WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING'S PORTRAIT OF MARGARET.--TRANSCENDENTAL
DAYS.--BROOK FARM.--MARGARET'S VISITS THERE.
It is now time for us to speak of the portrait of Margaret drawn by the
hand of William Henry Channing. And first give us leave to say that Mr.
Emerson's very valuable statements concerning her are to be prized
rather for their critical and literary appreciation than accepted as
showing the insight given by strong personal sympathy.
While bound to each other by mutual esteem and admiration, Margaret and
Mr. Emerson were opposites in natural tendency, if not in character.
While Mr. Emerson never appeared to be modified by any change of
circumstance, never melted nor took fire, but was always and everywhere
himself, the soul of Margaret was subject to a glowing passion which
raised the temperature of the social atmosphere around her. Was this
atmosphere heavy with human dulness? Margaret so smote the ponderous
demon with her fiery wand that he was presently compelled to "caper
nimbly" for her amusement, or to flee from her presence. Was sorrow
master of the situation? Of this tyranny Margaret was equally
intolerant. The mourner must be uplifted through her to new hope and
joy. Frivolity and all unworthiness had reason to fear her, for she
denounced them to the face, with somnambulic unconcern. But where high
joys were in the ascendant, there stood Margaret, quick with her inner
interpretation, adding to human rapture itself the deep, calm lessoning
of divine reason. A priestess of life-glories, she magnified her office,
and in its grandeur sometimes grew grandiloquent. But with all this her
sense was solid, and her meaning clear and worthy.
Mr. Emerson had also a priesthood, but of a different order. The calm,
severe judgment, the unpardoning taste, the deliberation which not only
preceded but also followed his utterances, carried him to a remoteness
from the common life of common people, and allowed no intermingling of
this life with his own. For him, too, came a time of fusion which
vindicated his interest in the great issues of his time. But this was
not in Margaret's day, and to her he seemed the palm-tree in the desert,
graceful and admirable, bearing aloft a waving crest, but spreading no
sheltering and embracing branches.
William Henry Channing, whose reminiscences of Margaret stand last in
order in the memoirs already published, was more nearly allied to her in
character than either of his coadjutors. If Mr. Emerson's bane was a
want of fusion, the ruling characteristic of Mr. Channing was a heart
that melted almost too easily at the touch of human sympathy, and whose
heat and glow of feeling may sometimes have overswept the calmer power
of judgment.
He had heard of Margaret in her school-girl days as a prodigy of talent
and attainment. During the period of his own studies in Cambridge he
first made her acquaintance. He was struck, but not attracted, by her
"saucy sprightliness." Her intensity of temperament, unmeasured satire,
and commanding air were indeed somewhat repellent to him, and almost led
him to conjecture that she had chosen for her part in life the _rôle_ of
a Yankee Corinne. Her friendships, too, seemed to him extravagant. He
dreaded the encounter of a personality so imperious and uncompromising
in its demands, and was content to observe her at a safe and respectful
distance. Soon, however, through the "shining fog" of brilliant wit and
sentiment the real nobility of her nature made itself seen and felt. He
found her sagacious in her judgments. Her conversation showed breadth
of culture and depth of thought. Above all, he was made to feel her
great sincerity of purpose. "This it was," says he, "that made her
criticism so trenchant, her contempt of pretence so quick and stern."
The loftiness of her ideal explained the severity of her judgments, and
the heroic mould and impulse of her character had much to do with her
stately deportment. Thus the salient points which, at a distance, had
seemed to him defects, were found, on a nearer view, to be the
indications of qualities most rare and admirable.
James Freeman Clarke, an intimate of both parties, made them better
known to each other by his cordial interpretation of each to each. But
it was in the year 1839, in the days of Margaret's residence at Jamaica
Plain, that the friendship between these two eminent persons, "long
before rooted, grew up, and leafed, and blossomed." Mr. Channing traces
the beginning of this nearer relation to a certain day on which he
sought Margaret amid these new surroundings. It was a bright summer day.
