Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00393)

I know Theosophists believe that Vernon Harrison has "vindicated"
HPB, but he recoiled from that word when I asked him about it,
and said not at all-- he had simply demonstrated that Hodgson's
case against her was unproven.  I find the question of
handwriting rather irrelevant and uninteresting, since if I were
going to compose letters and attribute them to someone else, and
knew that people would suspect me of authorship, I'd certainly
not send them in my own handwriting.  And HPB was shrewder than
I.  The real question is not who physically wrote the versions
Sinnett received, but who composed the contents.  And Marion
Meade makes these telling (if not always entirely fair)
observations about K.H.'s letters:

He does not, however, speak or write German, Punjabi, Hindi or
Tibetan; his Latin is faulty, his Sanskrit non-existent, his
French impeccable, his English queer.  He also has a habit of
overlining his m's, a mannerism of Russians writing in English or
French.  Although his letters are written in English, it is not
the English of an educated Indian and they sometimes falter in
the use of punctuation, spelling, and grammar.  For example, he
inserted commas between subject and predicate.  Worse yet, K.H.
is fond of American slang and his awkward sentence constructions
lead one to believe he is thinking in French but translating his
thoughts into English...[examples]

K.H. is in semi-command of Western literature, science, and
philosophy.  He quotes Shakespeare correctly, and Swift
incorrectly, has a passing acquaintance with Thackeray, Tennyson
and Dickens, and keeps au courant by reading English novels.  "My
knowledge of your Western science is *very* limited," he insists,
which does not prevent him from aiming barbs at Darwin, Edison,
Tyndall, and some thirty others.  In personality, he was
alternately witty, stern, cheerful, spiteful, highly idealistic,
petty, and downright bitchy.  But he was always entertaining.

p. 236, Mme. Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth