Buoyed up by the growing sentiment of agreement, as proved by the very profitable sales of his works, Sir Oliver Lodge, in _Raymond_, gave the world a vast amount of detail about the land beyond the grave. He did not guarantee it, it is true. That is not his way. But he assured the public that his mediums were undoubtedly "in touch" with his dead son, and the Spiritualist public must be pardoned if they understood that all the marvellous matter put out in the name of Raymond was to be taken seriously. The message was really ingenious. Raymond was, unhappily, not merely unable to give "direct voice" communications, as Sir A. C. Doyle's son is believed to have done, but he could not even directly communicate through Mrs. Leonard, the medium. He used as an intermediary the spirit of a child named "Feda"; and, of course, when one has to use a child--and such an irresponsible, lisping, foolish little child as "Feda"--as intermediary, you must not press the message literally in every part. The method had the advantage of pleasing Spiritualists, who found a complete confirmation of all their speculations about ghost-land, and at the same time disarming critics, because Raymond was not really responsible. Many people did not fully realize this when they bore down heavily and contemptuously on the description of the next world which is given in _Raymond_. The deceased young officer had a "nice doggie," which he brought along with him when he strolled to the medium's shop to send a message to his distinguished father. Presently the medium added a "cat," though she said nothing about a cats'-meat man. Raymond had also what I believe young officers call "a bird"--a young lady acquaintance on spiritual terms. There were cows in the spirit meadows and flowers in the gardens. Our "damaged flowers," we are told, pass over to the other side and raise their heads once more gloriously. Why they flower if there are no bees, whether they have chlorophyll circulating in their leaves, whether the soil is sandy or clayey, etc., we are not told. The information comes in chance clots, as if Raymond were too busy with ethereal billiards to study the natural history of ghostland very closely. We are told to picture Raymond in a real suit of clothes. He was offered the orthodox white sheet, which every right-minded spirit wears; but he had a British young man's repugnance to that sort of thing. So in the laboratories on the other side they made Raymond an ordinary suit, out of "damaged worsted" which we earthly wastrels had no use for. For other young officers, with less refined tastes, they manufactured whisky-and-soda and cigars. "Don't think I'm stretching it," Raymond observed to his father, through "Feda" and Mrs. Leonard. The father does not say what he thought.