God save me from a heaven where there is no "chaff and slang"! I should fail to recognize some of my best friends among the loftiest souls who have escaped the flesh, Hodgson not the least. However intense the interest heretofore taken in a future world, I doubt if it has ever been thoroughly healthy, or ever will be before we get our conceptions of that world off stilts. James continues (pp. 37-8):
"This, however, did not exclude very serious talk with the same persons—quite the reverse sometimes, as when one sitter of this class notes: 'Then came words of kindness which were too intimate and personal to be recorded, but which left me so deeply moved that shortly afterwards, at the sitting's close, I fainted dead away—it had seemed as though he had in all reality been there and speaking to me.'"
If James ran any one of his virtues into the ground, perhaps it was his modesty concerning anything connected with himself. Instance the following introduction and what it introduces:
W. J.'s Sitting. (May 21st, 1906). (Pr. XXIII, 8of.)
"[J.] The evidence is so much the same sort of thing throughout, and makes such insipid reading, that I hesitate to print more of it in full. But I know that many critics insist on having the largest possible amount of verbatim material on which to base their conclusions, so I select a specimen of the R. H. control's utterances when he was less 'strong.' The reader, I fear, will find it long and tedious, but he can skip.
"(R. H. enters, saying:) 'Well, well, well, well! Well, well, well, that is—here I am. Good morning, good morning, Alice.' Mrs. W. J.:'Good morning, Mr. Hodgson.' R. H.: 'I am right here. Well, well, well! I am delighted!' W. J.: 'Hurrah! R. H.! Give us your hand!' R. H.: 'Hurrah, William! God bless you. How are you?' W. J.: 'First rate.' R. H.: 'Well, I am delighted to see you. Well, have you solved those problems yet?' W. J.: 'Which problems do you refer to?' R. H.: 'Did you get my messages?' W. J.: 'I got some messages about your going to convert me.' ... [R. H. had already sent me, through other sitters, messages about my little faith. W. J.] W. J.: 'Yes.' R. H.: 'Well, it has amounted to this,—that I have learned by experience that there is more truth than error in what I have been studying.' W. J.: 'Good!' R. H.: 'I am so delighted to see you to-day that words fail me.' W. J.: 'Well, Hodgson, take your time and don't be nervous.' R. H.: 'No. Well, I think I could ask the same of you! Well, now, tell me,—I am very much interested in what is going on in the society, and Myers and I are also interested in the society over here. You understand that we have to have a medium on this side, while you have a medium on your side, and through the two we communicate with you.' ... W. J.: 'You don't mean Rector?' R. H.: 'No, not at all. It is——do you remember a medium whom we called Prudens?' 'Yes.'"
From one point of view, his not naming G. P. or Rector gives food for skepticism. But why didn't Mrs. Piper do the job consistently, if it was she who did it?
"R. H.: 'What I want to know first of all is about the society. I am sorry that it could not go on.' W. J.: 'There was nobody to take your place....' R. H.: 'William, can't you see, don't you understand, and don't you remember how I used to walk up and down before that open fireplace trying to convince you of my experiments?' W. J.: 'Certainly, certainly.' R. H.: 'And you would stand with your hands in your trousers pockets. You got very impatient with me sometimes, and you would wonder if I was correct. I think you are very skeptical.' W. J.: 'Since you have been returning I am much more near to feeling as you felt than ever before.' R. H.: 'Good! Well, that is capital.' W. J.: 'Your "personality" is beginning to make me feel as you felt.' R. H.: 'If you can give up to it, William, and feel the influence of it and the reality of it, it will take away the sting of death.... Now tell me a little bit more about the Society. That will help me keep my thoughts clear. I think, William—are you standing?' W. J.: 'Yes, I am standing.' R. H.: 'Well, can't you sit?' W. J.: 'Yes.' R. H.: 'Well, sit. Let's have a nice talk.'..."
There is nothing "evidential" about the last couple of lines in the scientific sense, but there are several kinds of sense. James continues:
(Pr. XXIII, 109): "The following incident belongs to my wife's and Miss Putnam's sitting of June 12th, 1906:—Mrs. J. said: 'Do you remember what happened in our library one night when you were arguing with Margie [Mrs. J.'s sister]?'—'I had hardly said "remember,"' she notes, 'in asking this question, when the medium's arm was stretched out and the fist shaken threateningly,' then these words came:
"R. H.: 'Yes, I did this in her face. I couldn't help it. She was so impossible to move. It was wrong of me, but I couldn't help it.' [I myself well remember this fist-shaking incident, and how we others laughed over it after Hodgson had taken his leave. What had made him so angry was my sister-in-law's defense of some slate-writing she had seen in California.—W. J.]"
(Pr. XXIII, 112): "On Jan. 30, 1906, Mrs. M. had a sitting. Mrs. M. said:
"'Do you remember our last talk together, at N., and how, in coming home we talked about the work?' (R. H.): 'Yes, yes.' Mrs. M.: 'And I said if we had a hundred thousand dollars—'R. H.: 'Buying Billy!!' Mrs. M.: 'Yes, Dick, that was it—"buying Billy."' R. H.: 'Buying only Billy?' Mrs. M.: 'Oh no—I wanted Schiller too. How well you remember!'
"Mrs. M., before R. H.'s death, had had dreams of extending the American Branch's operations by getting an endowment, and possibly inducing Prof. Newbold (Billy) and Dr. Schiller to co-operate in work.
This buying Billy and Schiller brought Podmore squarely around, for the first time, I think, from his previous life-long fight against telepathy. He says (Newer Spiritualism, p. 222):