Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/57

Rh experiments until I was just getting into bed, when I suddenly remembered, and just then I heard a train making a great noise, and as I have never noticed it like that before I wondered if it was one of your trains. I could not fix my mind on any object, but clock, watch, bath, all flitted past, and the circle of firelight in the front room; the only word that to me was "sand" and a sound like k or q at beginning of a word (you know I as often hear the name of the object as see the thing itself). I stopped, for it seemed ridiculous, but you must have attracted my attention, for just after I stopped I heard the clock here strike the half hour, and found next morning it was twenty minutes fast, so when I "suddenly remembered," it must have been just after eleven.

December 29, 11.15 P.M.—The first thing that came into my mind was a sponge, but I think that was suggested by the sound of water running in the bathroom, and next I had more distinctly an impression of a reddish metallic lustre, and I thought it must be the Moorish brass tray on May's mantelpiece: but at least I saw distinctly a small jug of a brownish metallic appearance below, with above a white band with coloured flowers, lilac and crimson, on it. I can't be sure what it was like at the top, for that seemed to be in shadow and seemed to be darkish—perhaps like the bottom, but I saw no metallic gleam. I don't remember anything like this among May's things, but the impression was so vivid I describe it.

The distance between agent and percipient in this series was not less that twelve miles. It is important to remark that neither lady saw the account written by the other until after the conclusion of the series of experiments. The original letters, in their envelopes, have been handed to us.

A longer series of experiments was made by two