Chapter III: Part 3

At this point M. Grevy enters the Elysee. He throws out the military member of the Cabinet of the Presidency, but increases by one his military household, so that there were as many officers at the Elysee under the lawyer president as under the marshal president. Nor has M. Carnot, the engineer president, departed from the example set by his two predecessors.

When I asked M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire the explanation of this custom, he answered: "Our kings were always provided with a military household, in which marine officers also figured. It is doubtless this precedent which has surrounded civilian republicans with a body of officers. The custom is due less to necessity than to a desire to show respect for the army and navy."

This same military parade is seen at the senate and chamber. During a sitting of either of these bodies a company of infantry is kept under arms in a room adjoining the legislative hall, and when the president of either house enters the building, he advances between two files of soldiers presenting arms, and is escorted to his chair by the commanding officer.

This military element in the present government is as unnecessary as it is dangerous and pernicious. It is dangerous because it might be turned by an ambitious president against the very constitution he has taken an oath to defend. Two instances of this danger are afforded by the action of Napoleon I. on the 18th _Soumaire_ and by that of Napoleon III. on the 2d of December, 1852. It is pernicious because it keeps alive in France that love for military display, and that thirst for conquest, which have been the curse of the country since the days of Louis XIV.

Another one of these monarchical growths which still flourishes under the republic is the excessive reverence and even awe which the public shows to its high officials. When President Carnot appears anywhere, his reception scarcely differs from that shown to Emperor William in the course of his numerous journeys. The president is allowed six hundred thousand francs for "entertaining and travelling," and his balls and dinners at the Elysee, and especially his official tours through the country smack of royalty to an extraordinary degree. A year ago I had an opportunity at Montpelier to study one of these official visits in all its details, and I was astonished at the royal aspect of the whole affair. The conferring of decorations, the dispensing of money to deserving charities, the cut and dried speeches of the president and the mayors, the military honors,--all this is far removed from that "Jeffersonian simplicity" which Americans at least associate with a republic.

One of the most noticeable characteristics of these tours is the excessive manner in which "the republic" is kept to the fore. In his speeches while "swinging around the circle" President Carnot is continually informing expectant mayors and delighted citizens that "the government of the republic" is watching over their every interest, and he then hastens to thank them for the enthusiastic welcome which they have given to "the republic" in his humble person. The phylloxera has destroyed the vineyards of this or that region, but "the republican minister of agriculture" is successfully extirpating the injurious insect. The new schoolhouses of another city owe their magnificence "to the deep solicitude of the republic for the education of the masses," while the recently constructed bridge over the river is the work of "the engineers of the republic." In a word, the farmer and his crops, the mechanic and his house-rent, the schoolmaster and his salary, the wine growers and their plaster, the day laborers and their hours of work, and of course the politicians and their constituents, if the former be republicans, are, according to presidential oratory, the special care of the republic.

Nor is it President Carnot alone who thus proclaims the extraordinary virtues of the ever watchful republic. The ministers, who are continually indulging in brief tours into the provinces, doing _en petit_ what M. Carnot does _en grand_, are even more assiduous than the president (because their political position is less secure,) in sounding on all occasions the praises of the republic.

Nor is this ringing of the changes on the word republic confined to the oratory of presidential and ministerial junketings. The obtrusion is brought about in many other ways. Thus M. Carnot is always spoken of in the newspapers and elsewhere as "the president of the republic." M. Waddington at London is "the ambassador of the republic." The district attorney is "the attorney of the republic." An official bust of the republic is given the place of honor on the walls of the town council chamber, the public schoolroom, and the courtroom. A new bridge will have carved on its arches the monogram R. F. (Republique Francaise) while the same familiar letters stare at you from the fronts of all the public buildings erected since 1870.

The practice is impolitic, to say the least. We have already seen how large and powerful is the body of enemies of the present institutions. It is a mistake thus to force them to admit, at every turn, that they are being governed by a regime which they detest. At a sitting of the Chamber of Deputies, the Minister of Foreign Affairs declares that "the government of the republic," not France, is negotiating this or that matter. The Minister of the Interior is called upon to explain some rather high-handed measure against obstreperous agitators, and he informs the deputies that "the republic" will not permit laws to be broken with impunity. The Minister of Public Instruction presents a bill for the reorganization of the university system, and in his speech in its support dwells on "the solicitude of the republic for the education of the masses," thus exciting the opposition of a third of the members of the Chamber. Some of the stormiest and most disgraceful scenes that have occurred in the Chamber of Deputies during the past twenty years are traceable to this foolish parading of the word republic. The republican party could cut the ground from under the feet of their opponents, and bring over thousands of fresh recruits to the new institutions if they would only speak less of the republic and more of France.[2]

[2] When, during the _Seize Mai_ crisis, MacMahon's message
adjourning the sittings for a month was read to the Chamber,
the republicans protested with repeated cries of "Vive la
Republique!" to which the Right responded with "Vive la
France!" A month later, when the decree dissolving the
Chamber was laid before the Chamber, the republicans
shouted: "Vive la Republique! Vive la Paix!" and the Right
answered with "Vive la France! Vive le Marechal!" When it
was announced in full Congress that M. Grevy had been
elected President, and again when M. Carnot's name was
proclaimed in the same way, the republicans once more
hurrahed for a form of government, while their opponents
posed as the defenders of the country and the nation.

