Francesca Arundale was a London Theosophist
and a friend of Blavatsky, and
when Blavatsky died she wrote the following article in tribute to her.
MADAME BLAVATSKY AND HER
WORK
It was in April, 1884, that I first
met Madame Blavatsky, and it was on the 26th of March, 1891, that I saw her for
the last time, shortly before her death.
I well remember her arrival from
Paris and her unexpected appearance at a meeting of the London Lodge of the
Theosophical Society, which was being held at Lincoln's Inn. The impression
made upon myself and others by her remarkable personality has never faded from
my memory.
At that first meeting I recognized
that I had met one whose influence on my life would be ineffaceable by time,
and that having touched the very root and core of the inner nature that
influence could never be set aside or ignored.
The few months of the summer of 1884
which she passed in our house in Elgin Crescent were marked by events of a
curious and exceptional character, all alike bearing witness to the fact that
the personality called Madame Blavatsky was different in most characteristics
from those around, and crowds of visitors of all classes testified to the
interest she evoked.
It was her custom while with us to
devote the earlier part of the day to writing; she usually began at seven
o'clock, but often earlier, and it was very rarely indeed that when I went into
her room at about eight o'clock in the morning I did not find her already at
her desk, at which she continued with a slight interval for lunch till about
three or four o'clock in the afternoon. Then it was that the reception time
began, and from early afternoon to late evening, one constant succession of
visitors arrived. The old lady sitting in her armchair in the small
drawing-room, which was barely large enough for the influx of guests, would be
the centre of an enquiring circle. Many, of course, drawn by the fame of her
great powers, merely came from curiosity. In those days the Psychical Research
Society had not issued its famous report, and some of its members were often
present, seeking the signs and wonders they so much desired to behold.
One afternoon a small party had
assembled in the back drawing-room and among them some prominent members of the
S.P.R. Madame Blavatsky was earnestly solicited to produce some phenomena. She laughingly
answered, as she so often did to similar requests:
-
"What
do you want with phenomena? They are but psychological tricks and of little
value to earnest students."
However, she at length consented to
try if she could do anything, and sitting among the others round the large
table, she joined in conversation, and talk flowed on for a short time in the
easy way it always did when she was surrounded with intellectual minds. In a
very little while a strikingly sweet and crystal-like sound known as the astral
hell made itself heard, and was repeated several times, to the great delight and
pleasure of those who had never heard it before. The gentlemen present
belonging to the S.P.R. professed themselves more than satisfied, remarking
more than once that there could be no doubt as to the genuineness of that
phenomenon.
I might multiply instance after instance of phenomena, but knowing
the value that Madame Blavatsky herself put upon these things, it would be but
a poor tribute to her memory to put that forward which is but the least part of
her work. But the Psychic Society Researchers and phenomena hunters, and those
who only came to see and wonder, were but one portion of the great crowd. Many
earnest minds engaged in scientific or philosophic study would come again and
again, attracted by the power of an intellect that showed its vast strength in
the way in which she dealt with the many subjects put before her.
Grave professors from Cambridge came
and spent an occasional afternoon in her company, and I can see before me now
the bulky form in the loose robe in the big armchair, with the tobacco basket
by her side, answering deep and learned questions on theories of cosmogony and
the laws governing matter, while twisting the little cigarettes which she constantly
smoked herself and gave to her guests.
To those friends who were in constant
and unrestrained intercourse with her, other sides of her character were
observable. She had an almost childish dependence upon others, alternating with
great impatience of control, and her utter disregard of ordinary
conventionality rendered life in a civilized community a burden to herself, and
a continual trial to her friends in the endeavor to keep her from outraging the
convenances of society.
I believe her utter abhorrence of society shams often
caused her to emphasize and delight in a certain bluntness of speech and
rudeness of action that was sometimes perplexing even to her best friends. With
all this she was easily moved by distress or pain in others, and was very kind
to any children she came across.
I remember one incident showing this aspect of
her many-sided nature: she was at the Zoological Gardens in a bath-chair, when
the little child of a friend fell just before her, against the wheel; in her
eagerness to assist the child she almost threw herself out of the chair,
difficult as she always found it to move, and was not satisfied till assured
there, was not much harm done. Little touches like this shew plainly that in
spite of her roughness of speech and manner, and the disregard she often had
for the feelings of others, she had yet much sympathy towards the weak and
suffering.
When she first came to us she
brought with her her Indian servant (Babula), and it was an essential feature
of the afternoon to see him in his native dress bring in the Russian Samovar,
and hand round the cups of tea to those present; altogether the 77, Elgin
Crescent of those days differed widely from what it ever was before or ever
will be again.
The whole party had received an
invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Gebhard, of Elberfield, to spend the month of
August at their house; accordingly, on the 16th of that month Madame Blavatsky,
accompanied by Mr. M. Chatterji and several Theosophists, ourselves among the
number, went to Germany.
I remember well most of the incidents of that journey,
the kind care of our host Mr. Gebhard, who took every precaution to render it as
easy as possible to Madame Blavatsky, the pleasant and lively conversation
among us all in the train, the notice we attracted at some of the stations in
Germany, where we stopped and where probably no such type as Mr. Chatterji had
ever been seen before, and many other details which, although interesting to
those who were present, are of too personal a nature to be in place in this
slight notice.
