(p. 1)
[Note: This page number
refers to the pages in the original.]
BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. (1)
By Samuel Hopgood Hart
“All the earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations.” (Psalm
74:20)
“I know that at some distant day, now, indeed, perhaps very remote, the message
we preach in a corner will become a religion of great nations.” (Anna Kingsford)
“Man’s whole idea and habit of life have become to be so
utterly at variance with all possibility of the perfection of which his
existence is capable, that only by incessant and unsparing denunciation can he
be in any measure impressed with their heinousness.” (Edward Maitland)
ANNA KINGSFORD was born on 16th
September 1846, at
(p. 2)
and suffering surpassing
anything conceivable, save by those who had intimate knowledge of her life.” But
from her early childhood she believed that she had come to this earth to
accomplish “some great and necessary work, on behalf both of herself and of
others, which she alone could perform.” (1)
Deprived by her ill-health of the usual outlets, she early took to writing, her
very first published production, a poem in religious magazine, having appeared
when she was but nine years old; and her first book having been written at the
age of thirteen. (2) So keen were her perceptions of the ideal,
that her disappointment with the actual, which she felt throughout her life, was
rendered all the more bitter. Edward Maitland says: “Hatred of injustice and its
correlative cruelty, especially towards animals, attained in her the force and
dignity of a passion,” and her sensitiveness on this score was the cause of “the
chief mental misery of her life.” (3)
The death of her father in 1865 put her into immediate possession of some £700
per annum, and so made her independent as far as money was concerned. (4)
In
relating to Edward Maitland some of the incidents of her early life, she said:
“Between my leaving school and being married I was for a time passionately fond
of hunting, and, when not disabled by illness, would spend the day in the
saddle. (…) But suddenly one day, while riding home after a ‘splendid run and
finish,’ as it is called, something in me asked me how I should like to be
served so myself, and set me looking at the matter from the point of view of the
hunted creature, making me vividly to realise its wild terror and breathless
distress all the time it is being pursued, and the ghastly horror of its capture
and death. It was even less, I believe, my sense of pity than of justice that
rebuked and changed me. What right have I, I asked myself, thus to ill-treat a
creature simply because it has a form which differs from my own? Rather, if I am
superior, do its weakness and helplessness entitle it to my pity and protection
than justify me in seeking my own gratification at its expense. And as for its
lower position on the ladder of evolution, if there be evolution in one thing
there must be in another – if
(p. 3)
in the physical, then in
the moral – so that for a man to act thus is to renounce his moral gains and
abdicate his moral superiority. Of course that was the end of my hunting, and
thenceforth I and my steed took our gallops by ourselves; for however much I may
like a thing, I can never bring myself to do it while feeling it to be wrong. In
fact, such a feeling would prevent my liking it.” (1)
It
will be noticed from this and, in fact, from all her writings how strong was her
sense of justice. Thus: “She would recognise no hard-and-fast line
between masculine and feminine, human and animal, or even between animal and
plant. In her eyes, everything that lived was humanity, only in different stages
of its unfoldment.” (2) It was this sense of justice – “the
essential of which,” she said, “is a sense of solidarity” – that also made her
give up wearing furs. Shortly before her death, when writing of “the horrors of
the seal-fishery,” she said:
“It
is some years since I satisfied myself that the fur trade, and the sealskin
trade in particular, were incompatible with the gentle life it should be the aim
of civilised beings to lead, and since that time there have been no furs in my
wardrobe.” (3)
On
the last day of 1867, she was married to her cousin, Algernon Godfrey Kingsford,
who was then in the Civil Service, but who shortly afterwards became a clergyman
in the Church of England; and being “full of the ideas which possessed her
respecting a work in store [for her], she made it a special condition of her
marriage that it should not fetter her in respect of any career to which she
might be prompted.” (4) Of this marriage there was one child only
– a daughter – who survived her.
Some two or three years after her marriage she undertook
(p. 4)
the risks and conduct, and
became the proprietor of the Lady’s Own Paper, a
When she renounced her magazine, being “under the impression that such a step
was in some way related to the mission of which she had received such and so
many mysterious intimations,” (3) she had already come to the
determination to devote herself to the study of medicine, with a direct view to
qualify herself for accomplishing: first, the abolition of vivisection – the
existence of which she, as editor of the Lady’s Own Paper, had
become aware of; and secondly, the abolition of flesh-eating, she having, under
the tuition of her brother, Dr John Bonus, “adopted the Pythagorean regimen of
abstinence from flesh-food, with such manifest advantage to herself, physically
and mentally, as to lead her to see in it the only effectual means to the
world’s redemption, whether as regards men themselves or the animals.” (4)
Writing, in 1879, to the Princess Marie-Christina of
She
must have given up flesh-eating in, or prior to, the year 1871, for, in her
book, The Perfect Way in Diet,
which was published in 188I, she presented herself as an example of “the
beneficial effects of the Pythagorean system of diet,” which, she said, “for a
period of ten years,” she had “uninterruptedly maintained”
(6) and, in 1886, when writing of facts and circunstances
connected with her marvellous dreaming faculty and experiences, she said :
“For the past
(p. 5)
fifteen
years I have been an abstainer from flesh-meats. Not a vegetarian, because
during the whole of that period I have used such animal produce as butter,
cheese, eggs, and milk.” (1)
In the spring of 1873 she commenced to study medicine. She had scarcely
commenced her studies when she had a very remarkable experience. She received a
letter from a lady (who signed herself “Anna Wilkes”) who lived at a distance
from, and who was a complete stranger to her. The writer stated that she had
read with profound interest and admiration In My Lady’s Chamber
(2)
– a story written by Anna Kingsford – and that after reading it she had received
from the Holy Spirit a message for her (Anna Kingsford) which was to be
delivered in person, and would Mrs Kingsford receive her, and when? After some
hesitation, Anna Kingsford asked her correspondent to come and see her, and she
subsequently gave to Edward Maitland the following account of the meeting. She
said:
“At the hour named I met her on the way while she was driving from the station,
and was at once struck by her manner and appearance, and subsequently by her
conversation, as much as I had been by her previous communication. She was tall,
erect, distinguished looking, with hair of iron-grey, and strangely brilliant
eyes. She told me that she had received a distinct message from the Holy Spirit,
and had been so strongly impressed to come and deliver it to me in person that
she could not refrain. Her message was to the effect that for five years to come
I was to remain in retirement, continuing the studies on which I was engaged,
whatever they might be, and the mode of life on which I had entered, suffering
nothing and no one to draw me asside from them. And when these probationary and
preparatory five years were past, the Holy Spirit would drive me forth from my
seclusion to teach and to preach, and that a great work would be given me to do.
All this she uttered with a rapt and inspired expression, as though she had been
some sibyl delivering na oracle. And when she had ended, seeing, no doubt, my
look of surprise, she asked me if I thought her mad – a question to which I was
at some loss to reply, for I had encountered nothing of the kind before, and was
disposed to share the impression which all ordinary and worldly folk
(p. 6)
have always had concerning those who
profess to be prophets. Having delivered her message, my prophetess kissed me on
both cheeks and departed.” (1)
In
the summer of the same year there appeared in the Examiner, with a notice of
a tale by Anna Kingsford, a notice of a book, By and by: an Historical
Romance of the Future, by Edward
Maitland. This led to her reading the book, with which she found herself so much
in sympathy that she wrote to Edward Maitland – with whom she was then entirely
unacquainted –proposing an interchange of ideas. (2)
Some correspondence followed, and later, Edward Maitland received an invitation
to visit her and her husband at their home at Atcham, near
Writing on 4th August 1873 to Edward Maitland, she said:
“I
have been the editor of a woman’s paper, and have addressed public meetings from
platforms. By adoption and profession I am a member of that most conservative of
churches, the Roman Catholic, (3) but by conviction I am rather a
pantheist than anything else; and my mode of life is that of a fruit-eater. In
other words, I have a horror of flesh as food, and belong to the Vegetarian
Society. At present I am studying medicine with the view of ultimately entering
the profession, – not for the sake of practice, but for scientific purposes.”
(4)
In
a subsequent letter (dated 14th August 1873) to Edward Maitland, referring to
her “peculiar ideas respecting diet,” she said:
“These ideas are, I am very well persuaded, the future creed of a nobler and
gentler race. I laugh when I hear folks talk hopefully on the coming age, which
will decide all the quarrels of the world by means of international arbitration;
and I have myself been scores of times invited to take part in ‘Women’s Peace
Conventions’ and the like. These
(p. 7)
poor deluded creatures cannot see
that universal peace is absolutely impossible to a carnivorous race! If men feed
like lions and tigers, they will, by the necessity of things, retain the nature
of lions and tigers. (1) (...) I want to establish my theory about
diet, and a few others belonging to the same category. Several physicians are on
the same track, and all things appear to me indicate that the real salvation of
the human race lies in a return to its ancient obedience to Nature. This
primitive condition is depicted in the Hebrew allegory about the Garden of Eden.
Man has no carnivorous teeth. The whole formation of his internal organs plainly
presupposes his subsistence on fruits, grains, and vegetables. He has the
rudiment of the third intestine peculiar to the vegetable-eating creatures, and
his saliva-producing glands are those of the same race. But he has degenerated
it by his habits in regard to diet, and debased himself. Nevertheless, his moral
instincts are still against the habit he has adopted. For what little child,
what gentle woman, or even what noble man, likes to see a sentient creature,
full of health and life, immolated by knife or cord? Much less who, save a
butcher, would care to do the murder necessary (?) for a single civilised
dinner? I would like to force everyone who feeds on flesh to slay his or her own
prey. I would like to oblige the fine lady to go and cut the throat of the
innocent lamb or the pretty rabbit she wants to eat for her dinner. If she
really had the nature she imitates, that would be a pleasant task to her. But
she has it not; because she is by nature a being of higher race than the tiger
or vulture.
I
could bring forward endless proofs of my theory, proofs collected by dint of
long and careful observation. And I know that in proportion as man
abandons the diet of flesh and blood, and observers that of fruit and grain, his
spirit becomes purer, higher, and diviner. So true is it that the body makes the
soul.” (2)
A
notice of Anna Kingsford in Light (3) says:
“The keynote
(p. 8)
to her teaching was the word Purity.
She held that man, like everything else, is only at his best when pure. And her
insistence upon a vegetable diet – which she justified upon grounds at once
physiological, chemical, hygienic, economical, moral, and spiritual – was based
upon the necessity to his perfection of a purity of blood and tissue attainable
only upon a regimen drawn direct from the fruits of the earth, and excluding the
products of the slaughter of innocent creatures.” (1)
In
the autumn she passed her preliminary examination at the Apothecary’s Hall,
“with success so great as to fill her with high hopes of a triumphant passage
through the course of her student life.” (2)
In
a letter (dated 24th November) to Edward Maitland, she said:
“I
see everywhere in the universe inflexible, unchangeable Law; but Love I fail to
see, unless the Law involves it in its course. I see everywhere prevailing the
Rule of the Strong. In the depths of the sea, in the remote wilderness, in the
open air of heaven, the swift and the powerful gain the battle of life. The dove
is torn by the hawk, the fawn is murdered by the tiger, the tiny goldfish is
victimised by some voracious cannibal of the waters. I see everywhere slaughter,
suffering, and terror; and I score one to the theologians. For throughout
Nature, Life is continued by means of Death. Is not the God who made all this
just the very God who would delight in the death of an innocent victim? Is not
the God who voluntarily surrounds himself with carnage and misery just the very
God whom the sight of
(p. 9)
Nature? Yet what a horrible
inconsistency! What a ludicrous anomaly! For is not Nature the manifestation of
God? And how, then, is it possible for man, who is part of God, to be more moral
than the whole of which he is a fraction? How, in Christian phrase, can man be
more just than his maker?” (1)
In
replying, Edward Maitland said:
“I
suggest that – supposing the Supreme Cause to be intelligent and feeling in our
sense – it is not unimaginable that He may totally disregard physical pain and
death as of no consequence in themselves, and look solely to the evolution,
through them, of the moral nature. If the human conscience be the supremest
result of the universe, and the sole end worth attaining, may it not be that
such discipline as is inseparable from the idea of pain is essential to the
production of that end?” (2)
To
this, Anna Kingsford replied:
“Once or twice I have fancied that the key to the secret of the Universe might
be found in the Transmigration theory of wise old Pythagoras. It has long been
my serious and profound conviction that if men have immortal spirits, so also
have all living creatures. We cannot logically arrogate perpetuity of being to
our own species. And it is just possible that the germ of the soul, existing,
perhaps, rudimentarily in the lowest forms of vegetation, may gather strength to
itself by passing upwards through numberless modes of being, until it culminates
in man (...) and at length mounts into higher atmospheres, and departs to
inhabit the many ‘many mansions’ of the Father among the starry spheres. But
this, of course, is the merest conjecture, avowedly set forth to account for the
fact of earthly suffering among men and other living creatures. (...) As your
son has a taste for medical study, it would be interesting and useful to him to
investigate the influences of diet upon the system, and the relation of the
human digestive organs to food. This is one of the most important items of the
‘sublime science’ I mean to study it specially myself, and am going to
In
the following January Edward Maitland met Anna
(p. 10)
Kingsford for a short time
one afternoon in
Edward Maitland was born on 27th October 1824 at
(p. 11)
their abolition would his
life be a success and a satisfaction to himself. He says:
“It
even seemed to me that my own credit was involved in the matter, and that in
disproving such beliefs I should be vindicating my own character. For if God
were evil, as those doctrines made Him, I could by no possibility be good, since
I must have my derivation from Him. And I knew that, however weak and unwise I
might be, I was not evil.” (1)
His
life, too, like Anna Kingsford’s, had been one of much isolation and meditation.
