The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES is cloudless, and one does not feel the lightest breath of wind. The furniture is overturned and displaced, without any- body touching it. Pencils write of their own accord. Their writing is that of Mr. Home, and they make the same mistakes as he does. Those present feel themselves touched and seized by invisible hands. These contacts, which seem to select ladies, lack a serious side, and sometimes even propriety. We think that we shall be sufficiently understood. Visible and tangible hands come out, or seem to come out, of tables; but in this case, the tables must be covered. The invisible agent needs certain apparatus, just as do the cleverest successors of Robert Houdin. These hands show themselves above all in darkness; they are warm and phosphorescent, or cold and black. They write stupidities, or touch the piano; and when they have touched the piano, it is necessary to send for the tuner, their contact being always fatal to the exactitude of the instrument. One of the most considerable personages in England, Sir Bulwer Lytton, has seen and touched those hands; we have read his written and signed attestation. He declares even that he has seized them, and drawn them towards himself with all his strength, in order to withdraw from their incognito the arm to which they should naturally be attached. But the invisible object has proved stronger than the English novelist, and the hands have escaped him. A Russian nobleman who was the protector of Mr. Home, and whose character and good faith could not possibly be doubted, Count A. B——, has also seen and seized with 133