Just before leaving she mentioned auras, and asked me what hers was like.
I told her honestly that it was peculiar, lopsided, and bulging on one side.
She laughed and said she knew that, because "Elsie" always chaffed her about it, saying, "You wear your halo all awry." This was very interesting confirmation of my power to see auras correctly. I don't know "Elsie," I don't even know her name, which has been kept a secret, but we evidently see Miss L.'s aura in exactly the same peculiar form.
The other day I was sitting reading by the window, and as I moved in my chair I caught sight, "with the tail of my eye," of something bright at the other end of the room. A patch of light about a foot deep, and two feet long was coming from behind the edge of a tall screen that hid a door. I rose and walked out of the room. Behind the screen was a maid, whom I had not heard enter the open door. She was busy over some quiet work, and it was her aura that I had seen, though she herself was hidden from view.
Once before in my life my attention has been drawn to the aura of one whom I could not at the moment see in the flesh.
I happened to be passing a glove shop in the south of France, and as I strolled slowly past the door a blaze of yellow gold inside the shop caught my eye, and attracted my attention. I paused at once and looked through the open door. This great golden aura belonged to the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who was standing at the counter. Her back was turned towards me, and I stood for a minute watching this aura of a woman whose restless imagination, and passionate love for the bitter wine of liberty, brought her finally to an absolutely fitting death. I believe she would have chosen this death before all others, for at heart she was a born anarchist. She fell painlessly by the dagger of anarchism.
One effect of being able to see auras is that they fix certain incidents firmly in the mind. I remember one such incident very clearly. I was staying at Hawarden with the Gladstones whilst the Irish troubles of '82 were at their height. One afternoon we were all assembled on the lawn having tea; Mr. Gladstone was standing rather apart, his hands full of papers, which had just been brought to him. I saw him unfold what looked like a large poster, glance at it, then suddenly he dashed it to the ground and stamped viciously upon it. I heard him give vent to some exclamations of intense anger, but had I heard nothing I could not have failed to know he was desperately annoyed over something, for he was suddenly wrapped in a brilliant crimson cloud, through which sharp flashes like lightning darted hither and thither. He was "seeing red."
I remember Mrs. Gladstone murmuring something about "posters being torn down in Ireland," but I was too thrilled over her husband's aura to pay much heed to what she said. I shall never forget that scene, and the practical disappearance of Mr. Gladstone in the enveloping folds of a great red cloud. In a minute or two he emerged, and resumed his habitual aura, which extended to about two and a half feet beyond his head, and was largely tinged with purple.
At Hawarden Church on Sunday, whilst he read the lessons, I watched his aura with much interest, because it changed so continuously, and I discovered that this change arose out of his absorption in what he read. Only one little example can I remember to illustrate what I mean. "And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he would not let the people go."
In reading those words aloud Mr. Gladstone's aura deepened to red, and I saw he was very indignant with Pharaoh's behavior. During the sermon he sat facing us in our pew, and in a chair just beneath the pulpit, and I could tell by watching his aura just how he felt about the discourse.