16. Touchings.
Fraud can explain those which take place within the reach of the medium's hands, for they only occur in the darkness. But they have been felt at a certain distance beyond this reach as if the hands of the medium were prolonged.
17. Action of invisible hands.
An accordion in an open-work case, or cage, which keeps any other hand from touching it, is held in one hand by the end opposite the keys. Presently the instrument begins to lengthen and shorten of itself and plays various melodies. An invisible hand with fingers (or something like them), must therefore be acting. (Experiment of Crookes with Home.) As the reader has seen I repeated this experiment with Eusapia.
Another time, a music-box, the handle of which was turned by an invisible hand, played in perfect time with the music movements that Eusapia was making upon my cheek.
An invisible hand forcibly snatched from my hand a block of paper which I was holding out with extended arm at the height of my head.
Invisible hands removed from M. Schiaparelli's head his spectacles (furnished with a spring), which were firmly fastened behind his ears, and that so nimbly and with such light touch that he did not perceive it until afterwards.
18. Apparitions of hands.
The hands are not always invisible. Sometimes semi-luminous ones are seen to appear in the dim light,—hands of men, hands of women, hands of children. Sometimes they have clear-cut outlines. They are generally firm and moist to the touch, sometimes icy cold. At times they melt away in the hand. For my part I was never able to grasp one. It was always the mysterious hand that took mine,—often feeling through a curtain, or sometimes by nude contact, or pinching my ear, or running its fingers through my hair with great rapidity.