The house where H. P. B. worked and died out of this life is at 19 Avenue Road, and a short description of it may interest our readers. It is a large square house about 50 feet front and situated two blocks from Regent's park. Like many houses in London it is covered with stucco and painted coffee-color. Standing in a large garden, it looks free and open to the American eye so accustomed to houses in rows. There is an extension along the front for a large room 20 feet wide, and at the back projects another one story addition intended for the private use of H. P. B. This is built of the yellowish brick so much used in London. The entrance door is in the middle of the front, and is a pylon with two large pillars. Running up to it from the front gate in the front brick wall is a walk of cement covered completely with glass, so that as one enters through the gate he finds himself in a glass passage with the front door at the other end slightly higher than the level of the gate. Enter the hall and we see that it runs back to the winding stair to the upper floors enclosed at the foot by glass doors. At the left of the stairs is the door leading into H. P. B.'s rooms, and opposite on the other side of the hall is the wide arch for the parlor entrance now hidden by a screen on one side and a curtain on the other. At the foot of the stairs on the right is a room marked "general work room" in which I slept during my visit there. Just there is the entrance to the garden. On the story above are five rooms, and on this floor the house staff in part have their rooms, and on the story above the others. There is a small lawn in front of the house and the two front rooms look out upon it. Pass through the parlor and at the other side is a descending passage of four steps by which we go into the lecture hall that has been built up against that in the house side of the house, part of iron and part of brick.
Going into the room where H. P. B. worked, we find that it is square and papered in dark color. Her desk was near the window, and on one side another desk or secretary. There is the large armchair in which she sat the livelong day, and all about are the ornaments she procured herself, with the photographs and pictures of her theosophical friends on every hand. In the opposite corner as we enter is the book case, and on the other side stood another case for books. On the wall over the fireplace is a curious Indian figure of Krishna, and up in the corner near the ceiling a little gold Buddha, while in other places are other Indian objects. The panels of the inner side of the entrance door are full of photographs, among them those of Allen Griffiths, Dr. Buck, A. B. Griggs, Dr. Anderson, W. C. Temple, A. Fullerton, T. R. Prater, Dr. Salisbury, Dr. Westcott, and some others unfamiliar. Over the door is a small wooden image of Buddha. Across the room is a door leading to the room where her secretary sat and also Mrs. Besant, and this door is covered with velvet, having on it the photographs of some more of her fellow theosophists. This brings us to the mantel on which rests a high darkly-framed mirror with a picture of Mrs. Besant on one side. There are two standing brackets, and on one of them at the end is a picture of the famous woman yogi of India -- Maji. Beside the door last spoken of is the other case, and on the top of it a bust of Plato and another of Socrates, while just over the door and inclined at an acute angle is a circular concave mirror. Some dark shelves are on the other side of the mantel covered with pictures and objects, among them being a large and very finely carved paper cutter which was presented to her by some Indian students. Opposite on the inner wall hangs a long and very ancient Japanese screen said to be 800 years old; it was given to her by Col. Olcott after his last visit to Japan, and near it is his picture. Turning again to the case beside the door into the extension, we can see on the top the little Japanese cabinet used by her in 1875 in the city of New York, and in which I have often seen things put to disappear at once, and from which she often in my sight drew out objects that had not been there just before and the quantity of which could not be contained in it in any ordinary manner. The last time I saw her she told me that she had always had it with her, and that it had suffered many accidents in which it had been often broken. The back room is separated by an arch on which curtains hang, and with a screen to hide the bed just beside the arch. It is a bedstead of brass and iron, and there are still the large pillows used by her. In one corner is a dressing-table at which in the morning she often sat and opened her letters. Beside the head of the bed and just where it could be seen as one lay down hung a photograph of her friend William Q. Judge, and in other places those of the Indian Headquarters and of persons she knew. On the other side of the room is a large clothes-press where was to be found clothing that she seldom had any use for, as she delighted in two or three old familiar things that felt like old friends not to be annoyed by inattention or want of display. Such is the plain and unassuming room in which this noble woman, this mysterious being, passed so much time in working steadily from day to day for the cause she loved, for the Society she started, and for true theosophists as well as for those ungrateful men and women who have abused her in her life and have tried to drag her name from the grave, but who will one day come to acknowledge the great services she has done for the whole human race.
