_'Gentry' Control Over Human Affairs._--'The _gentry_ take a great
interest in the affairs of men, and they always stand for justice and
right. Any side they favour in our wars, that side wins. They favoured
the Boers, and the Boers did get their rights. They told me they
favoured the Japanese and not the Russians, because the Russians are
tyrants. Sometimes they fight among themselves. One of them once said,
"I'd fight for a friend, or I'd fight for Ireland."'
_The 'Gentry' Described._--In response to my wish, this description of
the 'gentry' was given:--'The folk are the grandest I have ever seen.
They are far superior to us, and that is why they are called the
_gentry_. They are not a working class, but a military-aristocratic
class, tall and noble-appearing. They are a distinct race between our
own and that of spirits, as they have told me. Their qualifications are
tremendous. "We could cut off half the human race, but would not," they
said, "for we are expecting salvation." And I knew a man three or four
years ago whom they struck down with paralysis. Their sight is so
penetrating that I think they could see through the earth. They have a
silvery voice, quick and sweet. The music they play is most beautiful.
They _take_ the whole body and soul of young and intellectual people who
are interesting, transmuting the body to a body like their own. I asked
them once if they ever died, and they said, "No; we are always kept
young." Once they take you and you taste food in their palace you cannot
come back. You are changed to one of them, and live with them for ever.
They are able to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me, and
seemed only four feet high, and stoutly built. He said, "I am bigger
than I appear to you now. We can make the old young, the big small, the
small big." One of their women told all the secrets of my family. She
said that my brother in Australia would travel much and suffer
hardships, all of which came true; and foretold that my nephew, then
about two years old, would become a great clergyman in America, and that
is what he is now. Besides the _gentry_, who are a distinct class, there
are bad spirits and ghosts, which are nothing like them. My mother once
saw a leprechaun beside a bush hammering. He disappeared before she
could get to him, but he also was unlike one of the _gentry_.'[16]
EVIDENCE FROM GRANGE
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