Show MR SLUDGE THE MEDIUM the poet detected an imposition on III we mr frederick greenwood in his personal recollections written for the realm tells the following story everybody who lives with books has bieard that robert brownings sludge the medium reflected upon home and most people havo also heard that the celebrated creature succeeded in bringing mrs browning under his influence completely but the trick that undeceived her we must suppose bup pose is not so well known it may have got into print but if so I 1 for one never seen it and tell the story as it was told by browning himself nome had been about alic brownings a good deal knew many people known to them was in his tea party way an agreeable sort of person and there evere stances here and stances there and said the poet casting a vague look about the room to express his bewilderment 1 I dont know how it was I 1 did my best but little by little he gained iier over to believing in him how much to my distress imagine after awhile home found a yet more excellent way of working on the poor ladys mind she had lost a little child by death and her own wishes running out to embrace the promise he began to hint that some day he would bring alie little ones spirit into her presence but he was slow in performing this promise naturally for otherwise he would have lost the advantage of an excited expectation often stimulated and as often baffled at last an evening was named when the mothers yearning should be satisfied in the customary way light was shut out of the room when the three sat down and the usual us ual rap pings and questionings and inventions went on for a time and then alien the childs spirit was to appear and sure enough there did arise above the of the table home tiling that was whiter than the dark that seemed to have a motion of its own and the luminousness of a living thing and that might veritably be what poor mrs browning fancied it iut conscious of her trembling state of her husband wa in another soil of passion 1 I suddenly sprang up dashed my arm across the table and took hold of what do you think the scoundrels scoundrel a obscene foot naked alie sliming anger in which browning finished alie lory after so many years too left no doubt about what happened nest to the celebrated medium home lie was instantly and literally kicked out of the aliouse his shoe and after him no doubt |