Finally, there are the scholars and scientists, who think they can explain everything by juggleries, hallucination, and unconscious movements, men like Chevreul and Faraday, who, while they are right about some of the phenomena described to them, and which really are jugglery or hallucination, are yet wrong about the whole series of original facts, which they will not take the trouble to look at, though they are highly important. These men are much to blame; for, by their plea-in-bar against earnest investigators (such as Gasparin, for example) and by their insufficient explanations, they have left Spiritualism to be exploited by charlatans of all kinds, and at the same time authorized serious amateurs to no longer waste their time over these studies. Last of all, there are observers like myself (there are not many of us) who are incredulous by nature, but who have been obliged to admit, in the long run, that Spiritualism concerns itself with facts which defy any _present_ scientific explication, but who do not despair of seeing them explained some day, and who therefore apply themselves to the study of the facts, and are trying to reduce them to some kind of classification which may later prove to be law. We of this persuasion hold ourselves aloof from every coterie, from every clique, from all the prophets, and, satisfied with the convictions to which we have already attained, are content to see in Spiritualism the dawn of a truth, as yet very obscure, which will some day find its Ampere, as did the magnetic currents, and who grieve to see this truth choked out of existence by a dual foe,--excess of credulous ignorance which believes everything and excess of incredulous science which believes nothing. We find in our conviction and our conscience the wherewithal to brave the petty martyrdom of ridicule inflicted upon us for the faith we profess, a faith exaggerated and caricatured by the mass of follies people never fail to attribute to us, nor do we deem that the myth in which they dress us up merits even the honor of a refutation. Similarly, I have never had any desire to prove to anybody whatever that the influence of either Moliere or Beaumarchais cannot be detected in my plays. It seems to me that that is more than evident. Respecting the dwellings of the planet Jupiter, I must ask the good folks who suppose that I am convinced of the real existence of these things whether they are well persuaded that Gulliver believed in "Lilliput,"[15] Campanella in the "City of the Sun," and Sir Thomas More in his "Utopia." What is true, however, is that the design of which you speak [Pl. III.] was made in less than ten hours. As to its origin, I would not give a penny to know about that; but the fact of its production is another matter V. SARDOU.