Letter №29

of which his own family and lady are utterly ignorant of — so noble, so kind and grand, that even his own pride remains blind to their full worth. So that anything he might do or say, is unable to diminish my respect for him; but with all this, I am forced to tell him the truth; and while that side of his character has all my admiration, his pride will never win my approbation, — for which once more, Mr. Hume will not care one twopence, but that matters very little, indeed. The most sincere and outspoken man in India, Mr. Hume is unable to tolerate a contradiction; and, be that person Dev or mortal, he cannot appreciate or even permit without protest the same qualities of sincerity in any other than himself. Nor can he be brought to confess that anyone in this world can know better than himself anything that HE has studied and formed his opinion thereupon. "They will not set about the joint work in what seems to ME the best way," he complains of us in his letter to Olcott, and that sentence alone gives to us the key to his whole character; it gives us the clearest insight into the working of his inner feelings. Having a right — he thinks — to regard himself as slighted and wronged, in consequence of such an "ungenerous," "selfish" refusal to work under his guidance, he cannot help thinking himself at the bottom of his heart, as a most forgiving, generous man, who, instead of resenting our refusal is nevertheless "willing to go on in their (our) way." And this

an insulting fling at me — is as certain as that he missed the mark. Ignorant, or rather forgetful of the fact that we Asiatics, are utterly devoid of that sense of the ridiculous which prompts the Western mind to caricature the best, the noblest aspirations of mankind — could I yet feel offended or flattered by the world's opinion I would have felt rather complimented than otherwise. My Rajput blood will never permit me to see a woman hurt in her feelings — though she be a "visionary," and the now called "imaginary" wrong but another of her "fancies" — without defending her; and Mr. Hume knows enough of our traditions and customs to be sufficiently aware of that remnant of chivalrous feeling for our women in our otherwise degenerated race. Therefore do I say, that whether hoping that the satirical epithets would reach and hurt me, or aware of the fact that he was apostrophizing a granite pillar — the feeling that prompted him was unworthy of his nobler and better nature, as in the first case it was to be regarded as a petty feeling of revenge, and in the second as childishness. Then in his letter to O. he complains of or denounces (you must forgive the limited number of English words I have at my command) the attitude of "half threat" to break with you that he imagines he finds in our letters. Nothing could be more erroneous. We have no more the intention of breaking with him, than an orthodox Hinduism has of leaving the house he is visiting until told that his company is no more wanted. But when the latter is hinted to him he leaves. So with us. Mr. Hume quite prides himself at repeating that personally he has no desire to see us, no curiosity to meet us; that our philosophy and teaching cannot benefit him in the least, him who has learnt and knows all

contrary orders. Referring to your last letter (Mr. Sinnett's) clothe your ideas as you may, in the pleasantest of phrases, you are nevertheless surprised and as regards Mr. Sinnett disappointed, that I should neither accord permission for phenomena nor yet any of us make one step towards you. I cannot help it, and whatever the consequences there will be no change in my attitude until my Brother's return among the living. You know both of us love our country and our race; that we regard the Theos. Society as a great potentiality for their good in proper hands; that he has joyfully welcomed Mr. Hume's identification with the cause and that I have placed a high — but only a proper — value upon it. And so you ought to realize that whatever we could do to bind you and him closer to us we would do with all our heart. But still if the choice lies between our disobeying the lightest injunction of our Chohan as to when we may see either of you, or what we may write, or how, or where, and the loss of your good opinion, even the feeling of your strong animosity and the disruption of the Society, we should not hesitate a single instant. It may be considered unreasonable, selfish, huffish and ridiculous, denounced as jesuitical and the blame all lain at our door, but law is LAW with us, and no power can make us abate one jot or tittle of our duty. We have given you a chance to obtain all you desired by improving your magnetism, by pointing you to a nobler ideal to work up to and Mr. Hume has been shown what he already knew how he may benefit immensely some millions of his fellow men. Choose according to your best light. Your choice is made

conviction that we do not wish Mr. Hume or you to prove conclusively to the public that we really exist. Please realize the fact that so long as men doubt there will be curiosity and enquiry, and that enquiry stimulates reflection which begets effort; but let our secret be once thoroughly vulgarized and not only will sceptical society derive no great good but our privacy would be constantly endangered and have to be continually guarded at an unreasonable cost of power. Have patience, friend of my friend. It took Mr. Hume years to kill enough birds to make up his book; and he did not command them to leave their leafy retreats, but had to wait for them to come and let him stuff and label them: so must you be patient with us. Ah, Sahibs, Sahibs! if you could only catalogue and label us and set us up in the British Museum, then indeed might your world have the absolute, the dessicated truth.

And so it all comes around again as usual to the starting point. You have been chasing us around your own shadows, just catching a vanishing glimpse of us now and again, but never coming near enough to escape the gaunt skeleton of suspicion that is at your heel and stares you in the future. So I fear may be to the end of the chapter, as you not have the patience to read the volume to its end. For you are trying to penetrate the things of the spirit with the eyes of the flesh, to bend the inflexible to your own crude model of what should be, and finding it will not bend, you are as likely as not to break that model and — bid good-bye for ever to the dream.