A Twentieth Century Idealist

by Henry Pettit

THE GRAFTON PRESS

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1905,
BY
HENRY PETTIT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
AND
PLAN OF THE BOOK

CHAP.		PAGE
PROLOGUE.
I.	(a) Inquisitive Admiration—Two Kinds	[1]
II.	(b) How the Professor Was Won	[7]
PART FIRST.
At Home in the States. The Physical Dominant.
III.	Adele Herself	[17]
IV.	She Hears the Words of a Song	[23]
V.	After Dark in the Park—The Doctor	[39]
VI.	An Avatar in the Occident	[44]
	(a) Conversation with Papa.
	(b) The Theophany of Spring. Adele in the Park.
VII.	Off to Asia	[55]
PART SECOND.
Crossing the Atlantic—Up the Mediterranean.
Mentality Dominant.
VIII.	A Studio for Impressions	[61]
IX.	A Budget of New Sciences	[64]
X.	Palmistry Poses as Mental Science	[71]
XI.	Amateur Mental Science	[76]
XII.	Amateur Tactics—A Fright-full Cure	[83]
XIII.	Adele’s Meditations	[89]
XIV.	Another Commotion—Religious-Curative	[92]
What is Perfection?
XV.	Two Simultaneous Soliloquies	[105]
XVI.	Courage versus Foolhardiness	[110]
XVII.	Two Rescues, and Two Girls	[115]
XVIII.	A Sensation versus an Impression	[120]
XIX.	Gibraltar Appears and Disappears	[124]
XX.	The Artistic Sense. At Capri	[130]
XXI.	An Artist with Double Vision	[135]
XXII.	The Secret of a Life	[144]
XXIII.	Olympus—Court Festivities	[149]
XXIV.	The Gods Interfere	[152]
XXV.	Aphrodite Rises from the Sea	[159]
Eros-Cupid—The Modern-Antique.
Intermezzo.
XXVI.	Allegro—The World’s Highway	[169]
XXVII.	Andante—The Royal Route	[173]
XXVIII.	The Afterglow	[174]
PART THIRD.
In the Far East. Spirituality Dominant.
XXIX.	Mystification—Illness and Hallucination	[180]
XXX.	Convalescence and Common Sense	[188]
XXXI.	Off to the Himalayas	[196]
XXXII.	The Start Upwards	[200]
The Himalaya Railway—Fly Express.
XXXIII.	A Glimpse of the Primitive	[214]
THE HIMALAYA CATHEDRAL.
XXXIV.	Adele Sees the Delectable Mountains	[217]
XXXV.	The Cathedral by the Supreme Architect	[225]
XXXVI.	Progress of the Building	[229]
XXXVII.	Primate of the Cathedral	[233]
The Message of the Seer—Ex-Cathedra.
Intermezzo.
The Voice in Nature.
XXXVIII.	Cathedral Orchestra and Organ	[241]
Divine Solos.
XXXIX.	On a Pinnacle in Nature	[243]
XL.	A Glimpse of Taoism	[253]
XLI.	Processional Before the Veil	[262]
XLII.	On Holy Ground	[269]
XLIII.	Sacrifice	[274]
XLIV.	The Everyday Ritual	[282]
Adele and Paul. A Dandy passes by.
XLV.	Ritual of the Human Race	[292]

ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
View from Pinnacle on Roof of Cathedral—the Delectable Mountains Beyond.
Among the Himalayas. Supposed highest summits on the earth’s surface. Elevation, 29,000 feet. From near Sundookphoo, 1885	[Frontispiece]
As Incense Ascends—Symbolic, from Ages Past, of the Prayers of Humanity.
The Kunchingunga Snowy Range. Elevation, 28,156 feet. Scene from Observatory Hill, Darjeeling	[268]

“Nature herself is an idea of the mind and is never presented to the senses. She lies under the veil of appearances, but is herself never apparent. To the art of the ideal is lent, or, rather, absolutely given, the privilege to grasp the spirit of all, and bind it in a corporeal form.”

“Art has for its object not merely to afford a transient pleasure, to excite to a momentary dream of liberty; its aim is to make us absolutely free. And this is accomplished by awakening, exercising, and perfecting in us a power to remove to an objective distance the sensible world (which otherwise only burdens us as rugged matter, and presses us down with a brute influence); to transform it into the free working of our spirit, and thus acquire a dominion over the material by means of ideas. For the very reason also that true art requires somewhat of the objective and real, it is not satisfied with a show of truth: it rears its ideal edifice on truth itself—on the solid and deep foundation of Nature.”