saw her as in life, passing at a distance, but real
and lovely. Life? She had never lived as she did now--a spirit, freed
and rejoicing. For me the door she had opened would never shut. The
Presences were about me, and I entered upon my heritage of joy, knowing
that in Kashmir, the holy land of Beauty, they walk very near, and lift
up the folds of the Dark that the initiate may see the light behind.

So I began my solitary life of gladness. I wrote, aided by the little
book she had left me, full of strangest stories, stranger by far than
my own brain could conceive. Some to be revealed--some to be hidden. And
thus the world will one day receive the story of the Dancer of Peshawar
in her upward lives, that it may know, if it will, that death is
nothing--for Life and Love are all.

THE INCOMPARABLE LADY

A STORY OF CHINA WITH A MORAL

It is recorded that when the Pearl Empress (his mother) asked of the
philosophic Yellow Emperor which he considered the most beautiful of the
Imperial concubines, he replied instantly: "The Lady A-Kuei": and when
the Royal Parent in profound astonishment demanded bow this could
be, having regard to the exquisite beauties in question, the Emperor
replied;

"I have never seen her. It was dark when I entered the Dragon Chamber
and dusk of dawn when I rose and left her."

Then said the Pearl Princess;

"Possibly the harmony of her voice solaced the Son of Heaven?"

But he replied;

"She spoke not."

And the Pearl Empress rejoined:

"Her limbs then are doubtless softer than the kingfisher's plumage?"

But the Yellow Emperor replied;

"Doubtless. Yet I have not touched them. I was that night immersed in
speculations on the Yin and the Yang. How then should I touch a woman?"

And the Pearl Empress was silent from very great amazement, not daring
to question further but marveling how the thing might be. And seeing
this, the Yellow Emperor recited a poem to the following effect:

"It is said that Power rules the world
And who shall gainsay it?
But Loveliness is the head-jewel upon the brow of Power."

And when the Empress had listened with reverence to the Imperial Poet,
she quitted the August Presence.

Immediately, having entered her own palace of the Tranquil Motherly
Virtues, she caused the Lady A-Kuei to be summoned to her presence, who
came, habited in a purple robe and with pins of jade and coral in her
hair. And the Pearl Empress considered her attentiv