Zirkoff B. - H. P. Blavatskys Literary Career: Difference between revisions

  | alternatives = [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v1/hlc_earliestwr.htm KH]; [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v1/hlc_sketchbook.htm KH]; [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v1/hlc_legendebelle.htm KH]; [https://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v1/hlc_ltravelmpr.htm KH]

{{HPB-CW-comment|There is, for instance, her own reported statement in an interview given by her to the Daily Graphic of New York, and published November 13, 1874, to the effect that she was a contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes of Paris, and acted as correspondent of the Indépendence Belge and several Parisian Journals. No record of this exists, however, in the Editorial Offices of these well known periodicals, though it is possible that she may have written under some pseudonym, or merely as “correspondent” from one or another part of the world. The text of this interview is of a rather sensational kind, and embodies a number of errors and misstatements as to names and events. So it cannot be relied upon.}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|Then there is a statement made around 1956-57 by a very old gentleman, Adolphe de Castro, of Los Angeles, California, who had met H.P.B. in Berlin about 1873, to the effect that she was then reading galley-proofs of some articles she had written in Russian, that he was able to be of help to her with some old Hebrew terms, and that what she was writing was intended either for a Russian paper or for a local Jewish Journal, the most likely one being Das Zeitung des Judenthums. The old files of this Journal have been investigated, as far as this could be done in the holdings of the British Museum, but no positive result was obtained.}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|There is also a statement of hers made to her friend, Alexander Nikolayevich Aksakov, in a letter dated October 28, 1874, to the effect that she translated into Russian a manuscript by a medium {{Page aside|2}}named James, and which was supposed to have been the second part of Dickens’ unfinished novel, Edwin Drood. She would have liked to have had it published in Russian.<ref>Vide Vsevolod S. Solovyov, A Modern Priestess of Isis, Engl. transl., London, 1895, p. 227; Russian orig., St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 256.</ref>}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|Wm. M. Ivins, H.P.B.’s lawyer in her lawsuit of 1874-75, said that H.P.B. was translating Darwin’Origin of Species and H. T. Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, while the suit was pending.<ref>Unpublished MS. of Mrs. Laura Holloway-Langford, now destroyed.</ref>}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|In the same letter to A. N. Aksakov mentioned above, H.P.B., having just returned to New York from a visit to the farmhouse of the Eddy Brothers, at Chittenden, Vt., says that she has been translating Col. Olcott’s articles on the mediumistic phenomena of the Eddy Brothers, which he was then contributing to the pages of the New York Daily Graphic; she says that she could send them to Aksakov regularly, together with their accompanying illustrations.<ref>V. S. Solovyov, op. cit., Engl. tr., pp. 226-27; Russ. orig., p. 256.</ref>}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|It is quite probable that H.P.B. did actually translate all of Col. Olcott’s articles as they appeared, because Aksakov wrote to him on April 4/16, 1875, that he had finished reading them. It is these articles of Col. Olcott that were eventually published in book-form, under the title of People from the Other World (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Co., 1875).<ref>Old Diary Leaves, First Series, p. 80. The Colonel speaks of H.P.B.’s translation of his “book.” He most likely means his Series of articles as such, because these did not appear in book-form until March, 1875.</ref>}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|[There is in the Archives of The Theosophical Society at Adyar a small booklet, seven by eleven inches, of not more than twenty-six pages, three leaves at least having been torn out. For purposes of identification, we may call it H.P.B.’s Sketchbook, as it contains mostly drawings and sketches in both ink and pencil, also {{Page aside|3}}mere scrawls and scribbles, with here and there some writing between them.}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|The first page of the booklet, partly reproduced in facsimile, shows in the middle a pen drawing of a seaside view, most likely Ramsgate, England, and a pen-and-ink sketch of a coat of arms, not definitely identified but evidently belonging to one or another branch of the von Hahn Family, as it shows a cock as one of its symbols.}}

“Nuit mémorable! Certaine nuit, par un clair de lune qui se couchait à Ramsgate 12 Août, 1851,<ref>“Le 12 août—c’est juillet 31 style russe jour de ma naissance —Vingt ans!”</ref> lorsque je rencontrais [symbol] le Maître de mes rêves!!”

“Memorable night! On a certain night by the light of the moon that was setting at Ramsgate on August 12, 1851,<ref>“August 12 is July 31 in Russian style, the day of my birth—Twenty years!”</ref> when I met [symbol] the Master of my dreams!!

{{HPB-CW-comment|In her Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and “The Secret Doctrine” (pp. 57-58) Countess Constance Wachtmeister relates an incident that occurred while H.P.B. was at Würzburg, Germany. It appears that Madame N. A. de Fadeyev, H.P.B.’s aunt, sent her from Russia a box containing various mementoes. Among these was the above-mentioned booklet which the Countess calls a “scrapbook.” H.P.B., on seeing the seaside sketch, gave an exclamation of delight and said: “Come and look at this which I wrote in the year 1851, the day I saw my blessed Master.” The Countess then quotes the exact French text written by H.P.B. under the sketch. She also adds in a footnote: “On seeing the manuscript I asked why she had written ‘Ramsgate’ instead of ‘London,’ and H.P.B. told me that it was a blind, so that anyone casually taking up her book would not know where she had met her Master, and that her first interview with him had been in London as she had previously told me.”}}

. . . Toutes les magnificences de la Nature,—le silence imposant de la nuit, les odeurs des fleurs,—les rayons pâles de la lune à travers les panaches verts des arbres,—les étoiles, fleurs de feu semées dans le ciel, les lucioles, fleurs de feu semées dans l’herbe,—tout cela a été créé pour rendre l’Adepte digne de la NATURE, au moment où, pour la première fois, elle dit à l’Homme, je t’appartiens,—mot formé d’un céleste parfum de l’âme, qui s’exale et monte au ciel avec les parfums des fleurs,—moment, le seul de sa vie,—où il est roi, où il est Dieu, moment qu’il paye et qu’il expie par toute une existence de regrets amers.

« Ce moment; c’est le prix de toutes nos misères».

{{HPB-CW-comment|[This text has been altered by H.P.B. at one time or another. The words “l’Adepte digne de la NATURE” are in red ink and are {{Page aside|5}}superimposed over the original words “le monde digne de l’homme” written in black ink. The words “elle dit à l’Homme, je t’appartiens” are also in red ink and superimposed over the original words “il dit à une femme—je t’aime” written in black ink.]}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|[English translation of the above:]}}

{{HPB-CW-comment|[English translation of the above:]}}