It would have been simple enough to leave the place and forfeit the rent, but my sister and her husband loved the sport and the beauty of the surroundings, and were determined to remain, unless anything worse developed. No one ever saw anything unpleasant, or even suggestive of the supernatural, and the whole household had become more or less indifferent to the noises. They brought no harm to anybody, and might be safely ignored.
Mrs. Stewart had four Pomeranian dogs which did not produce a calming effect upon their human companions. They were constantly seeing things, bristling and showing every sign of terror. Into the noisy room they refused to go, and they objected to being lefta moment alone. They slept in my sister's bedroom.
One night she was alone in the old house. Major Stewart had gone on business to Edinburgh, and the servants had retired to bed in their own wing. Mrs. Stewart was sitting in the smoking-room, reading an interesting novel by the light of a lamp. A good fire burned, and the four Poms were asleep on the hearth-rug. The door was slightly ajar, and outside it ran a short corridor.
Suddenly, at its far end a terrible noise arose. A very different noise to anything that had been heard before, and one so blood-curdling that Mrs. Stewart at last knew the meaning of mortal fear.
Two men were fighting desperately, swaying and wrestling, and snarling fiercely like two tigers locked in deathly combat. She glanced at the dogs. They were sitting up, staring with terrified eyes at the door, their bodies quivering, their little fangs showing. Then—with a bound—they were off, tearing for dear life along the corridor towards the stairs.
It was a situation that demanded considerable nerve. Impossible to sit there alone in the dead of night, and listen to that hideous din, but a few yards from the door. She must follow the dogs as swiftly as she dared.
She took up the lamp and moved stealthily to the door. The corridor was in complete darkness, and in that darkness the two men fought desperately, and below their breath they raved, groaned, blasphemed, incoherently. One long drawn out babel of breathless discord.
In an overwhelming rush of terror Mrs. Stewart made a dash for the stairs, but while still in the corridor she heard flying feet approaching her from theend she was trying to reach. She shrank back against the wall, the flying feet passed in a wild tempestuous rush, and as they did so the lamp was struck violently out of her hand, and she was left in complete darkness.
She reached her bedroom and locked the door, then she lighted the candles and looked for the dogs. She found them huddled together in abject terror under her bed.
The next day my sister called upon the lady who owned the place, and recounting her experiences asked to be told the origin of the hauntings. She was told the following story:—
Many years previously a farmer, who was a widower, lived in the lodge with an only son, who was grown up. The old farmer married again, a pretty young girl, and the son fell in love with his stepmother. A quarrel ensued, and a desperate conflict, in which the father stabbed his son to death.
The Stewarts did not leave the haunted lodge till some long time after the events I have narrated; in fact, my sister inhabited it after her husband died, during a stay in the South of England.
It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the actual cause of the disturbances. How do ghosts contrive to make such a noise? The common answer would be, "They were astral noises heard clairaudiently." But was every one in the house clairaudient? It is possible, but most unlikely. When the noises began every one under that roof heard them, and continued to hear them till they ceased.
The lodge is still to let, so perhaps the mystery may yet be unraveled. Will a member of the Psychical Society not try his luck? The rent is low, the sport, of more than one kind, is excellent.
In the course of time my widowed sister married again, and her second husband has given me a curious and gruesome story of an experience which came to him whilst he was still a bachelor. I will give it in his own words:—
"About fourteen years ago I retired from the London Stock Exchange, and owing to ill health I was advised by my doctor to take a long sea voyage. This advice I followed, and much benefited by rest and sea air I returned to London, after an absence of nine months.
"Always having lived an active life I could not contemplate settling down in utter idleness, and I consulted my solicitor on the subject of work.
"He told me that a client of his had just bought a flourishing and well-known mill in North Wales. He proposed to run it for a time alone, and then turn it into a company or syndicate, as he had not sufficient capital of his own to ensure its ultimate success. In due time, my solicitor gave me a letter of introduction to this man, and I went to stay at his house close to the mill, which he had just bought.
"It was a rambling old place, which in the good old days had been a coaching inn. Owing to bad management the landlord had failed, and for many years it had stood empty and 'to let.' It was a queer idea, I thought, to turn a coaching inn into a private residence, more especially as I soon heard that it had a very evil reputation.
"Though I made many inquiries in the neighborhood I could never get anything more definite than that there was some evil influence in the house. Every one who lived in it came to a bad or violent end. I concluded that its proximity to his workcaused the mill owner to purchase it, and I thought no more of the matter.
"If I was favorably impressed, my intention was to put a certain amount of capital into the concern and learn the trade, but after staying for a few days with the mill owner, I came to the conclusion that I would have nothing to do with so odd a person.