Another grave error of the republic is its break with the Catholic Church. I have no space here to place the blame where it belongs. I wish simply to point out the lamentable fact that the whole powerful organization of Rome is arrayed against the present government of France. The danger from this source cannot be exaggerated. It has made the whole body of women enemies of the republic, and "a government which has the women against it is lost," says Laboulaye. And if Cardinal Lavigerie and the Pope are, at the eleventh hour, coming around to the republic, is it to be wondered at that the Radicals declare that the Church is changing front for the purpose of capturing rather than supporting the republic?

Attacking the purse is quite as grave a mistake as attacking the religion of the thrifty, economical, and provident Frenchman. The financial policy of the republic is unpopular. The annual deficit and the increasing taxation are crying evils even more difficult to handle than are religious troubles, while conservative republican statesmen, like Senator Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, tell me that the national debt keeps on increasing at such a rate that the bankruptcy of France seems sure in the more or less distant future. The present tendency towards a high protective tariff is an attempt to bring money into the national treasury, and thus relieve the peasant and manufacturer not only from foreign competition, but from the disagreeable claims of the tax-gatherer.

The Alsace Lorraine imbroglio must, of course, be mentioned in any list of the dangers threatening the French republic. But it is not so dangerous as might appear at first blush, for, although it is quite true that a war with Germany, especially if it should terminate disastrously, would shake the republic to its foundations, and perhaps topple it to the ground, this same Alsace-Lorraine difficulty is, in home affairs, almost the only question in whose consideration all parties unite on the common ground of patriotism. A republican orator is sure to win the applause of the Right when he refers in eloquent terms to the "Lost Provinces," "about which," as Gambetta said, "a Frenchman should always think but say nothing."

My picture is full of dark colors. But I do not think that I have exaggerated the faults and weaknesses of the third republic. But it should be borne in mind that in this brief paper I have dealt alone on the faults and weaknesses. If I were to go farther and examine the merits and strong points of the present government of France, I could easily prove that notwithstanding these faults and weaknesses, it is highly probable that the various royal and imperial pretenders, their children and their children's children, will, live and die without ever being able to set up again in France the throne of the Capets or that of the Bonapartes.

LEADERLESS MOBS.

BY H. C. BRADSBY.

Office-holding politicians who have heretofore led the people, are leading them now, until we, the hapless voters, find ourselves confronted with the following so-called issues, or rather absurdities:--

Protection with reciprocity--_Republicanism._

Free trade with incidental protection--_Democracy._

The Democratic ex-President and the Republican President are in perfect agreement on the question of remonetizing silver and many sub-leaders and able party newspapers on both sides are in accord with these two successors of Washington, and the sub-lieutenants pass the word around, "Do not discuss the silver question, it is an immaterial issue."

These are the anomalous conditions of American politics stated in all seriousness as they appear to a layman.

A professional politician, even the man who hopes for future office, understands that real issues are things to be avoided, because he would rather placate than antagonize, and he needs friends and supporters, both in the nominating convention and at the polls; and he is in his best form when he can campaign without a real issue and help select his adversaries "in buckram and Kendall green" to have it out with, on the stump. He knows that a plump, simple issue would reach the average voter's comprehension, and compel him to a simple "yes" or "no" that might blast his hopes, destroy this happy equilibrium of voting parties, and the trade of politics might actually go out of fashion. Pricked by his fears of all real issues, he becomes a genius in inventing handy apparent ones that are usually glittering nothings--impalpable shadows about which he can talk so learnedly by the life-time, and say nothing and mean nothing. So rapidly has this expert developed in our land of politics that one man shouts, "I am for tweedle-dum" and the other answers defiantly back, "I am for tweedle-dee," and the "campaign of education" is on, the jockeys mounted, the race begins, and as the cloud of dust rises, "the greasy caps" fill the air. "Spotted Free Trade" is ridden by the "Old Flag"; "Revenue Only" by the "Screaming Eagle," and the excited voter stakes his future hopes on "Flag" or "Eagle," most probably as did his father before him.

It seems this is the wretched outcome of the hundred years of American education in politics--making of every man not only a sovereign, but a possible candidate for President. What is it all but a roaring farce? If we could forget that this is real government coupled with all the pains and penalties which are the heritage of ignorance, and not mere child's play, then even serious intelligence might smile though commiserating the follies of grown men. Have we finally reached the condition tending toward national political dementia, or is there no meaning whatever attached any longer to the name of statesman?

