324 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



repeated under several reasonable alterations of conditions, 

 designed to exclude merely human powers of trickery/' his 

 objections and his incredulity were quite logical and scientific. 

 He also urged that the mental tests and that of the un- 

 expected answer about Bellew did not require any other 

 intelligence, because equally unexpected things and sayings 

 occurred in dreams, in which we ourselves supply the whole 

 of the matter dreamt of He therefore thought " that a man 

 may, unconsciously, or subconsciously, supply the other side 

 of a dialogue when he is wideawake, just as well as he can 

 when he is fast asleep." This shows how ingenious was 

 my correspondent as a dialectician, and rendered me disin- 

 clined to carry on a further correspondence which seemed 

 likely to be a long one. He quite overlooked, however, 

 the circumstance that our correspondence began, not on 

 account of his being unconvinced by what he witnessed, 

 but by using the fact that I, after much longer experience 

 and a much wider acquaintance with the subject, had 

 been convinced, as a weapon against me in a scientific 

 argument. 



However, on the whole, he took my criticism, and even 

 my ridicule, in very good part — better, in fact, than I expected 

 — and he was completely mystified when I told him that my 

 knowledge of his letters did not come directly or indirectly 

 through any of Darwin's family. In order to relieve their 

 minds of such a supposition, I told them how I got to see 

 copies of the letters. 



In this letter, however, he gave me an account of a " sack 

 trick " he had seen, which he thought as wonderful as anything 

 he saw with Williams, but which he persuaded the performer 

 to show him the secret of As I think this may interest my 

 readers, I will give it in his own words. 



" But for the fact that he is now dead, I could have 

 introduced you to an American medium who would have 

 gone to your own house, and allowed you to furnish your 

 own cabinet, handcuffs, canvass sack, twine, sealing-wax, and 

 seal. Having fastened his hands together behind his back by 

 means of handcuffs as tightly as possible, you might have 



