Some Unpublished Letters of H. P. Blavatsky — Comp

Theosophical University Press Online Edition Some Unpublished Letters of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky with an Introduction and Commentary by Eugene Rollin Corson, B.S., M.D. Originally published by Rider & Co, London. Electronic Edition by Theosophical University Press, 1999. Electronic ISBN 1-55700-144-8. This edition may be downloaded for off-line viewing without charge. No part of this publication may be reproduced for commercial or other use in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of Theosophical University Press. For ease in searching, no diacritical marks appear in this electronic version of the text TO MRS. WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY, THE DEVOTED FRIEND AND ADMIRER OF MY FATHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wish to thank my cousin Anna McClure Sholl for valuable aid in the preparation of this book. — E. R. C. Contents Prefatory Note H.P.B.'s Good Faith The Visit to Ithaca H.P.B. and Spiritualism The Enemies of H.P.B. Marks of Genius Letters No. 1 - 9 Letters No. 10 - 17 Commentary on the Letters Prefatory Note The publication of private letters which were never meant for publication, and which it was never imagined would reach the public, demands an explanation if not an apology. In these days of many books, when the intimate lives of noted characters are scrutinized and dissected for every bit of information to satisfy a public more eager, apparently, to discover the sins and frailties of the great than to form a just appreciation of their genius and finer qualities, one may well pause before adding to this great mass of literature. If, on the contrary, the publication of this private material may throw some light on certain mooted points of value, clear the air of scandal or unjust criticism, or even of violent abuse, no apology is called for. The world seems ever ready to magnify the evil and minimize the good in human nature, especially in those who have attained greatness, as we understand the word, or at least a certain prominence from public office and public trust. The finer Christian charity which is never blind to the sins and follies and weaknesses of human nature, yet treats them with gentleness, a gentleness ever ready to pardon, as though conscious that the human spirit has in it ever the promise and potency of ultimate redemption and glorification. This is, of course, the Christ-spirit, and when the world fails to recognize it or forgets it, distrust and dread and pessimism prevail, and the general outlook on life presents a very dreary picture. Fortunately a trend towards a healthy optimism prevails, and there is no better index of an advancing and higher civilization than the larger scope of this optimism. In John Forster's Decision of Character he stressed the importance for the young man to meet the world with trust rather than distrust, and I am quite sure that this rule of life is the proper one. Confidence belongs to the higher attributes of man, and suspicion to the lower nature; truth is born of faith, while error is the child of distrust and suspicion. This seems to apply with special aptness to the writer of these letters: adored by her followers and by those who understood her, no term of abuse seemed too severe for those who called her a charlatan. Had I not thought that these letters would help to clear up certain mooted questions, and vindicate her against certain charges of duplicity and lack of good faith, and even against more serious charges, I should not have published them. E. R. C. Contents Theosophical Society Homepage Some Unpublished Letters of H. P. Blavatsky — comp. E. R. Corson H.P.B.'s Good Faith H.P.B. on the title-page of Isis Unveiled has a saying of Montaigne's: "Cecy est un livre de bonne foy." This is not a mere idle choice for a motto; it comes from the very heart of the woman. Nor have I seen any of her writings, no matter how much I may criticize them, no matter how much they may be open to criticism generally, where I felt she was acting a part, or in any writing for mere effect, or for any display of knowledge or learning. The woman was genuine, genuine in her pleasantest moods, genuine in her anger and rage when wrought up to the highest pitch by her tempestuous emotions. Again and again in her writings does she express her contempt and abhorrence for a lie; she even has spoken of it as worse than murder, which is carrying her convictions to the highest pitch, and certainly quite too far. But aside from this mere verbal expression, I can see the same conviction in her actions and general attitude towards the world. Here is a woman born an aristocrat, and in a country where the aristocracy meant more than in any other country. In Russia, where the serfs were not yet free, the nobility had every privilege and every advantage, and the peasantry every degradation and every hardship. It was champagne and the Court for the aristocrat, and a hovel and black bread for the peasant, though he did have his vodka for some surcease from toil, and for some slight semblance of the mystic consciousness, and for some faint glimpse of the Elysian fields. When at the outbreak of the War the Czar took away his vodka, it was the last straw to break his back. He had no equipment; he had no vodka; yet a half-drunken soldier was better than a sober one. Nothing could follow this but defeat, and after defeat must come the Revolution; and Red Russia had to go back to its vodka. The peasant could work in the fields all day in the bitter cold, but he had to have his ikon to pray to, and he had to have his vodka. The Russian novelists have drawn the picture for us in vivid colours, and they can draw and they are colourists. One of the most interesting facts in modern history is the birth of Russian literature after centuries of comparative silence. It came with a great outburst, with a galaxy of writers, poets and novelists, whose pictures of Russian life and thought were more vivid and more minute and accurate than any other country could boast of. It came almost as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the great poet Pushkin, a passionate romanticist, started a movement which passed rapidly from poetry to the realistic novel. Such names as Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoi have brought this immense and almost boundless Russia before our eyes; the peasant in his hut, the aristocrat in his palace, and the Court in all its gorgeous ceremonies and trappings. They have shown us an aristocracy probably the most dissipated in the world, for its dissipation was reduced to a fine art. In my youth I read the novels of Turgenev, and their characters and their scenes were as of another world. Later I read Tolstoi, and now all the world is reading him, perhaps the greatest genius of them all. And they have shown us the intellectual side of this marvellous people, their mysticism, their love of philosophy, and their eagerness to grasp all the intricate and subtle questions of life, as manifested in the student, in the soldier, and in the aristocrat. St. Petersburg becomes for us more alive than Paris, and we might imagine we were in the French capital, for we hear more French than Russian, and wine and song and bejewelled women make us forget the bitter cold outside. It was indeed a land of contrasts. Years ago the gentle John Ruskin pointed out to us that with war and the military spirit art and literature flourished best, while with peace and security art and literature languished and decayed. Russia is a good example of this: her wars have enriched her literature and art. The pictures of Verestchagin will long live in art; Napoleon's wars at Versailles are tame indeed in contrast. But we must not forget an aristocracy that claims some nobility, where the intellectual and artistic elements predominated, and fired by a military spirit, along with a certain abandon, courage, devotion to Czar and country, a sense of duty and responsibility, all inspiring to higher action and endeavour. Russia up to the Great War was a land of an autocratic Czar with all the traditions of Peter the Great and the great Catherine, with its oriental Court and trappings, its intricate and vicious bureaucracy, its tyranny, its brutality, and its oppression of the poor and humble. Her religion, too, was a full expression of the national character, rich in imagery, in imagination, in pictorial and architectural art, and of an emotional warmth to fight the bitter cold. It was a Church, oriental, Byzantine, superstitious, mystical, and with a ceremonial outclassing in gorgeousness and pomp Rome herself. It satisfied fully the genius of the race. Red Russia has tried to kill it, but it cannot be destroyed. Into this land Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born, and she was born an aristocrat, with riches and serfs and influential connections, and everything to make life easy and successful and coveted. Did she sink into this lap of luxury? Did she care for the conventions about her? Were the family ties strong enough to hold her down? Were riches and bodily comfort and the intellectual allurements then offered her sufficient to hold her and keep her from exile? Her wild spirit and genius, and genius it must be called, would have none of it, though she had to face an outside world as cold and bitter as her own Russian winter, and as cutting as the winds which blow over the great steppes.

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