WCP3010

[1]¹

Hotel De Russie,

Naples.

Feb 1st 1870

My dear Wallace

I thank you very much for your prompt response to my note, I am obliged to go North so quickly that I am doubly obliged to you for replying so immediately. I rejoice that you are going to bring out your essays² in a separate form, I have often wished that they could be so obtained.

I have not failed to avail myself of the opportunities which have, through your agency, being been open to me & I think it only due to you to send a short account of what has transpired. At the same time I request you to keep it to yourself till my return and I am anxious that till then my family should not know anything about it.

Nothing could have exceeded the kindness which your good friends M^r3 and M^rs4 Guppy have shown to me[2] and I have felt quite ashamed of the quantity of their time I have taken up. Besides morning calls and a walk, they have given me three seances (all to myself) & have most kindly promised to give me a fourth and last this evening as to-morrow morning I start on my road northward.

At the first seance there was nothing but taps — questions were replied to, two of which much surprised me, as they were only asked mentally. A remedy was indicated for an affliction of the teeth which I have tried & belief to believe were[?] pure[?] efficacious.

At the second seance, (the first dark one I ever attended) flowers were produced. The door was locked the room searched & all requisite precautions taken.

I was not surprised because of all I had heard from you & others but the phenomenon was to me convincing — one such fact is as good as a hundred.

At the 3^d seance (last night) [3] I prefered [sic] to ask questions to having a repetition of the flowers. The value of the answers received time may show. I have received a wrong answer (as to a person being tall) also as to there being a letter awaiting me at me at my Hotel. Altogether the conclusions I have arrived at are as follows.

I. I have encountered a power capable of removing sensible[?] objects in a way altogether new to me.

II I have encountered an intelligence other than that of the visible assistants.

III In my seances this intelligence has shown itself capable of leading my thought but yet either liable to fall into error or else not strictly truthful.

IV It has been sometimes capricious saying it will not do what it has afterwards done & that it will do what it has nevertheless failed to perform.

You will not I hope mind my being referred to you — for on au asking how I was to get information on three subjects, the reply was I was to contact you & to go to [4] those you should recommend. I was then told theref that there was ^someone someone I might go[?] see (regarding these matters) at Vienna but when the power was asked if it would say who this was it replied "no" & also "no" to the question whether it would indicate any way in which I might find the person out — I was also informed I had medium power myself! Should you in any seance hear about this person at Vienna or have anything else to say to me, please write to the Poste restante there — I expect to be at Vienna in 10 to 14 days — I am precluded from saying how much I like your friends because I think this letter is to be read by them — but I am not precluded from thanking you, my dear Wallace, for the introduction which I do very heartily.

remaining always | yours very truly | St. George Mivart [signature]