"Seance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this serious enterprise for the criticism and official sanction of The Academy, 'en seance', was included a request that, if possible, the task of writing a preface to the series should be undertaken by me. Official sanction having been bestowed upon the plan, I, as the accredited officer of the French Academy, convey ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... "Children," he interrupted, "this seance is to be broken up: scamper off to Adele to get ready: I'll ask mamma to let you drive to the station in the coupe to meet Mr. Brown: there will certainly be room for such little folks.—And as to you, Miss Featherstone, as head of the house pro tem. I order ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... of the Pre-Adamite demons? I am not afraid to open the bottle, on the contrary, would be glad to do so. I am a clairvoyant and trance-medium, with materialization as a specialty. My name is Jefferson P. Smitz. Here is my card. I have a seance to-morrow night. Bring your bottle then, and I will open it. The price of admission is," he said, with a glance of tentative scrutiny, "one dollar," at which information Mr. Middleton, looking unresponsive, uninterested, not to say sulky, he continued: ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... 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 ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... deplored the existence of frauds. Crookes' letters upon the subject are still extant. In very many cases it was the Spiritualists themselves who exposed the frauds. They laughed, as the public laughed, at the sham Shakespeares and vulgar Caesars who figured in certain seance rooms. They deprecated also the low moral tone which would turn such powers to prophecies about the issue of a race or the success of a speculation. But they had that broader vision and sense of proportion which assured them that behind all these follies and frauds there lay a mass ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the news of this wonder woman, their mistress, in whom they felt such inordinate pride; so that one, then two, then more, from distances long and short, would creep into the council with pretexts ranging from the thin to the absolutely transparent, until one morning the whole seance ended in an unseemly fracas between the legitimate and the illegitimate seekers after help in word or kind, whereupon Hahmed, rising in his wrath, smote them verbally hip and thigh, and Jill departed in high dudgeon, leaving the culprits to wilt ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... 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 ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... 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 ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... who had called a meeting of her friends at one of the big hotels, and organized a society and founded the "Bide-a-Wee Home" for destitute cats. After that she switched off into psychic research—somebody had taken her to a seance, where grave college professors and ladies in spectacles sat round and waited for ghosts to materialize. It was Mrs. Winnie's first experience at this, and she was as excited as a child who has just found the key to the jam-closet. "I hardly knew whether to laugh or to be afraid," ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... myself for the past. As for this Shahrazad, her like is not found in the lands; so praise be to Him who appointed her a means for delivering His creatures from oppression and slaughter!" Then he arose from his seance and kissed her head, whereat she rejoiced, she and her sister Dunyazad, with exceeding joy. When the morning morrowed, the King went forth and sitting down on the throne of the Kingship, summoned the Lords of his land; whereupon the Chamberlains and Nabobs and Captains ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... for the seance had been made the Angakok's head was covered and in a few moments he began to utter untelligible exclamations, which were shortly punctuated by shouts and screams and ravings. He fell to the floor and seemed stricken with a fit, and Bob thought the man had gone stark mad. He ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... Communication. Developing Concentration. The Call for 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 Spirits. Substance and ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... 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
... 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
... 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 around ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... hand on 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 then things ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... clock. "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 ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a seance held within sound of Big Ben on 8th May 1901, there were present Mrs. E. V. M., Mr. Thomas Atwood, and myself. As Mr. Atwood resumed his seat after delivering an address (about 8.30 p.m.) I became aware of a vision which presented itself as being some five feet ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... 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 circonstance comme un des fleurons de votre couronne. Je me suis ainsi ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... intellectual tyranny. The American medium Home, she learnt from her friends, was "turning the world upside down in London with this spiritual influx." Two months later, in July 1855, Mrs Browning and her husband were themselves in London, and witnessed Home's performances during a seance at Ealing. Miss de Gaudrion (afterwards Mrs Merrifield), who was present on that occasion, and who was convinced that the "manifestations" were a fraud, wrote to Mrs Browning for an expression of her ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... 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
... Republic has given me 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 of ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... 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
... room, facing the Olympians, stood or sat the particular claimant or expert witness of the seance. Now it might be Marshal Foch, with wrinkled, weary, war-worn visage, and thin rumpled hair, in shabby uniform, telling of Germany's failure to fulfill the armistice conditions; one would meet him later in the corridor outside—like Grant, ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... night when he 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 in ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... 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 ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... 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
