People who wish to argue against Spiritualism are quite sure, as a rule, that media will descend to any trickery and cheating for the sake of gain. If you reply, as in my own case, that the sÉances have been given as a free-will offering, they say that they expected introductions or popularity or advertisement in exchange. But what can be adduced against the medium who lends his or her powers to a person whom he has never seen, and probably never will see, and for no reason, excepting that his controls urge him to the deed? Such a man is Mr. George Plummer of Massachusetts, America. In December, 1887, when my mind was very unsettled, my friend Miss Schonberg advised me to write to this medium and ask his advice. She told me I must not expect an immediate reply, as Mr. Plummer kept a box into which he threw all the letters he received from strangers on spiritualistic subjects, and when he felt impressed to do so, he went and took out one, haphazard, and wrote the answer that was dictated to him. All I had to do was to enclose an addressed envelope, not a stamped one, in my letter, to convey the answer back again. Accordingly, I prepared a diplomatic epistle to this effect. "Dear sir,—Hearing that you are good enough to sit for strangers, I shall be much obliged if you will let me know what you see for me.—Yours truly, F. Lane." It will be seen that I transposed the letters of my name "Lean." I addressed the return envelope in the same manner to the house in Regent's Park, which I then occupied, and I wrote it all in a feigned hand to conceal my identity as much as possible. The time went on and I heard nothing from Mr. Plummer. I was touring in the provinces for the whole of 1888, and at the end of the year I came back to London and settled down in a new house in a different quarter of the town. By this time I had almost forgotten Mr. Plummer and my letter to him, and when in December, 1889, two years after I had sent it, my own envelope in my own handwriting, forwarded by the postal authorities from Regent's Park, was brought to me, I did not at first recognize it. I kept twisting it about, and thinking how like it was to my own writing, when the truth suddenly flashed on me. I opened it and read as follows:

"Georgetown, November 28th, 1889.

"Mrs. Lane,—Dear Madam,—Please pardon me for seeming neglect in answering your request. At the time of receiving your letter I could not write, and it got mislaid. Coming across it now, even at the eleventh hour, I place myself in condition to answer. I see a lady with dark blue eyes before me, of a very nervous life—warm-hearted—impulsive—tropical in her nature. A woman of intense feeling—a woman whose life has been one of constant disappointment. To-day the current of life flows on smoothly but monotonous. I sense from the sphere of this lady, a weariness of life—should think she felt like Alexander, because there are no more worlds for her to conquer. She is her own worst enemy. Naturally generous, she radiates her refined magnetic sphere to others, and does not get back that which she can utilize. I see a bright-complexioned gentleman in earth life—brave, generous, and kind—but does not comprehend your interior life. And yet thinks the world of you to-day. I feel from you talent of a marked order. And yet life is a disappointment. Not but what you have been successful in a refined, worldly sense, but your spiritual nature has been repressed. The society you move in is one of intellectual culture; that is not of the soul. And it is soul food that you are hungering for to-day. You are an inspired woman. Thought seems to you, all prepared, so to speak. But it does not seem to free the tiny little messengers of your soul life. Somehow I don't feel that confidence in myself in writing to you. The best kind of a reading is usually obtained in reading to a person direct. But if I don't meet your case we will call it a failure and let it go. The year of 1890 is going to be more favorable to you than for the last ten years. I think in some way you are to meet with more reciprocity of soul. As the divining rod points to the stream of water in the earth, so I find my intuitive eye takes cognizance of your interior life. You will in a degree catch my meaning through this, and it will come clearer, more through your intuition than through your intellect. I should say to you, follow your instincts and intuitions always through life. If this throws any light over your path I am glad.—I remain, most respectfully yours,

George Plummer."

Now there are two noticeable things in this letter. First, Mr. Plummer's estimate of my interior life almost coincides with Mr. Fletcher's given in 1879, ten years before. Next, although he read it through the medium of a letter written in 1887, he draws a picture of my position and surroundings in 1889. Both these things appeared to me very curious as coming from a stranger across the Atlantic, and I answered his letter at once, still preserving my slight incognita, and telling him that as he had read so much of my life from my handwriting of so long ago, I wished he would try to read more from words which went fresh from me to him. I also enclosed a piece of the handwriting of a friend. Mr. Plummer did not keep me waiting this time. His next letter was dated February 8th, 1890.

