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Madam Home - D D Home his life his mission

In a paper read before the Dialectical Society in July 1869, Lord Lindsay thus narrates his night vision at Norwood and the proof afforded next morning that the form he had seen was no creation of his fancy:

I first met Mr. Home at the house of a friend of his and mine, Mrs. Gregory; and when we left the party I asked him to come into my rooms in Grosvenor square to smoke a cigar. I heard a shower of raps run along a beam that crosses the ceiling. This was the first thing of the sort I had ever heard; and naturally I was interested, and wished for more, but in vain: nothing more happened; and soon after he went away.

On the Sunday following, I was asked by Mr. Jencken to come to his house in Norwood to dine, and afterwards to have a seance. I went, and that evening I missed the last train to Crystal Palace, and had to stay at Norwood. I got a shakedown on a sofa in Home's room. I was just going to sleep, when I was roused by feeling my pillow slipping from under my head, and I could also feel what seemed to be a hand under it, which was pulling it away. Soon after this ceased.

Then I saw at the foot of my sofa a female figure standing in profile to me, and asked Home if he saw anything. He answered, ‘A woman, looking at me.' Our beds were at right angles to one another, and about twelve feet apart. I saw the features perfectly, and impressed them upon my memory. She seemed to be dressed in a long wrap, going down from the shoulders, and not gathered in at the waist.

Home then said: 'It is my wife; she often comes to me.' And then she seemed to fade away.

The next morning, before I went to London, I was looking at some photographs, and I recognized the face I had seen in the room upstairs overnight. I asked Mrs. Jencken who it was, and she said it was Home's wife.

Lord Lindsay also described in his paper various phenomena that he beheld after the disappearance of the figure, the following being one of the most striking:

I saw on my knee a flame of fire about nine inches high. I passed my hand through it, but it burnt on, above and below.

The flame, which had been flitting about me, now left me, and crossed the room about four feet from the ground, and reached the curtains of Home's bed. These proved no obstruction; for the light went right through them, settled on his head, and then went out.