Several talks among the Transcendentalists, during the autumn of 1839, turned upon the propriety of establishing an organ for the expression of freer views than the conservative journals were ready to welcome.
The result was the publication of the "Dial," the first number of which appeared early in the summer of 1840, under the editorship of Margaret, aided by R.W. Emerson and George Ripley. How moderate were her own hopes, in regard to this enterprise, is clearly enough shown by pa.s.sages from her correspondence.
"_Jamaica Plain, 22d March, 1840._ * * * I have a great deal written, but, as I read it over, scarce a word seems pertinent to the place or time. When I meet people, it is easy to adapt myself to them; but when I write, it is into another world,--not a better one, perhaps, but one with very dissimilar habits of thought to this wherein I am domesticated. How much those of us, who have been formed by the European mind, have to unlearn, and lay aside, if we would act here! I would fain do something worthily that belonged to the country where I was born, but most times I fear it may not be.
"What others can do,--whether all that has been said is the mere restlessness of discontent, or there are thoughts really struggling for utterance,--will be tested now. A perfectly free organ is to be offered for the expression of individual thought and character. There are no party measures to be carried, no particular standard to be set up. A fair, calm tone, a recognition of universal principles, will, I hope, pervade the essays in every form. I trust there will be a spirit neither of dogmatism nor of compromise, and that this journal will aim, not at leading public opinion, but at stimulating each man to judge for himself, and to think more deeply and more n.o.bly, by letting him see how some minds are kept alive by a wise self-trust. We must not be sanguine as to the amount of talent which will be brought to bear on this publication. All concerned are rather indifferent, and there is no great promise for the present. We cannot show high culture, and I doubt about vigorous thought. But we shall manifest free action as far as it goes, and a high aim.
It were much if a periodical could be kept open, not to accomplish any outward object, but merely to afford an avenue for what of liberal and calm thought might be originated among us, by the wants of individual minds." * *
"_April 19, 1840._--Things go on pretty well, but doubtless people will be disappointed, for they seem to be looking for the Gospel of Transcendentalism. It may prove as Jouffroy says it was with the successive French ministries: "The public wants something positive, and, seeing that such and such persons are excellent at fault-finding, it raises them to be rulers, when, lo! they have no n.o.ble and full Yea, to match their shrill and bold Nay, and so are pulled down again." Mr.
Emerson knows best what he wants; but he has already said it in various ways. Yet, this experiment is well worth trying; hearts beat so high, they must be full of something, and here is a way to breathe it out quite freely. It is for dear New England that I want this review. For myself, if I had wished to write a few pages now and then, there were ways and means enough of disposing of them. But in truth I have not much to say; for since I have had leisure to look at myself, I find that, so far from being an original genius, I have not yet learned to think to any depth, and that the utmost I have done in life has been to form my character to a certain consistency, cultivate my tastes, and learn to tell the truth with a little better grace than I did at first. For this the world will not care much, so I shall hazard a few critical remarks only, or an unpretending chalk sketch now and then, till I have learned to do something. There will be beautiful poesies; about prose we know not yet so well. We shall be the means of publishing the little Charles Emerson left as a mark of his n.o.ble course, and, though it lies in fragments, all who read will be gainers."
"1840.--Since the Revolution, there has been little, in the circ.u.mstances of this country, to call out the higher sentiments. The effect of continued prosperity is the same on nations as on individuals,--it leaves the n.o.bler faculties undeveloped. The need of bringing out the physical resources of a vast extent of country, the commercial and political fever incident to our inst.i.tutions, tend to fix the eyes of men on what is local and temporary, on the external advantages of their condition. The superficial diffusion of knowledge, unless attended by a correspondent deepening of its sources, is likely to vulgarize rather than to raise the thought of a nation, depriving them of another sort of education through sentiments of reverence, and leading the mult.i.tude to believe themselves capable of judging what they but dimly discern.
They see a wide surface, and forget the difference between seeing and knowing. In this hasty way of thinking and living they traverse so much ground that they forget that not the sleeping railroad pa.s.senger, but the botanist, the geologist, the poet, really see the country, and that, to the former, "a miss is as good as a mile." In a word, the tendency of circ.u.mstances has been to make our people superficial, irreverent, and more anxious to get a living than to live mentally and morally. This tendency is no way balanced by the slight literary culture common here, which is mostly English, and consists in a careless reading of publications of the day, having the same utilitarian tendency with our own proceedings.
