A Cure for Ireland--Racial Difficulties--The Unsunned Corner--Æsop Smith's Prescription--An Irish Balmoral in 1858--My Anti Celtic Ballads--Adventures 373-379
Some Spiritist Experiences--Not a Spiritualist, but an Honest Recorder of Facts--Alexis--Howell--Vernon's Mesmerised Child--Mrs. Cora Tappan--Chauncey Townsend's Book--Spirit-Drawings--Planchette--Showers of Flowers, and Sugar-Plums, and Pearls--Mr. Home--Prayer before _Séance_--The Table in the Air--Live Coals in My Hand--The Vitalised Accordion--The Colonel's Ghost--Iamblicus--Query Electrical Influence--Our Mysterious Key--Miss Hudson--Thought-Reading 380-399
Fickle Fortune--Losses and Failures--Testimonial--"L'espoir est ma force"--My _Levée_ in 1851--The Missed Codicil--Life and Death 400-403
Henry De Beauvoir, killed in Africa--Archdeacon Kitton--Our Old Chancery Suit: A Lost Fortune--Belgravian Five Fields, another Missed Chance--Earl Grosvenor 404-407
Flying: my Lecture at the Royal Aquarium with Fred. Burnaby as Chairman--Henry Middleton's Invention--De Lisle Hay's "Conquest of the Air"--Ezekiel's Angels--Ovid, and Tennyson--Claude Hamilton--Extracts 408-412
Luther--The Peroration as to his Life and Exploits--Anniversary Stanzas, in many Languages--Bullinger's Music--Wycliffe Ballad--Wondrous Parallel 413-416
Final--Whatever is, is Right--Sick-bed Repentance--Intuitions--What We Shall Be--Protest Against Atheism--The Infinities--A Childlike Hymn--Eternal Hope--Mercy for Ever--The Assurance of Ovid 417-431
I have often been asked to prepare an autobiography, but my objections to the task have ever been many and various. To one urgent appeal I sent this sonnet of refusal, which explains itself:--
"You bid me write the story of my life, And draw what secrets in my memory dwell From the dried fountains of her failing well, With commonplaces mixt of peace and strife, And such small facts, with good or evil rife, As happen to us all: I have no tale Of thrilling force or enterprise to tell,-- Nothing the blood to fire, the cheek to pale: My life is in my books: the record there, A truthful photograph, is all I choose To give the world of self; nor will excuse Mine own or others' failures: glad to spare From blame of mine, or praise, both friends and foes, Leaving unwritten what God only knows."