MEN AND MOVEMENTS IN THE SIXTIES
This decade, 1860-1870, marks a new epoch in my intellectual life. In
the period already described, I had found my way to recognized
authorship. In this later time, an even greater enlargement of activity
was before me, unanticipated until, by gradual steps, I came into it.
The results of my more serious study now began to take form in writings
of a corresponding scope. I remember to have heard John Weiss use more
than once this phrase, "the poets and men of expression." The antithesis
to this, in his view, evidently was, "the philosophers and men of deep
thought."
I confess that I myself am one of those to whom expression, in some
form, is natural and even necessary; and yet I think that my best
studies have been those which have made me most desirous to give to my
own voice the echo of other voices, and to ascertain by experiment how
much or how little of my individual persuasion is in accordance with the
normal direction of human experience.
In the days of which I now write, it was borne in upon me (as the
Friends say) that I had much to say to my day and generation which could
not and should not be communicated in rhyme, or even in rhythm.
I once spoke to Parker of my wish to be heard, to commend my own
thoughts with my own voice. He found this not only natural, but also in
accordance with the spirit of the age, which, he said, "called for the
living presence and the living utterance." I did not act at once, or
even very soon, upon this prompting; the difficulties to be overcome
were many. My husband was himself averse to public appearances. Women
speakers were few in those days, and were frowned upon by general
society. He would have been doubly sensitive to such undesirable
publicity on my account. Meantime, the exigencies of the time were
calling one woman after another to the platform. Lucy Stone devoted the
first years of her eloquence to anti-slavery and the temperance reform.
Anna Dickinson achieved a sudden and brilliant popularity. I did not
dream of trying my strength with theirs, but I began to weave together
certain essays which might be read to an invited audience in private
parlors. I then commissioned certain of my friends to invite certain of
their friends to my house for an appointed evening, and began, with some
trepidation, my course of parlor lectures. We were residing, at this
time, in the house in Chestnut Street which was afterwards made famous
by the sittings of the Radical Club. The parlors were very roomy, and
were well filled by those who came to hear me. Among them was my
neighbor, Rev. Dr. Lothrop, who, in speaking of these occasions at a
later day, once said, "I think that they were the best meetings that I
ever knew. The conversation that followed the readings was started on a
high plane." This conversation was only informal talk among those who
had been listeners. My topics, so far as I can recall them, were as
follows: "How _not_ to teach Ethics;" "Doubt and Belief, the Two Feet of
the Mind;" "Moral Triangulation, or the Third Party;" "Duality of
Character;" "The Fact Accomplished." My audience consisted largely of my
society friends, but was by no means limited to them. The elder Agassiz,
Dr. Lothrop, E. P. Whipple, James Freeman Clarke, and William R. Alger
attended all my readings. After the first one, Mr. Clarke said to me,
"You have touched too many chords." After hearing my thesis on "Duality
of Character," he took my hand in his, and said, "Oh! you sweet soul!"
Mr. Emerson was not among my hearers, but expressed some interest in my
undertaking, and especially in my lecture on "The Third Party." Meeting
me one day, he said, "You have in this a mathematical idea." This was in
my opinion the most important lecture of my course. It really treated of
a third element in all twofold relations,--between married people, the
bond to which both alike owed allegiance; between States, the compact
which originally bound them together. The civil war was then in its
first stage. The air was full of secession. Many said, "If North and
South agree to set aside their bonds of union, and to become two
republics, why should they not do it?" Then the sacredness of the bond
possessed my mind. "Was an agreement, so solemnly entered into, so vital
in its obligations, to be so lightly canceled?" I labored with all my
might to prove that this could not be done. I remember too that in one
of my lectures I gave my own estimate of Auguste Comte, which differed
from the general impression concerning him. I am not sure that I should
take the same ground in these days.
Whether my hearers were the wiser for my efforts I cannot say, but of
this I am sure, that they brought me much instruction. I learned
somewhat to avoid anti-climax, and to seek directness and simplicity of
statement. On the morning of the day on which I was to give my lecture,
I would read it over, and a curious sense of the audience seemed to
possess me, a feeling of what it would and of what it would not follow.
My last corrections were made in accordance with this feeling.