"Dear Madam,—I received yours of January 3rd, and would have answered before, but the spirit did not move. I have been tied to a sick room going on three months, with its cares and anxieties. Not the best condition for writing. The best condition to reflect your life, to give your soul strength, is to be at rest and have all earth conditions nullified. But that cannot be to-day. So I will try to penetrate the mystery of your life as best I can, and radiate to you at least some strength. The relation of soul is the difficulty of your life, and you are so perfectly inspirational that it makes the condition worse. Grand types of Manhood and Womanhood come to you from the higher life, and your spirit and soul catch the reflection, and are disappointed because they cannot live that life. But you are getting a development out of all this friction. Now if you would come in contact with that nature that could radiate to you just what you could give to it, you would be happy. Love is absolute, you well know. Often in the exchange of thought we give each other strength. And then every letter we write, every time we shake hands, we give some of our own personality out. You are too sensitive to the spheres of people. You have such a strong personality of life that the power that inspires you could not make the perfect junction until you get so, you had rather die than live. That was a condition of negation. Now you have been running on a dead level of nothingness for two years and a half." (This was exactly the time since my daughter had been taken from me). "I mean it seems so to you. Such a sameness of things. I get from the writing of the gentleman. A good sphere—warm hearted—true to his understanding of things. He seems to be a sort of a half-way house to you. That is, you roam in the sea of Ideality, down deep, you know. And he rather holds on to matter-of-fact—sort of ballast for you. You need it. For you are, in fact, ripe for the other life, though it is not time to go yet. Although a writer, yet you are a disappointed one. No mortal but yourself knows this. You have winged your way in flights, grand and lofty, and cannot pen it, is what is the matter. Now, in time you will, more perfectly than to-day, by the touch of your pen, portray your soul and its flights. Then I see you happy. This gentleman is an auxiliary power, whether the power in full of your life I do not to-day get. You are emphatically a woman of Destiny, and should follow your impressions, for through that intuitive law you will be saved. I mean by 'saved,' leap, as it were, across difficulties instead of going round. For your soul is more positive and awake to its necessities to-day than ever before in your life, particularly in the last six months. Body marriages are good under the physical law—bring certain unfoldments. But when mortal man and woman reach a certain condition of development, they become dissatisfied, and yearn for the full fruition of love. And there is no limitation of this law. Women usually bow to the heart-love law, that sometimes brings great joy and misery. The time is ripe for rulers. There will be put into the field men, and more specifically women, who have exemplified love divine. They will teach the law so plainly that they who run can read. And it can only be taught by those who have embodied it. Some years ago, in this country, there was a stir-up. It did its work in fermentation. The next must be humanization. The material world must come under the spiritual. Women will come to the front as inspired powers. This is what comes to me to write to you to-day. If it brings strength, or one ray of sun-shine to you, I am glad.—I remain, most respectfully yours,

George Plummer."

Mr. Plummer is not occupying a high position in the world, nor is he a rich man. He gains no popularity by his letters—he hears no applause—he reaps no personal benefit, nor will he take any money. It would be difficult, with any degree of reason, to charge him with cheating the public for the sake of emptying their pockets. I fail to see, therefore, how he can obtain his insight to one's interior life by mortal means, nor, unless compelled by a power superior to his own, why he should take the trouble to obtain it.

