"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.
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