He says:
“I
had felt myself a stranger even with my closest intimates. For I was always
conscious of a difference which separated me from them, and of a side to which
they could not have access. I had graduated at Cambridge with the design of
taking orders; but only to find that I could not do so conscientiously, and to
feel that to commit myself to any conditions incompatible with absolute freedom
of thought and expression would be a treachery against both myself and my kind –
for it was for no merely personal end that I wanted to discover the truth.”
(2)
And
so, after taking his degree, he joined the band of “Forty-niners” to the then
newly discovered placers of California, and remained abroad – from America
passing to Australia – for nearly ten years, during which time he “experienced
well-nigh every vicissitude and extreme which might serve to heighten the
consciousness, toughen the fibre, and try the soul of man.” (3)
While in
In
1857 he returned to England, and after an interval devoted himself to literature
– writing for ideal reasons; but he did not leave his trials behind him, for
“vicissitudes and struggles, and trials and ordeals,” awaited him at home, and
he was made to learn by experience that only “by the bruising of the outer, the
inner is set free,” and that “man is alive only so far as he has felt.”
(5)
His books of this period brought him into immediate fame. They were The
Pilgrim and the Shrine and Higher
Law, and the book to which I have referred, By and By.
(p. 12)
On
visiting the
One
great difficulty stood in the way of Anna Kingsford carrying out her
determination to obtain a medical degree – at any rate, in this country.
Immediately after she had passed her preliminary examination, the medical
authorities had seen fit to close their schools against women students; and
owing to asthma, from which she was a great sufferer, she could not, for the
greater part of the year, live in the country. It was essential then for her to
be in a large city. The nearest country abroad where women were then admitted to
medical degrees was France, and Paris was a city in which, when other places
would be impossible for her, she would be able to live, and in Paris she would
be able to prosecute her studies. Her husband “desired only that she be happy in
her own way, and follow what career she preferred, as by the terms of their
engagement, as well, also, as by her endowments and aspirations, he considered
her entitled to do”: (5) but as was natural, and very rightly, he
would not consent to her
(p. 13)
going alone and
unprotected to
“As I was bent on the construction of a system of thought at once scientific,
philosophic, moral, and religious, and recognisable by the understanding as
indubitably true, by reason of its being founded in first principles; she was
bent on the construction of a rule of life equally obvious and binding, and
recognisable by the sentiments as alone according with them, its basis being
that sense of perfect justice which springs from perfect sympathy. By which it
will be seen that while it was her aim to establish a perfect practice, which
might or might not consist with a perfect doctrine, it was my aim to establish a
perfect doctrine which would inevitably issue in a perfect practice, by at once
defining it and supplying an all-compelling motive for its observance.”
(1)
During this visit, which lasted nearly a fortnight, one subject especially
occupied them: this was the subject of vivisection, of which he then heard for
the first time. It was a discovery which filled him with “unspeakable horror and
amazement,” and he resolved to make the abolition of vivisection, and the system
represented by it, thenceforth the leading aim of his life and work. (2)
As
regards the question of diet: Edward Maitland had “never been fully content with
the prevailing mode of sustaining our organisms.” It had always struck him as
“inconsistent with the perfection conceivable as possible, that man, the highest
product of the visible world, should be so constituted as to be able to sustain
himself only by doing violence, not only to his sensitive fellow-creatures, but
to his own higher feeling.” (3)
Consequently, he was favourably disposed to give practical heed to the arguments
put before him on behalf of the vegetarian regimen; and the further
consideration that
(p. 14)
only as an abstainer from
flesh-food could he with entire consistency contend against vivisection, was a
potent factor in his decision. He recognised the distinction between “death and
torture as a broad one.” (1)
“But,” he says, “the statistics I now for the first time perused, of the
slaughter-house and cattle traffic, shewed beyond question that torture, and
this prolonged and severe, is involved in the use of animals for food as well as
for science.” (2)
Thus, the first important result of this visit was that Edward Maitland became a
vegetarian.
The
change in his mode of life was soon productive of good results. It was, he says,
accompanied by “increased accessibility to ideas,” and consequent enhanced
capacity for entering into relation with the region whence ideas have their
derivation. (3) He says:
“Had we been in any degree instructed in spiritual or occult science, we should
have known that the renunciation of flesh-food, though in itself a physical act,
has ever been recognised by initiates as the prime essential in the unfoldment
of the spiritual faculties; since only when man is purely nourished can he
attain clearness and fullness of spiritual perception. (4) As it
was, neither of us had [then] even heard of occult science, or of the necessity
of such a regimen to the perfectionment of faculty. She had adopted it on
grounds physiological, chemical, hygienic, aesthetic, and moral; not on grounds
mental or spiritual. I undertook to adopt it partly on the same grounds which
had influenced her, and partly with a view to enhance and consolidate the
sympathy subsisting between us.” (5)
Referring to his “increased accessibility to ideas,” he says:
“It is mainly to the increased sensibility of my mental surfaces, through the
elimination from my system of all unsuitable substances, that I ascribe the
increased accessibility to ideas of which I have spoken. All my experience goes
to show that it is not to any original or unavoidable defect of material or
structure, but to the coarseness and unsuitability of the food on which we are
in the habit of sustaining our organisms, that our general insensibility to the
finer influences which pervade
(p. 15)
the universe – and by the operation
of which alone man becomes redeemable from exclusive engrossment by the lower
planes of his nature – is ascribable. It is, I am confident, because our
sympathetic faculties are so dulled and narrowed through our cruel and unnatural
mode of sustaining ourselves, that we have lost that sense of oneness both with
the whole of which we are parts, and with our fellow-parts of the same whole, in
the due recognition and culture of which religion and morality respectively
consist. We are accustomed to over-materialise ourselves to such a degree as to
lose all cognisance of the immaterial and essential part of us.” (1)
Edward Maitland considered that the evils suffered by the world during the cycle
known as the historical, are “due to no inherent defect, either of constitution
or of circumstance, but to a temporary and remediable lapse from normal health
through the misconduct of life, and, primarily, through disobedience to the laws
of Purity (...) man must be made clean outwardly in respect of his flesh by the
washing of water,” and “he must be made clean inwardly in respect of his
organism (...) by the abjuration of a diet of blood and of all poisonous
infusions whatsoever, and by the return to his natural sustenance – at once food
and medicine – the grains and herbs, the juices of fruits, and vegetable oils;
for so only will he deposit tissues possessed of perfect soundness, and have an
organism capable of attaining its full development in respect of all the
faculties of humanity, and build up his body to be a pure temple and abode of
the soul.” (2)
A
few weeks after Edward Maitland had returned home from his visit to Atcham, he
received from Mr. Kingsford a letter informing him that the time had come for
his wife to go to Paris, and, as he could not possibly quit his duties to
accompany her, asking him if he (Edward Maitland) would do so; for, in default
of his compliance, she would be forced to renounce her proposed career, and the
disappointment would be more than she could bear, so entirely had she set her
heart on it. He added that the exposition would occupy only a few days, the
purpose being the preliminary one of enrolment. Edward Maitland fell in with the
suggestion, and, after a few days sojourn in Paris, they returned to England,
she having become a regularly enrolled student of the University of Paris; and
while in Paris, after having overcome “obstacles which
(p. 16)
would have daunted any one
of weaker will or meaner purpose,” she obtained a permit from the Minister of
Public Education, accepting the preliminary examination already passed by her in
Edward Maitland says: “On returning to
“As I pursued my analysis of the various systems of religion, steadfastly
following the while my reformed mode of diet, I found myself, to my
inexpressible delight, coming into possession of a strangely entranced faculty
of ideation, which manifested itself in a power of insight into problems which
had hitherto baffled me. It was as if my mental surfaces had been cleansed and
sensitised in such wise as to render them accessible to impressions and
suggestions which formerly had been too subtle and refined to obtain
recognition.” (2)
When the time arrived for her to return to
Notwithstanding serious inroads made on her time and strength by ill-heath, “she
worked to such excellent purpose as to pass her
examen
with the highest credit, and to rouse her
(p. 17)
professor’s enthusiasm to
the utmost pitch,” and he procured for her a magisterial permit enabling her to
pursue her studies at home until the following autumn. They then returned to her
home at Atcham for Christmas, after which she went to
In the autumn of 1875 she returned to
Meanwhile, despite her hard work, she from time to time reported to Edward
Maitland such of her hospital experiences as were likely to interest him. In a
letter, written in 1876, she related the following: –
“In the hospital yesterday – at the surgical consultation of
‘Describe to me the accident which caused this,’ said I.
‘I slipped. My leg slid under me, and I fell.’
‘How came you to slip?’
‘The floor was swimming in blood, and I slipped on the blood.’
‘Blood!’ cried
‘Madame, I am a slaughter-man by trade. I had just been killing, and all the
slaughter-house was covered with blood.’
Oh, then, my heart was hardened. I looked in the man’s face. It was of the
lowest type, deep beetle-brows, a wide, thick, coarse mouth, a red skin –
‘savage’ was stamped on every line of it.
(p.
18)
The world revolts me. My business is not here. All the earth is full of violence
and cruel habitations. Elsewhere I shall find peace, and there will I go to wait
for you, and for the few pure and merciful souls yet remaining here. (...) What
of life remains to me I will live in doing my utmost against every form of
cruelty. (...) More and more every day it appears to my mind that I am not of
this world. Visions float about me in the night that seem to warn me of some
unknown change perhaps awaiting me. I do not know; but my state of mind of late
has been singularly clear and expectant. I fancy that there is a future, and
that I am meant to have some special work beyond this plane of existence,
something for which I have been put to school here.” (1)
Soon after this she passed her second
examen
“with high credit.” Her health, however, which was then in “an utterly bad
state,” necessitated a month at the seaside, with “entire cessation of work,”
and after a few more weeks, which were divided between her own home and her
mother’s, the time came when it was needful for her to return to her work in
Paris. She was again accompanied by her husband, who this time had arranged to
remain with her for a prolonged period, his bishop having assented to his
engaging a substitute during his absence. But shortly after their arrival she
was taken so ill that it was “impossible to say when, if ever, she would be able
to resume work.” They accordingly decided to return to
“(…)
permission was sought and obtained for her to pursue her studies at home during
the coming winter without detriment to her academic position, attendance at an
English hospital being accepted as an equivalent for attendance for the same
period at a French one. This was a special favour granted, in consideration of
the circumstances, by the Minister of Public Education, in compliance with a
formal application on her behalf from the authorities of the university. She
accordingly returned home, and when sufficiently recovered to resume her
studies, took up her abode with a relative at
(p.
19)
Letitia Going, a vegetarian lady and a spiritualist, who lived in
During the Christmas interval, which he had spent with Anna Kingsford and her
husband at their home in
“In the towns I had, of course, been accustomed to see the festival of the
nativity of the Divine Life that had been born into the world celebrated by the
public exhibition in the provision shops of the hecatombs of animal corpses
stripped of their skins. But this fair village among the peaceful hills far
surpassed in sacrificial enthusiasm any homage which a town could render to the
gory Moloch of our national orthodoxies. For some days before Christmas the
population had been engaged in the annual killing of their pigs, a process which
for that whole period had involved the incessant piercing of the skies by the
agonised screams of the innocents thus massacred in advance.
The slaughter was finished by Christmas Eve, and the village sent out its
carollers over the country round to sing hallelujahs about the ‘Lord of Life,’
and ‘It was the joy of One,’ and ‘How beautiful upon the mountains’; and the
next morning saw them flocking to the village church to do further homage to the
Genius of the day by reciting services to the key-note of ‘Peace on earth, and
good will towards men!’ A thin fleece of new-fallen snow covered the ground, as
if sent expressly to signify that Nature, even if she had not condoned the
violence done to her in the persons of her porcine offspring, was anxious at
least for that sacred day to efface all evidence of the deed. But the attempt
was unsuccessful. For in the gutters between the whitened foot-way and road the
blood ran in streams, while every here and there a large ensanguined patch of
snow indicated the place of a standing pool of blood. The decorations of the
church, and the vigour of the devotions of the congregation, whose responses
were fairly roared out, served to aggravate the incongruity of the whole, and to
remind one that that rough little village was but an epitome and résumé of all
Christendom, inasmuch as it
(p.
