The effect of too vivid a conception of it is never wholesome.

It was pernicious in the middle age, and clairvoyance and spirit-rapping would be great evils to the world, if it were not that the spirits, even of-the ablest men, in losing their bodies seem to lose their wits.

It is well that it is so, for if Washington Irving dictated to a medium accounts of the other world in a style such as that of his "Little Britain," for instance, we should lose all interest in the affairs of this sphere, and nobody would buy our novels.
This fever of excitement kept alive Samuel Anderson's determination to sell his farms for a trifle as a testimony to unbelievers.

He found that fifty dollars would meet his expenses until the eleventh of August, and so the price was set at that.
As soon as Andrew heard of this, he privately arranged with Jonas to buy it; but Mrs.Anderson utterly refused.

She said she could see through it all.