ubject;
he could hardly understand how another opinion was possible than that
"the whole display of 'hands,' 'spirit utterances,' etc., was a cheat
and imposture." It was all "melancholy stuff," which a grain of worldly
wisdom would dispose of in a minute. "Mr Browning," the letter goes on,
"has, however, abundant experience that the best and rarest of natures
may begin by the proper mistrust of the more ordinary results of
reasoning when employed in such investigations as these, go on to an
abnegation of the regular tests of truth and rationality in favour of
these particular experiments, and end in a voluntary prostration of the
whole intelligence before what is assumed to transcend all intelligence.
Once arrived at this point, no trick is too gross--absurdities are
referred to 'low spirits,' falsehoods to 'personating spirits'--and the
one terribly apparent spirit, the Father of Lies, has it all his own
way." These interesting letters were communicated to _The Times_ by Mr
Merrifield (_Literary Supplement_, Nov. 28, 1902), and they called forth
a short additional letter from Mr R. Barrett Browning, the "Penini" of
earlier days. He mentions that his father had himself on one occasion
detected Home in a vulgar fraud; that Home had called at the house of
the Brownings, and was turned out of it. Mr Browning adds: "What,
however, I am more desirous of stating is that towards the end of her
life my mother's views on 'spiritual manifestations' were much modified.
This change was brought about, in great measure, by the discovery that
she had been duped by a friend in whom she had blind faith. The pain of
the disillusion was great, but her eyes were opened and she saw
clearly."[55] It must be added, that letters written by Mrs Browning six
months before her death give no indication of this change of feeling,
but she admits that "sublime communications" from the other world are
"decidedly absent," and that while no truth can be dangerous, unsettled
minds may lose their balance, and may do wisely to avoid altogether the
subject of spiritualism.

Browning's hostility arose primarily from his conviction that the
so-called "manifestations" were, as he says, a cheat and imposture. He
had grasped Home's leg under the table while at work in producing
"phenomena." He had visited his friend, Seymour Kirkup, had found the
old man assisting at the trance of a peasant girl named Mariana; and
when Kirkup withdrew for a moment, the entrance