Annie Besant - ODYSSEE Theater

Annie Besant
An Autobiography Illustrated
LONDON
SECOND EDITION
[pic]
From a photograph by H.S. Mendelssohn, 27, Cathcart Road, South
Kensington, London
ANNIE BESANT
1885
[pic] PREFACE
It is a difficult thing to tell the story of a life, and yet more
difficult when that life is one's own. At the best, the telling has a
savour of vanity, and the only excuse for the proceeding is that the
life, being an average one, reflects many others, and in troublous times
like ours may give the experience of many rather than of one. And so the
autobiographer does his work because he thinks that, at the cost of some
unpleasantness to himself, he may throw light on some of the typical
problems that are vexing the souls of his contemporaries, and perchance
may stretch out a helping hand to some brother who is struggling in the
darkness, and so bring him cheer when despair has him in its grip. Since
all of us, men and women of this restless and eager generation-
surrounded by forces we dimly see but cannot as yet understand,
discontented with old ideas and half afraid of new, greedy for the
material results of the knowledge brought us by Science but looking
askance at her agnosticism as regards the soul, fearful of superstition
but still more fearful of atheism, turning from the husks of outgrown
creeds but filled with desperate hunger for spiritual ideals--since all
of us have the same anxieties, the same griefs, the same yearning hopes,
the same passionate desire for knowledge, it may well be that the story
of one may help all, and that the tale of one should that went out alone
into the darkness and on the other side found light, that struggled
through the Storm and on the other side found Peace, may bring some ray
of light and of peace into the darkness and the storm of other lives.
ANNIE BESANT. The Theosophical Society,
17 & 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London.
August, 1893.
[pic] CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO THE HERE"
II. EARLY CHILDHOOD
III. GIRLHOOD
IV. MARRIAGE
V. THE STORM OF DOUBT
VI. CHARLES BRADLAUGH
VII. ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT
VIII. AT WORK
IX. THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET
X. AT WAR ALL ROUND
XI. MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE
XII. STILL FIGHTING
XIII. SOCIALISM
XIV. THROUGH STORM TO PEACE
LIST OF BOOKS QUOTED
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ANNIE BESANT, 1885
Frontispiece
HOROSCOPE OF ANNIE BESANT
Page 12
ANNIE BESANT, 1869
Facing page 86
THOMAS SCOTT
Facing page 112
CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.
Facing page 212
CHARLES BRADLAUGH AND HENRY LABOUCHERE
Facing page 254
NORWICH BRANCH OF THE SOCIALIST LEAGUE
Facing page 314
STRIKE COMMITTEE OF THE MATCHMAKERS' UNION
Facing page 336
MEMBERS OF THE MATCHMAKERS' UNION
Facing page 338
[pic] CHAPTER I.
"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO THE HERE."
1. On October
1, 1847, I am credibly informed, my baby eyes opened to the
light(?) of a London afternoon at 5.39.
2. A friendly
astrologer has drawn for me the following chart, showing the
position of the planets at this, to me fateful, moment; but I
know nothing of astrology, so feel no wiser as I gaze upon my
horoscope.
3. [pic]
4. Horoscope
of Annie Besant.
5. Keeping in
view the way in which sun, moon, and planets influence the
physical condition of the earth, there is nothing incongruous
with the orderly course of nature in the view that they also
influence the physical bodies of men, these being part of the
physical earth, and largely moulded by its conditions. Any one
who knows the characteristics ascribed to those who are born
under the several signs of the Zodiac, may very easily pick out
the different types among his own acquaintances, and he may then
get them to go to some astrologer and find out under what signs
they were severally born. He will very quickly discover that two
men of completely opposed types are not born under the same
sign, and the invariability of the concurrence will convince him
that law, and not chance, is at work. We are born into earthly
life under certain conditions, just as we were physically
affected by them pre-natally, and these will have their bearing
on our subsequent physical evolution. At the most, astrology, as
it is now practised, can only calculate the interaction between
these physical conditions at any given moment, and the
conditions brought to them by a given person whose general
constitution and natal condition are known. It cannot say what
the person will do, nor what will happen to him, but only what
will be the physical district, so to speak, in which he will
find himself, and the impulses that will play upon him from
external nature and from his own body. Even on those matters
modern astrology is not quite reliable-judging from the many
blunders made-or else its professors are very badly instructed;
but that there is a real science of astrology I have no doubt,
and there are some men who are past masters in it.
6. It has
always been somewhat of a grievance to me that I was born in
London, "within the sound of Bow Bells," when three-quarters of
my blood and all my heart are Irish. My dear mother was of
purest Irish descent, and my father was Irish on his mother's
side, though belonging to the Devonshire Woods on his father's.
The Woods were yeomen of the sturdy English type, farming their
own land in honest, independent fashion. Of late years they seem
to have developed more in the direction of brains, from the
time, in fact, that Matthew Wood became Mayor of London town,
fought Queen Caroline's battles against her most religious and
gracious royal husband, aided the Duke of Kent with no niggard
hand, and received a baronetcy for his services from the Duke of
Kent's royal daughter. Since then they have given England a Lord
Chancellor in the person of the gentle-hearted and pure-living
Lord Hatherley, while others have distinguished themselves in
various ways in the service of their country. But I feel
playfully inclined to grudge the English blood they put into my
father's veins, with his Irish mother, his Galway birth, and his
Trinity College, Dublin, education. For the Irish tongue is
musical in my ear, and the Irish nature dear to my heart. Only
in Ireland is it that if you stop to ask a worn-out ragged woman
the way to some old monument, she will say: "Sure, then, my
darlin', it's just up the hill and round the corner, and then
any one will tell you the way. And it's there you'll see the
place where the blessed Saint Patrick set his foot, and his
blessing be on yer." Old women as poor as she in other nations
would never be as bright and as friendly and as garrulous. And
where, out of Ireland, will you see a whole town crowd into a
station to say good-bye to half a dozen emigrants, till the
platform is a heaving mass of men and women, struggling,
climbing over each other for a last kiss, crying, keening,
laughing, all in a breath, till all the air is throbbing and
there's a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes as the
train steams out? Where, out of Ireland, will you be bumping
along the streets on an outside car, beside a taciturn Jarvey,
who, on suddenly discovering that you are shadowed by "Castle"
spies, becomes loquaciously friendly, and points out everything
that he thinks will interest you? Blessings on the quick tongues
and warm hearts, on the people so easy to lead, so hard to
drive. And blessings on the ancient land once inhabited by
mighty men of wisdom, that in later times became the Island of
Saints, and shall once again be the Island of Sages, when the
Wheel turns round.
7. My maternal
grandfather was a typical Irishman, much admired by me and
somewha