Chapter XXI: My Life and Experiences on Earth

My Friends,—Bearing the fraternal greetings of not only myself but hosts of higher spirits, whose pleasure and duty it is to mingle with you here, and who strive to teach you wisdom and knowledge concerning the highest, grandest phase of human existence, that of the immortal soul, I come laden with the experiences of a modicum of time passed in the super-mundane spheres, and crave an opportunity of unfolding them before you,—not with a desire for earthly recognition or adulation,—but with the hope that I may be enabled to show humanity the reality of those conditions that we aggregate to ourselves while in mortal, and their practical effects on the soul, trusting that I may enlighten you somewhat as to _real life_, and its mode of manifestation in the upper spheres; for it is time that mortals should understand more of the life to which they are going.

It is now[9] a period of seventy years since I, John Critchley Prince, was born upon the earthly plane, at Wigan, Lancashire, England, of poor, hard-working, honest parents. My only schooling was given me at a Baptist Sunday school, where I received a slight knowledge of reading and writing. But as I read with avidity all sorts of books that happened to fall in my way, I acquired a certain command of language, and knowledge of composition, that served in after years as a noble substitute for the education I was unable to procure, and which I always craved. At the early age of nine years I was obliged to labor for my living as a reed-maker for weavers, at which I was kept busy for sixteen hours per day, and my only opportunity for indulging in the luxury of reading was stolen from sleep.

Footnote 9:

The above was written in the spring of 1878.

In 1821 I accompanied my father to Manchester, where we both obtained employment as machinists. There, for the first time, I came across a copy of Byron’s works, which I devoured with astonishing rapidity, drinking in and retaining all the glory, fire, and beauty of those exquisite lines, and their delicate imagery, that made Byron, despite his faults, one of nature’s poets. What a world of delight, what a scene of enchantment was for the first time opened before me. I seemed to breathe a new atmosphere, one that thrilled my being to its very center; and while reveling in the new fields of splendor I had found, I forgot my poverty and toil; my soul stood forth erect in its conscious dignity and pride, feeling itself to be no longer a poor, toiling slave, but a creature of the universe, with powers and capabilities of expansion and growth. It was then I determined that some day I would sing my songs, and give them forth to the world.

But my life went on in the old routine, still toiling in the shop, and dreaming my dreams all unknown to others, until my father again changed his abode to Hyde, taking me with him. There, in the early flush of awakening manhood, ere nineteen summers had passed over my head, came to my waiting soul that most exquisite of all life’s experiences, “Love’s young dream.” It came upon me like the first sweet dewy blush of early morn, bathing my spirit in a flood-tide of ineffable glory, and thrilling my heart with that ecstatic bliss that I think none but a poetic soul, attuned in harmony with nature and her works, and thus enabled to find happiness in spite of toil or sorrow, can fully realize. And here let me say that to this day, returning as I do from the immortal shore, I thank God for that experience of true, heartfelt emotion. It accompanied me through all my life like the melody of a happy song, and thrilled my despairing soul with its sweetness. It ran through my evil days of wrong-doing like a golden thread, and with its sparkling light revealed to me the glory and honor, the sweetness and purity, of life that might have been mine.

It is useless for me to attempt to depict the image of my charmer to you. To others, she was only a neighbor’s lassie, good enough and pretty in her way, but nothing uncommon. To me she was all that was fair and canny, and as beautiful and good as Eve appeared to her Adam, in all her innocent purity of expression on that first awakening which we are told of in the beautiful allegory of old.

In 1827 I was united to my dear one, and we commenced life anew, as happy as two birds; and, though from my poetic fancy and ardent temperament, I was led to look for more happiness in a life of conjugal felicity than it is possible for mortals to attain, yet, upon the whole, my domestic life was a blessing to my inner self, and in its bowers I wove some of the sweetest garlands that graced my name.

Poverty and toil, with their train of evils, still attended me, and in 1830, work being slack at home, I went to Picardy, leaving my family of wife and three children. The revolution had paralyzed trade in France, and it was impossible to procure employment there; consequently, after experiencing much suffering, I returned home only to find my family in a workhouse, from whence I removed them to a Manchester garret, where we would have starved had it not been for the labors of my wife at power-loom weaving. That was a time of misery. At length I obtained temporary employment, and our prospects began to brighten a little, but through all my life a scarcity of remunerative work seemed to attend me like a fatality.

During my residence at Manchester I began to contribute short poetic pieces to the local papers and periodicals, which, by the kindness of friends, and those powerful in government affairs, whose attention was first called to me by the perusal of my literary productions, were issued in volumes from time to time. The first of these, “Hours with the Muses,” was brought out in 1840, and reached its third edition in two years. The subsequent volumes were: “Dreams and Realities in Verse,” 1847; the “Poetic Rosary,” 1856; “Miscellaneous Poems,” 1861, and one more containing all my principal poems, published the year of my death, 1866. I have been accused of imitating the style of others, but while I may have done so to some extent, I think none of my critics will deny that the ideas expressed, and the thoughts embodied, together with the arrangement of language in my productions, were entirely my own. At the same time I was never satisfied with my efforts; none of them reached my standard of excellence, and they sometimes bore marks of my disappointment and dissatisfaction.

From the disappointments I had encountered in early manhood, I was all too easily induced to hie away from my squalid attic home to the public-house, where, in the company of men who pretended to admire my “genius,” and to court my society, I would spend hours, aye, days, away from home, indulging in sin, thereby seeking to drown the memory of disappointed ambition and blighted hopes. And to this habit, together with a certain unsteadiness of purpose that kept me from holding on to any employment for any length of time, I am indebted for many of my early experiences in spirit life, some account of which I hope to unfold before you, that you may learn how a soul is plunged in darkness from the effects of deeds done in the body, and also how it may progress through degradation and woe to scenes of happiness and peace, if it only desires to do so.

I have been thus prolix concerning my mortal life that you may better understand my experiences in the spirit, and though I may have seemed too personal, it was unavoidable, and I crave your kind indulgence. It is impossible for me to convey to you any adequate conception of the ecstatic bliss I experienced in spirit when lifted above material bonds, and basking in the realm of poetic fancy; of the toil and sorrow of my physical existence, or of my feeling of utter degradation and self-contempt when recovering from a debauch, all of which I was compelled to outlive in spirit.