Ethel C. M. Paige

“ If the bad imp hadn't gone through that sorrowful time when she despised herself for being so utterly horrid she would never be able to tell them "Yes, I know how you feel—Isn’t it dreadful? Never mind, get up and begin again. I've been there too, so now you know you're not the only one because I understand. There is a use for me—I'll be the bad imp."
Just as in those days I found a use for the bad fairy so now I found the comforting thought that I could be of vital help to others. ”

“ As I walked down the street I felt suddenly a great feeling of fatigue come over me and as if my inside were being torn out.
I had told him I knew something about mind-reading, and felt that I had had my mind snatched from me as I lay in bed at night.
He smiled kindly and said:
"Oh no, it can't be done."
"Oh yes it can," I said. "I know it has been done." ”

“ All alone I stood there while this wonderful secret of the occult world came over me.
All alone I stood and the anger at that inner life of mine—that life which I had always known as my own precious kingdom—the anger I had felt at its being so ruthlessly and cruelly rifled and torn from me in the last few months—left me to the peace of this wonder. ”

“ It would descend on me, pushing itself into my consciousness with a hard metallic feeling and its jibing, jeering voices—And then would follow another which seemed to break through and scatter the first, and this I called the "Beneficent Influence." When this came I felt calm and in harmony with the world, and the voice of my Helper would direct me in gentle little simple ways, calling me "dear." ”

“ Health was there and action and life—above all, life.
I knew then that this thought flitted somehow from the analyst's mind to mine, present in mine because of the analyst.
Sometimes I have had great rushes of tears and those were on the days when news came from abroad of terrible things happening—the tears of a nation, the anxious waiting of foreigners for the turn of events in their beloved country far away.
And sometimes I have felt a great rush of joy and laughter—a happy vitality rushing through my own. That rush of joy came the day Sydney knew that Ireland was free. ”

“ But soon after Naomi's arrival she had fallen back into her old routine again. Her life was evenly parcelled out into meditations, little domestic duties, and attending her classes.
Naomi was in a difficult position. She loved Diana for her "aloofness," the very thing I was impatient at, but she and I were chums and she liked to be with me.
"I can't stand her; she doesn't care for a soul but herself; how can you, Naomi!"
"It doesn't matter to me a bit whether people care for me or not," said Naomi, "I just like her as she is. Besides," she said, "I have lived with her before. ”

“ The voices never left me. What had become of the madman I don't know but I saw it had not been Tony.
Yet once more they began again, and again I imagined it was Tony and that his friend was afraid of bringing him home because he might be put in an asylum.
Quite determined that this should not be the case, I put on my hat and after telepathing that I would get Sybil to go down with me to the wharf to meet him, I put on my hat to go over to see her.
With my heart beating fast with anxiety I opened my front door. ”

“ And then, as I lay for fully half an hour I heard a voice out of somewhere say: "Look at her, Naomi! Is she hypnotised? Look at her. Give me your hand—Here! Look!"
It was the voice of the White Priestess and I heard Naomi's voice say:
"Tina! Tina! Are you dead? Tina! Speak!"
But I lay still, my eyes shut, obeying the voice near my pillow, painfully longing to move but determined to endure it heroically.
And then a knock came at the door and my sister, Bessie, came in.
They were anxious about me, all my family, but they thought it was imagination and that I was just "run down." ”

“ I heard the voice which, of all others, had been the most gentle—I felt it belonged to a Roman Catholic priest. Never once, through all my raging resentment and the furious epithets I threw sometimes at this church, sometimes at that, never once had it met me with anything but gentleness and patience and a feeling of peace that brought me help.
"Are you there, little girl?"
"Yes, Father, I'm here," I said with the old custom of my childhood at a convent school.
"Are you all right then?"
"Not yet. I can't get my fire to burn and my furniture is all upside down—but I don't feel lonely. ”

“ I said. "I meant all I said and I'll stand to it in open court if needed. I never meant it for you. You don't believe in those things really."
"But you meant it for my friends."
"But I'm your friend too. I thought I was a great friend."
"You shall not enter my flat till you send me a written apology."
"Very well, you'll never get that." I felt in a fury now. Such idiotic nonsense as a written apology for a letter that had been written merely to make up a quarrel!
"Don't be silly, Naomi," I said crumpling up and laughing again. It was so absurdly melodramatic. ”

“ I knew it was one of the views of the Occult School that no feelings should be personal, that to love one person humanely was a thing to be withstood, and to love anyone for their faulty little ways which gave them individuality in my eyes was a thing they considered verged on madness.
The White Priestess and her School had evidently taken charge here. I was not only "of the earth, earthy," but a most reprehensible person because I had a romantic nature and loved Naomi a little for her artistic value and her many little human weaknesses. ”

“ It seems indeed probable that the human soul, at death, does at first pass, with its cloud-vesture of memories and qualities, into some intermediate region, and for a long period, does remain there quiescent, surveying its past, recovering from the shocks and outrages of mortal experience, knitting up and smoothing out the broken and tangled threads, trying hard to understand the pattern. It seems probable that there is a long period of digestion and reconcilement and slow brooding over the new life which has to be formed. ”

