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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f85818 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62756 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62756) diff --git a/old/62756-0.txt b/old/62756-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1a4d910..0000000 --- a/old/62756-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3082 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Margaret and Her Friends, by -Margaret Fuller and Caroline Wells Healey Dall - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Margaret and Her Friends - or, Ten conversations with Margaret Fuller upon the - mythology of the Greeks and its expression in art, held - at the house of the Rev. George Ripley, Bedford Place, - Boston, beginning March 1, 1841 - -Author: Margaret Fuller - Caroline Wells Healey Dall - -Release Date: July 25, 2020 [EBook #62756] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS *** - - - - -Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - -MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS - - - - -BY THE SAME AUTHOR. - - -WHAT WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.25. - -THE LIFE OF DR. ANANDABAI JOSHEE, a Kinswoman of the Pundita Ramabai. -12mo, cloth. Price, $1.00. - -LETTERS HOME FROM COLORADO, UTAH, AND CALIFORNIA. 12mo. Price, $1.50. - -BARBARA FRITCHIE. A Study. With Portrait. 12mo. Price, $1.00. - - ROBERTS BROTHERS, - _Publishers_. - - - - - MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS - OR - Ten Conversations - WITH - MARGARET FULLER - UPON - THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS AND - ITS EXPRESSION IN ART - - HELD AT THE HOUSE OF THE REV. GEORGE RIPLEY - - BEDFORD PLACE, BOSTON - - _BEGINNING MARCH 1, 1841_ - - REPORTED BY CAROLINE W. HEALEY - - BOSTON - ROBERTS BROTHERS - 1895 - - _Copyright, 1895_, - BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. - - _All rights reserved._ - - University Press: - JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - - - -TABLE OF CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - PREFACE 5 - - MEMBERS OF THE CLASS 17 - - I. GENERAL MYTHOLOGICAL STATEMENT 25 - - II. GENERAL STATEMENT CONTINUED. R. W. E. PRESENT[1] 40 - - III. STORY FROM NOVALIS. APOLLO 60 - - IV. MINERVA. THE SERPENT 77 - - V. VENUS AND PSYCHE. R. W. E. PRESENT 95 - - VI. CUPID AND PSYCHE. MARGARET, AND ELISABETH HOAR 106 - - VII. PLUTO AND TARTARUS 123 - - VIII. MERCURY AND ORPHEUS. R. W. E. PRESENT 135 - - IX. HERMES AND ORPHEUS 147 - - X. BACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS 156 - - - - -PREFACE. - - -In 1839, Margaret Fuller, delicate in health and much overtaxed, -consented to gratify many who loved her by opening in Boston a series of -“Conversations for Women.” In a Circular quoted by Emerson, she says to -Mrs. Sophia Ripley:— - - “Could a circle be assembled in earnest, desirous to answer the - questions, ‘What were we born to do?’ and ‘How shall we do it?’ - I should think the undertaking a noble one.” - -This was certainly the original intent of the famous “Fuller -Conversations,” which, beginning then, were continued at intervals, -until Margaret left Boston for New York in 1844. - -It seems a little singular, therefore, to find her writing to Ralph Waldo -Emerson of this series, Nov. 25, 1839, as follows:— - - “The first day’s topic was the genealogy of Heaven and Earth; - then the Will or Jupiter; the Understanding, Mercury: the - second day’s, The celestial inspiration of Genius, perception - and transmission of Divine Law; Apollo the terrene inspiration, - Bacchus the impassioned abandonment. Of the thunderbolt, the - caduceus, the ray and the grape, having disposed as well as - might be, we came to the wave and the sea-shell it moulds to - beauty.... - - “I assure you, there is more Greek than Bostonian spoken at the - meetings!” - -Under the forms suggested by Mythology, Margaret proceeded to open all -the great questions of life. In a literary sense, she distinctly stated -that she knew little about the doings on Olympus, nor had she received -any help from German critical works,—of which at the present day she -would have found many. - -These Conversations owed their attraction first to the absolute novelty -of her theme to many of those she addressed, and still more to the -variety and freshness of her own treatment. The opening, at the Boston -Athenæum, of the splendid collection of casts presented by Thomas -Handasyd Perkins, and many private collections of pictures, engravings, -gems, and miniature casts, had interested her intensely, and both mind -and fancy were absorbed in the contemplation of their themes. In these -Conversations she depicted what she had gained from Art, rather than -the little that she had acquired through study. If I may judge from -a later experience, her Latin studies rather injured than developed -her brilliant fancies. She never could remember what she had said, -never could repeat a brilliant saying, and, if obliged to read any -illustration, read it, as all her friends admitted, very badly. From a -statement made to Emerson, I quote the following:— - - “Her mood applied itself to the mood of her companion, point - to point, in the most limber, sinuous, vital way; ... and this - sympathy she had for all persons indifferently.” - -The communication of which the above is a sample I have always read with -amazement, for I never knew a person of whom it would seem less true. -When conversing with one sympathetic person, it was undoubtedly true; -when resting upon the affection and loyalty of her young women,—a most -gifted and extraordinary circle,—it was doubtless equally so; but when -the class of March, 1841, was formed, a very different aspect of herself -appeared. - -The fame of her “talks” had spread. She had great need of money, and some -of the gentlemen who were accustomed to talk with her, and some of the -ladies of her day-class, suggested an evening class, to be composed of -both ladies and gentlemen, and to meet at the house of the Rev. George -Ripley in Bedford Place. Ten Conversations were to be held, and the -tickets of admission cost twenty dollars each, a very high price for -that time. It was in the book-room of Elisabeth Peabody that I first -heard them discussed. I was very young to join such a circle; and when -she invited me, Elisabeth had more regard, I think, to Margaret’s purse, -than to my fitness for the company. But it was a great opportunity. The -members were full of excitement over the projected opening of Brook -Farm. All were in good spirits, and bright sayings ran back and forth. -I had been carefully trained in the Art of Reporting, and at that time -made careful abstracts on the following day of any lecture that had -interested me. In these I trusted to my memory. It was not possible to -do this with the Conversations; so I invented a sort of short-hand, and -carried note-book and pencil with me. I sat a little out of sight that I -might not embarrass Margaret, but Elisabeth Peabody and Mrs. Farrar found -me out. Elisabeth wrote what she called an abstract, every night; but an -examination of her abstracts quoted by Mr. Emerson shows that what she -wrote was not what any one said, but the impression made upon her own -mind by it. These abstracts she always read to me, the next morning. I -wrote out my short-hand notes before breakfast and carried them down to -her about noon. I greatly enjoyed listening to her papers, and she was so -absorbed in them that she often forgot to ask for mine, which was a great -relief to me. - -So far as I know, these Reports of mine are the only attempt ever made -deliberately to represent these or any of Margaret’s “Conversations” -word for word. Of course, much was omitted as not worth recording, nor -did I ever write down anything that I could not understand. Many of the -members I knew intimately, and fell naturally into writing of them by -initials and first names, as they always spoke to and of each other. At -times I fell back into the Mr., Mrs., or Miss, which was my own habit. -It is well to call those we love by any name they will permit, but the -familiar habit of the Transcendental circle was full of social peril to -the younger members, who, conceiving it a proof of genius, followed it, -when its origin was forgotten, and were much misunderstood in consequence -in later years. - -I offer the Reports exactly as they were written. I should like to alter -them in several small ways if I could do it honestly. We met to discuss -Grecian Mythology as interpreted to Margaret’s mind by Art; but Latin and -Greek names were used as if they were synonymous, and Latin poems were -quoted, as well as Greek traditions. This confused my mind then, and does -still. Athene and Minerva, Zeus and Jupiter, are by no means the same -persons to me, Art or no Art. - -It may be thought by those who cannot remember the persons who enacted -this little drama, or by those who do remember and know well how very -distinguished a company this was, that I should have eliminated my own -reflections, and dropped out of the story. - -This would I think have been greatly unjust to Margaret, who never -enjoyed this mixed class, and considered it a failure so far as her own -power was concerned. She and Mr. Emerson met like Pyramus and Thisbe, -a blank wall between. With Mr. Alcott she had no patience, and no one -of the class seemed to understand how sincere and deep was her interest -in the theme. In no way was Margaret’s supremacy so evident as in the -impulse she gave to the minds of younger women. - -It was the wish of Margaret’s mother and brothers, as it is also the -wish of her surviving relatives, that I should print these pages. After -Arthur’s death, Richard Fuller undertook to carry out a plan to which -both had agreed, and which Margaret’s mother had greatly at heart. -They desired that I should write a simple, straightforward account of -Margaret, including her residence in Italy, her marriage, the birth -of her child, and her death. This they intended to print at their own -expense, and they thought it might be so written as to put an end to many -absurd and painful rumors which had followed the publication of the first -Memoir. That I might prepare for this, all Margaret’s manuscripts were in -my custody for more than a year. The completion of the work was prevented -by Richard Fuller’s unexpected death. No surviving member of the family -was able to carry out his intention. - -I still have in my possession the estimate of his sister’s character -which Richard made for my use. - -I should like to add, that the scholar will see that the stories from -Apuleius and Novalis do not exactly correspond to the originals. They -were reported exactly as they were told. - - CAROLINE HEALEY DALL. - - Sept. 1, 1895, WASHINGTON, D. C. - - - - -A LIST OF PERSONS ATTENDING THE CLASS NAMED IN THIS REPORT. - -_About thirty persons usually attended._ - - - GEORGE RIPLEY. The well-known clergyman, settled over a - Unitarian church in Purchase St., Boston, afterward the - President of the Association at Brook Farm, and later literary - editor of the New York “Tribune.” - - SOPHIA DANA RIPLEY, his wife. - - ELISABETH PALMER PEABODY. A woman of remarkable accumulations - of learning, and as remarkable a breadth of sympathy. She - was a teacher,—an enthusiastic advocate of the Kindergarten, - and opened at No. 13 West St., Boston, a foreign Circulating - Library, which soon became a sort of Literary Exchange of the - greatest use to New England. Her own great powers did not - accomplish all they ought, because it was impossible for her to - apply them systematically. - - FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE. The well-known German and ecclesiastical - scholar, whose remarkable scholarship and character have not - yet received the commemoration they deserve. He was at this - time settled over the church in Bangor, Maine. - - JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. Already the pastor of the Church of the - Disciples, in Boston, and preaching at Amory Hall. The outline - of his lovely and useful life is preserved in a memoir by the - Rev. E. E. Hale, D.D. - - RALPH WALDO EMERSON. The Concord philosopher. - - MRS. FARRAR, born Rotch, the wife of the Harvard Professor of - Physical Science and Mathematics. - - FRANCIS G. SHAW. The son of a well-known Boston merchant, to - be honored through all time as the father of Colonel Robert G. - Shaw, who was buried where he fell, with the negroes whom he - died to free. - - MRS. SARAH B. SHAW, his wife. - - ANN WILBY CLARKE, wife of a Boston bank-officer and the oldest - member of an English family of Wilbys, nearly every member of - which was at some time a teacher in Boston or its neighborhood. - - MRS. JONATHAN RUSSELL of Milton, widow of the U. S. Minister - to Sweden (1814-1818), residing on the old Governor Hutchinson - place at Milton, and - - MISS IDA RUSSELL, her daughter. - - WILLIAM WHITE. The brother of the first wife of James Russell - Lowell, who was killed by a fall from the bluff at Milwaukee in - 1856. - - WILLIAM W. STORY. Sculptor, poet, and lawyer, and well known as - a contributor to Blackwood. Still living. - - CAROLINE STURGIS, daughter of William Sturgis of - Boston,—married later to Mr. Tappan,—a most gifted and charming - creature. - - MRS. ANNA BARKER WARD, wife of S. G. Ward, now living in - Washington. - - JONES VERY of Salem. A Transcendental poet. - - ELISABETH HOAR was the daughter of Samuel Hoar of Concord, - Mass., and of Sarah, the daughter of Roger Sherman of - Connecticut. Elisabeth was not the least gifted of her very - gifted family. One brother, recently deceased, was President - Grant’s first Attorney-General; another is the well-known - Senator from Massachusetts to the Congress of the United - States; and a third, Edward Sherman Hoar, was distinguished - as a scholar and botanist. To great intellectual gifts, - Elisabeth added personal loveliness and a saintly serenity of - character. She was betrothed to Charles Emerson (a brother of - Ralph Waldo Emerson), who died of sudden illness just before - the time appointed for their marriage. He was also a rarely - gifted person, and after his death his family transferred their - tenderest affection to Elisabeth. The reader of the various - Lives of Emerson will see that she is often mentioned, and - several of Emerson’s letters are addressed to her. Had she - chosen to devote herself to literature, she would have been - greatly distinguished. The Life of Mrs. Ripley of Waltham, - written for “The Women of Our First Century,” and published - by a committee appointed at the Centennial Exhibition in - Philadelphia, was written by her. She died in 1878. - - A. BRONSON ALCOTT of Concord. A memoir of him has been written - by the Hon. F. B. Sanborn of Concord, assisted by Wm. T. Harris. - - W. MACK. A gentleman of great ability, who taught a school - in Belmont. His daughter was the first wife of Stillman, the - artist. The family is, I think, extinct, unless Mrs. Stillman - left a daughter. - - SOPHIA PEABODY. A younger sister of E. P. P., afterwards Mrs. - Nathaniel Hawthorne. - - MARIANNE JACKSON. A lovely, beloved, and accomplished woman, - who died early. She was the daughter of Judge Charles Jackson, - one of the soundest jurists who ever sat on a Massachusetts - bench,—the sister of Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Mrs. - Charles C. Paine, and the aunt, I believe, of Mr. John T. Morse. - -I have reserved for the last the name of the only sound Greek scholar -among us: Charles Wheeler. - - CHARLES STEARNS WHEELER. Born in Lincoln, near Concord, Dec. - 19, 1816, of H. U. 1837, distinguished as a Greek scholar from - whom much was expected. To economize in order to pursue his - Greek studies he built a shanty at Walden, which is said to - have served as a suggestion to Thoreau. He went to Germany - directly after these Conversations, and died suddenly of fever - at Leipzig, in the summer of 1843. His death was a great - grief and a great shock. I have not forgotten the sensation - it produced. Beloved and honored by all who knew him, the - community of scholars was especially bereaved. To this day, I - am able to trust fearlessly to any information obtained from - him. - - - - -“_Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness._”—LONGFELLOW. - - - - -MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS. - - - - -I. - - - _Monday Evening, March 1, 1841._ - -Margaret opened the conversation by a beautiful sketch of the origin of -Mythology. The Greeks she thought borrowed their Gods from the Hindus and -Egyptians, but they idealized their personifications to a far greater -extent. The Hindus dwelt in the All, the Infinite, which the Greeks -analyzed and to some degree humanized. All things sprang from Cœlus and -Terra.,—that is, from Heaven and Earth, or spirit and matter. Rhea, or -the Productive Energy, and Saturn, or Time, were the children of Cœlus -and Terra. The progress of any people is marked by its mythi. Mythology -is only the history of the development of the Infinite in the Finite. -Saturn devoured his own children until the disappointed Rhea put a -stone (or obstacle) in his way, and she succeeded in raising Jupiter. -The development of human faculties was slow, therefore Time seemed to -absorb all that Productive Energy brought forth, until Energy itself -created obstacles; and of these was born the Indomitable Will. Jupiter -represented that Will, and usurped the rule of Time, fighting with the -low and sensual passions, represented by the Titans and the Giants, -until he seated himself securely on the Olympian Throne, the Father of -the Gods. This Will was not in itself the highest development of either -Beauty, Genius, Wisdom, or Thought; but such developments were subject to -it, were its children. - -Juno is only the feminine form of this Indomitable Will. By herself -she is inferior to it, and whenever she opposes it, loses the game. -Vulcan, her child, is Mechanic Art, great in itself to be sure, but not -comparable to the Perfect Wisdom, or Minerva, which sprang ready armed -from the masculine Will. _She_ was greater than her Father, but still his -child. - -Neptune, who raises always a “placid head above the waves,” represents -the flow of thought,—all-embracing, girdling in the world, Diana and -Apollo, or Purity and Genius. - -Mercury is Genius in the extrinsic, of eloquence, human understanding, -and expression. All were the embodiments of Absolute Ideas, of ideas -that had no origin,—that were eternal. Love brooded over Chaos; and the -perfect Beauty and Love, represented among the Greeks by Venus and her -son, rose from the turbid elements. It is singular that even the ancients -should have maintained the pre-existence of Love. It was before Order, -Men, or the Gods men worshipped. The fable suggests the truth,—Infinite -Love and Beauty always was. It is only with their development in finite -beings that History has to do. - -Here MARGARET recapitulated. The Indomitable Will had dethroned Time, -and, acting with Productive Energy,—variously represented at different -times by Isis, Rhea, Ceres, Persephone, and so on,—had driven back the -sensual passions to the bowels of the earth, while it produced Perfect -Wisdom, Genius, Beauty, and Love, results which were more excellent if -not more powerful than their Cause. - -To understand this Mythology, we must denationalize ourselves, and throw -the mind back to the consideration of Greek Art, Literature, and Poesy. -It is only scanty justice that my pen can render to Margaret’s eloquent -talk. - -FRANK SHAW asked her how she imagined these personifications to have -suggested themselves in that barbarous age. - -MARGARET objected to the word _barbarous_. She believed that in the age -of Plato the human intellect reached a point as elevated in some respects -as any it had ever touched. - -But the Gods were not the product of that age, but of another far -more remote, FRANK objected. Was not the infinity of Hindu conception -impaired, when the Greeks attributed to the Gods the duties, passions, -and criminal indulgences of men? - -MRS. RIPLEY said that the virtue of the Hindu lay in contemplation. If a -man had seen _God_, he was exempt from the ordinary obligations of life, -and allowed to pass his life in quiet adoration. - -MARGARET added that the Greek knew better than that. _He_ felt the -necessity of developing the Infinite through action, and embodied this -necessity in his art and poesy as well as in his myths. - -FRANK seemed still to think that in losing the adoring contemplation of -the Hindu, and bringing their deities to the human level, the Greeks had -taken one step down. - -E. P. P. had always thought it had been a step _up_, and ANN CLARKE -thought that the Greeks forgot themselves, merged all remembrance of the -Finite, in realizing the individual forces of the Infinite. - -WILLIAM WHITE, who had not waded very far into the stream, thought the -North American Indian’s worship of the Manitou purer than the Greek -worship, for the very reason that the Indian ascribed to his Manitou no -passion that had degraded humanity. - -MARGARET said that the Indian propitiated his God by vile deeds, by -ignoble treacheries and revenge. So the Hindu throws her child into the -Ganges, and an ecstatic crowd falls before the car of Juggernaut. - -I thought a good deal, but did not speak. Did not William’s question -grow out of the simple Unity of the Indian worship? But the Indian does -not worship the Manitou because he recognizes a single First Cause, -comprehending in itself all beauty, wisdom, purity, and truth, but -because his heart is naturally lifted toward an unknown something, -which he has hardly yet considered as a Cause. The Greek recognized the -abstract forces of the Universe, but did not perceive their Unity, and -so personified them separately. - -E. P. P. suggested that the Indian had no literature, and had left no -record of his Olympus! - -MARGARET added that, if we compare the Indian Elysium with the Greek, the -difference in spirituality is perceived at once. - -HENRY HEDGE said that Frank Shaw talked about Greek mythi, but nobody -could show a purely Greek mythos. - -FRANK replied that he only meant that when the Greek mind had acted on a -myth, it had not refined it. - -MARGARET added that it was a vulgar notion that the Poets of Greece -created her Gods; that the Poets were objective, and could give only -humanized representations of them. - -HENRY HEDGE thought that there was a point to which philosophy aided and -prompted the creative power, but, that point passed, rather checked its -action. Analysis took the place of the objective tendency. - -Well! said WILLIAM WHITE, would not the human mind, aided only by -culture, be incapable of any better idea than Frank Shaw suggested? Must -not revelation complete the work? - -MARGARET said that the answer to his question would be determined by -his understanding of the word “revelation.” _She_ could not believe in -a God who had ever left himself without a witness in the world. As soon -as the human mind and will were ready, there was always some great Truth -waiting to be submitted to their united action, until it was worn out. -The beautiful Greek era had been succeeded by a period of inaction; the -Roman era by another, and so on. She was sorry we had wandered from our -subject so far as to doubt her very premises! - -FRANK said, everything rested on those premises; so he thought that the -ideals of beauty, love, justice, and truth should be referred to the -Infinite Mind, and not to the Greek. - -I wonder where he was when Margaret told about the Love which “was” -before Order! - -HENRY HEDGE said that Culture was the Mediator between the Finite and the -Infinite. - -JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, alluding to Mr. Hedge’s previous remark upon the -growth of philosophy, and the loss of the creative power, said that if -that were a fact, it greatly diminished the probability of the birth -of pure Genius into the world. Plato wrote when philosophy was at the -turning point. - -MARGARET said that there were many proofs in Plato that the philosophers -understood the personifications of the mythi. She thought that the gods, -the demigods, and the heroes of mythology represented distinct classes, -and that this was not sufficiently remembered. She referred to the story -of the burning of Hercules in Ovid, where Jupiter calls Juno to see how -well his son endures! - -WILLIAM WHITE said that he thought the idea of Deity was degraded when -the Greeks changed a hero into a god; but if Culture be a Mediator, would -not Plato have been greater had he been born into the nineteenth century? - -JAMES F. CLARKE said Platos were impossible now. - -MARGARET agreed, and said that the pride of knowledge which he would -find in the world should he appear, would be a greater obstacle than -superstition once was. - -Did somebody say a little while ago that Will indomitable was born of -obstacle? - -MARGARET told William White that Coleridge had once said that he could -neither measure nor understand Plato’s ignorance! His mind had not -reached that altitude! - -HENRY HEDGE, not willing to forego the possible birth of Genius, asked if -all the experience and discovery with which the world had been enriched -since Plato’s time would not furnish enough for the new-comer to act upon? - -MARGARET replied that the mind could not receive unless excited. She must -go through all the intellectual experience of a Plato, to be as great -as he; but she might stand upon the general or even her own intuitive -recognition of the truths he had advanced, and go forward to greater -results,—but still that would not be to make herself greater. - -But, said MRS. RIPLEY, in the first case you would be nothing _but_ Plato. - -MARGARET acceded, but begged not to be understood as doubting that the -future would be capable of finer things than the past. - -The ideal significance of the Mythology was further dwelt upon, and -much was said of the contrast between the thought of the priest and the -worship of the people. It was acknowledged as a matter of course, that -only a few preserved any consciousness of the original significance of -the Mythology. - -HENRY HEDGE thought that this was the true key to the purpose of the -Eleusinian mysteries, whether in Egypt where they originated, or in -Greece where they were introduced. Through them, all who chose became -initiated into the interior meaning of the Mythology. - -CHARLES WHEELER added, that in the flourishing times of the Athenian -Republic every citizen was compelled to initiate himself. - -MARGARET closed our talk with a gentle reproof to our wandering wits. To -prevent such desultory prattling, she desired that a subject should be -proposed for the next evening. The story of Ceres or Rhea, in fact the -Productive Energy however manifested, carried general favor, and Margaret -said archly that she had thought the presence of gentlemen (who had never -until now attended one of her talks) would prevent the wandering and keep -us free from prejudice! - -I thought she was rightly disappointed. - -I cannot recall the words, but at some time this evening Margaret -distinguished three mythological dynasties. The first was the reign of -the Natural Powers. The second, represented by Jupiter, Pluto, and -Neptune, stood for the height, the depth, and the surface or flow of -things, the first manifestations of human consciousness. The third was -the Bacchic, Bacchus not being yet, in her estimation, the vulgar God of -the wine-vat and the festival, but the inspired Genius,—being to Apollo, -as she said, what the nectar is to the grape. - - CAROLINE W. HEALEY. - - March 2, 1841. - - - - -II. - - - _March 8, 1841._ - -Margaret recapitulated the statements she made last week. By thus giving -to each fabled Deity its place in the scheme of Mythology, she did not -mean to ignore the enfolding ideas, the one thought developed in all—as -in Rhea, Bacchus, Pan. She would only imply that each personification -was individual, served a particular purpose, and was worshipped in a -particular way. - -Before proceeding to talk about Ceres, she wished to remind us of the -mischief of wandering from our subject. She hoped the ground she offered -would be accepted _at least to talk about_! Certainly no one could deny -that a mythos was the last and best growth of a national mind, and that -in this case the characteristics of the Greek mind were best gathered -from this creation. - -Ceres, Persephone, and Isis, as well as Rhea, Diana, and so on, seem -to be only modifications of one enfolding idea,—a goddess accepted by -all nations, and not peculiar to Greece. The pilgrimages of the more -prominent of these goddesses, Ceres and Isis, seem to indicate the life -which loses what is dear in childhood, to seek in weary pain for what -after all can be but half regained. Ceres regained her daughter, but only -for half the year. Isis found her husband, but dismembered. This era in -Mythology seems to mark the progress of a people from an unconscious to -a conscious state. Persephone’s periodical exile shows the impossibility -of resuming an unconsciousness from which we have been once aroused, the -need thought has, having once felt the influence of the Seasons, to -retire into itself. - -CHARLES WHEELER reminded Margaret that she had said that the predominant -goddesses, without reference to Greece, enfolded only one idea, that of -the female _Will_ or _Genius_,—_the bounteous giver_. He had asked her -if she could sustain herself by etymological facts, and she replied that -her knowledge of the Greek was not critical enough. Since then he had -inquired into the origin of the proper names of the Greek deities, and -found that it confirmed her impression. The names of Rhea, Tellus, Isis, -and Diana were resolvable into one, and the difference in their etymology -was only a common and permissible change in the position of the letters -of which they are composed, or a mere provincial dialectic change. Diana -is the same as Dione, also one of the names of Juno. - -E. P. P. asked if Homer ever confounded the last two? MARGARET thought -not. Homer was purely objective. He knew little and cared less about the -primitive creation of the myths. - -R. W. EMERSON thought it would be very difficult to detect this secret. -Jupiter, for instance, might have been a man who was the exponent of Will -to his race. - -MARGARET said, “No; they could have deduced him just as easily from -Nature herself, or from a single exhibition of will power.” - -R. W. EMERSON said that a man like Napoleon would easily have suggested -it. - -“What a God-send is a Napoleon!” exclaimed CHARLES WHEELER; “let us pray -for scores of such, that a new and superior mythos may arise for us!” Is -it malicious to suspect a subtle irony turned against the sacred person -of R. W. E. in this speech? - -MARGARET retorted indignantly that if they came, _we_ should do nothing -better than write memoirs of their hats, coats, and swords, as we had -done already, without thinking of any lesson they might teach. She could -not see why we were not content to take the beautiful Greek mythi as they -were, without troubling ourselves about those which might arise for us! - -R. W. E. acknowledged that the Greeks had a quicker perception of the -beautiful than we. Their genius lay in the material expression of it. If -we knew the real meaning of the names of their Deities, the story would -take to flight. We should have only the working of abstract ideas as we -might adjust them for ourselves. - -MARGARET said that a fable was more than a mere word. It was a word of -the purest kind rather, the passing of thought into form. R. W. E. had -made no allowance for time or space or climate, and there was a want of -truth in that. The age of the Greeks was the age of Poetry; ours was the -age of Analysis. _We_ could not create a Mythology. - -EMERSON asked, “Why not? We had still better material.” - -MARGARET said, irrelevantly as it seemed to me, that Carlyle had -attempted to deduce new principles from present history, and that was the -reason he did not _respect_ the _respectable_. - -EMERSON said Carlyle was unfortunate in his figures, but we might have -mythology as beautiful as the Greek. - -MARGARET thought each age of the world had its own work to do. The -transition of thought into form marked the Greek period. It was most -easily done through fable, on account of their intense perception of -beauty. - -EMERSON pursued his own train of thought. He seemed to forget that we -had come together to pursue Margaret’s. He said it was impossible that -men or events should _stand out_ in a population of twenty millions as -they could from a population of a single million, to which the whole -population of the ancient world could hardly have amounted. As Hercules -stood to Greece, no modern man could ever stand in relation to his own -world. - -MARGARET thought Hercules and Jupiter quite different creations. The -first _might_ have been a deified life. The second could not. - -CHARLES WHEELER said that R. W. E.’s view carried no historical -obligation of belief with it. We could not deny the heroic origin of the -Greek demigods, but the highest dynasty was the exponent of translated -thought. - -SOPHIA RIPLEY asked if the life of an individual fitly interwoven -with her experience was not as fine a Poem as the story of Ceres, her -wanderings and her tears? Did not Margaret know such lives? - -R. W. E. thought every man had probably met his Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, -Venus, or Ceres in society! - -MARGARET was sure she never had! - -R. W. E. explained: “Not in the world, but each on his own platform.” - -WILLIAM STORY objected. The life of an individual was not universal. (!) - -SOPHIA RIPLEY repeated, “The inner life.” - -WILLIAM STORY