"He was of medium height and very thin, with rather straggling hair turning gray, and a sallow, hollow-cheeked face. He had a curious habit of glancing suddenly behind him, as if some one had just tapped him on the shoulder, and several other little traits bespoke an extreme nervousness of disposition.
"One night I entered a room where he happened to be, and discovered him staring at himself in a mirror. I suppose I exhibited some surprise, for he wheeled round on me and cried, 'Well! how do you think I am looking?'
"Had I answered truthfully I should have said, 'Stark, staring mad.' His face was ghastly pale, and his eyes were blazing. I made some careless reply, and shortly afterwards left the house to play a game of billiards with some acquaintances I had made. There I was given some interesting information. The mill owner was a declared bankrupt.
"I returned to the house at ten o'clock, and at once retired to bed, without again seeing my unfortunate host.
"The next morning I was awakened at half-past seven by my hostess knocking at my door, and inquiring if I had seen anything of her husband. I replied that I had seen nothing of him, but if she was anxious I would dress quickly and have a look roundfor him. This offer she accepted with gratitude. The station was not far distant, and she suggested that he might have taken the train to Manchester. Would I go and make inquiries?
"I was soon on the way, and interviewed a porter, who informed me he had seen the mill owner about an hour ago, not on the platform, but staring at the rails. The man had watched him, thinking his behavior suspicious, and remembering the evil reputation of his dwelling, but after a while he had turned away, and was last seen walking rapidly off in the direction of his own home.
"I went back and reported what I had heard, and the very anxious wife suggested that I should snatch a hasty breakfast and then make inquiries at a farm a mile off, which was also their property. This I readily consented to do. I was extremely sorry for the poor woman, and though she did not make a confidant of me, I could see she was consumed with anxiety.
"My errand was quite fruitless, nothing was known of the master, no one had seen him, and back I went to the mill house, feeling by this time that probably the wife had every cause for her anxiety.
"I saw nothing of her when I entered. I looked into every room on the ground floor, and was just going to ring for a servant, when I fancied I heard a faint cry.
"I went out into the hall and listened intently. The voice was calling from somewhere below the ground, and I thought at once of the huge cellars I had been shown, where once the good old ale had been brewed and stored. I ran to the door which led to the cellars; it was open, and then I clearly heard a woman'svoice crying, 'Oh! bring a knife! bring a knife quickly!'
"I darted back into the dining-room and caught up the first knife I could find, a ham carver, then hastened to the door and began descending the dark stairs.
"The cellars were fairly well lighted by two grated windows, and a horrible sight met my eyes. There stood the wife, bending under the weight of her husband, who was suspended by a rope round his neck from the great beam overhead. One glance at the hideously distorted face, the glazed eyes protruding from their sockets, the gaping mouth and swollen tongue, told me the worst.
"Hastily I severed the rope, and the wife and her dead husband sank to the ground together.
"There was little to be done. We laid the corpse flat on the stone floor, and I persuaded her to leave it and come upstairs with me, and wait for the arrival of the doctor and police. This she consented to do. She was very quiet and composed, a curious apathy of indifference possessed her, and I would far rather have seen her in floods of natural tears.
"By evening the house had fallen into a dead silence. The doctor had pronounced life to be extinct, and the corpse had been carried up to an unused bedroom immediately over the smoking-room. The police found that the mill owner had committed suicide by hanging. He had jumped off a stone slab, after having adjusted the rope to the beam and his own throat. With the exception of an old nurse who was devoted to her mistress, the servants all departed in a body, and the house was left brooding under a weight of intolerable depression.
"I did not blame the servants. As a matter offact, there was nothing I would have liked better than to quit the mill house there and then, and never set foot in it again, but I had the desolate widow to consider. I could not leave her alone, whilst there was still the smallest possibility of my being of use. Added to this I had the queerest feeling that she required protection, though from what I would have been at a loss to say.
"Another feeling, which I combated violently, was a sensation of being mocked and jeered at by some unseen entity. I was being urged to get out of the house, to recognize my own impotence, to mind my own business, and when I metaphorically replied, 'Get thee behind me, Satan,' I could have sworn I heard a sly laugh.
"Of course I told myself all this was but the result of a shock to the nerves, and I was not going to pay any attention to it, so despite my intense longing to run out of the house I settled down with the daily paper, a cigarette, and a novel in the smoking-room, and resolutely turned my thoughts away from the tragedy.
"The widow, and her old nurse, who had promised me not to leave her mistress for a moment, had retired together for the night, so I felt satisfied, so far as they were concerned.
"I suppose I must have dozed off, for I was suddenly roused broad awake by footsteps overhead, in the room where the corpse lay. I sat up straight and listened intently. Were my nerves playing tricks with me? No; certainly not. There was no mistaking that sound for hallucination. It was perfectly clear and distinct. A man was walking about overhead, and the only man save myself within these walls had hanged himself by the neck until he was dead. Thereit was—the sound. A man's footsteps pacing slowly up and down the floor of the bedroom above, from end to end, backwards and forwards.
"I considered what I had better do. I was sure the widow and the old nurse were in the bedroom, quite at the other end of the house. Probably they were both asleep. I hoped so. What had I better do—nothing? Yet this inaction irked me. My curiosity was intense. The supernatural had never occupied much of my thoughts, but now it began to do so. Those steps must proceed from the supernatural. There was no other explanation. I was the only live man in the house.
"At last I could stand it no longer. I jumped up and proceeded upstairs. The lights had been left to me to extinguish; they were still on, and I saw at once that the door of the bedroom was open.
"I entered the room, lit the gas and searched every corner. No living thing was present. The dead man lay in rigid lines beneath a sheet. I left the room again in darkness, and carefully closing the door I went softly along to the widow's room, and knocked very gently.
"The old nurse came to the door. She told me her mistress was asleep, and that the doctor had given her a sleeping draught. Neither of them had left the room since they entered it to go to bed, more than an hour ago.
"I went downstairs again and took up the newspaper, but almost immediately the footsteps began once more overhead, in the room where the dead man lay.
"The sound was soft and stealthy at first, then it grew louder. The same footsteps moving about thefloor, up and down, up and down. I am not ashamed to say that I felt a cold sweat break out all over me. I could not stand that sound any longer. I made up my mind to go to bed.
"I removed my shoes and turned out the light. As I did so I could have sworn I heard a sly, low laugh behind me. I crept upstairs. The door of that horrible room was again open. With a shaking hand I closed it, and hurried to my bedroom, locking the door at once.
"The next day I told my experiences to one of the acquaintances I had made, and he volunteered to come in and keep me company until the funeral was over. I gladly accepted his offer. I did not hear the footsteps again. I conclude because the widow was sitting with us on the following nights, and the ghost had no desire to terrify her."
I was born with the power to see auras, and I had attained to quite a grown-up age before I discovered that every one could not see them.
What is an aura? You will see them glittering round the heads of saints, and of The Christ in church windows. You will see them painted round the head of the Blessed Virgin, round the head of the Infant she holds, but, indeed, auras are the property of all, however humble and lowly. Nothing that has life, be the spark ever so faint, is without its astral counterpart, its tenuous surrounding atmosphere. Science has demonstrated this. Auras have now been photographed.
Habitual seeing of human auras has made me no more or less observant of them than I am of the human face. If I am asked by any one to say what her aura looks like, I do so to the best of my ability, but at that complacent moment it is a very tame affair, much like the aura that any one may see surrounding a lighted candle. A medley of prismatic hues, no color predominating.
Where auras become really interesting is in a room full of people. I look down to the far end of the room where a group is seated talking. I cannot hear what they are saying, but I can tell at once whether the conversation is harmonious or otherwise.
Often there will be one member of the group whose aura is very disturbed. It will emit flashes of brilliant red as he talks vehemently. The aura of the man he is addressing has turned a sulky, leaden gray.
A woman who is sitting listening has an aura of intense boredom. The colors are all there, but they have become faded, and the extreme tips droop dejectedly, like so many wilted blades of grass.
The biggest aura I ever saw was that of the late Mr. Sexton, a great orator whom I once heard in the House of Commons. Some people have mean, tight little auras, others have great spreading haloes of brilliant light. I met with a very unusual aura quite lately.
A young woman, Miss L., came to tea with me, a charming, cultured woman, whose profession it is to keep a large girls' school. She is much interested in occult matters, and we "got upon" the subject of a rather wonderful case of spiritualism of which she knows the details—the medium being a young girl whom I will call "Elsie."
Whilst I was talking to Miss L. I could not help observing something very peculiar in her aura; it was all lopsided. In place of being a complete circle around her head, it had a huge bulge out to the left. I had never before seen an aura like that, and it interested me greatly.
Just before leaving she mentioned auras, and asked me what hers was like.
I told her honestly that it was peculiar, lopsided, and bulging on one side.
She laughed and said she knew that, because "Elsie" always chaffed her about it, saying, "You wear your halo all awry." This was very interesting confirmationof my power to see auras correctly. I don't know "Elsie," I don't even know her name, which has been kept a secret, but we evidently see Miss L.'s aura in exactly the same peculiar form.
