TWO INQUIRERS INTO SPIRITUALISM 333 



and raps by which messages had been spelt out — together 

 with the usual perplexities which beset the beginner ; the mes- 

 sages being sometimes true and sometimes false, sometimes 

 totally unexpected by any one present, at other times seeming 

 to be the reflex of their own thoughts. Yet he was already 

 absolutely convinced that the sounds and motions — the phys- 

 ical part of the phenomena — were not caused in any normal 

 way by any of the persons present, and almost equally con- 

 vinced that the intelligence manifested was not that of any 

 of the circle. In some cases even his mental questions were 

 replied to. I gave him the best advice I could, and for some 

 years, being fully occupied with my own domestic affairs 

 and literary work, I saw or heard nothing more of the sub- 

 ject he had been so intent upon. At this I was not surprised, 

 as he himself was writing a series of works which gave 

 him his scientific reputation, and I thought it probable that 

 not getting the evidence he wanted, he had given up the 

 inquiry. 



But seven years later, when I was in Canada, I obtained 

 a knowledge of the correspondence between Romanes and 

 Darwin before my interview with the former, as already 

 narrated in chapter xxx. This was, to me, of extreme 

 interest because it showed how reticent Romanes was, and 

 how little he had told me of the evidence he had really 

 obtained some years before, and of the profound impres- 

 sion it had made upon him. The letters then shown me 

 were very long and full of curious details of evidence, the 

 more important of which I took notes of. Darwin's reply 

 was of the usual kind — suggestion of clever trickery; more 

 investigation required ; had no time to go into it himself, etc. 

 Of course I had no intention of referring to these letters in 

 any way without Romanes's permission, but I thought I might 

 some day ask him why he had not mentioned having written 

 to Darwin when corresponding with me and discussing this 

 very subject. But a year or two later I was surprised by 

 something he wrote as to one of the " thought readers " then 

 exhibiting in London, in a way which implied that all such 

 phenomena were clever trickery by means of muscle-reading, 



