impressed on the Chinese mentality: the saving Truth
of truths, I may say; and it is perhaps the truth which most of
all will stand connected with the name of Katherine Tingley in
the ages to come:--the saving Truth of truths, which will make
a new and better world for us. You must have it, if you are to
build solidly; it is the foundation of any true social order;
the bedrock on which alone a veritable civilization can be built.
Oh, your unbalanced genius can produce things of startling
beauty; and they have their value, heaven knows. The Soul
watches for its chances, and leaps in at surprising moments: the
arm clothed in white samite may reach forth out of the bosom of
all sorts of curious quagmires; and when it does, should be held
in reverence as still and always a proof of the underlying
divinity of man. But--there where the basis of things is not
firmly set: where that mystic, wonderful reaching out is not
from the clear lake, but from turbidity and festering waters--
where the grand balance has not been acquired:--You must look to
come on tragedy. The world has gained something from the speech
of the Soul there; but the man through whom It spoke;--it has
proved too much for him. The vibrations were too strong, and
shattered him. Think of Keats . . . and of thousands of others,
poets, musicians, artists. Where you get the grand creations,
the unfitful shining,--there you get evidence of a balance: with
genius--the daimonic force--no greater than, perhaps not so keen
as, that of those others, you find a strong moral will. Dante
and Milton suffered no less than others from those perils to
which all creative artists are subject: both complain bitterly
of inner assailments and torment; but they had, to balance their
genius, the strong moral urge to fight their weaknesses all
through life. It could not save their personalities from
suffering; but it gave the Soul in each of them a basis on which
to build the grand steadfast creations.--All of which Chinese
Liehtse tells you without comment, and with an air of being too
childish-foolish for this world, in the following story:--

Kung-hu and Chi-ying fell ill, and sought the services of the
renowned doctor, Pien-chiao. He cured them with his drugs; then
told them they were also suffering from diseases no drugs could
reach, born with them at their birth, and that had grown up with
them through life. "Would you have me grapple with these?" said
he.--"Y