evere displeasure, we predicted that her
enthusiastic nature would carry her far on the road, which she thought
of true philosophy, but which we thought of gross superstition. Our
prediction has been realised; and, unless for some accident, or some
sudden turn in Mrs. Besant's mind or life, it will be realised still
further. In this, as in other matters (as the French say) it is the
first step which costs, because it involves all the following steps.
Mrs. Besant placed her feet upon the high road of credulity when she
succumbed to the Theosophical high priestess, whose life is a highly
interesting and instructive chapter in the history of imposture. Madame
Blavatsky had seen much of the world, and was up to most things. She
had a surprising power of bamboozling people of some intelligence and
culture. The broad-set eyes, and the great tiger-bar between and over
them, indicated the species to which she belonged. Mrs. Besant, with
her innocences and enthusiasms, was a baby in the hands of this
female Cagliostro. She actually gave the Blavatsky credit for what she
obviously did not possess. Her manners, for instance, were not such as
might be expected from one who had tasted of spiritual wisdom at its
secret sources; while her pretentious ignorance was enough to alarm
any student not under the glamor of her audacity. She made the most
grotesque mistakes in science, while pompously setting right in their
own province such colossal authorities as Darwin and Haeckel. She had
certainly read very widely (or got others to read very widely for her)
in "occult" literature; but wherever one's own knowledge enabled one to
test, she was a poor smatterer; and the same judgment is delivered upon
her by specialists in most of the fields she invaded. It was not her
learning or her intellectual power that captivated Mrs. Besant; it
was her strong personality, her masculine dominance, her crafty
self-possession. From the first minute of her enchantment, Mrs. Besant
lost all sense of logic in relation to Theosophy. For instance, it
was asserted, and the assertion was supported by positive,
detailed-evidence, that the Blavatsky had practised the grossest
imposture in India. And how did Mrs. Besant dispose of these charges?
She says she read them, and immediately joined the Theosophical
Society--as though that were any _answer_. It is like saying, "I don't
rebut the evidence against the prisoner in the dock, but I shall shake
hands with him."