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Updated: May 12, 2025
This statement was, to me, unexpected, and it has a certain importance. After a few weeks in Casa Bella, opposite Powers's house, Florence grew so hot that we were glad of an opportunity to rent the Villa Montauto, up on the hill of Bellosguardo, less than a mile beyond the city gate.
Thomas was also ordered to prepare his bridges at Powers's and Paice's Ferries. By crossing the Chattahoochee above the railroad bridge, we were better placed to cover our railroad and depots than below, though a movement across the river below the railroad, to the south of Atlanta, might have been more decisive.
I think Murray says that these things were made for the Grand Duke Cosmo; and if so, they do him no credit, indicating something dark and morbid in his character. June 13th. We called at the Powers's yesterday morning to leave R there for an hour or two to play with the children; and it being not yet quite time for the Pitti Palace, we stopped into the studio. Soon Mr.
It was in 1854, I think, or thereabouts (for I have not at hand the means of verifying the date with accuracy, and it is of no consequence), that Mr. Hume, the since well-known medium, came to Florence. He came to my house on the pressing invitation of my mother, my then wife and myself. We had seen accounts of extraordinary things said to have taken place some months previously at the house of a Mr. Rymer, a solicitor living at Ealing near London, and our curiosity and interest had been so much excited that the hope of being able to witness some of these marvels was not the least among the motives of a journey that summer to England. We obtained an introduction to Mr. Rymer, were present at sundry séances at his house at Ealing, made acquaintance with Mr. Hume, and invited him to stay for a while in my house in Florence. He came accompanied by his friend, a son of Mr. Rymer; and both the young men were resident under my roof for about a month, leaving it to accept an invitation from Mr. Powers to make his house their home for a while. The manifestations of phenomena produced, or supposed to be produced, by what has become known to the world as "Spiritualism," were then only beginning to attract in Europe the very general attention which they have since that time attracted. The thing was then new to most people. During the month that Mr. Hume and his friend were in my house we had séances almost every evening, with the "assistance," as the French say, of a rather numerous and very varied circle. For, as may easily be supposed, all our friends were anxious to witness the new marvels, and we, desirous only of as many eyes and as many minds as might be for the better watching and discussion of the phenomena, welcomed all comers to the extent of the capacity of our room and table. I have no intention of troubling my present readers with any detailed rehearsal of the phenomena which presented themselves. The testimony which my observations during this period enabled me to offer has already more than once been given to the world in print, and the catalogue of similar and yet more extraordinary experiences has become too long, and the witnesses to them too numerous and too well known to the public, for such details to have any further interest at the present day. I feel bound, however, to state that no amount of suspicious watching which I was able to exercise in my house, and which Powers was able to exercise in his, enabled us to discover any smallest degree of imposture, or fair grounds for suspecting imposture, as regards the physical or material phenomena which were witnessed. Such is my testimony, and such was that of Powers, who, by his aptitude for inventing and understanding mechanical contrivances of all kinds, was a man specially well fitted for the task of watching the performance of such wonders. I have spoken here, it will be observed, altogether of the material and physical phenomena witnessed. As to what are called the spiritual manifestations, Powers was perhaps not an entirely unbiased estimator of these. He was an eminently sincere, earnest and zealous Swedenborgian, and several of the leading tenets and dogmas of the Swedenborgian faith are calculated to make such communications with the world of spirits as Spiritualists claim to experience much less startling, less strange to the mind and more acceptable, than they usually appear to other people. To a Swedenborgian who is perfectly convinced that the spirits of the departed are ever around him and interested in his welfare, it does not seem a very strange or extraordinary thing that these visitors should under certain circumstances be able to express the interest which they always feel. Powers regarded all the professed manifestations of spiritual communications from that stand-point, and was enabled to accept them therefore somewhat more easily than another person might have done. Yet, despite such predisposing proclivities, and though he was disposed to think a great variety of professed communications from the world of spirits to have been genuinely what they purported to be, the habitual uprightness and truthfulness of Powers's mind led him, as I believe I am justified in saying, to the conclusion that in the case which I am about to mention, at least, there was ground for very strong suspicion of the honesty of the medium. The circumstances of the case were as follows: I had many years previously lost a brother the same whom I have already had occasion to mention in the earlier part of this letter. Now, at an early stage of the series of sittings that took place at my house it was intimated that the spirit of this brother was present and wishful or willing to communicate with me. He did, as was proposed, communicate very freely upon subjects of all sorts by means of raps under the table and the letters of the alphabet spread upon it on all subjects save one. To the often-repeated question, where we had last met in life, I could get no reply. It was constantly promised to me that I should be answered this question at the next sitting. Now, it so happened that my wife had conceived, reasonably or unreasonably, doubts as to the medium's honesty in the matter, and she determined to try him in the matter of this unanswered question. Talking one day with him in tête-
But the change in Powers's face was but small: I should have known him if I had met him in the street anywhere. But in person he was much changed: he had become stout and what is called personable, not fat he never was that to the end of his life but neither was he lanky, as he had been as a youth.
Perugino's pictures give the impression of greater sincerity and earnestness than Raphael's, though the genius of Raphael often gave him miraculous vision. July 28th. Last evening we went to the Powers's, and sat with them on the terrace, at the top of the house, till nearly ten o'clock.
It is particularly a pity in Powers's case, because he is so very American in character, and the only convenience for him of his Italian residence is, that here he can supply himself with marble, and with workmen to chisel it according to his designs. October 2d.
How impossible to explain to the twentieth century the bad mystery of our present, without the aid of Powers's head of Calhoun, the less adequate bust of Stephen A. Douglas, and the one which should be modelled of Mr. Buchanan! A faithful delineation of the features of some men is needful.
He felt, I suppose, that Powers was telling the truth, but he was not persuaded that all the truth was in Powers's possession, or in any one else's. Powers also had a great deal to say concerning the exoteric and esoteric truths of sculpture; his racy individuality marked it all.
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