... It was therefore requested that the tables and chairs should be examined before her arrival, in order to be assured that there was no trickery in the furniture. This was done; and I then first learned that my hospitable host had arranged that the seance should be a dinner-party. This was to me an unusual form of investigation; but I accepted it, as one of the accidents of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... reellement touchee, de la raison et de la fermete que le roi a mises dans cette rude seance."—Marie Antoinette to Joseph II., August 22d, 1785, Arneth, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Malay women in Keeling Island, who held a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll: this spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively, like a table or a hat at a modern spirit seance.'[1] Now M. Lefebure has pointed out (in 'Melusine') that, according to De Brosses, the African conjurers gave an appearance of independent motion to small objects, which were then accepted as fetishes, being visibly animated. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... 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)
... in the evening, our party assembled for what, in foreign phrase, is called 'une seance magnetique.' Anna M——, our mesmerisee, was already with us. Mr K—— arrived soon after, and was introduced to his young patient, whose name we had purposely avoided mentioning to him in the morning; not that we feared imposition on either hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... 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 a ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... 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 laughter at their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... "La Seance a fini a l'heure ou le president du Roxburghe-Club leve celle de Londres; et le vice-president, M. Dibdin, a soigneusement reuni les bouchons, pour les porter en Angleterre comme un signe ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 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, sticking pins into her flesh, and so ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... night which had been left on his floor by a careless chambermaid; for the member 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
... "My first visits have generally been failures, and I have more than once been told that my own temperament is most unfavourable to the success of a seance. Nevertheless, I have in some cases witnessed marvels perfectly inexplicable by known natural laws; and I have heard and read of others attested by evidence I certainly cannot ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... 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 ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... the possibility of poetry, of the novel, in short of all works of the imagination: the idea seeming to be that the imagination always requires the hall of life to be darkened before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic seance-givers who can do nothing with the rope-tying and the guitars unless the lights are put out."* And again: "Here are thousands upon thousands of acute and patient men to-day who are devoutly gazing into the great mysteries of Nature and faithfully reporting what they see. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... initiated by the 'Mrarts (ghosts) when they met him wandering in the bush.... It was from the ghosts that he obtained replies to questions concerning events passing at a distance or yet to happen, which might be of interest or moment to his tribe." Mr. Howitt prints an account of a spiritual seance in the bush.(2) "The fires were let go down. The Birraark uttered a cry 'coo-ee' at intervals. At length a distant reply was heard, and shortly afterwards the sound as of persons jumping on the ground in succession. A voice was then heard in the gloom asking in a strange intonation, 'What ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... interfere 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 around ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... 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 face over the 'cello. Any ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... 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 du 30 aout, 1848.] ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... 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
... 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 lips came ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... character of the avenue of clipped box and 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, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... giver." So he 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 shemule, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... they had succeeded in obtaining 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 to remain, but because ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... seen her since, Joe? She was a high stepper," muses the Captain. He has been a great connoisseur of loveliness. Many fair ones have passed under his hands in public duty or private seance. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... days after what has just been related, Harry Mortimer paid them another visit, which the family council had resolved should be a regular "mesmeric seance." ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... you all to a seance," finished Betty, sitting back and looking tremendously satisfied with herself. "Then you can question Grace ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, 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 ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... seance?" inquired Kathleen, watching the group from the doorway. Another of Miss Kiametia's receiving party had taken her place at ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... 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 ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... considerable portion of the actual material of his 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 ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... kinship with anything so dismantled; then he turned to a cheval-glass beside the window and paid himself the dubious tribute of a thorough inspection. He looked the mirror up and down, slowly, repeatedly, but came in the end to a long and earnest scrutiny of the face. Throughout this cryptic seance his manner was profoundly impersonal; he had the air of an entomologist intent upon classifying a specimen, but finally he appeared to become pessimistic. He shook his head solemnly; then gazed again and shook his head again, ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... you to come to a seance" said Mr. Dempster, glad to find some one who was disposed to inquire on the subject. He had only recently become a convert, and was very anxious to induce others to think with him. "I am quite sure that you will see ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... in his mouth, lit it slowly, and let out a long cloud of smoke. It is not a little to his credit that he performed these rites with so much composure, for almost before he had begun them the table at which he sat had begun to revolve, first slowly, and then rapidly, as if at an insane seance. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... wondering if this Bloomingdale seance was to go on all day, Sir Peter gives out like a busted mainspring, slumps all over the floor, and lays as limp as if his jaw had connected with a pile-driver. For a minute or so I was scared clear down to my toe-nails; ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... that in the Seance of September 22nd, 1793, or Vendemiaire 1st of the Year I. it was decreed that sixty prisoners, not absolutely proved guilty of treason against the Republic—only ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to the 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 can be derived from getting into close touch with earth-bound ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... aux Chambres dans la Seance du 14 Fevrier 1825, par S. E. le Ministre de l'Interieur, Sur les Ecoles Secondaries de Medecine, les Chambres de Discipline, et les Eaux Minerales ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... 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 utilized, the first ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... superstitious practices, and in the effects of these practices on 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 ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... the hopeful way 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 told ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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, "I'm not so darn sure!" In answer to a suggestion regarding subliminal consciousness ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... 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 he would give some advice on painting. The response ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... reasons. First, I wish to beg your pardon for having drawn you into this spiritualism without your knowing that I was doing so. I have told you what my motive was, and therefore I will not repeat it, as my strength is small. Secondly, I wish you to promise me that you will never go to another seance, since now I am quite sure that it is dangerous for the young. To me spiritualism has brought much good and joy, but with others it may be different, especially as among spirits, as on the earth, there are evil ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... which I could see was destined to be let down during the performance of the phenomenal manifestations. There was a camp-stool inside the cabinet; a number of cane-bottomed chairs on the platform, and also the various properties of a spirit seance, familiar to me from long experience, guitar, fiddle, handbells, tambourine, &c. One adjunct alone was new; and that was a green stable bucket, destined, I could not doubt, to figure in what my Rimmel-scented programme promised as the climax of Part I.—the "Great ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... door, studying his rival from a distance, and determined to take advantage of his present position, to secure the seat next to his charmer. He was meditating on the best mode of operation for securing this important post with due regard to bien- seance, when he was twitched by the button by Mr. Mac Quedy, who said to him: "Lady Clarinda tells me, sir, that you are anxious to talk with me on the subject of exchangeable value, from which I infer that you have studied political economy, and as a great deal depends ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... 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 ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Ophelia and hysteria, the hero 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, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... have a seance!" whispered the poet. "Tell us, madam, can you really lift the veil of ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... evening she had vainly waited for him till ten o'clock in the expectation that he would keep his promise to escort her to a tavern at Montmartre, where some horrible things were said to occur. Hyacinthe, looking very bored, quietly replied that he had been detained at a seance given by some adepts in the New Magic, in the course of which the soul of St. Theresa had descended from heaven ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 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
... 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 retirerent ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... have 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 ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 judge then ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... 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 ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Sir:—After reading the account which I am mailing to you under separate cover, will you kindly forward it to the American Branch of the Society of Psychical Research? As you will observe, it is a verbatim report of a "seance." ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... had begun my task and must go through with it. Abandoning Jane at a corner, in spite of her calling me cruel and even sneeking, I went to Adrian's hotel, which I had learned of during my SEANCE in his room while he was changing his garments behind a screan, as it was marked on a ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cause friction. At times she varied the program by lying upon me and embracing me passionately. I can remember distinctly her quick, gasping breath and convulsive movements. She generally ended the seance by persuading me to perform cunnilingus upon her. None of these performances were intelligible to me and I invariably protested against being compelled to leave my play to amuse her. Even her fondling of my genitals annoyed me; and, stranger still, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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" ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the wings; and there was a pathetically earnest lady waiting to give him a tract on the horrors of vivisection, and an old gentleman with a white beard and palsied