greatly forward the substantial and good ends of human companionship. I
can easily fancy that, in other times and under other circumstances, its
influence might be detrimental to general humanity and good fellowship.
We can, in imagination, follow the two processes which I have here in
mind. The strong action of a commanding character, or of a commanding
interest, may, in the first instance, draw together those who belong
together. Fine spirits, communicative and receptive, will obey the fine
electric force which seeks to combine them,--the great wits, and the
people who can appreciate them; the poets, and their fit hearers;
philosophers, statesmen, economists, and the men and women who will be
able and eager to learn from the informal overflow of their wisdom and
knowledge.
Here we may have a glimpse of a true republic of intelligence. What
should overthrow it? Why should it not last forever, and be handed down
from one generation to another?
The salon is an insecure institution; first, because the exclusion of
new material, of new men and new ideas, may so girdle such a society
that its very perfection shall involve its death. Then, on account of
the false ideas and artificial methods which self-limiting society tends
to introduce, in time the genuine basis of association disappears from
view: the great _name_ is wanted for the reputation of the salon, not
the great intelligence for its illumination. The moment that you put the
name in place of the individual, you introduce an element of insincerity
and failure.
There is a sort of homage quite common in society, which amounts to such
flattery as this: "Madam, I assure you that I consider you an eminently
brilliant and successful sham. Will you tell me your secret, or shall I,
a worker in the same line, tell you mine?" Again, the contradictory
objects of our desired salon are its weakness. We wish it to exclude the
general public, but we dreadfully desire that it shall be talked about
and envied by the general public. These two opposite aims--a severe
restriction of membership, and an unlimited extension of
reputation--are very likely to destroy the social equilibrium of any
circle, coterie, or association.
Such contradictions have deep roots; even the general conduct of
neighborhood evinces them. People are often concerned lest those who
live near them should infringe upon the rights and reserves of their
household. In large cities, people sometimes boast with glee that they
have no acquaintance with the families dwelling on either side of them.
And yet, in some of those very cities, social intercourse is limited by
regions, and one street of fine houses will ignore another, which is, to
all appearances, as fine and as reputable. Under these circumstances,
some may naturally ask: "Who is my neighbor?" In the sense of the good
Samaritan, mostly no one.
Dante has given us pictures of the ideal good and the ideal evil
association. The company of his demons is distracted by incessant
warfare. Weapons are hurled back and forth between them, curses and
imprecations, while the solitary souls of great sinners abide in the
torture of their own flame. As the great poet has introduced to us a
number of his acquaintance in this infernal abode, we may suppose him to
have given us his idea of much of the society of his own time. Such
appeared to him that part of the World which, with the Flesh and the
Devil, completes the trinity of evil. But, in his Paradiso, what
glimpses does he give us of the lofty spiritual communion which then, as
now, redeemed humanity from its low discredit, its spite and malice!
Resist as we may, the Christian order is prevailing, and will more and
more prevail. At the two opposite poles of popular affection and learned
persuasion, it did overcome the world, ages ago. In the intimate details
of life, in the spirit of ordinary society, it will penetrate more and
more. We may put its features out of sight and out of mind, but they are
present in the world about us, and what we may build in ignorance or
defiance of them will not stand. Modern society itself is one of the
results of this world conquest which was crowned with thorns nearly two
thousand years ago. In spite of the selfishness of all classes of men
and women, this conquest puts the great goods of life within the reach
of all.
I speak of Christianity here, because, as I see it, it stands in direct
opposition to the natural desire of privileged classes and circles to
keep the best things for their own advantage and enjoyment. "What,
then!" will you say, "shall society become an agrarian mob?" By no
means. Its great domain is everywhere crossed by boundaries. All of us
have our proper limits, and should keep them, when we have once learned
them.
But all of us have a share, too, in the good and glory of human
destiny. The free course of intelligence and sympathy in our own
commonwealth establishes here a social unity which is hard to find
elsewhere. Do not let any of us go against this. Animal life itself
begins with a cell, and slowly unfolds and expands until it generates
the great electric currents which impel the world of sentient beings.
The social and political life of America has passed out of the cell
state into the sweep of a wide and brilliant efficiency. Let us not try
to imprison this truly cosmopolitan life in cells, going back to the
instinctive selfhood of the barbaric state.
Nature starts from cells, but develops by centres. If we want to find
the true secret of social discrimination, let us seek it in the study of
centres,--central attractions, each subordinated to the governing
harmony of the universe, but each working to keep together the social
atoms that belong together. There was a time in which the stars in our
beautiful heaven were supposed to be kept in their places by solid
mechanical contrivances, the heaven itself being an immense body that
revolved with the rest. The progress of science has taught us that the
luminous orbs which surround us are not held by mechanical bonds, but
that natural laws of attraction bind the atom to the globe, and the
globe to its orbit.
Even so is it with the social atoms which compose humanity. Each of
them has his place, his right, his beauty; and each and all are governed
by laws of belonging which are as delicate as the tracery of the frost,
and as mighty as the frost itself.
The club is taking the place of the salon to-day, and not without
reason. I mean by this the study, culture, and social clubs, not those
modern fortresses in which a man rather takes refuge from society than
really seeks or finds it. I have just said that mankind are governed by
centres of natural attraction, around which their lives come to revolve.
In the course of human progress, the higher centres exercise an
ever-widening attraction, and the masses of mankind are brought more and
more under their influence.
Now, the affection of fraternal sympathy and good-will is as natural to
man, though not so immediate in him, as are any of the selfish
instincts. Objects of moral and intellectual worth call forth this
sympathy in a high and ever-increasing degree, while objects in which
self is paramount call forth just the opposite, and foster in one and
all the selfish principle, which is always one of emulation, discord,
and mutual distrust. While a salon may be administered in a generous and
disinterested manner, I should fear that it would often prove an arena
in which the most selfish leadings of human nature would assert
themselves.
In the club, a sort of public spirit necessarily develops itself. Each
of us would like to have his place there,--yes, and his appointed little
time of shining,--but a worthy object, such as will hold together men
and women on an intellectual basis, gradually wins for itself the place
of command in the affections of those who follow it in company. Each of
these will find that his unaided efforts are insufficient for the
furthering and illustration of a great subject which all have greatly at
heart. I have been present at a forge on which the pure gold of thought
has been hammered by thinkers into the rounded sphere of an almost
perfect harmony. One and another and another gave his hit or his touch,
and when the delightful hour was at an end, each of us carried the
golden sphere away with him.
The club which I have in mind at this moment had an unfashionable name,
and was scarcely, if at all, recognized in the general society of
Boston. It was called the Radical Club,--and the really radical feature
in it was the fact that the thoughts presented at its meetings had a
root, and were, in that sense, radical. These thoughts, entertained by
individuals of very various persuasions, often brought forth strong
oppositions of opinion. Some of us used to wax warm in the defence of
our own conviction; but our wrath was not the wrath of the peacock,
enraged to see another peacock unfold its brilliant tail, but the
concern of sincere thinkers that a subject worth discussing should not
be presented in a partial and one-sided manner, to which end, each
marked his point and said his say; and when our meeting was over, we had
all had the great instruction of looking into the minds of those to whom
truth was as dear as to ourselves, even if her aspect to them was not
exactly what it was to us.
Here I have heard Wendell Phillips and Oliver Wendell Holmes; John Weiss
and James Freeman Clarke; Athanase Coquerel, the noble French Protestant
preacher; William Henry Channing, worthy nephew of his great uncle;
Colonel Higginson, Dr. Bartol, and many others. Extravagant things were
sometimes said, no doubt, and the equilibrium of ordinary persuasion was
not infrequently disturbed for a time; but the satisfaction of those
present when a sound basis of thought was vindicated and established is
indeed pleasant in remembrance.
