'I Bress de Lord for deh one mor to talk to de people of my ole home I been thar lots o tim since I com here—but o Lord de Massy—they no see Winne cos she be ded and she jus no ded at tall—now—as to dot Col gal—Hed I could not say—sure—but I think it Dinah Melish—she who lov de Lord too. I think it seem Dina top not. Will see Dina som time and then i ask her—do you no Minister Du Cachet well he here—and want the [there here follows in the original a rude drawing of a decanter and wine glass. In this scandalous allusion there is no trace, it will be observed, of phonetic spelling in the proper name] just de same. I Bress de Lor I don't want it.
March 13, '85.
Cornelia Winnie.'
An examination of the envelope marked No. 1, by cutting it open at the edges, revealed the same story of fraud: three of the seals had been cut out, and replaced.
An examination of No. 2, in the same way, readily disclosed the reason why the Spirits had failed to answer, although the question assuredly presented no greater difficulties than in No. 1. An attempt had been made to start two of the seals, but meeting with unexpected resistance in the silk stitches, and finding that further effort would end in tearing the envelope in a very palpable and mundane fashion, the Spirits had grown disheartened and taciturn.
We shall meet this Medium again, but for the present we will leave him, after pausing for a minute over his business card, which, after stating his terms in prosaic dollars and cents, thus apostrophizes his clientele:
"From the bright stars,
And viewless air
Sweet Spirit, if thy home be there,
Answer me.—Answer me."
Happily my experience enables me to remove all doubt as to the locality of the Spirit's 'home,' and to state with positiveness its exact location. But like the German philologist's example of the remarkable incongruity in English between spelling and pronunciation, that what was written 'Boz' was pronounced 'Charles Dickens,' so I cheerfully add to this list of incongruities that what is written 'bright stars' is pronounced 'Boston,' and 'viewless air' is pronounced 'Dartmouth Street.'
I next turned my attention to Mr. R.W. Flint in New York. From him I received the following circular in answer to my inquiries: