The Dell, Grays, Essex.  January 11, 1874.

My dear Miss Buckley,—­I am delighted to hear of your success so far, and hope you are progressing satisfactorily.  Pray keep accurate notes of all that takes place....  Allow me ... to warn you not to take it for granted till you get proof upon proof that it is really your sister that is communicating with you.  I hope and think it is, but still, the conditions that render communication possible are so subtle and complex that she may not be able; and some other being, reading your mind, may be acting through you and making you think it is your sister, to induce you to go on.  Be therefore on the look out for characteristic traits of your sister’s mind and manner which are different from your own.  These will be tests, especially if they come when and how you are not expecting them.  Even if it is your sister, she may be obliged to use the intermediation of some other being, and in that case her peculiar idiosyncrasy may be at first disguised, but it will soon make itself distinctly visible.  Of course you will preserve every scrap you write, and date them, and they will, I have no doubt, explain each other as you go on.

If you can get to see the last number of the Quarterly Journal of Science, you will find a most important article by Mr. Crookes, giving an outline of the results of his investigations, which he is going to give in full in a volume.  His facts are most marvellous and convincing, and appear to me to answer every one of the objections that have usually been made to the evidence adduced....—­Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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TO MISS BUCKLEY

The Dell, Grays, Essex.  February 28, 1874.

Dear Miss Buckley,—­I was much pleased with your long and interesting letter of the 19th and am glad you are getting on at last.  It will be splendid if you really become a good medium for some first-rate unmistakable manifestations that even Huxley will acknowledge are worth seeing, and Carpenter confess are not to be explained by unconscious cerebration....—­Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

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TO MISS BUCKLEY

The Dell, Grays, Essex.  March 9, 1874.

Dear Miss Buckley,—­I compassionate your mediumistic troubles, but I have no doubt it will all come right in the end.  The fact that your sister will not talk as you want her to talk—­will not say what you expect her to say, is a grand proof that it is not your unconscious cerebration that does her talking for her.  Is not that clear?  Whether it is she herself or someone else who is talking to you, is not so clear, but that it is not you, I think, is clear enough.