"Seance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went through a period of "spooks." There was no more delightful companion than Mr. Percy Wyndham; he adored us and, though himself a firm believer in the spirit world, he did not resent it if others disagreed with him. We attended every kind of seance and took the matter ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... else were to tell you that they had an East Indian yogi who was going to give a seance this very afternoon you would hotfoot it to the telephone to inform Trudy that you must break your engagement with her, and send word to your original hostess as well. That is about all ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... long before Charity's; she was newer to the game. During a dark scene she surrendered the field and decamped. But Cheever and his wife both caught the faint shimmer of her respectable robe as it floated from the rail and vanished in the curtains. It was like a dematerialization at a seance. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered—when the seance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and hysterical as they ought to be—when the nervous lady sat beside the timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia—the artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that astounded even himself. What limit ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... was carried. The youngest member proposed to make up a purse for the author producing the best dissertation addressed to the society upon a subject which Sterne considered of such importance; but at the end of the seance eighteen shillings was the total sum found in the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... his adventure with the supercilious incredulity of a staunch unbeliever invited to a spiritualist's seance, was conscious for a moment of an absolutely new sensation. A person of acute psychological instincts, he found himself analysing that sensation almost as soon as it ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... believers. The Chinese use a form of planchette, which is half a divining rod—a branch of the peach tree; and 'spiritualism' is more than three-quarters of the religion of most savage tribes, a Maori seance being more impressive than anything the civilised Sludge can offer his credulous patrons. From these facts different people draw different inferences. Believers say that the wide distribution of their favourite mysteries is a proof that 'there is something in them.' The incredulous look on our ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... physical body. So the physical body that remains behind is depleted, not only of force, but of matter. You would see it small, shrunken, dropped together, just like the body of a materialising medium at a seance. Moreover, any mark or injury inflicted upon this Double will be found exactly reproduced by the phenomenon of repercussion upon the shrunken physical body lying in ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... violent and unusual way, half a dozen years before: a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked a tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and sixty- five feet high. He did not survive this triumph. At the seance just referred to, my friend questioned his late uncle, through Mr. Manchester, and the late uncle wrote down his replies, using Mr. Manchester's hand and pencil for that purpose. The following is a fair example of the questions asked, and also of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... more idyllic, peaceful surroundings than when I sat between Beulah and her sister through bright sunny mornings in their mother's home with their cat beside them and the pet lamb coming into the room from the meadow. There everything suggested fraud, and when at my second seance her foot was caught behind the curtain and the whole humbug exposed, it was exactly what I had expected. But here everything breathed sincerity and naivete and absence of fraud—yet my mere assurance cannot convince a skeptic; we must examine the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... that her doom was sealed; that the cruel finger of a relentless fate had written it so plainly in her tell-tale palm, that all who saw it might read. She hid her face on my shoulder and sobbed so violently that it put an end to the seance. ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of recollection pretty thoroughly in our after-dinner seance in your rooms, David, but I noticed there was one corner of it you left undisturbed. Was there ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... occurrences. Of course Levi knew of Lans Treadwell's visit to the hills. Markham was not a superstitious man, but he had remarked to Matilda before they came to Lost Hollow that it "looked like the hand of God." After a seance or so at Trouble ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... had anything to do with showing or sending a medium to Huxley. He must refer to his seance a few months ago with Mrs. Kane and Mrs. Jencken (along with Carpenter and Tyndall), when ... nothing but raps occurred....—Yours ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... coming. Well, the great Towle detached this astral body once at a seance and, for a joke—a silly joke, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... meetings of the States were till then to be suspended, and every thing, in the mean time, kept secret. The members, the next morning (the 20th) repairing to their house, as usual, found the doors shut and guarded, a proclamation posted up for a seance, royale on the 22nd, and a suspension of their meetings in the mean, time. Concluding that their dissolution was now to take place, they repaired to a building called the Jeu de paume (or Tennis court), and there bound themselves by oath to each other, never to separate, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... After one such seance, when he was twelve years of age, he disappeared with a colored boy about his own age. They took a shotgun, fishing-tackle and a violin. They were gone three weeks, during which time Patrick