We took it up, you know, because the other topics we were studying included it so frequently. And it's wonderful, really WONDERFUL! Of course, an untrained mind will grapple with it in vain. One's interest must be serious and sincere. One must devote time to it., Otherwise one will get more harm than good out of it, you know. It's like the Russian dances that way. They are so primal, those dances! And all those primal things are dangerous, don't you think? Unless one has poise! It's odd, too, that some of the most primal people have the most poise, isn't it? The Swami Brandranath was like that. I've told you bout the Swami Brandramath, haven't I? He wore such lovely robes! You can't buy silk like that in this country. And he had such a PURE look in this eyes. So many of these magnetic people lack that pure look, you know. He used to give talks to a Little Group of Serious Thinkers I belong to. He taught us to go into the Silences -- only we never quite learned, for some of the girls would giggle. There are always people like that. The dear Swami! -- he was so patient! It was Occidental levity, he said, and we couldn't help it. That is one of the main differences between the Orient and the Occident, you know. How wonderful they are, the Orientals. And just think of India, with all its yogis and bazaars and mahatmas and howdahs and rajahs and things! He was a Brahmin, the Swami was. A Brahmin and a Burman are the same thing, you know. It's a caste, like belonging to one of our best families. The Swami explained about the marks of caste, and so forth, to us. And then one of the girls asked him if he was tattooed! The idea! FOTHERGIL FINCH, THE POET OF REVOLT Isn't it odd how some of the most radical and advanced and virile of the leaders in the New Art and the New Thought don't look it at all? There's Fothergil Finch, for instance. Nobody could be more virile than Fothy is in his Soul. Fothy's Inner Ego, if you get what I mean, is a Giant in Revolt all the time. And yet to look at Fothy you wouldn't think he was a Modern Cave Man. Not that he looks like a weakling, you know. Butwell, if you get what I mean -- you'd think Fothy might write about violets instead of thunderbolts. Dear Papa is ENTIRELY mistaken about him. Only yesterday dear papa said to me, "Hermione, if you don't keep that damned little vers libre run away from here I'll put him to work, and he'll die of it." But you couldn't expect Papa to appreciate Fothy. Papa is SO reactionary and conservative. And Fothy's life is one long, grim, desperate struggle against Conventionality, and Social Injustice, and Smugness, and the Established Order, and Complacence. He is forever being a martyr to the New and True in Art and Life. Last night he read me his latest poem -- one of his greatest, he says -- in which he tries to tell just what his Real Self is. It goes: