My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

PREDICTIONS FULFILLED 393a lecture at Davos, and my acceptance of it, duemainly to the temptation of a week in Switzerlandfree of cost and with a pleasant party. As alreadymydescribed, this lecture was the starting-point of allsubsequent work. The very next year brought merenewed health and strength to do the work, asalready mentioned. Another year passed, and Ireceived a pressing invitation to take the chair andgive a short address at the International Congress ofSpiritualists in 1898, which I felt myself unable torefuse, and thus, as I had been told I should, I " didsomething public for spiritualism." Yet anotheryear, and a great desire for life more in the countrythan at Parkstone (where we were being surroundedby new building operations) led me to join somefriends in trying to find a locality for a kind of homecolonyof congenial persons ; and though the planwas never carried out, it led ultimately to my findingthe site on which to build my present house, and thus" get out of that hole," as I had been told by Sunshinethat I should do. And now, looking back upon theeight years of renewed health I have enjoyed, andwith constant interesting work, how can this be betterdescribed than as " the third chapter of my life ;" while"Man's Place in the Universe"—a totally new subjectfor me—may well be termed the "third chapter ofmy book," that is, of my literary work. Again, thiswholesome activity of body and mind, the obtaining abeautiful site where I am surrounded by grass andwoodland, and have a splendid view over moor andwater to distant hills and the open sea, with abundanceof pure air and sunshine, the building of a comfortablehouse in one of the choicest spots in thewhole district—surely all this was well foretold in theone word " Satisfaction." What has chiefly occupied