had not been out of his clothes, nor ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... a trifle uncertainly. "I'll stand for most any kind of a dark seance, but this particular spook business is getting on my nerves. Are you ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... case of sore and cracked nipples, thorough cleansing with boiled water and boracic acid solution follows each nursing seance; and, after careful drying, balsam peru—equal parts with glycerine—may be applied with a tiny piece of sterile gauze or cotton; a sterile cotton pad is then applied to each breast which is held in place ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... was a combination of Captain Swift, Hamlet, and the Tempter; the paradoxical pessimist was a reminder of Mr. Wilde's comedies, the bishop and scientist were in the manner of Mr. Jones. How clever! Social satire a la Savoy, seance a la salle Egyptienne, sleep-walking a la Bellini, moonlight poetry a la Christabel, a touch of spice a la Francaise, and copious confession a la Norvegienne, all baked into one pie. How characteristic! And characteristic, mark you, not ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... no longer even the money to try my luck—to see whether it has come back. Yet once I won twenty thousand francs, all from one louis at trente et quarante, and at one seance. That was a night! a memory to live on. And at present it is well I have it to live on, as there ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Fatigued by the long seance, the excitement, and the tediousness of Monsieur Necker's report, Mr. Jefferson hurried Mr. Calvert—Mr. Morris had been carried off by Madame de Flahaut, to the great discomfiture of Monsieur de Curt—into his coach and drove directly to Madame de Tesse's, where they found ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Nov. 9, 1885. We must add that at a later seance M. Cartailhac contested, if not the facts, the conclusions ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... Squire's apartment, which had previously been virtually undisturbed. Here and now developed a phenomenon that places little Miss Mompesson on a par with the celebrated Fox sisters, for her father's bed chamber was turned into a seance room in which messages were rapped out very much as messages have been rapped out ever since the fateful night in 1848 that saw modern spiritism ushered ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... While Madeira shut up his desk, Steering threw away the stump of his cigar and brought his flexed arms back to his shoulders with an expansive pull on his chest that sent a big influx of air into his lungs. After his seance with Madeira he felt as though he had been pummelled down flat. Madeira had to open his desk again for something he had forgotten and Steering passed on to the door, impatient for some outside air. As he opened the door, with his eyes rather thoughtfully fixed upon ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... and cornea, and taught a trained nurse, who herself had a nebulous cornea, to make what I may call a specialty of this particular therapeutic procedure. She became exceedingly skillful and was quite faithful. We believed that the best results were obtained in a seance of two or three minutes, the finger tip being used over the lid, and the surface of the cornea lubricated with a drop of pure olive oil, although in glaucoma the addition of the oil is not necessary. Four movements were ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... scout meeting for this work; every scout had come equipped with a gimlet, and there was such a boring seance as had never been known before. Roy had said it was a great bore. As fast as the holes were bored, Pee-wee had tied the strips of leather through them, and the whole job had been finished in the ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... guests, when the last spark faded from the big "Lone Star" of Texas which ended the show. No bedtime frolic to-night; the four in the nursery undressed in a dead quiet and fell asleep before their heads fairly touched the pillows. In her own little room Sarah held another seance with the witch hazel bottle, and went to sleep only to dream of a wild ride across the meadows on Blue Bonnet's rocking-horse, with a fierce band of Comanche Indians pursuing her, yelling fiendishly all the while, and keeping up a ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... Thus ended this memorable seance. That conversation threw me into a fever. I came out of my uncle's study as if I had been stunned, and as if there was not air enough in all the streets of Hamburg to put me right again. I therefore ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Austin Podmore's account of Mr. Davey's seance, his attention was called away for two or three minutes without his noting it. We may take it for granted that the kickings up of the bedclothes during which Sanders became weak and faint, lasted ten minutes ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... little. You have been told, I daresay often enough, that the business of writing demands two—the author and the reader. Add to this what is equally obvious, that the obligation of courtesy rests first with the author, who invites the seance, and commonly charges for it. What follows, but that in speaking or writing we have an obligation to put ourselves into the hearer's or reader's place? It is his comfort, his convenience, we have to consult. To express ourselves is a ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... on the 17th of June, in the morning, in the church of Notre Dame. They were joined by nine bishops appointed by Napoleon, although they had not yet received canonical institution. At the second seance, when the affairs of the Council began to be seriously considered, the Ministers of Religion of France and Italy took their places in the assembly. In opening, on the 16th, the session of the Corps Legislatif, the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... just then become the rage, and so Jeanne decided to consult her, although the woman charged a higher fee than, I understand, the