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Theosophy House
Is This Theosophy?
by
Ernest Egerton Wood
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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BOOK I
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CHAPTER I
JUVENILITY
AMONG the
warmest and clearest of my early recollections a dirty old field
stands out
pre-eminent – if I may describe as a field a patch of ground,
abandoned for
the time being by a discouraged suburban builder, between the
backyard
walls of two rows of houses facing two parallel streets. Very little
grass there
was on this field, but it was pitted all over with delightful holes
full of
sticky reddish-grey clay, and right across its centre it was diversified
by two
parallel lines of kerbstones, marking the place where in some remote
future – too
far off to disturb a child’s enjoyment – another street would run,
flanked by
two more rows of houses, which would eventually obliterate this
paradise and
subject it to utility instead of joy.
Standing out
more clearly than my brother and the few shadowy boy friends who
played in
those delightful holes of clay – I can recollect no girls, or else I
was
unconscious of any difference between girls and boys – were several strange
creatures
from other spheres.
There was a
fox-terrier dog, dressed in white with black patches, which
attracted my
gaze again and again – something outstanding and interesting, as
not of my
world, but more the material of which fairy tales were made. There was
a very old
woman who hung round about with pieces of grey-black cloth. Even her
face and
hands were of almost the same colour. She was always bending. I cannot
recollect
that she ever straightened herself up. And she was always poking about
among the old
cans and other rubbish that obscured the earth in those parts. The
little boy
watched her with untiring and almost breathless [11] fascination, as
she gathered
together her peck of dirt, the which presumably to eat before she
died.
Other foreign
beings – somewhat midway in shadowiness between these two
outstanding figures
and the other playfellows – used to emerge at eventide from
sundry back
doors, and presently, passing the time of evening to one another,
these would
urge their offspring through backyard gates to the inevitabilities
that lay
beyond.
My mother is
not to be counted among the foreign or shadowy beings. Far from it.
She was a
very substantial young woman, the daughter of a
tenant-farmer,
aged about nineteen when I was born. Even at the early age of
five, of
which I am now writing, I remember regarding her as a beauty, not
perhaps that
I used that word or idea to myself, but I know that I particularly
liked the
line of her cheek and her dark colouring. Although the aesthetics of
touch –
especially with reference to clay, sand, pebbles and water, and I
remember,
too, a very keen appreciation of velvet and an equal abhorrence of
leather –
were much more in my department than those of sight, I was not without
eyes for a
handsome curve, of which my mother presented many, composed, as I
again knew by
tactual experience, of good firm muscle.
In the early
mornings I used to go from my bedroom – where I slept with my elder
brother – to
hers, and watch her dress. She never laced or unlaced her stays,
but simply
put them on or off, and yet – as I learnt later, when keeping my ears
open in the
course of shopping expeditions – they measured only twenty-three
inches at the
waist, which was not to be considered much under the
circumstances,
even in those days of eighteen– and nineteen-inch figures, and
indeed looked
small beside her muscular shoulders and neck, especially when
covered
closely with cloth and presented in photographic form in the family
album. There
were many mysteries of dress in those latter years of the
eighteen-eighties.
I could never understand why she tied a big pad on the back
of her (they
were days of the bustle).
My mother’s
muscularity I remember well also on bath nights. A zinc tub would be
brought into
the kitchen – a cosy place with a roaring fire, for my father and
mother,
however poor at the time of which I am writing, were never mean with
reference to
their children’s needs and comforts – dumped down on the oilcloth
before the
fire and filled [12] with hot water. My brother and I were then
invited, and
if necessary commanded, to enter the water, where we sat side by
side immersed
to the neck, while our heads and laces, and afterwards the rest of
our bodies,
standing, were subjected to a merciless application of soap and
elbow-grease,
with regard to which also there was no parsimony, though I would
have welcomed
it in that sphere.
The water was
painfully hot to me, though not to my mother’s hands, and not
apparently to
my brother’s skin; but she never understood my complaints and
protests in
this particular, but always thought me fanciful or wayward, and
supplemented
her commands when necessary with physical force. However, what
would you?
When a muscular young female of our species has embarked upon a
career of
mass production at the age of about eighteen, one cannot expect too
much
discrimination of particulars, but rather what the poet has described as
the method of
Nature – so careless of the single life, so careful of the type!
Still, I must
add that economics had their say then, as today, and the mass
production
stopped with me for more than five years, when came my younger
brother,
whereby presently will hang a tale.
I had my
mother very much to myself for several years, as my elder brother was
not much in
evidence. Somehow he did not make a very strong mark on me during
this period,
although we played together constantly. I used to follow my mother
about the
house and watch every little thing that she was doing, and must have
been a great
trouble, always getting in her way, watching and listening to
everything,
though not speaking very much. In some aspects I was a
disappointment
to her: she had very much wanted her second child to be a girl.
In fact, she
kept me dressed as a little girl as long as she could; the family
album shows
me in that form at the age of about three or four. There is a
picture in a
velvet dress. I wonder if it was then I hat I acquired my love for
the touch of
velvet and other soft textiles, and consequent dislike for hard or
homespun
cloths.
Vivid domestic
pictures of my mother remain in my mind: (I) at her treadle
sewing-machine
– she used to make all our clothes, as well as her own, which she
fitted upon a
revolting headless and legless dummy, whose presence quite spoilt
the pleasure
of our empty back bedroom as a playroom; (2) in [13] the kitchen,
with her
sleeves turned up, rolling pastry with anuncomm only large rolling-pin
– she was,
and still is, an excellent cook; and (3) in the cellar, at the
copper, which
had a fire underneath, and was filled with boiling water and
clothes,
where she wielded a three-legged dolly with immense speed and vigour,
while the
floor swam in water, and an atmosphere of tropical heat and moisture
intrigued my
skin and my sense of smell.
During those
years I thus acquired much feminine lore, though no art or skill. I
was just a
looker-on. If it had been
commercial
town, they would have called me a rubber-neck! But our houses and
streets were
miniature, and not overstrong at that. I recollect that a few years
later, when I
came to a more athletic age, and had rigged up an old broomstick
or something
as a horizontal bar, fastened to one of the beams of the roof, the
man who had
built the house called upon my father and told him that it must be
taken down or
else I should bring the whole roof upon their heads.
This close
association, and my mother’s thoughts towards me for several years,
must have
influenced my psychology very greatly, for still I do not distinguish
very clearly
between the sexes, except when I specially think of it, and I am
more at home
with women than with men, not because they are women, but because
of their
ways, their gentleness, their delicacy, their freedom from earthiness,
which I tend not
to admire from a distance so much as to absorb for my own. As a
consequence,
I am afraid that I am much more of a friend than of a husband to my
wife.
Recently a travelling companion asked me: “Done any shooting lately – ah?”
Taken aback,
I could only stammeringly reply: “Er – not since the war.”
With all
that, though short of stature, I was not an effeminate boy. Sometimes
on the rather
rare occasions on which a neighbour might have ventured into our
very self-centred
home, there would be an exhibition of the heavy muscular
development
of my shoulders and legs, of which my mother was proud, though
unreasoningly,
as they were quite out of proportion, and in competition with the
bones my calf
muscles had got the best of it and caused my legs to become
slightly
bowed. Generally the display of two crowns (whorls in the hair) would
conclude this
entertainment. [14]
My brother
was much more effeminate in appearance and build than I. He was tall,
thin, fair-haired
(like his father) and languid; I was just the opposite; short,
dark-haired
(like my mother), muscular and energetic. Later, in my schooldays, I
remember I
was occasionally censured for being too rough at football – though I
know now that
all that was a semi-conscious revolt against my own feminine
complexes.
Again, at the age of about eighteen, I sported a long, dark beard,
which used to
make people ask which was the father and which the son when I took
walks with my
father in the village, as we called our suburb. And later still,
when the
Great War came, the doctors put me into the A class without hesitation,
notwithstanding
my meagre five feet six inches of height. But I digress.
§2
My father
used to come home from his business in the city every evening about
warehouses in
the city, and in conjunction with that occupation he contrived to
give my
brother and me an almost Montessori education, by the constant supply of
otherwise
useless samples that he used to bring home. Every evening, when we
heard his key
in the lock, we would rush into the lobby to greet him like a pair
of young
puppy dogs, and almost his first act would be to draw from his pocket
some small sample-books
of coloured tissue or printing paper, or two or three
sample
playing cards, or something of the kind. After that he would take off his
coat, go
upstairs two or three at a time – he had been an apprentice in a
sailing ship
– take off his collar and tie, turn down the neck-band of his
shirt, remove
his cuffs and roll up his shirt sleeves, and subject himself to
such a
washing of neck and ears and face and arms as I never ceased to marvel
at, in view
of the fact that it was not compulsory in his case. Then he would
dress himself
carefully again and come down to tea, which was our chief meal of
the day.
A good meal
it was, too, for, as I before remarked, my mother was an excellent
cook, with an
unerring instinct for the proper moment to take things off the
fire or out
of the oven. She made also our supplies of jams and pickles, while I
used to stand
by with discs of paper and a saucer of [15] flour paste, putting
on the “lids”
of the jars, as she filled them with the steaming jam – there were
no screw
stoppers then. But I remember that her one solitary attempt to make the
household
bread was a failure; it came out as hard as bricks and was eventually
used instead
of coal.
In the
to town with
him, and eat them somewhere privately during the lunch hour, or
else go to
one of the cheap little vegetarian restaurants which abounded then –
there were
twenty-two of them in our city – and spend a few pence on a bit of
something to
eat. My mother, at home, would be equally frugal in the middle of
the day; at
that meal we could not have jam and butter on our bread both at the
same time,
but only one or the other. I recollect that it was then that my
scientific
proclivities began to manifest themselves, in the discovery that I
got more
taste out of my bread and butter or my bread and jam by eating it
upside down
than right side up, for thus the tasty portion rather than the mere
pabulum would
most fully and immediately strike the tongue; though I cannot say
that this
discovery of mine was highly approved in the family from the aesthetic
point of
view. Another bit of science was my formula for learning right and left
– “If I stand
beside the oven and look through the window my right arm is on the
oven side.”
For a long time I had to picture this scene when I wanted to know
which side
was right or left. I remember also systematically finding out that it
took ten
minutes to count a thousand.
In the early
mornings my father used to get up and make the kitchen fire, clean
the boots,
and make his own breakfast and a cup of tea for my mother, which he
took up to
her bed, for he firmly disapproved of her getting up until he was off
to his
business. Often he had a sausage for breakfast, and when we came down my
brother and I
used to find the two ends, each about an inch long, standing up
neatly on a
plate, titbits greatly relished by us, not only for their taste, but
also on
account of their interesting appearance and shape. My father used
playfully to
call these “sassengers,” until one day he went into a provision
dealer’s shop
and asked for “a pound of sassengers,” thereby attracting in his
direction
more eyes than he was accustomed to meet at one time. Notwithstanding
the charm of
these titbits, tea remained the chief gustatory event of the day
for all of
us, [16] though it was probably marred to some extent for my father
by my
insistence upon sitting so close up against him at table that he could
hardly use
his arm.
My father and
mother had no friends. They never went out to tea or evening
functions,
and no one came to see them. Occasional advances of friendliness by
neighbours
they quietly but firmly discouraged. Their time was entirely devoted
to their
children and to reading. Tea being over at about half-past seven, my
mother would
clear the table and then sit down to read by the fire, while my
father would
play with us and teach us. It was in this way that we learnt to
read and to
perform the operations of simple arithmetic, long before going to
school.
Somehow our father made this learning into a kind of play, so that we
were never
conscious of any effort, or indeed that we were learning anything.
These
occasions were enlivened, however, by a certain amount of undesirable
competition,
especially in mental arithmetic, in which my brother used to become
annoyed
because I was quicker in answering, and seldom gave him a chance to
reply.
Those evening
studies were mingled with games – among which I remember
particularly
wall quoits, tiddleywinks and the flicking of marbles through holes
in a board,
or at rows of toy soldiers. I was always good at marbles, but my
brother would
not touch them at all, declaring – though not in exactly these
words – that
they were too plebeian for his lofty taste. Our father never
brought in
playing cards – except snap cards, with ugly faces and mottoes on
them, such as
“Away with Melancholy,” of which I could never see the sense. Nor
did he bring
in any of those games which depend upon the throwing of dice.
I suppose
that no children could ever have had a more companionable or
entertaining
young father. When we were tired of games or of reading he would
tell us
thrilling stories of his schooldays, which were very amusing when not
painful, and
of his adventures at sea in sailing ships, and in various distant
lands,
especially
the long walk
that he undertook across country from
trying
experience of a sailing ship held up for six weeks off the south of
Horn, heeling
over on its side on account of the shifting of a cargo of guano,
while all
hands dug the unsavoury substance back to its proper position, [17]
hard put to
it to prevent the handles of the spades from freezing to their
fingers and
taking away the skin. He would talk of quarrels and fights at sea,
bordering on
mutiny, in which his sympathies were always with the men in their
complaints of
rough treatment and of live stock and decay in their food. He
would talk of
the desolate nitrate tracts behind
country
around
myself in
years to come.
My brother
and I acquired many fragments of economic and scientific knowledge
from these
histories. Once our father had decided, after leaving a sheep farm,
to stay in
he had come
to the last of his money. He was wandering on the Circular Quay
(which, by
the way, is square) wondering what to do, when – the last straw – the
sole came off
one of his shoes. He was looking at this with stunned helplessness
when he heard
a voice calling his name. Looking up he saw the face of a ship’s
sailmaker
whom he had known protruding over the gunwale of the famous ship
gave him a
job as rigger.
Among the
scientific bits, we learned that in a storm at sea a man on deck would
go and shut
himself in a cabin in order to hear more clearly the voice of a man
up aloft.
§3
Sundays were
dreadfully dull, especially the mornings, as, although we were
never
troubled with religion in any form, we were not allowed any but very quiet
games. Sunday
afternoon walks brightened things up a bit, and often we used to
go to a dell
called Daisy Nook and pick flowers. Although we lived in a street
composed of
rows of houses, the front doors of which opened straight on to the
pavement, the
neighbourhood was not heavily built up, and there were some nice
walks.
Opposite our house was a neat little municipal park, to which our mother
used to take
us in the afternoons, while our father was in town. There we used
to play ball
on the grass or sit while she read to us from picture and story
books.
Nursery stories were followed by Grimms and Andersen. Grimms I liked,
with their
caverns and magic, but I could not bear Andersen’s habit of making
[18] leather
and broomsticks talk. And I wanted to know, if a princess was shut
up in a
tower, what arrangements were made for her sanitary convenience. Later
The Arabian
Nights’ Entertainments proved a glorified Grimms. Saturday
afternoons
were devoted to shopping. I remember standing outside a greengrocer’s
and looking
at tomatoes. They were something new. It was remarked that they were
“an acquired
taste.”
Twice, I
think, my brother and I went to Sunday-school, upon the solicitation of
a young lady
who called at our house and volunteered to take us. But our
experiments
in religion came to an abrupt end. Somebody had been talking about
Hell, to
which my father seriously objected. He was a keen admirer of Mr.
Charles
Bradlaugh and in a lesser degree of Mrs. Annie Besant; he took me once,
at the age of
about four, to one of Mr. Bradlaugh’s lectures, but I do not think
I profited
much by the occasion, as to which I can only remember a big broad
back blocking
my view.
Still, like
many other children, I was not without my own private hells. One of
these was
called “the bury hole.” Who put this into my mind I do not know, but I
had a good
deal of vague fear in connection with it. I thought that little boys
called
naughty – not really naughty, of course, for there was no such thing! I
was quite
destitute of what the clergy call the sense of sin – were driven away
in a big
black hearse, drawn by two black horses hung round with black tassels,
to a barren
land, where they were then buried up to the neck with their heads
sticking out,
or were put into a deep hole which was then filled entirely with
earth, and
thus left to their future. I had no idea of death as a termination of
consciousness.
Night I
dreaded. My especial trouble for a long time was a dreadful man who had
secreted
himself under the bed and was always about to plunge a sword right
through the
mattress into some part of my defenceless anatomy; I always had a
dread of this
sword, and used to picture quite in detail the events of its
playing about
in my abdominal regions. And what a trouble my father had to
persuade me
to go to the barber’s shop for the first time! Our mother had always
cut our hair
before that. Though he remained beside me the whole time, I
expected
every moment that the barber would cut my throat with one of the razors
of [19] which
he had a handsome display, or else would jab the points of his
scissors into
my eyes.
At night the
gas jet used to be left on low in our bedroom. Nevertheless, as I
looked at the
patch of light on the wall I used to see there malignant grimacing
faces. There
was always a great battle of wills with these. By force of will I
used to
convert them piecemeal into portraits of my father, whom I regarded
practically
as God; but always the portrait would escape control and would
change again
into some new horror, and so the contest would go on until I fell
asleep from
sheer exhaustion. I do not think there were any pleasant imaginings
to compensate
for these. Only sometimes I used to put my head under the
bedclothes
and deliberately imagine that I was passing along some underground
corridors
which were literally lined on either side with thousands upon
thousands of
toys, but only once did I succeed in making it seem at all real to
myself.
I kept all my
fears entirely to myself, and endured them privately until they
gradually
faded away, to be replaced by another implanted by my mother. She had
a fear of her
own, much more real than any of mine, and she did not keep it to
herself. It
was that her husband might fall ill. He had a delicate appearance,
and in some
ways was, perhaps, not very strong, especially being a restless
sleeper and
sometimes subject to biliousness. She considered that after a hard
day in town
the attention of two boys in the evening might wisely be subjected
to a little
moderation, which she administered by telling us to be very gentle
with our
father, lest he fall ill and lose his employment and we find ourselves
in the
workhouse, pictured as a sort of prison – as indeed it was in those days
– or
wandering the streets as dreadful, loathsome beggars – objects of which we
had plenty of
ocular evidence. I then learnt that food, clothing and shelter did
not drop as
manna from heaven, but that certain means had to be taken to obtain
them, and at
best it was a precarious business indeed. This thought preoccupied
me for many
years. This new sword was all the worse because it not only hovered
over myself,
but harried me with regard to all sorts of people, some of them
quite
imaginary.
My mother was
not altogether to be blamed for this. She had felt poverty. When
my elder
brother was born she and her husband had lived in one room in a
ramshackle
house in [20] Liverpool, and a moderate gale had sufficed to blow the
window in,
frame and all, while she lay in bed – a situation distressing enough
to two young
love-birds who, though they had roughed it a bit before marriage,
had known
gentler days, for my father had been to a school where the young
gentlemen
wore toppers, and my mother’s family was not without dignity of name.
These two
young people had quarrelled violently with their respective fathers,
on the
subject in each case of a second marriage of the latter, as those were
times when
fathers were fathers (somewhat as in some remote parts of the world,
men are still
men, if our modern novelists are to be believed). It was also true
that some
boys and girls were boys and girls – at least my parents were, though
they also
proved themselves to be men and women, for they left their respective
homes,
practically penniless, and subsequently met and loved and married on the
munificent
income of fifteen shillings a week. However, my father was well
educated,
trustworthy, intelligent and painstaking, and so he made his way
steadily up
the ladder of commercial life, ill adapted to it though his previous
life had
been.
§4
At the time
of which I am writing our little family had progressed through four
houses
(materially, not astrologically) since my birth. I was born in one of
those houses
which are now becoming scarcer, which have no backs, not of course
that they are
open to the atmosphere, but because the back wall of the rooms is
also the back
wall of the rooms of another row of houses facing another parallel
street.
I do not
remember living in that street, but I saw it afterwards, and also heard
talk about
it. My mother and father always dressed carefully, and even
fashionably,
and the neighbours, lounging at their doors, were wont to pass
audible
remarks about them, sometimes more euphonious than classical. So their
days were not
long in that land. They moved as soon as possible to something a
bit better,
and again moved, when circumstances permitted, to the place of my
earliest
recollections, at 52 Bell Street.
Here I became
a collector, and even something of a connoisseur, the subject
being not
pictures, nor china, nor [21] numismatics, nor philately, but the more
modest one of
handbills – handbills large and small and of every conceivable
colour –
which remained for a long time piled in a neat heap in a corner of an
empty back
upstairs bedroom, until my mother decided that they were harbouring
too much dust
and too many spiders, and swept the whole lot away.
While we
lived in that house, we watched the building of a new row of houses
further up
the street, and when they were ready we moved – from number 52 to
number 26, a
mathematical curiosity which stuck firmly in my young mind.
It was in 26
Bell Street, when I was five years and nearly ten months old, that
my younger
brother was born. That disturbing event happened in the following
manner, as
far as my share in it was concerned. On a certain evening I had been
playing in
one of the clay pits, and by dusk I had accumulated about a dozen
small clay
models, some of them very neatly rounded by rolling between the
hands. These
precious objects had to be taken home with me. When it came time
for sleep I
was not allowed to take them into the bed, but after some discussion
a compromise
was struck and they were placed on a saucer on a small table at the
side of the
bed.
Evidently I
was of a mystical temperament, and quite prepared to regard myself
as a modern
Pygmalion capable of producing even a round dozen of Venuses, for
when I was
awakened in the night by thin squeaking and piping sounds and an
occasional
wail, I was fully prepared to believe that the clay figures had come
to life and
were beginning to express their individuality and independence. This
frightened
me, I confess, and I shut my eyes tightly and kept the clothes well
pulled up
about my head. The next morning I was taken into my mother’s bedroom
by my father
– an unusual procedure, calculated to awaken excitement as well as
curiosity.
But oh! what a disappointment when I entered the bedroom and found my
mother lying
in bed with something resembling a large slug beside her, as to
which I could
see no reason for the fuss that was being made. And my clay images
were as dead
as ever they had been. I do not think I ever played in the clay pit
again. My
temper seems also to have been affected a little, for I remember,
while my
mother was still in bed, threatening [22] both nurse and housemaid to
joint combat
with a diminutive cricket bat, because they had eaten all the jam.
Somehow I
realized that this thing had come to stay in our house. Probably I had
put the
question of its departure and had had my feelings dashed by a negative
reply. In any
case, my misgivings were justified, for, though it was interesting
to watch my
mother washing and powdering the thing in the mornings, I was often
called upon
during the day to “mind the baby,” an occupation – or rather lack of
occupation –
which I loathed for its monotony, and also because I very much
disliked its
dirty ways. What with one thing and another my relations with my
mother lost
their intimacy, and even, I fear, some of their affectionateness for
some time
after this.
I would date
real affection for my mother from about the age of twelve – too old
to show it. I
can remember awakenings to love – they were always sudden, and
distinct
events. One must not expect love in small children. It was related of
myself –
though the incident is not in my memory – that my father once asked:
“You would
not like your mother to die, would you?” The disturbing answer was
“No; who
would get my breakfast ready?” I remember, however, an evening on which
my father
came home without any plaything in his pocket, and I looked
disappointed.
He made some remark that showed that he was hurt, and I
immediately
became aware of his consciousness and was filled with remorse.
Before that
he had been something in my life. Now his life appeared as something
in itself,
though coming into mine.
§5
After this,
world-shaking events began to occur in my life in quick succession.
First came
the death of my paternal grandfather’s second wife (who had been the
cause of my
father’s troubles and poverty, though also the cause indirectly of
his alliance
with my mother – such is the law of compensation) and a consequent
armistice and
even slight rapprochement between my father and his father,
familiarly
alluded to as “the Gov’nor.” Not that I knew much about this, and it
did not
appear that there were any pecuniary benefits attaching to it, but its
results
manifested in my life in the appearance in our house of some dozens [23]
of old school
books which had belonged to my father and his elder brothers and
had now come
to us consequent upon my grandfather’s desire to simplify the
contents of
his household.
I did not
myself see the old man until many years later, and then I did not
harmonize
with him, for I found him to be a short-tempered and dominating old
gentleman,
though I tried, not very successfully, to be polite. He was a man of
some
importance in his own world, being proprietor of a wholesale business which
was the second
largest of its kind in England, and he could not forget it in
private life.
When later on I went into business on my own account at the age of
sixteen, and
was quite proud of the sixteen clerks in my office, his patronizing
air irritated
me much, and I am afraid I caused some anxiety to my father by
showing my
irritability a little sometimes. “The Gov’nor” and I had too much in
common – our
short stature, big noses, instinct for money-making and
incorrigible
obstinacy.
It was my
grandfather who made “the warehouse” into a really big business,
though his
grandfather had established it, but the big nose must have been there
before that,
for tradition had it that it was brought over from the Continent by
some Norman
ancestor who had been given a jaghire in Yorkshire, but my
grandfather’s
grandfather had degraded it to commerce after recklessly ruining
himself in
racing and betting on horses in the neighbourhood of London.
This third
commercial generation, allied to a country girl from the south of
Ireland –
where my grandfather frequently went on business – who smoked a long
churchwarden
clay pipe while sitting in her hooped skirts (although she was the
descendant of
semi-divine kings!) presented my grandfather with numerous
offspring and
also the companionship of a brother of hers, rejoicing in the name
of Aloysius
Gonzigu, who could patronize even my grandfather, and would enter a
shop with the
command: “Show me the overcoat that you would show to the Prince
of Wales if
he came in here,” and would buy it, too! But I digress once more.
Those books
which I mentioned some time ago became almost my principal
playthings.
Many of them contained intriguing diagrams, particularly Newth’s
Natural
Philosophy, as Physics was then called, and Todhunter’s Euclid; while
the
root-signs in Colenso’s Algebra and some [24] trigonometry books puzzled me
exceedingly.
Among the reading books, which were entirely unillustrated, one
attracted me
especially because it contained a series of stories upon “The
Transmigrations
of Indur,” which I read again and again.
A few months
afterwards we brothers caught scarlet fever, and nothing would
console me in
bed but that about a dozen of these books should be arranged in
two piles,
one on either side of my pillow, and though they fell down again and
again they
had always to be replaced. I remember, too, lying in bed and watching
some pigeons
and sparrows which flitted past the window, and wondering whether,
if I died, I
should become a pigeon or a sparrow. There was a Dr. Hamil who came
to visit us,
with his little pointed black beard – a very charming and agreeable
gentleman,
who quite prevented us from developing any fear of “the doctor.” I
remember him
at an earlier period in our previous house, turning our trousers
down and our
behinds up to see if we had chicken-pox.
When we were
better of scarlet fever, but still not allowed out of the bedroom,
my mother
went out by herself one afternoon, leaving us locked in the house. I
remember how
pretty and buoyant she looked as she came back into the bedroom. I
think she was
very happy about the successful termination of our illness. It was
almost a
Christmas occasion, she brought back with her so many toys and books. I
remember
among the books some of the Hesba Stretton series – Christie’s Old
Organ,
Jessica’s First Prayer, and Max Homburg – the last a story of Strassburg
during the
Franco-Prussian war. The advent of these books was the beginning of a
sort of
religious career of mine, which took place at dead of night, was never
made known to
anyone else, and was quite short-lived.
It happened
that my brother was a much steadier sleeper than I. Not infrequently
I would wake
in the middle of the night, and feeling cold, would complain
against him
for taking all the clothes to his side of the bed – until I found
that I was
lying on the floor, having fallen out of bed. The actual fall never
woke me up,
but the subsequent cold did. Again, I was much troubled with colds
in the head
and I would turn periodically from one side to the other, with the
stuffed
nostril on top, so as to get some relief in breathing, for I resolutely
refused to
open my mouth. My mother took [25] what precautions she could against
this, rubbed
goose grease on my chest and placed hot oven plates wrapped in old
blankets in
the bed. And she well knew the warm virtues of newspapers and brown
paper when
laid between the blankets. No, I was not cold, but very restless,
while my
brother was a steady sleeper.
Thus the
stage was well set for my bout of religion, when the handy little books
arrived.
Waiting till dead of night, when all the household was perfectly quiet,
I would
silently slip out of bed, creep across the room and turn up the gas
sufficiently
for me to read. Then I would creep back into bed, draw my book from
under the
pillow and revel in it for one or two hours. Christie’s Old Organ was
the book
particularly suited to the circumstances of my mood. I shuddered over
the evils of
drink and untruth; I was thrilled with the beauty of kindness and
unselfishness.
God was a magnification of my father, somehow invisible, yet
ever-present
– the last an important point. Jesus was my ideal self. 1 wanted to
go about with
Him and even more to melt myself into Him. I did not pray, but I
yearned.
Somehow the references in the stories to persons going to church and
praying and
performing ceremonies made no impression on me. I would hurry
through those
portions and seek for passages of human life. Surely if God is
really
omnipresent these things constitute the reverse of devotion – I felt
this, but I
did not think it. I was seeking the fulness of life, not trying to
understand
it. [26]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER II
PUPILARITY
§1
SCHOOL came
in its appointed time. My first school lasted a short time for me,
mercifully
brought to an end by the arrival of the scarlet fever already
mentioned. My
brother had been going to that school for some time before I
started. I
think that was how he escaped my fate of having to mind the baby. It
was a dame’s
school run by two sisters. I remember the two ladies – or rather my
vision of
them – quite well. One was old and dry and always dressed in black,
and as stiff
as a ramrod, the other very much younger, rounded and playful. We
were taken to
this school by some elder girls who lived on the opposite side of
our street,
midway between the old house and the new, but these girls have left
no impression
upon my memory except for their legs – black boots and stockings.
I suppose I
was so small that these constituted the chief part of the scenery
when I walked
with them.
I cannot
remember anything in the school except that we sat bunched on benches
in an open
square waiting for closing time. The elder schoolmistress put the lid
completely on
this misery, as far as I was concerned, by expecting me to kiss
her, or allow
her to kiss me. Though it was only a matter of routine – for she
went round
the whole class systematically, and I remember watching with a
sinking heart
the deadly peril coming nearer and nearer – when it came I openly
and violently
rebelled, and thus created quite a sensation and I think a
precedent in
the school. That school did not see me many times more. I had been
so upset that
I was quite ill and unfit to attend. I am sure I lost nothing by
this absence.
It did not seem that they really taught anything, and if they had
done so the
[27] memory of the indignity would have driven it from my thoughts.
My second
school was a more business-like affair. I was much impressed by the
huge building
– a large main half curtained off for several classes, and a
number of
separate rooms. I joined that school on my seventh birthday. My first
memory of it
is that of standing before one whom I may call the reception clerk,
along with
three or four other boys. Do what I would I could not make that man
understand
that it was my birthday.
“How old are
you?”
“Seven”
(years understood).
“And when was
your birthday?”
“To-day.”
He persisted
in thinking I had misunderstood him, and what he ultimately wrote
down in his
record I have no idea. I paid my tenpence – it was tenpence a week –
and that was
that.
