XXXVI] TWO INQUIRERS INTO SPIRITUALISM 313 



" I am greatly obliged to you for your advice, but some 

 time I should like to have a talk with you to benefit by your 

 large experience of a subject with which I have hitherto had 

 but small acquaintance. Could you fix any date towards 

 the latter end of next month ? 



" I am, yours truly, 



"Geo. J. Romanes." 



After receiving my reply I had another short letter, as 

 follows : — 



" I am exceedingly pleased to hear that you are so dis- 

 posed to assist me with your advice. Time, money, tolerance, 

 and patience I have in abundance, but I lack experience in 

 a subject which, till recently, I rejected as beneath considera- 

 tion. Therefore, under various circumstances that may 

 arise, I doubt not that your advice may be of much service 

 to me. Thus already you have presented a point of no 

 small importance to me, viz. that I must not count too 

 confidently on being always able to repeat results, even 

 supposing them to be genuine. But, after all, my principal 

 object is to satisfy my own mind upon the subject. If I 

 could obtain any definite evidence of mind unassociated 

 with any observable organization, the fact would be to me 

 nothing less than a revelation — * life and immortality 

 brought to light ' — and although I might say to others, 

 *Come and see,* my chief end would have been attained 

 if I could say, * I have found that of which the prophets (to 

 wit, Crookes, Wallace, Varley, and the rest) have spoken.' 



" I will therefore be most happy to accept your invitation 

 to go to Croydon some day to gain some preliminary ideas 

 on the subject. I shall write again to fix a day." 



These two letters express very clearly the writer's position 

 and general ideas, with which I myself was completely in 

 accord. They also are very characteristic of his somewhat 

 wordy and involved style of writing, and of some peculiarities 

 of character. But the first was specially interesting to my- 

 self by showing me that my book, which had been published 

 six years before, had really produced some effect among men 



