Civilization, the Death of Art and Beauty

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Down to Earth Series · 15 pages

The complete essay from Lucifer of May 1891, of which The karmic effects of invasion in the Constitution of Man series prints one passage. The claim at its head is comparative rather than merely nostalgic: that the ancient civilisations never sacrificed Nature to speculation but, holding it divine, honoured her natural beauties by erecting works of art such as modern electric civilisation could not produce even in dream.

The occasion is recorded in a sub-editor's note that says a good deal about how it came to be written — that the second part of the editorial could not appear that month owing to the alarming illness of H.P. Blavatsky, who was suffering from a severe attack of the prevalent influenza, and that this piece, written as an extra article, would take its place. It opens from an interview in the Pall Mall Gazette with the Hungarian violinist Remenyi, who described playing before the Mikado of Japan and lamented what was being lost there; and from that starting point it moves to the destruction of forests, the changing of climates, the disfigurement of the English landscape by advertising and the polluting of country air — the material extracted separately in the other series.

Read the full text (PDF, 1.3 MB, 15 pages)