Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/95

 Rh is, on the other hand, neither interesting nor alarming. It has all the dreary qualities of a psychical research report which cannot even provoke us to a disbelief.

In fact, divining-crystals, when known as such professionally, are tame, hard-working, almost respectable institutions. In the good old days of necromancy, magicians had no need of such mechanical appliances. Any reflecting surface would serve their turn, and a bowl of clear water was enough to reveal to them all that they wanted to know. It was of more importance, says Brand, "to make choice of a young maid to discern therein those images or visions which a person defiled cannot see." Even the famous mirror, through whose agency Dr. Dee and his seer, Kelly, were said to have discovered the Gunpowder Plot, was in reality nothing more than a black polished stone, closely resembling coal.

Yet in an old Prayer-Book of 1737 there is a woodcut representing the king and Sir Kenelm Digby gazing into a circular mirror, in which are reflected the Houses of Parliament,