Some passages in this opening poem are instinct with the breath of mysticism, and rouse a keen desire that Mr. Stewart Ross had become acquainted, in that period of his life when this book was written, with the wider and grander view of life as a whole, of its purpose and meaning, of its laws and its realities, which occultism affords to a mind capable of grasping them. Surely the man who could write: “For death and life are really one.” And again: “For the mystic Part is gathered Unto the mystic Whole. And the vague lines of non-Being Are scribbled o’er thy soul.” must have the power to sense the keener air of the subtle life and grasp its glorious promise. What pilgrim of the path has not felt: “Hard-paced the iron years have gone Over my head since then; I’ve haunted in a waking dream The paths of living men; But of this world my kingdom’s not, Like him of Galilee, For I grasp hands they cannot feel, See forms they cannot see.” In “Leonore: A Lay of Dipsomania,” one of the most terrible sides of human life is depicted with a vividness which tortures the reader, and flings a gloom on the inexorable sweep of life, fitly in keeping with the vision pictured in “A Nightmare.” A mystic, struggling with the negations of modern science, battling to assert the intuitive knowledge of his true self against its captious intellectualisms, speaks through this picture of desolation and decay, protesting against the disappearance of all that is great and valuable in life under the waves of oblivion. But no man in whom the spark of true poetic inspiration burns can ever in the depths of his own heart accept the lifeless, empty, unreal phantom which materialism offers as the aim, the purpose, the fulfilment of life. We hope, therefore, that Mr. Stewart Ross will some day give us a volume of poetry in which his true power and insight will find expression, and which will enroll his name on the list of those who have given new life to men. [Illustration: decorative separator] One cannot fill a vacuum from within itself.—L.S.C. Many a man will follow a misleader.—L.S.C. It is not necessary for truth to put on boxing-gloves.—L.S.C. You cannot build a temple of truth by hammering dead stones. Its foundations must precipitate themselves like crystals from the solution of life.—L.S.C. When a certain point is reached pain becomes its own anodyne.—L.S.C. Some pluck the fruits of the tree (of knowledge) to crown themselves therewith, instead of plucking them to eat.—L.S.C. =THEOSOPHICAL= =AND MYSTIC PUBLICATIONS=