MY STUDIES
As a love of study has been a leading influence in my life, I will here
employ a little time, at the risk of some repetition, in tracing the way
in which my thoughts had mostly tended up to the period when, after two
years of deep depression, I suddenly turned to practical life with an
eager desire to profit by its opportunities.
From early days my dear mother noticed in me an introspective tendency,
which led her to complain that when I went with her to friends' houses I
appeared dreamy and little concerned with what was going on around me.
My early education, received at home, interested me more than most of my
school work. While one person devoted time and attention to me, I repaid
the effort to my best ability. In the classes of my school-days, the
contact between teacher and pupil was less immediate. I shall always
remember with pleasure Mrs. B.'s "Conversations" on Chemistry, which I
studied with great pleasure, albeit that I never saw one of the
experiments therein described. I remember that Paley's "Evidences of
Christianity" interested me more than his "Philosophy," and that Blair's
"Rhetoric," with its many quotations from the poets, was a delight to
me. As I have before said, I was not inapt at algebra and geometry, but
was too indolent to acquire any mastery in mathematics. The French
language was somehow _burnt_ into my mind by a cruel French teacher, who
made my lessons as unpleasant as possible. My fear of him was so great
that I really exerted myself seriously to meet his requirements. I have
profited in later life by his severity, having been able not only to
speak French fluently but also to write it with ease.
I was fourteen years of age when I besought my father to allow me to
have some lessons in Italian. These were given me by Professor Lorenzo
Da Ponte, son of the veteran of whom I have already spoken. With him I
read the dramas of Metastasio and of Alfieri.
Through all these years there went with me the vision of some great work
or works which I myself should give to the world. I should write the
novel or play of the age. This, I need not say, I never did. I made
indeed some progress in a drama founded upon Scott's novel of
"Kenilworth," but presently relinquished this to begin a play suggested
by Gibbon's account of the fall of Constantinople. Such successes as I
did manage to achieve were in quite a different line, that of lyric
poetry. A beloved music-master, Daniel Schlesinger, falling ill and
dying, I attended his funeral and wrote some stanzas descriptive of the
scene, which were printed in various papers, attracting some notice. I
set them to music of my own, and sang them often, to the accompaniment
of a guitar.
Although the reading of Byron was sparingly conceded to us, and that of
Shelley forbidden, the morbid discontent which characterized these poets
made itself felt in our community as well as in England. Here, as
elsewhere, it brought into fashion a certain romantic melancholy. It is
true that at school we read Cowper's "Task," and did our parsing on
Milton's "Paradise Lost," but what were these in comparison with:--
"The cold in clime are cold in blood,"
or:--
"I loved her, Father, nay, adored."
After my brother's return from Europe, I read such works of George Sand
and Balzac as he would allow me to choose from his library. Of the two
writers, George Sand appeared to me by far the superior, though I then
knew of her works only "Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre," "Spiridion,"
"Jacques," and "Andre." It was at least ten years after this time that
"Consuelo" revealed to the world the real George Sand, and thereby made
her peace with the society which she had defied and scandalized. Of my
German studies I have already made mention. I began them with a class of
ladies under the tuition of Dr. Nordheimer. But it was with the later
aid of Dr. Cogswell that I really mastered the difficulties of the
language. It was while I was thus engaged that my eldest brother
returned from Germany. In conversing with him, I acquired the use of
colloquial German. Having, as I have said, the command of his fine
library, I was soon deep in Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister,"
reading also the works of Jean Paul, Matthias Claudius, and Herder.
Thus was a new influence introduced into the life of one who had been
brought up after the strictest rule of New England Puritanism. I derived
from these studies a sense of intellectual freedom so new to me that it
was half delightful, half alarming. My father undertook one day to read
an English translation of "Faust." He presently came to me and said,--
"My daughter, I hope that you have not read this wicked book!"
I must say, even after an interval of sixty years, that I do not
consider "Wilhelm Meister" altogether good reading for the youth of our
country. Its great author introduces into his recital scenes and
personages calculated to awaken strange discords in a mind ignorant of
any greater wrong than the small sins of a well-ordered household.
Although disapproving greatly of Goethe, my father took a certain pride
in my literary accomplishments, and was much pleased, I think, at the
commendation which followed some of my early efforts. One of these, a
brief essay on the minor poems of Goethe and Schiller, was published in
the "New York Review," perhaps in 1848, and was spoken of in the "North
American" of that time as "a charming paper, said to have been written
by a lady."
I have already said that a vision of some important literary work which
I should accomplish was present with me in my early life, and had much
to do with habits of study acquired by me in youth, and never wholly
relinquished. At this late day, I find it difficult to account for a
sense of literary responsibility which never left me, and which I must
consider to have formed a part of my spiritual make-up. My earliest
efforts in prose, two review articles, were probably more remarked at
the time of their publication than their merit would have warranted. But
women writers were by no means as numerous sixty years ago as they are
to-day. Neither was it possible for a girl student in those days to find
that help and guidance toward a literary career which may easily be
commanded to-day.
The death, within one year, of my father and most dearly loved brother
touched within me a deeper train of thought than I had yet known. The
anguish which I then experienced sought relief in expression, and took
form in a small collection of poems, which Margaret Fuller urged me to
publish, but which have never seen the light, and never will.
Among the friends who frequented my father's house was the Rev. Francis
L. Hawkes, long the pastor of a very prominent and fashionable Episcopal
church in New York. I remember that on one occasion he began to abuse my
Germans in good earnest for their irreligion and infidelity, of which I,
indeed, knew nothing. I inquired whether he had read any of the authors
whom he so unsparingly condemned. He was forced to confess that he had
not, but presently turned upon me, quite indignant that I should have
asked such a question. I recall another occasion on which the
anti-slavery agitation was spoken of. Dr. Hawkes condemned it very
severely, and said: "If I could get hold of one of those men who are
trying to stir up the slaves of the South to cut their masters' throats,
I would hang him to that lamp-post." An uncle of mine who was present
said: "Doctor, I honor you!" but I felt much offended at the doctor's
violence. With these exceptions his society was a welcome addition to
our family circle. He was a man of genial temperament and commanding
character, widely read in English literature, and esteemed very eloquent
as a preacher.
I remember moments in which the enlargement of my horizon of thought and
of faith became strongly sensible to me, in the quiet of my reading, in
my own room. A certain essay in the "Wandsbecker Bote" of Matthias
Claudius ends thus: "And is he not also the God of the Japanese?"
Foolish as it may appear, it had never struck me before that the God
whom I had been taught to worship was the God of any peoples outside the
limits of Judaism and Christendom. The suggestion shocked me at first,
but, later on, gave me much satisfaction. Another such moment I recall
when, having carefully read "Paradise Lost" to the very end, I saw
presented before me the picture of an eternal evil, of Satan and his
ministers subjugated indeed by God, but not conquered, and able to
maintain against Him an opposition as eternal as his goodness. This
appeared to me impossible, and I threw away, once and forever, the
thought of the terrible hell which till then had always formed part of
my belief. In its place, I cherished the persuasion that the victory of
goodness must consist in making everything good, and that Satan himself
could have no shield strong enough to resist permanently the divine
power of the divine spirit.
This was a great emancipation for me, and I soon welcomed with joy every
evidence in literature which tended to show that religion has never been
confined to the experience of a particular race or nation, but has shown
itself at all times, and under every variety of form, as a seeking for
the divine and a reverence for the things unseen.
So much for study!