GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN

AND OTHER PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES

BY

VIOLET TWEEDALE

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1919, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company
All rights reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I "Silk Dress" and "Rumpus" [1]
II The Ghost of Broughton Hall [14]
III Curious Psychic Experiences [33]
IV East End Days and Nights [48]
V The Man in the Marylebone Road [66]
VI The Ghost of Prince Charlie [74]
VII Pilgrims and Strangers [91]
VIII Some Strange Events [98]
IX Pompey and the Duchess [114]
X The Invisible Hands [124]
XI Dawns [133]
XII Peacock's Feathers—The Skeleton Hand at Monte Carlo [146]
XIII I Commit Murder [157]
XIV The Angel of Lourdes [175]
XV The Wraith of the Army Gentleman [184]
XVI An Austrian Adventure [197]
XVII Across the Threshold [211]
XVIII Haunted Rooms [221]
XIX "The New Jeanne D'Arc" [241]
XX Haunted Houses—"Castel A Mare" [251]
XXI The Sequel [263]
XXII The Haunted Lodge [276]
XXIII Auras [291]
XXIV Adieu [307]

GHOSTS I HAVE SEEN

CHAPTER I

"SILK DRESS" AND "RUMPUS"

From the terrible conditions of the present I have turned back to the past, for a little joy and a great deliverance.

In the present one lives no longer from day to day, but from hour to hour, and even a fleeting memory of the joys that are no more refreshes the soul—wearied, and fainting with a pallid anxiety that wraith-like envelops the whole being in a thrall of sadness.

To-day I heard music which I had known and loved in the happy, careless long ago, and whilst I was lost in a dream of half-forgotten bliss I smelt the fragrance of mimosa flower. I cannot describe the sensations of joy that thrilled through my whole being. An involuntary moving of the spirit, an emergence into a dream world, described by the Greeks as "ecstasy." The music fashioned the invisible link, and I was back again on a hillside where the mimosa grew in native abundance. Now, one thinks of France only as a hideous battle plain, but memory, the true dispensator of time, is never bound by years. She keeps ever fresh, in glowing colors, those ideal moments that gather up the utter joys of life into one divine sheaf of memory.

It is not only for its great uses that we must have memory, but for its joys. It rends the gray veil shrouding present existence, and shows us life as what it really is. A phantasmagoria of wonder, wrapped in mystery.

The day of miracles is not past, it never will be past, but if you want miracles you must have the power of seeing them.

I have written in this book of the miracles I have seen. Some of them any one can see, others are reserved for the delectation of the few.

I have written of strange visitants from other realms, and of that vivid illumination which at moments lays bare the hidden springs of life, when the spirit emerges beyond the limit of human thought, and familiar things, beyond the horizon of life, and touches a sphere beyond immortality. It is a condition that the grave has nothing to do with, a beholding beyond the frontiers of the soul.

I have written of the spiritual life, for without this spiritual life a palace would be no wider than a tomb. The vastness of the spirit world defies description. It can choose its own pathways, and any one of these long, long roads leading to the great mysteries.

It is now almost universally acknowledged that psychic experiences, of a specific nature, occur at certain times to certain people, that are not explicable by any known science. Generally, they are experiences which point to the continuity of the human consciousness with a wider spiritual environment, from which the normal man is shut off.

A few such experiences that have come to me I record.

I hope that I have never tried to convince others of the truth of these experiences. If I have done so it has been unconsciously done. I am absolutely persuaded that such phenomena can only become convincing when personally experienced. Such matters ought not to be accepted on hearsay. It is mere folly for one woman to attempt to demonstrate to another the existence of the human soul. The most that A can communicate to B, of any part of her own experiences, is so much of it as is common to the experiences of both.

I have proved conclusively to my own consciousness that I am linked up with a wider consciousness from which, at times, such experiences flow in.

I know my soul to be in touch with a greater soul, which at moments enters into communication with me, and opens out a vastness which it is impossible to translate into words, and which annihilates space and time.

I have had my vision, and I know. Therefore I am quite unmoved by criticism or ridicule.

I believe that what has come to me will come to all, and there is no need to hurry the process. We are simply a tiny part of a whole, which has neither beginning nor end. We live in a universe which is infinite in time and space, which has always existed in some form, and will go on in some form for ever. The discovery of the law of the indestructibility of matter has proved this beyond a doubt.

At some second in time our Universe will be dissolved into new systems, for the life of a solar system lasts only a second in eternity, but that need not worry us yet. There is lots of time for man to realize his soul, and all will doubtless do so at some moment in their many earth lives.

The classic idea is that the Golden Age lies in the past, but the Stoic doctrine of recurring cycles in the ages of the world seems to suggest that the Golden Age may return.

There are people to-day who ask, "Is this the end of the world?"

More probably it is the end of an age. The harvest may be ripe for the sickle to be thrust in. The opposition of good and evil may have reached their fullest manifestation. It may be the hour in eternity for a complete readjustment of the little ant-hills we call great nations.

We know the rise and fall of nations to be an historical fact, apparently based on an immutable law. This recurring phenomenon cannot be explained, though there are theories. Possibly the true one may be found in the failure or compliance to respond to the challenge: "Advance to a higher spiritual plane or perish." It may be that the right of continuance depends upon the answer to that challenge.

What brought about the decline of those mighty civilizations whose monuments of antiquity seem to mock our pride? What insidious disease brought about the fall of Rome? The beauty and inspiration of Greece was arrested by some swift decay, and the giant temples and Pyramids of Egypt, and the Mounds of Mesopotamia, testify to a grandeur far surpassing ours.

In the world's morning time, before the mists began to clear, we can trace the rise and fall of a score of mighty Empires. From out their present tombs of tragic silence arise figures, colossal sculptured figures, with faces and forms of commanding power. Assyrians, a mighty race, leaving behind whole libraries of record, chiseled upon indestructible pages. The lost arts of three thousand years ago.

Earlier still the earth resounded to the thunder of Xenophon's thousands, and the chariots of Persia sweeping after them. Lying deeper still in the shroud of antiquity the Pharaohs emerge as mighty conquerors, and we can dimly discern in the Empire of the Chaldeans the movement of a gorgeous civilization, and the majestic figures of men versed in mystic, and, to us, unknown lore. In Italy, memorials of a refined people, who were precursors of Roman power, have been found, forms of perfect grace in delicate vases and coins of gold and silver. The old Etruscan art is traced back to the Assyrians' sculpture. The snowy crown of ancient Greece budded and bloomed in the mighty halls of Assyria's splendor, hundreds of years before Christ. No phantom world could furnish a mightier or more resplendent host.

Reading of those proud and mighty civilizations brings the simple life of the Nazarene very near to us in years, it also shows us how quickly great splendors are sanded over by the hands of time. The British Museum holds the sculptured records of twenty-five hundred years. Whilst the flames, kindled by the mob of Christian monks, from the great Alexandrian library rose to Heaven, the temple fronts of the Pharaohs, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, loomed out of the conflagration. The impotent torches of the fanatics were powerless against such imperishable records. What of our records? Will these ancient civilizations be remembered when the fame of modern nations has vanished utterly? Which has the best chance of enduring in the future? The paper and pasteboard of to-day, or the monuments of stone, to which the Monarchs of bygone Empires entrusted the history of their unsurpassed grandeur?

"If thou hadst known in this thy day, even thou, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."

This is the epitaph written across the tombs of all nations now crumbling into dust.

"The things which belong to thy peace." The things which never die or fade, whose continuity is never broken, the Divine seeds that cannot perish, the things which are immortal. The winged soul in its æon-long pilgrimages through eternity to home.

I find it easy to write to-day upon psychic subjects, for everywhere I discern the dawn of what Conan Doyle, in his deeply interesting book, calls "The new revelation."

To one who, for the last forty years, has been immersed in all branches of occult research, the change of view that has come over the world in four years is very remarkable. Every one is now interested in the human soul, and all that appertains to it. The speeding up in the number of psychic experiences coming to light is enormous. So often now I come across "the last man in the world to see or hear anything" who has just been accorded a startling experience, and the rank skeptic is becoming a thing of the past.

Whilst sitting in solitude it is interesting to let one's thoughts slip back to childhood, and trace the present life in the mirror of the old. I discover that in the immediate now there is nothing new, but only that which has its symbol in the old. I seem to get only the much clearer vision of what once was vague and cloudy, or wholly unconsidered by the mind of youth.

In that garden of memory I can set old happenings in a new light, and measure my slow footprints in the age-long journey behind me. Two facts emerge from out such musings. Firstly, the journey of my soul takes a spiral path, which at intervals brings me face to face with the old things that I have learned to modernize by dressing in fresh thought forms, as new perceptions are won. Perceptions prophetic of the greater capacity for attainment when the Divine Power is permitted to unfold itself without let or hindrance.

Secondly, the further on the soul journeys the more solitary the road becomes. One by one the old companion pilgrims drop away. Perhaps it is that on that long, lone trail the traveler must be free.

Very early in my life came the consciousness that everywhere about me, in the infinitely above, in the infinitely below, permeating heart, mind and soul, is life—endless, eternal.

On this shoreless ocean of existence, without form or name, the soul is afloat. Birth and death are the tides, the ebb and flow of the ocean of life. The human soul is but a ripple on the sea of existence, and phenomenal life is but a flash in the eternity of eternities. All the teeming lives of effort around us, all the travail and suffering to which humanity is destined, are ordained for the great purpose of soul evolution. God sets the balance at every grave. That which distinguishes every man is the vast dower of our nature, eventually the same to all, the passing incidents of station, fortune, talent, are mere surface varieties.

I find in my mind the existence of something illimitably beyond mind, doubtless a common experience. I do not know what that something is, but it is very real, and it invariably shows me how cribbed, cabined and confined this life really is. I cannot even tell what it is that confines me. I only know that there is a limitless world full of infinite possibilities all around me. I seem always to have known this, but I cannot grasp it. True, at rare intervals, I catch a glimpse through a rift in the clouds, then they close again.

At such moments I experience an ecstasy of heart sweet happiness, so marvelously sweet, so pure, so near Divine with its deep wordless thoughts of infinite beauty. Such regions are not so much impenetrable as ineffable. They are glimpses gained at some great altitude, from which I can look down on the mortal pageant and behold mysteries in which I take no part, but by which I am encircled, as an island, by infinity. Such are luminous and splendid moments, when the soul beholds the world in its real mystic beauty. It is the hour of transfiguration, in which the veil drops from the heart and the film from the eyes, so that we see life as God means it to be.

Often, as a mere child, when lying awake in those nights, whose stillness have a quality of awe, the silence would be broken by weird, barbaric songs which wafted a sense of old, wild adventurous life, and in a curious quality of mystery I saw violet mountains sleeping in sunlight, above a sea of amethyst. Childish visions, but sacred nights. Very many years passed before I understood them.

On hot velvety nights in June a curious scent of smoke would come to me, the measured hollow beating of bells, and a tremulous far-away piping. Years after, I stood alone one evening on the slopes of Etna, amid the pale asphodels and the desolation of tumbling lava fields, and I heard the pipes of Pan, the reed pipe of the herd boy, and linked the past with the present. Again, passing through a region where the smoke rose from the charcoal burners' fires the scent of an ancient memory came vaporing up, the unfamiliar scent that puzzled my childhood, and I was away in a flash, to wait for the soul to free herself and return from the world's edge.

I had to journey further east before I heard again at dawn the ring of camel bells as a caravan broke camp, and then I understood the visions of my youth, as I listened to the measured hollow beating, and watched a strange medley of eastern traffic trail away across the desert.

Sometimes, when the nursery clock seemed to tick more loudly than usual, I saw a gigantic water-wheel, and behind it massive rocks with the hewn tombs of ancient kings, and beyond them lay distant glamorous mountains, white sails creeping amid warm purple isles, set in a gulf of turquoise. Sometimes I have dreamed holy things, and waked to find myself over-awed by the sublimity of the vision and the glory of the Universe.

So many of those childish visions I have identified in later life, but there is one which eludes me. It is a great white road leading to the farther east, and I see it drenched in white sunlight. Tinkling mule trains pass along it, and I know now it is in some way connected with Ida that saw ancient Troy, and the Capital of Pontus, the seat of Mithridates' Court, and the Empire of Trebizond. Some day, who knows, I may walk upon it.

Looking back I can recollect nothing psychic happening to me before the age of six. I can fix that date upon which I became actually aware of the other world. It all happened through "Silk dress" and "Rumpus."

I slept in a bed in one corner, and my younger brother slept in another corner. The room was large, and at the top of a modern, quite ordinary, town house. Two flights of stairs ran down to the ground floor. "Silk dress" was something we were extremely interested in, but I cannot recollect that we were ever in the least afraid.

When we first became aware of "silk dress" I do not know, but in looking back across those many years I think that in the beginning we must have accepted "it" as something or somebody "real." Only after several experiences did it dawn upon us that "it" was not real. By then we had passed beyond the stage when we might have felt fear. After we had gone to bed we were left quite alone in the dark, and the nurses went down to supper. The younger children slept in another room. It was during such periods of silence that "silk dress" began its ascent.

Just as we were dropping off to sleep one of us would murmur drowsily, "Here comes silk dress." Then we lay quite still, very wide awake again and listened intently.

From far down on the ground floor we heard footsteps quietly and methodically ascending, and the rustle of a silk dress. We could hear quite distinctly when "it" arrived at the first floor, which was occupied by our parents, then "it" passed on to the next flight of stairs leading to our floor.

The sound of footsteps and the rustle of the silk dress became more and more clearly audible as "it" drew ever nearer. We could tell the second at which "it" passed from the last step on to the corridor which led past our half-open door. Then there was a thrilling moment or two, when the tip-tap of shoes, and the swish of silk on the linoleum was quite loud, but the footsteps never halted. They always swept past the half-closed door, and went on into a small room beyond, which was used for storing boxes. Then dead silence fell again.

In those days we never heard the word "ghost" mentioned, yet I cannot recollect thinking of "silk dress" as anything but a visitor from the other world. We talked of "it" freely in the household, but probably because we expressed no fear, no one seemed in the least interested. On wakeful nights we occupied ourselves in waiting for "it," and on wet nights we could not hear "it" clearly because the rain pattered so loudly on a large skylight outside our door. What interested us enormously was the fact that we never heard "it" descend again. How "it" got down in order to mount once more was a great puzzle.

"Rumpus" was quite another matter, quite another order of manifestation. "Rumpus" always began when we were sound asleep, and "Rumpus" always wide awakened us. "They" came at longer intervals, about every ten days, whilst "it" came on most nights. During the summer mornings in the North, when one could often read a book in the light of a one a. m. dawn, "they" were very interesting, because when "their" hour, five a. m., arrived the room was flooded with sunshine. In winter mornings, when the room was in black darkness, we were merely bored, and cross at being roused, and we simply lay still and endured "them" till they had quite finished. But in the summer mornings we always sat up in bed and intently watched something we never saw.

When "Rumpus" roused us brusquely from our slumbers it was by means of a demoniac pandemonium. The room was in possession of "them," and "they" crashed, and banged, and tossed about the furniture in the most reckless fashion. Crash went the wardrobe, bang went one chair after another, hurtling across the room. Crash went wardrobe back into its place again, clang went the fire-irons. Rushing collisions, and rappings on the window-panes, thuds on the floor, rattlings and clatterings of crockery, jingling of brass, creakings and groanings of expostulation from the old sofa, clanking of the fireguard, a veritable tornado of noise, enough surely to awaken the dead, yet out of the living it only awakened—us. No one else in the house ever heard it, and our vivid descriptions were, perhaps, naturally attributed to nightmare.

We, of course, knew that it was nothing of the sort. We were, indeed, very wide awake during the ten to fifteen minutes the pandemonium continued, and our eyes were kept darting from side to side following the track of the noises, as they grew in volume and intensity. Creak, groan, crash! No mistaking the spot where that deafening sound came from. That was the old mahogany wardrobe being hurled face downwards on the floor, but whilst our eyes were riveted on its statuesque and utter immobility jingle, clank, from the fender, where the fire-irons commenced to jig. A wildly confused uproar over all the room, then boom, thud, beneath us, and our beds shivered convulsively, and sent thrills of wild excitement coursing through our nerves.

Suddenly the tumult would cease. The mystery lay in the fact that we never saw anything move, though we distinctly heard everything moving, and could feel our beds reel beneath us.

I have no explanations to offer of those happenings. They are very clearly fixed in my objective memory, and when we were both grown up, and had finally left that house my brother used often to say to me, "Do you remember 'Silk Dress' and 'Rumpus'?"

Such recollections crowd back upon me now, with many other images of childhood. No sooner do I recollect one than another emerges like a shining cloud from below the horizon. Where have they been lying hidden during all those flying years? They have dwelt deep down in the eternal memory, the heart of God which beats in all humanity. Within that heart are stored æonic treasures. They lie ever in wait to be bidden arise and cross the threshold.

CHAPTER II

THE GHOST OF BROUGHTON HALL

I was about six years old when my family moved to a brand new house in Claremont Crescent, that had just been erected on the outskirts of Edinburgh. There were still some green fields unbuilt upon, and some fine old trees left standing close to us, and those were still included in a triangular group of three grand old Manors—Broughton Hall, Powder Hall, and Logie Green. All three had the reputation of being badly haunted. The first named stood almost within a stone's throw of our end of the Crescent, and was occupied by an ancient family named Walker, who had held the property for generations. They still existed as a very charming relic of Scotch antiquity, and they had always been friends of our family.

The house from the outside was very grim and forbidding-looking. It was hidden from the eyes of the curious behind very high walls, and was entered upon by two huge gates, always kept closed.

Inside, the house was most interesting and attractive. There were many closed rooms and winding staircases, and odd steps in long, dark corridors, but the rooms that were lived in were beautiful of their kind. There were desks with secret drawers, wonderful pieces of Chippendale, tenderly cared for, quantities of rare old china and cut glass, and on the walls hung glorious Romneys and Hoppners, which fetched huge prices at Christie's when the household was finally broken up by death.

The family consisted of three sisters, Fanny, Hope, and Kitty, the latter a widow, named Mrs. Chew. There were two brothers, Adam and John. The former lived with his sisters. John was a minister, and only paid visits. There was a nephew, the heir, William Stephens, who also paid long visits to the Hall. Though, at the date of which I speak, about 1870, he must have been at least sixty, he was always referred to as "the Laddie."

The three sisters occupied distinct positions in the house. Mrs. Chew acted as cook, though servants were kept, and she always sat in the kitchen, only coming "through" to the dining-room for her meals. Miss Hope was the worldly member of the family. She had been to London Town, and could not be relied upon to stop at home. She looked after the polishing of the furniture, the old glass and china. Miss Fanny was the lady of the family. She always sat in the best parlor. Every one waited on her, and she was never permitted to do anything for herself.

She dressed for the part in thick, black satin, with, in winter, a white silk embroidered Chinese shawl, and, in summer, old Brussels lace. Across her forehead was a band of black velvet, with a pear-shaped pearl depending between the eyebrows. Over her snow-white hair was flung a piece of old lace surmounting a wreath of artificial flowers. Her claw-like hands were covered by lace mittens and many rings. I saw her constantly, and she was always idle. I never saw her read, or sew, or knit, and often I wondered what she thought about, as she sat there always in the same chair, year in year out, and with no companion but a large gray parrot. True, her surroundings were delightful. From her chair near the fire she could look out on the quaint old garden, always full of flowers, and she could glance around her at the many beautiful objects the room contained.

I especially admired one Hoppner. The subject was a beautiful woman, with a mass of powdered hair, seated by an open window. Her cheek was supported in her hand, and at her elbow was a quaint little wicker cage containing a bird. I think the artist meant to suggest that both were captives. Though quite well in health, Miss Fanny never left the house, even to walk in the garden.

My father and I went very often to call upon those curious old people, who were so utterly out of touch with modern life, backward though life was then in the Northern Capital. We arrived at all sorts of hours, but refreshments were always produced. An amazingly rich cake, and fruity old port, served in large quarter-pint cut-glass rummers. It was not considered polite to refuse those offerings, which were always kept in a corner cupboard, and served by Mrs. Chew, who emerged from the kitchen, or Miss Hope, who left her housework to greet us.

Though Broughton Hall was commonly reputed to be haunted, no one seemed to know what form the ghost took. I was great friends with Mr. Adam, a majestic, clean-shaven old man, who carried his chin very high above an enormous black silk stock, and often I tried to draw him on the subject of the ghost, but without success. He took it very seriously, and warned me that "I wouldn't be any the better for having seen it. Besides," he always concluded, "it's a family affair." The sisters were even more uncommunicative.

My father and I were profoundly interested in this ghost. There was something about the whole establishment that was extremely promising, from the ghost-hunter point of view. The consequence of this was that we were always on the prowl. Nothing discouraged us, and we spared neither time nor trouble. There is no research which requires such infinite patience as psychic research. Several years passed before the great moment arrived, and when it did arrive it was all over in about four minutes.

My father had a way of suddenly looking up from his work and saying, "Let's go to Broughton Hall." I would at once rise, and together we would pass out into the night, without either hats or coats. Very eccentric, it may be said, but then we frankly were very eccentric. We would steal away together around the Crescent, and down the road till we reached the great gates. Very softly we opened and closed them, and keeping well in the shadow of the trees and bushes we would creep round the silent house.

I cannot describe the thrill of those nocturnal adventures. It was all so eerie, so full of vague, terrifying possibilities. I don't know what we expected to see, and we were generally back again in our own house in half an hour; but one night our patience really was rewarded.

It was November, dry, but wild and bitterly cold. Billowy white snow clouds scudding before a brisk north wind threw us alternately into light and darkness, as they covered and uncovered the face of the full moon. We had emerged from our house about half-past nine, and had reached the back of Broughton Hall. The house was shrouded in darkness and dead silence, every blind was close drawn, and the suggestion was one of utter emptiness. My father and I were walking apart, I being right under the shadow of the walls, whilst he was in the middle of the paved court, which had neither hedge nor walls, but met the edge of the field running up to it.

Suddenly I heard him whisper "Hush!" though we never did utter a word whilst close to the house. His arm was pointing in front of him. I stared ahead, and then I saw, clearly lit by the moon, a woman who had apparently just rounded the corner of the house. She was running hard, straight towards us, and her feet made no sound on the round cobble stones.

Terror suddenly seized me, and I darted across to my father, and got well behind him, seizing him firmly round the waist. The woman came on, rushing wildly. She had nearly reached us, and I was almost thrown over as my father faced her, and backed to allow her to pass. I peeped round him, and saw a woman, ghastly pale, and distraught-looking, clad in a white nightdress. Two long strands of black hair streamed out behind her, and her bare arms were outstretched in front. In a flash she had passed, and absolutely silently, and I found myself lying on the ground alone, and my father vanishing in hot pursuit.

Needless to say I very quickly picked myself up again, and joined the chase. Terror lent me wings, and in a minute or two I came up with him, standing breathless by the gate.

"Vanished into thin air just as I reached her. That's always the way. You can't catch them," he said.

We made a little détour before going home, in order to discuss the great event. We had no doubt that we had seen a genuine apparition. We knew all the occupants of the Hall, and the woman had vanished in the open, and in full flight, just as my father had come up alongside her. He cautioned me against mentioning our adventure to any one, and I kept silence until years after, when Broughton Hall was pulled down and its inmates were all dead.

Before going on to our next ghostly adventure I will say a few words about my father, Robert Chambers, who in those days was something of a celebrity, and a very remarkable man.

In appearance he was very handsome, extremely tall and well built, and with features that were well-nigh perfect. It was the fashion in his time to wear the hair rather long, and his was dark and very curly. He always dressed well, in the style of the country gentleman, rather than as a town dweller.

In character he was extremely independent, and was utterly indifferent to two things—money and public opinion. His intellect was extraordinary, and it was commonly said that he knew a great deal about most things, and something about all things.

In Scotland, in those days, it was not considered necessary to trouble about the education of girls. No one ever tried to educate me, consequently at a very early age I was absolutely free to devote myself entirely to my father, and we were inseparable. Our intercourse was not that of father and daughter. It was that of confidential friends of an equal age. At that period my mother was more or less of an invalid, and had her own attendants.

My father and I went every morning at ten o'clock to the old business house of W. and R. Chambers, in the High Street of Edinburgh, and remained there till half-past two, when we walked home together, sometimes paying a call or two on the way. Though a mere uneducated child I helped him in his literary work, and at odd hours committed to memory many poets. We returned to four o'clock dinner, the correct hour in those days, and at six o'clock a porter arrived with my father's bag, containing manuscripts to be read and selected for Chambers' Journal. From six p. m. till midnight he worked at reading manuscript, not typed then, and proof correcting.

Twice a week we went to the theater—there was only one in Edinburgh then. It was managed by a hard working couple, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, who sometimes filled up a week by acting themselves. I am bound to say we spent most of our time in the Green Room, and I knew every turn and twist behind the curtain. This turned out to be lucky for us.

One night we went to a performance given by the Arthur Sullivan Company, and about halfway through a cry of "Fire" was raised. Great masses of burning stuff began to drop from the ceiling down into the auditorium. Instantly there was a panic, and a terrible stampede, and my father and I leaned forward, protecting our heads behind the backs of the stalls in front, whilst the mad rush climbed over us. When all was clear in front of us we made our way to the back of the stage, and escaped quite easily. I looked behind me, and I can see now the dense mass of struggling humanity wedged in the doorway.

I remained safely with Mrs. Howard whilst my father ran around to the front and helped to extricate the dead. The theater was burned to the ground, but was very rapidly built up again.

My first literary effort must here be recorded. I collaborated with Professor Andrew Wilson in writing the pantomime of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."

Andrew Wilson was Professor of Natural Science, and an extremely versatile person—a passionate love of the drama was added to his many scientific attainments. We wrote the dialogue together, in one long revelry of laughter, and I was responsible for the words of the songs. As a literary effort I can only describe it as appalling. The pantomime was, however, a great success. The audacity of our utter incompetence proved highly successful, and the critics justly described it as "The funniest Pantomime in Scotland." No wonder the audience laughed from start to finish.

My father always called at once upon any celebrity who happened to be passing through the city, and thus I became acquainted with many interesting and amusing people. Henry Irving was amongst the number. We always called upon him on our way to business, a little before ten. If he was playing for a week we called on him every morning, and often looked into the Green Room at night. He and my father were great friends, and at the hour of our visit he was always propped up in bed having breakfast. I used to perch on the bed whilst the two men talked. Irving's nightshirt interested me (pyjamas had not come in then). It was white cambric with two enormous double frills down the front, and quite a pierrot ruffle round his neck. He was profoundly interested in the occult, and told me that a ghost he had once seen had suggested to him a particular action of his whilst playing in "The Bells." At the moment when he parted the curtains, and looked wildly out, shouting hoarsely, "The Bells, the Bells."

Through Irving we came to know the Baroness Burdett Coutts, his ardent admirer. She was very kind to me, and presented me with a green silk dress, but I always thought her a very melancholy woman, even when entertaining many interesting people in her celebrated corner house in Piccadilly, with its white china parrot swinging in the window. She was much attached to my father, and treated him with a humble and touching deference.

Robert Chambers was a very keen sportsman, who fortunately did not require much practice to keep up his game. He held championships in golf and bowling. He was too ardent a naturalist and ornithologist to care for shooting, but he was an expert angler. He was also a born actor and mimic, and used to keep a Green Room in roars by "taking off" any of "the profession" called for, and I never heard a better ventriloquist. He adored music, and played the flute well. As a platform speaker he was extremely fluent and perfectly at ease.

His indifference to money resulted in his never having a penny in his pocket at night, no matter how much he took with him in the morning, and one of my tasks was to prevent his being fleeced by those who lay in wait for him. He took any amount of trouble over impecunious and incompetent authors, and constantly re-wrote their work for them in order to make it fit for publication. He was a unique editor, and his labors in the cause of charity were strenuous, secret, and, I fear, rather indiscriminate.

During this period of my life, the head of the house, William Chambers, was still living, with his quaint old wife, in the West End of Edinburgh. William, who had survived his more versatile brother, Robert (my grandfather), was a little shriveled-up old man, with a dry and severe manner. Most people were afraid of him, few liked him, but I got on with him famously. I have always been extremely proud of the fact that he rose from nothing to great wealth. There must be something fine in a man, who, as a lad, rose at four a. m. to read classics to an intelligent baker, whilst the batch of bread was being baked, and who gladly accepted as payment a copper or a roll.

William and Robert Chambers had left their widowed mother to fend for themselves. The family was at the lowest financial ebb. Much money had been spent on the French refugees who flocked into Scotland in 1810, and there was nothing to spare now. We were originally French, like so very many of the old Scotch families. The first of us in history is recorded as Guillaume de la Chaumbre, who, as the most prominent man in Peebles, signed the Ragman Roll in 1296. My people had always lived in the dales of the Tweed, so very appropriately I married a man called Tweedale.

Towards the end of his life William Chambers amused himself by spending many thousands on the restoration of St. Giles' Cathedral, an historic church which had fallen into great disrepair. This was a time of great interest for me, and I used to spend hours helping the workmen to gather up the thousands of human skulls that paved the church to a good depth. There were tombs laid bare of many celebrated people of the long ago, and these had to be identified, and carefully kept intact, until finally given a safer resting-place.

William Chambers had been offered a baronetcy some years previously, but he refused it. He told me he did not consider it a dignified thing for a man of letters to bear any other honor than that accorded to brain power by a benefited world. He and his brother Robert were the pioneers of cheap and good educational literature for the laboring man, and the avidity with which this literature, "Chambers' Information for the People," was consumed, appeared to be a fitting reward. In those days it was an unheard-of thing for a publisher to be honored by a title. Now, however, on the eve of the re-opening of St. Giles' Cathedral, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, commanded William Chambers to accept a baronetcy. The old couple were much agitated, but had to submit, and the Queen announced her intention of performing the opening ceremony.