hands, inviting him to a spiritualistic seance. Funniest of all, there was Aunt Caroline's prophet, the author of the "Eternal Bible," with his white robes and his permanent wave, and his little tribute of carrots and onions wrapped in a newspaper. I decided that these were Carpenter's own kind of troubles, ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... there 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 mental attitude of such minds to their lack ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be called a seance of meditation from the world's business. Some men make celebration in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it in flooding his mind with streams of human thought which often tried to run uphill, which were frequently choked with weeds, but still ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nor working (except by carpenters), till then. Your Third Estate, self-styled 'National Assembly,' shall suddenly see itself extruded from its Hall, by carpenters, in this dexterous way; and reduced to do nothing, not even to meet, or articulately lament,—till Majesty, with Seance Royale and new miracles, be ready! In this manner shall De Breze, as Mercury ex machina, intervene; and, if the Oeil-de-Boeuf mistake not, work deliverance ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Doc wouldn't let well-enough alone. There was a big spiritualist over to Peory, Illinoy, a reg'lar ghost-raisin' feller, and what did Doc do but write over and git him to come to Kilo and give a seance. That is a meetin' where they raise up ghosts. Doc wanted the feller to stop at our house, but I wouldn't have it, so he had to put up at the hotel. Doc said it was a shame, but as soon as I seen the man I said it served him right, and that he was a fraud, but Doc ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... Leila. The Sans have planned some kind of seance at that empty house to scare Marjorie. Probably they have dressed up in some hideous fashion. They could easily get away with it on account of the masquerade. The sooner we get there the better. We may ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... entered upon 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 ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... someone 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 your plans ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... 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 told to me, and before me, many many times—that she hoped the fortune-teller would ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Eloge historique de Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL, prononce dans la seance publique de l'Academie royale des ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... assembled, 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 emperor had haughtily proclaimed ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... departure from Kilgobbin, old Kearney, who usually relapsed from any exercise of hospitality into a more than ordinary amount of parsimony, sat thinking over the various economies by which the domestic budget could be squared, and after a very long seance with old Gill, in which the question of raising some rents and diminishing certain bounties was discussed, he sent up the steward to Mr. Richard's room to say he ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... grasped the medium by the 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 ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... other blessings. It seems to me that were I a ghost I would float about on cloud banks and bathe in the splendors of the morning, instead of hiding in bat-caves all day and snooping about all night seeking an unsalaried situation at some dark-lantern seance. When America's greatest lexicographer writes me an ungrammatical message on a double-barreled slate, signs it "noeh webstur," and instructs his terrestial to deliver it to me on payment of one cart-wheel dollar, I suspect that there's ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... of charms. Magic, too, is an art—like other arts. This is forgotten by the majority of its practitioners. Hence the sordid vulgarity of the average mind-reader and humbugging spiritualist of the dark-chamber seance. Besides, the study of the super-normal mind tells us of the mind in health—nature is shy in ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... slates at Dr. Stansbury's public seance, last Sunday evening, the following message from Judge Wm. R. Thompson, father of H. M. Thompson, of this city: 'The essential principles of primitive Christianity and the precepts of Modern Spiritualism are essentially one and the same, which, if practised, would lead ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... a special 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 ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... 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 ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... Whenever she discussed Archibald, it was with her son Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant Milsom, who thought Archibald a bit of an ass, was always ready to sit and listen to his mother on the subject, it being, however, an understood thing that at the conclusion of the seance she yielded one or two saffron-coloured bills towards his racing debts. For Stuyvesant, having developed a habit of backing horses which either did not start at all or else sat down and thought in the middle of the race, could ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... terms, do you think, for a private seance?" he asked of Madame Picardet, the lady to whom the Seer had successfully predicted the ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... this kind of bird on its legs is a very important part of its—diagnosis; (we must have a fine word now and then!) Its action on the wing, is mere flutter or flirt, in and out of the hedge, or over it; but its manner of perch, or literally 'bien-seance,' is admirable matter of interest. So also in the birds which are on the water what these are on land; picking up anything anywhere; lazy and fortunate, mostly, themselves; fat, floating, daintiest darlings;—their balance on the water, also, and under it, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... lil' charm, yaas," said the Wizened One when the seance was over, and Manuela, all white and nervous, leaned back in the rickety chair. "I give you one lil' charm fo' to ween him back, yaas. You wear h'it 'roun' you' wais', an' he come back. Den you mek prayer at St. Rocque an' burn can'le. Den you ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... this is a little too Russian in its conception," said Ranuzi, half aloud. "I shall be surprised if the police do not interrupt