A REMINISCENCE OF H. P. BLAVATSKY IN
1873
By
Elizabeth G. K. Holt
In
1873, I had the very great privilege of living for some months under the same
roof with H.P.B. This was exactly fifty-eight years ago last month [August,
1931].
Those
of us who can recall the New York of that time have either gone on or are
swiftly passing. I think in the stage, upon which H.P.B. was to introduce her
great mission, could be placed before present-day people, her methods and the
reasons for them would be better understood.
In
a speech during war-time Lloyd George said something like this: that while the
world, sometimes for centuries, rolled on monotonously with little change of
condition, at other times it progressed by leaps and bounds, and conditions
changed almost overnight. Those who have lived through the period from 1873 to
the present must agree that this was such a changeful time.
New
York in 1873, as compared to the present city, was small; neither elevated
railroad nor subway nor automobile had been thought of; you reached the north
end of Manhattan Island by horse-drawn vehicles, the public horse-cars taking
hours for the trip; there were no bridges over the rivers, East or Hudson; if
necessary to cross, you used a ferry-boat.
There
were, of course, no sky-scrapers the down-town city was dominated by the
Trinity Church steeple, the most conspicuous landmark for miles around. The
north end of the island was mostly granite cliffs, not yet excavated into
streets, even as far down town as East Fortieth St. There was a solid boulder
from Third to Second Avenues, on which squatters had built for themselves
nondescript shanties, and over which goats and squatter children played. Second
and Third Avenues were not built up, in some sections not yet reclaimed from the
East River waters.
The
very population was different: the Mediterranean peoples, the peoples of
Eastern Europe and of Asia, had not yet discovered us, or, at least, not in any
great numbers; the immigrants who were crowding through Castle Garden, to dig out
our boulders, and lay out our streets and railroads were Irish and German, with
a sprinkling of Scandinavians, though the latter mostly went north-west to the
farms. And the habits and thought of the people resembled today’s as little as
that city of small homes resembles the present skyscraper city.
I
can remember that Darwin and the evolutionary Theory were live subjects of
angry dispute, I remember quite vividly the sermon preached by our clergy-man —incidentally
a most kindly gentleman— upon a horror which had shocked the city. A theatre in
Brooklyn had been burned down the previous week; the fire had occurred during
an afternoon matinee, and some three hundred people, mostly women and children
had been burned to death. The clergy-man told us that God, in His just anger,
had sent the fire to punish the frivolous who were spending their time in so
evil a place as a theatre.
Even
in social affairs we were very respectable Victorians in those days. There
were, of course, no women in business; a few, a very few were beginning to be
heard, clamoring for their “rights”; but the women who had to go out in the
world to earn a living were teachers, telegraphers, sewers of various kinds and
workers at small trades which paid very badly.
The
typewriter had not yet been invented, there were no stenographers, nor had
women invaded the businesses of men. A lady travelling alone was not received
in the better hotels, being looked upon as under suspicion when unaccompanied
by a male relative.
The
first step toward changing this condition was made at our time, when the
newspapers voiced indignation at the treatment vouchsafed to some nationally
prominent woman, whose name I have forgotten, who, coming into New York
unescorted, was refused admittance at the better hotels.
It
was probably this difficulty of finding proper accommodation that led H.P.B. to
the house in which I met her. I have always wondered how she, a strange coming
into New York, had discovered it. The house itself was unique and a product of
that particular era. In those days it was hard for respectable women workers of
small means to find a fitting place in which to live; so it happened that some
forty of them launched a small experiment in co-operative living. They rented a
new tenement house, 222 Madison Street, one of the first built in New York, I
think; certainly one of a group of three tenements which were the first built
in Madison Street.
It
was a street of small two-storey houses occupied by their owners, who were
proud of their shade-trees and kept their front and back gardens in order. I
may add here that the co-operative experiment, having neither capital nor
business efficiency behind it, failed, lasting in all only some months, the
small houses were sold by their owners, who saw the shadow of the coming slum,
and were vacated and many of them pulled down to make room for tenements, even
before the co-operatives disappeared.
My
mother and I had spent the summer of 1873 in Saratoga. In order to be ready for
school when it opened, I was sent home in August to the Madison Street house,
where we had a friend who would take me somewhat under her friendly protection,
and there I found Madame Blavatsky.
So
far as I know, this was her first stopping-place in New York. She had a room on
the second floor and my friend had a duplicate room next to her, so that they
became very friendly neighbors. Being a co-operative family, we all knew one
another familiarly, and kept a room next to the street-door as a common
sitting-room or office, a meeting-place for members and a place where mail and
messages were cared for.
My
small apartment was directly opposite, so that I saw a good deal of Madame
Blavatsky, w ho sat in the office a large part of her time, but she seldom sat
alone; she was like a magnet, powerful enough to draw round her everyone who
could possibly come. I saw her, day by day, sitting there, rolling her
cigarettes and smoking incessantly; she had a conspicuous tobacco pouch, the
head of some fur-bearing animal which she wore around her neck. She was
certainly an unusual figure.
