derable 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 Sal