'Twixt two worlds : a narrative of the life and work of William Eglinton

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Scientific Investigation on the Continent'. 59
were placed a guitar, a musical box, and a small bell, all of which had been procured at a music
shop in town. All hands were put upon the table so as to form a chain, nobody being able to
move a finger without his neighbour noticing it. The persons sitting next Mr. Eglinton were
closely observing his slightest movements. The lights were extinguished, but as the adjoining
rooms were lighted up, which could be clearly seen through the crevices of the door, nobody could
enter the room that was being used for the seance without being observed. After waiting for a
few moments, the conversation still going on, the things lying on the table began to move
about. The guitar was touched, and, to judge by the sounds proceeding from it, was hovering
about the room near the ceiling. In returning to its former place, several persons were lightly
touched by it. Then the musical box began playing, and was carried over our heads to a
corner of the room, till it stopped ; when it came back to the table and began playing again.
The key was to be heard winding up the box. At that moment one of the Swedish persons
present asked if the musical box would stop playing, which it immediately did. He then asked
it to go on playing at a lively rate, and he was at once obliged, the box playing even much
faster than its usual time. After the seance was at an end, it was observed that a large sofa
standing near the wall had been moved nearly one yard from its usual place, and, when the
candle was lighted, many things had been displaced in the room. During all this time the
medium's hands were not let loose for one moment.
"The great question now is, how are we to explain satisfactorily the strange proceedings
here related The circumstances under which they took place wholly exclude all thoughts of
conjuring. No conjurer would consent to play his tricks without an assistant, or apparatus of
any kind, in a room where he had never been able to make any preparations whatever, and with
both hands held fast. Some other explanation must be given : probably long and difficult researches
are necessary. By people in general it is justly considered a great deal easier to laugh at what
one cannot understand than to discover the cause of it ; therefore the greater number choose the
former way, although it explains nothing. When something strange and inexplicable occurs, the
first thmg to do is not to find out if it is possible or not, but to get proofs that it really has been
done. If we have tangible facts to put forward, everybody must admit the possibility of the thing,
although they cannot explain it. Only those deny the reality of spirit phenomena who have
never examined them, but profound study alone can explain them. We do not know where we
may be led by the discovery of the cause of these, as it seems, trivial occurrences, or to what
new spheres of Nature's kingdoms they may open the way ; but that they will bring forward
important results is already made clear to us by the revelations of natural history in all ages.
T6RNEBOM AND EdLAND."
During his stay in Sweden he visited, professionally, the University of Upsala with marked
success ; and he was also entertained by the Countess von Platen, at her castle in Orbyhi'is,
where he gave many sittings. After an extremely eventful series of seances lasting upwards
of a month, he left his Swedish friends, from whom he had received much kindness, for Denmark,
and at Copenhagen gave one seance, and then, travelling through Germany to Bohemia, he met
with a cordial reception at the residence of Herr Schmidt, of Annathal, where he stayed for a
fortnight or more, giving seances daily to those friends of his host who resided in the vicinity.
Some, however, drove thirty and forty miles to be present, so keen was the interest evinced