Had his hair been
cropped close, he would have looked very much like a prize-fighter; but
he wore it long, parted in the middle, and as meek in expression as its
stiff waves would allow.
Stilton soon became the controlling spirit of our circle. His presence
really seemed, as he said, to encourage the spirits. Never before had
the manifestations been so abundant or so surprising. Miss Fetters,
especially, astonished us by the vigor of her possessions. Not only
Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe
Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens,
prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her
frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she
floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore
for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the
opposite cast. Hypatia, Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest
of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually
spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand,
and often without giving any clue to their personality.
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