When the day arrived William Chambers lay dead in his house, and my father and I took the place of the old couple. The Queen was indisposed, and Lord Aberdeen took her place.

After the ceremony both Lord Aberdeen and Lord Rosebery urged upon my father to take up the baronetcy, more especially as he was his uncle's heir, but this he utterly refused to do.

Old Lady Chambers, the widow, discarded her title immediately and remained Mrs. Chambers till the day of her death.

It must have been at least a month after William Chambers' death that he visited me in a very vivid dream. I dreamed that he was standing beside my bed, and suddenly he bent over me and whispered in my ear, "I've left you all my money." On waking I had totally forgotten the dream, but later in the day an old servant of ours said to me, "I saw the wraith of your Uncle William last night, but he had nothing to say to me."

Then my dream flashed back to me. A day or two afterwards I said suddenly to the old family lawyer, "Was there ever a question of Uncle William leaving his money to me?"

The dry answer was, "Yes! at one time there was a question of that." I could never extract anything further from him on the subject.

Though now possessed of considerable wealth my father made no difference in his mode of life, and he continued to work just as hard as ever, and to give away large sums of money. He never wanted anything for himself, but was always ready to give to others. He had a great love of precious stones, and always carried about little packets of diamonds, which looked like packets of chemists' powders. Had I desired I could have loaded myself with jewels. He never denied me anything and we continued our close companionship, the only difference now being we took some holidays in the form of afternoons off.

On one of these occasions we saw our second ghost.

We went to pay a visit to a very old woman, whose name I cannot remember. She lived alone with one servant in an ancient dwelling in Inveresk. The house was a large one, and was enclosed by very high walls, which entirely isolated it from the busy streets that surrounded it. The original old garden remained, in all its beauty, and the rooms were full of quaint heirlooms.

We were always made very welcome, and the servant at once produced a delicious tea, consisting of fresh baked scones, butter made of real cream—margarine being not then invented—home-made strawberry jam, and home-laid eggs. Russian eggs were not then imported.

I must here interpose that deliciously innocent telegram sent by an Aberdeen merchant in the first days of the Great War, and which set all England and Scotland mad to see the fur and snow-clad Russian troops passing through to the Front. The telegram ran as follows:—

"Twenty thousand Russians arrived."

The twenty thousand Muscovites were only twenty thousand stale eggs, but Lord Kitchener's order was, "Let it stand."

To return to my story.

One glorious late spring evening we were seated at tea, and the window was thrown wide to the perfumed garden, where lilacs, and wallflowers, and lilies of the valley rioted gloriously. The birds were in full song in this peaceful sanctuary, which might have been a hundred miles away from a town. My father had put his invariable question to the old woman, "Have you seen her again?" Sometimes the answer was Yes, sometimes No. I gathered that this question referred to the old woman's dead daughter, her only child. This daughter had been violently insane for many years and had remained under her mother's protection. She had died some years previously, at the age of fifty-five, having endured a terribly long martyrdom.

Suddenly my father broke off the conversation.

"My God! there she is!" He half rose from his chair and stared through the open window. I looked in the same direction. A woman was strolling aimlessly along the path just outside. There was a curious uncertainty about her movements. She walked like a blind person, who has neither stick nor arm to guide her. Strangely enough I never thought of connecting this woman with the ghost of the mad daughter. She looked so natural, so commonplace. Her hollow face was quite gray, and her dark hair was drawn tightly back from it, and rolled in an ugly knob behind. Her dress was of some dark material, her boots were of cloth, and her hands and arms were rolled up in a stuff apron she wore.

There she was, vacantly wandering in the garden, in the lovely spring evening, with the blackbirds and thrushes singing their hearts out all around her, and I did not comprehend why such an ordinary, unattractive looking person should so deeply interest my father.

I turned round to say something to the old woman, then I instantly understood. She had gone down on her knees, and had hidden herself by throwing the end of the tablecloth over her head.

Then I turned my eyes back to the apparition. I don't suppose she was visible for more than four minutes. I remember my father uttering consoling words to the effect that "she's gone," and helping the old woman into her chair again, when we resumed our tea and conversation, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

Looking back upon these incidents I contrast the infinite trouble we took in our hunt for ghosts, with present-day psychical research. I think of the innumerable half hours we spent at Broughton Hall, and only once were we rewarded by seeing anything. We visited the old woman at Inveresk whenever we found time. There was nothing in the least inspiring or interesting in her conversation, yet to us there was an unspeakable charm about her outward circumstances.

There was the spiritual charm of the silent old house, with its vibrating memories of the long departed. The charm of the cloistered peace, amidst which the woman lived and dreamed, shut away from the world by the high walls. It was a retreat in which to meditate, and that always appealed to me. A dwelling with a beautiful view has a great charm, but it draws the thoughts always outward to the external. Still, when I pass a quiet old homestead, hidden away in its own flowery old garden from the eyes of the world, it attracts me far more than the far-flung grandeur of many a stately English mansion.

Only in such retreats of ancient peace can the thoughts be turned continuously inward, to their true bourne—the temple of the living God.

I seem to have been born with an ingrained belief in the enormous virtue of renunciation. Self-sacrifice, I am certain, is the foundation stone upon which is built the moral progress of man. I had occasion to prove this for myself at a comparatively early age. My mother suddenly became much more ailing than usual, and began to suffer a great deal of pain. A consultation of doctors was called by our own family physician, and two of the greatest surgeons in Edinburgh arrived one morning at our house.

After about an hour they came into the room in which I awaited them. Their faces were very grave. They informed me, as kindly as they could, that they had arrived at the unanimous opinion that my mother was suffering from internal cancer, and that she might possibly live another six months. Our own doctor confessed that he had long suspected this, and the two surgeons corroborated his opinion. There was no doubt in their minds, as the disease had openly declared itself.

I took this shock in perfect silence for a minute or two, then I decided upon my first course of action. I asked them in the meanwhile to keep this matter secret from every one, even from my father.

To this they rather demurred, saying that it was only right that he should know the truth, and that he would certainly question them. I then urged that our family doctor had known of this, and had hidden his knowledge up to to-day. It would be easy enough for him to go on hiding the truth for a short time longer.

The doctors sought to know my reason for this secrecy; it would do no good, the truth would have to come out. I could give no reason. I had no reason, only a very strong instinct, and I wanted time. I asked for a fortnight, after which I would myself inform my father of the nature of my mother's malady.

They agreed to this, doubtless much relieved that so unpleasant a task was removed to other shoulders, and they went away.

That night I did not sleep. I had too much to think out. My mother must not die. I had to form some plan to save her, if it were humanly possible. She was absolutely necessary, I considered, to the younger children. She would be required for some years yet. My life was wholly given up to my father, I had become necessary to him, and this left me no time to mother the young ones. His health was not of the best. A curious tendency to hemorrhage kept him constantly weak. If he had a tooth drawn bleeding would continue for days after. He needed all my attention.

At that particular time I possessed something—never mind what—that meant more to me than anything else in the whole wide world. It was the greatest thing I had in life. I decided before morning that with this, my one great possession, I would strike a bargain with the Almighty. I would give Him a fortnight to consider it. I would offer Him the greatest thing in my life in exchange for my mother's life.

Quite conceivably He might refuse to consider the proposition, in which case I stood to lose everything. I could never again recover what I proposed to risk, but I came to the deliberate conclusion that it was worth it. The case demanded a desperate remedy.

Having made up my mind, I went about the business in the crudest and most practical manner. I set aside certain odd half hours during the coming fortnight, in which I would state my case. I wanted God to have every opportunity of considering my suggestion on its simple merits.

I began by pointing out to Him why it was so necessary that my mother should live, and then I went on to say that He might be sure I asked nothing for myself. I proposed to give in exchange for my mother's life the greatest thing I possessed on earth, a thing that doubtless was of little interest to Him, but nevertheless meant a very great deal to me—in fact, my all. I really had nothing else of any value to offer.

Now, in thus addressing the Almighty, I was not acting as a primitive savage, for I had considered the subject of Deity for several years, and had studied most of the great theologians. I addressed Him thus as a Spirit of too supreme a potency, of too extraneous a mentality and majesty, to be addressed in any other terms but plain downright reasoning. Elaborate and propitiatory words were good enough for earthly princelets, but ridiculous when offered up to the Supreme Creative Power. That was my way of looking at it, and I began at once to carry out my plan. There was no time to lose. Meanwhile, no living soul, save the doctors, knew of my secret.

At the end of the second day my mother was free from pain. At the end of the first week she was recovering rapidly. The family doctor was intensely puzzled, but still adhered to his original conviction. On the eighth day I ceased my half-hourly reasoning with God. I merely thanked Him for concluding the bargain. He had accepted my sacrifice, the greatest I could make, and there that matter ended. I felt, without the smallest irreverence, that we were quits.

At the end of the month the two great surgeons returned, at our own doctor's request. I awaited them with perfect assurance and tranquillity. When they came in to me they still looked perturbed. They told me that they had examined my mother, and found all traces of the malady had disappeared. They could not account for it, they reiterated their former diagnosis, dwelling upon certain facts, in very natural self-justification. They expressed, in the very kindest manner, their deep regret for all the suffering and anxiety they must have caused me, and said how very lucky it was that no one had been made aware of their original convictions, save myself. The case was extraordinary, abnormal, there was nothing more to say. Then they went away for the last time.

My father was greatly puzzled at their refusing to accept any fee, and to the day of his death our own doctor, whenever he found me alone, referred to the case as the most marvelous he had ever come across. My mother quite regained her health, and died many years after from lung trouble.

One other great sacrifice I had to make a year or two after. My father was entirely confined to bed with a severe attack of internal hemorrhage, and at the same time my youngest sister was threatened with consumption. She was ordered to go to the South of France immediately.

It was decided that I must go with her, as she could not be trusted to strangers. My mother, absolutely restored to health, would be left with my father, who had also a good nurse valet.

My father and I bade each other farewell one early morning in February, 1888. We knew we would not meet again on earth.

Only one other curious incident do I remember in connection with that town house we lived in. On the night of the 28th December we were all assembled in the library, most of us were reading, and a violent wind storm was howling round the house. Suddenly my father laid down the proof sheets he was correcting, and took out his watch. Then he turned to us and said: "At this moment, seven fifteen, on Sunday the 28th of December, 1879, something terrible has happened. I think a bridge must be down."

The next day we learned that the Tay Bridge had been blown down at that very hour, and the train and its occupants hurled to death in the waters below.

CHAPTER III

CURIOUS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES

After my father's death I began to live a much more independent life. I was financially independent, and I proceeded to London, where I felt I would have a wider range of intellectual companionship. I lived in hotels and dispensed with all chaperonage, thus leaving myself free to join my mother on the Riviera in the early spring months.

I never cared for dancing, and always having had the companionship of people who were years older than myself, I had made few girl friends. My first cousin, Lady Campbell, wife of Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., 60th Rifles, and another first cousin, Menie Muriel Dowie, were the only two I really saw much of.

Lady Campbell was, and is, a very attractive woman, possessed of great charm of manner. Exceedingly cultured and intelligent, she is also an artist to her finger tips. As girls we used to be fond of attending Queen Victoria's Drawing-rooms. A bevy of us would take lunch with us in the carriages, and thoroughly enjoy our day out. I was the last woman to kiss the hand of Queen Victoria at a Drawing-room. I was stopped by a Court official just as I was moving forward, and told to wait as "Her Majesty is going to withdraw." The present Dowager Queen Alexandra, as Princess of Wales, then took her place. On this occasion I heard the Queen say, "Let this lady pass." I was then told to proceed.

Being very tall I had always a certain difficulty in getting down low enough to kiss the tiny Queen's hand. After I had passed, and as I backed out of "the presence," I saw Her Majesty being assisted out of the queer little half chair, half stool she used. She never held another Drawing-room, and I regret that, being abroad, I had not the honor of making a last curtsy to the little coffin as it passed through the streets of London.

Menie Muriel Dowie was a brilliant bohemian, as can be gathered by those who have read her book, "A Girl in the Carpathians." I have never known any woman who was possessed of so many natural talents. She is as much at home in skilled and polished diplomacy as in practical agriculture. She has always been a great traveler, yet a delicate woman. Only her indomitable spirit kept her going in her youth, as it still does in her beautiful house in Green Street, and her model farm in Gloucestershire.

My greatest older friends were Mrs. Lynn Linton, the novelist, Browning, the poet, Lord Leighton, the painter, and Mrs. Proctor, widow of Barry Cornwall, and mother of Adelaide Proctor, the poet. All people old enough to be my parents.

I had a great admiration for Mrs. Lynn Linton's strong, cold intellect; it was so invigorating, and she was so self-reliant, an uncommon thing for a woman to be in those days. We had long arguments over matters occult, but I never could make the least impression upon her strong materialism. "I won't leave this earth even with you," she used to protest. She was a great friend and admirer of my aunt, Lady Priestley, also a woman of very fine intellect, who devoted herself to scientific pursuits. Had she been a man, or had she lived in the present day, when woman has at last come into her own, she would have made a very strong mark.

Robert Browning, whom I had known for some years, used to drop in very often to have a chat, and I rejoiced in him exceedingly as a born mystic of a high order. We often discussed the possibility of his work being directed from the other side, and we argued as to whether he received inspiration from various quarters, or whether he was the beloved of some poet of a former age, who, active still in the spirit world, expressed his great thoughts through Robert Browning on earth. So many people at that time frankly said they could not understand Browning's poetry, and this I told him was to be attributed to lack of the mystic perception. Now that mysticism has so enormously developed, his work is much more comprehensive to the world.

I had alas! only one year of really close friendship with him, for he died the year after I came to London.

One curious thing Browning told me.

He dropped in one night to see me, after dinner at a house where Millais, the painter, had been one of the guests.

"Johnnie Millais told me an odd thing to-night," he said. "He's constantly seeing figures appearing and disappearing on the face of the canvas he's working upon."

"What sort of figures?" I asked.

Browning shot out his cuff.

"Here they are. I knew you'd be interested, so I took them down for you. Better write them down for yourself, but don't mention the subject to him or any of his family."

I fetched a piece of paper and copied from Browning's cuff.

"13. 1.8.9.6. The figures don't always come in that order," he said, "but more often than not they do. The 13 always comes up as 13, but he's seen 9.6.1.8. What do you make of it?"

"At present nothing, but the future may throw light upon the phenomenon," I answered.

I never mentioned this occurrence to any one, and, indeed, forgot all about it till some years after Millais' death, when I came upon my notes in an old box. I then realized that the great painter had been looking upon the dates of his own death. He died on August 13th, 1896.

One night some one, I have not the least idea who, came to me in my sleep and bade me take up pencil and paper, and write to dictation. Still sound asleep I did as I was bidden. I always kept writing materials by my bedside.

In the morning I remembered nothing of this till my eye fell upon some sheets of paper. The writing upon them was mine, but very big and untidy. Then I recollected the command I had received in the night and eagerly read what I had written. Here it is. I gave Browning a copy as he was so deeply interested—

"A solitary cottage stood on the edge of a bleak moorland. The sun sank behind the low horizon, and left marshy pools glowing like living opals. A stream of homeward flying rooks made a streak of indigo across the topaz sky where gauzy wind-riven clouds floated westward. The sacred hush of eventide brooded under the calm wings of night.

"Out on the waste wandered the Angel of 'Sleep,' and the Angel of 'Death' with arms fraternally entwined, and whilst the brotherly genii embraced each other, night stole down with velvet footfall, and the green stars peered forth.

"Then the Angel of Sleep shook from out his hands the invisible grains of slumber, and bade the night wind waft them o'er the world. And soon the child in its cradle, the tired mother, the aged man, and the pain-laden woman were at peace. The curfew tolled out from the distant hamlet and then was still.

"Inside the cottage a rushlight burned faintly, indicating the poverty of the room, and illuminating the death-like features of the boy who lay on the bed. By his side, worn out, sat the father, his horny hand clasped in that of his child.

"And the two brother Angels advanced, hand in hand, and peered in at the window, and the Angel of Sleep said: 'Behold how gracious a thing it is, that we can visit this humble dwelling and scatter grains of slumber around, and send oblivion to the weary watcher. I am beloved and courted by all. How merciful is our vocation.' And silently he entered the room.

"He kissed the eyelids of the weary watcher, and as he did so some grains fell from out the wreath of scarlet poppies that lay like drops of blood upon his brow.

"But the Angel of Death sat without, his pallid face shrouded in the sable of his wings.

"And he spake to the Angel of Sleep, 'Of a truth thou art happy and beloved. The welcome guest of all, whereas I am shunned, the door is barred as against a secret foe, and I am counted the enemy of the world.'

"But the Angel of Sleep wiped away the immortal tears from the dark and mournful eyes of his brother Death.

"'Are we not children born of the one Father?' said he, 'and do not the good call thee friend, and the lonely, the homeless, the weary laden bless thy hallowed name when they wake in Paradise.'

"And the Angel of Death unfurled his sable wings and took heart. And as Lucifer the light-bringer paled in the violet Heavens he silently entered the dwelling. With his golden scythe he cut the silver cord of life, and gathered the child to his faithful bosom."

The evenings I most enjoyed were those I spent in the studio of Felix Moscheles, the great apostle of peace. There one met all the genius and talent in London, and any genius of foreign nationality who happened to be visiting England. The cosmopolitan element always attracted me, and I went to several frankly revolutionary houses, where red ties flaunted, and where those Russian Nihilists found a welcome who were constantly rushing over here to escape Siberia. Through them I learned to understand what the real woes of Russia were, and to expect the present revolution as the inevitable result of brutal repression and misgovernment.

During one winter at Nice I renewed my acquaintance with one of the most remarkable mystics of modern times, Marie, Countess of Caithness and Duchesse de Pomar.

I had first met her in Edinburgh in 1872 when she was on the eve of her second marriage with Lord Caithness. My father and mother attended her very quiet wedding. Now we met again many years after at her beautiful home, the Palais Tiranty, Nice. Lady Caithness was widowed for the second time, Lord Caithness having died in 1881, and lived alone with her devoted son, the Duc de Pomar. She had a magnificent home in Paris, "Holyrood," Avenue Wagram. This house contained a large lecture hall filled with gilt chairs, and hung round with fine pictures. Leading from this hall down a flight of marble stairs one came to a chapel or séance room, used for direct communication with the spirit of Mary Stuart, and said to have been built "under the Queen's instructions."

This presupposes Queen Mary to be still on "the other side." Other occultists maintain that she has reincarnated again in the person of a very old Empress, who still lives on earth.

It has been often said of Lady Caithness that she believed herself to be the reincarnation of Mary Stuart. During all the years I knew her intimately I never heard her even hint at such a belief, and the fact that she believed herself to be in touch with the Queen on "the other side" precludes in my opinion the possibility of her having formed such a conception.

What may have given rise to the suggestion was the fact that she dressed after the fashion of the Scottish Queen, and was surrounded by "Mary relics." Also, there is no doubt that she had a deeply sympathetic interest in the unfortunate Queen, and had elevated her memory into what amounted almost to a religion. In the chapel there is a full length lovely portrait of Mary, which is so lighted and arranged that it gives the impression of a living woman. Leading out of the dining-room was the bedroom of Lady Caithness, a sumptuous apartment. The bed was a state bed, plumes of ostrich feathers uprose at each corner. At one end was a crown, and behind the pillows was a fresco painting representing Jacob's Ladder, with a multitude of angels ascending and descending. Often Lady Caithness received in bed, as was the habit of the French Queens of former days.

The jewels possessed by Lady Caithness were the most gorgeous I have ever seen. Nothing worn by crowned heads, at the many English Courts I have attended, were comparable to them. I can remember an Edinburgh jeweler inviting my father and me to inspect some diamonds belonging to her that he was cleaning. There was a long chain of huge diamonds reaching to the knees, with a cross attached, which no casual observer, not possessing the jeweler's guarantee as we did, would have believed to be genuine. When standing receiving her guests in the beautiful salons of the Palais Tiranty, clad in crimson velvet, she looked a very wonderful figure, for she possessed exceptional personal beauty as well.

As may be supposed, a woman of such commanding presence who was known to possess a deep interest in the occult, could secure the services of the best mediums the world over. I sat with her through many séances, successful, barren, and indifferent, conducted by mediums of various nationalities. I remember one conducted by a South American medium, where the "controls" became very noisy and troublesome, and threatened to do serious damage. The medium could not be roused out of the trance she had fallen into, and it had really become necessary to put an end to the performance. She was a very big, heavy woman, and had sunk half off her chair on to the floor. I suggested to Lady Caithness that if we could drag or carry her into another room matters might then quiet down, but I added dubiously, "She must be a great weight."

Lady Caithness replied with a smile: "Try. You'll probably find her very light indeed."

I did try, and this was the only time in my life that I had the opportunity of proving to myself how tremendously a medium loses weight whilst genuine manifestations are in progress. I found it quite easy to lift this woman, who in ordinary circumstances must have weighed at least twelve or thirteen stone.

Sir William Crookes has given to the world a very interesting account of his work in weighing mediums, before and during materialization. He always found that a great decrease in weight took place during the materializations, proving how enormous is the drain on the strength of the medium. Such evidence is most valuable, as coming from our greatest chemist.

On this particular night I had no doubt as to the genuineness of the medium. Had she been a fraud she would have stopped the séance at once, on seeing how annoyed Lady Caithness was. She had every reason to conciliate her, and was greatly distressed to hear that her services would no longer be required. The troublesome spirits followed her into the next room, but gradually subsided as we succeeded in bringing the woman back out of her trance.

I used to go very often to the theater at Nice with Lady Caithness. She had her own box, and often invited Don Carlos of Spain, and other distinguished personages, to accompany her. One night we went to hear the incomparable Judic. We were only a party of three, the third being Prince Valori.

The Prince was then a man past middle age. He suggested a magnificent ruin, retaining as he did the battered remains of great good looks, and it was plain to see that his valet was exceedingly skillful. He possessed also a European reputation for heiress hunting, but to the day of his death he never succeeded in catching one, though it was said he had pursued his quarry in all parts of the world. Perhaps the figure he placed upon his ancient lineage and his personal charm was too high; perhaps he had begun his quest too late in life, though the position of a widowed Princess Valori would certainly not have been without attraction. I attributed his single blessedness to quite a different cause.

That night, whilst my attention was fixed on the stage, I became dimly aware that some one had entered our box, but until the song was over I did not turn round to look who it was. We always had visitors coming and going. When at last I did glance round I saw nothing remarkable. Only a man in fancy dress seated behind Valori, a man whom I had never seen before.

At that period Nice went mad during the winter season. The most extravagant amusements were entered into with a wild zest, by the very cosmopolitan society of extremely wealthy people. There were fancy dress balls every night somewhere, and no one thought it strange to see bands of revelers in fancy costume walking about the streets and thronging the cafés at all hours of the night.

I was not therefore astonished to see this man in fancy dress, leaning familiarly over the back of Prince Valori's chair. He was a very thin man, with very long, thin legs, and he was dressed entirely in chocolate brown—a sort of close-fitting cowl was drawn over his head, and his curious long, impish face was made more weird by small, sharply pointed ears rising on each side of his head. He appeared to have "got himself up" to look like a satyr, or some such mythical monstrosity. He was not introduced to me at the moment, and other people entering our box whom I knew, I forgot about him. When the box cleared before the next act I noticed he had gone.

A week or so after this I went to a fancy dress ball given by a Russian friend of mine—Princess Lina Galitzine. There was a great crowd, and a number of Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses, some of whom had driven long distances from their villas and hotels in Mentone, Monte Carlo, and Beaulieu, etc. I soon saw Prince Valori making his way towards me, dressed very magnificently, in a French costume of the eighteenth century. By his side moved the man in brown.

Now that I saw "the satyr" under brilliant light he struck me at once as something peculiar. His walk was alone sufficient to attract attention. He strutted on tiptoes, with a curious jerk with every step he made. Those who remember Henry Irving's peculiar walk may form some idea of "the satyr's" movements. They were Irving's immensely exaggerated. I concluded that Valori was bringing him up to present him to me, but such proved not to be his intention. Valori shook hands, coolly requested the young American to whom I was talking to move off and find some one to dance with, and seated himself in the vacated chair. "The satyr" stood by his side and said nothing. I thought this very odd, and glancing, whenever I could do so unobserved, at the silent brown figure, I began to feel uneasy and shivery. It was impossible, whilst he stood there listening to all we said, to ask Valori who he was, and no mention was made of him.

As soon as I could I escaped to talk to some one else, and for an hour or two I avoided both. During this time I asked several people who "the satyr" was, but no one seemed to have noticed him in the crowd. At last, when seated at supper with the late James Gordon Bennett, who did not usually go to balls, but had looked in here for half an hour for some purpose of his own, I found myself seated next to a very charming Pole, married to a Russian, the Princess Schehoffskoi. I knew her to be a genuine mystic, one of the group who first instituted spiritualism into the Russian Court circles. I seized an opportunity, whilst Gordon Bennett was occupied with some one else, to ask her who the brown satyr was who had attached himself to Valori.

She was at once absorbed in the question, and, lowering her voice, she said, "Why, how interesting! Don't you know that is his 'Familiar' who is constantly in attendance upon him. People say they became attached whilst he was attending a 'Sabbath' in the Vosges, and he can't get rid of it."

"A Sabbath!" I echoed blankly.

"Yes! Surely you have heard of a 'Witch's Sabbath.' They still hold them at Lutzei, and each person receives a 'Familiar.' Those 'Sabbaths' are the most appalling orgies and hideously blasphemous. The 'Familiars' have names—Minette, Verdelet, etc. I had an ancestor who owned a 'Familiar' called Sainte Buisson. His name was de Laski. Of course, he was a Pole, and a Prince of Siradia, and he came across Dr. Dee, the necromancer of Queen Elizabeth's time. They seem to have entered into a sort of partnership."

All this the Princess told me quite seriously, and I found out later from her that Satanism or devil worship was largely practiced in France. It is interesting to note that the names of the French war mascots of the moment are all taken from the names of well-known "Familiars" in occult lore.

"Then the 'satyr' attached to Valori is not human flesh and blood; how horrible!" I whispered back. "Have many people seen him? Is he always there?"

The Princess nodded, "The clairvoyantes here all know about it, and I myself have seen him, not here, but in Paris. I shall go in search of Valori directly after supper."

"And I shall go home to bed," I answered.

The next morning I met Valori, alone, on the Promenade des Anglais. He turned and strolled by my side, and I determined to put a straight question. After a little trivial conversation I said, "By the way, who is that brown man, dressed like a Satyr, who has been with you lately?"

I watched Valori's face as I put the question, and as I saw the change that came over it I felt very sorry and ashamed of having spoken. He looked so utterly dejected and miserable.

"You also?" he muttered, then fell to silence.

I gathered that the same question had been put to him before, and I hastened to reassure him. "Don't answer. My question was impertinent; let us speak of other things," I said hastily, but he remained silent, staring down at the ground. Then suddenly he said—

"I am not the only one in the world so afflicted."

I did not pursue the subject. His words were true. That evening I received a large bouquet of Russian violets, and on a card was written the following French proverb:—"La réputation d'un homme est comme son ombre, qui tantôt le suit et tantôt le précède; quelquefois elle est plus longue et quelquefois plus courte que lui."

At that time the whole Riviera was swarming with professional clairvoyantes, and it soon "got wind" that Prince Valori's "Familiar" was walking about with him. He treated the matter almost as lightly as a distinguished English General treated his "Familiar."

The Englishman, General Elliot, who commanded the forces in Scotland, was a very well-known society man, about twenty-five years ago. He had a name for his Familiar, "Wononi," and used actually to speak aloud with him in the middle of a dinner-party. The General occupied a very distinguished position, not only in his profession, but in the social world, and to look at he was the very last man that one would associate with matters occult.

In 1895 Marie, Duchesse de Pomar and Countess of Caithness, died. She had the right to claim burial in Holyrood Chapel, and a very simple stone marks her last resting-place. To her I owe the warmest friendship of my life, for it was in her opera box I met the present Lady Treowen, born a daughter of Lord Albert Conynghame, who afterwards became the first Lord Londesborough. To the many who know and love her, Albertina Treowen represents a type of perfect breeding, alas! fast becoming extinct in these days. She has lived the reality of noblesse oblige, has the rare gift of perfect friendship, and combines a rare refinement of mind with strong moral courage.

CHAPTER IV

EAST END DAYS AND NIGHTS

If we had found the golden thread of meaning which gives coherence to the whole; if we had been taught as our religion that every man and woman was receiving the strictest justice at the Divine hands, and that our conditions to-day were exactly those our former lives entitled us to, how different would be our outlook on life. As it is, men have fallen away in their bitter discontent from a God in whose justice they have ceased to believe, and of whose impartiality they see no sign.

I doubt if any religion extant has claimed such a wide diversity in its adherents as Christianity. Calvin, Knox, Torquemada, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Kaiser Wilhelm. Mr. Gladstone, and Czar Nicolas. The Pope of Rome, and Spurgeon. Even those nine names, which might be multiplied indefinitely, show us diametrically opposed readings of the same faith.

It would be of enormous benefit to us if we studied all the great religions, and separated from each the obviously false from the true, and appropriated the latter. The Bible would gain enormously in value if studied in conjunction with other sacred books written before the advent of Christ.

A careful study of the ancient faiths will reveal a wonderful similarity. We are beginning to break down the limitations which have been presumptuously cast around the conceptions of the Divine teachings. We begin to see that not only in Palestine, but in all the world, and amongst all peoples, God has been revealing Himself to the hearts of men.

It is always folly for the orthodox to hold up hands in holy horror at the views of the unorthodox. It is a selfish standpoint, and makes matters no better. Doubt does not spring from the wish to doubt. It arises solely from the play of the mind on the facts of daily life surrounding us. The truth remains, that, unless the Church recovers those vital doctrines that she has lost, and which alone make life rational to the intelligent, she will be finally abandoned when the present generation dies out.

We can never rest content with a faith which flatly contradicts the facts of life which surround us, and press in on us from every side in our daily existence. We hold that what we undoubtedly find in life ought to have its complement in religion. The searching temper of our vast sacrifices in war are thrusting faith down to primitive bed-rock. Orthodoxies and heterodoxies will not matter much now. What will matter will be honesty, effectiveness, and a rational explanation of life. For nineteen hundred years we have professed the religion of what others said about Christ. Now the hour is approaching when we must try the religion of what Christ said about us and the world.

I was always of a very inquiring turn of mind, and I had abandoned orthodoxy before I was twenty. I had read everything I could lay my hands on, and I emerged after a year or two, an out-and-out agnostic, in the popular sense of the term.

I had, however, no intention of remaining in that condition. I was convinced there must be some link between Science and Religion, and that a just God, worthy of all worship, was to be found, if only I knew where to seek. I can look back on this crude stage of my life, and see what a nuisance I must have been, with my defiant disbelief and constant questioning. I became an ardent truth-seeker, but my demands, I can now realize, grew out of my palpitating desire to reduce the world of disorder to the likeness of a supreme and beneficent Creator. If God be just and good, then what is the explanation of this hideous discrepancy in human lives?

Following on this came the question: "Is it possible that a just God is going to judge us, one and all, on our miserable record of three score years and ten?"

"Whatsoever ye soweth that shall ye reap." So the criminal and the savage were to be judged by their deeds, though, through no fault of their own, they were born under circumstances which precluded any glimmer of light to shine in on their darkness. "Ah!" but I was told, "God will make it up to them hereafter. Of course, He won't judge them as He will judge you."

This seemed to me pure nonsense. I could not understand a God who arranged His creation so badly. Whilst in London I started out on a search for truth.

Amongst those who accorded me interviews were Cardinal Newman and the late Archdeacon Liddon. The former was exquisitely sympathetic and patient, but he gave me no mental satisfaction. I helped him for some weeks in the great dock strike, and then we drifted apart for ever. Liddon listened patiently, then told me flatly he could not solve the mysteries I sought to probe. I also was accorded an unsatisfactory interview with Basil Wilberforce. After a lapse of thirty years we met again, though I never recalled to him the visit I had paid him in my youth, being sure he must have forgotten all about it. I found him enormously changed mentally. He had outgrown all resemblance to his former mental self.

At that early period some one happened to mention to me that a certain Madame Blavatsky had just arrived in London, bringing with her a new religion. My curiosity was at once fired, and I set off to call upon her.

I shall never forget that first interview with a much maligned woman, whom I rapidly came to know intimately and love dearly. She was seated in a great armchair, with a table by her side on which lay tobacco and cigarette paper. Whilst she spoke her exquisite taper fingers automatically rolled cigarettes. She was dressed in a loose black robe, and on her crinkly gray hair she wore a black shawl. Her face was pure Kalmuk, and a network of fine wrinkles covered it. Her eyes, large and pale green, dominated the countenance—wonderful eyes in their arresting, dreamy mysticism.

I asked her to explain her new religion, and she answered that hers was the very oldest extant, and formed the belief of five hundred million souls. I inquired how it was that this stupendous fact had not yet touched Christendom, and her reply was that there had never been any interference with Christian thought. Though judge of all, Christianity had been judged by none. The rise of Japan was a factor of immense potency, and in time would open out a new era in the comprehension of East by West. Then the meaning would flash upon the churches of the words, "Neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem."

I explained to her my difficulties, which she proceeded to solve by expounding the doctrines of reincarnation and Karma. They jumped instantly to my reason. I there and then found the Just God, of whom I had been in search. From that day to this I have never had reason to swerve from those beliefs. The older I grow, the more experience I gather, the more I read, the more confirmed do I become in the belief that such provide the only rational explanation of this life, the only natural hope in the world to come.

I have offered those beliefs to very many people whom I discovered to be on the same quest as I had been. I have never once had them rejected by any serious truth-seeker, and I have seen them passed on and on by these people to others, forming enormous ramifications which became lost to view in the passage of time and their own magnitude.

In these early days there was little literature available for the student, but the circle of clever brains which rapidly surrounded Blavatsky set to work with a will under her guidance, and now, after the lapse of thirty years, there is an enormous literature always commanding a wide sale, and the little circle that gathered round "the old lady" has swollen into very many thousands.

What was the secret of Helena Petrovski Blavatsky's instant success? I have no doubt that it lay in her power to give to the West the Eastern answers to those problems which the Church has lost.

In her way Blavatsky was a true missioner. "Go forth on your journey for the weal and the welfare of all people, out of compassion for the world and the welfare of angels and mortals," was the command given by the Lord Buddha to his disciples, and Christ, following the universal ideal, five hundred years later, commanded, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel of the whole Creation."

I began to study those, to me, new doctrines at once, and I also took up their occult side, no light task, but one of absorbing interest. Not till then did I fully realize that in no one human life could that long, long path be trodden, in no new-born soul could be developed those divine possibilities of which I could catch but a fleeting illusive vision.

"Thou canst not travel in the Path before thou hast become the Path itself." Did not the Christ warn his followers that the Path must be trodden more or less alone? "Forsake all and follow Me." So, also in the Bhagavad Gita it is written: "Abandoning all duties come unto me alone for shelter. Sorrow not, I will liberate thee from thy sins."

"The secret doctrine" written by Blavatsky proved a mine of wealth, and I read the volumes through seven times in seven different keys. The works of A. P. Sinnett, text books then, and now brought up to date by expanding knowledge, were extremely helpful. For advanced students "The Growth of the Soul" is unsurpassed. A very short time elapsed before mental food was supplied for practically every branch of mysticism and occult development, and students flocked into headquarters from all parts of the world.

It is interesting to remember the two adjoining villas in Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, where we used to congregate to study, and hear lectures thirty years ago, and to look now on the stately buildings in Tavistock Square. They are designed by the great architect Lutyens, whose wife, Lady Emily, is an ardent theosophist. I am glad that I have lived to see these doctrines take firm root in the West, and grow so amazingly that in all cities they are now held by vast numbers, and even in cases where they have not been finally adopted they are acknowledged to be the only logical conclusion for those who desire to possess a rational belief. I am glad that I can look back with love and profound gratitude to Helena P. Blavatsky, the woman who grafted on the West the wisdom of the ages. I have no doubt that she is enabled to see the mighty structure raised on her small beginnings, and doubtless she has met on "the other side" men and women whose debt to her is equally as great as mine.

Blavatsky began by exploding the theory that men are born equal. If this one life were all, then this great error ought, in common justice, to be absolute truth, and every man should possess common rights in the community, and one man ought to be as good as another. If every soul born to-day is a fresh creation, who will in the course of time pass away from this life for ever, then why is it that one is only fitted to obey, whilst another is eminently fitted to rule? One is born with a tendency to vice and crime, another to virtue and honesty. One is born a genius, another is born to idiocy. How, she asked, could a firm social foundation ever be built up on this utter disregard of nature? How treat, as having right to equal power, the wise and the ignorant, the criminal and the saint? Yet, if man be born but once it would be very unjust to build on any other foundation.

Re-incarnation implies the evolution of the soul, and it makes the equality of man a delusion. In evolution time plays the greatest part, and through evolution humanity is climbing. "Souls while eternal in their essence are of different ages in their individuality."

Many of us must know people who though quite old in years are children in mind. Men and women who having arrived at three score years and ten are still utterly childish and inconsequent. They are young souls who have had the experiences of very few earth lives. Again, we all know children who seem born abnormally old. Infant prodigies, musicians, calculators, painters who have brought over their genius from a former life.

I remember once meeting with a curious experience, which is not very easy to describe. It was an experience more of feeling than of seeing.

I was standing in Milan Cathedral. In front of me and behind was gathered a crowd of peasants. High Mass was being celebrated, and all the seats were occupied.

After a few moments I began to feel a curious sensation of being intently watched. Some penetrating influence was probing me through and through, with a quiet but intensely powerful directness. I had the sensation that my soul was being stripped bare. I looked round, but could see nothing to account for my sensation. Every one seemed intent on their devotions. I began to wonder if some malicious old peasant was throwing over me the spell of the evil eye, but again my feelings were not conscious of an evil intent; it was more an absorbed speculation directed towards me. Some one was probing my soul, speculating on my spiritual worth or worthlessness, with an intensely earnest yet cold calculation.

Just in front of me stood a peasant woman of the poorest class. Her back was towards me, and over her shoulder hung a baby of not more than a year old. Suddenly I met the eyes of the child full. Then I knew. As a psychological experience it was most interesting, but it sent a little thrill of creepiness through me.

The baby did not withdraw its gaze, but continued leisurely to look me through and through. The eyes were large and gray, the expression that of a contemplative savant, with a faint dash of irony in their glance. I do not pretend to be anything but what is now called "psychic," but I am certain that those windows of the soul, with that age-long experience flooding out of them, would have arrested the most material person. My husband, who is accustomed to my "flights of imagination," was very much struck by that look of maturity, that suggestion of æonic knowledge.

Blavatsky taught me to look on man as an evolving entity, in whose life career births and deaths are recurring incidents. Birth and death begin and end only a single chapter in the book of life. She taught me that we cannot evade inexorable destiny. I made my present in my past. To-day I am making my future. In proportion as I outwear my past, and change my present abysmal ignorance into knowledge, so shall I become free.

I have often heard Blavatsky called a charlatan, and I am bound to say that her impish behavior often gave grounds for this description. She was foolishly intolerant of the many smart West End ladies who arrived in flocks, demanding to see spooks, masters, elementals, anything, in fact, in the way of phenomena.

Madame Blavatsky was a born conjuror. Her wonderful fingers were made for jugglers' tricks, and I have seen her often use them for that purpose. I well remember my amazement upon the first occasion on which she exhibited her occult powers, spurious and genuine.

I was sitting alone with her one afternoon, when the cards of Jessica, Lady Sykes, the late Duchess of Montrose and the Honorable Mrs. S.—— (still living) were brought in to her. She said she would receive the ladies at once, and they were ushered in. They explained that they had heard of her new religion, and her marvelous occult powers. They hoped she would afford them a little exhibition of what she could do.

Madame Blavatsky had not moved out of her chair. She was suavity itself, and whilst conversing she rolled cigarettes for her visitors and invited them to smoke. She concluded that they were not particularly interested in the old faith which the young West called new; what they really were keen about was phenomena.

That was so, responded the ladies, and the burly Duchess inquired if Madame ever gave racing tips, or lucky numbers for Monte Carlo?

Madame disclaimed having any such knowledge, but she was willing to afford them a few moments' amusement. Would one of the ladies suggest something she would like done?

Lady Sykes produced a pack of cards from her pocket, and held them out to Madame Blavatsky, who shook her head.

"First remove the marked cards," she said.

Lady Sykes laughed and replied, "Which are they?"

Madame Blavatsky told her, without a second's hesitation. This charmed the ladies. It seemed a good beginning.

"Make that basket of tobacco jump about," suggested one of them.

The next moment the basket had vanished. I don't know where it went, I only know it disappeared by trickery, that the ladies looked for it everywhere, even under Madame Blavatsky's ample skirts, and that suddenly it reappeared upon its usual table. A little more jugglery followed and some psychometry, which was excellent, then the ladies departed, apparently well satisfied with the entertainment.

When I was once more alone with Madame Blavatsky, she turned to me with a wry smile and said, "Would you have me throw pearls before swine?"

I asked her if all she had done was pure trickery.

"Not all, but most of it," she unblushingly replied, "but now I will give you something lovely and real."

For a moment or two she was silent, covering her eyes with her hand, then a sound caught my ear. I can only describe what I heard as fairy music, exquisitely dainty and original. It seemed to proceed from somewhere just between the floor and the ceiling, and it moved about to different corners of the room. There was a crystal innocence in the music, which suggested the dance of joyous children at play.

"Now I will give you the music of life," said Madame Blavatsky.

For a moment or two there fell a trance-like silence. The twilight was creeping into the room, and seemed to bring with it a tingling expectancy. Then it seemed to me that something entered from without, and brought with it utterly new conditions, something incredible, unimagined and beyond the bounds of reason.

Some one was singing, a distant melody was creeping nearer, yet I was aware it had never been distant, it was only becoming louder.

I suddenly felt afraid of myself. The air about me was ringing with vibrations of weird, unearthly music, seemingly as much around me as it was above and behind me. It had no whereabouts, it was unlocatable. As I listened my whole body quivered with wild elation, and the sensation of the unforeseen.

There was rhythm in the music, yet it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It sounded like a Pastorale, and it held a call to which my whole being wildly responded.

Who was the player, and what was his instrument? He might have been a flautist, and he played with a catching lilt, a luxurious abandon that was an incarnation of Nature. It caught me suddenly away to green Sicilian hills, where the pipes of unseen players echo down the mountain sides, as the pipes of Pan once echoed through the rugged gorges and purple vales of Hellas and Thrace.

Alluring though the music was, and replete with the hot fever of life, it carried with it a thrill of dread. Its sweetness was cloying, its tenderness was sensuous. A balmy scent crept through the room, of wild thyme, of herbs, of asphodel and the muscadine of the wine press. It enwrapt me like an odorous vapor.

The sounds began to take shape, and gradually mold themselves into words. I knew I was being courted with subtlety, and urged to fly out of my house of life and join the Saturnalia Regna. The player was speaking a language which I understood, as I had understood no tongue before. It was my true native tongue that spoke in the wild ringing lilt, and I could not but give ear to its enchantments and the ecstasy of its joy.

My soul seemed to strain at the leash. Should I let go? Like a powerful opiate the allurement enfolded me, yet from out its thrall a small insistent voice whispered "Caution! Where will you be led: supposing you yield your will, would it ever be yours again?"

Now my brain was seized with a sense of panic and weakness. The music suddenly seemed replete with gay sinfulness and insolent conquest. It spoke the secrets which the nature myth so often murmurs to those who live amid great silences, of those dread mysteries of the spirit which yet invest it with such glory and wonderment.

With a violent reaction of fear I rose suddenly, and as I did so the whole scene was swept from out the range of my senses. I was back once more in Blavatsky's room with the creeping twilight and the far off hoarse roar of London stealing in at the open window. I glanced at Madame Blavatsky. She had sunk down in her chair, and she lay huddled up in deep trance. She had floated out with the music into a sea of earthly oblivion. Between her fingers she held a small Russian cross.

I knew that she had thrust me back to the world which still claimed me, and I went quietly out of the house into the streets of London.

On another occasion when I was alone with Madame Blavatsky she suddenly broke off our conversation by lapsing into another language, which I supposed to be Hindustanee. She appeared to be addressing some one else, and on looking over my shoulder I saw we were no longer alone. A man stood in the middle of the room. I was sure he had not entered by the door, window or chimney, and as I looked at him in some astonishment, he salaamed to Madame Blavatsky, and replied to her in the same language in which she had addressed him.

I rose at once to leave her, and as I bade her good-by she whispered to me, "Do not mention this." The man did not seem aware of my presence; he took no notice of me as I left the room. He was dark in color and very sad looking, and his dress was a long, black cloak and a soft black hat which he did not remove, pulled well over his eyes.

I found out that evening that none of the general staff were aware of his arrival, and I saw him no more.

I remember clearly the first night that Annie Besant came to headquarters as an interested inquirer. She arrived with the socialist, Herbert Burrows. Madame Blavatsky told me she was destined to take a very great part in the future Theosophical movement. At that time such a thing seemed incredible, yet it has come to pass.

About this period I went to live in the East End of London, Haggerston and Whitechapel, where I had a night shelter of my own. There I saw into what surroundings children were born, how they grow up, and how their parents live and die. I have seen so much of the lives of the outcast poor that I can feel nothing but the most passionate pity for them, even though I can now look upon them as souls just beginning to climb the ladder of evolution.

My night shelter was for women only, and was purposely of the roughest description. The floor was bare concrete, and round the walls were heaps of millers' sacks I had bought cheap, owing to mice having eaten holes in them.

According to our laws the legal age at which a girl can marry is thirteen, and I used to get many of these girl wives in for the night, as their lawful husbands used to turn them out of doors. I discovered that it was no uncommon practice for a man to buy one of those children from the parents for a few pence, the parents' consent being necessary. The marriage was solemnized, and the child wife was used only as a drudge to slave for the husband and his mistress, who was of a more suitable age to become his mate.

I used to be very much troubled by women in the throes of delirium tremens. They would come in quite quietly when the shelter opened, strip, pick up a sack and get into it, and then lie down and at once go to sleep. After a few hours' dead slumber they would get up, raving mad, and disturb all the other sleepers. The reason of this peculiar form of D. T. was explained to me by a doctor in the neighborhood. The publicans kept a pail behind the bar, into which was thrown the dregs of every species of liquor sold during the day. This concoction was distributed cheap at closing time, and its effects were cumulative.

One night I had a curious experience. The room was unusually quiet, and I had closed my eyes, but I was not asleep. I opened them, and, in the bright light of one unshaded gas jet, I saw a dark figure moving. Its back was towards me, and I instantly thought a plain clothes policeman had entered, no unusual occurrence, without my hearing him. In these days detectives used often to escort the West End ladies on slumming expeditions, and they usually called on me. Then I saw this figure was clad in dark robes, and was very tall. Again I thought, this is some old Jew who has crept in, and I was just about to rise and eject him, when something suddenly stopped me.

I saw through him and beyond him. I then and there realized that feeling of hair of one's head rising on one's scalp is no mere figment of speech.

The figure moved softly round the room, it made no sound whatever, and as it came to each sleeper it bent down, as if closely scrutinizing each face. It occurred to me that it was looking for some one. I began to dread the moment when the search was over, and the figure would turn its face towards me. I felt that my hair had turned into the quills of a porcupine. I wanted to shut my eyes, but dared not. Then before that quest was over, the figure straightened itself and turned full towards me. My fears instantly fell away from me like a fallen mantle, for though I knew the visitor had come from the other side, there was something so profoundly sad in the pale weary face, that compassion quite eclipsed fear. Another second and it had vanished.

I lived in Whitechapel during the dread visitation of "Jack the Ripper," and all women at once adopted the habit of walking in the middle of the road amongst the horses and carts. Fortunately there were no motors in those days to add to the confusion. When we came to the house or alley we wished to enter, we made a sudden dash for it.

One night I had occasion to pass the entire night by the bedside of a dying prostitute. She lived in one of four rooms, all occupied by the same class, and all opening into a court not larger than ten feet by ten. I suppose I must have been very tired, for I fell asleep, and about five a. m. I woke and found I was alone, the woman was dead. I went out into the court, hearing a sudden noise of excited voices, and discovered that "Jack" had been at work in the adjoining room, only separated from mine by a match-board partition. Portions of the unfortunate woman were neatly arranged on a deal table. I had heard absolutely nothing. Later on that same day I revisited the scene, and found a curious contrast. Seeing his way to a cheap furnished lodging, a coster had married his donah in a hurry, and the wedding breakfast was being eaten off the blood-stained table!

It was in those days that I developed into a convinced Suffragist. I saw that until men and women came together to improve and mold our civilization, very little improvement could be expected. The son of the bondwoman is not on a level with the son of the free woman, and we saw that the struggle must go on until we were accorded the right to govern our own lives.

I could always see the anti's point of view, for, had I thought only of my own position as an isolated unit, a vote would have seemed to me a needless responsibility. No social worker who has penetrated to the depths can maintain this attitude, and so, in company with all other women workers, I entered on the crusade which has just terminated in victory. Much as I dislike militancy, I am convinced that it hastened our victory by very many years, by bringing the subject before the world. Also the enormous number of idle and, formerly, indifferent women, who have rushed into work in answer to their country's call, has helped our cause enormously. I have invariably found that directly a woman enters the ranks of active labor, her views, however strongly they have been opposed to us, at once swing round. Once a woman proves for herself the disabilities under which we labor, she is at once converted. To the very many women who suffered acute physical torture during the militant campaign, our easy victory must seem passing strange.

CHAPTER V

THE MAN IN THE MARYLEBONE ROAD

It is thirty years ago since I became a convert to Spiritualism. At that time I made up my mind that I would attend fifty séances, and if, out of that number, I did not come across one that I could be absolutely certain was genuine I would attend no more. Spiritualism, in itself, never interested me, but I was determined to see for myself if there was really anything in it.

I attended twenty-nine séances before I happened on one that was absolutely convincing. Several had been almost convincing, but a loophole for fraud had remained, and so long as that was the case I persevered.

I went one summer morning to see an old man who lived in the Marylebone Road. I was shown up into a sunny little room on the first floor. It had neither carpet, curtains nor window blind, and it looked on the street. The furniture consisted of a plain, uncovered deal table in the middle of a clean planked floor, and eight plain uncovered deal chairs were ranged round the walls. The room was utterly destitute of ornament, there was not even a clock, and I was the only occupant.

Soon the old man entered, a very ordinary looking person, and civilly asked what I wanted.

I said that I understood he was possessed of psychic powers, and I would like to see an exhibition of them.

He smiled and answered, "My fee is two-and-six for a quarter of an hour. Choose your own phenomenon, and I'll see what I can do."

I was puzzled at first, and looked round the bare walls for inspiration. There was not even a photograph or picture. Then suddenly I thought of something rather silly.

"Please make those four chairs opposite to us cross the floor and mount on to the table," I said.

The old man drew his chair quite close to mine, "Then give me your hand." I removed my glove and did as he asked.

He looked, not at the chairs, but into my face, and I at once warned him.

"I am no good as a subject for hypnotism, so it is useless to try."

He laughed and answered, "I am not a hypnotist, but I see you have power. You may as well lend me some. You are young, and I am old."

At that second my attention was distracted by a grating sound, and I forgot all about my companion. I saw the four chairs leave the wall and advance towards the table, in exactly the position, and tilted forward, they would be in if a human hand was dragging them across the floor. There appeared to be four invisible hands at the work. Then, one by one, they were neatly balanced, one on the top of the other, on the table.

When the manifestation was complete I remembered the old man, and looked round at him. He was watching the business, as keenly interested as I was.

"Good boys! good boys," I heard him murmur.

"How is it done?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "The Petris (spirits) do it. I don't."

"Then ask 'the Petris' to put the chairs neatly back again."

"The Petris" performed this feat very expeditiously, and I paid two-and-sixpence and departed. There was no loophole here for fraud, not a wire, or string, or any human manipulation, and I was not hypnotized. I never have been. For that sort of test I had seen enough.

Shortly after I witnessed a materialization in broad daylight. I was free to move about the room, and stand by the medium as she lay bound and deeply entranced. I was free to make any examinations I pleased, whilst others present conversed with the spirit, and I left the house absolutely convinced of the genuineness of that phenomenon.

That was the last test séance I attended, and for years afterwards I did not interest myself in spiritualism, nor did I attend many private sittings.

Towards the close of the South African War I was ordered from "the other side" to begin again, but on different lines. I was ordered to be a medium.

A man whom I barely knew, and who had passed over, wished to communicate with his people. This put me in a quandary. I hardly knew his people, and their social position was not such as could be treated unceremoniously by a casual acquaintance. I had never heard that they were interested in "other side" subjects. The very little I knew of them suggested quite the reverse.

I consulted with my husband. "One cannot," I argued, "go up to people who are almost strangers and tell them their son wishes to communicate with them through me."

My husband quite saw the difficulty, but it had always happened that when any one wished to communicate with us, and we paid no attention, we were given no peace till we did take heed, and sat down with an Ouija board to receive the message. He therefore proposed that we should consult Mr. A. P. Sinnett, now such a well-known writer on Occultism, and an old friend of ours. We therefore laid the matter before him.

His reply was uncompromising.

"Do as you are told from the other side. It is not for you to question or consider the social consequences to yourselves."

This advice we immediately followed, and we were met with the utmost kindness and sympathetic understanding. Sittings were arranged, communication established. Test questions were put, which we did not understand, but which were satisfactory to the questioners, and for many years the sittings continued until the "other side" made arrangements for a change of mediums and I was set free for other work. I say, set free, because during all those years we had held ourselves entirely at the disposal of this wonderful spirit, who communicated through me, and it is no exaggeration to say that our daily lives, our worldly plans, entirely depended upon his wishes. He had his own work to do, and our earth lives were always arranged to suit his convenience.

About the same time as the above experience began my husband was disturbed by noises in his library, and he came to the conclusion that some one had something to say and was determined to say it. One evening, when the disturbance prevented serious reading, we sat down with the Ouija board. The result was as follows—

A spirit who purported to be a well-known soldier of fortune who had lately committed suicide, desired to give a message. This astonished us, as we had known him only slightly, and we wondered why he had chosen to bestow his attentions on us. He said he was very unhappy because he owed a certain sum of money to a friend, whom I will call B. This money B. could have refunded to him if he would communicate with a certain London address, which the departed soldier gave us in full.

We knew B., and knew that he had been a close friend of the departed. We also knew that B. was on the Gold Coast. We promised, however, to send him the message, and that was the last we ever heard of the soldier.

My husband wrote to B. on the Gold Coast simply giving him the message and leaving it at that. We were sure B. was an absolute skeptic. He was! and did nothing till his return to England three years later, when he applied at the address which he happened to have kept, and received his money.

I first became interested in Occultism, not only through my own very early experiences, but through hearing as a mere child that my grandfather, Robert the younger of the two well-known publishing brothers, W. and R. Chambers, had investigated spiritualism to his entire satisfaction.

In those days, about 1860, scientific men did not trouble about occult subjects, which were deemed beneath their notice. Science was so strictly orthodox that my grandfather published his "Vestiges of Creation" anonymously. It created an enormous sensation, and upon that book and the writings of Lamarck, Darwin founded his "Origin of Species." Robert Chambers determined to go to America and investigate for himself the reported marvelous happenings there. He had sittings with all the renowned mediums, bringing to bear upon their phenomena the acumen of his scientific mind, and he returned to Europe a convinced believer. He carried on regular sittings with Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall and other intellectuals, and with General Drayson, then a young beginner who went very far in his investigations before he died.

About the year 1885 I happened to be staying at Hawarden with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, and the only other guest, outside the family party, was the late Canon Malcolm McColl, through whose instrumentality I became a member of the Psychical Society.

McColl was a most interesting personality, a leading light on matters occult, and a famous recounter of ghost stories. He was also persona grata in the Gladstone household, and Mrs. Gladstone often spoke to me of their deep love for him.

I forget now what led up to the subject, but one night, when we were sitting talking, I told Mr. Gladstone that my grandfather, Robert Chambers, had been a convinced spiritualist. The Canon at once tried to draw the G.O.M., and to our mutual amazement his arguments in favor of the return of the disembodied soul to earth were met by concurring short ejaculations, such as "Of course! Naturally! Why, certainly!"

Then quite suddenly Mr. Gladstone began to prove to us that the old Biblical scribes were convinced spiritualists. From his intimate knowledge of the Bible he quoted text after text in support of his contention. "Here He worked no wonders because the people were wanting in faith," he compared to the present day medium's difficulty in working with skeptics. When Christ asked, "Who has touched Me? Much virtue has passed out of Me," He but spoke as many a modern healer speaks on feeling a failure of power. "Try the spirits whether they be of God," is what all spiritualists of to-day should practice rigorously.

Conan Doyle, in his book, "The New Revelation," touches upon those facts, and it was only on reading his book with profound interest that I remembered the impressive talk I had so many years ago with Mr. Gladstone. As Conan Doyle truly says, "The early Christian Church was saturated with spiritualism."

What, it may be asked, is the value to a woman of psychic experiences, whose reality may be convincing to herself, but never to others?

Firstly, there is this enormous value for me, that certain psychic experiences I have had make a future existence, after so-called death, a certainty.

Secondly, other varieties of psychic phenomena have furnished me with unmistakable proof that I possess an immortal soul.

Thirdly, still other varieties of experiences have provided me with the implicit belief in a God, who is in actual touch with Humanity.

Again, all soul experiences, begotten from out the supreme mystery of Being, show us that our real life is not contained in our present normal consciousness, but in a vastly wider, grander plane, which, as yet, is but dimly sensed by the few.

Those who have bathed in "the light invisible" can bring glory to those in gloom. They visit, but no longer live in the day. Their glory is in the night, when they walk with the Immortals, and bear with them the golden lamps of life eternal. Those who have realized the powers within, powers which not only are the pillars of infinite harmony, but the mainspring of eternal life, have builded on a rock which no tempest can destroy.

"'Tis time
New hopes should animate the world,
New light should dawn from new revealings to a race
Weighed down so long."

Paracelsus.

CHAPTER VI

THE GHOST OF PRINCE CHARLIE

Scotland in the autumn of the pre-war days was a very gay place. The big country houses were filled with shooting parties, and for the Autumn Meetings, Ayr races, Perth races, and games, The Inverness Gathering, etc. The dates were so arranged that one could go the round, and thus dance through several weeks. I used to go regularly to Inverness, and afterwards visit friends in the surrounding neighborhood. One of the most delightful houses to visit was Tarbat, belonging to the Countess of Cromartie. Any one who has read her unique books must have come to the conclusion that Lady Cromartie is a mystic of no ordinary type, but only those who know her intimately are aware how predominating in her character is this inborn mysticism.

I first remember the two sisters, Lady Sibell and Lady Constance Mackenzie, hanging on to their father's arms as they walked about Folkestone. They were then tiny tots, and I was staying with their mother, the beautiful Lilian, daughter of Lord Macdonald of the Isles. Beautiful was the only word to describe Lord Cromartie's wife—and Lily seemed the most suitable name that could have been bestowed upon her. She was intensely musical and interested in ghosts. Born the daughter of a Highland chieftain she understood how to live the life of a great Scottish noblewoman. She was always very kind to me, and I used to stay with her very often.