Let us look a little further into the absurdities over which American statesmen are so vehemently wrangling. Our government assumes the old time function of all governments to make and regulate the currency or money for the transaction of business--a mere convenience for the measure of values in buying and selling--in another way a thing performing functions similar to the yard-stick in measuring, and the great statesmen are wrangling over the problem of what particular material that convenience shall be made. And our nation, through Congress and the President, is ever tinkering, changing, altering, and reversing regulations concerning this "value measurer"--this convenient representative of property, and the basis of all commerce, gold, silver, copper, nickel, and paper to-day, and on this basis contracts and multitudinous transactions are based; then apparently that confusion and ruin may follow, an act of Congress may be passed to-morrow changing the whole thing by demonetizing one or remonetizing the other; and the government finally opens a junk-shop, and is engaged actively in the "second-hand" trade, or is in sharp competition with the rag-picker. And our great political educators fall to wrangling about a proposition, that could be paralleled only by some phenomenal crank beating up recruits for a new party upon a platform that all yard-sticks must be made of hickory wood, and he shall be deemed a counterfeiter who dares to use any other, and the length of the yard-stick must be flexible so that "a yard shall always contain a yard's worth of cloth." The children open a play store, and there the legal tender for all goods is pins, where the size of the pin or the exact composition it is made of are never considered. There is, to my mind, no question but the children should teach our great statesmen some of the fundamentals of common sense. These are specimens of the economic problems evolved from our hundred years of voting experiment--the ripened fruit of self-government. Books and papers are filled with discussions of whether both gold and silver should be legal tender for debts or only gold. And the rank sophistries that mark the flood-tide of a campaign discussion either of this or the problem of taxation are surely to be considered among the curiosities of our civilization. Just why men should range themselves on respective party lines on these questions and shut their eyes to evils that are eating their way to the heart of government and that unchecked must end in common ruin, passes comprehension.

The organization of a powerful party machinery with the authority to discipline recalcitrant or discordant members is a natural outgrowth of our universal voting. The active politicians and place hunters will control the machine, and when office, and place are made glittering prizes, then comes the inevitable scramble, the selfishness, trampling the weak by the strong, corruption, chicanery, the unspeakable crimes, and finally the Pandora's box is opened, and the swarming evils darken the heavens. Inferior men with greatest cunning and least scruples soon push their way to the front; all sight of good government is eventually lost, the Washingtons and Jeffersons in time disappear with a constantly increasing ratio from public life, and the end is the great Leaderless Mob and bloody chaos. Even at best our politicians and party publications sing in unison, all struggling to the same end, victory at the polls and the elimination, as far as possible, of real issues. Their quadrennial platforms are ever coming nearer and nearer together--not omitting a plank expressing "profound sympathy" with the poor, persecuted people of some part of the Old World. A large majority of the Democracy are openly in favor of free trade and free silver, while the average "favorite son" is only in favor of "reform" in tariff, and hence you can find men in favor of a prohibitory tariff calling themselves Democrats; while many of the lay members of the Republican party are the earnest advocates of free trade and free silver. If our statesmen do not use words to conceal ideas, then there is no question but that the rank and file, those caring nothing about the offices personally, are in advance of their leaders and party publications. Unfortunately the average voter studies the science of politics--good government,--only when thumb-screwed by bad legislation. When happy and revelling in plenty, this cunning thrift of politicians is good enough "statesmanship" for pretty much all of us; then we can really admire the brightness of the great "Magnetic" when he says, "Boys, I am a model high tarriffite, and in favor of reciprocity;" even the vitriolic ravings of the iridescent--sparkling phrases without ideas, torchlight jeremaids about the poor Southern negro, are all brilliant statesmanship; so long as the waters are smooth and prosperous, plenty is coming to everybody. But when the pinch of misgovernment comes in the form of the gaunt wolf then the people rise up, and without a "statesman" to lead, without a newspaper to educate, but with a holy wrath, crush out these official puppets. For at least sixteen years the unbiased intelligence of the Democratic party (not politicians) has been urging party leaders to take the bold stand for free trade. During the same time the Republican voters have urged their leaders to declare for "protection for protection's sake."

In 1888 the Republican Convention boldly challenged Democrats to the open issue of protection absolute versus free trade. The best voters on the other side were eager to pick up this gauge of battle, but their leaders, covert protectionists, and makeshift office seekers, bade them nay, and a Democratic "stump speech" in that campaign was a curiosity. Part first would demonstrate the infamy of all "protection" taxes; part second would demonstrate that the orator was in favor of "protection" to a certain degree. Thus handicapped, the Democratic office seekers fought out the long campaign and lost as they deserved. Happily for the country, because that victory convinced every Republican in the land, except the man of Maine, that the people wanted prohibitory tariffs, all foreign commerce destroyed, and that they honestly believed there was such a thing as "home markets" to be regulated by statute. And the "three Bow Street tailors in Congress" proceeded in all sincerity to carry out what they, in their simplicity, judged to be the instruction given by the people at the polls. The "great secretary" alone of the "smart" men of the land, understood the people in the '88 election better; he, it seems, well understood that "protection" carried to prohibition was the yawning grave of any party responsible for it without providing some loop-hole of escape in the burial ceremony, and this unequalled politician in the nick of time startled the country with the cry of "Reciprocity"--spotted free trade. His messmates turned upon him with objurgations deep, yet he had saved them from themselves, by the bold dash of a "plumed knight." Had he been in the Kansas senator's place, Kansas would have been again cajoled and humbugged into silence, and possibly have given an increase on its 82,000 Republican majority.

