Part 32 (2/2)
Even Peshawar, with its glorious crown of snow-capped mountains, brought no special psychic atmosphere to me; nor the Khyber Pa.s.s, where I had thoroughly expected to be haunted by the horrors of the past; nothing of the kind occurred. The beauty of the day when we visited this historic pa.s.s was only to be matched by its own extreme natural beauty; but no haunting memories hung round it for me.
Perhaps a night pa.s.sed in those rocky defiles might have brought some weird experience, but no European would be allowed to woo adventure in this way, even with the laudable desire for advance in psychological phenomena! But I stayed there quite long enough to prove--for the hundredth time--that _an att.i.tude of expectation_ acts with me as a deterrent rather than encouragement, where the Unseen is in question.
I had heard so much of Simla Society and Simla Scandals, and so little of Simla Beauty and Loveliness!--in Nature, I mean--not Human Nature.
It is true we were there at the most exquisite time in the year, when the air was still fresh and keen, when the last snows and the first blooms of rhododendrons were greeting each other, when the long stretches of valley, brown and purple and emerald green, lay like soft velvet in the immense distances towards the horizon line.
As I looked at all this, day after day, it seemed to me that Simla, without its crowds of social b.u.t.terflies, male and female, and the dust and the flies, and even the heat that they bring with them, was one of the most exquisitely beautiful spots that the Great Creator ever ”thought out” in His mind. Nowhere have I seen such a _velvety_ effect of rolling hill and soft mountain-side; such gorgeous atmospheric visions; such a carnival of beauty and colour.
We must have seen Simla at the most ideal time in the year, or people must become _blase_ and blinded to its intoxicating beauty, thanks to tennis tournaments and Government House receptions and the whole stupid Social mill.
Not even the beauties of Kashmir have dimmed the memory of Simla for me; but I would not go there again, and in the season, for anything that could be offered to me.
All beauty is sacred, and I guard jealously my sacred memory of the place, known to so many merely as a byword for folly and flirtation.
Some strange and curious experiences came to me there, both in automatic writing and other ways; but these are of too private a nature for publication.
And so, with the beauty of Simla and the romance of Kashmir as jewels in my memory, I must end my second visit to India.
It is said that pleasant as well as painful experiences are apt to run in _threes_. I trust this may be the case. If so, it will mean that once again I shall tread upon Indian soil.
CHAPTER XIV
A FAMILY PORTRAIT AND PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY
In the very heart of Warwicks.h.i.+re there is a beautiful old ”half timber”
hall, approached by a n.o.ble avenue of elms. The hall has come down from father to son, in the direct line, for nearly six hundred years, as the dates upon the front of the house testify.
The present Squire is not only an old friend of my early youth, but is connected through marriage, and he and his wife and I have always been on very friendly terms. He is the usual type of fox-hunting squire and county magistrate, did good service during the South African War by raising a corps of Yeomanry from the estate, and going out with them to fight his country's battles, and, needless to say, he received a hearty ovation from his wife and his county when he returned to them in safety.
He is devoted to his beautiful house and estate, and is the last man to entertain fancies or superst.i.tions in connection with either.
It is necessary to give these few words of explanation before relating an ”incident in my life” for which I have always found it difficult to account, except on the supposition that some germ of psychic sensitiveness may exist, even under a hunting squire's ”pink coat and top-boots.”
I have known Greba Hall since I was a child, and all its quaint old family portraits, especially those in the fine oak-panelled hall, with the old-fas.h.i.+oned open fireplace and ”dogs” of the fifteenth century.
But there were so many of these pictures ma.s.sed together that I have never distinguished one from the other, with the exception of the few immediate ancestors of my friend.
Some years ago I was staying with a lady who lived about three miles from Greba, and we had driven over there to have tea with the Squire's wife, whom I will call Mrs Lyon. The friend I have mentioned had become interested in psychic matters since my acquaintance with her, and I had discovered that she possessed some psychometric capacity.
In the interests of non-psychic readers, I may explain that psychometry is the science of learning to receive impressions and intuitions from the atmosphere surrounding any material object--a letter, a ring, a piece of pebble or sh.e.l.l, and so forth. We seem capable of impressing all material objects with our personality, and naturally this is especially the case in letters written and signed by us.
The lady with whom I was then staying--Mrs Fitz Herbert--had tried receiving impressions from letters several times, at my suggestion, and always with more or less success. We had been speaking of this with Mrs Lyon, who was always very sympathetic, and she suggested giving one of her own letters to Mrs Fitz Herbert to be ”psychometrised.”
The latter was sitting facing a door which led from the hall to an inner room, and over this door hung the half-length portrait of an old gentleman, whom I had never specially remarked before, as the picture was hung rather high, and there was nothing very characteristic about the face.
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