The infrequency of acquaintance with any of the great fathers of English lore marks this state of things.
"New England is now old enough,--some there have leisure enough,--to look at all this; and the consequence is a violent reaction, in a small minority, against a mode of culture that rears such fruits. They see that political freedom does not necessarily produce liberality of mind, nor freedom in church inst.i.tutions--vital religion; and, seeing that these changes cannot be wrought from without inwards, they are trying to quicken the soul, that they may work from within outwards.
Disgusted with the vulgarity of a commercial aristocracy, they become radicals; disgusted with the materialistic working of "rational" religion, they become mystics. They quarrel with all that is, because it is not spiritual enough. They would, perhaps, be patient if they thought this the mere sensuality of childhood in our nation, which it might outgrow; but they think that they see the evil widening, deepening,--not only debasing the life, but corrupting the thought, of our people, and they feel that if they know not well what should be done, yet that the duty of every good man is to utter a protest against what is done amiss.
"Is this protest undiscriminating? are these opinions crude?
do these proceedings threaten to sap the bulwarks on which men at present depend? I confess it all, yet I see in these men promise of a better wisdom than in their opponents. Their hope for man is grounded on his destiny as an immortal soul, and not as a mere comfort-loving inhabitant of earth, or as a subscriber to the social contract. It was not meant that the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul. Man is not made for society, but society is made for man. No inst.i.tution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual. In these principles I have confidence so profound, that I am not afraid to trust those who hold them, despite their partial views, imperfectly developed characters, and frequent want of practical sagacity.
I believe, if they have opportunity to state and discuss their opinions, they will gradually sift them, ascertain their grounds and aims with clearness, and do the work this country needs. I hope for them as for "the leaven that is hidden in the bushel of meal, till all be leavened." The leaven is not good by itself, neither is the meal; let them combine, and we shall yet have bread.
"Utopia it is impossible to build up. At least, my hopes for our race on this one planet are more limited than those of most of my friends. I accept the limitations of human nature, and believe a wise acknowledgment of them one of the best conditions of progress. Yet every n.o.ble scheme, every poetic manifestation, prophesies to man his eventual destiny. And were not man ever more sanguine than facts at the moment justify, he would remain torpid, or be sunk in sensuality. It is on this ground that I sympathize with what is called the "Transcendental party," and that I feel their aim to be the true one. They acknowledge in the nature of man an arbiter for his deeds,--a standard transcending sense and time,--and are, in my view, the true utilitarians. They are but at the beginning of their course, and will, I hope, learn how to make use of the past, as well as to aspire for the future, and to be true in the present moment.
"My position as a woman, and the many private duties which have filled my life, have prevented my thinking deeply on several of the great subjects which these friends have at heart. I suppose, if ever I become capable of judging, I shall differ from most of them on important points. But I am not afraid to trust any who "are true, and in intent n.o.ble, with their own course, nor to aid in enabling them to express their thoughts, whether I coincide with them or not.
"On the subject of Christianity, my mind is clear. If Divine, it will stand the test of any comparison. I believe the reason it has so imperfectly answered to the aspirations of its Founder is, that men have received it on external grounds. I believe that a religion, thus received, may give the life an external decorum, but will never open the fountains of holiness in the soul.
"One often thinks of Hamlet as the true representative of idealism in its excess. Yet if, in his short life, man be liable to some excess, should we not rather prefer to have the will palsied like Hamlet, by a deep-searching tendency and desire for poetic perfection, than to have it enlightened by worldly sagacity, as in the case of Julius Caesar, or made intense by pride alone, as in that of Coriola.n.u.s?
"After all, I believe it is absurd to attempt to speak on these subjects within the limits of a letter. I will try to say what I mean in print some day. Yet one word as to "the material," in man. Is it not the object of all philosophy, as well as of religion and poetry, to prevent its prevalence?
Must not those who see most truly be ever making statements of the truth to combat this sluggishness, or worldliness?
What else are sages, poets, preachers, born to do? Men go an undulating course,--sometimes on the hill, sometimes in the valley. But he only is in the right who in the valley forgets not the hill-prospect, and knows in darkness that the sun will rise again. That is the real life which is subordinated to, not merged in, the ideal; he is only wise who can bring the lowest act of his life into sympathy with its highest thought.
