Quotes:Keightley, Julia Wharton
Zirkoff, Boris
Keightley, Julia Wharton. Theosophical writer and lecturer. She was the daughter of the Hon. James H. Campbell, a prominent Pennsylvania lawyer who had a distinguished career; he commanded a regiment during the Civil War, served as member of the U. S. Congress for several terms, and held two diplomatic commissions under President Lincoln, as Minister to Sweden and Norway, and later at Bogotá, Colombia. Her mother was Juliet Dewis, daughter of Chief Justice Ellis Lewis of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, a writer of verse possessing great poetic charm and value.
The year of Julia’s birth is not definitely known, but must have taken place sometime in the middle of the fifties of last century. Her childhood was spent among the Pennsylvania mountains, 436 and later on the continent of Europe, where she was educated and entered the Society of foreign courts at the early age of sixteen. Even then she had already developed the literary talent for which she became well-known in later days, and which were so characteristic of her family. Her early writings consisted of translations from the poems written by the Kings of Sweden, and of original verse, tales and descriptions published in Harper's Magazine, the Galaxy, and other periodicals, both under her own name and the nom-de-plume of “Espérance.” The full market rates paid to her for these writings are evidence that their fine quality was recognized by the Editors of the day. The author felt an intense desire to help others by means of her writings.
Julia W. L. Campbell married in 1871 Philip W. Ver Planck of New York. Six years later, in the course of a single year, she lost her husband and both of her sons suddenly, as the result of a dramatic series of events, the nature of which does not seem to have been definitely recorded. This was followed by a long and difficult illness brought about by the sudden shocks.
It was during her slow recovery that Julia Ver Planck wrote her two successful plays, The Puritan Maid and Sealed Instructions, the latter having had a marked success during two seasons at the Madison Square Theatre in New York, as well as in other parts of the country.
Owing to family custom, Julia belonged to the Episcopal Church, but found no spiritual life there. For a time, she had ceased to seek for any such life, satisfied to all appearances with what literature and art had to offer, in a happy domestic and social circle where leisure and refined conditions permitted the cultivation of personal gifts. Yet an inner yearning for something greater and deeper made itself felt.
One day, while lunching with her close friend, Mrs. Anna Lynch Botta, the name of Madame Blavatsky was mentioned, though she was spoken of as an exposed fraud. Mrs. Botta invited her to hear Arthur Gebhard speak on Theosophy at the home of a friend of hers. The impression produced upon Julia Ver Planck was so deep that she joined the Theosophical Society within two weeks, and started upon her Theosophical career. This must have taken place sometime around 1886.
Living with her parents at a distance from New York, she made herself useful by writing for Mr. Judge’s Path magazine under the names of “Julius,” “August Waldensee,” “J” and later under the pseudonym of “Jasper Niemand,” and also corresponding with various T. S. inquirers. Writers were so few in these early days of the Movement that they had to take several names and sometimes try and develop several distinct styles of writing.
437 It appears that when Julia Ver Planck began to write articles for Theosophical journals, H. P. B. sent her a pen which Julia always used for this type of work. She said that, while the articles were always written in full objective consciousness, she felt at such times special inspiration and greater mental freedom. There can hardly be any question about the high level of her writings, and the profound mystical quality of most of them. Here and there they embody some profound occult truths which bespeak deeper knowledge acquired perchance in former lives.[1]
The well known series of Letters known as the Letters that have Helped me, began to be published in The Path, Vol. III, December, 1888, and continued through Vol. IV, March, 1890. They were signed “Z,” which letter stands for William Quan Judge, who wrote these Letters to Julia Ver Planck, or “Jasper Niemand,” at the express wish of H. P. B. They were later published in book-form in 1891, and re-published many times since.[2]
In connection with H. P. B.’s request that such Letters be written, we have a very interesting and valuable statement from Bertram Keightley, in which he says:
“The letter which is the source of this request, and which conveys assurance of Mr. Judge’s qualifications for the office of instructor, purported to be written through Madame Blavatsky (it begins ‘Says Master’), and is one of those so ably described by Col. H. S. Olcott in The Theosophist for July, 1893, where he says that communications from higher occult sources received through H. P. B. always resembled her handwriting.
“This modification of H. P. B.’s handwriting is decidedly interesting in the above-mentioned letter, whose data amply justify the manner in which ‘Z’ is spoken of in Niemand’s preface. Moreover, H. P. B. spoke of her friend Mr. Judge as the ‘exile,’ and Annie Besant wrote later on, ‘You are indeed fortunate in having W. Q. J. as Chief. Now that H. P. B. has gone, it is the Americans who have as immediate leader the greatest of the exiles’.” 438 After the passing of H. P. B., Julia Ver Planck now and again joined the New York staff of workers as a re-inforcement during Judge’s prolonged absences. During one of these periods she met Annie Besant at the Boston Convention of 1891; it was also at that time that the T. S. League of Workers was formed, later inaugurated in Europe also.
Julia Ver Planck continued to live with her parents in Philadelphia until the Fall of 1891, when she married Dr. Archibald Keightley. After a year’s residence in New York, they were called to England by the health of Dr. Keightley’s mother.
For later events in her life, until her passing in October, 1915, the reader is referred to the biographical account of Dr. Archibald Keightley (vide supra).
CHIEF SOURCE: The Path, New York, Vol. IX, April, 1894.
Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 9, pp. 435-438
- ↑ See especially her “Tea-Table Talks” in The Path, beginning with Vol. I, Dec., 1886; and her remarkable “Letters to a Lodge,” published in The Irish Theosophist, Dublin, beginning with Vol. III, November, 1894.
- ↑ A second Series of Letters was published in 1905 under the same title; this is somewhat misleading because, as is stated in the Preface, they are excerpts from Judge’s letters written to various people, and are not the continuation of the original series.