"On August 10th of this year [1892] D. went with her family to spend the autumn at a country house which they had taken furnished, and which neither of us had ever seen. I was also away from home, the distance between us being at least 200 miles.
"On the morning of the 12th I received a pencil note from her, evidently written with difficulty, saying that she had been very fiercely attacked by a savage dog, from which she and our own little terrier had defended themselves and each other as best they could, receiving a score or so of wounds between them before they could summon any one to their assistance. She gave me no details, assuming that, as often happens between us, I should have received intimation of her danger before the news could reach me by ordinary methods.
"D. was extremely disappointed on hearing that I had known nothing. I had not consulted the crystal on the day of the accident, and had received no intimation. Begging her to tell me nothing further as to the scene of her adventure, I sought for it in the crystal on Sunday, 14th, and noted the following details:—The attacking dog was a large black retriever, and our terrier held him by the throat while D. beat at him in the rear. I saw also the details of D.'s dress. But all this I knew or could guess. What I could not know was that the terrier's collar lay upon the ground, that the struggle took place upon a lawn beyond which lay earth—a garden bed probably—overshadowed by an aucuba bush.
"On September 9th I had an opportunity of repeating all this to Mr. Myers, and on the 10th I joined D. at their country house. The rest of the story I give in her own words:—
From D.
"'As we were somewhat disappointed that no intimation of the accident which had occurred to me had reached Miss X., she determined to try to call up a mental picture of the scene where it had occurred, and if possible to verify it when visiting us later on.
"'On the night of her arrival at C——, we were not able to go over the whole of the grounds alone, and it was therefore not until the following morning that we went together for the special purpose of fixing on the exact spot. Miss X. was in front, as I feared some unconscious sign of recognition on my part might spoil the effect of her choice. The garden is a very large one, and we wandered for some time without fixing on a spot, the sole clue given by Miss X. being that she "could not get the right place, it wanted a light bush." I pointed out several, silver maples, etc., in various directions, but none would do, and she finally walked down to the place where the accident had occurred, close to a large aucuba (the only one, I believe, in the shrubbery), and said, "This must be it; it has the path and the grass and the bush, as it should, but I expected it to be much farther from the house."
"'I may add that I was not myself aware of this bush, but as I was studying them all at the time we were attacked by the dog, and as this one is close to the spot where I was knocked down, it seems possible that it was the last I noticed, and it may therefore have influenced me more than I knew.'"
Mr. Myers adds:—
"I understand that there are a good many acres of ground round the house in question, and that the dog's attack was made within fifty yards of the house—plainly an unlikely place for a struggle so long protracted without the arrival of help."
As the crystal picture was described to Mr. Myers before its verification, there was no room for the reading back of details from the actual scene.
No. 105.—From MISS X.
Miss X. has also succeeded on several occasions in obtaining telepathic information by holding a shell to her ear. Of one such case she writes (ibid., p. 494):—
"On Saturday, June 11th, Mr. G. A. Smith spent some time with us attempting some thought-transference experiments, which were fairly successful, and interested me greatly. Mr. Smith left the house soon after seven. After dinner, I took up the shell which had played some part—not very successfully—in our experiments. What occurred is best given in the following extracts:—
"'[June 11th, 1892] Saturday Evening, 8.30. [X. to G. A. S.]
"'Why—when the shell was repeating to me just now what you said about clambering over rocks at Ramsgate—did it stop suddenly to ask, still in your voice, "Are you a vegetarian then?"... Perhaps you dined at [your next appointment], and declined animal food? Do tell me whether you are responsible for this irrelevance.'
"'June 13th, Monday. [G. A. S. to X.]