Another medium, whose health paid the sacrifice demanded of her for the exhibition of a power over which, at one time, she had no control, and which never brought her in anything but the thanks of her friends, is Mrs. Keningale Cook (Mabel Collins), whom I have mentioned in the "Story of my Spirit Child." There was a photographer in London, named Hudson, who had been very successful in developing spirit photographs. He would prepare to take an ordinary photograph, and on developing the plate, one or more spirit forms would be found standing by the sitter, in which forms were recognized the faces of deceased friends. Of course, the generality of people said that the plates were prepared beforehand with vague misty figures, and the imagination of the sitter did the rest. I had been for some time anxious to test Mr. Hudson's powers for myself, and one morning very early, between nine and ten o'clock, I asked Mrs. Cook, as a medium, to accompany me to his studio. He was not personally acquainted with either of us, and we went so early that we found him rather unwilling to set to work. Indeed, at first he declined. We disturbed him at breakfast and in his shirt sleeves, and he told us his studio had been freshly painted, and it was quite impossible to use it until dry. But we pressed him to take our photographs until he consented, and we ascended to the studio. It was certainly very difficult to avoid painting ourselves, and the screen placed behind was perfectly wet. We had not mentioned a word to Mr. Hudson about spirit photographs, and the first plate he took out and held up to the light, we saw him draw his coat sleeve across. When we asked him what he was doing, he turned to us and said, "Are you ladies Spiritualists?" When we answered in the affirmative, he continued, "I rubbed out the plate because I thought there was something on it, and most sitters would object. I often have to destroy three or four negatives before I get a clear picture." We begged him not to rub out any more as we were curious to see the results. He, consequently, developed three photographs of us, sitting side by side. The first was too indistinct to be of any use. It represented us, with a third form, merely a patch of white, lying on the ground, whilst a mass of hair was over my knee. "Florence" afterwards informed me that this was an attempt to depict herself. The second picture showed Mrs. Cook and myself as before, with "Charlie" standing behind me. I have spoken of "Charlie" (Stephen Charles Bernard Abbott) in "Curious Coincidences," and how much he was attached to me and mine. In the photograph he is represented in his cowl and monk's frock—with ropes round his waist, and his face looking down. In the third picture, an old lady in a net cap and white shawl was standing with her two hands on Mrs. Cook's shoulders. This was her grandmother, and the profile was so distinctly delineated, that her father, Mr. Mortimer Collins, recognized it at once as the portrait of his mother. The old lady had been a member of the Plymouth Brethren sect, and wore the identical shawl of white silk with an embroidered border which she used to wear during her last years on earth. I have seen many other spirit photographs taken by Mr. Hudson, but I adhere to my resolution to speak only of that which I have proved by the exercise of my own senses. I have the two photographs I mention to this day, and have often wished that Mr. Hudson's removal from town had not prevented my sitting again to him in order to procure the likenesses of other friends.

Miss Caroline Pawley is a lady who advertises her willingness to obtain messages for others from the spirit world, but is forbidden by her guides to take presents or money. I thought at first this must be a "ruse." "Surely," I said to a friend who knew Miss Pawley, "I ought to take books, or flowers, or some little offering in my hand." "If you do she will return them," was the reply. "All that is necessary is to write and make an appointment, as her time is very much taken up." Accordingly I did write, and Miss Pawley kindly named an early date for my visit. It was but a few months after I had lost my beloved daughter, and I longed for news of her. I arrived at Miss Pawley's residence, a neat little house in the suburbs, and was received by my hostess, a sweet, placid-faced woman, who looked the embodiment of peace and calm happiness. After we had exchanged greetings she said to me, "You have lost a daughter." "I lost one about twenty years ago—a baby of ten days old," I replied. "I don't mean her," said Miss Pawley, "I mean a young woman. I will tell you how I came to know of it. I took out my memoranda yesterday and was looking it through to see what engagements I had made for to-day, and I read the names aloud to myself. As I came to the entry, 'Mrs. Lean, 3 o'clock,' I heard a low voice say behind me, 'That is my dear, dear mother!' and when I turned round, I saw standing at my elbow a young woman about the middle height, with blue eyes and very long brown hair, and she told me that it is she whom you are grieving for at present." I made no answer to this speech, for my wound was too fresh to permit me to talk of her; and Miss Pawley proceeded. "Come!" she said cheerfully, "let us get paper and pencil and see what the dear child has to say to us." She did not go under trance, but wrote rapidly for a few moments and then handed me a letter written in the following manner. I repeat (what I have said before) that I do not test the genuineness of such a manifestation by the act itself. Anyone might have written the letter, but no one but myself could recognize the familiar expressions and handwriting, nor detect the apparent inconsistencies that made it so convincing. It was written in two different hands on alternate lines, the first line being written by "Eva," and the next by "Florence," and so on. Now, my earthly children from their earliest days have never called me anything but "Mother," whilst "Florence," who left me before she could speak, constantly calls me "Mamma." This fact alone could never have been known to Miss Pawley. Added to which the portion written by my eldest daughter was in her own clear decided hand, whilst "Florence's" contribution was in rather a childish, or "young ladylike" scribble.

