a indubitable, but the spiritualistic explanation
of them incredible. The phenomena of clairvoyance, clairaudience,
thought-reading, were found to be real. Under all the rush of the
outer life, already sketched, these questions were working in my mind,
their answers were being diligently sought. I read a variety of books,
but could find little in them that satisfied me. I experimented in
various ways suggested in them, and got some (to me) curious results.
I finally convinced myself that there was some hidden thing, some
hidden power, and resolved to seek until I found, and by the early
spring of 1889 I had grown desperately determined to find at all
hazards what I sought. At last, sitting alone in deep thought as I had
become accustomed to do after the sun had set, filled with an intense
but nearly hopeless longing to solve the riddle of life and mind, I
heard a Voice that was later to become to me the holiest sound on
earth, bidding me take courage for the light was near. A fortnight
passed, and then Mr. Stead gave into my hands two large volumes. "Can
you review these? My young men all fight shy of them, but you are
quite mad enough on these subjects to make something of them." I took
the books; they were the two volumes of "The Secret Doctrine," written
by H.P. Blavatsky.

Home I carried my burden, and sat me down to read. As I turned over
page after page the interest became absorbing; but how familiar it
seemed; how my mind leapt forward to presage the conclusions, how
natural it was, how coherent, how subtle, and yet how intelligible. I
was dazzled, blinded by the light in which disjointed facts were seen
as parts of a mighty whole, and all my puzzles, riddles, problems,
seemed to disappear. The effect was partially illusory in one sense,
in that they all had to be slowly unravelled later, the brain
gradually assimilating that which the swift intuition had grasped as
truth. But the light had been seen, and in that flash of illumination
I knew that the weary search was over and the very Truth was found.

I wrote the review, and asked Mr. Stead for an introduction to the
writer, and then sent a note asking to be allowed to call. I received
the most cordial of notes, bidding me come, and in the soft spring
evening Herbert Burrows and I--for his aspirations were as mine on
this matter--walked from Netting Hill Station, wondering what we
should meet, to the door of 17, Lansdowne Road. A pause, a swift
passing through