ALLEGED SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. [To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."'
Sm.—You quote the book message, sent from the other side by Lady Glenconner's eon, Edward Tennant. It was to be found on p. 14, three-quarters down the page of the eighth book on the third shelf, counting frlim right to left, in the house in London. Many of your readers will have done as I have done, and r suggest that many others should follow our example—trj these directions in the case of their own bookshelves. I die• covered that the book was Goethe's Conversations with Eckert mann, just as Lady Glenconner chanced on Lewes's Life of Goethe. A queer coincidence, as it is the only book—sad to say—having anything to do with Goethe in my possession. On p. 14, three-quarters down the page, I find:—
" When I was old enough I went with my father on his travels from hamlet to hamlet, and helped to carry his bundle. This time affords some of the fairest remembrances of my youth. . . . And so it may be said of man, that by something which he does quite accidentally, he is often taught the higher powers which slumber within him. Something of this sort hap- pened to me, which though insignificant in itself gave a new turn to my life, and is therefore stamped indelibly on my memory."
I submit, Sir, that if Lady Glenconner had been directed to come here and had happened on this passage she could have told us something about Bim, which would have made the above seem as clearly a veritable message from the unseen as the passage she found in Lewes's Life of Goethe. I may say that close to my Eckermann—two books from it, as at 34 Queen Anne's Gate—is a book "which tells of great spaces, large great spaces, a book which tells of the stars," to wit, Genesis in Hebrew : "And God made two great lights—the greater light to rule the day. . . . He made the stars also."
There is, further, "something round connected with the book " (Eckermann), for it is a volume of Bohn, published by Bell, whose trade mark—unique among publisher's trade marks (?)—is a round disc twice stamped on cover with a bell in centre. If your readers care they can supply you with countless messages from Bim.—I am, Sir, &c., W. W. Rein.
The Manse, Dumbarton.
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