234 MY LIFE 



have undertaken such a piece of work as my book on " Man's 

 Place in the Universe," or the present autobiography. And 

 further, without the accident of a perfect stranger calling 

 upon me for reasons of his own, and that stranger happening 

 to be a man who had been so marvellously cured by Dr. 

 Salisbury as to induce me to adopt the same treatment, with 

 similar results, I should never have had the energy required 

 to undertake the two later and more important works. Of 

 course, it may be that these are only examples of those 

 " happy chances " which are not uncommon in men's lives ; 

 but, on the other hand, it may be true that, " there's a 

 divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will " ; 

 and those who have reason to know that spiritual beings can 

 and do influence our thoughts and actions, will see in such 

 directive incidents as these examples of such influence. 



Although I have now brought the narrative of my literary 

 and home life up to the time of writing this Autobiography, 

 there are a number of special subjects, which, for the sake of 

 clearness, I have either wholly omitted, or only just men- 

 tioned, but which have either formed important episodes in 

 my life, or have brought me into communication or friendly 

 intercourse with a number of interesting people, and which 

 therefore require to be narrated consecutively in separate 

 chapters. These will now follow, and will, I think, be not 

 the least interesting or instructive portions of my work. 



