This article was published in Word magazine and the editor wrote:
The following article on the late Head of the Theosophical Society was
written by Mrs. Belle Olcott Mitchell many years ago [around 1885]. Mrs. Mitchell was the
only sister of Col. Henry Steel Olcott, and was at the time of her death, the
widow of a Presbyterian Minister. She had many opportunities to study Madame
Blavatsky, and her judgment is especially valuable as Mrs. Mitchell was not herself
a Theosophist. (Cid’s note: later she became a member.)
MADAM BLAVATSKY BY BELLE OLCOTT MITCHELL
For one who has faith in Occultism, in Psychic Power, in Magic, it seems
to me quite easy to believe in the wonderful powers of this wonderful woman;
but to trust to even what the eye and ear dictate to the brain is not always
easy for one who has been educated into an utter disbelief in the supernatural.
For nine months I occupied an apartment in the same house with Madam Blavatsky
—the veritable "lamasary" of which so much has been said— and by
daily contact and association am perhaps as well fitted as any one to express
some slight opinion as to the woman.
Woman is hardly a good term by which to call her, for she was most
unwomanly; in fact, she prided herself upon being so: swearing, smoking and
writing as a man would. The first time that I saw her was in an apartment on
Thirty-Fourth Street, and late in the morning. It was her habit to write, talk,
entertain until the early morning hours, and if one retires at three, it is not
easy to be fresh and bright at ten or eleven o'clock. So, she gave me a very
poor impression of what she was as to mind. Her appearance was not neat, a rent
in the skirt of her dress being caught together with a brooch; she was tall,
stout, very Russian as to face, with tawny, crinkly hair (indeed each hair
crinkled for itself), with a loose pajama sort of a dress not held in place by
any corset, she was a very uninviting looking woman.
The morning was not a good time to judge of her capabilities: her eyes
were heavy and unrested, her temper not of the best, and she was at variance
with every one. But in daily contact with her I found her graciously kind,
thoughtful, considerate, and supremely intellectual. When one finds it
impossible to give a reason for any given belief, wisdom suggests the golden
silence: and so my discretion comes in as to the why and wherefore belonging to
anything that she was pleased to let me see.
Of the many exhibitions of her powers that came to my notice during my
nine months of intimacy with her it is somewhat difficult to select the items
of most interest. One day she showed me a string of perfumed beads, made of
brown clay that was stamped with figures. Admiring them very much she asked:
-
"Dear I would you like to have some, also?"
My reply brought them to me: they were strung upon a sort of soft twine,
but as I could not wear them so, she afterward purchased a gold clasp for them:
attached to the beads was a piece of metal accompanying them. When she gave
them to me she charged me not to allow them to be fastened about any other neck
than my own, assuring me that they would melt. Days and weeks passed, and the
caution was forgotten, or, if not forgotten, unheeded. A child being sick they
were clasped around his throat to amuse him. That evening a noted medium being
present from St. Louis, to gratify me a seance was held. To my amazement an
Indian voice said:
- "Better
not put beads around papoose's neck, they'll melt away."
The medium did not know anything about the beads. Madam Blavatsky did not
know that the child was wearing them — but I did know when I examined them that
several had melted on one side.
Madam wore sometimes a peculiar handkerchief, not unlike crepe, that had satin stripes around the
edge. One day a visitor admired it, and upon expressing a desire to possess one
that was similar, she took it by the comer, and, as it were, peeled another
from its face. Before handing it to her guest she exacted a promise that it
should never be given to anyone. The handkerchief is still in existence, not
having been presented to anyone, nor having disappeared.
Tricks upon which prestidigitators pride themselves and count so much,
such as planting a seed in a pot of sandy earth and causing to grow therefrom a
plant —as, for instance, a rosebush in full bloom— was quite as easy to her as
to them. But as they cannot, she could place her hand on the casement of a
door, upon the back of one's shoulders, or on any given table or chair, and
draw from thence the sweetest music. Lest any one might think that she held an
instrument in her hand, she moved from place to place, the music following.
Her apartment was far from being a place of luxury, as would have been
possible. Two windows on the avenue and one on a cross street lighted the room,
but the lower half of each sash was of blue glass. The floor was covered by
cheap matting, but over it she had laid several fur rugs. Her place in the room
was behind an ordinary office desk, in a revolving arm chair; behind that no
one was allowed to step, but around the room were plenty of easy chairs for her
constant visitors.