That school
was a great place for misunderstandings. Sometimes the teachers
misunderstood
me; sometimes I misunderstood them. I remember an occasion when
our class was
confronted with a large map of Egypt and the land of Canaan. The
teacher was instructing
us in the wanderings of the Jews. I was somewhat
interested in
this, for I thought he was talking about the migrations of some
kind of black
birds. Crows were interesting; ancient Jews not at all. It was
only
afterwards, in another school (my fourth), that I learnt what ancient Jews
really were,
though I remembered very clearly the configuration of the map, and
understood
that quite well.
It was in
that same class and on that very occasion that I was first threatened
with physical
violence at school – first, that is, if we omit the kissing from
that
category. There were about four rows of boys in that class, arranged on the
gallery
system. I was on the second row. At the beginning of the lesson the
teacher used
to appoint one boy to stand at the end of each row and watch the
others, and
call out the names of any boys who appeared to be inattentive to the
teacher, such
boys being then required to stand out in front of the class. There
would usually
be about half a dozen of these boys by the end of the lesson, each
of whom would
receive a whack on the hand from the cane of the teacher and then
would go back
to his place. [28] I remember that my name was called out on the
occasion of
the wanderings of the Jews, but I pretended not to hear, and for
some reason
the monitor did not insist.
Teachers
differed very much in their temper and degree of cruelty. There was one
man, whom we
called Toby, who was constantly and ferociously cruel, until one
day the
father of one of the boys walked in and gave him a thorough thrashing
before the
whole class, which laid him up in hospital for several weeks. There
was one
horrible school-master, very often half-drunk, who used to beat little
boys, but
leave the bigger ones alone, and that was commented upon privately by
all the boys.
Another
schoolmaster, a thick-set man with a very dark beard, assembled the
whole school
of perhaps five hundred boys, and then, holding one small boy aloft
by the back
of his coat, with one strong hand, administered to him a merciless
beating with
a stick held in the other. In whispered consultation with other
boys I tried
to learn what the boy had done, and understood that he had been
guilty of
soiling the wrong portion of the school latrine. This was what was
called “an
example.” Of what? Quite apart from any abnormal soiling, those
school
latrines were dreadfully noisome; it was necessary to go into them
sometimes,
but always a torture. There were obviously sins of omission as well
as of
commission in connection with them, but the former were excused.
I remember
another misunderstanding in that same school. There was to be an
examination.
We were taken into a big room with individual desks on which paper,
pens and ink
and other articles were laid out. Cards were then handed round,
containing
questions which we were to answer. There was no pen on my desk, so I
sat still,
while the others were either writing or chewing their penholders, as
the case
might be. Presently a pleasant young man came along and looked at me.
“Have you no
pen?”
“Yes,” I
replied, meaning, quite logically, that I had not a pen.
He went away,
and I waited patiently for him to bring the pen, but it did not
come. After a
long time someone else came up.
“Where is
your pen?”
“I don’t
know.” [29]
I assumed
that there must be a certain pen intended for me, since he talked of
my pen, but I
did not know where they had put it. However, after some further
confused discussion
he seemed to understand that no pen had been placed on my
desk that
morning. I had lost about half my time, but came through the
examination
all right. All these things occurred in somewhat of a dream, which
only
occasionally took on the aspect of a nightmare.
Many years
afterwards I had a similar experience in a High Court in India, when
I happened to
be one of the witnesses in a rather celebrated case.
“Did you,”
asked the advocate, “on the night of August 22nd, sleep in the next
room with a
big stick, intending to prevent anyone from molesting So-and-so?”
I hesitated,
and was about to try to explain what had really happened.
The Judge
thundered: “Answer the question, Yes or No!”
With obvious
discomfort I answered “No,” though in fact it was only the date
that was
wrong. And later, in the written judgment of the case, in the Appellate
Court
appeared the interesting remark: “I do not believe – (another witness’s
name, very
similar to mine!) when he says that he did not sleep in an adjacent
room with a
big stick for the purpose of preventing any interference with -”
The only
other thing of note that I remember in that school was the spelling
lessons, held
in the same examination room. They did not give me much trouble,
as I seem to
have had an eye for the form of words, but I was much struck by the
lack of
uniformity in the spelling of similar sounds, and I theorized to myself
on the vast
amount of time wasted and trouble caused to children thereby. No
wonder the
English do not learn many languages, when they have to spend so much
time and
energy learning their own.
St. Luke’s
School was about fifteen minutes’ walk from our house. I remember
walking there
by myself sometimes, with a satchel over my shoulder. After
passing the
spot where I had formerly seen the old woman gathering her peck of
dirt, one
came to a road which ran along two sides of a square field which was
fenced in. I
remember that field very well because of an incident that happened
one day on my
way to school.
While walking
along beside the fence I had been [30] entertaining myself with a
little
cinematograph which I carried in my hand. Perhaps I had better explain.
One of the
early childhood toys which my mother used sometimes to make for us
consisted of
a large button, through two holes of which a circle of thin string
or thread was
run and the two ends tied together. Holding the thread taut,
horizontally,
by looping it over the two middle fingers, with the button
standing
vertically in the middle of it, one gave the button a number of turns
so as to
twist the threads, then started the button spinning by gradually
drawing the
threads tight so as to untwist them, and then allowing the momentum
to twist the
thread the other way, by gradually reducing the pull on the thread,
and so,
alternately increasing and reducing the pull, one caused the button to
spin with
great speed. The cinematograph was somewhat on that principle. A stiff
card, with
pictures on the margins, was mounted on two pieces of string. By
making it to
revolve at a certain speed, one caused the pictures partially to
blend, and
10, the cow jumped over the moon.
While I was
strolling along engrossed in this interesting occupation, I suddenly
heard a loud
shout from the rear. I looked round, and there, to my horror, was a
large
policeman, shouting and gesticulating and hurrying towards me. Having no
more
confidence in the law outside school than within it, I fled for my life,
the policeman
after me.
After running
some distance, I looked fearfully round to see how far away my
pursuer was,
and then observed that he was not running very fast and was holding
up to my
view, as he shouted, a school satchel. I suddenly realized that mine
was missing –
I must have dropped it – and that this was it, which he wished to
return to me.
Half-reassured, I warily approached the policeman, and as he held
the satchel
at arm’s length, I took it from him also at arm’s length, and once
more fled.
One never knew what trick a policeman might play to get a little boy
into prison,
so that he could enjoy himself by gloating through the bars, and
saying:
“Fee, fi, fo,
fum,” or something equally dreadful.
Teachers,
too, were a bit ogreish. When they asked a question they did not want
you to say
what you knew or thought on the subject, but they wanted you to guess
what was in
their minds. It was a sort of idiotic game, having little to do with
facts. I
remember that we were once asked to write a small essay on the
telephone – a
typical subject [31] for small boys coming chiefly from penurious
homes! – and
got myself much abused for mentioning, among other things, that
there had
been telephones in Egypt – yet I had read that very thing in a weekly
paper of
snippets or titbits. I do not suppose that one single boy in that class
had ever seen
a telephone instrument. I was fortunate enough to have had a toy
one – two
little parchment drums connected by a thread. My father had played
with us with
it, and talked about it, so I had something to say.
On another
occasion, on a sixth of November, we were asked to write on our
experiences
of a Guy Fawkes’ night bonfire. I said that it was a wonderfully big
fire, and
that it actually had not gone out until ten o’clock at night! The
teacher, having
more spacious ideas and experience, insisted that that must be
altered to
ten o’clock the next morning, though what I had said was perfectly
accurate. The
school day was one round of bickering. If it was not oneself, it
was someone
else in the class.
§2
I did not
stay in that school more than a year. As soon as circumstances were
favourable my
parents decided to move further out of town, into what was then a
little
old-fashioned country place, but near enough to town for my father to go
and come by
train daily. But before I relate what occurred in our new residence
I must
mention The Four Events of the Year, far more important than the
Christian or
any other Calendar. These were – in order of importance in our eyes
– a week at
Blackpool, Christmas, a visit to Hamilton’s Panorama, and a Saturday
afternoon at
the Zoological Gardens.
At Blackpool
the prime thing was to dig in the sand and let the waves supply
water to the
moats of the castles which you made. It did not outrage our sense
of the
fitness of things when the waves overdid their business and flooded the
whole works.
Rather the young mind rejoiced at this opportunity for a spectacle
of
destruction. Niggers were there, but I admired only their athletic
exhibitions,
not their blackness, nor their buffoonery, which hurt my feelings,
which were
over-sensitive to human dignity. Lucky packets absorbed a large
number of our
pennies. The sense of height was satisfied by walks and play on
the pier,
[32] especially when the waves roared and bounded about beneath, as
waves can at
Blackpool. The pier also contained many slot machines, and when I
saw other
people about to drop their pennies therein I used to buzz along to see
the fun.
There was only one slot machine that tempted me – a “try your grip”
machine,
which would give you your penny back if you could ring the bell. I put
my penny
through again and again, joyously listening to the ringing of the bell
when I
pulled, until at last I lost it. There must have been something wrong
with that
machine – a small boy could not have been so strong in the wrist.
Another
attraction was a phrenologist, with his curious diagrams and little
lectures
outside his tent. I sunk sixpence on him once and learned that I ought
to become a
doctor, or failing that an auctioneer, though to this day I cannot
see the
connection between the two.
Talking of
the pier reminds me of my father’s next younger brother, whom we
always liked
for both his jollity and his largess. He was in “the warehouse”
(and, in
fact, inherited it when my grandfather died) and consequently was
well-to-do.
Nearly always when he visited us he would slip coins into our hands
on his way to
the front door. I recollect that at a very early age he held out
before me a
large brown coin and a very little white one and asked me which I
would have. I
chose the threepenny bit, having been born canny in such matters.
He and his
wife came to Blackpool when we were there. The latter was a
profoundly
respectable lady, daughter of a clergyman in a family which took
religion and
social restrictions very seriously. Once my uncle was riding in a
tramcar and
talking to a friend, and his wife’s father happened to be sitting on
the other
side in the far corner (the seats used to run the length of the car).
The friend
got out, and the father-in-law came over and sat beside the
son-in-law.
“I am
surprised,” he said, “to see you so friendly with that man. Don’t you know
that he is a Roman
Catholic?”
Well, my
uncle was always very jolly (except when he was, not infrequently,
steeped in
profound melancholy) and at Blackpool there occurred a grand
opportunity
to have a little game with his wife. She was sitting on a seat at
the side of
the pier, my father and his brother and we boys being on the sand
beneath.
Suddenly my uncle looked up to the [33] pier, cupped his hands at the
side of his
mouth and shouted in the broadest possible Lancashire dialect: “Eh,
missus! ’Ast
’ad ta baggin’?” to her great confusion, and to the amusement of
the numerous
onlookers, who certainly thought they had discovered a shining
example of
the new rich. Still, she could not be displeased for long with my
uncle; he was
so genuinely good-natured, even if his playfulness was sometimes
embarrassing.
Perhaps, by the way, his remark needs translation. It meant
nothing more
than “Have you had your lunch?”
The journey
from our home to Blackpool in the train occupied about an hour and a
half, but
that was all too long. I used to sit whenever possible with my face to
the engine in
a corner window seat. I would put my hand against the side of the
frame of the
window and push as hard as I could, to speed the train along. We
used
generally to return at night so as to make as much of the holiday as
possible.
Looking into the darkness through the windows I was much frightened in
my younger
days by the horrible faces that were to be seen there. Only later on
I learnt that
they were the reflections of the faces of my fellow-passengers.
Children have
a great capacity for looking forward. I believe we began to think
about
Christmas as soon as the summer holidays were over. Its chief events for
us were the
presents to be found at the foot of the bed on Christmas morning, a
visit to the
pantomime, and a tour of the decorated shops. Of all the things
ever found at
the foot of the bed the most exciting were two watches complete
with chains –
watches that really went, and told the time, and made us feel very
grown up.
They had been sent by our jolly uncle. The only thing to mar the full
enjoyment of
them was the fact that we should have to write letters of thanks –
rather a
formidable task.
Perhaps some
readers of these recollections will remember that the three great
symbols of
initiation into the brotherhood of men are the first watch, the first
pair of long
trousers, and the first cigarette. Those watches at least made us
feel our
novitiate, although we knew that the long trousers and the cigarette
were still
far ahead.
As to the
pantomime, one never understood the story, but the transformation
scenes gave a
glimpse of other worlds, perhaps of real fairylands in which the
hard facts of
our world could be escaped at will. One heard some ladies call
[34] these
scenes heavenly, and formed one’s pictures of heaven accordingly.
Hamilton’s
Panorama used to put in its appearance in the largest hall in our
city about
half-way between Blackpool and Christmas. It must have been a
gigantic
undertaking for Mr. Hamilton, or whoever was behind the scenes. For
about two
hours scenes from all over the world would unroll themselves across
the back of
the stage, accompanied by the most realistic sound and light
effects. A
ship would come sailing through a smooth starlit sea. Gradually dawn
would appear,
the sun would rise, and as the day wore on clouds would make their
appearance, a
storm would blow up and lash the elements into fury. Then
lightning, rain
and wind would afflict the scene until at last the ship either
sank before
our eyes or won its way through the storm to a peaceful harbour –
and all in
the comfortable space of about ten minutes. Within a similar period
the Bay of
Naples would present its charm, and Vesuvius its fearsome
possibilities,
while a gentleman in evening dress and a huge moustache explained
in an Oxford
voice the implications of the scene. And interspersed between these
grander demonstrations,
a Chinese juggler or conjurer would perform for us in a
street in
Hong Kong, and Hungarian acrobats would imperil their lives for our
delectation
in marble halls of Italy or among the minarets of India.
In
anticipation of Hamilton’s Panorama, before leaving Blackpool we used to buy
little
panoramas for twopence each. They were shaped like a stage front, and
there were
about twenty pictures mounted on rollers. Unfortunately the pictures
consisted
mostly of scenes of such doubtful educational value as the murder of
the little
princes in the Tower. I will give them credit, however, for being
very
realistically executed.
The visit to
the Zoo was a movable feast, occurring some time between Christmas
and
Blackpool, and much dependent on the weather. It was literally a feast, in
the
restricted modern use of the word, as it always included a period devoted to
the
consumption of ices – not ice cream, but real ices, which were composed, I
suppose, of
ice chopped up small and sugared and then served in small saucers.
This and the
elephant ride were the two chief features of the Zoo. There were
animals to
look at, but they were not very interesting, being shut up in little
enclosures
behind bars, and for [35] the most part looking very bored. It was
much more
interesting to feed the ducks in the park, to see them swim under the
little
bridges and come out on the other side, though when they put down their
heads and
stood with their tails out of the water one did not know whether it
was proper to
continue staring, and wondering at the suppressed giggles of the
young ladies
standing near by.
§3
One day there
came to our house two big furniture vans with splendid
heavy-weight
horses and three men in thick green aprons, who clumped into the
house, drank
glasses of beer at one draught, and in a marvellously short time
deposited all
our belongings on the pavement outside in a sea of straw, for the
covert
scrutiny of the neighbours, prior to packing them in the vans.
Leaving them
to finish their work, my mother took us off by bus, train and foot,
seriatim;
first, through the suburbs into a big railway station, then in the
train – one
never ceased wondering how it could go without horses, nor fearing
that it would
mount the platform as it came with a deafening roar into the
station. For
five minutes the train clanked across a veritable sea of railway
lines, among
chimneys and factories; then it went through a long and perfectly
dark tunnel,
and finally it ran for another five minutes in a cutting with grass
on either
side, ultimately depositing us in a little country station, with
nothing
outside but fields and fences.
Fifteen
minutes’ walk brought us to some new building activities, a few rows of
little houses
with small spaces for gardens in front. One of these, number 30
Brookfield
Avenue, was our destination, and there really were both a field and a
brook within
forty or fifty yards – or I should say one brook and many fields,
as far as the
eye could reach, containing occasional thatched cottages and
rambling
farmhouses – one of them with black and white gables and the
distinction
of having been slept in by Queen Elizabeth on one of her journeys to
the north.
This was
indeed a new world. Often we used to watch the builder’s men preparing
for new rows
of houses by cutting down the old oak and beech trees, watching
with an
illusion of participating in the work. In the mornings we would [36]
walk the long
distance – on a footpath, with a field of poppies on one side, an
orchard on
the other, through the cobbled yard of a farm, then along a road
through “the
old village,” past the smithy – often lingering to see a horse
shod, or a
piece of iron hammered into shape on the anvil, to the accompaniment
of glittering
sparks, which never hurt the big strong man in the leather apron –
past a few
little shops with window panes six inches square, and round a corner
to the old
school, which stood in a garden, looked like a church, and was a
thousand
times nicer outside than in. In front of the school was the village
green – a
small triangle of land, having at one point “the old church” and on
the other two
sides of the triangle respectively, a little thatched farm and a
public-house
with a swinging sign.
In the school
– twopence a week this time – we were taught by a fat girl with a
big flat
face. I remember her name, but forbear to mention it. She liked
history, I
think, for she awoke our young English blood to patriotism with her
accounts of
Caractacus and Cassivellaunus and Boadicea, and dropped us to depths
of gloom and
horror with her grim stories of the many civil wars of England. She
added also to
our already awakened pessimism a picture of probable wars to come.
The boys were
a rough lot, speaking an only half intelligible language. The
first day, at
close of school, a big fellow came up to me.
“I can fight
you,” he announced. He did, too, in a ring of ghoulish onlookers,
but I do not
remember to have been much hurt, and nobody troubled me any more
with
attentions of that kind.
There was,
however, a disagreeable group of boys who used to shout from the
other side of
the road when some of us were walking home. One of these – the
most
troublesome – rejoiced in the name of Livingstone. One day, these boys were
shouting
something particularly offensive from a distance behind us, and in
exasperation
I picked up a flint from the side of the path and threw it at them,
not intending
to hurt but only to frighten them. With beginner’s luck – ill-luck
this time – I
hit Livingstone fair and square on the head. It was several weeks
before he
could return to school.
I expected
dire consequences, but nothing happened.
Evidently the
boys kept the matter to themselves and [37] invented some excuse
for the broken
head. But they must have regarded me as a potential Chicago
gangster,
something quite the reverse of truth, for I was physically nervous. I
did almost
everything from a motive of cowardice. Our teachers seemed to
encourage
that ignoble motive, for they were always telling us to study hard so
that we might
save ourselves from being among those whose faces are walked upon
in the battle
of life, to take physical exercises so as to avoid disease, to be
honest so as
to avoid prison, to be good so that God would not send us to hell,
and finally
and above all to obey themselves, in order to avoid a whacking.
I was really
sorry that I hit poor Livingstone on the head, for I bore him no
malice.
Nevertheless, by some peculiarity of fate or coincidence, I have been
repaid in
kind and with interest for that injury. In the half-dozen or so
motor-car and
other accidents in which I have since participated I have
invariably
been injured on the head and nowhere else. Fate began to work in this
direction
comparatively soon after the incident I have mentioned. One day I had
been much out
of sorts, and I was lying on the sofa while my mother was sewing
near the
window at the other side of the room. Suddenly I said to myself: “It is
all nonsense
lying here feeling sick. The thing to do is to get up and do
something!”
With a leap I jumped up from the sofa, only to meet the corner of an
open cupboard
door just above my head.
I have never
seen a woman cry as my mother did as she took me into her arms in a
rocking-chair
and mopped up the blood with several towels. When I was able to go
back to
school I was the proud bearer for weeks of a conspicuous patch of
sticking
plaster on a partially shaved head. The spot still remains without
hair,
although it is now threatening to merge itself into that bright and
shining place
where there is no parting.
Perhaps I
owed something in the bank of fate, too, on account of the numerous
jacksharps,
tadpoles, moths and caterpillars which had met an untimely fate at
my hands,
having been incarcerated in various bowls, jars and boxes which were
evidently not
suited to them. But I was never cruel, like some of the boys, who
used to catch
frogs, insert straws into their recta and blow them up until they
burst. Or
like the cartmen who were bringing bricks to the houses opposite, who,
when language
failed, used to kick their [38] horses in the stomach with their
hobnailed
boots in order to force them over the rougher parts. Or like the
farmer whom I
once watched through the hedge of the village green as he walked
about his
garden, picked up one duck after another, slit its throat with his
penknife and
then put it down again on the ground, where it walked a few feet
and then
threw a somersault backwards. Or like those other farmers who hung the
squealing
pigs by the back legs while they poured boiling water over them so
that the
bristles might come out more easily afterwards. But once more I am in
danger of
digressing.
I was
speaking, I think, of luck, in connection with stone-throwing. I had
another
stroke of luck one day, or rather one night. Once a travelling fair came
to our
village and set itself up on a vacant plot of ground beside the police
station. One
evening my brother and I begged twopence each and went off with a
few friends
to enjoy ourselves thereat. First I turned my attention to the
roulette
wheel. One put a halfpenny on a chosen number on the circle which
surrounded a
spinning pointer. The man in charge spun the wheel, and if the
pointer
stopped opposite the number containing the coin one received a coco-nut.
Failing that,
the halfpenny was irretrievably lost, with nothing to show for it.
Down went my
halfpenny, I got a coco-nut. As I did not want the coco-nut, I sold
it back to
the man for twopence. I suppose he thought he would get the twopence
back.
Thirteen times running this phenomenon was repeated. Calculate – thirteen
twopences,
minus thirteen halfpennies. I was beginning to be in clover. On the
fourteenth
turn I lost, pocketed my balance and, with a deaf ear to the man who
was urging me
to try again, turned away. I shared the money in equal parts with
my friends,
who quite logically maintained that they deserved it as much as I
did and
watched them spend it on swings and roundabouts, while I kept my
portion, to
go home triumphantly about as rich as I had come out, which could be
said of few
people who attended that fair. I think I shall never play at Monte
Carlo, for no
one can expect such luck twice in a lifetime. Only once have I
ventured to
lay down any stakes at roulette – in the Casino at Santos in Brazil
– when I
found this axiom duly confirmed. [39]
§4
We had the
luck of being removed from the twopenny school after a few months.
Whether my
grandfather had suddenly melted, and decided no longer to visit the
sins of the
fathers upon the children, or whether my father had made one of his
periodical
advances in the business world, I do not know. Anyhow, we were sent
to what was
considered the best private high school within reach. It was rather
a small
affair – about a hundred boys.
We were
excited by the playground, which was actually composed partly of grass,
on which we
could have splendid games of leap frog and “cappy” without hurting
ourselves too
much. The idea of the last was that one boy would make a back over
which the
others had to go in turn, each leaving his cap behind. Sooner or later
one of the
leapers would upset the caps, and would then have to make a “back.”
There was
also a greenhouse in that playground, but I fancy the chief thing
about it was
the schoolmaster’s son, who used to sit there smoking a pipe, to
keep the
insects off the plants, he said. I suppose this exhibition must have
started many
boys smoking surreptitiously. I was once induced to go shares in
the expenses
of a packet of cigarettes. I tried one of them behind a wall, and
decided that
as an amusement smoking was overrated, and though as an assertion
of manhood it
might have its points, a halfpenny in the pocket was much more
desirable
than a cigarette in the mouth.
It was about
this time that my brief musical career began. When our piano first
arrived I had
solemnly announced to my father that I did not intend to learn to
play in the
ordinary way; I simply wanted to make a noise by knocking on the
keys.
However, he firmly informed me that I must learn properly or leave it
alone. The
upshot of it was that once a week my brother and I went to the house
of a little
old lady (that is what we called Miss Nash, though probably she was
only about
thirty – for such is the judgment of the young) and made a sufficient
progress with
her help and an hour’s practice every day. It was a tiresome
obstacle that
my hands were too small to stretch an octave, though I gradually
overcame this
difficulty with regard to the left hand only, by forcing my thumb
to become
double jointed at the root, thus increasing my span by nearly an inch.
[40]
At Blackpool
I had been much impressed by the sound of a mandoline, played in a
concert on
the pier, and nothing would satisfy me but to add this also to my
musical
accomplishments. My indulgent father immediately bought one of the
instruments
and brought it home. For some time I learnt to play alone, and
afterwards at
the big school of music in the city, where they brought me to the
point of
playing in public. I nearly became a professional musician at the age
of thirteen,
as will shortly appear.
It was now
time for us to remove again to a new house. My mother always
absolutely
refused to have one which had been occupied by anybody before. She
seemed to
have an idea that it would retain emanations from the previous
occupants. We
removed a very short distance to a high-standing three-storied
house
directly overlooking a beautiful meadow containing many oak and beech
trees. This
meadow had the form of a valley, the brook already mentioned running
down the
middle. It had also the great merit of being accessible for play, as a
public path
ran across it. It was a fine place for flying kites, which we used
to make for
ourselves often in fantastic shapes. One of mine took the form of a
phrenological
head marked with the localities of the various faculties, copied
from a chart
issued by the professor of the art on Blackpool sands.
Safety
bicycles now came within our ken. The word safety has long been dropped,
but it was
used then to distinguish the new bicycles having wheels about the
same size
from the old ones which had one big wheel in front, with pedals
attached to
its hubs, and a tiny little wheel behind. We used occasionally to
watch
performers on the old type of bicycle – I say performers because they were
rarely
riders, but seemed to spend most of their time getting on and falling
off. We saw,
too, the big roller skates, with wheels which appeared about nine
inches in
diameter. A man ran from London to Manchester on these and we saw him
pass. It
seemed terribly dangerous. I wondered if he had any sort of braking
arrangement.
I saw, too, one of the first motor-cars, with a man running in
front
shouting and waving a red flag, as required by law.
The new
safety bicycles were heavy things, with solid rubber tyres and no free
wheel. My
father bought one cheap from a man who had been stopped in a country
road by a
burly fellow who grasped his handlebar and demanded his [41] money.
Though the
cyclist had saved his money by pulling a spanner out of his pocket
and with it
dealing a smashing blow to the hand on the handlebar, and then
riding
swiftly away, the incident had spoiled his taste for cycling in the
country.
A second
bicycle, for my elder brother, soon appeared. Then, of course, the
question of
one for me arose. One Saturday afternoon my father and mother and I
looked at a
small-size bicycle in one of the big shops. It was, alas, very
expensive –
about five pounds. We had walked some distance away from the shop in
silence and
gloom, when I heard my mother say quietly to my father: “Think of
the child’s
feelings -” My mother was that said-to-be-rare phenomenon, a woman
who does not
speak much. She could always convey a lot of meaning, however, in
half a dozen
words.
My father
went back to the shop alone and later arrived home, having ridden with
great
difficulty on the tiny machine, with his knees knocking the handle-bar at
every
rotation. So I became the possessor not of a heavy old hard-tyred
second-hand
bicycle, but of a brand new machine having the marvellous pneumatic
tyres, which
had only just come in and about which we and apparently even the
shop-man knew
so little at first that my father had actually ridden it home on
flat tyres,
not knowing that they had to be pumped up. Fortunately it did not
spoil them.
How my
brother and I cleaned those bicycles, down even to the ball bearings, in
preparation
for the Sunday morning rides which our father took with us all over
the
surrounding country-side! My mother, however, could not be persuaded to
become one of
“the new women,” who at that date began to go on bicycles and were
generally
treated to rude remarks and sometimes to stones. She was free to come,
as we had by
then a maid, or rather a succession of maids. One of them, I
remember, new
from the country, blackleaded all the spoons, with disastrous
effect when
we started to eat our boiled eggs!
§5
Although our
new school was considered to be very highly respectable, and
intended for
the “sons of gentlemen” (there might have been no ladies involved
from the
little one heard of them in this connection) things were not [42]
entirely what
they seemed. There were some rough boys, a Jew bullies, and some
worse than
that. I remember an occasion when two of these bullies hoisted me on
their
shoulders to carry me off somewhere for purposes of petty torture, but I
managed to
free myself at the expense of a nasty bump, by giving one of them a
kick in the
ear with all my force. They dropped me to the ground, upon which I
ran across
the street, put my back to a large plate-glass shop window, and from
that vantage
pelted them with stones until they went away.
I used
sometimes to see some of the boys rolling on the grass; one would be on
his back and
the others apparently playfully pulling off his clothes. I did not
like that
sort of rough and tumble, and I vowed that if any of them subjected me
to those
indignities I would not stop short of killing them. Only years
afterwards I
learnt from one of them that those invasions of one another’s
privacy were
a prelude to private instruction in sexual vice. In the vista of
years I do
not think as badly as I did of those boys. I realize that heredity
varies
enormously in respect of the sex-excitement and sex-imagination that is
such a
peculiar and unnatural feature of humanity. It never troubled me. Years
afterwards,
in translating from Sanskrit, I wrote with regard to a certain type
of sinner:
“He will be reborn from the womb of a wild cock,” and never noticed
the
incongruity until somebody showed me a marked copy of my book!
In our family
there was always more education in the home than at school. We
were
voracious readers of weekly papers and novels. At an early age, my brother
and I had
read all Dickens and a great part of Walter Scott and Thackeray. While
still in
Brookfield Avenue I had an exercise book containing a list of all the
books I had
read, and it then numbered over eighty, though among these I
included
serial stories which I had read in Chums and The Boy’s Own Paper. Also,
my father was
always willing to teach when we were willing to learn. He started
us off with
French when I was eight years old, and he taught me also Pitman’s
shorthand, in
which I ultimately attained the respectable speed of a hundred and
eighty words
a minute, which I could keep up on the average for an hour and read
completely
afterwards, and he taught me also a good amount of commercial
book-keeping,
including double entry. [43]
I think our
school was almost useless for learning anything, however excellent
its
respectability. If a boy could teach himself in it, well and good, not
otherwise.
Practically nothing was ever explained.
“Form III.
Open your geography books, page 54. Study to the end of page 55. I
will hear you
at four o’clock.” The master would then go out, to obtain a drop
for his
thirst, duly return in an irritable mood, call our form “up,” and
question us.
There was much indignation if we had not learnt the lesson, though
the idea of
teaching it never seemed to enter his mind. He used to give us marks
on the
results of these questions, and call them out for us to enter in our mark
books at the
end of the day. Still I got on pretty well. I was eager to learn,
and was
always running neck and neck at the head of the class with a boy named
Carver, about
two years older than myself. I had ambitions, and used still at
home to make
use of the old school books in subjects not taught in the school at
our age. I
would get down on the floor of the bedroom – somehow I was able to
study better
on the floor – with Initia Latina until again and again my mother
would come in
and literally drive me out unwillingly to play.
We had in our
school a real army sergeant, full of talk about the Crimean war.
He conducted
real army drill with wooden imitation rifles, in the playground,
often with
errand boys jeering over the wall. I detested those wooden rifles,
and the
sneering tongue of the sergeant, and wanted to have as little as
possible to
do with them. One day he offered me the corporal’s stripe in our
platoon and
his indignation when I declined it knew no bounds, I hated the sham
of it all.
