strives, in vain, to recover what he lost by
ceasing to be a child: a child, which is sexless, knowing as yet
nothing of the esoteric dissatisfaction of the soul that wants and
has not found. Aye! to reach the mystic union, the absolute extinction
of the Knower in the All; to lose one's Self in Infinity, without a
remnant of regret; to attain to the unattainable, the point of
self-annihilation where all distinction between subject and object,
something and nothing, disappears, it is necessary to be a child: to
be born again. _Rebirth_! the key to the enigma of unhappiness lies
there!

* * * * *

And after a while, as I watched her, she came back to herself. Our
eyes met: and she looked at me long, with a far-off expression that I
could not define. And at last, she gave a little sigh. Daddy, she
said, why does the golden rain never fall here? Our rain is always
only common rain.

And I said solemnly: Little girls are the reason why. But she didn't
understand. She looked at me reproachfully with puzzled eyes--such
great, grey, beautiful, sea-green eyes!--and then drew a long breath.
And she went back to her bubbles, and together we watched them go as
they floated away into the valley, wild with excitement as to whether
my bubble or her bubble would go farthest before it burst--till the
Rhadamanthine summons came, and the Bubble-Blower went to bed.

_Poona_, 1919.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _O quantum est subitis casibus ingenium!_ an exquisite
line of Martial which ought to be posted on a board on every
putting-green.]

CONTENTS

I. ON THE BANKS OF GANGES

II. THE HEART OF A WOMAN

III. A STORY WITHOUT AN END

_The Vignette I owe to the artistic genius of my friend, Arthur
Hight._

I

On the Banks of Ganges

BENEDICTION

_What! the Digit of the Moon on his brow, Ganga in his hair, and Gauri
on his knee, and yet proof against all Love's arrows! O wonder of
wonders! who but the greatest of all the gods would not have melted
long ago, like butter between three fires?_[2]

Now, long ago, it happened, that Parwati was left alone on Kailas for
a little while, as she waited for the Lord of the Moony Tire. And
having nothing else to do, she amused herself by building an elephant
of snow, with large ears and a little tail, made of a yak's hair. And
when it was finished, she was so delighted with her toy, that she
began to clap her hands