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Contents |
THE SEVEN PURPOSES
Chapter V
THE next day (Monday, March 11th) we
all returned to New York together, Mrs. Gay-
lord rejoining us in the evening, after dining
with other friends.
Before her arrival, we talked a little to Mary
Kendal, who was still uneasy about the failure
to reach her husband, from whom no word had
come. We asked if she knew David Bruce,
and she replied: "No, but he is here, and
most of us know what he does. He is a sweet
force."
When Mrs. Gaylord came, we told her of
this characterization, after some personal
talk with Frederick, and at once he took up
the suggestion.
"Mother dearest, you are a sweet force, too.
Help me build a structure of strength, which
is Dad, sweetness, which is you, and illumi-
nation, which is my part."
We remembered then his asking her to
"clear away the debris of things outlived
and begin the new structure with me," but
not until greater revelations followed did we [52]
understand fully what he meant.
A little later he said of his father: "He will
discover that I am more a force than ever,
and then he will be as proud as men who have
sons 'over there.' . . . Should you prefer a son
in the trenches or in the place of accomplished
peace? . . . I am nearer you now than I have
ever been before, but the price of that is ap-
parent separation. Your life knows no such
companionship as ours can be now, but that
is possible only at the cost of apparent and
visible contact. This is gain, not loss. You
are questioning that, but trust me. I know.
You can't even guess what this means to all
of us, Sis and Babe and Dad and you and
FREDERICK."
His name was dropped a line, like a signature.
It was coming slowly, with hesitations and
false starts, and I asked: "Are you tired,
Frederick? Or am I?"
"Both," he said. "This is not the simplest
thing I ever did. . . . I am not tired, as you
understand weariness, but it is easier some-
times to get things through than others."
The next evening—the last we had with
Frederick at that time—his first messages were
personal, expressing his desire to "talk
straight" to other members of the family.
"But there's no hurry," he went on. "We've [53]
all eternity together now. . . . Only one thing
can separate us. If you doubt my existence,
I shall still exist, but your doubt will destroy
the thread that links us like a telegraph-wire,
only more closely and warmly. So you must
not backslide, for my sake as well as your
own."
"Why don't you stay on?" he asked pres-
ently. "I can reach you, but not so definitely
for a while to your sense, and actual speech
with you is keen joy. Tell Dad . . . ."—the
erasure is his own—". . . . the family I want
to talk to them, too. Let's have a reunion.
One that won't leave me out. I want to be
in." Rapidly and strongly, he underlined the
last words three times.
His mother promised that the family festi-
vals should be held again, in the full conscious-
ness that he was there with them.
"Thank you, Mother dearest. You don't
know how we hate being left out." When
she explained that they were "left out" igno-
rantly, rather than intentionally, he continued:
"No, we know you don't mean to leave us
out. But you—and we, too—would be so
much happier if you knew we were there and
we could know you were not grieving. You
see, we are really nearer to you than you are
to each other, and only memory tells us why [54]
you grieve. There is no reason for grief in
what you call death and we call knowledge."
"Why hasn't all this been told to us before?"
she demanded. "It was cruel not to let us
know it!"
"As I wrote you the other day, not every-
body has been prepared for the knowledge. It
is known only to the few—those first over the
top I spoke of. But it will be the next great
revelation. As we'll say it was cruel not to
have known chloroform in the Middle Ages,
when it was sorely needed, or wireless teleg-
raphy in the Napoleonic wars. There is an
evolution of soul, as well as of biology and
chemistry. Many fine souls have still lacked
this peculiar preparation."
This started a little discussion between us.
One said that many persons had lost faith in
the orthodox, religions, thus making the need
of a new revelation great. Another spoke dis-
paragingly of the modern theory of a pervasive
and impersonal energy, from which we come
and to which we return, losing individuality.
At this point Frederick took the lead again.
"Don't you let them fool you! There is no
such thing as Bergson's stream of energy, un-
less every individual of us is a well-defined
drop in the stream. That is all a philosopher's "
dream, coated with poetry and tinctured with [55]
science."
Mrs. Gaylord said she had never heard of
Frederick's reading Bergson, and I mentioned
that I had read nothing of his, except one
article in a review.
"I never read Bergson, either, but you could
not live in the world, or pick up a Sunday
supplement, some years ago, without encoun-
tering that stream of energy."
