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

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78 'Tivixt Two Worlds.
He went to the gas-light, held the sealing wax in it until it caught fire, and filled the room
with such a blaze of light that we all saw him with great distinctness. Then he carefully sealed
the cord with which the slates were tied, at the end and side—where the red wax still remains.
After this deliberate, careful preparation, "Joey" said: "Now, Doctor, bring your chair forward
toward the centre of the room." I did so, and he brought another chair and sat facing me
so that all could see us both. Then he made me take hold of the slates with my left hand,
he holding the other end with his right, while I laid my right hand upon his left, with a fold
of the thin gauzy drapery between them.
Sitting thus in the centre of the room, face to face with a materialised spirit, I heard and
felt writing going on between the slates. When it ceased, "Joey" placed them in my hands,
saying, " Hold them fast until the seance is ended ; then you can see what is written."
When "Joey" retired, another, a graver spirit, came and spoke to us. I cannot remember
all he said. " Ernest " always had some words of wisdom for us. I have heard him recite one
of the most impressive poems in the language with great feeling. What I remember was
this. He said: "We have tried to give you a good manifestation. I think you will find, on
opening the slates, a message in three languages. Good night, and God bless you !
When we heard the three loud raps upon the floor, the signal that the seance was over,
I turned the gas on full, cut the strings, and examined the slates. On one of them was, and
still is, a brief message, signed "J. B. Ferguson," in his own handwriting, exactly as he wrote
in life. Never was a more perfect autograph. This was the writing of our old friend, the
Dr. Ferguson who came to England with the Brothers Davenport, and who had died, some years
before this seance, in America.
The inner side of the other slate was found covered with fine, beautiful writing, in an
entirely different hand—first a message in English— then a few lines of a quotation in ancient
Greek, closing with another quotation from La Rochefoucauld, in French. Thus we had our
message in three languages.
In copying this writing for a newspaper, I made a mistake in one of the Greek words
(referred to on page 31). At a later seance the process I have described was repeated, with
the exception that the two slates were wrapped in a newspaper. On one of the slates was
written a second message, signed "J.
B. Ferguson," and in the same handwriting, and, on the
other, after some lines in English, a sentence in Greek, with the word I had imperfectly transcribed
accurately written and underscored.
The points to be considered in regard to this seance are :
1. That the room in which we sat, a small room in my own house, could not conceal or
admit any person unknown to us.
sitters.
sight.
2. That "Joey" was another and very different person from the medium or any of the
3. That the slates were quite new and carefully examined and cleaned, and never out of our
4. That all I have described as said and done was said and done in a good light, and
satisfactory to all present.
5. That the messages were such as none of us could have written — quite beyond the power
of the medium, and free from the least suspicion of any kind of fraud. No one who ever had
"