other fortune-tellers were then doing. When the two sisters found themselves there, my married niece bargained that the seance should be half-price, as Jeanne only wished to stay a very few minutes, and to ask but one question. After the bargain was concluded, Jeanne, it seems, observed—the story of the interview has been ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... la meme seance, le Conseil de Guerre a prononce contre dix-sept autres accuses de trahison envers les Armees Imperiales, des comdamnations de travaux forces et de prison variant entre deux ans et ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... West story, with its multitudes of slaughters, proceeds to the wilderness of Sinai; and there again, the Prophet Moses goes into a secret seance and finally announces that God had delivered laws to him, which had been issued from ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... to the work in hand. The soi-disant Ernest Berty spoke invariably in French, either dictating his orders or seeking information, and I made verbal translation into English of all that he said. The seance lasted close upon an hour, and presently I gathered that the affair was terminated and that I ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... from China the skulls of three martyred missionaries. These treasures were indispensable to the successful operation of a new magical rite composed by the Supreme Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry and Vicegerent of Lucifer, General Albert Pike. A seance was about to be held; Brother George Shekleton of immortal memory, the hero who had obtained the skulls, was present with those trophies; and the petrified quondam atheist took part, not because he wished ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... strangers and seacaptains and, as each came, enquired of him anent the city of Babel and its peninsula[FN391] and the garden of Iram; but none of them knew these places nor could any give him tidings thereof. However, when the seance broke up, one of them said, "O King of the Age, an thou be minded to ken this thing, up and hie thee to the land of China; for it hath a vast city[FN392] and a safe, wherein are store of rarities and things of price and folk of all kinds; and thou shalt not come to the knowledge ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Dans la seance du 21 mai 1842, la chambre des deputes, sur la proposition de son bibliothecaire, a ajoute a son budget une somme de 3,000 fr. pour les echanges; et le 14 novembre de la meme annee, M. Carrey, bibliothecaire de la chambre des pairs, m'a annonce que M. le grand referendaire ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... Messieurs," interrupted M. Dantes, "I know not that we can better employ ourselves, after so protracted a seance, than to repair to Vefour's. This talking is hungry work, and listening and thinking, which are by far more tedious, are still more ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... laurel which the key-hole also commands. Lovers of the supernatural, of which I am the first, will like to be reminded, or perhaps instructed, that the Church of the Priory stands on the spot where Remus had a seance with the spiritual authorities and was advised against building Rome where he proposed, being shown only six vultures as against twelve that Romulus saw in favor of his chosen site. The fact gave the Aventine Hill the fame of bad luck, but any one may safely visit it now, after ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... not been given a private seance. Possibly he had not desired it. He had come with a dozen other victims ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... in which the examination proceeded, and when Rachel attempted to say that his mother would be much displeased, he proceeded to tumble head over heels all round the room, as if he knew better; which performance broke up the seance, with a resolve on her part that when she had the books she would not be so beaten. She tried Francis, but he really did know next to nothing, and whenever he came to a word above five letters long stopped short, and when ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the room where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust himself within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood about the medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance should presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had been striving ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... historique de Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL, prononce dans la seance publique de l'Academie royale des sciences ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... is at present more or less interest in Europe and America in Indic superstition and spiritualism, and half-educated people will doubtless be influenced for some time to come by Mah[a]tmaism and Yogism, just as they are moved by native seance-spirits and mesmerism. Blavatskyism (which represents no phase of Buddhism) will always find disciples among the ignorant classes, especially in an agnostic or atheistic environment, so that one should attribute ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... people they have seldom seen them. Visitors who can satisfy the authorities that they are desirous of studying the works of art with a serious purpose can obtain free passes; but only after certain preliminaries, which include a seance with a photographer to satisfy the doorkeeper, by comparing the real and counterfeit physiognomies, that no illicit transference of the precious privilege has been made. Italy is, one knows, not a rich country; but ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... doughnut from one pocket he was in the act of pulling a handful of pickles from another when the irate parent rushed into the little room. The exiles' camp was broken up, and the exiles driven out into the cold world. "Al-f-u-r-d" was escorted home then to the cellar where the seance was a trifle more animated than usual, at least "Al-f-u-r-d's" cries ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... came in, and