I now mentioned the story as a report to Lady
Hester Stanhope, and asked her if it were true. I could not have
touched upon any imaginable subject more deeply interesting to my
hearer, more closely akin to her habitual train of thinking. She
immediately threw off all the restraint belonging to an interview
with a stranger; and when she had received a few more similar
proofs of my aptness for the marvellous, she went so far as to say
that she would adopt me as her eleve in occult science.
For hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her
speech, for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries;
but every now and then she would stay her lofty flight and swoop
down upon the world again. Whenever this happened I was interested
in her conversation.
She adverted more than once to the period of her lost sway amongst
the Arabs, and mentioned some of the circumstances that aided her
in obtaining influence with the wandering tribes. The Bedouin, so
often engaged in irregular warfare, strains his eyes to the horizon
in search of a coming enemy just as habitually as the sailor keeps
his "bright lookout" for a strange sail. In the absence of
telescopes a far-reaching sight is highly valued, and Lady Hester
possessed this quality to an extraordinary degree.
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