The Letters of Lavater to Empress Maria Feodorovna

Johann Caspar Lavater, with a preface by H.P. Blavatsky · Blavatsky Speaks Series · 9 pages

Primary source material rather than argument: letters written in 1798 by Johann Caspar Lavater to Maria Feodorovna, wife of the Emperor Paul I of Russia, translated from the original autographs and serialised in Lucifer through 1890. Most of them had never been printed before, which is why they are here.

Blavatsky's introduction is a compact biography and worth the download on its own. Lavater was born at Zurich in 1741, the son of a physician; as a child he was of very lively imagination, given to silent reveries, and believed while still at school that his prayers were answered directly. He became deacon and then first pastor of the orphan church at Zurich, and his sermons won admiration abroad for their style and for the mysticism that always marked him. His Physiognomische Fragmente, built on the theory of a close connection between the internal man and the outward expression of the face, made his name known across Europe. He opposed the Directory during the Swiss Revolution, having been disgusted by the French one, was imprisoned in 1799, and died in 1801 of a wound taken while helping the distressed at Massena's capture of Zurich.

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