These consisted of some who came from curiosity, professors, teachers,
lawyers, merchants, clergymen; but many of them who came for
knowledge-knowledge that she well knew how to impart if it pleased her. Palm
leaves, stuffed animals, mirrors, large and small, were fastened everywhere;
but there was not an iota for anything to awe or disturb the most unbelieving
of her guests.
From early morning until sleep closed her eyes her lips field a
cigarette, not as has been said, of mysteriously obtained tobacco, but such as
may be procured at any time; the grace with which her very beautiful hand could
roll these cigarettes showed that they were well used to the task.
Children were to her an annoyance, but she had a kind way of gratifying
them. So, when on a visit to Albany she learned for the first time that there
was a child in the family, she was disposed to give it pleasure. Her baggage
consisted of a small hand satchel containing only articles of toilet. Yet from
back of a folding door she produced a woolly lamb that was fourteen or fifteen
inches high, and which she drew forward by a string.
For another child she made a whistle from some keys. With unbelieving
eyes I saw her take them between her fingers, holding the ring that held them
together, and manipulating them, and at the end of a few minutes producing the
whistle. Counting the keys as I did before she handled them, I found that
several were missing. For the same child she made a duck and, the wood of which
it was formed was of walnut, the end was horn. Because it was peculiar in make
and sound a member of the family visited many shops in search of something
similar, but failed to find it.
She always said that it required a previous preparation of mind and body
to peer into the secrets of the adepts, and warned those who desired to
investigate them that it was far better to refrain from so doing. But a venturesome pupil, being fully
persuaded of his ability to endure anything teased her to make him an exception.
-
"Very
well," she said, "upon your own head let fall the shock, if shock
there be I Throw your handkerchief carelessly upon the table — now, take it up,
carefully."
He did so, and behold there was a small snake, coiled ready to spring.
Her laugh was as merry as that of a child when she related how the would-be
adept was so astonished that he fell backward to the floor, carrying the chair
with him.
One day she said she would show me some pretty things; and going to a
small chest of drawers that stood beneath one of the windows, she took from
them many pieces of superb jewelry: brooches, lockets, bracelets and rings,
that were ablaze with all kinds of precious stones, diamonds, rubies,
sapphires, etc. I held and examined them, but on asking to see them the next
day I found only empty drawers.
One other day I was sitting by her dinner table when the door bell rang,
and immediately there passed up the private hall a figure that seemed to glide
rather than walk. She turned to me and said:
-
"You have
desired to see one of the Brothers, and you are to be gratified. As you pass
the room on your left look in."
So I did. I saw a figure of a woman sitting beside a table. A straw bonnet fastened by a pink ribbon that
was tied under her chin, her shoulders wrapped in a plaid blanket shawl, were
all that I gathered in a hasty glance. For all my attention was claimed by a
pair of coal-black eyes that held in their depths such a weird, unearthly
expression that the eight years which have since passed have not had power to
efface, and that leaves with the memory no desire to see just such another
pair.
A family was about to move to a neighboring city, and to a house that
they refused to hire until the landlord assured them of its perfect dryness.
But she told me that if they were not very careful fatal illness would follow
the removal, as the ground under the house was very wet. Illness did come that
almost caused death; and the ground beneath the lower floor was so wet that a
man's cane at its entire length could not touch hard earth.
The intellectual attainments of Madam Blavatsky were beyond and above
any ordinary human being; for instance, when writing her "Isis Unveiled" she would quote and
record matter from books that were not to be had in New York (where she was
writing), and from others that she did not possess, which were found to contain
at page, chapter and verse just the words that she quoted, verbatim.
~ * ~
Not having seen her during the past eight years there has been ample
time to forget the impression made upon my mind at the time by her magical
powers, and to offer an opinion based on calm judgment, not then possible, of
the many strange things which I saw and heard. The unvarying impression remains
that although selfish she would perform the most unselfish, self-denying
action; that her rough voice could be toned down to a gentleness that was most
marvellous; that while to further the interests of her Society she would
sacrifice any other interests. If the mood pleased her, she could be as good
and kind as the womanly sex would wish for, and that, although unwomanly
herself she yet admired all womanly virtues.
Brought up from babyhood in camp where her father was a general, carried
upon the shoulders of his men, petted and indulged to the utmost, fighting in a
man's uniform in her girlhood's days, unwillingly elevated to the title of a
Countess, poor in her years of middle age, tossed here and there, homeless and
without the ties that make a woman's life what it ought to be, persecuted and
traduced in later years, it is small wonder that she is even endurable. But whatever any one may say, those who know
her most intimately, consider her to be a most interesting, intellectual,
brilliant woman.
(Word, January, 1905, p.182-187)
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