he spoke was not exactly of our day. I should even have said
that the accent was slightly foreign. But then Mr Richards remarked that
he had been little in the habit for many years of speaking in his native
tongue. The conversation fell upon the changes in the aspect of London
since he had last visited our metropolis. G---- then glanced off to the
moral changes--literary, social, political--the great men who were
removed from the stage within the last twenty years--the new great men
who were coming on. In all this Mr Richards evinced no interest. He had
evidently read none of our living authors, and seemed scarcely
acquainted by name with our younger statesmen. Once and only
once he laughed; it was when G---- asked him whether he had
any thoughts of getting into Parliament. And the laugh was
inward--sarcastic--sinister--a sneer raised into a laugh. After a few
minutes G---- left us to talk to some other acquaintances who had just
lounged into the room, and I then said quietly:

"I have seen a miniature of you, Mr Richards, in the house you once
inhabited, and perhaps built, if not wholly, at least in part, in ----
Street. You passed by that house this morning."

Not till I had finished did I raise my eyes to his, and then his fixed
my gaze so steadfastly that I could not withdraw it--those fascinating
serpent eyes. But involuntarily, and if the words that translated my
thought were dragged from me, I added in a low whisper, "I have been a
student in the mysteries of life and nature; of those mysteries I have
known the occult professors. I have the right to speak to you thus." And
I uttered a certain pass-word.

"Well," said he, dryly, "I concede the right--what would you ask?"

"To what extent human will in certain temperaments can extend?"

"To what extent can thought extend? Think, and before you draw breath
you are in China!"

"True. But my thought has no power in China."

"Give it expression, and it may have: you may write down a thought
which, sooner or later, may alter the whole condition of China. What is
a law but a thought? Therefore thought is infinite--therefore thought
has power; not in proportion to its value--a bad thought may make a bad
law as potent as a good thought can make a good one."

"Yes; what you say confirms my own theory. Through invisible currents
one human brain may transmit its ideas to other human brains with the
same rapidity as a thought promulgated by visible means. And as thoug