“I too,” he said, “have been greatly struck, and sometimes almost converted, by the beauty of the higher Buddhist thoughts.  As for their apparently supernatural powers and what they do with them, I care nothing about phenomena of that description.  We live in a land where marvels are common enough.  Who has ever explained the mango trick, or the basket trick, or the man who throws a rope up into the air and then climbs up it and takes the rope after him, disappearing into blue space?  And yet you have seen those things—­I have seen them, every one has seen them,—­and the performers claim no supernatural agency or assistance.  It is merely a difference of degree, whether you make a mango grow from the seed to the tree in half an hour, or whether you transport yourself ten thousand miles in as many seconds, passing through walls of brick and stone on your way, and astonishing some ordinary mortal by showing that you know all about his affairs.  I see no essential difference between the two ‘phenomena,’ as the newspapers call them, since Madame Blavatsky has set them all by the ears in this country.  It is just the difference in the amount of power brought to bear on the action.  That is all.  I have seen, in a workshop in Calcutta, a hammer that would crack an eggshell without crushing it, or bruise a lump of iron as big as your head into a flat cake.  ‘Phenomena’ may amuse women and children, but the real beauty of the system lies in the promised attainment of happiness.  Whether that state of supreme freedom from earthly care gives the fortunate initiate the power of projecting himself to the antipodes by a mere act of volition, or of condensing the astral fluid into articles of daily use, or of stimulating the vital forces of nature to an abnormal activity, is to me a matter of supreme indifference.  I am tolerably happy in my own way as things are.  I should not be a whit happier if I were able to go off after dinner and take a part in American politics for a few hours, returning to business here to-morrow morning.”

“That is an extreme case,” I said.  “No man in his senses ever connects the idea of happiness with American politics.”

“Of one thing I am sure, though.”  He paused as if choosing his words.  “I am sure of this.  If any unforeseen event, whether an act of folly of my own, or the hand of Allah, who is wise, should destroy the peace of mind I have enjoyed for ten years, with very trifling interruption,—­if anything should occur to make me permanently unhappy, beyond the possibility of ordinary consolation,—­I should seek comfort in the study of the pure doctrines of the higher Buddhists.  The pursuit of a happiness, so immeasurably beyond all earthly considerations of bodily comfort or of physical enjoyment, can surely not be inconsistent with my religion—­or with yours.”

“No indeed,” said I.  “But, considering that you are the strictest of Mohammedans, it seems to me you are wonderfully liberal.  So you have seriously contemplated the possibility of your becoming one of the ’brethren’—­as they style themselves?”