Do I often laugh at "the helpless way in which you grope in the dark?" Most decidedly not. That would be as unkind and about as foolish for me to do as for you to laugh at a Hindu for his pidgin English, in a district where your Government will not teach people English. Whence such a thought? And whence that other to have my portrait? Never had but one taken, in my whole life; a poor ferrotype produced in the days of the "Gaudeamus" by a travelling female artist — (some relative, I suppose, of the Munich beer hall beauties that you have interviewed of late) — and from whose hands I had to rescue it. The ferrotype is there, but the image itself has vanished: the nose peeled off and one of the eyes gone. No other to offer. I dare not promise for I never break my word. Yet — I may try — some day to get you one.
Quotations from Tennyson? Really cannot say. Some stray lines picked up in the astral light or in somebody's brain and remembered. I never forget what I once see or read. A bad habit. So much so, that often and unconsciously to myself I string together sentences of stray words and phrases before my eyes, and which may have been used a hundred years ago or will be hundred years hence, in relation to quite a different subject. Laziness and real lack of time. The "Old Lady" called me a "brain pirate" and a plagiarist the other day for using a whole sentence of five lines which, she is firmly convinced, I must have pilfered from Dr. Wilder's brain, as three months later he reproduced it in an essay of his on prophetic intuition. Never had a look into the old philosopher's brain cells. Got it somewhere in a northern current — don't know. Write this for your information as something new for you, I suppose. Thus a child may be born bearing the greatest resemblance and features to another person, thousands of miles off, no connexion to the mother, never seen by her, but whose floating image was impressed upon her soul-memory, during sleep or even waking hours, and reproduced upon the sensitized plate of living flesh she carries in her. Yet, I believe, the lines quoted were written by Tennyson years ago, and they are published. I hope these disjointed reflections and explanations may be pardoned in one who remained for over nine days in his stirrups without dismounting. From Ghalaring-Tcho Lamasery (where your Occult World was discussed and commented upon — Heaven save the mark! will you think), I crossed to the Horpa Pa La territory, "the unexplored regions of Turki tribes" say your maps, ignorant of the fact that there are no tribes there at all — and thence — home. Yes; I am tired, and therefore will close.
Yours faithfully,
K. H.
In October I will be in Bhutan. I have a favour to ask of you: try and make friends with Ross Scott. I need him.
Letter No. 21 (ML-27) Rec. Autumn 1881
The Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society had been formed on August 21, and it is probable that this letter was received shortly thereafter.
Received Simla, Autumn, 1881.
I foresaw that which now happens. In my Bombay letter I advised you to be prudent as to what you allowed S.M. to learn of + and his own mediumship, suggesting that he should be told merely the substance of what I said. When, watching you at Allahabad I saw you making instead copious extracts for him from my letter, I again saw the danger but did not interfere for several reasons. One of them is, that I believe the time fully come when social and moral safety demands that someone of the Theos. Soc. should speak the truth though the Himalaya fall on him. The unveiling of the ugly truth has to be done with the greatest discretion and caution, though; and I see that instead of getting friends and supporters in the camp of the Philistines — whether on that or this side of the Oceans — many of you — yourself with the rest — breed but enemies by making too much of me and my personal opinions. On that side, the irritation is great and you will soon find flashes of it in Light and elsewhere; and you "shall lose S.M."65 The copious extracts have done their work for they were — much too copious. No powers whether human or superhuman can ever open the eyes of S.M. — it was useless to tear them open. On this side — it is still worse. The good people at Simla are not very metaphorically inclined, and allegory will no more stick to their epidermis than would water to the feathers of a goose. Besides, no one likes to be told that he "smells bad," and the joke extracted from a remark but too full of deep psychological meaning has produced incalculable harm in quarters where, otherwise, the S.E.T.S. might have recruited more than one convert.... I must return once more to the letter.
The strongest basis of complaint against me is the fact that my statement implies (a) a kind of challenge to S.M. to prove + a "Spirit" — (b) I am severely denounced by our friend for making out + a liar. Now, I mean to be explanatory but not apologetic. I most certainly meant both; only I meant it for you, who had asked me for the information, by no means for him. He has not proved his case, nor did I expect he would, even if he thought he could, as the claim rests entirely upon his own personal assertion due to his unwavering faith in his own impressions. It would be easy for me, on the other hand, to prove + no disembodied Spirit at all, had I not very good reasons for not doing so at present. I had worded my letter very carefully, so that, while letting you have a glimpse of the truth, I showed you most clearly that I had no right to divulge the "secret of a Brother." But, my very good friend, I had never told you in so many words who and what he was. I might, perhaps, have advised you to judge + by his alleged writings, for more fortunate in that than Job, our "enemies" all "write books." They are very fond of dictating "inspirational" gospels and so — get caught in the glue of their own rhetoric. And who of the most intellectual Spiritts, who have read the complete works fathered upon + would dare maintain that with the exception of a few extremely remarkable pages the rest is not below what S.M. could have himself written, and far better? Rest assured that no intelligent, clever and truthful medium needs "inspiration" from a disembodied "Spirit." Truth will stand without inspiration from Gods or Spirits, and better still — will stand in spite of them all; "angels" whispering generally but falsehoods and adding to the stock of superstition.