Two of our
fellow-students were Greeks. I very much wanted to make a beginning
with Greek,
and begged of the elder to teach me the Greek alphabet, which he
could rattle
off with alluring speed. But the mercenary young scamp demanded too
high a price
– as much as sixpence, I think – which was more than I could make
in a
fortnight by selling marbles at half the shop prices, since it had become
known that I
could win all the marbles that came within reach.
One of our
favourite occupations in the school was map-drawing. The son of the
schoolmaster,
himself a junior master, used to supply us with railway maps from
various parts
of the world, which we would copy on full sheets of [44] printing
paper pinned
on our drawing-boards. We had large and expensive drawing-boards,
which we were
expected occasionally to carry home in black alpaca covers, as
also those
wooden rifles; this no doubt being a subtle advertisement for the
school. It
appeared that each boy had one or two favourite colours for doing the
outlines of
the countries in his maps – mine was pale chrome, and sometimes we
used to
quarrel on account of our loyalty to our respective colours. We had also
favourite
towns. Two that struck my fancy particularly were Boston and
Philadelphia,
and another was the smaller Hyderabad in Sind, where, curiously
enough, I was
to become Principal of the College later on.
Crayon
drawing was also a popular subject – it gave such a good opportunity for
many of the
boys to stand round the hot stove sharpening their pencils. My
brother was a
born artist, could draw and paint as well as write beautifully
without an
effort. Me, I could never write on the line, and drawing was an
effort that
fatigued me enormously, and produced results that exasperated the
drawing
master. When he saw such little and such poor results he accused me of
idling, and
when I denied that, he accused me of lying, for which he lost every
atom of
respect I might have had for him, though he probably cared as little for
my good will
as I cared for his.
I had a
curious experience, which might be called psychic, about this time. As I
was walking
home from school, crossing a little street, I seemed to hear a
voice, which
asked me whether I would rather be tall or short “this time.” I
will not
attempt to say what peculiarity of the subconscious mind or other cause
may have
produced this, but will only record that it was perfectly clear, and
took me in
such a mood that I did not till afterwards wonder what it meant by
the curious
expression “this time.” I had been for some time in a mood of
humility. I
wanted to go through life inconspicuously, and I had some subtle and
indefinite
dislike for anything in the world in the shape of pomp or display. It
may have been
this which caused me to give the reply, after the slightest
hesitation,
that I would choose the short. In any case, I scarcely grew for
several
years, though fortunately I made a bit of a spurt after sixteen, which
at last gave
me my meagre five feet six inches of height. [45]
At last my
brother left school to go to business. I wanted to leave at the same
time, for I
did not think that school could teach me any more, and I was
impatient to
be a man and independent. I was then twelve years old. However,
everybody
decided that I was too young to leave, so I had to spend another year
in a class by
myself at the top of the school – a little fellow, and younger by
years than
many of the other boys. Practically I studied by myself for that
year. I took
some of the ancient school books and showed them to the
schoolmaster,
and he permitted me to study them by myself, saying that he would
help me when
I came to any difficulties. His help did not amount to much. I
remember
going to him with some difficulties in Colenso’s Algebra (I still have
the book –
about seventy-five years old). Poor man, he had to confess that he
had forgotten,
and suggest that I should look at the answers and try to work
from them
backwards.
I had
ambitions. I wanted to become a doctor, or failing that a student
interpreter
in Japan. No luck. What with shortage of money, unkind reports by
the schoolmaster
– to cover his own shortcomings – and the tradition of
business, it
was decided that I should become an apprentice in a wholesale
warehouse. I
was far too young for a shipping firm. [46]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER III
JUNIORITY
§1
WHEN I left
school my mother pressed that I should be allowed a holiday for some
months before
being sent to work, and gained her point. But it proved
disastrous. I
became one of the unemployed even before I was employed. I must
have
presented myself to twenty or thirty heads of firms before I got a chance.
I would be
called into the private office and questioned on my scholastic
attainments,
which were quite satisfactory, and then the trouble would begin,
always the
same.
“You are very
small. You look pale. Are you strong? When did you leave school?”
– and then
the dreadful question, which I soon learnt to recognize as sealing my
fate: “What
have you been doing since you left school?” And finally: “Well, we
will let you
know,” – which they never did, even negatively. I believe there
were always
anything from twenty to two hundred applicants for those posts.
Some of these
people who interviewed me were kindly, but most of them were rude,
and a few
bullies. One disagreeable man asked if I knew all the streets in the
city, and
when I replied “Yes,” thinking quite naturally that he meant the main
streets,
since no one could possibly be expected to know all the others, he
blackguarded
me disgracefully for a young liar. And this, when I was suffering
from
truthfulness with regard to the date of leaving school! My discomforts as a
truth addict
began early.
However, I
got a position at last as an apprentice in a millinery warehouse. The
proprietor
who engaged me was [47] a charming gentleman, and spoke very kindly
and
encouragingly – he would give me five shillings a week for the first year
and I was to
go through a three years’ apprenticeship. But unluckily he had as
practical
manager (the devil for steward, as so often!) a younger brother of his
who was
rather a freak, six feet three inches tall, and proportionately
disagreeable.
He had a curious manner and way of speaking which made me wonder
whether he
was right in the head and was not put there out of a compassion which
would be very
natural in his brother.
I was in the
ribbon department. We supplied some hundreds, I should think, of
retail shops.
In the early morning I had to see that all the reels of ribbon
were neatly
arranged on the long counters in the enormous showroom, and, with a
feather
duster, to see that they were kept free from the minutest speck of dust.
In the
afternoons our customers would generally come in. Most of them were
ladies,
probably milliners, for ribbons were much used in ladies’ hats. In the
evening two
of us would cover everything up with large dust-sheets.
It was part
of my work to tie up some of the parcels, for the ribbons could not
be sent to
the packing-room in an exposed condition. The senior apprentice,
after having
been told to show me how to do everything, did all in his power to
prevent me
from getting to know how things were to be done, so that it was some
time before I
discovered the best way even to turn the string and form the knots
of the
parcels. Once he demanded money to show me something, but soon came to
the
conclusion, I think, that if I had not come from Aberdeen I must have had an
ancestor who
had.
The hours of
work for everybody were fairly long in those days. I used to go to
town on my
father’s train, which left the station at five minutes to seven. He
would awaken
me at six o’clock, and then we would have an intensive hour working
together (it
was a period of no maid) making the fire, cleaning the boots,
preparing and
eating our breakfast and – I look back upon this with surprise –
doing ten
minutes Sandow exercises, also together (I used dumb-bells weighing
eight pounds
each), in addition to all the business of getting ourselves ready,
including the
fixing of stiff collars and cuffs which were very hard on the
thumbs.
My father
used to wear “solitaire” cuff-links – the kind [48] which came in two
pieces, and
of which you punched the stem of the head into the socket of the
lower piece.
I remember a curious incident that occurred before I left school in
connection
with these. I was walking home, when I saw lying on the pathway the
head of a
gold cuff link. I put it in my pocket. That evening my father told us
that during
the day he had lost the head of one of his cuff links. I pulled my
find out of
my pocket and handed it to him. It fitted perfectly, though of quite
a different
design from the one he had lost. I never found a cuff-link head
before, nor
since, nor did he lose one.
Thus our day
began with forty minutes’ miscellaneous rather strenuous
activities.
Then ten minutes’ quick walk in the dark (for a large part of the
year) brought
us to the railway station. After getting out of the train I had
another
fifteen minutes’ walk through the city streets to the warehouse, and so
I would
arrive in good time. The warehouse hours were from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
with an
hour’s interval for lunch. Then back through the city streets to the
train and
through the country lanes from the train home – wash, tea, a game of
chess with my
father and at last bed. Rather a heavy day for a boy of thirteen,
especially in
a city where the presence of sulphur in the air, from burning
coal,
necessitated the weekly removal to the country of the decorative plants
growing in
tubs in the city square. We were keen chess players at that time; I
entered for
the “Hobbies” correspondence tournament and came out in the third
place.
I lost my job
after two or three months. It was decided to remove one of the
departments
to another room in a distant part of the building. Nothing was to be
done during
the day, lest a customer come in and find us disarrayed. But at 6
p.m. we were
told to start carrying the things. I was already very tired with
standing all
day, having nothing to eat since breakfast except a very meagre
lunch, but I
tried to do my share of carrying. By eight o’clock I could hardly
walk, but
when I said so I was merely rebuked for laziness. By nine I was on the
verge of
collapse, so I told the department manager that I simply must go home,
and I went –
without his consent. The next day the general manager came along,
about six
feet three inches towering above me. He poured out words of
indignation,
and the end of the conversation, or rather monologue, was that I
must [49]
leave when the month was up. I left that night, and forfeited whatever
wages were
due.
§2
Then began
again the answering of questions. As I had no reference I had to say
I had not
been engaged before, which was very galling. And the question as to
what I had
been doing since I left school was more formidable than ever.
Luckily,
after a month or two, a warehouse in which my elder brother had worked
wanted an
apprentice. I applied, and because they had been delighted with my
brother they
gave me the job, merely remarking: “You don’t look strong.”
At first I
was in the ready-mades department – workmen’s shirts, women’s aprons,
children’s
frocks and what not. Attached to our department was a workroom, with
thirty or
forty girls incessantly toiling at sewing machines, the sight of whom
moved me to
the profoundest pity. By working in those dismal surroundings from
morning till
night for fifty-one weeks in the year they could just keep body and
soul
together, but they could not clothe themselves well, nor provide themselves
with decent
and sufficient shoe-leather.
I had once
more to keep the stock clean and tidy, open and pack up parcels, box
shirts and
other things in dozens and half-dozens, layout orders and list the
things for
sending to the packing room. It had been impressed upon me at home
that I was an
apprentice and must not allow myself to be put upon for inferior
work,
particularly that of an errand boy. So I acquired some unpopularity when
the head of
my department and his first assistant desired me to go out to a
little
restaurant near by and bring in their tenpenny lunches on a tray, which I
refused to
do.
After about
three months I was transferred to the shirting and quilt department.
It was a
heavy job to keep those large pieces in order on the racks, to get them
down, unpack
them and pack them and put them back. In this warehouse we were
allowed only
half an hour for lunch, but hot water was given to us on the
premises, so
I had my little store of mixed tea and sugar, and bread and cheese
– how glad I
was to learn from a magazine that the cheapest kinds of cheese were
the most
nourishing – and a tin of condensed milk, [50] which was quite dark
brown in
colour before I had done with it.
This
department was managed by one of the partners, who was seldom in. Next to
him there was
one man, then a senior apprentice, then myself. The conversation
of the senor
apprentice and his friends who used to drop in from other
departments
now and then was not edifying. It was mostly about what they called
“tarts.”
After I had
been in the department some few months it happened that the
assistant
manager was taken ill and could not come to work, and then the senior
apprentice
left, so that I was alone in that department, except when the partner
in charge
happened to come in. Customers rarely came in person, unless they had
already made
an appointment with him. I had now the task of laying out the
orders for
the day, entering them in the daybook, making out department
invoices,
writing letters to the customers when necessary to regret that certain
goods were
out of stock and to explain when they might be expected, and
preparing all
the orders for the packing room. In addition to this I had to
telephone to
various other warehouses and manufacturers’ offices, ordering
patterns
which had run out of stock, or to explain to other apprentices on
outdoor duty
for the day where to look for various necessary items, for which I
would give
them samples, with written orders. All this I managed to do to the
satisfaction
of my employers – and all on the munificent pay of fifteen
shillings a
month. Of course, as an apprentice my compensation was supposed to
lie in an
opportunity to learn the business, which I certainly had in that
department.
Now,
unluckily for me, it happened once in the middle of a day that one of our
biggest
customers – a man who would think nothing of ordering a hundred pieces
of shirting
of one kind at a single time – came in. When he arrived I ran round
the warehouse
looking for the partner in charge of my department, who would
certainly
have wanted to see him, but failed to find him, he being out for his
two or three
hours’ lunch. So I served the customer myself. There was a line
that we
called “Diamond” shirting, which we sold at 5 1/8 d. per yard, and which
our customer
sold at 5 1/4 d. – it was by cutting prices that he had such a
volume of
trade. He wanted some of that.
A new book of
patterns had come from the manufacturers [51] a day or two before,
but I first
let the customer make his selection from the old pattern book and
then said:
“Would you not like some of these new patterns as well?” bringing out
the new cuttings.
He was rather amused at my little trick; it mattered nothing
to him to
order another fifty or sixty pieces, though he had already taken as
many as he
originally intended. But this was to prove my undoing. When he next
met the
partner he seems to have indulged in some jocular remark about the size
of their
“manager” in the shirting and quilt department, though he spoke highly
of me. The
pride of the firm was wounded. They sent down a young man from
another
department into mine and requested me to teach him all about everything,
and he was
then to be my boss! This was too bad, from my limited point of view,
and I
protested that I was quite capable of carrying on alone.
The head of
the firm was a venerable old gentleman, whom we all respected very
much. He
would even take the trouble to say “Good morning” to all the employees
whom he
passed, even though they were worth only 3s. 9d. a week! He called me
into his
private office and reasoned with me. But it was quite hopeless. I could
manage their
department, but I could not reason. He begged me to have patience,
and pointed
out how well I might expect to succeed later on. I was an obstinate
young donkey.
One point I remember very well. He said: “Suppose in your father’s
warehouse
such a thing had happened. Do you not think your father would want an
older man in
the department, because of what customers would think?”
But the surly
boy only replied with a logical rudeness born of wounded pride:
“But it could
not happen there, where they have eighteen or twenty men in every
department!”
What patience
the old gentleman had! Here was I threatening him with notice, and
at last he
gave in with a sigh for my sake and accepted it, and I for the third
time joined
the army of unemployed at the age of fourteen.
The mention
of my father’s warehouse here requires some comment. I have
mentioned
that my father had become the manager of a stationery concern, but it
happened that
by the time of which I am now writing he had joined our family
warehouse.
“The Guv’nor” had died, and my jolly uncle who, out of five brothers,
had solely
inherited the [52] business, invited him to join him, which he had
done. The two
warehouses knew each other, being among the biggest in their
respective
lines, and the proprietor of mine took it for granted that my father
was a man of
greater importance in the family concern than he really was. It was
only later on
that my father became the head of the family business, after my
uncle died.
In the meantime, my uncle was sole proprietor, and the natural
course of
things was that his two sons should go into the business and inherit
from him,
while the rest of the grandchildren should keep outside and be content
with certain
monetary bequests which “the Guv’nor” had bequeathed them, to
become theirs
on tile death of their parents.
It might be
wondered by those who do not know the customs of city merchants why
my benevolent
proprietor did not expect me to go into the family warehouse. The
explanation
is simple: it was not usually considered desirable for the character
and
development of youngsters that they should serve their apprenticeship in
their own
family warehouses, where they might become slack in work or in
character on
account of family indulgence and the superior respect with which
the other
employees might treat them in view of favours to come.
I must also
explain that my brother had left the warehouse where I now worked
because he
had taken a fancy to retail business. He had gone into a “gents’
outfitters”
to learn the business, having been promised a shop of his own – he
had a chain
of shops in his mind’s eye – when he and the time should be ripe. He
had always
been interested and careful in his own dress, and therefore was quite
at home in
that business. In our Sunday afternoon walks when we were still at
school, when
we had come to the stage at which we were expected to walk along
sedately
without shaking our bowler hats off our heads, it had been I, not he,
who had
raised objections to this uncomfortable headgear. I had objected to
stiff cuffs
and collars and fronts, as well as bowler hats, but had had to
submit to
them.
It must have
gone against me in business that I was careless in dress. As a
young man, in
fact, I refused to wear anything but cloth caps, which put me
rather in the
“workman class.” But I had another reason for that. I had been
taken one day
by my father to see one of the big felt hat manufacturing works at
Denton, near
[53] Manchester. I saw the chopped fur being blown on to the
revolving
cones, and in a later stage of the process the felts being washed in
steaming vats
over which several people were bending. All those workers seemed
rather hollow
cheeked, but one man was worse than the others. My father
commented on
this.
“Yes,”
replied the proprietor, “he will not last long now. They never last more
than about
five years at this job.”
To my vivid
young mind, the wearing of felt hats was thenceforth to be regarded
as nothing
short of indirect murder. I had already seen the unhappy girls in the
shirt
factory. I learnt from my father of other and even worse cases. There was
one factory
known to him where he had asked why better ventilation was not
provided. He
learned that there were plenty of windows that would open, but the
work-girls
objected to their being opened, because the fresher air made them
hungry and
they could not afford to buy more food.
§3
My third bout
of unemployment was more trying than ever. It went on month after
month – some
six months of the hardest and most soul-destroying kind of work –
that of
looking for a job. Do not talk to me about unemployment in the
nineteen-thirties;
it was hellish enough in the eighteen-nineties. My only
solace during
those days of searching in the city was the public art gallery,
where I used
to go for an occasional hour, no, not to rest, but to look at the
pictures and
escape from reality into a more heroic world. I lingered also at
the
booksellers’ windows, and especially longed for those little books which
told how to
achieve success in life with nothing but ability and honesty to
recommend
one, or how to perform miracles of development of character or memory.
I have spoken
of our new house. The address was officially 6 Nell Lane, but the
inhabitants,
not wishing to be regarded as living in a lane, generally called it
Clough Road.
It had attics, which we had not enjoyed before. One of these attics
had been put
at my disposal, and I had seen it through several transformations –
a gallery for
archery, a gymnasium, a theatre – in which I had been sole actor,
in various
capacities, to an audience of imaginary people on imaginary [54]
chairs – and
lastly a sort of Venice, which I announced on a placard on the door
as
VENICE
on the
ADRIATIC SEA
(A dry attic.
See?)
I was a
little disappointed that nobody ever laughed at it! Sometimes I used to
go up there,
play my mandoline, and imagine myself in quite another world.
Now, it
happened later, during my unemployment, that the biggest department
store in the
city – Lewis’s – fitted up a tank in its large basement, decorated
the entire
floor in Italian style, and called the ensemble “Venice.” There was a
charge of one
penny to enter, and another penny for a tour, which was quite
extensive, in
a real gondola.
Two or three
times when I was searching for work I went down there and lingered
for hours
trying to make up my mind to ask for the manager, in order to put
before him a
business proposition which had entered my head and also, in fact,
my heart. I
thought it might be an additional attraction if they had a small boy
playing the
mandoline on one of the gondolas. I could play it well enough for
public
purposes, in fact as well as the average professional, almost as well, I
thought, as
the German professor and his two daughters who had taught me for
some two
years in a class of about fifteen girls in the school of music.
However, I
could not screw up my courage to the working point. I was also afraid
of what my
mother would say, that she might think I was disgracing the family by
becoming a
cheap musician in a public place. The incident reacted badly upon my
interest in
music. I announced to my father, much to his regret, that I must now
give up all
my music and devote myself entirely to the thought of making money.
I rarely
played the piano or the mandoline after that, and soon gave them up
altogether.
§4
My third
period of unemployment bade fair to become permanent, but at last a
vacancy arose
for an apprentice in a “gents’ outfitting” shop which had been
newly opened
in our suburb at the end of a row of shops near the railway [55]
station. It
was thought that I might follow in the same path as my brother and
ultimately
have a shop – or a chain of shops – of my own.
This time the
apprenticeship was a more formal affair, and I had to sign on for
three years.
Apparently, as the formalities increased the emoluments diminished.
I had sunk
from five shillings to three shillings and nine pence a week, before,
and now the
salary was to be nothing for the first year, five shillings a week
for the
second and I forget what for the third. The hours of work also
increased,
from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays (except for Wednesday, which
contained a
half-holiday), but to 10 p.m. on Saturdays, with an hour for lunch
and an hour
for tea. The work was not hard, but some ten hours’ standing and one
hour’s quick
walking every day proved fatiguing, and often I used to arrive home
so tired at
night that I had to go upstairs to bed on my hands and knees. I was
left alone in
the shop a great deal and used to consider it a pleasant thing
when a
customer came in. I was soon able to do everything connected with the
business,
except the actual buying of goods – on that side the proprietor seemed
anxious that
my tuition should be delayed as long as possible. I think that all
he wanted was
a cheap salesman, which he certainly got!
From
beginning to end I disliked the year and a half which I spent in that shop.
I used to get
tired, as already mentioned. Sometimes my attitude when alone –
which was
constant, as the proprietor more and more stayed at home, and once he
was away for
weeks in hospital – might have served as illustration for a modern
murder story,
as I lolled across the counter in a state of mental as well as
physical
despair. To add to my distress, my clothes gave me endless trouble. My
socks were
always coming down (it was before the invention of sock suspenders).
My hands were
always tensely curled up, trying to hold up my loose cuffs. The
stiff loose
shirt front was always trying to get through the opening of my
waistcoat.
One size of collar was too small and the next size was said to look
too big. My
shoes were heavy and clumsy, but this was my own fault, for I bought
them myself
and got them like that to thwart a craving in myself for something
quite the
opposite.
Sometimes in
the long idle hours of waiting for customers I used to picture how
I could be
quite cheerful and comfortable in that shop if I could dress in a
style of my
own, [56] combining the conveniences of dress worn by all kinds of
people – I
never thought of sexes as such. There would be long stockings,
supported
from a light corset, which would save me from the need of lolling on
the counter,
would give my back comfortable support through the long hours of
waiting and
provide a convenient place for a belt to hold knickers buttoning
beneath the
knee. There would be some soft kind of tennis shirt – emphatically
no collar,
nor front, nor cuffs, nor hard hat. There would be no waistcoat, but
a simple
coat. There would be light shoes, shaped so as not to press the toes
sideways, and
with perhaps a two inch heel to add a little to my height, which I
was then
beginning to desire increased, for practical convenience in association
with other
people.
I think that
for the most part I hit in my imagination upon a costume which
would have
made mankind healthier and happier if it could have been introduced,
though it was
certainly not in keeping with aspiration for success in the
“gents’
outfitting” business! It would have made all the difference in my own
life. It may
be that there was some morbidity in part of it, but as I look back
upon it I see
that it contained not only a desire for relief from very real and
constant
discomfort, but also a longing for something positive in the way of
lightness and
refinement – a desire for material spirituality.
But all that
was not to be, and I remained thoroughly out of accord with my
environment.
The demands of a ridiculous and cruel orthodoxy in dress,
associated
with caste ideas (in America they talk of the “white collar” class,
but we had no
word for it in England), have always been inexorable. I remember
when I was at
school that one day there came along the street a gentleman
wearing a
soft felt hat dinted in at the top. The boys ran after him shouting,
“Trilby,
Trilby!” I was the only one not to share in that pursuit, though I too
thought the
hat an absurd shape. Perhaps the masculine element of mankind is a
bit cynically
acceptive of coarseness and earthiness. A rough assertiveness,
even if
clumsy and unintelligent, adds to its sense of personality or life.
It would be
interesting to record the beginnings of adolescence. But that does
not seem
possible. Either there was nothing in particular or I cannot remember
it. Such
slight physical discomfort as I may have had was not [57] associated
with any
sexual imaginings. I am quite sure that I never dreamed or thought
about girls
or women. I knew that men and women got married and set up joint
establishments,
but I did not know that there was any physical connection
between men
and women, either for pleasure or the production of children. I must
have been
unusually unknowledgeable for my age in such matters.
Where did my
thoughts run? I am afraid they were mostly negative, preoccupied
with present
discomforts and future economics, with only an occasional lifting
of the
imagination to pictures of freedom, open skies, sunshine and foreign
travel,
though at the same time I knew that these could not satisfy me, for I
wanted to
solve the economic problem for everybody, not only for myself, though
that came
first.
Two or three
times I had been to the city to an old house which had fallen on
evil times,
to get the shirts cut to measure by my employer for his richer
patrons. My
destination was one room, bare of furniture but for a sewing
machine, a
crooked table, some broken chairs, a screen, and a dirty mattress
laid on the
floor in one corner. There were an old woman and two girls, the
former bent
out of human shape, with red eyes, an underlip hanging far over
(from
constant wetting of thread) and a thickened flattened thumb (from pressing
the cloth),
the latter preparing for the same dreadful fate. With my own eyes I
had seen
something which might well have inspired Hood’s
Stitch,
stitch, stitch ...
In poverty,
hunger and dirt.
I had not
been at the shop more than a few months when I was saved the long walk
several times
a day by our removal from Clough Road to 12 Silverdale Road – I am
bound to say
that builder had a genius for inventing fetching names for his
streets. The
new house was only two or three minutes’ walk away from the shop,
and this time
it was not rented but bought outright – a nice semi-detached house
with a
good-sized lawn, on which one could, and did, play croquet. On this
occasion my
employer earned a bit more of my dislike by quoting, I suppose for
want of
something else to say, that three removals were as bad as a fire, which
I – absurdly
sensitive as usual – took to be a criticism of my father, which I
could not
tolerate. [58]
It was at
this period that I made my first experiments in Indian Yoga. I found
an article in
a popular magazine, describing how the yogis developed
extraordinary
powers by means of special methods of breathing. I felt that I
needed
special powers, since the ordinary ones seemed of little use in life
unless
conjoined by some chance with special opportunities. So once, in the
midday, when
I had the shop to myself, I went into the back room (which had been
newly
acquired and contained a chair) and sat down to practise the breathing
exercises
prescribed. I did it for about forty minutes. At that point I heard
somebody come
into the shop. I rose from the chair and walked to the front room
without
feeling the floor I walked on or any sense of my own weight. My employer
entered and
asked for a pair of scissors, which I found and handed to him
without any
feeling of the article or sense of its weight. I must have looked
peculiar in
some way, for I remember he stared at me very hard and with a
surprised
expression. The incident passed off. Gradually my sense of touch and
weight
returned. I did not perform the experiment again, as I considered it to
be dangerous.
Still it remained in my mind as an interesting possibility, to be
pursued
further if an opportunity for greater knowledge in connection with it
should turn
up.
Another
occult possibility came within my ken about this time. When we were out
cycling one
Sunday morning my father told me about a lecture of Mrs. Besant’s
which he had
just attended. She had spoken of visits to the worlds of the dead,
describing
the modes of life of the departed as continuing the mental and
emotional
interests with which they had left the earth, and she had concluded by
saying that
almost anybody who would take the trouble could develop the use of
astral and
mental bodies so as to move in those worlds and observe for
themselves. I
vowed to myself that I would hear Mrs. Besant on her next visit,
and would do
this thing myself if it were really true. These were dangerous
subjects, I
knew – populus vult decipi – but I would be scientific about them.
[59]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER IV
MASTERY
§1
LIKE many
other boys, I had in my schooldays collected foreign stamps, and in my
last year at
school I had been in the habit of exchanging and selling my
duplicates, and
had even done some selling for a London firm on a commission
which I
shared with the purchasers. It happened that while I was at the shop I
one day saw
an advertisement of an old stamp collection for sale for £7. I went
to see it,
and knew it for a rare bargain. I had, however, only £2 saved up. I
borrowed £5
from my father, promising to repay the amount soon, and bought the
collection.
I started to
sell the collection piecemeal. Within a week my father had his
money back –
much to his surprise – I was some pounds in pocket and I had still
most of the
stamps in stock.
I began to
deal. I advertised cheap packets of stamps in some of the weekly and
monthly
magazines, and with the packets I sent out “approval sheets” of a better
class of
stamps than those which appeared in the packets. Within a month I was
doing a
roaring trade. There was a good element of luck in it. I happened to get
that
collection and to hit the market at a favourable moment, not at the time of
financial
depression. I was thus able to obtain the business of a large number
of boys in
the public schools and also a certain number of more mature
collectors. I
opened up trade connections with prominent dealers, and began to
import the
cheaper stamps in sacks containing a million each, from the
collections
made by Swiss convents. I was also selling these by tens of
thousands by
weight, after picking them over and extracting the unusual kinds.
This [60]
work occupied my Sundays, my Wednesday afternoons, my early mornings
and the
greater part of my lunch and tea hours. My father, always ready to help
his sons in
any way, used to come up into the attic to help me in his spare
time. My
elder brother had by now gone to live in another town, where he was
employed. My
younger brother was at school.
After some
time and discussion my employer consented to the cancellation of my
agreement of
apprenticeship, so, with a joyous heart, I bade good-bye to
warehouses
and retail shops, to stiff collars and fronts and loose cuffs.
Very shortly
afterwards I rented the living quarters over a large stationery and
toyshop, and
began to employ clerks. At first two, then three and more until at
the age of
sixteen I had sixteen clerks in my office. These were all girls.
I employed
girls instead of men, not because they were cheaper, but because my
father
emphatically assured me that they were steadier for simple work, more
honest (my
business offered many opportunities for theft), more contented, and
less likely
to learn my methods of business in order to go away and start rival
businesses,
perhaps with a list of my customers in the pocket. He also hinted to
me that apart
from business this method had, however, its dangers, and impressed
upon me again
and again the blessings of a bachelor’s life. He was not thinking
of
immorality; I fancy he knew that I was as safe from that as the Bank of
England, so
to speak; but there might be several young ladies who would not
object to
marrying my business, however lacking in charms the proprietor
thereof.
I did, in
fact, fall in love with the very first girl I engaged, and even before
I engaged
her, during the five minutes’ preliminary interview. She was a
handsome
girl, with large brown eyes and a smile which, when she let it loose
towards the
termination of our interview, nearly carried me off my feet. She was
a typical
“Gibson girl” – the style of the period – of the same age and just as
tall as
myself, with a pompadour, a blouse and skirt costume with an
unbelievably
small waist, and shoes – which I disapproved, for anything in the
nature of
voluntary deformity always made me feel quite sick – which must have
been pushing
her big toe very much out of line.
I never gave
her the slightest indication of my devotion, though it lasted for
several
years, and we were together all day, laughing and chatting over our
work. There
is no [61] doubt that I should have let myself go sooner or later –
a little
later rather than sooner – but for one fact. She used to come to
business by
train, and some weeks after our first meeting I heard, from her
conversation
with the other girls – which was not concealed from me, as I did
not try to
stop my employees from talking, since I wanted them to enjoy
themselves
while they worked – that she had met on the train a young city clerk
or secretary
in a good position in the Ship Canal (which turned out to be
perfectly
true) who had become very much attached to her and used to take her
out to
theatres and other entertainments. She liked him, too.
That was
enough for me. I reasoned it out that the young man concerned was in a
better
position to make her happy than I was, untrained as I was to society and
theatres and
dancing, and my business after all was not a very safe one in
economic emergencies,
as I dealt only in luxuries. I had indulged in pictures of
good business
and a happy wife with a little child in her arms (though, believe
me, I did not
yet know that there was such a thing as physical connection
between man
and woman and the birth of children thereby), but I put these aside
decisively
and finally when the other young man appeared on the scenes, and
rigidly
confined myself to a “fatherly” interest after that. Y ears afterwards
they were
married. I met her again some fourteen years after we parted; she was
happy and
well kept and very fond of a little daughter.
