THE SECOND SERIES
When Mr. Gardner was in Yorkshire in July, he left a good camera with
Elsie, for he learned that her cousin Frances was about to visit her
again and that there would be a chance of more photographs. One of our
difficulties has been that the associated aura of the two girls is
needful. This joining of auras to produce a stronger effect than either
can get singly is common enough in psychic matters. We wished to make
full use of the combined power of the girls in August. My last words
to Mr. Gardner, therefore, before starting for Australia were that I
should open no letter more eagerly than that which would tell me the
result of our new venture. In my heart I hardly expected success, for
three years had passed, and I was well aware that the processes of
puberty are often fatal to psychic power.
I was surprised, therefore, as well as delighted, when I had his letter
at Melbourne, informing me of complete success and enclosing three
more wonderful prints, all taken in the fairy glen. Any doubts which
had remained in my mind as to honesty were completely overcome, for
it was clear that these pictures, specially the one of the fairies
in the bush, were altogether beyond the possibility of fake. Even
now, however, having a wide experience of transference of pictures
in psychic photography and the effect of thought upon ectoplasmic
images, I feel that there is a possible alternative explanation in
this direction, and I have never quite lost sight of the fact that it
is a curious coincidence that so unique an event should have happened
in a family some members of which were already inclined to occult
study, and might be imagined to have formed thought-pictures of occult
appearances. Such suppositions, though not to be entirely dismissed,
are, as it seems to me, far-fetched and remote.
Here is the joyous letter which reached me at Melbourne:
_September 6, 1920._
MY DEAR DOYLE,
Greetings and best wishes! Your last words to me before we parted were
that you would open my letter with the greatest interest. You will not
be disappointed--for the wonderful thing has happened!
I have received from Elsie three more negatives taken a few days
back. I need not describe them, for enclosed are the three prints in
a separate envelope. The "Flying Fairy" and the "Fairies' Bower" are
the most amazing that any modern eye has ever seen surely! I received
these plates on Friday morning last and have since been thinking
furiously.
A nice little letter came with them saying how sorry they were
(!) that they couldn't send more, but the weather had been bad
(it has been abominably cold), and on only two afternoons had
Elsie and Frances been able to visit the glen. (Frances has now
returned to Scarborough at the call of school.) All quite simple and
straightforward and concluding with the hope that I might be able to
spend another day with them at the end of this month.
I went over to Harrow at once, and Snelling without hesitation
pronounced the three as bearing the same proofs of genuineness as the
first two, declaring further that at any rate the "bower" one was
utterly beyond any possibility of faking! While on this point I might
add that to-day I have interviewed Illingworth's people and somewhat
to my surprise they endorsed this view. (Now if you have not yet
opened the envelope please do so and I will continue....)
I am going to Yorkshire on the 23rd inst. to fill some lecture
engagements and shall spend a day at C., and of course take photos of
these spots and examine and take away any "spoilt" negatives that will
serve as useful accompaniments. The bower negative, by the way, the
girls simply could not understand at all. They saw the sedate-looking
fairy to the right, and without waiting to get in the picture Elsie
pushed the camera close up to the tall grasses and took the snap....
To this letter I made answer as follows:
_Melbourne, October 21, 1920._
DEAR GARDNER,
My heart was gladdened when out here in far Australia I had your
note and the three wonderful prints which are confirmatory of our
published results. You and I needed no confirmation, but the whole
line of thought will be so novel to the ordinary busy man who has not
followed psychic inquiry, that he will need that it be repeated again
and yet again before he realizes that this new order of life is really
established and has to be taken into serious account, just as the
pigmies of Central Africa.
I felt guilty when I laid a delay-action mine and left the country,
leaving you to face the consequences of the explosion. You knew,
however, that it was unavoidable. I rejoice now that you should have
this complete shield against those attacks which will very likely take
the form of a clamour for further pictures, unaware that such pictures
actually exist.
The matter does not bear directly upon the more vital question of our
own fate and that of those we have lost, which has brought me out
here. But anything which extends man's mental horizon, and proves to
him that matter as we have known it is not really the limit of our
universe, must have a good effect in breaking down materialism and
leading human thought to a broader and more spiritual level.
It almost seems to me that those wise entities who are conducting
this campaign from the other side, and using some of us as humble
instruments, have recoiled before that sullen stupidity against
which Goethe said the gods themselves fight in vain, and have opened
up an entirely new line of advance, which will turn that so-called
"religious," and essentially irreligious, position, which has helped
to bar our way. They can't destroy fairies by antediluvian texts, and
when once fairies are admitted other psychic phenomena will find a
more ready acceptance.
Good-bye, my dear Gardner, I am proud to have been associated with
you in this epoch-making incident. We have had continued messages
at seances for some time that a visible sign was coming through--and
perhaps this was what is meant. The human race does not deserve fresh
evidence, since it has not troubled, as a rule, to examine that which
already exists. However, our friends beyond are very long-suffering
and more charitable than I, for I will confess that my soul is filled
with a cold contempt for the muddle-headed indifference and the moral
cowardice which I see around me.
Yours sincerely,
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
The next letters from Mr. Gardner told me that in September,
immediately after this second series was taken, he had gone north
again, and came away more convinced than ever of the honesty of the
whole Wright family and of the genuine nature of the photographs. From
this letter I take the following extracts:
"My visit to Yorkshire was very profitable. I spent the whole day with
the family and took photographs of the new sites, which proved to be
in close proximity to the others. I enclose a few prints of these. It
was beside the pond shown that the 'cradle' or bower photograph was
taken. The fairy that is in the air was leaping rather than flying.
It had leapt up from the bush below five or six times, Elsie said,
and seemed to hover at the top of its spring. It was about the fifth
time that it did so that she snapped the shutter. Unfortunately,
Frances thought the fairy was leaping on to her face, the action was
so vigorous, and tossed her head back. The motion can be detected in
the print. The fairy who is looking at Elsie in the other photograph
is holding a bunch of fairy harebells. I thought this one had 'bobbed'
hair and was altogether quite in the fashion, her dress is so
up-to-date! But Elsie says her hair was close-curled, not bobbed. With
regard to the 'cradle' Elsie tells me they both saw the fairy on the
right and the demure-looking sprite on the left, but not the bower.
Or rather, she says there was only a wreath of faint mist in between
and she could make nothing of it. We have now succeeded in bringing
this print out splendidly, and as I can get certificates from experts
giving the opinion that this negative could not possibly be 'faked' we
seem to be on perfectly safe ground. The exposure times in each case
were one-fiftieth of a second, the distance about three to four feet,
the camera was the selected 'Cameo' that I had sent to Elsie, and the
plates were of those that I had sent too.
"The colours of dresses and wings, etc., I have complete, but will
post these particulars on when writing at length a little later and
have the above more fully written out." ...
_November 27, 1920._
"The photographs:
"When I was in Yorkshire in September investigating the second
series, I took photos of the spots, of course, and the full account
of the success. The children only had two brief hours or so of decent
sunshine during the whole of that fortnight they were together in
August. On the Thursday they took two and on the Saturday one. If
it had been normal weather we might have obtained a score or more.
Possibly, however, it is better to go slowly--though I propose we
take the matter further again in May or June. The camera I had sent
was the one used, and also the plates (which had all been marked
privately by the Illingworth Co., independently of me). The three new
fairy negatives proved to be of these and can be certified so to be by
the manager. The Cradle or Bower negative is, as I think I told you,
declared to be utterly unfakeable, and I can get statements to this
effect...."
