_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.