{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42799/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42799","id":"gutenberg_42799","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42799","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Humour","Category: Novels","Mysticism -- Humor","Religion and science -- Fiction"],"text":"[Illustration: THE GAY GNANI OF GINGALEE]\n\n\n\n\n    THE GAY GNANI OF GINGALEE\n\n    OR\n\n    DISCORDS OF DEVOLUTION\n\n    A TRAGICAL ENTANGLEMENT OF\n    MODERN MYSTICISM AND\n    MODERN SCIENCE\n\n    BY\n\n    FLORENCE HUNTLEY,\n    Author of\n    \u201cHarmonics of Evolution\u201d and \u201cThe Dream Child\u201d\n\n\n    HARMONIC FICTION SERIES\n    VOL. II\n\n    CHICAGO\n    INDO-AMERICAN BOOK CO.\n    1908\n\n\n    Copyright 1908\n    By\n    FLORENCE HUNTLEY\n\n\n    Published 1908\n\n\n    DEDICATED\n    to\n    Those who are wise enough\n        to be foolish--at intervals\n\n\n\n\n\nPRELUDE.\n\n\nMother Nature contributes the elements and qualities and \u201ctemperament\u201d\nof the individual; and no matter what the education, occupation,\nposition or experience, those native tendencies persist.\n\nOne who is born with the disposition for mental frivoling and a keen\nsense of nonsense discovers that these tendencies persist with far\ngreater tenacity than any impulses of anger or fear or other\ndestructive elements. The writer of this little book has found them\nsubordinate only to the thirst for knowledge and the love of truth.\n\nWhen the author of this \u201cromance\u201d finally renounced the small gods of\nher personal ambitions, and surrendered the diverting occupation of\nnewspaper work for serious instruction in the School of Natural\nScience, she merely restrained but never eliminated that Sense of\nNonsense. The native tendency toward intellectual badinage and\nliterary travesty persisted--and even to the present time it furnishes\nrelaxation from the absorbing duties in connection with The Great\nWork.\n\nScience, if it be Science, must take into account all of the facts of\nHuman Nature; and Philosophy, if it be Philosophy, must include and\nassign to place every intellectual, native and normal tendency of the\nSoul.\n\nScience and Philosophy that have no room for the incongruities of life\nand the frivolings of the intelligence are only partial mentors and\nmasters.\n\nThe workshop occupies so much of life, thought and energy, that no one\nshould refuse an occasional hour in the play room.\n\nConfidence in the good sense of the readers of the Harmonic Series\nforbids the thought that this little satire should be mistaken for a\nreflection upon the Verities of the School of Natural Science, or\nthat it could be so misinterpreted as to discredit the Harmonic\nPhilosophy.\n\nIn so far as it is a travesty it deals, not with the facts of Science\nand the Truths of Philosophy, but with the people and the things which\ndiscredit both.\n\n\u201cThe Dream Child\u201d and the first sketch of \u201cDiscords of Devolution\u201d\nwere written at the same time and place, but at different desks.\n\nThis was done in Washington City, at the time of my separation from\nnewspaper life.\n\nThe one stands for that earliest concept and ideal of the Great Law,\nwhile the other represents the undertone of nonsense which\ninstruction, experience and self-denials have subdued but never\neliminated.\n\nThe manuscript of this little volume has been read, from time to time,\nby friends who have urged its publication. This, however, was never\nseriously intended until the \u201cInterlude\u201d (Chapter XII.), was\ncontributed by the TK, which interlude gives to the whole a definite\nmeaning and purpose but vaguely suggested by my own work.\n\nExcept for this masterly arraignment of The Gay Gnani of Gingalee the\nauthor of this tale would have lacked the courage to publish it.\n\nWith this addition, however, the writer reconsidered, reread and\nretouched the Ms., and consented to an Experiment.\n\nWith this explanation, excuse and apology for the writing of the\nromance in the first place, and now for its publication, the author\ncommits it to criticism--with a certain conviction that it has a\nmission of its own to perform.\n    FLORENCE HUNTLEY.\n\n\n\n\nINGREDIENTS.\n\n\n      Chapter                                                  Page\n      PRELUDE                                                     5\n            I PROPHET AND PROFIT                                 13\n           II MISS SHEETS IS SHE                                 21\n          III IN PRIMORDIAL BIOGEN                               30\n           IV THE MANSARD ROOF                                   49\n            V IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE                              65\n           VI THE GAY GNANI OF GINGALEE                          75\n          VII THE BOOK AND THE BAGDAD                            87\n         VIII THE MAN IN THE CELLAR                             110\n           IX DRAWING A CORK                                    130\n            X A PRIVATE EXHIBIT                                 140\n           XI UP AGAINST IT                                     158\n    INTERLUDE                                                   176\n          XII \u201cTHE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH\u201d                       177\n              (By a Member of the Ancient Order of the\n              Brotherhood of India.)\n         XIII PHLOGISTON IS RESTORED                            189\n     POSTLUDE                                                   204\n\n\n\n\u201cFor what shall it profit a man if he gain a whole Drug Store and jar\nhis Higher Self?\u201d\n\n--_Aphorism of the One Hi_----.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\u201c_Philosophers Deride, Fools Investigate_.\u201d\n\nPROPHET AND PROFIT.\n\n\n\u201cBut my profession,\u201d pleaded the slim and pallid youth who stood\nwistfully eyeing the Soda Fountain. \u201cYou forget, my friend, that the\nvows of a Guru forbid such diffusion of force and waste of magnetism\nas occur in meeting those not of The Path.\u201d\n\n\u201cTommy-rot!\u201d bawled young Mr. Vanderhook as he continued to polish the\nalready glittering faucet. \u201cYou\u2019ve not seen her, and you hear me,\nthere is only one in the box and what\u2019s more she can give cards and\nspades to any old band of mystical misfits on the top side the Earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut my _profession_, William, the obligations of\nOne--Who--Aspires--To--Know are--are--simply immense, and in my\nprofession--\u201d\n\n\u201cO, hang your profession--a couple of minutes anyway,\u201d interrupted the\nman at the fountain, \u201cand come along. You\u2019re not going to shake\nKankakee till you\u2019ve seen my Very Best--the finest Chicago brand, the\nhighest flyer this side your celestial belt. What d\u2019ye say, and\nwhat\u2019ll you have?\u201d and Bill Vanderhook looked anxiously into the\nother\u2019s face while his hand sought the \u201csweet cream\u201d spigot.\n\n\u201cAnd if I consent,\u201d finally murmured the Occultist, now toying\nmechanically with the long handled spoon, \u201cIf I consent,\u201d he repeated\nin a weird monotone--his eyes following the process of a Lowball--\u201cand\nlook upon WOMAN--should I look upon her you would call your own,\nremember, Bill, that _you_ assume _my_ responsibility, and that upon\n_your_ head will rest the consequences of _my mad act_. Upon _you_\nmust descend the penalties of my violation of the First Degree.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll go you,\u201d recklessly responded the young druggist, as he shoved\nthe frothing fluid across the marble slab--\u201conly let\u2019s get a move.\u201d\n\nAlonzo Leffingwell\u2019s right hand closed vaguely but firmly upon the\nhandle of the drinking-cup. With an air of utter indifference he\npoured the questionable compound into his system. Then his left hand\nsought his vest pocket--tentatively.\n\nThe Vanderhook drug store once more stood the treat.\n\nSince infancy these two young men had been inseparable chums. The law\nof opposites had been satisfied. It had attracted and welded the\naffections of the stout, stocky, rosy and roystering Bill Vanderhook\nand the pale, pensive and passive Alonzo Leffingwell.\n\nBill\u2019s voice in babyhood was loud, resonant and cheerful, while\nLonnie\u2019s was low, limpid and languid. In youth Bill\u2019s eyes, big, bold\nand black, had seemed continually searching for the hidden and\nforbidden things of fruit closet and melon patch. Contrawise, Lonnie\u2019s\norbs, mild, misty and luminous, seemed forever scanning the\nunsatisfying deeps of space.\n\nWhile nature seemed to have constructed Bill Vanderhook for a\nshort-stop or a half-back, it had reserved Alonzo Leffingwell for the\nhigher arts of mystical mysteries.\n\nOn attaining his majority Bill consulted with his father and accepted\na partnership in the paternal pharmacy. Alonzo consulted with himself,\ndetermined upon mysticism and cut loose from parental guidance. Upon\nthis he resigned, as humorist of the _Daily Clarion_, and set out upon\nthe path of wisdom.\n\nAbout the same time that Bill turned from bats to bottles and gave up\nthe kicking of balls for the rolling of pills, Alonzo laid down his\npen, took up his crystal and immured himself in his bedroom.\n\nNaturally, the exactions of these widely differing occupations tended\nmore and more to separate the two young men.\n\nTo Bill Vanderhook it meant an active daily life and a perpetual\nhustle in holding his father\u2019s trade and reaching out for the\nincrease. It meant for him a frequent dip in the social swim, and\ngreat popularity among those who attended \u201cfunctions\u201d and presided at\nChafing Dishes.\n\nTo Alonzo, his decision to become a \u201cWise Man\u201d cut him out of pretty\nnearly everything in the town. It meant renunciation of all social and\nsentimental diversions of Kankakee. While upon the Druggist were fixed\nthe obligations of citizenship which rooted him in his ancestral home,\nto the Mystic it meant only obscuration and retirement.\n\nWhile Bill was now joyously \u201ctaking stock\u201d and setting up new show\ncases, Mr. Leffingwell, in obedience to his \u201cHigher Self,\u201d was packing\nhis grip for India.\n\nFor he who aspires to the state of Gnanum must seek a more adequate\nasylum than that of Kankakee.\n\nAlonzo was now well up in Yogum.\n\nHe approached Gnanum.\n\nHe apprehended the ALL.\n\nAgainst all this Bill had violently protested. \u201cCut out this\nfoolishness, and get the bats out of your belfry. Come,\u201d he implored,\n\u201cand clerk for me. This is the Leader in Kankakee, and when you learn\nthe business I\u2019ll make you my Pardner. Now what\u2019s the matter with\nTHAT?\u201d\n\n\u201cPouf! _Piff_! PELF!\u201d--and Alonzo had shuddered as he thus expressed\nin a musical crescendo his repulsion for trade. At the mere mention of\nthe Drug Store, or the Stock, this Prophet\u2019s apprentice might have\nbeen seen to curl his mustache with disdain.\n\nHe was strangely indifferent to the possible profits of the show-case\nand the soda fountain.\n\nOnce he had asked, with something akin to vitality in his tone, \u201cHow\ncan you, Bill, consent to spend the whole of your earthly life in the\nweighing, measuring and compounding of cold, inert forms of matter?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how can you,\u201d Bill had retorted in immeasurable disgust, \u201chow can\nyou consent to spend your life in heathendom, roosting on top of a\npost for forty years, till your fingers grow through your fists? And\nmore,\u201d he continued loudly, \u201cI\u2019ll have you remember that these same\ncold, inert forms of matter stand for big, warm and lively DOLLARS.\nD\u2019ye hear me, Mr. Dyanzy Chooanzy? While you\u2019re munchin\u2019 raw fodder\nand meditatin\u2019 in mouldy caves on the manifold mysteries of mankind,\nI\u2019ll be livin\u2019 up to the Queen\u2019s taste in Kankakee--swell\nfront--mansard roof--stunning wife--bank stock--and--who knows--but\nthe legislature or Congress or even\u201d--and Bill paused modestly before\nnominating himself to the Presidency.\n\nAlonzo vouchsafed no reply.\n\nHe only gazed at his companion with the wide, meaningless smile of one\nwho Knows--he--Knows.\n\nThen, shaking his head with vast, prophetic solemnity, he waved adieu\nand passed out--in impenetrable silence.\n\nThis devotee had learned, as do all those who delight in the name\n\u201cMystic,\u201d that nothing is more effective than this vague, superior\nsilence, when confronted with the crude practicalities of the\n\u201cUnillumined.\u201d\n\nThen a truce prevailed between these erstwhile comrades until--the\never to be expected--the Unexpected--happened.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nMISS SHEETS IS SHE.\n\n\nShe was radiantly, \u2018wilderingly beautiful.\n\nShe was tall and lissom, leopard-jointed and swift.\n\nShe was one of those dulcet-toned, tawny peroxides, an houri, for whom\nthe synonym is \u201chavoc.\u201d\n\nChicago spoke in her every tone and gesture. Her movements were\nmeteoric. Her eyes were X-rays. Her smile was sheet-lightning. She was\nalert, trim and tailor-made. Her very presence breathed the richness\nand aroma of her stock-yards training. The Spirit of Chicago, \u201cI\nWILL,\u201d pulsed through her veins. \u201cPush and Pull\u201d was her motto. \u201cGet\nthere\u201d was her creed.\n\nWhoever is familiar with the fatal fascinations of a Chicago\nTypewriter can gauge the gait of the Kankakee pulse when Miss Imogene\nSilesia Sheets, late of the great packing house of Harmor & Co., was\nprecipitated into the midst of that suburban society.\n\nThe advent of this loveliest of her Type was brought about through the\ncourteous solicitations and higher salary offered by Slaughter &\nSteers, a rival firm of the great hog magnate of Chicago.\n\nFrom the very multiplicity of her attractions and accomplishments,\nMiss Sheets was indescribable.\n\nLife in Chicago is of itself an education, and our heroine was rich in\nthe accumulation of her experiences. Her years of service in the\ngreatest pork mart of the world had developed a keen discrimination as\nto the relative coincidences and differences among hogs and men. She\nwas never deceived as to either. She valued each after his kind, in\nhis own place and for his own proper purposes, as becomes a\nbroadminded woman.\n\nMiss Sheets\u2019 accomplishments ranged from office to drawing room. She\npounded the typewriter and the piano with equal facility, and it was\nsaid that she rendered her stenographic notes in rag-time rhythm.\n\nWithin a week of her arrival, Mrs. Astor\u2019s boarding house became a\nsocial center, and Mrs. Astor appreciated a guest who at the same time\nbecame a social feature and paid in advance.\n\nBefore a month had elapsed this artless girl had completely won her\nhostess\u2019 heart, and as they nibbled nuts and nougats at Imogene\u2019s\nexpense, that unsuspecting lady had disclosed to Miss Sheets about all\nshe knew of the \u201cEligible List\u201d of Kankakee.\n\nFrom this time forward, as if by intuition, the lovely Typewriter\nseemed to know that she preferred Bill Vanderhook\u2019s attentions.\n\nAs for Bill, he had been victimized from the start. Three times a day\nhe walked an extra mile to pass her boarding house or place of\nbusiness. He trod the air. He jollied every customer, and set up the\nsoda water recklessly. He beamed on the very bottles behind the\ncounter. He racked his brain and rifled his Father\u2019s show-cases to do\nher homage.\n\n\u201cBe mine, Sweet Thing,\u201d he implored, the third Sunday after their\nintroduction. This he said as they sat in his new, red automobile,\nfour miles from town, while they waited for a gasoline man.\n\nBut the maiden demurred. \u201cOh, Mr. You\u2019ve got sand in your gear box,\u201d\nshe said shyly; then she smiled alluringly and purred softly. The brim\nof her cartwheel hat grated along his Derby, and they drew as close as\nfashion permitted.\n\nStill her rosy lips withheld the answer. \u201cNot,\u201d she murmured to her\ninmost self, \u201cuntil I know whether there\u2019s an electric cart and a trip\nto Europe coming along with the big diamond and the sealskins.\u201d\n\nBut Bill, stupid after the manner of men, was sorely tried by her\nevasiveness. He was not a Mind Reader. He just made plain Love,\nwithout the modern conveniences.\n\nThen came the gasoline man, and it was dark before they started. As\nboth were very hungry, nothing more was said.\n\nBill Vanderhook looked like a blue print, when he handed her out to\nMrs. Astor.\n\nHe felt he had lost his opportunity. He feared he had lost the girl.\n\nIt was at this critical stage of Cupid\u2019s campaign that our story\nopens. It was during this momentous interlude that the over-anxious\nBill had dragged the reluctant Alonzo, the unwilling Mystic, from his\nprofessional seclusion and led him, unprepared, into temptation.\n\nUnconfessed to himself, Bill had a considerable faith in Alonzo\u2019s\noccult powers. He meant to induce the Guru to aid his suit with the\ntantalizing Typewriter.\n\nHaving finally decided to break his vow, Mr. Leffingwell went out of\nthe drug store, sustained by the lowball and a shadowy hope that he\nwould not be found out. He realized his departure from the fifty-seven\nPaths, but he did not dream that as yet he had come up to his Karmic\nDestiny. He did not suspect that he and Bill were strolling down\nAsylum Avenue, arm in arm, for the last time.\n\nA little later Alonzo is seated with Bill in Mrs. Astor\u2019s parlor, on\nthe very davenport where Bill had first seen HER. Silently they\nawaited the appearance of the maiden of whom Bill talked all day, whom\nhe visited every evening, and of whom he dreamed all night.\n\nThe face of the Mystic was set and stern. His body was erect and\nrigid. His gaze was abstracted, cold and indifferent.\n\nTo his innermost Inner he was steeled against Woman.\n\nPresently there was a swish and a swirl of nearby silk and\nheatherbloom, a faint but intoxicating odor of patchouli, and\nthen--and then--a face, a bewildering flash of the rose and the lily,\na sunburst of radiant loveliness.\n\nThe up-to-date maiden and the up-to-date Mystic stood face to face.\n\nOn that instant the tragic entanglement of Mysticism and Materialism,\nwhich had been recorded in the stars, now took on its initial\nexpression.\n\nThe effect upon the Occultist was instantaneous and overpowering. On\nthe instant his face, form and expression lost their hauteur, rigidity\nand disdain. Rising, but unheeding the formal introduction by his\nproud and awkward chum, Alonzo Leffingwell paled, trembled and swayed.\nFor one unutterable moment he gazed upon that dazzling vision with\nrapt ecstasy, and then raising his delicate white hand and pointing at\nrandom in the air, he shrieked in a loud voice, \u201cAha!--Ah-ha! \u2019tis\nSHE! \u2019Tis SHE!--MISS SHEETS IS SHE!\u201d and fell in convulsions at the\nfeet of the lovely stranger.\n\nThen Miss Sheets shrieked like it was a mouse, and Bill growled his\nastonishment.\n\n\u201cWell! wouldn\u2019t that jar you?\u201d cried the girl.\n\nBut collecting himself, Bill rather enjoyed the impression his Imogene\nhad made.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve paralyzed him sure,\u201d he said, contempt for Alonzo and\nadmiration for the Lady struggling for expression.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t you think it,\u201d she said gaily, giving her pompadour a\ntwist--\u201cbut what are we going to do?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I\u2019ll telephone for the auto and rush him around to the drug\nstore. No, not a doctor--I know how to fix him. A good stiff\nHi-lowball\u201d--and Bill winked--\u201cwill start his vibrations again.\u201d\n\nThen the lovers, momentarily distracted from themselves, resumed where\nthey had left off, and so successfully did Mr. Vanderhook Jr. press\nhis claims that before the auto came smelling around the corner--and\nwhile the unconscious Alonzo lay cold and mute--Imogene had received\nthe huge solitaire she had admired so prettily the last time she and\nBill passed the Jeweler\u2019s together.\n\nLate that night, when Bill slipped noiselessly out of Mrs. Astor\u2019s\nparlor, a golden hair was curiously entangled in the coils of his\ncameo shirt-stud.\n\nAnd the Recluse, what of him?\n\nWhat of him who had violated the First Degree?\n\nAfter regaining his equilibrium he withdrew to his father\u2019s house and,\nlocking himself in his apartments, he there remained for one month,\nduring which time he tasted neither food nor drink.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nIN PRIMORDIAL BIOGEN.\n\n\nHis penance done, the Mystic of Kankakee presented himself once more\nat the soda fountain. He was paler, slimmer and altogether more\neffective than before. He was faultlessly groomed in pearl gray. His\nhead was held high--by an immaculate collar. He was shod in patent\nleathers, and white spats peeped chastely below his upturned trousers.\nHis gloved hand grasped the middle of a large cane for support.\n\n\u201cDo you, William K. Vanderhook, hope or expect to marry Imogene\nSilesia Sheets?\u201d\n\nYoung Mr. Vanderhook, who was replenishing the soda fountain, startled\nfor the moment, dropped a large chunk of ice, thereby overturning\nseveral bottles of syrup.\n\n\u201cIf--So--You--Must--Re--lin--quish--Her.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, what are you givin\u2019 me?\u201d growled Bill, as he turned upon his\nchum, and as he did so snapped the cover of the soda fountain with\nunnecessary violence.\n\n\u201cMerely this,\u201d said Alonzo Leffingwell, slightly raising his\nmonotone,--\u201cYou persuaded me to break my vow. You inveigled me into\nlooking upon woman. I had warned you, pleaded with you to let me out\nof this. You heeded not. I hinted at penalties. You sneered. You did\nnot believe me. You insisted. I yielded. But you have assumed the\nconsequences. You have defied Destiny. But my unsophisticated friend,\nyou have bound yourself to accept the results. You played with Fate.\nThe law is relentless. Rash boy, you have invoked dire karmic\nconsequences.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, what in the name of--the higher foolology--are you driving at?\u201d\nsnapped Bill, quite out of patience.\n\n\u201cThis, my once friend, this\u201d--and Lonnie now well started, talked\nstraight on. \u201cThrough my higher comprehension of primordial\nprinciples, and by my occult manipulations of certain astral forces\n(quite unknown to such as you), I erstwhile learned the most profound\nfact in nature. I was, as we say in our cult, able to visionize my\nSoul Mate. The doors of the future, as it were, lifted from their\nhinges, and--Aha! you start. You tremble. You sense my secret. You\nperceive the mystical meaning of my metaphysical meanderings.\u201d\n\nAlonzo Leffingwell paused, gazing fixedly at Bill, who was now\nnervously rinsing the glasses.\n\n\u201cYou have guessed,\u201d and the Mystic\u2019s voice fell to a sharp whisper.