The correspondence which forms the kernel of the present volume, has largely expanded, during the last twelve months; but to attempt the incorporation of fresh letters with the present collection would be to set an altogether new undertaking on foot. I must be content to add one final chapter, the motive of which will lie plainly on the surface, and to give my readers the assurance that, even though I might, if other engagements permitted, add largely to the present record, at almost every step, still, as it stands, it contains nothing which requires alteration, nothing which is misleading or inaccurately described in any particular.

But some remarks made by my reviewers claim attention. I have been much more amused than annoyed at the sarcasms directed against my "credulity" in connection with my plain narrative of fact, and at the bitter disgust exhibited by various organs of orthodoxy at the idea that there may really be something in Heaven and earth not dreamed of in their philosophy-something sufficiently real to be not merely talked about in poetry, but observed at given times and places, and described in straightforward prose. Evidently sincere," says one reviewer, “and so candid that hostility to the writer is disarmed by pity."

66

But besides deploring my own intellectual inferiority, which it is quite within the discretion of my critics to estimate as they please, they have in many cases endeavoured to weaken the value of my evidence by suggesting that I have been imposed upon by Madame Blavatsky. Now, first of all, some of the experiences I have had since this book was first published have been lifted clean out of reach of Madame Blavatsky; but to these I will refer more fully in my concluding chapter. Secondly, as Madame Blavatsky's friends in this country grew annoyed last autumn at the reiteration of insulting suspicions about her trustworthiness and motives of action, they took steps to establish her real identity and station in life, in a manner which should once for all convict of imbecility any person who should again

suggest that she might be an adventuress pursuing purposes of gain. That these measures were not taken unnecessarily may be made sufficiently clear without quoting any Indian newspapers, by reference to some of the reviews of this book, which appeared in London. The St. James's Gazette (June 22, 1881) refers to Madame Blavatsky as "a mysterious character, a Russian lady naturalized in the United States," and her "nationality and character sufficiently account in the opinion of many for the general interest she has taken in Mr. Sinnett's psychological development." The Athenæum says of her (August 27, 1881), "He," the present writer, "appears to have no more knowledge than we have of the degree of the rank, or the extent of the fortune, which she enjoyed in her native land; and until that is ascertained, the incredulous will persist in suggesting that for 'a Russian by birth, though naturalized in the United States,' without visible means of subsistence, the chance of living at free quarters in the houses of wellto-do Indian officials might have its attractions." Far worse than this even was the language employed by the Saturday Review. In an article attacking the Theosophical movement generally (September 3, 1881), that paper actually denounced Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the President of the Theosophical Society, as "a couple of unscrupulous adventurers," and expressed a doubt "whether Colonel Olcott's title was earned in the war of Secession or at the bar of a drinking saloon."

In order to vindicate Madame Blavatsky's character (first of all) from these gross expressions, I wrote to her uncle, General Fadeeff, Joint Secretary of State in the Home Department at St. Petersburg, enclosing an open letter from Madame Blavatsky to him, in which she asked him to reply to the fact that she really was-herself. After showing

both these letters to a gentleman on the Viceroy's staff— a neutral person as regards the whole subject, and quite unconcerned with occultism-I posted them with my own

hands, and in due time the answer came back, directed as I had requested, in the note which our neutral friend saw, to his care. General Fadeeff sent the following certificate :

"I certify by the present that Madame H. P. Blavatsky, now residing at Simla (British India), is from her father's side the daughter of Colonel Peter Halın, and grand-daughter of Lieutenant-General Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern-Hahn (a noble family of Mecklenburg, Germany, settled in Russia). And that she is from her mother's side the daughter of Helene Fadeeff, and grand-daughter of Privy Councillor Andrew Fadeeff and of the Princess Helene Dolgorouki; that she is the widow of the Councillor of State, Nicephore Blavatsky, late Vice-Governor of the Province of Erivan, Caucasus.

"(Signed) MAJOR-GENERAL ROSTISLAV FADEEFF, "of H. I. Majesty's Staff,

"Joint Secretary of State at the Ministry of the "Interior.

"St. Petersburg, 29, Little Morskaya,

"18th September, 1881."

I also received a little later a letter from Madame Fadeeff, sister of the General Fadeeff just mentioned, eagerly and amply confirming these statements, and enclosing certain portraits of Madame Blavatsky taken at various periods of her life, but obviously portraits of the lady we all know in India. Concerning these Madame Fadeeff wrote:

"To establish her identity I enclose in this letter two of her portraits, one taken twenty years ago in my presence, the other sent from America four or five years ago. Furthermore, in order that sceptics may not conceive suspicions as to my personal identity, I take the liberty of returning your letter, received through M. le Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, Governor-General of Odessa. I hope that this proof of authenticity is perfectly satisfactory. I believe, moreover, that you will have already received the certificate of the individuality of Madame Blavatsky that the Governor-General desired himself to send to Bombay."

