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Chapter 17. Where the Mists Clear Away · The Land of Mist

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  Chapter seventeen of the Land of Mist. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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  LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Amanda Lejung The Land of Mist by
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  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Where the Mists clear away. Malone had lost his
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  billet and had found his way in Fleet Street, blocked by the rumor of
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  his independence. His place upon the staff had been taken by a young and
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  drunken jew who had at once won his spurs by a series of highly humorous
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  articles upon psychic matters, peppered with assurances that he approached the subject with a
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  perfectly open and impartial mind, his final device of offering five thousand pounds if
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  the spirits of the dead would place the three first horses in the coming derby,
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  and his demonstration that ectoplasm was in truth the froth of bottled Porter,
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  artfully concealed by the medium, are newspaper stunts which are within the recollection of
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  the reader. But the path which closed on one side had opened on the
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  other. Challenger, lost in his daring dreams and ingenious experiments, had long
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  needed an active, clear headed man to manage his business interests and to control
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  his world wide patents. There were many devices, the fruits of his life's
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  work, which brought in income but had to be carefully watched and guarded.
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  His automatic alarm for ships in shallow waters, his device for deflecting a torpedo,
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  his new and economical method of separating nitrogen from the air, his radical
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  improvements in wireless transmission, and his novel treatment of pitch blend were all money
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  makers. Enraged by the attitude of Cornelius, the Professor placed the management of
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  all these in the hands of his prospective son in law, who diligently guarded
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  his interests. Challenger himself had altered His colleagues, and those about him observed
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  the change without clearly perceiving the cause. He was a gentler, humbler,
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  and more spiritual man. Deep in his soul was the convict that he,
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  the champion of scientific method and of truth, had in fact, for many
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  years been unscientific in his methods and a formidable obstruction to the advance of the
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  human soul through the jungle of the unknown. It was this self condemnation which
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  had wrought the change in his character. Also with characteristic energy, he had
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  plunged into the wonderful literature of the subject, and as without the prejudice which
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  had formerly darkened his brain, he read the illuminating testimony of Hair De Morgan,
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  Crooks, Lombroso, Barrett Lodge, and so many other great men.
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  He marveled that he could, ever, for one instant have imagined that such
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  a consensus of opinion could be founded upon error. His violent and wholehearted nature
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  made him take up the psychic cause with the same vehemence, and even occasionally
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  the same intolerance with which he had once denounced it. And the old Lion
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  bared his teeth and roared back at those who had once been his associates.
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  His remarkable article in The Spectator began. The obtuse, incredulity and stubborn unreason
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  of the prelates who refuse to look through the telescope of Galileo and to observe
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  the moons of Jupiter have been far transcended in our own days by those noisy
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  controversialists who rashly express extreme opinions upon those psychic matters which they have never had
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  either the time or the inclination to examine, while in a final sentence,
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  he expressed his conviction that his opponents did not, in truth represent the thought
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  of the twentieth century, but might rather be regarded as mental fossils dug from
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  some early Pleiocene horizon. Critics raise their hands in horror, as is their
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  wont against the robust language of the article. Though violence of attack has for
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  so many years been condoned in the case of those who are in opposition.
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  So we may leave Challenger his black mane slowly turning to gray, but his
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  great brain growing ever stronger and more virile as it faced such problems as the
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  future had in store, a future which had ceased to be bound by the
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  narrow horizon of death, and which now stretched away into the infinite possibilities and
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  developments of continued survival of personality, character, and work. The marriage had
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  taken place. It was a quiet function, but no prophet could ever have
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  foretold the guests whom Enid's father had assembled in the Whitehall rooms. They were
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  a happy crowd, all welded together by the opposition of the world and united
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  in one common knowledge. There was the Reverend Charles Mason, who had officiated
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  at the ceremony, and if ever a saint's blessing consecrated a union, so
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  it had been that morning. Now, in his black garb, with his
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  cheery toothsome smile, he was moving about the crowd, carrying peace and kindliness
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  with him. The yellow bearded Maylie, the old warrior, scarred with many
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  combats and eager for more, stood beside his wife, the gentle squire who
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  bore his weapons and nerved his arm. There was doctor Mapui from Paris,
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  trying to make the waiter understand that he wanted coffee, and being presented with
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  tooth picks, while the gaunt Lord Roxton viewed his efforts with cynical amusement.
