le Street: April 28, 1845.

Dear Mr. Chorley,--... For Miss Martineau, is it not true that she
_has_ admitted her wreck story to have no proof? Surely she has.
Surely she said that the evidence was incapable, at this point of
time, of justification to the _exoteric_, and that the question had
sunk now to one of character, to which her opponent answered that it
had always _been_ one of character. And you must admit that the direct
and unmitigated manner of depreciating the reputation, not merely
of Jane Arrowsmith, but of Mrs. Wynyard, a personal friend of Miss
Martineau's to whom she professes great obligations, could not be
otherwise than exasperating to a woman of her generous temper, and
this just in the crisis of her gratitude for her restoration to life
and enjoyment by the means (as she considers it) of this friend. Not
that I feel at all convinced of her having been cured by mesmerism;
I have told her openly that I doubt it a little, and she is not angry
with me for saying so. Also, the wreck story, and (as you suggest)
the three new cases of clairvoyance; why, one _cannot_, you know, give
one's specific convictions to general sweeping testimonies, with a
mist all round them. Still, I do lean to believing this _class_ of
mysteries, and I see nothing more incredible in the apocalypse of
the wreck and other marvels of clairvoyance, than in that singular
adaptation of another person's senses, which is a common phenomenon
of the simple forms of mesmerism. If it is credible that a person in
a mesmeric sleep can taste the sourness of the vinegar on
another person's palate, I am ready to go the whole length of the
transmigration of senses. But after all, except from hearing so much,
I am as ignorant as you are, in my own experience. One of my sisters
was thrown into a sort of swoon, and could not open her eyelids,
though she heard what passed, once or twice or thrice; and she might
have been a prophetess by this time, perhaps, if, partly from her own
feeling on the subject, and partly from mine, she had not determined
never to try the experiment again. It is hideous and detestable to my
imagination; as I confessed to you, it makes my blood run backwards;
and if I were _you_, I would not (with the nervous weakness you speak
of) throw myself into the way of it, I really would not. Think of a
female friend of mine begging me to give her a lock of my hair, or
rather begging my sister to 'get it for her,' that she might send