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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 séance 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 séance 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 séance 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 séance 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 séance 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 séance 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 séance 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 séance 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 évidence, 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 séance 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 séance, 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 séance 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 séance, 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 séances?"

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 séance 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]