XL] PREDICTIONS FULFILLED 399 



was the starting-point of all my subsequent work. The very 

 next year brought me renewed health and strength to do the 

 work, as already described. Another year passed, and I 

 received a pressing invitation to take the chair and give a 

 short address to the International Congress of Spiritualists, 

 which I felt myself unable to refuse, and thus, as I had been 

 told I should, I "did something public for spiritualism." 

 Yet another year, and a great desire for life more in the 

 country than at Parkstone (where we were being surrounded 

 by new building operations) led me to join some friends in 

 trying to find a locality for a kind of home-colony of con- 

 genial persons ; and though the plan was never carried out, 

 it led ultimately to my finding the site on which to build my 

 present house, and thus " get out of that hole," as I had been 

 told by Sunshine that I should do. And now, looking back 

 upon the eight years of renewed health I have enjoyed, and 

 with constant interesting work,howcan this be better described 

 than as " the third chapter of my life ; " while " Man's Place 

 in the Universe " — a totally new subject for me — may well be 

 termed the ^* third chapter of my book," that is, of my 

 literary work. Again, this wholesome activity of body and 

 mind, the obtaining a beautiful site where I am surrounded 

 by grass and woodland, and have a splendid view over moor 

 and water to distant hills and the open sea, with abundance 

 of pure air and sunshine, the building of a comfortable house 

 in one of the choicest spots in the whole district — surely all 

 this was well foretold in the one word " Satisfaction." What has 

 chiefly occupied me in this house — an Autobiography extend- 

 ing over three-quarters of a century — is admirably described 

 by the word " Retrospection." And the whole of this process 

 has involved, or been the result of, continuous and pleasure- 

 able "Work." 



I will only add here that during the whole of this " third 

 chapter of my life" I had entirely forgotten the particular 

 words of the prediction which I had noted down at the time, 

 and was greatly surprised, on referring to them again for the 

 purpose of this chapter, to find how curiously they fitted the 

 subsequent events. Of course it may be said that every one 



