A CHAPTER ABOUT MYSELF
If I may sum up in one term the leading bent of my life, I will simply
call myself a student. Dr. Howe used to say of me: "Mrs. Howe is not a
great reader, but she always studies."
Albeit my intellectual pursuits have always been such as to task my
mind, I cannot boast that I have acquired much in the way of technical
erudition. I have only drawn from history and philosophy some
understanding of human life, some lessons in the value of thought for
thought's sake, and, above all, a sense of the dignity of character
above every other dignity. Goethe chose well for his motto the words:--
"Die Zeit ist mein Vermaechtniss, mein Acker ist die Zeit." "Time is my
inheritance; time is my estate."
But I may choose this for mine:--
"I have followed the great masters with my heart."
The first writer of importance with whom I made acquaintance after
leaving school was Gibbon, whose "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
occupied me during one entire winter. I have already mentioned my early
familiarity with the French and Italian languages. In these respective
literatures I read the works which in those days were usually commended
to young women. These were, in French, Lamartine's poems and travels,
Chateaubriand's "Atala" and "Rene," Racine's tragedies, Moliere's
comedies; in Italian, Metastasio, Tasso, Alfieri's dramas and
autobiography. Under dear Dr. Cogswell's tuition, I read Schiller's
plays and prose writings with delight. In later years, Goethe, Herder,
Jean Paul Richter, were added to my repertory. I read Dante with Felice
Foresti, and such works of Sand and Balzac as were allowed within my
reach. I had early acquired some knowledge of Latin, and in later life
found great pleasure in reading the essays and Tusculan dissertations of
Cicero. The view of ethics represented in these writings sometimes
appeared to me of higher tone than the current morality of Christendom,
and I rejoiced in the thought that, even in the Rome of the
pre-Christian Caesars, God had not left himself without a witness.
This enlarged notion of the ethical history of mankind might easily lead
one in life's novitiate to underestimate the comparative value of the
usually accepted traditions. I confess that I, personally, did not
escape this error, which I have seen largely prevalent among studious
people of my own time.
Who can say what joy there is in the rehabilitation of human nature,
which is one essential condition of the liberal Christian faith? I had
been trained to think that all mankind were by nature low, vile, and
wicked. Only a chosen few, by a rare and difficult spiritual operation,
could be rescued from the doom of a perpetual dwelling with the enemies
of God, a perpetual participation in the torments "prepared for them
from the beginning of the world." The rapture of this new freedom, of
this enlarged brotherhood, which made all men akin to the Divine Father
of all, every religion, however ignorant, the expression of a sincere
and availing worship, might well produce in a neophyte an exhilaration
bordering upon ecstasy. The exclusive doctrine which had made
Christianity, and special forms of it, the only way of spiritual
redemption, now appeared to me to commend itself as little to human
reason as to human affection. I felt that we could not rightly honor our
dear Christ by immolating at his shrine the souls of myriads of our
fellows born under the widely diverse influences which could not be
thought of as existing unwilled by the supreme Providence.
Antichrist was once a term of consummate reproach, often applied by
zealous Protestants to their arch enemy, the Pope of Rome. As will be
imagined, I intend a different use of it, and have chosen the term to
express the opposition which has sprung up within the Christian church,
not only to the worship of the son as a divine being, but even to the
notion of his long undisputed preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and
power. And here, as I once said that I had taken German in the natural
way, with no preconceived notion of the import and importance of German
literature, so I may say that I first received Christianity in the way
natural to one of my birth and education. I have since been called upon
to confront the topic in many ways. Swedenborg's theory of the divine
man, Parker's preaching, the Boston Radical Club, Frank Abbot's
depreciating comparison of Jesus with Socrates,--after following
unfoldings of this wonderful panorama, I must say that the earliest view
is that which I hold to most, that, namely, of the heavenly Being whose
presence was beneficence, whose word was judgment, whose brief career on
earth ended in a sacrifice, whose purity and pathos have had much to do
with the redemption of the human race from barbarism and the rule of the
animal passions.
During the first score of years of my married life, I resided for the
most part at South Boston. This remoteness from city life insured to me
a good deal of quiet leisure, much of which I devoted to my favorite
pursuits. It was in these days that I turned to my almost forgotten
Latin, and read the "Aeneid" and the histories of Livy and Tacitus. At a
later date my brother gave me Orelli's edition of Horace, and I soon
came to delight much in that quasi-Hellenic Roman. I remember especially
the odes which my brother pointed out to me as his favorites. These
were: "Maecenas atavis edite regibus;" "Quis desiderio sit pudor aut
modus;" "O fons Bandusiae;" and, above all, "Exegi monumentum aere
perennius."
With no pretensions to correct scholarship, I yet enjoyed these Latin
studies quite intensely. They were so much in my mind that, when we sat
down to our two o'clock dinner, my husband would sometimes ask: "Have
you got those elephants over the river yet?" alluding to Hannibal and
the Punic war.
Prior to these Latin studies, I read a good deal in Swedenborg, and was
much fascinated by his theories of spiritual life. I remember "Heaven
and Hell," "Divine Love and Wisdom," and "Conjugal Love" as the writings
which interested me most; but the cumbrous symbolism of his Bible
interpretation finally shut my mind against further entertainment of so
fanciful a guest. Hegel was for some time my study among the German
philosophers. After some severe struggling with his extraordinary
diction, I became convinced that the obscurity of his style was
intentional, and left him in some indignation. The deep things of
philosophy are difficult enough when treated by one who desires to make
them clear. Where the intention is rather to mask than to unfold the
meaning which is in the master's mind, interpretation is difficult and
hazardous. Hegel's own saying about his lectures is well known: "One
only of my pupils understood me, and he misunderstood me."
George Bancroft, the historian, spoke of Hegel as a man of weak
character, and Dr. Francis Lieber, who had been under his instruction,
had the same opinion of him. In the days of the Napoleonic invasion of
Germany, Lieber had gone into the field, with other young men of the
university. When, recovered from a severe wound, he took his place again
among the students of philosophy, Hegel before beginning the day's
lecture cried: "Let all those fools who went out against the French
depart from this class."
I think that I must have had by nature an especial sensitiveness to
language, as the following trifling narration will show. I was perhaps
twelve years old when Rev. James Richmond, who had studied in Germany,
dining at my father's house, spoke of one of his German professors who
was wont, as the prelude to his exercise, to exclaim: "Aus, aus, ihr
Fremden." These words meant nothing to me then, but when, eight years
later, I mastered the German tongue, I recalled them perfectly, and
understood their meaning.
One of my first efforts, after my return from Europe in 1851, was to
acquaint myself with the "Philosophie Positive" of Auguste Comte. This
was in accordance with the advice of my friend, Horace Wallace, who,
indeed, lent me the first volume of the work. The synoptical view of the
sciences therein presented revealed to me an entirely new aspect of
thought.
I did not, for a moment, adopt Comte's views of religion, neither did I
at all agree in his wholesale condemnation of metaphysics, which
appeared to me self-contradictory, his own system involving metaphysical
distinctions as much, perhaps, as any other. On the other hand, the
objectivism of his point of view brought a new element into my too
concentrated habit of thought. I deemed myself already too old, being
about thirty years of age, to conquer the difficulties of the higher
mathematics, and of the several sciences in which these play so
important a part. But I had had a bird's-eye view of this wonderful
region of the natural sciences, and this, I think, never passed quite
out of my mind. I used to talk about the books with Parker, who read
everything worth reading. They had not greatly appealed to him. I also,
at this time, read Hegel's "Aesthetik," and endeavored to read his
"Logik," which I borrowed from Parker, and which he pronounced "so
crabbed as to be scarcely worth enucleating."
I cannot remember what it was which, soon after this time, led me to the
study of Spinoza. I followed this with great interest, and became for a
time almost intoxicated with the originality and beauty of his thoughts.
While still under his influence I spoke of him to Mr. Bancroft as "der
unentbehrliche," the indispensable Spinoza. He demurred at this,
acknowledged Spinoza's analysis of the passions to be admirable, but
assured me that Kant alone deserved to be called "indispensable;" and
this dictum of his made me resolve to become at once a student of the
"Critique of Pure Reason."
I found this at first rather dry, after the glowing and daring flights
of Spinoza, but I soon learned to hold the philosopher of Koenigsberg in
great affection and esteem. I have read extensively in his writings,
even in his minor treatises, and having attained some conception of his
system, was inclined to say with Romeo: "Here I set up my everlasting
rest."
I devoted some of the best years of my life to these studies, and to the
writings which grew out of them. I remember one summer at my Valley near
Newport, in which I felt that I had read and written quite as much as
was profitable. "I must go outside of my own thoughts, I must do
something for some one," I said to myself. Just then the teacher of my
sister's children broke out with malarial fever. She was staying with my
sister at a farmhouse near by. The call to assist in nursing her was
very welcome, and when I was thanked for my services I could truly say
that I had been glad of the opportunity of rendering them for my own
sake.
The Kantian volumes occupied me for many months, even years. In fact, I
have never gone beyond them. A new philosophy has sometimes appeared to
me like a new disease. If we have found our master, and are satisfied
with him, what need have we of starting again, to make the same journey
with a new guide. Once we have got there, it seems better to abide.
The early years of my married life interposed a barrier between my
literary dreams and their realization. Those years brought me much to
learn and much to do.
The burden of housekeeping was new to me, a sister of mine, highly
gifted in this respect, having charged herself with its duties so long
as we were "girls together." I accordingly found myself lamentably
deficient in household skill and knowledge. I endeavored to apply myself
to the remedying of these defects, but with indifferent success. I was
by nature far from observant, and often passed through a room without
much notion of its condition or contents, my thoughts being intent on
other matters. The period, too, was one of transition as regards
household service. The old-time American servants were no longer to be
obtained. The Irish girls who supplied their place were for the most
part ignorant and untrained, their performance calling for a discipline
and instruction which I, never having received, was quite unable to give
them.
During the first years of my residence at the Institution for the Blind,
Dr. Howe delighted in inviting his friends to weekly dinners, which cost
me many unhappy hours. My want of training and of forethought often
caused me to forget some very important item of the repast. My husband's
eldest sister, who lived with us, and who had held the reins of the
housekeeping until my arrival, was averse to company, and usually
absented herself on the days of the dinner parties. In her absence, I
often did not know where to look for various articles which were
requisite and necessary. I remember one dinner for which I had relied
upon a form of ice as the principal feature of the dessert. The company
was of the best, and I desired that the feast should correspond with it.
The ice, which had been ordered from town, did not appear. I did my best
to conceal my chagrin, but was scarcely consoled when the missing
refreshment was found, the next morning, in a snowbank near our door,
where the messenger had deposited it without word or comment. The same
mischance might, indeed does sometimes happen at this later date. I
should laugh at it now, but then I almost wept over it. Our kitchen and
dining-room were on one floor, and a convenient slide allowed dishes to
be passed from one room to the other. On a certain occasion, my sister
being with me, I asked her whether my dinner had gone off well enough.
"Oh yes," she replied; "only the slide was left open, and through it I
saw the cook buttering the venison."
I especially remember one summer which I resolved to devote to the study
of cookery, for which there was then no school, and no teacher to be had
at will. Having purchased Miss Catherine Beecher's Cook-book, I devoted
some weeks to an experimental following of its recipes, with no
satisfactory result. A little later, my husband secured the services of
a very competent housekeeper, and my distresses and responsibilities
were much diminished. After some years of this indulgence, I felt bound
to make a second and more strenuous effort at housekeeping, and
succeeded much better than before, having by this time managed to learn
something of the nature and needs of household machinery.
As I now regard these matters, I would say to every young girl, rich or
poor, gifted or dull: "Learn to make a home, and learn this in the days
in which learning is easy. Cultivate a habit of vigilance and
forethought. With a reasonable amount of intelligence, a woman should be
able to carry on the management of a household, and should yet have time
for art and literature in some sort."
In more recent years, having been called upon to take part in a public
discussion regarding the compatibility of domestic with literary
occupation, I endeavored to formulate the results of my own experience
as follows:--
"If you have at your command three hours _per diem_, you may study art,
literature, and philosophy, not as they are studied professionally, but
in the degree involved in general culture.
"If you have but one hour in every day, read philosophy, or learn
foreign languages, living or dead.
"If you can command only fifteen or twenty minutes, read the Bible with
the best commentaries, and daily a verse or two of the best poetry."
As I write this, I recall the piteous image of two wrecks of women,
Americans and wives of Americans, who severally poured out their sorrows
to me, saying that the preparation of "three square meals a day," the
washing, baking, sewing, and child-bearing, had filled the measure of
their days and exceeded that of their strength: "And yet," each said, "I
wanted the Greek and Latin and college course as much as any one could
wish for it."
But surely, no love of intellectual pursuits should lead any of us to
disparage and neglect the household gifts and graces. A house is a
kingdom in little, and its queen, if she is faithful, gentle, and wise,
is a sovereign indeed.