SCENE I.--A railway carriage. The Earl and Countess of Gules--Lady

Transcribed from the 1887 William Blackwood and Sons edition by David

Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

FASHIONABLE PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER SKETCHES

[Title page: title.jpg]

BY LAURENCE OLIPHANT

AUTHOR OF

'PICCADILLY,' 'ALTIORA PETO,' 'MASOLLAM,' ETC.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXVII

PRICE ONE SHILLING

PREFACE.

That railway travel is not, as a rule, conducive to serious thought, may

fairly be inferred from the class of literature displayed on the

bookstalls at the stations. I have therefore refrained from any attempt

to excite the reflective faculties of the reader, excepting in the first

and third of the accompanying sketches, and even in these have only

ventured to suggest ideas, the full scope and pregnancy of which it must

be left to his own idiosyncrasy to appreciate and develop, the more

especially as they bear upon a certain current of investigation which has

recently become popular.

I have to express my thanks to the Editor of the 'Nineteenth Century

Review' for the kind permission he has granted me to reproduce "The

Sisters of Thibet"; and I avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded

of removing the impression which, to my surprise, was conveyed to me by

letters from numerous correspondents, that the article contained any

record of my own personal experiences. The satire was suggested by the

work of an author whose sincerity I do not doubt, and for whose motives I

have the highest respect, in order to point out what appears to me the

defective morality, from an altruistic and practical point of view, of a

system of which he is the principal exponent in this country, and which,

under the name of Esoteric Buddhism, still seems to possess some

fascination for a certain class of minds.

The other articles originally appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and I

wish to express my acknowledgments to my publishers for their usual

courtesy in allowing me to republish them in this form.

ATHENAEUM CLUB,

_January_ 1887.

CONTENTS.

Fashionable Philosophy

The Brigand's Bride: a tale of Southern Italy

The Sisters of Thibet

Adolphus: a comedy of affinities

FASHIONABLE PHILOSOPHY.

SCENE--_A London Drawing-room_. TIME--5 _o'clock_ P.M.

_The afternoon tea apparatus in one corner of the room_, _and_ Lady

Fritterly _on a couch in another_. The Hon. Mrs Allmash _is announced_.

_Lady Fritterly_. How too kind, dear, of you to come, and so early, too!

I've got such a lot of interesting people coming, and we are going to

discuss the religion of the future.

_Mrs Allmash_. How quite delightful! I do so long for something more

substantial than the theologies of the past! It is becoming quite

puzzling to know what to teach one's children: mine are getting old

enough now to understand about things, and one ought to teach them

something. I was talking about it to that charming Professor Germsell

last night.

_Lady Fritterly_. Well, I hope he is coming presently, so you will be

able to continue your conversation. Then there is Mr Coldwaite, the

celebrated Comtist; and Mr Fussle, who writes those delightful articles

on prehistoric aesthetic evolution; and Mr Drygull, the eminent

theosophist, whose stories about esoteric Buddhism are quite too

extraordinary, and who has promised to bring a Khoja--a most interesting

moral specimen, my dear--who has just arrived from Bombay; and Lord

Fondleton.

_Mrs Allmash_. Lord Fondleton! I did not know that he was interested in

such subjects.

_Lady Fritterly_. He says he is, dear; between ourselves--but this, of

course, is strictly _entre nous_--I rather think that it is I who

interest him: but I encourage him, poor fellow; it may wean him from the

unprofitable life he is leading, and turn his mind to higher things. Oh!

I almost forgot,---then there is my new beauty!

_Mrs Allmash_. Your new beauty!

_Lady Fritterly_. Yes; if you could only have dined with me the other

night, you would have met her. I had such a perfect little dinner. Just

think! A poet, an actor, a journalist, a painter, a wit, and a new

beauty. I'll tell you how I found her. She really belongs at present to

Lady Islington and myself; but of course, now we have started her, all

the other people will snap her up. We found that we both owed that

vulgar upstart, Mrs Houndsley, a visit, and went there together--because

I always think two people are less easily bored than one--when suddenly

the most perfect apparition you ever beheld stood before us;--an old

master dress, an immense pattern, a large hat rim encircling a face, some

rich auburn hair inside, and the face a perfect one. Well, you know, it

turned out that she was not born in the purple--her husband is just a

clerk in Burley's Bank; but we both insisted on being introduced to

her--for, you see, my dear, there is no doubt about it, she is a ready-

made beauty. The same idea occurred to Lady Islington, so we agreed as

we drove away that we would bring her out. The result is, that she went

to Islington House on Tuesday, and came to me on Thursday, and created a

perfect furor on both occasions; so now she is fairly started.

_Mrs Allmash_. How wonderfully clever and fortunate you are, dear! What

is her name?

_Lady Fritterly_. Mrs Gloring.

_Mrs Allmash_. Oh yes; everybody was talking about her at the Duchess's

last night. I am dying to see her; but they say that she is rather a

fool.

_Lady Fritterly_. Pure spite and jealousy. Yet that is the way these

Christian women of society obey the precept of their religion, and love

their neighbours as themselves.

[Lord Fondleton _is announced_, _accompanied by a stranger_.

_Lord Fondleton_. How d'ye do, Lady Fritterly? I am sure you will

excuse my taking the liberty of introducing Mr Rollestone, a very old

friend of mine, to you; he has only just returned to England, after an

absence of so many years that he is quite a stranger in London.

[Lady Fritterly _is_ "_delighted_." _The rest of the party arrive in

rapid succession_.

_Mrs Allmash_. Dear Mr Germsell, I was just telling Lady Fritterly what

an interesting conversation we were having last night when it was

unfortunately interrupted. I shall be so glad if you would explain more

fully now what you were telling me. I am sure everybody would be

interested.

_Lady Fritterly_. Oh do, Mr Germsell; it would be quite too nice of you.

And, Mr Drygull, will you ask the Khoja to--

_Mr Drygull_. My friend's name is Ali Seyyid, Lady Fritterly.

_Lady Fritterly_. Pray excuse my stupidity, Mr Allyside, and come and

sit near me. Lord Fondleton, find Mrs Gloring a chair.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. Who's our black friend?

_Mrs Gloring_. I am sure I don't know. I think Lady Fritterly called

him a codger.

_Lord Fondleton_. Ah, he looks like it,--and a rum one at that, as our

American cousins say.

_Mrs Gloring_. Hush! Mr Germsell is going to begin.

_Mr Germsell_. Mrs Allmash asked me last night whether my thoughts had

been directed to the topic which is uppermost just now in so many minds

in regard to the religion of the future, and I ventured to tell her that

it would be found to be contained in the generalised expediency of the

past.

_Mr Fussle_. Pardon me, but the religion of the future must be the

result of an evolutionary process, and I don't see how generalisations of

past expediency are to help the evolution of humanity.

_Germsell_. They throw light upon it; and the study of the evolutionary

process so far teaches us how we may evolve in the future. For instance,

you have only got to think of evolution as divided into moral,

astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, sociologic, aesthetic, and

so forth, and you will find that there is always an evolution of the

parts into which it divides itself, and that therefore there is but one

evolution going on everywhere after the same manner. The work of science

has been not to extend our experience, for that is impossible, but to

systematise it; and in that systematisation of it will be found the

religion of which we are in search.

_Drygull_. May I ask why you deem it impossible that our experience can

be extended?

_Germsell_. Because it has itself defined its limits. The combined

experience of humanity, so far as its earliest records go, has been

limited by laws, the nature of which have been ascertained: it is

impossible that it should be transcended without violation of the

conclusions arrived at by positive science.

_Drygull_. I can more easily understand that the conclusions arrived at

by men of science should be limited, than that the experience of humanity

should be confined by those conclusions; but I fail to perceive why those

philosophers should deny the existence of certain human faculties,

because they don't happen to possess them themselves. I think I know a

Rishi who can produce experiences which would scatter all their

conclusions to the winds, when the whole system which is built upon them

would collapse.

_Mrs Gloring_ [_aside to_ Lord Fondleton]. Pray, Lord Fondleton, can you

tell me what a Rishi is?

_Lord Fondleton_. A man who has got into higher states, you know--what I

heard Mr Drygull call a transcendentalist the other day, whatever that

may be. I don't understand much about these matters myself, but I take

it he is a sort of evolved codger.

_Mrs Allmash_. Oh, how awfully interesting! Dear Mr Drygull, do tell us

some of the extraordinary things the Rishi can do.

_Drygull_. If you will only all of you listen attentively, and if Mr

Germsell will have the goodness to modify to some degree the prejudiced

attitude of mind common to all men of science, you will hear him as

plainly as I can at this moment beating a tom-tom in his cottage in the

Himalayas.

[Mr Germsell _gets up impatiently_, _and walks to the other end of the

back drawing-room_.

_Drygull_ [_casting a compassionate glance after him_]. Perhaps it is

better so. Now please, Lady Fritterly, I must request a few moments of

the most profound silence on the part of all. You will not hear the

sound as though coming from a distance, but it will seem rather like a

muffled drumming taking place inside your head, scarcely perceptible at

first, when its volume will gradually increase.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. Some bad champagne produced

the same phenomenon in my head last night.

_Lady Fritterly_ [_severely_]. Hush! Lord Fondleton.

[_There is a dead silence for some minutes_.

_Mrs Gloring_ [_excitedly_]. Oh, I hear it! It is something like a

woodpecker inside of one.

_Drygull_. Not a word, my dear madam, if you please.

_Lady Fritterly_ [_after a long pause_]. I imagine I hear a very faint

something; there it goes--boom, boom, boom--at the back of my tympanum.

_Lord Fondleton_. That's not like a woodpecker.

_Mrs Gloring_. No; it seems to me more like tic-tic-tic.

_Mrs Allmash_. How too tiresome! I can't hear anything. I suppose it

is on account of the rumble of the carriages.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_whispers to_ Mrs Gloring]. I hear something inside of

me; do you know what?

_Mrs Gloring_. No; what?

_Lord Fondleton_. The beating of my own heart. Can't you guess for

whom?

_Mrs Gloring_. No. Perhaps the Rishi makes it beat.

_Lord Fondleton_. Dear Mrs Gloring, you are the Rishi for whom--

_Mrs Gloring_. Hush!

_Lady Fritterly_. There, it is getting louder, like distant artillery,

and yet so near. Oh, Mr Drygull, what a wonderful man the Rishi must be!

_Drygull_. Yes; he knew that at this hour to-day I should need an

illustration of his power, and he is kindly furnishing us with one. This

is an experience which I think our friend over there [_looking towards_

Mr Germsell] would find it difficult to classify.

_Germsell_. Fussle, have the goodness to step here for a moment--[_points

to a woman beating a carpet in the back-yard of an adjoining house_].

That is the tom-tom in the Himalayas they are listening to.

_Fussle_. Well, now, do you know, I don't feel quite sure of that. I

was certainly conscious of a sort of internal hearing of something when

you called me, which was not that; it was as though I had fiddlestrings

in my head and somebody was beginning to strum upon them.

_Germsell_. Fiddlestrings indeed--say rather fiddlesticks. I am

surprised at a sensible man like yourself listening to such nonsense.

_Fussle_ [_testily_]. It is much greater nonsense for you to tell me I

don't hear something I do hear, than for me to hear something you can't

hear. You may be deaf, while my sense of hearing may be evolving. Can

you hear what Lord Fondleton is saying to Mrs Gloring at this moment?

_Germsell_. No, and I don't want to.

_Fussle_. Ah, there it is. You won't hear anything you don't want to.

Now I can, and he ought not to say it;--look how she is blushing. Oh, I

forgot you are short-sighted. Well, you see, I can hear further than

you, and see further than you. Why should you set a limit on the

evolution of the senses, and say that no man in the future can ever hear

or see further than men have in the past? How dare you, sir, with your

imperfect faculties and your perfunctory method of research, which can

only cover an infinitesimal period in the existence of this planet,

venture to limit the potentialities of those laws which have already

converted us from ascidians into men, and which may as easily evolve in

us the faculty of hearing tom-toms in the Himalayas while we are sitting

here, as of that articulate speech or intelligent reasoning which, owing

to their operation, we now possess?

_Germsell_. Pardon me, you do not possess them, Mr Fussle.

_Lady Fritterly_. Mr Fussle, might I ask you to take this cup of tea to

Mrs Allmash? Mr Germsell, it would be too kind of you to hand Mrs

Gloring the cake.

_Fussle_ [_savagely_]. We will continue this conversation at the

Minerva.

_Mrs Allmash_ [_apart to the_ Khoja]. Oh, Mr Allyside, I am so glad to

hear that you speak English so perfectly! I want you to tell me all

about your religion; perhaps it may help us, you know, to find the

religion of the future, which we are all longing for. And I am so

interested in oriental religions! there is something so charmingly

picturesque about them. I quite dote on those dear old Shastras, and

Vedas, and Puranas; they contain such a lot of beautiful things, you

know.

_Ali Seyyid_. I know as little, madam, of the Indian books you mention

as I do of the Bible, which I have always heard was a very good book, and

contained also a great many beautiful things. I am neither a Hindoo nor

a Buddhist,--in fact, it is forbidden to me by my religion to tell you

exactly what I am.

_Mrs Allmash_. But indeed I won't tell anybody if you will only confide

in me. Oh, this mystery is too exquisitely delicious! Who knows,

perhaps you might make a convert of me?

_Ali Seyyid_ [_with an admiring gaze_]. Madam, you would be a prize so

well worth winning, that you almost tempt me. The first of our secrets

is that we are all things to all men, until we are quite sure of the

sympathy of the listener; then we venture a step further.

_Mrs Allmash_. How wise that is! and how unlike the system adopted by

Christians! You may be sure of my most entire sympathy.

_Ali Seyyid_. The next principle is--but this is a profound secret,

which you must promise not to repeat--the rejection of all fixed rules of

religion or morality. It really does not matter in the least what you

do: the internal disposition is the only thing of any value. Now, as far

as I understand, you have already got rid of the religion, or you would

not be looking for a new one; all you have to do is to get rid of the

morality, and there you are.

_Mrs Allmash_ [_with an expression of horror and alarm_]. Yes, there I

should be indeed. Oh, Mr Allyside, what a dreadful man you are! Who

started such an extraordinary doctrine?

_Ali Seyyid_. Well, his name was Hassan-bin-Saba--commonly known among

Westerns as the "Old Man of the Mountain." His followers, owing to the

value they attached to murder as a remedial agent, have been known by the

name of the "Assassins."

_Mrs Allmash_. Oh, good gracious!

_Lady Fritterly_. My dear Louisa, what is the matter? You look quite

frightened.

