's' return from
the world of shadows."

"Have you tried to secure more of the music?" Fowler asked.

"No, not specifically; but I've had one further inconclusive sitting
since then with Mrs. Hartley. Almost immediately 'Ernest' whispered a
greeting and said: '_I want to go on with that music, Garland. I want to
put B and D and A into the first bar--it's only a bare sketch as it
stands._'

"To this I replied: 'I can't do it, 'Ernest.' It's beyond me. Wait till
I can get Blake again.'

"This ended his attempt, although he was 'terribly anxious,' so the
psychic said. I am going to try for the completion of this score through
another psychic. If I can get that eighth bar taken up and carried on by
'Ernest' through another psychic the case will become complicated.

"I have gone into detail in my account of this experiment, for the
reason that it illustrates very aptly the inextricable tangle of truth
and error which most 'spirit communications' present. It typifies in
little the elusive problem of spirit identification which many a veteran
investigator is still at work upon, after years of study. Maxwell gives
a case of long-continued unintentional and unconscious deception of the
general kind which went far to prevent his acceptance of the spirit
hypothesis."

"I don't think the failure to find the musical fragment invalidates this
beautiful communication," declared Fowler. "You admit that many of the
messages were to the point, and that some of them were very intimate and
personal."

"Yes, speaking generally, I would say that 'E. A.' might have uttered
all the words and dictated all the messages except those that related to
the publishing matter; but there is the final test. Schumann declares
that no such manuscript has ever been in his hands."

"He may be mistaken, or 'E. A.' may have misspoken himself--for, as
William James infers, the spirits find themselves tremendously hampered
in their attempts to manifest themselves. Furthermore, you say you could
not hear all that 'E. A.' spoke--you or the psychic may have
misunderstood him. In any case, it all seems to me a fine attempt at
identification."

"I wish I could put the same value on it now that I did when Blake
played the first bar of that thrilling little melody; but I can't. As it
recedes it loses its power over me."

"What did Alexander's family think of the music?"

"They thought it more like a Cheyenne or Omaha love-song than like a
melody of 'Ernes