d
oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which
gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep
confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which
he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent
from time to time--at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent
frequency--were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge
of his 'chela-ship' was confined to what I could notice, and such
trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from "guru" this morning,' 'Copying
an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as
Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never
missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his
tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had
changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more
resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh
with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his
desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of
Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy--the Dweller on the
Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him.

One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to
conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:--

'_I--have--seen--him--and--am--his--master_,'

wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question.
Fitly underlined and sufficiently spaced, it was a statement calculated
to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's
would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps,
not to try.

The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so
darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,'
with advertisements of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and
mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of
the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five shillings plain and seven and
sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously,
except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the
hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in
propaganda instituted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the
mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of
which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of '