"Twenty thousand Russians arrived."
"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 lookedin 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 motherwas 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 kepthim 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 studiedmost 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.
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. Onthis 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, LadyPriestley, 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 downfor 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 wheregauzy 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, hispallid 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."
"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 wheregauzy 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, hispallid 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 ScottishQueen, 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 nextroom, 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 werefancy 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 concludedthat 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 sorryand 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 marksher 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.
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 breakdown 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 thatcondition. 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 soughtto 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 meaningwould 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 thewelfare 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 greatarchitect 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. Inevolution 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 seemedto 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 myhouse 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 MadameBlavatsky 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 feelnothing 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 bringingthe 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 womanproves for herselfthe 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.