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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Prophet of Berkeley Square"

"
"The tight-lacers?"
"They get red noses, poor things, and disappear. They're not permanent
enough to count as the very silliest."
"I give it up."
"The Spiritualists and the Christian Scientists. That's why I love them
best, and spend most of my double life with them. How you would get on
with them! How much at ease you would be in their midst!"
"Really! But aren't they in opposite camps?"
"Dear things! They often think so, I believe. But really they aren't.
Half the Christian Scientists begin as Spiritualists. And a great many
Spiritualists were once Christian Scientists."
"Which are you?"
"Both, of course."
"Dear me!"
"As you will be when you've got thoroughly into your double life. Well,
my greatest friend--in my double life, you understand--is a Mrs. Vane
Bridgeman, a Christian Scientist and Spiritualist. She is very rich,
and magnificently idiotic. She supports all foolish charities. She has
almshouses for broken-down mediums on Sunnington Common in Kent. She
has endowed a hospital for sick fortune-tellers. She gave five hundred
pounds to the home for indigent thought-readers, and nearly as much to
the 'Palmists' Seaside Retreat' at Millaby Bay near Dover.


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