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Title: Seen and Unseen

Author: E. Katharine Bates

Release Date: April 12, 2007 [EBook #21041]

Language: English

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have been retained as in the original.




                            SEEN AND UNSEEN

                                  BY
                          E. KATHARINE BATES

                                NEW YORK
                        DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
                        214-220 EAST 23RD STREET

                                 1908




                   _First Published    July    1907_

                   _Second Impression  October 1907_

                   _Third Impression   March   1908_

                               ----------

                   _Popular Edition            1908_




                                  To

                               C. E. B.

                             IN MEMORY OF

                      ONE WHO LOVED AND SUFFERED

                   AND IN THE SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE

                       OF A JOYFUL MEETING WITH

                         HIM, AND WITH OTHERS

                           WHO HAVE CROSSED

                               THE BAR




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                               PAGE

          INTRODUCTION                                  ix
      I.  EARLY RECOLLECTIONS                            1
     II.  INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886          13
    III.  AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND                     49
     IV.  HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK               71
      V.  INDIA, 1890-1891                              80
     VI.  SWEDEN AND RUSSIA, 1892                       97
          AN INTERLUDE                                 129
    VII.  LADY CAITHNESS AND THE AVENUE WAGRAM         144
   VIII.  FROM OXFORD TO WIMBLEDON                     161
     IX.  1896, HAUNTINGS BY THE LIVING AND THE DEAD   176
      X.  FURTHER EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA               195
     XI.  A HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND                  218
    XII.  1900-1901, ODDS AND ENDS                     232
   XIII.  1903, A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA                260
    XIV.  A FAMILY PORTRAIT AND PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY    274
          APPENDIX                                     298




INTRODUCTION


Many years ago, whilst living at Oxford, I was invited by a very old
friend, who had recently taken his degree, to a river picnic; with
Nuneham, I think, as its alleged object.

Unfortunately, the day proved unfavourable, and we returned in open
boats, also with open umbrellas; a generally drenched and bedraggled
appearance, and nothing to cheer us on the physical plane except a
quantity of iced coffee which had been ordered in anticipation of a
tropical day.

Under these rather trying conditions I can remember getting a good
deal of amusement out of the companions in the special boat which
proved to be my fate. Our host, being a clever and interesting man
himself, had collected clever and interesting people round him, on the
"Birds of a Feather" principle, and I happened to sit between two
ladies, one the wife (now, alas! the widow) of a man who was to become
later on one of our most famous bishops; the other--her bosom friend
and deadly rival--the wife of an equally distinguished Oxford don.

The iced coffee combined with the pouring rain may have been partly to
blame, but certainly the conversation that went on between the two
ladies, across my umbrella, was decidedly _Feline_.

To pass the time we were valiantly endeavouring to play "Twenty
Questions" from the bottom of the boat, and the Bishop's widow was
asking the questions. She had triumphantly elicited the fact that we
had thought of a _cinder_--and an historical cinder--and the twentieth
and last permissible question was actually hovering on her lips. "It
was the cinder that Richard Coeur de Lion's horse fell upon," she
said eagerly. Of course, we all realised that this was a most obvious
"slip" in the case of so highly educated a woman; but the Bosom Friend
could not resist putting out the velvet paw: "A little confusion in
the centuries, I think, dear," she said sweetly. The unfortunate
questioner practically "never smiled again" during _that_ expedition.
But a still more crushing blow was in store for her.

The conversation turned later upon questions of style in writing or
speaking, and with perhaps pardonable revenge, she said to her rival:

"I always notice that you say 'one' so often--'_one_ does this or
that,' and so forth."

"Really, dear? That is curious. Now I always notice that _you_ say 'I'
so continually!"

The cut and thrust came with the rapidity of expert fencers.

And this brings me to the real gist of my story.

It is considered the most heinous offence "_to say I_," and every
conceivable device is resorted to, no matter how clumsy, in order to
prevent the catastrophe of a writer being forced to speak of himself in
the first person.

To my mind, there is a good deal of affectation and pose about this, and
in anything of an autobiography it becomes insupportable.

"The writer happened upon one occasion to be present, etc." "He who pens
these unworthy pages was once travelling to Scotland, etc. etc."

Which of us has not groaned under these self-conscious euphemisms? "Why
not say '_I_' and have done with it?" we are wont to exclaim in
desperation after pages of this kind of thing.

Now I propose "to say _I_" and "have done with it," and not waste time
in trying to find ingenious and wearisome equivalents.

That is my first point.

Secondly, in this record of psychic experiences I mean to keep clear of
another intolerable nuisance--I mean the continual introduction of
capital letters and long dashes in order to conceal identity in such
episodes.

The motive is admirable, but the method is detestable.

One can only judge by personal experience. I know that when I read a
rather involved narrative of sufficiently involved psychic doings, and
Mr Q----, Miss B----, Mr C----, and Mr C.'s maternal aunt Mrs G----
figure wildly in it, I am driven desperate in trying to force some idea
of personality into these meaningless letters of the alphabet.

To conceal the identity of Mr Brown, who was once guilty of seeing a
ghost, may be and most frequently is, a point of honour, but why not
call him Mr Smith, and say he lived in Buckinghamshire, and thus rouse
a definite mental conception in your reader's brain, instead of
calling him Mr Z. of W----, and thus setting up mental irritation
before the ghost comes upon the scene?

Having cleared the ground so far, I will now mention my third and last
point.

It is usual when writing reminiscences of any kind to anticipate your
reader's criticisms, and try to increase his interest in your
experiences by a sort of false humility in deprecating their value.
The idea is doubtless founded on a sound knowledge of Human Nature,
but it may easily fall into exaggeration. Nothing is, of course, so
disastrous as to praise beforehand a person, a picture, a voice, a
poem, a book, or anything else in the wide world, in which we wish our
friends to take any special interest. Such a course naturally rouses
unconscious antagonism in poor, fallen Human Nature before we even see
or hear the object of our later bitter aversion. But there is a medium
in all things, and it is scarcely polite to put the intelligence of
our readers sufficiently low to be manipulated by such obvious arts.

Moreover, it has been well said that the history of any one human
being--truthfully told (I would add, intelligently assimilated)--would
be of enthralling interest and value. If this be true on the ordinary
physical, intellectual, and spiritual planes it should not be _less_
true, surely, where a fourth plane of psychic experience is added to the
other three?

Then again, there is no need to apologise for experiences limited in
interest or in amount.

These terms are of necessity comparative. For example, my experiences
are limited compared with those of some people I have known, who have
been either more highly endowed with psychic gifts or who have
considered it advisable to cultivate such gifts to a high point of
efficiency; or lastly, with whom opportunities for experience have been
more numerous. But, on the other hand, my experiences have been great
compared with those of some people at least equally interested in these
subjects.

Geographically speaking, I have been peculiarly fortunate, having had
the opportunity of witnessing phenomena of this kind in many countries,
differing widely in Race, Climate, and other conditions.

I have been told many times that I could develop clairvoyance,
clairaudience, or sit as a materialising medium, but have had no desire
to go further in these matters.

I have seen quite as much as I wish to see, I have heard quite as much
as I wish to hear, and should be very sorry personally to increase
either of these psychic possibilities by the practice that makes more
perfect.

Some consider this lamentable cowardice and want of faith. Each one must
judge for himself in such a matter. Faith in this connection may easily
degenerate into foolhardiness.

"Greater is He that is for you than all those who are against you" has
been quoted to me again and again in deprecation of my attitude in these
things. It has always appeared to me a matter in which individual
judgment must be exercised, and upon which no broad and general lines of
conduct can be laid down.

One man can cycle fifty miles in the day, and dance all night, and be
the better for the experience. Another attempting the same feat, but
not having the same constitution, might do himself lasting injury. It is
exactly the same thing on the psychic plane. Our psychic constitutions
differ at least as much as our physical ones. We may overtax either, and
with similar consequences. We have no right to expect protection or
immunity on either plane, where we neglect the warnings of that inner
monitor who is always our best guide.

As a final word of warning, I would say: "Beware of your motives in
cultivating psychic capacity." It is so easy to mistake love of
notoriety, even in one's own little _milieu_, for love of Truth. There
is always an eager, curious crowd anxious to get "messages" or "hear
raps," or to see any other little psychic parlour tricks which we may be
induced to play for their benefit. At first one feels it is almost a
sacred duty to satisfy, or attempt to satisfy, these psychic cormorants;
but later, wisdom comes with experience.

At one time I felt bound to collect my friends and acquaintances round
me and tell them all I knew upon these subjects, and doubtless it was
right to do so whilst I "_felt that way_," to quote an expressive
Americanism.

But the inevitable day came when I realised that I had spent my strength
and my muffins in vain; for these gatherings generally took the form of
tea-parties, not too large to cope with single-handed--say from ten to
twenty people. They came at 4.30 P.M. and stayed till 8 P.M., when most
of them remembered they ought to have dined at 7.45 P.M., and went away
saying "How immensely they had enjoyed themselves," and "How
interesting it all was."

And so far as any permanent good came of it, there the matter ended.

Believe me, when people are prepared for this development of their finer
senses _they will come to you_. There is no need to go into the highways
and hedges and compel them to come in. If they do come they won't
stay--why should they? _They have not got there yet_, to use a
thoroughly hateful and ungrammatical but absolutely accurate sentence.

If you try to carry them on the back of your own knowledge and
experiences, you can do so for a time, but eventually they will struggle
down, or you will put them down from sheer fatigue, and then they will
run back to the spot where you found them, and thence work out their own
psychic evolution either in this or in some future term of existence.

When their interest is exhausted--to say nothing of your patience--you
will hear that they have called you a crank and lamented your "wasting
your time over such nonsense." That will be _your_ share of the
transaction.

I know this _because I have been there--moi qui vous parle_.

"Let every man be persuaded in his own mind," but don't try to persuade
anyone else. When the right time comes he will ask your help and counsel
without any persuasion.

Of course, I am speaking only of private work. Lectures and congresses
are of the greatest possible value; for no one knows whom he may be
addressing on these occasions, and the seed may be falling into soil
prepared, but often unconsciously prepared, for its reception.

To sum up the whole matter:

1. Be strong in the conviction that eventually good must always conquer
evil, but remember also that you individually may have a very bad time
meanwhile if you go amongst mixed influences and evoke that which at
present you are not strong enough to withstand.

2. Know when to speak and when to be silent.

3. Receive what comes to you spontaneously, but never allow yourself to
be cajoled or persuaded into developing your mediumship to gratify
curiosity; not even on the plea of scientific duty, unless you are fully
conscious in your own mind that this is the special work which is laid
upon you.

And bearing these three simple rules in mind, we may go forward with
brave hearts and level heads on the Quest which has been so plainly
opened out to us in this twentieth century.
                                              E. KATHARINE BATES.




SEEN AND UNSEEN




CHAPTER I

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS


Having set myself to write a personal record of psychic experiences, I
must "begin at the beginning," as the children say.

When only nine years old I lost my father--the Rev. John Ellison Bates
of Christ Church, Dover--and my earliest childish experience of anything
supernormal was connected with him. He had been an invalid all my short
life, and I was quite accustomed to spending days at a time without
seeing him. His last illness, which lasted about a fortnight, had
therefore no special significance for me, and my nurse, elder brother,
and godmother, who were the only three people in the house at the time,
gave strict orders that none of the servants should give me a hint of
his being dangerously ill. These instructions were carefully carried
out, and yet I dreamed three nights running--the three nights preceding
his decease--that he was dead. I was entirely devoted to my father, who
had been father and mother to me in one, and these dreams no doubt broke
the terrible shock of his death to me. How well I remember, that cold,
dreary February morning, being hastily dressed by candle-light by
strange hands, and then my dear old nurse (who had been by his bedside
all night) coming in and telling me the sad news with tears streaming
down her cheeks. It seemed no news at the moment; and yet I had spoken
of my dreams to no one, "for fear they should come true," having some
pathetic, childish notion that silence on my part might avert the
catastrophe. In all his previous and numerous illnesses I had never
dreamt that any special one was fatal.

During the next few years of school life my psychic faculty remained
absolutely in abeyance. In a fashionable school, surrounded by
chattering companions and the usual paraphernalia of school work,
classes, and masters, etc., I can, however, recall many a time when
suddenly everything around me became unreal and I alone seemed to have
any true existence; and even that was for the time merged in a rather
unpleasant dream, from which I hoped soon to wake up. This sensation was
quite distinct from the one--also well known to me in those days and
later--of having "done all this before," and knowing just what somebody
was about to say.

Probably both these sensations are common to most young people. It would
be interesting to note which of the two is the more universal.

