Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 87

The Browning circle was organized by nineteenth-century medium D D Home for poets Robert and Elizabeth Browning. The activities of the circle converted Elizabeth to spiritualism, but her husband condemned and ridiculed Home, calling him a toady, a fraud and a leech in a poem entitled ‘Mr Sludge, the Medium’ (1864).

The Brownings met Home in 1855 when they attended a séance he held for a wealthy couple who wanted to establish contact with their son, who had died three years previously. At the séance they witnessed table tilting, ghostly hands and rapping. Elizabeth was amazed, but Robert was unimpressed and expressed publicly his loathing for Home, suggesting that the whole thing could easily have been faked, as Home always wore loose clothing that could conceal tubes and strings to produce the phenomena. No one knows what caused Robert’s hatred, although some believe it may have been his low opinion of what he called Home’s ‘effeminacy’. Homosexuality was illegal in 1855, and there were many rumours of Home’s affairs with young men.

The Brownings’ disagreement over spiritualism was the only public quarrel the couple had; Robert loathed Home so much that Elizabeth stopped talking about it. Punch magazine took Robert’s side, using rich imagery to suggest Elizabeth’s gullibility.