seemed interested. I had the gas lighted in the drawing-room, got the steps, and repaired the cornice, which has been a bit of an eyesore to me. In a fit of unthinkingness—if I may use such an expression,—I gave the floor over the parlour, where the seance was taking place, two loud raps with the hammer. I felt sorry afterwards, for it was the sort of ridiculous, foolhardy thing that Gowing or ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... temps, le grand cadi, avec ses autres associes, rendoit justice a la porte exterieure de la cour, et j'y vis venir devant lui des chretiens etrangers pour plaider leur cause. Mais quand le seigneur se leva, les juges leverent aussi leur seance, et se ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... the whole experience was the marvellous demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of the society, the true nature of which is still ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... les auroit pas acceptees, l'honneur de la Compagnie luy estant d'autant plus considerable, qu'en estant le chef, il n'auroit rien voulu souffrir qui peust estre contraire a sa dignite." Registre du Conseil Souverain, seance du 13 Mars, 1690. The affair had occupied the preceding sessions of 20 and 27 February and 6 March. The submission of the councillors did not prevent them from complaining to the minister. Champigny au Ministre, 10 Mai, 1691; Memoire instructif ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... Revolutionary torment even regretted the cutting off of his prerogative of the royal hunt, but he had no choice in the matter. In his journal of 1789 one reads: "the cerf runs alone in the Parc en Bas" (Rambouillet), and again in 1790: "Seance of the National Assembly at noon; Audience of a deputation in the afternoon. The deer ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... phrenologist who had strayed into our midst would follow on with a brief phrenological seance, and nothing afforded the comrades more satisfaction than to be informed that their bumps showed ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... terms, do you think, for a private seance?" he asked of Madame Picardet, the lady to whom the Seer had ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... I have above remarked is only resorted to when a matter of grave import has to be inquired about; the bhagat makes a high charge for a seance of this description. We will fancy that three or four families in a village consider themselves bewitched by a najo, and they resolve to have recourse to a bhagat to find out who the witch is; with this view a day is fixed on, and two delegates are procured ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Shortly before the death of Turner, the great artist had volunteered to give Stillman some advice on painting, but had not redeemed the promise at the time of passing away. Stillman had a friend whose daughter was mediumistic and he decided to experiment. Immediately on beginning the seance the young girl was taken possession of by an entity claiming to be Turner. Stillman asked his question silently, speaking no words, but mentally requesting Turner to write his name. The only reply was an emphatic shake of the head. He then asked if ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic manifestations—a regular dark seance. A tambourine was played upon, a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Say, that seance didn't break up until six-fifteen, and before the board adjourns Rowley had a whackin' big option check in his fist, and a resolution had gone through to install an experiment plan as soon as it could be put up. An hour before that Willis ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... replied the young surgeon. "They tell me there was some kind of hypnotic seance going on. One of them named Errol struck at him ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... the principal circles in Paris where these experiments were tried, and for two years I even filled the exacting position of secretary to one of these circles, an office which morally bound me not to be absent from a single seance. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... final seance. For the last time, my patient comrade, I ask you to make yourself comfortable upon the old green settee, to look up at the oaken shelves, and to bear with me as best you may while I preach about their contents. The last time! And yet, as I look along the lines of the volumes, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been perfectly successful. The public disputation began, but the attention of the audience was elsewhere. There was whispering and comparing notes, and passing about of little books, and as soon as the seance was over, open discussion of Campion's "Reasons." Hartley did not wait for more, but rode back to Stonor with the news that the book had surely hit ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... but skeptical as to the value and personal origin of the communications made in the "circles." Her daughter, a child of seven, was in fact a hypnotic clairvoyant of singular lucidity, and my brother, Dr. Jacob Stillman, obtained from the mother permission to have a private seance, only the mother and child, the doctor, and myself being present. I hypnotized the girl Fanny, and when she opened her eyes in the hypnotic state the doctor made the usual tests for coma, exposing the eyes to the sudden glare of a brilliant light, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... vous servir d'vn fructueux divertissement. Nous les finissons donc si vous le trouuiez agreable, pour nous porter auec plus de zele aux autres deuoirs qui contribueront a vostre satisfaction, & qui seront agreables a touts les veritables estimateurs de la bien-seance & de l'honnestete de la conuersation commune, comme nous ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... was little or no sympathy between him and Tacitus, and, certainly, no identity of genius, that he should strive his utmost to cast off such a heavy burden and endeavour to carry a lighter load by fabricating a continuation of Livy; but no guinea is required to be spent for a visit to the seance of a medium, to call up the spirit of Cosmo de' Medici by the rapping of a table: in the first place, the spirit would be sure not to come, however hard the table might be rapped, from fear of being addressed in Latin or Italian, as spirits are always sulky when they speak languages that are unknown ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Marthe. Then when her better-half had been served likewise, I was certain that all five pseudo-murders were wholly and solely acts of retribution, and that they were perpetrated—I am inclined to think involuntarily—by the spirit of the owl itself. Accordingly, I decided to hold a seance here—here in its old haunt, and if possible to put an end to the earth-bound condition and wanderings of the soul of the unhappy bird. Thanks to Father Mickledoff we have done so, and there will be no more ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... made clear, or whether another letter from her father decided her to clear that way for herself, is uncertain; but one day in March Valerie received a letter from Mrs. Collis; and answered it; and the next morning she shortened a seance with Querida, exchanged her costume for her street-clothes, and hastened to her apartments, where Mrs. Collis was already awaiting her in ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... I went out there myself and had a seance with the horses." He set down his glass of brandy, which he had been turning in his hand as he spoke. "Lee, I want you to check back here with me in two hours ... by then I should have things straightened up ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... brain freely and without pain. From my own experience I am able to confirm Dr. Frazier's observation. In addition, the two-stage operation for the excision of the Gasserian ganglion provides an observation of extraordinary interest. If at the first seance the ganglion is exposed, but is not disturbed except by the iodoform gauze packing, then on the following day the gauze may be removed, the ganglion picked up, and its branches and root excised without anesthesia and without ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... enter, save a man of his cup-mates, by name Abd al-Malik bin Salih, who was behindhand with them. Then they donned brightly-dyed dresses.[FN259] for it was their wont, as often as they sat in the wine-seance, to endue raiment of red and yellow and green silk, and they sat down to drink, and the cups went round the lutes thrilled and shrilled. Now there was a man of the kinsfolk of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, by name Abd al-Malik bin Salih[FN260] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... corresponding date a generation—that is thirty years—ago. As I read over this column recently I had quite a start as I saw my own name, and read the reprint of a letter which I had written in 1887, detailing some interesting spiritual experience which had occurred in a seance. Thus it is manifest that my interest in the subject is of some standing, and also, since it is only within the last year or two that I have finally declared myself to be satisfied with the evidence, that I have not been hasty in forming ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his shoulder with a friendly pressure. "You'll have to wait in here a while longer—and you'll have to keep mighty quiet. I've got a circle at three o'clock—a seance. They come once a week, and I can't well put them off. You see, I work alone. It's a small circle, and I never liked the idea of helpers; they're likely to give you away sooner or later. I stretch a curtain across this corner for a cabinet, and they tie me to a chair—and ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... havin' a seance all to herself," he grinned, "an' she says, there's a wedding ring hanging over the brat's head, an' she said to tell you, Uncle Forrie—" He paused, giggled a little and ended—"Red curls'll twist around your heart so close ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... throat, the Honourable John Dalzell straddled on his chest, Senator Burrows of Michigan strapped his ankles to the chair, and Senator Scott of West Virginia thrust a gag into his mouth. As a further precaution, before the seance began, a representative of the Sugar Trust went through the medium's pockets. The medium struggled and groaned and made other signs of distress, but at all times remained under absolute control. Yet it is a fact that, in spite of all restraints imposed upon him, this ordinary American citizen ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... central figures, and frequent allusions are made to the place of meeting, which is a palaestra. Here the place of meeting, which is also a palaestra, is quite forgotten, and the boys play a subordinate part. The seance is of old and elder men, of whom ...
— Laches • Plato
... establishing (what was clear enough before to me) the connection between the table-moving and 'rapping spirits.' Sarianna—who is of the unbelieving of temperaments, as you know—wrote a most curious account to me the other day of a seance at which she had been present, composed simply of one or two of our own honest friends and of a young friend of theirs, a young lady....