On the Borderland

The Project Gutenberg eBook, On the Borderland, by F. Britten (Frederick Britten) Austin
On the Borderland
F. Britten Austin
Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923 BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO. COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY CONSOLIDATED MAGAZINES CORPORATION (THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. First Edition
TO EDWARD CECIL IN OLD FRIENDSHIP
ON THE BORDERLAND

ON THE BORDERLAND
For the last twenty minutes the after-dinner talk of the little group of men in the liner’s smoking-room had revelled in the uncanny. One man had started it, rather diffidently, with a strange yarn. Another had capped it. Then, no longer restrained by the fear of a humiliating scepticism in their audience, they gave themselves up to that mysteriously satisfying enjoyment of the inexplicably marvellous, vying with each other in stories which, as they were narrated, were no doubt more or less unconsciously modified to suit the argument, but which one and all dealt with experience that in the ultimate analysis could not be explained by the normal how and why of life.
“What do you think of all this, doctor?” said one of the story-tellers, turning suddenly to a keen-eyed elderly man who had been listening in silence. “As a specialist in mental disorders you must have had a vast experience of delusions of every kind. Is there any truth in all this business of spiritualism, automatic writing, reincarnation and the rest of it? What’s the scientific reason for it all?—for some reason there must be! People don’t tell all these stories just for fun.”
The doctor shifted his pipe in his mouth and smiled, his eyes twinkling.