With a particular
clearness did he seem to see the picture of the Great White Road,
"straight as the way of the Spirit, and broad as the breast of Death,"
and of the little Hare travelling towards the awful Gates.
Like the Mahatma of this fable, he expresses no opinion as to the merits
of the controversy between the Red-faced Man and the Hare that, without
search on his own part, presented itself to his mind in so odd a
fashion. It is one on which anybody interested in such matters can form
an individual judgment.
THE MAHATMA[*]
[*] Mahatma, "great-souled." "One of a class of persons with
preter-natural powers, imagined to exist in India and
Thibet."--_New English Dictionary_.
Everyone has seen a hare, either crouched or running in the fields,
or hanging dead in a poulterer's shop, or lastly pathetic, even
dreadful-looking and in this form almost indistinguishable from a
skinned cat, on the domestic table. But not many people have met a
Mahatma, at least to their knowledge. Not many people know even who or
what a Mahatma is. The majority of those who chance to have heard the
title are apt to confuse it with another, that of Mad Hatter.
This is even done of malice prepense (especially, for obvious reasons,
if a hare is in any way concerned) in scorn, not in ignorance, by
persons who are well acquainted with the real meaning of the word and
even with its Sanscrit origin. The truth is that an incredulous Western
world puts no faith in Mahatmas.
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