MADAME BLAVATSKY.
the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—In your issue of April 13th, you say, on page 599, " . . . Madame Blavatsky was a fat, mannish, whisky-drinking, smoking seer . . " Italics mine.
It is to' be assumed that a weekly paper of the standing of the Spectator would hardly make such an assertion as that italicized without checking the facts. In the interests of accuracy, upon which your readers rely, will you be good enough to give me the authority for such an assertion ? Having a fairly extensive acquaintance with the bicigraphical facts of Madame- Blavatsky's life, and never having seen such a reference authenticated, I should like it specifically, chapter and verse.—I am, Sir, &c., M. A. THOMAS. 93 Fitzjohn Avenue, London, N if .3. "
[We regret that our • reviewer, who has written for the Spectator for many years, should have caused Offence to our correspondent. His reply is as follows :
" I wrote that Madame Blavatsky was ' a fat, mannish, Whisky- drinking, cigarette-smoking seer of fifty-eight—but with lambent wit and a real knowledge of Eastern esoterics.' My purpose, as the context shows' was to draw a contrast between Mesdames Blavatsky and Besant. I cannot give chapter and verse for my statement that Madame Blavatsky drank whisky_ any more than can for my opinion that she had a real knOWledge of Eastern eso- terics, but I believe both to be true. Neither statement is in the book which I reviewed, Mr. West quotes the Proceedings of the Society of Psychical Research (Dec. 1885), eharacterizingMadame plavatsky as 'one of the most accomplished, ingenious and interesting impostors in history,' and he adds that she ate too much and took too little exercise, He does not say she drank too much. Nor did I. Whisky drinking is not a crime. But I have no desire to. quibble "over' the inearimg of my sentence, which was that Madame Blavatsky smoked and drank rather like a trInn—a thing which was more unusual then than it is now, If my statement is at variance with the facts, of course I shall apologize.—Yoga Revliwia."]
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