"What is Bô—or who is he?" she demanded, impatiently. "_Bô_," he repeated, as if he were too puzzled by her appalling ignorance to be able to explain, "why, _Bô_—_Bô_ is the equivalent of the Chinese _Tá_. It is the principle of life; it is the beginning and the end of all things; it is the condition of the soul—and yet not quite the condition of the soul, for the soul can live outside _Bô_ until the miracle of initiation happens. Then the soul is received into _Bô_, and finds that the present is non-existent, and that only the past and the future exist, the future being really the past, when once the soul has entered _Bô_—" "Vin, I believe you are making a fool of me," the pretty Mrs. Ellison said, severely. "Oh, I assure you, aunt," he said, with eyes innocent of guile, "it is the great discovery of the age—the great discovery of all time—the Sacred—the Ineffable. When you enter into _Bô_ you lose your individuality—or rather, you never had any individuality—for individuality was a confusion of thought, a product of the present, and the present, as I have explained to you, my dear aunt, ceases to exist when you have entered _Bô_. Did I tell you that _Bô_ is sentient? Yes, but yet not a being; though there are manifestations, mysterious and ecstatic; and the disciples write to each other on the first day of each month, and tell each other what trances they have been in, and what spiritual joy they have received. These reports are sent to Madame Mikucsek; and they are published in a journal that circulates among the initiated; but the phraseology is hieratic, the outside world could make nothing of it. As for her, she is not expected to reveal anything—what she experiences transcends human speech, and even human thought—" "I saw the woman mopping up gravy with a piece of bread," said Mrs. Ellison, with frowning eyebrows. "_Bô_," continued the young man, very seriously, "as far as I have been able to make it out, consists of a vast sphere; elliptical, however: the zenith containing all human aspiration, the base consisting of forgotten evil. When you once enter this magic circle, you are lost, you are transformed, you are here and yet not here; to be does not signify to be but not to be; and not to be is the highest good except not to have been. _Bô_, when once you have received the consecration, and bathed in the light, and perceived the altitudes and the essential deeps and cognisances—"