]
A couple of years later, after another visit to St. Petersburg, where,
it seems, he was again well received by the Czar and again married a lady
of the Russian nobility, Home's health began to fail him, perhaps on
account of the semi-starvation to which at intervals he subjected himself.
I saw him occasionally during his last years, when, living at Auteuil, he
was almost a neighbour of mine. He died there in 1886, being then about
fifty-three years old. Personally, I never placed faith in him. I regarded
him at the outset with great curiosity, but some time before the war
I had read a good deal about Cagliostro, Saint Germain, Mesmer, and
other charlatans, also attending a lecture about them at the Salle des
Conferences; and all that, combined with the exposure of the Davenport
Brothers and other spiritualists and illusionists, helped to prejudice me
against such a man as Home. At the same time, this so-called "wizard of
the nineteenth century" was certainly a curious personality, possessed, I
presume, of considerable suggestive powers, which at times enabled him to
make others believe as he desired. We ought to have had Charcot's opinion
of his case.
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