\n\u201cMiss Sheets is SHE,--she whom I cognized in the astral. She is _not_\nyour affinity, but _mine_. Did you not perceive that we needed no\nintroduction? Our higher selves responded to the law; hence my\nagitation, and your--your--KARMA.\u201d\n\nBill Vanderhook stopped short, straightened himself. He quit tinkering\nwith the stock.\n\nContinued Lonnie remorselessly,--\n\n\u201cKnowing, as I do, that our union is inevitable in the course of\nevolutionary processes, I thought best so to inform you, and as it\nwere, take her off your hands. You are, I trust, too wise to attempt\nany interference with the immutable.\u201d\n\nBill Vanderhook stared at his chum for a minute, and then broke into a\nbig, loud laugh. \u201cWell, at least you\u2019re candid,\u201d he said--\u201cmore so\nthan most fellows who find their affinities,\u201d--and he carelessly\nmopped off the marble slab. \u201cAt the same time,\u201d--and his voice\nroughened--\u201cyou\u2019ll excuse me for saying that you\u2019re off your base, and\nthat I hold the age over your astral informant, whatever his degree of\nasininity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you mean to say that you will not relinquish her? That you will\ndefy the decrees of nature? That you will violate the principles of\nprimordial biogen? That you will ignore the \u2018Harmonics of Evolution?\u2019\u201d\nAnd Alonzo\u2019s eyes again rested on the labels of the soda fountain.\n\n\u201cTo the first,--Nit. To the secondly, thirdly and fourthly,--Yep. Now,\nyou get it?\u201d--and Bill looked very tired.\n\n\u201cO, earthy and unillumined!\u201d murmured the pale, young\nenthusiast,--\u201cwould that I could but for a moment open up to your\nclouded understanding the mystical and unintelligible explications of\none whom I, even I, acknowledge to be a deeper, more profound and more\nmysterious Mystic than MYSELF.\n\n\u201cWhat you need, O, dense, chaotic soul, is--EX-PLI-CA-TION,\nExplication that will Explain. Hear me, poor groveler amid the\nrudimentary manifestations of matter. Harken to me ere it be too late.\nHear me, O, my boyhood\u2019s chum. Hear the words of misty meaning which\nhave flowed in boundless streams from this modern Mystic, that\nFar-Off-One in Manhattan Isle. These are the words of one upon whose\nwisdom I feed, the words of one who KNOWS, and--and--I whisper to you\nin secret, one who admits that he is--a--_Mystic_.\n\n\u201cHear him, William--you who trifle with solemn things--you who deny\nthese primordial, protoplasmic affinities. Hide your head in\nconfusion. Hear him whose utterances no man can interpret. Hear him\nwhose explications are as explicit, as limpid, as lucid, as\ncrystalline, as clear, as the broad light of day at midnight\u2019s holy\nhour.\n\n\u201cTurn with me to our most luminous and incomprehensible text book. You\nwill find at page numbered 288, commencing, I think, near the middle\nof the page, the following inspired words, viz.,--\n\n[1]\u201d\u2018The spiritual espousal, wherein humanity is united with the Lord,\nis not only catholic, including all the elements in a human word, but,\nwhatever may be its heavenly consummation, is, in its earthly\nexpression and as a visible manifestation, a limited estate, involving\nconditions such as attend all other espousals: on the Bride\u2019s part a\ndestination separating her from the Bridegroom, and in many ways\nseeming a contradiction of her inmost desire for Him, so that she\nbecomes a poor starveling, a distraught and desolate Psyche, bereft of\nLove; and on the part of the Bridegroom a running after her, as if in\nanswer to some great need and hunger developed in her desolation, as\nif He had indulged her aversion that He might follow her into her\ndarkest hiding, standing at her door and knocking while His locks are\nwet with the cold dews of her night--He also having veiled His\nessential might and brightness lest she should be dismayed at His\ncoming, yet retaining enough of his original majesty that she may see\nHim as the one altogether lovely, the wonderful.\u2019\n\n[Footnote 1: \u201cA Study of Death,\u201d by Henry Mills Alden; late editor\nHarper\u2019s Magazine.]\n\n\u201cHere in this one simple sentence of only one hundred and eighty-four\nshort, brief, curt, compact, concise, terse, pithy, diffuse, verbose,\nprolix, copious, flowing, digressive, excursive, discursive,\npleonastic and periphrastic words, with at least nine out of every ten\nof which you should be familiar, there are enough possibilities of\nmeaning, and lack of meaning, to keep your benighted intellect busy\nguessing for the balance of your natural life.\n\n\u201cBut dark as is your intellectual vision, you can not fail to note the\nfrequent occurrence of such significant words as \u2018Bride,\u2019\n\u2018Bridegroom,\u2019 \u2018espousal,\u2019 \u2018united,\u2019 \u2018heavenly consummation,\u2019\n\u2018destination,\u2019 \u2018desolate Psyche,\u2019 \u2018Love,\u2019 \u2018indulged,\u2019 \u2018original\nmajesty,\u2019 \u2018altogether lovely,\u2019 and \u2018wonderful.\u2019\n\n\u201cYou can not fail to note that in this wonderful revelation of the\npossibilities of a single sentence, the personal pronouns \u2018He\u2019 and\n\u2018Him\u2019 always begin with a capital \u2018H.\u2019 Can you further doubt that this\nrefers to ME? Can you further protest that this union of ME and MINE\nis not an essential part of the great plan and purpose of the Cosmic\nIntelligence to whom alone I acknowledge equality?\n\n\u201cBut if, perchance, there yet remains a lingering doubt, then listen\nonce more to this inspired Mystic; for at page 197 he says,--\n\n\u201c\u2018In the ascent of life, desire seems to compel its cosmic partner,\nas hunger its victim, suspending that operation of physical and\nchemical forces proper to them outside of this dominion of vitality;\nin its descent these forces more and more tend to resume their proper\naction, until finally they bring into their own domain the structure\nthey have served; their hardening of the walls of life\u2019s outward\ntemple, begun for protection, has gone on to the extreme of fragility\nand destruction--an office as kindly as any they have performed.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd once more, O, my benighted friend, at page 185 he again says,--\n\n\u201c\u2018In this complex hierarchy of Nature discrete accords are sustained,\nso that they fall not into indifference and confusion; degrees of\nexcellence are marked--of truth, beauty and goodness; individual\nsequestration and tranquillity are secured, and for each life a\nway--its own that no other can take, and yet open to accordant\nintimacies and correspondences; and in the psychical involvement life\nacquires a feeling of itself and a conscious control, the liberty of\nits dwelling.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd yet again at page 108,--\n\n\u201c\u2019As these organic capacities are deepened inwardly, representing in\ntheir sphering and involution and convolution the synthetic action of\ncosmic envelopment from the beginning, the desire which has thus\nshaped itself by intussusception, expressing its postulation, is\noutwardly a flame of increase, ascending also while it is crescent\nuntil it reaches the culminant point of its physiological term, where\nit--\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cHold up there. Close that valve a minute. Put on the lid,\u201d roared\nBill, \u201cand tell me in the name of all specialized idiocy what you\u2019re\nat. If you can\u2019t untangle yourself with four thousand languages dead\nand alive, then you better go chase yourself into cosmic nebulosity.\n\n\u201cIf this is your Ex--pli--ca--tion--, and if this is your only excuse\nfor involuting yourself into an introconvertible, double-back-action\ndictionary, then, says I, t\u2019mud with your mysticism. And now\nhereafter, when you want to \u2018explicate\u2019 you go out to the harmless\nward where they\u2019ve got whole bunches of just such as your old\nManhattan misfit mutt.\n\n\u201cYou go out there and talk to your own brand of mystics. Don\u2019t you\ntalk shop here. I\u2019m in the drug business and I know a little bit about\nmedicine, but I\u2019ll be everlastingly lost in a cosmological fog if I\u2019d\nknow how to prescribe for symptoms like yours. The kind of microbes\nthat manifest through the gray matter of a mystic are not identified\nin these mundane dispensatories.\n\n\u201cNow, you hear me a minute, Mr. Alonzo Leffingwell--INEXPLICABLE\nmystic and all around D--P--of every old degree, you want to get right\nout of Kankakee and lose no time. The state of Illinois makes our city\nthe center of only _ordinary_ aberrations; it does not provide wards\nfor such illuminated inanities as you at this minute have been\nexplicating.\n\n\u201cI say, my friend, you go get some bars and lock yourself up. Go sink\nyourself in a tank of formaline and then will the tank to the\nscientific department of the institution. This, I say, would never be\nmisunderstood by anybody who knew you. It would be a contribution to\nscience, an aid to education, and an example to the young. And this\nwould be the only good excuse you could ever give to society for\nhaving been on the top side of the earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnhappy trifler, you will regret your selfishness,\u201d murmured the\noccultist, less in anger than sorrow. \u201cBut I have done. I leave you to\nyour destiny. I leave you to your own conscience. This will cost you\ncycles of expiation. You have forfeited your possibilities. Had you\nresigned her in accordance with the law, all had been well. But your\npersistence shall react upon your own head,--and now farewell. I leave\nyou, to return no more,--at least not this afternoon. I shall seek the\nlady. It rests with her. If possible I shall save her from the sad\nerror of marrying you. I shall save her from herself. I shall lift her\nup to ME, and in this wise I may perhaps save her from other and very\ndisagreeable reincarnations.\u201d\n\nBill Vanderhook picked his hat off the peg, carefully selected a big\ncigar, lighted it, took a whiff and then replied sardonically,--\u201cWell,\nMr. Dianzy Chooanzy, and suppose she won\u2019t affin, what then?\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, O, then,\u201d--lisped Lonnie as he leaned upon the show-case as if\nfor support,--\u201cI shall be compelled to wait through several cycles,\nperhaps, until she has worked out the necessary karma and attained to\nME.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut see here,\u201d persisted Bill. \u201cI thought that you gurus and gnanis\nand you astral fellows generally took the bachelor\u2019s degree the very\nfirst inning. I thought you were clean off the market. I\u2019ve always\nheard that matrimony was quite outside the mystic foul lines.\u201d\n\n\u201cRight,\u201d--answered Lonnie,--\u201cthat is, as you understand mysticism,\nmarriage is forbidden, except a gentleman discovers his very own. And\neven then,\u201d--and his voice quavered,--\u201che must not even get engaged\nuntil she who is his in primordial biogen shall attain to an equal\nillumination. This frequently postpones the happy day for ages.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, now, that\u2019s a horse of another color,\u201d--and Bill heaved a sigh\nof relief. \u201cThis is most likely one of those postponed cases. Anyway,\nI was solid up to last night, but if you don\u2019t mind waiting a couple\nof thousand years I haven\u2019t any objections,\u201d--and the generous young\ndruggist let fizz a glass of mineral water.\n\n\u201cThanks, awfully,\u201d--murmured Lonnie, but whether for the permission or\nthe apollinaris was not quite clear. He sipped the sparkling water\nwith suggestive mournfulness.\n\n\u201cBeing chained to the material,\u201d he added, \u201cit is very possible she\nmay even prefer you to ME. The fleshly veil which yet so thickly\nclothes her higher principles, may obscure ME to her inner\nconsciousness; in which case I must temporarily resign her. I may not\nclaim her for several brief earth lives yet. For all this I am fully\nprepared. And should she not cognize ME for what I AM, I shall hence\nto India, and there, by contemplation in the sacred cave I shall\nastralize. I shall return again, and keep watch over her.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, well, well,--that\u2019s quite an idea, isn\u2019t it!\u201d--responded Bill.\n\u201cNo,\u201d--as Lonnie felt in his vest pocket--tentatively,--\u201cit\u2019s my\ntreat. The plan you mention isn\u2019t more\u2019n half bad--kind o\u2019 lets us all\nout without any hard feelings. I know it will suit Imogene to a T.\nCome back from India any time--in the astral. You\u2019ll find the\nlatch-string out.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou forget,\u201d returned the Mystic mildly, even sadly, \u201cthat\nONE--WHO--KNOWS requires neither latch-string nor pass key.\n\n\u201cSuch an one, as I AM--TO--BECOME, neither asks admission nor visits\nby invitation. These are they who function in the Universal and whose\natomic particles respond to the WILL. These are they whose levitations\nare uncircumscribed, who moveth by Desire and where they listeth. If\nI go shall I return again? And if so, from whence and for why? And who\nshall let me in? Aha! Ah-ha!\u201d\n\nSaying which the wise man of Kankakee turned, went softly out the door\nand gliding down Asylum Avenue sought the abode of the fascinating\nTypewriter.\n\n    A Maiden so fair and a Guru so slight\n      Conversed as they sat on the green:\n    Alonzo the Seer was the name of the wight,\n      And the maid was the Fair Imogene.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE MANSARD ROOF.\n\n\nAgain, for the second time, the student of the occult gazed upon his\naffinity; and again the lovely Typewriter, versed in the higher\ncriticism of Chicago social life, sized up her caller with\ncosmopolitan grace.\n\nThe meeting was relieved of embarrassment by the spontaneous\ninterrogation of the city-bred business woman.\n\n\u201cAnd what can we do for you today, Mr. Leffingwell?\u201d--sweetly.\n\n\u201cI have come, Miss Sheets,\u201d--murmured Mr. Leffingwell, and he looked\ndirectly through the maiden at the wall paper,--\u201cI have come to invite\nyou, to implore you, to go with me to--to--to--stroll with me.\nWalls--walls--that is, some of them, have ears. I would be alone with\nyou. There is much of moment to impart to you--to you alone. There is\na secret--\u201d\n\n\u201cThat catches me,\u201d--broke in the beauty, and she rose, donning her\npicture hat hastily, and grabbing her long-handled umbrella and\nmany-buttoned kids.\n\n\u201cWell, come along, Mr. Leffingwell; I\u2019m ready\u201d--and the dear girl\u2019s\nhand was on the hall door-knob.\n\nAnd the man and the maiden passed on down Asylum Avenue.\n\nThe Mystic appeared actually to know where he wanted to go. After\nconducting her to the outskirts he led her upward to the summit of a\nbluff overlooking the City, the Asylum and the Vanderhook drug store.\n\nThen he became strangely silent. Indeed, he had spoken but once in\ntheir long walk, and then only when his companion halted suddenly,\ndropping a few paces behind him.\n\n\u201cWhat is it, dear Miss Sheets, art weary?\u201d--he had murmured softly,\nand he anxiously contemplated her listless expression.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s nothing,\u201d the lady replied, and then she smiled bravely.\n\nBut it was something, very unpleasant and very painful. Miss Sheets\nwas breaking in a new pair of boots--an immense feat, as any Chicago\ngirl knows.\n\nIt made her very tired.\n\nFinally they reached and paused upon the summit. It was the hour when\nthe sun is apparently sinking. Kankakee lay bathed in that rosy\nafterglow.\n\n\u201cIs not this inspiring--uplifting? Is not this Realization? Let us\nVIBRATE.\u201d\n\nHis large, round, blue eyes were fixed steadfastly upon nothing. He\nwore an expression of ineffable self-satisfaction.\n\nBut the lady was silent. She seemed not to hear. She was busy with\nsome burrs on her gown. Her gaze lingered fondly upon her new\nsparkling diamond.\n\n\u201cStill silent,\u201d he murmured, \u201cstill wrapped in your own thoughts. Why\nthat disturbed expression, why no response? You frown; alas, what\ndoes this portend?\u201d and Alonzo, the Guru, momentarily diverted from\ncontemplation of Himself, clasped his hands, cast his eyes upward and\nbent as if he might kneel.\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t anything,\u201d indifferently.\n\n\u201cAlas, and alas!\u201d ejaculated her escort. \u201cNot anything you say; yet we\nwho walk the Path are taught that everything Objective is the outcome\nof something which is Subjective, and therefore nothing is something\nand \u2018not anything\u2019 is everything to me, when it disharmonizes YOU.\nTell me, fair one, what and why?\u201d\n\n\u201cO, well, if you must know,\u201d and Miss Sheets sniffed, \u201cI was just\nwondering if I could ever tie up to these dreadful, grassy smells of\nthe country. One gets _so_ used to City odors, you know. And Chicago\nhas more of \u2019em, especially about the Yards, and better mixed than in\nany city in the world. When you\u2019re in Chicago you know what\u2019s\na-coming\u201d--and the city-bred girl held up her dainty \u201cmouchoir\u201d to\nward off the scent of new mown hay.\n\nA wave of perplexity, of doubt over-swept the solemn countenance of\nthe Mystic.\n\n\u201cThen you would tell me--\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, that I don\u2019t like the odors, and I don\u2019t like this\ndead-and-alive stillness. Why, anybody who comes from the Yards, and\nis used to the roar and crash and squealing, gets nervous prostration\nin a cemetery like this.\u201d\n\nAlonzo contemplated her, wonderingly; then, as if dismissing the whole\nthing, he said in a tone that hinted of impetuosity, \u201cLet us not talk\nof Chicago, nor the Yards. Let us forget the smelly things and the\ndead ones. Let us only think of each other, Miss Sheets,\u201d and he drew\ncloser to her. \u201cMiss Sheets, Imogene, my own, my very own, tell me,\ntell me now that you feel a subtle something drawing you to ME!\u201d\n\nThe sharp, bright eyes of the Typewriter opened with astonishment. It\nwas the lady\u2019s turn to look bewildered. She gazed blankly at the\nsmitten Seer who had already dropped on one knee. She gazed upon him\nin wonderment. It was the look of mingled awe and admiration a child\nbestows upon a circus Poster.\n\n\u201cI--I--don\u2019t catch on,\u201d she said simply. The rapt lover smiled. It was\na pale, luminous ripple of compassion. He lifted himself to the\nperpendicular--drawing still closer. He gazed upon her. He seemed\nalmost ready to take her hand.\n\n\u201cMost perfect of mortals,\u201d he began. \u201cLet me explain:\n\n\u201cAs you may have heard, I am under orders for Gnaniship. To accomplish\nthis I must soon go from the sophomore grade of Illinois to the senior\ncourse in far off Hindustan. In the line of my profession I come to\nknow pretty much everything. I am as familiar with the IS, as with the\nAPPARENT. The NOTHINGNESS of the IS NOT I have demonstrated several\ntimes. The oneness of UNITY and the ISNESS of BEING I have already\nmastered. And by a patient pursuit of the WHITHER and WHENCE, I have\nanticipated my contemporaries by thousands of years. I have distanced\nposterity by many a lap.\u201d\n\nThe Mystic paused to note the impression he was making. Then he went\non;--\u201cThrough the esoteric fundaments of nature and through certain\noccult experiments in primordial polarity, I was enabled to apprehend,\nto comprehend, to cognize the great law of affinity. I discovered that\nsomewhere there was a ONE, a particular ONE, a dear, sweet, beautiful\nSHE to whom I was bound in protoplasmic energies and biological\nconsequences.\n\n\u201cAnd there came a time when she whom I sought was visioned in the\nastral light. I saw her--SHE--that one, essential, correlated\nSHE,--SHE that was my other half--that satisfying SHE--that only\nSHE--was none other than your own sweet self, Miss Sheets.\n\n\u201cNay, do not interrupt me. It was not until you realized in material\nsubstance this ethereal vision that I had, as it were, solved the\nproblem. I had proved the law. Though as yet far beneath MYSELF in\nphysical refinement, mental acquirements and spiritual illumination, I\nam yet resolved to accept you as my own and wait until you _do\nattain_. I am patient. I can and will wait until you have been\ninstructed in the Path of Yog, and attain to ME. And now, my own,\nspeak to me. Express your joy. Speak, ah, speak!\u201d\n\nMr. Leffingwell paused. There was something almost akin to human\ndesire in his voice, but there was no reply. Miss Sheets was silent.\nShe seemed to be only half listening. In her eyes was now that\nfar-offness, so habitual to mystics, gnanis and gurus. It was now the\nlady who was abstracted. Her glance traveled down and backward along\nthe avenue. She was looking in the direction of the drug store.\n\n\u201cHear me again, fair one\u201d--whispered the occultist. \u201cI am yours only.\nYou are mine only. I co-ordinate with you, not as Bill does on the\nearth plane. Mine is a love not desecrated by thoughts of diamond\nrings, sealskin sacques, oyster suppers, pink candies and frozen\nmushes. Mine is the primordial passion that vibrates in the etheric\nspaces of the universe. It is a passion which scorns material bribes.\nMine is a devotion that looks only to soul communion, and the solemn\nabsorption of OURSELF back into Nirvanic nothingness. The hour is come\nand now is. Imogene, my onliest, sweet bird of paradise, it is your\nmate who calls. Come, O come, this day, this hour, and we will\nfly-by-night to Hindustan.\u201d\n\nMiss Sheets started--but not to Hindustan. She was roused from her\nreverie of drugs, drug stores and druggists. She had but mistily\nsensed the monologue of the Mystic. But the last proposition\npenetrated her inner consciousness. His reference to birds had\nrecalled her to herself, for she was a member of the Audubon Society\nand quite up on birds. She now realized that she had been indifferent\nand almost rude to one whom Kankakee regarded as harmless.\n\nHer Chicago good nature asserted itself. \u201cWell, you do just talk to\nbeat the band\u201d--politely--\u201cas we girls say at the Yards. Now what was\nthat you were just saying about birds and flies?\u201d\n\n\u201cI was trying to say this\u201d--gasped the Mystic huskily, as he reached\nout, touching the border of her belt ribbon to hold her attention. \u201cI\nwas saying that you must be mine. Listen,--this secret shall not be\nmine alone, but ours henceforth. Together in aeons past you and I,\nsweet creature, proceeded from primordial One-Substance. From the\nremote to the now, from the now to the ultimate we have been and shall\nbe one. As we hereinbefore evolved ourselves from the potentialities\nof the duplex soul, so shall we together involve ourselves hereinafter\nin the blessedness of nothing. Though you have not reached my own\nkarmic height, you may _Aspire_. Though you do not cognize the\nimmutable from my own lofty perch of perfect attainment, I will wait,\ncalmly wait, until you by long self-unfoldment shall rise to the state\nof being of ME.