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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.
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Editor's notes
- ↑ Madame Isis has been... by unknown author (signed as B.), Bombay Review and Indian Advertiser, March 8, 1879