March 30, 1897. “I wished to see and realize that some of the mortal world’s great musicians really existed, and asked to be visited by some one or more of them.  When this was expressed, instantly several appeared before me, and Rubinstein stood before me playing upon an instrument like a harp at first.  Then the instrument was changed and a piano appeared and he played upon it with the most delightful ease and grace of manner.  While he was playing the whole atmosphere was filled with his strains of music.”

She wanted to see Rembrandt, and he came, with a quantity of pictures.  She wanted a symphony, and an orchestra “of some thirty musicians” at once appeared and gave her several, which she enjoyed to the full.

Now George Eliot was a remarkably good musician.  If she wanted an orchestra, she would have wanted at least sixty, and probably more than a hundred.  Perhaps they do these things with more limited resources in Heaven?  Such an incongruity as this, and the inane dilution of the writing (which of course does not appear at its worst in the selected passages) make a genuine George Eliot control hard to predicate, and yet this control, like virtually every other one, is an individuality, and is less unlike George Eliot than is any other control I know.  Will difficulties of communication or any other tertium quid, make up the difference?  I first read the record with repulsion, and now find in it some elements of attraction.

Do you care for a little more?  She wanted to see “angels,” and gives a very pretty picture of an experience with a bevy of children.  Telepathy from the sitter will hardly account for the following, especially the strange turn at the end, which is signally dreamlike.

“I being fond, very fond of writers of ancient history, etc., felt a strong desire to see Dante, Aristotle and several others.  Shakespeare if such a spirit existed. [An odd bunch of ’writers of ancient history’!  Ed.] As I stood thinking of him a spirit instantly appeared who speaking said ‘I am Bacon.’ ...  As Bacon neared me he began to speak and quoted to me the following words ’You have questioned my reality.  Question it no more.  I am Shakespeare.’”

June 4, 1897. “...  Speak to me for a moment and if you have anything to say in the nature of poetry or prose would you kindly recite a line or two to me.  It will give me strength to remain longer than I could otherwise do. [R.H. recites a poem of Dowden’s beginning,

      ’I said I will find God and forth I went
       To seek him in the clearness of the sky,’ etc.  Excitement.]

G.E.:  ’I will go and see G. and return presently (R.H.:  Who says that?) I do. (R.H.:  I do not understand what you mean by G.) I do.  My husband.  Do you not know I had a husband? (R.H.:  Do you mean by G. Mr. George Henry Lewes?) [Hand is writing Lewes while I am saying George Henry] Lewes.  Yes I do.  Oh I am so happy.  And when I did not mistake altogether my deeds I am more happy than tongue can utter.”

As bearing on her feeling for Lewes not many months after his death, the foregoing does not correspond with some widely credited but unpublished allegations.