In 1893 Lord Cromartie died, and his eldest daughter, Lady Sibell, became Countess of Cromartie in her own right—the title going in the female line. As a child the young Countess had been a great reader. I remember she used often to be missing, and found in some quiet room buried in a book. To this day she has the faculty of so absorbing herself in a book that no amount of talking and noise in the room penetrates her ears. Lady Constance was quite different, devoted to out-of-door life, and I shall never forget how adoring the old people on the properties were to her, and how she loved them. One sterling and unusual quality she had. I never heard her say an unkind word of any one.

In 1899 the Countess of Cromartie married Major, now Colonel Blunt, and she has three fine children, two boys and a girl.

One of the most remarkable facts about her is her agelessness. She never alters with the years. Her white delicate skin, her girlish figure and dark glowing eyes, always retain their look of extreme youth.

I have said that her mysticism must at once become apparent to the readers of her books, but to those, who like myself have known her from childhood, her psychic powers have always been extraordinary.

I remember one autumn staying at Tarbat with only a very few other guests, I forget now who they all were. It had been a dead, still day. One of those sad, brooding days one gets so often in the north. In the afternoon, when we were out walking, Lady Cromartie said suddenly to me and a Miss Drummond, whom we were both very fond of, "There is going to be an earthquake to-night."

We received this piece of information as a joke, and I thought nothing more of the matter till tea-time, when a gorgeous sunset was illuminating the heavens. As we were standing at the window looking out at it we were all startled by a tremendous roar, more like a very loud peal of thunder than anything else, yet we knew, by the look of the sky, that it could not have been thunder. Every one offered a different opinion as to what the noise could mean, but Lady Cromartie calmly said, "The noise is in the earth, not in the sky; it is the forerunner of the earthquake."

We now began to take this earthquake business more seriously. Sibell Drummond, also very psychic, said she knew the noise came from the interior of the earth, and that very early that morning she had heard the same sound, only much more distant. We asked Lady Cromartie how she could possibly tell that an earthquake was coming. Such convulsions are not common enough in Scotland to admit of lucky guesses.

"I can tell those things of Nature; something in me is akin to them," she explained. "It is quite certain this earthquake will come before morning."

As the sun went down the quiet weather changed, and by bed-time it was blowing such a gale that we forgot all about Lady Cromartie's prophecy. At one o'clock in the morning, when we were all asleep, the earthquake arrived, and awakened us all instantly. My bed rocked, and the china clattered, and I heard a big picture near my bed move out from the wall and go back again. Some of us got up, but there was only the one sharp shock. In the morning we heard that considerable damage had been done. Several houses and stables had been razed to the ground, and some animals killed and people injured.

Another curious incident I remember happening during a visit to Tarbat.

At breakfast one morning Lady Cromartie told us that she had a very vivid dream just before daylight. She dreamed that if she went into a certain room in the house she would find some jewels that had been hidden there. She seemed to have been told this in her sleep by some one she did not know. The room was indicated, but not the spot where the jewels lay. The present Duke of Argyll, always keenly alive to psychic phenomena, was of our party, and he at once proposed that directly after we had finished breakfast we should all proceed to the room, rarely used, but formerly a business room, and make a thorough search.

By the way, I cannot refrain here from suggesting what a wonderful book of Scottish ghost stories the Duke could give us if he chose. His repertoire was endless and most thrilling, and he knew how to tell a ghost story.

After breakfast we adjourned to the room indicated in the dream, and began our search. The only likely place seemed a large bookcase, full of books, with cupboards beneath. All the doors were locked and keyless. A pause ensued whilst keys were fetched from the housekeeper's room, and for a long time we could find nothing to fit the doors, but at last we were rewarded. The cupboards below were opened, disclosing a quantity of rubbish. Old books, estate maps, fishing tackle, every sort of thing, but no jewels.

At last the Duke, down on his knees fumbling amongst the dust, drew forth two tin japanned boxes. He shook them, and the thumping inside proved that they were not empty. The trouble was they also were locked and keyless. Again there was a scramble to fit keys. We were all on the tiptoe of excited expectation.

At last both boxes were opened, and there lay the jewels. Fine, old-fashioned pieces that had lain there, who knows for how long, and probably had belonged to Lady Cromartie's grandmother, "the Countess Duchess" 3rd Duchess of Sutherland.

Still another reminiscence of beautiful Tarbat.

Lady Cromartie asked me to join a shooting party she and Major Blunt were giving, to meet Prince Arthur of Connaught.

I arrived one evening in wild winter weather. There had been a heavy snowstorm, and the sky looked as if there was considerably more to come. I found all the other guests had already arrived, and we were a very merry party. It was Prince Arthur's first "shoot" in the far North, and his first experience of what Scotland could provide in the way of autumn weather, and he was glad to avail himself of a thick woolen sweater of mine, which I was proud to present to him. He was perfectly charming to us all, and there was, owing to his simplicity, no sense of stiffness introduced into our party. That evening, after dinner, he was strolling round the room, looking at the pictures, and he paused opposite a framed letter, written by Prince Charles Edward during the '45 to the Lord Cromartie of that time, who was his earnest supporter.

"Why!" exclaimed Prince Arthur, "that letter is written by 'The Pretender,' isn't it?"

There was no answer. A thrill of horror ran through the breasts of the ardent Jacobites present. Dead silence reigned.

Then I could stand it no longer. "Please, sir," I said, "we all call him Prince Charles Edward Stuart."

Prince Arthur turned round laughingly. "I beg his pardon and all of yours," he exclaimed in the most charming manner, and the hearts of all the outraged Jacobites warmed to him at once.

I was just about to creep into bed, very late that night, and very tired after my long, cold journey in a desperately sluggish train, when Lady Cromartie peeped in at my door. Her wonderful dark eyes were ablaze, and I knew at once she had something psychic to tell me. Her eyes looked like nothing else in the world but her eyes, when she is on the track of a ghost, or one of her "other side" experiences.

"I have just seen Prince Charles Edward," she announced.

I took her firmly by the arm. Prince Charles Edward means a very great deal to me, and I don't let anything pass me by that concerns his beloved memory.

"Tell me quick. Where did you see him?" I asked.

"I was just going to get into bed when I saw him standing looking at me, at the far end of the room. He was smiling, and as I stared back at him he slowly crossed the floor, his smiling face always turned to me, and vanished through the wall," was Lady Cromartie's answer.

Then I told her of a certain feeling I had experienced earlier in the evening. At the moment when our Jacobite hearts were stung to deep, though fleeting resentment, we had formed a thought form, powerful enough to reach the spirit of Bonny Prince Charlie on "the other side." Our spirits had called on him, and he had heard and responded. Why not? If we believe in the immortality of the soul, the soul of Prince Charles Edward surely lives. Where? On the Astral plane, where the souls of all must go to divest themselves of the lower passions of earth, and the veil between the Physical plane and the Astral plane is wearing very thin in these days.

For many of us there are rents through which we are permitted to see the old friends who are not lost but gone before, and who await us in a sphere where we in turn will await the coming of those who follow after. Indeed, the time does not now seem to be so far distant when so-called death will be pushed one stage further back, and the transference of the soul from earth to the Astral plane will no longer be treated as severance. What then will be termed the severance we now call death? It will be the passing of the cleansed soul from the Astral plane to the Heaven world, for a period of blissful rest before the life urge compels the reincarnating ego to take on once more the veil of flesh, in a transient human world.

I doubt if it is possible for an English person to comprehend what it means to be a Jacobite. One is born a Jacobite or one is not. I was born a Jacobite, and I never lose my passionate love and regret for the sufferings and sorrows of Prince Charles Edward. No female figure in the past attracts me so much as does Flora MacDonald. Had I lived during the '45 I would have worn the white cockade, and parted with my last "shift" for the love of Bonny Prince Charlie. All very ridiculous, many may say, but there it is. That is what it means to be born a Jacobite.

My grandfather was an ardent Jacobite, and consorted largely with old Jacobite families. The Sobieski Stuarts often made their home with him. Grand looking men of striking physique and good looks. Robert Chambers used to tell a story of the ghost Piper of Fingask; the property of a fine old Jacobite, Sir Peter Murray Threipland. The baronetcy is now extinct.

One night, whilst my grandfather was visiting Sir Peter, they were sitting at supper in the old dining-hall. The two old sisters of Sir Peter, Eliza and Jessie, were present. Suddenly the faint strain of the pipes was heard in the distance, surely no uncommon sound in Scotland, where every Laird has his own piper to play round the dining-table, yet a sudden silence fell upon the little party of four. All ears were listening intently, and straining eyes were blank to all but the evidence of hearing. The noise grew louder, the piper seemed to be mounting the stone staircase, yet his brogues made no sound as he ascended.

Sir Peter dropped his head down into his arms folded upon the table. He sought to hide the fear in his old eyes. The women sat as if chiseled out of granite, gray to the lips. The piper of Fingask had come for one of them. Which? Now the piper of death was drawing very near, the skirl of his pipes had nearly reached the door. In another moment, with a full blast of triumph that beat about their ears as it surged into the hall, he had passed, and had begun his ascent to the ramparts. The skirl was dying away into a wail. Miss Eliza spoke: "He's come for you, Jessie." There was no response. The piper of Fingask was playing a "Last Lament" now, as he swung round the ramparts.

True enough he had come for Miss Jessie, and very shortly after she obeyed the call.

To this day there are men and women who never forget to offer up their passionate regret for Prince Charles before they sleep. I know of one old Scottish house where his memory is an ever-present, ever-living thing. The shadowy old room is consecrated to him. On the walls hang portraits of him, and trophies of the '15 and the '45 stand round in glass cases. On one table lies a worn, white cockade, yellow with age, and a lock of fair hair clasped by a band of blackened pearls. In a tall slender glass there is always, in summer-time, a single white rose.

Above is the portrait of the idol of the present house, who gave in the past of their all in life and treasure, for the cause they hold so sacred, so dear. I cannot look upon that gay, careless, handsome face without the tears rising to my eyes. His eyes smile into mine. Involuntarily I bend before him. What was the power in you, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, that drew from countless women and men that wild unswerving devotion? Which made light of terrible hardships, which followed you faithfully through glen and corrie? What is that power which you still exert over those to whom your name is but a memory, but who still, when they think on you or look upon your pictured face, cry silently in their hearts for the lost House of Stuart? "Oh! waes me for Prince Charlie!"

One must be Scotch to understand that the Union did nothing to unite England and Scotland. To the Scottish plowman the Englishman is still a foreigner, whom he dislikes. Scotch and English servants do not work well in the same house. To us, Mary Queen of Scots lived "only the other day." When the House of Stuart passed from us our history ended.

Our old houses are full of ghosts, the atmosphere is saturated with the tragic history of the past, the very skies seem to brood in melancholy over the soil, where so many wild bloody scenes were enacted. To the Psychic, Scotland is a land not yet emerged from the dour savagery of the past. Once, on visiting an historic old castle, my host pointed out to me a group of seven old trees standing close to the entrance.

"Seven skeletons lie there," he said. "My grandfather went after a neighboring clan who had raided his cattle. He brought back seven men with halters round their necks and strung them up to those trees. Holes were dug beneath, and they all dropped into them by degrees, and then the earth was shoveled over them again."

What will become of all those grand old places in the future? They are so costly to maintain. I think of all those lying around our own Aberdeenshire home; Fyvie Castle, a great stately pile, beautiful to look upon always, but more especially so when the red fires of a winter sunset blaze upon its many windows, and turn to rose the mantling snow on battlements and towers, whilst all around is wrapped in a garment of spotless white: House of Monymusk, Craigston Castle, Craigievar.

I have just mentioned a few, all have their ghosts, and some have a curse upon them.

A friend of ours came to see us, not very long ago, and told us of a horrible experience he had been through recently.

He had been visiting a great house in the North, noted in Scottish history. The new Laird had only entered into possession during the last few years, on the death of a near relative, who had died from excessive drinking, the Scotchman's curse. Our friend had heard that this dead Laird "walked," but he had not met any one who had actually seen his ghost. After spending a pleasant evening with his host, and going through many reminiscences of his former visits to the house, and to the late Laird, who in spite of his fatal propensities had been a gallant gentleman and a great sportsman, our friend retired to bed.

The room he slept in was a large one, and the bed faced the door, and a washstand stood on one side of it. He remembered the room, having slept in it on former occasions. He was roused in the night by some one rather noisily fumbling at the handle of his door, which was not locked. He sat up in bed and called out, "Who is it?"

There was a full moon riding in a clear, frosty sky, and the room was only in semi-darkness. He stared at the door, which at that moment burst open, and standing in the aperture was a man, the dead Laird. Outside, was a long corridor with several windows, through which the moonlight poured. Against this silvery background stood the huge figure of the late Laird. He leaned forward, supporting himself by holding with both hands to the framework of the door, and with a glowering, half-drunken stare his eyes were fixed on the startled occupant of the bed.

A panic seized our friend, who felt that if that menacing figure advanced into the room he would go mad. There was only one door, and no other means of escape, and very stealthily he slid to the opposite side of the bed, and reaching out, seized the water-bottle on his washstand.

This action did not pass unnoticed by his terrible visitor. Suddenly relaxing his hold on the doorposts, he dropped down on his knees, and began rapidly crawling on all fours towards the bed, his inflamed eyes blazing with anger.

Our friend did not wait for his arrival. With a blood-curdling yell he hurled the water-bottle full at his old friend, and leaping from the other side of the bed tore to the door and fled down the passage, as if pursued by a pack of devils. Hardly knowing what he did, he battered with his hands on the door of the room he knew to be occupied by his host and hostess, shouting out at the same time a call for assistance. Then he heard the voice of the wife saying to the husband, "It's Charlie. Open the door. I believe he's seen poor Angus."

He had indeed seen "poor Angus," and for the last time, he assured us. Old friendship could not stand the test of so horrible an apparition. The room was empty when he returned to it with his host. Angus had gone back again to the land of the shadows, and only the scattered fragments of the water-bottle remained as a souvenir of his visit.

Several servants had seen Angus, and it was difficult to keep the house staffed. One old housemaid, who had been in the family many years, had seen him frequently, and had even ventured to remonstrate with her former master, bidding him go back to his shroud and sleep peacefully in his grave like a respectable man, but apparently to no purpose. Angus preferred to "walk" and to terrify all to whom he had the power to show himself.

Speaking of the Duke of Argyll has reminded me of some curious occurrences in connection with Lord Colin Campbell. At one time of my life, soon after my father's death, I saw a good deal of him. He was then studying law and intended later to practice in India. This plan he carried out, and in India he died, the result of a chill.

Lord Colin was a very interesting man, a keen geologist and something of an artist. There were few subjects he was not interested in, and though somewhat shy of the subject, he had a decided aptitude for ghosts.

One day in London he brought to my house a small gold cross fixed to a slab of gray marble, and asked me if I would keep it for him. He explained that it was an exact reproduction of the old stone cross of Inverary. He was then living in Argyll Lodge, Campden Hill, and I said I should have thought there was room enough for it there. I could not understand why he brought it to me. He looked uneasy and said he wished to get rid of it out of the house. When pressed to say why, he confessed that there was something uncanny about it. He thought it made him "see things," and he added, "Garry hates it."

Garry was a fine, sable collie, devoted to his master and he to it. Garry had the misfortune to break his leg, and this caused Lord Colin acute distress. The leg was set, and the dog lay in a large clothes basket, and eventually got well. Garry was just recovering when Lord Colin brought me the cross.

He became more expansive in a few moments, and said that he had seen a figure bending over the cross, as if to examine it. The figure had a hood, and he thought it must be the ghost of a monk. He had seen this many times, and Garry often growled, and his hair bristled at the very moment when his master caught sight of the apparition. Anything that distressed the dog must be removed, and knowing how interested I was in ghosts he had brought the cross to me.

Of course I was delighted to have a chance of witnessing psychic phenomena of any kind, but alas, though I kept the cross for years, and only sent it lately to the present Duke, I never saw anything in connection with it.

I did, however, see something interesting in connection with Lord Colin.

One hot June evening, in London, I was sitting alone by the open window. The day had been very exhausting; it was one of those hot spells that come so often before regular summer sets in, and I was glad to rest quietly and do nothing.

The street was wonderfully quiet at that hour, nine o'clock, when all the world of fashion was dining, and the daylight was strong enough to read by, had I so desired. Suddenly my attention was attracted by a slight noise behind me, and glancing round at the open door I saw that Lord Colin and his dog had just entered the room, as was their habit, unannounced. In his hand he carried a huge bunch of white and mauve lilac blossoms. I had not expected him that evening, but I was very pleased to see him, and exclaimed, "Why, Colin, what a glorious bouquet! I can smell it already."

He was smiling as he and his dog moved up the long room towards me, but he said nothing. I had risen and held out my hand, but when about halfway across the floor both he and the dog vanished entirely and quite suddenly.

I shall never forget my utter amazement and consternation. I could not disbelieve the evidence of my own senses, for I was absolutely certain I could still smell the lilac, and I had no doubt whatever that I had seen Lord Colin and his dog.

I sat down again and fell to considering the extraordinary circumstance. I was perfectly well and normal, I had not been thinking of Lord Colin, and yet in the midst of other thoughts a sound had attracted my attention, and looking round I had seen him enter with his dog. For the space of quite two minutes both had been visible. I got up again and timed the whole affair by my wrist watch. The room I sat in was very long. I was at one end, and the door at the other. It took me just one minute to walk leisurely forward over the ground they had covered, before they vanished from my sight.

I sat down again and began to wonder if Lord Colin was ill, or was he dead, and why was he carrying lilacs? 'Phones were uncommon things in those days; I had no means of communication with Argyll Lodge.

For an hour I sat considering the wonderful vividness of my curious experience. The daylight had faded into a close, soft twilight, but I wanted no artificial light. Then just as ten o'clock was striking I heard a voice in the hall below; a voice I was sure was Lord Colin's, and he was answered by one of my servants. Steps sounded on the stairs, and in another moment in he walked with Garry, and in his hand he carried a big bunch of white and mauve lilacs.

I stood staring at him in the dim twilight. Was this the real man and dog at last?

"I know it's awfully late to pay a call, but I thought you would like some lilac," he exclaimed; "it's so lovely in our garden just now," and he held out the flowers.

I took them and bade him be seated. Garry came to me and rested his nose on my lap. For a moment I could not speak.

"Aren't you well?" asked Colin.

Then I recovered myself, but I did not tell him what had happened only an hour before. As we talked I discovered that he had intended to come at nine o'clock, and was just starting when a relative arrived and detained him.

On another occasion he told me of a curious dream he had as a boy.

Queen Victoria came to Inverary to pay a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord Colin's parents, and it was arranged that the young sons of the house should act as pages to Her Majesty. The night of the day on which the Queen arrived, Colin dreamed that some one whom he did not know came to him and said, "To-morrow the Queen will give you twenty shillings."

When the boy wakened up in the morning he remembered this dream, and all day long he was on the outlook for its fulfillment. The hours passed, but though he was often in her presence and kept as close to her as he dared, the Queen never produced her purse. Just before reëntering the house towards evening, she suddenly turned to John Brown, her constant attendant, and said something which Colin did not catch. What was his joy on perceiving that surly henchman extract from a shabby old purse a filthy Scotch one pound note, which he handed to Her Majesty.

"My little Colin, here is a present for you," said the Queen, and making his best bow the boy accepted the gift. His dream had come true.

John Brown was the terror of all the great nobles whom the Queen was pleased to visit. Her Majesty took him everywhere with her, and he was her closest attendant. Born of the humblest Scotch parents on the Estate of Balmoral, he died in the position of a potentate in a royal residence. His manners were terribly rough and objectionable, and his behavior to the gentlemen with whom he constantly came into contact was insulting to the last degree. He had one invariable habit. When the Queen paid a visit naturally her honored host was in waiting to hand her out of her carriage. Brown contrived to nip down from his perch at the back of the carriage, just at a certain moment, and with a violent push thrust aside the prince, duke or peer who sought to do honor to the Sovereign.

Some of the gentlemen about the Court paid him very liberally, not for civility, but simply to desist from his habitual insults, and it has been said that Disraeli discovered some method of conciliation, but Brown took an absolute pleasure in insulting all who had occasion to approach Her Majesty. Latterly he drank very heavily, and when he died, to the unutterable relief of all and sundry he bequeathed all his savings and possessions, even the watch he wore, to Her Majesty. His many poor relatives living in cottages on the estate never saw a penny of his money, nor so much as a button from his doublet.

CHAPTER VII

PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS

We are all of us, in this world, strangers and pilgrims, and to each human being, in turn, and in varied ways, comes the knowledge, "A stranger with Thee and a sojourner as all my Fathers were."

Like ships that pass in the night "we exchange signals with one another," and pass on our different ways through the ocean of life. I think it is the sea that most clearly brings home to me the transitory nature of our pilgrimage. Leaning over the side of a ship in mid ocean, and watching a trail of smoke from another ship on the horizon, I am always impelled to wonder about its human cargo. Who and what are they, and for what distant shores are they bound? Again one sweeps the far horizons only to find them empty of aught but a vast tumbling expanse of waters. Then, without warning, we are wrapped in a dense blanket of fog. The sirens sound insistently, and are at once answered by ships on every side. It is startling to find there are many so near, but utterly invisible. In a few minutes we have emerged again into distance and clear skies, and again there is nothing that meets the eye but the empty watery expanse.

Looking back on my life I can recall many meetings with fellow pilgrims that apparently were purely accidental, yet they left their mark upon my life. Meetings such as those, when two souls thrown together by the force of circumstances, in quiet far-away places; or in the marts of the world, become in a few short hours like old and tried friends. How often have I heard it said, even after one short hour, "I feel as if I had known you all my life." Such I look upon as epochs in my pilgrimage, milestones and guiding stars on my life's road. Yet the limitations of such epochs are obvious enough. Time on earth is circumscribed, still there is subconsciously the instant recognition of two kindred souls who hear and remember, who instinctively know that once, perchance many times before, they have landed together on the shores of time, from the storm-tossed bark of life.

It seems strange that those chance meetings should have no continuity. I remember one such meeting in the East, and how utterly by chance it seemed to come about. It lasted for three days, yet after three hours I knew more of my fellow pilgrim and he of me than we would have known of each other in three months at home. We were both quite alone, but I remember his recalling the pre-Buddha words written a thousand years before the coming of the Christ: "Thou shalt not separate thy Being from Being, and the rest, but merge the ocean in the drop, the drop within the ocean. So shalt thou be in full accord with all that lives, bear love to men as though they were thy brother pupils, disciples of one teacher, the sons of one sweet mother."

When we bade each other good-by and I boarded my ship we told each other we would meet again, but instinctively we knew we never should. I have forgotten his name, but all else I can remember very clearly, and the wonderful comradeship two souls, drifting together for a second in time, can give each other. He gave me the sufi mysticism of Omar Khayyam, and I can still see the English face burnt dark with eastern suns, under the snowy turban, and the brilliant parrot swinging on a palm bough above his head. I can still hear the low grave voice reciting the quatrains of Persia's astronomer poet, written a thousand years ago. They fitted in with our surroundings:—

"There was a door to which I found no key.
There was a veil past which I could not see!
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed, and then no more of Me and Thee."

I suppose we all have many such recollections in our lives, and it is impossible (for me) to believe them to be a mere matter of chance, for, always on parting, I have been conscious that I have received some lasting good, or it has mercifully chanced that I have been able to help a stranger and pilgrim on a difficult way.

Again, I remember another interesting meeting. A woman was sitting alone on a bench in the outskirts of Cairo, and her worn face was turned to the dying fires of sunset. She was very shabby and poor looking, and obviously she was a European. In my casual glance I caught something familiar, and after going on some paces I felt a compelling force bidding me return. I sat down beside her and at once spoke to her. I knew who she was when she turned her face to me, and the hideous contrast of her past and her present appalled me. She does not know to-day that I am aware of her real identity. She is in England, and all now is well with her. One can always, as the pre-Buddhist taught us, "Point out the way however dim and lost amongst the Host, as does the evening star to those who tread their path in darkness."

Again, it is strange to tell why unknown pilgrims should leave their mark upon us for all earthly time, pilgrims to whom one has never spoken, and of whom one knows nothing. When I was quite a child I passed every day through a very quiet and well-to-do street of dwelling-houses. At a window behind two flower-pots, sat a woman whom I supposed to be sewing, though her hands were hidden from view. I can see her as clearly now as I saw her then, over forty years ago in the northern capital. The pale, tragic profile, the down-drooped eyelids, the meekly-banded hair. I used to wonder about her constantly. She possessed me, and interested me at that time more than anything else in my life. Even to this day she comes unbidden into my mind at frequent intervals.

Again from my bedroom window in Belgrade I used to watch another woman. She came out on her balcony twice a day, always at the same hours. She put her hands on the rails, and turned her dark, southern face up to the skies, and there she would stand for an hour, gazing fixedly above. I never once saw her eyes drop to the busy street below, and once a prisoner, dragging his heavy chains behind him, paused and looked up and cried out to her for bread. She appeared not to hear him, her rigid attitude never relaxed.

It is the thoughts of such pilgrims, as one conjectures them to be, that form the interest, or perhaps it really is something more, a far-off kinship, stretching invisible threads down through the ages. With both those women I had a feeling of kinship. I had picked them out of the world's crowd, because of some silent influence they exerted over me, the lingering power of some far back, forgotten touch, which had once drawn us together. I know that in my life I had met those "that I have loved long since and lost awhile."

For me there was purpose in those "stars" that shine through my life, as looking back they show me where I had arrived at the moment of their uprising, and their rays pierce the penumbra shadows wherein the soul lies hid. Each star showed me the lees in the cup of destiny, brought to me a new revelation of soul, and elucidated for me something of the mystery of life.

Again, surely there is Divine purpose in those islets of friendship which jewel-like stud the gray vesture of ordinary existence. They are close, warm, and utterly sincere, often for many long years, then they are suddenly sundered by the inrush of some invading force which cuts them off in their full bloom. Sometimes the Master Death bids them pass on, sometimes the break comes by some utterly trivial, yet inexorable fiat of human destiny.

In the clash of human interests it must needs be that pain must come to some. Life cannot be all serenity and peace to the pilgrims who toil upon its stormy way, its via dolorosa. Such crises teach us the just attitude that should prevail in all such trials and circumstances. Amiel says, "There is one wrong man is not bound to punish, that of which he himself is the victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged." For hate there is but one antidote—love. The art of forgetfulness is not yet a science, but to forget the evil one has but to remember the good. Love knows neither saint nor sinner, for she seeks in every heart the hidden gem of good. She thinks no ill, because she knows the trials of each one are penalty enough for deeds already done. Neither in the case of Death's intervention, nor in the case of human misunderstanding should there be sorrow for lost friendships, though there must inevitably be regret.

Love brings with it suffering, for all who love suffer with those they love. Unkindness and injustices are hard to bear, and the loss of those we love is a bitter pain, but those whose hearts are great enough still find others on whom to lavish love. Are there not many who need it, and are there not great rewards for those who have love to spare. To be required, to be appealed to, and turned to as a help and refuge. Such are the prizes for those whose hearts are always alight with love, who from one flame can kindle many.

When death looses the silver cord, and souls seem torn asunder for ever more, there will be sadness of spirit. When a break comes, perhaps through third-party treachery, there may come the sense of eternal severance, but is it eternal? I doubt it. More probably there lies before us an existence of clearer judgment and understanding, of vaster possibilities, in which we shall know, even as also we are known. Though now we see each other through a glass darkly, a day will come when we shall no longer see in part, but face to face. When faith, hope and love shall be reunited, and we shall realize that the greatest of these three is love, which suffereth long, and is kind and thinketh no evil.

Again, there are these loves in one's life, some fleeting, some lasting, that are too sacred to write of, and of which one never speaks. The joys and sorrows they brought, the prose or poesy of our intercourse are graven deep on the heart. Whether it be they still walk by our side, or have gone west to rest after labor, we must learn to say with the pre-Buddhists of old time: "Do not grieve for the living or the dead. Never did I not exist for you... nor will any one of us ever hereafter cease to be."

Such sacramental hours sanctify the variety of our lot, combine the pathos of love and death, and stretch through the corridors of memory into the hush and shadow of the haunted past; where all the mystery of such hours seem gathered for inspiration. There linger the symbols of our sojourn here. How potent, yet how fragmentary they are! The scent of a flower, the long embrace, the hand held out in vain, the flash of recognition, the chime of the clock which altered the course of the pilgrimage. The meek hands folded on the still breast. Such symbols abide with us like the image of a Divine form, some echo of immortal music, some lingering word of angels. Their cadences come ever back to us from infinite distances, ghostly chords and evanescent. Harmonies which come and go too fitfully for apprehension.

CHAPTER VIII

SOME STRANGE EVENTS

After my marriage my husband and I passed some time in the United States and Canada; we then returned to England and took a place in Cambridgeshire. We were both very fond of racing, and attended all the meetings at Newmarket.

One day I drove by appointment to the house of a neighbor who had asked me to meet Miss Catherine Bates, author of that interesting book, "Seen and Unseen."

Just before I started my husband, half in fun, and knowing Miss Bates to be a psychic, said, "Ask her what horse is going to win the Cambridgeshire."

I promised to put the question and drove off. I had a most interesting visit, but I totally forgot to ask Miss Bates for the winner of the coming race.

It was not until I was seated in the victoria, exchanging a few parting words with the two ladies standing in the doorway to bid me good-by, that I suddenly recollected my husband's request. As the horses were starting I called out to Miss Bates—

"Tell me what's going to win 'The Cambridgeshire?'"

