that.

But again, if the seven kings had been just that and nothing
more, I cannot see why H. P. Blavatsky should have laid such
stress on the essential truth of their stories. She is
particular, too, about the Arthurian legend:--saying that it is
at once symbolic and actually historical,--which latter, as
concerns the sixth-century Arthur, it is not and she would not
have considered it to be: no Briton prince of that time went
conquering through Europe. So there must be some further value
to the tales of the Roman kings; else why are they so much
better than the Republican annals? Why?--unless all history
except the invented kind or the distorted-by-pride-or-politics
kind is symbolic; and unless we could read in these stories the
record, not merely of some pre-Etruscan pralayic centuries, but
of great ages of the past and of the natural unfoldment of the
Human Spirit in history through long millenniums? Evolution is
upon a pattern; understand the drift of any given thousand years
in such a way that you could reduce it to a symbol, and probably
you have the key to all the past.

So I imagine there would be seven interpretations to these kings,
as to all other symbols. Romulus may represent a Kshattriya, and
Numa a Brahmin domination in the early ages of the sub-race.
Actual men, there may yet be mirrored in them the history--shall
we say of the whole sub-race? Or Root-race? Or the whole
natural order of human evolution? It is business for imaginative
meditation,--which is creative or truth-finding meditation. But
now let us try, diffidently, to search out the last, the
historic, pre-Etruscan Numa.

If you examined the Mohammedan East, now in these days of its
mid-pralaya and disruption: Turkey especially, or Egypt: you
should find constantly the tradition of Men lifted by holiness
and wisdom and power above the levels of common humanity: Unseen
Guardians of the race,--a Great Lodge or Order of them. In
Christendom, in its manvantara, you find no trace of this
knowledge; but it may surprise you to know that it is so common
among the Moslems, that according to the Turkish popular belief,
there is always a White Adept somewhere within the mosque of St.
Sophia,--hidden under a disguise none would be likely to
penetrate. There are hundreds of stories. The common thought is
that representatives of this Lodge, or their disciples, often
appear; are not so far away from the world of men; may be
teaching, qu