Mr. Blaine was constantly defeated in his ambition to be President. General Harrison was successful and fills the place that _ex-officio_ makes him leader. He is nominally the party captain, while in truth there is more real power in one hand of his armor bearer than there is in the loins of the Executive. Now the author of the bill increasing taxes thinks he is on the road to the White House by campaigning Ohio on the beauties of protection--with reciprocity or "free trade in spots" left out entirely,--Blaine's happiest invention and the only thing that will save "the Napoleon" if saved at all, from crushing defeat this Fall in his own State. The Democrats have put up against him Governor Campbell with the plankless platform of the "McKinley bill," and an internal discussion on the silver question. Thus the two parties of that great State are marshalling in battle array their lines under banners that might be labelled "Tweedle-dum" and "Tweedle-dee." The last Democratic President was a product of the long successes of the Republican party and its mistakes, chief among which was the covert act demonetizing silver in 1873. It brought its train of wrong and disaster to our nation; while the people were unconscious of the cause, yet they could feel the pangs, and results ripened in 1884 in the election of the Buffalo mayor. As President and as ex-President he is the natural party leader, but he has endorsed the monstrous act of 1873 in regard to silver, the very mistake that chiefly made him President, and now should that bar forever the door of the White House to his re-entry therein, the result would not be one of the seven wonders of the world.

These happenings, so fresh and patent, remind one of the sworn testimony of an eminent general of the late war before the Senatorial Committee in describing the battle of Gettysburg: "After the lines are formed and fighting commences all is confusion and hap-hazard." Apparently there is no science in statesmanship, and our politics are but a ruthless trampling on the simple maxims of political economy. These were the forces that secretly working through the patient years of misrule and folly caused to bloom and fruit in a night, this stalwart tribe of rural statesmen who so remorselessly struck down the Republican party in its State of largest majority, and so disfigured the fortunes of the master polytechnic orator. A hayseed sprouted and grown in a night like unto Jack's beanstalk, and without leaders--all concert action mere incidents, the people marched to the polls in Kansas and amazed the world and themselves. The leaderless mobs met other leaderless mobs--that proved to be mere skeletons of organizations led and composed chiefly of wrangling, quarrelling, purposeless, and nearly idealess politicians. The leaderless mob was in profound earnest while the "statesmen" as usual were merely masquerading, with no other weapons of defence against attacks save that of Samson's when he fought the Philistines--all jaw.

Politicians discuss with amazing brilliancy their beautiful issue of a little higher tariffs or a little lower tariffs, while the people bluntly talk of protection to the full, or absolute free trade. Politicians really enjoy having made gold the only money, and then talk learnedly about the government buying so much metal monthly and coining it, so that silver will be both money and not money, while the people talk about free silver or gold only.

These are the conditions existing on the only two national questions now under consideration. To a layman's mind neither of them should have ever been made a national question at all. And men called "great statesmen" who have pushed aside all real economic questions worthy of consideration among civilized men, and forced these figments forward, are neither statesmen nor safe politicians. Look at them! Their discussion of tariffs is whether we must have higher or lower taxes _per se_. Their contentions on the money question are simply the vicious acts of Congress that are the same as if we should pass laws every two years changing the length of our yard-sticks. These are the great issues breeding our wonderful race of "great statesmen"--the mountain labored and the little mouse came forth.

There are vital questions that should, especially in our experimental voting government, be ever present to all our people for investigation and permanent settlement, to wit:--

How to turn back this stream of paternalism in government--the monster criminal, the murderer of the dead nations and civilizations, the river of woe flowing forever round the world.

How to make the best of governments by ever-lowering taxes?

How to perfect a "civil service" by burdening officials, lessening fees and salaries, abolishing patronage, and sealing salaries below the pay of similar private employ?

How to better education and thereby check this stream of "learned ignorance"?

How to reach the consummation of the best government because the least governed?

How to reform our judiciary until justice between men shall be nearly instantaneous and the next cheapest thing to air and water?

How to save the weak (the majority) from the strong and selfish?

How to be the freest and therefore the best people that have ever lived?

How to prevent crime and suffering by removing causes?

How to destroy this struggle for government employ, this passion to be a public parasite and live off of others' toil?

How to make and regulate nearly all government institutions upon the principle of our postal system--self-supporting by the voluntary tax from those who use its powers or its offices?

How to eradicate all this flunkeyism that makes idols of office-holders--mere fetiches producing a species of the lowest order of hero-worship--a nation of snobs who can meanly admire mean things?

How to call out statesmen and abolish demagogues?

How to understand that real statesmen repeal and never enact?

How to prevent governments from inflicting upon the innocents unspeakable wrongs, under the monstrous plea that the few must suffer for the good of the many?

These and similar questions that are as deep as life itself, and that should come even to our little children in their romps and plays, the same as they learn to avoid the pit, or to fear a vicious dog, are the vital problems of mankind. These are questions essential to the preservation of life, and touching the progress of civilization; the natural economic problems that real statesmen should set before the people. Intelligent study and voting upon these and similar questions would give us real statesmen for present demagogues.

The average American is always more than satisfied with his perfect surroundings so long as he can point out his advantages over the wretched victims of paternalism in Europe. This is both a low and ignorant self-laudation. Of course, wretched though you may be, you are incomparably better off than the miserables of cruel Russia, because our national government could not possibly be as outrageous as is of necessity that of the Czar. It has taken many centuries to evolve such a monster cuttle-fish as the Russian government that has fastened its tentacles upon its millions of people, and is slowly crushing out their lives. _This is but government paternalism full and ripe._ Who shall say that if paternalism in this country goes on as it is to-day, growing and strengthening, the time is not coming when we no longer can boast over the people of the God-forsaken land? Mankind is much the same to-day and forever; _so is government paternalism; once a foothold gained, it can only be washed out in blood_. The Russians have been giving over their souls and their lives to their national fetich which has accepted their patriotic and contrite offerings, and is now leisurely devouring them. The ancient migrating barbarian when he camped at night, got his supper by cutting it out of the hams of the ox that had all day borne him and his load on the weary journey--he had to have his supper, and just so it is with Russian government. Just so it will be in any government when it is impossible longer for the Leaderless Mob to spring into existence and into power.

Therefore, rural statesmen, all hail! Grant it that one of your political measures is rank imbecility, your acts in exposing the essential knavery of our phenomenal humbugs are beautiful and full of goodness and wisdom. And your worst, in the face of all jibes, is so incomparably superior to those of the "great statesmen" that they may be esteemed actually respectable. When the two parties had become Leaderless Mobs, because even their fictions or absurd issues had reached a common point, then arose the people in the might of their Leaderless Mob, and turned the river into the Augean stables. Who is it anyhow of the "magnetic" tribe that may cast the first stone at the "haystack"? They simply broke party shackles and struck boldly for justice,--blindly it may be--as well it should be, because they could not well hit amiss. In this scramble and hurly-burly where is the "statesman" who can point to any similar act of his own in behalf of his fellow-man? Their most arrant follies at least are not mean compared to the "issues" as made up by our "great statesmen" of a little higher tax, or a little lower tax, or a frequent change in the money standard of the country.

It is time for intelligent men to tire of all this burlesque of politics and this solemn joke of calling it "great statesmanship," that is breeding these ungainly toadies--squat and warty. A country is great only as her political institutions are good and wise--not merely when it is strong in numbers, large in acres, and swarming with politicians and parasites that are worshipped as great and good statesmen. That is not the kind of greatness of country that I hanker for very seriously. I would wish a better education for our children than we have had--one that would cure them of this disease of ignorance in politics, worship of demagogy and admiration of that cheap and nasty politics that is our national disease, and that is making on our body politic abhorrent warts and angry sores. The mistaken fanatics who are striving to put "God in the Constitution" are not to blame; they are the offspring of this growing paternalism, this fetich worship, this public education by these relays of "great statesmen."

MADAME BLAVATSKY AT ADYAR.

BY MONCURE D. CONWAY.

When Madame Blavatsky was on her way to found the Theosophical Society in India, I met her in London, at the house of an American family,--devout spiritualists. She had a reputation for picking up teapots from under her chair, and our hostess seemed somewhat disappointed that she did not accord me some miracle. Although nothing unusual occurred, Madame Blavatsky was herself sufficiently phenomenal to make the evening interesting. She was not then, 1878, so huge as she afterwards became, and was rather attractive. She was humorous, entertaining, affable; she had the air of a woman who had tried every experience,--the last person I should have suspected of interest in spiritual or other philosophy. We next heard of her as the high priestess of a new cult in India. Rumors reached London, where I was residing, that this new religion was spreading among the Hindus, giving much trouble to the missionaries, and that Madame Blavatsky was suspected of being in the pay of the Russian government. That way of meeting the new movement was silenced by threats of prosecuting any who should make personal charges against the leaders of Theosophy. It was presently reported that Madame Blavatsky had made converts of A. P. Sinnett, editor of the _Pioneer of India_, and Mr. Allan Hume, formerly connected with the Indian government. Presently Mr. Sinnett came to London, and gave us lectures in drawing-rooms on Theosophy. He expatiated on the wonders performed by Madame Blavatsky with the aid of certain "Mahatmas," who by secret knowledge, had gained powers of prolonged existence, and of appearing in their "astral" forms at vast distances from their retreat in the Himalayas.

As I was contemplating a journey round the world, which would bring me to India, I asked Mr. Sinnett, in private conversation, whether I could make a pilgrimage to the abode of these mighty Mahatmas, and converse with them. "Do you mean?" he asked, "as you now converse with me?"--"Yes."--"No."--"Why not?"--"Oh, it would take too long to explain." Thereafter I tried to find out something that would aid a practical investigation from Mr. Sinnett's books, but found them uninstructive and sensational. In the autumn of the same year, I was in Australia, and found there a good deal of excitement about Theosophy. At Sydney, where spiritualists and secularists had formed a curious alliance, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were mentioned as grand personages,--she a countess, he a famous warrior of the United States army. The marvels they wrought were of only English size in Australia, but on the approach to India they loomed up in oriental magnitude. Madame had only to walk in any garden to pick brooches from flowers, and find rupees at will, like the fabled tree that yielded whatever was asked of it.

At length I reached the headquarters of Theosophy, at Adyar, some fifteen miles out of Madras, and not far from St. Thome, where the doubting disciple left his footprints blood-stained on the spot of his martyrdom. Entering Madame's park I passed the pasteboard carcasses of two blue elephants which had stood at the gateway on the occasion of a recent Theosophist anniversary. Through the large and leafy park, luxuriant with palm and mango, I drove up to the handsome mansion, with a growing suspicion that too much had been said of the sacrifices made by the New York journalist and the medium in founding their new religion. While awaiting Madame's appearance, I sat in the veranda, on a cushioned sofa of fine Indian work, beside a table holding the newest books and magazines, receiving an impression of the charms with which self-sacrifice has been invested since the days of poor St. Thomas. Presently I was approached by a young Hindu, dreamy and picturesque, who said Madame Blavatsky would soon be with me. Next there advanced a youth who almost seemed an apparition; he proved to be a "lay chela," and his snowy garment gave a saintly look to his delicate beauty. He sweetly apologized for not taking my offered hand, saying he was forbidden by his "Guru" (Mahatma) to shake hands, this being one of the conditions of his farther development.