The answer was prompt and clear:

"Marco to win, —— for a place." (I regret I cannot remember the name of the second horse.)

As I drove away I waved my thanks, and directly I got home I told my husband—"Marco to win, —— for a place."

He was much interested in this "tip" from so well-known a psychic, and of course we backed "Marco to win and —— for a place" for all we were worth. I wish I could remember the odds. I only know that they were "long."

The event duly came off, and I wrote to Miss Bates thanking her for the good turn she had done us.

Her reply astounded me.

She began by saying she had not heard me put any question to her regarding the winner of the Cambridgeshire, and went on to say that she knew nothing about racing, and knew none of the horses' names, therefore it was impossible that she could have given me the "tip."

Her hostess cared nothing for racing, and was as ignorant as she was upon the subject, but she did remember hearing me call out to Miss Bates, "What's going to win the Cambridgeshire?"

I then questioned our coachman and footman. Both distinctly remembered my calling out the question, and both, keen on racing, listened for the reply, but they heard none.

Where did that answer come from? I cannot tell. Was some spirit interested in racing hovering near? Did he contrive to drop the "tip" into my mind, open at that moment and eager to catch the response?

A year after the event I have recounted above, I was resting one afternoon in the summer-time. I had been ill, and was not yet strong enough to lead an ordinary life, and I was lying on a sofa in a top floor room. The room immediately beneath me was the drawing-room, and the weather being hot all the windows were wide open. The house we inhabited was quite isolated in its own park, and the village was about half a mile distant. My husband was from home, and I was alone in that particular part of the house, the servants' quarters being at the back, and shut off from the rest.

Out of the absolute quiet suddenly came the sound of music. Some one was playing my piano in the drawing-room below. This, in itself, caused me irritation, but no surprise. I was not well enough to entertain callers at tea, due in half an hour, and I had given orders that I would see no one, but it had happened before that the musical neighbors had called, and whilst waiting for me had sat down to the piano.

I was too annoyed to hasten downstairs. I lay waiting for the butler to come to me and inform me why my orders had been disobeyed. Meanwhile I listened to the music, and wondered greatly who the brilliant pianist could be. I did not recognize the music, but it sounded quite modern, and requiring a great amount of technique. The player was, however, a most brilliant performer, who had acquired considerable skill. "Evidently a professional," I thought, and wondered all the more who it could possibly be.

Still there were no signs of the ascending butler, and time continued to pass. I began to feel obstinate, and determined to remain where I was, until I was correctly informed of the caller's identity.

The music steadily continued, every note borne to my ears as clearly as if I had been in the room with the performer. "Very wonderful music, but soulless," I concluded, and though my curiosity was growing every moment my obstinacy prevailed, and I remained where I was. At last, after quite twenty minutes, the music suddenly stopped; it broke off in the middle of a movement.

I rose at once, and went downstairs feeling very cross. I pushed open the drawing-room door and entered. It was absolutely empty, but the piano, which had not been opened for several weeks, was open now. I went to the window which commanded the avenue; not a soul was in sight. Then I rang the bell, and when the butler entered the following dialogue took place:——

"Who was the caller who has just been?"

"There have been no callers to-day, madam."

"But surely you heard the piano being played?"

"We heard a lot of music, but we thought it was you playing, madam."

"Then you all heard it?"

"All of us in the hall heard it, madam."

I left it at that. Suddenly it came to me that I had better not push my inquiries further. Until that second it had never occurred to me that the performer might be a disembodied spirit.

The butler did not leave the matter alone, but made every inquiry at the Lodge, and also of the out-door servants, but nothing came of it. No one had seen a stranger, and the silver was intact. My maid told me some time afterwards that the household had shaken down to the conviction that I had really been the performer, and that my recent illness had caused me to forget the fact. I let this conviction remain unshaken, but I marveled at the lack of musical discrimination my household displayed. The disparity between my strumming and the brilliant execution of my spirit guest was so vast that I could not even feel flattered by their mistake.

A year or two after we took a cottage on the Thames, and there, during our summer visits, I had an uncomfortable time.

There was something wrong with the sideboard end of the dining-room. For a long time I could not make out what it was. My attention was constantly being attracted to the spot. If I passed the door I thought instantly of the sideboard. In plain language, I was constantly being invited, by some invisible person, to come in and have a drink. If I was putting anything away in the sideboard the suggestion was always very strong. On the outside stood a tantalus of spirits and soda water, ready to refresh any calling boating men. Inside the cupboards were wine decanters.

I always resisted the suggestion, I suppose because I did not happen to want anything to drink—for years I have been a total abstainer, and at the time I certainly did not realize the menace of those suggestions.

Now and again I caught sight of a small oblong gray cloud hovering in front of the sideboard but it was not till many months afterwards that I saw something much more definite. The gray shadow had become the clearly defined shade of a small woman. She hovered about the spot in a wavering, undecided manner. It was apparent that she was seeking something. One day, in a flash, I recognized the truth, the suggestion came from her. She was inviting me to drink with her.

My husband and I set to work to find out who this unfortunate woman had been when she dwelt on earth. We discovered a very sad story. She had been a celebrity of the half world, and I had actually seen her in the flesh. She had traveled to Monte Carlo one winter in the next sleeping compartment to ours, and she had lived for some years in our riverside cottage. Latterly she had fallen an incurable victim to drinking, and had died of it. Poor little soul; my heart went out to her in deepest pity, but I was glad to leave the cottage forever, when in 1898 we went to live at my husband's place, Balquholly, Aberdeenshire.

Some people, perhaps once in their lives, become sensitive enough to recognize a visitor from the Astral plane. If the occasion is not repeated they believe themselves to have been victims of hallucinations. Others find themselves seeing and hearing, with increasing frequency, something to which those around them are blind and deaf. They realize, in fact, that they are in touch with the Astral plane, the region lying next to our world of dense matter, and often some Astral entity on the lowest levels of that plane is continuously striving to work through their mediumship. The world is very far from realizing this danger. What are those entities working for?

The man or woman who has led a decently pure life on earth will have no attraction to the lowest levels, contiguous with earth, of the Astral plane, and will, at so-called death, pass swiftly through it. But, alas! the vast majority have by no means freed themselves from all lower desires before passing over, and it takes a considerable time before the evil forces generated on earth work themselves out on "the other side."

The length of man's detention on the lower level will depend entirely on the earthly life he has lived, and the quality of the desires he has indulged in.

The desires of a drunkard, a debaucher, are as strong after death as before. The present Bishop of London made that very clear in one of his Easter addresses, but the subject finds it impossible, without a physical body, to gratify his lusts. Occasionally it can be done in a vicarious manner, when he is able to seize on a like minded person and obsess him or her, or when he finds a medium who consciously or unconsciously panders to his desires. For this reason I hold it to be imperative for safety's sake, that every genuine medium should be a total abstainer.

How often one is asked the question: "What is a medium?"

It is a difficult question to answer in a few words. I should put it thus——

A medium is one whose principles, physical, mental, spiritual, are so loosely bound together that an Astral entity can draw from him without difficulty the matter it requires for manifestation. The very essence of mediumship is the ready separability of the principles.

In the case of the poor little woman I have mentioned, she was fortunate enough not to meet with (in me) a sensitive, through whom her passion could be vicariously gratified.

Such unfulfilled desires gradually burn themselves out, and the suffering caused in the process no doubt goes to work off evil Karma generated in the past life. It is the soul that desires, the body is but the tool to grasp the desire, and after death old lusts crowd upon the departed. Thirsty with no throat; sensual with no body to grip the foul desire, soon it is learned that the worst evils and the hardest to undo have been woven out of the mind.

Here is another story or two relating to one of the most puzzling mysteries in ghost lore—the phenomena of temporary hauntings.

Why do ghosts suddenly take possession of a house with which, in their incarnate days, they have had no connection?

Such ghosts differ from those only seen once. They take up their abode in a dwelling which has absolutely no traditions of haunting. They will be seen and heard on many occasions, for a few months, possibly for a few years. They will then suddenly depart, and be seen or heard no more.

Such apparitions cannot readily be traced to any defunct friend or member of the family. They have no known connection with the house in which they appear, and no one can form the faintest conception why they should suddenly elect to "walk" within those four walls, which hitherto have been normal and free from "other side" visitors.

A case of this description happened to my youngest brother, who, before he bought his present country house, lived in a detached, new building, not far from the Dean Bridge, in Edinburgh.

He had occupied this house for some years previous to his experience, and had neither heard nor seen anything of a spooky nature. The manifestation only lasted for a few weeks. Nothing in the form of a ghost was seen, but much was heard.

I will give the story in my brother's own words:

"On a certain evening, a year or two ago, I went out after dinner to visit some friends, and returned home about half-past eleven.

"Not feeling inclined to go to bed, I took up a book and sat down to read for half an hour.

"About a quarter-past midnight I suddenly became aware that stealthy footsteps were coming upstairs. Looking at my watch I thought it very strange that any of the maids should be still up at such a late hour.

"The door was well ajar, and I arose from my chair, listening intently, as I crossed the room. The footsteps were now quite distinct, and I knew at once they were not those of any woman. They were the stealthy footsteps of a man, and naturally I at once concluded that he was a burglar.

"I calculated swiftly that he would either enter the room in which I stood, or he would go on and up the next flight of stairs to the bedrooms. In any case, he had to be faced and caught. I realized that, and I much regretted I had nothing at hand which would help me, should he prove to be armed.

"There was, however, no time for further thought. Every second brought him nearer, and taking up a position just behind the door, I waited till he arrived on the landing, and until he came to the spot when he must either turn in, or go on upstairs.

"The moment came, almost at once. With a sudden bound I sprang out to close with him. Lo! and behold! nothing was to be seen! Nothing was now to be heard, except the ticking of a clock.

"I stood still and absolutely astounded. The footsteps had been no trick of imagination, I was very sure of that. Had I not heard them stealthily beginning the ascent of the stairs, and grow louder the nearer they approached me?

"I mopped my brow. Would any self-respecting burglar have come on, and up a lighted staircase, and along a landing towards a room which he must have known was still occupied, as the light shone through the half-open door? Are burglars ever as rash as that?

"Then I reminded myself that as there was no burglar in the case my speculations were mere waste of time.

"I put out the lights, and went to bed in a very uncomfortable frame of mind.

"The next day, when I returned home from business, my housekeeper informed me that a strange man had been walking about the house. She had not seen him, though she had looked for him—that was the curious part of it, but she had heard him quite distinctly, several times, and she didn't like it one little bit. Not that she was frightened! Oh! dear no, but it was uncanny, and she thought she had better tell me. I thanked her and assured her that there was nothing to fear. The house was quite new, and uncanny things never happen in new houses. I advised her not to mention the subject to any one but me, and told her that I was not going out again that evening.

"After dinner I settled down in my room, to wait for the footsteps I instinctively felt sure would return. I kept the lights burning on stairs and landing, and set the door half open, placing my chair in such a position that I could see any one who passed outside the room on the landing. This time I did not think of arming myself. I had come to the firm conclusion that the sounds came from no person living in the flesh. As no house adjoined mine I had no 'next door' on which to lay the blame for the disturbance.

"Sure enough, about an hour earlier this time, the unknown, unseen visitor began his ascent of my staircase. I cannot describe my feelings during those moments of waiting for 'it' to pass. I can only say they were intensely unpleasant, and I hope I may never again have to confess myself to be a wretched coward. A burglar would at that moment have appeared to me in the guise of a dear friend.

"However, the thing had to be faced, there was no one else that I could put onto the job, and so I simply sat still and waited, with my eyes fixed on the landing outside. The steps came on, distinct enough, and growing nearer and louder. They arrived on the landing, they reached my door, they passed, and proceeded to mount the next flight of steps to the bedrooms. I had seen absolutely nothing.

"I rose and walked out on to the landing, and looked up at the brightly lit staircase. I could mark, by the sound, the progress made by those invisible feet. They passed on to the bedroom floor, and with heartfelt gratitude I heard them enter, not mine, but an empty room. I heard nothing more that night. Presumably the ghost remained quietly in his comfortable quarters.

"The next day came more complaints from the housekeeper. The 'strange man' not only promenaded the house at intervals, but he had the impertinence to ring several bells. I wondered if a whisky and soda left casually on his dressing-table would appease his thirst for summoning the servants in this irritating fashion.

"For some days after this we were left in peace, and I began to hope that 'it' had betaken itself to the house of some other chap, but no such luck!

"One evening I was in the dining-room decanting some wine before dinner. It was just seven o'clock, when I heard 'its' footsteps again. This time they were coming downstairs. I went to the door and looked out. There was no one to be seen. I reëntered the dining-room and shut 'it' out. I suppose 'it' had been having a rest in the bedroom. I trusted 'it' meant to have a night out.

"A moment or two later I heard a click near the fireplace, and looking towards the spot whence this sound came, I saw the handle of the bell being pulled back. In another second the bell rang.

"When the maid answered it I was ready for her.

"'Oh! don't you know what that is?' I inquired with mild sarcasm. 'Only mice crossing the wires. Nothing to be frightened of in that, is there?'

"I stuck to this all through the weeks that followed. The maids ceased to answer the bells, and went early to bed in a bunch. They no longer required rooms to themselves.

"In a few months the trouble stopped as suddenly as it had begun. 'It' had evidently found other quarters more to 'its' liking. The mice were equally obliging. They ceased running across the wires."

What theory will explain this species of haunting which is quite common? May it not be that this disembodied entity attached itself to my brother whilst he was out, and like a lost dog followed him home? There must be countless entities wandering about all over this globe, seeking an abiding-place for their restless souls. People who find themselves as bereft of friends on the other side of death, as they were in earth life. Those who have friends here have doubtless friends there.

In old days we used to think of a post-mortem abode as somewhere in the skies. Some even mentioned a receiving station in the bowels of the earth. Now I find that the majority of educated people have come to regard so-called death as merely a change of consciousness, and the immediate post-mortem sphere of our activities to be a region interpenetrating this earth.

A county neighbor of ours in Aberdeenshire told me of a very tantalizing experience he had a very few years ago of temporary haunting. This was a case of seeing, not hearing.

The time was late autumn, and his family had gone south for the winter, leaving him alone for a week or two to finish up the shooting.

One night, immediately after he had dined, he ran upstairs to his bedroom to fetch something. On coming out of his room again, what was his astonishment to see, walking in front of him, a tall young lady, very smartly dressed in the height of the prevailing fashion. She wore black satin, cut very low and without sleeves, and she moved very quietly along the passage, and proceeded to go downstairs. She never turned her elaborately coiffed head, and he could not see her face. He followed, too speechless with amazement to address her. Who on earth could she be? Where was she going? Nine o'clock at night; only two old servants in the house! In the depth of the country, and nine miles away from anywhere! And this charming young lady who so unexpectedly had made her appearance to brighten his solitude!

What a surprising adventure! The situation was piquant to say the least of it.

He followed immediately behind the attractive vision. He even wondered what room he would have prepared for her. So absolutely real did she look, that not for a second did he doubt she was ordinary flesh and blood.

When describing her afterwards to me he said, "I can assure you I saw the actual white flesh of her bare arms and shoulders. I was close behind her."

The lady moved composedly on, walking with supple grace and perfect self-possession. She was not in the least hurried or flustered. She reached the bottom of the stairs, and he had a momentary fear that she would make for the front door, where surely a Rolls Royce would be awaiting her. Not so! She walked straight into the dining-room. He followed.

As he entered the door she had gained the opposite end of the room, where the sideboard stood.

For a second she stood still, turned and glanced round at him with an enchanting smile of delicate raillery. Then she deliberately walked through the sideboard and wall beyond, and was lost to sight.

The beholder of this ghost had never seen anything of the sort before, and was, if anything, a disbeliever in psychic phenomena. He is a perfectly healthy, normal country gentleman, whose principal hobby is sport, and who prefers a country life out of doors to the life of an intellectual student.

Needless to say the occurrence puzzled him beyond measure. He could not "place" the lady, and was certain that he had never seen her before. Her dress proclaimed her to be absolutely modern.

Though in roundabout ways he tried to find out if any woman, answering to her description, was visiting at the time in any of the neighboring country houses, he failed entirely to get any result.

Being rather shy of the chaff he knew would be indulged in at his expense, he mentioned the incident to no one. He took careful notes of date, time, and other particulars, and kept a strict watch, but the lady appeared no more during his stay, and before Christmas he went south to rejoin his family.

He did not forget the experience. When the following autumn came round he found himself again in the North, under exactly similar circumstances. Eagerly he anticipated the anniversary of his first ghost. He was waiting for her on the landing outside his bedroom door, and suddenly she sprang into sight from nowhere. To-night he had determined to lay hold of her, but he calculated without his ghost. She sped downstairs, this time as if she was well aware that he was in pursuit. They gained the dining-room almost neck to neck, and this time she made no pause before slipping through the wall. She simply looked back at him over her shoulder, and smiled at him enchantingly, provokingly. Then he found himself alone.

The following year was blank. She came no more.

Why did she come to that house, with which, it is certain, she had no connection? Why did she only appear twice, and both times on the same date?

Such are the questions one asks in vain, but such fugitive visions suggest the whisperings of a voice which calls out in the wilderness, and leads through life's enigmas to the final awakening.

There are visions of beauty to which we are blind, and joyous harmonies we do not hear. There are depths of feeling we have not plumbed, and heights we have not aspired to, yet I am sure if we but place ourselves in a simple attitude of receptiveness, we will draw nearer to the glory of the unseen, and Nature's finer forces will draw nearer to us.

CHAPTER IX

POMPEY AND THE DUCHESS

Have animals souls?

I unhesitatingly answer "Yes."

If my dog has not a soul then neither have I—my dreams of immortality are merely a delusion. I base my belief upon the God-like qualities found in animals—the highest quality of all, love, pure, and unadulterated by self-seeking.

The oldest scriptures of the world tell us that when wild animals die their life flows back into a group soul, a mass, as it were, of undifferentiated life essence. As the animal becomes domesticated, as a dog or cat learns to live with man, shares in his joys and sorrows, to be his constant companion, then it advances rapidly in evolution. It is developing human qualities, and in due time will no more return to merge in the group soul, but be born into the human family. A lowly human family it is true, a primitive savage to begin with, but that animal has passed one of the most important milestones on the long, lone trail. It will never more return to the world in the form of the beast, henceforth it will commence its slow ascent from the most elementary human body to the exalted heights of a god. They tell us in the East: "First a stone, then a plant, then an animal, then a man, and finally a God." This is how the wisdom of the East understands Divine evolution.

Cases where the ghosts of animals have been seen are becoming quite common. Before describing the astral apparitions of some of our animals, I will recall a very interesting case which was investigated in recent years at Ballechin, Perthshire. The accounts of the Ballechin hauntings are contained in a big volume, but at present I am only concerned in the four-footed ghosts that were seen. The trouble began upon the death of the eccentric owner, old Major Stewart, in 1876. He had frequently stated his intention of haunting the place after his death, and, furthermore, had asserted his determination to "walk" in the form of one of his many dogs, a favorite black spaniel.

The family, anxious, as they thought, to be on the safe side, had all the pack, numbering fourteen, destroyed at the death of their master, but this wholesale slaughter of the innocents proved of no avail.

The first intimation of its futility was immediately apparent. The wife of the old Major's nephew and heir was seated one day adding up accounts in the dead man's study, when the room was suddenly invaded by the old doggy smell, and an unseen dog pushed distinctly up against her.

Many other unpleasant incidents followed after, but the really great happenings did not begin till 1896, when a shooting tenant, after a week or two, was compelled to quit the house, and forfeit the considerable rent he had paid in advance.

The above fact came to the notice of that inveterate ghost-hunter, the late Marquis of Bute, and he, and several other members of the Psychical Society, hired the house, and went into residence. The Times of June, 1897, contains elaborate details of the various experiences and the names of the investigators.

The phenomena they describe are very startling, but perhaps the most unnerving specter was the frequent appearance of a black spaniel, which was seen by numerous persons. One member of the party had brought a black spaniel of his own. He saw it run across the room, when at that moment the real dog—his own—entered and began to fraternize with the ghost dog.

Two ladies occupying the same bedroom had a curious experience. A pet dog on the end of the bed began to whine, and looking to where its eyes were fixed they saw, not the black spaniel, but two black paws on the table by the bed.

Various other sorts of dogs were seen by many people. The black spaniel by no means had the monopoly, and dogs, purposely brought by the investigators to aid them in their elucidation of the mystery, made friends or exhibited mistrust of the pack of ghost dogs haunting both house and grounds.

Twice in my life I have seen the wraith of our own dogs, "Pompey" and "Triff." Pompey was a big brindled bulldog of terrifying aspect and angelic nature. My husband and I adored him, and his death caused us great grief. Indeed, the whole household mourned him long and deeply. One day, about ten days after his death, I suddenly caught sight of him walking in front of me down the avenue.

On the spur of the moment I called him by name, then he vanished.

I mentioned this occurrence to my maid, who at once told me the kitchenmaid had seen him in exactly the same place.

When alive on earth "Pompey" had a habit of stealing into a guest's room when the early tea was brought up. He would lie in wait in a dark corner and then attempt to enter behind the maid or valet. When the door was shut again he would emerge from his hiding-place, and attempt to leap on the bed. He was exceedingly gentle and affectionate, but externally he was so forbidding that his offers of friendship were not always accepted, and he was a great weight.

One day a Mrs. Shelton came to stay with us, and the next morning asked to have her room changed, because "Pompey" had kept walking round her bed all night, and she had not been able to sleep. She was sure it was "Pompey," because she recognized his peculiar, heavy, slithering movements.

Some time after this Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, came to pay us a visit. She had been very overworked, and needed a complete rest. She brought with her a maid and a small French bulldog, and she and the maid occupied a suite of three rooms, two bedrooms and a bathroom, shut off from the rest of the house by a heavy swing door.

The French bulldog was accustomed to sleep in the maid's room. We had no dog left of our own. The beautiful Duchess went to bed about half-past ten; she was very tired and ought to have slept well, but she didn't.

In the night she was awakened by what she took to be her own bulldog prowling round her bed, yet its footsteps sounded strangely heavy.

She knew nothing about "Pompey's" ghostly visits; we had been careful not to mention them.

When she came downstairs the next morning she told us what a disturbed night she had passed through. She was awakened soon after midnight by the restless movements of a bulldog round her bed. She did not doubt it was her own dog, that owing to the forgetfulness of her maid had been left asleep under her bed. She called it, and at the same time switched on the light, but could see no signs of any dog at all. Rather puzzled, but concluding that she must have been mistaken, she composed herself to sleep once more.

Before very long the noise began again. A bulldog with its heavy, slouching tread was moving about round her bed.

This time the Duchess got up, and made a thorough search of her room, but could see nothing in the shape of any animal. Yet so convinced was she that a dog had been in the room, that she determined to look into her maid's room to see if her own dog was there.

She opened her maid's door, which was shut, and went into the room. The woman was asleep, and on the bed at her feet slept the French bulldog.

There was nothing to be done but to go back to her own bed once more, and try to sleep in spite of the disturbances.

This was the story the Duchess told us, and added to me, "If he comes again to-night I shall come along to your room and rouse you."

It did not come again. The peculiarity of "Pompey's" visits was that they only occurred once to each stranger, though he came several times to me, as was but natural.

We honored his memory by raising to him a large granite headstone, on which was inscribed—

"Soft lies the turf on one who finds his rest,
Here, on our common Mother's ample breast,
Unstained by meanness, avarice and pride,
He never flattered and he never lied.
No gluttonous excess his slumbers broke,
No burning alcohol, no stifling smoke.
He ne'er intrigued a rival to displace,
He ran, but never betted on a race.
Content with harmless sports and moderate food,
Boundless in love, and faith and gratitude.
Happy the man, if there be any such,
Of whom his epitaph can say as much.

"On this spot
are deposited the remains of one
who possessed beauty without vanity,
strength without insolence,
courage without ferocity,
and all the virtues of man without his vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery
if inscribed over human ashes,
is but a just tribute to the memory of
'Pompey' a dog.
Born 1891. Died 1902."

Our next dog, "Triff," was a very handsome sable collie. Of course, we became devoted to him, and when he also passed away we felt very desolate without him.

For a long time I never could feel that he had left me. Though I could not see him, I used to speak to him, just as if I could see the dear presence I so strongly felt. It was hard that I never could catch a glimpse of him, because others did. The butler saw him many times, and my maid caught sight of him twice.

One often reads in ghost books of abnormal animal-like creatures being seen by psychics, but it is rare to meet with living individuals who can testify to such personal experiences.

I remember Lilian, Countess of Cromartie, telling me of a strange incident that once happened to her.

She was walking alone one bright summer morning in Windsor Great Park. Suddenly she saw an amazing looking creature loping slowly towards her. It resembled an enormous hare. That is to say, its legs and head were those of a hare, but its size was that of a goat, and its horned head was half-goat, half-hare. This creature, loping without any fear, and with a hare's movement straight towards her, caused her to pause. She stood still and breathlessly waited its approach. It passed quite close to her, and as it did so she struck at it with her parasol. Instantly it disappeared.

Princess Frederica of Hanover, always intensely interested in psychic phenomena, and herself no tyro in psychic knowledge, told me many years ago that she had seen several different sorts of abnormal animals, quite unknown to this earth, and under circumstances which left no doubt as to their actual existence.

Many years ago there was much talk amongst a certain set of an experience that had come to a foreign Grand Duchess and her husband, who spent much of their time in England. This couple were traveling in the wilds of Greece, and one night they wandered out together on to a bare mountain side. Sitting down to rest they were enjoying the beauty and utter loneliness of the moonlit scene, when they suddenly heard the galloping of many horses' hoofs approaching them. This astonished them greatly, as they were in so wild and unfrequented a part of the country. There was no road near them, and it seemed strange to hear horses galloping so fast on such rough ground at night, even though there was a moon.

Husband and wife stood up immediately in order to show themselves. The sound suggested a headlong rush, and they feared that in another second a whole regiment might ride over them.

They had not long to wait. A troop of creatures, half-men, half-horses, tore past them, helter-skelter. Fleet and sure-footed they thundered by, and they brought with them the most wonderful sense of joy and exhilaration. Neither the Grand Duchess nor her husband felt the smallest fear; on the contrary, both were seized by a wild elation, a desire to be one of that splendid legion. The thundering of their hoofs spread over the hills, and died away into the distance.

On returning to their camp the husband and wife found an uproar. Something had gone wrong with the Greek servants, who were shivering with terror, and struggling with equally terrified horses to prevent a stampede. All that could be learned from the Greeks was that they had heard something, something known of and greatly feared.

I happened to hear the Grand Duchess tell of her weird experience, and I have often wondered in later years if Algernon Blackwood had also heard the story, and founded upon it his fascinating book, "The Centaur."

There were several people in the room whilst the Grand Duchess was unfolding, in the most impressive manner, this strange event. Amongst them was the first Lady Henry Grosvenor, born Miss Erskine Wemyss of Wemyss Castle.

She told us that when a child of seven years old, she had passed through some minutes of such absolute terror, that as long as she lived she would never forget the experience.

With another child, and a nurse in attendance, she was playing one summer morning out of doors. After a little while the nurse rose from her seat amongst the heather, and wandered away a short distance, out of sight but not out of hearing.

A few moments after the two little girls heard some bushes behind them rustling, and a huge creature, half-goat, half-man, emerged and leisurely crossing the road in front of them plunged into the woods beyond and was lost to sight. Both children were thrown into a paroxysm of terror, and screamed loudly. The nurse ran back to them, and when told what was the matter scolded them for their foolish fancies. No such animal existed, such as they described, an animal much bigger than a goat, that walked upright, and had but two legs, and two hoofs, that was covered with shaggy brown hair from the waist downward, and had the smooth skin of a man from the waist upward!

The nurse bade them come home at once, and as they gained the road Miss Wemyss pointed down into the dust. Clearly defined was the track of a two-hoofed creature that had crossed at that spot. The nurse stared for a moment or two, then with one accord they all ran. She never took her charges near that spot again.

Lady Henry said that the memory of that experience was so firmly grafted on her mind that she could always recall with perfect clarity the exact appearance of this appalling creature. In after years, when grown up, she realized from pictures that what she had seen was a Faun or Satyr. Such pictures or statues always sent a thrill of horror through her. She attributed this apparition to the fact that she and her companion were playing close to the site of a Roman camp, and the road was an old Roman road.

She went on to say that the Grand Duchess had given her courage to tell this incredible story. It was as absolutely real to her as was the passing of the Centaurs to the Grand Duchess.

The whole scene stood out in brilliant light as a picture before her, whenever she thought of it, which she very often did. She never mentioned it to any one, as she felt that no one would believe her. She could always smell again the scent of summer, and the odor of pine trees, and hear the trickling of water from a tiny stream. She could always see a wide, white road, ribbon-like stretching away to the horizon. Then, suddenly, she and her young companion stood face to face with a presence, a hideous, unspeakable shape, that was neither man nor beast.

She believed that there was a real world beyond the glamour and vision of our ordinary senses, and sometimes this veil was lifted for a few seconds. She believed that much of the tradition of mythical creatures represented solid fact, and that it was possible there were failures of creation still extant. Again, might there not be races fallen out of evolution, but retaining as a survival certain powers that to us appear miraculous. A very gifted being was Miminie Erskine Wemyss, who married Lord Henry Grosvenor. One of my earliest memories is the thrill her beauty gave me when first I saw her, as she walked into church, a silver prayer-book, slung on a silver chain, depending from her arm.

