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Page 79 of 821929 · PDF PAGE 399
399 But what was sublimely effective when performed in private lost most of its power to impress when transferred to unsuitable surroundings. I had no available spare money, no knowledge of the tricks of stagecraft, no means of supplying the proper atmosphere. I would not condescend to theatricalism. I was much too hasty in preparing the latter rites and they were not thoroughly rehearsed. It may seem impossible that any creature possessed of a grain of common sense should have failed to foresee failure; but my incorrigible optimism persuaded m…
1929 · PDF PAGE 536
…n any allowable sense. They wanted more social success. Nobody seemed to have the faintest idea of what is really meant by knowledge and power. Some seemed anxious to help the progress of humanity; but here again, the wish was partly a puff-ball of pride, partly a maudlin sentiment such as one finds in servants' hall novelettes. The ignorance of all, without exception, was simply without limit. It {845} was rare to find a man who knew so much as the names of the most famous classics. Their ignorance was not even accessible to instruction. It wa…
1906 · PDF PAGE 257
…j Mahal with fairy lamps and chintz. It is simple. The mind is compelled to fix its attention on a single thought; while the controlling power is exercised and a profound watchfulness kept up lest the thought should for a moment stray.t. The latter portion is, to my mind, the essential one. The work is comparable to that of an electrician who should sit for hours with his finger on a delicately adjusted resistance- box and his eye on the spot of light of a galvanometer, charged with the duty of keeping the spot still, at least that it should ne…
1929 · PDF PAGE 584
…apse from the overstrain of prolonged effort does my faith falter for a few hours. Perhaps the gods intend to insist on my acquiring the power to triumph, even at such moments, over adversity. The serpent's {921} fangs will fix themselves in my heel if it share the vulnerability of the heel of Achilles. It is not enough to dip the Magus in the Styx, he must be thrown in left to sink or swim. In one way or another, for all that, I achieved an enormous amount of work in the three years. But my most important labours have been definitely magical. …
1907 · PDF PAGE 229
… to chapel. 1 Tet me run wild for once, I beg; I am tired of emulating Mr. Storer Clouston’'s Sir Julian Wallingford, ‘‘ whose reasoning powers were so remarkable that he never committed the slightest action without furnishing a full and adequate explanation of his conduct.’’—A. C. Religion is alive among Mohammedans, who pray (as they live) out of doors, and who will fight and die for their ideas; and among Hindus, whose bloody sacrifices bring them daily face to face with death, Pan-Islam is possible; pan-Germany is possible; but pan-Christen…
1929 · PDF PAGE 345
… at Eastbourne. This is beyond all question the high- water mark of my imagination, my metrical fluency, my wealth of expression, and my power of bringing together the most incongruous ideas so as to enrich my matter to the utmost. At the same time, I succeeded in reaching the greatest height of spiritual enthusiasm, human indignation, and demoniac satire. I sound the gamut of every possibility of emotion from innocent faith and enthusiasm to experienced cynicism. {558} 62 Beside all these activities of my own, I came into a new world. My Opera…
1929 · PDF PAGE 492
…back proposing to spend the summer in a cottage by Lake Pasquaney. Ratan Devi was one of those women whose chief pleasure is to show her power over men. She tried it on me, but a bath brick would have done quite as well. Convinced after many desperate efforts that I would not run after her or even walk her way, she began to understand true love, to recognize me as her master and quit playing the {774} fool. She did not divine that my Gibraltar firmness was calculated policy. I really loved her and knew that the only hope of making her love me w…
1929 · PDF PAGE 505
…rity a pose; a false, heartless, brainless, perverse imitation of my ideal. I fought down the intuition; I swore with all the passionate power of the poet that she was what {798} she seemed. I staked my happiness on her truth and made oath to be utterly worthy of her love.
