The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?

THE EQUINOX “There are purse-proud, penniless ones who stand at the door of the tavern, and revile the guests.” Weattach little importance to the Reverend Out-at-Elbows, thundering in Bareboards Chapel that the rich man gets no enjoyment from his wealth. Good, then. Let us obtain the volume entitled “The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage”; or the magical writings of that holy illuminated Man of God, Captain Fuller, and carry out fully their instructions. And only when we have succeeded, when we have put a colossal ! against our vital ? need we inquire whether after all the soldier is not going to develop spinal curvature. Let us take the first step ; let us sing: “1 do not ask to see The distant path ; one step’s enough for me.” But (you will doubtless say) I pith your ? itself with another ?: Why question life at all? Why not remain “a clean-living Irish gentleman” content with his handicap, and contemptuous of card and pencil? Is not the Buddha’s goad “ Everything is sorrow” little better than a currish whine? What do I care for old age, disease, and death? I’m a man, and a Celt at that. I spit on your snivelling Hindu prince, emasculate with debauchery in the first place, and asceticism in the second. A weak, dirty, paltry cur, sir, your Gautama! Yes, I think I have no answer to that. The sudden apprehension of some vital catastrophe may have been the exciting cause of my conscious devotion to the attainment of Adeptship—but surely the capacity was there, inborn. Mere despair and desire can do little; anyway, the first impulse of 132