I pass on now to the time when I was about eighteen years old, and a
constant visitor, for weeks and months at a time, in the house of my
godfather, the archdeacon of a northern diocese. His grandson, then a
young student at Oxford, of about my own age, must have been what we
should now call a very good sensitive. It was with him that I sat at my
first "table," more as a matter of amusement than anything else, and
certainly young Morton Freer treated the "spirits" in the most cavalier
fashion. They did not seem to resent this, and he could do pretty much
what he liked with them. This may be a good opportunity for explaining
that when I speak in this narrative of "spirits" I do so to save
constant periphrasis, and am quite consciously "begging the question"
very often, as a matter of verbal convenience.

In those days I don't think we troubled ourselves much about theories,
and when we found that Morton and I alone could move a heavy dining-room
table, or any other piece of heavy furniture quite beyond our normal
powers, practically without exerting any strength at all, we looked upon
it as an amusing experience without caring to inquire whether the energy
involved had been generated on this side the veil or on the other side.
We could certainly not have moved such weights under ordinary
circumstances, even by putting forth all our combined strength, and we
could only do so, for some mysterious reason, when we had been "sitting
at the table" beforehand. Ingenious Theories of Human Electricity raised
to a higher power by making a Human Battery, etc. etc., were not so
common then as now, and we accepted facts without trying to solve their
problems.

The dear, hospitable Archdeacon would put his venerable head inside the
door now and then, shake it at us half in fun, and yet a good deal in
earnest, and I think he was more than doubtful whether our parlour
games were quite lawful!

We were very innocent and very ignorant in those days on the subject of
psychic laws; and probably this was our salvation, for I can remember no
terrible or weird experience, such as one reads of nowadays when tyros
take to experiments.

And yet my knowledge and experiences of later days lead me to endorse
most heartily the well-known dictum of Lawrence Oliphant--namely, that
when he saw people sitting down in a casual, irresponsible way to "_get
messages through a table_," it reminded him of an ignorant child going
into a powder magazine with a lighted match in its hand.

Staying in this same house, I can next recall a flying visit from a
brother of mine, who had just spent three months, on leave from India,
in America, where he had taken introductions, and had been the guest of
various hospitable naval and military men, who had shown him round the
Washington Arsenal, West Point Academy, and so forth. My kind old host
had begged him to take us on his way back to London; and I remember well
his look of utter amazement when Morton and I had lured him to "the
table" one afternoon, and he was told correctly the names of two or
three of these American gentlemen.

"I _must_ have mentioned them to my sister in my letters," he said,
turning to the younger man. I knew this was _not_ the case, but it was
difficult to prove a negative.

It was a relief, therefore, when my brother suggested what he
considered a "real test," where previous knowledge on my part must be
excluded.

"Let them tell me the name of a bearer I had once in India--he lived
with me for more than twelve years--always returning to me when I came
back from English furlough, and yet at the end of that time he suddenly
disappeared, without rhyme or reason, and I have neither seen nor heard
of him since. I _know_ my sister has never heard his name. _That_ would
be something like a test, but, of course, it won't come off," he added
cynically.

The wearisome spelling out began.

The table rose up at R, then at A.

"Quite wrong," my brother called out in triumph. "I knew how it would be
when any real test came. Fortunately, too, it is wildly wrong--neither
the letter before nor the letter after the right one, so you cannot
wriggle out of it that way."

"Never mind, Major Bates," said Morton Freer good-naturedly. "Let us go
on all the same, and see what they mean to spell out."

Fortunately, we did so, with a most interesting result; for the right
name was given after all, but spelt in the Hindoostanee and not the
European fashion. The name in true Hindoostanee was Ram Din--but
Europeans spelt it Rham Deen--and so my brother himself had entirely
forgotten when the A was given that it had any connection with the man's
name. When the whole word was spelt out, of course he remembered, and
then his face was a study!

"Good gracious! it is right enough, and that is the real Hindoostanee
spelling, too. I never thought of that when the A came!"

I think this episode knocked the bottom out of his scepticism for some
years to come.

Even now this case precludes ordinary and conscious telepathy. Mr
Podmore would be reduced to explaining that the Hindoostanee spelling
was latent in my brother's consciousness, though his normal self
repudiated it.

Another curious incident--still more difficult to explain upon the
Thought Transference Theory (unless we stretch it to include a possible
impact of _all_ thoughts, at all times and from all quarters of the
globe, upon everyone else's brain)--occurred under the same hospitable
roof.

One of the Archdeacon's nieces came to stay in the house about this
time. She was considerably my senior, and was very kind to me, with the
thoughtful kindness an older woman can show to a sensitive young girl.
This awakened in me an affection which, I am thankful to say, still
exists between us. This lady was considerably under thirty years old at
the time, but to my young ideas she seemed already in the sear and
yellow leaf from the matrimonial point of view! One must remember how
different the standard of age was more than thirty years ago!

It was also the time when marriage was looked upon not only as the most
desirable, but as almost the only _possible_, career for a woman.

So when Morton and this lady and I were "sitting at the table" in the
gloaming one evening, I said, with trembling eagerness: "Morton, _do_
ask if Carrie will ever be married," for the case seemed to me almost
desperate at the advanced age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight!

I must mention that for some occult reason (which I have entirely
forgotten) I trusted fervently that a Hungarian or Polish name might be
given after the satisfactory "Yes" had been spelt out, but, alas!
nothing of the kind occurred.

"The table" began with a D, and then successively E, H, A, V were given.
No one ever heard of a Polish or Hungarian name of the kind, and I
remember saying petulantly: "Oh, give it up, Morton. It's all nonsense!
Nobody ever heard of a Mr _Dehav_."

Once more Morton rescued a really good bit of evidence by his
imperturbable perseverance.

"Wait a bit! Let us see what is coming," he said.

I took no further personal interest in the experiment. Either Morton
concluded the name was finished, or there was some confusion in getting
the next letters, owing doubtless to my impetuous disgust. Anyway, he
went on to say:

"Let us ask where the fellow lives at the present time." This was
instantly answered by "_Freshwater_," and the further information given
that he was a widower.

None of us knew any man, married or single, who lived at Freshwater, and
the incident was relegated to the limbo of failures.

Several years later, however, my friend _did_ marry a gentleman whose
name (a very pretty one) began with the five despised letters, and he
was a widower, and _had_ been living in his own house at Freshwater at
the time mentioned. She did not meet him until some years after our
curious experience.

About the same time, but in the south of England, my attention was again
drawn to metapsychics by an experience connected with the death of the
famous Marquis of Hastings, of horse-racing repute. As a young girl I
lived close to the Mote Park at Maidstone, where his sister, the present
Lady Romney, was then living as Lady Constance Marsham. The Reverend
David Dale Stewart and his wife (he was Vicar of Maidstone, and I made
my home with them for some years after leaving school) were friends of
hers, and she sometimes came to see them in a friendly way in the
morning. On one of these occasions, when Lady Constance had just
returned from paying her brother a visit in a small shooting-box in the
eastern counties (I think), Mrs Stewart remarked that she was afraid the
change had not done Lady Constance much good, as she was looking far
from well. In those days Lady Romney was an exceptionally strong and
healthy young woman.

She said rather impatiently: "Well, the fact is I did a very stupid
thing the other day--I never did such a thing before--I fainted dead
away for the first time in my life."

Asked for the reason of this, she told us that she and her husband and
Lord and Lady Hastings were dining quietly one evening together, two
guests who had been expected not having arrived by the train specified.

Looking up Bradshaw, and finding no other train that could bring them
until quite late at night, the other four sat down to dinner. Soup and
fish had already been discussed, when a carriage was heard driving up to
the door, and they naturally concluded that their guests had discovered
some means of getting across country by another line. Lord Hastings
said:

"Tell Colonel and Mrs ---- that we began dinner, thinking they could not
arrive till much later, but that we are quite alone, and beg they will
join us as soon as possible."

The servant went to the door, prepared with the message given, flung it
open--but no carriage, no horses were there! Everybody had heard it
driving up, nevertheless.

Remembering the old family legend that a carriage and pair is heard
driving up the avenue before the head of the Hastings family dies, Lady
Romney fainted dead away, very much to her own surprise and
mortification; for she was, and doubtless is still, an uncommonly
sensible woman, "quite above all superstitions."

The episode struck me as curious at the time; but the impression passed,
and a few days later I went to pay a visit to friends of mine in
Buckinghamshire. Soon after my arrival I happened to mention the story,
and was much laughed at as a "superstitious little creature, to think
twice of such nonsense." "Of course, everyone had been mistaken in
supposing they heard wheels or horses' hoofs--nothing could be simpler!"

And yet before I left that house, three weeks later, all the newspapers
were full of long obituary notices of the Marquis of Hastings. These
were so interesting that my friend's husband had reached the second
long column in _The Times_ before any of us remembered my story, which
had been treated with so much contempt. It suddenly flashed across my
mind: "Owen! Remember the carriage and pair and how you laughed at me!"
They were forced to confess "_it was certainly rather odd_," the usual
refuge of the psychically destitute!

A shake of the kaleidoscope, and I see another incident before me of
more personal interest.

At the time of the outbreak of the Afghan War, in the autumn of 1878, I
was living with very old friends in Oxford. My brother of the Ram Din
incident was once more in India, and had been Military Secretary for
some years at Lahore to Sir Robert Egerton, who was at that time
Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab.

When the war broke out, my brother, of course, went off to join his
regiment for active service; but at the time of my experience it was
impossible that he could have reached the seat of war, and I knew this
well.

I was in excellent spirits about him, for he had been through many
campaigns, and loved active service, as all good soldiers do. Moreover,
I had just read a charming letter which Sir Robert Egerton had sent him
on resigning his appointment as Military Secretary to take up more
active duty to his country.

Yet it was just at this juncture--when, humanly speaking, there was no
cause for any special anxiety--that I woke up one morning with the
gloomiest and most miserable forebodings about this special brother.
Nothing of the kind had ever occurred to me before, though he had been
through many campaigns in India, China, Abyssinia, and elsewhere.

It was an overwhelming conviction of some great and definite disaster
to him, and my friends in vain tried to argue me out of such an
unreasonable terror by pointing out, truly enough, that he could not
possibly be within the zone of danger at that time. I could only
repeat: "I _know_ that something terrible has happened to him,
wherever he is. It may not be death, but it is some terrible
calamity."

I spent the day in tears and in absolute despair, and wrote to tell him
of my conviction. Allowing for difference of time between Quetta and
Oxford, my mental telegram reached me in the same hour that my brother,
whilst on the march, and only thirty miles beyond Quetta, was suddenly
struck down in his tent by the paralysis which kept him confined to his
chair--a helpless sufferer--for twenty-eight years.

Perhaps, now that I know so much more of mental currents, I might have
received a more definite message as regards the true _nature_ of the
calamity. It could not have been more marked, nor more definite as
regards the _fact_ of it.

My condition of hopeless misery obliged me to put off all engagements
that day, and I did nothing but fret and lament over him, with the
exception of writing the one letter mentioned, in which I told him of my
strange and sad experience.

In time, of course, the first sharp impression passed, and soon a cheery
letter arrived from him, written, of course, before the fatal day. My
experience in Oxford occurred on the morning of 4th December 1878. It
was well on in January 1879 before the corroboration arrived, in a
letter written to us by a stranger. Communication was delayed not only
by the war, but also by the fact that my poor brother was lying at the
time deprived of both movement and speech, and could only spell out
later, by the alphabet, the address of his people at home.




CHAPTER II

INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886


An interval of seven years occurs between the events recorded in the
last chapter and my first visit to America, which took place in the
autumn of 1885.

During these years no abnormal experiences came to me, nor had I the
smallest wish for any.

The table turnings with Morton Freer were a thing of the past, and were
looked back upon by me in the light of a childish amusement rather than
anything else. Quite other interests had come into my life, specially as
regards literature and music; and I never gave a thought to spooks or
spiritualism, nor did I really know anything about the latter subject.
It is true that on one occasion a curate at Great Marlow had spoken to
me about Mr S. C. Hall and his researches, and I think he must have
given me an introduction to the dear old man, for I remember going to
see him "with a lady friend" (he made a great point of this, somewhat to
my amusement), and finding a charming old man with silver locks, a fine
head, and a nice white frilly shirt.

He spoke of his dear friend "Mrs Jencken," whom he considered the only
reliable medium, and showed us some sheets full of hieroglyphics, which
he said were messages obtained through her influence from "his dear
wife."

It was all so much Greek to me in those days, and only true sympathy
with the poor old man's evident loneliness and adoration of his wife's
memory prevented my making merry over the extraordinary delusions of the
old gentleman, when my companion and I had left his rooms in Sussex
villas.

Later, I lived during two years with Mrs Lankester and her daughters
whilst looking after an invalid brother in London; and I need scarcely
point out that constant intercourse with Professor Ray Lankester in his
mother's house was not calculated to encourage any psychic proclivities,
even had these latter not been entirely latent with me at that time.

