Twelfth Night, 1889
The holly wreath has been taken down from the door; the Christmas cards tied up in ribbon and tucked away in drawers. At home in the Borders, in the long dark days that lie ahead, I would have much to occupy my time: grain sacks to mend, dung to spread on the cold fields, straw to bunch up to make shelters for the lambing. Here, though the Countess finds small tasks for me, I have too much leisure for thinking of the past, and dwelling on the uncertainties that lie ahead.
The year has not begun well for Madame Blavatsky. The Theosophists are in a state of disarray, with HPB in London, and Colonel Olcott in America, battling each other for control. HPB has expelled from the Society both the president of the Blavatsky Lodge and one of the lady members, Miss Mabel Collins, on the grounds that they were flirting For good measure, she has expelled an American lady for gossiping about it. Now Miss Collins is suing HPB for libel. HPB seems to quite enjoy banishing people —M r. Willie Yeats says she is like a cat let loose in a cage of canaries.
All the same, her health is continuing to fail. She works as hard as ever, sitting at a little table in her study, scribbling occult symbols in chalk on the green baize cover; but she tells us she feels like a poor sick donkey dragging a cart of rocks uphill. “Not only am I betrayed by this rotten, worn-out body,” she announced the other morning, “but by the cruel slander of my friends.”
Much as The Secret Doctrine has been praised in Theosophist circles, the critics have not been kind. The Keightleys, who have been keeping watch for reviews, are becoming quite discouraged. The New York Times has called the book unreadable and incomprehensible, and Science magazine has called it a great contribution to comic literature. Distinguished orientalists have attacked her scholarship, and the editor of the Religio-Philosophical Review, from whom HPB expected better, talks about her “extravagant absurdities”.
Worse yet, it seems that the Himalayan masters have abandoned her. The tinkling of astral bells, and the rapping on tables that she calls the psychic telegraph, have fallen silent. Lamp flames no longer flare up of their own accord after they have been put out. A wind cold as a gust from the Himalayan peaks no longer blows through HPB’s overheated rooms, nor does the inexplicable odour of incense. The broken cuckoo clock in her study no longer greets visitors with peculiar sighs and groans, and no written messages from the Mahatma appear on her cluttered desk.
“The Masters are angry with me,” HPB tells us sadly. “I must have made some error that offended them.”
Our most frequent visitor is Dr. Mennell, looking sombre as he increases her strychnia prescriptions.
And now, at this worst possible time, Dr. Oliver Lodge is coming to Lansdowne Road to investigate HPB’s ability to perform miracles. Dr. Lodge, who like Tom is a member of the Psychical Research Society, is interested in all manner of psychic occurrences. He is also a distinguished physicist, an expert in the study of electrical currents. It is a pity he did not choose to visit when Madame Blavatsky was in better health, for a good report could do much to restore her reputation. What a rebuke to her enemies, if a respected Doctor of Science can be persuaded of her powers! But suppose he, like so many others, decides that she is a fraud?
Countess Constance seems more than usually tired and distracted. “We must do whatever we can to help our dear Madame Helena through this trying time,” she told me with an anxious smile; and I understood well enough her unspoken message.