The windows of Margaret's parlor commanded a pleasant view of meadows,
with hills beyond. She entered, bearing a vase of freshly gathered
flowers, her own tribute just levied from the garden. Of these, and of
their significance, was her first speech. From these she passed to the
engravings which adorned her walls, and to much talk of art and artists.
From this theme an easy transition led the conversation to Greece and
its mythology. A little later, Margaret began to speak of the friends
whose care had surrounded her with these objects of her delighting
contemplation. The intended marriage of two of the best beloved among
these friends was much in her mind at the moment, and Mr. Channing
compares the gradation of thought by which she arrived at the
announcement of this piece of intelligence to the progress and
_dénouement_ of a drama, so eloquent and artistic did it appear to him.
A ramble in Bussey's woods followed this indoor interview. In his
account of it Mr. Channing has given us not only a record of much that
Margaret said, but also a picture of how she looked on that
ever-remembered day.
"Reaching a moss-cushioned ledge near the summit, she seated herself....
As, leaning on one arm, she poured out her stream of thought, turning
now and then her eyes full upon me, to see whether I caught her meaning,
there was leisure to study her thoroughly. Her temperament was
predominantly what the physiologists would call nervous-sanguine; and
the gray eye, rich brown hair, and light complexion, with the muscular
and well-developed frame, bespoke delicacy balanced by vigor. Here was a
sensitive yet powerful being, fit at once for rapture or sustained
effort. She certainly had not beauty; yet the high-arched dome of the
head, the changeful expressiveness of every feature, and her whole air
of mingled dignity and impulse gave her a commanding charm."
Mr. Channing mentions, as others do, Margaret's habit of shutting her
eyes, and opening them suddenly, with a singular dilatation of the iris.
He dwells still more upon the pliancy of her neck, the expression of
which varied with her mood of mind. In moments of tender or pensive
feeling its curves were like those of a swan; under the influence of
indignation its movements were more like the swoopings of a bird of
prey.
"Finally, in the animation yet _abandon_ of Margaret's attitude and look
were rarely blended the fiery force of Northern, and the soft languor of
Southern races."
Until this day Mr. Channing had known Margaret through her intellect
only. This conversation of many hours revealed her to him in a new
light. It unfolded to him her manifold gifts and her deep experience,
her great capacity for joy, and the suffering through which she had
passed. She should have been an acknowledged queen among the magnates of
European culture: she was hedged about by the narrow intolerance of
provincial New England.
In a more generous soil her genius would have borne fruit of the highest
order. She felt this, felt that she failed of this highest result, and
was yet so patient, so faithful to duty, so considerate of all who had
claims upon her! Perceiving now the ardor of her nature and the strength
of her self-sacrifice, Margaret's new friend could not but bow in
reverence before her; and from that time the two always met as
intimates.
Mr. Channing's reminiscences preserve for us a valuable _aperçu_ of the
Transcendental movement in New England, and of Margaret's relation to
it.
The circle of the Transcendentalists was, for the moment, a new church,
with the joy and pain of a new evangel in its midst. In the very heart
of New England Puritanism, at that day hard, dry, and thorny, had sprung
up a new growth, like the blossoming of a century-plant, beautiful and
inconvenient. Boundaries had to be enlarged for it; for if society would
not give it room, it was determined to go outside of society, and to
assert, at all hazards, the freedom of inspiration.
While this movement was in a good degree one of simple protest and
reaction, it yet drew much of its inspiration from foreign countries and
periods of time remote from our own. From the standpoint of the present
it looked deeply into the past and into the future. Its leaders studied
Plato, Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch, among the classic authors, and De
Wette, Hegel, Kant, and Fichte, among the prophets of modern thought.
The _welt-geist_ of the Germans was its ideal. Method, it could not
boast. Free discussion, abstinence from participation in ordinary social
life and religious worship, a restless seeking for sympathy, and a
constant formulation of sentiments which, exalted in themselves, seemed
to lose something of their character by the frequency with which they
were presented,--these are some of the traits which Transcendentalism
showed to the uninitiated.
To its Greek and Germanic elements was presently added an influence
borrowed from the systematic genius of France. The works of Fourier
became a gospel of hope to those who looked for a speedy regeneration of
society. George Ripley, an eminent scholar and critic, determined to
embody this hope in a grand experiment, and bravely organized the Brook
Farm Community upon a plan as nearly in accordance with the principles
laid down by Fourier as circumstances would allow. He was accompanied in
this new departure by a little band of fellow-workers, of whom one or
two were already well known as literary men, while others of them have
since attained distinction in various walks of life.
While all the Transcendentalists were not associationists, the family at
Brook Farm was yet considered as an outcome of the new movement, and as
such was regarded by its promoters with great sympathy and interest.
Margaret's position among the Transcendentalists may easily be imagined.
In such a group of awakened thinkers her place was soon determined. At
their frequent reunions she was a most welcome and honored guest. More
than this. Among those who claimed a fresh outpouring of the Spirit
Margaret was recognized as a bearer of the living word. She was not in
haste to speak on these occasions, but seemed for a time absorbed in
listening and in observation. When the moment came, she showed the
results of this attention by briefly restating the points already
touched upon, passing thence to the unfolding of her own views. This she
seems always to have done with much force, and with a grace no less
remarkable. She spoke slowly at first, with the deliberation inseparable
from weight of thought. As she proceeded, images and illustrations
suggested themselves to her mind in rapid succession. "The sweep of her
speech became grand," says Mr. Channing. Her eloquence was direct and
vigorous. Her wide range of reading supplied her with ready and copious
illustrations. The commonplace became original from her way of treating
it. She had power to analyze, power to sum up. Her use of language had a
rhythmic charm. She was sometimes grandiloquent, sometimes excessive in
her denunciation of popular evils and abuses, but her sincerity of
purpose, her grasp of thought and keenness of apprehension, were felt
throughout.
* * * * *
The source of these and similar sibylline manifestations is a subtle
one. Such a speaker, consciously or unconsciously, draws much of her
inspiration from the minds of those around her. Each of these in a
measure affects her, while she still remains mistress of herself. Her
thought is upheld by the general sympathy, which she suddenly lifts to a
height undreamed of before. She divines what each most purely wishes,
most deeply hopes; and so her words reveal to those present not only
their own unuttered thoughts, but also the higher significance and
completeness which she is able to give to these thoughts under the seal
of her own conviction. These fleeting utterances, alas! are lost, like
the leaves swept of old from the sibyl's cave. But as souls are, after
all, the most permanent facts that we know of, who shall say that one
breath of them is wasted?
Young hearts to-day, separated from the time we speak of by two or three
generations, may still keep the generous thrill which Margaret awakened
in the bosom of a grandmother, herself then in the bloom of youth.
Books, indeed, are laid away and forgotten, manuscripts are lost or
destroyed. The spoken word, fleeting though it be, may kindle a flame
that ages shall not quench, but only brighten.
While, therefore, it may well grieve us to-day that we cannot know
exactly what Margaret said nor how she said it, we may believe that the
inspiration which she felt and communicated to others remains, not the
less, a permanent value in the community.
Having already somewhat the position of a "come-outer," Margaret was
naturally supposed to be in entire sympathy with the Transcendentalists.
This supposition was strengthened by her assuming the editorship of the
"Dial," and Christopher Cranch, in caricaturing it, represented her as a
Minerva driving a team of the new _illuminati_. Margaret's journals and
letters, however, show that while she welcomed the new outlook towards a
possible perfection, she did not accept without reserve the enthusiasms
of those about her. "The good time coming," which seemed to them so
near, appeared to her very distant, and difficult of attainment. Her
views at the outset are aptly expressed in the following extract from
one of her letters:--
"Utopia it is impossible to build up. At least, my hopes for our race on
this one planet are more limited than those of most of my friends. I
accept the limitations of human nature, and believe a wise
acknowledgment of them one of the best conditions of progress. Yet every
noble scheme, every poetic manifestation, prophesies to man his eventual
destiny. And were not man ever more sanguine than facts at the moment
justify, he would remain torpid, or be sunk in sensuality. It is on this
ground that I sympathize with what is called the 'Transcendental party,'
and that I feel their aim to be the true one."
The grievance maintained against society by the new school of thought
was of a nature to make the respondent say: "We have piped unto you, and
ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not wept." The
status of New England, social and political, was founded upon liberal
traditions. Yet these friends placed themselves in opposition to the
whole existing order of things. The Unitarian discipline had delivered
them from the yoke of doctrines impossible to an age of critical
culture. They reproached it with having taken away the mystical ideas
which, in imaginative minds, had made the poetry of the old faith.
Margaret, writing of these things in 1840, well says: "Since the
Revolution there has been little in the circumstances of this country to
call out the higher sentiments. The effect of continued prosperity is
the same on nations as on individuals; it leaves the nobler faculties
undeveloped. The superficial diffusion of knowledge, unless attended by
a deepening of its sources, is likely to vulgarize rather than to raise
the thought of a nation.... The tendency of circumstances has been to
make our people superficial, irreverent, and more anxious to get a
living than to live mentally and morally." So much for the careless
crowd. In another sentence, Margaret gives us the clew to much of the
"divine discontent" felt by deeper thinkers. She says: "How much those
of us who have been formed by the European mind have to unlearn and lay
aside, if we would act here!"
The scholars of New England had indeed so devoted themselves to the
study of foreign literatures as to be little familiar with the spirit
and the needs of their own country. The England of the English classics,
the Germany of the German poets and philosophers, the Italy of the
Renaissance writers and artists, combined to make the continent in which
their thoughts were at home. The England of the commonalty, the Germany
and Italy of the peasant and artisan, were little known to them, and as
little the characteristic qualities and defects of their own
country-people. Hence their comparison of the old society with the new
was in great part founded upon what we may call "literary illusions."
Moreover, the German and English methods of thought were only partially
applicable to a mode of life whose conditions far transcended those of
European life in their freedom and in the objects recognized as common
to all.
Those of us who have numbered threescore years can remember the
perpetual lamentation of the cultivated American of forty years ago. His
whole talk was a cataloguing of negatives: "We have not this, we have
not that." To all of which the true answer would have been: "You have a
wonderful country, an exceptional race, an unparalleled opportunity. You
have not yet made your five talents ten. That is what you should set
about immediately."
The Brook Farm experiment probably appeared to Margaret in the light of
an Utopia. Her regard for the founders of the enterprise induced her,
nevertheless, to visit the place frequently. Of the first of these
visits her journal has preserved a full account.
The aspect of the new settlement at first appeared to her somewhat
desolate: "You seem to belong to nobody, to have a right to speak to
nobody; but very soon you learn to take care of yourself, and then the
freedom of the place is delightful."
The society of Mr. and Mrs. Ripley was most congenial to her, and the
nearness of the woods afforded an opportunity for the rambles in which
she delighted. But her time was not all dedicated to these calm
pleasures. Soon she had won the confidence of several of the inmates of
the place, who imparted to her their heart histories, seeking that aid
and counsel which she was so well able to give. She mentions the holding
of two conversations during this visit, in both of which she was the
leader. The first was on Education, a subject concerning which her ideas
differed from those adopted by the Community. The manners of some of
those present were too free and easy to be agreeable to Margaret, who
was accustomed to deference.
At the second conversation, some days later, the circle was smaller, and
no one showed any sign of weariness or indifference. The subject was
Impulse, chosen by Margaret because she observed among her new friends
"a great tendency to advocate spontaneousness at the expense of
reflection." Of her own part in this exercise she says:--
"I defended nature, as I always do,--the spirit ascending through, not
superseding nature. But in the scale of sense, intellect, spirit, I
advocated to-night the claims of intellect, because those present were
rather disposed to postpone them."
After the lapse of a year she found the tone of the society much
improved. The mere freakishness of unrestraint had yielded to a
recognition of the true conditions of liberty, and tolerance was
combined with sincerity.