\u201d\n\n\u201cO, come off!\u201d--ejaculated the fair girl, at last losing patience.\n\u201cYou make me tired. I say, let\u2019s get a move\u201d--and emphasizing her\nspeech with a yawn, she gathered up a handful of back draperies and\nturned away.\n\n\u201cAlas, and alas,\u201d--mournfully murmured the mystic. \u201cIt is as I was\nwarned by the Director of our division. You have not as yet cognized\nyour higher self, hence have not perceived ME. You have not as yet\nsensed this fair fleshly veil as but the vehicle of your higher\nprinciples and quite separate from your ultimate ego. All the same,\nyou\u2019re mine. I will not repudiate you. You are the feminine principle\nco-ordinating with myself, and though you may ignore this only\nopportunity, yet I will bide your awakening and your renunciation of\nerror. Though you may defeat your own illumination by renouncing ME,\nyet will I continue to walk the fifty-seven Paths-of-Self and wait. It\nrests with you, girl, to fix the happy day now, or to postpone it\nthrough tedious incarnations. It is for you to say now whether you\nwill fly with me to India and share with me in the coming centuries in\nthe ecstatic contemplation of the One-Horned-Hair of the\nSacred-Rabbit. Are you ready to aspire for aeons? Are you prepared to\nmeditate for cycles upon the oneness of substance and the Be-Ness of\nBeing; attaining thereby to the ultimate exaltation of Nirvanic\nvacuity? Speak, bright one, sweet spirit of Chicago, say,--I WILL.\nDelay not. Your consent I implore. Miss Sheets, Imogene, what is your\nanswer?\u201d\n\n\u201cR--a--a--t--,\u201d but the maiden checked herself with a little scream,\nfor unheard and unperceived came Nemesis.\n\nBill Vanderhook stood face to face with the importunate Mystic and the\nruffled Typewriter.\n\nAnd the druggist, fresh, rosy and sleek, from the best of barbers and\nhaberdashers, loomed up handsomely by contrast with the now weary,\nwilted and woebegone Lonnie.\n\n\u201cImogene Sheets\u201d--and the words cut the air like a whip\ncracker,--\u201cand I also say that the day and the hour is now. There\u2019s to\nbe no more fooling. Business is business. Here\u2019s where we change the\nscore. Here\u2019s where we decide who\u2019s captain of this game. I\u2019m up to\nall sorts of games, and I\u2019m going to know now which of us rooters is\nIT. I\u2019m a kicker and a catcher and a shortstop and a batter all in\none.\u201d\n\nMiss Sheets turned deadly pale as Bill continued: \u201cNow, which is it,\nthe Yogy cave with him in India, or the two-story--basement--brown\nstone--swell front--modern conveniences and mansard roof with Bill\nVanderhook in Kankakee? Speak, girl.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe--the--man--sar-r-d roof.\u201d The words came faintly from the\ntrembling lips of the agitated girl. But the rivals caught the import.\nHad they been inaudible the rejected lover would have sensed the\nthought and perceived her answer.\n\nBut he made no protest. Philosophers never do. He did not speak. He\ndid not even cast upon her a reproachful look, nor one of anger upon\nhis rival. He only made one little moan with a faint far-offness in\nthe vibration, and then for the second time the unhappy Mystic lay as\none dead at the feet of his affinity.\n\n\u201cWell, isn\u2019t that fierce?\u201d and Imogene looked on with sweet womanly\nsympathy while Bill, the now triumphant lover, lifted Lonnie like he\nwas a pigskin and hoisted him into the auto. \u201cSure thing,\u201d said Bill,\njoyously. \u201cHe got it in the neck that time. Come, Petsy, we\u2019ve got to\nhonk some. We must revive him on the Q. T.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll take him home with me and give him about four fingers with\nginger on the side. That\u2019ll fetch him.\u201d\n\nImogene looked her admiration of Bill\u2019s generosity, and then,\ngathering her draperies and snuggling down by her future Chauffeur,\nshe sighed a little as she looked upon the inert gentleman on the back\nseat--saying more to herself than to Bill, \u201cIsn\u2019t it a pity he has\nfits?\u201d\n\n    Oh, wild and wooly Wizard of the West;\n      Worthy, winsome worker of the Test;\n    Wakeful, watchful, wise one, whiskerless;\n      Weird and woozy wight, all unexpressed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nIN THE HIGHEST DEGREE.\n\n\nFive long and fateful years had rolled up the self-inflicted\nsacrifices of the man from Kankakee.\n\nIn the remote glades of Gingalee lonely Alonzo Leffingwell has finally\ncompleted the curriculum of the fifty-seven Paths in accordance with\nschools of Hindustan.\n\nThe Western Votary of \u201cMeditation\u201d had attained to the Highest Degree\nof \u201cthe first Discipline.\u201d\n\nHe is now descended from the inaccessible mountain upon which he\nreceived his education in the Lesser Attainments.\n\nHe is now released from the \u201cCave of the Happy Musings of Misery.\u201d\n\nHis pilgrimages, penances and prostrations are suspended.\n\nHe is temporarily absolved from the Wheel of Chance. He has, as it\nwere, cut out the \u201cCircle of Transmigration.\u201d He is taking a vacation.\n\nAnd just here (as Alonzo afterward explained in Kankakee) should be\nmade some explanation of the wide difference and distinction between\nthe mystico-theosophic-scholastic courses of Illinois and India.\n\nIn the Eastern branch TIME is the essential.\n\nIn the Western school Hustle is the key.\n\nIn the East forty to fifty years are consumed in mere preparation in\ninitiatory contemplation, abstraction, introspection and absorption.\nOriental methods call for time without dates, and a hundred years in\nthe achievement of Gnanum is considered excellent work.\n\nThe practice of doubling or \u201cponying,\u201d which obtains not merely in\nIllinois, but which distinguished Western scholarship generally, is\nunknown in India.\n\nThese methods are, however, invaluable when the American seeks wisdom\nin the Indian schools. By thus doubling or doing extra time Alonzo\nLeffingwell broke the record.\n\nAt first the deprivation of soap, towels and other civilized\naccessories appeared important. At times he yearned for a fine-tooth\ncomb and a safety razor. However, when he had sat for six months\nwithout a change of position, and after he had held up his hands for\nseveral weeks at a stretch, he ceased to feel the need of these\nthings.\n\nThus he conquered the Material and attained to the first stages of\nNothingness in five brief years.\n\nThese years of Mounting the Spiral were, however, very trying to the\nOccidental Man, who had been used to the Spirit of Chicago and the\nPush of Illinois. His Oriental education wholly lacked the stimuli of\nassociation and competition.\n\nFor months he would have no other company than his own image in the\nSacred Lake by day, and his own reflection in the night time.\n\nFor weeks together he heard no sounds nor had any news of outside\nlife except the growl of a tiger or the laugh of some hyena in the\nmountain fastnesses.\n\nThis was especially depressing to one who had been reared on the\nMorning and Evening editions and to whom yellow journalism was food\nand drink.\n\nAnything like a \u201cScoop\u201d is not likely to occur in Mystic Circles in a\nthousand years.\n\nFor a long time the life in Gingalee seemed unutterably slow. He found\nhimself where advertising as an art had not opened up. There was\nnothing to \u201cexploit\u201d and nobody to exploit it.\n\nHe found that men of his chosen profession were not expected to talk\nabout themselves nor boast of their successes. At first this was so\noppressive to the Seer from the States that he almost regretted\nleaving Kankakee. For, to boast of the length of one\u2019s nails growing\nthrough the Palms would be voted exceedingly bad taste; and to exhibit\nsatisfaction in the length of time one could meditate upon the\n\u201cinspirated breath\u201d would be set down as a weakness unworthy of a\nWise Man.\n\nAlonzo Leffingwell, therefore, practiced his Western methods and took\nhis Eastern Degrees without announcing it in Headlines. He did not\neven send out a circular, nor display a poster.\n\nBy close application, however, he accomplished in five years what\nwould have required fifty years for the native Hindustanee.\n\nHe was now, physically speaking, quite another man. He was quite\nanother being than was he who had fallen at the feet of Imogene\nSilesia Sheets that June night in Kankakee. His Physical Vehicle was\nnow but an underlying skeleton with an overlaid sun-baked skin.\n\nFor days together he sat folded up like a jack-knife, or knotted like\na piece of string. He was impervious alike to heat and cold, sunshine\nand storm, or mosquitoes and antimires. And as for this whole physical\nworld, though still in it, he was not of it. He was now, as far as the\nappetites and desires of the flesh are concerned, of no possible\npleasure to himself nor to anyone else. Physically, or exoterically\nspeaking, Alonzo Leffingwell was no more.\n\nAll this, however, was but the external, physical, material view.\nEsoterically, or astrally speaking, our hero had achieved the supreme\nobject of Yog, and in reality the young man had never been so much\nalive, so joyously youthful, so entirely free, or so recklessly gay.\n\nFor it was now Alonzo Leffingwell, the astral man, who at will walked\nin and out of the crumpled up physical shell and levitated gaily\nthrough tangled jungle and dreary desert.\n\nIt was not the body but the spirit, the ethereal man, which clove the\natmosphere and hied itself away through space, quite independent of\nall our clumsy means of locomotion, of our ships and railways, and our\nfoolish bikes and autos. In this superior state he became a very\nactive member of the great body politic. He was continually on the\ngo. He went everywhere and saw everything.\n\nQuestions of salary and transportation were done. He had no baggage to\ncheck. He had no hotel bills, no tips to pay. He could no longer be\nsnowbound nor floodtied. He traveled on schedule time.\n\nHe was now equipped for any old state of matter. He was impervious to\ndust, dirt, noise, odors and confusion. He was now equal to Chicago.\n\nLiberated, self-supporting and self-propelling, this gay Gnani betook\nhimself from the gloomy glades of Gingalee. He hied himself joyously\nover jungle and desert. He blithely skimmed the sea. He poised himself\nabove the breakers on his native shore. His eyes were on the setting\nsun, his heart in Kankakee.\n\nNothing asked he now of any man. The exactions of custom houses and\nthe extortions of cabmen were no more. He had forever escaped the\nabbreviated bunk of the Pullman sleeper, and the elongated solicitude\nof the Pullman porter.\n\nThe annual pass, once so prized by the Kankakee journalist, was now as\nnothing. For He-Who-Knows is a perpetual deadhead. He has solved the\nannoyances of travel. Steamships and steam cars have no value to him.\nTransfers and trolleys trouble him no more.\n\nHE-WHO-KNOWS has indeed solved the question of income and\ntransportation. He has unlimited credit. He is rapid transit itself.\n\nAlonzo Leffingwell, Freshman Gnani of Gingalee, is master of the lower\nlevels of space. He is distinctly in it.\n\nHis later critics were only reverting to facts when they said that he\nwas \u201cIn the air.\u201d\n\n    A Yearning Yankee Yoga,\n    In youthful yellow Toga,\n        Yodling sweetly all the livelong year;\n    Yielding to the yoke of Karma,\n    Yet so meek he would not harm a\n        \u2019Squito, sitting, singing on his ear.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE GAY GNANI OF GINGALEE.\n\n\nThese same five years had rolled over the Mansard Roof. The State\nAsylum still extended its hospitalities to the irresponsible and\nextra-illumined. The Vanderhook Drug Store remained as the LEADER,\nwith additions and enlargements of stock.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Wm. K. Vanderhook, Jr., continued as ornaments to\nsociety, whose goings and comings were recorded, not only in the local\nClarion, but in the big Chicago pink and green Sporting Extras\nwhenever they attended the Horse Show or came in to root for the\nCubs--or entered a fancy cat or dog for the annual \u201cShow.\u201d\n\nTo Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhook these had been years of social advancement\nand material success. Since his father\u2019s death, the drug business had\nprospered in his son\u2019s hands. The young man had also developed\ninterest in politics and acquired a few ambitions in Kankakee. Our old\nfriend \u201cBill\u201d was now \u201cWilliam.\u201d He was more than this. He was known\nand referred to as the Honorable Wm. K. Vanderhook; for he had enjoyed\nsuccessive honors as Councilman, Mayor, and was now talked of for the\nLegislature. It was in view of this that his friends gave him the\ncomplimentary prefix.\n\nHe was also Captain of the Home Guard, Chairman of the County\nCommittee, Secretary of the Y. M. C. A., and President of the Electric\nLight Plant.\n\nAll this he was, and did, and still umpired at many a ball game, and\njudged at all the Baby Shows.\n\nAnd what of his wife, the adorable Typewriter, who had chosen the\n\u201cMansard Roof\u201d and given notice to Slaughter & Steers on that sunny\nJune morning five years ago?\n\nShe was the same charming and insouciant Imogene, the same dainty and\ndebonnair creature who had so swiftly captured the town and won for\nherself all modern conveniences and many of the luxuries.\n\nShe was a light in the first circle of Kankakee. She gave \u201cfunctions.\u201d\nHer \u201cAt homes\u201d were highly spoken of. Her Pink Teas and Lavender\nDinners, and red Touring Car and yellow Toy Dogs were the talk of the\ntown.\n\nWith a gentle but firm hand she ruled her husband\u2019s house, and\npurse--and himself--when he was not looking.\n\nNear-silks and close-to-Seals and Rhinestones knew her no more. It was\nnow the Real Thing, and nickle-saving days were past, and the trolley\ncar and the matinee gallery were forgotten.\n\nBut she still remembered Alonzo Leffingwell. She occasionally wondered\nif he had forgotten her.\n\nTonight is the fifth anniversary of their marriage, and Mr. and Mrs.\nVanderhook have entertained a large company.\n\nThe best people of Kankakee and some choice friends of Chicago had\ngathered under the Mansard Roof. It was a long-remembered festivity.\nSociety called it a Swell Affair. Imogene had invited them to a\n\u201clittle informal,\u201d but the Honorable William privately declared it to\nbe a Blow-Out.\n\nFrom whichever point of view it was considered it was the climax of\nthe Vanderhook social successes.\n\nIt is long past midnight. Mr. and Mrs. V---- are at last alone. The\nfifth anniversary has passed into history. The guests are gone. The\ngreat house is empty. The doors are closed. The burglar alarm is set.\n\nOn departing, each guest had rapturously pronounced the whole thing a\nsuccess. So did the host and hostess later on--when they had counted\nand compared the value of the gifts with the cost of the\nentertainment.\n\nWhen they discovered that the presents would figure up twice over the\ncost of the reception, they retired to their sleeping rooms elate with\nthe consciousness of having discharged many social obligations, and\ntheir duty to themselves.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re a dandy, Genesy, and no mistake,\u201d ejaculated the Mayor, with\nadmiration. \u201cYou were dead right, but I had no idea it would pan out\nlike this,\u201d and her husband playfully tweaked the golden curl that\nfell so prettily over the lady\u2019s brow.\n\n\u201cGump!\u201d and the lovely Imogene laughed in the same high soprano that\nbelonged to the \u201cYards.\u201d She tossed her head, and made a little snatch\nat the Mayor.\n\nThen Mr. Vanderhook himself laughed loudly as he dodged the blow, for\nhe was still holding the golden curl in his hand.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re an It,\u201d and, playfully recapturing her curl and pinning it to\nthe cushion, Imogene went on with the inventory of the gifts and\ncriticisms of their guests.\n\nIt was not so much what they said, but it was the fond and familiar\ntone of their delicate joshing that indicated a still unbroken\nconfidence between husband and wife.\n\nBut strange is the play of fate. Strange indeed, that in the supreme\nmoments of human pride and vanity and self-satisfaction the \u201cmills of\nthe gods\u201d begin to get in their work.\n\nWise the provision of nature which denies us foreknowledge of\ntomorrow\u2019s disasters, penalties and retributions.\n\nTonight had been the proudest of Bill Vanderhook\u2019s life. He had heard\nhimself and his possessions lauded to the skies. He had heard his wife\ncalled the handsomest and best dressed woman in Kankakee. He had heard\nhimself praised for his popularity as Mayor, for his ability as\nCaptain of the Guard, for his cleverness as Chairman of the Committee,\nhis efficiency in the Y. M. C. A., his judgment in the Electric Light\nCompany; and besides all this had heard himself referred to as \u201cour\nnext candidate for Congress.\u201d He had heard his house, his wine, his\nwife, commended. He had heard himself toasted as a self-made\ngentleman. His cup was full.\n\nAnd now he is sleeping the sleep of the just. Man-like, he had with\none jerk divested himself of his habiliments and plunging into bed was\nfast asleep in the twinkling of an eye.\n\nNot so the fair Imogene. Woman-fashion, she needs must putter about,\nmaking many unnecessary preparations for retirement. She had\nunbuckled, unhooked, unbuttoned, unpinned, untied and unlaced. She had\ntaken off, shaken out, folded, hung up, taken down, picked up, pulled\noff and straightened out all the things that a woman gets out of and\ngets into between an evening function and breakfast next morning.\n\nAnd finally, standing before her mirror white-robed and picturesque,\nher yellow locks rolled into little wads, her beauty mask in\nreadiness, her night gloves at hand, she leans toward her own\nreflection smiling softly and begins rubbing some creamy stuff into\nher complexion.\n\nShe was smiling at and enjoying the reflection of the new diamond\near-rings, Bill\u2019s anniversary gift. She was enjoying them as only a\nwoman can, in her mirror, when suddenly--she started. She became aware\nof a Something Unusual. It was a Presence that--was not Bill. She felt\nvery cold all at once. She forgot whether she was massaging in the\ncircular or horizontal. Then she turned hastily and just in time to\nwitness a very remarkable phenomenon.\n\nDirectly before her, clothed like a fashion plate, trim and\ndebonnaire, hat in hand, and bowing and smiling, stood the man she had\nrejected and forgotten years ago.\n\nImogene Silesia Sheets-Vanderhook stood face to face with the youthful\nyoga of Kankakee, the now powerful Gnani of Gingalee.\n\nThe lady\u2019s sense of the proprieties was shocked. Her blood ran hot\nwith anger. Then she remembered for a certainty the fast bolted doors\nand the burglar alarm, and then her blood ran cold with fear.\n\nThe silver box fell from her hand. She screamed in terror. She sprang\nforward, wildly calling for Bill, when--the gentlemanly intruder,\nstill smiling, still bowing, withdrew as he came--directly through the\npanels of the bolted door.\n\n\u201cOh, Bill! Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!\u201d\n\nBut Bill had heard nothing. He had schooled himself to noises. Sunday\nmorning sermons made him drowsy, and he often slept profoundly when\nMrs. V. ragtimed on the piano.\n\nHe had not heard that scream of terror. He had not sensed the thing\nwhich had fallen upon his hitherto happy home. It required a vigorous\nshaking to arouse him.\n\nBut when once awake and listening to his wife\u2019s rehearsal of the\nincident, Bill Vanderhook was stirred. He was no longer drowsy. He was\nnever so wide awake. The Mayor of Kankakee paled and trembled. Memory\nwas rife. He recalled Alonzo Leffingwell\u2019s departure and the cause.\nHe remembered his own part in that fatal introduction. He remembered\nthe mystic\u2019s claim upon Mrs. V. And worse than all, he could not\nforget the conditional curse pronounced upon himself.\n\nBill Vanderhook realized his responsibility. A cold thrill ran\nspineward and radiated therefrom. It is said that drowning men pass in\nreview a whole lifetime. So Bill Vanderhook in that one moment saw as\nin a vision his own domestic past. Though the years had but\naugmented his own devotion to Imogene Silesia, he had sometimes\nfancied that she, since coming into the Presidency of the\nAdvanced-Thought-Extension Club, had at times appeared indifferent and\ndistrait. He now recalled with an inward chill the foreboding that she\nnow rarely came into the Drug Store except for a check, and that she\nno longer entered joyously into the yearly replenishing of the\n\u201cStock.\u201d\n\nHe remembered further, that on one or two occasions she had spoken as\nif she missed something in him. She had once or twice yawned when he\nwas repeating some very flattering things said about himself in his\nseveral capacities and offices.\n\nA spasm of fear shook the gray matter in the druggist\u2019s head, swept\nthrough the spine and circled round into the Solar Plexus--where\nmasculine emotions seem to center. He felt very weak all in a minute.\n\n\u201cImogene, Imogene, where is that Flask? Gimme that--I\u2019ve got a chill;\nI might as well try it now.\u201d\n\nThe flask, an elegant silver and cut glass affair, had been among the\nevening\u2019s gifts. It was presented by the old Base Ball Nine. It was\nfull when it took its place in line with other cards, but it was\nlighter when congratulations were over.\n\nIt was empty when the Mayor of Kankakee dropped it on the floor by his\nbedside.\n\nStill he was cold, very cold, and still the fatal words \u201cREMEMBER, YOU\nASSUME MY RESPONSIBILITY\u201d rang through the chambers of his memory.\n\n\u201cShut that window, Genesy dear, the night air gives me a chill. Shut\nit tight, no--leave the switch on--I sleep better in the light, and\nsee here, now, my girl, I don\u2019t want to hear any more about that\nmutton-head Leffingwell. You did not see him or any other Spook, and I\ndon\u2019t want you to let your imagination run away with you.\u201d\n\nSaying which, that gentleman turned his face bravely to the wall\nand--pretended to sleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE BOOK AND THE BAGDAD.\n\n\nThe fears of the druggist were well founded.\n\nThat night marked a new era in the Vanderhook home. After five years\nof profound silence, the discarded lover took advantage of his\nmysterious powers and became an unsought, uninvited, but permanent\nguest in his successful rival\u2019s house.