Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/152

 MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN

1HAVE three or four curious incidents to tell about. They seem to come under the head of what I named &quot;Mental Telegraphy&quot; in a paper written seventeen years ago, and published long afterward.

Several years ago I made a campaign on the plat form with Mr. George W. Cable. In Montreal we were honored with a reception. It began at two in the afternoon in a long drawing-room in the Windsor Hotel. Mr. Cable and I stood at one end of this room, and the ladies and gentlemen entered it at the other end, crossed it at that end, then came up the long left-hand side, shook hands with us, said a word or two, and passed on, in the usual way. My sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently recog nized a familiar face among the throng of strangers drifting in at the distant door, and I said to myself, with surprise and high gratification, &quot;That is Mrs. R. ; I had forgotten that she was a Canadian.&quot; She had been a great friend of mine in Carson City, Nevada, in the early days. I had not seen her or heard of her for twenty years; I had not been thinking about her; there was nothing to suggest her to me, nothing to bring her to my mind ; in fact, to

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