At the British Museum reading?room I often saw a man of thirty?six or thirty?seven, in a brown velveteen coat, with a gaunt resolute face, and an athletic body, who seemed before I heard his name, or knew the nature of his studies, a figure of romance. Presently I was introduced, where or by what man or woman I do not remember. He was Macgregor Mathers, the author of the Kabbalas Unveiled, & his studies were two only??magic and the theory of war, for he believed himself a born commander and all but equal in wisdom and in power to that old Jew. He had copied many manuscripts on magic ceremonial and doctrine in the British Museum, and was to copy many more in continental libraries, and it was through him mainly that I began certain studies and experiences that were to convince me that images well up before the minds eye from a deeper source than conscious or subconscious memory. I believe that his mind in those early days did not belie his face and body, though in later years it became unhinged, for he kept a proud head amid great poverty. One that boxed with him nightly has told methat for many weeks he could knock him down, though Macgregor was the stronger man, and only knew long after that during those weeks Macgregor starved. With him I met an old white?haired Oxfordshire clergyman, the most panic?stricken person I have ever known, though Macgregors introduction had been He unites us to the great adepts of antiquity. This old man took me aside that he might say??I hope you never invoke spirits??that is a very dangerousthing to do. I am told that even the planetary spirits turn upon us in the end. I said, Have you ever seen an apparition? O yes, once, he said. I have my alchemical laboratory in a cellar under my house where the Bishop cannot see it. One day I was walking up & down there when I heard another footstep walking up and down beside me. I turned and saw a girl I had been in love with when I was a young man, but she died long ago. She wanted me to kiss her.
Oh no, I would not do that. Why not? I said. Oh, she might have got power over me. Has your alchemical research had any success? I said. Yes, I once made the elixir of life. A French alchemist said it had the right smell and the right colour, (The alchemist may have been Elephas Levi, who visited England in the sixties, & would have said anything) but the first effect of the elixir is that your nails fall out and your hair falls off. Iwas afraid that I might have made a mistake and that nothing else might happen, so I put it away on a shelf. I meant to drink it when I was an old man, but when I got it down the other day it had all dried up.