And this I take to be the one only aim of our pilgrimage here.
I agree with those who think that no true philosophy will try to ignore or annihilate the material part of man, but will rather seek to put it in its place, as servant and minister to the soul."
VI.
THE WOMAN.
In 1839 I had met Margaret upon the plane of intellect. In the summer of 1840, on my return from the West, she was to be revealed in a new aspect.
It was a radiant and refreshing morning, when I entered the parlor of her pleasant house, standing upon a slope beyond Jamaica Plain to the south. She was absent at the moment, and there was opportunity to look from the windows on a cheerful prospect, over orchards and meadows, to the wooded hills and the western sky. Presently Margaret appeared, bearing in her hand a vase of flowers, which she had been gathering in the garden. After exchange of greetings, her first words were of the flowers, each of which was symbolic to her of emotion, and a.s.sociated with the memory of some friend. I remember her references only to the Daphne Odora, the Provence Rose, the sweet-scented Verbena, and the Heliotrope; the latter being her chosen emblem, true bride of the sun that it is.
From flowers she pa.s.sed to engravings hanging round the room. "Here,"
said she, "are Dante and Beatrice.
"Approach, and know that I am Beatrice.
The power of ancient love was strong within me."
"She is beautiful enough, is not she, for that higher moment?
But Dante! Yet who could paint a Dante,--and Dante in heaven?
They give but his shadow, as he walked in the forest-maze of earth. Then here is the Madonna del Pesce; not divine, like the Foligno, not deeply maternal, like the Seggiola, not the beatified "Mother of G.o.d" of the Dresden gallery, but graceful, and "not too bright and good for human nature"s daily food." And here is Raphael himself, the young seer of beauty, with eyes softly contemplative, yet lit with central fires," &c.
There were gems, too, and medallions and seals, to be examined, each enigmatical, and each blended by remembrances with some fair hour of her past life.
Talk on art led the way to Greece and the Greeks, whose mythology Margaret was studying afresh. She had been culling the blooms of that poetic land, and could not but offer me leaves from her garland. She spoke of the statue of Minerva-Polias, cut roughly from an olive-tree, yet cherished as the heaven-descended image of the most sacred shrine, to which was due the Panathenaic festival.
"The less ideal perfection in the figure, the greater the reverence of the adorer. Was not this because spiritual imagination makes light of results, and needs only a germ whence to unfold Olympic splendors?"
She spoke of the wooden column, left standing from the ruins of the first temple to Juno, amidst the marble walls of the magnificent fane erected in its place:--
"This is a most beautiful type, is not it, of the manner in which life"s earliest experiences become glorified by our perfecting destiny?"
"In the temple of Love and the Graces, one Grace bore a rose, a second a branch of myrtle, a third dice;--who can read that riddle?
""Better is it," said Appollonius, "on entering a small shrine to find there a statue of gold and ivory, than in a large temple to behold only a coa.r.s.e figure of terra cotta." How often, after leaving with disgust the so-called great affairs of men, do we find traces of angels" visits in quiet scenes of home.
"The Hours and the Graces appear as ornaments on all thrones and shrines, except those of Vulcan and Pluto. Alas for us, when we become so sunk in utilitarian toil as to be blind to the beauty with which even common cares are daily wreathed!"
And so on and on, with myth and allusion.
Next, Margaret spoke of the friends whose generosity had provided the decorations on her walls, and the ill.u.s.trated books for her table,--friends who were fellow-students in art, history, or science,--friends whose very life she shared. Her heart seemed full to overflow with sympathy for their joys and sorrows, their special trials and struggles, their peculiar tendencies of character and respective relations. The existence of each was to her a sacred process, whose developments she watched with awe, and whose leadings she reverently sought to aid. She had scores of pretty anecdotes to tell, sweet bowers of sentiment to open, significant lessons of experience to interpret, and sc.r.a.ps of journals or letters to read aloud, as the speediest means of introducing me to her chosen circle.
There was a fascinating spell in her piquant descriptions, and a genial glow of sympathy animated to characteristic movement the figures, who in varying pantomime replaced one another on the theatre of her fancy. Frost-bound New England melted into a dreamland of romance beneath the spice-breeze of her Eastern narrative. Sticklers for propriety might have found fault at the freedom with which she confided her friends" histories to one who was a comparative stranger to them; but I could not but note how conscientiousness reined in her sensibilities and curbed their career, as they reached the due bounds of privacy. She did but realize one"s conception of the transparent truthfulness that will pervade advanced societies of the future, where the very atmosphere shall be honorable faith.
Nearer and nearer Margaret was approaching a secret throned in her heart that day; and the preceding transitions were but a prelude of her orchestra before the entrance of the festal group. Unconsciously she made these preparations for paying worthy honors to a high sentiment. She had lately heard of the betrothal of two of her best-loved friends; and she wished to communicate the graceful story in a way that should do justice to the facts and to her own feelings.
It was by a spontaneous impulse of her genius, and with no voluntary foreshaping, that she had grouped the previous tales; but no drama could have been more artistically constructed than the steps whereby she led me onward to the denouement; and the look, tone, words, with which she told it, were fluent with melody as the song of an improvisatrice.
Scarcely had she finished, when, offering some light refreshment,--as it was now past noon,--she proposed a walk in the open air. She led the way to Bussey"s wood, her favorite retreat during the past year, where she had thought and read, or talked with intimate friends. We climbed the rocky path, resting a moment or two at every pretty point, till, reaching a moss-cushioned ledge near the summit, she seated herself. For a time she was silent, entranced in delighted communion with the exquisite hue of the sky, seen through interlacing boughs and trembling leaves, and the play of shine and shadow over the wide landscape. But soon, arousing from her reverie, she took up the thread of the morning"s talk. My part was to listen; for I was absorbed in contemplating this, to me, quite novel form of character. It has been seen how my early distaste for Margaret"s society was gradually changed to admiration. Like all her friends, I had pa.s.sed through an avenue of sphinxes before reaching the temple. But now it appeared that thus far I had never been admitted to the adytum.
As, leaning on one arm, she poured out her stream of thought, turning now and then her eyes full upon me, to see whether I caught her meaning, there was leisure to study her thoroughly. Her temperament was predominantly what the physiologists would call nervous-sanguine; and the gray eye, rich brown hair and light complexion, with the muscular and well-developed frame, bespoke delicacy balanced by vigor.
Here was a sensitive yet powerful being, fit at once for rapture or sustained effort, intensely active, prompt for adventure, firm for trial. She certainly had not beauty; yet the high arched dome of the head, the changeful expressiveness of every feature, and her whole air of mingled dignity and impulse, gave her a commanding charm.
Especially characteristic were two physical traits. The first was a contraction of the eyelids almost to a point,--a trick caught from near-sightedness,--and then a sudden dilation, till the iris seemed to emit flashes;--an effect, no doubt, dependent on her highly-magnetized condition. The second was a singular pliancy of the vertebrae and muscles of the neck, enabling her by a mere movement to denote each varying emotion; in moments of tenderness, or pensive feeling, its curves were swan-like in grace, but when she was scornful or indignant it contracted, and made swift turns like that of a bird of prey.
Finally, in the animation, yet _abandon_ of Margaret"s att.i.tude and look, were rarely blended the fiery force of northern, and the soft languor of southern races.
Meantime, as I was thus, through her physiognomy, tracing the outlines of her spiritual form, she was narrating chapters from the book of experience. How superficially, heretofore, had I known her! We had met chiefly as scholars. But now I saw before me one whose whole life had been a poem,--of boundless aspiration and hope almost wild in its daring,--of indomitable effort amidst poignant disappointment,--of widest range, yet persistent unity. Yes! here was a poet in deed, a true worshipper of Apollo, who had steadfastly striven to brighten and make glad existence, to harmonize all jarring and discordant strings, to fuse most hard conditions and cast them in a symmetric mould, to piece fragmentary fortunes into a mosaic symbol of heavenly order.
Here was one, fond as a child of joy, eager as a native of the tropics for swift transition from luxurious rest to pa.s.sionate excitement, prodigal to pour her mingled force of will, thought, sentiment, into the life of the moment, all radiant with imagination, longing for communion with artists of every age in their inspired hours, fitted by genius and culture to mingle as an equal in the most refined circles of Europe, and yet her youth and early womanhood had pa.s.sed away amid the very decent, yet drudging, descendants of the prim Puritans.