20)
was precisely
the combination of lip-service and blood-service, which ever constitute for a
priest-constructed orthodoxy the realisation of perfection. And I wondered
whether the Laureate could have had such a scene in his mind when he made his
Harold ask of one who had turned renegade –
‘What dost thou here,
Trampling thy mother’s bosom into
blood?’” (1)
(p. 21)
Reference has been made to the increased accessibility to ideas which Edward
Maitland, after his renunciation of flesh-foods, found himself possessed of. New
faculties now began to manifest themselves, and in them both. For, in 1876,
Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford found themselves possessed of psychic
faculties in such measure that “no longer did the veil which divides the world
sensible from the world spiritual constitute an impassable barrier, but both
were open to view, and the latter was as real and accessible as the former.”
Edward Maitland says:
“It
was about the middle of 1876 that this remarkable accession of faculty began to
manifest itself in plenitude, I being the first to experience it,
notwithstanding my previous total lack of any faculty of the kind, or of the
belief in the possibility of my having it. (...) I found myself – without
seeking for or expecting it – spiritually sensitive in respect of sight,
hearing, and touch, and in open, palpable relations with a world which I had no
difficulty in recognising as of celestial nature; so far did it transcend
everything of which I had heard or read in the annals of the contemporary
spiritualism; so entirely did it accord with my conceptions of the divine.”
Edward Maitland, so far as he was concerned, ascribed this accession of faculty
to, in part, the purification that his physical system had undergone by means of
his new dietary regimen. (1)
In
this connection, Edward Maitland relates the following interesting occurrence
which happened early in 1877, and which, he says, “while in itself singular in
the extreme, threw an unexpected light on an obscure part of the Bible and on
the spiritual significance of certain animal forms.” He and Anna Kingsford were
in
(p. 22)
near to you.” Edward
Maitland says:
“She told me of this vision in the course of the day, and drew for me some of
the forms of the animals; for so vivid had been the sight, that she had every
detail perfectly impressed on her mind. But through some interruption to our
conversation she omitted to tell me of the prohibition. She had, moreover, no
apprehension of any of the animals shewn coming in my way, or of my eating of
them should they do so.
In
the afternoon, however, owing to the presence of a visitor who desired something
different from the diet usual in the house, a lobster appeared on the table. At
this she [Anna Kingsford] was somewhat dismayed, for it gave rise to the
suggestion that her vision might be prophetic and have an unanticipated
significance. Even now, she did not tell me of the positive prohibition, but
imagined it was intended as a test; and that if I partook, she was not
go on her journey with me. Consequently, after a general remark from her,
intended as a dissuasion against the eating of anything that had to be put to so
cruel a death as is reputed of the lobster, I, regarding it as fish and
‘cold-blooded,’ and therefore, in the absence of a sufficiency of perfectly
insensitive food, allowable, partook of it, but through some cause I could not
define did no more than taste it. Shortly after this she rose, and quitted the
room, saying she should not be able to go that evening.
After venting her disappointment alone – for she had been eagerly looking
forward to he holiday – she returned, and said that she saw now that she had
been wrong in not having told me the whole vision; but that she had mistaken the
meaning of the words uttered, and that, as she now perceived, they were not a
test, but a positive prohibition. And we then sat down to consult our Genii (1) through the planchette (2) concerning the
occurrence, deeming it likely that the vision had been of their sending.
(p. 23)
We
both, as usual, placed our hands on the instrument; but, after waiting for some
time, there was no response. I then withdrew my hand in order to reduce the
amount of the light in the room, but sat down again without doing so on finding
that the writing had begun. On replacing my hand, it ceased. I withdrew it, and
it went on again. And so again the third time. Thereupon I withdrew it
altogether. It then wrote:
‘Let him go. We can do nothing with him now.’
‘For how long is this? Can we go tomorrow?’ we asked.
To
which it wrote:
‘If
he purge himself tonight, you may go; but he may ask nothing of us for seven
days.’
‘What is the meaning of this prohibition?’
‘The spirits who hold intercourse with you belong to an order which can have no
dealings with eaters of reptiles, whether of sea or land. For all things which
move upon the belly are cursed for the sake of the evil one, whose seal is set
on all serpents, dragons, and scorpions, such as we shewed you.’
In
answer to further questioning, they said:
‘If
he take a purge, you may go with him tomorrow.’
I
complied with their injunction, and the next morning we asked some further
questions respecting this strange affair. Among other queries, we inquired
whether they endorsed the whole of the Levitical code, for we had recognised and
found a passage corresponding to the above. To this they replied:
‘No, else you would have been destroyed already.’
‘Is
it right to eat flesh?’ was then asked; to which it was replied:
‘We
do not say it is right; and even for you it would be unlawful to eat flesh.’” (1)
On
another occasion, they were, in like manner, informed by their Genii
that:
(p. 24)
“Man’s perfect diet is grain, the juice of fruits, and the oil of nuts:” (1)
When the time came for her return to
During the time that Edward Maitland was with her, they received, through the
planchette, the following message: –
“Teach the doctrine of the Universal Soul and the Immortality of all creatures.
Knowledge of this is what the world most needs, and this is the key-note of your
joint mission. On this you must build; it is the key-stone of the arch. The
perfect life is not attainable for man alone. The whole world must be redeemed
under the new gospel you are to teach.” (2)
In
September Anna Kingsford returned home for a short time. The following extract
from a letter, dated 23rd September 1877, written by her to Edward
Maitland, records another of her wonderful experiences: one which has important
bearing on the subject of this book, and which she regarded as “a new revelation
of great import and of an astonishing nature”: and which, Edward Maitland says,
“contained several things which, at the time, were beyond not only our own but
the world’s knowledge, for their meaning had long been lost.” (3) In her letter she says:
“You must know that I passed yesterday afternoon in reading through the book Fruit
and Bread, which had been sent me anonymously. The book struck me much,
but I am bound to say that I did not attach any great importance to it, and
never dream that it had come into my hands in any other than an ordinary chance
fashion. I was not, therefore, exclusively in my thoughts when night came; and I
was by no means prepared for the vision which the (full) moonlight brought me
after I had gone to rest. I might keep it till we meet, but as possibly it might
by that time lose something of its vividness, or some of the words spoken might
slip my
(p. 25)
memory, I think it best to commit it
at once to paper while it is fresh in my mind.
I
saw in my sleep a great table spread upon a beautiful mountain, the distant
peaks of which were covered with snow, and brilliant with a bright light. (1)
Around the table reclined twelve persons, six male, six female, some of whom I
recognised at once, the others afterwards. Those whom I recognised at once were
Zeus, Hera, Pallas Athena, Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis. (2) I knew them by the
symbols they wore. The table was covered with all kinds of fruit, of great size,
including nuts, almonds, and olives, with flat cakes of bread, and cups of gold,
into which, before drinking, each divinity poured two sorts of liquid, one of
which was wine, the other water. As I was looking on, standing on a step a
little below the top of the flight which led to the table, I was startled by
seeing Hera suddenly fix her eyes on me, and say: ‘What seest thou at the lower
end of the table?’ And I looked, and answered: ‘I see two vacant seats.’ Then
she spoke again and said: ‘When you are able to eat of our food and to drink of
our cup, you also shall sit and feast with us.’ Scarcely had she uttered these
words, when Athena, who sat facing me, added: ‘When you are able to eat of our
food and to drink of our cup, then you shall know as you are known.’ And
immediately Artemis, whom I knew by the moon upon her head, continued: ‘When you
are able to eat of our food and drink of our cup, all things shall become pure
to you, and ye shall be made virgins.’ (3)
Then I said: ‘O Immortals, what is your food and your drink, and how does your
banquet differ from ours, seeing that we also eat no flesh, and blood has no
place in our repasts?’
Then one of Gods, whom at the time I did not know, but have since recognised as
Hermes, (4) rose from the table and,
(p. 26)
coming to me, put into my hands a
branch of a fig-tree bearing upon it ripe fruit, and said: ‘If you would be
perfect, and able to know and to do all things. Quit the heresy of Prometheus.
Let fire warm and comfort you externally; it is Heaven’s gift. But do not wrest
it from its rightful purpose, as did that betrayer of your race, to fill the
veins of humanity with its contagion, and to consume your interior being with
its breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the image which Prometheus made.
Ye are nourished with stolen fire, and it consumes you. Of all the evil uses of
Heaven’s good gifts, none is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your hot
foods and drinks have consumed and dried up the magnetic power of your nerves,
sealed your senses, and cut short your lives. Now, you neither see nor hear; for
the fire in your organs consumes your senses. Ye are all blind and deaf,
creatures of clay. We have sent you a book to read. Practice its precepts, and
your senses shall be opened. (...)’
‘Do you, then,’ I asked, ‘desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire in
preparing food and drink?’
Instead of answering my question, he said: ‘We shew you the excellent way.
(...) We have told you all that can be shewn you on the level on which you
stand. But our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your
reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified and have come up
higher. The conditions are GOD’S; the will is with you.’
These last words seemed to be repeated from the sky overhead, and again from
beneath my feet. And at the instant I fell, as if shot down like a meteor from a
vast height; and with the swiftness and shock of the fall I awoke.
You may guess how full my heart was! (...) I suspect that (...) we shall really
have to abandon the use of cooked foods, and to live like John the Baptist and
the old desert saints, before we can get what the Gods promise. Have you courage
sufficient for this? When one thinks what it is one is buying
at the price, the sacrifice seems a slight thing indeed. And in view of your
consenting, I will ask you to get some packets of ‘crushed wheat,’ instead of
the tea we were going to take out – the plain crushed wheat, I mean. I felt
curiously guilty this morning as I ate my egg and drank my hot coffee! And I had
always considered my food so simple and pure! Now I regard myself as a mere
groveller – a worm and an ‘image of clay.’ My mind is full of the Gods and of
Prometheus,
(p. 27)
and I can’t think of anything else
for five minutes together. (...)”
During the year 1877, she passed her first
Doctorat examen with distinction. (1)
Allied to the question of the slaughter of animals for food, is that of the
slaughter of animals for sacrifice. There are some who believe – or profess to
believe – that, many years ago, God commanded Moses to have animals slaughtered
for religious sacrifices! They base this belief on certain passages –which they
invariably interpret literally – that are to be found in the Bible; and this
alone, for them, is final and conclusive, and settles the matter; and they argue
that “as God commanded that animals were to be killed for sacrificial purposes,
it cannot be wrong for man to kill them for other purposes, such as food, etc.”
These Biblical advocates for animal slaughter, flesh-eating, and other
cruelties, never pray to be delivered from “blood-guiltiness,” or try to
understand what “blood-guiltiness” and “blood-thirstiness” mean; (2)
nor do they lay any, the least, stress on the fact that only those Statutes are
of the Lord (and therefore right), that “rejoice the heart”; (3)
nor do they believe that it has ever entered into the Divine Providence to “save
both man and beast,” (4) much less do they consider it to
be the distinguishing mark of “a righteous man” that he should regard “the life
of his beast”; (5) and as to believing or
feeling that “it is good not to eat flesh nor drink wine” (6)
– such thoughts, though to be found expressed in language most explicit in the
Bible, are far from them. It is sufficient for them that there are to be found
in the self-same Bible some passages which, apparently, justify flesh-eating and
other barbarous customs of which they approve: and this leads to the question
whether they rightly interpret the Bible or the part thereof to which they
appeal in justification of their wrong-doing.
In
June 1878, Anna Kingsford received, in sleep, an instruction Concerning the Interpretation of the Mystical
Scriptures, (7) which has a very important
bearing on the subject of Biblical interpretation in connection with animal
sacrifice. A portion of this instruction she read in a book, in a library
purporting to be that of Emanuel Swedenborg. The remainder
(p. 28)
of it she heard delivered
as a lecture “by a man in priestly garb, in an amphitheatre of white stone, to a
class of students (of whom she was one), who took notes of it.” What she had
read, she wrote down immediately on waking, and the notes that she had taken of
what she had heard, she was also, on waking, able to reproduce from memory, her
memory having been abnormally enhanced, for “the words presented themselves
again to her as she wrote, and stood out luminously to view.” (1) The gist of the Instruction was
that the “Books of Moses the Prophet”
are not historical but mystical, and ought, therefore, to receive not a literal
but a mystic or allegorical consideration; and a considerable portion of it was
used by Edward Maitland in his Lecture on Vegetarianism and the Bible, (2)
which appears in another part of this book.
The
following passage on the sacrifices said to have been offered up by Cain and
Abel respectively is of interest: –
“It is not to be supposed that the two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of
Adam were real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed that the Apple
which caused the Doom of Mankind was a real apple. It ought to be known, indeed,
for the right Understanding of the Mystical Books, that in their esoteric sense
they deal, not with material Things, but with spiritual Realities; and that as
Adam is not a Man, nor Eve a Woman, nor the Tree a Plant in its true
signification, so also are not the Beasts named in the same Books real Beasts,
but that the Mystic Intention of them, is implied. When, therefore, it is
written that Abel took of the Firstlings of his Flock to offer unto the Lord, it
is signified that he offered that which a Lamb implies, and which is the holiest
and highest of Spiritual Gifts. Nor is Abel himself a real Person, but the Type
and spiritual Presentation of the Race of the Prophets; of whom, also, Moses was
a Member, together with the Patriarchs. (...)
They are Idolaters who understand the Things of Sense where the Things of the
Spirit are alone implied.” (3)
At
the beginning of June 1878, her second
Doctorat examen, which she was anxious to pass with as much distinction as
she had passed her first, was pending. The date originally fixed for this
examination was 5th June, “but her professor, distrusting
(p. 29)
the examiners appointed
for the occasion, partly because of the known hostility of some of them to women
students, and partly because he had prepared her from books other than those
written by the examiners themselves – a circumstance likely to be resented by
them – had persuaded her to get the date of her examination postponed for a few
days, when another set of examiners would officiate.”
(1)
Edward Maitland says:
“So eager was she to test her condition that [on 5th June] she went
all the way to the Schools, when having no call to go, in order to listen to the
examination the going on – the subjects beings those of her next ordeal – and to
compare the answers given with those that she herself was prepared to give, the
examination being vivâ voce. Her
delight on returning was unbounded. She could have answered every question put
far better than any of the students, she declared, and would have distanced them
all had she been one of the class. (2) (...) The day finally
appointed [for her examination] was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm, which
cleared off, but just in time to render her going possible; for, while it
lasted, the streets were flooded, and no vehicle was procurable. The storm,
moreover, had produced the usual distressing effect upon her nervous system –
for she was excessively sensitive to electric disturbances – so that I begged
her to give up the intention of going in for her examen on that day. But she was bent on
it. She had worked long and hard, and shrank from the strain of further delay;
and, moreover, was confident of being thoroughly up in her subjects, and she had
never yet failed to pass well. It was not her mental but her physical state that
led me to distrust her fitness. (...) So we set off for the Schools. The examen was to occupy two days. Her report
to me of the first day augured ill for the chances of success. Of the three
examiners, two had been all that could be desired; but the third, a Dr N– –, who
had been substituted at the last moment, was known to her as one of a clique in
the Faculté
who violently objected to the admission of women to diplomas, and were
determined to make the examinations impossible for them. His hostility to her
was evinced from the moment that she presented herself, his manner, which to the
male students had been kind and considerate, at once becoming stern and
forbidding in the highest degree. And
(p. 30)
when he found that she returned
perfect answers in all the subjects properly comprised in the examination, he
questioned her on others, referring to the most abstruse and recondite diseases,
some of them of such rare occurrence that their very existence is denied by many
doctors. And, finding no cause of complaint against her in respect of these, he
endeavoured to break down her self-possession by committing the outrage of
putting to her the most embarrassing questions which could possibly be put to a
young woman in the presence of men, going far outside the usual range of
subjects for the purpose. This exhibition of his enmity put a terrible strain on
her nerves, but she bore it without flinching, knowing that he was technically
within his right, and resolved not to afford him the pretext which he was
seeking of refusing to pass her. It was only when it came to
l’épreuve pratique, which involved manual
dexterity, that the effect showed itself. She had controlled her mind, but she
could not control her muscles. And the consequence was that her hands trembled
over the piece of dissection appointed her, and the work was done somewhat less
artistically than otherwise would have been the case, and than she had been wont
to do it. This gave the professor the desired opportunity, and though the
comparative failure was obviously due partly to the nervousness induced by
himself, and partly to the clumsiness of the student told off to hold the
subject for her, he refused to sign her note of approval.
From her other two examiners she had obtained the warmest commendations.
‘Madame,’ said one of them, with a deferential bow, ‘you know your subjects
perfectly.’ ‘Madame,’ said the other, ‘I have absolutely nothing to reproach you
with.’ They felt deeply the injustice and hardship shown to one whom they
recognised as exceptionally gifted and industrious, and the discredit done to
their university and their order in thus treating a woman for being a woman
after opening their doors to women. But he remained inexorable, declaring that
under no circumstances would he and his party suffer a woman to pass. And so
deeply did his colleagues feel the matter that they met expressly to discuss it,
with the result that an offer was made to give her a fresh and merely formal
examination in the following month with an unprejudiced professor in his place.
The offer came too late. The disappointment and indignation felt by her were too
much for a system always highly
(p. 31)
strung and fragile, but now sorely
overwrought. A condition set in of intense
commotion cérébrale, under which she refused to return home, as she could
not bear the sight, she said, of the books and study which had brought her to
such an end; and there was nothing for it but to tell the driver of our fiacre to go round the Bois. After
driving for an hour or two, she said she would go home and put some things
together, and go to the seaside.
(p. 32)
And, as it was, the form taken by her
malady was in defiance of all precedent. For, while the stroke was on the left
side of the brain, the paralysis also was on that side, instead of following the
course of the nerves and crossing over to the right. And, besides, the French
doctors were all vivisectors, and as they could not take a fee from a medical
student, they would have no interest in trying to cure her.” (1)
When, shortly after, her husband joined her, they all left
Writing, under date of 29th September, in his diary, Edward Maitland
says:
“This morning she had a dreadful access of inability to breathe owing to the
constriction of the muscles of the heart, and thought her last moment had come.
In this extremity, she was startled by hearing a loud voice utter within her, in
an imperative tone, the exclamation, ‘Live!’” (3)
In
spite of her condition, during the month of September, she received from her
Illuminators – whom she called “the Gods” – an instruction of great value,
which, Edward Maitland says, out of consideration for her still remaining
weakness of memory:
“(…) was projected into her mind,
verse by verse, to be written down at once, no second verse being given her
until she had written down the last received. The communication commenced
shortly before she rose, and was continued at intervals during the whole time
she was dressing.” (4)
In
this instruction, which purported to come from Hermes, Anna Kingsford and Edward
Maitland were exhorted as follows: –
“Purify your bodies, and eat no dead thing that has looked with living eyes upon
the light of Heaven.
For the eye is the symbol of brotherhood among you.
(p. 33)
Sight is the mystical sense.
Let no man take the life of his brother to feed withal his own.
But slay only such as are evil; in the name of the Lord. (1)
They are miserably deceived who expect eternal life, and restrain not their
hands from blood and death.” (2)
In
October, she was much better, as the following entry in Edward Maitland’s diary
shows:
“13th October. – Since 29th
September when the Spirit commanded her to ‘live,’ [she] has been marvellously
better, having had no return of her heart trouble or difficulty in breathing.
She has taken no drugs, and has lived as simply and moderately as possible –
mainly on bread and fruit, avoiding hot foods and drinks. I, too, have done
likewise, with manifest advantage to health, comfort, and lucidity.” (3)
Before the close of the year she “passed with high credit and perfect ease the examen for which she had been so
unjustly and cruelly réfusée,” and
shortly afterwards, in 1879, “an intense spell of work, extending over three
months, was rewarded by her passage of a somewhat dreaded examination in
chemistry with the highest notes of approbation.” (4)
In
1880, she entered on the last year of her student course, provided all went
well. But her persistent refusal to allow her professors to vivisect at her
lessons continued to subject her not only to constant altercations with them,
but to a constant change of them. (5)
Having passed her Doctorat examens
with the highest credit, and accomplished her course in the shortest possible
period – saving only for the single failure above mentioned, the fault of which
was not hers – there remained only the acceptance of the thesis, by which the
granting of a diploma is preceded, for her to complete her student course, and
be qualified to enter on the practice of her profession as an M.D. of the
(p. 34)
Faculté de Paris. Edward Maitland says:
“She resolved to make her thesis an exposition of the principles on behalf of
which she sought a diploma, entitling it De l’Alimentation Végétale chez l’Homme. In it she demonstrated the non-carnivorous nature of man, as
determined by his physical structure and moral constitution, and advocated a
return to his natural diet as the remedy for the evils which afflict modern
society. In a treatise thus conceived the wrongs and the sufferings of the
animals inseparable from the use of them as food necessarily held a conspicuous
place in the moral division of the argument; and though there was no opening for
a direct denunciation of scientific experimentation upon them, the whole tone of
the paper pointed unmistakably in that direction. It was the usage for the
candidates for a diploma to recite their theses in the Schools before an
audience of professors and students, and to defend them in open disputation. And
she was so full of her subject and confident of the impregnability of her
position, as well as of her ability to do justice to it even in a foreign
language, that she looked forward with ardour to an ordeal usually regarded with
terror. Her disappointment, therefore, and consternation were great when, on
presenting herself at the appointed time and place, the chef of her hospital – Professor Léon Le Fort – came forward and
informed her that her thesis could not be received as it stood; not because it
was unscientific – its accuracy was unimpeachable in that respect – but because
it was moral! He himself, he declared, and some of his colleagues did not object
to it on that score; and, indeed, now that they had admitted women, they could
not expect altogether to exclude sentiment, at least for the present: but there
were some of their number, one in particular, whose position made it impossible
to disregard them, and who were enraged at its tone, and the only course open
was to postpone the reading until the obnoxious portions had been eliminated,
when she would be called up again and passed, but without a public disputation.
For, though admitting it to be scientifically sound, the
Faculté could not allow teaching so opposed to all their traditions to be
promulgated among the students. Meanwhile, he himself would make the necessary
excisions, and she might be perfectly easy about the result. It would only
involve a delay of a few weeks. (...) We were not long in ascertaining the name
of the chief objector. He was one of the party most violently opposed
(p. 35)
to the admission of women to degrees.
And from the accounts which reached us of the discussions, and even dissensions,
which arose among them over the thesis, it was evident that these inveterate
patrons of the shambles and the torture-chamber fairly writhed under the thought
that such a protest on behalf of mercy and purity of life could have emanated
from one trained in their school. It was a veritable thrust from the spear of
Ithuriel, and the hand had dealt it was a woman’s!” (1)
The
day finally appointed for the thesis was 22nd July 1880. Edward
Maitland says:
“On repairing to the Schools, we found her friendly chef and two other
professors waiting to examine her on the subject of her thesis, and such others
as might choose, in a small room and with closed doors, myself as next friend
being the only other auditor. The examination took the form of a friendly
conversation, in which it was evident the professors each and all took no small
pleasure in drawing out a candidate whom they recognised as of exceptional
endowments. Finding them thus sympathique, she was perfectly at
her ease, and did full justice to her faculty of eloquent and lucid exposition.
On the conclusion of the function her chef, who evidently took no small
credit to himself for having composed the difference which menaced her diploma,
warmly shook hands with me, and congratulated me on her success, saying, ‘Madame
is now one of us’; to which I mentally replied, ‘Yes, but with a very
considerable difference.’ (...) The novelty and importance of the subject, her
courage in selecting such a theme, the talent shewn in the treatment, and the
disputation to which it had given rise, secured for the thesis a demand
altogether exceptional in the case of such productions, to the speedy exhaustion
of the first edition and issue of a second. (2)
And the question received an impulsion which extended over the Continent
generally, leading to the formation of vegetarian societies, several medical men
warmly supporting the cause.” (3)
In
the following month she graduated in
(p. 36)
she never attended at any
place or on any occasion where or on which vivisection took place, it having
been an essential part of her plan to prove that such experimentation was not
necessary for a degree. And this she effectually demonstrated by accomplishing
her student course with rare expedition and distinction, despite her many and
severe illnesses and her frequent change of professors, who, one after another,
resigned the office on account of her refusal to allow them to experiment on
live animals at her lessons. (1)
Concerning the obtaining by her of her qualification to practise as an M.D. of
the Faculté de Médecine of Paris, Edward
Maitland says: “Of the cost in toil and suffering, physical and mental, at which
that privilege was obtained,” the Life
of Anna Kingsford “gives at best but a faint indication. For, being
limited to things occurring in space and time, history cannot take account of
the dimension which is conditioned by intensity.” (2)
Only those who know what it is to be hypersensitive to their spiritual
surroundings can imagine the keen agony to her of the associations to which she
was in the
One
of the trio of examiners at whose hands she received her diploma, was Professor
Charles Richet. Edward Maitland says:
“He was so much struck by her, that he invited her to a vegetarian repast at his
house, given expressly in her honour; and she was not without hope of enlisting
him on her side in the vegetarian and anti-vivisection causes. For she read in
him a possibility of higher things. But the rival influences prevailed. His soul
was quenched, and he became one of the leading experimentalists of the day.” (4)
On
quitting
(p. 37)
“Eat no dead thing. Drink no fermented drink. Make living elements of all the
elements of your body. Mortify the members of earth. Take your food full of
life, and let not the touch of death pass upon it. (...) Hephaistos [the
Fire-Spirit] is a destroyer, and the breath of fire is a touch of death. The
fire that passes on the elements of your food deprives them of their vital
spirit, and gives you a corpse instead of living substance. And not only so, but
the spirit of the fire enters into the elements of your body, and sets up in all
its molecules a consuming and a burning, impelling to concupiscence and to the
desire of the flesh. The spirit of the fire is a subtle spirit, a penetrative
and diffusive spirit; and it enters into the substance of all matter upon which
it acts. When, therefore, you take such substance into your organism, you take
with it the spirit of the fire, and you assimilate it together with the matter
of which it has become a part. I speak to you of excellent things. If you would
become a Man of Power, you must be master of the Fire.” (3)
The
following incident shews how adverse the conditions of modern life in this
country were to their spiritual work. Edward Maitland says:
“Being in
(p. 38)
whirls round as in a cloud of blood
like red fire. He says distinctly and emphatically that the salvation of the world is
impossible while people nourish themselves on blood. The whole globe is like one vast charnel-house. The magnetism is
intercepted. The blood strengthens the bonds between the Astrals and the Earth.
