Mahatma Letter No. 105

Quick Facts
People involved
Written by:	Koot Hoomi
Received by:	A. P. Sinnett
Sent via:	unknown
Dates
Written on:	unknown
Received on:	late February 1883 - see below
Other dates:	unknown
Places
Sent from:	unknown
Received at:	Allahabad, India
Via:	unknown

This is Letter No. 105 in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, 4th chronological edition. It corresponds to Letter No. 80 in Barker numbering. See below for Context and background.

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Page 1 transcription, image, and notes

M. "son's" impression convexing lens being not yet ground to a perfect surface, he puts the matter in a somewhat crooked shape. M. did not want him to say there was anything like a possibility of failure, but just the usual possibility of delay in every business transaction left with our countrymen alone: plus, the malevolent (or if you prefer eccentric) meddling of the Rothney Swedenborg and other artists in calamity. From all I know of the situation — and I claim to watch it as closely as I am permitted to —

NOTES:

• M. "son's" refers to Henry Steel Olcott, who "was sometimes affectionately called "Morya Junior."
• Rothney Swedenborg refers to A. O. Hume, who lived in Rothney Castle.

Page 2

the chances are that the money will be raised, by the end of March; but Chance being a squinting jade, according to report the time of collection is not yet written in the memorandum book of Fate. Much depends upon contingencies but still more upon the Simla Yogi leaving us for awhile alone — 3 lakhs of rupees have been just as good as lost, owing to a letter written by him to an editor at Calcutta with a delineation of our true character (Jesuits, sorcerers,

NOTES:

• But Chance being a squinting jade may be a reference to a passage in Cranmer: by a Member of the Roxburghe Club Vol. III by Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1839) “For fame, after all, is but a squinting jade, never looking at you direct in the face.”
• The Simla Yogi refers to A. O. Hume

Page 3

a deceitful, selfish set, etc.) and by that editor shown to a rajah, hitherto well disposed and ready to do the bidding of the "Mahatma Brothers" — of patriotism in this transaction there will be very little if any. I will send you in a day or two, facts which will show to you persons in their true light.

Meanwhile if I advise your acting entirely upon your own judgment as to your departure, it is because of the false light in

NOTES:

Page 4

which nearly all our actions are viewed by the Europeans who are however indirectly concerned with us. I do not want to be misjudged by you even for one moment. But strange and crooked as our ways may appear at first sight I hope you will never allow your European mind to get influenced by your Rothney friend. Well more anon,

Yours ever faithfully,

K. H.

NOTES:

• Rothney friend refers to A. O. Hume, who lived in Rothney Castle.

Physical description of letter

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to George Linton and Virginia Hanson, the letter was written:

KH script in blue pencil on both sides of a folded sheet of APS's office paper bearing the Pioneer letterhead.