The Wanderings of a Spiritualist

This is an account of the wanderings of a spiritualist, geographical and / speculative. Should the reader have no interest in psychic things -- if / indeed any human being can be so foolish as not to be interested in his / own nature and fate, -- then this is the place to put the book down. It / were better also to end the matter now if you have no patience with a / go-as-you-please style of narrative, which founds itself upon the / conviction that thought may be as interesting as action, and which is / bound by its very nature to be intensely personal. I write a record of / what absorbs my mind which may be very different from that which appeals / to yours. But if you are content to come with me upon these terms then / let us start with my apologies in advance for the pages which may bore / you, and with my hopes that some may compensate you by pleasure or by / profit. I write these lines with a pad upon my knee, heaving upon the / long roll of the Indian Ocean, running large and grey under a grey / streaked sky, with the rain-swept hills of Ceylon, just one shade / greyer, lining the Eastern skyline. So under many difficulties it will / be carried on, which may explain if it does not excuse any slurring of a / style, which is at its best but plain English.

There was one memorable night when I walked forth with my head throbbing / and my whole frame quivering from the villa of Mr. Southey at Merthyr. / Behind me the brazen glare of Dowlais iron-works lit up the sky, and in / front twinkled the many lights of the Welsh town. For two hours my wife / and I had sat within listening to the whispering voices of the dead, / voices which are so full of earnest life, and of desperate endeavours to / pierce the barrier of our dull senses. They had quivered and wavered / around us, giving us pet names, sweet sacred things, the intimate talk / of the olden time. Graceful lights, signs of spirit power had hovered / over us in the darkness. It was a different and a wonderful world. Now / with those voices still haunting our memories we had slipped out into / the material world -- a world of glaring iron works and of twinkling / cottage windows. As I looked down on it all I grasped my wife's hand in / the darkness and I cried aloud, "My God, if they only knew -- if they / could only know! " Perhaps in that cry, wrung from my very soul, lay the / inception of my voyage to the other side of the world. The wish to serve / was strong upon us both. God had given us wonderful signs, and they were / surely not for ourselves alone.