Madame Blavatsky gave me a cordial welcome. She sent off my carriage, and urged me to pass the night. She had already been informed by our friend, Professor Smith, of Sydney University, that I was coming, and regretted Colonel Olcott's absence. Her dress was the white gown, without belt, which makes a noon costume of Russian ladies in summer. Her manner was easy, her talk witty, and she disarmed prejudice by her impulsive candor. In addition to the two Hindus already mentioned, others joined us, among these Norendranath Sen, editor of the _Indian Mirror_, and relative of the Brahmo apostle Keshub Chunder Sen. All of them spoke good English. Another person present was W. T. Brown, an educated young Scotchman, and Dr. Hartmann, of Colorado. These young men, the Hindus especially, were eager to relate their marvellous experiences in receiving from the distant Mahatmas immediate answers to their letters. The letters, it was explained, were placed "in the shrine," and I at once proposed to write a note, referring to some matter known to myself alone, in order to carry home evidence of the existence and knowledge of the Mahatmas.

"What a pity!" broke in Madame Blavatsky, who had not participated in the conversation, "only three days ago I was told by my Guru that the shrine must not be used for letters any more!"

"It has generally been my luck," I said, perhaps betraying vexation. "For thirty years I have been unwearied in trying to test alleged phenomena, but have always happened to be a little too late or a little too early. I was assured that it would be otherwise here!"

The young Hindus had eagerly approved my proposal to test the Mahatma, and had evidently heard nothing of the prohibition. Madame Blavatsky, who betrayed no embarrassment whatever, presently arose, invited me to accompany her, and led me to a secluded room. Here she shut the door, lit a cigarette, offered me one, and sat serenely awaiting my next move. I told her that I had a sincere purpose in coming. Some of my valued friends were deeply interested in Theosophy. If extraordinary events were really occurring, none could be more ready to acknowledge them than myself. I had a congregation in London, and we were not afraid to recognize new facts if verified. "Now," I said, "what do these rumors mean? I hear of your lifting teapots from beneath your chair, summoning lost jewels, conversing with Mahatmas a thousand miles away."

"Your questions shall be answered," said Madame Blavatsky. "You are a public teacher and ought to know the truth. It is glamour; people think they see what they do not see. That is the whole of it."

I could not repress some homage to the sagacity of this unwitnessed confession. Forewarned that I was coming, Madame had received from her Guru a convenient prohibition against further use of the shrine as a post-office; and now, by one clever stroke, she altogether forestalled an inconvenient investigation. Obstruction to experiments, or evasion, would have been such confession as I could use. Failure to obtain phenomena that could be verified might subtly awaken skepticism in the simple-hearted Hindus around her. But this secret confession, which might be repudiated if necessary, raised my whole siege at once.[3] And the confession itself, while it admitted the unreality of the miracles, left a marvel,--namely, her power to cause the hallucinations. I remembered the legend of Glam, from whom came our word "glamour," and had a droll feeling of being defeated, like Grettir, in the moment of his victory over that moonshine-giant. As says the Saga, "even as Glam fell a cloud was driven from the moon, and Glam said, Exceedingly eager hast thou sought to meet me, Grettir, but no wonder will it be deemed, though thou gettest no good hap of me." Even so it proved lately, when I told my friend, Anne Besant, that Madame Blavatsky had admitted it was glamour. She reminded me of the power still left unexplained, to cast the glamour.

[3] Although this interview is here printed for the first time,
I mentioned it to some of Madame Blavatsky's friends so that
she might have an opportunity of giving her version. I am
told that she said she gave me an answer as directed by her
Guru. I must conclude therefore that unless the Gurus are all
glamour, they must be raised by their superhuman merits above
the obligations of truth.

The remaining hours of my visit at Adyar were occupied with study of the subjects of Madame's hypnotic powers,--as I supposed them to be. The young Hindus, with their refined faces and symbolical draperies, conveyed an impression of being like the magical mangoes which the jugglers evoke, looking at them from time to time to see how they are growing. There were phases of chelahood, with precise terms for each. I was invited to visit the shrine. It was in a small room, and stood against the wall, reaching nearly to the ceiling. It was decorated with mystical emblems and figures, and a breath of incense came when the doors were opened. The Hindus prostrated themselves on the floor, and hid their faces; it was explained as their oriental custom, but it is certainly favorable to Thaumaturgy. Two days afterwards I was told, being then at sea, that while we visited the shrine a mysterious bell had sounded. No such incident was mentioned at the time, and I felt quite sure that Madame Blavatsky and myself were the only persons present whose testimony would be trustworthy. The interior of the shrine was inlaid with metal work. There were various figures, Buddha being in the centre, and framed "portraits" of Mahatmas Koothoomi and Moria. Each portrait was about seven inches high, and if drawn, as I understood, by astral art, it may be hoped the process will remain occult. Koothoomi, who somewhat resembled an old London portrait I have of Rammohun Roy, holds a small barrel-shaped praying-machine on his head.