CHAPTER X

THE INVISIBLE HANDS

All through my life there have come to me moments never to be forgotten. Often the incidents that so deeply impressed me were utterly trivial in themselves, still they were sacramental, inasmuch as they proved to me, absolutely and conclusively, the immortality of the soul, and the power possessed by the soul after so-called death to concern itself with terrestrial happenings. Such moments are sacramental, in the sense that Nature is sacramental, in its showing forth of God's glory, and the manifestation of His handiwork.

I was sitting near the library window, reading, in the fading light of a quiet November afternoon. It was one of those utterly still, mournful days, with a gray, brooding sky, save where, in the west, a pale primrose sunset was bathing the horizon in light. I was reading "Man and the Universe," by Sir Oliver Lodge, and had arrived at page 137, which ends Chapter VI.

In those days, the year was 1908, I always tried to arrange at least one week of perfect quiet for the study of a new book which I had just ordered. I would calculate on which day the post would bring it to my country home, and I would arrange my life accordingly. This may sound rather ridiculous, but the truth is that a book like "Man and the Universe" is such a pure intellectual treat to me, that I like to gloat over it, to taste it slowly, and imbibe it gradually. I try to spin out the joy of it as long as possible by reading slowly, and thinking over the problems presented.

At last I put the book down on a table by my side. I was in no hurry. It lay on its back, open, the pages uppermost; just where I had stopped reading. I fell to wondering on the words I had just read.

"A reformer must not be in haste. The kingdom cometh not by observation, but by secret working as of leaven. Nor must he advocate any compromise repugnant to an enlightened conscience. Bigotry must die, but it must die a natural, not a violent death. Would that the leaders in Church and State had always been able to receive an impatient enthusiast in the spirit of the lines—

"Dreamer of dreams! no taunt is in our sadness,
What e'er our fears our hearts are with your cause,
God's mills grind slow; and thoughtless haste were madness,
To gain Heaven's ends we dare not break Heaven's laws."

I must have sat thinking for quite ten minutes when my attention was suddenly attracted by a sound. The sound of paper leaves being rustled. The room was so dead still that the faintest sound would have called my attention, but this sound was by no means faint. I turned my head and looked at the book I had been reading, because, from it, unmistakably the noise proceeded.

I beheld a most enthralling phenomenon. Unseen hands were turning over the pages.

A thrill of intense excitement ran through me, and I stared at the book in breathless interest. The hands seemed to be searching for some particular passage. The number of the page upon which the passage was printed was not, apparently, known to the searcher. I will try to describe what actually happened.

Several leaves of the book were turned over rather rapidly, each leaf making the usual sound which accompanies such an ordinary physical action. Then, as if fearing that the passage required had been overlooked or passed by, several leaves were turned back again.

This manifestation continued for at least ten minutes, and I could see nothing but the pages of the book being turned quite methodically, as by a human hand.

At moments there was rather a long pause in the search, and at the first pause I thought the demonstration might be over, but once again the invisible entity resumed the search, and I found myself saying, "He found something there that interested him. That is why he stopped." For no reason I can give I felt certain my visitor was a male spirit.

On the second pause in the search occurring I had no doubt that again he had found something that interested him. The whole manifestation was very leisurely and wonderfully human. As I sat watching the book being manipulated by unseen fingers, every smallest action suggested design. One could not doubt as to what was taking place. At length there came a pause longer than usual. The book lay flat on its back wide open. There was now no quiver of the leaves. The invisible entity had found what he wanted and gone.

I curbed my curiosity for five minutes more, then feeling convinced that I was again alone I stretched out my hand, took the book and, rising, carried it close to the window.

There was still enough light to read by, and the leaves were open at pages 172-173.

I had only read as far as page 137.

I scanned them eagerly, and at once discovered that a mark had been made on the margin of page 172. A long cross had been placed against a paragraph. The mark was such as might have been made by a sharp finger-nail. The words marked were—

"I want to make the distinct assertion that a really existing thing never perishes, but only changes its form."

To-day the mark is as clearly visible on the page as on the day it was made. I can form no conjecture as to who the entity was, but he certainly knew the contents of the book. No one watching the search could doubt that, or that he was desirous of impressing upon the readers of the book a certain fact stated therein, which must have previously attracted his attention.

In the year 1900 we took a house for the winter months in the West End of London.

It was a small house though joined on either side by great mansions, and once upon a time it had actually been a farmhouse standing amid smiling fields.

It retained many relics of its ancient origin in fine oak paneling and quaint nooks and corners, and had been for many of its latter years the town residence of a man whose type had practically died out, the perfect type of our old English aristocracy.

The bedroom I occupied was exceedingly comfortable and warm. The bed, placed against the wall, was exactly opposite to the fireplace, so that lying on my right side I looked straight at the fire and could see the whole room.

I was constantly on the alert, as I knew how full of history such a house must be, but for several weeks I neither saw nor heard anything in the least unusual.

One night, quite unexpectedly, a change occurred. I no longer had the room to myself. A stranger occupied it with me.

It was a cold, snowy night, and I was lying in bed facing the fire and courting sleep, when I heard a sudden noise which was totally different to the sounds made by the dying fire. Take a large sheet of stiff writing paper in your hand and crush it up between your fingers and you will hear the sound I heard. Quite a loud and distinct noise if you happen to be in a very quiet room, at an hour when all the household has retired to bed.

Naturally, I instantly opened my eyes and looked out into the room, which was lit brightly enough by the fire to make all the objects it contained quite distinct.

An armchair was drawn up close to the fire; half an hour before I had been seated in it warming my toes before getting into bed; now it was again filled.

In it sat a man turned sideways towards me. He was lying back with his legs stretched straight out in front of him towards the fire. One of his arms hung over the arm of the chair, and in his clenched hand was a large piece of paper or parchment.

His finely cut profile was clearly outlined, he was clean shaven, and he stared into the fire, his chin sunk in a high black stock.

His hair was powdered and tied behind by a large black bow, and he wore bright blue cloth knee breeches, white stockings, silver buckled shoes, and many gold buttons on his blue coat. I did not take in all those details at once; I had ample leisure to do so later. For, I suppose, a full two minutes, I stared very hard at him, and lay very still, knowing full well I was looking at a ghost. Then very cautiously I drew the bedclothes over my head, and shut out the startling vision. I was invaded by wild panic.

I have never been one of those timid women who are frightened by their own shadows. I require to be face to face with a tangible danger before I put faith in its existence, yet, I confess that at that moment I knew what actual fear meant. My heart beat thickly, then seemed to stop, and I was instantly bathed in cold perspiration. I knew that the servants were all in bed two flights of stairs below me, and my husband was out of London, so no calling for help was any use. I therefore forced a sort of spurious desperate courage, and began to be angry with myself for being thus afraid when no cause for fear existed. I treated myself to a scornful lecture. "You who profess to know all about ghosts, you who have actually seen several ghosts, you coward to quail before this one! Don't you know perfectly well that he won't hurt you, that he has a perfect right to sit in that chair, and that it is your duty to speak to him should he show any desire for conversation?"

"I am so terribly alone," pleaded my other self in feeble self-defense.

"Well, what of it? If the whole household was in the room what could they do? You are not a child. Uncover your head and look the specter boldly in the face."

The stillness and hush of deep night, at the hour when sleepers slumber soundest, was upon the house. The traffic of London was muffled in a heavy fall of snow. I could hear nothing but the feeble crackling of the expiring fire in the grate, but gradually I rallied my courage and faculties and peeped stealthily out.

There sat that dark form between me and the fire; there he lay in an attitude of moody carelessness, watching the cooling embers as they faded from scarlet to pink, from pink to yellow, and then fell tinkling into heaps of white ashes. No statue was ever stiller. He did not move in the least, but sat more like an effigy of a man carved out of stone than a creature of flesh and blood.

I closed my eyes and re-opened them, to test the fact whether I was awake or asleep and dreaming. No, I was broad wake and the room was still fairly well lit, and there sat the phantom before the fire, the proud, well-set head with its powdered curls distinctly visible in the red glow of the firelight. I should think an hour must have passed thus, whilst I gazed at the figure before me, taking in every detail. There was no indication that he knew or cared for my presence. The figure sat like a stone.

I came to the conclusion that the phantom was about thirty years of age, and a sailor who had lived in the days of Nelson, judging by his clothes and the pictures I had seen. I noticed particularly his hand clenched on the paper. A white hand, with strong cruel-looking fingers. There is so much character in hands. The face may be drilled into a mere mask, but hands tell tales of their owners. I could imagine the hand that had crushed the paper closing murderously on the throat of an adversary, or gripped hard on the hilt of a dagger.

There were moments when the awful inertia of the figure began to play havoc with my nerves, when I would have given anything to make that impassive form move from out its dreary attitude of sullen brooding; anything to cause the profile of the face, with all its gloom and pride, to turn and front me, so that I might know the worst. But the figure never turned, never stirred, but sat with stately head bowed under a weight of thought.

Now and again a little flame would spurt up and glitter on his shoe buckles, his brass buttons, but the fire was dying now, and gradually the figure became more and more indistinct.

Then I slept. I had been feeling drowsy for some time, and fought against it. I had violently resisted sleep, feeling a great repugnance to losing consciousness whilst the specter still sat there, but the blank force of sleep at length overpowered me. When I awoke the cold gray morning light was stealing feebly in through the window. The chair was empty. The figure was gone.

The next night I went to bed full of courage, but I was left alone. If the sailor returned it was not until after I had gone to sleep.

A week later he came back. One moment the chair was empty, the next moment with one wild heart throb I opened my eyes at the sound of crackling paper, and the chair was filled. There he sat in his brooding sullen attitude and continued so to sit till slumber vanquished me. After that I saw him at constant intervals.

By this time I had entirely rid myself of all fear. I did not even desire to change my room which would have been very inconvenient, and I dreaded alarming the household and being left alone to conduct the domestic duties. But though no longer afraid those constant visits began to get on my nerves, and I consulted a Catholic friend who was always sympathetic to the occult side of life.

She said at once that this spirit should be exorcised and set free from the bondage of earth, and that she had an old friend, a Franciscan monk, who was known to be a powerful exorcist. She offered to arrange the matter, and I gladly accepted her suggestion.

It was on an early spring afternoon that Father Reginald Buckler came to the house. In his white habit, sandaled feet and shorn crown, he looked an incongruous figure in that fashionable locality already beginning its social entertainments in view of the season's approach. He was a charming, courteous old man, who took his mission very seriously. After a few words of explanation we mounted to the bedroom floor.

There were four doors opening on to the little landing, and without asking which of the doors led to the haunted chamber, he turned the handle of the right one and entered. Still he put no question, but at once proceeded with the Service of Exorcism.

Sprinkling the four corners of the room with Holy Water, he bade me kneel down in the middle. Then he raised his Crucifix and offered up prayers for the repose of the earth-bound soul, that he might be loosed and set free.

For five weeks longer we remained in the house, but I never saw the sailor again.

CHAPTER XI

DAWNS

We have been given many wonderful dawns this winter, and I have used them eagerly as a cleansing of the war-weary mind and distracted soul. In such ethereal apparitional dawns one walks with the Eternal, and all temporal things fade away. Those pale silver daybreaks have a rapture of their own, they suggest a fresh creation straight from the looms of God. When the hours of day have drawn on the flaming sunset, that exquisitely serene emotion of virgin tranquillity will have passed away, and the horizon will be lurid and grand beneath a grave frowning sadness gathered from the scenes of earth they have brooded over.

Such dawns beckon imperiously to the pilgrim, to leave the shelter of the roof-tree, and come forth to walk with the immortals whilst the Morning Star, the light-bringer, still shines, a white gold radiance in the heavens, and the distance is still dissolved in veils of pearl and opal.

Such daybreaks always rouse in me the urge for wider thought, for the broad day of the mind. Out of the limitless beyond comes the certain knowledge of a something unimagined, lying just outside human thought. I am sure there is so much not yet imagined, something more than mere existence.

There is a wine of happiness in tranquil daybreak, and an aloofness from life that urges one to seek for that which is beyond comprehension. The draught exalts the soul, and quickens it with unquenchable fire, until the world falls away, far from one, as day wells out of still darkness. Only at such moments do we reach the true horizon.

Again, there is an amnesty in such dawns, a glory of release from the house of bondage. In the great silences, life, as we know it, is remote, and the immensity is a magic that draws the soul, fusing it in a strange passion, so that whatever fulfillment our existence holds is summed in that hour of solitude.

A pale wash of translucent gold is thrown across land and sea. On the far horizon a ship is set in relief, against a core of crimson flame which heralds the sun. A dove coos softly, and on a bare branch a thrush thrills in waves of sound, seeking in the universal ether to reproduce its divine instinct in other feathered hearts that are attuned to its melody.

Such joys as these are transitory, and never wholly possessed. They pass the enclosures of life, and bring one nearer to the beating heart of truth. The agonizing fear of losing hold on them is, in itself, the cause of their dispersal. It is the same at rare moments of semi-consciousness, when one has actually laid hold of a genuine astral experience—and knows it. Then comes the frantic endeavor to hold on—to pin the moment fast and tight, till the whole vision is absorbed. The soul seems to hold its breath! How often, with bitter disappointment I have rushed reluctantly into full waking consciousness—and only half the story told. Fragmentary though such moments are their potency is such that they endure through time. Thank God, that whilst the wedlock of body and soul still holds undissolved there is scope for such joys. They are uncommunicable, and may not be shared with others at will, and they tell the soul that she is not of creation and cannot be contained by law. At such hours she learns the truth, that she passes for a brief span into the limited, from out the limitless whence she came. At such sacramental hours one can pray the prayer of Socrates, offered up by the banks of the Illissus:

"O Beloved God of the forests and flocks and all ye Divinities of this place, grant me to become beautiful in the inner man, and that whatever outward things I have may be at peace with those within. May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have so much wealth, and so much only, as a good man can manage to enjoy.

"Do we need anything else, Phædrus? For myself I have prayed enough."

How many people now recall fragments of former lives! Ask the next man you meet if he has any recollections of former existences, and be sure he will not eye you askance as a fugitive from Bedlam. He may smile and shake his head, and regret to say he isn't psychic, but he won't ask you what on earth you mean. This is how we have progressed towards truth in the last thirty years. The truth of reincarnation is being quietly accepted by the West and is now openly preached from many pulpits. If God is love, who could reconcile with any comprehensive idea of justice and law in the world the lives and experiences of common humanity? How reconcile the births taking place in one single day in their vast diversity, by the hell for the criminal, born, nurtured and killed in crime, who never had a chance, and Heaven for the happily born, who need never have a temptation? What is the Divine Law lying behind this seeming hideous injustice? Undoubtedly the continuous evolution of the soul in bodies of matter. Men are looking now to the scheme of organic evolution to provide the field for spiritual evolution. They are finding it in the depths of their own consciousness.

I chanced upon one of those fragments of a past life, those islets in eternity in a strange way. I was paying a visit to a stranger in Cambridgeshire, and whilst awaiting her entry I walked round the room looking at some lovely water-colored sketches that hung upon the walls. When their owner entered, and after a few minutes' conversation, I said, "How beautiful those Sicilian scenes are!"

She looked pleased and answered: "I'm so glad you recognize them. I painted them. When were you last in Sicily?"

I had never at that time been in Sicily. I told her so, but I could not tell a stranger that suddenly there had dawned upon me a keen recollection of the country I had certainly been in, though not in this life. The paintings, of course, dealt with a restricted field, but as I looked at them one by one I saw mentally a wide landscape in which each picture formed but a tiny spot. One I remember was a painting of a wonderfully perfect temple, which occupied the whole space of the picture. As I looked at it I saw wide rolling plains, and a wide expanse of blue sea. This I later recognized in Girgenti.

A month or two afterwards my husband and I went to Sicily for the winter, and, as I had expected, the island was perfectly familiar to me. I knew exactly round which bend of the hill I should find a temple, but Syracuse was really my spiritual home. It was there that I had played out one of my many life dramas, and many incidents returned to me as I wandered over the hills, and gathered maiden-hair ferns in the twilight of the empty tombs.

Once I opened my eyes on Stromboli, one of the Æolian or Lipari Isles. Instantly I felt a passion of love for it, an intuition of spiritual delight which is utterly irreducible to terms. I have looked upon it since, and always with an adoration impossible to paint with pen or pencil. I have for weeks anticipated the moment when I should see it again. It means something to me far beyond what the eye can see, the tongue relate, and it is this something lying betwixt rhapsody and lament which draws me by a tenuous chain of thought right back into the womb of time, where buried memory stirs in its long sleep.

Stromboli, so the ancient poets tell us, was the home of the fiery god, Vulcan. That explains much to me, but it unfolds a secret none may learn.

It was in a flaming dawn that I first saw Stromboli rising from amid the numerous isles surrounding it. From its cone shot a great plume of smoke, like a giant ostrich feather, silver tinted. In its ethereal loveliness it seemed to float in the void, half of earth, half of heaven.

Neither bondage of words, nor the cold scrutiny of reason can impinge upon a scene which draws the soul away upon a celestial pilgrimage. Free and elate, she passes beyond the frontiers of life, and like the echoes of the sea when a shell is held to the ear, she hears the pulse of earth beat far away in unfathomable distance. The marvel of the uncreated consumes her in a trance of unincarnate passion.

Those who have once adventured on such pilgrimages are never quite the same again. They become children of "the Divine unrest." They have experienced a moment in which earth and flesh dissolve, in which law is not, in which creeds and covenants find no place, and the hold upon common life with its moving mirages is blotted out. Time and space are annulled, the æon and the second are one. The soul unswathed, has risen from the tomb where the life urge has laid it, and is aglow with the transcendental fires of eternal being. In after days the soul learns to set barriers against such visitants. One must not look upon the other side of the moon too often, for fear one is drawn away from home and kindred. The time is not yet, but it will surely come.

One other curious happening I must relate. Years ago, one autumn when I was in the far north there came a magnificent visitation of falling stars and many aerolites dropped to earth. The display was predicted, and I was on the lookout. It came in a rain of gold and seemingly from all points of the compass. For hours I watched a sight far more marvelous than anything I had anticipated.

When at last I reluctantly went to bed I had a strange dream or, rather, astral experience. I was a Hungarian gipsy, the head or queen of an enormous clan. I heard wild Hungarian music, and saw enormous crowds of my people gathered round me. They were very savage and picturesque, and a ceremony was proceeding.

On the ground, and in the center of a great ring of people, stood a large bowl filled with blood. I stood in front of it and watched the swearing in of new adherents to my clan, by means of the "blood covenant." The blood that filled the bowl had been drawn from the veins of my people, and the new adherents were each required to drink from it and swear their allegiance. Only one thing troubled me all through what seemed a long ceremony. My feet caused me pain, and I was aware that they were bare, as were the feet of all my people.

So vivid was the dream that I could visualize my whole life as I lived it on the plains of Hungary, and the scenery surrounding me was lit up by a glorious sunset. There were hundreds of horses grazing loose, as far as the eye could reach, and flocks of enormous white geese, amid which great storks strutted.

Suddenly I awoke with the acute pain in my feet uppermost in my mind. I found myself clad only in my nightgown, walking bare-footed on the rough gravel paths of the garden, whence I had watched the stellar display. I had been walking in my sleep, and the sudden unaccustomed stony hardness of the path under my bare feet had awakened in me the recollection of a past life, in which I had lived, a wild nomad in southern Hungary.

This is the one and only occasion in my life in which I have known somnambulism. Luckily my memory did not fail me on waking and, some time after, when I was able to revisit the scenes of that long ago pilgrimage I was quite familiar with my surroundings.

Buda Pest and the lands lying southward were then my home, a roving home and tent life of infinite variety.

Thus the dead of vanished years are disguised in the present living.

I have no doubt that many people who have not had the interesting experience of remembering one or more of their former incarnations have been able through some trivial incident to recollect happenings long vanished from their memory. Sometimes the scent of a flower, the glimpse of a scene, a chance word or expression will vividly recall some episode lying hidden for many years in the subconsciousness. Again it will be pulled over the threshold from past to present, from the storehouse of the eternal memory into the everyday working consciousness or mind.

This is not a book for scientists. I will therefore go into no elaborate metaphysics, but will sketch as simply as I can what I mean by subconsciousness. I use the term for the region or zone within us which stores up the residues of past thoughts and experiences. Scientists tell us there are three realms of mind, the super-conscious, the conscious, the subconscious. The conscious mind is what we commonly use. It belongs purely to the objective world, and its instruments are the five senses. The subconscious mind is the storehouse for experiences on the human plane of man's long past. The super-consciousness is independent of the five senses. It is a faculty of perception closely akin to the One force in the Universe, which is inseparably related to all created things. It possesses the attributes of Infinity, is indestructible, immortal, undying. We may forget a fact for many years, then suddenly we remember it. I believe it has come back to us again across the threshold from the subconscious region to our consciousness or mind which is open to everyday observation.

I have become convinced, by personal experience, of the existence in us of this region below the threshold of our ordinary conscious life. When I was young there were many problems I wished to solve, and in this effort human aid often failed me. My plan was to "sleep on" a problem, ardently desiring before "dropping off" that an answer might be accorded me. I suppose this desire was of the nature of prayer, though addressed to no Deity. Almost invariably the solution was clear and unmistakable to me in the morning.

I lost this great advantage at the age of twenty-one, but even now I can sometimes "get at" a solution by leaving the question severely alone, after turning it well over in my mind. The solution will suddenly pop up, often weeks after I have tried to get at it, and when it comes there, it arrives apropos of nothing, so to speak. It simply dawns in the thick of quite other subjects, which happen at the moment to occupy my mind.

Though I can no more demonstrate to others the existence of the subconsciousness than I can prove the existence of the immortal soul, I have got sufficient proof to satisfy myself, and I believe the same knowledge is open to many of us. Within our being are sympathetic chords that can vibrate to all the symphonies of Nature. There are visions of beauty and depths of feeling which may be seen and felt, if heart and mind are open to the higher influences. The finer forces of Nature, and her immutable laws, are ready to draw nigh to us if we desire to welcome them, and are eager to place ourselves in harmony with the Infinite Source of being. We are in the keeping of the best and highest, and whatever things are pure, whatsoever things are beautiful, whatsoever things are true and high and holy will gravitate towards us in proportion to the degree we desire them. The mysterious gift of existence is in itself a beckoning ideal, and a foregleam of the final awakening that will surely be ours.

Now what does the subconsciousness contain?

Firstly, I believe it to be permeated by Deity, and the Divine indwelling. It is the seat of Genius. I believe a genius to be one who is capable of drawing from the contents of his subconsciousness that which outwardly appears as a creation. It is said that genius creates and talent copies. I believe that a man becomes great when he represents the results of countless lives in his individuality, and each life is an arc of the infinite life of the Universe. The man with æons of experience behind him is infinitely more en rapport with his subconsciousness than those younger, more immature souls who have as yet experienced few earth lives and who constitute the bulk of humanity.

The eternal mind finds its home in the subconsciousness, by which I mean that nothing is really forgotten by man. This lapse of memory is the passing of the subject from the ordinary mind into the subconsciousness, whence it may later be recovered again. The memory of all our former incarnations I believe to lie hidden in the subconsciousness. It is from this region or zone that one gets sudden uprushes of memory, and such uprushes are induced by stumbling on a chance link between the two zones of consciousness.

Some chance incident, such as the presence of my bare feet upon the rough gravel, touches a correspondence on the other side of the threshold, and lays bare old scenes to the observation of the ordinary mind. It is noteworthy that the matter contained in this up-rushing is recognized first, and the means which brought about the uprush is recognized secondly.

I believe there is a vital communication between consciousness and subconsciousness which could be enormously developed and utilized by practice. The age in which we live has produced the most marvelous triumphs of mind over matter. Access to the subconsciousness is becoming commoner and simpler. We have broken in and harnessed material forces in a manner undreamt of fifty years ago. Yet there is an alas! a fact which detracts from all our legitimate pride in our achievement—the base uses to which our triumphs have been put. The whole of our inventive power has been turned against the life that gave it birth. The parents are being consumed by their own offspring.... Matter evolved out of spirit has threatened destruction to the latter.

The threshold between our ordinary consciousness and the region of subconsciousness seems to me like a bridge which is rarely used, and which separates the country known from the country unknown. I live in the country known, but if I can touch a button at my end I can get a response instantaneously transmitted from the country unknown. The trouble is to find the button. At present I only press it at long intervals and by the merest chance. Still it is something of an achievement to have convinced one's self that such a region actually does exist.

I believe this subconsciousness of ours is in direct contact with the Great Creative Power. "It is God that worketh" in man, and its vital communications are hidden in the infinite eternity. Says a Sufi ideal: "To abide in God after passing away is the work of the perfect man, who not only journeys to God—passes from plurality to unity—but in and with God—continuing in the unitive state he returns with God (his subconscious self) to the phenomenal world from which he sets out, and manifests unity in plurality."

Though at present, to all outward seeming, the evolution of the beast is consummated, there is a something that flatly contradicts this apparent certainty. That something is man's subconsciousness, and the Divinity it enshrouds, and which fiercely and irrevocably is set against the bestiality into which he is plunged. War has never been so universally hated as it now is. It is in this vital fact, which cannot be too strongly emphasized, that our future hope lies.

I believe this vital fact to be so strong that entire regeneration is a certainty. Where hitherto this force has lain dormant or been dispersed, disunited and weak in spiritual utterance, it is now a collective force concentrated in millions of lives. All over the earth it is now gathered en masse, and that stupendous aggregate, vivified, sharpened, and intensely accentuated by untold suffering will revolutionize all former weak and fatalistic acquiescence in the inevitability of war. Millions of men have descended into hell, they are there now, but they will arise again from amongst the dead, and ascend one day into the Heaven of peace, and thence they will judge the quick and the dead by a new standard. The standard of the God within, whose voice has been heard at last from out the din of battle. It is the same God who has said to the East:—

"Have perseverance as one who dost forever more endure. Thy shadows (physical bodies) live and vanish, that which is in thee shall live forever, that which in thee knows is not of fleeting life, it is the man that was, that is, that will be, for whom the hour shall never strike."

To-day we all use, in some cases automatically, the powers and aptitudes developed in us in the long and painful evolution of the physical form. As evolution proceeds we will gain a vastly greater control over the subconsciousness, and in æons to come "in the flight of the alone to the alone" union will be achieved. The two will be merged in one.

The Lord Buddha has said that to enter Nirvana is to become fully conscious of our fundamental oneness with the universal life.

"I and my Father are one." Christ's sense of oneness with the Father was essentially Nirvanic.

We have not yet accustomed ourselves to think of evolution in any terms but the material, as a power inherent in matter, Darwin's physical evolution stood for pure materialism. Bergson now carries us a step farther. He introduces us to a spiritual principle. His creative evolution is a spiritual activity seeking freedom of expression in matter. Darwin's struggle for existence is by Bergson transmuted into life, expressing itself through material forms, and life and matter are in constant conflict. Again he points out that the spiritual principle, life, has not "had it all its own way." It has experienced checks, but in two modes of activity it has succeeded, in instinct and intelligence. Thus he draws for us the grandiose upward sweep of a Divine activity. Curbed, it is true, by the crust of matter, but finding ever higher capacities, and higher expression towards that ultimate reality which is creative life and to me is union with that higher self lying in the subconsciousness of all men.

CHAPTER XII

PEACOCK'S FEATHERS—THE SKELETON HAND AT MONTE CARLO

A sea voyage once provided me with a wonderfully lucky experience, inasmuch as it saved me from an extremely bad accident.

I was returning quite alone from the East in a ship crammed full of women and children, most of them soldiers' wives and families going home to escape the hot weather. Many of them were attended by ayahs.

Two days out we ran into a raging storm, and everything was battened down. Owing to the weather, and the excessive crowding, the conditions below soon became very unpleasant, and I asked the captain if I might take possession of the ladies' summer drawing-room on the upper deck and close to the bridge. Seeing that it would not be used by any one else for some time to come he kindly agreed, and I at once settled myself in my eyrie with a few books, and prepared for some days of solitude.

But as the storm did not abate the suffering women and children below claimed my attention. They were confined in an atmosphere which was appalling, they were all terribly ill and utterly helpless. The mothers were unable to attend to their children, most of whom were infants, and the ayahs suffered horribly. Having no cabins they lay groaning on the floors of the corridors, drenched with water as the ship was awash from stem to stern, and tossed hither and thither as she rolled heavily.

It was never easy to descend from my perch aloft, but the sufferers had to be aided, and day after day I never knew a dry moment till I lay down at night. So far the summer drawing-room remained fairly water-tight in spite of being swept continually by heavy seas, but the noise of the elements was absolutely deafening, and when the captain called upon me we had to shout in each other's ears.

With his connivance I got a shelter rigged up on what appeared to be the only dry spot on board. It was about twelve feet square and walled in with sailcloth, and there the sailors helped to carry a number of tiny children. They were to remain there during the best hours of the day, until their mothers and nurses were capable of attending to them once more.

I took charge at first and found my task no light one. The babies did not seem to appreciate my blandishments. They cried persistently, but luckily their voices were drowned in the roaring of the wind.

At last a cabin boy chanced to look in, and at once sized up the situation. He signaled to me that he knew of something that would ease the tension and then he disappeared. In five minutes he was back brandishing a large bunch of peacock's feathers. These he shook in the face of each infant in turn, at the same time making the most hideous grimaces at them. It was an anxious moment for me, but luckily the effect was electrical. The babies suddenly forgot to yell, they stiffly maintained their equilibrium and stared in a sort of indignant amazement. Then, gradually, as the boy kept going round the circle repeating the process, smiles and dimples began to appear, and in five minutes more the whole crêche was laughing.

