The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1892-02-25
ms. ANNIE REsANT.

Preliminary Remarks to a Twenty-
Page Biographical Sketch by EdI-
tor Stead, In English Edition "Re-
view OF Reviews"
Annie Besant is now, as she has
been for the last four or five years,
one OF my most intimate friends.
had not the privilege of knowing her
in her earliest phase, either OF school
girl Evangelicalism or ofyoung-woman
Puseyism, but / knew her as Material
ist and Atheist. l know her as Theo-
sophist, and whatever development
she may pass through will in no way
affect the sentiment of affectionate
admiration with which I regard her.
Last month her name was
in every mouth, and the papers were
filled with endless letters discussing the
latest phase of her progress in search OF
truth. The other day she was
presiding over Socialist Congress in
Paris, next year no one can say where
she will be or what she will be doing
except that, whatever she may do or
wherever she may go, one thing only
is quite certain. she will be animated
by q passionate love and sympathy
for the poor and oppressed, and she
will command the enthusiastic affec-
ton of all those who come near
enough to her to know htr as she
really ls.
Yet Mrs. Besant, one of the half
dozen women who have stamped the
impress of their strong and vivid per-
sonality upon their own time, is one
to whom; until but the other day, it
was considered hardly correct to al
Jude, except in the most distant man.
ner, as if she inhabited another and
improper world. When | started this
Review I had to put my foot down,
before the first number saw the light,
on an attempt to enforce even in these
pages the policy of boycott that still
prevails in certain obscure quarters.
Mrs. Besant, had written me acordial
little note welcoming the new Review,
which was inserted among the other
letters which / received from the emf
nent business men and women of the
day. The business side of the Review
demonstrated. "Was very sorry, you
know, really. Great regard for Mrs.
Besant, but business is business, and
it would never do, and especially in
the first number, to parade her name.
Couldn't Mr.. Stead leave it over till
February" To which the editorial
side replied as might be expected, only
to elicit the further protest: "Well of
course, if you will, you must, but re-
member, that name will cost us hun
dreds of subscribers. There are scores
of clergymen who will never allow the
Review to enter their doors if Mrs.
Besant's name appears in it's col
umns." That may or may not be
true. If it is, SO much the worse for
the cIergymen in question. Of course
her letter went in. But the protest
was interesting as illustrating the
kind of prejudice which has existed
about Mrs. Besant.
1t may be that even now some read
ers may have SO little entered into
the spirit with which every page of
this magazine has been written since
she first summary overruling of the
protests against the publication of
her letter, as to object to the selection
of Mrs. Besant as the subject of this
Character Sketch. All that l need
say to them is, whether they be many
or few, that when they have made a
1.-THE of her sacrifices for conscience
sake they may be in a position to
criticise. Until then they will do we'll
to be silent, and endeavor, if they can,
to catch a little of her spirit. Most of
those who sneer at her as If she were
disreputable, or shrug their shoulders
when her name is mentioned, might
then perhaps come to be numbered
among those who are worthy to loose
the latchet of her shoe,
One result of the persistent boycott
has been maintained against her so
long by the papers is that one of the
most charming and pathetic autobio-
graphical sketches in our language is
practically non-existent for the great
mass of the English-speaking public.
Mrs. Besant's fragmentary sketches
OF her spiritual pilgrimage, although
published in 1885, is I suppose, al
most unknown to my readers. The
book is out Of print, and they will
therefore be grateful for the extracts
which I shall make freely from it's
pages. I hope, now the ice has been
broken, and the great slow-minded
public has Weakened up at last to the
fact that Mrs. Besant is one of the
most remarkable women of our time
she will republish it with an addition
al chapter describing the later stages
of her pilgrims progress.
An authentic narrative of the soul
journeyings OF an intensely religious
soul from Evangelism tol Puseyism,
and thence through Broad Church
Theism to the fiat negations of an
Atheistic Materialism, out of which
she has emerged, by way of Spiritual
ism, into the realm of Theosophy, is
one of which we may search in vain in
contemporary religious biography.
Such a story could not fail to be full
of suggestion in any case, even if the
writer were obscure and unknown.
How much more interesting, then,
must it be when it reaches us from one
of the most eloquent of living women,
who is still in the zenith of her pow
ers.
IAIICAED INTO THE GRAVE.