desire and ability to obtain power over
men's minds. Perhaps with all his study and knowledge he still wonders
why a man should stand some hours in the heat playing with pencil and
paper and water colours. I am told he believes in only one god,
unfortunately I forget which; but there are 333,000,000 gods in India,
so perhaps it's a matter of no great consequence to them, or the Deity,
or us.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One is conscious at Benares just now of a pervading effort to
proselytise. There is this fakir on one side of the river with his
troop, covering their nakedness with a little dust and ashes, and
priests of all kinds and the populace painting themselves red on the
other side; then there is Mrs Besant running some new sort of Hindooism
or "damned charlatanism," as Lafcadio Hearn would have put it. And there
are various Scottish and English Church Missions making special efforts
to secure converts, but they pay far more than my fakir does per
head--soul I mean. The fakir has secured two hundred recognised converts
and disciples in his own camp; he, however, has the advantage over other
missionaries in his method, which I have described, of obtaining
supplies. Each disciple costs him only one rupee per day, so my guide
tells me, and he says he is absolutely reliable; so they must do
themselves well. If I stayed a few days longer I'd start some new
philosophy myself, or revive an old one. And now I think of it, I
believe mine once floated would knock all the others endways--to begin
with I'd have my Benares or Mecca in some art bohemia, and I'd raise a
blue banner inscribed with the word BEAUTY in gold, and that would be
the watchword.... No one to enroll who could not make, say a decent
rendering of the Milo in sculpture or drawing--or write or play....

[Illustration: A Fakir at Benares]

Our places of study would be the churches that are empty during the
week--we surely could not be refused the use of them for the five or six
days they are not used! the last half of the sixth day would give us
time to remove all our beautiful things, so they would be the same as
usual on Sundays--nothing like detail in going in for a scheme of this
kind. And he or she who could produce something beautiful in either
sculpture, colour, music, or being, or even making a hat, would be high
in the priesthood, and might receive offerings of food and raiment in
return for instruction