§2
This girl
became my head clerk, and manageress whenever I was not on the spot.
She was very
intelligent, and flung all her vivacity and energy into the
business as
if it were her own. She was an expert typist, playing the whole
keyboard with
one finger of each hand, after the fashion of those days. She
could rattle
off letters by the dozen, once given the idea of the points to be
written
about. I had a card-index system of my own invention, which was a great
time-saver.
It was a little tricky, but she understood it and could handle it
perfectly. It
was no mean business that I was carrying on, for it was not at all
unusual for
me to have to open five hundred letters in the morning mail, and I
used to make
it a practice to clear out all orders on the same day, [62] even
those which
came by the afternoon post. I had an old four-wheeler “growler” –
horse cab –
to take my mails to the post office; nothing so musty exists on
earth now, I
think.
I took care
to pay wages about fifteen per cent above the market, and most of
the girls
were fairly happy. One, an orphan, had a cruel time living with a
distant relative
who expected her to be general servant as well as to bring in
some money
every week, but I could do nothing about that. One was absolutely
alone and
entirely dependent upon the small wage she received from me; I could
never send
her away, though she proved to be very slow and incompetent. Two or
three of them
were rather down at heel, especially one girl who had some younger
brothers and
sisters to help to maintain. One was a clergyman’s daughter, a
delicate,
pretty girl, with a club foot; she was the only one who objected to
take her turn
at making the fire, because she said she was afraid that her
mother would
take her away if she did, and then she would not have her
pocket-money.
We had all sorts.
The
conversation of the girls was always interesting and laughter was constantly
passing round
the tables. It was always clean, in contrast with that of the
young men I
had known in business. Rarely, there was a little bit of
spitefulness.
I remember an occasion near the beginning, when the head girl was
wearing a
blue serge dress, which was probably home-made and had represented a
good deal of
economy and care. One or two of the other girls made fun of it,
quite
unnecessarily. She was greatly upset and did not wear it again. I very
much wanted
to tell her that I liked her better in that dress than any other,
but I dared
not rise to such intimacy. Altogether, the company of those girls
was much to
my taste, even if it did partake somewhat of the nature of a musical
comedy scene.
When my religious aunt was visiting our house one day she
expressed
wonder that I did not fall in love with one of them. I startled her by
replying –
without thought – that there was safety in numbers.
I was a firm
believer in the adage that it pays to advertise. Every week I used
to make a
careful estimate of my profits, and at least half of them I would
immediately
put into advertising, while most of the other half went to
increasing
the stock. I was also quite willing to sell some stamps at [63] a
loss in order
to make a profit on others. The cheap packets of stamps which I
advertised
and sold at twenty-five per cent less than the actual cost to me of
the stamps
contained in them brought me thousands of customers, from many of
whom I
obtained further business, once my catalogue and approval selections were
in their
hands.
In my regular
lines I did not raise the price to compensate for these losses,
which I
regarded as part of my advertising expenses, but on the whole I sold
well under
the general market, as I worked on the principle of small profits and
quick
returns.
Another
little stroke of luck came for me at this time in the sudden enthusiasm
for penny
post throughout the Empire. It became possible to send letters under
two ounces
weight to all parts of the Empire, except, I think, Rhodesia, for one
penny. This
may seem a small matter, but it instantly increased my trade with
the Colonies
about tenfold. That postal arrangement was entirely reciprocal,
very much in
contrast with the present, when the Englishman sending his letter
to India puts
on it a 1 1/2 d. stamp, but the poor Indian posting his to England
must put on 2
1/2 annas, equal to about 2 3/4 d.
After about a
year I began to find my premises altogether too small. As no
suitable building
was available for rent I decided to build. My father disliked
the idea of
my stock lying practically unprotected in a vacant office at nights,
so he
suggested selling his house and building a new one along with my proposed
new office.
First we planned a house with a huge basement for my business, but
my mother
objected to that idea because it would bring business and employees
actually into
her house, even if there were a separate entrance to the basement.
We then
decided on a two-storied office, each floor sixty by eighteen feet, to
stand in the
garden at the side of the new house. All this took many months to
build, as it
was a year of abnormal rains and the contractors also got
themselves
into some financial difficulties.
Before we
moved, however, I had an experience which bade fair to terminate the
entire
proceedings, as far as I was concerned. My upper lip began to swell and
become hard,
then my cheek and forehead, and then the side of the head near the
temple. I lay
in the front bedroom in Silverdale Road. It was an abnormally hot
season, and I
could [64] hear the hum of a mosquito in the room – a rare thing
in the north
of England.
The doctor
came and did what he could. He opened the swelling, but nothing would
come out. Then
I heard my father and the doctor talking in the adjacent
bathroom.
They forgot that the walls were very thin. My father said, in a broken
voice: “He
was a good boy” – was, mind you. The past tense was quite
unequivocal.
I told myself that I did not want to die, just when I was
beginning, at
the age of seventeen, to get a bit of success and fun out of life.
The doctor
said that if I survived the night he would make another trial to get
the stuff out
in the morning. He duly arrived with an instrument shaped like a
glove-stretcher,
made an opening in my lip, pushed the long end of the
instrument in
gradually, about as far as my eye, and stretched it open a bit by
means of the
handles, which he then told me to hold while he knelt on the side
of the bed
and pressed his knuckles on my face with all his weight behind them.
I thought the
bones would cave in under the pressure. Fortunately he succeeded
in squeezing
out some of the bad matter, a hard greenish substance. The doctor
insisted that
I was a brick, but I rather thought it was the bones that had
proved
themselves of that category.
That day the
weather broke. Rain fell in torrents. The trains were running a
foot deep in
water in the railway cutting. The air became cool. I felt immediate
relief, and
in a few days was able to attend to my work in a modified degree. In
the interval
my father had carried on the selling end of the business with the
aid of the
head girl. [65]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER V
FRATERNITY
§1
SHORTLY after
we removed, Mrs. Besant came again to our city, and gave two
lectures in a
small hall seating about six hundred people. I went with my father
to hear her.
She had a sort of superhuman halo or atmosphere about her. She did
not carry
herself or act like other people. All the people present seemed to
believe that
she walked as easily in the worlds of the dead as in those of the
living, or at
least were impressed by her sincerity and held the idea that “it
might be so.”
Her fluent words, impressive voice and holy manner, and the
importance of
the subject combined to produce an atmosphere intense, devout and
even
aspirational. I was quite carried away, though I cannot remember the
subject of
her oration.
On the
occasion of a second lecture I bought at the door a book of hers called
In the Outer
Court. I was greatly impressed by it and read it again and again.
The heights
to which a human being could climb thrilled me; the practical ways
in which this
could be done called for instant endeavour. They were simply the
old time-worn
formulae of virtue, but carried to their climax with
uncompromising
rigidity – spotless truth, love for all, even for those who hate
and hurt,
perfect control of thought, the building of character by imagination,
purity and
above all self-sacrifice. The climax dwelt upon words quoted by her
from another
book, as follows:
Before the
eyes can see they must be incapable of tears.
Before the
ear can hear it must have lost its sensitiveness.
Before the
voice can speak in the presence of the Masters it must have lost the
power to
wound.
Before the
soul can stand in the presence of the Masters its feet must be washed
in the blood
of the heart. [66]
Mrs. Besant
held the crucible theory. We must make ourselves into crucibles,
standing in
the fire while in us the evils of the world are transformed to good.
My father was
not quite so much impressed as I. He remarked that when such a
little book
was sold for two shillings, somebody must be getting something out
of it.
It happened
perhaps a year before this time that my jolly uncle gave to my
father an
extract from The Light of Asia, which had been given to him in turn by
a doctor
friend of his who was a student of mystical literature. My uncle had a
passion for
poetry. One afternoon, when my elder brother was with us, I entered
the kitchen
and found him leaning against the dresser, obviously thinking hard,
with a slip
of paper – this extract – in his hand. He said: “Have you read
this?”
I took the
paper, and read of Buddha carrying the wounded lamb down the
hill-side to
the hall of sacrifice, and speaking to the king such words as made
the priests
hide their crimsoned hands:
While still
our Lord went on, teaching how fair
This earth
were if all living things be linked
In
friendliness and common use of foods,
Bloodless and
pure; the golden grain, bright fruits,
Sweet herbs
which grow for all, the waters wan,
Sufficient
drinks and meats. Which when these heard
The might of
gentleness so conquered them,
The priests
themselves scattered their altar-flames
And through
the land next day passed a decree
Proclaimed by
criers, and in this way graved
On rock and
column: “Thus the King’s will is:
There hath
been slaughter for the sacrifice
And slaying
for the meat, but henceforth none
Shall spill
the blood of life or taste of flesh,
Seeing that
knowledge grows, and life is one,
And mercy
cometh to the merciful.”
My brother
said: “If you will become a vegetarian, I will.”
“All right,”
said I.
From that
moment we were vegetarians, though my mother put up a good deal of
opposition,
fearing that we would lose our health. My father also would have
become a
vegetarian then, but for his consideration for her feelings.
We listened
to all the arguments against vegetarianism, but none of them was
sufficiently
convincing to counteract [67] the moral issue. It was said by some
that the
animals would overrun the earth if we did not destroy them for food.
The Chinese
might as well argue to the American that his continent would be
overrun by
frogs if he persisted in his foolish policy of not eating frogs. On
the contrary
it is found necessary to breed animals by the million to fill the
meat markets.
This very aspect of the matter, however, constituted in my eyes
the greatest
argument in favour of flesh food.
I was once,
years later, speaking to a lady on a boat, and she put me this
issue: “But
do you not realize that if we did not eat meat there would be
millions of
animals which would never have any life at all?”
A bit Irish,
perhaps, but I understood, and replied: “Yes. I could be reconciled
to that idea,
if we could have an agreement that every animal before being
killed should
be given its share of the bargain, that is, a reasonable long
life, at
least to the other side of maturity, and there should be no lamb and
sucking pig
on our tables, and no horrors such as pate de foie gras, goose liver
produced by
nailing the bird’s feet permanently to a board so as to deprive it
of all
exercise, and stuffing food forcibly down its throat so as to enlarge its
liver.”
There was no
answer to this. Besides, if it is on the ground of providing life
to other
creatures that we ought to eat them, we ought on the same ground to
insist on
using horse-carriages and refuse the use of motor-cars for ordinary
short-distance
traffic. A city taxi-cab should be an object of execration and
our streets
ought still to be filled with growlers and hansom cabs. There must
be millions
fewer horses on earth than there were twenty-five years ago.
Speaking of
vegetarianism reminds me of an amusing incident with reference to
smoking. My
elder brother, always rather thin and fragile, was obviously smoking
too much. My
father used to advise him strongly against it. One day my brother
suddenly said
to himself, as he was going along a path across a field which led
to our house:
“What is the
use of smoking, anyway?” and he took out his pipe from his pocket
and flung it
away. A day or two later my father was crossing the field, when he
happened to
see the pipe lying in the grass. He recognized it and brought it
home.
“It seems a
pity,” he remarked, “to throw away a good pipe that cost several
shillings.”
[68]
The next day
my brother was puffing away as hard as ever at the same old pipe.
I never
smoked. I preferred the money. I was very careful about money – except
on one
occasion when I was travelling on the top of a tramcar at night, and on
reaching home
I found that in the dark I had given the conductor two sovereigns
in mistake
for two halfpennies to pay the penny fare!
§2
After Mrs.
Besant’s lecture the chairman announced that there was a branch of
the
Theosophical Society in the city and there would be a meeting on Tuesday
evening at
which the public were invited to ask questions. My father and I
attended. We
were both thoroughly dissatisfied with the answers to the
half-dozen
questions put by members of the public.
My father
asked: “If there were a good power or principle as the basis of all
things, how
could there be imperfection, pain, cruelty or any evil in the
world?”
Several people tried to answer this – quite hopelessly. One illogical
answer was
that God had given man free will and it was man who produced the evil
– quite
innocent of the obvious implication that God must have produced man as
an evil being
and therefore have produced the evil.
The only man
there whom we appreciated and respected was the chairman, a
venerable
gentleman (afterwards to be my father-in-law) who explained that
members of
the Theosophical Society were only students, and that though man
could not yet
solve such ultimate questions, it was still worth while to study
and find out
what we could. He himself felt that were there not some good
principle
gradually emerging and increasing its sway, there could be no good at
all in man,
since no purely material being could be unselfish or could rise to
the heights
of self-sacrifice. Such a thing would mean that matter could
overstep the
nature of matter. And besides there was that mysterious divine
discontent
which at last left no one completely satisfied with any material
pleasures or
gains. He begged the audience not to go to extremes in any way, but
to use reason
just as far as it would go with the very limited data at our
disposal. My
father was very much taken by this old gentleman who was old enough
to be his
father. We went [69] to the meeting a second time, only to find a man
reading an
extremely dull and futile paper. We went no more, but decided that we
would hear
Mrs. Besant whenever she came to the city.
It was not
long before I obtained a copy of The Light of Asia. It affected me so
deeply that I
had to read it in the privacy of my own room. Here at last was
true
religion, from my point of view. The life of Buddha, as given in this poem,
was supremely
gentle, beautiful, unselfish; but what was it that Buddha had
discovered
which brought hope into the world? It was the law of karma. Why?
Because it
showed that man was making himself through a series of lives, and if
it was
somewhat hard that such a puny being was faced with such a herculean task
– that he
could obtain nothing except by his own efforts – there was at the same
time the
assurance that he could never suffer in the least except by his own
doing, that
present cruelty and injustice to himself was but the payment for his
own past
cruelty and injustice to others, and that the door was open for him to
make of his
own future just what he liked. Here was no capricious God who, if
capable of
creating cancer on earth, would be equally capable of providing
dreadful hells
hereafter. No blind unmoral chance also, which could so easily
bring to
naught in a moment the most strenuous endeavours.
I still
thought of Mrs. Besant in connection with all this Buddhism. It was one
thing to have
a theory or a voice from the past, however beautiful and eminent.
It seemed
quite another to have at hand a living person, a noble, trustworthy,
and unselfish
character, who could add to that theory the living testimony of
direct
super-sensuous vision, who could declare these things to be true,
certain,
scientifically sure, in a ringing convincing voice.
§3
In the new
building, I invited my elder brother to join me in the business. He
left the shop
that he was then managing, and we opened new departments in the
upper floor
of the office. We started making rubber stamps, and by following the
methods that
I had already found successful, succeeded in developing a large
postal
business, importing most of our raw materials and small mechanisms from
America and
Germany. We opened out also in the sale of picture post [70] cards,
and luckily
got in right in the height of the craze, selling especially
Continental
views, most beautifully collotyped in Germany. We missed, however, a
good trade in
safety razors and some other small articles, through over-caution.
In my new
offices on the ground floor I had partitioned off a portion as private
office. Here
I used to attend to my account books and also retire occasionally
to practise
various mental and physical exercises which I had found in Mrs.
Besant’s
book, and in some books on hypnotism and cognate subjects which I had
obtained
elsewhere, particularly one called Your Finer Forces and How to Develop
Them. I
practised breathing exercises but not of the Hatha Yoga kind. I had had
for some time
after my experiment in breathing at the shop a romantic notion of
curing large
numbers of variously afflicted people in practically no time by
means of
mesmeric passes.
Some months
after the visit to the Theosophical Lodge I began to desire more
knowledge
about it. I remembered to have seen a small library there and thought
it might
possibly be open to the public. I was determined to read extensively,
if I could
find suitable books. So one evening I went again to the Theosophical
Lodge premises.
I found there, sitting at a table, an oldish gentleman with a
bald head, a
small “horse-thief” beard, and a snuffle. Later I learned that he
was by
profession a knocker-up. He lived in the mill area and made his living by
going round
the streets in the early mornings and rattling on the bedroom
windows of
his clients with a long stick. This occupation gave him plenty of
time to
indulge in his hobby – the study of Greek and Neo-Platonic philosophy,
in which he
had read profoundly. Anyone would have taken him for a university
professor of
the old style, or a second-hand bookseller. I also found a notice
saying that
books could be borrowed for a penny a week, or two shillings and
sixpence a
year.
I walked over
to the table, and when the old gentleman looked up at me I put
down a
half-crown and said I wanted to join the library. He stared owlishly at
the coin for
a few moments, then pushed it back towards me and said: “No, take a
book; pay a
penny when you return it. Perhaps you will not want to read any
more.”
This negative
sort of salesmanship took me, a business [71] man, very much by
surprise. But
I had made up my mind. Pushing the half-crown back again I
replied: “No,
put me down for a year’s subscription. I am going to read them
all.”
It happened
at that moment that two small middle-aged ladies entered the room.
One, I learnt
afterwards, was the wife of the president to whom my father and I
had taken a
liking on the occasion of our first visit to the Lodge; the other
kept a small toffee
shop in the mill area. They spoke to me – words of welcome.
I was shy,
and wanted to get away with my book. Would I not give them the
pleasure of
my company at the meeting that was about to take place? I preferred
not, I
explained that I had come only to obtain books to read, to find out more
about Mrs.
Besant’s philosophy. Oh! But it would give them so much pleasure if I
would stay.
So I went with them into an adjacent, larger room, which was by day
a sort of
board-room connected with a solicitor’s office. They sat me down on a
large settee
and brought me a number of photographs to see. “This is Mr.
Sinnett. This
is Mr. Leadbeater. This is Mr. Mead. This is Mrs. Mead. This is
Mr.
Keightley” – and so on.
I said: “Yes;
yes; yes; yes,” very politely, though full of inward wonder at
this sudden
transition from an atmosphere of rare philosophy to the intimacies
of something
resembling a family album. And the persons represented in the
portraits did
not resemble the perfect men or Mahatmas of whom I was in search,
though Mrs.
Besant had done so to some extent, with her priestessly robes and
manner.
After several
other people had drifted in and the chairman had called the
meeting to
order with two minutes’ silent meditation, I listened to an hour’s
lecture by a
parrot-faced and parrot-voiced lady, on the theory that the earth
came from the
moon and not the moon from the earth, and then went home, having
given a
promise to attend again the next week.
§4
Though the
lodge-meetings bored me, the literature had the reverse effect. At
the beginning
I read mostly books written by Mrs. Besant, of which there were a
large number,
and five largish volumes entitled: Isis Unveiled and The [72]
[Photo
missing: DR. ANNIE BESANT IN HER PRIME (Lafayette)]
Secret
Doctrine, by Madame Blavatsky, chief founder of the movement. With the
portrait of
the author in Isis Unveiled I almost fell in love.
In both of
these authors I read about Mahatmas. I was already prepared for the
main ideas of
Theosophy (as this philosophy was somewhat erroneously called) by
my reading of
The Light of Asia. I was a worshipper at the shrine of Buddha as
depicted
therein. I had read that other people could follow in his steps and
bring to an
end the procession of their lives (or rather bodies) by attaining
Nirvana, a
state which could not be defined, but certainly bore no resemblance
to any sort
of heaven.
According to
Buddha, this Nirvana was to be attained not by any external means,
not by
breathings or posturings, not by prayer or supplication, not by the aid
of any
teacher or guide, but simply by surrendering absolutely all selfishness
and turning
the full light of reason upon the imperfection of the world and all
human
fancies, and thus reaching “illumination” and the “true life kept for him
who false
puts by.” I understood that thousands had attained Nirvana, the state
of Buddha,
the Wise, just as he himself had done, and had gone on into Nirvana.
But in these
works I read of Mahatmas, men who had attained Nirvana but were
nevertheless
actually living in human Indian bodies in Tibet. Though they had
attained
perfection, they had not accepted the full liberty of Nirvana, but
remained in
touch with man on the threshold of that state, so that they might
help others
to attain.
I wanted
above all things to find one of these Mahatmas, to serve him, to learn
and practise
at his feet. Notwithstanding my coolness towards the celebrities of
the
Theosophical Society, my lack of response to the contents of the family
album, I was
completely captivated by the greater, though similar attraction of
the Mahatmas.
I found from
conversation with my new friends that they were very humble in
these
matters. They worshipped the Masters or Adepts from afar. They said that
if they
behaved themselves in the station in life to which they had so far
attained,
they might hope, after some more lives, to approach the feet of the
Masters and
begin to tread the Path which led – usually through seven or
fourteen
lives of intense endeavour – to Their estate. In the meantime they sat
at the feet
of those who were already Their disciples. [73]
This was not
good enough for me. I had pictured myself as another edition of the
Buddha
himself, a Nirvani in this life. I was prepared to surrender everything,
everything. I
wanted this joy not only for myself. I wanted everybody to see
that they
suffered from themselves, that none else compelled them to hug the
wheel of
birth and death, and kiss its spokes of agony. The Theosophical Society
was founded
by the Masters for the purpose of spreading this knowledge of the
open door to
Nirvana above and brotherhood on earth. I would work for it with
every ounce
of my strength, with every gasp of my breath.
I gave my
name for membership to the President, vowing in a broken voice that I
would do my
best to help the great work. My vehemence disturbed the members
standing by;
it was perhaps a little unseemly to be so religious in public. My
name went up
to higher quarters, and after several months’ delay I received from
London a
certificate of membership, though I was only at the age of nineteen.
Their rule
that minors could be admitted only with the consent of their parents
and guardians
seems to have been overlooked in my case.
In my reading
I had pictured one of the Mahatmas as particularly suited to
myself. I
wanted to go to him and learn. In the privacy of my room I would throw
myself on the
ground in my longing, like any medieval devotee. Life was barren,
unthinkable,
impossible. It could not go on without Him. I doubt if any hart
panted after
the water-brooks as I after the Master. I wrote to Mrs. Besant
about this.
She replied that I had a good brain, deep devotion, a great gift of
expression,
and would certainly go far in this life. She said that her own
literary and
scientific education had been of great value to her in her work,
and advised
me to prepare myself by completing a sound education. Old people
must be taken
as they are, she said, but young people should study and make
themselves
worth having.
Some little
time afterwards Mrs. Besant came to the city again and I was told
that I might
have an interview with her. She stayed at the house of the
President. I
went there on the appointed day. There was a hushed atmosphere.
Several
people were sitting tensely on chairs in the drawing-room, waiting for
their turns,
while our hostess, the little lady mentioned before (who was
destined to
become my mother-in-law, though I did not know it then), busied
herself [75]
with the arrangements. It was a large well-appointed house, for the
President was
a successful business man, proprietor of a fairly large ironworks.
In due course
my turn came. I had had time to work myself up into a considerable
state of
agitation, the suppression of which produced an outward state of
abnormal
stiffness. I entered Mrs. Besant’s room. She was sitting on a chair at
the far side.
I balanced myself on the edge of another chair at a respectful
distance,
very conscious of my clumsy boots, my tennis shirt and my long dark
beard – would
have been very promising material for a caricaturist of
Bolsheviks. I
waited nervously for her to speak the words which would change the
whole of my
life and even future eternities, deeming no words necessary for me
in the
presence of practical omniscience! She looked at me intently for what
seemed a long
time – it was characteristic of her great heart that she did not
burst into
laughter or else into tears. At last she asked me what my plans were.
I told her my
desire. She advised patience and preparation – strangely like the
advice given
to me by the kind old gentleman who was the proprietor of my second
warehouse.
This time I had the sense to take the advice. I was consoled to some
extent by her
suggestion that I should keep in touch with her by correspondence.
It was in
that house that I became acquainted with a little girl who was to play
a big part in
the future that was then troubling me so much. I was frequently
invited
there, with other friends, and occasionally we used to sit for a kind of
group
meditation. Eight or ten of us, very much in sympathy with one another,
used to
gather at a big round table in one of the spare rooms, for an hour’s
meditation,
after which we would tell to one another our experiences. In order
to counteract
to some extent the impure “magnetism” of our daily clothing, at
these
gatherings we used to put on white robes, all alike. Afterwards we would
generally
return to the drawing-room and have a little refreshment and
conversation
before proceeding to our various homes.
It was on one
such occasion that I first met the little girl above mentioned.
Ordinarily
she was not in evidence at any of our gatherings or tea parties,
being sent to
play somewhere or being entertained by the maids. But she was
brought to
meet the visitors and to receive a good night kiss [75] before going
to bed. She
drove me nearly out of my wits by starting to go round the whole
circle of
visitors for this good night kiss. I was in a mild perspiration when
my turn came,
but I managed to do my duty by planting a most undexterous
osculation
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the parting of the hair. I had not
kissed
anybody, not even my mother, since my dreadful experience with the
school-ma’am,
and I was not sure now but that it was a most dangerous thing to
do, leading
to one could not tell what lengths on the downward path!
Although the
little girl was quite willing to kiss the visitors, she
nevertheless
most obviously regarded us with the greatest possible scorn. I had
never before
seen such a proud child, nor indeed any person so expert in giving
a snub or
showing the cold shoulder. There was, of course, nothing deliberate in
this; it was
simply that she did not hide her thoughts or feelings. She had her
own views
about the white robes!
§5
Mrs. Besant’s
advice sent me back to school – the last thing in the world I
could have
expected. Not satisfied entirely with the theosophical library, I had
developed the
habit of going to the big city reference library. There I became a
voracious
reader whenever I could find time. Every book was interesting –
philosophy,
science, travel, biography, history. Once more I wanted to read them
all. But my
ardour for this was damped when one day I made a calculation and
discovered
that if I spent eight hours a day reading in that library I could
finish the
job in about five hundred full life-times! I must select. One thing,
however, I
would not set aside – the Sanskrit books.
I had read in
one of Mrs. Besant’s printed lectures that the philosophy of
Shankaracharya
– an Indian metaphysician who lived about three hundred years
B.C.,
according to some, but about a thousand years later than that according to
others –
could not be fully understood unless one read it in the original
Sanskrit. The
implication was that she herself could do this. She also spoke of
him as the
greatest of Masters.
To me her
words had the force of divine authority and imperative necessity. At
the city
library I called for their [76] small collection of Sanskrit books,
including
several grammars, and was overjoyed to find that it was a language one
could learn
by oneself, without a teacher. There were no difficulties of
pronunciation,
since the script in which it was written was purely phonetic. The
grammar books
were not all quite clear about this pronunciation, but by
comparing
three or four of them and making my own deductions I arrived at what I
was
afterwards very pleased to learn (when an Indian friend visited us) to be
the correct
pronunciation, according to South Indian standards. Then I wrote to
Bombay for
grammar and other Sanskrit books of my own.
Hanging on
the side of a screen near the entrance to the library I one day
noticed a
pamphlet of the University Tutorial College of Cambridge, which told
about the
London University examinations, and how one could prepare for them by
postal
tuition. Here was my opportunity to complete the sound education advised
by Mrs.
Besant. I would give point to my studies by reading for examinations as
explained in
that booklet. I wrote to the College. I wanted to take their course
for the
Matriculation Examination first of all; but I did not want to take Latin
or French for
my second language, though I had learnt both at school. I wanted
to take
Sanskrit, which was permissible at the examination by payment of an
extra fee of
£2. But when I learnt that the tuition fee for Sanskrit would be
£10 extra for
every ten lessons by post, I dropped the Tutorial College and
decided to
learn everything by myself.
I bought the
books, settled down to three or four hours’ study every day, part
of it in
business hours in my private office. For the scientific subjects I
attended the
Municipal School of Technology – a magnificent affair, costing half
a million
pounds, modelled somewhat on the lines of the famous Boston
Technological
Institution – for two and a half hours every evening, except Lodge
nights. Thus
in about a year I matriculated in London University, having passed
in my coveted
Sanskrit as well as the other subjects required by the University.
I had then to
decide whether I would go in for the Arts or the Science course
for the
Degree. Philosophy and metaphysics were to me the veriest child’s play.
I decided,
therefore, in order to avoid a bias in my education, to take up
science, to
which I devoted a large part of my time for four [77] years, in
chemistry,
physics, geology and mathematics, attending the Technical College
nearly every
night.
I loved that
College, and the teachers; they were real teachers, in complete
contrast to
what I had known in my schooldays. I no longer had any qualms about
going back to
school. The College was part of the Victoria University, but the
night
students were not allowed in those less democratic days to have the
degrees (as
they are now) so we had to content ourselves with the numerous
certificates
of the Board of Education in separate subjects of study. I obtained
many first
classes and numerous prizes, which more than covered the cost of my
fees. Meals
necessarily became very irregular at this time, and I expert at
poaching eggs
and toasting cheese on a gas ring. [78]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER VI
MYSTERY
§1
THERE were
not many members who cared to attend the Theosophical Lodge
regularly;
the average was perhaps eight or ten, though there were about thirty
members on
the rolls. Lecturers would come occasionally from London and other
places, and
then the Lodge room would be filled with members and their friends.
The President’s
wife, who was hostess for the Lodge, had the difficult task of
bringing
about a closer association of the alpha and omega of society. She would
go much out
of her way to encourage any visitors of education and culture to
come more
intimately into touch with the Lodge; but she would also do what she
could for the
poorest and the most ignorant, and invite them also to her house.
There was one
old man, a boot and shoe repairer from a back street, who was
half-crazed with
incoherent visions, and would talk on all occasions. The
problem was
accentuated by his indifference to soap, water and nail scissors.
She was
always kind to him, yet tried firmly to quieten him and prevent him from
unconsciously
insulting other people who happened to hold views differing from
his. There
was a highfalutin’ widow of the semi-artistic world, with two
marriageable
daughters. Our hostess thought it would do me immense good if I
could hit it
off with one of those, and did her best to make suitable
opportunity.
But it meant nothing to me in my then mood. My position was rather
that of a
pedigreed cat belonging to a friend, which turned up its nose at the
pedigreed
partner thoughtfully provided for it, and preferred to devote its
amours to a
rapscallion which lived in a convent near by – in my case the great
orphan,
humanity. [79]
The
membership was not permanent. There were always some coming in and some
going out,
for various reasons. One gentleman, who had been in the habit of
reading
papers at the meetings, showed me a new book one day. It was full of
coloured
plates of astral and other auras of various kinds of people. He said it
was
impossible to believe. Did I not think so? No, I did not think so, nor
apparently
did any of the others. We had a rational argument, even if there was
a weak spot
in it. These things were probabilities. Those who claimed to see
them were
good people. Therefore what they said was probably true. The gentleman
went home and
came no more.
There was one
professional man whom we had made our treasurer. He was very
ardent, but
the annual meeting finished him off. There was a deficit of £9. What
was to be
done about it? He suggested we should increase the annual dues to wipe
it off. But,
as had happened year after year before, the President paid it.
Thereupon our
Treasurer resigned membership, saying he was unwilling to
associate
with such irresponsible people, who came there for what they could get
and had not
the dignity to pay their way even when they could.