claimed to be an individual, and did not think individual -experience could ever meet all minds,—like the story of Ceres, for -example. - -SOPHIA said all experience was universal. - -I said nothing, but held this colloquy with myself. Thought is the best -of human nature; its fulness urges expression: its need of being met, not -only by _one_ other but by every other, _craves_ it. This craving is the -acknowledgment of the universal experience. What is _purely_ individual -is perishable. _Identity_ is to be separated from individuality for this -cause. - -MARGARET said the element of beauty would be wanting to our creations. A -fine emotion glowed through features which seem to fall like a soft veil -over the soul, while it could scarce do more than animate those that were -obtuse and coarse in every outline. (!) - -“Then,” said WILLIAM STORY, and my heart thanked the _preux -chevalier_,—“then something is wanting in the emotion itself.” - -WILLIAM WHITE said, stupidly, that sunlight could not fall with equal -charm on rocks and the green grass. (!) - -I asked if the rock could not give what it did not receive? Flung back by -rugged points and relieved by dark shadows, was not the sunlight itself -transfigured? - -STORY said every face had its own beauty. No act that was natural could -be ungraceful. - -EMERSON said that we all did sundry graceful acts, in our caps and -tunics, which we never could do again, which we never wanted to do again. - -MARGARET said, at last we had touched the point. We could not restore -the childhood of the world, but could we not admire this simple plastic -period, and gather from it some notion of the Greek genius? - -R. W. E. thought this legitimate. He would have it that we could not -determine the origin of a mythos, but we might fulfil Miss Fuller’s -intention. - -MARGARET said history reconciled us to life, by showing that man had -redeemed himself. Genius needed that encouragement. - -Not _Genius_, SOPHIA RIPLEY thought; common natures needed it, but Genius -was self-supported. - -MARGARET said it might be the consolation of Genius. - -MRS. RUSSELL asked why Miss Fuller found so much fault with the present. - -MARGARET _had_ no fault to find with it. She took facts as they were. -Every age did something toward fulfilling the cycle of mind. The work of -the Greeks was not ours. - -SOPHIA RIPLEY asked if the mythology had been a prophecy of the Greek -mind to itself, or if the nation had experienced life in any wide or deep -sense. - -MARGARET seemed a little out of patience, and no wonder! She said it did -not matter which. The question was, what could _we find_ in the mythi, -and what did the Greeks mean that we should find there. Coleridge once -said that certain people were continually saying of Shakespeare, that he -did not mean to impart certain spiritual meanings to some of his sketches -of life and character; but if Shakespeare did not mean it his Genius did: -so if the Greeks meant not this or that, the Greek genius meant it. - -In relation to the progress of the ages, JAMES F. CLARKE said that the -story of Persephone concealed in the bowels of the earth for half the -year seemed to him to indicate something of their comparative states. -Persephone was the seed which must return to earth before it could -fructify. Thought must retire into itself before it can be regenerate. - -MARGARET was pleased with this, more especially as in the story of -the Goddess it is eating the pomegranate, whose seed is longest in -germinating, which dooms her to the realm of Pluto. - -GEORGE RIPLEY remarked that we saw this need of withdrawal in the -slothful ages when mind seemed to be imbibing energy for future action. -The world sometimes forsook a quest and returned to it. We had forsaken -Beauty, but we might return to it. - -Certainly, MARGARET assented. A perfect mind would detect all beauty -in the hearth-rug at her feet: the meanest part of creation contained -the whole; but the labor we were now at to appreciate the Greek proved -conclusively that _we_ were not Greek. A simple plastic nature would -take it all in with delight, without doubt or question. - -Or rather, amended EMERSON, would take it up and go forward with it. - -It makes no difference, said MARGARET, for we live in a circle. - -I did not think it pleasant to track and retrack the same arc, and -preferred to go forward with R. W. E., so I asked if there was to be no -_higher_ poetry. - -MARGARET acknowledged that there was something beyond the aspiration of -the Egyptian or the poetry of the Greek. - -GEORGE RIPLEY thought we had not lost all reverence for these abstract -forces. The Eleusinian mysteries might be forgotten, but not Ceres. We -did not worship in ignorance. The mysteries led back to the Infinite. The -processes of vegetation were actually heart-rending! Here, _I_ thought, -was a basis for my higher poetry. - -GEORGE RIPLEY acknowledged that it was so. He seemed to be more conscious -of the movement of the world than any of our party. He said we must not -measure creation by Boston and Washington, as we were too apt to do. -There was still France, Germany, and Prussia,—perhaps Russia! The work of -this generation was not religious nor poetic; still, there was a tendency -to go back to both. There were to be ultraisms, but also, he hoped, -consistent development. - -CHARLES WHEELER then related the story of Isis, of her hovering in the -form of a swallow round the tree in which the sarcophagus of Osiris had -been enclosed by Typhon; of her being allowed to fell the tree; of the -odor emitted by the royal maidens whom she touched, which revealed her -Divinity to the Queen; of the second loss of the body, as she returned -home, and its final dismemberment. - -There was little success in spiritualizing more of this story than the -pilgrimage, and R. W. E. seemed to feel this; for when MARGARET had -remarked that even a divine force must become as the birds of the air -to compass its ends, and that it was in the carelessness of conscious -success that the second loss occurred, he said that it was impossible to -detect an inner sense in all these stories. - -MARGARET replied, that she had not attempted that, but she could see it -in all the prominent points. - -CHARLES WHEELER said that the varieties of anecdote proved that the -stories were not all authentic. It was an ancient custom to strike off -medals in honor of certain acts of the Gods. To these graven pictures the -common people gave their own vulgar interpretations, as they did also to -the bas-reliefs on their temples and monuments. - -E. P. P. said this accounted for many of the stories transmitted by -Homer. When sculpture and architecture had lost their meaning, his -inventive genius was only the more stimulated to find one. - -CHARLES WHEELER asked what Margaret would make of the story that the -tears of Isis frightened children to death? - -There was a general laugh, but MARGARET said coolly, that children always -shrank from a baffled hope. - -Some one contrasted Persephone with her mother. - -MARGARET assented to whatever was said, and added that she had been -particularly struck with it in an engraving she had recently seen, in -which Ceres stood with lifted eyes, full-eyed, matronly, bounteous, -ready to give all to all, while Persephone, dejected and thoughtful, -sat meditating; and the idea was strengthened by her discovering that -Persephone was the same as Ariadne the deserted. I could only guess at -the remark by Margaret’s comment. It seemed to imply baffled hope for -Persephone. - -The Eleusinian mysteries were now alluded to. Although it has been said -that only moral precepts were inculcated through these, WHEELER urged -that a whole school of Continental authors now acknowledged that the -higher doctrines of philosophy were taught. - -R. W. E. added, that as initiation became more easy such instruction -must have degenerated into a mere matter of form, and many of the -_un_initiated surpass the initiated in wisdom. - -MARGARET admitted this. Socrates was one of the uninitiated. The crowd -seldom felt the full force of beauty in Art or Literature. To prove it, -it was only necessary to walk once through the Hall of Sculpture at the -Athenæum, and catch the remarks of any half-dozen on Michael Angelo’s -“Day and Night.” He would be fortunate who heard a single observer -comment on its power. - -MRS. RUSSELL asked why the images of the sun and moon were introduced -into these mysterious celebrations. - -MARGARET asked impatiently why they had always been invoked by every -child who could string two rhymes together. - -I said that if Ceres was the simple _agricultural_ productive energy, -of course the sun was her first minister, its genial influence being as -manifest as the energy itself. - -In regard to the etymology of the proper names, it seemed reasonable to -me that this energy should have gained attributes as it did names. Any -nation devoted to the chase would learn to call the lunar deity Diana; -any devoted to the cultivation of grain would project her as Ceres. The -reproductive powers of flocks and herds would suggest Rhea or Juno, and -philosophy or art would invoke Persephone. - -When we were talking about beauty, J. F. C. quoted Goethe, and said that -the spirit sometimes made a mistake and clothed itself in the wrong -garment. - - C. W. HEALEY. - - March 9, 1841. - - - - -III. - - -The third conversation was delayed by Margaret’s illness, and finally -took place— - - _March 19, 1841._ - -MARGARET again complained that we wandered from the subject, and told the -following story from Novalis. - -Imagine a room, on one side of it Eros and Fable at play. On the other, -before a marble slab on which rests a vase of pure water, sits a fair -woman named Sophia. Her head rests upon her hand. Between her and the -children sits a man of reverend age, before a table at which he writes -whatever has been or is. This is History; and as he finishes each sheet -he hands it to Sophia, who dips it in the vase of pure water, from which -it often emerges a perfect blank. Sometimes a few lines, at others a few -words, sometimes only a punctuation mark, survive the test. This troubles -the old man. At last he rises and leaves the room. Fable springs to his -vacant seat, and scribbles as if in play till his return, when History -reproves her for wasting the paper, and passes the sheet to Sophia, when, -lo! it comes out from her vase unchanged. Fable has borne the test of -Truth. History is enraged at this, and succeeds in driving both Sophia -and Fable from their home, unfairly. Sophia is driven away, but the child -escapes by a back door, and, becoming bewildered in the central caverns -of the Earth, falls into the power of the Fates. - -These respectable old ladies find the little Fable very troublesome, and, -after some scolding, send her away to spin, when, lo! from the recesses -of the cavern all sorts of wonders and strange shapes are spun out. The -Fates are frightened, and they seek History to learn in what manner -they may best rid themselves of the intruder. However much they may -dislike her, she is under their protection, and History can do no more -than advise them to send her out to catch Tarantulas! Fable departs and -meets Eros, who gives her a lyre, upon which she plays, and the venomous -insects swarm about her. The Fates behold her return unharmed! They had -hoped she would be stung to death, and in despair Ate throws her scissors -at the child, who gracefully avoids them. Hereupon the Tarantulas sting -the Fates in the feet, at which they begin to dance. As their clothes are -thick and heavy, this is rather inconvenient exercise, and when Fable -laughs at their distress they send her away to spin them some thin -dresses. Fable is tired of wandering. She plays upon her lyre to the -Tarantulas, bidding them spin, and she will give them three large flies. -When the dresses are done, she carries them immediately to the Fates, who -begin again to dance. The ends of the threads are still in the bodies of -the Tarantulas, who do not like to be jerked about. “Behold the flies -which I promised you,” said Fable. - -Thereupon the Tarantulas fall upon the dancing Fates, and a new dynasty -commences, in which Eros reigns, with Fable for prime minister. - -MARGARET said that in the story she had told she had set us the example -of wandering from the subject, but she hoped to some purpose. She -hoped no one would have need to call upon little Fable’s body-guard of -Tarantulas. - -The subject of the evening was Apollo in contrast with Ceres, or Genius -opposed to Productive Energy. The history of Apollo stood for the -history of thought, its progressive development and its unhappiness. -All the loves of Apollo are miserable. He never labors for himself. He -uses the instruments which others have shaped. He is so delighted with -the lyre, which Mercury, that is Sagacity, has made, that he gives him -the divining-rod, and would give him more, but he cannot. The earnest -simplicity with which Apollo begs Mercury to swear by the sacred Styx not -to steal his quiver or his darts is beautiful! The common understanding, -mere human sagacity, may indeed lay hands on the weapons of the Inspired -One, but it cannot possess them. The ray, the dart, the quiver, of Apollo -all stand for the instantaneous power of thought. - -Delphi did not originally belong to Apollo. With the aid of Bacchus, he -wrested it from Terra, Neptune, and Themis; hence the name “Delphi,” or -“The brothers.” This is only another instance of his independence. All -things are made to his hand. The great contrast between Ceres and Apollo -lies in the success of each. Ceres is always full, always prepared to -meet the call of humanity. Apollo is always unsatisfied. He transmutes -whatever he touches, as he did one of his many loves, changed to a -bay-tree. His changes are always beautiful. - -JAMES F. CLARKE asked how Margaret would explain the fraternal relation -between Bacchus and Apollo. - -“Don’t you remember?” she retorted. “I don’t like to repeat it, it is so -smart and ingenious!” Apollo and Bacchus seemed to her the question and -the response. Bacchus was what the earth yielded to the touch of Genius. -The grape was genial. It typified the excess of the earth’s fruitfulness. -Bacchus avenges the wrongs of Apollo, who is said never to have seen a -shadow! He never perceives an obstacle, but instantly destroys an alien -nature. Whatever opposed Apollo met with terrible retribution,—if not -from himself, then from others. Genius cannot endure the presence of -anything that mocks at it. - -CHARLES WHEELER said something about the flaying of Marsyas. - -MARGARET said that this once seemed to her the most shocking of -cruelties, but she had lately seen a picture which reconciled her to the -deed! After looking at the self-complacent face of Marsyas, she did not -wonder that Apollo destroyed him. She longed to _see him do it_! Apollo -was never indignant at any sublime treachery. He forgave Mercury his -theft because it was god-like, because he did it so well. - -MRS. RUSSELL said ironically that the destruction of the children of -Niobe must have been a gratifying sight. - -MARGARET laughed, and said, “That is like being reminded of the ‘poor -mariner,’ when I say that I like to hear the wind blow.” The indignation -of Apollo seemed to her one of his noblest attributes. His perfect purity -separated him from all the Gods. Ceres seemed to be included in the idea -of many other Gods, as in Pan, Bacchus, Juno, and Isis; but Apollo, the -divine Genius, stands alone. There is none like him. - -HENRY HEDGE asked whether holiness appertained to Apollo. - -MARGARET thought not. Holiness supposed a voluntary consecration of one’s -self, but there was no need of this in Apollo. He was pure thought, -consecrated, but not consciously. - -HENRY HEDGE said he had asked, because, considering Jesus to have, as -he certainly had, a mythological character, he thought there was a -resemblance between him and Apollo. His own words justified the idea,—“I -am the light of the world,” and so on. - -MRS. RUSSELL asked suddenly why Apollo’s lyre had seven strings. - -MARGARET said seven was a consecrated number. - -MRS. RUSSELL asked if it did not have to do with the seven planets? - -GEORGE RIPLEY said there were not so many in that day. - -MARGARET liked the reason, and wished she had thought of it herself! - -Some one asked about the connection between Diana and Apollo. - -MARGARET said that Genius needed a sister to console him. - -EMERSON asked what bearing the inscription over the Delphic temple had -upon the story of Apollo,—the Divine pun EI, which means equally “Thou -art” and “If,”—as grand a pun as that of him who, dying, said he was -going to see the great “Perhaps”!—“le grand peut-être.” - -Better translated, I thought, as the great “May-be.” - -GEORGE RIPLEY asked if it were not generally accepted positively as “Thou -art”? - -“Probably,” MR. EMERSON said. - -HENRY HEDGE found another type of the Apollo in the Egyptian Horus. - -MRS. RUSSELL asked if the two Greek vowels had not once stood for Isis -and Osiris. If so, they would have a natural connection with the oracle. - -I remembered the inscription on the statue of Isis, “I am all that has -been and that shall be, and none among mortals has taken off my veil.” -The “I am” of the Jews, and the “Thou art” of the Delphic temple are -epigrammatic, but the same. - -EMERSON, replying somewhat curtly to Mrs. Russell, said there were -various explanations. - -The story of Phaeton came next. - -HENRY HEDGE asked how Presumption should be the child of Genius. - -“Genius must be self-confident,” Margaret said, “and that might -predominate.” - -I asked if real Genius did not know its own resources and husband them. - -MARGARET thought Genius often attempted more than it could do. - -I said a man might have genius and presume, but that if _he were a -genius_ I should expect him to be modest. Still, as it must have a crowd -of imitators, it might become the father of presumption. The substance -creates the shadow. - -WILLIAM STORY said no product could be as great as the producing power; -but that did not seem to me to touch the point, for the question was not -whether Apollo could not give birth to something less than himself, but -whether the possession of power could create an unfounded claim to it. - -The story of Latona followed. - -HENRY HEDGE said that the word meant concealment. - -MARGARET thought this very expressive, and said that the isolation which -Goethe and other geniuses had been craving since the world began Apollo -had no need to seek. His mother was concealment. The oracle was then -discussed,—how it was possible to consult it many times and receive each -time a different answer,—how it could be bribed, as by Alexander, or -would give two answers in one; but nothing very new was said. - -I remembered the double answer of the Pythoness to Crœsus when he -meditated crossing the Halys. “Thou shalt destroy a great empire,” she -said. He thought it was the enemy’s: fate decided it should be his own. - -SOPHIA RIPLEY thought the oracle belonged to Wisdom rather than Genius. - -MARGARET said Minerva dwelt in men’s houses. It was necessary a voice -from Heaven should speak. - -Some one wondered that Jupiter had not possessed himself of the oracle, -which led MARGARET back to her exponents, and she confessed that she was -not quite satisfied with her own definition of Jupiter as Will. - -EMERSON suggested that experience was a prominent feature in the -Jupiter, and named him Character. - -Character is educated Will, said MARGARET, hesitating, and paused, for -the term did not suit her. - -Juno was then spoken of as passive Will, and her traits were dwelt upon. -It is amusing to see how weak the Queen of Olympus can be in opposition -to its King. The peacock was probably made sacred to her on account of -the beauty of its plumage, while the eagle was consecrated to Jupiter on -account of its strength. - -I said that the peacock, strutting with conceit, glancing at its -ill-shaped feet and vexed enough to bawl in consequence, easily suggested -the scolding Juno. - -Some one asked a question about Æsculapius. MARGARET said he was genius -made practical. - -HENRY HEDGE thought that Apollo by his own connection with the healing -art became the symbol of physical life and beauty. - -WILLIAM STORY thought no statue could bear comparison with the Apollo -Belvedere. - -MARGARET preferred the Antinous. - -JAMES CLARKE asked why Art should present a so much more inspiring view -of Greek Mythology than Poetry. - -MARGARET said that all her ideas of it were deduced from Art. She did -not profess to know much of the Greek authors, and depended chiefly upon -Homer, but wished that some of the gentlemen who ought to know more would -speak. - -WILLIAM STORY thought it was because the poets wrote for popular -applause, for recitation and its immediate effect. Sculptors labored more -purely for their Art. - -I thought too that the dramatists often had a political aim, and -manœuvred Olympus to suit it! - -JAMES CLARKE said that if in our time every public speaker must bend to -his audience to a degree, it was still more necessary in Greece. - -We were told to consider Minerva for the next conversation, and to write -down our thoughts about her. For my part I don’t like using Latin names -for Greek deities. It greatly confuses my ideas. Jupiter and Zeus seem -very different to me. - -In regard to the story that Apollo never saw a shadow, CAROLINE STURGIS -asked how Apollo could destroy an alien nature if he never met it. - -There was quite an unsatisfactory talk about this, which would have ended -had anybody remembered how the sun solves the enigma every day. The -sun never sees the shadow it destroys. When its rays fall, light is. It -annihilates the alien by merely being. So Truth annihilates Falsehood, -yet cannot meet it. The two are never in one presence. - - CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY. - - March 20, 1841. - - - - -IV. - - - _March 26, 1841._ - -MARGARET opened our talk by saying that the subject of Wisdom presented -more conversable points than that of Genius. We could all think and talk -about Wisdom, and any man who had ever scratched his finger was to a -degree wise. - -Minerva was the child of Counsel and Intelligent Will. She had no -infancy, but sprang full-armed into being. Ready, agile, she was in -herself the history of thought. She did not need that her life should be -one of incident. Her attendant emblems are expressive: the Sphinx, the -owl, the serpent, the cock, and the javelin suggest her whole story. - -WILLIAM WHITE asked why Genius was masculine and Wisdom feminine. - -MARGARET thought no one could find any difficulty in the fact that Genius -was masculine. It presented itself to the mind in the full glow of power. -The very outlines of the feminine form were yielding, and we could not -associate them with a prominent, self-conscious state of the faculties. -Wisdom was like woman, always ready for the fight if necessary, yet never -going to it; taking reality as a basis, and classifying and arranging -upon it all that Genius creates,—seeing the relations and proper values -of things. - -GEORGE RIPLEY objected to this definition. He might have imbibed a Hebrew -idea, but the office of Wisdom was surely something more than this,—a -purely mechanical and orderly tact. - -MARGARET said she had not meant to give _our_ view of it, only the Greek -idea as manifest in the story of Minerva. To William White she said, -smiling, that she supposed he had not wondered so much that Genius should -be masculine as that Wisdom should be feminine! But the Greeks were wise, -and she revered their keen perception. - -ELISABETH HOAR said it seemed to her that Wisdom provided _means_. A hero -might be inspired by Genius, but Wisdom provided his armor, taught him to -distinguish the goal, and to perceive clearly the relation to it of any -onward step. - -MARGARET agreed to this, and - -WILLIAM STORY said that Genius was indebted to Wisdom for _means of -communication_. Genius thinks words impertinent, but Wisdom apprehends -its intuitions, and gives them shape. - -MARGARET said further, that Wisdom must adopt instinctively the finest -medium. - -It seemed to me that Wisdom not only gave power of communication, but -power of attainment. Walter Scott was a good instance of the union of -intuitive perception and human sagacity, but all these words about it -cleared up nothing. - -MARGARET then proposed that we should take up the attributes of Minerva, -and so get at the facts. - -MR. RIPLEY did not think it noble enough when she based Wisdom upon -realities. - -WILLIAM STORY said Wisdom must have something to work upon. He thought -Wisdom compared the intuitions of Genius with realities. - -CHARLES WHEELER thought the word _actual_ would help them out of their -difficulty. - -I wanted to quote Emerson to the effect that the Ideal is more Real than -the Actual. - -MARGARET agreed with Mr. Wheeler, and said that by reality she understood -anything incarnated,—whatever was tangible. She then went on to speak of -the Sphinx. What was it? - -ELISABETH HOAR seemed surprised at the question. Was it not one thing to -everybody? - -MARGARET called for her idea, but she would not give it. - -MARGARET said that to herself it represented the development of a -thought, founding itself upon the animal, until it grew upward into calm, -placid power. She revered these good ancients, who did not throw away any -of the gifts of God; who were neither materialists nor immaterialists, -but who made matter always subservient to the highest ends of the Spirit. - -WILLIAM WHITE asked if the festivals of the Gods, the highest source -of their influence over the people, did not show how little they had -penetrated to the spirit of things? - -MARGARET thought ambrosia and nectar were proper emblems of Divine Joy. -They were not to be taken literally. - -“But,” persisted WHITE, “the great body of the people thought them so.” - -WILLIAM STORY said, with happy grace, that the great _body_ of the people -might be excused for such a thought. - -MARGARET enjoyed the pun, and said that the great Greek body was sensuous -and ate, but that the Greek soul knew better than to suspect the Gods of -opening their mouths. - -E. P. P. waked up at this moment, and asked what Margaret would say to -Berkeley’s theory. - -MARGARET said she did not know what it was! - -E. P. P. said, the evolution of all things from the soul, the -non-existence of matter. - -JAMES P. CLARKE thought it very difficult to decide how far spirit and -matter were one. A man’s identity was not in the particles which came -and went every seven years, but in the spirit. Yet these particles -constituted the wall of separation between himself and others. His -identity was in his spirit. - -GEORGE RIPLEY begged leave to disagree. He thought we knew as much about -matter as about spirit, and that Berkeley’s theory was as good as any. - -MARGARET said that if God created matter, of course it was evolved from -spirit; that matter could not be antagonistic to that from which it was -evolved. To express a complete idea, we had only to say, “Jehovah, I am.” - -“Or,” CHARLES WHEELER added, “to be silent.” - -“Yes,” said MARGARET, “and in that lies the merit of Mythology. Every -faculty was, according to that, an incomplete statement. Therefore Mr. -Ripley did wrong to confound Minerva with the Logos.” - -E. P. P. did not see that Berkeley’s statement was answered. - -WILLIAM STORY came in with another pun. “If Berkeley thought so, it was -_no matter_!” - -Some stupid person spoiled the wit by trying to explain it, and the -question remained to us just as much matter as ever. - -They talked about the Sphinx again, yet said little. It holds more -meaning in its passive womb than talk will ever play the midwife to. -It was the child of the Destructive Element and Feeling,—Typhon and -Echidna,—the human heart experienced in misfortune touched by death. -Thought rooted in the actual and developed by tenderness was rooted in -this figure. - -“Everybody knows that Wisdom stings,” said MARGARET, and so we went on to -the serpent. - -Somebody spoke of the Greek Tartarus. - -IDA RUSSELL thought its torment was not acute, but consisted of the -deprivation of comforts. - -The wandering idleness of it would be intolerable to an active Greek, -ELISABETH HOAR thought, but more endurable than any device of a -priesthood. As for our serpent, no one seemed to know much about it. - -MARGARET said that we owed it so much, that _she_ felt in duty bound to -know something of it. - -JAMES F. CLARKE said that the Christian serpent was quite another thing. - -Everybody laughed at the idea of a _Christian_ serpent. - -WILLIAM WHITE professed great admiration for the reptile. We should have -had no Christianity but for its beguiling. - -MARGARET agreed!