of the ‘manifestations.’  You have read the ‘Blithedale Romance,’ and are aware of his opinion expressed there?  He evidently recognised them as a sort of scurvy spirits, good to be slighted, because of their disreputableness.  By the way, I heard read the other day a very interesting letter from Paris, from Mr. Appleton, Longfellow’s brother-in-law, who is said to be a man of considerable ability, and who is giving himself wholly just now to the investigation of this spirit-subject, termed by him the ’sublimest conundrum ever given to the world for guessing.’  He appears still in doubt whether the intelligence is external, or whether the phenomena are not produced by an unconscious projection in the medium of a second personality, accompanied with clairvoyance, and attended by physical manifestations.  This seems to me to double the difficulty; yet the idea is entertained as a doubtful sort of hypothesis by such men as Sir Edward Lytton and others. Imposture is absolutely out of the question, be certain, as an ultimate solution, and a greater proof of credulity can scarcely be given than a belief in imposture as things are at present.  But I was going to tell you Mr. Appleton has a young American friend in Paris, who, ‘besides being a very sweet girl,’ says he, ’is a strong medium.’  By Lamartine’s desire he took her to the poet’s house; ‘all the phenomena were reproduced, and everybody present convinced,’ Lamartine himself ‘in ecstasies.’  Among other spirits came Henry Clay, who said, ‘J’aime Lamartine.’  We shall have it in the next volume of biography.  Louis Napoleon gets oracles from the ‘raps,’ and it is said that the Czar does the same,—­your Emperor, certainly,—­and the King of Holland is allowing the subject to absorb him.  ‘Dying out! dying out!’ Our accounts from New York are very different, but unbelieving persons are apt to stop their ears and exclaim, ‘We hear nothing now.’  On one occasion the Hebrew Professor at New York was addressed in Hebrew to his astonishment.

Well, I don’t believe, with all my credulity, in poets being perfected at universities.  What can be more absurd than this proposition of ‘finishing’ Alexander Smith at Oxford or Cambridge?  We don’t know how to deal with literary genius in England, certainly.  We are apt to treat poets (when we condescend to treat them at all) as over-masculine papas do babies; and Monckton Milnes was accused of only touching his in order to poke out its eyes, for instance.  Why not put this new poet in a public library?  There are such situations even among us, and something of the kind was done for Patmore.  The very judgment Tennyson gave of him, in the very words, we had given here—­’fancy, not imagination.’  Also, imagery in excess; thought in deficiency.  Still, the new poet is a true poet, and the defects obvious in him may be summed up in youth simply.  Let us wait and see.  I have read him only in extracts, such as the reviews give, and such as a friend helped me