Editing Robert Browning (section)

===Spiritualism incident===
{{Quote box
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 |title=[[s:Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"|Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"]] (opening lines)
 |quote=<poem>Now, don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once!
This was the first and only time, I'll swear,—
Look at me,—see, I kneel,—the only time,
I swear, I ever cheated,—yes, by the soul
Of Her who hears—(your sainted mother, sir!)
All, except this last accident, was truth—
This little kind of slip!—and even this,
It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne,
(I took it for [[Catawba (grape)|Catawba]]—you're so kind)
Which put the folly in my head!
</poem>
 |source=''Dramatis Personae'' (1864)
}}
Browning believed [[Spiritualism (movement)|spiritualism]] to be fraud, and proved one of [[Daniel Dunglas Home]]'s most adamant critics. When Browning and his wife [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning|Elizabeth]] attended one of his séances on 23 July 1855,<ref name="Thomas1989">[[Donald Serrell Thomas]]. (1989). ''Robert Browning: A Life Within Life''. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 157–158. {{ISBN|978-0-297-79639-8}}</ref> a spirit face materialized, which Home claimed was Browning's son who had died in infancy: Browning seized the "materialization" and discovered it to be Home's bare foot. To make the deception worse, Browning had never lost a son in infancy.<ref>[[John Casey (academic)|John Casey]]. (2009). ''After Lives: A Guide to Heaven, Hell and Purgatory''. Oxford. p. 373. {{ISBN|978-0-19-997503-7}} "The poet attended one of Home's seances where a face was materialized, which, Home's spirit guide announced, was that of Browning's dead son Browning seized the supposed materialized head, and it turned out to be the bare foot of Home. The deception was not helped by the fact that Browning never had lost a son in infancy."</ref>

After the séance, Browning wrote an angry letter to ''[[The Times]]'', in which he said: "the whole display of hands, spirit utterances etc., was a cheat and imposture."<ref>[[Frank Podmore]]. (1911). ''The Newer Spiritualism''. Henry Holt and Company. p. 45</ref> In 1902 Browning's son [[Robert Barrett Browning|Pen]] wrote: "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud."<ref>[[Harry Houdini]]. (2011 reprint edition). Originally published in 1924. ''A Magician Among the Spirits''. Cambridge University Press. p. 42. {{ISBN|978-1-108-02748-9}}</ref> Elizabeth, however, was convinced that the phenomena she witnessed were genuine, and her discussions about Home with her husband were a constant source of disagreement.<ref>[[Peter Lamont (historian)|Peter Lamont]]. (2005). ''The First Psychic: The Extraordinary Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard''. Little, Brown & Company. p. 50. {{ISBN|978-0-316-72834-8}}</ref>