—and said she supposed everybody felt that. - -MRS. RUSSELL thought the casting of the skin very expressive. - -JAMES F. CLARKE gave Coleridge’s exposition, to the effect that the -serpent was the common understanding! It would touch and handle all -things, and even sought to be as the Gods, knowing good from evil. Its -undulating motion—its belly now on the ground, now off—expressed both -the aspiration and the subserviency of the creature. - -MARGARET asked if serpents ever swallowed their own tails? - -CHARLES WHEELER said that must be an arbitrary form. - -MARGARET replied, that she had been struck by the difference between the -Mexican and the Greek serpent. The Mexican was folded back upon itself. - -Not always, I said. Its tail is sometimes in its mouth, and the -variations seem to be occasioned by the architectural necessity. - -JAMES F. CLARKE spoke of a Virginia snake that moves in a circle, and -asked if when Mr. Emerson talked about “coming full circle” he was not -thinking of that? - -MARGARET laughed, and declared that serpent must be of Yankee invention. -Æsculapius bore two on his staff, Mercury two on his divining-rod, and -the cock was also sacred to Æsculapius. - -I asked if this did not indicate a certain subjection of these Gods to -Wisdom? - -Some questions written on paper were here read. One asked why Minerva was -born of the stroke of Vulcan, and why she was the patroness of weavers, -and what that had to do with the story of Arachne. - -MARGARET replied with ill temper to the first, that it was because Vulcan -held the hammer,—to the second, that she did not know. - -But was there really so little meaning in the fact that Mechanic Art so -ministered to Intelligent Will that she could afford to miss the point? - -She said we could see that Minerva was told to marry Vulcan, but -declined; would have nothing to do with the sooty cripple. - -SOPHIA RIPLEY said, aptly enough, that Minerva had been changing her mind -ever since! - -IDA RUSSELL thought that when Mechanic Art was married to Beauty, it -might charm even Wisdom. - -GEORGE RIPLEY said she might well have despised the brute force, but as -it grew into something more noble, have learned to love it. Dr. Dana[2] -was the servant of the Lowell corporation. In these days no corporation -could exist without its man of science. His salary was a mere pittance, -and when he made a discovery with which all Europe rang, he asked for a -part of the profits. “We will consider,” said the soulless corporation, -and they decided that they had a legitimate right to all that could be -made out of their servant! - -“Thus,” I said, “Wisdom sows for the Mechanic Art to reap?” - -“Exactly so,” was the reply; “and this contains the essence of the Yankee -philosophy.” - -The life of Wisdom was one long struggle for something beyond a merely -serviceable knowledge. Bending alike to art and artisan, she still -refused to love the latter till he had wooed Beauty to their common -service. But Wisdom has of late married Vulcan. He no longer limps, and -has washed his face in the springs of love and thought, and sits in -holiday robes beside his bride. - -Somebody said that the story of Arachne was an instance of the Goddess’s -vindictiveness. - -MARGARET hoped that the vindictiveness was a popular interpolation. If -so, the story of Marsyas shows that she was malicious. She brought his -misfortunes upon him. If her own voice was discordant, there was no -reason why his voice should please! - -“Divinities have a right to be indignant,” said somebody. Did Margaret -blush? - -In speaking of the artistic representations of Minerva, MARGARET said -some beautiful things. Minerva was as tall and large as she could be, -without being masculine. Her face was thoughtful and serene, without -being sweet. Her eye was so full and clear that it had no need to be deep. - -The talk was closed by Margaret’s reading the Essay that E. P. P. had -sent in, and the criticisms upon it. - -E. P. P. began by speaking of the _conservatism_ which disinclined -Jupiter to the birth of Minerva. - -“Yes,” MARGARET said, “the good was always opposed to the better.” - -E. P. P. then spoke of the Parthenon, upon which, according to the -Homeric Hymn, the story of Minerva’s birth was sculptured. - -MARGARET said it had been difficult to believe that the Greeks would put -so ugly a thing upon their temple, but the ruins showed a Vulcan with his -hammer in his hand, and the form of the Goddess hovering over the cloven -skull. - -Why, asked E. P. P., did Ulysses represent Wisdom in the Odyssey? - -MARGARET thought he represented the history of a thought in life, when -he tired us all out with his long story, and so pushed us to decision. - -E. P. P. alluded to the different conceptions of Minerva in the Iliad and -the Odyssey, and this led to the question of priority of composition. - -MARGARET thought the Odyssey was written when Homer was young and -romantic; but E. P. P. and myself stood out stoutly for the precedence of -the Iliad. I said, without the least bit of real knowledge, that I should -not wonder if there were two centuries between the poems, they seemed to -indicate such entirely different states of society; but certainly the -Odyssey was latest. - -CHARLES WHEELER said that the best scholars seemed all of one mind. The -Iliad was written first by Homer,—the Odyssey long after by another hand. - -E. P. P. said that there was a gem which represented Minerva as married -to a mortal, but she could tell nothing more about it. - -JONES VERY said that when Wisdom falls into decay we call it Genius! - -Does that mean that prophetic power fallen back from the moral nature to -the intellect is dwarfed accordingly? - - CAROLINE W. HEALEY. - - March 27, 1841. - - - - -V. - - - _April 2, 1841._ - -The story of Venus and Cupid and Psyche was discussed. - -MARGARET said that of Venus she had less to say than of either of the -preceding Deities! She was not the expression of a thought, but of -a fact. She was the Greek idea of a lovely woman,—the best physical -development of woman. When we have said, “It is,” we have said all. The -birth of Beauty was the only ideal thing about her. She sprang from the -wave, from the flux and reflux of things, from the undulating line. On -this Venus, transitoriness had set its seal. As we look at her, we feel -that she must change. Her loveliness is too fair to last. Her beauty -would pass next moment. She could not live a year, we think, without -losing something of her full grace. It was peculiarly Greek to create a -beautiful symbol, and to pause in the symbol. The Greeks were very apt to -do this. They did it effectually in the Goddess of Love. She was sportive -in all her amours. They had no idea of an Everlasting Love. They enjoyed -themselves too much to abstract themselves. Venus seemed to Margaret a -merely human creature. She was not the type of Universal Beauty: the -Greek eye was closed to that. Still, their own embodiment did not satisfy -their own need. They filled out their ideal with Venus Urania, Hebe, and -all the attendant Hours and Graces, yet were not satisfied. Then came the -fable of Psyche and her three Cupids. Venus was only a pretty girl! Her -cestus, her doves, her pets, her jealousies, all betray it. The Venus -Urania was more. _She_ was the child of Celestial Light. Hebe was born of -immortal bloom. To fill out the gaps in their conception, Eros, or Love -in Sadness, Cupid a frolicsome boy, and the more noble, more creative -Love which brooded over Chaos were evolved from their consciousness. -Psyche, who did not appear until the age of Augustus, who was too modern -to be mythological, yet glowing with mythic beauty, was only another -evidence of their imperfect idea. Her story expresses more than that of -Venus. It tells not only the story of human love, but represents the -pilgrimage of a soul. The jealousy of Venus was that which the good must -always feel toward the better which is to supersede it, and as soon as -Psyche looked upon her sleeping lover she became immortal. The soul in -the fulness of Love became conscious of Destiny. - -JAMES CLARKE asked what was the difference between the girl-mother—the -Madonna—and the Greek Venus. - -MARGARET replied, with more patience than I was capable of, that the -Madonna represented more than passing womanly beauty. She was prophetic, -and lived again in her child. - -Then, persisted JAMES F., why was Vulcan the _husband_ of Beauty, to -which Margaret gave no satisfactory answer. He then gave his own thought, -to which I can do no justice, although it was what I tried in vain to -say at the last conversation. It amounted to this,—that in seeking for -beauty we lose it, but in aiming at utility through hard labor we find -perfect proportion—and consequently perfect beauty. He said that he and -his sister Sarah had often spoken to each other about this, and he felt -that the time would come when essays would be written about our ships, -as we now write essays about the Pyramids and the Greek Art. Posterity -might find the proof of our search after beauty in the graceful prow -and swelling hold and tall, tapering mast or shrouds of shredded jet; -in the bellying canvas and the patron saint which watches the wake from -the stern. But we know that the ship, the most beautiful object in our -modern world, was the product of labor, gradually evoked, according to -the law of fitness, compass, and general proportion. To bring its form -into a natural relation to wind and wave, was to find perfect harmony -and beauty. At first the prow was too sharp, and the water had rushed -over it; the hold was too shallow, and she sat ungracefully where she now -rides as mistress. - -EMERSON quoted some German author to the same effect. - -MR. CLARKE said there was something in one of R. W. E.’s own Essays which -expressed the same thing. - -EMERSON laughed and said, “Very important authority,” and would have -changed the subject, when— - -WILLIAM WHITE said that it did not tally well with James Clarke’s theory -that the ugly steamer had succeeded the beautiful clipper. - -MR. CLARKE said the theory failed only because there was no noble end in -view. The steamer was not intended to be in harmony with Nature. - -EMERSON asked if the Greeks had no symbol for natural beauty. Several -were suggested that he would not accept, but he finally took Diana on -Charles Wheeler’s suggestion. - -WHEELER then spoke of the birth of Venus. He said many writers thought -the story as late as that of Psyche, and the line of Hesiod relating to -it an interpolation. - -MARGARET thought she should have suspected this if she had never heard -it. The thought it expressed was too comprehensive to be in keeping with -the remainder of her story. - -CHARLES WHEELER would not accept the criticism, but went on to talk about -the marriage of Venus with Mars, which had amazed Olympus. - -MARGARET said the Olympian Deities were like modern men, who talk to -women forever about their softness and delicacy, until women imagine -that the only good thing in man is a strong arm. The girl elopes with -a red coat, and the indignant lords of creation wonder why she did not -appreciate their modest merit and unobtrusive virtues. Poor Beauty _weeps -out_ the crimson stain upon her escutcheon in a long age of suffering. - -A laugh followed this bright sally, and then somebody said that Venus -once married Mercury. - -MARGARET declared that must be an interpolation, for there were no points -of sympathy between the Goddess of beauty and the God of craft. - -JAMES CLARKE did not know about that; he thought that the finish and -completeness of the late robbery of Davis, Palmer, & Co. constituted a -_kind of beauty_! - -MARGARET said that affair was altogether grand; she had never heard of -anything so Greek as Williamson’s exclaiming, “Gentlemen! you will not -deprive me of the implements of my trade?” She could not help respecting -his impudence! The Greeks ought to be respected for developing every -human faculty into deity. She thought lying, stealing, and so forth -only excesses of a good faculty; and so did the Greeks, for in their -mistaken way they had deified Mercury. The Spartans taught their children -to steal, and the Greeks universally acknowledged that to cheat was -honorable if it could be concealed. - -I remembered the passage in the “Republic” where Polemarchus confesses -that he had learned from Homer to admire Autolycus, grand sire of -Ulysses, distinguished above all men for his thefts and oaths! -Thrasymachus said that the unjust were both prudent and good, if they -were able to commit injustice to _perfection_! Is the immortality of -Autolycus the destiny of Williamson? - -WHEELER said there certainly was a well authenticated marriage between -Venus and Mercury. - -I could not help thinking it might be an astral connection that was -indicated. On that remarkable day of his birth, Mercury was not content -with stealing the divining-rod from Apollo; he took also the cestus from -Venus, the voice from Neptune, the sword from Mars, the will from Zeus, -and his tools from Vulcan! Sagacity compassed all the deeps of divinity -to reach its end. - -IDA RUSSELL asked if Venus and Astarte were not the same. - -MARGARET said Astarte belonged to the stars. - -Did not Venus, I wonder? But of course they are creations far asunder as -the poles. - -CHARLES WHEELER thought Astarte and Venus Urania were the same. - -IDA said that could not be. The first statues of Astarte were rough -blocks of wood, with veiled heads. - -So, I said, were all first statues of Deities; so that was no argument. - -When JAMES CLARKE asked Margaret to compare Venus with the Madonna, a -curious talk arose between Alcott, Margaret, Charles Wheeler, and Emerson. - -ALCOTT wanted to know why Christ was not as much an impersonation of a -human faculty as either of the Greek Deities! - -MARGARET said Jesus was not a thought. He was born on the earth, and -lived out a thought. He was no abstraction to her, but a brother. - -ALCOTT wanted to know whether a purer mythology, suited to the wants -of coming time, might not arise from the mixed mythology of Persians, -Greeks, and Christians! - -A very confusing and tiresome talk arose thereupon, which Charles Wheeler -smiled at, but did not join in, and which profited nobody. - - CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY. - - April 3, 1841. - - - - -VI. - -CUPID AND PSYCHE. - - - _April 9, 1841._ - -MARGARET thought it would be very impertinent to begin by telling what -everybody knew,—the old story of Cupid and Psyche. - -E. P. P. declared that Margaret never told it twice alike, and at last -she yielded and said:— - -The beautiful young princess Psyche was envied by Venus, who sent Eros -to destroy her; but the God, finding Psyche wholly lovely, wedded her. -They lived happily until Psyche began to doubt. Eros had told her that -she must not seek to know him; but curiosity prevailed over faith, and -in looking at him as he slept she wounded and waked him. He left her in -dismay; and as a punishment the three trials which are the lot of mortals -were awarded to her. She must sort grain, she must bring three drops -from the river Styx, and must get the box of beauty from Proserpine. The -birds helped her with the grain; but when she reached the banks of the -Styx and stooped to fulfil the second task, she found the water too dark, -too cold, and the eagle came to her aid. At the prospect of the third -trial her soul sank; she refused to undertake it; but, winning from one -of the Gods the secret of self-dependence, she set off for Tartarus, -gave the usual sop to Cerberus, and returned with her prize. But she was -“possessed” with the idea that the treasures the box contained might -restore to her her husband’s love, and she opened the box as she came. -The noxious vapors which issued from it deprived her of consciousness, -and she fell. Eros, who had flown to seek her as soon as his wound was -healed, brought her the gift of Immortality which he had begged of -Jupiter. - -ELISABETH HOAR asked what had become of Psyche’s sisters, whose -interference was a striking point in the story. - -MARGARET said she knew nothing of them, and wished Miss Hoar would tell -us. Her own knowledge of the story was gained entirely from Raphael’s -original studies, and his frescos on the walls of a Roman palace. - -ELISABETH HOAR recapitulated. The parents of Psyche were ordered by the -angry Venus to expose her upon a high mountain, when Zephyr carried her -to the embraces of Love, who dwelt in the depths of a quiet valley hard -by. Her sisters came to bewail her death, and Psyche begged Love to let -Zephyr bring them to rejoice in her happiness. For some time he refused, -telling her that it was not for her good, and that she could be happy -without them. This our foolish Psyche would not believe, and at last they -were permitted to come, only she must not tell them the little she knew -about her husband. - -The first time Psyche had sent them away loaded with gifts. They had -questioned her about her husband, and Psyche replied that he was only -a lovely child. The year went round, and again the lovely bride longed -for her sisters’ presence. Again the God entreated her to be patient, -assuring her that if they came it would only be to make her miserable. -Psyche could not be quieted. Again they came, again they questioned. She -forgot the story she had previously told, and replied that he was an old -man, bent with years, but very kind to her. Then the envious women saw -that Psyche was herself ignorant of his true nature. They told her that -he was a dragon, and meant to devour her; that they had themselves seen -him as he passed through the fields. They begged her to take a knife and -lamp and kill him as he slept. The frightened Psyche consented. - -The God was sleeping in radiant beauty at her side, and as she gazed -upon him she drew an arrow from his quiver and carelessly scratched -her finger. Impassioned by the wound, she bent over him, and a drop of -scalding oil fell from her lamp. Angry and confused, the God awoke, and, -irritated by the pain, flew away. Psyche clung to him; but she could -not support herself, and he was too angry to hold her. She fell to the -ground, and he, perched upon a neighboring tree, reproached her. - -MARGARET did not know this, but said she remembered that Psyche tried to -drown herself. - -ELISABETH said that was later. She despaired, and threw herself into -the river; but the river pitied her, and bore her to the shore. Venus, -growing tired of her guest, sent Mercury to advertise her. Psyche yielded -to the terms of the Goddess, rendered herself up, and was busy sorting -the gifts in the temple of Beauty when Custom was sent to berate her. - -This, I suppose, is a condensation of the lovely allegory of Apuleius in -the second century of our era, but it seems to me Elisabeth made some -additions. - -MARGARET said that everybody had to contend with the meddlesome sisters. -They were at the bottom of every fairy story, from that of Psyche to -Beauty and the Beast. - -ELISABETH HOAR said it was always with the young soul as it was with -Psyche. It could give no account of the love which made it so happy. - -So, I said, every human heart shrivels under a curious touch. Love -is angry that we wound him, and if he ever does return it is with -Immortality in his hand. When custom berates, God accepts. - -JAMES CLARKE asked if there was not a celebrated statue of Cupid and -Psyche. - -MARGARET had only heard of Canova’s, but James said he was sure there was -one older. - -WILLIAM STORY asked if it were older than Apuleius, but James did not -know. - -IDA RUSSELL said it was wrong for Psyche to look. - -Yes, MARGARET said, but her temptations were strong; and if they had -not come through her sisters, they must have come through her own soul. -Everything was produced by antagonism. This morning she had taken up -Kreitzer, meaning to open the Greek volume, but took up the Indian. In -that Mythology which William Story called deep and all-embracing there -were the antagonist principles of Vishnu, or unclouded innocence, and -Brahm, who could only become pure by wading through all wickedness. There -seemed to be a need of sin, to work out salvation for human beings. - -EMERSON said faith should work out that salvation. It was man’s privilege -to resist the evil, to strive triumphantly; to recognise it—never! Good -was always present to the soul,—was all the true soul took note of. It -was a duty not to look! - -MARGARET thought it the climax of sin to despair. She believed evil to -be a good in the grand scheme of things. She would not recognize it as a -blunder. She must consider its scope a noble one. In one word, she would -not accept the world—for she felt within herself the power to reject -it—did she not believe evil working in it for good! Man had gained more -than he lost by his fall. The ninety-nine sheep in the parable were of -less value than the “lost found,” over which there was joy in heaven. - -E. P. P. spoke of the Tree of Life,—which would have made immortal those -who ate of the Tree of Knowledge. - -CAROLINE STURGIS said that this probation was what she could not -comprehend. We began at the circumference, and if we fulfilled our -destiny must end by being near the centre. How much better to have begun -there! Why could not God have made it so? - -WILLIAM STORY began to say that God must seek the best good of all -his creatures; but Caroline interrupted him by saying that there was -certainly more good at the centre than at the circumference. - -WILLIAM WHITE thought all this good, better, and best very puzzling. - -MARGARET asked Caroline if she could not see probation to be a good, as -she had herself defined it? - -Are we better then, than God? asked CAROLINE. - -Not better, replied MARGARET, for we cannot compare dissimilar things. - -WILLIAM WHITE asked if any one could be more than good, more than pure. - -WILLIAM STORY said perfection had its degrees! - -WHITE said, How can you progress after you have reached your goal? - -As if any live man ever _did_ reach his goal! said I. - -Is there any progress for God? retorted he. - -Not any, for that is a contradiction in terms, I said; but surely you -conceive of it for souls in heaven? - -MARGARET said something about the Gospel injunction to be perfect even -as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Does not “even as” mean “after the -pattern of”? Does it involve the _nature_, as well as the _degree_? - -EMERSON interrupted quickly, “We are not finite.” - -Everybody smiled; but the best answer to this is found in the fact, that -we never conceive of ourselves as infinite and at rest,—only as reaching -after the Infinite in our motion. - -WHITE said to Caroline Sturgis, “If evil brings knowledge of good, is it -not a gain?” - -WILLIAM STORY talked nobly, something to this effect: That good and evil -were related terms. If both did not exist, neither could, antagonism -being the spring of most things in the universe. - -MARGARET went back to Cupid, and said that in Raphael’s original studies -Cupid was always a boy,—in his frescos, a youth, almost a man. She spoke -of the difference of expression which he gave to his Venus and his -Psyche, especially in the eye. That of Psyche was deep and thoughtful. -The distinction extended to their attendant Cupids, and was most marked -in the Psyche when she takes the cup of Immortality from her husband. - -MARGARET wanted to pass on to Diana, but there were too many clergymen -in the company. Everybody was interested in somebody nearer at hand, and -views of the unchanging Providence were next presented. - -MARGARET said God was the background against which all creation was -thrown. - -WILLIAM STORY asked if she did not think He was greater than his -creatures? - -“Always beyond,” was MARGARET’S reply. - -Creation, STORY said, was rather the exponent of a _Love_ which _must -bless_, than of an activity which must act. It was a Paternal power that -_ruled_, not an autocratic power which _fathered_ us. - -MARGARET said that the story of Cupid and Psyche was the story of -redemption. It contained the seeds of the doctrine of election,—saving by -grace, and so on! - -A good many queer things were said on various points touched by this. - -EMERSON said, that to imagine it possible to fall was to _begin_ to fall. - -E. P. P. got into a little maze trying to introduce Margaret and R. W. -E. to each other,—a consummation which, however devoutly to be wished, -will never happen! - -JAMES CLARKE told her that she was just where Paul was when he said, -“What then? Shall I sin, that Grace may the more abound?” - -EMERSON said the woodlands could tell us most about Diana, about whom we -contrived to say very little. The omission of orgies in her worship was -dwelt upon. Her pure and sacred character with the Athenians was compared -to that of the Diana of Ephesus, whose orgies were not unusual, and who -was considered as a bountiful mother rather than as a virgin huntress. - -IDA RUSSELL said that _her_ Mythology accused Diana of being the mother -of fifty sons and fifty daughters! - -MARGARET laughed, and said that certainly was Diana of Ephesus! - -The maddening influence of moonlight was commented upon, as if it were a -fable; but WILLIAM STORY said it was a fact. In tropical regions very sad -consequences resulted from long gazing on the moonlight or sleeping in -it. In one town he had known sixteen persons bewildered in this way. - -WILLIAM WHITE said that in a late book of Nichols it was contended that -the moon had some light of her own, because she shows a brazen color even -under eclipse, when the dark side of the earth is toward her. But why may -she not gather stellar light from the whole universe, as the earth seems -to? - -SALLIE GARDINER said something to William Story in a low voice. He -laughed, and said he had been thinking of the consequences of his theory. - -MARGARET asked what he was talking about. - -STORY said it was an application of eclipses to his theory that love -was the motive to creation. If the sun is beneficent truth shorn of its -beams, it would be like the moon, no better than brass! - -CAROLINE STURGIS asked why the Mahomedans bore the crescent. - -WILLIAM WHITE said because of some change in the moon which occurred at -the time of the Hegira. - -WILLIAM STORY said that the worshippers at Mecca carried the crescent -before Mahomet’s time. There is a crescent on the black stone. - -Both stories may be true. There is certainly a crescent on the old -Byzantine coin, or besant. - -IDA RUSSELL said something about Diana being wedded. - -This reminded E. P. P. of Minerva’s marriage, discussed last week. She -said that Charles Wheeler had seen the gem of which she then spoke, and -that Neptune was the favored suitor. - -WILLIAM STORY said the Greeks could not wed Neptune to Diana, for the -tides were too low in the Mediterranean! - - C. W. HEALEY. - - April 10, 1841. - - - - -VII. - -PLUTO AND TARTARUS. - - - _April 15, 1841._ - -MARGARET said very little about Pluto. On the first evening she had -called him the depth of things, and JAMES CLARKE now had a good deal -to say upon the three ideas which she thought pervaded the Greek -mythology,—the source, the depth, and the extent or flow of thought. He -said that this distinction had struck him very forcibly when Margaret -first mentioned it. We speak of widely diffused thought, of aspiring and -profound thought; of sympathetic, exalted, or deep feeling,—and this -seemed to exhaust language. It was through the depths of feeling and -experience that we came to the profound of thought. - -E. P. P. said, “There is no genius in happiness.” Not a very intelligible -statement. - -MARGARET said, “There is nothing worth knowing that has not some penalty -attached to it. We pay it the more willingly in proportion as we grow -wise. Depth, altitude, diffusion, are the three births of Time. It is -this which makes the German cover the operations of the miner with a -mystic veil. Bostonians laugh at the Germans because they think.” - -WHEELER liked what Mr. Clarke said, and added that there was meaning in -the Irish phrase, “_Lower me up_.” - -MARGARET said that all the punishments of Tartarus expressed baffled -effort, the penalty least endurable to the active Greek. - -MR. MACK thought it singular that in every nation where the belief in -Tartarus had prevailed, an exact locality had always been assigned to it. - -WILLIAM WHITE said that, so long as anybody could point out the locality -of the garden of Eden, we had no need to smile at the locality of a -Tartarus or an Elysium. - -I do not think these “myths” belong to the same class. - -CHARLES WHEELER quoted Champollion to the effect that the Styx was only -a small river flowing between the Temple at Thebes and a neighboring -“place of tombs.” The ferryman was named Charon, and the Egyptian habit -of judging the dead probably gave rise to the rest of the fable. - -MARGARET said, “This was very natural.” She asked Mr. Wheeler the meaning -of certain names. - -Phlegethon, he answered, meant burning fire; Acheron, anguish. - -Why did not somebody say that the lifeless current of the Styx first -tempted Homer to give it to the Infernals? It is in reality a river of -Epeiros. - -The Styx, WHEELER said, was a cold unhealthy stream, like that which -caused the death of Alexander. It flowed slowly through Acadia, but was -supposed to take its rise in Hades. Lethe is a river near the Syrtus in -Africa. It disappears in the sand, but rises again. Hence its name. - -MR. WHEELER had some difficulty in explaining certain inconsistencies in -the poets. - -MR. CLARKE quoted the remark of Achilles (?) concerning Elysium,—that a -day of hard labor on earth was preferable to an eternity of pleasure in -Elysian fields! - -MARGARET said that in Elysium, as in Tartarus, souls waited. These -restless Greeks could do nothing. They were cut off from action, which -was their delight. All their punishments seem to consist of frustrated -effort,—the consequence of some presumption. Tantalus was ever thirsty -and ever famished because he had aspired to nectar and ambrosia. Ixion, -who would have scaled the heavens, was condemned to incessant revolution -upon a wheel, which never paused yet never accomplished anything. The -Danaides, who murdered the love which wooed them, were doomed to fill a -broken vessel with water which as constantly escaped. Sisyphus, who had -never labored except for a selfish end, was to roll a stone up hill, -which as constantly rolled down,—fit emblem of all selfish labor. As for -Tityrus, who sought to violate the secrets of Nature, the vulture fed -always upon his entrails. - -WHEELER said this did not represent frustrated effort. - -MARGARET said, No: this was remorse; but there was an admirable instance -of the former given by Goethe, of a man who wove rope from the sedges -which grew upon the banks of Lethe, for an ass who continually devoured -it. The moral seemed to be that the ass could just as well have eaten -them unwoven. Goethe goes on to say that the Greeks only thought that the -poor man had a prodigal wife, but that the moderns would look deeper and -see more in the fable. - -We all weave sedges for asses to eat, thought I. - -MARGARET seemed to think that every heart might have an experience which -would correspond to Tartarus. Every hero must visit it at least once. - -I suggested Pluto, Persephone, the Fates, the Gorgons, the Furies, and -Cerberus. Pluto was equal to Neptune and Jupiter. - -MARGARET continued: Hades was not given to Pluto to mark defective -character, but simply as his kingdom. His wants were all supplied. The -bride Olympus refused him he was permitted to steal from earth while -she gathered flowers. Persephone, seed of all things, must dwell in the -dark; but another legend tells us that if she had been willing to leave -her veil, she might have stolen away. There was a meaning in her being -forbidden to eat in the infernal regions. Fate said, “Do not touch what -you don’t want.” Psyche was forbidden to partake of the regal banquet -Persephone spread. Seeking for Immortality, this soul, like every other, -must be content to eat bitter bread. - -There was then a talk about Cerberus and the Gorgons. - -MR. CLARKE said that in the New Testament the dog seemed to stand for -popular prejudice. The swine stood for what _could_ not, the dog for what -_would_ not, be convinced. - -Yes, MARGARET said, the wolf is a misanthropic dog. He has little dignity. - -IDA RUSSELL said Cerberus stood for the temperaments. - -Well, MARGARET said, that being so, she liked the Greeks for making no -allowance for the lymphatic. To what, she continued, do we offer the -first sop, as we pass through life? As for the Gorgons, every one, she -thought, would find his own interpretation of them. To her there was no -Gorgon but _apathy_; there is nothing in creation that will so soon turn -a live man into stone. These Gorgons were three women, who used one eye -and one tooth between them,—except Medusa, who was beautiful and perfect. -Her hair had provoked the envy of Minerva, and was changed into serpents. -Margaret had a copy of a gem, which Marion Dwight had made for her, which -showed this. - -E. P. P. asked if Perseus did not endeavor to show Medusa her own head. - -MARGARET said that might well rouse her! - -CHARLES WHEELER explained. Perseus only used a mirror given him by -Minerva to avoid looking at the Gorgon. - -CAROLINE STURGIS said that the old woman who keeps house for Helen in the -second part of “Faust” was a Gorgon to her. - -This dragged a critical analysis of the “Faust” forward. - -MARGARET said the Seeker represents the Spirit of the Age. He never -sinned save by yielding, and yet he was emphatically _saved by grace_. -It was difficult to see what Goethe meant until he got to the Tower of -the Middle Ages. That made all clear. - -CHARLES WHEELER said, the reader would a great deal rather that Faust -went to the Devil than not! - -MARGARET defended Goethe’s way of exhibiting character, of which Wilhelm -Meister was an instance. Goethe said to himself, What should I do with a -hero in such rascally society? Meister preferred the Brahmal experience. - -E. P. P. asked if this moral indifference was well? - -MARGARET replied, that it was just as frightful as any other Gorgon. If -we are to have a purely intellectual development, it was well for a man -like Goethe to represent it. To choose fairly between evil and good, the -intellect must regard both with indifference. - -Somebody asked how the Gorgon’s head came to be on the Ægis of Minerva? - -If Apathy is the Gorgon, surely Wisdom needs it! - -Then we began to talk about Theseus in connection with Tartarus. Why -should he sit forever on a stone? - -MARGARET thought he represented reform! - -MR. MACK said reform checked itself by its own fanaticism. - -WHEELER, in this connection, asked after the Greek notion of -accountability. - -MARGARET did not think the Greeks had any. - -WHEELER assured her to the contrary, and told anecdotes to prove it. He -spoke of the fatal transmission of guilt in one family, generation after -generation. - -MARGARET said the Greeks never rejected facts. - -IDA RUSSELL spoke of the last King of Athens, Codrus, supposed to have -been punished for the crimes of his ancestors. - -WHEELER said that when the Greeks killed some ambassadors, they felt so -sure that Heaven would avenge the sin that they sent two citizens to -expiate it; but Darius, to whom they were sent, refused to release the -Greeks from their impending doom. - -MARGARET said the moment such a supposition was started, there were -plenty of facts to sustain it. Orestes is the purified victim of his -family. The old Greeks had made no complete statement of their destiny or -their accountability. - -E. P. P. said they had made it in art. - - C. W. HEALEY. - - April 16, 1841. - - - - -VIII. - -MERCURY AND ORPHEUS. - - - _April 22, 1841._ - -MARGARET said it surprised her that young men did not seek to be -Mercuries. She said that one of the ugliest young men that she knew had -become so enraptured with one of Raphael’s Mercuries, that he confessed -to her that he was never alone without trying to assume its attitude -before the glass. She said she could not help laughing at the image he -suggested, an ugly figure in high-heeled boots and a strait-coat in the -act of flying, commissioned with every grace from Heaven to men! but she -respected the feeling, and thought every sensitive soul must share it. - -EMERSON had sent Sophia Peabody several fine engravings. One of these, a -Correggio, represented a woman of Parma as a Madonna. It might give any -woman a similar desire. - -William Story, Frank Shaw, Mr. Mack and his friends, Mrs. Ripley, Ida -Russell, and Mrs. S. G. Ward were all missing to-night. - -MARGARET said that she was sorry she had allowed our subject to embrace -so much. The Grecian Mercury seemed to mean so little that she had not -thought of the depth and difficulty connected with the Egyptian Hermes. -Among the Greeks, Ceres, Persephone, and Juno represent the productive -faculties, Jupiter and Apollo the divine, and Mercury simply the human -understanding, the God of eloquence and of thieves. - -MARIANNE JACKSON thought it strange that he should be at once the God of -persuasion and the Deity of theft! - -MARGARET said eloquence was a kind of thieving! - -Did the Greeks so consider it? asked MARIANNE. - -MARGARET said, Yes, more than any nation in the world, and taught their -children so to do; and in fact such mental recognitions were what -distinguished the nation from all other peoples. - -The Egyptian Hermes represented the whole intellectual progress of -man. If one made a discovery it was signed Hermes, and under that name -transmitted to posterity. Hence the forty volumes of Hermetic theology, -philosophy, and so on. Individuals were merged in the God. Hermes was -always the mediator, the peacemaker, and it was in this relation that the -beautiful story was told of the caduceus. Mercury has originally only -the divining-rod which Apollo had given him, but, finding two serpents -fighting one day, he pacified them, and had ever after the right to bear -them embracing on his rod. There was another story, Margaret said, which -she could not understand,—the story of his obtaining the head of the -Ibis from Osiris. Hermes kept the _first_ or outside gates of Heaven, a -significant fact typically considered. - -I am sure there is something in Heeren’s researches about the Ibis story, -but Caroline Sturgis said, No. - -WILLIAM WHITE asked if the God gave the name to the planet? - -MARGARET said, Yes; and it was given because it stood nearest the sun. - -E. P. P. said Plutarch had written something about Hermes in his “Morals.” - -MARGARET said, Perhaps so, but she didn’t know, as she never _could_ read -them. Plutarch went round and round a story; presented all the corners -of it, told all the pretty bits of gossip he could find, instead of -penetrating to its secret. So she preferred his anecdotes of Heroes to -his Parallels or Essays. - -I said, in surprise, how much I liked the “Morals.” - -“Yes,” MARGARET said, “even Emerson paid the book the high compliment of -calling it his tuning-key, when he was about to write.” - -E. P. P. said Coleridge was _her own_ tuning-key, and asked Margaret if -she had no such friendly instigator. - -MARGARET said she could keep up no intimacy with books. She loved a -book dearly for a while; but as soon as she began to look out a nice -Morocco cover for her favorite, she was sure to take a disgust to it, -to outgrow it. She did not mean that she outgrew the author, but that, -having received all from him that he could give her, he tired her. That -had even been the case with Shakespeare! For several years he was her -very life; then she gave him up. About two years ago she had occasion -to look into “Hamlet,” and then wished to refresh her love, but found -it impossible. It was the same with Ovid, whose luxuriant fancy had -delighted her girlhood. She took him up, and read a little with all her -youthful glow; but it would not last. Friends must part, but why need -we part from our books? She regretted her oddity, for she lost a great -solace by it. - -She proceeded to contrast the Apollo with Mercury. In Egypt, Hermes was -the experimental Deity, the Brahma. - -CAROLINE STURGIS asked what the Hermes on the door-posts of the Athenian -houses meant. - -MARGARET thought that he posed there as a messenger, an opener of the -gates merely, and then spoke of several Mercuries by Raphael. One she -knew, so full of beauty and grace that it seemed a single trumpet-tone. -Another all loveliness was handing the cup of life to Psyche. She -wondered that such symbols as Apollo and Mercury did not inspire all -young men with ardor, and make them something better than young men -usually are. - -WILLIAM WHITE said Apollo was too far beyond the average man to do this; -but that Mercury, graceful and vivacious, would naturally attract the -attention. - -MARGARET asked if he would be an easier model to imitate, and then -repeated her anecdote about the ugly youth who longed to be a Mercury. - -WILLIAM said that if his faith had been strong enough, the transformation -might have taken place. - -Query—what is meant by strong _enough_? - -MARGARET spoke of the Egyptian Osiris in his relation to Hermes, and said -that she did not like _him_ to be confounded with the Apollo. He was in -reality the Egyptian Jove. - -This led me to speak of the Orphic Hymn in which Apollo is addressed as -“immortal Jove.” - -MARGARET said she had discovered very little about Orpheus. In relation -to the five points of Orphic theology, she had lately read a posthumous -leaf from Goethe’s Journal. The existence of a Dæmon seemed to be a -favorite idea of his. He did not believe with Emerson that all things -were in our own souls, but that they existed in _the original souls_, -(does anybody know what that means?) and we must go out to seek them. -This notion Goethe thought verified by his own experience. Goethe’s -works, Margaret thought, had more variety than anybody’s except -Shakespeare’s. His powers of observation seemed to condense his genius. - -WILLIAM WHITE wondered why Goethe showed such tenderness for Byron. - -MARGARET said that in every important sense Byron was his very opposite; -but Goethe hardly looked upon him as a responsible being. He was rather -the instrument of a _higher_ power. He was the exponent of his period. - -SOPHIA PEABODY had been making a drawing of Crawford’s Orpheus at the -Athenæum. It was here brought down for me to see. - -At Sophia’s request, MARGARET repeated a sonnet she had written on it. -She recited it wretchedly, but the sonnet was pleasant. - -I spoke of Bode’s Essay on the Orphic Poetry, and sympathized in his view -of the spuriousness of the Hymns. They might have been signed Orpheus, -however, as other things were signed Hermes, simply because they were -exponents of Orphic thought. - -MARGARET dilated on this Orphic thought. - -I quoted Proclus in his Commentary on Plato’s “Republic” as follows:— - - “Mars perpetually discerns and nourishes, and constantly - excites the contrarieties of the Universe, that the world may - exist perfect and entire in all its parts; but requires the - assistance of Venus, that he may bring order and harmony into - things contrary and discordant. - - “Vulcan adorns by his art the sensible universe, which he - fills with certain natural impulses, powers, and proportions; - but _he_ requires the assistance of Venus, that he may invest - material effects with beauty, and by this means secure the - comeliness of the world. Venus is the source of all the - harmony and analogy in the Universe, and of the union of form - with matter, connecting and comprehending the powers of the - elements. Although this Goddess ranks among the supermundane - divinities, yet her principal employment consists in - beautifully illuminating the order, harmony, and communion of - all mundane concerns.” - -I asked MARGARET if this was not something like her own thought,—this -Venus, for example, was it not better than that we got from Greek art? - -She said it was the primal idea, but she did not attach much importance -to chronology. Philosophy must decide the age of a thought. - -I gave her as good an abstract of Bode’s theory as I could. - -WILLIAM WHITE took the drawing of Orpheus from me, and, while speaking of -its beauty, said it always made him angry to think of the deterioration -of the human figure. He thought it ought to have been prevented, and -that his ancestors had deprived him of his rights. - -Upon this, MARGARET entered into a lively disquisition upon masculine -beauty. She said the best specimens of it she had ever seen were a -Southern oddity named Hutchinson and some Cambridge students who came -from Virginia. - -We lost a finer talk to-night through the inclemency of the weather. -WHEELER was to have come with a great stock of information. Had he done -so, I need not have quoted Bode or Proclus. - - CAROLINE W. HEALEY. - - April 23, 1841. - - - - -IX. - -HERMES AND ORPHEUS. - - - _April 29, 1841._ - -We did not have a very bright talk. There were few present, and we had -only the subject of last week. MARGARET did not speak at length. WHEELER -had been ill, and his physician prescribed light diet of both body and -mind. - -Somebody spoke of Mercury sweeping the courts of the Gods, but that -suggested nothing to Margaret. - -SARAH SHAW had a pin, with a Mercury on it, represented as holding the -head of a goat. - -MARGARET had never seen anything that would explain it, and there was -some dispute about it. - -E. P. P. said that, according to the Orphic Hymn, Mercury sought the love -of Dryope under the form of a goat. Pan was the fruit of that amour. In -this form also he wooed Diana. - -We wandered from our subject a little, to hear MR. MACK talk about the -Gorgons. He thought they stood for the three sides of human nature. -Medusa, the chief care-taker, the body, was the only one not immortal, -and the only one beautiful. Stheno and Euryale, wide-extended force -and wide-extended scope, represented spirit and intellect, essentially -immortal. The changing of Medusa’s curls (or elements of strength) into -serpents represented the fall. It was not the Gorgons who had but one eye -and one tooth between them, but three sister guardians, whom Perseus was -compelled to destroy before he could reach Medusa. - -MR. MACK did not tell us why human nature so divided had a certain -petrifying power! - -E. P. P. thought the intellect, not the body, was the care-taker. -Mr. Mack tried in vain to explain, owing, I think, to his German -misconception of words. Certainly the five senses are the _providers_, -which was what he must have meant. - -MARGARET liked his theory, because there was a place in it for sin! She -disliked failure. Perhaps we all had perceived her attachment to evil! -Not that she wished men to fall into it, but it must be accepted as one -means of final good. - -The only copies of Bode belong to Edward Everett and Theodore Parker. -Neither is at this moment to be had. The talk turned on the age of the -Orphic idea. - -The Orphic Hymns, WHEELER said, were merely hymns of initiation into -the Orphic mysteries. They were altered by every successive priesthood, -and finally by the Christian Platonists. Those now remaining were -undoubtedly their work. Perhaps the ancient formulas were still hidden -in them. We know the beautiful story of Orpheus. If he indeed represents -many, yet all that has been said of him is also true of one. - -MR. MACK declared that Eurydice represented the true faith! She was -killed by an envenomed serpent, which might possibly stand for an enraged -priesthood! - -I got a little impatient here, and said I did not care to know about the -Hymns; but the Orphic idea, which made Scaliger speak of the Hymns as the -“Liturgy of Satan,”—how old was that? - -MARGARET could not guess why he called them so. - -CHARLES WHEELER said that, since they made a heathen worship attractive, -perhaps he fancied them a device of the Evil One! - -Too great a compliment to Scaliger, I thought. - -MARGARET had no objection to Orpheus as crowning an age; she liked that -multitudes should produce one. - -CHARLES WHEELER said that Carlyle had spoken of Orpheus as standing in -such a relation to the Greeks as Odin bore to the Scandinavians. - -MARGARET said at this point (I don’t see with what pertinency) that -Carlyle displeased her by making so much of mere men. - -JAMES CLARKE quoted Milton, speaking of himself among the revellers of -the Stuart Court, as like Orpheus among the Bacchanals. - -I said that Bode placed Homer in the tenth century before Christ, and -Orpheus in the age just preceding, say the thirteenth century before. - -MR. MACK thought all that mere conjecture. - -I told him it made a good deal of difference to me whether the Orphic -Mythology came before or after that of Homer. Had man grown out of the -noble and into the base idea? Was all our knowledge only memory? Had the -Orphic fancies no beauty till the Platonic Christians shaped them? - -MARGARET responded to what I said, that she did not like a mind always -looking back. - -E. P. P. said there was a great deal of consolation in it. Memory was -prophecy. She didn’t like such a mind, but since she happened to have it -she wanted support for it. - -MR. MACK said all history offered such support. - -CHARLES WHEELER didn’t like to believe it, but felt that he must. He -spoke of the Golden Age. - -MARGARET said every nation looked back to this; but, after all, it was -only the ideal. The past was a curtain on which they embroidered their -pictures of the present. - -WILLIAM WHITE said that all great men looked to the appreciation of the -future. We are too near to the present. - -MARGARET agreed. - -E. P. P. said, all the science of Europe could not offer anything like -the old Egyptian lore. - -MARGARET said the moderns needed the assistance of a despotic government. - -CHARLES WHEELER spoke of the monuments in Central America; but before he -could utter what was in his mind, MARGARET interrupted, saying that all -the greatness of the Mexicans only sufficed to show their littleness. We -might have lost in grandeur and piety, but we had gained in a thousand -tag-rag ways. - -MRS. FARRAR whispered to me, “Write that down!” and I have done it. - -CHARLES WHEELER said that late discoveries proved that there was a -complete knowledge of electricity among the ancients. There were -lightning-rods on the temple at Jerusalem, and they are described by -Josephus, who however does not know what they are. - -MARGARET and I clung to the “tag-rag” gain. - -CHARLES WHEELER agreed with me in thinking the Orphic Hymns of very late -origin. - -MARGARET could not see the use of creating a race of giants to prepare -the earth for pygmies! If these must exist, why not in some other sphere? -She referred to the beautiful Persian fable. The _first_ was God, of -course; since man may always revert to Him, what matter about the giants? - -I said that primitive ages were supposed to be innocent rather than great. - -MARGARET said the Persian fable bore to the same point as the Vishnu -and Brahma. It was antagonism that produced all things. The universe at -first was one Conscious Being,—“I am;” no word, no darkness, no light. -This Conscious Being needed to know itself, and it passed into darkness -and light and a third being,—the Mediator between the two. This Trinity -produced ideals,—men, animals, things; and after a period of twelve -thousand years all return again into the One, who has gained by the -phenomena only a multiplied consciousness. - -“Were they _merged_?” asked CHARLES WHEELER. - -MARGARET said, “No! once created, they could not lose identity.” - - C. W. HEALEY. - - April 30, 1841. - - - - -X. - -BACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS. - - - _May 6, 1841._ - -Few present. Our last talk, and we were all dull. For my part, Bacchus -does not inspire me, and I was sad because it was the last time that I -should see Margaret. She does not love me; I could not venture to follow -her into her own home, and I love her so much! Her life hangs on a -thread. Her face is full of the marks of pain. Young as I am, I feel old -when I look at her. - -MARGARET spoke of Hercules as representing the course of the solar year. -The three apples were the three seasons of four months each into which -the ancients divided it. The twelve labors were the twelve signs. - -E. P. P. accepted this, and spoke of Bryant’s book, which Margaret did -not like. - -MARGARET said Bryant forced every fact to be a point in a case. Bending -each to his theory, he falsified it. She wished English people would -be content, like the wiser Germans, to amass classified facts on which -original minds could act. She liked to see the Germans so content to -throw their gifts upon the pile to go down to posterity, though the pile -might carry no record of the collectors. She spoke of Kreitzer, whose -book she was now reading, who coolly told his readers that he should not -classify a second edition afresh, for his French translator had done it -well enough, and if readers were not satisfied with his own work, they -must have recourse to the translation. This she thought was as it ought -to be. - -JAMES CLARKE said it always vexed him to hear ignorant people speak of -Hercules as if he were a God, and of Apollo and Jupiter as if they might -at some time have been men. - -MARGARET said, Yes, the distinction between Gods and Demigods was that -the former were the creations of pure spontaneity, and the latter -actually existent personages, about whose heroic characters and lives all -congenial stories clustered. - -J. F. C. did not like the statues of Hercules; the brawny figure was not -to his taste. - -MARGARET thought it majestic. She said he belonged properly to Thessaly, -and was identified with its scenery. She told several little stories -about him. That of his sailing round the rock of Prometheus, in a golden -cup borrowed of Jupiter, was the least known. She told the story from -Ovid, the glowing account of his death, of the recognition by delighted -Jove. She said Wordsworth’s “Tour in Greece” gave her great materials for -thought. - -Then she turned to Bacchus. - -To show in what manner she supposed Bacchus to be the _answer_ or -complement to Apollo, she mentioned the statement of some late critic -upon the relation of Ceres and Persephone to each other. - -Persephone was the hidden energy, the vestal fire, vivifying the -universe. Ceres was the productive faculty, external, bounteous. They -were two phases of one thing. It was the same with Apollo and Bacchus. -Apollo was the vivifying power of the sun; its genial glow stirred the -earth, and its noblest product, the grape, responded. - -She spoke of the Bacchanalian festivals, of the spiritual character -attributed to them by Euripides, showing that originally they were -something more than gross orgies. - -MRS. CLARKE (ANN WILBY) said that they licensed the wildest drunkenness -in Athens. - -I said that was at a later time than Euripides undertook to picture. Were -they identical with the Orphic? Did Orpheus really bring them from Egypt? - -MARGARET would accept that for a _beginning_. - -E. P. P. thought that next winter we might have a talk about Roman -Mythology. - -MARGARET liked the idea, and JAMES CLARKE seemed to accept it for the -whole party. He said that he had never felt any interest in the Greek -stories, until Margaret had made them the subject of conversation. - -E. P. P. said she had felt excessively ashamed all through that she knew -so little. - -MARGARET said no one need to feel so. It was a subject that might exhaust -any preparation. Still, she wished we _would_ study! She had herself -enjoyed great advantages. Nobody’s explanations had ever perplexed her -brain. She had been placed in a garden, with a great pile of books before -her. She began to read Latin before she read English. For a time these -deities were real to her, and she prayed: “O God! if thou art Jupiter!” -etc. - -JAMES CLARKE said he remembered her once telling him that she prayed to -Bacchus for a bunch of grapes! - -MARGARET smiled, and said that when she was first old enough to think -about Christianity, she cried out for her dear old Greek gods. Its -spirituality seemed nakedness. She could not and would not receive it. It -was a long while before she saw its deeper meaning. - - CAROLINE W. HEALEY. - - May 7, 1841. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] Emerson’s presence at Conversations II. V. and VIII. is noted above, -because in his contribution to Margaret’s “Memoirs” he shows that his -attendance made absolutely no impression on him. He states that there -were but _five_ Conversations, and that he was present only at the second. - -[2] Dr. Dana, a celebrated chemist, received a salary from the Merrimac -Manufacturing Co. as consulting chemist. Through his experiments and -practical skill, a radical change was made in the methods of dyeing and -printing calicoes. This was in connection with the use of madder, and -the Company claimed his discovery and allowed him no extra recompense. -It will be perceived that Mr. Ripley got his supposed facts from the -newspapers. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Margaret and Her Friends, by -Margaret Fuller and Caroline Wells Healey Dall - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS *** - -***** This file should be named 62756-0.txt or 62756-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/7/5/62756/ - -Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Margaret and Her Friends - or, Ten conversations with Margaret Fuller upon the - mythology of the Greeks and its expression in art, held - at the house of the Rev. George Ripley, Bedford Place, - Boston, beginning March 1, 1841 - -Author: Margaret Fuller - Caroline Wells Healey Dall - -Release Date: July 25, 2020 [EBook #62756] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS *** - - - - -Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center larger">MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="box"> - -<p class="center">BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">What we Really Know about Shakespeare.</span> -12mo, cloth. Price, $1.25.</p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">The Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee</span>, a -Kinswoman of the Pundita Ramabai. -12mo, cloth. Price, $1.00.</p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">Letters Home from Colorado, Utah, -and California.</span> 12mo. Price, $1.50.</p> - -<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">Barbara Fritchie.</span> A Study. With Portrait. -12mo. Price, $1.00.</p> - -<p class="right">ROBERTS BROTHERS,<br /> -<i>Publishers</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS<br /> -<span class="smaller">OR</span><br /> -<span class="gothic">Ten Conversations</span><br /> -<span class="smaller">WITH</span><br /> -<span class="larger">MARGARET FULLER</span><br /> -<span class="smaller">UPON</span><br /> -THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS AND<br /> -ITS EXPRESSION IN ART</p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">Held at the House of the Rev. George Ripley</span></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Bedford Place, Boston</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><i>BEGINNING MARCH 1, 1841</i></p> - -<p class="titlepage">REPORTED BY CAROLINE W. HEALEY</p> - -<p class="titlepage">BOSTON<br /> -ROBERTS BROTHERS<br /> -1895</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>Copyright, 1895</i>,<br /> -<span class="smcap">By Roberts Brothers</span>.</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="gothic">University Press:</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PREFACE">5</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td><span class="smcap">Members of the Class</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#A_LIST_OF_PERSONS">17</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">I.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">General Mythological Statement</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#I">25</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">II.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">General Statement Continued. R. W. E. Present</span><a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#II">40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">III.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Story from Novalis. Apollo</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#III">60</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IV.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Minerva. The Serpent</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#IV">77</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">V.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Venus and Psyche. R. W. E. Present</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#V">95</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VI.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Cupid and Psyche. Margaret, and Elisabeth Hoar</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VI">106</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Pluto and Tartarus</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VII">123</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Mercury and Orpheus. R. W. E. Present</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#VIII">135</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IX.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Hermes and Orpheus</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#IX">147</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">X.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Bacchus and the Demigods</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#X">156</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2> - -<p>In 1839, Margaret Fuller, delicate in -health and much overtaxed, consented -to gratify many who loved her -by opening in Boston a series of “Conversations -for Women.” In a Circular -quoted by Emerson, she says to Mrs. -Sophia Ripley:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Could a circle be assembled in earnest, -desirous to answer the questions, ‘What were -we born to do?’ and ‘How shall we do it?’ I -should think the undertaking a noble one.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>This was certainly the original intent -of the famous “Fuller Conversations,” -which, beginning then, were continued at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -intervals, until Margaret left Boston for -New York in 1844.</p> - -<p>It seems a little singular, therefore, to -find her writing to Ralph Waldo Emerson -of this series, Nov. 25, 1839, as -follows:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The first day’s topic was the genealogy -of Heaven and Earth; then the Will or -Jupiter; the Understanding, Mercury: the -second day’s, The celestial inspiration of -Genius, perception and transmission of Divine -Law; Apollo the terrene inspiration, Bacchus -the impassioned abandonment. Of the thunderbolt, -the caduceus, the ray and the grape, -having disposed as well as might be, we came -to the wave and the sea-shell it moulds to -beauty....</p> - -<p>“I assure you, there is more Greek than -Bostonian spoken at the meetings!”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Under the forms suggested by Mythology, -Margaret proceeded to open all -the great questions of life. In a literary -sense, she distinctly stated that she knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -little about the doings on Olympus, nor -had she received any help from German -critical works,—of which at the present -day she would have found many.</p> - -<p>These Conversations owed their attraction -first to the absolute novelty of her -theme to many of those she addressed, -and still more to the variety and freshness -of her own treatment. The opening, -at the Boston Athenæum, of the -splendid collection of casts presented by -Thomas Handasyd Perkins, and many -private collections of pictures, engravings, -gems, and miniature casts, had interested -her intensely, and both mind and -fancy were absorbed in the contemplation -of their themes. In these Conversations -she depicted what she had gained -from Art, rather than the little that she -had acquired through study. If I may -judge from a later experience, her Latin -studies rather injured than developed her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -brilliant fancies. She never could remember -what she had said, never could -repeat a brilliant saying, and, if obliged -to read any illustration, read it, as all her -friends admitted, very badly. From a -statement made to Emerson, I quote the -following:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Her mood applied itself to the mood of her -companion, point to point, in the most limber, -sinuous, vital way; ... and this sympathy -she had for all persons indifferently.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>The communication of which the above -is a sample I have always read with -amazement, for I never knew a person -of whom it would seem less true. When -conversing with one sympathetic person, -it was undoubtedly true; when resting -upon the affection and loyalty of her -young women,—a most gifted and extraordinary -circle,—it was doubtless -equally so; but when the class of March,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -1841, was formed, a very different aspect -of herself appeared.</p> - -<p>The fame of her “talks” had spread. -She had great need of money, and some -of the gentlemen who were accustomed -to talk with her, and some of the ladies -of her day-class, suggested an evening -class, to be composed of both ladies and -gentlemen, and to meet at the house of -the Rev. George Ripley in Bedford Place. -Ten Conversations were to be held, and -the tickets of admission cost twenty -dollars each, a very high price for that -time. It was in the book-room of Elisabeth -Peabody that I first heard them discussed. -I was very young to join such -a circle; and when she invited me, Elisabeth -had more regard, I think, to Margaret’s -purse, than to my fitness for the -company. But it was a great opportunity. -The members were full of excitement -over the projected opening of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -Brook Farm. All were in good spirits, -and bright sayings ran back and forth. -I had been carefully trained in the Art -of Reporting, and at that time made -careful abstracts on the following day of -any lecture that had interested me. In -these I trusted to my memory. It was -not possible to do this with the Conversations; -so I invented a sort of short-hand, -and carried note-book and pencil -with me. I sat a little out of sight -that I might not embarrass Margaret, but -Elisabeth Peabody and Mrs. Farrar found -me out. Elisabeth wrote what she called -an abstract, every night; but an examination -of her abstracts quoted by Mr. Emerson -shows that what she wrote was not -what any one said, but the impression -made upon her own mind by it. These -abstracts she always read to me, the next -morning. I wrote out my short-hand -notes before breakfast and carried them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -down to her about noon. I greatly enjoyed -listening to her papers, and she -was so absorbed in them that she often -forgot to ask for mine, which was a great -relief to me.</p> - -<p>So far as I know, these Reports of -mine are the only attempt ever made -deliberately to represent these or any -of Margaret’s “Conversations” word for -word. Of course, much was omitted as -not worth recording, nor did I ever write -down anything that I could not understand. -Many of the members I knew -intimately, and fell naturally into writing -of them by initials and first names, -as they always spoke to and of each -other. At times I fell back into the -Mr., Mrs., or Miss, which was my own -habit. It is well to call those we love -by any name they will permit, but the -familiar habit of the Transcendental -circle was full of social peril to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -younger members, who, conceiving it a -proof of genius, followed it, when its -origin was forgotten, and were much -misunderstood in consequence in later -years.</p> - -<p>I offer the Reports exactly as they -were written. I should like to alter -them in several small ways if I could do -it honestly. We met to discuss Grecian -Mythology as interpreted to Margaret’s -mind by Art; but Latin and Greek names -were used as if they were synonymous, -and Latin poems were quoted, as well as -Greek traditions. This confused my -mind then, and does still. Athene and -Minerva, Zeus and Jupiter, are by no -means the same persons to me, Art or -no Art.</p> - -<p>It may be thought by those who cannot -remember the persons who enacted -this little drama, or by those who do -remember and know well how very distinguished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -a company this was, that I -should have eliminated my own reflections, -and dropped out of the story.</p> - -<p>This would I think have been greatly -unjust to Margaret, who never enjoyed -this mixed class, and considered it a failure -so far as her own power was concerned. -She and Mr. Emerson met like -Pyramus and Thisbe, a blank wall between. -With Mr. Alcott she had no -patience, and no one of the class seemed -to understand how sincere and deep was -her interest in the theme. In no way -was Margaret’s supremacy so evident -as in the impulse she gave to the minds -of younger women.</p> - -<p>It was the wish of Margaret’s mother -and brothers, as it is also the wish of her -surviving relatives, that I should print -these pages. After Arthur’s death, -Richard Fuller undertook to carry out a -plan to which both had agreed, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -which Margaret’s mother had greatly at -heart. They desired that I should write -a simple, straightforward account of Margaret, -including her residence in Italy, -her marriage, the birth of her child, and -her death. This they intended to print -at their own expense, and they thought -it might be so written as to put an end to -many absurd and painful rumors which -had followed the publication of the first -Memoir. That I might prepare for this, -all Margaret’s manuscripts were in my -custody for more than a year. The -completion of the work was prevented -by Richard Fuller’s unexpected death. -No surviving member of the family was -able to carry out his intention.</p> - -<p>I still have in my possession the estimate -of his sister’s character which -Richard made for my use.</p> - -<p>I should like to add, that the scholar -will see that the stories from Apuleius<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -and Novalis do not exactly correspond -to the originals. They were reported -exactly as they were told.</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">Sept. 1, 1895,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Washington, D. C.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="A_LIST_OF_PERSONS">A LIST OF PERSONS<br /> -<span class="smaller"><span class="smaller">ATTENDING</span><br /> -THE CLASS NAMED IN THIS REPORT.</span></h2> - -<p class="center"><i>About thirty persons usually attended.</i></p> - -<div class="hanging"> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley.</span> The well-known clergyman, -settled over a Unitarian church in -Purchase St., Boston, afterward the President -of the Association at Brook Farm, -and later literary editor of the New York -“Tribune.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Dana Ripley</span>, his wife.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Palmer Peabody.</span> A woman of -remarkable accumulations of learning, -and as remarkable a breadth of sympathy. -She was a teacher,—an enthusiastic advocate -of the Kindergarten, and opened at -No. 13 West St., Boston, a foreign Circulating -Library, which soon became a sort -of Literary Exchange of the greatest use<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -to New England. Her own great powers -did not accomplish all they ought, because -it was impossible for her to apply them -systematically.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Frederick Henry Hedge.</span> The well-known -German and ecclesiastical scholar, whose -remarkable scholarship and character have -not yet received the commemoration they -deserve. He was at this time settled over -the church in Bangor, Maine.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Freeman Clarke.</span> Already the pastor -of the Church of the Disciples, in Boston, -and preaching at Amory Hall. The outline -of his lovely and useful life is preserved in -a memoir by the Rev. E. E. Hale, D.D.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson.</span> The Concord philosopher.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Farrar</span>, born Rotch, the wife of the -Harvard Professor of Physical Science and -Mathematics.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Francis G. Shaw.</span> The son of a well-known -Boston merchant, to be honored through -all time as the father of Colonel Robert -G. Shaw, who was buried where he fell, -with the negroes whom he died to free.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Sarah B. Shaw</span>, his wife.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ann Wilby Clarke</span>, wife of a Boston bank-officer -and the oldest member of an English -family of Wilbys, nearly every member -of which was at some time a teacher in -Boston or its neighborhood.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Jonathan Russell</span> of Milton, widow of -the U. S. Minister to Sweden (1814-1818), -residing on the old Governor Hutchinson -place at Milton, and</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Ida Russell</span>, her daughter.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White.</span> The brother of the first -wife of James Russell Lowell, who was -killed by a fall from the bluff at Milwaukee -in 1856.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William W. Story.</span> Sculptor, poet, and -lawyer, and well known as a contributor -to Blackwood. Still living.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Caroline Sturgis</span>, daughter of William -Sturgis of Boston,—married later to Mr. -Tappan,—a most gifted and charming -creature.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Anna Barker Ward</span>, wife of S. G. -Ward, now living in Washington.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Jones Very</span> of Salem. A Transcendental poet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> was the daughter of Samuel -Hoar of Concord, Mass., and of Sarah, -the daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. -Elisabeth was not the least gifted -of her very gifted family. One brother, -recently deceased, was President Grant’s -first Attorney-General; another is the well-known -Senator from Massachusetts to the -Congress of the United States; and a third, -Edward Sherman Hoar, was distinguished -as a scholar and botanist. To great intellectual -gifts, Elisabeth added personal loveliness -and a saintly serenity of character. -She was betrothed to Charles Emerson (a -brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson), who -died of sudden illness just before the time -appointed for their marriage. He was also -a rarely gifted person, and after his death -his family transferred their tenderest affection -to Elisabeth. The reader of the various -Lives of Emerson will see that she is -often mentioned, and several of Emerson’s -letters are addressed to her. Had she -chosen to devote herself to literature, she -would have been greatly distinguished. -The Life of Mrs. Ripley of Waltham, written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -for “The Women of Our First Century,” -and published by a committee appointed -at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, -was written by her. She died in -1878.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">A. Bronson Alcott</span> of Concord. A memoir -of him has been written by the Hon. F. B. -Sanborn of Concord, assisted by Wm. T. -Harris.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">W. Mack.</span> A gentleman of great ability, -who taught a school in Belmont. His -daughter was the first wife of Stillman, the -artist. The family is, I think, extinct, unless -Mrs. Stillman left a daughter.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Peabody.</span> A younger sister of E. P. P., -afterwards Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Marianne Jackson.</span> A lovely, beloved, and -accomplished woman, who died early. She -was the daughter of Judge Charles Jackson, -one of the soundest jurists who ever -sat on a Massachusetts bench,—the sister -of Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Mrs. -Charles C. Paine, and the aunt, I believe, -of Mr. John T. Morse.</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> - -<p>I have reserved for the last the name of -the only sound Greek scholar among us: -Charles Wheeler.</p> - -<div class="hanging"> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Stearns Wheeler.</span> Born in Lincoln, -near Concord, Dec. 19, 1816, of H. U. -1837, distinguished as a Greek scholar -from whom much was expected. To economize -in order to pursue his Greek studies -he built a shanty at Walden, which is said -to have served as a suggestion to Thoreau. -He went to Germany directly after these -Conversations, and died suddenly of fever -at Leipzig, in the summer of 1843. His -death was a great grief and a great shock. -I have not forgotten the sensation it produced. -Beloved and honored by all who -knew him, the community of scholars was -especially bereaved. To this day, I am -able to trust fearlessly to any information -obtained from him.</p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center">“<i>Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in -the darkness.</i>”—<span class="smcap">Longfellow.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> - -<h1>MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS.</h1> - -<h2 id="I">I.</h2> - -<p class="right"><i>Monday Evening, March 1, 1841.</i></p> - -<p>Margaret opened the conversation by -a beautiful sketch of the origin of Mythology. -The Greeks she thought borrowed -their Gods from the Hindus and -Egyptians, but they idealized their personifications -to a far greater extent. -The Hindus dwelt in the All, the Infinite, -which the Greeks analyzed and to -some degree humanized. All things -sprang from Cœlus and Terra.,—that is, -from Heaven and Earth, or spirit and -matter. Rhea, or the Productive Energy, -and Saturn, or Time, were the children -of Cœlus and Terra. The progress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -of any people is marked by its mythi. -Mythology is only the history of the development -of the Infinite in the Finite. -Saturn devoured his own children until -the disappointed Rhea put a stone (or -obstacle) in his way, and she succeeded -in raising Jupiter. The development of -human faculties was slow, therefore Time -seemed to absorb all that Productive -Energy brought forth, until Energy itself -created obstacles; and of these was born -the Indomitable Will. Jupiter represented -that Will, and usurped the rule of -Time, fighting with the low and sensual -passions, represented by the Titans and -the Giants, until he seated himself -securely on the Olympian Throne, the -Father of the Gods. This Will was not in -itself the highest development of either -Beauty, Genius, Wisdom, or Thought; -but such developments were subject to -it, were its children.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> - -<p>Juno is only the feminine form of this -Indomitable Will. By herself she is -inferior to it, and whenever she opposes -it, loses the game. Vulcan, her child, is -Mechanic Art, great in itself to be sure, -but not comparable to the Perfect Wisdom, -or Minerva, which sprang ready -armed from the masculine Will. <em>She</em> -was greater than her Father, but still his -child.</p> - -<p>Neptune, who raises always a “placid -head above the waves,” represents the -flow of thought,—all-embracing, girdling -in the world, Diana and Apollo, or Purity -and Genius.</p> - -<p>Mercury is Genius in the extrinsic, of -eloquence, human understanding, and -expression. All were the embodiments -of Absolute Ideas, of ideas that had -no origin,—that were eternal. Love -brooded over Chaos; and the perfect -Beauty and Love, represented among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -Greeks by Venus and her son, rose -from the turbid elements. It is singular -that even the ancients should have maintained -the pre-existence of Love. It -was before Order, Men, or the Gods -men worshipped. The fable suggests -the truth,—Infinite Love and Beauty -always was. It is only with their development -in finite beings that History has -to do.</p> - -<p>Here <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> recapitulated. The -Indomitable Will had dethroned Time, -and, acting with Productive Energy,—variously -represented at different times by -Isis, Rhea, Ceres, Persephone, and so on,—had -driven back the sensual passions -to the bowels of the earth, while it produced -Perfect Wisdom, Genius, Beauty, -and Love, results which were more excellent -if not more powerful than their Cause.</p> - -<p>To understand this Mythology, we -must denationalize ourselves, and throw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -the mind back to the consideration of -Greek Art, Literature, and Poesy. It -is only scanty justice that my pen can -render to Margaret’s eloquent talk.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Frank Shaw</span> asked her how she imagined -these personifications to have -suggested themselves in that barbarous -age.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> objected to the word <em>barbarous</em>. -She believed that in the age of -Plato the human intellect reached a -point as elevated in some respects as -any it had ever touched.</p> - -<p>But the Gods were not the product of -that age, but of another far more remote, -<span class="smcap">Frank</span> objected. Was not the infinity of -Hindu conception impaired, when the -Greeks attributed to the Gods the duties, -passions, and criminal indulgences of -men?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ripley</span> said that the virtue of the -Hindu lay in contemplation. If a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -had seen <em>God</em>, he was exempt from the -ordinary obligations of life, and allowed -to pass his life in quiet adoration.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> added that the Greek knew -better than that. <em>He</em> felt the necessity -of developing the Infinite through action, -and embodied this necessity in his art -and poesy as well as in his myths.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Frank</span> seemed still to think that in -losing the adoring contemplation of the -Hindu, and bringing their deities to the -human level, the Greeks had taken one -step down.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> had always thought it had -been a step <em>up</em>, and <span class="smcap">Ann Clarke</span> thought -that the Greeks forgot themselves, -merged all remembrance of the Finite, -in realizing the individual forces of the -Infinite.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span>, who had not waded -very far into the stream, thought the -North American Indian’s worship of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -Manitou purer than the Greek worship, -for the very reason that the Indian -ascribed to his Manitou no passion that -had degraded humanity.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that the Indian propitiated -his God by vile deeds, by ignoble -treacheries and revenge. So the Hindu -throws her child into the Ganges, and -an ecstatic crowd falls before the car -of Juggernaut.</p> - -<p>I thought a good deal, but did not -speak. Did not William’s question grow -out of the simple Unity of the Indian -worship? But the Indian does not -worship the Manitou because he recognizes -a single First Cause, comprehending -in itself all beauty, wisdom, purity, -and truth, but because his heart is -naturally lifted toward an unknown -something, which he has hardly yet -considered as a Cause. The Greek recognized -the abstract forces of the Universe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -but did not perceive their Unity, -and so personified them separately.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> suggested that the Indian had -no literature, and had left no record of -his Olympus!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> added that, if we compare -the Indian Elysium with the Greek, the -difference in spirituality is perceived at -once.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> said that Frank Shaw -talked about Greek mythi, but nobody -could show a purely Greek mythos.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Frank</span> replied that he only meant -that when the Greek mind had acted on -a myth, it had not refined it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> added that it was a vulgar -notion that the Poets of Greece created -her Gods; that the Poets were objective, -and could give only humanized representations -of them.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> thought that there was -a point to which philosophy aided and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -prompted the creative power, but, that -point passed, rather checked its action. -Analysis took the place of the objective -tendency.</p> - -<p>Well! said <span class="smcap">William White</span>, would -not the human mind, aided only by culture, -be incapable of any better idea than -Frank Shaw suggested? Must not revelation -complete the work?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that the answer to his -question would be determined by his -understanding of the word “revelation.” -<em>She</em> could not believe in a God who -had ever left himself without a witness -in the world. As soon as the human -mind and will were ready, there was -always some great Truth waiting to be -submitted to their united action, until -it was worn out. The beautiful Greek -era had been succeeded by a period of -inaction; the Roman era by another, and -so on. She was sorry we had wandered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -from our subject so far as to doubt her -very premises!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Frank</span> said, everything rested on those -premises; so he thought that the ideals -of beauty, love, justice, and truth should -be referred to the Infinite Mind, and not -to the Greek.</p> - -<p>I wonder where he was when Margaret -told about the Love which “was” before -Order!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> said that Culture was -the Mediator between the Finite and -the Infinite.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Freeman Clarke</span>, alluding to -Mr. Hedge’s previous remark upon the -growth of philosophy, and the loss of -the creative power, said that if that were -a fact, it greatly diminished the probability -of the birth of pure Genius into -the world. Plato wrote when philosophy -was at the turning point.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that there were many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -proofs in Plato that the philosophers -understood the personifications of the -mythi. She thought that the gods, the -demigods, and the heroes of mythology -represented distinct classes, and that this -was not sufficiently remembered. She -referred to the story of the burning of -Hercules in Ovid, where Jupiter calls -Juno to see how well his son endures!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said that he thought -the idea of Deity was degraded when the -Greeks changed a hero into a god; but if -Culture be a Mediator, would not Plato -have been greater had he been born into -the nineteenth century?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James F. Clarke</span> said Platos were impossible -now.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> agreed, and said that the -pride of knowledge which he would find -in the world should he appear, would be -a greater obstacle than superstition once -was.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> - -<p>Did somebody say a little while ago that -Will indomitable was born of obstacle?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> told William White that -Coleridge had once said that he could -neither measure nor understand Plato’s -ignorance! His mind had not reached -that altitude!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span>, not willing to forego -the possible birth of Genius, asked if -all the experience and discovery with -which the world had been enriched since -Plato’s time would not furnish enough -for the new-comer to act upon?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> replied that the mind could -not receive unless excited. She must -go through all the intellectual experience -of a Plato, to be as great as he; but -she might stand upon the general or -even her own intuitive recognition of -the truths he had advanced, and go forward -to greater results,—but still that -would not be to make herself greater.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - -<p>But, said <span class="smcap">Mrs. Ripley</span>, in the first -case you would be nothing <em>but</em> Plato.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> acceded, but begged not -to be understood as doubting that the -future would be capable of finer things -than the past.</p> - -<p>The ideal significance of the Mythology -was further dwelt upon, and -much was said of the contrast between -the thought of the priest and the worship -of the people. It was acknowledged -as a matter of course, that only a -few preserved any consciousness of the -original significance of the Mythology.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> thought that this was -the true key to the purpose of the -Eleusinian mysteries, whether in Egypt -where they originated, or in Greece -where they were introduced. Through -them, all who chose became initiated into -the interior meaning of the Mythology.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> added, that in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -the flourishing times of the Athenian -Republic every citizen was compelled -to initiate himself.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> closed our talk with a -gentle reproof to our wandering wits. -To prevent such desultory prattling, she -desired that a subject should be proposed -for the next evening. The story -of Ceres or Rhea, in fact the Productive -Energy however manifested, carried general -favor, and Margaret said archly that -she had thought the presence of gentlemen -(who had never until now attended -one of her talks) would prevent the -wandering and keep us free from prejudice!</p> - -<p>I thought she was rightly disappointed.</p> - -<p>I cannot recall the words, but at some -time this evening Margaret distinguished -three mythological dynasties. The first -was the reign of the Natural Powers. -The second, represented by Jupiter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -Pluto, and Neptune, stood for the height, -the depth, and the surface or flow of -things, the first manifestations of human -consciousness. The third was the Bacchic, -Bacchus not being yet, in her estimation, -the vulgar God of the wine-vat -and the festival, but the inspired Genius,—being -to Apollo, as she said, what the -nectar is to the grape.</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">March 2, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="II">II.</h2> - -<p class="right"><i>March 8, 1841.</i></p> - -<p>Margaret recapitulated the statements -she made last week. By thus -giving to each fabled Deity its place in -the scheme of Mythology, she did not -mean to ignore the enfolding ideas, the -one thought developed in all—as in -Rhea, Bacchus, Pan. She would only -imply that each personification was individual, -served a particular purpose, and -was worshipped in a particular way.</p> - -<p>Before proceeding to talk about Ceres, -she wished to remind us of the mischief -of wandering from our subject. She -hoped the ground she offered would be -accepted <em>at least to talk about</em>! Certainly -no one could deny that a mythos was -the last and best growth of a national<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -mind, and that in this case the characteristics -of the Greek mind were best -gathered from this creation.</p> - -<p>Ceres, Persephone, and Isis, as well as -Rhea, Diana, and so on, seem to be only -modifications of one enfolding idea,—a -goddess accepted by all nations, and not -peculiar to Greece. The pilgrimages of -the more prominent of these goddesses, -Ceres and Isis, seem to indicate the -life which loses what is dear in childhood, -to seek in weary pain for what -after all can be but half regained. Ceres -regained her daughter, but only for half -the year. Isis found her husband, but -dismembered. This era in Mythology -seems to mark the progress of a people -from an unconscious to a conscious state. -Persephone’s periodical exile shows the -impossibility of resuming an unconsciousness -from which we have been once -aroused, the need thought has, having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -once felt the influence of the Seasons, to -retire into itself.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> reminded Margaret -that she had said that the predominant -goddesses, without reference to -Greece, enfolded only one idea, that of -the female <em>Will</em> or <em>Genius</em>,—<em>the bounteous -giver</em>. He had asked her if she could -sustain herself by etymological facts, -and she replied that her knowledge of -the Greek was not critical enough. -Since then he had inquired into the -origin of the proper names of the Greek -deities, and found that it confirmed her -impression. The names of Rhea, Tellus, -Isis, and Diana were resolvable into one, -and the difference in their etymology was -only a common and permissible change -in the position of the letters of which -they are composed, or a mere provincial -dialectic change. Diana is the same as -Dione, also one of the names of Juno.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> asked if Homer ever confounded -the last two? <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> -thought not. Homer was purely objective. -He knew little and cared less -about the primitive creation of the -myths.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. Emerson</span> thought it would be -very difficult to detect this secret. Jupiter, -for instance, might have been a -man who was the exponent of Will to -his race.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, “No; they could have -deduced him just as easily from Nature -herself, or from a single exhibition of -will power.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. Emerson</span> said that a man -like Napoleon would easily have suggested -it.</p> - -<p>“What a God-send is a Napoleon!” -exclaimed <span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span>; “let us -pray for scores of such, that a new and -superior mythos may arise for us!” Is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -it malicious to suspect a subtle irony -turned against the sacred person of -R. W. E. in this speech?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> retorted indignantly that if -they came, <em>we</em> should do nothing better -than write memoirs of their hats, coats, -and swords, as we had done already, -without thinking of any lesson they -might teach. She could not see why -we were not content to take the beautiful -Greek mythi as they were, without -troubling ourselves about those which -might arise for us!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. E.</span> acknowledged that the -Greeks had a quicker perception of the -beautiful than we. Their genius lay in -the material expression of it. If we -knew the real meaning of the names of -their Deities, the story would take to -flight. We should have only the working -of abstract ideas as we might adjust -them for ourselves.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that a fable was more -than a mere word. It was a word of -the purest kind rather, the passing of -thought into form. R. W. E. had made -no allowance for time or space or climate, -and there was a want of truth in that. -The age of the Greeks was the age of -Poetry; ours was the age of Analysis. -<em>We</em> could not create a Mythology.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> asked, “Why not? We had -still better material.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, irrelevantly as it -seemed to me, that Carlyle had attempted -to deduce new principles from present -history, and that was the reason he did -not <em>respect</em> the <em>respectable</em>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> said Carlyle was unfortunate -in his figures, but we might have mythology -as beautiful as the Greek.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought each age of the -world had its own work to do. The -transition of thought into form marked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -the Greek period. It was most easily -done through fable, on account of their -intense perception of beauty.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> pursued his own train of -thought. He seemed to forget that we -had come together to pursue Margaret’s. -He said it was impossible that men or -events should <em>stand out</em> in a population -of twenty millions as they could from a -population of a single million, to which -the whole population of the ancient -world could hardly have amounted. As -Hercules stood to Greece, no modern -man could ever stand in relation to his -own world.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought Hercules and Jupiter -quite different creations. The first -<em>might</em> have been a deified life. The -second could not.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that R. W. -E.’s view carried no historical obligation -of belief with it. We could not deny<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -the heroic origin of the Greek demigods, -but the highest dynasty was the -exponent of translated thought.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Ripley</span> asked if the life of an -individual fitly interwoven with her -experience was not as fine a Poem as -the story of Ceres, her wanderings and -her tears? Did not Margaret know such -lives?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. E.</span> thought every man had -probably met his Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, -Venus, or Ceres in society!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> was sure she never had!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. E.</span> explained: “Not in the -world, but each on his own platform.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> objected. The life -of an individual was not universal. -(!)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Ripley</span> repeated, “The inner -life.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> claimed to be an individual, -and did not think individual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -experience could ever meet all minds,—like -the story of Ceres, for example.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia</span> said all experience was universal.</p> - -<p>I said nothing, but held this colloquy -with myself. Thought is the best of -human nature; its fulness urges expression: -its need of being met, not only by -<em>one</em> other but by every other, <em>craves</em> it. -This craving is the acknowledgment of -the universal experience. What is <em>purely</em> -individual is perishable. <em>Identity</em> is to -be separated from individuality for this -cause.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the element of beauty -would be wanting to our creations. A -fine emotion glowed through features -which seem to fall like a soft veil over -the soul, while it could scarce do more -than animate those that were obtuse and -coarse in every outline. (!)</p> - -<p>“Then,” said <span class="smcap">William Story</span>, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -my heart thanked the <i lang="fr">preux chevalier</i>,—“then -something is wanting in the -emotion itself.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said, stupidly, that -sunlight could not fall with equal charm -on rocks and the green grass. (!)</p> - -<p>I asked if the rock could not give -what it did not receive? Flung back by -rugged points and relieved by dark -shadows, was not the sunlight itself -transfigured?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Story</span> said every face had its own -beauty. No act that was natural could -be ungraceful.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> said that we all did sundry -graceful acts, in our caps and tunics, -which we never could do again, which -we never wanted to do again.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, at last we had touched -the point. We could not restore the -childhood of the world, but could we not -admire this simple plastic period, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -gather from it some notion of the Greek -genius?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. E.</span> thought this legitimate. He -would have it that we could not determine -the origin of a mythos, but we -might fulfil Miss Fuller’s intention.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said history reconciled us -to life, by showing that man had redeemed -himself. Genius needed that -encouragement.</p> - -<p>Not <em>Genius</em>, <span class="smcap">Sophia Ripley</span> thought; -common natures needed it, but Genius -was self-supported.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said it might be the consolation -of Genius.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> asked why Miss Fuller -found so much fault with the present.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> <em>had</em> no fault to find with -it. She took facts as they were. Every -age did something toward fulfilling the -cycle of mind. The work of the Greeks -was not ours.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Ripley</span> asked if the mythology -had been a prophecy of the Greek mind -to itself, or if the nation had experienced -life in any wide or deep sense.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> seemed a little out of -patience, and no wonder! She said it -did not matter which. The question -was, what could <em>we find</em> in the mythi, -and what did the Greeks mean that we -should find there. Coleridge once said -that certain people were continually saying -of Shakespeare, that he did not mean -to impart certain spiritual meanings to -some of his sketches of life and character; -but if Shakespeare did not mean it -his Genius did: so if the Greeks meant not -this or that, the Greek genius meant it.</p> - -<p>In relation to the progress of the ages, -<span class="smcap">James F. Clarke</span> said that the story of -Persephone concealed in the bowels of -the earth for half the year seemed to -him to indicate something of their comparative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -states. Persephone was the -seed which must return to earth before -it could fructify. Thought must retire -into itself before it can be regenerate.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> was pleased with this, more -especially as in the story of the Goddess -it is eating the pomegranate, whose seed -is longest in germinating, which dooms -her to the realm of Pluto.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> remarked that we -saw this need of withdrawal in the slothful -ages when mind seemed to be imbibing -energy for future action. The world -sometimes forsook a quest and returned -to it. We had forsaken Beauty, but we -might return to it.</p> - -<p>Certainly, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> assented. A -perfect mind would detect all beauty in -the hearth-rug at her feet: the meanest -part of creation contained the whole; -but the labor we were now at to appreciate -the Greek proved conclusively that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -<em>we</em> were not Greek. A simple plastic -nature would take it all in with delight, -without doubt or question.</p> - -<p>Or rather, amended <span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, would -take it up and go forward with it.</p> - -<p>It makes no difference, said <span class="smcap">Margaret</span>, -for we live in a circle.</p> - -<p>I did not think it pleasant to track -and retrack the same arc, and preferred -to go forward with R. W. E., so I asked -if there was to be no <em>higher</em> poetry.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> acknowledged that there -was something beyond the aspiration -of the Egyptian or the poetry of the -Greek.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> thought we had not -lost all reverence for these abstract -forces. The Eleusinian mysteries might -be forgotten, but not Ceres. We did not -worship in ignorance. The mysteries led -back to the Infinite. The processes of -vegetation were actually heart-rending!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -Here, <em>I</em> thought, was a basis for my -higher poetry.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> acknowledged that it -was so. He seemed to be more conscious -of the movement of the world than -any of our party. He said we must not -measure creation by Boston and Washington, -as we were too apt to do. There -was still France, Germany, and Prussia,—perhaps -Russia! The work of this generation -was not religious nor poetic; still, -there was a tendency to go back to both. -There were to be ultraisms, but also, he -hoped, consistent development.