The lines ran thus. The italics are Florence's:—

"My own beloved mother.
My dear, dear, dearest Mamma.
You must not grieve so terribly for me.
And knowing all we have taught you, you should not grieve.
Believe me, I am not unhappy.
Of course not, and she will be very happy soon.
But I suffer pain in seeing you suffer.
Dear Mamma, do try to see that it is for the best.
Florence is right. It is best! dear Mother.
And we shall all meet so soon, you know.
God bless you for all your love for me.
Good-bye, dear, dearest Mamma.

Your own girl.
Your loving little Florence."

I cannot comment on this letter. I only make it public in a cause that is sacred to me.

To instance another case of mediumship which is exercised for neither remuneration nor applause. I am obliged in this example to withhold the name, because to betray their identity would be to ill requite a favor which was courteously accorded me. I had heard of a family of the name of D—— who held private sittings once a week, at which the mother and brothers and sisters gone before materialized and joined the circle; and having expressed my desire, through a mutual acquaintance, to assist at their sÉances, Mr. D—— kindly sent me an invitation to one. I found he was a high-class tradesman, living in a good house in the suburbs, and that strangers were very seldom (if ever) admitted to their circle. Mr. D—— explained to me before the sÉance commenced, that they regarded Spiritualism as a most sacred thing, that they sat only to have communication with their own relations, his wife and children, and that his wife never manifested except when they were alone. His earth family consisted of a young married daughter and her husband, and four or five children of different ages. He had lost, I think he told me, a grown-up son, and two little ones. William Haxby, the medium, whom I wrote of in my chapter "On Sceptics," and who had passed over since then, had been intimate with their family, and often came back to them. These explanations over, the sÉance began. The back and front parlors were divided by lace curtains only. In the back, where the young married daughter took up her position on a sofa, were a piano and an American organ. In the front parlor, which was lighted by an oil lamp, we sat about on chairs and sofas, but without any holding of hands. In a very short time the lace curtains parted and a young man's face appeared. This was the grown-up brother. "Hullo! Tom," they all exclaimed, and the younger ones went up and kissed him. He spoke a while to his father, telling what they proposed to do that evening, but saying his mother would not be able to materialize. As he was speaking, a little boy stood by his side. "Here's Harry," cried the children, and they brought their spirit brother out into the room between them. He seemed to be about five years old. His father told him to come and speak to me, and he obeyed, just like a little human child, and stood before me with his hand resting on my knee. Then a little girl joined the party, and the two children walked about the room, talking to everybody in turn. As we were occupied with them, we heard the notes of the American organ. "Here's Haxby," said Mr. D——. "Now we shall have a treat." (I must say here that Mr. Haxby was an accomplished organist on earth.) As he heard his name, he, too, came to the curtains, and showed his face with its ungainly features, and intimated that he and "Tom" would play a duet. Accordingly the two instruments pealed forth together, and the spirits really played gloriously—a third influence joining in with some stringed instrument. This sÉance was so much less wonderful than many I have written of, that I should not have included a description of it, except to prove that all media do not ply their profession in order to prey upon their fellow-creatures. The D—— family are only anxious to avoid observation. There could be no fun or benefit in deceiving each other, and yet they devote one evening in each week to holding communion with those they loved whilst on earth and feel are only hidden from them for a little while, and by a very flimsy veil. Their sÉances truly carry out the great poet's belief.