_Ali Seyyid_. Mrs Allmash is a little alarmed because I proposed a new

morality for the future, as well as a new religion.

_Mr Coldwaite_. Excuse me; but in discussions of this sort, I think it

is most important that we should clearly understand the meanings of the

terms we employ. Now I deny that any difference subsists between

religion and morality. That any such distinction should exist in men's

minds is due to the fact that dogma is inseparably connected with

religion. If you eliminate dogma, what does religion consist of but

morality? Substitute the love of Humanity for the love of the

Unknowable--which is the subject of worship of Mr Germsell; or of the

Deity, who is the object of worship of the majority of mankind--and you

obtain a stimulus to morality which will suffice for all human need. It

is in this great emotion, as it seems to me, that you will find at once

the religion and the morality of the future.

_Germsell_. From what source do you get the force which enables you to

love humanity with a devotion so intense that it shall elevate your

present moral standard?

_Coldwaite_. From humanity itself. I am not going to be entrapped into

getting it from any unknowable source; the love of humanity, whether it

be humanity as existing, or when absorbed by death into the general mass,

is perpetually generating itself.

_Mrs Allmash_. Then it must produce itself from what was there before;

therefore it must be the same love, which keeps on going round and round.

_Lord Fondleton_. A sort of circular love, in fact. I've often felt it:

but I didn't think it right to encourage it.

_Lady Fritterly_. Lord Fondleton, how can you be so silly? Don't pay

attention to him, Mr Coldwaite. I confess I still don't see how you can

get a higher love out of humanity than humanity has already got in it,

unless you are to look to some other source for it.

_Coldwaite_. Why, mayn't it evolve from itself?

_Germsell_. How can it evolve without a propulsive force behind it? The

thing is too palpable an absurdity to need argument. You can no more fix

limits to the origin of force than you can destroy its persistency.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside_]. That seems to me one of those sort of things

no fellow can understand.

_Germsell_. All you can say of it is that it is a conditioned effect of

an unconditioned cause. That no idea or feeling arises, save as a result

of some physical force expended in producing it, is fast becoming a

commonplace of science; and whoever duly weighs the evidence will see

that nothing but an overwhelming bias in favour of a preconceived theory

can explain its non-acceptance. I think my friend Mr Herbert Spencer has

demonstrated this conclusively.

_Coldwaite_. Pardon me; do I understand you to say that the mental

process which enabled Mr Spencer to elaborate his system of philosophy,

or that the profound emotion which finds its expression in a love for

humanity, are the result of physical force alone?

_Germsell_. He says so himself, and he ought to know. His whole system

of philosophy is nothing more nor less than the result of the liberation

of certain forces produced by chemical action in the brain.

_Drygull_. Then, if I understand you rightly, if the chemical changes

which have been taking place for some years past in his brain had

liberated a different set of forces, we should have had altogether a

different philosophy.

_Germsell_. The chemical changes would in that case have been different.

_Drygull_. But the changes must be produced by forces acting on them.

_Germsell_. Exactly: a force which has its source in the Unknowable

produces a certain chemical action in the brain by which it becomes

converted into thought or emotion, into love or philosophy, into art or

religion, as the case may be: what the nature of that love or philosophy,

or art or religion, may be, must depend entirely on the nature of the

chemical change.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. I feel the most delightful

chemical changes taking place now in my brain, dear Mrs Gloring. May I

explain to you the exquisite nature of the forces that are being

liberated, and which produce emotions of the most tender character.

_Lady Fritterly_ [_sharply_]. What are you saying, Lord Fondleton?

_Lord Fondleton_. Ahem--I was saying--ahem--I was saying that we shall

be having some Yankee inventing steam thinking-mills and galvanic loving-

batteries soon. What a lot of wear and tear it would save! I should go

about covered with a number of electric love-wires for the force to play

upon.

_Fussle_. I think this matter wants clearing up, Mr Germsell. Why don't

you write a book on mental and emotional physics?

_Mr Rollestone_. I would venture with great diffidence to remark that

the confusion seems to me to arise from the limit we attach to the

meaning of the word employed. It may be quite true that no idea or

emotion can exist except as the result of physical force; but it is also

true that its effect must be conditioned on the quality of the force.

There is as wide a difference between the physical forces operant in the

brain, and which give rise to ideas, and those which move a steam-engine,

as there is between mind and matter as popularly defined. Both, as Mr

Germsell will admit, are conditioned manifestations of force; but the one

contains a vital element in its dynamism which the other does not. You

may apply as much physical force by means of a galvanic battery to a dead

brain as you please, but you can't strike an idea out of it; and this

vital force, while it is "conditioned force," like light and heat,

differs in its mode of manifestation from every other manifestation of

force, even more than they do from each other, in that it possesses a

potency inherent to it, which they have not, and this potency it is which

creates emotion and generates ideas. The fallacy which underlies the

whole of this system of philosophy is contained in the assumption that

there is only one description of physical force in nature.

_Germsell_. No more there is. Why, Mr Spencer says that the law of

metamorphosis which holds among the physical forces, holds equally

between them and the mental forces; but mark you, what is the grand

conclusion at which he arrives? I happen to remember the passage: "How

this metamorphosis takes place; how a force existing, as motion, heat, or

light, can become a mode of consciousness; how it is possible for aerial

vibrations to generate the sensation we call sound; or for the forces

liberated by chemical changes in the brain to give rise to emotion,--these

are mysteries which it is impossible to fathom."

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. What a jolly easy way of

getting out of a difficulty!

_Drygull_. Of course, if you admit such gross ignorance as to how it is

possible for aerial vibrations "to generate the sensation we call sound,"

I don't wonder at your not hearing the tom-tom in the Himalayas we were

listening to just now. If you knew a little more about the astral law

under which aerial vibrations may be generated, you would not call things

impossible which you admit to be unfathomable mysteries. If it is an

unfathomable mystery how a sound is projected a mile, why do you refuse

to admit the possibility of its being projected two, or two hundred, or

two thousand? Under the laws which govern mysteries, which you say are

unfathomable, if the mystery is unfathomable, so is the law, and you have

no right to limit its action.

_Rollestone_. To come back to the question of a possible distinction in

the essential or inherent qualities of dynamic or physical forces. There

is nothing in the hypothesis which may not be reasonably assumed and

tested by experiment; and before any man has a right to affirm that there

is only one quality of physical force in nature, which, by undergoing

transformation and metamorphosis, shall account for all its phenomena, I

have a right to ask whether the hypothesis, that there may be another,

has been experimentally tested. It would then be time for me to accept

the conclusion that there is only one, and that it is an unfathomable

mystery how this one force should be able to perform all the functions

attributed to it.

_Germsell_. I admit that the forces called vital are correlates of the

forces called physical, if you choose to call that a distinction; but

their character is conditioned by the state of the brain, and it comes to

the same thing in the end. The seat of emotion as well as of thought is

the brain, and it entirely depends on its chemical constitution, on its

circulation, and on other causes affecting that organ, what you think,

and feel, and say, and do. People's characters differ because their

brains do, not because there is any difference in the vital force which

animates them.

_Rollestone_. You might as well say that sounds differ because their

aerial vibrations differ, but those vibrations only differ because the

force makes them differ which is acting upon them. They don't generate

tunes, but convey them. And the result, so far as our hearing is

concerned, depends upon what are called the acoustic conditions under

which the vibrations take place. Just so the brain possesses no

generating function of its own; it deals with and transmits the ideas and

emotions projected upon it according to the organic conditions by which

it may be affected at the time, whether those ideas and emotions are

produced by external stimuli, or apparently, but only apparently, as I

believe, owe their origin to genesis in the brain itself. In the one

case the brain is vibrating to the touch of an external force, in the

other to one that is internal and unseen, just as the air does when it

transmits sound, whether you see the cause which produces it or not; and

the mystery which remains to be fathomed, but which I do not admit to be

unfathomable until somebody tries to fathom it, is the nature of those

unseen forces.

_Germsell_. How would you propose to try and fathom it?

_Rollestone_. By experiment: I know of no other way. The forces which

generate emotions and ideas must possess a moral quality: the experiments

must therefore be moral experiments.

_Germsell_. How do you set to work to experimentalise morally?

_Rollestone_. As the process must of necessity be a purely personal one,

carried on, if I may use the expression, in one's own moral organism, I

have a certain delicacy in attempting to describe it. In fact, Lady

Fritterly, if you will allow me to say so, as the whole subject which has

been under discussion this afternoon is the most profoundly solemn which

can engage the attention of a human being, I shrink from entering upon it

as fully as I would do under other circumstances. I people begin to want

a new religion because it is the fashion to want one, I venture to

predict that they will never find it. If they want a new religion

because they can't come up to the moral standard of the one they have

got, then I would advise them to look rather to that unseen force within

them, which I have been attempting to describe to Mr Germsell, for the

potency which may enable them to reach it.

_Lady Fritterly_. Indeed, Mr Rollestone, we are all exceedingly in

earnest. I never felt so serious in my life. Of course this London life

must all seem very frivolous to you; but that we can't help, you know. We

can't all go away and make moral experiments like you. What we feel is,

that we ought all to endeavour as much as possible to introduce a more

serious tone into society. We want to get rid of the selfishness, and

the littlenesses, and the petty ambitions and envyings, and the scandals

that go on. Don't we, Louisa, dear? And you can't think how grateful I

am to Lord Fondleton for having given me the pleasure of your

acquaintance. I hope I may often see you; I am sure you would do us all

so much good. You will always find me at home on Sunday afternoons at

this hour.

_Mrs Allmash_. It is so refreshing to meet any one so full of

information and earnestness as you are, in this wicked, jaded London.

Please go on, Mr Rollestone; what you were saying was so interesting.

Have you really been experimentalising on your own moral organism? How

quite too extraordinary!

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. By Jove! I had no idea old

Rollestone could come out in this line. He is a regular dark horse. I

should never have suspected it. He will be first favourite in London

this season, and win in a canter.

_Coldwaite_. You will excuse me, Mr Rollestone, but I really am

interested, and I really am serious. It was with no idle curiosity that

I was waiting to hear your answer to Mr Germsell's inquiry, as to the

nature of the moral experiment necessary to test the character of this

unseen force.

_Rollestone_. I can only say that any experiment which deals with the

affectional and emotional part of one's nature must be painful in the

extreme. There is, indeed, only one motive which would induce one to

undergo the trials, sufferings, sacrifices, and ordeals which it

involves--and that is one in which you will sympathise: it is the hope

that humanity may benefit by the result of one's efforts. Indeed, any

lower motive than this would vitiate them. I will venture to assert to

Mr Germsell, who is so sceptical as to the existence of any other quality

in that force, which he can only fathom so far as to know that it is

physical, that I will put him through a course of experiment which will

cause him more acute moral suffering than his brain could bear, unless it

was sustained by a force which, by that experimental process, will reveal

attributes contained in it not dreamt of in his philosophy.

_Germsell_. I have no doubt you could strain my mind until it was weak

enough to believe anything, even your fantastic theories. Thank you, I

would rather continue to experiment with my own microscope and forceps

than let you experiment either upon my affections or my brains.

_Fussle_ [_aside to_ Mr Rollestone]. You could not make anything of them

even if he consented--the former don't exist, and the latter are mere

putty--but I can quite understand your desire to begin _in corpore vili_.

_Lord Fondleton_ [_aside to_ Mrs Gloring]. Allow me freely to offer you

my affections as peculiarly adapted to experiments of this nature.

_Rollestone_. It has always struck me as strange that men of science,

who don't shrink from testing, for instance, the value of poisons, or the

nature of disease, by heroically subjecting their own external organisms

to their action, should shrink from experimenting on that essential if

remote vitalising force, which can only be reached by moral experiment,

and disorder in which produces not only moral obliquity and mental

alienation, but physical disease as well.

_Fussle_. Thus a man may die of apoplexy brought on by a fit of passion.

Cure his temper, and you lessen the danger of apoplexy; that, I take it,

is an illustration of what you mean.

_Rollestone_. In its most external application it is; the question is

where his bad temper comes from, and whether, as Mr Germsell would

maintain, it is entirely due to his cerebral condition, and not to the

moral qualities inherent in the force, which, acting on peculiar cerebral

conditions, causes one man's temper to differ from another's. It is not

the liberated force which generates the temper. For that you have to go

farther back; and the reason why research is limited in this direction is

not because it is impossible to go farther back, but because it must

inevitably entail, as I have already said, acute personal suffering. Nor,

as these experiments must be purely personal, and involve experiences of

an entirely novel kind, is it possible to discuss them except with those

who have participated in them. One might as well attempt to describe the

emotion of love to a man whose affections had never been called forth. If

I have alluded to them so fully now, it is because they justify me in

making the assertion, for which I can offer no other proof than they have

afforded to me personally, that a force does exist in nature possessing

an inherent spiritual potency--I use the word spiritual for lack of a

better--which is capable of lifting humanity to a higher moral plane of

daily living and acting than that which it has hitherto attained. But I

fear I am trespassing on your patience in having said thus much.

_Lady Fritterly_. Oh no, Mr Rollestone; please go on. There is

something so delightfully fresh and original in all you are saying, I

can't tell you how much you interest me.

_Germsell_ [_aside_]. I know a milkmaid quite as fresh and rather more

original. [_Aloud_, _looking at his watch_.] Bless me! it is past six,

and I have an appointment at the club at six. So sorry to tear myself

away, dear Lady Fritterly. I can't tell you how I have enjoyed the

intellectual treat you have provided for me.

_Lady Fritterly_. I thank you so much for coming. I hope you will often

look in on our Sundays. I think, you know, that these little

conversations are so very improving.

_Germsell_. You may rely upon me; it is impossible to imagine anything

more interesting. [_Mutters as he leaves the room_.] No, Lady

Fritterly, this is the last time I enter this house, except perhaps to

dinner. You don't catch me again making one of your Sunday afternoon

collection of bores and idiots. What an insufferable prig that

Rollestone is!

_Fussle_ [_aside to_ Drygull]. Thank heaven, that pompous nuisance has

taken himself off!

_Drygull_ [_aside to_ Fussle]. I don't know which I dislike most--the

Pharisee of science or the Pharisee of religion.

