“Anything more?” “Happy.”
“More yet?” “Only love.”
Then he was gone, and Mary came again, writing “Miss A——, messenger,” many times. Later, Frederick interrupted to write one word, “family.”[5] Then another hand began writing “Annie Manning,” over and over, and, “tell Manning.” I said that I knew no Manning. How find him? Answer, “Question.” I did not know what that meant.... There was a lot more, but I am too tired to write it to-night.
B—— Gaylord telephoned to-night. She is either coming to New York Thursday or going to Atlantic City, if I am there.... This is the most amazing thing that ever happened to me! To-night it was as if several were trying to talk at once. I am almost afraid to have B. G. come, yet it was for her sake that I began this. It seems too indefinite and unsatisfactory. But at least she can be sure I am not faking it. Something outside of me does it.
That same evening I wrote to Mansfield Kendal, though what his attitude toward this situation would be I could not even guess. We had known him well for several years, but our numerous discussions had never touched questions of religious faith and a future life. A man of extensive reading and of wide interests, supplemented by long residence abroad, he has been engaged for years in the executive conduct of large engineering and agricultural enterprises. I knew him to be intellectually open-minded. But I also knew him to be a devoted adherent of the orthodox Church, giving much time and thought to its support, and I was afraid that an assumption on my part of ability to communicate with the departed might offend some deep and reverent sense in him. Therefore, while I wrote him fully of my surprising experience, giving him Mary’s messages, I promised at the same time never to force the subject in conversation, should he prefer not to discuss it. Subsequently, impelled by Mary’s continued insistence, I wrote several other letters to him, which, like the first, were sent to his club in New York City, as I knew him to be traveling in the Middle West and thought they would reach him more quickly in this way than if sent to his business headquarters in the South.
Thus, curiously, I found myself vicariously engaged in a double search for a mother on this plane seeking her son on the next, and for a wife on the next plane seeking her husband here, and it is significant that, of the two, Mary Kendal was the more insistent. As she said, later, “We know how much it means.”
From a letter to Cass, dated Tuesday morning, March 5th:
Another evening with Mary! H. dined with me. I told her something about planchette, and she wanted to see it work.... This time it wrote, “Mary Kendal,” at once, and, “Tell Manse I love him.... Tell him Miss A—— is messenger from some one he knows.... Mentally beautiful people are fearless.... Faith is fearlessness.... Mannerisms are essential to recognition.” Some of these took a long time to work out.
H. asked, “Do you mind my being here?” “Excellent portent.”