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James Freemon blocker. I
THE DIAL:
MAGAZINE
FOR
LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION.
VOLUME IV.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MUNROE AND CO.
134, WASHINGTON STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN CHAPMAN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.
MDCCCXLIV.





ANDOVEF HAPAWARD
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
7.5261
CONTENTS. VY
- 1843-1844
No. I.
The Youth of the Poet and the Painter, by William Ë. Channing, 48
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Ethnical Scriptures. .
Abou Ben Adhem ..
The Earth. . . . . . . . .
Social Tendencies
Song of Death .. : : .. .. .. ..
Notes from the Journal of a Scholar . . . .
Manhood . . . .
Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Past and Present
An Old Man . . . . . . . .
To Rhea . . . . . . . . .
The Journey .
. . . . .
Notes on Art and Architecture
te . . . .
The Glade . . . . . . . . .
Voyage to Jamaica . .
Record of the Months
Intelligence . . . . . . . .
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•
. 103
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104
. 106
. 107
. 115
116
134, 135
135, 136
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No. II.
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137
165
•
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174
186
188
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205
210
Hennell on the Origin of Christianity .
A Day with the Shakers
The Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
Autumn . .
Social Tendencies.
Ethnical Scriptures . . . .
Via Sacra . ..
A Winter Walk.
The Three Dimensions
Voyage to Jamaica
The Mother's Grief
Sweep Ho! . . . . . .
The Sail . . .
The Comic.
* Ode to Beauty . . . . .
Allston's Funeral . . . .
211
226
227
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.
245
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. 243
246
247
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257
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259


CONTENTS.
To the Muse . .
William Tell's Song
A Letter . . .
New Books . .
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260
. 261
262
. 270
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273
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306
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No. III.
The Youth of the Poet and the Painter .
Translation of Dante . . . .
Homer. Ossian. Chaucer . . .
Laines , in . . . . .
The Modern Drama . . . .
To R. B. . . . . . .
Autumn Woods
Brook Farm . . . . .
Tantalus. .
The Fatal Passion
Interior or Hidden Life . . . .
Pindar . . . . . . . .
The Preaching of Buddha . . .
Ethnical Scriptures . . . .
The Times . . . . . . .
Critical Notices . . . . .
.
.
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.
285
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290
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307
349
350
351
357
364
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373
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379
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391
. 401
405
. 407
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No. IV.
409
415
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425
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. 427
458
455
469
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470
471
.
Immanuel Kant ..
Life in the Woods
The Emigrants
:
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: : .
The Youth of the Poet and the Painter .
The Twin Loves .
Dialogue • • • • • •
The Consolers ..
To Readers . . . . . .
The Death of Shelley .
A Song of the Sea . . . . .
To the Poets. - Fourierism
The Young American. By R. W. EMERS
Herald of Freedom . . . . .
Fragments of Pindar . ' . . .
The Tragic .. .. ..
Saturday and Sunday among the Creoles .
The Moorish Prince
The Visit . . . . . . .
Ethnical Scriptures. . . . . .
Millennial Church . . . . .
Human Nature . . . . .
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..
472
473
484
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507
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513
515
. 521
525
. 528
529
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540
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537
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ames Freeman blache
THE DI AL.
Vol. IV.
JULY, 1843.
No. I.
THE GREAT LAWSUIT.
MAN tersus MEN. WOMAN versus WOMEN.
This great suit has now been carried on through many
ages, with various results. The decisions have been nu-
merous, but always followed by appeals to still higher
courts. How can it be otherwise, when the law itself is
the subject of frequent elucidation, constant revision ?
Man has, now and then, enjoyed a clear, triumphant hour,
when some irresistible conviction warmed and purified the
atmosphere of his planet. But, presently, he sought repose
after his labors, when the crowd of pigmy adversaries bound
him in his sleep. Long years of inglorious imprisonment
followed, while his enemies revelled in his spoils, and no
counsel could be found to plead his cause, in the absence
of that all-promising glance, which had, at times, kindled
the poetic soul to revelation of his claims, of his rights.
Yet a foundation for the largest claim is now established.
It is known that his inheritance consists in no partial sway,
no exclusive possession, such as his adversaries desire. For
they, not content that the universe is rich, would, each one
for himself, appropriate treasure; but in vain! The many-
colored garment, which clothed with honor an elected son,
when rent asunder for the many, is a worthless spoil. A
band of robbers cannot live princely in the prince's castle;
nor would he, like them, be content with less than all,
though he would not, like them, seek it as fuel for riotous
enjoyment, but as his principality, to administer and guard
for the use of all living things therein. He cannot be satis-
fied with any one gift of the earth, any one department of
knowledge, or telescopic peep at the heavens. He feels
VOL. IV. — NO. 1.


The Great Lawsuit.
(July,
himself called to understand and aid nature, that she may,
through his intelligence, be raised and interpreted ; to be a
student of, and servant to, the universe-spirit; and only
king of his planet, that, as an angelic minister, he inay
bring it into conscious harmony with the law of that spirit.
Such is the inheritance of the orphan prince, and the
illegitimate children of his family will not always be able to
keep it from him, for, from the fields which they sow with
dragon's teeth, and water with blood, rise monsters, which
he alone has power to drive away.
But it is not the purpose now to sing the prophecy of his
jubilee. We have said that, in clear triumphant moments,
this has many, many times been made manifest, and those
moments, though past in time, have been translated into
eternity by thought. The bright signs they left hang in
the heavens, as single stars or constellations, and, already,
a thickly-sown radiance consoles the wanderer in the dark-
est night. Heroes have filled the zodiac of beneficent
labors, and then given up their mortal part * to the fire
without a murmur. Sages and lawgivers have bent their
* Jupiter alloquitur,
Sed enim, ne pectora vano
Fida metu paveant, (Eteas spernite flammas,
Omnia qui vicit, vincet, quos cernitis, ignes;
Nec nisi maternâ Vulcanum parte potentem
Sentiet. Aeternum est, à me quod traxit, et expeis
Atque immune necis, nullaque domabile flamma
Idque ego defunctum terrâ cælestibus oris
Accipiam, cunctisque meum lætabile factum
Dis fore confido. Si quis tamen, Hercule, si quis
Fortè Deo doliturus erit, data præmia nollet;
Sed meruisse dari sciet, invitusque probabit.
Assensêre Dei.
Ovid, Apotheosis of Hercules, translated into clumsy English by Mr.
Gay, as follows.
Jove said,
Be all your fears forborne,
Th’ Etean fires do thou, great hero, scorn;
Who vanquished all things, shall subdue the flame;
The part alone of gross maternal frame,
Fire shall devour, while that from me he drew
Shall live inmortal, and its force renew;
That, when he's dead, I'll raise to realms above,
May all the powers the righieous act approve.
If any God dissent, and judge too great
The sacred honors of the heavenly seat,
Even he shall own his deeds deserve the sky,
Even he, reluctant, shall at length comply.
Th' assembled powers assent.


1843.]
Man vs. Men.
whole nature to the search for truth, and thought them-
selves happy if they could buy, with the sacrifice of all
temporal ease and pleasure, one seed for the future Eden.
Poets and priests have strung the lyre with heart-strings,
poured out their best blood upon the altar which, reared
anew from age to age, shall at last sustain the flame which
rises to highest heaven. What shall we say of those who,
if not so directly, or so consciously, in connection with the
central truth, yet, led and fashioned by a divine instinct,
serve no less to develop and interpret the open secret of
love passing into life, the divine energy creating for the
purpose of happiness ; -of the artist, whose hand, drawn
by a preëxistent harmony to a certain medium, moulds it
to expressions of life more highly and completely organ-
ized than are seen elsewhere, and, by carrying out the
intention of nature, reveals her meaning to those who are
not yet sufficiently matured to divine it; of the philoso-
pher, who listens steadily for causes, and, from those obvi-
ous, infers those yet unknown; of the historian, who, in
faith that all events must have their reason and their aim,
records them, and lays up archives from which the youth
of prophets may be fed. The man of science dissects the
statement, verifies the facts, and demonstrates connection
even where he cannot its purpose.
Lives, too, which bear none of these names, have yielded
tones of no less significance. The candlestick, set in a
low place, has given light as faithfully, where it was needed,
as that upon the hill. In close alleys, in dismal nooks, the
Word has been read as distinctly, as when shown by angels
to holy men in the dark prison. Those who till a spot of
earth, scarcely larger than is wanted for a grave, have deser-
ved that the sun should shine upon its sod till violets answer.
So great has been, from time to time, the promise, that,
in all ages, men have said the Gods themselves came down
to dwell with them; that the All-Creating wandered on the
earth to taste in a limited nature the sweetness of virtue,
that the All-Sustaining incarnated himself, to guard, in space
and time, the destinies of his world ; that heavenly genius
dwelt among the shepherds, to sing to them and teach them
how to sing. Indeed,
“Der stets den Hirten gnädig sich bewies.”
"He has constantly shown himself favorable to shepherds."


The Great Lawsuit.
(July,
And these dwellers in green pastures and natural stu-
dents of the stars, were selected to hail, first of all,
the holy child, whose life and death presented the type
of excellence, which has sustained the heart of so large a
portion of mankind in these later generations.
Such marks have been left by the footsteps of man,
whenever he has made his way through the wilderness of
men. And whenever the pigmies stepped in one of these,
they felt dilate within the breast somewhat that promised
larger stature and purer blood. They were tempted to
forsake their evil ways, to forsake the side of selfish per-
sonal existence, of decrepit skepticism, and covetousness
of corruptible possessions. Conviction flowed in upon
them. They, too, raised the cry; God is living, all is
his, and all created beings are brothers, for they are his
children. These were the triumphant moments; but, as we
have said, man slept and selfishness awoke.
Thus he is still kept out of his inheritance, still a pleader,
still a pilgrimn. But his reinstatement is sure. And now, no
mere glimmering consciousness, but a certainty, is felt and
spoken, that the highest ideal man can form of his own capa-
bilities is that which he is destined to attain. Whatever the
soul knows how to seek, it must attain. Knock, and it shall
be opened ; seek, and ye shall find. It is demonstrated, it is
a maxim. He no longer paints his proper nature in some
peculiar form and says, “ Prometheus had it,” but “ Man
must have it.” However disputed by many, however igno-
rantly used, or falsified, by those who do receive it, the fact
of an universal, unceasing revelation, has been 100 clearly
stated in words, to be lost sight of in thought, and sermons
preached from the text, “Be ye perfect,” are the only ser-
mons of a pervasive and deep-searching influence.
But among those who meditate upon this text, there is
great difference of view, as to the way in which perfection
shall be sought.
Through the intellect, say some; Gather from every
growth of life its seed of thought; look behind every
symbol for its law. If thou canst see clearly, the rest will
follow.
Through the life, say others; Do the best thou knowest
to-day. Shrink not from incessant error, in this gradual,
fragmentary state. Follow thy light for as much as it will


1843.]
Man vs. Men.
.
show thee, be faithful as far as thou canst, in hope that
faith presently will lead to sight. Help others, without
blame that they need thy help. Love inuch, and be for-
given.
It needs not intellect, needs not experience, says a third.
If you took the true way, these would be evolved in purity.
You would not learn through them, but express through
them a higher knowledge. In quietness, yield thy soul to
the causal soul. Do not disturb its teachings by methods
of thine own. Be still, seek not, but wait in obedience.
Thy commission will be given.
Could,we, indeed, say what we want, could we give a
description of the child that is lost, he would be found.
As soon as the soul can say clearly, that a certain demon-
stration is wanted, it is at hand. When the Jewish prophet
described the Lamb, as the expression of what was required
by the coming era, the time drew nigh. But we say not,
see not, as yet, clearly, what we would. Those who call
for a more triumphant expression of love, a love that can-
not be crucified, show not a perfect sense of what has
already been expressed. Love has already been expressed,
that made all things new, that gave the worm its ministry
as well as the eagle; a love, to which it was alike to de-
scend into the depths of hell, or to sit at the right hand of
the Father.
Yet, no doubt, a new manifestation is at hand, a new
hour in the day of man. We cannot expect to see him a
completed being, when the mass of men lie so entangled
in the sod, or use the freedom of their limbs only with wolf-
ish energy. The tree cannot come to flower till its root be
freed from the cankering worm, and its whole growth open
to air and light. Yet something new shall presently be
shown of the life of man, for hearts crave it now, if minds
do not know how to ask it.
Among the strains of prophecy, the following, by an
earnest mind of a foreign land, written some thirty years
ago, is not yet outgrown; and it has the merit of being a
positive appeal from the heart, instead of a critical declara-
tion what man shall not do.
“The ministry of man implies, that he must be filled from the
divine fountains which are being engendered through all eter-
nity, so that, at the mere name of his Master, he may be able to


The Great Lawsuit.
(July,
cast all his enemies into the abyss; that he may deliver all parts
of nature from the barriers that imprison them; that he may
purge the terrestrial atmosphere from the poisons that infect it;
that he may preserve the bodies of men from the corrupt influ-
ences that surround, and the maladies that afflict them ; still
inore, that he may keep their souls pure from the malignant in-
sinuations which pollute, and the gloomy images that obscure
them; that we may restore its serenity to the Word, which false
words of men fill with mourning and sadness; that he may sat-
isfy the desires of the angels, who await from him the develop-
ment of the marvels of nature; that, in fine, his world may be
filled with God, as eternity is." *
Another attempt we will give, by an obscure observer of
our own day and country, to draw some lines of the de-
sired image. It was suggested by seeing the design of
Crawford's Orpheus, and connecting with the circumstance
of the American, in his garret at Rome, making choice of
this subject, that of Americans here at home, showing
such ambition to represent the character, by calling their
prose and verse, Orphic sayings, Orphics. Orpheus was a
lawgiver by theocratic commission. He understood nature,
and made all her forms move to his music. He told her
secrets in the form of hymns, nature as seen in the mind
of God. Then it is the prediction, that to learn and to do,
all men must be lovers, and Orpheus was, in a high sense, a
lover. His soul went forth towards all beings, yet could re-
main sternly faithful to a chosen type of excellence. Seek-
ing what he loved, he feared not death nor hell, neither
could any presence daunt his faith in the power of the ce-
lestial harmony that filled his soul.
It seemed significant of the state of things in this coun-
try, that the sculptor should have chosen the attitude of
shading his eyes. When we have the statue here, it will
give lessons in reverence.
Each Orpheus must to the depths descend,
For only thus the poet can be wise,
Must make the sad Persephone his friend,
And buried love to second life arise;
Again his love must lose through too much love,
Must lose his life by living life too true,
For what he sought below is passed above,
* St. Martin.


1843.]
Man vs. Men.
Already done is all that he would do;
Must tune all being with his single lyre,
Must melt all rocks free from their primal pain,
Must search all nature with his one soul's fire,
Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain.
If he already sees what he must do,
Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view.
Meanwhile, not a few believe, and men themselves have
expressed the opinion, that the time is come when Euri-
dice is to call for an Orpheus, rather than Orpheus for
Euridice ; that the idea of man, however imperfectly
brought out, has been far more so than that of woman,
and that an improvement in the daughters will best aid the
reformation of the sons of this age.
It is worthy of remark, that, as the principle of lib-
erty is better understood and more nobly interpreted, a
broader protest is made in behalf of woman. As men be-
come aware that all men have not had their fair chance,
they are inclined to say that no women have had a fair
chance. The French revolution, that strangely disguised
angel, bore witness in favor of woman, but interpreted her
claims no less ignorantly than those of man. Its idea of
happiness did not rise beyond outward enjoyment, unob-
structed by the tyranny of others. The title it gave was
Citoyen, Citoyenne, and it is not unimportant to woman
that even this species of equality was awarded her. Before,
she could be condemned to perish on the scaffold for trea-
son, but not as a citizen, but a subject. The right, with
which this title then invested a human being, was that of
bloodshed and license. The Goddess of Liberty was im-
pure. Yet truth was prophesied in the ravings of that
hideous fever induced by long ignorance and abuse. Eu-
rope'is conning a valued lesson from the blood-stained page.
The same tendencies, farther unfolded, will bear good fruit
in this country.
Yet, in this country, as by the Jews, when Moses was
leading them to the promised land, everything has been
done that inherited depravity could, to hinder the promise
of heaven from its fulfilment. The cross, here as else-
where, has been planted only to be blasphemed by cruelty
and fraud. The name of the Prince of Peace has been
profaned by all kinds of injustice towards the Gentile whom


The Great Lawsuit.
. (July,
he said he came to save. But I need not speak of what
has been done towards the red man, the black man. These
deeds are the scoff of the world; and they have been ac-
companied by such pious words, that the gentlest would not
dare to intercede with, “Father forgive them, for they know
not what they do.” i
Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always
in the growth of individual minds, which live and aspire,
as flowers bloom and birds sing, in the midst of morasses ;
and in the continual development of that thought, the
thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity to
fulfil, and which ages of failure only seemingly impede.
Only seemingly, and whatever seems to the contrary,
this country is as surely destined to elucidate a great moral
law, as Europe was to promote the mental culture of man.
Though the national independence be blurred by the
servility of individuals; though freedom and equality have
been proclaimed only, to leave room for a monstrous dis-
play of slave dealing, and slave keeping ; though the free
American so often feels himself free, like the Roman, only
to pamper his appetites and his indolence through the
misery of his fellow beings, still it is not in vain, that the
verbal statement has been made, "All men are born free and
equal.” There it stands, a golden certainty, wherewith to
encourage the good, to shame the bad. The new world
may be called clearly to perceive that it incurs the utmost
penalty, if it reject the sorrowful brother. And if men are
deaf, the angels hear. But men cannot be deaf. It is inevita-
ble that an external freedom, such as has been achieved for
the nation, should be so also for every member of it. That,
which has once been clearly conceived in the intelligence,
must be acted out. It has become a law, as irrevocable as
that of the Medes in their ancient dominion. Men will pri-
vately sin against it, but the law so clearly expressed by a
leading mind of the age,
“ Tutti fatti a sembianza d'un Solo;
Figli tutti d'un solo riscatto,
In qual ora, in qual parte del suolo
Trascorriamo quest' aura vital,
Siam fratelli, siam stretti ad un patto:
Maladetto colui che lo infrange,


1813]
Man vs. Men.
Che s'innalza sul fiacco che piange,
Che contrista uno spirto immortal.” *
“All made in the likeness of the One, i
All children of one ransom,
In whatever hour, in whatever part of the soil
We draw this vital air,
We are brothers, we must be bound by one compact,
Accursed he who infringes it,
Who raises himself upon the weak who weep,
Who saddens an immortal spirit.”
cannot fail of universal recognition.
We sicken no less at the pomp than the strife of words.
We feel that never were lungs so puffed with the wind of
declamation, on moral and religious subjects, as now. We
are tempted to implore these “ word-heroes,” these word-
Catos, word-Christs, to beware of cant above all things ; to
remember that hypocrisy is the most hopeless as well as
the meanest of crimes, and that those must surely be polluted
by it, who do not keep a little of all this morality and reli-
gion for private use.t We feel that the mind may “grow
black and rancid in the smoke” even of altars. We start
up from the harangue to go into our closet and shut the
door. But, when it has been shut long enough, we re-
member that where there is so much smoke, there must be
some fire; with so much talk about virtue and freedom
must be mingled some desire for them; that it cannot be
in vain that such have become the common topics of con-
versation among men ; that the very newspapers should
proclaim themselves Pilgrims, Puritans, Heralds of Holi-
ness. The king that maintains so costly a retinue cannot
be a mere Count of Carabbas fiction. We have waited
here long in the dust; we are tired and hungry, but the
triumphal procession must appear at last.
Of all its banners, none has been more steadily upheld,
and under none has more valor and willingness for real
sacrifices been shown, than that of the champions of the
* Manzoni.
Dr. Johnson's one piece of advice should be written on every door;
“ Clear your mind of cant." But Byron, to whom it was so acceptable,
in clearing away the noxious vine, shook down the building too. Stir.
ling's emendation is note-worthy, “ Realize your cant, not cast it off."
VOL. IV. —NO. I.
2
,


10
[July,
.
The Great Lawsuit.
enslaved African. And this band it is, which, partly in
consequence of a natural following out of principles, partly
because many women have been prominent in that cause,
makes, just now, the warmest appeal in behaif of woman.
Though there has been a growing liberality on this point,
yet society at large is not so prepared for the demands of
this party, but that they are, and will be for some time,
coldly regarded as the Jacobins of their day.
“ Is it not enough,” cries the sorrowful trader, “that
you have done all you could 10 break up the national
Union, and thus destroy the prosperity of our country, but
now you must be trying to break up family union, to take
my wife away from the cradle, and the kitchen hearth, to
vote at polls, and preach from a pulpit? Of course, if she
does such things, she cannot attend to those of her own
sphere. She is happy enough as she is. She has more
leisure than I have, every means of improvement, every
indulgence."
“Have you asked her whether she was satisfied with
these indulgences ?"
“ No, but I know she is. She is too amiable to wish
what would make me unhappy, and too judicious to wish
to step beyond the sphere of her sex. I will never consent
to have our peace disturbed by any such discussions."
"Consent' — you ? it is not consent from you that is in
question, it is assent from your wife.”
Am not I the head of my house ?"
“ You are not the head of your wife. God has given
her a mind of her own."
“I am the head and she the heart.”
“God grant you play true to one another then. If the
head represses no natural pulse of the heart, there can be
no question as to your giving your consent. Both will be
of one accord, and there needs but to present any question
to get a full and true answer. There is no need of pre-
caution, of indulgence, or consent. But our doubt is
whether the heart consents with the head, or only acqui-
esces in its decree; and it is to ascertain the truth on this
point, that we propose some liberating measures.”
Thus vaguely are these questions proposed and discussed
at present. But their being proposed at all implies much
thought, and suggests more. Many women are considering


1843.
11
Man vs. Men. Woman vs. Women.
within themselves what they need that they have not, and
what they can have, if they find they need it. Many men
are considering whether women are capable of being and
having more than they are and have, and whether, if they
are, it will be best to consent to improvement in their con-
dition.
The numerous party, whose opinions are already labelled
and adjusted too much to their mind to admit of any new
light, strive, by lectures on some model-woman of bridal-like
beauty and gentleness, by writing or lending little treatises,
to mark out with due precision the limits of woman's
sphere, and woman's mission, and to prevent other than the
rightful shepherd from climbing the wall, or the flock from
using any chance gap to run astray.
Without enrolling ourselves at once on either side, let us
look upon the subject from that point of view which to-day
offers. No better, it is to be feared, than a high house-top.
A high hill-top, or at least a cathedral spire, would be desir-
able.
It is not surprising that it should be the Anti-Slavery par-
ty that pleads for woman, when we consider merely that she
does not hold property on equal terms with men ; so that, if
a husband dies without a will, the wife, instead of stepping
at once into his place as head of the family, inherits only a
part of his fortune, as if she were a child, or ward only, not
an equal partner.
We will not speak of the innumerable instances, in which
profligate or idle men live upon the earnings of industrious
wives; or if the wives leave them and take with them the
children, to perform the double duty of mother and father,
follow from place to place, and threaten to rob them of the
children, if deprived of the rights of a husband, as they
call them, planting themselves in their poor lodgings, fright-
ening them into paying tribute by taking from them the
children, running into debt at the expense of these other-
wise so overtasked helots. Though such instances abound,
the public opinion of his own sex is against the man, and
when cases of extreme tyranny are made known, there is
private action in the wife's favor. But if woman be, in- x
deed, the weaker party, she ought to have legal protection,
which would make such oppression impossible.
And knowing that there exists, in the world of men, a-


'12
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
tone of feeling towards women as towards slaves, such as
is expressed in the common phrase, “ Tell that to women
and children;" that the infinite soul can only work
through them in already ascertained limits ; that the pre-
rogative of reason, man's highest portion, is allotted to them
in a much lower degree; that it is better for them to be en-
gaged in active labor, which is to be furnished and directed
by those better able to think, &c. &c.; we need not go
further, for who can review the experience of last week,
without recalling words which imply, whether in jest or
earnest, these views, and views like these? Knowing this,
can we wonder that many reformers think that measures
are not likely to be taken in behalf of women, unless
their wishes could be publicly represented by women ?
That can never be necessary, cry the other side. All
men are privately influenced by women; each has his wife,
sister, or female friends, and is too much biassed by these
relations to fail of representing their interests. And if this
is not enough, let them propose and enforce their wishes
with the pen. The beauty of home would be destroyed,
the delicacy of the sex be violated, the dignity of halls of
legislation destroyed, by an attempt to introduce them
there. Such duties are inconsistent with those of a mother;
and then we have ludicrous pictures of ladies in hysterics
at the polls, and senate chambers filled with cradles.
But if, in reply, we adınit as truth that woman seems
destined by nature rather to the inner circle, we must add
that the arrangements of civilized life have not been as
yet such as to secure it to her. Her circle, if the duller,
is not the quieter. If kept from excitement, she is not from
drudgery. Not only the Indian carries the burdens of the
camp, but the favorites of Louis the Fourteenth accompany
him in his journeys, and the washerwoman stands at her tub
and carries home her work at all seasons, and in all states
of health.
As to the use of the pen, there was quite as much oppo-
sition to woman's possessing herself of that help to free-
agency as there is now to her seizing on the rostrum or the
desk ; and she is likely to draw, from a perinission to plead
her cause that way, opposite inferences to what might be
wished by those who now grant it.
As to the possibility of her filling, with grace and dignity,


1843.]
Doubts.
13
any such position, we should think those who had seen the
great actresses, and heard the Quaker preachers of modern
times, would not doubt, that woman can express publicly
the fulness of thought and emotion, without losing any of
the peculiar beauty of her sex.
As to her home, she is not likely to leave it more than
she now does for balls, theatres, meetings for promoting
missions, revival meetings, and others to which she flies, in
hope of an animation for her existence, commensurate with
what she sees enjoyed by men.. Governors of Ladies'
Fairs are no less engrossed by such a charge, than the
Governor of the State by his; presidents of Washingtonian
societies, no less away from home than presidents of con-
ventions. If men look straitly to it, they will find that,
unless their own lives are domestic, those of the women
will not be. The female Greek, of our day, is as much in
the street as the male, to cry, What news? We doubt not
it was the same in Athens of old. The women, shut out
from the market-place, made up for it at the religious fes-
tivals. For human beings are not so constituted, that they
can live without expansion ; and if they do not get it one
way, must another, or perish.
And, as to men's representing women fairly, at present,
while we hear from men who owe to their wives not only
all that is comfortable and graceful, but all that is wise in
the arrangement of their lives, the frequent remark, “ You
cannot reason with a woman," when from those of deli-
cacy, nobleness, and poetic culture, the contemptuous
phrase, “ Women and children," and that in no light sally
of the hour, but in works intended to give a permanent
statement of the best experiences, when not one man in
the million, shall I say, no, not in the hundred million, can
rise above the view that woman was made for man, when
such traits as these are daily forced upon the attention, can
we feel that man will always do justice to the interests of
woman? Can we think that he takes a sufficiently dis-
cerning and religious view of her office and destiny, ever
to do her justice, except when prompted by sentiment;
accidentally or transiently, that is, for his sentiment will
vary according to the relations in which he is placed. The
lover, the poet, the artist, are likely to view her nobly. The
father and the philosopher have some chance of lib-


14
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
erality; the man of the world, the legislator for expediency,
none.
Under these circumstances, without attaching importance
in themselves to the changes demanded by the champions
of woman, we hail them as signs of the times. We would
have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have
every path laid open to woman as freely as to man. Were
this done, and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to
subside, we believe that the Divine would ascend into
nature to a height unknown in the history of past ages, and
nature, thus instructed, would regulate the spheres not only
so as to avoid collision, but to bring forth ravishing har-
mony.
Yet then, and only then, will human beings be ripe for
this, when inward and outward freedom for woman, as
much as for man, shall be acknowledged as a right, not
yielded as a concession. As the friend of the negro as-
sumes that one man cannot, by right, hold another in bond-
age, so should the friend of woman assume that man cannot,
by right, lay even well-meant restrictions on woman. If
the negro be a soul, if the woman be a soul, apparelled in
flesh, to one master only are they accountable. There is
but one law for all souls, and, if there is to be an interpre-
ter of it, he comes not as man, or son of man, but as Son
of God.
Were thought and feeling once so far elevated that man
should esteem himself the brother and friend, but nowise
the lord and tutor of woman, were he really bound with
her in equal worship, arrangements as to function and em-
ployment would be of no consequence. What woman
needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to
grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely, and
unimpeded to unfold such powers as were given her when
we left our common home. If fewer talents were given
her, yet, if allowed the free and full employment of these,
so that she may render back to the giver his own with
usury, she will not complain, nay, I dare to say she will bless
and rejoice in her earthly birth-place, her earthly lot.
Let us consider what obstructions impede this good era,
and what signs give reason to hope that it draws near.
I was talking on this subject with Miranda, a woman,
who, if any in the world, might speak without heat or bit-


1843.]
15
Miranda.
terness of the position of her sex. Her father was a man
who cherished no sentimental reverence for woman, but a
firm belief in the equality of the sexes. She was his eldest
child, and came to him at an age when he needed a com-
panion. From the time she could speak and go alone, he
addressed her not as a plaything, but as a living mind.
Among the few verses he ever wrote were a copy address- -
ed to this child, when the first locks were cut from her
head, and the reverence expressed on this occasion for that
cherished head he never belied. It was to him the temple
of immortal intellect. He respected his child, however, too
much to be an indulgent parent. He called on her for
clear judgment, for courage, for honor and fidelity, in short
for such virtues as he knew. In so far as he possessed the
keys to the wonders of this universe, he allowed free use
of them to her, and by the incentive of a high expectation
he forbade, as far as possible, that she should let the privi-
lege lie idle.
Thus this child was early led to feel herself a child of
the spirit. She took her place easily, not only in the
world of organized being, but in the world of mind. A
dignified sense of self-dependence was given as all her por-
tion, and she found it a sure anchor. Herself securely an-
chored, her relations with others were established with
equal security. She was fortunate, in a total absence of
those charms which might have drawn to her bewildering
flatteries, and of a strong electric nature, which repelled
those who did not belong to her, and attracted those who
did. With men and women her relations were noble ; af-
fectionate without passion, intellectual without coldness.
The world was freether, and she lived freely .
Outward adversity came, and inward conflict, but that faith
and self-respect had early been awakened, which must al-
ways lead at last to an outward serenity, and an inward
peace.
of Miranda I had always thought as an example, that
the restraints upon the sex were insuperable only to those
who think them so, or who noisily strive to break them.
She had taken a course of her own, and no man stood in
her way. Many of her acts had been unusual, but excited
no uproar. Few helped, but none checked her ; and the
many men, who knew her mind and her life, showed to her


16
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
confidence as to a brother, gentleness as to a sister. And
not only refined, but very coarse men approved one in
whom they saw resolution and clearness of design. Her
mind was often the leading one, always effective.
When I talked with her upon these matters, and had
said very much what I have written, she smilingly replied,
And yet we must admit that I have been fortunate, and
this should not be. My good father's early trust gave the
first bias, and the rest followed of course. It is true that
I have had less outward aid, in after years, than most women,
but that is of little consequence. Religion was early awak-
ened in my soul, a sense that what the soul is capable to ask
it must attain, and that, though I might be aided by others,
I must depend on myself as the only constant friend. This
self-dependence, which was honored in me, is deprecated as
a fault in most women. They are taught to learn their
rule from without, not to unfold it from within.
This is the fault of man, who is still vain, and wishes to
be more important to woman than by right he should be.
Men have not shown this disposition towards you, I
said.
No, because the position I early was enabled to take,
was one of self-reliance. And were all women as sure of
their wants as I was, the result would be the same. The
difficulty is to get them to the point where they shall nat-
urally develop relf-respect, the question how it is to be
done.
Once I thought that men would help on this state of
things more than I do now. I saw so many of them
wretched in the connections they had formed in weakness
and vanity. They seemed so glad to esteem women when-
ever they could !
But early I perceived that men never, in any extreme of
despair, wished to be women. Where they admired any
woman they were inclined to speak of her as above her
sex. Silently I observed this, and feared it argued a rooted
skepticism, which for ages had been fastening on the heart,
and which only an age of miracles could eradicate.
Ever I have been treated with great sincerity; and I look
upon it as a most signal instance of this, that an intimate
friend of the other sex said in a fervent moment, that I
deserved in some star to be a man. Another used as high-


1843.]
Woman vs. Women.
17
est praise, in speaking of a character in literature, the words
“a manly woman.”
It is well known that of every strong woman they say
she has a masculine mind. '
This by no means argues a willing want of generosity
towards woman. Man is as generous towards her, as he
knows how to be.
Wherever she has herself arisen in national or private
history, and nobly shone forth in any ideal of excellence,
men have received her, not only willingly, but with triumph.
Their encomiums indeed are always in some sense morti-
fying, they show too much surprise.
In every-day life the feelings of the many are stained with
vånity. Each wishes to be lord in a little world, to be
superior at least over one; and he does not feel strong
enough to retain a life-long ascendant over a strong nature.
Only a Brutus would rejoice in a Portia. Only Theseus
could conquer before he wed the Amazonian Queen. Her-
cules wished rather to rest from his labors with Dejanira,
and received the poisoned robe, as a fit guerdon. The
tale should be interpreted to all those who seek repose with
the weak.
But not only is man vain and fond of power, but the
same want of development, which thus affects him morally
in the intellect, prevents his discerning the destiny of wo-
man. The boy wants no woman, but only a girl to play
ball with him, and mark his pocket hạndkerchief.
Thus in Schiller's Dignity of Woman, beautiful as the
poem is, there is no “grave and perfect man,” but only
a great boy to be softened and restrained by the influence
of girls. Poets, the elder brothers of their race, have usu-
ally seen further ; but what can you expect of every-day
men, if Schiller was not more prophetic as to what women
must be? Even with Richter one foremost thought about
a wife was that she would “cook him something good."
The sexes should not only correspond to and appreciate
one another, but prophesy to one another. In individual
instances this happens. Two persons love in one another
the future good which they aid one another to unfold.
This is very imperfectly done as yet in the general life.
Man has gone but little way, now he is waiting to see
whether woman can keep step with him, but instead of
VOL. IV. - NO. 1.


18
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
calling out like a good brother; You can do it if you only
think so, or impersonally ; Any one can do what he tries to
do, he often discourages with school-boy brag ; Girls cant do
that, girls cant play ball. But let any one defy their taunts,
break through, and be brave and secure, they rend the air
with shouts.
No! man is not willingly ungenerous. He wants faith
and love, because he is not yet himself an elevated
being. He cries with sneering skepticism; Give us a sign.
But if the sign appears, his eyes glisten, and he offers not
merely approval, but homage.
The severe nation which taught that the happiness of
the race was forfeited through the fault of a woman, and
showed its thought of what sort of regard man owed her,
by making him accuse her on the first question to his God,
who gave her to the patriarch as a handmaid, and, by the
Mosaical law, bound her to allegiance like a serf, even they
greeted, with solemn rapture, all great and holy women as
heroines, prophetesses, nay judges in Israel ; and, if they
made Eve listen to the serpent, gave Mary to the Holy
Spirit. In other nations it has been the same down to our
day. To the woman, who could conquer, a triumph was
awarded. And not only those whose strength was recom-
mended to the heart by association with goodness and
beauty, but those who were bad, if they were steadfast and
strong, had their claims allowed. In any age a Semiramis,
an Elizabeth of England, a Catharine of Russia makes her
place good, whether in a large or small circle.
How has a little wit, a little genius, always been celebra- -
ted in a woman! What an intellectual triumph was that
of the lonely Aspasia, and how heartily acknowledged !
She, indeed, met a Pericles. But what annalist, the rudest
of men, the most plebeian of husbands, will spare from his
page one of the few anecdotes of Roman women ? — Sap-
pho, Eloisa! The names are of thread-bare celebrity.
The man habitually most narrow towards women will be
flushed, as by the worst assault on Christianity, if you say
it has made no improvement in her condition. Indeed,
those most opposed to new acts in her favor are jealous of
the reputation of those which have been done.
We will not speak of the enthusiasm excited by, ac-
tresses, improvisatrici, female singers, for here mingles the
charm of beauty and grace, but female authors, even


1843.)
Woman vs. Women.
learned women, if not insufferably ugly and slovenly, from
the Italian professor's daughter, who taught behind the cur-
tain, down to Mrs. Carter and Madame Dacier, are sure of
an admiring audience, if they can once get a platform on
which to stand.
But how to get this platform, or how to make it of rea-
sonably easy access is the difficulty. Plants of great vigor
will almost always struggle into blossom, despite impedi-
ments. But there should be encouragement, and a free,
genial atmosphere for those of more timid sort, fair play
for each in its own kind. Some are like the little, delicate
flowers, which love to hide in the dripping mosses by the
sides of mountain torrents, or in the shade of tall trees.
But others require an open field, a rich and loosened soil,
or they never show their proper hues.
It may be said man does not have his fair play either;
his energies are repressed and distorted by the interposition
of artificial obstacles. Aye, but he himself has put them
there; they have grown out of his own imperfections. If
there is a misfortune in woman's lot, it is in obstacles being
interposed by men, which do not mark her state, and if
they express her past ignorance, do not her present needs.
As every man is of woman born, she has slow but sure
means of redress, yet the sooner a general justness of thought
makes smooth the path, the better.
Man is of woman born, and her face bends over him in
infancy with an expression he can never quite forget. Em--
inent men have delighted to pay tribute to this image, and
it is a hacknied observation, that most men of genius boast
some remarkable development in the mother. The rudest
tar brushes off a tear with his coat-sleeve at the hallowed
name. The other day I met a decrepit old man of seven-
ty, on a journey, who challenged the stage-company to
guess where he was going. They guessed aright, “ To
see your mother.” “Yes,” said he, "she is ninety-two,
but has good eye-sight still, they say. I've not seen her
these forty years, and I thought I could not die in peace
without." I should have liked his picture painted as a
companion piece to that of a boisterous little boy, whom I
saw attempt to declaim at a school exhibition.
“() that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last."


20
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
He got but very little way before sudden tears shamed him
from the stage.
Some gleains of the same expression which shone down
upon his infancy, angelically pure and benign, visit man
again with hopes of pure love, of a holy marriage. Or if
not before, in the eyes of the mother of his child they
again are seen, and dim fancies pass before his mind, that
woman may not have been born for him alone, but have
come from heaven, i commissioned soul, a messenger of
truth and love. .
In gleams, in dim fancies, this thought visits the mind of
common men. It is soon obscured by the mists of sensu-
ality, the dust of routine, and he thinks it was only some
meteor or ignis fatuus that shone. But, as a Rosicrucian
lamp, it burns unwearied, though condemned to the solitude
of tombs. And, to its permanent life, as to every truth,
each age has, in some form, borne witness. For the truths,
which visit the minds of careless men only in fitful gleams,
shine with radiant clearness into those of the poet, the
priest, and the artist.
Whatever may have been the domestic manners of the
ancient nations, the idea of woman was nobly manifested
in their mythologies and poems, where she appeared
as Sita in the Ramayana, a form of tender purity, in the
Egyptian Isis, of divine wisdom never yet surpassed. In
Egypt, too, the Sphynx, walking the earth with lion tread,
looked out upon its marvels in the calm, inscrutable beauty
of a virgin's face, and the Greek could only add wings to
the great emblem. In Greece, Ceres and Proserpine, sig-
nificantly termed “the great goddesses,” were seen seated,
side by side. They needed not to rise for any worshipper
or any change ; they were prepared for all things, as those
initiated to their mysteries knew. More obvious is the
meaning of those three forms, the Diana, Minerva, and
Vesta. Unlike in the expression of their beauty, but alike
in this, – that each was self-sufficing. Other forms were
only accessories and illustrations, none the complement to
one like these. Another might indeed be the companion,
and the Apollo and Diana set off one another's beauty.
Of the Vesta, it is to be observed, that not only deep-eyed,
deep-discerning Greece, but ruder Rome, who represents
the only form of good man' (the always busy warrior) that


1843.]
21
Woman vs. Women.
could be indifferent to woman, confided the permanence
of its glory to a tutelary goddess, and her wisest legislator
spoke of Meditation as a nymph.
• In Sparta, thought, in this respect as all others, was ex-
pressed in the characters of real life, and the women of
Sparta were as much Spartans as the men. The Citoyen,
Citoyenne, of France, was here actualized. Was not the
calm equality they enjoyed well worth the honors of chiv-
alry ? They intelligently shared the ideal life of their
nation.
Generally, we are told of these nations, that women oc-
cupied there a very subordinate position in actual life. It
is difficult to believe this, when we see such range and
dignity of thought on the subject in the mythologies, and
find the poets producing such ideals as Cassandra, Iphi-
genia, Antigone, Macaria, (though it is not unlike our own
day, that men should revere those heroines of their great
princely houses at theatres, from which their women were
excluded,) where Sibylline priestesses told the oracle of the
highest god, and he could not be content to reign with a
court of less than nine Muses. Even Victory wore a fe-
male form.
But whatever were the facts of daily life, I cannot com-
plain of the age and nation, which represents its thought by
such a symbol as I see before me at this moment. It is a
zodiac of the busts of gods and goddesses, arranged in
pairs. The circle breathes the music of a heavenly order.
Male and female heads are distinct in expression, but equal
in beauty, strength, and calmness. Each male head is that
of a brother and a king, each female of a sister and a
queen. Could the thought, thus expressed, be lived out,
there would be nothing more to be desired. There would
be unison in variety, congeniality in difference.
Coming nearer our own time, we find religion and poetry
no less true in their revelations. The rude man, but just
disengaged from the sod, the Adam, accuses woman to his
God, and records her disgrace to their posterity. He is
not ashamed to wiite that he could be drawn from heaven
by one beneath him. But in the same nation, educated by
time, instructed by successive prophets, we find woman in
as high a position as she has ever occupied. And no figure,
that has ever arisen to greet our eyes, has been received


22
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
with more fervent reverence than that of the Madonna.
Heine calls her the Dame du Comptoir of the Catholic
Church, and this jeer well expresses a serious truth.
And not only, this holy and significant image was wor-
shipped by the pilgrim, and the favorite subject of the
artist, but it exercised an immediate influence on the des-
tiny of the sex. The empresses, who embraced the cross,
converted sons and husbands. Whole calendars of female
saints, heroic dames of chivalry, binding the emblem of
faith on the heart of the best-beloved, and wasting the
bloom of youth in separation and loneliness, for the sake of
duties they thought it religion to assume, with innumerable
forms of poesy, trace their lineage to this one. Nor, how-
ever imperfect may be the action, in our day, of the faith
thus expressed, and though we can scarcely think it nearer
this ideal than that of India or Greece was near their ideal,
is it in vain that the truth has been recognised, that woman
is not only a part of man, bone of his bone and flesh of
his flesh, born that men might not be lonely, but in them-
selves possessors of and possessed by immortal souls. This
truth undoubtedly received a greater outward stability from
the belief of the church, that the earthly parent of the
Saviour of souls was a woman. ,
The Assumption of the Virgin, as painted by sublime
artists, Petrarch's Hymn to the Madonna, cannot bave
spoken to the world wholly without result, yet oftentimes
those who had ears heard not.
Thus, the Idea of woman has not failed to be often and
forcibly represented. So many instances throng on the
mind, that we must stop here, lest the catalogue be swelled
beyond the reader's patience.
Neither can she complain that she has not had her share
of power. This, in all ranks of society, except the lowest,
has been hers to the extent that vanity could crave, far be-
yond what wisdom would accept. In the very lowest,
where man, pressed by poverty, sees in woman only the
partner of toils and cares, and cannot hope, scarcely has
an idea of a comfortable home, he maltreats her, often, and
is less influenced by her. In all ranks, those who are
amiable and uncomplaining, suffer much. They suffer long,
and are kind; verily, they have their reward. But wher-
ever man is sufficiently raised above extreme poverty, or


1843.)
Woman vs. Women.
so in propwith the importand love of per erself
v
brutal stupidity, to care for the comforts of the fireside, or
the bloom and ornament of life, woman has always power
enough, if she choose to exert it, and is usually disposed to
do so in proportion to her ignorance and childish vanity.
Unacquainted with the importance of life and its purposes,
trained to a selfish coquetry and love of petty power, she
does not look beyond the pleasure of making herself felt at
the moment, and governments are shaken and commerce
broken up to gratify the pique of a female favorite. The
English shopkeeper's wife does not vote, but it is for her
interest that the politician canvasses by the coarsest flattery.
France suffers no woman on her throne, but her proud no-
bles kiss the dust at the feet of Pompadour and Dubarry,
for such flare in the lighted foreground where a Roland
would modestly aid in the closet. Spain shuts up her
women in the care of duennas, and allows them no book
but the Breviary ; but the ruin follows only the more surely
from the worthless favorite of a worthless queen.
It is not the transient breath of poetic incense, that
women want; each can receive that from a lover. It is
not life-long sway; it needs but to become a coquette, a
shrew, or a good cook, to be sure of that. It is not money,
nor notoriety, nor the badges of authority, that men have
appropriated to themselves. If demands made in their
behalf lay stress on any of these particulars, those who
make them have not searched deeply into the need. It is for
that which at once includes all these and precludes them;
which would not be forbidden power, lest there be tempta-
tion to steal and misuse it ; which would not have the mind
perverted by flattery from a worthiness of esteem. It is
for that which is the birthright of every being capable to
receive it, — the freedom, the religious, the intelligent free-
dom of the universe, to use its means, to learn its secret
as far as nature has enabled them, with God alone for their
guide and their judge.
Ye cannot believe it, men ; but the only reason why
women ever assume what is more appropriate to you, is
because you prevent them from finding out what is fit for
themselves. Were they free, were they wise fully to de-
velop the strength and beauty of woman, they would
never wish to be men, or manlike. The well-instructed
moon flies not from her orbit to seize on the glories of her


24
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
partner. No; for she knows that one law rules, one
heaven contains, one universe replies to them alike. It is
with women as with the slave.
“ Vor dem Sklaven, wenn er die Kette bricht,
Vor dem freien Menschen erzittert nicht.”'
Tremble not before the free man, but before the slave who
has chains to break.
In slavery, acknowledged slavery, women are on a par
with men. Each is a work-tool, an article of property, —
no more! In perfect freedom, such as is painted in Olym-
pus, in Swedenborg's angelic state, in the heaven where
there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, each is a puri-
fied intelligence, an enfranchised soul, - no less !
Jene himmlische Gestalten
Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib,
Und keine Kleider, keine Falten
Umgeben den verklärten Leib.
The child who sang this was a prophetic form, expres-
sive of the longing for a state of perfect freedom, pure
love. She could not remain here, but was transplanted to
another air. And it may be that the air of this earth will-
never be so tempered, that such can bear it long. But,
while they stay, they must bear testimony to the truth they
are constituted to demand.
That an era approaches which shall approximate nearer
to such a temper than any has yet done, there are many
tokens, indeed so many that only a few of the most prom-
inent can here be enumerated.
The reigns of Elizabeth of England and Isabella of
Castile foreboded this era. They expressed the beginning
of the new state, while they forwarded its progress. These
were strong characters, and in harmony with the wants of
their time. One showed that this strength did not unfit a
woman for the duties of a wife and mother; the other,
that it could enable her to live and die alone. Elizabeth is
certainly no pleasing example. In rising above the weak-
ness, she did not lay aside the weaknesses ascribed to her
sex; but her strength must be respected now, as it was in
her own time.
We may accept it as an omen for ourselves, that it was


1843.]
25
Woman vs. Women.
Isabella who furnished Columbus with the means of coming
hither. This land must pay back its debt to woman, with-
out whose aid it would not have been brought into alliance
with the civilized world.
The influence of Elizabeth on literature was real, though,
by sympathy with its finer productions, she was no more
entitled to give name to an era than Queen Anne. It was
simply that the fact of having a female sovereign on the
throne affected the course of a writer's thoughts. In this
sense, the presence of a woman on the throne always
makes its mark. Life is lived before the eyes of all men,
and their imaginations are stimulated as to the possibilities
of woman. “We will die for our King, Maria Theresa,"
ery the wild warriors, clashing their swords, and the sounds
vibrate through the poems of that generation. The range
of female character in Spenser alone might content us for
one period. Britomart and Belphoebe have as much room
in the canvass as Florimel; and where this is the case, the
haughtiest Amazon will not murmur that Una should be
felt to be the highest type.
Unlike as was the English Queen to a fairy queen, we
may yet conceive that it was the image of a queen before
the poet's mind, that called up this splendid court of
women.
Shakspeare's range is also great, but he has left out the
heroic characters, such as the Macaria of Greece, the Bri-
tomart of Spenser. Ford and Massinger have, in this
respect, shown a higher flight of feeling than he. It was
the holy and heroic woman they most loved, and if they
could not paint an Imogen, a Desdemona, a Rosalind,
yet in those of a stronger mould, they showed a higher
ideal, though with so much less poetic power to represent
it, than we see in Portia or Isabella. The simple truth of
Cordelia, indeed, is of this sort. The beauty of Cordelia
is neither male nor female; it is the beauty of virtue.
The ideal of love and marriage rose high in the mind
of all the Christian nations who were capable of grave and
deep feeling. We may take as examples of its English
aspect, the lines,
“I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.”
VOL. IV. — NO. 1.


26
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
The address of the Commonwealth's man to his wife as
she looked out from the Tower window to see him for the
last time on his way to execution. “He stood up in the
cart, waved his hat, and cried, "To Heaven, my love, to
Heaven! and leave you in the storm!'"
Such was the love of faith and honor, a love which
stopped, like Colonel Hutchinson's, “ on this side idolatry,''
because it was religious. The meeting of two such souls
Donne describes as giving birth to an "abler soul.”
Lord Herbert wrote to his love,
“ Were not our souls immortal made,
Our equal loves can make them such.”
In Spain the same thought is arrayed in a sublimity,
which belongs to the sombre and passionate genius of the
nation. Calderon's Justina resists all the temptation of the
Demon, and raises her lover with her above the sweet lures
of mere temporal happiness. Their marriage is vowed at
the stake, their souls are liberated together by the martyr
flame into “a purer state of sensation and existence."
In Italy, the great poets wove into their lives an ideal
love which answered to the highest wants. It included
those of the intellect and the affections, for it was a love of
spirit for spirit. It was not ascetic and superhuman, but
interpreting all things, gave their proper beauty to details
of the common life, the common day; the poet spoke of
his love not as a flower to place in his bosom, or hold care-
lessly in his hand, but as a light towards which he must
find wings to fly, or a stair to heaven." He delighted
to speak of her not only as the bride of his heart, but the
mother of his soul, for he saw that, in cases where the right
direction has been taken, the greater delicacy of her frame,
and stillness of her life, left her more open to spiritual in-
flux than man is. So he did not look upon her as betwixt
him and earth, to serve his temporal needs, but rather be-
twixt him and heaven, to purify his affections and lead him
to wisdom through her pure love. He sought in her not so
much the Eve as the Madonna.
In these minds the thought, which glitters in all the le-
gends of chivalry, shines in broad intellectual effulgence,
not to be misinterpreted. And their thought is reverenced
by the world, though it lies so far from them as yet, so far,
that it seems as though a gulf of Death lay between.


1843.]
27
-
Woman vs. Women.
X
Even with such men the practice was often widely dif-
ferent from the mental faith. I say mental, for if the heart
were thoroughly alive with it, the practice could not be
dissonant. Lord Herbert's was a marriage of convention,
made for him at fifteen ; be was not discontented with it,
but looked only to the advantages it brought of perpetuat-
ing his family on the basis of a great fortune. He paid, in
act, what he considered a dutiful attention to the bond ; his
thoughts travelled elsewhere, and, while forming a high
ideal of the companionship of minds in marriage, he seems
never to have doubted that its realization must be postpon-
ed to some other stage of being. Dante, almost immedi-
ately after the death of Beatrice, married a lady chosen for
him by his friends.
Centuries have passed since, but civilized Europe is still
in a transition state about marriage, not only in practice,
but in thought. A great majority of societies and individ-
uals are still doubtful whether earthly marriage is to be a
union of souls, or merely a contract of convenience and
utility. Were woman established in the rights of an im-
mortal being, this could not be. She would not in some
countries be given away by her father, with scarcely more
respect for her own feelings than is shown by the Indian
chief, who sells his daughter for a horse, and beats her if
she runs away from her new home. Nor, in societies where
her choice is left free, would she be perverted, by the cur-
rent of opinion that seizes her, into the belief that she
must marry, if it be only to find a protector, and a home
of her own.
Neither would man, if he thought that the connection
was of permanent importance, enter upon it so lightly.
He would not deem it a trifle, that he was to enter into the
closest relations with another soul, which, if not eternal in
themselves, must eternally affect his growth.
Neither, did he believe woman capable of friendship,
would he, by rash haste, lose the chance of finding a friend
in the person who might, probably, live half a century by
his side. Did love to his mind partake of infinity, he
would not miss his chance of its revelations, that he might
the sooner rest from his weariness by a bright fireside, and
have a sweet and graceful attendant, “ devoted to him
alone.” Were he a step higher, he would not carelessly


The Great Lawsuit.
(July,
enter into a relation, where he might not be able to do the
duty of a friend, as well as a protector from external ill, to
the other party, and have a being in his power pining for
sympathy, intelligence, and aid, that he could not give.
Where the thought of equality has become pervasive, it
shows itself in four kinds.
The household partnership. In our country the woman
looks for a “smart but kind” husband, the man for a
“ capable, sweet-tempered ” wife.
The man furnishes the house, the woman regulates
it. Their relation is one of mutual esteem, mutual de-
pendence. Their talk is of business, their affection
shows itself by practical kindness. They know that life
goes more smoothly and cheerfully to each for the other's !
aid ; they are grateful and content. The wife praises her
husband as a “good provider," the husband in return
compliments her as a “capital housekeeper.” This rela-
tion is good as far as it goes.
Next comes a closer tie which takes the two forms, either
of intellectual companionship, or mutual idolatry. The
last, we suppose, is to no one a pleasing subject of contem-
plation. The parties weaken and narrow one another;
they lock the gate against all the glories of the universe that
they may live in a cell together. To themselves they seem
the only wise, to all others steeped in infatuation, the gods
smile as they look forward to the crisis of cure, to men the
woman seems an unlovely syren, to women the man an ef-
feminate boy.
The other form, of intellectual companionship, has be-
come more and more frequent. Men engaged in public
life, literary men, and artists have often found in their
wives companions and confidants in thought no less than
in feeling. And, as in the course of things the intellec-
tual development of woman has spread wider and risen
higher, they have, not unfrequently, shared the same em-
ployment. As in the case of Roland and his wife, who
were friends in the household and the nation's councils,
read together, regulated home affairs, or prepared public
documents together indifferently.
It is very pleasant, in letters begun by Roland and finished
by his wife, to see the harmony of mind and the difference
of nature, one thought, but various ways of treating it.


1843.]
29
Woman vs. Women.
This is one of the best instances of a marriage of friend-
ship. It was only friendship, whose basis was esteem;
probably neither party knew love, except by name.
Roland was a good man, worthy to esteem and be es-
teemed, his wife as deserving of admiration as able to do
without it. Madame Roland is the fairest specimen we
have yet of her class, as clear to discern her aim, as val-
iant to pursue it, as Spenser's Britomart, austerely set
apart from all that did not belong to her, whether as wo-
man or as mind. She is an antetype of a class to which
the coming time will afford a field, the Spartan matron,
brought by the culture of a book-furnishing age to intellec-
tual consciousness and expansion.
Self-sufficing strength and clear-sightedness were in her
combined with a power of deep and calm affection. The
page of her life is one of unsullied dignity.
Her appeal to posterity is one against the injustice of
those who committed such crimes in the name of liberty.
She makes it in behalf of herself and her husband. I
would put beside it on the shelf a little volume, con-
taining a similar appeal from the verdict of contemporaries
to that of mankind, that of Godwin in behalf of his wife,
the celebrated, the by most men detested Mary Wolstone-
craft. In his view it was an appeal from the injustice of
those who did such wrong in the name of virtue.
Were this little book interesting for no other cause, itx
would be so for the generous affection evinced under the
peculiar circumstances. This man had courage to love and
honor this woman in the face of the world's verdict, and of
all that was repulsive in her own past history. He believed
he saw of what soul she was, and that the thoughts she
had struggled to act out were noble. He loved her and
he defended her for the meaning and tendency of her inner
life. It was a good fact.
Mary Wolstonecraft, like Madame Dudevant (commonly
known as George Sand) in our day, was a woman whose ex-
istence better proved the need of some new interpretation of
woman's rights, than anything she wrote. Such women as
these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies, and capa-
ble of high virtue and a chastened harmony, ought not to
find themselves by birth in a place so narrow, that in break- x
ing bonds they become outlaws. Were there as much


30
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
room in the world for such, as in Spenser's poem for Brito-
mart, they would not run their heads so wildly against its
laws. They find their way at last to purer air, but the
world will not take off the brand it has set upon them.
The champion of the rights of woman found in Godwin
one who plead her own cause like a brother. George
Sand smokes, wears male attire, wishes to be addressed as
Mon frère ; perhaps, if she found those who were as brothers
indeed, she would not care whether she were brother or
sister.
We rejoice to see that she, who expresses such a painful
contempt for men in most of her works, as shows she must
have known great wrong from them, in La Roche Mauprat,
depicting one raised, by the workings of love, from the
depths of savage sensualism to a moral and intellectual life.
It was love for a pure object, for a steadfast woman, one of
those who, the Italian said, could make the stair to heaven.
Women like Sand will speak now, and cannot be silenced;
their characters and their eloquence alike foretell an era
when such as they shall easier learn to lead true lives.
But though such forebode, not such shall be the parents of
it. Those who would reform the world must show that
they do not speak in the heat of wild impulse ; their lives
must be unstained by passionate error ; they must be severe
lawgivers to themselves. As to their transgressions and
opinions, it may be observed, that the resolve of Eloisa to
be only the mistress of Abelard, was that of one who saw
the contract of marriage a seal of degradation. Wherever
abuses of this sort are seen, the timid will suffer, the bold
protest. But society is in the right to outlaw them till she
has revised her law, and she must be taught to do so, by
one who speaks with authority, not in anger and haste.
If Godwin's choice of the calumniated authoress of the
“Rights of Woman,” for his honored wife, be a sign of
a new era, no less so is an article of great learning and
eloquence, published several years since in an English re-
view, where the writer, in doing full justice to Eloisa, shows
his bitter regret that she lives not now to love him, who
might have known better how to prize her love than did
the egotistical Abelard.
These marriages, these characters, with all their imper-
fections, express an onward tendency. They speak of aspi-


1843.]
31
Woman vs. Women.
ration of soul, of energy of mind, seeking clearness and
freedom. Of a like promise are the tracts now publishing
by Goodwyn Barmby (the European Pariah as he calls him-
self) and his wiſe Catharine. Whatever we may think of
their measures, we see in them wedlock, the two minds are
wed by the only contract that can permanently avail, of a
common faith, and a common purpose.
We might mention instances, nearer home, of minds,
partners in work and in life, sharing together, on equal
terms, public and private interests, and which have not on
any side that aspect of offence which characterizes the at-
titude of the last named; persons who steer straight onward,
and in our freer life have not been obliged to run their
heads against any wall. But the principles which guide
them might, under petrified or oppressive institutions, have
made them warlike, paradoxical, or, in some sense, Pariahs.
The phenomenon is different, the law the same, in all these
cases. Men and women have been obliged to build their
house from the very foundation. If they found stone ready
in the quarry, they took it peaceably, otherwise they alarmed
the country by pulling down old towers to get materials.
These are all instances of marriage as intellectual com-
panionship. The parties meet mind to mind, and a
mutual trust is excited which can buckler them against a
million. They work together for a common purpose, and,
in all these instances, with the same implement, the pen.
A pleasing expression in this kind is afforded by the
union in the names of the Howitts. William and Mary
Howitt we heard named together for years, supposing them
to be brother and sister ; the equality of labors and reputa-
tion, even so, was auspicious, more so, now we find them man
and wife. In his late work on Germany, Howitt mentions
his wife with pride, as one among the constellation of dis-
tinguished English women, and in a graceful, simple man-
ner.
In naming these instances we do not mean to imply that
community of employment is an essential to union of this
sort, more than to the union of friendship. Harmony ex-
ists in difference no less than in likeness, if only the same
key-note govern both parts. Woman the poem, man the
poet; woman the heart, man the head; such divisions are
only important when they are never to be transcended. If


The Great Lawsuit.
(July,
nature is never bound down, nor the voice of inspiration
stifled, that is enough. We are pleased that women should
write and speak, if they feel the need of it, from having
something to tell; but silence for a hundred years would be
as well, if that silence be from divine command, and not
from man's tradition.
While Goetz von Berlichingen rides to battle, his wife
is busy in the kitchen ; but difference of occupation does
not prevent that community of life, that perfect esteem,
with which he says,
“Whom God loves, to him gives he such a wife!”
Manzoni thus dedicates his Adelchi. .
“ To his beloved and venerated wife, Enrichetta Luigia Blon-
del, who, with conjugal affections and maternal wisdom, has
preserved a virgin mind, the author dedicates this Adelchi,
grieving that he could not, by a more splendid and more dura-
ble monument, honor the dear name and the memory of so many
virtues."
The relation could not be fairer, nor more equal, if she too
had written poems. Yet the position of the parties might
have been the reverse as well; the woman might have
sung the deeds, given voice to the life of the man, and
beauty would have been the result, as we see in pictures
of Arcadia the nymph singing to the shepherds, or the
shepherd with his pipe allures the nymphs, either makes a
good picture. The sounding lyre requires not muscular
strength, but energy of soul to animate the hand which can
control it. Nature seems to delight in varying her arrange-
ments, as if to show that she will be fettered by no rule,
and we must admit the same varieties that she admits.
I have not spoken of the higher grade of marriage
union, the religious, which may be expressed as pilgrimage
towards a common shrine. This includes the others;
home sympathies, and household wisdom, for these pilgrims
must know how to assist one another to carry their burdens
along the dusty way; intellectual communion, for how sad
it would be on such a journey to have a companion to
whom you could not communicate thoughts and aspira-
tions, as they sprang to life, who would have no feeling
for the more and more glorious prospects that open as we
advance, who would never see the flowers that may be


1843.]
33
Woman vs. Women.
gathered by the most industrious traveller. It must include
all these. Such a fellow pilgrim Count Zinzendorf seems
to have found in his countess of whom he thus writes.
“Twenty-five years' experience has shown me that just the
help-mate whom I have is the only one that could suit my voca-
tion. Who else could have so carried through my family
affairs? Who lived so spotlessly before the world? Who so
wisely aided me in my rejection of a dry morality ? Who so
clearly set aside the Pharisaism which, as years passed, threat-
ened to creep in among us? Who so deeply discerned as to
the spirits of delusion which sought to bewilder us? Who
would have governed my whole economy so wisely, richly, and
hospitably when circumstances commanded? Who have taken
indifferently the part of servant or mistress, without on the one
side affecting an especial spirituality, on the other being sullied
by any worldly pride? Who, in a community where all ranks
are eager to be on a level, would, from wise and real causes,
have known how to maintain inward and outward distinctions ?
Who, without a murmur, have seen her husband encounter such
dangers by land and sea ? Who undertaken with him and sus-
tained such astonishing pilgrimages? Who amid such difficulties
always held up her head, and supported me? Who found so
many hundred thousands and acquitted them on her own credit ?
And, finally, who, of all human beings, would so well under-
stand and interpret to others my inner and outer being as this
one, of such nobleness in her way of thinking, such great intel-
lectual capacity, and free from the theological perplexities that
enveloped me?"
An observer* adds this testimony.
“We may in many marriages regard it as the best arrange-
ment, if the man has so much advantage over his wife that she
can, without much thought of her own, be, by him, led and
directed, as by a father. But it was not so with the Count and
his consort. She was not made to be a copy; she was an origi-
nal; and, while she loved and honored him, she thought for
herself on all subjects with so much intelligence, that he could
and did look on her as sister and friend also.”
Such a woman is the sister and friend of all beings, as
the worthy man is their brother and helper.
Another sign of the time is furnished by the triumphs of
female authorship. These have been great and constantly
* Spangenberg.
VOL. IV. — NO. 1.


34
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
increasing. They have taken possession of so many prov-
inces for which men had pronounced them unfit, that
though these still declare there are some inaccessible to
them, it is difficult to say just where they must stop.
The shining names of famous women have cast light
upon the path of the sex, and many obstructions have been
removed. When a Montague could learn better than her
brother, and use her lore to such purpose afterwards as an
observer, it seemed amiss to hinder women from preparing
themselves to see, or from seeing all they could when pre-
pared. Since Somerville has achieved so much, will any
young girl be prevented from attaining a knowledge of the
physical sciences, if she wishes it? De Staël's name was
not so clear of offence; she could not forget the woman in
the thought; while she was instructing you as a mind, she
wished to be admired as a woman; sentimental tears often
dimmed the eagle glance. Her intellect, too, with all its
splendor, trained in a drawing room, fed on flattery, was
tainted and flawed; yet its beams make the obscurest school
house in New England warmer and lighter to the little
rugged girls, who are gathered together on its wooden
bench. They may never through life hear her name, but
she is not the less their benefactress.
This influence has been such that the aim certainly is,
how, in arranging school instruction for girls, to give them
as fair a field as boys. These arrangements are made as
yet with little judgment or intelligence, just as the tutors
of Jane Grey, and the other famous women of her time,
taught them Latin and Greek, because they knew nothing
else themselves, so now the improvement in the education
of girls is made by giving them gentlemen as teachers, who
only teach what has been taught themselves at college,
while methods and topics need revision for those new cases,
which could better be made by those who had experienced
the same wants. Women are often at the head of these
institutions, but they have as yet seldom been thinking
women, capable to organize a new whole for the wants of
the time, and choose persons to officiate in the departments.
And when some portion of education is got of a good sort
from the school, the tone of society, the much larger pro-
portion received from the world, contradicts its purport.
Yet books have not been furnished, and a little elementary


1843.]
35
Woman vs. Women.
instruction been given in vain. Women are better aware
how large and rich the universe is, not so easily blinded by
the narrowness and partial views of a home circle.
Whether much or little has or will be done, whether wo-
men will add to the talent of narration, the power of sys-
tematizing, whether they will carve marble as well as draw,
is not important. But that it should be acknowledged that
they have intellect which needs developing, that they
should not be considered complete, if beings of affection
and habit alone, is important.
Yet even this acknowledgment, rather obtained by wo-
man than proffered by man, has been sullied by the usual
selfishness. So much is said of women being better edu-
cated that they may be better companions and mothers of
men! They should be fit for such companionship, and we
have mentioned with satisfaction instances where it has
been established. Earth knows no fairer, holier relation
than that of a mother. But a being of infinite scope must
not be treated with an exclusive view to any one relation.
Give the soul free course, let the organization be freely de-
veloped, and the being will be fit for any and every relation
to which it may be called. The intellect, no more than
the sense of hearing, is to be cultivated, that she may be a
more valuable companion to man, but because the Power
who gave a power by its mere existence signifies that it
must be brought out towards perfection.
In this regard, of self-dependence and a greater simpli-
city and fulness of being, we must hail as a preliminary the
increase of the class contemptuously designated as old
maids,
We cannot wonder at the aversion with which old bach-
elors and old maids have been regarded. Marriage is the
natural means of forming a sphere, of taking root on the
earth: it requires more strength to do this without such an
opening, very many have failed of this, and their imperfec-
tions have been in every one's way. They have been
more partial, more harsh, more officious and impertinent
than others. Those, who have a complete experience of
the human instincts, have a distrust as to whether they can
be thoroughly human and humane, such as is hinted at in
the saying, “Old maids' and bachelors' children are well
cared for," which derides at once their ignorance and their
presumption.


36
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
Yet the business of society has become so complex, that
it could now scarcely be carried on without the presence of
these despised auxiliaries, and detachments from the army
of aunts and uncles are wanted to stop gaps in every
hedge. They rove about, mental and moral Ishmaelites,
pitching their tents amid the fixed and ornamented habita-
tions of men.
They thus gain a wider, if not so deep, experience. They
are not so intimate with others, but thrown more upon
themselves, and if they do not there find peace and inces-
sant life, there is none to flatter them that they are not very
poor and very mean.
A position, which so constantly admonishes, may be of
inestimable benefit. The person may gain, undistracted
by other relationships, a closer communion with the One.
Such a use is made of it by saints and sibyls. Or she may
be one of the lay sisters of charity, or more humbly only
the useful drudge of all men, or the intellectual interpreter
of the varied life she sees.
Or she may combine all these. Not “needing to
care that she may please a husband,” a frail and limited
being, all her thoughts may turn to the centre, and by
steadfast contemplation enter into the secret of truth and
love, use it for the use of all men, instead of a chosen few,
and interpret through it all the forms of life.
Saints and geniuses have often chosen a lonely position,
in the faith that, if undisturbed by the pressure of near ties
they could give themselves up to the inspiring spirit, it
would enable them to understand and reproduce life better
than actual experience could.
How many old maids take this high stand, we cannot
say; it is an unhappy fact that too many of those who
come before the eye are gossips rather, and not always
good-natured gossips. But, if, these abuse, and none make
the best of their vocation, yet, it has not failed to produce
some good fruit. It has been seen by others, if not by
themselves, that beings likely to be left alone need to be
fortified and furnished within themselves, and education
and thought have tended more and more to regard beings
as related to absolute Being, as well as to other men. It
has been seen that as the loss of no bond ought to destroy
a human being, so ought the missing of none to hinder


1843.]
37
Woman vs. Women.
him from growing. And thus a circumstance of the time
has helped to put woman on the true platform. Perhaps
the next generation will look deeper into this matter, and
find that contempt is put on old maids, or old women at all,
merely because they do not use the elixir which will keep
the soul always young. No one thinks of Michael Ange-
lo's Persican Sibyl, or St. Theresa, or Tasso's Leonora, or
the Greek Electra as an old maid, though all had reached
the period in life's course appointed to take that degree.
Even among the North American Indians, a race of men
as completely engaged in mere instinctive life as almost any
in the world, and where each chief, keeping many wives as
useful servants, of course looks with no kind eye on celib-
acy in woman, it was excused in the following instance
mentioned by Mrs. Jameson. A woman dreamt in youth
that she was betrothed to the sun. She built her a wig.
wam apart, filled it with emblems of her alliance and means
of an independent life. There she passed her days, sus-
tained by her own exertions, and true to her supposed en-
gagement.
In any tribe, we believe, a woman, who lived as if she
was betrothed to the sun, would be tolerated, and the rays
which made her youth blossom sweetly would crown her
with a halo in age.
There is on this subject a nobler view than heretofore, if
not the noblest, and we greet improvement here, as much
as on the subject of marriage. Both are fertile themes,
but time permits not here to explore them.
If larger intellectual resources begin to be deemed ne-
cessary to woman, still more is a spiritual dignity in her, or
even the mere assumption of it listened to with respect.
Joanna Southcote, and Mother Anne Lee are sure of a
band of disciples; Ecstatica, Dolorosa, of enraptured be-
lievers who will visit them in their lowly huts, and wait for
hours to revere them in their trances. The foreign noble
traverses land and sea to hear a few words from the lips of
the lowly peasant girl, whom he believes especially visited
by the Most High. Very beautiful in this way was the
influence of the invalid of St. Petersburg, as described by
De Maistre.
To this region, however misunderstood, and ill-develop-
ed, belong the phenomena of Magnetism, or Mesmerism,


38
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
as it is now often called, where the trance of the Ecstatica
purports to be produced by the agency of one human being
on another, instead of, as in her case, direct from the spirit.
The worldling has his sneer here as about the services of
religion. “The churches can always be filled with wo-
men.” “Show me a man in one of your magnetic states,
and I will believe."
Women are indeed the easy victims of priestcraft, or
self-delusion, but this might not be, if the intellect was des
veloped in proportion to the other powers. They would
then have a regulator and be in better equipoise, yet must
retain the same nervous susceptibility, while their physical
structure is such as it is.
It is with just that hope, that we welcome everything
that tends to strengthen the fibre and develop the nature
on more sides. When the intellect and affections are in
harmony, when intellectual consciousness is calm and deep,
inspiration will not be confounded with fancy.
The electrical, the magnetic element in woman has not
been fairly developed at any period. Everything might be
expected from it; she has far more of it than man. This
is commonly expressed by saying, that her intuitions are
more rapid and more correct.
But I cannot enlarge upon this here, except to say that
on this side is highest promise. Should I speak of it fully,
my title should be Cassandra, my topic the Seeress of Pre-
vorst, the first, or the best observed subject of magnetism
in our times, and who, like her ancestresses at Delphos, was
roused to ecstasy or phrenzy by the touch of the laurel.
In such cases worldlings sneer, but reverent men learn
wondrous news, either from the person observed, or by the
thoughts caused in themselves by the observation. Fene-
lon learns from, Guyon, Kerner from his Seeress what we
fain would know. But to appreciate such disclosures one
must be a child, and here the phrase, “women and chil-
dren," may perhaps be interpreted aright, that only little
children shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
All these motions of the time, tides that betoken a war-
ing moon, overflow upon our own land. The world at
large is readier to let woman learn and manifest the capaci-
ties of her nature than it ever was before, and here is a
less encumbered field, and freer air than anywhere else.


1843.]
39
Woman vs. Women.
· And it ought to be so; we ought to pay for Isabella's
jewels.
The names of nations are feminine. Religion, Virtue,
and Victory are feminine. To those who have a supersti-
tion as to outward signs, it is not without significance that
the name of the Queen of our mother-land should at this
crisis be Victoria. Victoria the First. Perhaps to us it
may be given to disclose the era there outwardly presaged.
Women here are much better situated than men.
Good books are allowed with more time to read them.
They are not so early forced into the bustle of life, nor so
weighed down by demands for outward success. The per-
petual changes, incident to our society, make the blood cir-
culate freely through the body politic, and, if not favorable
at present to the grace and bloom of life, they are so to
activity, resource, and would be to reflection but for a low
materialist tendency, from which the women are generally
exempt.
They have time to think, and no traditions chain them,
and few conventionalities compared with what must be met
in other nations. There is no reason why the fact of a
constant revelation should be hid from them, and when the
mind once is awakened by that, it will not be restrained by
the past, but fly to seek the seeds of a heavenly future.
Their employments are more favorable to the inward life
than those of the men.
Woman is not addressed religiously here, more than else-
where. She is told to be worthy to be the mother of a
Washington, or the companion of some good man. But in
many, many instances, she has already learnt that all bribes
have the same flaw; that truth and good are to be sought
for themselves alone. And already an ideal sweetness
floats over many forms, shines in many eyes.
Already deep questions are put by young girls on the
great theme, What shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Men are very courteous to them. They praise them
often, check them seldom. There is some chivalry in the
feeling towards “the ladies,” which gives them the best
seats in the stage-coach, frequent admission not only to
lectures of all sorts, but to courts of justice, halls of legis-
lature, reform conventions. The newspaper editor “would
be better pleased that the Lady's Book were filled up ex-


40
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
clusively by ladies. It would then, indeed, be a true gem,
worthy to be presented by young men to the mistresses of
their affections." Can gallantry go farther ?
In this country is venerated, wherever seen, the charac-
ter which Goethe spoke of as an Ideal. " The excellent
woman is she, who, if the husband dies, can be a father to
the children." And this, if rightly read, tells a great deal.
Women who speak in public, if they have a moral pow-
er, such as has been ſelt from Angelina Grimke and Abby
Kelly, that is, if they speak for conscience' sake, to serve a
cause which they hold sacred, invariably subdue the pre-
judices of their hearers, and excite an interest proportion-
ate to the aversion with which it had been the purpose to
regard them.
A passage in a private letter so happily illustrates this,
that I take the liberty to make use of it, though there is
not opportunity to ask leave either of the writer or owner
of the letter. I think they will pardon me when they see
it in print; it is so good, that as many as possible should
have the benefit of it.
Abby Kelly in the Town-House of
“The scene was not unheroic, — to see that woman, true to
humanity and her own nature, a centre of rude eyes and tongues,
even gentlemen feeling licensed to make part of a species of
mob around a female out of her sphere. As she took her seat
in the desk amid the great noise, and in the throng full, like a
wave, of something to ensue, I saw her humanity in a gentle-
ness and unpretension, tenderly open to the sphere around her,
and, had she not been supported by the power of the will of
genuineness and principle, she would have failed. It led her
to prayer, which, in woman especially, is childlike; sensibility
and will going to the side of God and looking up to him; and
humanity was poured out in aspiration.
“She acted like a gentle hero, with her mild decision and
womanly calmness. All heroism is mild and quiet and gentle,
for it is life and possession, and combativeness and firmness
show a want of actualness. She is as earnest, fresh, and sim-
ple as when she first entered the crusade. I think she did much
good, more than the men in her place could do, for woman feels
more as being and reproducing ; this brings the subject more
into home relations. Men speak through and mostly from in-
tellect, and this addresses itself in others, which creates and is
combative."


1843.]
Woman vs. Women.
Not easily shall we find elsewhere, or before thiş time,
any written observations on the same subject, so delicate
and profound.
The late Dr. Channing, whose enlarged and tender and
religious nature shared every onward impulse of his time,
though his thoughts followed his wishes with a deliberative
caution, which belonged to his habits and temperament,
was greatly interested in these expectations for women.
His own treatment of them was absolutely and thoroughly re-
ligious. He regarded them as souls, each of which had a des-
tiny of its own, incalculable to other minds, and whose leading
it must follow, guided by the light of a private conscience.
He had sentiment, delicacy, kindness, taste, but they were all
pervaded and ruled by this one thought, that all beings had
souls, and must vindicate their own inheritance. Thus all
beings were treated by him with an equal, and sweet,
though solemn courtesy. The young and unknown, the
woman and the child, all felt themselves regarded with an
infinite expectation, from which there was no reaction to
vulgar prejudice. He demanded of all he met, to use his
favorite phrase, "great truths.”
His memory, every way dear and reverend, is by many
especially cherished for this intercourse of unbroken re-
spect.
At one time when the progress of Harriet Martineau
through this country, Angelina Grimke's appearance in
public, and the visit of Mrs. Jameson had turned his
thoughts to this subject, he expressed high hopes as to what
the coming era would bring to woman. He had been
much pleased with the dignified courage of Mrs. Jameson
in taking up the defence of her sex, in a way from which
women usually shrink, because, if they express themselves
on such subjects with sufficient force and clearness to do
any good, they are exposed to assaults whose vulgarity
makes them painful. In intercourse with such a woman,
he had shared her indignation at the base injustice, in many
respects, and in many regions done to the sex; and been
led to think of it far more than ever before. He seemed
10 think that he might some time write upon the subject.
That his aid is withdrawn from the cause is a subject of
great reget, for on this question, as on others, he would have
known how to sum up the evidence and take, in the
VOL. IV. — NO. 1.