(...) This time, which ought to be the best for spiritual communion, is the
worst, on account of the horrid mode of living. Pray wake me up. I cannot bear
looking, for I see the blood and hear the cries of the poor slaughtered
creatures.’ Here her distress was so extreme that she wept bitterly, and some
days passed before she fully recovered her composure.” (1)
In
1881 Anna Kingsford had some further remarkable experiences. In March of that
year she was the recipient of a vision
Concerning Three Veils which separate
Man from God. (2) It is too long for insertion here. The purport of it was to
teach mankind the absolute necessity for “purity of life, purity of heart, and
purity of doctrine.” The three veils to be removed were “Blood, Idolatry, and
the Curse of Eve,” and in her vision it was given to her to withdraw them. She
was told: “To you it is given to withdraw them; be faithful and courageous; the
time has come.” And the command given was: “Put away blood from among you!” It
is for the purpose partly of shewing how faithfully and courageously Anna
Kingsford withdrew the first of these three veils that this Preface has been
written.
In
the same month she received, also in sleep, an Illumination Concerning the Greek Mysteries, (3) from which the following
passages, being of very great interest, are taken: –
“In the celebration of the mysteries of Phoibos Apollo, (4) it was forbidden to
eat anything upon which terrestrial fire had passed. Wherefore all the food of
his votaries was sun-baked, and his chief sacrifice consisted in fruits from
high trees ripened by the sun’s rays. With these mysteries of Apollo were
associated those of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen.
(p. 39)
(…) It was, therefore, an offence
against Phoibos and Zeus for their votaries to eat anything on which fire had
passed, or any fermented wine. Their wine was the pure juice of the grape
drunken new, and their bread was unleavened and sun-baked. (1) (...)
In the mysteries of Hermes, the second circle – the God who guards the Soul – it
was forbidden to eat any creature which had life, or, rather, which had seeing
eyes. (2) For Hermes is the Seer. His votaries partook only of
vegetable food, which might be cooked with terrestrial fire, and of wine, which
might be fermented.” (3)
And
in May she received, also in sleep, an instruction concerning the degradation of
religion through the materialisation of the spiritual doctrine of sacrifice. In her vision, her Genius led her into
a large hall of temple-like structure, where she saw four bullocks lying
slaughtered upon altars, and a number of persons standing round in the act of
adoration. And above the altars, in the fumes arising from the spirits of the
blood of the slain beasts, were misty colossal shapes, half formed, from the
waist upwards, and resembling the Gods. (4) And her Genius said: “These are
Astrals, and thus will they do until the end of the world.” (5)
I
have referred to their book, The
(p. 40)
which was necessary for
them both, especially for her: that “the prohibition about fish related to the
highest mode of life,” and that these things were matters of Caste or Degree,
and they were not yet of the highest, so that it was not obligatory on them to
abstain from fish. But, while eating fish, they were to consider themselves of
“a lower caste.” This permission, of course, did not extend to allow of flesh
being eaten. (1)
Speaking of their method of work in preparing the Perfect Way lectures, Edward Maitland
says that it “consisted in the forcible projection of the mind’s perceptive
point inwards and upwards to its central and radiant point in search of the
informing idea of any phenomenal fact, following meanwhile the mode of life
which always has been found essential to such introvision, one indispensable
condition being the renunciation of flesh as food.” (2)
The
Bearing in mind the instructions given to them, when referring in one of his
lectures to certain knowledge appertaining to the Greater Mysteries, Edward
Maitland said:
“Such knowledge is reserved for those who have fulfilled the conditions
requisite for initiation therein. Of those conditions, the first is the complete
renunciation of a diet of flesh, the reason being fourfold, – spiritual, moral,
intellectual, and physical, – according to the fourfold constitution of man.
This is imperative. Man cannot receive, the Gods will not impart, the mysteries
of the
(p. 41)
On
the subject of vegetarianism, Anna Kingsford said:
“In
eating flesh, and thereby ingesting the blood principle – flesh
and blood being inseparable – man sacrifices to the astral emanations of
his own magnetic atmosphere, and so doing, ministers to the terrene and
corruptible. This it is to ‘eat of things offered to idols,’ for blood is the
food of the astral eidola, and the eater of blood is
infested by them.” (1)
“And, let us say boldly, and without fear of contradiction from those who really
know, that the Interior life and the clear Heaven are not attainable by men who
are partakers of blood: men whose mental atmosphere is thick with the fumes of
daily sacrifices to idols. For so long as these shadows infest the Man,
obscuring the expanse of the higher and divine Ether beyond, he remains unable
to detach himself from the love for Matter and from the attractions of Sense,
and can at best but dimly discern the Light of the Spiritual Sun.
Abstinence from bloody oblations on all planes is therefore the gate of the
In
another lecture she said:
“Paradise can never be regained, Regeneration never completed, man never fully
redeemed, until the body is brought under the law of
(p. 42)
the
On another occasion, being in a condition of clairvoyance, Anna Kingsford said:
“Many particulars are shewn to me about diet. (...) Food should be cold and
uncooked, and no fermented drinks used. Cakes should be sun-baked in a kiln,
that the particles may become polarised by the sun’s magnetism. I see a row of
cakes being baked in this way in
Three interesting letters, entitled
Letters on Pure Diet, written by Anna Kingsford, appeared in the July and
October 1881 and January 1882 numbers of The Food Reform Magazine, then
recently established. The second and third of these letters – on the subject of
Jesus and flesh-eating – being of particular interest. They are reprinted in
this book.
The
year 1881, also, saw the publication of an English edition of the thesis which
Anna Kingsford had written in
“If
any into whose hands this book may fall should be inclined to think me
over-enthusiastic, or to stigmatise my views as ‘Utopian,’ I would ask him
seriously to consider whether ‘Utopia’ be not indeed within the realisation of
all who can imagine and love it, and whether, without enthusiasm, any great
cause was ever yet won for our race. Man is the master of the world, and may
make it what he will. Into his hands it is delivered with all its mighty
possibilities for good or evil, for happiness or misery. Following the monitions
and devices of the sub-human, he may make of it – what, indeed, for some gentle
and tender souls it has already become – a very hell; working with God and
Nature, he may reconvert it into
The
book immediately attracted the attention of the scientific world, being
considered a work of great value, and it became the pioneer of the modern
movement towards a pure
(p. 43)
and bloodless diet. I have
been told, recently, on good authority, that in this country The
Perfect Way in Diet has done more for the vegetarian cause than any
other book has done – and this after an interval of twenty-nine years from its
publication, and notwithstanding the many books that have been written on the
subject since its publication in 1881.
An
idea of the comprehensiveness of The Perfect Way in Diet may be
gathered from the fact that it treats of (inter
alia) anatomy and physiology, cookery, physical force, food values, national
habits, chemistry, effects and dangers of flesh food, alcoholism,
slaughter-houses, social considerations, (1) sufferings of cattle and
over-breeding, treatment of disease, economical considerations, the leather
question, the fur trade, the manure question, and sport. In this book, Anna
Kingsford says:
“The most excellent and proper aliments of which our race can make use consist
of tree-fruits and seeds – and these uncooked – and not of the plants
themselves, whether foliage or roots.” (2)
At
the same time, she admits that:
“(…) through a combination
of natural and artificial causes, this best mode of subsistence has become
impossible to the majority of persons in certain parts of the globe, and it
seems, therefore, wise and consistent that they should increase the variety and
range of their food by recourse to cookery.” (3)
But, she says:
“(…) fire can be only used
legitimately by man for the preparation of those vegetables, herbaceous plants,
roots, and hard fruits, which he cannot properly masticate when raw, and for the
digestion of which, in that condition, the anatomy and physiology of his system
are not adapted.” (4)
To
such extent, fire is allowed to be used to make palatable and digestible
non-natural foods, and man may live – he may be bound to live – wholly or
partially on such foods. By the use of fire, man is given a choice between
Nature and Art. But, Anna Kingsford points out, the choice between the garden
and the slaughter-house – which the use of fire also gives – involves very
different considerations. For, as she says, “the culture, harvesting, and
preparation of all vegetable produce are alike in harmony with the interests of
morality, of individual and of public health,
(p. 44)
of social and
private economy, and of that love of beauty, virtue, and consistent philosophy
which dominates the nature of all gentle and civilised humanity”; but “each one
of these interests is wounded, and that violently, by the abuse of the art of
cookery in the hands of the man who degrades himself by its means to the level
of the beast of prey.” (1)
In 1882, speaking on the subject of vegetarianism at a temperance meeting at
Church Lawford, Edward Maitland said:
“I
find myself [as a vegetarian] so much the better in both body and mind that I am
quite convinced that no one can be the best that he has it in him to be until he
has become an abstainer not only as regards drink, but as regards flesh. (...) I
don’t, however, recommend you to eat only what are called vegetables, such as
cabbage, carrots, and turnips. Men are not root or herb eaters, but fruit and
grain eaters by nature: and it is on this diet that we thrive best when once we
have become properly accustomed to it.”
In
the month of April 1882, Anna Kingsford gave a lecture On Food before the students of
(p. 45)
broke up, and she found
herself “struck down with a chill,” which, settling on the lungs, produced so
serious an illness as to lead those whom they consulted to urge on her an
instant flight to a milder climate. She would never, they declared, get over her
attack if she remained at that season in
The
publication, in 1882, of The Perfect Way lectures (3)
was followed by a correspondence, which continued for some months, in the then
new weekly paper, Light – the official organ of the Spiritualists. Anna
Kingsford’s and Edward Maitland’s contributions to the controversy consisted of
three joint articles, entitled, The Perfect Way and its Critics, which are of very great interest. (4)
Part of the controversy, of course, had to do with the food question, and, in
this connection,
(p. 46)
among professing
Christians, and that no inconsiderable number of them refrained on principle
from bloody meats.” They said:
“If
we listen to tradition, and study such historical memoranda as we possess on the
subject, we shall find that Paul himself was the innovator, and that the general
habits and teaching of the
[Our critic] seems to argue that the superiority of certain races is due to
their habit of flesh-eating. As well might he
(p. 47)
assert it to be due to
their not less universal habit of dram-drinking. Both habits are equally abuses
and drawbacks, and have doubtless withheld these very races from the higher and
interior civilisation they have hitherto invariably and significantly failed to
reach. For there can be no true and perfect civilisation without sympathy and
solidarity between all the children of God’s family, and without the recognition
of the fact which must be the basis of that solidarity, – that the same Spirit
breathes in all, that the same Destiny is over all, and that the same
Immortality is the heritage of all, no matter on what round of the ladder each
individual soul, at any given time, may stand. To kill, to devour, or to torture
any sentient fellow-being for a selfish end, is a breach of the law of
solidarity, and there is but a question of degree between the murder of an ox
and that of a man (Isa. lxvi. 3). (...)
Against the use of wine we have said
nothing; on this subject we leave [our critic] to make peace between Paul and
the Nazarenes, to whose number Jesus, John the Baptist, and many a saint and
hero of the Old Testament, belonged.” (1)
Writing, in the same controversy, on the relation of religion to diet, Edward
Maitland very aptly pointed out that:
“As
the regulator of conduct, religion is necessarily the regulator of diet. For
diet is a department of conduct, and this as respects quality as well as
quantity. To deny the relation in question is to repudiate the practice of
temperance, whether in eating or drinking, as a religious duty, and to admit
cannibals, gluttons, and drunkards to the
(p. 48)
at once pure in itself,
and righteously come by, can the spirit within (the ‘God of the man,’ as I have
termed it) extract the elements needful for the
edification
of the individual to the full stature of his due perfection.” (1)
They remained in
“I
think that possibly you may like to reproduce an article which has recently
appeared in a French newspaper, and of which, therefore, I enclose a
translation. I have seen several of the advertisements, ‘Bains de Sang’ (Baths of Blood), to which
the article refers, and I know a Parisian lady whose doctor told her that she
would probably die if she did not consent to go to the slaughter-house in the
morning and drink blood. He said she had tubercular symptoms, and that nothing
else could save her. She refused to comply, and recovered.