In the house of the lady I have mentioned in "The Story of the Monk," Mrs. Uniacke of Bruges, I have witnessed marvellous phenomena. They were not pleasant manifestations, very far from it, but there was no doubt that they were genuine. Whether they proceeded from the agency of Mrs. Uniacke, my sister Blanche, or a young lady called Miss Robinson, who sat with them, or from the power of all three combined, I cannot say, but they had experienced them on several occasions before I joined them, and were eager that I should be a witness of them. We sat in Mrs. Uniacke's house, in a back drawing-room, containing a piano and several book-cases, full of books—some of them very heavy. We sat round a table in complete darkness, only we four women, with locked doors and bolted windows. Accustomed as I was to all sorts of manifestations and mediumship, I was really frightened by what occurred. The table was most violent in its movements, our chairs were dragged from under us, and heavy articles were thrown about the room. The more Mrs. Uniacke expostulated and Miss Robinson laughed, the worse the tumult became. The books were taken from the shelves and hurled at our heads, several of the blows seriously hurting us; the keys of the piano at the further end of the room were thumped and crashed upon, as if they would be broken; and in the midst of it all Miss Robinson fell prone upon the floor, and commenced talking in Flemish, a language of which she had no knowledge. My sister understands it, and held a conversation with the girl; and she told us afterwards that Miss Robinson had announced herself by the name of a Fleming lately deceased in the town, and detailed many events of his life, and messages which he wished to be delivered to his family—all of which were conveyed in good and intelligible Flemish. When the young lady had recovered she resumed her place at the table, as my sister was anxious I should see another table, which they called "Mademoiselle" dance, whilst unseen hands thumped the piano. The manifestation not occurring, however, they thought it must be my presence, and ordered me away from the table. I went and stood up close against the folding doors that led into the front room, keeping my hand, with a purpose, on the handle. The noise and confusion palpably increased when the three ladies were left alone. "Mademoiselle," who stood in a corner of the room, commenced to dance about, and the notes of the piano crashed forcibly. There was something strange to me about the manifestation of the piano. It sounded as if it were played with feet instead of hands. When the tumult was at its height, I suddenly, and without warning, threw open the folding door and let the light in upon the scene, and I saw the music-stool mounted on the keyboard and hammering the notes down. As the light was admitted, both "Mademoiselle" and the music-stool fell with a crash to the floor, and the sÉance was over. The ladies were seated at the table, and the floor and articles of furniture were strewn with the books which had been thrown down—the bookshelves being nearly emptied—and pots of flowers. I was never at such a pandemonium before or after.

The late Sir Percy Shelley and his wife Lady Shelley, having no children of their own, adopted a little girl, who, when about four or five years, was seriously burned about the chest and shoulders, and confined for some months to her bed. The child's cot stood in Lady Shelley's bedroom, and when her adopted mother was about to say her prayers, she was accustomed to give the little girl a pencil and piece of paper to keep her quiet. One day the child asked for pen and ink instead of a pencil, and on being refused began to cry, and said, "The man said she must have pen and ink." As it was particularly enjoined that she must not cry for fear of reopening her wounds, Lady Shelley provided her with the desired articles, and proceeded to her devotions. When she rose from them, she saw to her surprise that the child had drawn an outline of a group of figures in the Flaxman style, representing mourners kneeling round a couch with a sick man laid upon it. She did not understand the meaning of the picture, but she was struck with amazement at the execution of it, as was everybody who saw it. From that day she gave the little girl a sheet of card-board each morning, with pen and ink, and obtained a different design, the child always talking glibly of "the man" who helped her to draw. This went on until the drawings numbered thirty or forty, when a "glossary of symbols" was written out by this baby, who could neither write nor spell, which explained the whole matter. It was then discovered that the series of drawings represented the life of the soul on leaving the body, until it was lost "in the Infinity of God"—a likely subject to be chosen, or understood, by a child of five. I heard this story from Lady Shelley's lips, and I have seen (and well examined) the original designs. They were at one time to be published by subscription, but I believe it never came to pass. I have also seen the girl who drew them, most undoubtedly under control. She was then a young married woman and completely ignorant of anything relating to Spiritualism. I asked her if she remembered the circumstances under which she drew the outlines, and she laughed and said no. She knew she had drawn them, but she had no idea how. All she could tell me was that she had never done anything wonderful since, and she had no interest in Spiritualism whatever.