contained solely in the object itself, which is
somehow galvanized by a complementary virtue in the medium. This being
so, we must presume that the object, having absorbed like a sponge a
portion of the spirit of the person who touched it, remains in
constant communication with him, or, more probably, that it serves to
track out, among the prodigious throng of human beings, the one who
impregnated it with his fluid, even as the dogs employed by the
police--at least so we are told--when given an article of clothing to
smell, are able to distinguish, among innumerable cross-trails, that
of the man who used to wear the garment in question. It seems more and
more certain that, as cells of one vast organism, we are connected
with everything that exists by an infinitely intricate network of
waves, vibrations, influences, currents and fluids, all nameless,
numberless and unbroken. Nearly always, in nearly all men, everything
transmitted by these invisible threads falls into the depths of the
subconsciousness and passes unperceived, which is not the same as
saying that it remains inactive. But sometimes an exceptional
circumstance, such as, in the present case, the marvellous sensibility
of a first-rate medium, suddenly reveals to us the existence of the
infinite living network by the vibrations and the undeniable operation
of one of its threads.

All this, I agree, sounds incredible, but really it is hardly any more
so than the wonders of radioactivity, of the Hertzian waves, of
photography, electricity or hypnotism, or of generation, which
condenses into a single particle all the physical, moral and
intellectual past and future of thousands of creatures. Our life would
be reduced to something very small indeed if we deliberately dismissed
from it all that our understanding is unable to embrace.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: Chap. ii.: "Psychometry."]

* * * * *

EDITH CAVELL

XVII

EDITH CAVELL[8]

1

To-day, in honouring the memory of Miss Edith Cavell, we honour not
only the heroine who fell in the midst of her labours of love and
piety, we honour also those, wherever they may be, who have
accomplished or will yet accomplish the same sacrifice and who are
ready, in like circumstances, to face a like death.

We are told by Thucydides that the Athenians of the age of
Pericles--who, to the honour of humanity be it said, had nothing in
common with the Athenians of to-day-