there are one or two out of a million who feel as I do, that life
and love are of little worth if they must end in dark nothingness,
these may perhaps have the patience to come with me through the
pages of a narrative which is neither 'incidental' nor 'sensational'
nor anything which should pertain to the modern 'romance' or
'novel,' and which has been written because the writing of it
enforced itself upon me with an insistence that would take no
denial.

Perhaps there will be at least one among those who turn over this
book, who will be sufficiently interested in the psychic--that is to
say the immortal and, therefore, the only REAL side of life--to give
a little undivided attention to the subject. To that one I address
myself and say: Will you, to begin with, drop your burden of
preconceived opinions and prejudices, whatever they are? Will you
set aside the small cares and trifles that affect your own material
personality? Will you detach yourself from your own private and
particular surroundings for a space and agree to THINK with me?
Thinking is, I know, the hardest of all hard tasks to the modern
mind. But if you would learn, you must undertake this trouble. If
you would find the path which is made fair and brilliant by the
radiance of the soul's imperishable summer, you must not grudge
time. If I try, no matter how inadequately, to show you something of
the mystic power that makes for happiness, do not shut your eyes in
scorn or languor to the smallest flash of light through your
darkness which may help you to a mastery of the secret.

I say again--Will you THINK with me? Will you, for instance, think
of Life? What is it? Of Death? What is it? What is the primary
object of Living? What is the problem solved by Dying? All these