\n\nFrom this date forward no day, nor occasion, was free from his\npresence or the expectation of it. From this day forward an\nestrangement developed between the hitherto apparently devoted husband\nand wife. At first, the still charming Imogene was somewhat awed by\nthe unusual methods of entrance and exit practiced by this\nforeign-mannered Mystic. It did seem so very novel and so very creepy\nto see a gentleman sliding in through the dado and melting out through\nthe frieze.\n\nSince witnessing the swift and scientific pig killing at the Yards,\nshe had seen nothing at once so rapid in execution and so shocking to\nthe nerves. The first time she observed the back of a chair through\nher admirer\u2019s waistcoat it gave her a genuine chill. Habit, however,\ndissipated the sense of awe and the lady became amused, then\nentertained, and finally deeply interested--as a student of Advanced\nThought.\n\nAnd further, Mrs. V. soon discovered many agreeable qualities in this\ndiaphanous and cultivated Gnani, qualities which by contrast\nintensified the native inelegance of her husband.\n\nIndeed, so swift was the progress of this marvelous romance that it\nwas but a matter of weeks until the lawful master of the Vanderhook\nmansion saw himself relegated to a position inferior to that of the\nhired man. He inwardly chafed and outwardly expressed himself in\nlarge, round and unusual words. In vain, however, for notwithstanding\nboth inward rage and outward expletives, the Honorable William K.\nVanderhook, of Kankakee, was as nothing in the presence of this witty\nand agreeable shade who pervaded the atmosphere at all times and in\nall directions.\n\nAnd what of the wife--she who had deliberately chosen the Mansard\nRoof--she who for five years had earned her board and clothes with at\nleast every appearance of genuine satisfaction?\n\nShe was now as one bewitched. She was deaf to both Bill\u2019s appeals and\nto his imprecations. She was no longer moved by presents. She was a\nwholly changed woman.\n\nWhen Bill would protest more savagely than usual, she would\nsay,--\u201cNow, don\u2019t be a grouch. I don\u2019t see that he can do any harm to\nanybody. And besides, he is no expense to you, and he\u2019s no trouble to\nme.\u201d\n\nAnd thus it was that the once happy home became a battlefield of\nwords--words sharp, pointed, prickly and jagged. Bill\u2019s temper,\nusually so sunny, became like a sheet of sand paper. His appetite fell\noff and his belt hooked in the fourth eyelet. But Imogene, feeding\nupon a fresh flirtation, bloomed again to girlish gaiety. In the\npresence of this suave and insinuating astral interloper she resumed\nall the fascinations and fripperies of the old days at the Yards.\n\nImogene Silesia Vanderhook had progressed.\n\nFive years ago she had not even heard of \u201cOccultism.\u201d Now, however,\nsince she herself had become an Advanced Thinker, she recognized the\nadvantages of Mysticism.\n\nThe Club of which she was President had given a good deal of time to\nthe Ultimate Destiny of Everything. Only recently she had prepared a\n\u201cPaper\u201d on Reincarnation which had been very highly spoken of. She\ncould now discuss the nature and uses of the Ego with the same\nintelligence as did other ladies of the Club. She had spent hours\ntogether figuring out how she must have been a Princess--long ago. She\nwas now quite up in karma and entirely absorbed in the \u201cUplift.\u201d\n\nIt also came to be that while other ladies of Kankakee Tiddeldy-Winked\nand Ping-Ponged or wasted time on Diabolo, or clung to Bridge Tables,\nthe members of the New Thought Club lost themselves in PRANAYAMA and\nKUMBHOKA. Even when their serious work was over they carried their\nenthusiasm to Five O\u2019Clock Tea, chattering enthusiastically of PERUSA\nand KAIVALYA, and uttering longings for the state of NIRVIKALPA.\n\nMrs. Vanderhook yearned to be the first to waken KUNDELINI.\n\nBill, however, greatly to his wife\u2019s chagrin, had steadily declined\nevery effort toward his own illumination. He even on one occasion used\nsome near swear-words when Imogene begged him to contemplate his\nHigher Self.\n\nIt was indeed Bill\u2019s own obtuseness that finally helped to turn the\ntide against him. Had he been less dense and more amenable to the\nmystical peregrinations of the \u201cThoughters,\u201d perhaps this tragedy had\nnever been.\n\nFor here we must pause and explain how our one-time Typewriter was now\nbecome an Advanced Thinker.\n\nThe tragic love of Alonzo Leffingwell and his disappearance from\nKankakee had made an indelible impression on the woman who rejected\nhim.\n\nFrom this time forward she became curious about \u201cOccultism.\u201d\n\nHer marriage afforded the time and means necessary for the development\nof her Higher Self--about which so many ladies were now talking.\n\nPresently she was as familiar with \u201cMysticism\u201d as other members of the\nNew Thought Club.\n\nAs time went on she enjoyed an ever extending acquaintance with the\nnumerous and high-priced \u201cProfessors\u201d and Specialists in Higher Lines\nof business.\n\nWhile Bill was busy in the drug store, or looking after his political\nfences, the charming Imogene was brushing up on her \u201cSubliminal Self\u201d\nand learning how to \u201cWake the Plexus.\u201d\n\nGradually Mrs. Vanderhook saturated her daily life with studies of the\noccult, adorned herself with mystic symbols, and prepared \u201cpapers\u201d for\nthe Club, on unintelligible subjects.\n\nThe Occidental woman who \u201caspires\u201d does nothing by halves. Whatever\nher goal of attainment, she conforms her activities to that end,\ndedicates her energies to that ambition, and colors every duty with\nthat Aspiration.\n\nIn this wise Imogene converted all of her entertainments and\nindulgences into expressions of the Universal, and made every day in\nthe week a separate exercise for Self-Development.\n\nTo the Western Woman has been left the co-ordination of\n\u201cEverything--I--WANT--TO--DO\u201d with \u201cEverything--I--ASPIRE--TO--BE.\u201d\n\nMondays Mrs. Vanderhook devoted to Rhythmic Vibrations under the name\nof Physical Culture. Mornings she spent with an Advanced Athlete,\nrounding up with a contest at the Ladies\u2019 Club Gym, and closing her\nday with a session at the Chicago Bargain Counters. This day of the\nweek she devoted to swinging and swaying and climbing and bending and\ntwisting and kicking and pushing and pulling, that she might develop\nthe \u201cBody Beautiful\u201d in harmony with her \u201cHigher Self.\u201d\n\nShe never missed a Monday--in the field--for like most practical\noccultists of the Occident, she tended to overweight, and for this\nreason took kindly to the suggestion that reduction of the Surplus\nmeant increase of illumination.\n\nTuesdays were given over to Beauty Culture; or, as her Specialist\nsaid, \u201cTo the making of a countenance that shall vibrate with the\nBeautiful Inner.\u201d Throughout this day, therefore, she submitted\nherself to be steamed and buttered and rubbed and vibrated. She\nendured to be sponged and benzoined and rouged and stenciled and\npowdered, that she might \u201caffirm with her face\u201d the \u201cRadiance at the\nCenter.\u201d\n\nThis was but one of the steps, for she also was shampooed and\nhot-aired and \u201ctreated\u201d and hennatead and brilliantined and ratted and\nmarcelled and puffed as to hair; and her hands, now freed from the\ncramp of the \u201ckeys,\u201d were also soaked and creamed and massaged, while\nthe nails were pumiced and oiled and tinted and polished--and still\nsome more, for the ordeal ended in a bout with depilatories and\nelectric needles.\n\nAll these things did Imogene, the charming; not that she liked it, nor\nthat she was vain, but only that her Professors insisted that \u201cthe\nOuter must Express the Inner.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll-Is-Youth\u201d and \u201cThere-Are-No Wrinkles\u201d are the watchwords of a\nlady who has \u201cfound Herself.\u201d\n\nWednesdays were set aside for another phase of co-ordination. This day\nwas given over to the Nature-Cure Treatment, in which process she was\nplayed upon by vigorous streams of alternating hot and cold water. She\nwas Osteopathed and Exercised. She was warmed in the Sun-Parlor,\nconcentrated under blue glass and aired on the roof garden.\n\nAfter this she ate a Nature-Cure Luncheon of Almost-Ox-Tail Soup,\nNear-Meat Salad, and other pretty nearly foods, drinking Roastum\nCereal--thus eliminating the poisons of other medical systems, and\ndeveloping the Cosmic Consciousness.\n\nIt was therefore Wednesday evening that the lady drank lemon juice\ncopiously and slept under the Mansard Roof swathed in wet\nsheets--slept calmly, with an abiding faith in the illuminative power\nof her Water-Soaked System.\n\nThursdays, however, were reserved for the higher phases of her\nintellectual uplift. This day was set apart, as one of the mystics\nexpressed it, for \u201cInterior Decoration.\u201d\n\nThis day she immured herself in her boudoir, where, with a roll\nbefore rising and a kimona all day long, she gave herself entirely to\nthe \u201cContemplation of Herself.\u201d For this day were reserved the most\nmystical books and profounder studies and solemner exercises.\n\nSeveral hours of this day she gave to \u201cThe Secrets of Mental\nSupremacy,\u201d and in the effort to attain \u201cConsciousness without\nThought\u201d she spent many a half hour. Much time she consumed before her\nmirror in \u201cMeditative Self-Analysis.\u201d Again and again would her lunch\ngrow cold while she was occupied in one of these many expensive Occult\nor Therapeutical Courses, purchased from leading Wise Men in Illinois.\nOne of these covered Practical Occultism, another was Transcendental\nMysticism. In still another she worked upon Rhythmic Inspiration, and\nyet another she was studying the How to Breathe--but none among them\nwas more profoundly veiled in mystic meaning than the Course on \u201cHow\nto Ascertain the Heart Beat Unit.\u201d At times she was so engaged in\n\u201cConcentration\u201d that she would fall asleep. At other times she became\nenthused in the effort to discover the Inner Meaning of the\nMeaningless. She became very skillful in the Expansion of Self and\nManifested the Joy Philosophy every time she enlarged her Aura.\n\nFridays were set apart for what the lady termed \u201cExpression\u201d--that is\nto say, Fridays were selected for Social visits and \u201cAt homes,\u201d on\nwhich day she gave a Manifestation of her several acquirements, making\nthe rounds--that her friends might observe the Outer Beauty from the\nRadiant Center. This she felt to be the solemn duty of the Elect--that\nthey set up the Joy and Beauty Vibrations in other women.\n\nAs a result of her strenuous lessons in Attainment she became the\nadmired and envied of other New Thought Ladies. This could not fail to\nbe, for aside from possessing an Original Design for this ever\nincreasing beauty, Mrs. Vanderhook had both the time and money to\nsearch for her Highest Self in the best shops and under the most\nexpensive Seers.\n\nStill further and at odd moments Mrs. Vanderhook increased her wisdom\nby visiting such Mystics as did business near the Beauty Parlors and\nthe Department Stores. To one she would go for a Horoscope--a reading\nof the Stars. Another would trace her glowing future in the lines of\nthe palm, and another would instruct her in Psychological Polarity,\nand another dealt in \u201cCharacter Sketches by Inspiration.\u201d\n\nThere were still others who gave short lessons in Vibrations--some who\ntaught \u201cThe Inner Meanings of Everything\u201d in small blocks for large\nchecks, and another, the Telo-Psycho-Theraput, who taught his patients\nto meet him at fixed times--and for fixed rates--out in stellar Space,\nwhere \u201csoul to soul\u201d and \u201cfreed from the Material,\u201d he best could\ndiagnose and \u201cimpart the healing word.\u201d\n\nStill other half hours--for she doted on symbolism--Mrs. Vanderhook\nwould spend with one who advertised as \u201cThe World\u2019s Most Famous\nSeer,\u201d from whom she purchased expensive Charms and Sacred Bugs and\nthings.\n\nAgain she would slip into the \u201cTemple\u201d of one whose Circulars\n\u201cguaranteed\u201d information concerning the Origin of Everything and its\n\u201cAbsorption into Nothing.\u201d\n\nInspiring moments she would steal for the study of Vivilore and in\nthese brief snatches she would \u201cContemplate the Path of Perfection,\u201d\nor, breaking away from the downtown luncheon, she would rush for the\nMasonic Temple, where an American-East Indian was imparting Fourteen\nlessons in Philosophy in a few minutes.\n\nWith Saturday for Shopping and the Matinee, and Sunday for home and\nBill, the mistress of the Mansard Roof led the life of the up-to-date\nNew Woman.\n\nThus, as time went on, the erstwhile Typewriter became thoroughly\n\u201cAdvanced,\u201d and the \u201cYards\u201d became a far off memory.\n\nAnd of all this Bill knew nothing.\n\nLike other students of the \u201cUltimates,\u201d Mrs. Vanderhook found that her\n\u201cAttainments\u201d did not mix well with every-day commonplaces. Her\nhusband\u2019s absorption in the drug store, and his fondness for a \u201cGame,\u201d\nseemed quite to unfit him for Higher Thought.\n\nIndeed, at times Imogene seriously doubted Bill\u2019s understanding of the\nUnknowable.\n\nBill was not watching for the subtle changes taking place in his\nImogene. But one phase of it seemed to reach his obtunded\nconsciousness, for this made a direct inroad upon his bank account.\n\nThe Special Course in \u201cOPTIMISM AND OPULENCE\u201d--for which \u201cTen Lessons\nat reduced prices\u201d had captured Mrs. Vanderhook as a special\nbargain--produced direct results for which even the generous druggist\nwas not prepared.\n\nFrom the first \u201cAll-is-good\u201d to the middle \u201cOpulence-is-MINE\u201d and to\nthe final lesson, \u201cI-AM-IT,\u201d Imogene Vanderhook absorbed and radiated\nthis beautiful Attitude of \u201cI-am-entitled-to-everything-I-can-get.\u201d\n\nMatters of expense were airily dismissed. Bill\u2019s \u201cWe-can\u2019t-afford-it\u201d\nwas met by that splendidly wide Optimistic Smile and ignored with that\nexpensively broad sense of Universal Opulence which is so perfectly\nfascinating in those who do not pay the bills.\n\nThe beautiful feeling that \u201cI can tap the Universal for all I need\u201d\nand that \u201cI have only to affirm OPULENCE and have it,\u201d encouraged the\nMayor\u2019s wife to extend her Charge Accounts with a childlike faith in\nthe \u201cHigher Currents of Wealth.\u201d\n\nThen again, Bill had experienced a sense of loneliness at times, when\nhe would come in with a toothache or a touch of gastritis, to be\nassured that it was all in his Mortal Mind, and that what he supposed\nwas Pain was but an \u201cerror\u201d and instead of the earlier coddling to\nreceive but a calm, vague, unsympathetic glance and a frosty little\nsmile of one who \u201cFunctioned in the Realities.\u201d\n\nBut these were all mere incidents, and the still devoted husband went\non earning dollars for his Imogene Silesia to \u201cradiate.\u201d\n\nThus it was that the Mayor\u2019s wife had been drawn into the rage for\n\u201cOccultism\u201d and the current \u201cUplift,\u201d without his knowledge or\nconsent, and by \u201cHolding a Thought\u201d or two and by means of fifty-seven\nVarieties of Unfoldment, had gradually unfitted herself fully to share\nher husband\u2019s ambitions and tastes, which still centered in the Drug\nStore, the Lighting Plant and Politics.\n\nThus, unknown to him and scarcely apprehended by herself, the fair\nImogene was preparing for a Change. This was why the Appearance of\nAlonzo, the Wise Man, had not disturbed her more, and why she so\nquickly accepted him as a matter of course and adjusted herself to\nOrientalisms.\n\nBut now that her perceptions were sharpened, the lady could not but\nperceive the primordial relation between herself and the once despised\nMystic. She also was forced to cognize the enormous advantage of\nastral attainments over physical conditions and physical powers. She\nbegan to draw odious comparisons and invidious distinctions between\nher lawful master and her extra-lawful mate.\n\n\u201cFool, and blind,\u201d--she now murmured, from time to time, in just the\nsame tone and with the same wild, back-handed gesture she had seen at\nthe Chicago Opera House.\n\nAnd the Gnani, day by day, murmured to _his_ Higher Self,--\u201cShe is\nadvancing beautifully.\u201d He noted the sweet trustfulness with which she\nnow leaned upon him--that is, philosophically speaking.\n\n\u201cShe now Aspires from choice\u201d--he would whisper to himself again and\nagain. \u201cShe will lop off several reincarnations, while I--aha! ha\nha!\u201d--and his gaseous form would undulate with ethereal ecstasy.\n\nIn that astral realm where thoughts are things and business is\ntransacted by mental checks, the inhabitants have distinct advantages\nover mere human beings who are circumscribed by purveyors of goods and\nsettlements on a cash basis.\n\nThe learned Mystic quite obscured the Mayor of Kankakee. He covered\nhim with humiliation at his own fireside. He trifled with the\nhusband\u2019s prerogatives. For, did the good-natured Bill, thinking to\npropitiate her on the old lines, send home to Imogene a Paris model\nfrom the swell modiste, then did his skillful rival at once\nmaterialize for her another headgear out of nothing, a \u201cdream\u201d so\nunique, so gorgeous, so becoming and so altogether stunning, that\nImogene would shriek with delight, while Bill could only grind his\nteeth in rage.\n\nDid the husband bring to his wife a bunch of early violets, the\nvigilant Gnani would immediately materialize great loads of American\nbeauties towering upon extraordinary stems. He would shower her with\nMarechal Niels, worth a dollar apiece. With but one sweep of his hand\na hundred rare blossoms would descend from the ceiling, covering and\nenveloping the lady in beauty and bloom.\n\nCould any mere, mortal woman withstand such attentions as these?\n\nTo please her eye this ardent admirer rendered his appearance as\nalluring as his manners. Independent of tailors, and with everything\nat hand, this astral man got himself up regardless of expense, and\nthought on his costumes at will, to meet the requirements of the\nfashion plates. He frequently would surprise her with rapid\ntransformations of raiments, posing successively in the distinctive\ngarbs of many nations, races and times.\n\nPerhaps at breakfast it was some Oriental potentate in royal robes who\nhovered by her side. At lunch a velvet coated artist, at dinner a\ngorgeous Indian chief, whose picturesque scalp-lock, beads and\nfeathers and whose thrilling war-whoop delighted her refined taste.\n\nAnd Alonzo would discourse to her oft and long of the beauties and\npractices of \u201c_Meditation_.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I\u2019ll be switched\u201d--she would say at times, \u201cif I can understand\nyour kind of mysticism.\u201d\n\nWhereupon the seer, smiling indulgently, would with all perspicuity\nreply,--\n\n\u201cOf course you don\u2019t. I don\u2019t expect you to. That isn\u2019t what we\u2019re\nhere for. Nobody understands mysticism; for don\u2019t you see, if they\ndid, or could, or were likely to, there wouldn\u2019t be any mysticism\nleft, and then--why, _my_ occupation is _gone_.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, sure; I hadn\u2019t thought of it that way\u201d--his Mate would murmur,\nand then she would add, \u201cHow sweet to be taught by one so wise.\u201d\n\nMoreover, this proficient prestidigitator constituted himself her\nprivate secretary and astral errand boy. He not only precipitated her\nsocial correspondence upon kid-finished, but he thus prepared all of\nher \u201cadvanced thought\u201d papers, thereby saving her long hours over the\nEncyclopedia Britannica. Still more, he would read to her all letters\nand notes received, thus saving her the trouble of breaking the seals;\nand to amuse and gratify her, would peep--astrally, of course--and\nreport upon the private correspondence and the private affairs of her\nfriends in Kankakee.\n\nAnd this was but one of the many offices and arts he exploited to\ncharm his Affinity. And so it came to be an every-day occurrence that\nfollowing any social invitation into the exclusive circles of\nKankakee, Imogene would call to her \u201cLlama Lonnie,\u201d or her \u201cLonnie\nBird,\u201d and say, \u201cPlease won\u2019t you just run over to Mrs. Dr. this, or\nMrs. Judge that, and rubber a while? Then,\u201d she would say,--\u201cI\u2019ll know\nwhat to wear and who is invited and how much it\u2019ll cost, etc.\u201d\n\nMrs. Vanderhook\u2019s sudden acquisition of unlimited finery and jewels\ncreated unfavorable comment. The sudden costly equipment of her house\nastonished everybody. Her lavish display in entertaining was severely\ncriticised by the best people. For in Kankakee, as elsewhere, the best\npeople keep tab on each other\u2019s faults, follies and failures.\n\nThe ghost of this gossip drifted back to the drug store; and Bill, who\nwas too proud of himself to betray his wife, chafed in secret.\n\nFor, of course, the world knew nothing of the great astro-human drama\nthat was being enacted in the Mayor\u2019s home.\n\nBut there came a day when the outraged owner of the Mansard Roof cast\naside all semblance of hospitality toward his rival and broke out into\na fierce and jealous anger at his ethereal tormentor.\n\n\u201cBegone! you bloodless villain,\u201d--he roared one morning when he had\nentered his dining room unexpectedly and found his guest strewing\nlilies of the valley around the plate laid for Imogene\u2019s breakfast.\n\u201cBegone! I say. Get out of my sight! Leave my house! Get out! I say,\nnow, at once. Fly! melt! disappear!--vamoose!\u201d\n\nBut the platter he hurled at his rival\u2019s head went straight through\nit, crashing against the back of the chair on which sat the seer,\nsmiling and unruffled.\n\nImogene snickered, and the astral man showered lilacs over her chair,\nwhile a handful of thistles were viciously flung from nowhere--into\nthe blazing countenance of the enraged husband.\n\n\u201cFaithless woman! black magician!\u201d shrieked Bill Vanderhook; and\ngathering up a large, bright carving knife, he sent it spinning into\nthe heart of his rival. That is to say, the point of the knife clove\nthe back of Alonzo Leffingwell\u2019s chair, while the handle protruded\nfrom that gentleman\u2019s left vest pocket.\n\nBut the gay Gnani of Gingalee still sat in his chair, erect, tranquil,\nsmiling.\n\nImogene was so tickled she stuffed a napkin into her mouth. She did\nnot intend to betray herself before the dining room girl.\n\nWhereupon, the Mayor of Kankakee flung himself out of his mansion in\na frenzy.\n\nHe did not come home to lunch.\n\nAt dinner he did not exchange a word with his wife. He scowled through\nfive courses. Imogene was radiant. And their guest who seated himself\nat the table, [merely to keep Imogene company,] amused himself by\ninciting the knives, forks and spoons to cut unseemly capers on the\ncloth.