[23] She says that she 'was not as much impressed as she would have been,' 'but I am bound to tell the truth, that I do not think it possible ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... wraiths, but there's no escaping. Many persons of to-day are in the same mental state as one Mr. Boggs, told of in a magazine story, a rural gentleman who was agitated over spectral visitants. He had once talked at a seance with a speaker who claimed to be the spirit of his brother, Wesley Boggs, but who conversed only on blue suspenders, a subject not of vital interest to Wesley in the flesh. "Still," Mr. Boggs reflected, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... would join the girls in a table-turning seance. We would place our fingers on a small tea table and it would go capering about the room. It got to be so that whatever we touched began to quake and quiver. Mrs. Scott did not quite like all this. She would sometimes gravely shake her head and ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... instant, as Mr Boult drew out his watch, the audience hushed itself, as for a conjuring seance. Mr Hambly passed a hand over his ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... accepted this from her and gave it back to her and kissed her on the mouth and cheeks and eyes. When this was ended and done, for naught is durable save the Living, the Eternal, Provider of the peacock and the owl,[FN438] Nur al-Din rose from the seance and stood upon his feet, because the darkness was now fallen and the stars shone out; whereupon quoth the damsel to him, "Whither away, O my lord?"; and quoth he, "To my father's home." Then the sons of the merchants conjured him to night with them, but he refused and mounting his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... architect, returned from town to his holiday cottage greatly impressed by the spiritualistic seance at which he had been present. As he undressed and got into his solitary bed (Madame Vaxin had gone to an all-night service) he could not help remembering all he had seen and heard. It had not, properly speaking, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... not until young Cain, ostracised from the studio during the seance, whistled in through the keyhole sympathetic inquiries concerning the only woe his little soul knew, "Watty matter in yare? Ennybuddy dut e tummuck-ache?" that they chorused with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... enables us to strike a sort of average. Experiments pursued for years with table-turning, planchettes, mediums, clairvoyantes, come to this. You do get answers, strange messages, unaccountable communications; but nothing is ever told, in any seance, which does not lie perdu in the breast of someone of the company. There is often no willing deception; peradventure, no fooling at all: but as you cannot draw water from a dry well, neither can you get a message ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... don't wonder that she has bewitched you, Morton. She can never be anything to you, of course. But we must help her, just the same, and I confess I am crazy to see one of her 'performances,' as you call them." Her face lightened. "How would it do to invite them to dinner and have a seance afterwards? You could ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... a long and very interesting story, but in substance it is this: While in a condition of contemptuous disbelief as to the alleged phenomena of spiritualism, Sir William chanced to witness a seance wherein a young girl named Florence Cook was the medium. Her doings so puzzled and interested him that he went again and again to see her. Dissatisfied with the conditions under which the wonders took place, he asked Miss Cook to come to his house and sit for him and ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... of this warning. Some of the most subtle deceptions are found in the teaching that Christ has already come, secretly, or that He comes in the chamber of death, or in the spiritualistic seance. Against all these errors we are forewarned, as well as against any agencies that may come showing marvelous signs and wonders. The close of human probation, the coming of the day of God, will be as a thief in the night; and Christ's ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... this happiness: let the Republic receive my oath of gratitude, my oath of devotion!"—and next he proclaimed that there was nobody to surpass him in determined consecration "to the defence of order and to the establishment of the Republic." [Footnote: Seance du 26 Septembre 1848: Moniteur, 27 Septembre.] Good words these. Then again, when candidate for the Presidency, in a manifesto to the electors he gave another pledge, announcing that he "would devote himself altogether, without mental reservation, to the establishment ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... with these rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic manifestations, a regular dark seance. A tambourine was played upon, a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... arrived, the night of the strange witch-doctor's seance. This had all come to an end. The schoolhouse was dark—the girls were asleep. From a prowling native he learned that the girls were there and safe, then he turned ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... it. For instance: towards the close of Act I Madame d'Aubenas has gone off, nominally to take the night train for Poitiers, in reality to pay a visit to her lover, M. de Stoudza. When she has gone, her husband and his guests arrange a seance and evoke a spirit. No sooner have preliminaries been settled than the spirit spells out the word "O-u-v-r-e-z." They open the window, and behold! the sky is red with a glare which proves to proceed from the burning of the train in which Madame ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Illumination. The Jacob's Ladder of Communion. What a Development Circle Is. Forming the Development Circle. The Sitters in the Circle. The Spirit Communication Code. The Matter of Time Conditions. Opening the Seance. Developing a Medium. The Personnel of the Circle. Changing the Sitters. Adding a Medium. Reasons for Changes. Psychic Attunement. Pre-Test Manifestations. Premature Tests. Forcing Tests. Spirit Directions. Questioning the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... curled herself up on the sheepskin-covered cushion which was the ugly Duckling's saddle. This time it was "Antoun" who settled her into place, with her feet meekly crossed; and the caricature of a camel rose like a sofa at a spiritualistic seance. Strange to say, however, when all were ready to start, Monny appeared more comfortably lodged than any of the camel-riding ladies; and the thought entered my mind that perhaps Anthony had, with extreme subtlety, taken this roundabout way ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... summons of the spiritualist. I do not base this statement on any experience I have ever had, for it is a rather singular fact that, although I have seen many spontaneous phenomena in haunted houses, I have never seen anything resembling, in the slightest degree, a genuine spirit form, at a seance. Therefore, I repeat, I do not base my statement, as to the occasional materialisation of bona fide earth-bound spirits, on any of my experiences, but on those of "sitters" with whom I am intimately acquainted. What benefit ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... how long the seance lasted," she continued; "some hours, I suppose, for it was dark when I again realised where I was. And after dinner, there was another; and then at midnight he led me to the roof and invoked what he called an astral ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... 