_Rollestone_. If, then, you admit that the human organism not only

cannot generate force, but that the emotions which control the body are

in their turn generated by a force which is behind it, and that this

force is dependent for its manifestation on its own special conditions,

as well as on those of its transmitting organic medium, I venture to

assert that experiment in the direction I have suggested will prove to

our consciousness that the moral or spiritual quality of the original

invading force is a pure one, and that the degree of its pollution in the

human frame is the effect of inherited and other organic conditions; and

the question which presents itself to the experimentalist is, whether by

an effort of the will this same force may not be evoked to change and

purify those conditions. Indeed the very effort is in itself an

invocation, and if made unflinchingly, will not fail to meet with a

response. Much that has heretofore been to earnest seekers unknowable

will become knowable, and a love, Mr Coldwaite, higher, if that be

possible, than the love of humanity, yet correlative with and inseparable

from it, will be found pressing with an irresistible potency into those

vacant spaces of the human heart, which have from all time yearned for a

closer contact with the Great Source of all love and of all force. It is

in this attempt to sever the love of humanity from its Author, that the

Positivist philosophy has failed: it is the worship of a husk without the

kernel, of a body without the soul; and hence it will never satisfy the

human aspiration. That aspiration is ever the same; it needs, if you

will allow me to say so, Lady Fritterly, no new religion to satisfy its

demands. If the world is of late beginning to feel dissatisfied with

Christianity, it is not because the moral standard which that religion

proposes is not sufficiently lofty for its requirements, but because,

after eighteen hundred years of effort, its professors have altogether

failed to reach that standard. Christianity seems a failure because

Christians have failed--have failed to understand its application to

everyday life, have failed to embody it in practice, and have sought an

escape from the apparent impossibility of doing so, by smothering it with

dogmas, and diverting its scope from this world to the next. It will be

time to look for a new religion, when we have succeeded in the literal

application of the ethics of the one we have got to the social and

economic problems of daily life. It is not by any intellectual effort or

scientific process that the discovery will be made of how this is to be

done, but by the introduction into the organism of new and unsuspected

potencies of moral force which have hitherto lain dormant in nature,

waiting for the great invocation of wearied and distressed humanity.

There can be no stronger evidence of the approach of this new force,

destined to make the ethics of Christianity a practical social standard,

than the growing demand of society for a new religion. It is the

inarticulate utterance of the quickened human aspiration, in itself a

proof that these new potencies are already stirring the dry bones of

Christendom, and a sure earnest that their coming in answer to that

aspiration will not be long delayed.

_Drygull_. Of course, I entirely disagree with you as to any such

necessity in regard to the moral requirements of the world, existing. You

must have met, in the course of your travels, that more enlightened and

initiated class of Buddhists, with whom I sympathise, who are quite

indifferent to considerations of this nature.

_Rollestone_. And who were too much occupied with their subjective

prospects in Nirvana, to be affected by the needs of terrestrial

humanity.

_Drygull_. Quite so.

_Mrs Allmash_. And, Mr Allyside, I am afraid you are equally

indifferent.

_Ali Seyyid_. I am certainly not indifferent to the discovery of any

force latent in Christendom which may check the force of its cupidity,

and put a stop to the _exploitation_ and subjugation of Eastern countries

for the sake of advancing its own material interests, under the specious

pretext of introducing the blessings of civilisation.

_Coldwaite_. You have certainly presented the matter in a light which is

altogether new to me, Mr Rollestone, and upon which, therefore, I am not

now prepared to express an opinion. I should like to discuss the subject

with you further privately.

_Rollestone_. It is a subject which should never be discussed except

privately.

_Mrs Allmash_. Now, I should say, Mr Rollestone, on the contrary, that

it was just a subject you ought to write a book about. You would have so

much to tell,--all your personal experiments, you know; now do.

_Fussle_. Take my advice, Mr Rollestone, and don't. You would have very

few readers, and those who read you would only sneer at what they would

call your crude ideas; and indeed, you will excuse me for saying so, but

I am not sure that they would not be right.

_Lord Fondleton_. I quite disagree with you, Mr Fussle. If Rollestone

would write a book which would put a stop to this "religion of the

future" business, he would earn the gratitude of society. Do you know, I

am getting rather bored with it.

_Fussle_. Not if he introduced instead a latent force, which should

overturn all existing institutions, and revolutionise society--which it

would inevitably have to do if we were all coerced by it into adopting

literally the ethics of Christianity, instead of merely professing them.

Why, the "Sermon on the Mount" alone, practised to the letter, would

produce a general destruction. Church and State, and the whole economic

system upon which society is based, would melt away before it like an

iceberg under a tropical sun. I don't mind discussing the religion of

the future as a subject of interesting speculation; but, depend upon it,

we had better let well alone. It seems to me that we--at least those of

us who are well off--have nothing to complain of. Let us trust to the

silent forces of evolution. See how much they have lately done for us in

the matter of art. What can be pleasanter than this gentle process of

aesthetic development which our higher faculties are undergoing? With

due deference to Mr Rollestone, I think we shall be far better employed

in cultivating our taste, than in probing our own organisms in the hope

of discovering forces which may enable us to apply a perfectly

unpractical system of morality, to a society which has every reason to be

satisfied with the normal progress it is making.

_Mrs Gloring_. Indeed, Mr Rollestone, I agree with you a great deal more

than with Mr Fussle. I should like to call out a higher moral force in

myself--but I should never have the courage to undergo all the ordeals

you say it would involve; I am too weak to try.

_Lord Fondleton_. Of course you are,--don't! You are much nicer as you

are. Why, Rollestone, you would make all the women detestable if you

could have your way.

_Rollestone_. I don't think there is any immediate cause for alarm on

that score.

_Mrs Allmash_ [_rising_]. Dearest Augusta, I am afraid I must run away:

thank you _so_ much, for _such_ a treat. [_All rise_] Mrs Gloring, we

have all been so deeply interested, that we have scarcely been able to

exchange a word, but I hope we shall see a great deal of each other this

year. I have a few people coming to me to-morrow evening; do you think

you can spare a moment from your numerous engagements? Lady Fritterly

and Lord Fondleton are coming; and perhaps, Mr Drygull, you will come,

and bring Mr Allyside. Mr Fussle, I know it is useless to expect you;

and I cannot venture to ask Mr Rollestone to anything so frivolous. But

perhaps you will dine with me on Thursday--you will meet some congenial

spirits.

_Rollestone_. Thank you, but I fear it will be impossible, as I leave

London to-morrow. Good-bye, Lady Fritterly. Forgive me, an utter

stranger, for having so far obtruded my experiences upon you, and for

venturing finally to suggest that it is in our own hearts that we should

search for the religion that we need; for is it not written, "The kingdom

of heaven is within you"?

THE BRIGAND'S BRIDE: A TALE OF SOUTHERN ITALY.

The Italian peninsula during the years 1859-60-61 offered a particularly

tempting field for adventure to ardent spirits in search of excitement;

and, attracted partly by my sympathy with the popular movement, and

partly by that simple desire, which gives so much zest to the life of

youth, of risking it on all possible occasions, I had taken an active

part, chiefly as an officious spectator, in all the principal events of

those stirring years. It was in the spring of 1862 that I found matters

beginning to settle down to a degree that threatened monotony; and with

the termination of the winter gaieties at Naples and the close of the San

Carlo, I seriously bethought me of accepting the offer of a naval friend

who was about to engage in blockade-running, and offered to land me in

the Confederate States, when a recrudescence of activity on the part of

the brigand bands in Calabria induced me to turn my attention in that

direction. The first question I had to consider was, whether I should

enjoy myself most by joining the brigands, or the troops which were

engaged in suppressing them. As the former aspired to a political

character, and called themselves patriotic bands fighting for their

Church, their country, and their King--the refugee monarch of Naples--one

could espouse their cause without exactly laying one's self open to the

charge of being a bandit; but it was notorious in point of fact that the

bands cared for neither the Pope nor the exiled King nor their annexed

country, but committed the most abominable atrocities in the names of all

the three, for the simple purpose of filling their pockets. I foresaw

not only extreme difficulty in being accepted as a member of the

fraternity, more especially as I had hitherto been identified with the

Garibaldians; but also the probability of finding myself compromised by

acts from which my conscience would revolt, and for which my life would

in all likelihood pay the forfeit. On the other hand, I could think of

no friend among the officers of the Bersaglieri and cavalry regiments,

then engaged in brigand-hunting in the Capitanata and Basilicata, to whom

I could apply for an invitation to join them.

Under these circumstances, I determined to trust to the chapter of

accidents; and armed with a knapsack, a sketch-book, and an air-gun, took

my seat one morning in the Foggia diligence, with the vague idea of

getting as near the scene of operations as possible, and seeing what

would turn up. The air-gun was not so much a weapon of offence or

defence as a means of introduction to the inhabitants. It had the

innocent appearance of rather a thick walking-cane, with a little brass

trigger projecting; and in the afternoon I would join the group sitting

in front of the chemist's, which, for some reason or other, is generally

a sort of open-air club in a small Neapolitan town, or stroll into the

single modest _cafe_ of which it might possibly boast, and toy

abstractedly with the trigger. This, together with my personal

appearance--for do what I would, I could never make myself look like a

Neapolitan--would be certain to attract attention, and some one bolder

than the rest would make himself the spokesman, and politely ask me

whether the cane in my hand was an umbrella or a fishing-rod; on which I

would amiably reply that it was a gun, and that I should have much

pleasure in exhibiting my skill and the method of its operation to the

assembled company. Then the whole party would follow me to an open

space, and I would call for a pack of cards, and possibly--for I was a

good shot in those days--pink the ace of hearts at fifteen paces. At any

rate my performances usually called forth plaudits, and this involved a

further interchange of compliments and explanations, and the production

of my sketch-book, which soon procured me the acquaintance of some ladies

and an invitation as an English artist, to the house of some respectable

citizen.

So it happened that, getting out of the diligence before it reached

Foggia, I struck south, and wandered for some days from one little town

to another, being always hospitably entertained, whether there happened

to be an _albergo_ or not, at private houses, seeing in this way more of

the manners and customs of the inhabitants than would have been otherwise

possible, gaining much information as to the haunts of the brigands, the

whereabouts of the troops, and hearing much local gossip generally. The

ignorance of the most respectable classes at this period was astounding;

it has doubtless all changed since. I have been at a town of 2000

inhabitants, not one of whom took in a newspaper: the whole population,

therefore, was in as profound ignorance of what was transpiring in the

rest of the world as if they had been in Novaia Zemlia. I have stayed

with a mayor who did not know that England was an island; I have been the

guest of a citizen who had never heard of Scotland, and to whom,

therefore, my nationality was an enigma: but I never met any one--I mean

of this same class--who had not heard of Palmerston. He was a mysterious

personage, execrated by the "blacks" and adored by the "reds." And I

shone with a reflected lustre as the citizen of a country of which he was

the Prime Minister. As a consequence, we had political discussions,

which were protracted far into the night, for the principal meal of the

twenty-four hours was a 10 o'clock P.M. supper, at which, after the

inevitable macaroni, were many unwholesome dishes, such as salads made of

thistles, cows' udders, and other delicacies, which deprived one of all

desire for sleep. Notwithstanding which, we rose early, my hostess and

the ladies of the establishment appearing in the early part of the day in

the most extreme deshabille. Indeed, on one occasion when I was first

introduced into the family of a respectable citizen, and shown into my

bedroom, I mistook one of two females who were making the bed for the

servant, and was surprised to see her hand a little douceur I gave her as

an earnest of attention on her part, to the other with a smile. She soon

afterwards went to bed: we all did, from 11 A.M. till about 3 P.M., at

which hour I was horrified to meet her arrayed in silks and satins, and

to find that she was the wife of my host. She kindly took me a drive

with her in a carriage and pair, and with a coachman in livery.

It was by this simple means, and by thus imposing myself upon the

hospitality of these unsophisticated people, that I worked my way by slow

degrees, chiefly on foot, into the part of the country I desired to

visit; and I trust that I in a measure repaid them for it by the stores

of information which I imparted to them, and of which they stood much in

need, and by little sketches of their homes and the surrounding scenery,

with which I presented them. I was, indeed, dependent in some measure

for hospitality of this description, as I had taken no money with me,

partly because, to tell the truth, I had scarcely got any, and partly

because I was afraid of being robbed by brigands of the little I had. I

therefore eschewed the character of a _milordo Inglese_; but I never

succeeded in dispelling all suspicion that I might not be a nephew of the

Queen, or at least a very near relative of "Palmerston" in disguise. It

was so natural, seeing what a deep interest both her Majesty and the

Prime Minister took in Italy, that they should send some one _incognito_

whom they could trust to tell them all about it.

Meantime, I was not surprised, when I came to know the disposition of the

inhabitants, at the success of brigandage. It has never been my fortune

before or since to live among such a timid population. One day at a

large town a leading landed proprietor received notice that if he did not

pay a certain sum in black-mail,--I forget at this distance of time the

exact amount,--his farm or _masseria_ would be robbed. This farm, which

was in fact a handsome country-house, was distant about ten miles from

the town. He therefore made an appeal to the citizens that they should

arm themselves, and help him to defend his property, as he had determined

not to pay, and had taken steps to be informed as to the exact date when

the attack was to be made in default of payment. More than 300 citizens

enrolled themselves as willing to turn out in arms. On the day preceding

the attack by the brigands, a rendezvous was given to these 300 on the

great square for five in the morning, and thither I accordingly repaired,

unable, however, to induce my host to accompany me, although he had

signed as a volunteer. On reaching the rendezvous, I found the landed

proprietor and a friend who was living with him, and about ten minutes

afterwards two other volunteers strolled up. Five was all we could

muster out of 300. It was manifestly useless to attempt anything with so

small a force, and no arguments could induce any of the others to turn

out: so the unhappy gentleman had the satisfaction of knowing that the

brigands had punctually pillaged his place, carrying off all his live

stock on the very day and at the very hour they said they would. As for

the inhabitants venturing any distance from town, except under military

escort, such a thing was unknown, and all communication with Naples was

for some time virtually intercepted. I was regarded as a sort of

monomaniac of recklessness, because I ventured on a solitary walk of a

mile or two in search of a sketch,--an act of no great audacity on my

part, for I had walked through various parts of the country without

seeing a brigand, and found it difficult to realise that there was any

actual danger in strolling a mile from a moderately large town.

Emboldened by impunity, I was tempted one day to follow up a most

romantic glen in search of a sketch, when I came upon a remarkably

handsome peasant girl, driving a donkey before her loaded with wood. My

sudden appearance on the narrow path made the animal shy against a

projecting piece of rock, off which he rebounded to the edge of the path,

which, giving way, precipitated him and his load down the ravine. He was

brought up unhurt against a bush some twenty feet below, the fagots of

wood being scattered in his descent in all directions. For a moment the

girl's large fierce eyes flashed upon me with anger; but the impetuosity

with which I went headlong after the donkey, with a view of repairing my

error, and the absurd attempts I made to reverse the position of his

feet, which were in the air, converted her indignation into a hearty fit

of laughter, as, seeing that the animal was apparently uninjured, she

scrambled down to my assistance. By our united efforts we at last

succeeded in hoisting the donkey up to the path, and then I collected the

wood and helped her to load it again--an operation which involved a

frequent meeting of hands, and of the eyes, which had now lost the

ferocity that had startled me at first, and seemed getting more soft and

beaming every time I glanced at them, till at last, producing my sketch-

book, I ventured to remark, "Ah, signorina, what a picture you would

make! Now that the ass is loaded, let me draw you before we part, that I

may carry away the recollection of the loveliest woman I have seen."

