It only remains to be added that the present great interest in spiritualism and allied phenomena has made necessary the addition of certain material of a "literal" character which we believe will be found quite as interesting by the general reader as the purely literary portion of the book.
THE SECOND GENERATION _Algernon Blackwood_
THE CLAVECIN--BRUGES _George Wharton Edwards_
PHOTOGRAPHING INVISIBLE BEINGS _William T. Stead_
THE PHANTOM ARMIES SEEN IN FRANCE _Hereward Carrington_
THE PORTAL OF THE UNKNOWN _Andrew Jackson Davis_
THE SUPERNORMAL: EXPERIENCES _St. John D. Seymour_
SOME REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES OF FAMOUS PERSONS _Dr. Walter F. Prince_
War, that relentless disturber of boundaries and of traditions in a spiritual as well as a material sense, has brought a tremendous revival of interest in the life after death and the possibility of communication between the living and the dead. As France became nearer to millions over here because our soldiers lived there for a few months, as French soil will forever be holy ground because our dead rest there, so the far country of the soul likewise seems nearer because of those young adventurers. The conflict which changed the map of Europe has in the minds of many effaced the boundaries between this world and the world beyond. Winifred Kirkland, in her book, _The New Death_, discusses the new concept of death, and the change in our standards that it is making. "We are used to speaking of this or that friend's philosophy of life; the time has now come when every one of us who is to live at peace with his own brain must possess also a philosophy of death." This New Death, she says, is so far mainly an immense yearning receptivity, an unprecedented humility of brain and of heart toward all implications of survival. She believes that it is an influence which is entering the lives of the people as a whole, not a movement of the intellectuals, nor the result of psychical research propaganda, but arising from the simple, elemental emotions of the soul, from human love and longing for reassurance of continued life.
"If a man die, shall he live again?" has been propounded ever since Job's agonized inquiry. Now numbers are asking in addition, "Can we have communication with the dead?" Science, long derisive, is sympathetic to the questioning, and while many believe and many doubt, the subject is one that interests more people than ever before. Professor James Hyslop, Secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research, believes that the war has had great influence in arousing new interest in psychical subjects and that tremendous spiritual discoveries may come from it.