This ‘blood mania’ is, in fact, the last new medical craze, and it may interest
your readers to see what is thus the practical outcome of vivisection and
carnivorous tastes, encouraged as they are here in this atheistic city of
Paris.” (2)
Edward Maitland says:
“The article contained a graphic description of the scene at the abattoirs in
the Rue de Flanders, the files of elegant equipages of the upper classes drawn
up before them, and their dainty occupants awaiting in the buildings the
slaughtering of the ‘mild-eyed oxen,’ and then quaffing bowls of the fresh-shed,
steaming blood; while others supplement or vary the process by having baths of
blood at home.” (3)
(p. 49)
Their Swiss campaign opened distressfully, she having to remain for several days
at
On
20th May they returned to
In
August they went together to Atcham, “to prepare for a lecturing tour” which
they had undertaken on behalf of the Vegetarian Society. The expedition occupied
them from 21st September till the middle of October 1883, when they
returned to Atcham, having held public conferences at
Edward Maitland says:
“The most notable features of this tour were, first, the indescribable
enthusiasm everywhere evinced for Anna Kingsford on account of the eloquence and
luminousness of her expositions and the charm of her personality; and, secondly,
the intensity of her physical sufferings, and the manner in which her spirit
rose superior to them and carried her triumphantly through. She had left home
ill, the
(p. 50)
climatic conditions of the
place having proved in the highest degree deleterious to her, and each day’s
journey had completely prostrated her, sometimes inducing total loss of
consciousness while in the train, and always culminating in agonising neuralgic
headache on arrival, rendering her to all appearance utterly incapable for the
appointed task of the evening. Her one remedy was the immersion of the lower
limbs in water as hot as she could bear it; and thus would she occupy herself
until the last moment before starting for the lecture-hall. Arrived there, she
was a new person, and for the hour, or hour and a half, of her address would
stand firm, confident, and self-possessed, and pour forth unfalteringly that
which she had to say, with a natural spontaneous eloquence which kept her
audience spell-bound, to be greeted at the close with an outburst of applause,
electrical for its vehemence, and seeming as if with difficulty repressed until
then.
The
tributes rendered to her gift were many and striking. Even persons of slender
culture and ordinarily unimpressible would declare, whatever the subject might
be, they would go any distance to hear her. Speaking of her one day, a notable
publicist and philanthropist, himself an admirable speaker, declared of himself
and his compeers that they always felt when listening to her as if they were
beings of an inferior order hearkening to the utterances of some superior being
who had come down to teach them. She herself and her teaching seemed alike to be
to her hearers as a new revelation of human possibilities.” (1)
After a few days’ rest at Atcham, they visited
It
was probably during this lecture tour that, when speaking to a vegetarian
society at
“Among the many excellent grounds, economic, hygienic, aesthetic, and moral, on
which we abstainers from a diet of flesh are entitled to congratulate ourselves,
there is one which, in my view, not only surpasses all others, but which calls
at this time (3) for special recognition. This is the
(p.51)
consciousness we enjoy
that, in virtue of our innocuous mode of living, we constitute in our own
persons, as do no others of mankind, living temples for the divine principle of
Justice, and on all occasions where Justice is involved, can stand forth as
champions of the oppressed and redressers of wrong, without liability to
reproach on the score of inconsistency. (...)
Unless they
[the animals] do something to merit harsh treatment, let us not accord them harsh
treatment. Using without abusing: not willfully inflicting on them any
incompensatable injury or suffering; training them, as our children, by means of
kindly discipline, to lead useful lives, and so both ministering to their
happiness in the present and fitting them for higher forms in the future:
slaying, in obedience to the law of self-preservation, such only as are noxious
and dangerous, or, for pity’s sake, those which are hopelessly suffering. Such
is the
In May of the following
year (1884) they visited Exeter “to take part in a public demonstration in the
vegetarian cause, where Anna Kingsford was the principal speaker,” in June they
were in Paris on behalf of the anti-vivisection cause, (2)
and in December they went on a lecturing tour to Leeds, Hull, Birmingham, and
Cheltenham, her subjects being, as before, vegetarianism and vivisection. “She
had everywhere the same success and recognition as on her previous tour, but
also, as then, a vast amount of physical suffering”: (3) and towards the close
of the year she undertook to write a weekly letter to the Lady’s Pictorial on
subjects connected with Hygiene. This involved a very heavy correspondence with
individuals, and it brought to her a considerable private practice. By this
(p. 52)
means, also, she was able to a great
deal to advance the cause of humanity that she had so much at heart. (1)
The year 1884 was a
memorable one for vegetarians. During that year there was held, in London, an
International Health Exhibition, and the Vegetarian Society – which had its
headquarters in Manchester (2) – obtained space for and opened a
dining-room in the Exhibition for the purpose of demonstrating in practical
fashion the truth of its teaching, and circulating literature advocating pure
and humane diet; and a series of public lectures was given on the subject. In
consequence of a decision come to at the close of the Exhibition, the Society,
on 12th January 1885, held a great meeting at Exeter Hall, in London,
at which addresses were given by prominent vegetarians who dealt with various
aspects of the food question. This meeting attracted considerable attention, and
many leading articles were written upon it. The chair was taken by Edwin Collier
(the then Treasurer of the Society), and the speakers included W.E.A. Axon, the
Rev. Professor J.E.B. Mayor, Dr Anna Kingsford, Edward Maitland, T.R. Allison,
William Harrison, Thos. Baker, the Rev. M. de Colleville, the Rev. W.J. Monk,
Lieut. Richardson, W.S. Manning, T.W. Platten, and others. Anna Kingsford spoke
on “The Physiology of Vegetarianism”; and Edward Maitland on “The
Higher Aspects of Vegetarianism.”
On 15th May
1885 Anna Kingsford wrote to her friend Lady Caithness as follows:
“I enclose
you a form of petition sent to me for signature. (...) I have already obtained
nearly seventy names to it, and I send a form to you, begging you to sign it,
and to get all the friends you can to sign also. As you see, it is a petition to
Pope Leo XIII., calling on him to instruct the Catholic Church on the subject of
humanity to animals, – a long-neglected matter, which I understand his Holiness
has promised to take up if the Christian worlds shews itself anxious to receive
the expression of his opinion. (...) Vivisection is not specifically mentioned,
the basis of the request being as indefinite and general as possible. But I am
sure you will agree with me that the expression of the Pontiff’s views in favour
of the kind treatment of animals is enormously
(p. 53)
needed in Catholic
countries.”
The petition, ultimately,
proved to be a hapless one:
“Hapless
because, although having some hundreds of thousands of signatures, it was
refused presentation on the ground that the effect of a papal utterance on the
subject would be to burden the conscience of the faithful with a new sin to
confess, and one of which a precise definition was impracticable.” (1)
Some two years later, when
she was in
“The great
need of the popular form of the Christian religion is precisely a belief in the
solidarity of all living things. It is in this that Buddhism surpasses
Christianity – in this divine recognition of the universal right to charity. Who
can doubt it who visits
(p. 54)
it – solemnly I say it – I
should doubt also the justice of God. How could I tell He would be just to man
if so bitterly unjust to the dear animals?” (1)
Writing in her diary of
her Roman experiences, she said:
“I went [to
In the autumn of 1885 Anna
Kingsford and Edward Maitland went on a nearly six weeks’ lecture tour, during
which she delivered fifteen public addresses. (3)
They visited
“At all
these places she addressed large audiences, public and private, with her wonted
power and acceptance, betraying no signs of the ill-health from which she was
suffering, her enthusiasm for the causes advocated always sufficing to sustain
her through the effort, however arduous, and lifting her to a plane at which she
was superior to all limitations.” (4)
In 1886 Anna Kingsford –
then being in
(p. 55)
climate. The wrench for us all was a
severe one, for we were never so happy as at the Vicarage, and it was an ideal
place for study and work.” (1) She determined to go to Paris; to
which place she and Edward Maitland went, via
(p. 56)
On 17th November, being
then in the very weak state of health that I have described, Anna Kingsford was
caught in a heavy rain while returning home after going to the Pasteur Institute
with a view to witnessing Pasteur’s procedure and obtaining information to
strengthen her hands with the public against his system. The visit had been a
fruitless one, owing to her having gone at a wrong hour; and, on her return
home, she was “struck down by a severe attack of pneumonia, which for a time
threatened to carry her off. But after an incredible amount of suffering – so
extraordinary was her vitality – she rallied.” This was the beginning of a “long
and terrible illness,” from which she never really recovered. It marked the
beginning of the end. And it was not until 15th February of the
following year (1887) that she was well enough to leave
(p. 57)
unimpaired vigour. Though her medical
knowledge told her that, physiologically, she had no right to look for a
recovery, she eagerly adopted every means which promised to conduce to a cure,
including the taking of “the most nutritious diet compatible with her
principles, though not such as satisfied her doctor, whom she plainly told that
she preferred to die, if die she must, as a vegetarian, than to live as a
flesh-eater, so greatly did she loathe the idea as well as disapprove the
practice.” (1) But as the weeks passed, it became only too evident that she
was getting weaker and weaker. She said it would be no kindness for people to
wish to keep her alive if life was to be the rack it had theretofore been for
her. (2) During the time she was lying ill, she wrote a letter to the
Pall Mall Gazette, “pleading with tenderness and power the cause of the seal and
other helpless creatures who are slaughtered each year for the sake of their
fur.” (3)
In September she had to
give up her press-work, by discontinuing her weekly contributions to the Lady’s
Pictorial. Even then her doctors saw no reason why she should not recover a fair
share of health and live for some years “if she would consent to follow the diet
prescribed by them -beef and burgundy.” But Edward Maitland says: “Such an
abandonment of her principles was out of the question, even if she had believed
in its efficacy” (4)
– which she did not. On the contrary, she considered herself as “a striking
example of the beneficent effects of the Pythagorean system of diet,” to which
she owed her life, her health, and the vital force that she had enjoyed. In The Perfect Way in Diet, she said:
“While
occupied in a laborious six years’ study of my profession at the École de Médicine of Paris, I overcame
many obstacles and trials, physical and moral, rendered specially hard by the
artificial disabilities of my sex, and by a variety of personal circumstances.
Indeed, the difficulties in my case were such as would, I believe, have proved
insurmountable to most persons even of robust health and physique. I, moreover,
am not only burdened with a hereditary tendency to phthisis, but have been
actually treated for a somewhat severe manifestation of the disease, and am,
besides, of an extremely sensitive
(p. 58)
and nervous temperament.
That under all these adverse conditions I have been enabled to attain
satisfactorily the end of my student’s course, I owe probably in great part to
the simple, pure, and unexciting diet which for a period of ten years (1)
I have uninterruptedly maintained.” (2)
In a public address, she
declared:
“I cured
myself of tubercular consumption by living on vegetable food. A doctor told me I
had not six months to live. What was I to do? I was to eat raw meat and drink
port wine. Well, I went into country, and ate porridge and fruit, and appear
to-day on this platform!” (3)
An obituary notice (4)
of her says: “According to her own
assertion, she would have succumbed to this disease [consumption] twenty years ago but for her strict adherence to vegetarian diet.” But
her life was not to be spared longer, and, finally, on 22nd
February
The great and high mission
that Anna Kingsford came to fulfil, she fulfilled. The hard and sorrowful work
that was given to her to do, she did. The agony of heart that she was called
upon to suffer, she suffered. The heavy and painful burthen that was put upon
her shoulders to bear, she bore -for, to her, it was none other than that “sweet
yoke of Christ” which all saints embrace- and she bore it the end: and, even then she had no
thought of relaxation, for “one of her latest utterances was that she could
carry on the work better from the other side, where she would be free of her
physical limitations.” (5) Hers was a divine mission, and in
fulfilling it she gave -and gave willingly- her health, her strength, her
convenience, her comfort, her happiness, yea, her very life- all that people
hold most dear- and she gave as those and those only who stand close to God can
give. Her knowledge of “the cruelties perpetrated in the world, especially those
enacted in the name of science, robbed life of all joyfulness for her, and made
the earth a hell from which she was eager to escape.”(6)
Edward Maitland survived
her for a little more than nine years. But for his help and sympathy – but for
his life
(p. 59)
of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation
– she could not have done her work: and but for him the tale of her life
would not have been told. The world owes a great debt to this dear and loving
soul. His remaining years were spent in editing her books, Dreams and Dream Stories, and
Clothed with the Sun; and in bringing out a new (third) edition of their
joint work, The
Writing in
“While
sympathising in their ends, I do not sympathise in their means, for I see in
their extravagances the worst enemies of the cause they seek to serve. And I,
accordingly, look upon the whole order represented by T–, K–, and Co. as
symptoms of the prevailing disease, rather than as its physicians and healers.
