3M MY LIFE 



lieving there must be something in it. " But/ 1 he says, "what 

 I - ;it the Marshmans' was impudent humbug." In the 



see. nid lie gives a curious revelation of the state of his mind 

 in a personal anecdote. He writes: "Granted that wonder- 

 ful spirit-forms have been seen and touched and then disap- 

 peared, and that there has been no delusion, no trickery. 

 Well; / don't care. I get along quite nicely as I am. I 

 don't want them to meddle with me. I had a very dear 

 friend once, whom I believed to be dying, and so did she. 

 We discussed the question whether she could communicate 

 with me after death. * Promise,' I said, and very solemnly 

 ' that if you find there are means of visiting me here on earth — 

 that if you can send a message to me — you will never avail 

 yourself of the means, nor let me hear from you when you 

 are once departed/ Unfortunately she recovered, and never 

 forgave me. If she had died, she would have come back if 

 she could ; of that I am certain by her subsequent behaviour 

 to me. I believe my instinct was perfectly right ; and I will 

 go farther: if ever a spirit-form takes to coming near me, I 

 shall not be content with trying to grasp it, but, in the interest 

 of science, / will shoot it." 



The third is a very nice letter, and is a kind of apology 

 for what he thought I might consider rather unreasonable in 

 the others, and I will therefore give it, in order that my readers 

 may not, through me, get a wrong idea of this remarkably 

 gifted though eccentric writer. 



" 15 Clifford's Inn, E.C., May 27, 1859. 

 " Dear Sir, 



" Pray forgive me. I am sure I must have said 

 rather more than I ought. A friend was with me when your 

 letter came ; I read it to him, and he said, ' If you grant Mr. 

 Wallace's facts — and you do not deny them — he is perfectly 

 right, and your answer does not meet him at all. He tells 

 you that you are engaged on certain investigations in which 

 your opinions must be entirely altered if you accept his facts. 

 You admit this yourself — you do not deny his facts — and say 

 that you do not care, — that is childish.' 