this seance, which smells a little ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... fifteen puzzled investigators are asking themselves this morning, after witnessing a number of astounding manifestations at a private seance given by Mr. Sothern ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... all luxury, hardly found its comforts sufficient for them. The Club Favie, with its paintings on the walls and its lustres, has a most aristocratic air in comparison with this new hall of democracy. To judge by its first seance, the Club Marseillaise promises well. Last night enough treasons were unveiled to make the fortune of most other clubs for a week at least. From the commencement of the war we have been in the meshes of a vast network of treason; ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... day appointed for 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 pleasure in life and work had returned once more, his ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... recipient of a scathing rebuke from the city editor. It was in vain I tried to get angry. Even to myself I could not simulate proper indignation, so thoroughly had the starch been taken out of me by my seance with an excusably irritated man, knowing the while that I was trespassing on ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... up the field 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 any ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Sometimes the slates are held on the head or shoulders of the visitor. At one of his seances at Oakland, it is said that he held the slates for thirty-five persons within two hours, and obtained for each a slate full of writing in answers to questions placed between the slates. At a public seance in Santa Cruz, following a lecture, folded ballots were sent up by the audience and the answers were sometimes written on closed slates and sometimes by the doctor's hands. Dr. S. has also succeeded in repeating the famous performance of Charles Foster—the names of spirits appearing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... scoundrels from the stolen Farallone. "Oh," exclaimed the unspeakable Huish, when they had recovered breath, "Oh, look 'ere, turn down the lights at once, and the Band of 'Ope will oblige! This ain't a spiritual seance." It had something akin to the madness of poor Christopher Smart when he fell into the habit of dropping on his knees and praying in the crowded London streets. There was incongruity, verging on the ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... 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 ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... A psychical seance of the above disembodied Corps will be held on Friday the 26th March, in the Common Room of the Law Society in Chancery Lane (by kind permission of the Council), ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... know? That's like a tradesman shutting up shop when he's made his fortune, or a prima donna going off the stage. It ain't so easy to make out, is it, how the Forno-Populo can retire from the world? She can't be going to take poison, like the great Sarah, and give us a grand dying seance in Lady Randolph's drawing-room. That would be going a bit too far, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the 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 ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... 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 ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... physician 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 ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... 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
... seance was particularly interesting, because I find it recorded in my notes that a fact was verified three times consecutively, which had occurred sporadically more than once before, and had been observed and noted by ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... of 30 Queen's Mansions, Queen's Gate. I have been holding a seance here, with some of my friends, and most extraordinary things have happened, and are still happening. There are violent knockings on the wall and ceiling, and the table has become positively dangerous. It has repeatedly sprung into the air, and savagely assaulted several of ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... later I had an opportunity of making the good man's acquaintance and hearing a conversation between him and Mr. Burns. They talked about Spiritualism, with which Borrow had very little patience, though, after some talk he consented to attend a seance to be held that evening in Burns's drawing-room. We sat together, and I had the pleasure of hearing from time to time his grunts of disapproval. When the discourse—'in trance'—was over, he asked me if I believed in 'this sort of thing,' and when I said I was simply an ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... of the whole experience was the marvellous demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of the society, the true nature of which is ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... (he began) when I decided that I was a fraud; that I could not be a psychical researcher any longer. I determined to give it all up, to investigate no more phenomena nor attend another seance, nor read a word about psychical research for the remainder of my life. On the contrary, I planned an intensive study of the works of the later Victorians, of that blissful period in the history of Europe when we could believe in the comforting doctrine ...
— The Psychical Researcher's Tale - The Sceptical Poltergeist - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • J. D. Beresford
... had demonstrated her gifts so convincingly as to have converted a sceptic, there was no doubt that she had perceptibly raised the spirits of the whole party (not excluding her own), so the seance was quite ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... This seance at M. Thierry's completed the triumph of Jasmin at Paris. The doors of the most renowned salons were thrown open to him. The most brilliant society in the capital listened to him and feted him. Madame de Remusat sent him a present of a golden pen, with the words: "I admire ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... know 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 ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... and boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age, and Italian mothers holding small children—itinerant madonnas. These are the poorer class of models—the riff-raff of the Quarter—who get anywhere from a few sous to a few francs for a seance. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... thunderstruck a minute, I ran 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 |