I heard a great deal about the "Slade exposure," both from Professor
Lankester and his friend Dr Donkin, who often came to us with him. When
arranging my American tour in 1885, Mrs Lankester kindly gave me an
introduction to Mrs Edna Hall, an old friend of theirs, who had been
living in their house during the whole period of the Slade trial. This
lady--an American--lived permanently in Boston, and curiously enough (in
view of the preceding facts) it was she who persuaded Miss Greenlow and
me to attend our first _seance_ in Boston. Mrs Edna Hall had honoured
Mrs Lankester's introduction most hospitably; but she was too busy a
woman to do as much for us as her kindness suggested, and she had
therefore introduced us to another friend--Mrs Maria Porter--a most
picturesque, clever, and characteristic figure in Boston society in the
eighties.

Both these ladies accompanied us to the "Sisters Berry." Mrs Edna Hall
had no sort of illusions on the subject. She said quite frankly that she
only took us there because it was a feature of American life which we
ought not to miss, and which would probably amuse us, if only by showing
the gullibility of Human Nature.

One is always apt to read past experiences in the light of present
convictions. Fortunately, I kept a diary at the time, and have a
faithful record of what took place, and, which is still more valuable,
of the impressions formed at the time.

The extracts connected with this _seance_ in Boston, and later
experiences in New York, are taken partly from my record at the time and
partly from the chapter on "Spiritualism in America," published in my
book entitled "A Year in the Great Republic."

Speaking of this first _seance_ in Boston, I see that I have said:

"I went to the 'Sisters Berry' in a very antagonistic frame of mind,
_determined beforehand that the whole thing was a swindle_ (italics are
recent), accompanied by friends who were even more sceptical than
myself, if that were possible." I go on then to describe the usual
cabinet, and pass on to the following extract:--


An old Egyptian now appeared, and a man in the circle, who had been
sitting near my friend Miss Greenlow all the evening, went up and spoke
to him, and then asked "_that the lady who had been sitting near him_"
might come up also, which she did; but she said she could distinguish no
features, and only felt a warm, damp hand passed over hers. Miss
Greenlow was next called up by the spirit of a young man who wished to
embrace her, but who was finally proved to be the departed friend of the
lady who sat next to her. Miss Greenlow returned to her seat, furious,
declaring that it was a horrible, coarse-looking creature, unlike anyone
she had ever seen in her life.

Mrs Porter made valiant attempts to investigate the figures who came
forth at intervals, but was invariably waved back by the master of the
ceremonies.

"Will that lady kindly sit down? This spirit is not for her. It wishes
to communicate with its own friends, and she is disturbing the
conditions, and forcing the spirit back into the cabinet."

There were evidently many old stagers there, who flew up like
lamp-lighters on every possible occasion, with exclamations of: "Oh,
Uncle Charlie, is that you?" "How do you do, Jem?" and so forth.

One old lady, in a mob cap and black gown, was introduced as a certain
Sister Margaret who had taught in St Peter's School, Boston. She came to
speak to a former pupil, who gave her spiritualistic experiences in such
remarkably bad grammar as reflected small credit on Sister Margaret's
teaching of the English language.

This girl told us how anxious she had always been to see her old
teacher, who had appeared to her several times in the _seance_ room, but
never in her old garments--a sort of sister's dress. After wishing very
fervently one night, Sister Margaret appeared dressed in mob cap and
gown, saying: "Don't you see my dress? I came in it at your wish."

"Yes," answered the girl; "and I thank you for gratifying my wish. Since
which time," she added, "I have been a firm believer in spiritualism."

A young French girl, in draggly black garments and a shock of thick
black hair, then came forward and rushed amongst us, trying to find
someone to talk French with her. My friend Mrs Hall went up first, and
then I was told to go up and speak to her. I took hold of her hands, and
grasped them firmly for a moment. They seemed to be ordinary flesh and
blood, but I am bound to confess that they appeared to _lengthen out_ in
a somewhat abnormal fashion when the pressure was removed.

Her face was very cadaverous, and she spoke in a quick, hurried way, _as
if time were an object_. She said she understood a little English, but
could not speak it. Her mother had been French; her father an Indian,
"un brave homme."

It seemed to me that a good deal of kissing and embracing went on. One
old grey-headed gentleman was constantly walking up to the cabinet and
being embraced by a white figure, whose arms we could just see, thrown
round his neck, in the dim light. (I note that the light here was much
less than with Mrs Stoddart Gray in New York.)

The only excitement was the chance of some disturbance before we left;
for Mrs Porter became more and more indignant with the "gross
imposture," which culminated when at length she was called up and told
that "a young man wished to speak with her." She asserted that it was
"the most horrible, grinning, painted creature who hissed into her
ears."

The master of the house begged her to be patient, and try to hear what
the spirit wished to say, but with a very emphatic "NO, NO, NO" she
resumed her seat, amidst a general titter of laughter.

At the last we were told that three little girls, whose mother sat near
the cabinet, wished to materialise, but found it difficult to do so,
owing to the absence of children in the audience.

The mother seemed very anxious to see them; but suddenly the gas was
turned up, and the _seance_ declared over--a very abrupt finale to a
piece of unmitigated humbug, I should say.


These extracts sufficiently show the spirit in which I entered upon my
investigations and the result of that spirit. I think even Mr Podmore
would have considered me _thoroughly sound_ on that first evening. I
have no doubt that the violence of Mrs Porter's antagonism, and the
smiling cynicism of Mrs Hall in face of the "American experience" she
had proposed for us, added to my own preconceived prejudices.

I am aware that the Berry Sisters have been "exposed," thus sharing the
fate of all other public mediums. In the light of later experiences,
however, I feel sure that I might have received something personally
evidential on this occasion had my attitude of mind given hospitality to
any possible visitors from the Unseen.

The next extracts from my diary refer to a _seance_ which we attended in
New York a few days after our arrival there, and some two or three
weeks later than the Boston sitting already described.

Our stay in Boston had extended to three months from the original
fortnight we had planned for the visit. I had taken a few very good
introductions there: to Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, Colonel Wentworth
Higginson, and others of the Boston _alumni_, and as several receptions
had been kindly arranged for us, and my name had appeared many times
during the winter in various local papers, it would have been easy for
the Sisters Berry to find out something about me and my companion, and
utilise the knowledge by faking up a convenient spirit, who could have
talked glibly of my literary tastes, and so forth. Nothing of the sort
occurred, however, although our first _seance_ only took place a week or
two before we left Boston, after my three months' stay there.

This fact should certainly be "counted as righteousness" to the much
abused Sisters!

It was the more curious, that our first _seance_ in New York, within a
few days of our arrival, and in a metropolis where at the time we were
_absolute strangers_, should have been so much more successful as
regards evidential experiences.

I will again quote from my diary of 1886. The medium visited on this
occasion was Mrs Cadwell, who has since died.

       *       *       *       *       *

We knew nothing beforehand of the medium, who lived in a small flat in
an unfashionable quarter. Some eight people only were assembled in the
extremely small room. All were perfect strangers to Miss Greenlow and
me, but a fancied likeness in one lady present to a picture I had seen
of Mrs Beecher Stowe led me to ask if it were she, and I was told that
my surmise was correct.

There was no room for a cabinet, so a curtain was hung across a tiny
alcove, just the ordinary "arch" found in most rooms of the kind.

When I went behind the curtain with the female medium, before the
sitting began, there was barely space for us both to turn round in. The
carpet on either side the curtain was one piece. There was absolutely no
room for any trap-door machinery, even could such have been worked
successfully in the perfect silence in which we sat, within two feet of
the alcove. The room was about the size of the small back dining-room in
an ordinary London lodging--say in Oxford or Cambridge Terrace, for
example.

The medium sat amongst us at first, only going behind the curtain after
a few moments, when she was "under control" as it is called.

A little child of hers, who died some years ago at the age of four, is
supposed to help in the materialisations, but is never seen outside the
curtains. If she came out herself she would not be able to help the
others to do so. I mention these things in the words in which they were
told to me, offering no comment, but putting the case for the moment as
spiritualists would put it. To do this, and then to give a faithful and
unprejudiced account of what took place, seems to me the only fair way
of treating such a subject.

I was told again and again that too much concentration of thought on
the part of the audience was deterrent. This accounts for music as an
invariable accompaniment of all such sittings. It seems to harmonise the
circle, to break up over-concentration, and may also, unfortunately,
serve to cover the doings of dishonest mediums.

It must not, however, be supposed that in this case the materialisations
went on only whilst we were singing. This might point to a possible
"trap-door theory," although in a city where flats abound (rooms, not
human beings!) there would still be the difficulty of getting your
downstairs neighbours to look kindly upon such proceedings. As a matter
of fact, we were often sitting in absolute silence when fresh "spirits"
appeared.

I can corroborate the assertion that too much concentration of thought
upon them proves deterrent to the spirits, for on more than one occasion
I heard a voice from the curtain or cabinet saying: "Do get the people's
minds off us; we can do nothing whilst they are fixed upon us so
intensely," as though _thought_ in spirit life corresponded to some
physical obstacle on the earth plane.

The first spirit who came (the daughter of an old gentleman sitting near
me) intimated through him that she would like me to go up and help her
to materialise the white veil which all in turn wore, and which, though
perfectly transparent, is considered a necessary shield between them and
the earth's influences; on the same principle, I suppose, that we put on
blue spectacles to protect us from the blinding rays of the sun.

She came out from the alcove, held both her hands in front of her,
turning them backward and forward that I might be satisfied that nothing
was concealed in them. The soft, clinging material of her gown ended
high up on the shoulders, so there were no sleeves to be reckoned with.
I stood close over her, holding out my own dress, and as she rubbed her
hands to and fro a sort of white lace or net came from them, like a
foam, and lay upon my gown which I was holding up towards her.

I touched this material, and held it in my hands. It had substance, but
was light as gossamer, and quite unlike any stuff I ever saw in a shop.

The very softest gossamer tulle that old ladies sometimes produce as
having belonged to their grandmothers is perhaps the nearest approach to
what I then lifted in my hands, but even this does not accurately
describe it.

When long enough she took up the veil, unfolded it, covering her head
with it, and saying very graciously "Thank you" to me.

Other spirits now appeared for the other people in the room, who
conversed with them in low tones.

All these had evidently materialised before and could consequently speak
with comparative ease. One, called the "Angel Mother" (the mother of the
medium), answered questions on the spirit life in a loud American voice,
prefacing every remark, whether to man or woman, by an affectionate
"Well, de-ar!" Her answers showed considerable shrewdness, but not much
depth, and were often rather wide of the mark.

"Nels Seymour" (who appears to have belonged to a sort of Christy
Minstrel Company over here) cracked jokes all the time with a gentleman
amongst the audience in a good-natured but flippant and very unspiritual
manner, and even the ladies joined in the undignified punning and "play
upon words" that went on all the time.

The little child's voice came in as a relief every now and then. She
spoke broken, childish English, but used the expressions of a grown-up
person. She described several spirits as "chying" (trying) to come, but
not being strong enough.

I was becoming drowsy, and rather tired of the performance, when my
attention was once more aroused by hearing that a very beautiful female
spirit, with a diamond star in her forehead, had appeared and asked for
me, saying she had been a friend of mine on earth, and wished to
communicate with me.

This was conveyed to me by the little child's voice, the spirit herself
not having yet emerged from the curtain; but the medium's husband looked
behind it, and told me of the diamond star, which he said was some
"order" in spirit life.

Having no idea who the friend might be, I begged for some further
particulars before going up to speak to her.

"She passed from earth life about five years ago, and in Germany,"
answered the medium's husband, who had conducted the conversation behind
the curtain.

This was less vague, and now for the first time a suspicion of the
spirit's identity crossed my mind; but I would not go up until a name
had been given, and I asked for this before leaving my seat.

My travelling companion--a recent acquaintance--had never heard me
mention the lady in question, who _had_ died in Germany at the time
specified. The little child said the spirit would give the name through
her, and the process was a curious one. Instead of mentioning the whole
name or each letter of it to her father, the child _described_ each
letter to him as you might describe the lines of the large capitals in a
child's reading-book. The father guessed the letter from the child's
description, and asked me if the first one were correct? It was; but I
did not tell him so, merely saying I should like to have the Christian
name in full before giving any opinion.

In due time the six letters (Muriel, we will call it) were correctly
given, and I had then no further excuse for refusing to speak to the
spirit.

I went up to the curtain, and she appeared in front of it. I have been
frequently asked: "Should you have recognised her as your friend had no
name been given?" With every wish to be perfectly truthful, I find it
difficult to answer this question, for the following reason:--None of
the "materialisations" I saw were exactly human in face. There was no
idea of a mask or clever "get up," but if one could accept the theory of
a body hastily put together and assumed for a time, the result is
exactly what might have been expected under the circumstances.

My friend in real life was very pale, and had exquisitely chiselled
features, and the ones I now looked upon were of the same _cast_. The
height was also similar, and an indescribable atmosphere of refinement,
purity, and quiet dignity, for which she had been remarkable; all this
was present with this materialisation. More than this I cannot say, for
no materialisation I have ever seen could be truthfully considered
_identical_ with the human original.

I did not feel frightened, but I did feel embarrassed, and naturally so,
considering how unwilling and grudging my recognition of her
individuality must have appeared. She seemed conscious of this, for
almost immediately she mentioned her hands, holding them out for
inspection, and saying:

"Don't you remember my hands? I was so proud of my hands!"

Now, as a matter of fact, my friend was noted for her beautiful hands,
but she was too sensible and clever a woman to have been conceited about
them, and had too much good taste ever to have made their beauty a
subject of remark, even to an intimate friend.

Moreover, the hands now _en evidence_, although well shaped and with
tapering fingers, were as little identical with a human hand as the face
was identical with a human face.

Casting about for something to say to her, my first thought was for an
only and dearly loved married sister of hers, also a friend of mine, and
I mentioned the latter in a guarded way, saying: "If you are in reality
my friend, have you no message for _your sister_?"

In a moment, and without the slightest hesitation, she said: "_Tell poor
Jessie_," going on with a message peculiarly appropriate to the facts of
the case, but of much too private a nature for publication.

Almost immediately afterwards, and _with no shadow of suggestion from
me_, she added:

"_Poor Jessie! She suffered terribly when I passed away so suddenly._"

My friend had died in a foreign country, under peculiarly sad
circumstances. She was young, beautiful, and accomplished; a prominent
local figure in the well-known capital where she had spent several
winters. Her death was so sudden that there was not even time to put off
a large afternoon "At Home" arranged for that day. Moreover, this
sister, by a most merciful chance, happened to be spending a few months
with her, out of England, at the time. These were all special facts,
spontaneously referred to by her, but which would _not_ have applied
equally well to the death of any other friend, even supposing such a
death to have occurred abroad.

The spirit spoke feebly and with difficulty, "not having much strength,"
she told me.

I asked if her father (who had died a few months previously) were with
her.

"Not yet," she said gently; "but I know that he has passed over." She
then kissed my hand, and faded away before my eyes, not apparently
returning to the curtain (close to which I stood), but vanishing into
thin air.

Some ten days later my friend and I went again to an evening _seance_ at
the same house, different people being present on this occasion. A
stupid, "_unintelligent_ sceptic" woman put us all out of harmony by
making inane suggestions, always declaring that "_she would not for the
world interfere with the conditions_," but doing so all the same. The
"Angel Mother" came again, and rather lost her temper, I thought, with
an aggravating, illogical man in the circle, who hammered away about
Faraday's opinions on the spirit world without much idea of what he was
talking about. "Nels Seymour" _appeared_, as well as spoke, this time.
He took my hand and kissed it; but he does not leave the cabinet, as he
is the "control." It was eleven years on this day since he had "passed
over," so he called it his "birthday."

A very beautiful female spirit materialised and offered to sit on my
lap; an offer I closed with at once.

She was some five feet eight inches in height, and a large,
well-developed woman. Anticipating the possibility of her resting her
feet on the ground, and so concealing her real weight, I moved my own
feet from the ground the moment she sat down, which was easily done, as
my chair was a high one.

She remained for several minutes in this position, resting, of
necessity, her whole weight upon me, which was about equal to that of a
small kitten or a lady's muff, in the days when small muffs were in
fashion. There was an _appreciable_ weight, but I have never nursed any
baby that was not far heavier.

The veil this time was materialised in the usual way, my friend going up
to watch the process.

My spirit friend appeared again, and more strongly this time. At a
public _seance_, where so many are eager to communicate with their
friends, it is impossible to monopolise more than a few minutes of the
public time, and consequently any communications are as hurried and
unsatisfactory as a conversation with an intimate friend in the public
reading-room of a hotel would be.

       *       *       *       *       *

I pass over another most excellent and evidential incident as a
concession to family prejudice. It has already appeared in my book on
America entitled "A Year in the Great Republic," and may be found there.

       *       *       *       *       *

At a third materialising _seance_ at the same house an excitable Italian
friend of mine, who had never seen anything of the kind before, came
with much the same prejudices as I had felt at the Boston _seance_, and
disturbed the conditions very much by his attitude of determined
antagonism; whilst his comparative ignorance of English, and my feeble
Italian, made explanations, under the circumstances, rather hopeless.
The whole circle was put out of harmony, and a dead weight lay upon us
all. The materialisations continued, it is true; but personally it was a
great relief to me when my excitable friend left, declaring that
everything he had seen was "_physiquement impossible mon ange_."

He departed so abruptly as to bring down much abuse upon his absent head
for having "broken the battery" and almost "killed the medium" by his
sudden disappearance from the circle.

This awful threat had so much power over the rest of the party that we
sat out to the bitter end, leaving the medium at last still in her
trance, with husband and son hovering over her in an anxiety which, if
acted, showed first-class dramatic power.

Meanwhile I had made the acquaintance of a very beautiful and charming
woman in New York, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction.

She has had a tragic and remarkable history; is a woman of great mental
powers, in addition to very remarkable beauty; and is of the highest
rank, being an Austrian princess, I believe, in her own right, and
having spent her youth in foreign courts.

Apart from these facts, which had been told me by a mutual friend before
we met, I knew nothing whatever of her family history, nor whether she
had brothers or sisters, alive or dead.

I had spoken to her of my curious experiences, and she had discussed the
matter with me from the standpoint of a thorough woman of the world, of
strong mental power, who had seen too much of life to be dogmatic or
narrow in her views, but too much also to believe in what is called the
"supernatural," before every possible _natural_ hypothesis had been
admitted and dismissed as untenable.

Sitting in her pretty room the day before I left New York, we had talked
for some two hours on various subjects connected with life and
literature, and before the final "adieux" she said laughingly: "Well,
have you been to any more _seances_?"

I said "No," and that we did not intend to do so, as our time was now so
short. A few moments of careless talk on the subject ensued, and picking
up a newspaper, I cast my eye over the usual list of mediums,
clairvoyants, etc. A half-defined wish to see whether any spirit friend
would come to me under totally different conditions and surroundings,
and in an entirely different quarter of the city, led to my copying out
one of the addresses at haphazard.

I could not prevail upon my hostess to accompany me (she is delicate,
and dreads night air), but I took the slip of paper to my hotel,
thinking that my friend there might care to take the cars after dinner
to this distant end of the city.

My English companion proved rather indifferent and disinclined towards
the expedition.

This was very natural. She was not magnetic in temperament, and had no
expectation of seeing any of her own friends, although, of course, she
had both seen and spoken to those who came for me.

However, a good dinner at the excellent Windsor Hotel fortified us so
much after our fatigues that at the last moment we agreed to make one
more attempt, no one, ourselves included, having known five minutes
previously that we should leave the house.

On this occasion we were ushered into a much more imposing drawing-room,
and the lady herself was evidently some degrees higher in the social
scale than our first mediumistic friend.

The arrangements also were quite different. As we sat waiting for a few
minutes (having arrived very punctually), Mrs Gray looked at my friend,
and then described an elderly lady with grey hair who was standing over
her, but, of course, invisible to our eyes. Almost immediately Mrs Gray
began rubbing her knees, and complained of pain in them, adding: "The
impression of dropsy is being conveyed to me. This spirit seems to have
suffered from disease of that nature."

My friend--who was very self-contained and unemotional--gave no clue to
the fact that she recognised anyone by this description, but as we were
returning home in the cars she said quietly: "It is curious Mrs Gray
should have described that old lady with grey hair--I suppose she meant
my mother. _She_ had grey hair, and died of dropsy."

On my expostulating with this lady for having given the impression that
she did not recognise the description at the time she said, with
conscious pride: "You don't suppose I was going to let the woman know
that she had described my mother?"

To give a false impression in so good a cause as determined incredulity,
seems not only justifiable, but actually praiseworthy to many minds.

Later in the evening, the _seance_ being in full swing, a spirit dressed
in some kind of white "sister's" dress appeared at the door of the
cabinet; and Mrs Stoddart Gray asked if anyone in the circle could speak
German, as this spirit did not seem to understand French, Italian, or
English, and she herself only recognised German by the sound.

A gentleman volunteered his assistance, but apparently without much
effect, and being a German scholar, I then offered to come to the
rescue. The moment I went up to the figure she seemed to gain strength,
and came quite out of the cabinet, and said to me in the most refined
German (any readers who have studied the language know that there is as
wide a difference between the highest and lowest type of German accent
as between an educated Irish "accent" and an Irish brogue):

"_Ich bin die schwester von Madame Schewitsch_," mentioning the name of
the foreign friend with whom I had been spending that afternoon: "_Ich
weisz das Sie Heute Nach mittag bei meiner schwester waren._"[1]

 [1] Translation: "I am the sister of Madame Schewitsch--I know that you
 spent this afternoon with my sister."

She had evidently a strong, almost overwhelming desire to make some
communication to me for her sister, but the difficulty in doing so
seemed equally strong.

It lay beyond the question of language. She spoke with sufficient
strength, and I could understand perfectly her well-chosen and
well-pronounced words. But some insuperable obstacle seemed to prevent
her telling me what she wished to convey, and the despairing attempt to
surmount this was painful in the extreme.

I assured her of my willingness to help in any way possible, and made a
few suggestions, but all in vain.

"Is it that you are not happy?"

"No--no! That is not it."

It seemed to me some sort of warning which she wished to convey, and had
some connection with illness, for the words _achtung_ and _krankheit_
(warning and illness) were repeated more than once, but no definite
message came.

I then asked if she could _write_ it, and she caught eagerly at the
idea. So I borrowed a pencil and some paper, and placed them on a small
table in the middle of the room, with a chair in front of it. She came
quite close to the table (five gas burners were more than half turned
on, so there was plenty of light), sat down, and took up the pencil, but
almost immediately threw it down again, saying in a most unhappy and
despairing voice: "_Nein! nein! Ich kann es selbst nicht schreiben!_"[2]
and vanished before my very eyes as she rose from the table. Now had
this been a case of fraud, and supposing that some woman had means of
discovering the name of my New York friend and the fact of my having
spent that very afternoon with her, what would have been easier than to
write or give some commonplace message in a language of which she had
already proved herself mistress?

 [2] Translation: "No! no! I cannot even write it!"

The episode was so painful that I decided _not_ to write to Madame
Schewitsch about it. I have therefore no absolute corroboration of the
fact that the lady mentioned had a sister who became a nun, or who was
connected with some such establishment, and had passed over. This,
however, is much more probable than not, because in every high-born
Catholic family in Austria, one member in a large family almost
invariably takes the veil. I have given the real name in this case,
hoping Madame Schewitsch may perchance come across my book, and supply
the information needed. I may remark, finally, that three or four months
later, whilst travelling in California, I heard from my excitable and
sceptical Italian friend (who had given me the introduction to Madame
Schewitsch) that this lady had had a long and most serious illness
during my absence in the West, and that her husband and he had both
feared she would never recover from it. This fear, fortunately, proved
to be groundless.

To return to the sitting.

About twenty minutes after the "sister" had disappeared, a figure in
white came forward very swiftly, and without a moment's hesitation
pointed towards me, saying quickly: "_For you._"

I went up at once, recognising who it was, but determined to give no
sign of this fact.

The "spirit" looked at me for a moment with surprise, as one might look
at any well-known friend who passed us in the street without a greeting.

As I remained silent she whispered: "Don't you know me?" I am afraid _I_
gave the false impression this time, and asked her for her name.

"_Why, I am Muriel!_" came the instant answer, mentioning the name of
the first friend who had appeared to me, after spelling out her name, at
the previous _seances_ held in another part of New York.

On this third appearance my spirit friend asked me to kiss her. I must
confess that I complied with some amount of trepidation, which proved to
be quite unnecessary.

There was nothing the least repulsive to the touch, although it was not
exactly like kissing anyone on earth; but an indescribable atmosphere of
freshness and purity, which seemed always to surround this friend whilst
living, was very apparent under these changed conditions. Another
curious little point is that I had entirely forgotten my friend's love
of violets (she always wore them when possible, and used violet scent)
until I smelt them distinctly whilst speaking to her.

It must be remembered that until the day of the sitting, we had never
dreamed of going to Mrs Gray's house, nor had we even heard her name. I
picked it out of a newspaper by chance--amongst at least thirty others.

Until past seven o'clock that evening we had not decided to visit her,
and the _seance_ began at eight P.M., no single person in the room being
present who had been at the house of the other medium some weeks
previously. Under these circumstances it would be difficult to account
for the fact of my friend's reappearance on the ground of collusion
between the two mediums. Moreover, such collusion would not account for
the appearance earlier in the evening of a spirit claiming to be the
sister of Madame Schewitsch.

No one hitherto has been able to suggest any _intelligent_ explanation
of my personal experiences on these occasions. Conjuring tricks and trap
doors are, of course, "trotted out" by the _unintelligent_ sceptic, but
these do not meet the difficulty of an _accurate knowledge of names and
of family matters of comparatively small importance_.


As I am just now chiefly concerned with presenting incidents in my life
rather than in prosing over them, I resist the temptation to go further
into the question of _Materialisations_ either from the historical or
ethical point of view, and pass on to the subject of clairvoyance.




CHAPTER II--_continued_

INVESTIGATIONS IN AMERICA, 1885-1886


In speaking of clairvoyance I shall again have recourse to my notes
taken at the time of my American visit and on the spot.

I am quite convinced that where a life has been in any way eventful or
at all marked, any fairly developed clairvoyant can in some way "sense"
your mental and moral atmosphere.

In some three or four personal cases, the notes taken at the time of
such visits, paid several thousands of miles apart, might almost be read
as descriptive of the same interview, with different witnesses.

My travelling companion, who had led a very uneventful life, seemed to
puzzle them much more. There was apparently nothing to lay hold of, and
only a very shadowy, indistinct picture was given in consequence.

In my own case the colours were put on freely, firmly, and without the
least hesitation, and in every single instance the sketch was remarkably
truthful, and yet would not have described the life of one other woman
in three or four hundred.

That there is a good deal of guesswork done even under the supposed
influence of "trance" is quite evident to me. I am not prepared to say
that such trances were in no case genuine, but the remarks made during
them were frequently of a tentative nature, and the slightest good "hit"
was followed up with as much ingenuity as Sir Richard Owen displayed in
putting together his skeleton from a single bone.

I was told some six or seven times that my mother (who died during my
infancy) was my guardian spirit, and six times her name was given to me,
with some difficulty in one or two cases, but invariably without the
smallest guessing on the part of the clairvoyant or any hint from me.

One of my most successful interviews in New York was with a Mrs Parks of
Philadelphia--a very pleasant, good-looking, healthy woman, quite unlike
the usual cadaverous medium with whom one is more familiar.

Her terms being rather higher than those usually asked in America (where
competition has made mediums a cheap luxury), I demurred at first; upon
which she said brightly: "Well, don't come if you don't feel like paying
that; but I never alter my prices. But I won't take your money if I
don't give you satisfaction. Some get satisfaction from one person and
some from another--you will soon see if I am telling you the truth about
your friends, and I won't take a penny from you if you are
dissatisfied."

I left the house saying I would think it over, and Mrs Parks did not at
all press me to come, and from my manner could hardly have expected to
see me.

I had a most satisfactory interview with her next day.

After referring to my mother's presence, and giving her name without any
hesitation, she gave me several messages with regard to character which
were singularly appropriate, and finished up by saying: "Your mother
does not wish you to go to mediums or mix yourself too much up with such
persons. It is not necessary for you to do so; she says you have enough
mediumistic power for her to be able to communicate with you directly."

I could not help saying: "Well, Mrs Parks, you are going very much
against your own interests in giving me this message. I am a perfect
stranger to you in this city. I have told you that I am making some
little stay here, and as you have given me so much satisfaction I might
have been induced to come and see you several times again before
leaving."

She laughed, and answered: "That is quite true; but I am an honest
woman, and I am bound to give you the message that is given to me for
you, even when it goes against my interest."

Seeing her bright, pleasant home, with every trace of comfort about it,
and having received personal proof that money alone was not her
consideration, I could not help asking why she continued such an arduous
life.

"Well," she answered, "the truth is that I do it now against my own
wish. My husband has always objected to it more or less. He was afraid
it might injure my health, and for two years I gave it up entirely.
But," she added, "the spirits would not leave me alone. It seemed as if
I _had_ to come back to it, as if I were refusing to use the powers
that had been given to me for the help and comfort of my
fellow-creatures. I name a higher price than others, to limit my work
and to keep away those who would only come from idle curiosity." She
also told me that sometimes she had to give orders beforehand that
certain people should not be admitted on any pretext whatever. "I can
see their spirits round them before they reach the door very often, and
I would not have such people, bringing such an atmosphere into my
house--no, not if they gave me a hundred dollars for each sitting."

I must mention one more incident connected with this period of my
investigations, because it throws a strong light on some obscure
problems.

Whilst consulting these clairvoyants, in widely different parts of
America, two very near relatives of mine were almost invariably
described, and the names--one male and one female--were generally given.
The mediums invariably went on to say that the female spirit was further
on in development than the male spirit. Now there were circumstances
which made this statement, viewed from this world's standpoint, not only
absolutely mistaken, but almost ludicrously so. The woman's nature had
been a far more faulty one--more impetuous, less balanced, and so forth.
The male spirit described had been a man of very exceptional character
and spirituality, whilst on earth.

In spite of these facts the same "mistake," as I considered it, had
consistently been made by every clairvoyant who described them; which,
by-the-by, rules out telepathy as an explanation of these special
experiences. It certainly seemed strange that after giving accurate
descriptions of the two relatives referred to--names included--each
clairvoyant should make exactly the same mistake upon so obvious a
matter as the question involved.

Some months later, in the course of my travels, I found myself at Denver
in Colorado. We stayed here, at first, one day only, to break our
journey farther up into the Rocky Mountains. The previous day, when
wandering about Colorado Springs, my friend and I had come across a lady
doctor by chance; and having asked some trivial question, we were
invited into her pretty little house, where we chatted for half-an-hour
on various subjects--including spiritualism. We gave no account of our
experiences, but simply mentioned the fact that we had some interest in
the investigation.

Hearing this, and that we were going on to Denver next day, this lady
gave me the address of a young married friend who lived in that city,
and who had during the previous two years suddenly developed strong
mediumistic power, but was in no way a professional. She begged us to
call if possible, and I took down the address, but said it was very
doubtful if we could do so in the short time we should have at our
disposal.

At the end of a long afternoon's drive to the most interesting points of
view in Denver, we found ourselves close to the quarter where this young
woman lived, and called at the house mentioned. The lady was not at
home, and a friend who received us explained that it would be impossible
for her to come down in the evening to see us, as she was delicate, and
not allowed to go out at night.

As we were leaving Denver early next morning, this made a meeting
impossible, so we left our cards, and a note to explain our visit. Going
into the hotel office after dinner that evening, I heard a gentleman
inquiring for me by name, saying he had brought his wife to see me. I
explained that I was the lady he asked for, and he then said, with the
stoical resignation of the typical American husband: "I did not like her
to come out, but she was bound to have her own way."

The lady in question came into my bedroom upstairs after dismissing her
husband, and said she "preferred a room already permeated by my
influence." She then continued very simply: "I do not know whether I
shall be able to help you at all, but it seems there is something I have
to tell you or explain. When I read your note I felt bound to come,
although my husband tried to dissuade me. It seemed to me as if the
spirits came all the way with me in the cars."

She then gave me quite a good sitting, but on the ordinary lines, ending
up by the description of the relatives mentioned, and by making the
usual "mistake" about their relative spiritual positions.

This was all said in trance. When she returned to consciousness I said:
"Now, Mrs Brown (her real name), I must tell you honestly that you have
made one cardinal mistake, but I am also bound to say that five or six
professional mediums have done just the same as regards the same
matter." I then explained, and asked if she could account for such a
persistent and obvious misconception.

"Wait a moment," she answered; "perhaps the spirits will tell me."

She looked up with a very intent expression for a minute, as though
listening to some explanation which did not cover the ground of her own
experience, and then said very quickly and in a monotonous voice, as
though repeating a verbal message:

"It has nothing exactly to do with our earthly idea of 'goodness.'
Spiritual life can only come to those prepared for it, within the limits
of their capacity. The male spirit you mention was a clergyman of the
Church of England. He was a very holy man, but he was in some way creed
bound. He was a man of strong creed; he clung to his creed here, and
cannot quite free himself from it even now, although he has advanced
very much in spiritual perception. Now his wife had a very sympathetic,
_apprehending_ nature. She can therefore receive spiritual light more
fully and freely. That is why she has risen to a higher plane. This is
not a question of character so much as of _spiritual capacity_, and in
this she is the more highly gifted of the two. She is on a different
plane, but she is able to help her husband very much, and in time he
will join her, and they will progress together."

All this was said in a quick, decided way, and without the smallest
hesitation.

One would hardly have expected a young woman in the midst of the Rocky
Mountains to know the exact meaning of the term "_clergyman of the
Church of England_," for the word is almost unknown in America, where
they speak invariably of a _minister_. Yet the words were given with
quick, firm precision, exactly as written down.

Later, in San Francisco, a clairvoyant at once referred to my friend
"Muriel," and described her, but in rather vague terms. When I pointed
this fact out she said a little impatiently, as though we were wasting
time in quibbling: "_Oh, well, it does not matter. The spirit tells me
you know perfectly well who it is. She has already appeared to you in
New York._"

I had gone to this particular medium with several young friends, who
were all in a very sceptical and rather frivolous state of mind. She
described "an uncle," apparently over the heads of two of my friends,
and gave the further information that he was surrounded by water, and
appeared to have been drowned; also that he was extremely musical.

This was declared to be perfectly untrue and without a grain of
foundation, in fact.

The woman looked puzzled and a little mortified, but turned to others in
the circle, with better success, let us hope!

On our return home, when the young people were telling their mother of
the "awful humbug" amid shouts of laughter, the mother said quietly:
"But surely you remember, my dear children, hearing of your Uncle
Robert, who was drowned years ago, before any of you were born? He _was_
a great musician. He wanted to give up his life to art, but he was
persuaded to take up another profession."


I give this as an instance of the carelessness with which, when we are
_determined_ to find fraud, we may do so sometimes at the expense of
truth. These young girls had doubtless heard of their uncle, but the
fact had possibly escaped their memories for the moment, and probably
they had no wish to recall anything which could cast a doubt on their
preconceived notion that "the whole thing was a swindle!"

Before closing the chapter of my American experiences in the years 1885
and 1886, I must give one more personal detail.

When investigating various clairvoyants in the Eastern States in March
and April of the year 1886, I had been told more than once that a
guardian band of six spirits was forming round me, and would be later
supplemented by another band of six protectors. Whether this had any
bearing upon the following incident, I must leave my readers to decide.

       *       *       *       *       *

About three months after this pronouncement I found myself at Victoria,
Vancouver's Island. Miss Greenlow and I had gone there from San
Francisco for a week or two, not being able at that time to make the
further trip to Alaska. After a very stormy voyage of two or three days
we reached Victoria one morning about six A.M. There was only one large
double-bedded room available at the hotel, and we took this on the
understanding that two separate rooms should be found for us before the
evening.

As we lay on our beds for a few hours of much needed rest, quite
suddenly I realised that I saw something abnormal in the air--just above
and in front of my head. I mentioned this with much surprise to my
companion, who at once suggested the effects of liver after a sea
voyage so tempestuous as ours had been. For the first few moments I was
inclined to agree with her, and said so; but very shortly my opinion was
altered by the fact that what I saw first as an indistinct blur
gradually assumed a definite shape, and I then found there were six
little swallows in front of me, apparently connected with each other by
a waving ribbon, or so it appeared to me.

Opening and shutting one's eyes did not affect the vision. There they
remained, both at the moment and for several succeeding years, during
which time I was constantly in the habit of seeing "_my birds_," as we
used to call them. About six months after their first appearance in the
pure, clear atmosphere of Victoria (Vancouver), I was driving across the
Blackheath Common on a very bright, frosty day, and looking out of the
open window of my carriage, I saw my six birds as usual; but for the
first time, parallel with them and lower down, were six new birds of
just the same size and appearance (about half-an-inch between the tips
of the wings).

A few days later the new birds and the old ones had amalgamated, and
twelve little swallows floated in the air before my eyes. I could not
see them in the house. It needed the background of uninterrupted sky
apparently to throw them into sufficient relief to be recognised. After
some years, this special sign was withdrawn, and others have taken its
place. For example, I have seen in the same way, during the last
fourteen years, an anchor, with the chain attached to it, and caught
through one end of the former, a short reaping hook. This, doubtless,
has some symbolical meaning. Near the anchor I see a sacrificial altar,
with flames rising up from it; then a triangle, with loops at the
corners, which I was once told was the sign of Nostradamus. Then an
old-fashioned mirror in a quaintly-shaped frame, and finally a long
staff, with the sign of Aries at one end. I have since realised that
this is very much like the "Staff of Faith" found on the top of many of
the tombs in the Roman catacombs. All these latter emblems come together
as a rule, with a connecting thread binding them to each other. I cannot
see them at will, but when the atmosphere is at all clear they are
rarely absent, when I have time to look for them. I was much amused once
by an earnest Christian scientist, with whom I happened to be spending a
few days on the coast of the eastern counties. She had warned me
repeatedly against "phenomena" of every kind, spontaneous or induced. On
a specially bright morning we were sitting together in a beautiful park,
which is thrown open to strangers on special days, and, forgetting my
companion's prejudices, I exclaimed involuntarily:

"I never saw my signs more clearly than just now!--there must be
something very pure about the atmosphere."

