The Place of the Lion Read Online Free PDF

Damaris.
    â€œAre you ready, Miss Tighe?” she asked. “Yes? Then I will say something first, just to have things in order, and then I will ask you to speak. After that there may be a few questions, or a little discussion, or what not, and then we shall break up. Will you sit here? I think we may as well begin.” She tapped on the table before her, and as the room grew silent proceeded to address it.
    â€œFriends,” she began, “you have all heard that our leader, Mr. Berringer—may I not say our teacher?—has passed into a state of unconsciousness. My husband, who is attending him, tells me that he is inclined to diagnose some sort of brain trouble. But perhaps we, who have profited by our teacher’s lessons, may think that he is engaged upon some experiment in connexion with some of his work. We all remember how often in this very room he has urged us to work and meditate until we became accustomed to what he called ideas, the thought-forms which are moulded by us, although of course they exist in a world of (as he has so often told us) their own. Many of us can no longer walk in the simple paths of childhood’s faith—perhaps I should say alas! But we have found in this new doctrine a great suggestiveness, and each in our own way have done our best to carry it out. It seemed therefore a pity to omit our monthly meeting merely because our leader is in—shall I say?—another state. We can always learn, and therefore I have asked Miss Damaris Tighe, who besides being a dear friend of mine and also known to some of you, is a deep student of philosophy to speak to us to-night on a subject of mutual interest. Miss Tighe’s subject is——” She looked at Damaris, who murmured “ The Eidola and the Angeli ”—“the idler and the angels—We shall all listen to her with great interest.”
    Damaris stood up. Her attention for the moment was centred on the fact that she was Mrs. Rockbotham’s dear friend. She felt that this was a promising situation, even if it involved her wasting an evening among people who would certainly never know an eidolon if they met it. She moved to the table, laid down her handbag, and unfolded her manuscript. As she did so she sniffed slightly; there had seemed to come from somewhere—just for the moment—an extremely unpleasant smell. She sniffed again; no, it was gone. Far away the thunder was still sounding. Mrs. Rockbotham had composed herself to listen; the remainder of the members desisted from their gentle and polite applause.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen,” Damaris began, “as I have already said to Mrs. Rockbotham and to Mr. Foster, I fear I have only a very inadequate substitute to-night for—for what you are used to. But the cobbler, we know”—she was reading now from her manuscript—“must stick to his last, and since you have done me the honour to ask me to address you it may not be without interest for me to offer you a few remarks on a piece of research I have recently been attempting to carry out. Mr. Foster”—she looked up—“in the course of a very interesting conversation which I had with him just now”—she bowed to Mr. Foster, who bowed back—“alluded to your study of a world of principles. Now of course that has always been a very favourite subject of human study—philosophical study, if I may call it that—although no doubt some ages have been more sympathetic to it than others. Ages noted for freedom of thought, such as Athens, have been better equipped for it than less-educated times such as the early medieval. We perhaps in our age, with our increased certainty and science and learning, can appreciate all these views with sympathy if not with agreement. I, for instance”—she smiled brightly at her audience—“no longer say ‘Four angels round my bed’, nor am I prepared to call Plato der