Having regard to
the phenomena we are compelled to admit, I think it illogical to
disbelieve anything we are unable to disprove."
"For my part," remarked MacShaughnassy, "I can believe in the ability of
our spirit friends to give the quaint entertainments credited to them
much easier than I can in their desire to do so."
"You mean," added Jephson, "that you cannot understand why a spirit, not
compelled as we are by the exigencies of society, should care to spend
its evenings carrying on a laboured and childish conversation with a room
full of abnormally uninteresting people."
"That is precisely what I cannot understand," MacShaughnassy agreed.
"Nor I, either," said Jephson. "But I was thinking of something very
different altogether. Suppose a man died with the dearest wish of his
heart unfulfilled, do you believe that his spirit might have power to
return to earth and complete the interrupted work?"
"Well," answered MacShaughnassy, "if one admits the possibility of
spirits retaining any interest in the affairs of this world at all, it is
certainly more reasonable to imagine them engaged upon a task such as you
suggest, than to believe that they occupy themselves with the performance
of mere drawing-room tricks. But what are you leading up to?"
"Why, to this," replied Jephson, seating himself straddle-legged across
his chair, and leaning his arms upon the back.
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