\n\nA few days later Bill Vanderhook returned from his office an hour\nearlier than usual. He came with the deep, deadly purpose of seeing\nwhat was to be seen, and he saw it.\n\nGently turning his latch-key, softly treading the deserted hall,\nstealthily crossing the costly Wilton of the drawing-room, and still\non, still creeping through and around and up and back, on through my\nlady\u2019s boudoir, still on, to the draped portals of his own private\nden--the one corner of his castle which thus far had been left to its\nmaster. Up to this time he had not dreamed that even an astral man\ncould become wholly lost to the amenities of polite society.\n\nBut here and now he came upon the guilty pair, trespassers, invaders\nof man\u2019s most sacred corner, his elysium in hours of peace, his refuge\nin times of woe,--his \u201cDen.\u201d\n\nOutside, and screened by the heavy portieres, Bill Vanderhook sized up\nthe situation. He saw what made his blood first warm and then to\nsimmer and boil. It was not simply that they sat side by side. This he\nexpected. But this--that they had the nerve to sit in his den; and\nmore, to sit upon his couch; and worse still, to sit upon that gay and\npicturesque Bagdad which, of all his possessions, should have been\nleft to him and him alone.\n\nFor this artistic creation had been Imogene\u2019s gift to him upon that\nfatal anniversary wedding. That she had bought this Bagdad on bargain\nday and that Bill thought she had made it herself did not alter the\nsentiment. True, she bought the Bagdad to please herself; and true,\nthat he cared no more for the dizzy thing than he would for a\ndoor-mat; yet, all the same, she had given it to him, and the giving\nwas what he cared for.\n\nWas it to be expected that this would ever have been made the\nbackground of his rival\u2019s wiles and fascinations?\n\n\u201cThis is too much, too much. Where am I at?\u201d--and Bill Vanderhook\nclenched his fists and glared ferociously.\n\nBut, hist!--what is it these two are doing? What new conspiracy is\nhatching against the master of the house? Why do they sit so close,\nwith heads bent in such juxtaposition? Why are they so silent, so\nabsorbed?\n\n\u201cAha! aha! a book!\u201d It is a book they are poring over; a great leather\nbook. A hand of each is under it. The other two are slowly turning\nleaves. Aha! they search for something. This is no ordinary book. They\nsearch,--and for what?\n\nSo intent are these two, this gay Gnani and his giddy Mate, that they\nhave neither heard nor sensed the intrusion.\n\nBill Vanderhook listens.\n\nWhat he hears chills his blood,--congeals it. He hears the frozen\npellets rattle through his veins.\n\n\u201cOh, my Llama Lonnie, it is not here.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, my Goo-goo Eyes, it is, it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t believe it, my Llama,\u201d whispered Imogene.\n\n\u201cBut it _must_ be, it _must_ be there my lady bird; for I happen to\nknow something of the jurisprudence of Illinois.\u201d\n\nBill was struck by the expression of their faces. He had never before\nseen the astral man evince any sort of anxiety over anything. He never\nremembered seeing that look in Mrs. Vanderhook\u2019s face, except when she\nwanted something he couldn\u2019t buy.\n\nBut he could no longer restrain himself. The jealous husband\nsacrificed his curiosity to gratify his anger. With one bound he\ncleared the threshold and landed in the middle of the den, full under\nthe light of the Turkish lantern.\n\n\u201cYou measly monstrosity!\u201d--he cried in a loud voice. \u201cGet ye\nback!--get ye back to your musty old lair in Gingalee!\u201d--and lifting\nhis walking stick he brought it down upon the despoiler of his peace.\n\u201cAnd this is how you occupy yourself in my absence!\u201d--he bawled.\n\u201cThese are the uses to which you put my house and my furniture, and my\nbooks! Is it for this that I run a drug store and--for Mayor the rest\nof the time? What new infernal scheme are you hatching now?\u201d--and Mr.\nVanderhook pounded the air,--instead of Alonzo Leffingwell.\n\nAlonzo sat on the couch. He leaned against Mr. Vanderhook\u2019s cushions.\n\nAt the first stroke Imogene had leaped from the couch; but the mystic\nnever turned a hair, much less his head. A shower of blows fell\nharmlessly upon the gilded frame of the costly couch. There were some\ngilt chips on the carpet, some abrasions on the walking stick,\nbut--the gentleman who had been beaten sat wholly unmoved, upright and\nsmiling.\n\nWhen it was all over, however, he rose, bowed mockingly and silently\nfloated out of the room alongside of Imogene, who had regained her\ncomposure.\n\nThe deserted man now seized upon the book which had fallen from the\nhands of the surprised couple and lay upon the floor. He glanced at\nthe title and then--his eyes were opened a little wider. Now he saw it\nall. Now he understood the weepiness in their tones as they had turned\nthe pages.\n\nThe gay Gnani of Gingalee and Mrs. William K. Vanderhook had been\nreading the \u201c_Statutes of Illinois_.\u201d\n\nThe section on Divorce was blurred by tears.\n\nBut alas, as they had discovered, even this liberal and up-to-date\ncommonwealth does not recognize the astral. Their case was therefore\nwithout parallel or precedent. These two had found in their particular\ncase _that there was no cause for divorce_.\n\nWhen he finally took in the whole force of the incident Bill vibrated\nwith wrath. He dashed the book upon the floor of his den. He tore the\nbrilliant Bagdad from its moorings of silken pillows; and then, as if\nby a wicked inspiration, he stooped, seized both book and drapery and\ndashed them into the open, glowing grate.\n\n\u201cSo, there!--perish my love of woman!--and--and--anathema upon\neverything from anywhere that takes advantage of friendship and\nhospitality, that plays upon a woman\u2019s vanity and with the honor of an\nhonest man!\u201d\n\nAnd the plotters, but momentarily disturbed, had glided down stairs\nand sought another retreat. Their sorrow was soon modified, for they\nremembered presently that they could, in reality, defy all the\nstatutes of all the states. They remembered that they could not be\n_separated_ by law, even though the party of the third part could not\nbe _eliminated_ by law.\n\n_It was now Bill Vanderhook\u2019s time to meditate._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE MAN IN THE CELLAR.\n\n\nThe genial druggist was a changed man.\n\nWithout a smile he now listened when they talked of him for Congress.\n\nHe performed the duties of Mayor perfunctorily. The hours at the\noffice palled on him. He collected the fees with a cold, studied\nindifference. The Chicago papers were unread. Whether it was the\n\u201cCubs\u201d or the \u201cTigers\u201d made no impression on his preoccupation. Life\nseemed to have lost its zest. Even the drug store was conducted\nincidentally, as it were.\n\nThe attention of William K. Vanderhook was elsewhere. The episode of\nthe preceding chapter had hardened his heart and fixed his purpose.\n\nIt was now Bill\u2019s turn to MEDITATE.\n\n\u201cThere is,\u201d--he would mutter to himself every little while--\u201cthere is\nin nature an antidote for every poison. Though undiscovered, it still\nexists. There is, there must be, yes, there _shall_ be some force in\nnature to oust any astral popinjay ever projected into space. If there\nare astral poisons (q.e.d.), then there must be antidotes after their\nown kind. There is, I know, a way to trap every manner of wild beast,\nevery deadly serpent and hurtful insect; and so there is, if I can get\nonto it, some principle or process by which I can reduce this astral\nFakir back into his original elements. And s\u2019elp me jimmykayjones,\nthis Gay Gnani of Gingalee can and must and shall be swept off the\nface of the--no, he shall be eliminated from the atmosphere he\ninfests.\u201d\n\nIt will be remembered that Mr. Vanderhook was not only a skilled\npharmacist and practical chemist, but he was likewise an electrician\nof great ability.\n\nThere came a day, a damp, cloudy day, when he left the drug store\nearly and hurriedly. He went home as fast as the auto could carry\nhim. He avoided the parlor. He struck for the cellar. He approached\nthe potato bins, empty now, as if to meet his requirements. Presently\nhe had them torn out, and there was a large space for whatever might\nbe needed.\n\nThe next day came masons and carpenters and plumbers. Inside of two\nweeks the druggist had a laboratory in his cellar of which no man had\nthe key, to which no man had access save himself.\n\nFrom this day forward every spare moment was spent in the seclusion of\nthis underground apartment. The Mayor let slip his official mantle,\nand as far as possible leaned upon the city comptroller. He took only\nthought enough to pocket the fees with a cold, sardonic smile. He gave\nup his club, declined invitations to progressive euchre; the fall\nraces, and the dog show he passed by. The big ball game he even forgot\nto attend.\n\nHis life centered in the cellar.\n\nThis was pre-eminently satisfactory to Mrs. V. and her ethereal\nshadow. Bill\u2019s absence furnished opportunity for unending discussions\non the Unity of Vibration, which had polarized them as a unit.\nAbsorbed as they were in the contemplation of themselves, they failed\nto cognize the exact nature of Mr. Vanderhook\u2019s occupation in the\ncellar.\n\nThey only dreamed on, happy in the present, careless of the past and\nhilarious in the hope of soon realizing a still closer relation--after\nthey had satisfied the requirements of the law as made and provided in\nthe Statutes of Illinois.\n\nSo self-absorbed were they that they gave no attention to the comings\nand goings of the master of the house. The man in the cellar was\npractically forgotten. Now and then, however, they would be\nmomentarily diverted by subterranean reports and faint odors of gases.\n\n\u201cWell, he\u2019s got to get somewhere to make himself heard,\u201d laughed the\n\u201cLonnie Llama\u201d one evening when Imogene shrieked at an unusually loud\nreport. The walls shook with the force of it, while the cruel couple\nshook with laughter.\n\n\u201cHe don\u2019t complain of being lonesome any more does he?\u201d added the\ngentleman.\n\n\u201cOh, no,\u201d giggled Imogene. \u201cHe says he is wrapped up in Science now.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so are we, my ownest; are not we also wrapped up in Science--the\nHigher Science?\u201d--and the Gay Gnani encircled his Affinity with his\nvery diaphanous arms.\n\nThe Lady laughed gaily, and then disengaging herself she daintily\nlifted her silken dinner gown and, recalling the last matinee in\nChicago, she trippingly danced, singing as only Imogene could sing:\n\n    \u201cO, O, my Hindoo Honey, Honey I love you.\u201d\n\nSuch had come to be the atmosphere of the drawing room.\n\nBut what of him in the cellar? What of the husband discarded, and the\nfriend betrayed?\n\nHe was busy--tremendously BUSY. He did not even close Saturdays at\none o\u2019clock. He was busy every daylight hour he could steal. He was\nbusy far into the hours when just men sleep, and bad ones go a\nburgling.\n\nOver and again he might have been heard to say in terribly tense\ntones,--\u201cHe\u2019s no illusion. He\u2019s no spook. He\u2019s a fact,--a cold,\nscientific fact. He lives by natural law as much as I do. Therefore\nhe\u2019s controlled by natural laws. He\u2019s therefore susceptible to\nchemical changes by the proper application of those laws. If so, he\u2019s\nsubject to these changes whenever and wherever scientific processes\nare brought to bear against him. Since an astral man is\na--Something,--why, something can get at him. Something, somewhere in\nnature\u2019s laboratory, must have the potency to seize him, to paralyze\nhim.\u201d\n\nAnd Bill would continue his monologue,--\u201cThough neither brickbat nor\nbilliard cue is efficacious in the matter of astral substance, it\ndoesn\u2019t follow that the proper projectile may not be found and\nsuccessfully administered. Now,\u201d he would reason, \u201can astral body,\nlike a physical one, must have certain natural, specific modes of\ngrowth, development, rejuvenation, resistance, persistence,\ndisintegration, and dissolution; and I,--ha, ha,--I shall find this\nsecret. Nature must and shall disclose its secret of the reduction of\nthe astral to its original essence.\u201d\n\nThen the Honorable William K. would laugh a high, weird laugh that\nechoed in hollow cadences among the jars and bottles of his\nlaboratory.\n\nThen, perchance, for the moment elate, he would whistle a few bars of\n\u201cI\u2019m a lookin\u2019 for dat niggah an\u2019 he mus\u2019 be foun\u2019.\u201d\n\nAnd the awful merriment of the Mayor was more suggestive than his\nunpleasant language.\n\nOver the great iatro-chemist, Paracelsus, the old German chemists, and\nover the discoveries and formulas of Basil Valentine, the druggist of\nKankakee continually pored. Deep into the mysteries of chemical\nphilosophy he delved. Not to his wife, but to Tyndall, Maxwell and\nDaniel he turned for society; not, however, until he had absorbed the\n\u201cGenesis of the Elements,\u201d by Crooks, did he show the excitement and\nenthusiasm of the man who gets what he goes after.\n\nThere came a day, or rather an evening, when the discarded husband\nrose up and called himself a \u201cCracker-Jack.\u201d He shook himself with the\nabandon of one who finds himself master of a situation.\n\nFor days after this Bill Vanderhook was singularly jocular. He was\npolite to Imogene. He even indulged himself in a bit of joshing with\nthe Mystic.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cGood-bye, Mrs. V. S\u2019long, Leff,\u201d--said the Mayor one morning as he\nappeared equipped for traveling.\n\n\u201cGoing east for stock,\u201d--he said briefly, when languidly interrogated\nby Imogene as to the whys and whences of this sudden trip. \u201cYou and\nLeff can run things a few days without me,\u201d--he said satirically.\n\n\u201cI should remark,\u201d--responded Imogene in her own pretty way.\n\nThere was a peculiar grin on Mr. Vanderhook\u2019s face as he put on his\nhat. He commended his wife to the care of the Mystic with these\nportentous words,--\u201cEnjoy yourself while you can, for none of us knows\nwhat may happen next.\u201d\n\nIn a fortnight he had returned, was again in the cellar busier than\never. Presently there came by express a fresh consignment for the\nlaboratory. A heavily wrapped and curiously crated package, not larger\nthan a small tub, which required several men to convey it from the\nwagon to the underground workshop.\n\nAnd the guilty pair asked no questions. Chemical experiments, as such,\nhad no interest for them.\n\n\u201cBet you it\u2019s a music box,\u201d--said Imogene, who had noted its arrival\nfrom the parlor window.\n\n\u201cOr a picture machine,\u201d--suggested Lonnie, without taking the trouble\nto remove his eyes from the face of the \u201clady-bird.\u201d \u201cAnd do you\nknow,\u201d he continued listlessly, \u201cthat these ordinary humans are doing\nsome very clever work nowadays?\u201d\n\nMr. Vanderhook vouchsafed no explanation. Next day an extra lock was\nput on his laboratory door.\n\nDays rolled on, making up the weeks. The weeks expanded into months.\nThe months rounded up a year, and yet there was no change in the\nVanderhook home. No change, merely an accentuation of the old\ncondition. No change, merely a closer absorption of the lady and her\nLlama. Only an increased activity on the part of the man in the\ncellar.\n\nMrs. and Mr. V. seldom met, except at meals. From these their guest\nusually absented himself. Having neither the need nor the desire for\nfood, it wearied him to observe the processes involved. To see his\nidol feeding grated upon his super-refined senses. This process of\nreinforcing the fires of physical life is not attractive to astral\nvision. Even a lady looks rather like an animated hopper than an\nIntelligent Being.\n\nBetween meals, however, the Llama and the Lady-Bird lost no time.\n\nNor Bill.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nDRAWING A CORK.\n\n\n\u201cMy ownest, I must to Hindustan.\u201d\n\nThis announcement came unexpectedly, hurriedly, one evening just\nbefore tea. The Mystic was evidently excited. Mrs. Vanderhook was\nstartled. She said,--\u201cGreat Scott\u201d--in tones of alarmed surprise.\n\n\u201cBe not alarmed, sweetest of mortals. It is nothing very dangerous.\nNothing, only a very disagreeable trip. My body has been left\nunguarded. There are some very large and unpleasant tigers in the\nvicinity, and should they strike the scent, you know,--I must return\nand get into my body and have some one kill the beasts. Then I will\ntake some material refreshment, relocate my body more securely and\nback again to my Goo-Goo Eyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why should you bother about that old body?\u201d pouted the lady.\n\u201cAin\u2019t you all right as you are?\u201d\n\nThe mystic laughed. It was a soundless convulsion of mirth.\n\n\u201cWhy, my kitten, don\u2019t you see that even though we love, we are not\nupon the same--same--plane? That is to say, you\u2019re in the physical\nbody, and I\u2019m out of mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, but what difference?\u201d--she began.\n\n\u201cAll the difference possible, in this particular world, my queen. Now\ndon\u2019t you see my little scheme? When you succeed in this divorce\nbusiness I mean to resume my physical body, feed it up, cut its hair,\nand get it some good clothes, and then--why, then,--I intend to bring\nit back here in the regular way,--and then--we\u2019ll be regularly\nmarried.\u201d\n\nIt was now the lady who laughed.\n\n\u201cWell, if you ain\u2019t too cute for anything.\u201d\n\nThey had previously consulted a Chicago lawyer who assured them,\nstatutes to the contrary, he not only would work the decree, but\nwould secure alimony in addition. He said he would base the suit upon\ncruelty and desertion and abandonment without \u201cvisible or tangible\ncause.\u201d\n\nThis delighted the Gnani, for though himself self-supporting, the lady\nwould require physical sustenance for some time.\n\n\u201cAnd you\u2019ll hurry back, Lonnie Llama?\u201d pleaded Imogene.\n\n\u201cBut twenty-four hours at most, Sweet Thing, only tonight and\ntomorrow, and tomorrow I\u2019ll telep every sixteen minutes from sunrise\nto sunset.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, if you must--you must,\u201d--sighed Imogene. \u201cI wish you didn\u2019t\nhave to stay but a couple of minutes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s good-bye sweetest,--until--until--\u201d and the mystic sighed\ndismally; \u201cuntil sunset tomorrow.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, no, I can\u2019t have it so. Linger--longer--Lonnie Llama. I\u2019m all\nbroke up,\u201d and Imogene wept.\n\n\u201cI say, what\u2019s the rush?\u201d\n\nThe lovers, startled, sprang to the extreme ends of the divan. It was\nthe unhappy Bill Vanderhook who stood before them.\n\nUnhappy? No. Surely this was not the face of an unhappy man, nor of a\nvengeful one. He did not even appear to be out of humor. His face was\nillumined with a benevolent smile. His hat was shoved well back on his\nhead and his hands were in his pockets, after the manner of extreme\njoviality.\n\nHe had entered unobserved and now stood surveying them with the most\ngenial and conciliatory smile.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s this about leaving us?\u201d he demanded of his old chum in the old\nfriendly tone.\n\nUnprepared for such treatment, the seer sheepishly explained the\nunpleasant predicament of his physical envelope in the caves of\nGingalee.\n\n\u201cWell, do you mean to stay there then?\u201d--anxiously, almost hopefully,\nfrom Bill.\n\n\u201cI should say not. I\u2019ll be back by tea time tomorrow sure. You know,\nMrs. Vanderhook expects me to look after the decorations of her\nApril-Fool tea party. That\u2019s tomorrow, you know, so--\u201d\n\nBill\u2019s brows contracted wickedly for an instant. Then he laughed.\n\n\u201cThen why in Sam Hill are you going at all?\u201d demanded Bill; which\nentailed another recital of the danger.\n\n\u201cBut what if the beasts do eat up your old hide! It won\u2019t hurt \u2019em\neven if it is a tough proposition. And you don\u2019t need your cuticle and\ncartilage any more, as I can see--and besides, I want you home today\nspecially. I want you home tonight anyway, for, Leff and Genesy,\ntoo\u201d--and Bill\u2019s voice dropped,--\u201csuppose we let bygones be bygones.\nI\u2019ve been a Tom-Fool to monkey with the irrevocable. I concede the\nsuperiority of the astral. I acknowledge your primordial claim upon\neach other. But I\u2019m tired of these strained relations in the house.\nLet\u2019s have peace and a good time. And now that I\u2019m finding consolation\nin Science, why not let\u2019s call off the fight? Let\u2019s have a cessation\nof hostilities and a renewal of confidences.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith all my heart,\u201d said Alonzo Leffingwell, which appeared more\ncordial than the fact really warranted. For in his state of being,\n\u201cheart\u201d was a very empty space. \u201cI\u2019m reconciled,\u201d he continued\nlanguidly.\n\n\u201cMe, too,\u201d sighed Imogene, suspiciously and reluctantly.\n\n\u201cShake,\u201d said Bill in a loud, glad voice, laying one hand over his\nwife\u2019s and shaking the other cordially through the wrist of the astral\ngentleman.\n\n\u201cI say, let\u2019s celebrate. I\u2019m dead tired of this lonesomeness down in\nthe coal bins--and--now, the fact is, Genesy\u201d--and Bill went on\ngaily,--\u201cI\u2019ve anticipated our reconciliation and I want you both to\ncome down to my workshop. I\u2019ve got a nice little layout for you in the\nlaboratory. Of course, I know Leff isn\u2019t much on vittles--but I do\nknow Genesy likes the pop of a cork. Don\u2019t you, old girl?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou better believe,\u201d assented Imogene. \u201cAnd did you really get some\nExtra Dry?--I--\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you just come and see what I\u2019ve got for you. As the French say,\nthis is an ock-kazh-un. We\u2019ll just pop a few corks. Let\u2019s agree to\nswallow the past in a couple of pints of Mumm\u2019s best, and--come along\nor the ice will melt.\u201d And he half pulled and half pushed Mrs.\nVanderhook toward the inside cellar-way.\n\nThe Mystic followed slowly, haltingly, and then hurried on to\nImogene\u2019s side.\n\n\u201cI have a presentiment\u201d--he murmured.\n\n\u201cOf what, Lonnie Llama?\u201d tenderly.\n\n\u201cAlas, I know not what; but I am seldom left on these impressions.\nLet\u2019s not go into the cellar.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, what can _he_ do to an _astral_ man? He couldn\u2019t hurt you if he\ntried.\u201d\n\nIn her eagerness Imogene spoke loud enough for her husband to hear.\n\nBill Vanderhook appeared to be smoking a cigar. In reality he was\ngnashing his teeth. Alonzo said no more, but laid his hand\napprehensively over the region formerly occupied by a heart.