prayed that I might
enter."

There escaped from me a feeble remonstrance,--no utterance of the heart,
but rather a dry rattling of such conventional proprieties as lingered
in the memory.

"And you intend to leave this wholesome world,--you, whose career might
be such as few have it in their power to choose? You know, you must
know, the wonderful gifts which you possess; you cannot alone be
ignorant of the fascination you might exercise over man and woman."

"I know all these temptations, and others that you cannot surmise,"
exclaimed Vannelle, "and I will conquer them,--if not through spiritual
grace, then by some bodily penance of lasting effect. I discern in you
certain qualities of mind that may serve to regulate the equipoise of
mine. I have the means to provide for us both during the high
speculations in which we shall engage. Let us be comrades in this
undertaking. I seek to bridge the great gulf that separates the natural
from the spiritual. My father firmly believed in the possibility of
obtaining an absolute ground for the philosophy which should include all
things human and divine. He passed onward before the inestimable gift he
seemed to have won could be set forth in the symbols of the world. To
see is not difficult, but only to contrive a popular adaptation through
which others may discern the thought. I seek the means to express the
truth which he saw, and of which I can catch some glimpses through such
colored mythologies as represent the higher religions of the world. Man
has found out the knowledge by which a universe was evoked from chaos:
shall he not perfect that knowledge in the Law which includes the divine
element by which the universe is informed? How can we love with our
whole heart what we do not know with our whole mind? Clifton, I declare
to you that knowledge of the Law by which the Creator is and acts is
possible to man!"

I shall seem to you weak and unstable in no common degree to have been
moved by utterance like this. Remember that I can reproduce only the
words, not the wild power of that persuasive voice, not the aspiring
courage that struck me from his eye. Almost against my will there was
produced in me a plasticity of mind that seemed to demand the impress of
some foreign mould. The tree of knowledge was set in the midst of the
garden, and again were audible the seductive serpent-tones: "Your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

I found Van