1929 · PDF PAGE 360
…y system of initiation to force my pupils to be familiar with just those things which excite or upset them, until they have acquired the power of perceiving them accurately without interference from the emotions. It is all a branch of the art of concentration, no doubt; but it is one which has been very much neglected, and it is of supreme importance when the aspirant arrives at the higher levels, where it is a question of "making no difference between any one thing and any other thing", and uniting oneself with each and every possible idea. Fo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 279
… of Bengal, for reasons of purely administrative convenience; and it is singularly unfortunate that the measure will break the political power of the Bengali into a lot of dirty little bits. Their hearts bleed for Bengal. So, if you should have happened to hit somebody last night, they will be very indignant and bring you to trial. You will be instantly acquitted, but they will invent some scheme for having you tried again, and acquitted again, to show the sincerity of their love for the Bengali, whom they are out to smash." "Then you advise me…
1929 · PDF PAGE 328
…king in the ways of earlier masters. I produced lyric and dramatic poetry which shows an astounding mastery of rhythm and rime, a varied power of expression which has no equal in the history of the language, and an intensity of idea which eats into the soul of the reader like vitriol. I should have been assigned publicly my proper place among my peers of the past without difficulty had it not been of one fatal fact. My point of view is so original, my thoughts so profound, and my allusions so recondite, that superficial readers, carried away by…
1929 · PDF PAGE 458
…corners but their natural cunning developed by centuries of experience inspired them to a final effort to regain their lost prestige and power. They adopted a new policy. They ceased to oppose openly the advance of science and the associated ethical and political principles which science indicated. They clipped the claws of the Lion of Enlightenment by establishing an unspoken convention to the effect that it was bad form to insist upon applying the new ideas to practical politics. The Church of England was to retain its official status in spit…
1929 · PDF PAGE 20
…ith the family. He was a typical hardy out-door man with all the colonial freedom of thought, speech and manner. He found himself in the power of his half-brother's acrid code. He had to smoke his pipe by stealth and he was bullied about his soul until his mind gave way. At family prayers he was perpetually being prayed at; his personality being carefully described lest the Lord should mistake his identity. The description would have suited the average murderer as observed by a singularly uncharitable pacifist. I am particularly proud of myself…
1929 · PDF PAGE 402
…ecause he was afraid that my contempt for conventions, my scorn of discretion as merely a euphemism for deceit, and my confidence in the power of truth and in the integrity and intelligence of men in general, would lead me to make some damaging admission. He was ill advised. The intensity of my enthusiasm, my candour and my {641} sheer personality would have dominated the court. They would have been bound to understand that even my follies and faults testified to my good faith, high-mindedness and honour. No man with a personal axe to grind wou…
1906 · PDF PAGE 66
…our, at times per- haps too Rabelaisian; lyrics, some of en- chanting beauty, others painfully imitative; sonnets of exceedingly unequal power, a perfectly heartless introduction (some fools would call it pathetic),! and, as a synthesis of the whole, an impression of profound sad- ness and, perhaps, still deeper joy, were my reward. Together with a feeling that the writer must have been a philosopher of the widest and deepest learning and penetration, and a recret that he showed no more of it in his poetry. First and last, I stood amazed, stupe…
1929 · PDF PAGE 395
…arnestly seeks. Then came a prolonged and intense silence, after which the Master of the Ceremonies dismissed us in these words: "By the power in me vested, I declare the Temple closed." So ended a really beautiful ceremony --- beautifully conceived and beautifully carried out. If there is any higher form of artistic expression than great verse and great music I have yet to learn it. I do not pretend to understand the ritual that runs like a thread of magic through these meetings of the A.'. A.'.. I do not even know what the A.'. A.'. is. But I…
1929 · PDF PAGE 365
…ly to the ceiling with such force that they broke off some of the plaster. There was no possibility that my foot had supplied the motive power, even had I kicked them away in a rage instead of pushing them as quietly as I could --- which I naturally did, to diminish the disturbance. There had been several other minor incidents of the same sort on subsequent occasions; but I took measures, as before, to suppress them. The manifestations which Neuburg helped to produce were of an entirely different character; they occurred in conformity with my w…
1904 · PDF PAGE 63
…HE SWORD OF SONG 56 all the maddest, fiercest vices that the mind of fiends ever brought up from the pit. But always to the very end his power is un- exhausted, immense, terrible. H is delerium does not amuse ; it appals ! A man who could conceive as he did must himself have had some glorious chord in his heart vibrating to the eternal principle of Boundless Love. That this love was wrecked is for me, in some sort a relative of his, a real and bitter sorrow. He might have been so great ! He missed Heaven ! Think kindly of him ! 169. Correctly r…
1929 · PDF PAGE 305
…n seemed very far off to them. I could feel instinctively that the respect, akin to godly fear, which I had previously inspired was less powerful as an inhibition. We slept on the fourteenth at a seerai, dirty and entirely comfortless. I paid the host more than liberally; but he was insolent and I had no means of abating the nuisance. This emboldened my own coolies to be mutinous; and in the course of a squabble with my wife (I being ahead out of sight) one of them struck the baby. I ground my teeth; but resolved to keep my temper and my promis…
1904 · PDF PAGE 120
…stern Science that we look. Your achievements have shattered the battle-array of dogm a a nd despotism; your columns roll in trium phant power through the breaches of false m eta- physics and baseless l ogic; you have fought that battle, and the laurels are on y our brows. The battle was fought by us more than two thousand y ears ago; the authority of the Vedas, the restrictions of caste, were shattered by the invulnerable sword of truth in Buddha’s hand; we are your brothers. But in the race of intellect we have fallen behind a little; will y …