Gradually the
attendance at meetings diminished. Only five or six would turn up.
Our financial
position grew worse, so that we had to remove to inferior
premises. I
was then librarian. I said we must have Sunday evening lectures for
propaganda
purposes. But who would lecture? I would, if no one better could be
found. Hm!
But I knew I could, for I used to lecture my studies in my empty
office on
Sundays in order to impress them on my memory. The situation gradually
became acute.
I pointed out that few people in the city had even heard about
Theosophy.
The public ought to be given a chance to know about it, to accept or
reject. We
had all come into this splendid thing, which had changed our lives,
by some
accident; let us make some more accidents! If they would not do
anything, I
must go and take a room somewhere and try by myself.
Very well,
they would make a trial (no doubt the lesser of two evils). I must
arrange the
meetings and take the responsibility. The President’s wife would
come to help,
though she was no speaker. One or two others volunteered to be
present. I
put a two-line advertisement in a newspaper; there would be a
discussion on
Reincarnation at [80] the rooms of the Theosophical Society on
Sunday
evening, all welcome.
Twelve people
turned up, all tongue-tied. To save the situation I had to get up
and make a
speech on the subject. They would like to ask one or two questions,
that was all.
I did the answering.
I followed my
old business methods, took a collection to pay for the
advertisements,
spent it all on the advertisement for the next week, and was
rejoiced to
find an audience of sixteen people. The third week twenty came, and
so on. Some
came again and again, became friends, joined the Lodge. The
membership
rose to about ninety and the Lodge meetings began to present quite
busy scenes.
Week after
week I lectured. Audiences began to average nearly a hundred. The
Lodge had to
move again into larger premises. I was a wonder, a phenomenon, a
lecturer in our
midst, inspired, etc.! They made me Vice-President. Other Lodges
wanted me to
speak for them. Tours were arranged in different parts of England,
and I would
take an occasional holiday from my business to carry on this good
work.
Once I
undertook a walking tour in Yorkshire – three lectures in seven towns –
Harrogate,
Leeds, Wakefield, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Halifax and Bradford. By
day I walked
from one town to the next, an average of perhaps fifteen miles; in
the evenings
I lectured. I certainly proved to myself the accuracy of Emerson’s
saying that
no man would break down in a speech on the day in which he had
walked ten
miles.
Behold me,
tramping along – clumsy boots, cloth cap, tennis shirt, long beard –
which would
not grow on the front of the chin – ardent expression, mackintosh
over arm,
and, above all things, in hand a large green umbrella which would not
close up
closely, which had belonged to my grandfather! It spoke volumes for the
self-control
of the English people that I was only once awakened to a sense of
how others
saw me. It occurred in a tramcar, when one workman sitting opposite
me said
explosively to another: “Oh, Christ!” and everybody stared. Yet I vow
there was no
pose in my composition. I was quite unself-conscious. When friends
had
occasionally suggested the removal of the beard I had always replied that I
did not see
why I should scrape myself with a piece of iron, and the beard was
quite natural
– as truly it was! [81]
Really, I was
quite scientific in my dispositions. It was the world that was
full of
absurd customs. Why should I bow to these follies? If there was love and
truth and
beauty in the world, why all this nonsense of preserving unnecessary
fashions,
habits and customs? In the Theosophical Lodge itself I used to feel
uncomfortable
when there were expressions of blind faith. I was all for reason
and a
scientific basis for belief. It was on that account that I started and
carried on
what was called a third object group.
§2
The “Third
Object” of the Society was: “To investigate unexplained laws of
nature and
the powers latent in man.” About twelve of us took part in the Third
Object group.
Our aim was not to experiment with mediumship, but to see if we
could obtain
first-hand knowledge of clairvoyance and such faculties, under test
conditions.
We had successful results from the very beginning.
The first
experiment was the “battery of minds.” We all sat round in a
semicircle,
except one member who was seated at the centre of the circle and
blindfolded
with a thick scarf. I sat at the end of the semicircle, wrote the
name of a
simple object on a bit of paper and passed it round for all to read.
We all then
concentrated on a picture of the object written down and tried to
send it into
the mind of the subject, whose business it was to keep the mind
quiet but
alert – like that of a person looking out of a window with wonder as
to what might
pass by – and to state whatever arose or appeared in the mind.
After a short
time, the lady who took the first turn as subject said: “I am
afraid I do
not see anything at all. All that has happened is that I seemed to
hear someone
calling ‘Puss, puss, puss’.”
We were quite
satisfied, for the word which I had written on the paper was
“cat.” Then I
wrote the word “watch,” and she was at once very accurate and
precise: “I
can see the dial of a watch.” Other members took their turns. One
gentleman
received the messages with about fifty per cent of correctness. I
remember that
in his case penknife came out as a table knife, and dog as a pug
dog. Of all
the experimenters only two or three had a zero result in reception.
We tried many
experiments in reading words written [82] on a paper placed inside
a closed
envelope. The first time, I wrote HEAD. The subject spelt it out: “H –
then a vowel
– two vowels – E and A -one letter more – I cannot see it clearly –
it is R, or
rather D.”
On the next
paper I wrote XMAS. Immediately on touching the paper she said,
laughing, “O,
Christmas.” “Got it in a Hash,” she added, “without seeing the
letters at
all.”
Generally the
letters were spelt out. When asked how she got the word, our
subject said
that in most cases she actually saw the letters. That must have
been so, for
on one occasion when I wrote the word STEAMER she spelt it quite
methodically:
“S-t-a-i-m – no – s-t-a-r, star.” This showed that there was some
broken kind
of sight. None of us had thought about a star, so it could not have
been
thought-transmission in this case.
In a variant
of this experiment each member in the semicircle wrote his own word
on a separate
piece of paper. I collected the papers, shuffled them and handed
one to the
subject, without knowing what was written upon it. She took hold of
the paper and
presently said: “I see a dragonfly.”
The word
written on the paper was “fly.” In this case t here must have been
visualization
of a thought rising from the written word.
One of the
most interesting experiments gave us a probable answer to the
question: Is
the thought conveyed by some sort of wave in ether, like wireless
telegraphy,
or is something tangible transmitted from mind to mind, like a
letter
through the post? We obtained evidence of something tangible at least
that the thought
could impress itself on material objects and could be taken
from them by
the receptive mind.
For these
experiments I prepared a number of small pieces of paper by trying to
impress
pictures upon them by thought; on one I would imagine a house, on
another a
tree, and so on. I wrote something in the corner of each paper in tiny
almost
illegible writing, so that I would know them again. Then I shuffled these
papers and
put one out without looking. The subject said: “I can see a hen in a
farmyard. She
is surrounded by chickens and is scratching the ground to get
something for
them to eat.”
I looked at
the paper. It was the one with the word “hen” written on the corner.
I had
pictured simply the hen, not the chickens, the farmyard and the
scratching.
[83]
At the second
paper the lady shuddered: “Ugh! I do not like this. It reminds me
of vermin.”
Then, after a moment: “I see an underground archway and a sewer. It
is swarming
with rats.”
I had thought
only of a rat, not consciously of any underground place. None of
us knew which
paper had been put out. My thought must have impressed the paper
in some way,
and that impression could be seen or received direct from the paper
by the
sensitive person.
It is
interesting to notice that in every case the sensitive added something to
what was
transmitted by the sender. When we experimented with proverbs instead
of simple
objects there was much scope for imagination. For example, “Too many
cooks spoil
the broth” elicited quite a story: “I see a large room – a kitchen.
A lot of men
are hurrying about and getting in each other’s way and spilling
things. O! I
know” – with a laugh – “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
A different
kind of experiment was that of sensing the presence of a person. The
subject was
blindfolded, as before. Then one of the experimenters would quietly
stand near,
while the rest of us remained at some distance. On one evening this
was done
fourteen times with our best subject, and every time she named the
person
correctly, frequently adding further information, such as: “You have been
in the
presence of death, lately,” or “You have been sick so that you could not
eat” -remarks
in every case admitted to be correct.
The fifty per
cent gentleman was remarkably good in this experiment. Out of
seventeen
trials he named ten correctly immediately, five correctly on the
second
attempt, after the word “No” had been called out once, and the remaining
two on the
third attempt. In a variant of this experiment we scattered chairs in
different
parts of the large room; then moved about, stamping and making
clapping and
other noises, until we suddenly sat down in the chairs which we
happened to
be near. Then the subject pointed to us individually and correctly
named us all.
When we asked for explanations of the process, the answer was: “I
can see
colours round you, and recognize you by those colours.” One curious
detail was
that when I stood near to the subject and strongly imagined myself to
be in a
distant place, the subject could not identify me. [84]
Outside the
group another sort of experiment (highly recommended by Mr. W. T.
Stead) was
undertaken by myself and one of the members. We sat for ten minutes
each morning
in our respective homes and alternately “sent” and “received” a
thought,
keeping a record, which we compared only at the end of six months. It
showed no
results for about a month at the beginning, then some correct
transmissions
in increasing frequency, until in total there was an average of
more than ten
per cent correct.
Our group
ultimately broke up through the illness of some of its members and the
departure of
others to new homes.
§3
As far as I
ever heard, ours was the only Lodge of the Theosophical Society in
the world in
which such scientific experiments were conducted, under test
conditions.
The prominent clairvoyants in the Society, Mrs. Besant and Mr.
Leadbeater,
and in a minor degree two or three others, always said that they
were not
allowed by the Masters to give any definite evidence of their unusual
faculties or
powers. Mme Blavatsky, however, had performed many remarkable
experiments
in the presence of numbers of persons who had signed their names to
written
statements of what they had collectively seen.
Most of the
members of the Society accepted unquestioningly anything said to be
seen by Mrs.
Besant or Mr. Leadbeater. When, later, I was in intimate touch with
them, I
learnt that they frequently received letters somewhat as follows: “It is
not necessary
for me to describe my trouble. With your wonderful powers you will
know
everything when you receive this letter. Please help me, or advise me ...”
In reply to
such letters they always explained that it was not right or
permissible
to use psychic powers in matters which could be attended to by
ordinary
physical faculties; it would be a waste of power; if the writer would
explain his
case clearly, and briefly, they would see what could be done!
Some members
declined to believe without evidence, notably Babu Bhagavan Das of
Benares, who
used to say: “I am sorry. If you are not permitted to show, I am
not permitted
to believe.”
In this he
followed the tradition of the Indian yogis, [85] who always show
their powers
to their prospective pupils, as I had occasion to learn in my own
experience in
India.
Dependence
upon leaders was always a weak point in the Society, although the
original
intention had been to base everything on rationality, even in the study
of abnormal
things. Some would say: “See how the mother cat has to carry her
kittens about
while they are small. Why should it not be so in occult matters?”
Others,
thinking this a trifle extreme, would prefer the simile of the young
monkey, which
clings to its mother with its own hands. This “monkey policy” was
often put
forward by leaders and would-be leaders who considered that the act of
choosing a
leader to be approached for orders and hints to be obeyed implicitly
constituted
all the positivity of character necessary for occult development.
Only a few
held that if members of the Theosophical Society had not yet been
weaned it was
about time to begin; I was one of these, and therefore destined
for ultimate
unpopularity. But I anticipate.
My membership
in the Theosophical Society brought into my life a social element
which had
been lacking before. At first I used to walk part of the way home from
the Lodge
meetings with a young business man who was very much taken with a
literary
young lady who used to bore us with her excessive enthusiasm for Plato.
They tried to
supplant our President, and put the young lady in office instead,
but the
scheme was not a success. The young man did not remain a member for very
long.
After that, I
generally walked home with a lady who was about thirty years my
senior, but
as lively as a cricket, and I am almost tempted to say as small. She
had been
manageress in some sort of factory where many girls were employed, and
had retired
on a tiny pension. We used to talk much about systems of yoga and
methods of
meditation, in which I was greatly interested.
She was a
member of the Eastern School of Theosophy, an organization composed
only of
members of the Theosophical Society, but not officially connected with
it. There
were frequent references to this school in the writings of Mme
Blavatsky and
Mrs. Besant. When introducing new members to the Society Mrs.
Besant would
often speak of the “further step” which they could take after some
time by
joining the E.S. Its proceedings were entirely secret, [86] under
pledge, so I
could not ask what its methods of meditation were. But I used to
tell my
friend that I was puzzled by the fact that its members appeared to have
no more
knowledge and no more self-control than other people, and I disliked the
slight
atmosphere of superiority and sacerdotalism which seemed to surround it.
When it came
to matters of election to office, or the selection of speakers,
membership in
the “E.S.” was certainly an asset. At the time of the election of
Committee
members for the British Section of the Society, lists of “suitable
people” were
sent round privately.
I joined the
School after some time, and did not find its systems of meditation
as good as
those which I already knew and had been privately practising. In
saying this I
do not break any pledge, for I do not say what those meditations
were.
I was always
very much against anything which might have an hypnotic effect in
meditation.
Repetition of formulas; dwelling in thought on Masters’ forms, with
vows of
fidelity and obedience; prayers to the Masters, asking them for guidance
and blessing
– all seemed to be bad psychology and bad reverence. If Masters
were there,
surely they would do their utmost without being asked. And the habit
of thinking
every day of them or of their disciples with requests and hopes for
orders or
guidance seemed to me to lead to paralysis of initiative, in which
alone I
thought either intuition or inner guidance could find its opportunity.
I was ready
to admit the principle of mystical union with higher intelligence
than my own.
That was a matter of both logic and experience. Logic, since in the
world visible
to the senses our physical powers are enchanced by harmonious
co-operation
with the laws and forces of nature. I disliked the formula “the
conquest of
nature” often employed in connection with scientific achievement. In
the use of
wind, steam, electricity, we were simply co-operating or associating
intelligently
with the forces of the greater world outside our personality.
To one
convinced of thought-transference such association mentally was also a
reasonable
idea. When a thinker has a flash of intuition, as is common among
scientists
and philosophers, I could regard it as a kind of mental contact with
a deeper
intelligence, or a world of ideas, even a universal [86] mind or some
great world
of life in which live the liberated souls. That also was in accord
with
experience. Many people had declared that they sometimes felt themselves
illuminated
with an intelligence altogether greater than any which they felt
that they
could call their own. I had myself had such experience a number of
times. Even
if the Masters did retain actual human form, their aim would be to
advise men to
become responsive to that world, not to become worshippers of
themselves
and mere followers to carry out orders or hints given by them. Such
were my
thoughts. Certainly above everything I wanted to meet a Master, not to
worship him externally,
but to be of his company and his mode and order of life.
§4
The new
social contacts of the Lodge were most precious to me. Here was
friendship
and brotherhood, without safeguards such as those of the
drawing-room,
where religion and economics are tacitly avoided. I resented the
E.S. a
little, as forming a cleavage within our brotherhood. How could we
discuss
important subjects if some among us were pledged to mental reservations,
or if you
assumed that they knew what others did not know and were not allowed
to know?
Another
movement which seemed to me to harm our brotherhood was the Co-Masonry,
which was
taken up eagerly by some of our members some time after I had joined
the Lodge. I
was perhaps a little jealous of this, as the members who would not
help the
Lodge in its financial difficulties could find much money for the new
Masonic
movement. We had had various proposals to reduce expenditure. We had
even removed
the Lodge to smaller premises, comparatively obscure and
inconvenient.
Scarcely had the removal taken place when up came this question of
starting a
Co-Masonic Lodge. All the leading members were canvassed on the
subject; it
was whispered round that the Masters were keenly anxious to have the
new movement
promoted, and would give of their power and force to or through
those who
joined it. In a trice the members hustled to ransack their monetary
resources,
and very soon hundreds of pounds were forthcoming. Most of those who
could afford
it could not resist the concreteness and the [88] pomp of a
ceremonial
movement, backed by the statement or its organized access to the
Masters’
power and blessing.
Again and
again prominent members pressed me to join the Masonic movement. Did I
not believe
that there was a European Master behind it? He would probably
manifest
himself visibly to the members; it might be at the meetings to be held
during the
forthcoming Theosophical Convention in Budapest. One leading member
told me about
a doctor who helped a certain poor man as soon as he learned that
he was a
Mason. This was real brotherhood, was it not? No, communalism. But that
was a step
towards universal hrotherhood? It did not seem so to me; it was a
step
downwards from it. Later, I joined the movement in India, on the proposal
of Mrs.
Besant. After the first meeting I was chatting with Mr. Leadbeater.
“How did you
get on?” he asked.
“I have told
more lies to-night than in all the rest of my life,” I sadly
replied. This
was, of course, no criticism of Masonry. It is no secret that
there are
rituals and formulas. It was simply that I had said what I had been
told to say,
but again and again it did not agree with my own thought and
belief.
After I had
been Vice-President of the Lodge for two or three years, our
President fell
ill and it became my duty to carry on his work. At last he died,
and I was
elected President in his place. During these years a deep friendship
had grown up
between us. I had been a frequent visitor at his house, and had
even been on
holidays with him and his wife and little girl. We went to the
country and
to the Isle of Wight. It was something new to me to pick flowers in
the woods
with a little child. When the father died, I was there to help, to
console, to
fill the gap to some extent, or rather to be a distraction from the
emptiness.
Often after that I took the little girl, now thirteen years old, for
bicycle
rides. Something new, clean and simple came into my life, which till
then had
consciously known nothing but struggle and conflict.
I had no
intention of going to India. That was brought about by psychic
experiences.
I cannot say whether these in turn were brought about by some
activity of
my subconscious mind or were actual occurrences. I can only report
what happened,
or seemed to happen.
One evening,
when I was sitting in meditation with the [89] group of friends I
have already
mentioned, I suddenly became aware of a Master standing opposite me
across the
table, and speaking to me. He put me through a kind of catechism. Did
I understand
what honesty meant? Did I know the importance of it? Did I consider
myself
honest? Somehow I was made to see the tremendous value of perfect honesty
– not simply
honesty in speech and in dealing with others, but also honesty in
knowing
oneself. Yes, I was very honest according to the world’s standards, but
I could not
say that I was always fundamentally honest to myself. After some
time there
was a pause and suddenly I became aware of a hand lightly resting on
my left shoulder.
Looking that way – though I do not think that I opened my eyes
or made any
movement – I saw, or thought I saw, Mme Blavatsky (who had then been
dead for
about seventeen years) standing beside me. She was laughing, and
looking not
at me, but across in front of me towards my right. Following her
gaze I saw
Colonel Olcott standing there (he had been dead about a year). Mme
Blavatsky
spoke to him, merely the words: “He’s ripe, Olcott; we’ll send him to
India.”
Then the
vision faded. I opened my eyes and became aware again of my friends
sitting round
the table. At the time the vision gave me no surprise. It seemed
perfectly
natural that the Master should be there; he was as familiar to me as
my own
father. It seemed quite natural also that Mme Blavatsky and Colonel
Olcott should
be there, like familiar friends.
It was not
this vision that decided me to go to India, however. I was not
prepared to
give so much credit to visions. Besides, had I not seen in our
experimental
group that even reliable clairvoyants unconsciously embellished
what they saw
with elements drawn from their own personalities? I went on with
my life as
usual, merely wondering whether I would ever go to India or not.
Something
more happened, however. One night, as I was going home alone on top of
a tramcar, I
seemed to see Mrs. Besant in front of me, asking me to come to her.
Still, I took
no notice. In my opinion there was nothing decisive enough to call
for any
action. Then another vision came. I was going down some steps from a
railway
station at night. The steps were roofed in, and only dimly lighted.
Suddenly the
whole cavern-like place was brightly illuminated, and [90] I saw
Mrs. Besant
standing before me in a golden radiance. She spoke: “I want you to
come and help
me.”
That night,
when I reached home I told my father that I had a fancy to take a
trip to India
for three months. Would he help my brother to look after the
business in
my absence? Yes, of course. I did not tell him nor my friends at the
Lodge of my
reason for going, though I had told my friends in the meditation
group of my
vision there. I took a Japanese steamer to Colombo from London, in
November,
1908, and my father came with me to London to see me off. I meant to
go for a
three months’ trip to see what would happen. I had no idea that India
would become
my home and that I should not see England again for over thirteen
years. [91]
BOOK II
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER I
A VOYAGE TO
INDIA
§1
IT was with a
sense of emptiness that on the evening of departure I watched the
white cliffs
of England disappear into the dusk, having established myself on
the extreme
edge of the poop deck. That became my favourite spot on the ship.
From there I
viewed the coast of Portugal and watched Gibraltar go by. From
there day
after day I gazed down into the swirling, churning waters, which were
so
sympathetic with my mood. There, when we had stormy weather, I enjoyed the
lift and
fall, as of a child’s swing, with no uneasiness save the thought that
something
might break, when the propeller rose clear of the water and raced
madly,
vibrating the ship with its superfluous energy. Sitting there on a
stanchion, I
had no sickness, did not even think of sickness, only remembered
vaguely
having seen people sick years before on an Isle of Man boat, among them
a lady who
kept on saying, in her anxiety: “Oh! I am sure I shall be sick,” and
was sick even
before the vessel left the landing stage.
During that
voyage I suffered great hunger, physical as well as spiritual – the
former
because I would eat nothing that had ever wagged a tail. There must be no
trace of such
impurity in the body that was going to the Masters’ land, and
perhaps to
his immediate society! There must also be no pollution of the mind
with trashy
novels or magazines; I took with me only books of Hindu philosophy.
As to the
spiritual hunger, it was absolutely indefinite, a kind of protracted
gaze into a
formless sky.
Only
occasionally my fellow-voyagers drew me out of this mood to some extent.
Sometimes the
important question of the day was: who, standing on one foot and
toeing a [95]
certain line, could place a little block of wood furthest away?
Sometimes we
would watch a small Japanese professor of ju-jutsu – who had gone
to England to
make a living by teaching the art, and failed to do so – and a
gigantic
Scotsman – who was going out to be a policeman in Singapore – wrestling
on a large
mat spread on the deck. The Japanese always won, though the Scotsman
constantly
thought that next time he would be able to escape his opponent’s
wiles.
Sometimes I
would play igo or “fives” with the Japanese officers and passengers
– in fives
you put counters on the crossings of the lines of a chequered board,
not on the
squares, and you try to get five of these in an unbroken line, while
your
opponent, placing counters of opposite colour in his turn, tries to prevent
you and to
make a five of his own – quite a fascinating game, requiring,
however, a
board of about twice as many squares as an ordinary chess board.
Once I gave a
lecture explaining, with reference to many experiments made in
France and
other countries, the peculiar activities of the mind possible under
hypnosis and
in other abnormal conditions.
Frequently,
two young Japanese salvationists, who had been to London for study
and training,
would try to convert me to Christianity, as they understood it. I
was fond of
those two boys, and went with them for a walk on shore at Port Said,
our only port
of call between London and Colombo. We had much in common
temperamentally
though little in beliefs or ideas, and so, ignoring the curio
shops, we
walked far into the interior of the town to see life there in the
gathering
darkness, until an urchin, running alongside us, called out: “Want my
sister, sah?
Want my sister, sah?” when we turned back to the ship with
something of
a shudder, and some fear that where such things could be there
might also be
robbery with violence.
When we
ultimately parted one of those friends gave me a little Bible, with a
suitable
inscription in the fly-leaf. Though they had argued much with me about
the contents
of the Bible, they did not realize that I knew the book far better
than they
did, having read it through and through at school. It had been the one
intelligent
act of our schoolmaster, I think, to make that our reading book in
English, in
daily use year after year.
My cabin
companions, three burly men of mature age and [96] language, going out
East to
police duties after some furlough, also went together on shore. On
returning,
one of them stepped from the boat into the Mediterranean Sea instead
of on the
ship’s ladder, to the great amusement of his companions and the
lookers-on.
One
respectable police officer travelling with a large family – florid wife and
six or seven
children -would constantly talk of sex adventures in China. He
assured me
that if a European man went with a Chinese woman, the children his
own European
wife bore to him afterwards would show some Chinese peculiarities.
I did not
notice any such features in his own children, so assumed that this was
his way of
warning the young idea not to shoot!
In addition
to the three policemen there were other companions in my cabin,
namely,
hundreds of cockroaches; actually in my bunk, which was back to back
with the
washing-up table of the steward’s pantry. They were a smallish, rather
ethereal type
of cockroach, mostly pale brown and whitish in colour, and gifted
with
considerable speed of movement. It did not occur to me to complain about
these. I had
a sort of idea that such things were to be expected on shipboard –
my father had
talked of cockroaches on sailing ships. I knew there were not many
of them,
perhaps none at all, on the other two sides of the cabin, where the
policemen
slept, but did not change over to their side, though there was a
vacant bunk,
as the proximity of beetles was preferable to a stronger smell of
whisky than
that to which I was subjected even where I was. Besides, was I not
going out to
India to face anything, anything, and perhaps these cockroaches
would serve
as a small apprenticeship?
§2
After
twenty-three days at sea we arrived at Colombo. One of my friends – the
very
gentleman who had told me the story of the doctor and the poor man, in
support of my
coming into the brotherhood of his Masonic circle – proved
superior to
his creed, and wrote to a friend in Ceylon, introducing this
inexperienced
young man and recommending him to tender care.
A messenger
came on board to meet me and took me in a little boat to the quay.
We went
through the Custom House [97] with my luggage, consisting of one rather
large
gladstone bag. “Any firearms? No? It seems very heavy. Let us see.” They
saw – one
side filled with clothes, the other with books and lecture notes.
It was not
till I was out in the street that I realized that I was drinking hot
air into my
lungs. I think the greatest trial in Ceylon and South India is never
to be able to
get a breath of cool air. The messenger guided me a short distance
to the
premises of Volkart Brothers, a large Swiss shipping company, and into a
private
office where a kindly Cingalese gentleman, who occupied an important
position in
the firm, received me most affably and entertained me for a while
with
conversation containing more than a spice of humour.
I waited
while my host finished up his business for the day. He then hailed two
rickshaws,
and we bowled off to his bungalow in the Cinammon Gardens, where he
entertained
me for four days. I had my first introduction to Oriental
expressiveness
when the rickshaw coolie tried to extract from me, as being a
greenhorn,
double the proper fare. My host vituperated him with violence of
language and
gesture and threw the money on the ground, leaving him to pick it
up. The East
is full of contrasts.
What a
pleasure it was to walk in the mornings in the red roads, and to see the
blue and
white sky through the leaves of magnificent trees forming a natural
archway
overhead! Seldom in England had one known such a clear atmosphere, such
a blue sky,
such splendour of twisting trunks and lengthened arborages, and
never such
red roads – which, however, have long since disappeared, buried under
tar surfaces
required by the new motor traffic.
Notwithstanding
my host’s kindness, my hunger was not yet to be dispersed. He
was a
bachelor, well served by a variety of attendants – one for the bathroom,
another for
the kitchen, another to tidy the bungalow, and several others whose
occupations I
could not discern at all. In the mornings he went to his office
quite early,
having arranged for my morning meal. This duly arrived – dry boiled
rice in a
fluffy heap, soup in a little silver bowl, vegetable curry, some small
savoury
cakes, and two or three bananas on the side, all served at one time,
with an
attendant in the offing, waiting to put out a little more of anything
which I might
consume to the end. [98]
The attendant
waited in vain. My meal actually consisted of rice and bananas. As
to the soup,
curry and cakes – these gentle little Cingalese, were they provided
with leather
interiors to compensate for external softness?
In the
evening my host came home, hoped I was comfortable, had been well served
with all that
I needed, and so on. Oh, yes. The inexperienced young man was not
going to look
the gift horse in the mouth, nor to hurt anybody’s feelings.
In the
evening we called on friends, and sat in wicker chairs under the trees.
While we
partook of fruit and cool drinks, the mosquitoes were busy on other
richer juices
not yet thinned by sojourn in the tropics, drinking in through
little trunks
put up through the interstices of the canes, and dexterously
punched
through the seat of my pants. Ah, the generous tropics – generous to one
and all! No
wonder in the East men do not regard themselves as quite different
and separate
from the rest of creation. Their greater sense of unity with it is
only the
counterpart of a greater intimacy in actual living; in the air above,
on the ground
beside us, in the earth beneath, life surges in a restless tide.
It was at one
of these evening parties that I first met Mrs. Musaeus Higgins, a
lady of
German birth, who had determined to bring modern education to Cingalese
girls without
making it a means to draw them away from their own social and
religious
traditions. She was working at the development of a school on those
lines. At the
time of my visit she was writing a volume of stories of Cingalese
history, and
I had the pleasure of helping her with the final edit, especially
to give
English instead of German structure to the sentences where necessary.
She had had
her experience of the life beneath. She told how one day as she sat
in her former
school hall she had looked up and seen the roof swaying. Quickly
she had
called to the girls. They all ran out of the building just before it
collapsed in
a cloud of dust and palm leaves.
The white
ants had eaten the entire interior of the posts and roofing timbers,
leaving only
a shell, and now it had reached the point at which a puff of wind
could do the
rest. This spectacular disappearance of the old school building
had, however,
been good publicity, and funds had soon come forward for housing
the school in
a modern bungalow. Later it grew into a splendid and most modern
institution.
[99] The book of stories also prospered; it rose to the position of
one of the
favourite text books in schools all over Ceylon.
§3
On the fourth
evening I was placed in a steamer bound for the Indian port of
Tuticorin – a
night’s journey. The entire hold of the steamer was filled with
plantation
coolies, men, women and their children. It was a stormy night. Ever
and anon I
woke to hear the wails of the crowd below, rising even above the
sound of the
wind and the lashing waves.
The daily
mail train from Tuticorin to Madras appeared to me phenomenally slow.
It was so, in
fact, for it took twenty-four hours to accomplish a journey of
less than 450
miles. New as the country through which we passed was to me, it
did not
excite my interest very much, for I was intent only upon reaching my
goal.
Sometimes I would look out of the window and watch the deeply-coloured
country-side
slinking by – large, flat shrub-covered plains for the most part,
often under
water at that time of the year, browns of the dry crops and the
fallow lands
alternating with the greens of rice fields – richest green in the
world.
Now and then
we would clatter over a level crossing, and see a small scattery
crowd of
wayfarers waiting at the gates – men clad in two white cloths or one
cloth and a
shirt, the lower garment reaching just below the knees if they were
workmen, to
the feet if they were of the land-owning or the literary class –
women in one
long check-patterned cloth of reddish-orange or brown or,
occasionally,
blue, and a little bodice skin-tight over the shoulders and
breasts, with
children clustered beside them or sitting astride the hip, and
sometimes
bundles or baskets upon their heads. There would also be occasional
two-wheeled
carts with round covers – matting stretched on canes -and drawn by
bulls.
Two things
repelled me; the trident marks on the foreheads of men who wished to
advertise that
they had done their morning worship according to the rules of
certain
sects, and the betel-chewing of men and women alike, with its attendant
spitting and,
even worse, its display of unnaturally red mouth and discoloured
teeth.
