BLAVATSKY DESCRIBED BY BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY

MADAME BLAVATSKY

A talk with her familiar friend and private secretary, Mr. Bertram Keightley, did not disappoint the expectant interviewer who sought him out during his recent visit to this city. Of himself he said:

"I have been interested in Theosophy since 1884, when I first met Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott. At that time I became quite well acquainted with them, for I spent some time with Madame in Germany, and afterwards with Col. Olcott in England.

That visit in Germany with a party of friends was afterwards written up in story form by Mr. A. P. Sinnett, under the name of Karma, Mr. Sinnett was one of the guests. In the Baron, of course, you will recognise Madame Blavatsky. . .

I had been prepared to accept Theosophy by a previous study of mysticism, to which I was led by an experimental study of mesmerism. I was working with disconnected clues until I got hold of Theosophy, and then i realised at once that I had found the whole of which I had before received only parts. My nephew, Archibald Keightley, who is nearly my own age, and who has like me devoted himself to the cause of Theosophy, became interested shortly afterwards. 

lt was in 1887 that, at my request, Madame Blavatsky went to England to live, accompanied by the Countess Wachtmeister, the widow of a former ambassador to the English Court.

Since that time we have been members of one household, and the Countess has taken charge of the house. Our family is a somewhat numerous one, including, besides those already mentioned and Archibald Keightley, several other active workers in the cause. 

Madame Blavatsky occupies rooms on the ground floor, the large drawing-room serving for her working-room, out of which her sleeping apartment opens. Folding doors connect the drawing-room with our dining-room, where we all dine together, and where she generally joins us. During the day she sits at a desk in the bay window, working generally from 7.30 in the morning to 7 in the evening, 

She works constantly, not once in three months going out of those three rooms. She sits in a large armchair with a long desk on one side and a table on the other, making a kind of box around her. 

Thursday evening when the lodge meets she turns her chair about and sits facing the company. Everybody asks questions, which she answers with great patience whenever she sees an earnest desire to learn.

Often persons who are not Theosophists go to her for information, and they are always received with extreme kindness, when they show the same earnestness. She will then never say a word that will wound their feelings or their belief, whatever it may be, but one of her marked traits is a positive detestation of shams. She simply won't stand that sort of thing, and if people go to her flippantly or with cant she is pretty sure to cut them all to pieces, and, metaphorically speaking, scatter them over the room. 

In personal appearance Madame Blavatskyis of medium height, but so stout that she appears shorter than she really is. She has rich dark-brown hair that lies in waves all over her head. Her eyes are bright gray and most peculiar, seeming to look right through a person, and they do too (added Mr. Keightley with a smile).

Her complexion is a clear olive. She has beautiful hands, delicate and so flexible that they bend backwards with ease, her finger tips all curl backwards in the prettiest way imaginable. The main characteristic of her face I would say, is its immense force, its intellectuality. She is truly magnificent in this, and her energy is wholly phenomenal.

I have seen her after a day's work so tired that she looked positively ill and quite unfit for any further exertion, but if need arose, if fresh work was to be done, or some heosophical question came up for discussion, she seemed to renew her strength with the desire, and would plunge into whatever offered with a resistless energy as if she had never known weariness.

Usually in the evening she sits at a small centre table playing 'patience' or some other game of cards, while talking all the time about Theosophy, symbolisms, religions, and other metaphysical questions. 

The solitary game she plays serves simply as a slight diversion for a mind continually occupied with profound thoughts."

(This article was published in the Irish newspaper "Sunday Tribune" on May 18, 1890. And later was reprinted in “Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine” by Countess Wachtmeister and others, appendix II-13, p.156-158)