Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/365

Rh all three; ecstasy, asceticism, austerity; I wish to bring all three together."

I notice that Macgregor considers William Sharp vague and sentimental, while Sharp is repelled by Macgregor's hardness and arrogance. William Sharp has met Macgregor in the Louvre, and said; "No doubt considering your studies you live upon milk and fruit." And Macgregor replied "No, not exactly milk and fruit, but very nearly so" and now Sharp has lunched with Macgregor and been given nothing but brandy and radishes.

Macgregor is much troubled by ladies who seek spiritual advice, and one has called to ask his help against phantoms who have the appearance of decayed corpses, and try to get into bed with her at night. He has driven her away with one furious sentence "Very bad taste on both sides."

I take hashish with a group of Martinists, and at one in the morning while we are talking wildly, and some are dancing, there is a tap at the shuttered window; we open it and three ladies enter, the wife of a man of letters, who thought to find no one but a confederate, and her husband's two young sisters whom she has brought secretly to some disreputable dance. She is very confused at seeing us, but as she looks from one to another understands that we have taken some drug and laughs; caught in our dream we know vaguely that she is scandalous according to our code and to all codes, but smile at her benevolently and laugh.

I am at Stuart Merrill's, and I meet there a young Jewish Persian scholar. He has a large gold ring, seemingly very rough, made by some amateur, and he shows me that it has shaped itself to his finger, and says "That is because it contains no alloy—it is alchemical gold." I ask who made the gold, and he says a certain Rabbi, and begins to talk of the Rabbi's miracles. We do not question him—perhaps it is true—perhaps he has imagined it all—We are inclined to accept every historical belief once more.

I am sitting in a café with two French Americans, a German poet Dauthenday, and a silent man whom I am to discover to be Strindberg, and who is looking for the Philosopher's Stone. The French