to that opinion of Home which was
expressed in _Mr. Sludge, the Medium_.' It appears that a lady (since
dead) repeated to Mr. Browning a statement made to her by a lady and
gentleman (since dead) as to their finding Home in the act of
experimenting with phosphorus on the production of 'spirit lights,'
'which (so far as Mr. Browning remembers) were to be rubbed round the
walls of the room, near the ceiling, so as to appear when the room was
darkened. This piece of evidence powerfully impressed Mr. Browning;
but it comes to us at third hand, without written record, and at a
distance of nearly forty years.'

Clearly this story is not evidence against Home.

But, several years ago, an eminent writer, whom I need not name,
published in a newspaper another version. Mr. Browning had told him,
he said, that, sitting with Home and Mrs. Browning (apparently alone,
these three) in a darkened room, he saw a white object rise above the
table. This Home represented as the phantasm of a child of Mr. and
Mrs. Browning, which died in infancy. Mr. Browning seized the
phantasm, which was Home's naked foot.

But it must be remembered that (1) Mr. and Mrs. Browning had no child
which died in infancy; and (2) Mrs. Browning's belief survived the
shock. On December 5, 1902, in the _Times Literary Supplement_, a
letter by Mr. R. Barrett Browning appeared. He says: 'Mr. Hume, who
subsequently changed his name to Home' ('Home' is pronounced 'Hume' in
Scotland), 'was detected in a "vulgar fraud," for I have heard my
father repeatedly describe how he caught hold of his foot _under_ the
table.' In the other story the foot was _above_ the table; in the new
version no infant phantasm occurs. Moreover, to catch a man's foot
under a table in itself proves nothing. What was the foot doing, and
why did Mr. Browning not tell this, but quite a different story, to
Mr. Myers? We 'get no forrarder.'

On November 28, 1902, Mr. Merrifield, in the _Times Literary
Supplement_, published a letter on August 30 (?), 1855, from Mrs.
Browning to Miss De Gaudrion, as to the _seance_ with the Brownings at
Ealing. Mrs. Browning enclosed a letter from Mr. Browning, giving his
impressions. '_Mine, I must frankly say, were entirely different_,'
wrote Mrs. Browning; and Home says: 'Mrs. Browning was much moved, and
she not only then but ever since expressed her entire belief and
pleasure in what occurred.' In her letter, Mrs. Browning adds: 'For my
own part, and in my o