kept them at home. I waited until ten, then came up here, and now Mother has been, to give me my dose. I was sitting in my night-dress when she came, and had the rug about me, and because I had taken off my gown my locket showed at my throat. She noticed that, of course, and said, ‘Really, Margaret! To think of all the handsome pieces of jewellery you have, that I never see on you, and yet you still wear that old thing!’ I said, ‘But I had this from Pa,’—I didn’t tell her about the curl of pale hair that lies inside it, she doesn’t know I have that. She said, ‘But, such a plain old thing!’ She asked me, if I wanted a keepsake of my father, why I never wore the brooches or the rings she had had made up after he died? I didn’t answer her, but tucked the locket inside my gown. It was very cold against the bare flesh of my bosom.
And as I drank the chloral for her, I saw her looking at the pictures I have pinned at the side of my desk, and then at this book. I had closed the covers, but had my pen between the pages to keep the place. ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘What are you writing there?’ She said it was unhealthy to sit at a journal so long; that it would throw me back upon my own dark thoughts and weary me. I thought, If you don’t want me to grow weary, then why do you give me medicine to make me sleep? But I did not say it. I only shut the book away—then took it out again when she had gone.
Two days ago, Priscilla put a novel aside and Mr Barclay picked it up, and turned its pages, and laughed at it. He does not care for lady authors. All women can ever write, he says, are ‘journals of the heart’—the phrase has stayed with me. I have been thinking of my last journal, which had so much of my own heart’s blood in it; and which certainly took as long to burn as human hearts, they say, do take. I mean this book to be different to that one. I mean this writing not to turn me back upon my own thoughts, but to serve, like the chloral, to keep the thoughts from coming at all.
And oh! it would do, it would do, were it not for the queer reminders Millbank has thrown at me to-day. For I have catalogued my visit, I have traced my path across the female gaol, as I have before; but the work has not soothed me—it has made my brain sharp as a hook, so that all that my thoughts pass over they seem to catch at and set wriggling. ‘Think of us,’ said Dawes to me last week, ‘the next time you are wakeful’—and now, as wakeful as she could wish me, I do. I think of all the women there, upon the dark wards of the prison; but where they should be silent, and still, they are restless and pacing their cells. They are looking for ropes to tie about their own throats. They are sharpening knives to cut their flesh with. Jane Jarvis, the prostitute, is calling to White, two floors below her; and Dawes is murmuring the queer verses of the wards. Now my mind has caught the words up—I think I shall recite them with her, all night long.
What sorts of grain best suit stiff soils?
What is that acid which dissolves silver?
What is relief , and how should shadows fall?
12 October 1872
Common Questions and their Answers
on the Matter of the Spheres
by
The Spirit-Medium’s Friend
Where does a spirit travel when it leaves the body that has held it?
It travels to the lowest sphere that all new souls must come to.
How does the spirit remove there?
It removes there in the company of one of those guides or guardian spirits whom we call angels .
How does the lowest sphere appear to the spirit that is fresh departed from the earth?
It appears to it as a place of great calmness, brightness, colour, joy, &c ., any pleasant quality may be substituted here, this sphere has all of them.
By whom in this sphere is the new spirit received & made welcome?
On attaining this sphere, the spirit is taken by the guide that we have spoken of to a place wherein are gathered all those friends &
And as I drank the chloral for her, I saw her looking at the pictures I have pinned at the side of my desk, and then at this book. I had closed the covers, but had my pen between the pages to keep the place. ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘What are you writing there?’ She said it was unhealthy to sit at a journal so long; that it would throw me back upon my own dark thoughts and weary me. I thought, If you don’t want me to grow weary, then why do you give me medicine to make me sleep? But I did not say it. I only shut the book away—then took it out again when she had gone.
Two days ago, Priscilla put a novel aside and Mr Barclay picked it up, and turned its pages, and laughed at it. He does not care for lady authors. All women can ever write, he says, are ‘journals of the heart’—the phrase has stayed with me. I have been thinking of my last journal, which had so much of my own heart’s blood in it; and which certainly took as long to burn as human hearts, they say, do take. I mean this book to be different to that one. I mean this writing not to turn me back upon my own thoughts, but to serve, like the chloral, to keep the thoughts from coming at all.
And oh! it would do, it would do, were it not for the queer reminders Millbank has thrown at me to-day. For I have catalogued my visit, I have traced my path across the female gaol, as I have before; but the work has not soothed me—it has made my brain sharp as a hook, so that all that my thoughts pass over they seem to catch at and set wriggling. ‘Think of us,’ said Dawes to me last week, ‘the next time you are wakeful’—and now, as wakeful as she could wish me, I do. I think of all the women there, upon the dark wards of the prison; but where they should be silent, and still, they are restless and pacing their cells. They are looking for ropes to tie about their own throats. They are sharpening knives to cut their flesh with. Jane Jarvis, the prostitute, is calling to White, two floors below her; and Dawes is murmuring the queer verses of the wards. Now my mind has caught the words up—I think I shall recite them with her, all night long.
What sorts of grain best suit stiff soils?
What is that acid which dissolves silver?
What is relief , and how should shadows fall?
12 October 1872
Common Questions and their Answers
on the Matter of the Spheres
by
The Spirit-Medium’s Friend
Where does a spirit travel when it leaves the body that has held it?
It travels to the lowest sphere that all new souls must come to.
How does the spirit remove there?
It removes there in the company of one of those guides or guardian spirits whom we call angels .
How does the lowest sphere appear to the spirit that is fresh departed from the earth?
It appears to it as a place of great calmness, brightness, colour, joy, &c ., any pleasant quality may be substituted here, this sphere has all of them.
By whom in this sphere is the new spirit received & made welcome?
On attaining this sphere, the spirit is taken by the guide that we have spoken of to a place wherein are gathered all those friends &
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