



Produced by John Bickers; Dagny; Emma Dudding





THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE

A DREAM STORY


by H. Rider Haggard

     "Ultimately a good hare was found which took the field at...
     There the hounds pressed her, and on the hunt arriving at the edge
     of the cliff the hare could be seen crossing the beach and going
     right out to sea. A boat was procured, and the master and some
     others rowed out to her just as she drowned, and, bringing the
     body in, gave it to the hounds. A hare swimming out to sea is a
     sight not often witnessed."--_Local paper, January_ 1911.

     "... A long check occurred in the latter part of this hunt, the
     hare having laid up in a hedgerow, from which she was at last
     evicted by a crack of the whip. Her next place of refuge was a
     horse-pond, which she tried to swim, but got stuck in the ice
     midway, and was sinking, when the huntsman went in after her. It
     was a novel sight to see huntsman and hare being lifted over a
     wall out of the pond, the eager pack waiting for their prey behind
     the wall."--_Local paper, February_ 1911.

*****

The author supposes that the first of the above extracts must have
impressed him. At any rate, on the night after the reading of it, just
as he went to sleep, or on the following morning just as he awoke, he
cannot tell which, there came to him the title and the outlines of this
fantasy, including the command with which it ends. 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. To it a Mahatma is a kind of spiritual
Mrs. Harris, giving an address in Thibet at which no letters are
delivered. Either, it says, there is no such person, or he is a
fraudulent scamp with no greater occult powers--well, than a hare.

I confess that this view of Mahatmas is one that does not surprise me
in the least. I never met, and I scarcely expect to meet, an individual
entitled to set "Mahatma" after his name. Certainly _I_ have no right to
do so, who only took that title on the spur of the moment when the Hare
asked me how I was called, and now make use of it as a _nom-de-plume_.
It is true there is Jorsen, by whose order, for it amounts to that, I
publish this history. For aught I know Jorsen may be a Mahatma, but he
does not in the least look the part.

Imagine a bluff person with a strong, hard face, piercing grey eyes, and
very prominent, bushy eyebrows, of about fifty or sixty years of age.
Add a Scotch accent and a meerschaum pipe, which he smokes even when he
is wearing a frock coat and a tall hat, and you have Jorsen. I believe
that he lives somewhere in the country, is well off, and practises
gardening. If so he has never asked me to his place, and I only meet him
when he comes to Town, as I understand, to visit flower-shows.

Then I always meet him because he orders me to do so, not by letter or
by word of mouth but in quite a different way. Suddenly I receive an
impression in my mind that I am to go to a certain place at a certain
hour,