Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/188

 from the lessons she was engaged to impart to Consuelo, Miss Pinchon paid a visit to the Public Library where she devoted herself to a more or less extensive examination of curious works by Ouspensky and Arthur E. Waite. Further, she drew up a list from the catalogue of volumes on Hindu philosophy and noted down the titles of pamphlets dealing with Gurdjieff, Jaques-Dalcroze, and Einstein. A few of these she later purchased for home study. Within a week, a week of intensive research, she had evolved, with plagiarism here and there, and a limited use of the imagination, a philosophy of acrobatics which would suit her purpose and which, she was convinced, not unjustifiably, would make her fortune. Deep breathing while standing on the head during the simultaneous consideration of the ultimate oneness of God with humankind, the essential co-ordination of the waving left arm with the soul, and the identity of the somersault with the freedom of the will were a few of the attractive determining principles in this new mental-physical science which she dubbed, following the fashion of previous innovators along these lines, Pinchon's Prophylactic Plan. Having established thoroughly in her own mind the essential tenets of this novel cult, having, indeed, entrusted them to the pages of a large note-book, the contents of which at some day in the future she intended to commit to print, Miss Pinchon took a second step. At the