Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/806

766 Sienna, Saint Teresa, and other holy women, she was specially attracted to the spiritual and devotional aspect of the Catholic Faith. Neither did her devotion to the spiritual element unfit her for the practical side of things: quite the contrary. Like Saint Teresa, side by side with her religious life, she was a remarkably shrewd woman of business. It need scarcely be added that between so-called "spiritualism"' as practised in England and the Catholicism of Lady Burton there was a great gulf fixed, and one which she proved to be unbridgable. This lower form of spiritualism, to use her own words, "can only act as a decoy to a crowd of sensation-seekers, who yearn to see a ghost as they would go to see a pantomime." Such things she considered, when not absolutely farcical, worked for evil, and not for good. As she wrote to a friend:

"That faculty you have about the spirits, though you may ignore it, is the cause of your constant misfortunes. I have great experience and knowledge in these matters. As soon as you are happy these demons of envy, spite, and malicious intention attack you for evil ends, and ruin your happiness to get hold of your body and soul. Never practise or interest yourself in these matters, and debar them from your house by prayer and absolute non-hearing or seeing them. . ..

Do not treat my words lightly, because I have had experience of it myself, and I had untold misfortune until I did as I advise you. The more God loves you, the more will this spirit hate and pursue you and want you for his own. Drive him forth and resist him. . . . There is a spiritualism (I hate the word!)