In a subsequent fuller account Mr. Gardner says:
"On Thursday afternoon, August 26, a fairly bright and sunny day,
fortunately (for the unseasonably cold weather experienced generally
could hardly have been worse for the task), a number of photographs
were taken, and again on Saturday, August 28. The three reproduced
here are the most striking and amazing of the number. I only wish
every reader could see the superlatively beautiful enlargements
made directly from the actual negatives. The exquisite grace of
the flying fairy baffles description--all fairies, indeed, seem to
be super-Pavlovas in miniature. The next, of the fairy offering
a flower--an etheric harebell--to Iris, is a model of gentle and
dignified pose, but it is to the third that I would draw special and
detailed attention. Never before, or otherwhere, surely, has a fairy's
bower been photographed!
"The central ethereal cocoon shape, something between a cocoon and
an open chrysalis in appearance, lightly suspended amid the grasses,
is the bower or cradle. Seated on the upper left-hand edge with wing
well displayed is an undraped fairy apparently considering whether
it is time to get up. An earlier riser of more mature age is seen on
the right possessing abundant hair and wonderful wings. Her slightly
denser body can be glimpsed within her fairy dress. Just beyond, still
on the right, is the clear-cut head of a mischievous but smiling elf
wearing a close-fitting cap. On the extreme left is a demure-looking
sprite, with a pair of very diaphanous wings, while just above,
rather badly out of focus, however, is another with wings still widely
extended, and with outspread arms, apparently just alighting on the
grass tops. The face in half profile can just be traced in a very
clear and carefully toned print that I have. Altogether, perhaps,
this of the bower is the most astonishing and interesting of the more
successful photographs, though some may prefer the marvellous grace of
the flying figure.
"The comparative lack of definition in this photograph is probably
accounted for by the absence of the much denser human element. To
introduce us in this way directly to a charming bower of the fairies
was quite an unexpected result on the part of the girls, by the way.
They saw the somewhat sedate fairy on the right in the long grasses,
and, making no attempt this time to get in the picture themselves,
Iris put the camera very close up and obtained the snap. It was simply
good fortune that the bower was close by. In showing me the negative,
Iris only remarked it as being a quaint little picture that she could
not make out!"
There the matter stands, and nothing has occurred from that time
onwards to shake the validity of the photographs. We were naturally
desirous of obtaining more, and in August 1921 the girls were brought
together once again, and the very best photographic equipment,
including a stereoscopic camera and a cinema camera, were placed at
their disposal. The Fates, however, were most unkind, and a combination
of circumstances stood in the way of success. There was only a
fortnight during which Frances could be at Cottingley, and it was a
fortnight of almost incessant rain, the long drought breaking at the
end of July in Yorkshire. In addition, a small seam of coal had been
found in the Fairy Glen, and it had been greatly polluted by human
magnetism. These conditions might perhaps have been overcome, but the
chief impediment of all was the change in the girls, the one through
womanhood and the other through board-school education.
There was one development, however, which is worth recording. Although
they were unable to materialize the images to such an extent as to
catch them upon a plate, the girls had not lost their clairvoyant
powers, and were able, as of old, to see the sprites and elves which
still abounded in the glen. The sceptic will naturally say that we
have only their own word for that, but this is not so. Mr. Gardner had
a friend, whom I will call Mr. Sergeant, who held a commission in the
Tank Corps in the war, and is an honourable gentleman with neither the
will to deceive nor any conceivable object in doing so. This gentleman
has long had the enviable gift of clairvoyance in a very high degree,
and it occurred to Mr. Gardner that we might use him as a check upon
the statements of the girls. With great good humour, he sacrificed
a week of his scanty holiday--for he is a hard-worked man--in this
curious manner. But the results seem to have amply repaid him. I have
before me his reports, which are in the form of notes made as he
actually watched the phenomena recorded. The weather was, as stated,
bad on the whole, though clearing occasionally. Seated with the
girls, he saw all that they saw, and more, for his powers proved to be
considerably greater. Having distinguished a psychic object, he would
point in the direction and ask them for a description, which he always
obtained correctly within the limit of their powers. The whole glen,
according to his account, was swarming with many forms of elemental
life, and he saw not only wood elves, gnomes, and goblins, but the
rarer undines, floating over the stream. I take a long extract from his
rather disjointed notes, which may form a separate chapter.