The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES why, the insults of a Mr. de Péne, since then become known to fame through his unfortunate duel. We thought at the time of La Fontaine’s fable about the fool who threw stones at the sage. Mr. de Péne spoke of us as an unfrocked priest, and a bad Catholic. We at least showed ourself a good Christian in pitying and forgiving him, and as it is impossible to be an unfrocked priest without ever having been a priest, we let fall to the ground an insult which did not reach us. Spooks IN Paris. Mr. Home, a week ago, was once more about to quit Paris, that Paris where even the angels and the demons, if they appeared in any shape, would not pass very long for mar- vellous beings, and would find nothing better to do than to return at top-speed to heaven or to hell, to escape the forget- fulness and the neglect of human kind. Mr. Home, his air sad and disillusioned, was then bid- ding farewell to a noble lady whose kindly welcome had been one of the first happinesses which he had tasted in France. Mme. de B. . . treated him very kindly that day, as always, and asked him to stay to dinner; the man of mystery was about to accept, when, some one having just said that they were waiting for a qabalist, well known in the world of occult science by the publication of a book entitled Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, Mr. Home suddenly changed countenance, and said, stammering, and with a visible embarrassment, that he could not remain, and that the approach of this Professor of Magic caused him an incomparable terror. Everything one could say to reassure him proved useless. “TI do not presume to judge the man,” said he; “I do not K 129