So did
Samuel Carter Hall and his wife, William Howitt, and Gerald Massey; and he
ended by establishing a so-called "Spiritual Athenaeum" in Sloane Street.
A wealthy widow of advanced years, a Mrs. Jane Lyon, became a subscriber
to that institution, and, growing infatuated with Home, made him a present
of some L30,000, and settled on him a similar amount to be paid at her
death. But after a year or two she repented of her infatuation, and took
legal proceedings to recover her money. She failed to substantiate some of
her charges, but Vice-Chancellor Giffard, who heard the case, decided it
in her favour, in his judgment describing Home as a needy and designing
man. Home, I should add, was at this time a widower and at loggerheads
with his late wife's relations in Russia, in respect to her property.
Among the arts ascribed to Home was that called levitation, in practising
which he was raised in the air by an unseen and unknown force, and
remained suspended there; this being, so to say, the first step towards
human flying without the assistance of any biplane, monoplane, or other
mechanical contrivance. The first occasion on which Home is said to have
displayed this power was in the late fifties, when he was at a chateau
near Bordeaux as the guest of the widow of Theodore Ducos, the nephew of
Bonaparte's colleague in the Consulate.
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