"How is it that the spirits of great authors speak so tamely to us? Shakspeare, last night, wrote a passage which he would have been heartily ashamed of, as a living man. We know that a spirit spoke, calling himself Shakspeare; but, judging from his communication, it could not have been he." "It probably was not," said Mr. Stilton. "I am convinced that all malicious spirits are at work to interrupt the communications from the higher spheres. We were thus deceived by one professing to be Benjamin Franklin, who drew for us the plan of a machine for splitting shingles, which we had fabricated and patented at considerable expense. On trial, however, it proved to be a miserable failure, a complete mockery. When the spirit was again summoned, he refused to speak, but shook the table to express his malicious laughter, went off, and has never since returned. My friend, we know but the alphabet of Spiritualism, the mere A B C; we can no more expect to master the immortal language in a day than a child to read Plato after learning his letters." Many of those who had been interested in the usual phenomena gradually dropped off, tired, and perhaps a little ashamed, in the reaction following their excitement; but there were continual accessions to our ranks, and we formed, at last, a distinct clan or community. Indeed, the number of _secret_ believers in Spiritualism would never be suspected by the uninitiated. In the sect, however, as in Masonry and the Catholic Church, there are circles within circles,--concentric rings, whence you can look outwards, but not inwards, and where he alone who stands at the centre is able to perceive everything. Such an inner circle was at last formed in our town. Its object, according to Stilton, with whom the plan originated, was to obtain a purer spiritual atmosphere, by the exclusion of all but Mediums and those non-mediumistic believers in whose presence the spirits felt at ease, and thus invite communications from the farther and purer spheres.