Men were
there with long hair, fuzzy hair, and no hair at all, except a tuft at
the crown.
All were shaved at [100] least round the back, the sides and the
front,
leaving only a circular cap to grow. None had the scissor crop of Europe,
though it has
come into vogue since then. The women had, all alike, a centre
parting and a
bun low on the neck. The tradition of the Hindus is to avoid
scissors and
tailoring, which are left mainly to the Muhammadans. But all this
as regards
the men is much changed; relatively few shaved or long-haired men or
decorated
faces are now to be seen.
There were
lengthy stops at the larger railway stations and junctions –
sometimes as
much as half an hour. As the stations were never in the towns, but
some distance
away, the transition was sudden from the open countryside to a
raging sea of
human beings on the platforms. Hurrying and scurrying people
crossed one
another in all directions in search of room in the long train – some
having
started at one end and some at the other – amid a babel of noise created
by their own
excitement and the effort to keep large family groups together, and
by cries of
vendors of cooked foods and fruits and drinks and coloured toys and
cloths and
cheap imported trifles. At length someone banged discordantly and
deafeningly
on a length of old railway-line suspended to act as a bell, someone
else
whistled, and we clumpetty-clumpetty-clumped out of the station and away
into the
fields again, the carriages swaying on their narrow track.
The
passengers varied enormously. How different all this from the uniformity of
English life!
There was a man travelling without a ticket; he had done it many
times by
judiciously changing from one carriage to another. He did not seem to
have any
other business on the train. Perhaps it was his hobby. But seemingly no
one would
give him away, even if they disapproved. There was a man looking for a
man
travelling without a ticket. He was fierce with his muttered threats that he
would get him
sooner or later. Both were in my carriage for part of the journey.
There was a
stout Muhammadan merchant, with loose white trousers, silk coat to
his knees,
and a golden hat. There was a young priest, fresh from his training
in Ceylon,
who somehow gravitated to me and fell into a discussion on theology –
which ended
when he affirmed a belief in hell-fire and I asked him if he in
heaven would
be able to look on happily while his mother or someone else whom he
loved was
burning in hell, and he replied that God would somehow [101] make it
acceptable to
him, and I remarked that I liked his God even less than his hell.
All along the
train, except in the first class, occupied chiefly by the insular
English,
people were talking volubly. In the third class they seemed to have
wonderful
power of concentration or selective attention, as well as of the
lungs. The
huge carriages seemed to contain anything from fifty to a hundred
people, who
travelled in a roar of the globular liquid sounds of the Tamil
language,
which, to the uninitiated ear seemed to be composed entirely of
vowels. The
faces, too, matched the voices, large, soft and round, all feminine,
though the
eyes very occasionally might be acquisitive and fierce.
At night came
sudden dusk and dark, the short twilight of the tropics. Upper
bunks,
loosened from hooks, were dropped to the horizontal. Passengers unrolled
their bedding
and laid themselves to sleep. But the bustle and babel at the
stations –
all shouting, none listening – went on as before, whatever the time
of night.
When we drew up in the morning to the orderliness and comparative
quiet of the
Egmore station in Madras, coolie porters leaped into the carriages,
passengers
poured out and away in a great stream, mixed with the coolies bearing
bedding and
boxes and bags and baskets and bundles of every conceivable
description
and no description at all, and passed out through the gates to the
bullock
carts, the pony carts and the horse carriages waiting outside. [102]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER II
A “MOTHER” OF
INDIA
§1
IT was a long
ride to the suburb of Adyar in a dismal victoria hired at the
station,
behind a horse which had learned syncopation in advance of the times,
on a seat
whose springs had known heavier passengers than I and had not
forgotten
them. Down road after road we went, all very similar, past large
dilapidated
bungalows standing in spacious compounds with broken walls or
perforated
hedges. Everywhere was decay, but everywhere also the glorifying
feature of
magnificent trees -mostly banyan and peepul – meeting overhead.
At length we
came to the Elphinstone Bridge across the Adyar river – the bridge
a furlong in
length, the river varying constantly from half to four times that
width – a
quiet sheet of water, a lake rather than a river, disfigured only by
two or three
mud flats in the centre. My eyes were all for the headquarters’
building of
the Theosophical Society, standing out prominently on the opposite
bank – a
bungalow transformed by additions until it resembled a rambling
monastery.
We were soon
across the river, in at the gate, along the drive, under the
corrugated
iron porch – and presently I was out of the carriage and into the
office of the
Treasurer, Mr. Albert Schwarz, who received me kindly and took me
upstairs to
the sanctum of Mrs. Besant. Shoes off on the terrace outside her
door, a kind
welcome inside, enquiries about the journey, a statement that a
room had been
prepared for me at the Blavatsky Gardens’ Bungalow, an appointment
for the next
morning to discuss plans, and I was guided along narrow paths,
through a
grove of palm trees, to my temporary abode. [103]
Mrs. Besant
looked more at home in her Indian surroundings than in Europe. The
chief
furniture of her sitting-room or office was a large square chauki or
platform
about one foot high, on which were placed a thick round white bolster
for her back,
a carpet for her seat, and a large low desk for her writing as she
sat
cross-legged and barefooted in her white or cream Indian woman’s garb. At
the back of
the desk were racks for papers, and office conveniences in great
profusion – a
dozen pencils ready sharpened at one hand, correspondence waiting
to be
answered at the other.
Mrs. Besant
never varied the arrangement of that room during the twenty-five
years that I
knew her there. Never varied her own posture – leaning back to
read, leaning
forward to write, and so growing rounder and rounder shouldered
year by year.
Of all people I have known, Mrs. Besant had the greatest habit of
repose. Her
body would be quiet, her features placid, while her hand ran rapidly
over sheet
after sheet of paper, producing page after page of small, neat,
beautiful and
– when one knew its little tricks – uncommonly legible
handwriting.
She liked to be alone to write; would have no secretary and no
typewriting
machine for this, even to the last, and when services were offered
in these
directions would always reply that she could think best at the end of
her pen –
which was, however, a lead pencil.
As I sat with
Mrs. Besant, discussing plans, my thoughts were more on her than
on the plans.
Here was cleanliness and peace of body and mind; not simplicity by
any means,
but an orderliness that achieved simplicity.
In person,
then about sixty years old, she was short and corpulent, but not
clumsy or
coarse. Her face, long; forehead, tall and rather narrow; lips, wide
and rather
thick; nose, long, straight and rather fleshy; eyes always round and
wide-open,
and only to be described as starry and conspicuously beautiful (her
daughter
inherited them) but not quite far enough apart for modern taste;
expression,
saintly and human at the same time, with no trace of anything
cryptic,
reserved, aloof, self-considering or superior; hair, pure white, short
and curly,
equal all over the head; smile, dazzling.
I had written
to her before my arrival telling her of my visions, of my plans to
take a three
months’ trip to see what [104] would happen. She did not comment
upon the
visions, and I did not question her about them. She told me that she
would like me
to stay there and write for the Theosophist, the Presidential
magazine of
the Society. Would I do so? Yes. Money? I had sufficient for the
simple life
at Adyar, if I sold out my business and invested the capital. She
would help me
with money from some funds that she had. No, I could manage; I was
there to
help, not to be a burden on anybody. Still, I felt uneasy at the idea
of living on
interest, consuming the fruits of the labour of others without
taking any
part in the world’s work myself. No, I really ought not to feel like
that, for I
was not intending to live in idleness but to give my best to the
collective
life of humanity. Very good, then; settled. It was decided that I
should stay
indefinitely, so I wrote to England, parted with my share of the
business on
reasonable terms, and in December, 1908, at the age of twenty-five,
settled down
at Adyar to my new life, which was to be more varied and eventful
than I
imagined.
§2
The estate or
compound at Adyar stretched for nearly a mile on the river side,
and it was
about half a mile long in its greatest width, which was along the
seashore, at
the farther end from the Elphinstone Bridge and the road leading to
Madras. Most
of this land had been acquired since Mrs. Besant had become
President.
The original compound, of the time of Colonel Olcott and Mme
Blavatsky,
was about a tenth the size of what it became by the purchase of
surrounding
properties in the years during which Mrs. Besant was President. She
wanted to
make the headquarters into a settlement for Theosophists from all over
the world;
not that they should live there permanently, except a few workers in
the estate
itself, in the book department or on the staff of the magazine, but
that they
should come to reside there for about two years’ devotion to study and
meditation,
so as to prepare themselves for better Theosophical propaganda work
afterwards in
their own countries.
There were
several bungalows scattered over the estate, suitable for the
European
style of living, as it is known in Madras, and other smaller buildings
– converted
stables and [105] a few cottages -providing rooms for those who
wished to
follow the Indian mode of life. I commented on the use of the word
bungalow for
such large solid two-storied buildings as that in the Blavatsky
Gardens, with
spacious rooms having ceilings fourteen or sixteen feet high, and
massive
verandas supported on huge round pillars. My idea of bungalows had been
the English
one; little one-storied houses, detached from one another in garden
plots. Now I
was informed that the word bungalow was derived from the word
Bengal, where
a new mode of suburban dwellings had become popular even among
Indians, in
preference to the old system of dwelling in flats or tenements or in
town houses
which, though they were entirely individual in architecture and
alignment
(differing from the rows of town houses in Europe and America in this
respect)
formed one solid block all along the street.
The diversification
of frontage on every street is one of the pleasing features
of Indian
towns. Diversification of interiors is likewise one of the charms of
Indian homes.
When an Indian enters the house of a neighbour he will find
certain
principles which are common to all. He will find a small veranda in
front, then
an entrance hall – a little room with a raised platform or sitting
place in the
portion not devoted to passage-way. Beyond that he will find an
interior
courtyard with verandas on all sides and rooms opening from the
verandas. But
all these will be different in arrangement and shape from his own.
I do not
think anybody in India ever built a street of houses, except the
British, who
have built them for the use of policemen or railway workers, and
then they
have had the grace to call them “lines” – “police lines,” etc.
The houses in
an Indian street have been built individually by each family, and
most of them
have passed on in the same family for many generations. Where the
Indians have
had reason to develop the bungalow system, as in the city of
Bangalore and
some of the suburbs of Madras, they have retained their old liking
for
individual design, so you will find one resembling a palace and another a
cottage
standing in adjacent compounds (“plots” sounds too small) in the very
same road.
The bungalows
of Adyar stand amid magnificent trees. The biggest banyan tree, in
the portion
of the grounds known as Blavatsky Gardens, is regarded as the second
[106] largest
in India, and possibly in the world. I have seen audiences of
three and
four thousand people sitting comfortably listening to lectures in its
shade. When I
first went to Adyar it was thronged with birds, and squirrels
constantly
chasing one another along the horizontal branches and up and down the
pendant
roots, but now the squirrels are few and the little birds almost none,
for the
Theosophists brought in town-life habits – leavings which have attracted
and bred
innumerable noisy crows, and cats which have reduced the population of
squirrels to
a tenth of what it was.
§3
At the time
of my arrival there were perhaps fifty human residents at Adyar,
more or less
equally European (as all the white-skinned people are called in
India, even
if they come from America, Australia or South Africa) and Indians.
Among the
latter there were two from the north, different in shade of brown and
in dress from
those of the south. One was a well-known – famous in India
-thinker and
writer, Babu B. Bhagavan Das, a close friend of Mrs. Besant’s; the
other a young
prince of a Punjab ruling house. The former wore long coat and
trousers on
important occasions, the latter long coat and cotton riding breeches
extending to
the ankle.
The South
Indians all looked very much alike to me at first, as my eye was
struck by the
main features of colour and form until it became used to those and
could attend
to minor differences – short of stature, stocky of build, and
dressed
mostly in a pair of white cloths with coloured borders, the upper cloth
cast over the
shoulders like a shawl, often leaving hairy chest and prominent
abdomen
exposed to view, the lower cloth twisted round the waist and pendant to
the ankles.
I soon
committed two solecisms in the matter of dress; the first, when I went
out in the
garden in a tennis shirt and grey flannel trousers; and Mrs. Besant
told me it
shocked the Indians to see the lower part of the trunk not loosely
draped; the
second when I took to Indian dress and failed at first to drape the
lower cloth
sufficiently over the ankles! There was no eight-inch skirt-line for
men. Two
inches was quite a maximum, unless you were willing to be mistaken for
a workman!
All the same, the European [107] ladies at Adyar were still wearing
blouses and
skirts in the Gibson style, and some of the Indian ladies, when they
sat down or
walked about, exposed a three-inch ring of bare waist, except where
it was
crossed by a strip of the sari, which was wound round the lower part of
the body a
number of times and then carried diagonally to the shoulders.
There was one
European, rather tall, with cropped fair hair, and wearing a cloth
or a pair of
cloths – this was difficult to distinguish – whom I saw first when
we were all
walking through the gardens one evening with Mrs. Besant. I asked my
neighbour
whether it was a man or a woman – a question which was material for a
ripple of
whispered amusement among the Europeans for some time, though I think
it did not
embarrass the lady it chiefly concerned, who was intent upon her own
thoughts. She
had been one of Mrs. Besant’s helpers many years before in the
working
girls’ club in London.
I was
received among the residents not as an unknown Theosophist, but as a
lecturer and
a bit of a celebrity in my own country, and President of one of the
biggest
Lodges in the world. I had already written two booklets which were much
in use, and
some copies of which had found their way abroad. Mrs. Besant had
also spoken
of me as “very promising.” So on the very first Sunday morning at
Adyar I was
requested to give a lecture, which I did, on mental training and
meditation.
Besides the residents of Adyar there were a good number of people
from Madras,
so the hall was comfortably filled.
After the lecture
a stout young Brahmin with thick spectacles got up and asked
some question
about memory, which led me to tell a story I had heard about a
young man who
went to work in a Custom office. One day the head of the office
gave him a
booklet showing the rates for all kinds of articles, and asked him to
familiarize
himself with it. The young man – an extremist evidently – did not
turn up at
the office for several days, and when he returned the boss wanted to
know why he
had been absent.
“I have been
learning the code,” replied the clerk, much hurt at being
misunderstood.
He had taken the trouble to learn the whole pamphlet and could
repeat it by
heart. But when it came to the application of his knowledge to
practical
things he was all at sea.
“The young
man’s name was Subrahmanyam,” I [108] concluded, showing off my
knowledge of
an Indian name. To my surprise the audience dissolved into fits of
laughter. Was
my pronunciation so very funny? No, it merely happened that
Subrahmanyam
was the name of the questioner, and he was well known as a
talkative,
theoretical and not practical young man.
§4
There were
plenty of occasions for personal contact with Mrs. Besant. On the
morning of my
arrival she looked in at my room to ask if it were comfortable,
and not
content with my answer, to inspect it for herself, make some inaudible
irritable
remark – could she be irritable? Apparently so – hurry out of the room
and reappear
in a few moments carrying a cane chair nearly as big as herself.
A day or two
later she suddenly startled me, standing at my side and watching me
make notes
for a review she had asked me to make of Babu Bhavagan Das’s new
edition of
The Science of the Emotions – a work of his which I valued highly.
I also went with
her and several others to visit different Panchama schools,
which had
been founded by Colonel Olcott to provide free education for the
poorest of
the poor – once known as Pariahs, then as Panchamas (fifth caste –
orthodox
Hinduism admits only four castes), and now as Harijans (God’s people –
God help
them!) as politeness and democracy have advanced.
Picture
several irregular cottage-like buildings round an open plot of ground,
and three or
four hundred tiny children, some of them clad in space (to use an
Indian
expression), some in a brass fig leaf on a piece of string, some with a
shirt
reaching to their middles and nothing below, some with a skirt below the
middle and
nothing above, some – the biggest – with both shirt and skirt or
shirt and
little pants.
It would be a
special occasion when Mrs. Besant visited the school, and all
would gather
under the shade of a big tree or temporary palm-leaf shed. There
would be an
opening song or prayer by the children. There would be some
collective
dancing by the girls – one dance something like a maypole dance, and
another in
which the girls with a short stick in either hand wove themselves
into patterns
to the tune of a song and the clapping together of the sticks,
[109] as they
passed and wound round one another. There would be brave
recitations
and dramatic scenes by the boys. There would be speeches by the
Superintendent,
the Headmaster and the visitor. There would be distribution of
sweetmeats.
And there would be hurrahs and farewells and departures in horse
carriage and
pony carts, and an aftermath of scattered conversation among the
visitors and
wide, open-eyed and open-mouthed wonderings by the children as to
what was
going to happen next or was it all going to end in just nothing at all?
Mrs. Besant
had a horse named Sultan. Like the early motor-cars it had the
defect of
possessing no self-starting arrangements. She would sit in the
carriage all
ready to start, and several coachmen and syces would coax and pull
and push,
sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes before it would go. When it did
go it went
like the wind, with a splendid high-stepping display. She would never
allow the
whip to be used, but would sit smiling in her carriage, confident of
reaching her
meeting or train in time, as she invariably did – partly, I think,
because she
always used to go much earlier than was necessary to the railway
station or to
any appointment.
Shortly after
I reached Adyar someone presented Mrs. Besant with a motor-car – a
rare thing in
India at that time. She learnt to drive it herself, and used to
take us out
one by one with her for a ride in the early mornings. She seemed a
little
disappointed when I told her, being overly addicted to truth, that I did
not enjoy it
very much. I was interested in other things – not the road nor the
telegraph
poles at the side of the road, for she was a good driver. On the
platform and
in the meetings so much was talked about glorious occult matters,
it was not
really my fault if I took them seriously and was impatient of
ordinary
occupations and amusements.
Every evening
Mrs. Besant held a meeting on a roof some forty feet square
outside the
door of her own set of rooms. It was delightful under the stars and,
sometimes, the
moon, the only artificial light a hurricane lamp on a teapoy at
her side. In
the centre of the square a large carpet was spread and round this
was a row of
chairs. The Indians and a few of the Europeans sat on the carpet
with faces
turned upwards. Mrs. Besant sat on a basket chair, and the others in
a miscellany
of chairs collected round the square. [110]
Some doubted
whether those who sat on chairs could be as spiritual or as “highly
evolved” as
those who sat cross-legged on the floor!
“Our Teacher”
– a usual expression among the Hindus – used to expound a book of
her own on
one day, give answers to questions on another and discuss some
subject on a
third. Once only she tried the system of questioning us. It fell
very flat.
She started by asking what difference the knowledge of the law of
karma should
make to our conduct. No answer. A long time passed, and still no
answer, while
Mrs. Besant regarded us with an uncomfortable smile. I do not
think she
could see our faces as well as we could see hers. If she had she would
have seen
them stamped with fear – each was afraid to make a fool of himself
before the
others, and most of all before the Teacher! At last, after sizzling
for a while,
I blurted out: “None whatever.” The tension was relieved. Mrs.
Besant’s face
broke into a real smile. “Quite right,” said she. “Presumably you
will all do
the right for its own sake and not to gain reward or escape
punishment in
future lives.”
Mrs. Besant
was very downright in those days. Once, when some member was
injured, she
told us that it would not be right to wish that she might get
better
quickly, for who was to say what was the blessed lesson that the
experience
was bringing her? Ours only to send thoughts of sympathy, not to
indulge in
ignorant wishes. (Strange how she changed later on, and approved of
ceremonials
involving prayers for aid, intercession and mediation.) In her own
person she
seemed to object even to sympathy, though she was lavish of it to
others. One
morning when I went to her room I found tears streaming down her
face and a
newspaper in her hand. She could not speak, but handed me the paper,
and pointed
to a paragraph about a mining disaster in Wales.
I was with
her once at Mayavaram, a city approaching two hundred miles south of
Madras. We
had been to a theosophical gathering in a large high-school, and had
been given
rooms for personal use in the upper story of the building. The
meetings
being over, and our train soon due, we came out of our rooms and
proceeded
down some rough stone outside-steps which led to the garden below. In
the dark, she
slipped on one of those steep irregular steps and fell, bumping on
her back,
down about six of them to the [111] ground below. I hastened after her
to assist her
to rise, but my expressions of sympathy met with a curt response.
She let no
one else know of the incident, but went to the train, and had a bad
night’s
journey with headache and pains, as she told me when we reached Madras
the next
morning.
§5
Sometimes Mrs.
Besant could be very rough, uncompromisingly so, when she thought
we were
failing in some duty, but generally she was very gracious, quite in the
Victorian
manner.
Early in the
year 1909 some South Indian Lodges had decided to hold a general
gathering in
a town in the Tanjore district. The secretaries called upon me,
asked me to
be present and to deliver one or two lectures. I went to Mrs. Besant
to see if I
could be spared at that time.
“Why,” she
exclaimed, “I have promised to go and preside for them. They cannot
expect two of
us “– two of us! -” at the same time.” Then, after a moment’s
thought: “I
will tell you what we will do. You go and preside on the first day
and I will
come on the second” – and it was arranged accordingly. She wanted to
give me a
chance to show what I could do.
It was
further arranged that I should make a tour of seven towns ending at the
place of the
general gathering. I was immensely impressed by the brilliance of
her public
lectures at the gathering. I think that in Europe and America, where
she was by
many regarded as the foremost orator of the day, in days when oratory
was not in
disfavour as it is to-day, she never rose to such heights and powers
of moral
appeal as she did in India. Yet, with all that eloquence, she had no
small talk. I
remember an occasion when we were together with some
non-theosophists
(amusing, but familiar expression); notwithstanding my lack of
savoir-faire
I had to come to her rescue in conversation. In that she was quite
the opposite
of Mme Blavatsky, who had been a brilliant conversationalist at a
time when
conversation was a great art, but no public speaker at all. [112]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER III
WONDERS
§1
TRAVELLING
with sympathy for Hinduism and with vegetarian and teetotal habits,
and a
spiritual or at least a philosophic purpose, and staying in Indian houses,
I soon had an
opportunity of knowing India as no tourist or merchant or official
or
schoolmaster or even missionary ever can. My first stop was for two days at
Madura. My
new friends met me in force at the station, flooding the platform as
the train
came in, and heaped me about with garlands of flowers and coloured
metallic
paper and filled my hands with limes, while they introduced the
celebrities
among them. Apparently official position constituted social rank
also: “Mr.
So-and-so, our Sub-Judge; Mr. So-and-so, our Tahsildar (a revenue
officer and
magistrate); Mr. So-and-so, Headmaster of our high-school; Mr.
So-and-so,
Vakil (advocate)” – and so on.
They carried
me off to a simple lodging. One corner of a lecture hall was
screened off
as a room for me. Two benches were put side by side to act as
sleeping couch.
I had already learnt to sleep hard. The common type of bed at
Adyar was a
cot frame with webbing drawn tightly across it as warp and woof, but
I had taken
to the wooden benches provided in the Indian quarters. It happened
that Mrs.
Besant spoke to us one evening about the way in which she had learnt
to sleep on a
bench, so that she could do so when necessary, though she usually
slept on a
webbed bed. That night found me sleeping, or rather lying awake, on
an old
dining-table which happened to be standing on a veranda at Blavatsky
Gardens. The
second night, however, I slept soundly. I have always been able to
sleep
comfortably on a bench since then. The secret of this art is relaxation,
for [113]
that allows a maximum of contact with the surface of the board. It was
said that one
could sleep better on a board than on the softest bed, because
relaxation
was there compulsory. I attained this by imagining that my body was
loose and
could collapse like that of a cat, and at the same time that I was
sinking into
the board.
This trifling
accomplishment greatly increased my prestige, and caused my words
to be
received with an amount of consideration and credibility which they
otherwise
would not have attained. The Hindu is essentially a pragmatist; he
will judge a
man’s philosophy by seeing his life. Contrary to popular idealistic
fancy, I am
convinced that this is the most utilitarian race in the world. They
will not move
a finger to do anything that is not absolutely necessary to
achieve a precise
result. Even the religious ceremonials are each based upon a
clearly
stated quid pro quo. The people have little sympathy with play. Either
work or be
still – and both these they can do marvellously well. Talking too,
but always
talking with a purpose in view. They are not conversationalists. They
credit the
Englishman with similar practicality. When he enters a village or a
town, the
whisper goes round: “What has he come to get?”
By judicious
placing of screens and matting, a bathroom had been fixed up for me
in the
courtyard, which was a pretty little enclosure with some flower-beds and
a well in the
centre, fitted with a pulley wheel and surrounded by a paved
platform from
which the water ran off to the flowerbeds. I discarded the
bathroom and
took my bath at the well in old Indian style. Naked but for a loin
cloth I stood
at the side of the well, drew up pots of water and poured them
over myself,
soaping and rubbing between. This was a luxury I had learnt at
Adyar, in the
Indian quarters, where I had developed a friendship with the young
Brahmin
Subrahmanyam Aiyar, already mentioned. We used to draw water for each
other in
turn. One sat cross-legged near the parapet wall of the well, while the
other drew
large pots of water and poured them mercilessly over the head of his
friend, who
gasped for air as the flood burst upon him from time to time.
The water was
never cold in Madras, and as it came direct from the well the
touch of it
had a richness and fullness like velvet – a feel which cannot be
described.
The [114] same water left to stand for a while in any vessel, and
then used, as
in European bathrooms, felt harsh and hard. My friend Subrahmanyam
was
deservedly proud of his physical strength. He would insist on my having the
“fifty-pot
bath,” the “seventy-five pot bath,” and even sometimes the “one
hundred-pot
bath,” while I used to give him about twenty-five pots. A pot would
equal an
ordinary bucket of water. When the bath was over we would towel
ourselves
vigorously in the sun, and at the proper moment would slip off the
loin cloth
and substitute a towel therefor, the same to be replaced by the lower
cloth or
dhoti in its turn. Orthodox Hindus do not bathe naked, even in a
private
bathroom.
With all my
sympathy for Hinduism, I never liked the system of worship – the
shrines, the
temples, the ceremonies. Of course, there is no idol worship, but
there are
thousands of statues and symbols, and there is some belief in material
agencies for
approach to Ishwara (God – literally, the ruler) or His agents,
such as one
finds still among ritualistic sects in the West. In Madura there is
a gigantic
temple covering acres of ground. Several times I wandered in the
twilight of
its vast stone corridors and chambers, and lingered to admire its
innumerable
statues and legendary figures, or the four great gateways with
pagodas
rising hundreds of feet into the air, and covered with symbolic and
legendary
figures. It was here that I first learnt the peculiarity of Indian art
– that its
main intention is to suggest. A statue is beautiful to a Hindu for
what it
suggests to his mind, not what it displays to his eye.
I will not
trouble my reader with a description of my dwelling-places in other
towns, or of
the other massive temples which abound in South India. I was not
interested in
them myself. To discuss philosophic questions with small groups of
people who
would call at my quarters, or to expound my views before large
audiences
seated upon mats, was more to my taste. Instinctively I held to the
adage that
the proper study of mankind is man. But man is very unsatisfactory as
he is and the
idea therefore was to find in man something superior to the
ordinary, for
which India has always had a great reputation, and to discover the
steps by
which those superior elements might be developed and increased. [115]
§2
There are
various wandering conjurers in India, who generally gravitate to
places where
great gatherings and festivals are being held, but there are also
men of
extraordinary powers who hide their lights completely under the bushels
of simple
religiosity and even pretence of madness, and are prepared to open
their hearts
only to very sympathetic souls.
It fell to my
lot to be introduced from time to time to men of this latter kind,
when it
became known that my mode of life and aspirations were so close to their
own.
It was in
Trichinopoly that I first met a man with remarkable powers of mind.
The invitation
came from him, he having heard of me through my lectures. One
morning two
Hindu acquaintances asked me if I would go with them to see this
gentleman, so
we took our way in a pony cart to the foot of the “Trichy Rock” –
really a rock
mountain, precipitous on one side but sloping on the opposite –
and then on
foot along a passage leading between small houses up the sloping
side. Some
distance up, we were guided into the interior of a little house,
where I was
introduced to an elderly man, well educated, speaking English, who
offered to
show me some interesting things and to tell me how they were done. He
wanted, and
received, no money, nor anything else.
I think the
most interesting of his experiments was one which he did with a pack
of cards.
First he handed the pack to me for examination. They appeared to be
quite
ordinary. Then he wrote something on a small piece of paper, folded it up,
gave it to me
and asked me to place it in my pocket.
“Now,” said
he, “shuffle the cards as much as you like, spread them face
downwards in
front of you, and pick up anyone.”
I was sitting
on a kind of platform with my two friends, they being on my right,
forming a
row. The Shastri was sitting down below in a chair, directly in front
of me, at
three or four arms’ length. I shuffled the cards and spread them over
a large
portion of the platform in front of me with their faces downwards,
allowed my
hand to hover above them, moving about, then suddenly dropped the
hand casually
and picked up a card.
“Now take the
paper out of your pocket and look at it.” [116]
There on the
paper was written the name of the very card that I had picked up.
Next, I
gathered the cards together, passed them on to my friends who reshuffled
them, spread
them out, and had the same experience with regard to pieces of
paper which
had been given to them.
I then
thought I would like to try a little experiment of my own, so I requested
my host to
give me a new paper. We went through the same procedure, but this
time, as I
was allowing my hand to drop among the cards, I fixed my thought upon
him and said
mentally: “Now, whatever card you have chosen, I will not have that
card.”
I took out
the paper and found that the name of the card written upon it did not
agree with
that which I had picked up. When I showed this to the Shastri he was
much
surprised; but when I told him how I had willed not to have the card of his
choice he
smiled with amusement, and said that that explained everything,
because his
method was to concentrate on a card and transmit the thought of it
to my
subconscious mind, which could know where the required card lay and could
direct my
hand to it. My two friends then decided that they would try the same
experiment.
He gave them new papers, but in each case – not being taken unawares
– he
compelled them to take the cards which he had written down.
It will be in
place here to relate a curious sequel to these experiments, which
occurred
about ten years later when I was sitting one evening with one of the
Professors of
the college where I was Principal at Hyderabad in Sind. This
professor was
entertaining me and my wife with some conjuring tricks with cards
which he had
somehow picked up while a student at Oxford University, where he
had taken a
brilliant degree. While this was going on, I suddenly heard a voice
speaking
strongly and clearly, as though in the middle of my head. It spoke only
six words:
“Five of clubs. Try that experiment.”
At once I
wrote “five of clubs” on a piece of paper, folded it up, and gave it
to the
professor. Then I asked him to shuffle his cards, spread them out face
downwards
before him and pick one up. This having been done, I told him to take
out his paper
and look at it. His astonishment was great. I believe he thinks to
this day that
I played a very clever trick on him. But my own belief is that the
Shastri [117]
whom I had seen in Trichinopoly had somehow become aware of what
we were
doing, and had performed the whole experiment somehow, after speaking
telepathically
to me. There were other psychological possibilities, of course,
but
considering all that I have seen done by such people, I think that the most
probable
explanation.
