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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: Fuller, Margaret, Dall, Caroline Wells Healey
Language: English
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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
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 this LibraryBlog Digital Book "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" ***
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