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HPB-SB-8-144: Difference between revisions
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... | {{Style S-Small capitals|MADAME}} {{Style S-Small capitals|ISIS}} has been unveiling herself to the astonished gaze of the Indi{{Style S-Lost|an}} public. So ‘Isis Unveiled’ is a misnomer. Good. The old lady—we beg{{Style S-Lost|her}} pardon, but age is the season of wisdom, and the ancient Egyptian dame{{Style S-Lost|is}} nothing if not wise—has bequeathed to her modern representative a sh{{Style S-Lost|short}} 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 {{Style S-Lost|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. | ||
{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|8-145}} | 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 {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|8-145}} | ||
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