EXTRA-MUNDANE COMMUNICATIONS 277 



force that produced these results, it was not due 

 to intentional efforts on the part of its unwilling 

 transmitters. 



My uncle has gone on now to that sphere in which 

 his interest was so intense. I hope that I shall some 

 day know if he has been able to foregather with 

 Elizabeth Cockliill, and has found out from her the 

 particulars of the diamonds that she claimed to 

 have hidden in a cellar in Dublin before her abrupt 

 departure from this world — hurried thence, as she 

 assured us, by the Skean Dubh of an Irish Rapparee. 

 Following on these early efforts there came a long 

 pause. My uncle, like his elder brother, became a 

 member of the S.P.R., and soared to heights, or 

 plunged into depths (whichever formula may be 

 preferred) of experiment and investigation, and my 

 brother's and my humble traffic with the unseen 

 ceased. 



It feels a far cry to the next world when one is 

 twenty-one, or did so before the War changed all 

 things, and the Old, who should have led, were left 

 to strain their eyes after the Young, who had taken 

 the lead from them and were shouldering past one 

 another through St. Peter's gate, forcing an entrance, 

 nor casting " one longing ling'ring look behind." 

 It is not strange that those who were left behind should 

 reach after them, should implore for a word, for one 

 brief message of assurance that those they loved still 

 lived, that they were still themselves, faulty perhaps, 

 and foolish often, but themselves; not glorified into 

 remoteness or oblivion, into a state where, beyond 

 these voices, these desolate earthly voices, there was 

 peace. If that were to be so, then the Sadducees, 

 who said that there was no resurrection of tlie dead, 

 were riglit. One asks not for news of the Blessed, 

 casting down their golden crowns before the glassy 