A considerable company surrounded the dinner table, and included one or two whom I had not seen. Madame Blavatsky was a genial hostess. When a disciple told some miraculous experience she would turn to me and say, "Now think of that!" She ate little, but smoked a cigarette during the repast. Late in the evening, as I insisted on leaving, she ordered her carriage for me, and promised me an astral apparition of herself after I should reach London. I did not find in Madame Blavatsky the coarseness of which I had heard, and suspect it is mainly due to a prejudice against ladies smoking.

Our ship between Madras and Calcutta was a floating epitome of the world. There were missionaries contending with pundits, and world travellers lazily amused by discussions involving the eternal welfare of the human race. But the disputes had a hollow and perfunctory sound, and the cultured Englishmen stood apart. Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj, preached us an ordinary Unitarian sermon. In private he expressed to me a horror of Madame Blavatsky, but he did not appear to me possessed of such religious enthusiasm as Norendranath Sen, whom I had met at Adyar. The latter reproved me for wishing to see Madame Blavatsky's wonders, instead of recognizing in Theosophy a movement that was saving India from being dragged into revolting dogmas called Christianity, its superstitions, discords, inhumanities. Even admitting that some delusions, or impositions, have been connected with the movement, they would pass away if liberal men did not make so much of them, and would help to develop Theosophy into a religion related to the devout and poetic genius of the oriental world. The words of this thoughtful Hindu impressed me much. I need only look about me on the ship to recognize the fact that the West is overturning the deities and altars of the East, but has no religion to give these instinctive worshippers. The scholarly English Church would appear to have become conscious of this, and is leaving the work of propagandism to vulgar and ignorant sects. There seems to be nothing offered the young Hindus graduated in the universities of India except a repulsive "Salvationism" on the one hand, and a cold Agnosticism on the other. I had conversed with a company of students at Madras, and found them hardly able to understand the interest with which I followed the processions of "idols" about the streets, such things being looked on by them much as a march of the Salvation Army might be regarded by Oxonians. They had little interest in Christianity, but some of them spoke reverently of Buddha, and probably Theosophy has done something to revive in India love for that long banished teacher.

On the whole, I found the little company in their beautiful retreat at Adyar becoming more and more picturesque in the distance. It seems a hard, precipitous fall from visions of Indra's paradise to a materialistic world of predatory evolution. The youth at Adyar, dreaming of Mahatmas in mystical mountains, and evolving a natural supernaturalism, may be dwelling amid illusions; but, as Shakespeare tells us, our little life is rounded with a sleep,--a dreamland. If Madame Blavatsky had recovered Prospero's buried wand, and amid the dry and dusty realism of our time raised for her followers a realm of faerie, beguiling them from scenes of falling temples and fading heavens, were it not cruel to break her wand, even though it be glamour? I remember at Concord, in my youth, a little controversy in which miracles were critically handled, some ladies present being distressed. Emerson had remained silent, and on our way home said, "After all it appears doubtful whether, when children are enjoying a play, one must tell them the scene is paint and pasteboard, and the fairy's jewels but glass."

So I bore away from Adyar a slight sprinkle of Madame Blavatsky's moonshine. But it was rudely dispelled in Calcutta and Bombay, where the priestess had worn out her welcome by attempts at fraud. One of these instances was related by Mr. J. D. Broughton, a gentleman connected with the Indian government, to whom I carried a letter of introduction. Unwilling to accept any such fact without verification, I afterwards corresponded with those cognizant of the facts, and have before me now their letters establishing the statements of the following from Mr. Broughton.

"I was in Calcutta, and a friend was staying with me, Mr. H.
Blanford, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and head of the
Meteorological Department,--a practical man, not, I think,
disposed to judge wrongly one way or the other. We both know Mrs.
Gordon [a spiritualist] the lady to whom Mr. Eglinton [a
spiritualist medium of London] wrote--or says he wrote--from the
Vega, while at sea; and I am on friendly terms with her, as is
Mr. Blanford to the best of my belief. She called at my house a
day or two after the Vega had left Colombo, and produced a
letter, an envelope, and two or three cards. The letter was from
Mr. Eglinton. It was not in the envelope, but was attached to it
by a string in the corner, which was passed through the corner of
the cards. These cards had writing upon them, which we were told
was the writing of Madame Blavatsky, then at Poona. The writing
on the cards referred to the contents of the letter. The envelope
had three crosses on the back of it. Mrs. Gordon stated that
these letters had been brought to her the day before by what are
called astral means, having been conveyed from the Vega, then on
the way from Colombo to Aden, first to Poona, and then from Poona
to her residence in Housah, a suburb of Calcutta. I have not the
slightest doubt that Mrs. Gordon firmly believed this, and I am
under the impression that she believes it still. Mr. Blanford and
I, however, ventured to ask a few questions as to the
circumstances under which the letters made their appearance at
Housah, and the replies led us to form an opinion that the lady
might have been imposed upon. The circumstances, which were, I
believe, considered to amount to strong proof in favor of the
astral theory, were published in a paper called _Psychic Notes_,
in Calcutta.

