person of stealing the rug, which was
afterwards found in the house.) She told of my killing a grey-and-white
cat with ether, and described how it had "spun round and round" before
dying. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife,
warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing
criticism, full of _traits vifs_, of the excellent woman's character.
(Of course, no one but my wife and I knew the existence of the letter in
question.) She was strong on the events in our nursery, and gave striking
advice during our first visit to her about the way to deal with certain
"tantrums" of our second child--"little Billy-boy," as she called him,
reproducing his nursery name. She told how the crib creaked at night, how
a certain rocking-chair creaked mysteriously, how my wife had heard
footsteps on a stair, &c. &c. Insignificant as these things sound when
read, the accumulation of them has an irresistible effect; and I repeat
again what I said before, that, taking everything that I know of Mrs.
Piper into account, the result is to make me feel as absolutely certain as
I am of any personal fact in the world that she knows things in her
trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her waking state, and that
the definitive philosophy of her trances is yet to be found. The
limitations of her trance information, its discontinuity and fitfulness,
and its apparent inability to develop beyond a certain point, although
they end by arousing one's moral and human impatience with the phenomenon,
yet are, from a scientific point of view, amongst its most interesting
peculiarities, since where there are limits there are conditions, and the
discovery of them is always the beginning of an explanation.

'This is all I cam tell you of Mrs. Piper. I wish it were more
"scientific." But _valcat quantum!_ it is the best I can do.'

Elsewhere Mr. James writes:

'Mr. Hodgson and others have made prolonged study of this lady's trances,
and are all convinced that supernormal powers of cognition are displayed
therein. They are, _prima facie_, due to "spirit control." But the
conditions are so complex that a dogmatic decision either for or against
the hypothesis must as yet be postponed.'[19]

Again--

'In the trances of this medium I cannot resist the conviction that
knowledge appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of
her eyes, ears, and wits.

'The trances have broken down, for my own min