A general regret was expressed when my little course was ended, and Dr.
Lothrop wrote me quite an earnest letter, requesting me to prolong it if
possible. I could not do this at the time; but while the war was at its
height, I made a second visit to Washington, where through the kindness
of friends a pleasant place was found in which I repeated these
lectures, having among my hearers some of the chief notabilities then
present at the capital. In my journal of this time, never published, I
find the following account of a day in Washington:--
"To the White House, to see Carpenter's picture of the President reading
the emancipation proclamation to his Cabinet. An interesting subject for
a picture. The heads of Lincoln, Stanton, and Seward nearly finished,
and good portraits.
"Dressed for dinner at Mrs. Eames's, where Secretary Chase and Senator
Sumner were expected. Mr. Chase is a stately man, very fine looking and
rather imposing. I sat by him at dinner; he was very pleasant. After
dinner came Mrs. Douglas in her carriage, to take me to my reading.
Senator Foster and Mr. Chase announced their intention of going to hear
me. Mr. Chase conducted me to Mrs. Douglas's carriage, promising to
follow. 'Proteus, or the Secret of Success,' was my topic. I had many
pleasant greetings after the lecture. Mr. Chase took me in his carriage
to his house, where his daughter had a party for Teresa Carreno. Here I
was introduced to Lord Lyons, British minister, and to Judge Harris.
Spoke with Bertinatti, the Italian minister. Mr. Chase took me in to
supper.
"Mr. Channing brought me into the room, which was well filled. People
were also standing in the entry and on the stairs. I read my lecture on
'The Third Party.' The audience proved very attentive, and included many
people of intelligence. George W. Julian and wife, Solomon Whiting,
Admiral Davis, Dr. Peter Parker, our former minister to China, Hon.
Thomas Eliot, Governor Boutwell, Mrs. Southworth, Professor Bache,--all
these, and many more, were present. They shook hands with me, very
cordially, after the lecture."
I had announced "Practical Ethics" as the theme of my lectures, and had
honestly written them out of my sense of the lapses everywhere
discernible in the working of society. Having accomplished so much, or
so little, I desired to go more deeply into the study of philosophy,
and, having greedily devoured Spinoza, I turned to Kant, whom I knew
only by name. I fed upon his volumes with ever increasing delight and
yet endeavored to obey one of his rules, by having a philosophy of my
own. Among my later productions was an essay entitled "Distinctions
between Philosophy and Religion." This was suggested by a passage in one
of Spinoza's letters, in which he says to his correspondent, "I thought
that we were to correspond upon matters of philosophy. I find that
instead of these you propose to me questions of religion." On reading
this sentence I felt that, in the religious teaching of our own time,
the two were apt to be confounded. It seemed to me that even Theodore
Parker had not always distinguished the boundary line, and I began to
reflect seriously upon the difference between a religious truth and a
philosophical proposition.
I confess that my nearer acquaintance with the philosophers, ancient and
modern, inspired me at this time with the desire of contributing
something of my own to the thought of the ages. The names of certain
essays of mine, composed after the series just mentioned, and never put
into print, will serve to show the direction in which my efforts were
tending. Of these, "Polarity" was the first, "Limitation" the second.
Then followed "The Fact Accomplished," "Man _a priori_ and _a
posteriori_," and finally, "Ideal Causation," which marked my last step
in this progress. These papers were designed to interest the studious
few who appreciate thought for thought's sake.
The paper on "Polarity" was read before the Boston Radical Club. Armed
with "Man _a priori_," I encountered an audience of scientists at
Northampton, where a scientific convention was in progress. Finally,
being invited to speak before the Parker Fraternity on a certain Sunday,
and remembering that Parker, in his day, had not feared to let out the
metaphysical stops of his organ pretty freely, I took with me into the
pulpit the paper on "Ideal Causation," which had seemed to me the crown
of my endeavor hitherto.
To my sorrow, I found that it did not greatly interest my hearers, and
that one who was reported to have wondered "what Mrs. Howe was driving
at" had spoken the mind of many of those present.
I laid this lesson much to heart, and, becoming convinced that
metaphysics did not supply the universal solvent for human evils, I
determined to find a _pou sto_ nearer to the sympathies of the average
community, from which I might speak for their good and my own.