This was too much for my friend, who bent forward eagerly, saying:--"_Do
let me try if I cannot see them too!_"

Well, she "tried" for the greater part of two hours, but absolutely in
vain, and then got up, and suggested going home to luncheon. She added
naively: "I _thought_ they must have something wrong about them, and I
am quite sure of it now, _or I should have seen them_."

But it had taken her two hours of failure to be absolutely convinced
that they came straight from the devil!

One sign--also birds--appeared to me on one occasion only. We had
returned to Denver, where Miss Greenlow and I were to separate after a
year's constant travel together. She was going back to San Francisco to
take steamer for the Sandwich Islands, and thence on to Australia;
whilst I was returning to England for family reasons.

I had arranged to dine with the hospitable Dean of Denver the evening of
the day of her departure, and I had not realised how much less lonely
one would have felt had my journey East corresponded more closely with
her journey West, especially as she was obliged to leave the hotel about
nine o'clock in the morning.

Waking early, and lying in bed, feeling very melancholy at the idea of
being left behind and alone in the very centre of America, I looked up,
and, to my delight, saw a new sign.

Not my little birds this time, but two big, plump father and mother
birds, with a short string attached, not horizontally as before, but
perpendicularly. At the end of this little string was a tiny bird, even
smaller than the swallows, being evidently guided by the two big birds,
and quite safe in their charge.

My room communicated with that of my companion, whose door was open,
and I told her of this new "sign in the heavens," adding that I hoped it
had come to stay. Fortunately, I found a pencil, and made a rough sketch
at the time, or I might have been tempted to imagine that I had never
seen it at all, for the trio never appeared again, though I have longed
to see them, and have certainly required the consolation quite as much,
many times, since that far-away summer morning in Denver, Colorado.

       *       *       *       *       *

On reaching home after this long American trip, I found a budget of
letters awaiting me--amongst them a little registered box containing a
kind birthday present from the brother who has been mentioned in the
Introduction to this book. Was it another case of mental affinity which
had induced him unconsciously to choose a gold brooch with two swallows
in gold and pearls? Not an uncommon design; but _the birds were exactly
the same size as those I was in the habit of seeing just at that time_.

I never told him how extraordinarily _a propos_ his present had proved,
but I have always looked upon that brooch as a mascot, and have
certainly worn it every day since it came into my possession.




CHAPTER III

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND


Shortly after the Jubilee of 1887 had taken place, I sailed for
Australia and New Zealand.

My first psychic experience in the Colonies took place in Melbourne,
some months after my landing in Tasmania.

The wife of one of the "prominent citizens" in Melbourne had been
specially invited to meet me at an afternoon reception in the house of
friends to whom I had carried letters of introduction, as she was said
to be so deeply interested in everything psychic, and would greatly
enjoy hearing my American experiences. Fortunately, the lady arrived
late, and we had already enjoyed some interesting conversation before
she came. A wetter "wet blanket" it has never been my fortune to
encounter. She was a very handsome woman, and therefore good to look at,
but in the _role_ of sympathetic audience she was a miserable failure.
She sat with a cold, glassy eye fixed upon me, whilst I endeavoured to
continue the conversation which had been interrupted by her arrival.

She might just as well have _said_ as have looked the words: "Now go on
making a fool of yourself!--that is just what I have come to see."

The position was hopeless. So I began to talk about the weather, which
is disagreeable enough from sirocco in the hot spring months (it was the
end of October) to be useful.

Presently the daughter of the house came up to me, and said:

"Do, please, go on telling us your interesting experiences, Miss Bates;
we can talk about other things at any time, and we asked Mrs Burroughes
on purpose to meet you."

The lady in question had joined another group by this time, so I was
able to whisper in reply: "I am so very sorry, but I cannot possibly
talk of these things before your friend--she paralyses me absolutely
from any psychic point of view. She is very handsome, and I like looking
at her, but I cannot talk to her except about the weather."

"How very odd!" was the unexpected reply. "That is just what Lizzie
Maynard says. And I did very much want Lizzie to hear about America too,
but she has gone off to the other end of the room, saying she knows you
won't be able to talk whilst Mrs Burroughes is here."

This was interesting, for I had not noticed the young girl mentioned,
who had not been introduced to me. So when my young hostess asked "if
she might bring Lizzie to see me at my hotel next day," I gladly
acquiesced, in spite of feeling very far from well at the moment.

This feeling of _malaise_ increased in the night, and was, in fact, the
precursor of a short but sharp attack of a form of typhoid which was
running through the hotel at the time. Being in bed next afternoon about
four o'clock, I was dismayed to hear that Miss Maynard had arrived to
see me, and, moreover, had arrived _alone_. I had never spoken to the
girl nor even consciously set eyes on her before, but I knew she must
have come at least three miles from the suburb where she lived, and
would probably refuse to have a cup of tea downstairs during my absence.
There was nothing for it, therefore, but to make an effort, order tea to
be brought for her to my room, and send a message hoping she would not
mind seeing me in my bedroom.

She came up--a modest, charming-looking girl of about twenty. I
explained the circumstances, and apologised for being unable to join in
the tea-party, but felt rather desperate when I realised that even the
effort of taking any share in the conversation was beyond me.

Suddenly a brilliant idea passed through my throbbing head. The day
before, in planning the visit, which Miss Boyle had been unable to carry
out herself, she had mentioned that her friend Lizzie Maynard was a very
good automatic writer, and this seemed a solution of the difficulty.

So when my little friend had finished her tea, but was still looking
tired from the long walk, I said to her: "I am so sorry to be so stupid
to-day, Miss Maynard. I cannot talk, but I can listen; or do you think
possibly you could get a little writing for me? Miss Boyle told me you
wrote automatically sometimes?"

"I will try, certainly," was the ready response. "I never know, of
course, what may come, and as this is our first meeting, it may be a
little more difficult, but I should like to try."

She found paper and pencil, and sat by my bedside, holding the pencil
very loosely between the second and third fingers, instead of between
the thumb and first two fingers in the usual way.

She continued talking to me during the whole time, and not being well
versed in automatic writing then, I could not believe that any writing
could really be going on in this very casual sort of way.

"Is any writing really coming?" I questioned at last.

"Oh yes; but I can't make out the last long word," she said, turning the
paper round, so that she could see it, for the first time. "Kindly give
me that word again," she remarked casually, and continued her
conversation with me.

Finally the three or four sheets of rather large but not always very
distinct caligraphy were submitted to me, and I saw that "Miscellaneous"
had been the long word at the beginning which Lizzie had asked to have
repeated.

The whole message was intensely interesting to me, for it began: "_I who
on earth was known as George Eliot._"

Now I had more than once seen, but had never spoken to, George Eliot in
earth life, and although admiring her genius, as all who read her books
are bound to do, there seemed no very obvious reason why she should come
to me. Moreover, Lizzie Maynard, a charming but not highly educated girl
(as I discovered later), seemed to know little about the famous author
beyond her name. Another, and infinitely inferior, lady writer had been
discussed with bated breath the day before in Lizzie's presence. Her
books--just then in the zenith of their popularity--had newly penetrated
to the Colonies, and were being talked of there as though Minerva
herself, helmet and all complete, had suddenly arrived in Melbourne. I
had personally been greatly interested by one of this lady's earlier
books, and had a much less definite opinion of the author then, than I
have at the present moment.

Threshing my brains for any sort of tie with George Eliot, I remembered
having often stayed at Oxford as a young woman, when Jowett of Balliol
was entertaining her and Mr Lewes, in his own home.

Of course, there was no question in those far-away days of my being
asked to meet such a brilliant star; but it amused me often to hear the
dull and uninteresting people of some standing in the University, whom
Jowett had _not_ favoured with an invitation, declaring that nothing
would have induced them to accept it!

This was, however, but a feeble link, even when added to the righteous
indignation one had so often experienced on hearing similar remarks
made, about a woman too far above her critics both in genius and morals,
for them to be able to catch the faintest glimpse of her personality.

Apparently it only now lay with me to cease asking _why_, and accept the
goods provided by the gods, making the most of such an opportunity. On
these occasions so many possible questions tumble over each other in
the brain that it is difficult to select any one to start with.

At length I asked the following question:--

"What did George Eliot think of the author who had been so much
discussed and so highly applauded on the previous afternoon?"

Very quickly came the answer: "_I have no sympathy there--a mere
puppet._"

Certainly this was not thought reading; for my own opinion then was very
indefinite, and Lizzie's views, as it turned out, were as enthusiastic
as those of most people in the Colony. It was not until several years
later that I realised that an extraordinarily _apt_ criticism had been
made; for a puppet is made to dance by other entities.

I was longing to ask another question, but had some natural hesitation
in doing so before such a young girl. Moreover, I feared the answer must
almost of necessity be coloured by the traditions of the latter, and
therefore would be of no great value either way. But taking my courage
"in both hands," I put the question:

"Please ask George Eliot if she _now_ thinks that she was justified in
the position she took up with regard to George Lewes?"

The answer came in a flash: "CERTAINLY. _We are one here, as we were on
earth._"

Anything less likely to emanate from the brain of an orthodox young girl
can hardly be conceived!

Amongst other details, George Eliot said finally that she had come to
know my mother in spirit life, where she was called STELLA. Now my
mother's name in earth life was Ellen, which has the same root for its
origin. Of course, Miss Maynard did not then know whether my mother were
alive or dead, and nothing naturally concerning her Christian name.

The last statement made by George Eliot on this occasion was that
"_before another year had rolled by, a great gift would come to me, and
I must be very careful to use without abusing it_." I was too tired at
the moment to ask whether "another year rolling by" meant a whole year
from 28th October 1887 (the date of the message), or the end of the
current year--namely, 31st December 1887.

When the message had come to an end, Miss Maynard gathered up the
scattered sheets, and promising to copy them out for me, took her
departure, and left me to muse--so far as a racking brain would
allow--on the curious and interesting result of her visit. No cup of tea
to thirsty wayfarer was ever surely so grandly rewarded!

My next adventure had a distant connection with these Australian
experiences.

I had come out to join the friend (Miss Greenlow) who had been my
companion in America, and who had thence sailed for Sydney when I
returned for a year to England. She had been anxious for me to rejoin
her in Australia, and from thence visit Japan and China; but my arrival
having been delayed by literary matters, this lady had finally lost
patience, and, without my knowledge, had gone on to New Zealand, and
thence, as it turned out, to Samoa. When I heard of the New Zealand
episode there was nothing for it but to follow her there, on a
will-o'-the-wisp expedition, as it turned out, but, fortunately, I was
unaware of this at the time. I say fortunately, because had I known that
she had already left Australia for Samoa, I should certainly have
returned to England, in despair of tracing her any further, and thereby
one of my most interesting experiences would have been lost.

The illness in Melbourne, already referred to, detained me for over a
fortnight, so it was necessary to transfer my New Zealand ticket from
one boat to another. So the illness also must have been one of the
factors that was involved in the adventure, as I have called it. For the
delay led to my meeting--in a friend's house--Mr Arthur Kitchener (a
younger brother of Lord Kitchener), who was introduced to me on the
special ground that we were to be fellow-travellers to New Zealand a day
or two later. As a matter of fact, Mr Kitchener was on his way from
England to New Zealand, where he was superintending a sheep-run for his
father in those days. He had come out by P. & O., and transhipped at
Melbourne after two or three days' delay there.

Several other passengers from the _Massilia_ were also going on to New
Zealand, and naturally they felt like old friends after the five or six
weeks already spent together. They thought _I_ wanted to be alone, and I
thought _they_ wanted to be alone, and so I kept severely to the upper
deck, feeling often lonely, and they all remained on the lower deck,
wishing I would come down and talk to them sometimes. In spite of these
misconceptions on either side, Mr Kitchener and I became sufficiently
friendly for him to give me a very kind and hospitable invitation to
spend the last few days of the year at his "station," about nine miles
from Dunback, in the Dunedin district. I think I must have told him of
my disappointment in missing my companion in Sydney, after travelling so
many thousand miles to join her, and doubtless he felt some interest in
this Stanley and Livingstone sort of chase, with two women taking the
principal characters!

Anyway, the invitation was given and accepted, and he kindly promised to
ask one or two people to meet me in his house.

