lorious buildings of a magnificent Past, than with any view of wresting
occult secrets from the Fakirs and Yogis of the Present.

It was well perhaps that one's ambitions were so limited by the
Possible, for I am very much inclined to think that Mystic India is
and must remain a sealed book for the English.

We must always remember the natural prejudices of a conquered race
towards the conqueror. In addition to this, the Hindoostanees consider
(and who shall say without ample cause?) that Englishmen are
hopelessly "_borne_" and sunk in materialism, incapable of exercising
an imagination which they don't possess; with a top dressing of
conventional orthodoxy, so far as their own special religion is
concerned, but with nothing but ridicule or thinly veiled contempt for
the religious channels through which other races may be taking their
spiritual food. We have given them only too much reason for these
conclusions.

As a consequence of this state of things, Englishmen and women are
looked upon as "quite impossible" from the Indian point of view, and a
devout and educated Hindoo would no more think of discussing his
transcendental ideas with such people than we should think of discussing
delicate questions of Art--in its various branches--with the first
village yokel we happened to meet in the road. I was confirmed in these
ideas by noticing the difference in the welcome accorded to a charming
young Swedish lady, whom we met at Benares on her wedding tour. She had
brought excellent native introductions from her own country, where
certain Rajahs and Maharajahs had been entertained by her King, and
thanks to these, and, as she said, "_to the fact of my not being
English_," she had access to many interesting places, and took part in
interesting functions, from which the rest of us were debarred.

I am hoping to pay a third visit to India some day, with the special
object in view of occult investigation. It remains to be seen whether,
by any fortunate accident, I may then be more successful in encountering
anything more interesting than the ordinary clever conjurers, who
sometimes pose as Fakirs, and may be found by the tourist on every hotel
veranda in India.

Meanwhile I am limited by the title of my book to personal incidents, as
to which I find one or two notes in my Indian diary.

Making the usual tour, but including Lahore--where my brother had lived
at Government House for several years as Military Secretary to Sir