The other day I was sitting reading by the window, and as I moved in my chair I caught sight, "with the tail of my eye," of something bright at the other end of the room. A patch of light about a foot deep, and two feet long was coming from behind the edge of a tall screen that hid a door. I rose and walked out of the room. Behind the screen was a maid, whom I had not heard enter the open door. She was busy over some quiet work, and it was her aura that I had seen, though she herself was hidden from view.
Once before in my life my attention has been drawn to the aura of one whom I could not at the moment see in the flesh.
I happened to be passing a glove shop in the south of France, and as I strolled slowly past the door a blaze of yellow gold inside the shop caught my eye, and attracted my attention. I paused at once and looked through the open door. This great golden aura belonged to the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who was standing at the counter. Her back was turned towards me, and I stood for a minute watching this aura of a woman whose restless imagination, and passionate love for the bitter wine of liberty, brought her finally to an absolutely fitting death. I believe she would have chosen this death before all others, for at heart she was a born anarchist. She fell painlessly by the dagger of anarchism.
One effect of being able to see auras is that they fix certain incidents firmly in the mind. I remember one such incident very clearly. I was staying at Hawarden with the Gladstones whilst the Irish troubles of '82 were at their height. One afternoon we were all assembled on the lawn having tea; Mr. Gladstone was standing rather apart, his hands full of papers, which had just been brought to him. I saw him unfold what looked like a large poster, glance at it, then suddenly he dashed it to the ground and stamped viciously upon it. I heard him give vent to some exclamations of intense anger, but had I heard nothing I could not have failed to know he was desperately annoyed over something, for he was suddenly wrapped in a brilliant crimson cloud, through which sharp flashes like lightning darted hither and thither. He was "seeing red."
I remember Mrs. Gladstone murmuring something about "posters being torn down in Ireland," but I was too thrilled over her husband's aura to pay much heed to what she said. I shall never forget that scene, and the practical disappearance of Mr. Gladstone in the enveloping folds of a great red cloud. In a minute or two he emerged, and resumed his habitual aura, which extended to about two and a half feet beyond his head, and was largely tinged with purple.
At Hawarden Church on Sunday, whilst he read the lessons, I watched his aura with much interest, because it changed so continuously, and I discovered that this change arose out of his absorption in what he read. Only one little example can I remember to illustrate what I mean. "And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he would not let the people go."
In reading those words aloud Mr. Gladstone's aura deepened to red, and I saw he was very indignant with Pharaoh's behavior. During the sermon he sat facing us in our pew, and in a chair just beneath the pulpit,and I could tell by watching his aura just how he felt about the discourse.
Later on, just after the tragic murders by the Fenians in Phœnix Park of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Bourke, I received a note from Mrs. Gladstone, asking me to go to breakfast with them in their London house in Buckingham Gate. When I arrived the first person I saw was Lady Frederick Cavendish, calm and composed, and bearing her loss with quiet stoicism, but the atmosphere of the house was very different from that of Hawarden. A gloom was over all, and for the first time I noticed that Mr. Gladstone's aura was depressed and tired. Its vigorous vibrations had considerably slowed down, like a jet of flame that had been turned low, and the extremities drooped dejectedly.
Though crimson red is the color of anger, there is a beautiful soft rose which is the color of love. The "green-eyed monster" of jealousy history has handed down to us from the ancient seers, also the "jaundiced" appearance of envy. A gloomy, grumbling person has a very leaden gray atmosphere, and one who has "a fit of the blues" shows he is "off color" in his dull, muddy blue aura. But there is a beautiful sky-blue to be seen in the auras of many artists and scientists. Very material, earthly people have generally a deep, dull orange tinge in their astral envelope, and there is a glorious golden yellow surrounding the heads of the spiritually joyful and highly intellectual. Purple is the color of power, greatness. Children have an aura of crystal whiteness, which develops color after the age of seven.
I remember the aura of Frederic Myers very well. A large and intensely spiritual halo. He is the onlyman I can remember in those days—about '92-'96—as having an aura within an aura, though this phenomenon is now becoming more marked. "A rainbow was about his head," those words explain exactly what I mean. About a foot above his head circled a pure rainbow, and this beautiful decoration looked as if it were superimposed upon the original aura, which streamed out far above it. I have only as yet, in these later years, seen this rainbow above the heads of two people: one alive, Miss Maud Roydon, one alas! gone west—the incomparable Elsie Inglis. I conclude it means a degree of self-sacrificing spirituality, which as yet has been attained to by very few. Indeed, I would venture further, and assert that it stands for a certain initiation conferred upon "the beloved" by the Masters of Wisdom.