I applied for permission to annex that boy; he was indeed a treasure, and the joy in the peacock's feathers never palled. His gutta-percha face had an infinite variety of expression, which he could instantly turn on to suit all occasions. It was a fascinating sight to see him going round the group feeding each baby out of the same bottle, one of the old-fashioned horrors with a long indiarubber tube and teat. Those infants who had contemptuously rejected all my offers of nourishment now sat expectantly agape waiting their turn. The scene always reminded me of the artificial feeding of fowls, by the man who goes round the pens squirting liquid down each gaping throat.

When we landed at Marseilles there was a wonderful parting between the babies and the cabin boy. They clung to him to the last, and howled dismally when they were carried off by their haggard mothers.

One night, during the height of the storm I was asleep on the fixed red velvet seat running round the walls of the summer drawing-room. I lay just under a porthole, to which was attached a rope. The other end of the rope was tied round my arm to prevent my being thrown to the floor by the rolling of the ship.

At five o'clock in the morning I was suddenly awakened by hearing my husband's voice shouting in my ear. (My husband not being on board, but in our home in the North of Scotland.)

"Sit up! Sit up!" shouted his voice commandingly.

Considerably startled I threw myself into a sitting position, and as I did so a gigantic wave shattered the porthole, and the heavy fragments of glass fell on to the pillow where a second before my face had lain.

Of course, the water poured in and over me in volumes, and stopped my wrist watch at five a. m., but I had got used to salt water, and in a few minutes the weary captain had waded in, and was disentangling me from my rope and congratulating me on my lucky escape.

I told him how it was that I had escaped, and he was not in the least skeptical. On the contrary, he said that he had known some curious things happen in his time, for which there was no accounting; but he always kept a black cat on board.

Had the safety of his ship not claimed his whole attention I believe he would have told me some of his experiences, but when, at last, the weather abated he was too much in need of rest to be bothered by any one.

My husband had no knowledge of the service he had rendered me. At five a. m. that morning he was asleep at home, and had no premonition of danger, or any recollection on waking of the rôle his astral counterpart had undoubtedly played.

What is this astral counterpart of man? His soul and spirit dwells in a shroud of flesh, and the feat of getting out of that shroud of flesh at will is the aim of all occultists. It is to the astral world they go, soul and spirit encased in the astral sheath we term the astral body.

During sleep, or in trance, when the normal physical senses are in abeyance, when the body is unconscious in sleep, the mind continues to act in the realm corresponding to the suggestions given when awake. The world at large is open to the highly developed man, and he will sometimes bring back from his astral plane expeditions memories of what he has seen and heard.

In deep slumber the physical body in healthful repose remains where it has lain down to rest, but the man's higher principles, the astral body encasing the soul and spirit, is invariably withdrawn, and in underdeveloped persons hovers in the immediate neighborhood. In such cases the higher principles, the astral body, soul and spirit of St. Paul's Gospel, are not sufficiently developed to roam, and remain near the physical body in a brooding sleep. All cultured persons in the present day have their astral senses fairly well developed, and have the power during sleep to go where they will, but as yet few have the power to retain the memory of it when returning to the body.

In some cases the astral man during sleep is specially attracted to some one point, and he invariably travels towards it; in other cases he will drift aimlessly about on the astral currents, meeting with experience of all sorts and with people in a similar condition whom he knows. Is there anything very extraordinary in all this, and is not the condition of deep unconscious sleep a demonstration in itself that the physical consciousness has departed elsewhere? As it is no longer functioning on the Physical plane clearly it has found another realm in which it can temporarily exercise its activities.

My husband once had a rather interesting experience of his own, on the Astral plane. He was in bed and asleep on the Physical plane, and he believes that the time must have been between eleven p. m. and twelve a. m. He simply became aware that he was functioning consciously on the Astral plane, and was intensely interested.

He found himself in a strange house of medium size, and he was floating at the top of a flight of stairs leading to an ordinary entrance hall below. At the foot of the stairs hung a lighted lamp, and below the lamp stood a man and woman, who were apparently exchanging a word or two before bidding each other good-night.

My husband instantly conceived the idea of testing and proving his belief, that he was consciously afloat on the Astral plane. If this belief was true, then he ought to be able to pass through the couple standing below, without their being in the least aware of his presence.

In a flash he was downstairs, and his belief stood the test. His imponderable astral body passed without feeling or shock through two ponderable bodies of flesh and blood, and he was out on the other side. The excitement of the adventure awakened him, and he brought back to the Physical plane a clear recollection of all that had happened.

When one thinks of it, the possible presence of total strangers in one's house is rather alarming. Luckily for us such wanderers rarely bring back to waking consciousness the memory of their nocturnal escapades. When we are more advanced in "other side" knowledge we will doubtless refrain from intruding upon the privacy of our neighbors' dwellings, and confine our attentions to realms which are free to all.

It is curious how constantly one hears of the ghosts of priests and monks being seen. I have not met any one yet who has encountered the wraith of an Anglican parson, or a Nonconformist preacher. I wonder why? I presume the latter do sometimes "walk."

Once upon a time, when we were in Rome, my husband and I went to keep an appointment with Monsignor Stonor, who was a great celebrity, and an extremely handsome and charming man. We were being shown upstairs by a servant, and the hour was eleven o'clock on a sunny spring day. I was walking first, my husband following, and at the top of the stairs, coming slowly downward, was an old priest carrying a huge portfolio, under which he seemed to be staggering. He passed the servant, and as he neared me I noticed that the cassock which he wore was torn in great rents in several places. His gray hair hung on his shoulders, though his crown was shaven, and his face was the color of old ivory.

I moved slightly to give him and his burden room to pass, and as he did so our eyes met. His were very strange. They were exactly like points of live flame.

Something about his whole presence struck me as so weird that I turned involuntarily and looked back.

As I did so, I saw my husband walk straight through him. My husband saw nothing. Then I knew and understood.

I did not mention this incident to Monsignor Stonor, but some time after I met his sister, Viscountess Clifden, at Monte Carlo. She was an intimate friend of mine, and one day when an opportunity offered I told her the little story, and asked her if she had ever met with anything of the sort herself. She replied that personally, she had not, but she had heard that several people encountered at different times the old priest in her brother's rooms, though he himself had seen nothing of this apparition.

Lady Clifden enjoyed nothing more than a little flutter at the tables. She never missed a single day during her long sojourns at Monte Carlo.

Every one knows that the Anglican church-goers in the Principality hurry from church to gaming rooms in order to stake on the numbers of the hymns. Lady Clifden used also to hurry from Mass with any numbers she had caught up, and she considered Sunday her lucky day. Suddenly her luck changed.

She told me that on the previous Sunday she had just pulled off a nice little coup, and was about to grasp it, when, to her horror she saw a skeleton hand stretched forth. Before she could collect her scattered senses the skeleton hand had raked in her gold. Where that gold had gone to worried and puzzled her dreadfully. So it did me! I never heard the last of it. She could not get over her loss.

It was no use suggesting that the hand had belonged to one of the emaciated harpies who prey upon the unwary. Lady Clifden knew all about them, and was a match for the whole gang, had they attacked her. She insisted that the hand that had grasped her gold had neither skin nor flesh upon it, and that she had seen the two bare arm bones from wrist to elbow. We compromised on the suggestion of a third party that it must have been the devil himself, and that the heat he is supposed to engender had melted the gold entirely away.

Monte Carlo is a very interesting place for the clairvoyant to be in, more especially if her vision extends to seeing auras. Perhaps nowhere on earth are the basest human passions more swiftly and violently aroused, and several times, when some tragedy was being enacted, or some enormous coup was being brought off, I have been unable to see details, because they were hidden within a dense envelop of dark crimson clouds.

In the rooms a crowd collects swiftly, and from a hundred human auras, all gathered in one compact mass, stream forth emanations of the basest description. Cupidity, envy, revenge, lust of the vilest, despair, ruin, death.

I remember being met one night by a friend in the Attrium who was very excited. "Hurry up," she cried, "the double Duchess has broken the bank and is still playing."

I went into the gambling rooms, and looked for the table at which the Duchess of Devonshire was staking. I knew she would attract a big crowd if she was winning.

I found the table easily enough, not because it was surrounded by a crowd of people, but because it was hidden by a dark and dense crimson fog.

With patience I got through this fog, and watched the handsome Duchess of Devonshire, formerly Duchess of Manchester, and born a Hanoverian, playing with a great quantity of gold, and a pile of thousand franc notes. By bending low down, almost level with the table, I found I got completely out of the fog, and could see clearly underneath it.

One night there was a rush outside, and a huge ring formed to watch "a scrap" taking place between two celebrated members of la haute cocotterie de Paris.

They were fighting with formidable hatpins, and I understood that the prey they fought over was Leopold, King of the Belgians.

I ran with the crowd, the gambling rooms emptied in a twinkling, for the combat took place in the Casino Square. I squeezed through the excited mob till I got behind the backers of both parties, who were holding the ring and defying the police.

It was a wonderful sight to witness the combined play of flaming red auras, shot through with vivid flashes like lightning, and blazing jewels.

The duel ended with a few scratches, much tearing of gorgeous raiment and disheveled hair.

How interesting it was to the mystic to feel the psychology of that crowd, and see the thin veneer of civilization stripped off, leaving nothing but the human tiger and ape. Both ladies were eventually led off the arena by the police, not, be it understood, to the police-station, but to their own sumptuous apartments. All the time they shrieked and chattered like infuriated macaws, and between the shrieks they administered resounding smacks upon the cheeks of their patient escort.

Monte Carlo was a wonderful place in those days, in which to study human nature at its best and worst. In latter years it has become meretricious and shabby, and the old magnificence is seen no more. Fifteen to twenty years ago all that was greatest in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, congregated there, and crowned heads mingled freely with the scum of the earth. Constant habitués were the Duchess of Devonshire, and her son, Lord Charles Montague; the Duchess of Montrose, known to the ring at Newmarket as "Bobs," and always the personification, to listen to and look at, of a Thames bargee. Leopold of Belgium, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Grand Dukes of Russia, potentates from India, all hobnobbing together and gambling heavily.

I often wonder now what has befallen those brilliant stars of the half-world firmament. Emmeline d'Alençon with her "bobbed" hair, and her passionate love of animals and birds. The demure Jeanne Ray, who came out every morning to her garden gate, and distributed food to the crowd of paupers and cripples. I have seen peasants kiss the hem of her dress as she walked on an afternoon along the Promenade des Anglais. The beautiful, soulless Mérode, the fierce, stately Otero, and many others who thought nothing of wearing fifty to a hundred thousand pounds' worth of jewels on one evening.

Where are they now? If living they are old! Old! a word more dreaded by their class than death.

CHAPTER XIII

I COMMIT MURDER

I will now relate a very unpleasant experience that befell me thirty years ago, but which has by no means exhausted itself in the passage of years. It still, at long intervals, recurs to me as vividly as when first I passed through the painful hours of its unfoldment.

It was the month of July, and I was making a tour by road through a portion of Scotland, driving my own horse. I was accompanied by a groom and a maid.

One evening we arrived at a well-known inn on Deeside, where I had arranged to pass a couple of nights. I found my room ready for me, an ordinary hotel bedroom, and after supper I retired very early to bed, feeling very sleepy after a long day in the open air.

Towards morning I had a vision. I was a woman who had committed the crime of murder; and I went in hourly terror of discovery and arrest, as the police were actively in search of the criminal. Up to the present I had succeeded in evading them, and no shadow of suspicion had yet fallen upon me, but I lived in constant haunting dread that sooner or later some chance clue would direct their attention to me, and I should be arrested and brought up for trial.

I had no clue in the vision as to how the murder had been committed. My victim was a man, and a sensation, vague and cloudy, suggested that a quick poison was the mode of destruction I used, but I never gathered why I murdered him, or what relation, if any, he was to me.

The vision was confined to my miserable sensations of fear of detection, and the trouble was that I seemed utterly powerless to keep away from the scene of my crime, a large mansion in the West End of London.

Not only did I haunt the outside of the house, but I had several times contrived to penetrate into the interior without being discovered, the house having stood empty since the crime.

It was a dark, foggy night when I determined again to effect an entrance, and I listened intently in the street before darting up to the front door and fitting my key in the lock. There was not a sound, and I found myself in the interior with the door softly closed behind me.

I carried a candle, which I was about to light, when I saw that the large hall was not in its usual darkness. A dim light burned in a pendant globe, and looking round I perceived abundant evidences that the house was again occupied. Several pairs of men's gloves were neatly folded on the hall table, and a man's silk hat was neatly covered with a cloth. There was not the faintest sound to be heard in the house, and the hour was between eleven and midnight.

Very softly I crept up the wide staircase. My heart was beating tumultuously, and I was in an agony of apprehension. On the first corridor I entered the room where I had concealed the body of the man I had murdered. I had dragged it there and hidden it in a great dress wardrobe. I opened the wardrobe door and found the interior had been filled with women's clothes, they were swathed in linen sheets. Amongst them I began to search with both hands, but, of course, found no signs of the body, which had long since been removed. However, in some unaccountable way the action of searching seemed to comfort me, and soon I turned to retrace my steps and gain the street once more.

At that second I heard some one approaching, and quick as thought I slipped into the wardrobe and pulled the door close. Some one entered the room and then left it again. In a few more moments the house was again silent as the grave, and I began to creep downstairs very softly.

When halfway down, at a bend which brought me in full view of the hall and the front door in the background, I stopped short at a sound.

Some one was about to enter, some one was fumbling with a latch key at the other side of that door. Another moment and that some one would enter and I would be discovered. There was but one chance. Whoever it was might not come upstairs. He or she might strike off to the left of the hall, where a corridor ran to that end of the house.

I cannot attempt to describe my agonizing terror of suspense, yet I did not lose my presence of mind. Instantaneously I decided what to do, should the one about to enter elect to come straight upstairs.

I hastily lit my candle, carefully shading it with my hand, and crouching low I peered through the banisters, towards the front door. It opened, and a man entered, middle-aged, well dressed, a gentleman, and an utter stranger to me.

He closed the door and turned the key, but drew no bolts. Then he threw off a heavy coat, and placed his hat and gloves on the table. My heart beat to suffocation, as I waited to see which way he would go. He was whistling softly to himself and, turning, began to walk across the hall, heading for the stairs.

Then the moment for action came. I knew now I should have to pass him in order to make my escape. I threw myself into the tragic pose of a somnambulist. I wore a long floating cloak, and I knew my face was white as death, and my eyes wide with sheer terror.

With both hands, one of which held the lighted candle, outstretched gropingly, with distraught gaze fixed in wild vacancy, I slipped silently down the few remaining steps and sped noiselessly in my soft shoes straight across the hall towards him.

Though I never turned my eyes upon him I was aware that he had stopped dead short, and was staring at me in startled amazement. Then fear suddenly invaded him, I could feel it. He fell back as if to let me pass, as I glided silently nearer to him and to the door.

He was backing away from me now, then in another instant, he had turned and fled along the corridor. One more moment and I was safely outside, on the pavement.

I woke up to a brilliant summer morning pouring in at my open window, but I was in no mood to enjoy its loveliness. I was bathed in cold perspiration, I was shivering with pure unadulterated fear. I was prostrate with the violent revulsion of feeling, from acute dread of discovery to partial immunity on gaining the street and escaping from the house. The vividness of every detail was crystal clear, and attended by all the violent emotions such an adventure and escape would naturally arouse in me, had they happened in the world of realities.

It was hours before I could shake off the horror of the vision, and I left the hotel that day. Nothing would induce me ever to pass another night under that roof.

I had no recurrence of the vision till three months after, then it came again, with all its attendant horrors, when I was asleep in my own bed at home. This was succeeded at long intervals by a vision of my condition of mind as an undiscovered criminal, always evading detection, but without the vision of my return to the scene of the crime. During the last thirty years I have had recurrences of the complete and partial vision, but at long intervals.

A few years ago I happened to be standing with my host in an enormous stone hall, in one of the greatest houses in England. We were discussing the house, and its uncomfortable vastness. There were suites of apartments in outlying parts where whole families might hide for days if housemaids were careless. To reach the dining and drawing-rooms from the bedrooms, if one was tired, was a real weariness.

We were looking up at the great gallery, running round the hall. It was reached by four wide flights of stairs at different corners, and it was full of all sorts of recesses, and massive pieces of old furniture and screens. On the spur of the moment I said to my host, "Wouldn't it be uncanny if we were to see a strange face looking down on us?"

To my surprise, he answered: "Oh! that has often happened. I've often seen strangers looking down. At one time I took them to be inquisitive members of my own household, whom I didn't know by sight, and one day I complained about it, to the housekeeper. She looked very much disturbed and told me she had seen the same thing herself. The house is opened on certain days to the public, and she was half inclined to think one of the visitors had escaped from the crowd, and hidden herself for several days, as it was not on a public day that the figure was seen."

"Is it always the same figure?" I asked.

"Oh, no," replied my host. "Always a different one, and always some one quite ordinary and modern looking. The strictest orders are given that none of the servants' friends are to be allowed in this part of the house, and the housekeeper has always been with us and is thoroughly trustworthy. The fact remains an unsolved mystery."

The housekeeper was a very agreeable old woman of the real, old-fashioned type. Very rustling in the evening, in a rich silk gown, and wearing some fine piece of jewelry presented to her by one or other of the crowned heads who had visited the famous house. I had asked her before I left about these mysterious appearances, and she had no explanation to offer. She had ascertained beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they had nothing to do with the household.

"They were always just ordinary looking men and women, such as one meets in the streets every day. Sometimes they seem to have hats on, sometimes their heads appear uncovered," she explained.

This fits in with a belief I have always held that we constantly rub shoulders with the disembodied, without being in the least aware of it. As the Bishop of London once said: "We will find ourselves exactly the same persons ten minutes after death as we were ten minutes before death."

There are many occasions when we cannot express feeling in intellectual terms owing to the poverty of language. One's life not being a matter of intellectual perception, but a conscious experience, little of it can be made known. The mystic life is really incommunicable.

We regard the Universe through the lens of five very imperfect senses, conscious all the time that there are certainly many more mediums for the expression of consciousness.

Perception is a manifestation of consciousness, and varies enormously in individuals, ranging often above and beneath the normal. Undoubtedly perception can be enormously extended by practice, not only in seeing material objects, but in approaching the borderland of other worlds.

The sight of the Psychic or Medium is not so much vision as a consciousness of the thoughts and feelings of others. It is a sensation rather than a process of thinking, sensation not as we commonly accept the term, but sensation through which mental objects are realized with as great a clarity of vision as physical objects are seen with the naked eye.

This intuitive vision is near akin to ordinary physical vision, inasmuch as the object seen has a real concrete existence. The Psychic feels vibrations and absorbs them.

My explanation of my vision in the Highland inn is that the actual criminal had slept the night before in the room I occupied, and happening to be mediumistic I at once began to absorb the vibrations, and became steeped in all the circumstances, environment, and conditions thrown off by the criminal in connection with the crime.

The vibrations were intensely strong, and still fresh and concentrated. I absorbed them so fully that still at times they steal back across the threshold of my subconsciousness, the vehicle which registers and retains all impressions.

During sleep, when one is off guard, the gate is often ajar, and old memories and incidents steal through, and range at will through the ordinary consciousness.

In daily, normal existence the mind is merely a whirlpool, but undoubtedly the criminal would concentrate mentally on every detail of her crime. There would be a focalization of her mind; a concentration of her whole mental faculties upon this one single subject, and when the mental force is reduced from its normal, dissipated condition into coherency, its power is unlimited. It is possible to catch a physical disease by sleeping in an infected bed. It is quite as easy to catch a mental disease by the same means. Many emotions are highly contagious, notably fear. All are invisible to human sight, and there is rarely any warning. A Psychic may sense something unpleasant before infection is established. In fact, this often happens to quite normal individuals. Something in the atmosphere of a place conveys a warning, is unpleasant or uncongenial and it is avoided. If a warning was conveyed to me in the Highland inn I was too tired to heed it.

At one time in my life I saw a great deal of two intimate and charming friends, Lord and Lady Wynford. Alas! both have now passed over.

Lady Wynford was born Caroline Baillie of Dochfour, and owing to her Scotch blood, and her relationship with many of our great Scotch families, she was profoundly interested in ghosts. Lord Wynford, on the contrary, had an absolute horror of the subject, and always left the room whilst it was under discussion. Though very dissimilar, husband and wife were the best of friends. She was very handsome and a brilliant woman of the world. He was shy, retiring, and deeply religious. A perfect example of a true gentleman of the old school, and an aristocrat to his finger-tips. I was devoted to them both, and they were very kind to me in giving me their warm friendship, though at the time of which I write I was only a girl of about twenty years old.

At that period the great topic of conversation amongst ghost-hunters was Glamis Castle, the most celebrated of all haunted houses. No ghost book is ever considered complete without reference to this celebrated Castle, and the story usually narrated is, that in the secret room some abnormal horror lived, and that the heir, Lord Glamis, and the factor, had to be told of its existence by the Earl of Strathmore in person. This information was of so terrible a nature that it changed not only the lives of those two men, but even their personal appearance. They grew aged and haggard in a single night.

This story was readily discussed in old days by members of the Strathmore family, who were just as keen as outsiders were to probe the mystery. To-day it is universally believed that the monstrosity is at last laid to rest, and that though other ghosts still walk the Castle, the worst has departed forever.

I went one afternoon to see the Wynfords in the hotel in which they stayed whilst in Scotland, and found Lady Reay with them. She was a wonderful woman in her way, and preserved her youth up till very late in life. Lord Wynford was not present, and Lady Wynford at once greeted me by exclaiming, "We are going to stay at Glamis next week, and Lady Reay has been there and seen a ghost."

"But not the ghost," admitted Lady Reay.

"Then what did you see?" I inquired.

She then told the following story, which has a sequel:—

"I had been in the Castle for three nights and much to my satisfaction seen absolutely nothing. We were a very cheery party, and every one was frightfully thrilled and nervously expectant, but we were very careful not to breathe the word 'ghost' before our host and hostess.

"On the fourth night I was awakened by a moaning sound in my room, and I opened my eyes. The room was in total darkness, but I saw something very bright near the door. I shut my eyes instantly, and pulled the bedclothes over my head in a paroxysm of fear. I longed to light my candles, but didn't dare, and the moaning continued, and I thought I should go quite mad.

"At last I ventured to peep out again. I saw a woman dressed exactly like Mary Tudor, in her pictures, and she was wandering round the walls, flinging herself against them, like a bird against the bars of a cage, and beating her hands upon the walls, and all the time she moaned horribly. I'm sure she was the ghost of a mad woman. Her face and form were lit up exactly like a picture thrown upon a magic lantern screen, and every detail of her dress was clearly defined.

"Luckily she never looked at me, or I should have screamed, and I thought of Lord and Lady I. sleeping in the next room to mine, and wondered how I could reach them. I was really too terrified to move, and the ghost kept more or less to that part of the room where the door was situated.

"I must have lain there awake for two or three hours, sometimes with my head buried under the clothes, sometimes peeping out, when at last the moaning suddenly stopped. I opened my eyes. Thank God, I was alone. The ghost had departed.

"I lay with wide open eyes till daybreak. Then the first thing I did was to run to the mirror to see if my hair had turned white. Mercifully it hadn't, but I looked an awful wreck.

"I told just a few people what I had seen, and contrived to get a wire sent me before lunch. Early in the afternoon I was on the way to Edinburgh."

Such was the story Lady Reay related.

Thirteen years later Captain Eric Streatfield, who was a nephew of Lord Strathmore, and an intimate friend of my husband, told me exactly the same story. He was a boy of six at the time, when the lady of Tudor days appeared moaning in his room, and he said he would never forget the misery of the night he passed. He was very much interested in hearing that Lady Reay had gone through the same experience. He told me another extraordinary story.

Whilst, as a school boy, he was visiting at Glamis Castle with his parents, he noticed that they began to behave in rather a peculiar manner. They were often consulting alone with one another, and constantly scanning the sky from their bedroom window, which adjoined his. For two or three days this sort of thing went on, and he caught queer fragments of conversation whispered between them, such as, "It doesn't always happen. We might be spared this year, the power must die out some day."

At last one evening his father called him into his room, where his mother stood by the open window. In his hand his father held an open watch.

His mother bade him look out, and tell them what sort of night it was. He replied that it was fine, and still and cold, and the stars were beginning to appear.

His father then said, "We want you to take particular note of the weather, for in another moment you may witness a remarkable change. Probably you will see a furious tempest."

Eric could not make head or tail of this. He wondered if his parents had gone mad, but glancing at his mother he noticed that she looked strangely pale and anxious.

Then the storm burst, with such terrific suddenness and fury that it terrified him. A howling tempest, accompanied by blinding lightning and deafening thunder, rushed down upon them from an absolutely clear sky.

His mother knelt down by the bed, and he thought that she was praying.

When Eric asked for an explanation he was told that when he was grown up one would be given him. Unfortunately the moment never came. An aunt had told him that the storm was peculiarly to do with Glamis, and was something that could not be explained.

Lord and Lady Wynford paid their visit to Glamis, and I looked forward eagerly to their return in a week's time. I went to see them the day after their arrival back again, and was met by Lady Wynford alone. Before I could question her she began to speak of the visit.

"I don't want you even to mention the word Glamis to Wynford," she said very gravely. "He's had a great shock, and he's in a very queer state of mind."

She paused, and I ventured to ask, "But what sort of shock?"

Then she gave me the following account:—

"Wynford and I occupied adjoining bedrooms. We were having a delightful time. Glorious weather, and a lot of very pleasant people. I really forgot all about there being any ghost. We were out all day, and very sleepy at night, and I never heard or saw a thing that was unusual.

"Two nights before we left something happened to Wynford. He came into my room and awakened me at seven o'clock in the morning. He was fully dressed, and he looked dreadfully upset and serious. He said he had something to tell me, and he wished to get it over, and then he would try not to think of it any more. I was certain then that he had seen or heard something terrible, and I waited with the greatest impatience for him to continue. He seemed confronted with some great difficulty, but after a long pause he said—

"'You know that I have always disbelieved in the supernatural. I have never believed that God would permit such things to come to pass as I have heard lightly described. I was wrong. Such awful experiences are possible. I know it to my own cost, and I pray God I may never pass such a night again as that which I have just come through. I have not slept for a moment. I feel I must tell you this, in fact, it is necessary that I tell you, because I am going to extract a promise from you. A promise that you will never mention in my hearing the name of this house, or the terrible subject with which its name is connected.'

"I was speechless for a few minutes with perplexed amazement. I had never heard Wynford speak like that, nor had I ever seen him so terribly upset.

"'But,' I said at last, 'aren't you going to tell me what has so unnerved you?'

"He began pacing up and down the room. 'Good God, no,' he exclaimed, 'I couldn't even begin to tell you. I have no words that would have any meaning or expression. Don't you understand, there is no language to convey such happenings from one to the other. They are seen, felt, heard! They cannot be uttered. There are some things on earth I know of now, that may not be related to the spoken word. Perhaps between a man and his God, but not even between you and me.'

"We were silent again for some minutes, during which he continued to pace the room, his head drooped on his breast. I was really seriously alarmed. I even feared for his reason, and I couldn't form the smallest conjecture as to what had been the nature of his experiences. I was quite convinced of one thing. What he had seen was no ordinary ghost, like Lady Reay's Tudor Lady. She might have amazed him, but it required something much more terrible and awe-inspiring to have reduced him to such a condition of mental misery and desolation.

"I wanted to comfort him, to sympathize with him, but something about him held me at arm's length. It was his soul that was suffering, and with his soul a man must wrestle alone. I felt that his deep religious convictions of a lifetime had been violently dislocated, for all I knew shattered entirely, and I felt profound compassion for him. I may have had doubts, on many points. I confess to being a worldly skeptic, but Wynford's faith has always been so pure and childlike, and I have striven never to jar him on religious subjects. Now I feel as if somehow, everything that he has ever had has been taken away from him.

"At last I said, 'Don't you think we had better leave to-day? We can easily make some excuse.'

"He stopped and looked straight at me, so strangely.

"'No, I can't leave to-day. I must stay another night here. There is something I must do. Now will you give me your promise never to mention this subject to me again? We may not be alone together again to-day. I want to get it over. Promise.'

"I gave him my promise at once. I dared not have opposed him. I was horribly frightened. He went out of the room at once, and I lay thinking and shivering with dread. 'What was it he had to do? Why could we not leave to-day?' It was all so mysterious.

"Well! the day passed in an ordinary manner, and if Wynford was more grave than usual I don't think any one noticed it. Then came the night I so dreaded. Of course I didn't sleep at first, I was too anxious, and I heard him come up to his room half an hour after I did. The door between our rooms was closed, and I lay awake listening intently. I heard him moving about; I supposed he was undressing, and his man never sits up for him. Then after a time there were occasional creaks which I knew came from an armchair, and I knew that he had not gone to bed.

"I suppose I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I was aware of was Wynford's voice. He was speaking to some one, and seemed to be in the middle of a conversation. When he ceased speaking I strained my ears to catch a reply. I could hear no words, only his voice. Then a reply did come, and it simply froze the blood in my body, and I felt bathed in ice, and had to put my finger between my teeth, they chattered so horribly.

"The reply was a hoarse whisper, a sort of rasping, grating undertone, that was not so much a whisper as an inability to speak in any other voice. There was something almost inhuman in those harsh, vibrating, yet husky words, spoken too low for me to catch. I knew at once that no guest, no member of the family, spoke like that, and I could not conceive that it could be a servant. What could Wynford have to say to any servant of Lord Strathmore?

"A clock somewhere in the Castle struck three. No; I was certain that the presence with him, whatever else it might be, was no human being dwelling under the roof of Glamis.

"At times they seemed to hold an argument; sometimes Wynford's voice was sharp and decisive, at other times it was utterly weary and despondent. I dreaded what the effect might be upon him of this awful night, but I could do nothing but lie shivering in bed, and pray for the morning.

"How long it went on for I can't say, but the conviction came to me suddenly that Wynford had begun to pray. His voice was raised, and now and again I fancied I could hear words. The rasping whisper came now only in short, sharp interjections or expostulations, I don't know which. The even flow of Wynford's words went quietly on, and I began to be certain that he was praying for the being who spoke with that terrible whisper. It occurred to me that he might even be trying to exorcise some unclean spirit.

"At last a silence fell. Wynford stopped praying, and I hoped that the terrible interview was at an end. Then it began again, and for quite an hour the prayers went on, with long periods of silence in between. I heard no more of the terrible, husky whisper.

"I fell asleep again and did not awake till my maid brought me early tea. No sooner had she gone than Wynford entered, fully dressed. Though he looked desperately tired and wan, he seemed quite composed, and as if some weight had been removed from off him. He said he was going for a stroll before breakfast, and, of course, I remembered my promise and put no questions. I have come to the conclusion that a hundred people may stay any length of time at Glamis and see or hear nothing. The hundred and first may receive such a shock to the nervous system that he never really recovers from it."

Such was the mysterious story that Lady Wynford unfolded. I saw her husband the next day, but beyond being graver than usual in his manner I detected no difference in him. He never referred, even in the most indirect way, to his visit, but he must have inferred by my silence that I had been warned not to mention the subject. Many others must, however, have done so, for every one, who at that period passed a night under Glamis Castle roof, was eagerly questioned by friends and acquaintances on their return.

The only occasion on which I visited Glamis was on the night of a ball, given in honor of the Crown Prince of Sweden. The curiosity of the guests was held in check by servants being stationed at certain doors, and entrances to corridors and staircases, to inform rude explorers that they could not pass. It is hard to believe that such a course of action was necessary, but I personally watched little parties being turned back towards the ballroom and sitting-out-rooms, showing that intense curiosity may even prove stronger than good breeding.

What Wynford saw that night will never be known, but one fact remains. It left so deep an impression upon him that he was never the same man again. He became graver and more wrapped up in his own thoughts month by month, and the change that ended in his death his wife attributed to those nights passed in Glamis Castle.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ANGEL OF LOURDES

One lovely summer evening I was standing in a hotel bedroom, washing my hands. I was in Lourdes, and I was pondering upon a certain long flight of stone steps that I could see quite clearly from my window. At the top of the steps, which were cut in the face of the wooded hillside, stood a great Calvary, and from dawn till darkness pilgrims made the hard ascent upon their knees. The stones were worn and grooved by the stream of human beings making their painful way to the foot of the Cross.

The atmosphere of Lourdes is very impressive to the Psychic. One breathes the concentrated essence of prayer. No one goes there who is not on prayer intent, and in the public streets, gardens and churches one comes across kneeling figures lost in Divine contemplation. No one heeds them; all are on a like mission, and sometimes men and women stand for hours with outstretched arms. Human crosses, oblivious to all, lost in a mystic rapture which takes count of neither time nor place.

I turned my head towards the window. The sun had just set behind the mountains, and the sky was illuminated by a rosy afterglow. Down in the valley the shadows were beginning to lengthen, but I could still see the Calvary on the hillside, and the dark human stream slowly moving up the stony way, the Via Dolorosa of the Cross.

At that moment the sense of a presence swung into my field of consciousness, and contracted my vague faculties to focus. Something moving in the sky above caught my eye.

How shall I describe the sight?

I saw an angel floating above the mountains.

The figure, wingless, yet floating in erect grace, was of great size, and wrapped entirely in cloudy gray. The head was bare and slightly bent, as if looking down on earth. The movements were smooth and gliding, as a feather floats in the wind. The distance was too great—I judged about a quarter of a mile—for me to distinguish the features, but owing to its great size the figure was clearly visible and deeply inspiring.

It was a vision on which none could look intently without feeling the weight of a mighty awe. It gathered up the wandering emotions of the heart, and all a lifetime's ideals of beauty, grandeur, sublimity, in one serene presentation.

The vision floated on majestically, across the valley and the little town with its praying multitudes. In about three minutes It had passed, and was lost in the pearly mists of the gathering night.

And whilst the vision lasted I was acutely conscious of that innumerable concourse of kneeling forms below, all struggling upwards to the Cross.

It seems to me that the devout, of other faiths than that of Rome, lose much by not taking advantage of Lourdes. For many years, thousands of pilgrims from all corners of the earth have bent their steps towards the shrine, and poured out their souls in a passion of supplication. This tremendous concentration of faith, love and fervent adoration, often ecstatic thanksgiving for answered prayer, must find an echo in the Heaven World to which they are sent.

It is so easy at Lourdes to feel that the Throne of Grace has been actually reached, because one can sense the pathway, the ladder made by human love, praise and faith, down which, I doubt not, the Angels of God are always passing. It is easier to concentrate the mind in a place where religious thought has been poured out for many years, because one insensibly becomes calmed, and tranquilized, and aided by the atmosphere thousands of others have created.

At Lourdes there is nothing to attract the scoffer, and thousands of hearts filled with reverence and devotion reënforce each year the already powerful vibrations, and leave the place the better and richer for their presence.

How few people realize that they have never seen themselves? How many can tell what they really look like?

A very, very few can, and I am amongst the number.

I wakened one morning in summer, and opened my eyes on my sunlit bedroom at home. Instantly I saw something which thrilled me with vivid interest. I saw myself!

I was emerging out of a corner of the room, and composedly approaching the bed. There was no doubt as to recognition. I knew instantly I was looking on my own face for the first time, and it was something of a shock to discover that I was more or less of a stranger to myself. I saw how false a looking-glass can be. I had not begun to know myself.

With absorbed interest I stared very hard, in my intense desire to imprint on my memory my own image. I approached the bed, and as I did so, I seemed to shrink, fade, and waver. Then suddenly I vanished—into my recumbent body.

For a few minutes afterwards I was too concerned with my physical condition to ponder on the vision of my real self. I was tossing violently in the bed, in an inner distraughtness which was most disturbing. Then, as my nervous system began to calm down, I strove to imprint on my memory the recollection of what I really looked like.

My face, even in the wonder of those few moments in which I had seen it, expressed emotions I had never seemed to know. Nothing was as I had believed it to be. All the traits that went to form my character needed readjusting, and all seemed curiously imperfect. I could not remember how I was clothed, though I had seen myself from head to foot. I suppose I was too engrossed in studying my face to think of my body.

The vision left me with a blank sense of utter disillusionment and failure. Nothing in me was finished or complete. My expression suggested a character which was horribly crude, imperfect and rudimentary. Looking at myself afterwards in the mirror, I came to the conclusion that it lied, or that in waking life I wear a mask.

It is salutary to behold one's spiritual portrait, a thing not visible to the mind alone but to the physical sight. In a flash comes the knowledge that dwelling in us are forces, not yet grasped by mortal mind, that cry for recognition. There have been moments in all lives, I believe, when a glimpse is caught of the Olympian heights to which it is possible to rise. Glimpses, alas! of the evanescent thing we know ourselves in truth to be.

Sometimes, on the Astral plane, it happens that friends meet under strange circumstances, and one figures largely in the doings of another. The memory of those nocturnal adventures is brought through and clearly recollected in the morning.

One such occurrence I will relate, and it is peculiar and unusual.

An old friend of ours, a man who has devoted his life to the development of his spiritual faculties (not to be confused with the development of mediumship and phenomena), had a series of dreams in which he appeared to be two people. He himself was the same tall, slender man he is in daily life, but in this psychic experience a much smaller man moved always on his left side, and somehow seemed to symbolize his waking personality.

The central figure in one of these unusual experiences was a young man who was unknown to our friend, and who had died abroad. His body had been embalmed and brought home for burial, and our friend had been shown photographs of him, and had also communicated with him through automatic writing. This much was imprinted on his physical memory.

Now, whilst lying asleep one night, the spiritual counterpart of our friend became aware that the body of the young man was exposed and could be seen. His companion, or other self, the shorter man who moved by his side, shrank back with horror from such a suggestion, just as our friend would instinctively have done in waking consciousness, but he himself was determined to see the body, and went straight through a door facing him, into a room where it was lying on a low table.

Now comes the moment when I began to figure in this experience. I was standing on the opposite side of the table, making vigorous passes over the young man's body, which appeared to be fashioned out of pinkish clay. The trunk and legs looked as though I had roughly modeled them with my hands. The head was more highly finished. It was sharp and distinct in outline, and our friend recognized it instantly as being a representation of the young man whose portraits he had seen. He stared at the face with great interest, and taking up a cloth, gently wiped the cheek where a fleck of foam lay. This action seemed to vivify the body, for it began to mutter and murmur indistinctly. Apparently it was alive, and not dead.

Our friend relates that this discovery gave him such a shock that he lost the thread of memory which he was bringing back to his physical body on the bed. The next moment he woke up. My recollection, a perfectly clear one, of these happenings, was that he simply vanished from the scene, leaving me alone with the body, which I continued to manipulate.

Afterwards, through automatic writing, our friend was told by the departed young man, that this astral vision signified the collecting of etheric matter to fashion a body in which he could function on etheric planes.

On another occasion our friend had the experience of walking about on the other side with the young man, who was dressed in an ordinary tweed suit, and being taken by him to various acquaintances, to whom he was introduced. With the exception of the above experience, he believes that this was the first time he had ever seen him. The interesting point of both experiences is, that both I and our friend brought back on waking, a clear and similar recollection of the episode in which we were jointly concerned.

This friend of ours is a disciple of "The Flaming Heart," called by Catholics "The Sacred Heart." He writes to me thus:—

"I see now more clearly than before that the Christ self within uses its powers as a whole, just as the personal man uses intellect, will, and feeling, all three being energized by love, which is the element of interest in the several activities."

"So the self of love works out and manifests as—

"The Love element saves us from wrong living, wrong doing or wrong thinking. So we go from strength to strength, by yielding the lower self to the transmuting power of the Higher."

It was long before I came to understand the full significance of the Flaming Heart. It was plain to see what its realization meant to our friend. He radiates an extraordinary serenity of mind, an atmosphere of strength and peace, a calm in the midst of storm which apparently nothing can shake. Pre-eminently, when in his presence, one is conscious of a commanding power which will only be used for exalted purposes. This clear subjection of the lower self, to the transmuting power of the Higher self, has worked such marvels in him that one longs to grasp the secret of his success.

A few years passed, and still the heart of the mystery eluded me. This year, 1918, it came to me in a flash.

The experience I am about to relate may have happened to many others. To me, it was a tremendous revelation.

I was kneeling one morning in front of the Altar, at Early Celebration. I have always felt, through the Eucharist, the possibility of great spiritual development, and often there comes to me at such moments, a mystical response to the inner mysteries of the Sacrament. I have never looked for supernatural happenings, hallucinations, or psychic excitements, but my spiritual instincts are always alive and craving satisfaction. This they have never before received in any really lasting degree.

Now came a new Divine illumination.

Two clergymen were officiating at the celebration. I had just received the bread from the one, and had raised my head and hands to receive the cup from the other, when suddenly I went quite blind.

The vicar, who was moving towards me, was blotted out. I stared at a black veil utterly impenetrable, and I was aware of a tremendous internal dislocation. My heart beat tumultuously, and felt as if thrust out of place. Then my sight was restored.

I saw before me, not the man, bearing in his hands the chalice, but a flaming heart of fire, from which radiated out living, scintillating streams of golden light. They filled the background with their quivering radiance, and I was conscious of shrinking back, and bowing my head as the supernal vision approached me and enveloped me in Its aura.

The cup had been transmuted by Divine alchemy into the Flaming Heart of love's sacrifice, and I was given to taste of the living waters of Life.

For a few minutes I was quite unconscious of where I was. I had been, indeed, caught up into the seventh Heaven. I know now that I acted mechanically, and to outward semblance I behaved in the orthodox manner, but when I raised my head again the vicar had passed on and the vision had vanished. Nothing had happened to distract the attention of others.

I returned to my seat conscious that I had been taught the meaning and marvelous significance of the Flaming Heart. I understood the words of the great mystic, St. John.

"In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

"And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness overcame it not.

"There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world."

I know that the Flaming Heart of Divinity dwells in the breasts of all humanity, that the soul is no empty shell, but the shrine of the Divine Presence, and that Presence is the Guide and Light of Life.

I have seen revealed the inner mystery of the sacramental life. Through a rift in the veil of the material, the hidden life of eternity was symbolized for me in the Flaming Heart, the true Eucharistic Mystery.

CHAPTER XV

THE WRAITH OF THE ARMY GENTLEMAN

To some people life is an unspeakable tragedy; to others it is a mere farce. To all it is a profound mystery.

What am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going? What is this mysterious ego that thinks and acts?

From Darwin we learn that the human body has taken a million years to evolve its present form. Is it logical to suppose that there is no scheme of evolution for the immortal soul, in which it can preserve its individuality through the ages? The mills of God grind slowly, and what is seventy or eighty years in eternity, in which we develop the highest and most complex organism we can conceive of—the Soul?

Five hundred and thirty-five years B. C. Pythagoras was teaching the reincarnation of the immortal soul in his celebrated school. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Philo, Virgil, Cicero, Euclid, the Egyptians and the Hindoos taught the same doctrine. In the days of Christ the transmigration of souls was an accepted belief, and in 250 A. D. Origen, the greatest of the Christian Fathers, was still teaching the same doctrine. Justin Martyr recognized the presence of the Logos in Jesus, and Socrates and Clement of Alexandria affirmed that the same philosophy had brought the Greeks to Christ. To this day it remains the belief of three-fourths of the human race.

In our country, though a rapidly growing faith, Buddhism fails to command the attention it otherwise would, for two reasons. Firstly, we have never been a religious-minded people, and are now very much less so than formerly. What are loosely termed religious subjects interest a very few, and bore intensely the great majority. Out of our forty-four million souls, a mere handful are interested in a future life. The rest prefer not to take the problem into consideration, though they are ready to accept a small dose of conventional religion, ready-made and pre-digested. Secondly, faith in the transmigration of souls in a succession of physical bodies only becomes an urgent mental necessity, a vitally necessary explanation of life's inequalities, to those who mix with the outcast poor. Such persons are again comparatively few, and, to those of them who think, life without reincarnation is simply an incomprehensible and chaotic puzzle.

Once the faith is grasped that life between birth and death is only a tiny fragment of the æons allotted to us, in which to develop spiritually, divine harmony; love and justice reappear. Only thus can one see light. But if the tardy growth of this all-sufficient illumination is slow to take root, it must be remembered that to the ordinary, well-to-do person it makes no appeal.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" is generally answered in the negative, and the hypocritical rejoinder, covering a mountain of selfishness, that it is an impertinence to pry into the lives of the poor, is the facile excuse for sitting at ease and cozening the conscience into the belief that the poor are God's affair. Even the devout and pious, who may feel deep compassion for the sorrow of the destitute, have no spur to prick their mental apathy, unless they mix freely and constantly with the poor and oppressed. Only then will come the perplexed question: Where can I see in all this overwhelming misery the Divine hand of love and justice?

The Christ who established his Brotherhood with us, by proclaiming God the Universal Father, told us that "Before Abraham was, I am," and I suppose that most people, who accept anything, accept the pre-existence of Christ. Yet how few of us can remember anything of our own past lives, and how merciful it is that we cannot. How utterly overwhelming such memory would be! The future is as carefully hidden from us as the past, yet our previous lives have been by no means unfruitful.

The experiences we have gathered in the past years of this life are nearly all forgotten, yet our development has gone on, and the records are stored in the subconsciousness, sometimes to be pulled across the threshold and displayed in a complete panorama before the dying eyes. The statements to this effect made by those who have been resuscitated when at the point of death by drowning, are too numerous to be discarded as mere fables.

Undoubtedly we all contain the germs of sin at birth, but few educated people now accept the statements that we are born sinful because our parents sinned, or because of the moral delinquencies of those of Eden. Certainly we all bear the consequences of others' sins, but the cruel injustice of a God who deliberately punishes present humanity for the sins of past humanity is too revolting a conception of the Creator to gain acceptance to-day.

This very fact shows that we have advanced spiritually. So base a conception of the Almighty is violently repugnant to serious thinkers. The intuitive consciousness of man postulates the over-ruling spirit as a power representing perfect justice and love, and the innate instinct to believe that we ourselves are in some mysterious way akin to this Divine Ideal keeps ever alive the belief in our Divine origin.

What is the grand apotheosis of each human life? The Christ spirit; a scheme of regenerative redemption, simple, natural, yet superlatively grand.

If one asks whether the orbs in space take precedence of personal will and intelligence, or personal will and intelligence take precedence of the orbs in space, one has only to ask whether builders or buildings have priority. Do pictures originate the artist? do books originate the author? If one begins to study with a belief in spirit as power and cause, one can account for all things, but to start with matter as a foundation is to fail absolutely to account for either matter or spirit.

In some infinite womb the vital Heavens, the visible Universe must have existed before time was. We see all elements have their affinities, all stars their course, all atoms their polarity. We see the wheel of Ezekiel symbolizing the whole scheme and fabric of Nature.

Heaven works not only with stupendous immensities but with small minorities. Atoms of unutterable minuteness are streaming into the unseen atmosphere every second from the souls and bodies of the human race. When the soul seeks, aspires after God, the most vital of all atoms go forth with the breath, as light from the sun to the earth. Surely we and our angel kindred inhabit one house of which the most distant provinces are in touch with the center of all. Heaven and earth are bridged by the spirit ladder of love, and the soul can inbreathe the spirit of God as the body inbreathes oxygen.

The contemplative mind beholds every day the passage of things invisible into sight, the transfer of the seen into the unseen, and all is natural. The life throb of the palpable world is a pulsation going forth every instant from the eternal energy, drawing out by an ethereal medium from the invisible and intangible, that which is visible and tangible.

I will speak now of the passage of a thing invisible into sight. How, to me, it became so I cannot tell. I don't know.

One summer evening my husband and I were occupying two communicating bedrooms in a London hotel, contiguous with one of the great railway stations. We had to make an early start in the morning, and had come there to be near our train.

I awakened in the early morning hours. The gray dawn was just beginning to show through the bars of the Venetian blinds lowered before the two windows. Those bars had not been adjusted, and they also admitted a rather bright light from a street lamp. I judged it to be somewhere about four o'clock, but I did not look at my watch. I was too pre-occupied in looking at something else.

My bare arm was stretched outside the coverlet, and I was aware that what had awakened me was a cold wind blowing on my skin. The furniture of the room was dimly outlined, and at first I vaguely threw my half-open eyes around without perceiving anything unusual, but gradually my senses, shaking off their drowsiness, became aware of movement between the bed and the window. Something tall and gray was wavering like a pillar of smoke betwixt me and the struggling daylight. I closed my eyes again with a creepy feeling, a disinclination to look again, but my bare arm, which still lay outside the coverlet, received another intimation that roused me to keen alertness. A chill wind was blowing over my skin.

I drew in my arm hastily, and opened my eyes. That tall gray something had approached much nearer to me, and now I could distinguish with perfect clearness the figure of a man, but such a wavering, fluid form that one moment seemed on the point of dissolving into thin air, and the next moment gathering itself together again in clear cut outline.

For what seemed to me a long time I stared at the gray apparition. I felt a cold fear, a rigid horror creep over me, and but for the recollection of my husband's nearness, and the open door between us, I might have fainted from pure terror. I thought of calling to him, but something sinister in that wavering shadow made me desist. At times the form came quite close to the bed, but I could never see the face clearly; it was vague and undetermined in outline, in fact, not completely materialized. Not for a second did that wavering movement cease, that floating, shimmering motion 'twixt bed and window, of what I knew to be the ghost of a man.

How long this unpleasant state of things continued I do not know. I was perfectly well aware that a ghost should be addressed in sympathetic terms, should be asked if any human help can be rendered, but at the time it never once occurred to me to speak. Gradually, as I watched that retreating then advancing form, at moments opaque, then almost transparent, I lost consciousness and fell asleep again.

I was awakened a few hours later by a loud knocking at my door. I slid instantly out of bed, turned the key, and was confronted by the chambermaid, bringing my early tea.

"Who was the man who killed himself in this room?"

Luckily, the woman did not drop the tray, as I hurled at her this abrupt question. She set the tea down on a table and turned to me a scared face, as she answered by another question:

"How ever did you find out that?"

"Never mind how I found out. Please answer me. I won't get you into trouble," I said firmly.

"It was an army gentleman. He shot himself here the night before last. That's all I know," was her subdued answer.

Poor "army gentleman"! So you were revisiting the scene of your last tragedy, or had you ever left that confined space between four walls which witnessed the supreme mental agony of the suicide?

What had prompted me to put that sudden question to the chambermaid? I could not tell. In the moment of waking, slipping out of bed and opening the door, no recollection had come to me of my earlier experience, but betwixt that experience and my abrupt waking at her knock knowledge must have been somehow afforded me of the tragedy. I knew a man had done himself to death in that room shortly before I occupied it.

A day or two afterwards I read an account of the inquest held upon the body. A rankling sense of unjust treatment had preyed upon his brain.

Suicide whilst of unsound mind was the verdict. Poor "army gentleman," I fear I could have been of little service to you, even if I had opened up some form of communication between myself and your disembodied soul!

When one remembers how many persons occupy even one room in a hotel in twelve months, it seems natural that psychic phenomena should be common to such houses. Undoubtedly many tragedies must be enacted in every hotel within a comparatively short space of time, and one may, in utter unconsciousness, occupy a bedroom in which, but the night before, murder or suicide has taken place.

Some years ago, I had occasion to pass a night in one of the big West End hotels of London. It was very full, and I had to be content with a very indifferent room on the main entrance floor, and looking to the back. The window had iron bars in front of it, through which one could slip one's head, but not one's shoulders. The reason for the bars was obvious. A wide mews ran on a level with this floor of the house, and failing this obstruction any one could have stepped with perfect ease from the pavement into the room.

Thrusting my head through the bars I could see from end to end of the mews. On the left there was no exit, on the right was a narrow lane running down the side of the hotel, and leading into the main thoroughfare. The mews seemed very quiet, clean and respectable, and for one night only I decided that the room would do. I was very tired after passing two nights in a train, and went early to bed and fell asleep at once.

I ascertained afterwards that I had been sleeping for five hours, when I was suddenly awakened by a loud noise of scuffling feet, accompanied by a gurgling choking sound, as if some one was struggling to find utterance, to gain breath.

To be awakened by a noise out of a sound sleep is always a startling, uncomfortable experience. If the astral body has been wandering far afield, it has to return to the physical body in far too great a hurry for comfort. There is always more or less of a dislocating jar under such circumstances. The startled sensation is greatly accentuated when, in place of waking to dead silence, one awakens to unaccountable and very unpleasant sounds.

I lay perfectly still, with every nerve tingling, and every muscle taut, and listened intently. The noise came from the window which was shut, and my heart began to beat more thickly with a dread and terror which had neither form nor shape. Slowly I remembered the mews outside, and felt instantly thankful that because of its proximity I had shut the window, instead of sleeping with it wide open, as is my custom.

Was murder taking place out there? What was that hideous, choking sound, that surged in with guttural gasps from out the darkness, and which suggested nothing so much as a frenzied struggle of loathing and agonized fear?

I lay shuddering and quaking as with the grip of ague. My imagination instantly constructed the scene so vividly suggested by the nature of the sounds. A man's hands were on the throat of a woman, and he was deliberately strangling the life out of her struggling body. I was sick with unspeakable agonies of dread, and for quite five minutes I could not summon force or motion to my limbs.

If some unfortunate was being done to death it was clearly my duty to run to the window and give the alarm by shrieking "murder," but now I began to wonder if that awful struggle was taking place outside or just inside my room. Though the mews was well lit my blind was drawn down, and the room was in darkness, except for a faint reflection shining in from a street lamp. I had only to stretch out my hand in order to switch on a light above my bed, but a paralysis of fear held me.

That noise of infinite pain, of frantic, dying agony, those convulsive, ghastly groans and scuffling of feet, and wrestling, writhing bodies, were spell-binding beyond the power of human conception, and the most awe-inspiring fantasy. I tried to reason with myself, but the horror scattered all reasoning, yet a sense of duty, of natural humanity, and anger with my own fears, kept tugging at me. It seemed as if the sounds were losing force, were beginning to die out. I was lying still in abject terror, whilst a fellow-creature was being deliberately done to death.

A blind fury with myself, and the murderer, suddenly superseded fear. Without turning on the light I jumped out of bed, and knocking up against the furniture in my haste, I dashed towards the faint light coming in from the street. In another moment I had thrust aside the blind, and thrown the window wide. I know I shouted out something; I have no idea what. I thrust my head out between the iron bars, and looked to right and left. I could see absolutely nothing. The street was quite empty, and so well lit that I could see from end to end of it.

I drew in my head, and stood there silently, and quivering still with excitement, as one does when awakened with the broken fragments of an evil dream.

Then, suddenly, a sensation of bristling fear took possession of me once more, unreasoning and unreasonable fear, clutching at my heart with a grip of ice. The noise had not ceased, it continued more faintly, and it came from a corner of my room to the right of the window. Murder had been done in the room in which I now stood, and was being re-enacted now. The certainty rushed on me with the force of a whirlwind.

I was dimly conscious of human voices in the mews, of a window being thrown open. My cry had awakened other sleepers. I left my window open, and let the blind fall before it. Then I crept softly across to the opposite side of the room, whence the dying sound proceeded. The victim was almost dead. I could hear nothing but a gasping, rattling sigh, and then silence. The silence of death.

I was roused from my trance of horror by the measured tread of a policeman outside. I heard him speaking with others, then, seeing nothing to account for the disturbance in the mews, he went away again, and I fell asleep from utter mental exhaustion.

When I awoke the sun was in the room, and I looked towards the corner where the tragedy of the darkness had been enacted. How peaceful and innocent the room now looked, in the light of a cheerful summer morning, and how thankful I was to know that I would be far away from it in a very few hours.

Yet another hotel story comes to me as I write.

My sister and her husband came to Torquay to spend a couple of nights and took rooms in one of the principal hotels. They had not announced their arrival beforehand, and the manageress took them upstairs to see several vacant rooms. There was one not shown to them, but the door was wide open, and my sister seeing that it was unoccupied walked in, and said she preferred it to any of the others, because of its particular view.

For some unknown reason the manageress was greatly against their taking it; she raised every sort of objection, but my sister was firm, and finally the luggage was carried up and she began to unpack, whilst her husband went down to order tea.

After a few minutes, and whilst she was on her knees beside the trunk, she heard some one moving in the room behind her, but she could see nothing. It occurred to her, however, that some tragedy might have taken place in that particular room, which would explain the reluctance of the manageress to let them hire it. Not being of a nervous disposition, my sister thought no more of the matter, and went downstairs to join her husband.

That night she was awakened by something, she never knew what, but on opening her eyes she saw a rather disturbing vision. Close to the door stood the figure of a man, looking straight towards her. His figure was brilliantly luminous, and stood out clearly and distinctly in the darkness of the room.

She awakened her husband, who sat up in bed and stared back at the figure. He saw it as clearly and distinctly as his wife saw it, and for some considerable time they watched it, until it gradually faded out.

What is so sad is that they did not address this ghost. They had every opportunity, for at the same hour the same figure appeared the next night. It never tried to approach them: it simply stood there quietly for about an hour, and then vanished. Probably it was the wraith of a suicide. The fact remains that very few people do address the ghosts they see. Even if they are not afraid, it never seems to occur to seers that to speak to the disembodied might be a very kind and helpful thing to do.

On their return home my brother-in-law told this story to some friends at his Club, and a stranger who was present said that he was aware there was a haunted room in that Torquay hotel, for he knew some one else who had seen it.

CHAPTER XVI

AN AUSTRIAN ADVENTURE

Only once did I ever see an elemental of the terrifying type, and I have no desire to repeat the experience.

Several years ago I was traveling alone on my way to Bohemia. With me, in the railway carriage, I had an aluminum traveler's typewriter, enclosed in, and fastened down to a leather case. I had also a large leather dispatch box, containing several chapters of a new novel I was writing, and which I meant to finish whilst abroad.

At the last moment, just as I was starting on my journey, a friend had given me a small Russian ikon, and I had put that in the box with my writing materials.

On reaching the frontier into Austria, I got out with the other travelers, carrying the typewriter in my hand to ensure its safety. A porter brought along the dispatch box, and the luggage from the van to the Custom House.

I had nothing to declare and said so, but when the officials came to look at the typewriter and the contents of the dispatch box, their civil attitude changed, and I was curtly told that I would have to remain behind, in order that a more thorough examination might be made.

There was little use in expostulating, no one took the smallest notice of any explanations I made, and I had the unhappy fate to behold all my fellow travelers stream out onto the platform, and make for the waiting train, and the growing conviction that they would proceed on their journey without me.

When alone with the officials I had the field to myself, and I explained that I was a British subject, and a British novelist, but they merely looked at me with the same blend of incredulity my fellow countrymen so often favor me with, when they accidentally discover that I am synonymous with the writer, Violet Tweedale.

How well I know the look and the words accompanying it: "Are you Violet Tweedale, the novelist? Well! who'd have thought it? I never would have guessed."

Their expression says plainly enough, "You don't look capable of writing out a laundry bill, far less a novel."

Seeing that my statements made no impression upon the Customs officials, I resigned myself to an unknown fate, and in a few moments, looking through the open door, I had the misery of seeing my train glide out of the station, leaving me behind.

An animated conversation now began which occupied at least ten minutes, and my typewriter and dispatch box were subjected to a most rigid scrutiny. I kept on imploring the officials not to break the typewriter, but they paid no heed, and at last, after playing about with it for some time, they requested me to give them an exhibition of its powers. Alas! it was too late. The machine was thoroughly upset with the rough fingering it had been subjected to, and I could not get it to work.