John St. John

PREFACE NOBODY is better aware than myself that this account of my Retirement labours under most serious disadvantages. The scene should have been laid in an inaccessible lamaserai in Tibet, perched on stupendous crags; and my familiarity with Central Asia would have enabled me to do it quite nicely. One should really have had an attendant Sylph ; and one’s Guru, a man of incredible age and ferocity, should have frequently appeared at the dramatic moment. A gigantic magician on a coal-black steed would have added to the effect : strange voices, uttering formidable things, should have issued from unfathomable caverns. A mountain shaped like a Svastika with 3. Pillar of Flame would have been rather taking; herds of impossible yaks, ghost-dogs, gryphons. . . . But, my good friends, this is not the way things happen. Paris is as wonderful as Lhassa, and there are just as many miracles in London as in Luang Prabang. [did not even think it necessary to go into the Bois de Boulogne and meet those Three Adepts who cause bleeding at the nose, familiar to us from the writings of Macgregor Mathers. 3