esult I have learned this, that we cannot compel the departed
to appear. Even if they hear us they will not, or are not suffered to
obey. If we would behold them we must create the power of vision in our
own natures. They are about us always, only we cannot see or feel their
presence; our senses are too gross. To succeed we must refine our senses
until they acquire an aptitude beyond the natural. Then without any will
or any intervention on their parts, we may triumph, perhaps even when
_they_ do not know that we have triumphed."

CHAPTER XXIII

STELLA COMES

Now, by such arts as are known to those who have studied mysticism in
any of its protean forms, Morris set himself to attempt communication
with the unseen. In their practice these arts are as superlatively
unwholesome as in their result, successful or not, they are unnatural.
Also, they are very ancient. The Chaldeans knew them, and the magicians
who stood before Pharaoh knew them. To the early Christian anchorites
and to the gnostics they were familiar. In one shape or another, ancient
wonder-workers, Scandinavian and mediaeval seers, modern Spiritualists,
classical interpreters of oracles, Indian fakirs, savage witch-doctors
and medicine men, all submitted or submit themselves to the yoke of the
same rule in the hope of attaining an end which, however it may vary in
its manifestations, is identical in essence.

This is the rule: to beat down the flesh and its instincts and nurture
the spirit, its aspirations and powers. And this is the end--to escape
before the time, if only partially and at intervals, into an atmosphere
of vision true or false, where human feet were meant to find no road,
and the trammelled minds of men no point of outlook. That such an
atmosphere exists even materialists would hesitate to deny, for it is
proved by the whole history of the moral world, and especially by that
of the religions of the world, their founders, their prophets and their
exponents, many of whom have breathed its ether, and pronounced it the
very breath of life. Their feet have walked the difficult path; standing
on those forbidden peaks they have scanned the dim plains and valleys
of the unseen, and made report of the dreams and shapes that haunt them.
Then the busy hordes of men beneath for a moment pause to listen and are
satisfied.

"Lo, here is Truth," they cry, "now we may cease from troubling." So for
a while they rest till others answer, "Nay, _this_ is