From my childhood the Bible had been dear and familiar to me, and I now
began to consider texts and sermons, in place of the transcendental webs
which I had grown so fond of spinning. The passages of Scripture which
now occurred to me filled me with a desire to emphasize their wisdom by
a really spiritual interpretation. From this time on, I became more and
more interested in the religious ministration of women; and though it is
looking forward some way in my chronicle, this may be the proper place
to say that in the spring of the year 1875, I had much to do with
calling the first convention of women ministers, which was held in the
Church of the Disciples, in anniversary week. Among those who met with
us were some plain women from Maine, who told us that they had long
acted as evangelists in portions of the State in which churches were few
and far between. Several clergymen of different denominations attended
our exercises, and one of them, Rev. J. J. Hunting, pronounced ours the
best meeting of the week. Among the ordained women who took part with us
were Rev. Ellen Gustin, Mary H. Graves, Lorenza Haynes, and Eliza Tupper
Wilkes, a fair young mother, who went to her pulpit full of the
inspiration of her cradle songs.
I would gladly enlarge here, did my limits allow it, upon the theme of
the woman ministry, but must take up again the thread of my tale.
My husband was greatly moved by the breaking out of the Cretan
insurrection in 1866. He saw in this event an opportunity of assisting
his beloved Greece, and at once gathered together a committee for
collecting funds in aid of this cause. A meeting was held in Boston
Music Hall, at which Dr. Holmes, Wendell Phillips, Edward Everett Hale,
and other prominent speakers presented the claims of the Cretans to the
sympathy of the civilized world.
Dr. Howe's appearance did not indicate his age. His eye was bright, his
hair abundant, and but slightly touched with gray. When he rose and
said, "Fifty years ago I was very much interested in the Greek
Revolution," it seemed almost incredible that he should be speaking of
himself. The public responded generously to his appeal, and a
considerable sum of money was raised. The greater part of this was
devoted to the purchase of provisions and clothing for the families of
the Cretan combatants, which were known to be in a very destitute
condition.
In the spring of 1867 Dr. Howe determined to visit Greece, in order to
have a nearer view of the scene of action. I accompanied him, and with
us went two of our daughters, Julia Romana, remembered as the wife of
Michael Anagnos, and Laura, now Mrs. Henry Richards, known as the author
of "Captain January."
We received gratifying attentions from the wealthy Greeks of London.
Passing thence to the continent, we were soon in Rome, where I enjoyed
some happy days with my beloved sister, Louisa, then, after some years
of widowhood, the wife of Luther Terry. Dr. Howe hastened on to Athens,
taking with him our eldest daughter. I followed him later, bringing the
younger one with me.
Arriving at the Piraeus, we were met by a messenger, who told us that Dr.
Howe had just escaped a serious danger at sea, and was too much fatigued
to be able to come to meet us. We soon joined him at the Hotel des
Etrangers, and inquired eagerly regarding the accident which had
befallen him. He had started in a small steamer lent him by the
government, intending to visit one of the islands on which were
congregated a number of Cretan refugees, mostly women and children. The
steamer had proceeded some way on its course when the machinery gave
out, leaving them at the mercy of the waves. They were without
provisions, and were in danger of drifting out to sea, with no power of
controlling the course of the vessel. After many hours of anxious
uncertainty, a favorable breeze sprang up, and Dr. Howe tore down the
canvas canopy which had shielded the deck from the sun. This he managed
to spread for a sail, and by this the vessel was in time brought within
reach of the shore. A telegram summoned help from Athens, and the party
reached the city an hour or so before our arrival.
I here insert some passages from a book of travels, in which I recorded
the impressions of this first visit to Greece. The work was published
soon after my return to Boston, and was named "From the Oak to the
Olive."
"Here is the Temple of Victory; within are the bas-reliefs of the
Victories arriving in the hurry of their glorious errands. Something so
they tumbled in upon us when Sherman conquered the Carolinas, and
Sheridan the valley of the Shenandoah, when Lee surrendered, and the
glad President went to Richmond. One of these Victories is untying her
sandal, in token of her permanent abiding. Yet all of them have trooped
away long since, scared by the hideous havoc of barbarians. And the
bas-reliefs, their marble shadows, have all been battered and mutilated
into the saddest mockery of their original tradition. The statue of
Wingless Victory that stood in the little temple has long been absent.
But the only Victory that the Parthenon now can seize or desire is this
very Wingless Victory, the triumph of a power that retreats not--the
power of Truth....
"Poor Greece, plundered by Roman, Christian, and Mussulman! Hers were
the lovely statues that grace the halls of the Vatican--at least, the
loveliest of them. And Rome shows to this day two colossal groups, of
which one bears the inscription, 'Opus Praxitelae,' the other that of
'Opus Phidiae.' And Naples has a Greek treasure or two, one thinks,
besides her wealth of sculptural gems, of which the best are of Greek
workmanship. And in England those bas-reliefs, which are the treasure of
art students and the wonder of the world, were pulled from the pediment
of the Parthenon, like the pearly teeth from a fair mouth, the mournful
gaps remaining open in the sight of the unforgiving world. 'Thou art old
and decrepit,' said England. 'I am still in strength and vigor. All else
has gone, as well thy dower as thy earnings. Thou hast but these left. I
want them, so give them me.'...
"We were ushered into a well-sized room, in which lay heaps of cotton
underclothing and of calico dresses, most of them in the shape of sacks
and skirts. These were the contents of one or two boxes recently arrived
from Boston. Some of them were recognized by me as the work of a hive of
busy bees who used to gather weekly in my own New England parlor,
summoned thither by my daughter Florence, now Mrs. David P. Hall. And
what stress there was at those meetings, and what hurrying! And how the
little maidens took off their feathery bonnets and dainty gloves,
wielding the heavy implements of cutting, and eagerly adjusting the arms
and legs, the gores and gathers! With patient pride the mother trotted
off to the bakery, that a few buns might sustain these strenuous little
cutters and sewers, whose tongues, however active over the charitable
work, talked, we may be sure, no empty nonsense nor unkind gossip.
"For charity begins indeed at home, in the heart, and, descending to the
fingers, rules also the rebellious member whose mischief is often done
before it is meditated. At the sight of these well-made garments a
little swelling of the heart seized me, with the love and pride of a
remembrance so dear. But sooner than we could turn from it to set about
our business, the Cretans were in presence.
"Here they come, called in order from a list, with names nine syllables
long, mostly ending in _poulos_, a term signifying descent, like the
Russian 'witzch.' Here they come,--the shapely maiden, the sturdy
matron, the gray-haired grandmother, with little ones of all small sizes
and ages. Many of the women carried infants at the breast; many were
expectant of maternity. Not a few of them were followed by groups of
boys and girls. Most of them were ill clothed; and many of them appeared
extremely destitute of attire. A strongly-marked race of people, with
dark eyes, fine black hair, healthy complexions, and symmetrical
figures. They bear traces of suffering. Some of the infants have pined,
but most of them promise to do well. Each mother cherishes and shows her
little beggar in the approved way. The children are usually robust,
although showing in their appearance the very limited resources of their
parents. Some of the women have tolerable gowns; to these we give only
underclothing. Others have but the rag of a gown--a few strips of stuff
over their coarse chemises. These we make haste to cover with the
beneficent growth of New England factories. They are admitted in groups
of three or four at a time. As many of us fly to the heaps of clothing,
and hastily measure them by the length and breadth of the individual. A
papa, or priest, keeps order among them. He wears his black hair uncut,
his narrow robe is much patched, and he holds in his hand a rosary of
beads, which he fingers mechanically.
"The dresses sent did not quite hold out, but sufficed to supply the
most needy, and, in fact, the greater number. Of the underclothes we
carried back a portion, having given something to every one. To an old
papa who came, looking ill and disconsolate, I sent two shirts and a
good dark woolen jacket. Among all of these only one discontented old
lady demurred at the gift bestowed. She wanted a gown; but there was not
one left, so that she was forced to content herself, much against her
will, with some underclothing. The garments supplied, of which many were
sent by the Boston Sewing Circle, under the superintendence of Miss Abby
W. May, proved to be very suitable in pattern and quality. As we
descended the steps we met with some of the children, already arrayed in
their little clean shirts, and strutting about with the inspiration of
fresh clothing, long unfelt by them....
"Despite the velvet flatteries and smiling treasons of diplomacy, the
present government of Greece is, as every government should be, on its
good behavior before the people. Wonderfully clever, enterprising, and
liberal have the French people made the author of the 'Life of Julius
Caesar.' Wonderfully reformative did the radicals of 1848 make the Pope.
And the Greek nation, taken in the large, may prove to have some common
sense to impart to its symbolical head, of whom we can only hope that
the 'something rotten in the state of Denmark' may not have been taken
from it to corrupt the state of Greece."
But it was not through one sense alone that I received in Athens the
delight of a new enchantment. My ear drank in the music of the Greek
tongue which I constantly heard spoken by those around me. My husband's
Greek committee held their sessions in our hotel parlors, and I found
that, by closely listening to their talk, I could make out a word here
and there. Encouraged by this, I presently purchased a primer and
devoted myself to the study of its contents. I had in earlier life made
one or two futile attempts to master the language. Now that it became a
living tongue to me, I determined to acquire it, and in some measure
succeeded. From that time to the present I have never ceased the serious
pursuit of what I then began almost in play.
In spite of the fact that a price had been set upon his head by the
Turkish authorities in Crete, Dr. Howe persisted in his determination to
visit the island. His stay there was necessarily limited to a few hours,
but what he was able to observe of the character and disposition of the
inhabitants led him to anticipate a triumph for their cause.
We returned to Boston in the autumn of the same year, and at once began
to make arrangements for a fair by which we hoped to raise some money
for the Cretans. A great part of the winter was devoted to this work,
and in the early spring a beautiful bazaar was held at Boston Music
Hall, where the post of president was assigned to me. I was supported by
a very efficient committee of ladies and gentlemen, and it was in this
work that I became well acquainted with Miss Abby W. May, whose
invaluable method and energy had much to do with the success of the
undertaking. The fair lasted one week, and our sales and entertainments
realized something more than thirty thousand dollars. But alas! the
emancipation of Crete was not yet to be.
We passed the summer of 1868 at Stevens Cottage, which was very near the
town of Newport. I do not exactly remember how it came about that my
dear friend and pastor, Rev. Charles Brooks, invited me to read some of
my essays at his church on Sunday afternoons. I had great pleasure in
doing this. The church was well filled, and the audience excellent in
character, and a lady among these one day kissed me after my lecture,
saying, "This is the way I want to hear women speak." Another lady, it
is true, was offended at some saying of mine. I think that it was to
this effect. Speaking of the idle lives of some rich women, I said, "If
God works, Madam, you can afford to work also." At this the person in
question rose and went away, saying, "I won't listen to such stuff as
this." I was not at all aware of the occurrence at the time, nor did I
hear of it until the same lady having sent me cards for a reception at
her house, I attended it, thereby provoking some comment. I was glad
afterwards that I had done so, as the lady in question paid me every
friendly attention, and made me quite sure that she had only yielded to
a momentary ebullition of temper, to which, indeed, she was too prone.
I read the "Phaedo" of Plato in the original Greek this summer, and was
somewhat helped in this by an English scholar, a university man, who was
passing the summer in Newport. He was "coaching" two young men who
intended to enter one of the English universities, and was obliged to
pass my house on his way to his lessons. He often paid me a visit, and
was very willing to help me over a difficult passage.
The report of my parlor readings soon brought me invitations to speak in
public. The first of these that I remember came from a committee having
in charge a meditated course of Sunday afternoon lectures on ethical
subjects, to be given without other exercises, in Horticultural Hall. I
was heard more than once in this course, and remember that one of my
themes was "Polarity," on which I had written an essay, of which I
thought, perhaps, too highly. In the course of the season I was engaged
in preparing for another reading. Meeting Rev. Phillips Brooks one day
in my sunset outing, I said to him, "Do you ever, in writing a sermon,
lose sight of your subject? I have a discourse to prepare and have lost
sight of mine." "Oh, yes," he replied, "it often happens to me." This
confession encouraged me to persevere in my work, and I finished my
lecture, and read it with acceptance.