"First draw the donkey," she replied, "that I may carry away a

recollection of the _galantuomo_ who first upset him over the bank, and

then helped me to load him."

Smiling at this ambiguous compliment, I gave her the sketch she desired,

and was about to claim my reward, when she abruptly remarked--

"There is not time now; it is getting late, and I must not linger, as I

have still an hour to go before reaching home. How is it that you are

not afraid to be wandering in this solitary glen by yourself? Do you not

know the risks?"

"I have heard of them, but I do not believe in them," I said; "besides, I

should be poor plunder for robbers."

"But you have friends, who would pay to ransom you, I suppose, if you

were captured?"

"My life is not worth a hundred _scudi_ to any of them," I replied,

laughing; "but I am willing to forego the pleasure of drawing you now,

_bellissima_, if you will tell me where you live, and let me come and

paint you there at my leisure."

"You're a brave one," she said, with a little laugh; "there is not

another man in all Ascoli who would dare to pay me a visit without an

escort of twenty soldiers. But I am too grateful for your amiability to

let you run such a risk. _Addio_, Signer Inglese. There are many

reasons why I can't let you draw my picture, but I am not ungrateful,

see!"--and she offered me her cheek, on which I instantly imprinted a

chaste and fraternal salute.

"Don't think that you've seen the last of me, _carissima_," I called out,

as she turned away. "I shall live on the memory of that kiss till I have

an opportunity of repeating it."

And as I watched her retreating figure with an artist's eye, I was struck

with its grace and suppleness, combined, as I had observed while she was

helping me to load the donkey, with an unusual degree of muscular

strength for a woman.

The spot at which this episode had taken place was so romantic, that I

determined to make a sketch of it, and the shades of evening were closing

in so fast that they warned me to hurry if I would reach the town before

dark. I had just finished it, and was stooping to pick up my air-gun,

when I heard a sudden rush, and before I had time to look up, I was

thrown violently forward on my face, and found myself struggling in the

embrace of a powerful grasp, from which I had nearly succeeded in freeing

myself, when the arms which were clasping me were reinforced by several

more pair, and I felt a rope being passed round my body.

"All right, signors!" I exclaimed; "I yield to superior numbers. You

need not pull so hard; let me get up, and I promise to go with you

quietly." And by this time I had turned sufficiently on my back to see

that four men were engaged in tying me up.

"Tie his elbows together, and let him get up," said one; "he is not

armed. Here, Giuseppe, carry his stick and paint-box, while I feel his

pockets. _Corpo di Baccho_! twelve _bajocchi_," he exclaimed, producing

those copper coins with an air of profound disgust. "It is to be hoped

he is worth more to his friends. Now, young man, trudge, and remember

that the first sign you make of attempting to run away, means four

bullets through you."

As I did not anticipate any real danger, and as a prolonged detention was

a matter of no consequence to a man without an occupation, I stepped

forward with a light heart, rather pleased than otherwise with

anticipations of the brigand's cave, and turning over in my mind whether

or not I should propose to join the band.

We had walked an hour, and it had become dark, when we turned off the

road, up a narrow path that led between rocky sides to a glade, at the

extremity of which, under an overhanging ledge, was a small cottage, with

what seemed to be a patch of garden in front.

"Ho! Anita!" called out the man who appeared to be the leader of the

band; "open! We have brought a friend to supper, who will require a

night's lodgings."

An old woman with a light appeared, and over her shoulder, to my delight,

I saw the face I had asked to be allowed to paint so shortly before. I

was about to recognise her with an exclamation, when I saw a hurried

motion of her finger to her lip, which looked a natural gesture to the

casual observer, but which I construed into a sign of prudence.

"Where did you pick him up, Croppo?" she asked carelessly. "He ought to

be worth something."

"Just twelve _bajocchi_," he answered with a sneering laugh. "Come,

_amico mio_, you will have to give us the names of some of your friends."

"I am tolerably intimate with his Holiness the Pope, and I have a bowing

acquaintance with the King of Naples, whom may God speedily restore to

his own," I replied in a light and airy fashion, which seemed exceedingly

to exasperate the man called Croppo.

"Oh yes, we know all about that; we never catch a man who does not

profess to be a _Nero_ of the deepest dye in order to conciliate our

sympathies. It is just as well that you should understand, my friend,

that all are fish who come into our net. The money of the Pope's friends

is quite as good as the money of Garibaldi's. You need not hope to put

us off with your Italian friends of any colour: what we want is English

gold--good solid English gold, and plenty of it."

"Ah," said I, with a laugh, "if you did but know, my friend, how long I

have wanted it too. If you could only suggest an Englishman who would

pay you for my life, I would write to him immediately, and we would go

halves in the ransom. Hold!" I said, a bright idea suddenly striking me;

"suppose I were to write to my Government--how would that do?"

Croppo was evidently puzzled: my cheerful and unembarrassed manner

apparently perplexed him. He had a suspicion that I was even capable of

the audacity of making a fool of him, and yet that proposition about the

Government rather staggered him. There might be something in it.

"Don't you think," he remarked grimly, "it would add to the effect of

your communication if you were to enclose your own ears in your letter? I

can easily supply them; and if you are not a little more guarded in your

speech, you may possibly have to add your tongue."

"It would not have the slightest effect," I replied, paying no heed to

this threat; "you don't know Palmerston as I do. If you wish to get

anything out of him you must be excessively civil. What does he care

about my ears?" And I laughed with such scornful contempt that Croppo

this time felt that he had made a fool of himself; and I observed the

lovely girl behind, while the corners of her mouth twitched with

suppressed laughter, make a sign of caution.

"_Per Dio_!" he exclaimed, jumping up with fury, "understand, Signor

Inglese, that Croppo is not to be trifled with. I have a summary way of

treating disrespect," and he drew a long and exceedingly sharp-looking

two-edged knife.

"So you would kill the goose"--and I certainly am a goose, I

reflected--"that may lay a golden egg." But my allusion was lost upon

him, and I saw my charmer touch her forehead significantly, as though to

imply to Croppo that I was weak in the upper storey.

"An imbecile without friends and twelve _bajocchi_ in his pocket," he

muttered savagely. "Perhaps the night without food will restore his

senses. Come, fool!" and he roughly pushed me into a dark little chamber

adjoining. "Here, Valeria, hold the light."

So Valeria was the name of the heroine of the donkey episode. As she

held a small oil-lamp aloft, I perceived that the room in which I was to

spend the night had more the appearance of a cellar than a chamber; it

had been excavated on two sides from the bank, on the third there was a

small hole about six inches square, apparently communicating with another

room, and on the fourth was the door by which I had entered, and which

opened into the kitchen and general living-room of the inhabitants. There

was a heap of onions running to seed, the fagots of firewood which

Valeria had brought that afternoon, and an old cask or two.

"Won't you give him some kind of a bed?" she asked Croppo.

"Bah! he can sleep on the onions," responded that worthy. "If he had

been more civil and intelligent he should have had something to eat. You

three," he went on, turning to the other men, "sleep in the kitchen, and

watch that the prisoner does not escape. The door has a strong bolt

besides. Come, Valeria."

And the pair disappeared, leaving me in a dense gloom, strongly pervaded

by an odour of fungus and decaying onions. Groping into one of the

casks, I found some straw, and spreading it on a piece of plank, I

prepared to pass the night sitting with my back to the driest piece of

wall I could find, which happened to be immediately under the airhole, a

fortunate circumstance, as the closeness was often stifling. I had

probably been dozing for some time in a sitting position, when I felt

something tickle the top of my head. The idea that it might be a large

spider caused me to start, when stretching up my hand, it came in contact

with what seemed to be a rag, which I had not observed. Getting

carefully up, I perceived a faint light gleaming through the aperture,

and then saw that a hand was protruded through it, apparently waving the

rag. As I felt instinctively that the hand was Valeria's, I seized the

finger-tips, which was all I could get hold of, and pressed them to my

lips. They were quickly drawn away, and then the whisper reached my

ears--

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

"Then eat this," and she passed me a tin pannikin full of cold macaroni,

which would just go through the opening.

"Dear Valeria," I said, with my mouth full, "how good and thoughtful you

are!"

"Hush! he'll hear."

"Who?"

"Croppo."

"Where is he?"

"Asleep in the bed just behind me."

"How do you come to be in his bedroom?"

"Because I'm his wife."

"Oh!" A long pause during which I collapsed upon my straw seat, and

swallowed macaroni thoughtfully. As the result of my

meditations--"Valeria _carissima_."

"Hush! Yes."

"Can't you get me out of this infernal den?"

"Perhaps, if they all three sleep in the kitchen; at present one is

awake. Watch for my signal, and if they all three sleep, I will manage

to slip the bolt. Then you must give me time to get back into bed, and

when you hear me snore you may make the attempt. They are all three

sleeping on the floor, so be very careful where you tread; I will also

leave the front door a little open, so that you can slip through without

noise."

"Dearest Valeria!"

"Hush! Yes."

"Hand me that cane--it is my fishing-rod, you know--through this hole;

you can leave the sketch-book and paint-box under the tree that the

donkey fell against,--I will call for them some day soon. And, Valeria,

don't you think we could make our lips meet through this beastly hole?"

"Impossible. There's my hand; heavens! Croppo would murder me if he

knew. Now keep quiet till I give the signal. Oh, do let go my hand!"

"Remember, Valeria, _bellissima_, _carissima_, whatever happens, that I

love you."

But I don't think she heard this, and I went and sat on the onions

because I could see the hole better, and the smell of them kept me awake.

It was at least two hours after this that the faint light appeared at the

hole in the wall, and a hand was pushed through. I rushed at the finger-

tips.

"Here's your fishing-rod," she said when I had released them, and she had

passed me my air-gun. "Now be very careful how you tread. There is one

asleep across the door, but you can open it about two feet. Then step

over him; then make for a gleam of moonlight that comes through the crack

of the front door, open it very gently and slip out. _Addio, caro

Inglese_; mind you wait till you hear me snoring."

Then she lingered, and I heard a sigh. "What is it, sweet Valeria?" and

I covered her hand with kisses.

"I wish Croppo had blue eyes like you."

This was murmured so softly that I may have been mistaken, but I'm nearly

sure that was what she said; then she drew softly away, and two minutes

afterwards I heard her snoring. As the first sound issued from her

lovely nostrils, I stealthily approached the door, gently pushed it open;

stealthily stepped over a space which I trusted cleared the recumbent

figure that I could not see; cleared him; stole gently on for the streak

of moonlight; trod squarely on something that seemed like an outstretched

hand, for it gave under my pressure and produced a yell; felt that I must

now rush for my life; dashed the door open, and down the path with four

yelling ruffians at my heels. I was a pretty good runner, but the moon

was behind a cloud, and the way was rocky,--moreover, there must have

been a short cut I did not know, for one of my pursuers gained upon me

with unaccountable rapidity--he appeared suddenly within ten yards of my

heels. The others were at least a hundred yards behind. I had nothing

for it but to turn round, let him almost run against the muzzle of my air-

gun, pull the trigger, and see him fall in his tracks. It was the work

of a second, but it checked my pursuers. They had heard no noise, but

they found something that they did not bargain for, and lingered a

moment, then they took up the chase with redoubled fury. But I had too

good a start; and where the path joined the main road, instead of turning

down towards the town, as they expected I would, I dodged round in the

opposite direction, the uncertain light this time favouring me, and I

heard their footsteps and their curses dying away on the wrong track.

Nevertheless I ran on at full speed, and it was not till the day was

dawning that I began to feel safe and relax my efforts. The sun had been

up an hour when I reached a small town, and the little _locanda_ was just

opening for the day when I entered it, thankful for a hot cup of coffee,

and a dirty little room, with a dirtier bed, where I could sleep off the

fatigue and excitement of the night. I was strolling down almost the

only street in the afternoon when I met a couple of carabineers riding

into it, and shortly after encountered the whole troop, to my great

delight, in command of an intimate friend whom I had left a month before

in Naples.

"Ah, _caro mio_!" he exclaimed, when he saw me, "well met. What on earth

are you doing here?--looking for those brigands you were so anxious to

find when you left Naples? Considering that you are in the heart of

their country, you should not have much difficulty in gratifying your

curiosity."

"I have had an adventure or two," I replied carelessly. "Indeed that is

partly the reason you find me here. I was just thinking how I could get

safely back to Ascoli, when your welcome escort appeared; for I suppose

you are going there, and will let me take advantage of it."

"Only too delighted; and you can tell me your adventures. Let us dine

together tonight, and I will find you a horse to ride on with us in the

morning."

I am afraid my account of the episode with which I have acquainted the

reader was not strictly accurate in all its details, as I did not wish to

bring down my military friends on poor Valeria, so I skipped all allusion

to her and my detention in her home; merely saying that I had had a

scuffle with brigands, and had been fortunate enough to escape under

cover of the night. As we passed it next morning I recognised the path

which led up to Valeria's cottage, and shortly after observed that young

woman herself coming up the glen.

"Holloa!" I said, with great presence of mind as she drew near, "my

lovely model, I declare! Just you ride on, old fellow, while I stop and

ask her when she can come and sit to me again."

"You artists are sad rogues,--what chances your profession must give

you!" remarked my companion, as he cast an admiring glance on Valeria,

and rode discreetly on.

"There is nothing to be afraid of, lovely Valeria," I said in a low tone,

as I lingered behind; "be sure I will never betray either you or your

rascally--hem! I mean your excellent Croppo. By the way, was that man

much hurt that I was obliged to trip up?"

"Hurt! Santa Maria, he is dead, with a bullet through his heart. Croppo

says it must have been magic; for he had searched you, and he knew you

were not armed, and he was within a hundred yards of you when poor Pippo

fell, and he heard no sound."

"Croppo is not far wrong," I said, glad of the opportunity thus offered

of imposing on the ignorance and credulity of the natives. "He seemed

surprised that he could not frighten me the other night. Tell him he was

much more in my power than I was in his, dear Valeria," I added, looking

tenderly into her eyes. "I didn't want to alarm you, that was the reason

I let him off so easily; but I may not be so merciful next time. Now,

sweetest, that kiss you owe me, and which the wall prevented your giving

me the other night." She held up her face with the innocence of a child,

as I stooped from my saddle.

