CHAPTER XLI 



MY CHARACTER — NEW IDEAS — PREDICTIONS FULFILLED 



I have already (in chapter xv.) given an estimate of my 

 character when I came of age. I will now make a few 

 further remarks upon it as modified by my changed views of 

 life, owing to my becoming convinced of the reality of a 

 spirit world and a future state of existence. 



Up to middle age, and especially during the first dec- 

 ade after my return from the East, I was so much dis- 

 inclined to the society of uncongenial and commonplace 

 people that my natural reserve and coldness of manner often 

 amounted, I am afraid, to rudeness. I found it impossible, as 

 I have done all my life, to make conversation with such 

 people, or even to reply politely to their trivial remarks. I 

 therefore often appeared gloomy when I was merely bored. 

 I found it impossible, as some one had said, to tolerate fools 

 gladly; while, owing to my deficient language-faculty, talk- 

 ing without having anything to say, and merely for politeness 

 or to pass the time, was most difficult and disagreeable. 

 Hence I was thought to be proud, conceited, or stuck-up. But 

 later on, as I came to see the baneful influence of our wrong 

 system of education and of society, I began to realize that 

 people who could talk of nothing but the trivial amusements 

 of an empty mind were the victims of these social errors, and 

 were often in themselves quite estimable characters. 



Later on, when the teachings of spiritualism combined 

 with those of phrenology led me to the conclusion that there 

 were no absolutely bad men or women, that is, none who, by a 

 rational and sympathetic training and a social system which 

 gave to all absolute equality of opportunity, might not be- 



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