It isn't his _way_ to converse.

That has been a characteristic of some men of genius before him, you know, but you will be nevertheless disappointed, very surely.

Also, Mr.Story does not imagine that you will get anything from him on the subject of the 'manifestations.' You have read the 'Blithedale Romance,' and are aware of his opinion expressed there?
He evidently recognised them as a sort of scurvy spirits, good to be slighted, because of their disreputableness.

By the way, I heard read the other day a very interesting letter from Paris, from Mr.Appleton, Longfellow's brother-in-law, who is said to be a man of considerable ability, and who is giving himself wholly just now to the investigation of this spirit-subject, termed by him the 'sublimest conundrum ever given to the world for guessing.' He appears still in doubt whether the intelligence is external, or whether the phenomena are not produced by an _unconscious projection in the medium of a second personality, accompanied with clairvoyance, and attended by physical manifestations_.

This seems to me to double the difficulty; yet the idea is entertained as a doubtful sort of hypothesis by such men as Sir Edward Lytton and others.