What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

We, my mother and I, had heard tidings from America of a certain Mr. Daniel Hume, of whom very strange things were related. It was no longer a question of physical specialties and manifestations, which unquestionably did tend, apart from their medical value, to throw some gleams, or hopes of gleams of light on the mysterious laws of the connection between mind and matter. The new candidate for the attention of the world claimed (not to have the power, as was currently stated at the time but) to be occasionally and involuntarily the means of producing visitations from the denizens of the spirit world. And before long we heard that he had arrived in England, and was a guest in the house of Mr. Rymer, a solicitor, at Ealing. We lost no time in procuring an introduction to that estimable gentleman and his amiable wife, and were most courteously invited by him to visit him for the purpose of interviewing and making acquaintance with his remarkable guest. We went to Ealing, were most hospitably received, and forthwith introduced to Mr. Daniel Hume, as he was then called, although he afterwards called himself, or came to be called, Home. He was a young American, about nineteen or twenty years of age I should say, rather tall, with a loosely put together figure, red hair, large and clear but not bright blue eyes, a sensual mouth, lanky cheeks, and that sort of complexion which is often found in individuals of a phthisical diathesis. He was courteous enough, not unwilling to talk, ready enough to speak of those curious phenomena of his existence which differentiated him from other mortals, but altogether unable or unwilling to formulate or enter into discussion on any theory respecting them. We had tea, or rather supper, I think. There were the young people of Mr. Rymer’s family about on the lawn, and among them a pretty girl, with whom, naturally enough, our young “medium” (for that had become the accepted term) was more disposed to flirt—after a fashion, I remember, which showed him to have been a petted inmate of the household—than to attend to matters of another world.

But other guests arrived, Sir David Brewster I remember among them, and Daniel had to be summoned to the business of the evening. This was commenced by our all placing ourselves round a very large and very heavy old-fashioned mahogany dining table, where we sat in expectation of whatever should occur. Before long little crackings were heard, in the wood of the table apparently. Then it quivered, became more and more agitated, was next raised first at one end and then at the other, and finally was undeniably raised bodily from the ground. At that moment Sir David Brewster and myself, each acting on his own uncommunicated impulse, precipitated ourselves from our chairs under the table. The table was seen to be for a moment or two hovering in the air, perhaps some four or five inches from the floor, without its being possible to detect any means by which it could have been moved.

I said to Sir David, as our heads were close together under the table, and we were on “all fours” on the floor, “Does it not seem that this table is raised by some means wholly inexplicable?” “Indeed it would seem so!” he replied. But he wrote a letter to the Times the next day, or a day or two after, in which he gave an account of his visit to Ealing, but ended by denying that he had seen anything remarkable. But it is a fact that he did do and say what I have related.

This was the sum of what occurred. There was no pretence of the presence of any spiritual visitor. I may observe that although an ordinarily strong man might have lifted either end of the table while the other end remained on the ground, I am persuaded that no man could have raised it bodily, unless perhaps by placing his shoulders under the centre of it.

After the table exhibition Mr. Hume fell into a sort of swoon or trance. And it was then that he uttered the often-quoted words, “When Daniel recovers give him some bottled porter!” which was accordingly done! It may be observed, however, that he did appear to be much exhausted.

Various little fragments of experiences, and the increasing amount of attention, which the world was giving to the subject, had kept the matter in my mind, till some years afterwards I had an opportunity of inviting Mr. Hume to visit me in my house in Florence. He came, and stayed with us for a month. And during the whole of that time—every evening as it seems to my remembrance, though I have no diary which records the fact—we had frequent experiments of his “mediumship.”

Of course it is (happily for the reader) out of the question for me to attempt to give any detailed record of the proceedings and experiences of those repeated séances. I can only select a few facts which appeared to me most striking at the time, and add the general result as to the impression produced on my mind.

All our Florentine friends and acquaintances were eager to have an opportunity of passing an evening with the already celebrated medium. We generally limited our number to about eight persons; but pretty regularly had as many as that every evening. The performance usually began by crackings and oscillations of the round table at which we sat. Then would come more distinct raps; then the declaration that a visitor from the spirit world was present, then the demand for whom the said visit was intended, to which a reply was “knocked out,” by raps indicating the letters required to form the desired name as the letters of the alphabet, always on the table, were rapidly run over. Sometimes a mistake was made, and an unintelligible word produced in consequence of too great haste in doing this. And then the process had to be gone through again. The medium never corrected any such mistake at the moment it was made, but seemed to await the completion of the process as the rest did.

One or more “spirits” came, to the best of my recollection, every evening. Nor could I detect any sort of favouritism, or motive of any sort for the selection of the parties said to be visited. This is the sort of thing that would occur: There was present a well known and much respected English banker, established in Florence, a hale, robust, cheery sort of man, and a general favourite—the last man in the world one would say to be credited with nervous impressionability. A “spirit” was announced as having “come for him.” Who is it? A name was rapped out in the manner described. The elderly banker declared that he had never had any friend or relative of that name, and had never heard it before. A second time the name was spelled out while the banker sat thrashing out his recollections. Suddenly he struck his forehead with his hand, and exclaimed, “By Heaven! it is true! Nanny ——” (I forget the name.) “She was my nurse in Yorkshire more than half a century ago!” Of course those who do not understand that scepticism is frequently more credulous than faith, say at once that Mr. Hume, in the exercise of his profession, like the gipsies in the exercise of theirs, had made it his business to discover the former existence of Nanny ——, and her connection with the person he was bent on befooling. But taking into consideration the total severance of the old banker’s infancy both as to years and locality from any of his then surroundings; the fact that it was so long since he had heard the name in question mentioned, that he had himself entirely forgotten it; and the further fact that there was nobody in Florence who had any connection with him or his family in his early years, and the circumstance that he that evening saw Mr. Hume for the first time, I confess that it seems to me that the improbability of any proposed explanation of the mystery must be incalculably great indeed, for a solution the improbability of which approaches so very near to impossibility to be preferably accepted.

Here is one other case, which I will give both because the person on whose testimony the value of it depends, was one on whose accurate veracity I could depend as on my own, and because it illustrates one specialty of Mr. Hume’s performances which I have not yet spoken of. This was a sensation of being touched, which was frequently experienced by many of those present. This touching almost invariably took the form of a knee being grasped under the table, or a hand being laid upon it. In the case I am about to relate this was experienced in a more remarkable manner.