213
H.P.B.’S WRITINGS IN RUSSIAN
[As far as could be ascertained, as a result of long and far-reaching search, the first of a series of Letters written by H.P.B. in her native Russian language was published in the Odessa newspaper Pravda (Truth), No. 45, February 23 (March 7), 1803. It was entitled: “From Across the Sea, from Beyond the Blue Ocean.” As appears, however, from H.P.B.’s own entry in Col. H. S. Olcott’s Diary on February 7, 1878, she must have written at least four other articles or Letters to the Editor, as she states that four of them had been definitely lost, according to word received by her from Madame N. A. de Fadeyev. Thus, it is most likely that her Russian literary contributions were started sometime in the later part of 1877. Early in 1878, she also began to write for the Tiflisskiy Vestnik (Tiflis Messenger). There is evidence to show that H.P.B. contributed some of her remuneration to the cause of the Russian soldiers wounded in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and that she also relinquished some of it to the benefit of her sister Vera Petrovna who must have been in need at the time.
All of H.P.B.’s Russian writings in English translation may be found in a separate volume of the present Series.—Compiler.]
[In H.P.B.’s Scrapbook, Vol. IV, p. 243, there is pasted a cutting from The Spiritualist of March 8, 1878.1tis a very biased and hostile criticism from a lady Spiritualist entitled “Mrs. Showers on Isis Unveiled.” Above the title H.P.B. wrote in ink:]
This is the abuse I receive for defending the philosophy of India and the East in Isis.