The same
gentleman showed me the power that he had over his own bodily
functions. He
asked me to put my ear to his bare chest and listen to the beating
of his heart.
He would, he said, stop it at my bidding, and keep it in suspense
until I told
him to start it again. This he did with perfect success. As soon as
I said
“Stop,” the heart stopped, and when a few seconds later I said “Start,”
it went on
again. I took care not to keep it long in suspension, as I was rather
afraid of the
possible consequences!
He then
showed me his control of the flow of blood. He took a nail and stood it
upright above
his knee, a little to the inside of the centre line of the thigh.
Holding it
with one hand he hammered it down to the head with the other. He was
a fat man, so
there was plenty of room. Then he pulled out the nail, leaving a
small wound,
and said: “Tell me when you want the blood to flow, and to stop.”
Several times
I said: “Flow” and “Stop,” and it obeyed my words. Afterwards he
wiped the
place and said: “Now I will show you the healing of the flesh.”
He slowly
passed the ball of his thumb over the spot with a little pressure, and
when it had
passed the skin was perfectly normal and there was no sign of the
wound.
It might be
suggested that the old gentleman used some form of hypnotism in
connection
with his exhibition, but that would be inconsistent with his friendly
desire to
talk about the various items, and with my having tried a little trick
of my own and
taken him by surprise.
§3
It was on the
same tour, but in the town of Mannargudi, that I was taken to see
an astrologer
who certainly knew a thing or two. In that town I was accommodated
in the public
travellers’ bungalow, a spacious building a little distant from
the town.
About midnight I was awakened by a knocking on the door. I got out of
bed, turned up
the lamp, opened the door, and observed with some trepidation
[118] a group
of men standing in the darkness, dimly lit by a hand lantern. They
proved to be
quite harmless, in fact, benevolent. They were students of the
local
college, who had been to my lecture and had taken a fancy to me.
“There is a
certain astrologer,” they informed me, “who would like to meet you
and make your
horoscope. Will you please us by coming to his cottage?”
I went with
them through the dark night, with the aid of the lantern. We came at
last into a
little whitewashed room, and found a bearded man with grey hair
sitting on
the floor, with a palm-leaf manuscript beside him. After salutation,
we all sat on
the floor in a group, quite near to him.
I had no
prepossession in favour of astrology. The lady who had given such
accurate
tests of telepathy in my home town used to practise the art. She had
made
horoscopes of most of her friends, which gave very accurate diagnoses,
within the
limitations of a certain vagueness which seems to pervade most
astrology and
to prevent any very definite proof of its general accuracy.
Moreover, a
leading London astrologer had given to the President’s wife (my
future
mother-in-law, as before mentioned) three several dates for the probable
death of her
husband, which had occasioned her considerable anxiety each time,
but proved
inaccurate.
The
astrologer whom I now met did not know English, but one of the students
acted as interpreter.
Would I tell him my place of birth? Yes – Manchester,
England. Date
and time? I understood that I had begun to appear about ten
minutes past
twelve Greenwich time in the early morning of August 18th, 1883.
That would be
about midnight according to the sun, would it not? I supposed so.
The
astrologer looked at his palm-leaf manuscript and fixed his time, then drew
a diagram of
twelve “houses” in the form of a square. Translating into English –
the Sun was
in Leo, in conjunction with Venus, in opposition to the Moon in
Aquarius;
Cancer was the rising sign; Jupiter was the rising planet, and so on.
Then he began
to interpret the meaning of these relationships, with the aid of
his palm-leaf
manuscript, and I kept notes of what he said.
“You have
money,” said he, and he named the amount which I possessed in England
after the
selling of my business!
“But, sir,”
exclaimed one of the young men, [119] reproachfully, “we thought you
were a
sannyasi” – a penniless, wandering preacher, who has renounced all
possessions.
I explained
that I was a Theosophist, paying my own way at Adyar, but taking no
money for
writing or lecturing. There were some professional Theosophists, who
made a
living, and quite a fortune out of it, but I was not one of them. I
thought it
was best to retain my small capital, live on the proceeds and do what
I could
without being a burden on those whom I was trying to help.
They were
pacified, and the astrologer proceeded: “You will marry at about the
age of
thirty-two.”
I thought it
unlikely that I would marry, but I did so, seven years later, at
the age of
thirty-two.
“The lady
will be of a smiling disposition, and she will have a small mole in
the middle of
her neck.”
Yes, the
smile was all right; people have sometimes asked me if my wife’s
portrait
represents a “movie star.” It looks like that – or a tooth-paste
advertisement.
She has acted on the screen, as I also, but only once, in a film
bearing the
dreadful title, The Devil and the Damsel. She was not the damsel nor
I the devil.
I was a perfectly respectable judge on the bench, and she a
hospital
nurse. The devil was DRINK; the damsel a stoutish young lady – very
charming,
however – whose husband, a veritable hero otherwise, had been caught
by the devil,
but was of course ultimately saved by the sweetness of a little
child.
As to the
mole, I found it some years after marriage, when my wife one day
succumbed to
the new fashion, a little belatedly, and cut short her hair. It
revealed
itself exactly in the middle on the back of the neck.
The
astrologer gave me five or six other items of information about my future
wife, all of
which turned out correct, except one, her age. He went on:
“You have two
brothers.” Correct.
“One is
younger, the other older.” Correct.
“Both are
still unmarried.” Correct.
A description
of the brothers and their future wives followed – accurate enough,
but I abstain
from publication!
“You will
have five children, three boys and two girls.”
Wrong. We
have had no children. A curious incident was that some time before our
marriage, and
while my future wife was engaged to someone else, a wandering
conjurer –
who had turned rupees into scorpions in her hand and [120] performed
other
alarming and impoverishing feats – told her that she would not marry the
man to whom
she was then engaged, but would marry a small man and have five
children.
I think,
however, that I can explain this lapse. There was a highly respectable
friend of
mine, Mr. Sitarama Shastri by name, who at the time of our marriage
told us that
it was considered the height of spirituality among Brahmins for
husband and
wife to abstain from actual marital connection for seven years. My
wife had
already told me that she did not wish to have any children for several
years after
marriage, as she was so young. So we decided on this seven-year plan
– or absence
of plan. Unluckily, when the seven years were over, nothing
happened. I
went to a doctor and he told me that he thought there must be some
atrophy in my
case, on account of disuse until nearly the age of forty.
“You will
write many books.” I have since written about fifteen of them, and
here is
another.
“You will
become well known in many countries.” To some extent. I have
undertaken
lecturing tours in about forty different countries in almost every
part of the
world, and some of my books have been translated and published in
several
languages. One of them is computed to have circulated to the extent of
about a
quarter of a million.
“Karma will
bring you no bad disease.” A trifle ambiguous. Though I have had
dangerous
illnesses, they can be traced to immediate causes.
“You will not
tell lies.” There is some hope for me then as an autobiographer!
“This will be
your last life on earth; you will not need to reincarnate any
more.” Let us
wait and see.
“You will
return to England in a year and a half.”
This did not
come about, though it nearly did, as I shall relate in due course.
It will be
seen that most of the predictions were fairly sound. As I write I
have before
me the horoscope and the written notes that I made in the little
cottage while
the astrologer spoke and his words were being interpreted to me.
[121]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER IV
FEATS
§1
IN contrast
with these high accomplishments of the Hindus I had some very humble
and
elementary ones to attain myself. It was in the small town of Tiruvallur
that I
essayed my first pair of sandals – not the kind specially made for
Europeans,
with a criss-cross of leather enclosing the toes, and a strap round
the back of
the heel, but real ordinary Indian sandals, with a band across the
instep, a
strap between the big toe and the second toe, and nothing at all but
the sole at
the heel.
By some
peculiar fate I started to wear these in that particular town, which has
the sandiest
streets that I have seen in any town or village of perhaps three
hundred which
I have visited in India. As it happens that sandals are the
footwear most
unsuitable for walking in sand – why on earth are they called
sandals? – I
made a most amusing exhibition of myself. When I put my foot
forward with
any degree of confidence, the sandal, like John Gilpin of immortal
memory, could
not stop in the proper place, but would continue on its way and
end up two or
three feet beyond the place where my foot would touch the ground.
My friends
roared with laughter and the public joined in, as I pursued my
languid,
though by no means elegant way. I persevered – as I have never objected
to adding to
the gaiety of others; and also I think it increased the audience at
my lectures –
until at last my toes had learnt to work. It was their business,
as the foot
lifted from the ground, to press downwards and a little together, so
as to grip
the sandal until it reached the ground again. Afterwards, I never had
trouble with
sandals, and I can recommend them to all who wish to have strong
and shapely
feet! [122]
Another
accomplishment was the twisting of the dhoti or lower cloth about the
waist so that
it will not fall off. The Hindus use no belt or pin for this.
After draping
the cloth behind and crossing it in front, you hold it with each
hand at its
own side of the body, give it a little twist at those two points
with the
finger and thumb, and there you are, at least until you begin to walk,
and then you
wish you weren’t, like the celebrated conductor of an orchestra
whose buttons
came off in the middle of a piece. No one seemed able to say how
the dhoti
holds up, but after a little time you have the knack and all is well.
Still another
accomplishment was that of eating by hand. This proved to be less
difficult
than it looked, even with semi-liquid foods. As a result of my own
experience my
advice is that one should not try it at a table, for then you must
carry the
food through an angle of perhaps forty degrees with the surface of the
table. But if
you sit cross-legged on the floor, you lean forward a little as
you raise the
food to the mouth, and as you now have an angle of seventy degrees
or more you
are less liable to drop the food by the way.
The speed of
movement of the arm also bears upon this science – there must be a
certain
momentum to carry the food from the fingers into the mouth – for it is
bad form to
put the fingers in the mouth or even, in some parts, to touch the
lips at all.
If the speed is too little the food will slide down your chin, if
too great
there is danger that you may choke, if indeed you do not receive it in
the eye,
instead of the orifice which nature intended.
My friends
were tolerant of spoons; they would provide them, if necessary, for
the ignorant
and unskilled; but still, how could the European continue that
dirty habit?
The same spoon had been in many people’s mouths, and everyone knew
that you
could not wash metal perfectly clean. The spoon had also been in one’s
own mouth in
the previous mouthful, and had therefore gone away unclean. But
hands were
washed before you ate and skin was very easily cleaned – could one
not see that
bare feet were far easier to keep clean than feet which wore shoes?
– and besides
you had your own magnetism, not someone else’s. In drinking, too,
it was
cleanest to pour from the cup into the mouth without touching the lips
with the cup,
though it might be admitted to be somewhat less artistic. This
[123] last
feat I never learned, though I might have done so if I had practised
in private.
Instead, I carried my own tumbler and washed it myself when I washed
out my mouth,
as was the custom, before and after each meal.
In most of
the houses I ate by myself, generally with an audience, ostensibly to
attend to my
needs. But some of my hosts and friends, defying convention and
caste rules,
would sit along with me, saving the situation by sitting at right
angles to me,
not in the same line or row, except in recent years, as caste
rigidities
have decayed. The orthodox ladies would never sit with us. That would
have been a
terrible disgrace. They held it their duty to see that the food was
properly
cooked and properly served, and the greatest honour to the guest was to
serve it
themselves.
First a large
plantain leaf would be placed before one. Then would come dish
after dish,
little heaps, ladled direct from the cooking pots, placed along the
far edge of
the leaf. Then two small bowls of brass or stitched leaf would be
put
alongside, and filled with water and soup (generally mulligatawny –
literally
“pepper water”), and perhaps another containing buttermilk, or sweet
milk with
raisins, nuts and spices cooked in it. Then would come a large heap of
rice in the
centre and on that a thick soupy mixture of vegetables and grains.
From time to
time you take portions from the little heaps, mix them with the
rice,
according to taste, give a little circular motion to form a loose ball,
and then with
the proper motion, as explained before, convey the bolus to the
mouth.
When several
are dining together none must rise until all are finished; it is
very bad form
to “break the row;” then all rise together and troop off to the
veranda, where
water is placed at the edge for washing the hands, rinsing the
mouth and
pouring over the feet. Hands must never be dipped into the
washing-bowls.
The water must be poured over the hands. In bathing, too, one
must never
sit in the bath. If you do you are getting your own dirt back against
the skin
again and again. One must take up the dipper, dip it into the tub of
water, and
pour it over oneself again and again, allowing the water to run away,
unless one
bathes at the well and pours directly from the pot attached to the
rope. [124]
§2
When I
returned to Adyar I took up my residence in the Indian quarters. These
were
converted stables, with the addition of a few new rooms, the whole forming
a quadrangle
with a large well in the centre, which for a long time was
delightful
for bathing, until the water, much neglected by the management,
became dark
in colour and unpleasant in odour on account of the fine rootlets of
trees coming
through the brickwork and growing into large tufts inside the well.
The only
drawback to life in the quadrangle was that the Hindus would read aloud
very early in
the mornings. That gave no trouble to themselves, for they have
wonderful
powers of concentration or selective attention, due perhaps partly to
lack of privacy
from earliest childhood, and partly to the method of teaching in
many
elementary schools, where a large number of children in one room or veranda
read and
repeat aloud their individual lessons, while the schoolmaster sits in
the midst
listening to them all and picking out and correcting any mistakes
which he may
hear.
Besides,
there was no harm in early waking, as it was our habit to go to the
shrine room
at headquarters for an hour’s meditation at five or six o’clock in
the morning.
In this Mrs. Besant used to join. Some of us would also make use of
the room for
an hour or a half-hour during the day. We used to sit on the floor,
or on little
mats or cushions. I was proud because Mrs. Besant lent me her
antelope skin.
Among Hindu devotees it is considered best to use an antelope
skin of a
dark colour, or as explained in that most popular of Hindu religious
books, the
Bhagavad Gita, straw on the ground, and on that a cloth, and on that
a skin.
Mrs. Besant
had ideas of a very monastic life in those days, but these were
brought to an
end by the introduction of electric light, which tempted people to
sit up at
night and even to have supper parties, and gradually put an end to
most of the
early morning meditation.
For the
Indians food was cooked in the back quarters of a little old cottage,
the two rooms
of which were set aside for Brahmin and non-Brahmin caste
dining-rooms.
It was not until 1913, when Mrs. Besant took up political work in
India, that
she turned against the caste system and told us that it [125] must
be brought to
an end. Before that she spoke and wrote strongly of its essential
excellence,
and in favour of attempts to rid it of excesses and abuses so as to
make it again
what it was reputed to have been in very ancient times. There was
no objection
to hereditary occupations, because, in accordance with the theory
of
reincarnation, one would be born into the circumstances or the caste suited
to one’s
needs. Abnormal cases could be adjusted.
Mrs. Besant
was in favour of strictness among the Hindus in pursuit of their
ancient
customs, except the early marriage of children, the ban on widow
remarriage,
and the habit of men of forty marrying girls in their teens. When
the father of
my friend Subrahmanyam Aiyar died, and the young man, being very
modern in his
views, and much opposed to the priest-craft which prevails in
connection
with ceremonials, which anyhow he regarded as superstition, declined
to perform
the orthodox ceremonies supposed to assist his father’s soul in the
beyond, she
gave him the alternative of performing them or leaving Adyar, for
she said his
neglect of them would bring the Society into disrepute among the
orthodox,
especially as his father had been a well-known man in a good position.
I sympathized
with Subrahmanyam.
There was no
general dining-room attached to the Hindu kitchen, so Mrs. Besant
allowed me
the use of her private dining-room – for she ate the food from the
Indian kitchen
– which she had built near by, until some jealous person reported
to her that I
was inviting stray dogs in to eat the leavings, which she believed
– what is a
king to do when spies hand in their reports? – notwithstanding my
protest that
it was not so, and further, that even if she believed it had been
so she could
rely upon it not occurring in the future. It was my first
experience of
a sharp temper which sometimes appeared. After that I used to sit
and eat on
the outer veranda of the cook-house itself.
“But what did
you eat in the European dining-room before you changed over,” some
voice seems
to ask. Oh, stewed guavas. I admit there were other things preceding
it at the
meals, but somehow stewed guavas constantly dominated the spread.
Guavas are
cheap beyond compare in Madras. You see, the butler was paid a fixed
price of ten
shillings a week per head for feeding us, and he was expected to do
it as well as
he could. So there were soup, boiled rice and curry, some
vegetables,
cutlets, bread with white [126] buffalo butter on the side, and
stewed
guavas. Yes, and bananas. I did not mind bananas if they were fully ripe;
otherwise
they proved themselves – as some of the members used to say with
brutal
frankness – nothing but wind and water.
I took up my
literary duties seriously. It was the time of the beginning of many
new
activities. One member, Mr. Sitarama Shastri, had started a little press in
a closed-in
veranda of a store-room. That grew into the large Vazanta Press,
which afterwards
printed the Theosophist magazine (theretofore printed in Madras
city) and a
great variety of books, supplying the theosophical market all over
the world.
A little book
of mine, entitled A Guide of Theosophy, was the first published
book to be
printed on the Vazanta Press. Mrs. Besant liked it much and put it
into her
advertised list of “books recommended for study.” That was followed by
my “Tanjore
Lectures” – a selection from the lectures given during my tour in
the South.
Mrs. Besant herself reviewed this little book and said it ought to be
on the
shelves (I supposed she meant in the hands) of all Theosophists, as she
said it
contained interesting elements of original thought. I was the first to
point out, I
think, that karma could not be taken as punishment for our sins,
but it must
be a scheme for presenting at each moment the very best
opportunities
to each individual. Even yet that idea has penetrated the
intelligence
of comparatively few Theosophists. Others still go on speaking and
writing of
“bad karma” as something that can retard a man on the upward way
until he had
“paid his debts.” In later years I followed it up with a statement
that there
could be no material casuality, nothing material to connect my
striking a
man two thousand years ago and somebody else’s striking me to-day,
but that the
casual connection must be in our own will – in the depth of my
nature I
choose to “pay the debts” of yesterday, because the experience of what
I willingly
do to others is the greatest need of my own nature, with a view to
my
realization of the unity of life.
While I was
on tour someone had said in a meeting that one of the old Indian
books, the
Garuda Purana, dealing with death ceremonies, conditions of life
after death
and the means to liberation, was similar to the teaching of Mrs.
Besant on the
subject. I therefore took up the translation [127] of that book as
an additional
literary work, with the aid of Mr. Subrahmanyam Aiyar, who had the
capacity of a
walking dictionary. Afterwards I carried the manuscript on tour
through many
towns of North India, discussed with many pundits in different
towns the
possible meanings of obscure passages, and finally completed it and
prepared it
for the press, when it was published in The Sacred Books of the
Hindus Series
in Allahabad.
§3
In 1909 two
people came to live at Adyar who were destined to play a large part
in my life.
These were Mr. C. W. Leadbeater and J. Krishnamurti – the latter
then a
schoolboy.
For many
years Mr. Leadbeater had been established in the minds of most
Theosophists
as the principal psychic investigator of the day. True, Mrs. Besant
was credited
with psychic powers, but she had not written extensively, as he
had, about
personal experiences of the astral and mental planes, of the modes of
life of the
dead, and of the auras and the thought-forms of men.
His presence
at Adyar was a great relief to Mrs. Besant, who had borne the whole
burden of the
daily meetings until he arrived. He now sat beside her and shared
the work to
some extent, and took the meetings himself in her absence on tour.
In the early
summer of 1909, Mrs. Besant having gone to lecture in England and
America, I
took the opportunity to make another lecture tour, through Poona,
Bombay and
many towns to the north of Bombay. In Poona I spoke in a large
theatre, with
Mr. G. K. Gokhale, the famous politician and social worker, in the
chair. After
the lecture, questions were invited. It then appeared that a large
number of people
had come to the meeting for an opportunity to question and
heckle the
chairman, not to hear the lecture. Up jumped several of these,
followers of
Mr. B. G. Tilak who were bitterly against Mr. Gokhale, and began to
speak against
him. Others got up and protested, and the meeting was soon out of
hand. As the
ferment increased, Mr. Gokhale caught me by the arm and we made a
precipitous
exit by a little door at the back of the theatre, and so removed the
chief cause
of the excitement. I continued [128] my tour to Bombay and other
towns, and on
into the promontory of Kathiawar.
It was in
Kathiawar that I first saw something of life in the States ruled by
Indian
Princes, which retain old-fashioned manners and customs much more than
British
India. In four different States I was the guest of the Raja.
It happened
at Morvi that I fell in with one of the Indian “memory men,” or
ashtavadanis.
This title is a very modest one. It implies memory of eight
(ashta)
things, but generally the performers show the memory of fifty or a
hundred
things. I was invited to the exhibition. We sat in a large hall in the
palace. The
memory man – Mr. Nathuram P. Shukla – took his place on the carpet.
Immediately in
front of him sat twenty selected people, while the rest formed
the audience.
He attended to each one of the twenty people five times, that is,
going along
the line five times. Several of them gave him sentences composed of
five words,
each person using a different language, and these words were given
out of their
order in the sentences, such as “My third word is ‘field’.” One man
gave him
moves in a game of chess. Two others gave him figures to be multiplied
together.
Another carried on an intricate conversation. Still another struck a
bell a number
of times on each round. After all the items had been given, Mr.
Shukla sat in
meditation for five or ten minutes, then answered questions
relating to
the items, and finally repeated the whole.
It was here
that I had a sample of real old-world politeness. After the
exhibition
was over I was talking with one of the Raja’s ministers, and I
expressed
admiration for the hall. He told me that it was about thirty feet
high. I
happened to say that it had appeared to me about forty feet. Then he
said: “Oh,
yes, it is forty feet.” I was quite sure afterwards that it was only
thirty!
While in the
train I was surprised at one of the wayside stations with a visit
from a
gentleman who brought a message from the Maharaja of Limbdi, who had his
special
carriage attached to that train. The Maharaja expressed a desire to see
me. I went
over to his carriage, where he received me with formal and yet
intimate
politeness. He wanted me to come over for a while to his State and give
two or three
lectures. I did so, was most kindly received [129] and ultimately
presented
with two big red embroidered shawls, such as are given to pundits on
special
occasions. As I wanted no possessions I posted these off to my mother in
England,
which was just as well, for during my next tour my room at Adyar was
burgled stark
naked.
It was in the
guest house at Limbdi that I again met Mr. Shukla. We spent a good
deal of time
together and experimented a little with thought-transference, in
which we had
a fair measure of success, apparently due largely to sympathy of
temperament.
He was good enough to explain to me some of the methods of memory
culture in
vogue in his profession.
I had already
taken great interest in this subject. I now obtained from Europe
all the books
I could about it and was fortunate enough to secure a variety of
them, one of
them as much as a hundred and fifty years old, some of them giving
very full
information about the systems in vogue in earlier centuries in Europe,
when it had
been a popular subject amongst the monks. These, and a considerable
amount of
personal practice, enabled me to perform the ashtavadana feat
occasionally
for the entertainment of friends and in public – the latter very
rarely – as I
shrank from display and did not want to become an entertainer of
any kind,
only a very serious philosopher and preacher! The last time I
performed the
feat, with fifty things at once, was at the Jubilee Convention of
the
Theosophical Society in Madras in 1925. Since then I have refused all
requests to
make any of these exhibitions as I consider them dangerous to brains
more than
about fifty years old. All these things, however, enabled me to
produce a
system of memory training which still appears to me to be the best
extant,
superior to many expensive and well-known courses. [130]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER V
A EUROPEAN
YOGI
§1
On my way
back from Kathiawar I broke my journey for a few days at Surat. What
was my
surprise on receiving there a letter from Mr. Leadbeater, enclosing a
cable from
Mrs. Besant: “Please stop Wood’s proceedings may cause serious
trouble in
work.” Mr. Leadbeater wrote very sympathetically, telling me not to
be uneasy,
that he knew what was the matter and would explain everything. By the
time I
reached Adyar a letter also arrived from Mrs. Besant saying that she
thought,
after all, that my proper work lay in England, that many people wanted
me there, and
I would do well to make arrangements to return – quite forgetting,
however, that
I had given up my business and would be, to say the least,
financially strained
if I attempted to live in England on my small resources.
I learned
from Mr. Leadbeater that somebody at Adyar had heard about the
disturbance
in the Poona theatre and had written to Mrs. Besant to the effect
that I was
taking part in politics, so she hastened to stop my speaking lest the
Theosophical
Society come under suspicion of being associated in any way with
political
thought and activities. Mr. Leadbeater wrote to her and explained the
whole matter,
so that on her return she told me that everything was quite all
right, and
requested me not to trouble about it any more.
The incident
threw me into very close contact with Mr. Leadbeater, whom I had
met
previously only rather casually. I had called on him one morning to ask for
his opinion
on some subject. When we had finished talking, it occurred to me to
offer to help
him in his literary work. He was much pleased at the idea. He
opened a
drawer full of [131] letters. “Could you answer these for me if I give
you the
points?” We went over the letters, discussed the hundred and one
questions
that they contained, and I cleared them all up in two or three weeks.
In the
evening meetings I took notes of his answers to the various questions
raised in the
meetings. I became his constant companion for a long time, to such
an extent
that in 1913 I was in a position to write an article about him
entitled “Ten
Thousand Hours with Mr. Leadbeater.”
Mr.
Leadbeater lived in a small octagonal room with a little dressing-room and a
bathroom at
one side and a broad veranda round the rest of it. As he sat at his
roll-top desk
in the middle of the room he presented a striking figure,
notwithstanding
his sixty-two years of age. He was a massive, muscular man, five
feet eleven
inches in height, and some sixty inches round the chest, with arms
to match,
fair hair, almost white, a straggly beard, and an abnormally great
development
of forehead at the centre just above the eyes, with a sharp retreat
above that.
He might have sat for a portrait of an ancient Dane.
He wore only
cotton trousers and shirt, with throat and feet bare. He would go
out in the
hottest sun without a hat and would enjoy it, and never experience
the slightest
ill effect. Though prepared always to work from early morning till
far into the
night, having his meals – such as they were (for a long time I
estimated the
cost at twopence each) – on a cleared space amongst his papers, he
would
nevertheless take an hour off every evening for a walk down to the shore
to bathe in
the river mouth or in the sea.
He was very
fond of long walks also on occasions. One night, when we were taking
a walk to
deliver some proofs at the printing-office in Madras, as we went along
the five-mile
marina, the famous water-front of Madras, he fell over a heap of
road metal in
the darkness. He was somewhat shaken, but nevertheless completed
the
twelve-mile walk almost as if nothing had happened. On another occasion we
took a walk
of twenty-four miles in the mountains near Kodaikanal, a hill
station seven
thousand feet high. On that occasion he did a bit too much for a
man of his
age, and had to lean on my shoulder for the uphill climb of the last
two or three
miles. We had been to try to find the men who, according to some
guide-books,
lived in trees, but our search had been in vain. [132]
Once, when I
was being carried out to sea by a treacherous current – several
swimmers have
been drowned in the Bay of Bengal at Adyar – he managed to help me
in, standing
on a sandbank and reaching out for my hand. Inch by inch he edged
backwards
until we were out of danger. Though a powerful swimmer he could not
have overcome
the current if he had lost his footing.
§2
It was during
one of these bathing expeditions that Krishnamurti, soon
afterwards to
become famous as the prospective vehicle for the impending return
of the
Christ, burst upon our view.
It happened
that a certain Brahmin widower, with four sons, retired about that
time from
Government service, and offered to come and live at Adyar and give his
services in
some capacity. Mrs. Besant, however, objected to having any boys
living on the
compound, so it was finally arranged that he should live in a
little
cottage which happened to be let just outside the estate, and should come
in daily to
do some secretarial work.
There was
nothing, however, to prevent the boys – seven in all, four sons and
three wards –
from coming into the compound, and on the beach, as Mrs. Besant
never liked
the idea of closing up the compound walls, so as to prevent our
neighbours or
others from coming in and enjoying the gardens and the shade of
the trees. So
ere long we had for our swimming parties quite an audience –
highly
interested, these boys from the country, who had scarcely seen a white
man in their
lives, and were now presented with an uncommonly full view.
Krishnamurti
was one of those boys. He was tallish for his age, about thirteen,
but woefully
thin, with almost every bone showing.
The boys also
came to the Indian quadrangle at nights to see Mr. Subrahmanyam
Aiyar, who
was a particular friend of their father’s and to obtain from that
genial young
man, who was always ready to help anybody in almost any way – and
very soon
from me also, as I was living in the next room – some help in
connection
with the home-work set in their school. Subrahmanyam was frequently
one of our
small bathing party, which included also a Dutchman, an [133] old
friend of Mr.
Leadbeater’s. This Dutchman, too, was very genial and sociable, so
before long
he and Subrahmanyam were inviting the boys into the water and
offering to
teach them to swim. After a few days’ preliminary hesitation, our
party was
regularly increased by the inclusion of the boys.
Now, it
happened that I raised a question about the method of reincarnation of
Indians.
Almost every Indian I had met regarded the idea of a possible future
incarnation
as a European with the utmost alarm. Yet there was an idea current
among
Theosophists that the ego took birth in different races in succession, so
as to obtain
a variety of experiences. Mr. Leadbeater had in the past made
psychic
observations with regard to the past lives of several Europeans, and had
seen them
moving from America to China, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, and later
Europe. There
was one intriguing life in which he and I and about half a dozen
others were
declared to have lived in far Eskimoland and apparently spent most
of our time
eating blubber! That was regarded as rather a lapse!
The question
now was, do the Hindus go through exactly the same course? Mr.
Leadbeater
said he would look into the past lives of some Indians, and see what
had happened
in their cases. “But,” said he, “it is better not to look into the
lives of the
members here. Theosophists are always abnormal anyhow! I must find
somebody
else, who will agree to be examined.”
Then came up
the suggestion; why not these boys? Mr. Leadbeater asked the
father’s
permission, which was instantly and delightedly given. Then he began to
write a
series of lives, which appeared first in the Theosophist and later in
book form
under the title The Lives of Alcyone – Alcyone being a pseudonym under
which to hide
the personality of Krishnamurti. The other boys figured in these
life-stories,
as well as some of the Adyar residents and a few people whom Mr.
Leadbeater
had met before.
Mr.
Leadbeater explained that he could run his vision of the past backwards at
any speed. He
thus first made a list of the last thirty appearances of
Krishnamurti,
without looking into the details at all. He told me that he fixed
the dates by
observation of the position of the stars and by counting the
precession of
the equinoxes. He had been an enthusiastic student of astronomy.
Then, every
evening, [134] after the roof meetings were over, we would retire to
his room. I
would sit at his roll-top desk, writing down the dramatic incidents
of a life, as
he clairvoyantly looked at them while he walked round and round
the room to
keep himself awake. Thus we would go on far into the night,
sometimes
until two or three o’clock in the morning, until the life under review
was finished.
