Secret Of Imagination

But he didn’t go in there to make a personal fortune, and he came out without a personal fortune. So she – in spite of her name – did not have a personal fortune.

She had a home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and a lovely apartment – beautifully furnished from things that her father-in-law had given her. If she did not rent her New York apartment for the summer, she could not open her home in Long Island. She could not afford it. Being a lovely home in a very wonderful, fashionable area of New York City, she always got a wonderful price paid in advance for the three or four months. Then came the end of a season where they aren’t looking for any homes, and she came to see me.

She said, “Neville, I am desperate. Unless I rent the place in New York City, we can’t open our home in Long Island.”

I said, “All right. It’s rented, and you are living in Long Island.” “Oh but,” she said, “Neville, I can’t do that.”

I said, “Tonight you sleep in your home in Long Island.”

“But,” she said, “I can’t do that. How could I go and sleep there?”

I said, “You don’t do it physically. Tonight you sleep physically in New York City in your apartment, but in your imagination, which is the only reality, you sleep in your home in Long Island, and then you think of your place in New York. The reason why you see it across the East River is because you are physically sleeping in Long Island. And the reason you are sleeping there is because you rented it. Put them all together, that’s why you are there.”

She said to me, “If it rents, I’ll call you.”

I said, “There’s no if about it. The only if is if you do it. Then you’ll call me.”

I took her to the elevator. She went downstairs, went back to her place. The next day at 9:00 in the morning Mrs. Roosevelt is on the phone. She said, “Neville, this is Grace Roosevelt.”

I said, “How are you, Mrs. Roosevelt?”

She said, “I am calling you from Long Island where I slept last night physically. When I went home, no one came at all over the period that you rent places. But as I got home, soon after I got home, an agent called and asked if I could show the apartment. A single man came in. He liked the place. Money meant nothing to him. He wanted immediate possession, ‘but I mean immediate. I mean now!’”

“Well,” she said, “I can’t get out now. I have to call my husband at the office.”

“I don’t care what you do. I want immediate possession. And here is my check in advance. You can call the bank to see if the check is good.”

She got out that day! She called her husband to meet her, and off they vent to their home in Long Island.

Well, she was just killed last week, at the age of 73; I think it was. He was driving; he wasn’t injured, and the friend in the car was injured, but Grace was killed instantly. But at least, she learned the Law. She didn’t come to the meetings very often because she said in her capacity, she was a pillar of the Episcopal Church in New York City – also in Long Island; it would not be advisable to be seen in my meeting place. That would be slumming. But she always came to my home with any problem.

Once she had with her son. He came back from Egypt where he was in the State Department, and he came with a huge, big beard, and she said, “Neville, I am embarrassed.” It was long before people wore beards; today it would be the thing to do, but he came back long before the young fellows wore beards. It was a huge, big beard. She said, “Neville, I am so embarrassed, I just don’t want to walk down Fifth Avenue with him. I would make him walk ahead or walk behind me. I don’t want to be seen with him. What must I do? Because he gets annoyed and will do nothing that his father or I suggest.”

I said, “How would you feel if you kissed him and he had no beard? You would kiss your son, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well then, put your hand on his face and he doesn’t have any beard, and then kiss him and feel that smooth skin that is your son’s face when he has no beard.”

“All right, I will do that.”