believe that they seriously thought that one well known as a
Spiritualist in England and America, a retired Professor of Military
Tactics, with a comfortable house at Cheltenham, a member of the
Junior United Service Club in London, a man who neither shoots nor
fishes, had been suddenly seized in his mature years with a desire to
hire an isolated country house in Perthshire, in the depths of winter,
for the purpose of trying his 'prentice hand upon rabbit-shooting on a
small scale.

Colonel Taylor, who is a widower without a daughter, was at this time
much occupied by the illness and death of a near relative, and was
unable for the moment to take up residence at B---- House. Lord Bute
accordingly expressed a hope that Miss Freer would undertake to
conduct the investigation. Mr. Myers also wrote urgently to her,
saying, "If you don't get phenomena, probably no one will." She was
abroad at the time, but at considerable personal inconvenience
consented to return, and on December 26th she wrote to Lord Bute,
stating that she could reach Ballechin on February 2nd, and adding--

"I have been reflecting further on the question of the personality of
investigators. I think the names you suggest, and some others which
occur to me, divide naturally into three classes (assuming, and I
think you agree with me, that it does not follow that every one can
discover a ghost because it is there, nor that their failure to
discover it is any proof that it is not there). (1) Those who have
personal experience of phenomena, and may be expected to be
susceptible to psychic influences; (2) those who have no personal
powers in that line, but are open-minded and sympathetic; and (3)
those who are passively open to conviction. A fourth class, those who
come to look for evidence against the phenomena, but will accept none