The strangest experience, however, that I met with in connection with this absurd delusion occurred during a visit that I received from Mrs. B—— S——. That lady was staying with her daughter in Stockbridge, and did me the honor to call on me at Lenox with that young lady. Among other things spoken of I asked my distinguished visitor some questions about this superstitious folly, Planchette, nothing doubting that I should hear from her an eloquent condemnation of all the absurd proceedings going on in the two villages. The lady's face assumed a decided expression of grave disapprobation, certainly, and she spoke to this effect: "Planchette! Oh dear, yes, we are perfectly familiar with Planchette, and, indeed, have been in the habit of consulting it quite often." "Oh, indeed," quoth I, and I felt my own face growing longer with amazement as I spoke. "Yes," continued my celebrated visitor, with much deliberation, "we have; but I think it will no longer be possible for us to do so. No, we must certainly give up having anything to do with it." "Dear me!" said I, almost breathless, and with a queer quaver in my voice, that I could hardly command, "may I ask why, pray?" "The language it uses——" "It!—the language it uses!" ejaculated I. "Yes," she pursued, with increasing solemnity, "the language it uses is so reprehensible that it will be quite impossible for us to consult or have anything further to do with it." "Really," said I, hardly able to utter for suppressed laughter; "and may I ask, may I inquire what language it does use?" "Why," returned Mrs. S——, with some decorous hesitation and reluctance to utter the words that followed, "the last time we consulted it, it told us we were all a pack of damned fools." "Oh!" exploded I, "I believe in Planchette, I believe in Planchette!" Mrs. S—— drew herself up with an air of such offended surprise at my burst of irrepressible merriment that I suddenly stopped, and letting what was boiling below my laughter come to the surface, I exclaimed, in language far more shocking to ears polite than Planchette's own: "And do you really think that Satan, the great devil of hell, in whom you believe, is amusing himself with telling you such truths as those, through a bit of board on wheels?" "Really," replied the woman of genius, in a tone of lofty dignity, "I cannot pretend to say whether or not it is the devil; of one thing I am very certain, the influence by which it speaks is undoubtedly devilish." I turned in boundless amazement to the younger lady, whose mischievous countenance, with a broad grin upon it, at once settled all my doubts as to the devilish influence under which Planchette had spoken such home truths to her family circle, and I let the subject drop, remaining much astonished, as I often am, at the degree to which les gens d'ésprit sont bêtes.

I once attended some young friends to a lecture, as it called itself, upon electro-biology. It was tedious, stupid, and ridiculous; the only thing that struck me was the curious condition of bewildered imbecility into which two or three young men, who presented themselves to be operated upon, fell, under the influence of the lecturer. I had reason to believe that there was no collusion in the case, and therefore was surprised at the evident state of stupor and mental confusion (even to the not being able to pronounce their own name) which they exhibited when, after looking intently and without moving at a coin placed in their hand for some time, their faculties appeared entirely bewildered, and though they were not asleep, they seemed hardly conscious, and opposed not the slightest resistance to the orders they received to sit down, stand up, to try to remember their names,—which they were assured they could not, and did not,—and their general submission, of course in very trifling matters, to the sort of bullying directions addressed to them in a loud peremptory tone; to which they replied with the sort of stupefied languor of persons half asleep or under the influence of opium. I did not quite understand how they were thrown into this curious condition by the mere assumption of an immovable attitude and fixed gazing at a piece of coin; an experience of my own, however, subsequently enlightened me as to the possible nervous effect of such immobility and strained attention.

STAND FOR JEZEBEL. My friend Sir Frederick Leighton, despairing of finding a model to assume a sufficiently dramatic expression of wickedness for a picture he was painting of Jezebel, was deploring his difficulty one day, when Henry Greville, who was standing by, said to him, "Why don't you ask her"—pointing to me—"to do it for you?" Leighton expressed some kindly reluctance to put my countenance to such a use; but I had not the slightest objection to stand for Jezebel, if by so doing I could help him out of his dilemma. So to his studio I went, ascended his platform, and having been duly placed in the attitude required, and instructed on what precise point of the wall opposite to me to fix my eyes, I fell to thinking of the scene the picture represented, of the meeting between Ahab and his wicked queen with Elijah on the threshold of Naboth's vineyard, endeavoring, after my old stage fashion, to assume as thoroughly as possible the character which I was representing. Before I had retained the constrained attitude and fixed immovable gaze for more than a short time, my eyes grew dim, the wall I was glaring at seemed to waver about before me, I turned sick, a cold perspiration broke out on my forehead, my ears buzzed, my knees trembled, my heart throbbed, and I suppose I was not far from a fainting fit. I sat abruptly down on the platform, and called my friendly artist to my assistance, describing to him my sensations, and asking if he could explain what had occasioned them. He expressed remorseful distress at having subjected me to such annoyance, saying, however, that my condition was not an uncommon one for painters' models to be thrown into by the nervous strain of the fixed look and attention, and rigid immobility of position, required of them; that he had known men succumb to it on a first experiment, but had thought me so strong, and so little liable to any purely nervous affection, that it had never occurred to him for a moment that there was any danger of my being thus overcome.

I recovered almost immediately, the nervous strain being taken off, and resumed my duty as a model, taking care to vary my expression and attitude whenever I felt at all weary, and resting myself by sitting down and lending another aspect of my face to my friend for his Elijah.

I found, after this experience, no difficulty in understanding the state of bewildered stupefaction into which the lecturer on electro-biology had thrown his patients by demanding of them a fixed attention of mind, look, and attitude to a given point of contemplation. I think, just before I quite broke down, I could neither have said where I was, nor who I was, nor contradicted Sir Frederick Leighton if he had assured me that my name was Polly and that I was putting the kettle on.]

Clarges Street, June, 1844.

Dearest Harriet,

I have not a morsel of letter-paper in my writing-book; do not, therefore, let your first glance take offence at the poor narrow note-paper, on which our dear friend Emily is forever writing to me, and which throws me into a small fury every time I get an affectionate communication from her on it. Our drawing-room has only this instant emptied itself of a throng of morning visitors, among whom my brother John and his wife, Mary Anne Thackeray, Dick Pigott, Sydney Smith, and A—— C——....

My letter has suffered an interruption, dear Harriet; I had to go out and return all manner of visits, took a walk with Adelaide in Kensington Gardens, went and dined quietly with M—— M——, and came back at half-past ten, to find Mr. C—— very quietly established here with my father and sister....

This is to-morrow, my dear Harriet, and we are all engaged sitting to Lane, who is making medallion likenesses of us all. John and his wife together in one sphere, their two little children in another, —— and I in one eternity, and our chicks in another, their two little profiles looking so funny and so pretty, one just behind the other; my father, my sister, and Henry have each their world to themselves in single blessedness. The likenesses are all good, and charmingly executed. I should like to be able to send you mine and my children's, but as he will accept no remuneration for them, and as time and trouble are the daily bread of an artist——