science when the allegorical images glared upon her,
and, apart from that, starvation and misery had a large share in her
ritual of worship.

XIV

At the top of the house and at the time I remember best, in the same room
with the young Scotchman, lived Mr. George Russell (A.E.), and the house
and the society were divided into his adherents and those of the engineer;
and I heard of some quarrelling between the factions. The rivalry was
sub-conscious. Neither had willingly opposed the other in any matter of
importance. The engineer had all the financial responsibility, and George
Russell was, in the eyes of the community, saint and genius. Had either
seen that the question at issue was the leadership of mystical thought in
Dublin, he would, I think, have given way, but the dispute seemed trivial.
At the weekly meetings, anything might be discussed; no chairman called a
speaker to order; an atheistic workman could denounce religion, or a pious
Catholic confound theosophy with atheism; and the engineer, precise and
practical, disapproved. He had an object. He wished to make converts for a
definite form of belief, and here an enemy, if a better speaker, might
make all the converts. He wished to confine discussion to members of the
society, and had proposed in committee, I was told, a resolution on the
subject; while Russell, who had refused to join my National Literary
Society, because the party of Harp and Pepperpot had set limits to
discussion, resisted, and at last defeated him. In a couple of years some
new dispute arose; he resigned, and founded a society which drew doctrine
and method from America or London; and Russell became, as he is to-day,
the one masterful influence among young Dublin men and women who love
religious speculation, but have no historical faith.

When Russell and I had been at the Art School six or seven years before,
he had been almost unintelligible. He had seemed incapable of coherent
thought, and perhaps was so at certain moments. The idea came upon him, he
has told me, that, if he spoke he would reveal that he had lost coherence;
and for the three days that the idea lasted spent the hours of daylight
wandering upon the Dublin mountains, that he might escape the necessity
for speech. I used to listen to him at that time, mostly walking through
the streets at night, for the sake of some stray sentence, beautiful and
profound, amid many words that seemed without meaning; and there were
others,