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REMINISCENCES OF BLAVATSKY BY FRANCESCA ARUNDALE


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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