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diff --git a/36489-8.txt b/36489-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..352ec35 --- /dev/null +++ b/36489-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2583 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Society, by Julia Ward Howe + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Modern Society + +Author: Julia Ward Howe + +Release Date: June 21, 2011 [EBook #36489] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN SOCIETY *** + + + + +Produced by Sharon Joiner, paksenarrion, Bryan Ness and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + + MODERN SOCIETY. + BY + JULIA WARD HOWE. + + BOSTON: + ROBERTS BROTHERS. + 1881. + + COPYRIGHT, 1880, + BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. + + PRINTED BY + ALFRED MUDGE AND SON. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + MODERN SOCIETY 5 + + CHANGES IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 49 + + + + +MODERN SOCIETY. + + +What means this summons, oh friends! to the groves of Academe? I heard, +in the distance, the measured tread of Philosophy. I mused: "How grave +and deliberate is she! How she matches thought with thought! How +patiently she questions inference and conclusion! No irrelevance, no +empty ballooning, is allowed in that Concord school. Nothing frivolous +need apply there for admission." And lo! in the midst of this severe +entertainment an interlude is called for in the great theatre. The stage +manager says, "Ring up Puck. Wanted, an Ariel." And no Shakespeare being +at hand, I, of the sex much reproved for never having produced one, am +invited to fly hither as well as my age and infirmities will allow, and +to represent to you that airy presence whose folly, seen from the +clouds, is wisdom; that presence which, changing with the changes of the +year and of the day, may yet sing, equally with the steadfast stars and +systematic planets,-- + + "The hand that made me is divine." + +Modern society, concerning which you have bid me discourse to you, is +this tricksy spirit, many-featured and many-gestured, coming in a +questionable shape, and bringing with it airs from heaven and blasts +from hell. I have spoken to it, and it has shown me my father's ghost. +How shall I speak of it, and tell you what it has taught me? You must +think my alembic a nice one indeed, since you bid me to the analysis of +those subtle and finely mingled forces. You have sent for me, perhaps, +to receive a lesson instead of giving one. You may intend that, having +tried and failed in this task, I shall learn, for the future, the +difficult lesson of holding my peace. For so benevolent, so +disinterested an intention, I may have more occasion to thank you +beforehand, than you shall find to thank me, having heard me. + +But, since a text is supposed to make it sure that the sermon shall have +in it one good sentence, let me take for my text a saying of the +philosopher Kant, who, in one of his treatises, rests much upon the +distinction to be made between logical and real or substantial +opposition. According to him, a logical opposition is brought in view +when one attribute of a certain thing is at once affirmed and denied. +The statement of a body which should be at once stationary and in motion +would imply such a contradiction, of which the result will be _nihil +negativum irrepræsentabile_. + +A real or substantial opposition is found where two contradictory +predicates are recognized as coexistent in the same subject. A body +impelled in one direction by a given force, and in another by its +opposite, is easily cogitable. One force neutralizes the other, but the +result is something, viz., rest. Let us keep in mind this distinction +between opposites which exclude each other, and opposites which can +coexist, while we glance at the contradictions of all society, ancient +as well as modern. + +How self-contradictory, in the first place, is the nature of man! How +sociable he is! also how unsociable! We have among animals the +gregarious and the solitary. But man is of all animals at once the most +gregarious and the most solitary. This is the first and most universal +contradiction, that of which you find at least the indication in every +individual. But let us look for a moment at the contrasts which make one +individual so unlike to another. We sometimes find it hard to believe +the saying that God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth. +This in view of the contrast between savage and civilized nations, or +between nations whose habits and beliefs differ one from the other. In +the same race, in the same family also, we shall find the unlikeness +which seems to set the bond of nature at defiance. + +See this sly priest, bland and benevolent in proportion to the narrow +limits of the minds which he controls. He hears the shrift of the +brigand and assassin, of the girl mastered by passion, of the unfaithful +wife and avenging husband. He gives an admonition, perhaps a grave one. +He inflicts a penance, light or severe. He does not trust his penitents +with the secret which can heal the plague-sores of humanity,--the secret +of its moral power. But see the meek flock who come to him. See the +whole range of consciences which cannot rest without his dismissing +_fiat_. The rugged peasant drops on his knees beside the confessional. +His horny palm relinquishes, without hesitation, the coin upon which it +has scarcely closed. Or here alights from her carriage some woman of the +world, bright in silks and jewels. With a hush and a rustle, reaching +the lowly bench, she, too, drops down, rehearses her wrong-doing, +promises such reparation as is enjoined, and asks for the word of peace. +Now this confessor, and one or more of his penitents, may be the +children of the same father and mother, and yet they shall be as unlike +in attitude and in character as two human beings can be. In the closest +alliance of blood you may thus find the opposite poles of one humanity. + +Humanity is, then, a thing of oppositions, and of oppositions which are +polar and substantial. Its contradictions do not exclude, but, on the +contrary, complement each other, and the action and reaction of these +contradictions result in the mighty agreements of the State and of the +Church, the intense sympathies and antipathies which bind or sunder +individuals, the affections and disaffections of the family. + +The opposite extremes of human nature embrace, between them, a wonderful +breadth and scope. The correlation and coaction of this multitude of +opposing forces on the wide arena of the world naturally give rise to a +series of manifestations, voluntary and involuntary, changeful in form +and color as a phantasmagoria, fitful as a fever-dream, but steadfast +and substantial in the infinite science, out of which all things come. +The unity in this web of contradictions is its great wonder. How if this +unity prove to be the law of which the oppositions are but one clause? +How if the perfect unity were only attainable through the freedom of the +natural diversity? And what is the substance and sum of this fundamental +agreement? The desire of good, the progressive conception of which +marks, more than anything else, the progress of the race. We cannot tell +out of what dynamics comes the initial of this fruitful and productive +opposition. It is, perhaps, the very unity of the object which develops +the diversity of action. In the progress of human society the diversity +becomes constantly multiplied. Is the sense of the unity lost in +consequence? No, it grows constantly with the growth of this opposing +fact. As education is enlarged, as freedom becomes more general and +entire, the agreement of mankind becomes greater in the objects to be +attained for the promotion of their best interests. + +We can suppose a family cast upon a barren shore, or forced to sit down +in the midst of an uninhabited region. All of its members will wish to +secure the necessary conditions of life, such as food, fuel, shelter, +safety from destructive agencies. If left to themselves, one will +naturally bestir himself to find fish, game, or fruits; another will +bring in firewood; a third will plan a tent or hut; a fourth will stand +sentry against any possible alarm. So a camp is a world in miniature; +and if food and drink be plenty, and there be time to think of +recreation, some one will carve a pipe from reed or willow, and, in +answer to the piping, will come the dance. Or, if our pilgrims are too +mystic and solemn for this, hymns will be sung, and the voice of prayer +will lift the soul out of the poverty of its surroundings into that +realm of imagination whose wealth far exceeds that of Ormus or of Ind. + +I seem to hear at this point the _non placet_ of those who ask for one +thing and receive another. I was not sent for to philosophize, but to +represent; and, with regard to the former process, "how not to do it" +should have been my study. Modern society is my theme. Where shall I +find society for you? Henry Thoreau found it here, in the passionless +face of Nature. Here, the shy Hawthorne could dwell unmolested, not even +overshadowed by the revered sage who makes reserve and distance such +important elements of good manners. Mr. Alcott has transplanted here +those olives whose sacred chrism rests upon his honored brow. The +society which my words shall introduce here must be neither vulgar nor +dull. + +Now, if I had a flying-machine! Well, I have one, and its name is +Memory. Sit with me, upon its movable platform, and I will give you some +peeps at the thing itself, leaving you to discuss after me its _raison +d'être_, its right to be. In experimental analysis, specimens are always +exhibited. Let us look at modern society in Cairo, Shepherd's hotel, and +the omnibus that bears one thither. The _table d'hôte_ unites a +catalogue as various as that of Don Giovanni. Here sit Sir Samuel and +Lady Baker, famous as African explorers. You may all know something of +the entertaining volumes which chronicle their discoveries and +adventures. Lady Baker wears, at times, a necklace made of tiger's +claws. Her husband shot the tiger in the great wilds of Africa, she +loading the gun with which he did it. + +She is Roumanian by birth, English by adoption, fair and comely. Sir +Samuel is a burly Briton. They have with them a young African servant, +dark and under-sized, with wild, crimped hair. Sir Samuel tells me that +this is altogether the best human creature he ever knew. Lady Baker does +not resent the extreme statement. I sit at table between a Russian count +and an English baronet. The Russian and his two daughters are amiable +and simple people. The baronet is a stanch Tory, as you will think +natural when you hear his story. He was once a poor boy, hard at work in +a coal mine. He used to walk six or seven miles daily, after working +hours, in order to acquaint himself with those three Fates who are +familiarly called the three R's. Becoming an expert in the coal +business, he went through the upward grades of his profession, became a +large owner of mines, and has now a heavy contract for supplying the +Egyptian government with coal. He is a member of Parliament, and, when I +saw him, was ready to start homeward on the first news of a division in +the House. It was lately stated in a London paper that Lord Beaconsfield +would probably raise him to the peerage before his own retirement from +office. So, it may have been done by this time. + +My Russian neighbors are much troubled about the fate of a poor Italian +family whose chief has lost his occupation, and which is thus reduced +to the extreme of want. "Why not get up a subscription at this hotel?" +say I. They are very willing that I should. I draw up a paper, we sign +our names and contributions. Sir George snubs us dreadfully, but gives +us a sovereign. Sir Samuel snubs, and gives nothing. The necessary sum +of money is raised, and the family is sent to its own country. Here, you +see, are Russia, England, and America, combining, on Egyptian soil, to +save Italy. This strange mixture is characteristic of the medley of the +time. + +We will not move yet, for the panorama of the table will save us that +trouble. Here is one of the recognized beauties of London society. A +very pretty woman, with dewy eyes, pearly teeth, dark, glossy hair, and +a soft, fresh complexion. A French wardrobe sets off those natural +advantages, with its happy disguises and apposite revelations. But it is +not good for beauty that it should become a profession. This lady's fine +eyes and teeth are made to do duty with such evident persistence of +intention, that one absolutely dreads to see the glitter of the one and +the flash of the other in the gymnastic of an advertised flirtation. + +I cannot yet release you. Here are two gentlemen who wear the +_tarbouche_ with their European costume. They were rebels in our war of +secession, and at its close took service with the Khedive. Ignoring +ancient sectional differences, they are very cordial with us, their +countrywomen. They would be glad to see their country again, but cannot +get their salaries paid, the French and English commissioners having +taken the direction of Egyptian finances, and making no allowance for +the past services of these American officers, who were dismissed at +their instance. + +We are still at Shepherd's _table d'hôte_, and before us sit an English +nobleman and his wife, who have obtained permission to give a _fête_ at +the Pyramids. A gay party of English residents and visitors are +gathering to accompany them, and presently the carriages and cavalcade +start, with a band of music, and a small army of servants. They +illuminate the Great Pyramid with colored fires, race their horses and +donkeys through the desert, sup and sleep in the Khedive's _kiosk_, not +without much boisterous mirth and disturbance. + +Or, behold me on Bairam day, paying a New-Year's visit to the harem of +the Khedive. A row of grinning eunuchs, black as night, guard the +entrance. After various turns of ceremonial, we greet the three +princesses, all wives of the Khedive, who has many others not of this +rank. In order not to give offence, we are obliged to smoke the +_chibouque_, a pipe about five feet in length. We smile and courtesy at +the proper moment, but find conversation difficult. They are curious to +hear where we came from, and whither we are going. I ask whether they, +also, enjoy travelling, and am reminded that their institutions do not +allow it. These poor princesses little knew that in two months from that +time an involuntary journey awaited them, on the occasion of the +Khedive's abdication, and departure from the country. + +We please ourselves, in these days, with the praise of Islamism, and +think, quite rightly, that Mahomet and his Koran had their _raison +d'être_, and have done their part for mankind. But