The allusion here to Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff (now Viceroy of the Caucasus) is explained by the fact that I forwarded my letter for General Fadeeff to his care, knowing him to be an old friend of Madame Blavatsky's. He himself has since sent her letters which I have seen, expressing,

besides warm sympathy and personal friendship, no small measure of (well deserved) contempt for persons, who, personally knowing her, could misunderstand her true character. The originals of the true documents quoted above are in French, but I give an exact translation. Madame Fadeeff took the trouble to have her own signature to the letter to me authenticated by the Notary of the Bourse at Odessa, whose seal is attached.

I need not here prolong this explanation by inserting documents relating to Colonel Olcott, as these are referred to in a letter I am about to quote.

In reply to the unjust and groundless attack made by the Saturday Review, Mr. A. O. Hume, C.B., son of the late Joseph Hume, M.P., and late Secretary to the Government of India, wrote to that paper:

"As regards Colonel Olcott's title, the printed papers which I send by this same mail will prove to you that that gentleman is an officer of the American army, who rendered good service during the war (as will be seen from the letters of the Judge Advocate-General, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Assistant-Secretaries of War and of the Treasury), and who was sufficiently well known and esteemed in his own country to induce the President of the United States to furnish him with an autograph letter of introduction and recommendation to all Ministers and Consuls of the United States, on the occasion of his leaving America for the East, at the close of 1878.

'Surely this is scarcely the kind of men to whom the epithet 'unscrupulous adventurer' can be justly applied.

"I may add, from my own knowledge, that a purer-minded, more noble, or more self-devoted gentleman than Colonel Olcott does not exist. He may be right or wrong in his belief, but to the cause of that belief he has devoted his fortune, energies, and the remainder of his life; and while I can quite understand many treating him as a fanatic, I confess that I am surprised at a paper, of the high class to which the Saturday Review belongs, denouncing such a man as an 'unscrupulous adventurer.' "As regards Madame Blavatsky (in Russia still

'Son Excellence

Madame la Générale

HELENE P. BLAVATSKY,'.

though she dropped all titles on becoming a naturalized American

citizen). She is the widow of General N. V. Blavatsky, Governor during the Crimean War, and for many years, of Erivan in Armenia. She is the eldest daughter of the late Colonel Hahn, of the Russian Horse Artillery, and grand-daughter of Princess Dolgorouki of the elder branch which died with her. The present Princess Dolgorouki belongs to the younger branch. The Countess Ida v. Hahn-Hahn was Madame Blavatsky's father's first cousin. Her father's mother married, after her husband's death, Prince Vassiltchikoff. General Fadeeff, well known even to English readers, is her mother's youngest brother. She is well known to Prince Loris Melikoff, and all who were on the staff, or in society, when Prince Michael S. Woronzoff was Viceroy of the Caucasus. Prince Emile v. Sayn Wittgenstein, cousin of the late Empress of Russia, was an intimate friend of hers, and corresponded with her to the day of his death, as has done his brother Ferdinand, who lately commanded some Regiment (Cossacks of the Guard, I think) in Turkestan. Her aunt, Madame de Witte, who like the rest of her family corresponds regularly with her, and indeed her whole family, are well known to Prince Dondoukoff-Korsakoff, at present Governor-General of Odessa.

"I could add the names of scores of other Russian nobles who are well acquainted with her; for she is as well known and connected in Russia as Lady Hester Stanhope was in England; but I think I have said enough to convince any impartial person that she is scarcely the kind of woman likely to be an 'unscrupulous adventuress.'

"Ladies are not generally prone to taking fancies to outside ladies; there is very commonly a little suppressed sex-jealousy of those especially who are cleverer than themselves; but Madame Blavatsky has lived for months at a time in my house, and is certainly one of the cleverest women I ever met, and yet all the ladies of my house have learnt to love dearly this energetic, crotchety, impulsive, self-devoted old woman. Any one may set her down as a mystic or a visionary, but no one who knows her can doubt her all-consuming faith in the mission to which she has sacrificed her life.

"But, after all, can you rightly call people adventurers who not only make no money out of the cause they espouse, but, on the contrary, spend on it every farthing that they can spare from their private means? If not, then assuredly Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky are not adventurers, for to my certain knowledge they have spent on the Theosophical Society over £2,000 (two thousand pounds) more than its total receipts. The accounts have been regularly audited, printed, and published, so that any one may satisfy themselves on this head.

"But it will be asked what is this grand cause? It is the formation