of the New Life--Formation of
the Society--The career of the New Fellowship.

In the autumn of 1883 Thomas Davidson paid a short visit to London and
held several little meetings of young people, to whom he expounded his
ideas of a Vita Nuova, a Fellowship of the New Life. I attended the last
of these meetings held in a bare room somewhere in Chelsea, on the
invitation of Frank Podmore,[7] whose acquaintance I had made a short
time previously. We had become friends through a common interest first
in Spiritualism and subsequently in Psychical Research, and it was
whilst vainly watching for a ghost in a haunted house at Notting
Hill--the house was unoccupied: we had obtained the key from the agent,
left the door unlatched, and returned late at night in the foolish hope
that we might perceive something abnormal--that he first discussed with
me the teachings of Henry George in "Progress and Poverty," and we found
a common interest in social as well as psychical progress.

[Illustration: _From a copyright photograph by Fredk. Hollyer, W_.

FRANK PODMORE, ABOUT 1895]

The English organiser or secretary of the still unformed Davidsonian
Fellowship was Percival Chubb, then a young clerk in the Local
Government Board, and subsequently a lecturer and head of an Ethical
Church in New York and St. Louis. Thomas Davidson was about to leave
London; and the company he had gathered round him, desirous of further
discussing his suggestions, decided to hold another meeting at my rooms.
I was at that time a member of the Stock Exchange and lived in lodgings
furnished by myself.

Here then on October 24th, 1883, was held the first of the fortnightly
meetings, which have been continued with scarcely a break, through nine
months of every year, up to the present time. The company that assembled
consisted in part of the Davidsonian circle and in part of friends of my
own.

The proceedings at this meeting, recorded in the first minute book of
the Society in the handwriting of Percival Chubb, were as follows:--

"THE NEW LIFE"

"The first general meeting of persons interested in this movement was
held at Mr. Pease's rooms, 17 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, on
Wednesday the 24th October, 1883. There were present: Miss Ford, Miss
Isabella Ford [of Leeds], Mrs. Hinton [widow of James Hinton], Miss
Haddon [her sister], Mr., Mrs., and Miss Robins, Maurice Adams, H.H.
Champion, Percival A. Chubb, H. Havelock Ellis,