King Edward was blessed by a very fine aura of constantly changing colors. I remember once noticing this in the most unspiritual of environments, and whilst the King was still Prince of Wales.
We were on Newmarket Heath, and His Majesty came up to me and said, "I hear you are married." After a few minutes of friendly conversation, which had taken an amusingly domestic turn, he said to me, "Now, how much has your husband got a year?"
There was nothing in the question but the most friendly interest; still, it will naturally seem strange that he should have possessed the faintest curiosity as to the financial situation of so humble a member of his people.
Whilst he put the question, and waited for the answer, his whole aura and atmosphere deepened and intensified. He was actually interested in my answer,and this I have always believed was the fundamental reason of his great popularity. The power he possessed of throwing himself heart and soul into the trivial, as into the great things of life. He was intensely human, with a genuine fund of sympathy for the ordinary affairs of life. He liked to know the domestic conditions of those whom he honored with his friendship, and the first time I ever spoke to him, at a dance given by the Rothschilds in Piccadilly, I saw at once that the natural human simplicities of life absorbed him absolutely whilst under discussion. Though a man who would not tolerate a liberty, the easiest way to get on with him when alone, was to confide in him any personal difficulty, and to forget who he was, always providing that one had the good breeding to remember instantly that he was the king when speaking to him in public.
The most occult day (to use the popular expression) I ever spent was the 26th June, 1902, the day of the postponed Coronation. I shall never forget that warm summer day of stupendous gloom, and oppressive darkness. There was something more than meteorology in that leaden pall that hid the skies, and enveloped the whole of London. Even the densest materialists were uneasy, startled and inquiring, for putting aside that mighty aura of sorrow and gloom rising up to heaven from the hearts of millions, there was, as it were, the response of heaven herself. That dark and mournful response Nature assumed, when wrapping herself in a shroud of leaden darkness she brooded over the city, like the pall of death itself. That day the mystic walked in a dream, enmeshed in the warp of great occult happenings being wovenout in the loom of Karmic fatality. It was impossible to settle down to doing anything. One just "sat about," living every moment intensely.
Once, when presenting a girl at Court, during the present reign, I noticed what a very striking aura John Burns possesses. This girl naturally wished to see all she could, so we went to the Palace very early, and found a seat in the Throne Room, close to where the King and Queen would sit later on. In a short time celebrities began to stroll into the royal circles, divided from us by a cord. First came the present Lord Grey of Falloden, and then came Mr. John Burns, resplendent in dark blue knee breeches and gold-embroidered coat. He moved about quite familiarly inside the holy of holies, speaking first to one, then another of the gathering little crowd. Being so close to him I observed him with unusual interest. His aura is very large, and what I can only describe as massive, and already it was tinged by the gray veil of disappointment. I have seen him several times since, and the veil has become more opaque. What interested me so profoundly in him that night were the contrasts I knew to exist in his life, and which must have profoundly influenced his outlook on human existence.
One afternoon I was walking alone up Piccadilly. There had been rumors of coming riots, but no one in the West End gave any credence to such silly stories, and the streets were full of the usual gay throng, intent on amusement.
Suddenly, as I walked along, a youth on a bicycle dashed past the pavement, shouting something I could not catch. More men on bicycles followed. The promenaders began to "sit up and take notice."Carriage horses were being smartly whipped up, and women began to scurry nervously.
Then it seemed to me I could hear something above the roar of the ordinary traffic, a hoarse prolonged shout. Servants now appeared on doorsteps, and looked about anxiously for non-existent policemen, others began closing outside shutters before windows. Just as I reached the Naval and Military Club I saw that the servants had come out, and were about to close both great gates—"In" and "Out." One of these men pointed up the street and advised me at once to seek cover, and I saw in the dim distance what looked like a mighty crowd advancing.
In a second I had darted through the gates, and was safely inside before they closed upon the approaching mob.
I have only a very confused memory of what happened after. Of kindly attentions from the members. Of women's shrieks as their carriages were stopped, and their valuables taken from them. Of the deafening roar of furious male voices, crashings of glass windows, howls of savage exultation, as a hosier's shop close by fell victim to the rioters, the clatter of hoofs from terrified horses. I could see nothing, but the battering upon the club gates added tenfold to the terrifying din. The members withdrew, taking me with them, to the house, and prepared to hold it against the furious mob, should the gates give way.
Such wild moments are not easily forgotten, and why I looked upon John Burns that night at Court with such a peculiar interest was because he led that riot, and suffered imprisonment for so doing.
