39B 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



that time I was living at Parkstone in rather poor health and 

 subject to chronic asthma, with palpitations and frequent 

 bronchitis, from which I never expected to recover. I had 

 given up lecturing, and had no expectation of ever writing 

 another book, neither had I the least idea of leaving the 

 house I was living in, which I had purchased and enlarged a 

 few years before. It was under these circumstances that a 



medium I had visited once in London, Madame G , was 



staying with friends at Wimborne, and came to see me, and 

 offered to give me a seance. One of her controls, an old 

 Scotch physician, advised me about my health, told me to eat 

 fish, and assured me that I was not coming to their side for 

 some years yet, as I had a good deal of work to do here. 

 The other control, named "Sunshine," an Indian girl, who 

 seemed to be able to get information from many sources, 

 was very positive in her statements. She said, " You won't 

 live here always. You will come out of this hole. You will 

 come more into the world, and do something public for 

 spiritualism." I replied, " You are quite wrong. I shall 

 never leave this house now, and I shall not appear in public 

 again." But she insisted that she was right, and said, " You 

 will see ; and when it comes to pass, remember what I told 

 you." She then said, "Fanny [my sister] sends her love. 

 She loved you more than any one in the world." This I 

 knew to be true, though during her life I did not so fully 

 realize it. Then Sunshine gave me her parting words, 

 speaking slowly and distinctly : " The third chapter of your 

 life, and your book, is to come. It can be expressed as 

 Satisfaction, Retrospection, and Work." These three words 

 were spoken very impressively, and I wrote them at once in 

 a small note-book with capital letters, though I had no 

 notion whatever of what they could refer to, and no belief 

 that they would be in any way fulfilled. 



Yet two months later the first step in the fulfilment was 

 taken through Dr. Lunn's invitation to give a lecture at 

 Davos, and my acceptance of it, due mainly to the tempta- 

 tion of a week in Switzerland free of cost and with a pleasant 

 party. As already described (Chapter XXXII.), this lecture 