She had the door cut into the extension room so that near to her call might be those who had chosen to take up the work of helping her on the spot without any hope of reward except the privilege of being near to her and to hear her speak of the mystery of life and the hope of the future. The world is in the habit of supposing that the life of such people as H. P. B. is full of excitement, and theosophists have often thought that to be near to her was to be in the constant presence of the marvellous. But such was not the case. It was a daily hard round of work and nothing but work for the sake of others. And as for the marvellous and the doing of magical things, that was not what she was here to do, and that she kept to herself, for, as she wrote to me, she knew well that her real life was never known to those who were about her, and they also came to know the same and to admit that they could never hope to understand her.
But one thing is certain, and that is that she herself made up her mind some months before her death that she was soon to go, and she began to quietly prepare the workers for that and to make sure that the center she established in England would last for many years. That it will last as such a center is evident to any one who will come and look at it and note the aspiration and the motive she created in the minds and hearts of those who were of late so constantly about her.
In accordance with H. P. B.'s wish her rooms will be kept intact just as she left them, and there is no doubt but that in the course of time they will be a place of pilgrimage for those who were able to appreciate her work. The Secret Doctrine was finished on the desk in the room, and that alone will be one great object of interest. Her pens and ink are there, and the scissors hanging by a tape. These were used every day in cutting out the paragraphs from different publications which she explained or replied to.
W. Q. J.
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It would not be possible to procure pictures or descriptions of all the houses where H. P. B. lived and worked during her life, but most of those in which she dwelt since 1874 while working for the Theosophical movement are known. Some of these will be given in these articles, not in chronological order but as they come to hand. The first one taken up is that at No. 17 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, London, to which she moved shortly after coming to England.*
The illustration gives the front view on Lansdowne Road. It is made of brick, the first story covered with plaster. In this street most of the houses are built two together. The window beside the hall door is the window of the diningroom, her own room being back of that and opening on the large garden, or small park, shared in common by all the neighbors. The back room, where she worked during the day and in which the Blavatsky T.S. met on its evenings, looks southward, and sometimes received the rare rays of the sun, who dislikes apparently to shine on London. The picture was taken with an American Kodak camera one morning in 1888 when H. P. B. was working at her desk inside. The grey square space in the window pane is a transparency given to her by a Mr. Wade when she lived in Elgin Crescent. The window on the right of the house is that of her bedroom which opened into her workroom. Like the front, this part of the house was stuccoed on the first story.
Inside, the dining room in front opened into the work room behind. The front one was seldom used for anything but meals, except when a crowded meeting compelled visitors to sit there. Folding doors divided the rooms from each other. The view of this room is taken from the corner near her desk, and shows the sofa where Mr. Harbottle and others one evening during Lodge session saw plainly the astral form of a Hindu sitting and calmly watching the people. Indeed, so plain was the sight that only when some one sat down into this visitor, causing his disappearance, did Mr. Harbottle exclaim "He wasn't there at all," very excitedly. The picture on the easel is that of an old Eastern friend of H. P. B.'s -- of her Master, in fact, as she often said. The little round and ricketty table was used very often in the mornings for holding a frugal breakfast, for H.P.B. was always up and at work very early each day. It was purposely placed in this picture, as it had actually been used just before the view was taken. Such is the magnificence with which the successor of de Saint-Germain was surrounded. During Lodge meetings the president and H. P. B. sat at the garden end of the room, the members occupying seats about. On other evenings the well-known little folding table with a baize cover was brought out, and on that, placed where the round table is in this picture, she beguiled away some hours playing solitaire or whist.
All pictures of Mme. Blavatsky except this and one other were taken at set times, either in the shop of the photographer or at Conventions and other meetings. But none were obtained of her as she paused in her work until in 1888 this little photograph seized her, after consent, just as she was beginning the day's work on Lucifer, then in its babyhood. She had only a short while before come out from the room behind her and sat down at the desk on which the first pages of Lucifer were begun and whereon most, if not all, of The Secret Doctrine was written. The pen in her hand is an American Gold pen given to her by a New York Theosophist and made by John Foley, whose name is known to thousands of writers. The sheet of paper in front is a sheet of the MSS. of The Secret Doctrine, and others lie about. The old wrapper she wears was more comfortable than gowns of state, to which she did not incline though they were prettier. The famous Matara tobacco basket is just beyond her hand, and on the bracket against the wall is a little white marble elephant -- emblem of power and wisdom -- given her by a friend. All about are photographs of admirers and disciples from every part of the world. She delighted in pictures of her friends, and always had them near, on the walls, on brackets, covering door-panels, everywhere in fact. This was an old habit. In the early days of 1874-75 pictures were always crowding each other, and many of them she ingeniously framed and hung up herself.
