< Helena P. Blavatsky (continued from page 4-203) >
ture and character, relegating it mainly to effeminacy and weakness.
She has a great love of freedom, and aversion to almost any kind of restraint which prevents her from taking an independent course, and acting out her own convictions. In emergencies she would generally show great coolness and boldness. She has a great deal of hope and enthusiasm for the elevation of humanity according to her own peculiar views ; and her views in most eases are likely to appear peculiar and extreme to others, notwithstanding her caution and self-control. She is patriotic, and would be brave in the defense of country, home, family, and faith. Her attachments would tend ever to carry her back to the country and home of her love, especially if it were among a people whom she could impress by her mental force. She would never feel at home among people of a gloomy and cynical temperament.
Her development of Self-esteem is not large, so that she does not believe so much in herself as in her knowledge, experience, duty, and purposes. Her temperament ministers great activity to an energetic, thorough-going nature ; so her force and ambition lead her into a bold career, but in such a career she does not make her accomplishments redound so much to her own honor and elevation, as a woman of greater self-esteem would.
The reader must have been struck at first sight by the unusual development of Language which renders her a natural linguist, and gives remarkable ability in the expression of her thought. Madame Blavatsky has a masculine order of intellect, and a masculine energy with a woman's temperamental susceptibility and social feeling. Hence we should not expect her to follow the conventional routine of the society lady, nor yet to adopt the passive round of most society men, but we should expect her to display unusual qualities and pursue a career unique, individual, and exceptional in achievement as she is exceptionally endowed.
It is rare for us to meet a person, man or woman, so advanced in life with so much physical freshness and youthful ardor and capability. She would pass easily for a lady of but fifty or so, while she differs from most people of fifty, in being still an earnest student of life and literature, taking up and pursuing new subjects with vigor and success.
The subject of this sketch is in many respects a very rare one. Whether we take into account her originality and breadth of thought, her physical and moral courage, her adventurous pursuit of knowledge, seldom sought and more seldom found, or her zeal in propagating Oriental religious ideas, Madame Blavatsky is altogether an extraordinary personage. She was born in Asiatic Russia and reared in the tenets of the Greek Church. She left home and friends at an early age, to travel in strange lands and sojourn among strange peoples and tribes. She has, unaccompanied, traveled three, times around the globe, and has dwelt among dark-skinned races for years together, learning and speaking their languages, studying philosophy and practicing magic with their priests ; indeed, making herself for the time being one of the people with whom she dwelt.
The Russians of the upper class have always been noted for their linguistical talent, but Mme. Blavatsky seems to have excelled most of her compatriots in this respect. Prince Emil Wittgenstein,[1] a cousin of the present Empress, in writing to Col. Olcott, of New York, said that he knew Mme. Blavatsky well some twenty-five years ago at Tiflis, when she was famed for her ability to speak Georgian, Mongolian, Circassian, and other Caucasus dialects. Those who have met her can certify, that besides the French and Italian, several other languages are familiar to her. Epes Sargent, the American <... continues on page 4-205 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Emil zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg (1824-1878) was a Russian officer of high rank of German origin, who took part in the conquest of the Caucasus and the Crimean War.
Sources
The Phrenological Jornal, v.66, No. 3, Whole No. 471, March, 1878, p. 136