here is Islamism in +modern society. The howling dervishes sit on the ground groaning _Allah, +Allah_. By and by they rise, and bend their heads backward and forward +until the most eminent among them fall in fits, and are taken up in an +unhappy condition. Within a short distance from our hotel, we hear of a +company of men met for a religious exercise. One of them chews a glass +goblet and swallows it. Another endeavors to swallow a small snake. A +third gashes himself wildly with a sword. These are religious +enthusiasts. If their faith be genuine, these dangerous experiments, +they say, can do them no harm. + +These things remind us of the temptation of Christ: "If thou be the Son +of God, cast thyself down from hence." + +But let us leave the city and hotel, and betake ourselves to the +historic river, dumb with all its mouths, and poor with all its wealth. +Modern society is well represented on board our steamer. Here are two +Californian gentlemen, two sons of a Sandwich Island missionary, two or +three Italians. Here is a sister-in-law of John Bright. She has visited +Alaska, and considers this Nile trip a small parenthesis in her voyage +round the world. Here are an English couple, belonging to fashionable +life. Here is a clergyman of the same nation, who glories in the fact +that Dr. Johnson hated, or said he hated, a Whig. Here is an American +who cannot visit the ruins because his whole day is divided into so many +glasses of milk, to be taken at such and such times. + +We land one day at Assiout, and visit its bazaars. The trade in ostrich +feathers is brisk, the natives steadily raising their prices as the +demand increases, until we find that the feathers might be more cheaply +bought in London or Paris. Amid the general confusion of tongues I am +accosted by a handsome youth, cleanly and civil, who speaks fair +English, and asks if he can serve me. + +Who are you? A pupil of the American Mission School in this place. He +brings two of his fellow-pupils to speak with me. One of these is a +girl, whose innocent, uncovered face seems to rebuke the hidden faces of +the Arab women, veiled and disfigured to evince their modesty, but +making more evident the immodesty of the men. + +We return to our steamer, followed by a crowd of boys and girls, +shrieking and naked, who plunge into the water to get the _backshish_, +which some of our party throw them. On the bank stand two beautiful +youths, nearly black, with eyes like sloes, and with crisped hair +standing erect like a flame above their foreheads. They are clad in +kilts of white cotton cloth. Struck with their beauty, we inquire of +what tribe they are. "Of the Bischouri," says our dragoman, "a tribe of +the desert, who feed only upon uncooked grain." To the last their bright +smile pursues us with its pathos. Would that they, too, were pupils of +the American Mission School. Would not our vegetarian chief send for +them?[1] + + [1] Mr. Alcott, Dean of the Concord School of Philosophy, has + always been known as a vegetarian. + +We gallop across the sands to a point opposite Philæ, and reach the +sacred spot by boat. We picnic among its tombs, climb its _pylon_, and +remark upon the beauty of the view. At the first cataract, which is very +near this place, an Arab woman shows me her baby with the pride of Eve +or Queen Victoria. It has a nose-ring of brass wire, and similar +adornments in the top of each ear. On my way back to the boat, my pocket +is picked by a cunning youth. The Arabs of the desert will compare in +this respect with the Arabs of European streets. A little Arab girl +offers to sell me her rag doll, whose veil is bedizened with spangles. A +little water-carrier, proud of her English, says, "Lady, give me +backshish." + +This shall end my peep at modern society in Egypt. + +But one more personal remembrance you must accord me. The scene is a +dirty, muddy street in a Cyprus seaport. The time is not far from noon. +I am exploring, with some curiosity, the new jewel which Lord +Beaconsfield has added to the crown of Great Britain. + +What a mean, poor bazaar is this; what dull streets, what a barren place +to live in, especially since _methymenic_ Albion has drunk up all the +best of the wine! I pass a shop, and a bright presence beams out upon +me. It is Lady Baker, with her fair, luminous face, full of energy and +resource. Sir Samuel, she tells me, is in the back shop buying hardware +for a hard journey. For they intend to travel through the island in a +huge covered wagon, drawn by oxen, which will be to them at once vehicle +and hotel. Where they went, and how they fared, I know not, nor would it +here import us, if I did. I only mention the appearance of these friends +in this place, because this appearance was so characteristic of modern +society, and because so many of its elements appeared there in their +persons. The education and high society of England, the court, the +literary circles, the almighty publisher, for an intended volume was +surely looming in the foreground of their picture. And here I have +clearly got hold of one feature of modern society; this is, that +everything is everywhere. The Zulus are in London, the Londoners in +Zululand. Empress Eugenie, the exploded star of French fashion in its +highest supremacy, visits Cape Town. The stars and stripes protect +American professors on the shores of the Bosphorus, within view of Mount +Lebanon. It would not surprise us to learn that a party of our +countrymen had read the Declaration of Independence beside the Pools of +Solomon, or within the desolate heart of Moab. + +In Jaffa of the Crusaders, Joppa of Peter and Paul, I find an American +Mission School, kept by a worthy lady from Rhode Island. Prominent among +its points of discipline is the clean-washed face which is so enthroned +in the prejudices of Western civilization. One of her scholars, a youth +of unusual intelligence, finding himself clean, observes himself to be +in strong contrast with his mother's hovel, in which filth is just kept +clear of fever point. "Why this dirt?" quoth he; "that which has made me +clean, will cleanse this also." So without more ado, the process of +scrubbing is applied to the floor, without regard to the danger of so +great a novelty. This simple fact has its own significance, for if the +innovation of soap and water can find its way to a Jaffa hut, where can +the ancient, respectable, conservative dirt-devil feel himself secure? + +The maxim also becomes vain nowadays, that there should be a place for +everything, and that everything should be in its place. Cleopatra's +Needles point their moral in London and in New York. The Prince of Wales +hunts tigers in the Punjaub. Hyde Park is in the desert or on the Nile. +America is all over the world. Against this universal game of "Puss in +the Corner," reaction must come, some day, in some shape, or anywhere +will mean nowhere, for those who, starting in the geographical pursuit +of pleasure, fail to find it and never return home. + +The oppositions of humanity have undergone many changes. Paul +characterized them in his day as "Greek and Barbarian, bond and free, +male and female." Christianity effaced old oppositions and created new +ones. The old oppositions were national, personal, selfish. The new +opposition was moral. It struck at evils, not at men, and tended to +unite the latter in a patient and reasonable overcoming of the former. I +know that the white heat at which its first blow was dealt left much for +philosophy to elaborate, for science to adjust and apply. A Jesus, +arrived at the plenitude of his intellectual vigor, could only have +three years in which to formulate his weighty doctrine, and could not +have had these without much care and hindrance. His work lay in the +normal direction of human nature. In spite of lapses and relapses, +mankind slowly creep towards the great unification which will make the +savage animals and the selfish passions the only enemies of the human +race. Modern society rests upon this unification as its basis of action. +A positive philosophy which Auguste Comte did not elaborate absorbs its +highest thought, and dictates its largest measures. + +And so prophetic souls bid farewell to the old negations. In their view, +the lion is already reconciled to the lamb. The taming of the elements +prefigures the general reconciliation. The deadly lightning runs on +errands and carries messages. The Titan steam is the servant of commerce +and industry, meek as Hercules when armed with the distaff of Omphale. +Emulation, the desire to excel, exquisite, dangerous stimulant to +exertion, is not in our day educated to the intensification of self, but +to the enlargement of public spirit and of general interest. The +constant discoveries of new treasures in our material world, of gold, +silver, iron, and copper, of states to be built up and of harvests to be +sown and reaped, are accompanied by corresponding discoveries +concerning the variety of human gifts and their application to useful +ends. What men and women can be good for may be more voluminously stated +to-day than in any preceding age of the world's history. + +Comparison should be a strong point in modern society. When travelling +was laborious and difficult, the masses of one country knew little +concerning those of another. When learning was rare, and instruction +costly and insufficient, the few knew the secrets of thought and +science, the many not even knowing that such things were to be known. +When wealth was uncommon, luxury was monopolized by a small class, the +greater part of mankind earning only for themselves the right to live +poorly. When distinctions were absolute, low life knew nothing of high +life but what the novelist could invent, or the servant reveal. How +changed is all this to-day! Competence, travel, tuition, and intelligent +company are within the reach of all who will give themselves the trouble +to attain them. The first consequence of this is that we become able to +make the largest and most general comparison of human conditions which +has ever been possible to humanity, nor does this ability regard the +present alone. The unveiling of the treasures of the past, the +interpretation of its experience and doctrine which we owe to the +scholar and archæologist, enable us to compare remote antiquity with the +things of the last minute. The work of antiquarian science culminates in +the discovery of the prehistoric man. Theology had long before invented +the post-historic angel. Now, indeed, we ought to be able to choose the +best out of the best, since the whole is laid in order before us. But +the chronic trouble hangs upon us still. Had we but such wisdom to +choose as we have chance to see! The gifts of our future are still shown +us in sealed caskets. Which of these conceals the condition of our true +happiness? The leaden one, surely, of which we distrust the dull +exterior, trusting in the inner brightness which it covers. + +What is the problem of modern society? + +How to use its vast resources. Here is where the office of true ethic +comes in. No gift can make rich those who are poor in wisdom. The wealth +which should build up society will pull it down if its possession lead +to fatal luxury and indulgence. The freedom of intercourse which makes +one nation known to another, and puts the culture of the most advanced +at the service of the most barbarous, is like a flood which carries +everywhere the seeds of good and of evil. The ripening of these depends +much upon the accident of the human soil they may happen to find. But +careful husbandry will have even more to do with the result. + +To America it was said at the outset, "Prepare to receive the World, and +to make it free." Oh, World, so full of corruption and of slavery, wilt +thou not rather bind us with thy gangrenous fetters? Wilt not the wail +of thy old injustice and suffering prolong itself until the new strophe +of hope shall be lost and forgotten? + +Where is God's image in this human brute who lands on our shores, full +only of the insolence of beggary? Far, far be from us ever the methods +and procedures which have made or left him what he is. Honor and glory +to those patient, good men and women who will redeem his children from +the degradation which seems almost proper to him. Theirs be a crown +above that of the poet or orator! + +Modern society, then, is chiefly occupied with a vast assimilation of +novelties. This task is by no means imposed upon us alone. While the +New World has to digest races and traditions, the Old World has to +digest ideas. Thanks to the good Puritan stomach which we inherit, the +process goes on here, with little interruption. But across the seas, in +Rome, in Germany, in Russia, what nausea, what quarrelling with the +fatal morsel upon which Providence compels the lips to close! + +"_Non possumus!_" say the priests of the old order. "_Possum_," replies +the eternal power. The French republic and the English monarchy succeed +best in this altering of old habits to suit new emergencies. But where +extremes are greatest, the contest is naturally fiercest. A Pope fears +the cup of poisoned chocolate, and dares not drink the wine of the +eucharist without a taster; the throne of the Russian autocrat is over +the deadly mine of the Nihilist. German vanity and diplomacy bring back +the shadow of the mediæval muddle. The living heart's blood of humanity +comes to us out of these struggles, an immeasurable gift, for good or +for evil. Can we be quick enough with our schools, just enough in our +government, sincere and devout enough in our churches? What will Europe +do with the ideas? What will America do with the people? These are the +questions of the present time. + +One of the serious social questions of the day is the omnipotence of +money. People often use this expression in a _quasi_ sarcastic sense, +not seriously intending what they say. But the power of money nowadays +is such that it becomes us seriously to ask whether there is anything +that it cannot do. What ancient strongholds of taste, sentiment, and +prejudice has it not stormed and carried? + +A servant, who sought a place during the first years of the shoddy +inflation, asked a lady who was willing to engage her, "Are you shoddy, +ma'am, or old family? I want to live with shoddy, because it pays the +highest wages." The watchwords of society as often come from its humbler +as from its higher level, and this woman unconsciously uttered the word +which was to rule society from that time to this. Money, during the last +twenty years, has swept over most of the old landmarks, and obliterated +them. + +Religion itself stands aghast at this baptism of gold, which can convert +the alien and the heathen, ay, the brigand and the robber, into saints +of social prestige. For money bribes the court and pulpit, and buys the +press; the highest rank, the highest genius, pay homage to it. If the +duke has not money, he will seek in wedlock the most undesirable of +women, if she be also the richest. Royalty bows to the splendid cloak of +vulgarity, and invites it to dine and drive. Happy day, you will say, +for labor, which money symbolizes. Monarchs may well show it respect. +But money does not always symbolize honest and intelligent industry. A +great fortune often represents transactions akin to theft; sometimes the +thing itself, which the world is Spartan enough to approve of, if the +criminal can only escape positive detection. Those, too, who have earned +their money honestly, leave it to children who turn their back upon the +class of which their parents came, and desire to know nothing of the +bread-winning arts which they were constrained to practise. + +We have had, within the last ten years, a severe lesson concerning the +instability of wealth in some of its most trusted forms. Yet are we not +compelled by sympathy and antipathy, at the bottom of our hearts, to pay +it an homage which our lips would not avow? Do we not desire wealth for +our children as the condition which shall set our minds at rest +concerning them? When we see mediocrity and vulgarity riding in the +swift carriage, and wearing the jewels and the robes, bright in +everybody's eyes and praised in everybody's mouth, do we not harbor +somewhere a regret that we have not, in some way possible to us, set our +best abilities to work to secure a similar distinction for ourselves? + +It should not frighten one to see the court and its underlings venal. +Court and courtiers are a show, and money is the condition by which a +show lives. But I look into the domain of letters, and ask whether that +is still uncorrupted. I do not think that it is. The refined tastes of +literary people lead them to value entertainment at the hands of the +rich. The luxurious rooms, the abundant table, the easy _persiflage_ in +which worldly tact knows enough to flatter recognized talent. Do not +these _illicebræ_ seduce, to-day, even the stern heart of philosophy? + +How unkind was society to Margaret Fuller! It was reluctant to show her +the courtesy due to a gentlewoman. Its mean gossip treated her as if she +had been beyond the pale of elegance and good taste, verging away even +from good behavior. What was her offence against society? A humanity too +large and absorbing, a mind too brave and independent for its +commonplace. Add to these the fact that she had neither fashion nor +fortune. The things she asked for are granted to-day by every thinking +mind, and she is remembered as illustrious. But if she could come back +to-morrow as she was, poor in purse and plain in person, and assume her +old leadership, would Boston treat her any better than it did in days of +yore? Would she not find, even among Brook farmers, a looking toward +Beacon Street which might surprise her? The literary man, who went so +bravely from abstract philosophy to its concrete expression, whose +learned hands took up the spade and hoe, and whose early peas were +praised by those who contemned his principles, would he, at a later +day,--grown urbane and fashionable,--would he have bowed without a pang +to his former self, if he had met him, dusty and on foot, in Central +Park, he himself being well mounted? + +I said just now that money could buy the press. This is shameful, +because the press, more than any other power, can afford to be frank and +sincere. Freedom is the very breath of life in its nostrils, yet is it +to-day largely salaried by the enemies of freedom. While speaking of the +press, I will mention the regret with which I lately read, in the +"Boston Daily Advertiser," an editorial treating of the expulsion of the +Jesuits from France. The writer, who denounced this measure with some +severity, described the religious body with which it deals as a band of +mild and inoffensive men, chiefly occupied with the tuition of youth. He +might as well have characterized a tiger as a harmless creature, +incapable of the use of firearms. + +To me the worship of wealth means, in the present, the crowning of low +merit with undeserved honor,--the setting of successful villany above +unsuccessful virtue. It means absolute neglect and isolation for the few +who follow a high heart's love through want and pain, through evil and +good report. It means the bringing of all human resources, material and +intellectual, to one dead level of brilliant exhibition--a second Field +of the Cloth of Gold--to show that the barbaric love of splendor still +lives in man, with the thirst for blood, and other _quasi_ animal +passions. It means, in the future, some such sad downfall as Spain had +when the gold and silver of America had gorged her soldiers and nobles; +something like what France experienced after Louis XIV. and XV. I am no +prophet, and, least of all, a prophet of evil; but where, oh where, +shall we find the antidote to this metallic poison? Perhaps in the +homoeopathic principle of cure. When the money miracle shall be +complete, when the gold Midas shall have turned everything to gold, then +the human heart will cry for flesh and blood, for brain and muscles. +Then shall manhood be at a premium, and money at a discount. + +The French have found, among many others, one fortunate expression. They +speak of a life of representation, by which they mean the life of a +person conspicuous in the great world. This society of representation +has some recognition in every stage of civilization, since even nations +which we consider barbarous have their festivals and processions. The +ministerial balls in Paris, and perhaps many other entertainments in +that city, are of this character. + +The guests are admitted in virtue of a card, which is really a ticket, +though money cannot command it. Many of the persons entertained are not +personally acquainted with either host or hostess, and do not +necessarily make their acquaintance by going to their house. Everything +is arranged with a view to large effects: music, decorations, supper, +etc. A party of friends may go there for their own amusement, or a +single individual for his own. But there are no general introductions +given, there is no social fusion. + +Now this I call society of representation. It bears about the same +relation to genuine society that scene-painting bears to a carefully +finished picture. People of culture and education enjoy a peep at this +spectacular drama of the social stage, but their idea of society would +be something very different from this. Where this show-society +monopolizes the resources of a community, it implies either a dearth of +intellectual resources, or a great misapprehension of what is really +delightful and profitable in social intercourse. + +Where the stage form of society predominates too largely, its intimate +form languishes and declines. The communings of a chosen few around a +table simply spread, with no view to the recognition of the great +Babylon, but rather with a pleasure in its avoidance; refined sympathy +and support given and received in a round of daily duties, by those +whose hands are busy and whose minds are full; the inner sweetness of a +beautiful song or poem, the kindling of mind from mind, till all become +surprised at what each can do,--this sort of society maintains itself by +keeping the noisy rush of the crowd at arm's length. Horace says,-- + + "Odo profanum vulgus et arceo," + +and I, a democrat of the democrats, will say so too. I reverence the +masses of mankind, rich or poor. My heart beats high when I think of the +good which human society has already evolved, and of the greater good +which is in store for those who are to come after us. But I hate the +profane vulgarity which courts public notice and mention as the chief +end of existence, and which, in so doing, puts out of sight those +various ends and interests which each generation is bound to pursue for +itself, and to promote for its successors. + +The time of poor Marie Antoinette was the culmination of such a period +of show. Its glare and glitter, and its lavish waste, had put out of +sight the true and intimate relations of man to man. And so, as the +gilded portion of the age made its musters of beautiful empty heads, of +vanities throned upon vanities, the ungilded part made its deadly muster +of discontent, displeasure, and despair. The empty heads fell, and much +that was precious and noble fell with them. The great stage produced its +bloody drama, and the curtain of horror closed upon it. + +Critics of society usually direct their invective against the +extravagance and shallowness of this exhibitory department, and would +almost make these an excuse for the opposite extreme of misanthropic +spleen and avoidance. They should remember that while society, from an +inward necessity, provides for these musterings and displays, it is +unable to provide for that intimate and personal intercourse which +individuals must found and cultivate for themselves. So much is left for +each one of us to do, to find our peers, and open with them an honest +exchange of our best for their best. The family most easily begins this, +with its intense and ever-enlarging interests. Out of true family life +comes a neighborhood; out of a neighborhood the body politic, and the +body sympathetic. + +If, in the matter of social intercourse, show is allowed to usurp the +place of substance, the indolence of mankind must bear its part of the +blame. It is far easier to order a suit for the great occasion, than to +brighten one's mental jewels for the small one. Many a soldier is brave +on parade, who would not shine on a field of battle. Many a woman will +pass for elegant in a ball-room, or even at a court drawing-room, whose +want of true breeding would become evident in a chosen company. + +The reason why education is usually so poor among women of fashion is, +that it is not needed for the life which they elect to lead. With a good +figure, good clothes, and a handsome equipage, with a little reading of +the daily papers, and of the fashionable reviews, and above all, with +the happy tact which often enables women to make a large display of very +small acquirements, the woman of fashion may never feel the need of true +education. We pity her none the less, since she will never know its +peace and delight. + +In our own country, at this moment, and in Europe as well, ambitions +seem to be unduly directed to this department of social action, the +training and discipline for which differ widely from that proper to +intimate and domestic life. Hence comes an observable regard, not to +appearances only, but to appearance. As actors often paint their faces +too highly for near effects, in order to look well at the farthest point +of view, so the dress and manners of the day fit themselves for the +stage of the great world, and their wearers seem to meditate not only +what will not appear amiss, but what will attract attention by some +singularity of becoming effect. Hence the supremacy for the time of +those whose calling it is to minister to appearance. The tailor has +long been a man of destiny, but the modern plainness of male attire has +somewhat sobered his pretensions. But look at the sublime arrogance of +the ladies' dressmaker, and the almost equally sublime meekness of the +victim, who not only submits, but desires to be as wax in her hands. +This supreme functionary has, of course, _carte blanche_ for her +ordinances. The subject says to her, "Do what you will with me. Make me +modest or immodest. Tie up my feet or straighten my arms till use of +them becomes impossible. Deprive my figure of all drapery, or upholster +it like a window-frame. Nay, set me in the centre of a movable tent, but +array me so that people shall look at me, and shall say I look well." + +I cannot but hate, to-day, the slavish fashion which seems to have been +invented in order to intensify that self-consciousness which is the +worst enemy of beauty. It is administered by means of a system of lacets +and whalebones, which everywhere impinge upon nature. A young lady who +is in her dress like a sword in its scabbard (the French name for the +fashion is _fourreau_), is made to think of this point, and of that, +until her whole gait and movement become an interrogation of her silks +and elastics. Can I sit? Can I walk? Can I put this foot forward, or +lift this hand to my head? Ask the satin strait-jacket in which your +artist has imprisoned you, receiving high compensation for the service. +Much as I resent this constraint and restraint of the body, my saddest +thought is, that where it is endured the mind has first been enslaved. + +Foreign travel is so established a feature in American life, that it may +well become us to take account of what it costs and comes to. + +Our own importation of men and women is various and enormous. They who +come to us poor and ignorant in one generation, are seen comfortable and +well educated in the next. The disfranchised and landless man comes to +us, and receives political rights, and the title of a farm in fee +simple. No inordinate tribute robs him of the product of his industry, +be it large or small. He pays to the State what it pays him well to +afford, for protection and education. But how is it with the tribute +which Europe levies upon us in the shape of our sons and daughters? + +Many polite tastes have, no doubt, been fostered in our young men by +studies pursued in a German university, or art learned in a French +studio. Some of the best scholars of the elder generation have profited, +in their youth, by such advantages. But if we go beyond the limits of +literary or professional life, we may not consider the results so +fortunate. Our society-men sometimes become so depolarized in their +tastes and feelings, as to be at ease nowhere but in Europe, and not +much at ease there. Those who return bring back a love of betting and of +horse-racing, and ape the display of European grandees as far as their +fortunes will allow. + +And our young women? Some of them study soberly abroad, and return to +give their countenance and support to all that is improving and refining +in their own country. Some float hither and thither, between England and +Italy, like a feather on the wave, disappearing at last. The Daisy +Millerish chit is seen, offending in pure ignorance of what common-sense +should easily teach mothers and daughters. + +Family groups of Americans are often met with in Europe, in which one +figure is wanting. This is the father, absent, in America, working at +his business or speculation. These ladies are often companionable +people, who enjoy good hotels, galleries, music on the public square, +and, above all, the sensation of being far from home. + +One feels about them a dreary atmosphere of homelessness. As the writer +of the Potiphar papers, while watching a gay young mother's performance +in the "German," was constrained to think of a complaining babe in her +nursery, so, in hearing those ladies boast of their enjoyments, one +cannot help remembering with commiseration the wifeless husband and +daughterless father at home, who works like a steam-fan to keep these +butterflies in motion. + +More sad still are my reflections, when I hear that numbers of American +girls, with large or even moderate fortunes, go abroad and allow it to +be known that they seek a husband with a title. These are to be had, of +various grades, if the pecuniary consideration be only sufficient. And +so many of our laborious men of business work hard in order to earn for +themselves the luxury of a titled son-in-law, who has not the ability to +earn his own support, and would scorn to do it if he had. + +American women with money are at a premium in fashionable Europe. Even +without this supreme merit, they are favorites. A London journal calls +attention to the fact that some of the leading ladies in the fashionable +London of to-day are Americans. The versatility of mind and ease of +manner which a free and social life develops, appear in strong contrast +with the results of the more formal education, which are often seen in +the opposite extremes of timidity and assurance. + +As our young men are often entrapped, while abroad, into marriages which +prove to be very unwise and unsuitable, I wish very much that we might +bring and keep our young people in a better understanding with each +other, so that even the most ambitious among them should be content to +marry with their peers, and abide in the home of their fathers. + +I have been surprised, at some periods of my late visit to Europe, to +perceive the growing interest of thinking people in all that is most +characteristic of American progress. Again and again, in private and in +public, I have found myself invited to discourse concerning the happy +country in which popular education has been so long established, that +its results are no longer putative, but ascertained and verified. The +country in which the fairest woman, provided she be a modest one, can +walk abroad by day or night, unmolested and unsuspected, the country in +which women have acquired the courage to think for themselves, and to +stand by each other. + +These invitations, though not given in derision, yet seemed akin to the +Hebrew refrain, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" And when I related +the facts familiar to all of us, to those who listened with +half-incredulous wonder, it was, indeed, like singing the Lord's song of +freedom in a strange land. + +The reasons why Europe should come to America are obvious and pressing. +The reasons why America should visit Europe are equally binding and +cogent. The material and the moral life of to-day are kept at their +height by this flux and reflux of human personality, which carries with +it every variety of opinion and experience. Could we only send our best +abroad, and for the best reasons! Could Europe only send her best, also, +for their best help and study! But the human average profits first of +all by its material enlargement, and will be received just as it is. So, +our fools go abroad, to show that folly is a thing of all times and +climes; and, along with the tidal wave of ignorance and bigotry, the +dark, designing Jesuit seeks our shore, and spins his fatal web among +our rose-trees. Sun of divine truth, storms of divine justice, sweep +away the evil and ripen the good! + +When I see an American of either sex caught in the vortex of European +attraction, depolarized from natural relations, and charmed into +alliance with feudal barbarism and ignorance, my heart rings the bell of +alarm which is hung at the gates of Paradise. + +From all these Western splendors can this shallow soul turn away? From +these golden fields whose overflow gives Europe food, while her human +overflow gives them labor? From this large construction of human right, +which lifts the cruel yoke from the neck of labor, and gives him who +earns the livelihood of many his own life to enjoy and perfect? From +this holy record of pious endeavor, from these splendid achievements of +souls inspired by freedom, thou canst go, joyous and triumphant, to pay +homage to the lies which are no longer believed by those who profess +them; lies whose fallacy America exposes every day and hour to the +detection of the world. + +Thou wilt accept a title, empty as an egg-shell, for a thing truly +noble! Thou wilt call a courtier's grimace polite, a courtesan's fashion +elegant! Thou wilt curry favor in a vulgar court, courtesying low to a +prince of harlequins and harlots! Thou, child of the Puritans, wilt +kneel and kiss the hand which, still and sole, disputes with Christ the +mastery of the world! Then art thou simply an anachronism! Some are born +into the world centuries before their time, some centuries after it. + +Other attractions, innocent in themselves, and conceivable to all, +detain some of our valued fellow-citizens in perpetual exile. The quiet +and beauty of English country-life, the literary and artistic resources +of a foreign capital, the romances of ancient chateaux and cathedrals, +some delicious touch of climate, some throbbing beauty of a southern +sky. How delightful we have found these, it is as much a pain as a +pleasure to remember! But let us also call to mind the lesson of a +well-known fairy tale. While Beauty prolongs her absence, the faithful +Beast languishes and comes nigh unto death. While we enjoy these choice +delights, the society to which we belong is sowing its wheat and its +tares. We are far from the field in which the life of our own generation +is planted and tended. Every honest heart, every thinking mind, has its +value in the community to which it belongs. Our value, such as it is, +remains wanting to our community, and, when its crises of trial shall +come, we shall not have been trained by watchful experience to +understand either their cause or their remedy. + +How delightful was Italy to Milton! His Allegro and Pensieroso show that +he could fully appreciate both its mirth and its majesty. He returns not +the less to live out a life of illustrious service in his own country, +where his brave heart and philosophic mind were of more avail to his +time than even his sacred song to ours. + +No one has any reason to be surprised at any new manifestation of human +folly. Yet I am sometimes surprised, to-day, by the disrespect which is +often shown to the word "Protestant." This name dates, at farthest, from +the time of Luther, but the fact for which it stands is as old as human +history. Moses made a protest when he led his people out of the luxury +and slavery of Egypt to find the free hills of Judæa, and to build on +one of them a temple to the God of freedom. Christ made His protest +against the hypocrisy and injustice of the old social and ecclesiastical +order. England and France have made their protests against monarchical +supremacy. Both went back from their daring determination, but the +lesson was not forgotten. The Puritans made their protest when they +faced the frowning sea and the savage wilderness, in order that they +might train their children, and live themselves in the freedom which +conscience asks. Mr. Garrison and his associates made their protest +against American slavery. Mrs. Butler, of England, makes her protest +to-day against the personal degradation of women. Lucy Stone makes hers +against their political enslavement. + +Does society inherit? Is man the heir of man? Whence come those +creatures of the present day who smile, and shrug their shoulders, and +feebly say, "We don't protest. Our fathers did something of the kind, +upon what ground we cannot possibly imagine. But we are quite of another +sort. We don't protest." + +To those courageous souls which, alone and unaided, have been able to +face the world's passion and inertia,--to those leaders of forlorn hopes +who have seen glory in the depths of death and have sought it there,--to +those voices proclaiming in the wilderness the triumphant progress of +truth,--to those brave spirits whose strength the fires of hell have +annealed, not consumed,--my soul shall ever render its glad and duteous +homage. And if, in my later age, I might seek the crowning honor of my +life, I should seek it with that small, faithful band who have no choice +but to utter their deepest conviction, and abide its issues. Fruitful +shall be their pains and privations. They who have sown in tears the +seeds of unpopular virtue, shall reap its happy harvest in the good and +gratitude of mankind. + + + + +CHANGES IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. + + +I have been invited to speak to you to-day concerning changes in +American society. In preparing to consider this subject, I cannot but +remember that the very question of social change is to some people an +open one. The supposition of any real onward movement in society is as +unwelcome and as untrue to these persons as was Galileo's theory +concerning the revolution of the earth around the sun. They will assert, +as indeed they may, that the same crimes are committed in all ages, with +the same good deeds to counterbalance them and that the capital +tendencies of human nature are always substantially the same. This also +must be allowed. The error of these friends consists in overlooking the +most characteristic and human of these tendencies, which is that of +progressive desire. This trait, deeper and stronger than the mere love +of change, pushes the whole heterogeneous mass of humanity onward in a +way from which there is no return. + +The laws of human motive and action, meanwhile, remain as steadfast and +immovable as the laws by whose application Galileo made his discovery. +To discern at once the steadfast truth and its metamorphic developments +will be the task of the greatest wisdom. + +When Theodore Parker invited the religious world to consider the +transient and the permanent elements of Christianity, he made a popular +application of a truth long known to philosophy. This truth is that life +in all of its aspects exhibits these two opposite qualities or +conditions. Much is transient in the individual, more is permanent in +the race. + +The study of anthropology, so greatly enriched to-day by discovery and +investigation, would give us much to say under both of these heads, but +most, I think, under the last. + +I remember that in reading Livy's history of the second Punic war, in +our own war time, I was struck by certain resemblances between the time +in which he wrote and that in which I read him. When I learned from his +pages that the merchants and ship-owners of ancient Rome managed to +impose the most worthless of their vessels upon the government for the +transport of troops and provisions, I exclaimed, "What Yankees these +Romans were!" + +In reading some well-known satires of Horace I have been struck with the +resemblance of the ancient to the modern bore. Boileau's famous take-off +of the dinner given by a _parvenu_ is scarcely more than a French +adaptation of the feast of Nasidienus, as described by the Roman bard +who was Boileau's model. + +In Virgil's account of the good housewife, who rises early in order to +measure out the work of the household, and in Solomon's description of +the thrifty woman of his time, one sees the value set upon feminine +industry and economy in times far removed from our own, yet resembling +it in this appreciation. + +On the other hand, the dissimilarity of ancient and modern society is +equally seen in the same mirror of literature. The mention of matters +which, by common consent, are banished from decent speech to-day, the +position of Woman, from the vestal virgin buried alive for breach of +trust to the _devium scortum_, whom Horace frankly invites to his feast, +the gross superstition which saw in religion little save portents and +propitiation,--these mark on the dial of history an hour as distant from +our own in sympathy as in time. + +You will wish to hear from me some account of changes which have come +within the sphere of my own observation, both as I have been able to see +for myself, and to compare what I have seen with what I have received +from the generation immediately preceding my own. Let me remind you +that, with all the advantages of personal observation, it may be more +difficult for us to give a true account of the age to which we belong +than of more distant times, upon which thought and reflection have +already done their critical and explanatory work. Familiarity so dulls +the edge of perception, as to make us least acquainted with things and +persons making part of our daily life. Mindful of these difficulties, I +will do my best to characterize the threescore years which have carried +me into and out of the heart of the nineteenth century. + +I have seen in this time a great growth in the direction of liberal +thought, of popular government, of just laws and useful institutions. I +have seen human powers so multiplied by mechanical appliances as to +destroy the old measures of time and distance, and almost to justify +the veto once laid by the great Napoleon upon the use of the word +"impossible": "_Ne me dîtes jamais ce bête de mot_," said he; and it has +now become more _bête_ than ever. + +What feature of society has not changed in the phantasmagoria of these +wonderful lustres? Each decade has made a fool of the one which went +before it. Whether in the region of extended observation and experiment, +or in that of subtle and profound investigation, human effort has seemed +in this time to put itself at compound interest, working at once with +matters infinitely little and with matters infinitely great, and surely +introducing mankind to a higher plane of comfort and co-operation than +has been reached in anterior ages. + +While the mechanism of life has thus been brought much nearer to +perfection by the labor of our age, the principles of life remain such +as they have always been. + +Pile luxury as high as you will, health is better, and the body of a +well-fed and not over-worked ploughman is, nine times out of ten, a +better possession than the body of a man of fortune, especially if he be +at the same time a man of pleasure. Marshal and gild the pomp of +circumstance, and do it homage with bated breath, character remains the +true majesty, honor and intelligence its prime ministers. Money can help +people to education, by paying for the support of those who can give it. +But money cannot excuse its possessor from the smallest of the mental +operations through which, if at all, a man comes to know what, as a man, +he should know. + +The great _desiderata_ of humanity still remain these: to preserve the +integrity of nature, the purity of sentiment, and the coherence of +thought. The great extension of educational opportunities which we see +to-day should make the attainment of these objects easier than in ages +of less instruction. But while the pursuit of them is ever normal to the +human race, the inherent difficulties of their attainment remain +undiminished. Without self-discipline and self-sacrifice, no man to-day +attains true education, or the dignity of true manhood. For here comes +in the terrible fact of man's freedom as a moral agent. + +Could our age possess and administer the powers of the universe to its +heart's content, in that heart would yet rest the issues of its life and +of its death. + +The period of which I have to speak has certainly witnessed great +improvements in the theory of hygiene. The old heroic treatment of +diseases has nearly disappeared. The nauseous draughts, the +blood-letting and blisters, have given place to moderate medication, the +choice of climate and the regulation of diet. Women have been admitted +as copartners with men in the guardianship of the public health. +Athletic sports help the student to fresh blood and efficient muscle, +without which the brain sickens and perishes. + +But even in this department how much is left to desire and to do! Our +greatest and richest city is still festering with the corruption that +breeds disease. No board of health seems to have power to sweep its side +streets and dark alleys. Fashion keeps her avenues clean, and neglects +the rest of the vast domain, for which she has her reward in many a +ghastly epidemic. The late Edward Clarke, of Boston,--heaven rest his +soul!