One day in 1901 my husband and I were staying at Chatsworth.  There was a huge house-party, including Arthur Balfour and Chamberlain.  Before going down to dinner, Henry came into my bedroom and told me he had had a telegram to say that Queen Victoria was very ill and he feared the worst; he added that it was a profound secret and that I was to tell no one.  After dinner I was asked by the Duchess’ granddaughters—­Lady Aldra and Lady Mary Acheson—­to join them at planchette, so, to please them, I put my hand upon the board.  I was listening to what the Duchess was saying, and my mind was a blank.  After the girls and I had scratched about for a little time, one of them took the paper off the board and read out loud: 

“The Queen is dying.”  She added, “What Queen can that be?”

We gathered round her and all looked at the writing; and there I read distinctly out of a lot of hieroglyphics: 

“The Queen is dying.”

If the three of us had combined to try to write this and had poked about all night, we could not have done it.

I have had many interesting personal experiences of untraceable communication and telepathy and I think that people who set themselves against all this side of life are excessively stupid; but I do not connect them with religion any more than with Marconi and I shall always look upon it as a misfortune that people can be found sufficiently material to be consoled by the rubbish they listen to in the dark at expensive seances.

At one time, under the influence of Mr. Percy Wyndham, Frederic Myers and Edmund Gurney (the last-named a dear friend with whom I corresponded for some months before he committed suicide), Laura and I went through a period of “spooks.”  There was no more delightful companion than Mr. Percy Wyndham; he adored us and, though himself a firm believer in the spirit world, he did not resent it if others disagreed with him.  We attended every kind of seance and took the matter up quite seriously.

Then, as now, everything was conducted in the dark.  The famous medium of that day was a Russian Jewess, Madame Blavatsky by name.  We were asked to meet her at tea, in the dining-room of a private house in Brook Street, a non-professional affair, merely a little gathering to hear her views upon God.  On our arrival I had a good look at her heavy, white face, as deeply pitted with smallpox as a solitaire board, and I wondered if she hailed from Moscow or Margate.  She was tightly surrounded by strenuous and palpitating ladies and all the blinds were up.  Seeing no vacant seat near her, I sat down upon a low, stuffed chair in the window.  After making a substantial tea, she was seen to give a sobbing and convulsive shudder, which caused the greatest excitement; the company closed up round her in a circle of sympathy and concern.  When pressed to say why her bust had heaved and eyelids flickered, she replied: