where in the wind--the picture is complete in every detail in my mind to this day. His reasoning powers were slight, for like all true mystics he believed in the intuitive perception of truth; but, coming into my life just at this time, he came with influence and a good deal of stimulus too. From the "House of Commons" to his dream-laden atmosphere provided a contrast that brought relief, at any rate.
This mystical minor poet in the cement business had several friends like himself, but no one of them possessed his value, because no one of them practised their beliefs. They talked well and were sincere up to a point, but not to the point of making sacrifices for their faith. It was always with them a future hope. One, however, must be excepted--a woman. She was over sixty and always dressed in black, with crêpe scattered all over her, and a large white face, and shining eyes, and great bags under them. She had been a vegetarian for years. In spite of her size she looked so ethereal that a puff of wind might have blown her across the street. All her friends and relations had "passed over," and her thoughts were evidently centred in the beyond, so far as she herself was concerned. She had means of her own, but spent most of them in helping others. There was no humbug about her. She claimed to have what she called "continuous consciousness," and at night, when her body lay down and the brain slept, she focused her Self in some spiritual region of her being, and never lost consciousness. She saw her body lying there, and knew the brain was asleep, but she meanwhile became active elsewhere, for she declared a spirit could never sleep, and it was only the body that became too weary at the end of the day to answer to the spirit's requirements. In sleep the body, left empty by the spirit, slept, and memory, being in the brain, became inactive. But as soon as one had learned to realize one's spirit, sleep involved no loss of consciousness and memory was continuous.
Her accounts of her experiences in the night thrilled
me.... While she talked her face grew so white that it