--could alarm the whole continent with his threats of the physical +evils which the more perfect education of one sex would entail on both. +But he has left no public protest against the monstrosities of toilet +which deform and mutilate the bodies of women to-day, nor against the +selfish frivolity of life in both sexes, which is equally inimical to +true motherhood and to true fatherhood. + +I have seen in fashions of dress and furniture the curious cycle which +my elders foretold, and which it takes, I should think, half a century +to fulfil. My earliest childish remembrance is of the slim dresses which +display as much as is possible of the outlines of the figure. I remember +the _élégantes_ of Gotham walking the one fashionable street of +fifty-five years ago, attired in pelisses of pink or blue satin. A white +satin cloak trimmed with dark fur seemed, even to my childish +observation, a chill costume for a pedestrian in the heart of winter. My +mother's last Paris bonnet, bought probably in 1825, appeared to her +children, twenty years later, such a caricature, that pious hands +destroyed it, in order that we might have no ludicrous association with +the sweet young creature whose death had left us babes in the nursery. + +After many fluctuations and oscillations, I have seen modern head-gear +near of kin to the subject of this holocaust. I have seen the old forms +and colors return to popular favor. I have even heard that the very +white satin cloak, which seemed _outré_ to the critic of six years, has +been worn and greatly admired in the recent gay world of Paris. The +return in these cases, it must be said, is not to the identical point of +departure. Progress, according to some thinkers, follows a spiral, and +is neither shut in a circle nor extended in a straight line. The hoops +of our great-grandmothers are not the hoops which we remember to have +seen or worn. Their eelskin dresses are not the model of ours. Still, +the recurrence of the same vein of fancy marks a periodical +approximation to the region or belt of influence in which certain +forgotten possibilities suggest themselves to the seeker of novelty, and +in which the capricious, antithetical fancy delights to crown with honor +all that it found most devoid of beauty a few lustres ago. + +Does this encyclical tendency in the familiar æsthetics of life imply a +corresponding tendency in the moral and intellectual movement of +mankind? I fear that it does. I fear that seriousness and frivolity, +greed and disinterest, extravagance and economy, in so far as these are +social and sympathetic phenomena, do succeed each other in the movement +of the ages. But here the device of the spiral can save us. We must make +the round, but we may make it with an upward inclination. "Let there be +light!" is sometimes said in accents so emphatic, that the universe +remembers and cannot forget it. We carry our problem slowly forward. +With all the ups and downs of every age, humanity constantly rises. +Individuals may preserve all its early delusions, commit all its +primitive crimes; but to the body of civilized mankind, the return to +barbarism is impossible. + +The æsthetic elaboration of ethical ideas, always a feature of +civilization, becomes in our day a task of such prominence as to engage +the zeal and labor of those even who have little natural facility for +any of its processes. + +The ignoring of this department of culture by our Puritan ancestors, had +much to do with the bareness of surrounding and poverty of amusement +which almost affright us in the record of their society. With all their +insufficiency, these periods of severe simplicity are of great +importance in the history of a people. The temporary withdrawal from the +sensible and pleasurable to the severe verities of ethical study +accumulates a reserve force which is sure to be very precious in the +emergencies to which all nations are exposed. The reaction against the +extreme of this is as likely to be excessive as was the action itself. + +If we tend to any extreme, nowadays, it is to that of making art take +the place of thought, as may somewhat appear in the general rage for +illustration and decoration. + +The ministrations of art to ethics are indeed unspeakably grand and +helpful. The cathedrals of the Old World, and its rich and varied +galleries, preserve for us the fresh and naïve spirit of mediæval piety. +Religious art, indeed, becomes almost secularized by its repetitions; +yet each of its great works has the isolation of its own atmosphere, and +speaks its own language, which we reverently learn while we look upon +it. + +Of all arts, music is the one most intimately interwoven with the +ethical consciousness of our own time. The oratorios of Handel and of +Mendelssohn so blend the sacred text and the divine music, that we think +of the two together, and almost as of things so wedded by God, that man +must not seek to put them asunder. When I have sat to sing in the chorus +of the Messiah, and have heard the tenor take up the sweet burden of +"Comfort ye my people!" I have felt the whole chain of divine +consolation which those historic words express, and which link the +prophet of pre-Christian times to the saints and sinners of to-day. In +far-off Palestine I have been shown the plain on which it is supposed +that the shepherds were tending their flocks when the birth of the +Messiah was announced to them. But as I turned my eyes to view it, my +memory was full of that pastoral symphony of Handel's, in which the +divine glory seems just muffled enough to be intelligible to our abrupt +and hasty sense. Nay, I lately heard a beloved voice which read the +chapter of Elijah's wonderful experiences in the wilderness. While I +listened, bar after bar of Mendelssohn's music struck itself off in the +resonant chamber of memory, and I thanked the Hebrew of our own time for +giving the intensity of life to that mystical drama of insight and +heroism. + +The transcendentalists of our own country made great account of the +relation of art to ethics, and perhaps avenged the Puritan partiality by +giving art the leading, and ethics the subordinate place in their +statements and endeavors. But the masters of the transcendental +philosophy in Europe did not so. Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte were +idealists of the severest type. Standing for the moment between the two, +I will only say that the danger of forgetting the high labors and +rewards of thought in the pleasure of beautiful sights and sounds is +one to which the highest civilization stands most exposed. To think +aright, to resolve and pray aright, we must retire from those delights +to the contemplation of that whose sublimity they can but faintly image, +as we pass with joy from the likeness of our friend into his presence. + +Love of ornament is by no means synonymous with love of the beautiful. +The taste which overloads dress and architecture with superfluous +irrelevancies, is often quite in opposition to that true sense of beauty +which is indispensable to the artist and precious to the philosopher. +"[Greek: To kalon]," the Greeks said. Was it a naïve utterance on their +part? Was it through their poverty of expression, or their want of +experience, that the same word with them signified the good and the +beautiful? No. It was through the depth of their insight, and the power +of their mental appreciation, that they so stamped this golden word as +that it should show the supreme of form on one of its faces, and the +supreme of spirit on the other. + +The social domain of religion has also undergone a change. In my early +life I remember that all earnest and religious people were supposed to +live out of the great world, and to keep company only with one another +and with the subjects of their charitable beneficence. The +disadvantages of this course are easily seen. Free intercourse with the +average of mankind is one of the most important agencies in enlarging +and correcting the action of the human mind. The exigencies of ordinary +intercourse develop a sense of the dependence of human beings upon each +other, and a power corresponding to the needs involved in this +interdependence. The religious susceptibilities of individuals, which +are at once very strong in their character and very uncertain in their +action, are liable to become either exaggerated or exhausted by a course +of life which should rely wholly upon them for guidance and for +interest. + +Let us, therefore, by all means have saints in the world, keeping to +their pure standard, and recommending it more by their actions than by +their professions. But these saints must be brave as well as pure. +Unworthy doctrine must not escape their reprobation. When a just cause +is contemned, they must stand by it. If the world shall cast them out in +consequence, it will not be their fault. The social leagues which group +themselves around the various churches of to-day, seem to me a feature +of happy augury. It is the office of the church to inspire and direct +the tone of social intercourse, and these associations should greatly +help it to that end. I lately heard Wendell Phillips complain that +church exercises nowadays largely consist of picnics and other +merry-makings. Only a little before, Mr. Phillips, in his reply to Mr. +Parkman's article against Woman Suffrage, had spoken of the growth of +social influence as a good. + +It does, to be sure, look a little whimsical to read on the bulletin of +a Methodist church such announcements as this,--"Private theatricals for +the benefit of the Sunday school." But Wesley introduced the use of +secular tunes in his church on the ground that the devil should not have +all the good music. Neither should he monopolize the innocent amusements +with which, if they are left to him, he does indeed play the devil. + +Although the great ocean will always hold Europe at arm's length from +us, yet the currents of belief and sympathy bring its various peoples +near to us in various ways. I remember to have taken note of this long +before the ocean steamships brought the eastern hemisphere within a few +days' journey from our own seaboard, and very long before the +time-annihilating cables were dreamed of. The French have always had +with us the prestige of their social tact and sumptuary elegance. The +English manners are affected by those among us who mistake the +aristocracy of position for the aristocracy of character. The Italians +rule us by their great artists in the past, and by their subtle policy +in the present. The Germans have, as they deserve, the pre-eminence in +music, in metaphysics, and in many departments of high culture. + +I have not long since been taken to task by a writer in a prominent New +York paper for some strictures regarding the quasi-omnipotence of money +in the society of to-day. The writer in question enlarged somewhat upon +the greatly increased expenditure of money in our own country, as if +this must be considered as a good in itself. He concludes his statement +by remarking that Mrs. Howe has never studied the proper significance of +the money question. I desire to say here only that I have not neglected +the study of this question, which so regards the very life of society. +One of its problems I have ventured to decide for myself, viz., whether +the luxury of the rich really supports the industry of the poor. + +The æsthetic of luxury is a mean and superficial one. The critique of +luxury is compliant and cowardly; and, despite its glittering promise to +pay any price for what it desires, luxury orders poorly, pays poorly, +and in the end undermines the credit of the State, the very citadel of +its solvency. I regret and deplore its prevalence to-day, and consider +it not as the safeguard, but as the most dangerous enemy of republican +institutions. + +In our America, ay, even in our Puritan New England, the day has come in +which economy is a discredit and poverty a disgrace. With the common +school ever at work to lift the social level, unfolding to the child of +the day-laborer the page which instructs the son of the peer, the cry is +still that money is God, and that there is none other. One may ask, in +the business streets, whether rich people have any faults, or poor +people any virtues. A woman who sells her beauty for a rich dower is +honored in church and in State. Both alike bow to the money in her hand. +One proverb says that Time is money, as if it were + + "Only that, and nothing more." + +Another proverb says that Money is power. And in this form, no doubt, it +receives the most fervent worship, for luxury palls sooner or later, +while ambition is never satisfied. But we constantly meet, on the other +hand, with instances in which money is not power. Money does not give +talent or intelligence. You cannot buy good government, good manners, or +good taste: You cannot buy health or life. Do some of you remember the +shipwreck, some twenty years ago, of a steamer homeward-bound from +California? The few survivors told how the desperate passengers brought +their belts and bags of gold to the cabin, and threw them about with a +bitter contempt of their worthlessness. States have such shipwrecks, in +which avenging Fate seems to say to those who have sacrificed all for +wealth, "Thy money perish with thee." + +The heroics of history are full of the story of great ends, accomplished +by very small means. Now a handful of resolute men hold the forces of a +great empire in check, and beat back the ocean surge of barbarism from +the marble of their strong will. Now a single martyr turns the scale of +the world's affection by throwing into the balance the weight of one +small life. Now a State with every disadvantage of territory, cursed +with sterility, or exposed to the murderous overflow of the salt sea, +takes its stand upon the simple determination to conquer for itself a +free and worthy existence. Frederick of Prussia and his small army, +Washington, with his handful of men, in these and so many other +instances, we admire the attainment of mighty ends through means which +seem infinitesimal in proportion to them. How shall it be in our +country, to which Nature has given the widest variety of climate, soil, +and production? Shall we become a lesson to the world in the opposite +direction? Shall we show how little a people may accomplish with every +circumstance in its favor, and with nothing wanting to its success but +the careful mind and resolute spirit? God forbid! + +The belief in pacific methods of settling international differences has +made a noticeable progress in my time. + +In my school-days I remember a grave Presbyterian household at whose +fireside I one day saw an elderly man seat himself, with little notice +from the members of the family. I inquired who he might be, and was +told, with some good-natured laughter, that this old gentleman was the +American Peace Society, _i.e._, the last surviving member of that +association. This was a humorous exaggeration of the truth. Judge Jay, +of New York, was living at that time, and all the enthusiasm of the +peace cause lived in him, and no doubt in many others. I have remembered +the incident, nevertheless; and when I have seen the stately Peace +Congresses held in Europe and elsewhere, when I have seen rapacious +England submitting to arbitration, when I have seen the flag of military +prestige go down before the white banner of Peace, as in the late change +of the ministry in that country, I have remembered that day of small +things, and have learned that the faith of individuals is the small seed +from which spring the mighty growths of popular conviction and sympathy. + +The extensive wars which have taken place within the last forty years, +as extensive and as deadly as any the world ever saw, are sometimes +quoted in derision of those who believe, as I do, in the sober, steady +growth of the pacific spirit among people of intelligence. The reasons +for this advance lie deeper than the vision of the careless observer may +reach. Within the period of our own century the value of human life to +the individual has been greatly increased by the wide diffusion of the +advantages of civilization. The value of the individual to the State has +become greatly increased by the multiplication of industrial resources, +and by the immense emigration which at times threatens to drain the +older society of its working population. The spread of education has at +once undermined the blind belief of the multitude in military leaders, +and toned down the blind ferocity of instinct to which those leaders are +forced to appeal. Wars of mere spoliation are scarcely permitted to-day. +Wars of pure offence are deeply disapproved of. + +The military and diplomatic injustice of past times has left unsettled +many questions of territory and boundary which will not rest until they +shall be set right. The populations which war has plundered and +subjugated, lay their cause before the world's tribunal. In aid of this, +the friends of the true law and order are ever busy in forming a nucleus +of moral power, which governments will be forced to respect. Thus, +though the war-demon dies hard, he is doomed, and we shall yet see the +battlements of his grim cathedrals places for lovers to woo and for +babes to play in. + +In religion I have seen the dark ministrations of terror give way before +the radiant gospel of hope. I remember when Doctrine sat beside the bed +of death, and offered its flimsy synonym to the eyes upon which the +awful, eternal truth was about to dawn. I remember when a man with a +poor diploma and a human commission assumed to hold the keys of heaven +and hell in his hands, and to dispense to those who would listen to him +such immortality as he thought fit. I remember when it went hard with +those who, in forming their religious opinions, persisted in daring to +use the critical power of their own judgment. They were lonely saints; +they wandered in highways and byways, unrecognized, excommunicated of +men. No one had power to burn their bodies, but it was hoped that their +souls would not escape the torment of eternal flame. I have seen this +time, and I have lived to see a time in which these rejected stones, +hewn and polished by God's hand, have come to be recognized as +corner-stones in the practical religious building of the age. What a +discredit was it once to hear Theodore Parker! How happy are they now +esteemed who have heard him! Let not Mr. Emerson's urbanity lead him to +forget the days in which polite Boston laughed him to scorn. Brook Farm +was once looked upon as a most amusing caricature. But when the world +learned something about Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Ripley, William +Henry Channing, John Dwight, and George William Curtis, the public heart +bowed itself with remorseful homage before the ruined threshold of what +was, with all its shortcomings, a blameless temple to ideal humanity. + +It is quite true that every change which I have seen in the society of +my time cannot be said to be, in itself, for the better. The price of +progress, like that of liberty, is eternal vigilance. + +A time of religious enfranchisement may induce a period of religious +indifference. Cosmopolitan enlargement may weaken the force of +patriotism. The charity of society may degenerate into an indifference +concerning private morals, which, if it could prevail, would go far +towards destroying public ones. Humanity ever needs the watchman on the +tower. It needs the warning against danger, the guidance out of it. I +can imagine a set of prophets less absolute than the Hebrew seers, whose +denunciation of evils, near or present, should always couple itself with +profound and sober suggestions of help. And this will be the work of +faith in our day, to believe in the good which can overcome the evil, +and to seek it with earnest and brave persistence. + +Let me return for a moment, very briefly, to what I touched upon just +now, the great changes in religious thought which this century has +witnessed. What manifold contrasts have we observed in this domain! What +a wild and wide chase in the fields of conjecture! What impatience with +the idols of the past, historical and metaphysical! There have been +moments in the last twenty years in which one might have said to the +religious ideals of past ages that the time had come in which every one +who raised his hand against them thought that he was doing God service. +This iconoclasm had its time, and, one supposes, its office. + +But the religious necessities of mankind are permanent, and will outlast +any and all systems of pure criticism. The question arises, in all this +havoc of illusory impressions, Who is to provide for the culture and +direction of those instincts of reverence which are so precious to, so +ineradicable in the race? We must ask this service of those who believe +that religion is, on the whole, wiser than its critics. Those who have +been able to hold fast this persuasion will be the religious trainers of +our youth. Those who have relinquished it will have no more skill to +teach religion than a sculptor will have to feed an army. + +The greatest trouble with human society is, that its natural tendency +leads it, not to learn right measure through one excess, but, on +becoming convinced of this, to rush into an opposite excess with equal +zeal and equal error. The mechanism of society requires constant +correction in order to keep up the succession of order and progress +through and despite this proneness to extravagance and loss of power. +This rectification of direction without interruption of movement is the +office of critical and constructive thought. Precious are the men, and +rare as precious, who carry this balance in their minds, and, while the +ship lurches now on this side and now on that, strain after the compass +with masterful courage and patience. We have all known such men, but we +have known, too, that their type is not a common one. + +Among all who are out of work to-day, so far as the market is concerned, +those men of careful and critical judgment are the least called for, and +the least wished for by the majority of men. Headlong enthusiasm, +headlong activity, headlong doubt and cynicism, the prevalence of these +shows the force with which the present whirl of the spindle was cast. +Fair and softly, my quick-flying Century. To find out whether you are +going right or wrong, whether you are faithful or faithless, solvent or +bankrupt, you must have recourse to these same slow, patient men and +women, who try such questions by a more accurate and difficult method +than that of the popular inclination. + +I find that the philosopher Kant, writing more than a hundred years ago, +remarks that in so sociable an age as his own Culture must naturally be +expected to assume an encyclopedic character. It will, he says, +necessarily desire to present a manifold number of agreeable and +instructive acquisitions, easy of apprehension, for entertainment in +friendly intercourse. + +These words seem prophetic of the efforts after general information, +with a view to conversation as an accomplishment, which have constituted +a marked feature of American and English society within forty years. In +the dissolving view of the public predilection, this object has lost +much of its prominence. The ornate and well-rounded periods of the +conversationist are not more in request, nowadays, than were the +high-sounding sentiments of Joseph Surface to Sir Peter Teazle, when +experience had shown him their emptiness. + +Blunt speech and curt expression rather are in favor. The heroines of +novels are supposed to fall in love with men of a somewhat brutal type. +Adonis is out of fashion. Hercules pleases, and even Vulcan is +preferred. One thinks that the influence of the mercantile spirit may be +recognized in this change. Long speeches and roundabout statements are +found not to pay. The man who listens to them with one ear, hearkens +with the other for the ocean telegrams, news of the stock market, +considers the maturing of a note, the success or failure of a scheme. +When there is no one to listen, loquacity itself will grow economical of +breath. + +The world is quite right in its tacit protest against over talk. A great +deal of empty, irrelevant speech is liable to be imposed upon the +good-nature of society in the garb of instructive conversation. It is +weary to listen by the hour to men or women who principally teach you +their own opinion of their own erudition. But woe to the world if its +haste and greed should ever be such that the true teacher should want an +audience, the long lessons of philosophy find interpreters, but no +pupils. + +The present is, on the whole, an encyclopedic, cosmopolitan era. I +suppose that it succeeds as a reaction to one of more special and +isolated endeavor. The example and influence of Goethe have had much to +do with the formation of the ideas of culture which have been prevalent +in our time. This wonderful man went, with such a happy tact, from one +thing to another. In poetry he did so much, in high criticism so much, +in science so much, and in world-wisdom so much! How naturally were the +lovers of study, who made him their model, led to undertake, as he did, +to render the most eminent service, to attain the highest honors in a +dozen different departments! + +But the man Goethe was more wonderful even than his writings. His +individuality was too powerful to suffer loss through the variety of his +pursuits. He could be at once a courtier and a philosopher, a poet and a +scientist, a critic of morals and a man of the world, and in all things +remain himself. + +I sometimes wonder why we Americans are so apt to show, in our conduct +and remarks, an undue preponderance of what the phrenologists term love +of approbation. This is an amiable and useful trait in human nature, +which may degenerate into a weak and cowardly vanity, or even into a +malignant selfishness. To desire the approbation which can enlighten us +as to the merits of what we have done or attempted, is wise as well as +graceful. To make constant laudation a prominent object in any life is a +capital mistake in its ordering. To prefer the praise of men to the +justification of conscience, is at once cowardly and criminal. I observe +these three phases in American life. I value the first, compassionate +the second, and reprobate the third. Surely, if there is any virtue +which a republican people is bound to show, it is that self-respect +which is the only true majesty, and which can afford to be as generous +and gracious as majesty should be. + +It is, perhaps, natural that many of us should, through a want of +experience, mistake the standpoint of people conspicuous in the older +European society as greatly superior to our own. We can learn much, +indeed, from the observation of such a standpoint; but, in order to do +so, we must hold fast our own plain, honest judgment, as we derive it +from education, inheritance, and natural ability. + +It must, I should think, be very tedious and very surprising to +Europeans to hear Americans complain of being so young, so crude, so +immature. This is not according to nature. Imagine a nursery full of +babies who should bewail the fact of their infancy. Any one who should +hear such a complaint would cry out, "Why, that's the best thing about +you. You have the newness, the promise, the unwasted vigor of +childhood,--gifts so great that Christ enjoined it upon holy men to +recover, if they had lost them." + +If our society is young, its motto should be the saying of Saint Paul to +Timothy, "Let no man despise thy youth." The great men of our early +history deserve to rank with the ripest products of civilization. Was +Washington crude? Was Franklin raw? Were Jay, Jefferson, and Hamilton +immature? The authorities of the older world bowed down to them, and did +them homage. The Republicans of France laid the key of the Bastille at +the feet of Washington. Franklin was honored and admired in the court +circle of Louis XVI. There was a twofold reason for this. These men +represented the power and vigor of our youth; but our youth itself +represented the eternal principles of truth and justice, for whose +application the world had waited long. And thinking people saw in us the +dignity of that right upon which we had founded our hope and belief as a +nation. + +I will instance a single event of which I heard much during my last +visit in Rome. A German, naturalized in America, and who had made a +large fortune by a railroad contract in South America, had purchased +from some European government the title of "Count." He was betrothed to +the sister-in-law of a well-known California millionnaire, whose wife +has been for some years a resident of Paris, where her silver, her +diamonds, and her costly entertainments are matters of general remark. +All of these parties are Roman Catholics. The wedding took place in +Rome, and was signalized by a festival, at which twelve horses, belong +to the bridegroom, were ridden in a race, whose prizes were bestowed by +the hand of the bride. The invitations for this occasion were largely +distributed by a monsignor of the Romish Church, and the king of Italy +honored the newly married pair by his presence. + +Not long after this, I read in the Italian papers that this very count +had become a candidate for a seat in the Italian Parliament. I suppose +that money will assist an election as much in Italy as elsewhere. The +monsignor who interested himself so efficiently about the invitations +for the wedding party, was none other than the master of ceremonies of +Pope Leo XIII. He would, no doubt, have taken even greater interest in +the return of his friend to the Parliament. I do not know whether this +gentleman has ever succeeded in usurping the place of a representative +of the Italian people; but the chance of his being able to do so lay in +the American gold of which he had become possessed. Here is one instance +of the direct relations between Rome and America which Americans so +placidly overlook. + +In this day of the world hope is so strong, and the desire for an +improved condition so prevalent, that much may be looked for in Europe +as the result of the legitimate action and influence of America. But if +American capital busies itself with upholding the shams of the old +world, if American taste and talent are led and pledged to work with the +reactionary agents everywhere against the enfranchisement of the human +race, where shall the hope of the world find refuge? + +Goldsmith has a touching picture of the emigrants who, in his time, were +compelled to leave the country which would not feed them, for a distant +bourne, which could, by no means, be to them a home. But let us assist +at the embarkation of another group of exiles. These people have been +living abroad, and are about to return home. The rich, beautiful land +whose discovery has changed the fortunes of the human race, invites them +on the other side of the Atlantic. The flag which represents the noblest +chapter of modern history waves over them. + +From dynastic, aristocratic Europe they go to inherit the work of an +ancestry heroic in thought and action. They go to the land which still +boasts a Longfellow, a Whittier, an Emerson, a Harriet Beecher Stowe. +Are they glad? Are they happy? No. They have learned the follies of the +old world, not its wisdom. They are not going home,--they are going into +exile. + +Let us look a little at their record in the Europe which they regret so +passionately. They went abroad with money, and the education which it +commands, with leisure and health. What good deeds may they not have +done! What gratifying remembrance may they have left behind them! Shall +we not find them recorded as donors to many a noble charity, as students +in many a lofty school? We shalt indeed, sometimes. But in many cases we +shall hear only of their fine clothes and expensive entertainments, with +possible mortifying anecdotes of their fast behavior. + +If the mother leaves a daughter behind her, it is likely to be as the +wife of some needy European nobleman, who despises all that she is bound +to hold dear, and is proud not to know that which it should be her glory +to understand. + +I said at Concord, and I say it to-day, that the press is much affected +by the money debauch of the period. Let us examine the way in which this +result is likely to be brought about. + +A newspaper or periodical is almost always an investment in which the +idea of gain is very prominent. This expectation may either regard what +the proposed paper shall earn as a medium of information, or the profit +of certain enterprises which its statements may actively promote. + +Special organs are founded for special emergencies, as is a campaign +sheet, or for the advocate of special reforms, like the antislavery +"Standard" of old, and the "Woman's Journal" of to-day. These papers +rarely repay either the money advanced for them, or the literary labor +bestowed upon them. + +Under the head of its earnings the newspaper depends upon two classes of +persons, viz., its advertisers and its subscribers. Either or both of +these may be displeased by the emphatic mention of some certain fact, +the expression of some certain opinion. "If we tell this unwelcome +truth," say the managers, "we shall lose such and such subscribers. If +we take this stand, some of our wealthiest advertising firms will choose +another medium of communicating with the public." The other set of +considerations just spoken of, the enterprises which are to be favored +and promoted, may still more seriously affect the tone and action of the +paper, which will thus be drawn in a twofold way to lend itself to the +publication only of what it will pay to say. + +The annals of journalism in this country will, no doubt, show a fair +average of courageous and conscientious men among its chiefs. I am +willing to believe all things and to hope all things in this direction. +But I must confess that I fear all things, too, in view of a great +power, whose position makes it almost an irresponsible one. And I should +regard with great favor the formation of an unofficial censorship of +public organs, in view not so much of what may be published, as of what +is unfairly left out of the statements and counterstatements of +conflicting interests. + +Of all the changes which I can chronicle as of my own time, the change +in the position of women is perhaps the most marked and the least +anticipated by the world at large. Whatever opinions heroic men and +women may have held concerning this from Plato's time to our own, the +most enlightened periods of history have hardly given room to hope that +the sex in general would ever reach the enfranchisement which it enjoys +to-day. I date the assurance of its freedom from the hour in which the +first university received women graduates upon the terms accorded to +pupils of the opposite sex. For education keeps the key of life, and a +liberal education insures the first conditions of freedom, viz., +adequate knowledge and accustomed thought. This first and greatest step +gained, the gate of professional knowledge and experience quickly +opened, and that of political enfranchisement stands already ajar. The +battle can have but one result, and it has been fought, with chivalrous +temper and determination, not by one sex against the other, but by the +very gospel of fairness and justice against the intrenched might of +selfish passion, inertia, and prejudice. Equal conditions of life will +lift the whole level of society, which is so entirely one body that the +lifting or lowering of one half lifts or lowers the other half. This +change, which in the end appeared to come suddenly, has been prepared by +such gradual tentatives, by such long and sound labor, that we need not +fear to lose sight of it in any sudden collapse. There are women of my +age, and women of earlier generations, who have borne it in their hearts +all their lives through, who have prayed and worked for it, without rest +and without discouragement. Horace Mann was its apostle, Theodore Parker +was its prophet, Margaret Fuller, Lucy Stone, and a host of wise and +true-hearted women, whom the time would fail me to name, have been its +female saints. It was in nature; they have brought it into life; even as +Christ said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." The slender +thread which crossed the dark abyss of difficulty was not the silken +spinning of vanity, nor the cobweb fibre of madness. From the faith of +pure hearts the steadfast links were wrought, and the great chasm is +spanned, and is ready to become the strong and sure highway of hope, for +this nation and for the nations of the earth. + +The customs of society prescribe the mental garb and gait proper to +those who desire the favorable notice of their peers in their own time. +As these are partly matters of tradition and inheritance, we can learn +something of the merits and demerits of a generation by studying the +habits of familiar judgment which it hands down to its successor. A +narrow, ill-educated generation leaves behind it corresponding garments +of rule and prescription, to which the next generation must for a time +accommodate itself, because a custom or a fashion is not made in a day. +The rulers of society seem often more occupied in dwarfing the mind to +suit the custom than in enlarging the custom so as to fit it to the +growth of mind. The most dangerous rebellions, individual and social, +are natural revolts against the small tyranny which perpetuates the +insufficiency of the past. + +The copper shoes which so cramp the foot of a female infant in China as +to destroy its power of growth, are not more cruel or deleterious than +are the habits of unreflecting prejudice which compress the growth of +human minds until they, too, lose their native power of expansion, and +the idol Prejudice is enthroned and worshipped by those on whom it has +imposed its own deformity as the standard of truth and beauty. + +The heavy tasks which nature imposes upon women leave them less at +leisure than men to reform and readjust these inherited garments. The +necessity for prompt and early action obliges them to follow the +intuitive faculties, as all must do who have not time to work out the +problems of the reasoning ones. The instinct of possession is a ruling +one in human nature, and a woman inheriting a superstition or a +prejudice holds fast to it because it is something, and she has got it. +It seems to her a possession. It may be a mischievous and unfortunate +one, but it will take a good deal of time and thought to find that out. +Those who have the training of women's minds often train them away from +such a use of time and from such a labor of thought. Hence the fatal +persistence of large classes of women in superstitions which the +thinking world has outgrown, and the equally fatal zeal with which they +impose the same insufficient modes of judgment upon their children. + +I pray this generation of women, which has seen such enlargements of the +old narrow order regarding the sex, I pray it to deserve its high post +as guardian of the future. Let it bequeath to its posterity a noble +standard of womanhood, free, pure, and, above all, laborious. + +The standard of manhood really derives from that of womanhood, and not +_vice versa_, as many imagine. However we may receive from tradition the +order of their material creation, in that of training and education, +the woman's influence comes before that of the man, and outlasts it. + +The figure of the infant Christ dwells always in our mind, accompanied +by that of the gracious mother who gave Him to the world. Let the fact +of this great gift prefigure to us the august office of Woman. Hers be +it also to preserve and transmit from age to age the Christian doctrine +and the Christlike faith. And, in order that she may fully realize the +glory and blessedness of giving, let her remember that what is worthily +given to one time is given to all time. + + + * * * * * + + + + + UNIFORM WITH ARNOLD'S POEMS. + + + THE LIGHT OF ASIA; OR, The Great Renunciation. + + Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder + of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist). + + BY EDWIN ARNOLD, M.A. + + "It is a work of great beauty. It tells a story of + intense interest, which never flags for a moment; its + descriptions are drawn by the hand of a master with the + eye of a poet and the familiarity of an expert with the + objects described; its tone is so lofty that there is + nothing with which to compare it but the New Testament; + it is full of variety, now picturesque, now pathetic, + now rising into the noblest realms of thought and + aspiration; it finds language penetrating, fluent, + elevated, impassioned, musical always, to clothe its + varied thoughts and sentiments."--OLIVER WENDELL + HOLMES, _International Review_, October, 1879. + + "In Mr. Edwin Arnold, Indian poetry and Indian thought + have at length found a worthy English exponent. He + brings to his work the facility of a ready pen, a + thorough knowledge of his subject, a great sympathy for + the people of this country, and a command of public + attention at home."--_Calcutta Englishman._ + + "'The Light of Asia' is a remarkable poem, and worthy of + a place amongst the great poems of our time. Mr. Arnold + is far more than 'a coiner of sweet words'--he is the + exponent of noble impressions. He is a scholar and a + philosopher; but he is also a true singer."--_London + Daily Telegraph._ + + + LIBRARY EDITION. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00 + CHEAP EDITION. 16mo. Paper. Price .25 + + ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. + + + + + _Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications._ + + ON THE RIGHT USE OF BOOKS. + + A LECTURE. By WILLIAM P. ATKINSON, Professor of English + and History in the Massachusetts Institute of + Technology. 16mo. Cloth. Price 50 cents. + + "Full of good sense, sound taste, and quiet + humor.... It is the easiest thing in the world to + waste time over books, which are merely tools of + knowledge like any other tools.... It is the + function of a good book not only to fructify, but + to inspire, not only to fill the memory with + evanescent treasures, but to enrich the imagination + with forms of beauty and goodness which leave a + lasting impression on the character."--_N. Y. + Tribune._ + + "Contains so many wise suggestions concerning + methods in study and so excellent a summary of the + nature and principles of a really liberal education + that it well deserves publication for the benefit of + the reading public. Though it makes only a slight + volume, its quality in thought and style is so + admirable that all who are interested in the subject + of good education will give to it a prominent and + honorable position among the many books upon + education which have recently been published. For it + takes only a brief reading to perceive that in this + single lecture the results of wide experience in + teaching and of long study of the true principles of + education are generalized and presented in a few + pages, each one of which contains so much that it + might be easily expanded into an excellent + chapter."--_The Library Table._ + + + READING AS A FINE ART. + + By ERNEST LEGOUVÉ, of the Académie Française. + Translated from the Ninth Edition by ABBY LANGDON + ALGER. 16mo. Cloth. 50 cents. + + + (_Dedication._) + TO THE SCHOLARS OF THE HIGH AND NORMAL SCHOOL. + + For you this sketch was written: permit me to + dedicate it to you, in fact, to intrust it to your + care. Pupils to-day, to-morrow you will be + teachers; to-morrow, generation after generation of + youth will pass through your guardian hands. An + idea received by you must of necessity reach + thousands of minds. Help me, then, to spread abroad + the work in which you have some share, and allow me + to add to the great pleasure of having numbered you + among my hearers the still greater happiness of + calling you my assistants. E. LEGOUVÉ. + + We commend this valuable little book to the + attention of teachers and others interested in the + instruction of the pupils of our public schools. It + treats of the "First Steps in Reading," "Learning-to + Read," "Should we read as we talk," "The Use and + Management of the Voice," "The Art of Breathing," + "Pronunciation," "Stuttering," "Punctuation," + "Readers and Speakers," "Reading as a Means of + Criticism," "On Reading Poetry," &c., and makes a + strong claim as to the value of reading aloud, as + being the most wholesome of gymnastics, for to + strengthen the voice is to strengthen the whole + system and develop vocal power. + + _Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the + Publishers_, + + ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. + + + + + THE NO NAME (SECOND) SERIES. + SIGNOR MONALDINI'S NIECE. + + _Extracts from some Opinions by well-known Authors._ + + "We have read 'Signor Monaldini's Niece' with intensest + interest and delight. The style is finished and + elegant, the atmosphere of the book is enchanting. We + seem to have lived in Italy while we were reading it. + The author has delineated with a hand as steady as it + is powerful and skilful some phases of human life and + experience that authors rarely dare attempt, and with + marvellous success. We think this volume by far the + finest of the No Name Series." + + "It is a delicious story. I feel as if I had been to + Italy and knew all the people.... Miss Conroy is a + strong character, and her tragedy is a fine background + for the brightness of the other and higher natures. It + is all so dramatic and full of color it goes on like a + lovely play and leaves one out of breath when the + curtain falls." + + "I have re-read it with great interest, and think as + highly of it as ever.... The characterization in it is + capital, and the talk wonderfully well done from first + to last." + + "The new No Name is enchanting. It transcends the + ordinary novel just as much as a true poem by a true + poet transcends the thousand and one imitations.... It + is the episode, however, of Miss Conroy and Mrs. Brandon + that is really of most importance in this book.... I + hope every woman who reads this will be tempted to read + the book, and that she will in her turn bring it to the + reading of other women, especially if she can find any + Mrs. Brandon in her circle." + + In one volume, 16mo, bound in green cloth, black and + gilt lettered. Price $1.00. + + _Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When + not to be found, send directly to_ + + ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. + + + + + The No Name (Second) Series. + + + THE COLONEL'S OPERA CLOAK. + + "A jollier, brighter, breezier, more entertaining book + than 'The Colonel's Opera Cloak' has not been published + for many a day. We defy the coldest-blooded reader to + lay it down before it is finished, or to read it + through without feeling his time well spent. There is + plenty of satire in its pages, but it is good-natured + satire. The characters are sharply drawn--some of them + from nature, we fancy--and there is spice enough in the + way of incident to satisfy the most exacting palate. Of + course, everybody will read it, and, in that + presumption, we promise everybody two hours of thorough + enjoyment."--_Boston Transcript._ + + "The No Name Series abounds in contrasts, and that + between 'Signor Monaldini's Niece' and the present story + is among the most decided it has offered. This we do not + mention by way of disparagement. On the contrary, we can + see a distinctive merit in a series which includes so + much variety of aim and interest as this does, without + any regard for the conventional demand that a succession + of stories in the same binding should all be of one + school and in something the same tone. We can see why an + admirer of the last novel may at first be taken aback by + the light tone of this, and in so far disappointed; but + we shall expend no sympathy on that person. 'The + Colonel's Opera Cloak' is a bright and thoroughly + alluring little book, with which it would be foolish to + find fault on any score. And, more than that, it is well + written and brimming over with wit. The notion of a + story in which there is avowedly no hero or heroine + excepting an old opera cloak, is clever, and, so far as + we know, quite new.... We can assure every one who + wishes the double pleasure of laughter and literary + enjoyment, that this is one of the books to carry to the + country."--_Boston Courier._ + + "The author's touch is always that of the artist; it + always has the magic power of portraying individual men + and women, never giving us shadowy outlines, however few + or hurried the strokes of the pencil may be, and saying + this we say that the author of 'The Colonel's Opera + Cloak' has in large measure the best and most necessary + qualification for doing really fine work in fiction. If + he is still young, as certain things in his story + indicate that he is, his future efforts may well be + looked for hopefully."--_N.Y. Evening Post._ + + + In one volume. 16mo. Green cloth. Price $1.00. + + _Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. + When not to be found, send directly to_ + ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, =BOSTON=. + + + + + SARAH TYTLER'S ART BOOKS. + + + THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES. + + + MODERN PAINTERS AND THEIR PAINTINGS. + + By SARAH TYTLER, author of "Papers for Thoughtful Girls." + 16mo. Cloth, neat. Price of each, $1.50. + + Designed for the use of Schools and Learners in Art, + and extensively used in Academies, Seminaries, &c., + throughout the country. + + "An excellent introduction to the history of + art."--_Daily News._ + + "These two books give in a simple and concise manner + the prominent facts that every one who desires to be + well informed should know about the great artists of + the world. For beginners in art and for school use + they are valuable."--_Courier-Journal._ + + "Really supplies what has long been a want."--_British + Quarterly Review._ + + "We are not aware of any work of the kind written with + so much intelligence which yet is so + untechnical."--_Nonconformist._ + + "Too much praise cannot be given the conscientious + manner in which the author has worked. There is no + obtrusion of useless details or of unwelcome + criticism; but in very pleasant style, with clear and + well-defined purpose, the story of the growth and + progress of art is told through the lives and works of + artists. The volumes are most agreeable reading and + profitable study."--_Boston Post._ + + + MUSICAL COMPOSERS AND THEIR WORKS. + + For the Use of Schools and Students in America. By + SARAH TYTLER. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. + + In this unostentatious but carefully written volume, + the author of "Old Masters" and "Modern Painters" has + given a simple account of the great musicians of the + world and of their works. The book is designed more + especially for the use of young people in the course + of their musical education, but the author + trusts--and with very good reason--that it will + commend itself also to older people, who are + interested in the subject, but who have not time or + opportunity to refer to original sources of + information. Not the least attractive portion of the + work is the sketch of Wagner with which it closes. + + + + + [Illustration] + + "NO NAME SERIES." + + _The First Series, completed_, + COMPRISES TWELVE NOVELS, VIZ., + + MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE. HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY. + IS THAT ALL? WILL DENBIGH, EMAN. + KISMET. THE WOLF AT THE DOOR. + THE GREAT MATCH. MARMORNE. + A MODERN MEPHISTOPHELES. MIRAGE. + AFTERGLOW. GEMINI. + + AND TWO POETICAL VOLUMES: + + DEIRDRÉ. A Novel in Verse. + + A MASQUE OF POETS. Original Poems, by Fifty Poets, + written specially for this book; including "GUY VERNON," + an entire Novelette in verse. + + Fourteen volumes in all, uniformly bound in black cloth, + red and gilt lettered. Price $1.00 each. + + + NO NAME [SECOND] SERIES. + + The new series will retain all the peculiar features + which made the first so popular, differing from it only + in the style of binding. Now ready, + + SIGNOR MONALDINI'S NIECE, + THE COLONEL'S OPERA CLOAK, + HIS MAJESTY, MYSELF, + MRS. BEAUCHAMP BROWN, + Price $1.00 each. SALVAGE. + + _Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. + When not to be found send directly to_ + + ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, BOSTON. + + + + + + THE "NO NAME SERIES." + + KISMET. A Nile Novel. + + + Opinions, generous tributes to genius, by well-known authors + whose names are withheld. + + "Well, I have read 'Kismet,' and it is certainly + very remarkable. The story is interesting,--any + well-told love story is, you know,--but the book + itself is a great deal more so. Descriptively and + sentimentally,--I use the word with entire + respect,--it is, in spots, fairly exquisite. It + seems to me all glowing and overflowing with what + the French call _beauté du diable_.... The + conversations are very clever, and the wit is often + astonishingly like the wit of an accomplished man + of the world. One thing which seems to me to show + promise--great promise, if you will--for the future + is that the author can not only reproduce the + conversation of one brilliant man, but can make two + men talk together as if they _were_ men,--not women + in manly clothes." + + "It is a charming book. I have read it twice, and + looked it over again, and I wish I had it all new to + sit up with to-night. It is so fresh and sweet and + innocent and joyous, the dialogue is so natural and + bright, the characters so keenly edged, and the + descriptions so poetic. I don't know when I have + enjoyed any thing more,--never since I went sailing + up the Nile with Harriet Martineau.... You must give + the author love and greeting from one of the + fraternity. The hand that gives us _this_ pleasure + will give us plenty more of an improving quality + every year, I think." + + "'Kismet' is indeed a delightful story, the best of + the series undoubtedly." + + "If 'Kismet' is the first work of a young lady, as + reported, it shows a great gift of language, and + powers of description and of insight into character + and life quite uncommon.... Of the whole series so + far, I think 'Mercy Philbrick's Choice' is the best, + because it has, beside literary merit, some moral + tone and vigor. Still there are capabilities in the + writer of 'Kismet' even higher than in that of the + writer of 'Mercy Philbrick's Choice.'" + + "I liked it extremely. It is the best in the series + so far, except in construction, in which 'Is That + All?' slight as it is, seems to me superior. + 'Kismet' is winning golden opinions everywhere. I + have nothing but praises for it, and have nothing + but praise to give it." + + "I have read 'Kismet' once, and mean to read it + again. It is thoroughly charming, and will be a + success." + + One volume, bound in cardinal red and black. Price + $1.00. + + Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When + not to be found, send directly to + + ROBERTS BROTHERS, + Publishers, Boston. + + + + + PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. + _From the Boston Daily Advertiser._ + + + THE "NO NAME SERIES." + + "LEIGH HUNT, _in his 'Indicator,' has a pleasant + chapter on the difficulty he encountered in seeking a + suitable and fresh title for a collection of his + miscellaneous writings. Messrs. Roberts Brothers have + just overcome a similar difficulty in the simplest + manner. In selecting_ "NO NAME," _they have selected + the very best title possible for a series of Original + American Novels and Tales, to be published Anonymously. + These novels are to be written by eminent authors, and + in each case the authorship of the work is to remain an + inviolable secret. "No Name" describes the Series + perfectly. No name will help the novel, or the story, + to success. Its success will depend solely on the + writer's ability to catch and retain the reader's + interest. Several of the most distinguished writers of + American fiction have agreed to contribute to the + Series, the initial volume of which is now in press. + Its appearance will certainly be awaited with + curiosity_." + + [Illustration] + + The plan thus happily foreshadowed will be immediately + inaugurated by the publication of "MERCY PHILBRICK'S + CHOICE," from the pen of a well-known and successful + writer of fiction. + + It is intended to include in the Series a volume of + anonymous poems from famous hands, to be written + especially for it. + + The "No Name Series" will be issued at convenient + intervals, in handsome library form, 16mo, cloth, price + $1.00 each. + + + ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. + BOSTON, Midsummer, 1876. + + + * * * * * + + + + + TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + + + Punctuation has been normalized. + + On page 52 "immediatly" changed to "immediately". + "... the generation immediately preceding my own." + + On page 54 "self-dicipline" changed to "self-discipline". + "Without self-discipline and self-sacrifice...." + + On page 61 "superflous" changed to "superfluous." + "... with superfluous irrelevancies...." + + On page 72 "religous" changed to "religious." + "... will be the religious trainers...." + + On page 72 capitalization in "Who" retained as printed. + + On page 86 "aginst" changed to "against." + "... revolts against the small tyranny...." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Society, by Julia Ward Howe + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN SOCIETY *** + +***** This file should be named 36489-8.txt or 36489-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/8/36489/ + +Produced by Sharon Joiner, paksenarrion, Bryan Ness and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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