LETTER: ALS to Mr. Shaw, with 3 photos.
1920 Letter about Celia Thaxter's religious beliefs as presented by her son John - with references to "a hindoo theosophist” Mohini Chatterji Letter from John Thaxter (1854-1929) to Mr. Shaw (according to Joseph Frost, probably Justin Shaw -- a local lower court magistrate) with Reference to Celia’s Religious Beliefs – with Specific Mention of Mohini.
“Kittery Point Me
May 17th 1920
Dear Mr. Shaw,
I should have answered your letter long ago, but hoped to get a chance to see you as I could say what I wish better than I can write it.
My mother never was a member of Dr. Brooke's church, but at one time used to go there frequently as she admired his eloquence & his liberal religious views.
What Miss Clarke says in her article is substantially correct except that it is hardly fair to say that she had never read the new testament, & was therefore converted to christianity by an hindoo theosophist. Mr. Weiss of whom Miss Clarke speaks was a radical unitarian & agnostic, but it is not correct to assume that he was not a christian. My mother for many years was one of his followers. She was untrammeled by any conventionality in her religious thought, & went deeply into all the independent religious ideas of her time. Mohini simply aroused her interest in the New Testament so that as Miss Clarke intimates she came to know it almost by heart.
Yours truly
Jobn Thaxter”
See also the letters of Celia Thaxter on the web at
http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soi/let2soi/thaxter.html -- just search for "Mohini". And see the Louisa May Alcott references to Chatterji and Buddhism in “1887" above, as well as the description of Chatterji's inscribed The Bhagavad Gita -also “1887" above.)
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