vation Army might be
regarded by Oxonians. They had little interest in Christianity, but
some of them spoke reverently of Buddha, and probably Theosophy has
done something to revive in India love for that long banished teacher.

On the whole, I found the little company in their beautiful retreat at
Adyar becoming more and more picturesque in the distance. It seems a
hard, precipitous fall from visions of Indra's paradise to a
materialistic world of predatory evolution. The youth at Adyar,
dreaming of Mahatmas in mystical mountains, and evolving a natural
supernaturalism, may be dwelling amid illusions; but, as Shakespeare
tells us, our little life is rounded with a sleep,--a dreamland. If
Madame Blavatsky had recovered Prospero's buried wand, and amid the
dry and dusty realism of our time raised for her followers a realm of
faerie, beguiling them from scenes of falling temples and fading
heavens, were it not cruel to break her wand, even though it be
glamour? I remember at Concord, in my youth, a little controversy in
which miracles were critically handled, some ladies present being
distressed. Emerson had remained silent, and on our way home said,
"After all it appears doubtful whether, when children are enjoying a
play, one must tell them the scene is paint and pasteboard, and the
fairy's jewels but glass."

So I bore away from Adyar a slight sprinkle of Madame Blavatsky's
moonshine. But it was rudely dispelled in Calcutta and Bombay, where
the priestess had worn out her welcome by attempts at fraud. One of
these instances was related by Mr. J. D. Broughton, a gentleman
connected with the Indian government, to whom I carried a letter of
introduction. Unwilling to accept any such fact without verification,
I afterwards corresponded with those cognizant of the facts, and have
before me now their letters establishing the statements of the
following from Mr. Broughton.

"I was in Calcutta, and a friend was staying with me, Mr. H.
Blanford, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and head of the
Meteorological Department,--a practical man, not, I think,
disposed to judge wrongly one way or the other. We both know Mrs.
Gordon [a spiritualist] the lady to whom Mr. Eglinton [a
spiritualist medium of London] wrote--or says he wrote--from the
Vega, while at sea; and I am on friendly terms with her, as is
Mr. Blanford to the best of my belief. She called at my house a
day or two after the