RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.--MARGARET'S EARLY CRITICS.--FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH
MR. EMERSON.
It was to be expected that in such a correspondence as that between
Margaret and James Freeman Clarke the chord of religious belief would
not remain untouched. From Margaret's own words, in letters and in her
journal, we clearly gather that her mind, in this respect, passed
through a long and wide experience. Fortunate for her was, in that day,
the Unitarian pulpit, with its larger charity and freer exegesis. With
this fold for her spiritual home, she could go in and out, finding
pasture, while by the so-called Orthodox sects she would have been
looked upon as standing without the bounds of all religious fellowship.
The requirements of her nature were twofold. A religious foundation for
thought was to her a necessity. Equally necessary was to her the
untrammelled exercise of critical judgment, and the thinking her own
thoughts, instead of accepting those of other people. We may feel sure
that Margaret, even to save her own soul, would not and could not have
followed any confession of faith in opposition to her own best judgment.
She would have preferred the hell of the free soul to the heaven of the
slave. To combine this intellectual interpretation of religious duty
with the simple devotion which the heart craves is not easy for any one.
We may be very glad to find that for her it was not impossible. Her
attitude between these two points of opposition is indeed edifying; for,
while she follows thought with the daring of a sceptic, and fearlessly
reasons concerning the highest mysteries, she yet acknowledges the
insufficiency of human knowledge for themes so wonderful, and here, as
nowhere else, bows her imperial head and confesses herself human.
One thing we may learn from what Margaret has written on this subject,
if we do not already know it, and this is, that in any true religious
experience there must be progress and change of attitude. This progress
may be first initiated by the preponderance of thought or by that of
affection, but, as it goes on, the partiality of first views will be
corrected by considerations which are developed by later study.
Religious sincerity is, in the end, justified in all its stages; but
these stages, separately considered, will appear more or less incomplete
and sometimes even irreligious.
When first interrogated by her correspondent, she says: "I have
determined not to form settled opinions at present. Loving or feeble
natures need a positive religion, a visible refuge, a protection, as
much in the passionate season of youth as in those stages nearer to the
grave. But mine is not such. My pride is superior to any feelings I have
yet experienced; my affection is strong admiration, not the necessity of
giving or receiving assistance or sympathy." So much for the subjective
side of the matter with Margaret at this time. The objective is
formulated by her in this brief creed: "I believe in Eternal
Progression. I believe in a God, a Beauty and Perfection to which I am
to strive all my life for assimilation. From these two articles of
belief I draw the rules by which I strive to regulate my life. Tangible
promises, well-defined hopes, are things of which I do not now feel the
need. At present my soul is intent on this life, and I think of religion
as its rule."
Those last words are not in contrast with the general tone of religious
teaching to-day, but when Margaret wrote them to James Freeman Clarke,
an exaggerated adjournment of human happiness to the glories of another
world was quite commonly considered as essential to a truly Christian
standpoint.
Even at this self-sufficing period of her life Margaret's journals were
full of prayer and aspiration. Here are some of the utterances of this
soul, which she herself calls a proud one: "Blessed Father, nip every
foolish wish in blossom. Lead me any way to truth and goodness, but if
it might be, I would not pass from idol to idol. Let no mean sculpture
deform a mind disorderly, perhaps ill-furnished, but spacious and
life-warm."
After hearing a sermon on the nature of duties, social and personal, she
says: "My heart swelled with prayer. I began to feel hope that time and
toil might strengthen me to despise the 'vulgar parts of felicity,' and
live as becomes an immortal creature. Oh, lead me, my Father! root out
false pride and selfishness from my heart; inspire me with virtuous
energy, and enable me to improve every talent for the eternal good of
myself and others."
Seasons of bitter discouragement alternated at this time with the
moments in which she felt, not only her own power, but also the
excellence of her aims in life.
Of one of these dark hours Margaret's journal gives a vivid description,
from which some passages may be quoted. The occasion was a New England
Thanksgiving, a day on which her attendance at church was almost
compulsory. This church was not to her a spiritual home, and on the day
now spoken of the song of thanksgiving made positive discord in her
ears. She felt herself in no condition to give thanks. Her feet were
entangled in the problem of life. Her soul was agonized by its
unreconciled contradictions.
"I was wearied out with mental conflicts. I felt within myself great
power and generosity and tenderness; but it seemed to me as if they were
all unrecognized, and as if it was impossible that they should be used
in life. I was only one-and-twenty; the past was worthless, the future
hopeless; yet I could not remember ever voluntarily to have done a wrong
thing, and my aspiration seemed very high."
Looking about in the church, she envied the little children for their
sense of dependence and protection. She knew not, she says, "that none
could have any father but God," knew not that she was "not the only
lonely one, the selected OEdipus, the special victim of an iron law."
From this intense and exaggerated self-consciousness, the only escape
was in fleeing from self. She sought to do this, as she had often done,
by a long quick walk, whose fatigue should weary out her anguish, and
enable her to return home "in a state of prayer." On this day this
resource did not avail her.
"All seemed to have reached its height. It seemed as if I could never
return to a world in which I had no place, to the mockery of humanities.
I could not act a part, nor seem to live any longer."
The aspect of the outer world was in correspondence with these
depressing thoughts.
"It was a sad and sallow day of the late autumn. Slow processions of
clouds were passing over a cold blue sky; the hues of earth were dull
and gray and brown, with sickly struggles of late green here and there.
Sometimes a moaning gust of wind drove late, reluctant leaves across the
path--there was no life else." Driven from place to place by the
conflict within her, she sat down at last to rest "where the trees were
thick about a little pool, dark and silent. All was dark, and cold, and
still." Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds "with that transparent
sweetness, like the last smile of a dying lover, which it will use when
it has been unkind all a cold autumn day." And with this unlooked-for
brightness passed into her soul "a beam from its true sun," whose
radiance, she says, never departed more. This sudden illumination was
not, however, an unreasoning, unaccountable one. In that moment flashed
upon her the solution of the problem of self, whose perplexities had
followed her from her childish days. She comprehended at once the
struggle in which she had been well-nigh overcome, and the illusion
which had till then made victory impossible. "I saw how long it must be
before the soul can learn to act under these limitations of time and
space and human nature; but I saw also that it must do it. I saw there
was no self, that selfishness was all folly, and the result of
circumstance; that it was only because I thought self real that I
suffered; that I had only to live in the idea of the all, and all was
mine. This truth came to me, and I received it unhesitatingly; so that I
was for that hour taken up into God.... My earthly pain at not being
recognized never went deep after this hour. I had passed the extreme of
passionate sorrow, and all check, all failure, all ignorance, have
seemed temporary ever since."
The progress of this work already brings us to that portion of
Margaret's life in which her character was most likely to be judged of
by the world around her as already determined in its features and
aspect. That this judgment was often a misjudgment is known to all who
remember Margaret's position in Boston society in the days of her
lessons and conversations. A really vulgar injustice was often done her
by those who knew of her only her appearance and supposed pretensions.
Those to whom she never was a living presence may naturally ask of
those who profess to have known her, whether this injustice did not
originate with herself, whether she did not do herself injustice by
habitually presenting herself in an attitude which was calculated to
heighten the idea, already conceived, of her arrogance and overweening
self-esteem.
Independently of other sources of information, the statements of one so
catholic and charitable as Mr. Emerson meet us here, and oblige us to
believe that the great services which Margaret was able to render to
those with whom she came into relation were somewhat impaired by a
self-esteem which it would have been unfortunate for her disciples to
imitate. The satirists of the time saw this, and Margaret, besides
encountering the small-shot of society ridicule, received now and then
such a broadside as James Russell Lowell gave her in his "Fable for
Critics." Of this long and somewhat bitter tirade a few lines may
suffice as a specimen:--
"But here comes Miranda. Zeus! where shall I flee to?
She has such a _penchant_ for bothering me, too!
She always keeps asking if I don't observe a
Particular likeness 'twixt her and Minerva.
* * * * *
She will take an old notion and make it her own,
By saying it o'er in her sibylline tone;
Or persuade you 'tis something tremendously deep,
By repeating it so as to put you to sleep;
And she well may defy any mortal to see through it,
When once she has mixed up her infinite me through it.
* * * * *
Here Miranda came up and said: Phoebus, you know
That the infinite soul has its infinite woe,
As I ought to know, having lived cheek by jowl,
Since the day I was born, with the infinite soul."
These remarks, explanatory and apologetic, are suggested partly by Mr.
Emerson's statements concerning the beginning of his acquaintance with
Margaret, and partly by the writer's own recollections of the views of
outsiders concerning her, which contrasted strongly with the feeling and
opinion of her intimates.
Mr. Emerson first heard of Margaret from Dr. Hedge, and afterwards from
Miss Martineau. Both were warm in their praise of her, and the
last-named was especially desirous to introduce her to Mr. Emerson, whom
she very much wished to know. After one or more chance meetings, it was
arranged that Margaret should spend a fortnight with Mrs. Emerson. The
date of this visit was in July, 1836.
To the description of her person already quoted from Dr. Hedge, we may
add a sentence or two from Mr. Emerson's record of his first impressions
of her:--
"She had a face and frame that would indicate fulness and tenacity of
life.... She was then, as always, carefully and becomingly dressed, and
of lady-like self-possession. For the rest, her appearance had nothing
prepossessing. Her extreme plainness, a trick of incessantly opening and
shutting her eyelids, the nasal tone of her voice, all repelled; and I
said to myself, we shall never get far."
But Margaret greatly esteemed Mr. Emerson, and was intent upon
establishing a friendly relation with him. Her reputation for satire was
well known to him, and was rather justified in his eyes by the first
half-hour of her conversation with him.
"I believe I fancied her too much interested in personal history; and
her talk was a comedy in which dramatic justice was done to everybody's
foibles. I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked."
Passing into a happier vein, she unfolded her brilliant powers of
repartee, expressed her own opinions, and sought to discover those of
her companion. Soon her wit had effaced the impression of her personal
unattractiveness; "and the eyes, which were so plain at first, swam with
fun and drolleries, and the very tides of joy and superabundant life."
He now saw that "her satire was only the pastime and necessity of her
talent," and as he learned to know her better, her plane of character
rose constantly in his estimation, disclosing "many moods and powers, in
successive platforms or terraces, each above each."
Mr. Emerson likens Margaret's relations with her friends to the wearing
of a necklace of social brilliants of the first water. A dreaded waif
among the merely fashionable, her relations with men and women of higher
tastes were such that, as Mr. Emerson says, "All the art, the thought,
and the nobleness in New England seemed at that moment related to her,
and she to it."
In the houses of such friends she was always a desired guest, and in her
various visitings she "seemed like the queen of some parliament of love,
who carried the key to all confidences, and to whom every question had
been referred."
Mr. Emerson gives some portraits which make evident the variety as well
as the extent of Margaret's attraction. Women noted for beauty and for
social talent, votaries of song, students of art and literature,--men as
well as women,--vied with each other in their devotion to her. To each
she assumed and sustained a special relation whose duties and offices
she never neglected nor confounded. To each she became at once a source
of inspiration and a court of appeal. The beneficence of her influence
may be inferred from the lasting gratitude of her friends, who always
remembered her as having wisely guided and counselled them.
Any human life is liable to be modified by the supposition that its
results are of great interest to some one whose concern in them is not a
selfish one. Where this supposition is verified by corresponding acts,
the power of the individual is greatly multiplied. This merciful, this
providential interest Margaret felt for each of her many friends. There
was no illusion in the sense of her value which they, all and severally,
entertained.
Where, we may ask, shall we look to-day for a friendliness so wide and
so availing? We can only answer that such souls are not sent into the
world every day. Few of us can count upon inspiring even in those who
are nearest and dearest to us this untiring concern in our highest
welfare. But such a friend to so many it would be hard to find.
When we consider Margaret's love of literature, and her power of making
its treasures her own, we must think of this passion of hers for
availing intercourse with other minds as indeed a providential gift
which no doubt lavished in passing speech much that would have been
eloquent on paper, but which evidently had on society the immediate and
intensified effect which distinguishes the living word above the dead
letter.