“ But Tony laughed and looked shy.
"No, no, no, no," he said, "you musn't. If you let yourself give way to these things you'll become very ill—You must not do it, Tina!"
I felt horribly crushed. I had longed all my life to be an actress especially of this kind, and could so well catch the spirit of it—all the little arch and coquettish turns of the head and hands, tricks of voice and manner, and quaint little dancing movements of the body.
But Tony was firm. He was sorry for me I could see. He went away early and asked me to write to him again soon and tell him how I was. ”

“ He was the soul of honour I knew, and had never had a chance to strike out on his own.
"But what does it all mean, Tony?" I asked, for my mind could not keep off these extraordinary happenings I had been through.
"Just that you have become mediumistic," he said.
"Oh, rubbish!" I said, for I had never believed in spirits, or fairies or any of the things occultists are so fond of talking about. "But what is it for? I thought it was you."
"Don't associate me with any of these nightly visitors," he said seriously and firmly. "I tell you you have become mediumistic. You can't help it. ”

“ I said, "here they think too much of vibrations and dreams and visions and rubbish. I like open air and the good old material world with its solid earth," and I looked at Naomi as I said "I like people who take simple things as simple things and don't see hidden meanings in trifles."
Naomi's eyes hardened and I could feel from that minute that there was no hope of peace. The quarrel was "on" again and the brief peace was gone.
"You're quite right. Keep to good material earthly things—it's much better. It's not safe to dabble in the occult," said Alice. ”

“ Terrified and gasping I held up the little cross on my rosary to the thing I imagined in the corner of the room and made with it the sign of the cross. But not till I called to my mother did I feel that the awful thing which seemed to shiver at the knowledge of the rosary, crouched and shivered and vanished through the window. ”

“ On Saturday afternoon just as I was watching the evening haze come over the harbour and the lights begin to twinkle one by one, there came a knock at the door and Alice Griffiths was there.
"Oh! I am glad to see you," I said, and drew her in—"I'm going! And you'll never guess who is the cause."
She looked perplexed.
"Naomi," I said in answer.
Without knowing why I did it except that she was someone to confide in, I told her the whole trouble.
"What it is, you know, you were too fond of her. You know she was just the same with me some time ago. You're too romantic. ”

“ One day, as I came down the path towards her front door, she came forward with a newspaper cutting.
"Oh, I thought you were Diana," she said, and drew back with a hard look in her eyes. "I was going to tell her of this I had found in my newspaper—a beautiful thing about the healing of trees and plants."
"Show me," I said, and held out my hand; but she drew it back.
"No," she said, looking almost angry, "you would try to spoil my faith in it; I won't let you see it." ”

“ There were the times of the "forty hours watch" with the quiet kneeling figures—one nun each side of the aisle and one girl at each side, kneeling at her prie-dieu with bent veiled head, chosen to take her share in relieving—Then there was the hour of Benediction, when the whole school walked silently in in steady order and took their places, the nuns behind them in the back rows, and the officiating priest, with the afternoon sunlight streaming through the coloured windows and resting on his head, as, with his back turned to us, he muttered through his prayers, his face upturned to the altar. ”

“ She was a faddist about food too, not liking to eat fruit or vegetables that did not come straight from the garden. Such chastity, O Diana! Such a Puritan that she became a statue. If I spoke to her she paused and sometimes seemed to forget to answer. It could not always have been that she did not hear.
One day, when we three were together, and Naomi told a funny story, Diana laughed and told another. Turning to her for sympathy, I capped it with another. The Priestess shut up like an oyster. Naomi was walking in front at the time and I was at the Priestess' side. ”

“ They used to talk to me like friends.
"Who are you expecting to-day?" they asked.
"David—just David," I said.
"We know who David is," they said.
"No you don't."
"Yes, we do."
Then would come a spiteful angry voice: "You old hen! As if anyone wants to talk to you. You give back that Rosary."
But the other voices would say:
"Is David very wonderful?"
"Yes," I said, "he can give you strength. He always makes me feel stronger when I am near him."
"We want to know David, Bunty Blue," they said. "Do you think he would help us?"
"He helps everybody," I said. ”

“ And then, out of the stillness, came a little gentle voice, full of wistful pathos.
"Oh, Tina Malone! Don't you know yet who it is? Oh, Tina Malone! We are together at last. Don't you know that our spirits have met and that it is through the things of the Occult World?"
The little voice had the silence all to itself. ”

“ And then the Miracle.
I looked up at the Heavens and my spirit seemed to float farther and farther away right up among the stars, and stay there for a long long pause.
The whole sky seemed to listen to the silence. ”

“ As I write this and look back and know how my people looked on, worried and distressed, thinking it was all imagination, and telling me to forget all these ideas, I think "How little we know of what is passing in another's mind though they are standing beside us, and how helpless we are when we try to voice our troubles and they will not understand." ”

“ There I sat as I had sat all day, in my dressing-gown, huddled up in the corner of the sofa, made to feel that every movement I made gave pain to someone else—somewhere, anywhere—far away—The whole day long, although I was hungry and longed to get dressed, I sat there. ”

“ But in a pause I found myself moving my hands about in gestulation and once more the little song came forth.
I stood up and found myself singing the most charming little things, all the piquancy of movement, modulation, rhythm and spirit of a charming actress of opera bouffe. ”