Whilst he put the question, and waited for the answer, his whole aura and atmosphere deepened and intensified. He was actually interested in my answer, and this I have always believed was the fundamental reason of his great popularity. The power he possessed of throwing himself heart and soul into the trivial, as into the great things of life. He was intensely human, with a genuine fund of sympathy for the ordinary affairs of life. He liked to know the domestic conditions of those whom he honored with his friendship, and the first time I ever spoke to him, at a dance given by the Rothschilds in Piccadilly, I saw at once that the natural human simplicities of life absorbed him absolutely whilst under discussion. Though a man who would not tolerate a liberty, the easiest way to get on with him when alone, was to confide in him any personal difficulty, and to forget who he was, always providing that one had the good breeding to remember instantly that he was the king when speaking to him in public. The most occult day (to use the popular expression) I ever spent was the 26th June, 1902, the day of the postponed Coronation. I shall never forget that warm summer day of stupendous gloom, and oppressive darkness. There was something more than meteorology in that leaden pall that hid the skies, and enveloped the whole of London. Even the densest materialists were uneasy, startled and inquiring, for putting aside that mighty aura of sorrow and gloom rising up to heaven from the hearts of millions, there was, as it were, the response of heaven herself. That dark and mournful response Nature assumed, when wrapping herself in a shroud of leaden darkness she brooded over the city, like the pall of death itself. That day the mystic walked in a dream, enmeshed in the warp of great occult happenings being woven out in the loom of Karmic fatality. It was impossible to settle down to doing anything. One just "sat about," living every moment intensely.