WCP5751

[1] [p. 209]

To Mr. J. W. Marshall.

Parkstone, Dorset. March 6, 1894.

My dear Marshall, — We were very much grieved to hear of your sad loss in a letter from Violet. Pray accept our sincere sympathy for Mrs. Marshall and yourself.

Death makes us feel, in a way nothing else can do, the mystery of the universe. Last autumn I lost my sister, and she was the only relative I have been with at the last. For the moment it seems unnatural and incredible that the living self with its special idiosyncrasies you have known so long can have left the body, still more unnatural that it should (as so many now believe) have utterly ceased to exist and become nothingness!

With all my belief in, and knowledge of, Spiritualism, I have, however, occasional qualms of doubt, the remnants of my original deeply ingrained scepticism; but my reason goes to support the psychical and spiritualistic phenomena in telling me that there must be a hereafter for us all… — Believe me yours very sincerely, ALFRED R. WALLACE.