the sofa at a little distance. Immediately I began to hear slight raps, apparently under the table. Very soon they became louder, and seemed to be sometimes on the table, and sometimes under it; sometimes they seemed to come from a corner of the room, and sometimes from under the floor. I knew not what to make of them, but I felt no alarm, and remained calm and undisturbed, in the full possession of all my faculties. In some six or eight minutes they ceased, and then I saw the bunch of flowers which still lay on the table, taken up without visible agency, and carried and placed in a porcelain vase on the mantle shelf. I was sure I was surrounded by invisible and mysterious agencies, but I began to apprehend that I was in the condition of the Magician’s apprentice, sung by Goethe, who had overheard the word by which the master evoked the spirits, but had forgotten or had not learned that by which he dismissed them. I however retained my equanimity, and felt that I had gained at least something. The next day I tried my experiments anew. This time I merely mesmerized the table. It soon began to move, raising itself about six inches from the floor, and whirling round like a dancing dervish. It seemed animated by a capricious or rather a mocking spirit, and it was some time before I could make it behave with a little sobriety. But I had spent the greater part of the night in consulting an old work on magic, which some years before I picked up on one of the Quais of Paris. It was written chiefly in characters and hieroglyphics, which at first I could not decipher; but at length I stumbled upon what I found to be a key to their meaning, and which was scarcely any meaning at all. However, I obtained one or two significant hints, and I went armed with a new power. I held a long dialogue with the table, which, however, I shall not record. I ascertained the origin of the raps, how to produce them, and how to read them. But this was but a trifle. I would have the power visible to my eyes, submissive to my orders, and speak to me in plain and intelligible language, properly so called. I obtained a promise that this should come in due time, but that for the present I must suffer the force to remain invisible, and be content with a language of mere arbitrary signs.