All this came to pass some weeks later, on my return from the New
Zealand lakes, and just before an expedition to the "Sounds," generally
known as the "Sounds Trip."

This is a pleasure trip, organised for early January, which is, of
course, midsummer there. It lasts for ten days, and gives one the
opportunity of seeing to the best advantage these glorious inlets of the
sea.

My week at the sheep station was to precede this, as I have explained;
in fact, as the steamer sailed late in the afternoon, it was possible to
go on board without stopping for the night at Dunedin, whence we were to
sail. But at the last moment a slight contretemps took place. Owing to
some delay the steamer would not be able to leave till Monday, instead
of the Saturday morning as arranged, and our kind host insisted on
extending his hospitality for the two extra days.

Now each day there had been some talk about having an impromptu
_seance_, and each day I had successfully evaded the arrangement. I have
a great dislike to sitting in casual circles with strangers, and it
seemed to me that no good purpose would be served by doing so. It is
impossible on these occasions to convince anyone else that you are not
pushing or "muscle moving," or generally playing tricks, and it has
always seemed to me that the time wasted over mutual recriminations on
these points, or the silly jokes that appear inevitable, when two or
three human beings at a table get together in a private house; might be
much more profitably spent.

Table turning as a parlour game is about as stupid and aimless an
amusement as I know. I represented all this to Mr Kitchener, but in
vain. He had attended some psychic meetings in Dunback or Dunedin, and
evidently wished me to reconsider the matter. Also it happened to be the
last day of the year, when people are always more inclined to be
obliging, I suppose; anyway that Saturday night, 31st December 1887,
found me sitting down to a table in the little drawing-room of that
far-away sheep station.

As some reward for any virtue there may have been in yielding my point,
I remembered suddenly that George Eliot's message on 28th October--two
months previously--had been rather vague, and that it might be
interesting, if the chance came, to find out whether "_before another
year has rolled away_" meant a year from 28th October, or the year of
which so few hours still remained to us.

After the usual inanities--"_I am sure you are pushing._" "No; _you_
are! _I saw your fingers pressing heavily._" "_Why, how extraordinary!
that is exactly what I thought about you_," etc. etc., it was intimated
that a spirit was there giving the name of George Eliot, so I put my
question at once.

"I did not mean another year from October last--I referred to this
year," was the answer.

"Shall I be able to write automatically?" was my next query.

"No; leave that alone--it would be very dangerous for you at present."

"Shall I be able to hear? Shall I become clair-audient?"

"No," came for the second time.

My next question naturally was: "Then shall I be able to _see_ very
soon?"

"Yes; for you will become clairvoyant for the first time. Remember my
warning to use but not abuse the gift."

Now I must explain that all this time a good deal of the usual kind of
joking had been going on. Moreover, I felt intuitively that Mr Kitchener
thought I was deceiving myself into the idea that human muscles could
not account for the movements, and, in fact, the very worst possible
conditions for getting anything of value were present.

So much so that I did not for one moment suppose that it was really
George Eliot, or that she would countenance that particular sort of
buffoonery, and the incident made no impression upon me at all. I had
already taken my hands off the table, when someone--Mr Kitchener, I
think--banged it down four times, and then triumphantly observed: "_Yes,
of course, you will see somebody during the night, or rather at four
o'clock in the morning, you see!_" The whole thing was the kind of
fiasco I had expected, "degenerating into a romp," as poor Corney Grain
used to remark about the "Lancers" and the stern old lady in the
suburban villa.

The bathos of table turning had surely been reached when it came to
banging the leg of the table down four times, and calmly announcing four
o'clock as the time for my first vision!

But the remarkable point is that I _did_ have my first vision that
night, though it had come and gone long before four A.M.

It is necessary to remember that the sun rises about three-thirty A.M.
during the end of December or first week in January out there, so it
would have been fairly light before four A.M.; whereas when I woke out
of my first sleep that night, it was pitch dark.

My room was the usual whitewashed apartment to be found in the ordinary
colonial "station," with a wooden bed standing about two or three feet
from the wall, and parallel with the only window in the room; which
faced the door (at the foot of my bed), and was fitted with a very dark
green blind, on account of the hot summer sunshine.

But it was now pitch dark in the room. I woke facing the window, but
turned on my side, as one generally does on such occasions, and this
brought me face to face with the wall. To my infinite amazement there
stood between the wall and my bed, a diaphanous figure of a woman, quite
life size or rather more, with one arm held out in a protecting fashion
towards me, and some drapery about the head. The features were,
moreover, quite distinct, and, as I afterwards realised, the counterpart
of George Eliot's curious and Savonarola-like countenance. But at the
moment, oddly enough, I only thought of two things--first, how
extraordinary that what had appeared to me such a silly waste of time
overnight should have had any element of reality about it! Then swiftly
came the second idea: "And how in the world does it happen that I don't
feel a bit frightened?"

I lay there absolutely content and peaceful, with a feeling of blissful
satisfaction which I have never exactly realised either before or since
that one occasion.

"_Everything is all right--nothing can really ever go wrong--nothing at
least that matters at all. All the real things are all right. I can
never doubt the truth of these things after this experience. It was
promised, and the promise has been redeemed._" These were the thoughts
that passed idly through my brain as I lay--fully awake--and looked up
at the comforting woman's figure. For it seemed more--much more--than a
mere vision. I have spoken of the figure as diaphanous because it was
not as solid as an ordinary human being, but, on the other hand, I could
not see the wall through it: it was too solid for that. Then I
remembered a story told in _The Athenaeum_--of all papers--and written by
a Dr Jephson, of his experience whilst paying a visit to Lord Offord,
and making notes--late at night--in the library of the house for some
literary work on hand. He had finished his notes, put away the book of
reference, looked at his watch, found the hands marking two A.M. (so
far as I remember), and had just said to himself: "Well, I shall be in
bed by two-thirty after all," when, turning round, he found a large
leather chair close to his own, tenanted by a Spanish priest in some
ancient dress!

Thinking it might be an hallucination, he deliberately turned
round--_away_ from the priest--rubbed his eyes, and then slowly looked
back again. Still the priest was there, and Dr Jephson then realised for
the first time that, although not _consciously frightened_ or alarmed in
any way, he was quite unable to _speak_ to the intruder. So he quietly
chose a pencil, sat down, and calmly took his portrait. The priest
politely remained until the sketch was completed, and then vanished.

This story, read some years previously, flashed through my brain, and I
thought: "_I_ will try turning round, and then seeing if she is still
there." I turned deliberately, facing the window, and then realised that
it was pitch dark in my room--not the faintest glimmer of light came
through the heavily shrouded window. "_Then it can't be four o'clock_,"
was my triumphant comment.

It would have been too disappointing had my distinguished visitor
condoned the unblushing banging down four times of the table leg, by
choosing that hour for her arrival in my room! But then again, how could
I _see_ her, since the room was quite dark? It was only necessary to
turn round once more to the wall to realise that I _did_ see her in
fact, although I ought not to have done so in theory! I saw her as
distinctly as I ever saw a marble statue in the Vatican Gallery by the
light of noon. Although I had recalled the Jephson story so
circumstantially, it never struck me that it might be interesting to
attempt any conversation, and see whether I also were tongue-tied. I did
not _want_ to speak--there seemed no special reason for speaking. It was
quite enough to lie there with this blissful feeling of protection and
love folding me round like a cloud with golden lining. And as this
consciousness held me in its loving grasp, to my infinite sorrow the
kind, protecting figure disappeared, gently and very slowly, sinking
into the ground on the spot where I had first seen her; and once more
all was dark in the room.

I lay, too happy and peaceful for movement or even speculation for some
ten minutes, and then it struck me that I had better light the candle by
my side, and find out what o'clock it might be.

Now I have a rather accurate idea of time, and can generally tell within
a minute or two how long any special work may have taken me. Looking at
my watch, I saw it was just two-twenty-five A.M., so I settled in my own
mind that I must have seen the figure at two-fifteen A.M., or possibly
at two-ten A.M., for I think the experience lasted nearly five minutes
altogether. Anyway, I felt sure that ten minutes, as nearly as possible,
had elapsed between the sinking of the figure out of sight and my
lighting the match in order to consult my watch. It may have been nine
minutes, or possibly eleven, but I feel confident the time mentioned
would be within these limits.

Therefore next morning, when our host appeared, and I was chaffed about
"the vision," I said boldly: "You think it all nonsense, and I confess
I did not believe anything that came last night when so much joking was
going on, but I was mistaken. I _did_ see, for the first time in my
life, anything abnormal." And I repeated my experience, just as I have
now written it down.

Incredulous looks greeted me, and then Mr Kitchener said quietly:

"Oh yes, you saw something at four A.M. I am not at all surprised to
hear that."

"Not at four A.M.," I answered, "but at two-fifteen A.M. I made a
special note of the time. I was asleep again long before four A.M., and
never slept better in my life."

He looked puzzled, and then suggested that my watch must have gone
wrong; but we compared notes, and our watches were registering exactly
the same hour within a minute or two.

I found out later that, having learnt something of the Thought
Transference Theory at the Dunedin Circle or Metaphysical Club which he
had attended, Mr Kitchener had attempted to _make me see_ a vision at
four A.M., but as he confessed he had been fast asleep _when_ I _did_
see (_an hour and three quarters before his efforts started_), it would
take a very ingenious person to prove that the latter had anything to do
with the occurrence.

A deeply interesting corroboration reached me, however, a few weeks
later, by which time I had visited the "Sounds," and many other places
of interest, and had arrived safely at Auckland, in the North Island.

On the morning of my vision, I must not forget to mention, that I had
spoken of it to Mr Kitchener's faithful Irish housekeeper, whose
nationality I knew would prevent her thinking me a mere lunatic. By this
time scepticism had the upper hand, and I was beginning to try to
explain away everything in the true Podmorian spirit.

Could Mr Kitchener or any other person present have had to do with the
matter? In this case my blissful feelings would naturally be merely the
result of imagination, and easily disposed of on this ground. So I
questioned the little housekeeper when she brought my hot water as to
whether it could have been possible for Mr Kitchener or anyone else in
the house to have access to a clean sheet or tablecloth, and to have
masqueraded in the garden outside my room. She indignantly denied the
possibility. "The linen is all locked up by me; besides, no one would
have been so wicked. It might have frightened you out of your senses,
ma'am! Do you suppose the master would have done such a thing?"

No; I did not really accuse anyone of such a cruel and stupid joke.
Moreover, it was a little difficult, even for Podmorian ingenuity, to
explain how man or woman, masquerading in a white sheet in the garden
outside, could convey the fairly solid figure of a faked "George Eliot,"
who stood well out between the wall and my bed; and this through a thick
green blind and curtains, when garden and room alike were shrouded in
_absolute_ darkness!

Foiled in all my attempts to find a "sensible solution" to the mystery,
I determined to write and ask Lizzie Maynard of Melbourne if _she_ could
throw any light upon matters, my decision in taking this step being
strengthened by the curious coincidence which I had just
discovered--_i.e._ that Mr Kitchener's housekeeper had lived with the
Maynards when they had had a house in Dunedin, which was later burnt
down, as so often happens in the Colonies. "Jane" had lost sight of the
Maynard family for years, and was much excited by my promising to write
and tell them of my meeting with her.

Of course, I mentioned my strange experience and all the details
connected with it--_except_ the exact hour of the occurrence. It was by
a pure oversight (as I supposed) that this fact was omitted. I have had
reason since to believe that I was unconsciously impressed to leave out
this special detail, in order that I might receive far better evidence
than would have been possible under other circumstances. Had I mentioned
the hour of the vision, the imagination of my young friends in Melbourne
might have been at work as regards the hour of _their_ experience, which
was as follows:--

Several weeks after leaving Dunback I reached Auckland, and received
amongst other letters one from Lizzie Maynard in answer to mine. Mr
Kitchener had also written, saying what nice girls my friends the
Maynards must be, and how kindly they had written to his excellent
little housekeeper, sending her welcome gifts, and saying that her
place had never been filled in their hearts, and so forth. Lizzie's
letter to me began also about the excellences of "Jane," and the
curious coincidence through which she had been once more put in touch
with her; then she went on to say:

"It is indeed very remarkable about your experience, dear Miss Bates,
but I think you will consider it much more remarkable when I tell you
what _we_ were doing that night. I was spending the week-end with our
mutual friends Captain and Mrs Boyle" (in whose house she and I had
encountered Mrs Burroughes), "and Lily Boyle and I were sleeping in
the same room, as the house was full.

"On the evening of 31st December there was a little dance arranged, to
'dance the old year out and the new year in,' and at midnight we
dispersed, the visitors going home, and those in the house retiring to
bed. Lily and I were too much excited to get into bed at once, so I
suggested that we should try to compose a letter to Miss Pearl" (this
being the lady whose writings they greatly admired. I had allowed them
to use my name as an introduction, should they wish to communicate with
her at any time).