At any moment I might interrupt him with questions or suggestions.
Mr.
Leadbeater would become much absorbed while thus walking round, and more
than once he
kicked his bare toe against the corner of the desk with a force
sufficient to
draw blood, but without at all noticing it. So far as I could see
he had no
time during the day to invent these stories; only occasionally he
would consult
a book or encyclopaedia with reference to some point that he
wanted to
verify.
The lives
were written mostly in reverse order, but they were numbered
successively,
as the list of thirty had been made in advance. The first to be
done was the
twenty-ninth life, in which Krishnamurti figured as a disciple of
the Buddha,
and his next younger brother as proprietor of a temple at a centre
of pilgrimage
in North India. In telling the story, allusion would be made to
but few other
persons by name, but afterwards Mr. Leadbeater would sit by
himself and
draw up a genealogical chart containing the names of some thirty
people, with
their relationships in the particular life. In writing these down
it was
considered advisable to avoid the actual names of persons who might,
after all, be
in a position to sue for libel, especially the villains of the
piece, who
attained to heights of melodramatic villainy worthy of the stage of
half a
century ago. So Mr. Leadbeater kept a list of pseudonyms, which came to
be called the
“star names” of the people concerned, because they were mostly
names of
stars. The identities were supposed to be kept secret, but they somehow
leaked out,
and members used to go about with little books exchanging
discoveries
with one another to complete their lists!
When the
series of thirty lives was complete the investigation ceased for a
while. Years
later the charts were enlarged to contain over three hundred
persons, and
the number of lives was increased to forty-eight. [135]
§3
I had much
confidence in Mr. Leadbeater. I grew to like him very much. His whole
life was that
of a man who took himself seriously and had no interest beyond the
“great cause”
for which he was working. It was, however, more than a “cause”
with him; it
was a mission. He was still of the disposition which had made him a
very serious
curate of the Church of England in his younger days – a position
which he had
left in order to plunge himself into the work of the Theosophical
Society,
which he had approached through the half-way house of table-turning. So
he was
interested much more in lifting people rapidly on the road of evolution
of the soul –
which persisted from life to life, or rather from body to body –
than in –
what some of us preferred – the mere search for truth, and the spread
of truth,
leaving others to uplift themselves by its aid. He believed in the
personal
element in soul-evolution – the domestic animals had awakenings of
superior
intelligence because of their contact with man, and the flowers and
fruits as
well as the animals were brought to greater perfection by being bred
under human
guidance.
These ideas I
accepted as rather obvious for a long time, until I later came to
have much
closer experience of many kinds of animals and men and to reflect upon
their
progress. Then I discovered that the monkey, having had no contact at all
with man, is
ahead of other animals, even the dog and the cat, in intelligence,
and is
unsurpassed for loyalty and reckless bravery in defence of the human or
other
creature whom it loves. It will cry for you in your absence, and when you
return it
will put its arms round your neck in a tight hug, and its cheek
against
yours, and “yum-yum” with great satisfaction, giving a little bite or
nip, which is
its kiss, and may probably be the origin of all kisses. If
impersonal
character is the test, I have noticed that when you say or do
something in
the presence of both a monkey and a dog, the dog will perk up and
come along to
be taken notice of, but the monkey will look at your eyes, follow
the direction
of your gaze, and take an interest in what you are referring to,
without
apparent thought of itself.
The cat?
Beautiful and pleasant companion as it is, it will come to you when it
is in the
mood to be stroked or tickled, and will even give you a soulful glance
while the
[136] process is going on, but it is much more likely to convert you
into a sort
of a cat than you are to change it into a sort of a man or woman. I
observed also
that the elephant, caught from the wild and trained only to
subjection
and obedience displays remarkable intelligence. But I digress too
much.
The point is
that the intellectual and emotional uplift of the animals does not
depend upon
man. Those who think it does are apt to imagine that the uplift of
the “lower
orders” among men depends upon the paternal administration of the
higher, and
is at its best when the lower remember their places and cultivate
themselves
with due respect and obedience to their superiors. Mr. Leadbeater was
adamant in
this point of view. Notwithstanding the progress of democracy in the
world, he
remained an entire disbeliever in it and a good old Tory of the early
Victorian
style. Though so much with him, I was never in the least converted to
his social
and political outlook, which always seemed to me reactionary and
uninformed in
the extreme.
Although I
was quite satisfied that Mr. Leadbeater was sincere I had no decisive
evidence of
the accuracy of any of his visions. Some people believed that those
visions were
constant, that he was aware of almost everything that was going on
in his
neighbourhood and a good deal far away.
That was a
belief based on exaggeration. I was a little disappointed that
neither he
nor Mrs. Besant ever took decisive steps to scotch that belief with
regard to
themselves. It may have been that they found it difficult to make
clear just
where the line of belief ought to be drawn.
I never knew
one occasion on which Mr. Leadbeater was in the least aware of any
thought that
was going on in my mind, and in ordinary matters he certainly used
no
clairvoyant power at all. Often, being busy at something, he would ask me if
I would go
and see “whether our President” – a word he always used with a
reverential
pause and deep old-fashioned impressments – “is in her room,” though
that room was
only fifty paces distant and her aura was described as blazing
like the sun
for a hundred yards all round. Often he would say, with regard to a
point of
interest: “Come along, let us consult the President about this,” and we
would rush
off together (we would run on these little excursions for the mere
joy of
living), sometimes to be brought [137] to a halt a few feet inside her
room and utter
the disappointed exclamation: “Why, she is not here!”
The incident
nearest to evidence that I ever saw occurred as follows. We were
working away
and all was pitch darkness outside, when a knock came at the door
and in
response to Mr. Leadbeater's “come in,” a young Englishman, newly
resident at
Adyar, appeared and said that three Indian gentlemen were sitting on
the bench
outside. They had come from Madras eagerly seeking his help with
reference to
a baby belonging to one of them. Mr. Leadbeater leaned back in his
chair, looked
at the messenger, and said without hesitation: “Which one is it?
Is it the one
with the fuzzy hair?” The messenger did not know, but when the men
were called
in it proved to be one of them who had hair of a frizzy kind, which
stood far out
from his head.
I should
mention here that callers were rare and generally discouraged, but a
large part of
Mr. Leadbeater’s correspondence referred to dead people. On
account of
his books describing his first-hand knowledge of the dead and how
they were
living and what they were doing, people used to write to him from all
parts of the
world, sending photographs of their departed relatives (or pieces
of paper on
which they had written, or scraps from the clothing which they had
worn), with
requests for information about them, for help to them, and for
messages from
them.
Mr.
Leadbeater would “look them up,” and reply. Generally the departed were seen
enjoying
themselves with friends they had met or made on the astral plane, they
needed no
help – but when necessary it would be given – and it was quite
forbidden to
bring messages from the dead to the living. It was, however,
permissible
to take messages from the living to the dead, but that was seldom
necessary,
since most educated and cultured people were quite capable of
mingling with
the departed during the hours of sleep, when their astral bodies
were released
from the physical integument, though it was rare for anyone to
remember
these experiences on waking, on account of the lack of responsiveness
of the
physical brain to impressions from higher planes.
Another
incident approaching the nature of evidence occurred somewhat later. An
old gentleman
and his wife arrived seeking consolation for the loss of their
little son, a
schoolboy. They had come from the Telugu-speaking [138] country to
the north of
Madras, from which Krishnamurti’s father had also come. They wanted
Mr. Leadbeater
to talk with their little boy. He remarked to me that he could
not do so on
account of the difference of language, but this might be an
opportunity
to see what Krishnamurti could do. Krishnamurti was sitting studying
at a table
against the far wall of the room. Mr. Leadbeater called across to
him: “Come
and see if you can help.” Krishnamurti then sat with the two old
people on a
couch just inside the door, while Mr. Leadbeater and I went on
working
together at the other side of the room. The three carried on an animated
conversation
in the Telugu language for, I think, about half an hour, presumably
in reference
to the dead boy, and then the old people bowed themselves out with
expressions
of profound gratitude and satisfaction.
On the other
hand, there were occasional incidents which shook my confidence in
the
reliability of Mr. Leadbeater’s clairvoyance. Though I admired him and loved
him, and was
convinced of his sincerity, it did sometimes cross my mind that as
he was
obviously much more interested in uplifting people than in the
investigations
themselves, that great interest might easily colour his psychic
vision. He
practically never took up any investigation on his own account, but
only when the
subjects were requested or suggested by others, and he was always
ready to
break them off in order to spend his time with promising boys – a
matter which
irritated me a little because I was bent upon gathering material
which might
turn out to be of real scientific value sooner or later.
I noticed
that as we proceeded with the writing of the lives of Alcyone, boring
further and
further into the past Krishnamurti seemed to grow greater and
greater; in
more recent lives he was a humble individual, though pure and good,
but in the
earlier lives he appeared as a personage of great eminence, playing a
leading part
in the political and social life of his time. If the book of lives
is now
consulted, it will appear curious to the critical reader that
Krishnamurti,
one of the right-hand men of the Manu, semi-divine king of the new
Aryan race
seventy-two thousand years ago, should gradually diminish in
importance to
become an ordinary man, though of fine character, in the last ten
or fifteen
lives. I commented to myself that Krishnamurti was obviously growing
upon Mr.
Leadbeater, [139] and that imagination was seriously affecting the
visions,
though that would be no reason to regard them as fundamentally unsound.
§4
There were
three attitudes of the residents of Adyar towards these lives, which
created quite
a sensation as they were read at the evening meetings on the roof.
Most of the
residents accepted them without question. They were “wonderful, and
surely Mrs.
Besant would not have upheld them unless she was satisfied that they
were
correct.” Some few rejected them altogether, used to laugh at them and were
not above
composing comic verses about them:
“In the
lives, in the lives,
We had plenty
of husbands and wives,” etc.
One of them,
a Parsi, said that in the Persian life Mr. Leadbeater had mixed the
names badly,
somehow confusing male and female names; that was one of the few
lives in
which he did give names of the period to the characters referred to,
and it was
one of the rare occasions on which he had consulted a book in
connection
with it.
The same
resident maintained that he had confutation of another item which had
some
appearance of evidence. One night Mr. Leadbeater had with much hesitation
given me a
few words in Sanskrit, to which he told me he was listening. There
was much
difficulty, he said, in getting words of foreign languages clearly. He
asked me if I
recognized the language. Yes, it was Sanskrit, quite recognizable.
It went down
into the first draft of the lives. On the next day the Parsi friend
happened to
be talking with Mr. Leadbeater in his room when this item came up in
conversation.
The friend said he felt convinced that he had come across the
sentence
somewhere else, before, and they both wondered where it might have
been. At that
moment the Parsi gentleman’s eye happened to fall upon a book
which was out
of alignment on the shelf. On the instant he remembered that the
passage that
they were talking about was quoted in that book.
“Why,” he
exclaimed, “now I remember. It was in this book, The Dream of Ravan,
which is out
of line, that I [140] read the sentence.” Mr. Leadbeater, he said,
looked
confused, remarked that the servant had been dusting the books, and
diverted the
conversation to some other subject.
Another
friend, a European doctor, quietly severed his connection with Mr.
Leadbeater
altogether. He was the only person, as far as I know, who ever tried
secretly to
put Mr. Leadbeater to the test. They were very friendly and had been
together to a
theatre. This gentleman deliberately pretended that he had a
vision of two
gigantic figures one on each side of the stage, standing up there
like the
guardian genii of Indian temples, or Japanese doorways. He described
them, and Mr.
Leadbeater, he said, told him that he was correct.
There was an
explanation for this, however. Mr. Leadbeater always gave great
credit to
imagination as verging on clairvoyance. When you imagine something, he
would say,
there is nearly always something present to cause that imagination.
He held that
the best way for most people to develop clairvoyance was to let the
imagination
play in the first place.
A striking
conversation took place in my presence on this point. One of our
prominent
members had been through an important ceremony on the astral plane
during the
sleep of his physical body, and had thereby become what was called
“an
Initiate.” It happened that he was to be called as a witness in a certain
case. He was
full of anxiety about it.
“Whatever
shall I say if they ask me about my being an Initiate? I do not
remember
anything at all of it.”
Mr.
Leadbeater’s reply was: “But why don’t you remember? You ought to be able to
remember.”
“Well, if I
let my imagination play on it, I can get a sort of impression about
it.”
“That is just
what you ought to do. There is a cause for such imaginings. How
can you
expect your clairvoyant power to develop if you destroy its delicate
beginnings?”
The member
followed this advice and became one of the prominent clairvoyants in
the
Theosophical Society, though years later he mentioned in conversation, that
he never
really saw anything; only he received an impression so vivid that he
felt it must
be so, and he was justified in saying with confidence that
such-and-such
a being was [141] present and was saying such-and-such a thing.
His position
was not without rationality, though I personally never considered
it sound
enough to warrant a claim to great leadership and the guidance of
others in
important matters.
It is
doubtful whether any clairvoyant operates through senses in any way
comparable
with those familiar to us as sight, hearing and the rest. It is more
than probable
that when impressions are clearly received in terms of these (as
when I heard
the sentence relating to the five of clubs) it is due to
“visualization”
superimposed upon the impression, and forming a species of
interpretation.
When I put this theory before Mr. Leadbeater he quite agreed to
it and wrote
a passage to that effect in one of his books.
My own
position with regard to Mr. Leadbeater, therefore, was midway between the
extremes of
acceptance and rejection. It was that of one who had otherwise had
convincing
proof of the existence of clairvoyant power (though not on anything
like the
lavish scale presented by Mr. Leadbeater, nor of the perfect accuracy
which he
always took for granted in his own case), who did not see any reason
why Mr.
Leadbeater should cheat, but many reasons why he should not do so, who,
knowing him
and liking him, was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt
where at all
reasonable, who at the same time knew that human nature was streaky
(like bacon,
as it has been said) and did not expect Mr. Leadbeater to be
perfect in
all respects, even though the devotees thought him to be so.
I found, on
the other hand, that most of my friends were rather in the position
expressed in
an article which I read recently, in which the writer said: “I
accept that
as true, being ignorant of the matter.” Some few were actually a
little afraid
of disbelief. They might miss something good, or even “something”
might happen
to them. I was reminded of the story of the old lady who bowed
whenever the
devil was mentioned, and when asked why she did so, replied: “Well,
minister,
it’s best to be ready for everything.”
There had
been charges against Mr. Leadbeater of very reprehensible actions with
boys, but
Mrs. Besant had been satisfied that they were unsound, and had
readmitted
him to her closest friendship. I am convinced to this day that he
loved young
people and would do nothing intentionally to harm them, and during
the whole of
my close contact [142] with him, intermittently covering thirteen
years, I
never saw in him any signs of sexual excitement or desire. Only once or
twice we
talked of the attacks made upon him. He said that evidence had been
manufactured
against him. He had given advice, in good faith, and with the best
intentions,
which Mrs. Besant had disapproved. In deference to her wishes, he
had promised
not to give that advice again, although his opinion still was that
it was the
best under the circumstances.
One “streak,”
however, that did trouble me was his liability to irritability,
which would
sometimes become quite explosive and verging on the cruel – a
quality
common enough, however, and accepted rather as a matter of course among
old English
gentlemen of the Victorian school. My first introduction to this
occurred when
one morning a German countess, who had undertaken to supervise the
house-keeping,
came fluttering at the doorway. Only ten feet away from her, he
bellowed out
at the top of his great lungs: “What does that woman want here?”
“Oh, Mr.
Leadbeater,” faltered the stricken lady, “I was only looking to see if
the servants
had done their work properly.”
This fault of
irritability was, however, recognized by Mr. Leadbeater himself,
and he used
to tell me that some day he would conquer it. I thought to myself:
“Great people
have great faults, but they disappear suddenly; little people have
little
faults, but they seem to go on for ever.”
Sometimes,
when ants and beetles invaded his desk – a common occurrence in South
India – he
would completely lose his temper, and then he would methodically
press them
individually to death with the flat of his paperknife, with such an
unpleasant
expression upon his face that it made me feel quite sick. When I
showed my
unhappiness, he would laugh at me, call me over-sensitive and finally
say that the
life in those creatures was infinitesimally small. I was perhaps
anthropomorphizing
their feelings to some extent. But could they not have been
swept off in
a gentler way, and without that sadistic delight?
Still, I knew
well that kindness was really the biggest thing in his life, and
so I was
quite ready to forget these lapses. When anyone, especially a child,
had been
admitted to the charmed circle of his immediate friendship – and he was
very
exclusive – he would sacrifice his comfort, his [143] money, everything,
for him. But
he was uncompromisingly short with anybody outside that circle who
showed the
least intrusiveness or made the least disturbance.
I was a very
favoured person, and could discuss these things with him. He had a
definite
theory on the point – that he existed only to do good, and it would be
folly to
spread himself out too thin. If he succeeded in doing great good to a
few, then in
their lives they would extend that good in ever-enlarging
concentric
circles. He admitted that “our President,” with her magnetic
personality
and her magnificent gift of oratory, could work on a larger scale,
but such
greatness was not for him; he knew his limitations.
I agreed that
his position was logical. I knew that though he would angrily
rebuff
outsiders, there was no venom behind his anger. It was a sort of smoke
screen in
self-defence, though generally quite unnecessarily effective. He
wished well
to all, and would injure none, but his company and services were
reserved for
those upon whom he had focused his affection. He would have a
garden of
beautiful and delicate flowers – weeds were all right in their place,
but they must
keep out of here.
§5
Before leaving
this subject, I must give another instance of Mr. Leadbeater’s
work that
impressed me very much at the time. One morning I found him lying on
his couch,
with the Dutch friend, whom I have already mentioned, sitting in a
chair at his
side. Mr. Leadbeater was saying that he had had a visit from a deva
(a non-human
angelic being) who had shown him some living pictures of scenes to
occur in a
community which was to come into existence in Lower (now Mexican)
California
about eight hundred years in the future. He said from the points of
contact given
to him by the deva he could now observe the entire life of that
community of
the future. Our friend, always eager to gather knowledge, suggested
the
compilation of as much information as possible about that community. He
always held
the view that we were at the stage of compilation of occult
information
and would be in a better position to correlate and criticize the
points later
on.
Mr.
Leadbeater agreed to the proposition, and after that [144] for about three
weeks he and
I spent three or four hours every day working on the subject. My
part was to
put to him every question I could think of, on every conceivable
topic
relating to such a community. His was to lie on the sofa and look up the
information
required. In this way we betook ourselves, so to speak, into the
streets, the
factories, the restaurants, the homes, the temples, everywhere, and
he described
the appearance of the people, their dress, language, habits, food
and a hundred
other things.
They were an
advanced community, living in a kind of garden city under the
leadership of
two Masters who would incarnate especially to establish this
community as
the nucleus of a new race, for it was intended that these people
should at
some stage of their development begin to migrate and multiply
themselves
all over North America. It was a highly technical civilization, with
machinery
carried to an advanced point, with new inventions, including tiny
individual
motor-cars, aeroplanes for distant service, talking pictures and
television,
the last including even the actual reproduction, from the ether, of
historical
scenes.
I wanted
information about some of the new scientific methods, but this was not
permitted. There
was also a new system of writing the language, which was
English, in
very brief form, with apparently an ideographic foundation, but the
main features
subject to inflectional marks. I was told with reference to this
that if I
succeeded in working it out for myself I would be informed if it was
correct! I
worked at it for a long time, but could not make a system of
shorthand on
that basis!
To obtain
knowledge of not very evident things, such as the economic system, it
was necessary
to put questions to the people then living, so I held
conversations
on these points with various people in the future, through the
agency of Mr.
Leadbeater! For example, I wanted to know about conditions in a
certain
factory.
“There is a
girl here working in the factory. Let us ask her.”
But the girl
was frightened when she heard a ghostly voice addressing her!
“Well, here
is a fellow coming along the street. Let us put it into his mind
that he would
like to see the factory and to know about the points you ask. We
will get him
to go inside and ask questions.” [145]
The man
proved responsive, went inside and asked the questions, while Mr.
Leadbeater
listened to the future conversation and told it to me. We discussed
the curious
phenomenon – would this man actually walk up the street and go in
and ask these
questions eight hundred years hence? Oh, yes. And would there be a
ghostly voice
from the past, frightening the girl in the factory, and wanting to
know back
into the past what was happening then? Yes, inexplicable, of course,
but there it
was.
In the end I
had hundreds of questions with their answers, each written on a
separate slip
of paper. The Dutch friend and I sat together, classified all
these, and
arranged them in order under suitable headings. Mr. Leadbeater then
went through
them, dictating afresh and smoothing out the language according to
the literary
form he desired. We were struck by the remarkable consistency of
the result.
There was no confusion or clash in the material. Still, as we knew
that Mr.
Leadbeater was very fond of H. G. Wells’s scientific romances and the
adventure
stories of Rider Haggard and Jules Verne, and had often told stories
on these
lines to boys, we did not consider it beyond the bounds of invention by
his
sub-conscious mind. Mr. Leadbeater used to tell us how stories sometimes
wrote
themselves before the eyes, so to say, of some novelists, the characters
in them
taking matters into their own hands and conducting the whole affair, and
how Conan
Doyle would take up his pen and write an imaginative story without
knowing at
all what he was going to write.
The series
appeared in the magazine under the heading of “The Beginnings of the
Sixth Root
Race” and was afterwards incorporated in a book containing other
investigations
entitled Man: Whence, How, and Whither?
In connection
with this investigation Mr. Leadbeater also talked to us of other
future
incidents which came within his vision, to occur within fifty years. The
force in the
atom would be tapped and would replace electricity, far within the
fifty years –
of which, by the way, twenty-six have already gone. There would be
a great war,
in which Germany and England would be opposed. Germany would be
defeated and
Holland would gain an accession of territory in Europe! It was
thought
advisable not to print such items as the last. Mr. Leadbeater always had
the coming
war much on his mind, and when early in 1914 I was thinking [146] of
accepting an
invitation to become National Lecturer of the British Section of
the Society,
he advised me strongly not to go: “It will be of no use; that war
will be
coming on soon.” I took his advice and remained in India. [147]
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
CHAPTER VI
KRISHNAMURTI
§1
AN incident
big with consequence occurred when one day Krishnamurti’s father
came to Mr.
Leadbeater in great distress. The boy had been treated most cruelly
at school. It
was true that he was a very dreamy boy, and therefore not good at
his lessons,
but this cruelty was really unbearable. Mr. Leadbeater’s advice was
simple:
“Take him
away from the school.”
It was not
practical, the father replied, since the schools were registered by
the
Government, and if a boy did not pass through this Government system he
could not
afterwards take up any of the traditional occupations of the literary
classes –
government service, the law, medicine, engineering, teaching, etc.
Mr.
Leadbeater said: “But anyhow you cannot allow that cruelty to go on. And it
is all the
worse in the case of such a sensitive boy.”
Regarding
Krishnamurti as one who was destined to become a great spiritual
teacher, Mr.
Leadbeater then said that if the father liked he would write to
Mrs. Besant
and ask her interest in the boy’s career. Knowing the importance of
his future,
she would probably arrange for him to be educated in England – the
desire of the
heart of many Indian fathers, for English education brought in its
train
considerable economic advantages. In the meantime he and his friends would
see that
Krishnamurti did not lack private tuition, pending Mrs. Besant’s return
from America,
where she then was.
The father
accepted this solution of his difficulty, and the result was that
Krishnamurti
and his next younger brother, Nityananda, became constant members
of our party.
[148] Several people volunteered to give them private tuition, two
subjects
falling to my lot, including Sanskrit after the departure from Adyar of
Mr.
Subrahmanyam Aiyar, who was their first teacher of Sanskrit. I had thus the
best of
opportunities of knowing Krishnamurti, who was to become a celebrity
later on.
Indeed, a strong affection grew up between us.
Krishnamurti
was a very delicate boy, Mr. Leadbeater’s first concern was for his
health. Caste
difficulties stood in the way of some dietetic changes which Mr.
Leadbeater
would have liked, but there was no objection to a frequent drink of
milk during
the day, and an occasional resort to a large glass jar full of
prunes.
Though Krishnamurti did not like these, he took them, in obedience to
the desire of
his friends. At the same time the young Englishman mentioned in
connection
with the episode of the baby supervised a course of athletics,
outings on
bicycles in the early mornings, and tennis in the evenings.
Mr.
Leadbeater was very motherly in all these things. While they were out
cycling, he
would go to the bathroom and himself prepare the proper mixture of
hot water at
the moment when we saw the cyclists returning in the distance over
the
Elphinstone Bridge, and I would go there with him, so that we should not
lose time in
the discussion of our literary material, for Mr. Leadbeater was a
prodigious
worker. As a result of all this attention Krishnamurti picked up
considerably
in health.
Krishnamurti
was extraordinarily unselfish and affectionate for a boy of his
age. When
asked as to what they should do or where go at any time, his
invariable
answer would be: “What you like.”
This
sometimes irritated Mr. Leadbeater, who could not draw him out further, and
he would
exclaim: “Oh, confound these bairagis.” (A vairagi or bairagi is a
Hindu holy
man who takes no interest in anything in the world.) Krishnamurti was
not fond of
studies. He would often say with reference to arithmetic: “Why do
you trouble
me with these things? I shall never need them.”
I had better
luck with the Sanskrit, but not much. We would retire to the empty
drawing-room,
next to Mrs. Besant’s rooms. There was a big couch there.
Krishnamurti
would sit on the left, Nityananda on the right, I in the middle,
one arm round
each of them, Krishnamurti’s [149] arm round my neck. Thus huddled
together,
with the book precariously balanced on my knee, and frequently falling
upon the
floor, we would attempt our study. Nityananda was a playful boy, so
that
sometimes our studies would degenerate into a tussle, myself the referee
trying to
separate the two pseudo-pugilists. Sometimes Mrs. Besant would pass
through the
room, after she had returned and undertaken the legal wardship of
the two boys,
and would be much amused and pleased at our appearance. But
Krishnamurti could
concentrate when he liked. One day when I reproached him for
inattentiveness
to the lesson, he said: “Well, give me the book.” He went off by
himself for a
little while and came back knowing the lesson very well.
In the early
mornings Krishnamurti was encouraged to write down his dreams,
partly for
practice in English composition, and partly for the sake of psychic
training. He
had a little black book and also some exercise books in which he
used to
write. I never looked into those, but it was said that the dreams were
very coherent
and of great interest. Sometimes also Mr. Leadbeater would
experiment
with thought-transference, putting his hands on Krishnamurti’s
temples and
asking him what he saw, with, I understood, very interesting
results.
To Mrs.
Besant the wardship of the boys was a very sacred duty. She shared in
the belief
that Krishnamurti’s body would probably be used for a new appearance
on earth of
the great Master of Masters, whom both she and Mr. Leadbeater
declared they
knew as having entered into the body of Jesus for the brief
ministry in
Palestine of which accounts appear in the Gospels. She herself spent
about two
hours each day teaching them, and used to take them with her for
private
meditation in the shrine-room. In the roof meetings Krishnamurti was put
to sit
between her and Mr. Leadbeater. The arrangements for tuition and physical
culture
continued as before. To the latter the young Englishman added with great
devotion the
duties of personal attendant and valet.
Although
Krishnamurti became the centre of much attention, and presented a
conspicuous
figure, with his unusual arrangement of hair, cut to the shoulders
and parted
down the middle, forming a glossy black aureole to his face, his
personality
did not become affected with any signs of a sense of superiority to
others. How
far he grasped [150] the idea of the great honour that was to be his
in becoming
the vehicle for the Christ or World-Teacher I do not know; he never
made any
allusion to it, and there was no conceit at all in his composition. His
younger
brother might have traded a little upon the situation, being not
insensitive
to its material advantages, but Krishnamurti seemed entirely
unspoiled, even
when a number of people who were impressed with the greatest
devotion to
him in view of his impending greatness began to assume central
partings in
their hair and to vow themselves to do everything possible to help
him to
prepare for his mission!
For this
purpose, indeed, they were formed into a special body or Order, with
coloured
robes and symbols of the rising sun. I was not attracted to this. Let
the Christ
come, and I would follow him into the last ditch, but in the meantime
I would not
part my hair down the centre (although more than one friend assured
me that I
would look very Christ-like) and I would make no vows. Vows were quite
unnecessary,
and I detested the spectacular. I would spontaneously help
Krishnamurti,
and I think I did so more than most, even to the extent of copying
out in my
large print-like writing of Sanskrit characters a whole volume of
ancient
Sanskrit stories to be used as a lesson-book by him, to save his eyes
from the
dangers of the execrable type and impress of the cheap school-books
printed in
India.
I do not
pretend that I presented any less peculiar spectacle than my friends;
but if my
hair and beard were long it was because of a mixture of neglect and
shrinking
from modern artificiality – as I then regarded it, for my childhood
and youth had
induced in me very little respect for Western civilization. It was
certainly not
as a pose, even to myself. In my own way I was as lacking in
extra-spection
as Krishnamurti himself. A visiting friend once tried to convert
me to
modernity. He pointed out that I was trying my friends very hard, but I
regret to say
his words could not produce any living picture on the screen of my
mind,
occupied as it was with what to me were infinitely more important things.
Some months
later Mrs. Besant went to pay visits at several places in the north
of India,
ending up with a long stay in Benares, where she had a bungalow of her
own near to
the Central Hindu College, in the management of which [151] she was
the most
prominent figure. She took the two boys with her, to give them
experience.
Mr. Leadbeater missed them very much. I often thought what a devoted
mother he
would have made but for the accident of sex. He would occasionally
sigh for
them, and he told me that, although he was fully aware that there was
really no
separation, the physical brain could not help feeling it. We busied
ourselves
more than ever with literary work. At least fifty per cent of the
whole
literary output of Mr. Leadbeater’s life was done during the ten thousand
hours I
worked with him at Adyar, discussing, suggesting, arranging, sometimes
contributing
an idea and even a vision or two, and always preparing material for
the press.
§2
While Mrs.
Besant was away I had a week’s vacation under curious circumstances.
One night, as
I was sleeping in my room, I was suddenly awakened by something
unknown. I
sat up and looked before me, and it seemed as if the wall of my room
had
disappeared, for I could see far across the field outside, at the back of
the
quadrangle. In the distance a group of Hindu gentlemen was to be seen
approaching,
and as they drew towards me a figure in the centre became very
clear. He was
an elderly man, with long and shaggy grey hair and beard, very
distinctive
features and a peculiar manner of bending his shoulders and knees as
he walked. As
they came across the field they seemed to exude a soft light,
which
illuminated the familiar trees as they passed them.
When they had
come near to me, the central figure drew my attention so that the
others seemed