Looking upon him in Court dress, in the royalenclosure, on intimate terms with the great of the world, though perhaps not the great of the earth, knowing him to hold high office in the government, I marked the change. Then throwing back my mind to those poignant hours in the past, which he had created, I felt that nothing is too extraordinary to belong to the careers of some men; they live through several lives in one. Their Karma is so crowded with stirring events, in the working out of the past, in the makings of the future, that nothing human can be any longer strange to them. The auras of such men are naturally great, because such contrasts of light and shade only come in the lives of men possessed of great and lofty ideals.
For some years little has been heard of the former idol of Battersea. He is facing west now, though a ray or two of dawning light may still touch him in the near future. That wild idealism which comes to men who keep their eyes fixed upon a dawn so long in coming, fades out behind the veil of disillusion, as the days come not, and the years draw nigh with no pleasure in them. Man's ingratitude to man is one of the cruelest tests imposed upon the soul of idealism. The soul that can bear it without a tinge of cynicism has risen to mighty heights.
Such grandeur of soul was possessed by Elsie Inglis. So impregnated was she with pure love of humanity, that when her own country virtually turned its back upon her, this irreparable disgrace, brought upon themselves by her own people, cast no shadow upon her soul. In the years before the war I often noted her lovely aura as I sat amongst an audience, and watched her on a platform fighting woman's battle.
After the war broke out I only saw her once, by the merest chance. It was then I marked that a rainbow was now about her head, and I knew at once that tremendous events were in store for her, though the British Government had refused her services. Ah! the poor little cramped mind of England's officialism! yet has not this very poverty of imagination, this iron-bound worship of worn-out tradition, brought to birth an internationalism which could never have been ours without it? It drove forth hundreds, thousands of ardent souls, to other lands. Rejected by their own, they clasped the pierced hands of strangers, and laid down their own incomparably gallant lives at the foot of a cross, whereon hung those who had at length become their brothers through a commune of agony.
Elsie Inglis received no honor or decoration from the people, or the "Great of England." Only the body, worn very thin in the service of humanity, was at last honored in death. Knowing the woman, and the stuff she was made of, one can only feel intensely this was all as it should have been. To offer Elsie Inglis a medal would have been a sacrilege. "Hands off such souls as hers," is the cry one's every instinct rings forth to the "bauble worshipers" of this world. Besides, and this is a very great besides, those who go with a rainbow about their heads are not destined for earthly honors. They have taken the great step, they have received the great Initiation, a jewel in the blazing crown of eternity, and for them no more are the laurel wreaths that perish. In justice to those throned on high on earth, the above should be remembered. If it is with Elsie Inglis, as I fully believe, she would have understood that for her God and Mammon wereeternally divorced, and any attempt at worldly recognition would have been frustrated by "The Lords of Eternal Light and Wisdom," whose chosen disciple she had become.
The psychology of the people is a very interesting and curious study, to the aura seer. The analysis of the collective mind awaits some great writer who will give us a book of absorbing interest. Those who can see auras have a great advantage, if they are public speakers. During the period of my life, when I had a great deal of political platform work, I was always very sensitive to my audiences, because I could see how they were taking my remarks. I have always found big audiences of the people very colorless in the main. Flashes of bright color would be apparent all over the hall, but there was no sustained glow. Whilst sitting on some one else's platform, often that of a great orator, I have marked exactly the same phenomenon. The soul of the people is still young and childlike. It has the indifference of extreme youth, the forgetfulness and ingratitude of extreme youth.
I look back upon the fall of Parnell and Dilke, great minds whose earthly careers were destroyed by the people. All the world knows why. To-day I look on the "perpetrators" of the Gallipoli and Mesopotamia tragedies, and I see they have all gone up higher in the esteem of the people. They have risen in the world, and are looked upon as ripe for even higher office. The poor human brain reels before such anomalies. I was in London when the Gallipoli reports were given to the public. They shook me to the very foundation of my being. I think they were given out towards the end of the week, because I remember saying to myself, "on Sunday morning theBritish working man and woman will read all this abomination of desolation and crime in their Sunday paper."
Purposely I strolled about the London parks in the lovely afternoon of that Sunday. Crowds were there, reading, courting, sleeping. I went home realizing that no one cared. The collective aura of the people was as serene and indifferent as ever.
I have come to think more kindly of our people's pathetic indifference, because I am sure it is the indifference of very young souls, who have passed through but few incarnations, and "know not what they do." I see them exploited by the politicians, given a rag doll to amuse themselves with, anything will do, from the big loaf to the "Kayzer," and sent to the polls hugging their golliwog, but I doubt the returning troops being so easily amused and deluded.
