Before, however, quitting the subject, my gossip about which has run to a length only excusable on the ground of the very general interest that has been attracted by it, I will give two more excerpts from my recollections, which relate to cases respecting which I have _no_ doubt. They both refer, however, to purely physical phenomena. A French professor of “animal magnetism” came to Florence. His name, I think, was Lafontaine. He had a young girl with him, his patient. He brought her to my house, in which there was a long room, at one end of which he directed me to stand, then put the girl immediately in front of me, and told me to hold her, so as to prevent her from coming to him, when, standing at the further end of the room, he should draw her to him. I accordingly placed my arms around her waist, interlacing my fingers in front of her. She was a small, slight girl, and I was at that time a somewhat exceptionally strong man. The operator then standing at the distance of some twenty feet or more made “passes” as it were, beckoning her with his hands to come to him. She struggled forwards. I held her back with all my force, but was dragged after her towards the magnetiser. This may be accepted as an absolutely accurate and certain fact. This same Lafontaine had entirely failed in attempts to magnetise me, and in telling me, as he promised to do, what I in my house was doing at a given moment while he was absent. My second excerpt concerns also my own experience, and shall be given with equally truthful accuracy. My wife, my wife’s sister, and myself, had been spending the evening in the house of Mr. Seymour Kirkup, an artist, who, once well known in the artistic world, lived on in Florence to a great age after that world had forgotten him. A girl, his daughter by a servant who lived several years in his house, and who also had pretended to very strongly-developed spiritualistic powers, developed, as he asserted, similar powers in a very wonderful degree. And during his latter years the old man absolutely and entirely lived, in every respect, according to the advice and dictates of “the spirits,” as oracularly declared by Imogene, for that was her name. In short, she was a clever, worthless hussy, and he was a besotted old man. Our visit to his house was to witness some of Imogene’s performances. There was also present a Colonel Bowen, who was a convinced believer.