"I shall never see you again, Signer Inglese," she said, with a sigh;

"for Croppo says it is not safe, after what happened the night before

last, to stay another hour. Indeed he went off yesterday, leaving me

orders to follow to-day; but I went first to put your sketch-book under

the bush where the donkey fell, and where you will find it."

It took us another minute or two to part after this; and when I had

ridden away I turned to look back, and there was Valeria gazing after me.

"Positively," I reflected, "I am over head and ears in love with the

girl, and I believe she is with me. I ought to have nipped my feelings

in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand,

who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. To

what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be respected?"

and I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this train of

thought, until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my escort,

with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence had been

the cause of much anxiety, and my fate was even then being eagerly

discussed. My friends with whom I usually sat round the chemist's door,

were much exercised by the reserve which I manifested in reply to the

fire of cross-examination to which I was subjected for the next few days;

and English eccentricity, which was proverbial even in this secluded

town, received a fresh illustration in the light and airy manner with

which I treated a capture and escape from brigands, which I regarded with

such indifference that I could not be induced even to condescend to

details. "It was a mere scuffle; there were only four; and, being an

Englishman, I polished them all off with the 'box,'"--and I closed my

fist, and struck a scientific attitude of self-defence, branching off

into a learned disquisition on the pugilistic art, which filled my

hearers with respect and amazement. From this time forward the sentiment

with which I regarded my air-gun underwent a change. When a friend had

made me a present of it a year before, I regarded it in the light of a

toy, and rather resented the gift as too juvenile. I wonder he did not

give me a kite or a hoop, I mentally reflected. Then I had found it

useful among Italians, who are a trifling people, and like playthings;

but now that it had saved my life, and sent a bullet through a man's

heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt for it. Not

again would I make light of it,--this potent engine of destruction which

had procured me the character of being a magician. I would hide it from

human gaze, and cherish it as a sort of fetish. So I bought a walking-

stick and an umbrella, and strapped it up with them, wrapped in my plaid;

and when, shortly after, an unexpected remittance from an aunt supplied

me with money enough to buy a horse from one of the officers of my

friend's regiment, which soon after arrived, I accepted their invitation

to accompany them on their brigand-hunting expeditions, not one of them

knew that I had such a weapon as an air-gun in my possession.

Our _modus operandi_ on these occasions was as follows: On receiving

information from some proprietor that the brigands were threatening his

property,--it was impossible to get intelligence from the peasantry, for

they were all in league with the brigands; indeed they all took a holiday

from regular work, and joined a band for a few weeks from time to

time,--we proceeded, with a force sufficiently strong to cope with the

supposed strength of the band, to the farm in question. The bands were

all mounted, and averaged from 200 to 400 men each. It was calculated

that upwards of 2000 men were thus engaged in harrying the country, and

this enabled the _Neri_ to talk of the king's forces engaged in

legitimate warfare against those of Victor Emmanuel. Riding over the

vast plains of the Capitanata, we would discern against the sky-outline

the figure of a solitary horseman. This we knew to be a picket. Then

there was no time to be lost, and away we would go for him helter-skelter

across the plain; he would instantly gallop in on the main body, probably

occupying a _masseria_. If they thought they were strong enough, they

would show fight. If not, they would take to their heels in the

direction of the mountains, with us in full cry after them. If they were

hardly pressed they would scatter, and we were obliged to do the same,

and the result would be that the swiftest horsemen might possibly effect

a few captures. It was an exciting species of warfare, partaking a good

deal more of the character of a hunting-field than of cavalry

skirmishing. Sometimes, where the ground was hilly, we had Bersaglieri

with us; and as the brigands took to the mountains, the warfare assumed a

different character. Sometimes, in default of these active little

troops, we took local volunteers, whom we found a very poor substitute.

On more than one occasion when we came upon the brigands in a farm, they

thought themselves sufficiently strong to hold it against us, and once

the cowardice of the volunteers was amusingly illustrated. The band was

estimated at about 200, and we had 100 volunteers and a detachment of 50

cavalry. On coming under the fire of the brigands, the cavalry captain,

who was in command, ordered the volunteers to charge, intending when they

had dislodged the enemy to ride him down on the open; but the volunteer

officer did not repeat the word, and stood stock-still, his men all

imitating his example.

"Charge! I say," shouted the cavalry captain; "why don't you charge? I

believe you're afraid!"

"_E vero_," said the captain of volunteers, shrugging his shoulders.

"Here, take my horse--you're only fit to be a groom; and you, men,

dismount and let these cowards hold your horses, while you follow

me,"--and jumping from his horse, the gallant fellow, followed by his

men, charged the building, from which a hot fire was playing upon them,

sword in hand. In less than a quarter of an hour the brigands were

scampering, some on foot and some on horseback, out of the

farm-buildings, followed by a few stray and harmless shots from such of

the volunteers as had their hands free. We lost three men killed and

five wounded in this little skirmish, and killed six of the brigands,

besides making a dozen prisoners. When I say we, I mean my companions;

for having no weapon, I had discreetly remained with the volunteers. The

scene of this gallant exploit was on the classic battle-field of Cannae.

This captain, who was not the friend I had joined the day after my

brigand adventure, was a most plucky and dashing cavalry officer, and was

well seconded by his men, who were all Piedmontese, and of very different

temperament from the Neapolitans. On one occasion a band of 250 brigands

waited for us on the top of a small hill, never dreaming that we should

charge up it with the odds five to one against us--but we did; and after

firing a volley at us, which emptied a couple of saddles, they broke and

fled when we were about twenty yards from them. Then began one of the

most exciting scurries across country it was ever my fortune to be

engaged in. The brigands scattered--so did we; and I found myself with

two troopers in chase of a pair of bandits, one of whom seemed to be the

chief of the band. A small stream wound through the plain, which we

dashed across. Just beyond was a tributary ditch, which would have been

considered a fair jump in the hunting-field: both brigands took it in

splendid style. The hindmost was not ten yards ahead of the leading

trooper, who came a cropper, on which the brigand reined up, fired a

pistol-shot into the prostrate horse and man, and was off: but the delay

cost him dear. The other trooper, who was a little ahead of me, got

safely over. I followed suit. In another moment he had fired his

carbine into the brigand's horse, and down they both came by the run. We

instantly reined up, for I saw there was no chance of overtaking the

remaining brigand, and the trooper was in the act of cutting down the man

as he struggled to his feet, when to my horror I recognised the lovely

features of--Valeria.

"Stay, man!" I shouted, throwing myself from my horse; "it's a woman!

touch her if you dare!" and then seeing the man's eye gleam with

indignation, I added, "Brave soldiers, such as you have proved yourself

to be, do not kill women; though your traducers say you do, do not give

them cause to speak truth. I will be responsible for this woman's

safety. Here, to make it sure, you had better strap us together." I

piqued myself exceedingly on this happy inspiration, whereby I secured an

arm-in-arm walk, of a peculiar kind it is true, with Valeria, and indeed

my readiness to sacrifice myself seemed rather to astonish the soldier,

who hesitated. However, his comrade, whose horse had been shot in the

ditch, now came up, and seconded my proposal, as I offered him a mount on

mine.

"How on earth am I to let you escape, dear Valeria?" I whispered, giving

her a sort of affectionate nudge: the position of our arms prevented my

squeezing hers, as I could have wished, and the two troopers kept behind

us, watching us, I thought, suspiciously.

"It is quite impossible now--don't attempt it," she answered; "perhaps

there may be an opportunity later."

"Was that Croppo who got away?" I asked. "Yes. He could not get his

cowardly men to stand on that hill."

"What a bother those men are behind, dearest! Let me pretend to scratch

my nose with this hand that is tied to yours, which I can thus bring to

my lips."

I accomplished this manoeuvre rather neatly, but parties now came

straggling in from other directions, and I was obliged to give up

whispering and become circumspect. They all seemed rather astonished at

our group, and the captain laughed heartily as he rode up and called out,

"Who have you got tied to you there, _caro mio_?"

"Croppo's wife. I had her tied to me for fear she should escape;

besides, she is not bad-looking."

"What a prize!" he exclaimed. "We have made a tolerable haul this

time,--twenty prisoners in all--among them the priest of the band. Our

colonel has just arrived, so I am in luck--he will be delighted. See,

the prisoners are being brought up to him now: but you had better remount

and present yours in a less singular fashion."

When we reached the colonel we found him examining the priest. His

breviary contained various interesting notes, written on some of the fly-

leaves. For instance:--

"Administered extreme unction to A---, shot by Croppo's orders: my share

ten _scudi_.

"Ditto, ditto, to R---, hung by Croppo's order; my share two _scudi_.

"Ditto, ditto, to S---, roasted by Croppo's order, to make him name an

agent to bring his ransom: overdone by mistake, and died--so got nothing.

"Ditto, ditto, to P---, executed by the knife by Croppo's order, for

disobedience.

"M--- and F---, and D---, three new members, joined to-day: confessed

them, and received the usual fees."

He was a dark, beetle-browed-looking ruffian, this holy man; and the

colonel, when he had finished examining his book of prayer and crime,

tossed it to me, saying,--"There! that will show your friends in England

the kind of politicians we make war against. Ha! what have we here? This

is more serious." And he unfolded a piece of paper which had been

concealed in the breast of the priest. "This contains a little valuable

information," he added, with a grim smile. "Nobody like priests and

women for carrying about political secrets, so you may have made a

valuable capture," and he turned to where I stood with Valeria; "let her

be carefully searched."

Now the colonel was a very pompous man, and the document he had just

discovered on the priest added to his sense of self-importance. When,

therefore, a large, carefully folded paper was produced from the

neighbourhood of Valeria's lovely bosom, his eyes sparkled with

anticipation. "Ho, ho!" he exclaimed, as he clutched it eagerly, "the

plot is thickening!" and he spread out triumphantly, before he had

himself seen what it was, the exquisitely drawn portrait of a donkey.

There was a suppressed titter, which exploded into a shout when the

bystanders looked into the colonel's indignant face. I only was affected

differently, as my gaze fell upon this touching evidence of dear

Valeria's love for me, and I glanced at her tenderly. "This has a deeper

significance than you think for," said the colonel, looking round

angrily. "Croppo's wife does not carefully secrete a drawing like that

on her person for nothing. See, it is done by no common artist. It

means something, and must be preserved."

"It may have a Biblical reference to the state of Italy. You remember

Issachar was likened to an ass between two burdens. In that case it

probably emanated from Rome," I remarked; but nobody seemed to see the

point of the allusion, and the observation fell flat.

That night I dined with the colonel, and after dinner I persuaded him to

let me visit Valeria in prison, as I wished to take the portrait of the

wife of the celebrated brigand chief. I thanked my stars that my friend

who had seen her when we met in the glen, was away on duty with his

detachment, and could not testify to our former acquaintance. My meeting

with Valeria on this occasion was too touching and full of tender

passages to be of any general interest. Valeria told me that she was

still a bride; that she had only been married a few months, and that she

had been compelled to become Croppo's wife against her choice, as the

brigand's will was too powerful to be resisted; but that, though he was

jealous and attached to her, he was stern and cruel, and so far from

winning her love since her marriage, he had rather estranged it by his

fits of passion and ferocity. As may be imagined, the portrait, which

was really very successful, took some time in execution, the more

especially as we had to discuss the possibilities of Valeria's escape.

"We are going to be transferred to-morrow to the prison at Foggia," she

said. "If, while we were passing through the market-place, a disturbance

of some sort could be created, as it is market day, and all the country

people know me, and are my friends, a rescue might be attempted. I know

how to arrange for that, only they must see some chance of success."

A bright thought suddenly struck me; it was suggested by a trick I had

played shortly after my arrival in Italy.

"You know I am something of a magician, Valeria; you have had proof of

that. If I create a disturbance by magic to-morrow, when you are passing

through the market-place, you won't stay to wonder what is the cause of

the confusion, but instantly take advantage of it to escape."

"Trust me for that, _caro mio_."

"And if you escape, when shall we meet again?"

"I am known too well now to risk another meeting. I shall be in hiding

with Croppo, where it will be impossible for you to find me, nor while he

lives could I ever dare to think of leaving him; but I shall never forget

you"--and she pressed my hands to her lips--"though I shall no longer

have the picture of the donkey to remember you by."

"See, here's my photograph; that will be better," said I, feeling a

little annoyed--foolishly, I admit. Then we strained each other to our

respective hearts, and parted. Now it so happened that my room in the

_locanda_ in which I was lodging overlooked the market-place. Here at

ten o'clock in the morning I posted myself--for that was the hour, as I

had been careful to ascertain, when the prisoners were to start for

Foggia. I opened the window about three inches, and fixed it there: I

took out my gun, put eight balls in it, and looked down upon the square.

It was crowded with the country people in their bright-coloured costumes,

chaffering over their produce. I looked above them to the tall campanile

of the church which filled one side of the square. I receded a step and

adjusted my gun on the ledge of the window to my entire satisfaction. I

then looked down the street in which the prison was situated, and which

debouched on the square, and awaited events. At ten minutes past ten I

saw the soldiers at the door of the prison form up, and then I knew that

the twenty prisoners of whom they formed the escort were starting; but

the moment they began to move, I fired at the big bell in the campanile,

which responded with a loud clang. All the people in the square looked

up. As the prisoners entered the square, which they had to cross in its

whole breadth, I fired again and again. The bell banged twice, and the

people began to buzz about. Now, I thought, I must let the old bell have

it. By the time five more balls had struck the bell with a resounding

din, the whole square was in commotion. A miracle was evidently in

progress, or the campanile was bewitched. People began to run hither and

thither; all the soldiers forming the escort gaped open-mouthed at the

steeple as the clangour continued. As soon as the last shot had been

fired, I looked down into the square and saw all this, and I saw that the

prisoners were attempting to escape, and in more than one instance had

succeeded, for the soldiers began to scatter in pursuit, and the country

people to form themselves into impeding crowds, as though by accident,

but nowhere could I see Valeria. When I was quite sure she had escaped,

I went down and joined the crowd. I saw three prisoners captured and

brought back; and when I asked the officer in command how many had

escaped, he said three--Croppo's wife, the priest, and another.

