My dear G.

I have thought you w^d like to hear about the ^£100 seance yesterday, (April Fool day) at Hensleigh’s, & I have another motive for writing.² As far as I could make out—one girl was put in dark room with hands tied & sealed—& tied & sealed to floor. The other girl was in the partly lighted room in a trance on the sofa & not tied, with all the spectators.— All that happened was that the spirits talked & chattered much, & Hope³ thinks that she saw lips of girl on sofa moving— There was only one appearance of a spirit & even Hensleigh admitted that it presented no distinct appearance: Hope (who believes in spirits) says it might have been merely a white handkerchief, waved through opening of curtain from the tied girl in the other room, as she was placed near the curtain. One of the spirits first asked who & how many were present, & made each one give his honour that he w^d not try of seize hold of any spirit! No doubt this was done because there were unknown people present.— Now in the dark room with the tied girl a sort of stand was pulled down so it lay at & almost on the tied girl, & all the music books were scattered about. Now here comes curious point: after Hensleigh had gone away this morning I said to Fanny⁴ that I thought that the girl must have slipped out of her fastenings & then it came out that the seal by which she was fastened to the floor was broken!! & Hensleigh evidently thought this so unimportant that he never even alluded to it!— Now be sure you do not betray me, but I shall be very curious to hear if Sidgwick⁵ mentions this circumstance of the broken seal;; so get him to give you full details of the seance of April 1.—without alluding to what you have heard.—

Hensleigh made some point about the risk of girl having had her legs hurt by the prostrate stand, & Erasmus thinks this position of the stand was chosen to account for the broken seal.⁶

Good Heavens what rubbish the whole does seem to be.—

Yours affect | Ch. Darwin

Heaven knows whether you will be able to read or understand this—