood, like lead pencils, is square in shape and remains stationary on
the spot to which it is moved), this pencil, I repeat, is moved up to
the side of the slate within reach of a thumb and finger; when this is
done, it is dexterously seized by the Medium, who is in turn at that
instant seized by violent 'electric shocks,' under cover of which the
slate is turned and generally placed between his knees, only once I
think did he rest it _on_ his knee, and once I think he pressed it
against the table; then he reads the question. And here he shows his
nerve. It is the critical instant of the sitting, it is the only instant
when his eyes are not fastened on his sitters, and I confess that his
coolness won my admiration. On one occasion, when the question was
written in a back-hand with a very light stroke and close to the upper
edge of the slate, he looked at it three several times before he could
read it. Moreover, it was a question out of the common, relating to the
species of a hawk and not to a Spirit, and required an intelligent and
definite answer. The hastiness of his reading may be inferred by the
frequency with which merely the initials of the Spirit friend are given
in the answer. After reading the question, I noticed that Dr. Slade
winks rapidly three or four times in a sort of mental abstraction, I
suppose, while thinking out an answer, but he always breathes freer when
this crisis is passed, and the violent convulsions are over, which
attend his hurried writing and the re-turning of the slate. His eyes can
now be fixed in turn on each of his sitters, and he can rest a minute or
two. (One one occasion I saw the slate as he held it between his index
and second finger, his index-finge