There must always be many disappointments of this kind in our research. There is always something which so nearly succeeds and then just fails at last. This must be the case where conditions are so fine and subtle and so easily disturbed, and where our own ignorance of many necessary factors is so profound. This makes it none the less disheartening at times!
Later I made an attempt with my friend Baroness Rosenkrantz of Rome to get a message through the other way—i.e. from Mr Myers and myself to Dr Hodgson, via Mrs Piper.
The Baroness and I had a little "sitting" alone, wrote one or two short messages with a couple of extracts from Mr Myers' own writings, sealed up the envelope carefully, and I forwarded it to Dr Hodgson.
But the test failed. Two years later Dr Hodgson spoke of the letter as being still intact.
CHAPTER XIII
A SECOND VISIT TO INDIA, 1903
My second visit to India took place in the early months of 1903, and I approached it this time from Burmah. Fielding Hall's "Soul of a People" had thrown its magic spell over me, and Miss Greenlow and I were both anxious also to see the far-famed Shwé Dagon Temple.
I came to the conclusion from what I saw, and still more from what I heard, that Mr Fielding Hall must have appealed sometimes to his imagination for his facts, and allowed an exquisite poetical fancy to cast its glamour even over these. But the beautiful Golden Temple of Rangoon defies all powers of exaggeration. We went there again and again, and wandered amongst its endless small temples, representing various forms of worship, including even a Chinese joss-house, which is stamped upon my memory through a disaster, which I have always connected with this special temple; rank superstition though it be.
We had spent several weeks upon the Irrawaddy River; had wandered through beautiful, dusty Mandalay; had explored Bhamo and marvelled over the exquisite visions of fairy-like beauty, painted anew for us morning and evening, on this most glorious river; and had finally returned to Rangoon for a few days' rest before starting for Calcutta.