Orpheus

Book I. was finished in Hawaii, ere June expired, and Book II. begun. I had just begun to study the Theosophic writings— their influence, though slight, is apparent. So intent was I on producing a d¢g¢ book that the whole of my “ Argo- nauts” (published separately, 1904) was written for the shadow-play by which Orpheus wins Eurydice to an interest in mortal joys and sorrows. Also—believe it! —I had proposed a similar play in Book III. to be called “Heracles” or “Theseus,” by performance of which Per- sephone should be moved, or Hades overwhelmed. But luckily I was myself overwhelmed first, and it never got a chance at Hades. Book II., then, and its Siamese twin, were written in Hawaii, Japan, China, Ceylon, and South India, where also I began Book III. That also I finished in the Burmese jungle and at Lamma Sayadaw Kyoung at Akyab. During this period I was studying the Buddhist law; and its influence on the philosophy of the poem is as apparent as that of Hinduism on Book II. ‘The summer of 1902 asked another kind of philosophy —the kind that goes with glacier travel in the Mustagh Tagh. Orpheus slept. Book IV. was begunin Cairo on my way to England, and bears marks of confirmed Buddhism up to the death of Orpheus. But a year’s rest, and a certain advance in Scientific Knowledge, gave me, as I hope, a direct and definite view—no longer a philosophy—of the nature of things, so that the Agnosticism which is the good wine of 12