“An element which works beyond our guess; Soul, the unsounded sea,” says Browning. A poet’s idea only, perhaps, but wasn’t it Montaigne who said that all our philosophy is but sophisticated poetry?
What a joyous time little Pettingill would have with all this! Trotting about, a note-book in hand, adding up a glimpse here, a look there, until he had a complete panoramic view of all eternity. But the real question is, what would Cameron say? Not for him the amorous Hadly in the churchyard—a spot by the way, if our spiritists are right, not quite so exclusive as Hadly seems to have considered it—nor a tea-kettle moving about. His the coldly scientific method; the medium in a box, tied hand and foot; scales of weighing; cameras; notebooks; witnesses.
Not for him Pettingill’s wide view into e