I suppose that I may have greatly exaggerated in my own mind the value
of these writings to other people. To me, they brought much reflection
and unfolding of thought. As I have said in another place, I read the
two first named to a small circle of friends at my own house, and was
somewhat disappointed at the result, as none of those present seemed
willing to assume my point of view. Repeating one of them under similar
circumstances at the house of a friend, Henry James, the elder, called
upon me to explain some point which my lecture had brought into view. I
asked if he could explain the point at issue. He replied that he could
not. Being somewhat disconcerted, I said to him, "You should not ask
questions which you yourself cannot answer." I meant by this to say that
one must not be called upon to explain what is evidently inexplicable.
Mr. James, however, did not so understand me, but told me afterwards
that he considered this the most extraordinary statement that he had
ever heard. He discoursed a good deal after my lecture with much color
and brilliancy, as was his wont. His views of the Divine were highly
anthropomorphic, and I remember that he said among other things, "My
dear Madam, God is working all the time in his shirt-sleeves with all
his might."
This dear man was a great addition to the thought-power current in
Boston society. He had lived much abroad, and was for many years a
student of Swedenborg and of Fourier. His cast of mind was more
metaphysical than logical, and he delighted in paradox. In his writings
he would sometimes overstate greatly, in order to be sure of impressing
his meaning upon his readers or hearers. Himself a devout Christian, he
nevertheless once said, speaking on Sunday in the Church of the
Disciples, that the moral law and the Christian Church were the meanest
of inventions. He intended by this phrase to express his sense of the
exalted moral and religious obligation of the human mind, the dignity of
which ought to transcend the prescriptions of the Decalogue and the
discipline of the church. My eldest daughter, then a girl of sixteen,
said to me as we left the church, "Mamma, I should think that Mr. James
would wish the little Jameses not to wash their faces for fear it should
make them suppose that they were clean." Mr. Emerson, to whom I repeated
this remark, laughed quite heartily at it. In anecdote Mr. James was
inexhaustible. His temperament was very mercurial, almost explosive. I
remember a delightful lecture of his on Carlyle. I recall, too, a rather
metaphysical discourse which he read in John Dwight's parlors, to a
select audience. When we went below stairs to put on our wraps, I asked
a witty friend whether she had enjoyed the lecture. She replied that she
had, but added, "I would give anything at this moment for a look at a
good fat idiot," which seemed to show that the tension of mind produced
by the lecture had not been without pain.
I once had a long talk with Mr. James on immortality. I had recently
lost my youngest child, a beautiful little boy of three years. The
question of a future life then came to me with an agonized intensity.
Should I ever meet again the exquisite little creature who had been
taken from my arms? Mr. James was certain that I should have this
coveted joy. He illustrated his belief in a singular way. "I lost a
leg," he said, "in early youth. I have had a consciousness of the limb
itself all my life. Although buried and out of sight, it has always
remained a part of me." This reassuring did not appeal to me strongly,
but his positive faith in a life after death gave me much comfort. Mr.
James occasionally paid me a visit. As he was sitting in my parlor one
day my little Maud, some seven or eight years old, passed by the open
door. Mr. James called out, "Come here, Maud. You are the wickedest
looking thing I have seen in some time." The little girl came, and Mr.
James took her up on his knee. Presently, to my horror, she exclaimed,
"Oh, how ugly you are! You are the ugliest creature I ever saw." This
freak of the child so impressed my visitor that, meeting some days later
with a lady friend, he could not help saying to her, "Mrs. ----, I know
that I am ugly, but am I the ugliest person that you ever saw? Maud Howe
said the other day that she had never seen any one so ugly."
My friend was in truth far from ill-looking. His features were
reasonably good, and his countenance fairly glowed with amiability,
geniality, and good-will. I found afterwards that my Maud had seriously
resented the epithet "wicked looking" applied to her, and had simply
sought to take a childish revenge in accusing Mr. James of ugliness.
Although Mr. James held much to Swedenborg's point of view, he did not
belong to the Swedenborgian denomination. I have heard that, on the
contrary, he was considered by its members as decidedly heterodox. I
think that he rarely attended any church services. I have heard of his
holding a communion service with one member of his family. He published
several works on topics connected with religion.