"I wrote to my wife [who had travelled on the Vega to England]
and sent this account to her. She replied that Mr. Eglinton had
brought a letter to her [during the voyage] to be marked,--that
it had a cross upon it, and that she had been asked to mark
another or others, and that she did so, crossing the first
cross.

"I will add that when my wife left Calcutta I accompanied her in
a steam launch, and she embarked on board the Vega at Diamond
Harbor. I was the bearer of a letter to Mr. Eglinton. It was
given to me for him by Mrs. Gordon, I think, but I won't be
positive. I had known Mr. Eglinton; he was in the habit, when in
Calcutta, of giving exhibitions of his powers in private houses,
for a fee. He came to our house in this way, but nothing
occurred; I think he considered it a failure."

Mrs. Broughton writes that she was with her friend Mrs. Eddis when Eglinton brought the letter. Both ladies observed that the letter which Koothoomi was to convey across the sea contained no allusion to anything that had occurred since they left--nothing that might not have been written before they started. Instead of marking the envelope, for identification, in the way Eglinton suggested, she made his cross into an asterisk. But the envelope published in India to prove the power of Koothoomi was marked, as Eglinton had requested, with three separate crosses. All efforts to obtain explanation of the difference between the marks on the letter sent and the letter received were vain. In reply to my question Mr. Sinnett said, "All I can tell you now is that Mrs. Broughton acted very badly." I was present when the Hon. Mrs. Pitt Rivers pressed Colonel Olcott for an explanation. He replied, "The tone of your question suggests collusion between the Theosophists of India and Mr. Eglinton. To such a charge I am, of course, dumb." It was the only prudent answer he could make.

This incident lowered my idea of Madame Blavatsky's powers. It was not clever to rest so much on the pliability of a "society lady" with whom she was unacquainted. I presently found that at Bombay she had failed in several performances, but was shielded by a theosophistical argument that mere jugglers never fail.[4] There was a pretty general feeling in Calcutta and Bombay that no glamour or magnetic mystery was needed for Madame Blavatsky's thaumaturgy, which would soon collapse in Madras as elsewhere. Nearly the first thing I heard after reaching London (1884) was of that collapse. Mr. and Mrs. Coulomb, the former a skilled mechanic, had confessed at Madras that they had all along been assisting Madame Blavatsky in frauds; elaborate contrivances were discovered behind the shrine, and compromising letters written by the high priestess were produced. Madame Blavatsky declared that the contrivances were put in the shrine to ruin her; but Coulomb could have done that by a small mechanism, whereas the arrangements were extensive and expensive, requiring such time as must have assured detection, and money which he had not. The letters, mainly efforts to prevent the Coulombs from revealing the frauds, were pronounced forgeries; but no expert reading them can fail to perceive that to forge them would require a genius far beyond even that of Madame Blavatsky. The letters are brilliant, and Mrs. Coulomb is sometimes worsted in them. Mrs. Coulomb, after her confession, wrote me a long letter, which shows no trace of the style or ability disclosed in the Blavatsky letters. However, it was a sufficient confession that the Theosophists receded from a proposal to test all these things, including the handwriting of the letters, before a law court, for which the Coulombs were eager. The result was that Madame Blavatsky left India and established herself in London.

[4] Commissioner Grant was awakened by a telegram and requested
to look for a cigarette in a certain part of the Prince of
Wales' statue, in Bombay; he went and found nothing. Mrs.
Coulomb now says she was Madame B----'s confederate, and that
she was afraid of being taken up as a lunatic if she climbed
to the unicorn's horn where the cigarette was to be placed.
So she said the rain must have washed it away. Madame
Blavatsky showed mental weakness in not considering the
difficulties, and her fondness for cigarettes made her set
them too high in dignity as well as position.

At the very time that I was at Adyar, and despite a certain repugnance to "occultism," sympathetically appreciating the serene harmony of the Theosophists in their beautiful retreat amid the palms, the place was turbid with discord, Madame Blavatsky at one end of the table and the Coulombs at the other were even then in mortal combat. I have often marvelled at the self-possession of the woman under the suspended sword that presently fell.

The most curious thing about this turbaned Spiritualism is its development of the Koothoomi myth. I asked Sir W. W. Hunter, Gazetteer-General of India, and other orientalists, about the name of this alleged Mahatma, or Rabat, and they declared Koothoomi to be without analogies in any Hindu tongue, ancient or modern. I was assured on good authority that the name was originally "Cotthume," and a mere mixture of Ol-_cott_ and _Hume_, Madame Blavatsky's principal adherents. Out of Madame's jest was evolved this incredible being, who performed the part allotted to the aboriginal "John King" in America. Sumangala, chief priest of the Buddhist world, though not unfriendly to Theosophy, told me that it was a belief among them that there had been Rahats in the early world. I gathered from him and others that they are thought of as Enoch, Seth, Elias, etc., are in Christendom. The Coulomb story is that a pasteboard doll, with half-shrouded head, superimposed on the shoulders of Mr. Coulomb, himself orientally draped, moved about in the dusk at Adyar when an "astral" apparition was wanted. In an accession of conscience, Mrs. Coulomb, who is a Catholic, smashed the effigy. She says she had not cared much so long as Hindus only were cheated, because they believed such things anyway, but she could not stand it when European gentlemen and ladies were subjects of the imposture. Perhaps it was because of this moral "strike" that Koothoomi was not tried on me.