WCP4771

15. Clifford Inn

E.C.

May 27. 1879.

Dear Sir—

Pray forgive me, I am sure I must have said rather more than I ought.¹ A friend was with me when your letter came; I send it to him and he said "If you grant Mr Wallace his facts— and you do not deny them— he is perfectly right and your answer does not meet him at all. He tells you that you are engaged on certain investigations in which your opinions must be [surely] altered if you accept his [2] facts— you admit this yourself— you do not deny his facts— and say that you do not care— this is childish."

The only place in which he said you were not so right was about Handel, for he said "Handel’s music is a more universally accepted fact in respect to music in general than Spiritualism in respect of the other facts which you are dealing with."

I admitted the truth of what he said; and I feel therefore that an apology is due to you, which pray understand me as making without [3] reserve.

I have read the further part of the book you so kindly for[warde]^d me,² and shall read every word of it— I admire the force and clearness with which it is written, every word of it impressing one that it is written by one who understands his own meaning and wishes other to understand it— but I cannot pretend that it has kindled in me that inward motion to see and hear more without which you & I both know no good can come if any investigation. If this is that spiritual world independent of matter, which you believe in, a day may come when something will happen to me which will kindle in a [4] [1 word illegible] the right spirit of saying: no one will follow it up more promptly or persistently when it is assured— If that time never comes, it must be taken as a sign that I am not one of those for whom that cause would grow[?].

Hoping you will forgive me for any [1 word illegible] that I fear I have been guilty of—

Believe me | Y[ou]^rs. very truly, | S[amuel]. Butler³ [signature]