When I met my cavalry friends at dinner that evening, it was amusing to

hear them speculate upon the remarkable occurrence which had, in fact,

upset the wits of the whole town. Priests and vergers and sacristans had

visited the campanile, and one of them had brought away a flattened piece

of lead, which looked as if it might have been a bullet; but the

suggestion that eight bullets could have hit the bell in succession

without anybody hearing a sound, was treated with ridicule. I believe

the bell was subsequently exorcised with holy water. I was afraid to

remain with the regiment with my air-gun after this, lest some one should

discover it, and unravel the mystery; besides, I felt a sort of traitor

to the brave friends who had so generously offered me their hospitality,

so I invented urgent private affairs, which demanded my immediate return

to Naples, and on the morning of my departure found myself embraced by

all the officers of the regiment, from the colonel downwards, who, in the

fervour of their kisses, thrust sixteen waxed moustache-points against my

cheeks.

About eighteen months after this, I heard of the capture and execution of

Croppo, and I knew that Valeria was free; but I had unexpectedly

inherited a property, and was engaged to be married. I am now a country

gentleman with a large family. My sanctum is stocked with various

mementoes of my youthful adventures, but none awakens in me such

thrilling memories as are excited by the breviary of the brigand priest,

and the portrait of the brigand's bride.

THE SISTERS OF THIBET.

It is now nearly twenty-seven years ago--long before the Theosophical

Society was founded, or Esoteric Buddhism was known to exist in the form

recently revealed to us by Mr Sinnett{81}--that I became the _chela_, or

pupil, of an adept of Buddhist occultism in Khatmandhu. At that time

Englishmen, unless attached to the Residency, were not permitted to

reside in that picturesque Nepaulese town. Indeed I do not think that

they are now; but I had had an opportunity during the Indian Mutiny, when

I was attached to the Nepaulese contingent, of forming an intimacy with a

"Guru" connected with the force. It was not until our acquaintance had

ripened into a warm friendship that I gradually made the discovery that

this interesting man held views which differed so widely from the popular

conception of Buddhism as I had known it in Ceylon--where I had resided

for some years--that my curiosity was roused,--the more especially as he

was in the habit of sinking off gradually, even while I was speaking to

him, into trance-conditions, which would last sometimes for a week,

during which time he would remain without food; and upon more than one

occasion I missed even his material body from my side, under

circumstances which appeared to me at the time unaccountable. The

Nepaulese troops were not very often engaged with the rebels during the

Indian Mutiny; but when they were, the Guru was always to be seen under

the hottest fire, and it was generally supposed by the army that his

body, so far from being impervious to bullets, was so pervious to them

that they could pass through it without producing any organic

disturbance. I was not aware of this fact at first; and it was not until

I observed that, while he stood directly in the line of fire, men were

killed immediately behind him, that I ceased to accompany him into

action, and determined, if possible, to solve a mystery which had begun

to stimulate my curiosity to the highest pitch. It is not necessary for

me to enter here into the nature of the conversations I had with him on

the most important and vital points affecting universal cosmogony and the

human race and its destiny. Suffice it to say, that they determined me

to sever my connection with the Government of India; to apply privately,

through my friend the Guru, to the late Jung Bahadoor for permission to

reside in Nepaul; and finally, in the garb of an Oriental, to take up my

residence in Khatmandhu, unknown to the British authorities. I should

not now venture on this record of my experiences, or enter upon the

revelation of a phase hitherto unknown and unsuspected, of that esoteric

science which has, until now, been jealously guarded as a precious

heritage belonging exclusively to regularly initiated members of

mysteriously organised associations, had not Mr Sinnett, with the consent

of a distinguished member of the Thibetan brotherhood, and, in fact, at

his dictation, let, if I may venture to use so profane an expression in

connection with such a sacred subject, "the cat out of the bag." Since,

however, the _arhats_, or illuminati, of the East, seem to have arrived

at the conclusion that the Western mind is at last sufficiently prepared

and advanced in spiritual knowledge to be capable of assimilating the

occult doctrines of Esoteric Buddhism, and have allowed their pupil to

burst them upon a thoughtless and frivolous society with the suddenness

of a bomb-shell, I feel released from the obligations to secrecy by which

I have hitherto felt bound, and will proceed to unfold a few arcana of a

far more extraordinary character than any which are to be found even in

the pages of the 'Theosophist' or of 'Esoteric Buddhism.'

Owing to certain conditions connected with my _linga sharira_, or "astral

body"--which it would be difficult for me to explain to those who are not

to some extent initiated--I passed through the various degrees of _chela_-

ship with remarkable rapidity. When I say that in less than fifteen

years of spiritual absorption and profound contemplation of esoteric

mysteries I became a _mahatma_, or adept, some idea may be formed by

_chelas_ who are now treading that path of severe ordeal, of the rapidity

of my progress: indeed, such extraordinary faculty did I manifest, that

at one time the Guru, my master, was inclined to think that I was one of

those exceptional cases which recur from time to time, where a child-body

is selected as the human tenement of a reincarnated adept; and that

though belonging by rights to the fourth round, I was actually born into

the fifth round of the human race in the planetary chain. "The adept,"

says an occult aphorism, "becomes; he is not made." That was exactly my

case. I attribute it principally to an overweening confidence in myself,

and to a blind faith in others. As Mr Sinnett very properly remarks--

"Very much further than people generally imagine, will mere confidence

carry the occult neophyte. How many European readers who would be

quite incredulous if told of some results which occult _chelas_ in the

most incipient stages of their training have to accomplish by sheer

force of confidence, hear constantly in church, nevertheless, the

familiar Biblical assurances of the power which resides in faith, and

let the words pass by like the wind, leaving no impression!"

It is true that I had some reason for this confidence--which arose from

the fact that prior to my initiation into Buddhist mysteries, and before

I left England, I had developed, under the spiritual craze which was then

prevalent in society, a remarkable faculty of clairvoyance. This gave me

the power not merely of diagnosing the physical and moral conditions of

my friends and acquaintances, and of prescribing for them when necessary,

but of seeing what was happening in other parts of the world; hence my

organism was peculiarly favourable for initiation into occult mysteries,

and naturally--or rather spiritually--prepared for that method in the

regular course of occult training by which adepts impart instruction to

their pupils.

"They awaken," as we are most accurately informed by Mr Sinnett, "the

dormant sense in the pupil, and through this they imbue his mind with

a knowledge that such and such a doctrine is the real truth. The

whole scheme of evolution infiltrates into the regular _chela's_ mind,

by reason of the fact that he is made to see the process taking place

by clairvoyant vision. There are no words used in his instruction at

all. And adepts themselves, to whom the facts and processes of nature

are as familiar as our five fingers to us, find it difficult to

explain in a treatise which they cannot illustrate for us, by

producing mental pictures in our dormant sixth sense, the complex

anatomy of the planetary system."

I have always felt--and my conviction on the subject has led to some

painful discussions between myself and some of my _mahatma_ brothers--that

the extreme facility with which I was enabled to perceive at a glance

"the complex anatomy of the planetary system," and the rapid development

of my "dormant sixth sense," was due mainly to the fact that I was

nothing more nor less than what spiritualists call a highly sensitive

medium. Meantime this premature development of my sixth sense forced me

right up through the obstacles which usually impede such an operation in

the case of a fourth-round man, into that stage of evolution which awaits

the rest of humanity--or rather, so much of humanity as may reach it in

the ordinary course of nature--in the latter part of the fifth round. I

merely mention this to give confidence to my readers, as I am about to

describe a moral cataclysm which subsequently took place in my sixth

sense, which would be of no importance in the case of an ordinary

_chela_, but which was attended with the highest significance as

occurring to a _mahatma_ who had already attained the highest grade in

the mystic brotherhood. It was not to be wondered at that when I arrived

at this advanced condition, Khatmandhu, though a pleasant town, was not

altogether a convenient residence for an occultist of my eminence. In

the first place, the streets were infested with _dugpas_, or red-caps, a

heretical sect, some members of which have _arhat_ pretensions of a very

high order--indeed I am ready to admit that I have met with Shammar

adepts, who, so far as supernatural powers were concerned, were second to

none among ourselves. But this was only the result of that necromancy

which Buddha in his sixth incarnation denounced in the person of Tsong-

kha-pa, the great reformer. They even deny the spiritual supremacy of

the Dalai Lama at Lhassa, and own allegiance to an impostor who lives at

the monastery of Sakia Djong.

The presence of these men, and the presumption of their adepts, who

maintained that through subjective or clairvoyant conditions, which they

asserted were higher than ours, they had attained a more exalted degree

of illumination which revealed a different cosmogony from that which has

been handed down to us through countless generations of adepts, were a

perpetual annoyance to me; but perhaps not greater than the proximity of

the English Resident and the officers attached to him, the impure

exhalations from whose _rupas_, or material bodies, infected as they were

with magnetic elements drawn from Western civilisation, whenever I met

them, used to send me to bed for a week. I therefore strongly felt the

necessity of withdrawal to that isolated and guarded region where the

most advanced adepts can pursue their contemplative existence without

fear of interruption, and prepare their _karma_, or, in other words, the

molecules of their fifth principle, for the ineffable bliss of

appropriate development in _devachan_--a place, or rather "state,"

somewhat resembling Purgatory with a dash of heaven in it; or even for

the still more exquisite sensation which arises from having no sensations

at all, and which characterises _nirvana_, or a sublime condition of

conscious rest in Omniscience.

That I am not drawing upon my imagination in alluding to this mysterious

region, or imposing upon the credulity of my readers, I will support my

assertion by the high authority of Mr Sinnett, or rather of his Guru; and

here I may remark incidentally, that after a long experience of Gurus, I

have never yet met one who would consciously tell a lie.

"From time immemorial," says Mr Sinnett's Guru, "there has been a

certain region in Thibet, which to this day is quite unknown to and

unapproachable by any but initiated persons, and inaccessible to the

ordinary people of the country, as to any others, in which adepts have

always congregated. But the country generally was not in Buddha's

time, as it has since become, the chosen habitation of the great

brotherhood. Much more than they are at present, were the _mahatmas_

in former times distributed throughout the world.

"The progress of civilisation engendering the magnetism they find so

trying, had, however, by the date with which we are now dealing--the

fourteenth century--already given rise to a very general movement

towards Thibet on the part of the previously dissociated occultists.

Far more widely than was held to be consistent with the safety of

mankind was occult knowledge and power then found to be disseminated.

To the task of putting it under a rigid system of rule and law did

Tsong-kha-pa address himself."

Of course, before transferring my material body to this region, I was

perfectly familiar with it by reason of the faculty which, as Mr Sinnett

very truly tells us, is common to all adepts, of being able to flit about

the world at will in your astral body; and here I would remark

parenthetically, that I shall use the term "astral body" to save

confusion, though, as Mr Sinnett again properly says, it is not strictly

accurate under the circumstances. In order to make this clear, I will

quote his very lucid observations on the subject:--

"During the last year or two, while hints and scraps of occult science

have been finding their way out into the world, the expression 'astral

body' has been applied to a certain semblance of the human form, fully

inhabited by its higher principles, which can migrate to any distance

from the physical body--projected consciously and with exact intention

by a living adept, or unintentionally by the accidental application of

certain mental forces to his loosened principles by any person at the

moment of death. For ordinary purposes, there is no practical

inconvenience in using the expression 'astral body' for the appearance

so projected--indeed any more strictly accurate expression, as will be

seen directly, would be cumbersome, and we must go on using the phrase

in both meanings. No confusion need arise; but strictly speaking, the

_linga sharira_, or third principle, is the astral body, and that

cannot be sent about as the vehicle of the higher principles."

As, however, "no confusion need arise" from my describing how I went

about in my _linga sharira_, I will continue to use it as the term for my

vehicle of transportation. Nor need there be any difficulty about my

being in two places at once. I have the authority of Mr Sinnett's Guru

for this statement, and it is fully confirmed by my own experience. For

what says the Guru?--"The individual consciousness, it is argued, cannot

be in two places at once. But first of all, to a certain extent it can."

It is unnecessary for me to add a word to this positive and most correct

statement; but what the Guru has not told us is, that there is a certain

discomfort attending the process. Whenever I went with my astral body,

or _linga sharira_, into the mysterious region of Thibet already alluded

to, leaving my _rupa_, or natural body, in Khatmandhu, I was always

conscious of a feeling of rawness; while the necessity of looking after

my _rupa_--of keeping, so to speak, my astral eye upon it, lest some

accident should befall it, which might prevent my getting back to it, and

so prematurely terminate my physical or objective existence--was a

constant source of anxiety to me. Some idea of the danger which attends

this process may be gathered from the risks incidental to a much more

difficult operation which I once attempted, and succeeded, after

incredible effort, in accomplishing; this was the passage of my fifth

principle, or ego-spirit, into the ineffable condition of _nirvana_.

"Let it not be supposed," says Mr Sinnett,--for it is not his Guru who

is now speaking,--"that for any adept such a passage can be lightly

undertaken. Only stray hints about the nature of this great mystery

have reached me; but, putting these together, I believe I am right in

saying that the achievement in question is one which only some of the

high initiates are qualified to attempt, which exacts a total

suspension of animation in the body for periods of time compared to

which the longest cataleptic trances known to ordinary science are

insignificant; the protection of the physical frame from natural decay

during this period by means which the resources of occult science are

strained to accomplish; and withal it is a process involving a double

risk to the continued earthly life of the person who undertakes it.

One of these risks is the doubt whether, when once _nirvana_ is

attained, the ego will be willing to return. That the return will be

a terrible effort and sacrifice is certain, and will only be prompted

by the most devoted attachment, on the part of the spiritual

traveller, to the idea of duty in its purest abstraction. The second

great risk is that of allowing the sense of duty to predominate over

the temptation to stay--a temptation, be it remembered, that is not

weakened by the motive that any conceivable penalty can attach to it.

Even then it is always doubtful whether the traveller will be able to

return."

All this is exactly as Mr Sinnett has described it. I shall never forget

the struggle that I had with my ego when, ignoring "the idea of duty in

its purest abstraction," it refused to abandon the bliss of _nirvana_ for

the troubles of this mundane life; or the anxiety both of my _manas_, or

human soul, and my _buddhi_, or spiritual soul, lest, after by our

combined efforts we had overcome our ego, we should not be able to do our

duty by our _rupa_, or natural body, and get back into it.

Of course, my migrations to the _mahatma_ region of Thibet were

accompanied by no such difficulty as this--as, to go with your _linga

sharira_, or astral body, to another country, is a very different and

much more simple process than it is to go with your _manas_, or human

soul, into _nirvana_. Still it was a decided relief to find myself

comfortably installed with my material body, or _rupa_, in the house of a

Thibetan brother on that sacred soil which has for so many centuries

remained unpolluted by a profane foot.

