"Seance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... in front, with a green curtain, 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 Pail ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... do you think, for a private seance?" he asked of Madame Picardet, the lady to whom the Seer had successfully predicted ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... on a disreputable patient, Doctor Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little seance with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Florentines display, for being essentially a frugal 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
... 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 ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... 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 ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... that fifteen puzzled investigators are asking themselves this morning, after witnessing a number of astounding manifestations at a private seance given by Mr. ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... 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
... 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 ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... blandishments of the vain-glorious warriors, and after a little 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 ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... 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 ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... 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
... young Benjamin's father said these words to the veteran in charge of the pier-turnstile; who, as an early bird, was counting his tickets, so to speak, before they were hatched—his actual professional cabinet-seance not having begun. For the pier wasn't open yet, and his permission to Fenwick to pass the open side-gate was an indulgence ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... 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
... 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 ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... had been fitted up as a medium's seance parlor, with black hangings on the walls, while at one side there was a square cabinet of black cloth, with a guitar lying ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... way was 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 ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... "A seance in table-tipping?" asked his sister coldly. "Really, Louis, I think we are rather past ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... the phenomena, 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, sticking pins ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... 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 so-called ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Thus the seance went forward. For twenty minutes or more odd waifs and strays of humanity crawled in through the trap-door, obtained their message of good or ill, and departed into the shadows as silently as they had come. Among them were several women, one of whom sought a cure for her sick child, whimpering over ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... shall yet tear away The mystic garb that hides it from the day, And drag it forth and bind it with its laws, And make it serve the purposes of men, Guided by common-sense and reason. Then We'll hear no more of seance, table-rapping, And all that trash, o'er which the world is gaping, Lost in effect, while ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... as the immediate representative of the crown he should wound the susceptibilities of the deputies was perhaps inevitable, but little attempt was made to adapt traditional etiquette to changed circumstances. Breze did not formally intimate to President Bailly the proclamation of the royal seance until the 20th of June, when the carpenters were about to enter the hall to prepare for the event, thus provoking the session in the tennis court. After the royal seance Breze was sent to reiterate Louis's orders that the estates should meet ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... 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 ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Morley's is absolutely useless—mere rot. It has already cost me not only its price but also two candles for an all-night seance and an entire degeneration of my most sad and sober resolutions. Money I needed for shoes, solemnity I needed for my reputation—all have gone to the winds in this nightmare of love, laughter, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... of her thighs and hips calculated to 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, I preferred satisfying her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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 Anthropological ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... 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 ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... have a seance!" whispered the poet. "Tell us, madam, can you really lift the veil of ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... 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 ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... want you to help me with. I know that Belle will want to make it a seance with relaxed robes ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... ete 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, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... disapproval, and Sanford, by his good-natured chaffing and ridicule had so far prevented this calamity, but both feared that Aunt Abby might yet outwit them and have her coveted seance ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... "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 commemoratif de ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... indignant. With some stiffness he explained the danger of interrupting a seance of this ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... try to tell myself that the power which is responsible for the sorrows of this world must provide compensation. Even history can show us that this has always been the case. Yesterday," she continued, "I went to a spiritual seance. I found nothing. I shall go to the next thing of the sort which any one suggests. I am like the hypochondriac with his list of patent medicines. I try them all, but my ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... effort to divert the direction of the sound. I was within a few feet of this young fellow and could plainly see by the light of the kitchen fire the attitude of the impersonator and distinctly hear his whistling. The seance continued for some 10 minutes, the impersonator chirping out answers to the questioning priest. The listeners were fully convinced that the sounds were of divine origin and expressed that conviction by uttering some such expressions ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... whether his tests were genuine, or whether they were performed by the aid of trickery. Accordingly, one evening, a prominent physician invited me, with certain relatives and friends, to attend a seance ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... out of the way while we have our seance with the Draper. Now brace up, my dear; just nod or shake your head when ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... 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. ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... "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, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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, "I'm not so darn sure!" In answer to a suggestion regarding ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... to demonstrate the truth of spiritualism. He does love to monkey with the supernatural, and he delights in getting hold of some skeptical friend and convincing him of the presence of spirits beyond a doubt. I've known him to ignore two cases of croup and one case of twins to attend a seance and help convince a doubting ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... geologist, when the four "came out" of their seance, "the bees seem to have everything their own way. How can we help the humans best? Hurry up with your idea; I'm getting sick of these ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... 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 ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... clean is our seance from slanderous foe; * And from envious rival whose aim is blame: None hither may come save the cup-boy, and eke * Cup-comrades ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... 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 ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Watchful Waiting. Building Lines of 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 ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... 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 ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... 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 opinion. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... 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, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... would be likely to mar any results to be 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 Spiritualistic theories—of even a more extraordinary nature than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... 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
