Show MR SLUDGE THE MEDIUM the poet dro ml alna a detected an impost i 1 fa n on a ills ni wife mr frederick greenwood in his per nal inal r recollections c collection collect io ns written for the realm tells the following story i everybody who lives with books has heard board that robert brownings sludge the medium reflected upon home and most people have also heard that the celebrated creature succeeded in bring i ing mrs alm browning under his influence completely but the trick that undeceived her we must most suppose is not so r well cil known it may have got got into print but if so 1 I for one have never can it and tell the story as it wa was told by browning himself home had been a bout about the brownings a good dl deal knew many people known to them was in in Ms his tea party way an agreeable sort soft of person and there were stances here and stances there and said the poet casting a vague tague look about the room to express his bewilderment 1 I dont know how bow it was I 1 did my best but little by tittle little he gained her over to believing ng in him how much to my distress imagine giuca 1 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 P romise he be began to hint that some someday day he would bring the 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 rap pings and questionings and invocations went on for a time and then then the childs spirit was to appear and sure enough there did arise above the edge of the table something that was whiter than the dark that seemed to have a motion of it its own and the luminousness of a living thing and that might veritably be what poor mrs mm browning fancied it but conscious of her trembling state of mind her husband was in another guess sort of passion 1 I suddenly sprang up dashed my arm across the table and took hold of what do you think the scoundrels obscene foot nakeda the flaming anger r in which browning finished the story after so many years too left no doubt about what happened next to the celebrated medium home he was instantly and literally kicked out of the house his shoe and stocking after him no doubt |