'ere," said Huish, "turn down the lights at once, and the Band of 'Ope will oblige! This ain't a spiritual seance." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... connu Fleeming Jenkin! C'etait en Mai 1878. Nous etions tous deux membres du jury de l'Exposition Universelle. On n'avait rien fait qui vaille a la premiere seance de notre classe, qui avait eu lieu le matin. Tout le monde avait parle et reparle pour ne rien dire. Cela durait depuis huit heures; il etait midi. Je demandai la parole pour une motion d'ordre, et je proposai que ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or anyone else. As they say of marriage, it's a lottery. They might have roulette, or a spiritual seance, or Kubelik, or ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... diversity of opinion. These practical researches ought not to be attempted by the majority of people, if by any. On many nervous systems, the mere sitting idly round a table, and calling the process a seance, produces ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... submitted to Professor Richard Owen, the Superintendent of Natural History; and my learned friend kindly inspected the Egyptian and Palmyrene crania which accompanied them. The whole was carefully described by Dr. C. Carter Blake, Ph.D., before the last-named seance of the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... expected from them; and, in short, if only for the sake of those who wished to continue their experiences, it was necessary that I should withdraw from them. That was the last occasion on which I took part in a seance under Mr. Hume's mediumship. My mother continued her sittings at the house of Mr. Powers, and it is fair to record that she there witnessed material phenomena—some of them closely allied to phenomena only explainable on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... the seance I was unexpectedly obliged to go away. When I wished to resume the treatment, January 9, the patient wrote me that his condition was strikingly improved, the heart palpitations and feelings of anxiety had not reappeared. His ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... residing near the city [Richmond] was invited by such a one to witness his mode of procedure with a dropsical patient for whom the physician in question had occasionally charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the seance, having previously informed the quack that since the case was in such hands he relinquished all connection with it. On the coverlet of the bed on which the sick man lay, was spread a quantity of bones, feathers, and other trash. The charlatan went through with a ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... me," he said, "I have only to tell the provost the truth. Members of the Imperial Police caught without proper uniform inside German lines are shot, seance tenante." ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... j'avais vu avec un si vif interet. Le plus amusant pour moi de cette rencontre, c'etait de voir nos plus graves confreres, par exemple, Lacroix et Legendre, qui certes ne sont pas des esprits legers, ni galans d'habitude, ni faciles a emouvoir, me gourmander, comme ils le faisaient a chaque seance, de ce que je tardais tant a faire mon rapport, de ce que j'y mettais tant d'insouciance et si peu de grace; enfin, Madame, c'etait une conquete intellectuelle complete. Je n'ai pas manque de raconter cette ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... heard of the spirit of anybody's past self appearing to them. If there are such spirits, why have they never manifested themselves? Nobody every heard of the spirit of one's past self appearing at a spiritualist seance, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... girl, who is not yet 20, has been in the habit for some time past of attending seances held by the Cardiff Psychological Society. One night at a seance, while in a state of trance, she was seized with a strange convulsion. Through her ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale plumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and old Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... gave us a very short and indistinct seance last night. A man speared the other day in a wallaby hunt, near the Laroki, he told us, was dead. He seemed to be raving a great deal, and wound up the first part with, Nao kuku daure (Foreign tobacco is bad). Continuing to rave and disturb sleep, ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... put the question, Mrs. Snowdon rose abruptly, wishing to end the seance, and beckoning them to follow glided up the great stairway. All obeyed, wondering what whim possessed her, and quite ready for any jest in ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... audiences, by license, and never failed to elicit both amusement and applause. To show how striking were its effects, and how surprising, even to scientific men, it may be mentioned that a certain learned SAVANT, on hearing it at a SEANCE of the Academie des Sciences, Paris, protested that it was a fraud, a piece of trickery or ventriloquism, and would not ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... is entitled 'Five Years After.' Violet Parkinson, the Alderman's only child, is in love with Jack Alston, who is 'poor, but clever.' Mrs. Parkinson, however, will not hear of any marriage till the deceased Alderman has materialised himself and given his formal consent. A