As a matter of fact I never slept at all; such talk kept me wide awake. One day, however, when called from the room he gave into my hand the glass ball which he had been holding and said, "Hold this over your eyes yourself." I did so when left alone and my eyes soon closed. I dropped the ball, and when the good doctor returned he found me in a deep slumber. I began to get well soon after and I sought my friend the distinguished English composer, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, principal of the Royal Academy of Music, whom I had met on several occasions in Florence, and told him of my disappointment in not being able to sing. He said, "Let me hear you. You used to sing all right; I remember you in Italy." After I had done my best for him, he said in his kindly Scotch manner: "There is nothing the matter with you. Go ahead and try it. There is nothing worse for a singer than not to sing."

CHAPTER IX

SPIRITS AND SOOTHSAYING

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.- Shakespeare.

THROUGH Doctor Tuckey and his friends I had invitations to attend the meetings of the Society for Psychical Research, held in Westminster Town Hall, and there I heard a number of the papers which had been carefully prepared by Professors F. W. Myers, Sidgwick, Crookes, Mr. Gurney, Sir Oliver Lodge, and their associates. While not going into these matters to any extent myself, I look back with interest upon having heard the first public reading of papers which have since become so famous. In the good faith and earnestness of these distinguished men of science I have the utmost confidence, though with Madame Blavatsky, whom I also met at this time, I had no patience; but the cleverness of the beautiful Mrs. Anne Besant almost persuaded me to become whatever she was. Fortunately, my head had been screwed on pretty tightly by my Quaker ancestors, and I was not to be easily blown by every wind of doctrine; I must confess however that though I once went to an exponent of the New Thought for the toothache, it was not long before I sought the aid of an accredited American dentist, realizing the truth of the conundrum then current in London, "What is matter?" to which the answer was "Never mind," and "What is mind?" the reply being "No matter."

I went to two spiritualistic séances eager to test for myself what Hamilton Aïdé had both told me of and written about shortly before in a magazine article called, "Were We Hypnotized?" The query was intended to solve the problem whether or not a select company of clever men could have been deceived by the medium Hume through hypnotism, or by some other means, into believing that what they saw, in full light and with every opportunity to investigate, had actually taken place. If these things happened it must have been by the operation of a law so far unknown. If they did not happen though the company took oath that they did happen,then they must have been subtly deceived into believing to the end that they saw what could not have taken place at all, for it was contrary to all human experience.

I went with my friend Francis James, the artist, who had known Hume, to my first séance. On the way there James told me that he did not believe in Hume, and yet that in broad daylight he, and the others assembled in a London drawing-room, saw performed the act of levitation. Hume by some agency was lifted six or eight inches from the floor, carried through a long, open window out to the balcony, along the whole length of the balcony, and in at the open window at the other end, where he was deposited again upon the drawing-room floor.

When we arrived at the house of the professional medium and the gas was turned out strange noises began; the rattling of pictures and maps hanging on the wall, knockings upon the table and the doors leading into the passage and into the front drawing-room. I felt hands touching me; heard a voice speaking to me through a cardboard tube such as is used to carry music through the mails. Before the lights were extinguished I had noticed my old friend the zither, which presently arose, as of its own accord, and could be seen to move about the room over our heads as we sat, its position clearly indicated by a large spot of luminous paint on its under side, playing as it went a jingling tune. As the eye followed it down the room it reached the door and disappeared with a thud, and through the folded doors could be heard playing, seemingly in the front room. The sound began getting louder as it again approached the dividing doors; another thud and suddenly the bright spot reappeared in the back room. I uttered an exclamation of astonishment and incredulity, when to my amazement the instrument settled down on top of my head and played "Yankee Doodle "!

I came away mystified but not in the least converted, and to me the whole thing was hocus-pocus.

One of my companions, however, more impressed than I, declared to me subsequently: "Of course it's all nonsense; but there's a lot in it!" My judgment is, that whatever there is " in it" goes to the alleged spiritists. Nevertheless, sometimes the spirits, or whatever they are, manage to hit off something so startlingly true as to make one thoughtful.

I used to visit a country house near London, where the daughter of the hostess, a woman socially distinguished, was one of the most remarkable psychic subjects ever known. The brothers of the young lady were officers in the Life Guards, and every one in that household of the greatest refinement would have frowned upon anything bordering upon chicanery; yet no one could explain, and all stood in awe of the manifestations which quite unexpectedly might happen through the hand of their sister. Though not normally an artist, she would on a sudden paint pictures indistinguishable from those of Blake, write in foreign languages with which she was unacquainted, or extemporaneously compose poetry of great grandeur. In one instance, the poem thus produced afterward proved to be the translation of a papyrus found upon the body of an Egyptian mummy in the British Museum.

This lady, who knew nothing of my private affairs, once seated herself in the large hall of their house with a crystal ball in her hand. As she looked into it she soon began to say the names of a number of the letters of the alphabet, in no apparent order or with any connection with each other. Her mother, herself writing down what was said, called hastily to another member of the family and to one of the brothers, "Note carefully what she says." For years the family had recorded everything coming from her in this way. Presently the sensitive ceased speaking, and the three after comparing notes and deciphering the message, every word of which was spelled backward, presented a paper to me which I read with amazement. Let me say that I had been puzzled by the non-arrival of a sum of money due to me through the hands of an American agent, whose honesty had been questioned by an acquaintance. The message received from the crystal-gazer read as follows:

You must not be concerned that you have not heard from your agent. He has been ill and unable to attend to your business, about which you need have no fear whatever.

This was on a Sunday afternoon. Upon returning to my home in London, the first letter I opened in the mail Monday morning was from this man, enclosing the expected draft and apologizing for the delay, which was due to his ill health.