. By degrees this dead look disappeared. The
blood flowed once more through the veins, and as I noticed this change,
the hand moved gropingly towards the pencil held out by Dr Hodgson, and
finally grasped it. The latter's long practice and infinite patience
were invaluable in making out the often rather illegible script. The
hospitality he gave to all attempts at definite communications, however
vague and shadowy at first; the infinite patience with which he repeated
again and again a question not fully comprehended--all this, combined
with intelligent criticism, alert, dispassionate judgment and balance of
mind, made an investigator of psychic phenomena very rarely to be met in
a world where most of us evince in a marked degree "_les defauts de nos
qualites_."

To combine sympathy, patience, and receptivity with cool and critical
judgment is well-nigh impossible for ordinary men and women.

Dr Richard Hodgson certainly solved the problem to a very remarkable
extent.

The first thing that struck me in the two sittings I had with Mrs Piper,
was the hopeless breakdown of the Thought Transference Theory, as
accounting for the automatic writing.

The ostensible reason for my presence at Arlington Heights was the idea
entertained by the "controls" that, having known Mr Stainton Moses in
earth life, I might be able to facilitate his communications. I hope
this may have been the case, but if so, it was certainly not due to any
power of Thought Transference I may have possessed.

Again and again I asked for names of friends we had known in common, but
nearly always in vain. Even when, in despair of getting these normally,
I concentrated my mind consciously on some short and easy name, the
latter was not given.

Yet next day some of these names would appear spontaneously on the
script, when my mind was entirely occupied by other subjects.

References were made to Mr Moses' lack of appreciation for music, and he
asked whether our mutual friend Mrs Stratton still played LISZT. He also
referred to his visiting the Strattons, and finding them playing duets
together, in London.

On my return to town Mrs Stratton fully endorsed the fact that Mr Moses
disliked music (this was unknown to me), but she denied emphatically
that she and her husband ever played duets in his presence. Mr Stratton,
however, corrected this impression, and reminded her of several
occasions when Mr Moses had come to them from University College, found
t