Out of this house she seldom went. Here day after day and night after night for some years her every hour was open to the gaze of all men. Yet detractors never ceased their spiteful flings, but she worked on ceaselessly in those rooms, at that desk, editing, corresponding, transcribing The Secret Doctrine, leaving a treasury of information and suggestion for those who care to look beneath the surface and are not wholly carried away by the rush and bluster of a transitory civilization.
Three years and a half after this picture was taken, the tenement of clay so well used by H.P.B. for sixty years was abandoned by her and cremated at Woking.
THE WITNESS.
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In The Path of 1890 (Vol. V, April) a view was given of the Headquarters building at Adyar as it appeared after alteration and the addition of the library wing. It need not be repeated here, as H. P. B. did not reside in it subsequent to the alterations, but was residing in London. The changes consisted in filling in the spaces at each side of the porte cochere, thus turning the latter into an entrance, and adding rooms at each end of the building in front. Col. Olcott also constructed an additional building, on the ocean side, for the Oriental Library. Some changes were made in the roof by the raising of the top of what was called the "occult room," which had a sloping roof when H. P. B. lived there, as the illustration on next page will show.
This picture is reproduced from an accurate sketch made on the spot in 1884, the point of view being as you come up the drive from the entrance gate. It shows the front of the building as it faces the compound, and runs down to where the library building now stands. The porte cochere spoken of above is seen in perspective. It gave a grand air to the front, but has been absorbed by the alterations. The whole building was, in 1884, of a white color, appearing at a distance like a marble structure, but in reality is constructed of brick plastered white, as is very usual in India. It was purchased some years ago by subscription, and is now free of debt. Standing in a compound -- or grounds -- of some 21 acres, it is a very fine place, and if its counterpart were found in this country the cost would be very large, whereas in India its value is small by comparison with American properties. The Adyar River flows along behind the house not more than ten feet away. It is not a river of any consequence, its mouth being generally closed with sand through which the stream percolates into the ocean; and at this season of the year the water is very low and the odor from the mud rather disagreeable, but at full season it is a delightful little creek, as we would call it.
Just appearing over the ornamental balustrade which encloses the roof is the front of H. P. B.'s own room, which led into the shrine-room shown in the second picture. Her room was an addition to the building, and in a way served to join the two towers which rise at the back corners at either end. The stairs of the tower illustrated were the means of communication with her apartment, although the other tower had also a stairway, and another stairway was made running directly into the lower rooms at the library end. But these were not completed in June, 1884, when she was in Europe, as Monsieur Coulomb suspended work as soon as Mme. Blavatsky and Col. Olcott had gone to London, and began at once to construct the ex post facto trap-doors which he hoped to ruin the Society with, and at the same time to turn over some honest pennies of the missionaries for his so-called expose.
That part of the compound extending from the entrance gate on the highway was full of mango trees, and through them the driveway brought you up to the house and under the porte cochere. Alighting there, a short flight of steps took you up to the entrance hall, where the floor was of black and white marble. Here there were two tables, sofas, and some chairs, and on the floor many a night slept Damodar K. Mavalankar, of pleasant memory, together with several others, including Ananda and Babajee.
Part of the end of the building on the side near the main road is given here. It is a continuation of the corner seen in the first cut. The tower finished the river end of the building, and the river itself can be just seen at the back. On the top is the occult room with the extension or verandah. The roof of the "occult room" was slanting and tiled in red, the plaster being tinted yellow. In this was the shrine. It was entered from the other side, and, being a few feet lower than the rooms used by H. P. B., a short flight of steps ran down into it. In the tower is a winding brick stairway, and opening on that was one window of the occult room. This window was made into a cupboard, the back of which looked on the stairs. This back was altered by Alexis Coulomb after H. P. B.'s departure so as to have a sliding panel as a part of his conspiracy. It was not workable, however. The whole upper part of the house was, in fact, a patchwork devoid of regularity.