\n\nThey were now in the cellar, and in another moment the trio had passed\nthrough the laundry--past the fruit closets and the coal bins, and\nwere now ushered into the partitioned corner which had been converted\ninto a library and laboratory. They entered the library, which was\ncomfortably furnished, brilliantly lighted, well ventilated and\naltogether a Cosy Corner for--a studious man.\n\nBook-shelves encircled the walls, and many and musty were the ancient\nvolumes which jostled the modern authorities thereon. The further\nroom, connecting the laboratory, was now in total darkness. But\nthrough the black open doorway came a soft musical burr-r-r-r-ing,\nwhirr-r-r-r-r-ing. Now and then little sparkles of light crossed the\nblack aperture.\n\nBill beamed upon his guests. He tilted his hat back a bit further,\nthen he took off his coat, his cuffs. He began to look like Business.\n\nOut of the big, wooden pail he lifted a long, slim, dark bottle. From\nhis pocket he drew forth a corkscrew. The bottle he set on the table.\nThe corkscrew he laid beside the bottle. Then he ranged\nthree-wide-mouthed, slim-necked glasses side by side.\n\n\u201cAnd here\u2019s to us--later,\u201d--he lightly remarked.\n\nBut to such as Alonzo Leffingwell \u201cExtra Dry\u201d does not appeal. The\nSeer viewed the spread with something like scorn. Then he turned his\nattention to the connecting door. He riveted his gaze upon the open\ndoorway of the darkened inner chamber.\n\n\u201cI feel strangely drawn to that room,\u201d he murmured to Imogene.\n\n\u201cWell, I don\u2019t,\u201d she answered with emphasis. \"Let\u2019s go straight\nback--after the Mumm.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I should say--_NIT_\u201d--and Bill playfully pushed her toward the\nroom where the little sparkles flew across the blackness. \u201cCome along\nLeff, we\u2019re now ready to draw the first cork.\u201d And reaching up, Bill\nVanderhook pressed a button in the door-jamb.\n\nOn the instant, in a flash, quicker than thought, without one word of\napology or glance of farewell, the Illuminat of Illinois shot from the\nside of his Soul Mate, straight into that yawning doorway and was\nswallowed up in a sudden, blinding glare of light.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nA PRIVATE EXHIBIT.\n\n\n\u201cOh, Bill! Bill! Bill! What have you done?\u201d--and a woman\u2019s wild scream\nrent the atmosphere.\n\nAnd no wonder our heroine, standing there in the doorway, was upset.\nNo wonder she clutched at her pompadour in frenzy. No wonder she shook\nlike several leaves. The suddenness of her admirer\u2019s departure was so\nvery--in fact--sudden.\n\nAfter she had shrieked she leaned against the door-jamb, gazing\nincoherently at that which she saw.\n\nIt was now Bill\u2019s turn to laugh, and this he did, long, loud and\nuproariously. Then he shouted in a triumphant crescendo,--\u201cHi, there,\nmy lady--catch onto the display. And well you may squeal at the sight\nof your old familiar pig-wheel. Dollars to doughnuts you never\nshackled as slim a one as this at the yard. Say, watch him. He\u2019s in\nthe swim sure, ain\u2019t he? See him swing--round toward the sticker.\nThat\u2019s me. D\u2019ye hear, madam? I\u2019m the sticker in this yard. And he\u2019s\ncoming to the knife in fine style. Now watch me close, for he\u2019s going\nto land against the point this time, and then--Aha! ha! ha!--and\nthen--the last hot water plunge, and--\u201d\n\n\u201cMonster! monster!\u201d sobbed the lady.\n\nBill laughed again.\n\n\u201cOh, my Lonnie, my Llama!\u201d wailed Mrs. V.\n\nAnd again Bill Vanderhook laughed.\n\n\u201cAha!--your Astral Mate got a move on him that time. Go ask him if he\nhas any fresh data on affinities. Ask him how he likes this newest\n_attraction_.\u201d\n\n\u201cBrute!\u201d--and, dashing past her husband, the distracted lady rushed to\nthe rescue of her primordial mate. She flung herself wildly into the\nworkshop from which she had been so long excluded.\n\nThe picture presented to her gaze as she crossed the threshold struck\nterror to her soul. All at once Mrs. Vanderhook felt weak as boiled\nwater. She clasped her hands in frantic protest.\n\n\u201cGet onto his curves\u201d bawled Bill. \u201cWhat d\u2019ye think of your Lonnie\nBird now? He\u2019s off his perch, ain\u2019t he? Never miss a Mystic when he\nmoults. And here\u2019s your Lonnie Lammie--at shearing time. Here\u2019s your\nlittle piggy-wiggy on a hook. Here\u2019s your-r-r-r\u201d--and the angry\nhusband wound himself up in a knot of words and spluttered off into\nmonosyllabic ravings.\n\nAngry and frightened and bewildered by the very unusual scene, Mrs.\nVanderhook staggered, moaned a couple of times, and crumpled up over\nagainst a big empty packing case.\n\nIt would have been a braver woman who could look unmoved upon the\nrevenge of the Kankakee druggist.\n\nIn the center of a long, narrow room strewn with jugs, jars, bottles\nand chemical apparatus, whirled a small and curious cylinder, a\nlittle black machine that gave off a trail of glittering sparks upon\nthe brilliant atmosphere, a tiny monster that sang and purred and\nwhizzed in its dizzy revolutions.\n\nIt was not, however, this curious machine that attracted the attention\nof Mrs. Vanderhook. It was neither the brightness, nor energy, nor\nspeed, nor the whizziness of the things in the room that spellbound\nher. It was the novel attachment of that satanic cylinder which\nriveted her gaze and temporarily paralyzed her vocal organs.\n\nThe ethereal despoiler of the Vanderhook home had, indeed, gotten a\nmove on himself. He was \u201cin the air,\u201d and no mistake.\n\nAt a distance of perhaps ten feet from the revolving cylinder swung\nthe gay Gnani of Gingalee. He was suspended in the air without visible\nsign of support, and was following the rotary motion of the machine;\nwhich meant that he was appearing and disappearing through the floor\nand ceiling of the room with a rate of motion akin to that Bill\nVanderhook was giving the machine. Even the woman, though unfamiliar\nwith theories of electro-dynamics, realized at once that this whirling\ncylinder possessed electro-magnetic attraction for astral substance.\n\nAll at once she realized that the Mystic had been captured by the\nMayor; that the wise man was in the toils of the druggist.\n\nAlas, and alas, the mystical lover was in the clutches of the\nscientific husband.\n\n\u201cYou nasty thing!\u201d sobbed Mrs. Vanderhook wildly. And as the awfulness\nof the situation grew upon her, love lent her courage. She darted past\nher husband\u2019s outstretched hand and flung herself forward to the\nrescue of her Mate.\n\nMr. Vanderhook, however, was a true scientist. He was given to detail.\nHe had provided for just that emergency. A fine wire, strung several\nfeet from the floor immediately over a circular copper track which was\nlaid in the floor and around the cylinder, was to serve a very\npractical purpose. The impulsive creature who would have plucked her\n\u201cLonnie Bird\u201d from his unpleasant predicament, was instead, flung\nviolently backward into her husband\u2019s arms.\n\n\u201cSoul communion temporarily suspended, you will observe,\u201d grinned the\nmaster of ceremonies as he seated his wife upon the packing case. \u201cHis\nhunkey highness from Hindustan is now taking a whirl at physical\nscience. He\u2019ll be able now to prove, as I have said, that all matter\nisn\u2019t illusion. Ah, there, Lonnie Lammie, how\u2019s this from an astral\npoint of view?\u201d\n\n\u201cExtremely unpleasant,\u201d admitted that gentleman, trying to smile. \u201cBut\nI say, Bill, explain this cruel joke. I don\u2019t understand why you\nshould do this. I\u2019m awfully anxious to know how you--that is--one not\nilluminated could--thus--thus--\u201d\n\n\u201cGet the drop on you?\u201d queried Bill pleasantly. \u201cGlad you asked.\nDee-lighted to explain. You\u2019ll appreciate the importance of the\ndiscovery. It\u2019s a great addition to scientific knowledge\u201d--and the\nexperimenter warmed to scientific enthusiasm, lessened the current\nwhich was driving its prisoner relentlessly through floor and ceiling.\n\n\u201cI shall undoubtedly appreciate this particular process\u201d--and Mr.\nLeffingwell appeared to be catching his breath, as he felt himself\nreleased from the terrific force generated from somewhere. \u201cBut pray\ngo on. I\u2019m deeply interested.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery good,\u201d responded Bill, holding his rival suspended that he might\nconverse with him. \u201cYou are, of course, aware that, as an astral\nbeing, you\u2019ve had enormous advantages over the man encased in the\nphysical.\u201d\n\n\u201cTrue, and yet, you--\u201d\n\n\u201cPardon me,\u201d interrupted the druggist dryly when the Mystic would have\nchipped in. \u201cThis advantage you\u2019ve used remorselessly, to break up my\nhome. You broke the spirit, if not the letter, of occult law. You know\nyou did. You ignored our agreement made before you left Kankakee. You\nknew and you acknowledged my claim upon Mrs. V., for at least this\npresent dispensation. I told you then that I was perfectly willing to\ntake a back seat in a century or so. Apparently this didn\u2019t satisfy\nyou. You took advantage of your superior learning to sneak into my\nhouse like a thief. Oh, yes, of course, you came astrally. Of course\nyou didn\u2019t use skeleton keys. But,--you got there just the same, and\nyou got in your work.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,--but,--\u201d pleaded the man from Gingalee--\u201cI never agreed not to\nseek her enlightenment, at such times and places as might be\nconvenient. I merely returned here to instruct her in the\nFifty-Seven-Fold-Path, and to discourse to her upon those several and\nsundry sheaths which do clothe her higher principles. And--\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Bosh!\u201d growled Bill. \u201cAll that sounds very fine, in your measly\nold Sanscrit; but you stole her just the same, and that\u2019s plain United\nStates. And now, Mr. Mystic,\u201d--and the angry husband shut his teeth\nwith a savage click--\u201cyou must know that outraged confidence will seek\nrevenge. That\u2019s your karma, ain\u2019t it, Mr. Alonzo Leffingwell, Gnani\nof Gingalee, and Grand High Muckymuck of the Order of Nowhere? I\u2019ve\ngot you, and I\u2019ve got you in your own trap. You\u2019re hoist by your own\npetard. You went in for Science, and so did I. Science is going to\nsettle this dispute, and you\u2019re about to learn that nature has\n_several_ laws. Oh, pusillanimous pirate of the air, you are about to\nrealize that invention is the hand-maid of justice, and that science\nis--the--mother-in-law--of--doom.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow,--what,--Bill,--I do not comprehend,\u201d murmured Mr. Leffingwell\nperplexedly, as he disappeared slowly through the ceiling in response\nto the faint current with which Bill was now holding him.\n\n\u201cNo?\u201d--queried Bill sarcastically as the gentleman reappeared. \u201cThen\nthere are, after all, some few things you don\u2019t comprehend. Well,\nthen--\u201d and the druggist drew himself up with calm ferocity--\u201cI will\nenlighten you. Hear then my pronunciamento. You\u2019ve been weighed in\nthe balance and found wanting--everything that didn\u2019t rightfully\nbelong to you; and because of that I, your self-appointed judge and\nexecutioner, have resolved--upon--your--complete--annihilation.\u201d\n\n\u201cA-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-i-o-n-!\u201d\n\n\u201cA-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-i-o-n-!\u201d\n\nThe mournful tenor of the Mystic mingled with the high C of his\nprimordial Mate.\n\n\u201cYes, just that\u201d--burst forth the druggist savagely. \u201cWhen I\ndiscovered that you were not only dead to the proprieties and deaf to\nappeals, but that you were impervious to boot-jacks and bullets, I set\nto thinking as to the best manner of dealing with the situation. When\nI saw you chipper as a lark when impaled on a carving knife, I\nrealized the insufficiency of brute force. It was then that I turned\nto science and planned for this my long sought and well earned\nR-E-V-E-N-G-E.\u201d\n\nThis last word came out in a long hissing whisper, the which is so\neffective upon the stage.\n\nThe Seer was now staring at the druggist in open faced dismay. Imogene\nwas whimpering softly.\n\n\u201cTo this end,\u201d continued Mr. Vanderhook, \u201cI practically gave up my\nbusiness. I constructed this laboratory. I gave up Mrs. V.\u2019s society.\nI permitted _you_ to entertain her while I buried myself to work out\n_my revenge_. During the past five months I\u2019ve acquainted myself with\nall the great authorities on chemistry, electricity, alchemy,\nastrology, theosophy, and occultism generally. I\u2019ve studied Darwin and\nHaeckel and Huxley and Tyndall. I\u2019ve familiarized myself with all of\nthe facts of all of the sciences. I\u2019ve saturated myself with the\ntheories of all the philosophers, prophets and cranks. I\u2019ve studied\nthe body from monkey to man. I\u2019ve chased the elusive soul down through\nthe unintelligible symbolism of Buddha, on down to the ultimate atom\nof Huxley--and I\u2019ve made a Great Discovery. Your school of mysticism\u2019s\na fake. I\u2019ve smashed your occultism to smithereens, and I can bear\nwitness to the wisdom of that eminent materialist who said,--\u2018I have\ntried the soul in the crucible and found it Protoplasm.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cYou--you--deny the soul?\u201d broke out the Mystic in astonishment.\n\n\u201cQuite the contrary,\u201d said Mr. Vanderhook. \u201cI\u2019m convinced that there\nis a soul, or more scientifically speaking, an astral man. But this\nastral man is nothing but a duplicate of the physical man, consisting\nof highly attenuated substance. This soul man, or astral man, under\ncertain conditions, can separate himself from the coarser body and cut\nup just such didos as you have. But\u201d--and Bill\u2019s voice assumed the\npatronizing intonation of the pedagogue--\u201cnow the fact is,\nconfidentially, this astral man is nothing but a mere emanation of the\nphysical, and is governed--that is, ultimately--by the same physical\nlaws. Now, for instance, you talk of a soul, and a spirit, because you\ndon\u2019t know any better. In reality these phenomena of the astral plane\nare only material phenomena of a higher grade or quality than we can\nordinarily get at through our physical senses. But, and again,\u201d--and\nBill Vanderhook sniffed disdainfully--\u201cyou\u2019re no more immortal\n(because you can\u2019t be seen by everybody) than a wiggle-tail is. Now we\ncan\u2019t see nor feel the millions of baby tadpoles nor wigglers in\nwater. But that ain\u2019t saying they\u2019re spirits, nor that they have\nimmortal souls. Now, Mr. Mystic, a soul or an astral man is just as\nnatural as flesh and bone. He is in no sense independent of the finer\nphysical forces, and he is subject to natural law just as much as if\nhe were going around wearing his body.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have certainly studied to some purpose,\u201d admitted Mr.\nLeffingwell.\n\n\u201cMore than this,\u201d continued the materialist enthusiastically, \u201cI have\nstudied and completely mastered this principle of soul mating.\u201d\n\nThe Mystic started--but he did not get very far.\n\nMrs. Vanderhook looked up eagerly, hopefully.\n\n\u201cYes, I admit,\u201d continued Bill genially, \u201cthat I find your old\nOriental fakirs were mainly right. I, however, have been able to prove\nthat your soul affinity is just plain chemical affinity--just plain\nchemical affinity without any frills. It\u2019s an affinity that depends\nupon whether you\u2019re made up of the kind of chemical substances that\nnaturally combine. F\u2019r instance,--I can take any two people and feed\n\u2019em both on pie or pig or potatoes, and produce the same kind of\naffinity you talk about.\u201d\n\nAlonzo Leffingwell shuddered. Mrs. V. looked at him questioningly.\nBill\u2019s unexpected wisdom was making an impression upon his wife.\n\n\u201cFact,\u201d continued Bill, delighted with the impression he was\nmaking--\u201cnow I don\u2019t deny\u201d--turning to Alonzo exclusively--\u201cthat by a\nproper course of diet and an ultimate arrangement of particles, my\nwife might co\u00f6rdinate with you; but I do say, and you hear me, that\nshe has been, and is, and is likely to remain, much nearer to me than\nto you. Chemically speaking she has not attained to you. She quite\nlacks the refinement, attenuation and imponderability you have\nachieved. In short, she is not yet quite as swift as you are, and\ntherefore much better suited to my condition than to yours.\u201d\n\nContinued Bill--\u201cWhen once I had established the \u2018Immortal Soul\u2019 of\nthe occultist and the \u2018Atomic Energy\u2019 of Science as identical, I had a\nreasonable basis, a sound hypothesis upon which to proceed. You, Mr.\nGnani, representing this \u2018Soul\u2019 became the material for a rare\nexperiment. And you are now, at this hour, as it were, my working\ncapital.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd now, having satisfied yourself that certain scientific methods\nmay be applied to certain astral phenomena, what more would you\nhave?\u201d--ventured Mr. Leffingwell nervously. \u201cNow that you have made\nyour point, I implore you, Bill, to let me out of this.\u201d\n\nThe Honorable William K. Vanderhook (with his hand still on the lever)\ncocked his head to one side. He gave the Mystic one long look out of\none eye. The other one he closed.\n\n\u201cAs you must know,\u201d he continued serenely, \u201cprimordial matter, which\nis astral matter, results from a condensation of ether substance into\nhelium, or biogen. It is of this attenuated, gaseous matter that you\nare composed. This being true, it is easily possible to convert or\nreduce you back into a semi-material state of hydrogen. Catch on?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do,\u201d admitted the Seer sorrowfully as he passed slowly downward\nstill swaying along the circle of attraction. \u201cBut now\u201d--he\nimplored--\u201cas you have no further use for me, can\u2019t we take a spell\noff for further discussion? I\u2019m getting pretty tired, Bill.\u201d\n\n\u201cI never did see such a kicker,\u201d said Bill. \u201cWhen I\u2019ve been so\nconsiderate, too. Why, you see, Leff, that the chrysalis of attraction\nin which you move is so cunningly tempered as to swing you in a\nperfect circle about twenty feet in diameter. So, you see, you are in\nno sense exposed, as it were, publicly. You are so adjusted as not to\nbe dragged through the roof, over the damp grass, through the sewer\npipes nor yet across the clothes-line in the back yard. In thus making\nyou a strictly Private Exhibit I\u2019ve paid the deference due to your\nprofession which you yourself have so disgraced. I wonder, now, Leff,\nif you haven\u2019t guessed what I\u2019ve been up to all this time?\u201d\n\nAlonzo shook his head dejectedly.\n\n\u201cNo?\u201d--interrogatively. \u201cWell, then,\u201d said Bill--\u201cI\u2019ve just reached\nthe delicate point of practically solving the problem of astral\nsubstance; or, of reducing astral substance to visible, tangible,\nphysical substance. And the proof which is necessary depends now only\nupon the nicety of modern mechanical construction. In short, I believe\nthat I am about to demonstrate that in electro-dynamics lurks the\nsecret of the \u2018Soul.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, Bill, I say,--Bill, old fellow. Surely you are not going to\nexperiment on ME? Surely you are going to release me from this\nuncomfortable situation?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, my dear boy,\u201d said Bill Vanderhook good humoredly, \u201cwould you\nbalk such an experiment on the very threshold of success? Permit me to\nassure you that the performance is only half over and the best of the\nfeatures are yet to come.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nUP AGAINST IT.\n\n\n\u201cBut, Bill, Bill, old chum,\u201d--and the Mystic shook like a mold of\njelly. \u201cI _must_ away. My body, don\u2019t you know? My body that I am\ngoing to need very shortly--is in danger. Even at this great distance\nI sense the approach of those wild beasts. Pray let me return for a\nbrief time to my studies of the abstract. I\u2019m already away behind in\nYog. Release me old boy, release me, I must hence!\u201d\n\n\u201cI say, Leff, if I\u2019d let up on you would you swear by the\nOne-Horned-Hair-of-the-Sacred-Rabbit never to show yourself again in\nKankakee?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, the law--the law\u201d--groaned the erring lover, and he gazed upon\nhis Lady-Bird in an unutterable fashion.\n\u201cHow--are--we--to--get--around--Chemistry? I--we--are not to blame--\u201d\n\n\u201cEnough,\u201d snorted Bill Vanderhook. \u201cNo more fooling,\u201d and it was now\nthe baseball captain to the front.\n\n\u201cBut my body,\u201d pleaded Lonnie. \u201cIt will be eaten. Do you hear me? It\nwill be eaten, chewed up, and destroyed.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Bill impatiently, \u201cwhat if it is? What then?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat then?\u201d cried the Seer excitedly. \u201cWhy, don\u2019t you see that I\u2019ll\nbe regularly dead? Just dead, and my body no good to me? Why, don\u2019t\nyou know that I\u2019ll be nothing then but a mere angel? Don\u2019t you know\nthat I\u2019ll be altogether confined to another world? I\u2019ll be a Mystic no\nlonger? Nor be able thus to materialize, and to travel at will--to--\u201d\n\n\u201cAha! That hadn\u2019t occurred to me,\u201d chuckled Bill. \u201cI see. I see. And\nin that case you can\u2019t crawl back into your terrestrial jacket and\ncome back to marry Mrs. V. when she succeeds in getting that divorce?\nAha! good! I see, and wouldn\u2019t that be one on you? But\u201d--and the\ninjured husband once more became the scientist. \u201cI say, Leff,--suppose\nyou telep to some old Yogy to go and get that body of yours and ship\nit to me. I give you my word that you\u2019ll not need it again; and I\u2019d\nlike it more\u2019n anything for chemical analysis. Have it sent C. O. D.\nof course.\u201d\n\n\u201cMonster!\u201d again sobbed Imogene.\n\nThe Mystic was speechless with horror.\n\n\u201cHow selfish you people are. Can\u2019t you see of what enormous scientific\nvalue that cadaver would be? You\u2019d even block this experiment right\nnow when it\u2019s on the verge of success. You have no sort of gratitude\nnor interest in the welfare of posterity. I arranged this whole\nexhibit quietly. And even yet I am willing to conceal your depravity,\nbut the advancement of science ought to mean something to you, and you\nshould be glad to make a few small sacrifices yourself. Think of the\ntime and money I\u2019ve squandered in experimenting while you were sitting\non my Bagdad entertaining yourself with my wife. In order that this\ndemonstration might do credit to us all I went down east, down to\nJersey to consult Edison personally, and at his suggestion I bought\nthis plant, which was constructed under his orders.\n\n\u201cAnd I tell you,\u201d continued Bill, \u201cthat there\u2019s a wizard what is a\nwizard. He can give you cards and spades any time in the moon. Just\nlet me call your attention to the machine itself. In other words, get\nonto it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that I seem unwittingly to have done,\u201d said Mr. Leffingwell\nmournfully.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s a daisy dynamo, I tell you. It produces, for its size,\nelectricity at a higher pressure than any other machine in the world.\nWhy, the output of this little power is sufficient to keep five\nthousand incandescent lamps burning at the same time. It can knock an\nordinary man silly in the fraction of a second. And with its two\nthousand volts I can lay you out in a minute\u201d--said Bill, nodding\nenthusiastically toward the cylinder. \u201cUnderstand, this is an improved\nmachine which in detail, of course, you couldn\u2019t understand. The\nincrease of power here isn\u2019t through the size of the dynamo, but by a\nnew armature and the field-magnets. This produces in the current what\nwe call the Three-Phase-Alternating-System which you will observe to\nbe a corker. Edison gave me points and I tell you I\u2019ve got a machine\nto fit--to fit--the crime. See?\u201d\n\nMr. Leffingwell \u201csaw,\u201d but he made no attempt to \u201cpass.\u201d He only bowed\nhis head sorrowfully.\n\n\u201cBut look here, good people; we\u2019re wasting a lot of time,\u201d said Bill\npresently. \u201cAnd I think it is about time this mill was pulled\noff\u201d--and he now bent eagerly forward, his hand upon the lever and his\neyes riveted upon the \u201cExhibit,\u201d reminding Alonzo of the position he\nused to assume when set to bat a ball.\n\n\u201cNotice, please,\u201d said Bill, \u201cthat I am able at will to increase or\ndecrease this current which prevents your escape from the sphere of\nattraction. You will see that I am thus able nicely to regulate your\nspeed from the slow and comfortable to the dizzy and dangerous.\u201d\n\n\u201cDangerous? Dangerous, did you say? I hardly understand you\u201d--faltered\nthe Mystic, paling as he spoke.\n\n\u201cLet me illustrate,\u201d--and the hand of the avenger sought the lever.\n\nThe little monster whirled fiercely, increasing with each revolution\nboth the speed and the terror of its victim. Faster and faster whirled\nthe cylinder. Faster and faster flew the lately fascinating Seer.\n\n\u201cHold,--hold,--I--I--I--must ask--one--question,\u201d shrilled brokenly\nupon the sparkling air.\n\n\u201cCertainly,\u201d responded Bill, lessening the current as he spoke.\n\n\u201cI say, Bill--upon what prin--principle do--you--op--operate?\u201d gasped\nthe suddenly released gentleman. \u201cI must know if it agrees with--with\nour sch--ool.\u201d\n\nThe man at the machine bowed graciously, and jauntily saluted his old\nchum. Bill was flattered. To be thus interrogated by one whose\nprofession was wisdom, was a distinct compliment. He straightened\nhimself and lifted his chin.\n\n\u201cHelium,\u201d--he said, in a loud, cheerful voice,--\u201cthat of which you are\ncomposed, I discover to be nothing more than a dephlogisticated\ncondition of matter. Now this highly attenuated substance is (as you\nmay, but probably do not know) highly susceptible to electrical\nforces. I further discover that by virtue of electro-dynamics we are\nable to convert this highly refined substance into hydrogen, a highly\nvolatile metal. This, under increased pressure, is finally raised to\nthe point of ignition. D\u2019ye hear, my gay Gnani? For here\u2019s where I get\nin my fine work. Let me repeat,--this highly volatile hydrogen is, or\nwill presently be--raised to the point of ignition--Phlogiston is\nRestored and--_pish_--_you_ go.\u201d\n\n\u201cHorrible! horrible! but true, alas, too true,\u201d--and the Mystic and\nhis Mate bowed their heads in unison.\n\n\u201cAnd, hear me still further, Mr. Psycho-Bunko-Hiero-Phanto,\u201d continued\nMr. Vanderhook remorselessly. \u201cI\u2019d have you know that the curriculum\nof your musty old schools in Hindustan never counted on a tussle with\nphysical science. They go no further than the application of certain\nmetaphysical forces to nonresistant physical substance, or noncompos\ngray matter of certain fool people I know. They never equip their\nalleged pupils to meet nor to resist an active and rational campaign\non the lower planes. With all your tricks you Oriental fakirs aren\u2019t\nin it with an Edison plant. You\u2019re not in it with the twentieth\ncentury scientist, when he has a real ax to grind,\u201d--and by way of\nillustration Bill increased the current and ground his teeth.\n\nMoved by his enemy\u2019s science, rather than by his satire, Alonzo\nLeffingwell passed on his way--lamenting.\n\nBut he returned again, and hung suspended at his tormentor\u2019s pleasure.\n\nThe man of science continued: \u201cYou forget, my Alonzo the brave, that\nphysical science hasn\u2019t been asleep the past five years. No, my boy,\nmodern science has got a cinch on you--and the modern scientist\nhas wiped out your musty old magic. And the rude every-day\nporter-house-Budweiser scientist has likewise been studying nature\u2019s\nfiner forces. Now we don\u2019t levitate, to speak of, but we\u2019re making\npretty good time, just the same. Your scientific brethren out there in\nGingalee will discover in a couple of centuries that we\u2019ve got the\ndrop on them--that the occult isn\u2019t occult, a little bit, and that the\nPlain Citizen of this great, western republic is after them.\u201d\n\nTo this the miserable Mystic made no reply. He saw that he was\ndiscovered and lost at one and the same time. Nothing but the scarcity\nof water in his organism restrained the now hopeless gentleman from\ntears.\n\nHe made one more attempt, one more appeal.\n\n\u201cIs there nothing, Oh, William K. Vanderhook,--is there nothing in our\npast friendship,--nothing of the past,--in memory that will melt or\nsoften you?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnything in _memory_ to _soften_ me? Well,--I--should--say--NIT.\nEvery revolution of the second-hand on the dial plate of my memory\ndrives another spike into the lid of your--figuratively\nspeaking--coffin.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere was a time when I was soft. Oh, yes, I was _soft_! Five years\nago I was softer than putty, softer than a bread-and-milk poultice or\na batch of dough. But my friend, I\u2019ve been baked since. Hard baked. It\ntook a lot of kneading and a mighty hot oven, but I got myself baked,\nhard-brown, and I\u2019ve got a cast-iron crust on me,--and don\u2019t you\nforget it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I admit I _was_ soft, but that was long ago, before you made a\nprofession of bamboozling silly women.\u201d\n\n\u201cMemory--well I should say. D\u2019ye think I\u2019ve forgotten that inspired\nold Manhattan Mystic? Not much. I\u2019ve been studying that same old\nmuddle myself. Yes, sir, and I\u2019ve got the volume right over there in\nmy scientific library, in the section marked CRANKS,\u201d--and Bill\nVanderhook jerked his thumb disdainfully in the direction of the\nlibrary.\n\n\u201cAnd hear me further, Lonnie boy. It was just my reading of your own\nHigh Joss, and it was out of his profound profundity that I dug your\ncondemnation. And it is he, and not Bill Vanderhook, who has settled\nyour eternal--hash.\n\n\u201cNow you hear me a minute. I\u2019m going to do a little quoting myself. I\nspent days and nights wading through that illuminated slush to see if\nI could find any excuse for you. But instead of that I picked out the\nbiggest spike in the lid.\n\n\u201cBut, Gee, wasn\u2019t it a job? My nerve nearly brought on paresis. I did\nhave congestive chill, ticdouloureux, meningitis, lock-jaw and\ncurvature of the spine. But I read it just the same, and here\u2019s what\nyour old misfit says. Listen, and when you strike that eternal\noblivion take a day off and go back through your disintegrated,\ndissolved and scattered gray matter and see if _you_ can remember\nanything like _this_,--\n\n\u201c\u2018Mechanism does not escape this trope and rhapsody, being indeed\ntheir most conspicuous illustration, since its fundamental principle\nis that of leverage, whereby there is libration or oscillation, as of\na scale or a pendulum, or circular motion as of a wheel. In celestial\nmechanism the material fulcrum disappears, and there is the invisible\ncentre of motion, of light and return, through tendencies which seem\nto balance each other, giving the motion the orbital form.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd here\u2019s your old Manhattan Mummy come home to roost.\u201d\n\n\u201cHenrymillsalden, second chapter and fifth verse.\u201d\n\n\u201cCongregation sing.\u201d\n\nAlonzo Leffingwell bowed his head. He pressed his hand to his solar\nplexus and then faintly did he murmur--\u201cThen there is nothing that\nwill melt or soften you--nothing?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, ring off. D\u2019ye take me for the ice man? Well, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m\npig-iron, pipe-clay and steel filings; and what\u2019s worse, the more I\n_remember_ the madder I _get_.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then--and then--there is nothing that I can do--or can say?--\u201d\n\n\u201cOnce--and--for--all,--NOPE, my gay Gnani of Gingalee, for the last\ntime, you\u2019re up against it.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd there was silence in the cellar for the space of about eight\nminutes.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd then,--\u201cIt is not, O William, simply for myself I plead. I am\nthinking also of you, and of the Karmic consequences of this Act. Had\nyou,--had you--been illuminated--\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d a hoisted you out of my house a year ago,\u201d--interrupted Bill\nfiercely. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t illuminated. My aura wasn\u2019t anything but fuzz.\nWasn\u2019t lit up. I was in the gloaming. But I\u2019m not there now. I\u2019m out\nof the woods. And I\u2019ve got a pink halo of forty-four horse power. D\u2019ye\nhear me?\u201d and the materialist grinned away his scowl. Waving his hand\noutward in the glaring atmosphere, he continued,--\u201cI\u2019m getting there.\nIf this ain\u2019t illumination I don\u2019t know light when I see it. Oh, yes,\nI\u2019m a small incandescent myself. But see here\u201d--and Bill suddenly\nclosed the conversation and his jaws with a snap.\n\n\u201cWhat are you up to anyway? You\u2019re trying to josh me out of this\nexperiment. I don\u2019t mean to let you buzz the vitality out of this\ndynamo. You\u2019re slick enough to weaken the coils of any old machine if\nyou\u2019re not watched. Anyway, we\u2019ve had enough monkeying, and I\u2019ve got\nother fish to fry. The Board meets at eight and I\u2019m punctual.\u201d\n\nBill Vanderhook now consulted his watch. \u201cHoly Mother of Mud!\u201d--he\nshouted. \u201cIt\u2019s seven o\u2019clock, and no dinner, and this is Saturday\nnight, and the barber shops crowded. Now, see here\u201d--to the silent,\ndespairing culprits,--\u201cI don\u2019t want any more back talk. I\u2019m going to\nwind up this business instanter. For this whole mess has to be out of\nthe way in just fif--teen--minutes.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo--no more talk. You just get ready for your last sprint. This farce\nis played out. The last act is over. The curtain\u2019s rung down.\nAlonzo Leffingwell, the wise man of Kankakee flats is no more.\nBring on the--flowers--your \u2018Gates Ajar\u2019 and the other pin-wheels.\nThe pallbearers are without. The baked meats are on the\nsideboard--mourners in line, and hark you to the funeral march,--\n\n    \u201cFare-well for-ev-er to old Kan-ka-kee,\n    Fare-well, my Lonnie-Bird, don\u2019t wait for me.\u201d\n\nAs the hand of the avenger had touched the lever he had burst forth\ninto impassioned song.\n\nAnd there was more truth than either poetry or music in his\nimprovisation.\n\nFor the cruel energy of this modern executioner was beginning to tell\nupon its ethereal victim. Never in his varied career had that polished\nand elegant gentleman been so completely \u201cin the whirl.\u201d\n\nThere were now subtle but certain changes and transformations taking\nplace in his attenuated substance. The gay, gallant and fascinating\nsojourner from the Orient was slowly but surely undergoing some\ncharacter of transmutation.\n\n\u201cNow, once for all, and finally,\u201d--resumed Bill, bending forward to\nreadjust some part of the machinery,--\u201cOnce again and for the last\ntime I say to you, that you must make up your mind,--no, rather your\neverlasting substance--to your fearful and final experiences as an\nindividual, as an astral man, as a NEE--go. You have proclaimed that\nall is spirit. I contend that--ALL--IS--MATTER, and HERE SHE GOES.\u201d\n\nBut she didn\u2019t go.\n\nAs these last fierce words of Bill Vanderhook cut the air like whip\nstrokes, the unhappy prisoner trembled with fear. With one mighty\neffort of will he gathered his forces into one last effort to break\nhis bonds.\n\nBut in vain. He writhed, struggled, twisted and swayed in the unequal\ncontest. But he was bound, as securely bound by the invisible chain\nof electricity, as was ever the manacled criminal in the strong,\nbarred dungeon. He was rooted to the rim of that fearful aura of his\nmechanical captor.\n\nLifting his eyes and his hands toward the ceiling, the despairing\ncaptive raised all that remained of his voice in one last wild, weird\ncry of supplication:--\n\n\u201cMaster, Master, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d\n\nAnd what had stayed the avenger\u2019s hand as it reached again to press\nthe fatal button? Was it that wild cry, or the wild _words_ that\nstayed the bloodless executioner in that torture chamber?\n\nOr,--was it the sudden infusion of another element, of another force,\nof another individuality superior to the little learning and the\nlittle arts of both the modern mystic and the modern scientist?\n\nFor, at that instant, in a flash of time, occurred a curious thing.\n\nThe echoes of the Mystic\u2019s wail were still resounding among the jars\nand jugs when Mr. Vanderhook might have been seen to stagger, to\nrelax, to waver as he stood, to reach blindly for a chair, and then,\nto crumple up and drop gently upon the floor, to close his eyes, to\nsleep.\n\nAnd Imogene, who sat upon the cask of copper wire, whose interest had\nnot flagged for an instant, now changed expression suddenly. She\nyawned, leaned backward to the wall for support, dropped her pretty\nhead to one side, closed her tearful eyes, and she, too, slept.\n\n\n\n\nINTERLUDE.\n\n\nAnd then unsensed by the sleepers, but clear to the vision of the\nmiserable Mystic a sudden, luminous cloud appeared, grew and gathered\nin intensity. It appeared a few feet from the floor, close to the\ndynamo, within the radius of its attraction.\n\nSteadily the brightness increased until the electric lights were as\ncandles burning at noonday.\n\nFrom the midst of this increasing splendor was gradually shaped a\nmajestic figure, the face and form of an unearthly being, a man, yet a\nman so transcendent in presence, so lofty in pose, so dazzling in\nvestments, so celestial in expression as to separate him--almost\nwholly--from the little beings who run to and fro upon the earth,\ncalling themselves men.\n\nThe wise man--late of India--looked, shuddered, moaned, closed his\neyes and bent his head.\n\nThe Radiant One paused an instant, and then spoke,--saying:--\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n\u201cTHE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.\u201d\n\n    (By a Member of the Order\n    of\n    The Brotherhood of India.)\n\n\nPerverse and degenerate Soul: I have heard your cry, and have come\nonce more to admonish the wilful and wayward child of evil.\n\nI approach you from a plane of life so far above and beyond the\nphysical that these children of the flesh neither see my form nor hear\nmy voice. By the exercise of a power which has been wisely withheld\nfrom you, I have arrested the forces of nature which have been but\nclumsily employed to entrap you. For a few fleeting moments of earthly\ntime I have lulled to harmless sleep the conscious powers of these\nearth-bound Souls. My message is for you and for you alone.\n\nListen: Before you were permitted to open the door of knowledge which\nleads to the exalted spheres of spiritual illumination and power, you\nwere informed by him who held the key, that no man can ever pass that\nsacred portal and hope thereafter to evade any of the responsibilities\nwhich lie beyond.\n\nPatiently and explicitly you were instructed as to the nature, the\nscope and the meaning of those responsibilities, and the penalties\nwhich nature imposes for their conscious and intentional evasion or\nviolation were made plain. Of your own free will and accord you\nelected to enter and assume those responsibilities, well knowing the\nconsequences of their violation.\n\nWhen you first entered our sacred Temple of Light, and knelt as a\nvoluntary initiate at our Altar of Truth, you took upon yourself a\nsolemn and binding Obligation. Well you knew its import. You have not\nforgotten it. Neither can you now evade the penalty of its violation.\n\nThat Great One, in the light of whose deific presence all other light\nis but a somber shadow, has fixed the seal of his judgment upon it.\nThat judgment is irrevocable. From it there is no appeal. You stand\ncondemned.\n\nBefore you were permitted thus to bind yourself to the faithful\ndischarge of a sacred trust you were carefully and minutely instructed\nas to all the principles, forces, activities and processes of nature\non which that obligation rests.\n\nThat instruction was given to you as the tribute of a higher knowledge\nand the dispensation of a higher Power. You knew then, as you know\nnow, that the only compensation required from you is that which must\nflow to all mankind from your right use of the knowledge and power\nwith which you were then and there invested.\n\nUnder that instruction you learned to know the fundamental Attribute\nwith which the Great Universal Intelligence has invested you as an\nintelligent Soul. You have not forgotten it.\n\nUnder that instruction you learned to know the fundamental Power with\nwhich you were invested as one of our special messengers of Truth. By\nthe development of that power you have opened the door to higher and\nnobler possibilities of life. You have not forgotten that lesson, nor\nthe responsibility it imposes.\n\nUnder that instruction you learned to know the meaning and the\napplication of the Great Law of Compensation to your own life and\nintelligence. You accepted the responsibilities which that knowledge\ninevitably imposes. Nor have you forgotten.\n\nUnder that instruction you learned to know the primary and fundamental\nDuty which rests upon one who voluntarily enters the portal of our\nvenerable Order, and when that duty is fully performed. These\nconditions you have not forgotten.\n\nUnder that instruction you learned to know the great underlying\n_Purpose_ of your individual being, as well as the ethical effect of\nthat purpose accomplished. You have not forgotten them.\n\nFrom a yet higher Intelligence and an Authority more transcendent you\nlearned to know the full measure and scope of your own Personal\nResponsibility to yourself and to your fellow men. None of these\nthings have you forgotten.\n\nThirteen searching questions were asked you and your answers are\ninscribed in the records of our Order. You have not forgotten them.\n\nEach question and answer form an immutable link in the chain of your\nindividual record. This golden chain of thirteen mighty links of truth\nwas accepted by you as the rule and guide of your conduct toward\nyourself and all mankind. Behold it now! Each link is broken into many\npieces, and each piece becomes a new link in an unbroken chain of\nevidence against you.\n\nYou knew then and you know now, that the right application of\nknowledge and the right use of power lead upward to the Pathway of\nLight and Life; and that the perversion of knowledge and the abuse of\npower inevitably lead downward to the Way of Darkness and Death.\n\nNotwithstanding your knowledge of all these things, you, of your own\nfree will and accord, have turned your face from the light of truth\nand your feet from the pathway of eternal life and infinite joy. You\nhave scorned the counsels of the just, ignored the judgments of the\nwise, defied the immutable an inexorable penalties of broken laws, and\nhave walked boldly down the broad highway of darkness and death. Your\nfeet are now hovering on the brink of despair, and your eyes are\npeering over deep down into the blackness of everlasting darkness. And\nwhat then?\n\nAh, yes, what then? Then it is you cry out to the Master whose loving\nadmonition you have ignored so often, and you entreat him to save you\nfrom the doom you so persistently have invited.\n\nYou cry for help, but what is the motive that prompts your cry? Is it\nhumility? No. Is it love? No. Is it any motive which could possibly\ninspire an honest prayer? Alas, no. It is, instead, the lowest and\nmeanest impulse that ever moves the springs of human action--the\nimpulse of Fear. And fear of what? Fear of Justice. Fear of the\ninevitable penalties which you so deliberately and persistently have\ninvited; penalties which your own conscience recognizes and your\nreason approves. Fear of the operation of nature\u2019s most beneficent\nlaw, the Law of Compensation.\n\nOh, selfish lover! false friend! unworthy student! obdurate sinner!\nunconscionable outlaw and indefensible miscreant! Where now is all\nyour boasted power? Why do you cringe and writhe in an agony of fear?\nWhy are you here, the helpless plaything of forces under the control\nof this witless child of earth?\n\nListen, and I will tell you: The Law of Retributive Justice is but a\nsingle phase of the great Law of Compensation. That Law is immutable,\nirrevocable and inexorable. Whosoever invites its judgments must\nsuffer its penalties. Under its inevitable and relentless decree you\nstand a guilty and condemned Soul.\n\nYou have violated the most sacred law of your being--the Law of Love.\nNeither time, place, circumstance, duty nor responsibility has\ndeterred you from your unholy purpose to wreck the happiness and\nfortunes of a defenseless home.\n\nYou have betrayed the trust of a faithful friend. You have abused his\ngenerous hospitality, and violated the sanctity of his household.\n\nYou have permitted your own degenerate and selfish desires and\npassions to override every principle of Equity, Justice and Right.