seance is held at which Jack Alston unmasks the medium and shows Dr. Josiah Brown to be an impostor—a foolish act, on his part, as he is at once ordered to leave the house by the infuriated Mrs. Parkinson, whose faith in ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... meantime the crowd continued to increase, and it became necessary to call for a detail of policemen to drive back the curious people. In the Mayor's office were Detectives Crim and McDermott with the Mayor and Chief of Police, who for nearly two hours held a seance with the accused men in their effort to reach the truth. The examination of Walling by the mayor was severe to ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... fecondent et se multiplient dans une progression indefinie." No. 393 Republique francoise. Assemblee nationale. Projet de Constitution... precede par un rapport fait au nom de la Commission par le citoyen Armand Marrast. Seance ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... colleagues so seriously as people of that sort take themselves. Indeed, but for the more prominent ones, he never could remember what their jobs were, nor even recollect their names. It put one in a cold perspiration to hear him remark, when recounting what had occurred at a Cabinet seance or at the meeting of some committee bristling with Privy Councillors, "A fellow—I don't know his name but he's got curly hair—said..." Other soldiers besides Lord K. have, however, been known on occasion to get these super-men mixed up in their minds. There were three Ministers, for ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... rooming next him had the night before opened his innocent eyes on a thousand-dollar bill miraculously floating through the transom. If bills of such denomination materialized as cleverly as roses at a medium's seance, what might not develop at any moment? It was disquieting! Beds were feverishly ripped open instead of being slept in; mattresses were overhauled and pillows uncased; chiffoniers were turned upside down in hope that bills were tacked on the bottom; envelopes in unfamiliar ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... conclusions are no more authoritative than the conclusions of any other reasonably intelligent man. He may, therefore, lend the weight of a great name to conclusions—or conjectures—entirely outside his own province. The element of trickery in the ordinary professional seance is notorious.[75] The ordinary physical phenomena of spiritism have almost without exception been duplicated by conjurers—many of whom have mystifying tricks of their own no medium can duplicate and even the most unusual phenomena, such as Home's ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... astral body, but does not return to the ego to whom it originally belonged. Even then the astral corpse still remains, but when it is quite without any trace of its former life we call it a "shell". Of itself a shell cannot communicate at a seance, or take any action of any sort; but such shells are frequently seized upon by sportive nature-spirits and used as temporary habitations. A shell so occupied can communicate at a seance and masquerade as its original owner, since ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... "Confreres," he said, "our number as fixed for this seance still needs two to be complete, and doubtless they will arrive in a few minutes. Till they come, we can but talk upon trifles. Permit me to offer you my cigar-case." And so saying, he who professed to be no smoker handed his next neighbour, who was the Pole, a large ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... believe my sister came from the dead to tell me what to do," said the lawyer, "of course, I'd do it. I'd be afraid not to. But I don't believe he does. And he believes you can bring his sister herself before him. He insists that tonight you hold a seance in his house, and that you materialize the spirit of his dead sister. So that he can see his sister, and talk with his sister. Vance says you can do ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... right along, and the manifestations were wonderful; the connection between Jannie and Stepan, her spirit control, grew closer and closer. There was a scientific investigation—some professors put Jannie on a weighing-machine during a seance and found that, in a levitation, she had an increase in weight virtually equal to the lifted table. They got phonograph records ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the Viscount de Coralth, and consequently freed from all restraint, M. de Valorsay rose with a long-drawn sigh of relief. "What an interminable seance!" he growled. And, approaching his acolyte, who was sitting silent and motionless in an arm-chair, he slapped him on the shoulder, exclaiming: "Are you ill that you sit there like that, as ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... manoeuvring they put out their lips to be kissed, a sight which might well make even a Scotch Covenanter grin. They suck their lips in with a sharp hissing breath; then push them out suddenly, ready for the osculatory seance, the lips moving as if they were pushed from the inside by a pole. The "boys" enjoy the picnic immensely. As a matter of fact, these "boys" always seem to me to be doing one of four things. They are either eating, smoking, sleeping, or making love; and they do enough love-making in twenty-four ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... to the foot of the stairs and saw just like a boot disappearing on the top step.' She said, 'I think I must be going crazy. Why should I always see something at three o'clock each day after the seance?'" (Vol. V. ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... and the hippocampus minor of the Orang. Furthermore, having demonstrated the parts, at one of the sittings of the Academy, they add, "la presence des parties contestees y a ete universellement reconnue par les anatomistes presents a la seance. Le seul doute qui soit reste se rapporte au pes Hippocampi minor.... A l'etat frais l'indice du petit pied d'Hippocampe etait plus ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley |
