*Florence Elizabeth Altass

Meeting :Abdu'l-Baha:  

. . . `Abdu'l-Baha was invited to Edinburgh by the Whytes during the course of His visit to the West and remained in that city from 6 to 10 January 1913. During this sojourn Florences* had the bounty of meeting `Abdu'l-Baha at the Whyte's home, although she was not aware that He was to be present. In a recorded interview in later years she recalled, `Of course when I saw Him I knew who He was. Oh, you couldn't mistake Him. And that heavenly smile! It was a perpetual smile, and yet it wasn't, if you can imagine; it looked as though He smiled at everyone, and yet the smile seemed always to be there. And His eyes looked as if they were looking through you. He had the most gentle voice; I've never heard a voice like it. I would like to hear it again. He embraced a good many people; He didn't me. He just shook hands. Several of us He just shook hands with.' Florence wrote of that meeting:  `When `Abdu'l-Baha shook hands with me, He seemed to transmit something to me, and I've never been the same since . . .' <sup>1</sup> Asked if He spoke in English at all, Florence laughingly replied, `No. There was an interpreter--who spoilt the whole show! It wasn't that his voice didn't suit me, it was that although `Abdu'l-Baha spoke in Persian, you understood; you knew what He was saying, somehow. One was so enamoured of His voice that one sort of felt what He was saying. It was as though He delivered His address in English, although He spoke Persian.' So great was the throng seeking admittance to the presence of the Master that Florence refrained from attending subsequent meetings though she was strongly drawn to do so and regretted to the end of her days the loss occasioned by her extraordinary courtesy and consideration for others. Her one meeting with `Abdu'l-Baha formed the theme of many of her poems which she continued to write till the end of her life. ^{2 . . .}
    Ever after having met the Master, Florence felt His presence and inspiration.

^{*Florence Elizabeth Altass}

¹ See U.K. Baha`i Journal, February/March 1967, for a fuller account of this meeting.
<sup>2</sup> See The Baha`i World, vol. XVII, p. 650.

[Cecilia Smith, The Baha'i World, vol. XVIII, p. 789.]