hing of the miserable discomfort of the trip
(which in those days had to be made in an overcrowded cargo boat.) I
took a chill in those Arctic regions, which later developed into the
longest and most serious illness of my life. It took months to make even
a partial recovery, and the effects will remain during my life. Yet I
have never regretted my decision.

This little episode seems to throw some light upon the way such warnings
should be treated. To give no heed to them on the one hand, or to follow
them blindly, _in spite of every other consideration_, on the other;
these seem to me the Scylla and Charybdis of our lives. It shows that we
_must_ judge for ourselves; we cannot shift the burden of responsibility
on any other shoulders. How could we gain the real education of life
were it otherwise?

Had I turned my back on Alaska I should have gained enormously,
physically speaking, and yet failed in a moral test. But my dear old
nurse, who considered only--probably _saw_ only--the physical evils to
be avoided, was entirely in the right, _from her standpoint_. The
faithful soul was doing her best to shield her nursling from danger.

A severe illness was entailed by my Alaska experiences. "Livingstone and
Stanley" were once more separated. In other words, Miss Greenlow was
obliged to return to England alone, leaving me to be nursed through a
long and painful illness by kind friends and connections in Toronto. One
of my doctors--the brother of my hostess--kindly made time to take me
and my nurse to New York, in order that he might put me under the
special care of the ship's doctor, and also be able to certify, as
required, that I was in a fit condition to undertake the voyage.

It was during the day or two spent in New York before sailing, that I
induced this gentleman to accompany me one evening to a _seance_ held by
Mrs Stoddart Gray, who has been previously mentioned in this narrative.

Dr Theodore Covernton had all the ordinary doctor's prejudices against
anything unseen or unknown. He had read my book on America, and
considered the chapter on "Spiritualism" a lamentable lapse "from the
good sense shown in the rest of the book!" I represented to him that for
a physician to deny all possibilities of Hypnotism or Mesmerism, Thought
Transmission, etc., meant losing some very valuable aids in his
profession, and would probably soon mean being left pretty badly behind
in the race.

Knowing of no specially good hypnot