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> then related the -story of Isis, of her hovering in the form -of a swallow round the tree in which -the sarcophagus of Osiris had been enclosed -by Typhon; of her being allowed -to fell the tree; of the odor emitted by -the royal maidens whom she touched, -which revealed her Divinity to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -Queen; of the second loss of the body, -as she returned home, and its final dismemberment.</p> - -<p>There was little success in spiritualizing -more of this story than the pilgrimage, -and R. W. E. seemed to feel this; for -when <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> had remarked that even -a divine force must become as the birds -of the air to compass its ends, and that -it was in the carelessness of conscious -success that the second loss occurred, he -said that it was impossible to detect an -inner sense in all these stories.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> replied, that she had not -attempted that, but she could see it -in all the prominent points.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that the varieties -of anecdote proved that the stories -were not all authentic. It was an ancient -custom to strike off medals in -honor of certain acts of the Gods. To -these graven pictures the common people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -gave their own vulgar interpretations, -as they did also to the bas-reliefs on -their temples and monuments.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said this accounted for many -of the stories transmitted by Homer. -When sculpture and architecture had -lost their meaning, his inventive genius -was only the more stimulated to find -one.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> asked what Margaret -would make of the story that the -tears of Isis frightened children to -death?</p> - -<p>There was a general laugh, but <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> -said coolly, that children always -shrank from a baffled hope.</p> - -<p>Some one contrasted Persephone with -her mother.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> assented to whatever was -said, and added that she had been particularly -struck with it in an engraving -she had recently seen, in which Ceres<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -stood with lifted eyes, full-eyed, matronly, -bounteous, ready to give all to -all, while Persephone, dejected and -thoughtful, sat meditating; and the idea -was strengthened by her discovering -that Persephone was the same as Ariadne -the deserted. I could only guess at the -remark by Margaret’s comment. It -seemed to imply baffled hope for -Persephone.</p> - -<p>The Eleusinian mysteries were now -alluded to. Although it has been said -that only moral precepts were inculcated -through these, <span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> urged that a -whole school of Continental authors now -acknowledged that the higher doctrines -of philosophy were taught.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">R. W. E.</span> added, that as initiation became -more easy such instruction must -have degenerated into a mere matter of -form, and many of the <em>un</em>initiated surpass -the initiated in wisdom.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> admitted this. Socrates -was one of the uninitiated. The crowd -seldom felt the full force of beauty in -Art or Literature. To prove it, it was -only necessary to walk once through the -Hall of Sculpture at the Athenæum, and -catch the remarks of any half-dozen on -Michael Angelo’s “Day and Night.” -He would be fortunate who heard a -single observer comment on its power.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> asked why the images -of the sun and moon were introduced -into these mysterious celebrations.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> asked impatiently why -they had always been invoked by every -child who could string two rhymes -together.</p> - -<p>I said that if Ceres was the simple -<em>agricultural</em> productive energy, of course -the sun was her first minister, its genial -influence being as manifest as the energy -itself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> - -<p>In regard to the etymology of the -proper names, it seemed reasonable to -me that this energy should have gained -attributes as it did names. Any nation -devoted to the chase would learn to call -the lunar deity Diana; any devoted to -the cultivation of grain would project -her as Ceres. The reproductive powers -of flocks and herds would suggest Rhea -or Juno, and philosophy or art would -invoke Persephone.</p> - -<p>When we were talking about beauty, -J. F. C. quoted Goethe, and said that the -spirit sometimes made a mistake and -clothed itself in the wrong garment.</p> - -<p class="right">C. W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">March 9, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="III">III.</h2> - -<p>The third conversation was delayed -by Margaret’s illness, and finally took -place—</p> - -<p class="right"><i>March 19, 1841.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> again complained that we -wandered from the subject, and told the -following story from Novalis.</p> - -<p>Imagine a room, on one side of it Eros -and Fable at play. On the other, before -a marble slab on which rests a vase of pure -water, sits a fair woman named Sophia. -Her head rests upon her hand. Between -her and the children sits a man of reverend -age, before a table at which he -writes whatever has been or is. This is -History; and as he finishes each sheet -he hands it to Sophia, who dips it in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -vase of pure water, from which it often -emerges a perfect blank. Sometimes a -few lines, at others a few words, sometimes -only a punctuation mark, survive -the test. This troubles the old man. At -last he rises and leaves the room. Fable -springs to his vacant seat, and scribbles -as if in play till his return, when History -reproves her for wasting the paper, and -passes the sheet to Sophia, when, lo! it -comes out from her vase unchanged. -Fable has borne the test of Truth. History -is enraged at this, and succeeds in -driving both Sophia and Fable from their -home, unfairly. Sophia is driven away, -but the child escapes by a back door, and, -becoming bewildered in the central caverns -of the Earth, falls into the power of -the Fates.</p> - -<p>These respectable old ladies find the -little Fable very troublesome, and, after -some scolding, send her away to spin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -when, lo! from the recesses of the cavern -all sorts of wonders and strange shapes -are spun out. The Fates are frightened, -and they seek History to learn in what -manner they may best rid themselves -of the intruder. However much they -may dislike her, she is under their protection, -and History can do no more -than advise them to send her out to -catch Tarantulas! Fable departs and -meets Eros, who gives her a lyre, upon -which she plays, and the venomous insects -swarm about her. The Fates behold -her return unharmed! They had hoped -she would be stung to death, and in -despair Ate throws her scissors at the -child, who gracefully avoids them. Hereupon -the Tarantulas sting the Fates in -the feet, at which they begin to dance. -As their clothes are thick and heavy, -this is rather inconvenient exercise, and -when Fable laughs at their distress they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -send her away to spin them some thin -dresses. Fable is tired of wandering. -She plays upon her lyre to the Tarantulas, -bidding them spin, and she will give -them three large flies. When the dresses -are done, she carries them immediately -to the Fates, who begin again to dance. -The ends of the threads are still in the -bodies of the Tarantulas, who do not like -to be jerked about. “Behold the flies -which I promised you,” said Fable.</p> - -<p>Thereupon the Tarantulas fall upon -the dancing Fates, and a new dynasty -commences, in which Eros reigns, with -Fable for prime minister.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that in the story she -had told she had set us the example -of wandering from the subject, but she -hoped to some purpose. She hoped no -one would have need to call upon little -Fable’s body-guard of Tarantulas.</p> - -<p>The subject of the evening was Apollo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -in contrast with Ceres, or Genius opposed -to Productive Energy. The history of -Apollo stood for the history of thought, -its progressive development and its unhappiness. -All the loves of Apollo are -miserable. He never labors for himself. -He uses the instruments which others -have shaped. He is so delighted with -the lyre, which Mercury, that is Sagacity, -has made, that he gives him the -divining-rod, and would give him more, -but he cannot. The earnest simplicity -with which Apollo begs Mercury to swear -by the sacred Styx not to steal his -quiver or his darts is beautiful! The -common understanding, mere human -sagacity, may indeed lay hands on the -weapons of the Inspired One, but it cannot -possess them. The ray, the dart, -the quiver, of Apollo all stand for the -instantaneous power of thought.</p> - -<p>Delphi did not originally belong to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -Apollo. With the aid of Bacchus, he -wrested it from Terra, Neptune, and -Themis; hence the name “Delphi,” or -“The brothers.” This is only another -instance of his independence. All things -are made to his hand. The great contrast -between Ceres and Apollo lies in -the success of each. Ceres is always -full, always prepared to meet the call -of humanity. Apollo is always unsatisfied. -He transmutes whatever he -touches, as he did one of his many loves, -changed to a bay-tree. His changes are -always beautiful.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James F. Clarke</span> asked how Margaret -would explain the fraternal relation between -Bacchus and Apollo.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember?” she retorted. -“I don’t like to repeat it, it is so smart -and ingenious!” Apollo and Bacchus -seemed to her the question and the -response. Bacchus was what the earth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -yielded to the touch of Genius. The -grape was genial. It typified the excess -of the earth’s fruitfulness. Bacchus -avenges the wrongs of Apollo, who is -said never to have seen a shadow! He -never perceives an obstacle, but instantly -destroys an alien nature. Whatever -opposed Apollo met with terrible retribution,—if -not from himself, then from -others. Genius cannot endure the presence -of anything that mocks at it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said something -about the flaying of Marsyas.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that this once seemed -to her the most shocking of cruelties, -but she had lately seen a picture which -reconciled her to the deed! After looking -at the self-complacent face of Marsyas, -she did not wonder that Apollo -destroyed him. She longed to <em>see him -do it</em>! Apollo was never indignant at -any sublime treachery. He forgave Mercury<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -his theft because it was god-like, -because he did it so well.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> said ironically that the -destruction of the children of Niobe must -have been a gratifying sight.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> laughed, and said, “That is -like being reminded of the ‘poor mariner,’ -when I say that I like to hear the -wind blow.” The indignation of Apollo -seemed to her one of his noblest attributes. -His perfect purity separated him -from all the Gods. Ceres seemed to be -included in the idea of many other Gods, -as in Pan, Bacchus, Juno, and Isis; but -Apollo, the divine Genius, stands alone. -There is none like him.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> asked whether holiness -appertained to Apollo.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought not. Holiness -supposed a voluntary consecration of -one’s self, but there was no need of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -in Apollo. He was pure thought, consecrated, -but not consciously.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> said he had asked, because, -considering Jesus to have, as he -certainly had, a mythological character, -he thought there was a resemblance -between him and Apollo. His own -words justified the idea,—“I am the -light of the world,” and so on.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> asked suddenly why -Apollo’s lyre had seven strings.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said seven was a consecrated -number.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> asked if it did not have -to do with the seven planets?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> said there were not -so many in that day.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> liked the reason, and wished -she had thought of it herself!</p> - -<p>Some one asked about the connection -between Diana and Apollo.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that Genius needed a -sister to console him.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> asked what bearing the inscription -over the Delphic temple had -upon the story of Apollo,—the Divine -pun EI, which means equally “Thou -art” and “If,”—as grand a pun as that -of him who, dying, said he was going to -see the great “Perhaps”!—“le grand -peut-être.”</p> - -<p>Better translated, I thought, as the -great “May-be.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> asked if it were not -generally accepted positively as “Thou -art”?</p> - -<p>“Probably,” <span class="smcap">Mr. Emerson</span> said.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> found another type of -the Apollo in the Egyptian Horus.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> asked if the two Greek -vowels had not once stood for Isis and -Osiris. If so, they would have a natural -connection with the oracle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> - -<p>I remembered the inscription on the -statue of Isis, “I am all that has been -and that shall be, and none among mortals -has taken off my veil.” The “I -am” of the Jews, and the “Thou art” -of the Delphic temple are epigrammatic, -but the same.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span>, replying somewhat curtly -to Mrs. Russell, said there were various -explanations.</p> - -<p>The story of Phaeton came next.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> asked how Presumption -should be the child of Genius.</p> - -<p>“Genius must be self-confident,” Margaret -said, “and that might predominate.”</p> - -<p>I asked if real Genius did not know -its own resources and husband them.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought Genius often attempted -more than it could do.</p> - -<p>I said a man might have genius and -presume, but that if <em>he were a genius</em> I -should expect him to be modest. Still,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -as it must have a crowd of imitators, it -might become the father of presumption. -The substance creates the shadow.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said no product could -be as great as the producing power; but -that did not seem to me to touch the -point, for the question was not whether -Apollo could not give birth to something -less than himself, but whether the -possession of power could create an unfounded -claim to it.</p> - -<p>The story of Latona followed.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> said that the word -meant concealment.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought this very expressive, -and said that the isolation which -Goethe and other geniuses had been -craving since the world began Apollo -had no need to seek. His mother was -concealment. The oracle was then discussed,—how -it was possible to consult -it many times and receive each time a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -different answer,—how it could be -bribed, as by Alexander, or would give -two answers in one; but nothing very -new was said.</p> - -<p>I remembered the double answer of -the Pythoness to Crœsus when he meditated -crossing the Halys. “Thou shalt -destroy a great empire,” she said. He -thought it was the enemy’s: fate decided -it should be his own.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Ripley</span> thought the oracle -belonged to Wisdom rather than Genius.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said Minerva dwelt in -men’s houses. It was necessary a voice -from Heaven should speak.</p> - -<p>Some one wondered that Jupiter had -not possessed himself of the oracle, which -led <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> back to her exponents, -and she confessed that she was not quite -satisfied with her own definition of Jupiter -as Will.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> suggested that experience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -was a prominent feature in the Jupiter, -and named him Character.</p> - -<p>Character is educated Will, said <span class="smcap">Margaret</span>, -hesitating, and paused, for the -term did not suit her.</p> - -<p>Juno was then spoken of as passive -Will, and her traits were dwelt upon. It -is amusing to see how weak the Queen -of Olympus can be in opposition to its -King. The peacock was probably made -sacred to her on account of the beauty -of its plumage, while the eagle was consecrated -to Jupiter on account of its -strength.</p> - -<p>I said that the peacock, strutting with -conceit, glancing at its ill-shaped feet -and vexed enough to bawl in consequence, -easily suggested the scolding -Juno.</p> - -<p>Some one asked a question about Æsculapius. -<span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said he was genius -made practical.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Henry Hedge</span> thought that Apollo -by his own connection with the healing -art became the symbol of physical life -and beauty.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> thought no statue -could bear comparison with the Apollo -Belvedere.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> preferred the Antinous.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> asked why Art should -present a so much more inspiring view -of Greek Mythology than Poetry.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that all her ideas of it -were deduced from Art. She did not -profess to know much of the Greek -authors, and depended chiefly upon -Homer, but wished that some of the -gentlemen who ought to know more -would speak.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> thought it was because -the poets wrote for popular applause, -for recitation and its immediate -effect. Sculptors labored more purely -for their Art.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> - -<p>I thought too that the dramatists -often had a political aim, and manœuvred -Olympus to suit it!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> said that if in our -time every public speaker must bend -to his audience to a degree, it was still -more necessary in Greece.</p> - -<p>We were told to consider Minerva -for the next conversation, and to write -down our thoughts about her. For my -part I don’t like using Latin names for -Greek deities. It greatly confuses my -ideas. Jupiter and Zeus seem very different -to me.</p> - -<p>In regard to the story that Apollo -never saw a shadow, <span class="smcap">Caroline Sturgis</span> -asked how Apollo could destroy an alien -nature if he never met it.</p> - -<p>There was quite an unsatisfactory -talk about this, which would have ended -had anybody remembered how the sun -solves the enigma every day. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -sun never sees the shadow it destroys. -When its rays fall, light is. It annihilates -the alien by merely being. So -Truth annihilates Falsehood, yet cannot -meet it. The two are never in one -presence.</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">March 20, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="IV">IV.</h2> - -<p class="right"><i>March 26, 1841.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> opened our talk by saying -that the subject of Wisdom presented -more conversable points than that of -Genius. We could all think and talk -about Wisdom, and any man who had -ever scratched his finger was to a degree -wise.</p> - -<p>Minerva was the child of Counsel and -Intelligent Will. She had no infancy, -but sprang full-armed into being. Ready, -agile, she was in herself the history of -thought. She did not need that her -life should be one of incident. Her -attendant emblems are expressive: the -Sphinx, the owl, the serpent, the cock, -and the javelin suggest her whole story.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> asked why Genius -was masculine and Wisdom feminine.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought no one could find -any difficulty in the fact that Genius -was masculine. It presented itself to -the mind in the full glow of power. -The very outlines of the feminine form -were yielding, and we could not associate -them with a prominent, self-conscious -state of the faculties. Wisdom was like -woman, always ready for the fight if -necessary, yet never going to it; taking -reality as a basis, and classifying and arranging -upon it all that Genius creates,—seeing -the relations and proper values -of things.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> objected to this definition. -He might have imbibed a Hebrew -idea, but the office of Wisdom was -surely something more than this,—a -purely mechanical and orderly tact.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said she had not meant to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -give <em>our</em> view of it, only the Greek idea -as manifest in the story of Minerva. To -William White she said, smiling, that -she supposed he had not wondered so -much that Genius should be masculine -as that Wisdom should be feminine! -But the Greeks were wise, and she -revered their keen perception.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> said it seemed to -her that Wisdom provided <em>means</em>. A -hero might be inspired by Genius, but -Wisdom provided his armor, taught him -to distinguish the goal, and to perceive -clearly the relation to it of any onward -step.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> agreed to this, and</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said that Genius -was indebted to Wisdom for <em>means -of communication</em>. Genius thinks words -impertinent, but Wisdom apprehends -its intuitions, and gives them shape.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said further, that Wisdom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -must adopt instinctively the finest -medium.</p> - -<p>It seemed to me that Wisdom not -only gave power of communication, but -power of attainment. Walter Scott was -a good instance of the union of intuitive -perception and human sagacity, but all -these words about it cleared up nothing.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> then proposed that we -should take up the attributes of Minerva, -and so get at the facts.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Ripley</span> did not think it noble -enough when she based Wisdom upon -realities.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said Wisdom must -have something to work upon. He -thought Wisdom compared the intuitions -of Genius with realities.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> thought the word -<em>actual</em> would help them out of their -difficulty.</p> - -<p>I wanted to quote Emerson to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -effect that the Ideal is more Real than -the Actual.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> agreed with Mr. Wheeler, -and said that by reality she understood -anything incarnated,—whatever was -tangible. She then went on to speak -of the Sphinx. What was it?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> seemed surprised at -the question. Was it not one thing to -everybody?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> called for her idea, but she -would not give it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that to herself it represented -the development of a thought, -founding itself upon the animal, until it -grew upward into calm, placid power. -She revered these good ancients, who -did not throw away any of the gifts of -God; who were neither materialists nor -immaterialists, but who made matter -always subservient to the highest ends -of the Spirit.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> asked if the festivals -of the Gods, the highest source of their -influence over the people, did not show -how little they had penetrated to the -spirit of things?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought ambrosia and nectar -were proper emblems of Divine -Joy. They were not to be taken -literally.</p> - -<p>“But,” persisted <span class="smcap">White</span>, “the great -body of the people thought them so.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said, with happy -grace, that the great <em>body</em> of the people -might be excused for such a thought.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> enjoyed the pun, and said -that the great Greek body was sensuous -and ate, but that the Greek soul knew -better than to suspect the Gods of opening -their mouths.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> waked up at this moment, -and asked what Margaret would say -to Berkeley’s theory.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said she did not know what -it was!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said, the evolution of all -things from the soul, the non-existence -of matter.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James P. Clarke</span> thought it very -difficult to decide how far spirit and -matter were one. A man’s identity was -not in the particles which came and -went every seven years, but in the spirit. -Yet these particles constituted the wall -of separation between himself and others. -His identity was in his spirit.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> begged leave to disagree. -He thought we knew as much -about matter as about spirit, and that -Berkeley’s theory was as good as any.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that if God created -matter, of course it was evolved from -spirit; that matter could not be antagonistic -to that from which it was evolved.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -To express a complete idea, we had only -to say, “Jehovah, I am.”</p> - -<p>“Or,” <span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> added, “to -be silent.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said <span class="smcap">Margaret</span>, “and in that -lies the merit of Mythology. Every -faculty was, according to that, an incomplete -statement. Therefore Mr. Ripley -did wrong to confound Minerva with the -Logos.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> did not see that Berkeley’s -statement was answered.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> came in with another -pun. “If Berkeley thought so, it was -<em>no matter</em>!”</p> - -<p>Some stupid person spoiled the wit by -trying to explain it, and the question -remained to us just as much matter as -ever.</p> - -<p>They talked about the Sphinx again, -yet said little. It holds more meaning -in its passive womb than talk will ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -play the midwife to. It was the child of -the Destructive Element and Feeling,—Typhon -and Echidna,—the human -heart experienced in misfortune touched -by death. Thought rooted in the actual -and developed by tenderness was rooted -in this figure.</p> - -<p>“Everybody knows that Wisdom -stings,” said <span class="smcap">Margaret</span>, and so we went -on to the serpent.</p> - -<p>Somebody spoke of the Greek Tartarus.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> thought its torment was -not acute, but consisted of the deprivation -of comforts.</p> - -<p>The wandering idleness of it would be -intolerable to an active Greek, <span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> -thought, but more endurable -than any device of a priesthood. As -for our serpent, no one seemed to know -much about it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that we owed it so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -much, that <em>she</em> felt in duty bound to -know something of it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James F. Clarke</span> said that the Christian -serpent was quite another thing.</p> - -<p>Everybody laughed at the idea of a -<em>Christian</em> serpent.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> professed great admiration -for the reptile. We should -have had no Christianity but for its -beguiling.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> agreed!—and said she -supposed everybody felt that.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Russell</span> thought the casting of -the skin very expressive.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James F. Clarke</span> gave Coleridge’s -exposition, to the effect that the serpent -was the common understanding! It -would touch and handle all things, and -even sought to be as the Gods, knowing -good from evil. Its undulating motion—its -belly now on the ground, now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -off—expressed both the aspiration and the -subserviency of the creature.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> asked if serpents ever swallowed -their own tails?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that must be -an arbitrary form.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> replied, that she had been -struck by the difference between the -Mexican and the Greek serpent. The -Mexican was folded back upon itself.</p> - -<p>Not always, I said. Its tail is sometimes -in its mouth, and the variations -seem to be occasioned by the architectural -necessity.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James F. Clarke</span> spoke of a Virginia -snake that moves in a circle, and asked -if when Mr. Emerson talked about -“coming full circle” he was not thinking -of that?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> laughed, and declared that -serpent must be of Yankee invention. -Æsculapius bore two on his staff, Mercury<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -two on his divining-rod, and the -cock was also sacred to Æsculapius.</p> - -<p>I asked if this did not indicate a certain -subjection of these Gods to Wisdom?</p> - -<p>Some questions written on paper were -here read. One asked why Minerva -was born of the stroke of Vulcan, and -why she was the patroness of weavers, -and what that had to do with the story -of Arachne.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> replied with ill temper to -the first, that it was because Vulcan held -the hammer,—to the second, that she -did not know.</p> - -<p>But was there really so little meaning -in the fact that Mechanic Art so ministered -to Intelligent Will that she could -afford to miss the point?</p> - -<p>She said we could see that Minerva -was told to marry Vulcan, but declined; -would have nothing to do with the sooty -cripple.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Ripley</span> said, aptly enough, -that Minerva had been changing her -mind ever since!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> thought that when Mechanic -Art was married to Beauty, it -might charm even Wisdom.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">George Ripley</span> said she might well -have despised the brute force, but as it -grew into something more noble, have -learned to love it. Dr. Dana<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> was the -servant of the Lowell corporation. In -these days no corporation could exist -without its man of science. His salary -was a mere pittance, and when he made -a discovery with which all Europe rang,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -he asked for a part of the profits. “We -will consider,” said the soulless corporation, -and they decided that they had a -legitimate right to all that could be -made out of their servant!</p> - -<p>“Thus,” I said, “Wisdom sows for -the Mechanic Art to reap?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly so,” was the reply; “and -this contains the essence of the Yankee -philosophy.”</p> - -<p>The life of Wisdom was one long -struggle for something beyond a merely -serviceable knowledge. Bending alike -to art and artisan, she still refused to -love the latter till he had wooed Beauty -to their common service. But Wisdom -has of late married Vulcan. He no -longer limps, and has washed his face in -the springs of love and thought, and sits -in holiday robes beside his bride.</p> - -<p>Somebody said that the story of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -Arachne was an instance of the Goddess’s -vindictiveness.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> hoped that the vindictiveness -was a popular interpolation. If -so, the story of Marsyas shows that -she was malicious. She brought his misfortunes -upon him. If her own voice -was discordant, there was no reason why -his voice should please!</p> - -<p>“Divinities have a right to be indignant,” -said somebody. Did Margaret -blush?</p> - -<p>In speaking of the artistic representations -of Minerva, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said some -beautiful things. Minerva was as tall -and large as she could be, without being -masculine. Her face was thoughtful and -serene, without being sweet. Her eye -was so full and clear that it had no need -to be deep.</p> - -<p>The talk was closed by Margaret’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -reading the Essay that E. P. P. had sent -in, and the criticisms upon it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> began by speaking of the -<em>conservatism</em> which disinclined Jupiter to -the birth of Minerva.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, “the good -was always opposed to the better.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> then spoke of the Parthenon, -upon which, according to the Homeric -Hymn, the story of Minerva’s birth was -sculptured.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said it had been difficult -to believe that the Greeks would -put so ugly a thing upon their temple, -but the ruins showed a Vulcan with his -hammer in his hand, and the form of -the Goddess hovering over the cloven -skull.</p> - -<p>Why, asked <span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span>, did Ulysses -represent Wisdom in the Odyssey?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought he represented -the history of a thought in life, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -he tired us all out with his long story, -and so pushed us to decision.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> alluded to the different conceptions -of Minerva in the Iliad and the -Odyssey, and this led to the question -of priority of composition.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought the Odyssey was -written when Homer was young and -romantic; but E. P. P. and myself stood -out stoutly for the precedence of the -Iliad. I said, without the least bit of -real knowledge, that I should not wonder -if there were two centuries between -the poems, they seemed to indicate such -entirely different states of society; but -certainly the Odyssey was latest.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that the best -scholars seemed all of one mind. The -Iliad was written first by Homer,—the -Odyssey long after by another hand.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said that there was a gem -which represented Minerva as married<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -to a mortal, but she could tell nothing -more about it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Jones Very</span> said that when Wisdom -falls into decay we call it Genius!</p> - -<p>Does that mean that prophetic power -fallen back from the moral nature to -the intellect is dwarfed accordingly?</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">March 27, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="V">V.</h2> - -<p class="right"><i>April 2, 1841.</i></p> - -<p>The story of Venus and Cupid and -Psyche was discussed.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that of Venus she had -less to say than of either of the preceding -Deities! She was not the expression of -a thought, but of a fact. She was the -Greek idea of a lovely woman,—the -best physical development of woman. -When we have said, “It is,” we have -said all. The birth of Beauty was the -only ideal thing about her. She sprang -from the wave, from the flux and reflux -of things, from the undulating line. -On this Venus, transitoriness had set its -seal. As we look at her, we feel that -she must change. Her loveliness is too -fair to last. Her beauty would pass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -next moment. She could not live a -year, we think, without losing something -of her full grace. It was peculiarly -Greek to create a beautiful symbol, and -to pause in the symbol. The Greeks -were very apt to do this. They did it -effectually in the Goddess of Love. She -was sportive in all her amours. They -had no idea of an Everlasting Love. -They enjoyed themselves too much to -abstract themselves. Venus seemed to -Margaret a merely human creature. She -was not the type of Universal Beauty: -the Greek eye was closed to that. Still, -their own embodiment did not satisfy -their own need. They filled out their -ideal with Venus Urania, Hebe, and all -the attendant Hours and Graces, yet -were not satisfied. Then came the fable -of Psyche and her three Cupids. Venus -was only a pretty girl! Her cestus, her -doves, her pets, her jealousies, all betray<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -it. The Venus Urania was more. <em>She</em> -was the child of Celestial Light. Hebe -was born of immortal bloom. To fill out -the gaps in their conception, Eros, or -Love in Sadness, Cupid a frolicsome boy, -and the more noble, more creative Love -which brooded over Chaos were evolved -from their consciousness. Psyche, who -did not appear until the age of Augustus, -who was too modern to be mythological, -yet glowing with mythic beauty, was -only another evidence of their imperfect -idea. Her story expresses more than -that of Venus. It tells not only the -story of human love, but represents the -pilgrimage of a soul. The jealousy of -Venus was that which the good must -always feel toward the better which is -to supersede it, and as soon as Psyche -looked upon her sleeping lover she became -immortal. The soul in the fulness -of Love became conscious of Destiny.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> asked what was the -difference between the girl-mother—the -Madonna—and the Greek Venus.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> replied, with more patience -than I was capable of, that the Madonna -represented more than passing womanly -beauty. She was prophetic, and lived -again in her child.</p> - -<p>Then, persisted <span class="smcap">James F.</span>, why was -Vulcan the <em>husband</em> of Beauty, to which -Margaret gave no satisfactory answer. -He then gave his own thought, to -which I can do no justice, although it -was what I tried in vain to say at the -last conversation. It amounted to this,—that -in seeking for beauty we lose it, -but in aiming at utility through hard -labor we find perfect proportion—and -consequently perfect beauty. He said -that he and his sister Sarah had often -spoken to each other about this, and he -felt that the time would come when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -essays would be written about our ships, -as we now write essays about the Pyramids -and the Greek Art. Posterity -might find the proof of our search after -beauty in the graceful prow and swelling -hold and tall, tapering mast or shrouds -of shredded jet; in the bellying canvas -and the patron saint which watches the -wake from the stern. But we know -that the ship, the most beautiful object -in our modern world, was the product of -labor, gradually evoked, according to the -law of fitness, compass, and general proportion. -To bring its form into a natural -relation to wind and wave, was to find -perfect harmony and beauty. At first -the prow was too sharp, and the water -had rushed over it; the hold was too -shallow, and she sat ungracefully where -she now rides as mistress.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> quoted some German author -to the same effect.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Clarke</span> said there was something -in one of R. W. E.’s own Essays which -expressed the same thing.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> laughed and said, “Very -important authority,” and would have -changed the subject, when—</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said that it did not -tally well with James Clarke’s theory -that the ugly steamer had succeeded the -beautiful clipper.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Clarke</span> said the theory failed -only because there was no noble end in -view. The steamer was not intended to -be in harmony with Nature.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> asked if the Greeks had no -symbol for natural beauty. Several -were suggested that he would not accept, -but he finally took Diana on Charles -Wheeler’s suggestion.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> then spoke of the birth of -Venus. He said many writers thought -the story as late as that of Psyche, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -the line of Hesiod relating to it an -interpolation.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought she should have -suspected this if she had never heard -it. The thought it expressed was too -comprehensive to be in keeping with -the remainder of her story.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> would not accept -the criticism, but went on to talk about -the marriage of Venus with Mars, which -had amazed Olympus.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the Olympian Deities -were like modern men, who talk to -women forever about their softness and -delicacy, until women imagine that the -only good thing in man is a strong arm. -The girl elopes with a red coat, and the -indignant lords of creation wonder why -she did not appreciate their modest merit -and unobtrusive virtues. Poor Beauty -<em>weeps out</em> the crimson stain upon her -escutcheon in a long age of suffering.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> - -<p>A laugh followed this bright sally, -and then somebody said that Venus -once married Mercury.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> declared that must be an -interpolation, for there were no points -of sympathy between the Goddess of -beauty and the God of craft.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> did not know about -that; he thought that the finish and -completeness of the late robbery of -Davis, Palmer, & Co. constituted a <em>kind -of beauty</em>!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that affair was altogether -grand; she had never heard of -anything so Greek as Williamson’s exclaiming, -“Gentlemen! you will not deprive -me of the implements of my -trade?” She could not help respecting -his impudence! The Greeks ought to -be respected for developing every human -faculty into deity. She thought lying, -stealing, and so forth only excesses of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -a good faculty; and so did the Greeks, -for in their mistaken way they had -deified Mercury. The Spartans taught -their children to steal, and the Greeks -universally acknowledged that to cheat -was honorable if it could be concealed.</p> - -<p>I remembered the passage in the -“Republic” where Polemarchus confesses -that he had learned from Homer -to admire Autolycus, grand sire of Ulysses, -distinguished above all men for his -thefts and oaths! Thrasymachus said -that the unjust were both prudent and -good, if they were able to commit injustice -to <em>perfection</em>! Is the immortality of -Autolycus the destiny of Williamson?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> said there certainly was a -well authenticated marriage between -Venus and Mercury.</p> - -<p>I could not help thinking it might be -an astral connection that was indicated. -On that remarkable day of his birth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -Mercury was not content with stealing -the divining-rod from Apollo; he took -also the cestus from Venus, the voice -from Neptune, the sword from Mars, -the will from Zeus, and his tools from -Vulcan! Sagacity compassed all the -deeps of divinity to reach its end.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> asked if Venus and -Astarte were not the same.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said Astarte belonged to -the stars.</p> - -<p>Did not Venus, I wonder? But of -course they are creations far asunder -as the poles.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> thought Astarte -and Venus Urania were the same.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida</span> said that could not be. The first -statues of Astarte were rough blocks -of wood, with veiled heads.</p> - -<p>So, I said, were all first statues of -Deities; so that was no argument.</p> - -<p>When <span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> asked Margaret<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -to compare Venus with the Madonna, a -curious talk arose between Alcott, Margaret, -Charles Wheeler, and Emerson.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Alcott</span> wanted to know why Christ -was not as much an impersonation of a -human faculty as either of the Greek -Deities!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said Jesus was not a -thought. He was born on the earth, and -lived out a thought. He was no abstraction -to her, but a brother.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Alcott</span> wanted to know whether a -purer mythology, suited to the wants of -coming time, might not arise from the -mixed mythology of Persians, Greeks, -and Christians!</p> - -<p>A very confusing and tiresome talk -arose thereupon, which Charles Wheeler -smiled at, but did not join in, and which -profited nobody.</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">April 3, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="VI">VI.<br /> -<span class="smaller">CUPID AND PSYCHE.</span></h2> - -<p class="right"><i>April 9, 1841.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought it would be very -impertinent to begin by telling what -everybody knew,—the old story of -Cupid and Psyche.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> declared that Margaret never -told it twice alike, and at last she yielded -and said:—</p> - -<p>The beautiful young princess Psyche -was envied by Venus, who sent Eros to -destroy her; but the God, finding Psyche -wholly lovely, wedded her. They lived -happily until Psyche began to doubt. -Eros had told her that she must not -seek to know him; but curiosity prevailed -over faith, and in looking at him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -as he slept she wounded and waked him. -He left her in dismay; and as a punishment -the three trials which are the lot -of mortals were awarded to her. She -must sort grain, she must bring three -drops from the river Styx, and must get -the box of beauty from Proserpine. The -birds helped her with the grain; but -when she reached the banks of the Styx -and stooped to fulfil the second task, she -found the water too dark, too cold, and -the eagle came to her aid. At the prospect -of the third trial her soul sank; she -refused to undertake it; but, winning -from one of the Gods the secret of self-dependence, -she set off for Tartarus, -gave the usual sop to Cerberus, and -returned with her prize. But she was -“possessed” with the idea that the -treasures the box contained might restore -to her her husband’s love, and she -opened the box as she came. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -noxious vapors which issued from it -deprived her of consciousness, and she -fell. Eros, who had flown to seek her -as soon as his wound was healed, brought -her the gift of Immortality which he had -begged of Jupiter.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> asked what had -become of Psyche’s sisters, whose interference -was a striking point in the story.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said she knew nothing of -them, and wished Miss Hoar would tell -us. Her own knowledge of the story was -gained entirely from Raphael’s original -studies, and his frescos on the walls of a -Roman palace.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> recapitulated. The -parents of Psyche were ordered by the -angry Venus to expose her upon a high -mountain, when Zephyr carried her to -the embraces of Love, who dwelt in the -depths of a quiet valley hard by. Her -sisters came to bewail her death, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -Psyche begged Love to let Zephyr bring -them to rejoice in her happiness. For -some time he refused, telling her that it -was not for her good, and that she could -be happy without them. This our foolish -Psyche would not believe, and at last -they were permitted to come, only she -must not tell them the little she knew -about her husband.</p> - -<p>The first time Psyche had sent them -away loaded with gifts. They had -questioned her about her husband, and -Psyche replied that he was only a lovely -child. The year went round, and again -the lovely bride longed for her sisters’ -presence. Again the God entreated her -to be patient, assuring her that if they -came it would only be to make her -miserable. Psyche could not be quieted. -Again they came, again they questioned. -She forgot the story she had previously -told, and replied that he was an old man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -bent with years, but very kind to her. -Then the envious women saw that Psyche -was herself ignorant of his true nature. -They told her that he was a dragon, and -meant to devour her; that they had themselves -seen him as he passed through -the fields. They begged her to take a -knife and lamp and kill him as he slept. -The frightened Psyche consented.</p> - -<p>The God was sleeping in radiant beauty -at her side, and as she gazed upon him -she drew an arrow from his quiver and -carelessly scratched her finger. Impassioned -by the wound, she bent over him, -and a drop of scalding oil fell from her -lamp. Angry and confused, the God -awoke, and, irritated by the pain, flew -away. Psyche clung to him; but she -could not support herself, and he was too -angry to hold her. She fell to the -ground, and he, perched upon a neighboring -tree, reproached her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> did not know this, but said -she remembered that Psyche tried to -drown herself.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth</span> said that was later. She -despaired, and threw herself into the -river; but the river pitied her, and bore -her to the shore. Venus, growing tired -of her guest, sent Mercury to advertise -her. Psyche yielded to the terms of the -Goddess, rendered herself up, and was -busy sorting the gifts in the temple of -Beauty when Custom was sent to berate -her.</p> - -<p>This, I suppose, is a condensation of -the lovely allegory of Apuleius in the -second century of our era, but it seems -to me Elisabeth made some additions.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that everybody had -to contend with the meddlesome sisters. -They were at the bottom of every fairy -story, from that of Psyche to Beauty -and the Beast.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elisabeth Hoar</span> said it was always -with the young soul as it was with -Psyche. It could give no account of -the love which made it so happy.</p> - -<p>So, I said, every human heart shrivels -under a curious touch. Love is angry -that we wound him, and if he ever does -return it is with Immortality in his hand. -When custom berates, God accepts.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> asked if there was not a -celebrated statue of Cupid and Psyche.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> had only heard of Canova’s, -but James said he was sure there was -one older.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> asked if it were older -than Apuleius, but James did not know.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> said it was wrong for -Psyche to look.</p> - -<p>Yes, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, but her temptations -were strong; and if they had not -come through her sisters, they must have -come through her own soul. Everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -was produced by antagonism. This -morning she had taken up Kreitzer, -meaning to open the Greek volume, but -took up the Indian. In that Mythology -which William Story called deep and all-embracing -there were the antagonist -principles of Vishnu, or unclouded innocence, -and Brahm, who could only become -pure by wading through all wickedness. -There seemed to be a need of sin, to -work out salvation for human beings.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> said faith should work out -that salvation. It was man’s privilege -to resist the evil, to strive triumphantly; -to recognise it—never! Good was always -present to the soul,—was all the -true soul took note of. It was a duty -not to look!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought it the climax of -sin to despair. She believed evil to be -a good in the grand scheme of things. -She would not recognize it as a blunder.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -She must consider its scope a noble one. -In one word, she would not accept the -world—for she felt within herself the -power to reject it—did she not believe -evil working in it for good! Man had -gained more than he lost by his fall. -The ninety-nine sheep in the parable -were of less value than the “lost found,” -over which there was joy in heaven.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> spoke of the Tree of Life,—which -would have made immortal those -who ate of the Tree of Knowledge.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Caroline Sturgis</span> said that this probation -was what she could not comprehend. -We began at the circumference, -and if we fulfilled our destiny must end -by being near the centre. How much -better to have begun there! Why could -not God have made it so?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> began to say that -God must seek the best good of all his -creatures; but Caroline interrupted him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -by saying that there was certainly more -good at the centre than at the circumference.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> thought all this good, -better, and best very puzzling.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> asked Caroline if she could -not see probation to be a good, as she -had herself defined it?</p> - -<p>Are we better then, than God? asked -<span class="smcap">Caroline</span>.</p> - -<p>Not better, replied <span class="smcap">Margaret</span>, for we -cannot compare dissimilar things.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> asked if any one could -be more than good, more than pure.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said perfection had -its degrees!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">White</span> said, How can you progress -after you have reached your goal?</p> - -<p>As if any live man ever <em>did</em> reach his -goal! said I.</p> - -<p>Is there any progress for God? retorted -he.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> - -<p>Not any, for that is a contradiction in -terms, I said; but surely you conceive of -it for souls in heaven?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said something about the -Gospel injunction to be perfect even as -our Father in Heaven is perfect. Does -not “even as” mean “after the pattern -of”? Does it involve the <em>nature</em>, as -well as the <em>degree</em>?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> interrupted quickly, “We -are not finite.”</p> - -<p>Everybody smiled; but the best answer -to this is found in the fact, that -we never conceive of ourselves as infinite -and at rest,—only as reaching after the -Infinite in our motion.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">White</span> said to Caroline Sturgis, “If -evil brings knowledge of good, is it -not a gain?”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> talked nobly, something -to this effect: That good and -evil were related terms. If both did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -not exist, neither could, antagonism being -the spring of most things in the -universe.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> went back to Cupid, and -said that in Raphael’s original studies -Cupid was always a boy,—in his frescos, -a youth, almost a man. She spoke of -the difference of expression which he -gave to his Venus and his Psyche, -especially in the eye. That of Psyche -was deep and thoughtful. The distinction -extended to their attendant Cupids, -and was most marked in the Psyche -when she takes the cup of Immortality -from her husband.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> wanted to pass on to -Diana, but there were too many clergymen -in the company. Everybody was -interested in somebody nearer at hand, -and views of the unchanging Providence -were next presented.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said God was the background<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -against which all creation was -thrown.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> asked if she did -not think He was greater than his -creatures?</p> - -<p>“Always beyond,” was <span class="smcap">Margaret’s</span> -reply.</p> - -<p>Creation, <span class="smcap">Story</span> said, was rather the -exponent of a <em>Love</em> which <em>must bless</em>, -than of an activity which must act. It -was a Paternal power that <em>ruled</em>, not an -autocratic power which <em>fathered</em> us.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that the story of Cupid -and Psyche was the story of redemption. -It contained the seeds of the doctrine of -election,—saving by grace, and so on!</p> - -<p>A good many queer things were said -on various points touched by this.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> said, that to imagine it -possible to fall was to <em>begin</em> to fall.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> got into a little maze trying -to introduce Margaret and R. W. E.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -to each other,—a consummation which, -however devoutly to be wished, will -never happen!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> told her that she was -just where Paul was when he said, -“What then? Shall I sin, that Grace -may the more abound?”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> said the woodlands could tell -us most about Diana, about whom we -contrived to say very little. The omission -of orgies in her worship was dwelt -upon. Her pure and sacred character -with the Athenians was compared to -that of the Diana of Ephesus, whose -orgies were not unusual, and who was -considered as a bountiful mother rather -than as a virgin huntress.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> said that <em>her</em> Mythology -accused Diana of being the mother of -fifty sons and fifty daughters!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> laughed, and said that certainly -was Diana of Ephesus!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> - -<p>The maddening influence of moonlight -was commented upon, as if it were a -fable; but <span class="smcap">William Story</span> said it was a -fact. In tropical regions very sad consequences -resulted from long gazing on -the moonlight or sleeping in it. In one -town he had known sixteen persons -bewildered in this way.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said that in a late -book of Nichols it was contended that -the moon had some light of her own, -because she shows a brazen color even -under eclipse, when the dark side of the -earth is toward her. But why may she -not gather stellar light from the whole -universe, as the earth seems to?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sallie Gardiner</span> said something to -William Story in a low voice. He -laughed, and said he had been thinking -of the consequences of his theory.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> asked what he was talking -about.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Story</span> said it was an application of -eclipses to his theory that love was the -motive to creation. If the sun is beneficent -truth shorn of its beams, it would -be like the moon, no better than brass!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Caroline Sturgis</span> asked why the -Mahomedans bore the crescent.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said because of some -change in the moon which occurred at -the time of the Hegira.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said that the worshippers -at Mecca carried the crescent -before Mahomet’s time. There is a crescent -on the black stone.</p> - -<p>Both stories may be true. There is -certainly a crescent on the old Byzantine -coin, or besant.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> said something about -Diana being wedded.</p> - -<p>This reminded <span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> of Minerva’s -marriage, discussed last week. She said -that Charles Wheeler had seen the gem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -of which she then spoke, and that Neptune -was the favored suitor.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William Story</span> said the Greeks could -not wed Neptune to Diana, for the tides -were too low in the Mediterranean!</p> - -<p class="right">C. W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">April 10, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="VII">VII.<br /> -<span class="smaller">PLUTO AND TARTARUS.</span></h2> - -<p class="right"><i>April 15, 1841.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said very little about Pluto. -On the first evening she had called him -the depth of things, and <span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> -now had a good deal to say upon the -three ideas which she thought pervaded -the Greek mythology,—the source, the -depth, and the extent or flow of thought. -He said that this distinction had struck -him very forcibly when Margaret first -mentioned it. We speak of widely diffused -thought, of aspiring and profound -thought; of sympathetic, exalted, or deep -feeling,—and this seemed to exhaust -language. It was through the depths of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -feeling and experience that we came to -the profound of thought.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said, “There is no genius in -happiness.” Not a very intelligible -statement.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, “There is nothing -worth knowing that has not some penalty -attached to it. We pay it the more -willingly in proportion as we grow wise. -Depth, altitude, diffusion, are the three -births of Time. It is this which makes -the German cover the operations of the -miner with a mystic veil. Bostonians -laugh at the Germans because they -think.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> liked what Mr. Clarke said, -and added that there was meaning in the -Irish phrase, “<i>Lower me up</i>.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that all the punishments -of Tartarus expressed baffled effort, -the penalty least endurable to the -active Greek.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> thought it singular that in -every nation where the belief in Tartarus -had prevailed, an exact locality had always -been assigned to it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said that, so long as -anybody could point out the locality of -the garden of Eden, we had no need to -smile at the locality of a Tartarus or an -Elysium.</p> - -<p>I do not think these “myths” belong -to the same class.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> quoted Champollion -to the effect that the Styx was only -a small river flowing between the Temple -at Thebes and a neighboring “place -of tombs.” The ferryman was named -Charon, and the Egyptian habit of judging -the dead probably gave rise to the -rest of the fable.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, “This was very -natural.” She asked Mr. Wheeler the -meaning of certain names.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> - -<p>Phlegethon, he answered, meant burning -fire; Acheron, anguish.</p> - -<p>Why did not somebody say that the -lifeless current of the Styx first tempted -Homer to give it to the Infernals? It is -in reality a river of Epeiros.</p> - -<p>The Styx, <span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> said, was a cold -unhealthy stream, like that which caused -the death of Alexander. It flowed -slowly through Acadia, but was supposed -to take its rise in Hades. Lethe is a -river near the Syrtus in Africa. It disappears -in the sand, but rises again. -Hence its name.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Wheeler</span> had some difficulty in -explaining certain inconsistencies in the -poets.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Clarke</span> quoted the remark of -Achilles (?) concerning Elysium,—that -a day of hard labor on earth was preferable -to an eternity of pleasure in Elysian -fields!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that in Elysium, as in -Tartarus, souls waited. These restless -Greeks could do nothing. They were -cut off from action, which was their -delight. All their punishments seem to -consist of frustrated effort,—the consequence -of some presumption. Tantalus -was ever thirsty and ever famished because -he had aspired to nectar and -ambrosia. Ixion, who would have scaled -the heavens, was condemned to incessant -revolution upon a wheel, which never -paused yet never accomplished anything. -The Danaides, who murdered the love -which wooed them, were doomed to fill -a broken vessel with water which as -constantly escaped. Sisyphus, who had -never labored except for a selfish end, -was to roll a stone up hill, which as constantly -rolled down,—fit emblem of all -selfish labor. As for Tityrus, who sought -to violate the secrets of Nature, the -vulture fed always upon his entrails.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> said this did not represent -frustrated effort.