I feel tempted to introduce here one or two magic-lantern views of
certain sittings of this renowned club, of which I cherish especial
remembrance. Let me say, speaking in general terms, that, albeit the
club was more critical than devout, its criticism was rarely other than
serious and earnest. I remember that M. Coquerel's discourse there was
upon "The Protestantism of Art," and that in it he combated the
generally received idea that the church of Rome has always stood first
in the patronage and inspiration of art. The great Dutch painters,
Holbein, Rembrandt, and their fellows, were not Roman Catholics. Michael
Angelo was protestant in spirit; so was Dante. I cannot recall with much
particularity the details of things heard so many years ago, but I
remember the presence at this meeting of Charles Sumner, George Hillard,
and Dr. Hedge. Mr. Sumner declined to take any part in the discussion
which followed M. Coquerel's discourse. Colonel Higginson, who was often
present at these meetings, maintained his view that Protestantism was
simply the decline of the Christian religion. Mr. Hillard quoted St.
James's definition of religion, pure and undefiled,--to visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world. Dr. Hedge, who was about to withdraw, paused for a
moment to say: "The word 'religion' is not rightly translated there; it
should mean"--I forgot what. The doctor's tone and manner very much
impressed a friend, who afterwards said to me: "Did he not go away 'like
one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him'?"
Or it might be that John Weiss, he whom a lady writer once described as
"four parts spirit and one part flesh," gave us his paper on Prometheus,
or one on music, or propounded his theory of how the world came into
existence. Colonel Higginson would descant upon the Greek goddesses, as
representing the feminine ideals of the Greek mythology, which he held
to be superior to the Christian ideals of womanhood,--dear Elizabeth
Peabody and I meeting him in earnest opposition. David Wasson, powerful
in verse and in prose, would speak against woman suffrage. When driven
to the wall, he confessed that he did not believe in popular suffrage at
all; and when forced to defend this position, he would instance the
wicked and ill-governed city of New York as reason enough for his views.
I remember his going away after such a discussion very abruptly, not at
all in Dr. Hedge's grand style, but rather as if he shook the dust of
our opinions from his feet; for no one of the radicals would countenance
this doctrine, and though we freely confessed the sins of New York, we
believed not a whit the less in the elective franchise, with amendments
and extensions.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, one day, if I remember rightly, gave a very
succinct and clear statement of the early forms of Calvinistic doctrine
as held in this country, and Wendell Phillips lent his eloquent speech
to this and to other discussions.
When I think of it, I believe that I had a salon once upon a time. I did
not call it so, nor even think of it as such; yet within it were
gathered people who represented many and various aspects of life. They
were real people, not lay figures distinguished by names and clothes.
The earnest humanitarian interests of my husband brought to our home a
number of persons interested in reform, education, and progress. It was
my part to mix in with this graver element as much of social grace and
geniality as I was able to gather about me. I was never afraid to bring
together persons who rarely met elsewhere than at my house, confronting
Theodore Parker with some archpriest of the old orthodoxy, or William
Lloyd Garrison with a decade, perhaps, of Beacon Street dames. A friend
said, on one of these occasions: "Our hostess delights in contrasts." I
confess that I did; but I think that my greatest pleasure was in the
lessons of human compatibility which I learned on this wise. I started,
indeed, with the conviction that thought and character are the foremost
values in society, and was not afraid nor ashamed to offer these to my
guests, with or without the stamp of fashion and position. The result
amply justified my belief.
Some periods in our own history are more favorable to such intercourse
than others. The agony and enthusiasm of the civil war, and the long
period of ferment and disturbance which preceded and followed that great
crisis,--these social agitations penetrated the very fossils of the body
politic. People were glad to meet together, glad to find strength and
comfort among those who lived and walked by solid convictions. We cannot
go back to that time; we would not, if we could; but it was a grand time
to live and to work in.
I am sorry when I see people build palaces in America. We do not need
them. Why should we bury fortune and life in the dead state of rooms
which are not lived in? Why should we double and triple for ourselves
the dangers of insufficient drainage or defective sanitation? Let us
have such houses as we need,--comfortable, well aired, well lighted,
adorned with such art as we can appreciate, enlivened by such company as
we can enjoy. Similarly, I believe that we should, individually, come
much nearer to the real purpose of a salon by restricting the number of
our guests and enlarging their variety.