42
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
noblest spirit, middle ground. He always furnished a plat-
form on which opposing parties could stand, and look at
one another under the influence of his mildness and en-
lightened candor.
T'wo younger thinkers, men both, have uttered noble
prophecies, auspicious for woman. Kinmont, all whose
thoughts tended towards the establishment of the reign of
love and peace, thought that the inevitable means of this
would be an increased predominance given to the idea of
woman. Had he lived longer to see the growth of the
peace party, the reforms in life and medical practice which
seek to substitute water for wine and drugs, pulse for ani-
mal food, he would have been confirmed in his view
of the way in which the desired changes are to be ef-
fected.
In this connection I must mention Shelley, who, like all
men of genius, shared the feminine development, and, un-
like many, knew it. His life was one of the first pulse-
beats in the present reform-growth. He, too, abhorred
blood and heat, and, by his system and his song, tended to
reinstate a plant-like gentleness in the development of en-
ergy. In harmony with this his ideas of marriage were
lofty, and of course no less so of woman, her nature, and
destiny.
For woman, if by a sympathy as to outward condition,
she is led to aid the enfranchisement of the slave, must no
less so, by inward tendency, to favor measures which
promise to bring the world more thoroughly and deeply
into harmony with her nature. When the lamb takes
place of the lion as the emblem of nations, both women
and men will be as children of one spirit, perpetual learn-
ers of the word and doers thereof, not hearers only.
A writer in a late number of the New York Pathfinder,
in two articles headed “ Femality," has uttered a still more
pregnant word than any we have named. He views woman
truly from the soul, and not from society, and the depth
and leading of his thoughts is proportionably remarkable.
He views the feminine nature as a harmonizer of the vehe-
ment elements, and this has often been hinted elsewhere;
but what he expresses most forcibly is the lyrical, the in-
spiring and inspired apprehensiveness of her being.
Had I room to dwell upon this topic, I could not say


1843.]
Woman vs. Women.
anything so precise, so near the heart of the matter, as may
be found in that article ; but, as it is, I can only indicate,
not declare, my view.
There are two aspects of woman's nature, expressed by
the ancients as Muse and Minerva. It is the former to
which the writer in the Pathfinder looks. It is the latter
which Wordsworth has in mind, when he says,
"With a placid brow,
Which woman ne'er should forfeit, keep thy vow.”
The especial genius of woman I believe to be electrical
in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.
She is great not so easily in classification, or re-creation, as
in an instinctive seizure of causes, and a simple breathing
out of what she receives that has the singleness of life,
rather than the selecting or energizing of art.
More native to her is it to be the living model of the
artist, than to set apart from herself any one form in ob-
jective reality ; more native to inspire and receive the
poem than to create it. In so far as soul is in her com-
pletely developed, all soul is the same ; but as far as it is
modified in her as woman, it flows, it breathes, it sings,
rather than deposits soil, or finishes work, and that which is
especially feminine flushes in blossom the face of earth,
and pervades like air and water all this seeming solid globe,
daily renewing and purifying its life. Such may be the
especially feminine element, spoken of as Femality. But it
is no more the order of nature that it should be incarnated
pure in any form, than that the masculine energy should
exist unmingled with it in any form.
Male and female represent the two sides of the great
radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing
into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to
fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely fem-
inine woman.
History jeers at the attempts of physiologists to bind
great original laws by the forms which flow from them.
They make a rule ; they say from observation, what can and
cannot be. In vain ! Nature provides exceptions to every
rule. She sends women to battle, and sets Hercules spin-
ning; she enables women to bear immense burdens, cold,
and frost ; she enables the man, who feels maternal love, to
nourish his infant like a mother. Of late she plays still


44
[July,
The Great Lawsuit.
gayer pranks. Not only she deprives organizations, but
organs, of a necessary end. She enables people to read
with the top of the head, and see with the pit of the
stomach. Presently she will make a female Newton, and
a male Syren.
Man partakes of the feminine in the Apollo, woman of
the masculine as Minerva.
Let us be wise and not impede the soul. Let her work as
she will. Let us have one creative energy, one incessant
revelation. Let it take what form it will, and let us not
bind it by the past to man or woman, black or white. Jove
sprang from Rhea, Pallas from Jove. So let it be.
If it has been the tendency of the past remarks to call
woman rather to the Minerva side, - if I, unlike the more
generous writer, have spoken from society no less than the
soul, — let it be pardoned. It is love that has caused this,
love for many incarcerated souls, that might be freed could
the idea of religious self-dependence be established in them,
could the weakening habit of dependence on others be
broken up.
Every relation, every gradation of nature, is incalculably
precious, but only to the soul which is poised upon itself,
and to whom no loss, no change, can bring dull discord, for
it is in harmony with the central soul.
If any individual live too much in relations, so that he
becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he
falls after a while into a distraction, or imbecility, from
which he can only be cured by a time of isolation, which
gives the renovating fountains time to rise up. With a so-
ciety it is the saine. Many minds, deprived of the tra-
ditionary or instinctive means of passing a cheerful exist-
ence, must find help in self-impulse or perish. It is therefore
that while any elevation, in the view of union, is to be hailed
with joy, we shall not decline celibacy as the great fact of
the time. It is one from which no vow, no arrangement,
can at present save a thinking mind. For now the rowers
are pausing on their oars, they wait a change before they
can pull together. All tends to illustrate the thought of a
wise contemporary. Union is only possible to those who
are units. To be fit for relations in time, souls, whether of
man or woman, must be able to do without them in the
spirit.


1843.]
45
Woman vs. Women.
It is therefore that I would have woman lay aside all
thought, such as she habitually cherishes, of being taught
and led by men. I would have her, like the Indian girl,
dedicate herself to the Sun, the Sun of Truth, and go no
where if his beams did not make clear the path. I would
have her free from compromise, from complaisance, from
helplessness, because I would have her good enough and
strong enough to love one and all beings, from the fulness,
not the poverty of being.
Men, as at present instructed, will not help this work,
because they also are under the slavery of habit. I have
seen with delight their poetic impulses. A sister is the
fairest ideal, and how nobly Wordsworth, and even Byron,
have written of a sister.
There is no sweeter sight than to see a father with his
little daughter. Very vulgar men become refined to the eye
when leading a little girl by the hand. At that moment
the right relation between the sexes seems established, and
you feel as if the man would aid in the noblest purpose, if
you ask him in behalf of his little daughter. Once two
fine figures stood before me, thus. The father of very in-
tellectual aspect, his falcon eye softened by affection as he
looked down on his fair child, she the image of himself,
only more graceful and brilliant in expression. I was re-
minded of Southey's Kehama, when lo, the dream was
rudely broken. They were talking of education, and he
said,
“ I shall not have Maria brought too forward. If she
knows too much, she will never find a husband; superior
women hardly ever can.”
“Surely,” said his wife, with a blush, “you wish Maria
to be as good and wise as she can, whether it will help her
10 marriage or not."
“No," he persisted, “I want her to have a sphere and
a home, and some one to protect her when I am gone."
It was a trifling incident, but made a deep impression.
I felt that the holiest relations fail to instruct the unpre-
pared and perverted mind. If this man, indeed, would
have looked at it on the other side, he was the last that
would have been willing to have been taken himself for the
home and protection he could give, but would have been
much more likely to repeat the tale of Alcibiades with his
phials.


46
(July,
The Great Lawsuit.
But men do not look at both sides, and women must
leave off asking them and being influenced by them, but
retire within themselves, and explore the groundwork of
being till they find their peculiar secret. Then when they
come forth again, renovated and baptized, they will know
how to turn all dross to gold, and will be rich and free
though they live in a hut, tranquil, if in a crowd. Then
their sweet singing shall not be from passionate impulse,
but the lyrical overflow of a divine rapture, and a new
music shall be elucidated from this many-chorded world.
Grant her then for a while the armor and the javelin.
Let her put from her the press of other minds and medi-
tate in virgin loneliness. The same idea shall reappear in
due time as Muse, or Ceres, the all-kindly, patient Earth-
Spirit.
I tire every one with my Goethean illustrations. But it
cannot be helped.
Goethe, the great mind which gave itself absolutely
to the leadings of truth, and let rise through him the
waves which are still advancing through the century, was
its intellectual prophet. Those who know him, see, daily,
his thought fulfilled more and more, and they must speak
of it, till his name weary and even nauseate, as all great
names have in their time. And I cannot spare the reader,
if such there be, his wonderful sight as to the prospects and
wants of women.
As his Wilhelm grows in life and advances in wisdom,
he becomes acquainted with women of more and more
character, rising from Mariana to Macaria.
Macaria, bound with the heavenly bodies in fixed revo.
lutions, the centre of all relations, herself unrelated, ex-
presses the Minerva side.
Mignon, the electrical, inspired lyrical nature.
All these women, though we see them in relations, we
can think of as unrelated. They all are very individual,
yet seem nowhere restrained. They satisfy for the pres-
ent, yet arouse an infinite expectation.
The economist Theresa, the benevolent Natalia, the fair
Saint, have chosen a path, but their thoughts are not nar-
rowed to it. The functions of life to them are not ends,
but suggestions.
Thus to them all things are important, because none is


1843.]
47
Woman vs. Women.
necessary. Their different characters have fair play, and
each is beautiful in its minute indications, for nothing is
enforced or conventional, but everything, however slight,
grows from the essential life of the being.
Mignon and Theresa wear male attire when they like,
and it is graceful for them to do so, while Macaria is con-
fined to her arm chair behind the green curtain, and the
Fair Saint could not bear a speck of dust on her robe.
All things are in their places in this little world because
all is natural and free, just as “ there is room for every-
thing out of doors." Yet all is rounded in by natural har-
mony which will always arise where Truth and Love are
sought in the light of freedom.
Goethe's book bodes an era of freedom like its own, of
“extraordinary generous seeking,” and new revelations.
New individualities shall be developed in the actual
world, which shall advance upon it as gently as the figures
come out upon his canvass.
A profound thinker has said “no married woman can
represent the female world, for she belongs to her husband.
The idea of woman must be represented by a virgin."
But that is the very fault of marriage, and of the present
relation between the sexes, that the woman does belong to
the man, instead of forming a whole with him. Were it
otherwise there would be no such limitation to the thought.
Woman, self-centred, would never be absorbed by any
relation ; it would be only an experience to her as to man.
It is a vulgar error that love, a love to woman is her whole
existence; she also is born for Truth and Love in their
universal energy. Would she but assume her inheritance,
Mary would not be the only Virgin Mother. Not Manzoni
alone would celebrate in his wife the virgin mind with the
maternal wisdom and conjugal affections. The soul is ever
young, ever virgin.
And will not she soon appear? The woman who shall
vindicate their birthright for all women ; who shall teach
them what to claim, and how to use what they obtain ?
Shall not her name be for her era Victoria, for her country
and her life Virginia ? Yet predictions are rash ; she herself
must teach us to give her the fitting name.


48
(July,
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
THE YOUTH OF THE POET AND THE PAINTER.
LETTER 1.
EDWARD ASHFORD TO JAMES HOPE.
Lovedale.
DEAR Hope,
I have been a week in this beautiful place. I am glad
to fly the round of forms for the breath of the green fields
This sweet spot was carved, by the Spirit of beauty, for a
fairer race than mortals ; and if I am not happy, it is that
I wander alone, with the faithless figures of hope to light
the path. I believe in solitude, with one friend. Do you
remember our week at Hillsborough, and those homelike
evenings, after our tramps up the mountains, and our strolls
in the meadows? What a peculiar sympathy is that which
can tolerate society at such seasons; and I believe I shall
never meet another, with whom I shall be so willing to wan-
der, as with you. Have you sailed much on the inland riv-
ers? When we wandered, we did not use the stream, so
smoothly gliding at the foot of purple mountains, but I
spend much time in my boat now. I love its motion, and
pass among the trees, free from being entangled in the
branchés, and rustle the long grass of the morass in dry
shoes. The leafy walls on each side produce new combina-
tions of shade, picturesque and artistical, and their reflec-
tions double the forest, with the clouds brought so low, that
I fear the actual woods may lose part of their pleasure, when
I again tread their recesses. This spot combines the at-
traction of two rivers. The larger, in contrast with the
less, seems almost a sea, from its high banks. The sunset,
streaming across the water, reminds me of the ocean.
There is a wildness, in the larger river, that would better suit
you, than my little boating-ground; the woods, on the lofty
shores, are bold and massive, and the hills soar into the sky.
When the wind blows fresh, there are waves, and the sail-
boats dash through the foam, as if the mimicry of the sea
acted on their keels, and excited them with its life.
My little skiff dares not tempt the flow of the large river,
and winds its way on the tranquil bosom of the Willow,


1843.)
49
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
for this is the name given to the little stream, from many
groups of this graceful tree, floating on the margin. I am
sheltered from storms in a cove, circled with trees, where
the banks nod with white and red flowers; my caverns are
roofed with leaves and brown branches, and, instead of sea-
gulls, I have robins and thrushes sweeping over the crags
of verdure, and the blue king-fisher glances between the
two skies, and calls shrilly to me. If I feel the wind, it is
in the mimic rain pattering in the leaves, or see the tiny
waves frolic below me, where the forest opens. I never
hear better music than listening to these songs on the river.
I wish I had your talent, and could bring these scenes home
in a sketch-book, or was poet enough to express my ac-
quaintance with this delightful river, in verse. He, who
can do this, need not ask men to give; nature has enriched
him. I suppose his poetry is more valuable to the poet,
than to his auditors, and I wonder at his sensitiveness, and
delicacy, as to his productions. It is enough for bim to
embalm the world in human affection, for himself.
At some distance, from the mill where I live, up the
Willow, is a sand-bank, covering some acres, on which not
a tree grows, nor a blade of grass. I came to it, fresh
from reading some African travels, and felt I had discov-
ered a little Sahara, in these green plains. Though it was
noon, I wandered over it, in a festive mood, and if the soles
of my shoes did not burn, I felt the solid heat. I have no
doubt, you will dub me African traveller, and claim me for
a second Ledyard, whom you used greatly to admire, and
say there had been no other modern man of a similar
character. I am sitting on this sand-bank, and writing my
letter, just on its edge, under the shade of an oak, whose
glossy leaves shine in the sun. The broad fields of sand are
everywhere covered with warmth, yet nothing grows ; if
you dig down only two inches, how damp and clammy is
the soil. I have found some Indian arrow-heads upon it,
and I see various shining insects hopping about.
Have you been much in a mill? It is a domestic
place. There is an honest tone in the spinning stones,
the impersonation of a loaf of bread; it is a speech of
power besides, rolling and whirling. The beams, coated
with dust, glow like dead alabaster, and every spider's
web is made from white yarn. Even at noon, the
VOL. IV. - NO. 1.


50
[July,
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
rooms are lit badly, and, at twilight, they gloom. I am
startled when the miller treads the creaking stairs; and the
trap-doors and odd passages seem like an old castle.
When grinding stops, silence hangs over the chambers,
tenanted by squab figures, in white clothes, while down
stairs the water trickles under the wheel, and the rats play
hide-and-go-seek. Sometimes I am miller, and once I nearly
set the building on fire by letting the grist run out of the
hopper.
I am more than ever convinced, since I came here, you
have made a mistake in not attending more to coloring, to
the neglect, if you please, of so much outline-drawing.
As I float down the river, I am detained by the color.
These rich reflections, black in their depths, shining on
their surfaces, with a delicate coating of silver, and glossing
the trees, in masses, with an uncertain body-tint, could
never be used in outline. You must pile on color, glaze
and re-glaze. What would be the value of that starry
group of willow-foliage, in your neutral pencil-drawing, de-
prived of its light, glimmering green, or this emerald bank,
bearing a wreath of vermilion cardinals ? I long to put
these preparatory years of yours into one, and give it to a
study so vexatious as this of outline, and then set you free
into gorgeous colors that press forward and lie at your feet.
Come from your neat chamber to my river, and we will float
in splendid sunsets and royal moonlights, till you forget all
but your picture, and create this smiling world over again.
They will furnish a room in the mill, where you hear the
hum of the lazy water-wheel, and the owl's screech, out of
the forest on the opposite bank. We have good sweet
meal, an orchard of scraggly apple-trees, and a deep kitchen
hearth for cool evenings. Come, I entreat.
EDWARD.
LETTER II.
MRS. ASHFORD TO EDWARD ASHFORD.
Doughnut.
My Dear Son,
I was surprised to learn you had suddenly deserted col-
lege, and made your way to some place in the country,
without either consulting me or the president. As your


1843.)
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
mother, and nearest living relative, your feelings should
have led you to inform me of this very serious change in
your course of life. You left Doughnut, apparently con-
tented to reside at college, and President Littlego's first
letter was perfectly satisfactory. In his second I was mor-
tified to learn you did not attend prayers, so often as was
required, though regular at recitations; and in his third,
with feelings I cannot describe, I learned you had left your
room, and the greater portion of your clothes, and taken up
your residence at some obscure farmhouse, in a country
village.
It was from a letter to your friend Hope, I discovered to
what point you had gone, and I write immediately on hear-
ing, to beseech you to return to Doughnut, even if you do
not instantly go back to Triflecut. At least, write on the
receipt of this, and inform me by what reasons you sustain
your present extraordinary course of conduct. You must
feel this is due to me, as well as to your other friends, and
to President Littlego.
After so long a course of studies, in this city, under the
best preceptor I could obtain, I naturally felt that you would
enter college with superior advantages, and obtain a high
rank in your class. I know, my dear son, that as a young
man, - a very young man, — just entering into liſe, your
responsibilities do not seem so important as they will. I
regard a good position at college extremely desirable on one
account, as the means of securing a good social position.
You entered with the most respectable youth of this city, as
associates in your class, and in other classes you have ac-
quaintances, your friend Hope, and others of the same
standing. I trust it will be your purpose to rank with these
excellent young men. Again, the discipline gained from
the study of foreign languages, and mathematics, will afford
you a good basis on which you can erect your future
labors.
You know, my dear Edward, my pecuniary circumstan-
ces, and that it is by limiting myself and your sister, I have
been able to send you to Trifecut, without infringing too
far upon the course of life we pursue in Doughnut. Yet I
shall cheerfully make a greater sacrifice, if it will conduce
to your greater happiness. If your room was unsuitable,
or not furnished according to your wish, or if your ward-


52
[July,
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
robe did not content you, I beg you will lay the cause
before your mother's eye, and she will gladly devote any
portion of her store to supply what you require.
Hope informs me, you pass part of your time in a boat
or some old mill. I beg of you not to be out in the even-
ing air ; remember your health, and how dear you are to
me. Old mills are badly ventilated, and you have a ten-
dency to cough. I have procured from Mrs. Puffy your
flannel waistcoats, which I forward, together with another
bottle of Smith's Lotion for sore throat. In case you
should be unwell, send at once for a physician. I feel you
will come home at once. God bless you, my dear son.
Your affectionate mother,
REBECCA ASHFORD.
LETTER III.
What has got
Uncle Dick!
pin Triflecut.
RICHARD ASHFORD TO EDWARD ASHFORD.
Doughnut.
What has got into your brains now, Ned, goes beyond
the powers of your Uncle Dick! I happened to come to
Doughnut the day they expected you from Trifecut. I ar-
rived at 11 o'clock, in the stage, and found mother and
sister Fanny working at your winter stockings, in the little
back parlor. At 12 the bell rung, and the Triflecut coach
stopped. Fanny flew to the window, your mother ran to
the door, and in came a dapper-looking college man, in a
black coat, and handed us a letter, which contained the
astounding intelligence, that you had fled the soft embraces
of President Littlego, and now smacked your lips over
johnny-cakes and apple-dumplings, in a distant although
romantic grist-mill. I was introduced to Mr. Hope, and
asked him what could induce a quiet young gentleman, like
you, to cut such a trick; at which he smiled, drew up his
eye-brows, twirled his hat, and said, “I wish I was there
with him." " The devil you do,” said I. I have not
laughed so much since I burnt off deacon Bugbear's queue
at a revival lecture.
Your mother popped a series of maternal questions at
Mr. Hope, to discover what motives led her darling boy to
such a display of independence. Mr. Hope, who is a quiz


1843.)
53
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
plainly, informed her your sudden disappearance was as
much matter of surprise to him, as to herself, and went,
leaving us as wise as when he came. He supposed the
classic shades of Triflecut, as your mother calls scrub
commons and twopenny tutors, might have wearied your
imaginative head, and that the beautiful village of Lovedale
was more adapted to it. I have lived a long time, my dear
Ned, and have seen a good deal of life. I did not run
away, when a youth, but was put up and labelled — sailor,
and despatched in a dirty ship, to plough my way through
the furrows of the ocean. I thought I should have a good
time, rocking on the billows, far from the torments of six
brothers, the plague of school, and the dull routine of a
little seaport. My first voyage “cleansed my bosom of
this perilous stuff.” I came home, “a sadder and a wiser"
lad, — but I had to equip for another voyage, and sailed the
sea twenty-six long years. At the end I came back to the
little seaport, “an ancient mariner," with no property but
the clothes on my back, some yarns about my travels, gray
hair, and a rheumatism, to burden my family and look after
my nephews.
Do what you like, only be careful to go to sea with a
rudder. I rarely give advice, but I can recommend you
never to do anything without seeing where your path goes,
and, if you can, keep the old road. You will find the
beaten track pleasanter, on the whole, and, if the scenery
is tame, the accommodation is good at the taverns.
Your friend Hope made me laugh, as I say, by his cool
indifference to your mother's tenderness. He has an old
head on young shoulders. He told me, Trifecut was
thrown into an agreeable excitement by your disappearance.
Mrs. Puffy was in consternation, to lose so quiet a boarder
with such a small appetile, and the good soul really feared
that the hard fare of the University must have driven you
desperate. A few of the young ladies have manifested
some sympathy, and set you down as a rejected suitor.
Pray appease your mother's distressed heart, by writing her.
We are in a quandary here. I have had a notion I
would get a lawyer's advice, - perhaps we could take you
with a habeas corpus, but it is a good way to send a sher-
iff's officer, and it would be a blank business to have a non
est inventus returned. Your mother begs me to engage