The state of the Universe is the expression of man's desire, and man is really the builder of his own body, that "house not made with hands," though in his youthful ignorance he attributes both to an over-ruling intelligence, whom he alternately blesses and curses. When men learn that they must work with, and not against the mental laws, they will no longer ask why God permits the world to be so full of misery. They will cease to erect a scapegoat, because they will have learned that they are the makers of their own misery or happiness.
Many people seem to think that the power to see auras must be very useful in helping one to distinguish between friends and foes, but such is not really the case. Auras exemplify individual character, not individual predilections, and some of my friends being very bad characters, indeed, have shocking auras. I had onegreat friend who, at the beginning of our acquaintance, spent much of his time in prison, which was really a blessing for his ill-used wife. His aura was literally in tatters, just a little irregular circle of rags and patches.
I had just succeeded in making him sober, by insisting constantly and most seriously that he was "a cut above the public-house," and much too superior a man to mix with such degraded companions, when the war broke out. He went to the front, and on his first return to Blighty, badly gassed, he came at once to see me. I really felt a sort of personal pride in him, and an actual sense of personal possession in his enormously grown aura. It was clear evidence of his sprouting soul. He went back to France, but was wounded and again gassed, and this time his return was final, as he was of no further use.
For a few months he did odd jobs with great difficulty, then, finally, he succumbed to pneumonia. I was very proud indeed of his aura as I sat beside his bed, his hand in mine. There was real love in my heart for him that day. Here, indeed, was an infant soul that had begun to develop on the right road, and the tattered aura of rags and patches had become a neatly trimmed little halo round his poor tired head.
So he went west, and his broken body, wrapped in the British flag, went to a soldier's grave, and a firing party gave him the Last Post.
His wife returned home to find that her neighbors, anxious to celebrate the occasion, had brought their best china and had arranged a tea-party. As we sat down, she turned to me and said:
"Well, thank God, my man's been buried like a gentleman."
When I came to think it over I arrived at the conclusion that "the worst character in the slums" had not done so badly with his life, after all. He had died like a gentleman. The British Flag is a strange case of transubstantiation. At first, just so many pieces of common material sold across a counter. Fashioned into the emblem of our Nation it becomes a sacred symbol, taken kneeling like a sacrament, which indeed it has become. What better shroud could any man ask for?
I am sorry that I have had no opportunity of seeing President Wilson's aura, the man who has turned his face towards a heavenly ideal, and is scattering the seed amongst all the nations. When a man sets out on such a long radiant path, he will carry visibly in the daylight an illuminated brow. He has brought to us the vision without which the people perish.
The life of the heart has always meant much more to me than the life of the head. The rebel by nature can only be held by love, and I have been blest by twenty-eight years of perfect union with one who has given me love for love, faith for faith, and complete intellectual understanding. My life has also been wonderfully gifted by staunchest friends, who have loved me through sunshine and storm, and who still clasp hands with me across continents and seas.
I suppose I must have enemies. They say every one has, but they have never made me aware of their enmity, perhaps because there is no room in a very full heart to receive aught but love. If I were to single apart one outstanding feature in my life, it would be the wonderful kindness and friendship that has been given to me. Ah! how easy that makes it to write lovingly of others.
Behind all this lies the master passion of the born mystic for liberation. The constant ache and urge for real freedom, and power to be victorious over all circumstances. At home in all scenes, restful in all fortunes. There is the urge of the soul for universality of contact with all humanity, independent of race, color or creed. The urge of the spirit to smash the confines which pinion it down to earth.
I think it is really the urge of reincarnating life still clinging to me. The knowledge that my immortal soul must return to the House of Bondage, until perfection is reached, and there is the going out no more from the Father's House, from a freedom which has become supreme.
To-day there are many, an ever-swelling number, who behold with joy the gates ajar, who standing in the twilight catch momentary glimpses of dawn upon the horizon of time, who know by personal experience that they have come into touch with a region where vast schemes are conceived, and universal laws of boundless magnitude connected with the soul's eternal pilgrimage are carried out.
Again, there are others, timid, shrinking souls to whom, by a mere chance combination of circumstances, a glimpse has been shown which is none too welcome. Such affrighted ones drop the eyelids from the startling vision. They will have none of it, and they are free to accept or reject, go on, or stand still.
Others, again, have actually been born with that super-normal sight which can discern the workings behind the drop scene shrouding the stupendous drama of cosmic government.
I have long been conscious that the veil has worn very thin between myself and another world lying around me. As the years draw swiftly on, and every second thrown back into eternity brings me nearer to blessed deliverance I find the rents in the veil grow more numerous. They bring single shining moments, which reveal the spirit of life, its motives and consecration.