\n\nTo accomplish an ignoble purpose you have employed all your little\nknowledge of our noble science in conscious and deliberate violation\nof a most sacred and binding obligation; and I am come to behold you\nnow, a blackened and perjured Soul, expiating your crimes and\nsuffering a self-invoked and righteous penalty.\n\nNay, more: It is you and such as you who have made it possible for\noffended ignorance to travesty our noble science, misinterpret our\nexalted philosophy, bring our ancient and honored Order into ignominy\nand shame, and all our beneficent instructions under the blighting and\nhumiliating ridicule of this Occidental world.\n\nIt is you and such as you who have made it necessary for us once more\nto shut the doors of our sacred Temple of Light against all who shall\ncome to us from your western shores.\n\nIt is you and such as you who have furnished the inspiration which\nprompts the vulgar wit of your overfed, western semi-civilization to\namuse itself in derisive ridicule and mockery of the splendid legacy\nwhich our Oriental civilization is but waiting to bequeath to your\npeople.\n\nIt is you and such as you who furnish the plots and dramatic settings\nfor your literary travesties; and because of your trivial and\ndegrading uses of magical powers, our august Fraternity becomes the\ntarget of your caustic, western wits and merciless satirists.\n\nIt is you and such as you who deliberately, persistently and\nflagrantly violate and misrepresent the most beneficent and sacred law\nof life--the Law of Affinity and Love--and by your wicked perversions\nand vicious subversions fix upon our noble Order a burden of cruel and\nunjust criticism, in the presence of which we who are thus maligned\nand misrepresented bow our heads in humiliation, in sorrow and in\nshame.\n\nIt is you and such as you who knowingly and intentionally substitute\nsensuality for affinity, lust for love, license for law, and by your\nbrazen and shameless disregard of noble principles and benign\nteachings, say to the world, \u201cThus saith our Ancient Order of Light.\u201d\n\nYou cringe and writhe in double agony, and well you may, as you look\nupon the picture in all its hideous deformity; but your punishment is\nnot yet completed.\n\nListen yet further to the voice of one who would have spared you this\nunhappy hour. You were informed by one whose words you can not doubt,\nthat no man can apply his knowledge of our higher science to selfish\nor ignoble purposes without himself, sooner or later, falling a victim\nto the forces and processes he thus employs.\n\nHad you been true to yourself, true to your friends, true to your\ninstructors, true to the obligation which God or Nature fixes upon\nevery intelligent Soul, this would have been the day of your triumph\nand joy. Instead of this you have made it the dark and gloomy hour of\nyour humiliation and exile, and in the records of our Order it marks\nthe closing earthly scene of one more dismal and ignominious failure.\n\nWhen this sleeping child of the flesh shall awaken and once more shall\nset in motion the forces which hold you in their relentless grasp,\nwhat then? Ah, yes, what then? I will tell you.\n\nThe vital element which still binds your spiritual body to its\nfar-away physical counterpart will soon be dissipated. Nature\u2019s\nmagnetic chain which heretofore has enabled you to return to the\nphysical body will be broken. Physical death will have overtaken you.\nThe element which enables you to manifest yourself to these children\nof earth no longer will be at your command. You will pass from their\nvision and their knowledge for time, and who knows but for eternity.\n\nIn the realm of spiritual darkness you will be left to wander alone,\nand alone to expiate your crimes.\n\nAs it has been here, so will it be there, for you and you alone to\ndetermine whether you will follow the path which leads onward and\nupward to infinite light, perfect happiness and eternal life; or\nbackward and downward along the pathway of deepest darkness to\ndisintegration, dissolution, individual extinction, and a resolution\nback into nature\u2019s elements. Farewell.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n\u201c_A maximis ad minima._\u201d\n\nPHLOGISTON IS RESTORED.\n\n\nAnd now, an awful silence brooded in that fateful chamber. The Great\nLight had vanished. Darkness was there.\n\nAnd then, as swiftly as came sleep, so now the awakening of Bill\nVanderhook and his wife.\n\n\u201cGee, I nearly slipped\u201d--muttered the druggist \u201cThat infernal machine\nmust have made me dizzy for a second.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd here she goes,\u201d--repeated Bill, wholly unconscious of his lapse.\nHis hand is again upon the lever. His eyes are again riveted upon the\nprivate exhibit.\n\nBut the voice of the gay Gnani is heard no more by man. He makes no\nmore appeals. His freshness is departing forever. His etheric\ncountenance is distorted by unspeakable anguish. Despair looks from\nhis eyes. His delicate hands, unclasped, are fallen to his sides. His\nhead is bowed upon his breast. The foolish wise man now faces himself\non all sides. He sees the past, the present, the future,--sin,\nsuffering, and impenetrable silence.\n\n\u201cAnd here she goes,\u201d--\n\nWhirr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.\n\nWhizz-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z.\n\nAnd go she did,--and so did the Illuminat of Illinois.\n\nWithout so much as a farewell word to his Alter Ego, the gaseous and\nnow ghastly gentleman was violently lifted from the perpendicular and\nsuddenly bent in a curve corresponding to the arc of that electrical\ncircle in which he revolved.\n\nHe was shot like a ball from a cannon, in and out, up and down, and\nround and round the Vanderhook laboratory. He was projected with\nfearful speed along the fatal pathway of that deadly attraction.\n\nWords can not exploit the possibilities of electricity when centered\nupon a human organism, however attenuated. Up to this last moment the\ncaptive had been stirred only by his internal emotions of baffled\nlove, and of deadly fear. Now, however, to internal agony was added\noutward destruction. To the convulsions of the soul were added the\ncontortions of the body, and with every revolution of the fatal\ncylinder the reappearing envelope of the doomed soul was seen to be\nshrinking and shriveling out of all semblance to a man.\n\nWhat at breakfast had been the lithe and debonnair Gnani of Gingalee,\na transparent and elegant gentleman, was now but a thick, cloudy\nshape, an opaque, formless figure, an unhandsome thing resembling the\nbody of a bent, crooked and deformed child.\n\nBill Vanderhook was wildly elated.\n\nHe beamed upon the exhibit with satanic glee. He laughed for joy over\nthe pallid and lifeless thing whirling under his hand. He emitted a\nlow whistle of profound satisfaction. He made notes in his book with\nexcited dots and dashes. At last his triumph broke all bounds. He\nroared like a whole grandstand at the last touchdown.\n\n\u201cI say, Genesy, that\u2019s what you call a _Nee_go on the home run. Get\nonto the size of him. Looks like \u2019leven cents, don\u2019t he? Dollars to\ndimes he hasn\u2019t enough mysticism left to illuminate a hollow punkin.\nThe next Gooroo from Gingalee won\u2019t run up against an Edison plant. If\nhe does, he\u2019ll find he isn\u2019t the whole push. Just look at the shape of\nhim. Now ain\u2019t you stuck on that? And isn\u2019t he just swinging round the\ncircle like a presidential candidate? Well, well, well, I say, Genesy,\nif this don\u2019t beat the tom-tom.\u201d\n\nThe transformation of the mystic was sustaining the hypothesis of the\nmaterialist. The reduction of the astral man was a visible, tangible\nand scientific fact.\n\nAnd Imogene, the faithless,--what did she? She gazed and shuddered.\nThat which she saw was not her ideal. It was no longer her lover. Nor\nwas it a man. It was not even suitable bric-a-brac for a refined home.\nIt was only a Spectacle.\n\nShe did not speak. There are times when even a woman feels the\nadvantages of silence. But she gazed upon her late admirer and then\nupon Bill. She had to acknowledge to her inner consciousness that her\nown husband cut much the better figure of the two.\n\nRound and round swept the cylinder, its fierce currents and their\nfated victim.\n\nThe features of the mystic were no longer recognizable. The\ncontortions and distortions of body, limbs and features were fearful.\nThe external application of electricity and the internal throes of\npassion and pain have done their fatal work.\n\nAgain and again an increased current, regulated by the avenger,\nhastened in exact ratio the destruction of the astral man.\n\nThe victim first lost control, limb by limb, of his entire organism.\nThen his voice failed. When he would have called to his Lady-bird,\nspeech was silenced--paralyzed. Nothing of sound but a gurgling,\nhissing whisper issued from that tiny hole--no longer a human mouth.\nOnly the eyes lived. In that small, corrugated sphere, once a perfect\nhead, was left nothing now that was human, nothing of human\nintelligence save the eyes--two gleaming sparks of light--and even\nthese, receding and diminishing, gave evidence of the vanishing soul.\nSo long, however, as these two glittering points shone through the\nvapor mask that had been a face, they sought and chilled the marrow of\nthe disillusioned Imogene.\n\nSo long as these two points of intelligence burned in that misshapen\nball they rested only upon her, and then--finally as the sodden\ncurtains of phlogisticated matter fell before those windows of the\nsoul and conscious love was swallowed up in vapor, she for whom this\ntragedy was enacted fell shrieking across the cask of copper wire.\n\nConversation ceased in the death chamber. The cylinder continued to\nwhirl--dizzily, madly, satanically. Sheets of crackling sparks, blue\nand wicked, streamed out from that insatiable monster. The full\ncurrent was on. Every horse-power was let loose. The silent but\nresistless force of electricity was unchained. And the victim of this\nawful experiment was no longer a man. It was now but a shape, a cloud,\na vapor, a shadow.\n\nThere was now but a spinning mass of vapor, a shape no larger than an\ninfant that shot in and out of the laboratory, obedient to the\navenger\u2019s hand. The rapid revolutions in that fearful orbit traced out\na misty band of cloud. That central cylinder became the hub of a huge\nspokeless wheel.\n\nWith every pulse of time the whirr-r-r-r and the whizz-z-z-z-z of that\nsoulless, bloodless executioner seemed to increase. The invisible\navenger flew on its tireless wings with vindictive glee. The air of\nthe room was white-hot. There was an ominous snapping and crackling in\nand above and around.\n\nThere was now but a tiny, shapeless mass of cosmic matter flying in\nand out through floor and ceiling. There was but the faint, shadowy\nrim of a phantom wheel.\n\nThe heat increased.\n\nThe light was blinding. The crackling of the atmosphere was maddening.\n\nOnly a faint, misty line now marked the path of the departing soul.\n\nDuring these supreme moments Bill Vanderhook stood like a statue,\ntense, rigid, implacable. And his wife, the erring Imogene, crumpled\nand unconscious, overspread the cask of wire.\n\nThe dire noises increased. They became more terrible than the ghastly\nexhibit; and the heat--it was stifling, consuming; and the light--it\nwas paralyzing. What could it mean? The chemist himself was puzzled.\nHe had not anticipated these very unusual phenomena. He did not,\nhowever, cease to press the button.\n\nBut that strange, unearthly noise, heat and glare increased. They\ndeepened and widened until, as Bill said afterwards, it seemed like a\nlegion of devils had come to escort the doomed to his final abode in\nchaos.\n\nNow, everywhere, above, below, and roundabout, there was a twisting,\ngrinding roar, like that within the cylinder of a cyclone. All in an\ninstant--to the man at the lever--his house, the world, the universe,\nseemed to have been swallowed up.\n\nAn explosion, long, loud and terrific, shook the Vanderhook\nhabitation, from the foundation stones to the mansard roof.\n\nAnd after this was silence, thick, oppressive, damp, dead and awesome.\n\nAnd phlogiston was restored.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                AND BILL IS IT.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA tiny, black, glistening, motionless monster stood between a man and\na woman. There were now but two people in the laboratory--the\nHonorable William K. Vanderhook and his beautiful wife. The one was\nflushed with victory, the other was pallid with perplexity and fear.\n\nIn another instant our hero was eagerly bending over the instrument of\nhis revenge. In one hand he held a tiny spoon, in the other a small\nvial upon which was a freshly printed label.\n\nIt was with infinite care that he scraped the spoon along the rim of\nthe now stilled and silent cylinder. It was with unmeasured caution\nand infinite pride that he scraped up three great drops of clear,\nshining water and transferred them to the yawning mouth of the vial.\n\nThis done, the druggist fitted a cork nicely into the vial, while a\nwide smile of satisfaction illumined his countenance from brow to chin\nand from ear to ear.\n\nWhen he turned and looked upon his wife the illumination increased.\n\nAnd what of her? The woman for whom friendship had been sacrificed and\na Mystic cut off in the height of his uselessness? Womanlike, as she\nwatched Mr. Leffingwell disappear into vapor she had sensed the\npossibilities of the new dispensation. Alonzo had certainly lapsed.\nBill had not. She had lost an admirer, but her husband was still in\nevidence. Alonzo was reduced to nothingness. Bill was yet a\nsubstantial fact. The Mystic could no longer contribute to her\nentertainment. Bill could make things very disagreeable. Astral\nadvantages were gone. Material things remained.\n\nOpinions to the contrary, women are philosophers--in accommodating\nthemselves to the inevitable.\n\nThe lovely Imogene had almost dried her tears, even before the\nexplosion came. When it was over she shook herself into adjustment as\nto her draperies and ribbons and frills. She fluffed up her bangs,\nslicked her eyebrows and looked almost as fresh as she generally felt.\n\nWhen it was all over the avenger turned and, tossing the vial to the\nlady, said in a loud, triumphant voice,--\u201cWell, here we are, Mrs.\nVanderhook; here\u2019s your essence of mysticism for your _mooshoir_, and\nhere\u201d--laughing uproariously,--\u201cis a soov\u2019nir spoon for your next pink\ntea. And now, my dear girl\u201d--as Imogene began to look mournful\nagain--\u201cif you\u2019ll give up this strenuous occultism and be contented\nwith your old Billsey on the earth plane, I\u2019ll cry quits, and get you\nanything you want--that isn\u2019t astral.\u201d\n\nImogene wiped her eyes. She looked at him inquiringly. Then she looked\nat the vial. Then she sidled up alongside her husband.\n\nAnd now Bill smiled--but it was under his breath. \u201cWhat is it,\nPetsey\u201d--and his arm closed around her. \u201cHow would you like one of\nthose dandy little watches, or--\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Billsey boy, I do believe after all that it\u2019s you that\u2019s _IT_. I\nfeel this very minute as if we\u2019d just vibrate together after this\nsplendidly. I bet anything, if you\u2019d just practice a little, you could\nbe up to me in no time.\u201d\n\nThe Honorable Mayor of Kankakee turned away to conceal his emotion.\nAnd when his expression was out of sight he winked--once--slowly\nand--judiciously--at the now silent cylinder.\n\nThen he said modestly,--\u201cYes, Honey, I mean to get even with you if\nI\u2019m spared. And if you want--\u201d\n\n\u201cThe watch? Oh, Billsey dear, I should think I did. If you hadn\u2019t\ndissolved Lonnie he would have gotten me one soon. But, say, can\u2019t I\nhave, too, one of those dear--dear--markee rings? They\u2019re just too,\ntoo, utterly--\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Course you can. You can have a whole tray full if you want \u2019em. You\nsee, Leff saved me a lot of money; and now I\u2019ll spend it on you. You\ncan have rings and pins and any other truck necessary to your\nhappiness.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Billsey, you don\u2019t mean that you will take me to Chicago this\nwinter to the grand opera, and the charity ball, and the horse show,\nand all the big department stores,--and--and--\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, yes, old girl, I\u2019ll take you to all these and everything else\nthat you can\u2019t think of now, and then to the Stock Yards; for it\nwon\u2019t be like going home without seeing the Yards.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re a dear, sweet, blessed--\u201d\n\n\u201cBut here, see here, Imogene, all this is _provided_--that there are\nno more Dudes from Devachan to deal with. D\u2019ye hear me? Is it a go?\u201d\n\n\u201cHere\u2019s my mitt,\u201d--and Imogene laid her delicate little hand in Bill\u2019s\nbig paw.\n\nAnd thus, over the--no, not the ashes--but the essence of the late\nAlonzo Leffingwell, Gnani of Gingalee, and Modern Mystic of Low\nDegree,--was enacted the full and complete reconciliation of Mr. and\nMrs. Vanderhook....\n\n\u201cI say, Genesy, girl, it\u2019s supper time, and I\u2019m hungry as a wolf. And\nsay, too, I\u2019m as dry as a fish.\u201d\n\n\u201cMe, too\u201d--murmured Imogene, and clutching up the back of her gown in\none hand she laid the other tenderly and confidingly upon her\nhusband\u2019s arm.\n\nAnd the husband and wife turned from the laboratory and paused in the\nlibrary. The untouched spread was still on the table.\n\n\u201cWhat do you say, my dear, to the removal of this cobweb? What would\nyou say to a little \u2018Mumm,\u2019 or a \u2018High-ball,\u2019 before we go to dinner?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Billsey, I\u2019d just say \u2018Let\u2019s,\u2019 for I really do feel nervous.\nBut there--goodness gracious! I\u2019ve gone and left that bottle of Lonnie\nin the laboratory. Oh, well, never mind; I don\u2019t believe he\u2019s much\ngood as essence, anyway. Patchouli\u2019s good enough. Don\u2019t you think so,\nBillsey?\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd close to the cask of copper wire had rolled a tiny vial, rolled\nand lost itself in the litter thereabouts, a vial on which the double\nlabel read as follows:\n\n    \u201c_Aqua Vitae_\u201d\n    ALONZO LEFFINGWELL, D. P.[2]\n    \u201c_Memoria in Aeterna_.\u201d\n\n    FINIS.\n\n    \u201c_Tacks Vobiscum_.\u201d\n\n\n[Footnote 2: Defunct Philosopher.]\n\n\n\n\nPOSTLUDE.\n\n\nLiterature is but a symbol.\n\nA book is but an array of signs by which ideas are conveyed, facts\ntransmitted, or truths revealed.\n\nThe office of literature is to instruct, inspire, entertain, or\ndemoralize the reader.\n\nVaried as individuality itself are the literary devices of authors.\n\nInnumerable are the expedients to which human intelligence resorts in\nits efforts to transmit knowledge, to impart ideas and ideals, or to\nillustrate and elucidate truths.\n\nBorn of individual aspirations, ambitions and convictions, and\nformulated by individual genius, are the poems, essays, dramas, songs,\nsermons, and even the satires of literature.\n\nAnd none of these has excuse for being, except its creator has\nsomething of value to express, reveal or illustrate.\n\nIf the author\u2019s motive be pure, and if his cause be just and his art\nsufficient, we forgive the mere literary form or trick by which he\ncommands attention and awakens interest.\n\nIf, for example, a feathery skit be employed to illustrate a\nsubstantial fact or lofty principle in nature, or some current social\nor philosophic pretension, it should not offend the wise. It could in\nnowise minimize Truth, nor belittle the great purpose in the\nbackground.\n\nIt is possible, however, that it may teach a valuable lesson by\nindirection. It may enlarge the understanding and remove the prejudice\nof a few people.\n\nTo travesty a noble theme is easy, for in this great world of ours the\nsublime and the ridiculous forever march side by side, and oftentimes\ntheir relation is one of great intimacy.\n\nSide by side walk the noble and the ignoble, the wise and the foolish,\nthe serious and the mirthful, the fine and the unrefined, the lofty\nand the trivial, the religious and the sacrilegious, the philosophic\nand the foolish.\n\nThe wise man and the faker hourly cross each other\u2019s paths, and their\ncontact and contrast often afford a laugh for the merry and a lesson\nfor the thoughtful.\n\n    F. H.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n=HARMONIC SERIES=\n\nThe Harmonic Series, now in process of publication, is an exposition\nof the Exact Science and Moral Philosophy of Individual Life. It is a\nnatural bridge between Modern Physical Science and the Ancient\nOriental Religions. It is a reconciliation of the Physical and\nSpiritual Sciences. It is an adaptation of the Ancient Wisdom Religion\nto the needs of Modern Scientific Intelligence. It is an original\nformulation. It is a modern re-statement of the laws, principles and\nprocesses of an Individual Spiritual Self-Development.\n\n\nThe Volumes Thus Far Completed Are:\n\nVol. I-HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION BY FLORENCE HUNTLEY, Cloth $2.00\n\nVol. II, THE GREAT PSYCHOLOGICAL CRIME, BY TK., Cloth  $2.00\n\nVol. III-THE GREAT WORK BY TK., Cloth $2.00\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWrite for Descriptive Circulars\n\n    Indo-American Book Co.\n    CHICAGO, ILL.\n\nRemit by P. O. or Express Money Order or Bank Draft\n\n\nSupplemental Harmonic Series\n\nThe Supplemental Harmonic Series presents for liberal thinkers such\nbooks as have unusual merit and which offer contributory fact and\ncorroborative evidence of the science and philosophy of the Great\nSchool.\n\nThese books are not offered as official expositions of the School of\nNatural Science, but as valuable literature which supplements the\ngeneral position and purpose of the School.\n\nNew books will be added and old books revived, from time to time, so\nthat this series will eventually cover the many and varied lines of\nethics, history, research and discovery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nVol. I = THE GENIUS OF FREE-MASONRY, BY J. D. BUCK Silk Cloth and\nGold--- $1.00\n\nVol. II = = THE CRUCIFIXION by an Eye Witness, Silk Cloth and Gold,\n$1.00\n\nVol. III, CONSTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY BY J. D. BUCK, Silk Cloth and Gold,\n$1.00\n\nVol. IV-THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS, BY NICHOLAS NOTOVITCH, Silk Cloth\nand Gold------- $1.00\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSend for Descriptive Circulars\n\n    Indo-American Book Co.\n    CHICAGO, ILL.\n\nRemit by P. O. or Express Money Order or Bank Draft","title":"The Gay Gnani of Gingalee; or, Discords of Devolution: A Tragical Entanglement of Modern Mysticism and Modern Science","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":28703}