Damodar's room was in this tower at the top as you came up the narrow stairs. It was from that little room the famous "shrine" was stolen on the night after its removal from the wall in the "occult room." A corridor, as you might call it, ran across the back of H. P. B.'s rooms from tower to tower, open to the river and giving a view of the little island opposite and the long queer bridge which carries the highway across the river. The small picture shows this bridge, which was painted pink.
Opposite beyond the bridge can be seen among the trees other large houses, as the vicinity was once in great demand before the trade of Madras declined. Every evening at sunset large flying foxes would rise up in great numbers from the direction of the city and fly over to Adyar to feed during the night on the mangoes and other fruit-trees in the vicinity. Many of them stopped on the Headquarters grounds.
This is reproduced from a photograph of the back of the building taken from the little island at the right of the bridge picture. It shows the other tower, companion to that in which was Damodar's room. The lower floor under the roof was the back part of the middle of the building, and was occupied by The Theosophist magazine. Trees and shrubs almost hid the view. A plastered embankment ran for a short distance along this side so as to protect the foundations.
These pictures give a very correct idea of the house when H.P.B. lived in it, but all has now been changed by the addition of the Library and by the various changes in the roof which Col. O1cott put into effect after the desecration of the place by the Coulombs, so that now the old "occult room" is a thing of the past, not to be revived until another great personage such as H. P. B. was shall have come and been revealed to us.
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H. P. B. before moving to the place from which she started for India in 1878, lived for a while in 34th Street near Ninth Avenue, New York, in a modest flat. While living there, the funeral of Baron de Palm, described fully by Col. Olcott in his Old Diary Leaves, took place, attracting great attention and endless newspaper comment. A flat was taken afterwards on the corner of 47th Street and Eighth Avenue, in the house which is shown in the picture.*
The illustration shows the narrow front of the house facing Eighth Avenue, which is a business street running all the way from lower New York to 155th Street. The building is what is known as a double flat, with a shop on the street level. The entrance to the apartments is down on 47th Street under the rear suites of rooms. H.P.B. had the flat which begins in the middle of the building, running to the front on Eighth Avenue and being immediately over the shop. The building is at this date in the same condition and under the same arrangements as when H. P. B. lived there.
Her writing-room was in front, taking in the corner window and the next two over the shop. The third window in front is of a small room which was used for various purposes, sometimes for breakfast, at others for sleeping. On that side, within, the inner hall ran down to the entrance door of the apartment with rooms in the following order: adjoining the writing and sitting room was her bed-room, having doors as well as a door into the hall, and cut off from the dining-room, next on that side, by a solid wall. Beyond the living-room is the kitchen, which looks out on 47th Street. On the other side of the hall is first the bathroom fronting the kitchen, and next, proceeding again forward, is a small dark room in which Col. Olcott slept. Upstairs, Mrs. I. C. Mitchell, sister of Col. Olcott, lived for some time. The writing-room and the small room first spoken of cut the hall off in front.
It was in this flat, in the larger front room, that Isis Unveiled was written and finished. There so many extraordinary phenomena had place that volumes would be required to describe them. Here the "astral music and bells" were so often heard, which self-styled wise critics have assumed were produced by a maid walking up and down the hall with an instrument: an absurdity for those who, like myself, were there and heard all such things. Here, in the corner of the room over Eighth avenue, the stuffed owl stood and sometimes blinked. It is now in the possession of a lady living not far from the New York Headquarters. And here when Isis was finished H. P. B. sat among her few belongings and saw the auctioneer sell them off to the highest bidder; from here she at last, in December, 1878, went off to the steamer which took her to London, from whence she sailed to India never to return to the land where she was ever such a perplexity and an amusement to the people of the metropolis. It is a modest place in a modest, busy part of a great city; yet how much was done there and what mighty forces played within those four walls while the immense personality known as Helena P. Blavatsky dwelt therein!
From The Path, July, 1891, pp. 131-34; May, 1892, pp. 36-39; June, 1892, pp. 71-75; November, 1893, pp. 237-39.