The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-09-08

nttie III tne naDlI lOr many years VI spoaA-
ing in his native tongue.
The conversation fell upon the changes
in the aspect of London since he had last
visited our metropolis. C. then glanc-
ed off to the moral changes literary, So
cial, political-the great men who were re-
moved from the stage within the last
twenty years; the new great men who were
coming on. In all this Mr.. Richards
evinced no interest. He had evidently
read none of our living authors, and SEEM
ed scarcely acquainted by the name with
our youngest statesmen. Once, and only
once, he laughed; it was when G-asked
him whether he had any thoughts of get
ting into Parliament. And the laugh was
inward, sarcastic, sinister; sheer raised
into laugh. After a few minutes, C.
left us to talk to some other acquaintance
who had just lounged into the room, and
then 1 said quietly
81 have seen a miniature of you, Mr..
Richards, in the house you once inhabited,
and perhaps built-if not wholly, at least
in part-in Oxford street. You passed by
that house this morning"
Not till 1 had finished did l raise my eyes
to his, and then his eyes fixed my gaze so
steadfastly that l could not withdraw it
those fascinating serpent eyes. But invol-
UNFAIRLY, and as if the words that translated
my thoughts we're dragged from me, l added
in low whisper, II have been student
in the mysteries of life and nature; of those
mysteries have known the occult profess
sors. l have the right to speak to you
thus" And 1 uttered certain password.
"Well, 1 concede the right. What
would you ask ?"
'To what extent human will in certain
temperaments can extend ?"
''To what extent can thought extend ?
Think, and before you draw breath you are
in China"
True; but my thought has no power in
ChinaI'
"Give it expression and it may have.
You may write down thought which,
sooner or later, may alter the whole condi-
ton Of China. What is a law but
thought Therefore, thought is infinite.
Therefore, thought has power; not in pro-
portion to its value-a bad thought may
make bad law as potent as good thought
may make good one"
ayes; what you say confirms my own
theory. Through invisible currents one
human brain may transmit its ideas to other
human brains, with the same rapidity as a
thought promulgated by visible means.
And as thought is imperishable, as it leaves
its stamp behind it in the natural world,
even when the thinker has passed out of
this world, so the thought of the living may
have power to rouse up and revive the
thoughts of the dead, such as those thoughts
we're in life, though the thought of the
living cannot reach the thoughts which the
dead now may entertain. Is it not so ?"
II decline to answer, if in my judgment
thought has the limit you would fix to it.
But proceed; you have special question
you wish to put. )"
"Intense malignity in an intense will,
engendered in peculiar temperament, and
aided by natural means within the reach of
science, may produce effects like those as
cribed of old to evil magic, 1t might thus
haunt the walls of human habitation with
spectral revivals of all guilty thoughts and
guilty deeds once conceived and done
within these walls; all, in short, with which
the evil will claims affinity-imperfect, in
coherent, fragmentary snatches at the old
dramas acted therein years ago Thoughts
thus crossing each other hap-hazard, as in
the nightmare of vision, growing up into
phantom sights and sounds, and all serving
to create horror; not because those sights
and sounds are really visitations from a
world without, but that they are CHASTITY,
monstrous renewals of what have been in
this world itself, set into malignant play by
malignant mortal And it is through the
material agency of that human brain that
these things would acquire even human
power; would strike as with a shock of cleo
! tricity, and might kill, if the thought of
the person assailed did not rise superior to
the dignity of the original assailer; might
kill the most powerful animal, if unnerved
by fear, but not injure the feeblest man, if,
while his flesh crept, his mind stood out
fearless. Thus when in old stories we read
of magician rent to pieces by the fends
he has invoked, or still more, in Eastern
legends, that one magician succeeds by arts
in destroying another, there may be so far
truth that a material being has clothed,
from his own evil propensities, certain ele-
ments and fluids, usually quiescent or
harmless, with awful shapes and terrific
force; just as the lightning, that had laid
hidden and innocent in the clouds, becomes
by natural law suddenly visible, takes a
distinct shape to the eye, and can strike
destruction on the object to which it is at
tracted.
"You are pot without glimpses Of "a mighty
secret" said Mr.. Richards, composedly,
According to your view could a mortal
obtain the power you speak of he would
necessarily be malignant and evil being"
"If the power were exercised as ! have
said, most malignant and most evil; though
l believe in the ancient traditions, that he
could not injure the good. His will could
only iDjure those with whom it has estab-
lished an affinity, or over whom it forces
unresisted sway. l will now imagine an
example that may be within the laws of
nature, yet seem wild as the fables of be-
wildered monk"
"You will remember that Albertus Mag
nus, after describing infinitely the process
by which spirits may be invoked and COM
manded, adds emphatically that the process
will instruct and avail only to the few; that
a man must be born magician; that is,
born with peculiar physical temperament,
as man is born poet. Rarely are men
in whose constitution turks this occult power
of the highest order of intellect; usually in
the intellect there is some twist, perversity
or disease. But, on the other hand, they
must possess, to an astonishing degree, the
faculty to concentrate thought on a single
object-the energetic faculty that we call
WILL. Therefore, though their intellect
be not sound, it is exceedingly forcible for
the attainment of what it desires"
81 will imagine such a person, pre-em-
ineutly gifted with this constitution and
its concomitant forces. l will place him
in the loftier grades of society. l will
suppose his desires emphatically those of
4 the sansnalist. no has therefore a ctronor