Lizzie went on to say how nervous they were about writing the letter,
fearing that so popular an author might not take any notice of the badly
expressed letter of two young colonial girls. However, she did her best,
and Lily Boyle did _her_ best, and the result was a hopeless failure!
"Then," continued Lizzie, "a happy thought struck me--George Eliot had
used my hand to convey her message to you last October; might we not,
remembering this, appeal to her to help us in our difficulty? So we gave
up trying to write the letter ourselves, took down planchette from its
shelf, and started again. In a few moments an excellent letter was
written, giving your name as an introduction, with all the little
points you had specially begged us to remember in connection with Miss
Pearl's probable prejudices. It was so splendidly written, and so
quickly, that you can imagine our delight! We could not bear to give up
planchette even after both our names had been signed, and I said
pleadingly: '_Oh, don't go away! Do stop and tell us something more._'

"In large letters, as you see" (Lizzie enclosed the script), "was
written very decidedly:

"NO, I CANNOT STAY WITH YOU NOW--I HAVE PROMISED TO GO AND SEE
STELLA'S DAUGHTER.

"I remembered, dear Miss Bates, that G. Eliot had said your mother's
name in spirit life was _Stella_, so, of course, we knew that she meant
us to understand that she was going to see _you_.

"Unfortunately, you did not mention the hour of her visit, but we took
the time when enclosed message was written--very accurately--in order to
tell you about it, and the hour was just twelve-thirty A.M. Do write and
tell us that was the time when she appeared to you--we feel sure it must
have been--but are longing to have our idea confirmed, etc. etc."

Now my young friends had evidently entirely forgotten the difference
in time between Dunedin and Melbourne, and I must confess to my own
amazement when I found that it was considerably over the sixty
minutes, which I should have vaguely supposed it to be.

In fact, I was rather disappointed to think there was so wide a margin
between the two occurrences, until I casually asked a gentleman, who was
staying in my hotel, if he could tell me the difference in time between
the two cities.

"Not exactly, I'm afraid, but it is considerably over an hour. Ah,
there is a good atlas! I can easily calculate it for you." He remained
silent for a moment, and then raising his head, said: "As nearly an
hour and three quarters as possible." This was pretty good evidence of
the practically simultaneous experience of my friends in Melbourne at
twelve-thirty A.M., with my own at two-fifteen A.M. in the
neighbourhood of Dunedin.

When I first became acquainted with Mr Myers, shortly after my return
from Australia and New Zealand, I told him this story. He was greatly
interested, but pointed out that it was useless from the evidential
point of view unless I would take the trouble to write one or two
letters to the Colonies.

So I wrote to Mr Kitchener for confirmation of the fact that I was
staying in his house on the night of 31st December 1887, and had told
him of my experience next morning, exactly as here related. Then I had
to get Miss Lizzie Maynard's testimony with regard to her letter to
me, and finally, I think, the testimony of Lily Boyle and her father
that Miss Maynard was their guest in Melbourne on the occasion of the
New Year's Eve dance. These letters are presumably still amongst the
archives of the Society of Psychical Research, and the story was
printed by them in their Proceedings some years ago.

I may add a last evidential touch by saying that when I met Miss Pearl
for the first time after my travels, she referred to the letter she had
received--under favour of my introduction--and quite spontaneously
remarked upon its excellence, adding:

"I could scarcely believe that two young Australian girls, as they
described themselves to me, could have written such an admirable
letter."

I did not disclose the real source of the composition, as the popular
author thinks that she has no belief in spiritualism.




CHAPTER IV

HONG KONG, ALASKA, AND NEW YORK


The spring months of 1888 found me at Brisbane, _en route_ for China,
after spending a pleasant month with old friends on a well-known
station belonging to the late Sir Arthur Hodgson, named Eton Vale, and
situated on the beautiful and healthy Darling Downs of Queensland.

Before returning to Sydney from New Zealand, my female "Dr
Livingstone" had reappeared upon the scene in the most unexpected
manner. Our "historical meeting" took place in an Auckland hotel,
where she suddenly turned up one day, driven back from Samoa by the
intense heat. So after some gentle recriminations, she "having
supposed the delay on my part might mean an entire change of plan,"
and I having supposed--from her letters--that Sydney was such a
Paradise that she could hardly be dragged from it even by a flaming
sword, we agreed to cry "quits," and continue our travels together. So
Miss Greenlow spent the month of March in Sydney, whilst I paid my
visit to Queensland, and we met once more at Brisbane to take steamer
for Thursday Island, Cape Darwin, and eventually Hong Kong. Only one
small matter of psychic interest occurred during this voyage.

I have mentioned in a previous chapter the little "swallows," which I
first saw in San Francisco in the year 1886. I had been accustomed to
seeing them ever since that date, and had been frequently commiserated
for incipient eye trouble in consequence, by more than one sceptical
friend.

On the very day we went on board the Hong Kong steamer at Brisbane, a
new sign appeared: a single bird, holding in its beak a ring with half
hoop of five stones, presumably diamonds. I told my friend about this,
but neither she nor I could imagine any significance in it. At that time
we had not even met any of our fellow-passengers to speak to, for we
were all taken up with settling into our cabins and trying to make
ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

For a whole week the same little bird and the same ring were
persistently held up before me. Then an inkling of the possible meaning
broke upon me suddenly. Within a fortnight of our sailing this suspicion
was confirmed, and the little bird's warning or suggestion amply
justified. But "that is another story!" Curiously enough, the new "sign
in the heavens" was withdrawn as soon as I had grasped its meaning.

I must hasten over our delightful stay in Japan, because amongst much of
extreme interest from artistic, social, and various other points of
view, nothing occurred which has any special bearing on my present
subject.

Leaving Japan eventually by sailing from Yokohama to Vancouver
(Washington territory), the old threads were once more put into my
hands.

We made the acquaintance on board the old P. & O. _Abyssinia_ of the
late Captain MacArthur, a kindly and genial naval man. He was an
Australian by birth, but belonged to our English navy, and was just
returning home on his promotion as commander.

He became rather interested in my "queer ideas," and ended by suggesting
some experiments with "the table," so he persuaded the ship's carpenter
to put together a small rough wooden table. The sittings were held,
generally after dinner, in either my cabin or that of my "stable
companion" Miss Greenlow. So far as I remember, we three were the only
sitters, and I am bound to confess the sittings were sometimes very
monotonous, even viewed from the indulgent perspective of a sea voyage.
In fact, I can now recall only one incident of any real value.

The dear old nurse, spoken of in my opening chapter, had now been for
three or four years on the other side of the veil, but had never given
me the slightest sign of her presence. But she came several times during
this voyage, and always with the same object--namely, to entreat, and
finally _implore me_, to give up a projected tour in Alaska.

Miss Greenlow and I had been prevented from undertaking this, two years
earlier, when visiting Victoria (Vancouver), and she was very keen to go
there from Washington territory on this occasion. I was _not_ keen for
the expedition, but had made no strong objection to it, and it was
understood that we should go together.

This was the tour which my old nurse now pleaded so anxiously should be
given up, so far as _I_ was concerned.

"_It will ruin your health, my darling_," she said more than once.
"_Don't go there; take my advice._" And on one occasion, just before
landing, she added: "_You will find letters awaiting you which will
enable you to make other plans._"

This proved true--in a certain way. The first letter opened in the
budget which fell to my share, told me of the sudden death of our family
solicitor, which would have been a good excuse for a hasty return to
England had any such pretext been necessary.

But this was not the case, for my companion, although quite determined
to go to Alaska herself, was not in the least inclined to over-persuade
me to accompany her. She was a very independent woman, quite accustomed
to travelling alone, and I knew that neither her enjoyment nor her
convenience would be affected by my decision one way or the other. I had
no wish to go myself, and, moreover, thought it quite probable that my
dear old nurse's warnings might be amply justified. But there were other
grave considerations to be taken into account, and I still feel that I
adopted the right, although not the pleasanter course, when I allowed my
fellow-passengers to depart East, joking me on my want of faith in the
warnings from the spirits, and accompanied my friend, very unwillingly,
to Alaska.

My nurse's earnest entreaties were only too fully justified on the
physical plane, to say nothing of the miserable discomfort of the trip
(which in those days had to be made in an overcrowded cargo boat.) I
took a chill in those Arctic regions, which later developed into the
longest and most serious illness of my life. It took months to make even
a partial recovery, and the effects will remain during my life. Yet I
have never regretted my decision.

This little episode seems to throw some light upon the way such warnings
should be treated. To give no heed to them on the one hand, or to follow
them blindly, _in spite of every other consideration_, on the other;
these seem to me the Scylla and Charybdis of our lives. It shows that we
_must_ judge for ourselves; we cannot shift the burden of responsibility
on any other shoulders. How could we gain the real education of life
were it otherwise?

Had I turned my back on Alaska I should have gained enormously,
physically speaking, and yet failed in a moral test. But my dear old
nurse, who considered only--probably _saw_ only--the physical evils to
be avoided, was entirely in the right, _from her standpoint_. The
faithful soul was doing her best to shield her nursling from danger.

A severe illness was entailed by my Alaska experiences. "Livingstone and
Stanley" were once more separated. In other words, Miss Greenlow was
obliged to return to England alone, leaving me to be nursed through a
long and painful illness by kind friends and connections in Toronto. One
of my doctors--the brother of my hostess--kindly made time to take me
and my nurse to New York, in order that he might put me under the
special care of the ship's doctor, and also be able to certify, as
required, that I was in a fit condition to undertake the voyage.

It was during the day or two spent in New York before sailing, that I
induced this gentleman to accompany me one evening to a _seance_ held by
Mrs Stoddart Gray, who has been previously mentioned in this narrative.

Dr Theodore Covernton had all the ordinary doctor's prejudices against
anything unseen or unknown. He had read my book on America, and
considered the chapter on "Spiritualism" a lamentable lapse "from the
good sense shown in the rest of the book!" I represented to him that for
a physician to deny all possibilities of Hypnotism or Mesmerism, Thought
Transmission, etc., meant losing some very valuable aids in his
profession, and would probably soon mean being left pretty badly behind
in the race.

Knowing of no specially good hypnotist in New York, and as there was no
time to find one out, I boldly suggested that he should plunge into
still deeper depths of "folly," and accompany me to the house of Mrs
Stoddart Gray.

The usual performances went on, but whether owing to Dr Covernton's
attitude of mind or other causes, nothing of any special interest to him
or to me occurred.

One incident impressed him, I think; certainly he could suggest no
possible explanation of it, for it happened in a very fair amount of
light and close to our feet. A gentleman and lady were sitting in the
circle who had brought with them their little boy, a child of seven
years old. I had asked the lady if she considered it wise to bring so
young a child into such a _milieu_, several hours after an English child
would have been put to bed, and her answer was cheery and
characteristic:

"Well, I guess we shouldn't have much peace at home if we didn't bring
Charlie along with us to see his Granny. We took him once, and since
then he always insists upon coming. He loves talking to his Granny, and
he is not a bit afraid of her."

At this moment a small frail woman stepped out from the cabinet, and
came right up towards us, motioning to the little grandson that she
wished him to go into the cabinet with her. This he did without a
moment's hesitation, and the curtain fell, and concealed them both from
view. The interview lasted for some minutes, and when the little boy
reappeared, he was holding his Granny by the hand, and was evidently on
the best of terms with her. I do not expect my readers to believe me,
but this is exactly what happened next:

The child had brought some toys--a little train and some building
blocks--"to get Granny to play with him as usual," and the fragile old
lady knelt down on the floor, and played with him just as any ordinary
Granny might have done, only with far more agility.

In the very midst of their brick building and train starting, a terrible
catastrophe occurred, which spoilt the rest of the evening for the poor
child. Granny had evidently forgotten that her time was limited, by
conditions of which we are still profoundly ignorant.

Quite suddenly, and without a word of warning, she disappeared, not into
the cabinet at her back, but right through the carpet under our feet,
and well within a yard of the said feet, and this with two or three
gas-jets burning over our heads!

There was no mistake about it. Dr Covernton and I were sitting next to
the father and mother, whilst the child and his grandmother played at
our feet. One moment she was there; the next she had disappeared like a
flash into a mere cloud of mist, and even this was quickly withdrawn,
apparently through the floor. No trap-door theory could account for
this, because the _woman_ had disappeared, and only the wisp of ethereal
garments remained, before the latter were also dissipated. We must,
moreover, note the difficulty of working a trap door immediately under
the feet of a sceptical young physician, who at once investigated the
carpet, hoping in vain to find in it some solution of the mystery!

I have already mentioned that the whole incident took place, in light
sufficiently good to read a book without