Through the driving storm wrack there will come quite suddenly a brilliant heavenly glimpse. It never lasts long, but long enough to show me reality. Something of the vastness of cosmos and the pathetic minuteness of this earth, just a speck of star dust in the palm of God, an atom of world stuff swinging in boundless space.
Something of the reality of those shining ones who guide the progression of natural order, embodiments of resistless energy and of stateliest imperial mien.
Glimpses that show to me what was in the mind of the great Christian Mystic when he wrote of a mighty angel: "A rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire."
Behind such visions extend vast ranges of being, quite outside my ken, yet, nevertheless, speaking to me of things, for the expression of which no words have yet been coined. Infinitely greater than anything that can be said. Significant in meaning beyond expression, and far transcending imagination.
Such glimpses show to me lives that as compared with ours, are as ours to the tiniest insect afloat for an hour on the breath of the south wind. Lives which ordain the fateful hour when the rise and fall of empires, the destruction of nations, and the clash of worlds, and their cosmic significance in world history shall begin or end. Where things life promised but never gave come to full fruition.
Other glimpses and echoes from the Great Beyond bring to me the answer to a problem, a few notes and a new melody, a new energy of hope and love, an inspirationfrom the Great Brotherhood, whose lowliest disciple I am, whose work to establish the Brotherhood, the true affinity of humanity upon earth I hold most dear, most high.
In the present dark hour all the world is drinking of one chalice, its wine the life outpoured for others. All humanity is partaking of one bread, a body which has most truly and literally being given to be broken. Death has left many songs unsung, a myriad graves are filled, youth is blighted in the bud, in this white winter men call death, and its cup is pressed close to the lips of love. Many are the hopes that lie folded away in the quiet cemetery of the heart, where we lay flowers of tender reminiscence. Yet, this sacrament of fellowship which is eclipsed in the awful impoverishment of human life will one day be swelled by the return of the young, fallen on the Field of Honor, glorified and purified for their God-appointed work in evolution.
Perhaps I have gone a few steps farther than most people into the mysterious beyond, come nearer reading the great riddle, for the creature who is not afraid of thought and worldly condemnation, who is not afraid of solitude or ridicule, will soon come near the truth, will quickly catch the incommunicable thrill of advancing destinies. She will cease to live under the despotism of days, the tyranny of years. She will know that the swiftest touch cannot put a finger on the present, and that there is but one recorder of time, the great star clock of the sky.
The symbol of life is the Circle, not the Straight line, and each of us lives over again the story of humanity, as in the shadow of pre-natal gloom we repeat the physical evolution of the race. The increase of knowledgebut widens the horizon of the unknown promised land, to which we are moving onward and upward throughout the ages.
However far the mind travels there is always deep down in the soul stores of information awaiting transference to the surface of consciousness. Rich mines of knowledge are there awaiting the day when they will be uncovered, waiting in patience the day when some Divine Adventurer will search for them and bring them to light.
However great its aspirations the soul but looks out upon an illimitable horizon, and sees the human pilgrimage as a long Emmæus walk, with hearts burning by the way. Always must there be mystery in life, because life is spiritual, not material. The presence of mystery in life is the presence of God, and the infinity of God shows that mystery must always exist.
Such glimpses beyond the veil are all transfiguring. They exalt the heart in a single flash to a glow point, and show the soul of the Universe in the incandescent crucible of the eternal. In a deeply beshadowed time such visions tell us all that we need know, and it is this: God is with us and in us. Though obscure for the moment His transcendence stands outside the change and flux of time, and His awful sovereignty sways irresistibly the tides of human circumstances.
Hours must come when the pen falls from the nerveless fingers, the task is left undone, when the weary cry goes up, "There is nothing we can do!" We have been doing for so many thousand years, the years which the locusts hath eaten. What have we achieved?
When such hours come, as come they must, is there nothing to fall back upon but this awful confession of failure, this haunting undertone of all our mortal life that many ages have not hushed?
Surely, yes! There is always for the mystic the unmeasured immensity of soul land to explore, that Great Beyond and within which is infinite, eternal, and of which we are all a part.
Ah! but it may be said, all are not mystics, to which I would reply, all who desire can be mystics. For what, after all, is a mystic, but one who enters into possession of the inner life? One who becomes fully aware of her self-consciousness, and who gains thereby new faculties and enlightenment. It places her in touch with that supreme reality which some call God and some The Great Creative Power. The mystic knows that power is to be found within through identification and submergence with the Primordial Force which constitutes the ocean of life. She can always pass the sky and clouds of earth, and enter the great, deep, real world outside. It is always possible to her to seek a fairer world where the only things that matter are the eternal verities, which should be taken kneeling, like a sacrament.