Here I passed a tranquil and contemplative existence for some years,

broken only by such incidents as my passage into _nirvana_, and disturbed

only by a certain subjective sensation of aching or void, by which I was

occasionally attacked, and which I was finally compelled to attribute,

much to my mortification, to the absence of women. In the whole of this

sacred region, the name of which I am compelled to withhold, there was

not a single female. Everybody in it was given up to contemplation and

ascetic absorption; and it is well known that profound contemplation, for

any length of time, and the presence of the fair sex, are incompatible. I

was much troubled by this vacuous sensation, which I felt to be in the

highest degree derogatory to my fifth principle, and the secret of which

I discovered, during a trance-condition which lasted for several months,

to arise from a subtle magnetism, to which, owing to my peculiar organic

condition, I was especially sensitive, and which penetrated the _mahatma_

region from a tract of country almost immediately contiguous to it in the

Karakorum Mountains, which was as jealously guarded from foreign

intrusion as our own, and which was occupied by the "Thibetan Sisters," a

body of female occultists of whom the Brothers never spoke except in

terms of loathing and contempt. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at

that no mention is made either of them, or the lovely highland district

they occupy, in Mr Sinnett's book. The attraction of this feminine

sphere became at last so overpowering, that I determined to visit it in

my astral body; and now occurred the first of many most remarkable

experiences which were to follow. It is well known to the initiated,

though difficult to explain to those who are not, that in a sense space

ceases to exist for the astral body. When you get out of your _rupa_,

you are out of space as ordinary persons understand it, though it

continues to have a certain subjective existence.

I was in this condition, and travelling rapidly in the desired direction,

when I became conscious of the presence of the most exquisitely lovely

female astral body which the imagination of man could conceive; and here

I may incidentally remark, that no conception can be formed of the beauty

to which woman can attain by those who have only seen her in her

_rupa_--or, in other words, in the flesh. Woman's real charm consists in

her _linga sharira_--that ethereal duplicate of the physical body which

guides _jiva_, or the second principle, in its work on the physical

particles, and causes it to build up the shape which these assume in the

material. Sometimes it makes rather a failure of it, so far as the

_rupa_ is concerned, but it always retains its own fascinating contour

and deliciously diaphanous composition undisturbed. When my gaze fell

upon this most enchanting object, or rather subject--for I was in a

subjective condition at the time--I felt all the senses appertaining to

my third principle thrill with emotion; but it seemed impossible--which

will readily be understood by the initiated--to convey to her any clear

idea of the admiration she excited, from the fact that we were neither of

us in natural space. Still the sympathy between our _linga shariras_ was

so intense, that I perceived that I had only to go back for my _rupa_,

and travel in it to the region of the sisterhood, to recognise her in her

_rupa_ at once.

Every _chela_ even knows how impossible it is to make love satisfactorily

in nothing but your _linga sharira_. It is quite different after you are

dead, and have gone in your fourth principle, or _kama rupa_, which is

often translated "body of desire," into _devachan_; for, as Mr Sinnett

most correctly remarks, "The purely sensual feelings and tastes of the

late personality will drop off from it in _devachan_; but it does not

follow that nothing is preservable in that state, except feelings and

thoughts having a direct reference to religion or spiritual philosophy.

On the contrary, all the superior phases, even of sensuous emotion, find

their appropriate sphere of development in _devachan_." Until you are

obliged to go to _devachan_--which, in ordinary parlance, is the place

good men go to when they die--my advice is, stick to your _rupa_; and

indeed it is the instinct of everybody who is not a _mahatma_ to do this.

I admit--though in making this confession I am aware that I shall incur

the contempt of all _mahatmas_--that on this occasion I found my _rupa_ a

distinct convenience, and was not sorry that it was still in existence.

In it I crossed the neutral zone still inhabited by ordinary Thibetans,

and after a few days' travel, found myself on the frontiers of "the

Sisters'" territory. The question which now presented itself was how to

get in. To my surprise, I found the entrances guarded not by women, as I

expected, but by men. These were for the most part young and handsome.

"So you imagined," said one, who advanced to meet me with an engaging

air, "that you could slip into our territory in your astral body; but

you found that all the entrances _in vacuo_"--I use this word for

convenience--"are as well guarded as those in space. See, here is the

Sister past whom you attempted to force your way: we look after the

physical frontier, and leave the astral or spiritual to the

ladies,"--saying which he politely drew back, and the apparition whose

astral form I knew so well, now approached in her substantial _rupa_--in

fact, she was a good deal stouter than I expected to find her; but I was

agreeably surprised by her complexion, which was much fairer than is

usual among Thibetans--indeed her whole type of countenance was

Caucasian, which was not to be wondered at, considering, as I afterwards

discovered, that she was by birth a Georgian. She greeted me, in the

language common to all Thibetan occultists, as an old acquaintance, and

one whose arrival was evidently expected--indeed she pointed laughingly

to a bevy of damsels whom I now saw trooping towards us, some carrying

garlands, some playing upon musical instruments, some dancing in lively

measures, and singing their songs of welcome as they drew near. Then

Ushas--for that was the name (signifying "The Dawn") of the illuminata

whose acquaintance I had first made _in vacuo_--taking me by the hand,

led me to them, and said--

"Rejoice, O my sisters, at the long-anticipated arrival of the Western

_arhat_, who, in spite of the eminence which he has attained in the

mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism, and his intimate connection during so

many years with the Thibetan fraternity, has yet retained enough of his

original organic conditions to render him, even in the isolation of (here

she mentioned the region I had come from) susceptible to the higher

influence of the occult sisterhood. Receive him in your midst as the

_chela_ of a new avatar which will be unfolded to him under your tender

guidance. Take him in your arms, O my sisters, and comfort him with the

doctrines of Ila, the Divine, the Beautiful."

Taking me in their arms, I now found, was a mere formula or figure of

speech, and consisted only in throwing garlands over me. Still I was

much comforted, not merely by the grace and cordiality of their welcome,

but by the mention of Ila, whose name will doubtless be familiar to my

readers as occurring in a Sanscrit poem of the age immediately following

the Vedic period, called the Satapathabrahmana, when Manu was saved from

the flood, and offered the sacrifice "to be the model of future

generations." By this sacrifice he obtained a daughter named Ila, who

became supernaturally the mother of humanity, and who, I had always felt,

has been treated with too little consideration by the _mahatmas_--indeed

her name is not so much as even mentioned in Mr Sinnett's book. Of

course it was rather a shock to my spiritual pride, that I, a _mahatma_

of eminence myself, should be told that I was to be adopted as a mere

_chela_ by these ladies; but I remembered those beautiful lines of

Buddha's--I quote from memory--and I hesitated no longer:--

"To be long-suffering and meek,

To associate with the tranquil,

Religious talk at due seasons;

This is the greatest blessing."

"To be long-suffering"--this was a virtue I should probably have a

splendid opportunity of displaying under the circumstances,--"and meek";

what greater proof of meekness could I give than by becoming the _chela_

of women? "To associate with the tranquil." I should certainly obey

this precept, and select the most tranquil as my associates, and with

them look forward to enjoying "religious talk at due seasons." Thus

fortified by the precepts of the greatest of all teachers, my mind was at

once made up, and, lifting up my voice, I chanted, in the language of the

occult, some beautiful stanzas announcing my acceptance of their

invitation, which evidently thrilled my hearers with delight. In order

to save unnecessary fatigue, we now transferred ourselves through space,

and, in the twinkling of an eye, I found myself in the enchanting abode

which they called their home, or _dama_. Here a group of young male

_chelas_ were in waiting to attend to our wants; and the remarkable fact

now struck me, that not only were all the women lovely and the men

handsome, but that no trace of age was visible on any of them. Ushas

smiled as she saw what was passing in my mind, and said, without using

any spoken words, for language had already become unnecessary between us,

"This is one of the mysteries which will be explained to you when you

have reposed after the fatigues of your journey; in the meantime

Asvin,"--and she pointed out a _chela_ whose name signified

"Twilight,"--"will show you to your room." I would gladly linger, did my

space allow, over the delights of this enchanting region, and the

marvellously complete and well-organised system which prevailed in its

curiously composed society. Suffice it to say, that in the fairy-like

pavilion which was my home, dwelt twenty-four lovely Sisters and their

twenty-three _chelas_--I was to make the twenty-fourth--in the most

complete and absolute harmony, and that their lives presented the most

charming combination of active industry, harmless gaiety, and innocent

pleasures. By a proper distribution of work and proportionment of

labour, in which all took part, the cultivation of the land, the tending

of the exquisite gardens, with their plashing fountains, fragrant

flowers, and inviting arbours, the herding of the cattle, and the heavier

part of various handicrafts, fell upon the men; while the women looked

after the domestic arrangements--cooked, made or mended and washed the

_chelas_' clothes and their own (both men and women were dressed

according to the purest principles of aesthetic taste), looked after the

dairy, and helped the men in the lighter parts of their industries.

Various inventions, known only to the occult sisterhood by means of their

studies in the esoteric science of mechanics, contributed to shorten

these labours to an extent which would be scarcely credited by the

uninitiated; but some idea of their nature may be formed from the fact

that methods of storing and applying electricity, unknown as yet in the

West, have here been in operation for many centuries, while telephones,

flying-machines, and many other contrivances still in their infancy with

us, are carried to a high pitch of perfection. In a word, what struck me

at once as the fundamental difference between this sisterhood and the

fraternity of adepts with which I had been associated, was that the

former turned all their occult experiences to practical account in their

daily life in this world, instead of reserving them solely for the

subjective conditions which are supposed by _mahatmas_ to attach

exclusively to another state of existence.

Owing to these appliances the heavy work of the day was got through

usually in time for a late breakfast, the plates and dishes being washed

up and the knives cleaned by a mechanical process scarcely occupying two

minutes; and the afternoon was usually devoted to the instruction of

_chelas_ in esoteric branches of learning, and their practical

application to mundane affairs, until the cool of the evening, when

parties would be made up either for playing out-of-door games, in the

less violent of which the women took part, or in riding the beautiful

horses of the country, or in flying swiftly over its richly cultivated

and variegated surface, paying visits to other _damas_ or homes, each of

which was occupied on the same scale and in the same manner as our own.

After a late dinner, we usually had concerts, balls, and private

theatricals.

On the day following my arrival, Ushas explained to me the relationship

in which we were to stand towards each other. She said that marriage was

an institution as yet unknown to them, because their organisms had not

yet attained the conditions to which they were struggling. They had

progressed so far, however, that they had discovered the secret of

eternal youth. Indeed, Ushas herself was 590 years old. I was not

surprised at this, as something of the same kind has occurred more than

once to _rishis_ or very advanced _mahatmas_. As a rule, however, they

are too anxious to go to _nirvana_, to stay on earth a moment longer than

necessary, and prefer rather to come back at intervals: this, we all

know, has occurred at least six times in the case of Buddha, as Mr

Sinnett so well explains. At the same time Ushas announced without

words, but with a slight blush, and a smile of ineffable tenderness, that

from the day of my birth she knew that I was destined to be her future

husband, and that at the appointed time we should be brought together. We

now had our period of probation to go through together, and she told me

that all the other _chelas_ here were going through the necessary

training preparatory to wedlock like myself, and that there would be a

general marrying all round, when the long-expected culminating epoch

should arrive.

Meantime, in order to enter upon the first stage of my new _chela_-ship,

it became necessary for me to forget all the experiences which I had

acquired during the last twenty years of my life, as she explained that

it would be impossible for my mind to receive the new truths which I had

now to learn so long as I clung to what she called "the fantasies" of my

_mahatma_-ship. I cannot describe the pang which this announcement

produced. Still I felt that nothing must impede my search after truth;

and I could not conceal from myself that, if in winning it I also won

Ushas, I was not to be pitied. Nor to this day have I ever had reason to

regret the determination at which I then arrived.

It would be impossible for me in the compass of this article to describe

all my experiences in the new life to which I dedicated myself, nor

indeed would it be proper to do so; suffice it to say, that I progressed

beyond my Ushas' most sanguine expectations. And here I would remark,

that I found my chief stimulus to exertion to be one which had been

completely wanting in my former experience. It consisted simply in this,

that altruism had been substituted for egotism. Formerly, I made the

most herculean spiritual effort to tide myself over the great period of

danger--the middle of the fifth round. "That," as Mr Sinnett correctly

says, "is the stupendous achievement of the adept as regards his own

personal interests;" and of course our own interests were all that I or

any of the other _mahatmas_ ever thought of. "He has reached," pursues

our author, "the farther shore of the sea in which so many of mankind

will perish. He waits there, in a contentment which people cannot even

realise without some glimmering of spirituality--the sixth

sense--themselves, for the arrival of his future companions." This is

perfectly true. I always found that the full enjoyment of this sixth

sense among _mahatmas_ was heightened just in proportion to the numbers

of other people who perish, so long as you were safe yourself.

Here among the Sisters, on the other hand, the principle which was

inculcated was, "Never mind if you perish yourself, so long as you can

save others;" and indeed the whole effort was to elaborate such a system

by means of the concentration of spiritual forces upon earth, as should

be powerful enough to redeem it from its present dislocated and unhappy

condition. To this end had the efforts of the Sisters been directed for

so many centuries, and I had reason to believe that the time was not far

distant when we should emerge from our retirement to be the saviours and

benefactors of the whole human race. It followed from this, of course,

that I retained all the supernatural faculties which I had acquired as a

_mahatma_, and which I now determined to use, not for my own benefit as

formerly, but for that of my fellow-creatures, and was soon able--thanks

to additional faculties, acquired under Ushas' tutorship--to flit about

the world in my astral body without inconvenience.

I happened to be in London on business the other day in this ethereal

condition, when Mr Sinnett's book appeared, and I at once projected it on

the astral current to Thibet. I immediately received a communication

from Ushas to the effect that it compelled some words of reply from the

sisterhood, and a few days since I received them. I regret that it has

been necessary to occupy so much of the reader's time with personal

details. They were called for in order that he should understand the

source of my information, and my peculiar qualifications for imparting

it. It will be readily understood, after my long connection with the

Thibetan brotherhood, how painful it must be to me to be the instrument

chosen not merely of throwing a doubt upon "the absolute truth concerning

nature, man, the origin of the universe, and the destinies toward which

its inhabitants are tending," to use Mr Sinnett's own words, but actually

to demolish the whole structure of Esoteric Buddhism! Nor would I do

this now were it not that the publication of the book called by that name

has reluctantly compelled the sisterhood to break their long silence. If

the Thibetan Brothers had only held their tongues and kept their secret

as they have done hitherto, they would not now be so rudely disturbed by

the Thibetan Sisters.

* * * * *

"The Sisters of Thibet," writes Ushas, of course with an astral pen in

astral ink, "owe their origin to a circumstance which occurred in the

time of Sankaracharya, erroneously supposed by the initiated to be an

incarnation of Buddha. This teacher, who lived more than a century

before the Christian era, dwelt chiefly upon the necessity of pursuing

_gnyanam_ in order to obtain _moksha_--that is to say, the importance of

secret knowledge to spiritual progress, and the consummation thereof. And

he even went so far as to maintain that a man ought to keep all such

knowledge secret from his wife. Now the wife of Sankaracharya, whose

name was Nandana, 'she who rejoices,' was a woman of very profound occult

attainments; and when she found that her husband was acquiring knowledges

which he did not impart to her, she did not upbraid him, but laboured all

the more strenuously in her own sphere of esoteric science, and she even

discovered that all esoteric science had a twofold element in

it--masculine and feminine--and that all discoveries of occult mysteries

engaged in by man alone, were, so to speak, lop-sided, and therefore

valueless. So she conveyed herself secretly, by processes familiar to

her, away from her husband, and took refuge in this region of Thibet in

which we now dwell, and which, with all his knowledges, Sankaracharya was

never able to discover, for they were all subjective, and dealt not with

the material things of this world. And she associated herself here in

the pursuit of knowledge with a learned man called Svasar, 'he who is

friendly,' who considered secret knowledge merely the means to an end,

and even spiritual progress valuable only in so far as it could be used

to help others; and they studied deep mysteries as brother and sister

together--and he had been a _mahatma_ or _rishi_ of the highest

grade--and, owing to the aid he derived from his female associate, he

discovered that the subjective conditions of _nirvana_ and _devachan_

were the result of one-sided male imaginings which had their origin in

male selfishness; and this conviction grew in him in the degree in which

the Parthivi Mutar, or 'Earth Mother,' became incarnated in Nandana. Thus

was revealed to him the astounding fact that the whole system of the

occult adepts had originated in the natural brains of men who had given

themselves up to egotistical transcendental speculation--in fact, I

cannot better describe the process than in the words of Mr Sinnett

himself, where he alludes to 'the highly cultivated devotees to be met

with occasionally in India, who build up a conception of nature, the

universe and God, entirely on a metaphysical basis, and who have evolved

their systems by sheer force of transcendental thinking--who will take

some established system of philosophy as its groundwork, and amplify on

this to an extent which only an oriental metaphysician could dream of.'

"This, Mr Sinnett chooses to assume, was not the fact with the Thibet

Brothers; but, in reality, this was just what they did. The fact that

they have outstripped other similar transcendentalists is due to the

circumstance that the original founders of the system were men of more

powerful will and higher attainments than any who have succeeded them.

And on their death they formed a compact spiritual society in the other

world, impregnating the wills and imaginations of their disciples still

on earth with their fantastic theories, which they still retain there, of

a planetary chain, and the spiral advance of the seven rounds, and the

septenary law, and all the rest of it. In order for human beings to come

into these occult knowledges, it is necessary, as Mr Sinnett admits, for

the adepts to go into trance-conditions--in other words, to lose all

control of their normal, or as they would probably call them, their

objective faculties. While in this condition, they are the sport of any

invisible intelligences that choose to play upon them; but fearing lest

they may be accused of this, they erroneously assert that no such

intelligences of a high order have cognisance of what happens in this

world. The fact that _mahatmas_ have powers which appear supernatural

proves nothing, as Mr Sinnett also admits that innumerable _fakirs_ and

_yojis_ possess these as well, whose authority on occultism he deems of

no account, when he says that 'careless inquirers are very apt to

confound such persons with the great adepts of whom they vaguely hear.'

There can be no better evidence of the falsity of the whole conception

than you are yourself. For to prove to you that you were the sport of a

delusion, although your own experience as a _mahatma_ in regard to the

secret processes of nature, and the sensations attendant upon subjective

conditions, exactly corresponded to those of all other _mahatmas_, you

have, under my tutelage, at various times allowed yourself to fall into

trance-conditions, when, owing to occult influences which we have brought

to bear, a totally different idea concerning 'nature, man, the origin of

the universe, and the destinies toward which its inhabitants are

tending,' was presented to your sixth sense, which appeared 'absolute

truth' at the time, and which would have continued to seem so, had I not

had the power of intromitting you through trance-conditions into a

totally different set of apparent truths on the same subject, which were

no more to be relied upon than the other. The fact is, that no seer, be

he Hindoo, Buddhist, Christian, or of any other religion, is to be

depended upon the moment he throws himself into abnormal organic

conditions. We see best, as you have now learnt, into the deepest

mysteries with all our senses about us. And the discovery of this great

fact was due to woman; and it is for this reason that _mahatmas_ shrink

from female _chelas_--they are afraid of them. According to their

philosophy, women play a poor part in the system of the universe, and

their chances of reaching the blissful condition of _nirvana_ are

practically not to be compared with those of the men.

"There is no such thing as subjectivity apart from objectivity. Mr

Sinnett very properly tells you 'that occult science regards force and

matter as identical, and that it contemplates no principle in nature as

wholly immaterial. The clue to the mystery involved,' he goes on to say,

'lies in the fact, directly cognisable by occult experts, that matter

exists in other states than those which are cognisable by the five

senses;' but it does not become only cognisable subjectively on that

account. You know very well, as an old _mahatma_, that you can cognise

matter now with your sixth sense as well as with your five while in a

perfectly normal condition, that you could not cognise except in trance-

conditions before, and which even then you could only cognise

incorrectly. The much-vaunted sixth sense of _mahatmas_ needs sharpening

as much as their logic, for you can no more separate subjectivity from

objectivity than you can separate mind from matter. Christians, if they

desire it, have a right to a heaven of subjective bliss, because they

consider that they become immaterial when they go there; but Buddhists,

who admit that they are in a sense material while in _devachan_ or

_nirvana_, and deny that their consciousness in that condition is in the

same sense objective as well as subjective, talk sheer nonsense." Ushas

used a stronger expression here, but out of consideration for my old

_mahatma_ friends, I suppress it.

"'_Devachan_', says our Guru--speaking through his disciple in order to

escape from this dilemma--'will seem as real as the chairs and tables

round us; and remember that above all things, to the profound philosophy

of occultism, are the chairs and tables, and the whole objective scenery

of the world, unreal and merely transitory delusions of sense.' If, as

he admits, they are material, why should they be more unreal than the

chairs and tables in _devachan_, which are also material, since occult

science contemplates no principle in nature as wholly immaterial? The

fact is, that there is no more unreal and transitory delusion of sense

than those 'states' known to the adepts as _devachan_ or _nirvana_; they

are mere dreamlands, invented by metaphysicians, and lived in by them

after death--which are used by them to encourage a set of dreamers here

to evade the practical duties which they owe to their fellow-men in this

world. 'Hence it is possible,' says our author, 'for yet living persons

to have visions of _devachan_, though such visions are rare and only one-

sided, the entities in _devachan_, sighted by the earthly clairvoyant,

being quite unconscious themselves of undergoing such observation.' This

is an erroneous and incorrect assumption on the Guru's part. 'The spirit

of the clairvoyant,' he goes on, 'ascends into the condition of

_devachan_ in such rare visions, and thus becomes subject to the vivid

delusions of that existence.' Vivid delusions indeed, the fatal

consequences of which are, that they separate their votaries from the

practical duties of life, and create a class of idle visionaries who,

wrapping themselves in their own vain conceits, would stand by and allow

their fellow-creatures to starve to death, because, as Mr Sinnett frankly

tells us, 'if spiritual existence, vivid subjective consciousness, really

does go on for periods greater than the periods of intellectual physical

existence, in the ratio, as we have seen in discussing the devachanic

condition, of 80 to 1 at least, then surely man's subjective existence is

more important than his physical existence and intellect in error, when

all its efforts are bent on the amelioration of the physical existence.'

"This is the ingenious theory which the Brothers of Thibet have devised

to release them from acknowledging that they have any other Brothers in

this world to whom they are under sacred obligations besides themselves,

and which, owing to the selfish principle that underlies it, has a

tendency to sap the foundations of all morality. So that we have this

nineteenth-century apostle of Esoteric Buddhism venturing to assert to

his Western readers that 'it is not so rough a question as that--whether

man be wicked or virtuous--which must really, at the final critical

turning-point, decide whether he shall continue to live and develop into

higher phases of existence, or cease to live altogether.' We, the

Sisters of Thibet, repudiate and denounce in the strongest terms any such

doctrine as the logical outcome either of the moral precepts of Buddha or

of the highest esoteric science. Let the Brothers of Thibet beware of

any longer cherishing the delusion that the Sisters of Thibet, because

their existence is purely objective, 'are therefore unreal and merely

transitory delusions of sense.' We also have a secret to reveal--the

result of twenty centuries of occult learning--and we formally announce

to you, the so-called adepts of occult science, that if you persist in

disseminating any more of your deleterious metaphysical compounds in this

world under the name of Esoteric Buddhism, we will not only no longer

refrain, as we have hitherto done, from tormenting you in your subjective

conditions while still in your _rupas_, but, by virtue of the occult

powers we possess, will poison the elements of _devachan_ until

subjective existence becomes intolerable there for your fifth and sixth

principles,--your _manas_ and your _buddhis_,--and _nirvana_ itself will

be converted into hell."

ADOLPHUS: A COMEDY OF AFFINITIES.

_Dramatis personae_.

The HON. ADOLPHUS GRESHAM.

The EARL OF GULES.

ADOLPHUS PLUMPER.

Mr FLAMM.

LADY ELAINE BENDORE.

The COUNTESS OF GULES.

Mrs PLUMPER.

CHARLES.

SCENE I.--A railway carriage. The Earl and Countess of Gules--Lady

Elaine Bendore--The Hon. Adolphus Gresham.

_Elaine_. I must really beg of you to stop, Mr Gresham. You cannot

think how you pain and surprise me. I am sure I never had the least

idea! Besides, supposing papa or mamma should hear you.

_Adolphus_. Lord Gules is asleep, and her ladyship is absorbed in her

novel; besides, you may be sure that I have taken care to ascertain their

sentiments before I venture to say what I have to you. Oh, Elaine, if I

could but hope!

_Train stops_. _Guard_ [_looking in_]. All the smoking-carriages are

engaged, gentlemen; but you'll find room in here.

[_Enter_ Adolphus Plumper _and_ Mr Flamm. Flamm _seats himself opposite_

Elaine, _and_ Plumper _opposite_ Adolphus.

_Flamm_ [_aside to_ Plumper]. By Jove, Plumper! you never told me you

had a twin brother. Polish up your spectacles, old man--you've made 'em

damp by that race we had to catch the train--and look at your

_vis-a-vis_.

[Plumper _takes off his spectacles with great deliberation, wipes them,

puts them on again, and stares at_ Adolphus.

_Plumper_ [_aside_] _stammering_. Dud-dud-dud-do you see a likeness? Dud-

dud-dud-don't see it myself. He's bab-bab-bab-bald, and he's not sh-sh-

sh-ort-sighted.

_Fl_. Probably he doesn't stammer either. I'll try presently.

Positively, if he wore spectacles and a wig of your hair, I shouldn't

know you apart.

_Lady Gules_ [_aside to_ Elaine]. Did you ever see anything more

extraordinary, my dear? What a horrid caricature of our dear Adolphus

Gresham!

_El_. [_aside_]. I can't say I agree with you, mamma. I think he has a

more intelligent expression--more soul, I should say.

_Lady G_. You are quite ridiculous, Elaine. Half the girls in London

have bean setting their caps at Mr Gresham for the last few seasons, till

they have given him up as invulnerable; and now that you have a chance of

becoming one of the richest peeresses in England, you do nothing but snub

him. He is as clever and charming as he will be rich when his father

dies, and is certain to become a Cabinet Minister some day. He's

considered the most rising young man of his party.

_El_. That he may easily be, considering he is a Conservative. Oh,

mamma! how can you suppose that I would ever marry a Conservative?

_Lady G_. I have no patience with you, Elaine; a nice mess your Radicals

have made of it with Egypt and Ireland. But we won't go into that now;

only remember this, if he proposes, and you don't accept him, your father

and I will be seriously displeased.

_El_. [_sighing_]. I'm sure the gentleman opposite is a friend of the

people. See! he's reading the 'Pall Mall.' [_Aside to_ Adolphus.] Mamma

has just been telling me that she sees such a strange likeness between

you and your opposite neighbour.

_Ad_. Ah! Plumper--if the name on his hat-box is to be believed; A.

Plumper, too. I wonder whether A. stands for Adolphus? I don't feel

flattered.

_El_. Now that is nothing but Tory prejudice. I am sure he looks very

distinguished, though his name is Plumper. I have no doubt he's a self-

made man.

_Pl_. Pup-pup-pup-pardon me, madam; shall I put the window up? I see

you feel the dud-dud-dud-draught.

_El_. Thank you. No; I prefer it open. But may I ask you to lend me

your 'Echo'? it's a paper I like so much, and so seldom see.

_Fl_. Cheap, but not nasty; enjoys a vast circulation among the middle

classes. The Conservatives are as far behind us in journalistic capacity

as they are in parliamentary eloquence.

_Pl_. You must make allowances for my friend. He's on the pup-pup-pup-

press himself, and expects shortly to get into Pup-pup-pup-Parliament.

_El_. Oh, I do so hope he will! You don't think there is a reaction

setting in, do you? Papa says that Mr Gladstone is losing his hold on

the country.

_Lord Gules_ [_awaking with a snort_]. Not, however, before the country

has lost its hold upon him. He cares no more for his country, sir, than

I do for the Chinese in California. He's a traitor, sir, to his

principles; he's--

_El_. Oh, papa, do stop!--here we are at the Victoria--and we have no

right to judge any one so harshly. I assure you such strong expressions

only make me feel more and more convinced how wrong you must be. [_To_

Plumper, _handing back his paper_.] Thank you so much. I'm so sorry I

have not had time to read it.

_Lady G_. Good-bye, Mr Gresham; remember that you have promised to dine

with us to-morrow night. We shall be quite alone; but I am sure you

don't care about a party.

_Ad_. I need not say with what pleasure I shall look forward to it. _Au

revoir_, Lady Elaine. [_Aside_.] You do not know how you have been

tempting me to abandon all my cherished political convictions for your

sake. It is to be hoped that the Radicals will not follow up their

success with the caucus by organising the young ladies of their party and

letting them loose on society as propagandists of their Utopian ideas and

political fallacies.

[_Exeunt omnes_.