54
[July,
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
a vehicle and drive down myself; your sister Fanny sug-
gests we bribe you to come back by the offer of a study
and pens, a library, and permission to pass a week in se-
clusion. What we shall resolve, I cannot say; in the mean
time I puff my pipe, at my leisure, in the garret, and read
some old French plays I bought at a book stall.
Your Uncle,
Dick.
LETTER IV.
JAMES HOPE TO EDWARD ASHFORD.
Triflecut.
I acknowledge what you say of outline is partly true,
my dear Ashford, but I think you have drawn too hasty a
conclusion. We must, in art, make a beginning, — to leap
from the outset to the end, cannot produce any work above
that of a petit-maitre. It is the fault of our time to escape
deliberation, to mar by haste, and to suggest, rather than
perfect. I am chagrined to hear you remark, you wish the
Poet's power belonged to you, for I have always thought
you were born to write verse.
I console myself by reflecting that every true poet has felt
this deficiency at the outset, and my chagrin was the result
of the same want of maturity I find everywhere ; for how
could I require you, just beginning to write, to produce
anything sublime? I want courage to assert my right to
the pencil, as much as you do to the pen. I believe our
age is not only that of immaturity, but of disbelief; we
are neither willing to graduate nor confide; we finish in
haste, and read our failure of necessity. When I consider
how the masters, who have stamped eternal foot-prints in
the sands of time, spent years in writing characters which
were instantly washed out, I resolve to sit in love and ad-
miration, and value my ill-formed outsets as some tendency
towards real beauty, as the alphabet to the bible of art.
My outlines, in this light, are worth preserving, and I grieve
that I was not possessed of this patience years ago, for it
would have led me to keep my first sketches, and I might
now see such a change for the better as to make golden my


1843.)
55
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
loftiest aspirations. So much do we learn in youth, and
so unfortunate it seems to grow old early, and abridge this
holiday-floor, where, in games, we harvest deep experience.
I have been long laboring at outlines, yet feel I have accom-
plished little, compared with what I might, other pursuits
have so abridged my time. I have not yielded to your ear-
nest request, to dwell only in art, to abandon these college
studies; in short, to identify my whole external existence
with the beautiful. I prize the unselfish enthusiasm that
leads you to desire for your friend only the happiest results.
For your sake I should love to yield myself entirely to the
radiant sunlight of picture, and dispense with the cold econ-
omy of the world.
What will you think if I confess I have not that confi-
dence which enables me to say entirely, that I can produce
anything to warrant me in following an artist's life ? An ir-
resistible impulse draws me to landscape. I take my pen-
cil, but the scenes do not flow warm and living. In a
measure I satisfy myself, yet not to that extent I desire.
You will send the lesson I have just read, on haste, and
the necessity of taking degrees in art, step by step. A las !
I find I can read lessons to everybody better than practise
them.
It would not avail to be an amateur; I must be all or
nothing; and in fully feeling this, I found my right to be-
come a painter. He, who truly aspires to the loftiest, has
the consolation of knowing he can make no failure; yet
to pass life in stepping from one stone to another, would
not be sufficient excuse for deserting what other avenues I
may have to knowledge. I am an unresting man; all I
hear, all I see, all I do, is but the faint uncertain dawn of
what I am equal to; and it would be a sensation profoundly
satisfactory, did I seize what jewels are strewn by the way;
but I seein to be carried forward with such rapidity that I
cannot stoop to seize even these. I am possessed with the
idea, that I cannot neglect any of the common avenues to
knowledge, and find myself faithfully performing every
college duty, no matter how dry, with the instinct that
something may be in it. The ancients yield me more fruit
than the moderns, and Homer, Æschylus, Lucan, and Vir-
gil, I would not exchange for any four of the moderns. I
would not aim at acquiring a critical knowledge of the


56
(July,
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
dead languages; but these four years, we spend at college,
are a convenient period for mastering them sufficiently.
These are youth's leisure days, in our age, to read the past.
The Greeks I never tire of. I have lately made a prize in
a bust of the Apollo, which was sent froin Italy as a speci-
men cast, and now have it in a corner of my chamber. I
have captured, this week, Flaxman's Homer, and spent
some pleasant hours over it, in which I wished you with
me. What manly fellows these Greeks were! So bold,
so finished, so splendidly wrought up to a pure, stern ideal,
yet without that sentiment which spoils our ideality.
What a strange point of history is this, when we stand
in an age not capable of producing any work of sublime
excellence, yet having a back ground filled with monu,
ments cut in eternal beauty. That there should bave been
preserved, through the dark ages, these sayings of former
civilization, which we now comprehend, yet cannot repro-
duce, makes our time a youth of speechless beauty, whose
eyes penetrate the shroud before his birth ; and how indi-
vidual we are, for we only survey the future with promise.
I know of nothing so singular, as that our age should be
the age of reform. I doubt, indeed, that it is. Our peo-
ple of reform love to cover their imperfections with this
vanity, while their eyes swim with tears, when they look
into the bright face of the past. Give me, if not the pow-
er of present creation, the capacity to appreciate those
matchless ancients who sat supreme among forms, and bend
their successors into an unsuccessful imitation. If I can
make nothing new, if this is a winter's day, when the field-
flowers do not bloom, let me twine my brows with the ever-
green laurels of the summer past. I can, at least, live with
the divinities, if I cannot match them in performance. I
can worship in silence, and believe, though speechless.
There has been a revival, of late years, all over Europe,
of the Greek spirit, surprising to behold, and finally the
discovery that if Shakspeare is the first of moderns, it is
only that he inherited, the largest share of the ancient.
Yet, I do not look upon Shakspeare as such an immortal as
Homer, and fancy I can discover traces that he shakes on
his seat. But you know that I am not such a Shakspeare-
man as you; if he should suffer, I think it will be a par-
tial obscuration, caused by the extreme meanness of his


1843.)
57
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
late critics, who have overloaded the public mind with their
leaden lumber.
Even in America, the puritan side of modern cultivation,
I see this Greek spirit marching forward to conquer cus-
tom. This new development of sculptors, is a warning,
while late poets tend to a smoothness, a finish, and neat-
ness, which gives us the workmanship of Pope's time, while
we possess besides a liberal idea. I rejoice in this, and cling
to my old books the closer, when I see they are beginning
to warm the mass. I will not quarrel with your devotion to
what is only new, and shall always be delighted with your
mill, and your sails on the river.
I have fallen in with a new person this last week, whom
I met on Grecian hill, where we used to walk. He was
loitering, apparently, like myself, a cloud-gazer. I found
more tenderness in his eyes than in his speech, and that he
did not do credit to his heart. We conversed about books
and pictures. He was not so fond of the ancients as I.
He professed not to be a favorite in general society, yet I
saw, by the manner in which he spoke of several of our
mutual acquaintances, that he had approached in a way
agreeable to them, as he was full master of their faults. I
detected he was impatient of defects, yet would not tole-
rate a stately beauty, with great external polish, because he
believed nature knew best how to win affection, and that
the apex of cultivation, if lofty, was covered with snow.
In this, he differed from me, as I believe that true polish
can do no more than proportion nature. I found he dwelt
more on defects than beauties, and that it was owing to his
love of the ridiculous which set out the imperfection, if
never so small, in a humorous light, leaving the equal graces
to shine unobserved. He had detected this tendency, as in
speaking of some of the old humorists, he said, “ They are
like me; they love the comic, yet see what lies below with-
out mentioning it." Still, I thought, from his conversation,
which lacked any one distinguishing peculiarity, that his
humor was 'not natural, but the product of sorrow united
with an original mirthfulness, whose proper outlet would
have been fair smiles. He had no wit, but labored with
his power to express himself; and though what he said
sounded fresh and honest, from an occasional alteration, or
a repetition of the same thought, I concluded he found it
VOL. IV. NO. I.
8


58
(July,
Youth of the Poet and the Painter.
conclude Der, is one of beauty in painter; 1,
ing, and the undronbeljowed hele spoke suggest,
difficult to fit expression precisely to thought. He must
have been a writer, rather than a painter ; but yet as he
showed a keen sense of beauty in the landscape, which,
you remember, is one of those that do nothing but suggest,
I concluded he had studied pictures. We spoke of love,
and he mused moodily, and showed he had been disap-
pointed in some passion. I believed, from the fair oval of
his brow and the undrooped eyelids, that his characier was
trusting, and that a long life of affection lay before him, to
be tinged with occasional shade from the recollection of
his past affections. As we strolled on, I was charmed with
the quick eyes he had for every object. Nothing escaped,
neither cloud, flower, tree, bird, nor insect, and I was glad
to find he valued masses, and where the landscape opened
he traced a good foreground, a wide distance, and a side-
light which struck a group of trees in the middle, brought
out a winding brook, a small golden valley, and an elm
tree with a cottage under it, and connected these domestic
emblems with a group of gray clouds. He looked at me,
as if this picture did not satisfy him, but had formed a bet-
ter in his mind, which he did not show. When I spoke
to him of books, I found he had read a number; yet on his
quoting some poetry, discovered he did not give it correct-
ly, though he added words which made it better, and seem-
ed musing whether he had read the right line. He selected
some half dozen books out of all he had read, as the sum
and substance of books, and placed them on his shelves, as
silent reserves, specimens of what had been done, which
held in them no obligation for him to read. I spoke of the
old masters, and the Greek sculpture, and found he loved
painting best, but did not prefer any special artist. I spoke
with him, also, of philosophers, and found he had read them
rather in his imagination than in fact, and formed figures of
the past men, as well as epochs, without having really taken
much notice of their works. In the midst of very serious
criticisms, he called me off to point to some tree waving
by the wall's side, or plant at our feet, and I saw he was
firmly fixed in nature rather than art.
Pray send me another letter from your mill, before long,
and if you write any verses, some copies, and if I find a
chance, I will send some of my late outlines.
Ever yours,
НОРЕ.


1843.]
Ethnical Scriptures.
Ethnical
ETHNICAL SCRIPTURES.
EXTRACTS FROM THE DESATIR.
[PRELIMINARY Note. The Desatir or Regulations, purports to be a collec-
tion of the writings of the different Persian prophets, being fifteen in number,
of whom Zerdusht or Zoroaster was the thirteenth, and ending with the fifth
Sasan, who lived in the time of Chosroes, contemporary with the Emperor He-
raclius. In England, attention was first called to this book by Sir William
Jones in the Second Volume of the Asiatic Researches, and the book was after-
wards translated from the Persian by Mr. Duncan, Governor of Bombay, and by
Mulla Firuz Bin Kaus, a Hindoo, and published at Bombay in 1818.]
LITANY.
Let us take refuge with Mezdam from evil thoughts
which mislead and afflict us.
O creator of the essence of supports and stays; 0 thou
who showerest down benefits ; 0 thou who formest the
heart and soul; O fashioner of forms and shadows; O
Light of lights!
Thou art the first, for there is no priority prior to thee.
Thou art the last, for there is no posteriority posterior to thee.
O worthy to be lauded ! deliver us from the bonds of
terrestrial matter.
Rescue us from the fetters of dark and evil matter.
Intelligence is a drop from among the drops of the ocean
of thy place of souls.
The Soul is a flame from among the flames of the fire of
thy residence of Sovereignty.
Mezdam is hid by excess of light. He is Lord of his
wishes; not subject to novelties; and the great is small, and
the tall short, and the broad narrow, and the deep is as a
ford unto him.
Who causeth the shadow to fall.
The Inflamer that maketh the blood to boil.
In the circle of thy sphere, which is without rent, which
neither assumeth a new shape, nor putteth off an old one,
nor taketh a straight course ;
Thou art exalted, O our Lord! From thee is praise, and
to thee is praise.


60
(July,
Ethnical Scriptures.
Thy world of forms, the city of bodies, the place of
created things, is long and broad and deep. Thou art the
accomplisher of desires.
The eyes of purity saw thee by the lustre of thy sub-
stance. Dark and astounded is he who hath seen thee by
the efforts of the Intellect.
pless.
Strong wind, ey will tremige, which
THE PROPHET.
Every prophet whom I send goeth forth to stablish re-
ligion, not to root it up.
Thou wilt be asked, By what dost thou know God?
Say, By what descendeth on the heart. For could that be
proved false, souls would be utterly helpless. There is in
thy soul a certain knowledge, which, if thou display it to
mankind, they will tremble like a branch agitated by a
strong wind. Say unto mankind, Look not on the Self-
existent with this eye: ask for another eye.
The Nurakh sages ask, What use is there for a prophet
in this world? A prophet is necessary on this account,
that men are connected with each other in the concerns of
life: therefore rules and laws are indispensable that all
may act in concert: that there may be no injustice in
· giving, or taking, or partnership, but that the order of the
world may endure. And it is necessary that these rules
should proceed from Mezdam, that all men may obey them.
For this high task a prophet must be raised up. How can
we know that a prophet is really called to his office? By
his knowing that which others do not know; and by his
giving you information regarding your own heart; and by
his not being puzzled by any question that is asked ; and
by this, that another cannot do what he doeth.
O Ferzinsar! son of Yasanajam : thee have I selected
for prophecy. Revive the religion of the prophet of proph-
ets, the great Abad ; and worship Hersesram (Saturn) in
this sort, that he may lend thee his aid; — I pray of thee,
O Father ! Lord ! that thou ask by the splendor of thy
soul from thy Father and Lord, thy prime Cause and Lover,
and of all the free and blazing lights that possess intelli-
gence, that they would ask of their Father and Lord, the
most approved wish that can be asked of the Stablisher of
all, to make me one of those who approach the band of


1843.)
61
Ethnical Scriptures.
his lights and the secrets of his Essence, and to pour light
on the Band of light and splendor, and to magnify them,
and to purify them and us, while the world endureth, and
to all eternity.
MEZDAM THE FIRST CAUSE, SPEAKS TO THE WORSHIPPER.
My light is on thy countenance; my word is on thy
tongue. Me thou seest, me thou hearest, me thou smell-
est, me thou tastest, me thou touchest. What thou say-
est, that I say; and thy acts are my acts. And I speak by
thy tongue, and thou speakest to me, though mortals im-
agine that thou speakest to them.
I am never out of thy heart, and I am contained in
nothing but in thy heart. And I am nearer unto thee than
thou art unto thyself. Thy soul reacheth me.
In the name of Mezdam. O Siamer! I will call thee
aloft, and make thee my companion ; the lower world is
not thy place. Many times daily thou escapest from thy
body and comest unto me.
Now thou art not satisfied with coming unto me from
time to time, and longest to abide continually nigh unto
me; I too am not satisfied with thy absence. Although
thou art with me, and I with thee, still thou desirest and I
desire that thou shouldest be still more intimately with me.
Therefore will I release thee from thy terrestrial body, and
make thee sit in my company.
THE HEAVENS.
[The first time that I was called to the world above, the
heavens and stars said unto me, O Sasan ! we have bound
up our loins in the service of Yezdan, and never with-
drawn from it, because he is worthy of praise ; and we are
filled with astonishment how mankind can wander so wide
from the commands of God.]
Whatever is on earth is the resemblance and shadow
of something that is in the sphere. While that resplen-
dent thing remaineth in good condition, it is well also with
its shadow. When that resplendent thing removeth far
from its shadow, life removeth to a distance. Again, that


62
(July,
Ethnical Scriptures.
light is the shadow of something more resplendent than
itself. And so on, up to Me, who am the Light of lights.
Look therefore to Mezdam, who causeth the shadow to
fall.
MORALS.
Purity is of two kinds, real and formal. The real con-
sisteth in not binding the heart to evil; and the formal in
cleansing away what appears evil to the view.
True self-knowledge is knowledge of God. Life is af-
fected by two evils, Lust and Anger. Restrain them with-
in the proper mean. Till man can attain this self-control,
he cannot become a celestial.
The perfect seeth unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity
in unity.
The roads tending to God are more in number than the
breathings of created beings.
OF WRITING.
The spider said, Wherein consisteth the superior excel-
lence of man ? The sage Simrash said, Men understand
talismans, and charms, and magic arts, while animals do
not. The spider answered, Animals exceed men in these
respects; knowest thou not that crawling things and in-
sects build triangular and square houses without wood or
brick ? behold my work, how without loom, I weave fine
cloth. Simrash replied, Man can write and express his
thoughts on paper, which animals cannot. The spider
said, Animals do not transfer the secrets of Mezdam from
a living heart to a lifeless body. Simrash hung down his
head from shame..
SPRING.
With what a still, untroubled air,
The spring comes stealing up the way,
Like some young maiden coyly fair,
Too modest for the light of day.


1843.)
Abou Ben Adhem.
ABOU BEN ADHEM.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
Abou Ben Adhem, (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in the room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold;
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” The vision raised its head,
And with a look made all of sweet accord,
Answered, " The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one ?” said Adhem. “Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Adhem spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.”
The angel wrote and vanished; the next night
He came again with a great wakening light,
And showed their names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
THE SONG OF BIRDS IN SPRING.
They breathe the feeling of thy happy soul,
Intricate Spring! too active for a word;
They come from regions distant as the pole;
Thou art their magnet, — seedsman of the bird.


The Earth.
(July,
THE EARTH.
By William E. CHANNING.
My highway is unfeatured air,
My consorts are the sleepless stars,
And men, my giant arms upbear,
My arms unstained and free from scars.
I rest forever on my way,
Rolling around the happy sun,
My children love the sunny day,
But noon and night to me are one.
My heart hath pulses like their own,
I am their mother, and my veins,
Though built of the enduring stone,
Thrill as do theirs with godlike pains.
The forests and the mountains high,
The foaming ocean and its springs,
The plains, — O pleasant company,
My voice through all your anthems rings.
Ye are so cheerful in your minds,
Content to smile, content to share,
My being in your silence finds
The echo of my spheral air.
No leaf may fall, no pebble roll,
No drop of water lose the road,
The issues of the general soul,
Are mirrored in their round abode.


1843.]
65
Social Tendencies.
SOCIAL TENDENCIES.
" THE DIVINE END IN SOCIETY IS HUMANE PERFECTION."
How strange a sound is this heard along the shore! Un-
like either the last plashes of a recent storm, or the swell of
a coming gale, its indications cannot be read by experience.
In irregular intervals, the new waves curl, crisp and yeasty,
over the shell-strewn beach, with an unusual surge, although
no fresh breeze is sensible above the surface of the waters.
The oldest, time-worn caves, echo the unfamiliar sound,
and even their inmost recesses seem sensible of the forth-
coming of some event, which may destroy their venerable
forms forever, and crumble them to common earth. It is as
the apprehension of an earthquake, against which no con-
trivance can prevail, and which no skill can avert. The
ancient fishermen, they who seem to be as imperishable as
the waters, stand mute. Their boats and nets are drifted
to and fro by the influence of the unseen power which they
have not the courage to resist, or deem it as impossible to
oppose as the south-western gale in its highest fury. Yet
the elemental world above is serene; no portents cloud the
sky; and the perpetual sun shines on in steady splendor.
In a murmuring prophet-note this new impulse is princi-
pally indicated.
,. May we worthily speculate on the origin, operation, and
probable futurity of this new movement in the human
ocean. Peradventure we may divine the interpretation of
the omen.
Certain it is, that the political chiefs of the earth no
longer execute that initiative function for which their office
was created. The monarch and his prime minister are now
but the chairman and his deputy, at a convention where the
government really rests in the hands of the majority. The
governor has ceased to rule; he is there only to hear reso-
lutions propounded and to count the votes. The old ditty
begins to be realized, and each one now is substantially
“ king in his turn.” Happy fact, that humanity is so much
nearer mankind, and is escaping from the leading-strings
self-imposed in the nursery.
VOL. IV. - NO. 1.