I
think she must have been taller than she looked, she was so broad, she had a
broad face, and broad shoulders, her hair was a lightest brown and crinkled
like that or some Negroes. Her whole appearance conveyed the idea of power.
I
read somewhere lately an account of an interview with Stalin; the writer said
that when you entered the room you felt as if there was a powerful dynamo
working. You felt something like that when you were near H.P.B., I am sure I
did not analyze these things then, but looking back, I can see that there was a
sort of suppressed excitement in the house because of her presence, an
excitement wholly pleasant and yet somewhat tinged a little with awe.
Mr.
Leadbeater has spoken of Madame Blavatsky's telling of weird tales of the
supernatural to fellow-travelers on her sea voyages, and that her listeners
invariably went below and through the ship's passengers in groups, never alone.
I can testify to something similar.
My
friend, Miss Parker, was a Scotch-Irish lady, in her early thirties, logical,
level-headed and not, as I remember, given to imagine things; but after she
became well acquainted with Madame, and probably heard some of these
experiences, (I never heard any of them) when she came home from business late
in the evening, rather than go up the two flights of dark stairs to her own
room, she would stay all night with me; she owned quite frankly that she was
afraid. I would like to say here that the H.P.B. whom Colonel Olcott described
in his Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I,
seems a perfectly accurate picture of the H.P.B. I knew.
Madame
referred often to her life in Paris; for one thing, she told us that she had
decorated the Empress Eugenie’s private apartments; I thought of her as dressed
in blouse and trousers, mounted on a ladder and doing the actual work, and I
think this is what she told us; but I cannot be sure whether she said that she
did the actual painting, frescoing, etc., or whether she merely designed it.
Later she gave practical demonstration that she had ability in the arts. I had
a piano, and Madame sometimes played on it, usually because someone passed her
to do so.
She
described their past life to the people, who asked her to do so, and these
accounts must have been accurate, they made such a profound impression. I never
heard that she told them their future, but she may have done so without my
knowing about it.
My
friend, Miss Parker, was greatly startled when Madame told her incidents in her
life which, my friend said, were known only to herself and to the dead. She was
considered to be a Spiritualist, although I never heard her say she was one,
but the things she said which touched on those subjects, were Theosophical
rather than Spiritualistic.
Miss
Parker had lost her mother, many years before, and when she asked Madame to put
her into communication with her mother, Madame Blavatsky said it was impossible
for her to do so, as her mother was absorbed in higher things, and had
progressed beyond reach. The spirits she spoke continually about were the diaki, tricksy little beings, evidently
counterparts of the fairies of Irish folklore, and certainly non-human from her
description of them and of their activities.
Madame
Blavatsky continually described herself as being under the authority of unseen
powers; there was quite a vogue of Spiritualism at that time and the people
around her thought that these unseen powers were her “Spirit Guides”. This was
the most natural conclusion for people to reach, who had never heard of unseen
directing powers outside of the Church or among the Spiritualists.
I
never looked upon Madame Blavatsky as an ethical teacher. For one thing she was
too excitable; when things seemed wrong to her, she could express her opinion about
them with a vigor which was very disturbing. I would say here that I never saw
her angry with any person or thing at close range. Her objections had an
impersonality about them; even if directed at someone, the someone was usually
distant and the cause for blame quite apparent. In mental or physical dilemma,
you would instinctively appeal to her, for you felt her fearlessness, her
unconventionality, her great wisdom and wide experience, and hearty goodwill --
her sympathy with the underdog.
An
instance of this kind comes to mind: the two tenements near us were filling up;
undesirable people were beginning to move into the street and the neighborhood
was changing rapidly. One evening one of our young girls coming home late from
work, was followed and greatly frightened; she flung herself breathlessly into
a chair in the office. Madame Blavatsky interested herself and finally drew
from some fold of her dress a knife (I think she used it to cut her tobacco,
but it was sufficiently large to be a formidable weapon of defense) and she
said she had that for any man who molested her.
At
this time Madame Blavatsky was greatly troubled about money; the income she had
received regularly from her father in Russia had stopped, and she was almost
penniless. She had some idea that this condition was caused by the machinations
of some person or persons in touch with her father, and she expressed herself
about these persons with customary vigor.
Some
of the more conservative people in our house suggested that she was, after all,
an adventuress, and they want of money was only what might be expected; but my
friend Miss Parker, whom she took with her to the Russian Consul, assured me
that she was really a Russian Countess, that the Consul knew of her family, and
had promised to do all he could to get into touch with them and find out what
was the difficulty. I may say here, that the holding up of her income was
caused by the death of her father and the consequent time required to settle up
his affairs, and that this delay continued until Madame Blavatsky had left 222
Madison Street.
The
owner of our house was a Mr. Rinaldo, who personally collected his rents, and
so became acquainted with our people. Like everyone else he became interested
in H.P.B., and introduced two young friends of his to her. They came very often
to see her and were of practical aid to her, in suggesting and giving her work.
