Part 18 (1/2)

”The Queen is dying”

If the three of us had coht, we could not have done it

I have hadpersonal experiences of untraceable communication and telepathy and I think that people who set theainst all this side of life are excessively stupid; but I do not connect theion any more than with Marconi and I shall always look upon it as a misfortune that people can be found sufficiently material to be consoled by the rubbish they listen to in the dark at expensive seances

At one time, under the influence of Mr Percy Wyndham, Frederic Myers and Edmund Gurney (the last-named a dear friend hom I corresponded for some h a period of ”spooks” There was no htful coh himself a firm believer in the spirit world, he did not resent it if others disagreed with him We attended every kind of seance and took thewas conducted in the dark The famous medium of that day was a Russian Jewess, Madame Blavatsky by na-room of a private house in Brook Street, a non-professional affair,to hear her views upon God On our arrival I had a good look at her heavy, white face, as deeply pitted with smallpox as a solitaire board, and I wondered if she hailed frohtly surrounded by strenuous and palpitating ladies and all the blinds were up Seeing no vacant seat near her, I sat down upon a low, stuffed chair in theAfterand convulsive shudder, which caused the greatest excitement; the company closed up round her in a circle of sympathy and concern When pressed to say why her bust had heaved and eyelids flickered, she replied:

”A murderer has passed below our s” The awe-struck ladies questioned her reverently but ardently as to how she knew and what she felt Had she visualised hiuilty one if she saw hi hiive hio round to the nearest police-station and added that a case of this kind, if proved, would do more to dispell doubts on spirits than all the successful raps, taps, turns and tables Being the only person in theat the time, I strained my eyes up and down Brook Street to see the ht

Madame Blavatsky turned out to be an audacious swindler

To return to Chatsworth: our host, the Duke of Devonshi+re, was a ain; he stood by hiland He had the figure and appearance of an artisan, with the brevity of a peasant, the courtesy of a king and the noisy sense of huuffaw at all the right things, and was possessed of endless wisdoed from himself, fearlessly truthful and without pettiness of any kind

Bryan, the Auns speak--Rosebery, Chaht, said that a Chamberlain was not unknown to them in America, and that they could produce a Rosebery or an Asquith, but that a Hartington nowas the finest exa the world had ever seen

After the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and his ere the great social, seures of my youth One day they ca heard that our top storey had been destroyed by fire They walked round the scorched walls of the drawing-room, with the blue sky overhead, and stopped in front of a picture of a race-horse, given today by estion had -skirt)

The Duke said:

”I ahi were burnt, but I ” [Footnote: A portrait by J F

Herring, sen, of Rockingha]

The duchess laughed at this and asked :

”I should be sorry if ht”

I told her that luckily she was out of London at the tiot back to Devonshi+re House, she sent Elizabeth two tall red wax candles, with a note in which she said:

”When you brought your little girl here, she wanted the big red candles in ave them to her; they must have melted in the fire, so I send her these new ones”

I alking alone on the high road at Chatsworth one afternoon in winter, while the duchess was indoors playing cards, when I saw the fa and swayed on C- springs, stuck in theabout in unsuccessful efforts to drag the wheels out of the e, under life size

Observing their dilemma, I said:

”Hullo, you're in a nice fix! What induced you to go into that field?”

The coachman, who kneell, explained that they had met a hearse in the narrow part of the road and, as her Grace's orders were that no carriage was to pass a funeral if it could be avoided, he had turned into the field, where the mud was so deep and heavy that they were stuck It took et assistance; but, after I had unfastened the bearing-reins and e and I returned safely to the house

Death was the only thing of which I ever saw the duchess afraid and, when I referred to the carriage incident and chaffed her about it, she said:

”My dear child, do you ?

What do you feel about it?”

I answered her, in all sincerity, that I wouldin the world, but not because I was afraid, and that hearses did not affect me in the least