My Library

clairvoyance may be said to resemble an edifice having “ ‘Rich windows that exclude the light, And passages that lead to nothing.’ There are, of course, a few, very few exceptions to the rule, but the rule obtains vastly. “ ‘The sentimentalities of a puling, hysteric girl, half afflicted with catochus, and the other half love-sick—as most modern clairvoyants are— count small in the list of Fact-truths, and the mad ravings of crack-brained somnambules of the other gender go for hardly as much, for the first has at least a degree of poetry about her, but the latter none at all. No, no, friend, do not place too great reliance on the ability of Magnetism to aid your researches, for you will run a narrow chance of disappointment, and regret when too late that from Nature’s stable you selected the very worst animal of the lot; one that is ring-boned, lame, spavined, and very baulky withal. Take my advice, and choose a better.’ “As the old gentleman finished what I at first regarded as a diatribe against Animal Magnetism—a thing, by the way, that I always doted on—I felt silent, and was so for the space of a minute, during which time I rapidly reviewed my entire experience in, and knowledge of, Mesmerism, and the result of the