"There speaks the newspaper man!" his
mother said, laughing.
During all these talks with Frederick he had
frequently made the little retraced circle,
which we had been told meant joy. He made
it again now, with vigor, and some one sug-
gested that he seemed excited.
"Wouldn't it excite you to get into actual
touch with your family, after long doubt and
pain? I am no angel, you know, and thank
God I am not above being excited. When I am
I will be dead!" Again he underscored a word.
Mrs. Gaylord spoke of her feeling of his
presence, of his characteristic personality, say-
ing that he seemed "just the same."
"Plus, Mother dear. You'd like me better
now. I don't mean that I am perfect, you
know. I've got more to learn than I ever
knew existed, but I can see ahead now. And
you would like me better. . . . I didn't say love [56]
me better," he added.
We talked about the force moving the pencil,
which on this occasion was very strongly ap-
plied, though I was greatly fatigued by the
efforts of the past few days, and I asked Fred-
erick whether he could move it without my
co-operation. But he said, "Only as you hold
it." To a suggestion that he expressed him-
self not through the pencil, but through me,
he replied, "She is like the battery."
From the first Mrs. Gaylord had been ex-
perimenting with planchette and pencil, hop-
ing to establish direct communication with
Frederick. While placing more emphasis on
a possible communion of thought, without
material aid, he had encouraged these efforts.
"Mother, you can do it, I am sure," he said
once, "but don't expect much fluency for some
time. I have not written except through
Margaret yet, but they tell me she is excep-
tionally sensitive as a messenger."
Referring to this, he was asked whether
others, not known to me personally, had de-
sired to communicate through me, and re-
plied: "No, but they have watched her, this
last week." Ten days later, when the most
amazing of all the communications began to
come, we remembered this. After enumerat-
ing some of the qualifications of a good mes- [57]
senger, he said: "When that combination is
found we are all interested, if we want to reach
our own people."
"Are you over there especially interested in
reaching your own families and friends, or in
reaching persons who might be interested in the
possibility of these communications?"
"Both. But if you have ever been unable
to communicate with those you love, for months
and years, and have known they were suffering,
then you know which interest is keenest. The
one is immediate and urgent, the other more
or less a matter of evolution."
"Shall I try to talk to some of you occasion.
ally?" I asked. "Or shall I wait for a call?"
"You are over the top. We shall be glad
to come."
"Can you let me know, if you have some-
thing to say through me?"
"Not always. Sometimes we can suggest
the thought to you."
Since that time, however, a more perfect
connection has been established and I am often
conscious of a definite summons. On these
occasions the pencil starts at once, generally
with great vigor, and almost always writes
some message not conveyed to my conscious-
ness except as I spell it out after the pencil.
Toward the end of the evening, when Mrs. [58]
Gaylord had suggested going back to her
hotel, the pencil made a little circle and some
apparently aimless marks inside it.
"Is this Frederick?" I asked, wondering at
indecision from him.
"Yes. I want to do something Mother can't
forget. . . . You don't need any more fancy
stunts, do you?"
She said she did not, but that she was very
tired and could stay no longer.
"Oh, don't go!" he begged. "I'll go with
you, but I like gassing this way." Another
characteristic phrase, she said.
After some further assurances of his fre-
quent presence and constant watchfulness, she
said she really must go. Frederick then moved
the pencil down to the right corner again, and
wrote, very clearly and carefully, one more "up-
side-down" message—a touching little message
of love to "dear Dad and the girls," which he
signed, "Your boy, Frederick."
The next day Mrs. Gaylord went home,
where she immediately destroyed all her black-
bordered cards and stationery and similar
symbols of mourning. She wrote me that she
felt it was false and wicked to mourn for a
son as vitally alive and happy as she now knew
Frederick to be.
Chapter VI
ONE of my letters to Mr. Kendal had been
marked "Urgent." On the day of Mrs. Gay-
lord's departure a telegram came from him,
asking that a duplicate of this letter be
sent to him at Chicago. It developed later
that all my missives, after some delay, had
been forwarded from his club to his business
address in the South, where, owing to the
uncertainty of his plans, his secretary had
held them, notifying him by wire of the
one evidently demanding immediate atten-
tion.