If, however, you have influence with any of them, I think the most effective
line to take, as in regard to diet, is not the sake of the animals, but that of
the humans; as by shewing them that the root of all progress must be within man
himself; and so long as he feeds like the carnivora, he cannot be expected to be
human. It is a spiritual regeneration that alone can
better the world, one that reforms men themselves, and not institutions merely.
And these folks have no idea except of the outer, not being
themselves evolved in their spiritual part. If we can put the right spirit in
man, all the rest will order itself in accordance. That was the secret and
method of Jesus; and it is the line on which we are working. Of course we must
not neglect the outer, but the main thing is the inner. The two act and react on
each other. The world would be no better off were all the reformers of the outer
only to come into power at once. For the man would remain the same.” (1)
On 14th May
1895, at a meeting of the London Vegetarian Society, Edward Maitland, in opening
a discussion on the subject of “Food, Death, and Civilisation,” said that:
“(…) at first sight the
connection between these things was not clear. But without the first, the second
was inevitable. It was equally true that any quantity of food would not prevent
(p. 60)
death or promote
civilisation. The question was: What was the salient
cause of our social difficulties, dangers, and defects; and what the radical
cure? Our manner of living was at the bottom of all, and the remedy was to be
found in reverting to the natural manner of sustaining life. Our carnivorous
habits sinned against the laws of nature, physical and moral: and the evil of our social condition
was the consequence of a violation of those laws, which were not to be outraged
with impunity, but always exacted the penalty. The prevailing evils of our
social system were drunkenness, disease, and crime: and this was a consequence of the
congestion of great towns and cities, causing a struggle for existence. The
cause of this he attributed to our carnivorous habits driving the people into
the towns to make room for the animals to feed. By resuming the natural diet
(vegetable food), the populations of our towns would be spread over the land to
cultivate and turn it into one vast fruit and vegetable garden, with the result
of providing food and work for all, and rendering possible the education of
all.” (1)
Having fought “the good
fight,” Edward Maitland passed away on 2nd October 1897, at the close
of his seventy-third year.
From 1874, when he first
met Anna Kingsford, until his death, his voice and his pen were ever active in
the cause of humanity, and he ever gave of his best. His heart taught him the
inhumanity, and there in the wrong and wickedness of flesh-eating. He was
faithful to his intuitions: and “the generation of
the faithful shall be blessed.”
I shall ever remember
Edward Maitland as one of the greatest, wisest, most lovable, and best of men
whom it has been my privilege to know: and, applying the words
to Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland respectively, I say, with Anna Kingsford:
“Blessed is
the Soul whom the Just commemorate before God; for whom the Poor and the Orphan
and the dumb Creature weep.” (2)
In memória aetérna erit justus:
ab auditióne mala non timébit.
SAMUEL HOPGOOD HART.
CROYDON, 1912.
FOOTNOTES
(1:1)
In this Preface I have told the story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland as
food-reformers
and
non-flesh-eaters, and have confined myself to such matters as throw
light upon them and their work in this connection. My material, as will be seen
from the references, has been drawn almost entirely from
The Life of Anna Kingsford, which was written by Edward Maitland, and
which was published in 1896. This book gives a very full and interesting account
of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and their work. I have, by quoting as much
as possible – within the above-mentioned limits – from this work, allowed them
to tell their own story. I refer those who would know more of these two great
teachers and reformers – those who would know the whole story of Anna Kingsford
as a medical student, and of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland as humanitarians
– to the above-mentioned biography. There is, also, another biography. In 1893,
while writing and in anticipation of the publication of The Life of Anna Kingsford, Edward Maitland wrote The
Story of the New Gospel of
Interpretation, in which he gave a short account of Anna Kingsford and
himself and their work. In
(1:2) Light,
10th March 1888.
(2:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 1, 2; Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 2, 5,
6.
(2:2) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 4, 29;
Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 3,
5.
(2:3) Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 4.
(2:4) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 8, 9.
(3:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 9, 10.
(3:2) Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 6.
(3:3) Life of A.K., vol. II. p. 326; Light, 1888, p. 97. See also
Health, Beauty and the Toilet
(Second Edition), p. 17; and The Perfect Way in Diet, p. 109.
While she declined to use furs, she did not disapprove of the use of such
feathers as were obtainable without slaughter and (as she was assured) without
cruelty. These, it would appear, she wore in place of furs (Life of A.K., vol. II. pp. 326-351); although it
has been said that she wore “neither fur nor feathers” (Pall
Mall Gazette, quoted in Light, 1888, p. 97). She wore silk
gloves in all weathers, and some vegetable material for her shoes (Life
of A.K., vol. II. p.
351; and see Health, Beauty and the Toilet
(Second Edition), p. 83; and A.K.’s Address, The Physiology of Vegetarianism, p. 113 post.
(3:4) Life of A.K.,
vol. I. p. 13; Story of A.K. and E.M.,
p. 6.
(4:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I p. 16; Story
of A.K. and E.M., p. 7.
(4:2) Life of A.K.,
vol. I p. 20
(4:3) Story
of A.K. and E.M., pp. 9,
10.
(4:4) Life
of A.K., vol. I p. 21; Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 7, 8.
(4:5) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 333;
Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 8.
(4:6)
Pp. 90, 91.
(5:1) Dreams
and Dream Stories (Third Edition),
Preface, pp. 22-23. See also The
(5:2)
This story appeared in The Lady’s Own Paper, and it was
afterwards published separately as by “Colossa” (Life of A.K.,
vol. I. p. 21).
(6:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp. 22,
23; Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 10, 11.
“Some four years later, at a time when Mrs Kingsford was in great straits for
want of a suitable home in London in which to carry on her studies, the same
lady was spiritually commissioned on her behalf, while totally ignorant both of
her whereabouts and her need, and with results entirely satisfactory” (Ibid.,
p. 11).
(6:2) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 27; Story
of A.K. and E.M., pp. 1, 2.
(6:3)
She joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1870 (Life of A.K., vol.
I. p. 15).
(6:4) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp.
27-28.
(7:1)
See A.K.’s lecture on Some Aspects of the
Vegetarian Question,
p. 124 post, and A.K.’s Addresses to
Vegetarians, p. 145 post.
(7:2) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp. 28,
29. Referring to the last sentence of this letter, E.M. says:
“This she subsequently recognised as true only in the limited sense that they
act and react on each other, the soul being the real maker of the body, but able
to make it only out of the materials supplied to it.”
(7:3)
10th March 1888.
(8:1) Life
of A.K., vol. II. p.
347.
(8:2) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 30;
Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 11, 12.
(9:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp. 30,
31.
(9:2) Ibid.,
pp. 31.
(9:3) Ibid., pp. 31-32.
(10:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp. 29,
32, 33.
(10:2) Ibid., pp. 33.
(10:3)
See
Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 37.
(10:4) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 36;
Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 13.
(10:5) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 38;
Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 15-16.
(11:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 37; Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 13, 14.
(11:2)
Life of A.K., vol. I. p. 37; Story of A.K. and E.M., p.
14.
(11:3) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 38; Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 15.
(11:4) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 42; Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 21.
(11:5) Story of A.K. and E.M., pp.
16-17, 21-22.
(12:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp. 36, 46; Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 12.
(12:2) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 47.
(12:3) Ibid., p. 48.
(12:4) Ibid., p. 21.
(12:5) Life of A.K., vol. I. p. 50; Story
of A.K. and E.M., pp. 12, 13.
(13:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I pp. 51, 52; Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 36.
(13:2) Life
of A.K., vol. I pp. 52, 53; Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 30, 31.
(13:3) The
Soul, and How it Found Me, p. 21.
(14:1)
See The Woman and the Age (par. 16),
by E.M.
(14:2) Life
of A.K., vol. I. p. 53; Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 31, 32.
(14:3) The
Soul, and How it Found Me, pp. 21, 23; see also Story of A.K. and E.M., p.
39.
(14:4) See also E.M.’s lecture on Man Incarnate and Discarnate (MS. pp. 4,
5).
(14:5)
Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 29, 30.
(15:1) The
Soul, and How it Found Me, pp. 22, 23.
(15:2) Ibid., p. 297.
(16:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 57, 58.
(16:2) Ibid., p. 73.
(16:3) Ibid., pp. 58, 59.
(17:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 61, 62.
(17:2)
Vol. I. pp. 63-67, 73, 78, 79.
(18:1) Life
of A.K., vol. I. pp. 89, 90.
(18:2) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 92, 93; Story
of A.K. and E.M., pp. 42, 43.
(19:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 126, 138, 139.
(20:1) Life of A.K., vol. I pp. 135-136;
Things have not changed in this respect since 1876. Christmas still has its
Advent or season of preparation and looking forward, and this season is by
flesh-eaters still observed with befitting discipline. In
“The great Christmas show of fat cattle opened at Islington yesterday, and
nearly six hundred animals, each the pride of its countryside, are making
positively their last appearance before the public.
They are all to be butchered to make a Christmas holiday, and each of the pens
is a condemned cell.
The sheep are already as good as mutton, and although the mammoth pigs sleep
peacefully beneath winning rosettes, their pen bears that other dread sign,
‘Sold to Cuttem and Slicem, Ham Curers.’
But this note of impending doom does not spoil the enjoyment of the connoisseurs from all the shires who
come to feast their eyes on pens of fat lambs, and lean over the railings
discussing for hours the points of a red-polled steer.
Many of these experts wear flat, curly top hats and side whiskers, and are
accompanied by daughters, who sniff superciliously at the weak points of a
curly-coated
For the real breath of the hills and dales, however, one must listen to the
herdsmen and shepherds. These men, so obviously in their best Sunday clothes,
who never tire of tending and combing their beasts, make the hall a babel of
every known dialect. (...) Admission to the show costs only a shilling or so,
and it is well worth the money. There are clusters of South Down sheep, whose
backs are a veritable delight to pat. One’s fingers sink deep into thick, woolly
backs that are like rare Turkish carpets.
In another room are fat pigs, whose clean, white backs it is impossible to pass
without slapping. Ferocious Highland cattle are secured by stout ropes, and may
be prodded between the wide, stretching horns with perfect impunity.”
This description of a cattle show is, a week later (the Daily Express of 12th
December, 1911), followed by an account of the “sales.” The writer says:
“Because we eat to live, our cattle and sheep are fattened to die – to provide
those of us who are not vegetarians with the flesh-pots for which we hanker.
The Christmas cattle market was held at Islington yesterday, and thousands of
beasts passed from the drovers’ care into the hands of the inevitable butcher.
(...) The slaughter-house seems cruel, but we must have our Christmas dinners,
despite all sentiment. Regal, thick-necked steers, soft-coated calves, and fat
sheep must go the way of all flesh, that they may re-appear on our Christmas
tables as beef, and veal, and mutton.” – S.H.H.
(21:1) Story of A.K. and E.M.,
pp. 37, 38.
(22:1) Celestial affinities, guides or ministers. They are sometimes
called “angels”. Inferior spirits are employed by the Genii to perform the
mechanical act of writing. The Genii being of the celestial order do not
themselves manifest on the physical plane, but employ the elementals for that
purpose (Life of A.K., vol. I. p. 167. See
A.K.’s Illumination, Concerning the Genius
or Daimon, C.W.S., part
(22:2) For those who have never
seen a planchette, the following description (taken from The
Century Dictionary) may be of interest. A planchette is “a small
heart-shaped or triangular board mounted on three supports, of which two, placed
at the angles of the base, are easily moving casters, and the third, placed at
the apex, is a pencil-point. If the tips of the fingers of one person, or of
two, are placed lightly upon it, the board will often, after a time, move
without conscious effort on the part of the operator, and the pencil-point will
trace lines, words, or even sentences. It was invented about
(23:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 165, 166,
167;
The Soul, and How it Found Me, pp. 204-207.
(24:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. p.
171;
The Soul, and How it Found Me, p. 215.
(24:2) Story of A.K. and E.M., p.
134; Life of A.K., vol. I. p. 186.
(24:3) Life of A.K., vol. I. p.
246.
(25:1) The mountain and snowy
peaks in this vision denoted the pure heights of spiritual attainment, variously
called in Scripture the “Holy Hill of the Lord,” the “Mount of God,” the “Mount
of Regeneration,” and other names, meaning the summit of one’s own spiritual
nature (see note to A.K.’s dream, The
Difficult Path, in
Dreams and Dream Stories, p. 56; and see Life of A.K., vol. I. p. 254).
(25:2) Of these Gods and
Goddesses, Zeus may be said to represent spirit and reason; Hera, original life;
Pallas Athena, interior wisdom; Phoebus Apollo, the spirit of wisdom; Artemis,
the intuitional or reflective principle of the soul.
(25:3) The term “virgin” in its mystical sense signifies a soul pure
from admixture of matter. The plural was used to include Edward Maitland.
(25:4) Hermes represents the
spirit of understanding, and the fig-tree, as “the special symbol of Hermes,”
signifies the faculty of inward understanding (Life
of A.K., vol. I p. 247; Story of A.K. and E.M., p. 75; and
see p. 211 post).
(27:1) Life of A.K., vol. I p.
264.
