296 MY LIFE [Chap. 



the present day a large number of its phenomena, at first 

 denied, and afterwards sneered at or ignored, have now 

 become recognized and included among the undoubted facts 

 of physiological or psychical science. 



Among the friends with whom I investigated the subject 

 was Mr. Marshman, at that time Agent-General for New 

 Zealand, and Miss Buckley. Both were friends of Samuel 

 Butler, the author of those remarkable works, " Erewhon " 

 and ''Life and Habit." Mr. Marshman invited him to a 

 stance at his house, with myself and several other friends ; 

 but he thought it all trickery. I sent him a copy of my book, 

 and he wrote me three letters in a week, chiefly to explain 

 that the whole subject bored him. In his first letter he says 

 that Mr. Marshman and Miss Buckley are two of the clearest- 

 headed people he knows, and therefore he cannot help be- 

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

 I saw at the Marshmans' was impudent humbug." In the 

 second he 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 m^—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 certai 1 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 itr 



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

 for what he thought I might consider rather unreasonable in 