If we are to have a salon, do not let us think too much about its
appearance to the outside world,--how it will be reported, and extolled,
and envied. Mr. Emerson withdrew from the Boston Radical Club because
newspaper reports of its meetings were allowed. We live too much in
public to-day, and desire too much the seal of public notice.
There is not room in our short human life for both shams and realities.
We can neither pursue nor possess both. I think of this now entirely
with application to the theme under consideration. Let us not exercise
sham hospitality to sham friends. Let the heart of our household be
sincere; let our home affections expand to a wider human brotherhood and
sisterhood. Let us be willing to take trouble to gather our friends
together, and to offer them such entertainment as we can, remembering
that the best entertainment is mutual.
But do not let us offend ourselves or our friends with the glare of
lights, the noise of numbers, in order that all may suffer a tedious and
joyless being together, and part as those who have contributed to each
other's _ennui_, all sincere and reasonable intercourse having been
wanting in the general encounter.
We should not feel bound, either, to the literal imitation of any facts
or features of European life which may not fit well upon our own. In
many countries, the currents of human life have become so deepened and
strengthened by habit and custom as to render change very difficult, and
growth almost impossible. In our own, on the contrary, life is fresh and
fluent. Its boundaries should be elastic, capable even of indefinite
expansion.
In the older countries of which I speak, political power and social
recognition are supposed to emanate from some autocratic source, and the
effort and ambition of all naturally look toward that source, and,
knowing none other, feel a personal interest in maintaining its
ascendency, the statu quo. In our own broad land, power and light have
no such inevitable abiding-place, but may emanate from an endless
variety of points and personalities.
The other mode of living may have much to recommend it for those to whom
it is native and inherited, but it is not for us. And when we apologize
for our needs and deficiencies, it should not be on the ground of our
youth and inexperience. If the settlement of our country is recent, we
have behind us all the experience of the human race, and are bound to
represent its fuller and riper manhood. Our seriousness is sometimes
complained of, usually by people whose jests and pleasantries fail to
amuse us. Let us not apologize for this, nor envy any nation its power
of trifling and of _persiflage_. We have mighty problems to solve; great
questions to answer. The fate of the world's future is concerned in what
we shall do or leave undone.
We are a people of workers, and we love work--shame on him who is
ashamed of it! When we are found, on our own or other shores, idling our
life away, careless of vital issues, ignorant of true principles, then
may we apologize, then let us make haste to amend.
Aristophanes
WHEN I learned, last season, that the attention of the school[A] this
year would be in a good degree given to the dramatists of ancient
Greece, I was seized with a desire to speak of one of these, to whom I
owe a debt of gratitude. This is the great Aristophanes, the first, and
the most illustrious, of comic writers for the stage,--first and best,
at least, of those known to Western literature.
In the chance talk of people of culture, one hears of him all one's life
long, as exceedingly amusing. From my brothers in college, I learned the
"Frog Chorus" before I knew even a letter of the Greek alphabet. Many a
decade after this, I walked in the theatre of Bacchus at Athens, and
seeing the beauty of the marble seats, still ranged in perfect order,
and feeling the glory and dignity of the whole surrounding, I seemed to
guess that the comedies represented there were not desired to amuse idle
clowns nor to provoke vulgar laughter.
[Note A] Read before the Concord School of Philosophy.
At the foot of the Acropolis, with the Parthenon in sight and the
colossal statue of Minerva towering above the glittering temples, the
poet and his audience surely had need to bethink themselves of the
wisdom which lies in laughter, of the ethics of the humorous,--a topic
well worth the consideration of students of philosophy. The ethics of
the humorous, the laughter of the gods! "He that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh them to scorn." Did not even the gentle Christ intend satire
when, after recognizing the zeal with which an ox or an ass would be
drawn out of a pit on the sacred day, he asked: "And shall not this
woman, whom Satan hath bound, lo! these eighteen years, be loosed from
her infirmity on the sabbath day?"
When a Greek tragedy is performed before us, we are amazed at its force,
its coherence, and its simplicity. What profound study and quick sense
of the heroic in nature must have characterized the man who, across the
great gulf of centuries, can so sweep our heart-strings, and draw from
them such responsive music! Our praise of these great works almost
sounds conceited. It would be more fitting for us to sit in silence and
bewail our own smallness. Comedy, too, has her grandeur; and when she
walks the stage in robe and buskins, she, too, is to receive the highest
crown, and her lessons are to be laid to heart.
I will venture a word here concerning the subjective side of comedy. Is
it the very depth and quick of our self-love which is reached by the
subtle sting which calls up a blush where no sermonizing would have that
effect? Deep satire touches the heroic within us. "Miserable sinners are
ye all," says the preacher, "vanity of vanities!" and we sit
contentedly, and say Amen. But here comes some one who sets up our
meannesses and incongruities before us so that they topple over and
tumble down. And then, strange to say, we feel in ourselves this same
power; and considering our follies in the same light, we are compelled
to deride, and also to forsake them.
The miseries of war and the desirableness of peace were impressed
strongly on the mind of Aristophanes. The Peloponnesian War dragged on
from year to year with varying fortune; and though victory often crowned
the arms of the Athenians, its glory was dearly paid for by the
devastation which the Lacedæmonians inflicted upon the territory of
Attica. "The Acharnians," "The Knights," and "Peace" deal with this
topic in various forms. In the first of these is introduced, as the
chief character, Dikæopolis, a country gentleman who, in consequence of
the Spartan invasion, has been forced to forsake his estates, and to
take shelter in the city. He naturally desires the speedy conclusion of
hostilities, and to this end attends the assembly, determined, as he
says:
To bawl, to abuse, to interrupt the speakers
Whenever I hear a word of any kind,
Except for an immediate peace.
This method reminds us of the obstructionists in the British Parliament.
One man speaks of himself as loathing the city and longing to return
To my poor village and my farm
That never used to cry: "Come buy my charcoal,"
Nor "buy my oil," nor "buy my anything,"
But gave me what I wanted, freely and fairly,
Clear of all cost, with never a word of buying.
After various laughable adventures, Dikæopolis finds it possible to
conclude a truce with the invaders on his own account, in which his
neighbors, the Acharnians, are not included. He returns to his farm, and
goes forth with wife and daughter to perform the sacrifice fitting for
the occasion.
DIKÆOPOLIS
Silence! Move forward, the Canephora.
You, Xanthias, follow close behind her there
In a proper manner, with your pole and emblem.
WIFE
Set down the basket, daughter, and begin
The ceremony.
DAUGHTER
Give me the cruet, mother,
And let me pour it on the holy cake.
DIKÆOPOLIS
O blessed Bacchus, what a joy it is
To go thus unmolested, undisturbed,
My wife, my children, and my family,
With our accustomed joyful ceremony,
To celebrate thy festival in my farm.
Well, here's success to the truce of thirty years.
WIFE
Mind your behavior, child. Carry the basket
In a modest, proper manner; look demure;
Mind your gold trinkets, they'll be stolen else.
Dikæopolis now intones a hymn to Bacchus, but is interrupted by the
violent threats of his war-loving neighbors, the Acharnians, who break
out in injurious language, and threaten the life of the miscreant who
has made peace with the enemies of his country solely for his own
interests. With a good deal of difficulty, he persuades the enraged
crowd to allow him to argue his case before them, and this fact makes us
acquainted with another leading trait in Aristophanes; viz., his polemic
opposition to the poet Euripides. Dikæopolis, wishing to make a
favorable impression upon the rustics, hies to the house of Euripides,
whose servant parleys with him in true transcendental language.
DIKÆOPOLIS
Euripides within?
SERVANT
Within, and not within. You comprehend me?
DIKÆOPOLIS
Within and not within! What do you mean?
SERVANT