Tales like this of Cardinal Newman therefore were extremely tiresome and upsetting.
And Maggie had her theology also; to her also it appeared quite impossible that Cardinal Newman should frequent the drawing-room of Mr. Vincent in order to exchange impressions with Mrs. Stapleton; but she was more elementary in her answer. For her the thing was simply untrue; and that was the end of it. She found it difficult therefore to follow her companion's train of thought.
"What was it she said?" demanded Mrs. Baxter presently. "I didn't understand her ideas about materialism."
"I think she called it materialization," explained Maggie patiently. "She said that when things were very favorable, and the medium a very good one, the soul that wanted to communicate could make a kind of body for itself out of what she called the astral matter of the medium or the sitters."
"But surely our bodies aren't like that?"
"No; I can't say that I think they are. But that's what she said."
"My dear, please explain. I want to understand the woman."
Maggie frowned a little.
"Well, the first thing she said was that those souls want to communicate; and that they begin generally by things like table-rapping, or making blue lights. Then when you know they're there, they can go further. Sometimes they gain control of the medium who is in a trance, and speak through him, or write with his hand. Then, if things are favorable, they begin to draw out this matter, and make it into a kind of body for themselves, very thin and ethereal, so that you can pass your hand through it. Then, as things get better and better, they go further still, and can make this body so solid that you can touch it; only this is sometimes rather dangerous, as it is still, in a sort of way, connected with the medium. I think that's the idea."
"But what's the good of it all?"
"Well, you see, Mrs. Stapleton thinks that they really are souls from the other world, and that they can tell us all kinds of things about it all, and what's true, and so on."
"But you don't believe that?"
Maggie turned her large eyes on the old lady; and a spark of humor rose and glimmered in them.
"Of course I don't," she said.
"Then how do you explain it?"
"I think it's probably all a fraud. But I really don't know. It doesn't seem to me to matter much--"