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  There too was the good Bolsover with several of the hammersmith's circle, and Tom
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  Lindon with his wife and Smith the fighting bulldog from the North, and doctor
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  Atkinson and Mervin the psychic editor with his kind wife, and the two Ogilvies,
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  and the little miss Delicia with her bag and her tracts, and doctor
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  Ross Scotton, now successfully cured, and doctor Felkin, who had cured him
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  so far as his earthly representative nurse Ursula could fill his place. All these
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  and many more were visible to our two inch spectrum of color and audible to
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  our four octaves of sound. How many others outside those narrow limitations may have
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  added their presence and their blessing. Who shall say one last scene before we
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  close the record? It was in a sitting room of the Imperial Hotel at
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  Folkestone. At the window sat mister and Missus Edward Malone, gazing westwards down
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  channel at an angry evening sky. Great purple tentacles, threatening forerunners from what
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  lay unseen and unknown beyond the horizon, were riving up towards the zenith below.
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  The little d'ap boat was panting eagerly homewards far out. The great ships
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  were keeping mid channel, as scenting danger to come. The vague threat of
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  that menacing sky acted subconsciously upon the minds of both of them. Tell me,
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  Enid, said Malone, of all our wonderful psychic experiences, which is
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  now most vivid in your mind. It is curious that you should ask ned,
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  for I was thinking of it at that moment. I suppose it was
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  the association of ideas with that terrible sky. It was of Miromar. I
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  was thinking the strange mystery man with his words of doom, and so was
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  I. Have you heard of him since? Once? And once only?
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  It was on a Sunday morning in Hyde Park. He was speaking to a
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  little group of men. I mixed in with the crowd and listened. It
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  was the same warning. How did they take it? Did they laugh?
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  Well, you have seen and heard him. You could not laugh, could
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  you? No? Indeed? But you don't take it seriously? Ned?
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  Do you look out at the solid old earth of England, Look at our
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  great hotel, and the people on the LEAs, and the stodgy morning papers,
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  and all the settled order of a civilized land. Do you really think
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  that anything could come to destroy it? All? Who knows? Mira mar
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  is not the only one who says so. Does he call it the end
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  of the world? No, No, it is the rebirth of the world,
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  of the true world, the world has God meant it to be.
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  It is a tremendous message. But what is amiss? Why should so dreadful
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  a judgment fall? It is the materialism, the wooden formalities of the churches,
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  the alienation of all spiritual impulses, the denial of the unseen, the
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  ridicule of this new revelation. These are the causes, according to him.
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  Surely the world has been worse before now, but never with the same advantages,
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  never with the education and knowledge and so called civilization which should have led
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  to higher things. Look how everything has turned to evil. We got the
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  knowledge of airships, We bombed cities with them. We learn how to steam
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  under the sea. We murder seamen with our new knowledge. We gain command
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  over chemicals. We turn them into explosives or poisonous gases. It goes from
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  worse to worse. At the present moment, every nation upon Earth is plotting
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  secretly how it can best poison the others. Did God create the planet for
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  this end? And is it likely that he will allow it to go on
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  from bad to worse? Is it you or Miramar talking? Now? Well?
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  I have myself been brooding over the matter, and all my thoughts seem
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  to justify his conclusions. I read a spirit message which Charles Mason wrote it
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  was the most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual
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  side is more developed than his spiritual Is that not exactly the condition of the
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  world today? And how will it come? Ah? There, I can
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  only take Miramar's word for it. He speaks of a breaking of all the
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  files. There is war, famine, pestilence, earthquake, flood, tidal
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  waves, all ending in peace and glory unutterable. The great purple streamers were
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  right across the sky, A dull, crimson glare, a lurid, angry
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  glow was spreading in the west. Enith shuddered as she watched it. One
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  thing we have learned, said he, is that two souls, where real
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  love exists, go on and on without a break through all the spheres.
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  Why then, should you and I fear death or anything which life or death
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  can bring. She smiled and put her hand in his. Why, indeed,
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  said she the end end of chapter seventeen.