Raymond; or, Life and Death. Sir Oliver Lodge
Читать онлайн книгу.
an entire stranger. This is the sole object of this portion. The letters are not supposed to be remarkable; though as a picture of part of the life at the Front during the 1915 phase of the war they are interesting, as many other such letters must have been.
The second part gives specimens of what at present are considered by most people unusual communications; though these again are in many respects of an ordinary type, and will be recognised as such by other bereaved persons who have had similar messages. In a few particulars, indeed, those here quoted have rather special features, by reason of the assistance given by the group of my friends "on the other side" who had closely studied the subject. It is partly owing to the urgency therein indicated that I have thought it my duty to speak out, though it may well be believed that it is not without hesitation that I have ventured thus to obtrude family affairs. I should not have done so were it not that the amount of premature and unnatural bereavement at the present time is so appalling that the pain caused by exposing one's own sorrow and its alleviation, to possible scoffers, becomes almost negligible in view of the service which it is legitimate to hope may thus be rendered to mourners, if they can derive comfort by learning that communication across the gulf is possible. Incidentally I have to thank those friends, some of them previously unknown, who have in the same spirit allowed the names of loved ones to appear in this book, and I am grateful for the help which one or two of those friends have accorded. Some few more perhaps may be thus led to pay critical attention to any assurance of continued and happy and useful existence which may reach them from the other side.
The third part of the book is of a more expository character, and is designed to help people in general to realise that this subject is not the bugbear which ignorance and prejudice have made it, that it belongs to a coherent system of thought full of new facts of which continued study is necessary, that it is subject to a law and order of its own, and that though comparatively in its infancy it is a genuine branch of psychological science. This third part is called "Life and Death," because these are the two great undeniable facts which concern everybody, and in which it is natural for every one to feel a keen interest, if they once begin to realise that such interest is not futile, and that it is possible to learn something real about them. It may be willingly admitted that these chapters are inadequate to the magnitude of the subject, but it is hoped that they are of a usefully introductory character.
The "In Memoriam" chapter of Part I is no doubt chiefly of interest to family and friends; but everybody is very friendly, and under the circumstances it will be excused.
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Raymond | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| Raymond when Two Years Old | 8 |
| Raymond, 1915 | 78 |
| Group of Officers, as Sent Us by Mrs. Cheves on December 7, | |
| 1915, Showing an Arm Resting on Raymond's Shoulder | 110 |
| Another Edition of the Group-Photograph, with | |
| Shoulder Instead of Hand | 112 |
| Group Subsequently Obtained, Evidently Taken at the | |
| Same Time, but Pressure on Shoulder Removed | 114 |
| Mariemont | 224 |
| Raymond and Brodie with the Pigeons at Mariemont | 224 |
| Large Double-Compartment Tent in Its First Form (1905) | |
| (Built at Mariemont and Taken to Woolacombe) | 250 |
| The Tent in Its Second Form (1906) Made out of the Remains | |
| of the First | 250 |
| First Edition of the Sandboat (1906) at Woolacombe, with | |
| Alec on Board | 252 |
| Rising Ground Behind Older Tents on Woolacombe Beach | 252 |
| "Grandfather W." | 258 |
| "Mr. Jackson" with M.F. A.L. at Mariemont | 258 |
| Second Edition of Sandboat, at Mariemont, Before Being | |
| Unshipped and Taken to Woolacombe, 1907 | 260 |
| Raymond Working at the Sandboat in the Boys' Laboratory | |
| at Mariemont | 260 |
| "Curly" and "Vix." Curly being the Shaggy One. Vix was | |
| the Mother of Raymond's Dog "Larry" | 278 |
| Raymond in His "Nagant" Motor, 1913. | |
| Outside a Friend's House in Somersetshire | 278 |
PART ONE: NORMAL PORTION
"And this to fill us with regard for man,
With apprehension of his passing worth."
Browning, Paracelsus.
CHAPTER I
IN MEMORIAM
THE bare facts are much as reported in The Times:—
Second Lieutenant Raymond Lodge was the youngest son of Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge, and was by taste and training an engineer. He volunteered for service in September 1914 and was at once given a commission in the 3rd South Lancashires. After training near Liverpool and Edinburgh, he went to the Front in the early spring of 1915, attached to the 2nd South Lancashire Regiment of the Regular Army, and was soon in the trenches near Ypres or Hooge. His engineering skill was of service in details of trench construction, and he later was attached to a Machine-Gun Section for a time, and had various escapes from shell fire and shrapnel. His Captain having sprained an ankle, he was called back to Company work, and at the time of his death was in command of a Company engaged in some early episode of an attack or attempted advance which was then beginning. He was struck by a fragment of shell in the attack on Hooge Hill on the 14th September 1915,