(27:2) Ps. LI, 17; see also Ps. CXXXIX, 21.
(27:3) Ps. XIX, 8.
(27:4) Ps. XXXVI, I, 7.
(27:5) Prov. XII, 10.
(27:6) Rom. XIV, 21.
(27:7) See A.K.’s Illumination of this title, C.W.S.,
part
(28:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. p.
269.
(28:2) See pp. 214-224 post.
(28:3) See further on the
subject of bloody sacrifice The
(29:1) Life of A.K., vol. I pp.
264, 265, 270.
(29:2) See also Story
of A.K. and E.M., p. 144.
(32:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp.
266, 270-273.
(32:2) Ibid., pp. 274, 289.
(32:3) Ibid., p. 289.
(32:4) Ibid., p. 282.
(33:1) Animals have souls which,
like those of men, are good and evil, and, like those of men, survive the death
of the body, and reincarnate and progress or otherwise; for transmigration may
be downwards as well as upwards. The body is but “the chamber of ordeal” for the
Soul, and for the time being, it represents the character of the Soul. Some
animals are receptacles of evil spirits. Killing creatures – whether men or
animals – that are
habitually
noxious is not wrong. Such creatures may be killed, as mercifully as
possible, “in the name of the Lord.”
(33:2) Life of A.K., vol. I. p.
(33:3) Life of A.K., vol. I. p.
292.
(33:4) Ibid., pp. 303, 315.
(33:5) Ibid., pp. 338, 339.
(35:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 380, 381.
(35:2) The original thesis was
published in
(35:3) Life of A.K., vol. I p.
382.
(36:1) Story of A.K. and E.M.,
pp. 135, 136.
(36:2) Life of A.K., vol. I p.
380.
(36:3) Life of A.K., vol. II. p.
348; Light, 1888, p. 117.
(36:4) Life of A.K., vol. II. p.
269; and see vol. I p. 382.
(37:1) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp. 386, 388.
(37:2) See p. 25 ante.
(37:3) Life of A.K., vol. I. pp.
425, 426; C. W. S., pp. 98-102.
(37:4) I.e., Anna Kingsford.
(37:5) See pp. 19, 20 ante.
(38:1) Story of A.K. and E.M.,
pp. 136, 137.
(38:2) This vision is recorded
in full in Clothed with the Sun,
(38:3) See C.W.S.,
(38:4) The inmost and highest
mysteries of the perfect humanity, which constitute the highest of all castes,
and “entitle those who attain to them to sit on the golden seats” (C.W.S.
p. 78). Castes are, properly, spiritual grades, and bear no relation to the
outward condition of life (see p. 210
post).
(39:1) See p. 25 ante.
(39:2) See p. 32 ante.
(39:3) In addition to the mysteries of Phoibos Apollo, and Zeus and
Hera, and Hermes, Anna Kingsford’s Illumination Concerning the Greek Mysteries, deals with the mysteries of Her, whose initiates might eat fish; of
Bacchos in whose mysteries it was permitted to the outer circle to eat all flesh
save of the unclean; and of Ares, in whose mysteries human flesh and the flesh
of horses might be eaten.
(39:4) One of them in particular
attracted her attention. It was the head and bust of a woman of enormous
proportions and wearing the insignia of Diana (The
(39:5) C.W.S., p. 66.
(39:6) Life of A.K., vol. I. p.
441.
(40:1) Life of A.K., vol. II. pp. 4, 5; and see Story
of A.K. and E.M., pp. 131,
132.
(40:2) Light, 1893, p. 103.
(40:3) Letter dated 15th
October 1890, by E.M. to M. B. See The
(40:4) The
(41:1) The
(41:2) Ibid., pars. 18-19.
(42:1) The
(42:2) Life of A.K. vol. II, p. 5; and see Story of A.K. and E.M., pp. 131, 132.
(42:3) Life of A.K. vol. I, p. 382; vol. II, p.
(43:1) See p. 61 post.
(43:2) The Perfect Way in
Diet,
p. 15.
(43:3) Ibid.
(43:4) Ibid., The Perfect Way in Diet does not, for the reasons therein
mentioned, oppose the addition of certain aliments of animal origin, viz. milk,
eggs, cream, butter, and cheese – as being inconsistent with the Pythagorean
regimen therein advocated (see pp. 50-51).
(44:1) The Perfect Way in
Diet,
p. 16.
(44:2) Life of A.K. vol. II, pp. 73, 75, 79, 84.
(44:3) Ibid., p. 79.
(45:1) Life of A.K. vol. II, pp. 79, 80, 84.
(45:2) Ibid., pp. 95, 96.
(45:3) They were published in 1882, under the title of The
(45:4) The articles appeared in Light of 23rd
September 1882, p. 425; of 11th November 1882, pp. 508-510; and of 9th
December 1882, pp. 551-553. They are included in Appendix III of the New (Fourth) Edition of The
(46:1) The reference is to Anna Kingsford’s two letters, referred to
above, on Pure Diet, which appeared in The Food Reform Magazine of October 1881, p. 46; and January
1882, p. 100.
(47:1) Light, 1882, p. 509; The
(48:1) Light, 1882, p. 551. Edward
Maitland’s letter is signed, “Cantab.”
(48:2) Life of A.K. vol. II, p. 112.
(48:3) Ibid., pp. 112, 113.
In the
Daily Express of 16th July 1908, an account of “The Blood Cure,” as it was then recently
practised on the advice of “a quack doctor at Kirchbrak,” was related as
follows: –
“
The
extraordinary credulity which still prevails among a large section of the
population was well illustrated today by a prosecution at
Albrecht practised as a quack doctor at Kirchbrak, and to his many clients he
recommended the blood of executed murderers as a remedy for all kinds of
ailments.
The
demand for this gruesome medicine was enormous, and in order to cope with it,
Albrecht obtained a quantity of pig’s blood, which he bottled and sold as the
blood of beheaded murderers at 12s. a bottle. His profits were very large, and
his patients, who numbered hundreds, blindly obeying his directions, drank the
pig’s blood, believing it to be the blood of criminals who had died on the
scaffold. The same remedy was recommended for heart disease, consumption, gout,
skin diseases, and practically every other form of sickness.”
It
will be noticed that the only crime supposed to have been committed – and for
which punishment was meted out – was the mere imposture by Albrecht of selling
some pig’s blood for the blood of executed murderers, and so obtaining money by
a false pretence or fraud: and the moral condition of the dupes of the quack
doctor – who numbered hundreds – who were prepared to drink the blood of
executed murderers in order to cure their physical ailments – and this in a
Christian country – is described merely as a good illustration of “extraordinary
credulity!”
(49:1) Life of A.K., vol. II, pp. 117-119.
(49:2) Ibid., p. 120.
(49:3) Ibid., p. 128.
(50:1) Life of A.K., vol. ii, pp. 128, 129.
(50:2) Ibid., p. 129.
(50:3) In 1882 special endeavour
had been made to deprive the animals even of the scanty allowance of justice
theretofore supposed to be accorded to them, and to leave them wholly to the
caprices of the vivisectors, by claiming for physiologists the right not only to
slay, but to torture animals to the utmost for ends in which the animal victims
themselves had no concern. (See Dr. W.B. Carpenter’s article in the
Nineteenth Century for February 1882.)
(51:1) Mic. vi.8.
(51:2) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
179.
(51:3) E.M. MS. of Life
of A.K., p. 1154.
(52:1) Life of A.K., vol. ii. pp.
230, 277, 278.
(52:2) This Society dates from
1847. It had its origin at Ramsgate; its first President was James Simpson. It
has numbered among its Presidents, Professor F.W. Newman and Professor Mayor.
(53:1) Life of A.K., vol. ii. pp.
201, 202, 290, 291.
(54:1) Light, 1887, pp. 161-162.
See further as to the souls, and as to immortality of animals, Anna Kingsford’s
letter, dated 8th May 1887, Light, 1887, p. 219.
(54:2) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
298.
(54:3) E.M.’s letter, dated 16th
November 1885, to Mrs. A.
(54:4) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
222.
(55:1) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
251.
(55:2) Ibid., p.260.
(55:3) At the time of their
visit – which lasted three days only (namely, from 5th to 8th
October) – Madame Wachtmeister and Madame Blavatsky were living together. Some
years after the death of Anna Kingsford, a book entitled
Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky
and “The
Secret Doctrine,” written by
Madame Wachtmeister, was published. In this book Madame Wachtmeister magnified
the above-mentioned visit of three days into a visit of a fortnight, and her
account of the visit was otherwise inaccurate – so inaccurate that, Edward
Maitland says, “She misstated everything except the fact of the visit” (letter,
dated 2nd March 1895, of E.M. to the Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley). It is
necessary to bear this in mind, because it proves how little reliance can be
placed on statements made by Madame Wachtmeister about Anna Kingsford in
connection with this visit. Edward Maitland subsequently learnt that, after the
above-mentioned visit, Madame Wachtmeister had been accustomed to depreciate
Anna Kingsford “especially by alleging that in respect of diet she did not
practise what she preached, and was no consistent opponent of cruelty to
animals.” It was not only in loose conversation that she said these things, but
in writing; and of this, Edward Maitland received absolute and conclusive proof.
Writing to a friend, Madame Wachtmeister said:
“Anna
Kingsford was not a vegetarian, so you see she could not deprecate the torturing
of animals both before and at the slaughtering-houses, for she was inconsistent
both in teaching and policy.”
In another letter she said:
“You seem to
be as surprised to hear that Mrs. Kingsford was no vegetarian as I was myself
when she and Mr. Maitland begged of me to provide both fish, poultry, and birds
during the time that they were the guests of Madame Blavatsky and myself at
These statements, in so
far as they make out Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland to have been
flesh-eaters, at the time referred to, are, of course, absolutely untrue. The
letters containing them, subsequently, came into the possession of Edward
Maitland. Referring to Madame Wachtmeister’s misstatements, Edward Maitland says:
“How far the
calumny spread, and what the injury done by it to our reputation and work, I
have no means of judging. (...) Madame Blavatsky (...) made no manner of charge
against us on the score alleged by her associate Madame Wachtmeister” (see Life of A.K., vol. ii. pp. 256-259;
and letter, dated 2nd March 1895, of E.M. to the Rev. G.J.R.
Ouseley).
I should not have thought
it worth while after all these years to repeat or even refer to the “inventions”
of Madame Wachtmeister, were it not for the fact that, quite recently, it has
again been given out – this time in a well known and widely read food-reform
paper (The Herald of Health, of July 1911,
p.131) – that Anna Kingsford “took fowl.” In further and conclusive proof of the
inaccuracy of all such statements: when writing, on 4th
March 1895, to the Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley of a similar statement that had been made
by a certain well-known food-reformer (whom I will call “Mrs. X”) and which had
first come to the knowledge of Edward Maitland in 1894 – the statement made by
Mrs. X having been that Anna Kingsford was “no vegetarian” – and referring to
the conversation that he (Edward Maitland) had had with Mrs. X on the subject of
her misstatement, Edward Maitland says: –
“On
demanding [from Mrs. X] her authority for the statement, she
said that she had seen her [Anna Kingsford] eat fish or bird at Mrs. Going’s in
the spring of 1877. To this I replied that Mrs. Going’s was a vegetarian house,
and she did not have such food on her table, and that was Anna Kingsford’s
reason for staying there. To this [Mrs. X] returned that some stranger had come
who required such food, and it had been got especially for her; and that Anna
Kingsford had partaken of it. I assured [Mrs. X] that she must be mistaken,
certainly as to bird. As to fish, I could not be so positive, because we did not
then put fish in the same category with the warm-blooded animals: and it was so early in
our spiritual work that we had not yet received positive instructions in the
matter. But that even so I was confident that she [Mrs. X] was mistaken. And as
she had no knowledge whatever about Anna Kingsford’s habits subsequent to that
period, she was quite unjustified in denying her to be a vegetarian.” – S.H.H.
(56:1) Life of A.K., vol. ii. pp.
274, 275, 277, 292.
(56:2) Ibid., p. 299.
(57:1) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
300. Letter of E.M., dated 4th March 1895, to the Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley.
(57:2) E.M.’s letter, dated 10th
August 1887, to Mrs. E.M. James.
(57:3)
(57:4) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
328.
(58:1) The Perfect Way in Diet,
in which this passage occurs, was published in 1881.
(58: 2) Ibid., pp. 90, 91.
(58:3) Address on “The Physiology of Vegetarianism,” p.113
post.
(58:4)
(58:5) E.M.’s letter, dated 22nd
February 1888, to Mrs. E.M. James.
(58:6) Life of A.K., vol. ii. p.
347;
Light, 1888, p. 116.
(59:1) Letter, dated 12th
April 1892, to Mrs. L.
(60:1) The Vegetarian Messenger, July, 1985.
(60:2) Hymn of Love, in C.W.S., Part ii., Nº. xiv. p. 273.
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Next: 1. Social Considerations (61-63)