... notable part of the whole experience was the marvellous demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of the society, the true nature of which ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... with thine eyes", says the youthful lover; but when the seance is over he goes out and ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... fantastic gesture and resourceful business. In the trances, sometimes real, sometimes simulated, he gives you a plausible sketch of how a modicum of psychic power (whatever that may be), laced with whisky neat, might colour a seance. Mr. Hackett, by way of showing that he has not ignored the literature of his subject, has adapted from the admirable, but, I regret to say, entirely untrustworthy, because incurably original, MAETERLINCK an entirely new definition of psychometry. But we certainly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... mutton head!" said Sara. "I suppose he thinks the crux of the matter is that seance with Freet. As if I'd do as coarse work as that! That's what I'd like, to be turned over to the authorities. Couldn't I tell a pretty story about the meeting with Freet up here? Freet actually thought Jim would come across with the contract! But ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... 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 ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... 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. M. Lefebure next ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... 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
... importance of the subject. After conceding the favor, and appointing a more favorable time for the meeting, Elizabeth succeeded in getting out of the store, into which the countrymen now began to enter, as usual, where they met with the same attention and bien seance as formerly. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... stereopticon views and own projection lanterns, we are persuaded that the experiment will be much more successful than it formerly was. An assemblage of persons all provided with colored eye-glasses is quite curious to contemplate. Our engraving represents a stereopticon seance, and the draughtsman has well rendered the effect of the two luminous and differently colored fascicles superposed upon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... description. She persisted that she did not, and went over the others for the second time. This astonished M. le duc d'Orleans deeply, as well as myself, and we were at a loss to explain it, but the event proved that the child was perfectly right. This seance took place in 1706. These four members of the royal family were then full of health and strength; and they all died before the king. It was the same thing with M. le prince, M. le duc, and M. le prince de Conti, whom she likewise did ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... activity, as did 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 spiritism ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... perhaps, the happiest hunting-ground for the spiritualist medium, the faith healer, and the mind curer. You will find there the most advanced emancipation from theological superstition combined in the most extraordinary way with a more than half belief in the incoherences of a spiritualistic seance. The Boston Christian Scientists have just erected a handsome stone church, with chime of bells, organ, and choir of the most approved ecclesiastical cut; and, greatest marvel of all, have actually had to return a surplus of $50,000 (L10,000) that was subscribed for its building. There are two pulpits, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... 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 made for the banks of the Elbe, ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Boult drew out his watch, the audience hushed itself, as for a conjuring seance. Mr Hambly passed a hand ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... 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, in ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... 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 told to me, and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... food was set on and they ate; and the doctors arose and withdrew; but Al-Maamun forbade the stranger to depart with them and, calling him to himself, treated him with especial-favour and promised him honour and profit. Thereupon they made ready the seance of wassail; the fair-faced cup-companions came and the pure wine[FN252] went round amongst them, till the cup came to the stranger, who rose to his feet and spake thus, "If the Commander of the Faithful ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... reporter saw a light in the office window he broke into the seance. When the boy and his girl were not holding down the sofa at her father's home, or when there was no dance at the Imperial Club hall, nor any other social diversion, David and Larmy and the reporter would meet at the office and dive into things too ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... was 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
... 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 beings. Do ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... Yes, we did some privateerin', as wuz privateerin', sure, An' we scuttled many a schooner, it wuz risky business pure. But—stranger—we'd be laughin', jest filled with persiflage, If we hadn't had a seance with that bloomin' Kearsarge." ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... in the London Medium a very interesting narrative of his seances with the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the royal family and nobility. In the first royal seance, the Grand Duchess Vladimir proved to be a medium, and was lifted in the air, screaming the while. 'As she continued to ascend,' says Mr. Eglinton, 'I was compelled to leave her hand, and on returning to her seat, she declared that she had been floated over the table without anything ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... 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 ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... quietly do the members that choose to attend pass into the lecture-hall, leaving perhaps half the company engaged as before, that the "stranger "—as the non-member is here officially designated—might very readily fail to understand that the seance proper had begun. In any event, he cannot enter until permission has been formally voted ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... 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 except the germ ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... Madame Zero 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 deservedly pronounced ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... his table, he showed me quantities of correspondence which had been left unattended in my absence, and urged me to get to work, adding: "I have to be at the Baroness Tchelkounoff's this afternoon, and there is a seance here ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... alive, the living dead. Solitary was our tomb, in which, on occasion, we talked with our knuckles like spirits rapping at a seance. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... 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 ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... again; and after standing 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
... savez comment j'ai 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 proposal que la seance fut levee a la condition ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... que 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 circonstance comme un des fleurons de votre couronne. ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... intelligences dont les produits ne s'ajoutent pas seulement mais se 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 du ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... 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 ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... 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; and these meshes can only be broken through by the Commune ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... 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
... up, 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
... toe-joint snapping, fortune-telling, or the vending 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 ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Neapolitan, be a complete success, if the only attraction was that she herself taught Dante, but it would be quite a different proposition if Princess Popoffski, controlled by Amadeo, Dante's friend, was present. They might read a Canto first, and then hold a seance of which Amadeo—via Princess Popoffski—would take charge. While this was simmering in her mind, it was important to drop all irony and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... influence in the direction of mental health was the discovery of Walt Whitman's poetry. "I shall never forget," Lucian Oldershaw writes, "reading to him from the Canterbury Walt Whitman in my bedroom at West Kensington. The seance lasted from two to three hours, and we were intoxicated with ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed me my room himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening raiment that kept me home that night from the club. For I couldn't wear Sam's clothes. That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 to spell it, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... the freemasonry of their common love taught it to him—that in the presence of a third person her name, no allusion to her, even, must pass his lips. In short, these conversations grew at length into a kind of seance or solemn rite; a joint offering to the dead of the best that they had to give, their tenderest thoughts and memories, made in solemn secrecy and with ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Britton, when, at the end of the seance, he returned his treasures to the bag, "you have now got twenty-three of our cheques, to all intents and purposes. I hope you are not going to make any unlawful use of them—must tell our cashiers to keep a bright look-out; and"—here he lowered his voice impressively ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... I 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 ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... heroine was a mixture of 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, mark you, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... countenance was decorated with a Cheshire cat grin. Quite unaware that his riotous efforts had brought out the wrathful Butch Brewster, the youthful narrator of Chuckwalla Bill's stormy career continued his excessively noisy seance. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... 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 ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... anyone else. As they say of marriage, it's a lottery. They might have roulette, or a spiritual seance, or ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... The seance began. And how did it begin, should you think? Exactly as it began before—with that same tedious thing which had been settled once, after so much wrangling. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she 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
... the 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, been a seance at all, but the whole evening ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... yet, happily, music, or they would have praised Beethoven and very likely Mendelssohn too. They did begin to run Nuremberg and it was on the tip of my tongue to say, "Yes, but there's the flavour of Faust and Goethe"; however, I did not. In course of time the seance ended, though not till nearly ten o'clock, and we all ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... Huish, 'turn down the lights at once, and the Band of 'Ope will oblige! This ain't a spiritual seance.' ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... The seance ended, the Devil slapping a safe portion of the children's bodies, with a sound resembling applause. After many months of this really annoying conduct, poor Campbell laid his case before the Presbyters, in 1655, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... the 22nd, the 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
... materialisations he thinks he sees and the rappings he hears, along with the time and place. Now it so happened that on the night Mrs. Vandam was taken ill, he had retired—I believe in another part of the house, where he has a regular seance-room. According to his story, he was awakened from a profound sleep by a series of rappings. As was his custom, he noted the time at which they occurred. Something made him uneasy, and he said to his 'control'—at least ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... a quarter to five, Miss Wingate issued from her room after a completely satisfactory seance with her mirror, and from the front steps looked down in dismay upon a scene of rebellion, that threatened at any moment to ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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 ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... "At 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 ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... 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, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... 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
... 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, ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... began, and men grunted as they heaved against an axle. After a long seance of such effort there came a sharp exclamation, like an oath, and the confusion fell to a murmur of dismay. Someone jerked open the door, and Dupin's ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and deception of the senses. Vaguely, but insistently we feel the call to the life of the spirit, and when its definition eludes us, we prefer silence and faith. It is then that the familiar prattle of the seance-room offends us. We sought freedom, light, absolution from the trammels of personality, and we are told that the dead appear in bodies and clothes, that they toil and fret, that they inhabit houses and cities. Our plains Elysian suffer an invasion of lawyers ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... don't you 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 ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Bergson's address on being received by the Academy. On M. Ollivier. Published by Perrin, Paris. Seance de l'Academie francaise, Jan. 24, 1918, pp. 44. (The work also contains the reply to Bergson by the Director of the Academy, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... 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
... was 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
... lives in the woods east of Onabasha, accompanied by his dog, horse, cow, and chickens, and a forest full of birds, flowers, and matchless trees. He has lived there in this manner for six long years, and every spring he and his dog have a seance and agree whether he shall go on gathering medicinal herbs and trying his hand at making medicine or go to the city and live as other men. Always the dog chooses to remain ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... the manner in which I had failed, and was the 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
... 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 ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence |