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, No: this was remorse; -but there was an admirable -instance of the former given by Goethe, -of a man who wove rope from the -sedges which grew upon the banks of -Lethe, for an ass who continually devoured -it. The moral seemed to be that -the ass could just as well have eaten -them unwoven. Goethe goes on to say -that the Greeks only thought that the -poor man had a prodigal wife, but that -the moderns would look deeper and see -more in the fable.</p> - -<p>We all weave sedges for asses to eat, -thought I.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> seemed to think that every -heart might have an experience which -would correspond to Tartarus. Every -hero must visit it at least once.</p> - -<p>I suggested Pluto, Persephone, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -Fates, the Gorgons, the Furies, and -Cerberus. Pluto was equal to Neptune -and Jupiter.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> continued: Hades was not -given to Pluto to mark defective character, -but simply as his kingdom. His -wants were all supplied. The bride -Olympus refused him he was permitted -to steal from earth while she gathered -flowers. Persephone, seed of all things, -must dwell in the dark; but another -legend tells us that if she had been -willing to leave her veil, she might -have stolen away. There was a meaning -in her being forbidden to eat in the -infernal regions. Fate said, “Do not -touch what you don’t want.” Psyche -was forbidden to partake of the regal -banquet Persephone spread. Seeking -for Immortality, this soul, like every -other, must be content to eat bitter -bread.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> - -<p>There was then a talk about Cerberus -and the Gorgons.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Clarke</span> said that in the New -Testament the dog seemed to stand for -popular prejudice. The swine stood for -what <em>could</em> not, the dog for what <em>would</em> -not, be convinced.</p> - -<p>Yes, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, the wolf is a -misanthropic dog. He has little dignity.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> said Cerberus stood for -the temperaments.</p> - -<p>Well, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, that being so, -she liked the Greeks for making no -allowance for the lymphatic. To what, -she continued, do we offer the first sop, -as we pass through life? As for the -Gorgons, every one, she thought, would -find his own interpretation of them. To -her there was no Gorgon but <em>apathy</em>; -there is nothing in creation that will so -soon turn a live man into stone. These -Gorgons were three women, who used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -one eye and one tooth between them,—except -Medusa, who was beautiful and -perfect. Her hair had provoked the -envy of Minerva, and was changed into -serpents. Margaret had a copy of a -gem, which Marion Dwight had made -for her, which showed this.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> asked if Perseus did not endeavor -to show Medusa her own head.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that might well rouse -her!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> explained. Perseus -only used a mirror given him by -Minerva to avoid looking at the Gorgon.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Caroline Sturgis</span> said that the old -woman who keeps house for Helen in -the second part of “Faust” was a Gorgon -to her.</p> - -<p>This dragged a critical analysis of -the “Faust” forward.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the Seeker represents -the Spirit of the Age. He never sinned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -save by yielding, and yet he was emphatically -<em>saved by grace</em>. It was difficult -to see what Goethe meant until he -got to the Tower of the Middle Ages. -That made all clear.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said, the reader -would a great deal rather that Faust -went to the Devil than not!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> defended Goethe’s way of -exhibiting character, of which Wilhelm -Meister was an instance. Goethe said -to himself, What should I do with a -hero in such rascally society? Meister -preferred the Brahmal experience.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> asked if this moral indifference -was well?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> replied, that it was just as -frightful as any other Gorgon. If we -are to have a purely intellectual development, -it was well for a man like Goethe -to represent it. To choose fairly between -evil and good, the intellect must -regard both with indifference.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> - -<p>Somebody asked how the Gorgon’s -head came to be on the Ægis of -Minerva?</p> - -<p>If Apathy is the Gorgon, surely Wisdom -needs it!</p> - -<p>Then we began to talk about Theseus -in connection with Tartarus. Why -should he sit forever on a stone?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought he represented -reform!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> said reform checked itself -by its own fanaticism.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span>, in this connection, asked -after the Greek notion of accountability.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> did not think the Greeks -had any.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> assured her to the contrary, -and told anecdotes to prove it. He -spoke of the fatal transmission of guilt in -one family, generation after generation.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the Greeks never -rejected facts.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ida Russell</span> spoke of the last King of -Athens, Codrus, supposed to have been -punished for the crimes of his ancestors.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> said that when the Greeks -killed some ambassadors, they felt so -sure that Heaven would avenge the sin -that they sent two citizens to expiate -it; but Darius, to whom they were sent, -refused to release the Greeks from their -impending doom.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the moment such a -supposition was started, there were -plenty of facts to sustain it. Orestes -is the purified victim of his family. -The old Greeks had made no complete -statement of their destiny or their -accountability.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said they had made it in art.</p> - -<p class="right">C. W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">April 16, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="VIII">VIII.<br /> -<span class="smaller">MERCURY AND ORPHEUS.</span></h2> - -<p class="right"><i>April 22, 1841.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said it surprised her that -young men did not seek to be Mercuries. -She said that one of the ugliest young -men that she knew had become so enraptured -with one of Raphael’s Mercuries, -that he confessed to her that he -was never alone without trying to assume -its attitude before the glass. She said -she could not help laughing at the image -he suggested, an ugly figure in high-heeled -boots and a strait-coat in the -act of flying, commissioned with every -grace from Heaven to men! but she -respected the feeling, and thought every -sensitive soul must share it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emerson</span> had sent Sophia Peabody -several fine engravings. One of these, -a Correggio, represented a woman of -Parma as a Madonna. It might give -any woman a similar desire.</p> - -<p>William Story, Frank Shaw, Mr. Mack -and his friends, Mrs. Ripley, Ida Russell, -and Mrs. S. G. Ward were all missing -to-night.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that she was sorry -she had allowed our subject to embrace -so much. The Grecian Mercury seemed -to mean so little that she had not thought -of the depth and difficulty connected -with the Egyptian Hermes. Among -the Greeks, Ceres, Persephone, and Juno -represent the productive faculties, Jupiter -and Apollo the divine, and Mercury -simply the human understanding, the -God of eloquence and of thieves.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Marianne Jackson</span> thought it strange -that he should be at once the God of -persuasion and the Deity of theft!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said eloquence was a kind -of thieving!</p> - -<p>Did the Greeks so consider it? asked -<span class="smcap">Marianne</span>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, Yes, more than any -nation in the world, and taught their -children so to do; and in fact such -mental recognitions were what distinguished -the nation from all other -peoples.</p> - -<p>The Egyptian Hermes represented the -whole intellectual progress of man. If -one made a discovery it was signed Hermes, -and under that name transmitted -to posterity. Hence the forty volumes -of Hermetic theology, philosophy, and -so on. Individuals were merged in the -God. Hermes was always the mediator, -the peacemaker, and it was in this relation -that the beautiful story was told of -the caduceus. Mercury has originally -only the divining-rod which Apollo had -given him, but, finding two serpents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -fighting one day, he pacified them, and -had ever after the right to bear them -embracing on his rod. There was another -story, Margaret said, which she -could not understand,—the story of his -obtaining the head of the Ibis from -Osiris. Hermes kept the <em>first</em> or outside -gates of Heaven, a significant fact -typically considered.</p> - -<p>I am sure there is something in -Heeren’s researches about the Ibis -story, but Caroline Sturgis said, No.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> asked if the God gave -the name to the planet?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, Yes; and it was given -because it stood nearest the sun.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said Plutarch had written something -about Hermes in his “Morals.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, Perhaps so, but she -didn’t know, as she never <em>could</em> read -them. Plutarch went round and round -a story; presented all the corners of it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -told all the pretty bits of gossip he could -find, instead of penetrating to its secret. -So she preferred his anecdotes of Heroes -to his Parallels or Essays.</p> - -<p>I said, in surprise, how much I liked -the “Morals.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, “even Emerson -paid the book the high compliment -of calling it his tuning-key, when he -was about to write.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said Coleridge was <em>her own</em> -tuning-key, and asked Margaret if she -had no such friendly instigator.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said she could keep up no -intimacy with books. She loved a book -dearly for a while; but as soon as she -began to look out a nice Morocco cover -for her favorite, she was sure to take a -disgust to it, to outgrow it. She did not -mean that she outgrew the author, but -that, having received all from him that -he could give her, he tired her. That<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -had even been the case with Shakespeare! -For several years he was her very life; -then she gave him up. About two -years ago she had occasion to look into -“Hamlet,” and then wished to refresh -her love, but found it impossible. It -was the same with Ovid, whose luxuriant -fancy had delighted her girlhood. She -took him up, and read a little with all -her youthful glow; but it would not last. -Friends must part, but why need we -part from our books? She regretted her -oddity, for she lost a great solace by it.</p> - -<p>She proceeded to contrast the Apollo -with Mercury. In Egypt, Hermes was -the experimental Deity, the Brahma.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Caroline Sturgis</span> asked what the -Hermes on the door-posts of the Athenian -houses meant.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought that he posed -there as a messenger, an opener of the -gates merely, and then spoke of several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -Mercuries by Raphael. One she knew, -so full of beauty and grace that it -seemed a single trumpet-tone. Another -all loveliness was handing the cup of life -to Psyche. She wondered that such -symbols as Apollo and Mercury did not -inspire all young men with ardor, and -make them something better than young -men usually are.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said Apollo was too -far beyond the average man to do this; -but that Mercury, graceful and vivacious, -would naturally attract the attention.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> asked if he would be an -easier model to imitate, and then repeated -her anecdote about the ugly youth who -longed to be a Mercury.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William</span> said that if his faith had been -strong enough, the transformation might -have taken place.</p> - -<p>Query—what is meant by strong -<em>enough</em>?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> spoke of the Egyptian -Osiris in his relation to Hermes, and -said that she did not like <em>him</em> to be -confounded with the Apollo. He was -in reality the Egyptian Jove.</p> - -<p>This led me to speak of the Orphic -Hymn in which Apollo is addressed as -“immortal Jove.”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said she had discovered -very little about Orpheus. In relation -to the five points of Orphic theology, she -had lately read a posthumous leaf from -Goethe’s Journal. The existence of a -Dæmon seemed to be a favorite idea -of his. He did not believe with Emerson -that all things were in our own souls, -but that they existed in <em>the original souls</em>, -(does anybody know what that means?) -and we must go out to seek them. This -notion Goethe thought verified by his -own experience. Goethe’s works, Margaret -thought, had more variety than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -anybody’s except Shakespeare’s. His -powers of observation seemed to condense -his genius.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> wondered why -Goethe showed such tenderness for -Byron.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said that in every important -sense Byron was his very opposite; -but Goethe hardly looked upon him as -a responsible being. He was rather the -instrument of a <em>higher</em> power. He was -the exponent of his period.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sophia Peabody</span> had been making a -drawing of Crawford’s Orpheus at the -Athenæum. It was here brought down -for me to see.</p> - -<p>At Sophia’s request, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> repeated -a sonnet she had written on -it. She recited it wretchedly, but the -sonnet was pleasant.</p> - -<p>I spoke of Bode’s Essay on the Orphic -Poetry, and sympathized in his view of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -the spuriousness of the Hymns. They -might have been signed Orpheus, however, -as other things were signed Hermes, -simply because they were exponents of -Orphic thought.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> dilated on this Orphic -thought.</p> - -<p>I quoted Proclus in his Commentary -on Plato’s “Republic” as follows:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Mars perpetually discerns and nourishes, -and constantly excites the contrarieties of the -Universe, that the world may exist perfect -and entire in all its parts; but requires the -assistance of Venus, that he may bring order -and harmony into things contrary and discordant.</p> - -<p>“Vulcan adorns by his art the sensible -universe, which he fills with certain natural -impulses, powers, and proportions; but <em>he</em> -requires the assistance of Venus, that he -may invest material effects with beauty, and -by this means secure the comeliness of the -world. Venus is the source of all the harmony -and analogy in the Universe, and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -the union of form with matter, connecting -and comprehending the powers of the elements. -Although this Goddess ranks among -the supermundane divinities, yet her principal -employment consists in beautifully illuminating -the order, harmony, and communion -of all mundane concerns.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>I asked <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> if this was not -something like her own thought,—this -Venus, for example, was it not better -than that we got from Greek art?</p> - -<p>She said it was the primal idea, but -she did not attach much importance to -chronology. Philosophy must decide the -age of a thought.</p> - -<p>I gave her as good an abstract of -Bode’s theory as I could.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> took the drawing of -Orpheus from me, and, while speaking -of its beauty, said it always made him -angry to think of the deterioration of -the human figure. He thought it ought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -to have been prevented, and that his -ancestors had deprived him of his -rights.</p> - -<p>Upon this, <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> entered into -a lively disquisition upon masculine -beauty. She said the best specimens -of it she had ever seen were a Southern -oddity named Hutchinson and some -Cambridge students who came from -Virginia.</p> - -<p>We lost a finer talk to-night through -the inclemency of the weather. <span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> -was to have come with a great stock of -information. Had he done so, I need -not have quoted Bode or Proclus.</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">April 23, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="IX">IX.<br /> -<span class="smaller">HERMES AND ORPHEUS.</span></h2> - -<p class="right"><i>April 29, 1841.</i></p> - -<p>We did not have a very bright talk. -There were few present, and we had only -the subject of last week. <span class="smcap">Margaret</span> -did not speak at length. <span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> had -been ill, and his physician prescribed -light diet of both body and mind.</p> - -<p>Somebody spoke of Mercury sweeping -the courts of the Gods, but that suggested -nothing to Margaret.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Sarah Shaw</span> had a pin, with a Mercury -on it, represented as holding the -head of a goat.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> had never seen anything -that would explain it, and there was -some dispute about it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said that, according to the -Orphic Hymn, Mercury sought the love -of Dryope under the form of a goat. -Pan was the fruit of that amour. In -this form also he wooed Diana.</p> - -<p>We wandered from our subject a little, -to hear <span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> talk about the Gorgons. -He thought they stood for the three sides -of human nature. Medusa, the chief -care-taker, the body, was the only one -not immortal, and the only one beautiful. -Stheno and Euryale, wide-extended force -and wide-extended scope, represented -spirit and intellect, essentially immortal. -The changing of Medusa’s curls (or elements -of strength) into serpents represented -the fall. It was not the Gorgons -who had but one eye and one tooth between -them, but three sister guardians, -whom Perseus was compelled to destroy -before he could reach Medusa.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> did not tell us why human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -nature so divided had a certain petrifying -power!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> thought the intellect, not the -body, was the care-taker. Mr. Mack tried -in vain to explain, owing, I think, to his -German misconception of words. Certainly -the five senses are the <em>providers</em>, -which was what he must have meant.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> liked his theory, because -there was a place in it for sin! She -disliked failure. Perhaps we all had perceived -her attachment to evil! Not that -she wished men to fall into it, but it must -be accepted as one means of final good.</p> - -<p>The only copies of Bode belong to -Edward Everett and Theodore Parker. -Neither is at this moment to be had. -The talk turned on the age of the -Orphic idea.</p> - -<p>The Orphic Hymns, <span class="smcap">Wheeler</span> said, -were merely hymns of initiation into the -Orphic mysteries. They were altered by -every successive priesthood, and finally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -by the Christian Platonists. Those now -remaining were undoubtedly their work. -Perhaps the ancient formulas were still -hidden in them. We know the beautiful -story of Orpheus. If he indeed represents -many, yet all that has been said -of him is also true of one.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> declared that Eurydice -represented the true faith! She was -killed by an envenomed serpent, which -might possibly stand for an enraged -priesthood!</p> - -<p>I got a little impatient here, and said -I did not care to know about the Hymns; -but the Orphic idea, which made Scaliger -speak of the Hymns as the “Liturgy of -Satan,”—how old was that?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> could not guess why he -called them so.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that, since -they made a heathen worship attractive, -perhaps he fancied them a device of the -Evil One!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> - -<p>Too great a compliment to Scaliger, I -thought.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> had no objection to Orpheus -as crowning an age; she liked that multitudes -should produce one.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that Carlyle -had spoken of Orpheus as standing in -such a relation to the Greeks as Odin -bore to the Scandinavians.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said at this point (I don’t -see with what pertinency) that Carlyle -displeased her by making so much of -mere men.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> quoted Milton, speaking -of himself among the revellers of -the Stuart Court, as like Orpheus among -the Bacchanals.</p> - -<p>I said that Bode placed Homer in the -tenth century before Christ, and Orpheus -in the age just preceding, say the thirteenth -century before.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> thought all that mere -conjecture.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> - -<p>I told him it made a good deal of -difference to me whether the Orphic -Mythology came before or after that of -Homer. Had man grown out of the -noble and into the base idea? Was all -our knowledge only memory? Had the -Orphic fancies no beauty till the Platonic -Christians shaped them?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> responded to what I said, -that she did not like a mind always -looking back.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said there was a great deal of -consolation in it. Memory was prophecy. -She didn’t like such a mind, -but since she happened to have it she -wanted support for it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mack</span> said all history offered such -support.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> didn’t like to -believe it, but felt that he must. He -spoke of the Golden Age.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said every nation looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -back to this; but, after all, it was only -the ideal. The past was a curtain on -which they embroidered their pictures -of the present.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">William White</span> said that all great -men looked to the appreciation of the -future. We are too near to the present.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> agreed.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said, all the science of Europe -could not offer anything like the old -Egyptian lore.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the moderns needed -the assistance of a despotic government.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> spoke of the monuments -in Central America; but before -he could utter what was in his mind, -<span class="smcap">Margaret</span> interrupted, saying that all -the greatness of the Mexicans only sufficed -to show their littleness. We might -have lost in grandeur and piety, but -we had gained in a thousand tag-rag -ways.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Farrar</span> whispered to me, “Write -that down!” and I have done it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> said that late discoveries -proved that there was a complete -knowledge of electricity among -the ancients. There were lightning-rods -on the temple at Jerusalem, and they -are described by Josephus, who however -does not know what they are.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> and I clung to the “tag-rag” -gain.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Charles Wheeler</span> agreed with me in -thinking the Orphic Hymns of very late -origin.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> could not see the use of -creating a race of giants to prepare the -earth for pygmies! If these must exist, -why not in some other sphere? She -referred to the beautiful Persian fable. -The <em>first</em> was God, of course; since man -may always revert to Him, what matter -about the giants?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> - -<p>I said that primitive ages were supposed -to be innocent rather than great.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said the Persian fable bore -to the same point as the Vishnu and -Brahma. It was antagonism that produced -all things. The universe at first -was one Conscious Being,—“I am;” no -word, no darkness, no light. This Conscious -Being needed to know itself, and -it passed into darkness and light and a -third being,—the Mediator between the -two. This Trinity produced ideals,—men, -animals, things; and after a period -of twelve thousand years all return -again into the One, who has gained -by the phenomena only a multiplied -consciousness.</p> - -<p>“Were they <em>merged</em>?” asked <span class="smcap">Charles -Wheeler</span>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, “No! once created, -they could not lose identity.”</p> - -<p class="right">C. W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">April 30, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="X">X.<br /> -<span class="smaller">BACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS.</span></h2> - -<p class="right"><i>May 6, 1841.</i></p> - -<p>Few present. Our last talk, and we -were all dull. For my part, Bacchus -does not inspire me, and I was sad -because it was the last time that I -should see Margaret. She does not love -me; I could not venture to follow her -into her own home, and I love her so -much! Her life hangs on a thread. -Her face is full of the marks of pain. -Young as I am, I feel old when I look -at her.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> spoke of Hercules as representing -the course of the solar year. -The three apples were the three seasons -of four months each into which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -ancients divided it. The twelve labors -were the twelve signs.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> accepted this, and spoke of -Bryant’s book, which Margaret did not -like.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said Bryant forced every -fact to be a point in a case. Bending -each to his theory, he falsified it. She -wished English people would be content, -like the wiser Germans, to amass classified -facts on which original minds could -act. She liked to see the Germans so -content to throw their gifts upon the -pile to go down to posterity, though -the pile might carry no record of the -collectors. She spoke of Kreitzer, whose -book she was now reading, who coolly -told his readers that he should not -classify a second edition afresh, for his -French translator had done it well -enough, and if readers were not satisfied -with his own work, they must have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -recourse to the translation. This she -thought was as it ought to be.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> said it always vexed -him to hear ignorant people speak of -Hercules as if he were a God, and of -Apollo and Jupiter as if they might at -some time have been men.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said, Yes, the distinction -between Gods and Demigods was that -the former were the creations of pure -spontaneity, and the latter actually existent -personages, about whose heroic -characters and lives all congenial stories -clustered.</p> - -<p>J. F. C. did not like the statues of -Hercules; the brawny figure was not to -his taste.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> thought it majestic. She -said he belonged properly to Thessaly, -and was identified with its scenery. She -told several little stories about him. -That of his sailing round the rock of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -Prometheus, in a golden cup borrowed -of Jupiter, was the least known. She -told the story from Ovid, the glowing -account of his death, of the recognition -by delighted Jove. She said Wordsworth’s -“Tour in Greece” gave her -great materials for thought.</p> - -<p>Then she turned to Bacchus.</p> - -<p>To show in what manner she supposed -Bacchus to be the <em>answer</em> or complement -to Apollo, she mentioned the statement -of some late critic upon the relation of -Ceres and Persephone to each other.</p> - -<p>Persephone was the hidden energy, -the vestal fire, vivifying the universe. -Ceres was the productive faculty, external, -bounteous. They were two -phases of one thing. It was the same -with Apollo and Bacchus. Apollo was -the vivifying power of the sun; its genial -glow stirred the earth, and its noblest -product, the grape, responded.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> - -<p>She spoke of the Bacchanalian festivals, -of the spiritual character attributed -to them by Euripides, showing that originally -they were something more than -gross orgies.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Clarke</span> (<span class="smcap">Ann Wilby</span>) said that -they licensed the wildest drunkenness -in Athens.</p> - -<p>I said that was at a later time -than Euripides undertook to picture. -Were they identical with the Orphic? -Did Orpheus really bring them from -Egypt?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> would accept that for a -<em>beginning</em>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> thought that next winter -we might have a talk about Roman -Mythology.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> liked the idea, and <span class="smcap">James -Clarke</span> seemed to accept it for the whole -party. He said that he had never felt -any interest in the Greek stories, until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -Margaret had made them the subject of -conversation.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">E. P. P.</span> said she had felt excessively -ashamed all through that she knew so -little.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> said no one need to feel -so. It was a subject that might exhaust -any preparation. Still, she wished we -<em>would</em> study! She had herself enjoyed -great advantages. Nobody’s explanations -had ever perplexed her brain. She -had been placed in a garden, with a -great pile of books before her. She -began to read Latin before she read -English. For a time these deities were -real to her, and she prayed: “O God! -if thou art Jupiter!” etc.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">James Clarke</span> said he remembered -her once telling him that she prayed to -Bacchus for a bunch of grapes!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Margaret</span> smiled, and said that when -she was first old enough to think about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -Christianity, she cried out for her dear -old Greek gods. Its spirituality seemed -nakedness. She could not and would -not receive it. It was a long while -before she saw its deeper meaning.</p> - -<p class="right">CAROLINE W. HEALEY.</p> - -<p class="hanging smaller">May 7, 1841.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Emerson’s presence at Conversations II. V. and VIII. -is noted above, because in his contribution to Margaret’s -“Memoirs” he shows that his attendance made absolutely -no impression on him. He states that there were but <em>five</em> -Conversations, and that he was present only at the second.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Dr. Dana, a celebrated chemist, received a salary -from the Merrimac Manufacturing Co. as consulting -chemist. Through his experiments and practical skill, -a radical change was made in the methods of dyeing -and printing calicoes. This was in connection with the -use of madder, and the Company claimed his discovery -and allowed him no extra recompense. It will be perceived -that Mr. Ripley got his supposed facts from the -newspapers.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Margaret and Her Friends, by -Margaret Fuller and Caroline Wells Healey Dall - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS *** - -***** This file should be named 62756-h.htm or 62756-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/7/5/62756/ - -Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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