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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
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home with fair and dark people. She has made herself familiar with the languages and religions of the East. She has been enabled to understand the nature to and practice what the world term ‘magic’; and for years she has confined herself among the unknown and neglected priests of Asia, and studied their profound philosophy.
Madame Blavatsky is an extraordinary linguist. She is familiar with Georgian, Mongolian, Circassian, and other Caucasus dialects. She knows French and Italian. Epes Sargent, the American author, affirms that she writes English with the ability of George Eliot. Dr. R. Mackenzie, a well-known reviewer, wrote in the Philadelphia Press: “We have to admire the thorough simplicity and natural grace of Madame Blavatsky’s language. It is pure and expressive, which is singular, considering her Asiatic birth, and that the first languages she learned must have been Oriental, which, in their, expression, certainly, are very deficient in simplicity.” Dr. Mackenzie has here fallen into an error. We have the highest authority to affirm, that the first language Madame Blavatsky learned to lisp was English, English being the language of her nurse, who remained with her till she was seven years old.
Madame Blavatsky is best known, however, and will leave her mark in history by her famous book— ‘Isis Unveiled’—a book of such profound reserch and thought, that it may well be styled the ‘Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology.’ This, we do not hesitate to assert, is the book of the Nineteenth Century. It has gone through five editions in the course of a year, and is still in as much demand as ever. To our readers we heartily commend a thoughtful perusal of ‘Isis Unveiled.’
Madame Blavatsky has been represented to be simply an iconoclastic visionary. It is true, that she boldly digs at the root of Christian theology. But, then, she would replace the ruins with a more substantial fabric—the Vedic ethics. She wars against what we call our exact modern science, and maintains that Oriental psychology and physiology teach us far more of nature and its farces, of man and his tremendous powers. It may interest our readers to know that ‘Isis Unveiled’ is prohibited and forbidden fare in Russia.
Madame Blavatsky’s intimate friends describe her social virtues with rapture; and this is natural, for she clings to her friends through good and evil report. She has a boundless love for freedom, while she hates all kinds of restraint, that prevents heir from taking an independent course, and acting out her own convictions. Her nature is thus described: “She has a great ideal of hope and enthusiasm for the elevation of humanity according to her own peculiar views, and her views in most cases are likely to appear peculiar and extreme to others, notwithstanding her caution and self-control. She is patriotic, and would be brave in the defence of country, home, family, and faith. Her attachments would tend ever to carry her back to the country and home to her 1ove, 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.”
Colonel Henry Olcott, too, has had a chequered career. In him we recognise one of our own fraternity, for he was connected with the American press for a number of years. He is a man of great ability and versatile powers. He has filled the highest public posts in America. But it is in connection with Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society, of which he is the President, that he is better known to men. The Theosophical Society have made a worthy choice in electing Colonel Olcott to preside over them.
<Untitled> (Madame Isis has been...)
MADAME ISIS has been unveiling herself to the astonished gaze of the Indian public. So ‘Isis Unveiled’ is a misnomer. Good. The old lady—we begher pardon, but age is the season of wisdom, and the ancient Egyptian dameis nothing if not wise—has bequeathed to her modern representative a shshort temper and a flippant spirit for which we never gave that paragon of patience the least credit. Seriously, about a year ago a perusal of the Russo-American lady’s work inspired us with much respect for the fair author, whom we fondly pictured to ourselves as a learned, but withal, a gentle unassuming woman at whose feet the youth of India had a prospect of learning something new that was true and something true that was new. But the American Theosophic Mission have disappointed us. It was a false move they made on their arrival here. Their very aggressiveness struck us with the inherent weakness of their cause. And we felt it our duty to advise and admonish a young English lady whose surroundings we could not bring ourselves to like—we wrote more in sorrow than in anger. But the fair stranger seems to have more acceptable advisers about her. If she thinks she is in safe hands, we have done with her. As for Madame the Countess, we have been more charitable to her than she seems subsequently to deserve. We took no notice of several rumours against her. We did not and do not believe that she is “a Russian spy” and that her mission is more political than religious. Sir Richard Temple and Sir Frank Souter can take care of that. We took little heed of the assertion that my lady is a free-spoken woman, too free-spoken; that she picks up objectionable passages in the Bible and criticises the loose thoughts and language in words little suited to refined and delicate ears. We generously met the traducers who accused her of an inveterate addiction to the noxious weed, by the argument that she is a pure vegetarian. In short, we made every allowance for sex, age and creed; we offered not a word of reproach against her personally.
Coming to Madame’s long invective against us, we miss in it the mellow charity of age, the modesty of sex and the quiet martyr spirit of her much vaunted philosophy. We repeat we have been grievously disappointed. Madame’s strange modes of life and conversation may fascinate some clever and harebrained youths; a few ‘religious’ sharpers may try to make capital out of her mission to India: it is our duty to raise our feeble voice against fools and rogues alike. It may interest the learned Countess to know that the ‘infant-prodigy’ on which she has expended her wit is under the control of persons of broad and catholic views, who have done in various ways much more for the races of India than a whole legion of new-fangled sophists. As for the little arrangement which Madame and her American friend have made to confound Augustine and Max Müller, it is an empty blatant boast which bursts in its very conception. We know not if to laugh or weep over the rough audacity that could invent or the grovelling credulity that would believe it. The modern Isis might as well know that the writer of the paragraph which has so far vexed her philosophic soul is not a Christian—that he does not sympathise with any particular Christian creed. But he has closely and patiently examined the doctrine that Jesus Christ preached ages ago, and which has lost none of its power of giving unspeakable relief to the weary soul, by incessant misrepresentations of interested antagonists. The obligations to Christianity from this great country are so well known, that it is an outrage on history to ignore them. It is very unseemly of the fair assailant of Christianity to go out of her way to deny facts. Her denial counts for nothing. Madame says ‘India owes all to the British Government’ we would have agreed with <... continues on page 8-145 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Madame Isis has been... by unknown author (signed as B.), Bombay Review and Indian Advertiser, March 8, 1879