They got her to design picture advertising-cards for themselves and for others;
I think these gentlemen had a collar and shirt factory, for the card I remember
best was of little figures (diaki
perhaps), dressed in the collars and shirts of their manufacture. I think these
were the first picture advertising-cards used in New York.
Madame
Blavatsky also tried ornamental work in leather, and produced some very fine
and intricate examples, but they did not sell, and she abandoned the leather
work.
About
this time she completed the unfinished novel Edwin Drood, which Charles Dickens had not completed when he died
in 1870. I am under the impression that these Jewish friends of Madame
Blavatsky were Spiritualists and that they urged her to complete the book with
spirit-aid. She had a long table in her private room and I saw her for days,
perhaps weeks, steadily writing page after page of manuscript. I was told she
was finishing Edwin Drood and that
"the spirits" were helping her.
Later,
Miss Parker lent me a copy of the book, a paper-covered 9 x 5.5 inch book. Harper
and Appleton both published similar series of popular books, and I cannot say
which publisher issued Madame Blavatsky's book.
Miss
Parker wanted me to pick out the line at which Madame Blavatsky took up the
story, and pointed it out to me when I was unable to do so. In recent years, I
read in The New York Times Book Review
an account of a sequel to Edwin Drood,
written in 1873 by a Mr. James of Brattleboro, Vermont, under mediumistic
influence. I think this must be the volume I saw Madame writing, although the
writer of the article claimed to have known Mr. James.*
Shortly
after this and while Madame was still without income, she met and became
intimate with a French lady, a widow, whose name I have forgotten, if I ever
knew it, for though she became a familiar visitor to the house, she was usually
called “ the French Madame,” while H.P.B. remained ever "the Madame” . It
was this lady who afterwards went with H.P.B. to the Eddy farm. At this time
she lived a short distance away in Henry Street, a street parallel to Addison;
she offered to share her home with H.P.B. until the latter’s money difficulties
had passed. This offer was accepted, and Madame left our house.
Many
of our people, however, and notably my friend, Miss Parker, kept in close touch
with her, and attended the Sunday evening meetings inaugurated by the two
ladies, from which, to my great disappointment, I was shut out, perhaps because
was not wanted, and also, I know, because Miss Parker knew that my mother would
not have approved.
One
of the stories about the diaki dates
from this time: one morning Madame did not appear for breakfast and her friend
finally went to her bedroom to see what was the matter; there she found H.P.B.
unable to rise because her night-gown was securely sewed to the mattress, and
sewed in such a manner that it would have been impossible for Madame to have
done it herself, and so thoroughly had the sewing been done that the stitches
had to be cut before Madame could rise. This was the work of the diaki.
Shortly
after this, Madame received money from Russia, and she moved to the north-east
corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue. The house was very unpretentious, with
a liquor saloon on the street floor, and the two upper floors let as furnished
rooms. To this house Miss Parser took me in order to visit Madame, and small
Victorian that I was, I remember wondering whether it was quite respectable to
adventure into a house over a saloon, but I must add, to my credit, I was
wholly glad to go.
There
I found Madame in a poorly furnished top-floor room; her bed was an iron cot,
and beside her bed on a table was a small cabinet with three drawers. Madame
was in a state of great excitement; earlier in the day her room had been on
fire; she said it had been purposely set on fire in order to rob her. After the
fire was out, and the firemen and curious strangers had gone, she found that
her valuable watch and chain had been stolen.
When
she complained to the proprietor of the saloon, who was her landlord, he
intimated that she had never had a watch to lose. She told us that she asked
“Them” to give her some proof which she could show her landlord and convince
him that she had really lost her property, as she claimed; immediately there
appeared before her a sheet of paper of the size usually used in typewriters,
all gray with smoke except for white spots, the size and shape of a watch and
chain and indicating that after the fire had darkened the paper, the watch and
chain had been lifted from it, revealing the white spots which they had
covered.
She
went on to tell us that when she needed money, she had only to ask “Them” for
it, and she would find what she needed in one of the drawers of the little
cabinet on her table. I could not understand this. I had always heard the “They”
and “Them” explained by the people who were around her as referring to her
"Spirits Guides"; naturally I thought she spoke of them; I had known
how sorely she had been in need of money, and I could not understand how this
statement could be true. I knew nothing of Occultism, its pledges, nor of the
selflessness it demands from its followers.
Sometime
after this, I heard that she went to Ithaca, to give to Professor Corson, of
Cornell University, a ring entrusted to her by one of her mysterious directors,
which would identity her as an authentic messenger from them. But my visit to
H.P.B. was the last time I saw her; from that time on her life has been well
known and described by others
Note
*
A copy of this work bearing H.P.B.'s autograph, and dated Philadelphia, March,
1875, exists at Adyar in the collection of her autographed library. There is on
the inside cover a note by Colonel referring to a book called Rifts in the Veil, no author given,
published in London 1878, for details of the completion of Edwin Drood through the medium J.P. James. It would seem that
Colonel had never heard H.P.B. allude to any share which she may have had the
matter, as he would surely have noted down such a noteworthy incident in her
life. — C. Jinarajadasa
(Theosophist, December 1931, p.257-266)
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