After some hesitation—reluctant to shock
him by a bald and startling announcement
unaccompanied by any explanation of a situa-
tion concerning which I was convinced he
would be skeptical, if not wholly unsym-
pathetic, and yet impelled by his wife's dis-
tressed insistence to reach him before he should
go South again—I telegraphed him that I had
reason to believe I had been in direct com-
munication for several days with Mary and
others, and asked him to return via New [60]
York, if possible.
Early that evening I took up a pencil, which
moved at once.
"Manzie has your message."
This could be no one but Mary Kendal.
To my inquiry concerning his reception of
my telegram she replied: "He is startled. He
is wiring you." An expression of her happi-
ness followed, concluding, "He is thinking
of me . . . and I can help him."
"Can't you help him unless he is thinking
of you?"
Apparently this presented difficulties, but
after long effort and many false starts she
achieved what I felt to be only a part of the
answer she had intended. "On power I can."
" You mean that you can influence his work?
His strength, or accomplishment?"
"Yes, but not his heart and soul." After
assurances that he would come soon, she
thanked me touchingly.
Later in the evening she said, "Manzie is
so amazed!" When I asked whether he be-
lieved it, she returned: "He does now. He
has thought. . . ." Details personal to him
followed.
Still later I asked whether Mr. Kendal had
telegraphed me, and she said that he had not,
though he had intended to do so. As a matter [61]
of fact, he had not at that time received my
telegram, but he afterward told me that when
it reached him, twelve hours later, his reactions
were exactly as she had described them. Also,
his intention of telegraphing me immediately
was delayed several hours by business neces-
sities. This is one of several instances when
a difference of plane has seemed to enable them
to look ahead for a limited space and foretell
events.
The next morning, for the first time in ten
days, the pencil was merely a piece of dead
wood between my fingers, without impulse.
After long delay it moved slowly, making light
circles, but no words came.
I knew that Mrs. Gaylord had intended to
make an effort that day to get into touch with
Frederick through a semi-professional medium
in her vicinity, and in the evening I took up
a pencil, wondering whether we could learn
what success had attended the attempt.
"Mary."
Supposing this to be Mary Kendal, I made
some allusion to Mansfield, and was im-
mediately corrected.
"No. Mary K."
This was surprising, as it was the first time
she had responded since my initial effort to
establish this intercourse. She said that Mary [62]
Kendal was not present, and that Frederick
had met his mother at Mrs. Z____'s, with re-
sults only partially satisfactory—which let-
ters from the Gaylord family afterward veri-
fied. We suggested that this might have been
discouraging, and she replied: "Discourage-
ment is not for Frederick."
"How do you know so much about Frederick
now?" I asked. "Ten days ago you said you
did not know him."
"Mrs. Kendal interested me in him. He is
for justice, light, and progress. My work,
too."
To my expressed hope that she found life
happier there than it had been for her here she
returned, "Yes, I was glad to come," following
the statement with the little circle so often
used by the others. She, too, said that it
meant joy. We have since learned that it
means much more, but apparently they were
educating us by degrees. In this case the joy
was not hers alone, for the renewed communion
with her brought me great gladness.
Our friendship began long ago, in a Western
city, whither she had come in search of health.
Both were young, she a few years the elder.
She was alone. I never saw any member of
her family, and we had few friends in com-
mon, but between us, from the day we met, [63]
there was a strong bond of sympathy, which
grew to deep affection, notwithstanding many
differences between us. She was more widely
read than I; I more actively in touch with
life than she. She was a church woman; I
was not. Her point of view was Eastern,
mine at that time entirely Western. Our
many disagreements were argued warmly and
at length, but at bottom each knew that she
could draw at will upon whatever strength or
resource the other possessed, and the debt in
the end was mine, when her death left a blank
to which I could never be quite reconciled.
Her brief career seemed to contradict the
law of compensation, upon which, until recent-
ly, my philosophy of life has been based.
Meticulously truthful, scrupulous in all things,
strong of purpose, giving of her best to life,
life passed her by with a shrug. Keenly sensi-
tive to beauty, whether spiritual, intellectual,
or material, she was hampered in its pursuit
by limited health and limited means. For
years she struggled with uncongenial employ-
ment of one sort or another, denying herself
the loaf she needed to procure the hyacinth she
needed more. Longing for life at its fullest
and richest, she scarcely touched its margin.
Yearning for high peaks and wide outlook, she
lived always on the plain. When, finally, the [64]
path seemed to be opening before her and she
was pleasantly established, doing a healing and
constructive work for which she was fitted,
she died suddenly, still baffled, having given
the last proof of her love for humanity by
yielding her life for it, worn out by hard work,
combating an epidemic in a college town.
Rejoiced to learn that at last she was happy,
I asked whether she could tell us of her work,
and she began, easily: "Yes, on the . . . on . . .
on the. . . ." After long difficulty she accom-
plished it. "On the perpetual tour."
When she had verified this astonishing state-
ment as correct, I suggested, "'Off ag'in, on
ag'in, gone ag'in'?"
"That's it." For an eager spirit like Mary
K.'s no happier heaven could be imagined.
Replying to further questions, she said that
it was not just luck that I had caught her that
first night. No, neither had she come to me
from the other side of the world. "I've been
working on you for a month," she said. "Ever
since V____ was here." It was considerably
more than a month, but time and place seem
to have little significance to those on her plane.
Shortly after this Annie Manning inter-
rupted again. It was said that Mary K. knew
Annie Manning and wished me to find her
brother. Inquiry developed the fact that he [65]
was the brother mentioned the first night I
used planchette. His name was given as
James Manning, and his address, Albany, New
York. "United States Ho. . . ." We could
not get beyond that. At one time the word
seemed to be "Hotel." Unable to find any
United States Hotel listed in Albany, I sug-
gested Saratoga, but this was not accepted.
Repeatedly asked to write to him, I could ob-
tain no address.
Afterward the address was given as Albany,
but not New York. Long efforts to write the
name of the state resulted in "I . . .," ending
in wavy lines. Suggestions of Illinois and
Iowa brought negatives, but the mention of
Indiana was greeted with a quick, "Yes."
Vain and fatiguing efforts to get the rest of
the address resulted in the indefinite "United
States Ho . . ." and at last I gave it up, disap-
pointed.
An hour later Annie Manning came again,
but I asked her to let me talk to Mary K.
"Here! Mary K.," was the prompt re-
sponse. "Do you remember all the good
times?" I told her I did, and thought of
them often. "All the many ae . . . an. . . ."
There I lost it. She began it many times, in
many ways. apparently trying to get a mo-
mentum that would carry her through. "All [66]
the many am . . . I mean ae . . . I meant to
say anm. . . ." Too tired to continue, again I
abandoned the attempt.
Annie Manning came once more, making
futile efforts to give me her brother's address,
She finally said it was "just United States
Home." Once she wrote, "just Home." And
once, "Honest, that's all."
I have never learned the whole truth about
Annie Manning, who ceased, after the first
fortnight, to manifest herself; whether be-
cause she lacked perseverance or because other
influences were already at work, I do not know,
The next day I took up the pencil, expect-
ing Mary Kendal, with news of her husband,
but Mary K.'s strong, underlined signature
greeted me instead, She said that Mr. Kendal
was coming, adding: "On cen . . . cent. . . ."
"Century?" I suggested. "Twentieth Cen-
tury Limited?"
"No . . . cen . . . ce . . . cent . . ." Finally,
she agreed to Century—compromised on it, I
learned later. Within five minutes a telegram
came from Mr. Kendall—the first word I had
received from him—saying that he would
arrive in New York Sunday or Monday.
When I told him of this experience he ex-
claimed: "Central! New York Central!"
Which, for some reason, had not occurred to [67]
me. At the hour when Mary K. gave me
this information he had ordered, at his club in
Chicago, a ticket for the Lake Shore Limited—
like the Twentieth Century, a New York Ce-
tral train. Later, having the ticket actually in
his possession, he telegraphed me that he
would come by that train, reaching New York
Sunday evening, but afterward changed to an-
other road.
This second message arrived Saturday after-
noon, and I at once inquired of Mary K. why
she had said "Century." Instead of her
familiar signature, however, "Frederick" was
written.
Having ascertained that this was Frederick
himself, and not a message about him, I asked
him to go on.
"The Family are happy." At no time dur-
ing this brief interview had I the slightest
inkling of what was coming. As he had been
always so courteous in acknowledgment, the
first letters led me to think he was beginning
his customary "Thank you." Saying that
their happiness added greatly to my own, I
asked if he had anything else to say.
"Yes. At your service. . . . At the next
large family reunion you both will be present,
won't you?"
I said we would try to be, and again he wrote [68]
his name, indicating that he had nothing more
to say, whereupon I called Mary K., reproached
her for inaccuracy, and asked why she had said
Mansfield Kendal would come by the Century.
Apparently despairing of penetrating such
density, she replied, merely: "He wanted to
leave to-day." Later in the afternoon she said,
"He will be perfectly ready to believe," which
seemed to me highly improbable.
Some things written that afternoon came to
my mind before they did to my fingers, and I
asked whether she could not write the messages
without first telling me what they were to be.
"Yes," she returned, "but it is harder for
us and more exhausting for you." Weeks
afterward, when this separate control of mind
and pencil had been more fully demonstrated,
it was more fully explained.
Remembering her statement that her work
took her "on perpetual tour," I asked how long
she would be here.
"I shall be near you for months," she said,
and then began again her never wholly re-
linquished effort to write the message first
attempted two days before. "Ao . . . an . . .
aon . . . aem . . . aeons ago . . ."—here she made
a frantic little joy circle—". . . we were lovers."
This surprised me, for it seemed unlike her
and was absolutely foreign to my thought, but [69]
when she had verified it, I asked: "Is reincar—
nation true, then?"
"No. Aeons ago . . . I was a friend of yours
in ____." She mentioned a person whom I have
known all my life. Again this seemed utter non-
sense, but again she verified it. "We were con-
cerned in being more and more curiously limited
. . . more and more animal." Some of this
came readily, some with halting and false starts,
which—like Frederick—she crossed out herself.
At first this, too, seemed devoid of meaning,
but after a little thought I asked whether she
meant that we had been associated in some way
as pure spirit.
"Everybody was pure spirit once, and will
be again," was the rapid reply.
"Is this life a punishment, then?"
"No, a beginning of individuality."
"Does the individual continue to exist
forever?"
"Yes."
"As pure spirit?"
"Yes."
"Then how were we associated as pure
spirit?"
"We were the same purpose."
Completely puzzled, I asked, "Why do you
say we were friends in ____?"
"He was the larger purpose, of which we [70]
were a part."
"The original. purpose is not all the same,
then?"
"No, there are many purposes in the be-
ginning, but only one in the end."
"Does Frederick know all this?"
"All of it."
When she said good night, she added, "God
bless you," and I asked: "Mary K., how do
you see God? Frederick sees Him as light in
dark places."
"Justice, light, progress."
"Is that God, or God's work?"
"Tested."
"You mean that you have tested it?"
"Yes."
The next day, Sunday—two weeks from
the day she had first talked to me through
planchette—she returned to this theme, which
still seemed somewhat fantastic to my practi-
cal and pragmatical mind, with further al-
lusions to our long association.
During the days of confusion and uncer-
tainty before Mr. Kendal replied to my tele-
gram, when his wife constantly implored me
to write to him again, and I as constantly re-
fused, insisting that she first show cause why
she had misled me about his movements and
whereabouts, I wrung from her an admission [71]
that in some way he had put her so far from
him that she neither knew nor could learn
anything about him, except that he suffered
and needed her, which both Mary K. and
Frederick verified. I said once to Mary K.
that it was incredible that this could be, to
which she laconically returned, "It can."
After his actual receipt of my telegram,
Mary Kendal never returned to me until she
came with him, and the character of her
earlier banishment, and consequent inability
to perceive his movements, was still unex-
plained.
As the hour of his arrival approached I grew
uneasy, and asked Mary K. whether he came
happily or in dread.
"Certainly with o"—the joy circle, and
as we have since learned, the circle of com-
pletion.
When I asked her to write it out in full
to reassure me, the pencil ran back, un-
derscoring "certainly." She said further
that Mary Kendal was with him, and very
happy.
"Has Mary Kendal been very unhappy?"
I asked.
"No. Aeons ago they were one purpose."
"What has that to do with it?"
"She knew that he must answer if she could [72]
reach him."
"Does that hold good of evil purpose,
too?"
"Yes."
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