Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/175

Rh her death the clock which hung in her room stopped, and no one could make it go again. Some years afterwards her son died, and the very day of his death the clock again began to go without anyone having touched it." "It is strange," comments M. Flammarion, "that the spirit of someone dying or dead should be able to stop a clock or start it again." Assuredly it is more than strange. The same comment might apply to the following testimony provided by a gardener in Luneville. "A friend, when one day cleaning vegetables, seated in a chair, was struck on the knee by a turnip which was on the ground, and heard at the same instant two cries: 'Mother! Mother!' That same day her son, a soldier, was dying in our colony of Guiana; she did not hear of his death until very much later."

M. Flammarion's work is probably the most orderly, temperate and exact that has appeared on the subject of death from the point of view of the spiritualist. It has been the work of many years and its conclusions are based upon hundreds of reports, letters and declarations collected by the writer. To many readers the book will, no doubt, be convincing and inspiring, while possibly to a larger number of people the author's position will appear to be untenable, and much of the evidence