It was while staying with these kind friends that the explosion
of the Coulomb affair took place. The particulars of all that occurred at that
time are well known, and it is quite unnecessary for me to touch on them, the
more so as we had left Madame at Elberfeld and had returned to London before we
heard of it.
It was in the end of September that
Madame Blavatsky again came to us for a short time before going to Mr. and Mrs.
Oakley, previous to their all leaving for India. She was very depressed and
unwell, almost worn out with the trouble that she had gone through. In a letter
that she wrote me at that time, just before leaving Elberfeld, she says:
-
"I
have resigned my corresponding secretary ship in the Society; I have
disconnected myself with it publicly; for I think that so long as I am in and
at the head of the Society I will be the target shot at and that the Society
will be affected by it " — and she goes on to say, "My heart —if I
have any left— is broken by this step. But I had to sacrifice myself to the
good of the Society. The Cause before persons and personalities."
This devotion to the Cause was the
keynote of her life, from which she never departed. She failed many times in
the discrimination of what was or the good of the cause, as she did in this
instance, when she contemplated disconnecting herself from her official
position, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that, whether rightly or
wrongly carried out, her motive for action was always the same devotion to the
Cause and her Teachers.
She was fortunately prevented from
carrying out her intention, over-ruled by the wiser judgment of others who,
being a little more distant from the fray, could view the situation more
calmly.
There are many occasions that I
remember during her stay with us of conversations or rather monologues on her
side of a most interesting character. It was my custom, one which she always
encouraged, to go in to her the last thing at night and I would often remain
until she was asleep. At these times she would occasionally relate short
stories, sometimes a kind of allegory and at other times what seemed to be
incidents in a past life, either of herself or some other person, but so
poetically and yet graphically related, that whether it was fact or fancy
needed intuition to decide. Question she would not brook: if I ever attempted
to question she would be silent, or say:
-
"I
have said it; you can make what you like of it."
In November of that same year, many
of us accompanied her to Liverpool, when she left for India with Mr. and Mrs.
Oakley, and from that time, with the exception of a week in Wurzburg and an
occasional visit in London, my personal intercourse with Madame Blavatsky was
over. Difficulties, trials and events of a more or less painful nature were constantly
occurring during her stay with us, and yet I should be sorry not to have had
this intimate association with one who, whatever her faults may have been, has
certainly accomplished one of the greatest works of her time.
With respect to her work there is
one aspect of it which I should wish to bring before the notice of all, whether
Theosophists or not — a work which I think has hardly been sufficiently
estimated and which nevertheless is of the utmost importance, whether viewed
from the physical or spiritual standpoint.
In our relations with the East we
have hitherto only acted from the principle of give and take in self-interest.
No one will deny the advantages derived on both sides from the presence of the
English in India, wealth and prestige on the one, education and material
development on the other. But a line of separation has been drawn between the
two races, a line which has but been accentuated by the missionary in his vain
endeavor to bring over the dark sons of the soil to the religion of the
dominant race.
The endeavor has signally failed, and yet it has perhaps more
than anything .else divided the East from the West. The Orientalist in his
study of Eastern language, literature, and religion, has at different times
attempted to pass the barrier, but his own pride of race and arrogance of
knowledge have been a fatal obstacle in the way. The idea that it is only
through Western interpretation that Eastern philosophy can be unraveled and
that whatever that interpretation is unable to deal with is but the vain
nonsense and babbling of children, is the rock against which most students of
Oriental philosophy have fallen.
It has been the glorious work of
Madame Blavatsky to entirely take a fresh departure. Ex Oriente Lux is henceforward the motto, and the light is to be
found through Eastern sources, interpreted through Eastern teachers. The future
of India is the future of England politically, materially, and spiritually; and
it is the drawing together of the East and the West in the bonds of spiritual
philosophy, which I consider one of the most salient features for good in the
work of the Theosophical Society.
The marked advance in the knowledge we are
gaining day by day of Indian philosophic history must be evident to all. A few
years ago and there were scarcely any translations of Sanskrit philosophical
works, and the knowledge of Sanskrit itself was limited to a few students here
and there. The whole tendency of the teaching of Madame Blavatsky has been to
awaken India to a knowledge of its past spiritual life, and to bring that life
to be better understood by the Western World.
The evidences that mark the work
accomplished in this direction are to be found in the various translations
constantly being brought out of Sanskrit works, and the efforts of Europeans,
both in and out of the Society, to seek that wisdom which has been so long
forgotten in India although never completely lost.
The close union of the East
and the West, in the unfoldment on the one side, and on the other the
acceptance of this spiritual wisdom, will go far to minimize the painful
effects of that struggle which must inevitably take place as the Eastern races
rise to a sense of their own power in the pursuit of material advantage.
Much more might be said on this
subject, but this is not the place; it is sufficient here to acknowledge
gratefully that in this aspect, as well as others, Madame Blavatsky has been
the leader in a work which we who claim to have been her pupils would do well
to endeavor to carry forward.
(This
article was first published in Lucifer
magazine, July 1891, p.376-380; and later in the book HPB: in memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1891, p.69-73)
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