66
[July,
Social Tendencies.
The depths from which the surface-movements spring,
are as various as their outward appearances; and their ori-
gins are as separate and distinct as the strange and broken
wavelets which indicate them.
Some minds, moved as by personal irritation at a particular
vice in existing institutions, will be invited to apply every
energy to its reformation or annihilation. Unquiet souls,
under the most favorable circumstances, have some com-
plaints to utter. By no means are the objects generally
aimed at by the great mass of men to be deemed worthy
of real human effort. Yet there is a number, almost de-
serving the appellation, “a multitude," who, being moved
from a greater depth than ordinary, manifest a purpose
which may, with less liability to the charge of ostentation,
be designated human. Whosoever shall go about seek-
ing these, may, without much difficulty, discover them,
though they are hidden from the external observer's eye.
Heretofore mingled in the stream of professed reformers,
until they found such a course could not lead to their satis-
faction, they stand aloof from troubled waters, they now
declare they are impelled by an inspiration to build up a
new social existence, such as history records not, such as
experience does not manifest.
These consist not of malcontent or rebellious souls, who,
from a pugnacious nature, attack whatever in existence may
stand in their way ; nor of such as, from an avaricious ap-
petite, hunger for new food ; nor of disappointed or dis-
gusted self-indulgents, whose elasticity has been worn away
by excess in low delights ; but they appear to consist of the
loving, the peaceful, the calm, the considerate, the youth-
ful, seeking an external state conformable to the spirit
within. They propose not a monastery for soured sinners;
nor incarceration of moral debtors, to add, by refined idle-
ness, to a debt already too large ; nor a pest-house to
accommodate disease ; nor an alms-house to create poverty.
There seems now born into the world a newer, .fresher
spirit ; an infant race craving nourishment of a higher kind.
than was heretofore asked for. Unto us children are
given who cannot imbibe the old world's draff, nor be
clothed in the old world's abraded garments.
Here and there, in places distant and obscure, but be-
coming less distant and better known, are heard the cries


1843.)
67
Social Tendencies.
of this infant voice. Feeble it has yet been, and deemed
mostly foreign ; but there is not wanting a maternal ear,
which, being open to the slightest sound from real humanity,
recognises these juvenile faint utterances. This maternity,
though itself unable to enjoy the new conditions and the
new food, may provide them for the young and new-born,
who may thenceforward unite in sufficient numbers for the
perfect accomplishment of the new life.
Such are some of the characteristics of the latest-born
idea of human progress. Between it, and the reforming
mind, whose notions of improvement are satisfied by a re-
pair of the guide-post, stand almost all the human family.
The thought, the wish, the hope for something better, is all
but universal. The question rather is, which is the good,
than whether there is a good yet to be attained. It is the
intuitive certainty of a better morrow, which makes to-day's
ills tolerable.
Assuredly, the world abounds sufficiently in evil to arouse
in the dullest an ardent desire to secure soine amendment.
Not a few are still so obtuse in opposition to progress, that
their entire existence is a hinderance. They stretch far be-
yond all rational conservatism, and must rather be called
Hinderers than Conservatives; hindering no less their own
individual weal, than the common good in all. Save these,
all are banded in one common sentiment, the improvement
of man and his conditions.
The Conservative is now a reformer, both intellectually
and practically, however strongly in feeling he may be dis-
inclined to changes. The notion, that no melioration is
possible, either in mode or principle, is confined to the
Hinderers, who are glad to hide their morbid peculiarity in
the bosom of conservatism, wbich thus generously succors
a pest it should reject. Hinderance is the zero in the
moral thermometer, of which conservatism makes the freez-
ing grade, radicalism fluctuating in the intermediate degrees,
and destructiveness is denoted by the boiling point. Only
the cold and hot extremes are obnoxious. The genial tem-
perature lies between the two points of radicalism and
conservation, and this is where a benign providence dis-
poses the moral atmosphere.
Conservatism perceives the propriety of amendment in
the administration of the established institutions. A reform


68
(July,
Social Tendencies.
in small matters is suited to its taste. There are certain
popular principles, or rather a few vague sayings, which
conservatives have for a long series of years repeated, in-
volving them to some extent in the class of reformers.
Thus, “retrenchment and economy” are familiar terms,
even in royal speeches; and although they are employed to
cover actual “waste and extravagance," the admission, ver-
bally, that honesty and truth should govern mankind, is a
point gained. This slow and unspontaneous acknowledg-
ment, that something must be conceded to the youthful
spirit, that “the boys must have it,” is cheering, when we
know how tardily the better is allowed a place.
Were mankind to be polled, it is pretty certain that a
very large majority would be found in advance of this po-
sition, notwithstanding it is so long kept in it. Of this we
have the strongest assurance in the fact, that the hinderers
are violently opposed to a counting of votes in that manner.
Did they feel assured that the majority is with them, they
would instantly appeal to man. But the mode of reckoning
is cunningly fastened upon another principle. Instead of
estimating man by virtue, or talent, or skill, he is valued
according to certain results, which may sometimes grow out
of these antecedents, but which, in fact, may, and more
frequently do grow out of vice, or rapacity, or fraud. Man
is weighed by property. The State-doctors, like those who
study medicine, judge of humanity by its excrements, or
wait until itself is excrement. They are only clear after a
post mortem examination. When the man bodily is de-
stroyed by a surfeit of food, and the man moral by a super-
abundance of wealth, the doctors can admit him to their
conservatory museums, and give a good account of him.
But the age demands a consideration of healthful, living
men; and daily the living are growing more and more un-
easy under the old dead weights.
Urged by no better principle than the pressure from
without, the holders of political power slowly and reluc-
tantly concede some of the ground which might, in bygone
times, wrested from the domains of love, but no new prin-
ciple is recognised. A few more voters are admitted into
the circle ; but there is not sufficient courage to act uni-
versally, and cast aside all the barriers. Conservatism is
still ruler by virtue of barricades. Election laws are modi-


1843.]
69
Social Tendencies.
fied. Sanguinary codes are meliorated. Poor laws are
reconsidered. Black slavery is softened down to appren-
ticeship. White slavery is refined by a poetic periodical,
or rendered more tolerable by music. This mending and
patching, or cutting into pattern to suit the demands of the
market, promises ages of employment for moderate reform-
ers. It is not probable, scarcely possible, that if the pro-
gress of social man is thus capriciously dependent, much
good will be attained during the next five or ten centuries.
Perceiving which fact, some men are desirous to move on
a little faster, and more steadily, than the ever-varying
winds will carry the State vessel, to the desired haven.
They are disposed to render all new discoveries available for
universal ends, as well as for particular advantage, and hence
propose to lay on a degree of steam power to carry us over
the ocean. These call for organic changes, and invite new
experiments. They are deemed, by the old captains, the
most dangerous part of the crew, though acknowledged to
be amongst the most useful working sailors.
Hence, in Old and in New England, Chartism has birth.
This is essentially a new form, including some new materi-
als; not a reform in that definite sense which signifies a
going back to ancient forms of ancient materials. Ortho-
dox reform means simply a restoration to the primitive out-
ward condition, in which institutions originally stood. But
this is an idea as clearly impossible of actualization, as to
restore to animal life the men who, some centuries back,
established such institutions. Heterodox reform, therefore,
is necessarily proposed ; because men see plainly that it is
not any outward state of things, beautifully adapted, per-
haps, to some remote period, that can be found suitable for
them at this day. Organic changes, then, are needed, as
well as purity in administration and melioration in practice.
And from what point shall these changes date ? According
to what standard shall they be set up ? The principles for
the construction of such new institutions are not to be
sought in any hitherto known mode, for they are new, they
profess to be new. The standard, then, is that which is
the antecedent to new measures, to all new measures, for
all have the same antecedent, that is to say, the spirit of
truth in the human soul. Men may differ respecting the
interpretation of this spirit, but they will differ kindly and


70
[July,
Social Tendencies.
graciously. When they disagree, it happens because one
party at least is not, perhaps both parties are not really appeal-
ing to this standard. The universal spirit has many modes,
but they all harmonize. The selfish spirit takes a multi-
tude of jarring forms.
The contest grows hot, when the organic reformer, bold
in the rectitude of his purpose, and justified by pure, inte-
terior convictions, stands forth beyond the limits which
frigid conservatism deigns to permit. Such an action is
like the soul attempting to attain to ends beyond the body's
capacity. The body, the corporate existence, doggedly
withstands any attempts to proceed faster, or farther than
its accustomed pace and destination ; and binds down the
swifter-moving mind, as much as it can, to its own limits.
This action is doubtless in conformity to a law established
for the good of both. So with the ponderous drawback,
which progress encounters from the unwilling and unyield-
ing nature embodied in the corporate interests of the unre-
forming world.
Chartism is the lowest phase of reform, which has any claims
to an affirmative position. Though not without a large def-
erence to established modes and existing current thought,
Chartism yet has some positive and primitive assertions to
make. Its best principles are drawn from the same foun-
tain whence all principles flow. The chartist has traced
backwards and inwards to the origin of the institutions,
which the conservative will spill his last drop of blood to de-
fend, and discovers the same reality which underlies both.
The maintenance of “the throne and the altar," in Eng-
land, in the year 1796, is synonymous with “ law and or-
der,” in Rhode Island, in 1843 ; for each, being interpret-
ed to its clearest meaning, signifies, “protect my wealth
and ease." The same reality thus is ever varying its sign;
and half a century may probably suffice to convert “liber-
ty and equality" to the same end. Traced still deeper,
the investigation lands us at a point even more comprehen-
sive of parties; and Chartists, as well as Hinderers, design
nothing more than the largest possible income from the
outlay of their capital, skill, and labor. In relation to self-
ishness, it is merely as a domestic strife. Both parties
equally desire the greatest good of the greatest number, or
the happiness of the whole; the said whole being neither
more nor less than each man's self.


1843.]
Social Tendencies.
A better aim for each man, in his earthly career, could
not be devised. As happiness is attainable by goodness
alone, goodness in each man being secured, the goodness
and happiness of all are secured. Men differ only about
the mode of it. Through all time, and in all places, this
has been the debate. From pot-house gossip to legislative
dispute, this is the burden of the song. Doubts, waver-
ings, changes, each man and each sect undergoes; for they
firmly believe the truth lies somewhere about, though they
have it not. The thought rarely occurs, that the truth is
not thus amongst them; and he would be universally voted
a pestilent fellow, who should venture to hint as much.
Ever since the invention of civilized society, the result
has been found so unhappy, and so inadequate to the out-
lay, that there has been a constant aim to amend it. Even
now, after so much labor, we seem as distant as ever from
the desirable condition. In a state of barbarism, the indi-
vidual man gives up but a very small portion of himself;
he looks little to others for support; he is self-reliant. He
runs not to the baker for bread, to the butcher for flesh, to
the teacher for grammar; but hunts, and cooks, and speaks
for himself. It is true he develops some of the misfor-
tunes of civilization, and occasionally, in bis weakness, car-
ries fees to the doctor and priest. But the essential quality
in barbarism is that integrity of development, which keeps
man away from a dependence on other individuals; and
while it circumscribes his supplies, also limits his cravings
to a more natural and rational amount. On the other hand,
the very pith and heart of civilization is mutual depend-
ence, which, in action, comes out in the representative
form. Everything, every person is vicarious. No one
lives out his own life, but lives for all. This is the great
merit and boast of civilization : this, too, is its misfortune
and its loss. By its advocates, this short coming in happi-
ness is attributed, not to the inherent nature of civilization,
but to its imperfect working out; upon which the recom-
mendation is to expend more and more anxiety upon the
attempt; which anxiety having to be reimbursed before
society is as much in happiness as previous to this addition-
al outlay, the moral estate of the people becomes as hope-
less as their pecuniary estate, where national debts are
multiplied in the attempt to obtain relief from present dif-
ficulties.


72
(July,
Social Tendencies.
Ramifications of this idea are found in every department
of civilized life. The farmer applies fresh quantities of
foul animal manure to force heavier crops from his exhaust-
ed fields; which, when consumed, generate a host of dis-
eases as foul as the manures to which they are responsible.
The consumer, attracted by cheapness, pays dearly in his
doctor's bill, but in ignorance of nature's laws, which he
has so entirely abandoned, he fails to connect cause and
effect, and repeats his error to repeat his pain. Faith in
man would, indeed, appear to be no scarce commodity on
earth. Every one looks abroad to every other one; no
one looks within to himself;— a universal representative
life, in which the legislator represents the conscience, the
judge the gravity, the priest the piety, ihe doctor the learn-
ing, the mechanic the skill of the community; and no one
person needs be conscientious, grave, pious, learned, and
skilful. Out of this grow those monstrous and dreadful
conditions which large cities, the very acme of civilized
life, without exception, exhibit. Exalted intellect, on the
part of a few, which at the expense, frequently, of moral
and physical life, elevates national renown, with extreme
ignorance of all that really concerns them, on the part of
the masses. A few intense spots of wealth, learning, or
heroism, amongst an endless range of poverty, ignorance,
and degradation, accumulated, apparently, for, no higher
end than the meretricious employment of the three oppo-
site qualities.
This faith begins, in some quiet and serene corners, to
abate, and it will soon be exhausted, when eyes are opened
to perceive that the imagined perfection of the scheme of
civilization does, in fact, not belong to it. Politically, the
idea of representation could not be more fully and purely
carried out, than it is in North America. In some of the
States, if not in all, the majority is correctly and entirely
represented. The majority rules in a direct manner; and
although, on minor points, parties are more nicely balanced,
yet, in the wider range of every-day life, this majority is a
very large portion. Yet, to say that the people are happy;
that they are a well developed race; that they manifest an
existence as near the perfect as their representative system
approaches the perfect, would be a series of libels, which
their complaints, their habits, their very countenances loud-
ly gainsay.


1843.]
73
Social Tendencies.
In the perfection of the representative system, in the
very ripeness of civilization, is its downfall accomplished.
Like other fruits, those of this tree will be timely shed by
the spirit in beneficent nature, fresh leaves shall germin-
ate, and new blossoms be put forth for the healing of the
nations.
How small does this parade of legislation, and this
march of science, and this increase of wealth, appear by
the comparison with the unsophisticated intuition of man's
purpose and destiny! Not more ridiculous would be an-
cient armor in a modern battle field, or royal robes and
ermine in republican assemblies, than these same speech-
making, newspaper-reported, republican assemblies are in
the presence of real humanity. Court intrigues, the per-
sonal disposal of kingdoms, the regulation of whole nations
according 10 individual caprice, are chances for humanity
scarcely, if at all, more strange and alien to the true end,
than its delusive amusement by statistical renown, antago-
nistic union, or dissocial society. The regalia of the throne
in Europe, the judge's powdered wig, the door-keeper's
gold-laced hat, with all antique regards and time-honored
observances, are as comforting to the heart, and perhaps
not more outrageous to man's real needs, than the fancied
security of legislative perfection, and representative self-
government. We see the folly in the old, but are not
quick-witted enough to perceive it in the new. Because
the music, and the incense, and the wax candles are no
longer used, men deem they have escaped all papal errors.
But the triumph of intellectuality is not always the victory,
of reason. The misfortunes of a church can fall upon a
people assembled in the plainest hall, where music, or sweet
odors, or lights by day never appear.
We need not marvel, therefore, at the dissatisfiedness
which not only rings throughout Europe, but is heard even
here in the sylvan expanse of North America; the free,
the youthful, the hopeful nation of the world. The Amer-
icans are like a troop of truant boys escaped from school,
to the woods, for a day or two; who only remember the
ways and modes of the old pedagogue, and have not yet
had time to develop an original course of action for them-
selves. But it will come out of them, and the old peda-
gogue shall be ashamed that he kept the boys so long in
VOL. IV. — NO. I.
10


74
(July,
Social Tendencies.
fear and thraldom; and he will conform to an amicable
truce with the more demure and broken-spirited boys who
still submit to the old school discipline at home. Self-
interested love of ease shall, at least, secure some amelio-
ration.
In the mean time, through the great instrument of
teaching, pungent experience, we ascertain the true value
of these pursuits and objects, for the free attainment of
which we ventured our all to escape from the tyrannical
old disciplinarian. Mankind may undoubtedly be much
slower and more inapt to learn than to enjoy ; but duller
than Lethe's stream should we have been in failing to dis-
cover the rocky spots and barren wastes in the new land.
The game of government, for which the boys eloped to
the woods, is found a profitless affair, by the best of men.
They who have really ripened into manhood in the newly
acquired freedom, are desirous of keeping out of this
amusement as a sport for children only. This is a grand
secret, a sacred revelation for both those who have gone
ahead, and those who stay behind.
No man who is qualified to be a political leader, and by
democratic vicissitudes, some day finds himself placed in
that position, but is anxious to declare how hollow and cor-
rupt is that fruit, which, to the exoteric eye, appears so
plump and ruddy. The ease with which mankind are
governed, or, as he would say, gulled, is a soul-sickening
contemplation to such a person. On initiation into the
facts, he instantly becomes satiated of his false ambition,
and intuitively perceives the real pettiness of political
greatness. These things are sources of vanity and of
vexed spirit now as they ever were. Heroism exhibited in
this manner becomes renowned, more by the degradation
of the mass, than by any extraordinary elevation of the
individual. If there were no masses of crime, the jurist
would excite little attention to his codes. If there were
no distressful pecuniary exigency, the treasury-secretary
would only be an accountant. Many are the men daily
called upon for more ability, in private life, than we de-
mand of public men. The teacher of a large school, or
a busy shop-keeper, must honor larger drafts for patience
and prompt calculation, than the functionaries of govern-
ment, who are withdrawn from their own pertinent duties


1843.]
75
Social Tendencies.
by the attractions of popular gossip, and ephemeral impor-
tance of office.
During the latter days of ancient Rome, the imperial
dignity was purchasable by the highest bidder, to whom the
mercenary prætorian bands passed it in quick succession.
But ruling minds were never among the purchasers. So is
it in our time. The temporary and apparent dominion of
men is attainable at a market price, but no virtuously con-
scious mind can consent to pay it. For it is as certain
now as of old, that the mercenary bands will slay every
soul which is not sufficiently compliant to their purposes,
as of old they slew the body. Office can be gained
in gyves only. “Bound hand and foot" is the common
expression of the victims themselves, who, with a zeal wor-
thy a nobler cause, suffer their better nature to be sacrificed
on the vain cross of public political life.
A state of things, thus subversive of all true greatness,
is necessarily equivalent to an impassable barrier against
real manhood. The dove finds little that is congenial to
its nature in that muck heap which ushers the viper into
day. The best men are thus the first to be convinced, that
the present order of existence is not so much to be desig.
nated as erroneous, as that it is essentially an error; a
magnificent error possibly, but no less an error ; a mistake
which no perfecting of the system can rectify, but rather
must render its inherent crookedness more obvious. At-
tempted perfection thus becomes a beneficence ; for men,
who have resolved upon any course as true, are not wont
to be convinced of its delusion, until they have run to the
end of it. While, therefore, the progressive man cheers
onward every projected reform, he is not to be assailed as
faithless, because he has no hope in reformed old institu-
tions as the ultimate in human earthly existence. The pa-
rent, who is quite conscious that youth leads to manhood,
may; nevertheless, supply his boy with the toys he asks for.
And the world, still in its youth, is merely crying for toy
after toy, in succession, according to its age; and the more
freely and quickly the world is indulged, the more fully and
speedily will it be convinced of their worthlessness. There
seems to be no other mode of progress for a race generated
so deeply in ill as the present stock of humanity. If our
being dated from wisdom and love, so much effort to bring
us back again to those qualities would not be required.


