Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/141

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A convicted person has one last refuge. He may contrive to suggest imbecility, and so appeal from the sense of justice to that of pity. To the average reader it might seem that this, and this alone, could be the real object of the astounding piece of self-revelation which I have been privileged to extract from Mr. William Q. Judge, vice-president of the Theosophical Society. But we must remember that with the Theosophical reader it may be otherwise. To the Theosophical Society this “Reply” from the man they have delighted to honour may seem, for all I know, a model of candour, of coherence, and of cogency. That is not, I confess, what I hear privately; but, so far as any public word goes, the good, docile folk have evidently determined to wait till Mrs. Besant comes home and tells them what to think, and (still more important) what to say. For their benefit, then, and still more for the benefit of those potential converts to Theosophy in whom the atrophy of the mental processes is not yet complete, I will, as gravely as I can, examine the vice-president’s utterance.

Now, first, let us see how many of the “Mahatma missives” Mr.