Last letters from the living dead man

THIS book, the third and last of the Living Dead Man series, was written between February, 1917, and February, 1918. Then I lost the ability--or perhaps I should say the inclination--to do automatic writing.

As this third manuscript was shorter than the other two, I had supposed it to be a fragment which would probably never be finished; and it was not until my publisher urged me to issue it as a fragment that I read it all over for the first time and discovered that it was really a complete thing, an organic whole.

“Perhaps,” I told myself, surprised and still half-incredulous, “there is a divinity that shapes our ends.” For had this book been published when it was written, it would have seemed premature; now the greater part of it is timely as yesterday’s editorials.

For the benefit of those who have not read the earlier books of the series, “Letters From a Living Dead Man,” 1914, and “War Letters From the Living Dead Man,” 1915, I will quote from the Introductions of those books. In the first Introduction I said:

“One night last year in Paris I was strongly impelled to take up a pencil and write, though what I was to write about I had no idea. Yielding to the impulse, my hand was seized as if from the outside, and a remarkable message of a personal nature came, followed by the signature ‘X.’

“The purport of the message was clear, but the signature puzzled me.

“The following day I showed this writing to a friend, asking her if she had any idea who ‘X’ was.

“‘Why,’ she replied, ‘don’t you know that that is what we always call Mr. ----?’

“I did not know.

“Now, Mr. ---- was six thousand miles from Paris, and, as we supposed, in the land of the living. But a day or two later a letter came to me from America, stating that Mr. ---- had died in the western part of the United States, a few days before I received in Paris the automatic message signed ‘X.’

“So far as I know, I was the first person in Europe to be informed of his death, and I immediately called on my friend to tell her that ‘X’ had passed out. She did not seem surprised, and told me that she had felt certain of it some days before, when I had shown her the ‘X’ letter, though she had not said so at the time.

“Naturally I was impressed by this extraordinary incident....

“But to the whole subject of communication between the two worlds I felt an unusual degree of indifference. Spiritualism had always left me quite cold, and I had not even read the ordinary standard works on the subject....

“Several letters signed ‘X’ were automatically written during the next few weeks; but, instead of becoming enthusiastic, I developed a strong disinclination for this manner of writing, and was only persuaded to continue it through the arguments of my friend that if ‘X’ really wished to communicate with the world, I was highly privileged in being able to help him....

“Gradually, as I conquered my strong prejudice against automatic writing, I became interested in the things which ‘X’ told me about the life beyond the grave....

“When it was first suggested that these letters should be published with an introduction by me, I did not take very enthusiastically to the idea. Being the author of several books, more or less well known, I had my little vanity as to the stability of my literary reputation. I did not wish to be known as an eccentric, a ‘freak.’ But I consented to write an introduction stating that the letters were automatically written in my presence, which would have been the truth, though not all the truth. This satisfied my friend; but as time went on, it did not satisfy me. It seemed not quite sincere.