76
(July,
,
Social Tendencies.
For fifteen hundred years, Western civilization, with the
lustre of Christianity superadded, has been struggling to
perfection, an ideal perfection of its own; and at the close
of that period, the acknowledgement is more complete, that
we have approximated little towards the true end, beyond
men of pagan civilization, or barbaric sylvanisin.
An enthusiastic ardor, a pressure upward to a higher and
purer life, is an indestructible instinct in the human soul.
Hope is the truly youthful spirit, the characteristic nature,
which distinguishes the brighest specimens amongst the
duller human mass. It is the sacred fire, which, on the
altar of human clay, perpetuates the remembrance and
the connexion of heaven. Caught by the first luminous
sparks which appear in the social temple, such purer beings
attach themselves, in entire simplicity, to the shining lights
of the age, with little inquiry, and little power to discrim-
inate to what end they will lead. Sad experience proves
that they lead nowhere. Deceived, but not depressed, the
youthful spirit still relies. Its faith again deceived is again
and again renewed, until reliance on men or measures be-
comes itself a breach of faith. In disappointment and
disgust of reform and reformers, how many noble souls are
now wandering objectless, almost hopeless, in tartarean
fields.
Diffidence, humble self-estimation, is ever a quality in the
true soul. Hence the most sincere are seldom found in the
front rank in political reform. They defer to leaders, who
with some partial dazzling talent, but no determined inten-
tion of carrying principle into action, talk loudly in echo
of what they suppose to be the general sentiment. Year
after year witnesses the rise of these wavelets on the polit-
ical ocean, which as soon are succeeded and suppressed by
the offspring of a fresh wind. Of late these bubbles have
arisen and passed away, with such rapidity, that reliance
on them is almost worn out. Their mere frequency ex-
poses their instability. In the days of slow travelling, the
mercantile community still entertained hope that rapid
communication would aid their prosperity; but now that
steam packets and rail ways almost bring the ends of the
earth together, the delusion has vanished, and the merchant
no longer thinks he should be relieved, if communication
were electrically instant. His hopes no longer are based
on mechanical contrivances. Thus is it, also, in the moral-


1843.]
Social Tendencies.
political sphere. The noisy, heartless, external reformers,
have risen and sunk with such rapidity, that experience of
their futility is revealed to every one. A life, short as it is,
is no more required to develop to the simplest observer the
hollowness of political reforms and reformers. But it re-
quires some faculties to become a simple observer; which
the misled multitude yet possess not. So that there is
still an occupation left for a few small actors on this stage.
Comparatively great efforts are, however, now needed to
maintain politics on anything like a respectable footing.
So that to predict their speedy downfall is not a very haz-
ardous prophecy. To think by deputy is found to be as
unhappy for the mind, as to cast our fair share of physical
labor upon others is fraudulent to the body. Drudge poli-
ticians are no less degraded than drudge laborers. It is
now grown so evident that the pure mind cannot have
its garment's hem touched by the hand of public life,
without feeling that 'the virtue has gone out of it, that the
superior minds in all countries are working in other direc-
tions.
For these other directions, the great mass, also, are evi-
dently preparing. So frequently have the people been told
that some great event was on the eve of development, that
now is the appointed time, that they cease to have faith in
such calculators. One crotchet after another, which it
cost not a little to attain, has been accomplished, and hap-
piness seems distant as ever. Magna Charta, Bill of Rights,
Trial by Jury, Purity of Parliament, Diminished Taxa-
tion, Democracy, Separation of Church and State, Univer-
sal Suffrage, Pure Republicanism, Universal Education,
Physical Abundance, -- all these have been gained; and,
although not in vain, yet it is uncertain whether they are
really worth the powder, shot, and mental anxiety which
they cost. Monarchy, hierarchy, despotism, monopoly, ex-
clusion, and every other outward political form of selfish-
ness men may, one after another, set aside ; but as fast as
destructive reform proceeds in one section, hindering cor-
ruption is growing in another; and so long as men remain
unreformed within, there always will be a crop ripe for the
reformer's sickle. Now this fact is rising into consciousness
in so many bosoms, that there is almost a general readiness
to follow those superior minds, which, recoiling from the


78
[July;
Social Tendencies.
uncomeliness in all state affairs, are each, in their several
directions, essaying their best for humanity.
The Literary Class, by nature, by genius, the friend of
virtue, of liberty, of man, ever ready to announce and to
explain new truths, what do its best members at such a
crisis ? Sad to say, but the fact must out, that the divine
gift of literary or poetic utterance is not always allied to
taintless integrity. “We must live," say the writers.“ Bread
must be had. We have as much right to the market value
of our mental organization, as the holder of physical strength
has to the results of his energies.” Thus a large number
at once justify the extremest biring which a commercial
press can offer. The trading spirit buys the productions; a
trader is the factor between the author and the reader.
How then can the writer escape the general pollution ? A
few, more nice in mental sensibility, must have readers in
some degree conformed to their own intuitions, and sell
themselves to a select circle only. But few are there who
either now are, or seek to becoine acquainted with the dig-
nity of poverty, if complete fidelity to their mission should
involve such a consequence. Nay when, at distant inter-
vals, an unsold, uncompromising pen appears, the hireling
recreants are ever ready to assail the disloyal rebel whose
example might leave them breadless.
Pitiable, indeed, is this bankruptcy of soul. For these
are the appointed means, in their degree, for man's mental
redemption. They are the morning watchmen sleeping on
the walls. Their dormancy is fatal to the whole city. Nay,
worse is their treason, for they are bought by the arch-en-
emy of the good citizens. And he who, though denouncing
them not, is faithful to his trust, they fail not to slander as
the recreant.
The degeneracy of literature taints the age. Instead of
reclaiming men to uprightness ; instead of stirring them
once more to their feet'; it accepts the wretched price of
bread to confirm them in ignoble indolence of heart, and an
activity of head still more ignoble. It receives its dun
color from an ill-tinctured source, and returns one of a still
darker shade. Time was when the author and the prophet
were one. Then the oracle and the oracular were not sepa.
raled, and there was no weighing and adjusting in the scales
of popular approbation, before the voice spake what the


1843.]
79
Social Tendencies.
heart felt. Misgivings of the people are deplorable; de-
falcations of statesmen are sad ; but when the purest of
popular instruinents thus fail, when the very ladder, by
which we are to ascend from words to being, is constructed
of rotten wood, what hope can remain for the nations ?
Literature, then, is a false dependence. Since its di-
vorce from real being, it is unavoidably barren. It is
divorced whenever for a price it concedes favors. Of it
nothing is to be expected. At the best, it presents to the
people pretty pictures, which there is no intention what-
ever to realize. Of these paintings the world possesses a
large stock, and it seems still increasing, every addition to
which constitutes a fresh obstacle to human progress. The
masonry, designed by the architect for a road to facilitate,
is built into a wall to obstruct, and each added slab serves
only to augment the bindrances. When men escaped from
the confined air of the cloistered church, they imagined
not they should fall into the meshes of a new priestcraft.
When men are liberated from the hireling priest, they are
little aware how they are caught by the bireling press. It
is as fatal to thought, to purity, to integrity, to religion, for
a nation to be press-ridden, as it is to be priest-ridden.
Of mere literature, therefore, there is no hope. Logical
acumen, argumentative force, fluent expression, prompt wit,
do not ensure moral rectitude, although originally they must
have been allied to it. But integrity does not seem so
marketable as its faculties. That can neither be bought
nor sold; — these are ever purchaseable, and have, of late,
found so ready a market, that the expectation is of the next
change being an increased supply, and a superabundant
stock. When intellectuality is so plentiful as to be worth
little in the market, the home demand may possibly be
served. Since men have concluded that knowledge is
power, and that ignorance is the source of all our woes,
ihey have indefatigably pursued the accumulation not of
fact-knowledge, but of the records of fact-knowledge and
of fact-speculation, until the sun of truth is almost hidden
from their eyes. Literature is indeed a telescope which
takes the whole firmament within its visual field; but, un-
fortunately, its lenses are constructed of paper instead of
glass; a semitransparent shade, reflecting its own imprinted
errors; not a lucid medium transmitting pure light. Lite-


80
Social Tendencies.
(July,
rature cannot purify and elevate man, since itself needs so
much to be purified and elevated.
Words are, however, such sacred types of the divine ora-
cle, so near akin to that word which in the ever beginning is,
that as being the mode in which the loftiest and purest
must utter themselves to the common understanding, even
our current literature is dashed occasionally by a purer rill
than the body of the broad stream. In the warm season,
sundry little freshets come down from the mountains, spark-
ling in the sun, bathing and quenching the thirst of the
arid soul. But this literature, by reason of its very origin-
ality, is so quaint and strange that the great Mississippi
flood is not at one with it until it becomes saturated with
its unsubsiding silt; and the condition of its acceptance is
to adopt the old prevailing muddiness. Thus virtue's self
grows powerless; and, to maintain existence, life is de-
stroyed.
From this account of the general bearing of literature,
we exempt all those efforts of the moralist, who only
employs the pen or the press, or the tongue, as means, and
neither of them the best, by which the moral purpose is to
be declared. Of these efforts something must be said here-
after.
Science is a prop on which men have of late almost uni-
versally leaned ; but, with what impropriety, is daily
growing more and more apparent. Ungracious in the ex-
treme is it to say aught against science, against knowledge,
against intellectual culture. These, in their order, and as
opposed to their negations, are so beautiful, that the tongue
recoils from the smallest whisper in their dispraise. Yet the
declaration must go forth, that science is not moral virtue;
and that, being an accommodation road with two branches,
it is as frequently the avenue to degradation as to elevation.
Scarcely a projector, or inventor, or intense student, has
broached the object of his absorbing pursuit, without affirm-
ing also that it was the means for human regeneration.
The profils on gas light were to pay off national debts and
set the bankrupt world upright to start afresh. Spinning-
jennies, steam-engines, power-looms, canals, rail-roads, have
each in turn been made to promise pecuniary and moral
redemption to the insolvent and hardened human race.
But this species of redemptory designs is nearly worn


1843.)
81
Social Tendencies.
threadbare. The hope in science is as attenuated as the
hope in politics. They are, in fact, branches of the same
stock. Expansions from the great trunk of selfishness, they
bear the same kind of fruit.
Little novelty as there is in the announcement, that
knowledge is subordinate to goodness, and difficult as it is
to avoid cant in the annunciation, it must yet again be
said, — Knowledge, pursued as an accumulation of useful
store; science, studied with the omission of the master
science -- con-science – is, at best, like an examination of
the nutshell without a penetration to the kernel. Science
has in vain ventured into every possible department of hu-
man life on our behoof; and vain must ever be such
enterprise. A stone is but a stone, polish it as smoothly as
we may; and it can never be chipped into a corn stalk.
The grass, too, living as it is, must be taken in and digested,
its refuse passed away, before its elements can be assimi-
lated to animal being. So too of science. It may be the
air which the moral nature breathes in, and thus it may be
used by its superior, but never can it generate, or be the
parent of, moral life.
Science has gathered our cottage spinners and spinsters
and knitters from their separated firesides to the magnifi-
cent and heated cotton mills; it transforms sailors and
stage drivers into brakemen and stokers; it penetrates
mountains; it quickly crosses oceans. Like the elephant's
trunk, nothing is too large for its strength, nothing too mi-
nute for its sensibility. It permeates everything and every-
where. Cotton, woollen, needles, buttons, ships, books,
society, and theology; all are brought to the bar of sci-
ence. The analytic, the doctrinal, the skilful, prevail over
the synthetic, the loveful, the unitive. Whatever can be
proved by logic, or made to appear rational by argument, is
accepted ; while that which is deeper than all proof, and is
the basis of all rationality, is to go for nought.
With a perpetual deferring of hope, which, by perverting
the heart's eye from the true and stable centre upon the
turbulent and dazzling circumference, makes the soul for-
ever sad and sick, science still attracts as the magnet of
human resuscitation. Man appears to have engaged sci-
ence as a special pleader in the court of conscience, 10 avert
the consequences of his culprit conduct. Hired extenua-
VOL. IV. - NO. 1.
11


82
(July,
Social Tendencies.
tion is deemed cheaper than self-repentance. To know
every wise saw and moral sentiment that ever were uttered,
is not nearer to a realization of them in the man who re-
members them, than in the paper on which they are writ-
ten. All this fact knowledge, or report of fact knowledge,
of which the world is so full, seems barren of the desired
consequences. We know how may millions of miles lie
between Saturn and the Sun, and how many thousand
seconds light is travelling from the fixed stars to our little
planet, but are wandering much as ever from the road to
happiness, and are as unready as the ignorant to enter
thereon by its only wicket gate.
" Science may be applied to inadequate objects." True.
We may exaggerate or ridicule when we say the optician
will never spy out bliss for us through his lenses, nor the
cotton-mill spin happiness with its million yards of unmin-
gled yarn. So analysis and rationality step forward into a
new sphere, and venture to elaborate a Science of Society.
Amongst the recent offspring of the scientific nature, are
political economy and human association. The right di-
vine of kings has, through the right divine of landlords,
descended to the crowned heads of factory owners, and
the orthodox doctrine is now the right divine of cotton
lords. Hereditary monarchy, subdued by blood aristocracy,
to be in its turn levelled by opulent democracy. In all of
which the res publicæ are equally neglected; the common
wealth is swallowed up by individual miserliness and indi-
vidual misery.
Magnificence of idea and of execution have not, how-
ever, been wanting in the recent modes any more than in
the ancient. The argosies of merchant princes are eclipsed
by townships of busy industry, and the feudal cavalcade is
surpassed by the fairy-like gliding of the mail train, which
only needs the dimness of remote time and the glance of
genius, to render as poetic as its predecessors. These ex-
tensive schemes for the increase of wealth, these unprece-
dented combinations for the augmentation of individual
happiness, could not long exist without suggesting to the
benevolent mind ideas of the like nature for the common
good. Thus the science of society, no longer left,
as of old, to individual private enterprise, has been pro-
jected into the grand, the public, the combinative. Of


1843.)
83
Social Tendencies.
these several plans have been some time before the world,
and, for one or two, there are now practical operations
commenced. Various doctrines of human nature are mixed
up with these practical schemes ; and pleasant withal it is
to the moral metaphysician to be confirmed in his a priori
intuitions of considering first the man, and secondarily the
plans, to see that all parties are necessarily brought back
again who venture to reverse this mode.
Amongst the many schemes for aggrandisement by means
of joint-stock companies, it has been submitted to capital-
ists that greater security and a larger return await their
outlay in schemes for the bettering of human beings, than
they can obtain in any other kind of risk. Capital is, how-
ever, slow in adventuring; and, as yet, only a few small
associations have been formed with this object, in addition
to the efforts of one or two persons who have boldly ven-
tured to embark individually. At Cireaux, in the south
of France, Mr. Arthur Young, formerly an Amsterdam mer-
chant, has laid out 1,450,000 francs for an estate of thirteen
hundred acres, and 154,000 francs more for stock in hand,
on which a Phalanstery is formed. The chateau is repre-
sented as very magnificent; and the whole buildings and
court yards cover thirteen acres. Mr. Young transfers
shares on equitable conditions to purchasers either resident
or not. The basis of recompense is threefold ; having re-
lation to investments of capital, skill, and labor, the latter
enjoying the larger return, the first receiving the smallest
percentage. It need scarcely be observed that Arthur
Young is a faithful disciple of Charles Fourier. It does
not appear that any other such plan of association is in
operation, or even projected in the continental countries of
Europe. The various old religious foundations may pro-
bably supply some of the conditions provided in such
institutions.
In England, however, where the almshouse or the union-
work house is the highest refuge which society offers to
unemployed labor or virtuous skill, in age or youth, the
subject of social science has been regarded with the deep-
est attention. A nation almost ceaselessly engaged in com-
batting with poverty, and having strong desires for ease,
unavoidably catches at whatever may present the smallest
hope for a respite from ill-requited toil. No wonder, there-


84
(July,
Social Tendencies.
fore, that the British Isles have heard a loud response in
favor of thoughts so comprehensive, as to promise relief
from every clerical, legal, governmental, doctrinal, and prac-
tical evil. In the multitude of inventions which ground
the people down, one was descried which proposed to ex-
empt them from the galling mill-stone. However noble
may have been the contemplated design, it was accepted as
means of increasing the supply of bread, and of averting
the consciousness of blame. Hope and consolation for
body and mind, therefore, met a reception in idea much
greater than in practice. And as the poverty to be melio-
rated was too excessive to help itself, nothing has been
done of a permanent character until very recently.
At Tytherly, in Hampshire, estates amounting to about
one thousand acres, held principally on long leases, have
been appropriated by some wealthy individuals, in conjunc-
tion with a widely spread list of smaller subscribers, to the
carrying out of the idea which has adopted especially the
term “social.” The principles are mainly, in morals, that
“ the character of man is made not by him, but for him ;”
and, in economy, that of a community of goods. In what
way, or to what extent, these principles will work out with
human materials generated and educated, as all have more
or less been, on the opposite doctrines and practice, future
reports must show. Time has not yet permitted the requi.
site experience. The buildings erected are furnished on
the most commodious, and even luxurious scale, for the re-
ception of about two hundred persons, but at an expendi-
ture which threatens the profitable action of the industrial
materials. An investment of about £30,000 comprises the
pecuniary capital of this adventure.
Upon this attempt innumerable eyes are fixed, as upon
the day-star of hope. Should it rise, countless hearts will
be gladdened, which, in the dim uncertain twilight, durst
not so much as venture to announce their sympathy. Some,
also, contemplate its possible success with terror, as the up-
rooting of all that is sacred and comfortable. Not alone,
however, the toil-worn, ill-requited artisan, is an anxious
spectator of this scene, but even the successful trader, dis-
gusted with the processes to wealth, as well as dissatisfied in
its possession, hopes to liberate his offspring from such soul-
staining courses.


1843.]
85
Social Tendencies.
Although from the unavoidable defects of inexperienced
leaders, wayward followers, and uncontrollable circumstan-
ces, many excuses may be afforded to these two distinct
establishments; yet they must develop, in their respective
careers, some of the effects of acting upon the two princi-
ples of community of property, and of individuality of re-
compense. It is quite possible that the two vessels thus
started at the same time may, ultimately, land their pas-
sengers in the same country; but to know the difference in
the navigation will repay the cost of the charts. They
will, at least, illustrate the laws of human organization, if
they do not determine the law of human nature.
The moral principles of the French and the English
experiment are, however, more importantly asunder than
their economies. The English has entirely a material ba-
sis; and, though sympathetic and religious sentiments are
superadded, they are only introduced as tasteful ornaments
to please the eye, and are not mingled with the bread as
component parts of healthful diet. The French combines
the material and the spiritual ; and enters, from the first,
into all questions touching the feelings, sympathies, and
views of individuals. One sets out with the idea that, al-
though human beings are now endlessly varied, they may
all be made of uniformly good character, by favorable cir-
cumstances, with such slight differences in organization as
shall not impugn the general truth. The other proposes
no uniformity of character as essential to success, but seeks
to provide attractive occupation for all dispositions and
tastes, and rather bases its hopes upon variety, than upon
sameness. The Phalanstery, therefore, seems to be a
more comprehensive view of humanity than the Communi-
ty. Both are, perhaps, equally wanting in respect to the
inmost life-germ, for the development of which the human
egg is laid ; but, mentally considered, only, that is, without
relation to practical operations, one appears to be the shell
alone, and the other the yolk and shell.
The poetry in life, the soul of things, the spirit in the
soul, the warmth in the light, - in what human association
shall we find this the primal element? In the religious
associations of the old world, or the new ; in the convent,
the monastery ; the Shakers, the New England fraternities,
the joint stock industrials ?


86
(July,
Social Tendències.
Man cannot have a heart or not, at the good will and
pleasure of philosophers, how benevolent soever they may
be. Nor can he set it aside at his own convenience. He
has it always. And it is something more than a mere hy-
draulic machine. It is even more than a possession. It is
himself. Man, as a heart, as a nature more occult than an
intelligence, is a riddle yet unsolved by intellectual philoso-
phers. These profess to discourse of the understanding,
while they deny that any reality whatever, stands under
the intellectual or analytical powers. Fortunately, however,
there is also a synthetic nature, which must know and feel
all things as whole, as one, and provision for this nature
must be part of the common sto