The true history of the ghost : and all about metempsychosis / by Professor Pepper.

  • Pepper, John Henry, 1821-1900.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The true history of the ghost : and all about metempsychosis / by Professor Pepper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    sides F E and c b can be removed. This plan, of course, precludes the use of trick chairs, baskets, &c. &c.; but it has a good many other advantages in its favour, for with a sociable in the middle of the room made in two exact halves, these halves trick or cover one another when the glass is pushed across, and of course this move- ment is not seen by the audience; then any person or persons can be made to appear gradually, sitting or standing, at L or M, right in the middle of the wide opeji room. Mr. Walker tried this effect at the Polytechnic Institution, and it was capital—the ensemble is more imposing. This plan of shewing the illusion is the plan for the stage, as the necessity for darkening the stage in front is nearly wholly avoided. The back of the side-wing i k can be painted black, so that its reflection shall not be seen. In lieu of the gas-jets, as now arranged, there is a gas-lamp; this is placed on a pedestal or small table. The shadow of the sociable to a great extent covers or hides the path along which the glass travels. Mr. Walker says : I thought out this way for Mr. Irving's riecessities, but I did not hear anything from him; and it has come in well for Mr. Burnand's sketch, which has been produced. In this sketch, a gentleman afflicted with dyspepsia through eating curried prawns (the name of the piece), calling on some friends, where he has promised to help them in some amateur theatricals, looks at the different costumes of Mephistopheles, Faust and Marguerite, and throws them carelessly on the seat at m, walks down the steps (which we shall double in width) the glass now crosses, and, whilst in a fit of melancholy, he wonders if Mephistopheles will appear. Sure enough, he does. Mephistopheles then comes down in front, and with incantations makes, successively or together,' Faust and Marguerite appear; tl^ey then disappear in the same manner. The author's friends and the public all know how